RTHK: Australian police search homes linked to gunman Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes early on Monday linked to the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques last week, police said. The homes were in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged shooter, grew up. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation," a police statement said. They said Tarrant's family "continues to assist police with their inquiries" but that there is no information to suggest "a current or impending threat" to the community. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has been charged with murder in the country after the mass shooting on Friday which left 50 dead and 50 injured in two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said on Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. He rejected as "disgraceful" criticism that Australia's counter-terror agencies had neglected the threat of right-wing extremists like Tarrant due to their focus on combatting Islamist radicals. He said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country's main counter-terror agency, closely tracked the activities of far-right groups. "These extremist groups - neo-nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groups - whatever term you want to apply to them, they've been squarely on their radar," he said in a televised interview. "They are well and truly looking at this threat, they are dealing with the threat and to think that they've just discovered it or they are coming late to the party is complete rubbish," he said. ASIO officials were due to brief the cabinet of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the New Zealand attacks and the threat of right-wing extremism in Australia later on Monday. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The robots that dementia caregivers want: robots for joy, robots for sorrow Caregivers design robots that increase joyful moments and reduce emotional stress Building robots that can help people with dementia has been a longtime goal for roboticists. Yet until now, no one has sought to survey informal caregivers, such as family members, about what characteristics and roles these robots should have. A team of scientists at the University of California San Diego sought to address this by spending six months co-designing robots with family members, social workers, and other caregivers who care for people with dementia. They are presenting their findings at the Human Robot Interaction conference March 11 to 14 in South Korea. Researchers found that caregivers wanted the robots to fulfill two major roles: support positive moments shared by caregivers and their loved ones; and lessen caregivers' emotional stress by taking on difficult tasks, such as answering repeated questions and restricting unhealthy food. "Caregivers conceived of robots not only managing difficult aspects of caregiving--but also for supporting joyful and fun activities," said Laurel Riek, a professor of computer science at UC San Diego, and the paper's senior author. Spouses or adult children provide 75 percent of the care for people with dementia. That is equivalent to 15 million people in the United States alone, providing 18 billion hours of unpaid care per year with little support and few resources. Caregivers are also likely to overlook their own health and wellbeing, which can put both parties at risk. Most technology designed to support caregivers only seeks to educate, rather than to reduce burden. Caregivers sometimes also have access to virtual support systems and connections to clinicians via smartphones or desktop computers, but again this focuses on education and not direct assistance. By contrast, homecare robots could provide caregivers the respite they sorely need. Before building the robots, it is crucial to get caregivers' input so that the robots are well designed and actually useful. "It is imperative researchers take a community-health focused approach to understanding stakeholders' perspectives prior to building the technology," Riek said. "Especially in healthcare robotics - one should not walk in with a technology hammer." Half of the robots designed by caregivers were primarily focused on alleviating stress from the repetitive questions people with dementia ask. Caregivers also envisioned robots that could provide reminders of a person's daily schedule and tasks. They also designed robots to help with physical therapy and manage medications. As dementia progressed, caregivers wanted robots to interact more with the person with dementia by helping with daily tasks and offering reminders. The robots that caregivers imagined acted as counselors and facilitators--and sometimes as the "bad guys" who could say "no" to the person with dementia. The researchers are now using these initial low-tech prototypes to build high-tech prototypes that they plan to begin testing in homes over the next year. Interviews and hands-on workshops For the study, researchers led by Riek built relationships with three different dementia day care centers in San Diego County. A series of interviews and hands-on workshops with caregivers were conducted by two UC San Diego cognitive science undergraduate students, Sanika Moharana and Alejandro E. Panduro, and one computer science postdoc, Hee Rin Lee. A total of 18 people participated in the research, including 13 family members who acted as caregivers for people with various types of dementia, five social workers who led the day care centers, and three geriatric nursing students who work at the centers. Based on everyone's feedback, the team identified 16 major challenges that caregivers had to deal with, from difficulty accepting dementia, to isolation, to difficulty prioritizing self-care. In the workshops, the researchers gave caregivers a brief presentation about the types of technologies available today, including pet-like robots, cleaning robots, telepresence robots, smart speakers and wearables. Then, with the students' help, caregivers selected key problems and collaboratively co-designed robots to tackle them. They used pre-cut foam shapes to build the robot prototypes. They also selected functions for the robots (such as playing games, reviewing photo albums, exercising, etc.) and a mode of interaction between the robot and person with dementia and caregivers (for example voice commands and touch screens). Caregivers designed their ideal robots to follow predetermined scenarios supplied by researchers and the social workers, including preventing a person with dementia from driving, getting them to bathe, or answering repetitive questions. Robot characteristics Based on the results of the six-month long community design process, the researchers identified a number of characteristics and design guidelines for robots to support dementia caregivers and people with dementia: Robots should help redirect conversations when repetitive questioning becomes burdensome Robots should be integrated into everyday objects that the people with dementia are already familiar with, or borrow features from those objects. For example, one caregiver wanted her husband to get messages through the TV, which he spends a lot of time watching. Robots should be able to adapt to new situations and to the behavior of the person with dementia. This is particularly important because dementia is a progressive disease and each stage brings new challenges for caregivers. In addition, patterns of progression vary from person to person and as a result are almost impossible to predict. Robots should be able to learn from end users, and customize and personalize their interaction and responses. Robots should have human-like components. That is not to say that they should look human. Rather the machines could, for example, use a real human voice or face. "When caregivers wanted robots to take active roles in persuading people with dementia to do something, they designed robots with more human-like features," the researchers write. Related to this, caregivers wanted robots to include features that would help build trust, such as looking like a friend or clinician. Robots should interact with humans via voice activation --much like a smart speaker. More specifically, caregivers wanted the robots to use voices that their loved ones would be familiar with--caregivers or doctors. Caregivers also wanted robots to be capable of facial recognition. ### Riek is on faculty at the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego, a partnership between the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Division of Social Sciences at UC San Diego. The institute's research teams are working to solve today's pressing challenges in key areas, including healthcare robotics. This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. On my customary visit to the Geneva Motor Show this year I was a little confused. Where was Ford? Where was Jaguar? And Land Rover? And Volvo? And Hyundai? Had I missed them? Had they moved to a different hall? No, they werent at the show this year, just as various other manufacturers had not attended the Detroit Motor Show, or the Paris Motor Show, or the Frankfurt Motor Show. Had the hosts of Top Gear and The Grand Tour been debating about the exodus since last year? Of course not. In fact, these programmes barely even mention exhibitions nowadays. Because they are targeted at people who love cars, they tend to focus on the products themselves and leave the industry gossip to others. The worlds largest trade show for the travel industry is the ITB in Berlin. Gulf carrier Emirates used to unveil its lavish first-class offerings there. Last year, the airline stopped attending the show altogether. Have people stopped flying Emirates as a result? Clearly not. Yet since last August there has been endless discussion on the implications of the Swatch Groups exit from Baselworld, the challenges facing the new management and the very future of the show. The organisers have been blamed for everything from the price of hotel rooms to the cost of a sausage, not to mention the huge drop in exhibitor numbers. Poor Michel Loris-Melikoff was not even a month into his difficult new job as Managing Director of Baselworld before the Swatch Group decided to leave the show. Now, eight months later, people will be judging his performance on this years show, which in my view is wrong. His team has done a good job in difficult circumstances, notably filling in some rather large holes in Hall 1.0 and adding an incubator for microbrands that has been well received. But can we seriously expect them to turn around Baselworlds fortunes in less than a year? These things take time and we should really be waiting until 2020 before we draw any serious conclusions. Theres no denying that things at Baselworld will be a lot different this year, but the worlds best known Swiss watch brand will still be there, as will one of the industrys most prestigious and sought-after brands right opposite it. And in the absence of the Swatch Group, another major group, LVMH, will certainly be stealing the headlines (just check out our homepage on Wednesday!). For once, the media will take centre stage with an open-plan press centre in the middle of hall 1.0, overlooking a champagne bar for those looking for something more sophisticated than the worlds most expensive bratwurst. Its also worth pointing out that some of the brands who were keen to point out that they did not need Baselworld are launching new watches on the very day that the show opens. Is that pure coincidence? Baselworld clearly remains a focus for the industry, therefore, even for brands who are not in the confines of the exhibition halls, or indeed in Basel at all. In my opinion this bodes well for the show and its future. Baselworld is here to stay and we are here to cover it. So sit back and get ready for a steady stream of new products over the next week on WorldTempus. If you plan to visit the show, tag us on social media and say hello, and dont forget to visit the Watch Photo Awards exhibition in Hall 1.0 next to the Carl F. Bucherer stand. See all the latest news from Baselworld MERIDEN The 46th annual St. Patricks Day parade will feature over 20 different groups Saturday after community donations saved the event from being cancelled due to cuts in funding. Im really grateful that the community stepped up to save the parade, said Jim Finley, parade co-chair of the Meriden Ancient Order of Hibernians. Its going to be an even better parade this year. The AOH named Thompson Chocolate a co-sponsor of this years parade after the local chocolate company donated $2,500. Other donations were made by the Puerto Rican Festival Committee and Jonal Laboratories, among others. Groups expected to march include the Platt High School band, the city police and fire departments, the Meriden girls softball and lacrosse leagues as well as the color guard from the East Wallingford Volunteer Fire Department. There will also be new pipe bands for parade-goers to enjoy. The more the merrier, Finley said. We have a great diversity of groups this year. The parade steps off at the corner of East Main Street and Parker Avenue and continues through downtown Meriden before ending at the corner of West Main Street and Bradley Avenue. Finley said parade-goers are invited to gather and socialize at the AOH Clubhouse on Melville Avenue after the event. The AOH is still accepting groups to join the parade. More information can be found by contacting Finley at 203-804-6895 or jimfinley1955@att.net. akus@record-journal.com 203-317-2448 Twitter: @KusReporter We are extremely lucky to have a man like Serge Panczuk writing for WorldTempus. I know of few other collectors with such a passion for watches and a broad knowledge of the industry and its history. If you are not already familiar with his Why not...? articles, in which he plunges deep into the history and details about a particular watch, then I thoroughly recommend you take a look at them. I had always been surprised that this Vice-President of Human Resources for a high-tech medical company based in California had the time to research and write such in-depth articles at a rhythm that would make some of our other contributors blush. But when I got to know him better I discovered that he writes his articles on the plane. And he spends a lot of time on planes. Last year he travelled 300,000 miles covering the Asia-Pacific region for which he is responsible. This year he has already covered 100,000 kilometres. You could say that crossing the Pacific is my weekly commute, he says. Serge Panczuk Crossing continents and borders is therefore something that comes naturally to Serge. He grew up in Alsace, France, near the borders with Germany and Switzerland, the son of a Polish immigrant father and a French mother. His love for fine craftsmanship comes from a childhood spent watching his grandfather, a miner, repairing his colleagues shoes, as well as his fathers love of pens. His maternal grandfather worked in textiles another type of craftsmanship that clearly influenced him. It was also his parents who bought him his first watch a digital Certina. He still has it and wears it on a NATO strap. Serge Panczuk From that point his passion just grew and grew. Serge is a fan of affordable watches and is not really impressed by grand complications. For me, they are nice objects, but they are not watches, he says. A watch should be simple, appeal to the greatest number of people and survive the years without too many incidents. It should not be fragile or difficult to maintain. More important, it should tell a story and evoke something inside me. It is an intimate item that should speak to me rather than project an image. Its no doubt for this reason that Serges collection is eclectic, to say the least. How many collectors have British, Chinese, Czech, German, Malaysian, Singaporean and Hawaiian watches in their collection? Apart from Omega, he is also a big fan of vintage Seiko models and a former Paneristi who is waiting for the brand to rekindle his passion. But just how many watches does he have in his collection? Ive stopped counting, its a bit too scary, he admits. Serge Panczuk He does know, however, that he has at least 20 Omega Speedmasters, part of a passion for this model that dates back, unsurprisingly, to 1969. I was sitting on the sofa with my parents. My father said, look son, you will never forget this. It was the moon landing and I was five years old. Its as simple as that. Omega fits perfectly with the values I mentioned: it has great stories, simplicity and watches that sometimes go off the beaten track. Even with the Speedmaster, Serges tastes are still eclectic and perfectly reflect the values of family, happiness and smiles that he holds dear. I am trying to get a Speedmaster from the year of birth of each of my children (1999, 2004 and 2006) and I hope to find a ST 105.003 from August 1964 (I currently have one from 1965). I love the soft sensation of the calibre 321 and Im lucky to have two Speedmasters with this calibre. Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch Apollo 17 45th anniversary Serge Panczuk But what is it that makes the Speedmaster so appealing? A recent encounter in Japan provides the answer: Recently I was in a vintage watch store in the Ginza district of Tokyo. A gentleman was standing next to me looking at the watches. He was wearing a Speedmaster Mitsukoshi. I was wearing a 50th Anniversary. We showed each other our watches. He didnt speak English and I dont speak Japanese. And yet we stood for 45 minutes talking about watches with the help of Google Translate, gestures and smiles. Thats why I love the Speedmaster. It appeals to everyone and crosses borders. Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch Silver Snoopy Award Serge Panczuk Serge also has an X-33 and several limited editions, including an Apollo 17 in gold. But his favourite is the Snoopy Award edition, which he bought to celebrate his cancer operation in 2015, bagging the number 1432 that matched the patient ID on his wrist tag when he was in hospital. Watch passion, variety and (dark) humour Serge has all three in spades. Serge Panczuk His most recent acquisition was the Speedmaster Apollo 8 last December and his next will be what else? the new calibre 321. I cant wait to see what Omega are going to do with this calibre, he says. But there will, of course, also be a Speedmaster to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, for which I hope to get number 1432, and, since I live near Los Angeles, I am also looking forward to the next Seamaster James Bond model later this year. Omega Speedmaster Serge Panczuk If you read Serges Why not...? articles, you will know that he places great importance on finding the perfect strap for a watch and matching the outfit to the watch. I recommend you follow him on Instagram (@serge92604) to see the full variety of his tastes in contemporary and vintage watches, his extensive collection of straps and some rather fine shoes and leather goods. Look out for cameo appearances from the unique piece Berluti bag that he has had tattooed with an Omega Railmaster! His unique piece Berluti bag featuring a tattoo of an Omega Railmaster Serge Panczuk Safe travels, Serge! State CNC appeals for prayer for Naga political prisoners DIMAPUR | Publish Date: 3/18/2019 11:42:01 AM IST The Council of Nagalim Churches (CNC), during its executive and staff meeting held on March 13, has designated a special prayer moment for Naga freedom movement political prisoners, during Sunday worship service on March 24. A press release from CNC general secretary, Rev. Seksim Kasar has earnestly appealed to all Church leaders, pastors, and prayer centres to uphold the prisoners in their prayers during the mentioned Sunday service. All the NNPGs have also been requested to do so in their respective camps. Further, NSCN regional CAOs, commanders and chaplains are to take the responsibility of organizing prayer services in their respective headquarters and camps. Members living in and around Dimapur and Peren districts have been requested to turn up at CHQ Church, Hebron. The Belgian government has made a decision for the replacement of the Navys mine hunters. Didier Reynders, Minister of Defense, announced that the Council of Ministers had endorsed the choice of the French consortium formed by Naval Group & ECA Robotics for the replacement of its mine hunters (six for Belgium, six for The Netherlands). The Belgian government has made a decision for the replacement of the Navys mine hunters. Didier Reynders, Minister of Defense, announced that the Council of Ministers had endorsed the choice of the French consortium formed by Naval Group & ECA Robotics for the replacement of its mine hunters (six for Belgium, six for The Netherlands). The French consortium formed by Naval Group & ECA Robotics has won the tender for the replacement of mine hunters in the Belgian and Dutch navies (six for Belgium, six for The Netherlands) (Picture source: Naval Group) The purchase price is 2.6 billion euros, of which half (1.115 billion) is borne by Belgium. Compared to the initial estimate, as in the F-35 purchase file, a saving is made, of the order of 200 million euros this time, which will make it possible to invest in European projects related to maritime capacity. The two French companies Naval Group & ECA-Robotics had joined forces to win this market. This consortium has won against two other bidders, the Dutch group Damen Schelde, associated with the company Imtech Belgie and a consortium called Sea Naval Solutions, bringing together the Thales shipyards, including Thales Belgium, STX France, Socarenam and the Antwerp firm Engine Deck Repair (EDR). The winning consortium promised the creation of 4 billion euros of turnover and 7,000 jobs in Belgium over 20 years. Economic returns are 50% in Flanders, 35% in Wallonia and 15% in Brussels. For this purpose, 39 partnerships with Belgian companies have already been signed. In addition to the creation of an industrial center of excellence in the field of the fight against naval mines, a drone production plant (1,550 drones including 1,300 submarine mine destruction drones) will be established in Zeebruges. The maintenance will be 100% Belgian. The contract for the Belgian part is estimated at 1.1 billion euros. "Future capacity will use unmanned systems on the surface, above water level and under water to detect and neutralize mines. Thanks to this new method of work, the mothership and its crew will be able to stay out of the minefield because only drones will be active there, the statement explains. The Belgian Navy is implementing an innovative concept in this Mine Countermeasures (MCM) vessels. It intends to remain a pioneer and an internationally recognized expert in the fight against mines. These mine hunters will measure more than 80 meters long and will be able to accommodate up to 63 crew members. They will be larger than those currently possessed by the Marine Component. The dossier has been delayed for three months, particularly because of its complexity, Minister Didier Reynders explained in committee this week. The government, however, was determined to make a decision before the end of the legislature, thus closing the major military investment cases. The file was made jointly with the Netherlands, which is responsible for the frigates. If the European tender was managed by Belgium, representatives of the Dutch Defense were present on the bid evaluation team. Delivery of the first mine hunter is expected from the end of 2023. From 2025, ships will then be delivered alternately to The Netherlands and Belgium. The last delivery is scheduled for 2030. By Express News Service Struggling to keep the fiscal deficit contained at the revised target of 3.4 per cent of the GDP, the Union Ministry of Finance, once again, is likely to use loans from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) to pay the food subsidy bill for the 2018-19 fiscal. This year, the collection under NSSF is better, giving us the confidence to use some surplus as a loan to settle the food subsidy bill, said a senior finance ministry official. However, he did not specify how many loans the government would be using. So far, the numbers are not decided. By the end of this month, there would be clarity on how much we can lend, the official said. This is not a new trend. The government had used Rs 40,000 crore as loan from NSSF in FY 2017-18 to pay Food Corporation of India earlier too, which helped it to bring down food subsidy and finally helped in meeting the fiscal deficit target of 3.5 per cent for the year, which otherwise could have gone up further. Similar diversion was used in FY 2016-17, where Rs 25,000 crore of food subsidy bill came from NSSF loan. This year, the government has revised the estimate for allocation under food subsidy to Rs 1.71 lakh crore from Rs 1.69 lakh crore last year. The government may take another loan, which will help it stick to the 3.4 per cent fiscal deficit target. The latest data from the Controller General of Accounts (CAG) showed that the Central governments fiscal deficit for April-January FY19 touched Rs 7.708 lakh crore or 121.5 per cent of the full-year target. The government will need fiscal surplus of about Rs 1.10 lakh crore in the last two months to meet the revised fiscal deficit target of 3.4 per cent for the year, data showed. Even as the tax collection remains much below expectation, the government is resorting to all sorts of measures to stick to the target. Recently the finance ministry approved a special banking arrangement for Rs 10,000 crore for fertiliser subsidies as it exceeded the fertiliser subsidy bill by Rs 12,000 crore. The CAG report for FY17 has already flagged how the Centre is using off-balance sheet financing model for deferring another budgetary outgo such as fertiliser subsidies/arrears through special banking arrangements; food subsidy bills/arrears of Food Corporation of India through borrowings from NSSF/banks etc. Anuradha Shukla By Express News Service Two days after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) quashed the settlement plan proposed by promoters of Sterling Biotech Ltd (SBL), investigative agencies have planned to oppose the move. They are planning to file their written submission against the proposal and probe the negotiation deal. Sandesaras, the Sterling Biotech promoters, had offered a one-time settlement of dues to the consortium of banks led by Andhra Bank. We are aware of the developments. The agency is certainly going to appeal against the decision. We are going to make our representation and will give a written submission ahead of the next hearing, a senior Enforcement Directorate official told TMS. The total credit facilities to the tune of Rs 8,100 crore availed by the Vadodara-based SBL group were declared fraud account by banks. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Serious Fraud Investigation Office and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are probing the case. The groups promoters have fled the country. The CBI had booked Sterling Biotech, its directors Nitin Sandesara, Chetan Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara and Hiteshkumar Patel, along with Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Vilas Joshi, chartered accountant Hemant Hathi as well as Andhra Bank former director Anup Garg in connection with the alleged bank fraud case. Amidst the ongoing probes, Andhra Bank had initiated an insolvency process against the company in June last year. In January, the ED had initiated the process to extradite the four Sterling Biotech promoters, who is suspected to be in Nigeria and Italy currently. However, in a sudden development this month, the lenders decided to withdraw the resolution proceedings against the company, and accepted the Sandesara brothers one-time settlement offer of Rs 5,500 crore, taking 66 per cent haircut. The e-voting on the resolution put to vote at the 14th meeting of the CoC of the Company concluded on Thursday, 07th March 2019... In this regard, please note the Committee of Creditors has approved the withdrawal of the CIRP of the Company with requisite majority, the company declared in a regulatory filing. The move by the lenders has really enraged the investigative agencies. The matter has already been informed to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This is not a plain case of bad loan. This is a case of corruption and money laundering and the lenders cannot go ahead with backdoor dealings with the fugitive promoters, while the agencies are working towards extradition. We are going to investigate the trail, a senior ED official said. The National Company Law Tribunal had already refused to accept the settlement plan. By Express News Service BENGALURU: AICC President Rahul Gandhis visit to the Manyata Tech Park on Monday saw hundreds of the citys techies interact with him and discuss their issues. For those who did not get a chance to go inside however, a very different scene played out just a few meters outside the Amphitheatre with many people chanting slogans in support of Narendra Modi. ALSO READ | Karnataka Congress formally invites Rahul Gandhi to contest Lok Sabha polls from state Rahul Gandhi spoke to employees of the tech park about a host of issues including those faced by entrepreneurs. The tech park hosts around 1.5 lakh employees with around 68 companies located in the 300-acre park. Gandhi interacted with only a small percentage of employees who had been selected for the meetup. Outside the venue, the scene at the time of Gandhis arrival was palpable. Hundreds of employees, who were not part of the selected invitees, still thronged the venue and had to be held back by police barricades as well as officers. As soon as Gandhis convoy rolled in, chants of Modi, Modi could be heard chanted by the employees. Several videos of the group were circulated on social media and a visual of Additional Commissioner of Police (East), physically ejecting one of the chanters from the premises was also captured. Singh could not be contacted later for comment. Sahaya Novinston Lobo By Express News Service After a struggle for five years, Nungambakkam resident M A Nizar Ahammad (49) felt vindicated on Wednesday when police arrested a retired IAS officer V Mohanraj for allegedly cheating over a hundred people by promising them jobs and to get college seats. Ahammad came into contact with Mohanraj in 2014. His daughter had cleared Standard XII with distinction, but her dream of becoming a doctor like her parents was at risk when she missed the merit list by a whisker. We decided to get a seat through management quota and if we had some influence in the college it would be better. One of my close friends knew a person named Selva. Selva introduced me to Mohanraj, who was the then deputy secretary in transport department. When I first met him, he seemed like a very nice person. He said my daughter will definitely get a seat as he had influence, Ahammad recalled. Five years later, he believes this is how Mohanraj and his associates lured people into a scam. Mohanraj demanded `50 lakh to get the college seat, claiming he had to pay the college management. I borrowed money from kith and kin and handed it over to him that April. But, later, he stopped taking my phone calls. Hundreds of calls went unattended and he did not get us the seat as promised, so I went to his office directly, said Ahammad. A police officer, who was part of the investigating team in the case told Express that Mohanraj was under the influence of 28-year-old K Navappan from Tiruvannamalai. The officer had allegedly allowed Navappan to use his office room at the Secretariat premises to meet people and get money by promising jobs in transport department and college seats in private institutions They have cheated around 106 people to the tune of `5 crore, the police officer said. Recalling the scene at the Mohanrajs office, Ahammad described it as feeling like a marketplace with lots of people abusing Mohanraj or begging the man at the office to give their money back. Realising I had been cheated I lodged a complaint with the city police commissionerate in 2015. Initially, Central Crime Branch officers said action would be taken or that they could not arrest someone who was holding such a high position in the State, said Ahammad. One of the police officers involved in the probe a year ago told Express that initially the case did not move forward as the then investigating officer was forced not to take action. Officials in the department knew what was going on and deliberately did not want to look into it, the officer said. It was only after Ahammad petitioned the Madras High Court, that an FIR was registered based on court orders in 2015. Even then, police neither detained Mohanraj nor did they call him for an inquiry. Police sources said Mohanraj had obtained anticipatory bail. Meanwhile, Mohanraj retired in January 2017 as deputy secretary of the transport department in January. Police claimed he had been absconding since he retired and that they managed to find and arrest him on Wednesday. Ahammad said it was difficult for a common man in the country to get justice. From the time he approached the High Court, he received threats at his house, in court and by phone. Mohanraj who was arrested by Endorsement Fraud and Job Racket officials of CCB is in prison now. Ahammad said the alleged kingpin Selva, who introduced him to Mohanraj, is in Malaysia and hoped police will nab him once he reaches Tamil Nadu. A Central government employee died of a heart attack, after selling all his property to get a government job for his son, said Ahammad, recalling how some of the others who Mohanraj allegedly cheated suffered. Ahammads daughter is now a B.Tech graduate. Samuel Merigala By Express News Service CHENNAI: When the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change called for decentralised handling of solid waste by local bodies in the Solid Waste Management Rules (2016), they definitely did not mean burning waste collected in the same ward itself. But that is exactly what the Madambakkam Town Panchayat is doing. Residents alleged that workers of the NGO entrusted with conservancy operation are burning non-recyclable plastic waste in empty plots and forcing them to inhale carcinogenic fumes whenever there is accumulation of plastic waste on the streets. The workers set fire to the waste instead of taking it to the dumpyard for processing, said V Lokesh, a software engineer, residing in Parvathy Nagar, on the areas worst affected by this irresponsible disposal of waste. Residents of ALS Nagar and Yeshwant Nagar claimed that conservancy, which is also affected by this issue, claimed that this happens whenever complaints are lodged about garbage pile- up. They usually set flame to the garbage early in the morning and vanish, said a senior citizen, claiming the neighbours end up blaming each other. A conservancy worker of Hand In Hand told Express that some workers only set fire to the waste which has no value. The thick plastic such as wrappers of big chips companies and milk covers have recyclable value so they are collected carefully, the other thinner types have no value so they set those on fire, the worker said. When contacted, Selvan, the conservancy supervisor, denied such happenings. All workers have been instructed to bring the waste to the sorting area and strict action will be taken if they burn the waste, Selvan said. Earlier, Express had reported how the former dumpyard of the panchayat was set on fire. But now the waste is being cleared from there and dumping of new waste has been prohibited. While this is a welcome move, the lack of a dumping facility for non recyclable waste has resulted in waste being burned in empty plots or street corners. After a first model dedicated to the entire Beatles anthology, Raymond Weil followed up with a second limited edition named after the bands 11th studio album Abbey Road. Now it is time for Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band to benefit from Raymond Weils horological tribute. The cover of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album This album was significant in the bands history since it was the first studio album recorded after the brand permanently retired from touring. It thus allowed for a number of innovative approaches to the recording, since the band knew that they would never have to perform any of the songs live. This led to highly original sounds on tracks such as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which featured a Lowrey organ that was distorted with studio effects and an Indian tambura. The studio itself actually became an instrument. On the album, the Beatles made it sound as if Sergeant Pepper and his band existed, adding effects to reinforce the idea of this alter ego. As with many Beatles album covers, the sleeve for Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was a genuine work of art, designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. It is this design that has inspired the design of the third Raymond Weil Maestro watch to be produced under the partnership with the Beatles. The bass drum design from the album is outlined in black on the silver dial and the smoked sapphire crystal case back features the Beatles logo and the limited-edition engraving. Unlike the previous two models, this limited edition uses the warmer colour of yellow gold with a PVD coating on the case and matching yellow-gold accents on the dial for the hour markers (note the distinctive hour marker at 4 oclock a position that has been reserved to represent the four members of the band on all Beatles limited editions). Maestro The Beatles Sgt Peppers Limited Edition Raymond Weil In another first, Raymond Weil introduces a strap on this model. It is the brands first Vegan strap, in keeping with the beliefs held by the band, made of black polyurethane. Beatles fans may remember the vivid colours from the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band cover. You wont find them on the case, because Raymond Weil offers the epitome of classic timepieces, regardless of which particular artist it is paying tribute to (the brand has also produced watches bearing names of other music legends such as AC/DC, Bob Marley and David Bowie). But you will find the bright colours, and the moustaches worn by the all four band members on the album cover, emblazoned on the presentation box that comes with this watch. Raymond Weil Like all Beatles Limited Edition, only 3,000 of the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band will be available. They are powered by the Raymond Weil RW4200 self-winding movement, which offers a power reserve of 38 hours. Aihik Sur By Express News Service HYDERABAD: It was a cool Friday morning and the large Muslim community in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand comprising various nationalities, converged into the two major mosques for their jumma namaaz. They were looking forward to their weekly tradition of getting together after prayers and socialising over good food. However, what perpetrated during the prayers, survivors of the incident feel, will change both New Zealand and their future in the country, forever. We were in between our prayers, when we heard loud bangs at quick intervals, Mohammed Khwaja Mohiuddin, a survivor of the horrific terror attack by a white supremacist on two mosques in New Zealands Christchurch, told Express. At first I did not pay heed because I thought it was a prank by kids who had lit some crackers. It sounded like that. However, it was when a member of the congregation cried out asking us to get down on the ground that I realised something was wrong. A resident of Moula Ali and chef by profession, Mohiuddin was at the Linwood Mosque along with his close friend Imran Ahmed Khan when the shooter Brenton Tarrant opened an indiscriminate fire. He somehow saved his life, but his restaurateur friend, received a bullet injury to the head killing him on the spot. It was only on Thursday that I and Imran were discussing talking about going back home to Hyderabad and how much the city had changed over the years, Mohiuddin recalled solemnly. It was in Imrans restaurant that he worked as a chef and through the years had developed a close bond with him. Eight minutes before opening fire at the mosque, the terrorist Tarrant had live-streamed the entire attack on Facebook. The video soon went viral all over the world. In the video once could see Karimnagar-based Imran being shot in the head. However, Mohiuddin could not muster the courage to see the video. We really do not want to see it. I have been telling anyone who has come across the video to delete it. It was also through the videos that the Tolichowki resident Ashar Ali Khan, who currently resides in Auckland, got to know that his friends, including the deceased Farhaj Ahsan and Imran, were attacked. Ashar, Ahsans neighbour until three years ago while he stayed in Christchurch, said, We were getting the videos 10 minutes from the time of incident. I immediately started calling people I know but could not get any response until hours later. They then described to me the horrific ordeal. He then remembered the 31-year-old Ahsan as a friendly, jovial person, with a smile on his face always. He was our go-to friend for any kind of advice on politics, education or getting to know the bureaucratic processes of New Zealand. He was always very approachable, Ashar said, adding that on numerous occasions they took weekend outings together. The same was iterated about Ahsan by Mohiuddin who said, He was always cool and calm. Even if he was busy, he would take the time to stand and talk to others. However for both Ashar and Mohiuddin the future is not as bright as it was in New Zealand before the attack. Yet they both said that during their stay in New Zealand they had never faced any incidents of racism or Islamophobia. Mohiuddin also pointed out that the perpetrator Tarrant was not a native of New Zealand and was an Australian-native. We have never faced any discrimination from the locals and they are very helpful. The terrorist was not from here. Princy Alexander By Express News Service KOCHI: Irena Mihaklovich took her first steps in Indian classical dances in Belarus, a country that once belonged to Soviet Russia. And it was there, in the land of the ballerinas, where Irena found her footing as an Indian classical dancer. I was a shy child and that kind of hindered me in pursuing dancing, especially ballet and other folk dances, which had a completely different pedagogic style that didnt suit me. However, I always believed I had a strong sense of musicality which is why I decided to pursue an art form that was attuned to the rhythms I loved and the spirituality I sought. It was my yoga teacher who told me about the temple art forms such as bharatanatyam. This influenced me to try this art and study it more closely, said the dancer who is now a professional mohiniyattom performer. According to her, unlike the dances of her country, she felt the Indian classical dance had slower rhythms. It was taught very slowly and had very slow movements including the way one raised ones foot and moved their hands. I had to face my complexes while learning and sometimes failing but somehow this dance had a huge effect on me. In Sweden, I got in touch with Usha Balasundaram, who encouraged me to be part of her performing group Indivara. My association with her eventually helped me break my barriers. The more I learned from her, the more I wanted to come down to Kerala to learn bharatanatyam. So, I applied for an ICCR scholarship and that is how I won my ticket to Kerala Kalamandalam, she said. By the time she perfected bharatanatyam, she felt a strong sense of calling to learn mohiniyattom, which she felt was more fluid and feminine. A lot of my teachers at the Kalamandalam encouraged me to try this art. More than them, it was my body alone which was yearning to study the art, she said. She along with Canadian dancer Ian Mozdzen have been performing a duet for some years now and had also performed recently at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. By Express News Service KOCHI: In 2006, South African artist Zanele Muholi began a photographic series as an attempt to remedy black queer invisibility. Featuring lesbians, women and trans people of colour, the project was born out of the need to create a visual history of South Africans, especially lesbians, while highlighting their struggles. The portraits, in which Zaneles subjects seem to gaze into the camera with a stony expression, are part of the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which is based on the curatorial theme of Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life. The stories of discrimination against the queer community gave her sleepless nights as she tried to process the struggles narrated. Many of the women I met had been violated and I endeavoured not to exploit them further through my work. I set out to establish relationships with them based on a mutual understanding of what it means to be female, lesbian and Black today, says the 47-year-old artist, rewinding her experience while working on the project titled Faces and Phases. The Johannesburg-based artist has dedicated the project to a friend who died of HIV-related complications in 2007, at the age of 25. The work is on display outside Cabral Yard, and at David Hall, located half a km away. Even as South Africa legalised same-sex marriage around the same time Zanele started working on her project, discrimination and violence against queer women continue to be spread. In this respect, her series, which is also the subject of a book, has been created as a way of advocating their rights as well as bringing to attention stories of discrimination against the queer community. Race is also an important element in her work as she critiques traditional photographic techniques that have a bearing on racist attitudes celebrating fair skin. Zanele was born in 1972 at the height of apartheid in South Africa. Her first brush with photography took place while browsing through the works of African women photographers. An important influence in her work has been American photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashes well-known book Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers, which is a survey of African-American female photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Zanele began her training as an artist through an advanced photography course at the David Goldblatt-founded Market Photo Workshop in Newtown. Her first solo show, as part of the schools exhibition in Johannesburg, focused on portraits of Black lesbian couples. Interrogating the marginalisation of the queer community in the post-apartheid South Africa, the collection received national-level attention. Prior to studying photography, she worked in the field of advocacy on behalf of South Africas queer community as a co-founder of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women. Zaneles activism, therefore, is an integral part of her art, because of which she identifies herself as a visual activist. By PTI NEW DELHI: "India will be eternally grateful to Shri Manohar Parrikar for his tenure as our Defence Minister," PM Modi said Sunday, paying his condolences after the demise of Goa CM and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. "Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters," Modi wrote via his Twitter handle. Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters. Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/uahXme3ifp Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 "Shri Manohar Parrikar was the builder of modern Goa. Thanks to his affable personality and accessible nature, he remained the preferred leader of the state for years. His pro-people policies ensured Goa scales remarkable heights of progress," he added. Shri Manohar Parrikar was the builder of modern Goa. Thanks to his affable personality and accessible nature, he remained the preferred leader of the state for years. His pro-people policies ensured Goa scales remarkable heights of progress. Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 "India will be eternally grateful to Shri Manohar Parrikar for his tenure as our Defence Minister. When he was RM, India witnessed a series of decisions that enhanced Indias security capacities, boosted indigenous defence production and bettered the lives of ex-servicemen," the PM further wrote. India will be eternally grateful to Shri Manohar Parrikar for his tenure as our Defence Minister. When he was RM, India witnessed a series of decisions that enhanced Indias security capacities, boosted indigenous defence production and bettered the lives of ex-servicemen. Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 "In the death of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, the nation has lost a true patriot," BJP president Amit Shah said, remembering him as a leader who dedicated his life to the country and ideology. Shah said Parrikar has shown how a BJP worker "even during his toughest time, is committed to the philosophy of Nation First, Party Next and Self Last". Parrikar ji has shown the entire nation how a BJP Karyakarta, even during his toughest time, is committed to the philosophy of Nation First, Party Next and Self Last. He will always be remembered for his contributions as Indias Defence Minister and as CM of Goa. pic.twitter.com/jiKNGoOZrj Chowkidar Amit Shah (@AmitShah) March 17, 2019 Shah said, "Manohar Parrikar ji's demise is extremely painful. In him, the nation has lost a true patriot who selflessly dedicated his entire life to the country and ideology. Parrikar ji's commitment towards his people and duties was exemplary. He will always be remembered for his contributions as India's defence minister and as CM of Goa. Manohar Parrikar jis demise is extremely painful. In him, the nation has lost a true patriot who selflessely dedicated his entire life to the country and ideology. Parrikar jis commitment towards his people and duties was exemplary. Chowkidar Amit Shah (@AmitShah) March 17, 2019 "The entire BJP," he said, "stands firmly with Parrikar's family. I along with millions of BJP karyakartas (workers) and importantly the people of Goa, who were his family, express my deepest condolences. May God give the bereaved family strength to withstand this tragic loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti," he tweeted. Entire BJP stands firmly with Parrikar jis family. I along with millions of BJP karyakartas and importantly the people of Goa, who were his family, express my deepest condolences. May God give the bereaved family strength to withstand this tragic loss. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. pic.twitter.com/HWFA4gtSnX Chowkidar Amit Shah (@AmitShah) March 17, 2019 Parrikar died on Sunday following a long illness. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also condoled his demise and said his contribution in making the armed forces a lean and mean fighting machine will remain unparalleled. Terming him a sincere, honest and sensitive political activist, Sitharaman said she learnt a lot from Parrikar. "Shri Manohar Parrikar is no more. A sincere, honest and sensitive political activist. Was simple and down to earth, I learnt a lot from Shri Parrikar. As Raksha Mantri his contribution to making the armed forces a modernised, lean & mean fighting machine will remain unparalleled," she tweeted. Shri Manohar Parrikar is no more. A sincere, honest & sensitive political activist. Was simple and down to earth, I learnt a lot from Shri.Parrikar. As Raksha Mantri his contribution to making the armed forces a modernised, lean & mean fighting machine will remain unparalleled. Chowkidar Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) March 17, 2019 Smriti Irani said on Twitter: "A leader, a mentor, a friend- Parrikar Sir meant all that & more to my family. But then every Goan can say the same for that was the persona of Manohar Parrikar. He taught me dignity in the face of adversity, loyalty in tough times & perseverance so that determined goals are met." A leader, a mentor, a friend- Parrikar Sir meant all that & more to my family. But then every Goan can say the same for that was the persona of Manohar Parrikar. He taught me dignity in the face of adversity, loyalty in tough times & perseverance so that determined goals are met. Chowkidar Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) March 17, 2019 Manohar Parrikar leaves behind many admirers, many who looked upon him as an idol. My condolences to his loved ones, colleagues & supporters. Om Shanti Chowkidar Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) March 17, 2019 Parrikar headed the defence ministry from November 2014 to March 2017. By PTI JAMMU: National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah Sunday blamed the BJP for "creating fear psychosis" across the country by crying hoarse over the "nation being in danger". Paying tributes to Guru Nabba Dass ji at a congregation here, he underscored the crucial need of social justice and avenues of progress for all, irrespective of religion, caste and creed. "India is not in danger, it is the BJP which is in danger due to rug slipping from under the feet of the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) ahead of general elections," Abdullah said. He decried the politics of hate and mistrust being perpetrated and practised allegedly by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that it was "against the very idea of India". Instead of dividing the people in the name of religion, caste and region, everyone should be treated as a compatriot, which alone can lead the country to progress and harmony, he said. He asked the saffron party to desist from dividing the people and vitiating the atmosphere for deriving political dividends. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE He also hoped that people would reject such tendencies and isolate the reactionary forces to ensure that the nation progresses and prospers as a united and strong entity. Abdullah termed the slogan of power supply to all the villages as yet another gimmick of the ruling party, saying the Modi government had failed to regulate power supply in towns and cities and hence, it should not make tall claims. He described the power scenario in Jammu and Kashmir as most erratic and added that the position of drinking water was not too good. The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister reiterated his party's commitment of providing adequate openings to the members of weaker sections of the society in governance. "A holistic approach is needed to be adopted for according a rightful place to weaker sections in governance and decision making," he said. Political empowerment of weaker sections holds key to their overall empowerment and mere slogans about their upliftment were not enough, he said. By PTI LUCKNOW: BSP chief Mayawati Monday advised the Congress to refrain from spreading confusion by leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh. In a series of tweets, she said the Congress is free to field its candidates in all the 80 parliamentary constituencies of the state. Mayawati made it amply clear that her party will not enter into any alliance with the Congress. She also said that the SP-BSP-RLD alliance is capable enough of defeating the BJP on its own. The Congress on Sunday said it would leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. ALSO READ: Lok Sabha polls 2019: In UP, optimism alternates with anxiety for BSP Apart from this, the grand old party also said that it will leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The SP and the BSP had forged an alliance on 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. As per the deal, the SP will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the BSP 38, leaving three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). By Express News Service PATNA: Firebrand BJP leader and Union minister Giriraj Singh on Monday apparently went into a sulk after being denied a seat from Nawada Lok Sabha seat, which has gone to NDA ally LJP this time. On Sunday, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) announced the seats to be contested by its three constituents the BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumars Janata Dal (United) and Ram Vilas Paswans Lok Janshakti Party. While the BJP and the JD(U) will contest 17 seats each, the LJP will field candidates from six seats. Compulsions of seat-sharing may be there. But I wish to underscore that no other Union minister from Bihar may have to give up his sitting seat. This is despite the fact that I have worked so much to nurture my constituency, the veteran BJP leader said. Asked whether he had expressed his wish to seek re-election from Nawada to state BJP president Nityanand Rai, Singh said, I must have done so 200 times. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Five years is a long time and I have become attached to Nawada and its people. Rai had assured me that I would get a ticket from wherever I wanted. Why this (denial of the ticket) happened is for him to answer, Singh said. On reports that he might be asked to contest from Begusarai, the seat which he had wanted to fight in 2014, Singh replied with a hint of bitterness, I was a party worker, am a party worker and shall always remain a party worker. Besides Giriraj Singh, the other Union ministers in the fray from Bihar are Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Buxar), R K Singh (Ara), Ram Kripal Yadav (Pataliputra) and Radha Mohan Singh (Motihari). All these seats have been retained by the BJP and the sitting MPs may be fielded again from their respective seats. In the last general election, Giriraj Singh had initially expressed the wish to contest from Begusarai, which is dominated by the Bhumihar caste to which he belongs. But the seat then went to Bhola Singh, a party-hopper who had been previously associated with the Communist Party of India, Congress and the Janata Dal. Giriraj was given a ticket from Nawada, a less safe seat given its social profile, which he won riding the Modi wave in 2014. Chirag takes a dig LJP leader Chirag Paswan said all NDA allies in Bihar may name their Lok Sabha poll candidates together and also took a dig at the opposition, saying its so-called grand alliance has turned out to be an illusion. Paswan is set to contest from Jamui. By Online Desk Late Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar's close friend recalled on Monday how Parrikar, who was the mess secretary during his IIT-Bombay days, once ended a mess workers' strike. Mukund Deshpande said the workers immediately called off their strike after Parrikar took 40 of his friends to the hostel kitchen and cooked a meal for everyone. He was on good terms with the mess workers as he always participated in the committee. After the strike was called, he spoke to the workers. When they refused to serve us, he convinced 40 of us to cook ourselves. That was the best meal we ever had, added Deshpande, a Pune-based civil engineer who was Parrikar's hostel mate. The former defence minister was a student at IIT-Bombay from 1973-1980. His college friends at the institute remember him as a born leader and a humble man who attended all alumni meets. Sharing a fond memory, Bakul Desai, another hostel mate and close friend of Parrikar, recalls how the former defence minister would wait for his turn in the queue to have lunch for which the alumni members were given coupons. Parrikar also asked his security personnel to stay away when he was with his friends. Ganesh Natarajan, another IIT-B alumnus, spoke of Parrikar's simplicity even after he took charge as the Goa CM. "Have seen him take an auto rickshaw at Mumbai airport even after becoming Goa CM. He will be missed across all walks of life," he said. In 2017, Parrikar addressed the 55th convocation of the institute where he told graduates to take up jobs in the social and development sectors. A condolence meet will be held on Monday evening at the institute's P C Saxena auditorium to pay tribute to their alumnus, an IIT-B spokesperson said. Parrikar died at his Panaji residence on Sunday evening just over a year after he was detected with cancer. He was 63. He was suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer and had undergone treatment in hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New York and New Delhi over the past year. By Express News Service BHOPAL: The announcement of Lok Sabha poll schedule has not only made politicians busy but also the inter-state gunrunners sourcing semi-automatic pistols from jungles of Madhya Pradesh, who are hoping to make big bucks ahead of the polls. Sources in MP Polices Special Task Force (MP STF) said that the spurt in demand for illegal semi-automatic pistols made in jungles and hillocks of West MP has jacked up prices of these guns by up to 50%. According to sources, the rising demand from gunrunners in UP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Vindhya and Gwalior-Chambal region of MP have increased the prices of guns made by the Sikigars (a community skilled for generations in weapon making). Investigation has revealed that the semi-automatic guns made by Sikligars, earlier priced around Rs 6,000 each are now being supplied to other states for Rs 10,000. Guns priced around Rs 8,000 are now fetching up to Rs 13,000 from inter-state gunrunners operating in other parts of MP and adjoining states, said an STF source. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The primary demand for Made in MP Sikligar guns comes from UP and Rajasthan. Questioning those arrested in the three cases has revealed that gunrunners sourcing arms from Sikligars are selling them for prices ranging between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000 in other states. Knowing that the inter-state borders will be on high alert, the gun runners of UP, Rajasthan and other states are sourcing guns in large numbers from Sikligars in MP, the STF source added. The issue was also discussed at a high-level meeting of senior police officials of MP, UP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh at the MP State Police headquarters in Bhopal last Friday. We are running dedicated drives against gun runners. In the last three weeks, around 250 guns have been seized by our teams. Rajasthan DGP Kapil Garg said that intelligence on gunrunning operations should be swiftly shared between MP and Rajasthan and we are working on it, MP DGP VK Singh said. The issue of coordination to stop the flow of illegal cash and liquor was discussed. We have decided to work in a more coordinated manner for sharing real-time intelligence on issues, including Left Wing Extremism and criminals against whom standing warrants are pending, said Singh. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Indian Army on Monday began a 10-day military exercise with armed forces of 17 African nations at Aundh in Maharashtra, reflecting the growing strategic ties between India and the Africa continent. The countries participating in the inaugural edition of the Africa-India Field Training Exercise (AFINDEX) include Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Benin and Botswana, the Army said here. The inaugural ceremony of the exercise held at the Aundh military station was attended by defence attaches and other senior officials of the participating nations. "The exercise will focus on exchange of best practices between the participating nations, team building and tactical level operations in conduct of the UN mandated tasks," the Army said. In the last few years, India has been gradually enhancing military and defence cooperation with a number of African countries. Egypt's Minister of Immigration and Expatriate Affairs Nabila Makram will head to New Zealand on Tuesday to visit the 11 Egyptians injured in the Christchurch mosque attacks this weekend which left 51 people dead. A gunman attacked two mosques in the city during Friday prayers, in what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later described as a terrorist attack. A 28-year-old suspect appeared in court on Saturday charged with murder. Two other suspects remain in custody. Makram will also visit Australia next week, where she will launch the Humanitarian Love and Cooperation among Communities initiative as part of the Revival of the Roots campaign which is for the Egyptian, Greek and Cypriot communities of Egyptian origin in Australia. "We aim with this initiative, which coincides with incidents of terrorism against different foreign communities, to send a message of solidarity to reject violence and terrorism, and to spread the spirit of brotherhood and harmony among the various communities; to reject any kind of extremist ideas that always seek to create division," she said. Makram added that Fotis Futio, the presidential commissioner for humanitarian and expatriate Cypriots, Terrence Kwick, deputy minister of foreign affairs of Greece, and a number of members of the Australian Parliament, including immigrants, will participate in the event in Australia. The three countries also look forward to a number of objectives in this edition of the campaign, she said, including the promotion of trade cooperation and cooperation between the three countries through the Greek, Cypriot and Egyptian communities. There are a number of meetings scheduled for this edition with a number of Australian officials as well as the symbols of the three communities, as well as meetings with businessmen and members of the Australian and Arab Chambers of Commerce in Melbourne. Search Keywords: Short link: Aishik Chanda By Express News Service Kolkata bridges to be checked After the Mumbai foot over bridge (FoB) collapse, which claimed six lives and left over 35 commuters injured, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has geared up to assess the state of FoBs in the city. Many of the FoBs in the city are more than 35 years old and need immediate repairs and some, including the ones in Sealdah and Ultadanga, have been termed vulnerable. The FoB in Gariahat is also crying out for immediate repairs. New Kolkata-Kathmandu tri-weekly flights Nepals private airliner Buddha Air will commence tri-weekly flights between Kolkata and Kathmandu from May 27 onwards. The airlines will deploy its ATR 72-500 aircraft for the flight service between the two cities every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The carrier was poised to begin the inaugural flights in mid-April but has postponed it to May end due to the impending Lok Sabha elections, as the occupancy in Kathmandu-bound flights is expected to be low during the polls. Additionally, the airline will also operate Kolkata, Gangasagar and Puri tour packages for Nepalese visitors. 25 shanties near Dakshineswar Temple gutted in fire Some 25 shanties near Dakshineswar Temple in north Kolkata were gutted in a blaze, which is believed to have been caused by fire from a stove in one of the shanties. Though no casualties were reported in the fire that spread across the slum within 30 minutes, the entire slum was burned to the ground by the time fire tenders arrived and brought the blaze under control. The shanties had come up over the past seven years and most of the dwellers are daily wagers. Cabbie arrested for riding over dog A cab driver, with six pending cases against him for rash driving, was chased by students, apprehended and handed over to police for allegedly riding over a dog at National University of Judicial Sciences in Salt Lake. The driver, Souvik Roy (42), did not slow down the vehicle even after the dog came under the front wheel. Roy has been booked under Sections 279 (rash and negligent driving) and 429 (killing or maiming of animals). He faces prison term, for up to 5 years, if found guilty. The incident comes two months after two nursing students clubbed 16 puppies to death at NRS Medical College and Hospital. Kumar Vikram By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Over a dozen leaders from Odisha and West Bengal have switched to the saffron camp over the past few weeks giving a strong indication of the BJPs East India mission. The induction of regional heavyweights has raised the BJPs hopes for a better performance in the two states despite lacking organisational structure and cadre strength. In West Bengal, a factional feud within the ruling Trinamool Congress has come as an advantage for the BJP which is seeking to field winnable candidates in the state that sends 42 Lok Sabha MPs. A few days ago, TMCs Bhatpura MLA Arjun Singh joined the BJP and its being said his defection might cost the party dearly. Singh is considered to be an influential leader and sources claimed that TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee intervened to try and stop him. Singh, known as a strongman, controls more than one assembly segment in North 24 Paragana district. According to BJP sources, some other leaders from West Bengal are likely to join BJP. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE BJP insiders claim the partys look east strategy started about two years ago, with the entry of heavyweight Mukul Roy. He started working on a bigger plan to bring regional faces to the saffron camp. Sources said Roy has been in touch with many TMC leaders keeping in mind the BJPs target of winning 22 of 42 Lok Sabha seats. In Odisha, BJP chief Amit Shah has set an ambitious target of winning 120 of the 147 Assembly seats and 12 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats. BJP reached out to former BJD leader Baijayant Panda, who fell out with Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik and made him partys national vice-president. Thereafter, more than half-a-dozen BJD leaders switched side. However, political observers warn that distributing tickets to new entrants is not always a wise move and can backfire. In both the States, factionalism is there even in the BJP. For example, in West Bengal, state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh is not on good terms with campaign committee chief Mukul Roy, said an analyst. By PTI PATNA: The presence of Lalu Prasad, known for his witty repartee and rustic mannerism, which made campaigning a lively affair, is being sorely missed this time. The RJD supremo is serving sentences in fodder scam cases and lodged in a Ranchi hospital for a number of ailments. The inimitable RJD supremo, whose party symbol lantern brings the promise of dispelling darkness, is known to lighten up the tedium associated with elections, often leaving in splits even those at the receiving end of his jibes. People still recall the kind of banter he had brought to the atmosphere during the assembly polls of 2015 when he took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was firing on all cylinders during campaigning. The polls were fought along with his arch-rival Nitish Kumar - who headed the JD(U) as the chief ministerial candidate - but the imprint of Lalu, ailing and disqualified from contesting elections himself, was unmistakable. Who else could have dismissed prime minister at the one-panel discussion after another with the remark "Narendra Modi is my junior". The short-lived alliance between the arch-rivals proved mutually beneficial as Kumar salvaged his pride, battered by a drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls held the previous year and returned to power for a record third term. Prasad, meanwhile, succeeded in launching his sons Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav's political careers. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE The polls also saw a turnaround in the fortunes of the RJD, which emerged as the single largest party in the assembly, a far cry from 2010 when it failed to muster enough numbers to stake claim to the post of the leader of the opposition. Taints of corruption, however, continued to haunt the RJD supremo as cases of money laundering were lodged against his younger son Tejashwi, pertaining to a period when he was still in his teens. The scandal involving Tejashwi, who was the deputy chief minister of Bihar when his party was in coalition with the JD(U) and the Congress, was too much to stomach for an image-conscious Nitish Kumar, who snapped ties with the RJD and went back to the NDA, which he had quit in 2013. The RJD was, as a result of the dramatic turn of events, stripped of power and left with an axe to grind against Kumar. In a bid to perpetuate his hold over power, Prasad initiated his eldest daughter Misa Bharti, too, into active politics, besides wife Rabri Devi, who had succeeded him as chief minister and has over the years transformed from a tongue-tied housewife to a doughty, combative politician. In Tejashwi, the younger son believed to be his father's favourite, the party sees its future, while Tej Pratap reminds Prasad's admirers of his father's mannerisms with a shrewdly cultivated rustic touch. Depending upon their leanings, people recall with disdain or devotion Prasad's earthy swagger. The ailing septuagenarian continues to occupy the political centre stage in Bihar, even though he has been away from the public eye for more than a year. He now awaits the Supreme Court's decision on his bail plea. In the caste-ridden polity of Bihar, he would always be remembered as the architect of a formidable winning combination of the Muslims-Yadavs (MY) that thoroughly changed the political landscape. Despite allegations of corruption or patronage to criminals, Prasad is known for his stout defence of social justice, and the boldness with which he quelled communal passions in surcharged times like the Ayodhya movement of the 1990s. He had even stopped BJP stalwart L K Advani's 'Rath Yatra' in the same year when he was the chief minister and got him arrested. The RJD is the single largest constituent of the opposition grand alliance. If the anti-incumbency turns out to be strong, the party may well send the largest number of MPs from Bihar and emerge as a key player in the formation of the new government. By PTI ALLAHABAD: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam. During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her Ganga cruise is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade-long wilderness in the state. The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh offered prayers on the banks of Sangam -- a confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. In a tweet, Priyanka recalled her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While putting me to sleep at night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," the Congress leader said in a tweet in Hindi. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Soon after her arrival here on Sunday, Priyanka said political stagnation in Uttar Pradesh had left the state's youth, women, farmers and labourers distressed and it was her responsibility to change the politics here. "Due to stagnation in the politics of the state, youngsters, women, farmers and labourers are worried. They want to share their pain and agony, but in the noise of political arithmetic, their voice is completely absent from the policies of the state," she said in an open letter. Gandhi said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a 'sacha samwaad' (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in politics. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. The Congress leader said she would reach out to people through various means of transportation, including waterways, buses, train and 'padayatra' (on foot). "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our 'Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb' (cross culture). It does not differentiate among people. Gangaji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," Priyanka said letter read. As part of her campaign tour, Priyanka will also visit Bhadohi and Mirzapur districts. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. Abhijit Mulye By Express News Service MUMBAI: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar passed away on Sunday after battling pancreatic cancer for over a year. He was 63. Often referred to as a common mans chief minister because of his unassuming nature, Parikkar was the first IIT alumnus to become a legislator and then a CM. Adept at managing coalition dynamics, he became indispensable for the BJP in Goa because of its fractured mandate. The party suffered in Goa when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inducted him as Union defence minister, so he had to be sent back to the state to steer the government to safety. The Centre will observe national mourning on Monday and the Tricolour will fly at half mast. In his demise, Parrikar leaves behind a leadership vacuum with the Congress staking its claim to form the new government. Hours before Parrikar passed away, there was an intense buzz on former Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat defecting to the BJP from the Congress and taking over chief ministership. While Kamat sought to deflect it, saying he would be committing political suicide if he went back to the BJP, Goa Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo had told news agencies in the afternoon that the possibility of Kamat becoming CM was discussed at the party MLAs meet on Saturday night. An observer of Goa politics said, Anything is possible in Goa now. ALSO READ: Manohar Parrikar: IIT grad to Defence Minister of India Amid the flux, six MLAs, including three independents and those of the Goa Forward Party supporting the BJP-led government in the state, sought to identify themselves as a separate group within the state Assembly. Earlier in the day, Goa BJP chief Vinay Tendulkar had indicated the possibility of poaching, saying some Congress MLAs might switch over soon. With the effective strength of the Assembly reduced to 36 and the halfway mark at 19, the BJP-led coalition appears safe as of now, since it has 21 on its side [12 + 3 (GFP) + 3 (MGP) + 3 Independents = 21]. GFP leader Vijai Sardesai and MGP chief Sudin Dhavalikar too are in the CM race, according to sources. The first IIT-ian to be elected an MLA, ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar lost his battle to cancer on Sunday. An able administrator and an affable politician, the 64-year-old had come to be known as the Common Mans Chief Minister. ALSO READ: From surgical strikes to signing Rafale deal, Parrikar had short but an eventful term as Defence minister While speculation had been swirling around Parikkars health over the last couple of days, the official confirmation of his demise was made by President Ram Nath Kovind on his official Twitter handle. Extremely sorry to hear of the passing of Shri Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa, after an illness borne with fortitude and dignity, Kovind tweeted. Hours earlier, the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) in Goa had tweeted that his condition was extremely critical and doctors are trying their best. Parrikar had shown signs of recovery in the recent past and had even attended the Budget Session of the state Assembly. However, his condition took a turn for the worse after his blood pressure dropped a few days back. There were speculations that he had slipped into coma. He could only respond by opening his eyes, a senior Goa BJP leader said, explaining Parrikars condition since Saturday. NCP Chief Sharad Pawar and Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik, who had successfully battled cancer in the last few years, praised Parrikar for his brave battle against the disease. Parrikar showed exemplary strength through his struggle with the disease. However, its sad that he lost the battle in the end, Naik said. Pawar remembered Parrikar as a thoroughly cultured leader. Born on December 13, 1955, at Mapusa, Parrikar joined RSS during his school days. After graduating from the IIT-Bombay as a metallurgical engineer in 1978, Parrikar started his own business in Goa. He lost his wife Medha to cancer in 2001. Known for his simplicity, Parrikar was often referred to as Bhau by commoners. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Bhim Army said the Congress has done nothing for Dalits during its 60-year rule and there is no reason for it to support the party in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha polls. The remarks by the Bhim Army's national president Vinay Ratan Singh came days after Congress general secretary in-charge for east Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met its chief Chandrashekhar Azad at a hospital in Meerut on Wednesday, which is being seen as a Dalit outreach move of her party. "The Congress fought B R Ambedkar. The party ruled the country for so long but did nothing for us. Atrocities were inflicted on Dalits under its rule. It gave rise to the RSS and the BJP," Singh alleged, adding "there's not a single reason for us to support it". "She wanted to meet Chandrashekhar bhai, but he said no. She then made a special request and they met for a few minutes. No political issue figured in their talks," he told PTI. The Dalit group's founder, Chandrashekhar Azad, had announced at a rally in the national capital on Friday that he would contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi and welcomed the support of all parties, including the Congress, to take on the BJP. Chandrashekhar had also sought the support of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for his candidature, saying his group would back their alliance in other seats. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Singh said the Bhim Army would not have supported BSP supremo Mayawati had she not been part of the Dalit movement and asked SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to make amends for the mistakes of his party. He said a few people in the SP have taken up the issues of Dalits. "But, mistakes have been made and Akhilesh Yadav should give an answer. He should make amends if he wants Dalits to vote for his party," he said. He was referring to SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's comment in Parliament that Modi should become prime minister again and the party's alleged silence on Dalit issues. Asked about Mayawati terming the Bhim Army a product of the BJP during the 2017 Saharanpur clashes, he said, "We would have never supported her and her party had she not been part of the Dalit movement. There are a number of Dalit MPs and MLAs who are not part of this movement. We have nothing to do with them." Singh also said a candidate would also be fielded against Union minister Smriti Irani. He said they would also field candidates in Punjab which has a considerable Dalit population. The state sends 13 representatives to the Lok Sabha. The Chandrashekhar-led group shot to limelight during the May 2017 clashes between Dalits and upper caste Thakurs in Saharanpur. Chandrashekhar was arrested after the clashes. Though he was granted bail by the Allahabad High Court, the UP Police arrested him under the stringent National Security Act. He was released in September 2018 after 16 months in jail. By PTI NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday exuded confidence that people will make the right choice in the forthcoming general elections by electing a stable government rather than 'mahamilawat gathbandhan', which is being envisaged as a road to disaster. The mahamilawat gathbandhan, which has leaders and political parties of different ideologies, can only promise political instability, said Jaitley in his seventh blog on 'Agenda 2019'. "At the cusp of history, India and Indians have a choice to make. Are they electing a six month Government or a five year Government? Are they choosing between a tried, tested and a performing leader or a chaotic crowd of non-leaders? "Is India looking at a Government which accelerates growth, development and poverty alleviation or is it looking for a Government made by persons who excel only at self-enrichment? I am confident that aspirational people of an evolving society will make the right choice," said Jaitley who is also the head of the publicity wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mahamilawat gathbandhan, being formed with the objective of ousting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, "is a road to disaster. It is a race to the bottom," said the minister. Jaitley said while in the NDA government, the last word belonged to the Prime Minister, there is a "tug of war" on the issue of a leader in the coalition proposed by the opposition parties, including Congress, BSP, SP, TMC, and TDP. "Four people have clearly indicated their desire to be Prime Ministers - Shri Rahul Gandhi, Behan Mayawati, Mamata Didi and Shri Sharad Pawar. Each desires to expand his or her own base and reduce that of the competitor," the minister said in the blog. He further said that the gathbandhan unquestionably promises only political instability. Such non-ideological alliances have only lasted for a few months, he said while citing examples of governments headed by Chaudhary Charan Singh, V P Singh, Chandrasekhar, H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral, which did not last full term. "Who would want to invest in India in an environment of political instability? Would even Indian investors prefer to go outside and look for more stable countries for investment? Where there is instability, there is corruption. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE "People with brief political opportunities make the best of them. This is the experience of the past," said the senior BJP leader. Jaitley further said federalism in India is inherent both geographically and constitutionally. The Constitution defines 'India' i.e. 'Bharat- a Union of States'. The states must be fiscally strong. This is the essence of Indian federalism. Equally, if not more important, is the fact that for India to be a Union of States, there must be a strong Union, he said, adding if there is no strong Union, both India and India's federalism will stand to suffer." "Let there be absolute clarity. India is a Union of States. It is not a Confederation of States. That is the fundamental difference between NDA and the UPA. This is also the fundamental flaw in this idea of the federal front," he said. He said the framers of the Constitution had a vision and they were men of wisdom. "When prominent areas like defence, sovereignty, security of India, foreign policy and eventually the war against terror were maintained as the primary responsibility of the Union Government, can India be ever defended without a strong Union?" he wondered. "There can be no 'federal front' without a strong Central party," Jaitley said, adding that in the both the NDA governments the nucleus of the coalition was a large party. "There was no completion for leadership. The last word belonged to the Prime Minister. That is how the two Governments functioned. There was clarity in terms of policy and the Government had the capacity to take difficult decisions and deliver," he said. The minister further said that today we have reached a situation where India grows faster than others in the world. "The essential pre-requisite for accelerating our movement in this direction is that India must have political stability, a clear policy direction, a strong and decisive leadership. If we falter on any one of these, we will be letting down our own people and future generations. India cannot afford lost opportunities at this stage," he said. About 900 million Indians would start voting from April 11 to elect the next government in a seven-phased election. The votes are scheduled to be counted on May 23. By PTI MALE: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday met Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla and discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in the bilateral relationship. Swaraj arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. Swaraj held talks with her Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid on the first day of the visit. "Good meeting between EAM @SushmaSwaraj and Maldives Minister of Home Affairs @ShimranAb on the second day of her visit to Maldives. Discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in our bilateral relationship," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. Swaraj will also call on President Solih on Monday. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and a number of senior officials are accompanying Swaraj during the trip. Officials said it will be the first full-fledged bilateral visit at the political level from India to the Maldives after the new government assumed office. They said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Maldives in November only to attend Solih's swearing-in ceremony and no substantive discussion had taken place then. Sources said the Maldives was aware of Indian government's limitations due to the election code of conduct and that Swaraj's visit will be to enhance overall ties which came under strain during the presidentship of Abdulla Yameen, who was known to be close to China. Relations between India and the Maldives deteriorated after the then President Abdulla Yameen imposed emergency on February 5 last year. India had criticised his decision and asked his government to restore the credibility of the electoral and political process by releasing political prisoners. The emergency lasted for 45 days. Solih became president in November after he defeated Yameen in presidential elections. By PTI LONDON: A London court has issued an arrest warrant against fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, the main accused in the USD 2 billion PNB scam case, in response to a request by the Enforcement Directorate for his extradition in a money laundering case, officials said on Monday. They said the investigative agency has been recently informed about the issuance of the warrant by the Westminster Magistrate Court against Modi and he is expected to be put under formal arrest by the London Metropolitan police soon. The warrant was issued a few days back and the ED was subsequently informed, they said. ALSO READ | ED refutes allegation of inaction, says it's taking proactive steps to get Nirav Modi extradited Modi, 48, will be subsequently brought before the court to secure bail and the legal proceedings for his extradition will begin thereafter, they said. Westminster Magistrates' Court in London has issued an extradition warrant against Modi, making his arrest imminent, according to sources in London involved with the case. While the UK court and Scotland Yard said they cannot confirm or deny the warrant until an arrest has been executed and an accused has been formally charged, officials aware of the developments confirmed that a warrant was issued last week with authorities in India being made aware on Monday. "The reason we do not comment on an arrest until it takes place is because the individual must be charged before anything can be established," a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said. Now that a warrant has reportedly been issued, Modi -- wanted by India in relation to the Rs 13,500-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case -- can choose to voluntarily surrender at a police station or have to be arrested by Metropolitan Police officers charged with executing the warrant. The business tycoon's arrest, which could take place within days, would lead to Modi being produced before a District Judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London to be formally charged, following which he is expected to seek bail. The case will then follow a similar pattern through the UK courts as that of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who remains on bail since his arrest on an extradition warrant in April 2017 on Rs 9,000 fraud and money laundering charges. The 63-year-old businessman has since filed an application seeking leave to appeal against his extradition ordered by UK home secretary Sajid Javid last month. Mallya's case is in the final stages in that country. Javid had certified India's extradition request for Modi earlier this month, triggering the legal process in the courts, kick-started with the issuance of a warrant. News of the certification of India's request came just as Modi was tracked down to a three-bedroom flat in the Centre Point tower block of luxury apartments in the West End of London. He is believed to have arrived in London last year and was able to travel in and out of Britain at least four times since his passport was cancelled by the Indian authorities in February 2018. The revelation of Modi's whereabouts in London comes a day after his 30,000 sq ft seaside mansion at Kihim beach in Maharashtra was demolished by authorities using explosives. During some of his stay in London, he was reportedly also living in the heart of the city above his jewellery boutique called 'Nirav Modi' on Old Bond Street, which has since closed down. Modi, a diamond jeweller whose designs have been worn by Hollywood stars, is now believed to be running a new business, which describes itself on the UK's Companies House register as a wholesale trader in watches and jewellery and a retailer of watches and jewellery in specialised stores. Modi and his uncle, Mehul Choksi, are the main accused in the PNB scam and they both left India before the details of the fraud came to light in January 2018. Modi has been charge-sheeted by both the agencies and the ED has also attached his assets worth Rs 1,873.08 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and has also seized assets linked to him and his family worth Rs 489.75 crore. Sajjan Kumar By No state witnesses the centrality of the Dalit question as intensely as Uttar Pradesh on account of its deep politicisation since 1980s and thick demographic weight, accounting for 21% of the state population. BSP, founded in 1984 under the leadership of Kanshi Ram, emerged on the political scene of the most populous state both as a party as well as a movement thereby emerging as the natural claimant of a new generation of assertive Dalits, taking them away from the old patronage mode of Congress approach. The fact that the Congress was the first choice of Dalits before BSP embarked on the political horizon, the question as to why the political shift of the community was a success in Uttar Pradesh but a failure in other states despite having a conducive demographic factor in its favour, acquires salience to account for its past as well as future in the Hindi heartland. The context BSPs success in UP lied in the positive interplay of three factors. First, like every state it ventured into the Dalit question by privileging the socio-psychological issue of Respect and Dignity against the humiliation faced by the Dalits. Thereby, it succeeded in striking an emotional chord with the community. This plank made the party more relatable to the Dalit masses as against the Congress that was following the old patronage model of Dalit politics. Second, this leads to the other aspects to why the party succeeded just in UP. One of the crucial factors was the internal structure of Dalit demography wherein the most conscious Dalit sub-caste, Jatav-Chamars which both Kanshi Ram and Mayawati belonged to accounted for 55% of UP population. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Thus, there was a substantial core to the Bahujan experiment whose political loyalty to the party got doubly cemented by ideology as well as caste ties. Though, the two factors help understand the rise of BSP in Uttar Pradesh, they dont elucidate the failure of the party in other north and central states with a thick Dalit population Madhya Pradesh (15.6%), Himachal Pradesh (25.2%), Punjab (32%), Uttarakhand (19%), Haryana (20.2%), Delhi (17%), Rajasthan (18%) and Bihar (16%). Third and most crucial political factor accounting for the spectacular rise of BSP in UP is that while the state witnessed the electoral decline of Congress since 1989, the same was not true in other mentioned states, with the notable exception of Bihar. Thus, it was the decline of Congress in UP that made factors like the emotional pitch of Bahujan-discourse and numerical dominance of Jatav-Chamars transcend into Dalits shift to the BSP. In other states, while the emotional pitch and demography offered the party a fertile ground, the continuance of Congress as a formidable political force prevented the shift of Dalits away from it. This then inverses the widely held sequence of cause-effect in the state about Congress decline and BSPs rise. It is argued that due to growing politicisation of Dalits under the leadership of Kanshi Ram along Ambedkarite lines, Congress lost their support, making the rise of BSP the cause and decline of Congress the effect. However, had that been the case, then Congress should have witnessed the long-term electoral decline and the loss of Dalit support in other states too, wherein the thick Dalit demography and corresponding political awareness was as much as that in UP. Further, the fact that besides UP, Congress witnessed a long-term electoral decline in neighbouring Bihar, a state with no formidable Dalit movement, makes a case of Congress decline being the cause and BSPs rise the effect more convincing. In a nutshell, the combination of factors, demography; privileging emotional pitch of self-respect and dignity over redistributive politics of patronage and decline of Congress made BSP a success story in UP and the absence of the third factor accounted for its failure in other states. This also partly explains as to why BSP wasnt a significant factor in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh in the recent assembly elections. 2019 and beyond In this backdrop, it could be strongly argued that the electoral fortunes of Congress and BSP in any state are inversely related. That is, unless BSP commands the dominant position in UP, the revival of Congress is beyond the point as the Grand Old Party needs to win over the Dalits. On the other hand, if Congress witnesses a revival at all, BSP, in all likelihood, would be at the receiving end. This political equation poses a challenge for the Congress as well as BSP in the current political scenario in UP. Though Dalit political discourse in the state is fractured along various streams like Bahujan, Hindutva and electoral opportunism, the pragmatism of Jatav-Chamars and others is likely to ensure that they would vote for BSP in significant numbers. Therefore, 2019 is the moment of optimism for BSP. However, theres a new subtle trend in the making which, if it succeeds, would give a debilitating blow to the party. The fact that Congress is intensifying its effort to co-opt Dalit leaders like Chandrashekhar Azad, who has emerged from a protest movement with a massive emotional chord and traction among the community poses a challenge to the BSP on all the three counts. First, leaders like Azad, if co-opted into Congress, could add an emotional and socio-psychological dimension along with the traditional redistributive mode of Dalit politics, thereby taking away the advantage BSP had since the 1980s. Second, the social background of Azad has the potential to cause tremors in the BSP core base of Jatav-Chamar as he himself hails from the same caste. This becomes all the more important as hitherto, all the non-BSP parties have concentrated upon non-Jatav-Chamar Dalits to win over, leaving the Jatav-Chamars on the assumption that the core community would not desert the party. However, when a young leader, who is the outcome of a movement signifying Dalit assertion, belongs to the core support base, strikes a deep emotional chord with the community and has been politicised outside the fold of institutional structure of BSP, joins Congress, the core would no more impregnable. Therein lies the moment of anxiety and of potential crisis for BSP coexisting with the optimism. Egypt has expressed its sincere condolences to the families of the victims of floods in Indonesia, according to a Monday statement by the foreign ministry. On Sunday, the natural-disaster-prone country was hit by an earthquake, triggering a landslide that hit a popular waterfall on the tourist island of Lombok, killing at least three people and damaging hundreds of homes, the AP reported. Officials in the country said on Monday that the death toll had risen to 79 after torrential downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides that tore through mountainside villages, with dozens of others missing. The Egyptian statement also wished for the speedy recovery of those injured. It also highlighted Egypt's solidarity with the government and people of Indonesia in this crisis. Search Keywords: Short link: By Express News Service BENGALURU: Mandya Lok Sabha seat aspirant and former Congress leader Ambareesh's wife Sumalatha Ambareesh on Monday made her candidature official. The veteran actor will contest as an independent candidate against chief minister HD Kumaraswamy's son and Congress-JD(S) alliance's joint candidate Nikhil Kumaraswamy also known as Nikhil Kumar. Sumalatha along with son Abhishek were flanked by Kannada film industry superstars Darshan Toogudeep and Yash apart from producer Rockline Venkatesh and senior actor Doddanna adding star power to the announcement. "A lot of people may not like my decision to contest but I am only reciprocating the love and affection the people of Mandya have shown us even after Ambareesh's demise. I have decided to contest as an independent candidate," Sumalatha Ambareesh announced reiterating that her decision may earn her many enemies. "I appeal to everyone to keep away from personal attacks. There are young people watching us and we are to be their role models. Let us prove that there can be a dignified campaign that doesn't need mudslinging," she appealed to her supporters. Incidentally, Sumalatha has been personally attacked by senior members of the JDS including PWD minister HD Revanna and Transport minister DC Thammanna- both of whom are related to Nikhil Kumaraswamy. FOLLOW OUR FULL ELECTION COVERAGE HERE Sumalatha will file her nomination papers on March 20. While the BJP has sent her feelers on backing her campaign, Sumalatha said that no official talks have taken place. "The only party I approached to be a candidate from was the Congress but they conveyed to me that they are not in a place to field a candidate because of the coalition. For thousands of Congress workers in Mandya it is a matter of existential crisis. I have their backing. I was given many offers including an MLC post but it is Mandya or nothing for me," Sumalatha said. The actor has received massive backing from the film industry with superstars like Darshan and Yash expected to be part of her campaign. By Express News Service MYSURU: Emelife Stella Chinelo, a 28-year-old from Nigeria, had returned to her country only recently after learning that she has topped the University of Mysore in MSc Chemistry. However, she had no inkling about emerging as a golden girl, which she came to know only a few weeks ago. On Sunday, Chinelo received 20 gold medals and five cash prizes, the highest ever in post-graduation studies, during the varsitys 99th convocation. An elated Chinelo told reporters that it was the result of hardwork and perseverance. I devoted most of my time towards studies. I was either in the classroom or library. The reason why I chose India, especially the UoM, for higher studies is because of its scope for academic excellence, she said. Moreover, she is so good at Chemistry that she also topped Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Nigeria, where she studied BSc (applied chemistry). A native of Anabra state in the eastern part of the African country, Chinelo wants to make a career in teaching in any part of the world. However, for the time being, she has landed a job as a teacher in her country. Her mother is also a teacher, while her father is a businessman. By Express News Service BENGALURU: After weeks of suspense over her candidature from the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, Sumalatha Ambareesh will make her decision public on Monday. The veteran actor and wife of former Congress MP and minister in the Karnataka cabinet Ambareesh is expected to make her contest as an independent candidate official. While the leaders of the Congress, under the compulsions of the coalition, have asked supporters to steer clear of Sumalathas campaign and work for joint candidate Nikhil Kumaraswamy, workers of the Congress and JDS alike are seen leading the actors campaign in Mandya so far. The BJP will take a call on whether the party will field a candidate in Mandya or back Sumalatha after she makes an announcement. FOLLOW OUR LOK SABHA POLL COVERAGE HERE She stands to lose close to 1.5 lakh minority votes that are currently in her favour if she contests from the BJP. Factoring in the support she is garnering from workers of both Congress and JDS, she is sure to contest as an independent, said a Congress party office-bearer from Mandya who is working for Sumalathas campaign. He insisted that there is no question of her withdrawing from the contest. Sumalatha who has been touring the constituency has covered 35 wards in Mandya City Municipal Council area alone. Mandya city almost accounts for 50 per cent of votes in the constituency. Sumalatha, who met former external affairs minister and now BJP leader S M Krishna last week said that she would announce her decision on March 18. She will address a press conference at 11.30am at a private hotel in Bengaluru on her candidature. Ajay Kanth By Express News Service KOCHI: The Centre is receiving more applications from Keralites serving jail term abroad, seeking a transfer to spend the rest of their sentence period in Indian prisons, under the Repatriation of Prisoners Act, 2003. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) data shows that of the 43 applications being processed, Kerala has the highest (12), followed by Punjab (eight), Tamil Nadu (seven) and Andhra Pradesh (six). Between 2015 and 2018, the government received 65 applications from Indians incarcerated abroad, for transfer. While 14 were transferred to India, 43 applications are being processed. Many non-resident Keralites living in the Middle East end up in jail for major and minor offences. Lack of proper guidance and poor language skills result in their conviction. Whenever we receive a request for repatriation, we forward it to the appropriate authority, said NORKA-Roots CEO Harikrishnan Namboothiri K. He said it is the task of the MHA and Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to take up the application with the country where the person is serving the jail term. An MEA report presented in the Parliament exactly a year ago showed that 7,850 Indians are lodged in the prisons of 78 countries. Working under a different law abroad leads to conflicts A majority of the sentenced Keralites are in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UK, USA, Canada, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, France, Germany, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. More Keralites are moving abroad, seeking blue and white collar jobs in the Middle East and elsewhere. When youre an expatriate and work under a different law, it can lead to conflicts with other people and land you jail, said another officer. NORKA estimate shows that more than 48 lakh Keralites are living outside the country. A 2016 data released by the Kerala State Planning Board showed Malappuram accounted for highest number of NRKs with 18 per cent followed by Thrissur (11). By Express News Service KORAPUT/JEYPORE: Three tribal communities of the district have threatened that they will cast vote in favour of NOTA (none of the above option) during the ensuing General Elections protesting the delay in getting tribal status for their groups. Prospective candidates need to be wary of the NOTA factor as local activists are on an intense campaign to create awareness on the option. Voters of three tribal communities - Dora, Kamar and Rana - have decided to press the NOTA button in the elections because they are deprived of ST status. They alleged that the local leaders had promised to accord tribal status for these communities in 2014 polls. But they have failed to keep their promise, said Kamar Samaj president Bhagban Golori. Supporting the cause, Dora community president Baidyanath Gemel said they will participate in the democratic process, but will take the NOTA route in this election as a mark of protest for unfulfilled demands. The political leaders have been betraying the community for the last few decades. Even Pottangi MLA Prafulla Pangi had made an agreement in writing with representatives of the communities promising that Dora, Kamar, Rana, Puttia (Dulia), Mali and Gouda castes will get tribal status if he gets elected in 2014 elections. But no step has been taken in this regard yet and the issue was not raised even once by him in the Assembly, Gemel added. Since the British era, the communities such as Gouda, Rana, Mali, Muka, Dora, Kamar and Kumbar were considered as hill tribes. But later, these castes were considered as general category in Odisha, while it got tribal status in Andhra Pradesh in 1956. However, after implementation of Mandal Commission report in 1990s, these communities were brought under OBC category, he said. Rana Samaj leader K P Majhi said both the State and Central governments have failed to provide ST status to Rana, Kamar and Dora communities despite repeated demands. While these communities are enjoying the benefits of ST status in neighbouring Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, the same castes in Odisha are being deprived of Government facilities. As per report, these three communities have about 4.12 lakh population in the region and their NOTA decision will affect the candidates. Meanwhile, the leaders of these communities have launched a campaign to create awareness on NOTA among the voters in the region. By Express News Service BARIPADA: Dr B R Ambedkar is one of the architects of the Constitution of India. However, the present generation seems to have forgotten Dr Ambedkars contribution to the nation as is evident from the neglect of his statue in Baripada. The life-size sculpture of Dr Ambedkar, also known as the father of Indian Constitution, is installed in front of Triranga Club at Purnachandrapur. The statue is garlanded once a year by publicity-hungry political leaders. A day before the birth anniversary of one of Indias greatest social reformers, a tent is erected around the statue and once the programme is over, it is left neglected. The area around the sculpture has turned into a parking lot. Locals blamed the district administration and leaders for not paying attention to the conservation and renovation of the statue. The Rural Development department had demolished a sculpture of Dr Ambedkar near Triranga Club during an eviction drive on April 2, 2012, for expansion of road and infrastructure development in the town. The administration had immediately installed a smaller sculpture of the great personality after residents of ward nos 15, 16, 19 and 21 protested against the demolition. The district administration had then promised to instal a sculpture of the eminent lawyer. As per the direction of then district Collector Rajesh Prabhakar Patil, a life-size sculpture was installed on December 6, 2015 in front of Triranga Club. Patil had directed the officials to start construction of a protection wall, an umbrella-shaped shed, over the sculpture and boundary wall around the statue. The officials were also instructed to clear the Government land around the sculpture of encroachment. However, nothing has been done in this regard yet. In fact, the district administrations negligence has emboldened the people to encroach upon more Government land around the statue. When Surendra Kumar Meena took over as the Collector of Mayurbhanj, he ordered Sub-Collector A Akhtar to prepare a report on the progress of the project. But again, nothing was done. The statue now stands as an epitome of neglect. Triranga Club president Alok Kumar Mohanty said the members of the club and local youths clean the statue and garland it on various occasions. But the district administration is yet to keep its promise of infrastructure development and beautification of the site where the statue is installed, he said. By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: A tribal protester was killed and several others injured in a violent clash between locals and Odisha Industrial Security Force (OISF) personnel during protests outside Vedanta Limited's Lanjigarh alumina refinery in Kalahandi district on Monday. Villagers from Rengalpali, Bandhaguda, Kothajuar and others, which are set to be affected by refinery expansion project, staged a demonstration in front of the refinery gate demanding jobs for the displaced families when the situation got out of control. As the demonstrators turned violent, the OISF personnel resorted to lathi-charge. While several protestors were injured, one Dilu Patra of Chatrapur village in the periphery of the project, succumbed to fatal internal injuries. He was rushed to the hospital where he was declared brought dead. With tension prevailing in the region, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders under section 144 of CrPC. The SP, additional SP and other senior officers are camping at the spot to prevent any further flare up. Reports said the company had started discussions with the locals over rehabilitation and other issues as it embarked on its expansion work. The villagers of Rengalpali had been assured of proper rehabilitation measures along with employment in the refinery. The villagers, however, demanded provisioning of jobs before getting displaced. They also demanded free education of their children at the DAV Public School on the premises of the company. "We are already in the process to provide them jobs. However, today many protestors resorted to violence and even manhandled the security personnel. Guards retaliated in self defence," Vedanta, Head Corporate Communications, Sonal Choithani said. She also said the DAV School has been established for providing free education to the children of the project-affected and periphery villages. Many are already studying in the school. Johanna Deeksha By Express News Service RS Mugilan apparently never travelled even in the second class compartments of a train. In a conversation with Henri Tiphagne, one of TN's most popular human rights lawyers and an activist himself, Mugilan had once said that he always prefered to sit in the unreserved compartment. He believed that if anyone were to ever attack him, it would be the people in the unreserved compartments that would protect him. On February 15, 2019, Mugilan may or may not have gotten into a train but we know that there was no one to protect him. It has been exactly 30 days since Mugilan disappeared. At a time when we have CCTV cameras, phone cameras and social media, the obvious question is how did a 52-year-old man disappear after giving a high-profile press conference and releasing a documentary that would have damaged Sterlite, one of the biggest corporations in the world? In a recent interview, Mugilan's wife CP Poongodi said that she hoped that her husband would at least return after the elections are over. But there is an uneasy feeling among many of his friends and colleagues that he may never return. RS Mugilan with SP Udayakumar in a picture from a few years ago. We spoke to two of his very good friends and colleagues in the world of activism SP Udayakumar, convenor of the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy and Henri Tiphagne, executive director at People's Watch. The two met Mugilan around the same time, in the early years of this decade, on the ground that holds the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant Idinthakarai. Always a fighter, never a hider Udayakumar spent about two-and-a-half years with Mugilan between 2011 and 2014 in Idinthakarai protesting against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project. Udayakumar said they spent every single day together, "We worked together, campaigned together, ate together, he even slept on the bed beside me," he recalled. Mugilan had made his mark as a front line activist by then. After completing his diploma in civil engineering, Mugilan landed a job with the PWD but quit it to join the farmer's struggle in his hometown of Erode. Slowly, he began to join other protests and became a familiar face. Henri Tiphagne at a solidarity meeting conducted for Mugilan after his disappearance. He has been at the forefront of the protests demanding his return. When asked to speak about Mugilan, the first thing that Tiphagne says is that he's proud of him. "I want to pay tribute to his unique quality of participating in all kinds of civil liberty protests. He didn't have to be a leader, he would engage in any struggle for the people. He led by example, he believed that legal justice was important but he kept democracy alive by taking to the streets," the lawyer said. The last call Udayakumar last met Mugilan about two months before he went missing. They met at a friend's son's wedding in Thoothukudi and the last time they spoke was on February 13. "I had called to invite him for a public meeting in Tirunelveli. But he couldn't hear me too well because he was on a bike so he told me he would call me back," the activist said. He never did. ALSO READ: The question on everyones mind - Where is activist Mugilan? The last time that Tiphagne spoke to Mugilan was on the evening of February 15. He had called to congratulate him after his successful press conference. "I had put together a 23 member committee to investigate the Thoothukudi shooting but we weren't able to find the things that he had. So I had called him to congratulate him and tell him how proud I was," he said. When news broke that Mugilan had gone missing, like many others, Udayakumar also thought that the police had arrested him. "My first theory was that the police had arrested him and taken him underground. But when there was sign of him after several days, I began to believe that maybe a paid mercenary had kidnapped him and maybe done something to him," he said. Tiphagne also believes that people in power have a hand in his going missing. SP Udayakumaran and Mugilan at a wedding. The last time the two met was at another wedding in Thoothukudi. But they both dismiss the other rumour that is making the rounds that he disappeared to escape from his personal problems. They both agree that the theory doesn't make any sense at all. Rumour doesn't have it The leading theory being floated by people who barely know him is that he's hiding away because of personal problems. Why would someone who put so many years of hard work into their career, give it all up and run away from personal problems? "In all the years that I spent with him, never once did he show in anyway that he was a coward. He had a stellar personality and never ran away from a challenge. It makes no sense that he would go underground," Udayakumar said. He is someone who has put so many years into working for movements that have challenged the most powerful people," the activist added, "He had several reasons in the past to go underground but he never did it. Why would he choose to do it now? And for a personal problem? I've never known him to be that sort of person." Tiphagne recalls a time when Mugilan was in jail and he was trying to get him out on bail. Mugilan apparently refused, saying that he would rather stay inside and get the case sorted out, "Why would a man like that who didn't mind staying in jail and refused bail despite being in the right, want to go underground? He could have chosen to go underground then, but refused. He loved his family and his family loved him back. I've known that through my close association with them all these years," he explained. Mugilan has been part of several causes over the last decade, some he has led, some he has stood in solidarity. Udayakumar's convictions run deeper, "When you spend 24 hours of every single day with the same person for two and half years, you really get to know them. You can hide your weaknesses but it always comes out in the way that you behave. I'm sure he may have had failings but he was a good person. And he would never abandon his family," Udayakumar added. Both the men agree that Mugilan was, above all else, a courageous man. A man who was committed to the cause, a man who didn't care for name or fame, a sincere and generous man, a methodical man who took a lot of notes, a man who put his heart and soul into learning everything about an issue and did everything in his power to do the right thing. It simply did not make sense that he would hide anything, let alone run away from it. So what has happened to Mugilan? Mugilan had found evidence of paid mercenaries who were behind the stone pelting and the arson that led to the Thoothukudi police firing and ensuing violence. This would have definitely instigated the people implicated, Udayakumar feels. "What happened on May 22 was a planned, pre-meditated murder. It was done to get rid of activists. The disappearance of Mugilan seems like another threat to the activist community," Udayakumar explained. The murders of Gauri Lankesh, Kalburgi and others was one type of silencing. This is another, he feels. Mugilan with the police during a protest. Initially people believed the police had arrested him for his press conference on Sterlite. "This is going to discourage peaceful assembly. Already a lot of people are refusing to come out and protest, this has made it worse. The intimidation and the coercion has worked," Tiphagne said. Both the activists feel that Sterlite has a hand in Mugilan's disappearance and the fear they might not see him again is there. "But we hope that nothing has happened," Udayakumar said hopefully. The judiciary, the police and the silent CM Udayakumaran says that postponing a habeas corpus when it is a matter of life and death is unheard of in the judiciary. "This is not a civil matter that it can get be postponed to 14 days. I also believe that if the police wants to, they can solve this case overnight," Udayakumar said. Are we living in a jungle or are we after a guerrilla group, he questions, "How is it that they've still not found him?" Udayakumar is not satisfied with the Tamil Nadu police effort towards finding Mugilan. He thinks that just like May 22, this time too, the police and the hooligans are hand in glove. Tiphagne, who has filed a case in the Madras High Court, is a little more positive about the police, "They will be presenting a report on March 18 and I do think that they have been putting in too much of an effort. They have interrogated 145 witnesses in the case." This was however, not the case in the beginning. Sudha Ramalingam, the advocate in the case also said that the police were asking all the wrong questions. "They asked me why my name is Tiphagne and they asked Sudha (Ramalingam) why she was taking up the case for free," the lawyer said. He also feels the judiciary is doing its job but he is disappointed that the judiciary is not angry. "Only anger can lead to passionate and creative justice. I hope they become more angry by what's happened, only then will they take decisions that will help the case" the human rights lawyer feels. Mugilan gave up a well-paying job to take up the cause of the people and those very people eagerly await his return. The one person that Tiphagne does have an issue with is the Chief Minister. He was upset that at a recent conference, when the CM was asked about Mugilan he barely gave a response. "The way he answered the question only makes me feel that the government and our politicians also have a hand in his disappearance," he added. There are 14,500 CCTV cameras installed in the city, aided by the Nirbhaya Fund. "The way that the case is going it makes me wonder if the cameras are for investigation or just surveillance. It took them so long to figure out whether Mugilan entered the station or left it. Only now they've found that Mugilan re-entered the station through a smaller gate elsewhere," Tiphange said. He also pointed out that Mugilan was active on Facebook till about 1.15 am that night. "A person who is kidnapped usually makes sure that they get rid of the mobile as soon as possible but here he had access. Everything about the situation is dodgy," he explained. A warning to the world of activism? It can never be easy to see a colleague disappear into thin air and feel completely helpless about it. But it isn't just the activists who have to battle the threats and the mental trauma, it's the people around them too who suffer almost equally. Ever since Mugilan's disappearance, Udayakumar's friends and family have been begging him to not travel alone. He still does. "Whether it is Sterlite, May 22, hydrocarbon, the Salem expressway, people are always going to be on the streets. I will be too. Our work is to serve the public and so that is what we'll do. We cannot let the fascists win," he says. But the feeling of helplessness doesn't go away, "It's like choosing to remain in an abusive marriage. We are resigned to our fate. But we will continue to agitate," he added. Even if he is out there travelling alone, his wife stays in contact whenever she can. "When I leave, when I board a train, when I get down, every single time my wife calls me these days," he says. It isn't much different for Tiphagne. Fear is not something new, it set in a long time ago. Even before the present government took charge. But Mugilan's disappearance has left him shaken too. "I'm a heart patient and from the day I filed the petition, I have not slept. Not a single night. I keep having dreams and Mugilan is in them. My wife also knows I never sleep and this is not good for a heart patient. But if it is this bad for me I cannot even imagine what it might feel like for his wife and son. They are such selfless people," Tiphange said. In his final press conference before he disappeared, Mugilan promised the people of Thoothukudi that they will find justice and till they find it, he said he would strive for it. "Vaaimai thaan vellum, vaaimai matum thaan vellum (Truth will triumph and only truth will triumph)" he said. The people of Thoothukudi and the state wait for him, hoping that what he said was true. That fate is on his side and on the side of justice and democracy. (This article was originally published on EdexLive) B Satyanarayana Reddy By Express News Service KHAMMAM: With the Lok Sabha elections just around the corner, the police department is deploying an additional two companies of paramilitary forces to Maoist-affected areas in Bhadrachalam agency. The move comes after intelligence reports said Maoists may resort to violence during the Parliament elections. Sources claim that each company consists of 90 to 120 police personnel. One of the companies has already reached Bhadrachalam. The Greyhounds, Special Party and CoBRA forces have already intensified their combing operations in the Telangana-Chhattisgarh State border. Maoist influence is strong in Bhadrachalam and Pinapaka Assembly constituencies because of their proximity to Chhattisgarh, a Maoist stronghold. Bhadrachalam, Pinapaka and Yellandu of Bhadradrikothagudem Assembly constituencies figure under the Mahabubabad Parliament constituency, reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST). Additional forces are being deployed to ensure that the Maoists do not enter Telangana, said D Uday Kumar, officer on special duty, adding that the combing operations are being held within a 10 km radius of the border area. Stating that the people living in potential target areas have been asked to leave for safer places, he stressed that the political leaders and candidates have been instructed to inform local police before going to remote areas. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Congress partys decision to field TPCC working president A Revanth Reddy from Malkajgiri in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections seems to have changed the equations in the constituency, probably even forcing the TRS to rethink about the choice of their candidate. The ruling TRS, which had won all the seven Assembly seats under the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha segment in the last Decembers Assembly elections, is confident of winning Malkajgiri seat with a huge margin. The pink party, according to sources, was planning to field either well-known industrialist Naveen Rao, who is close to the Kalvakuntla family, or Medchal MLA Ch Malla Reddys son-in-law Marri Rajsekhar Reddy. Since Congress declared Revanth Reddy as the candidate, the TRS is now forced to weigh the options. According to party sources from Malkajgiri constituency, TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao is now looking to field a strong candidate whose popularity matches that of Revanth Reddy. Meanwhile, a student leader who quit Congress party is likely to join the TRS party on Monday. He is hoping to try his luck in the constituency. He has reportedly stated that TRS party has given posts and positions to student leaders who were active during the statehood agitation and hoping that the same sentiment will work in his favour as well. Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is in Oman at the head of the Egyptian delegation to the Egyptian-Omani joint committee, which kicked off in Muscat on Monday. The meetings will tackle means of boosting economic, trade and investment cooperation between Cairo and Muscat, the Omani news agency said. The spokesman for Egypts foreign ministry Ahmed Hafez said that the joint committee's work is part of the follow-up to the implementation of the results of the meeting of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Sultan Qaboos Bin Said in Muscat in 2018. The committee is expected to see the signing of a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding between the two sides, as well as consultation on and coordination of positions on regional and international issues of common concern. Search Keywords: Short link: By PTI BEIJING: China on Monday said that it would like to see the easing of tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack and the issue would figure in the first strategic dialogue between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday. Qureshi who arrived here on Monday is visiting China, days after Beijing for the fourth time blocked a bid in the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to designate Pakistan-based chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group Masood Azhar as a "global terrorist" by putting a technical hold on the proposal, a move India termed as disappointing. The JeM has claimed responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead and escalated tensions between India and Pakistan. ALSO READ| Pakistan and China shouldn't create hurdles in designating Azhar as global terrorist: Dawn newspaper The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US on February 27. "As neighbour, China would like to see easing of tensions between the two. We would like to see the two countries continue to engage in dialogue for the peace and stability of the region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here. "I believe the issues causing regional tensions will be discussed," Geng said. To another question whether the issue of listing of Azhar would figure in the talks specially in the backdrop of Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui expressing confidence that it would be resolved, Geng said, "well I can't prejudge the topics" that are going figure in the talks. "But they will discuss issues of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern," he said. Regarding the listing of Azhar, "China will continue to deal with the issue with a responsible and constructive manner and will maintain close communication with all parties, including India and Pakistan," he said. Lu on Sunday exuded confidence of resolving the sticky issue of designating Azhar as a global terrorist through consultations. "I am quite sure this matter (listing of Azhar by the UN) will be resolved. This is only a technical hold and the matter can be resolved through continued consultation," Luo said on the side-lines of an event at the Chinese embassy. According to reports in the Pakistani media, Qureshi, which is on a three-day visit to China, will hold comprehensive discussions on the entire range of bilateral relations, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Both sides will also discuss the regional situation and cooperation at multilateral fora. Qureshi will also address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties' dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. He will also call on the Chinese leadership, the reports said. The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Balochistan with China's Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India is opposed to the project as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Geng said China welcomed the talks between India and Pakistan last week to open the Kartarupur Corridor. India and Pakistan last year agreed to open up a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur - the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev - to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district. "We welcome this interaction. Hope this can further ease tensions between both sides and improve regional situation. India and Pakistan are neighbours and always live with each other," he said. Good relations between both will serve the interest of both and common aspirations of the international community, he said. "We hope the two sides continue to show goodwill meet halfway, resolve difference through dialogue and uphold regional peace and stability together," he said. Asked whether Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou who recently visited Pakistan would visit India also, Geng said, "As far as I know China and India maintain communication at various levels. So if there such a visit we will release the information in a timely manner." By UNI MOSCOW: The US Department of Transportation has launched an investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) approval of Boeing 737 MAX planes that were involved in two recent fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday citing informed sources. The news comes after Boeing 737 MAX planes were globally grounded last week for an indefinite period of time following the deadly crash of an aircraft of this model in Ethiopia earlier on March 10 and the accident involving a Boeing of the same type in Indonesia last October. According to the newspaper, the probe is focused on a flight safety system, which is believed to have played a certain role in the Indonesian plane crash. This system dubbed manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system, or MCAS was designed to prevent stalls in flaps-retracted, low-speed, nose-up flight. The US Department of Transportation has already notified the FAA about the inquiry and demanded to keep all relevant electronic documents, the publication said. First of all, the authorities intend to find out whether the FAA followed the established standards and engineering analyses in the certification process of the new MCAS system. A Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 MAX 8 of the Ethiopian Airlines crashed on March 10 minutes after takeoff. All 157 people from 35 countries who were on board were killed. The causes of the accident are yet to be investigated. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Windy with showers and thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low near 35F. Winds SSW at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Windy with showers and thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low near 35F. Winds SSW at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Egypt has extended its condolences to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe after the death of more than 150 people in floods that hit the three countries. Cyclone Idai killed at least 157 people in Zimbabwe and Mozambique as it tore across Southern Africa last week, Reuters reported, and vast areas of land have been flooded, roads destroyed and communications disrupted. Malawi was also badly affected by the floods, which have left hundreds of people injured and thousands displaced. In a statement on Monday, the Egyptian foreign ministry wished the injured a speedy recovery. Egypt stands by the side of the governments and peoples of Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe in these crises, the statement added. Search Keywords: Short link: (Newser) Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen died in October, but his passion for hunting for World War II shipwrecks didn't end when his life did. Allen funded missions that famously found the USS Lexington, USS Juneau, and USS Indianapolis, and in January, the first expedition since his death commenced. Writing for the New York Times Magazine, Ed Caesar joined the hunt for the USS Wasp aboard the Petrel, "perhaps the best-equipped, and certainly the most successful, private vessel on Earth for finding deepwater wrecks." Purchased by Allen in 2016, the 250-foot oil-and-gas-maintenance ship was transformed into a wreck hunter armed with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) worth $5 million apiece. Just filling the fuel tank costs $650,000. The goal was to find the Wasp, an aircraft carrier that was struck by a Japanese sub's torpedoes in the Coral Sea on Sept. 15, 1942. story continues below The Wasp's situation was hopeless, and the nearby USS Lansdowne was ordered to fire a second wave of torpedos into it, sending it to a watery grave more than 2.5 miles down. Some 194 of the more than 2,200 men aboard lost their lives that day. Finding their final resting place would be no easy task. "You need to find the haystack before you can find the needle," Caesar writes, both due to the depth, the often imprecise nature of WWII-era ship-position-plotting methods, and the timelinethe 15-day search period and particulars of the AUV meant there would be a maximum of 15 chances to send the drone down. They found debris right away. But after searching 150 square miles, there was no ship. The coordinates plotted as the Wasp went down had been wrong. The debris wasn't the Wasp's. But it did provide a big clueand gave birth to a theory that led to the Wasp. Read the full story here. (Read more Longform stories.) (Newser) Sara Tirschwell says she feels used, and is willing to fight backto the tune of at least $30 million. The investor worked at a powerful Wall Street asset management firm called TCW Group Inc, where she claims her boss pressured her into sex and abandoned her to the wolves when she stopped sleeping with him, the New York Times reports. Adding complexity is that said boss, Jess Ravich, was also her ex-boyfriend. "He had the power to make or break my professional trajectory," says the 53-year-old. "If he didnt have that power, I would not have had sex with him. That's my shame. My shame is that I played his game." After more than a year at TCW, she filed a sex-harassment claim in 2017 and got fired nine days later amid accusations she had violated company policies. story continues below Smelling retaliation, Tirschwell soon filed suit for $30 million or more against Ravich, CEO David Lippman, and TCW. But when interviewed, her memory of what happened when is hazy, and Ravich's lawyers say TCW work calendars contradict most of her claims. She was also fired while falling short of an ambitious $100 million target on a distressed debt fund for TCW and seeking a $2 million severance package (the company offered $500,000). Yet text messages show Ravich and Tirschwell appeared intimateafter giving her New York Rangers tickets he texted, "And what do i get :)"and Ravich later lost a company board position over their "unprofessional" exchanges, per Bloomberg. Still, he denies having sex with her. And unless they settle, this is a rare #MeToo case that's actually headed to court. (Read more #MeToo stories.) (Newser) President Trump is apparently still feuding with John McCainseven months after the senator's death. After a report that a McCain associate had leaked the infamous Russia dossier, Trump quoted Ken Starr as saying it was a "very dark stain" on McCain's record and tweeted that the senator had "far worse stains," including his vote against repealing ObamaCare. In another tweet Sunday, Trump claimed it had been proven that it was "'last in his class' (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the election," CNN reports. According to the Washington Post, McCain graduated fifth from last in his class, was not aware of the dossier until weeks after the election, and did not share it with the media. story continues below Observers were taken aback by the ferocity of Trump's attack on the deceased fellow Republican. "There's no low with him," McCain political adviser John Weaver tells the New York Times. "Theres no bottom." Meghan McCain tweeted: "No one will ever love you the way they loved my father," and advised Trump to spend his Saturdays with his family instead of "obsessing over mine" on Twitter. Trump responded with a tweet from conservative commentator Lori Hendry, who said millions of Americans "truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain." GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, didn't condemn the president's behavior, but praised his longtime friend McCain as a hero and one of history's "most consequential" senators. "Nothing about his service will ever be changed or diminished," he tweeted. (Read more John McCain stories.) (Newser) Two new reports suggest more trouble for Saudi's crown prince. The New York Times is out with a front-page story alleging a brutal campaign authorized by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to abduct and torture dissidents that began more than a year before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Guardian, meanwhile, reports that the crown prince appears to have lost some authority, at least temporarily, on the orders of his ailing father, King Salman. The king is apparently worried about a big drop in investments coming in to Saudi Arabia after it was revealed that a special Saudi security team murdered Khashoggi. The kingdom has denied allegations that the crown prince personally ordered the journalist's killing, but the new Times piece will only add to the speculation about him. story continues below The story is based on interviews with American officials who have read classified intelligence reports about a secret campaign to curb dissent that ramped up in 2017, when the crown prince assumed broad new powers. This Saudi Rapid Intervention Group sometimes abducted Saudis living elsewhere and brought them home to be detained and abused, often in palaces owned by the royal family. Women's rights activists were among those rounded up and subjected to abuse that included electric shocks, beatings, and threats of rape and murder. The Times says one such detainee, linguistics professor Eman al-Nafjan, attempted to kill herself because of the harsh treatment. Weve never seen it on a scale like this, says a former CIA analyst. A dissident like Jamal Khashoggi in the past wouldnt have been considered worth the effort. (Read more Mohammed bin Salman stories.) (Newser) A dead whale washed up on a Philippine beach was distressing enough, but museum workers have deemed what they found inside the creature's gut "disgusting." The BBC reports that the Cuvier's beaked whale turned up on the shoreline east of Davao City on Saturday, and when workers from the D'Bone Collector Museum opened up the whale's belly, they found "the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale," the educational NGO said in a Facebook post. Although they're still working on documenting all the contents of the whale's belly, workers say they've so far extracted 88 pounds of plastic, including "16 rice sacks, four banana plantation-style bags, and multiple shopping bags." CNN Philippines reports the cause of death for the whalewhich the New York Times notes was 15 feet long and 1,100 poundsas dehydration and starvation due to plastic ingestion. story continues below Starvation comes about because eating plastic makes the whales feel full, which leads them to eat less and not get the nutrients they need. Marine biologist Darrell Blatchley explains that the reason dehydration set in as well is because whales hydrate from the water in their food sources, not from drinking it. "I was not prepared for the amount of plastic," he tells CNN, adding to the Times, "The plastic in some areas was so compact it was almost becoming calcified, almost like a solid brick." The BBC notes that, based on reports from environmental groups, countries in Asia are to blame for much of the pollution in the world's oceans, with China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand listed as the prime offenders. "This cannot continue," Blatchley tells CNN. "The Philippines needs to change from the children up or nothing will be left." (Read more whales stories.) (Newser) When he ran against Ted Cruz for the Senate, Beto O'Rourke generated a huge amount of support from grass-roots fundraising. As a presidential candidate, he appears to be starting off the same way. O'Rourke's campaign said Monday he had raised $6.1 million in the first 24 hours after his launch, edging Bernie Sanders' $5.9 million to lead all candidates, reports the New York Times. The campaign says the money came from online contributions from all 50 states and "without a dime" from PACs or corporate interests, per the AP. Official figures won't be made public until April 15. story continues below O'Rourke's rollout wasn't without its hiccups, however, as he found himself walking back a joke about his wife in regard to child-raising and apologizing for his writings as a youth. Still, the financial numbers put him and Sanders firmly at the head of the pack in terms of fundraising. For example, Sen. Kamala Harris reported raising $1.5 million in her first 24 hours and Sen. Amy Klobuchar $1 million in her first 48 hours. (Meanwhile, Joe Biden keeps dropping hints he'll enter the race soon.) (Newser) This much is clear: Travis Lee Davis should be in jail, but he's not, thanks to two hard-to-explain escapes by the 30-year-old. Davis, last seen in Oklahoma, remains on the lam, while a man who resembled him was killed in a confrontation with police. And all that doesn't even take into account the supposed kidnapping of a woman who may or may not be Davis' girlfriend. Here are the details: First escape: Davis broke out of the Pettis County Jail in Sedalia, Mo., on the night of Saturday, March 9. Authorities say he climbed into the ceiling, made his way across the rafters and down into a "maintenance access closet," then simply walked out of the jail. His absence wasn't noticed until the following night, reports the Washington Post. Davis broke out of the Pettis County Jail in Sedalia, Mo., on the night of Saturday, March 9. Authorities say he climbed into the ceiling, made his way across the rafters and down into a "maintenance access closet," then simply walked out of the jail. His absence wasn't noticed until the following night, reports the Washington Post. Second escape: This one was even more remarkable. Police arrested him in Oklahoma on Wednesday and placed him in a patrol car, handcuffed. As officers were interviewing someone else, Davis drove away in the police car. "He somehow got the cuffs to the front of him and somehow managed to get through the window in the partition," Heavener Police Chief Ty Armstrong tells the Sedalia Democrat. "He went through the window, stole the car, and went approximately 2 miles and crashed, then fled on foot." Davis remains at large, and police say it's possible he hopped on a train. story continues below A death: On Wednesday, police in Sallisaw, Okla., received a report of a man who resembled Davis walking by the side of a road. It was 27-year-old Shawn Watie, who was walking to work, reports KFSM. Officers say Watie threatened them with a knife, at which point they fatally shot him. Watie's family disputes that account, saying he wasn't combative. On Wednesday, police in Sallisaw, Okla., received a report of a man who resembled Davis walking by the side of a road. It was 27-year-old Shawn Watie, who was walking to work, reports KFSM. Officers say Watie threatened them with a knife, at which point they fatally shot him. Watie's family disputes that account, saying he wasn't combative. A kidnapping? The account of how Davis was arrested in Oklahoma is strange. Police got a call from a woman who says Davis kidnapped her and forced her to drive. She says he was asleep when they stopped for gas at a travel plaza, and she then called police and pointed him out to responding officers. But police now say the woman is a suspect herself. "There were numerous phone calls between he and her when he was in the county jail there (Missouri) and she had been driving him through southern Missouri since his escape and hiding him out," LeFlore County Sheriff Rob Seale tells 4029tv. Both were seen playing slot machines at the travel plaza, and Davis apparently returned to the car to sleep. That's when the woman apparently called police. The account of how Davis was arrested in Oklahoma is strange. Police got a call from a woman who says Davis kidnapped her and forced her to drive. She says he was asleep when they stopped for gas at a travel plaza, and she then called police and pointed him out to responding officers. But police now say the woman is a suspect herself. "There were numerous phone calls between he and her when he was in the county jail there (Missouri) and she had been driving him through southern Missouri since his escape and hiding him out," LeFlore County Sheriff Rob Seale tells 4029tv. Both were seen playing slot machines at the travel plaza, and Davis apparently returned to the car to sleep. That's when the woman apparently called police. The charges: Police consider Davis dangerous because he was in jail on charges of kidnapping, domestic assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and resisting arrest. Those charges came after a standoff with police during which officers say he threatened to kill his pregnant girlfriend, reports KRCG. It's not clear if this is the same woman who'd been driving him around after his escape. (Read more escaped criminal stories.) Egypt's Ambassador to New Zealand Tarik El-Wasimi on Monday offered his condolences to the families of the four Egyptians who were killed in the mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques on Friday. El-Wasimi conveyed the condolences of President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to the families, saying Egypt is ready to transport the martyrs' bodies to their homeland immediately, MENA reported. The ambassador also visited those Egyptians who were injured, and noted that all of them are in a stable condition. He also had a meeting with the Egyptian expats in Christchurch to support them and listen to their demands. Present at the meeting were representatives of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the city. Search Keywords: Short link: (Newser) Three people are dead in the wake of a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, and police say a suspect is in custody in the Monday morning incident, which also left five injured. "I just heard that the suspect we were hunting has been arrested," the police chief said Monday, per the AP. Police had earlier said they were looking for a Turkish man in connection with the shooting; they released an image of Gokmen Tanis, 37, but gave no further details beyond warning the public not to approach him, Reuters reports. It was not immediately confirmed whether he is the same person who has been arrested. "Our country today has been jolted by an attack in Utrecht," Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who has convened crisis talks, said in a statement. "Police and prosecutors are looking into what exactly happened. Whats known now is that there was shooting at people sitting in a tram in Utrecht." Earlier, police had said there was a "possible terrorist motive." story continues below Reuters, citing local media, says one witness told a newspaper the shooter targeted one woman, then shot anyone who tried to help her. Another witness cited by a local broadcaster says he saw a woman on the ground "amid some type of confrontation," per Reuters, as several men ran from the scene. But "a lot is still unclear at this point and local authorities are working hard to establish all the facts," said Counter-Terrorism Agency head Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg at a press conference. The AP, citing a Turkish news agency, says some of Tanis' relatives believe he may have shot at someone close to the family due to "family issues." Tanis' father says he had not spoken to his son in 11 years. Gun killings are rare in Utrecht, the Netherlands' fourth largest city, per the BBC. (The shooting comes days after New Zealand's horrific mosque shootings.) (Newser) The Supreme Court will consider a challenge to the life sentence given to one of the snipers who killed 10 people in the Washington, DC, area, in 2002. Lee Boyd Malvo was 17 at the time of the killings, and the court said in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole were, in most cases, unconstitutional for defendants under 18, the Washington Post reports. The court said at the time that such a sentence is permissible only for "the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption." The question now is whether Malvo fits that definition or deserves a lesser sentence, reports NPR. story continues below Malvo received life terms in Virginia and Maryland. A federal appeals court in Virginia has ruled that Malvo should be resentenced, and he is appealing his Maryland sentencing as well. Malvo's older accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, was executed in 2009. In ordering a new sentencing, the Virginia appeals court nonetheless said the string of killings "were the most heinous, random acts of premeditated violence conceivable, destroying lives and families and terrorizing the entire Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for over six weeks, instilling mortal fear daily in the citizens of that community." ("I was a monster," Malvo later said.) (Newser) Kellyanne Conway's husband George, a frequent critic of his wife's employer, suggested Monday that President Trump has a mental disorder. Not so, the top White House counselor told reporters upon her arrival at work. "No, I don't share those concerns," she said, per Politico and CNN, adding that she "may not be up to speed on all of" her husband's tweets because "I have four kids and I was getting them out of the house this morning before I got here so I can talk to the president about substance." In the series of tweets in question, George Conway tweeted a picture of the cover of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, plus the pages describing narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. story continues below Conway, an attorney, added in separate tweets that "*all* Americans should be thinking seriously *now* about Trumps mental condition and psychological state" and that Trump's "condition is getting worse." His tweets came after Trump's own flurry of tweets including threatening a federal probe into Saturday Night Live for making fun of him, calling on Fox News to bring back "Judge Jeanine" after her show was pulled due to controversial comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar's hijab, defending Tucker Carlson amid his audio scandal, and attacking late Sen. John McCain. CNN called Sunday Trump's "craziest Twitter day ever," noting that he sent out 29 tweets and retweets. (Trump has referred to George as "Mr. Kellyanne Conway.") (Newser) Donna Brazile, the former Democratic National Committee chair who accused the DNC of essentially rigging the 2016 presidential primary for Hillary Clinton, has a new and perhaps surprising gig: Fox News contributor. "I know Im going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News," Brazile said in a statement obtained by Variety. "My response is that, if weve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we cant have a country where we dont talk to those who disagree with our political views. Theres an audience on Fox News that doesnt hear enough from Democrats. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our safe spaces where we simply agree with each other." story continues below She added reassurance to her supporters: "You can be darn sure that Im still going to be me on Fox News. Im going to do what I always do: and dish it out straight, exactly as I see it, with just as much New Orleans hot sauce as folks expect." She elaborated on her excitement to join Fox in a column published on the media outlet's website. She'll be offering political analysis on Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, in both daytime and primetime. She debuted on Monday's Daily Briefing With Dana Perino, per Fox. Brazile, a longtime Democratic political operative, used to contribute at CNN and ABC News before she was named interim chair of the DNC; she also participated in every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000 and has authored two books. (Brazile says her critics can "go to hell.") (Newser) There are two Americas, according to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: In one, people are benefiting from corporations that are doing well. In the other, however, people are really struggling. "I don't want to be a tone deaf CEO," Dimon said, per CNBC, at the bank's New York headquarters while launching a new program meant to increase job prospects for people in underserved communities. "While the company is doing fine, it is absolutely obvious that a big chunk of [people] have been left behind. Forty percent of Americans make less than $15 an hour. Forty percent of Americans can't afford a $400 bill, whether it's medical or fixing their car. Fifteen percent of Americans make minimum wages, 70,000 die from opioids [per year]." He added, per Yahoo Finance, that millions of jobs are currently available but people aren't graduating with the skills they need. story continues below Yet, he continued, "If you travel around to most neighborhoods where companies live, they're doing fine. So we've kind of bifurcated the economy." Dimon has long spoken out about the declining participation rate in the labor force, as well as the education system's shortfalls in preparing future workers; rather than focusing on traditional colleges and universities, his company has been putting its efforts into community colleges and training programs that are outside the university context. Companies need to play a role in addressing these problems, he says. The program will put $200 million toward new training programs for in-demand digital and technical jobs, $125 million toward increased collaboration between employers and educational institutions, and $25 million toward data and analysis to help companies figure out how to help people move up from low-wage positions. (Dimon once said he could beat Trump.) (Newser) A New Jersey businessman accused of killing his brother, his brother's wife, and their two children pleaded not guilty Monday to felony murder and other charges, the same day his defense attorneys withdrew from the case due to recently discovered conflicts of interest. Michael Wicke, the new lawyer for Paul Caneiro, 52, entered the pleas on his behalf during a five-minute court hearing in Freehold, New Jersey, the AP reports. A prosecutor says the state plans to pursue life in prison without parole. Monmouth County prosecutors have said Caneiro's brother, Keith, was planning to cut him off financially because he was suspicious of Paul over missing money from two companies they owned at the Jersey shore. The next day, Nov. 20, Keith Caneiro and his family were found dead in their burning mansion in Colts Neck. story continues below An indictment handed up late last month charges Paul Caneiro with murder, felony murder, aggravated arson and a weapons offense. He also faces counts of theft, misapplication of entrusted property and hindering his own apprehension. Caneiro had previously been represented by private attorneys Robert Honecker Jr. and Mitchell Ansell, who maintained his innocence. However, they said they determined they could no longer represent him because a review of materials recently released by prosecutors found "at least two separate and clear" conflicts of interest. The attorneys' statement did not specify those conflicts, and they declined to elaborate on the matter after the hearing. Caneiro will now be represented by the public defender's office, NJ.com reports. (More on the alleged evidence against Caneiro here.) Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Variably cloudy with snow showers. High 11F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 60%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.. Tonight Occasional snow showers. Low 2F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 50%. About one inch of snow expected. Israel is depriving millions of Palestinians of access to a regular supply of clean water while stripping their land of minerals "in an apparent act of pillage", a United Nations human rights investigator said on Monday. Michael Lynk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said that Israel "continues full-steam with settlement expansion" in the West Bank, which the United Nations and many countries deem illegal. There are some 20-25,000 new settlers a year, he said. He was addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose debate Israel's delegation boycotted due to what it considers a deep bias against it. "In his latest farcical report, Mr. Lynk stoops to a new low and (accuses) the Jewish State of stealing," Israel's mission in Geneva said in a statement to Reuters. It accused Lynk of being a "known Palestinian advocate". Israel's main ally, the United States, quit the 47-member forum last year, also accusing it of an anti-Israel slant. "In Gaza, the collapse of the coastal aquifer, the only natural source of drinking water in the Strip and now almost entirely unfit for human consumption, is contributing to a significant health crisis among the two million Palestinians living there," Lynk said. Despite the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza in 2005, it has maintained a "hermetic seal of air, sea and land blockade" around the coastal enclave, he said. An internationally-sponsored $567 million plan has been agreed to address Gaza's acute shortage of clean water by constructing desalination plants, but analysts say its realisation is years away. "For nearly five million Palestinians living under occupation, the degradation of their water supply, the exploitation of their natural resources and the defacing of their environment are symptomatic of the lack of any meaningful control they have over their daily lives," Lynk said. In the West Bank, Israeli quarry companies extract some 17 million tonnes of stone each year, "notwithstanding strict prohibitions in international law against a military power economically exploiting an occupied territory", Lynk said. "The Dead Sea and its plentiful natural resources, part of which lies within the occupied Palestinian territory, is off-limits to any Palestinian development while Israeli companies are permitted to harvest the minerals in an apparent act of pillage," he added. Israeli authorities have said in the past that Palestinian quarries were ordered shut because they posed safety and environmental risks. Palestinian Ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi called for Israel to halt what he said was theft of Palestinian property. "Israel must stop this pillaging, what Israel is doing in the occupied territories is very far from its obligations under international law and treaties," he said. "This is more even than apartheid." Search Keywords: Short link: The Daily News-Miner encourages residents to make themselves heard through the Opinion pages. Readers' letters and columns also appear online at newsminer.com. Contact the editor with questions at letters@newsminer.com or call 459-7574. Community Perspective Send Community Perspective submissions by mail (P.O. Box 70710, Fairbanks AK 99707) or via email (letters@newsminer.com). Submissions must be 500 to 750 words. Columns are welcome on a wide range of issues and should be well-written and well-researched with attribution of sources. Include a full name, email address, daytime telephone number and headshot photograph suitable for publication (email jpg or tiff files at 150 dpi.) You may also schedule a photo to be taken at the News-Miner office. The News-Miner reserves the right to edit submissions or to reject those of poor quality or taste without consulting the writer. Letters to the editor Send letters to the editor by mail (P.O. Box 70710, Fairbanks AK 99707), by fax (907-452-7917) or via email (letters@newsminer.com). Writers are limited to one letter every two weeks (14 days.) All letters must contain no more than 350 words and include a full name (no abbreviation), daytime and evening phone numbers and physical address. (If no phone, then provide a mailing address or email address.) The Daily News-Miner reserves the right to edit or reject letters without consulting the writer. German foreign minister Heiko Maas said on Monday it was worthwhile giving more time to reach an agreement with Britain over its exit from the European Union, although a long Brexit extension would be difficult. "Before we get to a hard Brexit it's worthwhile having another go rather than just arguing about what a hard Brexit means, namely a lot of disadvantages for both sides," Maas told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers. Asked about whether Brexit could be extended beyond the European elections in May, he replied: "The longer the time is pushed back, the more difficult it becomes." Search Keywords: Short link: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reacted to the optimism expressed by Governor Rochas Okorocha on his Certific... The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reacted to the optimism expressed by Governor Rochas Okorocha on his Certificate of Return saga. Okorocha had on Thursday expressed optimism that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), will still present him with his Certificate of Return. According to the Governor, the electoral body was planning something special, to present him with his certificate. Maybe INEC wants to organise a special programme for me to hand over the certificate to me but clearly, Ive won and it was a peaceful election, he said. But, reacting, INECs National Commissioner, Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye on Channels Tv Sunrise Daily on Monday insisted that the commission has not rescinded its order and would not present the certificate to the Imo State Governor. He stressed that no candidate including Governor Okorocha will be given certificate of return after influencing REC in his states under duress. Asked whether the commission has reversed its decision on Okorochas certificate of return, Okoye said: Yes, Weve made it clear on why we didnt present any certificate of return to him (Okorocha). The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue state has accused Senator George Akume and the All Progressives Congress (APC) of making inf... The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue state has accused Senator George Akume and the All Progressives Congress (APC) of making inflammatory statements capable of disrupting peace in the state ahead of the supplementary election holding on March 23. The state Chairman of PDP, Sir John Ngbede, alleged on Monday at a press conference in Makurdi that Akume and his APC had planned to cause trouble during the exercise following utterances that the result of the supplementary election to be held in the state will be declared in favour of their governorship candidate, Barrister Emmanuel Jime, whether he wins it or not. He (Akume) has assured his followers that such brazen rape of democracy will be made possible through collaboration he claims APC is enjoying with INEC and that Mobile Policemen and other security agents will be deployed and with the help of thugs as well as militia to hijack election materials for the supplementary elections and thumb-printed ballots will then be returned and announced as the results giving victory to Emmanuel Jime. The above issues and undemocratic utterances by Senator Akume and APC leaders in Benue state which clearly constitute a major threat to free and fair elections ought to be urgently addressed, he said. The PDP chairman, therefore, called on the Presidency, the Inspector General of Police, the State Security Services, as well as the relevant agencies to use their good offices and act with utmost sense of duty and dispatch to call Senator Akume and other leaders of the APC in Benue to order in the best interest of peace and security as well as the preservation of democracy. Ngbede added, such views of the APC in Benue state have severally been aired on social media platforms, mostly from their media handlers, including the Acting State Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. James Ornguga, who in one of such posts, had openly boasted that votes should be expected at the supplementary elections above those declared cancelled by INEC. Reacting, the APCs publicity secretary, Ornguga, said the PDP in Benue was fast becoming an alarmist party seeing that defeat stares them in the face as he emphasised that beyond Benue as a state, Nigerians must rise against primitive rigging. Lying against Senator Akume has become their (PDP) routine assignment. Where has the APC leader made such allegations? The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ogun State, has warned banks and other financial institutions not to yield to threats and press... The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ogun State, has warned banks and other financial institutions not to yield to threats and pressures from Governor Ibikunle Amosun to issue last-minute loans, overdrafts and other financial instruments. This was contained in a statement issued in Abeokuta, the states capital, on Monday by the APC publicity secretary, Tunde Oladunjoye. The APC warned that any institution that grants such requests does so at its own risk. The statement added, It has come to our notice that the outgoing governor has been exerting pressures on banks and financial institutions to grant frivolous loans, overdrafts and other instruments immediately Prince Dapo Abiodun was declared Governor-Elect. We are equally aware that files and other sensitive governments documents are being moved out of government offices on the order of the outgoing Governor, His Excellency, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. It is therefore important to let it be known to the concerned public officers that it is part of their duties to protect public properties, including files, documents and information at their disposal. As anything contrary to this will be running foul of the laws and their oath of office. The allegiance of the civil servants is to Ogun State and not to any individual, no matter who. As for the banks, we want to state categorically that the incoming administration believes so much in the rule of law and due process. Therefore, the administration will not honour any obligation that did not follow due process or any loans that did not receive the prior approval of the State House of Assembly. According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics, Ogun States Internally Generated Revenue has increased by 590 per cent in eight years totaling N74, 835, 979, 000.51 (seventy four billion, eight hundred and thirty five million, nine hundred seventy nine thousand naira and fifty one kobo). Governor Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi State has met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja this afternoon. ... Governor Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi State has met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja this afternoon. The governor met with the president ahead of tomorrows continuation of collation in Tafawa Balewa LGA and correction of some errors in Ningi LGA before the final announcement of the winner of the governorship election in the state. The battle for the Bauchi State Government House (BSGH) is between Governor Abubakar of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Sen. Bala Mohammed of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had, on Friday, formally set aside the cancellation of results of the gubernatorial election in Tafawa Balewa LGA of Bauchi State. The presidency had, last night, said President Buhari will not interfere with the polls. Speaking to Journalists after the meeting, the Bauchi governor said he met with the president over the INEC decision. I briefed him on the issues surrounding the inconclusive elections, the Returning Officer for Bauchi State, at the end of collation, rejected the result of Tafawa Balewa local government and then 36 other units spread around 15 local governments of Bauchi state and ordered a rerun. Surprisingly, we woke up one morning and INEC came up with a procedure that is not known to law. Because, where a Returning Officer has declared the result, only an election petition tribunal can reverse the result. But INEC is attempting to reverse itself in the case of Bauchi. And when one juxtapose that of Bauchi and other states with inconclusive elections, one wonders why that is happening only in Bauchi State. So, for that reason, there is a need for me to come and brief Mr. President because what has the potential of touching on the security of the state and it is paramount, he said. It is a straight forward matter. The returning officer is the final arbiter even with respect to scores and declaration of result. And once he makes a declaration, no power can reverse that declaration except the duly constituted court of the land. RTHK: 'Three dead' in Dutch tram shooting Three people were killed and nine injured in a shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht, the mayor said on Monday, adding that authorities were working on the basis of it being a terror attack. Armed counter-terrorism police launched a huge manhunt for the attacker, urging local residents in one of the Netherlands' biggest cities to stay indoors in case of further incidents. "At this stage, we can confirm three deaths and nine wounded, three of them seriously," Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said in a video statement on Twitter. Police released a picture of the Turkish-born suspect, naming him as 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, and warning people not to approach him. "Shooting took place this morning at several locations in Utrecht," Dutch counter-terrorism squad chief Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg told a news conference in The Hague. "A major police operation is under way to arrest the gunman." Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the incident, just days ahead of local elections, was "deeply disturbing" and police stepped up security at mosques and airports. The website NU.nl quoted a witness as saying a man had started "shooting wildly". (Additional reporting by AP/AFP) ______________________________ Last updated: 2018-03-18 HKT 22:15 This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A prosecutor said it could be for 'family reasons' and Turkey state news agency, quoting relatives of the gunman, said he had fired at a relative on the tram and had then shot at others who tried to help her. Dutch police arrested a Turkish man suspected of shooting dead three people and wounding five on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday. Utrecht police announced the suspect, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, had been taken into custody. The city was put into lockdown after the shooting, shortly after the morning rush hour, which authorities initially said was an apparent terrorist attack. Police conducted raids in several locations. But hours after the shooting, the gunman's motive remained unclear. A prosecutor said it could be for "family reasons" and Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting relatives of the gunman, said he had fired at a relative on the tram and had then shot at others who tried to help her. Helicopters hovered over the usually quiet mediaeval town. Authorities had raised the terrorism threat in Utrecht province to its highest level, schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports, other vital infrastructure and at mosques. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks immediately after the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. "Our country has today been shocked by an attack in Utrecht... A terrorist motive cannot be excluded," Rutte said. "The first reports have led to disbelief and disgust. Innocent people have been struck by violence... We are now doing everything we can to find the perpetrator or perpetrators as soon as possible. That is now our complete focus." The mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, said three people had been killed and nine injured, three of them seriously. The number of injured was later lowered to five. Dutch police issued an image of Tanis and warned the public not to approach him. "Frightening" The suspect had had previous run-ins with police, the prosecutor said. Local broadcaster RTV Utrecht said earlier the suspect was known to police for both minor and major crimes, including a shooting in 2013. The shooting took place in Kanaleneiland, a quiet residential district on the outskirts of Utrecht with a large immigrant population. "Its frightening that something like this can happen so close to home," said Omar Rahhou, who said his parents lived on a street cordoned off by police. "These things normally happen far away but this brings it very close, awful." Witness Daan Molenaar, who said he had been sitting at the front of the tram when the shooting started, told national broadcaster NOS he did not believe it was a terrorist attack. "The first thing I thought was, this is some kind of revenge or something, or somebody who's really mad and grabbed a pistol," he said. The streets of Utrecht were emptier than usual and mosques in the city kept their doors closed on Monday. Police screened off the site where at least one body lay covered near the tram. Dutch television showed counter-terrorism units surrounding a house in Utrecht and sniffer dogs being put to work. Utrecht, the Netherlands' fourth largest city with a population of around 340,000, is known for its picturesque canals and large student population. Gun killings are rare in Utrecht, as elsewhere in the Netherlands. Search Keywords: Short link: Former president Goodluck Jonathan has said that he has no reason to quit the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), or retire from politics ... Former president Goodluck Jonathan has said that he has no reason to quit the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), or retire from politics for now. He made the statement on Sunday, through his Media Adviser, Mr Ikechukwu Eze, in reaction to a report by an online publication, which claimed that the ex-president had resigned from PDP and quit politics. Ezes statement described the news as fake, saying that it was a calculated attempt to rubbish the elder statesman. The PDP gave Jonathan the platform to serve as Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President and eventually President of Nigeria. Jonathan has no reason at this time to resign his membership of the platform. Those who derive pleasure in spreading fake information had better occupy themselves with more productive endeavours that are obviously more relevant to nation-building. Obviously, this is a fabrication borne out of mischief as the publishers of the fake story claimed that the former President made the statement while being interviewed by the Nigeria News Agency(NNA). Mohammed Abubakar, governor of Bauchi state, says he is heading to court to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commissions ... Mohammed Abubakar, governor of Bauchi state, says he is heading to court to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commissions (INEC) decision to resume collation of results in the state. The election in the north-west state was declared inconclusive based on controversies in the results of Tafawa Balewa local government area. The commission listed Bauchi among the states where supplementary election would hold but it later reversed the decision, saying the collation of results of the March 9 election will continue on Tuesday. Speaking after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, the governor described INECs decision as illegal. I came to brief Mr. President about the situation in my state. I briefed him on the issues surrounding the inconclusive elections, he said. The returning officer for Bauchi State at the end of collation, rejected the result of Tafawa Balewa local government and then 36 other units spread around 15 local governments of Bauchi state and ordered a rerun. Surprisingly, we woke up one morning and INEC came up with a procedure that is not known to law. Because, where a returning officer has declared the result, only an election petition tribunal can reverse the result. But INEC is attempting to reverse itself in the case of Bauchi. And when one juxtapose that of Bauchi and other states with inconclusive elections, one wonders why that is happening only in Bauchi state. So, for that reason there is a need for me to come and brief Mr. President because that has the potential of touching on the security of the state and it is our paramount duty to secure the state. Asked if what is happening was illegal, the Bauchi governor said, Of course it is definitely extra illegal. It is a straight forward matter. The returning officer is the final arbiter even with respect to scores and declaration of result. And once he makes a declaration, no power can reverse that declaration except duly constituted court of the land. I came to brief Mr. President, I am not seeking any action of Mr. President. We all know Mr. President, he is a stickler for procedure. What I pointedly told him was that I am not here to seek for you to interfere on our behalf, sir but to brief you on what is happening and what actions I have taken. Olumuyiwa Balogun-Adesanmi, wife of Pius Adesanmi, has expressed her gratitude to everyone for their kind words, support and condolenc... Olumuyiwa Balogun-Adesanmi, wife of Pius Adesanmi, has expressed her gratitude to everyone for their kind words, support and condolences on the passing away of her husband. Adesanmi, Nigerian-born Canadian professor, died in a plane crash that claimed 157 lives in Ethiopia on March 10. The native of Isanlu, Yagba east local government area of Kogi state, was aged 47. In a statement issued on Sunday, the widow described her husband as an uncommon breed She said despite her late husbands busy schedules, he mapped out quality time to spend with his family, especially Tise, their 7-year-old daughter. She thanked the Nigerian and Canadian governments and people for their support. I have no words to describe the depths of my pain on the untimely passing of my husband, Pius Adesanmi. He was an extraordinary scholar, husband, devoted father and a fine gentleman, she said. He was an uncommon breed. He wrote about human rights, gender equality and human dignity. He practised what he preached. I am a living witness to the kindness of his soul and love for others. Pius Adesanmi enjoyed spending time with his family and friends. Our daughter Tises words often tugged at his heart every time he needed to travel. He compensated for his regular absences by being generous with his time. He was witty, funny and a joy to behold. My family and I have been touched by the incredible demonstrations of support and waves of condolences sent our way. I have learned about people of all ages and backgrounds, who never met Pius Adesanmi but broke down in tears when they learned of his death. I am comforted by the sheer enormity of the lives he touched. He lived and died in pursuit of a better world. He lived and died in service to Africa. Nigeria was dear to his heart and he longed for Nigerias development. Pius Adesanmi was also a Canadian citizen and deeply appreciated the blessings of making Canada home. I appreciate the tremendous support from the Canadian and the Nigerian governments. The administration, students and faculty at Carleton University have been exemplary in our moment of grief. The academic community in Canada, Nigeria and around the world have been immense in their tributes. I applaud all individuals and institutions around the world that have held or plan to hold vigils, processions and other events to mark my husbands transition. I thank all local, national and international media organizations for their professionalism in the coverage of the unfortunate crash. Our extended family, neighbours, and friends from all areas of human endeavour have stood solidly by us. I am deeply grateful. Mo dupe, E se pupo, Merci. Thank you. According to the World health organisation (WHO), traditional medicine is generally available, affordable, and commonly used in large pa... According to the World health organisation (WHO), traditional medicine is generally available, affordable, and commonly used in large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. WHO estimates that about 80 per cent of the population in developing countries still depend on traditional medicine for their Primary Healthcare (PHC) needs; however, this percentage may vary from country to country. In Nigeria, many people, especially in the South-West region, believe and rely on local herbs for medication. `Agbo, the Yoruba name for herbal medicines, is a concoction prepared from a variety of herbs and; it is one of the most popular herbal preparations taken for various ailments, especially by the native Yoruba people. It has also seen a lot of patronage and acceptance by other tribes too; Agbo can be soaked in water, alcohol or even palm wine before one drinks it. However, medical experts raise concerns on the after-effects of taking Agbo, especially over a long period of time. One of such concerns is that it can damage the kidney and liver; also, there are concerns on its preparation which include the handling, dosage requirement for each ailment, shelf live and expiration date. Recently, at an event to commemorate the 2019 World Kidney Day on March 14, experts raised awareness on the importance of guarding against acts which can lead to kidney disease. The event which was organised by the Renal Dialysis Centre, Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos, saw experts also emphasising the need to reduce or even desist from consuming local concoctions, especially Agbo because of the possible resultant effects. Dr Chinedu Odum, a Nephrologist, said: In this environment, we talk about herbs and we hear many people say the take Agbo or herbs. They say the herbs clean their system but the truth is that this concoction people are taking, some of them have a bad effect on the kidney. It can damage the kidney It is a lot cheaper to prevent kidney damage because once you have kidney damage there is no going back; even those who are rich cant maintain, afford or keep up with dialysis. They cant even maintain or afford to have kidney transplantation, not to talk of the masses who are not generally or financially equipped to take care of the disease. So, we want to implore people to be aware of kidney disease but more importantly, to be more aware of the factors that increase the illness. However, Odum highlighted other causes of kidney disease to include high blood pressure which is the number one causes of kidney disease in Africa and of which many people dont know that they have it. Apart from blood pressure, diabetics and anyone who has long-standing high blood sugar can come down with complications; one of the complications is kidney disease. Also, bleaching; some of those creams have some components which can damage the kidney; they also have components that will increase the risk of diabetes and blood pressure. The environment we live in is also very important; infection in this environment too contribute to kidney disease; so we have people who come down with frequent urinary tract infection. If it is not taken care of, they can have chronic kidney infection which can lead to kidney disease and if thats not channelled, we will be talking of dialysis, the Nephrologist said. Dr John Okoh, Founder and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the RDC, confirms that these concoctions of herbs have negative impact on vital organs of the body, especially the kidney. He urged Nigerians to be aware of the causes and risk factors of getting kidney disease. Dr Nkem Achor, said that one of the major concerns in consuming Agbo is that one cannot ascertain the dosage and expiration of the mixture, hence the tendency to either under-dose or over-dose. People who take Agbo do not know when it becomes underdose or overdose and this can affect the multisystem functions of the kidney and liver, which are critical to the functioning of the body. Also, it can lead to blood poisoning, gastrointestinal challenges, vomiting, diarrhea, anemia and even death, if mismanaged or not detected early. However, one is not ruling out the efficacy of these herbs, but it is worthy to emphasise that if it is to be taken, it should be after thorough scientific research and approval. Also, the preparation has to follow the standard supervised procedure under hygienic circumstances with appropriate dosage requirements spelt out and expiration date written. If these are not adhered to, people will continue to take Agbo indiscriminately; some may get lucky and be healed but a majority will come down with more debilitating and chronic situations which may be too late for hospitals to handle. Dr. Ebun Bamgbose of the Dialysis/Transplant Unit and Clinical Director of St. Nicholas Hospital, Lagos, in an earlier interview said that most of the kidney failures, also known as renal failure or end-stage renal disease, could be linked to indiscriminate use of these concoctions. This is because the herbs are mixed with all sorts, including local gin and there are toxic substances in the unprocessed materials and fermentation. In summary, a research was conducted by Akande IS, Adewoyin OA, Njoku UF and Awosika SO of the Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Nigeria. The research, Biochemical Evaluation of Some Locally Prepared Herbal Remedies (Agbo) Currently on High Demand in Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria, was published in the Journal of Drug Metabolism & Toxicology, affirmed the negative effects of Agbo on the body. It said: Based on these findings, we conclude that though these preparations are potential sources of natural antioxidants, but the majority of those being hawked on Lagos metropolis may be harmful to human health. This is because many of the hawkers are likely to be quacks. Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has thrown his weight behind the quest that the Senate Presidents position sho... Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has thrown his weight behind the quest that the Senate Presidents position should go to the South East. In an interview with Sunday Sun, Ngige, a former governor of Anambra State, said that both Dr Orji Uzor Kalu and Senator Ben Uwajimogu are fully qualified for the position and should be considered by their party, APC. Ngige said: We have those that are ranking now. We have Ben Uwajimogu, he is now a two-term Senator, he is coming back from the ruling party. We have Dr Orji Uzor Kalu. Orji Uzor Kalu was a Federal Assembly legislator during the military regime, its counted, because it was a National Assembly, so he has got some ranking. Therefore, Orji Uzor Kalu is also qualified. Okorochas case will be determined before then. We now have some senators unlike the last time when we had zero non-party senator coming from the Southeast. There was nobody at all. So, the Southeast should definitely be in the equation, I mean the proportion of Senate presidency. The Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) has denied the reports that there is a new building collapse on Lagos Island on Monday.... The Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) has denied the reports that there is a new building collapse on Lagos Island on Monday. Some online and social media platforms had reported a purported collapsed building at 57 Egerton Street, Lagos Island, injuring a certain number of people. However, the Press and Public Relations Officer of the LASBCA, Mrs Titi Ajirotutu, revealed that whereas the agency is still carrying out the demolition of the marked distressed building in the area, the minor incident that happened at the said building was not qualified as building collapse. I was with the team that went about to effect the demolition order this morning. The lawmaker representing Delta Central in the National Assembly, Barrister Ovie Omo-Agege, has vowed that no lawmaker remotely connecte... The lawmaker representing Delta Central in the National Assembly, Barrister Ovie Omo-Agege, has vowed that no lawmaker remotely connected with Senator Bukola Saraki will be allowed to hold leadership of the 9th Senate. Omo-Agege stated this while giving an insight into how the next leadership of the National Assembly would be selected. Omo-Agege lamented that those he described as Sarakis relegates regime made sure all agenda of the government were shut down for almost three of the four years of Buhari first tenure. Independent quoted the lawmaker as saying the move to shut out Sarakis men was necessary to avert a repeat of events of the out-going Assembly. Omo-Agege said that President Buhari, as leader of APC, would consult with the partys caucus on who should emerge Senate President. For that reason, we are saying, it is the partys caucus that will meet in consultation with Mr President and decide and recommend for the leadership position. And Mr President is the head of that caucus. Well no longer allow relegates to govern the National Assembly. When they did the last time, you saw what happened, he stressed. I have not told anybody that I am interested in running for the Senate Presidency. But, having said that, I am just as qualified as any other ranking senator of the Ninth Senate. I truly want to be a specialist, but if I stay here I will never reach my potential. Never, a doctor at a private clinic in Abuja, tol... I truly want to be a specialist, but if I stay here I will never reach my potential. Never, a doctor at a private clinic in Abuja, told BBC in 2005. Fourteen years after, the situation seem to have gone from bad to worse and the loss of Nigeria has been the gain of other countries. Year in, year out, the UK, US, Saudi Arabia, to mention just few, recruit a large number of Nigerian trained doctors who are perhaps frustrated or desperate to seek greener pastures overseas. On Saturday, doctors in their hundreds, thronged a popular hotel in GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, where officials of Saudi Arabia health ministry conducted test ahead of recruitment. Below are some pictures: The Police in Sokoto state have apprehended 12 suspected thugs in the state. The suspects were paraded on Monday at the Police he... The Police in Sokoto state have apprehended 12 suspected thugs in the state. The suspects were paraded on Monday at the Police headquarters in the state capital. Speaking at the event, Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Sokoto Command, ASP Sadiq Abubakar, disclosed that the suspects were arrested on the 13th of March, 2019 by a team of Policemen at different locations within Sokoto city. The PPRO said they were apprehended in their hideouts at Gidan Igwai, Old Garage, Central Motor Park, Gangare Gidan Dankure and manna area. He added that the suspects were nabbed with dangerous weapons, hard drugs and dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp. According to him, the suspects would be prosecuted after the investigations. ASP Abubakar called on youths in the state to shun any form of violence before, during and after during the forthcoming supplementary elections. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has explained its own side of the story after it was alleged that the commission r... The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has explained its own side of the story after it was alleged that the commission raided the farm of the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen on Saturday. Operatives of the commission, a cameraman and policemen were said to have raided Justice Onnoghens farms located in the Masaka area of Nasarawa State around 3 pm on Saturday and allegedly searched the entire premises for more than three hours. But in a telephone conversation with Channels Television, EFCCs spokesman, Mr. Tony Orilade, denied being aware of any search by operatives of the agency on the property reportedly linked to the suspended CJN. The denial comes barely 24 hours after the EFCC dismissed reports of raiding Justice Onnoghens residence. According to the anti-graft agency, it never went to the CJNs house. There were also reports about an invitation from the EFCC to the CJN, however, the EFCC said it did not extend any such invitation. While describing these reports as fake news, the anti-graft agency urged Nigerians to disregard all unfounded claims and be rest assured that the commission will fight corruption in line with the agencys mandate. Travel and tourism in Egypt grew by 16.5% in 2018, much faster than the global average of 3.9%, according to research by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). According to The WTTCs, the countrys efforts in improving security infrastructure paid off, leading to the increase in visits by 16.5% last year, the best since 2010. The improvements in security infrastructure resulted in attracting tourists and major travel companies back to Egypts popular destinations, such as Sharm El-Sheikh, the Ministry of Tourism said in a statement on Monday. The WTTCs 2018 research, which compared Travel & Tourism sectors in 185 countries, also showed that travel and tourism are responsible for 9.5% of all Egypts employment, providing 2.5 million jobs. The travel and tourism sector also contributed 11.9% of Egypts GDP in 2018 and is expected to grow a further 5.4% in 2019. The statement quoted Egypts Minister for Tourism Rania Al-Mashat as saying at a WTTC panel in November 2018 that she hopes to create at least one opportunity for one person in every household in the country. It also quoted Gloria Guevara, the WTTC president and chief executive, who had said: Were delighted to see the strong recovery of the Egyptian travel sector a sector crucial to national economic growth and a key provider of jobs." WTTC also acknowledges Dr Rania Al-Mashats prioritization of the sector and strategy to use the sector to enrich citizens and spread the benefits of travel and tourism across the country," Guevara added. Search Keywords: Short link: The All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged fraud in the governorship elections in five of the six states where supplementary elect... The All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged fraud in the governorship elections in five of the six states where supplementary elections have been scheduled. The electoral commission, INEC, has fixed March 23 for supplementary elections in six states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto) where elections were declared inconclusive. Of the six states, the main opposition party, PDP, was leading in five, while the APC was leading in Plateau. The ruling party faulted the elections or the result colaltion process in the five states it was trailing but commended the process in Plateau. The APC also accused INEC of conniving with the PDP in Rivers where the electoral commission is yet to declare the results of the governorship election. The APC stated its stance in a statement by its spokesperson, Lanre Issa-Onilu SEE MR ISSA-ONILUS FULL STATEMENT BELOW. INECs Supplementary Elections, Illegal Decisions on Rivers, Bauchi States: Our Stand! After the March 9 governorship elections across the country, the polls in six states Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto were declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The electoral process was also suspended in Rivers state in a very fraudulent circumstance. Post election, Nigerians will recall that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had severally raised alarm over the plot by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to use violence, vote-buying and other election malpractices to subvert the will of the electorate and steal their mandate. The shocking events leading to the last-minute postponement of the presidential election provided clear evidence with PDP agents caught in different parts of the country with programmed card readers, sensitive election materials and large cache of weapons and security paraphernalia. Undeterred, the PDP executed its rigging plot through its agents across the country by unleashing violence, vote-buying and hijacking election materials to rig and falsify elections results. The result was violent disruption in many polling areas and over-voting which led to many cancelled votes and ultimately the supplementary elections and suspended exercise in some states. BENUE INEC declared the governorship election in Benue State inconclusive, citing an insufficient margin in votes obtained by the APC candidate Barr. Emmanuel Jime and the PDP candidate, Governor Samuel Ortom. Even though the PDP claims a bogus lead of over 81,000 votes, reports strongly establish that this dodgy figure is an aggregate of votes obtained by subterfuge not from the numbers recorded by the card reader. There were cases in Logo, Gwer-West, Vandeikya, Guma, Buruku and Gboko Local governments where the card reader was not used. In Guma, a local government predominated by the APC, zero votes were allocated to our candidate by thugs loyal to the governor of the State, as agents of the party were chased away and election material diverted and ballot papers thumb-printed for the governorship candidate of the PDP. In Logo, security reports indicated that the ballot papers were massively thumb-printed the night before the election day, while a brazen case of under-age voting supervised by state government compromised security personnel, was prevalent on the actual day of voting. INEC also reported that 41 polling units in Vandeikya did not use the card reader, as it was the case in many in Gwer-West, Gwer-East, Gboko and other places. A coalition of election observers in Benue has since called on INEC to declare the candidate of the APC, Barr. Emmanuel Jime, the winner of the governorship polls, in line with the Electoral Act and we align with the position of these observers. There is no doubt that our candidate obtained the highest number of legitimate votes obtained with the usage of the card reader. RIVERS We are concerned and deeply troubled by the unfolding events in Rivers State. The APC strongly condemns this horrid dance in Rivers State. This unholy alliance between Governor Nyesom Wike, PDP and INEC is to prevent Rivers people from electing a candidate of their choice by imposing Wike, the PDP candidate on them. It was glaring that Wike was losing until INEC stepped in to halt the process apparently to save Wike from impending defeat. INEC must put a halt to this madness and brazen illegality. The desperation of the PDP governorship candidate, Governor Nyesom Wike to remain in office even if it means destroying the State and killing its people, is throwing the State into turmoil and crisis. With regard to the governorship election in Rivers State, APC has observed with dismay the macabre dance between Wike and INEC in Rivers State. It is on record that Wike through the Rivers State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Obo Effanga engaged PDP card-carrying members as Local Government Area (LGA) Collation Officers to skew the elections in favour of Wike and the PDP. We call on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to immediately redeploy Mr. Effanga from Rivers State in order to avoid crisis that may follow the organised crime being executed by Wike and Obo Effanga to rig and alter the result of the 2019 governorship polls in Rivers State in favour of Wike. Since the suspension of the electoral process in Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike and the State REC Obo Effanga have been re-writing and doctoring unit results in Rivers State Government House to favour Wike. We are dismayed that some sponsored stakeholders including those who witnessed the killing of over 40 persons on the 2015 governorship election day alone due to someones quest to become governor by all means, appear to be hoodwinked by the very same character to believe that security agents especially the Army should have stayed away to allow a repetition of what happened in 2015. As a party that was solely at the receiving end of the killings in Rivers State, the APC believes that the proactive steps taken by security agents to checkmate a repeat of the 2015 killings and destructions, is commendable and should be applauded by all peace-loving people. We call on Nigerians and the international community not to be hoodwinked into believing that Nigerian security agencies interfered in the electoral process in Rivers State. It is a misleading narrative being planted in the media to particularly blackmail the military and the federal government into pulling out security agents from the state, thereby returning the State to the killing field many of us witnessed before, during and after the 2015 elections. It is now clear to all that INEC has become deaf and blind to the fact that Governor Nyesom Wike invaded the Obio/Akpor Collation Centre with over 200 armed thugs and ordered his security men to shoot an Army Captain and another soldier providing perimeter security to the Collation Centre. Wikes thugs carted away the electoral materials including both original copies of unit result sheets and ward collation sheets that were being used for the collation of results and took them to the Rivers State Government House where they were filled out with rigged and inflated figures. We report that in most of the LGAs in the State, voting had concluded, results declared at the polling units and collation had begun before the abrupt suspension of the process. INEC does not have the power under our Electoral Act to suspend elections that has already been concluded. We suspect that INEC might be working to surreptitiously bring in cooked up results credited to Obio/Akpor LGA to skew the election in favour of Wike. We vehemently reject this anti-democratic move. PLATEAU In Plateau state, our comfortable lead is unassailable. We however urge our members, supporters and indeed the entire Plateau electorate not to be complacent, but remain focused as we prepare for the supplementary election that will give our performing candidate, Governor Simon Lalong a second term in office to consolidate on his first-term achievement. KANO The opposition PDP camp in its self-deceit has continued to delude itself on its nonexistent electoral chance in Nasarawa local government area. The Kano electorate are not deceived. Considering what happened in the inconclusive election widely characterized by PDP vote buying and voter intimidation, relevant agencies must ensure that such antidemocratic practice is not repeated. It is on record how the Kano State Police Commissioner actively assisted the opposition PDP to rig inside Kano city with the deployment of police security for Rabiu Kwankwaso loyalists while state commissioners orderlies were withdrawn. Kano remains an APC state. With the massive votes garnered by our presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari; the entire incoming 9th National Assembly positions 3 Senators and 24 House of Representatives won by the APC in Kano State; 27 State House of Assembly seats won by the APC out of 39 and governorship election victories in all local governments outside Kano metropolitan, there is no doubt that Kano State is a stronghold and key support base of the APC. The APCs visible achievements in Kano state under Governor Abdullahi Ganduje are enough to give the party an emphatic victory in the rerun election. Again, the rerun will be mostly in APC-controlled rural areas and Nasarawa local government area where our Deputy Governor, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna is from. Undoubtedly, Kano state remains an APC stronghold and remains in our firm control. BAUCHI We reject INECs decision on the governorship election results from Tafawa Balewa local government area in Bauchi State, as signed and announced by the electoral bodys National Commissioner and chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye. While the close relationship between Festus Okoye who chaired the fact-finding committee and Yakubu Dogara of the PDP is well known, hence inappropriate for the fact-finding exercise for Bauchi state, INEC has failed to adhere to the fundamental principle of fair-hearing by not inviting our agents during the hearing to ascertain the circumstances leading to the cancellation of the Tafawa Balewa local government election result. INECs decision is illegal as the electoral body and contravenes the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended We reiterate that according to Nigerias 1999 Constitution (as amended) and INEC Guidelines for 2019 General Elections, the electoral body is not empowered to reverse any decision taken at the Collation Centre by the Returning Officer appointed for that purpose. Such decisions can only be reversed by a court of law, especially when INEC cannot approbate and reprobate. SOKOTO As displayed in the results of the presidential election, Sokoto is a strong APC state. This rubbishes the suspicious and apparently stolen results ascribed to the PDP governorship candidate. It is on record how the PDP candidate and state governor, Aminu Tambuwal used thugs and fake security agents to scare voters in the state. This gave PDP agents a free and field day to rig and manipulate the governorship election. We are also aware how the huge monies were used to buy votes and how complicit INEC officials disenfranchised APC members by purporting that card readers machines stopped working in APC strongholds.. The forthcoming supplementary election in Sokoto state gives the APC; our governorship candidate, Aliyu Ahmed and indeed the Sokoto electorate and an opportunity claim our mandate. Sokoto state is ready for the Next Level, we must not allow unpopular elements in the state and their backers in the discredited PDP to steal their mandate and subvert the will of the Sokoto electorate. ADAMAWA In Adamawa, the party had reported over-voting and use of security personnel to intimidate APC agents and supporters. While we are confident of our party and candidate Governor Jibrilla Bindows victory ahead of the supplementary election in the state, we urge all stakeholders to avoid actions that can plunge the state into crisis. We equally urge INEC and relevant security agencies to ensure the supplementary election is free, peaceful and fair compared to the last inconclusive governorship election in the state which was characterised by many irregularities and voter intimidation. No political ambition is worth the life of any voters. In conclusion, as a party, the APC is very confident of victory in the forthcoming supplementary elections. Our commitment to free and fair elections in the county remains resolute. We urge INEC to ensure that all loopholes that led to rigging, vote buying and intimidation of voters by the PDP is blocked. Adamu Adamu, minister of education, says the federal government will soon a effect policy to prosecute parents who refused to enroll c... Adamu Adamu, minister of education, says the federal government will soon a effect policy to prosecute parents who refused to enroll children of school age in schools across the country. Adamu made this known in Abuja while addressing reporters during the 9th edition of the weekend ministerial briefing. He said parents who sabotage the efforts of the government to reduce the number of out of school children would soon be criminalised and would be made to face the wrath of the law. Unless the issue of parents who refused their children going to school is made a crime, and we start jailing parents, the menace of out of school children will not be resolved, he said. There are many who are still working behind culture, religion. So the ministry is to effect this policy so that any parent whose child of school age refuses to take them to school will be jailed. Speaking on matching grant and other intervention funds for basic education in Nigeria, the minister said a total of N350 billion had been expended on the sub-sector as against N360 billion spent by the previous administration. In the six years preceding the Buhari Administration, between 2009 and 2014, the federal government spent about N360 billion worth of intervention on Basic Education covering textbooks, teacher professional development, construction of classrooms and library resources among others, the minister said. Adamu added that in 2015, matching and non-conditional grants disbursements to 15 states of the federation and the federal capital territory (FCT) amounted to N68.4 billion. He also said in 2016, grants disbursements to 29 states and the FCT amounted to N77 billion. Adamu added that stakeholders were awaiting the decision of the federal executive council (FEC) on reduction of matching grants for state governments. We have already submitted proposal on the reduction of matching grants and we believe between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the matching grant will be reduced as against the 50 per cent that states have been claiming is difficult to provide, he said. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe The concert, the first to be held at the site since pianist Yanni's in 2015, was attended by around ten thousand fans The YouTube livestream of a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at the Giza Pyramids on 15 March has been viewed over 2.3 million times as of Monday. The concert, the first to be held at the site since pianist Yanni's in 2015, was attended by around ten thousand fans. In their first appearance in Egypt, the American funk-rock band walked the audience through their numerous hits including Cant Stop, Californication, Dont Forget Me, Dark Necessities and numerous others. They also had a surprise for the Cairo crowd: a performance of Radioheads Pyramid Song, from their fifth studio album Amnesiac, released in 2001. After the concert, the band wrote on their Twitter and Instagram account: I love you Egypt! You are wild and beautiful and send my imagination flying! Hopefully we will be back to play again soon! Inshallah! Chad Smith, the bands drummer, held a jamming session-turned-concert with the Egyptian musicians at El Sawy Culturewheel on 13 March. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. The African Union can earn its well-deserved membership of the G20 by emphasising its considerable strengths The Group of 20 (G20) is one of the developed worlds most comprehensive forums among economic groupings. It was founded in 1999 and comprises 19 of the developed worlds economic powers plus the European Union (EU). In addition to regular meetings between G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, a G20 summit convenes every two years. In June 2019, it will be held in Osaka in Japan. For a decade now, African attendance has been observed repeatedly at G20 summits. South Africa is a member state of the G20, but a number of African organisations, including the African Union (AU), have also been invited to attend G20 summits and participate in their discussions, though only as visitors or observers and not as policy-makers. The AU first attended a G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, in June 2010. Since then, the Union and its economic development programme, known as the New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD), have been regularly invited to attend G20 summits. With the frequent attendance of the AU at G20 summits comes the opportunity for the AU to acquire membership of the group itself. On the one hand, there is the precedent of the EUs membership of the G20 along with the membership of four of its countries Germany, France, the UK and Italy in this influential group. On the other hand, the AU ranks 11th in the world in terms of its total gross domestic product, which also qualifies the Union for membership of the G20. These two factors underline the importance of benefitting from Egypts chairmanship of the AU and its international weight to launch the first official African initiative for the AU to join the G20 as a member. Despite the fact that the agenda of the G20 summit in Osaka has not been announced, a number of indicators appeared in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes speech at the closing session of the previous G20 summit held in Buenos Aires in Argentina in 2018 and reflecting Japans interest in certain crucial issues. Shinzos speech focused on achieving a human-centred future society that would be free, open, comprehensive and sustainable. His speech indicated the adoption of a comprehensive vision whose framework centres on integrating all members of society in the process of development, bearing in mind that the individual is the focus of this and its goal. G20 summits have also increasingly given more attention to African issues. During Chinas presidency of the G20 in 2016, it focused on supporting production in Africa. The following year, Germany, presiding over the G20, suggested a Compact with Africa initiative and presented it at the G20 Insights Platform after the conclusion of the G20 summit in Hamburg. The idea was to connect the AUs 2063 Vision with the UN Sustainable Development Strategy for 2030, in addition to increasing cooperation and fostering partnership between the AU and G20 think tanks. Although Argentina did not launch an initiative targeting Africa when it chaired the G20, it did focus on popular diplomacy to foster cooperation. All this shows that there is a genuine opportunity for including African perspectives in G20 discussions on global issues that directly affect the economic and development prospects of the African continent. But putting these ideas in proper perspective can only be done by dealing with Africa as an equal partner. Events over the past decade have proven that the AU has the chance to earn full membership of the G20. However, in order to do so, the African discourse will need to focus on bridging the gap between the two organisations of the AU and the G20. The AU needs to concentrate less on the inequality between Africa and the G20, even as African countries continue to suffer from poor infrastructure, high unemployment and slow regional integration. Most of the G20s interaction with Africa also still takes place through development working groups that focus only on the bases of development, such as the elimination of poverty. The more Africas discourse concentrates only on what the continent can receive from the G20, the less the group will look to Africa as a potential or equal partner. Another issue concerns Africas participation mechanisms and engagement in policy-making and the outcomes of the upcoming Osaka meeting. Shinzos speech suggested that the AU could adopt a number of alternative approaches to make a concrete contribution here. Environmental and energy issues, as well as the aging of many societies, are at the forefront of the Japanese human-centred strategy. This is particularly significant, since in addition to the vast natural resources of the continent, Africas capital lies in its being the worlds most youthful continent. Africas rich culture increases the chance of finding common ground with Japans human-centred strategy, since Africas culture is community-oriented, not individual-based, and it seeks to foster dependence on man and not on machines. By not focusing on the traditional progress-versus-backwardness approach and by concentrating on human-development issues, there is a chance to find a comfortable meeting point between the AU and the G20 based on equality and partnership for the sake of human development. *A version of this article appears in print in the 14 March, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The African Union in the G20 Search Keywords: Short link: More multi-faceted cooperation is needed in order to ensure the success of the Fifth Arab-African Summit There have been calls for the Fifth Arab-African Summit, to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2019, to intensify coordination, enhance cooperation and give new impetus to Arab-African relations. A number of factors are seen as catalysts for the success of the Arab-African Summit and the development of Arab-African cooperation, including Egypts presidency of the African Union (AU) and its promising agenda that puts boosting Arab-African ties at the top of its priorities and Saudi Arabias hosting of the next summit meeting. Saudi Arabia is an Arab state that has an increasing interest in African affairs, as has been reflected in the Saudi sponsorship of the Jeddah Accord for Ethiopian-Eritrean Reconciliation. Other factors include the increasing interest of a number of Arab non-African countries, such as the UAE, and the successful record of previous Arab-African summits, meaning that the fifth summit will not start from scratch, but has positive precedents such as the Al-Sabah Initiative to finance African development and infrastructure projects. The African states also generally support the Palestinian cause. This was embodied in the rejection by the chair of the African Union Commission of the US administrations decision last year to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The same rejection was adopted by the majority of African governments. However, the success of the Fifth Arab-African Summit will also depend on overcoming challenges, such as differences between the Arab countries. Even if Arab-African tensions are not currently obvious, the Arab world is suffering from divisions as some countries insist on pursuing policies that could destabilise their Arab neighbours. Moreover, a number of key countries in the Arab and African regions, such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Nigeria and the Sahel states, face major security and political challenges. International forces have also been playing a negative role, among them the former colonisers of Africa who regard any Arab-African rapprochement as a threat to their interests. There is also the role played by a number of Middle Eastern powers including Turkey, Iran and Israel that are eager to play a greater role in Africa at the expense of the Arab countries. In order to ensure the sustainability of the Arab-African Summit mechanism, the 2019 summit must prioritise finding a suitable formula to activate the recommendations made at the previous meetings. The first of these was held in Cairo in 1977, and its most important outcome was the 13-article Cairo Declaration supporting the struggle of the peoples of Palestine, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Somalia and the Comoros for freedom and independence. The second summit was held more than three decades later in October 2010 in the Libyan city of Sirte with the participation of 66 Arab and African countries (members of the Arab League and the African Union). The world, including the Arab and African regions, had undergone major changes in the period between the first and the second summit meetings, posing challenges that required the reconvening of the Arab-African Summit mechanism. The second summit focused on the Arab-African Joint Plan of Action for 2011-2016 and issued the Sirte Declaration that dealt with developments in the Palestinian cause and the situations in Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, the UAE and Occupied Golan Heights, among other topics of mutual concern. On 19 November 2013, the Third Arab-African Summit was held in Kuwait, just as many Arab countries were facing extraordinary political and security issues. The meeting was attended by 34 heads of state and delegations from 71 Arab and African countries, as well as a number of regional and international organisations. The summit discussed the possibility of establishing a joint Arab-African Market by linking programmes and projects taking place on the Arab and African levels on a separate basis, in addition to enhancing trade, investment and food security. A number of political issues were also discussed, and the outcomes of the summit appeared in the Kuwait Declaration. The Fourth Arab-African Summit was held on 23 November 2016 in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, where it was hosted for the first time by a non-Arab African country. The third summit meeting to be held within seven years, the event was an important indicator of its regular occurrence, considering the fact that the first and second summit meetings had been held 30 years apart. The Malabo Summit saw the participation of 17 heads of state of Arab and African countries under the title Together for Sustainable Development and Economic Cooperation. In addition to economic and development issues, the summit discussed ways to combat terrorism and guarantee food security. It adopted decisions to establish a disaster fund and to unify efforts to reduce youth migration across the Arab and African regions. The Arab-African Summits remain one of the most important mechanisms for enhancing bilateral cooperation between the Arab world and the African continent. However, in addition to the summit itself, the relationship between the two sides needs more efforts if it is truly to succeed, including expanding diplomatic representation and exchanging visits at the official and popular levels, especially among young people. This can be done by increasing the number of African students in Arab universities and institutes, as well as by dispatching experts and technicians to African countries and organising cultural, artistic and other events. There is also an urgent need to adopt a developmental perspective based on expanding the implementation of joint projects and mutual investments as an alternative to grants and donations from outside. In this regard, the role of financial institutions such as the African Development Bank and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa is of great importance. The integration of all these efforts is needed in view of the current challenges facing the Arab world and the African continent posed by the need to develop security and intelligence cooperation in the face of cross-border threats such as terrorism, illegal immigration and human-trafficking. *A version of this article appears in print in the 14 March, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: An Arab-African formula for success Search Keywords: Short link: While many African women have made important contributions to the continent, too many still suffer from marginalisation and exclusion, suggesting the need for an organisation of African women Whoever said that if you want to destroy a society, oppress its women was a very wise person. The status of women and their participation in society are among the UNs most important criteria for ranking a countrys development or underdevelopment. In the 1970s, the UN formed an Expert Group on Establishing Womens Development Institutions, of which to my surprise I was elected chair. The group was tasked with studying the status of women and their roles in peace and development. After completing our work, we submitted a report to the UN General Assembly, which resolved to establish organisations that would have the following four main aims. The first was to create the legal and legislative frameworks that would guarantee womens rights to equality and participation. The second was to develop womens capacities by providing them with the education, healthcare, cultural and other services they need to empower them both inside and outside the home. The third was to promote equal opportunities for women such that they can fully participate and exercise their rights. And the fourth was to rectify the prevailing image of women in society (perhaps the hardest of all). Achieving such aims is contingent on a number of conditions, among them the necessary political will and effective cooperation and coordination among all the organisations involved in womens affairs. As far as African women are concerned in relation to these aims, it will be immediately clear that they have an honourable record and a bright future, but that they also experience painful realities that vary considerably from one African society to the next and also within the same society. In many countries in the continent, women have made excellent progress, reaching the highest political offices. Catherine Samba-Panza, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Ameenah Gurib-Fakim have served, respectively, as the presidents of the Central African Republic, Liberia and Mauritius. Elisabeth Domitien served as prime minister of the Central African Republic and then played an important role in the Organisation Internationale de La Francophonie. Gertrude Mongella was elected president of the Pan-African Parliament, 25 per cent of whose members are women. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma chaired the African Union Commission in 2016. Algerian women fought in their countrys war of liberation, and today they constitute 70 per cent of Algerias lawyers and 60 per cent of its judges. The womens movement in Egypt also has a long and distinguished history. Egyptian women were the first in the region to win their political rights. Since the 1952 Revolution, they have served in parliament and in government, and today there are around 100 women in parliament and eight female ministers. In Tunisia, polygamy and arbitrary divorce have been banned. Throughout Africa, thousands of women now serve as ministers, ambassadors, judges, governors and in other high offices. Women were highly instrumental in achieving peace in the Rwanda-Burundi conflict. Recently, the German Minister for Economy and Development Gerd Muller lauded the role that African women play in the fight against illegal migration. Fifty-one of the 54 member states of the African Union have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Yet, in glaring contradiction to such successes, the vast majority of ordinary African women still suffer marginalisation and exclusion. Their opportunities to serve in public office remain limited. They are deprived of property and inheritance rights, yet they bear the brunt of agricultural work and other types of manual labour. They are often deprived of health and educational rights. They are frequently the victims of physical abuse, and the rates of sexual assaults on women have been climbing in tandem with the proliferation of terrorist groups in Africa. In Nigeria, families often keep their daughters at home for fear that they could be kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram. In many African countries, women are still too often forced to marry at a very early age and girls may be subjected to cruel or violent traditional sexual practices. According to a recent WHO report, in one Nile Valley country 59 per cent of women suffer sexual and bodily harm and 54 per cent are the victims of genital mutilation. The problems are innumerable, the hardships and suffering horrifying, and the deprivation often overwhelming and tragic. This brings us to the question of the organisations concerned with African women. Despite the aims of the African Unions Africa Agenda, there is still no African commission for women. There is just an office attached to the chair of the AU Commission, and it has little influence. But there are fortunately quite a few other organisations concerned with women, some of the most important being the African Womens Development Fund (AWDF), the National Council of African Women, the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, the East African Centre for the Empowerment of Women and Children, the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD), the Carrefour Emploi Developpement (CED-TOGO) and the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). All these organisations are useful and, indeed, essential. However, the problem is that they only focus on a single problem or on a single geographical area. What is needed is a single organisation, an African Womens Organisation, that will bring together all African women and their various organisations and open avenues for them to work together for their collective benefit regardless of the differing aims of their individual organisations or the differences between African governments. Such an umbrella organisation would be independent and would operate in the framework of AU principles, so that it can remain aloof from political squabbles and unencumbered by government red tape. A successful initiative of this sort that could be drawn upon is the Arab Women Organisation, which Bahiya Al-Hariri and I helped to found and which has organised many well-attended and productive conferences in Arab capitals. However, it should be borne in mind that after it was subsumed under the Arab League the Arab Women Organisation became bogged down in the same bureaucracy and inertia that plagues the League itself. Every member state of the proposed organisation would have two female representatives, one a government official responsible for womens affairs and the other a representative of a civil society organisation such as the ones mentioned above. The chair would rotate between member states, and it would organise an annual African womens summit conference. It might be possible to benefit from the expertise and diplomatic relations of African affairs expert Marwa Salem and of Egyptian ambassadors Moushira Khattab, Mona Omar and Naila Gabr in the new organisation. Others who could make important contributions are the dean of the Faculty of Managerial Sciences in Cairo, Inas Ezz and the academic Hoda Badran. I also believe that it would be both appropriate and acceptable for the wife of the late Boutros Boutros Ghali to serve as honourary president of the organisation. Maria Ghali accompanied her husband on his long struggle for the sake of peace, justice and rights in Africa, and he is still remembered with great fondness and respect throughout the continent. There are 600 million hardworking, struggling women on this continent that is itself so rich in resources. These women are a source of immense energy and potential that should not be allowed to go to waste. As long as the essential ingredient of political will exists, the new organisation will have the support and encouragement of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, a man of vision and achievement who believes in the potential that women have to offer and the role they can and should play in progress and development. His call to respect women has been echoed by Western countries. He has stood by the people he has called the great women of Egypt and encouraged them to take part in public life. I am certain that as current chair of the AU, he will do his utmost to advance a comprehensive drive to protect the women of Africa, ensure their rights, enable their effective participation and realise their empowerment as the great women of Africa. *A version of this article appears in print in the 14 March, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: An organisation for African women Search Keywords: Short link: Hong Kong: CE meets Japan sci-tech delegation Chief Executive Carrie Lam met the visiting Executive Director of the Japan Science & Technology Agency Yoshimasa Goto and his delegation at Government House today. Mrs Lam said she is pleased to see Mr Goto again after her Japan visit last October. The Chief Executive said she was impressed during last years visit by Japan's outstanding achievements in innovation and technology. Mrs Lam said the delegations upcoming visits to the Hong Kong Science Park, Cyberport and local universities will enhance mutual understanding. She noted Hong Kong possesses sound scientific research capabilities, outstanding technology talents and world-class universities. Hong Kong will strive to leverage its advantages to complement the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an international I&T hub, she added. Mrs Lam also hoped renowned I&T enterprises and education institutions in Japan would consider establishing a presence in Hong Kong to jointly seize the opportunities brought by the bay area development. This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Scammer moms Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman have officially gone offline, probably in an effort to destroy any additional fuel for their ongoing public shaming. And, of course, to avoid direct confrontation with angry parents and students, such as those currently suing the actresses for a comedic sum of 500 billion dollars for their role in "Operation Varsity Blues." Both women have been arrested along with around 50 others in the elaborate scheme, in which wealthy parents worked with a bogus non-profit to ensure their kids' admission to elite colleges. Loughlin deleted her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts last Tuesday, and Huffman went dark on Friday, According to CBS News, though not before poorly aged Tweets like these were captured: Huffman is accused of paying $15,000 to have a special proctor inflate the score of her 18-year-old daughter Sofia's SAT and give her extra time during the testing. Meanwhile Loughlin allegedly paid $500,000 to have her two daughters falsely recruited to the University of Southern California crew team. By far the greatest loss for the internet is Huffman's sassy, seemingly lucrative mommy blog What The Flicka?, self-described as "A website for moms & women to share real stories of parenting. Funny tips, tricks, recipes, videos, and advice from Felicity Huffman and our community of moms." Based on the remnants of the site, Huffman's corner of the market was the down-to-earth, "tells it like it is mom:" an aesthetic that Garage characterizes as very "proto-weed mom." On the blog ranked one of the "100 Best Websites for Women" by Forbes in 2013, the Desperate Housewives star hocked a variety of tongue-in-cheek gear like mugs splashed with #relatable slogans like "not not wine," "resting mom face," "good enough mom," and another that reads "I love being a mom" and "except when the kids are around" on the other." According to Garage, What The Flicka? also offered "candles (what does a "Bitches who Brunch" candle even smell like?), T-shirts reading "Coffee & Cardio" and "Don't Quit Your Daydream," and leggings that spell out "Carpe Diem" down the back of one leg." Plus, now extremely suspicious consultation services for moms looking to "monetize" their content. Sadly, now that What The Flicka? is just a broken URL, we may never know what Huffman's thoughts on the "cocktail mix of guilt and self-recrimination" that comes from leaving kids behind while traveling (per a 2013 Mashable interview, one of the tough topics she tackled), be able to try out her recipe for "DIY antiseptic ointment" (Forbes), or enjoy the tidbits of wisdom in her "Felicitations" column. Huffman said in her Mashable interview that she wanted What The Flicka? to be a place where women and mothers could "gather, make mistakes, say they're losing their mind, trade tips and offer advice to one another." No word on whether the $15,000 she paid to inflate her daughter's SAT score literally came out of her wine mug profits, but either way it seems unlikely that her "community of women" will forgive her for keeping all her hottest tips, like how to make college bribes tax deductible, to herself. Somewhat unnecessarily confirmed by an influencer strategist consulted by the Hollywood Reporter, Huffman's credibility in the parenting media world is "permanently ruined." Guess Olivia Jade isn't the only influencer who'll have to explore new avenues. In case you were wondering, yes, Kim Kardashian West and Paris Hilton are still hanging out. KKW, and her sis 'Poosh' CEO Kourtney Kardashian, came through for the DJ/ heiress's 38th birthday celebration on Saturday night, which comes a month after her actual birthday, February 17. The party also doubled as a St. Patty's Day bash, and the party looked insane. Kim shared videos from the event on her Instagram Stories, showing Paris in a fabulous glittery, deep-plunged neckline number. The two clearly have a lot of love for each other. "Happy birthday Paris, even though your birthday was month ago," Kim said in one of the videos. "But she deserves it." This isn't the first time the two have hung out together recently. According to E! News, Paris also attended the most recent annual Kardashian holiday party hosted at the West household. She also attended Kris Jenner's 2016 holiday party. In 2018, Paris was also among the Kim Klones for Yeezy Season 6. PHOTOS: Amol adorned with giant colored eggs ahead of Persian New Year Norooz 03/18/19 Photos by Majid Nikjou, Mehr News Agency Iranian citities are abuzz with excitement in the countdown to the Persian New Year, Norooz which coincides with beginning of spring (Thursday, March 21, 2019 at 01:28:27 AM Tehran time). Norooz is a festive occasion for Iranians and other countries in the region. To mark the new year, visual artists have decorated some of Iranian cities with large colored eggs. These photos show artists in the city of Amol painting their eggs with various new year themes. About Norooz: International Norooz Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/64/253 of 2010, at the initiative of several countries that share this holiday (Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan. Inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as a cultural tradition observed by numerous peoples, Norooz is an ancestral festivity marking the first day of spring and the renewal of nature. It promotes values of peace and solidarity between generations and within families as well as reconciliation and neighbourliness, thus contributing to cultural diversity and friendship among peoples and different communities. Related Article: Giant Norooz Eggs In Tehran - ISNA The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has challenged investors to constructively engage their African counterparts as the governments and peoples of the continent gear up to take their destinies in their own hands and assume their rightful places in the comity of nations. According to Dr Bawumia, Africa is on the move; a continent eager to shake off past failures due to blind colonial and cold-war alignments and sheer bad governance. The new scramble for Africa, according to the Economist Magazine, is now being led by a new generation of Africans determined to make a difference through technological innovations and the development of enterprise and markets. The Africa we want can only be built by Africans in partnerships with countries and investors who also believe in this paradigm for change. Vice President Bawumia issued the challenge when he addressed delegates at the ongoing 14th CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Project Partnership in New Delhi, India on Sunday 17th March, 2019. The three-day Conclave, under the theme Partners in Development, Building New Synergies, and organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank of India, is bringing together over 500 delegates including 33 Ministers and Heads of Government from 41 African countries. Over the past 13 editions, the CII- EXIM Bank Conclave on India Africa Project Partnership has emerged as the pioneer event for Indian and African governments and industry to meet and explore new avenues of partnerships, and enables the Indian and African leadership to take stock of the progress of the partnership and address future needs. Outlining a number of areas which would make an investment in Africa an attractive proposition, Vice President Bawumia urged participants to Let our conversation about the future move outside old boxes of doing business, and old government-business engagements. Africas emerging markets offer great opportunities for economic growth and prosperity with over 1.2 billion people and a combined GDP of US$2.24 trillion. It is the worlds second largest and second most populous continent, and by 2050 will be the most populous continent in the world with an estimated GDP of $29 trillion. The continent is endowed with natural resources which, with the right complementary factors, can be leveraged for accelerated and inclusive economic growth. Africa is home to ten of the worlds fifteen fastest-growing economies and this growth rate is expected to boost consumer spending from USD 860 billion in 2008 to more than USD 1.3 trillion by 2020, the Vice President stated. The leaders of the continent, Vice President Bawumia indicated, had already initiated moves designed to make trading on the continent less cumbersome with the declaration of the African Unions Agenda 2063, the continental bodys long-term vision for an integrated and prosperous continent Considering the significance of free movement of goods, services and persons across borders to socio-economic development, the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), a Flagship project of the African Union Agenda 2063, was launched to create a single market for Air transport in Africa. This is to allow significant freedom of air transport in Africa. On 21st March 2018, in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and other African leaders had the pleasure of signing the Agreement establishing the African continental Free Trade Area, (AfCFTA). Enhanced air connectivity, improved intra-African trade, expanded markets through continental economic integration and free movement of people, provide greater business opportunities. Vice President Bawumia continued: It is in this context that I encourage the relevant public officials from Ghana and India to engage in discussions that can open doors for business to business cooperation and mutually beneficial partnership engagements. This is a sure way for our two sides to explore the economic opportunities that abound in Africa and India. Issuing a rallying cry for constructive, productive dialogue at the 14th CII-Exim Bank Conclave, Vice President Bawumia asserted: Let us leave here with concrete engagements in business partnerships in key strategic areas. Let us know what we are not doing well as governments and what can be done to strengthen business partnerships. Together, let us push hard so we can improve the lives of ordinary citizens in India and Africa so that they too will realize that these industry conversations are also beneficial to them in the long run. 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 We are appalled, even saddened that Ghana in 2019 in a rule of law driven society would witness barbarism from so-called professional police officers as experienced by journalists from The Ghanaian Times last week. The unenviable brutality, uncouthness meted out to journalists was a display of open hatred for the media by the officers. They did what they did because they did not want what happened to be brought to the notice of the public; unfortunately it has, in a horrendous fashion. Whatever investigation is going to be undertaken should begin with the open display of crass indiscipline by the motor-riding cop whose conduct triggered the chain of misconducts by the regimented persons in the story: they should have known better that their conduct does not belong to a civilized police service. Even more disturbing is the fact that one of the perpetrators of the criminality was a superior police officer, a Deputy Superintendent Of Police. Imagine such an officer commanding a district. This should not be a business as usual module. The Inspector General Of Police (IGP) must wade into this nonsense immediately because we are not in a jungle. We wont be satisfied with carefully crafted composition from the Public Affairs Directorate of the Police. We have too many of such lame placating interventions. We want action and now. Such brutality, imbecility should not be happening under the watch of Mr. David Asante-Apeatu and the sooner he acts to placate incensed journalists across the country, the better would it be for media/police relations. It is mind-boggling that this is happening at a time the Police Administration has assured Ghanaians that the training manuals are being upgraded to incorporate basic PR to foster mutual and respectful relationship between the Police and their many publics. The IGP, when it was suggested to him recently to consider making police commanders accessible to the public because the status quo does not encourage that, was upbeat. He said that was being taken care of under the auspices of the European Union. He even said that there is an improved worldwide ranking of the Police in that regard. Now we are beginning to have doubts about this ranking. More, of course, must be done to catch up with internationally acceptable best practices in policing. With this brutish conduct by some police officers, we should not expect the productive cooperation from members of the public when, for instance, information is needed for the apprehension of criminals or important leads are required for the unraveling of seeming intractable security conundrums. We would not be satisfied with a mere we are looking into the matter. We want to see concrete action taken against all the officers. The IGP has been offered a fine opportunity to assure us sincerely that he can walk his talk when it comes to enforcing the law and for that matter discipline. If misbehaving cops can get away with crime, then the war against vigilantes could be a cosmetic exercise. We are encouraged by the intervention of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in the matter. The swiftness calls for commendation but that should not be the end of it. The GJA President must demand answers and actions from the IGP and even the Interior Minister. We shall revisit this subject with a view to ensuring that the perpetrators are dealt with according to law. The suspects in this matter do not belong to the transforming Police project the IGP is working on. The President should be disappointed by this conduct of these cops having showered flowery praises on the Police during the 62nd anniversary of our independence in Tamale. We shall return. 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. 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 Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC) has partnered the Ghanaian Centre of PEN International to promote reading and writing among second cycle institutions in the Upper West Region. The exercise forms part of the effort to promote reading and writing among Senior High School students in the Northern sector of the country i.e. Upper West, Upper East and the Northern Regions. A team comprising staff of GBDC (led by Daniel Ofosu-Asamoah, the Literacy Promotion Manager) and the Ghanaian Centre of PEN International (led by Mr. Frank Mackay Anim-Appiah, the Executive Director of the Ghanaian Centre of PEN International), are currently visiting some selected schools in the Upper West Region to interact with the students, expose them to the importance of reading and also form Reading Clubs to serve as a platform for honing the reading and writing skills of the students. Book prizes are given to deserving students or students who excel during question and answer sessions. Not only that, but also, students who excel in poetry recitation and other artistries are rewarded with books. The team has so far visited 15 schools and has either formed or gone through the laid down procedure to form Reading Clubs in the schools. The Reading Clubs will benefit from workshops, training programmes, competitions and reading materials with the aim of honing the skills of the students in reading and writing. Some of the schools visited include Wa Senior High school, Wa Islamic Senior High school, T.I. Ahmmadiya Senior High school, WA Senior High Technical school, Kaleo Senior High Technical school, St Francis Girls Senior High school, Jirapa Senior High school, Queen of Peace Senior High school, Lawra, Senior High school, Nandom Senior High school, Kanton Senior High school and Tumu Senior High school. From Upper West region, the team is expected to go to Upper East Region to continue its work. The team is to visit a number of schools there with the same objective of promoting reading and creative writing which are fundamental to the success of every academic environment. PEN International is an international organisation that promotes Literature and Freedom of expression, whereas Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC) is an Agency under the Ministry of Education mandated to oversee the development, regulation and effective planning of the Book industry in the country. One of its functions is to promote reading and creative-writing among school children. 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 Salifu Maase, popularly called Mugabe, who is on a police enquiry bail, has predicted that people will flee Ghana, letting out a stream of invective on the head of popular preacher, Rev Isaac Owusu Bempah. Some of the language he used were unprintable. His Radio XYZ programme, last Friday, was as provocative as it was vitriolic, and President Akufo-Addo was not left out of the raging session of insults, as Maase expressed his readiness to fight anybody on behalf of former President John Mahama, who truncated his four-month jail through a pardon in 2016. We all live in this country; some people will flee, the presenter fired at the fiery preacher, declaring that Owusu Bempah and others will run away with their sandals from this country. I am daring you this afternoon; if you are a man come out! He added Owusu Bempah said that John Mahama is planning to kill Nana Akufo-Addo, Bawumia, Kennedy Agyapong and he, Bempah himself. That fake prophet that pastor who has bleached his skin like that of a pigthat fake prophet who gave Nana Akufo-Addo a hornthat magicianthat idiot had the guts to speak against John Mahama in this country all because Oman FM will give him the platform. You have met me in my dreams seven times in less than two months and in all the encounters, I stopped you! he boasted on radio. Let them go to Togo and Benin; they cannot do anything to me. Useless magician! Idiot! added. Fallouts Mugabes diatribe appears to have incensed Rev. Owusu Bempah of Glorious Word Power Ministry International who reportedly stormed the radio station, thereby creating a scene in the Radio XYZ studios last Friday. When Rev Owusu Bempah turned up at the radio station after being informed of what was going on, the story turned into a nasty scene that demanded the intervention of the East Legon Police. Two Versions Rev Owusu Bempah later denied storming the radio station in the company of national security operatives as reported earlier. In fact, a producer at the station, Kofi Oppong Asamoah, confirmed that Rev Owusu Bempah stormed Radio XYZ with some heavily-built guys, but said nobody man-handled anybody even though he said the preacher looked angry. He came with some bodyguards who were armed and they came into the foyer asking of Mugabe Maase, the host of an afternoon political show, adding we asked him why he was asking for Mr. Maase to which he replied that the radio presenter has made derogatory comments about him on the radio on Thursday. Unsuccessful attempt Later, Rev Owusu Bempah said having tried in vain to engage with Mugabe Maase to have him stop his tirade on him, he tried to approach him. Both sides became enraged to such an extent that it demanded the intervention of the police. I went to the radio station to warn Mugabe Salifu Maase to stop insulting me and to dialogue with him. I wanted to find out from him why he was insulting me. I did not go there to fight. I did not go there with national security operatives. The radio station is even in the area where I live. I am on very good terms with them. I was there one day when someone called to ask whether I had a problem with Mugabe because he was insulting me. I decided to report the matter to the East Legon Police, he explained. When he reached the station, according to him, the staff ordered him to leave the place. The altercation which eventually ensued demanded the intervention of the East Legon Police who sent 20 officers to the scene. NDC Firing Line Rev Owusu Bempah is in the firing line of the NDC as the former president has joined the fray; his words though not as harsh as Mugabes. The former president denied the assertion of the cleric that he was planning to kill President Akufo-Addo and his Vice, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. The claims, he said are the imaginations of a warped mind and effusions of a tainted founder of a church who would say and do anything to attract attention to himself. Restive Days Ahead The days ahead could prove politically restive as the opposition seems to be unfolding its strategies of going all out on its opponents, the ruling NPP, overt and covert. Synchronized attacks on the ruling NPP and persons perceived to be supportive of it are being noticed on the political plain; the features fitting the contents of the ill-famed Ofosu-Ampofo leaked tape recording. 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. Featured Video While working to restore power supply to some parts of the capital city, Accra, so as to ease the intermittent power cuts, some angry local at Kokrobite pounced on workers of Power Distribution Service (PDS), which recently took over the management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), and unleased their anger on them, cutting one staffs nose with a machete in the attack on Saturday, 16 March 2019. The cutlassed PDS staff had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. It is not clear what triggered the attack on the PDS staff but a communication consultant with the Energy Ministry, Nana Damoah, took to Facebook to appeal to Ghanaians to be tolerant of PDS staff. We plead with all Ghanaians and consumers of power to please be a bit more considerate in their actions. Yesterday, as staff of PDS/ECG worked to restore power to residents around Krokrobite, they were attacked and beaten. One of the men working to restore power sustained a cutlass wound on his nose. This is very unfortunate. As various teams are out in the field working to restore power in the problematic areas, please lets guarantee their safety, so, they can deliver for us. It is essential for our own good, he said. Power supply has been erratic in the past few days as a result of a technical problem caused by some construction work on the Pokuase stretch. It has caused power transmitter Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) to as ask PDS to shed power for 10 hours until early next week. Source: Class News 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 President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assented to the Ghana Civil Aviation (Amendment) Bill to become Act 985 (2019). The Amendment of the Ghana Civil Aviation Act 906 (2016) is to address the various deficiencies raised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) with respect to the Aviation sector. The New Act, thus, empowers GCAA to continue with the provision of air navigation services till a new entity is formed. It also enhances the role of the Minister of Aviation in the areas of accidents and investigations. Parliament, on 8 March 2019, passed the Bill to improve safety and strengthen security in the aviation industry. A release issued by the Ministry of Aviation said the sector Minister, Mr Kofi Adda, who moved for the Bill to be passed, explained that the amendment was also to ensure that Ghana become compliant with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central also explained that though the sector was already doing well by global standards and was ranking very high, the amendment would help address the deficiencies identified in numerous assessments of the structures and operational systems of air navigational services as well as ensure the effective implementation of the state safety programmes and accident investigations. This will be done by setting up an independent outfit under the minister for investigations to be conducted into accidents in the sector. It would also enhance the powers of the Director-General of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to enable it to carry on investigations and access vital information. It also makes provision for the funding of the independent outfit to ensure that its personnel work effectively, while it helps to prevent the operation of flights by unqualified personnel. The same amendment would also see the decoupling of the GCAA, segregating the regulatory function and navigation services provision, it explained. Here, too, a new outfit for air navigation services would be established under the amendment if assented into law by the president. Following this, it said, the Aviation ministry would move to get additional regulations passed through by the Subsidiary Legislation Committee of Parliament in time for an audit by the ICAO, later this month. The Amendment Bill, the Minister said, had far-reaching consequences with regard to the improvement of Ghanas rating into the Category One status to qualify under the Federal Aviation Administration for Ghanaian flights to enter into the United States of America. In recent times, we have seen major initiatives in such infrastructural projects and system enhancements, which combined with this legislation, all point in the direction of the nation truly becoming the aviation hub in the sub-region. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry in the erstwhile Mahama administration, Hon. Murtala Mohammed has described the state of Ghana under President Akufo-Addo to be a no vision, no method, no plan and no nothing. According to him, it is obvious for Ghanaians to see the ship [Ghana] going into pieces...no vision, no method, no plan and no nothing. That is the best way you can describe the state of this nation. Speaking on Radio Golds "Alhaji and Alhaji" talk show, Murtala Mohammed indicated that the current economic chaallenges could have been avoided; reiterating that the country is experiencing these crises as a result of the inability of Akufo-Addo and his government to control their ego. ...everybody knows that we are where we are because of the inability of the people who are given the mandate to govern us to control their uncontrollable ego, he asserted. To buttress his point, the former Deputy Minister claimed to have picked up information that the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, in a private discussion had actually boasted he was going to deal with certain banks. Thus to him, the collapse of some indigenous banks was deliberately orchestrated for foreign banks to thrive. ...there is no denying the fact that what they did to Unibank and the other banks is a classical example and confirmation of this rumour that is being peddled out there, he alleged. In this country, what was shocking to me and I believe to most people is that these local and indigenous banks are being collapsed deliberately to pave way not only for the parochial interest of the minister of finance and his uncle, but to pave way for the foreign banks to strive. And I can tell you that almost all the operatives of the foreign banks....their leaderships are happy about what has happened to these domestic banks, he claimed. Inasmuch as the laws and regulations of the banking sector must be adhered to, Murtala Mohammed insisted that the Akufo-Addo government should have contextualised the circumstances by looking at the operation of those domestic banks vis-a-vis the other foreign banks. Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected] 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 Ghanaian actress, Ella Mensah, has revealed that she bleached her skin in other to be getting movie roles in Nollywood. In an interview with Delay, Ella revealed how much she spent on bleaching her skin. According to the actress, she had to take an injection which cost about costs 2,000, "I don't use cream to bleach my skin, I took an injection." The actress who added that she owes no one an explanation for bleaching her skin, says it has helped her gain recognition in the movie industry. I thought about it and it is my own skin and thank God I am not going to hurt or kill anybody. So I did it because I love it and also partly because of my job. In a previous interview with Sammy Flexx on Zylofon Fm, Ella revealed that Nigerian movie producers and directors prefer giving roles to light-skinned actresses as they see them more attractive. 'If you are a dark-skinned person, your talent alone is not going to push you up because a producer once told me that I have the height, the body but don't look attractive. 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. Featured Video The role of the creative arts in national development has been emphasized over the years yet the level of commitment required in ensuring that this ceases to be a facade has not always matched the talk. One will wonder why this proclamation, which is a statement of fact and can be attested to by practitioners and patrons of the arts, at this moment in time. There is no way that commitment to a venture can produce cherished valuable results without the setting up of the requisite structures accompanied by appropriate regulations and in the right climate. In the past and not too distant past, we have had more talk than action when it comes to working to achieve resounding success in any facet of life, in the common interest of the people of this nation. That is exactly what has transpired in this nation and the story is no different when it comes to the creative arts industry in Ghana. However, that narrative appears to be changing now. It is clear that despite its potential, issues regarding the creative arts industry have not received the necessary attention and support since Ghanas Independence, perhaps with the exception of the Nana Akufo-Addo government since it took over the reins of power in January 2017. I say this with no reservations and/or fear. The treatment meted out to the creative arts over the years is akin to a child praying to be adopted formally, in order to have foster parents, whereas, in fact, the right thing to do is unite it with its biological parents. Why must a child be treated as an orphan when its parents are alive? Why must this child go begging, cup in hand, when it has what it takes to not only fend for itself, but has the ability to even provide support for others? That is what has happened, since Independence, to the creative arts in Ghana. Management of the creative arts has been sent for adoption to many parents including the Ministries of Information, Education, Commission on Chieftaincy, amongst others until it was paired up with Ministry of Tourism in recent times. One will ask why then do you say until the Nana Akufo-Addo government, the creatives never received the required attention? It is evidently simple. The Creative Arts Industry has been duly placed under a Creative Arts Council, which is a body of State and is being resourced with all appropriate legal and logistical support to ensure that it operates at full capacity, to the benefit of not just practitioners in this area of life, but also to benefit the nation as a whole. Countless engagements have and some more are being done to ensure it is made a successful venture. That is the commitment that, if we had as a nation, put in place would have given the creative arts the necessary push it needed. Aside the setting up of this Council, which has over forty (40) creative practitioners under its umbrella and has held various engagements with its members, associations and institutions, there is the setting up of the Office for Programmes and Projects in Creative Arts to ensure that projects and programmes are organized to elevate the work of creative practitioners in Ghana. At the appropriate time, all will know these programmes and projects. This Government appears determined to ensure that the creative arts contribute their quota to national development, and has put in a lot of effort to ensure that all who matter are properly organized and structured. This is what commitment should be and not just talk shops without appropriate systems and structures. What was started a few years ago has been stepped up and is yielding results with a very high probability of yielding more. What is needed is for all who have the creative arts at heart to put their shoulders to the wheel and ensure that we place it on the right footing to do what they do best and enjoy most- contributing to national development. Let us support the organs of government to set the standards and all other things can follow. The creative industry has what it takes to take care of itself but until we support the systems and structures, we will continue to grope in the dark. The Tourism aspect of this sector is seen to be working because they started with Councils and bodies that have worked to ensure their status. Until such a time that we can have a Ministry to ourselves, let us support the bodies set up to push this sector forward. There is steady progress being made and we shall soon arrive at our destination. Signed Bibi Bright QwinB Actress/Exe. Secretary, Creative Council Ghana Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland make an announcement in Ottawa, Monday, March 18, 2019 about Canada extending its military missions in Ukraine and Iraq, both of which were due to expire at the end of the month. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick An aerial view of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain marine terminal, in Burnaby, B.C., is shown on May 29, 2018. A lawyer for the British Columbia government says the province knows it cannot stop the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but it can enact environmental laws to mitigate the harm it may cause.THE CANADIAN PRESS Jonathan Hayward Scattered scross globe, PDVSA roughnecks wonder about going home The Economist Venezuela's loss of thousands of oil workers has been other countries' gain - If Guaido manages to oust Maduro, remaking PDVSA will be key - Efforts to contact oil industry exiles gaining steam now' By Michael D McDonald, Fabiola Zerpa, and Michelle Kim / Bloomberg Businessweek SAN JOSE/CARACAS/NEW YORK Petroleumworld 03 18 2019 Now that Juan Guaido has put a shadow board of directors for Petroleos de Venezuela on standby, he needs a few thousand employees in the wings ready to come to the rescue. That and a whole lot of money. But assembling a deep bench of experience and knowledge, as Guaido's team is trying to do, may be the tougher nut. Much of the PDVSA professional staff left more than a decade ago for jobs in other countries. The rank-and-file payroll has thinned out as roughnecks and truck drivers joined the exodus from a country in economic and political crisis. Reviving the battered state-owned company is a crucial plank in any plan for the future should the National Assembly Leader succeed in his bid, now going on three months, to dislodge the Nicolas Maduro regime. Reversing plummeting production will by most accounts require the return of exiles familiar with the peculiarities of the business in the country with the largest proven reserves in the world. It's not as easy as it sounds, said Luis Salas, who was a drilling manager on PDVSA rigs for 13 years. Promises and reality are two different things. The diaspora is global, with former executives and technicians in new careers across Latin America and in the U.S. and Canada. Some landed in the Persian Gulf, where countries are recruiting the holdout talent still in Caracas. Everyday, you see new Venezuelans coming to Saudi Arabia, said Alejandro Ramirez, who was a financial analyst at PDVSA and is now a financial consultant for Saudi Aramco , the national oil company, in Dhahran. Despite the obvious lures -- like the idyllic weather in Caracas or the chance to once again enjoy the arepas and cachapas they grew up on -- many refugees would be hard pressed to return. I've been living abroad for 20 years, Ramirez said. His two daughters were born in the U.S. and raised in the kingdom. I don't know if I'd go back. The search for candidates to staff a new PDVSA has been going on, in fits and starts, for 15 years. It began after the mass-firing in 2003 of 18,000 employees who joined a strike to demand early elections to challenge then-President Hugo Chavez. Gente del Petroleo, which keeps a database of former employees, was established the next year. The search kicks up every time the opposition seems to be making headway. The effort is gaining steam now thanks to Guaido, said Juan Fernandez, a planning and risk director at PDVSA until 2003 who lives in Miami. There are no reliable data on the numbers of onetime employees who are still in the business. Gente del Petroleo has reached out to several thousand, Fernandez said, sending surveys to ask questions about current positions and gauge interest in helping rebuild PDVSA. We have been collecting data on people outside Venezuela and speaking to Guaido's team on how to best channel the human resources, he said. The potential workforce includes new expatriates like Salas, who quit last year and moved with his wife and three children to Bogota, where he works odd jobs. PDVSA was a disaster, he said. I saw what a mess the meetings were, the total lack of attention to detail, no one taking charge of anything. As rocky as his situation is in Colombia, he said, he wouldn't go back unless he was persuaded the company really could be made whole again. With enough investment -- many tens of billions of dollars -- and expertise, that could happen. The loss of technically competent people is one of the most limiting factors, said Luis Giusti, who resigned as PDVSA's chief executive the day before Chavez took office in 1999 and is an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. PDVSA had been a crown jewel, considered one of the most efficiently run state oil companies. But negligence, botched management and graft hollowed it out to such an extent that it's now pumping around 1 million barrels a day, down from more than 3 million when Chavez became president. There is a lot of potential, said Nestor Zerpa, a senior adviser at CNOOC Ltd. in Calgary. But it was so easy to destroy, and so difficult to build. If Maduro exits, Zerpa said he'd consider helping a new government remake PDVSA, at least on a temporary basis. He was pushed out of his refinery management job there after he joined the anti-Chavez walkout. It wasn't easy, he acknowledged, to start over in a place where the temperatures often drop below freezing, a far cry from Caracas. That took some adjustment, he said. But in Canada, you have your freedom, you have security, you have a good life. While groups affiliated with the opposition have been drawing up plans to remake the company, there's no telling how the resuscitation would play out in a post-Maduro world. The U.S. presumably would lift its sanctions . Guaido's picks for new boards for PDVSA and its U.S. refining arm, Citgo , include industry veterans whose credibility could help attract the needed investment. Foreign companies are, not surprisingly, eager to assist. We have a lot of people who are very well qualified and are available to go, Ashok Belani, executive vice president of technology at Schlumberger Ltd., said at a conference in Houston this week. There is a lot of willingness to do that, if the conditions were right. Even with money and solid staffing, though, the full recovery effort would take years. We can't talk about a quick fix, said Luisa Garcia, a 17-year PDVSA trade and planning manager who left in 2014 and now works in Miami as a marketing consultant. It's not going to be easy, but the last 20 years haven't been easy either. With assistance by David Wethe, and Robert Tuttle _________________________ SPONSORED STORIES / Hit your target - Sponsor your story We invite you to join us as a sponsor. Circulated Videos, Articles, Opinions and Reports which carry your name and brand are used to target Entrepreneurs through our site, promoting your organizations services. The opportunity is to insert in our stories pages short attention-grabbing videos, or to publish your own feature stories. _________________________ Story by Michael D McDonald, Fabiola Zerpa, and Michelle Kim from Bloomberg. bloomberg.com 03 16 2019 Original article _________________________ Copyright 1999-2019 Petroleumworld or respective author or news agency. All rights reserved. We welcome the use of Petroleumworld (PW) stories by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization by its authors. Internet web links to http://www.petroleumworld.com are appreciated. Petroleumworld welcomes your feedback and comments, share your thoughts on this article, your feedback is important to us! Hit your target-Advertise with PW PW 300.000 plus request per week We invite all our readers to share with us their views and comments about this article. 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Kearny Point, NJ -- (ReleaseWire) -- 03/18/2019 --Powersoft, the world leader in lightweight and energy efficient amplifier platforms, announced that it has fortified its sales rep and bolstered its service center network in North America. The announcement follows the opening of Powersoft's North American headquarters, which was announced in January of last year. "Our recent investments in our North American infrastructure reflect our continued growth in this region," commented Luca Giorgi, General Manager, North America. "By strengthening our sales network and increasing the footprint and capabilities of our service centers, we will be able to serve our customers better and offer greater predictability." Refined and strengthened sales rep network Recent investments in Powersoft's North American infrastructure include the appointment of new rep firms in the Ohio Valley, New England and Upstate New York and New Jersey. McFadden Sales Inc. has been appointed to oversee the Ohio Valley region including Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Also, Lienau a/v associates, inc. has been appointed to provide turnkey sales services for Powersoft in the Mideast region, including Delaware, Virginia, Washington D.C., eastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York. In New England, Audio Pros will cover Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The appointment of McFadden, Lienau and Audio Pros sees the leading amplifier manufacturer more than doubling its sales rep presence in these select regions, which the company sees as representing key potential growth geographies. "Our engagement of these rep firms is the result of our continuous effort to get closer to the needs of our customers. Further, we feel that each of these companies will be able to function seamlessly as an extension of our own brand, while embracing our culture and corporate values." New service centers create efficiency for customers Powersoft also announced two new authorized service centers in North America both of which will offer pre and post-sales support, testing and repair, reconditioning and full warranty service. The two new service centers, located in Rockwaway, New Jersey and Montreal Canada, add to the company's pre-existing service center already located in Ventura, California. Both of the new service center operations have already received formal training on Powersoft's rigorous equipment servicing and are now fully qualified to handle any equipment servicing need. "Now that we have authorized service center locations across North America, we are able to handle customer needs more efficiently and expeditiously," commented Luca Giorgi. "Having strategically located service centers also helps us keep a closer pulse on customer needs in different regions. This is all part of our strategy of becoming closer to our customers." We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Rally in Mahweet to mark fourth anniversary of steadfastness against Saudi aggression [18/March/2019] p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;direction:ltr;unicode-bidi:embed">MAHWAIT, March. 18 (Saba) A number of schools in Mahwait province on Monday held a rally mark fourth anniversary of the Yemeni people's steadfastness against the war and siege carried out by the Saudi aggression. At the rally, the students condemned the international community's silence towards the war crimes and violations have been committed by the aggression and its mercenaries against the Yemenis since March, 2015. The rally stressed the importance of ongoing educational process despite challenges and difficulties experienced by Yemen. They greeted the great triumphs and stance made by the army and tribes against the aggression and its plots in the battle fronts. Ali Ahsan saba SNc Channels: Search About Salem-News.com Mar-17-2019 20:21 TweetFollow @OregonNews Human Rights Defender Responds to New Zealand Terrorist Attack A letter to Prime Minster Adern from Salem-News.com's Human Rights Ambassador 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant has been charged with murder. Photo: 4bc.com.au (YORK, UK) - Rt. Hon. Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister PO Box 18888 Parliament Buildings Wellington NEW ZEALAND Dear Madam Prime Minister, I am William Gomes, Human Rights defender and freelance journalist based in York, United Kingdom. Like many other British citizens around the country, I was appalled to wake up to news of the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed and injured so many people, including children. You have rightly stated that "what has happened here is an extraordinary act of unprecedented violence," and "They have no place in New Zealand." I extend my deepest condolences to the families and friends who lost their loved ones in this senseless tragedy. I stand firmly with the people of New Zealand and with the Muslim communities across the world: you are in my heart and my thoughts. I join in your grief at this tough time. This event reminds us, again, that we must face Islamophobia and work to create a world where all people--no matter their religion, where they live, or in which they were born--can feel safe and secure. Finally, in this challenging time, I remember what the great British parliamentarian, Jo Cox, has said in celebrating diversity, "We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us." Yours sincerely, William Gomes Journalist and Human Rights Activist York, United Kingdom _________________________________________ United-kingdom | Terror-attack | Most Commented on Articles for March 17, 2019 | Articles for March 18, 2019 Growers that use temporary or seasonal foreign guest workers must provide those workers with clean and safe housing and transportation to and from the worksite plus nominally priced meals or free access to cooking facilities. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that growers may be liable under Title VII, the federal employment discrimination law, if those accommodations are provided in an unlawfully discriminatory manner, even where the growers delegate those non-farm matters to a labor contractor. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued two Washington State fruit growers and now-defunct Global Horizons, the labor contractor the growers retained to recruit workers from Thailand under the H-2A guest worker program. Employers may use temporary or seasonal foreign workers where there is an inadequate supply of domestic workers to perform the work. The law requires employers to provide H-2A workers with housing, transportation, and meals. The growers agreed to share responsibility with Global Horizons for managing the Thai workers work at the orchards. Global Horizons was contractually responsible for the Thai workers housing, transportation, and meals or access to cooking facilities. Advertisement The EEOC claimed the Thai workers were assigned to more demanding work than the growers Mexican employees and forced to work in worse conditions. The Thai workers, unlike their Mexican counterparts, also allegedly were provided unsanitary and unsafe housing, transportation, and cooking facilities. The appellate court held that the growers could be jointly liable with Global Horizons for any discrimination in non-orchard-related matters, even though the growers had delegated those matters to Global Horizons. The trial court order to the contrary was reversed. The appeals court adopted a multi-factor framework, developed and applied by courts in other contexts, for determining whether two entities are joint employers. Whether an entity is a joint employer, said the court, depends on the control the entity exercises over the details of the work or other matters in which the worker allegedly suffered discrimination. That includes such factors as whether the worker can decide when and how long to work and whether the work is part of the hiring entitys business. Both the trial court and the court of appeals concluded that the growers and Global Horizons were joint employers for the purpose of the alleged discrimination the Thai workers suffered in their orchard-related work. But what about non-orchard-related matters? [I]n a typical employment relationship, the employer does not have control over non-workplace matters such as housing, meals, and transportation, the court acknowledged. The H-2A guest worker law, however, placed ultimate responsibility for providing those accommodations on the growers. The growers contractual delegation of those statutory responsibilities to a contractor did not excuse the growers from potential liability as a joint employer in such matters. If the Growers were dissatisfied with the quality of Global Horizons services, they could have demanded changes, withheld payment, or ended the contract with Global Horizons altogether. The power to control the manner in which housing, meals, transportation, and wages were provided to the Thai workers, even if never exercised, is sufficient to render the Growers joint employers as to non-orchard-related matters. The court then ruled that the growers could be liable for discrimination that allegedly occurred in non-orchard-related matters if they knew or should have known about Global Horizons alleged discrimination and failed to use their power to correct it. The court ruled that the EEOC had alleged that one grower had the requisite knowledge because the Thai workers allegedly complained to officials at the grower about their substandard conditions and the Mexican workers better treatment. The case was returned to the trial court to allow the EEOC to get evidence that the other grower also knew of the discrimination in the non-orchard-related matters and for further consideration of the alleged discrimination in both orchard- and non-orchard-related matters. An employer that outsources functions of its operations the employer is legally required to provide its workers may be jointly liable for unlawful discrimination in which its contractor engages of which the employer knew or should have known. Dan Eaton is a partner with the San Diego law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek where his practice focuses on defending and advising employers. He also is an instructor at the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business where he teaches classes in business ethics and employment law. He may be reached at eaton@scmv.com. His Twitter handle is @DanEatonlaw. Annies Bake Shop has helped the Lakeside Union School District win a national nutrition award. Leigh Ann Bozung, the districts child nutrition lead, is Annie and specializes in the daily baking of homemade goodies for schools in Lakeside, tantalizing kids taste buds with fresh banana chocolate chip bread, snickerdoodles, submarine sandwich rolls, rainbow sprinkle cookies and croissants. The district was one of six national Champions of Breakfast Award winners from California, selected by USDA Food and Nutrition Service to celebrate National School Breakfast Week and National Nutrition Month. The awards recognize outstanding achievements of districts and individual schools that are part of the National School Breakfast Program. Lakeside was the lone San Diego County winner. Advertisement Started in 1966 as a pilot project, the School Breakfast Program provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or no-cost breakfasts to children each school day in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It was permanently authorized by Congress in 1975. A press release said the district won for its success in boosting breakfast meal quality and participation through the use of scratch cooking to improve meal quality and increase cost effectiveness. Bozungs baked-from-scratch morning specialties like cinnamon coffee cake, lunchtime flaky sweet rolls and her suppertime treats like mozzarella cheese breadsticks are like nothing else out there, said Sally Spero, the districts child nutrition director since 2012. Spero said that the districts executive chef, Jim Dumars, has also contributed in the creation of fresh, healthy food choices for more than 5,500 school-age kids in Lakeside. Were doing something pretty groundbreaking, Spero said. I dont know that there are any other school districts making their own croissants. Our district is kind of unique. We have made a real commitment to making as much from scratch as we can. Spero said that several years ago district personnel were unhappy with most of the prepackaged food and frozen items they were serving Lakeside students. The kids didnt want to eat them and we didnt want to eat them either, she said. They were also costing us a lot of money. Also, I think it sends a message to students if you just give me a breakfast pastry in a bag thats partially heated, it looks like maybe you dont care about me. karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com Faced with a budget deficit and the inability to find a viable operator for the National City Aquatic Center, the city has turned over the waterfront facility to the Port of San Diego. The shift in management was agreed upon by the Port and city in recent weeks. With the Port set to operate the center, the city expects to cut its budget by $255,000 a year, as well as save $125,000 in one-time capital expenses for equipment. In its current budget, the South Bay city of more than 60,000 residents faces a $4.1 million deficit. Advertisement Located in Pepper Park near the citys marina, the 4,700-square-foot center cost $5.3 million. The Port paid for most of the costs more than $4 million through its Capital Improvement Program. The center includes two multipurpose classrooms, storefront/office space, locker rooms with showers and restrooms, and storage rooms for boats and equipment. Envisioned for more than a decade as a way to provide residents recreational access to San Diego Bay, the center opened in the summer of 2016. It has offered minimal programming, including summer, fall and winter boating camps put on by Community Rowing of San Diego. Efforts to find a long-term operator began a year before the center opened. Over the years, the city at least twice launched a bidding process, to no avail. Deputy City Manager Brad Raulston said talks with interested organizations, including the YMCA and Southwestern College, fell through, mostly because of costs to manage the facility. Considering the citys budget deficit, the City Council in May authorized city staff to begin discussions with the Port to terminate the lease and hand over the center, which the city did not pay rent for because it serves a public purpose. A formal agreement to terminate the lease was approved by the City Council on March 5 and by the Board of Port Commissioners on March 12. It does not include a penalty free to terminate the lease. Port Commissioner Dukie Valderrama, who represents National City, said the Port invested too much to not support the city and the facilitys success. We have no problem taking it over and turning it into a useful facility for the community, Valderrama said, adding the center has never been utilized to its full extent. A spokeswoman said the Port is in talks with groups including Community Rowing of San Diego, the YMCA, Sweetwater High School and the Sailing Events Association to expand the use of the center. Future uses may include environmental conservation and educational aquaculture the farming of fish, plants and other organisms, said Port spokeswoman Brianne Page. The Port is committed to public access to the San Diego Bay waterfront in National City, Page said in part in a statement. City staff said the city will partner with the Port to promote programs to residents via social media, fliers and the citys quarterly newsletter. City staff also said the Port will allow the city to use the center for meetings or special events based on availability. Paige said the Port will oversee the center for now but may in the long run look for an operator to manage day-to-day operations. The Port already maintains the 5.5-acre Pepper Park. Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com Phone: (619) 293-1876 Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez Italys famed La Scala opera house will immediately return 3 million euros ($3.4 million) sent to an escrow account by Saudi Arabia in what Milans mayor on Monday termed a badly handled fundraising deal. But he did not rule out future dealings with the kingdom despite concerns raised over its human rights record. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told reporters that La Scalas board decided to return the money deposited earlier this year by the Saudi culture minister without a proper indication of its purpose and before the board had been formally notified of fundraising discussions with Saudi officials by La Scalas general manager. While the current procedure aimed at making Saudi Arabia an official financial backer of the opera house was officially closed, Sala refused to rule out future talks with the kingdom. He said a planned tour by La Scalas orchestra in 2020 will go ahead as planned. We are not closing doors to Saudi Arabia, Sala said. It depends on the form of cooperation. We will do the tour. I wouldnt make a list of countries where it doesnt make sense to go, also because this kind of activity can help in respect to the situation that exists today in Saudi Arabia. Advertisement The fundraising deal, for example, foresaw the establishment of a music school run by La Scalas academy that would be open to all Saudi children regardless of gender. While announcing the return of the money, the mayor noted that the Italian government and financial institutions continued to have dealings with Saudi Arabia. Italy is Saudi Arabias ninth-largest trading partner, according to the Saudi embassy website. While Italys premier Giuseppe Conte said at his year-end news conference that Italy planned to suspend arms sales, no action has been taken yet. The opera house deal, which would have given a seat on the La Scala board to Saudi Arabias culture minister, was hotly contested in light of Saudi Arabias human rights record. The kingdom is under increased scrutiny internationally since the killing of a Saudi journalist inside its consulate in Istanbul last October and the plight of a Saudi woman who turned to social media to help escape alleged family abuse. Other Western cultural institutes have also grappled with how to handle financial contributions from Saudi Arabia following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia, which has been making moves to open culturally to the West, participated for the first time in last years Biennale architecture exhibit in Venice. As part of the arrangement agreed, Saudi Arabia would have contributed 15 million euros to La Scala over the coming years and in return would have become a so-called founding member. of the foundation and taken a seat on the board. Sala said the talks with Saudi Arabia, which included discussions ahead of the gala Dec. 7 season-opener, were poorly handled in terms of communication. He said he had been aware of the talks, but not of their speedy advancement nor of the transfer of funds. But he said that general manager and artistic director Alexander Pereira had acted in good faith while showing some naivete in dealing with Italian politicians. In all these years in Italy, he should understand the mechanisms, he said. If you think that one day a politicians tells you one thing and then the next day he says the same thing, you are dreaming. Despite calls by the governor of Lombardy for Pereiras dismissal, Sala said regional representative on the board made no such motion during Mondays board meeting and that his position at the opera house was not in question for the time being. His mandate expires next year. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is relaxing strict regulations for businesses to participate in his ambitious effort to stimulate Mexicos border economy by slashing income and corporate taxes for certain companies. After dismal participation in Lopez-Obradors programa de zona libre en frontera norte, also known as the Border Economic Plan, his administration is now extending the deadline to apply for the tax incentives and loosening requirements so more companies can participate. Business leaders said less than 1 percent of companies in Baja California qualified before the changes announced Friday. When you have a new program that has never existed before, obviously it comes with some complications or outstanding or new rules, said Kurt Honold, the president of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial de Tijuana, a business council in Tijuana. Advertisement Were learning how to apply for the rules and were also learning some new things that need to change to make it easier, Honold said. Shortly after taking office, Lopez Obrador (known by his initials AMLO) promised to decrease income and corporate taxes from 30 percent to 20 percent on Mexicos side of the border for 43 municipalities in six of the countrys northern states. Its going to be the biggest free zone in the world, said Lopez Obrador when announcing the changes in January. It is a very important project for winning investment, creating jobs and taking advantage of the economic strength of the United States. After several months, however, the intended outcomes of the program, were stifled because of its strict rules that excluded most companies, according to multiple business leaders on both sides of the border. In general, we found out its really only available to certain business owners and certain types of business, said Jason Wells, the president of the Chamber of Commerce in San Ysidro. Wells said companies like real estate businesses and rental companies were excluded. He said ordinary citizens in Tijuana were not reaping any benefits. The benefits didnt trickle all the way down to the Average Joe, which for San Ysidro is very important because the more money people have in Tijuana, the more they spend in San Ysidro, Wells said. Lopez Obrador s Border Economic Plan reduced the value-added tax in the countrys northern regions by half from approximately 16 percent to 8 percent, making the sales tax more comparable with San Ysidro, where many Tijuana shoppers cross the border to buy certain items. Mexican business leaders and union representatives also agreed to double the minimum wage along the border to 176.2 pesos a day or about $9 a day. Some economic forecasters said the tax reduction would cost Mexico billions in lost revenue, but others believed the investment was worth it to grow cross-border manufacturing. As Mexicos largest border city, Tijuana showcases all the challenges and opportunities of the countrys northern border. This year, the city has been doing well economically, with new high-end residential development, job creation, and more foreign investment. But, it also continues to struggle with insufficient infrastructure, social inequality and a soaring homicide rate fueled by the neighborhood drug trade. There are some 1.8 million workers along the full stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border with fewer than 7 percent of them earning a minimum wage every day, according to Mexicos Social Security Institute (IMSS). Lopez Obrador said he wanted to create incentive for these workers to remain in Mexico and not head to the United States. During his campaign, Lopez Obrador called his program a free trade zone, but fiscal and business experts say, at best, the actual program may result in a slight economic boost for the region. Some of the rules that hampered participation from the Tijuana business community included a requirement that companies must operate within the Baja California northern region for 18 consecutive months prior to the initiation of the program. They also had to show that 90 percent of their income came from border communities. If they had any other governmental incentives or tax reductions, they could not apply for the Border Economic Plan incentives. Also, they could not owe the Mexican federal government any money in taxes or receive any other rebates, and none of their suppliers or business associates could be in Mexicos Tax Service Administration back-list. The strict rules excluded almost all of the businesses in Baja California, business, experts said. Mexicos Secretary of Economic Development Carlo Bonfante Olache said Friday the program was being extended because the one-month deadline was too short for companies to determine whether or not participation was worth it. The new deadline for application is June 30. Bonfante also said Lopez Obradors administration is working to relax those regulations to encourage more participation. Its to encourage the good performance of the economy of Baja California, said Bonfante of the changes announced Friday. And it is necessary to have programs that promote the competitiveness of our companies that face the market of the south border of the United States, to avoid lowering currencies and losing consumers. Denise Ducheny, a senior policy advisor for UC San Diegos Center for U.S.-Mexico studies, said Lopez Obrador s plan to boost the border economy recognizes the region as a special economic zone. A 2014 UC San Diego study found the San Diego-Tijuana binational economy generated a gross annual product of more than $200 billion. Whats important here is hes paying attention to the border and signaling to the country (and the world) that the border matters and we need different considerations for the border economy, said Ducheny, who added that issues with the migrant caravan and politics in the United States have been slowing cross-border trade, commerce and business. Its making people nervous, she said. But whether the policy worked the way they hoped it had or not, Tijuana is definitely prospering and thats always good. A new documentary film about the migrant caravan that made international news late last year will begin showing Friday in downtown San Diego. Stuck in Tijuana, by filmmaker Charlie Minn, is scheduled to show for at least one week at Theatre Box, 701 Fifth Ave. This is a film thats really about humanity, Minn said. I hope people who see it will appreciate that they have a roof over their heads and that they know where their next meal is coming from. Last year, a caravan of 6,000 migrants from Central America arrived in Tijuana in November seeking asylum in the United States. For most of them, the journey stalled there amid political controversies and shifting asylum rules and procedures. Some took jobs in Mexico, some crossed the border illegally, and others returned to their home countries. Advertisement Minn said he was drawn to the story when he heard President Donald Trump refer to some of the migrants as criminals. I wanted to see for myself, he said. He came away sympathetic to the asylum-seekers. Most of them seemed to me to be good people, he said. They are just trying to ask for the opportunity for a better life. Minn, who lives primarily in New York, has done two-dozen documentaries, including several focused on the border. One of them, Mexicos Bravest Man, is about Julian Leyzaola, a police chief in Tijuana and Juarez who survived multiple assassination attempts. Another of his films, 77 Minutes, is about the 1984 mass shooting at the McDonalds in San Ysidro, which left 21 people dead and another 19 injured. The title refers to the time that passed before a police sniper killed the lone gunman, raising questions about whether authorities should have reacted faster. Minn considers himself a victim-driven filmmaker, and he said Stuck in Tijuana fits that mold. The people I met have been victimized twice: once in their homeland and again when they got to the border, he said. Among those interviewed in the documentary are two local journalists who cover the border, Wendy Fry of the Union-Tribune and Jean Guerrero of KPBS. Minn said ticket prices during the engagement at Theatre Box will be cut in half (except on Tuesdays, when tickets are already low, $5). Im trying to put a human face on a desperate situation, he said, and I want as many people as possible to see this film. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com Trouble is brewing at the Flintstone House, but this time Fred, Wilma, Pebbles and Dino have nothing to do with it. With its boulder-like architectural design and orange and purple paint, the home at 45 Berryessa Way in Hillsborough, Calif. better known as the Flintstone House for its resemblance to the Stone Age familys abode in the cartoon town of Bedrock has raised a few eyebrows among local residents over the years. Now, issues with the propertys decorative style have landed the house and its owner in court. Calling it a highly visible eyesore, town officials are asking a San Mateo County judge to declare the famed Flintstone House a public nuisance and order the owner to remove a metal menagerie of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, along with other decorative accoutrements from her property. A landscaper passes a Fred Flintstone statue while working at the home in Hillsborough. (Karl Mondon / The Mercury News) Advertisement Florence Fang, who was previously the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, purchased the property for $2.8 million in 2017 and soon after began redesigning the backyard with brightly colored mushrooms, a band of 15-foot dinosaurs, a giraffe, a mastodon and a sign reading Yabba Dabba Doo. Those items were constructed without the necessary approvals and permits, officials contend. Hillsborough issued a building permit in November 2017 that allowed Fang to build a 2-foot-high retaining wall on the property. However, when officials visited the house for an inspection, they found extensive landscaping in the backyard, a new deck and a retaining wall on the side of the property that had been constructed to delineate an area for parking. Those changes fell outside the scope of the permit that had been issued by the town, according to the civil complaint filed in court. The town sent three notices from December 2017 through August ordering that Fang stop altering the property, but officials said those requests were ignored. After a hearing over the issue in October, the towns administrative panel decided that some of the prehistoric metal animals qualified as unenclosed structures and required a building permit and other approvals. They are designed to be very intrusive, resulting in the owners vision for her property being imposed on many other properties and views, without regard to the desires of other residents, the administrative hearing panel wrote in its decision. Fang could not be reached for comment Monday. Real estate agent Judy Meuschke stands in the kitchen of the home known as the Flintstone House in Hillsborough. (John Green/ The Mercury News) Garbis Bezujian, one of Fangs neighbors, told the panel during the hearing that he could see some of the landscaping from his house, which is on the same cul-de-sac as the Flintstone House. He said the property appeared to be outside the norms for the town and creates lots of questions, according to the panel. The panel decided the landscape decorations needed to be removed by December because they had not been approved and levied a $200 fine for the violation. Fang paid the citation but did not remove the decorations, according to the complaint. While the eccentrically designed home nestled into a hillside overlooking the Crystal Springs Reservoir has its critics, it also has some fans. Tourists and travelers who spot the property from Highway 280 often stop to take photos and share their wonderment of the house on social media. The multiple-dome-shaped structure was designed in 1976 by Bay Area architect William Nicholson as an experiment in new materials. During the 1980s, the residence was called the Barbapapa House after the childrens books of that name and a subsequent cartoon show. Other monikers have included the Dome House, the Gumby House and the Bubble House. The unusual shape of the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house was created by molding wire around large balloons and then spraying the surface with a high-velocity concrete known as gunite. The homes previous owner listed the property for sale in 2015, but it sat on the market for more than a year before the asking price was reduced. For a while in 2016, the house was listed on Airbnb for roughly $750 a night. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @Hannahnfry Two Laguna Beach families were the recent targets of a virtual kidnapping scam in which they were told one of their children had been abducted and would be killed unless they paid a ransom, police said. As implausible as the scenario may seem on its face, Laguna Beach police said in one of the two instances it worked with a parent sending the culprit thousands of dollars. But police warned that such scams were not new and that they had been successful before. This type of activity is called virtual kidnapping and we believe the suspect was able to learn personal information of the victim through unsecured social media sites (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.), Laguna Beach police said in a prepared statement. On March 7 and then again on March 8, police said, a scammer called two separate families in Laguna Beach and used the same deception. Advertisement The suspect said he had kidnapped the victims daughter a girl could be heard screaming in the background and that if the parent did not drive to a specific location in Costa Mesa and wire $5,000 to an account in Mexico, their child would die, police said. The scam is based on speed and fear, police said. The caller tries to keep the person on the phone and have the money wired as quickly as possible before the individual confirms through other means that the child is fine. Its a scam thats been going on for years and continues to claim victims. In one of the cases earlier this month, the scammer was successful, police said. A father sent $5,000 to the culprit before he learned his daughter was OK. In the other attempt, police were able to confirm a womans daughter was safe in Chicago before she sent the money. Scammers typically target families living in affluent communities who may have quick access to large sums of cash, experts say. Virtual kidnappers also hit families in Laguna Beach in May and April of 2018, officials said. If someone ever does call you claiming to have kidnapped your child, here are a few clues that may indicate its a scam, police said: The caller goes to great lengths to keep you on the phone and insists you remain on the line. The call doesnt come from the victims phone. The caller tries to prevent you from reaching your child. The caller demands the money be sent to Mexico via wire transfer; the amount of the ransom drops rapidly to encourage payment. If you do receive a call for an alleged kidnapping victim, police suggest you do the following: In most cases, hanging up immediately is the best course of action. If you do engage, do not call out your loved ones name. Try to slow the situation and ask to speak with the family member directly. Ask questions only your loved one would know, such as the name of a pet. Listen carefully to the voice of the alleged victim if they speak. Attempt to contact your loved one and ask that you be contacted back through their phone. Buy time by saying youre writing down demands. Dont agree to pay any ransom by wire or in person. joseph.serna@latimes.com For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter. A man who gunned down a father and son at a Golden Hill bus stop more than eight years ago was sentenced Monday to 112 years to life in state prison. Marlon Johnson, 41, was convicted by a San Diego Superior Court jury last month of two counts of second-degree murder for the Jan. 9, 2011 slayings of 49-year-old Darryl Hunter and Hunters son, 30-year-old Keith Butler. Jurors also convicted him of several gun-use allegations, as well as a single felony count of shooting into an occupied vehicle one of the bullets had entered a passing car, causing a piece of the vehicle to strike its driver. The trial was Johnsons third in less than a year in connection with the shooting. Advertisement On the night the victims were killed, they were at Butlers girlfriends apartment, where they visited the woman for about an hour. When Hunter decided to leave, Butler walked with him to the nearby bus stop at 30th and C streets, Deputy District Attorney Valerie Summers said. Following an argument between the men and the shooter the nature of which remains unknown Hunter was shot four times, then Butler was shot in his back while fleeing the scene, the prosecutor said. Hunter was found lying in the street. Butler ran back to the apartment and told his girlfriend to call 911. He then collapsed, gravely wounded. Father and son died at separate hospitals. At Mondays sentencing, Summers called the shooting a senseless murder and a completely unnecessary act. She alleged that Johnson had a history of violence involving firearms, including previously threatening to blow his fathers head off and threatening two women with a gun in Arkansas. This is not the first time this defendant has turned to using weapons when his temper could not be curbed, Summers said. The prosecutor alleged that Johnson argued with both men, then shot them and fled the scene in his girlfriends car, a white Monte Carlo. She said Johnsons DNA was found on cigarette butts in the car and at the shooting scene, while cellphone tower data placed him at that location, as well as others in the city, corroborating witness accounts. Summers also alleged that Johnson had told his then-girlfriend that hed gotten into it with a couple guys who tried to rob me. Johnson was identified as a potential suspect early in the investigation, but detectives did not have enough evidence to charge him until 2016, when they said new evidence had been obtained that implicated him in the double homicide. He was arrested in Arkansas. Summers said Johnson denied ever driving the suspect vehicle, being in San Diego on the date of the shooting or knowing his then-girlfriend, though the prosecutor said evidence collected at the apartment they shared indicated that was a lie. Defense attorney Kevin Haughton said Johnson was near the scene of the shooting when it happened, then simply tried to get out of there, just like numerous other witnesses who fled after the shots rang out. The attorney said the prosecution based its case on contradictory witness accounts, with some witnesses stating that the assailant got out of a truck or SUV, shot the victims, then left in that vehicle, differing from the prosecutions theory that Johnson fled in his girlfriends car. Haughton also alleged that witnesses whose statements diverged from law enforcements theory were not sought after or interviewed for several years after the shooting. On Monday, Haughton alluded to several witness accounts indicating that the two victims were the aggressors, and had his client backed up against a wall and were coming at him in an aggressive manner. While Summers said there was an argument between the men, she said Johnson elevated the incident by brandishing a gun. Johnsons first trial, which ended last July, resulted in a deadlocked jury that voted 8-4 in favor of convicting him. A second jury deadlocked in November, voting 10-2 to convict. A truck driving preacher charged with killing two Alabama teenagers found shot to death in a car trunk nearly 20 years ago was tied to the killings through a DNA match uncovered with genetic genealogy testing, authorities said Monday. The analysis linked evidence that sat in a police freezer for years to Coley McCraney, 45, of Dothan, Alabama, police said. The man now faces a potential death penalty in the killings in 1999 of Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both 17. Hawletts mother, Carol Roberts, said she went numb when she heard of McCraneys arrest. God gave her to me. He didnt have the right to do that. I just want to know why, said Roberts, who wore a button featuring her daughters photo at the news conference announcing the arrest. Advertisement McCraney, who has own church and preached recently, is cooperating with authorities, said defense attorney David Harrison. My heart goes out to the victims families, Harrison said. Its a tragedy. We dont need to make it make three tragedies by convicting him. Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker said he knew McCraney from living in the same city and was surprised when DNA testing linked him to the slayings. He credited science, diligence and divine intervention with the arrest. Im a spiritual guy, so it was all Gods work, Walker said. The girls left Dothan the night of July 31, 1999, to attend a party, but never arrived. They were found the next day in the trunk of Beasleys black Mazda along a road in Ozark, a city of 19,000 people located about 90 miles southeast of Montgomery. Each had a gunshot wound to the head. Sherry Gilland, who lived near a store where the girls were last seen, said the killings changed the community. Afterward, Gilland said, she was afraid to let her own daughter ride her bicycle or walk too far from home. It has been a cloud over the town, but now its lifted, she said. A judge ordered McCraney to submit to DNA testing less than a month after the slayings because a woman filed suit claiming he was the father of her daughter, court documents show. But he failed to submit a sample and was ordered to pay child support. Last years arrest of Golden State Killer suspect Joseph DeAngelo in California in which genealogy testing helped identify the suspect helped prompt police to send their evidence to Parabon NanoLabs in Reston, Virginia, for DNA analysis, Walker said. Walker described three rounds of genetic testing that led to McCraneys arrest. The first gave authorities an unknown suspect and then a genetic genealogy test identified a family. Kinship testing ultimately narrowed it down to a single person, Walker said. District Attorney Kirke Adams said he would seek the death penalty. The multiple capital charges against McCraney include one of killing Beasley during a rape, he said. A different suspect was previously cleared after his DNA didnt match semen found on Beasley. Harris, the defense lawyer, said McCraney is an outstanding community member who is married with children and grandchildren. Aside from preaching, records show he worked as a truck driver for years for several different companies. The slayings haunted the community for years and Harrison said he was concerned about his client getting a fair trial. Its going to be difficult to find a jury thats not already aware of the facts, he said. I might have to ask that it be moved to another venue to get a fair trial. A lot of emotions are flying. Hawlett had two school-age brothers at the time of her death and Roberts said the whole family slept in the same bed for a time after the slayings out of fear. She still remembers her last conversation with her daughter, who called to see if Beasley could spend the night after the party, which was for Beasleys birthday. Last words out of her lips were, mama, I love you, said Roberts. Last words out of my mouth to her were, I love you. Associated Press writer Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed to this report. Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a situation similar to hundreds of people in neighboring Nebraska who have been displaced by the late-winter flood. Heavy rainfall and snowmelt have led to dangerously high water in creeks and rivers across several Midwestern states, with the Missouri River hitting record-high levels in many areas. At least two deaths were blamed on flooding, and two other men have been missing for days. While river depths were starting to level off in parts of Nebraska on Sunday, the water is so high in many places that serious flooding is expected to remain for several days. And downstream communities in Kansas and Missouri were bracing for likely flooding. In Iowa, the Missouri River reached 30.2 feet Sunday in Fremont County in the states far southwestern corner, 2 feet above the record set in 2011. People in the towns of Bartlett and Thurman were being evacuated as levees were breached and overtopped. Advertisement County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius said it wasnt just the amount of the water, it was the swiftness of the current that created a danger. This wasnt a gradual rise, Crecelius said. Its flowing fast and its open country theres nothing there to slow it down. Thurman has about 200 residents. About 50 people live in Bartlett. Lucinda Parker of Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management said nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated at eight Iowa locations since flooding began late last week. Most were staying with friends or family. Seven shelters set up for flood victims held just a couple dozen people Saturday night. In Nebraska, the Missouri River flooded Offutt Air Force Base, with about one-third of it under water on Sunday. Spokeswoman Tech. Sgt. Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 completely inundated with as much as 8 feet of water. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, where floodwaters reached record levels at 17 locations. The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency highlighted some remarkably high crests. The Missouri River was expected to reach 41 feet in Plattsmouth on Sunday 4 feet above the record set in 2011. The Elkhorn River got to 24.6 feet Saturday in Waterloo, breaking the 1962 record by 5 1/2 feet. In hard-hit Sarpy County, Nebraska, up to 500 homes have been damaged, including some cabins along a lake, said Greg London of the Sarpy County Sheriffs Office. The damage followed breaches of levees along the Platte River on Thursday and Saturday, and a Missouri River levee break on Thursday. The two rivers converge there. London said many of the damaged homes are wet up to the roof line and likely ruined. This areas had flooding before but not of this magnitude, London said. This is unprecedented. Nearly 300 people have been rescued from high water across the state. At least two people have died in the floodwaters. Aleido Rojas Galan, 52, of Norfolk, Nebraska, was swept away Friday night in southwestern Iowa, when the vehicle he was in went around a barricade. Two others in the vehicle survived one by clinging to a tree. On Thursday, Columbus, Nebraska, farmer James Wilke, 50, died when a bridge collapsed as he used a tractor to try and reach stranded motorists. Two men remain missing. A Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away. Water also swept away a man after a dam collapse. Downstream in St. Joseph, Missouri, home to 76,000 people, volunteers were helping to fill sandbags to help secure a levee protecting an industrial area. Calls were out for even more volunteers in hopes of filling 150,000 sandbags by Tuesday, when the Missouri River is expected to climb to 27 feet 10 feet above technical flood stage. Flooding was causing problems for passenger train service between Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis. Amtrak said Sunday that its Missouri River Runner service between the states two largest cities was experiencing delays up to five hours because of flooding and rail congestion. All Missouri River Runner trains will be canceled Monday. The service typically travels twice daily between the two metropolitan areas. The rising Mississippi River also was creating concern. The Mississippi was already at major flood level along the Iowa-Illinois border, closing roads and highways and swamping thousands of acres of farmland. Moderate Mississippi River flooding was expected at several Missouri cities, including St. Louis. Flooding has also been reported in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, officials said residents who evacuated their homes could return now that floodwaters have receded there. ___ AP reporter Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report. New Zealands coalition government plans to unveil gun law reforms within the next week in response to the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch last week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Monday. These could include restricting the military-style semiautomatic weapons that were used in the attacks, which left 50 people dead and some 40 injured, and that have been used in many of the recent mass shootings in the United States. The death toll exceeds New Zealands annual homicide rate: 35 people were killed in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available. As a cabinet, we were absolutely unified and very clear. The terrorist attack in Christchurch on Friday was the worst act of terrorism on our shores, Ardern said. It has exposed a range of weaknesses in New Zealands gun laws. The clear lesson from history around the world is that, to make our community safe, the time to act is now. Advertisement The cabinet is dominated by the center-left Labour Party but including four members of the right-wing New Zealand First party. It is supported by the progressive Green Party, which attended Mondays meeting. It made a decision in principle about reforming gun laws, Ardern said, adding that she would provide further detail before the cabinet meets again next Monday. Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer, she said. Politicians broad agreement highlights the general consensus in New Zealand that making certain types of guns more inaccessible could have prevented or limited Fridays attacks. The attacks have sent shock waves through this country of only 4.5 million people at the bottom of the South Pacific. New Zealand has long been considered safe from terrorism and from the outside world in general. American tycoons flocked to buy property here in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and other terrorist attacks on the United States. Vigils continued around the country on Monday, from Auckland in the north to Queenstown in the south. Hundreds of high school students gathered for a candlelight vigil in Hagley Park, directly opposite the al-Noor mosque where the first and most deadly attack happened. Students of from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds sang songs and performed a haka in Maori, joined by crowds of people who had come to the park to pay their respects to the victims. Jitters remain high. One student told her friends she thought a journalists camera was a gun at first glance. There were bomb alerts in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, but they turned out to be false alarms. A 28-year-old Australian man, Brenton Tarrant, was arrested after the attacks and has been charged with one count of murder. He is expected to face more charges when he next appears in court on April 5. His court-appointed lawyer, Richard Peters, said Tarrant had sacked him, saying he planned to represent himself in court. Tarrant appeared to be quite clear and lucid on Saturday and did not show any regret, Peters said. He didnt appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment, other than holding fairly extreme views, Peters told the New Zealand Herald. The lawyer suggested that Tarrant might want to use his trial to espouse his extreme views. The suspect left behind a 74-page hate-filled manifesto in which he said he wanted to"directly reduce immigration rates to European lands. He also praised President Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose. Tarrant sent a copy of the manifesto to government offices, including the prime ministers office, which received it nine minutes before the attack. Ardern said there were no details about the timing or location of the impending attack. Ardern announced an inquiry into what the immigration and intelligence agencies knew about the alleged attacker. It will also look into his social media usage. Tarrant live-streamed the attack on the al-Noor mosque, where 42 people were killed, on Facebook. The video was deleted but not before it had been widely shared online. Facebook and other social media companies have to step up and do more to fight hate speech, the prime minister said. Tarrant had been living sporadically in Dunedin, at the south of New Zealands South Island, since the end of 2017 and had practiced at a gun club there. The club closed Monday and the vice president said it might never open again. Presently, people in New Zealand must obtain licenses to own guns. But they are almost always approved: 99.6 percent of the 43,509 license applications filed in 2017 were successful. Tarrant had a gun license and used a variant of the AR-15, a semiautomatic weapon that has been used in many mass shootings in the United States, including in at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018; and on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017. A similar weapon was used at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. Since the shooting, Ardern has talked about requiring licenses for individual guns, rather than for users, and banning semiautomatic weapons. A separate police investigation is continuing. Australian counterterrorism police raided two houses in New South Wales on Monday. One was that of Tarrants sister in Sandy Beach, halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. The counterterrorism officials then stormed a second house at Lawrence, a bit farther north and close to Grafton, where Tarrant grew up. This house reportedly belongs to the boyfriend of his mother, who is a schoolteacher. Tarrants father, a garbage collector, died in 2010. The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation, Australian police authorities said in a statement. Tarrants family was helping the police with their investigation, they said. There are already more than 250 police officers working on the investigation into the attacks, the largest number ever deployed to a case in New Zealand. FBI officers were also helping police with a number of specialist areas, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said Monday. That investigation had led to a delay in returning victims bodies to their families. Police say that although they are collecting evidence, they are conscious of the need to return the victims bodies to their families so they can be buried in line with Muslim customs. Multiple graves have been dug at a cemetery in Christchurch, and mosques are expected to reopen in time for Friday prayers. With many mosques nationwide closed since the attacks, some churches welcomed Muslims into their buildings over the weekend to allow them to pray in sacred spaces. Thirty-four people remain in hospital, 12 of them in critical condition. Mahtani reported from Wellington. The Washington Posts Brett Cole contributed from Grafton, Australia. This story was first published in The Washington Post. President Vladimir Putin led thousands to chant Russia! on a visit Monday to Crimea marking the fifth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsulas annexation from Ukraine, as NATO and the European Union once again strongly condemned the land grab by Russia. Speaking at an outdoor concert in Crimeas regional capital of Simferopol, the Russian leader hailed Crimeas residents, likening them to the Red Army soldiers of World War II. Russia has taken you into its fold with delight and joy, he told the crowd. We will fulfill all of our goals ... because we are together now. Putin began his trip by attending the launch of new power plants in Crimea, part of Moscows efforts to upgrade the regions infrastructure. Ukraine has cut off energy supplies to the peninsula and blocked shipments of Crimea-bound cargo via its territory after Moscow annexed the region in 2014. Advertisement The situation has changed radically, Putin said, adding that the new power facilities will fully cover Crimeas energy needs. Russias modernization effort for Crimea has included building an 11.8-mile bridge that opened last year across the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The $3.6 billion project gave Crimea a land link to Russia. Previously, a ferry crossing that was often interrupted by gales served as the only connection. Moscows annexation of Crimea drew U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia that hurt its economy, but the move boosted Putins popularity at home. NATO allies said in a statement Monday that we strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. They denounced alleged rights abuses including arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture against members of the Crimean Tartar community and criticized Russias military buildup in Crimea. Russia has beefed up its military in Crimea with new navy ships, missiles and warplanes. Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian upper houses defense affairs committee, said the new weapons included Iskander-M missiles and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said we stand in full solidarity with Ukraine, supporting its sovereignty and territorial integrity. NATO and the EU also called for the release of Ukrainian seamen who were seized by Russia in Novembers standoff in the Black Sea. Russias deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York that an investigation will determine whats the level of their guilt. I assume that it is not the highest level of guilt, because somebody in Kiev or elsewhere gave them this criminal order to enter our territorial waters, to provoke our border guards, Polyansky said. There are a lot of indications that they were meant to be kind of sacrifice. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protested Putins visit to Crimea as a crude violation of Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. Putin claims Russia re-integrated Crimea after the ouster of Ukraines former pro-Russian president in 2014 to protect ethnic Russians who made up the majority of Crimeas population from Ukrainian nationalists. The Kremlin was also worried a new Ukrainian government could annul Russias lease on its key Black Sea navy base in Crimea and welcome NATO there instead. The Russian leader has said he put Russias nuclear forces on combat readiness during the 2014 developments in Crimea and warned his Western counterparts that Moscow was ready to defend what it considered its land. The annexation gave Russia hundreds of miles of coastline along the Black Sea, a near-stranglehold on commerce in the Sea of Azov and access to vast potential energy riches on the Black Sea shelf. Crimea was first seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. The 10,425-square-mile territory, roughly the size of Massachusetts, is a lush peninsula that long has been a favorite vacation destination for Russians. It became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine. The Kremlin has argued that Khrushchevs move on Crimea violated Soviet law. Russian troops swept into Crimea just days after the February 2014 ouster of Ukraines Russia-friendly president, catching the West by surprise. The Russian forces blocked Ukrainian soldiers at their garrisons, setting the stage for a hastily called referendum in Crimea that the West denounced as illegitimate. Putin on Monday hailed that 2014 referendum as a true expression of the Crimean peoples will, saying the Wests refusal to recognize it shows disrespect for democratic principles. It was a landmark event in the history of Russia, he said at a meeting with local residents. We have shown the entire world that we nurture our interests and can protect them. During a meeting with residents that involved religious leaders, Putin said he had invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to attend the opening of a new mosque in the region and suggested also inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit for a ceremony unveiling a new synagogue. The U.S. and the EU responded to the annexation of Crimea and Moscows support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine with several waves of sanctions that have limited Russias access to global financial markets and to energy and defense technologies. Annexing Crimea helped bolster Putins popularity but public enthusiasm about the land grab has waned over the years amid Russias economic difficulties and a plunge in living standards. After Crimea was annexed, there was a sense of almost universal euphoria, said Masha Lipman, a Moscow-based independent policy expert. She noted the majority of Russians still feel proud about the annexation of Crimea but it no longer works the way it had, it does not improve the mood. A poll this month by the Public Opinion Foundation, a Moscow-based survey firm, said most Russians continue to support the annexation, but also indicated an increasing public awareness of its costs. ___ Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report. A gunman killed three people and wounded five during a mid-morning tram ride Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht, raising the specter of another extremist attack only days after the murderous rampage in New Zealand. Authorities seized a Turkish-born suspect after a manhunt that convulsed the historic city of nearly 350,000 people for most of the day. As night set in, three victims lay in critical condition, and the motive for the bloodshed remained under investigation. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said authorities were trying to determine what prompted the attack and whether there were terror motives. Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the suspect, identified as Gokmen Tanis, 37, was known to justice authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. Advertisement Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over the past years with offenses including attempted manslaughter and petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of a woman in 2017, news reports said. 1 / 4 Police and emergency pensonnel at the scene where several people were wounded in a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht. (ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN / AFP/Getty Images) 2 / 4 Police walk near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace station in Utrecht, where a shooting took place. (ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN / AFP/Getty Images) 3 / 4 An investigation is underway after a gunman opened fire on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, killing at least one person and wounding several in what officials said was a possible terrorist incident. (ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN / AFP/Getty Images) 4 / 4 Emergency services at the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands. (Lilian Bruigom ) Police said they also detained another man on suspicion of involvement but released no details. The shooting came three days after 50 people were killed in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. An immigrant-hating white supremacist has been charged in the massacre. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. The Utrecht attack took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. The gunman was alleged to have had an automatic weapon, Grapperhaus said. In the aftermath of the shooting, Dutch authorities put the Netherlands fourth-largest city on lockdown, raised the threat level in the area to the maximum of 5 and tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. If it is a terror attack, the prime minister declared, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence. Three people were killed Monday in a shooting on a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands. (Los Angeles Times) Heavily armed officers with dogs searched for the killer, gathering at one point in front of an apartment building close to the scene. However, the suspect was later arrested at another location in the city. The threat level soon returned to 4. Police said a red Renault compact car was carjacked shortly before the shooting and later found across town. The identities of the shooting victims were not immediately released, and Grapperhaus would not say if any were known to the gunman. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of parliaments upper house. A televised debate also was canceled. It was not clear if campaigning would resume Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it wont intervene in San Diegos pension cuts case, leaving in place a California Supreme Court ruling that the city skipped a key legal step when the cuts were placed on the ballot in 2012. The decision means state courts will resolve the case, including a decision about how to financially compensate 4,000 city employees who dont have pensions because of the voter-approved measure, which was called Proposition B. Estimates of how much that could cost the city have ranged from $20 million to $100 million, depending on a variety of factors. In its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in October, the city argued that the state court ruling ignored the federal free speech rights of former Mayor Jerry Sanders, who had claimed to be operating as an ordinary citizen, not as mayor, when he championed Proposition B. Advertisement The state Supreme Court ruled in August that Sanders violated Californias collective bargaining law by not negotiating with labor unions before pursuing the pension measure. The state court said that, because Sanders used his power and influence as mayor to support the measure, he was obligated to meet with city union leaders before placing it on the ballot. San Diego asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that Sanders vocal support of the measure is protected speech and that its a violation of his First Amendment rights for the state court to rule that such speech comes with an obligation to negotiate with unions. In documents posted on its website Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court listed the San Diego case among dozens of cases it had decided not to take. The court did not provide a reason. The decision vindicates leaders of the four city labor unions who filed suit, claiming the pension cuts were not legally placed on the ballot. The unions argued last fall that San Diegos free speech claims had no chance to succeed in court because the case was based on collective bargaining law, not on the First Amendment. Proposition B was approved by 65 percent of city voters in June 2012. It made San Diego the only California city to discontinue traditional pensions for new hires, who instead have 401(k)-style retirement plans. Proposition B did not apply to new police officers, who still get traditional pensions. Four city labor unions quickly challenged the legality of the pension cuts based on Sanders participation. The state labor board ruled in favor of the unions in 2015. But the Fourth District Court of Appeal overturned that in 2017, ruling that the pension cuts were valid and that Sanders acted appropriately. Last August, the state Supreme Court overturned the appeals court, agreeing with the unions that the city skipped a key legal step and ordering the appeals court to take the case back and resolve the situation. The appeals court began that process last Monday with a hearing in downtown San Diego. While its ruling wont come for several weeks, the appellate judges expressed support for requiring San Diego to financially compensate city employees who dont have pensions because of Proposition B. The three-judge panel expressed reluctance to invalidate Proposition B, indicating there needs to be a separate legal process allowing for participation by citizen proponents of the measure. That process, which could delay resolution of the case for months or even years, would begin in state Superior Court. On Monday morning the lead attorney for the labor unions, Ann Smith, said it is not a surprise that the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take the case. We knew this case was never about the First Amendment and no public officials free speech rights have been affected by the California Supreme Court when upholding the rights guaranteed to public employees under state law, Smith said. Former San Diego Councilman Carl DeMaio, who helped write Proposition B, said in a news release Monday that the decision was somewhat expected. The Supreme Court accepts only 100 to 150 cases of over 7,000 it receives each year, so while we are disappointed, we are not too surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court did not weigh in, he said. The city cannot restore pensions for new hires until Proposition B has been removed from the city charter, either by a public vote or a court ruling. Union leaders and city officials have discussed potentially settling the case, but union leaders are expected to demand restoring pensions for new hires as part of any settlement. If they make such a demand, the case couldnt be settled until Proposition B is removed from the charter. Financial compensation for the employees without pensions is expected to be based on a state labor board recommendation from 2015 that those employees be made whole. The labor board said they should receive the equivalent value of a pension, plus 7 percent interest, but the city could factor into that the value of the 401(k)-style plans the employees received instead of pensions. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Two people were hurt in a fire at a Chula Vista apartment complex Monday morning, a blaze reported as crews were dousing another fire at a nearby mobile home park. One person was burned, and another suffered smoke inhalation in the fire a complex on Woodlawn Avenue, south of E Street, Chula Vista Fire Department Battalion Chief Albright said. Two second-floor units at the complex were damaged by fire, and the apartments underneath them sustained water damage, Albright told OnScene TV. Albright estimated that perhaps 10 to 20 people could be affected by the damage to the units. Advertisement Video footage shows Flames and smoke pouring from the units. The fire had also burned through the roof. Albright said the unit were in the back of the complex and the hydrants are a long ways away. Complex resident Steven Harris told OnScene TV that he woke up to people yelling, screaming, running around these apartments. I just heard Its a fire, Its a fire. Get out now, he said. The report of the apartment fire came as crews were wrapping up work on another fire, reported about 6:30 a.m., at a mobile home park on nearby Broadway, also south of E Street. Albright said authorities do not initially suspect the two incidents are related. Seems like they were two independent fires that just happened at the same time, Albright said. teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com (760) 529-4945 Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT Hong Kong: CE to visit Guangzhou, Beijing Chief Executive Carrie Lam will visit Guangzhou and Beijing from March 22 to 25. In Guangzhou, Mrs Lam will open the first Exhibition Raceday at the Hong Kong Jockey Club Conghua Racecourse. Opened in August last year, the racecourse is an important collaboration between Hong Kong and Guangdong. In Beijing, she will attend the 20th China Development Forum and speak at a session on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Hosted annually by the Development Research Centre of the State Council, the forum serves as a platform for dialogues between leaders of the Central Government, global business community and international organisations, as well as academics. During her absence, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung will be Acting Chief Executive. This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Two homes were destroyed in a fire at a mobile home park in Chula Vista Monday morning. The fire was reported shortly after 6:35 a.m. at a park on Broadway near F Street. By time crews arrived, they found a well involved trailer and some pretty significant exposures on each side of that, said Chula Vista Deputy Fire Chief Harry Muns. He said firefighters knocked down the main body of the fire shortly before 7 a.m. Advertisement Chula Vista Fire Battalion Chief Chris Manroe said two trailers were destroyed by the blaze and a third sustained damage to the outside of the unit. Firefighters at the scene of that fire spotted spotted smoke nearby and notified dispatchers around 7:15 a.m. that it was coming from nearby Woodlawn Avenue, Manroe said. Crews went to the two-story apartment complex and found flames coming from at least two apartment units on the second floor. Two people were hurt in that fire. One person was burned, the other suffered smoke inhalation, Battalion Chief David Albright told reporters, including OnScene TV. Albright said that the incidents dont initially appear to be related. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 2:20 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. 7:15 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 7:00 a.m. A former SDSU student was arrested Saturday in connection with a string of fires last week around campus, police said. The 19-year-old was taken into custody Saturday morning and faces three arson-related charges, according to a statement from San Diego State University campus police. No injuries were reported in the four fires, all of which occurred a few blocks south of Viejas Arena. Police say the spree began at 11 a.m. Thursday when an officer on patrol spotted and quickly extinguished a fire at a parked car at Hardy Avenue and 55th Street. Advertisement Shortly after, police were notified of another fire involving the exterior door of an apartment near 56th Street and Hardy. A passerby put out that fire before officers arrived. Campus police and the San Diego Fire-Rescue Departments arson team then identified the former student as a person of interest, officials said. At around 8:30 a.m. Friday, police received word of a fire involving an apartment on Montezuma Road near 55th Street. That fire went out on its own. Shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday, a vehicle was set on fire on Hardy near 55th Street. Police say they connected the suspect to that crime and arrested her. On Saturday night, the fire re-ignited on its own and had to be extinguished. Investigators are working to identify a motive. An SDSU spokeswoman did not immediately know how recently the suspect had been a student at the school. Sheriffs homicide detectives are investigating the death of a man found inside a Potrero home on Sunday. The death was reported shortly after 11 a.m. Sunday by a neighbor who had grown concerned after not seeing the resident for several days, said sheriffs Lt. Michael Blevins said. The neighbor looked inside the window of the home on Potrero Valley Road near Potrero Circle and spotted the body, which showed signs of trauma. A neighbor had gone to the residence because they had not seen the occupant in several days,' Blevins said. When the neighbor looked through the window, they noticed the occupant lying on the floor and immediately called 911.' Advertisement Deputies and firefighters found a man who appeared to be in his 40s lying in the floor. The victims name was not released pending notification of relatives. An autopsy will be performed to try to determine the cause of the mans death. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com A 53-year-old man who crashed a rented scooter into a tree in downtown San Diego last week has died, becoming the citys first electronic scooter fatality, police said Monday. The rider, identified as Christopher Conti of Woodstock, Ga., succumbed to his injuries Friday, San Diego police Sgt. Victoria Houseman said in a statement. Conti was headed north on the west sidewalk of 10th Avenue near C Street shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday when he failed to negotiate a left turn and struck a tree, police said. He was not wearing a helmet at the time, Houseman said. It was not known if alcohol or drugs were factors. Advertisement This is the first known fatality in the city of San Diego involving a scooter, Houseman said. The countys first scooter death happened in December when Esteban Galindo, 26, was struck from behind by a car in Chula Vista. The driver involved stopped after the 4 a.m. crash. Its unclear if drugs or alcohol were factors. Dockless scooter companies, such as Lime and Bird, first showed up in San Diego in 2018. Initially, some companies also offered dockless bikes but that transportation option proved far less popular. Health officials reported seeing a surge in scooter-related injuries and began tracking statistics on the cases they treat. The city of San Diego is considering a slate of regulations on dockless electric scooters and bicycles that would address speed limits, parking restrictions and impose fees for company operating permits. Anyone with information about last weeks fatal scooter crash was asked to call the San Diego Police Department at (619) 531-2000, or the anonymous Crime Stoppers Tip line at (888) 580-8477. Staff writers Teri Figueroa and Lyndsay Winkley contributed to this report. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com The Journal Times of Racine, March 13 Sometimes you just have to walk away Satellite images of what appears to be a North Korean rocket assembly facility near Pyongyang have surfaced recently. In addition, a 400-page document released by the United Nations Panel of Experts on North Korea said that Pyongyang had also tried to sell weapons in the Middle East and hacked banks across the world. Advertisement Clearly trouble in North Korea continues, despite President Donald Trumps two meetings with North Koreas Kim Jong-un. What these recent revolutions show is that it continues to be more important than ever for the U.S. and Trump to take Kim seriously and work toward a solution that will eventually bring peace. To achieve that eventual deal, sometimes you just have to walk away, Trump said about the most recent summit meeting between Kim and himself in Vietnam. Many people speculated that Trump would be so desperate to make a deal that he would give up too much. That is not what happened. While accounts of the meeting are conflicting, Trump said the talks collapsed because North Korea insisted that all sanctions on Pyongyang be lifted without firmly committing to eliminate its nuclear weapons. Trumps recent meeting is similar to when President Ronald Reagan walked away from a disarmament negotiation with the Soviet Unions Mikhail Gorbachev after he made what were unacceptable demands at a 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Despite no agreement being made then, that meeting did lead to the U.S. and Soviet Union signing a treaty the following year that eventually led to the peace we have today. It is vital that the United States and North Korea come to some terms of agreement, but as Trump said going into the Vietnam meeting with Kim, Theres no rush. We just want to do the right deal. Both the meeting in Vietnam and the preceding summit in Singapore were historic. The 2018 Singapore summit was the first time a sitting U.S. president had met with the leader of North Korea. The threat North Korea poses is real. But the meeting in Vietnam should not be looked at as a failure. Instead, it should be looked at as a step forward toward an eventual solution. ___ Beloit Daily News, March 11 The danger of overreaching Democrats should tap the brakes, because voters will judge Trump next year. Chairman Nadler and his fellow Democrats have embarked on this fishing expedition because they are terrified that their two-year false narrative of Russia collusion is crumbling. ... Democrats are harassing the President to distract from their radical agenda of making America a socialist country, killing babies after theyre born, and pushing a green new deal that would destroy jobs and bankrupt America. ... The Democrats are more interested in pathetic political games and catering to a radical, leftist base than on producing results for our citizens. The Democrats are not after the truth, they are after the President. So said a statement issued last week by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, in response to a massive document demand from Rep. Jerry Nadler, the new Democrat chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. And, for a change, this woman who usually fills a dual role of attack dog and truth bender delivered a well-aimed blow that millions of people will conclude scores a direct hit on President Trumps opposition. The Judiciary Committees sweeping demand is stunning in scope. Not only is the committee asking for almost everything on everybody surrounding Trump during the 2016 campaign and after he took office which, by the way, clearly falls within the purview of congressional oversight but also for all things Trump before his time in politics, including material on his business and his family. So in one overreaching moment Democrats have risked turning the narrative sharply in Trumps favor, allowing the White House to claim harassment and victimization. Democrats have not learned the first rule of investigation incrementalism works. Follow the facts, gathering evidence slowly and methodically, until a case either is built or disproven. By leaping headlong over this cliff, Democrats have played into Sanders claim they are not after the truth, they are after the President. Let us make this clear: We definitely are not trying to absolve President Trump, who may yet be shown to have committed the kind of high crimes and misdemeanors spoken of by the Founders in the United States Constitution. This crude, crass and impetuous president who has up-ended so many norms deserves serious oversight by the Article 1 representatives of the people. Were just not persuaded these Democrats are capable of slowing down, dispensing with the grandstanding, to gather information and evidence in what the nation can accept as a fair and measured process. Thats always the danger when an election sweeps out the old rascals and sweeps in the new rascals. Suddenly, the newcomers become convinced the country has fallen in love with them and has handed them a mandate for a radical swing from one agenda to another. Thats rarely true. The country remains split almost down the middle. There is no mandate. In our view, the 2018 election was a plea for the political class to heal divisions and deliver responsible, effective government. Instead, the people always get as Sanders said -_the radical, leftist base. Or, the radical, rightist base. Most people would like to be rid of both. Look, fair oversight of the executive branch is a constitutional obligation of Congress, and were all for it no matter who occupies the White House. But check the political agendas long enough to absorb reality. Even if House investigations find some level of serious wrongdoing that traces right to Donald Trumps desk, any articles of impeachment brought by the House would be destined to die in the Republican-controlled Senate. There is no way 67 senators will vote to remove Trump from office. Impeachment talk will blow up in Democrats faces. In just over a year the people will go to the polls again. President Trump assuming he runs again, which is not a sure thing either will be re-elected by the people or evicted from the White House. So throttle back the engine of investigation, and move methodically and with much less hype gathering what facts and evidence may exist. Meanwhile, see if the peoples representatives can get something done on all those important issues unrelated to Trump but important to the country. The American people are scheduled to judge Trump in November, 2020. Trust them. ___ La Crosse Tribune, March 17 Hospital collaboration makes community healthier There are so many reasons to celebrate the terrific health care offered in the Coulee Region. Access to first-class caregivers is a key reason many of us call this home. Our health care institutions contribute greatly to quality of life, economic development and employment. But theres another factor we need to consider a factor aimed at improving community health. The CEOs of Gundersen and Mayo-Franciscan met recently with the Tribunes editorial board, and our community should be thankful for another attribute. In a word: collaboration. Its clear Dr. Scott Rathgaber of Gundersen and Dr. Paul Mueller of Mayo take pride in the community collaboration their hospitals and their people contribute to. Heres just one example: The Alliance to HEAL Halting the Effects of Addiction Locally. This initiative doesnt just involve one hospital or two, for that matter. The La Crosse Community Foundation, La Crosse County Health Department, Mayo and Gundersen have teamed up to lead the fight against opioid addiction in the Coulee Region. The four lead organizations have pledged more than $400,000 in the next three years to wage the fight. Its a fight that takes community resources. More than 80 stakeholders participate, working in nine work groups, to aid people with substance-abuse disorders. As Rathgaber says, it takes a village and the alliance includes people who work with people struggling with addiction every day. Youll find hospital CEOs, legislators, judges, mayors taking part. If one hospital or the other considered this initiative a competition, were convinced it wouldnt be nearly as successful. And, there are signs the initiative has had a positive impact. In 2016, 19 people died from overdose deaths involving opioids. In 2017, that number fell to eight. Last year, the number dropped to two. This is not a declaration of victory. But its clear that high-level, collaborative leadership that focuses on results, not credit, has helped make our community safer and healthier. Dr. Chris Eberlein, an ER doctor at Gundersen, says the improvement came after education efforts introducing prescribers to alternatives to prescribing opioids. Eberlein is co-chair of the La Crosse County Heroin and Other Illicit Drug Task Force. Health, of course, comes in many forms. Do you have a stable home, a safe neighborhood? Look at the neighborhoods surrounding Mayo and Gundersen, and youll see more signs of collaborative leadership for improvement. Each health care institution has adopted schools and neighborhoods, providing resources, expertise and volunteer spirit to build a stronger community. There has been widespread teamwork to end homeless in our community and thats paying off, too. That initiative has involved dozens of organizations committed to providing shelter, stability and safety. Were blessed with many community resources. But, to truly make a difference, there needs to be focus. In many cases, thats where out two health care institutions factor in. Yes, these are competing businesses. But each provides focused, compassionate and collaborative leadership to improve the health of our community. Were healthier for it. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Jayme McCormick attends court in North County every Thursday as substance abuse counselor for dozens of addicted women enrolled in drug court. She understands them well, as she should. After all, Jayme McCormick is a drug addict. I know what they go through, because Ive been there, she says. McCormick began experimenting with crystal meth at age 21. At 29, she began daily use after deciding crystal meth was a better pain killer than medication prescribed by her doctor. By 2006, at age 43, she had eight criminal convictions, repeatedly violated probation and spent two years in jail. Her husband left, her three children were taken from her, and she was homeless for a period. I was broken and had no will, she explains. The turning point came in 2007 when she faced a new four-year prison sentence. Her daughter, then 14, expressed her anger while visiting McCormick in jail and said she was finished with her mother. That was rock bottom, McCormick said. My daughters tough comments broke my heart, but motivated me. Advertisement When offered drug court, McCormick, in what she calls a moment of clarity, jumped at the opportunity. Drug court is an intensive, 18-month, judge-supervised treatment program that uses the carrot/stick approach. Participants are assigned counselors and are regularly tested. Testing dirty means jail time. Repeated dirty testing could mean removal from the program and prison. Successful completion, however, results in dismissal of the charges and a new chance at life. She succeeded and has been drug free for 11 years. Today, Jayme McCormick is a licensed, substance abuse counselor in Judge Harry Powazeks drug court and has counseled hundreds of women for North County Center for Change. McCormick also attends college part-time and plans to obtain a masters degree in counseling. Most importantly, she is reunited with her children. McCormick has a special rapport with her clients and sees herself in many of them. When they tell me, I cant do this, you dont understand, I remind them that I graduated this very program, and I do understand, she says. I tell them I believe in them and know they can do it. After her clients test dirty, she tells them that relapse might happen, but always keep trying. It was part of my story early on, she explains. I dont want them to give up. She wants them to see the other side that life is good and worth fighting for. McCormicks general advice to addicts begins with honesty acknowledge life-long addiction. Accept help and remove bad influences. Join support groups such as Narcotics Anonymous. And, most importantly, follow no matter what, meaning no drugs or alcohol no matter what trauma or disappointments they face in life. One drink or puff means likely relapse. Always be alert, she counsels. People who care about addicts should help them face reality and encourage them to accept treatment and remove bad influences. She praises law enforcement, noting the police help a lot more than they used to. Judge Powazek, who runs drug court, credits his team, including Jayme McCormick, for helping people through their darkest days. McCormick knows all about those dark days but also knows that it is possible for people to live with their addiction, reclaiming their lives and families. She has done it. About this feature Goldsmith is a member of the U-T Community Advisory Board. People San Diego Should Know is a weekly column about local people who are interesting and noteworthy because of their experiences, achievements, creativity or credentials. If you know of someone you believe San Diego should know, please send your idea to advisoryboard@sduniontribune.com The U.S. Supreme Courts decision to not hear an appeal from the city of San Diego over a California Supreme Court ruling targeting a 2012 ballot measure eliminating defined-benefit pensions for most newly hired employees was no surprise. Now a ruling is expected within a month from the state appellate court that is considering how the city should remedy its mistake of having then-Mayor Jerry Sanders lead the push for the Proposition B pension cuts without first bargaining with city employee unions. There is a lingering hope at City Hall that this remedy will be no more than a significant fine or an order that the city and affected unions negotiate a settlement. But its difficult to read the state Supreme Court ruling from August and not see it as essentially directing the appellate court to invalidate Proposition B. The ruling is also an implicit endorsement of the state Public Employment Relations Boards conclusion that the employees hired since the measure took effect must be made whole and get a pension equivalent to what they would have received pre-Proposition B. Reducing public employment retirement benefits remains a worthy goal. Given Proposition B got 65 percent of the vote, a properly developed successor measure could win voter support. Pension reformers should start thinking about that and realize a court reprieve is nearly impossible. What a mess. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Advertisement Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion A 53-year-old tourist from Woodstock, Georgia, has become the first known person to die in San Diego (and second killed in the county) while riding a rented scooter. Police said Christopher Conti, who wasnt wearing a helmet, lost control of the scooter while making a left turn on a sidewalk along 10th Avenue near C Street just before 10 p.m. Wednesday and crashed into a tree. He died two days later. Its not known if alcohol or drugs were factors. This is the type of tragedy that many San Diegans have worried about since dockless motorized scooter companies like Lime and Bird came to San Diego last year. It shows the importance of the City Council finalizing approval of rules proposed by Mayor Kevin Faulconer that won unanimous support from a council committee last month. The rules would cut the maximum allowable speed from 15 miles per hour to eight mph in busy areas like Balboa Park and near Petco Park and to three mph on the Embarcadero and the Martin Luther King Jr. Promenade. Scooter companies would be required to use geofencing technology to limit speed and parking in certain areas. The parking of scooters at schools and hospitals and on beach boardwalks and in other crowded areas would be banned. These scooter rules are expected to be voted on next month by the full City Council after several weeks of officials discussing minor tweaks. This approval cant happen soon enough. Once adopted, the rules could be changed as needed. The scooter regulation debate isnt going to stop any time soon. Three prominent 2020 mayoral candidates lawyer Cory Briggs, Councilwoman Barbara Bry and Assemblyman Todd Gloria are divided on the issue, with Bry calling for much tougher rules than Gloria, and Briggs proposing his own regulations. Just such a debate is needed to encourage use of the technology and make it safe. Advertisement Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion Score: Padres 6, Angels 2 Batters box: Ian Kinsler hit his second home run of the spring. The 36-year-old second baseman is 9-for-23 and has walked once. Austin Hedges doubled and walked. His spring OPS is 1.080 in 26 plate appearances. Eric Hosmer singled and doubled and has nine hits in his past 25 at-bats. Of the 18 balls he has put in play in that stretch, nine have been line drives or fly balls. His 60.4 percent groundball rate was second-highest in the majors last season. Michael Gettys, who played in Double-A last season, bounced a double off the warning track in the third inning. Balls and strikes: Pedro Avila, starting in place of the injured Jacob Nix, was wild in the first inning before throwing two hitless innings. The 22-year-old right-hander, who spent last season at Single-A and is the organizations 29th-ranked prospect, flashed an excellent curveball but struggled with his command in a two-hit, two-walk, two-run first inning. Robert Stock ended his scoreless inning with a 101 mph fastball that got past the swing of Peter Bourjos. It was Stocks first pitch that fast in a game. He hit 100 three times last season. Closer Kirby Yates pitched his fifth scoreless inning of the spring. Left-hander Sammy Solis, released by the Nationals on March 9 and signed by the Padres two days later, was strong in his debut. The former USD pitcher got the first two batters he faced on grounders, yielded a double and then got another grounder. He threw just 13 pitches, and his fastball sat between 93 and 95 mph. Extra bases: Manny Machado made his first error in a Padres uniform when he bobbled a grounder. Hedges threw out a runner trying to steal second to end both the third and fourth innings. His second throw was a little right of the bag, but shortstop Luis Urias caught the ball and reached back to tag Wilfredo Tovars foot. Center fielder Buddy Reed, considered the Padres top minor league baserunner and defensive outfielder, walked off the field after almost making a running catch with two outs in the ninth inning before he collided with left fielder Josh Naylor. Reed went down hard and remained on the grass for more than a minute before walking off the field. Luis Perdomo, trying to make the team as a reliever, pitched his second straight scoreless inning. Advertisement On Deck: Chris Paddack is scheduled to start against the Indians, 1:05 p.m. in Goodyear, Ariz. Feasterville, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Home and business owners who end up dealing with any power outages resulting from scattered snow showers that occur the rest of the winter or early spring are encouraged to contact A-1 Electric for assistance with fixing any outstanding electrical issues. A-1 Electric is an independent third party electrical company that can help homeowners enjoy a warmer and safer spring with comprehensive and professional electrical repair. With over 60 years of experience serving the men and women of Philadelphia, A-1 Electric knows firsthand that harsh Pennsylvania winters can cause damage to even the most stable homes. A-1 Electric provides a wide range of residential, electrical services, including routine inspections and maintenance, rewiring services, generator inspection, and much more. They know that electrical emergencies can make a home feel unlivable, which is why they make sure that every client receives an inspector or electrician at their door within 24 hours of contacting them. A-1 Electric also provides commercial electrical services like technical support, network repair, and parking lot lighting installation in Bucks County. Though they cannot act as both an inspector and a repair service on the same visit, the team at A-1 is more than happy to schedule multiple appointments to fit the needs of every business owner or commercial professional. Now that the weather is finally starting to warm up, home and business owners should begin assessing and repairing any damage to their electrical systems caused by the cold. Anyone interested in scheduling an appointment with A-1 Electric or who would like to learn more about commercial parking lot lighting in Montgomery County is encouraged to give them a call today at 800-401-6114. About A-1 Electric A-1 Electric is an organization of Electrical Inspectors and Master Electricians operating out of Feasterville-Trevose, PA. They service Bucks County, Chester County, Delaware County, Montgomery County, Philadelphia and all of Pennsylvania, with electrical underwriting, reintroduction of services, installation of electrical infrastructure and implementation of electrical equipment. They also offer complete electrical inspection and authorization consulting services certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, all local AHJs (Authorities Having Jurisdiction) and all PA electrical utilities. Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Automation as a service is a technology megatrend that's quietly working its way into people's hearts, daily lives and system processes. It provides a fully managed automation-as-a-service solution for the business marketplace. Request Sample Copy of this Report@: https://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=205275 The representative of this Market is: Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Uipath, HCL Technologies Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Kofax Inc., Nice Ltd., Pegasystems Inc. The rise in the demand for automation in retail is likely to drive the Automation-as-a-service Market during the forecast timeframe. The market is expected to grow significantly during the projected period due to increased automation demand in the energy and utility sectors. The automation of various functions and processes in this industry has grown significantly over the past decade. The report has all aspects of the international market for this particular domain, from key market data to many important criteria, and based on this, the Automation-as-a-Service market has been standardized. This data is collected from a variety of sources linked to the global market, and the research team analyzes the collected data in detail using a variety of analytical tools and provides feedback based on analysis and calculations. The regional segmentation comprises the current and forecast demand for the Middle East and Africa, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Europe for Automation-as-a-service Market with its further division into the U.S., Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. APAC is expected to be the highest growing region in the Automation-as-a-service market because of the increasing adoption of automation and cloud technologies, and government initiatives, such as smart cities in the APAC countries, including China and India. Get Reasonable Discount on this Premium Report @: https://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=205275 Global Automation-as-a-Service Market Segmentation Market: Deployment Segment Analysis -Public Cloud -Private Cloud -Hybrid Cloud -On-Premises Market: Business Function Segment Analysis -Finance -Operations -Sales and Marketing -Human Resources (HR) -Information Technology (IT) Market: Technology Segment Analysis -Knowledge-Based Automation -Rule-Based Automation Market: Organization Size Segment Analysis -Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) -Large Enterprises Market: End-Use Industry Segment Analysis -Transportation -Energy & Utilities -Manufacturing -Retail -Government Sector -BFSI -Others Major Factors about the Report: -Global Automation-as-a-Service Market Overview -Economic Impact on Market -Market Competition -Global Automation-as-a-Service Market Analysis by Application -Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers -Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders -Global Market Effect, Factors, Analysis -Global Market Forecast For More Information: https://www.researchnreports.com/enquiry_before_buying.php?id=205275 Report Highlights: - The report provides a detailed analysis on current and future market trends to identify the investment opportunities - Market forecasts till 2025, using estimated market values as the base numbers - Key market trends across the business segments, Regions and Countries - Key developments and strategies observed in the market - Market Dynamics such as Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities and other trends - In-depth company profiles of key players and upcoming prominent players - Growth prospects among the emerging nations through 2025 - Market opportunities and recommendations for new investments Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- According to the new market research report "Autonomous Aircraft Market by Technology (Increasingly Autonomous, and Fully Autonomous), End Use (Commercial, Combat & ISR, Cargo, Passenger Air Vehicle, Personal Air Vehicle, Air Medical Services), Component, and Region - Global Forecast 2030", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Autonomous Aircraft Market is projected to grow from an estimated USD 3.6 billion in 2018 to 23.7 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 17.06% from 2018 to 2030. Increased cost savings, reduction in human error due to increased autonomy, and advancements in artificial intelligence are some of the key factors driving the autonomous aircraft market. Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=79798352 Based on technology, the fully autonomous segment of the autonomous aircraft market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2018 to 2030 Based on technology, the fully autonomous segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Growth of this segment can be attributed to increasing autonomy in aircraft and the move towards the development of fully autonomous aircraft in future. Currently, few military UAVs operate with fully autonomous capabilities. While the current commercial aircraft are becoming increasingly autonomous due to the installation of autonomous components which have eased the workload of pilots. The goal of the industry is to make these commercial aircraft fully autonomous as well as introduce new passenger and personal air vehicles along with commercial delivery drones that will be fully autonomous. Thus, the fully autonomous segment is expected to see high growth in this market. Browse in-depth TOC on "Autonomous Aircraft Market" 75 Tables 45 Figures 143 Pages Based on component, the propulsion system segment of the autonomous aircraft market is projected to be the fastest-growing market during the forecast period The propulsion system segment of the autonomous aircraft market is projected to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period. Growth of this segment can be attributed to the advancements in propulsion technology to result in minimum or zero emission, and its capability to work autonomously. Rest of the World is expected to be the fastest-growing autonomous aircraft market during the forecast period Rest of the World is expected to be the fastest-growing market during the forecast period. Rest of the World consists of region including Middle East, Africa and Latin America, Growth is largely due to an increase in autonomous aircraft for air medical services in Africa. Along with this, the rise in urban air mobility in countries such as Dubai, where regulatory bodies are working in favor of commercialization of these technologies, is resulting in high growth of Rest of the World. Speak to Our Expert Analysts: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=79798352 Key players in the autonomous aircraft market include Boeing (US), Airbus (France), Lockheed Martin (US), Northrop Grumman (US), and Elbit Systems (Israel), among others. These market players have been focusing on securing contracts from airlines and governments, as well as developing partnerships and adopting the mergers & acquisitions strategy to grow within the market. The core competencies of these market players include their widespread geographical presence and increased investments in R&D activities. Along with the key established players, various start-ups have entered the space of autonomous aircraft to develop their concepts of air taxi, personal air vehicles, and cargo drones. These concepts are being actively developed with the future technology of fully autonomous air travel. These start-ups are, Kitty Hawk, Volocopter GmbH, WING, LIFT, and Joby Aviation, among others. About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. 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. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com San Francisco, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Butachlor Market: General Outline Butachlor also known as 'Machete' is an organic herbicide that belongs to the acetanilide group of chemicals, and is utilized as a pre-emergent selective herbicide employed against grasses. It is a systemic herbicide that acts as a protein synthesis inhibitor and leads to metabolic dysfunction in the targeted weeds. Butachlor herbicide is primarily absorbed by germinating stem shoots and secondarily by weed roots, growing on the pre-planted arable crop land. Butachlor herbicide is mainly used in India on rice crops, as it requires moist soil and considerable amount of water for safe application. Being phytotoxic in nature, it must be used after diluting with water. Butachlor herbicide is applied one or two weeks before seed plantation, during wet seeded conditions, on moist soil, and left for three days in three to four centimeter of water. The water level has to be maintained for five days to a week and drained before seed plantation. Butachlor herbicide is toxic to aquatic life and has low bio-accumulation potential. It decomposes into toxic gases at high temperatures and exposure may cause pneumonitis on inhalation, and may also trigger nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. Order Brochure for more detailed information @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=67 Butachlor Market: Comprehensive Overview Butachlor herbicides are primarily used as selective herbicides against grasses, sedges, and some broadleaved weeds. They are extensively used by Indian farmers for mainly rice cultivation and other well irrigated crops. Butachlor herbicide works efficiently to remove weed and is best suited for well irrigated or moist soils. The global butachlor market is growing due to escalating food demand for the booming global population and reducing arable land. However, rising general awareness about the harmful effects of herbicides and other toxic agrochemicals, along with stringent environmental regulations, especially in developed countries of North America and Europe is expected to be a limiting factor for the butachlor herbicide market. Due to the opposition of chemicals used in agriculture, farmers are moving to organic farming and development of better and less harmful substitutes. Request TOC for Facts & Tables @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=67 Butachlor Market: Geographical Evaluation The large population base makes Asia Pacific a major consumer of butachlor herbicide. Agricultural economies including China, Indonesia and India are chief consumers of butachlor herbicide for its heavy usage in variety of crops. A rise in disposable income and purchase power parity of China and India is expected to drive demand for food grains, thereby increasing the demand for butachlor herbicide. Comparative lenient norms and regulations against chemicals, availability of cheap labor and land, Asia is the preferred region for production facilities for key market players. North America is another leading consumer for butachlor herbicide, especially in well irrigated southern land of Mississippi and Missouri areas of the U.S. In addition, Brazil, South Africa and Central Africa contribute to the major demand for the market. Strict government control norms over potentially harmful agrochemicals and general tendency of farmers towards sustainable organic farming techniques, Europe is projected to witness slower growth in comparison to other regions. Butachlor Market: Key Market Players Some of the butachlor market players are: Shanghai Tenglong Agrochemical Co. Ltd., Monsanto, Shanghai Mingdou Agrochemical Co. Ltd., and Syngenta AG, SinoHarvest Corporation. Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/butachlor-market About TMR Research TMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in today's 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. Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- FactMR has carefully analyzed the global market for carotenoids which is experiencing significant demand from customers who seek natural colors and supplements. Inclination towards organic certified colors is another major driver pushing the market for carotenoids during the period between 2018 and 2027. The study published by FactMR is titled "Carotenoids Market Forecast, Trend Analysis & Competition Tracking - Global Market Insights 2018 to 2027", which delivers qualitative and quantitative analysis focusing on the trends, market dynamics as well as market opportunities that are expected to impact the carotenoids market in the near future. Request For Sample Report- https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1196 According to study specifics, the global market for carotenoids is expected to witness major growth during the forecast period, with demand exceeding 5 million kg in 2018. Further, the carotenoids market is likely to deliver 5.1% CAGR in terms of volume during the review period. Food & Beverage Industry Showcasing Greater Demand for Carotenoids It has been noticed that rising demand from customers for clean and natural products extracted from natural colors is expected to act as a key growth driver for the carotenoids market. In addition, prevailing health and wellness movements are working towards the higher adoption of carotenoids amid food and beverage processors. The utility of lycopene and beta-carotene as colorants in the F&B sector remains to climb a higher path, says FactMR study. Beta-carotene is majorly used in cheese, yogurts, spreads, sauces, soups and bakery products. On the other hand, lycopene is receiving surging demand due to its effectiveness as a colorant in soups and sauces. S Higher consumer awareness associated to the benefits of carotenoids concerning eye health, cardiovascular health and immune function functions as a primary growth driver. Browse Full Report on Carotenoids Market with in-depth TOC- https://www.factmr.com/report/1196/carotenoids-market As per this assessment, Europe will operate as the most lucrative region for the carotenoids market. The demand in this specific market region exceeded 2 million kg in 2018. Quite recently, carotenoids have become immensely popular among health-conscious consumers living in different parts of Europe. Moreover, the preference towards carotenoids as the prime food coloring agent is another factor motivating their demand in the region. Apart from Europe, the demand for carotenoids is swelling prominently across Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ). A variety of nations like India, China, and Vietnam are projected to see healthy growth in feed carotenoids with rise in meat intake as well as wide acceptance of fresh farming methods. Storage and Ingredient Compatibility Swing as Major Challenges The attainment of vibrant colors concerning different food products using natural colors remain as a key challenge. It should be known that natural colors are unsuited with 'one-size fits all' food processing method. Further, cold storage for preserving the integrity of naturally obtained color is also challenging since opening and closing of storage part can cause microbial contamination or product degradation. Another challenge for the carotenoids market is ingredient compatibility. Upsurge in process variation across the food processing industry is influencing ingredient interaction. Additionally, oil-based naturally sourced colors comprising of carotenoids and paprika might lead to permanent stains, thereby, creating added challenges for food and beverage processors. Have Any Query? Ask Our Industry Expert- https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=1196 The final section of the report discourse competitive landscape that covers vital information about the leading players from the global carotenoids market. Some of the major manufacturers examined in this study are BASF SE, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Chr. Hansen Holding A/S, Sensient Technologies Corporation, Naturex SA, Cyanotech Corporation, Koninklijke DSM N.V., DDW The Color House, Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd. and FMC Corporation. About FactMR FactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact Us FactMR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: https://www.factmr.com/ Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Global Child Resistant Closures Market: Snapshot Child resistant closures are the types of closures that are difficult for children below the age of 5 years to open and require assistance of an adult. Such closures are specifically designed to prevent any hazard to children's health from the accidental consumption of intoxicating substances or pharmaceutical products. The market has expanded at a promising pace in the past few years and continues to be driven at a steady pace. Get Brochure For More Industry Insights@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=40235 The growth of the global child resistant closures market can be attributed to the rising need for effective reduction of drug intoxication cases. Easy open packaging have led to several reported cases of drug intoxication among children. The introduction of child resistant packaging has been associated with the reduction in mortality rate in the United States. Child resistant closures are designed in accordance with strict pharmaceutical industry regulations, which are aimed at preventing the potential cases of accidental drug intoxication among children. The global child resistant closures market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.5% to reach US$2,157.4 mn by the end of 2025. In terms of volumetric consumption, the market is estimated to be pegged at 13.4 bn units in 2017. child-resistant-closures-market.jpg Push and Turn Closures to Remain Most In-Demand Product Variety On the basis of closure type, the global child resistant closures market is segmented into push & turn closure, squeeze & turn closure and others. Push and turn closure is expected to account for a major market revenue share of more than 70% of the overall market by the end of 2025. On the basis of end use, the global market is segmented into pharmaceuticals, household and personal care, chemicals and fertilizers, food and beverages, and automotive. Of these, the Pharmaceuticals segment is expected to account for a market revenue share of more than 90% by the end of 2025. On the basis of material type, the global market is segmented into PP, LDPE, HDPE, and Others. PP is expected to dominate among the various material types due to its chemically inert properties and non-reactivity with the packaged product. By tamper evidence, the global market is segmented into tamper evident and non-tamper evident. Tamper evident segment is anticipated to maintain its dominance all throughout the forecast period. Tamper evident closures along with child resistance feature also ensure that the product is being transported in its intact form. North America to Remain Leading Consumer of Child Resistant Closures, thanks to Strict Mandates Governing Pharma Industry North America held the dominant share in the global market in terms of revenue in 2016. The regional market is also is expected to remain the most lucrative and promising regional market over the report's forecast period, representing an incremental opportunity of US$347.8 mn over the period between 2017 and 2025. The growth of the region can be attributed to a well-established pharmaceutical packaging industry along with the high preference to bottles as a product type. The North America market for child resistant closures is expected to register a CAGR of 6.3 % over the said period, with sales particularly concentrated in the United States. The markets in Europe and Asia Pacific are also likely to remain competitive and present promising growth opportunities owing to the steadily expanding pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical packaging industries. The Europe market is expected to register a CAGR of 4.3% over the forecast period. The APAC market is expected to expand at the CAGR of 6.1% and is anticipated to grow by 61% of its current market size by the end of 2025. Latin America market for child resistant closures is expected to constitute 7.2% of the market revenue share of the global market and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.6%. Get Customize Report@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=40235 Some of the leading companies in the global child resistant closures market are Closures Systems International, Inc., Silgan Plastic Closures Solutions, BERICAP GmbH & Co. KG, Global Closures Systems, Aptar Group, Inc., Berry Global, Inc., Amcor Limited, O.Berk Company, LLC, Blackhawk Molding Co. Inc., and CL Smith Company. San Francisco, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Global Friction Modifiers Market: Snapshot The demand within the global market for friction modifiers is increasing on account of the willingness of several industries to experiment with the usage of new materials. Friction modifiers are primarily meant to reduce the friction caused by the rubbing of two or more components, and these modifiers are extremely useful in the automotive industry. It is expected that the successful marketing and promotion of friction modifiers would accelerate demand within the global market for friction modifiers. Furthermore, several quality checks to test the effectiveness of these modifiers have given a seal of credibility to these modifiers. Hence, it is safe to estimate that the demand within the global market for friction modifiers would outdo all the previous marks of demand. Order Brochure for more Detailed Information @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=3476 The automotive sector is characterised by precision and meticulousness, and the slightest of carelessness could have dire consequences. For this reason, the use of friction modifiers to regulate friction between automobile parts has become a necessity in the contemporary times. Furthermore, the government has given approvals and certifications for the usage of friction modifiers in the automotive industry, and this has further propelled demand within the global market. On the negative end, the global market for friction modifiers faces stiff competition from the growing popularity of conventional fuels. Furthermore, environmental concerns have brought electric vehicles to the fore, and the growing popularity of these vehicles is expected to be a roadblock for the global friction modifiers market. Geographically, the market for friction modifiers in Europe has been prospering on account of the expansive automotive sector in England, Germany, and France. Global Friction Modifiers Market: Overview The global friction modifiers market is foreseen to gain momentum in growth due to its widening scope as a result of the rise of the transportation industry. Increase in the use of lubricants around the world could be one of the vital factors attaining support from the overall growth of the transportation industry. In the near term, market growth is anticipated to increase on the back of swelling demand for friction modifiers in South Korea, India, and other developing nations. Also known as antifriction additives, friction modifiers could improve their demand as strict government regulations offer strong growth prospects. Request TOC for Facts & Tables @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=3476 Friction modifiers could be offered in two main types, viz. inorganic and organic, where the former is foretold to secure a larger share of the global market in the near future. Compared to organic friction modifiers, their inorganic counterpart is said to be economically priced. Global Friction Modifiers Market: Trends and Opportunities Inorganic friction modifiers offering exceptional friction reduction and outstanding performance are envisaged to collect massive demand in the global market. According to a study of market dynamics for friction modifiers, there could be telling growth prospects birthing on account of increasing vehicle parc and expansion of the automotive industry. Furthermore, magnifying demand for fuel-efficient lubricants is prognosticated to set the tone for valuable growth in the world friction modifiers market. However, increase in the use of alternative fuels and preference for electric vehicles could hamper the demand for friction modifiers. Moreover, there could be an adverse effect on the overall production cost of friction modifiers because of inconsistency in raw material prices. Nonetheless, developments in friction modifier additive technologies and massive research and development investments are prophesied to create a wealth of opportunities in the world friction modifiers market. Global Friction Modifiers Market: Market Potential Novel crop enhancement business, Plant Impact Plc was acquired by Croda International Plc after the latter announced the completion of its purchase in March, 2018. Plant Impact is said to report into its acquisitor's Life Science business following the acquisition. However, taking shape as a subsidiary within Croda Europe, the company will retain its identity after the acquisition, said a press release by Croda. President of Croda Life Sciences, Nick Challoner said that their strategy would be to maximize benefits offered by this integration. Global Friction Modifiers Market: Regional Outlook At least until the completion of 2022, Asia Pacific is projected to take over a commanding position of the international friction modifiers market. It could be a larger region of the market taking advantage of favorable situations in prominent countries such as India, South Korea, Japan, and China. Considered as automotive hubs of the region, all of these country-wise markets could prove to be extremely vital for the overall growth of Asia Pacific. Europe and North America could bank on stringent emission standards required to be followed in the automobile industry. Besides their use in meeting these standards, friction modifiers find application in enabling efficient functioning of lubricants. For automotive and automotive lubricants manufacturing, the usage of fuel-efficient lubricants is mandatory in both the regions. Comprehensive Overview on Future Aspect of Report @ https://www.tmrresearch.com/friction-modifiers-market Global Friction Modifiers Market: Competitive Landscape Entry of new players seems to be difficult with the need to keep up with current changes and developments in friction modifier technology, which requires vast investments in research and development activities. One of the go-to developmental strategies adopted by leading companies could be market expansion. In order to meet changing consumer demands, companies are expected to focus on launching cost-effective and new materials. Some of the key players of international friction modifiers market are Infineum, Afton, and Lubrizol. About TMR Research TMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in today's 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. Illustration: Liu Rui/GT Reporting on China's two sessions is a memorable experience of my journalistic career. I have been working in the media for more than a decade, a period that has offered me unique opportunities to cover an array of issues in Africa and the world at large. In this career that I always longed for since my school days, I have reported on crime, economics, politics and sports, among other things. Human interest stories, especially on poverty, have often burdened me to the point where I wished I could influence policy direction to implement measures needed to curb human suffering. But I am glad that my journalistic pieces have in one way or another helped in drafting policies that would transform human lives. One such issue has been the role technical colleges can play in driving the future of a country. As I reflect on my profession, I would not like to overlook what happened in March 2019. As it is with many other professions, I came up with an ambitious plan mid-2018 - that I needed to intensify my push for more anti-poverty policies through writing. In my plan, writing about China in Africa was one of the prime targets. Indeed, the month of March presented an opportunity for me to be among foreign correspondents privileged to cover the highly respected two sessions in Beijing. It has been peddled in many parts of Africa where I have visited during my fieldwork that China is bad for the continent. The claims have been validated by skewed media reports, especially in Europe and America, that the current Africa-China ties are nothing but neocolonialism. It is so common today to hear from anti-China-Africa propagandists that youths can no longer get jobs because their places have been assumed by Chinese workers. But we must state things as they are, objectively. China has magnificently transformed Africa. From railways, power projects, roads and ports, these have had huge ramifications for different economies in Africa, creating thousands of jobs for young people. The two sessions, which I later came to learn is also known as lianghui, opened my eyes wider. It gave me a very different view of China and its people. It showed me how seriously China takes its development agenda through the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. This outfit is an amalgamation of powerful businessmen and trade unions, among other organizations, which expresses people's will and allows the National People's Congress to make decisions. What I therefore noticed at the two sessions is that China appraises its work over the past year and comes up with a powerful economic and social road map, giving its priorities for the coming year. The China-US relations, China's gross domestic product growth target, unemployment, and the fiscal deficits are some of the sticky issues that emerged. Unlike other governments, whose officials prefer to stay away from media, ministers from various government agencies held a number of press briefings and even took questions from reporters. It is from the two sessions that I learnt that China is taking seriously its relations with other countries. A law was endorsed that would ease pressure with the US, as well as Europe, by discouraging officials from forcing foreign firms to hand over technology. Maybe the most enduring lesson I learnt from this political event is that African countries also need to come up with similar platforms that would enable influential leaders in respective countries to develop plans to define their future. So far, apart from budgetary policy statements, I have not seen a single African country that has come up with such a strong conference that is all-inclusive. No doubt, with such summits, African countries would be able to chart their own development paths, but more importantly, know who and where international development partners can come from to plug in their wealth of knowledge and resources. I applaud China for offering such a challenge to Africa and other continents in the world. This is worth aping if we are to foster relations between China and African countries. The writer is an independent journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- The high purity silica market is marked by a handful of leading manufacturers that has sophisticated refining machinery to sustainably produce high purity silica. The refining technology of these manufacturers remains competitive in terms of removal of impurities such as Aluminum, Iron, and Copper and reducing concentrations of alpha emitters such as Uranium and Thorium. Although silica element finds application in multiple industries due to its beneficial alloy properties, recent decades have witnessed the production of high purity silica for specific applications. High purity silica is highly sought after in the semiconductor industry and other applications such as electrolytic capacitor foils and electronic storage systems. According to the end users' requirement specifications, manufacturers in the high purity silica market deliver high purity silica in different forms such as foil, sheet, plate, pellet, ingots, billets, wires, rods or disks. Manufacturers also deliver high purity silica products for research and other commercial applications. Get Free Exclusive Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=622 With the higher level of electrical conductance, application of high purity silica has intensified in recent years and can be now found in every displays, memory chips, memory drives of smartphones, computers, tablets and LED screens of other devices. Exponentially rising utilization of high purity silica in electronics and technical applications is estimated to augur well for the growth of the high purity silica market. A new research publication by Fact.MR presents incisive insights on the global high purity silica market. The report assesses the historical trends that have shaped this landscape until now, and offers an accurate and unbiased outlook on the likely market scenario for the period 2018-2027. The use of high purity silica in various industries has pushed its demand across regions, depending on the market position of the respective end use industry in the particular region. Moreover, various factors influencing growth of the global high purity silica market have also been covered in this research study. Analysis on key market participants such as Nyacol, Corning, Canadian Metals Inc., Heraeus, Evonik Industries AG, Huber Engineered Materials and Akzo Nobel is also included. Demand for High Purity Silica from Industrial Rubber and Tire Industry Growing High purity silica is gaining rapid acceptance from the industrial rubber and tire industry. It is being largely used to manufacture green tires that differ from conventional tires in terms of higher grip and low rolling resistance. Low rolling resistance offers reduced fuel consumption thus saving money and protecting environment by lowering the CO2 emissions. This has spurred the demand for high purity silica in rubber and tire sector. This factor is also supported by the fact that governments across regions are focusing on reducing the greenhouse emissions by enhancing fuel consumption of vehicles. With the growth in the rubber industry in the United States, the region continues to remain a major consumer of tires as well as a huge producer of synthetic rubber. 2018 is expected to be an opportunistic year for the economy of United States. The demand for tires from the automotive sector in the United States is expected to fuel the use of high purity silica in this region. Albeit a maturity in the US automotive sector, this industry is expected to present potential opportunities for the high purity silica market. In emerging economies, the demand of high purity silica in the automotive sector, for production of green tires is expected to soar at high pace. In 2016, the automobile production (passenger cars) in China was around 24,420,744 units and in 2017 it reached 24,806,687. Likewise, in India, the number of passenger cars in 2017 recorded a volume production of about 3,952,550 from an initial volume of 3,677,605 in 2016. This trend shows that the production of passenger as well as commercial vehicles in these countries is increasing at a steady pace and is expected to continue with this trend in the coming years. This has presented significant opportunity for tire manufacturers to develop green tires, which in turn is expected to trigger the sale of high purity silica in these countries. Moreover, in India, the demand for tires is expected to increase by 7 to 8 percent during 2018-2019 timeline, which is expected to aid the growth of the global high purity silica market. Ask For Customized Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=622 Growth in Semiconductor Industry to Spur Sales of High Purity Silica High purity silica is used in semiconductor and electronics industry for mechanical planarization or polishing. With the growing use of high purity silica in this field, its demand across regions such as United States and Europe is expected to increase. In 2017, the semiconductor industry witnessed growth owing to high adoption of graphics processing units and e-sports. According to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, the semiconductor revenue from a global perspective is expected to rise by 7% in 2018. In 2017, the semiconductor revenue in US reflected a value higher than US$ 86 Mn, which is expected to reach US$ 95 Mn with a 10.3% growth. Likewise, in Europe, though the rate of growth remains less as compared to Unite States, the semiconductor revenue is expected to touch a value higher than US$ 39 Mn in 2018. In Asia Pacific, the semiconductor market is expected to witness high growth pace. The semiconductor revenue in this region in 2017 was US$ 247,834 Mn and is estimated to soar at a 6.6% rate to reach US$ 264,097 Mn in 2018. These statistics have shown a considerable expansion of the semiconductor market, which is expected to fuel the growth of the global high purity silica market in the coming years. This research report on global high purity silica market offers in-depth understanding regarding the global market scenario across key regions and also includes forecast analysis for a period of nine years, from 2018 till 2027. It extends support from an actionable intelligence standpoint that the reader can sue to achieve his/her research milestones. Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @ https://www.factmr.com/report/622/high-purity-silica-market About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact Us FactMR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: www.factmr.com/ Read Industrial News : http://insiderstribune.com/ Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- A new business intelligence report released by Advance Market Analytics with title "Global Livestock Monitoring Market Insights, Forecast to 2025" has abilities to raise as the most significant market worldwide as it has remained playing a remarkable role in establishing progressive impacts on the universal economy. The Global Livestock Monitoring Market Report offers energetic visions to conclude and study market size, market hopes, and competitive surroundings. The research is derived through primary and secondary statistics sources and it comprises both qualitative and quantitative detailing. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Boumatic LLC (United States), Delaval (Sweden), Dairymaster (Ireland), Lely Holding S.A.R.L (Netherlands), SCR Engineers Ltd. (Israel), Valley Agriculture Software (California), GEA Group AG (Germany) and Allflex Group (United States) etc. Animals are produced intensively and are kept under optimal conditions for growth and production within current technological limits. Most of the time the animals are constrained within a building or stockyard. As they are prevented from hunting for their own food, the farmer or the owner of livestock has to take care for all aspects of their husbandry. Free Sample Report + All Related Graphs & Charts @ : https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/sample-report/33056-global-livestock-monitoring-market Market Drivers Growing size of dairy farms Market Trend Cost savings Restraints Requirement of Huge Capital Investment Opportunities Increasing availability of innovative feeding technologies Challenges Livestock are a major contributor to global warming Market Overview of Global Livestock Monitoring If you are involved in the Global Livestock Monitoring industry or aim to be, then this study will provide you inclusive point of view. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Type, Application and major players. 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. This study mainly helps understand which market segments or Region or Country they should focus in coming years to channelize their efforts and investments to maximize growth and profitability. The report presents the market competitive landscape and a consistent in depth analysis of the major vendor/key players in the market. Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows: Historical year 2013-2017 Base year 2018 Forecast period** 2019 to 2025 [** unless otherwise stated] **Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players. Enquire for customization in Report @: https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/enquiry-before-buy/33056-global-livestock-monitoring-market The titled segments and Market Data Break Down are illuminated below: The Study Explore the Product Types of Livestock Monitoring Market: Hardware, Software, Service Key Applications/end-users of Global Livestock Monitoring Market: Milk Harvesting Management, Breeding Management, Feeding Management, Heat Stress Management, Animal Comfort Management, Behavior Monitoring and Control, Others Top Players in the Market are: Boumatic LLC (United States), Delaval (Sweden), Dairymaster (Ireland), Lely Holding S.A.R.L (Netherlands), SCR Engineers Ltd. (Israel), Valley Agriculture Software (California), GEA Group AG (Germany) and Allflex Group (United States) etc Region Included are: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Oceania, South America, Middle East & Africa Country Level Break-Up: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Germany, United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Turkey, Russia, France, Poland, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, India, Australia and New Zealand etc. Important Features that are under offering & key highlights of the report: Detailed overview of Livestock Monitoring market Changing market dynamics of the industry In-depth market segmentation by Type, Application etc Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape of Livestock Monitoring market Strategies of key players and product offerings Potential and niche segments/regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective towards Livestock Monitoring market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprint Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/reports/33056-global-livestock-monitoring-market Major Highlights of TOC: Chapter One: Market Overview 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Scope/Objective of the Study Chapter Two: Executive Summary 2.1. Introduction Chapter Three: Market Dynamics 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Market Drivers Chapter Four: Market Factor Analysis 4.1. Porters Five Forces 4.2. Supply/Value Chain 4.3. PESTEL analysis 4.4. Market Entropy 4.5. Patent & Trademark Analysis Chapter Nine: Methodology and Data Source 9.1. Methodology/Research Approach 9.2. Data Source 9.3. Disclaimer Buy the Latest Detailed Report @ https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/buy-now?format=1&report=33056 Key questions answered - Who are the Leading key players and what are their Key Business plans in the Global Livestock Monitoring market? - What are the key concerns of the five forces analysis of the Global Livestock Monitoring market? - What are different prospects and threats faced by the dealers in the Global Livestock Monitoring market? - What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors? Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia. Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- In order to dissert the market scenario prevailing across the "marine shaft power meter market" sector, FactMR has evenly presented a new examination titled "Marine Shaft Power Meter Market Prospects & Upcoming Trends by 2028", to its extensive online repository. With all vital market facets enclosed into this single assessment, readers can learn about different market drivers, opportunities and trends which are likely to influence the overall market space for the marine shaft power meter market in the coming years. In addition, factors such as market size, Y-o-Y growth and revenue share are investigated so as to make this research highly authentic and reliable. A sample of this report is available here - https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1504 The marine shaft power meter market report provides a detailed profile of the leading players including Shoyo Engineering Co., Ltd, Hoppe Marine GmbH, Datum Electronics Limited, Kongsberg Maritime (Kongsberg Gruppen), Aquametro Oil & Marine AG, Trelleborg Marine Systems, Kyma A.S., VAF Instruments BV, and other prominent players. Marine Shaft Power Meter Market Remain Consolidated among Tier 1 Players Tier 1 players hold nearly 1/3rd of the share in the marine shaft power meter market. The success of tier 1 players can be attributed to the production of technologically advanced products and their robust distribution network. Leading players in the market are also focusing on strategic partnerships and mergers and acquisitions. Tier 2 and tier 3 players are focusing on development and launch of new products. Development of cost-effective products, leading to the reduction of fuel consumption is one of the key strategies of tier 2 and tier 3 players to retain their position in the marine shaft power meter market. Significant Growth in Marine Transport Driving Demand Global maritime trade expanded at 4% in 2017, witnessing the fastest growth in five years, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Companies in Canada, Greece, and China are adding new containerships to their fleet. The growing prominence of developing countries in global seaborne trade flows in terms of both exports and imports is also creating significant opportunities for stakeholders. Read Complete Market Report from Here - https://www.factmr.com/report/1504/marine-shaft-power-meter-market Reduction of greenhouse gas emission from ships remains a key focus area for the global shipping industry. The broader aims of reducing total annual greenhouse gas emission by at least 50% by 2050 will entail a change in existing status-quo. To achieve target reduction in emissions, the use of marine shaft power meter and new devices by ship-owners and operators is growing significantly. The growing use of water crafts for transportation and recreation is also driving the adoption of marine shaft power meter. On account of growing demand in the shipping industry, manufacturers are concentrating on developing new cost-efficient marine shaft power meter with higher safety and eco-friendly technologies. Ship owners are considering inclusion of efficiency measures such as optimizing shaft power and speed, and other measures to comply with MRV regulation that recently came into force in Europe. Adoption of Smart Marine Shaft Power Meter Systems Growing Fuel charges remain a key operational cost for shipping industry, accounting for over 40% of shipping cost. Unsurprisingly, the focus has shifted to adopting energy-efficient products and solutions. Key players in the marine shaft power meter market are focusing on developing smart shaft power meters to gain critical data pertaining to on propulsion shaft, engine, and propeller performance. High accuracy, low maintenance, and optimization of energy is a key development focus areas of manufacturers. Ship energy efficiency with real-time optimization model has emerged as a cornerstone in marine shaft power meter manufacturing, which is paving lucrative opportunities for manufacturers. New touchscreen digital display system for data and diagnostics for marine shaft power meter by manufacturers has gained traction as the part of continues product improvement program. Buy online this Report from Here - https://www.factmr.com/checkout/1367/S About FactMR FactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact Us FactMR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400, Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: https://www.factmr.com/ Blog: https://factmrblog.com/ Maharashtra, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Ride Sharing Software Market The global Ride Sharing Software Market report look through various tendencies, obstructions, and challenges faced by the key competitors of Ride Sharing Software market. The report has been prepared in consideration of the major outcomes and consequences of the market. This report examines the Ride Sharing Software market status and the potential of global and major regions, from angles of players, product regions and end Application/industries; this report assesses the key players in global and major regions and classifies the Ride Sharing Software market by product and Application/end industries. Download Research Study With Latest Advancement Trends and Application https://www.reportsmonitor.com/request_sample/384613 Segmentation: This study considers the Ride Sharing Software value generated from the sales of the following segments: Segmentation by product type: PC Terminal Mobile Terminal Segmentation by application: Age 18-24 Age 25-34 Age 35-44 Age 45-54 Age 55-64 The report also presents the market competition landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendor/manufacturers in the market. The key manufacturers covered in this report: Uber, Lyft, Fasten, Haxi, Via, Didi Chuxing, Ola Cabs, Grab, Go-Jek, BlaBlaCar, myTaxi, Wingz, Getme Ride, Dida Chuxing, , Regions/Countries: North America (USA, Canada, Mexico) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, etc.) South America (Brazil, Argentina, etc.) Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Iran etc.) Africa (Egypt, South Africa, etc.) Get Discount on this report @ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/check_discount/384613 Points Covered in The Report: The points that are talked over within the report are the major Ride Sharing Software market players that influence the market such as raw material suppliers, manufacturers, equipment suppliers, end users, traders, distributors etc. The all-inclusive profile of the companies is specified. The production, price, capacity, revenue, cost, gross, gross margin, sales volume, sales revenue, consumption, growth rate, import, export, future strategies, supply, and the technological developments that they are creating are also incorporated within the report. Besides the historical data from 2012 to 2017 and forecast data from 2019 to 2024. The growth factors of the Ride Sharing Software market are deeply discussed while the different end users of the market are underlined. Data and information by manufacturer, by region, by type, by application and etc., and custom research can be added in line with the specific requirements. The report also considers the SWOT analysis of the market. Finally, the report concludes with the opinions of the industry experts. Full Report Link @ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/report/384613/Ride-Sharing-Software-Market The global Ride Sharing Software Market provides an overall research conclusion and market feasibility of investing in a novel project is assessed. Global Ride Sharing Software Market is a beneficial and trustworthy source of guidance and mode for individuals and companies concerned with the sales of the market. About Reports Monitor Reports Monitor is a market intelligence and consulting firm with extensive experience and knowledge of the Market Research industry. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics driven intelligence. Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis. Mention your Queries here to Get a Call from Our Industry Expert @ sales@reportsmonitor.com Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Rugged power supply is being widely adopted in the military sector due to its beneficial features such as the ability to perform seamlessly in a variety of intense climates and harsh terrains. Also, it is capable of ensuring long cycles of use with minimal maintenance. Telecommunications industry also requires robust and rugged power supplies that can be installed in telecommunication towers. These towers have their own set of challenges with demanding environments starting from dusty and dirty locations to the extent of submersible power applications. This comprehensive report analyzes and forecasts the rugged power supply market at the global and regional level. The report provides analysis over the period 20162026, wherein 2018 to 2026 is the forecast period and the base year is 2017. An in-depth and unbiased market assessment has been made to offer readers in-depth and accurate analysis. Get Free PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @ https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1981339 The report emphasizes on all the major trends and services playing a key role in the growth of the rugged power supply market during 2018 - 2026. It also focuses on market drivers, restraining factors, and opportunities of the rugged power supply market during the said period. The study provides a complete perspective about the rugged power supply market throughout the research study in terms of value (in US$ Mn) across various geographies, including Asia Pacific, South America, North America, Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Europe. The report includes a detailed value chain analysis, which is focused on providing an extensive view of the global rugged power supply market. The market's Porter's Five Forces analysis is also provided to understand the competitive scenario in the market. The study incorporates a market attractiveness analysis, wherein the market segments, for instance, power supply types, rugged power supply components, system type, and significant end-use segments are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate, and attractiveness in terms of opportunity. Supply demand analysis of commercial off- the- shelf (COTS) power supplies vs. modified or custom power supply has been explained in the report. In order to give a complete analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the rugged power supply market, every geographic region mentioned in the report is provided with attractiveness analysis. A market overview chapter in the rugged power supply market report explains the market trends and dynamics which includes the market drivers, restraining factors, and opportunities for the current and future rugged power supply market. A market outlook analysis has also been provided globally in the report. Additionally, the report provides analysis of different business strategies being adopted by market leaders of the rugged power supply market. Market introduction chapter assists in gaining an idea of different trends and services related to rugged power supply along with their types and applications. Global Rugged Power Supply Market: Scope of the Report The study provides a decisive view on the global rugged power supply market, by segmenting the market on the basis of type into programmable and non-programmable system; by component into hardware and software. Hardware segment is further bifurcated into DC/AC convertor, AC/DC convertor, DC/DC convertor, EMI filters, and others. Classification on the basis of system type includes discrete power supply system and integrated power modules (synchronous & non synchronous). By industry, the market has been classified into telecommunications, medical & healthcare, military & aerospace, transportation, lighting, food & beverage, and others. The report provides a detailed breakdown of the rugged power supply market region-wise and categorizes it at various levels, thus providing valuable insights at micro and macro levels. View Complete TOC with tables & Figures @ https://www.researchmoz.us/rugged-power-supply-market-global-industry-analysis-size-share-growth-trends-and-forecast-2018-2026-report.html/toc The report highlights the competitive scenario within the rugged power supply market, thus ranking all the major players according to key recent developments and their geographic presence. The insights for the rugged power supply market are the result of our extensive primary interviews, secondary research, and in-house expert panel reviews. These market estimates have been analyzed by considering the impact of different economic, political, social, legal, and technological factors. On the basis of country, North America market is bifurcated into Canada, The U.S., and Rest of North America. Furthermore, the Europe market is analyzed across France, Germany, U.K., Italy and Rest of Europe. The APAC rugged power supply market is also segmented at country level which includes China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Rest of Asia Pacific. Middle East & Africa region covers the GCC, South Africa, and Rest of Middle East & Africa. Similarly, South America region includes Brazil and Rest of South America. This report provides all the strategic information required to understand the rugged power supply market along with its components and end-users. Also, the report provides insights related to the components and different end-users according to the various geographical regions mentioned above. Global Rugged Power Supply Market: Research Methodology The research methodology is a perfect combination of primary research, secondary research and expert panel reviews. Secondary sources such asannual reports, company websites, SEC filings and investor presentations, national government documents, internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases, relevant patent and regulatory databases, market reports, government publications, statistical databases, World Bank database, and industry white papers are usuallyreferred. Further, for this report we have specifically focused on data from the global defense budget, military spending on power supply, and developments in power supply, among others. Primary research involves telephonic interviews, e-mail interactions, and face-to-face interviews for detailed and unbiased reviews on the rugged power supply market,across geographies. Primary interviews are usually conducted on an ongoing basis with industry expertsand participants in order to get latest market insights and validate the existing data and analysis. Primary interviews offer new and fresh information on important factors such as market trends, market size, competitive landscape, growth trends, etc. These factors help to validate and strengthen secondary research findings. Moreover, the data collected and analyzed from secondary and primary research is again discussed and examined by our expert panel. Global Rugged Power Supply Market: Competitive Dynamics The research study includes profiles of leading companies operating in the global rugged power supply market. Market players have been profiled in terms of attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, and recent developments. Parameters such as rugged power supply investment & spending and developments by the major players of the market are tracked. Some of the key players in the rugged power supply market are XP Power, Advanced Conversion Technology, Eaton Corporation, Aegis Power System, Inc., TDK-Lambda Americas, Inc., Abbott Technologies, AGMA Power Systems Ltd., Energy Technologies Inc., Synqor, Inc., AJ's Power Source Inc., Prime Power Inc., Powerbox International AB, Milpower Source, Astrodyne TDI Power Supplies & EMI Filters, Artesyn, Behlman Electronics, Inc., Cosel, Dawn VME Products, Delta Electronics, Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc., General Electric Ltd., Mean Well, Murata Power Solutions, Rantec Power Systems Inc., Siemens AG, VPT, Inc.and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. The rugged power supply market has been segmented as follows: Global Rugged Power Supply Market By Type Programmable Non-Programmable By Component Hardware DC/AC Convertor AC/DC Convertor DC/DC Convertor EMI Filters Others (Inductors, Transformers, etc.) Software By System Type Discrete Power Supply System Integrated Power Modules Synchronous Non Synchronous Make An Enquiry @ https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=E&repid=1981339 By Industry Telecommunications Consumer Electronics Medical & Healthcare Military & Aerospace Transportation Lighting Others About ResearchMoz ResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators. For More Information Kindly Contact: ResearchMoz Mr. Nachiket Ghumare, 90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207 Tel: +1-518-621-2074 USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948 Email: sales@researchmoz.us Follow us on LinkedIn @ http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG Follow me on : https://marketinfo247.wordpress.com/ Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/18/2019 -- Soju is a colorless and clear beverage originated in Korea. Traditional preparation of soju includes rice, barley or wheat, however, modern producers are engaged in replacing the rice portion with other types of starches that are derived from tapioca, potato or sweet potato. Leading manufacturers of soju are headquartered in Korea, specifically in South Korea. China, Canada and the United States also represent some of the soju brands and good penetration of traditional Koreans brands. Also, the increasing popularity of soju has also led to the introduction of multiple soju-based equivalents that are available as Western drink mixes based on vodka or other alcoholic drinks. Some of the key players in the soju market are HiteJinro, Muhak, Lotte Liquor, Kumbokju, Bohae, C1 Soju, Chungbuk, Mackiss, Hallasan and among others. Jinro continues to maintain the leading position in the soju market while accounting for a significant revenue share in the global soju marketplace. Request For Report Brochure For Latest Industry Insights @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=62286 Soju Market Dynamics Manufacturers Expanding Global Footprints in Potential Markets As the popularity of soju is rising steadily, leading Korean manufacturers are engaged in leveraging business expansion strategies to increase their soju market revenues. For instance, in December 2018, the leader in soju market Hite Jinro Co. announced that the company will sell its soju in Russia through Vin Lab stores. Similarly, other soju brands such as Lotte Liquors is also expanding their distribution in the United States, the UK, Canada and other South East Asian countries where consumption of soju is gradually gaining momentum. Major expansion strategies include the adoption of specific marketing solutions and strengthening of marketing and distribution network. Soju Continues to Maintain Pole Position amid Rising Popularity of Beer, Whisky and Wine The popularity of alcoholic beverages such as beer, whisky and wine is rising significantly owing to increased accessibility and affordable cost. However, soju continues to capture consumer attention as soju is touted for its health benefits. Also, a good price point and alcohol content almost equivalent to other alcoholic beverages of soju continue to aid in increasing consumption of soju as compared to other alcoholic beverages. Moreover, the soju market is witnessing the introduction of distinct flavored soju products that are gaining significant popularity among new soju consumers. Soju Market Regional Outlook Korea remains the largest consumer of soju despite the increasing popularity of other alcoholic beverages such as whisky, beer and wine across the region. In Europe, Russia is the second largest consumer of soju. Other prominent consumers of soju include the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. The increasing popularity of soju has led to the global distribution of soju-infused cocktails and mixed drinks in some of the developing countries. Obtain Report Details @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/soju-market.html Soju Market Segmentation Soju market is segmented on the basis of type and application. On the basis of type, the soju market is segmented into, Diluted soju Distilled soju United States President Donald Trump and Democratic People's Republic of Korea top leader Kim Jong-un meet in Hanoi, Vietnam, during their second summit. [Photo/Agencies] Editor's note: On Friday, Democratic People's Republic of Korea Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said that the country is considering suspending talks with the United States and may rethink a freeze on missile and nuclear tests unless Washington makes concessions. China Daily reporter Li Yang comments: With the sanctions initiated by the US having pushed the DPRK's economy to the verge of collapse, it is understandable that Pyongyang has taken the lead to break the silence that both sides have carefully kept since the meeting between their leaders late last month in Hanoi. Both sides remained tacit about what they discussed, knowing the unexpected breakdown of the meeting was caused by external factors. But although securing a solution to the Korean Peninsula issue is on the US president's to-do list, it is apparently not as high a priority as it is to his DPRK counterpart. In airing the views, Choe's main purpose is likely not to only express Pyongyang's discontent with US' lack of deeds, but also aimed at spurring the US to focus on what comes next. A new missile or nuclear test is by no means Pyongyang's true intention, but a bid to urge Washington to demonstrate more reciprocal pragmatism and respond to the actions Pyongyang has taken since the two leaders' meeting in Singapore last year. It is good that the US and the Republic of Korea decided earlier this month to cancel their three military exercises planned for this year. But that's far from enough to meet Pyongyang's needs. While laying almost all its cards on table, Pyongyang looks forward to expediting the negotiations to obtain a security guarantee, and more importantly to pave the way for the development of its national economy. The two leaders' meetings have undoubtedly deepened their mutual understanding and mutual trust. But although that is a very important beginning, the estrangement and misperception between the two countries, particularly among officials and militaries of the two sides, cannot be dissolved or even eased with the "chemistry" of the two leaders. The US should demonstrate more understanding and respond to Choe's words in the right way. It should not interpret them as a signal that Pyongyang is returning to its old ways, but rather view them in the way they were intended as a solicitation for a breakthrough. Pyongyang's impatience stems from the needs of its people. Other parties, including China and the Republic of Korea, should support the peace process by trying to deepen mutual understanding between Pyongyang and Washington and ensuring there is no misunderstanding. Source: indiatimes.com Amid heavy tensions between the two nuclear neighbours, India and Pakistan will participate in the joint anti-terrorism exercise to be this year along with other states of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The announcement of the joint exercise Sary-Arka-Antiterror 2019 was announced during the 34th meeting of the SCOs Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) council held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, PTI reported through Xinhua news agency. The SCO comprises Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan were admitted into the bloc in 2017 in which China plays a crucial role. Last year, the exercise had taken place and video of foreign forces along with both India and Pakistan were seen dancing on Punjabi songs and the video had gone viral. India and Pakistan relations are going through tough times post the Pulwama terrorist attack last month in which 44 CRPF soldiers had martyred. India launched a pre-emptive non-military strike using IAF jets and destroyed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) centre in Pakistan. In response, Pakistan launched an offensive against India and an air skirmish between the two countries took place on February 27. China's Special Envoy for Syria Xie Xiaoyan (L) meets with Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi during his visit in Amman, Jordan, on March 17, 2019. Xie Xiaoyan on Sunday highlighted the need to intensify efforts of the international community to end the Syrian crisis through a political solution that preserves Syria's unity and stability. (Xinhua/Lin Xiaowei) AMMAN, March 17 (Xinhua) -- China's Special Envoy for Syria Xie Xiaoyan on Sunday highlighted the need to intensify efforts of the international community to end the Syrian crisis through a political solution that preserves Syria's unity and stability. During his meeting with Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi in the capital Amman, Xie said the sovereignty, independence and the territorial integrity of Syria must be respected and preserved. They agreed that "there is no military solution to the crisis" and stressed the need to reach a political solution that restores the country's security and provides conditions for the voluntary return of refugees. The return of Syria to the Arab League will be beneficial for the participation of Arab countries in the political process of Syria and the final solution to the Syrian crisis, said Xie. The Chinese envoy also appreciated Jordan's great humanitarian role in the Syrian crisis, voicing China's support to the kingdom in this regard. For his part, Safadi urged the international community to provide the necessary support to the refugees and Jordan, which is hosting 1.3 million Syrians. The Jordanian foreign minister affirmed that his country will not shoulder any responsibility for the Rukban camp of the displaced Syrians as its inhabitants are Syrian citizens on Syrian soil, adding that the conditions for the aid delivery from inside Syria is available now. They also underlined the importance of the developments that China-Jordan relations are witnessing and the two countries' keenness to increase cooperation in all fields. A day earlier, Xie held a seminar at the Middle East Studies Center of Jordan, where he exchanged ideas and opinions on regional issues with local scholars. Norden opens offices and employs people with a long term horizon and that is also the case for our move into West Africa. We wish to come even closer to our business partners and increase our business presence and at the same time be part of and help the region develop by investing manpower, know-how, money and time in the maritime sector in Ivory Coast and West Africa,said Jan Rindbo, ceo of Norden. The Abidjan office is expected to become operational during the second quarter of 2019. The new location in Abidjan will become Nordens 11th office, allowing the shipping company to be present on all relevant continents supporting its asset light growth. Norden believes that West Africa is a promising region with growing opportunities within dry cargo, and being the regional hub connecting French-speaking Africa and the home to many key institutions working across Africa, Abidjan, Ivory Coast is a natural location for Nordens new office. Norden is also seeking to develop industrial bulk port logistics projects in the region. Having a local presence will help increase inbound business from the Mediterranean and Far East, support growth on day-to-day outbound activities, and provide access to attractive industrial bulk projects, it said. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and China's Envoy for Syria Xie Xiaoyan (left) discuss the Syrian crisis on Sunday (Petra photo) Source: jordantimes.com AMMAN Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Chinas Special Envoy for Syria Xie Xiaoyan on Sunday discussed the outcomes of the recent Brussels conference and efforts to realise a political solution to the Syrian crisis. The 3rd Brussels conference was held earlier this month under the title Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region, organised by the EU and the UN. Safadi affirmed the need for focusing international efforts on reaching a political solution to the Syrian crisis; one that is accepted by the Syrian people, maintains Syrias unity, integrity and cohesion, restores peace and stability to the country and facilitates the voluntary return of refugees to their country. The two parties agreed that there can be no military solution to the Syria crisis, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Both Safadi and Xie underlined the need for a political solution to the Syrian crisis on the basis of Geneva talks, according to Petra. The minister also called on the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the Syrian refugees, including the hundreds of thousands in Jordan. On the issue of the Rukban camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), Safadi reiterated that it is no longer Jordans responsibility that aid delivery via Damascus is now possible. Safadi stressed that the solution to the Rukban camp, located on the Syrian side of the border with Jordan, is dismantling the camp and safeguarding the return of refugees to their cities and villages, which have now been liberated from Daeshs control. Xie voiced China's appreciation for Jordanian humanitarian assistance to refugees, expressing Beijing's keenness on enhancing its relations with Amman in all fields. The US Navy has stopped publicizing its flag officer assignments since October, 2018 under pretext of preventing them from becoming targets of cyber-attacks launched by hackers from China and other countries. However, as report on March 17 reveals, experts believe that this minor change reflects the decline in confidence of the US Navy, with their open and transparent policies also beginning to shrink. Admiral John Richardson, Chief of US Naval Operations, said recently that the US Navy would do anything to guarantee the safety of its military officers personal information. Since the beginning of the 2019 fiscal year, the US Navy has chosen not to publicize the new nominations of 57 officers. US Navy Officer Joshua J. VerGow said that the move reflects the "significant shift" in the cybersecurity culture of the Pentagon, adding that other military departments will follow suit. On March 17, a professional who has been dealing with the US military for a long time said that in the past, the US had an overwhelming advantage in terms of military strength over other countries, which made it very willing to show openness and transparency to the outside world and generate deterrence. Now, the US is facing the aggressive development momentum of China and Russia and it has realized that its military superiority is weakening. This change has led to the decline in confidence and openness of the US armed forces. Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Naval Military Studies Research Institute, also believes that the practice of the US Navy is contrary to the open and transparent concept that has long been advocated by the US military. It is also contrary to the US advocation of requiring other militaries, including the Chinese military, to be open and transparent. The US military has clearly embarked on a closed path. Their unwarranted excuse of "Chinese cyber-attacks" is a reflection of their lack of confidence. "This may also indicate that the US is taking a similar approach to conduct cyber-attacks on other countries," said Zhang. Yang Yujun, Dean of the Academy of Media and Public Affairs at the Communication University of China, said on March 17 that the move by the US Navy proves indirectly that the US has the capability and motivation to conduct and maybe even has carried out such cyber-attacks and surveillance against the government, military, and key personnel of other countries, including its allies. The countries concerned need to improve their prevention capabilities, said Yang. Furthermore, Yang said, "This shows that the US also recognizes a decline in its military transparency. It proves what China has consistently been advocating, that is, military transparency does not have a unified international standard, thus countries should determine appropriate transparency according to their own national situations and national needs." Disclaimer: The author of this article is Guo Yuandan with the Global Times. The article is translated from Chinese into English by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. Chinamil.com.cn does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. International ratings agency Standard & Poors Corp says it has lowered Asset Finances credit rating to "B-" following its changing ownership. London-based Blackstar Capital Group, which was founded in 2011, bought 82 percent of the Whakatane-based Asset Finance in September last year. The downgrade is despite no change to Asset Finances stand-alone rating reflecting the largely stable business and financial strategy of the finance company, S&P says. When the sale was announced last September, Blackstar said it was taking its stake in Asset Finance from 7 percent to more than 70 percent for an undisclosed sum, but the accounts show its stake at 82 percent at Sept. 30 last year. Another 10 percent is owned by the Hodgetts Family Trust and the remaining shares by other minority investors believed to be staff of Asset Finance which lends to small businesses and consumers which can provide assets as security. About 33.4 percent of its loan portfolio at Sept. 30 was secured by first mortgages with another 15.8 percent secured by second mortgages and 26.3 percent secured by motor vehicles. S&P says Blackstars creditworthiness is slightly weaker than Asset Finances because of its very small market share and modest business position in its main business lines of specialist trade finance and deal origination and structuring. Asset Finances regulatory and governance framework does not afford it sufficient insulation from the broader BCG group to allow it a higher rating than its parent company. Asset Finances accounts show it had shareholders funds of $6.13 million at Sept. 30, a loan book of $20.1 million and a $19.5 million debenture book. It recorded a 64 percent drop in net profit to $284,483 for the six months ended September, largely because of a jump in impairment losses to $812,593 from $68,376 in the year-earlier six months, a 15.5 percent fall in lending, establishment and factoring fees and a 4.3 percent fall in interest revenue. S&P says Asset Finance is exposed to significantly higher credit risk inherent in its target lending segment compared with the mainstream banking system in New Zealand and the high financial leverage of its parent also constrains the group credit profile. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. 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Related News: 10th December 2021 Morning Report Ebos Group Limited (NZX: EBO) EBOS Announces Successful Placement Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB) PEB Announces Agreement with Northern Health in Australia AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) AFT welcomes Australian Federal Court appeal success 9th December 2021 Morning Report Ebos Group Limited (NZX: EBO) Acquisition of LifeHealthcare, Equity Raising Livestock Improvement Corporation Limited (NZX: LIC) Special Dividend 8th December 2021 Morning Report New Zealand King Salmon Investments Limited (NZX: NZK) Market Update Scales Corporation Limited (NZX: SCL) Market update Auckland International Airport says the number of international passengers passing through its terminals hit a record in January, largely reflecting additional airline capacity from Indonesia and Taiwan. International passenger numbers appear set to increase further because Air Canada has announced it will begin a seasonal four-weekly service between Auckland and Vancouver from Dec. 12 this year. The 1,068,922 international passengers in January compared with 1,023,798 in January last year, a 4.4 percent increase, although transit movements of 98,804 were down 5.5 percent. The airport says the new service to Chicago drove capacity increases of 7,000 seats on the North America route. Chinese visitor arrivals also rose 9 percent in January, reflecting the earlier timing of the Chinese New Year in early February. New Zealanders arriving back home were the single largest category at 261,690 people, up 1.5 percent. Domestic passengers increased 4.8 percent to 781,955 in the month. International aircraft movements in January were 2.8 percent higher at 5,449 than in the same month a year earlier while domestic aircraft movements fell 6.1 percent to 9,126. Australians topped the numbers of foreigners arriving at the airport, up 5.3 percent to 79,879 from January last year, followed by a 9 percent increase to 36,137 people from the Peoples Republic of China. Americans accounted for the third largest number of arrivals at 30,641 with Brits in fourth place at 28,527. Total cargo movements rose 4 percent to 17,896 tonnes with exports up 7.1 percent to 9,844 tonnes and imports up 0.4 percent 8,052 tonnes. Total international passengers arriving at the airports 25 percent-owned Queenstown airport rose 18.7 percent to 67,236 people in January while domestic travellers increased 6.6 percent to 158,641. International aircraft movements at Queenstown rose 21.3 percent to 536 while domestic aircraft movements were up 11.1 percent to 1,204. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 10th December 2021 Morning Report Ebos Group Limited (NZX: EBO) EBOS Announces Successful Placement Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB) PEB Announces Agreement with Northern Health in Australia AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) AFT welcomes Australian Federal Court appeal success 9th December 2021 Morning Report Ebos Group Limited (NZX: EBO) Acquisition of LifeHealthcare, Equity Raising Livestock Improvement Corporation Limited (NZX: LIC) Special Dividend 8th December 2021 Morning Report New Zealand King Salmon Investments Limited (NZX: NZK) Market Update Scales Corporation Limited (NZX: SCL) Market update Trade Me Group has halted the sale of semi-automatic firearms through its online marketplace as public sentiment on private gun ownership turns in the wake of last Friday's mass shooting in Christchurch. The country's dominant online marketplace will remove all semi-automatic firearms sales and parts associated with those weapons today. Trade Me already blocks the sale of military-style semi-automatics and parts that allow conversions to a military-style gun, pistols or other restricted weapons, but has previously allowed the sale of category 'A' firearms. The move comes as the government is poised to change the country's gun laws, with a ban on the sale of semi-automatics seen as a possible outcome, after 50 people were killed and dozens of others wounded in a mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch. Cabinet is discussing its response today. "Weve had a lot of contact from Kiwis over the weekend about this issue, and many felt that we should stop the sale of these items in the wake of this attack," Trade Me chief executive Jon Macdonald said in a statement. "Weve listened to these sentiments and weve put this ban in place while we await clear direction from the government." Trade Me's 2017 transparency report - the latest it's published - shows of the 1,559 police inquiries it received, 31 related to firearms. Trade Me also pushed back on two occasions that year in relation to firearms information requests out of the 54 times it pushed back on privacy concerns. Stats New Zealand doesn't break out retail firearms sales, but import figures show 23,713 firearms were imported in calendar 2018 at a cost of $15.9 million, including freight. Of those, 10,928 fell in the category of shooting or hunting rifles other than a .22 calibre. Over the past 11 years, the number of firearms imported has averaged about 26,400. New Zealand imported about $80.8 billion of goods in 2018, up from $8.4 billion a year earlier. Of that, cars and auto parts accounted for about $8.59 billion. Trade Me shares increased 0.2 percent to $6.40, below the $6.45 takeover price offered by UK private equity firm Apax Partners. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. 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Related News: 10th December 2021 Morning Report Ebos Group Limited (NZX: EBO) EBOS Announces Successful Placement Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB) PEB Announces Agreement with Northern Health in Australia AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) AFT welcomes Australian Federal Court appeal success 9th December 2021 Morning Report Ebos Group Limited (NZX: EBO) Acquisition of LifeHealthcare, Equity Raising Livestock Improvement Corporation Limited (NZX: LIC) Special Dividend 8th December 2021 Morning Report New Zealand King Salmon Investments Limited (NZX: NZK) Market Update Scales Corporation Limited (NZX: SCL) Market update The three states are besides Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Lakshadweep where funds have not been transferred to the eligible farmers as uploaded data has not been verified and request for fund release has not been made. New Delhi: Over 67.82 lakh farmers will be left out of the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme as West Bengal, Sikkim and Delhi have not uploaded their details on the PM-KISAN portal, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Sunday. Singh said 67.11 lakh farmers in West Bengal would have received Rs 2,000 each had the state's availed the first installment of Rs 1,342 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Nidhi (PM-KISAN). Similarly, 55,090 farmers in Sikkim and 15,880 in Delhi could not receive their share from the Rs 11 crore and Rs 3 crore funds meant for them under the scheme. In the interim Budget, the Narendra Modi government announced a direct income support of Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installments to 12.5 crore small and marginal farmers with land holding below two hectares or five acres under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. The first round of payment for Rs 2,000 has to be made before the end of financial year 2018-19. Singh said details of 4.71 crore farmers were uploaded by 33 states and Union Territories and 3.11 of them were found eligible after verification. The first installment has been transferred to about 2.75 crore farmers and requests have been made for transfer to additional 22 lakh farmers, Singh said. The Minister said details of 1.65 crore beneficiaries were sent back to states for correction, which is still pending with them, he added. Over 40 per cent of the eligible farmers in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Andaman & Nicobar have received the first installment, he said. In Jammu & Kashmir, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Telangana, Tamil Nadu too, the installment has been transferred to 25-40 per cent of the beneficiaries. In a recent video interview, Suriya and Mohanlal have confirmed their roles in KV Anands Kaappaan. While Mohanlal refused to divulge the storyline, it was Suriya who took the liberty and said: We can reconfirm whatever information leaked in the media. Mohanlal sir plays the Prime Minister in the film and I play the first rank SPG (Special Protection Group) officer. Mohanlal said Kerala people love Suriya and the latter thanked them for their support. Suriya also revealed that they are planning to release Kaappaan in a holiday weekend in August or September but an exact release date is yet to be locked. Mi-26 heavy lift helicopter According to media reports of China and Russia, the two countries will soon sign a contract to jointly develop the Advanced Heavy Lift (AHL) helicopters. They plan to manufacture a total of 200 AHL helicopters, with a total value of US$20 billion. This cooperation plan is expected to fill in Chinas blank in the development of heavy lift helicopters. Recently, the reporter interviewed Wang Xiaowei, an expert on Russian studies and research fellow at European Studies Center, China University of Political Science and Law. Reporter: Why did China choose Russia as its partner in the development of heavy lift helicopters? What position does China occupy in this field? Wang: Currently, the US and Russia dominate the heavy lift helicopter field globally. Russias Mi-26 heavy lift helicopter was proved to be very useful in disaster relief during the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. However, the heavy lift helicopter has long been a disadvantage in Chinas aircraft industry. At present, the takeoff weight of Chinas domestically developed helicopters are usually below 10 tons, and homemade heavy lift helicopters with above 20 tons takeoff weight are still in blank. Russia is a global leader in the development of heavy lift helicopters. Its Mi-26 ranks top one in the world in terms of takeoff weight and payload, with transporting capacity even equal to the US C-130 transport aircraft. However, Russia suffers a shortage of fund. It hopes to further refine the Mi-26, especially the engine. In this context, China and Russia reached a consensus on joint development of heavy lift helicopters. Reporter: What significant value does the heavy lift helicopter have? Why is it important for China? Wang: The heavy lift helicopter can enhance transport capacity in the frontline. Such a helicopter is capable of transporting soldiers of a whole company in assault warfare. It can play a crucial role in transoceanic operations. Heavy lift helicopters can also play an important role in civil use. For instance, after the outbreak of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, many roads in the affected areas were blocked, and rescuing vehicles couldnt reach the Tangjiashan landslide-dammed lake. In this case, a Mi-26 helicopter rented by China from Russia played a very significant role in disaster relief. It carried out dozens of flight missions, transporting more than 80 heavy engineering vehicles to the location. China is a country with complicated topography and frequent occurrences of natural disasters, especially in its Xinjiang, Tibet, and some central mountainous regions. If China overcomes its weakness in this regard, homemade heavy lift helicopters will play a great role in natural disaster relief or special military operations. Moreover, if heavy lift helicopters are commissioned to the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), its cross-sea combat capability will significantly deter Taiwan separatists. Reporter: Given their superior performance, heavy lift helicopters must be costly. Wang: Yes, heavy lift helicopters are pricy. For example, the US Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion, with a takeoff weight of nearly 40 tons, costs US$150-200 million each. The AHL helicopter that China and Russia are going to develop has a smaller takeoff weight than that of the Mi-26, which is thus at a lower price. Its cost is estimated at about US$100 million. The two countries will sign a contract to build about 200 such helicopters, with a total value of around US$20 billion. Reporter: What is the significance of this cooperation for both China and Russia? Wang: The cooperative development project, on the one hand, can solve Russias fund shortage, and on the other hand, will fill in Chinas technological blank in heavy lift helicopter development and help the country learn and grasp advanced technologies concerning heavy lift helicopters as soon as possible. This is a significant win-win deal. Reporter: With the increasingly deepened military technological cooperation between China and Russia, will there be a ceiling for their cooperation? Wang: China-Russia relations have never been better than now. Both facing pressure from the US, the two countries have significantly enhanced their military technological cooperation in recent years. Russia boasts a robust military industry featuring technological profoundness and a complete system. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, although Russias military industry faces problems such as talent drainage and fund shortage, its key national projects such as those concerning the development of strategic weapons have barely been affected. Particularly, remarkable progress has been made in the development of some cutting-edge weapons and military equipment. Chinas military industry has developed rapidly in the past few years, and there is a huge space for military trade between China and Russia. At present, Russia still has a robust military industrial base, and hasnt unveiled many of its advanced weapons, such as laser, robotic, smart and hypersonic weapons. China may communicate with Russia in these fields. So, its really too early to predict that China-Russia military cooperation will reach the ceiling. BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China hopes the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States will cherish the hard-won momentum of dialogue and keep talking until a peaceful denuclearized Korean Peninsula is realized, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday. Spokesperson Geng Shuang made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to a question on DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui's comment on a briefing held in Pyongyang. Choe Son Hui said on Friday that the recent summit between the top leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump failed because the U.S. side lacked sincerity. "After the Hanoi summit, the DPRK and the U.S. both expressed willingness to continue dialogues. We commend and encourage this," Geng said. China always believes that the Korean Peninsula issue can only be solved peacefully through political dialogues, he said. He added that the key to keeping up and advancing dialogue is to accommodate all parties' legitimate concerns in a balanced way, build up mutual trust and consensus, take phased and synchronized steps, and start with easier moves. "As the nuclear issue has dragged on for decades and complicated factors are at play, one cannot expect it to be solved overnight. All parties need to have reasonable expectations. One shouldn't set the bar too high at the outset or make unilateral, unrealistic demands," Geng quoted Foreign Minister Wang Yi as saying. He also said China hoped that the DPRK and the United States could cherish the hard-won momentum of dialogue, seize the opportunity, meet each other halfway, build up mutual trust and consensus, keep talking till something good comes out of the talks and a peaceful denuclearized Korean Peninsula is realized. "The international community should encourage both sides to keep moving toward the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and establishing a peace regime," Geng said. China will continue to play a constructive role along with other parties, the spokesperson stressed. Page Content Alumni of the University of St. Martin and Rotarian Stuart Johnson donated the first Little Library on Dutch St. Maarten to the University of St. Martin as a contribution to the Rotary International outreach program, "Little Library", on Friday last week. The little library has been erected outside the University of St. Maarten where visitors to both the University and the Government Administration Building and others interested in reading can now "Bring a Book and Take a Book." Fellow Rotarians along with Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunset President Jaida Nisbett, President of the University of St. Martin Dr Antonio Carmona Baez and Dean of Academics Dr Rolinda Carter joined with Johnson outside the University to celebrate the occasion. The concept Little Library was created by a fellow Rotarian in the USA who had a passion for reading and wanted to share his love for books with his community. The Rotary Club of St. Maarten Sunset, of which Johnson is a member, thought it was fitting to introduce the concept on the island, especially given the dire situation of our libraries on both scales of the island post-Irma and Maria. The first Little Library was launched on French St. Martin in December 2018, and the response from the community was excellent. The anticipation is that the Little Library outside the USM will be the first of many on Dutch St. Maarten. The response from the Arakan Army was quick. Its Spokesman Khine Thu Kha said that the Government is not sincere and does not want talks. by S. Chandrasekharan In the midst of intensive and heavy fighting between Myanmar Army( Tatmadaw) and the Arakan Army, Suu Kyis Government is making efforts in tandem to secure peace and stability in Rakhine Province. But one cannot fight with one hand and try to shake hands with the other. Thia is what is happening in Rakhine State in a new front that has opened in the West in Myanmar. Former Lt-Gen U Khin Zaw Oo, secretary of the governments Peace Commission It all started on March 12, when the Myanmar Army had heavy casualties with the Arakan Army in an encounter near Paletwa earlier. Zaw Htay, a Spokesman of Presidents Office told the Press that the Arakan Army is welcome to sign the Governments National Cease-fire Agreement even though the Government had excluded the Group from inking the agreement in the past. Zaw Htay added that the Government and the Army have reviewed the situation in Rakhine State and have concluded that cease-fire and peace are necessary. It was indeed a great discovery when the Arakan Army was specifically excluded from the four months ceasefire unilaterally ordered by the Army followed by diversion of additional troops to that area after the announcement of the cease-fire. Zaw Htay also added that the Myanmar Peace Commission led by Gen. Khin Zaw Oo had also held the same view. The response from the Arakan Army was quick. Its Spokesman Khine Thu Kha said that the Government is not sincere and does not want talks. He added that it is impossible to hold talks when they wield a stick! Three days later, a bigger surprise was to follow. The NRPC ( National Reconciliation & Peace Centre that is led by Suu Kyi herself, issued invitations to eight of the groups that have not signed the National Cease-fire Agreement (NCA). Of these eight, seven belong to the China backed and UWSP led Federal Political Negotiation & Consultative Committee which had all along pushed for an alternative narrative to the Peace Process. The Only other member is the KNPP which had suspended its participation in the Peace Process. This includes the Arakan Army and its Political Wing ULA (United League of Arakan) that had been excluded all the while with the tacit support of China. The invitation from the NRPC said that the Groups should send two Representatives each and the NRPC will be holding talks with the group collectively on March 21. It is significant that the Government has finally agreed to deal with them collectively. In contrast, the invitation said that the Armmys Negotiating Team will meet the individual Groups the next day if they so desired. The response from the Arakan Army is yet to be received and their Representative said that they would decide in a day or two. Surely the AA should not miss this opportunity to put forth its agenda and see the reaction of the Government and the Army. Separately the same day, the Government announced a new committee specially tasked to bring stability to Rakhine State. It would consist of 14 members and would directly report to the Presidents Office. It will be headed by the Deputy Speaker of Union Parliament U Aye Tha Aung and two deputies, all ethnic Arakanese. The ANP will also have a member. The ANP is said to have been not consulted in including it or in choosing its representative! There is no doubt that the Government is concerned about the deteriorating law and order situation in Rakhine State with the Arakan Army inflicting heavy casualties on the Army. While no word is forthcoming from the Army Sources on the nature of fighting and casualties, the Arakan Army websites have detailed accounts of the fighting that is going on the Arakan area. There has been heavy fighting since the beginning of this month. On 11th March the Arakan Army announced that it had captured 11 soldiers of the 564 Light Infantry Batalion of 5th Division whentheyoverran a strategic hill controlled by the Government soldiers near Pyan So Village, Paletwas Pee Chaung area. A large quantity of arms and other equipment have been captured. Earlier on March 9, 2019 Nine Police Officers have been killed in an attack on a Police Post in Yoetayoke village in Paletws Ponnagyun Township. Hundreds of civilians have fled their homes. In retaliation the Army is said to be using Helicopter Gun ships and Artllery in pounding the AA positions. Though not confirmed, it is said the the Indian Army as a quid pro quo attacked three of Arakan Army Posts in Chimtuipui district of Mizoram. The Burmese Army had completely dismantled the NSCN Khaplang Groups bases near the Taga River. The ULFA post was also attacked and there were some casualties to ULFA also. It remains to be seen what ULFA will do. Will they go north and seek protection from the Chinese authorities? From the foregoing a few things are clear. RTHK: Boeing and regulators face 737 Max probe Boeing and US aviation regulators are coming under intense scrutiny over the certification of the 737 Max aircraft after news that two recent crashes of share similarities. On March 11, just a day after the Ethiopia crash left 157 dead, a grand jury in Washington issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in the plane's certification, according to a Wall Street Journal article citing people close to the matter. The subpoena, which came from a prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal division, seeks documents and correspondence related to the plane, according to the report. A criminal inquiry is "an entirely new twist," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of the Leeham Company, who recalled a probe of a 1996 ValuJet crash as the only other aviation probe that was not a civil investigation. "Unlike France, where criminal investigations into aviation accidents seems common, it is very, very rare in the US," Hamilton added. The Transportation Department's inspector general also is probing the approval of the 737 Max by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), The Wall Street Journal also reported. Neither department responded to requests for comment from AFP. The probe is focusing on the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, implicated in the Lion Air crash, which authorities have said shared similarities with the latest accident. The Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 came less than five months after a 737 MAX 8 operated by Lion Air crashed in Indonesia, killing 189. While it may take months for definitive conclusions, Ethiopian officials said on Sunday there were "clear similarities" between the two catastrophes based on information from the flight data recorder. A United Nations worker from Hong Kong was among those killed in the Ethiopia crash. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. By Sun Yang ADDIS ABABA, March 19 (ChinaMil) -- A theme exhibition "CPLA (Chinese People's Liberation Army): A Force for World Peace" was launched at the headquarters of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the morning of March 18, local time. Over 200 people, including officials from AU Headquarters, envoys and military representatives from the AU member states, representatives from the African Stand By Force (ASF) and the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC), officials from the UN, NATO and other international organizations, as well as representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Pakistan, Cuba, Argentina, Mexico and other partners outside the AU region, attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Mr. Chen Xufeng, Charge d'Affaires of the Chinese Mission to African Union, Dr. Admore Kambudzi, Ag, Director of the Peace and Security Department of AU, Mamane Souley, Defense Attache of Niger to Ethiopia and to the AU and Dean of the Military Attache Association in Addis Ababa, and Senior Colonel Mao Naiguo, Head of the Chinese PLA International Communication Delegation, delivered speeches at the ceremony. "We have come across oceans to hold this exhibition here, with Chinese militarys ideal of peace, the deep friendship of the Chinese people towards the African people, and the beautiful vision of the Chinese Dream connecting the African Dream," said Colonel Pan Qinghua, Member of the Chinese PLA International Communication Delegation and Director of the International Communication Division under the China's Central Military Commission , as he presided over the opening ceremony. Charge d'Affaires of the Chinese Mission to African Union Chen Xufeng said in his speech that China has long paid close attention to the cause of peace and security in Africa and has provided strong support for the construction of the ASF and the peace and security operations of the AU. China does not attach any political conditions to its aid to Africa, which is the "secret" of the long-term sound development of China-Africa relations. Dr. Admore Kambudzi, Ag. Director of the Peace and Security Department of AU, said that China is a precious friend of Africa and has provided crucial support to Africa in almost every field, especially in the fields of peace and security. China is a model partner for the AU and Africa. Mamane Souley, Defense Attache of Niger to Ethiopia and to the AU and Dean of the Military Attache Association in Addis Ababa said that China has always been committed to peace in Africa, has been an important partner of African countries in the field of peace and security, and has long made many tangible contributions to Africa. Senior Colonel Mao Naiguo said in his speech that up until now, the Chinese military has participated in 24 UN peacekeeping operations, 16 of which are in Africa. More than 2000 Chinese service members are now carrying out peacekeeping missions in Africa. China has dispatched 31 batches of naval escort task forces to Somali waters since 2008. The Chinese military has also actively participated in international disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in Africa. The Chinese military is willing to make positive contributions to building a united, peaceful and prosperous Africa and a closer China-Africa community with a shared future. The exhibition features more than 60 representative photographs in four parts, including "participation in UN peacekeeping operations", "safeguarding the security of international transit passages", "providing international rescue and assistance", and "carrying out security exchanges and cooperation". It panoramically presented the stories and footprints of the Chinese service members in fulfilling their peace missions, and demonstrated the substantial support and positive contribution of the Chinese military to the peace and security cause in Africa. A Colonel from the Peace and Security Department of the AU said after watching the exhibition: "The exhibition impressed me very much with the Chinese military's outstanding contribution to maintaining world peace, both in maintaining regional peace and stability and in helping local people improve their lives." The exhibition will conclude on March 22, 2019. Facebook to offer grants to bring more to 'news deserts' Washington, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 Facebook said Monday it would begin directing some of its funds to support US journalism efforts to so-called "news deserts" with little or no media coverage. The leading social network said its Journalism Project Community Network would begin taking proposals in May from areas lacking in local news coverage. Facebook, which has been blamed for accelerating the decline in legacy news organizations, said it is taking the action after its own research confirmed the growing problem of declining local news coverage in many parts of the United States. This results in little or no content for Facebook's local news feature called "Today In" for many communities. "About one in three users in the US live in places where we cannot find enough local news on Facebook to launch Today In," said a statement from Facebook product marketing manager Jimmy O'Keefe Product and local news partnerships lead Josh Mabry. "What does that mean exactly? In the last 28 days, there has not been a single day where we've been able to find five or more recent news articles directly related to these towns. This does not vary much by region: 35 percent of users in the Midwest, Northeast, and South, and 26 percent in the West, live in places where we can't find much local news on Facebook." Both Facebook and Google have been stepping up efforts to support journalism amid concerns that their sophisticated ad networks siphon off most online revenues, making it hard for news organizations to compete. In the US, social media has overtaken print newspapers as a news source for Americans, according to a survey released last year by the Pew Research Center. The survey report found 20 percent of US adults say they often get news via social media, compared with 16 percent from newspapers. Facebook earlier this year announced it would spend $300 million over three years to support journalism, with an emphasis on promoting hard-hit local news organizations. http://vv.chinamil.com.cn/asset/category3/2019/03/19/asset_355365.mp4 China continues to push for a negotiated settlement to the Syrian conflict. "The role that China plays is in promoting peace and dialogue," Xie Xiaoyan, the country's special envoy for Syria, said on Sunday. "We are in contact with all parties. That's one of our strengths." Xie made the remarks during an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) following a two-day visit to Jordan, where he met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. The two sides agreed there is no military solution to the eight-year-long Syrian crisis. "A clear message we want to send: We should stick to peaceful dialogue and negotiations. The Syrian crisis has to be solved through a political solution and in a peaceful way," Xie added. Meanwhile, falling bombs raised smoke over ISIL's last enclave in eastern Syria on Sunday, obscuring the huddle of vehicles and makeshift shelters to which the jihadist group's self-declared "caliphate" has been reduced. The enclave is in Baghouz, a handful of hamlets in farmland next to the river along the Iraqi border. Airstrikes and artillery began hitting the area and smoke billowed overhead late in the afternoon as U.S.-backed forces resumed their weeks-long attack. The Kurdish-led forces launched a final push against ISIL in January after the U.S. announced the withdrawal of its troops from Syria, but their advance appears to have all but ground to a halt. 21 soldiers dead as gunmen storm Mali army camp Bamako, March 17 (AFP) Mar 17, 2019 Suspected jihadists killed 21 Malian soldiers in a raid on an army camp in central Mali on Sunday, military sources said, after a dawn attack that the armed forces believe was led by a deserter. Driving cars and motorbikes, the attackers stormed Dioura army camp in the Mopti region, in the latest assault on the military as the country grapples with the spread of extremist groups and instability. "The provisional toll is 21 bodies discovered," said a military source, in figures also confirmed by a local legislator. The attack was carried out "by terrorist groups under the command of Ba Ag Moussa, a deserter army colonel", according to the Malian armed forces. A second military source said there was "a lot of damage". "Our men responded. I saw at least four bodies on the ground," he said. President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, on Twitter, said the Malian people were "united against terrible acts", without giving any death toll. Once a beacon of democracy and stability in Africa, Mali in recent years has been dogged by a coup, civil war and Islamist terrorism. Extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of Mali's desert north in early 2012, but were largely driven out in a French-led military operation launched in January 2013. In June 2015, Mali's government signed a peace agreement with some armed groups, but the jihadists remain active, and large tracts of the country remain lawless. Despite the presence of UN peacekeepers, a strong French military contingent and the creation of a five-nation military force in the region, jihadist violence has not abated in Mali. "Despite significant international efforts, the security situation has continued to deteriorate with an increase in the number of terrorist attacks," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a report sent to the Security Council this month. In 2018, there were 237 terror attacks, up from 226 in 2017 and 183 the previous year, said the report. Syria force says 'thousands' still inside last IS pocket Baghouz, Syria, March 17 (AFP) Mar 17, 2019 US-backed forces said Sunday thousands of people were believed to still be inside the last Islamic State group enclave in eastern Syria, as they sought to flush out die-hard fighters with airstrikes and shelling. Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks -- and they still keep coming. The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down their offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the jihadists' once-sprawling proto-state. "Fighting continues as the #SDF advancing into Daesh encampment," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said in a tweet late Sunday. "Several positions captured and an ammunition storage has been blown up by our forces. SDF is now holding positions inside the camp in #Baghouz." At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw white smoke rising above the IS enclave as the sound of airstrikes and shelling rang out. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout IS fighters are making a last stand. The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire on the jihadists for a week, blitzing thousands of fighters and family members into surrender. But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference Sunday that according to the latest group that quit the pocket, "an estimated 5,000 people" are still holed up inside. He cautioned, however, that the SDF has not been able to verify that figure. Those fleeing the pocket have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred. - Surrenders and evacuations - The SDF spokesman said there was no clear timeline for the end of the operation, estimating that it may take several more days at least before IS is driven from its last bastion. "I hope it won't take more than a week but this is a personal estimate," he said in the village of Sousa in eastern Syria. Gabriel said that nearly 30,000 IS members and their relatives have surrendered to US-backed forces since January 9, including more than 5,000 fighters. An additional 34,000 civilians have been evacuated from the IS redoubt over the same period, he said. The exodus has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced further north, where civilians have been transported. More than 1,300 jihadists have been killed and around 520 have been captured in special operations by the SDF since the battle for Baghouz started, Gabriel said. The SDF said on Saturday that dozens of jihadists and their relatives had handed themselves over. They include Europeans, Turks, Chinese, Iraqis and Syrians, it said in a statement. Die-hard jihadists who stayed behind to defend their last bastion have launched a series of suicide bombings in recent days to hamper the SDF advance. On Friday, IS launched three suicide attacks outside Baghouz, killing six people as they fled the village. - 'There is still resistance' - Ali Khalaf Ibrahim, an SDF fighter, told AFP on Sunday that the jihadists were putting up a strong defence. "Several times they tried to infiltrate (SDF positions) with explosive belts but they were intercepted" by SDF fighters, he said. At the height of its brutal rule, IS controlled territory in Syria and Iraq the size of the United Kingdom, with a population of millions. The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border "caliphate" it proclaimed more than four years ago. But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast. Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed 370,000 people since it started in 2011. Elsewhere in Syria, landmines left behind by IS have killed at least 17 people in a 24-hour period at the weekend, a war monitor said on Sunday. An ordnance left behind by jihadists exploded in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Saturday, killing 16 people and wounding 32 others, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A separate landmine explosion in the northern province of Aleppo on Sunday killed one person, the Britain-based Observatory said. Another two SDF fighters were killed Sunday in a mine blast at Hajin, a town near Baghouz, that was claimed by IS in a statement on Telegram. At least 44 people have been killed in landmine explosions across Syria in the past three weeks, it added. In Damascus, the UN envoy for Syria held talks on Sunday with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who stressed the need for a Syrian-led political solution to the eight-year war. Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen discussed efforts to find a political settlement to the conflict, including moves to form a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution, state media said. Pedersen arrived in Damascus on Sunday in the second such visit since he took up his post in January. Two Iraqi troops killed in rare clashes with PKK: army Baghdad, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in rare clashes Sunday with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the north of the country where the group has bases, the army said overnight. The PKK, seen as a "terrorist" group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. It has rear bases in the Qandil mountain area of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. An Iraqi military statement said PKK fighters "attacked an army checkpoint in the (northern) Nineveh province... (and) two soldiers were killed" around 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Mosul near the Syria border. Five PKK members were wounded in the clashes which erupted when an Iraqi soldier manning the checkpoint asked the group for a permit, usually issued by Iraqi security forces, that would allow them to go across. "It is the first time that we have confrontations of this scale in the region," Mohammad Khalil, the mayor of the nearby city of Sinjar, told AFP. The PKK deployment in northern Iraq has been a constant source of tension between Baghdad and Ankara, with Turkey pressing Iraq to play a bigger role in fighting the group. Earlier this month Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said his country would carry out a joint operation with Iran against the PKK. Soylu did not specify which PKK bases the planned operation would target but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously said it would be against militant hideouts in Iraq. Like Turkey, Iran has for decades fought the PKK affiliate, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), which also has rear bases in neighbouring Iraq. The Turkish military has often bombed PKK bases in Iraq's mountainous regions. In January, one person was killed when Turkish troops opened fire at Iraqi Kurds who stormed a Turkish army position in northwestern Iraq to protest the deaths of four civilians in alleged Turkish bombardment. Baghdad summoned the Turkish ambassador while Ankara accused the PKK of having provoked the incident. US-backed Kurdish fighters are leading the battle against the Islamic State group in Syria. NATO condemns Russian 'build-up' in Crimea Brussels, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 NATO on Monday condemned what it called Russia's "ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea" on the fifth anniversary of Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. As Russia celebrated what it terms its "reunification" with Crimea, NATO hit out at Moscow over its plans to further militarise the Black Sea. The annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict sent ties between NATO and Moscow plunging to post-Cold War lows. NATO said there would be no return to "business as usual" with Moscow until there was a "a clear, constructive change in Russia's actions". "We condemn Russia's ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea, and are concerned by Russia's efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region," NATO's ruling North Atlantic Council said in a statement. The statement said NATO would never recognise Russia's annexation of Crimea and urged Moscow to return the territory to Ukraine. Brazil is considering granting an import quota of 750,000 metric tons of U.S. wheat per year without tariffs in exchange for other trade concessions, according to a Brazilian official with knowledge of the negotiations ahead of President Jair Bolsonaro's visit to Washington. That is about 10 percent of Brazilian annual wheat imports and is part of a two-decade-old commitment to import 750,000 metric tons of wheat a year free of tariffs that Brazil made -- but never kept -- during the World Trade Organization's Uruguay Round of talks on agriculture. Bolsonaro is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Sunday and meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Farm state senators have asked that wheat sales be on the agenda, in a letter to Trump seen by Reuters. They estimate such a quota would increase U.S. wheat sales by between $75 million and $120 million a year. Taliban capture 58 Afghan security forces: defence ministry Herat, Afghanistan, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 The Taliban have captured 58 Afghan border soldiers, the defence ministry said Monday, after days of fighting which saw dozens of troops briefly chased into neighbouring Turkmenistan in the latest blow to beleaguered security forces. The ministry statement came after reports of days of fighting in Bala Marghab district of Badghis province, in northwestern Afghanistan near the border with Turkmenistan. "Unfortunately, 58 BSS (border security soldiers) are captured by the enemies," a defence ministry tweet said Monday, adding "Search Ops will continue until we release them". The ministry also said that 58 BSS had "returned home from Turkmenistan". A spokesman speaking in a video posted with the tweet said they were "back on duty", however. Earlier this week Jamshid Shahabi, the Badghis provincial governor spokesman, said that some security forces had "tactically retreated" across the border into Turkmenistan. He said the fighting had been going on for 10 days, with 13 security forces killed and 15 wounded. AFP could not verify the toll. On Sunday the Taliban claimed they had captured 72 security forces in the district. The captures come days after the latest round of talks between the US and the Taliban ended in Doha, as Washington continues to seek a way out of the nearly 18-year war. The Afghan government has complained it is being left out of the negotiations, as many Afghans fear a premature US withdrawal could see the Taliban return to some semblance of power. Assault on IS jihadist redoubt in Syria grinds on Baghouz, Syria, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 A shroud of black smoke covered the Islamic State group's last redoubt in eastern Syria on Monday as US-backed forces battled holdout jihadists after a night of shelling and heavy air strikes. Even as it fought IS, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces also came under threat from Damascus, which has sworn to retake the third of the country the SDF controls. The SDF has been closing in on IS fighters holed up in a small sliver of territory in the eastern village of Baghouz since January. A cluster of rudimentary tents and vehicles is all that remains of the once-sprawling "caliphate" declared across large swaths of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014. Tens of thousands of men, women and children have poured out of the small farming village in recent weeks, slowing down an SDF offensive aimed at crushing the last vestige of the jihadist proto-state. Backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition, the SDF pummelled the IS pocket with shelling on Sunday night, pushing deeper into the jihadist encampment. Ground battles and artillery attacks continued on Monday as the Kurdish-led force worked to consolidate its most recent gains, SDF spokesman Adnan Afrin said. "Clashes are ongoing between the SDF and IS" as the Kurdish-led forces secured positions it had seized inside the camp, he said. On a hilltop overlooking the bombed-out bastion earlier, an AFP correspondent heard the sound of gunfire and heavy shelling ring out. Men, believed to be jihadists, could be seen shuffling inside the redoubt, beneath a plume of smoke that obscured most of the encampment. - Kurdish areas to be 'liberated' - Crouching behind rocks, SDF fighters opened fire at IS fighters that appeared near the banks of the Euphrates River. "The SDF ground offensive has been very effective," coalition spokesman Sean Ryan said. The SDF said on Sunday night that its forces had captured positions inside the camp. Syria's minority Kurds have largely stayed out of Syria's eight-year civil war, instead carving out a de-facto autonomous region in the northeast of the country. The Kurdish-led SDF now controls some 30 percent of the nation's territory, including areas from which it has expelled IS. Syrian Defence Minister Ali Abdullah Ayoub on Monday said his government would recapture territory controlled by the SDF in the same way it "liberated" other parts of the country. "The only card that remains in the hands of the Americans and their allies is the SDF," he said. "The Syrian government will deal with this issue in one of two ways: a reconciliation agreement or liberating the territory they control by force," he said. A shock announcement by President Donald Trump of a US troop pullout sent the Kurds scrambling to mend ties with Damascus to protect them from a feared Turkish offensive, but ongoing talks have yet to yield any results. Eight years in to a conflict that has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions, President Bashar al-Assad's forces are in control of almost two-thirds of the country. But the northeastern swathe held by the SDF, as well as the jihadist-held northwestern region of Idlib, remain beyond its control. - Exodus - It remains unclear exactly how many people remain inside the last IS pocket, but SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel on Sunday said those quitting the area put the number at up to 5,000 people. More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have quit the last IS redoubt since January 9, according to the SDF. They include 37,000 civilians, 5,000 jihadists and around 24,000 of their relatives. An additional 520 IS fighters have been captured in SDF operations. The huge numbers have flummoxed Kurdish forces, who are struggling to accomodate jihadists in Kurdish-run detention centres further north. The exodus of civilians and relatives of fighters has also sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced. The biggest of them is now struggling to host 70,000 people, including at least 25,000 school-aged children, according to the International Rescue Committee. More than 123 people -- overwhelmingly under-fives -- have died on the way or shortly after arriving at the main camp of Al-Hol, the aid group said. While SDF taking Baghouz would mark the end of the IS "caliphate", the jihadists still retain a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and have sleeper cells in Idlib. France questions if US support for NATO is 'perennial' Washington, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 France's defense minister questioned Monday whether the US commitment to the NATO alliance is "perennial" and said Europe needs to build defense "autonomy" as that question goes unanswered. With Washington increasingly focused on the strategic challenge from China, Florence Parly said, "a question mark has emerged" over the transatlantic alliance. Those posing the question would not be reassured, she said, "by the current atmosphere of withdrawal: withdrawal from battlefields, from treaties, from trade pacts." "What Europeans are worried about is this: will the US commitment (to NATO) be perennial? Should we assume that it will go on as was the case in the past 70 years?" Parly asked the Atlantic Council in Washington ahead of a meeting with Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan. The minister said she was most concerned about President Donald Trump apparently tying the US commitment and Europe's readiness to spend more on defense, including buying more US defense equipment. "The alliance should be unconditional, otherwise it is not an alliance. NATO's solidarity clause is called Article V, not article F-35," she said, referring to the US fighter jet. Parly conceded Trump's criticism that NATO's European members need to spend more on shared defense, but she said it would be good to build up a measure of autonomy so as not to overly depend on the US military. The Europeans "have started to look honestly at what they would be really able to do if left on their own," she said. "Building a European autonomy should never be seen as a move against the US. We want America solidly steeped in NATO. Autonomy should be a variation on friendship." "Every time the US has retreated from Europe, threats have come back to haunt the US itself," she added. Parly also gave support for the continued presence of US forces in Syria, and said France could take part -- an issue she would be discussing with Shanahan. "Today, we are carefully studying the recent US offer to maintain a residual presence, in cooperation with a few partners," she said. Canada extends Iraq, Ukraine military training missions Ottawa, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 Canada's defense and foreign ministers jointly announced Monday the extensions of military training missions in Iraq and Ukraine. Both had been slated to wrap up at the end of March, but security concerns persist. In Iraq, Canada will keep 250 special forces troops advising and training Iraqi security forces, plus several attack helicopters, as part of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State mission until the end of March 2021. The number of troops deployed could ramp up to 850, if needed, and they will also help neighboring Jordan and Lebanon build their respective security capabilities, said officials. Complementing those efforts, Canada last November assumed command of a new NATO mission. It has been contributing air power, medical support and help in training Iraqi forces since 2014. "We have made significant and lasting progress, but we recognize that more work is needed. Now we must ensure that Daesh can never rebuild and threaten the safety of Iraq," Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan told a press conference, using an Arabic acronym for IS. In Ukraine, some 200 Canadian troops will continue to provide arms, military engineering, logistics, military policing, and medical training until the end of March 2022. Since 2015, Canada has so far trained nearly 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Canada will also host a third Ukraine reform conference in Toronto on July 2-4. "Ukraine can continue to count on Canada's unwavering support," Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said. "It's very important to send a strong message to Ukraine, to the people of Ukraine, and to the international community that the invasion of Crimea and the annexation of Crimea are a grave breach of international law," she added. Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. Brexit Delay 'Why Would We Extend These Discussions?' Any Article 50 extension delaying Britain's withdrawal from the EU would come with its own set of problems. There is plenty of disagreement among the remaining 27 EU member states on how long the delay should be. British Prime Minister Theresa May warned Sunday that it would be "a potent symbol of Parliament's collective political failure" if a Brexit delay meant that the U.K. has to take part in May's European elections -- almost three years after Britons voted to leave the bloc. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, May also cautioned that if lawmakers failed to back her deal before Thursday's European Council summit, "we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever." "If the proposal were to go back to square one and negotiate a new deal, that would mean a much longer extension... The idea of the British people going to the polls to elect MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] three years after voting to leave the EU hardly bears thinking about," she wrote. May is expected to try to win Parliament's approval of her withdrawal agreement for the third time this week. After months of political deadlock, lawmakers voted on Thursday to seek to postpone Brexit. Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. North Korea has been conducting air-raid drills in Pyongyang since last Thursday, after the summit with the U.S. in Hanoi, Vietnam collapsed late last month. The next day, the North's Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui warned the U.S. that the bilateral talks may be suspended. The North also indicated that it may end the moratorium on missile tests that it claims has been in place for more than a year. Radio Free Asia reported Saturday that North Korean authorities had been holding nationwide air-raid drills since Thursday to prepare for a U.S. attack. One source in Ryanggang Province told RFA, "Things had been quiet for a while with no air-raid drills or military exercises, but the drills resumed suddenly and created many difficulties for people." "Authorities across North Korea are telling people to get ready for war preparations by the U.S. and South Korea," the source added. But a government source here said, "They could simply be part of winter military drills that were scheduled to last until this month." North Korea state media did not report on Choe's remarks at a press conference on Friday, where she warned that the North could stop talks with the U.S. unless it agrees to "phased denuclearization" by easing sanctions at each stage. The inter-Korean liaison office is gathering dust as North Korea remains unwilling to contact the South after announcing it would halt denuclearization talks after its summit with the U.S. in Hanoi collapsed last month (US$1=W1,137). The liaison office, which cost South Korea W10 billion to set up in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, was originally intended as a contact point for cross-border dialogue, but there has been no communication between the two sides for some time. "Behind-the-scenes talks are taking place through various channels," a Chong Wa Dae official claimed. "There are no problems in cross-border communication." President Moon Jae-in told officials to assess the positions of both sides by contacting U.S. and North Korean officials since the summit broke down. But North Korean officials have been staying away from the liaison office since, citing urgent "internal affairs." Local contractors agitate against Chinese dominance View(s): Sri Lankas contractors have expressed concern over Chinese dominance in construction projects here, and Government efforts to preclude the local trade from participating even in basic tenders. One example they pointed to was an initiative to rehabilitate high priority roads and bridges in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, advertised in January last year by the Ministry of National Integration & Reconciliation. The roads were divided into six packages ranging from 85 km to 1,146 km. The project is under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. These packages have all C and D roads, said Brig. Madura Wijeyewickrema, Chief Executive Officer of Major Constructors of Sri Lanka and of the National Construction Association of Sri Lanka. They are provincial roads. But they have taken 5 or 10 km here, 8 or 6 or 4 km there and packaged them. After that, pre-qualification is given for billions of rupees. Then, which Sri Lankan company can qualify? he asked. These are roads that even our village contractorsregional small or medium contractorscan make. But because of this, they cant benefit. The Sunday Times reported last year that proposals were invited through international competitive bidding with 100% confirmed financing for six packages to rehabilitate roads in the Northern and Eastern provinces. Forty-four applications were received. A Cabinet appointed negotiating committee and a project committee evaluated the proposals. Two packages (1 in the North and 1 in the East) were awarded to Sinohydro Corporation Ltd. The others went to CEC-NEM Joint Venture, KDA Weerasinghe & Co Pvt Ltd, Consulting Engineers & Contractors Pvt Ltd and Nawaloka Construction Co. Pvt Ltd. Sinohydro Corporations package in the North was later withdrawn in favour of an Indian party, on a request conveyed to the Government through the Indian High Commission in Colombo. Brig. Wijeyewickrema has publicly decried the infiltration of Chinese companies into the local trade, saying they initially crept in via International Competitive Bidding (ICB). They soon ousted the Japanese and Koreans in that area. Whilst doing ICB jobs, they saw a golden opportunity during the second innings of the Rajapaksa Government and started bringing in negotiated jobs or unsolicited proposals, he said. Then they observed that we were having fairly sizeable jobs in the private sector and got in there through projects such as Pearl Hotel, Havelock City and Odel. The Brig. also claimed that Chinese contractors had a 40% advantage over the local trade, because they did not pay taxes and their workers were only paid an allowance, with their salaries being settled abroad. If we say Rs 100, they can do it for Rs 60, he said. We are not on equal terms. These are all our jobs. Theyre eating into our pie. And we can see they are now trying to come into the housing sector. If they get into that, companies that have been building homes are finished, because they will undercut the prices. The CEO also flagged another phenomenon, where small teams of Chinese workers are going door-to-door offering services. They come on holiday as tourists, with a few tools, and they dont go back. Five or six of them come in a set and they live in Chinese dormitories or homes, he said The Sunday Times spoke to a landed proprietor in Wellawatte, who said he had hired a Chinese worker only that morning for a daily wage of Rs 2,500 for all manner of jobs around the property, including plumbing, masonry and cutting of branches. He came sharp at 7 a.m. and works till 6 p.m., he said, adding that he was very happy with the level of service. Chamodi needs your help View(s): Chamodi Shanilka Adikari, (21 years), a second-year undergraduate at the Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo, has been diagnosed with bilateral acoustic schwannomas, a tumour arising from the nerve related to hearing. She is to undergo Gamma Knife surgery which is not available in Sri Lanka at present. As recommended by medical specialists she needs to be taken to India or Singapore for the surgery. The cost of the procedure is esimated to be Rs.5,000,000. Chamodis father passed away in 2016 due to a brain tumour and her mother is a cancer patient. Her younger sister is still studying. As Chamodis family is unable to afford the amount due to financial difficulties, they seek the kind assistance of generous donors to save her life. The donations could be deposited to the Account no. 174200110018851 at the Peoples Bank, Nugegoda branch, Swift Code PSBKLKLX / PSBKLKLX023. Please contact 0765714676 for further details. An interdisciplinary team in archaeology, anthropology and paleogenetics, led by Dimas Martin Socas and Maria Dolores Camalich Massieu, has discovered remains in El Toro cave at El Torcal, Antequera, which reveal cannibalistic practices during the Early Neolithic period. The team found the remains of seven individuals, in two different places, a skull which had been carved into the shape of a bowl or cup, and a jaw, together with containers which had been deposited in the form of an offering. These archaeological works have enabled experts to document human occupation from the Early Neolithic era (7,000 years ago), when the oldest evidence of cannibalism in agricultural and farming populations has been identified, to the end of the Late Neolithic period, about 5,000 years ago. El Toro cave at El Torcal is a fundamental location for the study of the Neolithic period on the Iberian peninsula. There could have been violent episodes between family members, or funerary rituals The results of DNA testing on the remains found in the cave have shown first-degree blood relationships between two of the individuals and this, together with interpretation of the evidence, suggests as a hypothesis that this was a case of aggressive cannibalism linked to violent episodes between groups containing members of the same family; or that it occurred in a family context and they were consumed as part of a funerary ritual. Dating by the Carbon 14 process indicates a short time period between 5,000 and 4,800 BC, which suggests that both these sites were probably date from the same time of human occupation of the cave. Those are some of the conclusions of the interdisciplinary team which led the archaeological works, consisting of Jonathan Santana, of Durham University in the UK, Francisco Javier Rodriguez-Santos, of the International Institute of Prehistorical Research of Cantabria (University of Santander) and Rosa Fregel of La Laguna University, also in Spain. The Cueva del Toro is within the boundaries of the Tierras de Antequera archaeological site, and is located in the mountains of El Torcal, the second of the natural monuments which are included as part of the 'Dolmenes de Antequera' World Heritage Site. Publications These works were carried out as part of the Plan Director Research Programme, one of the lines of Research+Development+Innovation which considers the Antequera Dolmens site a priority for studies and general research projects. The research in the Sierra del Sorcal has been supported by the University of La Laguna since the 1970s. Full results of this finding have been published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, and have also been featured in the Nature magazine. The cave of El Toro is 1,190 metres above sea level in the Sierra de El Torcal, a large chain of mountains which separates two distinct areas: Mediterranean Andalucia and the Surco Intrabetico. It extends along 27 kilometres, with peaks ranging between 800 and 1,400 metres. The Plaza Mayor shopping centre close to Malaga Airport has announced the opening of the latest part of the upgrade and expansion plan of owners Sonae Sierra. The centre is expected to unveil in the next month a food court with higher-end eating places than previously seen there. The 1,800-square-metre space has been carved out from the existing surface area by removing six of the 20 cinema screens at the Yelmo cinema complex. Although the area is ready, it will take a few weeks for the restaurant operators to move in. Among the eight openings will be Amigos (an Indian-Mexican fusion chain), Fish&Go, El Kiosko (a gastrobar) and Attenti al Cane, a local Italian restaurant. Other parts of Plaza Mayor are currently being upgraded as the mall prepares to join up later this year with a large, new outlet village on land next door which is owned by British developer, McArthurGlen. Around a thousand people joined the Fridays for Future march in Malaga on Friday in support of the international campaign in protest at the lack of action against climate change. Thanks to protesters of all ages Malaga became one of 60 towns and cities in Spain to join the campaign started by 15-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, who sat outside the Swedish parliament every day for three weeks, last year calling for more action. More secondary school students in Malaga province went on strike on Friday to support the campaign in defence of the planet. But Seoul's diplomatic relations with Beijing are also on the rocks since the spat over the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery has not fully cooled and Korea accuses China of being the main source of fine dust pollution here. Korea's diplomacy with China and Japan is in trouble. Diplomatic relations with Tokyo have chilled to a new low since the Supreme Court here sided with victims of wartime forced labor and authorized the seizure of the Korean assets of Japanese companies that refused to comply with an order to compensate them. One diplomatic source said, "At this rate, we inevitably face punitive measures from Japan and China. President Moon Jae-in needs to resolve diplomatic friction with China and Japan before trying to strengthen ties with Southeast Asian countries and North Korea." Senior Foreign Ministry officials recently held talks with their Japanese counterparts, but the meeting ended with both sides merely acknowledging their differences. Defense cooperation between Korea and Japan, which was pursued at the behest of the U.S., is also showing signs of fraying. Japan has decided not to send a warship to a maritime training exercise involving 18 Southeast Asian countries off the coast of Busan on April 29, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday. Friction erupted when a Japanese surveillance plane flew dangerously close to a Korean naval ship last December, allegedly prompting the ship to lock its tracking radar on the aircraft. "If Korea fails to respond adequately to the radar incident, Japan may not invite Korea to attend a fleet review hosted by the Maritime Self-Defense Force in autumn," the daily said. Beijing, meanwhile, is simply not interested in talks. China is no longer trying to take a leading role in denuclearization talks with North Korea either, simply insisting that "patience and dialogue" are necessary. Beijing remains sore that Korea let the U.S. deploy the THAAD battery here, whose powerful radar Beijing fears could be used to spy on its military maneuvers. A dramatic raid on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid last month has been blamed on a guerrilla group sometimes calling itself Cheollima Civil Defense. On Feb. 22, the embassy in the suburbs of Madrid was raided by a group of unidentified men who tied up the staff and held them hostage before fleeing with computers and mobile phones. The Washington Post Friday quoted inside sources as saying the raid was carried out by the secretive group committed to overthrowing the Kim Jong-un regime. The daily said, "The group's alleged role in the attack has not previously been reported... But in recent days, rumors have swirled about the motivations behind the attack in the Spanish media, including a report in El Pais alleging that two of the masked assailants have ties to the CIA." "The raid represents the most ambitious operation to date for an obscure organization," it added. Citing a North Korea expert, the daily said that the computers the group seized "could have contacts and documents related to North Korea's efforts to bypass sanctions and import luxury goods from Europe, which was one of the key assignments for Kim Hyok-chol, the former North Korean ambassador to Spain." The group also possesses "a video recording they took during the raid, which could release at any time," it added citing an anonymous source. The group is believed to have rescued the children of Kim's half-brother Kim Jong-nam after the latter was assassinated by North Korean agents in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in February 2017. More recently it has gone by the name Free Joseon. "I understand that the group also consists of even members of the Kim dynasty who have gone into exile in the U.S. and Europe," a source said. "They've thrown down the gauntlet to Kim Jong-un over his legitimacy." In a message on its website on Sunday, the group asked "all journalists" to keep the identity of its members secret. Indonesia flood death toll jumps to 77 Sentani, Indonesia, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 Flash floods in Indonesia's eastern Papua province have killed at least 77 people, the disaster agency said Monday as it raised the death toll from 58. More than three dozen people remain missing, while scores have been injured in the disaster, triggered by torrential rain and landslides. "The death toll could still go up with 43 people unaccounted for," said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. Rescuers battled mud, rocks and fallen trees in the hunt for survivors, as medical personnel treated the wounded and thousands were evacuated from the northeastern town of Sentani. Amid the devastation, however, a baby has been reunited with his father after soldiers plucked the five-month old from rubble inside a house where his mother and siblings were found dead. The tot has since been returned to his surviving father. "We took him to the hospital and had him treated," Papua military spokesman Muhammad Aidi told AFP. "He was in stable condition and has been released. The father was distressed but happy to be reunited with his baby." The military said 5,700 people have been evacuated from the hard-hit area. "We have over 1,000 personnel searching for more victims," Aidi said. Indonesia has issued a 14-day state of emergency in response to the floods. Papua shares a border with independent Papua New Guinea on an island just north of Australia. Flooding is common in Indonesia, especially during the rainy season which runs from October to April. In January, floods and landslides killed at least 70 people on Sulawesi island, while earlier this month hundreds in West Java province were forced to evacuate when torrential rains triggered severe flooding. Parts of US Midwest mired in deadly and historic flooding Chicago, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 The US Midwest struggled Monday with historic flooding that claimed at least two lives, displaced residents, and damaged hundreds of homes and businesses. Rising waters impacted much of Nebraska, as well as parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. All were under states of emergency after a major storm last week dumped snow and rain, even as melting snow was already raising the levels of area waterways. Neighboring states could also be affected during the week as floodwaters drain, officials said. "Major to historic river flooding is expected to continue across parts of the Missouri and Mississippi River Basins due to rapid snow melt the past few days," the National Weather Service said. "Flood warnings and advisories remain in effect, mainly across eastern Nebraska and into parts of Iowa." Across Nebraska, record flooding has been reported in 17 locations and could last a week, according to officials. At its highest point, the Missouri River was expected to crest at 47.5 feet, beating its 2011 record by more than one foot. "Comparisons to 2011 were inevitable," the National Weather Service's office in Iowa tweeted, "But these floods have resulted in many more rescues and widespread damage in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa." Failing levees were blamed for flooding in numerous communities -- damaging homes and businesses. Hundreds of people were rescued by the Nebraska National Guard and emergency workers, officials said. The American Red Cross set up two dozen shelters in the state. Fifty-four Nebraska cities issued emergency declarations, as did four Native American tribal areas. Three dozen Iowa counties were under states of emergency. In Wisconsin, roads were closed throughout the state and more than 200 people evacuated, according to officials. Two people were killed during the height of the storm last week. A Nebraska farmer died Thursday trying to rescue a motorist stranded by floodwaters, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Aleido Rojas Galan, 55, was killed Friday in Iowa when his vehicle was swept away by floodwaters, TV station KETV said. Parts of US Midwest deluged in historic deadly floods Chicago, March 18 (AFP) Mar 18, 2019 The US Midwest struggled Monday with historic flooding that claimed at least three lives, displaced residents and damaged hundreds of homes and businesses. Swollen waters hit much of Nebraska, as well as parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. All were under states of emergency after a major storm last week dumped snow and rain, even as melting snow was already raising the levels of area waterways. Neighboring states could also be affected as floodwaters drain, officials said. "Major to historic river flooding is expected to continue across parts of the Missouri and Mississippi River Basins due to rapid snow melt the past few days," the National Weather Service (NWS) said. "Flood warnings and advisories remain in effect, mainly across eastern Nebraska and into parts of Iowa." Across Nebraska, record flooding has been reported in 17 locations and could last a week, according to officials. At its highest point, the Missouri River was expected to crest at 47.5 feet (14.5 meters), beating its 2011 record by more than one foot. "Comparisons to 2011 were inevitable," the NWS office in Iowa tweeted, "but these floods have resulted in many more rescues and widespread damage in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa." Failing levees were blamed for flooding in numerous communities -- damaging homes and businesses. The US Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains federal levee systems, said a majority were compromised along an approximately 100-mile portion of the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska. - Military base under water - Hundreds of people were rescued by the Nebraska National Guard and emergency workers, officials said, while the American Red Cross set up two dozen shelters in the state. Fremont, a city of more than 25,000, was surrounded by floodwaters over the weekend and cut off from aid. It finally received food and other emergency supplies Sunday after crews managed to clear debris from a road, officials said. Fifty-four Nebraska cities issued emergency declarations, as did four Native American tribal areas. Three dozen Iowa counties were under states of emergency. Roads were closed throughout Wisconsin and more than 200 people were evacuated, according to officials. A third of Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was overcome with floodwater, and was not expected to be dry again until Thursday. "It's important to understand that this is going to take weeks and months to recover so this will be a prolonged effort," one of the base's leaders, Kevin Humphrey, said in a statement. Three people were reported killed. A Nebraska farmer died Thursday, during the height of the storm, trying to rescue a motorist stranded by floodwaters, the Omaha World-Herald reported. On the same day, 80-year-old Betty Hamernik died after being trapped by floodwaters in her home in rural Columbus, Nebraska, according to the newspaper. Aleido Rojas Galan, 55, was killed Friday in Iowa when his vehicle was swept away by floodwaters, TV station KETV said. North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui told foreign reporters in Pyongyang on Friday, "We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands [at the Hanoi summit] in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind." Choe added ominously that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will soon announce his next plans. What Choe was hinting at was that North Korea could scrap only its aging nuclear complex in Yongbyon, which was built 50 years ago. The plutonium-extraction and uranium-enrichment facilities in Yongbyon are no longer central to the North's nuclear weapons program, which makes them expendable bargaining chips. If U.S. President Donald Trump had accepted Kim's offer in Hanoi to scrap the Yongbyon facility in return for an easing of sanctions, he would effectively have acknowledged the North as a nuclear power. If Kim really intended to give up his nuclear weapons, he would have sought to start a new dialogue with the U.S. about his secret uranium-enrichment facilities. But instead he is resorting to the old brinkmanship and blackmail. The North tried to dupe the international community and put up a big show pretending to scrap nuclear and missile sites. Kim even said that he wished to achieve complete denuclearization "during President Trump's term in office" and added that he has no reason to hang on to them and suffer. He also said he does not wish his children to inherit a nuclear legacy. But U.S. intelligence officials knew all along that Kim was lying, and even Trump knows it now. President Moon Jae-in, too, probably smelled it a long time ago but played dumb, and by doing so he was tricking the public here. For the last 25 years, North Korea has repeatedly resorted to provocations every time its deceptive tactics failed. The North no longer needs to conduct more nuclear tests and already has enough nuclear weapons to equal a hydrogen bomb. Any more nuclear tests would merely waste valuable fissile materials. But it may well test-fire more long-range missiles to ratchet up pressure on the U.S. and seek to gain the upper hand in negotiations. Nobody should fall for this tactic again. North Korea may be willing to play with fire, but it still fears getting burned because Kim knows he has too much to lose. What is needed is a watertight defense and tough sanctions. The effect of the sanctions, already in evidence here and there, will become much more obvious over time. This is a game that requires patience. Following an hours-long manhunt, Dutch police have arrested a suspect in a shooting incident on a tram that left three people dead and five others wounded in the city of Utrecht Monday. Police had earlier identified the suspect as 37-year-old Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, releasing a photo of a bearded man sitting on the tram wearing a dark blue hooded top. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert to the maximum level of five in Utrecht. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said a terror attack "could not be excluded." But Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that relatives of Tanis in Turkey said the shooting could have been part of a family dispute. A Dutch regional prosecutor said the suspect had previously been arrested in the Netherlands, but did not give further details. Security has been increased at Dutch airports, as well as mosques. Schools in Utrecht have been closed, and residents were advised to stay home. After the suspect was arrested Monday, the threat level was reduced to level four. Image credit: brenkee via Pixabay To his many admirers the untimely death of such an ingenious and polymathic man came as a horrible shock. That sadness has not abated: 25th May is still celebrated as Towel Day in honour of his most famous work, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Fans inaugurated this celebration in 2001, two weeks after Adamss death, during which they simply carry a towel on their person for the day in honour of the advice given in the Hitchhiker series that a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Why? Well, among other things, strags (non-hitchhikers) who see one has travelled the galaxy and been able to hold on to ones towel through it all are likely to be impressed- the strag will most certainly view you as clearly a man to be reckoned with. Douglas Noel Adams was certainly such a man. Born on 11th March 1952 in Cambridge, he was immensely proud of two facts: that his initials spelled DNA and that he was born in the city where Watson and Crick discovered DNAs double helical molecular structure just a year later. This auspicious start foreshadowed his lifelong love affair with science, which shone through in all his works, from the Hitchhiker series to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Adams fit so much into a such a short life: writing, travelling, computer programming, and TV presenting to name a few. Some of his earliest work was done on Doctor Who: during Tom Bakers golden tenure on the show Adams wrote several stories and script edited a season. One of his stories, Shada, was left uncompleted due to industry disputes, but has had a long afterlife having been completed by others in book form and in animation, among other media. The Snowmen, the 2012 Christmas special of the show, was based on an unused Adams storyline. Adamss work was known for its wit and whimsy, its scientific and philosophical underpinning, and its sheer delightfulness. As I said, he loved science, epitomising the ideal of the intellectual on the border between the sciences and the humanities. In an interview with his great friend Richard Dawkins (who helped convert Adams into a radical atheist who insisted on the radical so as not to be confused with an agnostic) Adams gave a beautiful paean to the beauty of a scientific worldview which epitomised the view of the life scientific and atheistic as something far more glorious than the religious one: The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened its just wonderful. Andthe opportunity to spend seventy or eighty years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned. Dawkins quotes the above in his introduction to the 2009 edition of one of Adamss lesser known works (and adds a sad Seventy or eighty? If only. afterwards), and the one I want to focus most on here. This is his account of his travels with the naturalist Mark Carwardine to visit some of the worlds most endangered species, the book Last Chance to See. Like so many of his other works this book is just one iteration of a project expressed in multiple media. The project started after Adams and Carwardine teamed up for a newspaper article featuring the aye-aye of Madagascar in 1985. They then decided to make a radio series of their travels around the world encountering other endangered species, broadcast in 1989, which was then turned into a 1990 book. In 2009 Stephen Fry, another friend of Adamss, accompanied Carwardine on a follow-up TV series to the original radio series. Phew! The work of Douglas Adams never seems to die, and hopefully never will. The book is wonderful - hilarious all the way through while keenly impressing upon the reader a sense of pessimism at the plight of these species, merely a selection of the many animals endangered by human activity. Mark Carwardine wrote the last chapter, and the statistics he presents are gloomy. The extinction rate, he says, has accelerated massively because of humans:most of the extinctions since prehistoric times have occurred in the last three hundred years. And most of the extinctions that have occurred in the last three hundred years have occurred in the last fifty. And most of the extinctions that have occurred in the last fifty have occurred in the last ten. We are now heaving more than a thousand different species of animals and plants off the planet every year. Our massively expanding population, our destruction of animal habitats, our stupid practices of tearing down trees, our thirst for needless poaching and hunting- these are merely the results of human chauvinism, ingrained in us for centuries by the mythical belief that god created nature for us. The truth is that we are just as much a product of nature as the Yangtze river dolphin (which has sadly become extinct since the books publication) and the mountain gorillas of Zaire. This is a major theme of Adamss work, encapsulated in the first chapter where he recounts the 1985 trip to find the aye-aye on a small island off Madagascar, this lemurs last refuge. He discusses how the rise of the monkeys millions of years ago made the lemurs extinct in Africa. They remained only in the monkey-free environment of Madagascar. Until, of course, we, the monkeys descendants, arrived, endangering them once more. Encountering the odd aye-aye, Adams writes: I was a monkey looking at a lemur. This for him was simply another tale in a story going millions of years back. Our descendants started it, and now we are finishing it. The books account of meeting with some old relatives- the mountain gorillas- also emphasises our place in nature, and is funny and charming, and thought-provoking too. But it is not at all a gloomy book, for all this. Adams was known for his comic wit and it is to be found in glorious abundance in Last Chance to See. Whether recounting a hunt for a condom in Shanghai (to sheath a microphone for underwater use), or recalling some of the downright weird people he met around the world, or the comedy of errors which resulted from travelling in such distant places, there is always a laugh to be found. Adamss powers of description of the animals are breath-taking, and often funny. His writing is also informed by his scientific knowledge- Dawkins even remarks in the introduction that many of his musings are original enough to give scientists something to seriously think about. And the gloom is lifted most of all by the large cast of dedicated, and often eccentric, people encountered on these travels, who live their lives fighting to protect these species from destruction, often against the weight of bureaucracy, ignorance and profit. That is another of the books points: we may well be responsible for the plight these species are in but we are also their only hope of survival (and, sadly, that sometimes means going with market forces and making these animals profitable through tourism and suchlike). We are part of nature but we are endowed with (very limited) intelligence, and only we can hope to undo our wrongs and protect these species. Why should we? Well, as Carwardine remarks, they are useful to us, the environment, and the planet- he explains all the practical reasons why we should protect them. But as Dawkins says, who cares what use they are? Carwardines main reason, and the only sufficient one for any remotely intelligent or decent person, is simply that the world would be a poorer, darker, lonelier place without them. Their very existence is reason enough to preserve them. Douglas Adams did his bit by publicising the danger faced by many animals and was a friend of endangered species until his death. His many works should be read for many reasons and Last Chance to See was his own favourite, and in my opinion one of his very best. It is warm, hilarious, learned, and humane- much like the man himself. Image courtesy of AMP London Over the course of four days, AMP London is set to take over the capital with over 40 live acts filling 14 different venues, whilst being complemented with two days of talk and discussion. Over the past years, Annie Mac has brought some of the finest acts to primetime radio and festival stages across the world, whilst the latest iteration, being carefully curated by Mac herself, is an inaugural event with a stellar lineup.AMP Sounds took over London throughout February 2018 and encompassed a selection of raves, showcase events, and big one-off shows featuring the best of AMP past and present. As the events successor, AMP London will prove a vital music event for 2019. Just some of those featured on the line up include: Brits Critics Choice winner, BBC Sound of 2019 nominated, hotly-tipped-for-2019(whose show will be a London exclusive), Australian, grimes finest, as well as, and, of course,herself. Showcasing a range of the finest upcoming and established artists across a multitude of genres, AMP London will encompass intimate underplays with all acts playing in venues far smaller than their usual tour stops (Bethnal Green Working Mens Club, XOYO and Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, for example). AMP London is an accumulation of what weve done for years, says Annie. Prioritising music discovery and supporting bands and artists, AMP LONDON aims to celebrate and consolidate Londons globally renowned music scene, inspire conversations around music, and, ultimately create something that is culturally impactful and invigorating for music lovers of multiple genres. AMP London also boasts the (already sold out) Printworks rave and a closing party (from which all proceeds will be donated to London based charity, Art Against Knives), whilst other shows are set to have a secret line-up revealed later this month. The daytime talks feature a discussion around the future and evolution of todays music artists and industry, covering a variety of timely topics. The first, on Friday 28th March, will be dedicated to The Industry, while the second, on Saturday 29th March, will focus on The Next Generation both with feature panels of leading figures from the music industry and youth culture. Unfortunately, The Content Is Not Here You have arrived at this page because the page or post you were looking for no longer exists. Please check our main navigation pages for other content: Home Page President Trump recently complained that pharmaceutical companies have rigged the system against American consumers by keeping drug prices unfairly high. Americans often pay too much at the pharmacy counter for brand name drugs. But insurers and other middlemen in the drug supply chain bear much of the responsibility. Actually, drug spending in the United States is slowing. Retail prescription drugs represent 10 percent of the $3.5 trillion spent on health care in 2017. One reason for the decline is that nearly 90 percent of prescriptions in the United States are less-expensive generic copies of brand name drugs. Another reason is that pharmaceutical companies discount the list price of their drugs. These manufacturer discounts have more than doubled in value over the last few years, rising from $59 billion in 2012 to $127 billion in 2016. Even with manufacturer discounts, patients arent feeling relief. Thats because insurance companies and middlemen in the drug supply chain have enjoyed the lions share of the savings. Those middlemen are pharmacy benefit managers. PBMs extract discounts from pharmaceutical firms, and pass part of the savings to insurers that agree to add the discounted drug to the list of drugs theyll cover. Insurers could use their discounts to reduce the financial burden borne by patients. But they often profit from those discounts even as they find new avenues to charge beneficiaries. The growth of prescription drug tiers is a prime example. Whereas insurance firms used to charge one co-pay for generics and a slightly larger one for brand name medications, theyve recently added a third and even a fourth tier, with much higher co-pays for some innovative drugs. In 2017, 83 percent of Americans insured by their employer had a plan with at least three prescription drug tiers. The average co-pay for the highest tier was $110. Co-insurance is another example. Under these arrangements, beneficiaries pay a fixed percentage of a drugs price at the point of sale. Co-insurance rates are often based on a drugs initial list price not what the insurer actually pays after the discounts secured by PBMs. Then theres the pharmacy gag clause, in which PBM contracts prohibit pharmacists from telling a customer the out-of-pocket price for a drug was less than the persons co-pay. I ran into this personally a few years back. My co-pay for a generic drug would have been $15. I asked the pharmacist how much it would cost if I paid out of pocket. $11.50, she replied. She was likely contractually prohibited from volunteering the information, but not from answering my question. Fortunately, Congress recently passed legislation ending this practice. Thats a great start, but theres more to do. The president needs to shine a light on middlemen and insurer practices. They are the ones who decide what patients actually pay for the latest medicines. Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation. Ambitious biotechnologies brought together in Prague On 6 March 2019 at the National Library of Technology in Prague, the 4th annual international BioSpot conference was held. During the event, representatives of both domestic and foreign investors listen to presentations by researchers highlighting the most advanced and interesting technologies in the field of life sciences with potential for implementation. This year, researchers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany presented 22 technologies in a number of fields, such as new precision prostate cancer diagnostics capable of preventing 90 % of unnecessary biopsies, new inhibitors for the treatment of leukemias, antimicrobial agents to combat resistant infections, or a novel technology for in vitro diagnostics at the point of care based on electronic microchips with carbon nanotubes. "We founded the BioSpot platform three years ago to help the most promising projects bridge the gap between laboratories and production lines, get them on the market, and allow them to dramatically enhance our lives. And I'm very pleased when I see the increasingly strong trend among researchers in life sciences to realize the potential of these technologies," says one of the founders of the BioSpot platform, Martin Fusek of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences. "An excellent example is the DIANA Biotechnologies startup that was established last year to develop technology presented at our conference." "BioSpot celebrated its fourth birthday this year and is constantly growing. It attracted far more participants than in previous years. There were some very interesting technologies on the program, and their quality is increasing markedly. Foreign researchers and investors are more aware of us, and BioSpot is becoming an acclaimed international tech-transfer enterprise," explains another of the platform's founders, Marian Hajduch of the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc. Numerous investors sent representatives to the conference to learn about the new technologies, such RSJ Investments, bpd partners, Bohemia Venture Capital, and Beckman Coulter. "For me, BioSpot is a unique opportunity to meet with experienced scientists and young talents alike. Everyone strives to earn recognition and be cited by experts, but what they mainly want is to get their discoveries from the laboratory to the market. That gives rise to products that can provide society with some real value and have a positive effect on the lives of many people. Among other things, we work to support precisely these types of projects, so I'm pleased to see so many of them again at this year's BioSpot," says P?emysl Rubes, founder and managing partner of Bohemia Venture Capital. The next BioSpot conference is scheduled for 5 March 2020 in Prague. ### About BioSpot The BioSpot international platform and conference was established in the Czech Republic in 2016. Its goal is to evaluate the development and commercial potential of the most interesting discoveries and technologies in the field of life sciences and help connect them with private investors from around the world. The platform was founded by the cluster MedChemBio, the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, and the renowned Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, one of the most successful institutes in the world in the commercialization of scientific results. This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Dialing world for success in 5G era From:ChinaDaily | 2019-03-18 07:08 Oppo's expansion speeds up with its handsets that boast cutting-edge tech Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is making a strong push into overseas markets, after it strengthened its position as the second-largest player on its home turf. The Guangdong-based company believes that its 10 years of experience in exploring foreign countries, and its growing pool of patents and international talent, will help it to go global in a better way. Two days ahead of the Feb 25-28 Mobile World Congress Barcelona, the largest annual telecommunications gathering in Spain, Oppo unveiled its first 5G smartphone and announced that four foreign telecom carriers are to be among the first to sell the 5G model. Oppo said its 5G handset will use the United States semiconductor giant Qualcomm Inc's Snapdragon 855 chipset and X50 modem to latch onto 5G networks. Four carriersSwisscom, Australia's Telstra and Optus, and Sing-Tel of Singaporewill sell the as yet unnamed 5G Oppo phone first, which is scheduled to be launched in the second quarter of this year. Shen Yiren, vice-president of Oppo, said the four overseas carriers are rolling out the 5G networks rapidly, so the company chose to first sell its 5G smartphones in Europe. Its partnership with Swisscom is the fastest. The move marks the latest step by Oppo to build itself as an innovative brand in Europe, trying to lure consumers with cutting-edge products and design. This is also proof of the company's determination to conquer more developed markets after its products became available in more than 40 countries and regions. In June 2018, Oppo launched its high-end smartphone model Find X in Paris, marking its official foray into Europe. As of January, it had entered nine European markets, including Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Wu Qiang, who is in charge of Oppo's overseas business, said the company is not adopting an aggressive strategy in overseas markets. Instead, it strictly follows CEO Chen Mingyong's principle of "eating rice bite by bite". "We will only enter the next market after doing a good job in existing markets," Wu said. Oppo's intensified interest in foreign countries came after the Chinese smartphone market hit a saturation point, with shipments declining for several quarters. From September to December of 2018, smartphone shipments in China plunged almost 10 percent year-on-year, according to data from market research company International Data Corp or IDC. Though Oppo outgrew the industry average to achieve an annual expansion rate of 1.5 percent in that time-frame, there is still a pressing need to look for new opportunities, Wu said. "About 100 million units of handsets are sold in Europe every year. We must build a presence there." Other Chinese smartphone makers, including Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo, are also looking beyond their home turf for growth. In this context, Oppo believes it has an edge over others as it first started its international journey as early as in 2009 in Thailand, much before others jumped on the going-global bandwagon. 'Why is Foxboro special to you?' To help jump-start public interest around Foxboros housing plan, the town planning department is soliciting brief responses from townspeople to the following question: Why is Foxboro special to you? A sentence or two will do it. Simply drop off your answer at one of the following locations: Council on Aging, Boyden Library, Town Hall, Public Safety Building or the Recreation Department, where drop boxes have been provided for that purpose. Responses also can be posted on the town Facebook page or Twitter feed. According to town planner Paige Duncan, this initial engagement is intended to identify favorable community characteristics; it will be followed in upcoming months by a more comprehensive public opinion survey. A gunman killed three people and wounded five on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday morning in what the mayor said appeared to be a terror attack, touching off a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with dogs zero in on an apartment building nearby. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the highest level, and Dutch military police tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old Turkish-born man they identified as Gokmen Tanis and said he was "associated with the incident." The photo showed a bearded man aboard a tram in a blue hooded top. The attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said three people were killed, and police put the number of wounded at five. "We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more," van Zanen said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that "a terror motive is not excluded" and that the attack was met throughout the country with "a mix of disbelief and disgust." "If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger that fanaticism and violence," he added. The shooting took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. Police erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A dog wearing a vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one person might have fled by car, and he did not rule out the possibility that more than one shooter was involved. The Netherlands\ anti-terror coordinator, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, raised the threat alert to its highest level, 5, around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of Parliament\s upper house. In neighboring Germany, police said they stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border, watching not only major highways but also minor crossings and train routes. German authorities said they were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact car but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht. SOURCE: AP The Bahrain Association of Banks (BAB) will hold the 100th anniversary of the banking sector in the kingdom on September 11. The celebration, under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, marks the establishment of the first bank in Bahrain, Standard and Chartered (formerly the Oriental Bank Limited), 100 years ago, thus making Bahrains financial and banking sector among the oldest in the region and the world. BABs board of directors chairman Adnan Ahmed Yousif extended deepest thanks and appreciation to HRH the Prime Minister for patronising the festivity, which, he said, reflects his constant keenness on supporting the banking sector in the kingdom for many decades. Yousif underlined BABs desire to hold a mega-celebration of the event commensurate with the importance of the deep-rooted sector, in cooperation with all partners, including the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), the Economic Development Board (EDB) and Standard Chartered Bank- Bahrain, among many other organiations related to the economic, banking and financial sectors. BAB chief stressed the importance of this event for Bahrain, which now hosts 382 financial institutions with total assets of $192 billion, including 98 banks, 21 of which are Islamic banks. - TradeArabia News Service A 60/40 allocation to equities and bonds is no longer likely to be enough to offer investors the outcomes and diversification required to reach their long-term objectives and alternative investments are increasingly critical to the investors portfolio, according to analysts. The cautionary message comes ahead of the 8th edition of the world-leading, invitation-only Alternative Investment Management (AIM) Summit, taking place on April 7 in Abu Dhabi at the Four Seasons Hotel. The summit is a gathering for industry leaders in the world of alternatives, including hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, and private debt. Zachary Cefaratti, CEO of Dubai-based Dalma Capital, a prominent alternative investment accelerator, and strategic partner of AIM Summit, says: We estimate the alternative investment industry to currently represent over $10 trillion in assets under management today. Based on data from Preqin, we forecast this to grow to $14 trillion by 2023. As we enter the late stages of economic and credit cycles, investors increasingly consider alternative investment and uncorrelated assets. The AIM Summit brings together the largest and most sophisticated investors in hedge funds, private equity, private debt, venture capital and other alternative investments connecting them with the worlds leading alternative investment managers. A typically so-called diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds has over the last decade been almost in step with the stock market. Alternative investments will typically reduce this correlation and lower the erosion impact of market volatility. This is why they are becoming, for many, a critical part of the mix but one that has been to date too often overlooked. Raha Moradi, the managing partner of AIM Summit, notes: Alternatives have a valuable place in an investors portfolio. A speculator seeks a quick return and is willing to take on risk. But an investor actively tries to minimise risk and does so by mingling together asset classes with low or negative correlations with each other. AIM Summit is a platform for discussions on alternative investment developments, global market conditions and latest trends for more than 300 figureheads from 15-plus countries. The line-up of 60 speakers, panellists, and the moderators - including The Financial Times, CNBC, Preqin, and Le Business School - are carefully curated and selected to add value to the most relevant investment landscape. The event is in support of the associations AIMA and CAIA. The confluence of expert voices and panellists includes Dr Ryan Lemand, CEO of ADS Investment Solutions, and David Gibson, president and CEO of Gulf Analytica. Dr Lemand observes: The worlds economic growth seems to have reached a peak, and despite financial markets still exhibiting momentum, it is time for investors to position for increased volatility over the coming year. Systematic strategies and emerging markets can be good alternatives to developed financial markets, especially GCC countries. In a similar vein, Gibson affirms: Fintech companies continue to send shock waves through the finance industry. It is not a question of disruption but rather of total transformation. Moradi concludes: AIM Summit will, once again, be attended by some of the largest regional institutional investors and family offices, as well as some of the worlds smartest and brightest fund managers in the alternative space. Why? Because alternative investments are perhaps more important than ever in helping lower volatility, bolster returns and wider diversification for investors around the world. This years sponsors include ADS Investment Solutions, ROI Securitisation, Emirates Wealth, Apex, Mercer, Fitch Ratings, Lecocqassociate, Phoenix Advisors and Dalma Capital Management Limited. - TradeArabia News Service More than 305 exhibitors from 42 countries are showcasing their latest technologies and solutions at the Paperworld Middle East which opened today (March 18) under the theme More than Paper in Dubai, UAE. Paperworld Middle East, the regions largest international trade fair for stationery, paper, gifts and office supplies, will run until March 20, at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. The annual showcase was opened by Butti Saeed Al Ghandi, second vice chairman of the Dubai World Trade Centre, said a statement from the organisers. The 9th edition of the event opens with an expanded product offering, underlined by its co-location with Leatherworld, where 23 exhibitors are presenting their latest finished leather goods, from garments, footwear, and bags, to unique hand-crafted accessories and luxury gift ideas. Other dedicated product groups across an increasingly diversified portfolio include the corporate gifts area, packed with unique promotional ideas, while the Playworld Village is displaying the magical world of childrens toys and games. A Green Room for sustainably produced stationery and office supplies is another show feature, along with a two-day seminar programme ensuring industry professionals and insiders are kept up-to-date with the latest Middle East market trends. Alexandria Robinson, show director of Paperworld Middle East, said: While the event remains as the regions largest dedicated trade fair for paper, stationery, and office supplies, were adding other key elements that leverage the synergies between related industries, further emphasising the trade fairs More than Paper theme. Were delighted to return with all the popular highlights, including Wrap Star, the UAEs only gift wrapping competition, and as is customary, weve added something new for 2019: the Qualatex Mystery Box competition, which invites professionals to create their own balloon decor thats becoming increasingly popular at weddings, parties, and special themed events across the region, she said. Then theres the show itself, where exhibitors are presenting their latest offerings, from school articles, creative materials, and office and business supplies, to premiums and branded gifts, and baby lifestyle products. Whether a wholesaler or distributor, a corporation or commercial end-user, a buyer of corporate gifts or an owner of toys, baby and kids stores, there is something for everyone at Paperworld Middle East, Robinson added. The European presence at Paperworld Middle East 2019 is particularly strong, with more than 50 exhibitors this week hailing from the old continent. Long-time exhibitor Olmar from Portugal is among these, and is showcasing its eco-friendly range of Fegol branded products for office supplies, and Pajory for school supplies. Joao Oliveira, Olmars CEO, said: Weve managed to grow our sales in the Middle East and African region by 45 per cent over the past three years and we hope to improve on that record. Were currently exporting to 32 countries and we plan to add at least another two countries to that list by the end of the year. Weve created very good partnerships with all the distributors that weve met at Paperworld Middle East and we always come back to increase the recognition of our Pajory and Fegol brands, he added. Stilolinea from Italy is another European exhibitor eager to capitalise on Paperworld Middle East 2019s transregional reach. The Italian company is part of the Corporate Gifts section in 2019, and is shining the spotlight on its Italian Made range of promotional and gift writing pens. Owner and managing director Laura Chicco said: Stilolinea is a 100 per cent Made in Italy company that has produced promotional and gift writing pens since 1972. The company is today not only one of the most important leaders in the European market, but has developed to become an internationally sought-after brand. What sets us apart is our collaboration with top contemporary designers, some of which are from high-end Italian companies such as Ferrari, Maserati, and Pininfarina,she said. Chicco continued: We also work with brilliant students from important Italian Universities such as the Turin Polytechnic. This is the origin of the Italian style and luxury, and is also the reason why our pens are loved by foreign markets. These markets are very important to develop a parallel channel in which our Gift Line could be appreciated for the same high quality level of other well-known brands, but with the added bonus of very competitive prices, she added. Meanwhile, spearheading the presence at Leatherworld Middle East is UAE Company Al Khaznah Tannery, which is showcasing the latest developments in its eco-friendly camel hide and derivative products. South African Footwear & Leather Export Council (SAFLEC), is also returning with the finest exotic leather goods from South Africa. A dozen hand-picked brands are on display at the SAFLEC Pavilion, presenting their latest wares, from fashion accessories and footwear to decor interiors and corporate gifts. And the Playworld Village is uncovering everything in the childrens toy sector, from construction toys, plush toys, and educational games, to childrens party items, and remote control or multi-functional toys. Distributors and household names such as Qualatex, Bingo, Cozydots, Coq En Pate, Funskool, Seetal and Party Centre are all out in force in this dedicated show section. Thousands of regional trade customers can also see first-hand environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable stationery and paper-based products at the Green Room. A helpful guide for any visitor eager to source sustainable products, the Green Room features a smorgasbord of ethically produced goods from leading brands including Olmar, Double A, ITC, Bi-Silque, Bluecat Paper, The Navigator Company, Hindustan Pencils, Luxor, Rapesco, Salam Greetings, Smart Bags, and The Patchwood. Paperworld Middle East is organised by Messe Frankfurt Middle East, and is expected to attract more than 6,000 trade buyers and industry professionals from across the wider region, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Kuwait-based Equate Group, a global petrochemical producer, said it is launching Elevate programme within the groups companies around the world and the community at large, as part of taking employee equality and diversity to new heights. The programme is sponsored by Equates chief executive officer and president Dr Ramesh Ramachandran and endorsed by the Equate management team. Elevate is part of Equates continued investment in its human capital as a driver for its sustainability strategy, which aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the New Kuwait 2035 vision. The launch was held on International Womens Day (March 8) and provided all global employees with the opportunity to recognise and celebrate the women in their lives and the women of Equate. Equate senior executive for corporate communications and government affairs Dr Abeer Al-Omar said: At our company we are reaffirming out commitment to equality and diversity within our group and will be sharing our learnings with our communities. We aim to achieve our goals by identifying opportunities and encouraging a better understanding to the contribution of a sound diversity policy generates ideas, conversations, and can lead to greater mobility and prosperity in line with the overall business objectives, he added. Elevate is another example of a programme supported by the Equate Group that demonstrates its commitment to sustainability, partnering with public and private bodies, including employees, the society and customers in the fields of human development, environment, education, health, as well as public awareness, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Jaguar Bahrain sponsored a networking event hosted by the British Embassy and Bahrain British Business Forum at the British Embassy premises in Manama. The corporate event, which brought together members of the British Embassy, Bahrain British Business Forum and Euro Motors Jaguar Land Rover, was held as a kick starter to the buildup of the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix. The event was attended by Bahrain International Circuit CEO Shaikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa, along with the UK Ambassador to Bahrain Simon Martin. Guests at the event were given the opportunity to network with their peers in a relaxed environment while indulging in an exquisite dinner buffet. Jaguar Bahrain displayed the F1 branded Jaguar E-PACE and F-PACE that are being used in the Bahrain International Circuit promotional tour. Being the fifth consecutive year of collaboration with Bahrain International Circuit, Euro Motors Jaguar Land Rover has provided four Jaguar SUVs for the 2019 tour. Elaborating on the networking dinner, Euro Motors Jaguar Land Rover general manager Stephen Lay said: It is an absolute pleasure to sponsor such a high-profile and successful event. With the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix less than 2 weeks away, this is a perfect event to gather the corporate community ahead of the incredible racing spectacle. We are also proud to have displayed the F1 branded vehicles that are being used for the Bahrain International Circuit promotional tour. We look forward to collaborating with these organizations in more events in the near future. The Bahrain British Business Forum (BBBF) is a widely recognised business group in Bahrain that works to create and sustain a favourable business environment. The BBBF strives to assist and introduce new trade and investments to both countries that can benefit and enhance the common economic interests of member companies. Shaza Hotels, a member of the Global Hotel Alliance, has signed a management agreement with Sheikh Sultan Al Harthi to operate Mysk Jeddah the Mysk brands first property in Saudi Arabia. Located on Heraa street, close to the Jeddah Corniche, the four-star hotel is expected to open in 2021. Included in its facilities are a restaurant, a cafe, meeting rooms, a kids club, fitness centre and rooftop pool. Al Harthi stated: To support the tourism initiatives for Saudi Vision 2030, we have decided to enter the tourism sector and we are developing an upscale hotel in a prime location in Jeddah Province. We have chosen Shaza Hotels to operate it under the Mysk by Shaza brand as we were keen on bringing a new and fresh brand to the Saudi market. This hotel will be one-of-a-kind in the kingdom. Simon Coombs, president and CEO of Shaza Hotels, commented: "The tourism landscape in Saudi Arabia is changing rapidly due to the various government initiatives being put in place to boost the number of arrivals into the country. New destinations are being created and a new generation of hotels is entering Saudi Arabia. Mysk Jeddah is one of them, catering to the evolving needs of the Saudi tourism sector where discerning guests are seeking a more personalised experience aligned with their lifestyle. We are very grateful to Sheikh Sultan Al Harthi for having entrusted us with the management of Mysk Jeddah and we are confident that this Mysk will become the new sought-after address in Jeddah." Mysk Jeddah is the brands seventh property, the first being the award-winning Mysk by Shaza Al Mouj in Muscat, and the next hotels to open are three Mysk retreats that are part of the Sharjah Collection as announced recently at ITB in Berlin. In addition, two other Mysk properties are under development in Palm Jumeirah in Dubai and Kuwait and are scheduled to open by Q4 of 2019 and 2020 respectively. Following the win of the pitch at Saudi Arabia Hotel Investment Conference (SHIC), Mysk has received considerable attention from the investment community in Saudi Arabia and various other opportunities are under discussion in Jeddah, Madinah, Riyadh and Al Khobar. - TradeArabia News Service The Ascott Limited has bolstered its Dubai-based executive team by appointing Cyril Warsono as business development manager to assist in increasing the portfolio of properties across the Middle East and Turkey. Originally from Indonesia, Warsono is a seasoned hospitality professional with more than 20 years international experience across all facets of the industry and has worked for prominent global hospitality brands throughout Europe, North America, South-East Asia, Australia and the Middle East. I am very excited to join the Ascott team, said Warsono. The group has gone from strength to strength in the past four years and is now one of the leading serviced accommodation players in the Middle East." This dynamic region continues to offer vast potential for Ascott to expand its presence. My goal is to build upon the success the team has already achieved by identifying new management opportunities and partnerships in the GCC nations, as well as develop the groups property portfolio in newer markets such as Turkey, he adds. Warsono kick-started his career in hospitality in 1995 as food and beverage trainee at the Kapplerhof Hotel in Switzerland. Progressing quickly through the ranks, by 1999 he was food and beverage outlets manager at The Westin New Orleans, US; and general manager of the Meritus Surabaya City Centre in Surabaya, Indonesia in 2012. Prior to joining Ascott, Warsono was the Dubai-based area manager, Pre-Opening (Middle East & Africa) at Frasers Hospitality. Vincent Miccolis, Ascotts regional general manager for Middle East, Africa and Turkey, commented: Ascott has been expanding aggressively in the Middle East. In 2017, we successfully rolled out operations to Turkey, and last year to Africa both of which are poised to be fast-growth and high yield markets. As we continue to grow and move towards our regional target of 5,000 units by 2020, its crucially important we expand our management team. Were therefore delighted to welcome Cyril Warsono on board; he will strengthen Ascotts leading position in the regions dynamic serviced accommodation sector by maximising new commercial opportunities across the Middle East and Turkey. Ascott currently has 12 operating properties across 11 cities in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Ghana, featuring the groups award-winning hospitality brands Ascott, Citadines, Somerset. An additional 11 properties (1,638 keys) are currently under development throughout the region - six in Saudi Arabia, with the remaining five spanning the UAE, Turkey, Ghana and Oman. - TradeArabia News Service More than 30 airlines have confirmed their participation at the inaugural Connect Middle East, India & Africa co-located with Arabian Travel Market 2019 and taking place at Dubai World Trade Centre on April 30 and May 1. Senior network planning teams from a wide range of legacy and low-cost carriers including Emirates, Etihad, China Southern Airlines, Jordan Aviation, Air Asia, flydubai, Gulf Air, Oman Air and Azerbaijan Airlines as well as SpiceJet and Air India are among those already registered. In India, which has one of the worlds largest aviation industries, more than 678,000 flights departed from its top five airports in 2018 with these airports possessing the capacity to manage 118.07 million passengers, an additional 12.32 million passengers when compared with figures from 2017, according to data published in the latest Anker report. Nick Pilbeam, divisional director, Reed Travel Exhibitions, said: Despite rising fuel costs and unstable Rupee exchange rates, which has led to the Rupee losing around 14 per cent of its value against the US dollar over the last 12 months, 2018 has been an exciting year for Indias aviation market. The country has recorded the worlds fastest growing domestic aviation market for the past three years, according to International Air Transport Association (Iata), with domestic air passenger traffic registering a healthy 18.6 per cent growth in 2018 underscoring the countrys vast market potential. Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport remained Indias busiest airport in 2018 followed by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport Mumbai, Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru, Chennai International Airport and Rajiv Gandhi Hyderabad International Airport. Meanwhile, seven airlines - IndiGo, Jet Airways, Air India, SpiceJet, GoAir, Air Asia India and Vistara continuing to dominate the aviation market, operating 1.04 million of Indias total 1.25 million flights in 2018, the data from Anker revealed. In the UAE alone, there are currently 1,065 weekly flights to India corresponding to 130,000 seats per week with on-going bilateral talks continuing to take place to increase airline frequency between India and all GCC countries. Karin Butot, CEO, The Airport Agency, said: Amid new route developments, rapid airport expansions and rising middle-class income - air passenger numbers to, from and within India are set to more than triple over the next 20 years to over 500 million journeys a year. Indias aviation industry presents enormous potential on a global scale and Connect Middle East, India & Africa 2019 is the perfect forum to realise this potential. Bringing together high-level executives from the countrys aviation and tourism industry, the event will offer delegates unlimited opportunities for one-to-one pre-scheduled networking appointments. With up to 300 delegates, the inaugural Connect Middle East, India & Africa will also include a packed conference programme, panel discussion and airline & industry briefings as well as unlimited one-to-one meetings pre-scheduled for airlines, airports and suppliers all combined with endless informal opportunities for networking throughout the two days. Kicking-off the two-day event will be a training workshop entitled The Simpson Paradox in Donut Crunching taking place between 9.15am 10.15am on April 30. This session will discuss and evaluate the Simpson Paradox while explaining how to achieve better data accuracy when estimating a route potential, or when analysing the performance of your competitors. Rounding off the first day, a panel entitled Regional Focus: What are the opportunities and challenges for the Middle East region? will address the on-going geo-political challenges and volatile fuel prices affecting the aviation industry at present while discussing how new and emerging destinations are positioning themselves to attract and develop significant air passenger traffic. Another highlight will be a keynote from John Strickland, CEO of JLS Consulting which will explore the key characteristics of the Indian, African and Gulf aviation markets, while discussing the importance of new aircraft types and the impact of new airline business models. Connect Middle East, India & Africa will form part of the newly launched Arabian Travel Week, an umbrella brand comprising four co-located shows including ATM 2019; ILTM Arabia and new consumer-led event ATM Holiday Shopper. Arabian Travel Week will take place at Dubai World Trade Centre from April 27 May 1. - TradeArabia News Service India's leading carrier Jet Airways has announced the immediate suspension of all its flights to and from Abu Dhabi, citing operational reasons, said a report. In a notice, Etihad Airport Services warned passengers of "minor disruption" due to the "short notice of flight cancellation", said a report in The Times of India. According to the report, a senior Jet official claimed the cancellation of flights to Abu Dhabi is not linked to delay in equity infusion from Etihad, which owns a 24 per cent stake in the Indian carrier. Jet founder Naresh Goyal had written to Etihad Group CEO Tony Douglas on March 8 seeking an urgent infusion of Rs750 crore ($108.6 million) within a week, failing which he warned the airline could even get grounded. While it is now 10 days since the SOS was sent, Jet has not received any funds from Etihad, the report said. "The cancellation of Abu Dhabi flights is part of the ongoing route restructuring we are currently doing due to the operational issues. For the same reason, we have reduced our Delhi to Dubai and Bangkok flights," the report cited a senior Jet official as saying. Media reports have said that all affected Etihad guests have been rebooked onto alternative Etihad operated flights or offered refunds as per standard policy. CANNABIS CORNER: Funding Without Prejudice Cannabis and the credit markets. In what can be described as one small step for users, one giant leap for an industry, companies that deal in cannabis are about to get access to the U.S. credit markets to help fund their businesses. And without prejudice, thanks to a bipartisan group of lawmakers that has proposed a measure to allow U.S. banks to work with firms in the cannabis industry without fear of legal or regulatory sanction. The measure has support from commercial banks and would enable cannabis firms operating in states with legalized marijuana to tap U.S. credit markets to expand their businesses. It might have just gotten a whole lot easier to inhale. Currently on the legislative docket from The House Financial Services subcommittee is the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019 or SAFE Banking Act. SAFE would protect banks and their employees from punishment for providing services to cannabis businesses that are legal on a state level. Is it time to get out the lighter? Perhaps. As Cowen analyst Vivien Azer noted in her most recent commentary, pro-cannabis measures are gaining support and steam at the state level. First, 12 members of Congress wrote a letter to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, requesting updated CBD regulations by February 22. Secondly, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) and Democratic legislative leaders reached an agreement on adult use cannabis taxation and regulation. West Virginias House of Delegates approved a bill that would provide state protections for banks that service the medical cannabis industry think SAFE Act. Vermonts Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would create an adult use cannabis market and Maryland General Assembly members formed a bipartisan group to study the possibility of legalizing adult use cannabis in 2020 via legislation or referendum. According to The Baltimore Sun, the working groups formation indicates that the states previously introduced legislation is not likely to pass this year. Azer observed that according to Gallup data, polling from 2013 to 2018 showed that 81% of liberal Democrats favor cannabis legalization, compared to 62% of moderate Democrats and 44% of conservative democrats. Moreover, Gallup indicated that 46% of Democrats identify as liberal, compared to 17% conservative. With things looking up for cannabis to go mainstream, Azer took note that Canopy Growth Corp and Sequential Brands Group (WEED) announced that Martha Stewart has joined them in an advisory role. Similar to Tilray's partnership with Authentic Brands, WEED is leveraging established, branded partners to expand its reach with CBD products and assist with developing and positioning a broad new line of CBD product offerings across multiple categories. According to SQBG (who promotes, markets and licenses the Martha Stewart brand), approximately 70 million households contain Martha Stewart products. In addition, the brand has a retail presence in "thousands" of locations and reaches close to 100 million consumers across media platforms each month. The partnership between WEED and Stewart likely originates from WEED's relationship with Snoop Dogg in conjunction with WEED's LBS product line (formerly "Leafs By Snoop") as Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart co-host a television show together. Stay tuned for more For more information on related topics, visit the following channels: New Delhi, March 18 (UNI) President Ram Nath Kovind said on Monday that India and Guinea must continue to work to see how bilateral trade can be enhanced further. India is among the top trading partners of Guinea. He was speaking after receiving visiting Guinea Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana who called on him at the Rashtrapti Bhavan here. Observing that the recent high level visits had given an impetus to India-Guinea bilateral ties, Mr Kovind expressed the confidence that Dr Fofanas visit to India will mark yet another high point. He noted that India-Guinea bilateral trade in 2017-18 reached almost US$ 900 million, representing an increase of nearly 40 per cent from the previous year. UNI GP SB 1301 Pakistan seeks to inter-connect with Central Asia through railways Islamabad, Mar 15 (UNI) Pakistan is planning to expand its rail network to Tehran, Istanbul and other central Asian countries with the help and cooperation of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). Pakistans Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad had told ECO Secretary General Hadi Soleimanpour on Wednesday that his country is giving priority to foreign investment and sought the cooperation of ECO in restoring rail network among Islamabad, Tehran, Istanbul and central Asian countries. Mr Soleimanpour has agreed to enhance coordination between three counties in this respect. Soleimanpour, for his part, concurred to enhance coordination between Tehran, Ankara and Islamabad for the railway connection, and said Pakistan is an important member of ECO and its role for the development and prosperity of the region is commendable. Mosul, Iraq, Mar 18 (UNI) A clash in northern Iraq killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded five Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants on Sunday, the Iraqi military said. A soldier asked the force of Turkish PKK militants to show their pass permission at a checkpoint before the PKK vehicles ran over the soldier, sparking a clash that killed two soldiers and wounded five PKK militants, according to a statement by media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC). Earlier, a security source put the death toll at three PKK militants and a soldier, while saying the PKK militants were conducting smuggling activities in the area, according to Xinhua. Turkish forces frequently carry out ground operations, airstrikes and artillery bombardments against the positions of the outlawed PKK militants in northern Iraq, especially the Qandil Mountains, main base of the PKK. The PKK, which has been engaged in a separatist war against Turkey since 1984, is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. UNI XC SDR 0628 . . , . . , , . . . ... (March 18, 2019) -- UTSA observes the significant contributions women have made in society through a series of educational opportunities during Womens History Month. The events celebrate achievements toward equality as a nation featuring women in leadership, music and more. This week, UTSA Womens Studies Institute and Womens Studies Program will feature film screenings, provide lectures and book readings that promote diversity and focus on achieving social justice and womens empowerment. The theme for this year's Women's History Month celebration at UTSA is Visionary Women: Champions of Peace and Nonviolence. This week's UTSA Womens History Month events include: Operationalizing Leadership: The Impact of Sponsorship on Womens Leadership Monday, March 18, 3:30 p.m. John Peace Library Assembly Room (JPL 4.04.22), Main Campus Learn about the following key aspects of sponsorship: being prepared to serve as a protege, how to look for talent as a sponsor, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, practical leadership application tips and strategies around negotiation. Monsoon Wedding and The Big City/ Mahanagar Film Screenings Monday, March 18, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Buena Vista Street Building (BVB 2.304), Downtown Campus Come to a free screening of two films. Monsoon Wedding is a Bollywood romantic comedy that explores a New Delhi family who reworks traditional values in a globalized world while organizing the marriage of their eldest daughter. The Big City/Mahangar explores a housewifes quest to find a job challenging family values. Masterclass Presentation: Candace Magner Tuesday, March 19, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Arts Building (ART 2.03.02B), Main Campus In this master class, Candace Magner a renowned expert and publisher of Barbara Strozzis works will be working with several undergraduate musicians from UTSA. Women in Resistance: From Socialist Tenant Farmers Wives to Hippie Chicks Tuesday, March 19, 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Student Union Denman Room (SU 2.01.28), Main Campus Sarah Janda, professor of history at Cameron University, will examine subversive uses of traditional gender roles by comparing the role of women in the draft resistance movement of the Worle War I era and counterculture of the 1960s. Exploring the Music of Barbara Strozzi Wednesday, March 20, 10 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. and 11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Arts Building (ART 2.03.18A), Main Campus This lecture will explore Candace Magners work as a feminist musicologist and the music of Barbara Strozzi from a theoretical standpoint and historical. Womanness in the United States: A History of Trauma Wednesday, March 20, 10 a.m. Student Union Harris Room (HSU 2.212), Main Campus Author Dominique Christina will read from her book Anarcha Speaks: A History in Poems. She will also speak to the vulnerability of bodies of black women and the history of medical experimentation endured. Body Beautiful: Health, Identities, and Bodies in Pop Culture Wednesday, March 20, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Student Union Harris Room (HSU 2.212), Main Campus Small group, facilitated discussion on the topic of beauty and image. Diasporic Sounds across Borders Thursday, March 21, 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. McKinney Humanities Building (MH 3.04.20) Main Campus Ximena Violante, co-founder of Philly-based Interminable and Son Revoltura, will share their latest futuristic music project rooted in diasporic connection. This interactive talk will particularly explore improvisation shifts across culture, gender, sexuality and the body. Monsoon Wedding Film Screening Friday, March 22, 11 a.m. McKinney Humanities Building (MH 3.04.28), Main Campus This Bollywood romantic comedy explores a New Delhi family who reworks traditional values in a globalized world while organizing the marriage of their eldest daughter. UW Entrepreneurship Summit Expands to Two Days of Support, Training Christopher Gray founder and CEO of Scholly Inc. is the keynote speaker for the third annual Entrepreneurship Summit April 17-18 at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center. (Christopher Gray Photo) The University of Wyoming College of Business will host the third annual UW Entrepreneurship Summit April 17-18 at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center. With efforts throughout the state to increase economic diversity, the College of Business has expanded the event to offer professional development workshops to educators, and also entrepreneur and ecosystems sessions. The annual John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition also will be held during the summit. The competition encourages students to act on their talents, ideas and energy to produce tomorrow's leading businesses. Featured speakers for the summit include UW President Laurie Nichols, College of Business Dean David Sprott, Wyoming Business Council CEO Shawn Reese and keynote speaker Christopher Gray, founder and CEO of Scholly Inc. Speakers will discuss entrepreneurial resources, highlight some of the emerging companies throughout the state and focus on building connections to strengthen Wyomings entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Wednesday, April 17 Entrepreneurship Summit session will be open to high school faculty, staff and administration as a free professional development program, focusing on high school business, economics and entrepreneurship. Among topics to be discussed are lean startup methodologies; entrepreneurship in the classroom; a business school perspective on economics; and assurance of learning outcomes. To register for the event, go to https://survey.uwyo.edu/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=94LH7nmMH. This event is a great opportunity for our college to give back to the inspirational educators in our wonderful state. Positive change comes from educating the citizens of Wyoming and helping young students to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, says Patrick Kreiser, the UW College of Business Rile Chair in Entrepreneurship and Leadership. As I always tell my own students, anything in life is possible with a positive attitude and a lot of hard work. We will have a fun day but, when educators leave, we also want them to have something tangible to take back to their districts in order to meaningfully integrate entrepreneurial concepts into their curriculum. The Thursday, April 18 Entrepreneurship Summit session will be open for the public with purchase of an event ticket. Ticket prices are $49 until April 1 and will be $79 after that date. Students will be admitted free with a prior RSVP. Tickets can be purchased online at uw.uwyo.edu/UWsummit2019. The student RSVP link is www.uwyo.edu/business/entrepreneurship/. Participants on the summits second day will experience elements within the entrepreneur and ecosystem tracks. Workshops and panels to help entrepreneurs understand the resources available and also provide an opportunity for those resources to better clarify the needs of entrepreneurs across the state will be available. Discussions will focus on the Wyoming Business Councils StartUp Grant Program; external speakers sharing new ways to incubate companies; and a teen entrepreneur who will shift many peoples perceptions on what it takes to run a company. We are excited about the individuals and organizations that have stepped up to support this event, says Steve Russell, assistant College of Business dean. If you are an entrepreneur, want to be one, work with entrepreneurs as a part of your job or simply just care about entrepreneurship in the state, you need to be here on April 18. Summit participants are encouraged to attend the John P. Ellbogen $50K Entrepreneurship Competition finalists business pitches. The competition awards cash prizes to outstanding teams of student entrepreneurs who submit their business plans for new ventures that show significant business potential. The five finalists are: -- Asabi, a nonprofit organization that will create and implement practical courses, such as programming, in a format compatible with structural limitations of developing countries. -- Autosense Vehicle Occupancy Detection System, a device that uses a variety of sensors to monitor the environment of a vehicle and help prevent human and animal deaths. -- Scitech Energy, which proposes to formulate highly efficient, bio-friendly surfactants for application in enhanced oil recovery. -- The Petrichor Records, an independent, local record label in Laramie, with a focus on signing do it yourself bands based on talent, not genre. -- Torch Creamery, which provides quality ice cream creations through advocacy and employment for people with disabilities. Every year that I have been involved in this competition, the teams get better. Their commitment to actually starting these businesses is what keeps me going every day, says Corey Billington, the College of Business Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship. At this point in the competition, things shift from only being an educational experience to the realization that these entrepreneurs will be the ones hiring people to work in Wyoming, paying taxes in Wyoming and making our state a better place. For information about the event, visit www.uwyo.edu/business/entrepreneurship/. Media planning to attend the event must RSVP to Caitlyn Spradley at caitlyn.spradley@uwyo.edu or call (307) 766-2301. Additional access details will be provided upon confirmation. UW Professor Named Recipient of Counseling Leadership Award Amanda DeDiego University of Wyoming Assistant Professor Amanda DeDiego recently was named the recipient of the Robert H. Rencken Emerging Professional Leader Award for 2019. The award recognizes an American Counseling Association (ACA) member who has demonstrated the potential to become a dedicated leader of the counseling profession in future years. DeDiego will be recognized for her accomplishment at the 2019 ACA Conference and Expo March 28-31 in New Orleans. She will receive complimentary registration to attend the conference and accept the award. DeDiego entered the counseling profession to make a difference in the lives of those around her. As a counselor educator, she has the ability to effect positive change throughout the profession by molding the future counselors that come through the UW program. I hope to be able to help contribute to and shape our process of training and supporting counselors, says DeDiego, who teaches at UW-Casper. My job is really to help provide resources for our community. The better we can train counselors in the university setting and support them in the community, the better we are able to provide critical services for clients. Students tell how Dr. DeDiegos mentoring support and knowledge help them realize the long-reaching effects of their counseling efforts, says UW Professor Mary Alice Bruce, who nominated DeDiego for the award. Our teaching and learning community, as well as the counseling profession, is better because of Dr. DeDiegos leadership. Beyond UW, DeDiego is a leader and advocate for counseling and counseling professionals throughout Wyoming and the nation. She is currently co-chair of the Emerging Leaders Program for the Rocky Mountain Association for Counselor Education and Supervision; publicity chair for the Association for Creativity in Counseling; and co-chair for Chi Sigma Iota (CSI)-sponsored student posters at the ACA conference. Once, she even took time out of a trip to Washington, D.C., for ACA Institute for Leadership Training to meet with U.S. Sen. John Barrasso to discuss Medicare coverage for counseling services. DeDiego was invited to serve on the board of the Wyoming Counseling Association (WCA), serving as secretary, then as state president. She has helped to elevate the counseling profession by organizing an interdisciplinary conference including social workers and addiction specialists. DeDiego also has facilitated a number of workshops throughout the state in partnership with various groups. In addition to teaching at UW, she serves as the faculty adviser for the CSI student honor society. Of special note is Dr. DeDiegos leadership and advocacy for our state, Bruce says. As a brand-new tenure-track faculty member, her positive leadership abilities were evident. When elected to the WCA, she energized the leadership team and helped to bridge the gap between counseling and social work by initiating a successful interdisciplinary state conference. DeDiegos experiences provide an example for the students under her mentorship to follow in her footsteps toward leadership. I love to include my students in conference or community presentations, in writing and in research. I hope to empower them to share their knowledge and skills throughout their careers as community stakeholders, DeDiego says. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Govt Publishes Financial Services Technical Notice for a 'No Deal Brexit' In the event of a no deal Brexit on 29 March 2019, HM Government of Gibraltar says it will be ready for departure from the EU with our legislation amended to ensure a fully functioning financial services regime across all sectors. 'Gibraltars position in the European Union derives from the UKs position and Gibraltar will follow the UK in whatever arrangement is finally agreed. Status of Gibraltar under EU Law Gibraltar has a special status in the EU by virtue of Article 355(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (previously Article 299(4) of the EC Treaty) which states that: The provisions of the Treaties shall apply to the European territories for whose external relations a Member State is responsible. Gibraltar is a separate territory to which the EU Treaties apply and Gibraltar has transposed all relevant EU Directives, including all EU Directives that apply to financial services. EU law isdirectlygiven effect in Gibraltar bythe operation of Gibraltars ownEuropean Communities Act 1972, which is primary legislation passed by the Gibraltar Parliament. The Government of Gibraltar has enacted its own EU (Withdrawal) Act 2019 (EUWA), which forms part of the wider work the Government is undertaking to prepare for the UKs and Gibraltars withdrawal from the EU. The EUWA is in similar terms to the UKs EU Withdrawal Act 2018. The EUWA As there is a risk that there will not be an arrangement in place on 29 March 2019, the Government must plan for a no deal scenario. The Government intends to use powers in the EUWA to ensure that Gibraltar continues to have a functioning financial services regulatory regime in all scenarios. The EUWA will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 on exit day and converts into Gibraltar domestic law the existing body of directly applicable EU law (including EU Regulations). It also preserves Gibraltar laws relating to EU membership e.g. legislation implementing EU Directives. This body of law is referred to as retained EU law. The EUWA also gives Ministers powers to prevent, remedy or mitigate any failure of EU law to operate effectively, or any other deficiency in retained EU law, through regulations. The regulations are not intended to make policy changes, other than to reflect Gibraltars new position outside the EU, and to smooth the transition to this situation. The scope of the Ministerial power reflects this. Arrangements between the UK and Gibraltar The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Gibraltar) Order 2001 (the Gibraltar Order) controls the arrangements between Gibraltar and the UK for access to each others markets. The Gibraltar Order provides for access arrangements through deemed passporting rights. The UK has laid two Statutory Instruments which amend the Gibraltar Order as well as other EU derived and EU exit legislation to preserve passporting arrangements between the UK and Gibraltar, and to ensure that existing regulatory treatments in relation to Gibraltar continue to function effectively in UK law after exit day. The UK has unequivocally confirmed that the current access arrangements for Gibraltar financial services firms to access the UK market will continue post Brexit and Gibraltar has equally confirmed access for UK firms into Gibraltar. Similarly, in the event of no deal, the Government will be introducing draft regulations to retain reciprocal market access arrangements between Gibraltar and the UK. The draft Financial Services (Passport Rights and Transitional Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (the Regulations), made under the EUWA, will: Retain reciprocal passporting rights for Gibraltar and UK firms in respect of financial services which are subject to regulation under the single market directives; Include the introduction of transitional arrangements enabling EEA firms that currently passport into Gibraltar to continue to do so under a temporary permission for a limited period of time whilst they consider if they want to apply for full authorisation in Gibraltar or cease activities; and Include the introduction of a restricted temporary permission for pre-existing contractual obligations, enabling EEA firms to continue carrying out regulated activities in Gibraltar where doing so is necessary to perform ongoing contracts to which they were a party before exit day. The Government will be supplementing the Regulations with an additional set of regulations. These will include detailed changes to existing legislation in order to: Retain existing market access between Gibraltar and the UK; Retain the main elements of single market directives to apply between Gibraltar and the UK (e.g. Solvency II, MiFID II, IDD); Ensure that UK deposits remain protected after exit day; and Capture market abuse related issues. Financial services contingency preparations The Government, working closely with the GFSC, is undertaking a thorough review of EU and Gibraltar domestic financial services legislation to identify deficiencies that will arise when Gibraltar leaves the EU and existing EU law is transferred to Gibraltar law. Wherever practicable, the approach is that the same laws and rules that are currently in place in Gibraltar will continue to apply at the point of exit, providing continuity and certainty as we leave the EU. Some changes will be required to reflect Gibraltars new position outside the EU. The Governments approach to fixing deficiencies Gibraltars financial sector is overseen by the Government and underpinned by a strong legislative framework with a world-class regulator, the GFSC. This means that the responsibilities of EU bodies could be re-assigned efficiently and effectively, providing firms, funds and their customers with confidence after exit. Gibraltars financial services legislation already provides for third country operators providing services into Gibraltar. EU financial services firms operating in Gibraltar broadly would become subject to the same supervisory regime that Gibraltar already applies to other third countries. This existing legislative framework provides powers for extensive cooperation with global regulatory bodies. When Gibraltar is no longer part of the EU, and so the EU obligation of reciprocal cooperation no longer applies, this existing framework could be relied upon to ensure this important cooperation continues. Temporary Permissions Regime (TPR) A key consideration is to provide for continuity and to allow time to prepare for a smooth transition to the new regime. As in the United Kingdom, the Government will be introducing a Temporary Permissions Regime (TPR). To deal with the loss of passporting rights on Gibraltars exit from the EU without a negotiated agreement, the TPR will allow EEA authorised firms to continue operating in Gibraltar for a time-limited period. For those firms wishing to maintain their Gibraltar business on a permanent basis, the regime will provide sufficient time to apply for full authorisation from the GFSC. EEA authorised firms will not be able to use the UK-Gibraltar passporting arrangements after exit day. These rights will only be available for firms incorporated and headquartered in Gibraltar and the UK. Split of responsibilities between the Government and the GFSC In leaving the EU without a deal, many functions currently carried out at an EU level would cease to apply to Gibraltar and would need to be provided for in Gibraltars regulatory regime. These changes will be evident in the regulations the Government of Gibraltar will be introducing to address the deficiencies when Gibraltar leaves the EU. The Implementation Period It is still unclear whether the Withdrawal Agreement will be ratified and therefore if there will be a transitional period between 29 March 2019 and 31 December 2020. In the event that the Withdrawal Agreement enters into force that transitional period will exist to allow for transition for the UK and Gibraltar arising from withdrawal from the EU. The transitional period (also known as the implementation period) will provide time to introduce the new arrangements that will underpin the future relationship between the UK and the EU, and Gibraltar. Any revised arrangements between the UK and the EU will include Gibraltar. During the implementation period, common EU rules will continue to apply in Gibraltar. The UK will continue to implement new EU law that comes into effect and Gibraltar will do the same. This will mean that access by Gibraltar authorised firms to EU markets will continue on current terms until the end of the implementation period. During the implementation period, EU financial services firms operating in Gibraltar, and Gibraltar financial services firms operating in the EU, will be able to continue to undertake regulated activities, either by means of passporting rights or under other relevant EU frameworks. EU and third country (non-EU) financial market infrastructures that have existing authorisation or recognition under EU legislation will continue to be able to provide services to Gibraltar, enabling access to financial market infrastructures without disruption. Inbound firms currently permitted to operate in Gibraltar without Gibraltar authorisation or recognition may plan on the assumption that they will not need Gibraltar authorisation or recognition before the end of the implementation period. The Legislative Reform Programme Separately from EU exit preparations, the new Financial Services Bill which amends and consolidates our existing legislation, will not be presented to Parliament until after the 29th March 2019 and an opportunity given for the Finance Centre Council and the sector to be consulted.' Government have said it will publish more information as required, "We aim to give businesses and individuals as much certainty as possible bearing in mind the continued uncertainty as to the final Brexit outcome. This notice is meant for guidance only. You should consider whether you need to take independent professional advice." Gibraltar Ancient DNA Research Shines Spotlight on Iberia Gibraltar-based scientists have contributed to a major genetic study of the history of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula. The international team led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Spain has conducted the largest-ever study of ancient DNA from the Iberian Peninsula, spanning 8,000 years. The largest study to date of ancient DNA from the Iberian Peninsula offers new insights into the populations that lived in this region over the last 8,000 years. The most startling discovery suggests that local Y chromosomes were almost completely replaced during the Bronze Age. Results show that a Neolithic skull from Europa Point belonged to a woman, whose ancestry was largely from Anatolia in present-day Turkey. These findings provide the first opportunity to compare ancient Iberian genomic information to historical records. This large study has offered new insights into the populations that lived in this region over the last 8,000 years. The most startling discovery suggests that local Y chromosomes were almost completely replaced during the Bronze Age. The work is published online in Science on the 15th March, by a 111-person international team led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain. The Gibraltar team, participating in the project are Clive Finlayson, Geraldine Finlayson, Stewart Finlayson and Francisco Giles Guzman. Two Gibraltar institutions are represented in the paper: The Gibraltar National Museum and the Institute of Life and Earth Sciences of The University of Gibraltar. This is the first time that we have published Ancient Human DNA from Gibraltar, said Professor Clive Finlayson. It is really exciting to be involved in this cutting- edge work. Three Gibraltar Bronze Age males, dated to between 2,000 and 1,500 B.C. and included in the study, have no close familiar relationships but have a very similar ancestry makeup to other Bronze Age samples from the Iberian Peninsula. Starting in 2,500 B.C. and continuing for about 500 years, the analyses indicate tumultuous social events played out that reshaped Iberians' paternal ancestry continuing to today. This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence in ancient-DNA research of sex bias in the prehistoric period, said Inigo Olalde, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of David Reich at Harvard Medical School and first author of the study. The three Bronze Age individuals from Gibraltar were confirmed males by the genetic analysis, commented Professor Geraldine Finlayson. It is very likely that they had light skin and dark eyes and that they were lactose intolerant, she added. The study also details genetic variation among ancient hunter-gatherers, documents intermingling of ancient Iberians with people from North Africa and the Mediterranean, and provides an additional explanation for why present-day Basques, who have such a distinctive language and culture, are also ancestrally different from other Iberians. Some of the findings support or clarify what is known about the history and prehistory of Iberia, while others challenge them. It's amazing how the technology of ancient DNA, when combined with information from archaeology, anthropology, linguistics and the study of historical records, can bring the past to life, said Reich, professor of genetics in the HMS Blavatnik Institute, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and co-senior author of the study. The team analyzed genomes from 403 ancient Iberians who lived between about 6,000 B.C. and 1,600 A.D., 975 ancient people from outside Iberia and about 2,900 present-day people. These included an individual who lived in Gibraltar around 5,400 B.C. and three who lived in Gibraltar between 2,000 and 1,500 B.C. It is unbelievable what new technology is doing. I would never have guessed, when we were excavating these individuals over ten years ago, that we would be talking about their DNA today, said Fran Giles, archaeologist and Senior Scientific Officer at the Gibraltar National Museum. 271 of the ancient Iberian genomes (including those from Gibraltar) had not been published before. Nearly two-thirds came from skeletons no older than 2,000 B.C., boosting by 25 times the number of publicly available genomes from this relatively recent period. Father figures As far back as 2,500 B.C., the researchers found, Iberians began living alongside people who moved in from central Europe and carried recent genetic ancestry from the Russian steppe. Within a few hundred years, analyses showed, the two groups had extensively interbred. To the researchers surprise, men and women from the two groups contributed strikingly unequal proportions of DNA to subsequent generations. Before the central Europeans moved in, Iberians had no detectable recent ancestry from outside the Iberian Peninsula. After 2,000 B.C., 40 percent of Iberians' overall ancestors and 100 percent of their patrilineal ancestorsthat is, their father and their fathers father and so forthcould be traced to the incoming groups from central Europe. The results were astonishing, said Carles Lalueza-Fox, a regular contributor at the Gibraltar Calpe conferences, principal investigator of the Paleogenomics Lab at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and co-senior author of the study. The data suggest there was a major genetic change that is not obvious from the archaeological record." What could have instigated such a dramatic turnover is not yet clear. It would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that Iberian men were killed or forcibly displaced," said Olalde, "as the archaeological record gives no clear evidence of a burst of violence in this period." One alternative possibility is that local Iberian women preferred the central European newcomers in a context of strong social stratification, said Lalueza-Fox. Genetic data alone will not reveal the whole story, the researchers emphasize. Other fields such as archaeology and anthropology need to be brought to bear to gain insight into what shaped these genetic patterns," said Reich. Our study offers a change in perspective and invites people to look at the archaeological record again with different eyes, said Lalueza-Fox. Analyzing additional samples from this time periodthe researchers had about 60could provide greater detail about the genetic turnover or reveal that Y chromosomes shifted less in some populations or regions of Iberia than others. As the centuries passed, paternal ancestry continued to evolve, the team found. Still, most present-day Iberian men can trace their paternal ancestry to these Bronze Age newcomers. A slice through time Other findings included: Groups of hunter-gatherers scattered across Iberia had markedly different genetic makeup from one another in the Mesolithic era, from about 8,000 B.C. to 5,500 B.C., suggesting that new groups of hunter-gatherers migrated to Iberia and transformed local populations before farmers arrived with their own distinct ancestry from Anatolia (present-day Turkey). The Gibraltar individual from 5,400 B.C., fits into this pattern. Stewart Finlayson of the Gibraltar National Museum, and a co-author of the paper said, The genetics shows her to be female. Her ancestry is most similar to other Early Neolithic samples from Iberia and not to later Middle Neolithic individuals, with ~90% of her ancestry related to Neolithic populations from Anatolia and 10% of ancestry related to Mesolithic Europeans. We also know that she too was lactose intolerant, like everybody during her time. One person buried in Iberia between 2,400 B.C. and 2,000 B.C. had entirely North African ancestry, and a second person who lived between 2,000 B.C. and 1,600 B.C. had a grandparent with North African ancestry. Researchers have known that the two regions engaged in trade at that time; the new study confirms that people also moved from Africa to Europe. Samples from Iron Age people who lived around 900 B.C. to 19 B.C. in areas where very different languages were spoken, all had significant ancestry from the Russian steppe. This suggests that influxes of people did not always spark linguistic changes, specifically the adoption of Indo-European languages, the study authors said. Modern-day Basques are similar genetically to Iron Age people throughout the Iberian Peninsula, leading the researchers to hypothesize that Basque ancestry and language remained relatively intact in the intervening millennia while other groups around them mixed and more significantly changed. North African ancestry was more widespread in Iberia during the Roman period (about 20 B.C. to 400 A.D.) than previously appreciated, especially in the south - the genetic influences occurred well before Tarik ibn-Zeyad landed in Gibraltar in 711 A.D., starting the North African conquest of Iberia. Minister for Ministry of Education, Heritage, Environment, Energy and Climate Change, the Hon John Cortes said, Once again the work of the Gibraltar National Museum is at the forefront of international research. We are all proud of that and particularly of the relevance that our prehistory has in piecing together our past. At the invitation of the WCO Council Vice-Chair, General de Brigade Toumany Sangare, Director General of Guinea Customs, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya attended the 24th Conference of Directors General of Customs of the West and Central Africa region, held in Bangui (Central African Republic) from 13 to 15 March 2019. Mr. Henri-Marie Dondra, Minister of Finance and Budget, welcomed participants on behalf of the Government of the Central African Republic at the opening ceremony. He recognized the diversity of the issues to be debated by the Directors General of Customs in the region, which demonstrated the increasingly important role played by Customs, particularly with regard to economic development. He emphasized the need to address threats to economic competitiveness as well as the need to protect society from the scourge of terrorism and the trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals. He highlighted the necessity to improve Customs operations and working methods, and stressed the importance of information exchange both between administrations and with the private sector. After extending his warm welcome to participants, the Director General of Customs of the Central African Republic, Mr. Frederic Theodore Inamo, expressed his appreciation to the WCO for all the support provided to the region. He noted that the 24th Conference of Directors General of Customs was taking place in an international context marked by trade liberalization, terrorism threats and the ongoing challenge faced by Customs in balancing trade facilitation and security requirements. He highlighted the critical role played by technology and, in this connection, recognized the pertinence of the WCO theme for 2019 : SMART borders for seamless Trade, Travel and Transport. Secretary General Mikuriya then presented the WCOs key priorities, highlighting, among other things: automation, data analytics, risk management, and the use of technology; human resource management and development; existing initiatives addressing emerging security threats; performance measurement, including the work being carried out to ensure that the World Bank takes into account Customs' input when preparing the Doing Business" report; international cooperation, regional integration and interconnectivity; the WCO Framework of Standards on cross-border e-commerce; and the strategic review of key WCO instruments, such as the Harmonized System and the Revised Kyoto Convention. In the course of the Conference, delegates heard a number of reports on the activities undertaken in the region over the past year, and those planned for the coming months. In addition, there was a particular focus during the Conference on: Performance measurement and national experiences of using performance measurement tools, such as the WCO Time Release Study; Progress achieved with regional security-related initiatives, such as "Securite par Collaboration (SPC++)" where the WCO West and Central Africa Security Project was highlighted, as well as the efforts aimed at countering the illicit trafficking of cultural objects; Human resource management (HRM), with a focus on the achievements and progress of the WCO West African Customs Administrations Modernization Project funded by Sweden, including national experiences in implementing the project and the different tools available; Developments with regard to pre-shipment inspection contracts, which were discussed at length, with several administrations sharing their national experiences and success stories in the development of internal Customs capacities; The interconnection of transit systems, including advances as regards the development of the different existing systems and pilot projects; Border management practices in the context of natural disasters and epidemics, presented by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), and progress in connection with the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area presented by the African Union. In addition, delegates were updated on the implementation of the region's Strategic Plan 2018-2022 and its related road map. Delegates unanimously endorsed Guinea and its Director General, Mr. Sangare, to continue as the WCO Vice-Chair for the West and Central Africa region. During a special ceremony held in the Presidential Palace, H.E. Mr. Faustin Archange Touadera, President of the Central African Republic, decorated Dr. Mikuriya with a medal and the distinction of Commander of the National Order of Merit of the Central African Republic. This decoration was also awarded to Mr. Sangare, WCO Vice-Chair for the region, and to Mr. Inamo, Director General of Customs of the Central African Republic. Dr. Mikuriya expressed his sincere appreciation for this prestigious decoration which he considered to be a sign of recognition for frontline Customs officers around the globe, who work tirelessly and often under difficult conditions in order to contribute to economic and social development and to protect citizens from the threats posed by illicit trade and terrorism. At the invitation of the new Director of German Federal Customs Criminological Office (Zollkriminalamt), Dr. Rainer Mellwig, the RILO WE Team visited him on 14 February 2019. Dr. Mellwig, who recently took up his position, was Deputy Director Enforcement for several years at the WCO headquarters in Brussels. As one of the initiators of the RILO recommendation, he wanted to know how the work of the RILO Network envolved during the last years. We informed him about our on-going projects and planned operations and discussed new developments in international cooperation of customs authorities. We thank Dr. Mellwig for this open and fruitful exchange, sharing each others views and ideas. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. Embed from Getty Images James Ward-Prowse has been drafted into the England squad for the upcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers after three players pulled out through injury after the weekends domestic fixtures. The 24-year-old Southampton midfielder, who has scored in his last three games, comes in as a replacement for Fabian Delph and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, with defender John Stones also withdrawing after picking up a knock. Gareth Southgate sang Ward-Prowses praises when the in-form Saints set-piece specialist narrowly missed out on a place when the initial squad was announced last week: We know there are some players just on the fringes that we wouldnt hesitate to call in, both in terms of their ability, but also in the case of a player like James Ward-Prowse and his character. Hes absolutely the sort of character you want around the squad. Its also being reported that Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has pulled out of Southgates squad too due to a twisted ankle suffered against Bayern Munich in midweek. Quite who is going to replace the other three knackers remains to be seen. Harry Winks and Jesse Lingard are nursing groin and hamstring injuries and the midfield pool doesnt really extend too far beyond that. Surely James Maddison is a shoe-in? England are due to play the Czech Republic and Montenegro at Wembley on Friday 22nd March and Monday 25th March respectively. Wanna feel young when your grandchildren are already in kindergarten? How about enrolling in a college that teaches you how to be a youngster? Attending "elderly college" is in vogue at the moment in fast-aging China -- just take a look at one institution in central China's Hunan Province, whose classes on ballroom dance, yoga and how to take a selfie using smartphones are luring in legions of retirees. At Happy Seniors University, youngsters become teachers while seniors become inquisitive students. At the same age as their teachers' parents, the elderly students are eager to learn anything that can help them live like teens and twenty-somethings. Some have to start from the very basics. Xin Yu, a teacher with Happy Seniors, said the university's smartphone course teaches students how to text and download apps before proceeding to more advanced content like shopping online and taking photos. "We found that many old people have the most advanced iPhones but only know how to make phone calls. They can't even send messages or take photos that are not blurry," she said. More ambitious learners can opt for courses like catwalks and Latin dance. There is even a class that teaches senior tourists how to communicate in English when traveling abroad. Liu Jianjian, headmaster of Happy Seniors, said since opening in 2016, more than 10,000 senior students have attended classes at their 41 branches across the central province. Booming demand is now feeding their ambition to expand to other provinces. Fly over the Empty Nest China has around 60,000 elderly education institutions, according to the China Association of Universities for the Aged. Apart from those funded by governments, privately-run institutions like Happy Seniors are also cropping up, suggesting there is a huge market for elderly education yet to be saturated. And they are expecting a bigger boost, as China's 2016-2020 development plan for elderly education has called on every city to have at least one university for senior citizens, and for 50 percent of towns and 30 percent of villages to have schools or learning centers for the elderly by the end of the decade. Behind the later-life learning fever is a quickly aging society. China's population aged over 60 reached 241 million at the end of 2017, and the number is expected to peak at 487 million around 2050, or a third of the total population. Though a significant number of retirees manage to keep their life busy by taking care of their grandchildren, many others are left idle in their "empty nests" as their children flock to other cities to seek better-paying jobs. How to spend their spare time has become not only a family matter, but also a societal matter. In recent years, mahjong rooms in the name of "community centers for the aged" have sprang up in droves, city squares and parks have been invaded by "nanny dancers," and neighboring countries like Thailand and Japan have been seeing more arrivals of gray-haired Chinese tourists. Zhao Baoquan, director of Happy Maturity, a Hunan-based newspaper for elderly readers, said the good news is that most of China's "empty nesters" are not feeling lonely, as they are actively seeking socialization. The raging popularity of educational institutions also suggests an increase in healthy, energetic and educated Chinese seniors, thanks to rising prosperity and medical advances, Liu Hongchen, an expert on seniors at the China Volunteers Association, told Xinhua. "The elderly universities also meet seniors' great psychological and social needs. They don't want to be marginalized and want to prove their worthiness by joining the classes," he said. Good Old Students Feng Guangqian, 68, agrees. An active student in four music classes at Happy Seniors, Feng said that after retirement, he and his wife constantly felt the urge to learn something other than "the study of their grandchildren." "We care more about the process than the results. Studying makes us feel much younger," said Feng, who is also the leader of the university's students' union. Li Danyang, the Latin dance teacher at Happy Seniors, admits that most of her old students are good learners. "Old people study hard in class and practice a lot out of class. They learn even faster than small children," she told Xinhua. (Source: Xinhua) Containers labeled with ZIH from Chinese city of Zhengzhou are seen at DUSS Hamburg-Billwerder intermodal terminal in Hamburg, Germany, on Jan. 21, 2019. [Xinhua/Shan Yuqi] Anastasiya Sizikova, a young woman who lives in Germany's western city of Dusseldorf, could have hardly imagined a few years ago that her career and life would be so closely linked to China. Speaking three languages including English and Russian, she is now a director of logistics and business development at DBO Bahnoperator company, a firm established against the backdrop of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to handle container shipments from the European Union (EU) to China using block trains. "I'm a happy person, because I truly love my job and enjoy doing it," Sizikova told Xinhua. "Through the example of China Rail Express, we can see how fast the cooperation between China and Europe is growing, we are proud to be part of this process," Sizikova said. Following the principle of consultation and collaboration for shared benefits, the BRI is increasingly embraced by European countries and people, who have already benefited from the development opportunities the initiative offers. In the meantime, the BRI cooperation has been playing an increasingly important role in deepening China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership, which has come a long way since its establishment in 2003. Markets Connected Since it was proposed in 2013, the BRI has been bringing tangible benefits to both Europe and China. Gradually growing into an iconic brand in Europe, China Railway Express, which connects 59 Chinese cities with 49 European cities in 15 countries, made 6,363 trips in 2018, surging 73 percent from 2017, according to the China Railway Corporation. Those freight trains have rumbled along the routes, taking garments, auto parts, chemicals and other Chinese goods to European consumers, while taking back European food, machinery, equipment and timber. For Spain, China Railway Express not only connects Madrid with China's eastern city of Yiwu, but also provides a better opportunity for the two countries to access and explore each others' markets. "Yiwu is a great global bazaar, and for the enterprises in the community of Madrid, it's also a big door to enter the huge Chinese market," Francisco Aranda, vice president and spokesman of Business Confederation of Madrid, told Xinhua. The Foundation for the Exchange between Yiwu and Spain, a non-profit organization founded in 2016, recently announced that it will invite some 70 Spanish entrepreneurs to present their products at the Yiwu Imported Commodities Fair in late May this year, in which Spain will be the guest country. For Poland, one of the largest agricultural countries in Europe, the China Railway Express is a good alternative for sea transportation as it helps Polish companies bring more competitive products to the Chinese market. "That would be a great opportunity to start with fresh, short shelf life products that currently can't be delivered to the Chinese clients. It could also improve the frequency and efficiency of deliveries," said Malgorzata Cebelinska, trade director of Poland's leading dairy company Mlekpol. Seeing robust growth in the Chinese market in 2018, Mlekpol is now one of the leading players in the sector of imported milk to China. She noted that her company is considering expanding business activities and range of products in the Chinese market. "The freight train service between China and Europe is a powerful example of how the Belt and Road cooperation can drive common development and prosperity of China and Europe with enhanced connectivity," Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said at the 55th Munich Security Conference in February. Investments and Jobs While guiding European companies' to growing businesses in China, the BRI also directly leads to new investments and jobs in Europe. The Piraeus port, where China's COSCO Shipping has investment, is an exemplary case of win-win partnership between Greece and China within the framework of the BRI. The port started to take a new look and achieved impressive results a few years after the Chinese investment came, in the wake of the debt crisis that hit Greece hard, Vassilis Korkidis, president of Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry told Xinhua. "It was an investment for more than 3.5 billion euros (4 billion U.S. dollars). There are a lot of activities around the port that were activated by the port development. So that means new jobs, better-pay jobs than the rest of the workers' salaries in Greece," he explained. The Peljesac Bridge, one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Croatia's history, is another example of win-win cooperation under the BRI. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said China Road and Bridge Corporation's active participation in the construction of the projects "is a concrete economic contribution." Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also highly valued the presence of Chinese companies in the country, saying that they have contributed to the full employment and the long-term economic growth of Hungary. Positive Response As an important global public goods by China, the BRI keeps winning more and more positive feedback throughout Europe. Michel Kempeneers, chief operating officer of overseas export and investment department at Wallonia Export-Investment Agency, told Xinhua that Belgium is very open to Chinese partners in terms of the BRI cooperation. "We can have win-win partnerships together, talking with our Chinese colleagues with the same language of openness," said Kempeneers, adding that Belgium is not an ending point of the BRI, but a new starting point for the rest of Europe and "we welcome these flights and trains from China with a lot of happiness." Thilo Ketterer, a public auditor and partner at the German professional service firm Roedl & Partner, has followed the BRI from the very beginning in 2013 and took part in the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017. The initiative, which brings everybody together, is "really fantastic," said Ketterer. He was deeply impressed and encouraged by the fact that the initiative has turned from vision into reality. In fact, the BRI cooperation is extensively accepted as a major part of bilateral relations between China and the European countries. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that Spain will actively take part in the construction of the Belt and Road, which is of historic significance as China and Spain reached consensus last November to jointly push forward the construction of the Belt and Road to strengthen Asia-Europe connectivity and boost global trade. In addition, Greek Foreign Minister George Katrougalos said Greece will actively participate in the BRI and play a constructive role in promoting the bilateral relations and Europe-China cooperation. From the perspective of the EU as a whole, there is growing synergy between the BRI and the Juncker Plan, a 315-billion-euro (357 billion dollar) investment scheme championed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014 to boost private investment in European infrastructure projects. "I would like to witness the further development of success stories of the Belt and Road Initiative, to see more countries getting involved, to see new infrastructure development along the route, and to see growing cooperation between China and Europe," said Sizikova. (Xinhua reporters Zhu Sheng in Berlin, Guo Qiuda in Madrid, Zhang Zhang in Warsaw, Yu Shuaishuai in Athens, Gao Lei in Zagreb, Yuan Liang in Budapest, Pan Geping in Brussels, Wang Huijuan in Belgrade also contributed to this report.) Photo taken on Jan. 21, 2019 shows containers brought by the China-Europe freight trains at DUSS Hamburg-Billwerder intermodal terminal in Hamburg, Germany. [Xinhua/Shan Yuqi] A truck parks in front of cargo containers transported by trains of China Railway Express at Duisburg Intermodal Terminal (DIT) in Duisburg, Germany, on April 11, 2017. [Xinhua/Shan Yuqi] A cargo container of China Railway Express is loaded onto a truck at Eurokombi terminal in Hamburg, Germany, on May 29, 2018. [Xinhua/Shan Yuqi] A cargo container on a China Railway Express train is unloaded at Eurokombi terminal in Hamburg, Germany, on May 29, 2018. [Xinhua/Shan Yuqi] (Source: Xinhua) A community the size of Gresford should have its own GP service fresh calls to keep surgery in village This article is old - Published: Monday, Mar 18th, 2019 Wrexhams Assembly Member and MP have reiterated their calls for an under threat GP surgery to remain in Gresford. Lesley Griffiths AM and Ian Lucas MP have met Alyn Family Doctors to receive an update on the latest position and to discuss the outcome of the public meeting organised in Llay earlier this month. In February Wrexham.com reported that fresh proposals to relocate GP services from the village health centre to sites in Llay and Rossett had been put forward by the practice. Alyn Family Doctors previous application to close Gresford Health Centre for primary care was turned down by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in September 2018. But the doctors remain keen to transfer GP services based in Gresford to their other surgeries in Rossett and Llay and immediately made it clear they intended to appeal the decision. Before a second application could be considered, the Health Board requested that a thorough and sustained patient engagement needed to be carried out. As part of this improved engagement process, the practice organised the public meeting which took place in Llay on March 5th. The meeting was independently chaired by the Community Health Council and attendees included patients, all the practices GPs and Health Board personnel. Alyn Family Doctors believe they need to close the branch surgery in Gresford to ensure the practices own sustainability, highlighting occasions in recent months where the practice has experienced difficulties in keeping Gresford open due to staff sickness. The practice is also working with community staff locally on plans to develop a community base in Gresford. Lesley Griffiths AM said: While the practice has again outlined their reasons for wanting to leave Gresford, I can only reiterate that I firmly believe a GP service should remain in the village, whether it is provided by Alyn Family Doctors or an alternative practice. It is certainly a problematic and complex situation. GPs are self-employed independent contractors who are entitled to reallocate their services in a particular way but it is the responsibility of the Health Board to ensure every resident has access to a GP. Following last weeks public meeting, it was important to meet with the practice at the earliest opportunity. A community the size of Gresford should have its own GP service and I believe its vital we continue to communicate with the relevant bodies to ensure the best possible outcome. Ian Lucas MP added: Both Lesley and I remain very firm in our belief that Gresford must have its own GPs surgery. We had a long and constructive meeting with Alyn Family Doctors and will continue to liaise with the Health Board about these proposals. I appreciate it is a very complex situation but my paramount concern is for the people of Gresford, who use the surgery and want it to remain in the village. Many of them are elderly and would have great difficulty in travelling to either Llay or Rossett. (Click for large) Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-17 22:53:52|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close A building partially damaged during fighting between government forces and the Houthi rebels is seen in Aden, Yemen, on March 17, 2019. The internal military conflict between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi rebels continues amid lack of political solutions to achieve permanent peace in the impoverished Arab country. Yemen's citizens have been suffering from the four-year devastating conflict that left tens of thousands dead or injured, including at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the United Nations. (Xinhua/Murad Abdo) by Murad Abdo ADEN, Yemen, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The internal military conflict between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi rebels continues amid lack of political solutions to achieve permanent peace in the impoverished Arab country. Yemen's citizens have been suffering from the four-year devastating conflict that left tens of thousands dead or injured, including at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the United Nations. The fighting produced unbearable consequences for the war-ravaged country and what the UN describes as "the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time." Yemen's citizens remain pessimistic about their country's future following several rounds of peace talks conducted between the two warring rivals under the auspices of the United Nations which failed to achieve success. "All Yemeni political parties have no choice but to sit together and work to end the country's years-long suffering through peaceful solutions," said a 29-year-old citizen who introduced himself as Wael Al-Kholeedy. Revealing his suffering from the ongoing conflict, Aden-based citizen Wael, like thousands of other Yemenis, lost his job with a private company as a consequence of the ongoing war that severely paralyzed the country's economy. He told Xinhua that the country's civil war complicated his family's life and pushed him into working as a taxi driver in order to feed his four children. "I'm like many other people still suffering due to the consequences of the ongoing conflict that is still stealing the happiness of many families every day," Wael said. He added that "no hope to come back to my previous work with the private company, for it is still closed because of the situation moving forward into more escalation and collapse." Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north. It was believed that the military intervention in Yemen may continue for a number of months but most of Yemen's people say that it took a longer period and aggravated violence across the country. For Awadh Abdullah, the humanitarian situation in Yemen reached catastrophic levels because the long period of the military intervention added fuel to the fire and helped in multiplying the already existed crisis in the country. "The long period of the military intervention didn't benefit the ordinary people but helped to increase the crisis that was already available in Yemen," said Awadh who owns a supermarket in Aden. "Most of Yemenis supported the intervention during its first days but now they want an immediate end for that military campaign because it made the situation worse than it was before," he said. He added that "more aerial bombardments against Yemen means that more cases of malnutrition and other diseases will be recorded because military action is not a suitable solution for the crisis." Other Yemenis, including Fahid Mohamed, do not see a glimmer of hope for a peaceful future or an approaching end for the years-long fighting in Yemen but expect more political divisions and bloody years. "No one cares about finding a solution for Yemen's crisis because it's getting closer to become a forgotten war that may continue for more years," he said. "All other neighboring countries want to besiege the militia groups and contain the fighting inside Yemen but don't prefer to end it permanently," he said. The ongoing fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni government with daily Saudi-led airstrikes has 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| 2019-03-17 23:39:07|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Speaker of the Sudanese parliament Ibrahim Ahmed Omer (L) shakes hands with Gus M. Bilirakis (C), leader of the Freedoms Bloc at the U.S. Congress, also head of a U.S. congress delegation, in Khartoum, Sudan, March 17, 2019. A visiting U.S. congress delegation on Sunday said Sudan has made progress in the field of public freedom. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir) KHARTOUM, March 17 (Xinhua) -- A visiting U.S. congress delegation on Sunday said Sudan has made progress in the field of public freedom. The U.S. congress delegation on Sunday held talks with leaders of the Sudanese National Assembly in Khartoum. "I was very pleased in seeing that people here in Sudan have the right to worship," said Gus M. Bilirakis, leader of the Freedoms Bloc at the U.S. Congress, also head of the delegation. Bilirakis, further, commended Sudan's cooperation with his country in field of combating terrorism. Speaker of the Sudanese parliament Ibrahim Ahmed Omer stressed importance of the visit of the U.S. congressional delegation to Sudan. The U.S. congressional delegation began on Saturday meetings with Sudanese government officials and opposition leaders. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-17 23:49:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WARSAW, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Swimmers in Poland are set to dive into the world's deepest pool in late 2019. Known as "DeepSpot", the pool has caused a buzz due to its spine-chilling depth, which reaches 45 meters -- roughly corresponding to the height of a 15-story building. "Engineers appreciate the enormity of the challenges associated with the construction of such a pool. It's a piece of extreme engineering," DeepSpot Marketing Manager Bartek Wiecek told Xinhua. To fill it, owners will pour in over 8,000 cubic meters of water. When complete, "DeepSpot" will be open to public but will be of special interest to divers and marine professionals. The complex will also boast a hotel, restaurant and conference center. "DeepSpot will be the best solution for divers who want to improve their skills. It will deliver safe, comfortable, stable and perfect environment for diving training. It will be completely independent of external weather and open 24/7/365," Wiecek adds. The water temperature will be slightly higher than in traditional facilities of this type, meaning divers will not need special thermal insulation foam. According to the owners, the vast structure will boast the water equivalent of 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools and use advanced technology to filter the water flow and maintain pristine clarity. The pool is located on the outskirts of Warsaw, at the town of Mszczonow. "Locals are excited about our investment and support us very much. They invested a lot of time and money in the development of geothermal energy in their area, which caused that we decided to build Deepspot there," Wiecek adds. What makes this pool special is that it will be 16 feet (4.9 meters) deeper than the present record holder in Montegrotto Terme, a town in the north of Italy. Wiecek says divers from all over the world are sending in questions, as well as people interested in the construction problems which must be solved to make the project possible. "It is noteworthy to mention that a force of 50 tons acted for 1 square meter of the retaining wall. One wall of the excavation was 30x30 meters, which means that the construction of the excavation had to withstand the pressure of 180,000 tons of soil," Wiecek told Xinhua. The developer is also responsible for the well-known FlySpot indoor skydiving tunnels which imitate parachute jumps in an aerodynamic tunnel. Another "Deepspot" attraction will be a state-of-the-art underwater tunnel for spectators, where they can watch people diving without getting wet. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 03:09:36|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close Protesters take part in a demonstration in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 17, 2019. At least seven people were arrested after violent incidents in Belgrade that took place in the protests of the opposition coalition "Alliance for Serbia" on Saturday and Sunday. (Xinhua/Nemanja Cabric) BELGRADE, March 17 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were arrested after violent incidents in Belgrade that took place in the protests of the opposition coalition "Alliance for Serbia" on Saturday and Sunday. After Saturday night's violent entry into the building of RTS, Serbia's public broadcaster, several thousand protesters and opposition politicians gathered at another protest Sunday at noon, occupying all exits from the presidency building during a press conference of President Aleksandar Vucic. Vucic said at the press conference that he has no plans to negotiate with opposition politicians, while he asked the protesters to withhold from violence, because they will have to answer for their deeds in front of courts. "They chose a tough nut to crack. I am not scared of them at all," Vucic said. He advised people that disagree with the political agenda of the ruling party, not to allow to be used for political ambitions of opposition leaders, and be led into committing violence. Police confirmed that two people were arrested for suspicion that they had brought in a chainsaw to the building of RTS and waved it in front of the employees in this media house. Moreover, police brought into custody a suspect who allegedly has broken the glass door of RTS, while four more people were arrested for attacks on police officers - three for Saturday night's occupation of RTS, and one for attack on a policeman near the venue of Sunday's protests in front of the presidency building. Among the political leaders at the protests were former mayor Dragan Djilas, and the former foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, who several years ago campaigned to become UN Secretary General. After several hours of Sunday's occupation, protesters and opposition politicians changed their original plan to force Vucic to speak to them - and moved on to a nearby police station where the arrested protesters were allegedly held in custody. While protesters attempted to break into the police station and demand release of their comrades, the venue was secured by heavy police forces After some tension during which protesters threw bottles at the building of the police station, they dispersed at around 6 p.m. local time. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 03:19:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Sunday that his country won't return to war policies as the friend to all regional countries and an advocate of peace. Abdul Mahdi made the comments during a meeting with Qatari Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari and his accompanying delegation in the capital Baghdad, according to a statement by Abdul Mahdi's media office. "Iraq is a peace element that would serve the region and will not return to the policies of destructive wars," the statement quoted Abdul Mahdi as saying. "Our interests are with our neighbors and we have a strong will to open and cooperate with Qatar in all fields, and to exchange interests in the economic, trade and investment fields," the prime minister added. For his part, al-Kuwari said Qatar is determined to increase cooperation with Iraq and expand relations in economic, trade, construction and investment. The Qatari minister also expressed his country's desire to sign a free trade agreement with Iraq to exchange, encourage and protect investments between the two countries. Earlier in the day, al-Kuwari, heading a delegation of more than 30 businessmen and investors, arrived in Baghdad with the aim of boosting bilateral relations, particularly in the economic and investment sectors. The visit of the Qatari delegation to Iraq comes just days after the visit of a Saudi economic delegation, which aimed at activating relations on the strategic level and opening new horizons for cooperation in politics, economy, trade and investment. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 03:19:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ATHENS, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The suspect in last Friday's terrorist mosque attacks in New Zealand, which resulted in 50 casualties, had visited Greece in 2016, Greek national news agency AMNA reported Sunday, citing police. Greek authorities confirmed earlier local media reports that 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant also spent some time in Greece during his travels in the wider region. According to Greek police, Tarrant arrived at Athens airport from Istanbul, Turkey on March 20, 2016 and visited Heraklion port city on Crete island and Santorini island in the Aegean Sea. Also, he was on transit flights in Greece on Nov. 29 and Dec. 10, the same year, according to a police statement. In that case, Tarrant flew to Bucharest, Romania from Cairo, Egypt through Athens and returned to Cairo, police sources added. Greek authorities are investigating his moves during his stay in Greece, which, according to the same sources, lasted two weeks. Two words written among others on his weapons sounded the alarm for Greek authorities as well. Tarrant had written the Greek word "Turkofagos" in Latin characters which means "Turk eater". It was the nickname of Nikitaras, one of the leaders of the Greek war of independence against the Ottoman rule in the 19th century. According to reports so far, Tarrant had also written the names of other European military leaders who also fought against the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. The second word which is a reference to Greek history is the word "Lepanto" which is the name Venetian rulers had given to the Greek town of Nafpaktos in the 15th century, before the region fell under the control of the Ottomans. The Ottoman fleet had a big naval station in Nafpaktos, which is located about 170 km northwest of Athens. In 1571 the historical naval battle of Lepanto took place in the area, and Western forces defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 08:45:27|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close SYDNEY, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Australian counter-terrorism police raided two homes with links to the perpetrator of the Christchurch shooting in the State of New South Wales (NSW) on Monday. One of the homes belongs to the sister of the gunman, who had previously lived in NSW where he worked as a personal trainer. The man is alleged to have killed 50 people so far when he opened fire at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Friday. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation," NSW and Federal Police said in a joint statement. The homes were located in the far north of the state on Australia's east coast and police have reassured the local community that there was nothing to suggest a current or impending threat related to the search warrants. Police said that the family of the gunman are assisting with their enquiries. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 09:15:33|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, March 18 (Xinhua) -- An 18-year-old man has been charged with video offences by New Zealand Police and appeared in the Christchurch District Court Monday morning. In a statement, police said the man was arrested in the initial stages of their investigations into Friday's shooting, but he is not being charged in relation to the attack. Police at this stage do not believe he was directly involved. "We would like to remind people that it is an offence to distribute or possess an objectionable publication (under the Films Videos and Publications Classifications Act 1993), which carries a penalty of imprisonment," the statement read. The live stream video of the shootings in Christchurch has been classified by the Chief Censor's Office as objectionable. Friday's terror attacks have so far left 50 people killed and 50 others injured. The suspected gunman, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, was charged with murder. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 09:55:43|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can serve as an alternative treatment for opioid-related disease, Sam Xian Huang, honorary president of American Association of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture said Sunday. Opioid abuse has become a big problem of the American society as the drug causes a large number of deaths in the United States each year, and the federal government and American people have been working hard to find a solution to this social threat, Huang told Xinhua after the opening ceremony of an international academic symposium on the TCM, which kicked off here Sunday. On average, 130 Americans died every day from an opioid overdose in 2017, according to a report of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A study, issued in February by the weekly medical journal JAMA Network Open, showed that opioid-related deaths in the United States increased fourfold in the last two decades. The fight against opioid abuse provided a good opportunity for TCM development as acupuncture, which is a key part of the TCM, has been considered a top alternative for the non-medicinal therapy for the treatment of pain, Huang said. The TCM has been legalized in the United States for more than 40 years, and this is the first time that acupuncture has been taken into consideration for optional treatment for pain-related disease, for which many Americans intended to use opioid as a relief solution, Huang said. Huang was attending the Fourth North American Summit of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies and the 16th San Francisco International Symposium on Chinese Medicine. Hundreds of TCM practitioners, scholars and professionals from both China and the United States participated in the international event to exchange their views and experience in TCM practice and development. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 10:35:59|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close by Victoria Arguello BUENOS AIRES, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promotes "a new type of multilateralism" and represents a "great opportunity" for Latin American countries, an Argentine expert on foreign affairs has said. In the lead up to the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, to be held in Beijing in April, Carola Ramon-Berjano, a member of Argentina's Council on International Relations, made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua. "I believe the initiative has great potential in terms of economic development and international cooperation. It is a very interesting concept and a framework for a new type of multilateralism spurred by China," Ramon-Berjano said. Argentine President Mauricio Macri took part in the first forum held in 2017 in Beijing, where he said the BRI "is an opportunity we don't want to pass up." The BRI, first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, aims to drive global growth by promoting infrastructure, connectivity, financial mechanisms and public policies needed to spur trade, especially among the world's emerging and developing regions. As a leading producer of agricultural goods, Argentina can contribute to global food security, Macri noted. For countries like Argentina that lacks the needed infrastructure to boost trade, the BRI is an attractive and relevant proposal. But Argentina must plan well to make the most of the initiative, said Ramon-Berjano. "Despite Argentina's great need for infrastructure, it has to ensure that it is the right kind. That's to say, that it will lead to greater connectivity not just with foreign markets, but also to greater connectivity among domestic ports," she said. In short, Argentina's participation in the BRI should contribute to national development. "Argentina, like many developing countries, can benefit a lot from this initiative, achieving greater connectivity and improving infrastructure at the national as well as at the regional and international levels," the expert said, stressing that it will help the country "achieve inclusive and sustainable development" in the long run. China's evident economic and social progress over the past four decades can serve as a model, as a "fundamental experience" for other developing countries, said Ramon-Berjano. "The forum is a great opportunity to discuss the topics of most concern abroad regarding the initiative, to clear up doubts, discuss, reach consensus and plan. Cooperation is the foundation of this initiative," she noted. Photo taken on March 16, 2019 shows the Stinson Parade Bridge in downtown Suva, capital of Fiji. (Xinhua/Zhang Yongxing) by Zhang Yongxing SUVA, March 17 (Xinhua) -- China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a development dividend for participating countries, including the Pacific island countries (PICs), as it has enhanced social and economic progress of the countries and brought benefits to the people, a Fijian expert said on Sunday. "The BRI has been welcomed by a lot of participating countries, including the Pacific island countries as it has brought social and economic development and hope to them. For Pacific island countries, they need massive infrastructure development and I think China is just doing that under the framework of BRI," Keshmeer Makun, a lecturer of the University of the South Pacific (USP) told Xinhua. He disagreed with the so-called "debt-trap" about BRI, saying that "it is important to know that China often takes into consideration the ability to meet foreign debt obligation and solvency constraint of receiving countries, hence, preventing heavy debt burden." "China puts no political conditions and tries to meet the needs of the aid-receiving countries. In addition, like any other project, the Chinese-funded projects also go through rigorous market research and feasibility study, so that they not only get the right costing and quality, but also bring the preferred social and economic assistance to the people," he said. "Pacific leaders have found China's assistance more desirable. Correspondingly, China has provided large quantity of foreign aid to the Pacific island countries over the past years. It is evident that China's financial aid and projects have substantially enhanced social and economic progress of Pacific island countries and provided great benefits to the people," he said. From his point of view, the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed by China but shared by the international community. And it is an important platform for the win-win cooperation and what the PICs really need. "There are obviously different voices out in the world but for many Pacific island countries, I think there is only one voice. The fact is that many of the PICs lack the physical infrastructure and supply chain logistics which can help them to export in a significant way," he said. "Considerable infrastructure investments in communications, seaports and airports are required to enhance trade and reduce the high cost of doing business and I think China's assistance through BRI to the Pacific region is helping substantially and consequently inject impetus to further cooperation through trade and investment," he said. Photo taken on March 16, 2019 shows the Vatuwaqa Bridge in the eastern part of Suva, capital of Fiji. (Xinhua/Zhang Yongxing) The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road. The expert added that infrastructure deficit in many countries including the Pacific island countries that makes connectivity difficult is a serious concern. Reducing infrastructure deficit will enhance trade and business among these countries. In this respect, the China-proposed BRI is clearly providing the technology, finance and experience to contribute to less-developed countries in building needed infrastructure. "Further, in business, infrastructure is not only the thing but also the ease with which they conduct transactions. In this respect, the thriving internet industry has enable China to shift from the credit card era to the online or mobile payment system helping the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to do business with ease," Makun said. "Similar digital model could be developed to enhance digital gap in other less-developed countries. The other areas of cooperation could be fighting corruption and poverty alleviation on which China has also made good quality progress." As for China's assistance to Fiji, which inked a Memorandum of Understanding with China on cooperation within the framework of the BRI last November, Makun said China's aid to Fiji has played an important role in the island nation's economic development. "It is not only improving the economic environment, but also enhancing the ability of being independent and reducing their dependency on imports. In addition, China's aid to Fiji is suitable to local practice while enhancing the people's living conditions, improving their living standards and increasing their incomes," he said. In his opinion, Fiji and China, the two highly complementary economies, have great potential to cooperate through BRI. "Fiji is economically backward but boasts rich tourist, marine, mineral and agricultural and forestry resources. And China has the advantages of capital, technology, market and human resources," he said. Believing that BRI is inclusive, open to all countries and international and regional organizations for engagement, he said, "China has already made advances in various areas in the Pacific region and there is indeed huge potential for meaningful cooperation and technical support," Makun said. He made it clear that the BRI has also helped the Pacific island nations attract more foreign assistance and investment by countries such as United States, Australia and New Zealand. "Indeed, China's presence and assistance has also motivated our regional neighbors such as Australia, New Zealand and U.S. to step up. It is a good thing that such countries have made their commitments to boost the Pacific region's development," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 10:56:04|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close CANBERRA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) has promised to invest 1 billion Australian dollars (708.2 million U.S. dollars) in public hospitals if elected to govern the country in May. In a statement released on Sunday night, the ALP leader Bill Shorten said that Australia "should have a world-class health care system but some of our hospitals are suffering from neglect." Under the plan, the funds would be spent on upgrading facilities at hospitals most in need. "Our nurses and doctors and health workforce do an amazing job, but they are being stretched by aging facilities," Shorten said. "Labor's investment will upgrade hospitals, expanding capacity where it is needed and building new facilities where they are needed. "There's nothing more important than your health. I want people to get the care they need as close as possible to their home." The ALP, according to the recent Newspoll released by The Australian, led the governing Liberal-National Party Coalition (LNP) on a two-party preferred basis before May's general election after six years in opposition and it has already begun working to identify the hospitals where the money would be best spent. The LNP has promised about 1.25 billion Australian dollars (885.6 million U.S. dollars) in additional funding for hospitals over the next four years. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 10:56:05|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close XINING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- As China pushes ahead with its rural revitalization strategy, an entrepreneurship craze has swept across the Tibetan-populated regions, once the economic backwater of the country. Tse-nga Rigz, 29, has run one of the most popular restaurants in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province for seven years, an unrivaled player among his competitors, offering Tibetan food. Tse-nga is one of the ambitious young men who eyed business opportunities in their hometown and chose to return from cities where they previously settled. SMARTER BUSINESS ON LOCAL CUISINE Like many county dwellers in China who move to big cities to seek better opportunities, Tse-nga had previously moved to Shenzhen and worked as a chef. "I learnt from all the practice during my decade-long training and working in a big restaurant in Shenzhen," Tse-nga said. Tse-nga revealed the secret of his restaurant's popularity was in the menu. He has rolled out over 100 improved Tibetan dishes to cater to more tastes. "Pan-fried yak meat and fried lamb roll are our recent best-sellers," he said. In the past seven years, Tse-nga's restaurant has created over 100 job opportunities for locals and trained 20 apprentices from Gansu and Sichuan provinces. "I plan to teach at a culinary school because I've always expected to popularize Tibetan food culture among more people in more regions," said Tse-nga. EDUCATION MAKES A DIFFERENCE Norbu Dradul, in his early 30s, is one of the well-educated people who expect to secure a place in Tibet Autonomous Region's booming education industry. In 2013, two years after graduating, Norbu made up his mind to quit his well-paid job in Beijing and started a foreign language training institution in his hometown Lhasa, capital of the autonomous region. Norbu's training school has now realized an annual net profit of nearly 10 million yuan (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars), and over 10 percent of the income will be spent on employee training. "Given the government provides subsidies to support startups such as mine, I also want to make my due contribution to society," Norbu said. Young Tibetan entrepreneurs like Tse-nga and Norbu are experiencing a better business environment. Take Qinghai as an example, the province has offered loan guarantees totaling 400 million yuan in 2018, supporting 1,712 entrepreneurs. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 11:06:09|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China has been active in international exchanges and cooperation in counterterrorism, said a white paper released Monday by China's State Council Information Office. Throughout the world, terrorism and extremism gravely threaten peace and development, and endanger the life and property of individuals, said the white paper, titled "The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang." "Striking aggressively at terrorism and furthering the de-radicalization effort is the common responsibility of the international community and essential to the protection of human rights," it said. China opposes all forms of terrorism and extremism, and opposes double standards on fighting terrorism, said the white paper, adding that it opposes linking terrorism and extremism with specific countries, ethnic groups or religions. China advocates comprehensive measures to address both the symptoms and the root causes, with the dual purposes of striking at terrorist activities and eliminating poverty, so that there will be no room for terrorism to breed, it said. China supports more pragmatic international cooperation in the fight against terrorism on the basis of mutual respect and consultation on an equal footing, it added. "As a responsible member of the international community, China supports the United Nations in playing a leading and coordinating role in international cooperation against terrorism," said the white paper. China upholds the UN Charter and other principles and norms of international law, and has supported a series of resolutions on combating terrorism adopted by the UN Security Council and contributed to the full implementation of the UN Global Counterterrorism Strategy, it said. China has joined most of the international counterterrorism conventions, and under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China and countries involved have signed several documents in this field, it added. The white paper noted that China has carried out a number of fruitful counterterrorism exchanges and cooperation with relevant countries through such bilateral and multilateral mechanisms as joint anti-terrorism exercises, joint border defense operations, and suppression of illegal cyberspace activities by terrorist, separatist and extremist forces, as well as security cooperation, intelligence exchange, and judicial cooperation during major international events. "It has played an important role in maintaining international and regional security and stability," it said. Noting that Xinjiang is a key battlefield in the fight against terrorism in China, the white paper said in recent years, under the care and support of the central government, Xinjiang has carried out pragmatic exchanges and cooperation with neighboring countries in areas including intelligence, joint border control and the investigation and capture of suspected terrorists. Drawing experience from global efforts, Xinjiang has contributed to the international fight on terrorism through effective counterterrorism and de-radicalization campaigns based on its regional realities, it said. RTHK: Dutch police arrest tram shooting suspect Dutch police on Monday arrested a Turkish-born suspect over a shooting on a tram in Utrecht that left three people dead in what officials said was a possible terror attack. Police had earlier launched a huge manhunt for Gokmen Tanis, 37, issuing a picture of the suspected gunman and warning the public not to approach him following the attack, in which five other people were wounded. Mosques and schools were closed across the Netherlands' fourth-largest city following the bloodshed, before heavily armed officers surrounded a building and arrested him. Dutch authorities said they were still investigating a likely terrorist motive for the shooting but Prime Minister Mark Rutte said they "cannot exclude" other motives, including a family dispute. "We have just heard that the suspect we are looking for has been arrested," Utrecht police chief Rob van Bree told a dramatic press conference seconds after being handed a piece of paper with news of the arrest. The city's mayor Jan van Zanen told the same news conference it was a "black day for Utrecht", while prosecution officer Rutger Jeuken said that "it looks like what we are dealing with is a terrorist motive". (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 11:06:16|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close HAVANA, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall Camilla kicked off their Caribbean tour on Sunday during which they will become the first British royals to visit Cuba. The royal couple will spend three days in Cuba starting March 24 to "highlight the growing bilateral relationship" and "showcase some of the cultural ties between the two countries," according to a statement from their official residence Clarence House. Their itinerary includes a dinner with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who on his first international tour as president last November visited the heir to the British throne during a stopover in London. They also plan to visit the south coast of Cuba to learn about local flora and fauna, and attend an event on environment and nature conservation, as well as a round table on Cuban policies in support of victims of sexual and domestic abuse. Charles, who has a reputation for environmental causes, will visit a solar farm being built by a British company and be briefed on what Cuba is doing to tackle climate change. He is also scheduled to meet with a group of British vintage car owners and visit a music studio. The royal couple's deputy private secretary, Scott Furssedonn-Wood, said they were "expecting to enjoy all kinds of experiences in Cuba" and "music, dance and food is certainly one of those things." The royal couple will visit 10 Caribbean islands, including Saint Lucia, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 11:26:23|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close MUMBAI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Two people engrossed in playing online game PUBG (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds) were knocked down by a train at Khatkali Bypass in Hingoli district of Maharashtra, over 570 kms from Mumbai, media reports said Monday. An accidental death report has been registered at Hingoli police station, the reports said quoting a local police officer. PUBG is an online multi-player game of South Korean origin which experts have said is highly addictive and gives rise to violent behavior in many of those playing it. Several cities and districts in adjoining Gujarat state had banned the online multi-player game citing it to be addictive and harmful for youngsters. Last week in the state's Rajkot city, police had arrested 10 people between the age group of 18-22 years for playing the additive online game and violating the ban. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 11:26:23|Editor: ZX Video Player Close NEW YORK, March 17 (Xinhua) -- China's newly passed foreign investment law will help level the playing field and be gladly welcomed by foreign investors, said a senior U.S. expert. "The predictability, transparency, and non-discrimination bent of the law will improve the business environment," Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, told Xinhua in a recent interview. "In my view, (the law will) draw a deluge of foreign capital into the Chinese investment marketplace over the next decade," Gupta said. China's national legislature on Friday passed the foreign investment law, a landmark legislation that will provide stronger protection and a better business environment for overseas investors. It aims to improve the transparency of foreign investment policies and ensure that foreign-invested enterprises participate in market competition on an equal basis. LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The law will significantly help address major issues that foreign investors face in China, as it provides them with strong protection to ensure administrative and regulatory impartiality, according to the scholar. "Foreign investors will now be able to compete on the same terms as China's domestic companies," he said, adding that a number of key sectors have gone through significant liberalization for foreign direct investment, such as automobile, finance and insurance. In this aspect, the expert pointed out that China's national treatment "will afford foreign investors treatment that is no less favorable than that afforded to Chinese investors during the establishment, acquisition, expansion and other stages of their investment." He also noticed that the legislation explicitly prohibits forced technology transfer by administrative measures and essentially bars local governments from interfering with national foreign investment policies. Therefore, the investment protection clauses in the law will be "gladly welcomed by foreign businesses," he noted. The scholar also pointed out that the law's significance for China's new round of opening-up and reform is "potentially profound," as it embodies its potential to assist in transforming Chinese economy towards "a more sophisticated, advanced economy-type, (and a) productivity-led growth model." IMPLEMENTATION IS KEY The law is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2020, yet it will take some time for the law to reassure foreign businesses that "the playing field is being leveled in China to allow fair competition to take hold, irrespective of national origins," Gupta said. As always, when a piece of legislation is passed, the key is in the implementation, he noted, adding that how rigorously the implementing regulations are written will be key to the success of the enforcement. In this regard, the senior fellow expressed optimism, as he has witnessed rapid strides that China has made "in the enforcement-related elements of its patents and intellectual property rights (IPR) regime." Particularly, he pointed to the newly established IPR court by China's Supreme People's Court (SPC), which has started to hear IPR appeals since Jan. 1. IPR cases to be handled by the court include a broad range of lawsuits, such as patents, copyright, trademarks, new plant varieties, integrated circuit layout design and monopoly, according to the SPC. In terms of foreign investment protection, "strong measures to deal with political, regulatory and administrative non-compliance are envisaged. A robust working mechanism to promptly address foreign businesses' complaints is also envisaged," he said. Since foreign investors will wonder "what really has changed de facto on the ground" in terms of the enforcement of the foreign investment law, "the burden of proof thus resides on China's shoulder to show that a new chapter has been opened in regard to fair, predictable, transparent and non-discrimination enforcement of China's foreign investment regime." "The implementing regulations that breathe life into the foreign investment law will be crucial in this regard," Gupta stressed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 12:51:40|Editor: Yamei Video Player Close WELLINGTON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that the cabinet has decided to reform the gun law within 10 days. The reform of the gun law is agreed by three coalition partners - New Zealand Labour party, New Zealand First Party and Green Party, Ardern told a press conference after a cabinet meeting. However, she refused to reveal any details of the upcoming reform. A national memorial service for the mosque attacks in Christchurch, which left 50 people dead and 50 others wounded, will also be held as soon as possible. Ardern also said that an inquiry will look into the Christchurch terror attacks. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 13:06:43|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close SHIJIAZHUANG, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Six people in Cangzhou City of north China's Hebei Province drowned in a boat accident on a river Sunday afternoon, local authorities said. According to the local authorities, one person was found dead at the site and the other five died in hospital. The accident happened at around 2:10 p.m. on the Ziya River near Yangzhangge Village. The cause of the accident is under investigation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 13:11:45|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close JAKARTA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Death toll from flash floods and landslides in Jayapura district of Indonesia's Papua province has climbed to 77, with 116 others sustaining injured, a local official in charge of rescue efforts told Xinhua over phone Monday. Meanwhile, rescuers continue to search for and rescue the victims, spokesman of search and rescue office at the district Yudi Yanto said. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 13:16:46|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HOUSTON, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The world is embracing energy transformation with opportunities and uncertainties ahead. At the energy industry conference CERAWeek held here on March 11-15, politicians, businessmen and experts believed cooperation and innovation should be highlighted to achieve energy abundance and security. ENERGY TRANSFORMATION: COMPANIES NEED TO ADAPT The world is undergoing an energy transformation that will have deep impact on oil and gas industry, said participants at the 38th CERAWeek held by the London-based information company IHS Markit. With consensus among more and more countries on climate change, the future of clean energy was thoroughly discussed among business leaders and policy makers. Energy companies must adjust themselves to the global trend of energy transformation, Liu Chaoquan, vice president of China National Petroleum Corporation Economics and Technology Research Institute, told Xinhua. "The change features transformation from low-carbon to cleaner energy such as solar, wind, hydrogen, and nuclear," he said. Liu believed that the role of oil is weakening in the long run thanks to the global trend of energy transformation. In the short run, oil prices are related closely to factors like geopolitics. "Energy companies must realize that a short-term price hike does not mean long-term prosperity in the oil industry," he said. The International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol also pointed out that environmental carbon footprint remains a challenge for global energy industry. "We think there is an important homework for the oil executive here today which is the environmental footprint," he said, adding that not all energy companies take environmental issues seriously enough. China is at the forefront of energy transformation, Liu said, adding that China's inventory and annual increment of electric vehicles account for more than half of the world's total, and so is the country's solar and wind installed capacity. GEOPOLITICS: UNCERTAINTIES AHEAD In this year's CERAWeek, geopolitics were highlighted by business insiders and government officials. In its five-year outlook released at the event, the IEA said geopolitical issue is becoming an increasing concern over the global energy market. "We are seeing that geopolitical concerns (are) casting an increasing shadow on the oil markets today and tomorrow," said Birol, admitting that this situation is rarely emphasized by the IEA in the past. "This is something of concern to (the) Intentional Energy Agency as we wanted to see oil markets is only an oil market," he continued. The International Energy Forum (IEF) Secretary General Sun Xiansheng argued that geopolitics is associated closely with energy and that the link is even more pronounced today. "U.S. sanctions against Iran may lead to a shortage of oil and gas supply. Venezuela is in turmoil and its oil production has already fallen from 4 million barrels per day to 1 million barrels per day. The Brexit issue has been dragging too long that the tension may have a huge impact on the European energy industry. These geopolitical problems will create uncertainties in the supply of energy market," he said. Commenting on the U.S. energy development, Sun said driven by technology, shale oil has boomed in the country in recent years. "The rapid growth of shale oil transformed the United States from a major energy importing country to an exporting country, shaping the global landscape," he said. Sun's thought was echoed by Roger Diwan, vice president of financial services and energy at IHS Markit. "Shale has brought that structural volatility and we haven't solved that problem yet," he said. COOPERATION: TOWARDS ENERGY SECURITY In the new context of global challenges, energy security was emphasized among national and international leaders. Many argued that smoother and closer cooperation and collaboration between energy producers and consumers are crucial to achieve energy security. The United States and China, as large oil and gas producers and consumers, have natural opportunities and great potential to cooperate in the energy field, said IEA senior oil market analyst Toril Bosoni. Bosoni said the biggest increase of imports, both oil and gas, is coming from Asia, in particular China. According to her, there is not enough of oil from the Middle East to support the growing demand of China and the rest of Asia, and more oil flows will come from the United States and Latin America. "China's already the largest buyer of U.S. crude and we think that will continue in the years to come," she said. Besides, international organizations such as the IEA and the IEF also need to shoulder more responsibility to facilitate energy cooperation. The IEF consists of energy producers, consumers and trading nations, Sun said, adding that efforts should be made to promote smoother cooperation among them. "We should encourage energy producers to strengthen their productivity, enhance energy supply, and address energy poverty issues," he said. INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY: KEY TO FUTURE DEVELOPMENT Looking into the future, entrepreneurs, scholars and politicians all believe that technology will play an increasingly important role in both supply and demand sides of the energy industry. The IEA's five-year outlook released at CERAWeek showed that the industry has established digital learning on the supply side. Thanks to the usage of digitalization edge and competitive and innovative service sector, the U.S. shale development cost today are one-third below the 2015 levels. On the demand side, electric vehicles are playing a very significant role, sending an important signal to the traditional oil companies. Delivering a speech at CERAWeek, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the United States is embracing a "new American energy era" with the help of innovation and new technologies like artificial intelligence. Perry recalled that there used to be a pessimistic view of global energy which claimed that the days of energy abundance were over. "Thanks to innovation, we've got more than enough energy to share with the world," he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 13:41:52|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close CANBERRA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced 55 million Australian dollars (39 million U.S. dollars) in funding in community safety grants following the attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand. Addressing the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Morrison said that it is for priority to be given to religious schools, places of religious worship and religious assembly. The grants from 50,000 AUD (35,450 U.S. dollars) to 1.5 million AUD (1.06 million U.S. dollars) to various religious groups will provide for safety enhancements such as surveillance cameras, lighting, fencing, bollards, alarms, security systems and public address systems. "Now this announcement, along with everything else we have announced over recent years is 'the how' of keeping people safe - and we'll keep investing and working on 'the how', because the greatest responsibility of any government is to keep Australians safe." Friday's terror attacks have so far left 50 people killed and 50 others injured. The suspected gunman, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, was charged with murder. Morrison on Friday described the attack as the act of a "right-wing extremist." Queensland Senator Fraser Anning has drawn global condemnation for his response to the attack, in which he said Muslim immigration was to blame. His comments prompted a 17-year-old boy to slap an egg on the back of his head during a trip to Melbourne on Saturday, which the senator responded to by slapping him, an act Anning compared to trench warfare. Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said that Anning could face racial vilification and assault charges over Friday's statement and Saturday's incident and called on Australians to vote him out of the Senate in May's general election. "One of the regrets I have is that we give attention or a spotlight to people like Fraser Anning," he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Monday. "People can express their view freely and respectfully at the ballot box and I think that is the strongest possible message that can be sent." The governing Liberal-National Party Coalition (LNP) and Opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) have already said that they will join forces to officially censure Anning when the parliament resumes in April. An online petition calling for Anning to be expelled from the Senate has been signed by more than one million people but the parliament does not have the power to expel a member for their conduct. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 14:32:01|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close JAKARTA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Three tourists, including two foreigners, were killed and dozens of others injured as quake-triggered landslides struck a tourist resort in Lombok island of Indonesia's West Nusa Tenggara province, a local disaster official said on Monday. The natural disaster took place in Tiu Kelep waterfall tourist resort in Senaru village of Lombok Utara district in the province after the shallow quake jolted the areas, senior official of disaster management agency in the province Agus Nugroho Rahardjo said. Two of the killed foreign tourists were Malaysian nationals who were visiting the resort along with 38 others Malaysian visitors, and another killed tourist was Indonesian citizen, said Nugroho. The landslides trapped a total of 35 visitors including Malaysian tourists and all of them have been rescued safely. Twenty visitors were badly injured and dozens of others sustained minor injuries, said Nugroho. Most of the seriously injured suffered broken bones. All of them have been rushed into a nearby hospital, he told Xinhua over phone. Elsewhere in the Lombok island was undergoing reconstruction and rehabilitation after a series of strong quake last year. Scores of houses were damaged with scores of people sustaining minor injuries, he added. The quake was centered at 24 km northeast of Lombok Timur of West Nusa Tenggara province with a depth of 10 km, according to the meteorology and geophysics agency. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 15:27:11|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- A former provincial political advisor has been indicted for taking bribes, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) Monday. Wang Erzhi, former vice chairman of the Jilin Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, was charged with abusing his positions to seek profit for others and accepting a large amount of money and property in return, according to an SPP statement. The case was investigated by the National Supervisory Commission before being transferred to the Municipal People's Procuratorate of Harbin for review and prosecution. The procuratorate filed the case in the Harbin Municipal Intermediate People's Court. The SPP said the prosecutors had informed the defendant of his litigation rights, interrogated him and listened to the defense counsel's opinions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 15:32:15|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close JAKARTA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from flash floods and landslides in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province has climbed to 77 with 116 others injured, a local official in charge of rescue efforts said Monday. Spokesman of the search and rescue office in Jayapura district Yudi Yanto said 41 people were seriously injured and 75 others had minor wounds after the natural disaster hit several villages Saturday night. The figures were expected to rise, Yudi said, as search and rescue efforts continued involving soldiers and volunteers with heavy machinery equipment. "The number of victims may exceed the current figure of 77 as our personnel are searching for the victims," he told Xinhua over phone from Jayapura district. Scores of people reportedly remained missing. By Monday, wooden logs and other materials washed down by the flood water have also blocked the roads, hampering the rescue operation, the spokesman said. "Two heavy machinery equipment have been deployed to help open the access and clear the roads from the rubble, wooden logs and other materials," said Yudi. The injured people were rushed to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, spokesman of the National Disaster Management Agency Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. Over 4,000 people have been forced to flee home and take shelters at safer gounds, according to the agency. Indonesia has been frequently stricken by flash floods and landslides during heavy rains. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:07:23|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close ASWAN, Egypt, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Sessions of the ongoing Arab African Youth Platform wrapped up late on Sunday with ten recommendations aimed at enhancing cooperation between Arab and African countries. During his speech at the closing session, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi directed the cabinet to coordinate with ministries of foreign affairs and education to allow young Arab and African researchers to benefit from the Egyptian Knowledge Bank. The Platform will conclude Monday evening after tourist visits by Arab and African youths in Aswan province, one of Egypt's most attractive tourist attractions. Sisi announced the establishment of the Council of Cooperation between Arab and African Universities as an effective platform for promoting scientific and cultural cooperation between Arab and African countries. He also decided to launch an Egyptian initiative to eradicate hepatitis C virus among one million African citizens, adding that foreign nationals will be screened for hepatitis C as part of the current nationwide anti-hepatitis C campaign. It was also decided to set up a group of Arab and African youths to prepare a special vision to achieve the opportunities of Arab-African integration in all fields. Sisi pointed out that an Arab-African working group would be formed to develop a youth vision for mechanisms dealing with issues of intellectual polarization and extremism. The Egyptian president directed the administration of World Youth Forum (WYF) to form a teamwork that includes young Arab and African minds to promote cooperation between the African continent and the Arab region in all the fields. He asked the administration of WYF to prepare for the next Egypt and Sudan Forum to promote cooperation between both countries. Sisi, who assumed the chairmanship of the African Union (AU) in February, said Egypt will prepare a document in cooperation with the AU Commission and the Arab League to be discussed at the next AU Summit. The document will suggest the establishment of an African-Arab market, the establishment of a new fund to finance projects of railways, roads and electricity in African and Arab states as well as creating a new mechanism to fight terrorism in African and Arab states and to realize stability. Utilizing social media platforms to eliminate the mistaken stereotypes between Africa and the Arab world was among the recommendations. The Egyptian president recommended more policies to empower African and Arab women and youth. Sisi opened on Saturday the first edition of the Arab African Youth Platform with the participation of 1,500 youths from various Arab and African countries. During the three-day platform, the youths are expected to discuss the future of scientific research and healthcare, and the impact of advanced technology and innovation in Africa and the Arab region. The platform will also hold various sessions, workshops, and roundtable seminars, with the goal of bridging the gap between "young promising leaders and top policy and decision makers." The event was first initiated by Sisi during the closing session of the second edition of the World Youth Forum held in Egypt's resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh in November last year. The Arab African Youth Platform comes weeks after Sisi took over the AU presidency from his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame. It is the first time that Egypt has been elected AU chair since the launch of the African bloc in 2002. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:07:24|Editor: ZX Video Player Close By Xinhua writer Peng Peigen BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- At a time when Internet trolling is increasingly common, compliment-themed chat groups have been taking hold in Chinese universities, offering consolation and fun. It was 2 p.m. and Yang Haiqi received a message on her cellphone. "Just got up, good morning everyone!" Seconds later, Yang, a freshman in China's top school Tsinghua University, responded in the group chat: "You must care about your health very much as you sleep for so long, praise you!" More of such compliments followed. Often dubbed "flattery groups," or Kuakuaqun in Chinese, such online chatrooms have become a place for students to give compliments, look on the bright side of life and spread positivity. On microblogging site Weibo, hashtags related to such groups, which often show screenshots of creative compliments, have been viewed more than 30 million times. Almost anyone can fish for compliments in these groups, and young participants often feel encouraged, supported or entertained by the playful and witty comments. In a chat group set up by students in Tongji University in Shanghai, the number of participants rocketed from 200 to 500 in less than 10 hours. The conversation kept going for a whole day. "I cannot handle computer science!" read one message. "Your heart is too pure to hold any complex algorithms," was the kind response. Personal feelings are covered too: "I feel inferior seeing so many beautiful boys and girls on the subway." "You have eyes for beauty and a beautiful heart too." Yang said the chats reflected people's anxiety and provided a sort of psychological support. Others are just happy that people are being positive online. "It is a strong contrast with online trolling, which is rampant in these days," Zhang Hehe, a sophomore in Renmin University of China, told Xinhua. On March 9, Zhang set up his first such group after seeing a trending Weibo post with screenshots of eye-catching compliments on an online social network. In less than 24 hours, Zhang's first group reached its 500-people limit, and he set up another one. In less than 72 hours, he had established four. "I think this [the rapid growth of members] really shows there's a demand for living positively," Zhang said. "But it is often left unmet." Though the compliments given in the group can sometimes be exaggerated and insincere, Zhang thinks they are generally aimed at being "fun," which is why they have attracted so many young people. At one point, someone even wrote a poem praising someone who had been out on a wild-night drinking in a club and had smelly hair. "The compliments get very creative," Zhang said. "They add color to mundane life." A few days ago, Yang, the Tsinghua student, left all the groups. "Too much exaggeration," she said, adding that several of her friends had also quit. In those groups that Zhang created, people now talk less. However, as people leave, new members join. The Tongji University group still has 500 members. Zhang thinks the high churn is normal as many people join the groups out of curiosity and when the novelty wanes they leave. "Some haven't even sent a message since they have joined," he said. However, Zhang is still optimistic about the groups. "People need praise," Zhang said, adding that he sees a cycle where someone good at giving compliments gets more praise from others and then wants to praise others more. "I wouldn't want to see that disappear," Zhang said. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:12:25|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close CHARIKAR, Afghanistan, March 18 (Xinhua) -- A pilotless plane of the NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) coalition forces crashed in Afghanistan's eastern province of Parwan overnight, leaving no casualties, local police said on Monday. "The unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in Barek Ab, Bagram district overnight, near Bagram Airfield. The drone smashed into wall of a house but caused no casualties," district police chief Raqib Kohistani told Xinhua. The Bagram Airfield, some 50km north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, has been serving as a main U.S. and NATO military base in Afghanistan over the past 17 years. Drones are often used by the coalition forces for reconnaissance missions and to attack militants in remote areas of the mountainous Asian country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:32:34|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HONG KONG, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The food safety authority of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) announced Monday to suspend the import of poultry products from Denmark's southern Middelfart Municipality. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Hong Kong SAR government's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said in view of a notification from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) about an outbreak of low pathogenic H7 avian influenza in Middelfart Municipality, it has instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and products, including poultry eggs, from the area with immediate effect to protect public health in Hong Kong. A CFS spokesman said Hong Kong imported about 1,340 tons of frozen poultry meat and about 1.56 million poultry eggs from Denmark last year. "The CFS has contacted the Danish authorities over the issue and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE on avian influenza outbreaks. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation," the spokesman said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:42:36|Editor: ZX Video Player Close URUMQI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Financial institutions in Xinjiang have stepped up extending loans to farmers to support spring farming and the rural economy. The People's Bank of China Urumqi Central Sub-branch re-lent 4.68 billion yuan (698 million U.S. dollars) for spring farming to 37 banks, the branch said. The bank started re-lending to financial institutions in November last year. It has set up green channels for farmers who need loans and simplified procedures to ensure that credit is in place to help farmers buy equipment as well as seed and fertilizer. It has also ordered financial institutions to respond effectively to the needs for finance from impoverished families. Siraili Mamatjam, a villager in the Yokaketam Village in the Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of Ili, received a 10,000 yuan interest-free loan from a local bank. He expanded his fields this spring and was in need of the money to buy corn seeds, fertilizers and rent equipment, all of which are vital to his farm operations. By the end of February 2019, the balance of agricultural loans in Xinjiang was 721.04 billion yuan (107 billion dollars), 5.06 billion yuan more than at the beginning of the year. From early November 2018 to the end of February this year, Xinjiang rural credit cooperatives, a major lender, extended 38.7 billion yuan of loans to farmers, an increase of 3.09 billion yuan year-on-year. Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is a main grain and cotton base. Its cotton output was over 83.8 percent of the national total in 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:52:40|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close A beer booth owner (L) and his clients pose for a photo at Barcelona Beer Festival in Barcelona, Spain, March 17, 2019. The 2019 Barcelona Beer Festival is held from Friday to Sunday, in which around 650 types of beer from some 120 brands were presented. (Xinhua/Guo Qiuda) Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:47:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close SUVA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Mosques in Fiji on Monday would held special Dua ceremonies for the families that lost their loved ones in the terror attacks in New Zealand's city of Christchurch last Friday. A special place has also been set up at Samabula Jame Masjid in the Fijian capital Suva where people can send their condolences by placing flowers and messages. Three Fijians, including Imam Hafiz Musa Patel, died in the mass shootings that killed 50 people. The other dead is 58-year-old Ashraf Ali who was visiting his brother in Christchurch and Ashraf Ali who moved to New Zealand seven years ago. On Saturday, Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said at an open prayer for Christchurch victims that Muslims in the island nation were safe and loved. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 16:52:43|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close JAKARTA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Three tourists, including two foreigners, were killed and 200 others injured after an earthequake and quake-triggered landslides struck a tourist resort on Lombok island of Indonesia's West Nusa Tenggara province, a local disaster official said on Monday. The natural disaster took place in Tiu Kelep waterfall tourist resort in Senaru village of Lombok Utara district after the 5.8-magnitude quake jolted the areas on Sunday, senior official of the disaster management agency in the province Agus Nugroho Rahardjo said. Two of the killed were Malaysian nationals who were among 38 Malaysian tourists visiting the resort, and another victim was an Indonesian, said Nugroho. The landslides trapped a total of 35 visitors including Malaysian tourists and all of them have been rescued safely. Twenty visitors were badly injured and dozens of others sustained minor injuries, said Nugroho. "Most of those with serious injuries suffered broken bones, and all of them have been rushed to a nearby hospital," he told Xinhua over phone from the province. The Lombok island is undergoing reconstruction and rehabilitation after a series of strong earthquakes last year. The latest quake injured 182 people and destroyed 526 houses on Sunday, spokesman of the National Disaster Management Agency Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a press conference. Lombok Utara district was hardest hit by the disaster, where 119 people were wounded, while 37 others were injured in Lombok Timur district, said Sutopo. The quake striking off the island was centered 24 km northeast Lombok Timur of West Nusa Tenggara province with the depth of 10 km, according to the meteorology and geophysics agency. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:07:47|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, March 17 (Xinhua) -- An international symposium was held here Sunday to focus on the latest developments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and explore ways to expand its application outside China. The 16th San Francisco International Symposium on Chinese Medicine, concurrently held alongside the Fourth North American Summit of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, drew hundreds of TCM practitioners from both China and the United States to present papers on the latest achievements of TCM in recent years. In two separate panels, the participants held heated discussions on TCM application to various disciplines, such as internal medicine, gynecology, and surgery. The TCM practitioners exchanged expertise on TCM's extensive application, like pathological discovery on prevention and treatment of precancerous lesions of gastric cancer with the principles of strengthening the spleen, transforming stagnation and detoxification. Other topics touched upon acupuncture treatments on polycystic ovary syndrome and research on prevention and treatments on Alzheimer's diseases via Chinese medicine. Hu Jun, president of American Association of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, told Xinhua after the opening ceremony of the summit that TCM has a history of more than 1,000 years back in China, and acupuncture, a key component of TCM, has been practiced for over 40 years in the United States since it was first legalized in the U.S. State of Nevada in 1973. TCM has been gaining greater popularity in the United States because it's "effective, safe and affordable," and more Americans are willing to accept the acupuncture therapy to treat chronicle pain, Hu said. "In my clinic, more than 80 percent to 90 percent patients are native Americans, who also resort to acupuncture for treatment of depression, anxiety, and even infertility," added Hu, who is a licensed acupuncturist running an acupuncture clinic in Sacramento, capital of California. With an increasingly expanding market for TCM treatment demand in North America, TCM also needs to absorb the latest results of medical science of other ethnic groups, including non-Chinese Asian communities, so that TCM can grow constantly for a more profound development overseas, Hu said. Sam Xian Huang, honorary president of the American Association of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, said Sunday that TCM can serve as an alternative treatment for opioid-related disease. Opioid abuse has become a big problem of the American society as the drug causes a large number of deaths in the United States each year, and the federal government and Americans have been working hard to find a solution to this social threat, Huang told Xinhua at the annual summit that kicked off earlier in the day. On average, 130 Americans died every day from an opioid overdose in 2017, according to a report of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A study, issued in February by the weekly medical journal JAMA Network Open, showed that opioid-related deaths in the United States increased fourfold in the last two decades. The fight against opioid abuse provided a good opportunity for TCM development as acupuncture has been considered a top alternative for the non-medicinal therapy for the treatment of pain in the United States, Huang said. This is the first time that acupuncture has been taken into consideration for optional treatment for pain-related disease, for which many Americans intended to use opioid as a relief solution, he explained. More than 500 TCM practitioners, scholars, and professionals from both China and the United States participated in the international event in an effort to help TCM go global and ultimately be accepted by mainstream American society. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:07:48|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close HANOI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- A total of 209 kindergarteners in Vietnam's northern Bac Ninh province have tested positive with pork tapeworms in less than a month as their parents have blamed unsafe preschool meals for the mass infection, local media reported on Monday. Some 2,000 kids in the province, mainly from Thuan Thanh district, have been tested for tapeworms in Hanoi after pork suspected to be infected with the parasite was found in their preschools' kitchens, daily newspaper Tien Phong (Pioneer) reported. The source of the tapeworms has not been confirmed yet. On Sunday, the provincial authorities said they will coordinate with concerned agencies to test and support the cost of testing for students of 19 preschools in the area. Pork tapeworms, or Taenia solium, infect humans through the consumption of contaminated food. Upon infection, tapeworms can travel to different organs, including muscles, eyes and brain. Symptoms include seizure, paralysis, headaches and memory loss if the parasite migrates to the brain or blindness if it gets to the eyes. It takes a day to kill mature tapeworms and two weeks to destroy all eggs inside a human body. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:07:49|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close CANBERRA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Opposition Leader has backed calls for the creation of a national database of hate crimes following the attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand. Bill Shorten, leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), told Fairfax Media that the proposal makes perfect sense, saying that hate crimes were often a stepping stone to attacks like that which rocked New Zealand on Friday. "It needs to be accessible and we would need a common definition of hate crime. We know these people want to find loopholes so they can escape scrutiny so we have to make sure it works," he said. Friday's terror attacks have so far left 50 people killed and 50 others injured. The suspected gunman, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, was charged with murder. The hate crime database was first proposed by Nick Kaldas, a former deputy commissioner of New South Wales (NSW) police. "No government agency in Australia is capturing, let alone analysing data across the country, statistically, on hate crimes," he wrote in a column appearing in Fairfax newspapers on Sunday. "Most police forces simply do not collect or differentiate this type of offence, they do not identify it as a unique offence. An assault is an assault. "Nazi graffiti on a synagogue or racist comments on a mosque wound communities deeply and, if allowed to go unchecked, can be the first steps someone takes towards acts like the NZ attacks." According to Kaldas, none of Australia's eight police forces keeps track of hate crimes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government "will do whatever is necessary to keep Australians safe by acting on the expert advice we receive." Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:12:52|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close SEOUL, March 18 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's government planned to provide monthly allowances to young job seekers for up to six months in a bid to support young jobless people, the labor ministry said on Monday. Those aged 18-34, who graduated from or dropped out of secondary schools, universities, or graduate schools less than two years ago but had no job, can be given 500,000 won (440 U.S. dollars) every month for up to six months, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor. Eligible applicants for the subsidy are those who belong to household earning less than 120 percent of the country's median income, or less than 5.54 million won (4,900 U.S. dollars) a month in terms of a four-person household. The ministry planned to offer the allowances to about 80,000 young jobless people this year, with a budget of 158.2 billion won (139.7 million U.S. dollars) allocated. The subsidy will be provided through a so-called clean card, which prevents the recipients from using it on purchase of luxury goods, gambling or other improper activities. The recipients can be provided one-on-one consulting services on finding a job, but they will be subject to reporting on their job-seeking activities every month. The supporting program came amid the high unemployment rate especially among the younger generation. Jobless rate stood at 4.7 percent in February, while the rate among those aged 15-29 came to 9.5 percent. South Korean President Moon Jae-in pledged to place his top policy priority on creating decent jobs for the younger generation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:17:54|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China's sustained efforts to lower the corporate burden will help stabilize employment, investment and growth expectations, said Bai Jingming, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences. Following colossal tax and fee cuts of around 1.3 trillion yuan (about 194 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, China will reduce the tax burdens and social insurance contributions of enterprises by nearly 2 trillion yuan this year. Small and micro companies, which provide the majority of jobs, would be the major target of such cuts in 2019, showing a clear pro-employment policy tendency, Bai told the People's Daily on Monday. This year, China will reduce the current value-added tax rate of 16 percent for manufacturing and other industries to 13 percent, and lower the rate for such industries as transport and construction from 10 to 9 percent. A universal tax cut will greatly ease the tax burden of companies in purchasing fixed assets like machinery equipment and save costs for equipment manufacturers, resulting in more room for investment, Bai said. The massive corporate tax cuts this year showcased the central government's efforts to inject more energy into economic development and to make sure market entities receive benefits, which will help stabilize market expectations of the economy, according to Bai. Bai believes the move will unleash Chinese people's unlimited potentials in innovation and creation and boost the nation's high-quality development. China's economy, the second largest in the world, expanded 6.6 percent to exceed 90 trillion yuan last year. The growth target for 2019 was set at 6-6.5 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:27:59|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close by Levi J Parsons CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, March 18 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of Friday's horrific mass-shooting in Christchurch that left 50 people dead and scores more fighting for their lives in hospital, New Zealand's gun laws have come under immense public pressure as those across the country try to come to terms with the shocking tragedy. Addressing the nation from the capital city of Wellington on Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern assured New Zealanders that changes to country's gun laws would soon be finalized. "Cabinet today made in principle a decision around the reform of our gun laws," she said. "This ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which I believe will make our communities safer." "As the Cabinet, we were absolutely unified and very clear. The terror attack in Christchurch on Friday was the worst act of terrorism on our shores, it was in fact one of the worst globally in recent times and it has exposed a range of weaknesses in New Zealand's gun laws." As it currently stands in the South Pacific nation of 4.8 million people, in order to obtain a firearm license a person must pass a test to ensure he is considered a "fit and proper person." This involves an interview process and a series of checks with the applicant's chosen referees. "It is a stringent process at some level, but in saying that 99.3 percent of all applicants get their gun license approved," New Zealand Police Association President Chris Cahill explained to Xinhua. "The killer's gun was purchased legally and that's part of the issue. Once you obtain a license you can purchase a lot of firearms and there is no record of how many firearms you actually own." Calling for the establishment of a national gun registry and a ban on the kind of semi-automatic weapons used by the killer, Cahill said there are currently around 240,000 licensed firearm owners in New Zealand. "The vast majority would only have one or two guns -- a shotgun, a 22 or a deer hunting rifle -- but semi-autos are common too," he said. "However because we do not have a registry, we don't know how many there are or where they are. What we do know is that there are about 50,000 firearms imported into New Zealand every year and a large portion of that number are semi automatics." "There is also no restriction on ammunition, so you could go store-to-store and stockpile bullets and it wouldn't set off any alarm bells with authorities." While there have been several attempts in past years to strengthen New Zealand's firearm laws, on each occasion calls for reform failed. "The first big report came back in 1997 by Justice (Thomas) Thorp and that was in response to a mass-shooting in Aramoana near Dunedin where a man shot down 13 people," Cahill said. "From that, the recommendation was for a gun registry and a banning of all military-style semi-automatics, but unfortunately the gun lobby fought hard and politicians lost their will." "There's been a number of other inquiries since, the most recent in 2016, where a Select Committee Inquiry made 20 recommendations for changes to gun laws. But again, there was only limited acceptance of that by politicians." Although on this occasion there appears to be much more momentum to make gun law changes, not everyone is in support of the proposals. Appearing combative at media conference today, the owner of a gun store which sold the alleged killer ammunition and four firearms between December 2017 and March 2018, told reporters he does not feel in any way responsible for the tragedy. "Gun City has operated for 40 years and at all times we have met our legal obligations," Managing Director of Gun City David Tipple said. "We are prudent in our sales and have been acknowledged by the police as an example of how dealers should operate." "We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder." While saying "there is no way of knowing" if the shotgun that was sold online to the 28-year-old Australian-born suspect Brenton Tarrant was used in the terror attack, Tipple adamantly denied selling the suspect any semi-automatic weapons. With a handful of picketers outside Tipple's Gun City store this morning to voice their opposition to the continued sale of high-powered firearms in Christchurch, one of protesters, Reina Dornan, told Xinhua, "I'm not blaming any body, but I think mistakes were made that allowed this to happen, so I came down here to say that I support gun law changes," she said. Al Lowe, an IT professional living in Auckland, thinks New Zealand's gun laws "should be stricter." "There is no valid reason to own fully or semi automatic weapons in New Zealand." "All weapons should be licensed, recorded on a national gun register and secured in a locked cabinet inspected every six months. Failure to adhere to rules would see gun licences revoked," he suggested. "Any police record historically or new should prevent ownership of a gun," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:28:00|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close TBILISI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Georgia kicked off on Monday an 11-day joint exercise with NATO countries near capital Tbilisi. According to a statement from Gerogia's defense ministry, "NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019" is held at the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center near Tbilisi. The drill will last until March 29. The first such joint exercise was held in 2016. A total of 343 military and civilian personnel from 24 countries, including 21 NATO member states and Azerbaijan, Sweden and Georgia, participate in the exercise, said the statement. According to the defense ministry, the exercise is to further develop the interoperability of Georgian forces with their partners. It will also test their ability to adopt a comprehensive approach to crisis response, involving civil-military cooperation with international organizations and non-governmental groups. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:28:00|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close People attend the funeral of 47-year-old Rabbi Achiad Ettinger in the settlement of Eli in West Bank, on March 18, 2019. Ettinger who was injured in a West Bank shooting attack succumbed to his wounds on Monday, raising the attack's death toll to two. (Xinhua/Gil Cohen Magen) JERUSALEM, March 18 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli man injured in a West Bank shooting attack succumbed to his wounds on Monday, raising the attack's death toll to two. Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, 47, died of his wounds in hospital, a spokesperson with the Rabin Medical Center, where Ettinger was hospitalized, said. A Palestinian man shot him on Sunday outside the settlement of Ariel, southeast of Nablus city in the northern West Bank. The assailant stabbed a soldier, took his assault rifle and shoot civilians and soldiers. He also killed Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan, 19, and seriously injured another soldier. The latter is still in hospital in a critical condition, doctors in the Rabin Medical Center said. The attacker then fled the scene, prompting a large-scale manhunt by Israeli security forces. Overnight, Israeli forces arrested the father and the brother of the assailant, local media reported. "Simultaneously, the forces continue to carry out operational and intelligence efforts in order to locate and apprehend the assailant," the statement added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday that Israel will find the assailant and deal with him "to the fullest extent of the law as we have done in all of the recent incidents." The attacks came amid heightened tensions between Israel and the Palestine with two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in two separate incidents last week. The settlements are located on lands which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East war. The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:38:02|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close YANGON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- At least five people were killed and 27 others were injured in a pilgrimage bus crash on early Monday in Kani township, Myanmar's Sagaing region, according to Sagaing region police force. The express bus carrying 40 pilgrims to Alaungdaw Lathapa pagoda plunged into a 60-meter-deep ravine while losing control at 6:00 a.m. local time and rolled down a hilly road, killing five and injuring 27. The injured were sent to a nearby hospital by local police and social welfare association members who rushed to the scene at the first timing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:48:06|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close by Ronald Ssekandi BUKOMANSIMBI, Uganda, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Barkcloth is a cherished ancient fabric among the Bantu people in western, southern and central Uganda. Among the Baganda people in central Uganda, the fabric was made for the royal family. It came in different shades of brown and was worn differently by the royals to show their status. Some members of the community also wore the fabric. Barkcloth was worn at special functions like coronation of a king, social gatherings and also used for other cultural and spiritual purposes. The fabric was a traded commodity within neighboring kingdoms and chiefdoms in present day Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. HARVEST Barkcloth is made from the inner bark of a tree species called Ficus natalensis, commonly known here as a Mutuba tree. Processing barkcloth is a special craft and people who carry it out are from particular families among the Baganda people. It is a delicate and laborious exercise. Sixty five-year-old Paul Bukenya Katamila has been harvesting barkcloth since he was five years old. He acquired the skill from his father who was a renowned barkcloth processor in south central Uganda. Bukenya's father also acquired the skill from his ancestors. Harvesting starts with the removal of the outer bark of the Mutuba tree. The process is done by a group of about six men headed by their master, in this case Bukenya. The harvesting and processing is a preserve for men, according to tradition. The craftsmen harvest from a tree that is two years and above in order to get good fabric. After the outer layer is removed, Bukenya, with the help of assistants, takes the lead in removing the inner bark using tender banana tree stalks and a sharp knife. Depending on the size of the tree, the removal process can take about 15 minutes. The bark is folded by one of the assistants and taken to the processing area, usually under a shed, where it is boiled for about two to three minutes to make it softer. Back at the tree, Bukenya with the help of his assistants wraps the tree stem with yellowing banana leaves to protect it from getting damaged. "After six days, we remove the leaves and let the bark grow again. After one year, the tree will be able to be harvested," Bukenya told Xinhua, adding that the bark can be harvested from a tree for over 40 years. At the processing center, after the boiling, Bukenya and his assistants start hitting the bark with wooden mallets. The process is repeatedly done until they get the desired size and texture of barkcloth. THREAT TO BARKCLOTH The introduction of cotton cloth by Arab caravan traders in the nineteenth century, threatened the use of bark cloth. Locals resorted to using cotton cloth limiting the barkcloth to cultural and spiritual uses. It was mainly used for burial purposes. In 2005, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared barkcloth a "Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage". In 2008 barkcloth was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. According to UNESCO, the process of making barkcloth existed before weaving was invented, making it one of the oldest textiles in history. These declarations gave a new impetus to the movement aimed at reviving the barkcloth industry. Fred Kato Mutebi, a professional artist, is one of the people championing the revival of the barkcloth industry. Mutebi started a community-based association in his home area to promote the planting of Mutuba tree and use of the barkcloth. The association dubbed Bukomansimbi Organic Tree Farmers Association (BOTFA) has over 900 members. The members regularly meet to plan ways of conserving the Mutuba tree and also promote the benefits of the tree to the local community. The association also has a nursery bed for the Mutuba seedlings from which farmers from different parts of the country come and buy. "The hope is that we are going to have an unconventional canopy in Uganda and in the region and therefore we would have tackled the environmental issue and give jobs to people," Mutebi said. "There was a time when it (Mutuba) had spread in the entire region, as far as Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania. We want to follow up the pattern." NEW USES In the capital Kampala, the perception about barkcloth is changing. The ancient fabric has found new uses. Mutebi said he has resorted to using barkcloth as canvas instead of the conventional paper imported into the country. His intention is to inspire African artists to start using African materials from renewable sources, with the prerequisite of good conservation of natural resources. Mutebi hopes this can eventually spark a global movement of artists using barkcloth. "There is always a moment in one's life to think about where they have to come from, where they are and what their contribution should be to shape the future," Mutebi said. "Am trying as much as possible to deal with the different ways and possible methods of manipulating barkcloth so that we inspire a wave of young artists." he said. Indeed Mutebi has inspired some artists in Uganda. Edward Waddimba, a sculptor was inspired by Mutebi to move away from using tree stumps to using barkcloth for sculpture. Waddimba told Xinhua in a recent interview that he hopes other sculptors would be inspired to use barkcloth instead of promoting the cutting of trees for sculpture. At several tourist gift shops in Kampala, barkcloth is a major highlight. Craftsmen make bags, bangles, rugs and other gifts out of barkcloth. Barkcloth has also hit the international fashion industry. Mutebi said BOTFA supplies barkcloth to some of the designers in the fashion industry even as far as Europe. Uganda media quotes a lot a Ugandan-born British designer Jose Hendo, whose collection has earned her recognition on the international stage given its unique touch of entire design work from barkcloth material. In Bukomansimbi, Mutebi together with his community members have started a training school that will give practical lessons on how to process barkcloth. Every weekend students from the neighboring communities come to the school. Mutebi said the school will help train other barkcloth processors to replenish the dwindling numbers. He said there are currently 70 barkcloth craftsmen and most of them are elderly. The training school also has an accommodation section where tourists can stay as they are taken through the process of making barkcloth. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 17:58:08|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close DHAKA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Customs officials at Bangladesh's main airport in Dhaka seized 36 gold bars weighing about 4.2 kg, from two cabin crew members of a Saudi Airlines flight, an official said on Monday. Othello Chowdhury, a senior customs official, told reporters that Sayma Akhter and Farjana Afrose -- both Bangladeshi crew members of Saudi Airlines -- were detained following the seize of the gold bars. According to the customs official, they arrived at Hazrat Shajalal International Airport at about 2:00 a.m. local time Monday by the Saudi Airlines flight from Jeddah. Acting on a tip-off, she said the cabin crew members were searched when they were passing the green channel at the airport. Female officials found 36 gold bars worth about 21 million taka (about 250,000 U.S. dollars) hidden inside the under garments of the fight attendants, she added. According to the official, they will be handed over to the police. Sources said organized gangs have been increasingly using Bangladesh as a transit for the illegal transportation of gold, foreign currencies, contraband drug and medicines. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 18:18:20|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close by Zhang Yuliang, Tichaona Chifamba HARARE, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe is starting to count the losses as the death toll caused by Cyclone Idai-induced floods hit 70 across three provinces, while access to the most affected areas in southeastern Zimbabwe remains curtailed. Manicaland Province has so far recorded 65 deaths while Masvingo and Mashonaland East provinces have recorded four and one respectively. Hundreds if others are still missing amid fears that the body count will rise further. The most severely affected area is Chimanimani district where most of the deaths have occurred, followed by Chipinge district in Manicaland Province. Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister July Moyo told state media Herald newspaper that the 65 deaths in Manicaland were caused by drowning and injuries sustained during mudslides. "We will continue with efforts to reach Chimanimani. Our army engineers as well as their counterparts from the Ministry of Transport are with us to help clear the way. We want to ensure that we reach the ground and render all the necessary assistance," he said Sunday night during a tour of some of the affected areas. Moyo confirmed that an international appeal for assistance had been made and some local well-wishers were already providing help. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had left the country on an official visit to the United Arab Emirates on Friday, just a few hours before the tropical cyclone hit the country, has had to cut short the trip and turned to the country on Monday. The Meteorological Services Department has forecast sunny breaks starting Monday as the cyclone continues to lose intensity as it heads towards Malawi. Roads and bridges have been severely damaged while thousands of people have been left homeless after their homes collapsed in the driving rains and floods. Communication is difficult in some areas and anxious relatives are trying to reach their loved ones through the less damaged roads, but increased traffic is now slowing down relief efforts. The government is now appealing to the relatives to stop driving into the affected areas until the victims have been attended to by the Civil Protection Unit. "The Civil Protection Unit wants to appeal to the general public to avoid visiting the cyclone ravaged Chimanimani and Chipinge areas. Increased traffic is causing road congestion that is disturbing the transportation of relief supplies and slowing down rescue efforts," a notice tweeted by the Ministry of Information, Media and Publicity said Monday. Government ministers are touring the affected areas and hope that army engineers will quickly clear the roads that are littered with debris. The clearer weather as the rains subside has also enabled the Air Force of Zimbabwe to fly its helicopters to affected areas and airlift the injured for medical treatment, the government said. However, some areas continue to be engulfed in mist, thereby slowing down rescue efforts. Churches across the country are also appealing to their congregants to help in cash or kind, while the corporate world has also chipped in with food, blankets and clothing. Nearly 200 pupils and their teachers at St Charles Luwanga School in Chipinge, who had been stranded since Friday, were rescued Sunday. The school is mourning the death of two pupils following a rockfall which hit their dormitory while they slept on Friday. The United Nations team in Zimbabwe has also joined the government and other partners in providing relief to about 8,000 people affected by the cyclone. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 18:43:26|Editor: ZX Video Player Close HANGZHOU, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The educational department in east China's Zhejiang Province plans to release an online education assistance program for primary and middle schools in urban and rural areas to bridge the education disparity. The provincial educational department will introduce live streaming classes and online video courses of quality urban schools to their paired counterparts in rural areas. Teachers from the paired schools will also prepare lessons together and help correct and mark the homework of students. According to the agency, 1,000 tailored courses, mostly online videos, will be designed by quality schools in urban areas to help improve the weak subjects of the less-competitive schools. In 2019, the agency aims to promote the assistance program among 1,000 primary and middle schools in urban and rural areas. According to the Ministry of Education, China will launch a nationwide campaign to promote online learning. A total of 10 million teachers and students will be encouraged to register with online learning platforms this year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 18:53:30|Editor: ZX Video Player Close TIANJIN, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China will launch a month-long campaign nationwide to enhance supervision over medical insurance funds and strengthen its crackdown on medical insurance fraud. The campaign, initiated by the National Healthcare Security Administration, also aims to create an atmosphere for the whole society to consciously safeguard medicare fund security. Efforts will be made in the campaign to promote relevant laws and regulations, smooth out complaint channels of healthcare security departments at all levels, as well as set up a reward system for information concerning fraud. A launching ceremony for the campaign, jointly held by the administration and Tianjin Municipal People's Government, was held in Tianjin Monday. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 19:13:34|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday encouraged students at an Italian school to be cultural ambassadors between the two countries. The Chinese leader made the remarks in a response letter to President Paolo M. Reale and eight students of Rome Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II, an Italian boarding school. On the eve of Xi's upcoming state visit to Italy, Reale and the students wrote him a letter to express their eager expectations for his visit and their willingness to promote friendship between Italy and China. In his letter, Xi said he is very pleased to see that the students can express themselves in fluent Chinese. "Your school has successfully opened a Chinese-language international scientific high school and nurtured a host of young men and women devoted to promoting China-Italy friendly relations," he said. In their letter, the students said the Confucius Classroom program has provided them with an opportunity to have a closer look at China and enabled them to see the vastness of the world and the value of cultural diversity. "This is a harvest you have reaped from learning and practice," said the Chinese president. Xi said he highly appreciates the students' determination to promote dialogue of minds and cultural exchanges between the young generations of the two countries and cement the friendship between the two peoples. "I hope you will become modern-day Marco Polos, as cultural ambassadors between Italy and China in this new era," he said. Rome Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II is a prestigious boarding school in Italy, which opened in 2009 an international high school that teaches science-related courses in Chinese. The school has the largest Confucius Classroom in Italy, and learning Chinese language and culture is popular among the students. Related: Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 19:13:35|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BEIRUT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Mireille Girard, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative in Lebanon, said Monday that Lebanon has become much weaker after hosting a big number of Syrian refugees despite the support of the international community, local media reported. "The Lebanese economy was greatly impacted by the crisis and there is a feeling that Lebanon is on the verge of collapse. Any country facing such a big crisis will normally suffer a lot," Girard was quoted as saying by Elnashra, an online independent newspaper. Girard's remarks came during a conference held in Beirut to discuss the return of refugees and their situation in Lebanon. Girard said that Lebanon is still weak despite the funding that it has received from the international community to host Syrian refugees during the past few years. "Lebanon was capable of meeting some of the demands of refugees but one third of Syrian refugees' families are still under the poverty line with one third of children and 80 percent of adolescents being incapable of accessing education," she said. Girard said that donor organizations will continue to support hosting communities to reduce the negative impact of Syrian refugees. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 19:38:45|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping encourages Italian students to become cultural ambassadors between the two countries in a letter of response to President Paolo M. Reale and students of Rome Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II, an Italian boarding school. The following is an English translation of the letter dated on Sunday: Dear President Reale and students, I have received your letter and I'm very pleased to see that the students can express themselves in fluent Chinese. Your school has successfully opened a Chinese-language international scientific high school and nurtured a host of young men and women devoted to promoting China-Italy friendly relations. In the letter, you said the Confucius Classroom program has provided you with an opportunity to have a closer look at China and enabled you to see the vastness of the world and the value of cultural diversity. This is a harvest you have reaped from learning and practice. I highly appreciate your determination to promote dialogue of minds and cultural exchanges between the young generations of the two countries and cement the friendship between the two peoples. I hope you will become modern-day Marco Polos, as cultural ambassadors between Italy and China in this new era. Youth always goes hand in hand with dreams. You are going to graduate from high school and embark on college life. May all of you give full play to your youth and realize your dreams. You are welcome to study and work in China, and I hope China will be the place where your dreams come true. Sincerely yours, Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China March 17, 2019 Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 19:53:47|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BERLIN, March 18 (Xinhua) -- A new line of the German high-speed ICE train is being planned between the Ruhr area and Berlin with top speeds of 300 km an hour, the German Federal Ministry of Transport announced on Monday. The new train line would run every half an hour between the German cities of Hannover and Bielefeld, "which is a dream for the entire region," Enak Ferlemann, parliamentary state secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure told the German press agency (dpa). "Our core goal is Berlin-Cologne in four hours," Ferlemann added. The ICE currently takes around 4 hours and 40 minutes to travel between Cologne and Berlin, with trains running every hour. Ferlemann said he hoped that the plans for the new route between Hanover and Bielefeld would progress far enough this year that a dialogue forum with citizens and municipalities could be held next year to discuss options. The German government's expansion plan for the stretch between Hannover and Bielefeld classified the expansion as "urgently needed". The plan estimated that the expansion could cost almost 1.9 billion euros (2.16 billion U.S. dollars) but only included an increase in train speeds to 230 km/h. German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer recently launched a "future alliance" for the German railways with the aim of doubling the number of passengers using the German train network by 2030 and getting more freight on the railways and off the roads. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 19:58:49|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BANGKOK, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Thailand is continuing to crack down on human trafficking rings nationwide, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan was quoted as saying on Monday. Prawit, who concurrently acts as defense minister, chaired a meeting of the Committee on Human Trafficking Prevention and Suppression at Government House during which he reassured the government's anti-human trafficking measures are being carried out, said Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantravanich. The committee considered the planned revision to an official report on Thailand's measures against human trafficking rings which is to be forwarded to the United States early next month, the spokesman said. Prawit was quoted as saying the authorities will certainly continue to combat human trafficking rackets and rescue and protect victims with respect to the human rights principles. The authorities have planned to eradicate hidden human trafficking rings preying on prostitutes, beggars and under-aged workers, besides illegal migrant workers, Lt. Gen. Kongcheep said. Any government personnel allegedly found to have been involved in human trafficking businesses will be brought to justice without exception, the deputy prime minister was quoted as saying. A relative of a victim of the Ethiopian Airlines crash speaks to the press in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, March 14, 2019. (Xinhua/MichaelTewelde) ADDIS ABABA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Relatives of victims who perished in an Ethiopian Airlines jet crash gathered in the Ethiopian capital on Sunday to mourn their loved ones, one week after a Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 Max 8 went down just minutes after take-off. Flight ET 302 crashed near Bishoftu town, about 45 km from Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport, killing all 157 people aboard. The memorial service included two parts, first at the headquarters of the Ethiopian Airlines Group and the second at the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Senior Ethiopian government officials and relatives of the perished crew members were also in attendence. Thousands of others also gathered at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, where relatives attended funeral services in accordance with Ethiopian Orthodox church traditions. The memorial event came amid difficulties to provide victims' bodies to their loved ones due to the devastating nature of the crash. "We only have very small fragmented human tissues, human remains. That is the most difficult part of this tragic accident," Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam told Xinhua in a recent interview. Grieving family members were given bags of soil taken from the crash site. The Ethiopian Federal Police is now taking full control of the human remains recovered from the crash site and Blake Emergency Services, a British-based organization, has been assigned to help with the DNA identification process, Gebremariam said. "It's going to take a very long period of time," he said. Both data and voice recorders from the crashed aircraft have been sent to France for further investigation into what caused the tragedy. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 20:23:57|Editor: ZX Video Player Close SHANGHAI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Starbucks said Monday it did not sell its VIA instant coffee in supermarkets on the Chinese mainland, responding to claims about "fake Starbucks" found in cities like Beijing and Nanjing. Media reports have surfaced about "Starbucks VIA instant coffee" found in a number of high-end supermarkets in Chinese cities, with labels describing their distributor as "Guangzhou Baiyi Foods Trade Co., Ltd." A survey at a Nanjing supermarket by Xinhua reporters found the "Starbucks VIA" in question have almost the same design as those sold at Starbucks outlets. Starbucks China told Xinhua that its "Starbucks VIA" instant coffee is only sold at its outlets and its Tmall store. Tmall is a popular online shopping platform in China. The company said it will take legal actions against any counterfeited Starbucks products. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 20:44:08|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TASHKENT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Uzbekistan's car plant GM Uzbekistan has sent its first cars and components to neighboring Kazakhstan in a bid to raise export potential and gain economic growth, the company said on Monday. GM Uzbekistan said in a statement that it sent the first batch of cars to Kazakhstan on Saturday without specifying any details regarding the number of the vehicles exported. The company will export parts of Rovan Nexia R3 models to be assembled at SariarkaAvtoProm plant in the city of Kostanay, Kazakhstan, according to the statement. Meanwhile, the company, which exports its products under the Ravon brand, will send ready-made R4 models to "Ravon Motors Kazakhstan." The company, which used to sell Ravon cars in Russia in the past, has said that its exports are now oriented to neighboring countries, which also include Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Uzbek car factory was originally set up as a joint venture with South Korea's Daewoo Motors in 1996. It was renamed GM Uzbekistan in 2008 after the American General Motors automaker acquired Daewoo Motors. In 2018, Uzbekistan's state-run Uzavtosanoat acquired the shares of the General Motors to become the sole owner of the car factory. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 20:49:13|Editor: ZX Video Player Close LHASA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The State Grid's Tibet branch announced that 25,000 more people in the plateau region will be covered by the main power grid by the end of this year. In 2019, Tibet plans to build 140 electric substations of 35 kilovolts and above and 7,000 km of power transmission lines as the region continues to expand and upgrade its electricity infrastructure. By the end of 2018, 2.76 million people in 63 counties, or over 80 percent of Tibet's population, were covered by the main power grid, thanks to an investment of 8.89 billion yuan (about 1.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the year. If the plan goes well, the figure will rise to 66 counties by the end of 2019. A 16.2-billion-yuan power interconnection project was put into operation in Tibet last November, linking the region with the national grid network for the first time. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 20:59:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Representatives of China's Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Company Limited and New Zealand's Westland Co-operative Dairy Company Limited attend an agreement signing ceremony in Auckland, New Zealand, March 18, 2019. Yili Group, one of the world's leading dairy producers, signed a conditional agreement Monday with Westland. Yili has offered to purchase 100 percent the shares of Westland's existing shareholders and take over operation of the company. (Xinhua) AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China's Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Company Limited signed a conditional agreement Monday with New Zealand's Westland Co-operative Dairy Company limited. Yili Group, one of the world's leading dairy producers, has offered to purchase 100 percent the shares of Westland's existing shareholders and take over operation of the company. Chief President of the Yili Group Zhang Jianqiu said the offer would result in an immediate cash windfall to farmer shareholders, as well as a competitive milk payout. Westland and Yili would also be able to share the expertise each entity has developed over years in the industry, which will lead to increased innovation, Zhang said. "The Yili Group sees our offer to Westland farmer shareholders as very much a partnership arrangement," he said. "We believe we are offering farmer shareholders a stronger financial future, and greater access to international markets. Zhang also said Yili had already demonstrated its commitment to local dairy farmers and its determination to be a good corporate partner with New Zealand dairy farmers. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:04:20|Editor: ZX Video Player Close NAIROBI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China and Africa will cooperate under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by improving the quality and safety of projects, a Chinese official said on Monday. Huang Guoliang, Director General of Quality Development Bureau, State Administration for Market Regulation in China told a forum in Nairobi that the Belt and Road Initiative belongs both to China and also the world, because it's built on the principle of seeking shared benefits through extensive consultation and joint contribution among cooperating partners. "In view of the inconsistency of national standards along the Belt and Road, it is necessary to strengthen the cooperation and integration of standards between countries along Belt and Road, so as to achieve better results of project implementation," Huang said. The forum is seeking to better implement and realize the initiative, by addressing some of the difficulties and challenges during implementation. The event has brought together representatives from UN agencies, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, government agencies, Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), Association of Consulting Engineers Kenya, Association of Consulting Engineers Tanzania, Association of Consulting Engineers Morocco, as well as representatives from Chinese companies that are investing in Africa. "Though faced with many difficulties, still fruitful results have been achieved," Huang said, noting that a number of infrastructure projects have been interconnected and many projects have been negotiated and built together, bringing win-win results under the joint efforts of countries along the Belt and Road. Currently, 123 countries and 29 international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China, making the initiative the world's leading platform for international cooperation. The Chinese official said that the Belt and Road Initiative has also become an important practice in building a community of shared future for mankind. Huang noted that the ultimate goal of the Belt and Road project cooperation is to improve the quality of life of the local people through various projects, and the criteria to assess the projects' success are whether these projects have improved the well-being of the locals. "In the process of building the Belt and Road projects in China and Africa, we should not only pay attention to economic benefits, but also to social benefits, especially adhering to the people-oriented principle, and strictly adhere to the standards and requirements of environment protection, health and safety," Huang said. Sachen Gudka, KAM chairman said the local industrialists are keen to enhance collaboration between Chinese and Kenyan manufacturing industries for the benefit of both countries. "The more we increase our collaboration in driving the efficiency of our local industry, not only will we realize both our economic goals but also create wealth and increase the purchasing power of all citizens," Gudka added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:14:22|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close KAMPALA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Three people have died and over 240 others were hospitalized in northeastern Uganda after they ate contaminated relief food, a Uganda Red Cross official said on Monday. Beatrice Nakitende, Red Cross manager for the south Karamoja region, told Xinhua that two deaths were registered in Amudat district while the other was in Napak. She said by Sunday there were 140 victims in Napak and 100 others in Amudat. Nakitende said that currently the situations in both districts of Amudat and Napak are under control, and the majority of the hospitalized were already discharged. The UN World Food Program (WFP) on Saturday announced that it had stopped the distribution of blended food in Uganda after reports of recipients falling sick. The food aid agency in a weekend statement said scores of recipients of Super Cereal, a fortified blended food, were taken sick and admitted to health centers in Karamoja. Nakitende said Red Cross is working with WFP to sensitize the community to withdraw all the food stuff that had been distributed earlier. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:14:22|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close DAMASCUS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, the Syrian defense minister, said Monday that the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will face two options - either to embark on reconciliation with the government or the areas under their control will be retaken by the Syrian army by forces. Ayyoub made the remarks during a press conference held Monday following his meeting with the chiefs of staff of Iraq and Iran in Damascus. The Syrian official said that the Syrian state will completely wrest control over all of Syria sooner or later, noting that there will be no inch of Syria out of the government control. Ayyoub made mention of the Eastern Euphrates River region where the SDF control areas there along with areas in northeastern Syria. "The only card in the hands of the U.S. and its allies is the SDF and it would be dealt with in accordance with the two ways adopted by the Syrian state either through reconciliation or liberating the areas that they control by force," he said. He also mentioned Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, saying that Idlib province will return sooner or later. "The Syrian state will completely wrest control over all of Syria sooner or later whether through reconciliations or military force and Idlib will not be an exception as it's one of the four de-escalation zones that have been identified. The three other areas have returned to the Syrian state and the same situation will apply to Idlib," he stressed. The Syrian government has for long said that it would retrieve Idlib from the ultra-radical rebels. However, a planned military campaign was put on hold late last year when Russia, Iran, and Turkey agreed to a demilitarized zone in Idlib. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the umbrella group of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, was supposed to leave, but on the contrary, it expanded and took control over all of Idlib, which renewed talks about a possible military campaign against the rebels in Idlib in northwestern Syria. "There will be no inch out of the government control and that has been stressed by the Syrian president more than once. But when and how this is a military matter," Ayyoub said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:34:27|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Aerial photo taken on March 18, 2019 shows the Haiwen Bridge, south China's Hainan Province. The cross-sea bridge, which was built over seismic faults, officially started operation on Monday. The total length of the bridge is 5.597 km, including about 3.959 km across the sea. The bridge, which links Yanfeng Township of Haikou City and Puqian Township of Wenchang City, cut the trip between the two places from an hour and a half to about 20 minutes. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng) HAIKOU, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The Haiwen Bridge opened to traffic Monday in the island province of Hainan as the first cross-sea bridge crossing active faults and the most earthquake-resistant bridge in China. The 5.59-km bridge connects the Hainan capital Haikou and Puqian, an island town in the city of Wenchang which is also known as the hometown of many overseas Chinese. The six-lane bridge, which cuts the travel time between Puqian and Haikou from 1.5 hours to just 20 minutes, is expected to promote the integration of coastal industries in northeast Hainan, said Lin Dong, head of the provincial department of transportation. With a total investment of 3 billion yuan (about 447 million U.S. dollars), the bridge was under strict marine monitor throughout its construction. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:39:29|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close WARSAW, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday that there should be no tax havens in Europe and that, if there is no common EU digital tax, member states will have to act alone. "The European Commission itself and the OECD consider some countries, like Cyprus and Malta -- but lately even Belgium or Ireland, as countries which help multinational giants to avoid paying tax," Morawiecki said. The prime minister said that Poland was one of the countries bringing up the topic of a common digital tax at meetings of the European Council and that Warsaw was in touch often with France and Germany about the issue. Morawiecki said that, according to his sources, Austria was getting ready to introduce a digital tax despite the lack of EU consensus. "We want to do it together with all EU countries, but the Austrian example shows that, if there is no consensus, member countries will have to take this decision -- I hope, not long from now -- on their own, independently and with responsibility," Morawiecki concluded. Last year, the European Commission proposed an EU tax on big digital firms' online revenues, arguing that companies funneled profit through states with the lowest tax levels. The idea was met with resistance by several EU member states, leading France and Germany to propose a watered-down version at the end of last year. Even so, the necessary consensus among member states to put the tax into EU law is still lacking. Aerial photo taken on June 21, 2018 shows morning view of the Lujiazui area in Pudong of Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Ren Long) NEW YORK, March 17 (Xinhua) -- China's newly passed foreign investment law will help level the playing field and be gladly welcomed by foreign investors, said a senior U.S. expert. "The predictability, transparency, and non-discrimination bent of the law will improve the business environment," Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, told Xinhua in a recent interview. "In my view, (the law will) draw a deluge of foreign capital into the Chinese investment marketplace over the next decade," Gupta said. China's national legislature on Friday passed the foreign investment law, a landmark legislation that will provide stronger protection and a better business environment for overseas investors. It aims to improve the transparency of foreign investment policies and ensure that foreign-invested enterprises participate in market competition on an equal basis. LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The law will significantly help address major issues that foreign investors face in China, as it provides them with strong protection to ensure administrative and regulatory impartiality, according to the scholar. "Foreign investors will now be able to compete on the same terms as China's domestic companies," he said, adding that a number of key sectors have gone through significant liberalization for foreign direct investment, such as automobile, finance and insurance. In this aspect, the expert pointed out that China's national treatment "will afford foreign investors treatment that is no less favorable than that afforded to Chinese investors during the establishment, acquisition, expansion and other stages of their investment." He also noticed that the legislation explicitly prohibits forced technology transfer by administrative measures and essentially bars local governments from interfering with national foreign investment policies. Therefore, the investment protection clauses in the law will be "gladly welcomed by foreign businesses," he noted. The scholar also pointed out that the law's significance for China's new round of opening-up and reform is "potentially profound," as it embodies its potential to assist in transforming Chinese economy towards "a more sophisticated, advanced economy-type, (and a) productivity-led growth model." IMPLEMENTATION IS KEY The law is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2020, yet it will take some time for the law to reassure foreign businesses that "the playing field is being leveled in China to allow fair competition to take hold, irrespective of national origins," Gupta said. As always, when a piece of legislation is passed, the key is in the implementation, he noted, adding that how rigorously the implementing regulations are written will be key to the success of the enforcement. In this regard, the senior fellow expressed optimism, as he has witnessed rapid strides that China has made "in the enforcement-related elements of its patents and intellectual property rights (IPR) regime." Particularly, he pointed to the newly established IPR court by China's Supreme People's Court (SPC), which has started to hear IPR appeals since Jan. 1. IPR cases to be handled by the court include a broad range of lawsuits, such as patents, copyright, trademarks, new plant varieties, integrated circuit layout design and monopoly, according to the SPC. In terms of foreign investment protection, "strong measures to deal with political, regulatory and administrative non-compliance are envisaged. A robust working mechanism to promptly address foreign businesses' complaints is also envisaged," he said. Since foreign investors will wonder "what really has changed de facto on the ground" in terms of the enforcement of the foreign investment law, "the burden of proof thus resides on China's shoulder to show that a new chapter has been opened in regard to fair, predictable, transparent and non-discrimination enforcement of China's foreign investment regime." "The implementing regulations that breathe life into the foreign investment law will be crucial in this regard," Gupta stressed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:49:31|Editor: ZX Video Player Close NANJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Firmenich, the world's largest privately-owned fragrance and flavor company, has launched its largest flavor manufacturing plant in China's eastern city of Zhangjiagang as it pursues a bigger presence in the fast-growing Chinese market. The new plant is wholly foreign-owned with an investment of 75 million U.S. dollars in the first phase, with two more projects to be constructed in the future. "China is our second largest market worldwide," said Gilbert Ghostine, Firmenich CEO, adding that he expects the factory in Zhangjiagang to play a central role in the company's growth. As the biggest investment for Firmenich in the past few decades, the plant covers an area of 60,065 square meters in the Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone with an annual capacity of 12,000 tonnes in the first phase. Senior executives from the company expressed confidence in the long-term development of the Chinese market as the country's economy continues to prosper with upgrading consumption. "We see a lot of growth potential for our business in China as the Chinese government has announced the outlook for the Chinese economy in 2019 to be between 6 to 6.5 percent, which is very encouraging," said Olegario Monegal, president of Firmenich China. The executive also said customers in China are demanding higher-end, higher-quality and healthier products as the country's consumption upgrades, which brings opportunities for the company's business. Firmenich first came to China in 1989. In the past three decades, the company has established three sales offices, one world-class research and development center and three manufacturing plants in the country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:49:32|Editor: ZX Video Player Close KAMPALA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Tucked away in his studio in Kisasi, one of the suburbs of Uganda's capital Kampala, 52-year-old Fred Mutebi paints on a barkcloth canvass. Mutebi prefers to use barkcloth canvass instead of the conventional canvass in a bid to promote genuine African art. He is passionate about African art. He has been practicing for the last 25 years since he left university. He told Xinhua in a recent interview that his art has been exhibited in different parts of the world including China, adding that he believed that African art is appreciated globally. As China and Africa continue to deepen their cooperation ranging from trade and investment to people- -to-people ties, Mutebi holds that promotion and appreciation of African art must be factored in. He said African and Chinese artists can cooperate by working on joint projects and exploring the rich African culture through art. He also said that Chinese can invest in African art since there is a global movement of people who appreciate the art. Mutebi said most of Africa's art is natural and rotates around the day to day life of people especially in the rural areas where there is little foreign influence. Mutebi cited the example of harvesting the bark of Ficus natalensis, commonly known as a Mutuba tree. He said the process of turning the bark into barkcloth and also protecting the stem of the tree whose bark has been removed, is all art. The bark is hit with wooden mallets using special skills until it turns into a finer fabric. Yellowing banana leaves are wrapped around the tree stem to help the stem recuperate and another bark to grow. All this art, according to Mutebi, is fading because the craftsmen are now elderly and dying. However, currently, there is a new wave of young artists who are interested in African art. He said these artists need to be nurtured to appreciate genuine African art. This also means that the artists, either local or international, need to use African materials in their pieces. "I do not want a situation where the young ones are going to present what was introduced to us. We who have been artists for a long time should inspire them," he said. Mutebi with support from his community members back in his village about 150 km from Kampala has started a school. The school which will also act as a cultural village to attract tourists, will train youngsters on African craftsmanship. Every weekend pupils from neighboring communities come to the school to learn. Mutebi has also brought together some elderly craftsmen who impart skills on the young ones. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 21:54:34|Editor: ZX Video Player Close MANILA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The first China book center in the Philippines was unveiled on Monday in University of the Philippines, aiming to promote cultural exchange between the two countries. Located in the Asian center of the University of the Philippines Diliman, the China book center was jointly established by the Chinese embassy in the Philippines, China International Publishing Group (CIPG) and the University of the Philippines (UP). Tan Qingsheng, Charge d'Affaires of the Chinese embassy, said he hoped the China book center will provide the teachers and students in UP with a window to a whole picture of China and give them an insight of China's history, culture, and development. "I also hope more Filipino scholars and students could be the ambassadors of friendship and cooperation between China and the Philippines," He said. In the China book center, around 1,000 books in English and Chinese are available to local readers. All books, covering Chinese politics, economy, culture and ecology, are donated by CIPG. Chen Shi, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of CIPG, said the China book center in UP is the first one in the Philippines and the second one in Southeast Asia. The other one is at Bangkok University in Thailand. Chancellor of University of the Philippines Diliman Michael Lim Tan expressed his gratitude during the unveiling ceremony of the China book center. Tan said the books can be a bridge and will boost the mutual understanding between the two countries. There are just so many activities on Chinese culture in UP and the unveiling of the China book center will be a very effective measure for understanding China further, he added. UP is one of the most famous universities in the Philippines with a history of more than one 100 years. UP has established close ties with China in recent years, including the academic exchange programs with Peking University and Tsinghua University. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:04:38|Editor: ZX Video Player Close NAIROBI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The just concluded fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly recognized China's pragmatic approach toward hastening ecological renewal amid rapid industrial progress. Senior UN officials and experts acknowledged that China has raised the bar in environmental protection as evidenced by improved air and water quality in major cities, besides global stewardship in green energy. Joyce Msuya, the acting executive director of UN Environment Programme, hailed pragmatic choices China has adopted in recent times to restore health of natural habitats against a backdrop of phenomenal economic growth. "China has a lot to offer in terms of lessons for example on how the government set up policies to address the issue of pollution. The direction the Chinese government is taking on reassessing sources of energy is positive," Msuya told Xinhua. Kenya hosted the fourth edition of the global environment assembly that was attended by more than 4,700 delegates including presidents, ministers, industry executives, scientists and innovators. The March 11 to 15 assembly whose theme was "Innovative solutions for environmental challenges: sustainable production and consumption" adopted sweeping resolutions to revitalize the global green agenda. China's environmental stewardship was felt prior to the assembly when a report indicating drastic improvement in the capital Beijing's air quality for the last two decades was launched. "This improvement in air quality did not happen by accident. It was as a result of an enormous investment of time, resources and political will," said Msuya at the launch of the report titled Review of 20 years' Air Pollution Control in Beijing. "Understanding Beijing's air pollution story is crucial for any nation, district or municipality that wishes to follow a similar path," she added. China's success in restoration of urban rivers as revealed in a publication jointly authored by the UN Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat) and Tongji University, was recognized at the UN environment assembly. "I applaud the efforts of the Government of People's Republic of China in developing technical, managerial and financial solutions to improve the water quality of urban rivers," said Maimunah Mohd Sharif, UN Habitat executive director. Luis Alfonso de Alba, special envoy for the 2019 climate summit to be held in September in New York, said that China is in the frontline of advancing the global green agenda. "I'm happy China has assumed greater responsibility in promotion of climate resilience. China has also agreed to green the Belt and Road projects," said Luis. He revealed that China has agreed to play a major role in the September climate summit that is expected to come up with a new road map for low carbon development. Experts who attended a science policy business forum that took place ahead of the UN environment assembly also hailed China's clean technology revolution whose positive ripple effects have been felt across the globe. Mohua Mukherjee, an energy and climate finance expert at the International Solar Alliance said that developing countries have benefited from cheaper but high quality technologies from China to facilitate uptake of green energy. "China is a leader in production of solar panels that have revolutionized access to clean energy among households in low income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America," said Mohua. She lauded China for promoting knowledge sharing and technology transfer on renewable energy through South-South cooperation. The signing of an agreement between UNEP and China's electric motorbike firm, TAILG Group at the UN environmental assembly was a confirmation the Asian country will be an influential player in the switch to clean mobility. David Rubia, project manager in charge of electric mobility at UNEP said the entry of TAILG into the east African market will unleash new jobs for the youth and tackle traffic congestion that is to blame for rampant air pollution. "Our partnership with TAILG marked a giant step in clean mobility across the region. We look forward to emissions reduction and employment for the youth," said Rubia. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:04:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BAGHDAD, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi President Barham Salih on Monday lauded the U.S.-led coalition support to Iraq, asserting the need to achieve regional peace and stability. Salih's comments came during his meeting with James Jeffrey, the U.S. special envoy for anti-terrorism coalition, and his accompanying delegation in Iraq's northern city of Sulaimaniyah, a statement from the presidency office said. During the meeting, the two sides discussed the latest security and political development in the region, highlighting the need to solve conflicts, according to the statement. Salih asserted Iraq's keenness to "expand the horizons of joint cooperation between Iraq and the United States in all fields, and the importance of coordination between the two sides on security and political developments," the statement said. Salih also lauded the U.S. support for Iraq in the fight against terror and the reconstruction of areas destroyed in the fight to dislodge the extremist Islamic State (IS) group from Iraq, the statement said. For his part, Jeffrey reiterated his country's determination to continue support to Iraq in all fields, lauding the victory achieved by Iraqi forces against IS group, it added. The United States is leading an international coalition tasked to help the Iraqi security forces in the fight against the extremist IS militants through carrying out air strikes against IS positions in Iraq and Syria, and providing military equipment and training to Iraqi forces. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:09:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close BEIRUT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Monday that the fight against corruption in Lebanon will not end soon, Lebanon presidency's website reported. "No one is immune in this battle against corruption. Anyone who is accused of being corrupted will stand before the judiciary," Aoun said during the launching at Baabda Palace of a national campaign aimed at reviving Lebanon's economy. Aoun said that corruption is one of the biggest challenges facing Lebanon nowadays. The president said the government will tackle most of the corruption cases by this year's Ramadan, Islamic month of fasting, which begins in May. The Lebanese Parliament approved last month a cabinet policy that includes a number of issues to be tackled by the new government including the fight against corruption. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:19:45|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close OTTAWA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to shuffle his cabinet Monday to fill the vacancy left by the abrupt resignation of Jane Philpott as Treasury Board president earlier this month, according to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Vancouver Member of Parliament (MP) Joyce Murray is widely seen as a possible replacement for Philpott, said CBC. Murray is a former provincial cabinet minister and has been parliamentary secretary to the Treasury Board president for several years. Philpott resigned earlier this month, saying she had lost confidence in how the Trudeau government had responded to the SNC-Lavalin scandal, where former Attorney General and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould alleged she was politically pressured to help the Quebec company secure a special legal agreement over charges of bribery and fraud. The incoming shuffle will be the third in three months for Trudeau following the domino effect as the result of a slew of resignations beginning with former Treasury Board President Scott Brison, Wilson-Raybould from her new post as veterans affairs minister and lastly Philpott. Another option for replacing Philpott is Carla Qualtrough, the minister of Public Services and Procurement, who temporarily assumed Treasury Board responsibilities after her colleague's resignation, according to CBC. Qualtrough has worked closely with the Treasury Board on a number of major files, including the quest for a permanent fix for the error-prone Phoenix public service pay system. Canadian Treasury Board oversees accountability and ethics, financial, personnel and administrative management, approving regulations and cabinet orders. Its president oversees the management of the public purse and ensures that the government is well managed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:19:46|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BRUSSELS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Monday that China and Europe have consensus in 10 aspects. Wang is in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday attending the ninth round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue. At a joint press conference with Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Wang said that the cooperation and competition between China and Europe have been the focus of concerns under the China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The two sides agreed during the strategic dialogue that the cooperation between the two sides far outweighs the competition, and they share far more consensus than divergence. Summarizing the 10-point consensus, Wang said, first, China and the EU both support multilateralism and oppose unilateral practice; second, the two sides both support the United Nations playing a dominant role in the international affairs, and safeguard the basic norms of international relations based on the purposes of the UN Charter; third, both support an open world economy, and oppose protectionism. Fourth, both support the rules-based multilateral trading system, and the reform and enhancement of the WTO; Fifth, both support the peaceful settlement of the hotspot issues and regional disputes through dialogue and consultation; Sixth, both support stronger international cooperation against global challenges including the climate change; Seventh, both support the commitment to the international non-proliferation regime and to maintaining global strategic stability; Eighth, both support the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, and commitment to reduce economic inequality and the North-South divide; Ninth, both support the campaign against all forms of terrorism, and taking holistic measures to contain the spread of extremism; And tenth, both support the post-war international system and order, and will not construct another system anew. Mogherini agreed with Wang, and expressed her belief that the consensus will be even expanded when the cooperation between the two sides is deepened further. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:29:49|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TEHRAN, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said here Monday that Iran will take legal action against the U.S. sanctions, state IRIB TV reported. The Iranian ministries of foreign affairs and justice will file a legal case in the Iranian courts against the American officials who designed and imposed sanctions on Iran, said Rouhani. The case will also be taken to the international courts, he was quoted as saying. Rouhani said the "enemies will never achieve their ends to weaken the Iranian nation despite their attempts over the past 40 years." Following the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian international nuclear deal last May, Washington has imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran's financial and energy sectors. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:34:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close OTTAWA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has appointed Joyce Murray as Treasury Board president Monday morning, filling the vacancy left by the surprising resignation of Jane Philpott, according to CTV, a local television network. It is the third cabinet change within three months. Murray, Vancouver member of parliament, is a former provincial cabinet minister and has been parliamentary secretary to the Treasury Board president for several years. She also became the Minister of Digital Government. Philpott, who resigned at the beginning of the month, said she lost her confidence in how the government responded to the SNC-Lavalin scandal, where former Attorney General and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould alleged she was politically pressured to help the Quebec company secure a special legal agreement over charges of bribery and fraud. Canadian Treasury Board oversees accountability and ethics, financial, personnel and administrative management, approving regulations and cabinet orders. Its president oversees management of the public purse and ensures that the government is well managed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:39:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have entered talks about a possible merger, the two German banks confirmed on Sunday. "Deutsche Bank is reviewing strategic options and confirms discussions with Commerzbank," Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest bank, announced in a statement. Investors reacted positively to the news of a potential merger. At the start of trading on Monday, both Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank were at the top of the DAX and MDAX respectively. It would be important to only pursue options that "make economic sense", stressed Christian Sewing, chief executive officer (CEO) of Deutsche Bank, while adding that there would be "no certainty at all that any transaction will materialize". Commerzbank stated that the talks on a potential merger of the two German banks would be conducted with an "open outcome". A possible merger of the two banks has been subject of a public discussion for months, as Germany's Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and his deputy Joerg Kukies have been calling for a "national champion" in the banking sector which would be able to compete internationally since summer 2018. However, the merged company of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank would not hold a leading position among the world's largest banks. Turnover of the two banks combined amounted to a total of 33.9 billion euros (38.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018 while Europe's largest bank, the British HSBC, recorded a turnover of 53.8 billion U.S. dollars alone. The possible merger of the two banks is facing strong headwinds. Germany would not need "an even bigger and thus politically even more influential gambling bank, which can speculate unrestrainedly on the international financial markets with de facto state liability behind it," said Sahra Wagenknecht, former chairwoman of Germany's Left party. The German government is the largest shareholder of Commerzbank and is still holding 15 percent of Commerzbank shares since it bailed the bank out during the global financial crisis in 2009. "I don't see the sense of this merger at all at the moment," Frank Bsirske, chairman of ver.di, one of Germany's largest trade unions, told the newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten. "Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank do not complement each other sensibly." In addition, the possible loss of around 20,000 jobs would be "very problematic", said Bsirske, who is also a member of Deutsche Bank's supervisory board. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:49:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TOKYO, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government said Monday that it plans to study ways to achieve a stable imperial succession, including discussions on female members in the imperial family. At a parliamentary committee session, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government will study the issue of whether to keep the female members, who marry commoners, in the imperial family. He said the process will start after Crown Prince Naruhito succeeds Emperor Akihito on May 1. "Because this is an extremely important issue related to the foundation of the nation, we have to give careful consideration to the matter," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the session, referring to the issue of whether to allow female monarchs. According to the Imperial House Law, only male members can ascend the throne and female members who marry outside the imperial family are required to abandon their royal status. Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has remained cautious about whether to allow female monarchs, although there have been discussions in the past about the issue. Currently, there are 18 members in the Japanese imperial family, 13 of who are women. Emperor Akihito, 85, was enthroned on Jan. 7, 1989, starting the Era of Heisei. In a rare nationally-televised address in August 2016, he expressed his desire to relinquish his duties as emperor owing to concerns about his age, health and ability to carry out his formal duties. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 22:50:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close SOFIA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian customs at the Danube Bridge checkpoint near Vidin at the border with Romania have seized 7,200 liters of alcohol, declared and packed as coconut milk, officials said Monday. The illicit cargo was found in the early hours of Friday in a lorry with Bulgarian registration traveling in the direction of Western Europe, the National Customs Agency (NCA) said in a press release. Upon opening one of the sealed cans, the customs officers discovered that the "coconut milk" was actually colorless alcohol-smelling liquid, the NCA said. "By measuring with a densitometer the high alcoholic degree of the liquid was confirmed -- 96.8," the NCA said. Samples for laboratory analysis were taken, it added. According to its annual report, the NCA seized 148,300 liters of alcohol in 2018. In two of the cases, 860 liters were packed as disinfectant and another 430 liters as apple juice respectively. An American Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8, on a flight from Miami to New York City, comes in for landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York, U.S., March 12, 2019. (Xinhua/REUTERS) WASHINGTON, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is investigating the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its approval of Boeing 737 MAX, two of which have crashed. According to the Wall Street Journal Sunday, the DOT's Inspector General is looking into whether the FAA used appropriate design standards and engineering analysis in certifying the anti-stall system, known as MCAS, which is suspected of playing a role in the recent crashes. An earlier report on Sunday by the Seattle Times said analysis on the MCAS system, largely conducted by Boeing itself, was flawed. The report identified several flaws with the assessment, including understating the power of the new flight control system, failing to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, and assessing a failure of the system as one level below "catastrophic." The Seattle Times said it reached out to the FAA and Boeing with the details of the report prior to the Ethiopian Air crash. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement Sunday the company continues to support the Ethiopian investigation, "and is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available." The latest revelations put a spotlight on whether the Boeing 737 MAX underwent proper assessment prior to obtaining a green light to market, and the FAA's practice of delineating the responsibility of assessing a new model to the aircraft manufacturer. The U.S. Congress is expected to hold hearings to investigate the details surrounding the crashes. An Ethiopian Airlines plane en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya, crashed on March 10, killing all 157 people aboard. A Lion Air crash in October in Indonesia killed all 189 people on board. Both were Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft and investigations showed that circumstances surrounding both crashes had alarming similarities. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:10:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay state visits to Italy, Monaco and France from March 21 to 26, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Monday. Xi was invited by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Head of State of the Principality of Monaco Albert II and French President Emmanuel Macron, Lu said. During his visit to Italy, Xi will hold talks respectively with President Mattarella and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, meet with Italian Senate Speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati and Lower House Speaker Roberto Fico, exchanging in-depth views on Sino-Italian, Sino-European relations as well as international and regional issues with common concern, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a news briefing on Monday. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of comprehensive strategic partnership relations between China and Italy, said Geng, adding that bilateral relations have maintained sound development momentum. Xi's visit will be the first in 10 years for a Chinese head of state to visit Italy, which will give new connotation of the times to China-Italy relationship and be of important significance to inheriting the past and forging ahead into the future, the spokesperson said. The visit will further consolidate political mutual trust between China and Italy, deepen practical cooperation in various areas under the framework of the Belt and Road, boost people-to-people and cultural exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, promote new progress of the Sino-Italian comprehensive strategic partnership in the new era and make contributions to Sino-EU relations as well as world peace and development, said Geng. Xi will hold talks with Prince Albert II during his visit to Monaco and exchange views with him on issues of common concern such as the development of China-Monaco relations in the new era. Noting that it will be the first time for Chinese president to visit Monaco, Geng said the visit is of historical significance to bilateral relations. "We stand ready to work with Monaco together to further deepen political mutual trust as well as communication and cooperation in various fields to promote constant progress of China-Monaco relationship," Geng said, stressing the two sides have set a model of friendship and common development between big and small countries. During his visit to France, Xi will hold talks with President Macron, meet with French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and the speakers of the Senate and the National Assembly, according to Geng. Hailing that France is the first major country in the Western hemisphere to establish diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China, Geng said China-France relations have always been at the forefront of Sino-EU and Sino-Western relations. Currently, the China-France relationship has maintained a solid momentum of development with frequent high-level exchanges, new progress and breakthroughs in pragmatic cooperation, and close communication and coordination on major issues including safeguarding multilateralism, improving global governance, and addressing climate change, Geng said. Xi's visit will be the first state visit by a Chinese head of state to France in five years, Geng said, stressing that this year also marks the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, giving the visit special significance. China always attaches great importance to its relationship with France from a strategic viewpoint, and is willing to join hands with the French side to further strengthen political mutual trust by taking this visit as an opportunity, to expand pragmatic cooperation and people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and to advance the China-France comprehensive strategic partnership to a new stage, Geng said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:15:07|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian police said on Monday they have killed three suspected armed bandits after an exchange of fire in a forest used as their hideout in Kagera region, northwest of the country. Revocatus Malimi, the Kagera regional police commander, said the armed suspects who were hiding in the forest were spotted after their arrested accomplices showed them to the police. "The suspected armed bandits were spotted by police when the police were escorting two arrested suspects to the forest to disclose where they had hidden fire arms they were using in armed robberies," said Malimi. "On reaching Kiraka Cheusi forest the police officers were attacked by people hiding in the forest, and the officers started to respond by firing at them, seriously injuring three of the suspects," he said, adding that the suspects died on the way to hospital. Malimi said police recovered a military firearm and 25 rounds of ammunition in the forest they used as a hideout. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:20:08|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close Li Zhanshu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, presides over a meeting of the Leading Party Members' Group of the NPC Standing Committee to study the important remarks made by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, during the second session of the 13th NPC, in Beijing, capital of China, March 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The Leading Party Members' Group of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee met Monday to study the important remarks made by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, during the second session of the 13th NPC. Monday's meeting, presided over by Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also stressed studying the spirit of the annual legislative session that concluded last week. The historic achievements and shifts made in the cause of the Party and the country since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012 fundamentally lies in upholding the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, safeguarding Xi's status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole Party, as well as the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, according to the meeting. The meeting stressed further study, research, publicity and implementation of Xi's thought on adhering to and improving the people's congress system. Efforts should be made to formulate and review important laws, carry out supervision over pollution control and poverty relief, and comb through suggestions raised by NPC deputies and transfer them to relevant state organs and organizations. The meeting also called for strengthened learning and training, as well as inspection in legislative organs at various levels. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:25:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOSCOW, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday gave a symbolic order for two new thermal power plants in Crimea to start working at full capacity, according to the footage broadcast by the Russia 24 TV channel. "Today, total energy consumption in Crimea is about 1,000-1,100 MW. With the new facilities, total energy resource of Crimea and Sevastopol will be about 2,070 MW," Putin said at the launching ceremony of the new power plants in the largest Crimean city of Sevastopol. He added that these volumes will be sufficient to cover the needs of the peninsula while a portion of it could be exported to neighboring regions. The first power units of the Balaklava power plant located in Sevastopol and the Tavria power plant in Crimea's capital Simferopol were put into operation in October 2018. In 2017, Germany's Siemens company said it had previously sold gas turbines for use in other parts of Russia, but have since been transferred to Crimea, which was incorporated into Russia in 2014 following a referendum. The European Union, which did not recognize the incorporation of Crimea, slapped a set of sanctions against Moscow, including a ban of supplying key equipment to infrastructure projects in Crimea. It added three individuals and three companies to the sanctions list after the Siemens announcement. Before the incorporation, Crimea, formerly part of Ukraine, depended on energy supplies from the Ukrainian mainland. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:30:09|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China hopes the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States will cherish the hard-won momentum of dialogue and keep talking until a peaceful denuclearized Korean Peninsula is realized, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday. Spokesperson Geng Shuang made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to a question on DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui's comment on a briefing held in Pyongyang. Choe Son Hui said on Friday that the recent summit between the top leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump failed because the U.S. side lacked sincerity. "After the Hanoi summit, the DPRK and the U.S. both expressed willingness to continue dialogues. We commend and encourage this," Geng said. China always believes that the Korean Peninsula issue can only be solved peacefully through political dialogues, he said. He added that the key to keeping up and advancing dialogue is to accommodate all parties' legitimate concerns in a balanced way, build up mutual trust and consensus, take phased and synchronized steps, and start with easier moves. "As the nuclear issue has dragged on for decades and complicated factors are at play, one cannot expect it to be solved overnight. All parties need to have reasonable expectations. One shouldn't set the bar too high at the outset or make unilateral, unrealistic demands," Geng quoted Foreign Minister Wang Yi as saying. He also said China hoped that the DPRK and the United States could cherish the hard-won momentum of dialogue, seize the opportunity, meet each other halfway, build up mutual trust and consensus, keep talking till something good comes out of the talks and a peaceful denuclearized Korean Peninsula is realized. "The international community should encourage both sides to keep moving toward the goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and establishing a peace regime," Geng said. China will continue to play a constructive role along with other parties, the spokesperson stressed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:40:11|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (R), the Syrian defense minister, attends a meeting with the chiefs of staff of Iraq and Iran in Damascus, capital of Syria, March 18, 2019. The Syrian official said on Monday that the Syrian state will completely wrest control over all of Syria sooner or later, noting that there will be no inch of Syria out of the government control. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani) DAMASCUS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The military commanders of Syria, Iran and Iraq discussed in the capital Damascus on Monday issues, including the coordination to counter terrorism, opening borders, and restoring all Syrian areas. The meeting was attended by Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, the Syrian defense minister, Othman al-Ghanmi, chief of staff of the Iraqi military, and Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces. Ayyoub said on Monday that the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will face two options: either to embark on reconciliation with the government, or the areas under their control will be retaken by the Syrian army by forces. The Syrian official said that the Syrian state will completely wrest control over all of Syria sooner or later, noting that there will be no inch of Syria out of the government control. "The only card in the hands of the U.S. and its allies is the SDF and it would be dealt with in accordance with the two ways adopted by the Syrian state either through reconciliation or liberating the areas that they control by force," he said. He also mentioned Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, saying that Idlib province will return sooner or later. The Syrian government has for long said that it would retrieve Idlib from the ultra-radical rebels. However, a planned military campaign was put on hold late last year when Russia, Iran, and Turkey agreed to a demilitarized zone in Idlib. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the umbrella group of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, was supposed to leave, but on the contrary, it expanded and took control over all of Idlib, which renewed talks about a possible military campaign against the rebels in Idlib in northwestern Syria. "There will be no inch out of the government control and that has been stressed by the Syrian president more than once but when and how is a military matter," Ayyoub said. For his side, al-Ghanmi said that the three military commanders discussed the opening of border crossings between Syria and Iraq in their meeting. The Iraqi official said that there is ongoing coordination between the Iraqi and Syrian government regarding the war on the Islamic State (IS) group, locally known as Daesh. "We continued to hunt down the sleeper cells of the group by launching strikes inside Syria in coordination with the Syrian state to hit the supply routes and stocks of the enemy groups," he said. Currently, he continued, "the border security is important between both countries because we always say that the security of Syria and Iraq is integral." The Iranian chief of staff, meanwhile, stressed that there is active coordination between Syria, Iran, and Iraq regarding counter-terrorism. "Without a doubt, these meetings with the presence of Iran, Iraq, and Syria stress that we are still united in the face of terrorism and against the hands of terrorism which are Daesh and other terror groups. We have high coordination and we will move forward with great determination," Bagheri said. He made it clear that the goal in the current period is to enable the Syrian government to wrest control over all Syrian areas, noting that the foreign forces which entered Syria illegally, such as the United States and Turkey, will have to withdraw. "We stressed that to reach the final stage for the Syrian government to restore all Syrian areas. We will be by their side (Syrian government)," he said. The Iranian official also stressed on the opening of the Iraqi-Syrian border to enable the Iranian merchants and tourists to visit Syria through Iraq. The border crossings for Iran is a sensitive and important matter, for the trade exchange and the movement of visitors from Iran through Iraq to Syria, he said. It's worth noting that the meeting between the three commanders is the first of its kind to take place in Damascus publicly. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:45:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DHAKA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- At least six persons including four law enforcers and an election official were shot dead and 16 others injured in Bangladesh's southeastern Chittagong Hill tracts on Monday. Superintendent of Police in Rangamati district Alamgir Kabir told Xinhua via mobile phone that they came under attack after concluding a lcoal voting process at a polling center in the district, 391 km southeast of capital Dhaka. "Unidentified criminals opened fire at the election officials at around 6:00 p.m. local time, leaving an election official, four members of Ansar (a paramilitary auxiliary force) and a driver dead on the spot and 16 others injured," said the officer. No one has so far claimed responsibility and investigations are underway. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:45:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DUBAI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is set to create 30,000 jobs for citizens in the private sector this year, said Nasser bin Thani Al Hamli, minister of Human Resources and Emiratization. The initiative is to double the ministry's emiratization efforts, the minister was quoted as saying by the National newspaper website on Monday. "The ministry managed to create 20,225 jobs to Emirati citizens in 2018 compared with 6,862 in 2017," Al Hamli said, adding "up to 11,700 UAE nationals have availed these job opportunities." The ministry has also developed a special club for partners of emiratization to offer them more privileges and encourage them to recruit more locals, he said. Al Hamli further added that the UAE is to witness massive changes by 2031 that will significantly affect the labor market and create new sectors with more Emirati citizens -- "up to 610,000 nationals" expected to join the workforce. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:45:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday refuted the United States' blame for exaggerating China-Africa cooperation results, saying China has invested its advantages and resources into areas that African countries needed most. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang made the remarks at a press briefing in response to a question regarding U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy's accusation against China's policy towards Africa. During his recent visit to Uganda, Nagy said the results of China-Africa cooperation have been exaggerated. He said people don't care that the United States had invested far more than China in areas such as good governance and security in Africa. Meanwhile, stadiums built by China have drawn a lot of attention from the African people, which is quite annoying. Nagy said China's loans have increased African countries' debt burden's and the Chinese people are competing with local African's for business and jobs. The China-Africa friendship has been tested by time and the changing international situation and cannot be shaken by any forces, Geng said. "We have noticed a series of irresponsible remarks made by a U.S. official during his visits in Africa," said Geng, adding that those remarks are groundless, full of loopholes and will not be accepted by African countries. Reiterating that China has always observed the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith and upholds justice while pursuing shared benefits in China-Africa cooperation, Geng said China has invested its advantages and resources into areas that African countries most needed. When providing finance to African countries, China always respects their wishes, is based on reality, and highlights project's economic and social benefits, and has made important contributions to African countries' independent sustainable development, said Geng. Geng said the African people have the best say about China-Africa cooperation's projects and in fact, leaders and people of African countries have refuted the idea that China is creating a debt trap in Africa. "We urge senior U.S. officials to listen to the voices of African people on African soil and make more contributions to Africa," said Geng. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:45:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOSCOW, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Black Sea Fleet expects to get 13 combat ships this year, some of which will be equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles, TASS news agency quoted senior Russian military officials as saying Monday. The list will include small missile ships, patrol ships and the most advanced mine-sweeping ship, the report quoted Black Sea Fleet Commander Alexander Moiseyev as saying. The new vessels are part of a fleet renewal program that started in 2014. By the year 2020, 70 percent of modern warships, aircraft and land and coastal defense troops' armament would have been modernized, he added. TASS quoted the commander of Russia's Southern Military District, Alexander Dvornikov, as saying that the fleet will shortly receive a patrol ship, a high-speed transport assault boat, and a sea tug, all of which are currently undergoing tests. The Black Sea Fleet is a large operational strategic command of the Russian Navy, operating in the Mediterranean, Black and Azov Seas. Its official primary headquarters and facilities are located in the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, while the remainder of the fleet's facilities are based in various locations on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-18 23:50:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIRUT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Tourism Minister Avedis Guidanian said Monday that his ministry is aimed to attract tourists from all over the world, in a statement released by the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in Beirut. "We will launch a strategy next month with details on how the ministry will work on attracting tourists from Arab countries, Europe, Russia and China," Guidanian said during a press conference. He also announced the ITM Beirut, an international exhibition for travel and tourism, which will take place in Lebanon from Feb. 19 to 21, 2020. "The tourism ministry supports preparations for this exhibition which will attract tourists from all over the world to Lebanon," the minister said. Meanwhile, Elie Rizk, president of the Lebanese Exhibitions and Conferences Association, said that ITM Beirut constitutes a platform that would highlight all services offered by the tourism sector in Lebanon. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 00:00:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- China launched its 54th ocean expedition on Monday to conduct research on the oceanic resources and environment in the Pacific, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). The Chinese oceanographic research ship Xiangyanghong 10 departed from the city of Zhoushan in east China's Zhejiang Province. The whole journey will take 255 days and travel 22,000 sea miles, the MNR said. Major tasks include the exploration of polymetallic nodules and investigations on interactions between the global changes, oceans and the atmosphere, said the ministry. A total of 191 members from 25 organizations, including research institutes, universities and corporations, and four others selected from developing countries, have attended the expedition. The research will promote China's understanding in the deep sea area, the MNR said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 00:15:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KUNMING, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The trade revenue between southwest China's Yunnan Province and countries along the Mekong River exceeded 12.8 billion U.S. dollars last year. The trade volume saw a year-on-year increase of 7.28 percent. Li Jiming, with the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation China Secretariat, said Yunnan has natural geographical advantages in cooperating with countries along the Mekong River, adding that cooperation in recent years has been improving, and exchanges are easier. Yunnan has more than 30 Lancang-Mekong Cooperation activities planned for 2019, including a variety of seminars and forums. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy during the ninth round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue in Brussels, Belgium, March 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng) BRUSSELS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here on Monday that cooperation is the mainstay of China-Europe relations. "The High Representative and I firmly believe that cooperation is the mainstay of China-Europe relations for the past and the present, and in the future it will always be this case," Wang Yi said during a joint press conference with European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini. Wang told reporters that due to differences between their own history and culture, social system as well as developing stage, China and Europe inevitably have differences on some issues. He said it is normal that the two sides have competition in economic and trade areas as their cooperation goes deeper, and noted that moderate and benign competition could "enhance our own development and make China-Europe cooperation more resilient and dynamic." Saying that China is vigorously promoting high-level openness and high-quality development, Wang said Europe can benefit more from China's new round of reform and opening-up. The Chinese minister at the same time expressed the hope that Chinese companies could be treated in a fair, just and non-discriminatory way in Europe. All in all, the Chinese top diplomat said although competition between China and Europe is hard to avoid, cooperation is still the mainstay of bilateral relations, with win-win as their common goal. Despite the upcoming European Parliament Election in May, China's EU-policy would remain stable and continuous, said Wang, adding that he hoped the EU's China-policy would be the same. During Chinese President Xi Jinping's European trip in 2014, China and the EU agreed to fully carry out the China-EU 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation and build China-EU partnerships for peace, growth, reform and civilization. Hailing the decision as China and the EU's due responsibility to human society, Wang said it is also a strategic choice made by two important global forces, markets and civilizations against an ever-changing international landscape. China and the EU should continue to jointly work to that end, said Wang. Wang is in Brussels, where he co-chaired the ninth round of the China-EU High-level Strategic Dialogue with Mogherini early Monday. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 00:45:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) and Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, attend a joint press conference after the ninth round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue in Brussels, Belgium, March 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng) BRUSSELS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to Europe is expected to further boost the China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday. Wang made the remarks at a joint press conference with Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in Brussels. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Xi will pay state visits to Italy, Monaco and France from March 21 to 26. To choose Europe as the Chinese president's first overseas trip this year shows that China attaches great importance to Europe, Wang said. Italy and France are important EU members, and the upcoming visit will be a moment of highlight in China-EU relations of the year, said Wang. The visit sends a clear message that, regardless of changes in international circumstances, China always regards the EU as an important partner for strategic cooperation, and treats its ties with Europe as a diplomatic priority, he said. He also said that China's respective relationships with France, Italy and Monaco have withstood the tests of transformations of international situations, and have stood out as examples of friendly cooperation between countries of different systems. Wang noted that Xi's visit coincides with the 55th anniversary of China-France diplomatic relations and the 100th anniversary of the work-study program in France, adding that next year marks the 50th anniversary of China-Italy diplomatic ties and the 15th anniversary of comprehensive strategic partnership between Beijing and Rome. The visit to Monaco will also be the first trip by a Chinese president to the country, said Wang, adding that it demonstrates China's long standing view that all countries are equal regardless of their size. The three-country European visit will be "a journey to consolidate friendship, deepen cooperation and engage in strategic communication," added Wang. Wang said the visit will promote stability and multilateralism in a fast changing world, adding that it will also help step up connectivity on the Eurasian continent and boost the sustainable growth of global economy. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 00:55:40|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close Admore Kambudzi, acting director for African Union (AU) Peace and Security department, views at an exhibition featuring mainly pictures that depict Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA's) commitment to promoting global peace and advancing common developments at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 18, 2019. The Exhibition showing the PLA's practices and achievements in safeguarding the world peace and advancing common developments was launched on Monday. (Xinhua/Wang Shoubao) ADDIS ABABA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- An Exhibition showing the Chinese People's Liberation Army's (PLA's) practices and achievements in safeguarding the world peace and advancing common developments was launched on Monday at the African Union (AU) Headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. Organized by Chinese authorities, the five-day exhibition features mainly pictures that depict PLA's commitment to promoting global peace and advancing common developments. The exhibition showcases to the world that China firmly upholds the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the core role of the UN in international affairs, and actively builds a community of shared future for mankind among others. In his opening speech, Chen Xufeng, Charge d'Affaires of the Chinese Mission to African Union, reiterated that the Chinese PLA has always been a steadfast force in maintaining world peace, which portrays China's commitment to global peace, common development, and international order. Emphasizing China's role in safeguarding international peace and security, Mao Naiguo, head of PLA's international communication delegation, said in past decades, China and Africa have worked for common development and embarked upon the distinctive partnership of win-win cooperation. The Chinese military is also actively participating in international disaster relief and humanitarian aid," Mao added. According to oganizers, over the years, the PLA has participated in 24 UN peacekeeping missions, 16 of which are in Africa. Speaking on his part, Admore Kambudzi, acting director for AU Peace and Security, commended China for its multifarious support to Africa. Commending China for its support to Africa in various areas, Kambudzi said the partnership between China and the AU continues to grow from height to height. China is proven to be a valuable partner for Africa over the past two decades, Kambudzi said. Some of the attendees told Xinhua during the opening of the exhibition that China has played a significant role in promoting peace and security on the African continent. Mamane Souley, Dean of Millitary Attache Association in Addis Ababa, hailed China's contribution to Africa's peace and security as "very good friend" of the continent. "I would like to congratulate China, we all know that China is a very big friend of Africa. As a military expert, we can witness what China is doing in matter of peace and security, helping our continent bring and maintain peace," he said. Attending the event, Terje Thomesen, military attache at Norway embassy, told Xinhua that China is very important partner of Africa in peace and security. Recalling that he had once worked with the Chinese officers at UNMISS (UN Mission in South Sudan), Thomesen said the Chinese officers are professional and good. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 01:50:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close VILNIUS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Nine Lithuanian entities agreed on Monday to cooperate in managing risks in the financial technology (fintech) sector as the country is increasing its presence as a regional fintech hub. The heads of the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Lithuania, along with representatives of special investigative and financial crime prevention bodies, the police, the tax authorities and other financial sector organizations signed an interinstitutional memorandum on cooperation and exchange of information aimed at overseeing and managing risks in the fintech sector. "We want to be at the forefront, and therefore we consolidate efforts to tackle challenges in the future," said Finance Minister Vilius Sapoka in an announcement released by the Ministry on Monday. "If necessary, we will act immediately, we will analyze the legislation and initiate necessary amendments," Sapoka added. The Lithuanian authorities aim to strengthen their cooperation in managing financial risks amid money laundering scandals that have recently hit Nordic banks with a dominating presence in the Baltic countries. Sapoka has recently called on the eurozone and the European Union countries to establish a single system to counter money laundering. Lithuania, a small Baltic country with a population of less than 3 million, tries to benefit from becoming a fintech licensing location for foreign companies that seek to provide financial services throughout Europe. Last year, the number of Lithuania-based fintech companies increased by around 45 percent to 170. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 02:06:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ALGIERS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Algerian Army Chief of Staff and Deputy Defense Minister Ahmed Gaid Salah on Monday called for a quick solution to the crisis in the North African nation amid mass protests. "The Algerian people have demonstrated an exceptional and civilized sense of patriotism," Gaid Salah told officials and troops at the third military region of southwestern province of Bechar. Gaid Salah was referring to the mass protests that have erupted across Algeria since Feb. 22 to claim political changes. "I believe that if we act responsibly, we would reach an appropriate and quick solution" to the growing political crisis, he added. On March 11, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced that the presidential election slated for April 18 will be postponed, and dropped his decision to seek a fifth presidential term. He also pledged to form a new cabinet to pave the way for organizing a national inclusive conference to draft a new constitution and organize presidential election. However, these propositions have been rejected by the protesters as they insist that the transition era should not be led by any representative of the government. Millions of Algerians have been staging marches across the country every Friday to call for establishing a new Algeria with the new government and the new constitution. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 02:06:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close PARIS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), which is investigating the recent crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane, announced on Monday that it had found similarities between the doomed jet and Indonesia's Lion Air flight of the same model that crashed into the sea in October last year. "During the verification process of the FDR (Flight Data Recorder) data, clear similarities were noted by the investigation team between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further study during the investigation," the BEA said in a statement. The French bureau said the data which it had successfully downloaded from the Ethiopian aircraft's black boxes were transferred to the Ethiopian Accident Investigation Bureau. The BEA will release a preliminary report within 30 days, French investigators said. A Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa on March 10, killing all 157 people on board. The crash was the second such accident in five months which involved the Boeing 737 MAX model. In October 2018, a Lion Air flight of the same model crashed in Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board. Pending the final results of the probe into the Ethiopian crash, France's Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC) has banned Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from the country's airspace "as a precautionary measure." Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 02:21:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close AMMAN, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Jordan's Lower House on Monday called for expelling the Israeli ambassador from Amman and recalling the country's ambassador from Tel Aviv over Israeli violations in Al-Aqsa Mosque. The lawmakers called on the government to reveal all details it has regarding the U.S. so-called the "Deal of the Century," and to mobilize Arab and international efforts to face any attempt by Israel to change the status quo of the holy site. They also urged the government to address to the UN and the Arab League to take a swift action to put an end to the violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque. Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz said in a statement to the press that Jordan deals with the latest Israeli violations in Al-Aqsa Mosque as a national issue, which requires a united national stand. The government, he said, will continue to exert all possible efforts at the diplomatic and legal levels to ensure that there is no change to the legal and historic status quo in Jerusalem. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that protection of the holy site is a priority for Jordan, according to the statement. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 to become the second Arab state after Egypt to have such a deal with Israel. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 03:21:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TIRANA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Albanian police seized 4.5 kg of cannabis in a village in Shkodra district in the northwest of the country, police said here in a statement on Monday. Shkodra police concluded the operation dubbed "Kir" with the arrest of a 45-year-old man from the village of Kir. The police, in cooperation with "Eagle" Special Forces, made the arrest after a tipoff that the man was engaged in narcotics-related criminal activity and illegally possessed weapons. The police found and seized 4.5 kg of cannabis, two automatic firearms, ammunitions and two radio receivers. A search for other persons involved in this criminal activity is still underway, the statement said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 03:51:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ANKARA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned the tram shooting that killed at least three people in the Netherlands city of Utrecht. The ministry "strongly condemned the attack in the Netherlands, regardless of the identity of the perpetrator and the motivation behind it," it said in a statement. The Turkish ministry expressed condolences to the families of the casualties, adding that Turkey was in "full solidarity" with the Dutch people and the government. According to Dutch media, suspected shooter Gokmen Tanis allegedly opened fire on tram passengers at October 24 Square, killing three and injuring five others. The 37-year-old man was born in Turkey and was arrested by local police on Monday night. Earlier on Monday, the ministry separately said that Turkish and Dutch officials would meet on Tuesday in Ankara to discuss "bilateral relations" and cooperation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 03:51:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Monday urged the international community to help the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with its security capacity-building. The current focus should be helping the DRC to enhance its security capacity-building and supporting the effort of the DRC government to maintain peace and stability, Wu Haitao, the charge d'affaires of China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, told the Security Council meeting on the situation in the DRC. The international community should "fully respect the sovereignty and independence and territorial integrity of the DRC," Wu said, adding that it should also "fully respect the ownership and leadership of the DRC government in handling its own affairs, strengthen communication with the DRC government, and help the DRC to resolve its challenges in humanitarian, security, development and other fields." The Chinese envoy also called on the world to continue supporting regional and sub-regional organizations in playing their roles to facilitate and strengthen interactions between the parties within the DRC government to advance the implementation of the peace security and cooperation framework for the DRC and the Great Lakes Region, so as to jointly contribute to the realization of peace and stability in the DRC and a wider region. "International partners should help with the DRC's effort to make sure that armed groups in the DRC to abandon the military solution and instead resolve the issues through dialogue and consultation," he added. Wu also said that efforts must be made to "continue providing necessary humanitarian assistance and economic support to the DRC government." "International partners should focus on increasing input in education, healthcare, infrastructure and other areas, help the DRC to increase employment, improve people's life, and restore economic and social development," he said. "We hope bodies such as UN Development Programme and UN Environment Programme can play a bigger role," he added. "The international community should continue actively responding to the DRC's humanitarian assistance appeal, support the activities of the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross and help contain the Ebola outbreak. Leila Zerrougui, the UN secretary-general's special representative for the DRC, briefed the Security Council on the situation in the DRC. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Feb. 15 submitted to the President of the Security Council an update on the situation in the DRC. The update, which covers developments in the DRC from Jan. 1 to 31, was submitted pursuant to Resolution 2409 (2018), in which the Security Council requested the secretary-general to provide a written update every 30 days on political and technical progress towards the holding of elections in the DRC and on obstacles to the implementation of the political agreement of Dec. 31, 2016. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 03:56:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MADRID, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Beer brewed in Spain has been exported in ever increasing volumes to China during the last 10 years, the Director of Cerveceros de Espana, Jacobo Olalla, explained to Xinhua in an exclusive interview. This organization represents the interests of Spanish brewers. Although Spain has always been associated with wine production, the long hot summers mean that the Spanish also have a long tradition of drinking beer. However, Spanish beer export is a relatively recent phenomenon. Olalla explained that the breakthrough came with the 2008 economic crisis: "Over the past decade, the Spanish brewing sector has made a big effort in the export market with spectacular results. During the last 10 years, we have seen exports grow by 250 percent," he said. The crisis had led to a downturn in domestic beer consumption, and breweries turned to the export market to help compensate for lower domestic sales. "First we looked to countries around us, such as Portugal or countries with a beer drinking tradition, such as the UK, but then the chance to export to China appeared," explained Olalla. According to data supplied by Cerveceros de Espana, Spanish beer exports to China increased 672 times in value and 628 times in volume between 2008 and 2018. "China is an enormous market, with a great deal of potential for growth and a lot of consumers. It is also a powerful economy and all the time there are more people there who want quality products, such as Spanish beer," continued Olalla, adding that 22.12 percent of Spain's beer exports now go to China. Last year saw 54.22 million liters of beer worth 49.8 million euros (56.45 million U.S. dollars) exported from Spain to China, with only Portugal and the UK importing more. "Spanish beer is a product of tremendous quality: Spain is a massive producer of cereals, such as wheat and barley, which are vital for brewing good beer and perfect for making lager, which is a style of beer that is usually light, not too alcoholic and easy to drink," explained the director of Cerveceros de Espana. He added that cultural factors have also worked in favor of enabling the Chinese to develop a taste for Spanish beer. "All the time our relationship with China is expanding. Beyond trade, we also see more Chinese tourists in Spain, and there are more Chinese people living and working here now," he said, adding that while in Spain, more and more Chinese people try and get to like Spanish beer. A policeman stands guard near a tram where a gunman opened fire killing at least three persons and wounding several in what officials said was a possible terrorist incident, on March 18, 2019 in Utrecht.(AFP photo) ANKARA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned the tram shooting that killed at least three people in the Netherlands city of Utrecht. The ministry "strongly condemned the attack in the Netherlands, regardless of the identity of the perpetrator and the motivation behind it," it said in a statement. The Turkish ministry expressed condolences to the families of the casualties, adding that Turkey was in "full solidarity" with the Dutch people and the government. According to Dutch media, suspected shooter Gokmen Tanis allegedly opened fire on tram passengers at October 24 Square, killing three and injuring five others. The 37-year-old man was born in Turkey and was arrested by local police on Monday night. Earlier on Monday, the ministry separately said that Turkish and Dutch officials would meet on Tuesday in Ankara to discuss "bilateral relations" and cooperation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 04:26:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TIRANA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Albanian President Ilir Meta appealed on Monday to the ruling Socialist Party and the opposition parties for setting aside differences and engaging in dialogue following the current political situation. Meta told a press conference that Albania's political forces should hold dialogue to solve the political situation in order to avoid the crisis to deepen. According to Meta, Albanian political class must assume responsibility and cannot hide behind any international representatives, as has happened insofar. "All issues must be resolved through dialogue, in a transparent way," he added. Meta also said that it is his obligation as the president to appeal once again for reflection, "because we have to safeguard the interest of the country and of the citizens," he told the reporters. For a month now, the country has been going through a political crisis with the opposition parties holding several anti-government protests involving violence, asking Prime Minister Edi Rama and his cabinet to step down for early elections. Lawmakers of Albanian opposition have resigned from their posts and refused the calls of the European Union (EU) and international organizations to hold talks with the government and end the political crisis. Albania hopes to start talks on accession to EU membership in June this year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 04:36:34|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close Firefighters work near the wrecks of two vehicles involved in a collision near Otavi, northern Namibia, on March 17, 2019. Namibian President Hage Geingob on Monday extended his condolences after 13 passengers were burned to death during a collision between two mini-buses along the country's B1 highway. According to a statement issued by Namibia Police Force (Nampol) on Monday, the accident happened on March 17 approximately 3 km from Otavi to Tsumeb on the B1 Road. (Xinhua/NAMPA) WINDHOEK, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Namibian President Hage Geingob on Monday extended his condolences after 13 passengers were burned to death during a collision between two mini-buses along the country's B1 highway. "The president of the Republic of Namibia, Hage G. Geingob has learned with profound sadness of yesterday's fatal accident, involving two mini-buses on the B1 road between Otavi and Tsumeb, leading to the tragic death of 13 passengers," read a statement issued by the Namibian presidency. "For the law to take its course and in honor of victims of yet another needless accidents, a proper investigation should be speedily carried out," he said. Geingob also appealed to law-enforcement agencies to patrol roads and enforce speed limits, asking drivers to adhere to safe driving in order to prevent loss of lives. "Drivers carrying passengers must drive safely, respect rules, and adhere to speed limits in order to avoid fatalities. Innocent passengers should not lose their lives due to negligent drivers," the president said. According to a statement issued by Namibia Police Force (Nampol) on Monday, the accident happened at about 3 p.m. local time approximately 3 km from Otavi to Tsumeb on the B1 Road. "It is alleged that an Iveco bus was traveling from north while another lveco bus was traveling from south when they collided head on and both vehicles caught fire and burned completely out. As a result, 13 people perished (8 female and 5 male), burned beyond recognition. 18 passengers (13 adults and 5 children) and a driver were transported to various hospitals at Otavi, Otjiwarongo and Tsumeb," the statement read. According to Nampol, all remains will be transported to the capital Windhoek for DNA processing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 04:46:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ZAGREB, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The three largest trade unions in Croatia presented here on Monday an agreement on collecting signatures for a referendum on a new law extending the retirement age from 65 to 67. The Alliance of Independent Trade Unions of Croatia, the Independent Croatian Trade Union and the Association of Croatian Trade Unions initiated "Initiative 67 is too much" and from April 27 they will begin collecting signatures throughout Croatia for the referendum. According to the law, it is necessary for a referendum to get signatures from ten percent of voters, which means 374,740 signatures in Croatia. The unions' proposal is to ask the citizens a question whether they agree with a new law according to which the current Pension Insurance Act will change and the retirement age will be set at 67 in 2028. The unions demand that the age limit for retirement remains the same as until now, at 65 years, with at least ten years of work experience. "Croatians can not work up to 67 years, and penalties for early retirement are too high," the president of the Independent Trade Unions of Croatia" Kresimir Sever said in a news release. There are more than 1.23 million pensioners in Croatia, while the average monthly pension is 2,317 kuna (354 U.S. dollars). The ratio of the number of retired to employed citizens is 1: 1.21. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 04:46:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIRUT, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Representative in Lebanon Tanya Chapuisat said on Monday that the agency is working on new projects to support children's well-being in Lebanon. "The UNICEF in Lebanon is working on a project to help municipalities in fighting against child labor," Chapuisat was quoted as saying by the National News Agency. Chapuisat's remarks came during her meeting with Interior Minister Raya El Hassan to discuss the projects planned by the agency in Lebanon. Chapuisat said that the UNICEF has a database including statistics about child labor in Lebanon. "We are keen at the UNICEF to work in cooperation with the Interior Ministry to stop this phenomenon in Lebanon," she said. Around 4,500 boys and girls in Lebanon benefited from UNICEF's EU-funded child labor support services in 2017. This year, the European Union Trust Fund has also raised awareness on the risks and negative consequences of child labor to a further 7,000 and additionally helped secure case management services for 800 victims of the most severe forms of child labor. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 05:01:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close AMMAN, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Monday said the sole way to achieve just and lasting peace is realizing the legitimate rights of the Palestinians including their rights in statehood. The minister made his remarks at a meeting with Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat in Amman, where he said that the Palestinian state should be established at the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. Safadi stressed the need for continued coordination between the Palestinians and the Israelis, underlining the need for continued efforts to protect the holy Islamic and Christian sites in Jerusalem. The two sides also reviewed efforts related to preserving Bab Al-Rahma (Gate of Mercy) of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The minister stressed Jordan's rejection of all Israeli measures to alter the historic and legal status quo in Jerusalem, adding that Jordan does not recognize the Israeli judicial authority over East Jerusalem, as the Awqaf Jerusalem is the sole entity to run the affairs of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in line with the international law. The two sides agreed on continued efforts and coordination to help achieve the desired lasting peace on the basis of the two-state solution and the international legitimacy resolutions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 05:01:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- A coalition of free-market advocacy and business groups on Monday urged the Senate Finance Committee leaders to push for new legislation to rein in the tariff authority of the White House. In a letter addressed to committee chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Ron Wyden, the coalition of 30 groups, including the Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, asked lawmakers to consider legislation that would require Congress to approve any tariff increases proposed by the president before the tax is allowed to take effect. "The scope of legislation should apply to all instances where the president has been delegated authority to impose tariffs, including Section 232, Section 301, and others," the letter continues. "The term 'national security' should be specifically defined in law to guide investigations for proposing tariffs under Section 232, and proposed barriers to trade under this authority should only be implemented for narrowly tailored, well-defined national security interests," the coalition said. A number of lawmakers have introduced bills to curb the president's authority to use Section 232 of U.S. trade law to impose tariffs, and the Senate Finance Committee has a big say in deciding which bill could be brought up for a vote. In February, Republican Senator Rob Portman and a few other senators introduced a bipartisan bill called the "Trade Security Act," which would require the U.S. Defense Department to justify the national security basis for new tariffs under Section 232 and "increase congressional oversight" of this process. The Trump administration has repeatedly invoked the previously seldom-used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, allowing it to impose tariffs on imported products on national security grounds. "The president has unilaterally imposed tariffs -- which are taxes on Americans -- on more than 300 billion U.S. dollars in imports last year without the explicit approval of the people's elected representatives in Congress," the letter read. Last year, the administration unilaterally slapped tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products citing Section 232 investigation, provoking retaliation from trading partners including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. In February, the U.S. Commerce Department has concluded a Section 232 report on imported cars and parts, and in July last year, it has launched investigations into uranium imports, and most recently, it initiated its probe into titanium sponge imports earlier this month. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 05:31:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- With 11 days to go before Britain's planned exit from the Europe Union (EU), Prime Minister Theresa May was dealt a blow on Monday in her quest for a deal with Brussels. In what one government official described as a constitutional crisis, the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow ruled that May's Brexit deal could not have a third vote in Parliament. Citing parliamentary convention going back centuries, Bercow said only a substantially changed deal could be presented to the members of parliament (MPs). Despite facing challenges from a number of MPs, Bercow's ruling sticks. May had hoped to be able to put her deal forward Tuesday or Wednesday of this week ahead of the European Council meeting of leaders of EU member states on Thursday. A plan had been mapped out that if the deal finally got through the House of Commons after two rejections, she would ask the EU for an extension of the March 29 departure date until June 30 to enable legal processes to be completed. If MPs had voted against, MPs would have faced the prospect of Britain seeking an extension of possibly several years. Bercow said a third vote on a Brexit deal would require renegotiation at EU level, and the test of whether May's motion to parliament had substantially changed would be if changes to the deal were made in agreement with Brussels. The Daily Telegraph in London said the Speaker's intervention was likely to infuriate Downing Street, but in the Commons, his ruling has been welcomed by both sides of the Brexit divide for very different reasons. "Whilst Remainers believe his decision increases the likelihood of a second referendum, Brexiteers think it brings the UK closer to a no deal exit," said the Daily Telegraph. In one of the first responses to Bercow's ruling, Robert Buckland, the solicitor general, said Britain is in a constitutional crisis. Buckland said Bercow's ruling would have huge reverberations for the Brexit process, including the possibility of asking Queen Elizabeth to end the parliamentary session. "Frankly we could have done without this but it is something we are going to have to negotiate and deal with. This actually places an onus on the European Council to come up with some potential solutions that allows the Government to put a new motion down which addresses the concerns expressed," he noted. Stephen Laws, a former draftsman of parliamentary legislation, has said the Speaker of the Commons speculated that May's government could work around the problem by putting down a new motion insisting on a vote on the deal "notwithstanding the practice of the House (of Commons)." There had been growing doubt that May would put forward a vote on her deal this week in any case. Her senior ministers had spent the weekend on a charm offensive to seek support from Conservative MPs and the crucial support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to change their minds. Senior ministers, including Chancellor Philip Hammond, said there would only be a third vote on the deal unless the government was reasonably certain of success. On its first outing in the commons, the deal was rejected by 230 votes, the biggest defeat in British political history. In the second vote last week it was beaten by a smaller margin of 149 votes. May is due to take part in the European Council meeting on Thursday when she plans to ask for Brexit to be delayed. May is now expected to write to European Council President Donald Tusk seeking an extension of Article 50, the process that set Britain's original departure date of March 29. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 06:11:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KUWAIT CITY, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah strongly condemned on Monday a shooting attack on a tram in Netherlands' city of Utrecht. In a cable sent to Dutch King Willem-Alexander, the emir strongly condemned the shooting attack, saying it violated all human values. He expressed condolences to the victims of the attack and wished speedy recovery for the wounded. Three persons were killed and five others wounded Monday in a possible terror shooting attack on a tram in Utrecht. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 06:11:58|Editor: mingmei Video Player Close Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy during the ninth round of the China-EU high-level strategic dialogue in Brussels, Belgium, March 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng) BRUSSELS, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The ninth round of the China-EU High-level Strategic Dialogue on Monday in Brussels underlined the need to strengthen the bilateral partnership. The dialogue was co-chaired by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister, Wang Yi and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. Wang said that China and the European Union are comprehensive strategic partners. Facing the turbulent international situation, the two sides have developed fruitful communication and cooperation, playing the role of "stabilizer". China and Europe, as two major powers in the world, should take this responsibility. The level and scale of bilateral cooperation are at a historic high, and there is still great potential, said Wang. The two sides should continue cooperation, adopt problem-solving orientation, explore new methods, new areas and new impetus in the partnerships regarding peace, growth, reform and civilization, and further the enhancement of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the EU. Wang underlined three points. Firstly, cooperative partnership is the nature of China-EU relations. The common ground is to appreciate the development of bilateral relations, although the two have differences on some issues. Wang believed there is no essential conflict of interest between China and the EU. The two can seek common ground while reserving differences, but also consolidate the common ground while resolving differences, maximizing the common interest and perception. Secondly, the goal of China-EU cooperation is to achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcome, said Wang, hoping that Europe will stand to benefit from the new round of Chinese reform and opening-up. He welcomed Europe to participate in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, and expected to see the Europe-Asia connectivity plan to complement the Belt and Road Initiative. Thirdly, Wang said the respect of each other's core interest is the trademark of the trust between China and the EU, and he hoped the EU could be discreet in words and deeds. China is willing to work with the EU to maintain a sound development of bilateral relations, benefit the people of the two sides, and contribute more to the world's peace and development. Mogherini said the EU-China relations have reached a new high in the past five years in terms of their depth and extent. The two share common stance and goal against unilateralism and protectionism, and both support the international order established around the United Nations. For the first time, the Chinese foreign minister met the foreign ministers of the 28 EU members on Monday, and they discussed about strengthening the EU-China cooperation. The EU regards China as its important strategic partner, not only economically but also politically, Mogherini noted. The EU's new document on policy towards China published last week will not replace the current EU strategic cooperation with China, she said. The EU has no intention to impede the development of China, and it is impossible to do it. The EU wants to see a bigger leading role played by China on global issues. The EU has differences with China in a number of issues, but has always looked upon the bilateral strategic partnership from the perspective of common prosperity. The EU will continue sticking to the one-China policy without any change, she added. Mogherini noted that the EU, along with China, will push for the implementation of multilateral agreements, and work closely on issues like the Paris agreement, Iran nuclear agreement, sustainable development goals, African development and so on. The EU is willing to enhance the connectivity and communication with Asia, explore the complementarities with the Belt and Road Initiative, and vigorously carry out third-party cooperation. The EU hopes to strengthen the security and defense cooperation with China, which is not targeting any third parties. The two sides can cooperate in cyber-security, safeguard the openness, safety and stability of the internet, and establish an order of the digital world based on rules, noted Mogherini. The two sides also exchanged opinions on the current international situation, the respective relations with major powers, and global and regional hot issues. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 06:16:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, March 18 (Xinhua) -- NASA's New Horizons mission team on Monday unraveled mysteries of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) nicknamed Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever explored by mankind. New Horizons performed the farthest flyby in history at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) on New Year's Day, as it approached Ultima Thule within 2,200 miles (about 3,540 km) of the surface at a velocity of 31,500 miles (about 50,694 km) per hour. Analyzing the data New Horizons has been sending home since the flyby, mission scientists are learning more about the formation, geology and composition of this ancient relic of solar system formation, said a NASA release. Ultima Thule is the first unquestionably primordial contact binary ever explored, said the mission team. Approach pictures of Ultima Thule hinted at a strange, snowman-like shape for the binary, but further analysis of images taken near closest approach uncovered the object's unusual shape. Ultima Thule consists of a large and flat lobe (nicknamed "Ultima") connected to a smaller and rounder lobe (nicknamed "Thule"). "We've never seen anything like this anywhere in the solar system," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern. "It is sending the planetary science community back to the drawing board to understand how planetesimals - the building blocks of the planets - form." Scientists believe Ultima Thule's two lobes once orbited each other, like many so-called binary worlds in the Kuiper Belt, until something brought them together in a "gentle" merger. The "neck" connecting Ultima and Thule is bent, and could indicate shearing as the lobes combined, said Kirby Runyon, a New Horizons science team member. In terms of color and composition, Ultima Thule is very red - redder even than Pluto, which New Horizons flew past on the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt in 2015, and about the same color as many other so-called "cold classical" KBOs, said the team. New Horizons scientists have also seen evidence for methanol, water ice and organic molecules on the surface. Currently the New Horizons spacecraft is 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion kilometers) from Earth, operating normally and speeding deeper into the Kuiper Belt at nearly 33,000 miles (53,000 kilometers) per hour. Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-19 05:06:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close This internet grab from the twitter of Utrecht Police shows a man who is suspected in connection with the Utrecht shooting in the Netherlands, March 18, 2019. A man opened fire in a tram at the 24 Oktoberplein square in Utrecht, causing 3 dead and 9 other wounded, according to Utrecht mayor. (Xinhua) THE HAGUE, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The man suspected of shooting three people dead and injuring five others on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday morning has been arrested, local police said. The arrest coincided with the conclusion of a joint press conference held by Utrecht Mayor, Jan van Zanen, the public prosecutor and the police, who were just describing the continuing hunt for the suspect. Prior to the arrest, Utrecht police described the suspect as Turkey-born, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis. "Finding the suspect is our top priority," said van Zanen. "It is not over yet." At that point, Rob van Bree, head of operations of the Central Netherlands Police, received a note from a colleague. "We just heard that the suspect is arrested," van Bree announced. The suspect was arrested at a house in Utrecht's Oudenoord Street. Following the arrest, the Dutch National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) reduced the threat level for the province of Utrecht from the maximum possible 5 to 4, and for the Netherlands as a whole to 4. "There are still many questions and rumors," Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after the arrest in The Hague. "It is still not clear what the motives were. We can still not exclude terrorism. We don't know yet. But we have seen what happened, three dead, some seriously injured. That is an attack. Let's not make it smaller." Rutte added that the flags on all government buildings will be flown at half mast on Tuesday. "It was literally an attack in the heart of the country," he said. The shooting on the tram occurred at around 10:45 a.m. local time. The square in the western part of Utrecht and the surrounding area was rapidly cordoned off by the police and emergency services arrived at the scene. The incident made all the alarm bells ring at Dutch authorities, also in The Hague, the eat of the Dutch government. From the very beginning, the police said that it could not exclude a terror motive. Since the incident came on the heels of the attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, some mosques in Utrecht kept their doors closed, and so did universities and schools. The roads leading to the city were only partly accessible and public transport was halted. Trains were blocked from entering Utrecht Central Station and the police were present at several locations. Credit: Scott Robert RitchieIt looks like Ringo Starr has started working on a new studio album, the follow-up to his 2017 release Give More Love. This past week, the former Beatles drummer posted a message on his Twitter feed saying, "In the studio again with the great Steve Lukather what a guy peace and Love." The tweet is accompanied by a photo of Ringo and the Toto guitarist -- who also is a longtime member of the All Starr Band -- smiling and flashing peace signs. Lukather co-wrote two songs on Give More Love, and played guitar on several of the album's songs. He also contributed to Starr's previous record, 2015's Postcards from Paradise. Ringo and the All Starr Band kick off their 2019 tour schedule with a concert this Thursday, March 21, in Valley Center, California. Then they'll head to Japan for a tour that runs from March 27 to April 11. The group also has lined up a North American summer tour leg that gets underway August 1 in Windsor, Canada, and is mapped out through a September 1 show in Los Angeles. In other news, Starr has helped design a special high-quality record player dubbed the "Peace and Love Turntable," which will be available soon at his online store. The device's base features artwork created by Ringo that represents his dedication to love, togetherness and care. Here are all of the All Starr Band's upcoming North American tour dates: 3/21 -- Valley Center, CA, Harrah's Resort SoCal - The Events Center 8/1 -- Windsor, ON, Canada, The Colosseum at Caesars 8/3 -- Highland Park, IL, Ravinia 8/4 -- Highland Park, IL, Ravinia 8/6 -- Durham, NC, DPAC 8/7 -- Nashville, TN, Ryman Auditorium 8/8 -- Nashville, TN, Ryman Auditorium 8/10 -- Vienna, VA, Wolf Trap 8/11 -- Vienna, VA, Wolf Trap 8/13 -- Roanoke, VA, Berglund Center Coliseum 8/14 -- Philadelphia, PA, The Met Philadelphia 8/16 -- Bethel, NY, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts 8/17 -- Farmingville, NY, Pennysaver Amphitheater 8/18 -- New York City, NY, The Rooftop at Pier 17 8/20 -- Champaign, IL, State Farm Center 8/22 -- Prior Lake, MN, Mystic Lake Casino 8/23 -- Council Bluffs, IA, Harrah's Council Bluffs Casino 8/25 -- Santa Fe, NM, Santa Fe Opera House 8/26 -- Phoenix, AZ, Celebrity Theatre 8/28 -- Oakland, CA, Paramount Theatre 8/30 -- Lincoln, CA, Thunder Valley Casino Resort 8/31 -- Paso Robles, CA, Vina Robles Amphitheatre 9/1 -- Los Angeles, CA, The Greek Theatre Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. SURSE: Benone Rababoc va fi noul prefect de Teleorman Politic SURSE: Benone Rababoc va fi noul prefect de Teleorman decembrie 10, 2021 23:05 Negocierile si discutiile pe tema functiilor din esalonul doi si trei din teritoriu sunt din ce in ce mai intense, atat intre cele doua partide, PNL si PSD, cat si in interiorul organizatiilor social-democrate, [citeste mai departe] Stiri pe aceeasi tema - Romania's Health Minister Alexandru Rafila will participate on Tuesday in a meeting in Brussels on the coordination of European measures in order to detect and control the spread of the new Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, and EU-wide acquisition of COVID-19 therapies. According to a report from the - In a message on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, President Klaus Iohannis states that Romania has made progress on the social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities, but points out that important steps still need to be taken, agerpres reports. "Today, - Ministrul propus pentru Agricultura, Adrian Chesnoiu, sustine ca agricultura romaneasca este performanta si evolueaza in ritm alert, dar tara noastra trebuie sa priveasca totul in context european si sa fim foarte atenti pentru ca anumite tari se simt amenintate si influenteaza politicile europene. - The Acting Prime Minister Florin Citu had a meeting on Tuesday, at Victoria Palace, with the president of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, who is carrying out an official visit to Bucharest. According to a press release sent by the Government, talks were focused on measures for a strengthened - Comisarul european Thierry Breton a declarat joi, aflat intr-o vizita de lucru la Bucuresti, ca politicienii romani trebuie sa aiba curajul sa ia decizii foarte dificile in lupta cu pandemia, el oferind exemplul masurilor discutate in Germania, Austria si Belgia: Rata de vaccinare e foarte - Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu reiterated on Monday, in Brussels, at a meeting of the heads of diplomacy from EU member states, Romania's "strong" support for the initiation of accession negotiations between the EU, on the one hand, and the Republic of Macedonia and Albania, on the other hand. According - Everyone must be aware, free and responsible when their health is in danger because we do not know if we are prepared enough to go beyond. That is why the Desert Fathers asked God for an extra moment of life to repent, the Patriarch of Romania cautioned on Wednesday, speaking about the healing The enemy casualties are being specified, - Defense Ministry of Ukraine Ukrainian Army uniform Open source Over the last 24 hours, the armed provocations of Russian occupants in Donbas claimed the lives of two servicemen of Ukraine's government troops. The enemy frequently used mortars to shell Ukrainian positions, the Defense Ministry reported. The illegal armed gangs of Russian mercenaries landed an attack on Vilny farmstead, Luhansk region. The shelling, where the militants used small arms and heavy machineguns took place at about 10 a.m. The Ukrainian fighter, born in 1998 lost his life in that attack. Another young man, born in 1990 was killed in action due to the Russian armed aggression; the tragedy occurred on late Sunday. The Defense Ministry confirmed that on Sunday, March 17 the enemy launched 10 armed provocations. According to military intelligence, the Russian occupants also took casualties over the mentioned period. In Donetsk region, the armed bandits attacked Vodyane, using mortars, automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. 120 mm mines hit Mariinka. In Luhansk region, the enemy attacked Krymske, Luhanske, Novoluhanske, Novotoshkivske and Zolote-4. A wide range of weaponry was used there - from small arms to mortars and anti-tank missile launchers. Vyshynsky was put into the cell without electricity Open source The former RIA News Head Kyrylo Vyshynsky was transferred to Kyiv to the Lukyanivska prison. Andriy Domansky, the lawyer of Vyshynsky, stated this, as TASS reports. Now Kyrylo Vyshynsky is in the Lukyanivska prison, where he was transferred on March 14, - the report said. According to the report, Vyshynsky was put into the cell without electricity. The conditions are not very good, so he will complain about this. I will apply to directly to Ukraines Ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova with the issue that Vyshynsky is in the cell without electricity, - the lawyer said. According to the lawyer, Vyshynsky has been already four days without electricity and a mattress. There are five persons in his cell. Domasky outlined that Vyshynsky is not allowed to see his relatives. Earlier, Kherson City Court extended detention for RIA News Head Kyrylo Vyshynsky to April 8. On May 15, the SBU considered the detention of the head of RIA News Ukraine agencys office. Kremlin has already responded to the incident and called the actions of the SBU outrageous. Besides, Russia promised to assume reciprocal measures. Then, the state sent a protest note over searches at the mass media office. The actions of Vyshynsky were preliminarily qualified as the state treason. The same day the SBU reported that Kyrylo Vyshynsky is now officially suspected of state treason. In his column, famous observer Anders Aslund focused on the Azov crisis and the detention of Ukrainian sailors near Crimea in November 2018 On November 25, the Russian Coast Guard attacked and illegally seized three Ukrainian naval vessels on international waters in the Black Sea. The twenty-four Ukrainian sailors on board were arrested for having violated Russian territorial waters and jailed in the nineteenth century KGB prison Lefortovo in Moscow. These Ukrainian sailors were on Ukrainian vessels going from one Ukrainian port to another, while passing through Ukrainian or international waters. They did nothing wrong. Its important to understand what Russia is doing on the Black Sea. Russia wants to turn the vast Sea of Azov from a joint Russian-Ukrainian water, as agreed to in a 2003 bilateral Russian-Ukrainian agreement, into an exclusively Russian territory. International shipping into the two important Ukrainian commercial ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk is increasingly harassed and delayed by Russian inspections. Many supporters of Ukraine called for early and firm Western sanctions on Russia to deter the Kremlin from further aggression in the Sea of Azov and for the release of the twenty-four Ukrainian sailors, but they kept wishing. Almost four months after Kerch, on March 15, the West managed to do something. The single positive element is that this was a coordinated action between the United States, the European Union, and Canada. It marked a restoration of the Western alliance that President Donald Trump all too obviously has wanted to ditch. On April 6, 2018, the United States carried out severe Russia sanctions without any coordination with allies. Coordinating sanctions this year was a major improvement, but there were big negatives. First, the March 15 sanctions came far too late to make any significant policy impression. The Moscow stock and currency exchanges received these minor sanctions not without appreciation. Second, no significant person or enterprise was sanctioned, as these sanctions were very limited. The US sanctions, which were the most serious, hit six individuals and eight enterprises, none of whom would be known outside of a rather limited circle of experts. The EU list looks even less impressive. It does not contain the biggest name on the US list, Gennady Medvedev, the deputy director of the Board Guard Service of the FSB. (The Russian Coast Guard is subordinate to the FSB.) Reportedly, the Finns did not want him to be sanctioned, because they need him for their bilateral negotiations. The Finnish position is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Two of Putins closest cronies, Gennady Timchenko and Boris Rotenberg, have escaped EU sanctions because they obtained Finnish citizenship in the 90s. Why doesnt Finland deprive them of their dubiously earned citizenship rather than defend them internationally? Cowardice is not very impressive or effective in sanctions policy. Meanwhile, Oleg Deripaska exposes US government weakness. After having got four of his companies delisted from US Treasury sanctions, he is now proceeding with a daring step that nobody has undertaken before him: Suing the US Treasury for having deprived him of $7.5 billion. Well, he is not likely to win over the US Treasury, but how can he sue Treasury when he is not allowed to have any financial relations with US persons? These timid US sanctions on Russia are a consequence of the policy of the Trump administration. First, with its severe sanctions of April 6, 2018, the United States antagonized its European allies and caused a major upset on the global aluminum market. These poorly designed sanctions could not be repeated but had to be mitigated. Second, those sanctions deprived the European allies of confidence in the Trump administration. As a consequence, the Europeans became highly skeptical of any US proposal and preferred to minimize sanctions, though the United States realized how weak its sanctions were without EU collaboration, so it tried to get back to cooperation. The natural consequence has been less effective and much delayed sanctions. By delivering too little too late, the West has given President Vladimir Putin a victory in Kerch and the Azov Sea. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Vladimir Putin's approval ratings shot up. Five years later, this euphoria has given way to disillusionment and presented society with a real dilemma Five years ago, heavily armed pro-Russian fighters in green uniforms without insignia took control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Several weeks later, on March 16, 2014, Russia's government held a highly controversial referendum asking the local population whether it wanted Crimea to become part of Russia or remain in Ukraine. Almost 97 percent of the electorate voted for Crimea to join Russia. Most countries, however, did not recognize the referendum. Two days after the vote, a treaty was signed over Crimea's accession to Russia. Moscow refers to this as Crimea's "reunification" with Russia, while Ukraine and many other countries dismiss this move as a violation of international law. They say Russia annexed the peninsula. Crimea affair boosts Putin's approval ratings Crimea's controversial accession to Russia bolstered Russian President Vladimir Putin's domestic standing, boosting his approval ratings from 60 to over 80 percent. Russian experts called this the "Crimea effect." Nikolay Petrov of Moscow's Higher School of Economics says a wave of euphoria swept over the country. "Back in 2014, people felt anything was possible and everything was allowed," adding that Russians were excited about their nation's return to greatness. He says this let "Russians forget their worries." Konstantin Gaase of the Carnegie Moscow Center believes this "Crimea effect" was a unique phenomenon that cannot be compared to any other event in Russian history. He thinks that "any attempt to emulate this effect would fail." And that this effect "was more than just propaganda, the Crimea affair allowed many to express things they had never dared to say before." 2014 euphoria is history Alexey Titov of the committee of civil society initiatives differentiates between two kinds of groups who supported Putin's actions in Crimea back in 2014. "One group was fascinated by the armed conflict, and harbored radical views like completely breaking with the West," he told DW. The other group, according to Titov, was more careful and pragmatic about the Crimea affair. And today has mixed feelings about Putin. Today, the "Crimea effect" is history. This became clear in the summer of 2018, when Putin announced that Russia's pension system would be reformed and the retirement age raised, causing his approval ratings to plummet. Today, only about 64 percent of Russians say they are satisfied with the president. Though experts say disillusionment grew much earlier. "The number of Russians who thought the sanctions [imposed by the US and the EU] were harming their country started increasing in late 2014," says Titov. Many Russians were shocked when authorities publicly destroyed food stuff in 2015 that had been brought into the country illegally. While many still supported Moscow's foreign policy, they also realized that the situation at home was becoming increasingly dire. Nobody is talking about Crimea Today, a sense of disappointment and frustration pervades the country. And the Kremlin has not yet found a way of boosting approval ratings. One thing that could change things, meanwhile, would be taking an uncompromising stance on corruption. Which is what Singapore and China have done, says Titov. But "Russia's current leadership will not go through with this for a number of reasons, which is why they go after small fry like governors or mayors instead," he told DW There is no more public debate over whether Crimea truly belongs to Ukraine or Russia. Even though back in 2014 most Russians did not really question the annexation of the peninsula, either. Konstantin Gaase says that now, "even the Russian opposition has stopped talking about Crimea." And one of the most vocal critics at the time, Boris Nemtsov, was murdered in 2015. But Gaase says Crimea "remains a major problem for international law." It is to be expected that the peninsula will pose a problem for Russian society and its rulers in decades to come. Read the original text at DW. Viktor Medvedchuk, chairman of the Political Party Opposition Platform - For Life Opposition Platform - For Life Viktor Medvedchuk, the Head of the Political Council of the Opposition platform For life does not exclude that the current government headed by Volodymyr Groysman will resign after the presidential elections as 112 Ukraine reported. If I were the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and Volodymyr Groysman, I would not calm down myself with the expectation that he should resign after the selection of the new Verkhovna Rada. Because when the new president will come, whoever he or she is, the coalition, the situation in a country, the parliament may change as well as the situation with the Cabinet of Ministers, he said during the Big Interview show. Medvedchuk noted that it is possible to dissolve the current government very quickly, in one-two days. It depends on the organizational skills, influence and authority of the person, who will win at the elections. Whoever he or she is, the current president or a new candidate, who pretends and really can win, the situation can occur, when the Cabinet of Ministers will resign. A new coalition, 226 votes are needed for it. It cannot be excluded. According to my experience and my knowledge in this sphere, it can really happen. We will see whether it takes place. But such a possibility cannot be excluded, the politician added. Earlier, Medvedchuk noted that Ukrainians are wise people and maintain friendly, good-neighborly relations with the Russians. Open source The joint staff drills of the Joint Command of Regional Grouping of Forces of Belarus and the Russia Federation have started on March 18 and will last until March 22 as Belarusian Defense Ministry reported. The aim of the drills is to increase the coherence of the bodies of the military administration and operative compatibility of the personnel of the Joint Command during the implementation planning along with other troops and military formations of the Republic of Belarus, the message said. It is noted that the officers of the Armed Forces of Belarus and Russia as the part of the Joint Command of Regional Grouping of Forces are involved in the drills as well as the operational teams of the command of the Air Force and Air Defence Troops, special operations battalions, operative commands control, staffs of the territorial defense zones, republican bodies of the state government of Belarus. The training is the initial stage of the preparation to the joint operative drills of the Armed Forces of Belarus and Russia Shchyt Soyuza 2019 (Shield of Union 2019) with main topic Preparation and use of the forces groupings in the interests of the provision of the military security of the union state. The drills will take place in September in the territory of Russia, the message said. As we reported Lukashenko stated that Belarus and Russian will always be together no matter how much they argue and fight. Earlier, Lukashenko stated that he would not call Russia a fraternal state anymore but only a partner. Besides, the Belarusian president expressed the opinion that Moscow wants to incorporate Belarus into the composition of Russia on the pretext of deep integration. Moreover, President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko has requested the government to work out the issue of the alternatives of the oil supply through Baltic countries instead of Russia. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko Open source The priority of Ukraine, the government and the head of the state is to restore the teritorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of the state. Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine said that as quoted by his press office. 'First of all, we should be understanding who we are facing. It's the totalitarian war machine, one of the biggest ones in the world, as it set itself a goal to complete the illegal annexation of Crimea. So the first thing we did... we managed to maintain the world's solidarity with Ukraine, and it facilitates the liberation of Crimea', he said. Poroshenko promised that Ukraine would never bargain or go for some behind-the-curtain agreement with Russia, and Crimea would get back to Ukraine. 'We will do everything possible so that it is done as soon as possible, immediately after the presidential election. You heard Putin's repeated statements that they would not negotiate with us until the elections are over, because he very much hopes that someone else would be elected, instead of Poroshenko. He hopes that the new Ukrainian government crawls to him and gives him Crimea as a present. My position is they won't. We will release Crimea', he said. As is known, the Ukrainian leader hopes for international support for his country, including the deployment of the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas. On March 18, the President of Russia will participate in the ceremony of putting Balaklava and Taurida power plants into operation Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia EU Today President of Russia Vladimir Putin will visit occupied Crimea and Sevastopol on March 18 as the press service of Kremlin reported. The meeting of Putin with the representatives of the Crimean community in Simferopol is planned as well as the participation in the festivities dedicated to the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the so-called Crimean referendum in 2014 and occupation of Crimea by Russia. Besides, the Russian president will participate in the ceremony of putting Balaklava and Taurida power plants into operation. Putin will observe the opening of Balaklava power plant personally, and the opening of Taurida power plant via the video link. Both new power plants should decrease the energy dependence of Crimea. As we reported the Siemens gas turbines installed at Balaklava and Taurida power plants. The German company assured that the turbines were supplied to the peninsula without its permission and in violation of the EU sanctions. It was reported on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea that European Parliament has not recognized and continues to condemn the Crimean occupation by the Russian Federation. Open source Testing of new military combat drones will take place on Wednesday, March 20. The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko reported this on the regional council of the Rivne region, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine. The power of the Ukrainian army increase every day, as every week we get new military equipment. I would like to share a secret with you: in two days we are going to test new combat drones, - Poroshenko said. Turkey has provided Ukraine with unmanned combat aerial vehicle Bayraktar. Ukraine purchases Bayraktar TB2, the combat drones developed by Turkish designers; they can carry missiles and are capable of engaging the naval targets. Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian leader said this. Bayraktar TB2 are capable to develop the maximum speed of 222 km per hour. The effective flight range makes 150 kilometers; it can be armed with anti-tank guided missiles and aviation bombs. Earlier, 2955 soldiers of Armed Forces of Ukraine died from the beginning of the hostilities in the Donbas combat zone. The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko reported this on the regional council of the Rivne region, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine. According to the report on the trend of arms trade around the world, almost a quarter of the Ukrainian export was in the Russian Federation during 2014-2018 Ukrobonprom responds to SIPRI publication, claiming they have not exported ammunition to the Russian Federation since 2014. The press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reports this. It should be taken into account, that the delivery date of the engines and power constructions was determined by SIPRI experts after the certain types of military equipment and armaments had been produced by Russia. The same is with aircraft and ships, which were transferred to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation then, but not the delivery of individual components in present days. That is why the engines or the power constructions had been delivered till 2014, however, SIPRI publication states it has happened recently, - Ukrobonprom said. They explain that during 2014-2018, Ukraine had been supplying the AI-222 turbojet engines to Russia, which are installed on the Russian Yak-130 combat training aircraft. However, the private enterprise Motor-Sich produces such engines in Zaporizhia, this enterprise is not a part of the state-owned concern. In addition, the supply contracts were signed in 2016, and the actual delivery took place in 2009-2014. According to the report, An-140-100 and An-148-100E aircrafts had been previously exported to the Russian Federation, however, the delivery stopped in 2014. The aircrafts started to manufacture in Russia with a license issued by the state enterprise Antonov. Besides, Ukraine supplied shipborne gas turbine constructions DS-71 to Russia, produced by the NPK Zorya-Mashproyekt in Mykolaiv (they were equipped with three Russian frigates of the project 11356). The Ukroboronprom claims that they had been delivered before the ban on the export of weapons to the Russian Federation came into force. Open source NATO urges the Russian Federation to return control over Crimea to Ukraine. The North Atlantic Council reported this in the statement on the fifth anniversary of the Crimea annexation. The Russian Federation used forces against Ukraine in order to illegally annex Crimea. This violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity is a serious breach of international law and a major challenge to Euro-Atlantic security. We strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. We call on Russia to return control of Crimea to Ukraine, - the report said. Thus, NATO confirmed their full support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and territorial waters. Crimea is the territory of Ukraine, - the report outlined. Besides, the NATO representatives expressed their deep concern by the human rights abuses and violations being carried out by the Russian de-facto authorities in illegally annexed Crimea against Ukrainians, the Crimean Tatars, and members of other local communities. These violations include extrajudicial killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, violence, arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture. Despite the 2017 Order of the International Court of Justice, the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, remains under persecution and is banned in its homeland, - NATO members stressed. NATO urges Russia to put an immediate end to all violations and abuses in illegally annexed Crimea, to release Ukrainian political prisoners, and to grant international monitoring organizations the access to the Crimean peninsula. According to the North Atlantic Council, any attempts to legitimize or normalize the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea must end, including the automatic imposition of Russian citizenship, forced population movements, conscription in the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and illegal holding of Russian election campaigns. "We also condemn Russia's construction of the Kerch Strait bridge, which represents another violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and is imposing additional hardship on Ukraine's economy. Russia's unjustified use of military force against Ukrainian ships and naval personnel near the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait in November 2018 is part of the larger pattern of Russian aggressive actions in the region, - NATO added. In accordance with the resolution of the UN General Assembly from December 17, 2018, NATO called on Russia to release the Ukrainian crewmembers it detained, to return the captured vessels and to comply with its international commitments by ensuring unhindered access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov and allowing freedom of navigation. NATO's reaction to the illegal actions by the Russian Federation in Ukraine has resulted in international effort, which has included sanctions. It is impossible to return to the normal cooperation until there is a clear, constructive change in Russia's actions that demonstrate compliance with international law and its international obligations and responsibilities, - the members of the North Atlantic Council stated. Targeted financial sanctions and a travel ban were also applied to the three 'leaders' from separatist-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions Australias Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne EPA / UPG Australia imposed sanctions against seven citizens of Russian Federation in connection with Russias attack on Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait in November 2018. This was stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Australia. Today I announce targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against seven Russian individuals for their role in the interception and seizure of Ukrainian naval vessels that were attempting to pass through the Kerch Strait. Australia is concerned by this escalation of tensions in the Sea of Azov in November 2018, Australias Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said. Marise Payne expressed concern over the escalation of tensions in the Sea of Azov. Australia condemns the aggression and calls on Russia to release the detained Ukrainian sailors and seized vessels without delay. We also call on Russia to allow free and unencumbered passage of Ukrainian and international ships through the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov, the message reads. It was added that Australia did not recognise any actions seeking to legitimise the annexation of Crimea or the secession of parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions. I have therefore also imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against three 'leaders' from separatist-controlled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine following so-called elections in November 2018, Marise Payne stated. Australia called on Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, including its territorial waters. As it was reported earlier, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions against six Russian individuals and eight Russian organizations for the attack at the Ukrainian vessels in Kerch Strait. On November 25, the coast guard ships of the Russian Navy attacked the ships of the Ukrainian Navy, which have been carrying out a scheduled transition from Odesa port to Mariupol port in the Sea of Azov. Ukrainian ships were rejected passage via the Kerch Strait, Russian coast guards opened aimed fire on them. The project of the interconnected grids will allow to hold the integration of the united energy system of Ukraine with European ENTSO-E system Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko Open source President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated that the construction of the power units #3 and #4 of Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant, plant for production of nuclear fuel, reduction of the fuels share from Russia and interconnected grids with the EU are the priority tasks in the energy sphere as Interfax-Ukraine reported. The president noted that at the moment, the diversification process of the nuclear fuel continues without losses in quality and he emphasized that the third energy unit of the South-Ukraine nuclear power plant became the first one in 2018 with the use of the fuel of American Company Westinghouse. The next strategic step in the supplies of fuel is the provision of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants with the nuclear fuel produced in Ukraine. I am sure that it is very ambitious and timely task as the issue is about the creation of our own plant for the production of nuclear fuel, the president noted. Poroshenko also noted that despite the necessity of the implementation of the interconnected grids project with the EU, it will allow not only increase the export of electricity but attract funds for the building of new energy units. The project of the interconnected grids, first of all, is Euro-intergration process. It will allow us to hold the integration of the united energy system of Ukraine with European ENTSO-E system. Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant will become the pilot project and the result of such actions will allow us to unite Ukrainian and European energy systems as soon as possible, the president said. Earlier Deputy State Secretary of the U.S. David Hale noted the significance of energy issue in Ukraine and stated that this question was discussed at every meeting during his visit to Ukraine. Besides, European Union, European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, World Bank and Energy Community strongly support the necessity of transit from the existing green tariff, acting in Ukrainian legislation, to the competitive system based on the green auctions. The possibility of return of Crimea by force is completely excluded as well as the direct negotiations with Donbas militants as Interfax-Ukraine reported citing U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker. There is no military solution of the Crimean issue, in other words, return of Crimea by Ukraine by force. It will become a military catastrophe, he stated and noted that the attempt of such actions will lead to the suffering of thousands of people. Besides, he has completely excluded the possibility of the negotiations with the representatives of the illegal armed formations in Donbas. Russia still denies that it controls the illegal armed formations in the east of Ukraine and insists that Ukraine should directly negotiate with the formations and it will legitimize this invasion and occupation, Volker said. As we reported earlier, Viktor Medvedchuk, the politician and the head of 'Ukrainsky Vybir' (Ukrainian Choice) political party faces prosecution in Ukraine. Ukraines Prosecutor General's Office opened the case against him in state treason and encroachment on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. The basis for the criminal proceeding is an application of the Ukrainian MP from the Peoples Front political party. The criminal case opened against the politician for his proposals on settlement of the military conflict in Donbas by granting the region with autonomy and capturing that in the Constitution of Ukraine. Medvedchuk voiced the proposals at the All-Ukrainian Congress of the party on January 29. Members of the European Parliament condemned the criminal proceeding against Viktor Medvedchuk, the representative of the "Opposition Platform - For Life" political party. Besides, Tte representatives of Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin and Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR) Leonid Pasechnik agreed on the direct negotiations with Kyiv on the plan proposed by Head of Political Council of Party Opposition platform For life Viktor Medvedchuk, facilitated by the European partners on settlement of Donbas Conflict. George Tannenbaum on the future of advertising, the decline of the English Language and other frivolities. 100% jargon free. A Business Insider "Most Influential" blog. teekid/iStock(NEW YORK) -- After the curtain was pulled back on the allegations of bribery, cheating and deception that has plagued some of the country's elite universities, a new study from a Harvard University-based group is urging parents and high schools to put ethics and character at the heart of the college application process. The Making Caring Common project released their new report, "Turning the Tide II," with the graduate school of education on Monday in the wake of the largest-ever prosecuted college cheating scam. The report largely focuses on how high schools and parents can support "core ethical capacities" while reducing "achievement-related stress" as teens go through the application process. "What kids are hearing is 'achievement, achievement, achievement'" "All these things that parents are doing to get into the selective college isn't, in the end, gonna make their kids happier," Richard Weissbourd, faculty director and study author, told ABC News. "What's gonna make their kids happier is if they end up in colleges where they're likely to really be engaged and fit and thrive." Weissbourd said parents -- largely in middle- and upper-income families -- "think" they are "communicating this message that what's most important is that you're a good person. But what kids are hearing is 'achievement, achievement, achievement.'" The report also emphasized the small number of kids who actually get into elite universities -- and the treatment they get once they're there. "The biggest problem in college admissions is that huge numbers of young people, especially low-income and first-generation students, struggle to access or simply can't afford college or land in colleges that aren't committed to their success," a portion of the report stated. "The SAT is like $50, and most people can't afford the $50" Vincente Waugh and Nicholas Burgess, juniors at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, Florida, represented students trying to make it into college for Harvard's Youth Advisory Board. Both emphasized that a lack of resources stunted their efforts. "I personally can't afford the SAT tutor or the classes, and the SAT is like $50, and most people can't afford the $50," Burgess told Good Morning America. Waugh added, "I was able to get a laptop this year, but prior to that, I didn't have a laptop and I wasn't able to get any of my homework done." And it's not just the physical resources -- a lack of personal support can also make the process difficult. "It's really hard to know where you want to go and how you're gonna get there if you don't have people around you who are guiding you in a sense to tell you how to do that," Waugh said. Burgess and Waugh credited their success in school to the EVAC Movement, an organization that aims to help young black men in their area. Both students have their sights set on Florida State University, and if they are accepted, they would become the first in their family to attend college. "No matter the obstacles, just have hope," Burgess said. "And never forget where you came from, always keep your manners and that's about it." A map for success -- beyond achievement Making Caring Common released this report as a follow-up to one published in January 2016 that suggested ways to "reshape the college admissions process" to emphasize "ethical engagement" and to "level the playing field for economically disadvantaged students." In the coming months, Making Caring Common will also publish resources to help high schools and parents implement guideposts from the new report. Check out what the report suggests for parents below: Seven tips for ethical parenting in the college admissions process Keep the focus on your teen "It's critical for parents to disentangle their own wishes from their teen's wishes," the report said. "It's important for parents to just pause and listen." Follow your ethical GPS "Parents may slip into more subtle forms of dishonesty -- allowing their own thinking or voice to intrude in college essays," the report said. "We as parents ought to be willing to ask ourselves hard, fundamental questions about who we want to be and what we want to model for our children." Use the admissions process as an opportunity for ethical education The report suggests parents take up ethical questions such as differences in access to resources and affordability to "explore with their teens how to address the unfairness in the process." Be authentic "Mixed messages can diminish parents' role as trusted guides and erode their capacity to support their teen in expressing themselves authentically," the report said. Help your teen contribute to others in meaningful ways "What makes service meaningful and what matters to the deans is whether service is chosen based on authentic interest, and is immersive, meaningful and sustained," according to the report. Advocate for elevating ethical character and reducing achievement-related distress "Parents need to step up -- respectfully but firmly -- to advance a very different vision of high schools and the college admissions process." The report said parents can "take a zero-tolerance stance on achievement-related distress." Model and encourage gratitude "Parents can ask their teen who theyve appreciated in this process and why, and encourage their teen to consider people who may not be on their radar," the report said. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. ABC News(TACOMA, Washington) -- A young woman in Washington state has pleaded guilty to pushing a now-former friend off a 60-foot bridge last summer. On Monday, Taylor Smith pleaded guilty to a charge of reckless endangerment in a Vancouver courthouse. Her sentencing was scheduled for March 27. Jordan Holgerson suffered multiple injuries after Smith shoved her off the Lewis River at Moulton Falls Regional Park near Vancouver on Aug. 7. Holgerson plunged the equivalent of three stories before belly-flopping into the water below, and suffered six broken ribs, a punctured lung and air bubbles in her chest, officials said. After Monday's court hearing, Holgerson said she just wanted to put the whole ordeal behind her. "I don't really want to wait for next Wednesday, she said, referring to the day Smith is scheduled to be sentenced. Holgerson's mother, Genelle Holgerson, attended the hearing with her, and said Holgerson was still going to physical therapy for an injured shoulder and being treated for anxiety. Genelle Holgerson said the judge's decision to delay Smith's sentencing -- in part to review the victim's information -- was "a little upsetting" for the family. "Being done with this will help her close that chapter in her life," Genelle Holgerson said Monday. "We wanted a guilty plea. We just wanted a sentence too." The incident was captured on cellphone video that went viral on social media but was eventually removed. Surveillance camera video also showed the moment Smith shoved Holgerson off the bridge. According to the complaint filed in Clark County District Court, Holgerson told authorities that Smith was the one who pushed her, and that she did not want to be pushed. Smith also allegedly admitted to pushing Holgerson off the bridge but allegedly told authorities she did so in an attempt to help her friend overcome her fear and not to injure her, officials said. Reckless endangerment is considered a gross misdemeanor that is punishable by up to a year in jail and a maximum fine of $5,000. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. In Peru, the Public Ministry is independent from the Executive Branch. In this sense, he underlined it is a priority to find and sanction the officials who committed crimes, as well as to enable in the future clean and efficient public procurements. "The President (Martin Vizcarra) has set a good example on what it means to be a citizen: I have my opinion, but I respect the principle of authority, autonomy, and separation of powers ()," Prime Minister Del Solar expressed. 13:11 | San Jeronimo (Apurimac region), Mar. 18. Held last weekend in San Jeronimo district (Apurimac region), the carnival kicked off with a parade that comprised 140 troupes, whose members dressed in traditional clothing sang and danced to the rhythm of "huayno." The Atipanakuy a competition of dance, music and art was part of the traditional festivities. Leaders and other members of the troupes faced one another. The carnival's final celebration or Kacharpary ends with a traditional tree-cutting event called " yunza ," where a tree is decorated with presents that people dance around and take turns trying to chop down. Locals and participants take part of such event by bringing trees native to the area where they live. During the festivities, single young men attend these rituals to court and flirt with girls. The carnival includes a culinary festival, where foodies can enjoy traditional dishes such as atajo picante , cuy chactado , chicharron, trigo picante , and stews. San Jeronimo Mayor Percy Godoy thanked locals and troupe members for their participation, which required months of preparation. (END) NDP/TMC/RMB/MVB This year's Carnival of Tupaykanakuy (meeting of families) saw the participation of more than 400,000 people from Apurimac, Ayacucho, Arequipa, Cusco, Iquitos, Ucayali, and Huancavelica regions.Published: 3/18/2019 HAPPY PADDYS DAY TROOPS. UP THE REDS. Alisson (6): I dont know. Who do you blame? Liverpool won though soooo arsed? Trent Arnold (6): His crossing is either the best in the league or the worst in the league and Im completely on board with that until hes 25. Cant be dropped for the remaining league games. Joel Matip (6): Hes doing an absolute 7/10 job and the moment and thats reflected by getting at least 6/10 every week. Wish he was better at heading the ball into the net though. Virgil van Dijk (7): I dont know. Who do you blame? To be honest lads and ladies, I didnt see much of the second half. He fucked up a little maybe, but his smile in the interview after made me smile. So 7/10. Get in! Andy Robertson (6): Wish he would remember how to be a worldie left-back because all he is at the moment is Leighton Baines minus the set-pieces. Fabinho (6): The sight of him getting a yellow actually makes me smile because I know its needed. Gini Wijnaldum (6): Most Gini performance ever and we got three points so Im on board. Adam Lallana (5): Back to the bench. That one game of goodness was fun. Sadio Mane (9): Our 4th best player or whatever winning us the league? Its what dreams are made of. Great finish. Wins the penalty. Up Sadio, up Senegal. Roberto Firmino (7): Good assist mate. Missed some of the other stuff you did but Im sure it was good. Lets have a Samba together? X Mohamed Salah (7): Youre still our king mate. Still, love you. Youll score one day. Love Olli x " " While we can't pretend to know everything about Kermit the Frog's private life, researchers have discovered a new mating habit unique to an Indian frog species. Andrea McCallen/Getty Images The sex lives of frogs aren't all that mysterious. Or at least they weren't until this month, when a paper published in the journal PeerJ has revealed there's more to anuran sex than we previously thought. Herpetologists have long believed there to be just six different mating positions possible for the nearly 7,000 species of frogs and toads worldwide. These "amplexus modes" usually involve males climbing aboard his mate and binding her in some sort of "mating hug" while she lays eggs and he fertilizes them, although some species accomplish the same thing by sitting butt-to-butt, or with the male straddling the female's head, or gluing himself with a sticky substance to her back. This isn't to say frog sex can't get weird oh, it can get weird it's just that generally we know what kind of predictable weird to expect. Advertisement " " A male Bombay night frog near a clutch of frog eggs, photographed in the middle of a call. SD Bju/PeerJ But a research team led by biologist SD Biju from University of Delhi recently added one more position to the Frogga Sutra move roster. The Bombay night frog (Nyctibatrachus humayuni) is small, brown and shy, and native to the Western Ghats, a mountain range that runs along the entire west coast of India. Biju first noticed their peculiar mating behavior in 2002, but it took more than a decade to scientifically verify and document it because the frogs are so secretive. Herpetologists are calling this never-before-seen position the "dorsal straddle." On nights during the height of monsoon season, male and female Bombay night frogs come out and call to each other. (This in itself is unusual in all but about 25 known frog species, the females keep pretty quiet during mating season.) Once a male and female decide they like the looks of each other, the male clambers onto the back of his lady love and just lightly rests his frog paws on the leaf or branch they're mating on. No squeezing involved, unlike other positions! From there, the female lays her eggs and the male releases sperm onto her back, which trickles down and fertilizes the eggs. Check out the whole process in this video: "This is a remarkable frog with an unprecedented reproductive behavior," said Biju in a press release. "This discovery is fundamental for understanding the evolutionary ecology and behavior in anuran amphibians." If the Bombay night frog is doing it, other frogs might be having unusual sex. Keep your eyes open, everyone! Now That's Interesting The male Bombay night frog may not squeeze his mate, but a firm mating hug is a requirement to a male Amazonian frog called Rhinella proboscidea. Females are often killed in a melee of male courtship competitions, and the victorious male often ends up squeezing eggs out of a dead female in order to fertilize them. A group of diverse but like-minded individuals, the members of ARC have come together in their common desire to fight hatred, bigotry, intolerance and violence because of the harm these antisocial behaviors cause to our society. In that effort, we will not use or sanction the use of illegal actions (such as violence or intimidation) in pursuit of our desired aims and if we learn of anyone who does use these unethical methods we will report those individuals to the authorities. Instead, we will use the guarantees found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that ensure freedom of legal speech and expression. YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Chinese and Turkish jeans will be replaced by Armenian ones. Made in Armenia jeans will be available in stores in a month. The jeans are produced in Gyumri. The Zakaryan family invested 2 million USD for launching the production. The Armenian government has posted a video on Facebook about this new production. R. Zakaryan company has imported all the necessary equipment for making high-quality products from abroad. And the government assisted the company on this matter: the term of the VAT payment calculated by the tax and customs agencies in case of import of goods has been reduced by three years. This allowed to save money and spend it for purchasing equipment, the companys commercial director Lilit Zakaryan said. Experienced Italian specialists have arrived in Armenia to help preparing necessary cadres. Technologist Mauro Di Giuseppe arrived in Armenia to help making high-quality products. We still have some path to pass, but I have a great desire and will to share my entire experience, Mauro Di Giuseppe said. The work in the new production unit is mainly automated. Over 50 people are working in the production. There are plans to increase their number by 100 in the next two years, as well as the production by 4 times. We plan to consume approximately 5% of our production in Armenia. Export is our main target. We already have a contract with Russia, will have another ones with the Italian and other European companies in the nearest future, Lilit Zakaryan said, adding that in addition to jeans and jackets, they also plan to make shirts and other knitwear. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan on March 18 delivered remarks at the Berlin Parliament on the sidelines of his official visit in Germany, the Armenian Parliament told Armenpress. Dear Mrs. Vice President, Dear colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me thank you for this opportunity to meet and welcome you at the Berlin Parliament. The Berlin Wall, separating the same people, country and your lovely city from each other, is still fresh in peoples memories. On November 9, 1989, the people of Germany, who gathered across the idea of the unity in the Eastern Germany, managed to destroy what led to the German unification on October 3, 1990 and opened a new page in the world history. The world is happy to again see a united and dynamic Germany. One of the pictures in the Berlin Wall museum depicts a woman leaning on the wall and mentions her words: The pressure that I used with my hand on the wall in 1987 gave its result two years later. The fight of the citizens of Armenia for many years for the sake of democracy, human rights and rule of law in our country resulted in the 2018 April-May velvet, peaceful revolution which was held completely in a constitutional way. Now we need to strengthen the democratic model of the development and develop its efficiency. In this sense we attach importance to the deepening of our relations with the EU. We are determined to jointly expand and deepen the process of institutional reforms with our European partners. We highly value the balanced policy run by Germany in South Caucasus and its support to different sectors in Armenia. The high-level political dialogue between our two countries, the inter-parliamentary cooperation, the mutual partnership, and the intensification of economic and cultural ties are vivid examples of further deepening of the cooperation. The capital cities of the two states can play a unique role in the context of deepening the Armenian-German ties. I hope Berlin and our 2800-year-old capital Yerevan will be able to jointly develop cooperation projects to learn from each other and carry out exchange of experience. I am sure Berlins experience in city governance and city economys sustainable development will be useful for the Yerevan city authorities. Dear Mrs. Schmidt, dear colleagues, once again thank you, wish you new achievements during your complex and responsible activities for the benefit of the citizens of Berlin, Ararat Mirzoyan said in his remarks. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to Belarus Armen Ghevondyan on March 15 met with deputy foreign minister Andrei Dapkiunas, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress. During the meeting the Belarusian and Armenian diplomats discussed a number of topical subjects of interaction between Belarus and Armenia concerning the mutual support on selected issues in the international organizations primarily within the UN system. The sides also exchanged views on issues of mutual interest in the context of further development of the bilateral partnership. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan received on March 18 head of the Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia Claire Meytraud and Coordinator at the Protection Unit of the ICRC Zurab Burduli on the occasion of the termination of the mission of the latter. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of Armenia, highly assessing the works done during the mission, Minister Tonoyan wished success to Zurab Burduli during his future activities. During the meeting the sides discusses issues referring to the cooperation between the Armenian Defense Ministry and the ICRC delegation in Armenia, the future activities and raising effectiveness of the cooperation. The interlocutors also discussed the fates of the people missing in action as a result of Nagorno Karabakh war, as well as other issues referring to the combination of efforts of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of Armenia and the ICRC. The sides also referred to the fate of Karen Ghazaryan, who crossed the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in July 2018 and was convicted to 20 years of imprisonment in Azerbaijan, highlighting the coordinated work of the Yerevan and Baku offices of the ICRC for ensuring the regular visits to him and correspondence between him and his family. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan Innovating to remove barriers and accelerate progress for gender equality. Encouraging investment to develop gender-responsive social systems. Building services and infrastructure to meet the needs of women and girls. A few short hours after his release from hospital, I received an email from Jackson who explained that, while he was late to International Womens Day 2019, PNG Attitude still ought to mark the occasion by recognising the women of Papua New Guinea. Whereas 10 minutes helping my son with Year 5 long division means immediate, uninterrupted and unspecified rest on the sofa, PNG Attitudes recovery from five-time spinal surgery means returning to his keyboard and the company of thousands of readers around the globe. BRISBANE - Readers might have believed that when PNG Attitudes publisher and editor proclaimed post-surgery , Now time to get this old cart back on the road, the words were reflective rather than prescriptive. Nope. It is vital that womens ideas and experiences equally influence the design and implementation of the innovation that shape our future societies, the United Nations has declared and, if this is to be achieved, it will require industry leaders, start-ups, social entrepreneurs, gender equality activists and women innovators engaging with women. In 2019, the focus is on innovative approaches to disrupt business as usual, remove structural barriers and ensure no girl or woman is left behind. For the past 13 years, PNG Attitude has constantly encouraged Papua New Guinean girls and women to participate in dismantling social barriers through their writing The blogs activist attitude, trans-border outlook, issues orientation and daily publication has done much to accelerate progress for gender equality in PNG. Furthermore, it has always had an emphasis on inclusion and participation. Some of these activities have included the Crocodile Prize, Pukpuk Publications, fundraising to assist individual writers, the Paga Hill McKinnon Writers Fellowship, writers workshops in PNG, collaboration with Australian literary festivals, mentoring emerging writers, supporting writers groups and continuing engagement with Papua New Guinean writers through social media and personal contact. For me - whether through reading its articles, engaging in dialogue, networking or delivering project activities - PNG Attitude has been the key digital source that influences my thinking and helps me frame strategies and solutions to enable me to move faster towards achieving gender equality and equity in PNG. Much of this came to fruition in the tangibility and disruption of the My Walk to Equality project, which proved to be a great achievement by a disparate group of Papua New Guinean women assisted by the Australian men who had established the Crocodile Prize. My Walk to Equality broke through the bonds of inertia and resistance, briefly blazed in glorious light, still haltingly moves forward and refuses to be vanquished, But it was not followed up by any institutional reinforcement, probably because it was bottom-up and, despite what they claim, the big institutions much prefer top-down. Not invented here is such a large constraint on voluntary effort no matter how effective and worthy being picked up by those who have the resources to make more of it. But let me move on to those eleven Papua New Guinean women who, through PNG Attitude and the MWTE Project, I consider innovators in their national and international contributions to achieving gender equality. Their efforts and actions dont often receive the public attention, endorsement or investment they deserve, frequently because not invented here applies even to the laudable and socially progressive goals of gender equality. The syndrome emerges from two key constraints: the boundaries that knowledge must bridge as it transfers between two entities; and the irrational devaluation or rejection of external knowledge by an entity. The women nominated here, taken as a group, would be a formidable force for change in Papua New Guinea but there has been no appetite to utilise them or their ideas in a systematic and coherent way to achieve goals that continue to prove so elusive to large and well-resourced institutions. If you are an industry leader, game-changing start-up, social entrepreneur or gender equality activist, I encourage you to consider how your efforts, plans, budgets and investments could contribute more effectively to support these women in their work and so contribute to a future capable of accelerating progress towards gender equality in PNG. Dr Michelle Nayahamui Rooney Dr Rooney is prolific in her written contributions to disseminate her scholarship of Papua New Guinean issues, particularly those affecting Manus society and its sad experience of hosting the Australia-funded euphemistically-designated regional processing centre for asylum seekers. I admire Rooneys proactive approach to translating her academic research in a manner that is inclusive, practical and encourages participation of the non-academic population through public access and online articles. Rooneys regular publications have been extremely helpful to me in my contemplation of issues and in refining and expanding my own thinking about how girls and women are perceived, especially by non-Papua New Guineans. Ive spent considerable time thinking about her recent offering in which the discussion references colonial discourse, its impact on Papua New Guineans engaging in self-representation and how this plays out in the present day between PNG and Australia through relations of gender and security. Rooneys gender trap diplomacy best illuminates my own understanding, about which I have previously written: Gender equality is impossible to achieve if the language, legislation, attitudes, and behaviours expressed by those who act or speak on behalf of Papua New Guinea women continue to reinforce doubt about facts of our assertions and thereby incapacitate our right to speak out. Now more than ever, Papua New Guinean girls and women need to play a significant role in demanding and directing authentic self-representation when engaging or aligning with the former colonial power Australia and more recent influences including China and the United States. Roxanne Aila Roxanne and I have a personal history that stretches back to our early primary school days at an international school in Port Moresby. It was a privilege but one that did not prove immune to lifes challenges in later years. With much admiration, and in various spaces, I have sat alongside Roxanne as she has contributed to dialogue about her experience in managing and overcoming depression. As an ambassador for the Beyond Blue organisation, Roxanne is dedicated to dismantling stigma and increasing non-judgemental public dialogue in Australia and PNG about an individuals mental health. Coupled with her yoga teaching, speaking and participating in workplaces and at community events, and through her blog and social media activities, Roxanne shines the spotlight on messages of positive thinking, mindfulness and meditation to assist others. Alurigo Ravuriso-Kali Alurigo is easily one of one of the top people with whom I would like to spend time on a regular basis if we lived in closer proximity. Connected through the MWTE Project, a recent opportunity to finally meet in-person was short-lived on account of a shared commonality - fulfilling parental responsibilities - whilst pursuing personal goals and ambition. Nevertheless, as a role model for living through Christian faith whilst managing the realities of family life and a career, Alurigos warmth, authenticity and grounded nature is affecting, as are her reflections in the anthology essay A Culture of Family. Alurigo champions positive representation through writing. She opts for a narrative that focuses on Papua New Guineans living in urban PNG who are thoughtful and give consideration to how the everyday challenges may be eased to make life more manageable, safer and happier. A culture of offering solutions and sharing. Betty Wakia Betty embodies the type of woman who understands the significance and necessity of proactively giving other PNG women a seat at the table when an opportunity presents itself. Truth be told, not being included and being denied access to influential platforms has been a major obstacle to the in-country impact of the MWTE Project. Yet, Bettys simple act of inviting us into her network saw our MWTE project come to wider attention and being nominated as the PNG country project for the United Nations Girls and Womens Education Prize 2018. It was a welcome surprise, flawed only by PNGs internet connectivity issues which got in the way of our preparation for the prize. That said, the nomination demonstrated not only the advantages of teamwork in achieving a short-term goal as domestic and diaspora allies worked our way through UNESCOs comprehensive online nomination process to ensure global attention was directed to PNGs efforts in educating girls and women through indigenous literature. Pauline Mago-King and Leiao Gerega Pauline and Leiao are two journalists who have produced both creative and investigative writing informing the public about the status, progress and future directions of achieving gender equality in PNG. Their approach encompasses perspectives from the female and male population in both urban and rural settings and interacting at the interface of government and non-government intervention. Leiaos evocative poetry featured in the anthology extends to her print journalism and the project team recognised the potential of her written work by nominating her to present at last years Emerging Writers Festival in Australia, an application that was unfortunately unsuccessful. Pauline, whilst reporting from New Zealand, extended an invitation for me to share my thoughts about the potential impact the APEC 2018 discussions would have on communities along the Kokoda Trail, especially girls and women. It was an opportune occasion during which I was able to convey what I had observed during my first trek of the Trail some months earlier, documented in the seven-part Trail of Woe series in PNG Attitude. Alphonse Huvi Alphonse was recently warmly congratulated by the MWTE project team on the publication and distribution of the Devare Adventist High School Anthology, a self-initiated project. I had been contacted by Alphonse in the very early stages of planning and was delighted at her milestone achievement and the efforts of students in producing the book. In a parallel effort to her MWTE contribution, My Challenging Life, Alphonse had limited resources but with incredible supply hard work, effective communication and enthusiasm delivered a near-impossible feat in an environment where publishing indigenous literature is not considered to be an important priority. Theresa Meki and Tania Basiou Theresa and Tania have inspired audiences in their advocacy for gender-equality through film and photography respectively. Theresas collaboration with a team of writers, actors, producers, directors and support crew saw her contribute to the production of Aliko and Ambai. Like Betty Wakia, she invited me into her network providing the opportunity to both better understand her role in the project and to interact with the films director, Dr Mark Eby, to whom I conveyed my positive impressions of the film. Aliko and Ambai demonstrated to me the potential of Papua New Guinean women in film, especially as screenwriters, to engage and impact minds of all ages with realistic portrayals about co-existing respectfully, peacefully and productively in the interests of a progressive nation. Tania is of course well known as the cover designer and contributing author for the MWTE anthology. She is a splendid photographer with a stellar portfolio produced as a result of her private and collaborative project work. The images are distinctive and offer audiences an authentic experience of how a Papua New Guinean woman perceives evolving PNG communities and other aspects of the world around her. Mary Kini Mary Kini passionately and articulately conveyed her human rights advocacy when presenting at the Women of Wonder Festival in Brisbane last year. Mary engaged audience members (including me) as she described the hard work, sadness and hostility of offering safe spaces, temporary shelter and referral support for girls and women fleeing unsafe, hostile and often life-threatening situations in their communities, including sorcery accusation related violence. Theres no sense in which Mary portrayed victimhood but she did clearly get across the problems of delivering help because of communication delays compounded by strained and limited resources. What Mary refrained from elaborating, but which was evident, was the self-sacrifice involved and the threats and danger involved in the predominantly, voluntary role of helping Papua New Guineans who are in trouble. Elvina Ogil Elvina is the creator and host of the first Papua New Guinean feminist podcast, Who Asked Her, which first aired (via Soundcloud) in May 2018 and has produced its sixth one-hour episode. These conversations offer the thoughts, opinions and argument of the host and invited (predominantly) Papua New Guinean guests who discuss on a wide-range of issues which have included feminism, cultural appropriation, abortion and neo colonialism. Who Asked Her is refreshing, informative and thought-provoking and has gained a legion of listeners with the first episode receiving 1,300 listens (excluding downloads) and counting. Many people are eager to join the conversation and offer their views about contemporary PNG society via social media. Speaking to ABC radios Tahlea Aualiitia of Pacific Mornings program on International Womens Day, Elvina said her self-funded podcast has a wide-reach including into parts of rural PNG and observed that listeners have commended her initiative to encourage more participation, especially of girls and women, in PNGs public conversation. Rashmii Amoah Bell by Keith Jackson Rashmii is a perceptive essayist, a deep intellectual curiosity in hot pursuit of further learning and a wanna-do can-do administrator. The trio dont often travel in the same carriage. Especially not when there are young school children and related matters constituting the complexities of daily life. Things become even tougher when good intentions and hard work bump into the everyday cynicism of people on the make and scenarios designed to be zero sum games. As I merge with old age, I have learned to pick the leaners and users. But this does have to be learned. And the process means bumping along some very rocky roads on the way. It was Rashmii who something less than three years ago decided shed like to produce a really big event for International Womens Day 2017 in Papua New Guinea. An anthology of Papua New Guinean womens writing no less. Never been done before. No templates or precedents. No structure whatsoever. Three months, in publishing is as good as no time at all. And there was no money. But there was a burning desire to succeed. It happened. And it was the nearest thing to a miracle youre ever likely to see on Gods good earth. The book itself was a triumph of writing and design. The two launches (in Port Moresby and Brisbane) were marvellous and memorable. The book was distributed in its hundreds, then thousands. Then Rashmii pressed on to make her idea more than a book, to make it a locus of movement towards equality for girls and women. And that took guts as well as effort, and meant pushing against the forces of exploitation, envy and disdain that always arise at times like this. Rashmii doesnt suffer fools gladly, and there were plenty of them. Some two years later, My Walk to Equality can be seen as a triumphal moment. It could also have started a triumphal movement but it did not because there were more leaners than lifters, more slackers than backers and because it was not invented here but by a single mum who had a grand idea and the ambition and drive to see it happen. Theres a lot more to this story, of course, there always is. There were more people, more incidents, more bumpy roads. And there will be a lot more to come. Papua New Guinea and Australia have not heard the last of Rashmii Bell. Theyve hardly heard the beginning. A smart institution not one dwelling in its own vainglory or fear of competitors, but one that is smart and open would understand that to succeed it must adopt the best of breed, which often lies way beyond its own capabilities. Thats where Rashmii is - along with many other women like those she has featured here. From the developer presentation. Note outline of B5 tower in background reported nearly two months ago, based on comments at the bi-monthly Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Quality of Life meeting, that construction at the long-awaited middle school at B15 would start by March and take about 34 months, implying completion by January 2022. Previous ambitions hit pause 30% of the units must be affordable: at least 10% at up to 70% of AMI and 20% at up to 130% of AMI. at least 30% of the units must be affordable at up to 130% of AMI Schools officials have offered a changing schedule. The School Construction Authority's (SCA) February 2018 However, the SCA's November 2018 Schools officials have offered a changing schedule. The School Construction Authority's (SCA) February 2018 Capital Plan (p. C8) pointed to July 2019 construction start and June 2021 project completion.However, the SCA's November 2018 Capital Plan (p. C8) pointed to a June 2020 construction start--presumably after preliminary work at the site--and August 2022 project completion, in time for the 2022-23 school year. The SCA's February 2019 According to the Capital Plan, the school would cost $126.15 million, with the final $25.41 million of that total requested in the current fiscal year. This month the capital budget should be submitted to the Mayor and City Council, and adoption by the City Council should be in June. The SCA's February 2019 Capital Plan , excerpted above, suggests a June 2020 construction start, after excavation, and completion by August 2022, which comes after Spring 2022 (presumably when the first apartments open) but would be ready for the 2022-23 school year.According to the Capital Plan, the school would cost $126.15 million, with the final $25.41 million of that total requested in the current fiscal year. This month the capital budget should be submitted to the Mayor and City Council, and adoption by the City Council should be in June. After a hiatus of nearly a year, the AY CDC met Friday at the offices of parent ESD for little more than an hour and generating exactly zero public comment. (It's not always easy for civilians from Brooklyn to pop in for a 1 pm meeting in midtown Manhattan. Some previous meetings have been held in Brooklyn at Long Island University.)While the big news--as I'll report later--concerns the failure to require an updated building-by-building timetable, we learned more specifics about the expected 2022 delivery of the B15 tower just east of the arena block between Dean and Pacific Street.Last Friday, we got a somewhat later date for the building, Spring 2022, based on a slide (above) presented to the AY CDC by overall developer Greenland Forest City Partners, joined by a representative of The Brodsky Organization, which is developing the specific site. At the meeting, Thomas Brodsky of The Brodsky Organization, a third-generation executive at the family-run company , predicted a ten-month foundation period, then a 24-month construction period.That presumably implies completion in Winter 2021-2022--indeed, the poster (left) on the construction fence predicts a Q4 2021 completion--but perhaps they're allowing for contingencies.According to city schools officials, the middle school would be ready by August 2022, as noted below.Excavation is starting at the site, as noted in the latest Construction Update , and, as shown in the photo below, the drilling equipment is rather close to the existing neighbors on Dean Street.The B15 tower, unveiled in December 2015, was supposed to be finished by 2018, but never launched, given the November 2016 decision by Forest City Enterprises to pause vertical development, given a glut of luxury units in and around Downtown Brooklyn, and uncertainty regarding the 421-a tax break, which until then would've permitted a fully market-rate building to gain the tax break.Now the building will be part of the revamped 421-a program, Affordable New York, with 312 units, 94 of them (30%) "affordable." The amount of affordability wasn't specified, but the two options that seem applicable would include a significant amount of middle-income units , meaning above 120% of Area Median Income (AMI):The school has been dubbed by advocates M.S. One Brooklyn (with an arts/culture/STEM focus), but is officially I.S. 653.The building address was previously designated 664 Pacific Street, but it also has been described as 662 Pacific Street. The official school address is 491 Dean Street, according to the SCA, though the school entrance will be on Sixth Avenue. Here's the overall site plan Image: Getty 2018 was a tough year for superannuation funds, the average fund made negative returns and the Royal Commission exposed dodgy behaviour within the $2.7 trillion sector. It means Australian workers are wondering whether theyre really getting the best deal, Canstar group executive of financial services, Steve Mickenbecker said. Canstar analysed 67 superannuation products from 59 providers to find the strongest-performing fund, considering how the funds perform across different balances and age groups. Related story: Fees will need to rise to cover super changes Related story: Would you like to access your pay as you earn it? Heres how. Related story: Taxpayers to foot $1 billion bill to cover retiring politicians entitlements The six top funds performed strongest in our review across a broad range of consumer groups when it came to their combination of investment returns, fees, insurance options and access to advice and information. Mickenbecker noted that Canstars rating comes as the government mulls a recommendation from the Productivity Commission to instate a best in show list of the top 10 superannuation funds, from which new workforce entrants will choose. While workers will be able to switch funds throughout their career, the recommendation is meant to curb the sheer volume of funds set up by different employers as workers advance through their careers, and which trigger unnecessary sets of duplicate fees and insurance. Here are the six super funds which came out on top (in alphabetical order): AustralianSuper AustralianSuper AustralianSuper has displayed consistently strong performance returns over the past five years. The Canstar Research Team found that from 2014-2018, AustralianSupers returns were 1.75 per cent higher than the market average, Canstar said. Catholic Super Catholic Super Employer Sponsored Unlike the other award winners, Catholic Super Employer Sponsored now applies age-based asset allocation. This means younger members in their 20s, 30s and 40s have an aggressive asset allocation and older members in their 50s and 60s have a balanced allocation, Canstar explained. Story continues Catholic Supers returns largely came down to the value it delivered to its younger members, compared to other funds. Hostplus Super Hostplus Personal Super Hostplus Personal Super returned an average 1.87 per cent more than the market average and scored well for member access. InTrust Super InTrust Super Executive Super This is the first time InTrust Super scored five stars, after it improved performance. It delivered an average annual return that was 2.04 per cent higher than the market average. Statewide Super Statewide Super Employer Sponsored While it had strong performance across all feature categories, Canstar Research found that it truly excelled relative to its peers in making financial advice and education available to its members. It offers personal advice through a range of mediums as well as calculators and educational content, Canstar said. Sunsuper Sunsuper for Life Sunsuper excelled when it comes to financial advice and education, Canstar said, as well as delivering returns 1.12 per cent above the market average. Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, property and tech news. A petition to remove Senator Fraser Anning from the Australian government has received over 1 million signatures as of Monday morning. Anning, a far-right politician who has been called out for his controversial views in the past, faced public backlash after he blamed Muslim immigration for the New Zealand mosque shooting which left at least 50 people dead. On Saturday, Anning again prompted criticism after he punched a 17-year-old for cracking an egg on his head during a press conference in Melbourne. The incident, which was caught on camera, is now being investigated by police.The "Remove Fraser Anning from Parliament" petition on Change.org has racked up over 1.14 million signatures as of mid-morning on Monday. The petition has an updated goal of 1.5 million signatures. "Senator Fraser Annings views have no place in the government of our democratic and multicultural country," Kate Ahmad, who started the petition, wrote on the page. "Within the bounds of Australian law, we request that he be pushed to resign from his position as Senator, and if appropriate, be investigated by law enforcement agencies for supporting right wing terrorism." "We call on the Australian government to assist in demanding a resignation from this man who blames victims for their own violent deaths, and uses references to genocide to further his hateful agenda. There is no place in the Australian government for Neo-Nazis. There is no place for bigotry. There is no place for hate speech." The death toll from New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting has risen to 50. The shooting has prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to review gun laws in the country."I can tell you right now, our gun laws will change," she said on Saturday. "Now is the time for change." Following the terror attack, Anning tweeted a series of controversial comments which were broadly criticised by Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison who said Anning's comments were "disgusting." Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, said Anning did not represent Australia.After far surpassing its initial goal of 35,000 signatures, Ahmed thanked those who have shown support. "Wow! One million signatures and its still heading up. One million people opposed to the hateful rhetoric of Senator Anning. One million people saying that its not ok to persecute a group of people based on their religion. One million people standing in solidarity with the devastated Christchurch Muslim community. One million people who care to preserve the peaceful, multicultural society we live in. Thank you so much for your kindness and co-operation." A petition to remove Senator Fraser Anning from the Australian government has received over 1 million signatures as of Monday morning. Anning, a far-right politician who has been called out for his controversial views in the past, faced public backlash after he blamed Muslim immigration for the New Zealand mosque shooting which left at least 50 people dead. On Saturday, Anning again prompted criticism after he punched a 17-year-old for cracking an egg on his head during a press conference in Melbourne. The incident, which was caught on camera, is now being investigated by police. The "Remove Fraser Anning from Parliament" petition on Change.org has racked up over 1.14 million signatures as of mid-morning on Monday. The petition has an updated goal of 1.5 million signatures. "Senator Fraser Annings views have no place in the government of our democratic and multicultural country," Kate Ahmad, who started the petition, wrote on the page. "Within the bounds of Australian law, we request that he be pushed to resign from his position as Senator, and if appropriate, be investigated by law enforcement agencies for supporting right wing terrorism." "We call on the Australian government to assist in demanding a resignation from this man who blames victims for their own violent deaths, and uses references to genocide to further his hateful agenda. There is no place in the Australian government for Neo-Nazis. There is no place for bigotry. There is no place for hate speech." The death toll from New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting has risen to 50. The shooting has prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to review gun laws in the country. "I can tell you right now, our gun laws will change," she said on Saturday. "Now is the time for change." Following the terror attack, Anning tweeted a series of controversial comments which were broadly criticised by Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison who said Anning's comments were "disgusting." Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, said Anning did not represent Australia. After far surpassing its initial goal of 35,000 signatures, Ahmed thanked those who have shown support. "Wow! One million signatures and its still heading up. One million people opposed to the hateful rhetoric of Senator Anning. One million people saying that its not ok to persecute a group of people based on their religion. One million people standing in solidarity with the devastated Christchurch Muslim community. One million people who care to preserve the peaceful, multicultural society we live in. Thank you so much for your kindness and co-operation." The 1930 Proof Penny. Images: Supplied, Getty A rare Australian penny dubbed the King of Coins has sold to a Sydney collector for a record price of $1.15 milion, after being one of only six made. South Yarra coin dealer, Coinworks announced the sale today, saying the sale confirms the value of the Proof 1930 Penny as Australias most valuable coin. The dealer said it also made it the worlds most valuable penny. The Proof 1930 Penny is the greatest coin in all of Australian numismatics, said Coinworks managing director, Belinda Downie. Related story: Gold Coles Stikeez sells for $20,100 Related story: New $2 coins celebrate iconic Australian kids show Related story: Woman finds 14th century coin worth $5.4K in secret drawer It is simply a phenomenal coin in an exceptional state of preservation, and for the buyer represents an investment that guarantees their place in history. Why is it so valuable? The penny was produced as a presentation piece during the height of the Great Depression, with only six made. Melbourne Mint records show Australia wasnt making pennies in 1930 due to the deflationary spiral of the Great Depression, although it is now known that around 1,500 pennies were in fact made in 1930, and are now considered rare treasures. Of those 1500 only six were proof coins; showpiece records of coins produced for circulation, and before 1966 only made at the discretion of the Mint Master. One of the six showpiece coins was kept by the Melbourne Mint, where the coins were made, while another was sent to the British Museum and another to the Art Gallery of South Australia. The remaining three went to private collectors. The coins were considered valuable due to their rarity and the fact that they were produced according to the highest standards. The other 1,500 1930 pennies triggered a frenzy in 1966 when Australia moved to a decimal currency system and coin collectors began to have great difficulty in building complete collections. Newspaper headlines at the time read: A Penny could be worth 500, as Australians began to understand that only 1,500 1930 pennies had ever entered circulation. Story continues Coinworks described the craze as the original get-rich-quick scheme, with school-children scrutinising their lunch money and all Australians refusing to part with a penny without first checking the date. Today, the 1930 pennies still fetch high prices on eBay, with one currently on sale for $17,490. Image: eBay But of the Proof pennies, the $1.15 million coin is likely the finest, Downie added. If the Proof 1930 Penny is the King of Australian rare coins, then this example is the King of Kings for its widely regarded as the finest of the three privately held proof 1930 Pennies, said Downie. Buyers are appreciating the overwhelming rarity of top Australian coins and recognising the investment opportunities that their offering presents. Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, property and tech news. A shroud of black smoke covered the Islamic State group's last Syria redoubt on Monday as US-backed forces battled holdout jihadists after a night of shelling and heavy air strikes. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic forces have been closing in on IS fighters holed up in a small sliver of territory in the village of Baghouz in eastern Syria since January. A cluster of rudimentary tents and vehicles is all that remains of the once-sprawling "caliphate" declared across large swaths of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014. Tens of thousands of men, women and children have poured out of the small farming village in recent weeks, slowing down an SDF offensive aimed at crushing the last vestige of the jihadist proto-state. Backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition, the SDF pummelled the IS pocket with shelling on Sunday night, pushing deeper into the jihadist encampment. Ground battles and artillery attacks continued on Monday morning as the Kurdish-led force worked to consolidate its most recent gains, SDF spokesman Jiaker Amed told AFP. "Our forces have advanced but clashes have been ongoing since last night," he said. On a hilltop overlooking the bombed-out bastion, an AFP correspondent heard the sound of gunfire and heavy shelling ring out. Men, believed to be jihadists, could be seen shuffling inside the redoubt, beneath a plume of smoke that obscured most of the encampment. Crouching behind rocks, SDF fighters opened fire at IS fighters that appeared near the banks of the Euphrates River. - Ground offensive - "The SDF ground offensive has been very effective," coalition spokesman Sean Ryan told AFP on Monday. "The SDF continues to pursue a deliberate, methodical approach to removing the last remaining territory under Daesh," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. An SDF official who asked not to be named told AFP on Monday that his force has seized a cluster of buildings from jihadists in the latest bout of fighting. SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali on Sunday night said his force captured "several positions" inside the pocket. "SDF is now holding positions inside the camp," he said on Twitter. It remains unclear exactly how many people remain inside the last IS pocket but SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel on Sunday said that those quitting the area put the number at up to 5,000 people. The Kurd-led force has also shied away from giving a timeline for the operation but Gabriel said that he hopes it would not take more than a week before jihadists are flushed out. At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday night, an AFP correspondent saw Kurdish fighters launching artillery shells towards IS positions from a nearby rooftop. Shelling and coalition air strikes engulfed the area in a crimson blaze. After a momentary lull, the crackle of gunfire filled the air. "They have started to respond," said one SDF fighter, referring to jihadists. "They will resist... these are their bullets." - Mass exodus - An SDF fighter told AFP on Monday that 15 people, including two women from Turkey and Somalia, fled the camp towards SDF-held territory on Sunday, shortly before fighting erupted. More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have quit the last IS redoubt since January 9, according to the SDF. They include 37,000 civilians, 5,000 jihadists and around 24,000 of their relatives. An additional 520 IS fighters have been captured in special operations by the SDF. The huge numbers have flummoxed Kurdish forces who are struggling to accomodate jihadists in Kurdish-run detention centres further north. The exodus of civilians and relatives of fighters has also sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced, the biggest of which is overcrowded three times beyond capacity. The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border "caliphate" it proclaimed more than four years ago. But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast. Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed 370,000 people since it started in 2011. Coalition warplanes and Kurdish-led Syrian fighters have bombarded the Islamic State group's last piece of territory in eastern Syria The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been tightening the noose around the jihadist enclave since January A cluster of rudimentary tents and vehicles is all that remains of the Islamic State group's once-sprawling "caliphate" It is unclear how many people remain inside the last Islamic State group pocket of territory in Syria Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to Italy, Monaco and France this week, the foreign ministry said Monday, with Rome expected to join his global trade infrastructure programme despite reservations in other European countries. Beijing has financed infrastructure, maritime, rail and road projects in Asia, Africa and Europe, but critics warn that it mainly benefits Chinese firms while setting up a "debt trap" in more financially vulnerable countries. Xi will pay state visits from Thursday to March 26, according to the foreign ministry. An Italian official said last week Rome would sign a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Beijing to officially support Xi's massive $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as the New Silk Road. In Italy, Xi will hold talks with President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, as well as parliamentary leaders, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular press briefing. "The cooperation between China and Italy under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative is mutually beneficial," Geng said when asked about US criticism of BRI. Following Italy's announcement, French President Emmanuel Macron said European Union countries should have a "coordinated approach" to Beijing. "It's a good thing that China is participating in the development of many countries, but I believe in the spirit of equality, reciprocity. The spirit of equality means respecting the sovereignty of nations," Macron said. Xi will be the first Chinese president to visit Monaco and will hold talks with Prince Albert II during the trip, Geng said. The visit to the Mediterranean principality is of "historic significance to the development of China-Monaco relations," he added. In France, Xi will meet with Macron, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and parliamentary leaders, Geng said. "The two sides have been maintaining close communication and coordination on maintaining multilateralism, improving global governance, and addressing major issues such as climate change," he added. Rome is expected to join President Xi Jinping's massive $1 trillion 'Belt and Road' infrastructure project Civilian casualties have risen in Yemen despite a three-month-old truce in a vital port as the devastating conflict intensifies elsewhere, an aid group said Monday. The Norwegian Refugee Council, which has been providing food, shelter and other necessities in the country described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, said that sniper and explosive attacks have been growing despite an easing of air attacks. Yemen's beleaguered Saudi-backed government and Iranian-linked Huthi rebels in December agreed in Sweden on a truce that included a ceasefire in Hodeida, the lifeline port on the Red Sea. But the Norwegian Refugee Council said that deaths have been rising in two other regions, Hajjah and Taez. Since the Hodeida truce, 348 civilians have been killed in the two provinces, more than double the nationwide number excluding Hodeida from the previous three months, said the group, using data from the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project backed by humanitarian agencies. "The reduction in violence seen in Hodeida through recent months has been counteracted by escalations in other parts of the country," said Mohamed Abdi, the Norwegian Refugee Council's country director for Yemen. "While air strikes on Hodeida city have reduced significantly and a semblance of life has resumed, the fighting is intensifying in other parts of the country with a devastating impact on civilians," he said in a statement. He called on the combattants to return to the negotiating table and extend their ceasefire across all of Yemen to "put an end to this untold suffering for Yemeni civilians." The group said that 13 schools were among the buildings attacked over the past three months and that 80 percent of Yemen's population -- 24 million people -- still required humanitarian assistance. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- with the logistical and political backing of the United States -- unleashed air power against the Huthi rebels. Rights groups say that the death toll could be far higher. Save the Children has estimated that 85,000 Yemenis under five years old may have died of starvation. Fighters loyal to the Huthi movement protest in the capital Sanaa against airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemeni province of Hajjah Juan Martin del Potro confirmed Sunday he would not play in this week's ATP Miami Open as he works his way back from a knee injury. "Unfortunately I won't be able to play in Miami this year," del Potro wrote on Twitter. "Looking forward to coming back in 2020!" Del Potro's withdrawal had been anticipated after he also pulled out of this week's Indian Wells ATP Masters in California, where he was due to defend his title. The Argentinian suffered a right knee injury at the Shanghai Masters in October and has barely played since. He missed the Australian Open in January but played in February's Delray Beach tournament in Florida where he reached the quarter-finals despite being clearly a long way short of his best. The 30-year-old's career has been repeatedly disrupted by lengthy injury layoffs, mostly for problems with his right wrist. Del Potro is currently ranked fifth in the world after a successful 2018 which saw him reach the final of the US Open. Juan Martn del Potro of Argentina, pictured in 2018, suffered a right knee injury at the Shanghai Masters in October and has barely played since A man accused of threatening police with a knife has been charged after police tasered him in a dramatic arrest in Sydneys west. The officers involved have been praised for their handling of the terrifying situation, all captured by security cameras. A man accused of threatening Sydney police with a knife has been charged after police tasered him in a dramatic arrest. Source: NSW Police Just before 8am Monday, Inspectors Ian Casha and Glen Parks drew their weapons outside Granville Police Station as a man approached with a 30 centimetre knife. Put it down, put it down! the officers yelled, but their demands went ignored. More police raced outside to help, some aiming their guns at the armed man, former Sudanese refugee Maial Aguak. Just before 8am Monday, Inspectors Ian Casha and Glen Parks drew their weapons outside Granville Police Station. Source: NSW Police He was eventually tasered to the ground. His knife was taken away first, before officers made the arrest. Their response, I thought, was outstanding, Assistant Commissioner Peter Thurtell told reporters. There is no indication at all that its religiously motivated. Clearly, policing is a difficult job and a dangerous job. The armed man, former Sudanese refugee Maial Aguak, was eventually tasered to the ground. Source: 7 News One man, who drove past the attack as it was unfolding, described the incident to 7 News, saying: The knife was exposed and he didnt say anything. He was just walking casually. Despite disturbing similarities to the shooting murder of Curtis Cheng outside police headquarters in Parramatta, any link to terrorism has been ruled out. The 38-year-old man was not known to police but was known to suffer from mental health issues. He was briefly treated in hospital before returning to Granville Police Station to be charged with using a weapon with intent to commit indictable offence. Heavily armed officers raided Maial Aguaks apartment. Source: NSW Police Heavily armed officers raided Aguaks apartment around midday, seizing several items. A neighbour says he should never have been allowed to live alone. Most definitely the system has failed. I believe that he needs help and its unfortunate that this has happened this morning, the neighbour said. Aguak will face court on Tuesday. A deserted shop in the devastated Mozambican city of Beira has become a place of refuge for dozens of families displaced by a deadly cyclone, which has caused flooding and rendered many areas inaccessible. More than 1,000 are feared to have died in the cyclone after it smashed into Mozambique last week, while scores were also killed in neighbouring Zimbabwe. In front of Beira's city council in the modest neighbourhood of Praia Nova, locals have settled in an abandoned shop after fleeing their homes when torrential rains and strong winds stole many roofs and flooded most buildings. "When the wind started, we just had time to escape with the kids, we just left everything else," mother of five Serephina Bernardo told AFP on Monday. "We are here because our house has been submerged by the water," the 35-year-old said. "We have nothing left." Every other house has been destroyed by torrential rains, while gale force winds have torn off many roofs and electric pylons. Small aircraft lies damaged at the city's international airport which was temporarily shut due to damage. Another local, Joao Suale, sits on the shop floor nursing a swollen leg hit by a metal sheet. "There was a lot of wind, so I fled to here," Suale said. Next to him, other locals stretch out make-shift laundry lines to try and dry the few clothes they have left. Outside, the rain continues to pour heavily. Food is quickly running out and the victims still await assistance. "We are asking for help," Suale said. Neighbourhoods in the city are littered with branches and mounds of rubble of all sorts. Aerial photographs show many houses almost submerged and people on roofs desperately trying to stay afloat. According to the Red Cross, the cyclone has damaged or destroyed 90 percent of Beira, Mozambique's second largest city and a major port hub. "We have never had something of this magnitude before in Mozambique," said Emma Beaty, coordinator of a grouping of NGOs known as Cosaco. Some dams have yielded while others have reached full capacity. Much of the country remains inaccessible due to flooding. "The biggest threat we have now, even bigger than the cyclone, is floods," warned the governor of Sofala province, Alberto Mondlane. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday said "communities are isolated and bodies are floating" on the water, as he warned that the death toll could climb to more than 1,000. The cyclone struck last week and killed 84 people in Mozambique, including 55 in the city of Beira alone Beira bore Cyclone Idai's full wrath on Thursday before the storm barrelled on to neighbouring Zimbabwe Beira is Mozambique's second largest city and a major port hub Residents joined military personnel in the search for survivors in Ngangu township Chimanimani, eastern Zimbabwe Scarcely 18 months in office, Jacinda Ardern faces an era-defining tragedy for her country -- and is winning praise for meeting the moment with a deft mix of empathy and resolve. Tragedies like the murder of 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch can shape nations. They can also derail political careers and cement a leader's place in the history books -- for good or for ill. Barack Obama's tearful public appearance after 20 elementary school children were murdered at Sandy Hook in 2012 and his singing of 'Amazing Grace' at the memorial for slain pastor Clementa Pinckney were seminal moments of his eight years in the White House. Vladimir Putin's first months in office were thoroughly overshadowed by images of him holidaying on the Black Sea as all 118 submariners aboard the sunken Kursk lay dead. Within hours of the mosque massacres, Ardern was in Christchurch, wearing a headscarf in a poignant show of solidarity with victims' families. The next day, in the capital Wellington, she put on the headscarf again and was seen in emotional embraces with members of the shellshocked Muslim community. The heartfelt expressions of solidarity and shared pain embodied the sense of vulnerability many Kiwis now feel, and offered a powerful rebuttal of the politics of hate. "She never had to deal with something so horrific," said Vicki Spencer, of the University of Otago's politics department, "nor has any other New Zealand Prime Minister." But she quickly moved beyond the role of consoler-in-chief to confront the challenges posed by an Australian white supremacist who, unbeknownst to any security agency, was able to come to her country, legally purchase weapons of war, and devastate the nation. Within hours of the tragedy, Ardern started tackling those challenges, declaring: "I can tell you right now, our gun laws will change." "I know that there is, understandably, grief in New Zealand right now, but there is anger too, there are questions that need to be answered," she said later in one of many televised interviews, the tone both reassuring and firm. "Empathy has always been one of her strengths and never has it shown more," said David Farrar of the popular politically-focused Kiwiblog. "The picture of her in Christchurch wearing a headscarf looking devastated is a powerful iconic image. I think Ardern has been near perfect in her response to the tragedy." - Baby politics - Until the gunman walked into the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on Friday afternoon, Ardern was better known around the world as a new mother holding down a difficult and busy job. She became an instant champion for working women the world over when she brought her infant daughter Neve onto the floor of the UN Assembly in New York last year. Becoming only the second prime minister in the world to give birth while in office -- after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto in 1990 -- allowed the leader of a small, remote nation of just 4.5 million people to enjoy an extraordinarily high profile. She has graced talk show host Stephen Colbert's couch, met with celebrities such as Anne Hathaway and shared parenting tips with the panel of NBC's Today Show. Amid a sea of conservative leaders, the 38-year-old has become a hero to the disgruntled centre-left around the world. Like Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau, her advocacy for climate action and gender equality has led her to be branded the anti-Trump. Like Trudeau, Ardern has not been shy about expressing her displeasure at Trump's politics or leveraging his unpopularity in New Zealand to boost her own. When Trump called to ask what he could do to help in the wake of the shootings, Ardern had no qualms about divulging their usually private leader-to-leader chat. "He asked what he could do, and I think I simply conveyed the sentiment that exists here within New Zealand. My message was sympathy and love for all Muslim communities," she said in a press conference broadcast around the world. According to Spencer, that message to Trump was "clearly genuine and has resonated strongly with New Zealanders." Despite such a sure political touch, Ardern's lustre had been starting to fade at home. Her legislative agenda had been stymied repeatedly by wily coalition partner, Winston Peters and his populist New Zealand First party. At a crisis cabinet meeting Monday, she harnessed the political moment to sweep aside Peters' longstanding opposition to gun control. The 73-year-old could do little more than stand beside her at the podium and acknowledge "the reality is that after 1pm on Friday our world changed forever." So did New Zealand politics. Jacinda Ardern has faced the tragedy of the mass killings in Christchurch with a mix of empathy and resolve Dutch police on Monday arrested a Turkish-born suspect over a shooting on a tram in Utrecht that left three people dead in what officials said was a possible terror attack. Police had earlier launched a huge manhunt for Gokmen Tanis, 37, issuing a picture of the suspected gunman and warning the public not to approach him following the attack, in which five other people were wounded. Mosques and schools were closed across the Netherlands' fourth-largest city following the bloodshed, before heavily armed officers surrounded a building and arrested him. Dutch authorities said they were still investigating a likely terrorist motive for the shooting but Prime Minister Mark Rutte said they "cannot exclude" other motives, including a family dispute. "We have just heard that the suspect we are looking for has been arrested," Utrecht police chief Rob van Bree told a dramatic press conference seconds after being handed a piece of paper with news of the arrest. The city's mayor Jan van Zanen told the same news conference it was a "black day for Utrecht", while prosecution officer Rutger Jeuken said that "it looks like what we are dealing with is a terrorist motive". - 'Questions and rumours' - The drama began when gunfire broke out on a tram near the 24 Oktoberplein square, sending people fleeing from the tram and triggering a huge police response. One witness told broadcaster NOS they saw an injured woman running out of the tram with blood on her hands and clothes who then fell to the ground. "I brought her into my car and helped her. When the police arrived, she was unconscious," the witness, who was not named, told the broadcaster. A body covered in a white sheet could later be seen lying on the tram tracks. Police then launched a massive manhunt during which the suspected gunman is believed to have carjacked a Renault Clio before being arrested about seven hours later, around three kilometres (two miles) from the attack site. Security forces were on high alert at airports and other government buildings following the attack, which came just days after 50 people were killed at mosques in New Zealand in a rampage by an alleged white supremacist. Dutch national counter-terrorism chief Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said authorities had lowered the terror threat in Utrecht one notch from the top level after "the arrest of the main suspect for the shooting". Rutte said afterwards that the Netherlands would "never give way to intolerance". "There are many questions and rumours," he told a news conference in The Hague. "What the motive is, terrorist or other, we don't yet know, but we can't exclude anything." - 'Terrible events' - Ordering flags to be flown at half-mast on Wednesday, Rutte added that a "sense of horror and disbelief prevails over the terrible events of today." Provincial elections that will determine the make-up of the Dutch senate will still go ahead on Wednesday, Rutte said. Political parties halted campaigning on Monday because of the attack. As the focus turned to the alleged attacker, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country's intelligence agency was "looking into the matter", without providing further detail. "Some say it is a family matter, some say it is a terror attack ... Our intelligence agency is looking into the matter. I haven't talked to our intelligence chief yet", Erdogan told Ulke TV. The suspect's father, Mehmet Tanis, said his son "must be punished" if found responsible, Turkey's DHA agency quoted him as saying. He said he had lost contact with his son having returned to his homeland in 2008 after divorcing his wife, DHA reported. She remained in the Netherlands with Gokmen. Dutch police said Gokmen Tanis was known to them while NOS reported that he was in court in a rape case two weeks ago. - 'America stands with you' - The Netherlands has been largely spared the kind of attacks which have rocked its closest European neighbours in the past few years, but there has been a series of recent scares. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered his sympathies over the attack as he addressed a business event in his home state of Kansas co-hosted with The Netherlands. "America stands with you. We will continue to do all we can to help you in this terrible time of tragedy," said Pompeo, who is due to attend an entrepreneurship summit in The Hague in June. European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU "stands side by side with the Netherlands and its people during these difficult times." British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was "hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day." In August, a 19-year-old Afghan with a German residence permit stabbed and injured two American tourists at Amsterdam's Central Station before being shot and wounded. In September, Dutch investigators said they had arrested seven people and foiled a "major attack" on civilians at a big event in the Netherlands. In June, two terror suspects were arrested while close to carrying out attacks including at an iconic bridge in Rotterdam and in France, prosecutors said. burs-dk/nla Armed police and emergency services swarmed the scene after the shooting in the city of Utrecht A body covered in a white sheet was seen near the tram after the shooting Dutch military police said they were on high alert Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (left) said the Netherlands will never give way to intolerance The death toll from a cyclone that ravaged three southern African countries last week headed Thursday towards 400, as officials estimated that more than 1.7 million people had been affected by the storm and 15,000 people were still stranded in floodwater. As the toll surged from the region's biggest storm in years, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced plans to tackle an emerging threat to survivors from malaria and cholera. Cyclone Idai smashed into the coast of central Mozambique last Friday, unleashing hurricane-force winds and rains that flooded the hinterland and drenched eastern Zimbabwe. Mozambican Land and Environmental Minister Celso Correia said 242 lives had been lost and 15,000 out of 18,000 stranded people still needed to be saved, many of them on rooftops or even in trees. "Yesterday we had counted 15,000 people that still need rescue today -- 15,000 people who are in bad shape. They are alive, we are communicating with them, delivering food, but we need to rescue them and take them out," he told reporters. A total of 65,000 people are in transit centres, he said. "Our priority now is to make sure we take food, shelter and medicine to the people that are isolated in small islands or in big islands and villages," Correia said at Beira airport, the humanitarian relief coordination hub. On Wednesday there were just five helicopters rescuing the marooned, according to Adrien Nance who is heading the operation. "It?s encouraging that the humanitarian response is really starting to come to scale. But more help is needed," said Jamie LeSueur of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Herve Verhoosel said the number of people affected in Mozambique was 600,000, but warned: "That number will definitely go up." Ultimately, around 1.7 million people in Mozambique will need assistance, Verhoosel said in Geneva. Pall bearers waded through flood waters carrying a black coffin containing the remains of Tomas Joaquim Chimukme, who died after his house collapsed on him in Beira. - Zimbabwe toll - In Zimbabwe, state broadcaster ZBC said the death toll had risen to 139, up from 100 on Wednesday, while the WFP said its estimates of the number of people there affected by the cyclone had jumped from 15,000 to 200,000. In Chimanimani, close to Zimbabwe's border with Mozambique, "some 90 percent of the district has been significantly damaged," Verhoosel said. An AFP reporter in the area said the district had been cut off. Roads had been gobbled up by massive sinkholes and bridges ripped to shreds by flash floods -- a landscape that Zimbabwe's acting defence minister Perrance Shiri, who is also agriculture minister, said "resembles the aftermath of a full-scale war". Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, after touring the area, said the country would observe two days of mourning from Saturday. Mozambique declared three days of mourning, taking effect on Wednesday. "In Rusitu, I saw unmitigated despair," Mnangawa told reporters in Harare. "Big boulders (were) recklessly strewn on what used be a settlement, a banana market and even a police post." At the police station, "both serving officers and prisoners were washed away alongside other government structures and private residences," he said. Mnangagwa also announced steps to cope with future disasters, including mapping the country for weather-related risk, creating a national disaster fund and stepping up global advocacy on climate change. In Malawi, the WHO said on Wednesday, the storm had affected 922,000 others, of whom 82,000 had been displaced. The WHO announced an emergency plan for 10,000 people. "The displacement of large numbers of people and the flooding triggered by Cyclone Idai significantly increases the risk of malaria, typhoid and cholera,? said Matshidiso Moeti, the agency's regional director for Africa. The three countries are some of the poorest in the region and depend heavily on foreign aid. - Call for help - The UN launched an appeal for assistance overnight. "We do not yet know enough about the level of destruction to give an accurate estimate of the amount of this call for funds, but it will be important," spokesman Farhan Haq said at UN headquarters in New York. Aid agencies said they were prepared for the cyclone but not for the massive floods that followed. Mozambique bore the brunt from rivers that flow downstream from its neighbours. Air force personnel from Mozambique and South Africa have been drafted in to fly rescue missions and distribute aid in central Mozambique. Roads out of Beira have been destroyed and the city itself, home to around half a million people, has been 90-percent damaged or destroyed. burs/sn-ri After the deluge: Buzi, central Mozambique A man with one leg stands on sacks of rice printed 'China Aid,' looted from a warehouse in Beira People stand beside a damaged section of the road between Beira and Chimoio in Nhamatanda district, central Mozambique Close-up maps showing the extent of flooding in Beira, Mafambisse and Tica in Mozambique Mourners: People carry the coffin of Tomas Joaquim Chimukme, who died after his home in Beira collapsed in the storm Flood zone: The land west of the city of Beira has been turned almost into an inland sea Victim: A young man recovers after receiving medical treatment in a camp in Chimanimani Aftermath: Mud fills a home in Chimanimani Eleven people have died and more than 30,000 have been infected this year in a major measles outbreak in Ukraine, the European country worst hit by the disease, Kiev said Monday. The latest victim was a nine-year-old girl who died from complications Saturday after contracting the highly infectious disease, the health ministry said. Some 30,500 people, including 17,000 children, have been infected so this year. Authorities said shortages of vaccine in previous years and anti-vaccination sentiment, often driven by online campaigns spreading false information about the alleged risks, were the main reasons behind the outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 95-percent vaccination rate to prevent mass hospitalisations and fatalities. But in Ukraine, just 42 percent of one-year-olds had been vaccinated as of end-2016, according to the United Nations children's agency UNICEF. Measles cases more than tripled across Europe in 2018, with Ukraine accounting for most of the gain. Europe as a whole saw nearly 83,000 cases last year, according to WHO figures. The Ukrainian government reported 54,000 cases in 2018. There were 16 deaths nationwide. In 2019, the authorities launched a special campaign including sending mobile vaccination teams to rural schools in two western regions particularly hard hit in the outbreak. Measles is characterised by high fever and a reddish rash. It usually triggers only mild symptoms but remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally. Ouch! A nurse with a mobile brigade gives a measles vaccine to a reluctant boy in a school at Lapaivka village, near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv Measles infection rates per million people by country in 2018, according to UNICEF White supremacist Brenton Tarrant, who is accused of killing 50 people in the New Zealand mosque massacre in what he claimed was a blow against Muslim "invaders", played into jihadist hands by following their strategy, experts say. From the Islamic State (IS) group to Al-Qaeda, jihadist groups aim to deepen divisions between Muslims and the rest of the world in an apparent aim to trigger all-out war between "believers" and "unbelievers". For them, such horrific racist attacks are a gift, with the perpetrators seized upon as fuel for their jihadist agenda, experts say. "The Christchurch attack was a blessing for Daesh," said Alain Chouet, a former senior French intelligence official, using an Arabic acronym for IS. "It plays fully into the hands of those that (Tarrant) wanted to fight," he told AFP. A specialist in Islamic extremism, Chouet said the idea of fomenting conflict was laid out by extremist ideologue Sayyid Qutb in his book "Milestones" which remains an inspiration for jihadist networks. Qutb, an Egyptian close the Muslim Brotherhood who was hanged in 1966, argued for the need to "cut off Muslims from the rest of the world, have them regroup somewhere then launch a struggle to establish a world caliphate," he explained. "By acting like the Islamic State killers, people like Tarrant give legitimacy to their actions." - Fool's game - Farhad Khosrokhavar, head of research at the Paris-based School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences said IS had tried to radicalise the situation "by turning Western Muslims against the societies in which they live". "The violent ultra-right, by following suit with such blind violence, has created this climate of generalised violence in which Muslims are expected to act violently against Western societies that in turn respond in the same way, breeding a vicious circle liable to spark all-out war between Muslims and non-Muslims," he told AFP. "Brenton Tarrant has played right into this fool's game, inciting Muslims to react in the same way," he said. "Spawning an all-out vendetta is playing into the hands of IS." Within hours of the Christchurch killings, jihadist sympathisers throughout the world popped up on social networks calling for vengeance. In his 74-page manifesto that was put online just before the attacks, Tarrant said one of his motivations was the death of an 11-year-old Swedish girl killed in a Stockholm truck attack in April 2017. The killer, an Uzbeki man, said he had wanted to mow down "infidels". But responding to such an attack by gunning down worshippers at a mosque was falling into the trap set by jihadist ideologues, the experts said. In order to fight such extremists, one had to be beyond reproach, Chouet said. "It's all about using the law, just the law and nothing but the law." The shockwaves from the New Zealand mosque massacre have reverberated around the world with Pakistani traders burning a picture of the alleged gunman, a white supremacist U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand partnered with the late U.S. Sen. John McCain on legislation to limit opioid treatment for acute pain. With a new Congress, Gillibrand has reintroduced the bill and named it in honor of her former colleague. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., joined with U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, to propose the John S. McCain Opioid Addiction and Prevention Act. The bill would require doctors and other medical professionals to limit opioid prescriptions for the initial treatment of acute pain to no more than a seven-day supply. Under the bill, medical professionals would have to confirm they would not provide refills to those prescribed opioids for acute pain. The limit imposed by the bill would not apply to chronic treatment, such as cancer, hospice or palliative care. Fifteen states, including New York, have limits on opioid prescriptions for acute pain. In a statement, Gillibrand said the bill would help combat the opioid crisis. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 70,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2017. "Too many families through New York and our country have suffered from the devastating consequences of the opioid epidemic," Gillibrand stated. "No community has been left untouched, and we need to be proactive when it comes to ending this crisis." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that roughly 2 million Americans misuse prescription opioids, and 41 people die every day from overdosing on the drugs. In 2017, two-thirds of overdose deaths involved an opioid. Gardner and Gillibrand believe their bill would help contain the supply of prescription opioids and minimize the risk of abuse. Steven Anderson, president and CEO of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, said a poll commissioned by the group earlier this year found six out of every 10 Americans support limiting opioid prescriptions. "This bill will help prevent addiction and help prevent unused medications from falling into the wrong hands," Anderson said. The bill didn't advance in the last Congress when Gillibrand and McCain introduced it in the Senate. McCain died in August 2018, a year after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. If Congress passes the bill, it would be the second named in honor of McCain. In 2018, the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense policy measure, was named in McCain's honor. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The chairs of three state legislative committees will lead a hearing later this week in central New York on Centro and the region's transit systems. The hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday, March 22, at Onondaga Community College's SRC Arena, 4585 W. Seneca Turnpike, in the town of Onondaga. The meeting will be held inside the Otis Room. Anyone wishing to testify at the hearing should RSVP by emailing Transportation@nysenate.gov. The hearing is the fifth organized by state Senate Democrats. The most recent session was held last week in western New York. Assemblymember Bill Magnarelli, a Syracuse Democrat who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee, will be one of the lawmakers leading the hearing. He will be joined by state Sens. Leroy Comrie and Tim Kennedy. Comrie, a Queens Democrat, chairs the Senate Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee. Kennedy, a Buffalo-area Democrat, heads the Senate Transportation Committee. State Sen. Rachel May, a Syracuse Democrat who is one of the few upstate members of the Senate majority conference, lauded transit services like Centro. Centro provides bus services in parts of central New York, including Cayuga and Onondaga counties. However, May noted that other parts of her state Senate district, such as Madison County, lack public transportation options. "As we discuss transportation accessibility and efficiency across the state, it is vital that we remain focused on the needs of upstate," May said. The purpose of the hearing, according to an advisory, will be to "ensure that legislative activity in 2019 addresses the needs of central New York." While much of the transit discussion this session has focused on the New York City subway system and the effectiveness of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, lawmakers have said upstate public transportation systems remain a priority. Instead of selecting downstate representatives to chair the transportation committees in each chamber, Democratic leaders chose upstate members Magnarelli and Kennedy to lead the panels. "Transit systems statewide show signs of aging infrastructure," Magnarelli said in a statement. "We need to hear from upstate and central New York commuters and other stakeholders to improve the transit systems that so many of our residents rely on." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Today's Google doodle might look familiar to anyone who's ever waited on a subway platform in New York. The design is an homage to the late Seiichi Miyake, the inventor of the Tenji block (also known as the braille block), which is a ubiquitous, critical presence at subway stations and sidewalks around the city. Also known as a tactile paving slab, the Tenji block is a guidepost for blind and visually impaired residents. Each block has a series of elevated bumps and ridges which denote different cues. On the sidewalk there are bars suggesting direction, such as a cue to go forward, which are placed where one crosses the street, as 99 Percent Invisible reports. On New York City subway platforms they are placed at the edge before the track and on stairways, with raised dots indicating "STOP." These can be felt through shoes, or with a cane. The installation of Miyakes Tenji blocks in Okayama 52 years ago today is an important benchmark in disability rights," Marc Fliedner, Program Director of Disability Rights New York, tells Gothamist. "Miyake recognized the need for people who are blind and sight impaired to safely navigate urban streets in order for them to have full and equal access to all that a city has to offer." Miyake invented the Tenji block in 1965, and it was first installed on this day in 1967, near a school for the blind in Okayama, Japan, as CNET reports. The blocks spread across Japan, first to railway stations and then to government buildings, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and other countries around the world following suit. Fliedner says that the United States began installing tactile walking surface indicators at subway platforms in the early 1990s, as part of ADA Accessibility legislation. In 2001, the blocks started appearing at sidewalk curb cuts. Tenji blocksyellow on subway platforms, and grey on sidewalkshave become an integral part of New York City over the past two decades. (The MTA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) While these blocks have been invaluable to help blind and visually impaired pedestrians get around, it can prove to be challenging for people with other disabilitiesthe dots and ridges can be challenging for someone on crutches to navigate, for instance. They have a ways to go with being completely ADA accessible, too: The Red Hook Star-Revue notes that a 2014 canvassing project helmed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and her team found that of 1,209 sidewalk curb cuts, only 115 bore the correct "truncated domes" making them accessible. "Of course, anniversaries also highlight how long smart ideas take to become a reality," Fliedner adds. "Fifty-two years is a long time, and it is still a struggle to get and maintain the tactile walking surface indicators at all appropriate city locations. Disability Rights New York will continue to advocate strongly for compliance with the Accessibility Guidelines until the full and equal access Miyake envisioned is fully realized." Most New York voters oppose a proposal to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, according to a new Siena College poll released Monday. The survey of 700 registered voters found 61 percent oppose allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses. While liberals strongly support the plan and other demographic groups, such as blacks and Latinos, favor it, there is strong opposition to the proposal. "Overwhelmingly, Republicans and independents, upstaters and downstate suburbanites oppose allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses," Siena pollster Steve Greenberg said. The poll result is reminiscent of the public opposition to allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses when former Gov. Eliot Spitzer raised the possibility during his brief tenure more than a decade ago. At the time, county clerks across the state led the opposition to Spitzer's plan. The opponents included Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was the Erie County clerk when Spitzer released his proposal. Hochul revealed last year that she now supports allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses. With Democrats now controlling both houses of the state Legislature, there has been a renewed call for the state to address the matter. State Sen. Luis Sepulveda introduced a bill that would authorize the state Department of Motor Vehicles to issue standard licenses to undocumented immigrants. Sepulveda explained that the bill could benefit New York's economy and it would boost public safety. "Undocumented New Yorkers should not fear prosecution for not having proper identification when coming in contact with local law enforcement," he said. County clerks remain worried about the measure. Cayuga County Clerk Sue Dwyer told The Citizen in an interview her main concern is that it will be difficult for county DMVs to determine the veracity of documents provided when an undocumented immigrant applies for a driver's license. Dwyer said if the state allows undocumented immigrants to get licenses, the process should be similar to what's in place for passports. The DMVs assist with passport applications, but the documents are forwarded to the U.S. Department of State for final approval. "I'm not close-minded to everything," she said. "Let's get some safeguards in place." The state Legislature hasn't signaled whether a vote is imminent on allowing driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants. For now, the focus is on the state budget. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders hope to finalize a state budget agreement by March 31. The time for state lawmakers to consider the legislation may be the post-budget session. The legislative session ends in June. If the state Legislature passes such a bill, Cuomo has indicated that he will sign it. He supports allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Monday that he will support President Donald Trump's nominees to fill seats on the International Joint Commission, a bi-national panel responsible for managing Lake Ontario water levels. Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a statement detailing his decision to back Jane Corwin, Rob Sisson and Lance Yohe. The trio was nominated by Trump in 2018 to serve on the six-member commission, but the Senate didn't vote on their nominations. Trump renominated them earlier this year. Corwin, a former New York state assemblymember, would serve as the U.S. section chair if she is confirmed by the Senate. After the flooding that occurred in 2017, Schumer explained that it's important to have a "fully-staffed and fully-functioning International Joint Commission." He is referring to the floods along the Lake Ontario shoreline that caused millions in damages and led to Trump issuing a major disaster declaration. "I have reviewed the three pending IJC nominees and will vote to support them," Schumer said. "I urge my colleagues in the Republican majority to put them up for committee review and then a floor vote as soon as possible." Schumer also urged Canada to fill its seats on the commission. The U.S. and Canada each have three seats on the panel. While there are two American representatives, there are no Canadian commissioners. The commission needs at least four members for a quorum. The International Joint Commission garnered attention during the 2017 flood because of its adoption of Plan 2014, a water management strategy for Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Critics of Plan 2014 believe it contributed to the flooding along the shoreline. But the commission noted that the Great Lakes Basin experienced record rainfall that year, which was the major contributor to high water levels. Schumer's revelation that he supports Trump's International Joint Commission nominees follows the distribution of a letter sent by New York state lawmakers, including state Sen. Pam Helming, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The letter urged McConnell to hold a vote on the nominees. At the time of the letter's release, Schumer's office said the nominees appeared to be "noncontroversial," but the senator hadn't taken a position on whether he supported their confirmation. To win confirmation, Corwin, Sisson and Yohe must be approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Once the committee advances the nominations, McConnell could allow a floor vote. Schumer's support for the nominees comes as there are growing concerns flooding could occur again along the Lake Ontario shoreline. Lake levels are higher than normal for this time of year, although the water has receded slightly over the past two weeks. The Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board, which was established by the International Joint Commission to execute Plan 2014, has maximized outflows at the Moses-Saunders Dam to help prevent flooding. A few weeks ago, Schumer and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called on the International Joint Commission to "take all actions" to avert flooding along the lake. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 City Nathan Elliott, 25, 42 Kendall St., Apt. down, Clifton Springs, was charged March 11 with third-degree grand larceny, fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and first-degree falsifying business records. David Anthony Brown, 41, 25 Cayuga St., Auburn, was charged March 11 with second-degree unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Michael Anthony Vanderlyke Jr., 36, 18 Sisson St., Apt. 2, Lyons, was charged March 12 with resisting arrest. Scott Aaron Stamp, 43, 4 Bostwick Ave., Apt. 3, Auburn, was charged March 11 with first-degree criminal contempt. John Michael Gruver, 35, 131 Genesee St., Apt. 5, Auburn, was charged March 12 with second-degree criminal trespassing. Collena Monique Johnson, 35, 65 Wall St., Auburn, was charged March 11 with fourth-degree criminal mischief. Melissa Elizabeth Johnson, 62, 24 Garrow St., Auburn, was charged March 11 with second-degree criminal contempt. Mariah Justice Cox, 18, 146 Fulton St. Apt. 1, Auburn, was charged March 11 with petit larceny. Keri R.A. Miller, 24, 40 Merriman St., Auburn, was charged March 12 with second-degree burglary, endangering the welfare of a child, fourth-degree criminal mischief and resisting arrest. Patti J. Waldby, 56, 7 Barber St., Auburn, was picked up on a indictment warrant March 12 and charged with third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and fourth-degree conspiracy. Samantha A. Dixon, 30, 7 Barber St., Auburn, was picked up on an indictment warrant March 12 and charged with with three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance, one count of criminal sale of a controlled substance, three counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, one count of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and fourth-degree conspiracy. Christina M. Bates, 31, 124 S. Fulton St., Auburn, was charged March 12 with petit larceny. Jason C. Blaisdell, 39, 124 South Fulton St., Apt. Down, Auburn, was charged March 12 with petit larceny. Damario A. Johnson, 26, of 110 Van Anden St., Apt. 1, Auburn, was charged March 13 with two counts of first-degree criminal contempt and one count of second-degree criminal trespass. Terrissa M. Strange, 61, of 112 Janet St., Auburn, was charged March 13 with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree menacing. Matthew A. Kunz, 27, of 3 Sheldon Ave., Auburn, was picked up on a bench warrant March 13 and also charged with third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Tyrone Alexander, 57, of 36 Perrine St., Apt. 2, Auburn, was picked up on two bench warrants March 13. Marcella M. Redmond, 28, transient, Auburn, was picked up on a bench warrant March 14. Nicholas D. Wagar, 32, 1290 Tollgate Hill Road, Moravia, was picked up on a bench warrant March 14. Cole J. Chapman, 21, 1595 North St., Apt. B1, Auburn, was charged March 14 with fourth-degree criminal mischief. Michael F. Fowler, 35, transient, Auburn, was charged March 14 with false personation and a parole violation. Nasih S. Scott, 26, of 209 Barrington Road, Syracuse, was picked up on a bench warrant March 15. Staci J. Behm, 58, of 12 Rock Ave., Auburn, was charged March 15 with petit larceny. Thomas M. Vasco, 41, of 48 Havens Ave., was charged March 15 with aggravated driving while intoxicated and first-offense driving while intoxicated. Lorence D. Flowers, 38, of 205 Chemung St., Apt. 1, Syracuse, was charged March 17 with third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Stefan P. Lepak, 31, 2 Schwartz Drive, Apt. A8, was charged March 17 with fourth-degree criminal mischief. John M. Gruver, 35, 131 E. Genesee St., Apt. 5, was charged March 18 with second-degree criminal contempt. State James A. Blanchard, 62, Martville, was charged March 11 with driving while intoxicated and aggravated driving while intoxicated. Kyle A. Meese, 20, Endicott, was charged March 12 with petit larceny. Heidi M. Walsh, 37, Union Springs, was charged March 12 with driving while intoxicated first offense and aggravated driving while intoxicated. Bradley R. Tuttle, 20, of Moravia, was charged March 13 with second-degree menacing with a weapon, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. Kenneth E. Williams, 53, of Elbridge, was charged March 16 with first-offense operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of .08 of 1 percent and first-offense driving while intoxicated. Molly K Goebel, 19, of Weedsport, was charged March 15 with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. Ronald C. Wentworth Jr., 56, of Auburn, was charged March 15 with driving while ability impaired by a combination of drugs and alcohol. Douglas J. Derleth, 48, of Cayuga, was charged March 16 with first-offense operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content of .08 of 1 percent and first-offense driving while intoxicated. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 LOS ANGELES AVN's two-time MILF Performer of the Year Cherie DeVille made a return visit to DarkX.com for a new scene. The Lonely Arts features the recently divorced DeVille in need of assistance after a flat tire. Her neighbor, Jason Brown, is more than happy to lend a hand and give her a ride. She is so thankful for this act of kindness and has been so lonely that she gives Brown thanks with a blowjob and lots of hardcore sex. I was so excited to work for James Avalon again for DarkX, said DeVille. His sets are always respectful, and its my pleasure to work with the entire crew. And, Jason was a great co-star, making it all my pleasure! Cherie DeVille is represented by OC Modeling. Directors and producers can contact OCM via their website for bookings. DeVille is represented by A-List Features for all dance and hosting engagements and can be booked by contacting Dave at [email protected] Follow Cherie DeVille on Twitter and Instagram, and find her at her official website, CherieDeVille.com. From Pillar to Post WHO PUTS THE MOST PRESSURE ON YOU - YOURSELF OR OTHERS? There is pressure that is imposed upon us by others. Then there i... REVIEW: The Bone Church by Victoria Dougherty SYNOPSIS In the surreal and paranoid underworld of wartime Prague, fugitive lovers Felix Andel and Magdalena Ruza make some dubious ... 25 Questions to Ask Your Grandparents If you want to start (or are in the middle of) gathering family stories and family history, it helps to talk to older relatives. In ca... My 2019 A to Z RC Sign-up The 2019 A to Z Reading Challenge is hosted by Megan at the Ginger Mom & the Kindle Quest blog. Click the Pinterest-friendly sig... The National Bakery School at London South Bank University is consulting with the industry on new apprenticeship standards. The university wants to find out from employers whether there is demand for a new apprenticeship standard for Baker (Level 2) and Advanced Baker (Level 3) to help address the industry skills shortage. David Hall, managing director of The London Bread & Cake Company, said employers in the sector were spending more than 6m a year, mainly on recruitment, in an effort to combat the problem. Hall, who supports the new apprenticeship standards, said these would be part of a solution to the skills gap problem, by helping employers reduce spend in the long-term and providing support for recruiting new talent to the sector. Founded in 1894, The National Bakery School is described as the oldest bakery school in the world and is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. LSBUs National School of Bakery is an institution with a proud 125-year history of training bakers for the baking and hospitality sector, while working with employers to seek their views on shaping the delivery of bakery standards/programmes, said National Bakery School course director Elaine Thomson. We are keen to sound out the sectors views, to establish the likely level of demand for these standards while obtaining industry guidance concerning the best delivery method available. Businesses can give their views on the apprenticeship standards here. Last year, Cornish businesses partnered with Truro and Penwith College to design the Craft Baker (Level 2) Apprenticeship Standard. Cake parlour brand Peggy Porschen has opened its new flagship store on Kings Road, London. The store spans two floors, including a ground floor consisting of The Cafe, The Lounge and The Salon, and a lower ground floor housing The Chelsea Rose Room and Pink Peony Bar. The cafe area has a custom-made five-metre-long glass patisserie counter. The 2,400 sq ft premises is the second site for the brand, following its debut in Belgravia in 2010. The flagship has initially opened with the cafe menu only, which includes cupcakes and confectionery, as well as bespoke blend teas, coffee and champagne. The full menu, offering all-day dining, and including savoury items, will launch in the summer. With its discerning, chic customer-base, the Kings Road is the ideal location to launch our second parlour and full range of sweet and savoury delights, said Peggy Porschen, creative director of Peggy Porschen Group. We couldnt think of a better location, than the iconic Kings Road, to unveil our seasonally adorned arches, in this prominent corner unit. If youre serious about growing your career in a city as competitive as New York, you need to use every tool at your disposal to get ahead. Thats why, if you havent heard about the networking app Shapr, its time to get familiar. Shapr is a networking platform that brings you a personalized daily dose of inspiring people to meet. The apps algorithm matches up professionals based on interests, skills and shared professional goals. You could be launching your own business, finding freelance work, or just building a network in a new city. We polled a few New Yorkers to find out how they are using Shapr. Shapr has honestly been much more than I thought it could be. Ive always believed in the power of networking and in todays digital world, networking cannot always be done in person. Said Rob, a music producer from Manhattan, Shapr has allowed me to meet more than a handful of potential business collaborators, possible hires and friends. As I write this, Im in discussions with several connections from Shapr for some freelance work and beyond. Its been a wonderful experience so far! I am a playwriter and through Shapr I have partnered with three people for one of my productions, added Samantha from Queens. Shapr can help you find people across all industries and open doors that you may have never even thought about. I have met talented individuals who are interested in the same field as I am in. Shapr is a potentially game-changing app for anyone that uses it, and its free to start using. Download Shapr and start swiping today! This post is brought to you by our sponsor, Shapr. Ken Eudy, policy adviser to Gov. Roy Cooper (image from Eudy's Twitter account) When describing access to public records, "slow" is the first word that comes to mind, Ken Eudy, a senior adviser to Gov. Roy Cooper said Monday, March 11, during a talk on government transparency at Elon University.Eudy's 30-minute speech came before a group of reporters and local government staffers at an event hosted by the Carolina Journal , and written by Kari Travis , associate editor.">N.C. Open Government Coalition kicking off National Sunshine Week, an annual nationwide celebration of access to public records.In a talk that started with a joke about being "off-the-record," Eudy covered several topics, including his concerns over election ethics violations, his views on "gotcha journalism," and his defense of how Cooper's administration handled records requests about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.A journalist-turned-lobbyist-turned-bureaucrat, Eudy said he has seen all sides of transparency issues.he answered.Eudy pointed to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The ACP is an LLC formed in 2014 to build a 600-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina. In 2018, the ACP provided Cooper a $57.8 million discretionary fund to spend at will for damage mitigation, economic development, and renewable energy projects. The move triggered controversy and an onslaught of public records requests.Carolina Journal's reporting raised concerns about the legality of the fund, which would have bypassed the General Assembly entirely. Legislators said the arrangement was unconstitutional and looked like ascheme, CJ has reported. In February, the General Assembly voted to redirect Cooper's discretionary fund to the school systems in eight counties in the path of the pipeline.In December, Cooper's administration released thousands of documents in response to numerous public records requests from the media and members of the N.C. General Assembly. WRAL uploaded the files into a searchable database with more than 19,000 pages.Two of the governor's 54 full-time staff members were tasked with collecting email, text, and phone records from roughly 30 people. That made it slow going, Eudy said.CJ made its first requests for documents Feb. 9, 2018.For those with complaints about Cooper's transparency efforts,Eudy said.The press has fallen into "gotcha" journalism with a "fad" trend of fact-check stories, he said at the end of his speech.he said.Eudy began his career as a journalist, first on television and then at The Charlotte Observer. In the late 1980s, he served two years as executive director of the N.C. Democratic Party. In 1994 he founded the consulting and lobbying firm Capstrat. He joined the Cooper administration in January 2017 when the governor was inaugurated. A new report from Reuters reveals more skeletons from former Congressman Beto O'Rourke's (D-TX) past, including disturbing writings from when he was a teenager.In a profile that also documented O'Rourke's involvement in a hacker group, Reuters reported In writings that Reuters says still exist online, O'Rourke reportedly fantasized aboutbut doubted thatO'Rourke also reportedly wrote about murdering children by running them over with a car.O'Rourke wrote.O'Rourke continued.The disturbing writings are just the latest in a long line of stories about O'Rourke that center around his driving.On the night of his 26th birthday, O'Rourke hit another vehicle while he was driving drunk. O'Rourke claimed that he only had two beers, which The Washington Post has disputed:A reporter who was near the scene of the accident had to physically stop O'Rourke from fleeing the scene, which is documented in a police report of the incident.O'Rourke then repeatedly lied about the incident during his failed Senate run in Texas last year against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) - regarding which The Post give himin itsAlso during his failed campaign last year, O'Rourke posted strange videos to his Twitter account in which he filmed himself talking to the camera while operating the vehicle he was driving.An article from The American Council On Science And Health titledslammed O'Rourke for his reckless driving. Despite efforts to boost access to test preparation and other supports to increase diversity, the number of students of color accepted to one of New York Citys specialized high schools stayed flat this year. According to results released Monday, acceptance rates among the different demographic groups hardly changed. At Stuyvesant High School, one of eight schools that base admissions solely on a single standardized test, only 7 black students were offered admissions to the incoming freshman class this year, compared to 10 students last year. The number of Latino students accepted increased slightly this year, to 33 from 27. The number of white students went up to 194 students from 151 students. And the number of Asian students admitted to Stuyvesant declined: 587 this year compared to 613 last year. Were also once again confronted by an unacceptable status quo at our specialized high schools, said Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza. We need to eliminate the single test for specialized high schools immediately. Overall, for all the specialized high schools, 51.1 percent of offers went to Asian students, compared to 51.7 percent last year; 4.0 percent went to black students, compared to 4.1 percent last year; 6.6 percent went to Latino students, compared to 6.3 percent last year; and 28.5 percent went to white students compared to 26.5 percent last year. The results bolstered the position of Mayor Bill de Blasio who is pressing for changes that would improve the racial and ethnic diversity at the schools, including removal of the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). The mayor has called the test a roadblock to justice. The public school systems match day is always highly anticipated by eighth graders eager to figure out where theyll be spending the next four years. This spring, it was even more so, as the de Blasio Administration moved forward with controversial plans to tweak admissions at the citys elite specialized high schools and a lawsuit challenging them delayed the offers by two weeks. As a first step, the DOE reduced the number of offers based solely on students SHSAT scores and increased the number of slots for those who score just below the cut-off and participate in a summer prep course called Discovery. The DOE added 300 seats for students in the Discovery program, to bring the total to 500. This reduced the total offers from the SHSAT alone by 269, to a total of 4,798 seats. (1,432 students received one or more offers to programs at LaGuardia High School, the performing-arts specialized school which also requires an audition.) Offers to the Discovery Program students will go out later this spring, after the April 5 deadline to accept Round 1 offers. Some groups representing Asian families have been fighting the administrations plans to change the admissions process, including filing the lawsuit the DOE said delayed the entire process. Chris Kwok, national director for the Chinese American Citizen Alliance of New York, said the results showed the administrations previous efforts to increase diversity were misguided, noting that more white students received offers than last year. The social engineering didnt work out the way they wanted, Kwok said. They want to turn around and blame the test but the test is not failing in creating excellent schools. These schools are excellent by almost any measure. A DOE spokesperson pointed out that neither the Discovery program expansion nor the mayors plan to eliminate the test has gone into effect yet. Still, groups pushing for increased integration were also disappointed in the numbers. Groups pushing for increased integration were also disappointed in the numbers. Mayor Bill de Blasio promised reform back in 2014, but things have only gotten worse, said Lennox Thomas, a junior at Brooklyn College Academy and a member of the advocacy group Teens Take Charge. Thomas said he was also deeply disappointed when he opened his acceptance letter three years ago. To all my fellow Black and Latino students who did not get in, do not feel as if you arent smart enough. My hope is that you will learn quicker than I did not to let an unfair system define your intelligence or potential. De Blasio said he would like to replace the SHSAT with multiple criteria; eliminating the test would require approval from lawmakers in Albany. Citywide, 78,326 public school students received offer letters on this match day. Of that group, 45 percent got into their first choice schools, and 73 percent got into one of their top three. If they didnt apply, students were still matched with a school close to their home, a change from previous years. Jessica Gould is a reporter in the newsroom at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @ByJessicaGould. BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG - The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four Fs: faith, family, freedom and fairness. The Democratic Party is the party of the four Ss: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer). When it comes to policy choices, professional economists are famous for being overly circumspect. President Harry Truman once complained, Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, on one hand . . . on the other. There are some areas, though, where basic economic theory is so obvious that its not hard to find a majority of economists to agree. A prime example is the popular, but misguided, proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15. A recent survey of 197 U.S. economists found that more than two-thirds (88 percent) think an acceptable federal minimum wage should be less than $15, with 74 percent outright opposing raising it to $15 (strongly oppose, 61 percent; oppose somewhat, 13 percent). The survey also found that a strong majority of economists believe a minimum wage of $15 will have negative effects on youth employment levels (84 percent), the number of jobs available (77 percent) and adult employment levels (56 percent). When asked what effect a wage of $15 will have on the skill level of entry-level positions, four-in-five (83 percent) believe employers will hire entry-level positions with greater skills. Economists are divided on whether a wage of $15 will help or hurt poverty rates. One-third (38 percent) think an increased wage will lead to increased poverty rates, while 27 percent think it will be reduced, 19 percent say it will be unchanged and 16 percent are not sure. Most economists (64 percent) think the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a very efficient way to address the income needs of poor families, while only six percent believe a wage of $15 would be very efficient. Two-in-five (39 percent) also think the minimum wage should remain at $7.25 or be lowered, with two-thirds in total (66 percent) believing the minimum wage should be $10 an hour or less. Yet despite this expert opinion, House Democrats are pushing the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, a bill that would increase the federal minimum wage more than 100 percent by 2024. The legislation would also raise the minimum wage of workers who earn tips, like restaurant servers, by more than 600 percent the minimum wage. Do these politicians not know the effect their policy would have on the low-skilled and working poor? Or do they just not care? Its no secret that as the Chinese economy enters a slowdown, the Chinese government has been taking an ever-more authoritarian approach towards virtually every aspect of life in the Peoples Republic. In this regard, few areas have received more attention than religion. This ranges from the imprisonment of anywhere between 800,000 and 2 million Uighur Muslims (something explored at length by leading Islam and liberty scholar Mustafa Akyol) to the burning and demolition of Protestant and Catholic churches. Things are, however, about to get much worse. For some time, there have been numerous reports of the Chinese regime being determined to purge Christian theology and practice of what it calls Western content and emphases in order to sinicize Christianity. By sinicization is meant two things. The first is a question of raw politics: to ensure any religious organization is completely under the Communist regimes control. The second is to make Christianity conform to Chinese culture. And Chinese culture, it appears, is whatever the Chinese government says it is at any given time. All this was made very plain in a recent speech which was given by the head of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), Xu Xiaohong. This regime-organization oversees state-approved Protestant churches in China. Its also one of the vehicles through which the regime seeks to establish a grip on those many Protestant communities that have arisen outside state-approved structures. Xu made it clear that Protestant churches in Chinawhich, as he and everyone else in the regime knows, are spreading at an impressive rate throughout Chinas special economic zoneswill be expected to incorporate the values of socialism into their theology and develop a stronger national consciousness. Most ominously, this includes producing a new translation of the Bible. It takes no genius to recognize what translation really means in the context of an officially atheist regime which has demonstrated its intention to subjugate any organization remotely considered a potential source of liberty. The translation, Xu also revealed, would be accompanied by numerous annotations from various Chinese sources to make the text more Chinese. We can safely assume that the regime has in mind far more than just benign references to Confucius. Any religion is bound to take on aspects of the cultures in which they exist or which they are seeking to evangelize. The boundaries of what Christians call inculturation, as the famous seventeenth and eighteenth century Chinese rites controversy with the Catholic Church demonstrates, always need attention, not least because they inevitably touch on important doctrinal issues. That, however, is entirely different from an authoritarian atheist state focused on ensuring its complete dominance of Chinese society seeking to shape the content of what Christianity considers to be its sacred books. For that is to manipulate what Christians believe to be the very Word of God, something wrong in itself but made even worse when it is done in the name of a species of totalitarianism. Pray for Chinas Christians (and, for that matter, its persecuted Muslims). Were beyond the point whereby their basic liberties are being rigidly curtailed. The very ability of Chinese Christians to preserve the substance of their beliefs is now under threat as well. Featured image: GnuDoyng [Public domain] Patricia Okoumou is known around the world as the "Statue of Liberty Climber," but over the last year, she has climbed the Eiffel Tower, a Border Patrol Museum in San Antonio, Texas and a migrant detention center in Austin. For the last 17 days, Okoumou has been under house arrest in her Staten Island apartment for violating her parole during the Austin action. "I'm still visible and I'm still an activist, even though I'm not outside," Okoumou told Gothamist. I'm still working behind closed doors, the government cannot shut me up. The confinement of walls will not stop me, and that includes prison walls." On Tuesday, Okoumou is scheduled to go before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein at the Manhattan District Court House to be sentenced for the three misdemeanor charges related to her Statue of Liberty climb: trespassing, interference with agency functions, and disorderly conduct. She faces up to 18 months in jail. "We live in a rotten system and the courts are no exception of that,"; said Okoumou. Judge Gorenstein recently took a trip to the Statue of Liberty with a full accompaniment of court clerks, Okoumou and her legal team, government officials, and park workers to assess the danger of her climb. "Ive never seen this in 35 years of my experience, and it was a first for everyone that Ive spoken to," said one of Okoumous attorneys, Ronald L. Kuby. "Judge Gorenstein is taking the sentencing part of this case extremely seriously. That may be a good thing for Patricia, or not." All four of her harness-free climbs were in protest of the Trump administrations separation and caging of migrant children at the U.S. border. I was born fearless, Okoumou grinned. Okoumou was born in the Republic of Congo, and was a young woman when civil war broke out in 1993. My country was going through turmoil. We wanted to embrace democracy as a country and we wanted change. She recalls walking to school and passing a group of soldiers carting off a dead body in a wheelbarrow. I realized then that I was a courageous woman. In 1994, Okoumou moved to the United States, where she began working various jobs, including as a staffer at a battered womens shelter, a physical therapist, and a personal trainer. She began addressing issues of injustice she saw unfolding all around her. She has waged multiple legal battles against racial discrimination, protested the New York State Department of Labor (that resulted in a misdemeanor charge), and stood for hours as a lone protester at Trump Tower in Manhattan after the 2016 presidential election. However, it was during a Rise and Resist protest on July 4th, 2018, that Okoumou captured the worlds attention when she climbed the Statue of Liberty. When we started putting people in cages that was the straw that broke the camels back, Okoumou said. I had had enough and I didnt care about the repercussions. We have gone so low as a country I had to climb as high as I could on the Statue of Liberty to raise consciousness. Immigration authorities are still not clear on the exact number of children that have been separated from their parents and detained in cages. In December 2018, according to NPR nearly 15,000 migrant children were being held in detention centers across the country. In December, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl, Jakelin Caal Maquin, and 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo both died in the custody of federal immigration officials. Patricia Okoumou (Avery White / Gothamist) Her climbs have helped draw global attention to the humanitarian crisis, making Okoumou a hero to many. A Go Fund Me page to support Okoumou has raised $23,535 to date. First and foremost, Patricia, Ms. Lady Liberty, is the most prominent black voice in this immigrant rights movement right now, said Black Lives Matter Greater New York Chairman, Hawk Newsome. When a lot of people think of this movement they think of the brown children, but we have to remember that 4 out of the 8 countries on Donald Trumps no fly list were African countries. So when you think about immigrants its not just Latinx people and when you think about Muslims, its not just folks who would be considered non-black by the mainstream media. Kuby noted that Okoumous Statue of Liberty climb resonated with thousands, if not millions of people because it happened on Americas most important symbol, on Americas most important day. Her acts served to remind us all as we ate cheeseburgers and tofu dogs at the beach and enjoyed ourselves, that there were children forcibly separated from their parents, living in detention camps, in our name, Kuby said. At her bail revocation hearing, Gorenstein voiced concerns about Okoumous Go Fund Me efforts. In order for people to be inspired to make donations, she has to break the law, Gorenstein said, according to Court News. Okoumou countered that being confined to her Staten Island apartment makes job searching especially challenging so shes published an open call for support finding work on her website. He implied that activism is not a real job and if I dont find a job by Tuesday he will throw me in prison, but I want to be a full-time activist, Okoumou said. Why does he care about how Im feeding myself. The people who donate to my cause believe in my work. If she is detained or imprisoned on Tuesday, Okoumou says she will immediately begin a hunger strike. Patricia has always been very clear that her protest of family separation is unceasing, said Rhiya Trivedi, another of Okoumous defense attorneys. When she says shes going to do something, she does it, so I have no reason to doubt that thats the case. If shes prepared to stage a hunger strike while shes incarcerated then I personally will join in with her and encourage others to do it, Newsome added. We could reach peace by simple acts of kindness, peaceful protest, and civil disobedience if we wanted to, but we are complicit, said Okoumou. If each one of us did a fraction of what I did the world would find peace. We have to stand up. We are the people, we have the power, lets use it. Avery White is a photojournalist based in Brooklyn. You can follow her on Instagram. This post was originally published on the Smithsonian Libraries blog. It is reproduced with permission from the Author, Alexandra K. Newman. Be sure to join Alexandra Newman for a behind-the-scenes look at Elizabeth Goulds work in the Natural History Rare Book Library at the Smithsonian Libraries during a Facebook Live broadcast produced as part of the #HerNaturalHistory campaign: 22 March @ 1pm ET via https://www.facebook.com/SmithsonianLibraries. Authors note: Elizabeth Gould was a 19th century artist responsible for some of the most historically significant images of birds ever published. She was also a devoted wife and mother. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile both of these aspects of her life through our modern lens of 21st century social issues and feminism; it can be tempting to paint her story as that of a woman repressed by antiquated gender roles, and to speculate on her career trajectory had she not tragically died shortly after the birth of her eighth child. However, while history strives to be objective, it impossible to completely purge our modern sentiments from the retelling of her story, so it is important to strive to tell it based on documentary evidence rather than speculation. Elizabeths life was very eventful for being so short, as we shall soon see, so it is not difficult to craft an exciting biographical narrative for her. The difficulty comes, instead, from trying to ensure that she maintains a degree of agency in her own story. I have tried to write this post in such a way that is respectful to both Elizabeth and the time in which she lived. The beautiful lithographs produced by Elizabeth Gould show lively birds of all shapes and colors performing mating displays, protecting their young, and interacting with their environments. A far cry from the dead-bird-on-stick approach to book illustration of the 18th century and prior, Elizabeths birds are reminiscent of the more dynamic figures depicted by John James Audubon; in fact, distinguished ornithologist Prideaux John Selby proclaimed I like [Elizabeths illustrations] as well as Audubons.[1] However, it is not Elizabeths name on the title page of A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (for which she lithographed 80 plates) or on the Birds volume of The Zoology of the Voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle (for which she lithographed all 50 plates); rather, it is that of her husband, John. A respected taxidermist and ornithologist, John was also a master of marketing, putting out numerous large-format lithography plate books over the course of his career. But Johns artistic skill was not up to the task of such a grand undertaking; instead, he relied on the artistic talents of others, including his wife, to carry his work to new heights. Elizabeth Gould, nee Coxen, was born in 1804 to a military family in Ramsgate, England. One of eleven children, and the only daughter to survive to maturity, information on how she and her siblings spent their childhood is unfortunately sparse; however, by age 22, Elizabeth had obtained a position as governess to the 9-year-old daughter of the Chief of the Office of the Kings Proctor in London. Being able to work as a governess for aristocracy implies that Elizabeth was highly educated, which was not unusual for middle- and upper-class women of the period: as part of this education, she would have been taught foreign languages, music, as well as to draw and paint in watercolor, genteel pursuits that earned a young lady the epithet of being accomplished. However, the fact that she had to seek employment also implies that her family could not financially support an unmarried daughter. Indeed, she was not overly fond of the jobbetween teaching the young girl French, Latin, and music, Elizabeth wrote to her mother that her duties as a governess were miserably-wretched dull, and that she feared she would soon become very melancholy.[2] Thus, her marriage to John Gould when she was 24 in 1829 has been characterized as a rescue by some authors.[3] In reality, the rescuing went both ways. Johns career in ornithology was on the rise at the time of his and Elizabeths weddingby 1828, he had been appointed Curator and Preserver at the Museum of the Zoological Society of London. In 1830, a collection of Himalayan bird skins came across his desk for preservation, which his colleague, N. A. Vigors, was in the process of describing. Familiar with the new printing technology of lithography through the work of one Edward Lear, John put forward a proposal for an illustrated book to show off the new and interesting species contained in the collection. Fully aware that his own artistic abilities did not lend themselves to the subtle medium of lithography, John brought the project to Elizabeth, who at first did not grasp the gravity of her husbands request. But who will do the plates on stone? she reportedly asked. Why you, of course! John replied matter-of-factly.[4] No record exists of how Elizabeth felt about suddenly being designated the family draughtswoman. However, executing her new role cannot have been easy for her from a purely physiological standpoint: pregnant with her and Johns first child, she nevertheless spent hours transferring her specimen drawings onto stone in anticipation of the publication of the first batch of plates for the work. She gave birth to a son, John Henry, only days after the plates were sent to subscribers.[5] As previously stated, Elizabeths name is absent from the title page of what became A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains; her contribution is briefly mentioned in the preface of the work, which simply states that her well-known abilities were employed in delineating these birds.[6] Each of the plates bears a small artists credit on the lower leftDrawn from nature on stone by E. Gouldbut none of them feature her signature. Edward Lear, who John enlisted to teach Elizabeth lithography methods, incorporated his signature into much of his work, so it is somewhat curious that she elected not to sign her pieces. Her work was well-received in ornithological circles, and N. A. Vigors was so impressed by her artistry that he named a species of colorful sunbird in her honor. But it was John who received the lions share of professional accolades. The success of Century spurred John to undertake a much larger survey of European birds, which he initiated while the final parts of Century were still being delivered to subscribers. This ambitious publication, which became the 448-plate Birds of Europe, required John and Elizabeth to travel extensively in continental Europe, visiting natural history collections and observing and collecting specimens in the wild. Being able to see living, moving birds enabled Elizabeths artistic talent to improve immensely; it is during this publication that she truly began to show the lively interactions between males and females of species, and incorporating movement into her figures that made them look as though they could fly off of the page at any moment. However, the artist credit on the lower left corner of the plates of Birds of Europe does not just bear Elizabeths name. Instead, her initial E. is preceded by a J., as John claimed artistic credit for the composition of the designs. This line would remain the norm throughout the rest of the publications they worked on together. In his preface to Birds of Europe, John describes how Elizabeth drew and lithographed the pieces, but credits himself for the sketches and designs.[7] Documentary evidence tells a different story. The Ralph Ellis Collection, housed at the University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library, contains a number of sketches that indicate that, rather than arranging the composition, John would either make minor changes to or simply approve Elizabeths sketches that became the final designs.[8] Observation, drawing, printing, and publication of Birds of Europe took a total of five years, during which Elizabeth gave birth to five more children, only three of whom survived infancy. Also during this time, John employed Elizabeth to draw the plates to accompany his text on the bird specimens brought back by the young naturalist Charles Darwin from the voyage of the H. M. S. Beagle. Among these specimens were the now-famous Galapagos finches, which Darwin referred to when formulating his theory of natural selection in his 1859 On the Origin of Species. Elizabeths name is completely absent from the plates. The work that truly established John Gould as a master of ornithological publication was Birds of Australia, published over eight years from 1840-1848. After his experience with Birds of Europe, John had realized the importance of field observation to the quality of his publications. He subsequently arranged for Elizabeth, their eldest child John Henry, their nephew Henry Coxen, zoologist John Gilbert, servants, and himself to make the voyage to Australia in 1838, a trip that was in part made possible by Elizabeths family. Her two brothers, Charles and Stephen, had established farms in New South Wales, and had already sent a number of Australian bird specimens back to the Goulds for description and lithography, and the Gould party even used their property as a base for the latter months of their two year stay in the colony. It is this period of Elizabeths life that is most well-documented, thanks to the letters she wrote to her mother in England, as well as her travel diaries. It was also likely one of the most difficult periods of her life. Forced to leave three of her children behind to accompany John on his scientific pursuits, she was distraught; she was so emotionally plagued by the prospect that she was nearly unable to board the ship on the day of their embarkation.[9] It is unclear how John finally managed to persuade her to go up the gangplank, but it is clear from her correspondence that she remained deeply concerned about the wellbeing of the children, the youngest of whom was only six months, as well as her mother. Rather than being entirely maudlin, her letters also contain anecdotes of Johns collecting prowess (he has already shown himself a great enemy of the feathered tribe), her reluctance to participate in a ball held for the Queens birthday (Dont fancy I attempt dancingno, no. I am well content to look on.), and the ambiance of a campsite in New South Wales (where nature appeared in her wild luxuriance).[10] What they do not discuss, unfortunately, is her art. Her surviving sketches and the lithographs they became have been left to speak for themselves. When the Goulds returned to England in August 1840, they brought back sketches, specimens, and another childElizabeth gave birth to a son, Franklin, in Tasmania. The first part of Birds of Australia was due to be published in December of that year, so John and Elizabeth quickly got to work on the text and lithography. Elizabeth had managed to transfer 84 of her drawings onto stone by August 1841, but tragically, she would not live to see the project through to completion. A few days after giving birth to an eighth child, Sarah, Elizabeth was struck by puerperal fever and passed away. She left John with multitudinous sketches and six children. There is no record of how this affected John emotionally. However, he memorialized her in the best way he knew how: he named a multicolored finch in her honor, and described her devotion to the family publication pursuit in the accompanying text. Elizabeths life is inexorably linked and influenced by that of her husband John. The way he credited (or rather, failed to credit) her contributions is objectively bad practice, and some of John Goulds other collaborators denounced him years later; notably, upon hearing of Johns death in 1881, Edward Lear wrote that John owed everything to his excellent wife, and to myself, without whose help in drawing he had done nothing. However, researchers combing Elizabeths correspondence and diaries have found no record of her dissatisfaction with the process. It is frustrating that such a talented woman has left behind so little in the way of information about her feelings toward her art; but the delicacy and care by which she portrayed her subjects can convey nothing else than love. The Biodiversity Heritage Library holds many of Elizabeth Goulds works, including the Smithsonian Libraries copies of A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains, The Birds of Australia, and The Birds of Europe, for anyone to view and appreciate for themselves. You can also browse a collection of her artworks in the BHL Flickr. Facebook Live at Smithsonian Libraries: The Art of Elizabeth Gould You can learn more about Elizabeth Gould and see a selection of her works during a behind-the-scenes tour at the Natural History Rare Book Library at the Smithsonian Libraries with Alexandra Newman. When? Friday, 22 March @ 1pm ET Where? https://www.facebook.com/SmithsonianLibraries References [1] Isabella Tree. The Bird Man: The Extraordinary Story of John Gould. London: Ebury Press. 2004. [2] Chisolm, Alec. 1964. Elizabeth Gould: Some New Letters. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 49(5): 10. [3] Roslyn Russel. The Business of Nature: John Gould and Australia. Canberra: The National Library of Australia, 2011. [4] Richard Bowdler Sharpe. An Analytical Index to the Works of the Late John Gould, F. R. S., with a Biographical Memoir and Portrait. London: Henry Sotheran, 1893. [5] Russel, 2011. [6] John Gould. A Century of Birds from the Himalayas. London, 1831. [7] John Gould. The Birds of Europe. London, 1837. [8] Melissa Ashley. Elizabeth Gould. John Gould: Bird Illustration in the Age of Darwin. 2014. https://exhibits.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/show/gould/about/elizabeth_gould [9] Ibid. [10] Russel, 2011. In 2009, the bipartisan HITECH Act pledged $36 billion to subsidize the adoption of Electronic Health Records throughout America's fragmented, profit-driven health system, promising that the system would modernize American health care, save $80 billion (and countless lives), and deliver a host of other benefits; a decade later, the EHR industry has blossomed from $2B to $13B, and adoption is up from 9% to 96%, and it's a catastrophe. Part of the problem lies in the structure of the HITECH Act itself: it created incentives for practices to buy "certification" EHR tools, but that certification was incredibly lax and allowed all kinds of terrible, buggy code to attain certification. The cash incentives were so great that companies poured fortunes into luring doctors to banquets where they were instructed on how to maximize their government subsidies, but the certification process did not protect doctors from unscrupulous vendors. Importantly, a certified tool did not have to be standards-based, meaning that there was no requirement that patients be able to move their records from one practice to another (this is a feature, not a bug: the medical industry's term for a patient switching practices is "leakage," and the incompatibilities in rival practices' EHR tools were an excellent hedge against it, serving as a lock-in for patients). What's more, certified vendors were allowed to bind the healthcare providers to nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses, making it illegal for them to warn other doctors about defects in EHR products. To top things off, the HITECH Act did not establish any kind of FDA tracking system for complaints about bugs in EHR tools even bugs that maimed or killed patients. The result is a predictable litany of grifter software: badly written spaghetti code that deletes doctor's notes, fails to assign meds to patients, assigns meds to the wrong patients, fails to delete meds when discontinued, and can't even merge records a test of one vendor's software found that it failed to merge duplicate records correctly half of the time. EHRs are the bane of American doctors. They throw a steady stream of false-positive warnings a doctor might see hundreds of these in a day, such as a warning that a 6-year-old girl (or boy!) should be checked for pregnancy before a medicine is given to them combined with crazy, overcomplexified, redundant UIs that require doctors to click the same thing in multiple places for it to stick. An ER doctor makes about 4,000 clicks in their EHR terminals in a single shift. With such terrible, numbing repetition, it's no wonder that the industry refers to EHRs as "Errors Happen Regularly." The systems are incredibly dehumanizing for doctors, who spend six hours/day editing EHRs (44% of that work is clerical, not related to patient care), and is cited as a major contributor to the physician burnout crisis, which has led to mass exodus from medicine as well as a string of awful suicides. But there are some advantages to EHRs for medical practices: they're practically designed to facilitate and disguise "upbilling" (a euphemism for insurance fraud). Despite this confluence of interests between crooked practices and crooked EHR vendors, there have been many high-profile lawsuits and regulatory action (a $155m False Claims Act settlement with Eclinical works, another for $57m with Greenway Health). And EHRs have done some good: they've been vital in unraveling the true story of the opioid epidemic, and were used to diagnose lead as the underlying cause of the Flint water crisis. But it's a bad tradeoff: a $36B public subsidy, the needless death and injury of American patients, the dehumanizing and demoralizing of doctors, all to make some forensics work marginally simpler. A well-designed EHR program would, at the very least, mandate standards-defined interoperability, a ban on nondisclosures and nondisparagements, full source-code publication, and public tracking and redress for bugs in EHR systems. Without those, the HITECH Act was born to fail. "You're sitting in front of a patient, and there are so many things you have to do, and you only have so much time to do it in seven to 11 minutes, probably so when do you really listen?" asked John-Henry Pfifferling, a medical anthropologist who counsels physicians suffering from burnout. "If you go into medicine because you care about interacting, and then you're just a tool, it's dehumanizing," said Pfifferling, who has seen many physicians leave medicine over the shift to electronic records. "It's a disaster," he said. Beyond complicating the physician-patient relationship, EHRs have in some ways made practicing medicine harder, said Dr. Hal Baker, a physician and the chief information officer at WellSpan, a Pennsylvania hospital system. "Physicians have to cognitively switch between focusing on the record and focusing on the patient," he said. He points out how unusual and potentially dangerous this is: "Texting while you're driving is not a good idea. And I have yet to see the CEO who, while running a board meeting, takes minutes, and certainly I've never heard of a judge who, during the trial, would also be the court stenographer. But in medicine we've asked the physician to move from writing in pen to [entering a computer] record, and it's a pretty complicated interface." Even if docs may be at the keyboard during visits, they report having to spend hours more outside that time at lunch, late at night in order to finish notes and keep up with electronic paperwork (sending referrals, corresponding with patients, resolving coding issues). That's right. EHRs didn't take away paperwork; the systems just moved it online. And there's a lot of it: 44 percent of the roughly six hours a physician spends on the EHR each day is focused on clerical and administrative tasks, like billing and coding, according to a 2017 Annals of Family Medicine study. For all that so-called pajama time the average physician logs 1.4 hours per day on the EHR after work they don't get a cent. Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong [Fred Schulte/Kaiser Health News; and Erika Fry/Fortune] (via Naked Capitalism) Police are hunting for a gunman who shot at least four passengers on a train in Utrecht, killing three of them, then fled. BBC: Police say the gunman is still at large. Trains and trams have stopped running and schools have been asked to keep their doors closed. Counter-terror police reportedly say the shooting "appears to be a terrorist attack". Dutch anti-terrorism co-ordinator Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said all efforts were now focused on catching the gunman. He also said there could be more than one perpetrator. Updates: 10:30 a.m. EDT Three of the victims are reported dead. Police say they are hunting a 37-year-old Turkish man named Gokmen Tanis. They issued a photograph of Tanis taken by security camera and warned everyone to stay away from him. 1:40 p.m. EDT Police arrested a suspect. The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Department of Transportation has launched an investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration's approval of Boeing's 737 MAX jets. Two of the new airliners crashed in similar circumstances, killing hundreds of passengers, and American regulators were conspiciously slow to ground the jet even after flights were halted in other countries. Federal prosecutors and Department of Transportation officials are scrutinizing the development of Boeing Co.'s 737 MAX jetliners, according to people familiar with the matter, unusual inquiries that come amid probes of regulators' safety approvals of the new plane. A grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a broad subpoena dated March 11 to at least one person involved in the 737 MAX's development, seeking related documents, including correspondence, emails and other messages, one of these people said. The subpoena, with a prosecutor from the Justice Department's criminal division listed as a contact, sought documents to be handed over later this month. Living Gospel Equality Now: Loving in the Heart of God: Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests It is hard to deny how significant technology is in our lives. The introduction of mobile phones has made life much comfortable and easier. We all store various types of information on our phones, as well as use them for different applications. They have become so much an integral part in life such that the thought of losing it is very scary. However, did you know that you can track a stolen phone? Let us look at some of the tips to track stolen phone South Africa in 2019. Image: pinterest.com, @zerohacks Source: UGC Most smartphones come with a tracking system compatibility that makes it possible to track it whenever it gets stolen. Before getting into many details, it is important to understand what a tracking system is and how it works. A phone tracker refers to an application of software that can show the exact location of your phone once it is stolen or when it gets lost. READ ALSO: Vodacom launches Wi-Fi calling for iPhone How does a tracking system work to locate my phone? The tracking system works alongside mobile towers. Basically, the trackers signals can be assessed from any mobile tower. For this process to be effective, your phone must still be on in order to emit the necessary signals that are captured by the tower and kept in its database. However, it is possible, nowadays, to use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to track the location of a lost phone. For this approach, you will need to have a third-party application installed. 5 reliable tips on how to track a stolen phone We all agree that a phone is too precious and important a thing that nobody would wish to lose. What if you know that there are better approaches that guarantee a higher chance of locating your phone once it is stolen? Lets look at some of the tips that you can follow to find it once it is lost. READ ALSO: MTN WhatsApp bundle code and prices 2019 Use Android device manager (ADM) Android phone manufacturers include a provision to connect your phone to your Google Account. If you had it connected with your Google account and the location was turned on before it gets lost, you can use the Android device manager to track its location. The application can track the phones location by default provided your smartphone is enabled to be found once lost. However, it should be installed in the lost smartphone for it to be recoverable. Image: pinterest.com, @comparebox.pk Source: UGC To make use of this approach, your smartphone must be running on Android and meet the following: Its location is on Has google play visibility enabled Connected to Wi-Fi or mobile data Logged in to a Google account The Find My Device feature should be own The smartphone should be on Can a stolen phone be tracked? It is advisable to be ready to find your smartphone once it gets lost. Here are the necessary steps: Turn the Find My Device feature on From the Settings application , tap the Security & location button. Some gadgets may require you to go to Google and then Security. You will see the Find My Device icon; tap it to switch the application on. However, you must be the owner of the device to change these settings. Turn the Location on Turn the location feature of your smartphone from the Settings icon . In some cases, you may not see the Security & Location option, just tap the Location button. It will allow you to switch it either on or off. Turn Google play visibility on Hiding a device on Google Play implies that you cannot locate it using the Find My Device option. To turn it on, go to Google Play play.google.com/settings and pick the device under visibility. Turn Find My Device on This is the most important step in preparing to find your device once it gets lost. Begin by accessing the application from https://android.com/find. Use your main profile to log in to your Google account and ensure that your device is selected. With this option, it is possible to find the approximate location of the phone and even allow it to ring if it is on the silent mode, lock it using a pattern or a PIN password, or even erase any data on it. READ ALSO: MWEB ADSL packages South Africa in 2019 Use the Google search option If you are among the category of people who dislike the idea of connecting their mobile gadgets with the Google account, think again. It could be the only way out to finding your smartphone once it gets lost. All you need is to google find my phone. However, this option only works if your smartphone was signed in to your main account before it gets lost. Track your lost device using third party applications Apart from built-in applications such as the Find My Device, installing third-party apps can help you track your device. Such applications come with several benefits such as the ability to find the location of your smartphone, erasing all the data, as well as locking it such that no one can use it. It is important to sample a few applications to establish the one that comes with the best features. Use the International Mobile Equipment Identify (IMEI) number Every mobile device comes with a unique IMEI number. Can you track a phone that's turned off? If you are constantly asking yourself how do I find my phone android if it has been switched off, the IMEI number approach is the most appropriate way to go. It is also applicable if the person who accessed your smartphone has restored its factory settings. Image: pinterest.com, @trackimei Source: UGC However, to use the IMEI tracker South Africa, it is advisable to involve law enforcement agencies and your network operator. In addition, it is possible to track your phones IMEI number from a database of stolen and lost smartphones. The IMEI number is always available behind the battery. Alternatively, you can find it by dialing *#06# Use Google maps Google Maps makes it easy to track lost devices when they get lost. The feature is effective in that it keeps a track of all the areas you have visited. The Maps feature makes it tack your phones location in a timeline manner. Image: pinterest.com, @trackimei Source: UGC Follow the steps below: Access Google maps from this link www.maps.google.co Ensure that you are logged in to your Google Account At the right-hand corner, select the three horizontal bars icon and click it Choose the Your Timeline Fill in details of the specific day that you want to track your lost phone You will get details about your phones location with the focus on the specified day, as well as a possible location of where it is presently. However, the device should be on, and the location switched on for the Google Maps feature to work effectively. Everybody hopes to keep their smartphones forever but you cannot prevent it from getting lost. The above tips will help you track stolen phone in South Africa. Make sure that you exploit all the built-in features such as Google find my phone and other third-party applications to locate your lost phone. READ ALSO 10 best ISP in South Africa 2019 Cell C data packages and prices 2019 Source: Briefly.co.za Featured Post Mohawk Nation News 'Mohawk Mothers Ambushed by Cops in Quebec Office' MOHAWK MOTHERS AMBUSHED BY COPS IN QUEBEC OFFICE Posted on December 9, 2021 Mohawk Nation News AUDIO at MNN https://mohawknationnews.com/bl... Archive Search This Blog Donate to Censored News Please donate to Censored News for travel and equipment for our live coverage. Thank you, Brenda. 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 From the publisher Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 39 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the mainstream media for 14 years. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com Translate The massive 'Vessel' is the honeycomb-like crown jewel of Hudson Yards, which officially opened on Friday. It's been compared to a giant Shawarma, a comically-oversized pine cone, a rejected M.C. Escher fever dream, and a "$200 million staircase that doesnt actually take you anywhere." Whether you think it is an out-of-place eye sore or the next great public art installation, there's no doubt that it was purposefully designed to lure in millions of visitors a year and inspire an infinite number of selfies and Instagram photos. But here's something to keep in mind if you do decide to go get that picture: simply by visiting the Vessel, you are granting the Vessel the rights to use all of your Vessel content. In the Hudson Yards Terms & Conditions, which you very likely have not read closely, there are two notable and exceptional clauses which state that by creating, posting or uploading any content depicting or related to Vessel, they have the right and license to use your content however they see fit in perpetuity. Likewise, if you merely appear in a photo with the Vessel, they also have the right to use your name, likeness, voice, and all the rest for any commercial purpose they see fit in perpetuity. MY NAME AND LIKENESS. If I appear in, create, upload, post, or send any photographs, audio recordings, or video footage depicting or relating to the Vessel, I grant to Company the unrestricted, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual right and license (with the right to transfer or sublicense) to use my name, likeness, voice, and all other aspects of my persona for the purpose of operating, developing, providing, promoting, advertising, and improving the Vessel or any other products or services provided by Company or its sublicensees (in either case, now known or later developed). I understand I will not be entitled to any compensation from the Company, its affiliates, or its business partners if my name, likeness, or voice is used in the Vessels marketing and promotions, whether on Companys website, social media channels, or otherwise. MY CONTENT. If I create, upload, post or send any photographs, audio recordings, or video footage depicting or relating to the Vessel, I grant to Company and its affiliates the irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable right and license to use, display, reproduce, perform, modify, transmit, publish, and distribute such photographs, audio recordings, or video footage for any purpose whatsoever in any and all media (in either case, now known or developed later). I further authorize Company to store such images on a database and transfer such images to third parties in conjunction with security and marketing procedures undertaken by the Vessel. Such usage and storage shall be in line with the Privacy Policy at all times. I will not exploit any photographs, audio recordings, or video footage of the Vessel for any commercial purpose without Companys prior written consent. "Pretty much the only thing they didn't ask for was the copyright to the material. But you're pretty much granting them an extremely broad license, and it's unfortunate but we're seeing these kinds of overreaching rights grabs come up all the time," Mickey H. Osterreicher, General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), told Gothamist. He clarified that the Vessel doesn't own your content, but they are allowing themselves broad license to do whatever they want with it commercially without your specific consentand you aren't allowed to use it commercially. "It's one thing when you go to the theater, they say there's no photography allowed. But to allow you to take pictures but then say that you can't use them commercially, which is understandable, but to say you are granting them a license to use commercially, that's quite an overreach," Osterreicher said. (Scott Lynch/Gothamist) Osterreicher explained that these sorts of photo rights grabs are becoming more and more common in the social media age. And it has created an inverse of the typical legal burden: "Normally, if you took a picture and you didn't post it anywhere and they wanted to get those images from you, the burden would be on them to find those images and get them. But because so many share things on social media, this pretty much gives them the right to say that if they see an image, they can take it and use it in any way they see fit, and then it would be your burden to go after them and say, 'Hey wait a minute, you used my imagine without credit, compensation or permission.' And they'll come back and say, 'Oh but you did give us permission. Not only permission to use your imagine, but you gave us permission to use your name and likeness.'" And it's not just private citizens who are affected by this: outlets like Gothamist or the New York Times could also, in theory, see their photos and videos and drone footage re-used in Vessel publicity campaigns in the future. Osterreicher connected these kinds of power moves with more general issues that are hurting the professional photography industry at large: "It's a very difficult time, photography has just become so ubiquitous," he said. "The fact that everybody has a cell phone, every cell phone has a camera, and everybody's taking pictures, hundreds of millions of images are uploaded every day. And it's really devalued photography to the point that we're seeing things like this, where people think they can get away with a rights grab like this. Until there's some pushback, until there's some negative publicity, until it's more detrimental to them than not, organizations will continue to do this." Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School professor James Grimmelmann offered a few thoughts on what he described as a "badly drafted clause" on Twitter: It also applies to "audio recordings"(!) again regardless of where they were recorded. So if you go into the Vessel and then make a podcast about your visit, they claim a right in that too. 3/ James Grimmelmann (@grimmelm) March 18, 2019 But because they only take a personal promise not to make commercial uses, they have no recourse if *someone else* makes a commercial use of your media. 5/ James Grimmelmann (@grimmelm) March 18, 2019 It's always amusing to see a clause this overreaching and also this badly drafted, like watching the mustache-twirling villain slip on the banana peel he dropped and fall face-first into a giant cake. 7/7 James Grimmelmann (@grimmelm) March 18, 2019 We've reached out to Vessel representatives to ask about how the policy was decided upon, and how it might be implemented in the future. In the meantime, I hope this rat realizes that he could very well be the face of the next Vessel ad campaign. Hudson Yards has blended seamlessly into the city: pic.twitter.com/KhD9zHaKCd Jeff Coltin (@JCColtin) March 16, 2019 Update: A representative for the Vessel told Gothamist, "The intent of the policy is to allow Hudson Yards to amplify and re-share photos already shared on individual social channels through our website and social channels. This is a practice utilized at nearly all major attractions and we wanted to over communicate, be transparent and disclose to all users. We are refining the language to be more clear." RTHK: Christchurch mass murder suspect rejects lawyer The Australian charged with murder in the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques plans to represent himself and appears "rational", his court-appointed lawyer said on Monday. Brenton Tarrant was charged with one count of murder and appeared at Christchurch District Court on Saturday after the rampage during Friday prayers which left 50 people dead. Duty lawyer Richard Peters, who represented him during the preliminary court hearing, said the 28-year-old "indicated he does not want a lawyer". "He wants to be self-represented in this case," said Peters, who played down suggestions that Tarrant may not be fit for trial. "The way he presented was rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. That's how he appeared. He seemed to understand what was going on," Peters said. Meanwhile the arms dealer who sold weapons to Tarrant said he felt no responsibility for the deaths. David Tipple, the managing director of Gun City, confirmed he sold the alleged gunman four firearms and ammunition. "We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder," Tipple told a press conference in Christchurch. Asked if he held any sense of responsibility, Tipple said: "No, I do not." He added he would continue to sell weapons to anyone with the same credentials as the gunman. It was the responsibility of the police to vet firearms licence applications, he said. Tipple said the military-style semi-automatic the gunman was seen using did not come from his store. Tarrant obtained his standard "A-category" firearms licence in November 2017 and bought four weapons over four months using an online service, Tipple said, adding Gun City had records of the purchases and had provided full details to the police. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was holding a cabinet meeting on Monday to address gun laws and intelligence failures. Around Christchurch, New Zealand and the world there have been vigils, prayers, memorials and messages of solidarity. An emotion-filled haka the Maori war dance was performed by a New Zealand biker gang to honour the Christchurch dead. The country remained on high alert, with police on Sunday briefly closing an airport in the southern city of Dunedin where Tarrant had lived after an unidentified package was spotted on the airfield. The airport re-opened a few hours later. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Check concentrate feeder accuracy WITH the cost of dairy cow concentrates rising farmers have been urged to check the accuracy of their feeders to ensure they are not overfeeding, or indeed underfeeding, their livestock. A man was arrested in Manhattan this weekend for stealing a flag off of a notorious pro-Trump vehicle that has been traveling around the country ever since Trump was elected. Police tell Gothamist the incident happened around 6:35 p.m. on Sunday at 14th Street and Eighth Avenue. Jared Handler, 37, was arrested for grabbing and damaging the flag off of Rob Cortiss vehicle, which cops referred to as a "pro-Trump advertisement trailer." You can see people gathering around the vehicle and shouting, cursing and taking photos in the video below. Handler was charged with petit larceny, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief and criminal possession of stolen property for taking the flag. He was also given a violation for unlawful possession of marijuana. Cortis, a Michigan resident, previously came to the city with his vehicle, which he dubbed the Trump Unity Bridge, back in January 2017. He's been traveling around the country with it ever since, occasionally updating the slogans on the sideit used to read "Make America Great Again," now it says, "Build The Wall." Cortis brought the vehicle to a vigil for the New Zealand Christchurch shooting victims last week in Cleveland: "Mourners looked on in disbelief as the float rolled past the memorial blaring music. The driver, Robert Cortis of Michigan, then made a second pass and played 'God Bless America.'" "We are stopping in both large cities and small towns across the country delivering a message of Unity while discussing the importance of securing Americas southern border," Cortis wrote on his website about his current "Building the Wall Tour." He's faced some problems on that tour: in December, the Trump Unity Bridge tow vehicle, aka the "Trump Mobile," blew out its engine. Cortis tried to raise $20,000 to replace it on GoFundMe; in three months, he's raised $317. But clearly that didn't stop him from getting to NYC. As for this latest incident, he told the NY Post, he would do what he could to help police prosecute Handler. "Hes stealing a flag and destroying it," Cortis said. "Why would he want to be in our country if hes stealing a flag and destroying it?" TELEVISED NEWS COVERAGE (Hebrew with English subtitles) OF THE PROBLEM OF PIRATE SCRAPYARDS: http://bit.ly/2JsRIAW Learn more about Regavim at Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..17 March '19..******"The illegal scrapyard at Rameh has been in operation for years, causing massive environmental damage, polluting our groundwater and soil, and blighting the landscape of the Galilee. Our repeated protests, inquiries, and letters to the local authorites and the Ministry of Environmental Protection got us nowhere, and we eventually had no choice but to take the matter to court," says Hezi Eyal, Regavim's Field Coordinator for the Northern Region."We welcome the enforcement procedures and the fines imposed on the offenders but at the same time, we must not overlook the fact that these measures came only as the result of a lawsuit brought by a non-governmental environmental group.""Dozens of illegal scrapyards continue to operate throughout the north of Israel, and the authorities must take a proactive stance rather than reacting after the damage has been done," added Eyal.Meanwhile, Regavim will continue to monitor, document, and report on environmental abuse and construction violations all of which erode Israeli sovereignty and threaten the physical and political well-being of our homeland.*** Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..Israel Hayom..17 March '19..It is too soon to assess the potential of the demonstrations in the Gaza Strip over the past few days to take a sharp turn. Even without knowing how things might develop, it is clear to everyone that as of now the extent of the demonstrations and the civilians' daring indicate the cumulative distress of the population in Gaza.Eight years after the initial shock of the Arab Spring, the Hamas government in Gaza understands the potential threat that could turn into an actual one as the rage among the public increases.As of now, even if the fury of the Gazans isn't leading toward a direct threat to Hamas' rule in Gaza, it certainly demands that the Hamas leadership recognize that it must find a solution, even a symbolic one, for the mass distress.From that perspective, recent events can shed new light on the various considerations that come to bear on the Israeli government's measured military responses to provocations from Gaza.Over the past year, in deciding on policy and actions regarding Gaza, Israel has had to grapple with the basic question of whether a war to defeat the Hamas regime in Gaza is in its own interest.Events of recent days have added another aspect to the deliberations. When he was defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman repeatedly explained that Israel should bide its time until the people of Gaza rose up against Hamas, which is responsible for their hardships.Now, as we see the first glimpses of mass popular protests, Israel's dilemma is thrown into sharp relief should it continue the money transfers to the Hamas government, thus helping it secure its rule there, or do the opposite block the transfer of funds, hoping that the popular distress will cause the situation to shift in Israel's favor?At this strategic watershed moment, the policy that has apparently guided the Netanyahu governments for the past decade the view that it is in Israel's interest for Hamas to remain in control in Gaza becomes clearer.The choice not to take decisive action against Hamas, which played out in Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 and in all the major decisions the Israeli government has made this past year, apparently stems from a concrete strategic approach.As we mark 40 years since Israel and Egypt made peace, it is worth remembering that then-President of Egypt Anwar Sadat was politically savvy enough to leave the Gaza Strip on Israel's hands. The burden of finding a solution to the Palestinian problem in Gaza, as well as in Judea and Samaria, became Israel's alone to bear.The cutoff between Gaza and Ramallah that the terrorist group Hamas initiated is also in Israel's interest. For now, it also gives Hamas a kind of immunity but in the long term, it will allow Israel to reach a better arrangement for the region. Three times in the New Testament we are told that "Abraham believed God" (see: Galatians 3 verse 6; Romans 4 verse 3 and James 2 verse 23). The phrase "Abraham believed God" is taken from a passage in the Old Testament which is found at Genesis 15 verse 6. When I read the verse in Romans this week, it kept playing over and over in my mind. What does it mean to believe God? Christians profess to believe in God: that He exists, that the Bible is true; that His sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so that we could be forgiven and restored to a right relationship with God. But, do we believe God on a daily basis? Believing God when the bills are due Many of us Christians have areas where, if we are honest with ourselves, we do not believe God. One common example is in the area of finances. For most of us, there is never enough of money: to pay school fees, bills, car expenses, food, the mortgage. We worry. We despair. But we know that God said: "...do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" (Matthew 6 verses 25-27) In fact, we have memorised this scripture, know it by heart and can recite it correctly in order to win our church's Bible quiz challenge. But faith in a time of lack or crisis is too big of an ask for many of us. After all, how can I trust God that my bills are going to be handled when all I see around me are "past due" notices and notices of foreclosure? Here it is that there isn't enough money to go around and God wants me to tithe or give an offering to the church and to believe that he will help me survive the other monthly expenses? Maybe it's in the area of relationship. Here you are, thirty-something, you have been waiting for God to lead you to your spouse for years and it feels like everyone around you is getting married and as far as you can see there is no prospective partner on the horizon. Believe God? How? Doesn't God see that your biological clock is not just ticking any more but the alarm is going off? Believe God Believing God in rough times is counter-intuitive. It is not natural. It is not normal. It goes against the grain. It usually involves ignoring that your senses tell you, the present reality, previous experiences and the words and advice of others. It can mean putting God's Word above what appears to be the logical or "reasonable" outcome. It usually means coming to the end of yourself and saying to God: "God, I can't see the solution here, the future looks dark. Instead of getting better, things look like they could get worse BUT I know what you have said in your Word and I CHOOSE to believe you." Then act like you believe it. Bring your actions in line. Do what He says in His Word. Stop worrying. Thank God for what He will do. Speak about what God is going to do as if it is already done. Your feelings will fall in line with the decision and resolution you have made. Things may not change immediately, but you would have changed. You would have enlarged your faith. You would have trusted God in the situation in an active way. Next time, when things get overwhelming, consider that prayer and make the decision to believe God. Sharma considers herself a child of the Caribbean, having visited, studied, worked and lived in several Caribbean islands. But when she arrived in New Zealand, she discovered that she is also a kiwi at heart. She holds a PhD in Law from the Victoria University of Wellington. Sharma Taylor's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sharma-taylor.html Now With Natalie host wardrobe stylist Natalie Manuel Lee | Hillsong Channel The Hillsong Channel is now airing a new six-part series featuring celebrities who talk about their faith and how they're using it to make a lasting impact on the culture. Hosted by wardrobe stylist Natalie Manuel Lee, who's a member of Hillsong Church and sister of popular fashion and sneaker designer Jerry Lorenzo, the series, Now With Natalie, shows Lee interviewing Hailey Bieber, Tyson Chandler, Kelly Rowland, Jerry Lorenzo and Elaine Welteroth, among others who speak about their faith. Lee said she wanted to host the show because she saw the need for purposeful content. Episode one featured supermodel Hailey Bieber, filmmaker Elliot Rausch, and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf. Bieber was the main focus of the episode which centered around identity and comparison. "The guests this season, those are my friends and my family, it's my community. I'm blessed to have them in my life. Not only do I learn from each and every one of them, but we have these conversations all the time, Lee told The Christian Post in a recent interview. It could be very daunting and scary to really tell your story and really be able to tell the [real] truth, Lee said, adding that she believed it was imperative to gather her influential friends and family to encourage a generation. The greatest way to serve is to tell your story. And for them, I just needed them to tell their story, and be honest, be transparent. I knew that they would have an impact that they probably didn't even realize how big the impact would be, and it has so far, she added. Lee emphasized that everyone she interviews for the series shares something about their faith. "One-hundred percent, everybody that's on the show is a believer and that was the point," she told CP. "I think the common thread from everybody from episode one to episode six, the common thread is their faith. "It's that consistent pillar in their life, which is their faith and their relationship with Jesus and their relationship with God. And they're able to talk about it, they're able to display it, they're able to say how it helped them navigate through this industry. So yeah, Kelly Rowland, Tyson Chandler, Angela Davis and then Jerry Lorenzo, they all definitely give it to us about the man above, for sure. Hillsong Church is known for its influence in young Hollywood and its churches are frequently attended by Justin and Hailey Bieber, and Selena Gomez, among others. Lee, who's also a member of Hillsong, believes the influence Christian celebrities have can be useful in spreading the Gospel. "We are in a generation where we glorify the position that one has, as opposed to glorifying the purpose of the position, she explained. So for this, obviously, people and viewers are going to watch because they see these people that had these huge positions and huge influence. But they're here to tell you that it's not just about that, it's bigger than the platform and the position that God has given them. Kelly Rowland always says, 'it is bigger than the number one.' Lee said her strategy behind the show came as a result of understanding the influence that her guests will have on our generation and on our culture. "I think, for me, the mandate and the mantra and the goal was to infiltrate the Kingdom in the culture as opposed to the other way around. So these people that are influencers of the culture are able to now infiltrate Kingdom mind, thoughts and Kingdom mind characteristics in the culture and it's a need, she declared. Hillsong Church is often criticized for linking arms with different people in Hollywood, but Lee says she believes all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. "The unfortunate thing is that these people [celebrities] with status ... they have a microscope on them more so than we do. We all sin, but for us, we just see it. Unfortunately, the people that are on my show, we see it because of the access and the visibility that they have. So who are you to judge? I sin, you sin, we all sin, Lee maintained. Throughout the six episodes of Now With Natalie, Lee talks mental health, self-worth and the pursuit of status. She believes that many people are fans of these celebrities because of what they stand for. "The whole purpose of it, you look at these people, and you admire them. But the bigger thing is, why do you admire them? You admire them because of their characteristics, and where is their character coming from? It's rooted in faith, and it's rooted in God," she added. "So the whole purpose of this is also to pull back the veil of, this is why you really like that person. You might not know why you like them, but this is why you like them, because they're rooted in Christ and they're rooted in God. And that's where their great character, if you will, comes from, Lee affirmed. When asked why she wanted to create Now With Natalie for the Hillsong Channel, Lee said the age we are living in calls for a show like this. "Where we are as a humanity, the plight of humanity and where we are as a culture, we are just not in the best. The purpose of this show is to really dismantle and nullify and pull back the veil of the counterfeits that are being sold for identity as well as purpose, she said. Lee identified those "counterfeits" as anything other than God that's used to identify one's worth or value. Our Creator, who has created us, is the one that should be putting labels on us. Myles Munroe always says, 'if you see a problem become the solution that can be a part of your purpose. So for me, I just felt the call and I knew that we needed it as a generation," Lee said. "I know that if we can have people sit down, people like the Kelly's and the Haley's and the Jerry's sit down and have a conversation a very vulnerable, transparent conversation that in my opinion was the most impactful way that we needed to do it. I think vocally hearing their story as opposed to maybe reading it, to me, it's more impactful, she added. For more information on Now With Natalie or to watch the show, visit the Hillsong Channel. Research says that 1 in 5 students say they have considered committing suicide, with 4.6 % actually making a plan to do so. The Journal of the American Medical Association states that between 2009 to 2015, emergency rooms in America saw a sharp rise in treatment of girls and young women between the ages of 10 and 24 who intentionally injured themselves. And in the past six years the ER visits for self-harm surged 18.8 percent. In 2018, a 17 year-old posted a picture of self-inflicted wounds which stirred a major uproar, according to an article in the Jamaica Gleaner. In this same article, it was reported that though this was the first time she posted pictures on social media, she had been cutting for three years. Three years. Did any adult in her life know? Bridge the disconnect In my ten years of being in the helping profession I have heard so much pain, confusion and despair from young people. What hurts the most is the hopelessness many of them feel because of the responses, or the lack thereof, of adults. Young people have told me their parents tell them to kill themselves when emotional. Others have reported being told to take something stronger the next time they try to kill themselves as they process a previous failed attempt. I have sat across the room as parents justify why a report of assault mustnt be made in order to protect family image. Parents tell me to fix their child, and are defensive when asked to process any part they may play in the childs distress. As a therapist my desire is to bridge the disconnect and challenge the adults in these childrens lives to see them by offering these seven pointers. Dont compare. Yes, your child does not pay bills, go to work, or have an oppressive boss; but the pressure of school, friends, betrayal, self-esteem, making plans for the future and romantic relationships are hard. It is hard for you, and it is hard for them. Struggles arent delineated by age. Empathise with them instead of disregarding them. Build resilience not resentment Yes, you survived; and there are many times when you want to point this out, but its important to validate feelings before challenging. In order to build in a child or teenager the ability to withstand difficult situations in the future, it is important to empower them not ostracize them. Part of that empowering comes from knowing that you are walking along with them; that they are not alone. Both boys and girls need empathy How often have we separated the genders when processing emotional stressors? If it is a boy who tries to share his feelings, he is met with disdain/disregard, as persons equate emotional distress to the boy being weak. For the few who get a chance to express their feelings, they are given a time-limit for their feelings or only allowed to express feelings if it lines up with cultural perceptions of masculinity (for example, anger). Girls arent in a better position. A young person who was in an abusive home came to came to see me. She expressed her frustration with a teacher who questioned her on the time of month when she was having a triggered episode and wanting to go to her school guidance counselor. Her emotions were seen as a one-dimensional issue and relegated to hormones and a desire to be delinquent. Both young men and women experience all emotions and need to know that their feelings are valued and valid. They need the support of the adults around them to process it. Give space for mess-ups We come down with the heavy hand, or identify youth by their mistakes. Their issues become their identity. This practice is unfair. Young people need room to know that they can make mistakes, bounce-back and come back home to a place of security. I am not saying that they should not be corrected or receive discipline, but we shouldnt hold their mistakes over their heads. Nurture a positive view. You were there too Sometimes I wonder if Peter Pan had it right when he fought against growing up. The loss of understanding we have when we cross over from doe-eyed teenager to stressed out adult is seemingly linked to major amnesia. How quickly we forget the intensity of the emotions we had when we were that age! Remember you also thought you couldnt live after the break-up. You felt shattered when your best friend betrayed you. You felt alone when rumours were spread about you at school. Lets remember what it's like, be compassionate and share how you handled it. I understand that some of us were forced to attend the school of hard knocks from an early age, or were robbed of innocence in childhood. To that I encourage your own personal healing so that your story of overcoming can be a guiding light for a young person. Be aware Be actively involved in seeking out mental health support for your child or teenager. In 13 Reasons Why, a novel turned popular series on Netflix, the protagonist, Hannahs parents, were oblivious to her struggle until it was too late. Be alert to your childs needs whether you are a parent, teacher, church worker or camp counselor. Get help If your child has cancer you take them to the oncologist for medical help. It is the same with mental health. Be actively involved in seeking out mental health support. Get counseling for your child. However, do not see it as a drop off my child to get fixed, scenario. Be actively involved, seeking guidance from the counselor as to how you can help, any part you may play in your childs distress and ways to offer support during and after counseling. Learning to be a parent shouldnt end at lamaze class. Parenting is a life-long sojourn, and you need support along the way. American poet and painter E.E. Cummings said it takes courage to grow up.. and I believe that this courage can be better cultivated if we, as adults, take the time to see the pain of our young people and dive in to help them. Stacy-Ann Smith is a Press Service International Young Writer and winner of the Basil Sellers Award. In 2014, Crowned Heads announced a new limited edition line known as Las Calaveras. This line was significant because it marked the first time Crowned Heads would produce a cigar outside of Ernesto Perez-Carrillos Tabacalera La Alianza factory in the Dominican Republic. For Las Calaveras, Crowned Heads would team up with the Garcia family at My Father Cigars in Nicaragua. Since then Las Calaveras has become an annual release each with a different blend and different packaging. Today we take a look at the fifth installment of Las Calaveras the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 in the LC54 (Toro) size. The name Las Calaveras translates to The Skulls. It is a line that pays homage to those who have passed away over the past year. As opposed to being a mournful symbol, it is intended to be a celebration of those lives and remembrances of those who are no longer with us. The following are the releases of Las Calaveras. One significant note is that while each year the blend has changed, the blend has also featured a unique wrapper. There is an Edicion Limitada 2019 planned but at press time details have not been disclosed Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2014: Ecuadorian Habano Oscuro Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2015: Ecuadorian Habano Rosado Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2016: Connecticut Broadleaf Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2017: Ecuadorian Maduro Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018: San Andres Mexican Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2019: TBA SPECIFICATIONS Blend and Origin Wrapper: San Andres Maduro Binder: Nicaraguan Filler: Nicaraguan Country of Origin: Nicaragua Factory: My Father Cigars SA Vitolas Offered Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 is offered in three sizes. Each comes in 24-count boxes. A total of 1,700 boxes were produced. LC46: 5 5/8 x 46 LC50: 5 x 50 LC54: 6 x 54 Appearance The Mexican San Andres wrapper of the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54 had a classic chocolate brown color. There was some oil on the surface of the wrapper. The surface of the wrapper was slightly bumpy with some visible veins. The darker color of the wrapper does a nice job a minimizing any visible wrapper seams. Each year the band of the Las Calaveras changes. For the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018, the band is primarily green in color. On the center of the band is the text LAS CALAVERAS in large white font and the text EDICION LIMITADA in a smaller gold font. A red and gold ring surrounds the center of the band with a gold crown at the top of the ring. The left and right side of the band has a red pinstriping pattern with two gold medallions on each side. PERFORMANCE Pre-Light Draw A straight cut was used to remove the cap of the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54. Once the cap was removed, it was time to commence with the pre-light draw. The cold draw delivered a mix of cream, chocolate, and a slight cedar note. While this was a simple pre-light draw, it was an excellent one. At this point, it was time to light up the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54 and see what the smoking experience would deliver. Tasting Notes The Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54 started out with a mix of red pepper, cedar, chocolate, cream, and natural tobacco. It took a few minutes for a primary note to emerge, but by the midway point, the natural tobacco emerged as a primary note. Meanwhile, the retro-hale delivered an additional layer of red pepper. During the second third, there was an increase in the chocolate notes. It didnt take long for these flavors to join the natural tobacco in the forefront. The pepper, cedar, and natural tobacco, remained in the background, however, there was an increase in the pepper past the midway point. By the last third, the pepper reached the forefront joining the chocolate and natural tobacco. There were still some notes of cedar in the more distant background. By this point, the cream notes dissipated. This is the way the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54 came to a close. The resulting nub was firm to the touch and cool in temperature. Burn There was some jaggedness on the burn line of the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54, but this was a cigar that had no trouble maintaining a straight burn path and didnt require excessive touch-ups. The resulting ash was a silvery-gray with some darker speckling in it. This was not an overly firm ash, but it wasnt loose nor flaky either. As for the burn rate and burn temperature both were ideal. Draw The draw of the Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54 struck a nice equilibrium of openness and resistance. This was a cigar that produced a nice amount of smoke to it. In the end, this was a cigar where one will have no trouble deriving the flavors from it while smoking. Strength and Body The Las Calaveras Edicion Limitada 2018 LC54 was a bold cigar. This was a cigar that started out medium to full in strength. There was a slight increase in strength along the way, but in the end, the cigar didnt cross the threshold to full strength. As for the body, this was also medium to full. Like the strength, the body of the LC54 also increased however by the last third, the cigar had entered full-bodied territory. Throughout the smoking experience, the body maintained an edge over the strength. OVERALL ASSESSMENT Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, December 22, 2018Nicaraguan police last night entered the offices of 100% Noticias, a privately owned cable and internet news station in Managua, ordered the station off the air, and arrested the channels director Miguel Mora and news director Lucia Pineda Ubau, according to news reports. In a court appearance this morning, authorities charged Mora with crimes including inciting hate and violence and did not grant him access to a lawyer, according to reports. The raid on 100% Noticias is an unacceptable escalation of the Nicaraguan governments crackdown on the countrys independent media, said CPJ South and Central America Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick. Nicaraguan authorities should immediately release the detained journalists, allow the channel to resume broadcasting, and end this desperate campaign to silence crucial voices. Police also confiscated broadcasting equipment from the station, Veronica Chavez, a 100% Noticias journalist and Moras wife, said in a press conference today. The raid on 100% Noticias is the second police action against a major independent news outlet in just over a week. On December 13, police broke into the Managua office of the privately owned Confidencial news website and its sister television programs, Esta Noche and Esta Semana, and confiscated equipment and documents. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, March 18, 2019 The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the killing of Afghan journalist Sultan Mahmoud Khairkhwah and calls on authorities to investigate his killing and improve the safety of journalists in the country. Khairkhwah, a reporter for the privately owned, Khost-based Zhman TV and radio broadcaster, was shot by unknown men in Khost city, in eastern Afghanistan, in the morning of March 15 and died of his injuries that evening, according to news reports. The Associated Press reported that two men on a motorcycle shot Khairkhwah while he was in his car. An affiliate of the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, but did not give a reason for targeting the journalist, according to the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Afghanistan was the deadliest country for journalists in 2018, and this year will be just as dangerous if authorities dont thoroughly investigate the killing of Sultan Mahmoud Khairkhwah, determine the motive, and bring the killers to justice, said Steven Butler, CPJs Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. Afghan officials must take immediate steps to improve safety measures for journalists working in the country, including those targeted by non-state actors. It is unclear whether Khairkhwah had faced threats related to his work, Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar of local press freedom group NAI told CPJ. Last week, journalist Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi survived an assassination attempt in Helmand province, after a bomb was attached to his car, CPJ reported. At least 13 journalists were killed in relation to their work in Afghanistan in 2018, making it the deadliest country worldwide, according to CPJ research. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, March 18, 2019 German freelance reporter Billy Six returned to Germany yesterday after spending almost four months in detention in Venezuela, according to news reports. Venezuelan authorities granted Six conditional release on the night of March 15, with orders to present himself to authorities every two weeks and refrain from speaking about his case, according to local press freedom group Espacio Publico. He was not deported but was allowed to leave Venezuela if he chose to, and boarded a flight out of Caracas yesterday morning, according to The Associated Press. We are relieved that Billy Six has finally been freed and allowed to return home, but he should never have been jailed or faced outrageous spying charges in the first place, said CPJ Central and South America Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick. Venezuelan authorities should stop using detention and criminal procedures as tools to intimidate and silence journalists reporting on the countrys political crisis. Counterintelligence agents detained Six in the northwestern state of Falcon on November 17, 2018, and a military court charged him with rebellion, violation of security zones, and espionage, as CPJ reported at the time. In recent weeks, CPJ has covered a number of detentions of journalists by Venezuelan authorities including radio journalist Luis Carlos Diaz, a Univision reporting team led by Jorge Ramos, and U.S. journalist Cody Weddle, all of whom have been released or deported from the country. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram Miami, March 18, 2019 The Committee to Protect Journalists today urged Honduran authorities to immediately undertake a credible and rigorous investigation into the killing of journalist Leonardo Gabriel Hernandez. An unidentified individual shot and killed Hernandez yesterday near his home in the city of Nacaome, in the Valle department in southern Honduras, according to local news reports. Hernandez hosted a program on the local, privately owned Valle television channel called El Pueblo Habla (The People Speak), where he discussed social issues and local politics, according to those reports and a representative from Honduran press freedom organization C-Libre, who spoke to CPJ and asked not to be named. Honduran authorities must immediately do everything in their power to investigate the killing of Leonardo Gabriel Hernandez, establish the motive, and bring those responsible to justice, said CPJ Central and South America Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick in New York. Officials must act to ensure that Hernandezs name is not added to the long list of Honduran journalists whose murders were committed with complete impunity. According to a statement by C-Libre, Hernandez was critical of government officials, including Nacaomes mayor and regional members of Congress. Hernandez had received threats related to his work in the past and had requested assistance from the national protection mechanism for journalists and human rights defenders in 2018, but was denied, according to the C-Libre representative, media reports, and the investigative journalism group Reporteros de Investigacion, CPJs calls to the offices of the national protective mechanism and the Honduran prosecutors offices went unanswered. A 2014 CPJ report found that organized crime and corruption in Honduras have produced an alarming rate of unsolved cases of violence against journalists. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram One of the worlds biggest news stories on March 4 was the daring return to Venezuela of opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido, who faced possible arrest by the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro. But most Venezuelans were unable to follow his homecoming. The bulk of Venezuelas TV and radio stations, which are controlled by the government, ignored Guaido. Meanwhile, the London-based digital rights group Netblocks reported that Venezuelas dominant state-run internet service provider (ISP) had temporarily blocked Twitter, streaming portals including YouTube and Soundcloud, and numerous websites that are among the only sources of independent news. As a result, news coverage of Guaidos arrival at the international airport, his climbing atop a vehicle to greet supporters lining the highway, and his fiery speech in a Caracas plaza were largely blacked out. It was very precise, Andres Azpurua, director of Venezuela Inteligente, a local watchdog group that monitors internet censorship, told CPJ. You would see Guaido starting to speak and then websites would be blocked almost immediately. Although the Venezuelan government has sporadically interfered with the web since 2007, internet activists say that online censorship has increased dramatically since January, when Guaido swore himself in and was recognized as the countrys legitimate president by the U.S. and about 50 other countries. News websites and internet users often figure out techniques to evade government-imposed firewalls. Still, analysts told CPJ that censorship combined with poor infrastructureincluding frequent blackouts and one of the slowest internet speeds on the continentmean that its getting harder for journalists to do their jobs and for Venezuelans to stay informed. Another problem amid the economic meltdown and the collapse of the currency is cost. Although fixed and mobile services may average a few U.S. dollars per month, the monthly minimum wage in Venezuela has shrunk to about U.S.$6, Azpurua said. The impact is a decline in the countrys internet usage via fixed line and mobile devices, a 2018 Freedom House study found. All this strengthens the Maduro regime, according to Iria Puyosa, an independent Venezuelan internet access consultant. Maduro makes heavy use of state-run TV and radio, but Puyosa said that opposition leaders rely almost solely on the internet to transmit news and information about upcoming demonstrations and activities. The government thrives on disconnection because it makes it harder for the opposition to mobilize people, Puyosa told CPJ. In a report this month, the Caracas-based Institute for Press and Society (IPYS) said that so far this year, 25 websites have been blocked during events of public interest, such as last months Venezuela aid concert on the Colombian side of the border and efforts by opposition leaders to move humanitarian supplies into the country. Blocked domains included widely read independent news websites such as Efecto Cocuyo, El Pitazo, and Caraota Digital, as well as YouTube and Instagram. Most websites with anything valuable to read get blocked, Azpurua said. Live coverage of anything that is newsworthy is censored. The IPYS report said that Conatel, the state telecommunications regulator, ordered the blocks, which are then usually put in place by Cantv, a government-run ISP that controls 80 percent of the Venezuelan market. The report added that Conatel also ordered privately owned ISPs, such as Movistar, Digitel and Inter, to block websites and streaming services. Failure to comply could lead to heavy fines or the loss of operating licenses, Azpurua said. Luis Carlos Diaz, a Venezuelan journalist and internet activist who was briefly detained last week, told CPJ that the online blockages were arbitrary and often carried out at the behest of a government official rather than through the judicial process. Cantv, Conatel and the governments Communications Ministry did not respond to calls from CPJ seeking comment. There have been other forms of state interference. Since January, the government has blocked the encrypted Tor network, which allows users to browse the web anonymously and evade censorship, Azpurua said. Due to attacks on its server in recent months, the investigative outlet Armando.Info has been repeatedly forced offline through digital denial of service (DDoS) attacks. The IPYS report said the attacks may have originated in Russia and that during a one-hour period on March 3, there were more than 9 million attempts to access Armando.Info. This really hurts us, Roberto Deniz, an Armando.Info editor, told CPJ. Its a big deal because it affects our traffic. All the while government trolls are sending out of bogus Twitter hashtags and fake online news to confuse people, Deniz added. Cesar Batiz, director of El Pitazo, said that his website has had to change its domain name three times due to Conatel-imposed blocks. Readers can still connect to the site but amid the confusion, daily page views have dropped from 70,000 to 25,000. The blockages totally destroyed our analytics, Batiz told CPJ. But he and other journalists say they are adapting. To reach a broader audience, El Pitazo, Armando.Info and other sites are sharing content. They use Twitter to redirect readers to alternative domains when their websites come under attack. They are condensing news, graphics, and video into smaller chunks that can be shared by WhatsApp groups, one of the most popular ways for Venezuelans to get news. In addition, news websites and press freedom groups, like Espacio Publico, are advising readers on how to use VPNs (virtual private networks) and other tools to skirt online censorship Diaz, the internet activist, said that one reason why he thinks the Maduro government hasnt taken more drastic steps, like permanently blocking WhatsApp or Twitter, is because these services are popular among its own supporters. But Puyosa predicts a broader internet crackdown should political and economic conditions worsen and the Maduro regime become more desperate. She said the dominance of Cantv, the state-run IPS, would facilitate broader censorship. It would be scorched-earth tactics, she said, but the government could opt for a massive blockage. [Reporting from Bogota] Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram Mission Journal: With a new presidential commission investigating the abduction of Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla and the murder of Yameen Rasheed, CPJs Asia program research associate Aliya Iftikhar travels to Male in late February to speak with the bloggers families about their pursuit of justice, and with authorities about the progress and challenges in the cases. In her pink hijab and floral dress, Fathimath Shehenaz was easy to spot in the small crowd of protesters gathered outside the Male parliament building, carrying signs emblazoned with #FindMoyameeha and #WeAreYaamyn. Shehenaz has been a mainstay at these protests, as she seeks answers to the abduction of her brother, Ahmed Rilwan, five years ago. On the afternoon that we met at the protest, parliament had refusedfor the fourth timeto vote on a bill to give investigative powers to a newly formed presidential commission on enforced disappearances and murders. The commission has brought hope that justice will be served in several cases in the Maldives, including those of Rilwan and Yameen Rasheed, a blogger murdered in April 2017. However, without parliamentary approval of the investigative powers, the commission will be unable to work independently of the police and judiciary. At roughly 2.5 square miles and with a population of about 142,000, Male is the epicenter of politics, finance, and commerce in a nation comprised of 1,190 small islands and sandbanks. Given its small population, the attacks on Rilwan and Rasheed shook the city, both for their brazenness and violent nature. Through marches, campaigns, and protests, their families have ensured that the journalists names were not forgotten, and their cases became political campaign issues. As a presidential candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih met both families last year, and promised to open investigations. We fought for this justice, and that is the only reason were talking about this, even after five years, Rilwans brother, Moosa, told me. If we had been silent, there wouldnt even be a commission to investigate these things. A composite of posters for the bloggers Yameen Rasheed, left, and Ahmed Rilwan. A new presidential commission is investigating their cases. (CPJ) At her home in the capital, Rilwans mother, Aminath Easa, said she was optimistic about the new commission and could see that it was trying, unlike under the past administration, whose officials never came to meet her and did not conduct a thorough investigation. I just want to know what happened, if hes dead or alive, Easa said, with tears in her eyes. The commission was announced on Solihs first day in office in November. His was a surprise win. His partythe Maldivian Democratic Partyfirst came to power in 2008 in the countrys first democratically held elections, but a coup in 2012 ousted the elected president. The following year, Abdulla Yameen Abdulla Gayoom came to office, bringing in a period of authoritative rule during which journalists were attacked and defamation cases threatened to send them to jail and their outlets into bankruptcy. During this period, religiously motivated attacks targeted writers who were popular on social media, including blogger and former editor of Haveeru, Ismail Khilath Rasheed (known as Hilath), who survived an attempt on his life in June 2012; Afrasheem Ali, a former member of parliament, killed in October 2012; Rilwan; and Yameen Rasheed. The attacks were connected, Husnu Al Suood, former attorney general and president of the commission, told me in his office. What did the four share in common? All spoke about social issues, human rights, and religion. And all were popular, with large followings, typically online. The attacks were masterminded by one group and were motivated by religious, militant elements, with gang involvement, Suood said, without naming the group. The government was aware of the group as early as 2011, but failed to go after them for political reasons, Suood said, adding that the people were targeted over their writing. Aside from Saudi Arabia, the Maldives is one of the only other countries that bills itself as 100 percent Islamic. Religion is an extremely sensitive topic, and politicians have historically kowtowed to sheikhs and religious leaders to help their political image. There was an identified group and the state knew that and had they stopped or investigated and prosecuted the people behind Rilwans case then Yameen Rasheeds would not have occurred, he said. Even in Hilaths case, no action was taken at that time. Suood added, Had they stopped that in 2012, even Afrasheems case I doubt could have happened. During our meeting at the presidents office, Ibrahim Hood, the presidents chief communications strategist, said, One of the reasons these groups thrive is the laissez-faire approach that has been taken with regards to them. He added, I think they had state protection. I dont know whether it was deliberate or some kind of implicit arrangement of these are the boundaries. Weve taken a more no-nonsense approach. Its no longer a free-for-all. Ahmed Rilwans mother, Aminath Easa, pictured center in her Male home, with daughter Fathimath Shehenah and son Moosa. The family want answers to what happened five years ago. (CPJ) Extremists have been more influential and growing in number, Rilwans brother, Moosa, said. Politicians use religion as a tool to achieve their agendas and get power, but theyre also afraid of them, he said. Rilwan was a reporter for Minivan News (now the Maldives Independent), but he was better known for his blog where he was known as Moyameehaa or madman and wrote about social issues, human rights, and religion. Moosa remembers him as fun-loving, friendly, and kind. Two weeks before his abduction, he published a story about Maldivians leaving to fight for the extremist group Islamic State in Syria. The states negligence in investigating Rilwans abduction has been well-documented, with a court last year reprimanding authorities when it acquitted two suspects. The complicity and involvement of authorities have also been established. Police surveilled Rilwan and there was interference in the investigation that followed, Suood said, adding that a suspect managed to flee to Syria, with help from authorities. The former government has denied involvement. The Foreign Ministry told a U.N. working group on enforced disappearances that authorities rejected the allegations of responsibility or involvement. In Rilwans case, Suood said, the commission has established a motive, something that had previously evaded authorities. He declined to elaborate, saying the information would be released in a report when the commission completes its investigation. The current acting police commissioner, Mohamed Hameed, told me that police will review and take action against anyone named in that report as being complicit or negligent in the investigation. Yameen Rasheed, pictured with a poster of abducted journalist Ahmed Rilwan. Rasheed, who was a vocal advocate in Rilwans case, was murdered in April 2017. (CPJ) One of the most active voices in pursuing justice for Rilwan was Rasheed, whose website, The Daily Panic, providing satirical social and political commentary. He was stabbed to death more than 36 times in the stairwell of his apartment building. Seven suspects were arrested and a trial started 18 months ago. Initially held in secret, the trial has been opened up, but the number of people allowed to attend is limited and no hearing has been held in nearly four months, Rasheeds sister, Aisha, said. Yameen was relentless in pursuing Rilwans case, and it is very difficult, even if you look at Yameens case, for people to be continuously asking questions, fighting for justice, because everyone has their own life, but Yameen did that, Aisha Rasheed said. What is sad, she said, is the narrative created around bloggersthat they are atheist or irreligious tarnishes their image and is used to justify the attacks. In Rasheeds case, authorities were also accused of negligence, though the civil court threw out a case filed by the family in 2017. Aisha Rasheed, who previously worked in the police forensics department, said she saw discrepancies in the way the investigation was being carried out almost immediately, noting that the crime scene was processed in less than two hours. I know the procedures they have to follow. I didnt feel they were doing that, she said. There was massive negligence on the police side, whether they admit it or not. By the time she and her family had returned from Rasheeds funeral, the walls had been painted over, almost like nothing had happened just hours prior. Suood said there was less indication of state-involvement in Rasheeds case. But Aisha Rasheed said she finds that hard to believe, especially because authorities were aware of threats on her brothers life. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg and that there is a huge organization behind this that is targeting people, training people, and radicalizing them, she said. The people at the top, they enjoy impunity. Yameen Rasheeds sister, Aisha, says she thinks the initial investigation into her brothers murder is flawed.(CPJ) [Rasheed] was outspoken, he didnt mince words, he was brave and he had mass appeal, he could communicate with a lot of people, she said. Of course he was afraid of the death threats, but it was more important to him to have a conscience than to bow down. I think they wanted to make an example out of him People are very afraid, because anything is possible in this country, she said. When they couldnt win at words, they silenced him. Rilwans abduction also hangs over his former colleagues at the Maldives Independent. I think we unconsciously dropped certain stories, and we began asking if it was worth it to put reporters at risk, Ahmed Naish, the acting editor, said Suood told CPJ that he was confident that the commission will bring the cases to prosecution. He said he believes the investigation already has enough new evidence in Rilwans case to appeal the acquittal last year. But, he said, the more time that goes by, the harder it will be for the courts to prosecute the Rasheed case. He added that the lapse in time allows perpetrators and their supporters to try to influence witnesses and judges. Rilwans brother, Moosa, was less optimistic. He said he believes the key is to prosecute those in authority who were complicit and negligent. The acting police commissioner, Hameed, said, Its quite evident that police hadnt treated Rilwans case as a serious case from the start and that it was not carried out in a timely way. However, the commission president Suood said that without the investigative powers requested in parliament, its power will be limited. Suood said he anticipates challenges and pushback, including threats from gangs and people complicit who are still in positions of power. There will be a lot of challenges in that respect, because this is a small place and one is connected to several others who are influential and who are in power, Suood said. It will be difficult if we dont get that legislation passed. [Reporting in Male] Question: Regarding my posts about the terrible perversion of Torah and halacha that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky has engineered with his prod... lt is clear that no one in the world has the authority to establish guilt anyone without both [the accuser and accused] coming ... Important!! email - yadmoshe@gmail.com Scotland captain Andy Robertson was so desperate to play in his team's opening Euro 2020 qualifier that he offered to fly solo to Kazakhstan despite undergoing emergency surgery on a painful dental abscess.And Sportsmailunderstands that the Anfield fans' favourite WILL make himself available for Sunday's clash with Group I minnows San Marino in Serravalle.Robertson took a black cab straight to Heathrow following Liverpool's 2-1 Premier League win over Fulham on Sunday, having failed to find a doctor able to operate immediately in London.The rampaging left back hoped that, by flying north immediately, he could go under the knife in Glasgow on Sunday night.But had to wait until Monday morning for a slot at the city's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.Despite the delay, and disregarding the fact that his club would clearly rather he spent the full week recovering on a beach, Robertson asked SFA officials if they could arrange commercial flights going against medical advice enabling him to catch up with the squad in time for Thursday's group opener.That was ruled out on a combination of medical and bureaucratic grounds, leaving the 25-year-old distraught.In fact, before going under the knife, Robertson told friends that he still hadn't given up on his hopes of making to Astana, insisting that he would see what kind of pain he was in before resuming his insistence on finding a way to make it.Told repeatedly that it just wasn't possible, Sportsmailunderstands that he immediately voiced his intention to join the squad in San Marino in time for this Sunday's fixture. The biggest clubs in Europe will put forward a change in the format of the Champions Leaguein talks with UEFA on Tuesday.UEFA chiefs will meet with the European Club Association which includes the 'Big Six' from the Premier League, and Everton, Leicester City, and Newcastle in Switzerland.According to the Wall Street Journal, there will be discussions over potentially implementing promotion and relegation across Super Groups.Games being held on weekends rather than in mid-week may also be on the cards.The teams who are led by Juventus chief Andrea Agnelli want to improve the global appeal of the Champions League and streamline the competition.UEFA are currently under pressure from the top sides in Europe to hand out more prize money and a greater share of the revenue from TV.There is an agreement in place between the teams and UEFA until 2024.But changes are likely to take place amid ongoing pressure on UEFA. There is an ongoing fear of a breakaway European Super League.According to the Sun, Leicester, Everton and Newcastle would all hope to be involved in any shake-up of European competition, which may involve playing in a division below the main league and vying for promotion.A UEFA spokesman said: 'We can confirm there'll be an informal brainstorming session regarding club competitions post-2024.' Norway's Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, has decided to 'sell.'They have announced plans to divest from 134 oil and gas exploration and production companies held in its US$1 trillion investment fund.The fund will continue at least for now to hold onto the stocks of large, major oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil, Total S.A. and Chevron. Henrik Asheim, a leader of Norway's Conservative Party, supported the move, saying 'It's not a debate about climate. It's about financial risk.'Divestment is in Norway's national interestThe decision is a pragmatic move by Norway to protect itself. The government owns, extracts and sells oil and gas. For decades, annual profits have been used to balance the national budget and build an investment fund.However, the low-price environment that plagues today's industry globally has led Norway to accept that annual revenues are in a permanent decline. The fund was created because the nation's leaders knew that someday the financial gains from oil and gas would run out.That someday is coming. Soon.The revenue slide from oil and gas is considerable, and imminent. It already requires that Norway's annual budget draw down on the fund principal. This is a red flag not only for the fund, but with wider warnings for the country's fiscal and economic health and stability.Norway is well-positioned to handle the problem for now. But the government must find replacement revenue, which means new revenue-generating industries are needed. To Norway's credit, it is addressing this long-term challenge now. Norway invests in oil and gas companies throughout the world.Further, the country's big-picture economic and fiscal situation does not fully explain why the fund should divest from the oil and gas exploration and production sector.What, then, is the rationale for divestment?The government has decided it has about ten years left of profitable drilling on the continental shelf. It will use this time to squeeze every last ounce of oil out of the earth and every last krone out of its customer base. Many governments and companies also have the same ten years of remaining time.So, why is the Norwegian fund divesting now? And why is it divesting from companies doing business outside of Norway?The Norwegian explanation treads gingerly on the issue of oil price dynamics and volatility and eschews grand pronouncements about the status of the declining petroleum sector. For sure, low oil prices, competition from renewable energy and climate issues all play a role. But they are being deemed as more or less manageable by fund managers.The fund management analysis also ignores the paradox facing the companies targeted for divestment. Most are part of the investment juggernaut that is driving the fracking boom. Fracking technology lowers extraction costs and has resulted in production growth at historic levels.The resultant oversupply has driven down prices to the point where oil and gas producers are struggling to make a profit. The Wall Street Journalhas written nearly a dozen articles over the last two years chronicling the many ways in which the business model for unconventional fossil fuel production is untenable, requiring ongoing cash investments that exceed any proceeds made from drilling and selling oil and gas.Oil and gas sector is no longer reliably profitableThe genteel and nuanced language used by the fundmasks something fundamental. The Norwegian fund is getting out of oil and gas exploration and production because the sector is not producing reliable positive cash flows, and is no longer dependably profitable and is becoming increasingly less so.Norway's leaders understand better than most that a low oil price environment puts a lid on any new, expensive, hard-to-get reserves. Yes, there is ten years or so of supply left. But the truth of the matter is that the fracking business and more expensive oil reserves will bring with them a sea of trouble.From the perspective of a sovereign fund or an actuary managing a country's fund, ten years is short-term. The fund's conclusion: Get out now. Norway's national decision: Start worrying.Norway's Ministry of Finance makes clear that the loss of these stocks from the portfolio will have no negative impact on the fund's financial performance, and may even improve its returns. The divestment will eliminate the short- and long-term risks related to price, volatility, supply and climate.When a major financial risk is eliminated, the quality of an investment tends to improve.Norway's strategy does not end with its divestment from the weakest link in the energy sector. In fact, their fund managers have decided to hold onto investments in the oil majors, the largest global private oil companies. They offer an interesting explanation for this.They see how market forces are driving large oil majors toward renewable energy and want Norway to be part of that growth story. This is a smart, rational response. The dumb money is in oil and gas, and the smart money is pivoting.The not-so-rational response to stick with fossil-fuel-forward policies can be found in the board rooms of most oil and gas majors and the capitols of oil producer nations. Some of them, such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, want nothing to do with renewable energy.They are expanding capital plans and continue to roam the world and drill despite the sector's recent history of bad bets and lost value. Many are continuing to bet their future returns on significant investments in fracking and oil sands, the very same ventures the Norwegian fund is divesting from.Norway's fund managers CAN COUNT.The short-term, cold reality tells them that the larger oil majors are more likely to continue to provide cash dividends from oil and gas for the foreseeable future. The oil majors will do this as they steadily burn through their shrinking asset base.A global financial picture emergesThe fund's statement is cautious. It limits its rationale to Norway's national interest, oil and gas ownership and fiscal burdens. The analysis nevertheless sheds light on the current and future state of the global oil and gas market and offers some other important lessons for investors.Fracking economics are a bust.Divesting from oil and gas exploration and production is a very strong statement, and should serve as a warning to all. Fracking technology can produce large amounts of oil and gas, but a market-based business model has proven elusive.The 134 companies selected for divestment are largely pure-play actors investing in unconventional exploration and production.IEEFA has produced three studies that track 30 of these companies and our conclusion has been that they are not producing and never have produced free cash flow, even during years of relatively high oil prices. Improvements in the sector's cash position are likely to be modest.Within the fracking industry, a larger trend is occurring toward concentration and increasing investment by Big Oil. These companies' massive asset bases are being used to manage the financial risks of unconventional oil and gas drilling.Traditional high-yield debt and equity investors have grown weary of losing money with their poor-performing investments in smaller fracking-focused companies.The list of companies provided by the Norwegian government also contains a host of oil sands producers in Canada, a reminder that the loss in investor confidence in the sector continues to reverberate.The big oil majors are suspect.The Norwegian fund is not running away from the majors for now.The fund has indicated they are holding onto these investments to take advantage of future earnings from renewable energy. In its final legislative action approving this decision, the Storting (the Norwegian parliament) should require its remaining oil major investments to produce viable business plans to show how they intend to pivot away from fossil fuel development.Those that fail to pivot should join the list of companies the fund divests from. Such a move would provide operational teeth to the divestment decision.Renewable energy industries create global benefits.Half-way through the Finance Ministry's write-up is a revelation that should give every investor pause.While concerned about the impact of declining oil demand on Norway's business sectors that service the industry, the Finance Ministry makes the following statement: 'Other industries may, at the same time, experience an increase in demand, depending inter alia, on the impact of a lower oil price on the world economy and the Norwegian krone exchange rate.'At the risk of stating the obvious, given the choice, rational markets choose cheap over expensive! A country or fund looking beyond oil and gas for new drivers of the world economy must look at the underlying factors that are pushing capital away from this once-powerful sector.The replacement for oil and gas is coming largely from technological forms of energy production driven by zero-cost fuels.A core assumption of the oil and gas sector is that energy must be expensive and it must become more expensive to fuel economic growth. The markets are proving otherwise. Permanent and relatively stable low-energy prices offer a growth trajectory but one very different from the past.Who will follow Norway's leadMany are asking whether Norway's investment decision will influence other large funds to follow suit. It should.There are other questions too.Norway has acknowledged that its national interest is now decoupled from fossil fuel growth and that a public debate about its economic future is necessary. Will this realization catch on in other countries?Many countries (and companies) have oil and gas reserves. But what are these reserves now worth in a low-price environment where new forms of energy offer competitive, permanent alternatives?This is not an easy discussion. Most political leaders in democratic countries that depend on oil and gas for economic health are avoiding this debate, making believe it is not happening. In Canada, the Trudeau government believes a blank check from taxpayers for the Trans Mountain Pipeline will bolster the crippled oil sands sector.In Argentina, the government has embarked on a fiscally perilous gamble to continue subsidizing global oil companies as a way of developing the country's oil and gas reserves in Patagonia (Vaca Muerta). The U. S. government is blind to changes in the fossil fuel sector and hostile to new energy investment.Public debate in these countries is also taking on anti-democratic characteristics that very much mimic the leading oil-rich authoritarian countries.Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries use state-sanctioned violence and intimidation against activists and journalists to make sure a debate about the economic future does not take place in public.To allow debate might expose not only the historically corrupt and incompetent use of oil profits for personal gain and political domination, but might also highlight the need for new, transparent economic arrangementsmatters too sensitive for regimes where legitimacy is fragile.The Norwegian government made the decision over thirty years ago to use annual profits from oil and gas development to secure the well-being of its people.They threw an anchor into the future and the plan has largely been a success. But, as market realities in Norway and around the world show us, the organizational, political, environmental, legal, financial and economic rules of the road have changed.New rules must be written or the people and institutions involved will suffer accordingly. Norway's leaders have taken a bold decision on fossil fuels.More importantly, they have come to believe that they had no other choice.Source: IEEFA.Reproduced with permission. Some British diplomatic staff found Kate and Gerry McCann 'less than convincing' in the days after their daughter Madeleine mysteriously vanished, a former UK ambassador has claimed.Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002-2004, also alleged he had 'direct information' from government sources that the McCanns' accounts of the night Madeleine was reported missing appeared to be 'inconsistent'.Murray's explosive and forthright claims are detailed in the just-released episode four of Maddie, the Nine.com.aupodcast investigating the baffling case of Madeleine McCann. Maddiehas charted as number 1 podcast in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.The former ambassador, who at times has been an outspoken critic of UK foreign policy, wrote in a 2016 blog post that British diplomatic staff were under direct instruction to support the McCanns far beyond the usual, and to put pressure on the Portuguese authorities over the case.'I have direct information that more than one of those diplomatic staff found the McCanns less than convincing and their stories inconsistent. Embassy staff were perturbed to be ordered that British authorities were to be present at every contact between the McCanns and Portuguese police,' Murray wrote.Murray continued, adding the British ambassador to Portugal and his staff 'were concerned by contradictions in the McCann's story'.'The [Portuguese] Embassy warned, in writing, that being perceived as too close to the McCanns might not prove wise. They demanded the instruction from London be reconfirmed. It was.'In 2004 Murray was suspended and subsequently removed as ambassador to Uzbekistan for speaking out on torture and human rights in the then dictatorship.Within 24 hours of Madeleine being reported missing, a significant deployment of diplomatic staff were rushed to Praia da Luz to meet with the McCanns.In episode four of Maddie, Colin Sutton, a retired London homicide detective, said there had appeared to be 'interference' by British authorities in the Portuguese investigation.'The fact that the government and diplomats and civil servants got involved at all in such an early stage of the investigation in Portugal is remarkable and unusual,' Sutton said. 'And I don't think any of us is really sure why that would happen.''There's a theory that the government of the day saw it as an opportunity to do something that would capture the public imagination and it would make them look good, [that] it was a good thing for the politicians to get behind. In some ways I hope that the answer is that simple.'The latest episode of Maddiealso reviews the intensive searchconducted by two specialist dogs inside the McCann's apartmentand rental car.Since 2007, the McCanns have strenuously denied any involvement in the disappearance of their daughter. Nine.com.audoes not suggest any involvement on their part.Madeleine was reported missing on May 3, 2007 after Mr and Mrs McCann dined at a nearby tapas bar while their children slept alone in their holiday apartment.LISTEN TO LATEST EPISODES OFMADDIENOWMaps, graphics, stories and all episodes of Maddie here:nine.com.au/maddie After emerging from a second inquest in a week, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was asked if the bounce that so often accompanies a change of manager is now over.Has the bubble burst? Is the honeymoon period at an end? Has the feelgood factor that Solskjaer brought to Manchester Unitedmet its match in cold, hard reality?It's a fair question. The Norwegian has been widely praised for the transformation at United since he returned as caretaker manager, and rightly so.But after back-to-back defeats by Arsenal in the Premier Leagueand now Wolves in the FA Cup, United are outside the top four again and out of the FA Cup, their best chance of a trophy this season.Suddenly, a lot more rests on beating Barcelona to reach the Champions League semi-finals.Solskjaer said the pain of defeat by Arsenal would safeguard against a repeat at Wolves, but it made little difference to the result in what he admitted was United's poorest showing on his watch. It was, he accepted, a 'big step backwards'.The idea of a bounce is that players respond to a new manager and approach Solskjaer no longer has that in his favour. Perhaps the old problems he papered over are beginning to show through. Then again, United's resurgence since he took over more than three months ago has lasted long enough to suggest that it was never just a bounce.Either way, there is no doubt that he enjoys overwhelming support in the dressing room.'I want Ole to stay, he is a great manager,' said midfielder Nemanja Matic. 'I'm sure he'll turn this situation around and we will do better.'When you win 10 games, that means a lot, because it is not easy. I'm not making an excuse, but we lost to two good sides.'We have to give our best now to reach the top four. We have eight finals to play and cannot let it go on like this.'Meanwhile, forward Anthony Martial has withdrawn from the France squad for the upcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers due to a knee injury suffered in the defeat by Wolves.Centre back Victor Lindelof will miss Sweden duty for personal reasons. One Step Off The GridWestern Australia regional utility Horizon Power has tapped energy storage company Senec Australia to supply smart battery systems for its leading-edge microgrid project that aims to run the coastal Pilbara town of Onslow on at least 50 per cent renewables and likely up to 70 per cent.Senec, which is a full-owned subsidiary of one of Europe's largest energy supply companies EnBW Energie Baden-Wurttemberg, said on Monday that its Australian business had been selected as the exclusive provider of small-scale battery storage systems for the Horizon project.As we have reported on One Step, Horizon Power's Renewable Energy Pilot aims to integrate traditional energy sources with solar panel and battery storage systems to maximise the amount of renewable energy in its microgrid in Onslow.The plans for Onslow which is a launching base for the massive Wheatstone LNG project owned by Chevron will combine a new 5.25 MW gas-fired power plant, distributed and utility-scale solar, and battery storage, each element of which is being contributed to financially by Chevron.At the time of the project's launch in October 2016, then WA energy minister Mike Nahan said it would create 'a new era of energy competition and efficiency for households and businesses.'In June last year, when the gas-fired power station was nearing completion, Horizon revealed that it had awarded the contract for the solar farm to Complete Power Systems (CPS) National, to be built adjacent to the new gas power plant.Read the full story on RenewEconomy sister site, One Step Off The GridSophie VorrathSophie is editor of One Step Off The Gridand deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade. He has been cited by Rush Limbaugh, quoted in the New York Times, featured at Real Clear Politics and Lucianne.com and interviewed on radio, TV and in social media. For many years he served as a Lecturer in Corporate Communication at Penn State University. A former President of the Philadelphia Public Relations Association (PPRA) he has lectured at Rowan University, Temple University, The College of New Jersey and Arcadia University. He has conducted workshops on public relations for thousands of participants throughout the nation and has taught countless others the art of public speaking. He has also advised numerous lawyers, judges, public officials and political candidates. Cirucci is a prolific writer and his op-ed pieces have appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Courier-Post and other publications. A native of Camden NJ, Cirucci is a former President of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators. Cirucci served as Associate Executive Director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for nearly 30 years. He served as Chair of Penn State University's Professional Advisory Board for the Corporate Communication major at Penn State Abington and on the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Judicial Selection Commission. He received his MA degree from Rowan University and his BA from Villanova University. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rowan's public relations program and was inducted into the Philadelphia Public Relations Hall of Fame. He received the E. A. "Wally" Richter Leadership Award from the National Association of Bar Executives' Communications Section. The Award is the Section's highest honor. He has also been honored by numerous other local, state and national groups. Cirucci's passions include politics, the popular culture, books and authors, art, communication, music, theatre, movies, dining and travel. In his hometown of Camden, Cirucci taught fifth grade at the Ulysses Wiggins Elementary School named for the founder of the Camden NAACP. He later served as editor of a local weekly newspaper, as Assistant to the Township Manager of Cherry Hill Township and as Associate Director of Communications at the New Jersey State Bar Association. He's Dan Cirucci, the founder and editor-in chief of the Dan Cirucci Blog, Matt Rooney's sidekick on Save Jersey's weekly videocast and one of the most widely honored public relations professionals in his field. He's also been a public relations consultant to numerous organizations and individuals and hosted The Advocates on RVN-TV. Sri Lanka: Cold Storage facilities and ice manufacturing plants to be set up near fishery harbors March 18,2019 | Source: Colombo Page The State Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development, Dilip Wedaarachchi, said that necessary arrangements will be made to expedite the construction of cold storage facilities and ice manufacturing plants around the fishery harbors. State Minister Wedaarachchi recently held discussions with a Malaysian and Chinese delegation on providing cold storage and ice factory facilities. Accordingly, the first cold storage facility and ice factory will be built centering the Kalametiya fishery harbor in Hambantota district with Malaysian and Chinese funds. State Minister Wedaarachchi said that steps have been taken to develop Kalametiya Fishery Harbor as the first Smart Fishery Harbor in Sri Lanka. It is planned to generate solar power for the operation of the cold storage and ice factory manufacturing facilities At the meeting with the Malaysian and Chinese delegation, the Minister said that they will be able to provide a better service to the fisher community with the cooperation of the Ceylon Fishery Harbours Corporation and stressed that it is important to expedite providing the relevant facilities to the fishery community rather than spending time discussing the projects. The Minister stressed that by preparing the relevant plans promptly and providing the facilities to securely store their catch, a real value can be delivered to the fishermen's harvest. Bangladesh: 16 fishermen hijacked from the Bay of Bengal March 18,2019 | Source: Dhaka Tribune Pirates hijack 16 fishermen and four fishing boats from the Bay of Bengal near Barguna. President of Barguna district fishing trawler owners association, Golam Mustafa Chowdhury, confirmed the abduction of the fishermen and their boats from Jahajkhari, Bay of Bengal, on Friday night. He said the pirates came from the Sundarbans and abducted the fishermen along with four boats. The robbers looted the fish, fuel, and fishing nets from the trawlers, and abducted the fishermen. He confirmed the names of five of the 16 fishermen abducted from the area. They are Abdur Rahim Majhi, Faruque, Bellal, Kudi Mian, and Zaker Majhi. The pirates are demanding Tk 16 lakh in ransom to free the 16 fishermen. The District Fishing Trawlers Owners Association informed the Coast Guard, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-7, and police, of the matter. RAB-7 Company Commander, Major Mehedi, said they were trying to rescue the abducted fishermen. Pakistan: Fisherwomen march against environmental impacts of coal power plants March 18,2019 | Source: Daily Times Hundreds of women, children from fishermen community of Karachi on Sunday thronged into the streets, marched against the environmental impacts of coal power plants. They marched from Arts Council of Pakistan to Karachi Press Club. Carry placards and banners against negative impacts of coal on environment, ecology and communities, while women chanted slogans and demand government to immediately shut the coal based power plants in order to save environment. At Karachi Press Club, addressing the rally, renowned river activist and Chairman, Pakistan FisherFolk Forum (PFF) Muhammad Ali Shah underlined the need to take measures to reduce the impact of the coal on the environment and focus on the communities health living in the vicinity. He started his speech with bold highlighted words, A full stop to all Public finance to coal related projects. In December 2018, Pakistan FisherFolk Forum (PFF), a civil society group which is working for the empowerment of fishermen has announced to form Anti-Coal Alliance, and also march on foot to highlight the issue at international level. Shah further added the push for coal is the betrayal of the commitment and obligation of governments under the United Nations to address climate change and shift to the sustainable energy systems. Rally took place from the Art council to Press club, holding different slogans to protect the environment and the community health. There were more than 1,000 communities from the coastal belt- Kemari, port Qasim- who raised their voices against the degradation of the environment and community health and coal ,fueling climate change, and exacerbating bating its impacts. He added that transportation, lifting, and dumping of coal in the absence of any safety measures had badly affected the area, particularly nearby areas. A full stop to all Public finance to coal related projects demanded Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum He said that coal consumption is increasing by the industries and that it is being imported in huge quantity at different places i.e. Port Qasim, Karachi port trust and Hubco. Unsafe coal transportation from these areas has been affecting communities health and ruin their livelihood. The affected community of coal expressed serious concern over degradation of environment and livelihood of local people and demanded the government to protect rights of local population. They underlined the need to adopt alternative energy sources like wind and solar instead of coal. PFF chairman briefed the rally participants about threats of coal power plants on environment and biodiversity. Sindh is more prone to climate change due to its geographical location as compared to other provinces. These power plants will destroy the marine ecology and will be very much harmful for the fishing communities of areas. He said burning coal is the largest single source of carbon dioxide emission in the world. Coal transportation has affected lives of people living in the surroundings of the port and nearby areas. He said that coal is responsible for over 800,000 early deaths every year globally and many more millions population suffer serious and minor illnesses. Around 670,000 people die prematurely per year in the China as a result of coal related air pollution; he said adding that in the US, coal kills around 13,000 people annually. He also briefed the devastating impacts of coal mining on the environment and heath of local communities. Transportation of the coal in the different cities of the county from ports is affecting the communities living in the surrounding areas by the coal dust. Transportation, lifting and dumping of coal in the absence of any measures had badly affected the areas and whole area of port Bin Qasim which remains covered in a blanket of coal dust. He mentioned that mining and burning coal harm human health both directly and indirectly. Thousands of people die in the mining accidents each year. Digging up coal often involves the displacement of communities of the Thar, with little or no compensation. In coal mining, terrible working conditions are rife. Accidents are common place. Coal extraction has huge impacts on the environment in open-pit mining. Coal extraction in Thar is done through open pit mining. Open-cast mining destroys the landscape of both pit and surrounding areas. He said, coal combustion spews out a toxic brew of large quantities of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and other polluting matter. Below ground, in some abandoned mines, coal burns in the oxygen-filled seams giving off CO2, methane, mercury and at least 40 toxic compounds that can escape through the soil and /or underground aquifers. Lastly, the chairperson PFF demanded that there is a need to mobilize public finance for renewable and clean energy system for people especially the marginalized communities and to stop excessive energy consumption by corporations. What do the states of Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and District of Columbia have in common? The all have abolished the death penalty. What do the states of Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania have in common? In each, governors have imposed moratoriums on executions by using executive powers. Last week, California joined the second group when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to impose a moratorium on capital punishment. The order gives a reprieve at least temporarily to all 737 condemned inmates on the nations largest death row. Of that number, 24 condemned inmates have exhausted their appeals, including Michael Morales, 59. He was convicted in 1983 in San Joaquin County of the rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell. He came within 2 hours of execution 13 years ago. Clearly, there are those whose crimes are so horrific, so savage they defy comprehension. In such cases the perpetrators continued existence offends. But do we want a justice system for retribution or as a means, flawed as it sometimes is, to bend behavior? In a society with a goal of moral behavior, there is only one answer. To be sure Californians, as many Americans, remain divided over the death penalty issue. Twice since 2012 state voters have rejected attempts to end capital punishment. As a practical matter, killers who are killed dont kill again. As a practical matter, killers who are imprisoned for life only rarely kill again and then only inside the prison environment. Of course, as a practical matter there is virtually no evidence to support the notion that capital punishment deters crime. To be sure, the political, social and emotional debate over the death penalty rarely comes down to practicality. If it did, the punishment would have been banned years ago. Since 1978, the state has executed 13 men. Those executions cost taxpayers a total of at least $4 billion. Spending that kind of money for that kind of result hardly is practical. There also is the issue of justice delayed, not just for the accused but also for the victims survivors. Of the states 24 condemned inmates who have exhausted their appeals, the shortest time any has been on death row the shortest is 27 years. One man, Harvey Heishman, a rapist convicted of the 1979 murder of an Oakland woman who was about to testify that he had sexually assaulted her, has been there almost 38 years. The fact of the matter is, a California death row inmate is more likely to die of natural causes or from suicide than by lethal injection. And what about the survivors? Justice for them? Do executions really bring the closure we so often use as a rationale? Does the death of the killer ease the pain of the victims survivors? Does eye-for-an-eye justice simply blind the rest of us? Newsoms order hits the pause button. It gives us a chance to consider again if we want to remain with 22 other states and more than 100 nations, including Russia, that have abolished the death penalty or continue down the dysfunctional path weve followed for decades. I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as its government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people, Newsom said in issuing his executive order. In short, the death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian. Newsoms order notes that those most often sent to death row are people of color, are poor, are those with intellectual disabilities and those who suffered series childhood traumas. The penalty costs too much to carry out. And that there is always the no-going-back possibility of executing an innocent person (164 times since 1973 including five times in California condemned prisoners have been found to have been wrongfully convicted). We cannot simply dismiss such facts. Newsoms order is not a get-out-of-jail card. Locking a killer up for life without the possibility of parole can and in select cases should mean just that. Mass murderers Charles Manson and Juan Corona, both of whom died in the past five months after decades of incarceration, did not have a single moment of freedom after being arrested. The fight over the death penalty does not end with Newsoms order. County prosecutors still can pursue capital punishment. Juries still can convict those charged and recommend execution. Judges still can order death. But Newsoms order hits the pause button. It gives us a chance to consider again if we want to remain with 22 other states and more than 100 nations, including Russia, that have abolished the death penalty or continue down the dysfunctional path weve followed for decades. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Iran Human Rights (IHR); March 17, 2019: A prisoner was hanged at Tabriz prison for a murder charge last Tuesday. According to IHR sources, a prisoner was hanged at Tabriz Central Prison on the morning of Tuesday, March 12. IHR could identify the prisoner as Eslam Farsi, 42. Kurdistan Human Rights Network website has also reported that the prisoner was arrested and sentenced to death 15 years ago for murdering his wife. The aforementioned execution has not been reported by Iranian media so far. According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, the majority of executions in 2017 and 2018 in Iran was for murder charges. At least 188 prisoners were executed for murder charges in 2018. Only 33% of executions were announced by Iranian authorities in 2018. There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Iraq sentenced a Belgian man to death by hanging on Monday for being part of ISIS extremist group, one of dozens of foreign nationals facing the death penalty in Iraq. Bilal al-Marchohi, 23, was given the death penalty for conducting operations on behalf of the group. During an hour of proceedings at Iraqs Central Criminal Court, the judge read out portions of Marchohis signed confession and showed a video and photographs that he said proved his membership in the group. The images from a phone found in his possession at the time of arrest showed Marchohi carrying a gun and making a hand gesture affiliated with the militants. Several pictures showed him cradling his infant son. Marchohi repeatedly denied all allegations against him in open court, including that he was a member of ISIS in Iraq at any time. I shouldnt be prosecuted in Iraq, Marchohi said. I should be prosecuted in Belgium, I am a Belgian citizen. During the proceedings, Judge Jumaa Saidi told the court that the photographs were clear evidence that Marchohi was a member of ISIS. A translator was appointed by the judge for Marchohi, who spoke in English throughout the trial. He was also given a court appointed lawyer with whom he had no contact at all throughout the trial. Belgian consular representatives attended the proceedings on Monday. The Belgian foreign ministry in Brussels said it was not immediately able to comment. Marchohi is the second of two Belgians held in Iraq known to have been sentenced to death for a role in ISIS. Tarek Jadaoun, 30, also known as Abu Hamza al-Beljiki, was sentenced to death in May 2018. A senior member of ISIS, Jadaoun featured prominently in the groups propaganda videos which threatened attacks on European soil. ISIS captured a third of Iraq in 2014 but was largely defeated both there and in neighboring Syria last year. A battle is ongoing to dislodge the militants from their final populated enclave in Syria near the Iraqi border. RELATED | Iraq says it will prosecute 13 French ISIS militants captured in Syria Iraq is conducting the trials of hundreds of suspected members of ISIS, many of whom were arrested as the groups strongholds crumbled throughout Iraq. Human rights groups have accused Iraqi and other regional forces of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials leading to unfair convictions. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Another case of a questionable arrest, forced confession and death penalty sentence in the world of Saudi justice. According to Amnesty International, there were some 993 executions in 23 countries in 2017, with the greatest number of executions taking place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, in that respective order. The figures for 2018 have yet to be published, but countries that maintain the death penalty are now in the minority. At present, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is under considerable international pressure with regard to its poor human rights record, particularly in cases related to those who speak up against the country, such as activists and journalists. In 2019 alone, there have been a reported 23 executions, with 150 executed in 2018. In 2017 that number was 146. 45 people are believed to be on death row in the kingdom since the end of 2017. A familiar tale On May 18, 2014, Jordanian national Hussein Abulkheir was arrested upon returning to his month-old job as a driver in Saudi Arabia. Speaking to RFI from Geneva, his sister Zeinab recounted his story as she tries to find a way to get her brother acquitted. She says her brother was arrested after returning from a visit to his hometown Aqaba, Jordan where his wife and eight children live. He had just begun working in the Saudi city of Tabuk, after finding it hard to make ends meet running his own tyre repair shop in Aqaba. After a month of work in Tabuk, he returned home for a visit. But when crossing the border, he was asked to step out of the car in which he was traveling, and the vehicle was then searched. Drugs were then allegedly found in his car specifically Captagon*, which contains an amphetamine-like stimulant known as Fenethylline - and he was immediately arrested. Over the following 12 days, Abulkheir was allegedly tortured and then forced into signing a confession. Eight months later, without access to a lawyer, he was tried in court and found guilty of smuggling drugs and sentenced to death by beheading. Abulkheir appealed this sentence and another trial was held, again with no access to a lawyer. He was once again sentenced to death by the sword. Eye-for-an-eye punishment The charge of smuggling drugs into the kingdom is a crime that is not necessarily met by death; that is at the discretion of each judge. The penal code in Saudi Arabia is based on the Islamic law principle of qisas, or tit-for-tat retributive punishment. For example, murdering someone is a crime met by the same sentence, death. But in the case of drug smuggling, there is no exact equivalency, thus a judge is free to decide on the best sentence, as he sees fits. The judge may also rely on a 1987 fatwa (a non-binding legal ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority) declared by the kingdoms Council of Senior Religious Scholars that suggests death for any drug smuggler. According to Human Rights Watch, between 2014 to 2018 the kingdom has executed over 200 people in drug-related cases. International standards The League of Arab states put forward The Arab Charter on Human Rights that was adopted in Cairo on September 15, 1994. The charter lays out certain regulations and practices pertaining to humanitarian values. Such articles include the use of the death penalty, as stated in Part II, Article 10 Saudi Arabia ratified the charter in 1994, yet since cases of drug smuggling are still being met with capital punishment, one can assume that drug smuggling is regarded as a most serious of crimes that warrants death. Pressure to abandon capital punishment? Saudi Arabia has faced numerous calls from across the globe to end the death penalty, or at least adopt a moratorium on executions says Human Rights Watch. But, despite the veneer of reforms introduced by the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Adbulaziz Al Saud, or MBS as hes often referred to, 2018 alone saw a rise in the number of cases being referred to the death penalty. These included cases against dissidents, that did not include accusations of violence. A Mecca for Captagon According to the European Union Institute for Security Studies, there have been reports about Captagons proliferation in the Middle Eastern markets, especially in Saudi Arabia. Another article in the online journal Raseef22 notes that Saudi Arabia is considered the largest market for importing Captagonand considered one of the toughest challenges for Saudi Arabian authorities. In the black market, a tablet can retail at 12 US dollars. A seizure can be worth nearly 294 million US dollars according to 2015 prices, reports EUISS. The counter-narcotics strategy is run by the Saudi Interior Ministry and is considered more of an imported security threat rather than a domestic social problem states EUISS. In a way, the war against Captagon is similar to the American war on drugs. Given the opaque legal proceedings against those allegedly charged in connection with Captagon, such as in the case of Abulkheir, it wouldnt be surprising if a few people were being used as an example to show authorities and locals that the counter-narcotics strategy is in fact working; even if those very people had nothing to do with the drug. * Captagon is a psychostimulant which is made of a combination of amphetamine and theophylline. It is just one brand name of a group of drugs known as Fenethylline. The drug came into the mainstream in 1961, and was used for around 25 years as a milder alternative to amphetamines. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) is disappointed by the governments decision to abolish the mandatory death penalty only rather than a total abolition of the death penalty across all laws as originally announced following a cabinet meeting in October and during the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva last year. Although a good first step, a discretionary death penalty is still a barrier in the upholding of human dignity and the right to life. Suhakam is of the view that the death penalty is not an effective nor even the best crime prevention mechanism within the system of justice. There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than a prison term. Furthermore, no justice system throughout the world is fool-proof. There always remains the possibility that an innocent person is on death row due to any number of reasons, which range from an inadequate defence to a misapplication of forensic science. The Innocence Project in the US has exonerated 364 death row inmates alone through DNA evidence over 25 years. How many people in Malaysia would be freed from death row if something similar were applied here? Capital punishment is irreversible. Once someone has been executed, there exists no way to remedy their death in the event of a miscarriage of justice. As of October 2018, 1,279 people were on death row in Malaysia, about three percent of the prison population of about 60,000 people. The majority of death row inmates are incarcerated on drugs offences. Thirty-five executions took place from 2007 to 2017. Advocacy group Harm Reduction International lists Malaysia among six countries with a "high" rate of applying the death penalty in drugs cases, the others being China, Iran, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. However, according to a United Nations resolution of the Economic and Security Council in 1984, capital punishment may be imposed for only the most serious crimes, which excludes drugs offences. Today, 106 countries have abolished the death penalty in recognition that it is cruel and inhumane, and that it does not rehabilitate criminals nor address root causes within society which may lead to the enactment of serious crimes. Suhakam would like to reiterate its position that the death penalty has no place in a modern legal system as it violates the right to life which happens to be the most basic of all human rights for all. Malaysia is a country that respects the sanctity of life and the right to life is guaranteed in the Federal Constitution. We, therefore, urge the government to take concurrent steps towards total abolition of the death penalty and move towards ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT). More engagement is also required by the government and relevant stakeholders with civil society in order to address key areas of opposition to the abolishment of the death penalty and other punishments deemed to be cruel and unusual in order to uphold international human rights standards. Source: malaysiakini.com, Letter to the Editor; Razali Ismail, March 17, 2919. The author is chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam). DAP can't have human rights and death penalty, says lawyer Lawyer Latheekfa Koya today lashed out at DAP several leaders for caving in to calls to retain the death penalty. Latheefa took DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng to task for issuing a statement today on his party's commitment to human rights, despite supporting the death penalty. "Words are cheap! Human rights? Isn't it true that key DAP leaders did not support abolition of death penalty the ultimate denial of human rights? "As a result, the government did a U-turn on abolishing it after promising to do so in Oct 2018," the lawyer said on Twitter. Latheefa also criticised Kepang assemblyperson Dr Ko Chung Sen for refuting claims that DAP walked back its opposition to capital punishment. "Not surprised by this obscure DAP Adun's fanatical support for hanging people. I understand that DAP stalwarts/top leaders did not support abolition, leading to the U-turn by the government. "They were worried about backlash from Chinese voters, who some claim support the death penalty," she tweeted. Ko argued yesterday that Pakatan Harapan did not renege on its pledge to abolish capital punishment because it was never listed in its election manifesto, which only promised to abolish the mandatory death penalty. Legislative changes affecting 11 laws are expected to be passed by Parliament soon. According to Latheefa, however, DAP should make their stand clear and not "hide" behind cabinet decisions. "If DAP argues hanging people is a deterrent punishment then they have no moral standing to object to PAS' hudud bill, because PAS relies on the same justification!" she wrote. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde malaysiakini.com, March 17, 2019 Attorneys for condemned killer Keith Tharpe are trying to halt his Sept. 26 execution with arguments that a juror on the case was racist and voted for death because Tharpe was African-American. (CNN) The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up the case of Georgia death row inmate Keith Tharpe, who claims a juror voted to put him to death because of his race. At issue is an affidavit from an interview conducted seven years after Tharpe's sentencing. Juror Barney Gattie used a racial slur in reference to African-Americans. He also questioned whether "black people even have souls." The court had heard this case back in 2018, and revived Tharpe's case over the dissents of Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch. Now the state of Georgia is free to set an execution date. Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the court not to take up the case, but she wrote separately to say that she was "profoundly troubled by the underlying facts of the case." "It may be tempting to dismiss Tharpe's case as an outlier, but racial bias is a familiar and recurring evil," Sotomayor wrote. "That evil often presents itself far more subtly than it has here. Yet Gattie's sentimentsand the fact that they went unexposed for so long, evading review on the meritsamount to an arrest demonstration that racism can and does seep into the jury system." When the court first heard the case in 2018, it said that Tharpe's legal team had produced a "remarkable" affidavit from a juror, written after the conviction, that presented a "strong factual basis" for the argument that Tharpe's race had affected the juror's vote. The majority then cautioned, however, that Tharpe faced "a high bar in showing that jurists of reason could disagree" with the state court's opinion. Upon further review, the lower court again ruled against Tharpe, finding he had not met the procedural burdens necessary to reopen his case. The court also held that a 2017 Supreme Court opinion that said the secrecy of jury deliberations can be pierced when there is evidence that a juror relied on racial animus did not apply retroactively to Tharpe's case. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde What I learned is that people with a history of homelessness need a sense of community but also autonomy. Thats why The Beloved Community Village is successful. People living there stay in individual tiny homes (bedrooms) but share common facilities such as restrooms, showers, and community space. They also self-govern. It gives them a sense of dignity and independence. However the village is subject to special permits, the structures have no permanent foundations, and residents have to go outside to use shared facilities. So what if we used building forms that are already allowed in the zoning code to accommodate this type of group living arrangement? We could accommodate 1114 individuals in a permanent structure. We could allow them to integrate into communities. They could live near transit, services, jobs, schools, and parks. From the outside, the structures would blend with the traditional residential architecture of Denver neighborhoods. While this solution seems simple and logical, Rooming and Boarding Houses are not allowed in the Single Unit, Two Unit, or Row House zones in Denvers zoning code, nor is the Student Housing use. The Shelter for the Homeless use is subject to limitations including (among others) a public hearing and committee oversight. All uses are subject to parking requirements. And so students, low-income folks, and people who are trying to move out of homelessness are not allowed to share structures that are already permitted in Denvers zoning code. Because our residential neighborhoods are predominantly zoned SU (Single Unit), Denver effectively regulates against these populations and prevents them from participating in the benefits of neighborhood living. The group living code is a major barrier to non-traditional and more community-based ways of living that often better accommodate people who have gone through the traumatic, alienating experience of homelessness, said Nathan Hunt of Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. Weve seen this with tiny homes, SROs, the Catholic Worker house, and other creative ways to create affordability with community. The same is true of parking minimums imposed on communities that typically dont have vehicles and disproportionately use transit. We need cities for peoplein all the shapes and sizes and lifestyle preferences people come in. Its time to adapt the code to facilitate housing for all, and we can do that in ways that still keep the character of the city and neighborhoods we love. Featured image at top: The Beloved Community Village, courtesy of Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. Does that sound like a fascist takeover to you? Meet Andrew McDaniel, a far right Republican extremist who looks like a supporting actor in a monster movie but who actually represents Missouri's 150th House district. That's mostly Dunklin County, down in that little piece of the state (the "bootheel") hanging off the southeast tip between Arkansas and Tennessee. The closest thing to a city is Kennett, population between 10 and 11 thousand. It's one of the most Trumpified counties in the state. He beat Hillary there 8,026 (76%) to 2,360 (22%). And it's part of the most backward congressional district in the state, Jason Smith's 8th district. Last year Smith was reelected with 73.4%, easily the biggest win for any of the state's 6 Republican congressmembers. Dunklin County is one of the smallest of the district's 27 counties-- and one of the reddest-- R+52. State Rep. McDaniel was reelected last November against Democrat Josh Rittenberry, 6,525 (75.4%) to 2,132 (24.6%). You get the picture: politically, hell on earth. Imagine having to live there-- and it gets worse. I'm certain it won't shock you to know that Rep. McDaniels is a freaking gun lunatic. He thought the best way to draw attention to his legislation to give huge tax breaks to anyone who buys some guns-- especially a nice man-killing assault weapon-- would be to overreach a little in the verbiage. So he wrote 2 bills that, on their face, would force every male between the ages of 18 and 35 to buy both a handgun and an AR-15. These are the two bills: HB 1108: The McDaniel Militia Act, which requires every person between 18 and 35 years of age who can legally possess a firearm to own an AR-15 and authorizes a tax credit for a purchase of an AR-15. HB 1052: the McDaniel Second Amendment Act, which requires every person 21 years of age or older who can legally possess a firearm to own a handgun and authorizes a tax credit for a purchase of a handgun. McDaniel, who seems to be missing a couple of screws, says he wrote the bills with the intention of compromising and letting the mandates be dropped in order to pass the tax credits, which is what his pals at the NRA are actually looking for. He hoped that the extreme nature of the bills would inspire press coverage. "I merely planned for media to write about it," he wrote in an e-mail to Splinter , "but would ultimately amend it to take out the mandates and requirements (age and type of gun) and turn it into a gun tax credit bill." Children wait with their parents at the National Institute of Malaria, Parasite and Entomology in Hanoi for tapeworm tests on March 17, 2019. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy Test results show 209 children from Thanh Khuong Commune in the northern province of Bac Ninh are infected with tapeworms. As of Sunday morning, the flow of anxious parents bringing their children for tapeworm testing to Hanoi from the nearby Bac Ninh had not stopped. The National Hospital of Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology (NIMPE) have continued to receive hundreds of children every day for several days now. Vu Minh Dien, an official with the quality control department of the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases, said about 100 children got tested this morning, bringing the total number of children brought to the facility over the past few days to more than 800. As of Sunday, the institute had confirmed 102 tapeworm infections, but this number is expected to rise, with many test results still awaited. At NIMPE, nearly 900 children had been tested as of Saturday and 107 children found positive for tapeworms. To Mai Hoa, director of the Bac Ninh Health Department, said the province will coordinate with concerned agencies to test and support the cost of testing for students of 19 preschools in the area. The cost ranges from VND700,000-1,000,000 ($30.25-43.21). The Bac Ninh health sector will also organize onsite testing for children in some preschools suspected of carrying the infection. Thousands of parents have rushed to Hanoi with their kids since last week after news broke out that 57 children of the Thanh Khuong Kindergarten in Bac Ninh had been found with tapeworm infections. Late last month, pork suspected to be infected with the parasite was found in the schools kitchen, but the actual source of the tapeworms has not been confirmed yet. Pork tapeworms, or Taenia solium, are distributed globally. The parasite infects humans through the consumption of contaminated food. Upon infection, tapeworms can travel to different organs, including muscles, eyes and brain. Symptoms include seizure, paralysis, headaches and memory loss if the parasite does migrate to the brain, or blindness if it gets to the eyes. It takes a day to kill mature tapeworms and two weeks to destroy all eggs inside a human body. A child cries while having his blood sample taken to test for tapeworm infections in Bac Ninh. Photo by VnExpress/Tat Dinh The Prime Minister has tasked the Ministry of Public Security to probe the tapeworm outbreak in Bac Ninh province. The Government Office Monday released a prime ministerial statement that also asks the Health Ministry to send delegates to Bac Ninh and other provinces affected by the outbreak to carry out preventative measures, instruct the people on good hygiene and food safety practices, and ensure medical institutions prepare necessary resources to treat incoming patients. The Ministry of Education has been asked to instruct schools to strictly follow food safety guidelines and to encourage students and parents to practice good hygiene. Provincial peoples committees must also educate people on the tapeworm outbreak and to practice good hygiene and food safety, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc says. Since last week, thousands of parents have rushed to Hanoi with their kids after news broke out that 57 children of the Thanh Khuong Kindergarten in Thuan Thanh District, the northern province of Bac Ninh have been found with tapeworm infections. As of Sunday, about 1,700 students in Thuan Thanh had been sent to multiple Hanoi health institutions for tapeworm check-ups, and at least 209 were found to be infected with the parasite. Late last month, pork suspected to be infected with the parasite was found in the schools kitchen, but the actual source of the tapeworms has not been confirmed yet. However, the Huong Thanh Financial Ltd. Co. has been identified as the food supplier to the kindergarten, as well as almost all kindergartens and primary schools in Thuan Thanh. About 9,500 students from 19 kindergartens and 2 primary schools in the province have consumed food supplied by the company, an investigation has found. Pork tapeworms, or Taenia solium, are distributed globally. The parasite infects humans through the consumption of contaminated food. Upon infection, tapeworms can travel to different organs, including muscles, eyes and brain. Symptoms include seizure, paralysis, headaches and memory loss if the parasite does migrate to the brain, or blindness if it gets to the eyes. It takes a day to kill mature tapeworms and two weeks to destroy all eggs inside a human body. Stop being uncouth, its not who we are: Deputy PM A Saigon street is littered with trash after a firework show for the Lunar New Year, February 16, 2018. Photo by VnExpress Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam has called on Vietnamese public to stop littering, line cutting and other uncultured behaviors. Speaking at a Hanoi conference Saturday, Dam deplored the impolite behavior of many Vietnamese people, including littering, line-cutting, tardiness and talking loudly in public. "One can be complimented on their wealth or beauty, but that's not as good as being complimented on one's education. And a compliment on one's education is not as good as a compliment on one's civility. "While it is commendable that a community possesses wealth and modern technologies, being seen as civilized is something to be much proud of," he said. While uncivilized behavior is on the rise in current society, it is not the true nature of Vietnamese people, he added. The transitional period to a market economy has made people neglect cultural values, and this is not unique to Vietnam, but a common characteristic among many nations, he said. If one can learn to be more orderly and respectful to other people in public, for example, not cutting lines, people would also behave better in traffic and society, Dam said. The press should raise awareness of this issue by publishing more articles and columns on public etiquette and the differences between civilized and uncivilized behaviors, he said. "Only then can the countrys development be sustained and its people be deserving of the legacies left behind by our ancestors." Vietnam has gained some notoriety in recent years for disorderly behavior in public, especially during big events like festivals and victory celebrations for sporting, as well as poor traffic etiquette like honking or jumping the red lights. Luu Van Vinh (L, 2nd) and other defendants stand trial in Ho Chi Minh City in October last year. Photo by VnExpress/Lan Ngoc A HCMC appeals court Monday upheld jail terms for five people found guilty of trying to "overthrow the peoples administration." Luu Van Vinh, 52, identified as the group leader, had been sentenced to 15 years in jail at the trial of first instance last October, and four accomplices were given jail terms of eight to 13 years each. They appealed their sentences. The Monday court, however, rejected their appeal and upheld the original ruling, saying that the defendants' actions were extremely serious, violating national security and attempting to undermine the existence and strength of the peoples administration and the State of Vietnam. These actions merited strict punishment, the court held. After serving their prison sentences, the defendants would be placed under house arrest for another three years, the court ruled. According to the indictment, Vinh and his accomplices worked together to establish an organization called the "National Alliance of Vietnam." The organization criticized and distorted the policies of Vietnams Communist Party in an attempt to overthrow the administration. The defendants were arrested in November 2016 after police caught them distributing documents promoting the organization at a church in Ho Chi Minh Citys Tan Binh District. Investigators subsequently identified Vinh as the groups mastermind, responsible for setting goals and policies for the "National Alliance of Vietnam" as well as recruiting members for the illegal organization. Other defendants, meanwhile, were found guilty of serving as his advisors in expanding and financing the organization, encouraging and strengthening its new members' belief and making preparations for the organization to establish its own army. Under Vietnam's Penal Code, "carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people's administration" is a crime punishable by 12-20 years in prison, life imprisonment or the death sentence for organizers, instigators and active participants, while accomplices could face 5-15 years in prison. Last year, the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court sentenced Nguyen James Han, a 49-year-old man with dual American-Vietnamese citizenship, and Phan Angel, a 62-year-old American national of Vietnamese origin, to 14 years in prison followed by immediate deportation for attempting to "overthrow the peoples administration." People queue up to cast their ballot during early voting in Bangkok on Sunday. Photo by AFP Hundreds of thousands of voters crowded into schools, parking lots and temples across Thailand on Sunday. Many were eager to cast an early ballot a week before the country's first election in eight years. Advanced voting is usually a tepid affair, but on Sunday excitement was high as voters turned up in droves to polling stations. More than 2.3 million Thais are expected to vote before the official March 24 poll date. Since a 2014 coup ousted then-premier Yingluck Shinawatra, the junta has repeatedly postponed democratic elections -- much to the chagrin of the Thai public. "I finally have a chance to cast my vote as I've waited for so long," said 48-year-old Paka Kaengkhiew as she stood in line in front of Bangkok's Phra Khanong district office. In Dusit district -- home to military offices and government buildings -- voters piled into a school yard before a polling station there opened. People dressed in their work clothes -- military uniforms, hospital scrubs and more casual attire -- waited patiently to cast their ballot, aided by student helpers. At 9.00 am Prem Tinsulanonda, the head of the Privy Council -- the advisory board to Thai King Maha Vajialongkon -- arrived at the school. Watched by Thai and international media, the 98-year-old carrying an oxygen tank was pushed in a wheelchair into a classroom boasting a portrait of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who he advised, before walking the final steps to a polling booth. The former general was briefly installed as the temporary regent for Thailand's revered monarchy following the death of the late king before King Vajiralongkorn took over, cementing Prem's role as one of the most powerful -- and enduring -- players in the Machiavellian game of Thai politics. More than 51 million Thais are eligible to vote in the official March 24 election, which will be held under a new military-scripted constitution. There are "high expectations" for this year's election, said Sudarat Keyuraphan, a prime ministerial candidate for Pheu Thai -- the party which garnered the most parliamentary seats in 2011's election, and is loathed by the military. "The (junta) says the country is under peace and order but... the people have no hope," she told reporters at the Pheu Thai headquarters. "We are confident... we will be the party that voters go for the most." Analysts say the new electoral system favours the army-aligned party fronted by junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who is running to be civilian prime minister after a government is formed. But voters on Sunday still held on to hopes for change. "I vote today in the hope for better change," said Mart Bupa, 53. Some 9 bcm of natural gas stored in Ukraine's underground facilities The underground gas storage facilities are now filled by 29.3%. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine's finance minister: All benchmarks of cooperation program with IMF fulfilled The implementation of a number of the conditions of the Memorandum and Ukraine' obligations to the EU depends on the Verkhovna Rada. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going. On Thursday, March 14, 2019 key officials from the U.S., Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, including Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, Minister of Energy Kadri Simson of Estonia, State Secretary Eriks Egilitis of Latvia, and Minister of Energy Zygimantas Vaiciunas of Lithuania, met on the sidelines of the 1st Ministerial of the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) in Houston, Texas. The Ministers discussed a wide array of expanded energy cooperation between the three Baltic States and the United States, including efforts in pursuit of desynchronization and the ultimate synchronization with the European network, cybersecurity collaboration, renewable energy deployment and best practices, and the creation of a uniform natural gas market within the region. The Ministers agreed on the importance of close cooperation under the umbrella of P-TEC in the form of a 3+1 Forum. This Forum of cooperation will provide an opportunity to test innovative ideas related to energy markets that could present unique opportunities for the broader European energy network, particularly in the area of natural gas and LNG. The U.S., Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have witnessed an increase in opportunities for increased economic interconnections within the past decade, especially in energy, and the Ministers seek to promote and augment such examples of transatlantic cooperation. In an effort to promote all of these shared objectives the Ministers have agreed to meet at the soonest possible availability in 2019. Egypt now becomes the 15th country collaborating bilaterally with the Danish Energy Agency. The collaboration will focus on securing more renewable energy in the Egyptian energy system, and will help Egypt achieving its goal of increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity consumption from 9% to 43% by 2035. With a population of approx. 100 million people and an annual population growth of 2.5 percent, focus on energy is crucial to ensure security of supply and development in Egypt. The country's goal is to increase the share of renewable energy in the electricity sector to 43% in 2035 from the current 9%. Egypt aims also at mitigating its climate pressure by reducing the use of fossil fuels in electricity production to 49% by 2030. Today, more than 90% of Egyptian electricity production is based on fossil fuels. The objective for the new energy program with Egypt, financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is to promote cooperation between the governments and authorities of the two countries by making relevant Danish experience available in an Egyptian context. It takes place over three years and in close cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Embassy in Cairo. The Danish partnership programs are based on actual demand from the partner country. The starting point is a close peer to peer cooperation between authorities, which has the opportunity to strengthen the framework conditions for a green transition. "The Danish Energy Agency has great expectations that the cooperation with the Egyptian authorities will increase the demand for Danish energy knowledge and technology - also for the benefit of Danish companies", says Deputy Director General of the Danish Energy Agency, Martin Hansen. The Danish Energy Agency will provide technical assistance in accordance with a joint work program, which will be agreed with local partners, supported by an active involvement of the Danish embassy. In connection with the collaboration, an adviser will be posted at the Danish Embassy in Cairo to provide technical assistance in selected areas. "From the Danish side, we are keen to strengthen and expand our long-term cooperation with Egypt and build on previous experiences with close contact in the energy field. Strengthened government cooperation on energy and placing an adviser at the embassy in Cairo is a win-win for both countries, as it matches Danish core competencies and Egyptian development priorities," says Denmark's ambassador in Cairo, Tomas Anker Christensen Read more about the DEA's country cooperation at the DEA's website. Facts: The Danish Energy Agency's Center for Global Counseling supports a number of emerging countries with their green transition of the energy sector. Denmark has - with 40 years of experience and ambitious political goals for renewable energy - much to offer. In 2017, more than 43% of Danish electricity consumption was based on wind, while security of supply remains among the most reliable in the world. The Danish Energy Agency already operates in partnership with energy regulators in 14 countries in close cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The purpose is to meet global demand for sustainable solutions in emerging markets, which also promotes private sector investment opportunities. The DEA has partnerships with South Korea, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, India, Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, Mexico, USA, UK, Germany and the Netherlands. Read more on the DEA's website. The cooperation with Egypt runs from 2019 to 2022 and is financed through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Contact: Special Advisor, Steffen Nielsen, 33 92 66 96, srn@ens.dk Advisor, Niels Bisgaard Pedersen, 23 39 36 66, nbp@ens.dk Alabama Power, the Alabama Power Foundation and the Alabama Power Service Organization (APSO) remain committed to helping restore normalcy to Lee County and supporting the victims of the March 3 tornadoes. Company efforts began shortly after the storm hit, when crews throughout the state supported restoration efforts. Within 36 hours, all 26,000 customers affected by storms and who could take service had their power restored. Once initial restoration and rescue work was completed, the Alabama Power Foundation and APSO volunteers joined other organizations and businesses to support community needs. "We have mobilized our resources - through both the Alabama Power Foundation and our employee-led volunteer organization APSO - to serve Lee County and the surrounding communities," said Myla Calhoun, vice president of Alabama Power Charitable Giving and president of the Alabama Power Foundation. "These activities are core to our mission of supporting the communities we are honored to serve." The Alabama Power Foundation provided two $20,000 donations to disaster relief funds at the United Way of Lee County and the East Alabama Community Foundation. Funds will be used to support local recovery efforts. Other volunteer efforts include: APCO Employees Credit Union disaster relief account: The Alabama Power Employees Credit Union has activated a disaster relief account to raise donations through Friday, March 15. The credit union will work with the Red Cross to purchase needed supplies with donated funds. Red Cross stations: APSO volunteers are coordinating with the Red Cross and Providence Baptist Church in Opelika to assist with sorting and preparing donations for distribution. APSO Chapter donation bins: APSO Chapters across the state are accepting donations to support recovery. Hygiene packs: APSO chapters are donating hygiene packs to victims. Eufaula Humane Society donation: The local APSO Chapter donated $500 to the Eufaula Humane Society, which was devastated by the storms. APSO volunteers at Red Cross telethon: APSO volunteers answered phones and took donations at the Red Cross' telethon March 6. To learn more about the charitable initiatives of the Alabama Power Foundation and how APSO members are helping build a better Alabama, visit https://powerofgood.com/. Centrica plc has signed a two-year contract with global aluminium firm, Alcoa, to provide commercial services supporting a renewable Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) contracted with a 197 MW onshore wind farm in Guleslettene, Norway. The arrangement is Centrica's first major contract with Alcoa in Norway. Centrica will deliver dynamic shaping and balancing services for output from the wind farm and electricity consumption at Alcoa's Norwegian plants. The deal reaffirms Centrica's support for renewable power and sustainable energy systems. The 197 MW Guleslettene wind installation will be built on the west coast of Norway, close to the city of Floroe, and is expected to be operational in late 2020. In July 2018, Alcoa signed a 15-year corporate PPA with the wind farm's owner Blackrock, the world's largest asset manager, for 100 percent of the electricity production from the installation. With up to 47 turbines supplied by Vestas, Guleslettene will produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than 40,000 homes per year. Cassim Mangerah, Co-Managing Director of Centrica Energy Marketing & Trading, said: "We are excited about the collaboration with Alcoa, which supports renewable energy in Norway and represents a dynamic solution to manage a combined renewable PPA and consumption framework." Kai-Rune Heggland, VP of Alcoa Norway, added: "In this agreement we bring together two important measures for Alcoa, the support for renewable energy and predictability of long-term electricity costs. Teaming up with Centrica allows us to continuously balance the electricity flows from Guleslettene and consumption at our plants, as part of a holistic and sustainable electricity procurement strategy." Centrica has a route-to-market portfolio of over 13.8GW under contract in Europe, over 8.8 GW of which are renewable assets. Contact Media Relations: tel +44 (0)1784 843000 or email media@centrica.com Kat on a platform draft Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market. As IPKat readers know, next week the European Parliament will vote on the Prof Dirk Visser (Leiden University). The text of the full analysis is available here. This blog is happy to host the following analysis of one of the most debated provisions in that draft legislative instrument, ie Article 13, as offered by Katfriend(Leiden University). The text of the full analysis is available Here's what Dirk writes: " Introduction Article 13 is the most important and most controversial provision of the proposed EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market on which the EU member states and institutions have reached agreement in principle in February 2019. The final vote will be in the European Parliament in late March 2019. here - focuses on what the idea of Article 13 is and how it might work out in practice. Which legal issues will arise, which preliminary questions will be put to the CJEU? It is not meant to argue for or against Article 13. The article itself is taken as a given. This paper is merely a first attempt to look ahead and find out what could happen in practice. My analysis - available- focuses on what the idea of Article 13 is and how it might work out in practice. Which legal issues will arise, which preliminary questions will be put to the CJEU? It is not meant to argue for or against Article 13. The article itself is taken as a given. This paper is merely a first attempt to look ahead and find out what could happen in practice. It is obvious that Article 13 is a compromise between many interests and wishes and that is quite contradictory at some points. But that in itself is nothing new. Much of the EU legislation consist of partly contradictory or incomprehensible clauses, because compromise apparently was the only option for reaching consensus. Consequently, it is often up to commentators, practitioners and judges to make the best of it. What is the aim of Article 13? The aim of Article 13 is twofold, but the target is the same: the large online content sharing service providers (OCSSPs), notably Google (YouTube) and Facebook. The first aim is to make these OCSSPs pay to rightholders, on the basis of content licences, to the extent rights owners are willing to give them licenses. This would diminish the so called value gap between the amount of money the OCSSPs make out of advertising in and around the content uploaded by their users (a lot of money) and the amount of money rights holders get in return (not enough money). The second aim is to make those OCSSPs take down, block and filter all content for which the rightholders are not willing to grant a license to such platforms, but which users nevertheless (try to) upload onto these platforms. The main concerns are that rightholders will not be willing to license these OCSSPs, or not on reasonable terms, that the blocking and filtering will amount to abuse by rightholders and fraudsters, that it will lead to over blocking of legitimate use, involving all kinds of free speech issues, and that it will be very costly for the OCSSPs. For smaller and non-commercial OCSSPs it might even be prohibitively costly, thus making it impossible for them to stay on the web, or for new OCSSPs to enter the market. The many recitals and subsections of Article 13 try to cater for all these concerns. The paper comments on all these subsections. What will happen? The Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) and other rightholders that have a mandate to do so, will contact the main OCSSPs, Google and Facebook, in order to negotiate a licensing agreement. And as far as music is concerned, they will probably be able to reach an agreement. For any other kind of works and rights, it is very hard to predict whether licenses will be agreed upon. But CMOs will try to acquire the relevant rights and try to provide licenses. The rightholders that do not want to authorise any use by the OCSSPs, will provide them with the relevant and necessary information to enable them to filter and block their works form the platforms. The OCSSPs themselves will formally invite everyone and anyone to provide them with a licence. The OCSSPs might choose to start filtering everything for which they receive the relevant and necessary information and not try to make any effort to decide in advance whether anything is actually protected or not covered by exceptions or limitations to copyright. They could counterbalance this by accepting or reinstating the upload as soon as an uploader states that his upload is not protected or covered by exception or limitation. Or they might allow uploaders to state in advance that their upload is not protected or covered by exception or limitation, and balance this by blocking the material as soon as a rightholder states that that is not true. The OCSSPs might argue that these are the only available and suitable solutions in view of the costs, also in the light of the principle of proportionality. Following that, the OCSSPs must allow either the uploader or the rightholder to complain, and have a human make a decision. That decision can then be appealed through an out-of-court redress mechanism, to be provided by the Member-States. And that decision can then be contested in a regular court. Furthermore, it is imaginable that start-ups might try to remain below the thresholds of an annual turnover of EUR 10 million and the number of monthly unique visitors of 5 million, in order to avoid being considered an OCSSP. It is quite certain that OCSSPs, and the rightholders involved, should not wait until the date of entry into force of the Directive before organising stakeholder dialogues to discuss best practices for the cooperation between them. Kat platforms What can internet intermediaries reasonably be expected to do? In the end the courts will have to decide what the OCSSPs and other providers can reasonably be expected to do. Unfortunately, Article 13 gives very little guidance for this. It rather describes and creates very elaborate contradicting objectives and obligations. The issues addressed in Article 13 also show that the concepts of primary and secondary liability seem to get mixed up. Maybe this is inevitable. It is likely that this approach of liability of OCSSPs for copyright infringement will have its spill over effects on all kinds of other internet intermediaries. On the other hand it also is a continuation of approach visible in the case law of the CJEU. Since Promusicae (C-275/06, ECLI:EU:C:2008:54) intermediaries have been obliged to cooperate with rightholders. Too strict a monitoring obligation goes too far (Scarlet Extended/Sabam, C-70/10, ECLI:EU:C:2011:771 & Sabam/Netlog, C-360/10, ECLI:EU:C:2012:85). But intermediaries have to take all reasonable measures, provided that (i) the measures taken do not unnecessarily deprive internet users of the possibility of lawfully accessing the information available and (ii) that those measures have the effect of preventing unauthorised access to the protected subject-matter or, at least, of making it difficult to achieve and of seriously discouraging internet users who are using the services of the addressee of that injunction from accessing the subject-matter that has been made available to them in breach of the intellectual property right (UPC Telekabel Wien, C-314/12, ECLI:EU:C:2014:192). If intermediaries become too much involved, they become primary infringers with full liability (Stichting Brein/Ziggo, C-610/15, ECLI:EU:C:2017:456). There will be much interesting caselaw of the CJEU to come, firstly in the two cases from Germany, YouTube (C-682/18) and Elsevier (C-683/18) . Pollution hanging over Barcelona and Badalona last week. Joan Sanchez The Spanish city of Barcelona is preparing to implement restrictions that would, from 2020 onward, prohibit the most-polluting vehicles from entering into its so-called ZBE low-emissions zone. This 95-square-kilometer area covers nearly the entire city as well as part of four other municipalities. City Hall calculates that around 50,000 vehicles including cars, motorcycles and trucks will cease to circulate in the zone, accounting for 7% of the current total. Mayor Ada Colaus team has stated that pollution is probably the biggest problem that the city is facing In line with a similar scheme that was recently introduced in Madrid, only vehicles that have an identifying sticker on their windshield will be allowed in the ZBE. This sticker, issued by Spains DGT, classifies vehicles according to their emissions. Older, more polluting vehicles, are ineligible for the badge. In the medium term, Barcelona council estimates that by 2024, they will have taken 125,000 vehicles out of the center thanks to the activation of the ZBE plan, as well as other schemes such as new cycle lanes, increased public transport options and so-called superblocks, areas where only residents will be able to enter. That will see 20% of the current number of vehicles in the Catalan capital removed from circulation, with pollution forecast to fall by 15% as a result. This will be a before-and-after moment, explained Barcelona mayor Ada Colau last week. Her local government estimates that 354 premature deaths a year in the city can be attributed to high pollution levels. The ZBE was first established in 2017, but this year restrictions will only be enforced in cases of high levels of nitrogen dioxide, a scenario that has yet to occur so far in 2019. But restrictions in the area will come into force permanently in 2020. These will be applied from Monday to Friday from 7am to 8pm, and will affect all vehicles apart from those in the categories of heavy goods, disabled transport, medical and emergency services, and funeral transports. City Hall calculates that around 50,000 vehicles will cease to circulate in the zone From now until the month of September, a debate will be opened as to whether there should be exceptions for the zone and how they should be applied. The plan is to analyze three very specific cases: firstly, people with cars that have no sticker who need to occasionally enter into the city; secondly, whether the restrictions should be lifted on Friday afternoons; and thirdly, whether the rules should be progressively introduced for delivery services or other professionals who need vans for their work but have older vehicles without the environmental sticker. As in Madrid, vehicles will be monitored via a series of cameras, and offenders will be slapped with 100 fines. The legislation needed to put the system in place has not yet been agreed, and there is not time for it to be finalized before upcoming local elections in May. But the current government in Barcelona City Hall trusts that it will be approved, given the widespread consensus that exists between all parties regarding the need to reduce pollution. Mayor Ada Colaus team has stated that pollution is probably the biggest problem that the city is facing. But until now, experts and environmental groups have been highly critical of the policies that City Hall has used to combat the problem. They point out that during the last episode of high levels of pollution, traffic was not restricted. They also question whether the DGT sticker system measures the real emissions of vehicles and are calling for tolls in the city center in a bid to reduce traffic. English version by Simon Hunter. Protesters in Madrid carry a large estelada flag in the march against the trial of the separatist leaders. Ricardo Rubio (Europa Press) More information Democracy in Madrid Tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid on Saturday in favor of Catalan self-determination and to demand the release of politicians and civil society leaders who are on trial for the unilateral secession attempt of late 2017. The march started out at Atocha train station and ended at Cibeles square, filling downtown Madrid with esteladas the unofficial flag used by supporters of independence and cries of This trial is a farce! and Freedom!. The good people are in jail, theyre the only decent politicians Roser Borrell, protester It was a very different sight from another march that took place only 850 meters from here five weeks ago, when the conservative Popular Party (PP), Ciudadanos (Citizens) and the far-right Vox organized a pro-unity demonstration in Plaza de Colon. Catalan premier Quim Torra and many members of his administration headed a march that was organized by around 60 associations, including the large pro-independence groups ANC and Omnium Cultural, whose leaders are currently on trial for their role in the secession bid. Weve come to say goodbye, cried out hundreds of demonstrators as they made their way through the heart of the Spanish capital after arriving in 500 buses and 15 high-speed AVE trains. The defendants at the trial inside the Supreme Court. EFE Attendance figures varied wildly: ANC, one of the organizers, claimed there were 120,000 demonstrators, while the National Police said it was closer to 18,000. By this newspapers estimates, there were around 55,000 protesters. Were normally on stand-by, but as soon as were told to go out on the street, we go out on the street, said Roser Borrell, 65, a butcher from Miravet de Ebro (Tarragona) who took an AVE train to Madrid with several friends. One of them, Pilar Ripoll, 70, says that she lives on a pension of 600 a month and that she is spending 300 to come to Spain. And nobody is paying for me. We dont go on vacation, we save up the money for the demonstrations. The good people are in jail, theyre the only decent politicians, added Borrell. One of these, Oriol Junqueras, who is the leader of the Catalan Republican Party (ERC), is running as a candidate in the snap general election that Spain will be holding on April 28, despite facing years in prison if found guilty of rebellion. Former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium shortly after the independence declaration of October 27, 2017, has charted out a course with a view to the national election and the political term that follows. At a recent congress of his Catalan European Democratic Party (PdeCAT), the former premier imposed his views on the more pragmatic sector of the party. Last week, the former chief of the Catalan police force, Josep Lluis Trapero, gave witness testimony at the trial and revealed that he had warned Puigdemont about the risk of violence if he went ahead with the unauthorized referendum of October 1, 2017. Trapero also said that the Mossos dEsquadra had stood ready to arrest Puigdemont and his aides if ordered to do so by a judge. English version by Susana Urra. During the run-up to the last general election in Spain, political parties used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread their messages. This year, with a snap general election called for April 28 and local, regional and European elections set for May 26, it appears they are turning to WhatsApp, the most popular social network in Spain. Political parties know that people increasingly place more trust in people and less in institutions Author Antonio Gutierrez-Rubi Weve been working with WhatsApp since 2014, explains Juan Carro, the national communications secretary for the conservative Popular Party (PP). First we created groups with members. Then we went for the volunteers. According to Corro, today the party has thousands of subscribers, who exchange ideas, photos and videos. In one recently shared video, Sesame Street character Bert reads the newspaper: Dont you realize Ernie, if you vote for Vox you are helping [Prime Minister] Sanchez and the Catalan separatists? The clip, made by an anonymous user, explains Spains DHondt proportional representation system, according to which some votes carry more weight depending on where they are cast. Its magnificent, says Carro. The video simply illustrates a law that is complex to understand. We didnt make it ourselves but we saw it and quickly shared it on WhatsApp. The Bert and Ernie video shared by the Popular Party (Spanish audio). The message reached people who had never voted for the PP before. According to the latest report from the Spanish Digital Communication Association, the average Spaniard spends more than 90 minutes a day reading and replying to messages on WhatsApp. This has turned the instant-messaging service into an important tool in the fight to win voters. Most WhatsApp users are in at least 10 chat groups and 70% of users turn to the application to speak with family and friends for no specific reason, according to the most recent survey from the Center of Sociological Research (CIS). Message from Vox sent on WhatsApp: To those who only offer fear, #VivaSpain will show once again that we fear nothing and nobody. On April 28, make history with your vote. This video is relevant to all of Spain. Forward it to your contacts and share it with your groups of friends and family. WhatsApp Political parties know that people increasingly place more trust in people and less in institutions, explains Antonio Gutierrez-Rubi, the author of the book La politica en tiempos del WhatsApp (or, Politics in the time of WhatsApp). The main advantage of WhatsApp, says Gutierrez-Rubi, is that it allows ideas to quickly become viral. One message reaches the first ring of groups. Then they pass it on to others. And to others, he added. The director of the consultancy RedLines, Cesar Calderon, gives an example: Its like when a friend recommends a series and you watch it. But if the director tells you to on television, you might not. Today the goal is to appear in the chat groups of families, parents and friends. This what the far-right group Vox managed to do ahead of the regional Andalusian elections in December. The partys social media chief, Manuel Mariscal, told EL PAIS two months ago that it began recruiting followers in June 2018. We got 2,000 in a few days, he said. Vox, thanks in part to its social media strategy, went on to win 12 seats in the Andalusian parliament and continues to surge in the polls ahead of the spring elections. The method is simple. A supporter adds Vox to their list of contacts. The party organizes these members into lists, with no more than 256 in each. Then with one click, the far-right group can share messages like a video sent on Friday with this accompanying text: For Spain, forward this video to your contacts and share it in your groups of friends and family. It is much cheaper than paying to advertise in traditional media. In February, social media giant Facebook the owner of WhatsApp launched WhatsAppBusiness, a tool that allows companies to communicate with their clients. The tool is free to use but there are also private businesses that offer the same service for a fee. For between 600 and 1,000 a month, these companies will allow a political party send out an as many messages as they want to 10,000 people, according to industry sources. Podemos campaign to recruit WhatsApp subscribers: We have created an instant message service to create a network of digital volunteers, because we want you to receive news straight away, so that as well as being informed, you can share it with your family, friends and contacts. Subscribe to our network of digital volunteers! This service is completely free. Podemos And its not just Vox and the PP who are using WhatsApp. Sources from the center-right Ciudadanos (Citizens) party say they also used the messaging service in the Andalusian regional elections. Now we are looking at if we should use it ahead of the general elections, party sources say. The Socialist Party (PSOE) of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez uses WhatsApp but only for internal purposes. We send messages to federations or to those in charge of social media in the regions, explains a spokesperson. To reach out to voters, the party uses the messaging service Telegram, where it has 3,000 members. The anti-austerity Podemos party has a dozen people running their social media team. The party has been automatically subscribing members to their WhatsApp group since August 2018. We send the same messages here that we share on other social media. This week, 6,000 people have requested to join, the team said. Election spam Four months ago, the Spanish Senate approved a new data-protection law that allows political parties and electoral groups to collect the personal information of social media users during election campaigns. This information is then used to create personalized propaganda, a process informally known as election spam. Thanks to this change, a person can receive unsolicited political messages, without having to add a partys number to their contact list. The public ombudsman has called on the Constitutional Court to stop the measure. The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has also placed some restrictions on the law. Political parties that want to collect information must submit their request to the agency 21 days before a campaign begins. For now though, subscribers will continue to receive WhatsApp messages until April 28. WhatsApp does not directly influence the vote, but it does strengthen it, says Belen Barreiro, the current director of polling firm 40dB and the former head of CIS. Today, there is more doubt in the right-wing bloc. This could be the key. The far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, for example, won the 2018 elections in his country without hardly ever appearing on television. He didnt need to; he had the largest number of followers on a smaller screen: WhatsApp. English version by Melissa Kitson. An anti-Brexit protester holds up a sign outside the Houses of Parliament in London. The British Embassy in Madrid will host an informative event on Thursday, March 21, to update UK residents living in Spain with the latest information regarding Britains exit from the European Union, a process commonly known as Brexit. Ambassador Simon Manley and his consular team will be on hand to answer questions about Brexit and the recent royal decree passed by the Spanish government, which will offer new residency papers to around 400,000 UK nationals in the case the UK crashes out of the EU without an agreement on their future relationship. Ambassador Simon Manley and his consular team will be on hand to answer questions about Brexit and the recent royal decree passed by the Spanish government They will also be joined on the platform by Michael Harris, the president of EuroCitizens, a Spain-based organization that seeks to defend the rights of Britons in Spain and Spaniards in the UK. The team will cover a range of issues for those with specific questions about living in Spain or who want to know more about how Brexit might affect them. Ahead of the event, which comes hot on the heels of a similar session in Madrid in February, British Consul Sarah-Jane Morris said: We recognize the current uncertainty for UK nationals in Spain and we will continue to do all we can to update citizens as and when we have more information. In the meantime, I continue to urge all UK nationals living in Spain to ensure you are correctly registered and to stay up to date with the latest news, by signing up for email alerts and visiting the Living in Spain guide on gov.uk and following our Brits in Spain social media channels, including on Facebook. There is no need to register before the event, but space at the venue Teatros Luchana will be limited. The event will take place on Thursday, March 21, at 6.30pm in Teatros Luchana, Calle Luchana 38, Madrid. Advice for UK nationals living in Spain can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/living-in-spain. These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international Saturdays demonstration in Madrid. Borja B Hojas (GTRES) Two Catalan pro-independence associations called a march in Madrid on Saturday under the slogan: Self-determination is not a crime. Democracy means deciding. With this display in the capital of a state that they revile, the separatists once again demonstrated the exact opposite of what they meant to, which is that Spain is a dictatorship that subjugates the citizens of Catalonia, and that the leaders on trial at the Supreme Court are there because of their ideas. Each and every one of the citizens who marched in the streets of Madrid on Saturday proclaimed their ideas freely, exercising their rights as established in the very same Constitution that the leaders on trial attempted to repeal by force of facts on the ground. It is these actions, and not their ideas, that are being tried before a court of justice, with all the guarantees of the rule of law. Democracy reaffirmed itself in Madrid on Saturday What has become patent after days of trial, inside and outside Spain, is that the Supreme Court does not have a verdict mapped out in advance, and that the limits of propaganda lie in reality itself. Given the impossibility of waving the caricature of a political trial, pro-independence forces on Saturday attempted to do politics with the trial, but the only result was to evidence the unlofty inner workings of a political creed that is gambling everything it has on manipulation. Self-determination is not a crime, a banner rightly proclaimed at the march. But nor is it a right, as the orators slipped in, trusting in a definitive and generalized amnesia when it comes to international law. The same goes for the assertion that democracy means deciding. It certainly does, except when whats being decided is how to deprive a majority of their rights. The march organizers did not care to bring that up on Saturday, yet it cannot be ignored, because the events of September 6 and 7, 2017 when separatist parties in the Catalan parliament used irregular procedures to pass legislation to facilitate a referendum and a breakaway from Spain did just that, ignoring the will of a majority of citizens. The Supreme Court does not have a verdict mapped out in advance Democracy reaffirmed itself in Madrid on Saturday not because of the way the concept was invoked by the separatist forces who wish to sequester democracy in Catalonia, but because it was evident, once again, that the 1978 Constitution guarantees everyones rights, even the rights of those who, like the separatists, want to destroy them and who offer as alternative freedoms what is nothing more than a unilateral imposition of their own political program. The final message of the march was not the one that pro-independence forces proclaimed in Madrid, but the one that they took home with them to Catalonia. They should admit it, and have the courage to admit it in front of their supporters: the freedoms that separatist demonstrators enjoyed on Saturday in the Spanish capital are the freedoms enjoyed by any citizen in a free country ruled by the law. English version by Susana Urra. Private joint-stock company Kyivvodokanal as the employers on the project to reconstruct Bortnychi wastewater treatment plant financed using the loan issued by Japan for the amount of JPY 108.193 billion (around $970 million) has announced an international tender to select the general contractor for construction works under the project. "Kyiv is starting implementation of one of the largest infrastructure projects in Ukraine the reconstruction of the Bortnychi wastewater treatment plant," the press service of Kyiv City Administration has reported, citing Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The Bortnychi wastewater treatment plant is one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in Eastern Europe and the only wastewater treatment plant in Kyiv. Kyivvodokanal said on its website that at the end of February this year, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), acting as a creditor on behalf of the Japanese government, officially agreed on all tender documentation. The loan is granted for 40 years at 0.1% per annum with a grace period of 10 years. Under the terms of the loan, 30% of the total cost of construction should be used to buy goods and services supplied from Japan. According to the materials of Kyivvodokanal, contractual procedures and the signing of the contract with the general contractor are scheduled for December 2019, and the implementation of the construction work itself will be from February 2020 through August 2025. After the modernization, the level of hydrogen sulfide at the border of the sanitary protection zone should fall from 2.2-6.01 to 0.07-0.19 mg per cubic meter, methane from 0.3-1 to 0.01 mg per cubic meter, methyl mercaptan from 1.9-5 to 0.09-0.2 mg per cubic meter and ethyl mercaptan from 3-8.51 to 0.15-0.38 mg per cubic meter. The loan agreement between JICA and the government of Ukraine was signed on June 15, 2015. Since December 2018, Kyivvodokanal has been working with a consortium of Japanese companies Nippon Koei Co., TEC International Co. and Nihon Suiko Sekkei Co. as a consultant and designer of working documentation. The joint venture agreement signed with this consortium in March 2018 is intended for a period of 88 months. Most financial experts expect no change in speed in reforms after elections express poll by CFA Society Ukraine It is unlikely that the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held this year would affect the speed of the implementation of reforms in Ukraine, according to most participants of the CFA Society Ukraine Investment Forum held in Kyiv on Friday, March 15. According to its express poll, 58.33% of the audience backed the above opinion and 62.944% confirmed it during the repeated voting after the information panel. However, 15.74% and 21.68% of the participants during the repeated voting said that the reforms would accelerate. Some 17.59% (11.91%) and 8.33% (4.2%) respectively expected that the reform would slow down and would be backtracked. According to Economist of Morgan Stanley investment bank Alina Sliusarchuk, judicial reform is currently the key reform for Ukraine. "The first question that investors usually ask me is not about the labor market or even about the war in the east of the country. It concerns the fight against corruption, judicial reform, the presence of structural changes. That is, this is the most important issue," she said at the forum. Chief Economist at the Dragon Capital investment group Olena Belan said that the intentions and aspirations of the new authorities would very quickly manifest themselves in the macroeconomic situation. "Regardless of who will be elected, if the new government continues cooperating with the International Monetary Fund, adhering to the correct policy, rather than making populist decisions, there is a potential for reducing the key policy rate by 2 or 3 percentage points," she said. Executive Director of Blazer International Foundation Oleh Ustenko has the same opinion. He said that the success of the new government will directly depend on whether they are based on expert opinion. "I am sure that in Ukraine the situation will really improve if each of the existing candidates who intends to lead the country will follow the instructions prepared by the experts. Of course, the person who is elected to this position is important, but society and international partners are unlikely to allow future head of state to significantly deviate from the course of reform," he said. About 300 financial and investment experts took part in the ninth CFA Society Ukraine Investment Forum. The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine is considering the Vietnamese port Lotus (38% belongs to the Ukrainian state-owned enterprise Black Sea Navigation Blasko) as a possible platform for creating a logistics center through which exports of Ukrainian goods to Asian markets could be arranged. Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Viktor Dovhan said in an interview with the Center of Transport Strategies edition that the sale of the foreign asset in the form of corporate rights to a share in the charter capital of the Ukrainian-Vietnamese joint venture Lotus is not on agenda. "The issue of the possibility of using the port infrastructure of JV Lotus as a logistics center for Ukrainian products to enter eastern markets is being studied. This is also due to the extremely favorable conditions of the port location: the company is located at the mouth of the Saigon River, which flows into the South China Sea, which opens convenient ways of communication with the global eastern business activity centers - Singapore and Hong Kong," he said. He also said that the port pays dividends in full and shows a steady increase in revenue. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has noted the success of the decentralization reform in the country. "I won't give up and betray decentralization, because this is a successful reform. When we were preparing it, we used the experience of the whole of Europe, from Poland ... to Germany," Poroshenko said at a meeting of the Regional Development Council of Poltava region. Speaking about the advantages of decentralization, Poroshenko noted that in 2013 the volume of state assistance to local self-governance authorities was UAH 500 million, and in 2019 some UAH 33.5 billion. "[A growth] of 67 times! Here you have the authority, here you have the participation of the state!" Poroshenko stressed. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he sees attempts to provoke street unrest at places where presidential candidates meet with voters as a threat to the elections. "There have been active attempts to transform the campaign of communication with voters into a street unrest format. This is even something different from a dirty election technique. This is an attempt to jeopardize the organization of the election itself and disrupt it. And, listen, this is surely not a Ukrainian scenario! The Ukrainian leadership is obliged to absolutely prevent this scenario," Poroshenko said at a meeting with voters in the center of Kyiv on Sunday. Those planning, ordering, sponsoring and carrying out this scenario "are provoking us by fair means or foul into using brutal physical force," Poroshenko said. "But we won't give them such a present exactly because we are strong. Our reply is our opposition to this involving thousands, our struggle for the state and the assembly of real Ukrainian patriots," Poroshenko said. The presidential election in Ukraine is scheduled for March 31. Groysman to visit Ternopil region on Tuesday Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman will visit Ternopil region with a working visit on Tuesday, March 19. "On March 19, 2019, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman will visit Ternopil region with a working visit," the government portal said. The program of the trip is not specified. In connection with the fifth anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, on behalf of the European Union, made a statement in which she confirmed her commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as a policy of non-recognition of illegal annexation. The corresponding statement was published in Brussels on Sunday. "Five years on from the illegal annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol by the Russian Federation, the European Union remains steadfast in its commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The European Union reiterates that it does not recognize and continues to condemn this violation of international law," Mogherini said. She said that the given fact "remains a direct challenge to international security, with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the territorial integrity, unity and sovereignty of all States." "The European Union remains committed to fully implementing its non-recognition policy, including through restrictive measures. The European Union calls again on UN Member States to consider similar non-recognition measures in line with the UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262," she added. In addition, Mogherini noted that violations of international law by Russia had led to a dangerous increase in tension in the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov. "The unjustified use of force by Russia against Ukraine on 25 November 2018 is a reminder of the negative effects of the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula on regional stability. The EU reiterates its call on Russia to release the illegally captured Ukrainian crewmembers, vessels and equipment unconditionally and without further delay," the High Representative of the European Union said. He pointed out that pending their release, Russia should respect their rights to legal representation and access by consular authorities, and to provide the injured crewmen with appropriate medical treatment. Mogherini also noted that the EU condemns the construction of the Kerch Bridge without the consent of Ukraine, which is another violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The EU expects Russia to ensure unhindered and free passage of all ships through the Kerch Strait to and from the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law. The illegal restrictions to such passage have negative economic consequences for Ukraine's ports in the Azov Sea and the whole region," she stressed. In addition, the EU High Representative referred to the holding of elections by Russia on the territory of Crimea. "The European Union does not and will not recognize the holding of elections by the Russian Federation in the Crimean peninsula," Mogherini said. She added that the increasing militarization of the peninsula continues to impact negatively the security situation in the Black Sea region. Mogherini also noted that since the illegal annexation by the Russian Federation, the human rights situation in the Crimean peninsula had significantly deteriorated. "Residents of the peninsula face systematic restrictions of fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression, religion or belief and association and the right to peaceful assembly," she said. She laid emphasis on the fact that in accordance with UN General Assembly resolution 73/263 of 22 December 2018, it is crucial that the regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms as well as the non-governmental human rights organizations have unimpeded access to Crimea and Sevastopol. She also paid attention to the rights of the Crimean Tatars that have been gravely violated through the shutting down of Crimean Tatar media outlets, the banning of the activities of the Mejlis, their self-governing body, and the persecution of its leaders and members of their community. "The EU expects Russia to reverse these decisions and to end the pressure on the Crimean Tatar community. Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and all ethnic and religious communities in the peninsula must be ensured the possibility to maintain and develop their culture, cultural heritage traditions, education and identity," she noted. "Russia must also take measures to improve the environmental situation, which has considerably worsened since the illegal annexation," Mogherini said. "The EU reiterates its call for the immediate release of Oleh Sentsov, Edem Bekirov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Mykola Semena, Volodymyr Balukh, Emir-Usein Kuku and all those who have been detained in the Crimean peninsula and sentenced in breach of international law. Journalists, human rights defenders and defence lawyers should be able to work independently and without undue interference and intimidation. The EU calls for full compliance with international human rights standards in the peninsula," her statement published on the EU website reads. She insists that all pending cases of human rights violations and abuses, such as enforced disappearances, torture and killings, violence, politically motivated prosecutions, discrimination and harassment be thoroughly investigated. "Full, free and unrestricted access for international human rights actors to the whole territory of Ukraine, including Crimea and Sevastopol, continues to be paramount. The EU recalls UNGA Resolution 73/263 of 22 December 2018, and calls for its full implementation, including the Russian Federation's obligations under applicable international humanitarian law," Mogherini added. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said that he is in favor of the possibility of dual citizenship for the Ukrainian Diaspora. "As a matter of fact, I'm standing for dual citizenship for such Ukrainians and consistently speaking out in favor of it. I think that we should just think over the criteria. Of course, we should make way toward it," Klimkin said on the Radio Culture, answering the question about dual citizenship and the Ukrainian Diaspora. He noted that Ukraine is losing thousands of Ukrainians who could work, not leaving the country, not only in government or some bureaucracy bodies or business, but also create modern Ukrainian culture. "Many people understand us, Ukrainians, through Ukrainian culture. They look at us, our culture and thus understand who Ukrainians are, why Ukraine is a unique country, why Ukraine is the only one capable of fighting Russia," the foreign minister said. Five years after Russia's annexation of Crimea, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to support the sovereignty of Ukraine, calls on the Russian Federation to release political prisoners and lift the ban on the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. "Today marks the fifth anniversary of Russia's illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea. We continue to condemn this violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the strongest terms," Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Chrystia Freeland said in a statement made public on the website of the Canadian Foreign Ministry on Saturday. The foreign minister noted that for five years, the world had witnessed a severe suppression of human rights in Crimeacommitted by Russian authoritiesincluding arbitrary arrests, torture, detentions, disappearances and the suppression of freedom of expression and association. "Canada is deeply troubled by the persecution of Crimean Tatars and other minorities. We denounce the banning of the Mejlis, the self-governing body of Crimean Tatars, and call on Russia to reverse this illegal and immoral decision," the statement reads. Freeland stressed that Canada continues to call for the release of political prisoners held by Russia, including Oleh Sentsov. "Canada is committed to supporting the people of Ukraine. Yesterday, Canada and its allies announced new sanctions against 129 individuals and entities, many for their direct involvement in the illegal annexation of Crimea. Together with the international community, we will continue to maintain pressure, including through economic sanctions, until Russia respects Ukraine's sovereignty and international law," the minister summed up. Poroshenko confident of his victory in elections, declaring them 'honest' Presidential candidate of Ukraine, incumbent President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is confident of his victory in the upcoming presidential elections and promises that the elections will be held according to European standards. "We'll be on the winning side, and it will be an honest victory," said Poroshenko at a meeting with voters "We are following our own way" on Mykhailivska Square in the center of Kyiv on Sunday. He stressed that the upcoming elections would "fully meet European standards of the election campaign." The next presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled for March 31, 2019. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko plans to discuss the Ukraine-EU power interconnection project with leaders of the European Union (EU). "The day after tomorrow [March 20] in Brussels, I will speak about this with the leadership of the European Commission, President of the European Commission, President of the European Council, and the European Commissioner," Poroshenko said at a meeting on the development of nuclear energy and improving safety in using nuclear energy on Monday in Netishyn (Khmelnytsky region). He said that the implementation of this project will not only ensure an increase in electricity exports from Ukraine, but will also allow attracting funds for the construction of new power units. "This meets the strategic interests of Ukraine and the vision of the future development of energy, as well as the energy security of our partners the EU countries. Not to build gas pipelines from Russia to be on the gas "needle," but to cooperate in the field of nuclear energy with Ukraine. I declare the power bridge project is a geopolitical counterbalance to the plans of Moscow, which will allow our European partners to have an alternative, reliable source of electricity supply at competitive prices. In other words, Ukraine may become an important contributor to Europe's energy security," the president said. According to the head of state, in the long term this project will provide an opportunity of integrating the united power grid of Ukraine with the European network. In connection with the fifth anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia, the North Atlantic Council of NATO has issued a statement in which it called on the Russian Federation to return Crimea to Ukraine. "Five years ago Russia used force against Ukraine to illegally and illegitimately annex Crimea. This violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity is a serious breach of international law and a major challenge of Euro-Atlantic security. We strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognise. We call on Russia to return control of Crimea to Ukraine," the Alliance's headquarters posted its statement on Monday. In this regard, the Allies reaffirmed the full support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and territorial waters. "Crimea is the territory of Ukraine," it says. The Allies also expressed deep concern about human rights violations committed in the illegally annexed Crimea against Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and representatives of other local communities. "These violations include extrajudicial killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, violence, arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture. Despite the 2017 Order of the International Court of Justice, the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, remains under persecution and is banned in its homeland," it says. In this regard, the Allies called on the Russian Federation to immediately put an end to all violations and abuses in the illegally annexed Crimea, free Ukrainian political prisoners and hostages, and give international organizations access to Crimea. "Any attempts to legitimize or normalize the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea must end, including the automatic imposition of Russian citizenship, forced population movements, conscription in the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and illegal holding of Russian election campaigns," the NATO said. They also condemned "Russia's ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea and are concerned by Russia's efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region." "We also condemn Russia's construction of the Kerch Strait bridge, which represents another violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and is imposing additional hardship on Ukraine's economy. Russia's unjustified use of military force against Ukrainian ships and naval personnel near the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait in November 2018 is part of the larger pattern of Russian aggressive actions in the region," the Alliance said. In line with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 73/194 from 17 December 2018, they called on Russia "to unconditionally release the Ukrainian crew members it detained, to return the captured vessels and to comply with its international commitments by ensuring unhindered access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov and allowing freedom of navigation." "NATO's response to address Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine has been alongside and in support of an overall international effort, which has included sanctions. There can be no return to "business as usual" until there is a clear, constructive change in Russia's actions that demonstrates compliance with international law and its international obligations and responsibilities," the statement reads. The current president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and all his associates will be accountable before the law for making money on their own army during the war and for their tariff policy, Batkivschyna Party leader and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko has said. "We'll need to arrest anyone who has even taken a penny from the army," Tymoshenko said during a rally in the town of Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region, announcing her first steps after winning the presidential election. Tymoshenko referred to a recently published journalistic investigation, "which exposed the corruption of the president and his entourage on supplies from the aggressor country of unsuitable spare parts for Ukrainian military equipment at inflated prices," the Batkivschyna official website said on Sunday. Tymoshenko noted that the authorities would bear responsibility for the "tariff orgy" organized during his tenure. She said the illegal increase in gas prices for the population was another source of enrichment at the expense of people, and recalled that Kyiv's District Administrative Court recently declared that the tariffs were set unreasonably. The presidential candidate said her coming to power would put an end to the corrupt life of the oligarchic system, which only changed its face in every election. "We will not agree with them, because everyone who agrees hurts the future for Ukraine," she said. According to the politician, the first thing she will do as president is "fulfill the commitment that President Poroshenko took during his inauguration: "I will imprison three of his friends for corruption. .But three friends is not enough," he said. According to her, the new government will remove the controlling agencies from the influence of the president in order to stop corruption and oligarchy in the country. According to Tymoshenko, a new Constitution will be adopted after holding a nationwide referendum. Nepal governments citizenship bill clause on sex change certification alarms LGBT community The future of the rights of Nepals sexual minorities looks uncertain if the government goes ahead with the draft of the bill to amend the Citizenship Act in its current form. The only Boeing 737 MAX airliner operated in Kazakhstan, which belongs to the SCAT airline, will remain grounded until the Industry and Infrastructure Development Ministry is able to find out all circumstances of the recent plane crash in Ethiopia, Kazakh Industry and Infrastructure Development Minister Roman Sklyar said on Monday. "We have suspended flights of the only Boeing 737 MAX belonging to the SCAT airline until all circumstances of the crash are clarified and the manufacturer issues its recommendations. The airliner will remain grounded for as long as it takes to clarify how safe it is in flight," the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper quoted Sklyar as saying. Kazakhstan has four airlines which carry out domestic and international flights, and their fleet is in good order, he said. "Their fleet of aircraft is in good condition, and there are no doubts about their further operation. This has been confirmed by the manufacturers, which inspect them annually, and our civil aviation technical services also closely monitor this," Sklyar said. It had been reported earlier that Kazakhstan suspended the flights of the only Boeing 737 MAX operated in the country, which belongs to the SCAT airline, starting March 13. A Boeing 737 MAX 8 of Ethiopian Airlines en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi crashed 60 kilometers east of the Ethiopian capital on March 10. The crash killed 157 people on board. It was the second crash of a Boeing 737 MAX 8 within the past six months. In late October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 of the Indonesian airline Lion Air fell into the Java Sea soon after its departure from the Jakarta Airport. None of the 189 people on board survived. Arrested RIA Novosti Ukraine director Kirill Vyshinsky was moved from Kherson to Kyiv via Odesa on March 14, his lawyer said. "He has been in a cell with several other inmates, in very bad conditions, for four days now. There is no electricity in the cell, the beds (the so-called 'shkonki') are broken, no mattresses were provided," Andriy Domansky told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday, March 18. He said he would complain to the Ukrainian ombudsman about the conditions which, in his view, fall short of relevant international standards. "Especially, given the recent boasting by the Lukyanivske jail about supposedly having European standards, but we can see, on the example of Kirill Vyshinsky, that such standards are not being met," Domansky said. Vyshinsky was moved to Kyiv to appear at a hearing on March 20 by the Supreme Court's cassation criminal court of the appeal against his arrest in May 2018, he said. On March 26 Kyiv's Podilsky district court will start hearing the indictment against Vyshinsky which prosecutors sent it on March 6. Vyshinsky was detained in Kyiv on May 15, 2018, and later charged with committing several crimes in Ukraine, including high treason, calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional system, conspiracy to overthrow the government, calling for intentionally changing Ukraine's national borders in violation of the constitutional order in combination with incitement of ethnic hatred and animosity and humiliation of national honor and dignity, and acquisition and possession of a firearm. On May 17, 2018, the Kherson City Court remanded him in custody until July 13. It later extended his period of arrest several times. On January 10, 2019, the case materials were provided to the defense lawyers to be studied. On January 17, the Kherson City Court prolonged Vyshinsky's arrest until February 16. The Kherson Appeal Court upheld the ruling on January 31. On Tuesday, March 19, at 12.30, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled "Corvalol: 60 years on the market. How to protect a brand and not become a precedent for unfair competitors' profit." Participants include: Head of PJSC Farmak's Legal Department Dmytro Taranchuk, Marketing and Sales Director of PJSC Farmak Susana Khalilova, Director of International Marketing Group Ukraine Dmytro Rodenko, Deputy Director of Scientific and Research Institute of Intellectual Property under the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, PhD in Law, forensic expert Oleksandr Doroshenko (8/5a Reitarska Street). Accreditation of journalists until 18:00 on March 18 by phone: +38 067 480 0535. On Tuesday, March 19, at 14.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference about the termination of electricity supply to the largest debtors in Kyiv, who are the customers of the "supplier of last resort." Participants include Commercial Director of DTEK Kyiv Electricity Network Oleksandr Bemm; Head of Client Operations Department at DTEK Kyiv Electric Networks Hanna Fursova (8/5a Reitarska Street). Accreditation of journalists by phone: (093) 315-00-65, press_kem@dtek.com. A conservative politician in Iran, who was minister of culture in the first administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has proposed to eliminate the presidency in the Islamic Republic. Speaking in a television program on March 17, Mohammad Saffar Harandi who is now a member of Irans Expediency Council proposed to replace the president with a prime minister. Harandi is also affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, IRGC. Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has also made the same proposal in the past, but he was rebuffed by strong criticism and the opposition of then influential politician Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. Critiques say eliminating the presidency and replacing it with a prime minister elected by parliament will reduce the impact of peoples votes. Presidents in Iran are directly elected by popular vote. Khamenei has always had problems with popularly elected presidents, since they can claim some democratic legitimacy, while the Supreme Leader is appointed by a few dozen clerics and insiders. Khamenei and his conservative followers were in constant friction with reformist president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) and current president Hassan Rouhani. Even Ahmadinejad began having friction with Khamenei in his second term in office. Parliament also suffers from weak legitimacy as candidates are strictly vetted before elections and most critiques and independents prevented from running. Secretary of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council, Mohsen Rezaei, says the EU needs to Guarantee oil purchase from Iran if it wants Iran to ratify the bills required by FATF, the Financial Action Task Force. Two of the four bills that would join Iran to international conventions against money laundering and funding terrorism and ensure transparency of the Islamic Republic's international financial transactions are stuck at the Council, which is the arbiter between the Iranian Parliament and the constitutional watchdog Guardian Council. The EDC says it might reach a final decision on the bills by April. Rezaei, one of the EDC members who opposes the ratification of the bills, has said during a visit to Qom on Sunday that "Europeans did everything to have the FATF bills ratified by Iran, but they fail to understand the council's logical demand for a guarantee" that would ensure the purchase of Iran's oil by Europe. It was interesting that hours after these remarks the EDC denied the conditions Rezaei had mentioned, saying that they do not accurately reflect the Council's position. Rezaei , who was speaking at Mesbah Institute in Qom, a hardline Madrasah that trains foreign Shiite clerics, alleged that Europe has refrained from purchasing Iran's oil. "This enemy does not understand the language of diplomacy. It does not respect any commitment. So, we must not speak softly to such an enemy." It wasn't clear who Rezaei was referring to as Europe is still remaining in the nuclear deal with Iran, and that FATF regulations are beyond EU's sole jurisdiction as most countries are its members. Meanwhile, Europe has tried to establish a financial mechanism to ease the pressure of sanctions on Iran. Iran is facing problems in its international financial transactions because it has not joined the FATF, which has given Tehran yet another four months starting from late February to join or face re-entry into the task force's black list. Iran was in the FATF blacklist with North Korea until 2016, when the task force temporarily took it out of the blacklist. Being on the black list would cripple a countrys banking relations with the world. Meanwhile, in a related development, Asadollah Abbasi, a member of the Iranian Parliament's Presidium, has said in an interview with Tasnim news agency criticized INSTEX, the financial mechanism Europe has established to help maintain limited trade relations. Abbasi said that "INSTEX is a means for Europe to find out about how Iran spends its oil revenue." Abbasi, MP for Roudsar in northern Iran, said "Iran's oil revenue will be deposited into INSTEX to enable Europe to oversee and control Iran's income," adding that "INSTEX is not a good system for sending Iran's money to Europe to import food and medicine." Chairman of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, also said on Sunday that "INSTEX does not meet all of Iran's expectations." Falahatpisheh told Mehr news agency, "Many European countries have still not joined INSTEX. Only Germany, France and UK are following the implementation of INSTEX," although he also mentioned that even those three countries have shown during the nuclear negotiations with Iran that they maintain "special relations with America." Germany, France and Britain launched Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) in January to facilitate business between Europe and Iran in the face of tough U.S. economic sanctions. According to Iran's Central Bank Governor in an interview with the official news agency IRNA on March 15, a mechanism similar to the EUs INSTEX trade channel, to be called the Special Trade and Finance Institute (STFI), will be registered in Tehran possibly in April after the Iranian New Year holidays. Irans military involvement in Syria and Iraq and assistance to Hezbollah are among the Islamic Republics unique achievements, according to Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari. "The Islamic Republic has organized a 100,000-strong people's force in Syria fighting the Islamic State (IS), Al-Nusra Front and other opponents of Bashar al-Assad," Jafari told Soroush, a biweekly state-run magazine. He added that an equal force was organized in Iraq. In tandem with its own military personnel in Syria, the Islamic Republic has recruited citizens of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries to serve in military units, including in the Liwa Fatemiyoun (Fatemiyoun Division), a division made up mainly of Hazara refugees living in Iran, and the Liwa Zainebiyoun (Followers of Zainab Brigade) composed of Pakistani immigrants. Jafari said Iran had a responsibility to share experience with national forces in Syria and Iraq, insisting Irans presence in those countries is at the request of Damascus and Baghdad. Washington has repeatedly condemned Irans military interventions in the region, including in Iraq and Syria, as "destructive," asserting that such operations were one of the reasons that President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehrans nuclear deal with world powers. Two days ago, the State Department's special representative on Iran, Brian Hook, once again warned Tehran against its involvement in Iraq and Syria. "Since 1979 they have sought to undermine various states, and they want to replace their national identity with a sectarian identity," Hook told Alhurra television March 15, adding that this has created a lot of instability in the Middle East and contributed to much violence and bloodshed. Meanwhile, EU leaders have also said that despite their opposition to Washington's decision to leave the nuclear deal, they also believe the Islamic Republic is playing a destructive role in the region. Gen. Jafari went on to boast about Irans part in arming the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, claiming, Lebanons Hezbollah enjoys rockets with a range that covers the whole Israeli-occupied territories. The U.S. and the UK have added the Lebanese Hezbollah to their list of terrorist groups, while the EU has also listed Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organization. In the meantime, Israel has warned that it will never allow the Islamic Republic to build a corridor between Tehran and Beirut by cementing its military presence in Syria. Iranian military targets inside Syria have been hit by Israel hundreds of times already, Tel Aviv says. In an apparent sign of frustration as a result of his country's ongoing economic problems, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has heightened anti-U.S. rhetoric in his recent speeches. During the past two days, Rouhani called on Iranians to damn "those who created the current situation in Iran," and urged the Iranian Judiciary to prosecute the US officials involved in imposing sanctions on Tehran on charges of "committing crime against humanity." The statements made by Rouhani could be an attempt to blame others for his government's inability to solve the Islamic Republic's long-standing economic problems which are mainly caused by structural flaws and mismanagement coupled with the impact of sanctions. Speaking at the last cabinet meeting in the current Iranian year on Monday March 18, Rouhani said the "the United States, Israel and their regional allies have created problems for Iran in the areas of foreign currency and prices of goods," and called on Iranians to strongly "damn the individual who has created this situation for Iran." This could be a reference to President Donald Trump who announced the United States' withdrawal from the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions that hit Iran's ailing economy hard. Rouhani also criticized his government's critics, while inaugurating in recent days what he characterized as "infra-structure projects." At this meeting Rouhani once again said that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told him privately "to be the commander" of the ongoing, in his words, "economic and psychological war" between Iran and the West. Khamenei has not yet said anything publicly about appointing Rouhani as "commander" in that "war," and there is no indication yet that he has issued such an order to the other branches of the Iranian government to recognize Rouhani as such. Rouhani first spoke about his role as commander on March 6, quoting Khamenei, but Khamenei has neither confirmed, nor denied making such a comment. Meanwhile, in a related development on Sunday, Rouhani urged the Iranian Judiciary to prosecute U.S. officials and those who have designed or helped the implementation of sanctions against Iran, in Iranian courts and international tribunals on charges of committing crimes against humanity. Rouhani made the comment during a visit to Bushehr in southern Iran on Sunday, adding that "The case should be made first at the Iranian courts against the U.S. and those who help the United States and its accomplices in crimes against humanity, and then we should ask an international tribunal to put them on trial." However, Rouhani, who likes to be identified as a lawyer, did not say how the case is going to be taken to "an international tribunal." Previously, experts had said that indicting foreign officials in Iran could only have symbolic value. In his speech to government officials in Bushehr, Rouhani said that preventing the flow of food, medicine and agricultural products is a crime against the nation's health and Iran's ecosystem. In a recent video, Brian Hook, the U.S. State Department's special representative on Iran, told the people of Iran that U.S. sanctions are merely aimed at changing the destructive behavior of the Islamic Republic, and that sanctions do not target humanitarian transactions involving food and medicine. Food and medicine are not subject to U.S. sanctions, however, due to the sanctions on Irans oil industry, shipping and the banking system, many international banks refrain from working with Iran even when transactions are about purchasing food. Meanwhile, Rouhani said on Sunday that the United States has violated the Hague International Court of Justice's ruling about the sanctions. The Court had ruled in October that the US must make sure that its sanctions on Iran does not adversely affect the import of essential commodities or the safety of passenger flights. An Iranian representative to the International Court of Justice notified his U.S. counterpart in December that essential commodities are not "practically" exempt from the sanctions. However, the U.S. rejected the court's jurisdiction in this case, which could take years to resolve, legal experts say. On the other hand, if the U.S. refuses to accept the ruling, Iran may take the case to the UN Security Council, where the United States is entitled to veto any decision. Details added (first version posted on March 16 at 12:52) Baku, Azerbaijan, March 16 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Mohammad Barkindo. The head of state thanked Barkindo for accepting the invitation to attend a meeting of OPEC+ countries. Underlining that Baku is the world`s home of oil, President Ilham Aliyev described the Azerbaijani capital`s hosting the event as symbolic. The head of state hailed the fact that the Azerbaijani side`s proposal to hold this event in Baku was accepted by Mohammad Barkindo personally and by member states of the organization. Taking into consideration that OPEC+ is a new format, President Ilham Aliyev stressed the importance of the fact that one of the first events in this format is held in Azerbaijan. The president described it as a sign of friendship and confidence in Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev expressed confidence that the meeting of OPEC+ countries will be successful and contribute to the stabilization of oil price, which will be acceptable for oil producers, consumers, companies and countries. OPEC Secretary General thanked the head of state for the invitation. Noting that the world's first-ever mechanically drilled oil well was drilled in Baku in 1846, Mohammad Barkindo stressed the importance of the visit of the event participants to Azerbaijan. He underlined that President Ilham Aliyev is the first head of state to initiate a meeting in the format of OPEC+. Mohammad Barkindo recalled that it was initiated by President Ilham Aliyev three years ago in Davos. Emphasizing that this initiative has already become a reality, Mohammad Barkindo praised President Ilham Aliyev`s views and leadership in this work. He pointed out that Azerbaijan has been actively involved in these processes since the first day of cooperation in the OPEC+ format. Expressing gratitude for the warm words, President Ilham Aliyev recalled his initiative for cooperation in the OPEC+ format in Davos a few years ago. The head of state lauded cooperation that has been implemented ever since. The sides also hailed cooperation between Azerbaijan and OPEC as well as the successful implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor. Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: A meeting was held at the Baku City Executive Power between the Mayor of Baku Eldar Azizov and a delegation from the Russian cities of Derbent (of Republic of Dagestan) and Magas (of Republic of Ingushetia), Trend reports. The Mayor of Baku noted that Azerbaijani-Russian relations have reached a level of strategic partnership, and that the North Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation have played a special role in establishing these ties. "Azerbaijans relations with Dagestan and Ingushetia are developing in many areas. Mutual visits open up new opportunities for the further development of relations, and high-level political relations also affect economic relations," Azizov said. Noting that the peoples of the North Caucasus have lived in peace and friendship with Azerbaijan since time immemorial, Khizri Abakarov, Mayor of Derbent, said that relations with Azerbaijan are particularly valued in Dagestan. Mayor of Magas Beslan Tsechoyev stressed the high level of relations between Azerbaijan and Ingushetia. The special role of the executive structures of the cities of Baku, Derbent and Magas in the expansion of said relations was noted during the meeting. Issues of mutual interest were also discussed. The meeting was concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation between Baku, Derbent and Magas. Arjun Poudel is a health reporter for The Kathmandu Post. Before joining the Post, he worked for Sagarmatha Television, Naya Patrika, Republica and The Himalayan Times. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: Hikmat Hajiyev, head of the Department of Foreign Policy Affairs of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, held an exchange of views with Ambassador Michael Siebert, head of the department of the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs for cooperation with countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Trend reports referring to Hajiyev's Twitter page. "As part of trip to Germany had fruitful discussions with Director for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Ambassador Michael Siebert, Foreign Ministry of Germany. We had broad exchange of views on bilateral agenda, regional and international issues of mutual interest," Hajiyev wrote. Moreover, during the visit, Hikmat Hajiyev will also meet with his colleagues in the Presidential Administration and the Office of the German Chancellor, speak on the South Caucasus in the Bundestag, and also meet with representatives of leading research centers. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 Trend: On March 15th, The Prime Travel Market was organized by Prime Consulting for the third time, with the support of the State Tourism Agency (STA) and the Azerbaijan Tourism Association (AZTA), and has become one of the most successful events in the field of luxury tourism in Azerbaijan. By tradition, the exhibition was held at the JW Marriott Absheron hotel, in the halls of which professionals from the tourism sector of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, India, Mexico, Turkey, Greece, United Arab Emirates and South Africa gathered, to get acquainted with the news in the hospitality industry, new host companies and the services provided, as well as build successful partnerships and strengthen existing ones. This year, according to the organizers of Prime Travel Market, a large number of both local and foreign travel agencies took part in the exhibition. The participants of the event were 5 star hotels, exclusive resorts, global hotel chains, unique boutique hotels, airlines, leading tour operators, and concierge companies. The partners of the third Prime Travel Mart exhibition were Glion Institute of Higher Education and Turkish Airlines. Organizers of Prime travel Market were pleased to offer the visitors about 10 valuable prizes. Prime Travel Mart has deservedly won the reputation of one of the most efficient B2B events in the tourism industry in the region. The next Prime Travel Market event is scheduled for October 2019. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 Trend: From time to time genocide acts were committed against the Azerbaijanis, including the Genocide in 1918, and unfortunately they have never been given historical assessment at the international level. From the beginning of the 19th century, thousands of Armenian families were moved from Iran and Turkey to the ancient Azerbaijani lands Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Zangazur, Iravan provinces and other regions. The aim of the purposeful genocide, ethnic cleansing and deportation policies against the Azerbaijanis, executed for more than two centuries by the Armenian nationalists and their supporters, was to expel our compatriots from their historical lands and to establish Great Armenia state in these territories. The most horrible integral part of this policy was the genocide of the Azerbaijanis in 1918 which is distinct for its grave consequences. If we consider historical facts, Armenians realized their outrageous claims under the Bolshevik flag masterly using the February and October 1917 revolutions. Since March of 1918 civilian Azerbaijani population was mercilessly exposed to massacre just for their national and religious affiliation by the armed Dashnak-Bolshevik troops, Armenian nationalists; people were burned alive, rare historical and cultural monuments, hospitals, schools, mosques and cemeteries were destroyed. The massacres committed in Baku city, as well as other cities and districts of Baku province on March 31 and April 1-2, 1918, reached mass scale, the Armenian forces murdered ruthlessly more than 30,000 civilians. At that time numerous ancient buildings including Ismailiyya, a masterpiece of the world architecture, also the sanctuaries were scattered shelling, minarets of Juma and Tazapir mosques were seriously damaged. Later on, genocide and plunder acts were committed with special cruelty against our nationals in Shamakhi, Guba, Kurdamir and Salyan districts, Karabakh, Zangazur, Nakhchivan, Iravan, Shirvan, Lankaran and other regions. During these events more than 70 villages of Shamakhi were totally destroyed, 7,000 people were killed. As it is shown in the historical sources; it was a proof of pre-planning of the massacre that 2000 Armenian soldiers and ammunition loaded to 60 trucks were sent to Shamakhi even from the middle of March. 122 villages in Guba, nearly 40 villages in Lankaran regions were destroyed and burned down, many homes were looted and hundreds of innocent people, including women and children, were massacred. Although many years passed, that bloodshed has not been forgotten, it left indelible impressions on the memory of our nation. After the restoration of independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, we gained the opportunity to learn our history better, the truth hidden for a long period of time was gradually revealed, thus the distorted realities appear to be more evident now. Political assessment to the bloody events of March 31 was regarded only 80 years later, with signing of the Decree on the Genocide of Azerbaijanis by the President Heydar Aliyev dated March 26, 1998, thus, March 31 was declared as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis which is marked every year in the country at state level. Last year, the relevant plan of actions was implemented extensively in accordance with the Order signed by Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, On the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Genocide of Azerbaijanis, aimed at delivering the truth about those crimes against humanity more thoroughly to the country and world community. Numerous new facts and documents were collected as a result of recently conducted studies, it was proved that the geographical coverage of the bloody acts committed by the Armenian nationalists during March-April 1918 and later periods had been wider, and the number of tragedy victims was several times more. Last years, the facts that revealed mass human killings committed by Armenians during 1918 events were discovered in Guba. Innumerable human bones and other material evidences found there obviously prove vandalism of the Armenian murderers during those massacres. The Guba Genocide Memorial Complex was opened as a proof of mass murder of people in these territories and a sign of respect for their memory. This historical site is visited by the country population, as well as foreign guests. Recently, the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia also paid a visit to this Memorial Complex when he was in Azerbaijan. It is shown in the Resolution No. 96(I) of the United Nations General Assembly dated December 11, 1946 that genocide, being a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, is one of the most serious crimes against humanity. The elements of crime of genocide are set out in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the Resolution 260 (III) of the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948. According to the Convention genocide means acts committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group in whole or in part. Each of these acts shown in this document was committed during March-April 1918 against Azerbaijanis by the Armenians, and thus these events should be qualified as genocide. The history demonstrated that the Armenian nationalists did not give up their odious intentions, mercilessly exposed our civilian compatriots to further massacres and resorted to falsify events for concealing their intent. As a result of the next ethnic cleansing, aggression policies proceeded by Armenia since 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh, an integral part of Azerbaijan, going beyond its boundaries also the Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Gubadli and Zangilan rayons were occupied, consequently 20 percent of our lands were exposed to invasion, 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, more than one million people became refugees and IDPs, their rights were massively and grossly violated. During this invasion mass killings were executed by the Armenian nationalists and terrorists in Khojaly city, Karkijahan, Malibeyli, Gushchular, Garadaghly, Aghdaban villages and other settlements of Azerbaijan. The international law, as well as UN Security Council Resolutions 822, 853, 874, 884 from 1993, UN General Assembly Resolution on The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan dated March14, 2008, Resolution 1416 from 2005 and Recommendation 1690 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as well as European Parliament's Resolution on Nagorno-Karabakh from October 23, 2013 once again asserted that occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent seven rayons are the integral part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. However, the Armenian side demonstrates unconstructive position as usual, regularly violates the ceasefire regime and creates obstacles for the peace in the region. The genocide policy of Armenia against our civilian population is still continuing, which results in the murder of civilians, including children. Impunity of perpetrators committed such kind of deeds contradicts the main universally targeted priorities, UN Principles, Sustainable Development Goals. The President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev always makes efforts for putting an end to the aggression continued for 30 years, resolution the conflict in a peaceful way; he has repeatedly raised the issue before influential international organizations on necessity of resolving the conflict within the territorial integrity of our country in accordance with the norms and principles of international law, withdrawal of occupying forces from the Azerbaijani lands, returning of IDPs to their homes, and it has been reflected in the relevant decisions of these organizations. Despite passing four Resolutions of the UN Security Council and decisions of the OIC, OSCE, Non-Aligned Movement and relevant decisions of other international organizations, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has not yet been resolved in framework of the norms and principles of international law, territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country within the internationally recognized borders. Thus, commemorating the blessed memory our martyrs, the murdered people during the genocide committed in 1918, maintaining the above-mentioned, the norms and principles of international law, I call all states and authorized international organizations to recognize the massacre of the Azerbaijanis as an act of genocide for the sake of justice, to support our justified position, to unite in solidarity and increase efforts in this direction. I resolutely declare that these violent crimes committed against humanity shall be legally and politically assessed as an act of genocide at the international level, Armenia shall be sanctioned, the requirements of international documents to be followed. The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and violated rights of refugee and IDP compatriots should be restored, captives and hostages must be liberated and returned to their homeland, also the perpetrators committed murder of civilian people shall be soon brought before the justice tribunal and punished. Elmira Suleymanova The Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan 18.03.2019 The Statement is addressed to the UN Secretary-General, UN Security Council, UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Office of High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Human Rights Council, to the heads of UNICEF, UNESCO, European Union, Council of Europe, OSCE, to International and European Ombudsman Institutes, Asian Ombudsman Association, OIC and the Ombudsman Association of its member states, European Network of Ombudsmen for Children, International Peace Bureau, ombudsmen of different countries, embassies of the Republic of Azerbaijan abroad and foreign embassies in our republic, the Azerbaijani Diaspora organizations. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 Trend: A feed processing plant has started operating in Azerbaijan as part of a project jointly being implemented by the countrys government and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Trend reports with reference to the Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of Azerbaijan. In general, 20 feed processing plants, including those in Gazakh district, have been commissioned so far as part of the jointly implemented project SEDA (Socio-Economic Development Activity in Azerbaijan). Speaking at the event held with organizational support from the Agency for the Development of SMEs, Deputy Chairman of the Agencys Board Elchin Ibrahimov spoke about the diversification of the countrys economy under the leadership of the president of Azerbaijan, measures to develop the non-oil sector and the Azerbaijani districts and the results achieved. It was noted that implementation of business projects in the districts, as well as the commissioning of a new feed processing plant in Gazakh district, are of great importance in the development of the agriculture sector and in increasing employment. Chief Executive of Gazakh district Rajab Babashov in his speech at the event said that commissioning a new feed processing plant will make it possible to expand the activities of the district residents in the cattle breeding and crop production, satisfying the need for feed. USAID Project Manager Parviz Musayev spoke about the importance of such joint projects and noted that they will contribute to the development of the Azerbaijani districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: Azerbaijani industrial conglomerate Azersun Holding plans to maintain its pricing policy in 2019 at a stable level, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the holding Abdolbari Goozal told reporters in Baku, Trend reports. He said that the prices for the companys products will remain unchanged. We didnt set any goals to increase the cost of our products, our task is to sell all our products in the sales market, he noted. He added that the companys revenues have declined slightly, which is partially because of the competition in the market. Speaking about the future plans of the holding, he noted that Azersun Holding plans to expand production lines at the plants operating in Azerbaijan. We also plan to expand the Al Market network in Azerbaijan, he said. This, in turn, will make it possible to create new jobs. He also dismissed rumors that the company doesn't pay its workers on time. Azersun Holding was established in 1992. The scope of activity of the holding includes processing and packaging of tea, vegetable oil, trade and distribution, construction, production of cardboard and paper products, canned meat and vegetables, transportation and storage of goods, etc. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Latvia would welcome investments from Azerbaijan in ports and logistics centres, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia Edgars Rinkevics said in an exclusive interview with Trend. Noting that Latvian companies are working in Azerbaijans market in transport and logistics, engineering, IT and telecommunications, architecture, tourism and education sectors, the foreign minister said Latvia is interested in expanding this cooperation. "In 2018, Azerbaijan opened its Trade House in Riga seeking to build stronger economic cooperation with Latvia. Azerbaijani companies have shown an interest in developing contacts with Latvia in the food, pharmaceutical, environmental, agricultural and industrial sectors. Latvia would welcome investments from Azerbaijan in ports and logistics centres. This April, we look ahead to hosting a business delegation from Azerbaijan. Hopefully, this visit will contribute to boosting our economic exchanges," said Rinkevics. He went on to add that investment in small and medium-sized business would bring a lot of benefit to economic relations between Latvia and Azerbaijan. "We already have examples of successful investment in the areas such as wholesale trade, transportation and consulting. Latvia is interested in increasing mutually beneficial investments," added the Latvian foreign minister. Further, Rinkevics said that in 2018, Latvia and Azerbaijan trade turnover (19.84 million euros) increased for more than 20 percent year-on-year. "Latvian exports to Azerbaijan include food products, construction and building materials, wood products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals. Latvian entrepreneurs are interested in exploring new export markets. We are confident that more Latvian products ranging from electronic equipment to cosmetics will be delivered to Azerbaijan in the coming years," he added. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Fakhri Vakilov Trend: GM Uzbekistan company has started regular deliveries of Nexia R3 car kits for large-unit assemblies in Kazakhstan, Trend reports via Uzbek media. "GM Uzbekistan exported the first batch of cars to Kazakhstan On March 16. The company will export Nexia R3 for a large-unit assembly to the SaryarkAvtoProm plant in Kostanay (Kazakhstan), as well as the finished R4 model to the Ravon Motors Kazakhstan dealer," the company noted. Moreover, the company has exported cars to Afghanistan and Tajikistan since the beginning of this year. Recently, GM Uzbekistan and Saryark AvtoProm LLP (Kazakhstan) signed a production development contract. The parties within the framework of the document have agreed to release 16,000 vehicles intended for sale up to the end of 2019, both in the market of Kazakhstan and in export markets, including the Russian Federation. Furthermore, automakers discussed the creation of a joint venture, phased work to deepen localization, including on the automotive component base, continued cooperation on new competitive models, measures to improve the quality of products. SKD assembly of the Ravon Nexia R3 sedan was launched At the Kazakhstani enterprise "SariarkaAvtoProm" in 2017. Capacity of assembly is about 3,000 cars a year, with the possible increase in production of up to 7,000 cars. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Some 78,400 real estate properties were sold in Turkey in February 2019, which is 18.2 percent less than in February 2018, Trend reports referring to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK). During the period, 11,400 real estate properties were sold in Istanbul, 7,600 properties in Ankara, and 4,400 properties in Izmir, according to the TUIK. "The remaining 55,000 real estate properties fall to the share of other cities," the TUIK said. In February 2019, 3,300 real estate properties were sold to foreigners in Turkey, which is 92.1 percent more than in February 2018. In February 2019, Iraqi citizens acquired 628 real estate properties in Turkey, Iranian citizens purchased 307 properties, while citizens of Afghanistan, Kuwait and Russia purchased 166, 150 and 236 properties, respectively. "The remaining 1,800 real estate properties fall to the share of citizens of other countries," the TUIK said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 Trend: A feed processing plant has been commissioned in the Azad Garagoyunlu village of Azerbaijans Terter district as part of the project SEDA (Socio-Economic Development Activity in Azerbaijan) being jointly implemented by the Azerbaijani government and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Trend reports with reference to the Economy Ministry. In connection with the commissioning of the feed processing plant, an event was held with the organizational support of the Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of Azerbaijan. Speaking at the event, Deputy Chairman of the agencys Board Elchin Ibrahimov, Head of the Terter District Executive Power Mustagim Mammadov and USAID Project Manager Parviz Musayev noted that the implementation of business projects in the districts, including the commissioning of the feed processing plant in the Azad Garagoyunlu village of the Terter district, contributes to the development of the agriculture sector of the district. In particular, it contributes to the expansion of activities in the field of livestock breeding and crop production, meets the needs in feed and increases employment. As part of the SEDA project, a feed processing plant was commissioned on the same day in the Yeni Dashkand village of the Barda district. At the feed processing plants in Azad Garagoyunlu and Yeni Dashkand villages, a production site and a warehouse were built, equipment was installed that makes it possible to refine two tons of seeds per hour, grind feed and chop the grass. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Fakhri Vakilov Trend: An Uzbek-American business forum will be held in Washington in October, Trend reports via Uzbek media. The parties agreed on that after a briefing on the achievements of Uzbek economy, which was held in Washington DC. It is planned that the leading US companies in the fields of agriculture, energy, infrastructure development, high technology, medicine, transport and others will take part in the business forum. The representatives of The US Department of Commerce also discussed the organization of a trade mission of American companies to Uzbekistan in June. Participants from the number of US companies stated that they intend to expand their presence in the Uzbek market, and representatives of leading international banks are ready to support these aspirations, the press service of Uzbek Foreign Ministry noted. For the first 9 months of last year, Uzbekistan and the United States increased their bilateral trade almost 2 times and brought it to $332 million. Currently, over 210 enterprises with the participation of American capital are successfully operating in Uzbekistan; last year alone, more than 25 new enterprises were created with the participation of investors from the United States. The total amount of US investments and loans attracted to the economy of Uzbekistan from 1998-2017 exceeded $1 billion. --- Follow author on Twitter:@vakilovfaxri A bridge to fear A recent report published in this paper highlighted how over half a dozen overhead bridges in the Capital city are in dilapidated condition because of lack of effective maintenance. Most of these flyovers are in the Ratna Park area. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: The implementation of the OPEC + agreement will exceed 100 percent in March, Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said during a press conference following the OPEC+ meeting in Baku, Trend reports. "Our cooperation is voluntary. Each party to the agreement decides on oil production taking into account their national interests. We do not measure each others production," he said. The minister noted that the main principle in this agreement is trust. Al-Falih expects that the implementation of the OPEC+ agreement in March will exceed 100 percent. "The implementation of the agreement on the results of six months should also be above 100 percent," he added. The 13th meeting of the Joint OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee will be held in Baku on March 18. Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission on March 17. The participants discussed the current situation in the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The presentation on the pace of development of the oil market was held and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on oil production indicators for February was heard during the meeting. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Azad Hasanli - Trend: Azerbaijan and Russia discussed the possibility of supplying Russian oil to the STAR refinery in Turkey, owned by SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state company, Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan said, Trend reports citing Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan. This issue was discussed by the Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, Parviz Shahbazov, at a meeting with Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak in Baku. The meeting was held as part of the meeting of the Monitoring Committee of OPEC Ministers and non-cartel countries, which will be held in Baku on March 18. The sides discussed measures to preserve stability in the global oil market within OPEC+, the state of implementation of the December agreement, the Azerbaijani-Russian energy cooperation. Minister Novak informed about measures to reduce oil production in Russia. According to him, to determine the next steps in the global oil market, it would be advisable to hold a discussion in May. Speaking about trends in the oil market, Minister Shahbazov stressed the importance of continuing cooperation in order to maintain price stability. Azerbaijan and Russia also discussed the coordination of the Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran energy system, the transportation of oil to Russia, the Turkish Stream project and other issues. The parties agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding to strengthen and further develop cooperation. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Azerbaijan is ready to further support the efforts of OPEC to maintain balance in the oil market, Azerbaijans Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said, Trend reports March 18. He was speaking at the opening of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku. This event shows the historical role of Azerbaijan in the oil industry, he said. Azerbaijan doesnt export oil in large volumes, but plays a big role in ensuring energy security in the world. I hope that the OPEC+ charter will be finalized soon. The minister noted that cooperation between countries is important to prevent risks in the oil market. OPEC+ provides main support to the oil market, he added. We see positive results of this agreement. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Russia is committed to the implementation of the OPEC+ agreement and oil production volumes in the country show this, Deputy Energy Minister of Russia Pavel Sorokin said, Trend reports March 18. He was speaking at the opening of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku. He expressed hope that the meeting on March 18 will become another step to achieve better results in the oil market, to provide even better understanding and elimination of uncertainty, and to discuss further steps during the first six months of the agreements implementation. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The todays meeting participants discuss the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then will feature a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February will be read out. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: The main goal of oil-producing countries is to normalize global levels of oil reserves, said Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Trend reports March 18. He was speaking at the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku. He said that last year the market was stabilized thanks to the implementation of a number of measures. He added that despite all the success, much remains to be done. I am very pleased that this meeting is being held here in Baku, the homeland of oil, he noted. We are here today to celebrate the success of Azerbaijans oil industry. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Kheyraddin Nasirzade - Trend: Holding a meeting in the format of "OPEC +" in Baku is a significant event as part of cooperation between Azerbaijan and members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Azerbaijani MP, member of the parliamentary commission on economic issues, industry and entrepreneurship, expert economist Rufat Guliyev told Trend. The MP noted that Azerbaijan is among the countries closely cooperating with OPEC. Speaking about compliance with the agreement to reduce oil production in the OPEC + framework, Guliyev said that Azerbaijan always fulfills its obligations, and being a major oil exporter in the region, the country is interested in regulating the issues of volume and stable oil prices on the world market. These issues are on the agenda of today's meeting, since, as the expert noted, the stability of oil prices on the market by restraining production is the best solution. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: The decision to extend the OPEC+ deal may be made in June this year, Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih told reporters on the sidelines of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports March 18. The minister added that in April its too early to make an extension decision. On Dec.7, 2018, an agreement was reached at the fifth ministerial meeting of the non-OPEC member and non-OPEC countries in Vienna to cut daily oil production by 1.2 million barrels. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 Trend: The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18, Trend reports. The meeting participants are discussing the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then will feature a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February will be read out. Speaking at the opening of the event, Azerbaijans Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said that Azerbaijan is ready to further support the efforts of OPEC to maintain balance in the oil market. This event shows the historical role of Azerbaijan in the oil industry, he said. In turn, Deputy Energy Minister of Russia Pavel Sorokin expressed hope that the meeting on March 18 will become another step to achieve better results in the oil market, to provide even better understanding and elimination of uncertainty, and to discuss further steps during the first six months of the agreements implementation. Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih said that he is happy that this meeting is being held in Baku, the homeland of oil. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: The meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku is a landmark event, and this initiative is good for Azerbaijan in the first place, Russian expert, deputy director of the Center for Strategic Conjuncture, Mikhail Chernov, told Trend. The expert noted that this event is indicative of the entire region in that the Caspian state of the South Caucasus has managed to organize on its territory a comfortable discussion of a significant international agenda by OPEC members and large oil-producing countries that are not members of the organization. "All OPEC + states are interested in market stability, and in order to maintain predictable stable prices, they are ready to make commitments to reduce production. The main stakeholder in this issue is Saudi Arabia. And certain assistance and understanding from Azerbaijan can be fully appreciated in the form of joint Azerbaijani-Saudi projects in the territory of the republic," Chernov said. However, according to a Russian expert, under current conditions, the possibilities of OPEC+ countries to influence oil prices are rather limited. The expert noted that the US significantly increased its capabilities in this direction. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The todays meeting participants discuss the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then features a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: The meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was successful, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih said at a press conference on the results of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC JMMC in Baku, Trend reports. "We discussed a number of important issues. We decided to accept new members - Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the UAE," the minister said. Moreover, as noted by Al-Falih, the next steps needed to stabilize the market were discussed. The minister added that it does not make sense to hold the meeting in April and it may be canceled. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was held in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The meeting participants discussed the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then featured a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS A series of events, and intel report led to government action against Chand outfit The Communist Party of Nepal, led by Netra Bikram Chand, was branded a criminal outfit by the government on March 12, paving the way for police action against the group and its members as per the countrys law. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: In late February 2019, the OPEC + agreement was fulfilled by 90 percent, and this figure is significantly higher than the results of January, it was voiced at a press conference following the meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports. The committee acknowledged the current uncertainties around the oil market during 2019 and stressed that all countries participating in the OPEC+ agreement are responsible for restoring market stability and preventing any imbalance. All participating countries individually and collectively assured the Committee that they would voluntarily reduce oil production in the coming months. Moreover, a recommendation was adopted to postpone the OPEC ministerial meeting to May before the OPEC conference, which will be held on June 25. The committee also supported the planned production cuts in Brunei, Ecuador and Malaysia. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The todays meeting participants discuss the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then features a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: Next month, the indicators of Azerbaijans compliance with the OPEC+ agreement to reduce oil production will be even better, the Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov said at a press conference following the meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports. "For two and a half years Azerbaijan has exceeded its obligations under the OPEC+ agreement. Last December, we made new commitments. We remain committed to our obligations. Following the results of the 1H2019, Azerbaijan will completely fulfill its obligations under OPEC+. Next month there will be even better results," the minister said. Both meetings of OPEC+, which were held on March 17-18 in Baku, were successful, he noted. "Azerbaijan, as an active participant in the OPEC+ format, has always contributed to the successful implementation of joint efforts to preserve the balance in the oil market. Azerbaijan will fully support this agreement in the future," the minister added. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was held in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The meeting participants discussed the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then featured a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: Azerbaijan is an example for other countries participating in the OPEC+ deal for cutting the oil production, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih said at a press conference on the results of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC JMMC in Baku, Trend reports. He noted that it is not only a matter of volumes, but also that of a very active participation of Azerbaijan. "I am sure that Azerbaijan will always be one of the leaders of the deal, especially after we endorse the OPEC+ Charter. We are always happy to welcome new participants and hope that Azerbaijan, with its intrinsic pragmatism, will help us attract new countries," the minister said. Al-Falih noted that Saudi Arabia is always interested in cooperating with Azerbaijan in various fields and sectors of the economy. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was held in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The meeting participants discussed the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then featured a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: Venezuela is looking for new markets for oil, Minister of Oil and President of the State Oil Company of Venezuela Manuel Quevedo Fernandez told reporters on the sidelines of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports March 18. "We stopped exporting more than 4,000 barrels per day. And we are currently working with our partners, as well as looking for new markets. Russia is one of those states with which we want to continue cooperation and increase supplies," the minister said. Speaking about the India's refusal to buy oil from Venezuela, the minister noted that despite this, the two countries still maintain commercial relations. "We started restoring oil production since last year and intend to continue this business in 2019, he said. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was held in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The meeting participants discussed the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then featured a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Leman Zeynalova - Trend: Russias company LUKOIL intends to expand its presence in Azerbaijan, Head of the company Vagit Alekperov told reporters March 18 on the sidelines of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports. He said that there are all investment conditions in this region, therefore LUKOIL intends to expand its presence in Azerbaijan. He noted that the company is interested in participating in such projects as Umid-Babek and Absheron in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR and Total signed a framework agreement in 2016 on the main contractual and commercial principles regulating the first phase of development of the Absheron field. The first phase of the fields development envisaged drilling one well at a sea depth of 450 meters. The production will stand at 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas and 700,000 tons of condensate per year and these volumes will be used in Azerbaijans domestic market. It is planned to produce up to 4 billion cubic meters of gas at the second stage. Absherons reserves are estimated at 326 billion cubic meters of gas and 108 million tons of condensate, according to estimations of the Total specialists. According to SOCARs data and the results of drilling of the first exploration well, the field has over 200 billion cubic meters of gas and 40 million tons of condensate. The Umid field is located 75 kilometers from Baku. The reserves of the Babek structure may stand at 400 billion cubic meters of gas and 80 million tons of condensate, according to preliminary data. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was held in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The meeting participants discussed the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then featured a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: Until the next OPEC+ meeting, oil reserves in the world will begin to fall, but not so much to require to take some steps, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih said at a press conference on the results of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports. There are more than three months left until the next meeting, so its impossible to say something exact now, the minister said, adding that he leaves Baku with the confidence that the market is moving in the right direction. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) was held in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. The meeting participants discussed the current state of the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The event then featured a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February. New members of the Committee were also announced at the end of the event. The new members are Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the UAE. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Exports to Afghanistan from Irans southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province increased by 85 percent during the current Iranian year (started March 21, 2018), compared to the same period last year, Nader Mirshekar, head of Industries, Mining and Trade Organization of Sistan and Baluchestan, told IRNA, Trend reports. According to Mirshekar, export value exceeded $278 million over the past 11 months. Mirshekar added that 33 percent of the province's products are exported to Afghanistan. "$58.8 million worth of products have been exported in 11 months, with $219 million worth of products exported from border markets," he said. The company official said that products worth $832 million in total were exported to other countries. He went on to say that the products exported to Afghanistan consisted of construction materials (cement), dates, vegetables, apples, chemical and industrial products. Located on the coast of the Gulf of Oman in southeastern Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province has a 300-km border with Afghanistan and a 921-km border with Pakistan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Iran has banned export of steel via intermediary trading companies, Trend reports referring to the Young Journalists Club (YJC). This was reflected in a letter addressed by the Iranian Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Rahmani to Director General of the Iranian Customs Administration Mehdi Mirashrafi. The letter states that this decision has been made for the purposes of meeting the local needs, regulating the exports of steel products, supervising the return of exported currency to the country, and preventing the cheap sales of exported products, as well as based on the appeal of major manufacturers. As per the decision, export of steel products will be done only by the manufacturers or their official representatives upon the official approval of the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade of Iran. Certain problems have arisen with regards to the return of foreign currency earned from product exports in Iran. Exporters state that the sale of some of the foreign currency earned from exports to the NIMA system has hit their exports. In Iran, the official exchange rate of $1 is 42,000 rials, and this exchange rate can be used for the import of certain essential goods. The price of $1 announced for banks and currency exchange offices by the Central Bank of Iran ranges between 129,000-130,000 rials. The price of $1 in the Iranian black market is about 130,000-135,000 rials. NIMA is a system intended for the sale of a certain percentage of the foreign currency gained from the sale non-essential goods and export. The price of $1 in the NIMA system is between 88,000-89,000 rials. Iranian parliament speaker on Sunday called for promotion of relations with Kazakhstan in all fields, including the economy, Trend reports citing IRNA. Iran and Kazakhstan should boost their cooperation in fields of banking, trade and tourism, Ali Larijani said. He made the remarks in a meeting with Askhat Orazbay, the new Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Iran. For his part, the Kazakh envoy welcomed further development of cooperation with Iran. He referred to inauguration of the first Astana-Tehran flight on Monday and noted that it is of high importance because there is no direct flight between Iran and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: The number of people infected with an unknown virus has reached 700 in the Qorveh County of Irans northwestern Kordestan Province, said Houshang Pirfallah, head of the Qorveh County department of Medical Council of the Kordestan Province, Trend reports referring to ILNA. According to Pirfallah, cases of poisoning have increased since March 10. Pirfallah added that, although a virus is believed to be the cause of the poisoning, its exact cause still remains unknown. "The poisoned suffer from diarrhea and vomiting, and recover in 12 hours," he said. Pirfallah denied claims of the poisoning being caused by drinking water or frozen meat. A norovirus is assumed to be the cause of the poisoning. Amrit Man Tuladhar: When it comes to innovative ideas, Muncha has always been ahead For Nepalis studying abroad who want to send a gift to their mothers on Mothers Day, there are numerous current options. You can select from any number of e-commerce sites, and even many websites of individual shops now offer e-payment and delivery. But back in the 2000s, there were few options. And Muncha.com was one of them. Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 18 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: The Melal Park in the city of Sari of Irans northern Mazandaran Province was left underwater as a result of the flooding of the Tajan River, Mehdi Obouri, mayor of Sari, told Tasnim News Agency, Trend reports. According to Obouri, work is being done for closing the Tajan Bridge, taking into account the possible risks. He stated that the infrastructure of the city was seriously damaged as a result of the flood, going on to say that some vehicles outside the park were also left underwater, and that operations are being carried out for their evacuation as well. The park, located on 35 hectares of land on the outskirts of the Tajan River, was named Melal (Persian for Nations) because of the flags of all countries of the world put up there. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: Smuggling of 84 kilograms of heroin to Azerbaijan from Bilehsovar district of Irans Ardabil province has been prevented, head of the provincial police Houshang Hosseini told reporters, Trend reports via Iranian media. He said that police officers and customs officers found heroin in a truck. He added that in this regard, one person has been detained, investigation is underway. The US military are planning to keep nearly 1,000 troops in Syria, the US-based media reported on Sunday, citing US officials, Trend reports citing Sputnik. According to The Wall Street Journal, Washington plans to continue supporting Kurdish forces in Syria despite the threats from Ankara to launch a military operation against the Kurds in northern Syria. Sources told the media outlet that these plans require to keep nearly half of the current US military contingent in the country. Washington's support for the opposition Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and groups affiliated with them, has been one of the stumbling blocks in US-Turkish relations. The SDF and its political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council reportedly control huge swathes of the Syrian territory to the east of Euphrates. The Kurds proclaimed the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) in the region, which is recognized by neither Damascus nor the world community. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal notes that the number of US military contingent in Syria could change if Trump decides that it is too risky to keep such a big number of troops in the conflict-torn country. US President Donald Trump announced last December that he had decided to pull out troops from Syria promising to bring about 2,000 US servicemen back home. The reason for the move, he explained, was the defeat of the Daesh terrorist group in Syria. However, no exact deadline for the return of troops has been revealed by US officials yet. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in February that the United States would leave a small peacekeeping group of about 200 personnel in Syria "for a period of time". According to media reports, this number has already risen to 400, with 200 troops to be placed in northeast Syria and the other 200 at At-Tanf base in southern Syria. The US-led coalition of more than 70 members has been conducting military operations against the Daesh in Syria and Iraq since September 2014. The coalitions activities in Syria are authorized neither by the Syrian government, nor by the UN Security Council. Algerian Army Chief of Staff and Deputy Defense Minister Ahmed Gaid Salah on Monday called for a quick solution to the crisis in the North African nation amid mass protests, Trend reported citing Xinhua. "The Algerian people have demonstrated an exceptional and civilized sense of patriotism," Gaid Salah told officials and troops at the third military region of southwestern province of Bechar. Gaid Salah was referring to the mass protests that have erupted across Algeria since Feb. 22 to claim political changes. "I believe that if we act responsibly, we would reach an appropriate and quick solution" to the growing political crisis, he added. On March 11, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced that the presidential election slated for April 18 will be postponed, and dropped his decision to seek a fifth presidential term. He also pledged to form a new cabinet to pave the way for organizing a national inclusive conference to draft a new constitution and organize presidential election. However, these propositions have been rejected by the protesters as they insist that the transition era should not be led by any representative of the government. Millions of Algerians have been staging marches across the country every Friday to call for establishing a new Algeria with the new government and the new constitution. At least 2 people died in incident during a St. Patrick's event at a hotel in Cookstown, Northern Ireland, Reuters reports, citing local police, Trend reports citing Sputnik. Local police have confirmed that there were 2 fatalities at the Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown. "At this stage the cause of the incident is unknown however police have commenced a full investigation into the circumstances," police service of Northern Ireland said in Twitter. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said via Twitter that "while the exact cause of the incident is still unknown, there are reports of a crush at the scene." Earlier the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) had received several calls at about 9:30pm following reports of a number of people having sustained serious injuries, the Belfast Telegraph reports. "NIAS despatched two Rapid Response Paramedics, two doctors and five emergency crews to the scene. Three patients have been taken, by ambulance, to Antrim Area Hospital for treatment for various injuries and another to Craigavon Area Hospital," the service said as cited by the Telegraph. According to local police, the event was also attended by children celebrating St. Patrick's day. No other information has been made available. Several people were shot, one possibly fatally, on Monday in a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, in an incident police said may have had a terrorist motive, Reuters reported. Police said the suspected gunman was at large and authorities raised the terrorism threat to its highest level in Utrecht province. Schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports and other vital infrastructure. Security was stepped up at mosques. Several shots were fired in a tram and several people were injured. Helicopters are at the scene and no arrests have been made, said police spokesman Joost Lanshage. He was not immediately able to provide further details. Local broadcaster RTV Utrecht quoted a witness as saying he had seen a woman lying on the ground amid some kind of confrontation and several men ran away from the scene. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was deeply concerned about the incident and convened crisis talks. The incident comes after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, last Friday. Utrecht, the Netherlands fourth largest city, is known for its picturesque canals and large student population. Gun killings are rare in Utrecht, as elsewhere in the Netherlands. The Utrecht police said The October 21st square, a tram station stop outside the city center, had been cordoned off as emergency services were at the scene. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni confirmed Monday that he will run for the presidency in the country's elections slated for 2021, Trend reports citing Xinhua. Museveni, according to a statement from the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, said he was pleased with the confidence various party organs have in him. "Since I am still very able and I happen to be among the most conversant with this journey, I happily agree to serve," Museveni was quoted as saying. "I am very convinced that together we can make NRM invulnerable, not vulnerable to any attack when we budget well, deal with the issues of the youth and job creation among others," added Museveni, who is also the chairman of the NRM. The NRM party legislators on Sunday endorsed Museveni to run for the presidency in 2021, weeks after the Central Executive Committee (CEC), another party organ had taken the same decision. "I thank my colleagues in CEC and the NRM Parliamentary Caucus for forwarding my name to continue adding more steps on our mission-oriented journey," Museveni said. Museveni has been in power for more than 30 years. Ugandan legislators in 2017 voted to remove the age limit of 75 years for running for the presidency. Museveni is now 74. Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Turkey opposes using the expression Christian terrorism, said Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay, who is visiting New Zealand, commenting on the recent terror attack in New Zealand mosques against Muslims, Trend reports March 18 with reference to the Turkish media. Despite that the terrorist who opened fire at people in one of the mosques had religious views, it is wrong to associate his actions with Christianity, Oktay noted. He didnt rule out that certain forces stand behind the terror attack in the mosques of New Zealand. Oktay and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu flew to New Zealand on March 16. According to latest reports, 50 people have been killed, and 20 seriously injured, after gunmen opened fire at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on March 15. Four suspects were detained. An Australian citizen of ultra-right views - Brenton Tarrant, a native of Australia's Grafton opened fire at one of the mosques. He streamed the attack online, and before the attack, published a 37-page manifesto, in which he called his actions a terrorist attack. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Turkey and Iran will conduct joint military operations against the militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist group, said Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, Trend reports March 18 with reference to the Iranian media. He said that the PKK is a threat to everyone. He added that there are no problems on the Iranian-Turkish border. On March 6, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that Turkey and Iran will conduct joint operations against the PKK terrorist group. The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has lasted more than 25 years, claiming more than 40,000 lives. The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the UN and the EU. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, March 18 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Fifteen terrorists have been detained as part of special operations in Istanbul and Turkeys Kocaeli province, Trend reports March 18 with reference to the Turkish media. Six of them are militants of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, and nine are militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Operations were carried out at ten previously established addresses. The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has lasted more than 25 years, claiming more than 40,000 lives. The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the UN and the EU. Fourteen IS members were also detained in Ankara on March 18. On Nov. 5, 2018, a major operation was carried out against members of the "Islamic State" in 11 provinces of Turkey. Some 24 people, who were engaged in raising funds for terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Libya, were arrested. Also, cash money of more than $500,000 and more than two million Turkish liras were confiscated during the operation. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Congress lashes out at proposed law to further empower PM The main opposition Nepali Congress has lashed out at the Bill on Work, Responsibility and Rights of National Security Council that was registered at Parliament last week, saying that the proposed legislation is against the democratic norms and the spirit of the constitution. To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry. Disclaimer Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. The man landed in Mumbai from Tanzania on December 4 and his samples were sent for genome sequencing when he tested positive for coronavirus. Dahal likely to meet US vice president while in America for wifes treatment Former prime minister and Co-chairman of the ruling communist party Pushpa Kamal Dahal left for the United States of America on Sunday for the treatment of his wife. Sita Dahal, who is suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, will receive treatment at the Baltimore-based John Hopkins Hospital. Eight years on, construction of the Kamala river bridge yet to complete The construction of a bridge at Jhunga in Dudhauli Municipality-3, Sindhuli, has been going on at a snails pace. The bridge lies at Hetauda-Sindhuli-Gaighat-Chatara road section and connects Hatpate of Dudhauli Municipality-2 with Jhunga of Dudhauli Municipality-3. KOLKATA: On Sunday, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Prime Minister Narendra Modi played the role of "perfect chowkidar" by giving Pakistan a befitting reply after the Pulwama terror attack, something his predecessor Manmohan Singh could not do in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. She said "After Mumbai attack, the government then did not have the guts to give a befitting reply to Pakistan. They sat right, gave statements, said they would talk, make them understand. OK, do all that. We will also do. But so long, we had been suffering,". Ms Sitharaman said "And Pakistan continued to claim before the world that they are themselves victims of terrorism. You are grooming terrorists, training them, and sending them to India. And claim you are the victims of terrorism... then take action as per law against them,". The Defence Minister said even after Pulwama, the Indian government had given evidence to Pakistan, but it did not act. Pointing out that even the terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) itself had claimed responsibility for the strike, Ms Sitharaman asked: "What more proof does it (Pakistan) want?" also read Manohar Parrikar tweeted 'Human mind can overcome any disease' on World Cancer Day She said participating in the panel discussion 'Ensuring India's National Security'"What Manmohan Singh did not do, Modi did. He acted like the perfect chowkidar and gave Pakistan a befitting reply,". "What action Pakistan did not take, we took. We had inputs that another Pulwama-style terror attack was in the offing. We studied intel inputs and destroyed the training camps, where terrorists are trained. Ms Sitharman also lashed out at journalists and thinkers in the country who described Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan as a "statesman" for returning Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. She said Pakistan did not do a favour but the pilot's release happened as per law. In this context, Ms Sitharaman reminded the audience that India had returned 90,000 Pakistani soldiers -- taken as prisoners of war after 1971 -- unconditionally. "But there are some people within India, some journalists and thinkers, who are calling Imran Khan a statesman for sending back our pilot." also read Priyanka Gandhi will begin her three-day tour from Prayagraj to Varanasi today Ms Sitharam said the statements given by these people and leaders of various opposition parties were shown on Pakistan television channels, generating high TRPs.After Balakot air strikes, India has given a message to the entire world that it would not bow down to Pakistan's threat that since it was also a nuclear state, India would suffer if it did something against Pakistan. Pakistan-based Dawn reported that Pervez Musharraf, the former military ruler of Pakistan who has been in self-imposed exile in Dubai, was recently shifted to a hospital here after a reaction from a rare disease. Musharraf, 75, was transferred to a local hospital in Dubai over the weekend after his health deteriorated. It is also reported that subsequent medical checks revealed that he had had a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare disease which he has been suffering from. also read 35 foreign and domestic tourists trapped after landslides hit on Indonesia`s tourist island Here it is to be noted that while Musharraf has been battling the rare medical condition for some time now, his health deteriorated suddenly on Saturday after a reaction. It is learnt that he has been advised complete bed rest by doctors. In October of last year, it was confirmed that Musharraf is suffering from a medical condition that has taken a toll on his nervous system. He had also been treated for this in London. At the time, people close to him had explained that the medical condition results in protein getting deposited in different organs in the body. However, in the past, Musharraf made a number of public appearances in Dubai and elsewhere, and has vowed to return to Pakistan despite a number of charges against him in the country. He was indicted on treason charges by Pakistan's Supreme Court in March of 2014.According to officials of All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), Musharraf would only return if he is guaranteed a fair trial and if he is assured that he can leave the country for medical treatment. also read Pakistan PM Imran Khan announces award For Pak man for his courage before New Zealand shooter Finance Ministry tops list of non-paying tenants at airport The Finance Ministry holds the number one spot in the list of non-paying tenants at Tribhuvan International Airport with more than Rs548 million in outstanding rentals. AI in agriculture production still underused in Vietnam VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese farmers have been urged to use AI in agriculture because it is considered the key to all technologies. Seagull ADC in Hau Giang province is hailed as the pioneer in using AI in agricultural production. At its farms, sensors are used to measure the humidity in melon-growing membrane houses. If the humidity is too high, the system will automatically turn on ventilators to suck moisture out, and if the temperature becomes too high, a screen will be activated to shade plants. Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, deputy CEO of VinEco, is satisfied about the results. AI solutions help us build up different production plans for different weather, land and climate conditions, she said. Farmers in Tay Ninh, the partners of Lavifood, have also been applying AI solutions in cultivation. The solutions tell them how much fertilizer they need to use and how much water to irrigate, after considering the humidity level. Lavifood can get detailed information about types of soil and the crops suited to that soil. It has joined forces with some enterprises to produce specific fertilizer products that help improve soil and support plantation. While AI has become popular in many countries, it has only been applied in Vietnam recently. Lam Dong province is expected to become the metropolis of hi-tech agriculture of Vietnam as its farmers have many advanced solutions in cultivation there. The provincial authorities decided that smart agriculture is what the province is striving for. Obstacles Even the companies utilizing AI solution in production admit that they are meeting difficulties using high technology. Tran Phong Lan, director of Seagull ADC, said the company is trying to set sensors to control fruit quality after harvest and during transportation. Fruits, when they are carried from orchards to distribution points, may suffer from thermal shock, which affect their quality if the storage temperature cannot be stabilized, he explained. We are brainstorming solutions to this problem, he said. Ho Tu Bao from John von Neumann Institute also said that a database is important in digitalizing production. However, Vietnams businesses do not know how to collect and exploit data. Dr Nguyen Ky Tai from Southern Queensland University, said Vietnams farming scale remains modest, which makes it difficult to collect and process data. Moreover, investments in modern machines and automation are beyond the capability of the majority of farmers. Meanwhile, the possibility of localizing agriculture machines is not high. And Vietnam still has not begun building a big data ecosystem. RELATED NEWS Vietnams potential for AI application is huge Vietnamese technology firms make big leaps in AI research Kim Chi Minister Gyawali to attend in UN meet Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali is leaving for Argentina on Monday leading a Nepali delegation to the three-day United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation starting in Buenos Aires from March 20. No plan to reshuffle Cabinet: PM Oli Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said he does not have any plan to reshuffle the Cabinet. A ministers portfolio is vacant now. " " Doctors attempt to cure syphilis (aka the "great pox") in the 16th century. Bettman/Getty Images William Shakespeare mentioned diseases often in his plays, probably because he was literally surrounded by them. During his London-based lifetime, such notorious illnesses as bubonic plague, typhus and malaria ravaged citizens, all made more potent and deadly by rodents, overcrowding and virtually non-existent sanitation systems. Also striking fear into the hearts of just about everyone were smallpox and syphilis, also known as the "great pox." The two conditions actually present similar rashes despite being different in type of disease and transmission. Smallpox is viral, spread by breathing; syphilis is bacterial and almost always sexually transmitted. The hallmark of both diseases was a body riddled with pustules, also known as pox (or pocks, if you're into ye Olde-English way of speaking). It fell to the people to distinguish between the horrors. Thus syphilis became known as the "great pox," because in the 15th to 17th centuries, it was the greater fear not because the pock marks of syphilis were larger than those of smallpox. Advertisement Syphilis was likely introduced to Europe when Christopher Columbus's crew brought it back from the New World in 1493. Although there are other theories, the timing is definitely suspect the pandemic began in Europe pretty much right after they returned, killing many. Even those who were lucky enough to survive were typically covered in scars and turned blind, clearly not such a pretty fate. In "return," the Europeans left behind smallpox and other diseases in the New World, which, along with slavery, wiped out millions of Native Americans. Smallpox is highly contagious, causes fever and even death in 30 percent of cases, according to the CDC. Fortunately, smallpox has now been eradicated by vaccine and we have penicillin to treat syphilis. Shakespeare's writings indicate an interest in syphilis, such as in the play "Timon of Athens," where he references the use of inhaled vaporized mercury salts, a common treatment for the disease at the time. In fact, one of his best-known quotes was originally a reference to syphilis "A plague on both your houses!" from "Romeo and Juliet" was first "A pox on both your houses." Now That's Interesting Thanks to multiple references of syphilis in his works, historians have wondered whether Shakespeare was infected himself. Known for being quite the playboy, his signature during the last years of his life indicate that he suffered from a tremor, a common side effect of mercury poisoning, the treatment of choice for people suffering from syphilis. Of course, any number of physical ailments can cause a tremor, so it's unlikely this posthumous diagnosis will ever be confirmed. Patients who stopped taking aspirin three months after receiving a stent to open the heart's arteries but continued taking a P2Y12 inhibitor--clopidogrel, prasugrel or ticagrelor--did not experience higher rates of death from any cause, heart attack or stroke after a year compared with those receiving standard therapy, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Session. Furthermore, patients who stopped taking aspirin after three months had a significantly lower rate of bleeding. The trial, known as SMART-CHOICE, comes as doctors seek to determine what drug combinations offer the best complement with the latest generation of drug-eluting stents--small mesh tubes used to open blocked arteries that release drugs to prevent new blockages from forming around the stent. After undergoing a procedure known as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to insert a stent, patients can be at risk for adverse events related to clotting, including heart attack and stroke. For this reason, antiplatelet medications are used to reduce the body's ability to clot blood, but they also raise the risk of uncontrolled bleeding. Current guidelines recommend balancing these risks by prescribing aspirin and one of three P2Y12 inhibitors for at least 12 months when a patient receives a stent after a heart attack (or six months for patients receiving a stent for angina), a strategy known as dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT). The new trial assessed whether stopping aspirin after three months but continuing the P2Y12 inhibitor alone for 12 months would offer better results. "Our study demonstrated that P2Y12 inhibitor monotherapy after a short duration of DAPT is a novel antiplatelet strategy balancing ischemic and bleeding risk in patients undergoing PCI," said Joo-Yong Hahn, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea and the study's lead author. "Even though this treatment strategy needs to be confirmed in other trials, aspirin may be discontinued in most patients receiving current-generation drug-eluting stents, especially in patients with bleeding risk or in those with stable ischemic heart disease." The trial enrolled 2,993 patients who underwent PCI and received a drug-eluting stent at 33 medical centers in South Korea. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either standard DAPT for a year or aspirin plus a P2Y12 inhibitor for three months and continue with only the P2Y12 inhibitor for nine more months after that. After one year, 2.9 percent of patients who stopped aspirin early experienced the primary endpoint, a composite of death from any cause, heart attack or stroke, compared to 2.5 percent among those following standard DAPT. Based on thresholds determined before the trial began, these rates indicate that stopping aspirin early was not inferior to DAPT in terms of the trial's primary endpoint. In addition, stopping aspirin early was found to reduce the risk of bleeding by about 40 percent. Overall, 2 percent of those stopping aspirin experienced major bleeding compared to 3.4 percent among those following standard DAPT. Taken together, the net rate of all adverse clinical events (death from any cause, heart attack, stroke or bleeding) was not significantly different between the two groups. A little more than three-quarters of the study participants took clopidogrel, the most common P2Y12 inhibitor, with the rest taking either prasugrel or ticagrelor. Hahn said that the trial's inclusion of different P2Y12 inhibitors distinguishes it from other trials investigating alternatives to DAPT. "The SMART-CHOICE trial has a unique design to include all kinds of P2Y12 inhibitors, including clopidogrel, prasugrel and ticagrelor," Hahn said. "Therefore, we believe that the SMART-CHOICE trial, compared with several ongoing trials on P2Y12 inhibitor monotherapy after PCI, provides more generalizable answers to the concept of P2Y12 inhibitor monotherapy across a broad spectrum of patients receiving current-generation drug-eluting stents." One limitation of the study is that a considerable proportion of patients in the group assigned to stop aspirin early in fact received aspirin after three months, although a more detailed analysis suggested this discrepancy did not undermine the overall findings. Another limitation is that the trial allowed patients to know which medications they had been assigned to take, rather than giving some patients a placebo. The researchers will further analyze the data to determine whether the type of P2Y12 inhibitor used or variables reflecting patients' physiological response to the P2Y12 inhibitor may affect outcomes. In addition, they are investigating whether the risk of ischemic events varied among patients with acute coronary syndrome versus stable ischemic heart disease. ### This study received funding from the Korean Society of Interventional Cardiology, Abbott Vascular, Biotronik and Boston Scientific. The ACC's Annual Scientific Session will take place March 16-18, 2019, in New Orleans, bringing together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists from around the world to share the newest discoveries in treatment and prevention. Follow @ACCinTouch, @ACCMediaCenter and #ACC19 for the latest news from the meeting. The American College of Cardiology envisions a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. As the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team, the mission of the College and its more than 52,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular professionals who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College also provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research through its world-renowned JACC Journals, operates national registries to measure and improve care, and offers cardiovascular accreditation to hospitals and institutions. For more, visit acc.org. Many archeological studies based on strontium isotope signatures may have erroneous conclusions; agricultural lime can dramatically alter the isotopic signature of an area, so that it no longer reflects the values in prehistoric times A study by researchers at Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Denmark now shows that strontium isotopes may often be used incorrectly in archeological studies, as the widespread use of added (strontium-rich) agricultural lime in low- to non-calcareous soils can dramatically alter the strontium isotopic composition of the surface waters running through them and the plants growing within them. This is of special significance for strontium-isotope based provenance studies, where the strontium isotopic values measured in a prehistoric person's remains or in a given artefact are compared to measured strontium isotopic values in the surrounding, modern environment. Reference maps showing strontium isotope data dominated by the isotopic signature of modern agricultural lime, do not show the true strontium isotopic composition of the area during prehistoric times, when the individual being studied lived., or the object being studied was in created. This can result in erroneous interpretations of the origin and movement of these prehistoric people and artefacts. In their study published in Science Advances, the geologists Erik Thomsen and Rasmus Andreasen from Aarhus University discuss two prominent examples of this: The iconic Bronze Age women, the Egtved Girl and the Skrydstrup Woman, who were found in Denmark in 1921 and 1935 respectively, but were recently (2015 & 2017) interpreted to have originated far away from Denmark. Moreover, the Egtved Girl was interpreted by the study's authors to have traveled back and forth between Denmark and another place, likely her homeland that was believed to be southern Germany. These conclusions became a part of a larger framework of ideas of extended European mobility, migration, and trade, during the Bronze Age. Conversely, the strontium data presented in the new study show that these two women could have obtained their strontium isotopic signatures within 10 km of their burial mounds, and do not indicate any cause to suspect that the women came from afar or traveled great distances during their lifetimes. It is noteworthy that the effects of agricultural lime on the strontium isotopic composition demonstrated here is not isolated to this study's field areas in western Denmark but is likely to occur worldwide in arable areas with non-calcareous soils. The use of agricultural lime is ubiquitous in farming on less fertile soils to provide calcium for the plants and adjust soil acidity. Thus, many studies using strontium isotopes for provenance and mobility studies in these farmed low-calcareous areas may well need revision, and researchers should use care when sampling in these areas for such studies, in the future. ### Favorable views on aging promote a general sense of wellbeing, increase self-efficacy, and motivate older adults to maintain a healthy lifestyle, ultimately influencing their own physical and biological aging. But exposure to trauma, directly or indirectly, may significantly impact these views, according to a new study. The study, published in the Journals of Gerontology: Series B, provides first evidence that negative views on aging are transmitted in families of Holocaust survivors suffering from PTSD. They view themselves as aging less successfully compared to Holocaust survivors without PTSD and older adults who weren't exposed to the Holocaust, according to Prof. Amit Shrira, of the Interdisciplinary Department of Social Sciences at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, who conducted the study. Furthermore, offspring of posttraumatic Holocaust survivors negatively perceive the aging of their parents and consequently see themselves as aging less favorably than offspring of Holocaust survivors without PTSD and offspring whose parents were not exposed to the Holocaust. Most studies on intergenerational transmission of trauma have focused on one generation, either the survivors themselves or their children (or grandchildren). In a previous study, published in Aging & Mental Health in 2016, for example, Shrira found that offspring of Holocaust survivors are especially anxious about aging and dying. By assessing both survivors and offspring in the current study, Shrira was able to correlate behaviors, perceptions, and feelings among parents and their offspring. This provided further evidence that negative views on aging were transmitted from posttraumatic parents to their offspring. Although posttraumatic survivors and their offspring perceived aging more negatively, were more focused on frailty, loneliness, and the imminent threat of death, they could still account for some positive aspects of aging, according to Shrira. "This may be explained by the accumulation of life experience and wisdom, and the opportunity to share their insights with younger generations," he says. "This is proof of the unique strengths of many survivors -- even those who suffer from a high level of mental distress, but are not entirely overwhelmed by the aftereffects of the trauma." Although most survivors and offspring manifest impressive fortitude, negative views on aging found among posttraumatic survivors and their offspring put them at greater risk for physical deterioration. Accordingly, the study emphasizes the need to address such perceptions in interventions with survivors' families. Interventions could promote more complex, differentiated perceptions of aging by taking into account potential losses alongside the possibility of maintaining function, and even gaining new abilities, in old age. "Promoting such views on aging can increase the sense of self-efficacy and help in the preservation of physical health among survivors and their offspring," says Shrira. With the number of Holocaust survivors quickly dwindling, Shrira suggests that efforts to help them and their offspring should be increased by the development of an integrative model that may guide interdisciplinary interventions that will tackle the various pathways of transmission in order to promote their successful aging. ### Environmental damage costs society enormous amounts of money - and often leaves future generations to foot the bill. Now, a new ISO standard will help companies valuate and manage the impact of their environmental damage, by providing a clear figure for the cost of their goods and services to the environment. We know what goods and services cost us, but what does the environment pay? For many years now, this question has been the focus of several global companies and researchers at the Swedish Life Cycle Center, a competence centre hosted by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. For as long as 30 years, they have been using the so-called 'EPS tool ' to place a monetary value on environmental damage. Over the past three years, Bengt Steen, Professor Emeritus at Chalmers, has led the development of a new ISO standard for monetary valuation. The work has been in collaboration with AB Volvo, Essity, Nouryon (formerly Akzo Nobel Specialty Chemicals) and the IVL Swedish Environmental Institute. The initiative was taken by Swedish Life Cycle Center. "One reason why sustainable development does not move fast enough is that it is not linked to the economy," says Bengt Steen. "Experts speak one language, and business leaders another. The negative environmental effects often remain just figures on paper. But by translating environmental issues into a monetary value, it becomes much easier to present the whole picture to an organisation and influence their strategic decisions." Unlike many other tools, EPS weighs different types of environmental impacts, not just the effect on climate. For example, a given course of action may be beneficial for the climate but damaging for biodiversity or public health. With this approach, an overall picture is reached of what impact a product or service has on the environment, throughout its entire life cycle. A large variety of aspects are covered. Until now, this has been complex work, requiring a lot of manual input and expert knowledge. "With this standard, we can remove several of the obstacles to increased usage of monetary valuation. In a few years, when users can routinely assess the total environmental damage cost for a given investment, supplier, product design and so on, environmental issues can occupy a more central place in the boardroom. Costs to the environment can be presented side by side with profits for the company," says Bengt Steen. Emma Ringstrom, Sustainability Manager at Nouryon, says that monetary valuation has given the company much valuable insight. "We have made monetary valuation of a number of our value chains and included the results of this in our annual report. The analyses include financial, social, human and environmental capital, where environmental capital is partly calculated with life cycle assessment and with EPS as a valuation method. The tool has also been used to see which activities in the value chain have a large total environmental damage cost compared to profit, and therefore need to be prioritised to become more sustainable." Although tools such as EPS have existed for 30 years, and many companies like Nouryon use them to calculate their costs to the environment, Bengt Steen believes their development moves too slowly. There is no standardised framework, and few databases exist that enable their use in a uniform manner. Therefore, in 2015, the idea of a new ISO standard was born within Swedish Life Cycle Center. Together with SIS - the Swedish Standards Institute - a proposal was written that now after just over three years of work, together with many internationally recognised experts, is launched. "Few things yield such an impact as these type of heavyweight, international standards," explains Bengt Steen. "When companies in the future can see where there are clear environmental benefits, investments are stimulated for a sustainable business." The ISO standard contains a guide for how monetary valuation should be made, defines terms and sets requirements for documentation. By extension, the standard is expected to lead to increased collaboration between experts of various kinds, as well as helping to create credible databases and software. How to calculate a monetary valuation of environmental impacts: With monetary valuation of environmental impacts, many different aspects are taken into consideration. These can include energy consumption, climate impact, material use and emissions into water, air and soil. During a product's lifetime, the amount of emissions generated, and amount of resources expended can also be measured. These lead to many demonstrable environmental effects, such as reduced crop yields, lower fish stocks and shortened human life spans, due to floods and heat waves. Finally, using generally accepted sources, such as the OECD's estimate of people's productivity value, and market prices for cereals, fish and meat, the cost of the impact can be ascertained. The end result is a concrete figure, calculated in Euros. In some cases, the figure represents a real incurred cost for the company, in the form of taxation or fees. In other cases, the figure signals possible future economic liabilities, or is simply a sign that the product results in environmental damage that the company wants to avoid. A simple example of environmental impact valuation: Imagine a wooden chair, which is worn out and needs to be disposed of. The chair weighs 12 kg. There are two options: Throw the chair into a nearby rubbish bin, after which it ends up in landfill. Drive the chair to a heating plant 10 km away, where it will be burned, and used for local heating instead of fossil fuels. In the first case, the cost of transport and the landfill is low - 0.40 Euros, and the emissions from the transport are largely negligible. But, the degradation of the wood in the landfill takes place under oxygen-poor conditions, resulting in 4 kg of methane being formed. This leaks into the atmosphere and contributes to the greenhouse effect. The environmental cost of methane emissions has been calculated at EUR 3.80/kg using the EPS methodology. In total, therefore, there is a conventional cost of 0.40 Euros, and an environmental damage cost of 4 X 3.80 = 15.20 Euros. In the second case, the transport costs 5 Euros. The transport gives an emission of 3.8 kg carbon dioxide, but the thermal energy derived from the chair means that 6 kg of coal does not have to be burned for the heating plant to produce the heat needed. This results in a saving of about 20 kg of carbon dioxide emissions, and 6 kg of the finite natural resource, coal. With EPS, the environmental damage cost for carbon dioxide has been calculated at EUR 0.135/kg and the natural resource value of coal at EUR 0.161/kg. Therefore, this method of disposal results in a total conventional cost of 5 Euro, but a saving of environmental damage costs, an actual environmental gain, of 0.135 X (20 - 3.80) + 0.161 X 6 = 3.153 Euros. ### Link to the standard: https://www.iso.org/standard/43243.html Link to the EPS tool: https://www.lifecyclecenter.se/projects/environmental-priority-strategies-in-product-design-eps/ The set-up is so effective it has won reimbursement from the health system Lisbon, Portugal - 18 March 2019: Remote monitoring keeps heart failure patients out of hospital, according to late-breaking findings from the RESULT trial presented today at EHRA 2019, a European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress.1 The set-up is so effective that it has won reimbursement from the national health system. Study author Dr Mateusz Tajstra, of the Silesian Centre of Heart Disease, Zabrze, Poland, said: "The trial showed that remote monitoring of implanted defibrillators in patients with heart failure leads to prompt treatment when a problem occurs and prevents hospital admissions." Around 1-2% of adults in developed countries have heart failure, a clinical syndrome characterised by breathlessness, ankle swelling, and fatigue.2 A high proportion of deaths in these patients, especially those with milder symptoms, occur suddenly due to ventricular tachyarrhythmias. Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) or cardiac resynchronisation therapy with a defibrillator (CRT-D) are recommended for some patients to correct potentially lethal arrhythmias and reduce the risk of sudden death. The number of heart failure patients with implanted devices is growing, and hospitalisations and outpatient appointments are common. This trial examined whether remote monitoring of the devices reduces the rate of hospitalisation and death. A total of 600 heart failure patients with an ICD or CRT-D were randomly allocated to remote monitoring or standard care with face-to-face appointments. During the subsequent 12 months, the researchers recorded deaths from any cause and hospitalisations for cardiovascular reasons (the composite primary endpoint). The rate of the primary endpoint was significantly lower in the remote monitoring group (39.5%) compared to the standard care group (48.5%; p=0.032). When the researchers looked at the components of the endpoint separately, they found that the rate of all-cause mortality was similar between groups (6% versus 6%; p=0.9), whereas the hospitalisation rate for cardiovascular causes rate was significantly lower in the remote arm (37.1%) compared to the standard arm (45.5%; p=0.045). Dr Tajstra said: "The death rate may have been similar between groups because the trial was not powered to show differences in survival alone." "It is important to stress that remote monitoring is not effective as a plug and play gadget," he continued. "It will only be successful with a specified workflow to act on data retrieved from the devices, performed by a dedicated team." In this study, remote monitoring was conducted from an office in the hospital, open for ten hours daily Monday to Friday, with three levels of staff. Two electrophysiology nurses checked device transmissions, contacted patients if further information was needed, and decided the course of action. Cardiology residents investigated suspected arrhythmias or device malfunctions and took action if indicated. A clinical cardiologist and electrophysiologist were available for difficult clinical situations. "Our pragmatic approach facilitated rapid clinical reactions to data from the devices," said Dr Tajstra. "This prevented heart failure decompensation, where symptoms suddenly get worse and patients are often hospitalised. Even though there is no reimbursement for remote monitoring in Poland, our results have convinced the health authorities to pay for this service." ### Authors: ESC Press Office Tel: +33 (0)4 8987 2499 Email: press@escardio.org Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews Notes to editor The hashtag for the meeting is #ehra2019. Sources of funding: The RESULT study was funded by The National Centre for Research and Development, Poland grant (STRATEGMED1\233221\3\NCBR\2014). Disclosures: None. References and notes 1The abstract 'Remote supervision to decrease hospitalization rate study (RESULT) in patients with heart failure and implanted cardioverter-defibrillator or cardiac resynchronization therapy' will be presented during the session Late-breaking trials 2 on Monday 18 March at 08:30 to 10:00 WET (GMT) in the Sokolov lecture troom. 2Ponikowski P, Voors AA, Anker SD, et al. 2016 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure. Eur Heart J. 2016;37:2129-2200. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehw128. About the European Heart Rhythm Association The European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) is a branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Its aim is improving the quality of life and reducing sudden cardiac death by limiting the impact of heart rhythm disturbances. EHRA ensures the dissemination of knowledge and standard setting; provides continuous education, training and certification to physicians and allied professionals involved in the field of cardiac arrhythmias with a special focus on Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and Electrophysiology (EP). EHRA releases international consensus documents and position papers, it is a source of high quality, unbiased, evidence based, scientific information that promotes the quality of care for patients with AF, and for, has also dedicated a website for patients "afibmatters.org". About the EHRA Congress EHRA 2019 is the annual congress of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). About the European Society of Cardiology The European Society of Cardiology brings together health care professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people lead longer, healthier lives. Information for journalists attending EHRA 2019 EHRA 2019 will be held 17 to 19 March at the Lisbon Congress Centre (CCL) in Lisbon, Portugal. Explore the scientific programme. The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience announces the appointment of two Max Planck Society Fellows, Drs. Michael Halassa and Yi Zuo. The fellowship program is supported by Germany's Max Planck Society to promote cooperation between outstanding university professors and Max Planck Society researchers for a five-year period. The fellowship program is a longstanding hallmark of Max Planck Society collaborations, with more than 100 fellows being placed into collaborations with Max Planck Institutes around the world since the program began in 2005. Dr. Hallassa and Dr. Zuo are the first researchers to be awarded a Max Planck Society Fellowship at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, which was established in 2010 as the first and only Max Planck Institute in North America. Michael Halassa is an associate investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive sciences. During his fellowship, he will focus on research that provides new insights into the functional organization of the neural circuits underlying higher cognitive function that will have a significant impact on the field, and may be relevant for understanding conditions such as autism and attention deficit disorder. Dr. Halassa well known for his pioneering work on the neural circuits that give rise to cognitive processes like attention and executive function. His work focuses on understanding the role of the thalamus in cognition. He is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the 2017 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in the Biomedical Sciences and the 2015 Daniel X. Freedman Prize for Exception Research in Basic Brain & Behavioral Science. He was also awarded the 2017 Takeda/New York Academy of Science Innovator Award, was recognized as the 2017 NYU Langone Medical Center Next Generation Star and was named the 2015 Allen Institute Next Generation Leader. Dr. Yi Zuo is a professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She will work with MPFI researchers to develop and apply microscopy techniques to study how synaptic plasticity and brain circuits are affected in mouse models of mental illnesses and stress. The projects addressed through this fellowship are expected to provide new insights into the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying synaptic reorganization during learning and in neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Zuo is a distinguished neuroscientist and one of the pioneers of chronic imaging of synapses in live animals. She is internationally recognized for her work on synaptic remodeling in development and learning. Over the past three years, Dr. Zuo has worked closely with Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience in developing and organizing the advanced course "Neuro-Imaging Techniques" together with Dr. Yasuda. In addition to teaching the course, Dr. Zuo has initiated a collaboration with Dr. Fitzpatrick and Dr. Yasuda to develop new technologies for correlative light- and electron microscopy (CLEM). Dr. Zuo is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the 2007 award from the Ellison Medical Foundation and the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR). She was also a 2015 National Award finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. ### The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI), a not-for-profit research organization, is part of the world-renowned Max Planck Society, Germany's most successful research organization with over 80 institutes worldwide. Since its establishment in 1948, 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists. As its first U.S. institution, MPFI brings together exceptional neuroscientists from around the world to answer fundamental questions about brain development and function and to develop new technologies that make groundbreaking scientific discoveries possible. Their research is shared publicly with scholars, universities and other organizations around the globe, providing the necessary foundation of knowledge to develop treatments and cures for brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. For more information, visit http://www.maxplanckflorida.org. COLUMBUS, Ohio - For the first time, researchers have evidence that fibromyalgia can be reliably detected in blood samples - work they hope will pave the way for a simple, fast diagnosis. In a study that appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from The Ohio State University report success in identifying biomarkers of fibromyalgia and differentiating it from a handful of other related diseases. The discovery could be an important turning point in care of patients with a disease that is frequently misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, leaving them without proper care and advice on managing their chronic pain and fatigue, said lead researcher Kevin Hackshaw, an associate professor in Ohio State's College of Medicine and a rheumatologist at the university's Wexner Medical Center. Identification of biomarkers of the disease - a "metabolic fingerprint" like that discovered in the new study - could also open up the possibility of targeted treatments, he said. To diagnose fibromyalgia, doctors now rely on patient-reported information about a multitude of symptoms and a physical evaluation of a patient's pain, focusing on specific tender points, he said. But there's no blood test - no clear-cut, easy-to-use tool to provide a quick answer. "We found clear, reproducible metabolic patterns in the blood of dozens of patients with fibromyalgia. This brings us much closer to a blood test than we have ever been," Hackshaw said. Though fibromyalgia is currently incurable and treatment is limited to exercise, education and antidepressants, an accurate diagnosis has many benefits, Hackshaw said. Those include ruling out other diseases, confirming for patients that their symptoms are real and not imagined, and guiding doctors toward disease recognition and appropriate treatment. "Most physicians nowadays don't question whether fibromyalgia is real, but there are still skeptics out there," Hackshaw said. And many undiagnosed patients are prescribed opioids - strong, addictive painkillers that have not been shown to benefit people with the disease, he said. "When you look at chronic pain clinics, about 40 percent of patients on opioids meet the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia often gets worse, and certainly doesn't get better, with opioids." Hackshaw and co-author Luis Rodriguez-Saona, an expert in the advanced testing method used in the study, said the next step is a larger-scale clinical trial to determine if the success they saw in this research can be replicated. The current study included 50 people with a fibromyalgia diagnosis, 29 with rheumatoid arthritis, 19 who have osteoarthritis and 23 with lupus. Researchers examined blood samples from each participant using a technique called vibrational spectroscopy, which measures the energy level of molecules within the sample. Scientists in Rodriguez-Saona's lab detected clear patterns that consistently set fibromyalgia patients' blood sample results apart from those with other, similar disorders. First, the researchers analyzed blood samples from participants whose disease status they knew, so they could develop a baseline pattern for each diagnosis. Then, using two types of spectroscopy, they evaluated the rest of the samples blindly, without knowing the participants' diagnoses, and accurately clustered every study participant into the appropriate disease category based on a molecular signature. "These initial results are remarkable. If we can help speed diagnosis for these patients, their treatment will be better and they'll likely have better outlooks. There's nothing worse than being in a gray area where you don't know what disease you have," Rodriguez-Saona said. His lab mostly concerns itself with using the metabolic fingerprinting technology for food-related research, focusing on issues such as adulteration of milk and cooking oils and helping agriculture companies figure out which plants are best suited to fight disease. The chance to partner with medical experts to help solve the problem of fibromyalgia misdiagnosis was exciting, said Rodriguez-Saona, a professor of food science and technology at Ohio State. Rodriguez-Saona said for the next study he'd like to examine 150 to 200 subjects per disease group to see if the findings of this research are replicable in a larger, more-diverse population. Hackshaw said his goal is to have a test ready for widespread use within five years. Fibromyalgia is the most common cause of chronic widespread pain in the United States, and disproportionately affects women. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 2 percent of the population - around 4 million adults - has fibromyalgia. Other organizations estimate even higher numbers. About three in four people with fibromyalgia have not received an accurate diagnosis, according to previous research, and those who do know they have the disease waited an average of five years between symptom onset and diagnosis. Common symptoms include pain and stiffness all over the body, fatigue, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, headaches and problems with thinking, memory and concentration. Eventually, this work could lead to identification of a particular protein or acid - or combination of molecules - that is linked to fibromyalgia, Rodriguez-Saona said. "We can look back into some of these fingerprints and potentially identify some of the chemicals associated with the differences we are seeing," he said. In addition to identifying fibromyalgia, the researchers also found evidence that the metabolic fingerprinting technique has the potential to determine the severity of fibromyalgia in an individual patient. "This could lead to better, more directed treatment for patients," Hackshaw said. ### Other Ohio State researchers involved with the study were Didem Aykas, Gregory Sigurdson, Marcal Plans Pujolras, Francesca Madiai, Lianbo Yu and Monica Giusti. Tony Buffington, formerly of Ohio State and now at the University of California, Davis, was also a co-author. The research was supported in part by the Columbus Medical Research Foundation. ** Video and photos available for download: http://bit.ly/2O1pjk4 ** Media contact: Eileen Scahill, 614-293-3737; Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu Written by Misti Crane, 614-292-5220; Crane.11@osu.edu Athens, Ga. - Bromethalin, a common rat poison, is the agent responsible for a neurological disease that has sickened or killed birds from a popular flock of naturalized parrots that reside primarily in the Telegraph Hill area in north San Francisco, according to a new study led by the University of Georgia Infectious Diseases Laboratory and funded by Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue. The study, published today in PLOS ONE, caps a multi-year effort to determine the cause of the disease, which has been observed in parrots from this flock since at least 1999. "The investigation, inspired and funded by Mickaboo, required a team of veterinarians, pathologists and researchers. It is only because the poisoned birds were feral parrots that the condition was so thoroughly investigated," said first author Fern Van Sant, whose clinic, For the Birds, in San Jose, California, provided care for many of the affected parrots. "The findings offer us an opportunity to assess the true risk of this rodenticide to pets and feral animals and to clarify the risk of potential soil and water contamination." The study focused on four parrots that presented in 2018 with a set of characteristic neurologic signs that attending veterinarians say most affected birds exhibit to varying degrees: ataxia, circling, seizures and tumbling. Three of these parrots, like many before them, were euthanized when their condition worsened and they could no longer self-feed. The study team looked for bromethalin, or its active metabolite desmethyl-bromethalin, based on their findings in 15 historic cases from 2013 through 2017. The historic cases lacked evidence of viruses known to cause neurologic disease in parrots, as well as of exposure to lead or other toxins. But pathologists found consistent lesions in the central nervous system that suggested bromethalin poisoning. Bromethalin is difficult to detect, especially in living animals, and particularly in free-ranging birds. Some assays have successfully detected bromethalin in fat tissue of animals, but birds typically do not have surplus fat from which samples can be drawn and tested. In their study, the UGA-led team screened fecal samples from live birds, as well as liver and brain samples from deceased parrots. Co-author Sayed M. Hassan, director of the UGA Laboratory for Environmental Analysis in the Center for Applied Isotope Studies, detected both bromethalin and desmethyl-bromethalin in brain, liver and fecal samples utilizing high-performance liquid chromatography. The study's findings suggest that parrots do not metabolize the potent neurotoxin in the same manner that has been described in other species, and/or that the parrots are ingesting a sublethal dose. The authors do not know how the parrots are being exposed to bromethalin, but they are planning a follow-up study to determine the source. "We now need funding from individuals and groups interested in protecting our environment to help us understand if this toxin is accumulating in a space where it could pose a health risk in other free-ranging animals, or, possibly, in companion animals and people," said co-author Branson W. Ritchie, a veterinary research professor and co-director of the Infectious Diseases Laboratory. The birds primarily reside in neighborhoods near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and frequent the area's parks, but affected birds have been found throughout San Francisco, including on busy streets and downtown sidewalks. The total number of birds affected to date is difficult to estimate, but from 2003 through 2018, Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue had established records on 158 San Francisco parrots, of which 55 died, 53 were adopted, 22 were released including three that escaped, and 25 remain in foster care. Of the birds in foster care or adopted, many have persistent neurologic deficits, including paresis and ataxia, that require special care. Members of the public who come in contact with a possibly affected parrot should immediately report the bird and its location to San Francisco Animal Care and Control, 415-554-9400; the poisoned birds need professional help and should not be handled or harmed. If necessary, a towel can be used to move the bird to a secure box or dog kennel. "Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue is grateful to Dr. Van Sant, the University of Georgia, and all of the skilled professionals who have worked so hard and so long to find out what was killing these beautiful birds," said Michelle Yesney, current CEO of Mickaboo. The parrots and their plight gained notoriety after being featured in a book and a documentary both titled "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill." ### Coauthors on the study included Drury Reavill, of the Zoo/Exotic Pathology Service, Carmichael, California; Elizabeth W. Howerth and Mauricio Seguel, of the Department of Pathology in the College of Veterinary Medicine; Rita McManamon, Christopher R. Gregory, and Paula G. Ciembor, of the Infectious Diseases Laboratory in the College of Veterinary Medicine; Kathy M. Loftis, of the Center for Applied Isotope Studies; and Richard Bauer, a graduate student in the Laboratory for Environmental Analysis. "Evidence of bromethalin toxicosis in San Francisco 'Telegraph Hill' conures," is available online at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0213248 Sarlahi journalists stage sit-in demanding assailants be arrested Journalists in Sarlahi staged a sit-in in front of the District Administration Office (DAO) on Sunday, demanding the authorities to detain the culprits who had assaulted journo Som Diyali. Inuit communities' travel skills and regional knowledge have helped mitigate the effects of Arctic climate change on travel conditions, according to a new study. The Arctic is warming nearly twice as quickly as the rest of the world and has the potential to affect many aspects of life for the people that live there. The semi-permanent trails used by Indigenous communities on sea-ice, rivers and frozen ground are vulnerable to warming conditions which can cause sea-ice melt and flooding. These trails are critically important for travel between settlements, to cultural sites and for practicing traditional hunting, fishing and gathering activities. Until now, understanding whether climate change has affected the ability of Inuit to use these trails has been elusive, making it difficult for communities and regional and local governments to decide how to plan for climate impacts. A study led by Professor James Ford, from the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, used interviews with nine Inuit communities in the eastern Canadian Arctic to assess trail viability and compared this to 30 years' worth of weather records to determine changes in travel conditions. They found that despite significant changes in climate-related conditions between 1985-2016, including warming temperatures, overall trail access was affected much less than they expected. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, suggests trail conditions have only changed by roughly one or two days in the last 30 years and that the combined number of suitable travel days per year for the three types of travel examined - over snow on land, over sea ice and on open water - has actually increased. While changing ice conditions are reducing sea-ice trail access for using snowmobiles in the autumn and winter, improvements in visibility and wind appear to be offsetting this by enhancing both land and water trails in the spring and summer. To assess trail access and viable travel days, the team, for the first time, took into account the skill level and risk tolerance among trail users to determine viable travel days. For example, ice concentration is critical for safely using small boats. Low or no ice concentrations are preferred by Inuit for boating. Accidents where boats have been sunk by ice strikes or occupants have been thrown overboard are more prevalent in high ice conditions. The study suggests that less than 30 per cent ice coverage is generally preferred for boating. However, in determining thresholds for trail access among users with a different levels of skill sets and risk tolerance, 50 per cent ice coverage was set as the upper limit for trail users with a high risk tolerance and skill set, while only 10 per cent ice coverage was the cut off point for users with low risk tolerance and fewer skills to traverse water trails. Professor Ford, Chair in Climate Adaptation at the Priestley Centre, explained: "Previous studies on Arctic transportation and climate change do not take into consideration different types of trail users. "We found that an understanding of how trail conditions are affected by changing conditions, as well as a knowledge of alternative routes, and a well-developed skillsets, such as being adept with snowmobile or recognising dangerous ice conditions, had a greater impact in determining whether trails were safe to use, more so than the change in travel conditions due to climate. "Highly skilled travellers are able to use the trails more than twice as often as travellers whose skillsets are not as well-developed. The study estimated that travellers of high skill can expect roughly 100 more days of suitable travel conditions per year compared to travellers with a lower skill set. Professor Ford said: "While climate models can provide a bigger picture of the overall effects of climate change, it can be harder to determine how environmental variables are affecting specific activities within different communities in affected regions. "The study highlights how the close involvement of the people in question is essential to understanding how the ongoing changes to the environmental will affect specific activities of different groups. Incorporating this practice, or a "bottom-up" approach, is central for understanding what climate change means for people and developing responses tailored to specific contexts. "However, while the skill set of the Inuit community may be mitigating the effects of climate change on travel conditions for now, there is no doubt that the warming conditions in the Arctic are having detrimental effects on the region. "The shrinking sea-ice and shifts in seasonal temperatures are a serious threat, particularly to the region's native species and ecology which form an essential part of the Inuit community's tradition and culture. And while the effects of climate change to date on trail access were not totally what we expected, communities are very concerned about what future change may mean." ### This study included collaborative research from McGill University, Canada, the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, the University of Ottawa, Canada, the University of Cape Town and the University of Alberta, Canada, and involved working closely with communities across the Canadian Arctic. Further information The paper Changing access to ice, land, and water in Arctic communities is published in Nature Climate Change 18 March 2019. (DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0435-7) For additional information please contact University of Leeds press officer Anna Harrison a.harrison@leeds.ac.uk or +44 (0)113 34 34196 University of Leeds The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 38,000 students from more than 150 different countries, and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The University plays a significant role in the Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes. We are a top ten university for research and impact power in the UK, according to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, and are in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings 2019. The University was awarded a Gold rating by the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework in 2017, recognising its 'consistently outstanding' teaching and learning provision. Twenty-six of our academics have been awarded National Teaching Fellowships - more than any other institution in England, Northern Ireland and Wales - reflecting the excellence of our teaching. http://www.leeds.ac.uk The Priestley International Centre for Climate, based at the University of Leeds, promotes interdisciplinary research of the highest standard on climate and its impact on nature and society. Building on the university's outstanding reputation for climate research, the Centre represents a flagship investment of more than 10 million to address this global challenge. The Priestley International Centre for Climate delivers excellent research to underpin climate solutions with specific focus on four areas: Improving predictions of future climate Understanding risk to develop a resilient world Enabling low carbon transitions Addressing the social, political and economic dimensions of climate change For case studies see: climate.leeds.ac.uk/research Follow us or tag us in to coverage: @priestleycentre About McGill University Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill is a leading Canadian post-secondary institution. It has two campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 40,000 students, including more than 10,400 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,500 international students making up 30% per cent of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 20% of our students who say French is their mother tongue. The University of Ottawa--A crossroads of cultures and ideas The University of Ottawa is home to over 50,000 students, faculty and staff, who live, work and study in both French and English. Our campus is a crossroads of cultures and ideas, where bold minds come together to inspire game-changing ideas. We are one of Canada's top 10 research universities--our professors and researchers explore new approaches to today's challenges. One of a handful of Canadian universities ranked among the top 200 in the world, we attract exceptional thinkers and welcome diverse perspectives from across the globe. L'Universite d'Ottawa : Un carrefour d'idees et de cultures L'Universite d'Ottawa compte plus de 50 000 etudiants, professeurs et employes administratifs qui vivent, travaillent et etudient en francais et en anglais. Notre campus est un veritable carrefour des cultures et des idees, ou les esprits audacieux se rassemblent pour relancer le debat et faire naitre des idees transformatrices. Nous sommes l'une des 10 meilleures universites de recherche du Canada; nos professeurs et chercheurs explorent de nouvelles facons de relever les defis d'aujourd'hui. Classee parmi les 200 meilleures universites du monde, l'Universite d'Ottawa attire les plus brillants penseurs et est ouverte a divers points de vue provenant de partout dans le monde. MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- A political scientist at West Virginia University is researching the vulnerability of states that border a hostile, larger power and how that proximity affects the ability of those countries to provide basic services to their people. In this case, that power is Russia. Erik Herron, the Eberly Family Professor of Political Science and his collaborators, Cynthia Buckley (University of Illinois) and Ralph Clem, have been awarded a Minerva Research Initiative award, totaling $1.1 million, to better predict how hostile powers might interfere with their neighbors. The Minerva Research Initiative, managed by the U.S. Department of Defense, funds social science research aimed at improving basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world that are of strategic importance to the U.S. By studying Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine, Herron is looking for evidence of Russian interference that may have had an effect on how these countries provided civilian services related to health, education and elections. "What we've focused on in our preliminary work is physical infrastructure damage to hospitals in Donbas, Ukraine. Donbas is an eastern region that is in a state of ongoing war," Herron said. "What was surprising to us when we first started this project was that there wasn't a good accounting of the damage to healthcare facilities, and we found that the level of damage was understated." So far, Herron and his colleagues have collected open-source data from Ukrainian and Russian language media as well as international and domestic organizations to find reports of attacks on hospitals. With the help of the Minerva Initiative, Herron and his collaborators will have the opportunity to expand the scope of the investigation to cover more countries and additional aspects of state services to citizens. Herron notes that one reason that places like Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine are being targeted is because they are moving toward becoming democratic societies. "The Russian political elites have had an interest in maintaining the kleptocratic government that is currently in place in Russia," Herron said. "Destabilizing western European and U.S. interests internationally and domestically helps maintain the kleptocracy in Russia. Having a viable alternative to the system of government does not advance the means of maintaining the system as it exists." According to Herron, it is wrong to assume that the methods used by Russia to interfere in these countries will always be the same. For example, three years ago, cyberattacks that have been attributed to Russia disrupted the power grid in Ukraine. "What is happening in those countries could directly affect the U.S. if similar methods are used to disrupt the U.S.," Herron said. "In addition, Estonia, one of the three countries in our study, is a NATO ally and the U.S. and all members of NATO are obligated to help defend members of NATO." Herron hopes that this research will help the U.S. military better understand potential warning signs of interference by Russia. "This award is a clear indication that the research that Dr. Herron and his colleagues are conducting is at the cutting-edge of comparative political science internationally," said John Kilwein, chair of the Department of Political Science. "We are very proud that it's being done here at WVU." ### Guest post by Samantha Wolf, Student Blog Contest Series Modern conservation can mimic colonization, and the echoes of colonization are heard in the vast specimen collections of European Museums. Many of these specimens have been gifts from prestigious collectors or as part of military expeditions (e.g., The Irish Natural History Collections). This demonstrates the perceived elitism in conservation culture in Europe, which is an exclusionary factor and prevents full participation and understanding of conservation ethics among all demographics. While these collections have, and continue to, undoubtedly aid in research, they also illustrate the colonizer mindset that the non-European world is for the taking. When it comes to protecting the remaining endangered ecosystems and species, even with best intentions, modern conservation efforts from the northern hemisphere and ivory- tower academics can effectively be neocolonialist. This subject arose in my MSc program during a debate over the potential banning of trophy hunting in Africa. There are arguable points on both sides of this issue, especially considering the revenue generated by trophy hunting that is sometimes redirected into local conservation programs. However, we find ourselves still dealing with a wealthy, predominantly white and northern demographic who use an abundance of financial resources to collect specimens and trophies from historically colonized lands. In her 2008 article published in African Studies , Elizabeth Garland breaks down the neocolonial consequences of Western conservation cultures depiction of Africa. She does this by considering the sudden installment of Gabons 13 national parks, including Invindo National Park. Coming into effect in 2002, the transition of about 26,000 km of land abruptly restricted livelihoods and means of survival for the Gabonese residing there. The logging industry provided employment to roughly a quarter of the population, and the land use for bushmeat, firewood, and agriculture was a necessity for daily life. A 2016 case study from Rainforest Foundation UK showed that in Invindo National Park, life for locals had deteriorated. Their foraging and hunting zones shrank significantly, and eco-tourism demand for site purity prohibited locals from accessing sacred sites that had become popular viewing areas. Locals were not consulted on the development of the park and very few are involved in its management, and some have suffered physical abuse at the hands of corrupt park officials. The parks in Gabon received funding from the World Bank, European Commissions ECOFAC program, and the Jane Goodall Institute, among others. European and North American institutions have a financial stake in the conservation of the Congo Basin, and used their monetary resources to effectively persuade the Gabonese president to set aside 10% of the country, with little regard to the needs of the indigenous citizens. Behavior like this feeds the misconception that nature and people are separate entities and that a pure ecosystem is one without a human presence. This is a Western/European projection, and through instances like Gabons parks, neocolonialism and the continued collection in the name of conservation are extant. This is the ghost of kleptocratic empires infiltrating global conservation standards of practice. The legacy of collection by foreign and often imposing entities haunts modern conservation efforts, especially in places where human residents are restricted from life-sustaining practices. While an effort to prohibit further habitat destruction is critical, it is damaging to the human population therein to bar all acts of livelihood. Balance must be met with conservation practices that are integrative to local livelihoods ( e.g. land-sharing or land-sparing on a case-by-case basis, with sincere inclusion of residents). I often think about one of my classmates research on the impacts of indigenous inclusion in conservation. She is studying the community impacts of the progressive conservation policies of New Zealand. A very broad description of her dissertation is that she will be interviewing Maori and management plan coordinators on whether the personhood recognition for Whanganui river has changed their lives and livelihoods. Im on the edge of my seat waiting to hear their responses. These interactions must be kept in tandem with any conservation plan. This inclusion needs to be the protocol for conservation around the world. The relationship between indigenous welfare and conservation management must be at the forefront of modern conservation, but the classical, western approach leaves little room for it. In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, ecologist, professor, and Potawatomi Citizen, Robin Wall Kimmerer, PhD., describes the worthy scientific data found in indigenous observations of the natural world. She recalls a students dissertation work based on traditional ecological knowledge of the regenerative cycle of sweetgrass as affected by harvest and absence of harvest. Her students data supported what indigenous sweetgrass collectors long-knew - the regular harvest of sweetgrass by people stimulated regeneration, whereas the unharvested plants gradually died away. This study, and many others, are strong indicators of the importance of inclusion of indigenous citizens in conservation and restoration management. Modern conservation by European-based organizations needs to incorporate indigenous knowledge in every case to meld conservation policies, appropriate land stewardship, and humanitarianism into a well-rounded plan. This includes creating new economic opportunities that are environmentally sound and feasible for the indigenous citizens who have been forced into unsustainable practices by the forces of historical colonialism. Wherever the work is happening, we must seek input from local people, and make sure the conservation practices are inclusive of their needs. This is an important way to combat neocolonialism, atone for the kleptocratic past, and hold serious, inclusive conversations about conservation. In best case scenarios, conservation efforts engage the local community, and the support from grandiose European organizations should be readily available upon appeal and no longer unsolicited. This is a utopian image of grassroots conservation, but drawing attention to (intentional and unintentional) neocolonial practices is the beginning of a better method of environmental protection. At the time of the Student Blogging Contest in 2018 she was a M.Sc. student of Conservation and Biodiversity at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Sergio Martinez Campos, Hispano Suiza CEO, at the Geneva Motor Show 2019. Photo: Jill Petzinger A storied car brand made its comeback at the Geneva Motor Show this week. Hispano Suiza, which belongs to Spains Suque Mateu family and rivalled Rolls-Royce back in the day, produced 12,000 cars from 1904 and 1946. So why revive a brand that has been dead for over 70 years? Sergio Martinez Campos, Hispano Suiza CEO, told Yahoo Finance UK the time was right to bring back the brand and launch its new electric sportscar, the Carmen, because the car industry is finally embracing electrification. The seed was planted in 1899, Campos said, when the engineer who co-founded the company with Damian Mateu made one of the first-ever electric prototypes, but it was rejected and the company went on to make petrol-powered cars. The Carmens wild lines and retro curves echo its 1930s Art-Deco predecessor, Hispano Suizas Dubonnet Xenia, of which only one was built. The 1,005 horsepower car has a carbon fiber monocoque chassis, a top speed capped at 155 mph (250 kph), and will accelerate to 62 mph (100 kmh) in under three seconds. Only 19 of them will be built, by hand, at the firms workshop in Barcelona. The Carmen will cost 1.5m (1.3m, $1.7m) each. Its not as simple as paying your money and waiting, however. Hispano Suiza works with every potential client to ensure that they are right for the company and the company is right for them. Then, if each are deemed a good match for the other, the car will be customised including performance, color, and the interior smell to suit its owner. Looking around the Geneva car show, teeming with executives under financial pressure to deliver on sales targets, begs the question of whether the head of Hispano Suiza has a dream job. But there is pressure, Campos said. In the sales process we do due diligence on the customers. The 19 cars are not all sold yet, and he must work on hand-selecting the perfect clients. The financing for the development and production of the Carmen (theres a 40-strong team working on it) all comes from the Suque Mateu family. Hispano Suiza the only car brand where the owners are 100% family, Campos said. The family owns the Peralada Group, which comprises casinos, high-end hotels and resorts, Michelin-starred restaurants, and vineyards. Story continues Its very important to understand that Hispano Suiza is a lifestyle, a concept, according to the CEO, noting that youre not just buying into a car, youre buying into the luxury Peralada universe. He describes their customers as super-collectors. Whether or not these super-collectors will actually drive their Carmens, rather than store them like works of art or museum pieces, is not really a concern for the company, Campos said. However, since QEV Technologies, the engineering company behind Mahindra Racings Formula E-winning team, also developed the Carmen, they definitely should take it out for a spin. MAYNARD, Mass., March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. (AQB) (AquaBounty or the Company), a biotechnology company focused on enhancing productivity in the aquaculture market and a majority-owned subsidiary of Intrexon Corporation (XON), today announced that it has commenced a proposed underwritten public offering of common stock of the Company. In addition, the Company expects to grant the underwriter of the offering a 45-day option to purchase additional shares of common stock at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering. H.C. Wainwright & Co. is acting as the sole book-running manager for this offering. The Company currently intends to use the net proceeds of this offering for working capital costs associated with growing its first batches of fish at our Indiana and Rollo Bay farm sites and other general corporate purposes. A shelf registration statement on Form S-3 relating to the public offering of the shares of common stock described above was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and was declared effective on April 27, 2018. A preliminary prospectus supplement describing the terms of the offering will be filed with the SEC and will form a part of the effective registration statement. Copies of the preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained, when available, from H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC, 430 Park Avenue 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10022, or by calling (646) 975-6996 or by emailing placements@hcwco.com or at the SECs website at http://www.sec.gov. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. Story continues About AquaBounty AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. is a publicly traded aquaculture company focused on improving productivity and sustainability in commercial aquaculture. The Companys objective is the application of biotechnology to ensure the availability of high-quality seafood to meet global consumer demandaddressing critical production constraints in the most popular farmed species, including salmon, trout, and tilapia. The Companys AquAdvantage fish program is based upon a single, specific molecular modification in fish that results in more rapid growth in early development. With aquaculture facilities located in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and Indiana, USA, AquaBounty is raising its disease-free, antibiotic-free salmon in land-based recirculating aquaculture systems, offering a reduced carbon footprint and no risk of pollution of marine ecosystems as compared to traditional sea-cage farming. More information about AquaBounty is available at www.aquabounty.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, that involve significant risks and uncertainties about AquaBounty, including but not limited to statements with respect to the completion, timing, size, and use of proceeds of the proposed underwritten offering of common stock. AquaBounty may use words such as expect, anticipate, project, intend, plan, aim, believe, seek, estimate, can, focus, will, and may and similar expressions to identify such forward-looking statements. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are risks relating to, among other things, whether or not AquaBounty will be able to raise capital, the final terms of the underwritten offering of common stock, market and other conditions, the satisfaction of customary closing conditions related to the underwritten offering of common stock, AquaBountys business and financial condition, and the impact of general economic, industry or political conditions in the United States or internationally. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by AquaBounty, see disclosures contained in AquaBountys public filings with the SEC, including the Risk Factors in the companys Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and prospectus for this offering. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included in this press release and not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof, and AquaBounty undertakes no obligation to update such statements as a result of new information, except as required by law. Contact AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. Dave Conley, Director of Communications +1 613 294 3078 HONG KONG, March 18 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's securities regulator has fined a unit of Bank of China HK$10 million ($1.27 million) for failing to follow guidelines on sale of investment products. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said that Bank of China International Securities failed to properly assess some of its clients' risk tolerance levels, or to ensure that its recommendations to clients were suitable. Rules governing the sale of investment products, and firms' compliance with them are a focus in Asia at the moment, following Australia's year-long inquiry into financial wrongdoing, which made a number of recommendations about how financial products should be marketed to consumers. Bank of China International did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bank of China International Securities is fully owned by Bank of China International, the investment banking wholly-owned subsidiary of China's fourth-largest lender Bank of China. ($1 = 7.8499 Hong Kong dollars) (Reporting by Alun David John; Editing by Shreejay Sinha) In addition to the fact that limousine travel is very glamorous, it is also the most comfortable trip you can... The forgotten half Many school-going boys in Payyatola, a remote village in Sayal rural municipality of Doti, cannot wait till they are old enough to travel to India for work. Relatives and family members of Naeem Rashid who was killed along with his son Talha Naeem in the Christchurch mosque attack in New Zealand, comfort each other during a condolence gathering at the familys home in Abbottabad, Pakistan March 17, 2019. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro A British man has been arrested for making a social media post which reportedly supported the grotesque New Zealand mosque attacks. The man, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, allegedly shared a post which directly referenced and appeared to sympathise with the atrocity in Christchurch, which has left 50 dead. The 24-year-old was arrested on suspicion of malicious communications. Police said: This is a very difficult time for people. The events in New Zealand have reverberated around the world. Many people are in deep shock and are worried. It is at times like this that, as a community, we stand together. Where the law permits and people cross the line, we will take robust action, which may include arrest and prosecution. Children as young as three were slaughtered in the attack on two mosques in New Zealand, when a gunman opened fire as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers. Following the shootings, 28-year-old Brenton Harrison Tarrant was arrested. Brenton Tarrants every move seems calibrated to elicit the widest coverage, from his livestreaming the entire massacre on social media to his uttering Remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie before embarking on his butchers work. Yesterday, when he appeared in court charged with murder, Tarrant made a hand gesture which has since been linked to a symbol of white supremacy. Police have said more charges are likely to follow. Many of the 34 survivors who remain in hospital after getting caught up in the shootings at Al Noor mosque and Linwood mosque are in critical condition. Relatives are anxiously waiting for authorities to release the remains of those who were killed in massacres at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, while authorities announced the death toll from the attacks had risen to 50. Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police were working with pathologists and coroners to release the bodies as soon as they could. We have to be absolutely clear on the cause of death and confirm their identity before that can happen, he said. But we are so aware of the cultural and religious needs. So we are doing that as quickly and as sensitively as possible. Story continues Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a small number of bodies would start being released to families on Sunday evening, and authorities hoped to release all the bodies by Wednesday. Police said they had released a preliminary list of the victims to families, which has helped give closure to some relatives who were waiting for any news. The scale of the tragedy and the task still ahead became clear as supporters arrived from across the country to help with the burial rituals in Christchurch and authorities sent in diggers to prepare new graves in a Muslim burial area that was newly fenced off and blocked from view with white netting. Medtronic plc Late-Breaking Trial Results Presented at ACC Scientific Sessions and Published in The New England Journal of Medicine WRAP-IT is the Largest Randomized Global Trial Ever Conducted with Cardiac Implanted Electronic Devices DUBLIN and NEW ORLEANS - March 17, 2019 - Medtronic plc (MDT) today announced results from the landmark Worldwide Randomized Antibiotic Envelope Infection Prevention Trial (WRAP-IT), which demonstrated the TYRX(TM) Absorbable Antibacterial Envelope (TYRX envelope) reduced the risk of major infection by 40 percent, and pocket infection by 61 percent, in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs), compared to standard-of-care pre-operative antibiotics. The trial results were presented today in a late-breaking session at the American College of Cardiology`s 68th Annual Scientific Sessions (ACC.19), and published simultaneously in The New England Journal of Medicine. "CIED infections are associated with significant morbidity, mortality and cost. Until now, in addition to adhering to strict surgical techniques, only one intervention, pre-operative antibiotics, has been shown to significantly reduce infections," said Khaldoun Tarakji , M.D., M.P.H., associate section head of cardiac electrophysiology at Cleveland Clinic, principal investigator of the trial, and a paid consultant to Medtronic. "This study shows that, in addition to pre-operative antibiotics, the use of the antibacterial envelope significantly reduced the risk of CIED infections, and with no increased risk of complications." Investors need to pay close attention to Anadarko Petroleum (APC) stock based on the movements in the options market lately. A bill that would change the way oil and gas drilling permits are issued in Colorado has passed in the Senate. The regulation, which went through three committee hearings, was approved 19-15 along party lines, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting in opposition. SB19-181 will now be sent to the House for a vote where things are expected to be easier with Democrats holding a comfortable majority. The legislation will then head to the desk of Colorado Governor Jared Polis for consideration. The Senate Bill 181 in a Nutshell The hotly debated and controversial measure, known as Senate Bill 181, is being referred to as the most sweeping oil and gas reforms the state has seen. It will lead to a comprehensive overhaul of Colorados oil and gas development regulations by expanding the authority of local government/communities over drilling sites. The bill also strives to address concerns about climate change, pollution and threat to wildlife from drilling operations, while protecting the interests of unwilling mineral rights owners. Finally, the proposal aims to rewrite the mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission the state agency overseeing the energy industry from economic gain to public safety and environmental protection. Lets debate the pros and cons of the bills. Pro: Backers of the Bill Hail the Health and Safety Provisions Proponents of the measure and environmental groups in particular argue that the passage of the bill is a decisive step toward protecting the Colorado residents health and safety. Its goal is to ensure that state regulators take profit out of citizen welfare while maintaining the continued development of the local oil and gas industry. Moreover, the bill looks to strengthen local control and address the interests of landowners who refuse to lease their lands to an operator Con: Opponents of the Bill Fear Crippling Blow to the Industry Story continues People who are against the bill, along with industry officials, argue that the regulations, if signed into law, would have a devastating economic impact on the entire state. With the Colorado economy depending heavily on oil and gas industry for tax revenues, funds for infrastructure and welfare projects could be hit if local communities go slow on drilling permit approvals within their jurisdiction. They warn that the legislation could potentially lead to job losses and economic hardship. Which Companies Will be Affected? While the bills passage through the House is almost a given following which it will reach the desk of Governor Jared Polis (a supporter of the measure himself), it is expected to take many months and public hearings before the rules implementing the law are written. But the Senate Bill 181, which comes after the energy industry defeated Proposition 112 an initiative that would have required new oil and gas wells to be drilled at least 2500 feet from most buildings is expected to be a real concern for the operators in Colorado. Oil and gas explorers who are exclusively focused on the states Denver-Julesburg (or, DJ) Basin including HighPoint Resources HPR, Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. BCEI, Extraction Oil & Gas Inc XOG and SRC Energy Inc. SRCI among others, could be in for some rough time. Biggies like Anadarko Petroleum Corporation APC, which has invested heavily in the prolific D-J Basin also stands exposed to an element of uncertainty. The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company holds approximately 400,000 net acres in the DJ Basin. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (APC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. (BCEI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Synergy Resources Corporation (SRCI) : Free Stock Analysis Report HIGHPOINT RESOURCES CORP (HPR) : Free Stock Analysis Report EXTRACTION O&G (XOG) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Banners of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank. Photo: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo The merger of two massive German lenders Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank is being greeted with much fanfare in the markets. However, Frank Bsirske, head of Germanys powerful Verdi union, has spoken out against the potential tie-up and warned of mass job losses. Some 20,000 or more jobs could come under fire, Bsirske said, adding that safeguarding jobs was a priority for Verdi, and that he expects tense discussions about this at both banks. Verdi is also on the oversight body at Commerzbank, and together both banks have over 130,000 full time staff. However, that number now appears to have been revised up: a representative of Verdi told broadcaster n-tv today that 30,000 jobs could be lost in the consolidation. Bsirske, who sits on the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank, told German newspapers that the banks were not a good fit for each other, and that overlapping their strengths, especially where private and corporate arms were concerned, would mean severe job cuts. Jan Duscheck, a Verdi labor representative on the Deutsche supervisory board also noted on Sunday that the union was against the merger because of the threat to jobs. Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank, told the BBC that the German governments concern about job losses seem to be more than outweighed by this desire to have industrial policy a deliberate policy to create a bigger domestic bank. The German government, Commerzbanks biggest stakeholder after rescuing it in 2009 during the financial crisis, has been pressuring the two troubled banks to explore a merger, to consolidate its public lenders. A merger would create Europes third- or fourth-largest bank, with a combined market value of around 25bn (21bn). Deutsche Bank AG DB has planned to set up its asset reconstruction company (ARC) in India as it seeks to make profits by buying and reorganizing non-performing credit, per Bloomberg. This came amid Indias changing regulations in connection with the clean-up of bad debt. Indias non-performing loan ratio is the worst in the world. This move by Deutsche Bank comes as the current rules in this country do not allow overseas investors to purchase soured loans from domestic lenders directly. Hence, the bank thinks that having its ARC in India will be beneficial. Notably, the parliament in India passed a law in 2002, which aimed at helping banks clean their balance sheets by selling bad loans. Since then, more than 29 ARCs have been set up in this nation. However, until 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modis government twisted the rules a little, allowing overseas investors to fully own ARCs in India, buying of bad loans would occur only through tie-ups with local firms. Currently, there is speculation that eventually authorities will allow foreign investors to buy soured debt in India without the requirement of making tie-ups with local units. Hence, some of these investors have taken a back seat and are not considering setting up their ARCs in India currently. Nevertheless, others have already started setting up their ARCs in the nation. Lone Star Funds has set up its ARC in India already while KKR & Co. applied for an ARC permit. Notably, per people familiar with the matter, Bank of America BAC is considering setting up its ARC in India, though nothing has been finalized yet. Deutsche Banks shares have gained 6.1% over the past three months, underperforming 11% growth recorded by the industry it belongs to. Currently, the stock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A couple of better-ranked stocks from the same space are Banco de Chile BCH and Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. ITUB. These stocks currently carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Banco de Chiles Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has remained unchanged over the past 30 days. The stock has gained nearly 5.1% in the past six months. Over the past 30 days, Itau Unibancos earnings estimates have remained unchanged. The stock has gained around 36.7% in the past six months. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Bank of America Corporation (BAC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. (ITUB) : Free Stock Analysis Report Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (DB) : Free Stock Analysis Report Banco De Chile (BCH) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Haley Taylor Schlitz, 16, plans to enroll at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in the fall of 2019. Most 16-year-olds spend the summer break working, going to camp, or hanging out with their friends. Not so for Haley Taylor Schlitz, who's on track to graduate with both an associate's and bachelor's degree in May. Shell spend the upcoming summer preparing to start law school and attending a six-day program with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington for incoming law students. Schlitz was accepted to all five law schools she applied to and has decided to attend Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. (The other law schools were at Howard University, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Southern University and Texas Southern University.) SMU could not say whether shes the youngest ever to enroll at the Dallas campus, though admissions officials said shes the youngest they know of. We caught up with Schlitz this week to discuss her law school plans, what inspired her to seek a J.D., and what she thinks her new classmates will make of a teenager in their midst. Her answers have been edited for length and clarity. Why did you pick Southern Methodist University? Was there anything in particular that stood out? A lot of factors went into it. Obviously, Im 16 so I want to stay at home. My parents suggested getting an apartment, but I really wanted to stay at home. That was huge. Ill commute every day I have class. SMU also offered me the biggest scholarship, which is important too. SMU isnt cheaptotally worth it but isnt cheap. Its a top 50 law school. Its the best law school I got into. How is it possible that you will start law school at 17? Most law students are 21 and older. It starts way back in my elementary years. I went to public school until fifth grade. At the end of the year my parents pulled me out and started to home-school me because they didnt like the way I was being taught. I was just being taught to pass the end-of-the-year test to get to the next grade. I wasnt being taught to learn. I wasnt in the gifted and talented program because they said I wasnt allowed to bethat I couldnt take the test. My parents got me privately tested and then home-schooled me after they determined that I was gifted. I was home-schooled up until I was 13 years old. I skipped quite a few grades. Then I graduated high school at 13 and went to the community college from 13 to 14, so I could get my core done. Then I got accepted into numerous different universities, and I went to Texas Womans University from 14 to 16. And now Im here at 16 and I applied to numerous different law schools and Im going to law school. When did you know you wanted to be a lawyer? My moms a doctor, so as you can imagine I wanted to be a doctor until I was 12 or 13. I started at Tarrant County College with the idea I wanted to be a doctor. Then I looked back at my own story and realized the inequities there are in the education system, especially in the gifted and talented program with girls and girls of color. Thats something I felt really passionate about because of my own story, that I wasnt even able to get in. Where I went there were a bunch of boys who were not of color who were able to get in at the same age I wasnt able to get in. It sparked a fire in me and made me want to fight for equality. My mom and dad said, Well, you can be a lawyer. How was the LSAT for you? It was actually really fun. I did the whole program online and I really enjoyed it. I like standardized tests quite a bit. And the LSAT is really fun because its almost like a puzzle or a mind game. It was really cool. When I took it, its like they were asking me to solve riddles. I didnt really see it as a test, per se, but more like a game. It was awesome. Do you get weird looks when you show up in college classes, or to take the LSAT, for example? Thats exactly what you would think. And everywhere I go I feel like thats exactly how everybody should look at me. But people must think Im older than I am because they dont. The only time I got kind of weird looks is when I was 13 and went to Tarrant County College, because I guess it was really obvious Im a kid. But when I go to Texas Womans University, nobody knows I am so young. When I go to tour SMU or other schools, nobody ever looks at me like that. And I always expect people to say, Wait a second, how old are you? And no one ever asks that. How do you think your professors and classmates at SMU will react when you show up next fall? I recently went to a few law school events. When people found out I was 16 they were really surprised, obviously. Then they asked me how I got here. Every single time someone figures out my age, it changes the dynamic a bit. Its not bad, but its new attention. But I like the attention. Everybody is always surprised at my age and they ask me a few questions. Then its over. Theyre my friends and we work together. But its not like I get treated differently, in a negative way, like, Oh, youre a kid. Im not listening to you. Any other ideas of what you want to use your law degree for? Its the educational policy, like we talked about. Im also really interested in intellectual property. It hits so many things. Thats another thing Im looking into. It sounds cool. What are you most looking forward to about law school? Probably the classes. I love learning and Im really excited to learn more about the law and our society. (Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc.s recently announced pivot toward privacy and encrypted messages pushed former bull Needham to the sidelines while Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the move adds some uncertainty. Shares of Facebook fell 3.2 percent, marking a third straight decline totaling as much as 7.3 percent. While the stock has rallied more than 30 percent from a December low, it remains more than 25 percent below a July record. The privacy issue was just one of the factors driving Needhams downgrade to hold from buy. The firm also cited the growing risks of government regulation and the recent massacre in New Zealand, which was live-streamed on Facebook. Such horrific images are technologically difficult to block at the 100 percent level, hurting Facebooks brand, analyst Laura Martin wrote. Together, these risks are causing a Negative Network Effect, as evidenced by senior management departures, she wrote, referring to the recent departure of Chris Cox, the companys former chief product officer. Needham kept its below-consensus estimates on Facebook, but noted that the company has warned of rising costs, falling margins and higher capital expenditures, all of which may accelerate as the company moves toward privacy. BofAML analyst Justin Post wrote that the revenue impact of a more privacy-centric platform could raise questions on three-year growth as private messages have a lower monetization. He cut his price target on the stock to $187 from $205. While FB still has big opportunities to improve the monetization of stories and messaging, the question is if usage will deteriorate on core news feed. Currently, 41 analysts have a buy rating on Facebook, while nine view it as a hold and just two have sell ratings on the stock. The average price target is $196. Last week, Nomura Instinet upgraded the stock to buy on growth in its Stories product. Separately, the analyst with the Street-high price target on Facebook shares praised the move to privacy, seeing it as a way to gain ground against competitors like Snap. Story continues (Updates stock price and chart to market open.) To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven Fromm, Will Daley For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Three settlements in Kailali depend on India for livelihood Three settlements across the Mohana river in Kailari Rural Municipality, Kailali district, have to depend entirely upon India for their livelihood. - By Holly LaFon Investors and consultants frequently ask for the Global Value team's views on sustainable investing. While we do not offer strategies that focus in this area, we do pay close attention to issues of sustainability because they may be a key to a company's resilience over the long term. Some investors see the energy sector as the antithesis of sustainability, but we see things differently. In this interview, Benj Bahr, energy-sector analyst on the Global Value team, explains why. Environmental concerns--air quality, water quality, climate change--are driving some investors away from the energy sector. Why do you still have oil and natural-gas companies in your portfolios? One of the biggest reasons for owning these companies is the economic necessity of energy--and of oil and natural gas, in particular. One of the biggest reasons for owning these companies is the economic necessity of energy--and of oil and natural gas, in particular. For many purposes, fossil fu-els are the lowest-cost resource, and coal, oil and natural gas still supply more than 80% of the world's primary energy. Fossil fuels account for as large a proportion of energy production today as they did in the late 1990s, when hydropower and nuclear power made up more of the balance.1 Transportation probably gets the most attention, and many people believe that electric vehicles will soon replace those powered by internal combustion engines. However, even if this were to occur, it would affect roughly one-third of total global oil demand. The other two-thirds of demand stems from such things as plastics, fer-tilizers and fuels for commercial vehicles and airplanes. For airplanes--about 10% of all oil demand and growing--at the moment there is no substitute for the energy density of fossil fuels.2,3 To make most plastics, the options are currently limited to an oil derivative or a gas derivative. For a company making nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers to feed a growing population, natural gas is a key input. Oil and natural gas appear to be inextricable components of the economic system. They are necessary for the quality of life that the developed world enjoys today and that the rest of the world is actively seeking to achieve. Story continues Further, we also choose to own energy stocks because of their role as a potential hedge in portfolios we manage. We like to own securities that provide exposure to scarce real assets, such as oil and natural-gas reserves and infrastructure. The top three exporters of oil globally--Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq--account for close to 40% of oil exports. Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela, which are also major exporters, represent another 10%.4 If something were to go wrong in one of these countries--a possibility that is not hard to imagine--a meaningful portion of global energy sup - ply could become unavailable. If this were to occur, energy stocks might be poised to provide ballast to our clients' portfolios. Lastly, as value investors, we tend to sense opportunities when we perceive broad-scale selling of a sector or industry. Often, but not always, it is good to be buying when others are selling indiscriminately. In recent years, efforts by some investors to divest from fossil fuel stocks have contributed to our belief that there may be attrac-tive opportunities in some energy stocks. Many countries have agreed to reduce their use of fossil fuels. How does this affect your thinking about the energy sector? We think the transition to other energy sources will be slower than many investors seem to assume. Q: Of course, the world's dependence on oil and gas can change, and oil demand may stop growing. However, we think the transition to other energy sources will be slower than many investors seem to assume. The energy density of gasoline is still more than 30 times greater than the best lithium-ion battery being produced today.5 Owners of electric cars still need to plug them in, and fossil fuels are cur-rently powering most of the charging stations. Renewable sources of energy have become cheaper over time, but wind and solar power still require government subsidies to compete with fossil fuels on the basis of price. We do not underestimate the potential environmental concerns that surround the energy industry. But a review of past energy transitions suggests that moving away from fossil fuels will take time. In the mid-18th century, despite technological improvements that allowed for more efficient coal mining, it still took more than 100 years before coal surpassed wood as the world's largest source of energy. It took another 90 years before oil surpassed coal in terms of consumption. And even as new technologies emerged, demand for all sources of energy continued to grow: Global wood consumption doubled in the 19th century even as coal became the primary source of energy, and coal demand grew 15% over the course of the 20th century despite increased reliance on oil.6,7 Historically, energy transitions have lasted for decades, not years. How do you think about sustainability in the context of the energy sector? As in all sectors, we are long -term investors who care about whether assets are going to be viable years and decades down the road. With energy companies, we need to understand the role of technology, the role of disruption, and the role of the regulatory regime. We look for energy companies where sustainability and strong governance appear to be ingrained in the decision-making process. We think that if a company is acknowl-edging the risks that are ahead it is more likely to adapt to changes within the indus-try. Likewise, if a company consistently seeks out best practices, we believe it is more likely to have the ability to survive and thrive over the long term. We are not seeking businesses where management superimposes ESG standards from the top down. In our view, that could actually cause a company to stray from its competitive advan-tages. We want to see companies that think about the environment because they're looking out 10 or 20 years into the future, and they're realizing what they must do to survive and grow their business. They have to care about sustainability because they want to be more competitive than their peers. Their research and development align them with all their stakeholders, including regulators and customers. For them, sustainability is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Further, in thinking about sustainability risks to energy companies, it's important to keep in mind that not all fossil fuels are created equal. Although there are envi-ronmental issues with natural gas, it is much cleaner to burn than other fossil fuels. Most new power plants being built today are fueled by natural gas, either to replace legacy coal or nuclear plants, or to supplement renewable technologies. We expect the demand for natural gas to remain strong, and it is the most likely current substi-tute for other fossil fuels. Currently, natural gas accounts for a large portion of our energy exposure. What have energy companies in your portfolios done to address ESG and sustainability risks? Many of the companies we own are heavily focused on efforts to address environ-mental risks. ExxonMobil is a good example of that. The company is spending about $5 billion a year on environmental issues, which includes everything from cleaning up sites where it has already been, to helping local economies where it is currently active, to making cleaner barrels today than it did yesterday. Exxon spends about a billion dollars a year on research into everything from more envi-ronmentally friendly resource extraction to the production of biofuels. It employs 2,300 PhDs. Few companies in the world--and not many governments--have as great a capacity to address environmental issues. Exxon is spending much of that money to bring down production costs and emissions. This is a systematic, long-term process. And while it is popularly known as an oil company, in reality it has built its presence in natural gas to the point where this now accounts for roughly half of Exxon's production. When making investments in any sector, including energy, we examine the incen-tives a company's board has implemented to motivate management behavior. In ExxonMobil's case, the board has created incentives that are aligned with the com-pany's long-term orientation. Members of the management team are paid in stock on the basis of metrics like shareholder returns and returns on capital, with compensa-tion vesting over a 10-year period. This aligns them with regulators, customers and other stakeholders on a long-term basis. Have you invested in any renewable energy companies? We invest with an eye on a company's competitive positioning, cash flows and value creation. In the energy space, we have favored energy production and services companies that have shown an ability to create value and generate free cash flow over a full economic cycle. In our view, renewable opportunities in the public markets have not reached that point on a stand-alone basis. A lot of money is going into wind farms and solar arrays, and on a one-off or discrete-asset basis, investors can make money from that with the help of tax benefits or other subsidies for their power out-put. The technology for renewables is becoming compelling, and we do not dismiss it. But we want to invest in companies that can generate money across a cycle and pay us a dividend, conduct stock buybacks and create shareholder value over time. We don't currently expect that renewables companies will be able to do those things in the near-term or medium-term. That said, we continue to pay close attention to renewables as we think about the long-term prospects for the energy sector. How much weight does sustainability carry in your investment process? Today, we own shares in businesses that we believe by any metric-- economic need, management alignment, company strategy--will be around for decades. We view our value to society as protecting and growing capital for our clients in a thoughtful manner over decades. Throughout our investment process, we focus on sustainability and resilience, but valuation always figures into the equation. We want to invest in energy companies with assets and business models that are going to be around for decades--and a focus on sustainability is part of this equation. But we don't rule out the possibility, under the right conditions, of investments with shorter asset life. Today, we own shares in businesses that we believe by any metric--economic need, management alignment, company strategy--will be around for decades. At the same time, in our view, the prices we are paying would be compatible with earnings that terminate in a much shorter period of time. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. HCA Healthcare HCA along with Galen College of Nursing recently announced that the company will become the majority owner of Galens parent company. This unique collaboration, which will combine the expertise of both organizations, is expected to improve access to nursing education and provide career development opportunities in the same field. However, the deal is subject to a pending regulatory approval and other customary conditions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. HCA Healthcare, one of the major employers of nurses in the country, makes concerted efforts to drive nursing excellence. This, in turn, has led to better clinical outcomes, an enriched patient experience and better nurse engagement. The company believes that Galen with a great reputation for nursing studies is its perfect partner. Notably, for Galen, the deal is an extension of its focus on nursing and its aim to boost access to good nursing training. This is yet another step taken by HCA Healthcares to live up to its commitment toward being the leading career hub for nurses along with addressing the countrys rising nursing needs. The company also previously made steadfast efforts to retain its nurses as well. During early 2018, it pledged $300 million for employee benefits by enhancing career development programs to retain and attract nurses. Those consist of tuition reimbursement for most full and part-time staff, student loan debt assistance, expanded certification offerings and plans for a scholarship program for children of HCA Healthcare employees. In 2018, the company added more than 6,200 registered nurses and invested in advanced technologies to support nursing. Notably, HCA Healthcare has been emphasizing on acquisitions for expedited growth. Its inorganic growth strategies have led to patient volumes enabled network expansion across several markets and added hospitals to its portfolio. The companys buyouts are expected to add scale to its business, thus positioning it better to weather the regulatory uncertainties in the healthcare sector. On Feb 1, 2019, the company completed the awaiting integration of Mission Health, a six-hospital system in Asheville and the Western North Carolina for a value of around $1.5 billion. All these initiatives poise the company well for growth. Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have rallied 29% in a years time, outperforming its industrys growth of 13.1%. Story continues Stocks to Consider Investors interested in the medical sector can take a look at some better-ranked stocks like UnitedHealth Group Incorporated UNH, Centene Corporation CNC and WellCare Health Plans, Inc. WCG, each currently carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. UnitedHealth operates as a diversified health care company in the United States. In the last four quarters, the company delivered average beat of 3.39%. Centene operates as a diversified and multi-national healthcare enterprise in the United States. It came up with average earnings surprise of 4.99% in the trailing four quarters. WellCare Health offers managed care services to government-sponsored health care programs. The company pulled off average positive surprise of 15.43% in the preceding four quarters. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (WCG) : Free Stock Analysis Report UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Centene Corporation (CNC) : Free Stock Analysis Report HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Two school teachers from Rukum (East) out of contact Teaching-learning activities at a basic school in Pelma village of Puthauttarganga Rural Municipalilty-2, Rukum (East), have been greatly affected as the headmaster is out of contact, acting headmaster has disappeared and the school management committee chairman is in jail. Dividends play an important role in compounding returns in the long run and end up forming a sizeable part of investment returns. China Leon Inspection Holding Limited (HKG:1586) has recently paid dividends to shareholders, and currently yields 2.1%. Does China Leon Inspection Holding tick all the boxes of a great dividend stock? Below, Ill take you through my analysis. View our latest analysis for China Leon Inspection Holding 5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics: Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers? Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout? Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years? Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate? Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth? SEHK:1586 Historical Dividend Yield, March 18th 2019 Does China Leon Inspection Holding pass our checks? The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 42%, which means that the dividend is 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. When assessing the forecast sustainability of a dividend it is also worth considering the cash flow of the business. Cash flow is important because companies with strong cash flow can usually sustain higher payout ratios. If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, its dividend stocks and their constant income stream. The reality is that it is too early to consider China Leon Inspection Holding as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 2 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record. Relative to peers, China Leon Inspection Holding generates a yield of 2.1%, which is high for Energy Services stocks but still below the markets top dividend payers. Story continues Next Steps: After digging a little deeper into China Leon Inspection Holdings yield, its easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. On the other hand, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still be offering some interesting investment opportunities. 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. Ive put together three fundamental factors you should look at: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for 1586s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for 1586s outlook. Valuation: What is 1586 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 1586 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. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Chuck Hagel Forum in Global Leadership on Feb. 28. (Photo: Nati Harnik/AP) DOVER, Del. For a brief moment, former Vice President Joe Biden placed himself in the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates during a speech on Saturday night. Biden seemingly described himself as one of the people running while noting he gets criticized by some progressives. I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the United Biden said, then quickly corrected himself to say, of anybody who would run. I didnt mean it! Of anybody who would run. The former vice presidents speech was the keynote of the First State Democratic Dinner at the Dover Downs Hotel and Casino. Bidens appearance in his home state came amid mounting rumors and speculation he will enter the 2020 presidential race. Asked about the running remark, Biden spokesperson Bill Russo pointed to the second half of the sentence in which Biden corrected himself. During his career, Biden has earned a reputation for verbal misfires. A volunteer for the former vice president who was in the ballroom for the speech described the comment as a mistake. He did not announce. That was the slip of the tongue, said the volunteer, who declined to be identified by name. As he has inched closer toward entering the presidential race, Biden has faced criticism from progressives who believe he is too moderate. Critics have pointed to his tough stance on crime when he served in the U.S. Senate, for instance. Biden has also faced backlash for a speech he gave last month in which he called the current vice president, Mike Pence, a decent guy. Bidens speech on Saturday was in many ways unapologetically moderate. He noted that his home state has become known for the Delaware way where political rivals dont demonize or belittle each other. Biden also said Delaware Democrats might even say a nice word about a Republican when they do something good. Biden suggested America should have more of this type of consensus on the national stage. We need a little more of the Delaware way, Biden said, adding that our current politics is so mean, petty and vicious. Story continues Despite his largely conciliatory tone, Biden offered an aggressive critique of President Trump and said our Democracy is under threat by the current administration. Specifically, Biden blasted Trumps 2017 response to the neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville, Va., as well as the presidents attacks on the free press, Congress and the independent judiciary. The president is systematically tearing down the guardrails of our democracy, Biden said. Biden also criticized Trump for endangering what he described as the bargain that built the middle class with his tax policies and cuts to social programs. Theyve made a basic value judgement theyd rather reward the superwealthy and hope something trickles down than help anyone else, Biden said of Republicans. As he leveled these criticisms, Biden once again seemed to hint at a coming campaign. Youre going to hear a hell of a lot more about it from me, said Biden. Even as he declared there is a raging battle for the soul of America, Biden struck a hopeful tone and repeatedly said this country has a higher capacity for greatness than any other. As tough as things are right now, Im optimistic, he said. Its not about me and whether I run or not and I mean that sincerely its about the capacity to restore America and once again become that shining city on the hill. While Biden stopped just short of launching a presidential bid, his fellow Delaware Democrats all seemed primed for him to enter the race. As he took the stage, Biden was greeted with chants of Run Joe! Run! Speaking to reporters before the speech, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons indicated that, whether or not the night included an announcement, he expects Biden will throw his hat into the ring. I am very optimistic that Joe Biden will announce soon. I dont know about tonight I would be surprised, but its possible that the energy and passion of the room will lead him to do something bold and unexpected here, Coons said, adding, I do think he is all but certain to run. He is 95 percent there. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Herbalife's corporate office in Los Angeles and Kamala Harris. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Damian Dovarganes/AP, AP) WASHINGTON At a rally in late January in her native Oakland, Calif., U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris announced her intention to seek the presidential nomination by casting herself as a tireless advocate of men and women who lack power and wealth. The former attorney general of California who since 2017 has been the states junior senator described her first appearance in the courtroom, as a young San Francisco district attorney. I knew I wanted to protect people, Harris told the crowd of 20,000. And I knew that the people in our society who are most often targeted by predators are also most often the voiceless and vulnerable. But as the attorney general of the nations largest state and therefore one of the most powerful law enforcement officials in the nation Harris declined to investigate Herbalife, the nutritional supplement company that has been accused of fraudulent marketing practices. Documents exclusively obtained by Yahoo News show that in 2015, prosecutors in the San Diego office of the California attorney general sent Harris a lengthy memorandum that argued for an investigation into Herbalife and requested resources in order to undertake such an investigation. Similar investigations into Herbalife were already taking place elsewhere. About three weeks after the San Diego letter was sent, Harris received the first of three donations to her campaign for the U.S. Senate from Heather Podesta, the powerful Washington lobbyist whose ex-husband Tonys firm, then called the Podesta Group, had worked for Herbalife since 2013. Heather Podestas own lobbying firm, Heather Podesta and Partners, would soon be hired by Herbalife, too. Harris did not pursue an investigation, even as the Federal Trade Commission proceeded with an investigation of its own, which had been opened the previous March and which suggested that sufficient grounds for such scrutiny did exist. In fact, the San Diego letter had meticulously laid out those grounds, pointing out that Herbalife presented itself to the public as a lawful enterprise, but that it could nevertheless be engaged in less obvious conduct that potentially harmed both Herbalife distributors and Herbalife customers. Allegations of such conduct, by 2015, had become commonplace in media reports. Harris never gave a reason for declining to investigate Herbalife, but the decision stands in contrast to her oft-expressed promise to fight for ordinary Americans for whom the 21st century economy seems to hold little promise. Those are the very same Americans, critics say, that Herbalife recruited and exploited. Story continues Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, in 2015. His position at a law firm that represented Herbalife raised the eyebrows of a financial journalist. (Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Its disgusting, says Julie Contreras, a Chicago-based activist whose Afuera con Herbalife campaign sharply criticized the company for preying on Latino communities. Contreras says that her Spanish-language nickname for Harris is Que Mala, a play on Kamala that translates to how bad. Kamala Harris did a huge injustice in declining to investigate the Los Angeles-based company, says Contreras, who has publicly supported Beto ORourkes campaign. Harriss presidential campaign said it was not accurate to see in her treatment of Herbalife a hesitation about aggressively pursuing corporations. Harris has a long record of going after bad corporate actors engaging in fraudulent behavior and delivering results for people who have been taken advantage of, said campaign spokesman Ian Sams. He noted that as Californias attorney general, Harris got $20 billion for California homeowners after taking on mortgage fraud by the big banks, secured a billion-dollar judgment against for-profit Corinthian Colleges for scamming students, and put Ponzi and pyramid schemers in prison. Founded in 1980, Herbalife calls itself a global nutrition company whose purpose is to make the world healthier and happier. It is a multilevel marketing operation MLM, for short meaning that instead of selling its weight-loss shakes and pills through proprietary outlets, it relies on distributors who make a commission when they sell the products, which they can do out of their own homes or through nutrition clubs that cannot feature Herbalife branding, even though they sell Herbalife products. Such clubs have recently proliferated in Latino communities across the United States, where Herbalifes hold is strongest. Herbalife protein bars at Herbalife's corporate office in Los Angeles. (Photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP) Critics believe that MLMs, including Herbalife, are pyramid schemes because their profits stem from recruitment of new salespeople, rather than sales to end customers (the pyramid is the shape of such a companys growing distributor base). Other than Herbalife, the most well-known American corporation to stand accused of running a pyramid scheme is Amway, the home products company founded 60 years ago in Michigan. In 1979, Amway won a crucial case in which the FTC called it a pyramid scheme, but the allegations persisted, both against Amway and other MLMs. In 2010, Amway paid out $56 million in the settlement of a class action suit that revived the pyramid scheme charges. Yet the company survived. (The current federal education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is married to the heir of the Amway fortune.) Herbalife attracted scrutiny almost from the start. In 1986, the state of California imposed a consent decree on Herbalife that said the company could not make false or misleading representations about how much money distributors could expect to make. The company also had to stop making allegedly false or exaggerated claims about its products. But that did little to stop the companys growth, and it continued to rapidly expand both in the United States and around the world. In 2003, Herbalife hired Disney executive Michael O. Johnson, who brought management sophistication to its operations. A tanned triathlete, he seemed a living embodiment of the companys promises. (The companys founder, Mark Hughes, had died of a drug overdose three years before.) The company went public the following year; a 2005 annual report declared its market capitalization to be $359.8 million. But despite Johnsons efforts to add corporate sheen, critics maintained that Herbalifes profits came not from sales of its weight loss products, but in the aggressive recruitment of new members, each of whom was expected to buy large amounts of inventory from the company. The new recruits quickly realized, according to Herbalifes detractors, that the inventory of pills and powders itself was largely worthless and that the only way to make money was to attract new recruits. Herbalife has long denied such accusations, portraying itself as a company that provides access to wealth to people who, for one reason or another, are unable to find success in traditional employment. The company declined to speak on the record for this story. Harris was first asked publicly to look into Herbalifes alleged wrongdoing in 2013, when the company held its Extravaganza Latina in Los Angeles. Protesters picketed the event, urging Harris to investigate Herbalife. We are asking Attorney General Harris to help us protect vulnerable, low income Latinos and other minorities from these schemes that have cost people their life savings, one of the protests organizers said. At the time, Herbalife was fending off another existential challenge, from Manhattan hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, whose founder, Bill Ackman, had become convinced that though the company was worth $8.1 billion at the time, that valuation was predicated on illusion. He declared war on Herbalife with the public presentation of a 334-page PowerPoint dossier, the 64th page of which contained his central argument: Herbalife is a Pyramid Scheme. Brent Wilkes, then national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, speaks against Herbalife in Los Angeles in 2013. (Photo: Fred Prouser/Reuters) Ackman eventually came to take an astonishingly bold $1 billion short position on Herbalife, meaning that he borrowed stock in the company with the expectation that the price of the stock would fall dramatically. If that happened, Ackmans short would provide him with a massive windfall, not to mention a validation of his beliefs about the company. Ackman and Pershing Square declined to comment for this article. Ackmans public quest to take down Herbalife he was explicit about that goal brought newfound scrutiny to the company, pressuring regulators to act. The FTC opened an investigation into Herbalife in March 2014, with Lisa Madigan, attorney general of Illinois, and Eric Schneiderman, attorney general of New York, doing the same the following month. That meant that what were at the time the countrys fourth and fifth most populous states had now joined the fight. The FBI started an investigation in April 2014 as well. Harris remained silent. That January, activists met with members of her office. The concerns were clearly articulated to her staff, says Brent Wilkes, who at the time was executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the groups asking Harris to investigate Herbalife. They heard us, asked interesting questions, Wilkes recalls. He says he was hopeful that Harris would come around, but the activism failed to make a sufficient impact on her. Wilkes did not know that at the time, Herbalife was represented by Venable, which also employed Harriss husband, Douglas Emhoff. Emhoff does not appear to have been involved in Herbalifes affairs, but his work at the firm came to the attention of Christopher Irons, a financial journalist who first reported on the Emhoff-Herbalife connection. Surely this would seem like some sort of enormous conflict of interest, no? he wrote in 2015. The activists asking Harris to investigate Herbalife did not seem to know that she had a personal connection to the the law firm representing the corporation. Thats news to me, Wilkes said when told by Yahoo News about Emhoffs law firm. The letter to Harris from Judith Fiorentini, the supervising deputy attorney general in the San Diego office, was sent on March 3, 2015. It was signed by two other deputy attorneys general, Sanna Singer and Jinsook Ohta, who like Fiorentini were in the consumer law department of the attorney generals office. Their memo asked for a delegation of investigative authority, which was to include the authority to issue and enforce investigative subpoenas. Fiorentini wrote that while Herbalife has outwardly complied with the 1986 injunction ... we believe that it may be directing or enabling the acts of its distributors in ways that violate that order and/or consumer laws in general. She explained that there was reason to believe that Herbalife was empowering its distributors to make false claims about the benefits of becoming a Herbalife distributor. Herbalife can be liable for consumer violations by its distributors to the extent Herbalife enabled the distributors actions, Fiorentini wrote. The letter went on to cite precedent for conducting such a probe, and noted that a preliminary investigation had already taken place. That investigation revealed that Herbalife, at least in publicly available documents, has carefully drawn its corporate policies and conducted itself in a manner that is outwardly consistent with the 1986 Injunction. Fiorentini thought it was nevertheless necessary to delve behind what is publicly available to determine if Herbalife is directing or enabling its distributors to act illegally. Fiorentini requested two full-time attorneys, three or four legal assistants and, potentially, officers to conduct undercover operations. The letter ended with the pros and cons of such an investigation. Fiorentini was frank about the energy and resources required while also anticipating a rigorous legal defense from the company. At the same time, she said that an investigation would send the message that this office takes continued monitoring and enforcement of its existing judgments very seriously. In addition, it will ensure that Herbalife is held accountable for the acts of its distributors. An area of the Herbalife corporate office in Los Angeles in 2016. (Photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP) The contents of the memorandum, or its existence, have not been published before. But it suggests that Harris was made directly aware of the dangers Herbalife may have posed to the people of California. No investigation was opened into Herbalife in response to the memorandum from Fiorentini, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Yahoo News. Nor has Harris publicly said why she chose not to investigate Herbalife, a step that would necessarily lead to prosecution. A person familiar with deliberations at the attorney generals office at the time disputes suggestions of inaction by Harris. The person who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly said that the California attorney generals office did help the FTC with its investigation, namely through its corporate fraud division. And the person said that Harris was hesitant to join a fight between billionaires: In response to Ackmans $1 billion Herbalife short, investor Carl Icahn bet heavily on the company, and the two men began to attack each other sharply on television. Podesta, the Washington lobbyist whose ex-husband represented Herbalife, donated $1,000 to Harriss campaign for the U.S. Senate on March 31, 2015, at the end of the same month that had seen the arrival of the letter from the San Diego office, asking for an Herbalife investigation. She donated $4,400 to Harriss senate campaign the following year. (Podesta had made smaller donations, of $100 and $500, to Harris in 2010 and 2014, respectively. She did not respond to requests for comment.) That July, Herbalife hired a top Podesta deputy, Eric Rosen, to serve as its top government relations official. The following year, Herbalife paid Heather Podesta $250,000 for her lobbying work. Harris moved on from her duties as a prosecutor in 2016 when, on the same day that Trump became president, she was elected to serve as Californias junior senator. She was sworn in the following January, and exactly two years later she announced she was running to oust Trump from the Oval Office. The FTC won a $200 million settlement from Herbalife in July 2016. Related to that settlement was one with Madigan, the Illinois attorney general, for $3 million. California, which often leads the nation in consumer and environmental regulations, remained on the sidelines. Vice President Joe Biden administers the Senate oath of office to Kamala Harris as her husband, Douglas Emhoff, holds the Bible in 2017. (Photo: Kevin Wolf/AP) I wouldnt limit my disappointment to her, says Wilkes, the former chief executive of the League of United Latin American Citizens, of Harris. At least Kamala listened. Still, he wonders why Madigan could wrest a settlement from Herbalife but Harris could not. Kamala, he says with audible disappointment, should have had that too. Since then, however, she has faced questions about whether her progressivism is genuine or only a matter of political expediency. She has yet to explain why she declined to pursue a corporation accused of exploiting her Latino constituents. Harris was replaced as Californias attorney general by Xavier Becerra, who had formerly represented Los Angeles in the U.S. House of Representatives. Becerra has formerly received significant political donations from Herbalifes political action group. His office would not say how, if at all, this complicated considerations about opening an investigation into Herbalife. The attorney generals press office declined to comment in response to repeated calls and emails from Yahoo News. Contreras, the Chicago activist, has watched the Harris presidential campaign with skepticism. For her, the decision to go easy on Herbalife is indicative of where Harriss sympathies lie, and it is not with the downtrodden. Contreras has a simple message for the presidential candidate: Kamala Harris, shame on you. Editors note: This article has been updated to clarify the relationship between Heather Podesta and Herbalife, as well as to include the political affiliation of activist Julie Contreras. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: 1. Yes. The Schlueter Group has extensive experience and contacts. Its a good investment. 2. Yes. The firms namesake has a background as a legislator and knows Killeen well. 3. No. The expenditure is a waste of money. Our lawmakers should be doing that work. 4. No. The contract should be shorter, incentivized and based on performance benchmarks. 5. Unsure. Its not always easy to quantify the outcomes of lobbying efforts. Vote View Results By Andreas Framke and Tom Sims BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank faced concerns from workers unions, Chancellor Angela Merkel's office and top shareholders on Monday after confirming merger talks. Combining Germany's two largest banks could result in 30,000 job losses, a union warned, prompting Merkel's chief of staff to say the government was scrutinizing the issue. The concerns underline the obstacles to combining the banks, which confirmed talks about a tie-up on Sunday following months of pressure from Berlin, which has pushed for a deal amid concerns about the health of Deutsche Bank, which has struggled to sustain profits since the 2008 financial crisis. Chancellery Chief Helge Braun told Bild newspaper that it would be "difficult" if thousands of jobs would be cut, warning that the government was "never passive when it comes to deals of such magnitude". Together the two banks employ 140,000 people worldwide, 91,700 at Deutsche and 49,000 at Commerzbank and a merged bank would have one fifth of the German retail banking market. Despite the worries about jobs, the market reaction to news that the two banks were engaged in talks, which ended months of speculation, was positive. Shares in Deutsche Bank were up 5.0 percent at 1216 GMT while Commerzbank traded 6.7 percent higher. The supervisory boards of both banks are due meet on Thursday, with the merger likely to top the agenda. However, two top shareholders in Deutsche Bank expressed their disapproval, with one questioning not only the logic but also the timing of a deal. "There is no obvious reason why these two banks should be merged," a person close to another shareholder said. And while international credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's, which downgraded Deutsche Bank last year, said a well executed merger could reap efficiencies, it warned a deal would "entail significant uncertainties and risks". Story continues In addition to regulatory and antitrust risks, an effort to merge would mean "several more years of significant internal restructuring," while competitors move forward. The banks have "patchy track records in executing strategic programs," S&P said. JOBS HURDLE Berlin, which holds a stake of more than 15 percent in Commerzbank following a bailout, wants a national banking champion to support its export-led economy, best known for cars and machine tools. However, the jobs impact could be a major hurdle. A merger of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank could result in as many as 30,000 job cuts over the long term, a representative of German union Verdi, who is a supervisory board member at Deutsche Bank, told n-tv broadcaster. Most of the 30,000 positions at risk are based in Germany, with 10,00 at threat in the short term, Verdi's Jan Duscheck said in comments published by the TV station. "A possible merger would not result in a business model that is sustainable in the long term," Duscheck said. (Reporting by Thomas Seythal, Riham Alkousaa, Andreas Framke, Hans Seidenstuecker, Andreas Shalal, and Tom Sims; Editing by Keith Weir and Alexander Smith) (Bloomberg) -- A lot has changed at Microsoft Corp. in the five years since Satya Nadella took over as chief executive officer. But sometimes the past comes roaring back, this time in the form of a patent suit that has gotten nasty. Microsoft last week sued Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. for failing to pay royalties on intellectual property owned by Microsoft as part of a 2013 deal. Microsoft says Hon Hai, which is also known as Foxconn Technology Group, owes it missed payments and interest. In its filing with a California court, Microsoft alleges that for the past three years, Hon Hai hasnt submitted the royalty reports required by the 2013 agreement and has refused to submit to an independent audit, which the agreement stipulated in the event of a dispute. Foxconns billionaire chairman Terry Gou earlier this week accused Microsoft of a personal attack on him and his company, terming it a wrongful attempt to extract royalties on Android mobile operating software. While Hon Hai is the party named in the lawsuit, Hon Hai only makes iOS devices, and it is Foxconn's Hong Kong-listed unit FIH Mobile Ltd. that makes Android phones for Huawei Technologies Co., Xiaomi Corp. and other vendors, according to Gou and FIH CEO Calvin Chih. The amount in question is not significant, according to a person familiar with the dispute who asked not to be identified because the details arent public. But neither side wants to back down. Gou doesnt want to pay and Microsoft wants to make a point that a deal is a deal. The whole kerfuffle is a vestige of an older Microsoft strategy to amass patents and intellectual property and generate a revenue stream by licensing various bits to other technology companies. The architect of that strategy, Marshall Phelps, even wrote a book about it in 2010, intended to help other tech companies profit from his experience. His successor Horacio Gutierrez took the practice one step further as he began to file suits against companies including TiVo Inc., Salesforce.com Inc. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. alleging unauthorized use of Microsofts patents. (Gutierrez, now general counsel at Spotify Technology SA was also in the news this week for asking the European Unions antitrust agency to probe Apple Inc.) Story continues Back then, one of the most profitable areas for Microsoft was royalty agreements with makers of Android devices it struck dozens of intellectual property licensing deals from 2010 to 2014 with companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC Corp. In 2012, Microsoft said that 70 percent of Android devices were covered by such agreements. The following year, analyst Rick Sherlund estimated the company made $2 billion a year from Android phone sales. This isnt the first time such an agreement has led to open legal dispute with another tech firm. Microsoft sued Samsung for non-payment in 2014 and settled the suit the following year. Even Gous comments sounded like they dated from 2013 Microsoft is falling behind in the smartphone era faced with the rise of Android so now it is adopting such a bad strategy, Gou told reporters Tuesday. I really sympathize with them. Microsoft three years ago admitted defeat in smartphones at least in hardware and operating systems and stopped making them. Microsoft has also re-upped some of these deals more recently, including renewing one with Wistron Corp. in 2016. But under Nadella, Microsoft has largely taken a different approach, striking fewer intellectual property licensing deals. Then last year, the company made a library of 60,000 patents available to the open-source patent group Open Invention Network, which is a pool of patents from many companies that are designed to help open-source companies fend off lawsuits. Microsoft has always vigorously protected its IP, and this Foxconn suit is related to the Android strategy that Redmond enacted a decade ago, said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. In this open-source world, Microsoft has to play nice in the sandbox but also defend its IP, which is why the Foxconn suit is important. We do not see Microsoft backing down on this one. Microsoft said the suit doesnt indicate a shift in its commitment to open source, but it expects agreements to be upheld. The company declined to disclose terms of the deal saying they are currently sealed by the lawsuit process. Microsoft also contracts with Foxconn to make the Xbox gaming system. Microsoft takes its own contractual commitments seriously and we expect other companies to do the same. Todays legal action is simply to exercise the reporting and audit terms of a contract we signed in 2013 with Hon Hai, the company said in a statement when the suit was filed. Our working relationship with Hon Hai is important and we are working to resolve our disagreement. Even if the deal doesnt reflect Microsofts current focus, it still wants to get paid. And thats where Gou has a problem. "Microsoft should be going after Chinese smartphone brands including Huawei for royalties," Gou wrote in a Facebook post shortly before his public outburst on Tuesday. Instead, he added, the U.S. company is pressuring Taiwanese contract manufacturers to pay for their customers so Microsoft can secure royalties without angering the Chinese public and companies. To contact the authors of this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.netDebby Wu in Taipei at dwu278@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Pollack at apollack1@bloomberg.net, Emily Biuso For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley. Photo: PA Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley said on Thursday that she was profoundly sorry for saying that killings by British soldiers or police officers during the Northern Ireland Troubles were not crimes. Yesterday I made comments regarding the actions of soldiers during the Troubles. I want to apologise. I am profoundly sorry for the offence and hurt that my words have caused, Bradley said in a statement. The language was wrong and, even though this was not my intention, it was deeply insensitive to many of those who lost loved ones. Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Bradley said that the 10% of killings during the Troubles committed at the hand of the military and police were not crimes. Authorities in Northern Ireland will announce next week whether British soldiers involved in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings, which saw them kill 14 unarmed Catholic civil rights protesters, would face trial. Bradleys remarks were interpreted as an attempt to influence this legal process. The soldiers, she said, were merely people acting under orders and instructions and were fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which was established in 1998 by former prime minister Tony Blair, found that the actions of British soldiers on Bloody Sunday were unjustifiable. When the report from the inquiry was published in 2010, then-prime minister David Cameron apologised on behalf of the British Government, saying he was deeply sorry. Bradley faced mounting calls for her resignation on Wednesday, with leaders from Sinn Fein and Northern Irelands SDLP and Alliance parties condemning her remarks. Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle ONeill said the comments were outrageous and offensive, while SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said they displayed Bradleys stunning ignorance about the past. Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, meanwhile, called the remarks insensitive and wrong. In the 30 years before the 1998 signing of the Good Friday Agreement, clashes during the Troubles took the lives of more than 3,600 people. Thousands of British troops were deployed to Northern Ireland to try and curb the violence. Noting that the UK government believed fundamentally of the rule of law, Bradley said on Thursday that she understood why families wanted to see justice properly delivered. I share that aim and that is why I launched the public consultation on addressing the legacy of the Troubles, she said. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) says hes pissed about President Trumps tweets about the GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The plant is located in Ryans district. In a series of Tweets Monday morning and over the weekend, Trump blasted the automaker for ending production at its Lordstown plant. President Trump also called out the local union leader, David Green, telling him to get his act together and produce in a tweet. Democrat UAW Local 1112 President David Green ought to get his act together and produce. G.M. let our Country down, but other much better car companies are coming into the U.S. in droves. I want action on Lordstown fast. Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Last month, Ryan brought Green to the State of the Union address as his guest. To have the most powerful man in the country, in the world, kick that guy in teeth -- I think says everything you need to know about President Trump, Ryan said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. [Green] is just a guy doing his job and to be treated this way by the most powerful guy in the world is just bush league, said Ryan. He kicks them in the teeth Thousands of workers have lost their jobs as GM eliminated shifts at the plant over the past two years. The automaker shut down production in Lordstown earlier this month, when the last Chevy Cruze rolled off the assembly line. The ripple effect has been devastating, Ryan said. You know, we have a hospital system that I think lost 30 or 40 nurses because of transfers, school districts are losing kids, the supply chain continues to lay off workers. Im not saying the president has a magic wand he can wave, he added. Im just saying give a s***. Care. Care about these workers. Thats all Im saying. And not only does he not, he kicks one of them in the teeth. Story continues Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors about the Lordstown Ohio plant. I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union I dont care, I just want it open! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 The president also tweeted that he spoke with GM CEO Mary Barra, urging her to sell the plant or do something quickly. Trump said Barra blamed the United Auto Workers union. GM did not give details about Barras conversation with the president to Yahoo Finance. To be clear, under the terms of the UAW-GM National Agreement, the ultimate future of the unallocated plants will be resolved between GM and the UAW. We remain open to talking with all affected stakeholders, but our main focus remains on our employees and offering them jobs in our plants where we have growth opportunities. We have now placed over 1,000 employees from our unallocated plants to other GM locations, and we have opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees, the company said in a statement. In a statement, the United Auto Workers union said it will leave no stone unturned to keep GM plants open. Though Trumps tweets has put the Lordstown plant in the national spotlight again, Ryan argues the president isnt actually helping the situation. Nothing that is going to happen to General Motors is going to have anything to do with Donald Trump. Hes a distraction, hes a sideshow, Ryan said. You know, Im sure General Motors doesnt want to end up in his crosshairs because he gets his jollies off on screwing with the companys stock prices so he can, you know, say something or do something to hurt the company, which Im sure he could try to do -- at least in the short term. Failed to stand up for workers Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) called Trumps comments about Green disgraceful and urged Barra to clarify what she said to the president. Local 1112 President Dave Green has done nothing but fight for workers in Lordstown, while the president has made lots of big promises and failed to stand up for workers at every turn, said Brown. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Brown and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) have both pressed GM to produce another type of vehicle in the Lordstown factory. Rob will continue to press GM executives to recommit to Lordstown, do the right thing by these workers who have given so much to this company, and bring new production to this plant, said Portman spokesperson Emily Benavides. Ryan told Yahoo Finance he would like GM to produce a truck in the Lordstown facility as an immediate solution, but long-term, hed like to see an electric vehicle produced there. Ryan has pushed to fund the Department of Energys Domestic Manufacturing Conversion Grant Program which he says would help retool factories, like the one in Lordstown, to produce electric cars. Those are the kind of creative things we need to be doing, said Ryan. If were going to dominate the electric vehicle market, were going to do this together. Ryan said he has not spoken to Trump about his recent tweets. Jessica Smith is a reporter for Yahoo Finance based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at @JessicaASmith8. Read more: Democratic lawmakers move to close 'horrible loophole' in tax code Lawmakers grill Wells Fargo CEO about scandals Lawmakers introduce bill to tax financial transactions Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 18, 2019) - Rift Valley Resources Corp. (CSE: RVR) (the "Company") announces that the Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Ruralink Wireless ("Ruralink") has entered into a Letter of Agreement ("LOA") with ARK Mediacom Inc. It is estimated that there are over 55 million people, primarily in rural areas in the USA, who have inadequate internet connectivity, and in many cases, virtually no broadband connectivity options. Ruralink is on a mission to solve this problem by bringing cost effective broadband performance to markets that have been left behind in the digital divide by leveraging new technologies to deliver competitive services. ARK Mediacom ("ARK") controls 283 television licenses throughout the United States, with substantial coverage of rural areas. When fully constructed, this network could provide discrete coverage to approximately 100 million people in the US, representing nearly 33% of all US households. The LOA provides for the companies to collaborate with technical and market trials for a Wireless ISP network providing broadband internet access using TV White Space ("TVWS") technology. The agreement also provides for a cooperative effort to build-out complementary "hybrid" broadcast-broadband networks throughout ARK Mediacom's service territories extending much-needed broadband internet access to underserved US communities. To this end, the parties will conduct a two-phase pilot program in Ardmore, Oklahoma to leverage the use of licensed TV broadcast spectrum with unlicensed TVWS radio spectrum to create a highly efficient and cost-effective solution providing wireless broadband ("last mile") internet access in rural areas. ARK will provide planning, execution, and coordination for Ruralink to complete this market trial in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Ardmore will be one of the first markets served by Ruralink. Upon completion of successful trials, Ruralink will move to expand its footprint and regions served with its unique approach of the mixing of mature and disruptive technologies to serve these communities, such as those brought by ARK Mediacom to finally deliver on the long overdue promise of rural broadband connectivity. Story continues About Ruralink Wireless, Inc.: Ruralink is an innovative solutions-driven company founded by executives with extensive experience in wireless, fiber, satellite, and related communications technologies and services. The company's core focus includes: Deployment and operations of low-cost, highly reliable, wireless broadband ISP access networks in underserved areas. Access to broadband internet content, applications, and services, designed to improve the lives of people living in market areas that do not have cost effective broadband ISP services. Design and deployment of enhanced TV White Space access infrastructure and user devices supporting innovative products and service applications enabled by wireless broadband Internet access. About Rift Valley Resources Corp: Rift Valley Resources Ltd. is a publicly traded company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE). The Company recently announced the appointment of Mr. Vern Fotheringham as its Non-Executive Chairman. About ARK Mediacom, Inc: ARK is a television-based IP content delivery network operator leveraging the new ATSC 3.0 standard serving the rapidly expanding Over the Top ("OTT") internet video market. ARK is combining the "one-to-millions" efficiency of broadcasting for distribution of broadband IP content in concert with high capacity local storage at consumer locations essentially creating a massively "distributed data center" specifically targeted at rural and under-served areas of the United States. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Griffin Jones Griffin Jones CEO For more information, please contact Mr. Griffin Jones 604 682 7339 or gjones@metrolinksolutions.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider has reviewed or accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. Corporate Logo To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/43465 By Rania El Gamal, Vladimir Soldatkin and Nailia Bagirova BAKU (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Sunday OPEC's job in rebalancing the oil market was far from done as global inventories were still rising despite harsh U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, signalling it may need to expand output cuts into the second half of 2019. Russia, which is cutting oil output in tandem with OPEC, also said production cuts would stay in place at least until June, when Washington's next steps on reducing Iran's and Venezuela's oil exports become clearer. The United States has been increasing its own oil exports steeply in recent months while imposing sanctions on Venezuela and Iran to reduce their shipments to global markets. Washington's policies have introduced a new level of uncertainty for OPEC as it struggles to predict the balance of global supply and demand. "My assessment is that the job still remains ahead of us... We are still seeing inventory builds... We need to stay the course certainly until June," Saudi energy minister Khalid al Falih said on Sunday. "We like to remain ready to continue monitoring supply and demand and do what we have to do in the second half," said Falih as some OPEC ministers met in the Azeri capital of Baku for the monitoring committee of OPEC and its allies like Russia. U.S. SANCTIONS OPEC and its allies have cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day - or 1.2 percent of global demand - since January to help rebalance the global oil market and prop up prices. OPEC is due to meet in April and then again in June to decide its output policies. The United States has imposed stiff sanctions on OPEC's third largest oil producer, Iran, but has given some waivers to buyers of its crude until May. Washington is also trying to oust Venezuela's current president, Nicolas Maduro, and has imposed sanctions on that country's oil. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said it was hard for Moscow and OPEC to plan due to the U.S. sanctions. He said they would have little additional information by their next meeting in April, given that Washington will not yet have announced its new waivers on Iran and that more talks would be needed in May. "Those sanctions are creating negative trends in the market and are completely distorting the supply and demand picture... They are imposed to help sell goods of the country that is imposing the sanctions, and they create uncertainty," he said. Story continues Russia has been slow to cut its oil output in line with January targets, saying it is difficult to do so in winter. Saudi Arabia has therefore cut its own oil output to well below its targets to compensate for other producers but Falih said this would not "continue indefinitely". Novak said Russia was now approaching full compliance and was close to cutting 140,000 bpd. Falih said Saudi exports would remain below 7 million bpd in April and March. (Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Gareth Jones) (Repeats Sunday story without changes) * Saudi stocks to suck in $20 bln in passive flows * Foreign ownership in Saudi stocks just 2 pct * Khashoggi affair might stem active flows -analysts * Slow reform, high valuations also factors By Tom Arnold and Saeed Azhar LONDON/DUBAI, March 17 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's inclusion in major emerging markets stock indices from Monday is likely to suck in around $20 billion in passive inflows, but unease after Jamal Khashoggi's murder and sluggish reforms could lead some active foreign investors to steer clear. Saudi Arabia will be the biggest recent addition to the global indices, the largest of which is the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which it joins from May. MSCI will give the kingdom a weight of 2.7 percent, between Russia and Mexico. The kingdom is hoping the inclusions, starting on Monday when Saudi stocks join the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index, will kickstart its drive to become a major destination for foreign capital, after its global reputation was tainted by Khashoggi's killing at the hands of Saudi agents in October. The process should help bring in about $20 billion of combined passive inflows during 2019, analysts estimate. That would push up foreign ownership from around 2 percent, one of the lowest in the region, to around 6 percent, according to Al Mal Capital. "The 2.7 percent pro-forma benchmark weight [within the MSCI index] is much more significant than prior index inclusions during the past decade," said Alexander Redman, head of global emerging market equity strategy at Credit Suisse. "And given that the proportion of assets under management within emerging markets passive funds is much larger than during previous index inclusions, it means there will be a significant amount of net foreign buying of Saudi equities." Analysts say pre-positioning by investors has been slow ahead of the process, however. Arqaam Capital attributes that to concern about delays to mega-projects, the kingdom's fiscal constraints, high valuations for Saudi-listed firms and concerns that government asset sales will oversupply the stock market. "As has been seen with a lot of other markets undergoing emergence, the reform process is not always smooth," said Edward Evans, emerging markets equity portfolio manager at Ashmore Group. Story continues "We've seen that in Saudi Arabia with their somewhat unorthodox approach to policymaking over the last few years, and the hope is that as the kingdom becomes more integrated in global financial markets, policy will become more predictable." The kingdom's drive to diversify its economy away from oil dependence has had some hiccups, including a recession in 2017 and delays to plans to float shares in oil giant Aramco. A source at a major western investment firm, who asked to remain anonymous, highlighted another reason why investors might be cautious. "I would find it unlikely that the active funds coming in will be anywhere close to benchmark as there are still reputation issues from holding Saudi assets," the source said. Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), and other state-owned funds indirectly own the lion's share of Saudi stocks. Many stepped in to limit a market crash in October last year caused by foreign investors dumping stocks after Khashoggi's killing. Some had made similar moves when foreign investors were spooked after the government detained hundreds of officials under an anti-corruption drive in November 2017. The index inclusions are seen as an opportunity for those funds to sell their positions in around 4 percent of the market, estimate analysts. Foreign net buying has picked up since the start of the year, hitting $2.1 billion year-to-date. That is still below the expected passive and active inflows that could reach a total of up to $60 billion, said Arqaam. For an interactive version of the below chart, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2NXK0gp. Arqaam said concerns the government could oversupply the market and, in turn, pressure valuations were misplaced, with local institutional selling, particularly from mutual funds, well below foreign buying in recent days. "We expect the Saudi government-related entities such as PIF to cater to the required demand of stocks in a controlled manner," said Vrajesh Bhandari, senior portfolio manager at Al Mal Capital in Dubai. (Additional reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh, Marwa Rashad and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; Editing by Catherine Evans) Police released this image (left) of shooting suspect Gokmen Tanis, and told the public not to approach him. (PA) Police have arrested the suspect in a shooting attack on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht which has left three people dead and nine injured. Officers identified Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37, in connection with the incident. He was arrested on Monday evening. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level and said they are considering the possibility of a terrorist motive in the attack. Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed the number of people killed and injured in the incident, saying the authorities were likely to assume a terror motive. A man reportedly opened fire at passengers on a tram in the area of 24 Oktoberplein. Emergency services at the scene of the shooting in Utrecht, the Netherlands (Picture: Getty) Gokmen Tanis was identified as the main suspect in connection with the shooting in the Dutch city. (PA) The Dutch justice minister has told The Associated Press that the suspect in the Utrecht tram attack had a criminal record. Ferd Grapperhaus said it was too early to say whether the attack suspect had a terror motive but acknowledged he had a criminal history. He warned against early speculation about motives and said it is important that now the independent investigation will thoroughly go through the evidence. Yes, the suspect was known within the justice department. He had a criminal record. That is indeed what we know. I can give no more details. Local networks said that the suspect had been charged several times over the past years, anything from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. The networks said that only two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of woman in 2017. Utrecht shooting: Location De tram in kwestie. pic.twitter.com/F7HIcNN4QL John Maes (@johnmaes) March 18, 2019 Officers said a Red Renault Clio had been hijacked shortly before the shooting and was later found further south in the city. They asked for anyone with information about the car to get in touch. The shooting happened at about 10:45am local time. Three helicopters have been despatched to the scene. Story continues The citys entire tram network has been halted. Police have reported multiple injuries as a result of the shooting in a residential area. The Utrecht police Twitter account said: A shooting occurred on the #24oktoberplein in #Utrecht. Dutch counter terrorism police install a camera on a sniffer dog as they prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands (Picture: AP) There are reports of multiple people injured (Picture: Getty) The incident has been reported at 10.45 hour. Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off and we are investigating the matter. BREEK Volgens getuigen heeft een man in een tram op weg naar Utrecht CS een wapen getrokken en meerdere personen neergeschoten. Hulpdiensten massaal aanwezig en bezig met eerste hulp in de tram. pic.twitter.com/eQOWF2e5Ze Yelle Tieleman (@YelleTieleman) March 18, 2019 Anti-terrorism police are at the scene and authorities have asked people to keep the roads clear so emergency workers can get through. Police spokesman Joost Lanshage said: Several shots were fired in a tram and several people were injured. Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands (Picture: AP) A gunman opened fire on a tram in Utrecht, it has been reported (Picture: AP) Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht. It is clear there were shots on tram passengers in Utrecht, that there are wounded. He said that a terror motive is not excluded. Mr Rutte said that throughout the nation there is a mix of disbelief and disgust. He added: If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence. British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has described the shooting as hugely concerning news and said the UK stands with the people of the Netherlands. He tweeted: Hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day. We are in contact with Dutch authorities, urgently seeking further information. The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands. SEATTLE, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- SinglePoint (SING) a fully reporting company with assets in many verticals including mobile technology, cannabis services, blockchain, and renewable energy projects announces the official launch of ShieldSaver. SinglePoint acquired ShieldSaver early 2018 with the intent to disrupt the $12 Billion dollar automotive glass industry. ShieldSaver is now operational in Sacramento International Airport (SMF) and Wally Parks Denver International Airport (DIA) locations. The company has recently completed its first round of end to end transactions with the newly built interface. This is a huge success for the company and has already sparked interest from other leading companies in the space. SHIELD SAVER AND THE BLOCK CHAIN :SING PR March 18 Recently, Dan Shikiar, founder of ShieldSaver joined Greg Lambrecht, CEO of SinglePoint in this video interview to provide an overview and insight to ShieldSaver and how the concept was developed. SinglePoint ShieldSaver Video Interview With the new application SinglePoint led in developing over the past year, we have started to grab a lot of attention. Opportunities have started to pile up after our first showcase people who see the ShieldSaver platform absolutely love it. We feel this market is underserved and is ripe for new technologies to streamline for customers and providers, states Dan Shikiar founder of ShieldSaver. We spent over 9 months with our development team completely rebuilding the ShieldSaver platform. We feel it is one of the most sophisticated apps to date for automotive glass space, and has the potential to expand beyond that vertical to the automotive repair market as well, states Greg Lambrecht, adding, Our model for ShieldSaver mirrors that of AirBnB, 1-800-FLOWERS, and other sales aggregators that bring the experience to the consumer. Now that the mobile application has been developed and data is being recorded, SinglePoint and ShieldSaver will start the build out of a blockchain solution to append this data. This will help in access and distribution of the data to the key parties that need it. Story continues The Automotive Glass Market surpassed $12 Billion in 2017 and is predicted to exhibit around a 7% CAGR between 2018 and 2024. ShieldSaver has entered into strategic partnerships with some of the largest companies in the space, including Mygrant Glass, Wally Park, LAZ Parking, and others further positioning the company for rapid growth. About SinglePoint, Inc. SinglePoint, Inc (SING) is a technology and investment company with a focus on acquiring companies that will benefit from the injection of growth capital and technology integration. The company portfolio includes mobile payments, ancillary cannabis services and blockchain solutions. Through acquisitions into horizontal markets, SinglePoint is building its portfolio by acquiring an interest in undervalued companies, thereby providing a rich, diversified holding base. Through SingleSeed, the company is providing products and services to the cannabis industry. About ShieldSaver Utilizing proprietary License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology, ShieldSaver collects large quantities of important automotive and consumer data. There are many stakeholders that need access to this data; for instance, insurance companies have an interest in knowing that a windshield was actually in need of repair and that the repair was soundly completed. At the same time, much of the data that we collect is private and should only be shared with parties that have a legitimate need to access the data. As we expand our infrastructure, we will be storing our data in a blockchain based, distributed ledger with appropriate access controls to ensure that parties who need access to our data can retrieve it in the most secure and efficient manner. ShieldSaver.com Connect on social media at: https://www.facebook.com/SinglePointMobile https://twitter.com/_SinglePoint https://www.linkedin.com/company/singlepoint For more information visit: www.SinglePoint.com Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release. Corporate Communication SinglePoint Inc. 855-711-2009 investors@SinglePoint.com SinglePoint.com By Damali Mukhaye. Educationists have spoken out against the proposal to have the A level education scrapped. The former national council for higher education Executive director Abdul Kasozi early this week urged government to scrap the two-year Advanced Level secondary education, calling it a waste of resources. Kasozi, proposed that the current seven-year primary education be adjusted to eight years, and have students transition to university after completing the four-year Ordinary Level secondary education, like is the case in neighbouring Kenya. However, speaking to KFM, the Twaweza Uganda country Director Dr Mary Goretti Nakabugo says such an abrupt move would be detrimental, calling for comprehensive research and reform in the entire system In Spotify vs. Apple, There Are No Heroes Here (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The digital-music company Spotify and Apple Inc. are pretending a business dispute is a moral war. Last week, in a fight over Apples mobile app storefront, Spotify Technology SA painted Apple as a bully that keeps people from enjoying music they love. Apple portrayed itself as a job-creating protector of the Everyman and Spotify as a scourge. Each company is grandstanding. Each is pursuing self-interest disguised as high-minded values. Each company is wrong on some facts and generally being tacky. There are no heroes here. For years, Spotify and some other companies have said it's not fair that when they sell digital items for use in their iPhone and iPad apps such as a digital-music subscription, electronic book or virtual weapon in a video game they need to go by Apple's sometimes silly rules, use Apples payment system and hand over up to 30 percent of each purchase. Spotify has never liked this, and relations got worse after Apple in 2015 started a competing music service. Spotify has opted, as did Netflix recently, not to sell paid subscriptions in its Apple mobile apps. Instead, it sells subscriptions on its website, where it doesnt need to split revenue with Apple. Surely Spotify misses out on some potential subscribers who are confused why they cant buy a subscription in the app.(1) Spotify has occasionally gotten into public spats over the App Store, but last week Spotify went nuclear. It said it had filed a formal complaint with European regulators about Apple's app rules. Spotify sent its chief executive and top lawyer on a press tour, and also created an (adorable) YouTube video and online materials to win consumers over to its side. I will spare you the details, except to say that some of Spotifys points are fair; the company also made claims that are untrue or irrelevant. What Spotify didnt say is why it is pressing this longstanding gripe at this moment. It must be that the company sees some opening to win concessions from Apple. European regulators and some U.S. politicians such as Elizabeth Warren have criticized the power of big tech companies to tilt rules in their favor.(5) Other powerful app makers also have more recently complained about the terms of mobile app stores. Story continues Given all this, Spotify may believe it has leverage to press its objections now because opinion and the political winds are blowing in its favor. Or maybe Spotify plans to raise its prices and wants to blame Apple. Instead of a response to the obvious question why now, Spotify? we have only table-pounding by CEO Daniel Ek, who made a tortured metaphor about Apple as a cheater at ping pong. I'm sympathetic to some of Spotifys gripes. I find it particularly hostile that Apple doesn't let app makers tell people how to buy subscriptions if like Spotify, Amazon and Netflix they don't sell digital goods inside their iPhone and iPad apps to avoid sharing revenue with Apple. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Apple is getting too much for what it does in its app storefront. It did cut in half its app commissions on longer-term subscriptions several years ago in response to developers gripes. But Spotify drained any goodwill I had by disguising its motives. Apple being Apple, its counterpoints were sometimes disingenuous, too. Apple started its Spotify response by talking about human ingenuity and creativity, and said Spotify whose annual revenue is one-fortieth the size of Apples is the big, bad bully. Apple has a history of portraying business disagreements as moral crusades. It did it with Samsung Electronics Co., which Apple accused of ripping off the iPhone, and with chip maker Qualcomm Inc., which in an echo of Spotify's complaint against Apple it accuses of setting unfair rules for its products. Apple had valid disagreements with Samsung and Qualcomm; its issues with Spotify are valid, too. But Apple ignores its own interests here. It doesnt want to give an inch more and risk dinging a highly lucrative business. Apple is likely selling fewer iPhones and it needs revenue from apps and other internet-related services to fill the gap. There also is a potential conflict in Apples role as both an important distributor of other companies digital music and video services, and increasingly an operator of Apples own versions.(4) Mostly, it would be good if Apple and especially Spotify were honest rather than claiming a moral high ground built on half-truths. What if Spotify said, we have always believed Apple app commissions are too high, and now think we can force Apple to bend because of the regulatory spotlight? What if Apple said: We assembled hundreds of millions of loyal iPhone owners and built a digital-payment system to support them, and we need to get paid for that valuable commodity?(3) Like squabbling children, we should ignore Apple and Spotify until they resolve this dispute on their own. And like the parent of squabbling children, I don't want to hear any more until Spotify and Apple can talk about this rationally and honestly. (1) Apple also doesn't allow apps to direct people to a company's website, which means it isn't obvious how to buy a subscription if people look only at Spotify's iPhone or iPad app. (2) Margrethe Vestager, the EU antitrust chief, seemed neutral to the idea that Apple's app storefront was a monopoly. (3) Google is in a similar position with its Play store for apps and Google-owned digital services such as YouTubeand various other music and video offerings. However, Google's app storefront has looser rules than Apple's. (4) Apple came pretty close. "We provide the platform by which users download and update their app," Apple's statement said. "And we built a secure payment system no small undertaking which allows users to have faith in in-app transactions." To contact the author of this story: Shira Ovide at sovide@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.net This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Shira Ovide is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. She previously was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Autonomous-Cars-Sensing-system The dream behind autonomous vehicle systems is a world where people and goods are transported quickly and efficiently, without the accidents, pollution or visual clutter that are inevitable when humans control individual vehicles. The technologies needed to support autonomous vehicles are improving so quickly that this dream could soon become a reality. Regulators and lawmakers must immediately consider and confront the issue of digital roadway management. One key to facilitating connected transportation and autonomous vehicles is efficient management of the spectrum upon which the vehicles will rely. Regulators around the world will have to adopt, implement and, on an ongoing basis, refine the rules for how this spectrum will be assigned, used and protected from interference. Dedicated Short-Range or Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything Communication In the United States, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in 1999 reserved the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum band for transportation communication traffic using dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), which facilitates both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. Since then, several automakers and a handful of state departments of transportation have outfitted vehicles and infrastructure with DSRC-based technologies. Not surprisingly, technology has improved significantly since then, leading to the development of various alternatives to DSRC, the most notable being cellular vehicle-to- everything (C-V2X) communication, a unified connectivity platform designed to offer vehicles low-latency vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-roadside infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communication. C-V2X offers various advantages over DSRC. For example, C-V2X does not require a large-scale deployment of roadside units as it is designed to be compatible with forthcoming 5G mobile technology. Also, unlike DSRC, C-V2X uses two separate transmission modes: one for direct communications between vehicles, between vehicles and infrastructure and between vehicles and other road users, such as pedestrians, which ideally would leverage the dedicated 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum band; and the other for network communications, which would leverage traditional mobile service networks enabling vehicles to receive information about road conditions and traffic. Story continues Ongoing Regulatory Examination Under current FCC regulations, C-V2X systems cannot use the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum band. But the agency is considering amending its rules to allow for alternatives to DSRC. In coordination with the Departments of Commerce and Transportation, the FCC has launched a three-phase research plan to evaluate options for opening the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum band for non-DSRC uses. Throughout the study period, stakeholders and the public will be able to express their opinion as to whether the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum band should remain allocated solely for DSRC, be preserved solely for additional automotive technologies like C-V2X, or repurposed, in part or in full, to meet increasing demands for additional spectrum to accommodate communications unrelated to automotive technologies. Phase I of the plan was completed in October 2018. The FCC concluded that DSRC and non-licensed uses, such as Wi-Fi, are safely able the share the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum banda boon to C-V2X deployment, although its conclusion also opens up the possibility that the bands repurposing could include non-automotive industries. After reviewing public comments on Phase I, the Commission, in coordination with the DOT and NTIA, will move onto Phases II and III, described in the public notice as follows: Phase II: Basic field tests with a few vehicles at a DoT facility. The Phase II tests will determine whether the techniques to avoid interference that were evaluated in Phase I's lab tests are effective in the field. Phase III: Tests in real-world scenarios, with many vehicles, more test devices, and at a suitable facility. The timetable for completion of Phases II and III has not yet been announced, but that is not stopping key stakeholders from making their preferences known. Differing Industry Opinions To date, opinions on how the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum band rules should be amended vary significantly. Several auto manufacturers, hardware developers and state departments of transportation that are heavily invested in DSRC are, not surprisingly, advocating for maintaining the status quo. Toyota has committed to deploying DSRC systems in vehicles sold in the United States starting in 2021 and GM deployed DSRC hardware in its 2017 Cadillac CTS. Toyota, GM and their supporters argue that DSRC technology is immediately available and has been validated as a means of reducing congestion and traffic fatalities. They also point out that a strong commitment to DSRC from the FCC would incentivize near-term investment by companies that are currently hesitant to invest in due to fear that it may be rendered obsolete by changes to the FCCs regulations. However, not all auto manufacturers are on the same page. Ford recently announced, at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, that it will adopt C-V2X as its preferred means of vehicle communication, aiming to integrate the technology by 2022. Additionally, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada and City of Las Vegas announced a partnership with Qualcomm to outfit the city with C-V2X roadside units. Moreover, both 5GAA a coalition of automakers, device manufacturers and telecom operators and Citizens Against Government Waste vigorously support a fast rollout of C-V2X. They argue that the current restrictions on the 5.9 GHz wireless spectrum stifle the growth and market viability of more effective 5G compatible technology. Global Impact Importantly, the U.S. is not the only country debating C-V2X vs. DSRC. The EU and China are both mulling over their automotive communications policies. At present, Europe is leaning towards DSRC while China seems to prefer C-V2X. For auto manufacturers, international regulatory disunion is disconcerting. In an industry dependent on international trade, manufacturers desperately want to avoid varying legal requirements and government preferences that could render their vehicles technology, useless. Once the U.S. concludes its three-phase examination, a domestic spectrum solution will come into focus. While international consensus is from inevitable, its a battle worth fighting because clear decisions from major markets could influence stakeholders decisions in other regions. And if not, the history of wireless mobile services has demonstrated that technology will adapt to accommodate conflicting preferences by different regions. Eric Tanenblatt is the Global Chair of Public Policy and Regulation at Dentons. Todd Daubert is the Chair of the Communications and Technology sectors at Dentons. By William James and Guy Faulconbridge LONDON (Reuters) - Brexit could be reversed if lawmakers reject the government's exit deal, British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday after two major eurosceptic factions in parliament warned that Prime Minister Theresa May was facing a heavy defeat. Just 19 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, May is scrambling - so far unsuccessfully - to secure last-minute changes to an EU exit treaty before parliament votes on Tuesday on whether to approve the deal. If she fails, lawmakers are expected to force May to seek a delay to Brexit which some say could see the 2016 decision to leave the bloc reversed. Others argue that, without a delay, Britain faces an economic shock if it leaves without a deal. "We have an opportunity now to leave on March 29 or shortly thereafter and it's important we grasp that opportunity because there is wind in the sails of people trying to stop Brexit," Hunt told the BBC. "We are in very perilous waters." The United Kingdoms labyrinthine crisis over EU membership is approaching its finale with an extraordinary array of options including a delay, a last-minute deal, no-deal Brexit, a snap election or even another referendum. The ultimate outcome remains unclear, though most diplomats and investors say Brexit will define the United Kingdom's prosperity for generations to come. The government has previously tried to use the risk of Brexit being reversed as a way to convince eurosceptics to back May's deal despite their deep reservations about it. "If you want to stop Brexit you only need to do three things: kill this deal, get an extension, and then have a second referendum. Within three weeks, those people could have two of those three things ... and quite possibly the third one could be on the way." Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which props up May's minority government, and Steve Baker, a leading figure in the large eurosceptic faction of her Conservative party, warned "the political situation is grim". "An unchanged withdrawal agreement will be defeated firmly by a sizeable proportion of Conservatives and the DUP if it is again presented to the Commons," they wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. Story continues The opposition Labour Party's Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, said his party should support staying in the EU if there was a second referendum. However, he said the party would not be seeking to secure support in parliament for a second referendum on Tuesday. The Sunday Times said May was battling to save her job as aides were considering persuading her to offer to resign in a bid to get the deal approved. The newspaper also said cabinet ministers had spoken about whether to insist she goes as early as this week. "TOTAL UNCERTAINTY" Parliament rejected May's deal by 230 votes on Jan. 15, prompting her to return to Brussels in search of changes to address the so-called Irish backstop - an insurance policy designed to prevent the return of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Many British lawmakers object to the policy on the grounds that it could leave Britain subject to EU rules indefinitely and cleave Northern Ireland away from the rest of the country. But May's attempts to get the clause rewritten have so far failed to yield any result. Hunt said Tuesday's vote would definitely go ahead, and that it was too soon to say that negotiations with the EU had "run into the sands". He said realism and a lot of work was needed from both Britain and the EU to get a deal. If lawmakers reject May's deal on Tuesday, she has promised to let them vote the next day on whether to leave without a deal on March 29. If they reject that, then on Thursday they are due to vote on a "limited" delay. France's EU affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau told France Inter radio that she did not see any value in extending the window for talks. "More time, to do what? We've had two years ... If there's nothing new, more time will not do anything other than usher in more uncertainty, and uncertainty just creates anxiety," Loiseau said. "It's not time that we need, but a decision." Amid the political chaos, many company chiefs are aghast at Londons handling of Brexit and say it has already damaged Britains reputation as Europes pre-eminent destination for foreign investment. "Business is holding its breath ahead of the votes in parliament this week, knowing that if Brexit has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected," said James Stewart, head of Brexit at KPMG UK. "Companies are now split on whether an extension to the Brexit timeline is a good thing. Some of those who prepared early are locked into March specific contingency plans. Those carrying additional inventory know an extension will squeeze their cashflow for longer." (Writing by William James and Guy Faulconbridge; additional reporting by Sarah White in Paris; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) By Barani Krishnan Investing.com - OPEC and its ally Russia are betting that their mantra of production cuts will continue kicking oil prices higher and the market seems to be buying that -- for now. New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 57 cents, or 1%, at $59.09 per barrel after hitting a four-month high of $59.54 in response to remarks by the energy ministers of Saudi Arabia and Russia that the two partners under the OPEC+ alliance will be more aggressive than ever in reducing output. WTI is now less than $1 from the key $60 resistance, which many expect to be breached later Monday, if not in the coming days, as the first course toward getting the market to the Saudi-aspired price of $80 per barrel. WTI's prospects have improved dramatically since last week, reducing its discount to global oil benchmark Brent after government data indicated that oil output in the United States was slowing. Brent was up 31 cents, or 0.5%, at $67.47 per barrel by 2:45 PM ET (18:45 GMT). The gap between the two benchmarks now stands at slightly more than $8 compared to the about-$10 differential that existed for months prior. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters in the Azerbaijan city of Baku at the weekend, where OPEC+ met for a preliminary review of its production cuts, that the alliance's work in so-called market rebalancing was far from over. Falih has been cautious not to sound like a price hawk since the OPEC+ campaign began in January, stressing that there should be adequate oil supply as much as there shouldn't be a glut (although Saudi officials privately agree with economists' views that the kingdom needs Brent to be at $80 a barrel at least to fund its budget). The supply-cut narrative has outpaced the potential slowdown in global demand scenario for the last few weeks, keeping the oil bears on the sidelines, Dominick Chirichella, director of risk and trading at the Energy Management Institute in New York, said in a note. Story continues After Europe and China, the U.S. economy has been sounding its own weak warnings lately, raising doubts about global oil demand. Falih said in Baku that uncertainties over Iranian and Venezuelan supplies were also complicating the market rebalancing. The U.S. holds the keys to production in those two OPEC members through sanctions, giving the Trump administration, which wants lower oil prices, the advantage of surprising the cartel at any time with unexpected decisions. With all this, cuts above the 1.2 million barrels per day originally agreed by OPEC+ will probably be needed, Falih said. Riyadh, so far, has been the only one in the 25-member alliance to exceed that target every month, an achievement the Saudi energy minister has never failed to flag to the market. He said Sunday that the Saudis wont be the only ones carrying that burden. That last line appeared to be a gentle nudge to his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak that Moscow needed to do more. As if on cue, Novak responded, saying Russia will raise its compliance to cuts hereon, explaining it had difficulty turning down its production earlier due to winter freeze. That was enough to spur Monday's buying in oil. "The strategy of OPEC+ already appears to be bearing fruit," analysts at Commerzbank said in a note. Related Articles Rescuers dig for survivors after deadly Africa cyclone, Beira 'desperate' Venezuela, China in focus for Trump meeting with Caribbean leaders Deadly floods push into Missouri, more states in rain-soaked U.S. Midwest Press Release Vallourec is selected by Thailand`s PTT Exploration & Production PLC (PTTEP) to deliver oil country tubular goods for a challenging offshore project in Myanmar Boulogne, March 18, 2019 - PTTEP, Thailand`s national oil exploration & production company, awarded Vallourec the contract to deliver over 3,000 tons of OCTG for its Myanmar M9 West exploration well; a challenging HP/HT (high pressure/high temperature) offshore field in the Gulf of Martaban, approximately 300km from Yangon. Alexandre Valdelievre, Vallourec Commercial Director, South East Asia stated: "We are absolutely delighted to be entrusted with this contract, which truly reflects the benefits of our new regional organization. Since 2017, we have been working closely with PTTEP, building relations of confidence and proximity and supporting them for their offshore exploration projects." The project will be essentially served through Vallourec`s subsidiary in Indonesia, supported by competitive supplies from Vallourec pipe mills in Brazil, in China and in Germany. In addition, VAM Field Services (VFS) will be present on the rig to supervise the smooth running of the well. By ensuring that running procedures are followed correctly, VFS can reduce risk, improve efficiency and contribute to the safety of operations on the rig. PTTEP drilling engineering team stated: "Safety, quality and value for money are the key success factors for our operations which is why we selected Vallourec for our project. Thanks to their proximity, their technical know-how and field services, Vallourec will be able to support us from the start of the project through to installation." With its Vallourec Tianda plants located in China, the group has a new, fully integrated production system, which enables it to offer a complete product portfolio at a highly competitive price to target local and export markets (Asia, the Middle East). About Vallourec Vallourec is a world leader in premium tubular solutions for the energy markets and for challenging industrial applications such as oil and gas wells in harsh environments, new generation power plants, daring architectural projects, and high-performance mechanical equipment. Vallourec`s pioneering spirit and cutting-edge R&D continually open new technological frontiers. Operating in more than 20 countries, its 19,000 dedicated and passionate employees work hand-in-hand with their customers to offer more than just tubes: they deliver innovative, safe, competitive and smart tubular solutions to make every project possible. Listed on the Euronext in Paris (ISIN code: FR0000120354, ticker VK) and eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (SRD), Vallourec is included in the following indices: SBF 120 and Next 150. Story continues In the United States, Vallourec has a sponsored Level 1 American Depository Receipt (ADR) program (ISIN code: US92023R2094; Ticker: VLOWY). Parity between ADR and a Vallourec ordinary share has been set at 5:1. vallourec.com Follow us on Twitter @Vallourec For more information, please contact: Investor relations Jean-Marc Agabriel Tel: +33 (0)1 49 09 39 77 Investor.relations@vallourec.com Press relations Mathieu Carre Tel.: +33 (0)1 41 03 78 71 / +33 (0)6 89 95 53 30 mathieu.carre@vallourec.com Individual shareholder relations Toll-Free Number: 0 800 505 110 actionnaires@vallourec.com Vallourec selected by thailand`s PTTEP This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: VALLOUREC via GlobeNewswire HUG#2238777 By Ivan Ssenabulya. Kampala Lord Mayor Elias Lukwago has criticised president Museveni over the money he has been dishing out to youth groups in the city. President Museveni on Thursday gave out 2.5 billion to various youth groups in the five divisions of Kampala. Speaking to KFM Lukwago has attributed the move to loss of legitimacy by the president in Kampala. He has however asked the youth to take the money but avoid being manipulated especially as the country heads for the 2021 general elections. State house has however often defended the move saying its part of governments youth empowerment program. FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's Oil Minister and President of Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA Manuel Quevedo listens to a speech during the Petrotech conference in Greater Noida, India, February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis/File Photo BAKU (Reuters) - Venezuela may divert oil originally bound for the United States to Russian oil company Rosneft or other destinations due to U.S. sanctions, Venezuelan oil minister and president of state-run oil company PDVSA Manuel Quevedo said on Monday. Speaking at a gathering of OPEC and other oil ministers in Baku, Azerbaijan, Quevedo added that the generator at Venezuela's primary Jose oil terminal was now working after a blackout that halted crude exports last week. Quevedo said Caracas would decide where to ship its own oil and that its main goal was to strengthen ties with Russia, pledging to abide by oil supply contracts with Moscow. Rosneft, a state-owned company which has oil joint ventures with PDVSA in Venezuela, buys crude from PDVSA within the framework of oil-for-loan contracts and redirects the barrels to customers around the world, with Indian refineries key buyers. Asked about a Reuters report saying Rosneft believed it was owed hundreds of billions of dollars from the joint ventures because oil output was far lower than projected, Quevedo said Venezuela was "up to date" on its debts to Russia. "The contracts are being fulfilled," he said. "We can send the oil which has been allocated for the United States to Russia or other clients." Earlier this year, the United States imposed heavy sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry, looking to cut off President Nicolas Maduro's primary source of revenue as part of efforts to oust the socialist leader from power. That cut off Venezuela's largest export market of around 400,000 barrels per day, Quevedo said. Venezuela has responded by trying to boost crude exports to India, another top importer. But the U.S. government has pressed India to stop buying Venezuelan oil. "Now they have started persecuting our long-term commercial partners, they are threatening them," Quevedo told reporters. Much of Venezuela, including parts of the capital Caracas, was left without power for several days, leaving people struggling to obtain water and food. That affected the Jose terminal, whose generator was not working at the time. "At the moment, (Jose) is fully functioning," Quevedo said via an interpreter. "It has suffered a lot from the blackout ... the oil industry of Venezuela suffered significantly," he added. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Additional reporting by Luc Cohen in Caracas; Writing By Noah Browning; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Potter) Franco-Nevada Corporation FNV is set to release fourth-quarter 2018 results after the closing bell on Mar 19. In the last reported quarter, the company delivered net earnings of $54.6 million or 29 cents per share compared to $55.3 million or 30 cents in the prior-year quarter. However, earnings outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 26 cents. The companys revenues came in at $171 million in the third quarter, down 0.5% year over year. The figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $164 million. Franco-Nevada surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the trailing four quarters, average positive surprise being 5.50%. Can the company surprise investors again or is it heading for a possible pullback? Lets see how things are shaping up for this announcement. Factors at Play Performance of the company's Oil & Gas assets remained robust in the first three quarters of 2018, with revenues doubling to $68 million from $33 million in the prior-year period. This can be attributed to the stronger oil prices and increased production from the newly-added U.S. assets. Drill activity is higher and drilling productivity has been better than expected. This will likely aid results in the to-be-reported quarter as well. Franco-Nevada, thus, anticipates revenues between $85 million and $88 million from its Oil & Gas assets for 2018, up from the previous guidance of $75-$85 million. However, Franco-Nevadas GEO production will be affected in the Oct-Dec quarter due to the processing of lower-grade materials at its Candelaria mine. The company, thus, expects to achieve gold production for 2018 within its previously-provided guided range, with GEOs expected to total between 445,000 and 450,000. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter revenues is pegged at $162 million, depicting a year-over-year decline of 3%. Also, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings at 26 cents per share reflects a year-over-year drop of 7%. Story continues Franco-Nevada Corporation Price and EPS Surprise Franco-Nevada Corporation Price and EPS Surprise | Franco-Nevada Corporation Quote Earnings Whispers Our proven model does not conclusively show a beat for Franco-Nevada this earnings season as it does not possess the key components. A stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. This is not the case here as you will see below: Earnings ESP: Earnings ESP for Franco-Nevada is 0.00%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter earnings is pegged at 26 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Zacks Rank: Franco-Nevada currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. It should be noted that we caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions. Stocks to Consider Here are a few companies that you may want to consider, as our model shows these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter: Atento S.A. ATTO has an Earnings ESP of +3.23% and carries a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Accenture plc ACN has an Earnings ESP of +1.91% and holds a Zacks Rank #3. Carnival Corporation CCL has an Earnings ESP of +2.61% and carries a Zacks Rank #3. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Carnival Corporation (CCL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV) : Free Stock Analysis Report Accenture PLC (ACN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Atento S.A. (ATTO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research (Bloomberg) -- San Franciscos Lombard Street is famous for its eight hairpin turns. Tourists in rental cars slowly snake their way past the streets beautiful homes, then review the experience on travel websites. Zoox Inc., the self-driving startup, uses the crooked road to measure the incremental improvement of its autonomous software. A year ago, we couldnt do Lombard Street or other very narrow or steep roads, says Zooxs Jesse Levinson, the companys co-founder and chief technical officer. Now we can. Hes sitting in the back passenger seat of a black Toyota Highlander controlled by Zoox software as the car cruises through what Levinson calls the Challenge Course. Two safety drivers sit up front. Operating solely on its artificial intelligence, the vehicle creeps through each tight bend. When a group of pedestrians decides to stand six abreast for selfies, the car comes to a smooth stop. After a moment, the SUV navigates to the right of the tourists, then slips left to avoid a garbage can blown into the road. Next, facing a steep uphill climb on Grant Street, the Zoox software flexes its inhuman abilities. The on-street parked cars form a tight gauntlet that even the most careless human driver would crawl past for fear of a sideswipe. But the self-driving software uses sensors to measure the open space, and the Zoox SUV buzzes straight up the hill at quick clip. From the latest version of the code, we deploy an update every two weeks, Levinson says. This is classic Silicon Valley While the technology is advancing, Levinson acknowledges that building a business behind it has proven far more difficult. Zoox plans to eventually operate a fleet of robotaxis, a model being pursued aggressively by much larger and better-funded competitors including units of General Motors Co. and Googles parent company Alphabet Inc. Levinsons co-founder, Tim Kentley-Klay, was pushed out as chief executive by the board in August. A new CEO, Intel Corp. veteran Aicha Evans, took over the role in January. Story continues Now Evans and Levinson plan to raise capital as Zoox races to launch a ride-hailing service to serve paying passengers by the end of 2020. This time, Levinson says, Zoox wants to raise more than the $465 million it got last year in a round led by Grok Ventures. Levinson is looking for investment from a combination of financial and strategic partners, and would even consider a major automaker. If a bigger partner can help the startup in nuts-and-bolts areas like manufacturing or servicing cars, it could be a good fit. Were open to both strategic and financial investors, he says. My expectation is that we will have a combination of the two. Unlike Alphabets Waymo, another Silicon Valley-born self-driving startup, Zoox remains focused on manufacturing its own vehicles rather than retrofitting cars made elsewhere. The Toyota Highlander used in testing is only thata testing vehicle meant to be supplanted by cars Zoox will create itself. Waymo buys cars from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc. GM Cruise is owned by one of the worlds largest automakers. Zoox doesnt want to upgrade anyone elses existing model. Thats a big reason Evans was recruited. She had been chief strategy officer at Intel, and before that was a vice president of communication and devices at Platform Engineering Group. Experience managing a hardware-making business can help the company scale up globally, said Mark Rosekind, Zooxs chief safety innovation officer and a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration. This is classic Silicon Valley, Rosekind says. Big, bold and do it all. Zoox needs more cashprobably a lot more. The company has raised just $800 million so far. GM Cruise has raised $5 billion from SoftBank and Honda Motor Co. and has been allocated a $1 billion annual budget by its Detroit-based parent. Waymo has access to Alphabets huge war chest. Zoox also trails its two biggest rivals by total testing miles and in how far its cars travel in California road testing before human safety drivers have to steal the wheel from the robot. Zoox is building both a product and a service at the same time. This is the double black diamond run for anyone in the car industry, let alone a startup, said Reilly Brennan, a general partner at Trucks Venture Capital and lecturer at Stanford University. That approach translates into needing to spend more money than an automaker on hardware development, but also means spending more money than Waymo on the software side. Levinson is adamant that Zoox must have a purpose-built autonomous car. The companys current prototype vehicles have tubular steel frames packed with cables, wiring and printed circuit boards, all sitting on four wheels. The latest version, called the VH5, also has seats that face each other and no steering wheel or pedals. Thats a blueprint Zoox wants to stick with. Since the car is designed with no intention of ever having a driver, it goes both forward and reverse at top speeds. Our car is bidirectional, Rosekind says. No more three-point turns. Zoox is betting, in part, that it wont take that many cars to build out a driverless ride-hailing fleet. Rosekind estimates that about 1,000 cars can handle about half the ride-hailing traffic in a city like San Francisco. Back on the streets, the Zoox test SUV stops at one of San Franciscos few six-point intersections. The self-driving car waits patiently for pedestrians to pass, then yields the right of way to a white Nissan that decided not to wait its turn. The car then angles to the left and continues on its way. Mastering that intersection was another milestone in the development of the companys artificial intelligencea year ago, Levinson says, the software was stumped. Now it seems quaint compared with what he says more advanced Zoox prototypes can do. There is, Levinson says, a Zoox test vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals. The autonomous vehicles being operated on public streets in California and elsewhere are limited to carefully mapped areas and use safety drives. The ability to navigate areas that havent been previously mapped without human help is a threshold that self-driving engineers call Level 5, the final step on a five-point development scale. Zoox wont show proof of this capabilitynot yet. Well have it on public roads next year, Levinson says. To contact the author of this story: David Welch in Southfield at dwelch12@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Aaron Rutkoff at arutkoff@bloomberg.net, Craig Trudell For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. By Ritah Kemigisa. Political Analysts have described the endorsement by NRM MPs to have Yoweri Museveni rule Uganda from 2021 and beyond as a catastrophe for constitutionalism in Uganda. Siraja Kifampa tells KFM that much as the resolution by the MPs did not come as a surprise to many, Ugandas future is headed for darkness since no post-Museveni-president will ever respect the constitution which is the supreme law and guiding principal of the country. This he says is because the current regime has overly amended the constitution making it to become a mockery for those in leadership. Kifampa meanwhile says there is little hope for those who wished for change in 2021 as long as Museveni who has power and authority over most things in the country still stands for presidency. Related Stories. NRM MPs endorse M7 life presidency Afghan officials on March 17 reported setbacks for government security forces in northwestern and northern parts of the country. In the northwestern province of Badghis, provincial council member Mohammad Naser Nazari said about 100 Afghan soldiers fled their posts and tried to cross into neighboring Turkmenistan during a weeklong battle against Taliban fighters. Nazari said on March 17 that 50 government soldiers had been killed during the battle in Badghiss Bala Murghab district during the past week. He said the Bala Murghab district was almost completely controlled by the Taliban, with government forces confined to the district headquarters. Jamshid Shahabi, a spokesman for Badghiss provincial governor, put the casualty toll for government forces at 16 killed and 20 wounded during the past week. Shahabi confirmed that a number of Afghan troops tried to flee but did not provide an exact figure. Meanwhile, in the northern province of Faryab, provincial council chief Mohammad Tahir Rahmani said Taliban fighters killed at least 22 Afghan soldiers with attacks on their checkpoints late on March 16 and early on March 17. Rahmani said 20 Afghan government troops were wounded in Faryab Province overnight. Based on reporting by AP and Reuters By Benjamin Jumbe. The minister for Kampala Betty Kamya has given clarification on statements she made recently regarding hawkers in the city The minister recently reportedly said hawkers working within confined places like taxi and bus parks are allowed to operate a statement which brought confusion amongst various stakeholders Now clarifying her statement, Minister Kamya maintained that while vendors who are moving along streets and laying their merchandise along city streets are not allowed, those in confined places have no problem She however cautions vendors who continue sneaking onto the streets to sell their merchandise The minister recently suspended seven KCCA officers who reportedly tortured, destroyed merchandise and obtained money unlawfully from hawkers in the city. For decades, a part of Pakistan languished under a colonial law that established collective responsibly, denied rights, and inflicted harsh punishments on millions of Pashtun tribespeople. That law is now gone. But nearly a year after the repeal of the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) legal code, the future remains uncertain for more than 400 civil and criminal cases originally lodged under its various archaic clauses. Now that the [proper] laws and constitution are being implemented in the [former] tribal areas, there is no mechanism for dealing with cases lodged under the FCR, Latif Afridi, a senior lawyer in the northwestern city of Peshawar, told Radio Mashaal. Last week, the Peshawar High Court, the apex court for northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, of which Peshawar is the capital, called on the provincial government and Islamabad to explain how to proceed amid such legal complications. One solution could be if the provincial assembly adopted a new law that clearly enables the lower and appeals courts to hear these cases, he said. A new law could also establish a special court for these cases. The FCR were the law of the land in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for decades. The century-old legal code appointed collective responsibility, meaning an entire clan or tribe could be punished for the alleged crimes of an individual or any offense taking place in their territory. The laws empowered government bureaucrats and denied FATA residents basic rights and the rule of law. The FCR were partly responsible for the mayhem in the region. After 9/11, FATA turned into a main battleground for Pakistans war on terrorism. Over more than a decade, terrorist attacks and military operations killed tens of thousands of FATA residents, while episodes of fighting displaced more than half of its 6 million residents. The draconian laws prevented FATA residents from protesting for their rights because political activism was illegal. Last May, the Pakistani Parliament abolished the FCR after merging FATA into the adjacent province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. But the Fata Interim Governance Regulation (FIGR) that Islamabad introduced to replace the FCR was struck down by the Peshawar High Court in October. Pakistans Supreme Court upheld its ruling in January and ordered that regular courts be established across former FATA within the next six months. The abolition of the FIGR also ended the FATA tribunal created in 2011 to review decisions or sentences handed down under the FCR. The legal code, first concocted and implemented by British colonialists in the late 19th century, gave overwhelming power to government administrators, typically civil servants, to adjudicate civil and criminal cases. They often relied on a handpicked jirga or tribal assembly to reach verdicts. The courts never followed due process. One of the most famous cases under the FCR is that of a Pakistani doctor. In May 2012, an FCR court handed Shakil Afridi a 33-year sentence for allegedly supporting an Islamist militant group in his home district of Khyber, bordering Afghanistan. Islamabad originally accused the physician of running a fake vaccination campaign to help the C.I.A. locate Osama bin Laden in the northwestern garrison city of Abbottabad in 2011. Afridis appeal was also pending in the FATA tribunal. There is a lot of confusion, Ijaz Mohmand, a lawyer, told Radio Mashaal. He says that senior judges in the Peshawar High Court are unsure how to deal with such cases. I am pursuing many cases in the high court, and even the judge there is very confused. He tells us that they will make a decision about how to deal with these cases. Earlier this month, courts began functioning in the erstwhile FATA and began tackling the thousands of cases previously considered by government bureaucrats. Shaukat Yousafzai, Khyber Pakhtunkhwas information minister, says that all court cases in former FATA will gradually be moved to regular courts. There will be one law everywhere, so it wont matter whether a court in [the eastern city of Lahore] hears a case or a court in FATA or in [the southern seaport city of] Karachi, he told Radio Mashaal. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan also pledged his commitment to streamline former FATA. On March 18, he announced a three-week consultative process to devise a 10-year development plan for the region. Our people in the tribal area will see unprecedented development as [the] government plans to spend over Rs100 billion [$1 billion] annually for [the next] 10 years in tribal districts, he wrote on Twitter. Pakistan has declared March 18 a national day of mourning to honor those killed in the New Zealand mosque attacks, nine of whom were Pakistani citizens. "The whole nation mourns this shock," Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters in Islamabad on March 17. Fifty people were killed in the March 15 mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Along with Pakistan, countries reporting that their citizens were murdered include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, and the United States. A 28-year-old Australian man was arrested and charged with murder in the assaults. The man, an avowed white supremacist, had written a manifesto that included anti-Muslim rants. Attention in Pakistan was especially focused on one of the victims -- 50-year-old Mian Naeem Rashid, who died along with his 22-year-old son while trying to disarm the gunman. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan hailed Rashid as a national hero because of his attempt to overpower the gunman. In the northern city of Abbottabad, relatives of Rashid mourned his death. A nephew, Safi Rizwan, said his uncles death should be seen as a message to the world. "If you see something happening that is not good for other humans, or if that is hurting other people, you give your everything to save them, even it means giving your life, Rizwan said. Meanwhile, police in Australia early on March 18 said they had executed two search warrants in towns in the state of New South Wales related to the investigation into the mass shootings. Police said the homes were where the accused gunman had grown up, although he has spent most of the past decade outside the country. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation," the police said in a statement. Police said the family of the suspect was assisting the authorities. With reporting by AFP and Reuters Yes, I found a better job Yes, but I'm still looking for a new job Yes, I retired Yes, I started my own business No, I like my current job No, but I'm currently looking for a new job Vote View Results Starting at The Denver Post before a decade at The New York Times, Alex Berenson left journalism to launch his fiction career, bursting onto the scene with The Faithful Spy. Inspired by his war correspondence, his first mystery thriller was a bestseller. He continued with a popular series. Honestly, I was getting paid very well to write those books, he says from his Hudson Valley, N.Y., home. Its funny when people accuse me of doing this for the money. I get paid a lot more to write fiction than to write nonfiction. But this is something I feel I need to do. Thats why Im doing it. By this, Berenson means his deep dive back into nonfiction. As for accusations, he has faced many since Januarys release of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. The Nation and Rolling Stone called the book fear-mongering and trolling, respectively. Vox wrote it off as an exercise in cherry-picking data and presenting correlation as causation. But The Marshall Project, the nonpartisan investigative reporting center, deemed it an intensively researched and passionate dissent from the now prevailing view that marijuana is relatively harmless. Berenson also was blasted in an open letter by 75 scholars and clinicians for irresponsibly and dangerously claim(ing) a causal link between marijuana use and increases in rates of psychosis and schizophrenia. Which is all disappointing to Berenson, who will state his case in Colorado Springs and Denver this week during talks sponsored by The Gazette, Colorado Politics and Childrens Hospital Colorado. IF YOU GO Alex Berenson will be in Colorado Springs and Denver this week to talk about his latest book, "Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence." Noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at Springs' Warehouse Restaurant, 25 West Cimarron St. 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, 2201 East Dry Creek Road, free and open to public Noon to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Denver at the History Colorado Center at 1200 North Broadway The opioid epidemic has come in the profiting wake of companies such as Purdue Pharma, and now a for-profit community has sprung up for the use of marijuana, Berenson says. Fellow journalists should be asking harder questions, he says. Its crazy to me that that hasnt happened. He expected the criticism but not the personal attacks the suggestions to get his kids high and the harassing calls to his wife, a forensic psychiatrist. It was her repeated mentions of marijuana in violent cases that made Berenson curious in the first place. He previously considered himself a libertarian on pot, having smoked a handful of times in college and after, he says. I didnt particularly care about it one way or another. He expected controversy before he even typed the prologue, which establishes the book as an argument and, in his words, not balanced. Berensons stance is further announced by the title, a nod to Reefer Madness. (The early propaganda film originally was called Tell Your Children.) Yes, Berenson knew users wouldnt appreciate his book. People have a really strange attachment to this drug, he says. I think most people who use alcohol, if theyre using it every day and certainly if theyre using it all day every day, theyre going to acknowledge, you know what, maybe I have a little problem with this. And by the way, if youre using cocaine or heroine or methamphetamine like that, youre not even gonna tell people. But cannabis people are proud to tell you they wake and bake. Berenson, a 1994 Yale graduate, cites a 2017 study by the National Academy of Medicine that said cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk. In a New Yorker piece stirred by Berensons findings and titled Is Marijuana as Safe as We Think?, Malcolm Gladwell wrote that the committees statement was one of its few unequivocal conclusions. But committee member Ziva Cooper took to Twitter in January to say we did NOT conclude that cannabis causes schizophrenia. She wrote that since the report, we now know that genetic risk for schizophrenia predicts cannabis use and that cannabidiol improves outcomes in patients with schizophrenia. Berenson has stood by his reporting. After his wife switched the light bulb in 2016, he went to London to meet with concerned psychiatrists at Kings College, among scientists around the world he interviewed. He pulled records from several states and nations. He came to the Colorado prison holding Richard Kirk to talk at length with the man who blamed a marijuana edible for shooting and killing his wife in 2014. Berenson says he could have reported longer. But my feeling was, I dont need to do that, I dont need to reinvent the wheel here, because science is really clear. And this is a really important issue for public health ... Its more important that I get it out. City Editor Tom Roeder is the Gazette's City Editor. In Colorado Springs since 2003, Tom has covered the military at home and overseas and has covered statehouses in Denver and Olympia, Wash. His main job, though, is being dad to two great kids. By Moses Kyeyune. New Formation, Ugandas youngest political voice on the scene, has accused lawmakers from the ruling party for perpetrating the abuse of electoral democracy in the country. This comes shortly after lawmakers from the National Resistance Movement backed the resolution of their partys Central Executive Committee to have President Museveni rule Uganda in 2021 and beyond. Speaking to KFM, former Serere district Woman MP Alice Alaso, one of the key leaders in the New Formation described the development as unfortunate. Alaso however says that Museveni and his government will fall on a united front, composed of synergies. Related Stories NRM MPs endorse M7 life presidency A lot of you may still be cleaning up from last weeks major snowstorm. Several of you reached out to our Call for Action team asking what you should do about storm damage and where you should turn. I have a list of resources for you and ways to watch for scams. Im sitting in the house tending to my scared pup, Alpha said. We were falling asleep and I got a text from my neighbor saying my tree just went down. It was a big tree, Alpha added. It was across the lawn on the side of the house. It goes across the sidewalk corner there and the tip of it is just right over the curb into the street. Alpha called our Call for Action team to find out what to do about the downed tree. I told her if the tree is on city property in the public right of way, like a sidewalk, she can call City Forestry at 719-385-5942. If its an emergency, call the Colorado Springs Police Department at 719-444-7000. If a tree falls down on your property, like in your backyard, then its up to you to get the tree removed. The city offers a list of licensed tree services. I put a link on www.kktv.com, just click on Find It. If you need to get rid of yard waste, like downed tree limbs, you can drop them off at Rocky Top Resources. Call 719-579-9103 for more information. One man called our newsroom after a tree fell on his home. He asked me where he can turn. If your home is damaged, you should reach out to your insurance company. Other viewers reached out to me asking what to do about fallen power lines. If you have a downed line, you need to call Colorado Springs Utilities at 719-448-4800. If its an emergency, call 911. Stay far away and assume all lines are energized. Whenever disaster strikes, it seems the scammers are quick to follow. We tend to see door-to-door salesmen ramp up, and you need to watch for frauds. You really want to research anybody that calls you or comes to the door, said Greg Dingrando with the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department. You can search for contractors on the departments website, www.pprbd.org. They should actually be treating it like a job interview. If someone was coming in to have a job at your company, you would ask for those references, so you could certainly ask that contractor to give them some references. You also want to make sure the workers pull the right permits. You might have roof damage but you might also have siding damage so they might say, Well yeah I can fix your roof and Ill also fix your siding. Well that actually requires two different licenses. You want to make sure that theyre covered for everything that they are saying they can do for you, Dingrando said. If the contractor asks you to pull the permit, that can be a sign of a scam. Another red flag is if they are pushing you to sign a contract right away. Make sure you know what youre signing. If you have other questions, you can call the building department at 719-327-2880. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close We all walk on the same planet regardless of our politics. And keeping that planet healthy, Amy Roberts will tell you, is not only good for her industry, but its also something all our elected leaders should be able to agree on. Shes the executive director of the Outdoor Industry Association, which represents some of the biggest brands in the world of outdoor recreation. The Boulder-based national trade group made waves a couple of years ago when it helped relocate the Outdoor Retailer show the mother of all outdoor-rec expositions from its longtime perch in Salt Lake City to Denver. It was in protest of Utahs support for the Trump administrations public-lands policies, and Roberts tells us in this weeks Q&A whether the move got Utahs attention. Colorado Politics asked about the influence of her industry and its consumer base on the political culture of outdoorsy Colorado and whether its helping change the states trajectory. Colorado Politics: OIAs membership in some ways defies the business communitys old political paradigm the traditional chamber of commerce agenda of being at loggerheads with government as well as with the environmental movement. You represent an industry whose members, by contrast, champion environmental regulation and public-lands preservation, and arguably are more concerned about cutting carbon emissions than cutting taxes. Given the prominent, and growing, role the outdoor rec industry plays in Colorados economy, do you think it also stands to have an impact on the states overall political culture? Not just on industry-related, environmental and conservation issues, but more broadly amid demographic shifts toward more kayakers and skiers and bicyclists on politics in general? Amy Roberts: The outdoor recreation industry is really just a generation old, so we view ourselves as part of a new, emerging economy. Outdoor recreation currently represents about 2 percent of national GDP and is growing faster than the U.S. economy overall. We also see ourselves as reinforcing other sectors of the economy, whether that is attracting companies and employees seeking to locate in areas with parks and trails or offering new ways to develop rural economies in transition. We see communities like Fruita and Grand Junction developing vibrant economies with outdoor recreation as a centerpiece, which attracts other businesses, raises home prices and creates healthy outlets for families in the community. We do believe that the outdoors and specifically our public lands system is something that inspires pride in people of all political backgrounds, so we hope to inspire elected officials in Colorado to come together in a bipartisan way to support our public lands and the environment. The recent public lands bill that permanently reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund passed overwhelmingly in Congress with Republicans and Democrats singing its praises. (U.S. Sens. Michael) Bennet and (Cory) Gardner consistently come to Outdoor Retailer together to tour the show and talk to businesses who make products and contribute to Colorados economy. Finally, proposals to sell off our public lands have led to large protests at state capitols in the West attended by kayakers, hikers, hunters and anglers of all political stripes. CP: Your organization not only uses its clout like other trade groups to influence public policy endorsing industry-friendly political candidates, publicly messaging its top causes, etc. but it also has leveraged your industrys heft in more aggressive ways. Notably, OIA helped orchestrate the move in 2017 of the industrys signature trade show the twice-a-year Outdoor Retailer Show out of its longtime base in Salt Lake City. It was Denvers gain, of course, and the economic impact on both cities is sure to be felt. What about the moves political impact, though, on Utah? Has the message been received and did it have the desired effect? Roberts: It was clear at the time that Utahs elected officials underestimated our industrys resolve to leave the state, so they were caught flat-footed when we did move the show. Outdoor Retailer was a very important contributor to the Salt Lake economy, and we then saw that very congressional seat change hands in the 2018 election cycle. Was moving the show the major cause? Hard to say, but I do think the issue was raised in voters minds. Congressman (Rob) Bishop, who was a chief proponent of scaling back the (Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national) monuments in the state, did run a number of pro-recreation ads during his campaign and did shift to support some recreation-friendly legislation, including LWCF reauthorization. Finally, most definitely the San Juan County Commission near Bears Ears had a dramatic change in leadership, and that body now supports the monument designation. I believe we are going to see a continued discussion of these issues in Utah in the 2020 governors race, and we intend to be a part of that discussion. CP: The association has a national reach and an office in Washington to provide a voice on Capitol Hill, but its based in Colorado and undoubtedly has a special relationship with the state. What are the top Colorado-focused issues at the statehouse or even at the local government level that are of interest to you, and are you hoping to have some influence over them? Roberts: There are a lot! First looking back, we fully supported the renewal of the Colorado Lottery Division that supports Great Outdoors Colorado and the Conservation Trust Fund. We also endorsed voter-approved ballot measures in Denver to expand parks and trails, and in Chaffee County to protect forest health, manage recreational assets and conserve open space and working lands. We know from the 2018 Conservation in the West poll that 75 percent of Coloradans consider themselves conservationists and outdoor recreation enthusiasts; well continue to support community-driven efforts to generate more funding for outdoor recreation and want to strengthen the recreation economy throughout the state. To this end, I had the opportunity to serve on Gov. (Jared) Poliss transition team focused on providing ideas to develop, more evenly, Colorados economy. We will continue to present economic data and ideas for recreation as an option for rural economies that are moving away from reliance solely on traditional resource extraction to new, more balanced economies. Recreation amenities can be a foundation of creating new jobs in our economic sector; they also attract businesses like tech and health care that recruit employees in a competitive job market who want to live near mountain bikes trails and ski hills. CP: OIA is nonpartisan, like other such groups, and it doesnt appear to play favorites, endorsing candidates of both parties. Yet, your industrys and your organizations biggest policy initiatives from public lands to climate change seem to dovetail more with Democratic Party priorities. Is there ultimately room enough in the industrys tent for both parties? Is there a place for Republican Party principles not only in your industry, but in the environmental movement? Roberts: If you look at our 25-year history of working in public policy, the issues we care about whether it be funding for public lands or addressing environmental issues have remained largely unchanged. As an industry, our values of sustainable business, investing in our land and water, and preserving wild places have remained steady. I would argue that it is instead the views of some elected officials that have changed over that time. We believe there are still Republicans who believe in the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt and we want to support their efforts. The Department of the Interior requested public comments during the national monuments debate and more than 3 million Americans submitted comments with more than 90 percent asking that the monuments be left intact. Yet, the administration ignored that input. I think that elected officials who dont support conservation are out of step with the majority of Americans and the recent public lands vote in Congress demonstrated that. We have not seen a bill of that size pass so overwhelmingly in both houses in some time. A major factor in the widespread support was that elected officials in every state had constituents who benefited from land and water protections, which we know spur economic development and healthy lifestyles. We are optimistic that outdoor recreation can continue to be a unifying issue for a nation that is sometimes badly divided. In fact, we think President Trump and leaders (Mitch) McConnell and (Nancy) Pelosi should stop meeting in the Oval Office and instead take a walk in a local park. CP: In 2018, OIA started its Vote the Outdoors initiative, aimed at educating voters and promoting the industrys priorities. Did the effort have its desired effect, and will it play a role in the next big election in 2020? Roberts: Vote the Outdoors was a new effort for OIA, so we focused on just a few Western states in 2018, including Colorado. Our goal was not to elect a certain candidate but rather to get the word out on the recreation economy and to raise the importance of conservation and support for public lands funding in voters minds. For instance, in Colorado, outdoor recreation contributes $28 billion to the states economy and supports 229,000 jobs. So, Vote the Outdoors encouraged people to find out where candidates stand on issues that bolster the outdoor recreation economy. We also developed a scorecard that is available on the OIA website that provides information about how current members of Congress are voting on issues that support public lands and outdoor recreation. The most important moment for our Vote the Outdoors campaign occurred when our members began to share it with their consumers, which vastly amplified our message. We ended up reaching 14 million Americans with an opportunity to educate them on our issues. Ask Geotripper Is there something about geology that you are curious about? Do you have questions about the scientific aspects of political controversies? I can try to provide a scientist's perspective. Your questions and possible answers could be a springboard to a blog discussion, or they can be private. Anonymity is always assumed. Contact Geotripper at hayesg (at) mjc.edu. Grand Old Partisan reveres the Texas hero Sam Houston. This day of 1861, Democrats in control of Texas ousted Governor Houston, for refusing to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. Houston declared: "Fellow-Citizens, in the name of your rights and liberties, which I believe have been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of the nationality of Texas, which has been betrayed by the Convention, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of the Constitution of Texas, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of my own conscience and manhood, which this Convention would degrade by dragging me before it, to pander to the malice of my enemies, I refuse to take this oath." Not even bothering to impeach him, they ignored their state constitution and just swore in the Lieutenant Governor to replace him. Houston went home and told his wife: "Margaret, Texas is lost." He said to a friend: "Our people are going to war to perpetuate slavery, but the war will be its death knell." Houston then addressed all Texans: "Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery impulsive people as we are... but once they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum of a mighty avalanche, and what I fear is that they will overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat." President Abraham Lincoln offered to assist him with U.S. troops, but Houston's advisors cautioned to him to avoid bloodshed in the Lone Star state. The hero of Texas independence explained to them: "I have asked your advice and will take it, but if I were ten years younger I would not." His reply to the President: "Allow me to most respectfully decline any such assistance of the United States Government." Houston would have nothing to do with the Confederacy, dying in 1863. Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jw4sNzE2XHI Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement. Each day, Michael Zak's grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far. He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision. Buy the book at Amazon "This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!" "Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before." and "one of the best books I ever read" " " "Gray's Anatomy" was updated in 2015 to define the mesentery as an organ (shown here as an attachment to the small intestine). Ed Reschke/Getty Images You may have learned in school that the human body has 78 organs. Well, it's time for a revision. While it may never achieve the rock star status that the heart, liver or lungs enjoy, the mesentery is now officially an organ. The mesentery is a membrane in the digestive system that begins at the pancreas and continues through the small intestine and colon, holding these organs in place. The process for the status upgrade began in 2012 when researchers from the University of Limerick in Ireland determined the mesentery is self-contained. Before that, it was widely accepted that the mesentery was composed of multiple attached pieces, rather a continuous organ. Advertisement Self-containment is one of the two criteria for being named an organ; the other is that it performs a critical function. A complete understanding of what the mesentery actually does is still under examination, but scientists already know that the organ keeps the gut in place by attaching it to the abdominal wall, which in and of itself is pretty important. The lead researcher, University of Limerick professor J. Calvin Coffey, told Discover magazine, There are no reported instances of a Homo sapien living without a mesentery." " " Digital representation of the small and large intestines and associated mesentery. University of Limerick Why the hold-up in proclaiming this news to the world? Since the initial discovery, several years of follow-up research and examination were required to confirm it. The findings were published in the November 2016 issue of The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. Once scientists understand what, if anything else, the organ is supposed to do, they can identify abnormal function. This has the potential to open up a greater understanding of how to identify, diagnose and treat painful digestive and abdominal diseases, perhaps leading to less invasive surgeries. Comprehensive understanding of the function, structure and anatomy of the mesentery could even beget a new medical discipline, according to Coffey. Put them all together and you have the field of mesenteric science ... the basis for a whole new area of science, he explains in a press release. Not too shabby for a heretofore largely overlooked organ. Now Thats Interesting Leonardo da Vinci was truly ahead of his time, as the artistic (and obviously scientific) visionary sketched the mesentery many moons ago, depicting it as a continuous structure. " " Sophomore Paige James, center right, talks with Max Stanley, left, of Glasgow, New Jersey, as she leads admitted George Washington University students and their parents on a tour of the campus. GW is a private university. Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images A recently published study established a new way to monitor the mental health of a university's student population and it all boiled down to the website Reddit. Researchers from Georgia Tech University presented the findings at an Association for Computing Machinery conference. The team used publicly available social media posts to gauge student mental health at 109 universities. What they found overturned expectations based on other studies. The researchers found a positive correlation between students at prestigious, expensive colleges and better mental health versus those at publicly funded universities. Because financial stress often contributes to mental anxiety, the scientists had been expecting the opposite. So, what accounted for that reversal? Advertisement Why Reddit? Before we answer that, let's look at how the survey was conducted. Reddit might seem an unusual choice. But the researchers say the social network's organization makes it ideal for this study. Reddit includes forums called subreddits and many universities have their own dedicated subreddits. This made it easier to concentrate on specific schools for the purposes of analysis. Another reason to rely upon Reddit is that most of those subreddits are viewable by the public. Facebook allows for private groups, which wouldn't be visible to the algorithm. Reddit also allows users to be semi-anonymous, using handles instead of real names. The researchers felt this would remove one of the social barriers that might prevent students from expressing themselves otherwise. (Although colleges have conducted mental health surveys these take a lot of time and money and only capture students' feelings at a particular moment in time, the researchers say.) The team relied on earlier research that established a link between the content of social media posts and mental health. They also created an algorithm that could trawl through hundreds of posts and search for words and phrases that indicate stress or other problems. For example, a sentence like, "This semester is really taking a toll on me" could register as a hit. To train the algorithm, the team first took a selection of posts from mental health subreddits as well as a control group of posts from subreddits unrelated to mental health. They used a method called inductive transfer learning to train the algorithm. This is a type of machine learning that involves storing knowledge gained by solving one type of problem and then applying that knowledge to a different but related problem. Using their algorithm, the team developed a metric they called the Mental Well-being Index or MWI. A high MWI meant the student body posted about mental health issues less frequently on their university's subreddit, while a school with a low MWI indicated a higher concentration of such posts. According to the researchers, their algorithm was more than 90 percent accurate in identifying posts on subreddits that contained language indicating a student was suffering from some sort of mental health issue. The team wasn't interested in identifying individuals in fact, they expressly cautioned universities against taking that sort of approach. But then why run the study? The scientists wanted to see the relationship between mental health and specific variables such as a university's size, demographic distribution and prestige. They found that the bigger public universities, particularly those with a large undergraduate population, had a lower MWI than smaller, private institutions. They also discovered that students at prestigious schools, and at those with higher tuitions, had a higher MWI than others. They likewise found that schools with a higher concentrate of female students had a lower MWI. Other demographics, such as ethnic diversity, didn't reveal statistically significant results and so the team didn't make any conclusions regarding those variables. Advertisement What the Researchers Found Does that mean students in public universities have more mental health issues than those in ivy league schools? Or that women are struggling more than men? Not necessarily -- the researchers pointed out that those attending the prestigious schools may internalize stress and other mental health challenges more than their public university counterparts. In other words, they might be dealing with similar struggles but they aren't as likely to express them online. The researchers also speculated that students at more expensive colleges might have more financial and emotional support from families and that students at prestigious colleges might be self-selected to already know how to deal with academic stress. Finally, other studies had shown that female students are more likely to seek mental health help than male students and may therefore be more likely to express their mental health challenges. Don't expect the team to publish a guide telling you which schools have the highest MWI. The team would rather use the tool as a way for universities to see how various policies and activities impact student mental health. That way, a university has a tool that can alert administrators if a recent change in policy is having an adverse effect on student mental health. This approach, they argue, allows university administrators to monitor trends in student body mental health continuously. That could help schools shape their policies and practices to minimize a negative impact on students -- as long as people keep posting to Reddit, that is. Ok everyone, you have to read this very short short story. Firstly because it is good, (check out the Bligh story within it too), but also because I'm ... 7 months ago This is the blog of comics critic Rob Clough, who also has a column of the same name over at The Comics Journal website (TCJ.com). " " An 1874 engraving published in The Illustrated London New shows Irish emigrants preparing to leave the Queenstown port in Cork for the United States. Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images In the 19th-century United States, racism was rampant. Chinese immigrants were openly mocked, often in unfavorable newspaper caricatures. Germans were stereotyped as loitering in beer halls. African-Americans were portrayed in demeaning advertisements. And Irish people who were not considered "white" by the existing majority at the time were mistreated, too. More than 1.5 million people left Ireland for the United States between 1845 and 1855, the survivors of a potato famine that had wiped out more than 1 million people in their homeland. They arrived poor, hungry and sick, and then crowded into cramped tenements in Boston, New York and other Northeastern cities to start anew under difficult conditions. Advertisement The struggles of Irish immigrants were compounded by the poor treatment they received from the white, primarily Anglo-Saxon and Protestant establishment. America's existing unskilled workers worried they would be replaced by immigrants willing to work for less than the going rate. And business owners worried that Irish immigrants and African-Americans would band together to demand increased wages. As a result, locals didn't take kindly to an influx of Irish immigrants competing for resources perceived as limited. In Boston alone, 37,000 Irish immigrants arrived in 1847 growing the city's population by more than 30 percent, straining employment, rations, housing and relations between populations. Not only were Irish immigrants viewed as interlopers by many white Americans (an irony, considering the historical treatment of Native Americans), but these immigrants were Catholics in a primarily Protestant land. It was a religious difference that widened the divide, as did the fact that many Irish immigrants didn't speak English. As strange as may it may sound today, Irish immigrants were not considered "white" and were sometimes referred to "negroes turned inside out." " " This undated political cartoon from the mid-1800s titled "Uncle Sam's Lodging House" illustrates the perception of Irish immigrants as more problematic to the United States than those from other countries. The cartoon's original caption read: Uncle Sam... Bettmann/Getty Images There's proof of this discrimination in cartoons and advertisements that were published during the mid- to late-1800s. Irish often were portrayed as racially different from the wider population of Caucasians and those of Anglo-Saxon heritage, writes historian Noel Ignatiev in his 1995 book "How the Irish Became White." Irish immigrants, both male and female, were drawn with brutish, ape-like features. Even pseudoscience got in on the act. "Comparative Physiognomy," a book by James Redfield published in 1852, made comparisons between the facial structure of Irish people and dogs. Redfield went on to claim that, because of their appearance, the Irish had an animalistic character that made them cruel and cowardly. "Among the Irish, the commonality take to dirt-digging more naturally than to anything else," Redfield wrote. "They are dirty in their persons, and admit pigs in their mud-cabins which they themselves occupy. They are good servants if you deal harshly with them, as a master does with his dog; but the moment you are disposed to be familiar with them they are all over you, jumping against you and laying their dirty paws upon your clean clothes, as if you were no better than they." " " This newspaper illustration depicts the New York draft riots of 1863, when working-class New Yorkers protested conscription into the Union Army to fight in the ongoing Civil War. Irish immigrants are portrayed in the drawing with dehumanizing, brutish,... The Print Collector/Hulton Archive/Getty Images This type of xenophobia the fear of people or things perceived to be different was bolstered by the formation of the Know-Nothing Party, a U.S. political party that originated in 1849 and grew during the following decade. Members of the party opposed the Catholic religion in general and Irish Catholics in particular. They feared Irish Catholics would take over the U.S. and potentially raise up the pope as the country's ruler, replacing secular law with religious dictates. Although Irish immigrants faced oppression in the United States, they also participated in it. African-Americans and Irish were considered by many Northern whites to be on equal footing, but many Irish immigrants quickly embraced "white" identities and became part of the social construct that oppressed African-Americans as an avenue to better employment, interweaving issues of classism and racism. "Once the Irish secured themselves in those jobs, they made sure blacks were kept out," writes historian Art McDonald. "They realized that as long as they continued to work alongside blacks, they would be considered no different. Later, as Irish became prominent in the labor movement, African Americans were excluded from participation ... And so, we have the tragic story of how one oppressed 'race,' Irish Catholics, learned how to collaborate in the oppression of another 'race,' Africans in America, in order to secure their place in the white republic." Race relations in the United States have long been complicated, and suffering and discrimination is not a zero-sum; for instance, see the discredited but persistent myth of Irish slavery that still makes the rounds on the internet. Today, it may be difficult to imagine a time when fair-skinned people of Irish descent weren't considered white. However, definitions of race have changed over time and may be just as rooted in class, labor, economics and fear as they are in skin pigmentation. Now That's Inspiring An estimated population of 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants currently live illegally in the United States. "It is easier being illegal here when you're white," an undocumented Irish immigrant named Shauna recently told CNN, underscoring how racial perception has changed. "It's not easy, of course, you have that paranoia, but there isn't the racial element. It's a bit easier to stay under the radar." Brief Encounter (1945) is considered one of the best British films ever by those of a certain age. It is based on the play Still Life (1936) by Noel Co... 10 hours ago 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 Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. In our previous part, we looked at what Maryam Rajavi said were the biggest problems facing women in Iran and the steps that Maryam Rajavi advises are necessary to womens liberation in Iran. Here we will look at Maryam Rajavis call to women across Iran to join the protests, as well as her hope for women in a future, free Iran. Maryam Rajavi implored her sisters across Iran to start organising, to resist the Regimes sexist activities, and to stand up to the mullahs. Maryam Rajavi said: Turn your pains, suffering, tears, and yearning into a force of struggle and progress. The future will be shaped in your hands and in your units of resistance and resistance councils. She said that women needed to: Fight compulsory veiling Protest the so-called morality police Support women and children who are street vendors Organise protests against the Regimes attacks on women Actively participate in the protests Maryam Rajavi said that the mullahs hope to divide society and paint the idea that things will ony get worse if the status quo changes to stop the Iranian people fighting back. She said: It is up to you, brave and aware sisters, to defeat this evil policy. It is up to you to rebel against the culture of surrender and it is up to you to cultivate solidarity, compassion, friendship and trust among our people. Maryam Rajavi explained that the Iranian Resistance is the key to change that will bring a brighter future for all Iranians and is already working towards gender equality the elimination of anything that helps to repress women or otherwise prevent their free choices. Maryam Rajavi believes that Women must enjoy equal rights with men in all economic, social and political arenas regardless of age, ethnicity, religion, or social class, and that they should have equal protection by the law Women should be free to choose their place of residence, clothing, religion, occupation, education, and spouse Women should be free to choose whether to have children, get divorced, travel, leave Iran, Maryam Rajavi said: These ideals will be realized thanks to the iron will of the Iranian people, the Iranian Resistance and Irans arisen women. Bolstering this bright future is a glorious history of Iranian womens struggle. She then cited brave female protesters, like Fatemeh Amini and Marzieh Eskoui who paved the way for the anti-monarchic revolution and Shirin Alam Houli who is leading the Iranian Kurdish peoples resistance. Maryam Rajavi said: What does this shining history, filled with sacrifices and courage, tell us today? It tells us that this dark chapter is coming to an end thanks to the little hands of young school girls, the determination of suppressed and oppressed women of Iran, and the will of the arisen women and female leaders. Undoubtedly, a bright and shining future awaits Irans women and people. He cautioned Europe, saying that Iran has carried out several assassination plots in Europe, and could do so again. He also praised the UK government for designating the Shia Islamist group, Iran-backed Hezbollah, as a terrorist organization, and urged other EU countries to do the same. Hezbollah is one organization. Its leaders, its members, do not differentiate between their military terroristic activities on the one hand and their so-called political activities on the other, he said. Sales remarked, It is unacceptable that Iran would regard the European continent as fertile ground for its campaign of terrorism. He added, If there are no costs, Iran is going to keep at it. So its incumbent on us to impose those costs so that we can deter future acts of terrorism. Speaking in London near the end of a European visit, Sales blamed Iran for a recent foiled bomb attack targeting a political opposition rally in Paris, as well as an alleged plot to murder an exiled political leader in Denmark. He also cited the 2012 bombing of a bus carrying Jewish tourists in Bulgaria, and the political assassinations in Holland that the Dutch government has blamed on Iran. He believes that Iran carries out these attacks, Because terrorism is fundamental to the Iranian regimes raison detre. They regard the export of their revolution as absolutely fundamental and central to the regimes identity. US President Trump has taken a hard line on Iran since his election. Trump pulled America out of the Iran nuclear deal that limited Irans nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. Meanwhile, Americas European allies have remained committed to the deal alongside the other signatories of China, Russia, and Iran. Sales warned Britain that it was not immune from the threat, saying, I think the regime regards Europe as a whole, the UK included, as fertile ground for its operations. He thinks that the EU countries should take steps to punish the regime over the terror plots, regardless of their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal. Regarding the ISIL foreign fighters captured in Syria, he reiterated the Trump administrations demand that Britain and other European allies take back people who fled their countries to join ISIL, and prosecute them in their own courts. Britain strips the fighters of their UK citizenship instead. He elaborated, There is no secret to how you do counter-terrorism in a law enforcement context. In the United States but more broadly European and other advanced democracies, civilian courts have proven themselves to be entirely capable of meeting this challenge. We [the US] can put people in jail for their terrorism-related crimes and ensure that theyre not re-engaging on the battlefield. And were asking our allies to do the same. Sales full title is US Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism. SINCE THE RAPTURE OCCURS BEFORE THE FUTURE 7 YR TREATY IS SIGNED, I WONT BE AROUND TO HAVE THE ACTUAL TREATY SIGNING. BUT UNTIL THEN THIS SITE IS DEDICATED TO THE BEGININGS OF THE ISRAELI / ARAB PEACE PROCESS. AND AS CLOSE TO THE 7 YEAR SIGNING THAT WE GET BEFORE THE RAPTURE OF THE SAVED TO HEAVEN. UNTIL WE MEET JESUS IN THE CLOUDS BODILY, AND COME TO EARTH 7 YRS LATER. Welcome, Neighbor! Thank you for sharing my journey with me. It's a bumpy ride, but hopefully you'll find it worthwhile! To reach out to me, send me an e-mail at jamesbradfordpate@yahoo.com. 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Comments must not be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted. 2. Comments must not involve little more than name-calling and insulting remarks. 3. Comments must not be made by "anonymous" or "unknown". 4. Comments must not try to sneak in some free advertising for themselves (like spam). I invite anyone who wishes to comment on this blog to do so. I enjoy the comments, whether you agree with what I have said or not. But some people want to abuse the right to comment, and since this is my blog, I have decided to lay down the following rules. If your comment violates these rules, it will not be published. Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 2 Vote(s) - 5 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 3 Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Treebeard Registered User User ID: 479750 03-18-2019 02:53 PM Posts: 4,312 Post: #1 Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Advertisement In Wyoming, "we're looking at places that aren't so crowded," he says. "It's untouched fields and that's what people are most interested in." The amount of land for lease has increased six times over since 2016. Federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have also streamlined and shortened the leasing process. "If these leases are all developed, or even a substantial portion of them are developed, it will devastate all of those wildlife values," Wilbert says. 37 percent of the remaining sage grouse population inhabits Wyoming, much of it public land. A recent study found oil and gas development has caused the bird to abandon its lek, or breeding grounds, causing further population declines. Over the past decade, the study confirmed population declines of up to 75 percent in the state. Mule deer and pronghorn also tend to flee from drilling or road sounds, causing indirect habitat loss. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/25/666373189...ublic-land Leasing rights on western lands with some of the worlds highest densities of sage grouse were sold this week to energy developers for as little as $2 an acre https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/...9a9e6473ce Even Eastern Republicans are shocked by Trump's anti-environmentalism Rick Scott and Marco Rubio say Trump won't help Everglades. As a matter of fact, he approves of oil drilling the Everglades. South Carolina is suing the Federal Government to stop oil drilling on their coast. Virginia doesn't want it either. Atlantic Right Whales may go extinct from Trump's sonar tests - dolphins and much other sealife is at risk of annihilation. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/14/us-...ling-plan/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati...story.html The wide-open land here is now filling up with trucks that kick up dirt on new roads. "I would call it a pre-boom, absolutely,"In Wyoming, "we're looking at places that aren't so crowded," he says. "It's untouched fields and that's what people are most interested in."The amount of land for lease has increased six times over since 2016. Federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have also streamlined and shortened the leasing process."If these leases are all developed, or even a substantial portion of them are developed, it will devastate all of those wildlife values," Wilbert says.37 percent of the remaining sage grouse population inhabits Wyoming, much of it public land. A recent study found oil and gas development has caused the bird to abandon its lek, or breeding grounds, causing further population declines. Over the past decade, the study confirmed population declines of up to 75 percent in the state. Mule deer and pronghorn also tend to flee from drilling or road sounds, causing indirect habitat loss.Leasing rights on western lands with some of the worlds highest densities of sage grouse were sold this week to energy developers for as little as $2 an acreEven Eastern Republicans are shocked by Trump's anti-environmentalismRick Scott and Marco Rubio say Trump won't help Everglades. As a matter of fact, he approvesof oil drilling the Everglades. South Carolina is suing the Federal Government to stop oil drilling ontheir coast. Virginia doesn't want it either.Atlantic Right Whales may go extinct from Trump's sonar tests - dolphins and much othersealife is at risk of annihilation. Treebeard Registered User User ID: 479750 03-18-2019 03:15 PM Posts: 4,312 Post: #2 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. If you care about the planet Earth and its dwindling unique life forms, you must oppose the President and make sure he does not win in 2020. It is of utmost importance that his destructive policies, unseen in their callous disregard for anything but profits and handouts, is stopped in 2 years time. The amount of damage coming if Trump is allowed to implement his policies another 6-7 years would be devastating. Reversal back to sanity and care is desperately needed. If you don't believe me, look into these subjects more and you will discover that Trump is the most anti-nature President ever by any measure. Republicans will never stop war. They will never stop corruption and lies, they are taking advantage of religious people by getting their anti-abortion votes and doing absolutely nothing with their votes. I have never voted Democrat, but this is too much for me now. I will not vote. My state will vote for any Democrat over Trump by a wide margin. (This post was last modified: 03-18-2019 03:17 PM by Treebeard .) LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 459643 03-18-2019 03:19 PM Post: #3 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Treebeard Wrote: (03-18-2019 02:53 PM) The wide-open land here is now filling up with trucks that kick up dirt on new roads. "I would call it a pre-boom, absolutely," In Wyoming, "we're looking at places that aren't so crowded," he says. "It's untouched fields and that's what people are most interested in." The amount of land for lease has increased six times over since 2016. Federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have also streamlined and shortened the leasing process. "If these leases are all developed, or even a substantial portion of them are developed, it will devastate all of those wildlife values," Wilbert says. 37 percent of the remaining sage grouse population inhabits Wyoming, much of it public land. A recent study found oil and gas development has caused the bird to abandon its lek, or breeding grounds, causing further population declines. Over the past decade, the study confirmed population declines of up to 75 percent in the state. Mule deer and pronghorn also tend to flee from drilling or road sounds, causing indirect habitat loss. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/25/666373189...ublic-land Leasing rights on western lands with some of the worlds highest densities of sage grouse were sold this week to energy developers for as little as $2 an acre https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/...9a9e6473ce Even Eastern Republicans are shocked by Trump's anti-environmentalism Rick Scott and Marco Rubio say Trump won't help Everglades. As a matter of fact, he approves of oil drilling the Everglades. South Carolina is suing the Federal Government to stop oil drilling on their coast. Virginia doesn't want it either. Atlantic Right Whales may go extinct from Trump's sonar tests - dolphins and much other sealife is at risk of annihilation. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/14/us-...ling-plan/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati...story.html Hello from WY. Douglas to be exact. Wyoming has always been boom or bust and this recent stint is Obama's fault (about 2010) and natural gas. It'll bust soon and return to normal. Just like the 80s. Thanks for the political spin though. Hello from WY. Douglas to be exact. Wyoming has always been boom or bust and this recent stint is Obama's fault (about 2010) and natural gas. It'll bust soon and return to normal. Just like the 80s.Thanks for the political spin though. Treebeard Registered User User ID: 479750 03-18-2019 03:27 PM Posts: 4,312 Post: #4 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:19 PM) Hello from WY. Douglas to be exact. Wyoming has always been boom or bust and this recent stint is Obama's fault (about 2010) and natural gas. It'll bust soon and return to normal. Just like the 80s. Thanks for the political spin though. You have no idea what you're talking about. Ignorant putz. People like you are the biggest problem in the world. You have no idea what you're talking about. Ignorant putz.People like you are the biggest problem in the world. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493798 03-18-2019 03:32 PM Post: #5 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Here's something btw. In Wyoming (which has been kinda sold out to Russia to some extent), even since, maybe even before the Obama administration there's been fraudulence related to uranium inventory and shipping (Russian exports). It hasn't been improved under the Trump administration. Getting the picture yet? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 459643 03-18-2019 03:33 PM Post: #6 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Treebeard Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:27 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:19 PM) Hello from WY. Douglas to be exact. Wyoming has always been boom or bust and this recent stint is Obama's fault (about 2010) and natural gas. It'll bust soon and return to normal. Just like the 80s. Thanks for the political spin though. You have no idea what you're talking about. Ignorant putz. People like you are the biggest problem in the world. So because I pointed out that this started under Obama not trump I am a putz? It's been boom or bust in Wyoming since I was born. Wyoming has some of the toughest environmental laws of any state in the union. Just because you are putting a political spin on an environmental issue... So because I pointed out that this started under Obama not trump I am a putz?It's been boom or bust in Wyoming since I was born. Wyoming has some of the toughest environmental laws of any state in the union. Just because you are putting a political spin on an environmental issue... LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493798 03-18-2019 03:35 PM Post: #7 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. "Eye: I live on an EYEland in EYEowa... or WEYEoming. Mouse 'Fitz' Fitzgerald: No. You can't do that." LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 459643 03-18-2019 03:36 PM Post: #8 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:32 PM) Here's something btw. In Wyoming (which has been kinda sold out to Russia to some extent), even since, maybe even before the Obama administration there's been fraudulence related to uranium inventory and shipping (Russian exports). It hasn't been improved under the Trump administration. Getting the picture yet? Uranium one deals was under SoS Clinton and Obama. I'll require evidence that it started before because I've never heard of Russia anything before that here. Uranium one deals was under SoS Clinton and Obama. I'll require evidence that it started before because I've never heard of Russia anything before that here. pooky Registered User User ID: 451507 03-18-2019 03:36 PM Posts: 6,091 Post: #9 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Trump is the most anti-nature President ever by any measure. It's not by accident. Countered by the most pro nature pope, Francise. You will eventually get your desire. It's not by accident.Countered by the most pro nature pope, Francise.You will eventually get your desire. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493798 03-18-2019 03:38 PM Post: #10 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. pooky Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:36 PM) Trump is the most anti-nature President ever by any measure. It's not by accident. Countered by the most pro nature pope, Francise. link to image: https://www.combonimissionaries.org/wp-c...assisi.jpg link to image: https://i.gifer.com/QBl4.gif You will eventually get your desire. Which Pope Francise? Did you mean Franchise? I certainly don't trust that guy related to the vatican. And my name's Frank. Which Pope Francise? Did you mean Franchise? I certainly don't trust that guy related to the vatican. And my name's Frank. pooky Registered User User ID: 451507 03-18-2019 03:43 PM Posts: 6,091 Post: #11 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:38 PM) pooky Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:36 PM) Trump is the most anti-nature President ever by any measure. It's not by accident. Countered by the most pro nature pope, Francise. link to image: https://www.combonimissionaries.org/wp-c...assisi.jpg link to image: https://i.gifer.com/QBl4.gif You will eventually get your desire. Which Pope Francise? Did you mean Franchise? I certainly don't trust that guy related to the vatican. And my name's Frank. Hello, Frank. Hello, Frank. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493551 03-18-2019 03:44 PM Post: #12 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. Wyoming sucks and whales are overrated. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 459643 03-18-2019 03:45 PM Post: #13 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. pooky Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:36 PM) Trump is the most anti-nature President ever by any measure. It's not by accident. Countered by the most pro nature pope, Francise. link to image: https://www.combonimissionaries.org/wp-c...assisi.jpg link to image: https://i.gifer.com/QBl4.gif You will eventually get your desire. I thought that was Reagan? I thought that was Reagan? Treebeard Registered User User ID: 479750 03-18-2019 03:51 PM Posts: 4,312 Post: #14 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:33 PM) It's been boom or bust in Wyoming since I was born. Wyoming has some of the toughest environmental laws of any state in the union. Just because you are putting a political spin on an environmental issue... It's not going to be boom or bust anymore. For someone living in Wyoming you sure don't know anything about this. Perhaps if you took time to read about this topic more deeply you would understand. Trump is a one-man wrecking ball against all conservation and wildlife protections. He is giving away vast lands to drilling and mining interests that is supposed to be, and always was, public land for all Americans and wildife. It is happening everywhere. Alaska, the West, the Eastern Seaboard, hell, he blasted 16 million acres in Georgia with bee-killing pesticide as a payout. His executive appointments are all corrupt lobbyists who do nothing but fight against the established roles of their departments. This is an enormous topic and he is worse than anyone before him by many multiples of degree. It's not going to be boom or bust anymore. For someone living in Wyoming you sure don't know anything about this. Perhaps if you took time to read about this topic more deeply you would understand. Trump is a one-man wrecking ball against all conservation and wildlife protections. He is giving away vast lands to drilling and mining interests that is supposed to be, and always was, public land for all Americans and wildife. It is happening everywhere. Alaska, the West, the Eastern Seaboard, hell, he blasted 16 million acres in Georgia with bee-killing pesticide as a payout. His executive appointments are all corrupt lobbyists who do nothing but fight against the established roles of their departments. This is an enormous topic and he is worse than anyone before him by many multiples of degree. (This post was last modified: 03-18-2019 03:54 PM by Treebeard .) LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493798 03-18-2019 03:56 PM Post: #15 RE: Trump is destroying Wyoming and wants Atlantic whales extinct. pooky Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:43 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:38 PM) Which Pope Francise? Did you mean Franchise? I certainly don't trust that guy related to the vatican. And my name's Frank. Hello, Frank. Hello...uh, Pooky. Hello...uh, Pooky. Advertisement Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread - Tali Sotto and her daddy Vic Sottos new video went viral - The video shows the celebrity dad wearing shades while interacting with Tali - The celebrity baby seemed to be impressed by her dads handsome appearance PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Baby Tali Sotto once again put a smile to the faces of netizens with her video. KAMI learned that a video of Tali and her famous father, Kapuso superstar Vic Sotto, went viral on social media. The video shows Bossing wearing sunglasses while bonding with his youngest child. Tali reacted by smiling at her father, looking like she is impressed by her daddys good looks. Based on the clip, Vic's biggest fan seems to be none other than her baby girl! Here is the heartwarming video of the two: Netizens found the video to be super cute: Hi baby @teamtali Cute cute mo tlaga.. Kagigil ka lalo na yang patalicious mo eh.. cute ng smile habang nkatingin kay Dada Daddy's girl talaga eh.. Another social media picture, showing Pauleen Luna also admiring the good looks of her husband was also a hit with many netizens. Pauleen called Vic her "crush," even if they have been married for years now. What an inspiring couple they are! PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! 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We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Laughs abound this week, with comedy from The Sunday Night Collective, The Cure, Peacock, Kids in the Hall's Scott Thompson, and dramedy from John Mulaney and Nick Kroll. Poets gather to celebrate the equinox and CAAM throws a party for its spring exhibitions. MONDAY, MARCH 18; 7:30 p.m. doors School Night Bardot -- 1737 Vine St., Hollywood This weekly music showcase features up-and-coming acts that you need to see right now. Palm Springsteen headlines, with additional performances by Another Sky, Whenyoung and Bikini Trill. Colin Johnson and Alex Harrington spin between live music sets. This event is 21+. COST: FREE with RSVP, $10 without; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19; 7:30 p.m. My Dinner with Andre Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Bram Goldsmith Theater -- 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills Film Independent's Live Read series returns for a one-night only read of the 1981 Louis Malle-directed dramedy, written by and starring Andre Gregory (Andre) and Wallace Shawn (Wally). Their roles in the talky two-hander will be assumed by comedians John Mulaney and Nick Kroll, which sounds like outstanding casting to us. The night's hosted by Film Independent Curator Elvis Mitchell. COST: $50; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19; 8 p.m. The Sunday Night Collective The Comedy Central Stage -- 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood This modern reboot of the classic '70s TV variety show features comedy, dance, music, magic and a memorable cast of characters. The showcase features comedy icon Julie Brown (Earth Girls Are Easy), Frank Garcia-Hejl and rising stars Jeremy and Kyle Klein performing original beatbox. Kay Cannon, the director of Blockers and writer of the Pitch Perfect films does long-form improvisation with her duo partner and show host, Christina Gausas (Difficult People). COST: FREE; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19; 7 p.m. The OA: Part II Bing Theater at LACMA -- 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire The mind-bendy supernatural Netflix series returns with OA series co-creator, Brit Marling, navigating a new dimension. This time around, she uncovers a different life as a Russian heiress, and she once again finds herself the captive of Hap the scientist. The series time frame jumps between dimensions, with both new and returning cast members. The first two episodes (Chapters 1 & 2) will be screened. COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19 - WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20 Harmony Korine Double Feature Egyptian Theatre -- 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood American Cinematheque and Beyond Fest screen two nights of 35mm films from the writer-director. Gummo follows poverty-stricken outcasts in a Midwestern landscape ravaged by a tornado while Julien Donkey-Boy explores the world of a young man struggling with mental illness and a difficult home life. Wednesday's films are Trash Humpers, where "a gang of elderly people wander the nighttime back alleys of Nashville, hidden behind grotesque latex masks and causing general chaos." It's followed by Spring Breakers, which follows a group of girls who turn to crime when they run out of cash in Florida. There's a discussion with Korine on both nights between films. COST: $12; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19; 8 p.m. The Bunny Ears Podcast with Macaulay Culkin Largo at the Coronet -- 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Grove Culkin hosts a taping of his lifestyle and comedy podcast in front of a live audience. COST: $30; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19 - FRIDAY, APRIL 26 Apres le Deluge: The Buddy Cole Monologues Lyric Hyperion Theatre & Cafe -- 2106 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake Comedian Scott Thompson is best known as a member of the outstanding comedy troupe Kids in the Hall. One of his most popular characters was Buddy Cole, who was outspoken about his sexuality. Thompson himself was an out gay man working in TV in the early '90s, which is even more radical. The comedian brings Buddy back for an L.A. residency, featuring a series of monologues that cover issues from the '90s to today. COST: $10 - $12; MORE INFO TUESDAY, MARCH 19; 8 p.m. Hot Club of Cowtown / Dustbowl Revival Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts at Pepperdine -- 24255 Pacific Coast Hwy., Malibu The two bands are on tour together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Band's first two albums: Music from The Big Pink and The Band. They'll cover songs together and separately, plus throw in their own tunes that capture the spirit of The Band. The tour also hits the Musco Center at Chapman University on Friday. COST: $20 - $40; MORE INFO WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20; 8 p.m. The Cure Dynasty Typewriter -- 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Westlake Brendan Scannell and Joel Kim Booster celebrate the one-year anniversary of their show, which uses comedy and laughs "to alleviate all your ills, obstacles, evils, difficulties, misfortunes, trials, tribulations, depressions, anxieties, and medical ailments." The lineup features: Sarah Silverman, Sydnee Washington, Jacqueline Novak, Big Dipper and a few surprise guests. COST: $10 - $15; MORE INFO WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20; 7 - 9 p.m. Can't Stop, Won't Stop March 2019 California African American Museum -- 600 State Dr., Exposition Park Celebrate CAAM's spring exhibitions: Adia Millett: Breaking Patterns; The Liberator: Chronicling Black Los Angeles, 1900-1914; Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary; Aspects of Nude: Selections from the Permanent Collection as well as the current exhibition, California Bound: Slavery in the New Frontier, 1848-1865. In between viewing the art, listen to sets by DJFM and DJ R-Tistic. Food trucks will be on site. There will be an after-party across from the parking lot at Free Play, beginning at 9 p.m. COST: FREE with RSVP to rsvp@caamuseum.org; MORE INFO WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20; 7 p.m. Poetry Church - Spring Equinox: Rebirth of Light Get Lit - Words Ignite -- 672 S. La Fayette Park Pl., Ste 10, Westlake This secular celebration of words is being held on the spring equinox, with the theme of "rebirth and renewal." Listen to poetry by guests Armine Iknadossian, Brennan Lowe, Nicelle Davis, Robert and Teage Allen and hosts Brian Sonia-Wallace and Monique Mitchell. Bring a story to share about how art has changed your life. COST: FREE, but donations accepted; MORE INFO THURSDAY, MARCH 21; 8 p.m. Peacock Club Tee Gee -- 3210 Glendale Blvd., Atwater Village The new comedy show takes up a weekly residency in the dive bar's new side room, which was its former storage closet (since 1946). Hosted by Kiran Deol, the show's produced by Ali Hart and Becca Rufer. COST: $5 suggested donation; MORE INFO THURSDAY, MARCH 21; 6 p.m. Beau Schooler: Alaskan Seafood Friends & Family -- 5150 Hollywood Blvd., East Hollywood The chef collaboration pop-up features the James Beard Foundation Best NW Chef nominee Beau Schooler (from In Bocca Al Lupo and The Rookery Cafe in Juneau, Alaska) cooking up tasty seafood dishes for L.A. eaters. His a la carte dishes include: Seafood Mortadella; Long beans with coconut buttermilk vinaigrette, squid ink adobo, herbs, black seeds; Soy-cured Kodiak scallops; and Taku River sockeye chorizo and Grilled Sitka spot prawns. Dessert selection will be available from Friends & Family. There are no reservations -- order at the counter. RSVP so that organizers have a good idea of how many people to expect. COST: Varies; MORE INFO THURSDAY, MARCH 21; doors at 7 p.m. The Head And The Heart Belasco Theater -- 1050 S. Hill St., downtown L.A. The indie folk rockers and festival favs are on tour in support of their recent release, Signs of Light, stopping in L.A. for an intimate show. COST: Tickets start at $60; MORE INFO THURSDAY, MARCH 21; 8 p.m. Rooftop Cinema Club NeueHouse -- 6121 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood Level -- 888 S. Olive St., downtown L.A. Outdoor cinema screenings are back -- a sure harbinger that summer's just around the corner. The Cinema Club presents two musicals on Thursday to kick off its 2019 season: The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman, screens at LEVEL in DTLA, while a Bohemian Rhapsody sing along takes place ar NeueHouse in Hollywood. These screenings are for adults (18+) only. Food and drink options are available at both locations. COST: Tickets start at $17; MORE INFO THURSDAY, MARCH 21; 7:30 p.m. Matthew Aucoin & Megan Amram Hammer Museum -- 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood The museum teams with the LA Opera to present the latest installment of its conversation series. Composer, conductor, pianist and writer Matthew Aucoin and comedy writer and performer Megan Amram (currently working on NBC's The Good Place) will talk about opera and their respective works. Aucoin is the LA Opera's first artist-in-residence -- and has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and NPR's This American Life. COST: FREE; MORE INFO For the Record brings audiences back to the 1980s with 'The Brat Pack.' (Photo: Abel Armas) THURSDAY, MARCH 21 - SUNDAY, JUNE 9; 6:30 p.m. pre-party; 7:30 pm. show The Brat Pack Break Room 86 at The LINE Hotel -- 3515 Wilshire Blvd, Koreatown The For the Record series turns into, like, a totally '80s experience with performers taking on the decade's classic movie soundtracks. The show takes on the music from films like Sixteen Candles, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmos Fire, Pretty In Pink, Valley Girl, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Some Kind Of Wonderful and Say Anything. The show runs Thursdays through Sundays and the venue is 21+, with a two-drink minimum per person. COST: $86, a few standing tickets are available for $19.86; MORE INFO THURSDAY, MARCH 21; 6 - 9 p.m. Sustainable Wine + Dinner Los Angeles Zoo -- 5333 Zoo Dr., Griffith Park The zoo partners with local, environmentally friendly wineries to develop an eco-focused dinner series. Executive chef Brad Robertson creates a four-course, farm-to-table dinner menu inspired by the guest vintner. This month, the zoo welcomes Presqu'ile Winery from Santa Maria. This dinner series is 21+. COST: $140 - $150 (includes wine pairings); MORE INFO How are you spending your week? Let us know on Twitter @christineziemba and @LeoHasACat. Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe The Office of the Inspector General at the Los Angeles Unified School District is the type of government agency that any taxpayer -- not just those with kids in school -- would want working well. Hunting for signs of waste, fraud and misconduct, the OIG monitors $9.6 billion dollars in spending by the nation's second-largest school system each year -- roughly the amount of money the state pays into the California State University system every year. For the last year, though, the office tasked with inspecting LAUSD's internal workings has been roiled by internal controversy of its own. Last spring, the OIG's second-in-command resigned amid allegations of misconduct, and the boss lost his shot at renewal of his long-term contract. By late fall, a third high-ranking official who complained about them both was put on leave, charged with sexual harassment and ultimately fired. Now, as the new boss settles in at the OIG, a KPCC/LAist investigation reveals new details about the turmoil that roiled the department over the last year, and raises the question: Who's holding whom accountable in the L.A. Unified School District? THE ALLEGATIONS Between late 2017 and mid-2018, at least four OIG employees filed formal complaints with either LAUSD's Equal Opportunity Section or with California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Their complaints targeted either then-Inspector General Ken Bramlett or his top deputy, Frank Cabibi, alleging a hostile workplace culture, sexual harassment and racial discrimination; two of the employees who complained also requested whistleblower protection from LAUSD or a state agency. KPCC/LAist has obtained copies of these four formal complaints against Cabibi and Bramlett, along with other government records that describe the allegations, including contemporaneous notes, memos and written statements submitted to higher authorities or district officials as part of the complaint process; these records add greater detail to the allegations employees leveled against Bramlett and Cabibi. In addition to this trove of government records, some of the allegations are described in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed in December by Walt Finnigan, a former OIG investigator and supervisor, who also spoke to KPCC/LAist on the record. (The question of why he was fired is a story all its own, with its own ties back to Bramlett and Cabibi. We'll get to that later.) Here are the claims: Two OIG employees' complaints alleged Cabibi -- their direct boss, and the organization's second-in-command -- made discriminatory remarks about Latinos and gays. Two complaints alleged that Cabibi told an OIG employee she "needed to get laid" to "knock the cobwebs out of there." According to Finnigan and memos by three other OIG employees, OIG investigator Donald "Rusty" McMillen allegedly showed lewd images from confiscated computers and cell phones not only to Cabibi, but to other investigators who had no work-related need to see them. One of the photos McMillen and Cabibi are alleged to have described was a sensitive image of another OIG employee. Some complaints named Inspector General Bramlett (Cabibi's boss) as being at the root of a troubled working environment. According to the complaints and other records, some employees maintained that Bramlett -- an ex-police captain and state official in Georgia -- gave Cabibi free reign and enabled the alleged mistreatment. Cabibi did not return multiple messages from KPCC/LAist seeking comment. Reached by phone, Bramlett declined to answer specific questions about the allegations. "You have some bad information there," Bramlett told KPCC/LAist. KPCC/LAist also spoke with Bramlett's successor as Inspector General, William Stern, and with L.A. Unified School Board president Monica Garcia. All declined to answer questions that they said pertained to "confidential personnel matters." In response to KPCC/LAist's questions about specific allegations, LAUSD officials sent a written statement. "The Los Angeles Unified School District takes all allegations of hostile work environments and misconduct seriously," the district's statement said. "Upon investigating these issues, immediate corrective action was taken." "These matters," the statement continued, "are now the subject of pending litigation, which is filled with inaccurate allegations. We will continue to follow all protocols as we vigorously defend against this meritless lawsuit." When asked to spell out which of Finnigan's claims were false, a district spokeswoman responded with a new statement: "Los Angeles Unified is confident that it will demonstrate that Walt Finnigan's allegations are inaccurate. The inaccuracies in his allegations are too numerous to specify, which shall be dealt with in litigation." The OIG isn't a run-of-the-mill internal investigator. State law specially grants LAUSD's Inspector General with the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, giving the office real investigative muscle. The OIG also reports directly to the L.A. Unified School Board, bypassing the district's administrative power structure -- even the superintendent. The arrangement is supposed to ensure the office's independence. However, the complainants and records KPCC/LAist obtained describe a workplace culture at odds with the OIG's mission of holding others in LAUSD accountable. The complaints also raise questions about whether OIG's independence can withstand weakened leadership or internal strain. "Investigators have an enormous amount of power," Maribeth Vander Weele, who served as inspector general for Chicago Public Schools between 1998 and 2001, told KPCC/LAist. "They must use that power, look at that power as a sacred trust. When they abuse that power," she added, "they're really subjecting people -- whether it's the victims or the perpetrators -- to injustice." FILE - Empty cups sit on a table in the deserted basement cafeteria in the L.A. Unified School District's headquarters building -- often referred to simply as "Beaudry" for its address on South Beaudry Avenue -- on Jan. 11, 2019. (Photo by Kyle Stokes/KPCC) A PRIVATE LIFE UNEARTHED The discovery of sexually explicit photographs during the course of an OIG investigation -- and more importantly, how they were handled -- set the stage for some of what happened next. According to complaints and records KPCC/LAist has obtained, the photos were unearthed in 2016, when an OIG investigator named Donald McMillen began investigating a case involving allegations of sex, drinking and drug use within LAUSD. In complaints or memos later sent to district higher-ups, four OIG employees alleged McMillen showed his colleagues lewd photos confiscated as part of the case -- photos of women in compromising positions and of men performing apparent sexual acts. McMillen allegedly showed the photos to OIG employees who weren't working the case, meaning they had no work-related reason to see them. During the same investigation, McMillen also came across sexually explicit photographs of an OIG employee -- a woman KPCC/LAist has chosen to call the Co-Worker to protect her privacy. KPCC/LAist learned about the Co-Worker's photos from Finnigan and three memos OIG employees sent to district officials during the complaint process. The OIG employees writing the memos alleged that McMillen discussed the Co-Worker's photos with his boss, Frank Cabibi, during a morning "coffee meeting" -- a regular but informal gathering of OIG employees in the cafeteria of LAUSD headquarters. Several employees' memos say that from that point forward, the photos were an open secret in the office. The employees wrote that Cabibi and McMillen described the photos as showing the Co-Worker nearly-nude or locked in a kiss with a man who was a subject of the investigation. OIG senior investigator Walter Finnigan told KPCC/LAist that he witnessed Cabibi showing the Co-Worker what Finnigan believed to be the photos, asking her in the office, "Who's this young lady?" Three of the records KPCC/LAist reviewed said Inspector General Bramlett himself was briefed about the photos of the Co-Worker. Initially, investigators were concerned that the Co-Worker's relationship with the subject of the investigation could jeopardize the OIG's inquiry. According to multiple accounts, that concern was addressed early on when McMillen interviewed the Co-Worker and learned that her relationship with the subject of the investigation was long over. They concluded the photos weren't relevant to the investigation. McMillen's investigation concluded in January 2017 and led to the termination or resignation of several LAUSD employees; the subject shown in the photos kissing the Co-Worker resigned. A 'HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT': ALLEGATIONS AGAINST CABIBI EMERGE To critics of how the OIG's office was run, the explicit photos of the Co-Worker underscored problems with the workplace culture. In December 2017, an OIG investigator filed a complaint against Cabibi with LAUSD's Equal Opportunity Section (EOS), the agency that handles workplace harassment cases. Several other OIG staffers came forward to EOS or to other LAUSD leaders with written or in-person testimony aimed at aiding the investigator's case against Cabibi, according to copies of the documents KPCC/LAist has reviewed. Finnigan's lawsuit says he spoke up, too. According to the complaint and other documents outlining allegations made to higher officials, Cabibi would intimidate employees by "yelling" and "monopolizing conversations." The documents said employees tried to be careful not to upset or anger Cabibi. As one employee's memo put it, interactions that began as friendly banter would sometimes devolve into Cabibi denigrating his colleagues. The documents also show employee allegations that Cabibi, during meetings, would on occasion shout, "Shut the f*** up, I'm talking." Cabibi, they alleged, made derogatory remarks about Mexicans. They also alleged Cabibi made demeaning remarks about one male colleague's sexuality, alleging that on one occasion, Cabibi called this employee a "pussy" and made remarks about an employee's shoulder bag -- which Cabibi allegedly called a "fag bag." "I think, in a way, [Cabibi] thought it was funny to say that stuff," Finnigan told KPCC/LAist in an interview. "It's shock value -- but it's not funny in a work environment." Six weeks later, frustrated by what he considered a lackluster response from the district's Equal Opportunity Section, the investigator who originally complained shared his concerns with Cabibi's bosses on the LAUSD School Board -- president Monica Garcia and vice president Nick Melvoin. In the email to Garcia and Melvoin, which KPCC/LAist has obtained, the investigator outlined allegations against Cabibi, and also described OIG head Ken Bramlett as hands-off, disengaged and frequently absent. According to Finnigan, Bramlett's low profile left Cabibi free to "bully" his underlings. "Frank had full control of the office," Finnigan said in an interview. Cabibi's control "wouldn't be a bad thing if there wasn't sexual harassment going on," Finnigan said. After all, Bramlett's job was to lead OIG; Cabibi, as his deputy, managed investigations day-to-day. "But," Finnigan said, "Frank started a hostile work environment." In a phone interview with KPCC/LAist, board president Garcia said she couldn't respond directly to the allegations because they involved a personnel matter. "When issues internally -- like to this office -- arise, and the board is made aware," Garcia said, "the board has a responsibility to address them." Ten days after going to the school board, the investigator also took his grievance to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), according to a document KPCC/LAist has obtained. After this step, events appeared to accelerate. Around the same time, other OIG employees began meeting with EOS personnel, providing details on Cabibi's alleged transgressions, as well as the overall culture under Bramlett. Among those allegations: Cabibi kept a law enforcement-style baton in his office, according to two documents sent to EOS-- even though a 2012 state law made ownership of billy clubs illegal. (The possible punishment: up to a year in jail.) FRANK CABIBI IS OUT By early March 2018, Cabibi's job seemed to be in jeopardy. Aware of the allegations, Bramlett met privately with Cabibi and suggested Cabibi save face and resign, according to testimony Bramlett gave later in a sworn deposition. (Bramlett provided the testimony as part of a different wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former OIG employee, ex-investigator Cheryl Dorsey.) "I told [Cabibi], there's a possibility there would be further disciplinary action ... up to and including termination," Bramlett said in that deposition. According to Bramlett, Cabibi responded by saying he'd have to think it over. Cabibi's account differs. In a deposition of his own (also given as part of Dorsey's case), Cabibi said no one encouraged him to step down. The decision to leave LAUSD, he said, was his own. Indeed, according to a short-lived lawsuit he filed against LAUSD last fall, Cabibi said he was never punished in connection with any of these allegations, nor was he ever informed of the results of LAUSD's investigation into the complaints against him. In a written statement submitted as part of that suit, Cabibi said that a January 2018 conversation with an Equal Opportunity Section supervisor led him to believe "that the issue was minor." Cabibi wrote that he felt "the reason for the case was retaliation against me for a simple admonishment." But in documents filed as part of Cabibi's lawsuit, LAUSD lawyers said school district officials had determined the allegations against Cabibi were "well-founded." Venessa Martinez, the EOS investigator who handled the complaint against Cabibi, wrote a statement saying "some of the allegations" against Cabibi "were corroborated." Things came to a head around March 8, when an OIG employee emailed EOS to report what he perceived to be a threat. He said that Cabibi nearly mowed him down while the two passed each other in the restroom. He described Cabibi as "upset" enough to make him fearful for his safety. The employee arranged to take the next day off of work, according to the email chain with EOS, which KPCC/LAist has obtained. Cabibi came to work the next day, but it would be his last time in the office. According to his deposition testimony, Cabibi called a meeting with his subordinates and announced his resignation. He left the district shortly thereafter. FILE - Los Angeles Unified School Board member Monica Garcia (right) speaks during a meeting on Aug. 22, 2017, as colleague George McKenna (left) and LAUSD staff (rear) -- including then-Inspector General Ken Bramlett (back row, center) -- listen. (Photo by Kyle Stokes/KPCC) BRAMLETT'S LAST STAND In the wake of Frank Cabibi's departure, Inspector General Ken Bramlett now faced two hurdles. Many of his employees disapproved of his leadership methods and resented the culture they felt he'd either ignored or created since taking control in 2013. And then there was the seven-member LAUSD school board, which in June would decide whether to re-up Bramlett's contract. On March 12, 2018, the Monday after Cabibi's last appearance in the office, Bramlett called an all-hands meeting with the investigations unit -- a staff of roughly a dozen OIG employees. According to written accounts of the meeting provided to KPCC/LAist, the Inspector General said he owed some people an apology, but noted that he never saw Cabibi harass anyone. Bramlett also said that if employees are harassed, they needed to inform him; if they didn't report problems, he asked, how was he to know what was going on? Bramlett's claim of ignorance was met with a collective eye roll. Some who attended the meeting were dismayed by an apology they viewed as disingenuous followed by what they saw as passive-aggressive victim-blaming. At that point, some staffers who were unnamed witnesses to the early complaint against Cabibi decided to make their own official complaints -- not only against Cabibi, but against Bramlett and investigator Donald McMillen, the investigator who'd allegedly shared explicit photos. KPCC/LAist has reviewed complaints against Bramlett filed with both LAUSD's Equal Opportunity Section and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. These complainants also forwarded written accounts of their concerns to Bramlett's bosses on the LAUSD school board. One of the formal complaints KPCC/LAist obtained laid out accounts of the staff meeting Bramlett convened after Cabibi's dismissal. Two other employees complained separately to EOS about Bramlett's handling of that meeting. At this point, the allegation Cabibi told a female colleague she "needed to get laid" to "knock the cobwebs out of there" formally came to light in two employees' complaints to EOS. The employees wrote that Cabibi also directed similar remarks toward another woman who worked for the OIG. These documents suggest Bramlett's efforts to smooth tensions after Cabibi's departure weren't working. THE 'CO-WORKER PHOTOS' RESURFACE One day in late April 2018, Walter Finnigan walked by the desk of fellow investigator Donald McMillen. Finnigan says McMillen was going through the files of the long-dormant case that had turned up those pictures of their female Co-Worker. Finnigan is the OIG investigator who claims to have witnessed the agency's then-second-in-command, Frank Cabibi, confront the Co-Worker about the photos. Finnigan saw no reason for McMillen to be in the file; if the case wasn't closed, the investigation certainly wasn't active. Finnigan also said he was concerned that any resurfacing of that case could lead to the photos again becoming an issue. Finnigan told KPCC/LAist that on May 8, 2018, alone with the Co-Worker in his office, he asked her if anyone ever told her what was done with the photos she was in. By this point, Finnigan was a supervisor. He told the Co-Worker that he'd recently seen McMillen looking at the case file. Finnigan also said he told the Co-Worker that a year earlier he had overheard Cabibi asking her about what seemed to be the images. Finnigan recalled Cabibi showing the Co-Worker something and asking, "Who's this young lady?" After hearing the Co-Worker's account of that exchange, Finnigan said he decided he had to act. "I said to [her], 'You know, I've got to file something,'" Finnigan told KPCC/LAist, "because that's basically a violation of your privacy rights.'" The Co-Worker implored Finnigan not to take action. According to a written account of the meeting she gave to EOS, "I told Walt I had a lot of s*** to deal with. I don't need this." But Finnigan said he had no choice. The circumstances surrounding the photos, he told KPCC/LAist, were grounds for the Co-Worker to possibly make a sexual harassment complaint -- which, as a supervisor, he too was obligated to report. Finnigan said he viewed it this way: If he didn't report what he knew about the photos, the Co-Worker could later accuse him of hiding evidence of harassment; if he did report, he'd be reopening a wound. "What happens," Finnigan explained, "if she says later on, 'I told Walt about it'?" Finnigan moved forward with a report. The Co-Worker's version of the conversation with Finnigan is radically different. In a written account obtained by KPCC/LAist, she said she told Bramlett, who was still in charge, about her conversation with Finnigan right away. She reported that Finnigan spoke about the photos using "specific sexual language" that made her uncomfortable; she said Finnigan called the photos "risque." (Finnigan denied ever using the term.) She said she believed that Finnigan was seizing on an opportunity to bring down Bramlett. Bramlett sent Finnigan home on leave. In the meantime, the Co-Worker filed a sexual harassment complaint against Finnigan with the EOS, which read, in part, that he had used her story to "further an agenda." She wrote in her complaint: "[Finnigan] violated my privacy and dragged me without remorse into a very distasteful scheme." Finnigan, in a complaint he filed four days after being sent home, alleged his forced leave wasn't really about how he'd handled his conversation with the Co-Worker. He accused Bramlett of harboring a "personal vendetta" against him. 'WE FELT NO ONE WOULD SUPPORT OUR CLAIMS' Finnigan argued that given the history between them, Bramlett couldn't be objective. Finnigan had targeted Bramlett with his complaint on behalf of the Co-Worker, and supported several other complaints filed against Bramlett's right-hand-man, Cabibi. LAUSD's statement said "third-party investigations were conducted" in response to OIG employees' complaints. What's not clear is whether an outside investigator handled every complaint; Finnigan said no outside investigator was brought in to look into his firing. Two law professors specializing in employment law told KPCC/LAist that while they weren't familiar enough with the case to speak in detail about it, Finnigan's concerns about his boss's objectivity sounded valid. Given how tangled the complaint about the Co-Worker had become, USC Gould School of Law professor Lisa Klerman said that LAUSD might have handled the situation better by bringing in a third-party investigator. "Handling [the case] internally leaves open criticism that they [LAUSD] were perhaps just protecting their own," said Klerman, who's worked as a mediator in employment cases for the last 14 years. "I'm not saying that happened here, but it allows the other side to make that argument." "The issue really is, how pervasive is this [kind of behavior] within the office? Within the whole organization?" said Sandor Samuels of Loyola Law School in L.A. "If it's very pervasive, then someone's not doing their job, and you might want to bring in a third party. "If one of the issues is that the boss, the supervisor of the whole department is one of the people under investigation," he added, "obviously, you don't have that person investigating. It's the fox guarding the henhouse, so to speak." Two OIG insiders, who spoke to KPCC/LAist on the condition they not be named because they feared retribution, said Finnigan's story illustrates that something is deeply wrong with LAUSD's culture of handling workplace harassment allegations. They felt Finnigan's punishment was evidence of a double-standard. Just two weeks prior to Finnigan being sent home, another supervisor in the office was formally reprimanded for allegedly failing to speak up about Cabibi -- which would mean this supervisor would've had to speak up against his own boss. The supervisor feared Cabibi might retaliate if the supervisor went over Cabibi's head, according to two of the records obtained by KPCC/LAist that detailed concerns about Cabibi and Bramlett to LAUSD officials. A feeling of mistrust in the Equal Opportunity Section -- an LAUSD office charged with handling workplace complaints -- was a common theme in several complaints from OIG employees. Two complainants wrote to higher-ranking LAUSD officials to raise concerns EOS investigators weren't following-up with possible witnesses to complaints against Bramlett or Cabibi. "We felt no one was going to support our claims in [EOS]," Finnigan wrote in a May email to school board members Melvoin and Garcia. "It was not until after the board stepped in ... that action was taken." THE FALLOUT During a closed-door session on June 6, 2018, LAUSD school board members deadlocked 3-3 on a vote to renew Bramlett's contract. Sources told KPCC/LAist the tie-breaking vote belonged to Ref Rodriguez, who abstained due to a separate scandal that eventually cost him his job. (At the time, Rodriguez faced criminal charges connected to the finances of his 2015 campaign. He was also at the center of an inquiry into the finances at a charter school he co-founded that LAUSD officials had referred to OIG for investigation.) Without a decision, the board offered Bramlett a short-term contract extension that would've allowed him to remain on the job through September. Bramlett declined the offer. Sources told KPCC that there had been significant concerns among the board that "Bramlett was overseeing a 'hostile work environment'" in OIG. It's hard to know whether Finnigan's complaint -- or, as some might see it, his shrewd political maneuver -- played a role in Bramlett leaving. Inspector General Bramlett's final day at OIG was June 29. Three weeks later, LAUSD's Equal Opportunity Section dismissed Finnigan's complaints about Bramlett and McMillen, as well as complaints against Bramlett, Cabibi and McMillen by other OIG staffers. In some cases, EOS officials said they found minor wrongdoing by the accused officials that had already been "administratively handled," according to case closure letters KPCC/LAist has obtained. In other cases, EOS officials addressed allegations by pointing out that Bramlett and Cabibi had both already left the district. In October, more than five months after Finnigan was put on leave, top LAUSD official Alma Pena-Sanchez informed him he would be fired, according to his lawsuit. The school board made it official in a routine vote on Dec. 11. Meanwhile, Bramlett's replacement arrived on January 31, 2019. New Inspector General William Stern is a former federal agent who recently concluded 20 years with the FBI. "We will work to make sure that ... [LAUSD's] 65,000 employees do what they're trusted to do," Stern told KPCC/LAist in a phone interview earlier this month. He said he was limited in his ability to discuss the personnel matters in this story. Donald McMillen, the investigator who shared the explicit photos, and who was accused of harassment in several employees' formal complaints and in Finnigan's lawsuit, remains employed at OIG. READ MORE: WHY THE OIG OFFICE MATTERS LAUSD serves more than 484,000 children; 81 percent of the district's students qualify as low-income. LAUSD also oversees publicly funded charter schools attended by another 117,000 kids. And corruption can have a direct impact on the education those children receive in school, says Maribeth Vander Weele, the former Inspector General for Chicago Public Schools. Vander Weele knows this from experience. A former reporter, she wrote a book in 1994 laying bare the flaws in the nation's third-largest school system. In 1995, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley hired Vander Weele to investigate Chicago Public Schools from within, and she rose to become IG herself in 1998. A principal once told Vander Weele the internet in her school was wired so poorly that she had to decide between giving students internet access and sending the information necessary to pay her teachers. Vander Weele knew why: the IT administrator "wasn't competent for that job," but, like many high-ranking officials, had been hired because of his loyalty, not his skill. The job of an Inspector General's office, Vander Weele said, is to ferret out such waste and fraud. Because that's the job, Vander Weele agreed: the OIG ought to be above reproach. "If you're going to be a watchdog, you should be following higher standards when it comes to investigative behavior," Vander Weele said. Internally, she said, following a higher standard means addressing workplace culture problems, rather than allowing them to fester. Adding to the challenge, an Inspector General's office is often a venue in which workplace cultures clash. IGs often hire a mix of white-collar crime specialists -- like lawyers, auditors or journalists -- as well as former law enforcement officers. (In this story, for example, Bramlett was a former police officer in Georgia; Cabibi worked in the federal Justice and Agriculture departments; Finnigan was a longtime federal tax investigator.) "When you're managing a group of people who come from ... the rough-and-tumble world of street investigations where the niceties of a professional environment are not valued, it's a challenge," said Vander Weele, who now owns a private investigative firm that was once hired as watchdog for the Public Building Commission of Chicago. Inspectors General are not cops kicking in doors, getting their hands dirty in the name of justice, Vander Weele said. "That black-hat mentality is not something that Inspector General offices should have," she said, "because you're not dealing with street criminals. You're dealing with an education system with white-collar crime and some misbehaving employees and such -- but it's a different culture, so it invites a different type of behavior. "It's up to the leader," Vander Weele said -- meaning, it's up to the person in charge of the Inspector General's office -- "to either change that mindset, or not hire that type of person." "Or," she added, "get him out." Contact the author of this article by email here. Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 4 Vote(s) - 3 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraisers Office in Money Laundering Probe spo snouou Vocem sine nomine audivit! User ID: 350320 03-18-2019 03:24 PM Posts: 67,593 Post: #1 Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraisers Office in Money Laundering Probe Advertisement A sealed search warrant obtained by ProPublica shows federal agents scoured Elliott Broidys office for documents related to China, Saudi Arabia and a Miami Beach club promoter. Agents were authorized to use the megadonors hands and face to unlock any phones that required fingerprint or facial scans. The Washington Post reported in August that the Justice Department was investigating Broidy. The sealed warrant offers new details of federal authorities investigation of allegations that Broidy had attempted to cash in on his Trump White House connections in dealings with foreign officials. It also shows that the government took a more aggressive approach with the Trump ally than was previously known, entering his office and removing records just as it did with Trumps personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Broidy served as a major Trump campaign fundraiser and was the national deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee until he resigned in April 2018, when it was revealed he had agreed to secretly pay off a former Playboy model in exchange for her silence about their affair. The search warrant cites three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the law barring covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials. To obtain a search warrant, authorities have to convince a judge that theres a probable cause they will find evidence of those specific crimes. The search warrant also for the first time links Broidy to a globe-trotting Miami Beach party promoter. https://www.propublica.org/article/feder...ring-probe Agents were authorized to use the megadonors hands and face to unlock any phones that required fingerprint or facial scans.The Washington Post reported in August that the Justice Department was investigating Broidy. The sealed warrant offers new details of federal authorities investigation of allegations that Broidy had attempted to cash in on his Trump White House connections in dealings with foreign officials. It also shows that the government took a more aggressive approach with the Trump ally than was previously known, entering his office and removing records just as it did with Trumps personal lawyer Michael Cohen.Broidy served as a major Trump campaign fundraiser and was the national deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee until he resigned in April 2018, when it was revealed he had agreed to secretly pay off a former Playboy model in exchange for her silence about their affair.The search warrant cites three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the law barring covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials. To obtain a search warrant, authorities have to convince a judge that theres a probable cause they will find evidence of those specific crimes.The search warrant also for the first time links Broidy to a globe-trotting Miami Beach party promoter. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 459643 03-18-2019 03:29 PM Post: #2 RE: Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraisers Office in Money Laundering Probe You forgot the part where no charges were or are expected to be filed. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493474 03-18-2019 03:40 PM Post: #3 RE: Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraisers Office in Money Laundering Probe LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:29 PM) You forgot the part where no charges were or are expected to be filed. Didn't see it in this report but this is telling "Broidy, an investor based in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in 2009 to charges connected to his role in a major New York state public corruption and bribery case. But after backing Trump for president, he saw his star rise again. After the inauguration, he played a central role in filling administration vacancies, according to reports by ProPublica and others" trumpo...always hiring the best people LOL Didn't see it in this report but this is telling"Broidy, an investor based in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in 2009 to charges connected to his role in a major New York state public corruption and bribery case. But after backing Trump for president, he saw his star rise again. After the inauguration, he played a central role in filling administration vacancies, according to reports by ProPublica and others"trumpo...always hiring the best peopleLOL LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 459643 03-18-2019 03:41 PM Post: #4 RE: Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraisers Office in Money Laundering Probe LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:40 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (03-18-2019 03:29 PM) You forgot the part where no charges were or are expected to be filed. Didn't see it in this report but this is telling "Broidy, an investor based in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in 2009 to charges connected to his role in a major New York state public corruption and bribery case. But after backing Trump for president, he saw his star rise again. After the inauguration, he played a central role in filling administration vacancies, according to reports by ProPublica and others" trumpo...always hiring the best people LOL Trump is an assclown not doubt. Just more of the same. Trump is an assclown not doubt. Just more of the same. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 493667 03-18-2019 03:43 PM Post: #5 RE: Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraisers Office in Money Laundering Probe Derp derp derp orange man bad Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Your tax-deductible gift today powers our reporters and keeps us independent. We rely on you, our reader, not paywalls to stay funded because we believe important news and information should be freely accessible to all. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe When work crews hired by Southern California Edison cut back the canopy of shade trees in unincorporated Altadena last month, many residents of the foothill community were angered that their trees were left unsightly and mangled. Altadena residents' startled and angry responses to the cutting could be repeated in the other fire-vulnerable parts of Edison's vast service area -- because over the next two years, the utility is mounting a massive new tree-trimming campaign. It's aimed at reducing the risk that its power lines might spark new fires -- in which case, Edison could have to pay billions of dollars in liabilities. WHAT HAPPENED IN ALTADENA? Tree owner Liz Culpepper in front of her halved tree in Altadena California. (Chava Sanchez/ LAist) "Look at this tree. The whole side of this tree is hacked off! Now it's not likely to live," resident Liz Culpepper said, as she confronted a tree crew supervisor and recorded the exchange on her phone. An SCE-paid work crew had cut back to the trunk every single street-facing limb from two very tall, 80-year-old pine trees. Up and down the block, other trees had also been deeply cut back from power lines. Limbs that hung over power lines were also cut in some areas. The crew supervisor on the video said he had a new law on his side that let his workers cut trees 12 feet back from any power line. "The branches protruding towards our high voltage conductors could not be cut in half, they had to be trimmed to the tree trunk" to avoid leaving a stub that could promote decay within the tree, said Edison spokesman David Song. "This type of cut is the healthiest situation for the tree while achieving the compliance requirement," he said in an email. Residents disagreed. "Literally, they butchered the trees with the intention of killing them," said Greg Williams, pointing to trees near his Glenrose Avenue home that had been denuded of branches. "And that's what people up here in Altadena are upset about. They didn't cut them, they butchered them." California Edison is trimming trees in Altadena angering residents who believe the power company is going too far. (Chava Sanchez/ LAist) PRIORITIES: POWER LINES > TREES The lush tree canopy in the hilliest, most fire-vulnerable parts of Altadena have been getting a deep trim over the past month. But the unaccustomed limb-chopping has residents so angry, they called local and state politicians, who in turn, called a town hall meeting. There, Edison CEO Pedro Pizarro told them he must put his power lines ahead of their trees. "We know that homeowners care deeply for their surrounding environment and for their foliage, and we want to respect that," Pizarro said. "However we will prioritize the safety of your home and our communities, first and foremost. So, we will trim trees when needed." He added that the company needs to raise public awareness about the danger that power lines contacting trees presents to the power system and to their homes. "I'll be honest with you, this is an area where the public awareness is improving and increasing, but more needs to be done," Pizarro said. California Edison is trimming trees in Altadena angering residents who believe the power company is going too far. (Chava Sanchez/ LAist) WHY IS EDISON TRIMMING TREES MORE AGGRESSIVELY? As part of its fire mitigation plan filed in February, the utility says that it is undergoing a comprehensive redesign and restructuring of its vegetation management program. It's being rolled out in stages, starting this year. And it includes an increased focus on taking out any tree that puts its branches close enough to touch a power line -- and potentially spark a fire. The new tactic is a response to to California's heightened fire danger. Fire season can run nearly year-round, due to climate change, years of drought and an overload of flammable vegetation and trees in foothill and mountain communities. The company says that cutting back trees near power lines also makes the community safer because it reduces the amount of vegetation that could set homes on fire. Southern California Edison's equipment was recently blamed for starting the massive 2017 Thomas Fire, which began near Santa Paula and burned through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, killing two people and burning more than 1,000 homes. One month later, a torrential rain in the mountains above Montecito caused a disastrous mudslide that damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes in the coastal community and killed 23 people. The company has said it could end up paying nearly $5 billion in damages in the two disasters. Details from trees trimmed by the power company in an Altadena neighborhood. (Chava Sanchez/ LAist) HOW IS THE NEW TREE-TRIMMING AND CUTTING PROGRAM DIFFERENT FROM BEFORE? Three new things are going on. In 2017, state standards for clearing around power lines increased from a mandatory 4 feet up to a recommended 12 feet. Also, Edison will clear all trees and brush directly under power lines that could potentially grow into the 12-foot clearance zone. That's why Altadena neighbors and others are seeing deeper trims than were previously done. Under state law, Edison has always had to trim branches near power lines and take down dead and diseased trees. But Edison's new Grid Safety and Resiliency Plan targets healthy trees. Over the next two years it plans to cut down 22,500-45,000 healthy trees that could fall or blow into power lines, even if those trees are as much as 200 feet from those lines. Finally, a new state law, AB 2911, gave Edison unlimited access to private land to prune or remove trees from around power lines. Utilities are supposed to tell the owners before they trim, but they no longer need to get permission. Aerial view of Glenrose Avenue in Altadena, one of the neighborhoods affected by California Edison's recent tree trimmings. (Chava Sanchez/ LAist) WHICH AREAS WILL BE MOST AFFECTED? The top priority for trimming trees is in areas that are in Tier 2 and Tier 3 of this fire risk map, filed with the California Public Utilities Commission. And the footprints of those higher risk areas has expanded in the past year, so some areas that had not previously seen deep trimming may be seeing it this year, said Edison spokesman David Song. Cutting is already going on in La Canada-Flintridge, La Verne and other hillside communities. In all, more than one-third of Edison's vast service area has places where fire risk is elevated or extreme. A tree-trimming crew hired by Southern California Edison trims an old pine away from power lines March 8, 2019 (Sharon McNary/KPCC/LAist) BUT THE CUTS CAN BE UNSIGHTLY. WHAT CAN TREE OWNERS DO? Company spokespeople say owners could have avoided unsightly trims if they had kept their trees from growing into power lines, or planted different trees decades ago, mindful of how big they might eventually grow. The company has a "Right Tree, Right Place" brochure to help people choose trees less likely to interfere with power lines. And if you're really into the nitty-gritty of the rules Edison follows when trimming trees, they are filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (See Order 95, Rule 35, Table 1, Case 14 for high fire risk areas) And the state Public Resource Code section 4295.5. 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02 (2) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (3) May 30 (1) May 29 (1) May 28 (2) May 26 (1) May 25 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (1) May 15 (1) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 30 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (2) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (1) Apr 19 (1) Apr 18 (1) Apr 12 (1) Apr 11 (1) Apr 09 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 05 (1) Apr 01 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 27 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 19 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 16 (1) Mar 15 (2) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) Los Angeles: Southern Californians once again awoke to the disturbing news of a terrorist attack, this time in Utrecht, Netherlands. The Los Angeles Police Department continues to communicate with fellow law enforcement partners both domestically and over-seas. At this time, there is no nexus to Los Angeles. However, we are working with the Metropolitan Transit Authority as well as other local agencies to ensure our commuting public is safe and secure. Out of an abundance of caution, the Department will have a very visible presence throughout the transit system. Today's violence is a sobering reminder once again. If you should see something out of the ordinary, please notify authorities or report it to iWATCHLA.org. If you see something, say something. Public Schools Get Funding to Bridge the Achievement Gap Serious steps that must be taken to close the achievement gap and improve educational outcomes for our lowest-performing students. In September 2018, California took a huge step forward in supporting thousands of students who are being left behind academically year after year. Thanks to new funding through the Low Performing Students Block Grant (LPSBG), our states lowest-performing students are set to receive an additional $2,000 in per-pupil educational funding. This critical new one-time funding, adapted from Assembly Bill (AB) 2635, will help close the achievement gap and increase funding for nearly 150,000 of the states lowest-performing students by driving additional resources to school districts, county offices of education, and charter public schools. In November 2018, the California Department of Education (CDE) sent an official letter to County Superintendents of Schools detailing new information regarding the LPSBG , including how much funding school districts, charter schools or county offices are scheduled to receive based on the number of eligible students. Students are only eligible for LPSBG funding if they are not otherwise identified for supplemental grant funding under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) or eligible for special education services. A total of 47 school districts across the state which will receive at least $1 million dollars for the school year 2018-19 as part of the LPSBG. By March 1, each of these districts (Local Educational Agencies or LEAs) are required to submit a plan for how they will use the grant funds to increase academic performance. By November 1, 2021, the districts must submit a report detailing implementation of their plans, the strategies used, and whether those strategies successfully increased the academic performance of the identified pupils. ADVERTISEMENT Significant research exists to help guide principals and school leaders in the development and implementation of the LPSBG. I encourage school leaders to consider how they will communicate and involve parents in their plans. For example, Ive conducted trainings using research-based parent testimonials. Evaluations of these training programs are posted at no charge on the website: www.fortuneandassoicates.com. More information is available in my book entitled, Bridging the Achievement Gap: What Successful Educators and Parents Do. LPSBG funding is a new opportunity for us to make deeper investments in the success of our most vulnerable students. And school leaders should be aware of the resources that exist to help ensure these funds help our neediest students. Successful implementation of this funding could pave the way for similar, and perhaps larger, investments in the future. The Low-Performing Students Block Grant (LPSBG) is a big win for our students. Lets make it count! Dr. Rex Fortune served as the Associate Superintendent of Public Instruction in the California Department of Education and superintendent of two California school districts. He founded Fortune School of Education (FSE), established a Masters Degree in Education program for FSE graduates, and worked with his daughter, Margaret G. Fortune, who established a charter management organization. Dr. Fortune served as past chairman of the board of Fortune School of Education and as its director of research and evaluation. He also served as past president of the Pacific Charter Institute board. Fortune received his B.S. degree in biology and US Army Commission from A & T State University of North Carolina, his MA in educational administration from UC Berkeley and his PhD in educational administration from Stanford University. Bridging the Achievement Gap: What Successful Educators and Parents Do Second Edition, released in October 2018 is his fifth book in Education. All three of his children are college graduates. Fortune and his wife Margaret S. Fortune live in Granite Bay, California. The fascinating melodrama DESERT FURY (1947) has been released on a spectacular-looking Blu-ray by Kino Lorber DESERT FURY looks as good as any Technicolor film I've ever seen; it's up there with LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945) as having Technicolor so rich it's worth watching just to look at it.Fortunately there's quite a bit more to the film than just its looks; the movie also echoes LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN's fascination with a psychologically twisted character but takes it to the next level, with a story about not one but several disturbed people. Good-looking nice guy cop Tom (Burt Lancaster) is perhaps the lone sane person amidst the bunch of folks caught up in myriad love triangles.Paula ( Lizabeth Scott , who's improbably said to be 19) returns to a small town in Arizona, fleeing the latest in a series of boarding schools she's been sent to by her mother Fritzi (Mary Astor). Fritzi is looked down on by the townspeople for running a gambling joint and aspires for more for her daughter, but the troubled Paula isn't interested. Mother and daughter continually clash as the controlling Fritzi tries to pull strings to direct Paula's life, to the point of trying to buy her the man she views as an acceptable husband.Paula is soon at the center of three different love triangles: Tom yearns for her, but she's hung up on bad guy Eddie (John Hodiak), a racketeer whose wife died somewhat mysteriously at a bridge outside town. As Paula gets more serious about Eddie, she learns that he and her mother Fritzi (Mary Astor) once had a relationship. As if that weren't enough for Paula to deal with, there's another strong competitor for Eddie's affections: Eddie's right-hand man Johnny (Wendell Corey), who's extremely possessive and doesn't want to let go. Not your typical plot in 1947.At times the overheated small-town melodrama, which includes crooked cops and a judge on the take, seems to be a bit of a precursor to FLAMINGO ROAD (1949), but for the most part it has a unique style of its own. The movie plays like a strange dream, filled with giant picture windows, overdone furniture, thunderstorms, the Piru Mansion , and the red rocks of Sedona, all seen in amazingly unreal Technicolor. One almost expects Lancaster to tell Scott she'd just been having a nightmare as they calmly walk away from a dead body in the final scene! Lancaster's role is fairly small but gives the viewer someone to root for. Scott's Paula clearly has Mommy issues, and she's probably also got problems as the daughter of a dead crook. Lancaster, Scott, and Corey costarred later the same year in I WALK ALONE (1947), along with Kristine Miller , who receives prominent billing in DESERT FURY yet is little more than an extra as Scott's character drives into town at the start of the film. Scott drives past and Miller's character is never seen again!I like Hodiak but his character is a bit one note, barking at Johnny while trying to convince himself he can have a new life in the desert with Paula. That said, his anger with Johnny lends itself to interesting interpretations, and his character has a moment with some coffee late in the film which made me audibly gasp. Corey played quite an unusual part in his film debut, with the Paula-Johnny battle over Eddie being central to the film; Corey's performance builds to a terrific final confrontation scene with Hodiak in a roadside diner. DESERT FURY was directed by Lewis Allen THE UNINVITED ). It was filmed by Edward Cronjager and Charles Lang . The script by Robert Rossen was based on a novel by Ramona Stewart. The running time is a well-paced 96 minutes.The supporting cast includes Anna Camargo, Milton Kibbee, Ray Teal, William Harrigan, and James Flavin.I found this film quite entertaining. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks absolutely superb and is a "must" buy for anyone who appreciates stunning mid '40s Technicolor.Extras include a commentary track by Imogen Sara Smith, the trailer, and nine additional trailers for Burt Lancaster films. Here is a look at a number of this film's locations in Cottonwood, Arizona. Monday, March 18, 2019 The United States Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari in Ramos v. Louisiana posing the question whether the right to a unanimous jury verdict is incorporated as against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Recall that in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), in which a 5-4 Court held that the Second Amendment is incorporated as against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (with four Justices finding this occurred through the Due Process Clause and Justice Thomas stating the proper vehicle was the Privileges or Immunities Clause), Justice Alito writing for the plurality discussed the state of incorporation doctrine in some detail. In footnote 12, Alito's opinion discussed the provisions of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that had been incorporated, providing citations, and in footnote 13, the opinion discussed the provisions that had not yet been incorporated, other than the Second Amendment then under consideration: the Third Amendments protection against quartering of soldiers; the Fifth Amendments grand jury indictment requirement; the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in civil cases; and the Eighth Amendments prohibition on excessive fines. Just this term in February, the Court whittled this small list down to three, deciding unanimously in Timbs v. Indiana that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on excessive fines is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment, following an oral argument in which some Justices expressed wonderment that the issue of incorporation was even arguable in 2018. But embedded in Timbs was a dispute about whether the "right" and the "substance of the right" must be similar, a question that the Court did not address. That dispute is at the heart of the incorporation doctrine surrounding the right to have a unanimous jury verdict. Justice Alito explained the problem in footnote 14 of McDonald, after stating in the text that the general rule is that rights "are all to be enforced against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment according to the same standards that protect those personal rights against federal encroachment. There is one exception to this general rule. The Court has held that although the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury requires a unanimous jury verdict in federal criminal trials, it does not require a unanimous jury verdict in state criminal trials. See Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404 (1972); see also Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356 (1972) (holding that the Due Process Clause does not require unanimous jury verdicts in state criminal trials). But that ruling was the result of an unusual division among the Justices, not an endorsement of the two-track approach to incorporation. In Apodaca, eight Justices agreed that the Sixth Amendment applies identically to both theFederal Government and the States. See Johnson, supra, at 395 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Nonetheless, among those eight, four Justices took the view that the Sixth Amendment does not require unanimous jury verdicts in either federal or state criminal trials, Apodaca, 406 U. S., at 406 (plurality opinion), and four other Justices took the view that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous jury verdicts in federal and state criminal trials, id., at 414415 (Stewart, J., dissenting); Johnson, supra, at 381382 (Douglas, J., dissenting). Justice Powells concurrence in the judgment broke the tie, and he concluded that the Sixth Amendment requires juror unanimity in federal, but not state, cases. Apodaca, therefore, does not undermine the well-established rule that incorporated Bill of Rights protections apply identically to the States and the Federal Government. See Johnson, supra, at 395396 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted) (In any event, the affirmance must not obscure that the majority of the Court remains of the view that, as in the case of every specific of the Bill of Rights that extends to the States, the Sixth Amendments jury trialguarantee, however it is to be construed, has identical application against both State and Federal governments.") Thus, in Ramos v. Louisiana, the Court is set to address this "exception to the general rule" and decide whether jury unanimity is required in a criminal case in state court to the same extent as in federal court pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment. [image via] https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2019/03/scotus-agrees-to-hear-unanimous-jury-incorporation-challenge.html Monday, March 18, 2019 Last week, the Trump administration announced the possible closing of immigration services offices outside the United States, saying it is expected to save millions of dollars annually and could better address a backlog in domestic locations. Specifically, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman said that the agency is in preliminary discussions to close offices in 20 countries outside the United States. Nicole Acevedo, Carmen Sesin and Reuters for NBC News reports that Immigration advocates and attorneys are concerned that the Trump administration is creating a bigger catastrophe if it follows through with plans to permanently close the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "This is going to affect refugees, military servicemen applying for citizenship, the family reunification program," an immigration attorney based in Miami, told NBC News. KJ https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/03/concerns-rise-over-us-plan-to-close-all-overseas-immigration-offices.html Monday, March 18, 2019 A newly reconfigured Florida Supreme Court and 6 tort reform bills mean the likelihood of tort reform in Florida has increased. Newly elected Governor DeSantis made 3 appointments to the high court, turning a 4-3 conservative minority into a 6-1 majority. There are 4 House bills and two in the Senate proposing tort reform. Among other provisions, the bills would cap pain-and-suffering damages at $1M, without the jury being informed, and reform "bad faith" suits. Florida Watchdog has details. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/tortsprof/2019/03/fl-prospects-for-tort-reform-increase.html Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Republican Sen. Wants To Get Congress Out Of A Rut By Taking Away A Prized Cash C She Man lop guest User ID: 453356 03-18-2019 07:12 PM Post: #1 Republican Sen. Wants To Get Congress Out Of A Rut By Taking Away A Prized Cash C Advertisement Republican Senator Wants To Get Congress Out Of A Rut By Taking Away A Prized Cash Cow Freshman Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Braun of Indiana are the cosponsors of the Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act. Scott and Braun want to put an end to lawmakers stepping into the so-called revolving door of K Street using their connections to become well-heeled lobbyists once they are out of office. I think that here youd attract better people if you didnt have them make a career out of it, Braun told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, co-sponsor of a recently introduced bill banning ex-congressmen from lobbying Congress, said his bill would help get Congress out of a rut but hes not expecting the legislation to gain traction anytime soon. I think that here youd attract better people if you didnt have them make a career out of it, Braun told The Daily Caller News Foundation. But so many incentives are put in place with pensions, the ability after youre done to become a lobbyist, so you do nestle in, and then you start maybe not making the right long-term decisions. You basically make a decision: what will be best for me to nestle in further, be around here longer. Braun and Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott are the cosponsors of the Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act, introduced Feb. 28. Braun connected the legislation to his reform agenda, including doing away with taxpayer-funded pensions for members of Congress. (RELATED: Two Senators Introduce Bill To Keep Members Of Congress From Cashing In As Lobbyists) Although the lawmakers are barking up the right tree, their solution might not be realistic, a government transparency expert told TheDCNF. Freshman Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Braun of Indiana are the cosponsors of the Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act.Scott and Braun want to put an end to lawmakers stepping into the so-called revolving door of K Street using their connections to become well-heeled lobbyists once they are out of office.I think that here youd attract better people if you didnt have them make a career out of it, Braun told The Daily Caller News Foundation.Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, co-sponsor of a recently introduced bill banning ex-congressmen from lobbying Congress, said his bill would help get Congress out of a rut but hes not expecting the legislation to gain traction anytime soon.I think that here youd attract better people if you didnt have them make a career out of it, Braun told The Daily Caller News Foundation. But so many incentives are put in place with pensions, the ability after youre done to become a lobbyist, so you do nestle in, and then you start maybe not making the right long-term decisions. You basically make a decision: what will be best for me to nestle in further, be around here longer.Braun and Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott are the cosponsors of the Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act, introduced Feb. 28. Braun connected the legislation to his reform agenda, including doing away with taxpayer-funded pensions for members of Congress. (RELATED: Two Senators Introduce Bill To Keep Members Of Congress From Cashing In As Lobbyists)Although the lawmakers are barking up the right tree, their solution might not be realistic, a government transparency expert told TheDCNF. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 453356 03-18-2019 07:13 PM Post: #2 RE: Republican Sen. Wants To Get Congress Out Of A Rut By Taking Away A Prized Cash C She Man Wrote: (03-18-2019 07:12 PM) Republican Senator Wants To Get Congress Out Of A Rut By Taking Away A Prized Cash Cow Freshman Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Braun of Indiana are the cosponsors of the Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act. Scott and Braun want to put an end to lawmakers stepping into the so-called revolving door of K Street using their connections to become well-heeled lobbyists once they are out of office. I think that here youd attract better people if you didnt have them make a career out of it, Braun told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Republican Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, co-sponsor of a recently introduced bill banning ex-congressmen from lobbying Congress, said his bill would help get Congress out of a rut but hes not expecting the legislation to gain traction anytime soon. I think that here youd attract better people if you didnt have them make a career out of it, Braun told The Daily Caller News Foundation. But so many incentives are put in place with pensions, the ability after youre done to become a lobbyist, so you do nestle in, and then you start maybe not making the right long-term decisions. You basically make a decision: what will be best for me to nestle in further, be around here longer. Braun and Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott are the cosponsors of the Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act, introduced Feb. 28. Braun connected the legislation to his reform agenda, including doing away with taxpayer-funded pensions for members of Congress. (RELATED: Two Senators Introduce Bill To Keep Members Of Congress From Cashing In As Lobbyists) Although the lawmakers are barking up the right tree, their solution might not be realistic, a government transparency expert told TheDCNF. https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/03/17/m...ick-scott/ Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread China says it has arrested almost 13,000 people it describes as terrorists since 2014. It also says it has broken up more than a thousand terrorist gangs in the western Xinjiang region. That information comes from a government report released Monday. The report says the governments efforts have lessened religious extremism in Xinjiang. But, it gave little evidence of what crimes had been carried out. Criticism has grown over Chinas internment of an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim ethnic groups living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Chinese government has described the internment camps as job training centers and, more recently, boarding schools. But former camp detainees have said they were held in abusive conditions, forced to reject their faith and made to promise their support to Chinas ruling Communist Party. Government officials have barred outside investigators trying to independently confirm the former detainees reports. More and more camps have been built across Xinjiang over the past two years. The area also has a huge security presence, with block-by-block police checkpoints and thousands of spy cameras. The new report says that, along with the arrests of so-called terrorists and terrorist gangs, more than 30,000 people were punished for taking part in illegal religious activities. Chinas government has for years tried to suppress pro-independence opinions in Xinjiang. Those opinions grew stronger over the years, as the government moved more and more Han Chinese migrants into the region. The Uyghur language and culture are closely related to Turkic groups in Central Asia. Even with its religious, cultural and linguistic differences, China says Xinjiang has been Chinese for thousands of years. Mondays report aimed to lessen the influence of Islam in Xinjiang throughout history, saying Islam is not the natural faith of the Uyghurs and other ethncities, nor is it their only faith. Uyghur activists and human rights experts say the camps are part of an aggressive government campaign to destroy the Uyghur identity. China has aimed to defend itself against charges of cultural genocide. It says its critics want to destroy Chinas rise as a world power. Patrick Poon is a China researcher for Amnesty International. He said the report does not define terrorism or extremism. He said this, in part, helps the government charge and arrest anyone for any reason. Maya Wang is a senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch. She said the release of the report shows China is concerned about its international image. Wang added, If the Chinese government is so certain that it has nothing to hide in Xinjiang, then it should allow independent international observers, such as the U.N., into the region. The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story internment adj.to hold against ones will in a place without options linguistic adj.about language faith n.a religion or belief sanctions n. an action that is taken or an order that is given to force a country to obey international laws by limiting or stopping trade with that country, by not allowing economic aid for that country, etc. usually plural allow v. to permit The leader of Tibetan Buddhism says it is possible that when he dies, the next Dalai Lama might be found in India. He also said that if China appoints the next Dalai Lama, the choice would not be respected. The Buddhist leader spoke to the Reuters news agency from Dharamshala, India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years. On Sunday, Tibetans in that town marked the anniversary of the Dalai Lamas escape from Lhasa in Tibet. He fled to India in early 1959 after a failed attempt to end Chinese rule in the area. He has since worked to gain worldwide support for self-rule for Tibet. China took control of the territory in 1950. It considers the 83-year-old Buddhist leader and Nobel peace prize winner a dangerous separatist. China has argued that its leaders have the historical right to approve the Dalai Lamas successor. The Dalai Lama told Reuters China may try to do so after he dies. China considers Dalai Lamas reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me, he said. Tibetan tradition says that the spirit of the highest Buddhist clergyman is reincarnated upon death in the body of a child. Many Tibetans suspect any Chinese involvement in the process would be a trick to try to influence the community. Born in 1935, the current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old. Many of Chinas more than 6 million Tibetans continue to honor the Dalai Lama, although the government has banned public demonstrations of support. Up for discussion The Dalai Lama said that contacts between Tibetans living in their homeland and in exile were increasing. But he said there have been no official meetings between Chinese officials and his top assistants since 2010. However, some retired Chinese officials and businessmen with ties to Chinas government visit him from time to time, he added. He said the future of the Dalai Lama tradition could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year. If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain, he said. Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama. He added that a new Tibetan Buddhist leader would continue to have no political responsibility. The Dalai Lama surrendered his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India. Love of science During the interview, the Dalai Lama also spoke excitedly about his love for several sciences, including the study of the brain and physics, the laws of nature. He said that if he were ever permitted to visit Tibet, he would like to speak about such subjects at a Chinese university. The Dalai Lama was born in a village on the northeastern edge of historical Tibet, in Chinas Qinghai province. During a recent Reuters visit there, police armed with machine guns blocked the road. Police and other officials said the village was not open to non-locals. Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun, the Dalai Lama said. So for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful. Im Caty Weaver. Reuters reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow 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 reincarnation - n. the idea or belief that people are born again with a different body after death predecessor - n. a person who had a job or position before someone else institution - n. a custom, practice, or law that is accepted and used by many people interview - n. a meeting between a reporter and another person in order to get information for a news story More than 1,000 people are feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone, or ocean storm, hit the country. Entire villages were left underwater as bodies floated by, the nation's president said. "It is a real disaster of great proportions," President Filipe Nyusi said. Cyclone Idai could prove to be Mozambiques deadliest storm in generations. It struck Thursday night in Beira, an Indian Ocean port of about 500,000 people. The storm's strong winds and heavy rains then moved inland toward Zimbabwe and Malawi. Speaking on state Radio Mozambique, Nyusi said that even though the official death count in his country stood at 84, "It appears that we can register more than 1,000 deaths." United Nations agencies and the Red Cross helped get emergency food and medicine by helicopter to the affected countries. Mount Chiluvo, in central Mozambique, was badly hit by flooding. One person there said he heard a loud noise, like an explosion, and suddenly saw a river of mud flowing toward his home. "I was indoors with my children, but when we looked, we saw mud coming down the road towards the houses and we fled," Francisco Carlitos told Lusa, the Portuguese News Agency. The family lost their home and possessions. Nyusi cut short a visit to neighboring Swaziland because of the disaster. He spoke on the radio after flying by helicopter over Beira and two rural provinces. He reported widespread destruction there. "The waters of the Pungue and Buzi rivers overflowed, making whole villages disappear and isolating communities...," Nyusi said. The Red Cross said 90 percent of the city was damaged or destroyed. The cyclone knocked out electricity, shut down the airport and blocked road travel to and from Beira. The destruction there is "massive and horrifying," said Jamie LeSueur. He led a Red Cross helicopter team investigating the damage. More than 215 people are confirmed dead from the storm in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Hundreds more are missing. Im Caty Weaver. The Associated Press reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for VOA Learning English. 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 proportions - n. the size, shape, or extent of something (plural) isolate - v. to put or keep (someone or something) in a place or situation that is separate from others Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the fifth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine with a visit to the area. Putin began his trip Monday by overseeing the launch of two new power stations. He praised completion of the centers, which he said will cover up to 90 percent of Crimeas power needs. Putin said, Today another important step has been taken to strengthen the energy security of the Crimean Peninsula and of the whole south of the Russian Federation. The power stations are part of a major effort to make a modern Crimea. It began after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. The annexation of Crimea was condemned by the international community. The European Union (EU) and United States placed economic restrictions on Russia for the action. Ukraine says it wants Crimea back and most countries still recognize it as Ukrainian territory. Putin claims that Russia re-integrated Crimea after the ouster of Ukraines former pro-Russian president in 2014. He has said the action was necessary to protect ethnic Russians that make up the majority of Crimeas population from Ukrainian nationalists. The annexation gave Russia hundreds of kilometers of coastline along the Black Sea. It also expanded Russian control over economic activities in the Sea of Azov and provided an opening to possible energy resources around the Black Sea. Last year, Putin attended the launch of another major development project a bridge linking southern Russia to the Crimean city of Kerch. The 19-kilometer bridge cost $3.6 billion to build. A railroad bridge is also being built as Russia seeks to expand direct supply links to Crimea. Ukraine cut off energy to Crimea and blocked supply shipments from its territory after the annexation. While Putin was celebrating the 5th anniversary in Crimea, NATO and the European Union once again criticized the annexation. In a statement Monday, NATO allies said we strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. The NATO allies also criticized Russias military buildup in Crimea. The statement also accused Russian de-facto officials in Crimea of carrying out human rights abuses. These included arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture against members of the Crimean Tartar community, NATO said. The statement demanded that Russia bring an immediate end to all violations and abuses in illegally annexed Crimea and let international observational organizations into the area. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini repeated the organizations position that Crimea remains a part of Ukrainian territory, saying Europe stands in full solidarity with Ukraine. Im Jonathan Evans. Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English based on reports from the Associated Press and Reuters. Caty Weaver 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 annexation n. the taking of territory by a country, state, etc. reintegrate v. restore to unity de-facto adj. existing in fact, although not official or legal arbitrary adj. not based on a system or principles and often seeming unfair Last Saturday, we were invited to join the media lunch for August Man Run. August Man Run will return for its second edition, after a very successful inaugural run in 2017.I was crazy enough to turn up to August Man Run in 2017 right after concluding my UM24 run (podium tau. hahaha) just a few hours before. Simply because August Man Run 2017 had so many interesting goodies that I didn't want to miss out on. Hah hahSo don't miss out on this year's edition too!August Man magazine is a men's luxury lifestyle publication and the run is aimed to promote physical and mental wellness through running. Various festivities will also be held on the day such as lucky draws and a best dressed award.Registration is already open, with 6K and 12K categories available.The August Man Run 2019 has partnered with KEN Holdings, Ultron, Fossil, Spritzer, Malta, Babel Fit, Milo and many others in ensuring a lifestyle run like no other.A brief rundown of the August Man Run:10.30 am - 8.00 pm Race Kit Collection10.30 am - 3.00 pm Race Kit Collection4.30 pm - 5.00 pm Pre-Run Warm Up5.00 pm Flag off for 12K5.15 pm Flag off for 6K7.00 pm - 10.00 pm Awards and partyMore details on the run and registration details are available at The August Man Run 2019 . You can also visit their Facebook page @augustmanmyrun for updates.Welcome speech by Rubin Khoo, associate publisher of August Man Magazine.Something different this year, the run will be held on Saturday, in the evening.After a quick lunch provided by the organizer, we headed out to check the whole 12K route.The run will start at Menara KEN, TTDI and we will be running heading towards Rumah Bakti Tun Siti Hasmah.6K will be making a u-turn at this 3K mark while 12K runners will continue onwards into a private road section where we'll see minimal traffic (but there will be monkeys!)There are a few rolling sections but as commented by other runners that were there, it's nothing to be worried about.The organizer and technical director assured us that safety will be of the upmost importance and necessary measures will be implemented to ensure a smooth and safe race.I can say, it'll be an interesting run - something different than what I normally do for a race because I rarely do an evening race that starts at 5pm.After the preview, we regrouped at Menara KEN and a few of us had another coffee and gossip session.Some cakes with coffee didn't hurt either.We shared carrot cakes and this interesting cendol cake.I ordered the cendol cake because its striking look. Yeah, just for the looks only.The taste is quite subtle and I have to say, doesn't remind me of cendol at all.I'll be joining the August Man Run on Apr 20, 2019 and hope to see some friends there too.And I sure can't wait to use the Starbucks vouchers which will be given to participants later too! Fans of Milo fret not, Milo will be there too! ^^Collaborating with the organizer, Cik Arnab & Kura-Kura is doing a giveaway for our followers and readers where we have 3 August Man Run complimentary slots for 3 lucky winners. Do head over to our Facebook page Cik Arnab & En Kura-Kura to join the giveaway. Giveaway ends on Mar 21, 2019.Alternatively, you can register to join August Man Run here The central government said it intends to preserve the separate customs territories and free ports of Macau and Hong Kong so as to allow the two Special Administrative Regions to continue delivering investment advantages to the mainland. Hong Kong and Macau are Chinas Special Administrative Regions. And the two sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one, and the same, China. We have all along attached high importance to investments from these three regions, said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, as cited by the Hong Kong Free Press. We will further harness the advantages of Hong Kong and Macau as separate customs territories and free ports, he continued, adding that investments from the two SARs account for about 70 percent of Chinas foreign investments on the mainland. Li also said that the government would work towards implementing policies that encourage business people in Taiwan to invest in mainland China. Lis comments come as central authorities are pushing for greater economic and political integration of Macau and Hong Kong into Guangdong province via the Greater Bay Area initiative. The project has sparked fears in the two SARs that the integration will entail an erosion of economic autonomy. DB The camp of former health secretary Alfredo Bengzon plans to elevate the ownership dispute over The Medical City to the Court of Appeals. It issued the statement after the Pasig Regional Trial Court denied the Bengzon groups petition for injunctive relief against the group of Jose Gonzales and his Singaporean partners Viva Holdings Inc. We are disappointed by the denial of our petition to stop the Gonzales and Viva companies from together consolidating corporate control until the SEC has resolved the serious questions before it, said Roderico Puno, the legal counsel of Bengzon. The Pasig courts decision is erroneous in matters of fact and law and we are raising this matter to the Court of Appeals, Bengzon said. Bengzons camp earlier asked the Pasig RTC to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent the Gonzales-Viva group from continuing their efforts to consolidate the control of TMC at the level of Professional Services Inc. and its subsidiaries. TMC, operated by the PSI, has been under the leadership of Bengzon for a long period until the election of Gonzales as the new chairman of the board. The Gonzales group filed criminal complaints for violation of inspection rights and perjury against Bengzon before the Prosecutors Office of Makati City and Pasig City.These complaints were dismissed for insufficiency of evidence. Bengzons camp expressed optimism that the Securities and Exchange Commission would soon resolve the legal battle among TMC shareholders. The SEC in November 2018 charged the corporations of Gonzales and Viva with violations of the countrys Securities Regulation Code, including those that aim to protect stockholders from fraudulent, manipulative and deceptive act[s] or practice[s] in connection with securities transactions. Lawyers of Bengzon said they were hopeful that in the end the SEC would penalize the alleged fraudulent acts of the Gonzales-Viva group and settle all questions regarding the rightful ownership of PSI shares. Bengzon, a founding shareholder of TMC, was responsible for rescuing the institution from near bankruptcy in the 1970s and building it up into one of the biggest healthcare institutions in the Philippines. Seven Chinese men allege in a lawsuit that they were victims of a forced labor scheme while constructing a Saipan casino. The casino and its contractors violated U.S. trafficking laws by exploiting the workers, the lawsuit said. Saipan is part of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The lawsuit was filed in December. It was amended Friday to add trafficking claims and to include casino owner Imperial Pacific as a defendant. Representatives for Hong Kong-based Imperial Pacific and the contractors named in the lawsuit couldnt immediately be reached for comment. According to the lawsuit, the men were subjected to 12-hour workdays, dormitories without showers or air-conditioning and a dangerous construction site. Their supervisors yelled and cursed at them, and forced them to pay fines if they did not work hard enough or arrived late, the lawsuit said. Imperial Pacific knew about, or recklessly disregarded the exploitation by their contractors, the lawsuit said: However, rushing to complete the project, rather than remedy the situation, Imperial Pacific and its contractors sought to conceal their illegal scheme from government authorities, medical providers, and any party that might hold them accountable. U.S. officials announced USD14 million in settlements last year with Chinese construction firms building the casino after finding workers were paid less than required. Many foreign migrant workers suffer injuries and endure abuse, but have no access to a remedy, said Aaron Halegua, a New York attorney helping represent the construction workers. Fortunately, because these events occurred in a U.S. Commonwealth, the plaintiffs are protected under U.S. law. AP Presented to the public by the Executive Council (ExCo) last week, a law proposal that aims to enforce a surcharge on plastic bag distribution in the retail industry has already started to pique the interest of society. With the purpose of examining the impact of such a bill on both industry and the populace, the Times conducted its own interviews ahead of the scrutiny the proposed law faces next at the Legislative Assembly. A shift manager of a large supermarket located in the central district told the Times that it was hard to tell the number of plastic bags they distribute on a daily basis, but it should be a few thousand on average. Although the shop has a specific shelf that advertises the sale and use of reusable shopping bags, the same person confided there are not many people using them. A few, mostly foreigners and people from Hong Kong or Taiwan that are more used to [eco- friendly policies]. The retailer has not yet established a strategic plan for when the law comes into force, but the shift manager advanced that for several years the company has had its own initiative to collect and package recyclable materials. In the managers opinion, when the measure comes into force, it will all go smoothly, as in other regions. In fact, just days after its announcement, the manager told the Times that the topic has already created some minor disruption in the daily routine of the supermarket. She said that in the past few days many customers have been asking if we are already charging for the bags or not. A manager of another supermarket store this time located in Taipa said, I personally 100 percent support the plastic charge. We already encourage customers to use less bags, bring their own or buy bio-degradable ones. I do not foresee any negative impact in the retail business. Any disruption would be in the short term of the transition period, which can be minimized through communication. The manager added that people from Hong Kong and the mainland are already used to paying a plastic bag surcharge. As for Macau residents, most also have such experience in paying [for the bags] during their visits to the mainland, Hong Kong and other overseas destinations. He said that over time people would just get used to it and habits would settle similar to the implementation of the indoor smoking ban. Meaningless measure Not everyone is in agreement. Interviewed by the Times adjacent to a trash collection center, a 63-year-old retired civil servant said he thinks the bill will be ineffective. I think its tomfoolery, he ranted, adding, the [plastic] bags are the least important thing. The [take-away] boxes and the tea [and drinks] plastic cups are far worse and more polluting I think. They think were all stupid, [but] thats just a way to hunt for our money, the retiree said. If they do not give the bags [free of charge] in the supermarkets and stores then we will need to buy them because the trash has to be disposed in plastic bags. It is an IAM [Municipal Affairs Bureau] rule; otherwise we are bothered or fined. It seems that they [the government departments] cannot understand each other and only find measures with no logic whatsoever just to pretend that they work. It has been this way in the last years, they launch some measure that does not produce the intended effects. In his opinion, most people do reuse shopping bags, unless they are dirty, of course, which is why he regards the proposed law as a meaningless measure. In the residents opinion, the bad example often comes from the government itself that often uses unnecessary plastic materials for short- term decorative purposes like fairs and events, noting that they should take the lead instead of always putting the lower-layer [of society] footing the bill. Much more required Annie Lao, a local environmental and plastic-waste activist, expressed mixed feelings on the proposal when interviewed by the Times. Its definitely a good thing that the government is proposing this new law. We are very late [on this topic] when compared to Hong Kong or to mainland China they did it many years ago. [] It is good to see that they finally put a bill to the Legislative Assembly, but at the same time, the main thing that the government must do concerns education. Lao noted that of the same importance as creating a law to try to reduce the usage of plastic bags is to explain to people, and especially to the younger generation, why we dont want or need plastic bags. We need to be able to explain the environmental causes and to explain to people that when plastic bags are incinerated there are toxins [released into the air], she said. We need to educate people on why to use the reusable bag. Thats the main message, its not about saving one pataca. Agreeing with the idea expressed by the other interviewee that are other products that deserve more attention from the government than plastic bags, Lao said: This is actually only a baby-step. After this, the government should really think about the overall waste [situation] in Macau. Plastic bags are just one of the single-use plastic waste items that we are using. There are many others, such as the straws, the plastic bottles, the take-away boxes and all the unnecessary packaging in the supermarket. The government needs to regulate those and make those businesses responsible for the [amount] of plastic they are using, as we know that in those cases much of that packaging cannot even be recycled, she said. So why are we using them? The government needs to ban this. Lao argued that local environmental protection cannot be achieved solely by individual measures taken by private companies. Instead, it requires a general law to compel businesses to act in the same way as some that are more eco-conscientious and have already started their own initiatives to reduce the consumption of single-use products. On Friday, the Macau SAR government extended the gaming concession and the sub-concession of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, S.A. (SJM) and of MGM Grand Paradise, S.A. (MGM) until June 2022, citing a need to bring the two gaming operators contracts in line with the other four and concerns about the employment situation of staff at the companies when the licenses expire. The government also said it wanted a more transparent process for the upcoming negotiations, tenders and the awarding of licenses. The government announced the extension in a statement, with detailed information provided by public officials, including the Secretary for Economy and Finance, during a press conference that was held on Friday. On Friday morning, the local government signed an extension agreement with SJM, and SJM signed a sub- concession contract with MGM. As a requirement of the extension of the concessions, SJM and MGM must pay MOP200 million each in single installments to the SAR government. The MOP200 million payment does not imply any exemption from payment of the annual premium, the special tax on gaming, and the contributions or other duties stipulated by law. It means that the two companies will continue paying their dues, as well as fulfilling other obligations as before, similar to other gaming operators. According to Lionel Leong, the MOP200 million payments were proposed by the two gaming operators, which were also the parties requesting the extension of their gaming concession. As explained by the Director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), Paulo Martins Chan, every year, each gaming operator pays a MOP30 million annual premium. The MOP200 million represents more than six times the single years annual premium. The gaming concessions of SJM and MGM were originally due to expire on March 31, 2020. The extension now means that all of Macaus gaming concessions are due to expire on June 26, 2022. Secretary Leong explained that the extension decision took into consideration the opinions from all sectors, went through an internal government study, and involved thoughts surrounding Macaus financial development and national security matters. The extension is also said to benefit the preparatory work and the development of the opening of the next public tender for the gaming concessions, as well as to provide guarantees for the employment of workers in the gaming sector. It will be beneficial for us to carry out a unified new round of the gaming concession public tender. [The extension] is helpful to maintain social stability, especially the stability of the employment [of gaming workers], said Leong. In addition to the aforementioned payment, the two companies also proposed to adhere to the non-compulsory central pension scheme to their employees, and provide a guarantee of labor creditors rights. [The government] also considered that the conditions proposed by the two gaming operators comply with the benefits of Macaus overall and long-term development, especially if they provide better retirement and better protection [against] termination, said Leong. For the labor creditors rights, the two gaming operators must establish a guarantee for their employees through a bank. SJMs and MGMs guarantee will be MOP3.5 billion and MOP820 million, respectively. We hope that it can inspire more companies to join the non-compulsory central pension scheme, said Leong. On Friday, MGM issued a statement saying that we believe that the extension of the sub-concession is especially important for more than 10,800 employees at MGM. According to Macaus law, if a gaming concession is awarded a term of less than 20 years, the government may, at any time and up to six months before the expiration of the concession, authorize one or more extensions to the concession. The total concession period should not exceed the maximum period of 20 years. The law also stipulates that once the maximum period of 20 years has expired, the duration of the concession may be extended by reasoned order by the Chief Executive for one or more extensions, and the extension may not exceed the period of five years in total. The details of the extension will be published later and made available to the public as a matter of transparency, according to Leong. Regarding the gaming concession in 2022, Leong said that we are inclined to go for an open public tender, adding that [the concession] depends on future laws and regulations. The Secretary noted that Macaus World Tourism and Leisure Center development, the economic diversification and Macaus regional and global competitiveness will be part of the governments criteria when considering the awarding of the 2022 gaming concession, aside from financial and national security deliberations. When questioned about the Chinese central governments stance and opinions on Macaus 2022 gaming concession, Leong only stated that the government will listen to the opinions of all sectors. In addition, Leong remarked that the extension is not related to the change in the Macau government. The Secretary stated that the SAR government will continue to hear societys opinions and promote improvements over the supervision and legal regime for the next public tender of the gaming concession. On Friday, the University of Macau (UM) signed a cooperation agreement with the Hengqin district government to jointly build a research center on the island. According to the director of the Hengqin district management committee, Yang Chuan, Hengqin will be providing a complimentary 10,000 square meters to UM to develop the area for technology and innovation. In addition, Hengqin will also be granting UM a RMB100 million angel investment for a major research and development center to help the university accelerate its integration into the Greater Bay Area, so as to improve UMs innovative research layout, promote the university, and transfer and transform services and knowledge. The research center will be built in three phases. The first phase is expected to be completed in July 2019. On the sidelines of Fridays signing ceremony, Yang claimed that Hengqin has already reserved land resources for Macaus new industry. The Hengqin leader also remarked that the district will proactively and comprehensively work with Macaus other scientific resources. In total, Hengqin has reserved 50,000 square meters of land specifically for Macau to develop high-technology and medical services. These lands, including the complimentary 10,000 square meters, are fully equipped with facilities, said Yang. Aside from these 50,000 square meters, the Zhuhai government plans to reserve for Macau an even larger piece of land covering 157,000 square meters at a land reclamation site south of Hengqin. This area, which is currently under planning, will support Macaus next round of new industry development. Yang also expressed hope that Hengqin could work with the Macau SAR government to implement reclamation projects and import more projects, as well as jointly share production results stemming from the industrial development. JZ Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam will likely make a trip to Japan, seeking an agreement to work with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) project, according to a report by Taiwans Central News Agency. The report cited an anonymous source, who said that at a time when China and the U.S. are competing with each other in the fields of innovation and technology, and since the U.S. is cautious and critical of Hong Kongs mainlandization, it will be difficult for Hong Kong to seek cooperation with the U.S. Given this, seeking cooperation with Japan over the economic initiative becomes reasonable. However, the same anonymous source further remarked that since Japan is a close U.S. ally, and because Japans general policy direction must be based on the U.S. ideology, the analysis does not rule out the possibility that Japan might ask for Washingtons opinion on the GBA issue, in case Hong Kong does ask for Japans cooperation. The Greater Bay Area, a plan drafted by mainland officials, is greater or comparable in size, in terms of population and gross domestic product, to the New York Bay Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Tokyo Bay Area. JZ Malaysias top council of lawyers asked the attorney-general to explain the release of an Indonesian suspect in the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns half-brother, but not a second suspect who is Vietnamese. Attorney-General Tommy Thomas should explain the inconsistency, especially since the case has attracted global attention, the newly elected head of the Malaysian Bar Council, Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor, said in a statement. Thomass office didnt answer a phone call seeking comment yesterday outside business hours. After Kim Jong Nam was killed at the Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017, Siti Aisyah, an Indonesian, and Doan Thi Huong, a Vietnamese, were charged with murder and accused of smearing VX nerve agent onto Kims face, Malaysian authorities said at the time. Charges against Siti have been withdrawn, Abdul Fareed said, while Huong remains in custody, facing trial in the killing. There are a lot of questions on why one person is acquitted and the charges against her withdrawn while the other person remains charged, Abdul Fareed said after the councils annual general meeting on Saturday. Indonesian President Joko Widodo personally greeted Siti when she returned home after being acquitted of charges, a Twitter post by the president dated March 12 shows. Kim, the eldest son in the current generation of North Koreas ruling family, had been reportedly living in Macau for around a decade before his assassination. According to those familiar with his lifestyle in Macau, the elusive Kim Jong Nam developed a reputation for living low-key despite being well-endowed financially. Half-brother to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Nam represented a threat to the regimes stability with the ever-present possibility he might one day be parachuted into power. DB/Bloomberg This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Chinas No. 2 leader denied that Beijing tells its tech companies to spy abroad and promised Friday to treat foreign and domestic competitors equally in an effort to defuse tensions with Washington and Europe. Premier Li Keqiangs rejection of spying accusations at a news conference was the Communist governments highest-level effort yet to put Western security concerns to rest. They threaten Chinese access to lucrative markets for telecom and other technology. This is not how China behaves. We did not do that and will not do that in the future, the premier said when asked whether Beijing told Chinese companies to spy on foreign countries. The United States, Australia and some other governments have imposed curbs on use of technology from Chinese vendors including Huawei Technologies Ltd. on security grounds. Washington is lobbying European and other allies to shun Huawei as their phone carriers prepare to invest billions of dollars in next-generation technology. Huawei, the biggest global maker of network gear, has denied it facilitates Chinese spying. Its founder has told reporters he would reject official requests to disclose customer secrets. President Xi Jinpings government faces mounting pressure to repair trade relations with the United States, Europe and other major markets after last years economic growth fell to a three- decade low of 6.6 percent. Activity has weakened further on multiple fronts including cooling export growth and a contraction in auto sales. Li promised to create a level playing field for all competitors in Chinas state-dominated economy. He pledged to open more industries to foreign investment but gave no details. We will adhere to the principle of neutrality and treat domestic and foreign companies as equals, he said. Also Friday, the countrys ceremonial legislature endorsed a law aimed at defusing a tariff war with Washington by discouraging Chinese officials from pressuring companies to hand over technology. The measure is part of an investment law that aims to address complaints that Chinas system is rigged against foreign companies. This is designed to protect the rights and interests of foreign investors and attract more foreign investment, Li said. It was unclear whether the measure would mollify President Donald Trump, who raised U.S. duties on Chinese imports in response to complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to give up technology. Washington also wants China to roll back plans for government- led creation of global competitors in robotics and other technologies. The new law is vague enough that it allows for state-led industrial policy to continue behind the scenes, Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a report. Both governments say negotiations are making progress but they have yet to announce formal agreements on ending the dispute that has disrupted trade in soybeans, medical equipment and billions of dollars worth of other goods. The official Xinhua News Agency said Chinas economy czar, Vice Premier Liu He, talked by phone with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The one-sentence report said they made further substantial progress but gave no details. Forecasters expect Chinese economic activity to pick up in the quarter that starts in April as government stimulus efforts through higher spending on public works construction gain traction. That spending will be enough to put a floor beneath economic growth by the second half of this year, but not enough to drive a strong rebound, Evans-Pritchard said. Government plans also call for higher spending on development of technologies including artificial intelligence, electric cars, biotechnology and new materials that Chinas leaders see as a path to prosperity and global influence. Chinas emergence as a competitor in smartphones, solar power and other technologies has increased consumer choice and helped to drive down prices. But it rattles Washington and other governments that worry Chinese competition threatens their industries and employment. The government says the investment law will prohibit Chinese officials from using administrative methods to force technology transfers. Foreign business groups welcomed that but said they need to see how the law is enforced to know whether it improves conditions. The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China expressed concern Friday the law would permit regulators to retaliate against companies from a country they believe discriminates against a Chinese enterprise. That allows for political issues to influence regulatory decisions, a chamber statement said. It said the laws vague wording adds to legal uncertainty for companies. The American Chamber of Commerce in China expressed concern in a statement Wednesday about the broad scope of national security reviews allowed by the law that might block business activity. The European chamber also expressed concern the focus on administrative methods might leave officials free to use other pressure tactics. Chinese officials deny companies are required to hand over technology. But the companies face pressure including requirements in auto manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and other industries to work through state- owned partners. That requires them to share technology with companies the ruling Communist Party hopes will become their competitors. Joe McDonald, Beijing, AP White South Africans have backed an overwhelming mandate for political reforms to end apartheid and create a power-sharing multi-racial government. In a landslide victory for change, the government swept the polls in all four provinces, and all but one of 15 referendum regions. It won 68.6% of the vote in a record turn-out, which, in some districts exceeded 96%. The extent of change was highlighted in the Kroonstad region of the Orange Free State, where five of the seven Parliamentary seats are held by the no campaigners in the conservative party. Despite being one of the most conservative districts in the whole country there was a small yes majority for change. Only Pietersburg in the Northern Transvaal, a rural right-wing stronghold where Dr Andries Treurnicht has his parliamentary constituency as head of the CP, returned a no vote. Pretoria, the administrative capital which has symbolised Afrikanerdom, produced a 57% yes, in the legislative capital, Cape Town, 85% voted yes and in the judicial capital of Bloemfontein 58.5%. Today we have closed the book on apartheid, Mr de Klerk said in Cape Town as he also celebrates his 56th birthday. White electors have not only voted by a 2-1 majority to abolish apartheid but also to lose their own power. Mr de Klerk said the result was a boost for the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, Codesa, but he could not commit himself to a timetable for installing a multi-racial government, which required further discussions Dr Treurnicht pledged never to work on the Codesa board and that CP would not join the negotiating forum. He said: De Klerk has won his referendum. That is clear. But he vowed there would be a return of apartheid in the country and he blamed media propaganda, foreign intervention and threats by businessmen against employees for the result. Nelson Mandela, the president of the African National Congress who was jailed for 27 years because of his fight against black segregation, said he was very happy indeed. Courtesy BBC News In context The following year talks had led to the creation of an interim constitution and in 1994 South Africas first non-racial elections was won by the ANC and Nelson Mandela become president. This brought with it a lifting of sanctions, restored membership of the Commonwealth along with South Africa retaking its seat in the UN General Assembly after an absence of 20 years. Both Mr Mandela and Mr de Klerk won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their very different but effective assaults on apartheid and the progress of South Africa. In 1999, Mr Mandela stepped down as president. The United Nations Human Rights Council has accepted the third report of the China Universal Periodic Review, which has a section covering the Macau SAR. The Secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, attended the meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Switzerland as the deputy head of the Chinese delegation. In response to a query raised by Indonesia during the review regarding the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, Chan replied that Macau does not have capability to ratify such a convention. The convention is a UN multilateral treaty governing the protection of migrant workers and families According to official data, there were a total of 5,466 non-resident Indonesians in the region by the end of January 2019, over 3,800 of whom are involved in domestic work. On the recommendation that Indonesia would apply the International Convention [in regards to] the protection of rights of migrant workers, I present that Macau SAR does not have material condition [capabilities] to meet the condition of the requirements, said Chan during the meeting, as cited in a report by public broadcaster TDM. Indonesian Migrant Workers Union chairperson Yosa Wariyanti hoped that the SAR could soon ratify the convention, which protects the rights of migrant workers. When the government ratifies the convention, it is expected to truly be able to bring changes to the lives of migrant workers in Macau [but] the challenge is how to carry out commitments that [might] be made, she told the Times. Another migrant group leader, Benedicta Palcon, president of Greens Philippines Migrant Workers Union informed that they are set to meet a lawmaker next month to assist them in their call for rights protection. Last month, migrant groups held a meeting with the Labour Affairs Bureau to discuss proposals for improving their living conditions in the region. During the weekend meeting, Chan stressed that local residents are equal before the law and must not face discrimination. The Secretary said that the SAR had made progress in the development of human rights protection. China accepted 284 recommendations that are in line with Chinas national conditions, accounting for 82 percent of the total number of recommendations given to China. This is the third time that China has participated in the review, following its participation in 2009 and 2013. Recently, the United States Department of State published its 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, stating that the law provides for freedom of expression, including for the press, but the government occasionally sought to restrict this right. Regarding press and media freedom, the report stated local media expressed a wide range of views, but the government took steps to restrict unfavorable news coverage. In response, the Macau government offered a rebuttal, arguing that foreign countries have no right to interfere in Chinas domestic affairs and should not interfere in the internal affairs of the SAR. Philippines consulate celebrates Womens Month The Philippine Consulate General in Macau celebrated the 2019 National Womens Month yesterday at Cham Meng Kam Theater, with an event themed We Make Change Work For Women. The celebration is part of the worldwide observation of International Womens Day on March 8. The event attracted over 150 migrant workers who participated in different activities including a yoga and zumba session, free basic medical test, health seminar and lectures and raffle draws, among other activities. The health seminar, which tackled matters on hypertension, signs of stroke, and symptoms of diabetes, amongst others included a question and answer portion where migrant workers were free to enquire about their health. Participants of the event were mostly members of the regions migrant workers from the Philippines. In line with the celebration, the consulate held a photo competition last month, which was open to all Filipino nationals working and living in the SAR. The theme of the Philippines National Womens Month celebratrion for the years 2017 to 2022 is also We Make Change Work For Women, highlighting the empowerment of women as active contributors to and claimholders of development. LV ING Bank Manila expects the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to reduce the reserve requirement of banks in its meeting this week, saying this move will address the current tight liquidity condition. ING Bank Manila senior economist Nicholas Mapa said in a report Monday if the reduction would not happen this week, it might be announced during an off-cycle meeting later this month. Given the relatively tight liquidity conditions in the market, with M3 growth grinding to single-digit growth for five months and with the settlement of the recent RTB [retail treasury bonds] siphoning off roughly P200 billion from the market, the BSP may look to address the current tightening conditions with a RRR cut, announced either at the March 21 meeting or at an off-cycle meeting on the 28th, Mapa said. He said another evidence of tightening liquidity conditions would be the price of money with short-term time deposit rates now as high as 4.794 percent. The timing will be determined on whether Governor [Benjamin] Diokno reverts to viewing adjustments to the RRR as a policy move or a procedural adjustment. This may also be given attention given Dioknos recent comments that he would like to bring forward RRR cuts to carry on the reforms started by the late Governor (Nestor) Espenilla, Mapa said. Mapa said he was not expecting a policy cut on the March 21 meeting because this could happen in May.Diokno earlier said the Monetary Board would continue to be data-dependent in deciding when to resume the reduction in reserve requirement ratios of banks which is one of the highest in the region.The reserve requirement or cash reserve ratio is a central bank regulation employed by most central banks that sets the minimum amount of reserves that should be held by a commercial bank. The Monetary Board made a one-percentage-point cut in the reserve requirement of banks from 20 percent to 19 percent in February 2018. The board said the operational adjustment would support the Bangko Sentrals shift toward a more market-based implementation of monetary policy and its broad financial market reform agenda. Authorities confirmed on Monday that the suspect in the gory killing of 16-year-old Cristine Lee Silawan in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu has been arrested, even as his accomplices are now being hunted. Central Visayas NBI Director Tomas Enrile said the suspect, said to be Silawans former boyfriend, was arrested in Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City on March 16. Yes,Christine Silawan, Enrile said, adding that the killer had confessed to the crime. Reports quoted the NBI regional director as saying that the boy committed the crime out of jealousy. Enrile said security footage and text messages from Silawan helped track down the suspect whose name cannot be disclosed because he is a minor. Meanwhile, Philippine National Police Col. Bernard Banac said that the Police Regional Office in Region 7 has confirmed that Silawans ex-boyfriend confessed to the crime. The joint investigating body has turned over the 17-year-old boy to the DSWD 7 for safe keeping since he is a minor while proper documentation of the case is under way, he said. Banac added that the Regional Crime Lab Office 7 has already directed to provide the Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) report and autopsy report, which is needed by the joint PNP-NBI investigating body.The NBI 7 with the support of the PNP will now consolidate the findings of the investigation to file the murder case against the suspects and ensure the immediate solution of the case, Banac said Silayan was found dead in a vacant lot in Barangay Bankal, Lapu-Lapu City with her face skinned to the skull, her body bearing 20 stab wounds and 10 defense wounds, and her tongue, trachea, and esophagus removed. She was naked from the waist down, but it remains unclear if she was also raped. Authorities said the young girl may have been dead for 12 hours when she was found. Earlier, the Justice Department earlier ordered the NBI to investigate and build up the case on the bloody murder of the high school student. Banac said the police have intensified operations to hunt down the two other suspects. The PNP Central Visayas is reinforcing intensified operations with the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) 7 to capture other suspects of the killing 16-year-old Christine Lee Silawan in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu after another person of interest surfaced and confessed his participation in the commission of the said gruesome crime, Banac said in a statement. The Court of Appeals has reversed its 2018 decision and instead ordered the reinstatement of Philippine Coast Guard commander Ivan Roldan who had been dismissed for purchasing office supplies and information technology equipment in 2013 without complying with government procurement regulations. In an amended decision, the CA through Associate Justice Apolinario D. Bruselas Jr. agreed with the argument of Roldan that the emergency purchases were done by the PCG at the height of the international territorial disputes over the West Philippine Sea. When Office of the Ombudsman ordered his dismissal, Roldan was the deputy commander of Coast Guard Intelligence Force, which was affirmed by the appellate court. Acting on his motion for reconsideration, the CA noted Roldans manifestation that his unit, the CGIF, was tasked to supervise the conduct of intelligence operations in the WPS and that the Department of Foreign Affairs had acknowledged PCGs efforts and its contributions to the filing of a case against China before the International Arbitral Tribunal where the Philippines eventually won. Roldan manifested to the appellate court that the CGIFs task was to monitor the activities affecting the Philippine coasts in Bajo de Masinloc and the Kalayaan Group of Islands. The appellant argued that the emergency purchases of office supplies and information technology equipment were made without resort to competitive bidding because the situation at that time required the CGIF to be prepared for any contingency and to maintain a high degree of operational readiness to protect the countrys territorial interest. The CA said that in its 2018 original decision, it held that Republic Act No. 9184, the Government Procurement Reform Act, allows for alternative methods of procurement. But it said, Roldan and his group failed to justify resort to the alternative methods. It also stated in its decision that it was unconvinced by Cdr. Roldans contention that the purchase of the items using the Special Cash Advances (SCAs) granted to him constituted emergency purchases wherein public bidding could be dispensed with. We also held that Cdr. Roldans act of disbursing SCAs beyond the purposes authorized; his issuance of certifications to the effect that his SCAs were used to defray miscellaneous expenses; and his act of certifying that the items purchased using his SCAs were absolutely indispensable and urgent such that their procurement by competitive bidding would have been detrimental to public service, exhibited some form of mental dishonesty, it said. We held that conduct prejudicial to the best interest of service was committed because Cdr. Roldan, together with the other respondents in the proceedings below, violated repeatedly procurement rules and regulations, which tarnished the image and integrity of their office, the CA added. However, in reconsideration of its original decision, the appellate court noted that the questioned purchases were brought about by the territorial disputes in the WPS and hence, public bidding, under the circumstances, were not required.In ruling in favor of Roldan, the CA said: We again carefully reviewed the arguments presented by Cdr. Roldan and we hold that the subject purchases were actually made under the stress of an emergency. It was not disputed that the West Philippine Sea crisis during the period 2013 to 2015 was indeed a major security issue; that it was during that time that the CGIF was tasked to conduct 24/7 monitoring, surveillance, intelligence gathering, and other significant intelligence operations at West Philippine Sea; and that the CGIF was required to maintain a high degree of operational readiness wherein immediate action was necessary in order to avoid delay or disruption in its operations, the appellate court said. While Article I, of R.A. No. 9184 mandates that all acquisition of goods by any branch, department, office, agency, or instrumentality of the government shall be done through competitive bidding, alternative methods of procurement are allowed under RA. No. 9184 which would enable dispensing with the requirement of open, public and competitive bidding, but only in highly exceptional cases. Considering that the subject purchases were made under the stress of an emergency wherein immediate action was necessary in order to prevent damage to or loss of life or property and to secure the States sovereignty and national territory, we are of the reconsidered opinion that Cdr. Roldan did not violate R.A. No. 9184 or any other procurement rules, the CA ruled. In fine, we find no substantial basis to hold Cdr. Roldan liable for Grave Misconduct and Conduct Prejudicial to the Best Interest of Service. Furthermore, no form of mental dishonesty could be attributed to Cdr. Roldan when he certified that the SCAs were used to defray miscellaneous expenses and that the items purchased were absolutely indispensable and urgent such that their procurement by competitive bidding would have been detrimental to public service, it said. The appellate court also pointed out that records are bereft of any proof that Cdr. Roldans utilization of his cash advances, which he was able to subsequently fully liquidate, violated any established and definite rule of action, nor was it attended by corruption, willful intent to violate the law or flagrant disregard of the rules. As a consequence, Cdr. Roldans exoneration is in order, the appellate court declared. Reports indicated that aside from Roldan, 24 other PCG officers have been dismissed and charged before the Sandiganbayan, in connection with the purchases of supplies and information technology equipment. The CAs original decision and its amended version, however, pertained only to Roldans case. A sinner saved by the grace of God given to those with faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. Period. Examples of the notifications that participants in the Apple Heart Study receive. Credit: Courtesy of Apple Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine today presented preliminary results of the Apple Heart Study, an unprecedented virtual study with over 400,000 enrolled participants. The researchers reported that wearable technology can safely identify heart rate irregularities that subsequent testing confirmed to be atrial fibrillation, a leading cause of stroke and hospitalization in the United States. The study was launched with sponsorship by Apple Inc. in November 2017 to determine whether a mobile app that uses data from a heart-rate pulse sensor on the Apple Watch can identify atrial fibrillation. The condition often remains hidden because many people don't experience symptoms. Key findings from the study include: Overall, only 0.5 percent of participants received irregular pulse notifications, an important finding given concerns about potential over-notification. Comparisons between irregular pulse-detection on Apple Watch and simultaneous electrocardiography patch recordings showed the pulse detection algorithm (indicating a positive tachogram reading) has a 71 percent positive predictive value. Eighty-four percent of the time, participants who received irregular pulse notifications were found to be in atrial fibrillation at the time of the notification. One-third (34 percent) of the participants who received irregular pulse notifications and followed up by using an ECG patch over a week later were found to have atrial fibrillation. Since atrial fibrillation is an intermittent condition, it's not surprising for it to go undetected in subsequent ECG patch monitoring. Fifty-seven percent of those who received irregular pulse notifications sought medical attention. "The results of the Apple Heart Study highlight the potential role that innovative digital technology can play in creating more predictive and preventive health care," said Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine. "Atrial fibrillation is just the beginning, as this study opens the door to further research into wearable technologies and how they might be used to prevent disease before it strikesa key goal of precision health." For the study, each participant was required to have an Apple Watch (series 1, 2 or 3) and an iPhone. The most recent Apple Watch, which features a built-in ECG, wasn't part of the study, as it was released after the study's launch. The Apple Heart Study app intermittently checked the heart-rate pulse sensor for measurements of an irregular pulse. If an irregular pulse was detected, the participant received a notification and was asked to schedule a telemedicine consultation with a doctor involved in the study through American Well. Participants were then sent ambulatory ECG patches through BioTelemetry, which recorded the electrical rhythm of their hearts for up to a week. The Stanford principal investigators were Mintu Turakhia, MD, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine, and Marco Perez, MD, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine, and the study chair was Kenneth Mahaffey, MD, professor of cardiovascular medicine. "The study's findings have the potential to help patients and clinicians understand how devices like the Apple Watch can play a role in detecting conditions such as atrial fibrillation, a deadly and often undiagnosed disease," said Turakhia. "The virtual design of this study also provides a strong foundation upon which future research can be conducted to explore the health implications of wearable technology." "The performance and accuracy we observed in this study provides important information as we seek to understand the potential impact of wearable technology on the health system," said Perez. "Further research will help people make more informed health decisions." Researchers from the Lankenau Heart Institute, Jefferson Medical College, the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, StopAfib.org, the American Foundation for Women's Health and Duke University also contributed to the study. The Apple Heart Study was funded by Apple Inc. Demyelination by MS. The CD68 colored tissue shows several macrophages in the area of the lesion. Original scale 1:100. Credit: Marvin 101/Wikipedia Researchers from the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute have found that a widely prescribed drug for multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with longer survival for patients. The study, published today in the journal Brain, found that people with MS who took a beta interferon drug had a 32 per cent lower mortality risk than those that did not take the drug. This was particularly evident among MS patients who took beta interferon for more than three years. The study, which followed nearly 6,000 people with MS in Canada and France over a period of more than two decades, is the first and largest of its kind to look at mortality associated with beta interferon for the treatment of MS. "This is a significant study," said lead author Elaine Kingwell, a research associate and epidemiologist in the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health and the faculty of medicine at UBC, and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. "Although these drugs have been prescribed since the mid-1990s, it takes time before scientists can look at the effect of these treatments on a long-term outcome like survival. We found that patients who were treated with these drugs during routine clinical practice survived longer overall than patients who had not taken beta interferon." MS is a disease that affects the central nervous system, in which cells from the immune system attack and damage the nerve cells' protective sheath. The disease often results in disability and can have a significant impact on quality of life. The beta interferons were the first drugs to be approved for the treatment of relapsing-onset MS, which is the most common form of the disease. They have been used to treat MS longer than any other disease-modifying therapy. Comparing mortality rates between two countries For the study, the researchers followed 5,989 people with relapsing-onset MS from as early as 1986 until 2013, in British Columbia and France, to determine what disease modifying drugs they took and how long they survived. The mean age of the study participants (who had not received drug treatments for MS before the start of the study) was 42 years. The mean age at death for the 742 people who did not survive to the end of the study was 61. The findings were consistent between the two geographic groups and between men and women. MS patients who took beta interferon for at least six months had a reduced mortality risk when compared to MS patients who did not take beta interferon. Taking the drug for more than three years had an even stronger association with increased survival. Moreover, increased survival was noted even for individuals who started the drug after age 40, or five or more years after disease onset. Findings are encouraging to those on beta interferon Vancouver resident Sharon Roman, who was diagnosed with MS two decades ago, describes the results as "encouraging." "The study findings could impact a lot of people, not just because of the sheer number of patients that are on beta interferon worldwide, but also because it offers comfort in terms of our longevityand comfort is in short supply for those with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis," she said. "This offers a potential incentive that could conquer a dislike or a fear of injections and might encourage people to adhere to the prescribed dosing schedule," she added. Quality of life needs to be considered, too Despite the positive findings, the researchers caution that longevity isn't everything. "Now that we know that life might be extended for people with MS who take these drugs, we do have to consider quality of life," said the study's senior author Helen Tremlett, professor in the division of neurology at UBC and the Canada Research Chair in neuroepidemiology and multiple sclerosis. "Further research to look at this aspect of treatment outcomes is certainly warranted." The researchers hope to now look at the association of survival with some of the newer MS drugs. Tremlett has received a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to undertake this work. Explore further Fingolimod cuts multiple sclerosis relapses in pediatric patients Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a blood test to identify fibromyalgia. The experimental diagnostic tool measures metabolic activity in the blood, distinguishing fibromyalgia from other chronic pain conditions with near 100 percent accuracy. Credit: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center For the first time, researchers have evidence that fibromyalgia can be reliably detected in blood sampleswork they hope will pave the way for a simple, fast diagnosis. In a study that appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from The Ohio State University report success in identifying biomarkers of fibromyalgia and differentiating it from a handful of other related diseases. The discovery could be an important turning point in care of patients with a disease that is frequently misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, leaving them without proper care and advice on managing their chronic pain and fatigue, said lead researcher Kevin Hackshaw, a professor in Ohio State's College of Medicine and a rheumatologist at the university's Wexner Medical Center. Identification of biomarkers of the diseasea "metabolic fingerprint" like that discovered in the new studycould also open up the possibility of targeted treatments, he said. To diagnose fibromyalgia, doctors now rely on patient-reported information about a multitude of symptoms and a physical evaluation of a patient's pain, focusing on specific tender points, he said. But there's no blood testno clear-cut, easy-to-use tool to provide a quick answer. "We found clear, reproducible metabolic patterns in the blood of dozens of patients with fibromyalgia. This brings us much closer to a blood test than we have ever been," Hackshaw said. Though fibromyalgia is currently incurable and treatment is limited to exercise, education and antidepressants, an accurate diagnosis has many benefits, Hackshaw said. Those include ruling out other diseases, confirming for patients that their symptoms are real and not imagined, and guiding doctors toward disease recognition and appropriate treatment. "Most physicians nowadays don't question whether fibromyalgia is real, but there are still skeptics out there," Hackshaw said. For the first time, researchers at The Ohio State University have evidence that fibromyalgia can be reliably detected in blood samples -- work they hope will pave the way for a simple, fast diagnosis. Credit: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center And many undiagnosed patients are prescribed opioidsstrong, addictive painkillers that have not been shown to benefit people with the disease, he said. "When you look at chronic pain clinics, about 40 percent of patients on opioids meet the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia often gets worse, and certainly doesn't get better, with opioids." Hackshaw and co-author Luis Rodriguez-Saona, an expert in the advanced testing method used in the study, said the next step is a larger-scale clinical trial to determine if the success they saw in this research can be replicated. The current study included 50 people with a fibromyalgia diagnosis, 29 with rheumatoid arthritis, 19 who have osteoarthritis and 23 with lupus. Researchers examined blood samples from each participant using a technique called vibrational spectroscopy, which measures the energy level of molecules within the sample. Scientists in Rodriguez-Saona's lab detected clear patterns that consistently set fibromyalgia patients' blood sample results apart from those with other, similar disorders. First, the researchers analyzed blood samples from participants whose disease status they knew, so they could develop a baseline pattern for each diagnosis. Then, using two types of spectroscopy, they evaluated the rest of the samples blindly, without knowing the participants' diagnoses, and accurately clustered every study participant into the appropriate disease category based on a molecular signature. "These initial results are remarkable. If we can help speed diagnosis for these patients, their treatment will be better and they'll likely have better outlooks. There's nothing worse than being in a gray area where you don't know what disease you have," Rodriguez-Saona said. His lab mostly concerns itself with using the metabolic fingerprinting technology for food-related research, focusing on issues such as adulteration of milk and cooking oils and helping agriculture companies figure out which plants are best suited to fight disease. Dr. Kevin Hackshaw examines fibromyalgia patient Barb Hartong at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. A new blood test may one day guide personalized treatment plans to relieve fibromyalgia pain. Credit: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center The chance to partner with medical experts to help solve the problem of fibromyalgia misdiagnosis was exciting, said Rodriguez-Saona, a professor of food science and technology at Ohio State. Rodriguez-Saona said for the next study he'd like to examine 150 to 200 subjects per disease group to see if the findings of this research are replicable in a larger, more-diverse population. Hackshaw said his goal is to have a test ready for widespread use within five years. Fibromyalgia is the most common cause of chronic widespread pain in the United States, and disproportionately affects women. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 2 percent of the populationaround 4 million adultshas fibromyalgia. Other organizations estimate even higher numbers. About three in four people with fibromyalgia have not received an accurate diagnosis, according to previous research, and those who do know they have the disease waited an average of five years between symptom onset and diagnosis. Common symptoms include pain and stiffness all over the body, fatigue, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, headaches and problems with thinking, memory and concentration. Eventually, this work could lead to identification of a particular protein or acidor combination of moleculesthat is linked to fibromyalgia, Rodriguez-Saona said. "We can look back into some of these fingerprints and potentially identify some of the chemicals associated with the differences we are seeing," he said. In addition to identifying fibromyalgia, the researchers also found evidence that the metabolic fingerprinting technique has the potential to determine the severity of fibromyalgia in an individual patient. "This could lead to better, more directed treatment for patients," Hackshaw said. Explore further Are most patients with fibromyalgia misdiagnosed? HIV infecting a human cell. Credit: NIH Almost 40 percent of new HIV cases in the US occur because people do not know they are infected, while a similar proportion know but are not in treatment, according to a study released Monday. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is based on 2016 data and aims to bolster a strategy outlined by President Donald Trump to end the epidemic within 10 years. The strategy has two main strands: far more widespread screening, and enabling the infected better access to treatment from the moment they test positive. The study found that 38 percent of infections came from HIV-positive people who were unaware of their status, and 43 percent from people who knew they were infected but took no anti-retroviral drugs. The remaining infections came from people who were receiving HIV treatment but were not yet "virally suppressed." The CDC blamed financial, social and other reasons for people not using medication, which these days typically comes in the form of a daily pill with minimal side effects. The study said that the infection rate from the half million people in the United States who take medication and are virally suppressedmeaning they cannot pass on the disease to otherswas zero. Screening The most at-risk group remains homosexual men, with almost three-quarters of new infections coming from men having sex with men, the report said. Five percent of infections came from intravenous drug abuse among homosexual men, while 10 percent came from injecting drugs among the rest of the population. Twelve percent of infections were among heterosexuals. Overall, the highest rate of transmission was among 13 to 24-year-olds. The Trump administration has said it will invest $291 million in the next financial year to fight HIV/AIDS, which has plateaued since 2013 to around 39,000 annual transmissions. The goal is to reduce that number by 75 percent within five years and by 90 percent in 10 years. Questioned about the relatively small amount of money earmarked for the multi-billion dollar task of treating HIV carriers, CDC head Robert Redfield said he was "confident that the resources that are required to accomplish this mission are in the long term plan." The CDC, based in Atlanta, Georgia, wants doctors to make HIV screening a routine procedure. "Everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 should get tested for HIV at least once in their lifetime," said Eugene McCray, the head of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. "Those at higher risk should get tested at least annually," he said. "The key to controlling is helping those with HIV to control the virus," said the CDC's Jonathan Mermin, who focuses on preventing the spread of the HIV as well as other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and hepatitis. "Time spent working closely with patients who are having trouble paying for, picking up or taking their daily medications is time well spent" Explore further Weeks after 2030 HIV pledge, report shows US headway stalled 2019 AFP Patients with prostate, bladder or kidney cancers are at greater risk of dying if they have had psychiatric care prior to the cancer treatment. In addition, patients with these cancers show greater suicide risk than the general population, even once the data is corrected for previous psychiatric care. These are the main findings of a new study presented at the European Association of Urology congress in Barcelona. They highlight the need for psychiatric care to be integrated into cancer treatment. There is emerging evidence that cancer survival rate is influenced by the mental health state of the patient. This work is the first which relates urological cancer survival to previous (within 5 years) use of psychiatric services, giving scientists an indication of the mental health state of patient before the cancer diagnosis. This is part of a larger study looking at the effect of mental health on cancer survival. What did they do? A US/Canadian team led by Assistant Professor Zachary Klaassen (Georgia Cancer Centre, Augusta, Georgia) looked at the mental health records of 191,068 urology cancer patients from Ontario in Canada (where Professor Klaassen was on temporary assignment). These patients had either suffered from prostate, bladder, or kidney cancer. They then assigned each patient a score based on whether they had used psychiatric services within the previous 5 years. 57.1% had not used these services whereas the remaining patients had received outpatient treatment (41.6%), emergency department treatment (0.84%) or hospital admission (0.40%). The patients were matched to 528,387 control patients, i.e. patients who had not suffered any cancers. Full figures are available in the attached abstract. What did they find? The researchers found that patients previously treated for mental health conditions had a greater risk of dying of their cancer than those who had not been treated, with the mortality risk increasing in line with the intensity of the prior mental health treatment. For example, the odds of cancer mortality were 1.78 times greater in patients who had been hospitalised for mental health problems, when compared with controls (Hazard Ratio, 1.78). Zachary Klaassen said"This is the first large, population-level study to show that patients with previous mental health problems are at greater risk of dying of their cancer compared to patients with no mental health history. We believe that there will be several factors behind this, but we need more studies to understand the causes". A second analysis looked at suicide rates following diagnosis and treatment with prostate, bladder, or kidney cancer. In common with other findings, the researchers found that suicide rates increased after cancer diagnosis. Professor Klaassen commented: "This is the first population-level suicide study where we have been able to adjust for previous psychiatric history. We found that whereas the overall risk of suicide increased by around 16% (HR=1.16) for patients who had been diagnosed with these cancers, it went up by around 39% (HR=1.39) in patients who had no previous history of mental health treatment. This shows the significant toll that cancer diagnosis has on the mental health of patients. In general, we can say that patients with genitourinary malignancies who have utilized psychiatric services in the five years leading up to their cancer diagnosis are at increased risk of dying of their cancer compared to patients with the same cancer who have not sought psychiatric help. Furthermore, these patients are at greater risk of suicide. The exact reason for this relationship is unknown, however it highlights the importance of identifying at-risk patients and having a multi-disciplinary approach (including psycho-oncology) to managing these patients". "There are more than 20 population-level studies suggesting that cancer patients are at increased risk of suicide compared to the general population. This is the first study to account for pre-diagnosis psychiatric status, and it confirms that a cancer diagnosis in itself is a driving factor for suicidal risk. Considering that several studies have suggested that bladder cancer patients are amongst the highest-risk patients, at the Georgia Cancer Center we are working towards including prior psychiatric data on these patients to help us understand if early psychiatric assistance may help in the overall outcome. We think that this needs to be generally considered for these patients. Commenting, Professor Francesco Montorsi (Milano), European Association of Urology's Adjunct Secretary General for Science said: "This large study shows that pre-existing mental state can have a significant influence on cancer outcomes. In addition, it shows that just the diagnosis of cancer can have a bearing on whether or not the patient attempts suicide. The clinical community has a duty to treat the whole patient, not just the cancer, so we need to take note of these findings, and where possible to include appropriate precautions to take account of a patient's mental health history." Professor Montorsi was not involved in this research. Explore further Cancer death rate higher for patients with mental health history Credit: CC0 Public Domain A study of almost 500,000 women indicates that taking paracetamol or other painkillers during pregnancy is not responsible for increasing the risk of asthma in children. The research, which uses prescription data on painkillers, does support earlier findings that women taking paracetamol during pregnancy are more likely to have children who develop asthma. However, it also suggests that the painkillers are not the cause of this increase. Researchers say their results, published in the European Respiratory Journal, should give women reassurance to take painkillers during pregnancy when they are prescribed by a doctor. The research was led by Seif Shaheen, Professor of Respiratory Epidemiology, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK, in collaboration with Professor Catarina Almqvist and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Professor Shaheen was the first scientist to discover a link between paracetamol use during pregnancy and an increase in the risk of asthma in children. He said: "This link has now been seen in a number of studies in different countries, but until now there has been very little research on use of other painkillers during pregnancy and the subsequent risk of asthma in children. "We also do not know whether the link between paracetamol and asthma is causal, in other words we don't know whether paracetamol use in pregnancy per se is leading to more asthma, or whether some other factor is at play. The only way to be sure would be to carry out a trial where pregnant women are randomly assigned to either take paracetamol or not, but there are obvious ethical problems with this approach." To get around this problem, Professor Shaheen and his colleagues studied 492,999 Swedish mothers and their children. They looked at data on prescriptions for different types of painkillers during pregnancy and compared this with rates of asthma diagnosis in the children. They also looked at other data on the mothers, fathers, and any sisters and brothers. They found that children born to mothers who had been prescribed paracetamol during pregnancy did have an increased risk of asthma, but the risk was similar when women had been prescribed opioids (such as codeine and tramadol) or migraine medication. For example, the increase in risk for asthma at five years of age was 50% for paracetamol, 42% for codeine and 48% for migraine medication. Professor Shaheen explained: "These different types of painkillers work in different ways, but our results suggest that when women are prescribed them during pregnancy, the associated increases in children's asthma rates are fairly similar for all types. "Our interpretation of this is that it's less likely that the drugs are responsible for the asthma. Instead, it seems more likely that another factor that we haven't measured is linked to use of these drugs and to asthma risk. For example, women who are taking prescribed painkillers are likely to be suffering from chronic pain. "Severe pain, and the stress that it causes, have profound effects on the body, including on levels of some hormones, and there is evidence for a link between high levels of mothers' stress in pregnancy and increased risk of asthma in the offspring. "If that's the case then it's important to manage chronic pain during pregnancy and we should not avoid prescribing painkillers to pregnant women when they are needed. Similarly, women should feel reassured that infrequent use of paracetamol in pregnancy, which is commonly obtained over the counter and is the recommended painkiller to take in pregnancy, is unlikely to cause asthma in their offspring. "Our study also suggests that a clinical trial of paracetamol during pregnancy, which poses many challenges, is probably not worthwhile." Professor Tobias Welte, from Hannover University, Germany, is President of the European Respiratory Society and was not involved in the study. He said: "Paracetamol is the most commonly used painkiller in pregnancy, so it is important to know whether it might be a cause of childhood asthma. Previous research suggested these two were linked in some way, but this large study suggests that this may not be a simple cause and effect relationship, and this means that paracetamol should be prescribed to pregnant women who need it. However, we also need to continue studying the complex reasons why so many children develop asthma." Explore further Stronger evidence found for link between prenatal exposure to paracetamol and the risk of developing asthma More information: Seif O. Shaheen et al, Prescribed analgesics in pregnancy and risk of childhood asthma, European Respiratory Journal (2019). Journal information: European Respiratory Journal Seif O. Shaheen et al, Prescribed analgesics in pregnancy and risk of childhood asthma,(2019). DOI: 10.1183/13993003.01090-2018 Remote monitoring keeps heart failure patients out of hospital, according to late-breaking findings from the RESULT trial presented today at EHRA 2019, a European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress. The set-up is so effective that it has won reimbursement from the national health system. Study author Dr. Mateusz Tajstra, of the Silesian Centre of Heart Disease, Zabrze, Poland, said: "The trial showed that remote monitoring of implanted defibrillators in patients with heart failure leads to prompt treatment when a problem occurs and prevents hospital admissions." Around 12% of adults in developed countries have heart failure, a clinical syndrome characterised by breathlessness, ankle swelling, and fatigue. A high proportion of deaths in these patients, especially those with milder symptoms, occur suddenly due to ventricular tachyarrhythmias. Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) or cardiac resynchronisation therapy with a defibrillator (CRT-D) are recommended for some patients to correct potentially lethal arrhythmias and reduce the risk of sudden death. The number of heart failure patients with implanted devices is growing, and hospitalisations and outpatient appointments are common. This trial examined whether remote monitoring of the devices reduces the rate of hospitalisation and death. A total of 600 heart failure patients with an ICD or CRT-D were randomly allocated to remote monitoring or standard care with face-to-face appointments. During the subsequent 12 months, the researchers recorded deaths from any cause and hospitalisations for cardiovascular reasons (the composite primary endpoint). The rate of the primary endpoint was significantly lower in the remote monitoring group (39.5%) compared to the standard care group (48.5%; p=0.032). When the researchers looked at the components of the endpoint separately, they found that the rate of all-cause mortality was similar between groups (6% versus 6%; p=0.9), whereas the hospitalisation rate for cardiovascular causes rate was significantly lower in the remote arm (37.1%) compared to the standard arm (45.5%; p=0.045). Dr. Tajstra said: "The death rate may have been similar between groups because the trial was not powered to show differences in survival alone." "It is important to stress that remote monitoring is not effective as a plug and play gadget," he continued. "It will only be successful with a specified workflow to act on data retrieved from the devices, performed by a dedicated team." In this study, remote monitoring was conducted from an office in the hospital, open for ten hours daily Monday to Friday, with three levels of staff. Two electrophysiology nurses checked device transmissions, contacted patients if further information was needed, and decided the course of action. Cardiology residents investigated suspected arrhythmias or device malfunctions and took action if indicated. A clinical cardiologist and electrophysiologist were available for difficult clinical situations. "Our pragmatic approach facilitated rapid clinical reactions to data from the devices," said Dr. Tajstra. "This prevented heart failure decompensation, where symptoms suddenly get worse and patients are often hospitalised. Even though there is no reimbursement for remote monitoring in Poland, our results have convinced the health authorities to pay for this service." Explore further MORE-CARE: No clinical benefit for cardiac device remote monitoring More information: The abstract 'Remote supervision to decrease hospitalization rate study (RESULT) in patients with heart failure and implanted cardioverter-defibrillator or cardiac resynchronization therapy' will be presented during the session Late-breaking trials 2 on Monday 18 March at 08:30 to 10:00 WET (GMT) in the Sokolov lecture troom. Researchers worked with dementia caregivers to envision and design robots that could help them care for their loved ones. Credit: Healthcare Robotics Lab/University of California San Diego Building robots that can help people with dementia has been a longtime goal for roboticists. Yet until now, no one has sought to survey informal caregivers, such as family members, about what characteristics and roles these robots should have. A team of scientists at the University of California San Diego sought to address this by spending six months co-designing robots with family members, social workers, and other caregivers who care for people with dementia. They are presenting their findings at the Human Robot Interaction conference March 11 to 14 in South Korea. Researchers found that caregivers wanted the robots to fulfill two major roles: support positive moments shared by caregivers and their loved ones; and lessen caregivers' emotional stress by taking on difficult tasks, such as answering repeated questions and restricting unhealthy food. "Caregivers conceived of robots not only managing difficult aspects of caregivingbut also for supporting joyful and fun activities," said Laurel Riek, a professor of computer science at UC San Diego, and the paper's senior author. Spouses or adult children provide 75 percent of the care for people with dementia. That is equivalent to 15 million people in the United States alone, providing 18 billion hours of unpaid care per year with little support and few resources. Caregivers are also likely to overlook their own health and wellbeing, which can put both parties at risk. Most technology designed to support caregivers only seeks to educate, rather than to reduce burden. Caregivers sometimes also have access to virtual support systems and connections to clinicians via smartphones or desktop computers, but again this focuses on education and not direct assistance. By contrast, homecare robots could provide caregivers the respite they sorely need. Before building the robots, it is crucial to get caregivers' input so that the robots are well designed and actually useful. Undergraduate Alejandro E. Panduro (left), a cognitive science major, and postdoctoral researcher Hee Rin Lee, who focuses on computer science, work together with caregivers for people with dementia. (The caregivers' faces have been pixelated to protect their anonymity.) Credit: Healthcare Robotics Lab/University of California San Diego "It is imperative researchers take a community-health focused approach to understanding stakeholders' perspectives prior to building the technology," Riek said. "Especially in healthcare roboticsone should not walk in with a technology hammer." Half of the robots designed by caregivers were primarily focused on alleviating stress from the repetitive questions people with dementia ask. Caregivers also envisioned robots that could provide reminders of a person's daily schedule and tasks. They also designed robots to help with physical therapy and manage medications. As dementia progressed, caregivers wanted robots to interact more with the person with dementia by helping with daily tasks and offering reminders. The robots that caregivers imagined acted as counselors and facilitatorsand sometimes as the "bad guys" who could say "no" to the person with dementia. The researchers are now using these initial low-tech prototypes to build high-tech prototypes that they plan to begin testing in homes over the next year. Interviews and hands-on workshops For the study, researchers led by Riek built relationships with three different dementia day care centers in San Diego County. A series of interviews and hands-on workshops with caregivers were conducted by two UC San Diego cognitive science undergraduate students, Sanika Moharana and Alejandro E. Panduro, and one computer science postdoc, Hee Rin Lee. A total of 18 people participated in the research, including 13 family members who acted as caregivers for people with various types of dementia, five social workers who led the day care centers, and three geriatric nursing students who work at the centers. Example of one of the robots the caregivers designed. Credit: Healthcare Robotics Lab/University of California San Diego Based on everyone's feedback, the team identified 16 major challenges that caregivers had to deal with, from difficulty accepting dementia, to isolation, to difficulty prioritizing self-care. In the workshops, the researchers gave caregivers a brief presentation about the types of technologies available today, including pet-like robots, cleaning robots, telepresence robots, smart speakers and wearables. Then, with the students' help, caregivers selected key problems and collaboratively co-designed robots to tackle them. They used pre-cut foam shapes to build the robot prototypes. They also selected functions for the robots (such as playing games, reviewing photo albums, exercising, etc.) and a mode of interaction between the robot and person with dementia and caregivers (for example voice commands and touch screens). Caregivers designed their ideal robots to follow predetermined scenarios supplied by researchers and the social workers, including preventing a person with dementia from driving, getting them to bathe, or answering repetitive questions. Robot characteristics Based on the results of the six-month long community design process, the researchers identified a number of characteristics and design guidelines for robots to support dementia caregivers and people with dementia: Robots should help redirect conversations when repetitive questioning becomes burdensome Robots should be integrated into everyday objects that the people with dementia are already familiar with, or borrow features from those objects. For example, one caregiver wanted her husband to get messages through the TV, which he spends a lot of time watching. Robots should be able to adapt to new situations and to the behavior of the person with dementia. This is particularly important because dementia is a progressive disease and each stage brings new challenges for caregivers. In addition, patterns of progression vary from person to person and as a result are almost impossible to predict. Robots should be able to learn from end users, and customize and personalize their interaction and responses. Robots should have human-like components. That is not to say that they should look human. Rather the machines could, for example, use a real human voice or face. "When caregivers wanted robots to take active roles in persuading people with dementia to do something, they designed robots with more human-like features," the researchers write. Related to this, caregivers wanted robots to include features that would help build trust, such as looking like a friend or clinician. Robots should interact with humans via voice activation much like a smart speaker. More specifically, caregivers wanted the robots to use voices that their loved ones would be familiar withcaregivers or doctors. Caregivers also wanted robots to be capable of facial recognition. Explore further Robots may soon join ranks of Alzheimer's caregivers Confocal analysis at 63x magnification, followed by the three-dimensional reconstruction of neuronal cell bodies and branches. The image shows an example of eYFP and CRF in the same neuron. This rendered isosurface analysis demonstrated the colocalization of CRF immunoreactivity within CeA neurons that also expressed Cre-dependent eYFP and validates the crh-Cre rat as a tool to gain more direct access to CRF neurons to study their functional neuroanatomy. Credit: George lab Scientists at Scripps Research have found that they can reverse the desire to drink in alcohol-dependent ratswith the flip of a switch. The researchers were able to use lasers to temporarily inactivate a specific neuronal population, reversing alcohol-seeking behavior and even reducing the physical symptoms of withdrawal. "This discovery is excitingit means we have another piece of the puzzle to explain the neural mechanism driving alcohol consumption," says Olivier George, Ph.D., an associate professor at Scripps Research and senior author of the new study, published March 18, 2019 in the journal Nature Communications. Although the laser treatment is far from ready for human use, George believes identifying these neurons opens the door to developing drug therapies or even gene therapies for alcohol addiction. "We need compounds that are specific to this neuronal circuitry," George says. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more than 15.1 million adults in the United States suffer from alcohol use disorder. Previous work at Scripps Research has shown that transitioning from casual drinking to dependent drinking occurs alongside fundamental changes in how the brain sends signals. These signals drive the intense cravings that make it so difficult for many people to scale back their alcohol consumption. George and his colleagues have been hunting for the brain cells that driving drinking in an alcohol-addicted rat model. In 2016, they reported that they had found a possible source: a neuronal "ensemble," or group of connected cells in a brain region called the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA). This finding marked major progress in mapping the brain, but the researchers needed to characterize the identity of the neurons in this ensemble. For the new study, they tested the role of a subset of neurons in the ensemble, called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) neurons. The George laboratory had found that these CRF neurons make up 80 percent of the ensemble. Were these neurons the masterminds driving alcohol cravings? The researchers studied these neurons using optogenetics, a technique that involves the use of light to control cells in living tissue. Rats used in this study were surgically implanted with optic fibers aimed to shine light on the CRF neuronsto inactivate them at the flip of a switch. First, the scientists established a baseline for how much the rats would drink before they got addicted to alcohol. The rats drank little this pointthe equivalent of a glass of wine or one beer for a human. The scientists then spent several months increasing consumption in these rats to establish alcohol dependence. The researchers then withdrew the alcohol, prompting withdrawal symptoms in the rats. When they offered alcohol again, the rats drank more than ever. The CeA neuronal ensemble was active, telling the rats to drink more. Then the scientists flipped on the lasers to inactivate the CRF neuronsand the results were dramatic. The rats immediately returned to their pre-dependent drinking levels. The intense motivation to drink had gone away. Inactivating these neurons also reduced the physical symptoms of withdrawal, such as abnormal gait and shaking. "In this multidisciplinary study, we were able to characterize, target and manipulate a critical subset of neurons responsible for excessive drinking." says Giordano de Guglielmo, Ph.D., first author of the study and staff scientist at Scripps Research. "This was a team effort, and while we used challenging techniques, working with experts in the field and with the right tools, made everything easier and enjoyable." The effect was even reversible. Turn off the lasers, and the rats returned to their dependent behavior. From a basic science standpoint, this breakthrough is huge: It reveals wiring in the brain that drives a specific, destructive behavior. George says the next step in translating this work to humans is to find a way to selectively inhibit only these specific CRF neurons, perhaps using a novel or repurposed compound identified using high-throughput screening of large libraries of compounds. Meanwhile, de Guglielmo plans to take a closer look at the signaling pathways in the brain affected when the CRF neurons are deactivated. The new study shows that reduced drinking is tied to the CRF neurons that send projections to reach another brain region called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. De Guglielmo thinks other projections from these neurons may have different roles in alcohol addiction. He is also interested in identifying the role of these brain circuits in opioid addiction. Explore further Scientists reverse alcohol dependence in animal models More information: Inactivation of a CRF-dependent amygdalofugal pathway reverses addiction-like behaviors in alcohol-dependent rats , Nature Communications (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09183-0 Journal information: Nature Communications Inactivation of a CRF-dependent amygdalofugal pathway reverses addiction-like behaviors in alcohol-dependent rats ,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09183-0 The Supreme Court has reinstated the graft charges before the Sandiganbayan against Ozamiz City Vice Mayor Nova Princess E. Parojinog Echavez, daughter of the late former city mayor Reynaldo O. Parojinog Sr., in connection with the alleged anomalous renovation of the citys multi-purpose building in 2008. In a decision penned by Associate Justice Diosdado M. Peralta, the SC overturned the Sandiganbayans 2017 decision that dismissed the graft case against father and daughter filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2016. In 2010, the Ombudsman, acting on an anonymous complaint and the report of the Commission on Audit, charged the Parojinogs with graft for violation of Section 3 (h) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. The anti-graft body ruled that the respondents had financial or pecuniary interest in the renovation of the multi-purpose building awarded in favor of the Parojinog & Sons Construction Company, a firm where Nova Princess was the managing partner. The Parojinogs filed motions to dismiss the criminal case. Acting on the motions, the Sandiganbayan dismissed the case for violation of the accuseds constitutional right to speedy disposition of cases. The Sandiganbayan noted that it took the OMB five years and 11 months to file the criminal case in court from the time it received the complaint, saying that the delay could not be ignored by separating the fact-finding investigation from the conduct of preliminary investigations as all stages to which the accused was exposed should be included. Likewise, the anti-graft court ruled that the Ombudsman failed to establish the late mayors financial interest or intervention in the award of the project since it was the Department of Public Works and Highways that conducted the bidding and awarded the contract for the project. When the Sandiganbayan denied Ombudsmans motion for reconsideration on June 14, 2017, the Office of the Special Prosecutor elevated the issue before the SC and questioned the dismissal of the case on the ground of alleged violation of the accuseds right to speedy disposition of cases. In its ruling, the SC, citing the provision in the Constitution, ruled that all persons shall have the right to a speedy disposition of their cases before all judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative bodies. The high court added that accused rights, such as the right to speedy trial, is violated only when the proceeding is attended by vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays. For the purpose of determining whether inordinate delay exists, a case is deemed to have commenced from the filing of the formal complaint and the subsequent conduct of the preliminary investigation. Thus, the period devoted for fact-finding investigations before the filing of the formal complaint is not included in the determination of whether there has been inordinate delay, the SC said.Hence, in this case, the period from the receipt of the anonymous complaint by the Office of the Ombudsman-Mindanao, on August 23, 2010, until December 7, 2014 should not be considered in the determination of the presence of inordinate delay. This is so because during this period, respondents were not yet exposed to adversarial proceedings, but only for the purpose of determining whether a formal complaint against them should be filed based on the result of the fact-finding investigation, it noted. Therefore, the reckoning point to determine if there had been inordinate delay should start to run from the filing of the formal complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman-Mindanao, on December 8, 2014, up to the filing of the Information on November 23, 2016. We find that the period from the filing of the formal complaint to the subsequent conduct of the preliminary investigation was not attended by vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays as would constitute a violation of respondents right to a speedy disposition of cases, it said. The SC found the period of less than two years not to be unreasonable or arbitrary. In fact, respondents did not raise any issue as to the violation of their right to a speedy disposition of cases until the issuance of the Ombudsmans Resolution finding probable cause, the SC said. Finally, we note that the Sandiganbayan granted respondents motion to quash the Information on the ground that the facts did not constitute an offense, and since it dismissed the case due to the violation of respondents right to a speedy disposition of cases, it did not order the amendment of the information as provided under Section 4, Rule 117 of the Rules of Court If the motion to quash is based on an alleged defect of the complaint or information which can be cured by amendment, the court shall order that an amendment be made. If it is based on the ground that the facts charged do not constitute an offense, the prosecution shall be given by the court an opportunity to correct the defect by amendment, the high court ruled. The SC said that respondent Mayor Parojinog had already died on July 30, 2019 as shown by his death certificate; thus, the Information should only be filed against respondent Echavez. Published reports showed that in July 2017, Nova Princess and his brother Reynaldo Jr., and several other persons were arrested when law enforcement agents served them search warrants for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. The same reports stated that in the ensuing firefight, Parojinog Sr., his wife, and 14 others died. Reynaldo Jr. was charged with possession of dangerous drugs, firearms, ammunition and explosives, while Nova Princess was charged with illegal possession of firearms, ammunition, and dangerous drugs. It was not known immediately the status of the cases. (HealthDay)Though they often dread social events, many introverts find they're not as bad as feared and some have learned to fake an outgoing personality to get through the experience. In the business world, socializing is a key to success, said Erik Helzer, who led a team that examined the psychological implications for both introverts and extroverts. Helzer is an assistant professor of management and organization at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore. "We're told, 'You ought to do this. It will help your career,'" he said in a university news release. "But that doesn't mean we look forward to it. In fact, many people do not." For the study, Helzer and colleagues asked 146 university students to spend 30 minutes interacting with strangers in a cocktail party environment. Many predicted the experience would be mentally draining and that they would feel worse, not better, after socializing. Not surprisingly, this was especially true for more introverted participants. When asked how they felt after socializing, more of the extroverts reported significant increases in positive feelings after socializing, which was not unexpected. But many of the introverts did, too, the study found. Overall, 40 percent of all participants predicted they would feel worse after socializing, but instead felt significantly better about it after it was over. Researchers also had participants rate each other's social skills. Overall, extroverts were considered more socially skilled than introverts, but that gap was much smaller for introverts who feared a negative evaluation. That suggests that they compensated for their shyness by "acting" extroverted, said Helzer. "Their fear of negative evaluation may be fueling a desire to overcompensate in order to make a positive impression on their interaction partners," he said. Helzer said the takeaway is this: "More often than not, these interactions will go more positively than most people expect." The study was recently published in the journal PLOS One. Explore further Introverts think they won't like being leaders but they are capable More information: The American Psychological Association has more on Journal information: PLoS ONE The American Psychological Association has more on personality Copyright 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved. An electron micrograph of the measles virus. Credit: CDC/ Courtesy of Cynthia S. Goldsmith Eleven people have died and more than 30,000 have been infected this year in a major measles outbreak in Ukraine, the European country worst hit by the disease, Kiev said Monday. The latest victim was a nine-year-old girl who died from complications Saturday after contracting the highly infectious disease, the health ministry said. Some 30,500 people, including 17,000 children, have been infected so this year. Authorities said shortages of vaccine in previous years and anti-vaccination sentiment, often driven by online campaigns spreading false information about the alleged risks, were the main reasons behind the outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a 95-percent vaccination rate to prevent mass hospitalisations and fatalities. But in Ukraine, just 42 percent of one-year-olds had been vaccinated as of end-2016, according to the United Nations children's agency UNICEF. Measles cases more than tripled across Europe in 2018, with Ukraine accounting for most of the gain. Europe as a whole saw nearly 83,000 cases last year, according to WHO figures. The Ukrainian government reported 54,000 cases in 2018. There were 16 deaths nationwide. In 2019, the authorities launched a special campaign including sending mobile vaccination teams to rural schools in two western regions particularly hard hit in the outbreak. Measles is characterised by high fever and a reddish rash. It usually triggers only mild symptoms but remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally. Explore further Measles outbreak kills 11 in Ukraine this year 2019 AFP At least 30 percent of the 350,000 jobs that Japan will open to foreigners will be available to Filipino workers, according to the Department of Labor and Employment. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said skilled Filipino workers are among the preferred nationals in Japan with the potential of cornering more than 100,000 in fresh job opening in the Asian neighbor. Our workers may get at least 30 percent of available jobs to foreign nationals with the effectivity next month of a law allowing new residence status to foreign workers, Bello said. The Labor chief said a memorandum of agreement for the deployment of specified skilled workers, will be signed in Tokyo between the labor department and Japans Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Health, Labor and Welfare and the National Police Agency. Bello said the cooperation agreement will not just provide better opportunities but also enhance protection for skilled Filipino workers for deployment to Japan. This agreement, aside from providing better opportunities, is geared toward ensuring their protection by means of implementing a basic framework that will promote smooth and proper mechanisms in sending, accepting, and residence management of incoming specified skilled workers in Japan, he said.The specified skilled workers are those who possess certain expertise and skills and granted the status of residence of Specified Skilled Worker by the government of Japan, Bello said. Among the specified skills include those in health care, building maintenance, food services, industrial machinery, electronics, food manufacturing, agriculture, hospitality, construction, shipbuilding, fisheries and aquaculture, parts and tooling and aviation. Under the agreement, the shared areas for cooperation are streamlining of recruitment processes; examining mechanisms on accepting and supporting organizations and a specified skilled worker; providing guidance and supervision in the implementation of the system; sharing of information; establishing of a joint committee for resolution of issues and continued improvement of the system; administering examinations; and promoting the welfare and protection of Filipino skilled workers. Serving as the countrys contact points once the agreement is signed are the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration for processing and accreditation; and Philippine Labor Overseas Labor Office-Japan for verification of skilled workers documents, coordination onsite and welfare concerns. " " About $3.3 trillion in U.S. tax revenue comes in every year from people who voluntarily pay their taxes. An additional $50-$60 billion comes from enforcement. Hocus-Focus/Yuji Sakai/Getty Rich people, it seems, get away with everything. They live charmed lives jetting around on private planes that whisk them to exotic locales where they lounge on luxury yachts and nibble Beluga caviar. They don't even have to pay taxes, do they? Well, of course they do. And luckily, your friendly neighborhood Internal Revenue Service agent is on the job, making sure the super-wealthy in the U.S. fork over their fair share. Since 2010, the IRS has unleashed a team of tax collectors that, officially, is named the Global High-Wealth Industry group. Unofficially it's known as: The Wealth Squad. So, it's not exactly the Justice League of America. Advertisement Going After the Rich If you're all about taking money from the bad guys, or at least the rich people who don't want to cough up their dough, the Wealth Squad is where it's at. Their goal (from an official IRS document): To look at the complete financial picture of high wealth individuals and the enterprises they control. We're talking audits on people with a net worth of millions and millions of dollars. Billions, even. And remember: The super-rich don't like to be audited. "This is the world we live in, in the last 20 years or so, where these people have net worths that are of a size that used to be reserved for institutions," says Stanley I. Langbein, a Harvard-trained tax lawyer and a professor at the University of Miami School of Law. "When I was practicing law in 1980, we represented someone named Marvin Davis, who was a Denver oilman. At that time, Marvin Davis was the only billionaire in the United States. Of course, now ..." Now, according to Forbes, there are 540 billionaires in the U.S. The Wealth Squad stays pretty busy. Advertisement Following the Money Audits, as scary as they may sound, are not very common. The IRS handled some 192 million tax returns filed in 2014. For fiscal year 2015, the agency "examined" (a word the folks there have for audited) fewer than 1 percent of them 0.7 percent, to get IRS precise. (Most of the audits don't involve a black-suited dude with no humor poring over receipts on your living room table, by the way. Most are done via email or regular mail.) The actual number of returns that the IRS audits has been slipping steadily since 2010, too, because (the IRS says) of funding cuts and sequestering, the automatic cutbacks mandated by Congress in 2013. The IRS, it seems, can't afford to go looking for all its money. Still, the IRS knows where the real cash is, and that's with the super-rich. Once an individual's adjusted gross income starts to climb over $200,000, the number of audits begins to soar, to the point where, if you make more than $10 million a year, you have a better than 1 in 3 chance of being audited. Enter the Wealth Squad. The team of accountants, tax lawyers, finance experts, economists and others who delve into the lives of the super-rich to get the country's due. Most of their work is done under the radar. But, according to Forbes, a certain president-elect who didn't release his taxes to the public because he was being audited is a Wealth Squad target. The squad's first step: filing forms, of course. (This is, after all, the government.) Form 4564, better known as an Information Document Request, goes out, and the Wealth Squad's target is expected to comply. If not ... well, that's where things can get complicated. The mega-wealthy didn't get that mega-way by handing over their money to the government. "There are certain things that wealthy people do that are tax avoidance, or evasion, and one of them used to be offshore accounts," Langbein says. "But they really have cracked down on that." The super-wealthy have long stashed their cash in foreign banks, away from the prying fingers of Uncle Sam and his tax-grabbers. In recent years, the IRS instituted the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, which allows the guilt-laden to 'fess up (and, of course, pay up) to avoid the alternative: getting caught, having their assets seized and, possibly, spending time in jail. The rich continue to hide their money offshore, though, and in many other ways. Those fancy corporate jets are a headache for the Wealth Squad, Langbein says, rife with possibilities for questionable deductions and depreciation. Shell corporations are established and sold to lessen (or avoid) taxes. It can get complicated. From the Journal of Tax Practice & Procedure: A typical Wealth Squad examination consists of a key case, generally the taxpayer's Form 1040, and related income tax returns for which the taxpayer has a controlling interest in the entity and for which a significant compliance risk may exist. These entities may include partnerships, trusts, S corporations, C corporations, private foundations, etc. The examination often includes other individual income tax returns affected by flow-through adjustments made on the tax returns for partnerships and S corporations controlled by the key taxpayer. When companies or individuals are considered multinational, the laws of other nations have to be considered, too. It would seem, sometimes, to take a superhero, or a team of them, to untangle everything. "The information is so hard to get," Langbein says. Yet the IRS and the Wealth Squad soldier on. Advertisement Fighting the Good Fight The head of the IRS, Commissioner of Internal Revenue John Koskinen, in remarks to the National Press Club earlier this year, said that the IRS, despite its image, is much more efficient in gathering money than you might think. It doesn't get nearly all what's due, but what it gets, it doesn't spend a lot of money getting. According to Koskinen, the IRS spends about 35 cents to make a buck of revenue: According to statistics compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average OECD member country spends almost twice as much as the U.S. to collect a dollar of revenue. This includes countries like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. About $3.3 trillion in tax revenue comes in every year from those who voluntarily (if not cheerily) do their civic duty, Koskinen noted in the speech, but the IRS has to work for the rest. Some $50-60 billion a year is generated from enforcement, much of that toward people in high-income brackets. Koskinen warned that more budget cuts will further sabotage the efforts of the IRS to get the unwilling to pay their taxes. Already, the Wealth Squad has faced layoffs. Again, from the Journal of Tax Practice & Procedure: Initially, it was envisioned that the Wealth Squad would grow to 242 examiners (e.g., revenue agents) and 58 management/support staff by the end of FY 2011 (September 30). However, due to budget and related compliance resource limitations, by the end of FY 2014, the Wealth Squad had only 96 examiners and 24 management/support staff about 40 percent of what ... initially [was] believed would be effective. Cuts, Koskinen says, also might encourage more should-be taxpayers to go rogue. And that would be disastrous for the country's bottom line. The Wealth Squad's duties, it seems, never end. NOW THAT'S INTERESTING The IRS, like many government agencies, is constantly trying to improve its online experience, the direct link to taxpayers. The reason is simple. According to Koskinen, it costs between $40 and $60 to help a taxpayer in person. That's $40 to $60 of taxpayer money. To help a taxpayer online costs less than $1. It's a savings all around. 8 Old-School Exercises for Muscle Mass Written by Ron Harris 18 March 2019 8 Old-School Exercises for Muscle Mass What is your primary physique goal? What do you want to accomplish? The name of this activity we do with weights is called bodybuilding, so of course building lean muscle mass (not just bulk thats mostly fat and water), is always the primary objective. Of course, we want to have nice shape and aesthetics. But we still want to be big and thick, bursting with so much muscle that no one would even have to ask if you lift. One glance, and its obvious. Yet few of us are satisfied with the size we are, or the rate we are growing. One reason many fail to reach their goals is overemphasis on machines and isolation movements. The basics that were transforming skinny kids into rugged muscle men as long ago as the 1930s are just as effective in 2018. Its just a matter of doing those old-school basics, and doing them right. Here are eight exercises guaranteed to pack more beef on to your frame, along with tips on how to get the most out of each. Bench Press It was dubbed the king of upper body exercises more than a half-century ago, and its hard to argue against that title. We think of the bench press as being primarily a chest movement, but in reality, this compound motion hits the anterior deltoids and the triceps as well. Chest development among pro bodybuilders was superior in general in decades past relative to today, and many have surmised that the old-school devotion to the bench press as the primary exercise in chest workouts is the reason. Many modern-day bodybuilders avoid the flat barbell bench press in favor of dumbbells and machines, ostensibly because many consider the bench press to be a dangerous exercise. They could be making a grave error, and not allowing their pectoral development to reach its full potential. Do them this way:There is a huge difference in how to perform bench presses to develop power versus to stimulate growth in the pectoral muscle. First off is the rep range. Working primarily with sets of one to five will increase strength rapidly. The problem is, the pecs arent under tension long enough to damage the muscle fibers sufficiently to cause a growth response. Try sets of eight to 12 instead. Next is learning to work the muscle rather than move the weight. Set yourself up like so: roll the shoulders down toward your hips while pinching your shoulder blades together. Put a slight arch in your lower back and pop your chest up. Use a grip just wider than your shoulders, and keep your elbows tucked down. Now youre ready to press with pure chest power. Try to contract the pecs forcefully at the top of each rep. If you feel your triceps more than your pecs at that point, stop your reps a couple of inches short of lockout and focus on squeezing the pecs. Always control the negative, feeling your pecs elongate as they stretch. Never, ever bounce the bar off your chest! Squats The squat has built more outstanding legs than any other exercise, and by a vast margin. Its the absolute most basic leg movement you could imagine: put a barbell across your upper back and shoulders, do a deep knee bend and stand up. Tom Platz, Branch Warren, Kai Greene and every other man known for his spectacular wheels paid his dues with thousands of sets at the squat rack. Even with the excellent array of equipment available to bodybuilders, including all manner of leg presses, hack squats and even squat machines, nothing will ever replace the good old-fashioned squat. Do them this way: If you want to squat a lot of weight, squat like a powerlifter, with the bar lower down on your back. That puts the glutes and the lower back in the best mechanical position to move maximum resistance. If youre more interested in building huge thighs, do high bar squats like a bodybuilder, with the bar right across your upper traps. You will also want to keep your torso as upright as possible, though there should be a very slight forward lean. This will put the stress right on your quads, where you want it. As far as foot position, you will have to play around to find the one that allows you to get to parallel, or even better, below parallel, with no knee pain. Taller guys tend to need to set their feet farther apart, while men of average height or below can often have a shoulder-width stance. The toes should be angled just slightly outward. Do not lock out the knees at the top, and never drop fast and bounce out of the bottom position. Lower the weight under control, and then drive right back up. Reps should be in the 10-15 range, though you can do heavier sets of eight to 10 as well as lighter sets of 15-20 to attack different types of muscle fibers. Deadlifts I lift things up and put them down. That was the famous line spoken several times in the infamous Planet Fitness commercial that became a worldwide catchphrase. Yet it also perfectly describes the deadlift. If there is anything close to a full-body exercise, its the deadlift. In the course of pulling a heavy bar from the floor, you will work your entire back, from traps to lats and spinal erectors, along with your rear delts, biceps, forearms, quads, hams, glutes and even calves! Talk about bang for your buck. Of course, most bodybuilders do deadlifts for their back. Is it any coincidence that three of the men known for their incredible backs Franco Columbu, Ronnie Coleman and Johnnie Jackson were all able to deadlift world-class amounts of weight? Deadlifts give the entire back a look of thick, rugged power. Do them this way: Youre never going to be able to squeeze and isolate the lats during deadlifts, so dont worry about that. The form for deads doesnt really differ from powerlifters to bodybuilders, but the reps do. Many have found that going higher on the reps does a much better job of stimulating overall back growth. Branch Warren saw some of his best improvements in his back development after a torn triceps forced him to take his deadlifts down from 500+ pounds to doing 315 for brutal sets of 20. Powerlifters arent allowed to use wrist wraps, but you are, and you should. Take an overhand grip on the bar. Squat down low to start the lift, and drive from your heels while pulling with your back and arms. Never allow your lower back to round. Barbell Rows Barbell rows have long been a staple for back thickness. Arnold and Lee Haney were huge advocates of the exercise, and Dorian Yates reinvented them in the early 90s with his reverse-grip variation that everyone around the world started doing once he became Mr. Olympia. Bent at the waist, you pull a barbell into your abdominal area with a pronounced contraction of the lats. Machines and cables are nice variations, but nothing will ever beat the sheer effectiveness of the barbell row. Do them this way: The most important form tip is to bend at the waist, with your torso at about 45 degrees to the floor. If you are able to get it closer to parallel like the old-school stars such as Arnold and Lee Haney, go for it. Most find that position drastically limits the weight they are able to use. That being said, too many guys stand too close to upright, and turn what should be a row into a bastardized shrug. Going too heavy is the reason why form goes to shit in nearly every case. They will jerk the barbell up and bounce it off their body, with the lats hardly being under any tension at all. Use a weight you can feel in your lats, otherwise youre wasting your time. Dips In the era before every gym had a dozen or more different machines to work your chest, bodybuilders built mighty pecs with bench presses, dumbbell flyes and dips. The humble dip is so simple that you could do it between two chairs if you didnt have a set of dip bars available. Like the bench press, it thoroughly hits the pecs, front delts and triceps. Its also versatile. Lean forward, you get more chest involvement. Maintain a straighter torso, and the triceps take more of the load. Its safe to say that any man who can do a good set of 10 reps with 90 or more pounds strapped around his waist is going to have impressive pecs, shoulders and triceps. They also make an excellent finishing movement with nothing more than bodyweight. Do them this way: If you are doing dips for chest, consider them as being akin to a decline press, as the angle is nearly identical. The neutral (hands facing each other) hand position puts you in a powerful position for pressing. Dips for the chest should have you lowering into a full stretch of the pecs, though you should always take care not to descend any lower than what your shoulders are safely capable of. Stop reps just shy of lockout, squeezing the pecs at the top of each rep. When doing dips for the triceps, you can lower to just above parallel, but do push out to fully locked elbows and fully contracted triceps. Flare the elbows away from the body for chest, and keep them tucked in tighter for triceps. Chin-ups You could theoretically build a great back by doing nothing more than deadlifts, barbell rows and chin-ups. Chin-ups are another incredibly basic movement. Reach up and grab on to a bar, then pull yourself up! Most bodybuilders opt for lat pulldowns instead, and Im not saying those arent worth doing too. But pulling your own bodyweight upward, and especially if you become strong enough to do so with additional weight strapped on, will give you a wide, meaty upper back. People avoid chins because they are hard to do, the same reason many pass on squats and deadlifts. Yet the hardest, most uncomfortable exercises are usually also the most productive. Do them this way: Chin-ups are going to be something you want to do first in your back workout, otherwise they will be a real struggle. You can use several different grips for chins. Because the standard wide overhand grip is the toughest, always do those first for a couple of sets before you move on to underhand or neutral grip chins. Or, you could do all your chin-ups with the overhand grip, and then save those other hand positions for lat pulldowns later in the workout. Dont be afraid to use wrist straps. Most importantly, pull up and try to squeeze your upper back before lowering under control. Avoid the jerky swinging motion that you see in CrossFit, as it will do nothing to build your back. Close-grip Bench Press When most bodybuilders think of the best exercises to build the triceps, they typically envision extension movements like skull-crushers and cable pushdowns. While those are also effective, they dont allow for the sheer amount of weight made possible in compound movements like dips and the close-grip bench press. Many pros with enormous horseshoe triceps have credited close-grip bench presses as being responsible for the bulk of their triceps mass. Think about it. A very strong man might be able to use about 150 pounds for skull-crushers, but he would likely handle around 315 on the close-grip. In the same way that torso angle can shift the resistance on dips from pecs to triceps, bringing your grip in closer on the bench press forces the triceps to work much harder. Do them this way: Dont take the close grip part of the exercise name too literally. Going too close with your hands will result in severe wrist strain. A good rule of thumb is to space your hands one hand width closer on each side than where you have them for bench presses. As with dips, you will want to keep your arms and elbows close to your body to emphasize the triceps. Dont worry about trying to touch the bar to your chest, either. Stop short a few inches, and then drive up to full lockout. Always take your time warming up, as these can be tough on the elbow joints and triceps tendons if you get too overzealous and jump into heavy weights too soon. Alternate Dumbbell Curls If you could only do two biceps movements, you would be just fine if those two were barbell curls and dumbbell curls. While barbell curls have a deservedly solid reputation for building millions of big guns over many decades, dumbbell curls do offer a couple of advantages. Many bodybuilders experience wrist pain sooner or later from curling with a straight bar, and move on to the cambered EZ-bar. Thats because not all of us have full rotation of the wrist that allows for complete supination, and the straight bar forces the wrists into an unnatural position. Dumbbells allow you to move in exactly the way your body wants to. They also dont allow a stronger arm to compensate for a weaker arm, as the barbell does. Do them this way: There are two keys to good form on alternate dumbbell curls. One, dont swing the weights up with momentum, and two, dont let your elbows drift up and forward, away from your torso. Do your best to keep your elbows pinned to your sides. You can either supinate your hand as you curl up, or keep them supinated (palms to the sky) the whole time. Forget about going very heavy. Do that, and I guarantee you wont get the most out of these. Use a weight that really lets you squeeze your biceps hard at the end of each rep. Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPNs American Muscle Magazine show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989, and maintains the popular website ronharrismuscle.com, most notable for its blog The Daily Pump. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Follow Ron on Facebook and Instagram DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE ON THE MD FORUM FOLLOW MUSCULAR DEVELOPMENT ON: FACEBOOK: MuscularDevelopment Magazine TWITTER: @MuscularDevelop INSTAGRAM: @MuscularDevelopment YOUTUBE: http://bit.ly/2fvHgnZ Despite number portability launching in South Africa in 2006, non-geographic number portability is still being delayed by Telkom, said ISPA. The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has drawn attention to the delay in rolling out this functionality, stating that it is impossible to port non-geographic numbers with prefixes such as 0800 and 0860 due to Telkom stalling the process. When it comes to the introduction of non-geographic number portability, Telkom has sadly reverted to its bad old days persona after a promising start to the new millennium, said ISPA chairman Graham Beneke. During recent public hearings into non-geographic number portability, Telkoms industry peers and others had to suffer long-winded explanations from the former monopoly as to why it could not swiftly introduce non-geographic number portability. It can, and we all know it, Beneke added. Beneke argued that Telkom is stalling non-geographic number portability as this would result in it losing out to competitors if large companies and contact centres could switch networks while keeping their numbers. Numbers that are easy for consumers to recall and which have been heavily-advertised at tremendous cost are especially contentious. No call centre that has invested significantly in its main inbound phone number is going to switch network operators without being able to retain this number so heavily linked to its brand, Beneke said. Beneke said that ISPA was ready to port non-geographic numbers, but that Telkoms stalling of the regulations is preventing the porting of 087 numbers by ISPA. Now read: Telkom gets new number range A tropical cyclone that swept across Mozambique at the weekend may have killed more than 1,000 people, President Filipe Nyusi said as heavy rains continued to pound neighboring Zimbabwe where flooding left dozens more dead. Its clear that the next few days could be worse, Nyusi said in comments broadcast on state radio. If more than 1,000 lives have been lost, we wont be surprised. The death toll has risen sharply since Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall almost directly over the Mozambican port city of Beira on Friday, knocking out communications networks and power plants before moving westward to Zimbabwe. The scale of the damage wrought by the storm is massive and horrifying, said Jamie LeSueur, who is leading an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent assessment team in Beira. It seems that 90 percent of the area is completely destroyed, he said in a statement. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., the state-owned power utility in neighboring South Africa, said the storm reduced the amount of electricity it imports from the Mozambiques Cahora Bassa hydropower dam, exacerbating a shortage thats resulted in blackouts. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa cut short a visit to the United Arab Emirates to manage the governments response to the disaster, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported. Nyusi also ended a trip to neighboring Eswatini ahead of schedule to tour some of the worst-hit areas in central parts of the country. Heavy rains are forecast to continue into the middle of the week, bringing more flooding and making it difficult to reach stranded communities in both Mozambique and Zimbabwe. We hope that the weather will improve, but right now we only have one helicopter on the ground which is operating in the area due to bad weather, Joshua Sacco, a Zimbabwean lawmaker for Chimanimani East, one of the worst-affected areas, said by phone. Unfortunately indications are that the death toll will increase. Its not looking good at all. Now read: Boeing 737 Max black box shows similarities between Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes I rarely need convincing to head to Charleston. I mean I wrote a whole post on why you SHOULD go in the winter! When the #BloggersDoTravel girls heard about Charleston Wine + Food Festival it was a unanimous decision to make our way there to experience it. Sure, Ive been to other food, wine, and everything else, festivals. But let me tell you something. Nothing Ive ever been to holds a candle to this festival. Heres what I wore, what we did and 5 reasons why you should add this to your travel list for next year. PS Tickets are now on sale for Charleston Wine + Food 2020, grab them here! First, what exactly is Charleston Wine + Food? Charleston Wine + Food is a 5 day wine and food experience like no other. The heart of the event is the Culinary Village that happens Friday through Sunday. Set in Marion Square which is off King Street, this park gets transformed into a true village of food, beverage and experiences. This space has vendors, chefs, cooking demos, and live music and even a silent disco. You can eat for 5 hours straight and try something new every single bite. One of my favorite things about the Culinary Village (versus any other foodie festival Ive been to) is not only the amount of food thats served but the incredible quality. These arent just bites of chicken, or veggies. No, no. We ate ALL THE THINGS. A few favorite things we had while walking around Culinary Village was the andouille sausage, pimento cheese hot dogs. Incredible. We also indulged in lobster bao bun rolls. Yes, lobster. There was also paella chock full of shrimp and tender meat. We had brisket, duck, scallops and more. They do not skimp on the food! Then came all the wine. But not just wine, there was also tequila, my favorite Don Julio, and bourbon like Coopers Craft and everything in between. One of my favorite areas was their rose tent. It was an entire section dedicated to all things rose. It was a basic girls dream! 5 Reasons To Visit Charleston Wine + Food 1. Experience New Restaurants & Chefs From ALL Over My favorite part of this was seeing restaurants Ive been dying to visit in Charleston. It was such a great way to try their specialties and even chat with the chefs. One very cool thing about this festival too is that a lot of restaurants and chefs from outside of Charleston come in for it. There were several restaurants from Atlanta like Saltyard and Fox Bros BBQ. Some even from New York, Maryland and North Carolina. 2. They Do Not SKIMP Theres no other food festival Ive ever been to that serves this much QUALITY food. We ate like QUEENS you guys. We had all the things from all the food groups. Caviar, scallops, ribeye, shrimp and more. You name it, we probably ate it. The price tag of the tickets for this isnt even that bad. For $135 per day, you can indulge for 5 straight hours. Its a great way to spend a day in Charleston and eat and drink. The ticket only includes one-day admission though, but in all honesty, I think one day is perfect! Youd definitely spend way more than that on food and drinks between lunch and dinner at a restaurant in the city. TIP: My pro-tip, many of the chefs did a menu change halfway through. So you could do a lap and try all the things. Then at around 3:30, they did a swap and changed out their offerings so you could do ANOTHER lap. Guys, it was glorious. 3. Theres More Than Just Culinary Village Since Culinary Village is Friday-Sunday, I definitely recommend doing one day there and then checking out whats beyond CV. You can totally head to Charleston Wine + Food and just do Culinary Village and have an incredible time. But, if you want to dig deeper into food and events, they have a slew of options. We did the Au Natural wine tasting at Graft. Cathy and Kristin did Lunch Squad (total envy we didnt get to join), and we all did Winderlust together. I think Winderlust was a personal favorite. Between the incredible venue and views to the ridiculous food we enjoyed, it was a highlight! These tickets are separate from Culinary Village and I recommend adding at least 2 to your itinerary for the weekend. Below are a few snaps from our Au Natural Wine Tasting Class at Graft. 4. Its In Charleston I mean, how can you really say no to a reason to visit Charleston. From the walkability, incredible food, great weather, theres no better place for a Wine + Food Festival. My favorite part of it being in Charleston was how easy it was to walk to everything (I prefer a bike though!). We did have to drive to Winderlust , but Ubers are easily accessible and affordable. Plus, the views at the events and venues are usually incredible. Charleston is the #2 wedding destination for a reason. Many of the events were held at some of the best venues in the city like Winderlust at Lowndes Grove Plantation. It was truly stunning. 5. Try New Things & Make New Memories There were foods, beverages, liquors and beers I never wouldve thought to try before this event. With knowledgeable vendors, you can learn a bit about what youre trying and get to try new things. Plus, all of these experiences with friends makes for some really fun memories. What I Wore To Charleston Wine + Food My biggest tip for visiting Charleston no matter what youre there for is to pack comfortable shoes. Its very much a walking city and youll want to explore on foot for most of it. I always pack jeans, chucks and an espadrille like my Marc Fisher LTD ones, lightweight tops and jackets to easily layer. The nights can get cool (besides the hot sweaty summers of course) so definitely check the weather. Our first day there was quite cold at night and required scarves and jackets! Heres what I wore For Day One We headed to Graft, a fun wine bar to attend an Au Natural wine tasting. The girls and I learned all about sulfates, natural wine making and more. This space is so beautiful and if youre ever in Charleston, I highly recommend heading in to Graft for a glass of wine or two! I wore this new CeCe floral print denim jacket that is for sure going to be a staple for spring and summer. I love a good denim jacket but never love pairing it with more denim. Having this one will allow me to wear it with all my jeans! SHOP MY LOOK Turn on your JavaScript to view content For Day Two To attend the Culinary Village, I went COMFY. The sun started to shine on Friday and it finally warmed up. So I ditched the sweaters and went for a fun ruffle tee (last seen here) and Converse. Culinary Village is set in a park with lots of straw on the ground so you dont want to wear any opened toe shoes or anything really that nice. My brand new platform Converse were pretty dirty after just one day there. Plus, I uh, spilled food on them SHOP MY LOOK Turn on your JavaScript to view content For Day Three We headed out to do a few touristy things like visit Rainbow Row. Its a must visit when youre in Charleston and just oh so colorful. I wore my new Marc Fisher LTD espadrilles and matched my tee to them. After a little exploring, we went to Tradds for dinner to wrap up the trip with a delicious meal. SHOP MY LOOK Turn on your JavaScript to view content Where We Stayed We tried a new to me hotel for this trip, The Restoration. Ive visited their rooftop restaurant, and coffee bar, but never stayed at the hotel. The Restoration Hotel was a great location off King Street and Wentworth in the heart of downtown. Each morning started with a picnic basket full of breakfast goodies like muffins, biscuits, coffee and fruit. Such a nice way to start our day. Grab Your Tickets! Tickets for the 2020 Charleston Wine + Food go on sale August 28th, 2019. Book experiences, workshops and day passes to the festival here. All photos by Julie Livingston Photography READ: Duterte lists 50 more narco-pols READ: Rody names 46 narco-pols Napa Valley Education Foundation and the Innovations Project at the American Canyon High School Wellness Center are presenting a series of three inter-generational events focused on Student Success and Wellness. The school will be hosting colleges and universities such as the UC, Berkeley, UC, Davis, Sacramento State University, and Napa Valley College. The events will also have a cultural component from the Filipino culture. The goal is to develop relationships with Filipino families to build trust and common language between students and families as they discuss success and wellness. The first College Success event will be held on Thursday March 21, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. with UC, Berkeley at the American Canyon High School Cafeteria. Wellness Centers provide support to middle school and high school students and their families, focusing on their health, well-being and academic success. Each Wellness Center is staffed with a Wellness Team composed of school counselors, a school social worker, a school psychologist, a parent liaison, and a school nurse who help students and their families navigate complex issues such as stress, trauma, suicide, bullying, depression, self-esteem and relationships. Funding for this project is provided by the Napa County Mental Health Division, a division of Napa County Health and Human Services Agency, with Innovations funding from the Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63). It is one of several MHSA programs funded by the Mental Health Division, which is working to improve mental health outcomes for individuals, families and communities. For more information: Roxana Plancarte, ACHS Social Worker, 707-492-5967 or roxana_plancarte@nvusd.org. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Wild Perspectives, celebrating the International Year of the Salmon, will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 23, at St. Helenas Cameo Cinema. The event includes: A presentation by award-winning photographer Amy Gulick, who will share images and stories from her forthcoming book, The Salmon Way Several short films about some of the most pristine salmon watersheds left on Earth Remarks from U.S. Congressman Mike Thompson and discussion with Alaska salmon fishermen. Following the presentation, attendees will enjoy an Alaska Salmon Tasting at the nearby Odd Fellows Lodge #167 on Main Street featuring local wines and beers. Wild Perspectives is the second in a series of events started in 2016 by local resident and wine industry member Joe Filippini. Wild Perspectives showcases people of passion and people who follow through with good ideas. Its exciting to see adventurers, artists, fishermen, activists, politicians, and Odd Fellows all converging in St. Helena to celebrate not just wild salmon, but clean nourishment for the body and soul, Filippini said. Seating is limited. Tickets are $45 and proceeds benefit Alaska salmon conservation work. For tickets visit eventbrite.com. St. Helena students have taken their last loop. The school board voted 3-2 last Thursday to end looping, a system that gave students in grades 1-2 and 4-5 the same teacher for two consecutive years. Disappointing test scores led administrators to recommend eliminating looping, which requires teachers to be familiar with curricula at two grade levels. Starting in the 2019-2020 school year, teachers will have to master only one grade level, which administrators hope will produce better test scores. Trustees Jeff Conwell, Maria Haug and Julio Olguin voted to eliminate looping. Trustees Jeannie Kerr and Lisa Pelosi voted to keep it. Supporters of looping raise some good points, but test scores show that the looping model is not performing as expected, Olguin said. Test scores are not the end-all (and) be-all, but they are a vital metric for any educational system that is merit-based, such as ours, Olguin said. Haug said that based on lackluster fifth-grade math scores, 64 percent of our students are not going to be eligible for high-quality STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) jobs in the future. While she feels emotionally attached to looping, the data makes it clear that things need to change, she said. Pelosi and Kerr voted against eliminating looping, saying they would like to see it continue with greater accountability. About 80 percent of the teachers at the TK-5 level support eliminating looping, according to Superintendent Marylou Wilson. A majority of teachers believe that being a grade-level expert would help alleviate many of the demands that the new curriculums and teaching pedagogy present each year, Brandon Farrell, president of the St. Helena Teachers Association, told the board in a letter read by Marc Luelsdorf, the associations vice president. A handful of people, including looping teachers and students, spoke in support of looping. They said it helps teachers build relationships with students and learn their strengths and weaknesses, while giving students stability from year to year. Test scores are affected by English learners and socioeconomic factors, not looping, said Ana Canales, whos been teaching for 27 years and looping ever since the district introduced the system in 2011. Weve grown beyond the information age into the relational age, said Canales, whos retiring at the end of the school year. Its not about the information anymore but the relationships of the people who have the information. Children between the ages of 6 and 10 are developmentally hard-wired to learn about relationships outside of their family unit. Why squander this opportunity? Fifth-grader Jacob Zuniga has spent the last two years with looping teacher Ashley Wright. He called her the best teacher I could possibly have, and I want other kids to enjoy her for the same amount of time that I have. Having the same teacher for two years, you get into a routine that is not really interrupted by a lot of things, and you get to know your teachers expectations, Zuniga said. I can easily get back from summer vacation and begin working on what Im supposed to be doing because I know what my teacher expects of me. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The Princess and the Pea, written Hans Christian Andersen, is one of most famous references to peas. Maybe you remember Carol Burnett starring in the television musical interpretation of this childrens story? The younger among us may better recall the 1996 musical revival starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Peas also turn up in Edward Lears poem in which the Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea/In a beautiful pea-green boat. Another peas fun fact is the world record of 7,175 peas eaten in an hour by an English woman in 1984. Its no small thing (the pea is small but not the thing) that in the 19th century an Austrian monk, George Mendel, utilized pea plants in experiments that helped to develop the basis for the realm of genetics. In China, its believed that 5,000 years ago, Emperor Shu Nung combed the countryside in search of plants that could be used for food and medicine, and discovered peas. In the 17th century, European peas were considered a delicacy, thus quite fashionable and expensive. The simple pea has developed an elevated status in cuisine. Although delicious along side Moms meatloaf, peas have won awards simply prepared with butter, fresh thyme and lemon on Top Chef and are often fastidiously prepared as part of entrees in notable French restaurants. Many restaurants are so particular about the quality of their peas that they are growing their own so they can pick and prepare as quickly as possible from vine to table, before the flavor changes. A small percentage of peas are eaten fresh, with most being canned or frozen. Granted, frozen and canned are the most convenient and are still very flavorful. If you enjoy them this way, they will come up yet another notch on your favorites list if you take the time to prepare them fresh. If you are selecting your pods for the first time, its really simple. Seek out brilliant green English pea pods. Break open a pod and look at the peas inside. You want to see small, vibrant green and firm peas. If you discover large mature peas, these are not the peas you want to put into your cart. Peas that are too mature are not as sweet and tender as you want them to be. The less processing involved in preparing fresh peas, the better the flavor. A pound of fresh pea pods typically yields 1 1/2 cups peas. To prepare fresh peas, simply bring a pot of water to a rapid boil. While you wait for the water to boil, shell peas and rinse them. When water is ready drop the peas and boil for 1 minute or until they float to the top. They are done. Dont overcook. The sweet, yet earthy savory flavor profile of peas compliments soups, curries, vegetable stocks, risotto and even richer pasta dishes. In Italy and France its not unusual to find peas seasoned with anise, tarragon or even mint. Mangia Bene with fresh piselli (peas in Italian) as soon as they make their appearance. Roman Sformato Piselli (Roman Pea Flan) Serves 4 3 oz. fresh green peas, cooked 2 eggs 6 oz. cream 2 oz. Parmesan cheese, freshly grated 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg Sea salt and pepper to taste 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter Whisk eggs and cream in medium bowl. Add nutmeg, cheese, salt and pepper. Gently fold in peas. Butter individual baking forms or baking dish. Fill 2/3 full with mixture. Place forms/dish into shallow baking pan with a small amount of water in the bottom. Bake 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden on top. Allow to set 5 minutes. Invert onto serving dish or platter. Serve immediately. Risi e Bisi Venito (Venetian Rice and Pea Soup) Serves 68 8 cups meat broth (your choice of meat) 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 1 small yellow onion, chopped 1/4 lb. pancetta, chopped 2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped 2 1/2 cups fresh peas 2 cups arborio rice 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese plus garnish, freshly grated Melt 2 Tbsp. butter and oil in medium pan. When mixture foams, add onion, pancetta and parsley. Saute until pancetta is lightly browned. Add peas and 1/3 cup broth. Cook 3 minutes. Set aside. Bring remaining broth to a boil in a large pot. Add rice. Cook uncovered over high heat 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add onion mixture. Cook 10-15 minutes or until rice is tender but firm. Stir in remaining butter and 1/3 cup Parmesan. Soup will be thick and hearty. Serve hot with additional Parmesan to garnish. Piemontese Cotolette e Umido con Piselli (Piemontese Cutlets in Tomato & Pea Sauce) Serves 6 6 cutlets, veal or chicken 2 eggs Salt and pepper to taste 1 1/2 cups dry unflavored breadcrumbs 1/2 cup Parmesan cheesefreshly grated 1/4 cup unsalted butter 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 1 small yellow onion, chopped finely 1 large carrot, finely chopped 1 rib celery, finely chopped 3 cups plain tomato sauce 10 oz. fresh peas Place cutlets between 2 sheets waxed paper and pound until thin. Beat eggs with salt and pepper in medium bowl. Combine breadcrumbs and Parmesan in small bowl. Spread onto large sheet of foil. Dip cutlets in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumb mixture. Press mixture into cutlets with palm of your hand. Allow cutlets to set 10-15 minutes. Melt butter in large skillet. When butter foams, add cutlets. Cook over medium heat 2-3 minutes each side until you have light golden crust. Drain on paper towels. Heat olive oil in skillet. Add onion, carrot and celery. Saute until lightly browned. Stir in tomato sauce, salt and pepper. Cook 5 minutes. Add cutlets and peas. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Serve on warmed plates or platter. Piemontese Salsa di Piselli (Piemontese Pea Sauce) Serves 4 1 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 yellow onion, sliced thinly 1 strip bacon or pancetta, chopped 1 tsp. fresh parsley, chopped 2 cups fresh peas 1 cup water Salt and pepper to taste Optional: Parmesan cheese for garnish, freshly grated Starting with a cold skillet, add olive oil and onion. Saute for 5 minutes or until onion is soft. Add chopped bacon. Simmer 3 minutes Add parsley, stir. Add water, peas, salt and pepper. Simmer 20 minutes or until peas are tender but still in tact. Divide sauce evenly over 4 servings of any type of chunky pasta or rice. Garnish with Parmesan if desired. Diane De Filipi lives in the Napa Valley and leads cooking tours to Italy and Burgundy, France. Visit letsgocookitalian.com or letsgocookleboncuisine.com for more information. State Sen. Bill Dodd wants Californias firefighting agency to oversee power companies tree trimming around their lines, a key part of efforts by utilities to curtail wildfires. Dodd, a Napa Democrat and harsh critic of bankrupt PG&E, said the goal of his legislation is to put an independent third party Cal Fire in charge of vegetation management. That gives us a higher level of confidence that the job is done right, said Dodd, whose district was hard hit by the October 2017 wildfires, including the Tubbs fire the swept through Sonoma County, destroying about 5,300 homes and killing 22 people. PG&E, Californias largest utility, said last month that its wildfire prevention plan for 2019 would include removal of about 375,000 trees that pose a fire hazard, more than twice as many as last year when 160,000 trees were removed. Another major part of the plan expanded to more than 5 million the number of PG&E customers that could have their power shut off as a fire preventive measure. The wildfire prevention plan was mandated by a bill enacted last year in response to the 2017 wildfires. Dodd co-chaired the special legislative committee that drafted the bill that also allowed PG&E to pass some wildfire costs along to ratepayers. PG&E equipment was deemed responsible for causing 17 wildfires that broke out in October 2017, burning more than 245,000 acres across Northern California, destroying nearly 6,200 homes and killing 44 people, according to Cal Fire. The company was deemed not to blame for the Tubbs fire, however. Cal Fire investigations found the utility had acted in negligent violation of state safety codes in 11 of those fires. Most of the violations involved failing to trim trees and other vegetation near power lines. PG&E is reviewing Dodds bill and has not taken a position on it, company spokesman James Noonan said in an email. PG&E shares the senators desire to help keep our customers and communities safe from the increasing risk of wildfires through managing vegetation around electric equipment, Noonan said. The utility is enhancing vegetation management along 25,000 miles of lines in high fire-risk areas, including clearing tree branches above and around lines, he said. Asked if his proposal reflects a lack of trust in PG&E, Dodd referred to former President Ronald Reagans comment trust but verify, applied to arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. I just know an independent third party doing the job is better for ratepayers and also better for the safety of the communities, Dodd said. His bill, SB 247, would require Cal Fire to provide a trim list to every power company identifying the trees and other vegetation near power lines that needs to be removed or cut back. The utilities would still be responsible for getting the work done, and Cal Fire would audit the work to determine if it had all been completed. Cal Fire also would report to the utility and the Public Utilities Commission any failure to substantially comply with the trim list. Those reports would be made public and any willful or negligent failure by a power company to do the required work would be a misdemeanor. The bill would require PG&E to reimburse the state for any costs incurred by the program, which would not start until 2021. Dodd also has been critical of the utilitys management, in December calling for a shakeup of senior executives and the board of directors when the PUC reported that PG&E had falsified safety records for underground gas pipelines for years following a San Bruno pipeline explosion that killed eight people in 2010. The senator said the utility has demonstrated a pattern of poor management and illegal conduct that has shattered lives across California. Geisha Williams resigned in January as CEO of PG&E, two weeks before the utility filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the face of an estimated $30 billion in wildfire liabilities. Cal Fire is analyzing Dodds legislation and many other bills related to wildfires, but the agency does not comment on legislation until it has been adopted, said Daniel Berlant, a Cal Fire assistant deputy director. The fire agency is collaborating with the PUC and the states power companies on wildfire prevention measures and is updating its field guide on vegetation clearance requirements around power lines and equipment, Berlant said. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. To better understand how vineyard and housing development could affect its Upvalley water sources, the city of Napa may join forces with the county on a study of runoff and inflow into Lake Hennessey and Milliken Reservoir. The study, which comes before the City Council on Tuesday afternoon, would expand monitoring and sampling to help officials better understand how water flows into Napas two municipal reservoirs and help the city better predict how runoff from new homes or vineyards in the reservoir watersheds, only a small portion of which the city owns, could affect the quality of the drinking water ultimately piped to Napa residents and businesses to the south. Council members are scheduled to choose from two funding options for the study: $560,000 for a full slate of water testing sites or $265,000 for a smaller number of locations. The estimates do not include equipment or staffing costs. While the city owns Lake Hennessey and Milliken Reservoir, it controls only 2,822 of the 34,000 acres surrounding Hennessey an area stretching as far north as Angwin and 2,220 of the 6,200 acres bordering Milliken Reservoir. Since both watersheds are in unincorporated areas, Napa County oversees land-use and zoning laws, and, thus, has the final say over development. The city and county governments in June 2017 agreed to split the cost of a study to gather more precise information about the reservoir watersheds through an analysis that would take into account existing topography, land uses, stream locations and vegetation, as well as historical rain and wind data. The study also will incorporate data on the levels of pesticides, solids, phosphorous, dissolved oxygen and other substances found in past water samples at various locations. An analysis model developed for the study divides the Lake Hennessey watershed into 214 segments to more precisely track the various paths into the citys main local water supply, which serves about 84,000 customers in and around Napa, according to the citys water manager Joy Eldredge. Using that model, the inquiry will better compare the water quality of runoff from undeveloped lands, farmland and residential projects, she wrote in a memorandum to the council. The move to a closer study of the lands bordering the Napa reservoirs comes amid debates over other vineyards proposals in their vicinity, including Le Colline, a 34-acre vineyard envisioned near the Linda Falls nature preserve outside Angwin. The project would remove 24.5 acres of forest and 9 acres of grasslands. While the countys draft environmental report listed no unresolvable impacts from the vineyards creation, the city has sought water-quality studies for the rainy winter months to track runoff and pollutant levels in nearby Conn Creek, which flows to Lake Hennessey. In February, Le Collines developer offered to pay for water samples to be collected starting with the projects groundbreaking, and continuing until two years after planting is finished. Earlier, the city expressed concerns about another vineyard project, Walt Ranch, citing the risk of contaminants from the 209-acre site washing into Milliken Reservoir, Napas secondary city water source. After developers promised in 2016 to monitor nutrient runoff at several locations, the city agreed not to oppose the plan. (Walt Ranchs approval by the county is under appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, who oppose the plan for its potential for groundwater demands, tree losses and destruction and habitat destruction.) Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Creation of a 1,254-acre hiking area with a new, tree-shaded route up 4,342-foot Mount St. Helena looked like a sure thing, until insurance issues related to carbon credits made the deal go up in smoke. Open space groups had an option agreement to buy this part of the Montesol Ranch in Napa and Lake counties. They had the $1 million needed to complete the deal and turn the land over to the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District for public access. Escrow was to close by the end of 2018. That never happened and the option to buy expired. It officially died the last day of February, Open Space District General Manager John Woodbury said. Usually, securing money from grants is the big obstacle to buying parkland. Woodbury said that in this case, the sticking point involved carbon credits that the owners had previously sold to the state of California for the trees on the 1,254 acres. California under its cap-and-trade program to combat climate change has a carbon offset program administered by the Air Resources Board. Forest owners can sell credits for carbon-sequestering trees to offset emissions from businesses. The Montesol Ranch owners wanted to sell the 1,254 acres for parkland, but would retain the timber rights. The carbon credits agreement with the state would remain. That raised liability and insurance issues over protecting the trees from such disasters as a human-caused wildfire. We wanted to provide public access, Woodbury said. What if someone throws out a cigarette, causes a fire, is it negligence on our part because we didnt stop them? The Air Resources Board wouldnt say. The property owners wanted the district to provide liability insurance to protect their interest in the carbon credits, an Open Space District report said. The district was unable to secure it. People can already hike up Mount St. Helena in Robert Louis Stevenson State Park. Much of that trip, while providing impressive views of the Napa Valley, is not shaded and uncomfortable on hot summer days. The Montesol Ranch route would have taken hikers through a dense forest of firs, maples, bays and other trees. It would have provided a new Mount St. Helena hiking experience. Still, even though the 1,254 acres wont become a park, this land is safe from ranchette development and most vineyard development because of an earlier deal. A team effort by the Land Trust of Napa County and The Trust for Public Land led to a conservation easement being established in 2017 on the 7,260-acre Montesol Ranch. That easement cost $11.5 million and covered an area comparable to the cities of American Canyon and St. Helena combined. The deal, while retiring development rights, left the land as private property. It also gave The Trust for Public Land the option of buying 1,254 acres for $1 million to improve access to Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, with the Open Space District to own the land. The Open Space District during 2017 made public presentations in Middletown on the proposed, new park. A $200,000 grant from the California Habitat Conservation Fund and an $800,000 grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation provided the purchase money. Then the carbon credit issue sank the effort. Montesol Ranch is owned by Montesol LLC, which consists of at least 18 multi-generational descendants, a 2017 state Coastal Conservancy report said. The Livermore family bought the first parcel of what became the ranch in 1880. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. BARRON Elizabeth Smart couldnt escape her fame. Returning to her Salt Lake City home after she was abducted and held captive for nine months as a teenager in 2003, Smart was recognized by strangers at the grocery store and saw her own face on magazine covers. Shed survived horrors, but then she had to begin another journey. I thought I could just go back to who I was before I was kidnapped ... I didnt know at that point in time that I would never be that girl ever again, and that was one of the hardest things coming home, Smart told a crowd of about 1,300 jammed into the Barron high school gymnasium on Friday night a community trying to understand how they could best support their own famous kidnapping victim, Jayme Closs. Few other people in the world have any idea what it is like to be Jayme Closs, snatched at age 13 from her home outside Barron five months ago, her captor shooting both of her parents before dragging her into his trunk, her mouth, wrists and angles taped. Closs escaped nearly three months later a cabin in Gordon when her captor left for a while and she ran outside and approached a neighbor walking her dog. Jake Patterson, 21, was soon arrested and is being held on charges of murder, kidnapping and armed burglary. Smart, now a 31-year-old wife, mother of three and advocate for child victims, offered some insight to the community over a few days, capped by a speech that captivated the crowd. It was part of her broader effort to raise awareness and help child crime victims and their families through speaking engagements, books and her Elizabeth Smart Foundation. Smart said she was inspired by the outpouring of support in Barron, and inspired by the strength of the girl they have rallied around. Its a time for reclaiming all of your lives, because this has touched so many people, Smart said. She wanted people to understand what it was like to be a victim, she said, before telling details of her own horrific story. She was snatched from her bedroom, taken into a mountain camp and raped repeatedly by a man who proclaimed that she was his wife, while another woman stood by. Authorities found Smart and her captors walking on the streets of Sandy, Utah, after people recognized the couple from media reports. At first, Smart said, she was terrified to even admit who she was to police, because her captors had threatened they would harm her family if she ever told. After Smart returned home, she said, people asked her why she didnt scream, why she didnt run. I want to take a second and tell you you should never ask a victim a question that starts with the words Why didnt you, because they hear You should have,? Smart said. In reality, she said, whatever the survivor did was the right thing. They survived. Smart gently offered other tips, too: What should acquaintances or strangers do if they happen to bump into her in town? If you see her, its OK to smile, but dont stare, Smart advised. If you see her, its OK to walk by and just let her go on her way. If you feel compelled to talk to her, write her a letter, and she can choose to read it whenever shes ready. And as much as people want to keep publicly showing support for the girl throughout town, she said, its OK to take down Welcome home, Jayme signs that dot businesses and churches. It was the kind of advice the community needed now, a couple of months after Closs escaped, said Barron School Board member Dan McNeil. We have to give her space, he said. Give her support, but do it in a respectful way. Patterson is scheduled to appear in court on March 27. He wrote in a letter to a KARE 11 television reporter recently that he intends to plead guilty. Im not glad that this happened, but Im so glad that she has you, Smart told the crowd. All of you have come out tonight because you care so much. Smart said Jayme Closs will reclaim her life. She will go on to become an extraordinary woman. Whether she ever decides to tell her story publicly or not, that is her choice. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Abortion is a divisive moral and political issue that generates ceaseless heated debate, as it should. However, it also entices those who feel passionately about it, one way or the other, to use politics to shut down the other side. We saw a prime example of that in the California Legislatures self-righteous efforts to compel clinics offering non-abortion services to pregnant women to post notices telling them about the availability of abortions. The Democratic supporters of the 2015 Reproductive Fact Act tried to justify it as supporting womens reproductive rights, but it was a very clear violation of constitutional free speech rights, as the U.S. Supreme Court declared last year. By compelling petitioners to speak a particular message, it alters the content of (their) speech and thus violates a previously enunciated judicial principle, the majority opinion declared. For example, one of the state-sponsored services that the licensed notice requires petitioners to advertise is abortion the very practice that petitioners are devoted to opposing. The 5-4 decision took a slap at the California-centered 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, known for its tilt to the liberal side of issues, for its willingness to abridge free speech. Although the licensed notice is content-based, it continued, the 9th Circuit did not apply strict scrutiny because it concluded that the notice regulates professional speech. But this court has never recognized professional speech as a separate category of speech subject to different rules. Speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by professionals. Thats also an important point, because clearly the legislators and then-Gov. Jerry Brown had painfully attempted to avoid the free speech issue in the legislation by portraying it as just a consumer protection measure. While the Supreme Courts ruling cheered those on the anti-abortion side of the debate, they are just as guilty of trying to shut down the pro-abortion faction. The flip side of the unconstitutional California law is that 18 states require that women contemplating abortions be given counseling either about a purported, but unproven, link between abortion and breast cancer, the ability of the fetus to feel pain and/or long-term mental health consequences of abortion. That attitude that women should be manipulated is also evident in new regulations promulgated by the Trump administration prohibiting clinics receiving federal family planning funds from offering abortions or referring women to abortion services. This month, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit challenging the new rules. The Trump-Pence administration has doubled down on its attacks on womens health, Becerra said. This illegal Title X rule denies patients access to critical healthcare services and prevents doctors from providing comprehensive and accurate information about medical care. Becerras Capitol news conference announcing the suit was joined by some 20 women lawmakers, as well as Gov. Gavin Newsoms wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. This gag rule is an attack on women everywhere, Siebel Newsom said. Yes, it is a gag rule that abridges free speech, just as the California law did, although the rule may be on slightly firmer constitutional ground since it involves the expenditure of funds and wouldnt affect clinics that dont receive those funds. Regardless, one either believes in free speech as a constitutional right or one doesnt. And its important that the principle be upheld no matter how heated the debate or divisive the issue. 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. Kopirkin: Russia is ready to make all efforts to contribute to normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations Armenia MFA: '3+3' platform needs to refrain from duplicating formats with mandate to settle conflicts RT: US may build facilities in Georgia and Armenia to support its 'defense activities' Armenia 2nd President: We will continue the struggle, all the phony cases will be crushed MFA: Armenia calls on Azerbaijan to refrain from provocative rhetoric Hero of 44-day Karabakh war Garik Hovakimyan's sister Mariam is born Republican Party of Armenia Executive Body holds session chaired by Serzh Sargsyan Iranian Embassy: Iran supports '3+3' platform during meeting held in Moscow Armenia ex-defense minister on Prosecutor General's Office imposing attachment on his assets Alen Simonyan: Armenia is in one of the most crucial stages in its history, and opposition is demanding my resignation PM: Armenia is committed to contributing to global mission of strengthening democracy, and we hope we're not alone Armenia MOD: Soldier who was injured from gunshot fired by fellow serviceman has regained consciousness Armenia Deputy PM: Omicron variant is not sufficiently explored First meeting within scope of '3+3' regional platform held in Moscow NEWS.am daily digest: 10.12.21 Armenia soldier killed while resisting Azerbaijanis' attack, 8 are injured, 6 of whom are in severe condition Armenia PM introduces new Head of State Supervision Service Romanos Petrosyan Armenia human rights activists: There were cases when POWs were brought to territory under Azerbaijan's control The book Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman was translated and published on the initiative of Ardshinbank Armenia regional governor, IFRC Secretary General discuss return of Armenian POWs originally from Shirak Province Armenia human rights activist: Number of Armenian POWs in Azerbaijan is 80 more than the confirmed one Pashinyan: Environmental sphere is of strategic importance for Armenia Armenia President: We must understand that we are entering completely different era for humanity Dollar goes up somewhat in Armenia Armenia State Revenue Committee chief meets with French Development Agency Regional Director Opposition 'Armenia' faction MPs Artur Sargsyan and Mkhitar Zakaryan released from penitentiary institution Head of Armenia's Norabak village: Azerbaijan has military post that is 2 km from us Armenia finance minister receives France Ambassador and French Development Agency Regional Director Armenia opposition MP Ishkhan Zakaryan leaving 'With Honor' faction Russian and Armenian Deputy FMs meet in Moscow Armenia PM highlights importance of speedy conclusion of full-format agreement between Iran and EEU Armenia opposition MPs Mkhitar Zakaryan and Artur Sargsyan to be released without court decision today Armenian opposition MP Armen Charchyan is released Armenia MOD: Armenian side has one casualty, few soldiers are injured, exchange of fire is over Armenias Pashinyan: High-tech component development also important in Eurasian integration context Armenia Deputy PM dismisses his two assistants Nazarbayev says Azerbaijan can become observer country in Eurasian Economic Union Head of Armenia village: The Azerbaijanis tried to advance in direction of Sotk, but our soldiers didn't let them Armenia MOD: Azerbaijan attacked in eastern direction of border Special court hearing underway on case of Armenia opposition lawmaker behind bars Artsakh officials visit Stepanakert memorial 2 more die of coronavirus in Karabakh Vardenis protesters dismiss Armenia MOD statement on obstructing car taking wounded soldier to Yerevan Armenia FM briefs Francophonie chief on regional security issues (PHOTOS) Armenia Police: 13 people apprehended near MFA building Armenia protesting residents reopen Martuni-Vardenis motorway due to border tension Armenia parliament passes changes to some laws Armenia MOD: Deputy commander was told in Vardenis that car taking wounded soldier to Yerevan would be obstructed 347 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Armenia opposition movement staging protest inside MFA building Armenia has new environment minister Artsakh MFA: Referendum on independence is solid legal basis for statehood Special court session to be held on case of imprisoned Armenia opposition MP Biden promises Zelenskyy to punish Russia in case of invasion of Ukraine Newspaper: Armenia parliament recent fight case to have former ones fate Newspaper: What is reason for recent long visit to Armenia by ex-commander of Russia peacekeepers in Artsakh? Petition to arrest one of accused Armenia soldiers returned from Azerbaijan captivity is granted Russian Aerospace Forces consider practice of reconnaissance and strike UAVs during Karabakh conflict Investigative Committee: Motion filed for arrest of 5 of 10 POWs returned to Armenia on Dec. 4 Armenia State Revenue Committee chief hosts Iran Customs Administration head Armenia Shirak Province ex-deputy governor Boris Aleksanov dies Constitutional Court announces decision on release of arrested MPs of opposition 'Armenia' parliamentary faction Iran, Azerbaijan discuss cooperation in petrol and natural gas sectors Lavrov: We understand the complexity of the situation in Armenia, but it's not right to speculate Russia's role Cem Ozdemir who initiated adoption of Armenian Genocide resolution is Germany's first minister with migration history Armenia FM, France Secretary of State sign 'Roadmap for Armenian-French Economic Cooperation' Armenia PM scheduled to deliver speech at Summit for Democracy on Dec. 10 Zakharova says news about recall of Russia's Ambassador to Armenia is misinformation Opposition 'Armenia' Alliance: 3 deputies of parliamentary faction will be released Attorney: MP Armen Charchyan needs to be released immediately by virtue of Armenia Constitutional Court decision Armenia ex-environment minister Romanos Petrosyan appointed Head of State Supervision Service Armenia MOD: 2 Armenian soldiers receive slight firearm injuries as a result of Azerbaijanis' provocation NEWS.am daily digest: 09.12.21 Zakharova: Moscow hopes Armenia and Azerbaijan leaders reaffirm commitment to implementing agreements Zakharova on Aliyev's statement and murders of Armenian peaceful civilians Ex-chief advisor to Armenia PM Hakob Simidyan appointed Minister of Environment Joe Biden's Summit for Democracy kicks off, Armenia PM is also participating Armenia environment minister sacked Residents of Armenia's Vardenis shut down Martuni-Vardenis road in support of opposition alliance's leader (PHOTOS) Armenia MOD: Azerbaijan opened intense fire toward Gegharkunik Province military positions READ: Water shortage probe begins READ: Water supply woes worsen Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Monday that Congress needs to draft a new law giving theArroyos statement came as the House openedthat has beset customers of Manila Water, one of two private water concessionaires. Perhaps in the law, we have to add a penalty provision for those who failed to comply with some parts of the concession agreement, Arroyo said on the sidelines of the congressional hearing Monday. Arroyo also said it was a good thing that Manila Water admitted its shortcomings from the start. The hearing is not to find out who to blame but rather how to move forward, she said. At the hearing, MWSS chief regulator Patrick Lester Sy said Manila Water violated its concession agreement for failing to provide uninterrupted water supply 24/7. Based on the terms of the concessionaires agreement, Manila Water has violated their mandate, Sy said. But said initially that the water regulatory agency does not have the power to impose finesbut later said the concession agreement has provisions to penalize Manila Water. Manila Water president Ferdinand dela Cruz also acknowledged that his company could face penalties after it failed to provide 24/7 water service to consumers, and if its water pressure significantly decreased to 6 psi from the 20 psi systemwide average. In the concession agreement there are clear provisions on the performance of a concessionaire, Dela Cruz said. At the same time, Dela Cruz apologized for the water crisis, acknowledged the anger felt by tens of thousands of its affected consumers and said he was holding himself accountable. I am holding myself fully accountable for the sudden drop in our service levels to your constituents whom we have consistently served over the past 21 years with 24/7 water availability and sufficient water pressure. March 6, 2019 is a date I will not forget as president of Manila Water, Dela Cruz told the panel. He also said the Manila Water would be willing to pay any fines required by the MWSS for the inconvenience it caused to its customers. Dela Cruz also appealed: Your honor, through you, we seek your constituents understanding as we continue the discipline of properly refilling our 28 network reservoirs and reliably operating our 20 pump stations. Service interruptions are still necessary to achieve these and our water availability goals. Lawmakers led by Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez lamented the fact that the MWSS was powerless when it comes to imposing fines and penalties against the erring water concessionaires. Benitez also said they are eyeing a class suit against the Manila Water. Manila Water admitted violations, there is negligence on their part and proper compensation to costumers should follow, Benitez said at a news conference as he rejected the statement of Ty that it has no power to impose fines and penalties against Manila Water. Mandaluyong City Rep. Quennie Gonzales, whose district was badly hit by the water crisis since March 7, agreed with Benitez as she demanded a refund from Manila Water for her constituents, at least for the month of March or for the duration of the crisis.Her call was echoed by Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Isagani Zarate. Its clear that the people are on the losing end here, he said. Buhay Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza asked the officials of the Manila Water and MWSS to resign. During the hearing, De la Cruz said: I am prepared to resign for failing the customers, but my focus right now, your honor, is to restore the service even if its a slow process. The Palace, meanwhile, rejected a proposal from Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia to create a Department of Water, saying this was unnecessary. In a Palace press briefing, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said to solve the water shortage, the country needed to build reservoirs and use deep wells in communities and cities to ensure sufficient supply. He called the current shortage purely inefficiency [and] mismanagement. Pernia said the proposed department would centralize all government efforts, including the management of water resources and distribution of water supply, to guarantee water sufficiency and avoid its shortage. He earlier blamed the crisis on the fragmentation of agencies involved in handling the countrys water needs. In a radio interview, MWSS administrator said Manila Water has restored supply to 90 percent of its customers but added that service interruptions would continue. Some areas will still suffer service interruptions for four to 12 hours, Velasco told radio dzMM. Manila Water, which services around 6 million people in the capitals east zone, cut supply in several areas as the water level in La Mesa Dam, its emergency source, dropped due to lack of rain and high demand. Also on Monday, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said Congress could help address the water shortage by requiring commercial, institutional and residential estate developers to install rainwater retention facilities in their projects in Metro Manila and other major cities. Rainwater is a free, abundant, and regular natural resource that the Philippines is fortunate to receive year in and out. It is high time that we make use of it for the general advantage of our people, he said. Villafuerte, vice chairman of the House committee on local government, said the government should also invest in small water-impounding facilities and pumps to help communities retain rainwater for their water needs. In his province, he said, public schools have started putting up facilities to retain rainwater. A total of 31 patients who were injured in the mosque attacks in Christchurch Hospital, remain in hospital, The Guardian reported. Two people were well enough to go home and have been discharged today. There are still 9 people in a critical condition in intensive care. We continue to transfer any that are well enough to go to other wards as we can. People injured in the mosque attacks are our priority for surgery and other specialist care over the coming days. There is still a 4 year old girl in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland, transferred there on Saturday. Her father has also been transferred to Auckland and remains in a serious but stable condition, the chief doctor of the hospital said in a statement. As reported earlier, fifty people were killed and 50 others wounded in a terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, police announced Sunday. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the attack on Friday as one of her country's "darkest days." An Australian citizen in his late 20s has been charged with murder in connection with the attacks. Two other people were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. The logic of the project with the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Armenia is to assist in the prevention of adverse effects of climate change. Dmitry Mariyasin, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Armenia, on Monday said the aforementioned at Armenias Khosrov Forest State Reserve. He stated this and within the framework of the UNDP project on mitigation of climate change risks in Armenia through the development of the potential for the management of forest and field fires. In his words, the funding for this project has been allocated within the framework of the Climate Change Window in the Russia-UNDP Trust Fund. At the same time, he noted that this cooperation is part of a broader project which is administered by the Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia. The UNDP resident representative in the country added that the Ministry of Nature Protection has a long-term and strategic vision for environmental policy, and thanked the ministry for its continued assistance. Along the lines of the above-said project, 360 firefighters of Armenia have received special equipment and tools that are designed for hard-to-reach places during forest fires. The total cost of this project is about $1 million. The project was implemented by the UN, and fully funded by Russia. YEREVAN. The Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of Armenia, Hakob Arshakyan, received Italian ambassador Vincenzo Del Monaco. In particular, the minister reflected on the productive cooperation between the two countries in road construction, and stressed Armenias wish for establishing and expanding partnership with Italy in high-tech industry, the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. Ambassador Del Monaco, in turn, noted that quite positive relations have been established between Armenia and Italy in various branches of economy, and stressed that there exist all the opportunities for making cooperation between the two countries grow deeper. Arshakyan, for his part, highlighted that Armenia seeks a good partner in, and sees great potential for cooperation in high-tech industry with, Italian companies. The interlocutors touched also upon the 2019 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), which Armenias capital city of Yerevan will host, from October 6 to 9. In this connection, the Armenian minister stressed he importance of respective Italian companies high-level participation in this event. Tofig Zulfugarov, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, has criticized his countrys incumbent authorities approach toward banning ethnic Armenians entry into Azerbaijan. The right to visit Azerbaijan cant be denied on ethnic, religious, and racial grounds, he told Minval.az, commenting on the Russian Foreign Ministrys advice to Russian citizens of Armenian origin not to visit Azerbaijan. However, we [Azerbaijan] can create special conditions, not depriving [them] of that right. In the diplomats view, the respective position which the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has expressed is not advantageous to the country. Its indispensable to posit conditions according to which Armenian persons will be arrested after arriving in our country, and their inspection will be carried out for two weeks, Zulfugarov proposed. Only then will it be possible to allow them to enter the countrys territory. But when we [Azerbaijan] explain all this in the way that we cant ensure the safety of those persons, our own position is slightly risky. Why cant we apply special conditions for the protection of our interests? Our protection should not be built on ethnic grounds, or declaration of own weakness. It should be based on other principles, according to which a long-term study should be conducted toward these individuals. (). [And] according to the results of the inspection, it can be stated that the [given persons] visit to the country is unwelcome, and we dont intend to clarify [to that person] for what reason. Prosecutors from the International Criminal Court will be deported if they enter the Philippines to investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings in President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs , the Palace said Monday. READ: ICC probe of Philippines will backfire, Panelo claims Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said any attempt by the ICC to proceed with its investigation of the governments campaign against illegal drugs will be viewed by the Palace as interference in the countrys affairs. They can come here as guests, that is allowed. But any move that will be deemed a violation of our laws, they will encounter problems, Panelo said in a Palace press briefing. We will smile at them [prosecutors] and tell them nicely, You cant do it here. If you persist, you will be deported. Because when you try to subject a country to your jurisdiction, then youre interfering with the sovereignty of our country, he said. He said the Bureau of Immigration could turn prosecutors away upon their entry, if they say they are investigating the government. The immigration officials have the discretion to deny you entry if what you will do here is against the law or youre just going to create trouble, Panelo said. Asked what would be the basis of the government in deporting staff from the ICC, Panelo, the Presidents chief legal counsel, could not cite a domestic law, and said this would depend on what they will do. In the same briefing, Panelo also expressed openness to follow the move of the US State Department to revoke or deny visas of ICC members involved in investigating the US troops assigned in Afghanistan or other countries. Certainly, we will not allow any attempt at interfering with the sovereignty of this country, Panelo said. The Palace officials remark came after the Philippines withdrawal from the ICC became effective on Sunday. Our position is very clear. The position of the President is unequivocal and inflexible. ICC never acquired jurisdiction over our country. For the reason that he has given us: the requirement of publication imposed by law is not observed, Panelo said. There has to be publication in a newspaper of general circulation or in the Official Gazette. Even if there was a ratification by Congress or by the Senate on that particular subject, still a law cannot be enforced unless you comply with the requirement, he added. He also said the ICC can only get involved if the courts in this country are unwilling or unable to prosecute a case. He said the ouster of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the conviction of then President Joseph Estrada and the acquittal of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo showed the country has a robust judicial system. Our Constitution has provided many legal machineries by which we can prosecute any public official committing any wrongdoing. I think they are also be forgetting, these critics and detractors of the President, that the jurisdictional crimes of ICC are already part of our penal laws in this country. In other words, anybody can file a complaint with respect to the crimes mentioned earlier, he said. He said it was appalling how the ICC allowed itself to become a political tool, using its power to politically persecute heads of state, thereby intruding into the sovereignty of this country. READ: Resolve ICC pleas, High Court asked It is no wonder that powerful countries of the world, like US, Russia, China, and Israel have withdrawn or not joined the ICC, Panelo said. He also added that the Executive branch will no longer wait for formal communication from the ICC confirming the effectivity of its withdrawal from the Rome Statute. Were not interested. As far as we are concerned, we have never been under its jurisdiction, Panelo said. They can do their worst. They cannot even enforce whatever theyre doing. How will they enforce it in the first place? In a separate statement, Panelo hit the administrations critics for milking the ICC withdrawal to gain publicity.Panelo said the fight against the enemies of the state will be continuing with merciless constitutional force. It will remain an unstoppable scorching motion until the republic and the people are secure from their evil and destructive clutches, he added. March 17 has passed, the sky has not fallen and the sun still rises in the east, he said. ICC officials have said the preliminary probe launched by prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in February 2018 into possible crimes against humanity in the drug war would continue. Under the courts rules, any matter under consideration before a nation leaves the court is still under its jurisdiction. President Rodrigo Duterte has made it clear his government will not cooperate with the ICC in any way. The court can never acquire jurisdiction over my person, not in a million years, he said in a speech on Wednesday. Rights group Amnesty International said on Sunday the withdrawal should prompt the UN Human Rights Council to probe the killings. READ: Manila pullout from ICC in effect, UN tells members Filipinos bravely challenging the war on drugs or seeking justice for their loved ones need international support to help them end this climate of fear, violence and impunity, said Amnesty International regional director Nicholas Bequelin. The ICC examination, which is one step before a full-blown probe, zeroes in on allegations the government has been involved in illegal killings as part of the crackdown Duterte launched in mid-2016. Police say they have killed 5,176 users or pushers who resisted arrest, but rights groups say the actual number of dead is at least triple that number. Former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Monday said the ICC complaint against President Duterte ended effectively after the court failed to launch a preliminary investigation before the countrys withdrawal from the ICC took effect on Sunday. Roque said that a preliminary examination initiated against Duterte in 2018 is not the actual probe yet. For ICC to have jurisdiction, there should be preliminary investigation even before the withdrawal and since there was none, the complaint against President Duterte is junked, he said. The countrys withdrawal from the ICC took effect on Sunday, a year after the government served its notice of withdrawal from the Rome Statute to the United Nations. This makes the Philippines the second country to pull out from the only war crimes tribunal in the world after Burundi canceled its ICC membership in 2017. Senator Richard Gordon said becoming a signatory to the Rome Statute was a mistake in the first place. Gordon, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said the countrys justice system is working and the courts are functioning. The ICC is intended to be court of last resort when there is a failure of a national justice. However, our justice system works, our courts are functioning. The prosecution of the policemen who killed Kian delos Santos illustrates that our justice system works, he said. YEREVAN. In combination with the evidence obtained along the lines of the criminal case which the Investigative Committee of Armenia is investigating, a man has been charged with the murder of his 88-year-old mother. As a result of the measures taken within the framework of the criminal case that was launched on one count of murder, several circumstances behind this murder have been ascertained, and the murder suspect is the son of the victim, the committee informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. It has been found out that on March 15 at around 11:30am, a Tavush Province residentwho was born in 1957argued with his mother at home, and over the absence of vodka in a bottle. Subsequently, the man hit his 88-year-old mother in the head with an axe. As a result, the elderly woman died on the same day, at Ijevan town hospital. Criminal charges have been brought against the 62-year-old man. The court granted the investigators petition for remanding him in custody. Several forensic examinations have been ordered. The preliminary investigation is still in progress. Armenia village elderly woman who was axed had been alive when police arrived YEREVAN. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan on Monday received a delegation led by Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Assistant Administrator of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS. First, the deputy premier underscored the assistance which the UNDP has rendered to Armenia ever since its independence, and expressed a conviction that the countrys cooperation with this organization will become more productive and ambitious, Avinyans office informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. Also, the deputy PM reflected on the precepts and priorities of the Armenian government program, and stressed that it is based on an inclusive growth model that is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Egger, for her part, noted that the UNDP stands ready to assist in the reforms which the Armenian government has launched. The interlocutors discussed, in particular, the prospects for cooperation in the context of the reforms to be implemented in Armenia, and in several domains. Subsequently, the Armenian deputy PM and the UNDP official attended the opening of the new office of the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab, and the launch of Travelinsghtsthe first tool which this lab has created. In his remarks at the event, Avinyan noted, above all, that Armenia, together with other UN member states, has undertaken a commitment to implementing the seventeen SDGs by the year 2030. The deputy PM added that the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab has become a prototype for the similar labs which the UNDP has established in sixty countries. Tigran Avinyan stated that the Travelinsights will make use of the abilities of artificial intelligence in order to promote tourism policy reforms. The Armenia needs PayPal group hosted a meeting/discussion with representatives of sectors interested in full launch of PayPal in Armenia. Among those attending the meeting were Head of the Department of Information Technologies and Digitization at the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of the Republic of Armenia Arman Galstyan, member of Internet Society NGO Vahan Hovsepyan and representatives of e-commerce, IT, tourism, banking, public and charity sectors of Armenia who exchanged views and tried to identify the gaps and restrictions hindering full launch of PayPal. According to moderator of the discussion entitled Full Launch of PayPal in Armenia Arman Malunts, the meeting was effective in terms of the development of a strategy on the future actions. The participants of the discussion set aside the possible issues and proposed solutions. A task force will also be set up to make proposals for more clear-cut actions, Malunts stated. A couple of years ago, entrepreneurs running online businesses in Armenia told the relevant state bodies of Armenia about the need for full launch of PayPal. Over the past four years, Armenias government officials have made a couple of official inquiries for full launch of PayPal. The new government has declared that it is determined to launch PayPal. The criminal syndicates are now using the Grab delivery mobile application to traffic in drugs, an official said Monday. Metro Manila Police Chief Guillermo Eleazar made the statement after Makati City police arrested two college students and seized P1.5 million worth of ecstasy tablets in a condominium on Monday. He said his men arrested Adriel Ryoichi Temporosa Suzuki, 24, of De La Salle-College of St. Benilde Manila and Ralph Jeffrey Tulio Esteban, 23, of De La Salle University. They were arrested at Unit 736 of Cityland 9 Condominium on Dela Rosa Street in Pio Del Pilar village around 7 a.m. The Makati police made the arrests after Grab delivery driver Claus Sabadera, 32, turned over seven tablets of ecstasy to them. Sabadera claimed that the suspects asked him to deliver the illegal drugs to the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. He then pointed them to the police.Seized from the suspects were 657 tablets of ecstasy, two bottles containing ecstasy, 42 tablets of suspected party drugs, six sachets of suspected party drugs, two digital scales, four lighters, 13 empty cigarette boxes, a glass tube, and a cellphone. Police said the suspects are operating the drug trade via the Grab delivery mobile application to deliver illegal drugs to various nightclubs in Metro Manila. Eleazar praised and thanked the Grab delivery driver for his action. He called on the public to cooperate with the authorities by reporting information that could lead to the prosecution of those involved in various criminal activities. Armenias Minister of Territorial Administration and Development Suren Papikyan today received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Peoples Republic of China to the Republic of Armenia Tian Erlun. As reported the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development to NEWS.am, greeting the ambassador, Minister Papikyan stated that there is great potential to enrich the centuries-old Armenian-Chinese trade and economic relations and cross-cultural ties with new content and components following the revolution that took place in Armenia. Suren Papikyan also noted that the friendly relations between the provinces of Armenia and Chinese states, which are gradually growing, have their positive impact on enlargement of the interstate agenda. The minister described the signing of an agreement on cooperation between the Lori Province of Armenia and Chinas Shanxi province within the framework of the 2nd Belt and Road Initiative to be held in Beijing on 25 April as strictly prospective and voiced hope that such high-level reciprocal visits and contacts would be ongoing. Ambassador Tian Erlun expressed gratitude for the reception and said that the decentralized partnership of China and Armenia at the interregional level is one of the priorities of the Chinese government. During the meeting, the parties also discussed issues on the deepening of administrative-territorial cooperation, activation of bilateral economic ties and the process of implementation of infrastructure projects being carried out by Chinese organizations in Armenia. It is premature to say whether recent activity at some of North Koreas rocket facilities involved preparation for a missile launch, South Koreas defence minister told a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Reuters reported. Early in March, several American think-tanks and South Korean officials reported that satellite imagery showed possible preparations for a launch from the Sohae rocket launch site at Tongchang-ri, North Korea, which has been used in the past to launch satellites but not intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Its hasty to call it missile-related activity, Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo told a parliamentary defence committee. Tongchang-ri is a launch site but we dont see any activity being carried out for a missile launch. He also said there were signs of continued nuclear activity in North Korea, without elaborating. Violations of the rule of law in business and allegations of extrajudicial killings have never kept foreign investments from entering the country, the Palace said Monday, slamming a group of lawyers who said otherwise. I think, whoever said that they should conduct more research of that, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a Palace press briefing, contesting the conclusion made by LawAsia president Christopher Leong. In his speech during a law business conference themed Keeping Abreast with Asian Business Law Developments, Leong said the government needs to address the controversies about the rule of law and the supposed extrajudicial killings as these affect the confidence of foreign investors in starting businesses in the country. We have heard and read in the papers lately of questionable extrajudicial deaths that raise a big concern whether or not justified but it raises concerns and questions as to the state of the rule of law in the Philippines and that is unfortunate, Leong said, emphasizing that the government should consider the short-term and long-term effects of how officials and authorities curb crimes. The LawAsia president also emphasized the need to have a firm, respectable, and skilled lawyers and said the judiciary must also be stable, independent, and corruption-free. Corruption weighs down business growth. It is an unproductive cost to business, he said. Leong also said that LawAsia remains concerned about the deaths of lawyers, prosecutors, and judges. But Panelo said investors have never raised the issues that Leong did. According to our economic managers, particularly [Finance] Secretary Dominguez, [Socioeconomic Planning] Secretary Ernesto Pernia [Trade] Secretary Ramon Lopez, they are one in saying that the issue of human rights or extrajudicial killings has never been raised during meetings with investors and other conferences relative to the business investments to this country, he said in the same briefing.He said foreign investments, in fact, have increased. Panelo said the administration recognized red tape as a disincentive, and that law has already been passed to reduce bureaucratic red tape. He added that there are more foreign investors coming into the country because they know that criminality has gone down considerably. He said the conclusion that a lawyer dies every month was an exaggeration. One death of a lawyer every month, I think hes daydreaming, he said. Malacanang has previously maintained that the Duterte administration does not tolerate state-sanctioned killing, stressing that there is no impunity in the country and its criminal justice system remains operational and strictly compliant with the constitutional requirement to due process. LawAsia is a regional association of lawyers, judges, jurists and legal organizations that uphold the interests and concerns of the legal profession in the Asia Pacific. Panelo, meanwhile, blamed the political opposition for demonizing the President and his administrations crackdown on illegal drugs. Swedens Minister for International Development Cooperation Peter Eriksson will visit Armenia on 21-22 March. Ahead of his visit the Swedish government has announced that it intends to increase its financial support to Armenia, in response to the strong political will to undertake necessary reforms, following the velvet revolution of 2018, Sweden's embassy in Armenia said in a statement. An active democratization process has started in Armenia after the velvet revolution and the shift of power during 2018. We see a strong political will to undertake necessary reforms and to strengthen democracy, freedom of expression and other fundamental rights and freedoms, Eriksson wrote in an article published in Dagens Nyheter newspaper. The fact that the number of women in the newly elected National Assembly has increased is one of the many signs of progressive movement towards change in the country. Therefore, this is the right moment for Sweden to increase its support and contribute to the positive developments in Armenia. The opening of a bilateral program for Swedens development cooperation with Armenia will mean increased funding for projects in Armenia and make the Swedish support to Armenia more targeted. Sweden supports several regional projects that benefit Armenia and a small number of bilateral projects. This includes important initiatives aimed at strengthening environmental protection and policy, political and economic empowerment of women and building democratic, resilient and well-functioning public institutions. These sectors will continue to remain important. WashingtonDick Dale, the California rocker behind the song Misirlou that plays during the opening scene of Pulp Fiction, has died at the age of 81. His death on Saturday was confirmed on Facebook by Dusty Watson, a drummer who once toured with Dale, though the cause of death was not immediately known. Dubbed the King of Surf Guitar, the genre he invented in the 1950s, Dales work was influential to a generation of musicians including The Beach Boys, Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix. The keen surfer and musical pioneer described the style in a 1994 interview with the New York Times as a heavy machine-gun staccato picking style to represent the power of Mother Nature, of our Earth, of our ocean.According to a biography on his website, Dale worked with electric guitar trailblazer Leo Fender to develop amps and speakers that could withstand the thundering volume he played at, breaking through the electronic limitations of the era and earning him the moniker the Father of Heavy Metal. Tributes poured in online, including from Beach Boy Brian Wilson, who tweeted: Im sorry to hear about Dick Dale passing. Dicks guitar playing was a big influence on all of us, and we covered Misirlou on our Surfin USA album in 63. Love & Mercy to Dicks family. RIP Dick Dale - Father of the Surf Guitar. We all owe you. Rock on. Bri, added Queen guitarist Brian May. Dale, a Lebanese-American, was born Richard Monsour in 1937 in Boston, and moved to California as a teen. He was still performing until the time of his death, according to reports. A vicar will be elected within a week after the 40 days following the death of the 84th Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Mesrob Mutafyan. If the election of the vicar is postponed, the elections of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople will be held within 3-4 weeks. This is what editor of the Armenian language section of Istanbuls Agos Weekly Bagrat Estoukian told NEWS.am. First, a vicar will be elected, after which a committee will be set up to address a letter to the bishops with the power to be candidates so that it understands whether they will participate in the elections or not. Afterwards, the committee will set the date of the elections. The candidates will campaign and convey their messages to the public, he said. Among the possible candidates, Bagrat Estoukian mentioned head of the church council, Fr. Bishop Sahag Mashalian; leader of the Gugarats Diocese Sebouh Chouljian; former vicar of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Karekin Bekchian and current vicar Aram Ateshian. Only His Holiness Khajag Parsamian has stated that he doesnt want to become a patriarch and wont be running in the elections. According to him, the people don't have sympathy for Aram Ateshian. He was rather widely criticized by Istanbul-Armenians, as well as Armenians in Armenia and abroad, he said. However, Bagrat Estoukian stressed that there is still a lot of uncertainty about the elections of the patriarch. According to him, Turkey wont directly get entangled in the elections since that would be illegitimate and will have the opposite effect. On 8 March, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Mesrob Mutafyan passed away after suffering from a long illness. He was 63 years old. The patriarch had been bed-ridden for many years and wasnt able to perform his duties. By the decision of the Turkish government, Archbishop Aram Ateshian is performing the duties of the patriarch. The new Silk Road can include more than three dozen projects from all five EAEU countries in total, Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission, former Prime Minister of Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan told Forbes. He noted that the list of the information gathered at the Commission and has just been sent to China. All these projects should fix establish end-to-end logistics between China, the Eurasian Union and the European Union and along accompanying routes that complement the main transport corridors: Western Europe - Western China, North-South, East-West and the Northern Sea Route. Our list includes projects that are of interest to two or more Union states. There is potential for transit efficiency and linkage with the Chinese transportation system. There is also a need for financing, including some parts of the project. We are consulting with the EDB on this issue, and representatives of the bank are included in a special working group for the study of significant transport projects, "Sargsyan said. According to him, China wants to increase the supply of its goods. The project has a serious financial support, and everyone wants to use these opportunities and the brand of the new Silk Road for their interests. Stacey Abrams has been named keynote speaker for Emory Universitys Class Day, a student-organized event for students receiving bachelors degrees at this years commencement. Photo courtesy of Stacey Abrams. Stacey Abrams has been named keynote speaker for Emory Universitys Class Day, a student-organized event for students receiving bachelors degrees at this years commencement. Abrams, Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, is the first African-American woman selected as a major party gubernatorial nominee in the countrys history. Last month, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to a presidential State of the Union address. The Class Day committee is incredibly excited to welcome Stacey Abrams to campus, says Abbey Kelly, an Emory senior and member of the 2019 Class Day selection committee. During the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, Emory students from all backgrounds practiced civic engagement through campaigning, activism and voter drives. Ms. Abrams story speaks to important themes such as the importance of education, resilience and community building, and we cannot wait to hear the wisdom she imparts to the Class of 2019. Im excited that our students have selected a speaker who exemplifies public service and reflects our students engagement with the world beyond campus. Im sure that Stacey Abrams will deliver a message that will inspire our graduating seniors, says Michael A. Elliott, dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences. Abrams served 11 years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as house minority leader. She was the first woman to lead either party in the states legislature and the first African American to lead in the states House of Representatives. She is the author of Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change, published in 2018. Over the course of her career, she has founded multiple organizations devoted to voting rights, training and hiring young people of color, and tackling social issues at both the state and national levels. In 2012, Abrams received the prestigious John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the Kennedy Library and Harvard Universitys Institute of Politics, which honors an elected official under 40 whose work demonstrates the impact of elective public service as a way to address public challenges. A lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she has received recognition from the National Urban League, EMILYs List, Governing Magazine and the Harry S. Truman Foundation, among others. Abrams holds a J.D. degree from Yale Law School and a master of public affairs degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a Harry F. Truman Scholar. She earned an undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies magna cum laude from Spelman College. Emorys Class Day will be held Thursday, May 9, leading into Commencement Weekend, and will also feature a presentation of the Boisfeuillet Jones Medals, along with other senior awards. Students invite the Class Day keynote speaker to share wisdom, humor and advice as they embark on careers in government, business, public service, health care, the arts, technology and beyond. Past Class Day speakers have included Chelsea Handler, Adam Richman, Kenneth Cole, Mia Farrow, Peyton Manning, Ben & Jerry, Michael Sam and Ryan Gravel. Emorys 174th Commencement is scheduled Monday, May 13, with civil rights icon and humanitarian Andrew Young as keynote speaker. AQIM-JNIM Release Joint Statement on New Zealand Shootings, Call to Target "Crusader Far Right" "Say no to despair." In addition to teaching, I frequently give national situation briefings to diverse groups all over the country, mostly but not exclusively to faith-based organizations that include religious congregations, diocesan bishops and clergy, Catholic schools (teachers and students), and parish councils. In these briefings, I try to be as level-headed and objective as possible even as I speak truth to power. I give my audiences space to discern their own choices. Contrary to what the President has been told based on his speech in Isabela, my talks are not anti-Duterte at all. Instead they provide a balanced account of the administrations failures (human rights is one) and successes (the Bangsamoro is good). And I always emphasize a message of hope, not allowing defeatism or fear to prevail. In recent days, I have emphasized the virtues of the cross and how it is being renewed through the trials we are facing as church and people. I remind my audiences of our history, of how bad moments are followed by good momentswhich are gifts which often we squander. But God in His infinite wisdom and mercy always give us new opportunities, second and third and fourth chances. So this current moment will pass. The massacre of the poor will end, and we will hold people, including the inciters, responsible. There will be more reform opportunities. We can abolish poverty, have good infrastructure and services, establish law and order, protect our environment, achieve social justice and a functioning justice system. We can fix this country. Above all, I tell my audiences that there is hope because of our young people. Its amazing how many children and young people we have in all our islands and even in places where we have many overseas Pilipinos. From my vantage point as a professor teaching in 10 universities, with 400-500 undergraduate, law, and graduate students in my classes from all over the Philippines and of different economic, religious, and political backgrounds, mentoring at any given time 50-100 individuals for their thesis papers or doctoral dissertations or just for professional advancement, teaching also many overseas Filipinos, there is no room for despair. One can only be amazed at how good the young are and its wonderful that is the case all over the country. Manila no longer monopolizes the best talent of the country. I can truly say that my Mindanao students are as good as my Manila students and my University Belt students are equal to my Diliman-Katipunan students. We will be fine, we will do well actually, because of our young people - the incredible talent, the idealism, the resources and opportunities they have. Thats why the older generations must get the house in order. The Church must deal with child abuse. We must take care of the children orphaned on the war against drugs and other wars. We must fight with the Lumad so their children are not killed. We must make sure that a Christine Silawan never happens again. And in this coming elections, for the Party-List elections, we must vote in more Kabataan representatives to Congress.I came to this decision a couple of months agoto vote and campaign for Kabataan in the 2019 elections. I have been very impressed with Sarah Elagos courage and the competence and imagination she has done her work as a legislator with the Makabayan bloc. When I look at the record of her predecessors Raymond Palatino and Terry Ridon, I realized that Sarahs work is not an individual achievement but in fact a cumulative result of a collective effort not just of one legislator nor even three but of a youth and student movement that has a long history. I was so impressed reviewing Kabataans record that I resolved to help it get the maximum number of three seats so they will be more effective. I am further motivated by the reality that Kabataan has only one rival for the youth sector and student vote and that is the Duterte Youth Party (which is not even a group blessed by the President and more like a family affair again if news reports are to be believed). Even if I am not from the youth sector, I teach in more than 10 universities and consider myself a stakeholder and invested in that sector. I cannot imagine my students to be represented by such a group. I am aware of course that there are other legitimate party list organizations that one can vote for, as I wrote last week. I certainly think that Bayan Muna and Akbayan are worth voting for if you were looking for a progressive party with a comprehensive vision to support, or Gabriela, ACT-Teachers, Anakpawis, Partido Lakas ng Masa, Murang Kuryente, and Magdalo are worthy and strong representatives respectively of women, teachers, farmers, workers, environmentalists, and soldiers. My appeal then is not to the supporters of these other good party list organizations but to voters who are still in search for options for the party list elections. To these non-aligned voters, I say with confidence that Kabataan is a good choice. Kabataan Party-list is the first and only youth party-list group in Philippine Congress today. It is a large network of energized and pro-active young people who are leaders in various organizations, formations and barkadas. Their members are from across the regionsand this is reflected in the list of their candidates: Sarah is from Metro Manila, their second and third candidates Erika Rae Cruz and Vennel Chenfoo are from Mindanao, the fourth and fifth candidates Ellice Balgos and Renz Kang are from Northern Luzon, and the sixth candidate Kristian Abad-Lora is from the Visayas. Their members and candidates also represent diverse interests, backgrounds and social status, tied by a common vision of a better future for the youth and for the nation. Kabataan Party-list believes that the youth should devote its intellect, energy and courage to building a new society devoid of corruption, inequality and social injustice. It supports youth and student-led organizations working for social, political, economic, cultural and environmental justice in the Philippines, and enjoins youth from all walks of life to foster active participation in nation-building, good governance and social change. Kabataan Party-list is working to galvanize the Filipino youths unity for social change. It encourages the youth to work collectively with other sectors to build a bright future. It upholds, promotes and defends the interest of the youth to be able to harness its fullest potential as a sector. While retaining its activist soul, Kabataan has also been effective in legislation. All its representativesPalatino, Ridon, and Elagoproposed hundreds of bills (in the 17th Congress alone, Elago has sponsored 423 house bills and resolutions), fully participated in legislative debates, taken always the morally right and politically courageous position in impeachment, death penalty, and other controversial issues, and definitely has successfully brought the voice of the youth into the halls of Congress. The country is in a difficult moment. I reject pessimism. I say no to despair. I choose hope. I choose to trust the youth of this country. I choose Kabataan. The author and her husband. (Photo: Susan Adcox) In the harsh glare of the bathroom mirror, I pull down my pajama bottoms and scan my body. According to my rotation, I should be injecting in my left thigh, but it looks thin and almost bluish in the cold light. I know the needle will leave an ugly mark. But my other injection sites still have the red circles that testify that they have been used recently. I wipe my leg with alcohol and push down the plunger, grimacing as I wait for the burn. For over 20 years Ive had thrice-weekly dates with a syringe, due to being one of the two million people in the world with multiple sclerosis. Later this year I will mark the 25th anniversary of my MS diagnosis, and Im still not sure how it will affect my life. My MS story began in 1994 when, at 46, I woke up one morning stretched and ran my hands down my body only to notice that my belly felt strangely numb. I went to my job as a high school English teacher, but over the next few days the numbness spread upward and downward. My hands became so clumsy that I couldnt pass out papers. My primary care doctor suspected MS right away. The diagnosis was confirmed by a neurologist with the help of an MRI of the brain, which showed multiple instances of scar tissue (sclerosis). Some people who receive tough diagnoses struggle with Why me? I didnt. People get terrible diseases. Why should I be exempt from the risk? Besides, the diagnosis made sense of the weird symptoms I had noticed for years. It also explained why, as a seemingly healthy young mother, I had always struggled with fatigue. A few weeks after my diagnosis, my numbness receded and disappeared. I was left with mostly benign symptoms. Sometimes when I went to bed at night my body would be a symphony of buzzing and tingling, and sometimes I would wake with exquisitely painful muscle spasms in my legs. My fatigue often left me praying for the moment when I could crawl into my bed. I also struggled with the uncertainty of not knowing how my disease would affect my life. My children were all adults, but I had recently become a grandmother, and I wanted to be an active grandparent. My husband and I love to travel, but it was stressful scheduling vacations and not knowing if I would be able to go. I felt a little better the first summer after my diagnosis when we were able to vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I studied hiking maps for hours, wondering how much my legs could take. I really wanted to do a waterfall hike, but would the climbing be too much? Would I have to be rescued if I pushed it too far? We went for the waterfall, and my legs held up, but I had a few tense moments. Story continues Choosing treatment was another dicey proposition. Only a year before my diagnosis, a disease-modifying treatment (DMT) had been approved. My doctor assured me that I was lucky to have the option of this brand-new therapy. But the treatment consisted of injections that caused flu-like symptoms and that could have serious side effects. Somehow I didnt feel so lucky. Eventually I opted for DMT and learned how to give myself the shots. The side effects werent bad as long as I took ibuprofen. If I forgot, the aches would wake me out of a sound sleep. As the years went by, I wondered about opting for DMT. Maybe the course of my disease would have been mild without the shots. Some nights I simply couldnt face the needle and pushed back my injection a day. Then there were hours spent on the phone with my insurance company. The treatment was expensive, and the cost went up every year. No way could we afford it if the insurance company denied coverage. Still, 20 years in, I felt lucky. I didnt need a cane. I took no medication except for my injections. The handful of other MSers I knew struggled with multiple symptoms, including vision problems and bladder control, as well as mobility issues. They juggled medications and frequently had to switch as one course of treatment stopped working. I was one of the lucky ones, I assumed. Then MS tapped me on the shoulder again, three years ago when I was 68 years old. It was a particularly stressful time. My daughter had been diagnosed with cancer. Our whole family was reeling, and I was helping with my daughters three teenagers. One morning I was preparing to drive my grandsons to school when I discovered that I couldnt lift my left leg enough to get it into the car. Over the next day or two my whole body became so tight and stiff that getting out of bed was a struggle. It was my first major MS exacerbation, and it was a doozy. I turned down the suggested steroid treatment because my daughter was scheduled for surgery. I ended up fighting the stiffness - technically called spasticity - for about six months before it gradually went away. But I would no longer feel sure about the course of my disease. I should have known better than to get complacent. MS is a progressive disease, which means that it gets worse over time. In fact, the form of MS I have, which is called relapsing-remitting, or RRMS, usually progresses to a more serious form, called secondary progressive, or SPMS. Traditionally, doctors have expected this change to occur within 25 years for around 90 percent of their patients. Thats another reason my 25th anniversary will be especially poignant, because Im still classified as RRMS. No one knows whether my treatment is responsible or whether Ive just been lucky. There is still no cure for MS, according to medical experts. A few MS patients have claimed success with alternative treatments and lifestyle changes. Since symptoms can come and go seemingly at random, its hard to say whether a particular strategy works. I think taking care of my overall health and prioritizing working out and staying active has improved the quality of my life with MS, but it has not been a cure. These days I mostly wake up with a smile on my face. My daughters cancer treatment is going well. Weve had a couple of outstanding vacations with our kids and grandkids, one to Costa Rica and one to the Pacific Northwest. On our last trip I tried a waterfall hike that did prove to be too much for me. But I made it most of the way up and rejoined my family when they started back down. Im hitting the gym a little harder so that next time I can go all the way. In the meantime, I try not to worry. I dont fear dying from MS, as it is rarely fatal. I dont stress about my family members getting MS, as it is not a directly inherited disease. I do worry about being a burden on my family, but that is a concern of most older individuals, with or without MS. My husband and I plan for the future, but we plan vacations and celebrations, not long-term care. We have saved for our old age, but we hope to put it off a little longer. As I reflect on my upcoming anniversary, I know that my future is a mystery, as is everyones. I dont know what setbacks or even tragedies may lie ahead. But I do know that it is entirely possible to live life with joy, even with MS as a companion. Have a compelling first-person story you want to share? Send your story description to pitch@huffpost.com. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Three people are feared dead and several suffered gunshot wounds on Monday in a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht and a hunt was underway for the gunman in an incident authorities said appeared to be a terrorist attack. The head of Dutch counter-terrorism said shots had been fired at several locations, without elaborating. Counter-terrorism units surrounded a house in Utrecht, Dutch television showed, but no one appeared to have been arrested. Parents, do you really know how your kid is spending money? You should. (JGI/Jamie Grill via Getty Images) Nobody would argue that its inappropriate for any parent to monitor and essentially spy on their 7-year-olds spending habits. Youre the parent. Your kid is the kid. End of story. But what about when your kid is 17? Reasonable minds could differ there and probably do. On one hand, its your house, and if he or she is 17, your teen is still a minor. On the other hand, your teenager is practically a young adult. If your 16- or 17-year-old son or daughter had a diary or journal hidden under the mattress instead of posting their life on Instagram (lets pretend for a minute that its 1975), you probably wouldnt go out of your way to snoop through it. So why spy on their spending? Heres the why First of all, spy is probably too intense of a word. With any luck, you dont have to spy in secret. Hopefully you feel comfortable alerting your kids that youre monitoring their finances rather than watching without them being aware. Spying on your kids finances may seem too Big Brother, or, if you prefer, Big Mom or Big Dad. (OK, probably nobody prefers being called that.) Of course, if youre worried your kid is spending some of his or her money or your money on drugs or alcohol, for instance, you can make a great argument that you should spy. In that case, you probably shouldnt feel guilty for not alerting your kid that youre making like the CIA and watching his or her every move. But for many parents, openly monitoring your kids spending is a way to teach them good habits, which may help them keep out of trouble later. As for what age to stop spying, where you no longer monitor your kids money, thats a hard call, and obviously it just comes down to what you feel is right. And what your kid feels. If your teen is 18 and doesnt want to be monitored, then the spy game is pretty much over. Logan Allec, a Los Angeles-based certified public accountant who runs a personal finance blog called Money Done Right and will be a father in April, suggests that maybe until your kids are age 14 or 15, you need to be keeping a very close eye on their transactions. But hopefully by the time they reach later high school at age 16 or 17, you can step back. Story continues And then theres Michael Foguth, president and founder of a Brighton, Michigan, retirement planning firm, Foguth Financial Group, and a father of five, who says, Im a believer in watching the finances of your teenage children up until their young 20s, especially when it comes to credit use. Your credit score will follow you forever and can make hundreds, even thousands of dollars of difference when it comes to buying a house or purchasing a car. So, whether you spy on your kids without them knowing or spy on your kids with them knowing exactly whats going on, thats up to you and your conscience. But if youre going to monitor your high schooler and possibly college students spending habits, here are several ways you can do it. Option 1: Open linked bank accounts with your teenagers. It depends on the bank, of course, but your son or daughter can probably open their own account once they have a valid ID, like a drivers license or a temporary drivers license or maybe a high school ID with a photo. If your checking account is linked to your kids checking or savings account (typically, banks will structure it so that you can see into your childs accounts without them seeing into yours), thats an easy way to follow what your kid is spending money on. Kristie Jones, who owns the St. Louis-based sales consulting firm Sales Acceleration Group, has a 19-year-old son away at college and monitors his spending habits by having online access to his bank account. We did this before he left for college as a freshman. The main reason was so that I could transfer money to him on a monthly basis, she says. Her son also has a job at the college and worked over the summer. In any case, because the accounts are linked, Jones can watch what her son is spending money on, and she says, I have discussions with him every so often about the amount of money he spends on gaming, music and so on. She says he spends quite a bit on gaming. Option 2: Allow your kid to become an authorized user on your credit card. This is different than co-signing for your kids credit card, and in many ways its so much better. If you co-sign for your kids credit card, that card is your kids, and he or she can technically do what they want with it - and if they get into trouble and fall behind on payments, you, of course, are on the hook to pay them off. And you will pay them off, if you dont want to see your credit score plummet. But if your child is an authorized user on your credit card, its a little like your teenager or young adult having a room in your house. Its your credit card, your rules. Sure, because your teenager will have a credit card with their name on it, he or she could use it irresponsibly and spend way too much money and max it out, but because its your card, youll never be in the dark for long on whats going on. And, best-case scenario, your teenager is relatively responsible, and you see what he or she is spending money on and you have conversations about wasteful purchases as they come up. Odds are, as long as you arent too judgmental and lay things on too thick, your kids will appreciate the conversations. They may remember their parents enduring the Great Recession and be well aware of the dangers of falling into debt, and they likely dont want to waste money. Granted, you may not always see eye-to-eye on what purchases are a waste, but all teenagers likely will quickly come to see bank overdraft fees and credit card late fees as the devils spawn - and will likely appreciate your helping hand in steering them to good habits. Option 3: Ask your kid to make you an authorized user on his or her credit card. That is what Lisa Sugarman and her husband did. Sugarman, a nationally syndicated opinion columnist based in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the author of Untying Parent Anxiety, has two daughters, 18 and 21. She says that she and her husband have monitored their checking accounts. And when her oldest daughter recently studied abroad in Dublin and got a credit card, they were made authorized users on her credit card. You could argue that this is even better than making your kid an authorized user on your credit card. (But just a heads up: Until your kid is 21, its harder for them to successfully apply for a credit card. You have to either be willing to co-sign or your kid needs to prove he or she is making an income.) Whats the benefit? Youll have access to the account information and can spy on your kids purchases and speak up if things are going badly. At the same time, Sugarman says, she and her husband arent liable for late fees and missed payments. Their daughter is. If she screws up, its her screw-up, 100 percent, Sugarman says. Not that thats likely to happen, of course, if youre guiding your kid and offering good advice. And Sugarman even says that her daughters have thanked her and her husband for their help. It can be hard, though, to be a consultant and not a critic. Jones, who is a consultant, admits that she struggles with that when it comes to her son, still a teenager but very much a legal grown-up. I see this as a transition from child to young adult, she says. I try to guide by making observations and not telling him that hes wrong to spend so much on Fortnite. This story is part of the series How To Afford A Teenager, supported by Relay. All content with the supported by label is editorially independent. ConocoPhillips COP looks compelling at the moment. Given the companys strong fundamentals, it seems like this is the right time to add the stock to your portfolio. In terms of production and proved reserves, ConocoPhillips headquartered in Houston, TX is the largest oil and gas exploration and production player in the world. The companys operations are spread across 17 countries, including the United States, Colombia, Chile, Norway, the United Kingdom and many other nations. Recently, ConocoPhillips received afavorableruling from the World Banks International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes for the seizure of its assets by the Venezuelan government in 2007. Per the ruling, Venezuela has to pay $8.7 billion to ConocoPhillips, making it one of the largest arbitration settlements ever. Notably, the company currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), which means that it is poised to outperform the market. Lets delve deeper toanalyzethe factors that make this upstream energy player an attractive investment option at the moment. Strategic U.S. Acreage Position The bulk of acres that ConocoPhillips holds in the three big unconventional plays that include Eagle Ford shale, Delaware basin and Bakken shale plays are rich in oil. The company is planning to operate 10-11 rigs in these prolific plays through 2019. From the three unconventional plays, ConocoPhillips projects compound annual production growth rate of more than 25% in the 2017-2019 time frame. Notably, significant opportunities are left for ConocoPhillips in the Eagle Ford shale, wherein it owns about 3,400 undrilled locations that could lend access to almost 2.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent estimated potential reserves. Efficient Management ConocoPhillips is focused on divesting non-core assets, so that it can allocate the funds for growth projects and acquisitions. Notably, the company generated $1.1 billion from its divestment program, which will be used for efficient capital allocation. Story continues Moreover, ConocoPhillips 2019 capital spending is projected at $6.1 billion, marginally lower than 2018 levels. However, production is expected between 1,300 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOED) and 1,350 MBOED, representing 5% growth on a pro-forma basis. The production growth is anticipated on the back of consistent ramp up of unconventional production in the Lower 48 and conventional production increases in Alaska. Strong Balance Sheet The balance sheet of ConocoPhillips is significantly less leveraged than the industry it belongs to. Importantly, in 2018, ConocoPhillips managed to reduce debt burden to reach its target of roughly $15 billion, much earlier than expected. The company has a debt-to-capitalization ratio of 32%, lower than the industry average. As of Dec 31, 2018, the oil giant, with a market capitalization of around $75 billion, had $6.2 billion in total cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. Increasing Shareholder Value The upstream energy player is strongly committed to returning cash to its shareholders through dividend payments and share repurchases. In fact, investors would be thrilled to knowthat ConocoPhillips is planning to buy back $3 billion of shares through 2019, as it did last year. After raising dividend by 15% through 2018, the company is planning to grow its dividend further this year. Wrapping Up A clear picture is derived from the above-mentioned growth drivers, which differentiate ConocoPhillips from peers. The upstream giant has a strong acreage position in the United States, which is reflective of tremendous growth potential. The efficient management of the company can ensure that the targets are achieved within the expected time period and well within budget. A strong balance sheet, which its peers lack, provides management with financial flexibility to achieve its goals. The company has gained 26.2% in the past year compared with 7.6% collective growth of its industry. Other Stocks to Consider Investors interested in the energy sector can opt for other top-ranked stocks as given below: Denver, CO-based Antero Resources Corporation AR is an upstream energy company. Its top line for 2019 is expected to increase 11.8% year over year. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Austin, TX-based Jones Energy, Inc. JONE is an exploration and production company. For 2019, its bottom line, which has witnessed one upside revision over the past 60 days, is expected to grow 19% year over year. The company currently holds a Zacks Rank #2. Lonestar Resources US Inc. LONE is a Fort Worth, TX-based exploration and production company. Its top line for 2019 is expected to increase 6.4% year over year. It currently has a Zacks Rank #2. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Antero Resources Corporation (AR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lonestar Resources US Inc. (LONE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Jones Energy, Inc. (JONE) : Free Stock Analysis Report ConocoPhillips (COP) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. 40 per cent of Canadians see the economy worsening: poll (Getty Images) Four-in-ten Canadians expect the economy to worsen over the next year, and a slim majority are nervous about making major purchases, according to a new poll released a day ahead of the federal budget. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government will outline is pre-election fiscal plan on Tuesday. The Liberals are expected to roll out measures to improve housing affordability and address the cost of prescription drugs, among other policies aimed at middle and low-income families. The Angus Reid Institute found economic anxiety is alive and well. Forty per cent of those surveyed believe the economy will worsen over the next 12 months, compared with 39 per cent calling for conditions to remain the same, and 24 per cent who see it improving. Most (55 per cent) said the next year will be a bad time to make a major purchase like home renovations, taking a big vacation or buying a car. Forty-eight per cent worry a member of their household could lose their job because of economic weakness. The concerns echo the views from economists at RBC and TD Bank. Canadas economy is headed for a slower 2019, reflecting weakness in the energy sector plus slower housing and consumer spending activity, wrote authors led by chief economist Craig Wright in the banks March 2019 economic and financial market outlook. We downgraded our 2019 Canadian forecast to 1.5 per cent in part due to the economys weaker momentum in late 2018. TD lowered its growth forecast to 1.2 per cent, with an acceleration to 1.8 in 2020. Angus Reid found respondents in Alberta and Saskatchewan hold the bleakest economic views. Nearly half of those surveyed in those provinces said their standard of living has worsened over the last year. Albertans are more inclined to believe things will improve (23 per cent) than worsen (19 per cent). Saskatchewanians felt the other way. Thirty-five per cent said the economy will worsen and 24 per cent said it will improve. Those who said they are open to voting Conservative tended to be more cynical about Canadas economic prospects. Sixty per cent who lean conservative expect economic woes in the next year, compared to 43 per cent Liberal and 56 per cent NDP. Story continues Methodology: The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from March 8 10, 2019, among a representative randomized sample of 1,594 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. The survey was self-commissioned and paid for by ARI. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. Are you on track to save enough for retirement in 2019? Is your 401(k) invested properly? Are you taking full advantage of the tax-advantaged retirement savings tools at your disposal? Here's what you should know about these retirement savings topics, along with a few other tips, as you plan your retirement savings strategy in 2019 and beyond. Contribute enough to get your employer's match About 20% of Americans are making a terrible retirement mistake by not taking advantage of their employer's matching contributions. Choosing not to contribute enough to get the full match is literally turning down free money. Notebook that says retirement planning sitting on a desk with a calculator, a pair of glasses, and a stack of $100 bills. Image source: Getty Images. One common culprit is 401(k) plans that auto-enroll new employees, which is typically done at a low contribution rate. For example, if your employer is willing to match contributions of as much as 5% of your salary, but you're auto-enrolled at a 2% contribution rate, you're leaving a lot of money on the table unless you make the effort to adjust your contributions. Getting the match isn't enough Contributing as much to your 401(k) or 403(b) plan as your employer is willing to match is a good start, but it's by no means enough. Many financial planners, including myself, suggest saving at least 10% of your compensation in tax-advantaged accounts for retirement -- not including any matching contributions your employer makes on your behalf. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to contribute 10% of your salary to your 401(k). Once you've maxed out your employer match, it could be a smart idea to open an IRA if you qualify. An IRA gives you the flexibility to invest in virtually any stocks, bonds, or funds you want with your retirement savings. Traditional IRAs have the same tax benefits as pre-tax 401(k) contributions, and Roth IRAs allow you to avoid paying taxes after you retire. You also don't need to get to the 10% savings rate immediately. One popular strategy involves increasing your contribution rate by 1 percentage point per year until you reach your goal, for example. However, the point is that if you have a single-digit retirement savings rate, it may be a smart idea to rethink your strategy. Story continues Keep asset allocation in mind Saving enough money is only half of the battle -- once you set money aside for retirement, you need to make sure it's invested properly. Here's a quick asset allocation check for you. Subtract your current age from 110. This tells you the approximate percentage of your assets that should be in stock (equity) investments in order to balance long-term growth potential and risk. For example, if you're 40, this implies that roughly 70% of your retirement investments should be in stock-based funds or other equities. If you're just getting started with retirement savings or haven't made any changes to your 401(k) investments in a while, now is a good time to do an asset allocation checkup. And be sure to do this every few years going forward. Use an HSA if you can If you have a qualifying high-deductible health plan, a health savings account, or HSA, can be your best friend as a retirement saver, so take advantage. Money you contribute to an HSA is tax-deductible, just like the money you save in your 401(k). But unlike a flexible spending account (FSA), money saved in an HSA can be invested (similarly to a 401(k)) and is allowed to grow and compound on a tax-deferred basis and can be rolled over from year to year. And if you use the money in your HSA for qualified medical expenses, your withdrawals will be 100% tax-free, as well -- giving HSAs a unique triple-tax benefit that other types of accounts simply don't have. Fidelity estimates that the average 65-year-old couple retiring in 2018 will spend $280,000 on out-of-pocket healthcare expenses throughout their retirement, so by setting money aside regularly in your HSA, you can help reduce this burden later in life. Take advantage of catch-up contributions Finally, if you're 50 or older, it's important to realize that you can contribute more to your retirement accounts than younger Americans. For example, if you're contributing to an IRA, the 2019 limit is $6,000 for most Americans, but savers who are 50 or older can make an additional $1,000 catch-up contribution. For 401(k)s and similar retirement plans, it's even more generous. The 2019 401(k) contribution limit is $19,000 for elective deferrals but rises to $25,000 if you've reached your 50th birthday. In other words, the IRS allows older Americans to save more aggressively. Take advantage. Keep this in mind from now until you retire As the headline of this article suggests, these tips aren't just for 2019. They should be used in 2019 and each year going forward as you move toward retirement. Some of the figures, like the IRA and 401(k) contribution limits, are likely to change as time goes on, but these five concepts are evergreen. More From The Motley Fool The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Innovative Industrial Properties (NYSE: IIPR), a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on the cannabis sector, reported strong fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 results last Wednesday, with its semiannual analyst conference call following on Thursday. For the quarter, the San Diego-based REIT's revenue jumped 110% to $4.8 million. Operating income surged 215% to $1.8 million, net income rocketed 720% to $2.3 million -- which translated to earnings per share (EPS) soaring 243% to $0.24 -- and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) leaped 65% to $0.38 per share. AFFO is a key profitability metric for REITs, as it's the main driver of dividend changes. Earnings releases tell only part of the story. Management's comments during earnings calls can often reveal key insights about a company's prospects and strategy. Here are five things you should know from Innovative Industrial Properties' Q4 earnings call. Interior of a large marijuana-growing greenhouse, with the company's name and logo at the bottom of the image. Image source: Innovative Industrial Properties. Profit yield on portfolio From Executive Chairman Alan Gold's remarks: Our current blended yield on these properties is 15.1%, with each lease providing minimum annual rental escalations ranging from 3% to 4%, with a weighted-average remaining lease term of over 14 years. Innovative Industrial's current portfolio yield of 15.1% is strong. With the data that Gold mentioned, along with a strong pipeline of potential acquisitions, the REIT's future looks promising. The company's portfolio currently includes 13 properties in 11 states, totaling nearly 1.3 million square feet. All are fully leased to licensed medical-use cannabis growers. In 2018 the company acquired six properties in five states in which it previously didn't operate, and it has acquired two properties so far in 2019. The 11 states in which it operates are New York, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota. Story continues Powerful dividend growth The dividend topic was covered in the company's earnings release and my earnings article, but it's important enough to include here. As I recently wrote, the REIT "paid a quarterly dividend of $0.35 per share on Jan. 15 to stockholders of record as of Dec. 31, representing an increase of 40% year over year." At Friday's closing price, shares are yielding 2.24%. "On March 12, Innovative Industrial Properties announced its eighth consecutive quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share, which will be paid on April 15 to stockholders of record as of March 29. This dividend represents a 29% increase from IIP's fourth-quarter dividend and an 80% increase from its first-quarter 2018 dividend." IIPR Dividend Chart Data by YCharts. 2019's acquisition activity has started off strong From Gold's remarks: We see [2018's] momentum continuing in 2019, acquiring our first property in California and executing another transaction with PharmaCann in Ohio. [Chicago-based PharmaCann is in the process of being acquired by Los Angeles-based MedMen Enterprises.] We have about $47 million of transactions under contract. We have just under $40 million of transactions under letter of intent. We have another $10 million in final negotiation. The two properties Gold references were acquired this year before March 14, the date of the earnings call. Two acquisitions within the span of a month and a half bodes well for the company's growth in 2019. In fact, Gold has characterized Innovative Industrial Properties' pipeline of potential acquisitions as "extremely strong," which perhaps isn't surprising given the robust growth in the U.S. medical marijuana market. The overall market in existing states is growing, and new states continue to give the green light to cannabis for medical use. Currently, 32 states have legalized medical marijuana. Entrance into the California market in 2018 From CEO Paul Smithers' remarks about the California market, where the company owns one property purchased earlier this year: California was the first state to permit the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes ... in 1996. In November 2016, California voters approved the ... sale of cannabis for adult use, with first licenses issued in 2018. With 40 million people, ArcView expects California's regulated cannabis spending to grow to $5.6 billion in 2022, just modestly below the entire estimated 2022 market for all of Canada. [Emphasis mine.] We are thrilled to finally be in California and to be working with our operator in Sacramento, who is also one of the first operators to receive its permanent adult-use and medical-use cannabis retailer license in the state. It's obviously a big positive that Innovative Industrial Properties entered the Golden State's cannabis market this year, given the market's huge growth potential. While Canada has recently been getting much press for being the first industrialized county to legalize marijuana, California is arguably the bigger story. At some point in the not-too-distant future, legal cannabis sales in the U.S.'s most populous state are likely going to overtake those in the country to our north. Tenants are not prohibited by lease to enter their state's recreational marijuana market From Smithers' remarks: If our ... growers who maintain [their] medical [marijuana] license choose to enter into the recreational market, there's nothing in our lease that prohibits that. This one speaks for itself, and is something some investors might have wondered about, with more states legalizing or considering legalizing cannabis for recreational use. More From The Motley Fool Beth McKenna has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Innovative Industrial Properties. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. By Lamine Chikhi and Hamid Ould Ahmed ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Monday again defied mass protests calling for his immediate resignation, insisting on a plan to elect a successor only after a national conference and new constitution is approved. Bouteflika, 82, last week bowed to demonstrators who say he unfit to run Algeria by announcing he had reversed a decision to stand for another term. But he stopped short of stepping down and postponed elections due in April, in effect extending his current term until a new constitution can be prepared. In a letter reported by Ennahar television, the veteran leader repeated an earlier plan for a national conference to reform the political system, which would be held shortly. The forum will take "decisive decisions", state television quoted him as saying. A new constitution will then pave the way for a new president, the private Ennahar station added. The scenario broadly reflects a timetable for change that Bouteflika mapped out on March 11. The ailing leader has ruled for two decades but has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke five years ago. Demonstrators say Bouteflika is no state of health to run the country, and they want to see a new generation of leadership tackle deep-seated economic problems and corruption. His comments were published shortly after the chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah, said the army should take responsibility for finding a quick solution to its political crisis, in the most overt signal of potential military intervention since demonstrations erupted three weeks ago. So far, the powerful army has remained in barracks during the demonstrations, with the security forces mainly monitoring mostly peaceful demonstrations in Algiers and other cities. "The army will remain a fortified fortress for the country," Salah said on state TV. "We should be responsible for finding solutions as soon as possible. There is no problem without solution." He added: "Im confident the Algerian people are wise and able to overcome all difficulties." The army has generally wielded power in Algeria behind the scenes, but has intervened publicly during pivotal moments. In the early 1990s, generals canceled elections which an Islamist party was set to win, triggering almost a decade of civil war that killed some 200,000 people. NO LET UP Bouteflika's concessions last week have brought no halt to the demonstrations, which are expected to continue on Tuesday, Algeria's Independence Day holiday. On Monday, doctors called for mass protests during the celebrations. In a statement, the independent Collective of Algerian Medical Residents (CAMRA) urged medical students to take part and denounce the "ruling gangs". Protesters are desperate for a new generation of leaders who can tackle the country's pressing problems: a stagnant economy and high unemployment despite vast oil and gas resources. In another concession, the Ministry of Religious Affairs on Sunday informed clerics that they are no longer required to submit texts of their sermons to authorities for approval. One of the most influential clerics in Algiers expressed his opposition to the government last week. Since returning from medical treatment in Switzerland last week, Bouteflika has been losing allies, including senior members of the ruling National Liberation Front party, known by its French acronym FLN. Bouteflika named a new prime minister last week, but on Monday leaders of 13 independent Algerian labor unions refused to support his efforts to form a cabinet. "We will not hold discussions with this system, we belong to the people and the people said 'No' to the system," Boualem Amora, a leader of an education union, told reporters. Newly-appointed Deputy Prime Minister Ramtane Lamamra is expected to start a tour on Tuesday of some of Algeria's main allies abroad to explain the new political roadmap, said a foreign ministry official. The tour will start on Tuesday with a visit to Moscow, Algeria's most important military ally. It will also include EU countries and China, which has invested billions of dollars in Algeria. (Additional reporting by Nayera Abdallah and Ulf LaessingWriting by Michael Georgy, Editing by Peter Graff, William Maclean) Algiers (AFP) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Monday confirmed he will stay in power beyond his term expiring next month, despite tens of thousands of people demonstrating against his rule. Bouteflika announced on March 11 he was withdrawing from his bid for a fifth term, initially sparking elation among protesters before they realised he would be remain in office beyond his term. The ailing 82-year-old also scrapped the election set for April 18 and announced he was rolling out reforms through a "national conference". Rarely seen in public since a 2013 stroke, Bouteflika issued a statement on Monday which confirmed his new plan would see him stay in power for months beyond the expiry of his term on April 28. "(I hope) that Algeria experiences, in the near future, a harmonious transition and assists handing over the reins to a new generation," he said in the statement carried by state media. "This is the ultimate goal that I have committed to making a reality before the end of my presidential journey, at your side and at your service," added Bouteflika, who has ruled Algeria for 20 years. While Bouteflika has given no timetable for his national conference, he said the shake-up of Algeria's "political, economic and social systems" would start "in the very near future". A constitutional review would be put before a referendum, he said, which would be "a prelude to a new electoral process that will see the election of a new president." Protests initially erupted last month after Bouteflika announced his intention to stand for another term, bringing tens of thousands to the streets in the capital Algiers and across the country. - 'External dangers' - Despite the president's reform pledges, Algerians have continued marching in huge numbers, many clutching humorous banners and waving their country's flags amid a festival atmosphere. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, with occasional clashes between a minority of stone-throwing young people and police on the sidelines. Story continues In his latest message, Bouteflika appealed to Algerians to "offer your support to your army to protest Algeria from external dangers." The president's comments followed Algeria's army chief promising the military would remain "the bastion of the people and the nation." "Everyone must show responsibility to find solutions as soon as possible," Ahmed Gaid Salah said on Monday during a visit to the southwest of the country. Part of the president's inner circle, he said Algerians "have the abilities necessary to prevent their country from any situation (in which) it could be exploited by hostile foreign parties." Authorities have previously warned that the protests risk dragging Algeria into instability, comparing the rallies to those that sparked Syria's ongoing war. Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat and former UN envoy for Syria, on Monday denied references to turmoil in other countries was intended to scare protesters. "We must be aware of the dangers that exist. Talking about Iraq or Syria is not an attempt to tell the population to hold still... we tell them to go ahead with their open eyes," he said in a national radio interview. Brahimi called for structured and organised dialogue to take place as soon as possible. At the moment, he said, "there's a blockage, I hope that it's not a deadlock." A 60/40 allocation to equities and bonds is no longer likely to be enough to offer investors the outcomes and diversification required to reach their long-term objectives alternative investments are increasingly critical to the investors portfolio, an analyst has predicted. The warning comes ahead of the eighth edition of the world-leading, invitation-only Alternative Investment Management (AIM) Summit, taking place in Abu Dhabi next month. The AIM Summit, being held on April 7th at the Four Seasons Hotel, is a gathering for industry leaders in the world of alternative investments, including blockchain, cryptocurrency, hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, and private debt. Zachary Cefaratti, CEO of Dubai-based Dalma Capital a prominent alternative investment accelerator and strategic partner of AIM Summit, said he was forecasting huge growth across the sectors. Assets We estimate the alternative investment industry to currently represent more than $10 trillion in assets under management today, he said. Based on data from Preqin, we forecast this to grow to $14 trillion by 2023. As we enter the late stages of economic and credit cycles, investors increasingly consider alternative investment and uncorrelated assets. The AIM Summit brings together the largest and most sophisticated investors in hedge funds, private equity, private debt, venture capital, and other alternative investments connecting them with the worlds leading alternative investment managers. A typically so-called diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds has, over the last decade, been almost in step with the stock market. Alternative investments will, according to the experienced analyst, typically reduce this correlation and lower the erosion impact of market volatility. Raha Moradi, the Managing Partner of AIM Summit, notes: Alternatives have a valuable place in an investors portfolio. A speculator seeks a quick return and is willing to take on risk. But an investor actively tries to minimise risk and does so by mingling together asset classes with low or negative correlations with each other. Story continues AIM Summit is a platform for discussions on alternative investment developments, global market conditions, and latest trends for more than 300 figureheads from 15-plus countries. Expert voices The confluence of expert voices and panellists includes Dr Ryan Lemand, CEO of ADS Investment Solutions, and David Gibson, President and CEO of Gulf Analytica. Ahead of the summit, Dr Lemand has been urging investors to be cautious about market volatility. The worlds economic growth seems to have reached a peak, and despite financial markets still exhibiting momentum, it is time for investors to position for increased volatility over the coming year, he said. Systematic strategies and emerging markets can be good alternatives to developed financial markets, especially GCC countries. In a similar vein, Mr Gibson affirmed: Fintech companies continue to send shock waves through the finance industry. It is not a question of disruption but rather of total transformation. Ms Moradi stressed that alternative investments could be the answer to smooth out volatility across portfolios. AIM Summit will, once again, be attended by some of the largest regional institutional investors and family offices, as well as some of the worlds smartest and brightest fund managers in the alternative space, she said. Why? Because alternative investments are perhaps more important than ever in helping lower volatility, bolster returns, and widen diversification for investors around the world. This years sponsors include ADS Investment Solutions, ROI Securitisation, Emirates Wealth, Apex, Mercer, Fitch Ratings, Lecocqassociate, Phoenix Advisors, and Dalma Capital Management Limited. The post Alternative investments to grow beyond $10 trillion appeared first on Coin Rivet. "This is a serious matter." By the time this column comes out, its likely that the brewing budget impasse will not yet be resolved. Senators Lacson and Sotto have dug in their heels over what they say are unconstitutional actions by the congressmen. On the other hand, Speaker Arroyo is determined to maintain her so-far perfect record of pushing Dutertes agenda through the House before she steps down in a few months. Whos saying what in this lamentable face-off? One: The senators claim that the House itemized budget allocations in violation of the draft approved by the bicameral conference. They say this was unconstitutional. But House appropriations committee chair Nonoy Andaya points out that the bicameral draft only contains lump sums for various agencies and programs. These sums still need to be itemized. The House proposed such itemizations, as did the Senate as well. Who wouldnt want such clarity? As for constitutionality, Andaya believes this becomes an issue only when you start fiddling around with a budget already enacted into law upon the Presidents signature. In fact, this is exactly what happened with the DAP fiasco engineered under PNot, which the Supreme Court unanimously declared to be unconstitutional.Two: Senator Lacson charges that Speaker Arroyo steered unusually large budget funds to her own 2nd district of Pampanga. Hes also threatened to bring her to court for technical violations of the budget preparation process. However, Arroyos district as a matter of fact only ranked something like 100th among all 200-plus congressional districts in terms of budget allocation for 2019. And Andaya says her only directive to the congressmen was to ensure that no districteven those of her opponentsshould be denied any budget funds at all, which is what used to happen under her predecessors. If Lacson wants to sue her over this or any other issues, he should really go ahead and do thatas advised as well by Palace spokesman Paneloinstead of endlessly playing to the media. No less than any other citizen, the lady deserves that much. Three: Dutertes economic team is warning that delays in budget approval could lead to a reenacted budget (using the same 2018 budget this year) that would slow down economic growth by as much as 2 percent.This is a serious matter. Public spending to stimulate economic growth will be reduced, including Dutertes Build Build Build program for which loan and construction agreements have already been signed. Among these projects are prospective new sources of water for Metro Manila. If we end up with man-made droughts in the future, we will certainly know some of those who should be blamed.As the water shortage in Metro Manila enters its second week, it seems clear that the blame falls squarely on the private water concessionairesspecifically Manila Water, the Ayala-owned operator of the East Zone. They seem to have screwed up on their short-term capacity and distribution planning, compounded by a failure to aggressively develop short-term water sources similar to Maynilad Waters Putatan treatment plant beside Laguna de Bay. That said, these mistakes are absolutely no reason at all to reject privatization of water distribution and go back to the bad old days of government control under the likes of NAWASA, when water supply was chronically short and overpriced. The two concessionaires have in fact made water privatization here a model for other countries. It is governmentwho insisted on holding on to its exclusive role as wholesale water providerthat has consistently fallen short. The economy and the population wont stop growing, so it should make sense to continue hunting for new water supply, right? Apparently, though, not to our bureaucrats. There are at least four huge potential new sources of rainwater-fed supply: the Wawa dam now being proposed by billionaire Ricky Razons group; and the Laiban, Kaliwa and Kanan dam projects, which are intended to capture the 8 billion liters of rainwater dumped by an average of 25 typhoons a year on the Sierra Madre, only to flow back to the Pacific Ocean unused. However, it was only last November that a formal agreement was signed with the Chinese for building the Kaliwa dam. If we want to exploit these opportunities, the whole water sector may need to be reorganized, the same as with the power sector after EPIRA in 2001. According to a knowledgeable consultant, three new entities must be created: a Department of Water to run wholesale water operations; a National Water Corporation to co-venture with the private sector on new water projects; and a Water Regulatory Commission to regulate the entire sector. Two water reform bills have already been filed in Congress earlier, by Speaker Arroyo and by her close ally Congressman Art Yap. If anything good comes out of the current water crisis, it may well include the substitution or consolidation of these and other pending bills into a comprehensive blueprint for reform.The President last week released his latest list of 46 narco-politicians. Most of these were mayors (although three congressmen were also included) and many of them are now running for reelection. This time the list has reportedly been thoroughly vettedby PDEA, PNP, AFP, and the National Intelligence Coordination Agency (NICA). Predictable howls of protest were raised from the usual quarters about violation of human rights of those on the list. Unfortunately, those same critics also criticize the administration for letting off the big drug lords and only going after poor users and pushers. You cant run after the little ones, you cant run after the big onesexactly what do these critics want government to do? They also forget that the media routinely publishes the names and photos of crime suspects hauled in for questioning by the police. Are we now to believe that mayors and congressmen presumptively deserve better treatment? These alleged narco-politicians have met the lower test of probable cause that must be applied in order for them to be charged in court. We think that this lower test is also relevant in the case of those running for reelection. And if these candidates still get themselves back into officewell, that will have to be blamed on the voters themselves. Amal and George at the Peoples Postcode Lottery Charity Gala [Photo: Getty] Amal Clooney has been announced as the figurehead of a new initiative for the Prince of Wales charity The Princes Trust International. The Lebanese-British human rights lawyer, 41, has put her name to the The Amal Clooney Award, which will highlight the work of young women who have succeeded against the odds to make a lasting difference in their communities. The mum-of-two will personally select one young winner to be presented with the award a year from now, in 2020. After the announcement, Amal said: I am honoured to have been invited by Princes Trust International to participate in this global initiative celebrating young women who are change-makers in their communities. It is a privilege to be able to play a part in a project that will draw attention to incredible young women who are the future leaders of our world. Amal and George meeting Prince Charles at the Buckingham Palace dinner last week [Photo: Getty] Amal and husband George sparked rumours of a collaboration with Prince Charles, when they attended a dinner at Buckingham Palace in aid of his charity last week. According to Mail Online, the heir to the throne is said to find Amal deeply impressive, and its no wonder why. Qualified to practise as a lawyer in the US and the UK, Amal was admitted to the bar in England and Wales in 2010. READ MORE: George and Amal Clooney joined by Benedict Cumberbatch at star-studded Buckingham Palace bash As a barrister, who specialises in public international law, criminal law and human rights, shes ranked as one of the top lawyers in the country in her field. Mrs Clooney previously served as a senior advisor to Kofi Annan, when he was the UNs Envoy on Syria and she has worked on a number of high profile cases, including representing a Yazidi woman, Nadia Murad, who was kidnapped and held by the Islamic State for three months. Amal with Nadia Murad in 2017 [Photo: Getty] Shes a huge advocate for womens rights. She established the Amal Clooney Scholarship in 2015, which was created to send one female student from Lebanon to the United World College Dilijan each year, to enroll in a two-year International Baccalaureate (IB) programme. Story continues Together with husband George, Amal also set up the Clooney Foundation for Justice in 2016 to with the aim of fighting for the rights of individuals unfairly targeted by oppressive governments through the courts. Take a look at Amal Clooneys style file below: Having a high profile individual like Mrs Clooney on a charity, not only garners media coverage, but its also the latest step by the Royal Family and their focus on female empowerment. The Duchess of Sussex recently joined an International Womens Day panel and the Countess of Wessex championed gender equality at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations. As a result of the unrest in Venezuela, American Airlines AAL temporarily suspended operations to the strife-torn nation. Following American Airlines action, all major U.S.-based carriers have pulled out of the South American country. Notably, Delta Air Lines DAL and United Airlines the wholly-owned subsidiary of United Continental Holdings UAL had halted their respective Venezuelan operations in 2017. Apart from U.S. carriers, international carriers like LATAM Airlines LTM too have stopped operations to Venezuela due to unfavorable conditions prevailing there. The withdrawal of American Airlines operations has isolated Venezuela further. The countrys economy has already been in the doldrums for quite some time. Markedly, American Airlines action was backed by advice from its pilots union Allied Pilots Association (APA) to suspend operations to Venezuela due to safety concerns. According to Associated Press, American Airlines operated daily flights to Caracas and Maracaibo from Miami. In fact, APA, whose decision was supported by the carriers flight attendants union, told its pilots to turn down assignments to Venezuela. This move came after the U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans against traveling to Venezuela due to crime, civil unrest and other factors. The U.S. administration recently suspended daily operations at the U.S. embassy in Caracas and even withdrew all its diplomats from the country. The sanctions are aimed at isolating the Nicolas Maduro regime further. Notably, the United States and many other countries do not recognize Maduro as Venezuelan president. They recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidoas president of the South American nation instead. In light of the political unrest engulfing the nation, we believe this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) companys latest decision is a well-timed one. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report United Continental Holdings, Inc. (UAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report LATAM Airlines Group S.A. (LTM) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Three people died and five were hurt in a brazen shooting on a tram in a bustling residential neighborhood in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday, an assault authorities said was likely terrorism. "We assume a terror motive," Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said. Following a sweeping manhunt across the historic city of nearly 350,000 people, Gokmen Tanis, 37, was arrested by authorities. Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said Tanis was known to justice authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. Police said they also detained another man on suspicion of involvement but released no details. As night set in, three victims lay in critical condition, and the motive for the bloodshed remained under investigation. Police forces stand near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. A gunman who opened fire on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on March 18, injuring several people, is on the run, police said. More: New Zealand rampage suspect fires lawyer, may turn trial into platform for racist views The terror alert level for the area was raised to the maximum level a 5 and security was reinforced at Dutch airports and key buildings across the country. Later, authorities downgraded the alert to a 4. The Utrecht attack comes three days after 50 people were killed when a white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the country was deeply shaken by the assault. "There is a mix of disbelief and disgust. If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'We assume a terror motive': 3 killed on tram in Dutch city of Utrecht; suspect arrested Corrections & clarifications: A previous version of this story misstated the last time a made man in the Gambino crime family was murdered. Mobsters and ex-mobsters even those who have been exiled to the Witness Protection Program gossip like schoolgirls. So when Gambino crime family boss Frank Cali was shot dead Wednesday night in front of his Staten Island home, the stunning break in decades of relative mob peace set phones of members and alumni of La Cosa Nostra alight with speculation as to the actors and motive behind his murder. Is it buzzing? former Gambino captain Michael Mikey Scars DiLeonardo asked rhetorically about the current state of the mobster rumor mill. Its on fire! DiLeonardo, 63, was a powerful figure in the crime family who lived in a Staten Island manse of his own before he testified against former associates, including John A. "Junior" Gotti, and temporarily entered government protection. DiLeonardo says he knew Cali when the future crime boss was only the broke young son of a Brooklyn store owner and a kid who hung around the Gambinos. Start the day smarter: Get USA TODAY's Daily Briefing in your inbox DiLeonardo recalled how he used to give him high-interest loans every week. He also took credit for Cali getting straightened out or made and elevated to captain status on his way to the crime familys highest rungs. Michael DiLeonardo, right, accused of being a member of the Gambino crime family, right, followed by his attorney Craig Gillen, left, leave the federal building in Atlanta, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2001. With no explanation from defense attorneys and prosecutors, testimony in the Gold Club trial was abruptly canceled Wednesday, and the proceedings were put on hold. (AP Photo/Gregory Smith) DiLeonardo, confessed former Gambino hitman John Alite and convicted Genovese killer Anthony Arillotta, all mobsters-turned-informants, in interviews with USA TODAY expressed shock over Cali's murder considering he was known as a nonviolent mob boss who ran his crime family like a corporation. The ex-gangsters, each of whom have firsthand experience in responding to mob crises, said that while authorities attempt to solve the murder, wise guys associated with Cali are likely conducting their own investigation. The result could be a lasting return to the violence of a flashier, more trigger-happy era of organized crime. Story continues If this is still the Mafia, that guys got to get killed that did the shooting, mused Alite, 56, who has confessed to involvement in several murders and has since authored books including "Darkest Hour II," his second mob tell-all. And anybody that helped them. Anybody who was associated with this murder, whether it was mob related or not, a couple of guys got to get killed now. Arillotta a Massachusetts gangster who confessed to two murders, testified in New York City mob trials and spent eight years in prison echoed Alites assessment. It could be a freak thing, wrong place, wrong house, wrong time, Arillotta said. They'll kill that guy. Either way theres going to be more violence. Retired FBI supervisor Bruce Mouw said that rampant speculation among mobsters follows every hit and was likely even stronger this time because Calis murder was the first rubout of a Gambino made man in decades. Mouw called mob-related murders the hardest cases to investigate, and cautioned that the public might never learn who was behind Calis death, or only after a cooperating witness comes clean about it years from now. I cant really remember one that they solved in a traditional way in 20 years, because nobody sees nothing, especially in Staten Island, Mouw said. He downplayed the idea that revenge was imminent and recalled advice he used to give: I always told my agents, dont speculate find out. The ex-mobsters USA TODAY spoke with didnt follow that discipline. Drawing from spare details released in early news reports and the grist of fellow chattering gangsters, they discussed the possibilities that the hit was a sanctioned killing, a personal matter gone wrong (like an illicit affair) or even a road rage incident completely unrelated to Calis organized crime status. They also said there were rumors that Cali was involved in the drug trade. But they acknowledged that each of these motives are unsatisfying in that they clash with Calis reputation as a buttoned-up gangster who tried to move the crime family away from the attention-grabbing violence of its former patriarch, the elder John Gotti. Cali was reportedly shot six times, and neighbors saw a pickup truck fleeing the scene. The ex-mobsters leaned on their expertise to deduce that the number of vehicles involved could reveal whether this was a true gangland hit. Until I find out how many cars there were, I wont know, said DiLeonardo, speculating that a true mafia murder plot would involve hit men in multiple vehicles. Alite used the same logic: When you hit a boss there are three cars two on each corner and one in front, said the former Gambino gunman. Hes not getting away. Alite said that the fact that Cali was apparently alone and unguarded outside of his Staten Island home was an indication of how much the mob had changed. Gone are the days when regular violence necessitated fortified compounds and armed entourages for its bosses. DiLeonardo partly credited Calis own management style for the recent peace. He said Cali took a foothold in the family in the 1990s because of a power vacuum created when its top figureheads, including Gotti, were imprisoned or dead. Following Gottis murder conviction in 1992, DiLeonardo said, we didnt have one sanctioned hit, though there was a couple of sneak things resulting in murders without official permission. FBI supervisor Mouw, who said he first met Cali when the future top mobster was a young grifter involved in an alleged calling card scheme, took issue with the postmortem chorus declaring him the Steve Jobs of crime. He was a mobster, pure and pure, Mouw said. He was Sicilian, very smooth, a moneymaker and a good businessman, so hes smarter than your average mobster. But you can dress him up, buy him a nice house in Staten Island, hes still a mobster. Mouw credited the long lull in violence not to Cali but to tougher organized crime statutes with devastating sentences for those convicted of mob-related murder. Mouw also stated that though multiple news outlets have referred to Cali as the reputed boss of the family, his information is that Cali was underboss, and the top job belongs to another Gambino, Domenico Cefalu. DiLeonardo suggested that jostling at the top of the crime family could determine the response to Calis killing. He said that Calis close confidant, Lorenzo Mannino, will likely be handling the de facto sleuthing of what happened to Cali. Mannino, who could not be reached for comment, was previously sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison for racketeering and a mob rubout that occurred in the late 1980s. Lorenzos in the Frank Cali mold, DiLeonardo said. Very smart, low key. But Lorenzos a killer. Where Frank wasnt a killer, Lorenzo is a killer." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gambino murder sparks Mafia rumor mill: A couple of guys got to get killed now After flooding wreaked havoc across a large swath of the Midwest following days of heavy rains, Vice President Mike Pence is on his way to survey the damage. Thousands of people in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri have been driven from their homes by the fast-rising waters. At least three deaths have been blamed on the flooding, and two Nebraska men have been missing for days. Some areas braced for more rain Tuesday, forecasters said. Pence will be in Nebraska on Tuesday, at the request of President Donald Trump, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted on Monday. "This is really the most devastating flooding we've probably ever had in our state's history," Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts told CNN. "So many people are being displaced; towns are being isolated." The culprit is a combination of runoff into rivers from the "bomb cyclone" storm that roared across the country last week and spring snowmelt after a winter of heavy snow. In Hornuck, Iowa, Dale Ronfeldt, 66, stood in his backyard overlooking a drowned garage and a nearly flooded swimming pool. "We have a scare every year," he said. "We have cried wolf so many times that you don't know if it's really going to happen this time or not. This time, it was real." More than 2,000 Iowans have fled their homes since heavy rains triggered flooding last week. Some residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday and Monday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees. Gabe Schmidt, owner of Liquid Trucking, top right, travels by air boat with Glenn Wyles, top left, Mitch Snyder, bottom left, and Juan Jacobo, bottom right, as they survey damage from the flood waters of the Platte River, in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Overall, as of late Monday, about 8 million people in 14 states live where a flood warning is in effect, the National Weather Service said. About 200 miles of levees along the Missouri River have been either breached or overtopped, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported. At a news conference in Sioux City, Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said the flooding "is worse than even what we saw in 2011, and we're just getting started." Story continues Hundreds of homes have flooded in northwest Missouri after the river breached several levees. About 100 roads were closed because of high water, and Holt County Emergency Management Director Tom Bullock said Monday that many homes were inundated with 6 to 7 feet of water. One couple required a helicopter rescue. 031819-midwest-flooding_Online In Nebraska, Ricketts said first responders, aided by the National Guard, completed more than 300 rescues across the state. Offutt Air Force Base posted pictures on Facebook depicting large sections of the base swamped by flooding, and officials said the water wasn't likely to recede until Thursday. "The Warhawks are Air Combat Commands most deployed Wing and even a 1,000 year flood wont change that," the post said. In Lincoln, city officials said power losses and a water pressure issue led to establishment of mandatory water use restrictions: no outdoor use and a postponement of laundry and even bathing. "Lets all do our part to conserve the current water supply," the mayor's office said in a statement. In Illinois, Freeport City Manager Lowell Crow said the town of 25,000 residents west of Rockford could see an all-time record flood along the Pecatonica River. Rain will spread back across the central Plains on Tuesday and may be mixed with wet snow along its northern fringe, AccuWeather warned. Contributing: The Associated Press; Anna Spoerre, Des Moines Register; Kristin Lam, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vice President Mike Pence set to visit Nebraska on Tuesday to survey 'devastating flooding' Sydney (AFP) - Australia's media watchdog launched a formal investigation Monday into the possible breach of rules by networks which broadcast or put online images from a livestream of the New Zealand mosque massacre. Some Australian outlets used clips or images taken from the 17-minute livestream broadcast on Facebook by alleged gunman Australian Brenton Tarrant as he mowed down worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, killing 50 people. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said its "formal investigation" would include content from the livestream broadcast by commercial, national and subscription television. ACMA chair Nerida O'Loughlin would write to broadcasters' CEOs demanding "urgent information on the nature, extent and timing of the broadcast of content relating to the shootings, in particular from the day of the attack", it said. The regulator said it would also meet with industry bodies to discuss whether current rules provide "adequate protections" for the public from such content. The ACMA's authority does not extend to online content, but the regulator said it would work with the Australian Press Council to determine if broadcasters may have breached rules by posting images from the Tarrant livestream on their websites. The ACMA has the authority to levy stiff fines for breaches of its broadcast rules. In the wake of Friday's mosque rampage there have been heightened demands in New Zealand and Australia for social media companies to take greater measures to prevent the spread of violent imagery and speech. Facebook said it "quickly" removed Tarrant's video and scrubbed 1.5 million videos worldwide from the platform within 24 hours. But despite efforts, the footage proliferated widely online and experts said the video was easily retrievable several hours after Friday's attack. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she would raise her concerns over the issue directly with Facebook. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged for his part that while social media companies have been willing to take action, "clearly the capability to deliver on that willingness hasn't been present." "There needs to be the capability to be able to shut this -- these horrific things -- down immediately and if you can't do that, then the responsibility of having those features available is something that really generally needs to be questioned," he said. Madonna and Ben Stiller (Credit: Getty) Hollywood stars including Ben Stiller, Madonna and Chris Rock have joined a GoFundMe appeal to raise money for the victims of the terror attack in New Zealand. Set up by U2 and Madonnas manager Guy Oseary, the appeal has raised nearly all of its $100,000 target in two days. Read more: Gun shop says it sold four guns to mosque shooter Oseary himself pledged $18,000 (around 13,500) to the fund, while other Hollywood stars have been flocking to help those affected by the tragedy, with Madonna donating $10,000. Other celebs getting involved include director directors Judd Apatow and Ava DuVernay, and Ashton Kutcher. I read the frightening details and could barely find the strength to watch a short clip of the disturbing footage. My heart breaks for the victims and for their families, Oseary, who is also Amy Schumers manager, wrote in setting up the page. We will work with GoFundMe to ensure all funds are transferred to an organisation providing support to the families and community. Read more: New Zealand announces sweeping gun reforms 50 people were killed after shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday, with 50 more people injured. 28-year-old Australian man Brenton Tarrant described by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison as an extremist, right-wing, violent terrorist was arrested, and appeared in court on Friday. The prime minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern has said Our gun laws will change, after it emerged that Tarrant had a firearms licence. CEDAR FALLS Beto ORourkes jam-packed first trip to Iowa left the native Texan barely a second to breathe literally. While running in a Saint Patricks Day-themed 5-kilometer race in North Liberty, ORourke discussed health care policy with a surgeon who joined him for the jog. And I crossed the finish line and Im trying to catch my breath, and theres a circle of about 30 people who are waiting for me, ORourke said in an interview with the Des Moines Register on Saturday afternoon. And theyre asking me really involved, detailed questions on Citizens United, on health care, on public education, and it sounds strange, but I loved that. I loved that everyone is so engaged and so focused on making sure that this country does better that they dont want to lose a second. ORourke didnt lose a second, either. The new 2020 contender maintained a demanding itinerary, driving himself in a rented minivan across 13 Iowa counties to attend the 18 events crammed into his three-day tour. The trip took him to coffee shops, where he hopped onto counters and energetically shouted his message to crowds that occasionally spilled out of the doorways. It took him to a quiet living room in Fairfield, where he joined a few dozen Iowans in removing his shoes to discuss politics in sock-clad feet. It took him to a Caseys General Store, where he got his first taste of the gas stations famed breakfast pizza (and learned why Iowans cant get enough of the stuff). And he felt in every way possible an immediate and intense scrutiny that far surpassed what he experienced as a Texas Senate candidate in 2018, he told the Register. The number of national media at every stop, the constant questions, the intensity of the pace its absolutely relentless, ORourke said while pausing for coffee after door-knocking in the state Senate special election and before holding a meet-and-greet in Independence. It is impossible for me to believe that weve only been doing that for two-and-a-half days. It feels much, much, much longer. Story continues Not the polling leader but highly watched ORourke enters the race far from a frontrunner. A recent Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers showed him 22 points behind the current leader, former vice president Joe Biden. But his viral rise has captured the attention of Democrats and those across the country. Its also sparked a national media following that made it difficult to hold the types of small, intimate events for which the campaign had prepared. As a couple dozen reporters filled Randy Nabers small Muscatine living room Thursday night, he continued to offer food and beverages to the incoming strangers. But he also fretted that this was more media than I was expecting. In Fairfield on Friday afternoon, Debi Plum had planned to host 20 or so friends to see ORourke. When she saw her homes address broadcast on the evening news the night before, she knew it would be a larger affair. This was going to be a private event with no press and just a small group, she said laughing as about 50 people and several reporters filed out her front door at the conclusion of the event. It kind of grew. Kind of a lot. Many of the Iowans who attended the events throughout the weekend had followed his meteoric rise, saying theyre fans who were eager to see him enter the race. Ive been hoping he would come for a long time, said Becky Frueh, a 56-year-old Ottumwa resident who watched his unsuccessful Texas Senate run against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. I just feel like he connected with people. But just as many said they came to hear ORourke speak out of curiosity as they weigh a still-growing and diverse field. There are so many. I need to know a lot more about some of the other candidates, said Beth Parker, a 65-year-old Cedar Rapids resident who listened to ORourke record a live podcast there. But, obviously, hes got a lot of appeal. Hes just right there in your face with honesty. Hes real. Hes a real person. More: Personality, energy at the forefront O'Rourke attempted to highlight his personality throughout the weekend, making unannounced stops in a local record store and skate shop in Cedar Rapids and running in the Saint Patrick's Day race. He placed third in his age group and followed up the run with Casey's breakfast pizza, he said, gushing over its perfection. "I was told by someone on our campaign that I would have to do this so that I could say that I did it. You know, check the box," O'Rourke said. "And so I went in, you know, not sure that this was going to be such a great idea and I loved it. It was so good. And maybe it was because I had just finished the run, but the cheese, the eggs, all the toppings, the crust, the greasiness of it it just felt so good. And I think it was exactly what my body needed to get back to where it needed to be." At nearly every event, ORourke spoke for fewer than 10 minutes before turning to questions from the gathered crowds. He was energetic and remained perpetually in motion gesticulating animatedly and prompting one Iowan to compliment his wild hand movements, which President Donald Trump had criticized earlier in the day. He spoke quickly and after answering one question turned almost immediately to the next, barely pausing for applause. At each stop, ORourke highlighted the need to bring the country together and to work across the aisle to get things done. In identifying a progressive hero on the stump, he repeatedly cited Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. We have to make sure that everyones voice is included, regardless of the differences, he told reporters, responding to a question about whether Democrats can maintain their progressive bona fides while advocating compromise with Republicans. Those are unimportant in the face of the challenges that we have right now. So if that doesnt put me somewhere convenient on the political spectrum, so be it. That cant be what this is about. At an event in Mount Pleasant, one attendee asked ORourke whether hes a socialist or a capitalist. I think the only way to meet some of these historic challenges is to be able to use this engine of capitalism, he responded. It wont be government intervention or policy alone that makes it possible. Now, having said that, it is clearly an imperfect, unfair, unjust and racist capitalist economy. Im a capitalist. But I think theres a lot more weve got to do to make sure that this capitalism is just. Questions remain on policy positions On policy, ORourke tended to speak broadly about the problems facing the country, though he sometimes failed to specifically answer Iowans questions. In Muscatine, one Iowan asked him about whether he supports the U.S. government paying reparations to African-Americans following decades of slavery. He spoke eloquently about the nations history of slavery and the systemic racism that still exists. But he ultimately did not answer the question directly, saying only that its a conversation that must be had and one that should begin at the community level. ORourke has been similarly difficult to pin down on issues like Medicare-for-all, appearing to reverse past statements. In 2017, for example, ORourke wrote in a Facebook post that a single-payer Medicare-for-all program is the best way to ensure all Americans get the healthcare they need. On Friday, he told reporters outside a Washington, Iowa, coffee shop that Im no longer sure thats the fastest way for us to get there. He said his goal is not to ultimately reach a single-payer system like Medicare-for-all but instead to get to guaranteed high quality, universal health care for all. And I think there are many ways to get there. Asked whether the criticism about his lack of specifics is fair, ORourke told the Register its his familys policy never to criticize the referees. Whether you think that was a bad call or not, you just have to do your best, regardless, he said. And I feel like I need to follow my own advice in this: Its not up to me to decide whats fair or not fair in terms of the criticism; its just up to me to do my best. Still, he said he believes he has been specific on a range of issues. The opinion that I respect most is that of the voter, he said. And this is my impression, and it is only my impression, but in the events that we have had so far the house parties, the town halls, the coffee shops I get the sense that people are satisfied with the answers that I have given that I have defined the challenge, outlined the solution and left open the room to bring as many people together around that as possible so that once in office, we can hit the ground running. ORourke held several other events Saturday and capped the weekend with a house party in Dubuque. He plans to campaign next in Ohio and Wisconsin. He told the Register he hopes to keep up the intensity. Its the only gear that I have, he said. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Beto O'Rourke after his first round of campaigning in Iowa: 'It's absolutely relentless' Democratic hopeful Beto ORourke raised an unprecedented $6.1m during the first 24 hours of his official run for the White House, his campaign announced on Monday. Related: Republicans resurface Beto ORourke DUI mugshot in St Patrick's Day attack The stunning sum is more than rival Bernie Sanders and every other 2020 Democratic rival who has disclosed their first-day fundraising totals. ORourke brought in $6,136,763 in online donations from all 50 states and territories, his campaign said. It did not disclose the number of donors who contributed or the average size of the contributions. In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president a campaign by all of us, for all of us, that answers not to the Pacs, corporations and special interests but to the people, ORourke said in a statement. Sign up for the US morning briefing The former Texas congressman, like Sanders and some of his other colleagues, has shunned Pac donations of any kind. He did not rule out holding fundraisers. At this stage in the primary contest, when polling typically reflects name recognition, early fundraising figures are an early test of a candidates strength and depth of support. For ORourke, the initial numbers are an indication of whether he can hold onto the support that powered his unexpectedly strong Senate challenge against incumbent Republican senator Ted Cruz last year. The first-day haul also reflects ORourkes remarkable rise from little-known congressman from the border town of El Paso to a national Democratic star after narrowly losing his Senate bid. During his 2018 Senate campaign, ORourke shattered financial records, raising a historic $38m in just one quarter. Average donations were about $47. ORourke formally entered the crowded Democratic primary last week with an online video and a trip to Iowa after a months-long deliberation that included a five-state road trip across the American south-west, which he journaled in Dear diary style posts on Medium. His rhetorical style and charismatic message has drawn comparisons to Barack Obama, but he has met resistance among some progressive activists who are critical of his ambiguity on policy. Story continues Small-dollar donations are increasingly important to Democratic candidates as the party escalates its battle against big money in politics. For the first time, the Democratic National Committee has established a grassroots fundraising threshold to participate in the partys televised primary debates. Cory Booker, New Jersey senator Booker first made a name as the hands-on mayor of Newark. Known for his focus on criminal justice reform and impassioned speeches on immigration, he has though been criticized for ties to Wall Street. Pete Buttigieg, South Bend mayor Buttigieg wants to be the first openly gay millennial president. A Harvard graduate and Rhodes scholar, he became the youngest mayor of a mid-size US city at the age of 29. As a Navy Reserve lieutenant he deployed to Afghanistan while serving as mayor. Julian Castro, former housing and urban development secretary Castro casts himself as an antidote to Trump and the adminstration's hardline immigration policies. The grandson of a Mexican immigrant and raised by single mother, the 44-year-old Democrat is one of the most prominent Latinos in Democratic politics. John Delaney, former Maryland congressman He has delivered his message of pragmatism to voters in all 99 of Iowas counties since he officially kicked off the race in July 2017. The multimillionaire banking entrepreneur wants to build a big-tent party that appeals to independents and moderate Republicans. Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii congresswoman An Iraq war veteran who has vowed to run a campaign focused on issues of war and peace. Gabbard made history as the first Samoan American and the first Hindu elected to Congress. But she has drawn criticism for meeting with Syrias president Bashar al-Assad, and progressives are wary of her past conservative views on on social issues. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York senator Years before the #MeToo movement, the New York senator was leading efforts in Congress to combat sexual assault in the military and on college campuses. The former corporate lawyer has embraced a slate of economic ideas supported by the partys progressive wing. Kamala Harris, California senator Harris is one of Trumps fiercest critics, and has built a national reputation grilling administration officials during their confirmation hearings. A former state attorney general and the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris believes she has the unique profile to take on Trump. John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Colorado Before he served two terms as governor of Colorado, the 67-year-old Democrat worked as a geologist for a petroleum company. After a lay off, he switched careers and opened a successful brewpub in Denver that helped to revitalize the citys downtown. Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington Inslee is running as the only candidate who will make defeating climate change our nations number one priority. As the country experiences more powerful hurricanes, scorching wildfires and submerged coastlines, polls show public concern is growing. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota senator On Election Night 2018, Klobuchar coasted to a third term as senator in a state Trump almost won. Next morning she was on every short list of potential presidential candidates. Supporters say her success with rural voters makes her a formidable candidate in the Rust Belt, while her calm demeanour provides a clear contrast with Trump. Beto O'Rourke, former Texas congressman A one-time guitarist for an El Paso punk band called Foss, ORourke had kept a relatively low profile as a three-term congressman with little name recognition. He rose to national prominence during the 2018 midterms, when his bid to unseat Senator Ted Cruz garnered unprecedented grassroots support and a historic fundraising haul. Bernie Sanders, Vermont senator Sanders turned a long-shot, anti-establishment bid for the presidency into a political revolution that energized the partys progressive base. His political career began nearly 40 years ago, but it wasnt until his 2016 run that Sanders became a national figure as a new generation of Democrats and 2020 contenders embraced his populist economic policies. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts senator Her sharp criticism of Wall Street and big corporations has made Warren a favorite among progressive activists, and she will campaign on a message of a rigged economic system and income inequality. Marianne Williamson, author This is not the spiritual guru and a new age authors first foray into politics: in 2014, she mounted an unsuccessful congressional bid in California. Her entry adds some star-power to the race that may attract more celebrities. Andrew Yang, businessman A former tech executive and entrepreneur running the longest of long shot campaigns centered on the perils of automation. His central plank is a plan to give every American adult a salary of $1,000 per month, paid for by a tax on companies that benefit the most from automation. Lauren GambinoandSam Morris Despite hinting on the campaign trail this weekend that he may not want to release his totals, ORourkes $6.1m haul sets him apart in a sprawling field that has swelled to 16 Democrats. Sanders entered the race with the largest donor list of any candidate running one that he developed while running for president in 2016. Even so, he stunned political observers last month when he announced that his campaign had raised $5.9m in his first 24 hours as a presidential candidate. Related: Beto O'Rourke was a teenage member of hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow California senator Kamala Harris raised more than the $1.5m in the first 24 hours of her campaign. Before Sanders entered the race, Harris claimed the biggest first-day fundraising total, which matched what the Vermont senator raised in April 2015 after he launched his bid for the nomination that year. Lesser-known candidates such as Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, each reported earning $1m in the first 48 hours of their campaigns, while Washington governor Jay Inslee said his campaign had raised more than $1m three days after he entered the race. Beto ORourke has set a new fundraising record for Democrats hoping to take on Donald Trump in the 2020 elections, raising $6.1m (4.6m) in just 24 hours. The Texas Democrat has bested Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator also vying for the White House, who previously set the record with his $5.9m (4.5m) haul after launching his campaign in February. In a statement sent to The Independent on Monday, Mr ORourke celebrated the fundraising haul and the grassroots nature of his campaign by all of us for all of us. In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president, he said. A campaign by all of us for all of us that answers not to the PACs, corporations and special interests but to the people. When asked about the total individual contributions the campaign received from across the country, spokesperson Rob Friedlander responded to The Independent in an email saying: We have already released the fundraising numbers we will be putting out. The contributions were all made online without a dime from corporations or super PACs, according to a tweet posted by Chris Evans, the communications director for Mr ORourkes campaign. Mr ORourkes recordbreaking entrance into the 2020 primaries follows his long-shot attempt to unseat Ted Cruz in the deeply-red Lone Star state, in which he also proved to be a fundraising juggernaut despite ultimately losing to the incumbent Republican. The former congressman broke records for the largest fundraising quarter ever in a US senatorial campaign, totalling more than $38.1m (28.8m) in the final quarter of his race. Mr ORourke kicked off his campaign with a video featuring his wife, Amy, as the two announced his decision to run for the Oval Office in 2020. He then visited several campaign stops on Thursday across Iowa. Mr ORourke and Mr Sanders arent the only Democrats capturing attention from voters this early on in the election cycle. California senator Kamala Harris also enjoyed a large fundraising haul after launching her candidacy in front of a massive crowd in Oakland, raising $1.5m (1.1m). She has also vowed not to take any money from corporations or super PACs (an organisation that can receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and labour unions). Story continues Campaign finance experts have noted the prevalent challenges female candidates, particularly minority female candidates, face in fundraising compared to white male candidates. Pete Buttigieg, an openly gay male mayor from South Bend, Indiana, has announced his 2020 presidential campaign secured over 76,000 donations since launching, which is 10,000 more than the required amount in order to be invited to the first Democratic primary debate. A notorious Chinese fixer is making life difficult for some Bureau of Customs (BoC) officials and personnel, pressuring them to release multi-million peso worth of smuggled shipments seized sometime last December. BoC insider info revealed that this pain in the as*, who has been a fixer for big-time smugglers for the longest time, having his heyday during the last administration. Unfortunately, he is reportedly in a predicament now because he owes his client importers, whose contrabands are being held after being discovered misdeclared to avoid proper taxes due. This gambling addict has also allegedly duped some well-meaning investors and laundered their money amounting to billions of pesos through a Chinese Mafia operating a number of casinos here and abroad. BoC authorities have decried this fixers influence-peddling, harassing them through his media outlets with his published lies and fabrications that Malacanang might somehow give credence to.I was disheartened to discover that, while Metro Manila residents have struggled with the water shortage for a few weeks, many of our fellow Filipinos in the rural areas have had to cope without water since they were born. One such case is that of Barangay Liboganon in Tagum City, Davao del Norte, where I found out that over 2,000 residents have never had potable water. This barangays poor residents quoted authorities as saying that their village simply is not suited for the construction of a water system. They strongly refuse to believe that. Why has the government neglected this community and many others?Is it because 2,500 residents in the 612-hectare land of Barangay Liboganon are too few to give importance to? Where did the public funds go that were intended to provide essential services to this Dabawenos? White elephant or milking cow? Ironically, I also discovered during my visit to Tagum City the unfinished construction of a flyover reportedly worth P4 billion. The 1.6-kilometer-long flyover located at a fault line was started in 2017, and it is not even half-done yet. I sure wish that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) under the able leadership of Secretary Mark Villar would take a look-see at this white elephant in Davao del Norte. Who the hell is the contractor responsible for this seemingly overpriced project? And, why was its P4-billion appropriation approved when it is located along the regions fault line? Who are the fat pigs that benefited to this anomalous transaction to build this milking cow err, white elephant? Beto ORourke refused to provide a direct answer when asked about the morality of third-trimester abortion during a Monday campaign event, pivoting instead to the issue of abortion generally, which he argued the government should not regulate. Are you for or against third-trimester abortion? asked an attendee at ORourkes campaign stop in Cleveland, Ohio. The question is about abortion and reproductive rights and my answer to you is that should be a decision that the woman makes. I trust her, ORourke said to thunderous applause. The former Texas congressman, who rose to prominence during a failed Senate run against Ted Cruz (R., Texas) last year, co-sponsored in 2017 the Womens Health Protection Act, which would have eliminated nearly all state restrictions on abortion, including so-called right-to-know laws and mandatory waiting periods. ORourkes refusal to engage with the policy debate surrounding third-trimester abortions in particular is broadly reflective of the Democratic presidential field, which comprises lawmakers who maintain a blanket opposition to abortion restrictions regardless of gestational age. Virginia governor Ralph Northams apparent endorsement of infanticide galvanized conservative opposition to late-term abortion in January. This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians, and the mothers and fathers that are involved, Northam said when asked about legislation pending in the Virginia state house that would permit abortion for any reason up until the moment of birth. When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physician more than one physician, by the way and its done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus thats non-viable. Northams comments prompted Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) to introduce the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act, which would require that doctors care for infants born alive after botched abortion procedures. Senate Democrats with the exception of Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Doug Jones of Alabama voted against the bill, leaving Republicans seven votes short of the 60 required to advance the legislation. More from National Review Dover (United States) (AFP) - What a tease. Veteran Democrat Joe Biden campaigned for president in all but name Saturday, declining to announce his 2020 plans but dropping hints, including a significant gaffe that suggests he will soon be all in. As the number of White House hopefuls keeps growing -- at least 14 Democrats are officially in the race -- Biden is now the last major politician who is contemplating jumping in. But the former vice president has maintained the suspense. He received a hero's welcome in his home state of Delaware, where he told nearly 1,000 party brokers and leaders at a Democratic dinner that it was time to restore America's "backbone," but also that political "consensus" was necessary to move beyond the toxic tone of the Trump era. "Our politics has become so mean, so petty, so vicious, that we can't govern ourselves -- in many cases, even talk to one another," he said. Then, a startling slip by the notoriously gaffe-prone Biden -- perhaps an accident, perhaps a perfectly placed tease as he inches towards a presidential campaign. "I'm told I get criticized by the new left. I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the United" -- and then he catches himself. "Anybody who WOULD run." A murmur rippled through the crowd, and within moments his die-hard supporters rose to their feet, chanting "Run Joe run." "I didn't mean it!" he chuckled, looking down before crossing himself as the applause lingered. "Of anybody who would run," he repeated. "Because folks, we have to bring this country back together again." Biden, 76, sounded as if he was rehearsing a campaign speech, repeating lines about the promise of the 21st century and American resolve that he had used earlier in the week at a Washington speech to firefighters. "There's so much at stake," he said about the next election, calling it the most important in a century. "Our core values are being shredded." Story continues The Democratic senior statesman has been mulling a challenge against Trump for months. While he tops nearly all early polls for the Democratic nominations race, he is under pressure to enter the field soon, or bow out. One of his potential rivals, the former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke, launched his presidential bid Thursday and spent three straight days campaigning in the early voting state of Iowa, sucking up much of the political oxygen. Biden, a consensus-building pragmatist and Washington establishment fixture, is almost certain to kick off his campaign by mid-April, sources recently told The New York Times. "Folks, as I said, we're literally in the battle for the soul of America, and an overwhelming need to restore the backbone of America: the working class, the middle class," he said in the unmistakable rhetoric of a candidate. Biden mulled a presidential bid after eight years as Barack Obama's deputy, but he declined after his son Beau died of cancer in early 2015. For many, it was a relief to hear their state's favorite son sounding like a candidate once again. "He doesn't just look like he's back, he looks like he's ready for a fight," Delaware Governor John Carney said, firing up the crowd. "In my humble opinion, we have never needed Joe Biden more than we need him right now." Other Democrats in the audience agreed. "Let me tell you something, it's Joe time," Stefanie Thompson, a vice president at a financial services company, told AFP as she rattled off several Biden attributes she sees as crucial for the next president. "Civility, experience, professionalism, and grace -- qualities that only Joe has out of this very crowded field." But not everyone agreed that Biden ought to remain eloquent and above the fray should he take on Trump. "I think we tried eloquent before. Maybe we need to fight harder this time," said Jeffrey Sytsma-Sherman, a Delaware Health and Social Services employee. Biden was ready with lines of attack, assailing Trump for "tearing down the guardrails of our democracy" by weakening hallowed institutions like the independent judiciary. He also slammed the dissolution of the "basic bargain" of corporations shared their financial successes with their employees. Biden wouldn't elaborate, but dropped a final tantalizing hint: "You're going to be hearing a hell of a lot more about it from me." The Daily Beast Bridgeport Police DepartmentThe remains of a Connecticut man were discovered buried five feet under a garage more than eight years after he vanished, and now the local landlord who led detectives to his body faces murder charges.Bridgeport police said on Thursday that strong evidence suggests the two men arrested in connection with the murder of 24-year-old Aryndel Castro had beaten and choked him to death on the night of Sept. 22, 2013. After murdering Castro, Shawn Gibson, 45, and Terrance B New York (AFP) - Boeing said Monday that the flight stabilization system under scrutiny following two deadly 737 MAX plane crashes, met all US regulations. "The 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the identical Federal Aviation Administration requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives," Boeing said Monday. Boeing and regulators face increased examination over the stall prevention system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS, which authorities have said was likely a factor in deadly crashes in Indonesia in October, while the crash in Ethiopia earlier this month showed similarities. "The FAA considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements," Boeing added. Since the Ethiopian crash, which claimed 157 lives, questions have been raised not only about Boeing, but also the FAA and its close relationship with the company. While it may take months for definitive conclusions, experts are asking why the MCAS was given the green light despite objections by American pilots who had voiced concerns with the system. Investigation into the Lion Air crash in October implicated the MCAS which can erroneously force the plane down when the autopilot is engaged, if it detects the plane may be at risk of a stall. Both crashes happened shortly after takeoff. American pilots had complained of the flaw, and Boeing has been working on a software upgrade to the system and issued new instructions about how to override the issue in the meantime. In service since May 2017, the 737 MAX 8, one of several variants of the 737 MAX, has now experienced two deadly tragedies, a scenario that is unprecedented for a new aircraft. The US Transportation Department's inspector general is probing the FAA's approval of the MCAS, the Wall Street Journal reported. Story continues The newspaper also said the criminal division of the Justice Department was looking into the development of the plane. The 737 MAX was certified as a variant of the 737 Next Generation, the plane it replaced, despite major differences in the engine and the MCAS, according to documents available on the FAA's website. But because of budget constraints, the FAA delegated aspects of the approval process to Boeing itself, according to sources. Under a program, known as the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA), employees of Boeing are accredited by the FAA to assist in approving the aircraft -- including design, production, flight tests, maintenance and other systems -- as well as signing off on the training procedures of pilots on new planes. Photo credit: JASON REDMOND - Getty Images From Esquire Over the weekend, the Seattle Times took a major plunge into the controversy surrounding the Boeing 737 Max airplanes that keep falling out of the sky, and, in doing so, the Times brought us yet another entry in our continuing saga, True Tales of Deregulation. As Boeing hustled in 2015 to catch up to Airbus and certify its new 737 MAX, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) managers pushed the agencys safety engineers to delegate safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the resulting analysis. But the original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA for a new flight control system on the MAX - a report used to certify the plane as safe to fly - had several crucial flaws. The safety analysis: Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document. Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplanes nose downward. Assessed a failure of the system as one level below catastrophic. But even that hazardous danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor - and yet thats how it was designed. Photo credit: ERIC BARADAT - Getty Images None of these things sound good. Maybe letting Boeing inspect itself "understated" the power of idiocy. The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes. Early on in certification of the 737 MAX, the FAA safety engineering team divided up the technical assessments that would be delegated to Boeing versus those they considered more critical and would be retained within the FAA. Story continues But several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing. A former FAA safety engineer who was directly involved in certifying the MAX said that halfway through the certification process, we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA. An underfunded regulatory regime that's supposed to oversee a corporate landscape in which stockholder value is the primary imperative cannot end well, and yet that's what we've been living with for decades now. It's important to note that it was the previous administration's FAA that handed the safety inspections over to Boeing. It's also important to note that, under this administration, the FAA is another institution being run by an "acting" administrator. Some temp agency is getting rich here. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here. ('You Might Also Like',) OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) Canada is extending its military missions in Ukraine and Iraq. Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday the mission of about 200 Canadian Forces personnel in Ukraine will be extended through March 2022. Canada has helped train Ukraine's military, which is battling Russian-backed separatist forces. Canada will also extend its contribution to the Global Coalition Against Daesh and the NATO mission in Iraq until the end of March 2021. Canada has about 500 military members in Iraq, including 200 who are part of a NATO training mission and 120 special forces who have been helping Iraqi forces root out Islamic State insurgents around the northern city of Mosul. Both missions were due to expire at the end of the month. Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's top bureaucrat quit Monday in the wake of accusations of political meddling in the criminal prosecution of a corporate giant that has dogged his boss, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Despite having worked for three prime ministers, including Trudeau, Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick said the meddling controversy strained his relationship with opposition lawmakers, who have accused him of bias. He is retiring after 38 years in public service. "It is now apparent that there is no path for me to have a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the opposition parties," he said. For weeks, Trudeau's government has been rocked by accusations from his former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould of "consistent and sustained" political pressure to shield SNC-Lavalin from a trial. The prime minister recently addressed the allegations, telling reporters in Ottawa that he had learned "lessons" from the crisis -- but denying any wrongdoing. The Montreal-based engineering giant was charged with corruption over alleged bribes paid to secure contracts in Libya. It openly lobbied Ottawa for an out-of-court settlement that would result in a fine and agreeing to compliance measures, saying a conviction would lead to job losses. But Wilson-Raybould refused to ask prosecutors to settle, and the trial is set to proceed. She later testified to lawmakers, after resigning, that she had received "veiled threats" over her stance. Trudeau's top lieutenant, Gerald Butts, who was named along with Wernick as among Wilson-Raybould's tormentors, quit last month, saying he did not want to become a distraction for the government ahead of October elections. Budget minister Jane Philpott also resigned, saying she had lost confidence in Trudeau. Testifying before the House of Commons justice committee, Wernick rejected the allegations and strongly defended the Trudeau administration. "I saw the best and worst of Filipinos." The resilience of Filipinos and their ability to adapt to what is going on around them was best shown during the Japanese occupation, from 1942 to 1945. I know this firsthand. I was a teenager during the war. It was Dec. 8, 1942 when, as a high school student at the University of Santo Tomas, I, along with the rest of my class, was told by our teacher to go home because war had broken out between the United States and Japan. I was sad and heartbroken. I was enjoying school and doing very well in my studies. I had no inkling what war was going to be like. During the first months of the war when the Japanese Imperial Forces occupied Manila, my eldest brother, Desi, was arrested with the late Manny Manahan. They were members of the underground movement. They were imprisoned at Fort Santiago with all their companions in the movement. My other brother Willie had wanted to join the other Filipinos being recruited by the Americans. But he could not because he was classified as a Four-F, having a slight deficiency. Lo and behold, when Willie, my mother and I got to the sidewalk of Espana waving to the Filipinos who were recruited to Bataan, Willie ran after one of the trucks and climbed into it. Naturally my mother went into hysterics upon seeing her son go. We soon learned that Willie had joined up with the Ilocano brigade with then-Mayor Ferdinand Marcos as commander. But that is getting ahead of the story. Would you believe I was a young entrepreneur? To enable me to watch movies and stage shows featuring my favorite comedians Pugo and Tugo, I became a bootblack and a cigaret vendor. I took my meals at the Mathay eatery, and there was also a grocery. That was how I became friends with the Mathay brothers, Ponciano and Mel. Mel later on became Quezon City mayor. I knew that some American detainees were at the Santo Tomas concentration camp, and all I had to do was insert the cigarets through a hole in the. I earned my keep. After a week or so, I transferred my business to a side street. This went on for some time. Would you believe I was able to build up my savings because of this trade? When the Japanese Imperial Forces granted amnesty to veterans of Bataan and survivors of the underground movement, both my brothers were released. They then went up north to join the guerilla movement. My mother, sister and I stayed in Manila because my father who was then in Abra had a plan to bring a caretela and to Manila to earn some money. That's when I became a conductor with my father using a caretela to negotiate between Espana Rotunda on to Quiapo at 10 centavos per person. I had fun, and my father earned well. He made as much as P10 a day. This went on until life in Manila became so difficult that it took about a sackful of Mickey Mouse money which the Japanese distributed for a ganta of rice. We subsisted on, seldom eating meat and fish.In early 1944 we decided to evacuate to Abra. That's when the family had to go from town to town all over the province, to be near Willie and Desi. I was then 16 and I recall wanting to be a member of the Bolo Batalliion tasked to send messages from one guerilla movement to another. My brothers said noit was too dangerous. It was during this time when the Americans started landing in some parts of Northern Luzon via submarines to combine with Filipino guerillas. In 1944 when the American forces landed in Lingayen Gulf and tried to take over Manila, the infamous Rape of Manila occurred. And then the Japanese, under General Tomijuki Yamashita, retreated to the Cordilleras to make a last stand. That began the Battle of Bessang Pass, which lasted for several months until Yamashita surrendered. Both my brothers were in that battle. It's in the annals of the Armed Forces. That battle was known as The Battle Among The Clouds. My family and I were in La Union when Yamashita surrendered, And then I finished high school in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur. I was promoted twice. The rest is history, as they say.I saw the best and worst of Filipinos during the Japanese occupation. Many sacrificed their lives so that others may live. But I also saw Filipino guerillas torture and kill their fellow Filipinos. Would you believe that in Ilocos there was this guerilla called Escobar who plundered and raped women on sight? He reigned over Ilocandia at that time until he was arrested and executed. There were also the Makapilis, or Filipinos who were recruited by the Japanese and then Benigno Aquino Sr. who hid their faces in paper bags. It is in times like these when you find out who your friends are.The congressional investigation into the water crisis brings to fore several questions. Why did the government through the MWSS act only after the fact? Didn't the MWSS know that Angat Dam's water reserves could be depleted during summer, made worse by El Nino? Why did the crisis only in the Eastern part of Metro Manila? They have to answer all these, and more. What happened? The House of Commons Speaker has thrown Theresa Mays Brexit plan into turmoil by ruling she can not put her divorce deal to a new vote unless it changes. In a dramatic intervention on Monday, John Bercow said she cannot keep bringing her Withdrawal Agreement back to Parliament while it remains substantially the same. It is widely thought Mrs May has been trying to strong-arm MPs into supporting her deal as the prospect of a no deal Brexit looms ever larger. What this means The move by the Speaker is controversial and it will have a substantial impact on Brexit which is due to take place on 29 March. Citing a law which dates back more than 400 years and prevents MPs voting repeatedly on the same issue, Mr Bercow told Mrs May she must go back to the EU and get more concessions before she can ask MPs to vote on it again. The PM was expected to bring her motion back to the Commons for a third time on Tuesday, a week after it was defeated by 149 votes. But Mr Bercow has torpedoed her plan, telling MPs, I have never been pushed around Im not going to start now. The European Commissions president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said last week that the deal on the table was the EUs final offer. All this means the most likely outcomes are either Britain crashing out with no deal, or a longer Brexit delay. Read more about this story Bercow deals major blow to MPs strategy (HuffPost) Bercows ruling blindsides Theresa May (The Guardian) Bercows ruling changes everything. Heres why (Independent) Debate was raging online between parents this weekend over how old children can be before you can leave them home alone. The topic quickly divided opinion when one mother asked the question on Mumsnet. What do you think? Read the full story (Yahoo Style UK) and have your say below: Police launch manhunt after three killed in tram shooting A manhunt is underway in the Netherlands after a shooting attack on a tram left at least three people dead and nine injured. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht identified Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37, in connection with the incident. The gunman opened fire on passengers on a tram in the area of 24 Oktoberplein at about 10.45 am local time. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level and said they were considering the possibility of a terrorist motive in the attack. Read the full story here. Read the full story here (Yahoo News UK) Story continues Mother who drowned daughter, 3, given life sentence A mother who drowned her three-year-old daughter in a bath after her marriage broke down has been jailed for life. Claire Colebourn, 36, was sentenced to a minimum term of 18 years on Monday. Colebourn hit rock bottom after her husband Michael ended their 16-year-relationship, Winchester Crown Court heard. In the early hours of October 19, 2017, Colebourn woke their daughter Bethan at their home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, led her to the bath and held her body under the water before making multiple suicide attempts.Read the full story here (Evening Standard) Students from various schools in Christchurch paid their respects on Monday to victims of the New Zealand mosque attack by performing a Haka, a ceremonial Maori dance to mourn the victims and honour the dead. 10 A large meteor exploded over Earth late last year, Nasa has revealed. The explosion over the Bering Sea unleashed 10 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Nasa said the massive fireball was the second largest blast of its kind for 30 years, and yet it went mostly undetected. The space agencys analysis shows that the meteor, probably a few metres wide, barrelled into Earths atmosphere at 72,000mph and exploded at an altitude of 16 miles. Read the full story here (The Guardian) The carnage unleashed in Christchurch by a white supremacist has highlighted what analysts say is the global problem of a far-right threat that frequently flies beneath the intelligence radar. Like other extremist groups, racist ideologues have leveraged the power and reach of the internet to disseminate violent ideas, and give advice on the logistics of terror. And while not a well-defined group with a core leadership, they represent a "blind spot" for security services, says Amarnath Amarasingam, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Bridging this gap -- instead of focusing primarily on Islamist militants -- needs to be a priority. "We're able to -- in multiple sectors of government and policy... connect random knife attacks inspired by (the Islamic State group) to a global terrorist movement with some ease," Amarasingam wrote on Twitter after the Christchurch attack. "But we struggle to do this with white nationalism, the alt right, etc. We need to quickly rethink this blind spot." Brenton Tarrant was steeped in a neo-fascist, anti-Muslim ideology, according to a rambling "manifesto" he posted online before the massacre of 50 people at two mosques last week. He was not on any watch lists and travelled abroad extensively. New Zealand will "look at what all relevant agencies knew or could or should have known about the individual and his activities, including his access to weapons and whether they could have been in a position to prevent the attack," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday. The probe will also look at "travel movements... his use of social media and his connection to others". While critical details and connections have yet to be discovered by investigators, the Christchurch attack has sparked a wave of questions about counter-terrorism policies against right-wing extremists. Experts say the white nationalist movement is a cohesive one, binding together people from disparate bits of the world on a platform that preaches an imagined, racially "pure" ideal. Story continues It is one that rejects immigration, and has an often violent antipathy towards Jews, Muslims, and women. In a 2011 article that has begun circulating on the internet since the mosque attacks, analyst Thomas Hegghammer of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment described violent white nationalism as "a new doctrine of civilisational war". It is "the closest thing yet to a Christian version of Al Qaeda", he said. "Many forms of right-wing terrorism are international terrorism, drawing on international networks, ideas, and personalities from around the world," wrote Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institute. "An Australian travelling to New Zealand to attack mosques is one example." - Slipping through the cracks - Analysts say one factor that has emboldened extremists like Tarrant is the rise to power of right-wing populists and anti-immigrant parties across the world. "The demonisation of Muslim communities, often by politicians who later act shocked and angry when violence occurs, contributes to societal polarisation and inspires violence," wrote Byman. Critics in the United States point to the anti-immigrant ethos of President Donald Trump's "America First" rhetoric as one such example. Trump's expression of sympathy in the wake of Christchurch has been attacked as tepid -- a position exacerbated when he told reporters white nationalism was not a growing problem. "I don't really. I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess," Trump said. In Australia, successive governments -- including the current administration of Prime Minister Scott Morrison -- have been accused of stoking anti-immigrant sentiment as an election strategy. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton defended Canberra's counter-terrorism policies, claiming Australian authorities were alert to the threat of the extreme right. "These extremist groups -- neo-nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groups -- whatever term you want to apply to them, they've been squarely on... (the) radar," he said. New Zealand, however, now intends to find out if there are failings in how its intelligence and law enforcement are set up in the face of the threat posed by individuals like Tarrant who can go around the world -- often without stringent visa requirements. Dutton said Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia during the last three years. The 28-year-old travelled extensively for years and said in his online screed that he first began considering an attack in 2017 while in Western Europe, where he was shocked by the number of immigrants. Such ideas are spread regularly on online platforms like the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront, or 8chan, a messaging board notorious for misogynistic posts and far-right conspiracy theories. How the extreme right organises online and spreads these views presents a unique challenge, despite the vast electronic monitoring infrastructures deployed by governments. To counter it, tech firms -- especially social media giants -- need to respond with the same rigour as they use to identify and filter jihadist content. "Similar methods need to be employed for other, equally lethal, forms of hate like anti-Muslim, racist, and anti-Semitic violence," said Byman. Facebook said it quickly removed videos of a gunman opening fire inside a New Zealand mosque on Friday who appeared to have live-streamed his attack in a 17-minute video that looked to be recorded on a helmet camera. The Facebook video began with the man driving up to Masjid Al Noor mosque in the city of Christchurch. After parking his car, the man armed himself with at least one weapon and walked into the place of worship, immediately shooting a person in the doorway. In a statement posted to Twitter, Facebook said police alerted them to the video shortly after the livestream commenced and removed both the video and the gunman's Facebook and Instagram accounts. Start the day smarter: Get USA TODAY's Daily Briefing in your inbox "We're also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as were aware," Facebook said. The social network said they will continue working with police in New Zealand as their investigation is underway. Google-owned YouTube said in a statement on Twitter that it is "working vigilantly" to remove any violent footage. "Our hearts are broken over todays terrible tragedy in New Zealand," said YouTube in its statement. Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooters Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video. We're also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as were aware. Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) March 15, 2019 Our hearts are broken over todays terrible tragedy in New Zealand. Please know we are working vigilantly to remove any violent footage. YouTube (@YouTube) March 15, 2019 In statements to the Washington Post, Twitter and Reddit said they were working to remove any videos from their platforms. Story continues In a more than 70-page manifesto posted to various sites, including Twitter and Scribd, that appeared to belong to the gunman, he identified himself as a 28-year-old white male born in Australia and listed white nationalist heroes. In Sydney, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Friday that an Australian citizen had been arrested in the mosque shootings. More: 'I saw dead people everywhere': Multiple fatalities in two mosque shootings in New Zealand, police say The names of mass killers were written in white on his weapons, multiple media outlets reported. The New Zealand Herald, which watched the live-stream video, reported that the gunman "began shooting indiscriminately" upon entering the mosque. He shot a second victim who was crawling in the main hallway, then blocked the hallway and began shooting at people who were cowering in corners of a room. He stopped to reload several times, the Herald reported, and then resumed firing repeatedly. After three minutes inside, the gunman exited through the mosque's front door. Video showed him shooting randomly at cars. He got more ammunition out of his car trunk, the Herald reported, then shot at no apparent target on the street. "Looks like we won't get the bird today, boys," he said in the video. At another point, he said, There wasnt even time to aim, there was so many targets, the New York Times reported. He then re-entered the mosque, firing at people lying motionless on the ground. The video ended with him driving away from the scene, the Herald reported. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Social media scrambles to remove videos of New Zealand Christchurch mosque shooting Washington (AFP) - Civilian casualties have risen in Yemen despite a three-month-old truce in a vital port as the devastating conflict intensifies elsewhere, an aid group said Monday. The Norwegian Refugee Council, which has been providing food, shelter and other necessities in the country described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, said that sniper and explosive attacks have been growing despite an easing of air attacks. Yemen's beleaguered Saudi-backed government and Iranian-linked Huthi rebels in December agreed in Sweden on a truce that included a ceasefire in Hodeida, the lifeline port on the Red Sea. But the Norwegian Refugee Council said that deaths have been rising in two other regions, Hajjah and Taez. Since the Hodeida truce, 348 civilians have been killed in the two provinces, more than double the nationwide number excluding Hodeida from the previous three months, said the group, using data from the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project backed by humanitarian agencies. "The reduction in violence seen in Hodeida through recent months has been counteracted by escalations in other parts of the country," said Mohamed Abdi, the Norwegian Refugee Council's country director for Yemen. "While air strikes on Hodeida city have reduced significantly and a semblance of life has resumed, the fighting is intensifying in other parts of the country with a devastating impact on civilians," he said in a statement. He called on the combattants to return to the negotiating table and extend their ceasefire across all of Yemen to "put an end to this untold suffering for Yemeni civilians." The group said that 13 schools were among the buildings attacked over the past three months and that 80 percent of Yemen's population -- 24 million people -- still required humanitarian assistance. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- with the logistical and political backing of the United States -- unleashed air power against the Huthi rebels. Rights groups say that the death toll could be far higher. Save the Children has estimated that 85,000 Yemenis under five years old may have died of starvation. Claire Colebourn has been jailed for life (Picture: PA) A former science teacher has been jailed for at least 18 years after drowning her three-year-old daughter in a bath when her marriage broke down. Claire Colebourn was handed the life sentence with the minimum term on Monday at Winchester Crown Court after a jury deliberated for less than three hours on Friday before returning a unanimous verdict. The court heard Colebourn hit rock bottom after her high-flying husband Michael ended their 16-year-relationship. She woke their daughter Bethan at their home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, in the early hours of October 19 2017, led her to the bath and held her body under the water before making multiple suicide attempts. The ex-sixth form biology teacher was discovered by her mother about 14 hours later in a diabetic coma. Three-year-old Bethan Colebourn was murdered by her mother (Picture: PA) Colebourn, dressed in a black jacket and wearing glasses, rubbed her temples with her hands, shook her head and looked at the floor as details of her crimes were detailed to the court. She did not react when handed the sentence. Mrs Justice Johannah Cutts told the 36-year-old: She (Bethan) was clearly a beautiful little girl who was full of life. She had everything to live for. You were her mother, you were responsible for her care and her wellbeing. Colebourn planned to end Bethans life, set an alarm to carry out the act and altered her will the next day, the court heard. During the eight-day trial, the jury of five women and six men were told she initially denied all memory of the incident, but later recalled how Bethan agreed to have a bath in the middle of the night at her mothers instruction, telling police: Sadly, my little girl trusted me completely. Read more Police hunt for killers of Shetland pony that was found tied up and beaten in Yeovil Theresa May tells MPs back my Brexit deal or we will not leave EU for months, if ever Archaeologists slam Cadbury treasure hunt that could see prosecutions for trespassing Colebourn admitted killing Bethan but said she only wanted to save and protect her from her father Michael who Colebourn had met at university and is now the chief executive of luxury marine interior company Trimline. Story continues The pair separated just over a month before Bethans death and Mr Colebourn had moved out. Kerry Maylin, prosecuting, told the court their relationship had been difficult and the defendant had made unfounded accusations her husband was having an affair with his companys finance director, claiming the pair were planning to take over the business and start a new life together. Colebourn was sentenced to at least 18 years in prison (Picture: PA) Colebourn went looking for her husbands car and became convinced he was monitoring her computer so bought a new one and changed her internet connection. Within minutes of receiving the new computer in October she started searching for suicide-related websites, the court heard. A doctor described how she was only emotional when discussing the fact Michael Colebourn had left her and her daughter and her father had done the same to her mother. In a letter intercepted at hospital, she said: In my eyes I saved her, everything over those days is a blur. Colebourn later told police: I am responsible for Bethans death because she drowned and I am responsible for it. Colebourn murdered her daughter at their home in Fordingbridge, Hampshire (Picture: PA) Bethan drowned because I was there, I held her under the water. Ms Maylin said Bethan was particularly vulnerable given her age and had trusted her mother. The NSPCC said it was a desperately sad case and Colebourn failed her daughter in the worst possible way. Karim Khalil QC, defending, said Colebourn appeared to have a personality disorder but this was disputed among experts. He told the court she sustained and maintained her account and never sought to deflect attention over what happened to her daughter. Colebourn has spent nearly a year in custody already and this will be deducted from the minimum term she must serve before facing the parole board who will determine whether she is ever released. h3>Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Diyarbakir (Turkey) (AFP) - The death of a Kurdish activist on hunger strike in a Turkish prison sparked clashes between supporters and police near his grave on Monday as his lawyers and Kurdish party officials said he had committed suicide. Zulkuf Gezen, who died late Sunday, was one of scores of detainees on hunger strike in support of a Kurdish lawmaker in Diyarbakir, a sensitive region where Turkish forces have battled Kurdish militants. Clashes erupted on Monday when police firing water cannon to break up supporters of the main pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP who had gathered at his grave, an AFP reporter at the scene said. "A prisoner lost his life yesterday. If the justice ministry had fulfilled its responsibility, our friend who lost his life would still be alive," HDP co-leader Sezai Temelli told reporters. Gezen's lawyers said he had hanged himself. He had been in prison for 12 years on charges of membership of the PKK Kurdish militant group. In a statement, the public prosecutor's office said Gezen had committed suicide in a bathroom, but rejected claims he killed himself as part of his protest. A lawmaker from HDP or People's Democratic Party (HDP), Leyla Guven, launched a hunger strike on November 8 while in jail to protest the prison conditions for Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. She has been released but other detainees followed her lead. Ocalan is one of the founders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody rebellion against the Turkish state since 1984. It is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. Ocalan has been serving a life sentence for treason in an island prison near Istanbul since his capture in 1999. The HDP remains under the scrutiny of Turkish authorities, which accuse the party of links to the PKK. Several of its MPs are behind bars, including former party leader Selahattin Demirtas. At least 171 prisoners are on hunger strike, according to the party, which has urged the international community to take action. The PKK initially sought independence and more recently autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish minority. Fighting has left tens of thousands dead. Here are the companies Yahoo Finance is watching today. A big deal in the works for Deutsche Bank (DB). It's in talks with German rival Commerzbank for a potential merger. Deutsche says the talks are part of a strategic review. The combined company would control nearly $2 trillion dollars in assets. Marriott (MAR) is laying out its ambitious plan to add hundreds of thousands of rooms to its portfolio. The hotel giant says it plans to open more than 1,700 hotels over the next three years. That means upwards of 275,000 new rooms, to the tune of $400 million dollars in new revenue. Utility giant PG&E (PCG) could soon be making some major changes. The Wall Street Journal says the company is close to naming a new CEO, and adding a new slate of independent board members. It's been without a CEO since Geisha Williams stepped down in January, just before the California utility filed for bankruptcy. The global payment platform, Worldpay (WP), is getting bought up. Fidelity National Information Services is acquiring Worldpay in a $43 billion dollar deal. The buyout marks one of the biggest buyouts in the payments sector, which is facing increasing pressure to cut costs, develop products and reach new customers. Southwest Airlines (LUV) and its mechanics union could be reaching a deal to end their long-running labor dispute. The five year contract, which still needs to be voted on, would give mechanics a 20% raise and about $160 million dollars in bonuses. The agreement comes after six years of ongoing negotiations. Port-au-Prince (AFP) - You wouldn't think the poorest country in the Americas would be anyone's shopping dream. Yet Haiti has become just that for Cuban merchants. Cubans, in the region's only communist country with a still mostly state-led economy, face very high prices and not much selection at all. So at the Hippolyte street market in Haiti's capital, vendors -- amid piles of clothing and shoes -- call out in Spanish trolling for their likely clients: Cubans on short shopping trips. They will exchange your Cuban pesos to Haitian gourdes, they promise. "I buy everything: clothes, electronics, shoes ... In Cuba, it's so expensive and, above all, there is not all this choice," explains Wilfredo Sotolongo, checking the size of beach sandals he was buying. At home in Cienfuegos, southeast of Havana, the 39-year-old was on his third trip to Port-au-Prince. He never stays as long as a week, and his shopping missions are carried out with almost military precision, in this one small area of Haiti. Just a few meters (yards) away, his compatriot Maria Carmen from Sierra Maestra, in southwestern Cuba, was in cutthroat negotiations on a lot of women's underwear. "They limit us to 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of luggage at home. And we can't have more than twelve items of the same kind: twelve T-shirts, twelve jeans, twelve bras," she explains, a roll of tape on her wrist to seal her purchases in a huge plastic bag. "When the sellers do lots of ten, we (Cubans) do not have a problem, sometimes we divide things up between us to meet the rules: we all know each other on the plane," she joked. Just as many American or other western shoppers might be interested in outlets, or online bargains, some Cubans -- struggling to make ends meet in their country's devastated economy -- are finding it ever more worthwhile to pop over to Haiti to stock up. Cuba's state-run stores offer a range of goods that seem expensive in the country of 11 million. Most people make from $20 to $30 a month. Story continues Launched in 2010, the Haitian airline Sunrise now serves the Cuban cities of Havana, Camaguey and Santiago with four to five weekly flights for each of these destinations. - 'Little Havana' - Cubans are easy to identify in the terminal of Port-au-Prince airport. They are the ones juggling big bundles of clothes, flat-screen TVs or even toys -- with not a suitcase in sight. "I think the Cubans are making a lot of money or they would not come back as often," said Ketia Louis, at her mother's stall at the Hippolyte market. "We do not sell expensive stuff here. But it's too expensive for many Haitians: now the vast majority of my clients are Cubans -- so I like them," said the 27-year-old. A neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, located near the airport, has even started to be called "Ti Havana" -- "Little Havana" in Creole -- because so many of its winding streets include cheap hotels popular with locals from the island to the west. Near a restaurant decorated with a painted portrait of Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto Che Guevara, Yamel was picking out hair accessories with the few gourdes she had left. "The visa, the airline tickets and the hotel for three days: in Havana, I have an agency that takes care of everything," she explained. It may be more expensive, but it is less complicated than visiting the Haitian embassy, where people are asked many questions, said the young woman, who preferred not to give her last name. She said she paid $900 for the package of services -- but offered no details about how she could afford such a high price. Even a Cuban doctor's salary does not top $30 a month, and the government is sensitive about income inequality. This was her fifth trip to Port-au-Prince in one year. So what does she do with all her purchases? "All this is for me and for my family," she says, before putting an index finger to her mouth -- suggesting the truth is another story. Despite sometimes dangerous areas around the Hippolyte market, linked to clashes between gangs, Yamel wants to continue her back-and-forth between the two countries. "We are so close, we couldn't not," she said. "Cuba and Haiti are one family." We knew it was a matter of time before criminals misused what is supposed to be an innovation for efficiency and convenience. Makati City police arrested two college students Monday after seizing P1.5 million worth of party drug tablets. The students had used the popular mobile application Grab to get the ecstasy pills from one place to another. The app allows users to find a ride, order food, get errands done, or transport items. In this case, it was the Grab delivery driver who alerted police about what the students asked him to do. Seized from the suspects were 657 tablets of ecstasy, two bottles containing ecstasy, 42 tablets of suspected party drugs, six sachets of suspected party drugs, two digital scales, four lighters, 13 empty cigaret boxes, a glass tube, and a cellphone. This incident is a stark reminder that the drug menace does not reign only in hovels and squatter areas. It is not only the poor who resort to drugs in their desperation and misery. In the war against drugs we have seen how it is often the poor who are pursued and even killed if they so much as resisted arrest.The menace pervades all sectors of society. In well-off neighborhoods, for instance, those involved in the trade do not do so out of economic need or desperation. And because some things are available more conveniently these days, it is not far-fetched to imagine that in their utter sloth, or smug complacency, they would ask third parties to deliver their goods. We are seeing how even an all-out war on drugs is not enough to eradicate it. Those in the trade will find newer and more ingenious ways to get around authorities. Success is not measured by the number of the dead. Authorities will have to step up their game and their imagination, using more brains than brawn, following the correct leads while sparing innocent lives. Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli forces on Monday hunted a Palestinian who they said killed two people in the occupied West Bank, an attack that put security back at the forefront of the country's electoral campaign. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose popularity rests largely on his reputation as a security hardliner, visited the site of the attack and pledged tough action, including the demolition of the assailant's home. But Netanyahu and his allies also came under fire from both his centrist opponents in the April 9 elections as well as those on the far-right, though for different reasons. The centrist Blue and White alliance criticised Netanyahu's camp for what it said was the politicisation of Sunday's attack, which killed a 19-year-old soldier and a rabbi. Far-right politicians meanwhile blamed Netanyahu's government for what they see as being too weak toward the Palestinians. The campaign rhetoric was another sign of how much security has come to dominate Israeli politics, which has moved firmly to the right in recent years. Opinion polls show Netanyahu in a tight race with the Blue and White, which includes three former military chiefs of staff, including the centrist alliance's leader, Benny Gantz. Netanyahu is running for re-election while under threat of indictment on corruption charges and has sought to further bolster his security credentials as part of his strategy. "These terrorists will not uproot us from here," Netanyahu said while visiting the site of the attack near the Ariel settlement in the West Bank on Monday. "The complete opposite will happen. Our response is simple: The more they afflict them, the more they multiplied and spread," he added, referring to a verse in the Bible's Book of Exodus. He noted that the construction of 840 more homes was due to begin on Tuesday in Ariel, which already has a population of nearly 20,000. It was yet another nod by Netanyahu ahead of the polls to Israel's settler movement, which holds important influence in the country's right-wing politics. Story continues He also pledged security forces would track down the attacker in addition to his vow the assailant's home would be demolished, a policy regularly carried out by Israel. - 'Political propaganda' - Israeli security forces say Sunday's incident saw a 19-year-old Palestinian attack a soldier with a knife at a junction near Ariel and steal his weapon. He later fired on three vehicles -- hitting a 47-year-old rabbi, who later died -- before taking one of the cars to another nearby junction. The rabbi, a resident of the Eli settlement, fired toward the attacker during the incident, according to his family. At the second junction, the Palestinian opened fire and wounded another soldier, who was in serious condition, the army said. The Palestinian, identified by Israeli authorities as Omar Amin Abu Laila from the West Bank town of Az-Zawiya, then fled. Israel's army said its troops were searching for him and his home had been surveyed "to examine the possibility of its demolition." Palestinian attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers occur sporadically in the West Bank, under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War, but Sunday's came amid the final weeks of the electoral campaign. Shortly after the attack, Culture Minister Miri Regev, sticking with Netanyahu's campaign strategy, sought to label the Blue and White leftists whose government's policies would lead to more such incidents. Regev, a strong supporter of the premier, alleged the alliance's leaders would ally with Arab politicians to try to keep Netanyahu from forming a coalition after the elections. Gantz's alliance responded that "never in the history of the country has an Israeli minister taken advantage of the death of the victims of attacks for political propaganda even before the funeral of the dead." Since Gantz joined with former finance minister Yair Lapid to form Blue and White on February 21, polls have shown the alliance would win the most seats. But the centrists have more recently slid in polls, and a new survey out Sunday showed Netanyahu's right-wing Likud winning the most seats for the first time since February 21. According to the poll, Likud would win 31 compared with Blue and White's 30. The election is expected to be close and much may depend on post-poll negotiations to form a coalition. FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) Shares in Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank rose on Monday after the two said they were in merger talks, but that didn't stop people from questioning what a merger would accomplish. Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, and Commerzbank announced Sunday they would discuss a possible combination. News media reports have said Germany's finance minister, Olaf Scholz, favors a deal that would bring together two lenders that have been troubled over recent years, but unions fear that it could lead to major job losses. The German government deflected questions on the merger and wouldn't say whether it welcomed the announcement. "This is a decision by two private companies that have said they want to enter open-ended talks on a closer cooperation, and we as the finance ministry take note of that," ministry spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin. Asked about perceptions of pressure from the ministry, he said: "I have perceived no pressure on the part of the finance ministry." Deutsche Bank could not even bring itself to use the word "merger" in its brief statement Sunday, instead referring only to "strategic options," and added "there is no certainty that any transaction will occur." One reason for skepticism is that both banks have been engaged in extensive overhauls of their businesses, raising the question of how they would integrate a new partner. Deutsche Bank made its first full-year profit in three years in 2018 and has been engaged in a drawn out effort to shed riskier investments, reduce headcount and streamline its computer systems. The bank is pulling back from a decades-long effort to compete with U.S. Wall Street banks, an expansion that soured after the bank was caught up in financial scandals involving money laundering and bonds based on mortgages to people with shaky credit. Settlements and fines cost the bank billions. The slow pace of restructuring led to the departure of CEO John Cryan last year and his replacement by Christian Sewing. Story continues The talks take place against a background of German government statements favoring "national champions" businesses that are big enough to compete globally. The German government still has a stake of some 15 percent in Commerzbank, which received aid during the financial crisis. Commerzbank, which has long relied on a steady business lending to German small and medium-sized businesses, has had to write off billions in bad shipping loans but made 865 million euros last year. Banking expert Wolfgang Gerke said on n-tv television that a merger makes "absolutely no sense" because the two banks are "so occupied with existing burdens." Tom Kinmonth, senior fixed income strategist at ABN AMRO, wrote in a research note that "the creation of a new bank is going to be monumental task to generate profitability" starting with two banks that already have weak profit measures. The deputy head of the opposition Left party delegation in the German parliament, Fabio De Masi, said that "two sick turkeys do not make an eagle." Shares in Commerzbank rose 7 percent to 7.65 euros in early afternoon trading in Europe. Deutsche Bank climbed 5 percent to 8.22 euros. ___ Moulson reported from Berlin. In order to justify the effort of selecting individual stocks, its worth striving to beat the returns from a market index fund. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Tianjin Port Development Holdings Limited (HKG:3382), since the last five years saw the share price fall 26%. Check out our latest analysis for Tianjin Port Development Holdings While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time. During the five years over which the share price declined, Tianjin Port Development Holdingss earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 1.2% each year. Readers should note that the share price has fallen faster than the EPS, at a rate of 5.8% per year, over the period. This implies that the market was previously too optimistic about the stock. The less favorable sentiment is reflected in its current P/E ratio of 7.67. The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail). SEHK:3382 Past and Future Earnings, March 18th 2019 It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Tianjin Port Development Holdingss earnings, revenue and cash flow. What About Dividends? It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Tianjin Port Development Holdings the TSR over the last 5 years was -12%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! Story continues A Different Perspective We regret to report that Tianjin Port Development Holdings shareholders are down 17% for the year (even including dividends). Unfortunately, thats worse than the broader market decline of 8.2%. However, it could simply be that the share price has been impacted by broader market jitters. It might be worth keeping an eye on the fundamentals, in case theres a good opportunity. Unfortunately, last years performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 2.4% over the last half decade. We realise that Buffett has said investors should buy when there is blood on the streets, but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality businesses. Importantly, we havent analysed Tianjin Port Development Holdingss dividend history. This free visual report on its dividends is a must-read if youre thinking of buying. If you would prefer to check out another company one with potentially superior financials then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on HK exchanges. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. By Brendan Pierson NEW YORK (Reuters) - Documents related to the FBI's raid on Michael Cohen's office and hotel room must be made public on Tuesday, a U.S. judge ruled on Monday, clearing the way for a glimpse into the investigation that led to criminal charges against President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer. U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan ordered federal prosecutors to file redacted versions of the documents, which had been sealed, on Tuesday. Pauley had ordered the prosecutors to prepare the redacted versions for public filing last month, in response to a motion by news media organizations. The April raids were part of an investigation that eventually led Cohen to plead guilty in August to, among other crimes, violating campaign finance law by paying hush money shortly before the 2016 presidential election, at Trump's direction, to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump years earlier. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. Cohen, who worked for Trump for more than 10 years, went on to plead guilty to additional charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in February. He admitted that he falsely told Congress in 2017 that Trump's company had stopped talks about a potential hotel development in Moscow before the Republican nominating contest in 2016. Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in prison. Since pleading guilty, Cohen has publicly repudiated Trump. Last month, he testified before a U.S. House of Representatives panel, calling Trump a "racist," "conman" and "cheat." Mueller is investigating whether Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia. Trump has called the investigation a "witch hunt" and has repeatedly said there was "no collusion." Moscow has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election. (Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Donald Trump Jr has come to the defence of Chelsea Clinton after students in New York launched an astonishing verbal attack on the heavily pregnant former first daughter blaming her for the Christchurch mosques massacre. The presidents son tweeted: Its sickening to see people blame @ChelseaClinton for the NZ attacks because she spoke out against anti-Semitism. We should all be condemning anti-Semitism & all forms of hate. Chelsea should be praised for speaking up. Anyone who doesnt understand this is part of the problem. Ms Clinton was berated by senior student Leen Dweik while attending a vigil to mark the terror attack - in which 50 worshippers were killed - at New York University on Friday. Footage of the incident went viral online with thousands retweeting the video in apparent solidarity with Ms Clinton, who is pregnant with her third child. This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world, Ms Dweik can be heard saying. And I want you to know that, and I want you to feel that deeply - 49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there. Here is a pregnant Chelsea Clinton being accosted in public by NYU students blaming her for the New Zealand massacre. You are free to have your opinion, but how you express yourself matters. Note how Clinton never shuts down or stops listening, despite not deserving any of this. pic.twitter.com/V6XcC3lWCB Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) 16 March 2019 A visibly shocked Ms Clinton remains calm as Ms Dweik becomes increasingly agitated. The verbal assault was apparently in response to Ms Clintons criticisms last month of congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat. After Ms Omar suggested that Israeli money had too much influence on US foreign policy, Ms Clinton tweeted: We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in antisemitism. Story continues Rose Asaf, a New York University student who posted the video of the hectoring online, said Ms Clintons words had incited a mob against Ms Omar. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, appeared in court on Saturday charged with the terror attacks which happened on Friday. Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump (Credit: NBC) Donald Trump has threatened an investigation into Saturday Night Lives persistent mocking of him on US TV. The US president tweeted yesterday that the Federal Election Commission and/or FCC should look into the veteran comedy show. NBC didnt even air a new show on Saturday night, rather a repeat of the 2018 Christmas episode which parodied Its a Wonderful Life in its opening skit, in which Trump never became president and all those around him were infinitely happier because of it. However, seeing the episode clearly upset the president, who angrily tweeted about it. Its truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of the other side. Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows, he wrote. Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided [sic] media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA. Its truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of the other side. Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 .Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 The claimed figure of his 52 percent approval rating clashes with other polls which see him with a 39 percent approval, and 57 percent disapproval, according to Gallup. One Rasmussen poll found him with 52 percent approval, but this was in early February. Story continues Donald Trump (Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Mart) Trump has been railing at SNL more and more in recent weeks. In February, he called the show a total republican hit job, and once again called the media the enemy of the people. Alec Baldwin, who plays Trump on the show, later rebuked the president, tweeting: I wonder if a sitting President exhorting his followers that my role in a TV comedy qualifies me as an enemy of the people constitutes a threat to my safety and that of my family? I wonder if a sitting President exhorting his followers that my role in a TV comedy qualifies me as an enemy of the people constitutes a threat to my safety and that of my family? HABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) February 18, 2019 In answer as to whether the show is allowed to mock the president with impunity, American Civil Liberties Union simply tweeted: Its called the First Amendment. Meanwhile, legal columnist Elura Nanos told Law&Crime: Comedy programs are under exactly zero legal obligation to be even-handed in their satire, regardless of whether the butt of their jokes is a political figure. Similarly, news programs are legally permitted to be as one-sided as they like. As an agency of the federal government, the FCC must adhere to the limitations set out by the First Amendment which means that censoring speech based on its political content is as illegal as it gets. Tempting as it is to focus on the silliness of Trumps thin skin, his tweets are disturbing on a much deeper level in that they evidence a complete lack of familiarity with the basics of media law and free speech. [Photo: Getty] It looks like the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might have chosen the buggy their newborn will be riding around in and it appears to break with royal tradition. A delivery car from iCandy was spotted entering the royal couples future home, Frogmore Estate, Windsor, last week, causing many to speculate the pair has opted for a pram from the luxury London label for their unborn child. They certainly wouldnt be alone in favouring the brand. Celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, Natalie Portman and Elton John have all favoured the smart buggies for their offspring. Fans of the British brand, which cost up to 1,500, claim the strollers offer the perfect blend of design and functionality and have proved popular because they are easy to fold up and carry. READ MORE: Pushchairs celebrity parents love But the Royal Family has traditionally favoured classic brand Silver Cross for royal children. The Queen, the Duchess of Cambridge and other royals including Princess Diana have all been seen pushing their children in prams made by the classic brand. The Queen and her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, were often seen pushing a young Prince Charles in a Silver Cross pram and William and Kate favoured a Balmoral Silver Cross for both George and Charlotte. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are known for opting to break with royal traditions, so it wont come as a surprise if they do opt for an iCandy as their newborns mode of transport. Emma Coffey, Marketing Manager at The Baby Show, experts in strollers says: We already know that Meghan and Harry have taken a unique, more modern view of pregnancy and birth reading up on natural-birthing techniques, including hypnobirthing or home birthing. Their interest in iCandy also shows a departure from the traditional style of prams favoured by Kate Middleton and Prince William and in fact Princess Diana and Prince Charles and the Queen and Prince Phillip! The royal family have previously favoured Silver Cross prams [Photos: Getty] According to the website, one big appeal of an iCandy is its use of aeronautical technology. Story continues The standard of engineering and luxurious level of material rival that of a plane, not a pushchair, it says. The results are seen and felt in effortless performance. The pushchairs come an array of varieties referred to as flavours: peach, strawberry, apple, pear, cherry and raspberry. Sleek, stylish, sophisticated and quickly becoming a modern icon the description for the iCandy pram is made for Meghan too, says Cathy Ranson, editor of ChannelMum.com. While some may see it as an unusual choice, the brand is still British but with a very modern twist, making it perfect for Harry and Meghans imminent new arrival. Traditionally the Royal family have used Silver Cross prams. Theyre a trusted British brand with a strong heritage and upmarket pedigree but some parents feel they are a little formal, Cathy continues. Choosing your first pram is a rite of passage for new parents and hours of care goes into choosing not only what you believe is the best for your baby but what feels right to reflect you as a parent too. Harry and Meghan are showing they wont be bound by protocol and want to forge their own path and this makes this trendy British-made buggy the perfect choice. The iCandy is loved by international A-listers including the Beckhams, Selma Blair and Elton John and includes all the latest technical innovations, so Baby Sussex will travel in both comfort and considerable star style. [Photo: Getty] Another royal who is a fan of an iCandy pushchair is Zara Tindall. Last year Harry and Williams cousin was announced as the ambassador for the brand just weeks after welcoming her second baby girl. Meanwhile, Pippa Middleton opted for a Fox Classic model by Dutch mobility company Bugaboo, a brand which is loved by celebrity mums and known for its sky-high price tags. READ MORE: New mum Pippa Middleton spends 1,119 on a Bugaboo pram Whichever pram the Duke and Duchess of Sussex opt for will no doubt prove popular with other parents-to-be. We definitely expect to see a boost in sales around the products that Meghan and Prince Harry choose for their new baby just as we saw with all three of Prince William and Kates children, explains Christy McGhee, Reviews Editor at MadeForMums. From traditional baby blankets to classic clothing, the royal great grandchildren have real influence. These choices also affect core new-parent purchases we saw a big leap in interest when the royal car seat (Britax Baby-Safe) and pram (Silver Cross Sleepover) were revealed, Christy adds. Interestingly, while both choices were classic and traditional, they werent the most expensive options in the market, and this sensible approach really appealed to UK parents. Now all eyes are on Meghan and Prince Harry, with speculation around their buggy choice ranging from the popular iCandy range to high quality, heritage brand Silver Cross. Whichever products the couple do choose for their baby, new parents will be watching, commenting and taking inspiration as they make their own choices. Per Bloomberg, Equinor ASA EQNR intends to divest stake in the Eagle Ford shale to focus on prospects in the United States. The company did not disclose any details related to the transaction. Equinor has held discussions with potential buyers and is likely to sell the complete stake to one. Also, the company may look for partners for the division, as finding a buyer for the total holding is difficult. At the end of 2018, the company held drilling rights on 71,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford. Repsol, the Spanish oil explorer, is the other partner in the shale. Equinor owns majority of the working interest as well as manages the drilling and pays for the bulk. Equinor entered the Eagle Ford shale in 2010 through an agreement with Talisman Energy Inc. The deal, valued at $1.3 billion, was related to the development of the fields. In 2015, Repsol purchased Talisman and became a partner. In 2014, Equinor and Talisman reportedly held discussions regarding the divestiture of their joint venture. Notably, explorers lower operations in the Eagle Ford as drilling becomes less profitable when oil prices decline. In the United States, Equinor is seeking deals for natural gas-rich acreage to add to its huge position in the Appalachian region. Other oil majors have been expanding their drilling rights in the flourishing Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. Zacks Rank & Key Picks Currently, Equinor carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked players in the energy space are Antero Resources Corporation AR, CrossAmerica Partners L.P. CAPL and Lonestar Resources US Inc. LONE. While Antero Resources and CrossAmerica Partners sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Lonestar Resources carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Antero Resources is an independent explorer, primarily engaged in the acquisition and development of natural gas, natural gas liquids and oil resources in the Appalachian Basin. The company earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the last four quarters. CrossAmerica Partners is involved in the wholesale distribution of motor fuels, comprising gasoline and diesel fuel. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 452.2% in the last four quarters. Lonestar Resources is a Fort Worth, TX-based exploration and production company. The top line for 2019 is expected to increase 4.3% year over year. It currently has a Zacks Rank of 2. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report CrossAmerica Partners LP (CAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Antero Resources Corporation (AR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lonestar Resources US Inc. (LONE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Statoil ASA (EQNR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Tallinn (AFP) - Estonia's tiny Jewish community voiced concern Monday over an unprecedented move to include a far-right party in the next government of the Baltic EU state. Outgoing centre-left prime minister Juri Ratas launched coalition talks last week with the far-right EKRE party after its support surged in a recent general election. The move by Ratas, which has been roundly criticised even from within his own party, is aimed at preventing the winning liberal Reform from forming a government. EKRE leader Mart Helme has publicly expressed xenophobic, sexist and homophobic views, and the members of his party have included people convicted of violent crimes and Nazi sympathisers. "Many statements of this party (EKRE) are antagonistic towards national minorities and aim at dividing society into insiders and outsiders. This can only cause frustration and regret," the Jewish Community of Estonia said in a statement. The community also deplored as "unacceptable" a rare incident of anti-Semitism against Estonia's chief Rabbi Shmuel Kot, who was verbally assaulted on Saturday in central Tallinn as he was on his way to the synagogue with his children. Police on Monday detained a 27-year-old man for hurling racial abuse at Shmuel. Jewish community spokesman Gennadi Gramberg said this was the first serious incident of anti-Semitism for the Israeli-born rabbi since he moved to Estonia in 2000. The are about 1,950 Jews living in Estonia. The head of Estonia's Evangelical Lutheran church, Archbishop Urmas Viilma, has apologised for the incident in an open letter. But the EKRE's "Uued Uudised" website has denounced the story as fake news. Police in Tallinn are also investigating a separate incident which saw swastikas daubed in green paint on the facade of Ratas's Centre party headquarters in the Estonian capital over the weekend. The incident is seen as a reaction to the party's ongoing coalition talks with the EKRE, which nearly tripled its seats in the March 3 general election. Analysts say the surge is a backlash from mostly rural voters who feel left behind after years of austerity. Ratas is also talking to the smaller conservative Isamaa party. If successful, the three-party coalition could control 57 seats in the 101-member parliament. BERGEN COUNTY, N.J. Among those killed in the New Zealand mosque shooting were members of a Circassian family who had just been relocated to New Zealand three months ago after fleeing the Syrian war. The family's plight has become an instant focus for the tight-knit Circassian community in New Jersey. At her Haledon home, Rouzana Muhajer was crying and scanning social media for news of the mosque shooting Friday when she got word that her childhood friend had been at one of the two mosques where the massacre unfolded. Rouzana Muhajer, left, and Sahab Dabett, right, talk to loved ones hours in Haledon before a scheduled flight to New Zealand. They are going to offers support to a friend whose husband and son were killed in the mosque shooting. The friend, Salwa Tsay, escaped, but her husband Khaled Mustafa, a horse trainer, and her son, Hamza, 14, an award-winning equestrian, were killed. Another son, Zaid, 12, was shot three times and remains in critical condition. The refugee family had escaped the Syrian war, but knew no one in New Zealand . So on Monday morning, Muhajer and friend Sahab Dabet boarded a flight out of Newark Liberty International Airport headed to New Zealand via Los Angeles to offer their condolences and help. With them, they bring a united message of support from the Circassian community, who in diaspora around the world have rallied around this family. Khaled Mustafa fled war in Syria and settled with his family in New Zealand as refugees. On March 15, he and his son were shot and killed in the mosque shooting. "We feel her pain because she is a mother and we are mothers," said Muhajer. "Let me put myself in her situation. Here we have a lot of Circassian people around us to support us, but there she is by herself. She needs support and she needs care. She needs us to stand with her." The two women, who live two blocks apart in Haledon, quickly packed their suitcases Sunday night amid a stream of visitors who came to wish them goodbye and pledge any kind of support the family might need from abroad, financial or otherwise. Other countries, like Pakistan and Jordan, have ambassadors and consulates in New Zealand who can offer aid to immigrants affected by the terror attack on two Christchurch mosques that killed 50 people and wounded dozens more. But the Circassians have no country and no government to offer help. The majority were violently driven out of the Caucasus region in 1864 by Russia. Most live in Turkey, but others are scattered across the globe in the U.S., Syria, Lebanon and several European countries. Story continues More: New Zealanders turn in guns as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promises tighter restrictions More: Police identify racist suspect in New Zealand's terror attack that killed 50 That includes a tight-knit community in New Jersey that numbers around 6,000, according to Zack Barsik, president of the Circassian Cultural Institute based in Wayne. Within hours, through word of mouth and social media, they had raised the $5,000 to pay the round-trip airfare to New Zealand. "First of all, as a Muslim I was devastated and completely shocked because of New Zealand," said Barsik. "It's a paradise. When I found out a few hours later it was a Circassian and one we all knew, lets just say the world starts shrinking around you." Muhajer grew up with Tsay in a suburb of Damascus and studied in college with her before moving to the United States in 1997. Tsay became an elementary school teacher, while her husband worked with horses in a culture that values horsemanship highly. Hamza Mustafa, a Syrian refugee, was killed in the New Zealand mosque shootings on March 15. His father also was killed. When the atrocities of war became too great to bear, they left their home four years ago to Jordan and registered as refugees. The United Nations placed the family, the married couple, two sons and a daughter, who is now 10 and was uninjured in the attack, in New Zealand. The family wanted to come to the United States, where they have relatives and friends. The United Nations refugee program prefers to place people in countries where they have personal connections, but a travel ban imposed by the Trump administration has prevented Syrian refugees from settling here for nearly two years. Although they'd been in New Zealand only a short time, Mustafa had already found work shoeing horses. Online, hundreds of New Zealanders and fellow equestrians have written to say how sorry they are. Those who knew him talked about his kindness and pride in his family. Mustafa was praying with his two sons at Al Noor mosque in Christchurch when the shooter opened fire. In New Zealand, Muhajer and Dabet hope to offer emotional support to Tsay and help with care for her 10-year-old daughter. Their friends and family say they're a good pair to make the trip. The two women are already known for helping Syrian refugees in New Jersey with fundraisers, paperwork guidance, furniture assistance and other needs. Dabet said she felt compelled to travel to New Zealand and help, even though she does not personally know Tsay. More: Social media scrambles to remove videos of New Zealand Christchurch mosque shooting More: Christchurch gun shop sold rifles online to accused shooter "We have to do something," Dabet said. "We have to help this family to support them emotionally, whatever we can." Tsay's two brothers and mother live in Turkey, but as refugees with Syrian passports they are currently unable to travel to New Zealand. United States travelers don't need a visa for New Zealand. In Turkey, officials are working to get permission to send at least one brother to be with Tsay, said Didem Baj, a member of the Circassian Federal of Turkey, in a phone interview. Turkish officials also offered to bring the family remains to their country for burial. But for now, Tsay does not want to leave. She's staying by her son's side, and she wants to see the case go forward in the courts. "They want him to see justice," Baj said. More: How a hero in New Zealand mosque attack used cat-and-mouse chase, shooter's own gun to save lives More: New Zealand PM vows tighter gun laws after death toll in Christchurch terror attack rises to 50 Follow Hannan Adely on Twitter: @AdelyReporter This article originally appeared on North Jersey Record: Family escapes Syrian war only to be gunned down in New Zealand mosque shooting Tech experts are developing a new cryptocurrency payment system for cabs and it could potentially slash fares. Australian start-up TaxiCash is creating a blockchain-powered network to allow passengers to pay their fare in electronic cash. The UK taxi and limousine market is estimated to be worth 11-14 billion, and at least 30% of the expenditure is via credit or debit card payments. Credit card companies charge an average of 5% per transaction, which gets passed on to the passenger. But TaxiCash would enable instantaneous peer-to-peer payments between the driver and the customer to cut out the middleman saving them both money. Director and CTO Anirvan Mahalanabis said: Payments in the taxi industry have been a perennial problem, and both customers and operators are caught in the losing end. Freedom from banks Inspired by blockchain technology, I feel it is high time to give a workable solution to the taxi industry worldwide that would finally free it from the fangs of the banks. TaxiCash, which is at the patent stage, will eventually be extended to driverless systems in a second phase of development, and is intended to integrate seamlessly with driverless meters and GPS systems. A driverless car payment system is part of the TaxiCash patent application. TaxiCash is also a response to the safety issue of cabbies who handle cash being at risk of robberies. Crucially, TaxiCash will not allow users to pay a new fare until a previous payment for transport has been transmitted to discourage non-payment. The company claims the taxi and hire car industry worldwide will benefit from cost savings of roughly 13%. The post Fare pay: How cryptocurrency could soon give you cheaper taxi rides appeared first on Coin Rivet. DETROIT Ford CEO Jim Hackett received total compensation of $17.8 million in 2018, up from $16.7 million in 2017, according to finance documents released by the company. The Dearborn, Michigan-based carmaker reported Hackett's pay was 276 times more than the median compensation for all U.S.-based Ford employees. Ford included salary and pay ratio data for its full workforce in its annual executive-compensation report Friday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a disclosure now required of companies by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Hackett poses for a photo in the Henry Ford II World Center in Dearborn on Wednesday, February 20, 2019. The report showed Ford employees earned a median, full-time salary of $64,316 in 2018, up from $58,693 in 2017. In 2017, Hackett received a total of $1.3 million in salary, along with a $1 million bonus, $10.3 million in stock awards, $3.6 million in incentive-plan compensation and $420,971 in other compensation. Apple latest: New iPad Air announced one week before streaming event Check out the latest Caddy: Cadillac CT5 reveal on social media bucks the SUV trend Pay raises amid job cuts Just hours after releasing the executive salaries and the preliminary proxy packet prepared for shareholders, Ford announced job cuts in Germany and the United Kingdom. Ford will cut 5,000 jobs in Germany and has not confirmed the number of jobs eliminated in the U.K. amid massive restructuring of the struggling European operation. The automaker has said Brexit uncertainty does little to help with long-term manufacturing plans, which involve costly investments in electrification and driverless vehicles. Ford officials are having ongoing discussions with Volkswagen about partnership opportunities and cost-cutting collaboration. On Friday, Ford offered voluntary separation packages to employees overseas while trying to speed up its $11-billion global restructuring effort. "It is unfortunate that they are willing to announce the number of jobs being cut everywhere but the U.S., where they keep slashing silently but sharing nothing, leaving employees, families, and communities hanging, said economist Jon Gabrielsen, who advises the auto industry and suppliers. Story continues Employees at Ford World Headquarters described to the Free Press on Friday discomfort amid the contrast of job cuts and executive pay raises. Ford's biggest individual earner last year was Hackett, 63, who received $17.8 million in total compensation. It broke down as $1.8 million in salary; $12.7 million in stock awards; $2.6 million in incentive plan compensation, and about $617,710 in other compensation. Ford also disclosed data for its four other highest-paid current executives: CFO Bob Shanks was compensated $8.4 million for 2018, compared with $6.7 million in 2017 and $6.3 million in 2016. Executive Chairman Bill Ford was compensated $13.8 million, down from $15.6 million in 2017 and $13.9 million in 2016. President of Global Markets Jim Farley was compensated $5.9 million, down from $13.4 million in 2017 and $6.6 million in 2016. President of Global Operations Joe Hinrichs was compensated $5.8 million, down from $12.1 million in 2017 and $6.7 million in 2016. While Farley and Hinrichs saw a dip in overall compensation, each actually had a base salary increase. Farley's went from $973,000 in 2017 to $1 million in 2018. Hinrichs saw a raise of about $20,000 to $1.1 million. The reason for a lower overall compensation reflects a lower bonus payout for 2018 performance. And, for those two, they received special stock grants in 2017, which were not repeated in 2018. Private plane trips, security Bill Ford saw his salary grow from $1.65 million to $1.7 million in 2018, but his bonus dropped from $1 million in 2017 to $720,000. His benefits included $245,658 for personal use of aircraft and $909,891 for security. Perks for Hackett included $104,342 for personal use of aircraft in 2018. "Company policy does not allow the president and CEO or the executive chairman to fly commercially due to security concerns. The company pays the costs associated with their use of private aircraft for business and personal travel. The families of these persons are allowed to accompany them on trips when they travel on private aircraft," reads page 57 of the packet prepared for shareholders. Currently, Hackett gets triple the compensation he earned as CEO of Steelcase. He received $5.8 million in total compensation during each of his last three years; he retired in 2014 after three decades with the office furniture maker, according to Automotive News. Hackett took the helm of the iconic carmaker on May 22, 2017. He made headlines when he sent a memo in January that said 2018 "was mediocre by any standard." Overall, automakers say they are heading into a slowing sales cycle. Ford lost money in every market in the world except North America in 2018. The company reported 2018 earnings before interest or taxes EBIT of $7 billion, down from $9.6 billion in 2017. Ford said it made $7.6 billion pretax in North America, which will result in the $7,600 profit-sharing checks on average for a majority of the company's 56,000 hourly UAW workers. When the Free Press requested the name, title and compensation package for the highest-paid female executive at Ford, company spokeswoman Karen Hampton said Ford would not disclose information for employees not listed in the company's proxy statement. GM, Fiat Chrysler Ford provides its CEO and its executive chairman compensation packages that total $31.6 million, which exceeds dollars spent on those positions at other Detroit Three companies. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, 57, also is executive chairman of the board; her $21.96 million compensation package in 2017 covered both roles. GM has not yet reported its executive salaries or pay ratio figures. Meanwhile, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said in February that CEO Mike Manley earned a salary of $680,434 for his six months of work after the unexpected death of Sergio Marchionne on July 25. The longtime CEO earned $11.95 million in 2017 plus $35.8 million in bonus and stock benefits over three years. Manley, 55, stands to earn $14 million in compensation for 2019 if he meets targets; $1.6 million salary, $2.4 million bonus, $10 million equity. FCA paid its chairman John Elkann $1.92 million in 2018. Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-222-6512 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid. Staff writer JC Reindl contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford CEO Jim Hackett pay raise means he earns 276 times more than median employee Paris (AFP) - The French government's failure to keep Paris protests over the weekend from spiralling out of control has put a harsh spotlight on its law enforcement strategy, which makes avoiding injuries a priority even after hours of rampant destruction and looting. Business owners on the iconic Champs-Elysees avenue were fuming Monday as President Emmanuel Macron met with Interior Minister Christophe Castaner and Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet to weigh their response to an 18th consecutive Saturday of "yellow vest" demonstrations. Some 5,000 police were deployed in the capital on Saturday, far outnumbering the several hundred black-clad rioters who caused havoc for more than seven hours. Yet TV footage often showed officers standing in formation while the protesters burned and pillaged dozens of stores, images that drew widespread criticism, including within police ranks. "You have to take responsibility and engage, with the possibility that people will get hurt," said Frederic Lagache of the Alliance police union. For decades French authorities have usually preferred the opposite, putting down mass protests with tear gas and rubber bullets but avoiding physical clashes against large groups. "They would rather see a building damaged, with insurance companies footing the bill, than risk direct contact between police and demonstrators that might cause serious injuries or death," said Olivier Cahn at France's Cesdip law enforcement research institute. Macron has vowed "strong" measures to quell the violence, and has already pledged an anti-hooligan law that would let authorities pre-emptively detain protesters with a known history of violence. But despite growing public exasperation with the weekly violence, few expect the government to risk a shift in tactics that could see police accused of using excessive force against a movement that still enjoys considerable support. "The idea seems to be, if the violence persists, you have to be more repressive," Cahn said. Story continues "That doesn't do anything except make the protesters even more determined," he said. - 'Less reactive' - Junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez admitted on RTL radio on Monday that police "were less aggressive, less reactive than usual" over the weekend, promising a review of the instructions given to officers and their deployment. But critics say that after more than three months of weekly protests, the government needs more than pledges of determined action, and should drastically rethink its approach for stamping out the rioting. "There are techniques and strategies for separating violent demonstrators from the others," Cahn said. "Germany has strategies for de-escalating the tensions and separating protesters that are quite effective," he said. However French authorities have already been accused of a heavy-handed response to the yellow vest movement, which began in November over fuel taxes before ballooning into a sustained revolt against Macron. Dozens of protesters have already been injured in the clashes, including some who claim they have lost an eye after being struck with rubber bullets. Rights groups have tried to have the controversial "defensive ball launchers" (LBD) banned, noting that France is one of only a handful of Western countries to use them. But the government says they allow police to avoid potentially more risky contact with protesters hurling paving stones and wielding hammers and other makeshift weapons. Yet pressure is increasing to find a way of quelling the violence, especially when authorities are well aware that a hard core of protesters are determined to cause havoc again next Saturday. "Every Sunday large cities across France wake up to the same old story: smouldering barricades and a strident declaration from Christophe Castaner," leftwing daily Liberation wrote Monday. This article is written for those who want to get better at using price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). Well look at FY Financial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.s (HKG:8452) P/E ratio and reflect on what it tells us about the companys share price. FY Financial (Shenzhen) has a P/E ratio of 10.55, based on the last twelve months. That is equivalent to an earnings yield of about 9.5%. See our latest analysis for FY Financial (Shenzhen) How Do I Calculate A Price To Earnings Ratio? The formula for P/E is: Price to Earnings Ratio = Share Price (in reporting currency) Earnings per Share (EPS) Or for FY Financial (Shenzhen): P/E of 10.55 = CN1.18 (Note: this is the share price in the reporting currency, namely, CNY ) CN0.11 (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.) Is A High P/E Ratio Good? A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying a higher price for each HK$1 of company earnings. That isnt a good or a bad thing on its own, but a high P/E means that buyers have a higher opinion of the businesss prospects, relative to stocks with a lower P/E. How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios P/E ratios primarily reflect market expectations around earnings growth rates. When earnings grow, the E increases, over time. That means even if the current P/E is high, it will reduce over time if the share price stays flat. A lower P/E should indicate the stock is cheap relative to others and that may attract buyers. FY Financial (Shenzhen) increased earnings per share by a whopping 75% last year. And it has improved its earnings per share by 53% per year over the last three years. With that performance, I would expect it to have an above average P/E ratio. How Does FY Financial (Shenzhen)s P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers? The P/E ratio essentially measures market expectations of a company. If you look at the image below, you can see FY Financial (Shenzhen) has a lower P/E than the average (12.2) in the diversified financial industry classification. Story continues SEHK:8452 Price Estimation Relative to Market, March 18th 2019 FY Financial (Shenzhen)s P/E tells us that market participants think it will not fare as well as its peers in the same industry. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. You should delve deeper. I like to check if company insiders have been buying or selling. A Limitation: P/E Ratios Ignore Debt and Cash In The Bank Dont forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. Thus, the metric does not reflect cash or debt held by the company. Hypothetically, a company could reduce its future P/E ratio by spending its cash (or taking on debt) to achieve higher earnings. Spending on growth might be good or bad a few years later, but the point is that the P/E ratio does not account for the option (or lack thereof). How Does FY Financial (Shenzhen)s Debt Impact Its P/E Ratio? Net debt totals a substantial 173% of FY Financial (Shenzhen)s market cap. If you want to compare its P/E ratio to other companies, you must keep in mind that these debt levels would usually warrant a relatively low P/E. The Bottom Line On FY Financial (Shenzhen)s P/E Ratio FY Financial (Shenzhen)s P/E is 10.5 which is about average (10.8) in the HK market. It does have enough debt to add risk, although earnings growth was strong in the last year. However, the P/E ratio implies that most doubt the strong growth will continue. Investors should be looking to buy stocks that the market is wrong about. If the reality for a company is not as bad as the P/E ratio indicates, then the share price should increase as the market realizes this. Although we dont have analyst forecasts, shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow. Of course you might be able to find a better stock than FY Financial (Shenzhen). So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have grown earnings strongly. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Berlin (AFP) - German defence spending will rise next year but then drop off again as a percentage of GDP, Berlin said Monday, in news expected to anger US President Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly attacked Germany and other NATO allies for falling far short of meeting the target of spending two percent of gross domestic product on their militaries, accusing them of freeloading on US military might. Germany's finance ministry on Monday presented its budget planning for coming years. It said that defence spending would reach 1.37 percent of GDP in 2020. But it would then drop off to 1.29 percent by 2022, and to 1.25 percent by 2023. Though NATO countries have only promised to try to hit two percent by 2024, the failure of many to even get close to that has infuriated Trump, who has reportedly threatened to pull out of the alliance if the European allies does not boost spending immediately. Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, has come in for particular criticism from the United States, whose military spending dwarfs that of the rest of the alliance. In 2018 Washington spent nearly $700 billion on defence, compared with just $280 billion for all the European NATO allies combined. While German defence spending went up from $45 billion to $50 billion last year, the country's growing economy meant the figure relative to its GDP stayed flat at 1.23 percent. Figures released this month showed that just seven of the 29 NATO countries hit the alliance's defence spending target in 2018. Apart from the US, six members hit the two percent target in 2018: Britain, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last week welcomed Berlin's moves to increase its budget so far but stressed that "I expect further increases". Trump's regular outbursts about European defence expenditure have caused some to question the future of the alliance, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. Story continues After the end of the Cold War military budgets in Europe steadily dwindled, but Russia's annexation of Crimea and growing assertiveness have made defence a priority once more. Last month a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) showed that NATO's 27 European countries fell short of the two percent target by $102 billion in 2018. The IISS said European NATO members would "collectively have had to increase their spending by 38 percent" to hit the two percent target in 2018. CINCINNATI Days before she died, 10-year-old Sable Gibson admired pink highlights in her hair and later jammed to a remix of a song with the lyric "I was busy thinking 'bout boys" with a friend. Except, in this rendition, "boys" had been replaced with "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba ..." They recorded the spasmodic dance moves, heads bobbing and arms flapping to the fast-paced song. Sable later shared the video with her parents. Her friend's mother was driving them home from Columbus, Ohio, where they had visited the Center of Science and Industry. Sable didn't yet have a career preference, but she loved reading and math. The next day, Sable fell ill. Three days later, she suffered cardiac arrest caused by flu, her parents said last week inside the church that was the site of their daughter's funeral. Scott and Holly Gibson, Sable's parents, described their daughter as compassionate, self-assured, sometimes silly. Scott and Holly Gibson, Sable's parents, described the days leading up to their daughter's death. Sable's siblings, 17-year-old Sailor and 12-year-old Crew, recalled fond memories they treasure with their sister. Sable Gibson was 10 years old when she died from complications stemming from the flu, her family says. She's remembered as a compassionate girl. "She was making videos one day and the next day she's dead," said her father, Scott Gibson. "She was making videos one day, and the next day she's dead," said Scott Gibson on March 12. Some days, he lets himself imagine his fourth-grader at Western Row Elementary will hop off the school bus and return home to him. Holly Gibson, flanked by her husband and two of Sable's five siblings, often encouraged Sable to "wear her best for Jesus" before trips to church. Holly Gibson talked about her daughter while wearing two necklaces: one with Sable's name engraved on angel wings, the other a locket with a photo of the two of them. Holly and Sable's fashion senses diverged. Feb. 22: Fourth-grader dies same day she's diagnosed with flu, strep throat: 'Our hearts are completely broken' March 8: Flu season is supposed to be winding down, but 20 states report highest level of activity Her daughter sometimes wore the same sweatshirt several days in a row. She assured her mother that "Jesus loves leggings." "She was very secure," her mother said. Story continues She rarely had been sick. Her pediatrician told her parents that, other than regular checkups, he'd only ever seen Sable for two ear infections in infancy. The day after symptoms arose, Sable and her mother went to The Little Clinic, where Sable was prescribed ibuprofen. Two days later, Sable was still sick, so the family visited their pediatrician. Afterward, Holly didn't leave her daughter's side. At their Mason, Ohio, home, they sat together and Holly ran her hands through her daughter's sweaty hair. When she touched Sable's skin, she was horrified to find it was cold. Holly performed CPR until she became physically ill, at which point Sable's teen brother took over. Sable was rushed to a satellite campus of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, but then was airlifted to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Sable's brain had lost too much oxygen, doctors told the family. She died Feb. 20, a Wednesday, less than a week after her trip to Columbus and the science center. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of about 113 children have died of the flu over the last four flu seasons. About four in five deaths were suffered by children who hadn't received a flu vaccination. Feb. 25: Flu outbreak with second strain could last until May: What you need to know Feb. 15: Flu widespread in US with 17.8 million cases since October, but experts see 'low-severity' season "A flu shot is important because even if it doesnt entirely prevent influenza, it can lessen the severity of illness," said Jim Feuer, a spokesman for Cincinnati Children's. "Vaccination for flu has been shown to prevent potential severe outcomes like (intensive care unit) admission and death." Sable's family did not wish to share whether she received a flu shot before her death. Gustavo Ferrer, a Florida-based doctor who leads a pulmonary training program at Aventura Hospital there, said flu-shot effectiveness can range from 40 to 90 percent. But in years with a low effective rate, "even then it has incredible value because a large number of people will be protected from the most aggressive (flu strain)." Ferrer said the following red flags in children with the flu should prompt a trip to an emergency department. Fever persisting for more than 48 hours Coughing that produces a yellow or green mucus, or diarrhea in young children No or low appetite, possibly signaling dehydration Persistent cough The Gibsons have relied on the kindness of others in their mourning. Thousands attended Sable's funeral, and about $25,000 was raised in her name. Holly and Scott Gibson have chosen to donate the money to Joshua's Place, a nonprofit program founded by their Rivers Crossing Community Church. Paul Taylor, a church pastor, said Joshua's Place provides about 60,000 meals a year to low-income individuals, among other services. "We knew our daughter loved to help people," Holly said, "and this will continue to help people for, hopefully, years." Follow Max Londberg on Twitter: @MaxLondberg This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Girl who died after flu diagnosis 'loved to help people,' her family says Two Georgians Detained with $2,8 Million Worth of Uranium By Gvantsa Gabekhadze The Georgian State Security Service has detained two Georgian citizens in the Kobuleti region of Western Georgia on March 12 for the illegal possession and sale of radioactive materials.The detainees intended to sell the $2.8 million worth of Uranium.The individuals have been only identified as Roman G. and Gocha K.They wished to sell uranium for 2,800,000 USD. The total weight of the nuclear material is 40.19 grams, and it contains radioactive isotope - Uranium-238. The substance poses a risk to human health and life the agency said.The crime is punishable by five to 10 years in prison.Back to 2016 three Georgian and three Armenian citizens were detained for illegally selling nuclear material hazardous to human health in Tbilisi.An official from Georgias State Security Service said at a special press briefing then that the six people were detained for allegedly selling uranium."As a result of joint operative-searching and investigative activities of the Counter-Intelligence and Special Operations Departments of the State Security Service of Georgia, members of a criminal group were detained for illegal handling of nuclear material, said the spokesperson.He added the alleged offenders planned to sell an amount of Uranium (U238) for $200 million USD when they were detained.Law enforcers searched the house of one of the accused and discovered a prefabricated container meant to transport the U238. By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google is trying to boost price comparison rivals such as Kelkoo in an effort to appease European Union antitrust regulators and ward off fresh fines following a 2.4-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) penalty nearly two years ago. The European Commission said Alphabet unit Google had used its search engine market power to unfairly promote its own comparison shopping service. The company subsequently offered to allow price-comparison rivals to bid for advertising space at the top of a search page, giving them the chance to compete on equal terms. But competitors said the measure failed to create a level playing field. Earlier this month, Google introduced a new link on its search results which aims to drive more traffic to price comparison rivals. British competitor Kelkoo said on its blog that it was one of several companies selected to try out the new link which will initially be available in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Google was not immediately available for comment. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has said that she was aware of rivals' criticism of the company's proposal. EU antitrust enforcers could levy fines up to 5 percent of Google's average daily worldwide turnover if it fails to comply with the 2017 order. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Mark Potter) Bissau (AFP) - Guinea-Bissau's historic ruling party on Monday signed a deal to form a coalition government after falling just short of a majority in parliamentary elections last week, political figures said. According to the National Election Commission, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) won 47 of parliament's 102 seats and 46.1 percent of the popular vote. Another 48 seats were taken by two opposition parties, with the final seven seats won by factions who last week agreed to back a PAIGC-led government. A two-page document envisages an "inclusive" coalition government lasting the four years of the parliamentary term, with a focus on reform of the constitution and the security and public administration apparatus. "There is no winner nor loser. What is important is to work together to get our country out of the crisis it has been going through for several years," said Mama Saliu Lamba of the APU-PDGB party which won five seats and is part of the planned coalition. PAIGC head of the PAIGC, Domingos Simoes Pereira, said "the people made a choice on March 10 and have given us a mission." "The signing of this agreement creates the conditions for a majority in parliament," he added. The Supreme Court has yet to formally endorse the election results but President Jose Mario Vaz has already congratulated the PAIGC on the result. It was hoped that the March 10 vote would draw a line under the crisis that erupted in August 2015 when Vaz -- also a PAIGC member -- sacked Pereira, his then prime minister. The two men have had a very strained relationship since then and there had been fears the polls could have left the poor, volatile West African state heading into a fresh confrontation, analysts warned. The PAIGC -- a one-time Marxist party which has run the country of two million people for most of the 45 years since independence from Portugal -- won the previous polls in 2014 with 57 seats. Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Haiti's Chamber of Deputies voted Monday to censure Jean-Henry Ceant's government, with a new prime minister set to be named soon. Of the 103 lawmakers participating, 93 voted to dismiss the prime minister and his government. Six voted against and three abstained. "Notice will be sent to the president of the Republic. A new prime minister will be appointed in consultation between the head of state and the presidents of both branches of Parliament," said Speaker Gary Bodeau. Lawmakers say Ceant failed to do anything to improve the living conditions in the six months since he took over at the head of government. Ceant has faced violent protest movements. In February, thousands of people took to the streets across the country to demand better living conditions and the departure of the head of state. For about 11 days, all activities ground to a halt in Port-au-Prince and across most of the country's city. As scrutiny over unfair Chinese business practices intensifies amid drawn out U.S.-China trade discussions, investors are debating another contentious issue: minority American shareholders squeezed out by U.S.-listed Chinese companies. The companies all follow the same playbook: After tapping into U.S. capital through a public listing, management turns around and takes the company private at a significantly cheaper valuation. That same management then relists the company back home in China, at a much higher valuation, leaving executives with a big windfall and average retail investors with the biggest losses. Theyre just trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of U.S. shareholders and then go on and relist and do a new IPO in Chinese markets for three times or five times the transaction price in the U.S, Peter Halesworth, manager for Heng Ren Partners, who has invested in some of these companies and wrote a white paper on the privatization trend, told Yahoo Finance. Its the ultimate insult at the end of the process. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Monday, Dec. 10, 2018. (Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images) More than 60 U.S.-listed Chinese companies have gone private since 2013. "While it's 'America First' when it comes to trade with China, Americans' rights are not the priority in the stock markets, Halesworth said. Here foreign issuers have unusual privileges, and many Chinese companies have abused these privileges and disadvantaged and damaged American shareholders' wealth and retirement funds." Consider internet security firm Qihoo 360 Technology. In July 2016, the company announced a privatization offer that valued shares held by U.S. investors at $77, reflecting a valuation of $9.3 billion. Two years later, it relisted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange for a $62 billion valuation, a return of more than 550%. Medical Device company Mindray Medical listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange three years after going private at $3.3 billion in the U.S., a significant discount to its IPO valuation. Its market cap in China within three months? More than $22 billion. Story continues In December 2015, Wuxi PharmaTech was taken private at an equity value of $3.3 billion. The company has since relisted as 2 separate entities one in Hong Kong and one in Shanghai with a combined market cap of $21.6 billion. Wuxi and Qihoo both now face separate class action lawsuits filed by U.S. investors, claiming the companies provided misleading statements to undervalue the companies. A sign advertising the Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd is hung with the U.S. and Chinese flags outside of the New York Stock Exchange before the company's Initial Public Offering (IPO) in New York in this March 30, 2011 file photo. (Reuters) Minority shareholders Corporations have done that, in part by exploiting a cross-border legal loophole. While the companies are listed in the U.S., they are classified as Foreign Private Insurers (FPIs), subject to regulation by their home countrys exchange. FPIs are also exempt from corporate governance practices by which most publicly listed domestic firms must comply, including a requirement to host annual shareholder meetings. Further complicating the issue is the controlling share structure of the companies, which allows founders to retain voting control. Minority investors, who own less than a 50% stake in the company, have little say in the direction of the company and are left powerless to contest a low-ball buyout offer. While that itself is not unique to Chinese firms, they have largely escaped shareholder repercussions because they are domiciled in the Cayman Islands, where minority investors have less protection than in Delaware, where most U.S. companies are registered, according to Harvard Law Professor Jesse Fried. The problem from the perspective of minority shareholders is the fact that all the defendants, the assets, the records, are all in the Peoples Republic of China, which makes them unavailable, Fried says. It also drives up the cost of litigation. 2018 saw a spike in Chinese companies going public in the U.S. Class-action lawsuits Still, investors are fighting back. Just last month, U.S. shareholders for Wuxi PharmaTech filed a class action lawsuit seeking damages in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs allege company executives violated federal securities laws, when they issued false and misleading statements aimed to undervalue the company and lied about its intentions to spinoff the companys assets and relist shares in China. Tony Heaver-Wren, a partner at offshore law firm Appleby, says minority shareholders have successfully found recourse by using a provision in the Cayman Islands legal code that entitles them to seek appraisals and claim the fair value of their holdings. One case, which involves Chinas Shanda Games and Hong Kong hedge fund Maso Capital Investments, led to a payout to shareholders that was 80% higher than the initial price accepted, according to the Wall Street Journal. Maso has now appealed that ruling to a top U.K. court, seeking a higher premium, a decision that Heaver-Wren says will likely have wide implications for similar cases that are pending. But Heaver-Wren says an overwhelming majority of the disputes have ended in settlement. Out of 25 lawsuits that have been filed in Cayman courts, only four have gone to trial. The reality is that these companies capitulate. They dont believe in their story so much that they see it through and win, Heaver-Wren says, adding that dissenting shareholders have won every case that has gone to trial, with the Court ruling that fair value payout be higher than that advocated by the company. US President Donald Trump pauses as he speaks during the 2019 White House business session with governors in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC on February 25, 2019. (Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) The environment of the trade war is encouraging this The political winds may be shifting too. Last December, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board issued a joint statement, that singled China out for limiting the access of U.S. regulators, investigating the financial reporting of companies traded on U.S. exchanges. Since then, Congressman Mike Conaway (R - TX, 11th District) has introduced a bill that would delist for three years any U.S.-traded Chinese companies that dont disclose their auditors. Senator Marco Rubio (R - FLA) has publicly pushed for more scrutiny as well. I think, in part, the environment of the trade war is encouraging this, says Paul Gillis, a professor at Peking University, who testified before Congress last month. I have also learned that these things just seem to take a long time to gain traction. The pressure has yet to deter Chinese companies from listing on American exchanges. Thirty-three went public in the U.S. last year double the number from the previous year. And in 2018, Chinese companies accounted for 17% of all U.S. IPOs. NOTE: A version of this story was first published on March 18, 2019. Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @AkikoFujita More from Akiko: Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit. A meteor entered the Earths atmosphere at the end of last year and exploded (Picture: Getty) A large meteor exploded over Earth, Nasa has revealed. It said the massive fireball was the second largest blast of its kind for 30 years, and yet it went mostly undetected. The meteor exploded with ten times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It blew up over the Bering Sea, off Russias Kamchatka Peninsula, in December, Nasa said. The asteroid came through the Earths atmosphere at a speed of 32km/s on December 18, on a steep trajectory of seven degrees, BBC News reported. Some colour views of the #meteor that flew over the North Pacific in December 2018, taken by Japan's #Himawari satellite. The meteor is really clear here bright orange fireball against the blue + white background! Background: https://t.co/r403SQxicZ pic.twitter.com/ctNN8zxsXb Simon Proud (@simon_sat) March 18, 2019 Lindley Johnson, planetary defence officer at Nasa, told the BBC that a fireball of its size is only expected two or three times every century. Read more Police hunt for killers of Shetland pony that was found tied up and beaten in Yeovil Theresa May tells MPs back my Brexit deal or we will not leave EU for months, if ever Archaeologists slam Cadbury treasure hunt that could see prosecutions for trespassing It measured several metres and exploded 25.6km above the Earths surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotonnes. It was the largest fireball since one exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago. A meteor exploded over Earth in December (Picture: Getty) Dr Kelly Fast, near-Earth objects observations programme manager at Nasa, said: That was 40% the energy release of Chelyabinsk, but it was over the Bering Sea so it didnt have the same type of effect or show up in the news. Story continues Thats another thing we have in our defence, theres plenty of water on the planet. She gave details of the blast at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference near Houston, Texas. Nasa was notified of the explosion by the US Air Force after it was picked up by military satellites. Dr Johnson said the meteor came in over an area not far from routes used by commercial planes flying between North America and Asia. Nasa is checking with airlines to see if there were any reported sightings. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Immigration has been one of the leading issues in the news in recent years. However, with immigration comes a host of terms, some of which might be unfamiliar. Here are definitions for several often-used immigration-related terms. Asylum People who flee their home countries because they have been persecuted or fear persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Asylum-seekers make their request while in the U.S. or after arriving at a U.S. port of entry. DACA The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created by President Barrack Obama in 2012 and has protected more than 800,000 Dreamers from deportation and granted them work permits. President Donald Trump is trying to end the program, but has been blocked by federal courts. Department of Homeland Security The largest law enforcement agency in the country with more than 240,000 employees, Homeland Security oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes Customs officers who work at ports of entry and Border Patrol agents who patrol regions in between. Homeland Security also includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which arrests undocumented immigrants living in the interior of the country, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which interviews foreigners seeking to gain entry to the country, the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Coast Guard. A mother migrating from Honduras holds her 1-year-old child while surrendering to U.S. Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing the border near McAllen, Texas, on June 25, 2018. Dreamers An estimated 3.6 million undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. before their 18th birthday. The name derived from the DREAM Act, a bill thats been proposed in Congress since 2001 to grant them U.S. citizenship, but the bill has never passed. Merit-based immigration The U.S. has historically allowed most immigrants to enter the country based on their family ties, but some, including President Trump, want to switch to a system that measures immigrants based on their education, language skills and ability to contribute to the U.S. economy. Story continues Refugees Similar to asylum-seekers, refugees are people who fear returning to their home countries. The difference is asylum-seekers make their request in the U.S., while refugees go through their entire application process abroad. They are generally interviewed by United Nations officials, and then referred to U.S. officials for more background screening and placement in the U.S. Sanctuary city A term used to describe more than 300 state, county and city government agencies that do not fully comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) A special status created by Congress in 1990 that allows foreigners to legally live and work in the U.S. if their home country has been hit by violence or a natural disaster. TPS has been granted to more than 300,000 people from 10 countries. President Trump is trying to end the program, but has been blocked by federal courts. Undocumented immigrant People on both sides of the immigration debate use different terms to describe foreigners who either entered the U.S. illegally, or legally entered the country and stayed after their visas expired. USA TODAY uses the term undocumented immigrant because it is the most neutral descriptor of that population. Zero tolerance In April of 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the administration would implement a zero tolerance policy for all those who cross the border illegally. Before, first-time illegal entry was treated as a civil infraction, but the new policy required government prosecutors to fully charge all cases. That sent parents to adult detention centers to face criminal hearings, but children cannot be housed there, leading to at least 2,800 migrant family separations. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Confused by terms in the immigration debate? Here are some popular ones defined On Mar 15, we issued an updated research report on Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. INO. Inovios most advanced candidate, VGX-3100 vaccine, has been progressing well alongside other promising pipeline candidates in its portfolio. VGX-3100 is currently being evaluated in a phase III study (REVEAL 1) for the treatment of cervical dysplasia caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). The company has also initiated enrollment in the confirmatory phase III (REVEAL 2) study. It plans to submit a biologics license application (BLA), seeking approval for VGX-3100 in 2021. Two more phase II studies are examining the efficacy of VGX-3100 in patients suffering vulvar dysplasia and anal dysplasia. Last August, Inovio entered into a partnership agreement with the AIDS Malignancy Consortium to evaluate VGX-3100 for treating HPV-associated precancerous conditions in patients, who have tested positive for HIV. Shares of Inovio have decreased 12% so far this year against the industrys increase of 15.6%. Apart from VGX-3100, Inovio has several candidates in its pipeline under early-to-mid-stage development. The company is examining the immuno-oncology combo of INO-5401 plus INO-9012 in two phase I/II studies. One study is investigating INO-5401 + INO-9012 in combination with Regenerons REGN cemiplimab in patients with newly-diagnosed glioblastoma while the other is probing the NO-5401 + INO-9012 combo with Roches RHHBY Tecentriq as a treatment option for advanced or metastatic bladder cancer. Interim data from both studies is expected this year. Inovio is also conducting an independent phase I program on its DNA immunotherapy, INO-1800. In March 2018, the company announced positive interim results from the study, which demonstrated the potential of INO-1800 as an immunotherapy for this widespread infection (hepatitis B virus) that is a major cause for liver cancer. Inovio is evaluating its Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) vaccine, INO-4700, in a phase I/IIa study to prevent infection from the deadly virus. The company hopes to announce data from the same in 2019. It also plans to begin a phase II program on MERS vaccine in the Middle East during the second half of 2019. Story continues Last month, Inovio announced initiation of first-ever human study of INO-A002, a DNA-encoded monoclonal antibody (dMAb), as a prevention treatment for Zika virus. Another early-stage candidate in the companys pipeline is INO-5150, which targets prostate cancer. Currently, Inovio is seeking strategic collaborations in order to sustain the development process of INO-5150. The company is evaluating MEDI0457 (a combination of VGX-3100 and its DNA-based IL-12 cytokine) in combination with AstraZenecas AZN PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor, Imfinzi, for the treatment of human papilloma virus (HPV)-caused cervical and head and neck cancers. In August 2015, Inovio out-licensed MEDI0457 to MedImmune, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca. The former now receives milestone and royalty payments from the latter for treating several HPV related cancers. Inovio has collaboration deals with several big pharma companies, which help it with constant funding for its pipeline development. However, the company has no approved product in its portfolio. Hence, an excessive dependence on its partners for developing its pipeline candidates remains an overhang on the company. Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Price and Consensus Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Price and Consensus | Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Quote Zacks Rank Inovio currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Roche Holding AG (RHHBY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (REGN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (INO) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. On the other hand, wed be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So before you buy or sell Silver Chef Limited (ASX:SIV), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling. What Is Insider Selling? It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market. Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Columbia University study found that insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own companys stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers. Check out our latest analysis for Silver Chef The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Silver Chef While there werent any large insider transactions in the last twelve months, its still worth looking at the trading. Happily, we note that in the last year insiders bought 144.41k shares for a total of AU$320k. In total, Silver Chef insiders bought more than they sold over the last year. They paid about AU$2.21 on average. Id consider this a positive as it suggests insiders see value at around the current price, which is AU$1.34. You can see the insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! ASX:SIV Recent Insider Trading, March 18th 2019 For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Insider Ownership of Silver Chef Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Insiders own 14% of Silver Chef shares, worth about AU$7.5m, according to our data. But they may have an indirect interest through a corporate structure that we havent picked up on. Overall, this level of ownership isnt that impressive, but its certainly better than nothing! Story continues So What Do The Silver Chef Insider Transactions Indicate? It doesnt really mean much that no insider has traded Silver Chef shares in the last quarter. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. Wed like to see bigger individual holdings. However, we dont see anything to make us think Silver Chef insiders are doubting the company. Therefore, you should should definitely take a look at this FREE report showing analyst forecasts for Silver Chef. If you would prefer to check out another company one with potentially superior financials then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Jerusalem (AFP) - An Israeli man wounded in a Palestinian attack that killed an Israeli soldier and injured another one in the occupied West Bank died of his injuries on Monday, his family said. Ahiad Ettinger, a 47-year-old rabbi who lived in the Eli settlement in the West Bank, was shot in the gun and knife attack on Sunday. Israel's army said the assailant attacked a soldier with a knife at a junction near the Ariel settlement and snatched his weapon. He later fired on three vehicles before taking one of the cars to another nearby junction, where he opened fire and wounded a second soldier. The second soldier was said to be in serious condition. Israeli security forces were pursuing the alleged attacker on Monday. Ettinger was the father of 12 children, Israeli media reported. A family in Nairobi has been thrown into mourning following the bizarre death of a 29-year-old man who was shot dead by his father on Sunday. Police reports indicate that the father, Assa Nyakundi, accidentally shot dead his son, Joseph Nyakundi, near their house in Muthaiga, Nairobi. The father and son were driving to their Muthaiga North house from the ICC Church along Mombasa Road at about 1 pm when the shooting occurred. Mr Nyakundi, a top lawyer based in Nairobi, is a licensed gun holder and had a Glock pistol with 15 bullets with him at that time of the incident. They were driving in a Toyota Axio with Nyakundis son in the back seat. As they neared his house, Mr Nyakundi decided to change the position of his pistol in the car. Nyakundi, who turned himself in to the police, further told detectives that as he transferred the Glock from a pouch in the car to a holster, it discharged a single bullet that hit his son in the chest. He rushed Joseph to the Aga Khan Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He later went to Muthaiga Police station where he reported the matter. The police said they have visited the scene of the crime near the Judicial Training Institute in Muthaiga North and the Aga Khan University Hospital. The said firearm loaded with 14 rounds of 9mm bullets and the m/v have been kept as exhibits, added the police. Confirming the incident, Nairobi police boss Philip Ndolo said they are investigating the incident. It is unfortunate a life has been lost more so his son. We are looking into the incident, said Ndolo. Assa Nyakundi runs Nyakundi and Company Advocates law firm in Nairobi. He is currently representing Nyeri Magistrate Pauline Chesang who has been charged with the murder of her husband and lawyer Robert Chesang. He is also representing a number of suspects in the National Youth Service Two case. Nyakundi also represented controversial televangelist James Nganga who killed a woman through drunk driving in 2015. An illustration shows the police discovering the body of one of Jack the Rippers victims, probably Catherine Eddowes (Picture: Getty) Jack the Ripper has been unmasked as a 23-year-old Polish barber, according to new DNA tests carried out on a blood-stained shawl. Scientists say Aaron Kosminski, whose name has previously been connected to the case, was the notorious serial killer who murdered women on the streets of Victorian London. He has been named as the Ripper by researchers from two British universities, whose findings were published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. They said they had identified two sets of DNA traces for Kosminski and one of the Rippers victims, Catherine Eddowes. Aaron Kosminski has been named as Jack the Ripper by scientists Kosminski was a Polish Jewish immigrant who lived with his two brothers and sister in Greenfield Street, about 200 yards from where the third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was killed. The research was carried out by Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University and David Miller from the University of Leeds. They wrote: The killers identity has remained a mystery to date. Here, we describe the investigation of, to our knowledge, the only remaining physical evidence linked to these murders, recovered from one of the victims at the scene of the crime. Read more Police hunt for killers of Shetland pony that was found tied up and beaten in Yeovil Theresa May tells MPs back my Brexit deal or we will not leave EU for months, if ever Archaeologists slam Cadbury treasure hunt that could see prosecutions for trespassing We describe for the first time systematic, molecular level analysis of the only surviving physical evidence linked to the Jack the Ripper murders. Finding both matching profiles in the same piece of evidence enhances the statistical probability of its overall identification and reinforces the claim that the shawl is authentic. A scene from the 1959 film, Jack the Ripper (Picture: Getty) The shawl was bought by businessman Russell Edwards at auction in 2007, then handed over to the scientists. The item had been reportedly found next to Ms Eddowes body and was stained with what was believed to be her blood. She was killed on September 30, 1888 in Mitre Square, Whitechapel her kidney had been hacked out and her cheeks ripped apart. Story continues Scientists tested a shawl reportedly found at the scene of one of the murders (Picture: Getty) She was the second woman to be killed by Jack the Ripper that night Elizabeth Stride had her throat slit earlier the same evening. However, critics claim there is no evidence the shawl was found alongside Ms Eddowes body and say it may have been contaminated over time. Kosminski, who came to England in 1881, died in an asylum in 1899 of gangrene in the leg. Jack the Ripper murdered at least five women in Whitechapel, slashing their throats and removing some of their organs. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Did Joe Biden accidentally reveal his plans to run for the White House? Or was it just another slip of the tongue by the former vice president with a reputation for veering off script? In a keynote speech at a dinner for the Delaware Democratic Party on Saturday, Mr Biden boasted he has the most progressive record of anybody running. The only problem is Mr Biden has not announced whether he will launch a third run for the White House, despite repeatedly teasing the possibility. He quickly corrected himself, clarifying that he meant to say anybody who would run, then adding I didnt mean it while a cheering crowd in his home state nearly drowned him out. Although Mr Biden has been known to go off script, his remark is likely to be viewed as a Washington-style gaffe a case of accidentally telling the truth. During the rest of his speech he sounded very much like a candidate-in-waiting. He repeatedly attacked Donald Trump, accusing him of stoking division and anger, and bemoaned the ascendant new left of his own party has criticised him for being cordial towards Republicans. The only thing strong enough to tear America apart is America itself and weve seen its start, he said. Mr Biden accused Mr Trump of backing away from Americas role as a leader on the world stage and abandoning its allies. He said it is no coincidence that fake news one of Mr Trumps favourite labels has become the phrase of choice for every despot terrorising his people. Were literally in a battle for the soul of America, he said. More than a dozen Democrats have already launched formal 2020 presidential campaigns. After former Texas representative Beto ORourkes entered the race last week, Mr Biden, who is his partys best-known and best-connected presidential prospect, is the last major contender to remain on the sidelines. But that did not stop the friendly home-state crowd from revelling in the idea that he will jump in. I told him recently I have one campaign left in me, said Sonia Schorr Sloan, a fundraiser and long-time Biden adviser. Story continues Delaware governor John Carney said Mr Biden doesnt just look like hes back. He looks like hes ready for a fight. Just minutes before Mr Bidens slip of the tongue, though, Mr Carney raised the possibility of a Biden campaign with a bit more delicacy. I am not up here to break any news tonight, Mr Carney told the crowd. Then he added: In my humble opinion, we have never needed Joe Biden more than we need him right now. Associated Press American Idol has also been a family-oriented show, and this Sunday, it showcased a special, different sort of American family story -- when 19-year-old Elizabeth Gaba showed up for her audition with both her mother and her biological egg donor. Elizabeths rendition of Adeles All I Ask was technically impressive; like all Adele songs, it is not easy to sing, and she pulled it off. But it was a very theater-schooled performance, and judge Luke Bryan told her, You have a very pretty, polished voice. Dont ever be afraid to throw in a little grit. The real emotional impact came when the judges, upon hearing Gabas unique family background, invited her two mamas into the audition room. Elizabeth, who goes by the simple stage name Gaba, was conceived by anonymous egg donation, and she recently found the donor, a woman named Amy, who she now considers to be one of her closest friends. And it turned out Gaba has inherited Amys talent: Shes a member of the same USC a cappella group, the SoCal VoCals, that Amy sang with years ago. (As it turns out, Amy donated her egg in order to pay for college, which is a lot more than unenthusiastic USC student Olivia Jade was willing to do.) Amy joined Gaba for an audition-room duet on a second song, and their lilting voices were astonishingly similar, proving that music is indeed in Gabas genes. The moment was so magical that a crying Katy Perry -- who told the three women, Your story is a miracle -- attempted to call her own mom. Sadly, her mothers voicemail box was full. But thankfully, so were everyones hearts. Don't forget to check out Yahoo Play - our new interactive app where you can cash in your points and get tons of cool stuff! Download it now in the app store. Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: Follow Lyndsey on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, Spotify. Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle's newsletter. Lima (AFP) - Jailed opposition leader Keiko Fujimori refused to speak to Peru's public prosecutor on Monday as part of a corruption case linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. Prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez wanted to interview the Popular Force leader over allegations of unlawful campaign financing ahead of the 2011 and 2016 elections. "She expressed her will to remain silent during the session. It's her right to stay silent or abstain from speaking and that must be respected," said Perez after leaving the women's prison where Fujimori has been held since October 31. She was ordered to be held in pre-trial detention for up to three years. Perez needed a police cordon to help him leave the prison as he came under attack from Fujimori's supporters. Water bottles and other objects were thrown by Fujimori's supporters, who chanted: "Keiko, you're not alone, your people are here." Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori -- himself jailed for human rights abuses -- accused Perez of lacking impartiality. "After living through abuses and excesses, as a result of the lack of justice, I decided to take advantage of my right to silence before a public prosecutor who, in my case, has lost all sight of objectivity," Fujimori wrote on Twitter. Fujimori's lawyer, Giulliana Loza said the silence was nothing more than her client exercising a right. Fujimori is accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party funding from Odebrecht for her 2011 presidential campaign. Prosecutors have accused a total of 11 people linked to Fujimori's Popular Force party of running "a criminal organization" in order to raise illicit funding for her 2011 campaign. The Brazilian company has admitted paying at least $29 million in bribes to Peruvian officials since 2004. Four former presidents are under investigation in relation to the multi-million dollar region-wide Odebrecht corruption scandal. Fujimori's incarceration has seriously damaged her prospects of standing in the 2021 presidential elections. Her father, president from 1990-2000, is serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity and corruption. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand officially threw her hat into the ring for president on Sunday, joining an already crowded field of Democratic 2020 candidates. Im running for president. Lets prove that brave wins. Join me: https://t.co/I1vp93LBUR pic.twitter.com/Giu4u4KEZQ Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) March 17, 2019 The Albany native, 52, adopted the national anthem as the theme of her announcement video, which she shared on Twitter over the weekend. It asks, Will brave win?' the New York Democrat said of The Star-Spangled Banner. Well, it hasnt always. And it isnt right now. Brave doesnt pit people against each other. Brave doesnt put money over lives. Brave doesnt spread hate, cloud truth, build a wall. Thats what fear does, she says to images of President Trump, the National Rifle Association, and the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Gillibrand had long been expected to launch a presidential bid and said in January that she was exploring a run. She has already visited Iowa and New Hampshire, among other campaign stops. The ten-year senator promised to take on the fights others wont and stressed her platform of universal health care, paid family leave, the green new deal, stricter gun control legislation, and campaign finance reform. Recently, Gillibrand attracted unflattering headlines over the departure of a female staffer at her Senate office over a male staffers unwanted sexual advances, dampening the senators record of fighting against sexual assault in the military. She also noted that she turned a red district blue against all odds in 2006 when she was elected to represent a conservative upstate New York district, although at the time she held a tougher stance on illegal immigration and supported less gun control than she currently advocates. Story continues Gillibrands campaign so far has been heavy on references to Trump, a route other Democratic candidates have balked at. The senator will hold a rally later this month outside Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York City, a shot across the bow at the president. She is currently polling at only one percent. Vice President Joe Biden, who is expected to announce a 2020 run soon, polls at the highest level of all the Democratic presidential candidates. More from National Review Boris Johnson was accused of racism following the New Zealand terror attack. (PA) Boris Johnson has been accused of racism by a Labour MP following the New Zealand terrorist attack. Mr Johnson was criticised for his jibe last year about Muslim women in burkas by Labour MP Wes Streeting (Ilford North), who linked the comments to the massacre of nearly 50 Muslims in Christchurch. Mr Streeting demanded to know when the Tories would tackle the racists in their ranks, including in this House, during an urgent question in the Commons on far right violence and online extremism. The kind of prejudice that slaughtered innocent people in Christchurch doesnt begin with a gunman mowing down people in their place of worship, he said. Labour Wes Streeting MP accused the prominent Brexiteer of racism It begins with unchecked prejudice, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our communities, thats amplified by the pages of national mainstream media outlets that should know better. Im afraid its also legitimised by people, who purport to be mainstream politicians who aspire to the highest office, who describe Muslim women as bank robbers and pillar boxes without any reaction. Security Minister Ben Wallace agreed it was important to eradicate racists from both the Tories and Labour, including my friends and my colleagues. Read more: At least one killed after shooting in Dutch city of Utrecht No-one noticed meteor exploding over Earth in November Teenager stabbed in far-right incident in Surrey He said: I totally agree with everything he has said, that we have to caution what we say and what we inspire in the privileged places that we live as political leaders in this society, and that goes for my friends, my colleagues and my opponents on the opposition benches. Mr Wallace also attacked Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for supporting Irish nationalism that had a violent streak. Mr Streeting had earlier shouted Boris Johnson across the Chamber when his Labour colleague Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) called for zero tolerance for those dripping the poison of racism into public discourse. h3>Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) The Latest on the mosque shootings in New Zealand (all times local): 11:45 a.m. New Zealand's international spy agency has confirmed it had not received any relevant information or intelligence ahead of last week's deadly mass shooting on two mosques. The Government Communications Security Bureau also said in a statement on Monday night that it welcomed an inquiry that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has ordered into intelligence and security services that failed to detect the risk from the attacker or his plans. There have been concerns intelligence agencies were overly focused on the Muslim community in detecting and preventing security risks. On Friday, a white supremacist went on a shooting rampage in two mosques in Christchurch, killing 50 people. ___ 11:20 a.m. Australia's prime minister has urged world leaders to crack down on social media companies that broadcast terrorist attacks in the aftermath of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has written to G-20 chairman Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calling for agreement on "clear consequences" for companies whose platforms are used to facilitate and normalize horrific acts. Australian Brenton Tarrant has been charged with murder over the attack on two mosques in Christchurch that killed 50 people and left another 50 injured. The attacks were live-streamed on Facebook. Morrison says: "Social media companies are international businesses and it's up to the international community to force them to act." ___ 6 a.m. Tuesday Authorities say alleged Christchurch mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant arrived in Hungary as a tourist last November on a train that runs between Timisoara, Romania, and Budapest, Hungary. Hungary's Counter-Terrorism Center said in a statement that Brenton Tarrant entered the country Nov. 26, 2018 at the border railway crossing in Lokoshaza, about 250 kilometers (155 miles), southeast of Budapest. Story continues Tarrant is accused of shooting worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand last week. Fifty people have died and dozens are still hospitalized. The statement says said Tarrant was traveling by himself when he entered Hungary, did not appear on any terrorist databases, had not been flagged by authorities elsewhere and would have been allowed to stay in Hungary for up to 90 days without a visa. The center says it is still investigating what Tarrant did and where he went while he was in Hungary. __ 2 a.m. President Donald Trump says he is being unfairly blamed for the New Zealand mosque attacks in which 50 people died. Trump tweeted that the media "is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand." He adds: "They will have to work very hard to prove that one." The gunman in last week's attacks left a document in which he called himself a white nationalist and referred to Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity." Trump had expressed sympathy for the victims, but played down the threat of white nationalism across the world, saying he didn't consider it a rising threat despite data suggesting it's growing. In the past, Trump has drawn criticism for saying "both sides" were to blame for violence at a deadly white supremacist demonstration. ___ 1:30 a.m. Turkey's president has shown parts of a video taken by the attacker who killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand to comment on what he called rising Islamophobia. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed the clips during campaign rallies for March 31 local elections. The video, which was blurred but had clear sounds of automatic gunfire, was shown to thousands of people at the rallies and was aired live on Turkish television. Erdogan used the video to comment on attacks on Islam and rising Islamophobia. He referred to a manifesto by the suspected attacker, Brenton Tarrant, in which he threatened Turks and vowed to make Istanbul "Christian owned once more." New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Monday he told his Turkish counterpart the video doesn't represent New Zealand. ___ 1 a.m. The top cleric in the Muslim World League is traveling to New Zealand to pray for the victims of an attack on two mosques that killed 50 people. The Saudi-based league said Monday that Secretary General Sheikh Mohammad Alissa will offer condolences to families of the victims, pray for the dead and visit the wounded. An Australian white supremacist is charged with murder in the shootings. After Friday's attack in Christchurch, Alissa issued a statement saying the barbarity and hatred displayed in the shootings "parallel" the violent acts of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. He said governments and faith organizations need to work together to encourage religious tolerance and understanding. ___ 12:30 a.m. Pakistanis are observing a day of mourning to remember victims of the New Zealand mosque attacks and honor a man who died after trying to tackle the gunman. Nine Pakistanis were among the 50 people killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch during Friday prayers. Among the slain worshippers was Naeem Rashid, a 50-year-old Pakistani who tried to snatch the gun from the attacker. Rashid moved to New Zealand from Pakistan with his family when he was 11. On Monday, Pakistan's flag was flying at half-staff as a sign of respect for the victims. Government officials, opposition leaders, relatives and friends visited the homes of Pakistanis killed in New Zealand to convey their condolences. Relatives and family members of the slain Pakistanis said the victims were "martyrs." ___ 9 p.m., Monday Australian TV news networks have shown what they say are the mother and sister of alleged Christchurch mass killer Brenton Tarrant returning to their homes in eastern Australia with police searching for clues in the New Zealand mosque attacks. Tarrant, an Australian, grew up in the New South Wales town of Grafton. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he has only spent 45 days in Australia in the past three years. The two people identified as mother Sharon Tarrant and sister Lauren Tarrant did not comment to the media after police searched their homes. They are reportedly in protective police custody. Nine News said they returned to their homes for the first time Monday since at least 50 people were slaughtered in Christchurch last Friday. The mother lives in the New South Wales town of Lawrence and the sister in Sandy Beach. Australian police said the aim of the search was to obtain material that could help New Zealand police in their investigation of the attack. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the Australian police searches "haven't discovered any matters that would threaten their public." ___ 6:15 p.m. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush says gunman who killed 50 people and wounded others at two Christchurch mosques acted alone but may have had support. Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant was arrested moments after the shootings on Friday. He was charged with a single count of murder and a judge said Saturday he may face other charges. Bush said at a Monday news conference that "We believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this." But he added that the support of other people hasn't been ruled out and is "a very, very important part of our investigation." ___ 5:20 p.m. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says gun law reforms will be announced within 10 days following the Christchurch shootings that killed 50 people. She said Cabinet ministers had met and made an in-principle decision to tighten gun ownership but details still need to be worked out. Ardern also announced an inquiry into the country's intelligence services. The Australian white supremacist charged in the massacre wasn't detected before his well-planned attack on two mosques and there have been concerns intelligence agencies were overly focused on the Muslim community in detecting and preventing security risks. ___ 5 p.m. Australia is making public grants available to help places of worship bolster security after an Australian white supremacist was accused of a terror attack in New Zealand. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says 55 million Australian dollars ($39 million) in total will be made available to add security video, fencing, lighting and alarms. Morrison says religious freedom has to start with the right to worship and meet safely without fear of violence. Australian Brenton Tarrant was charged with murder over the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch in which 50 people were killed. He grew up in the New South Wales town of Grafton and had lived in New Zealand in recent years. THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) The Latest on a shooting in a tram in the Netherlands (all times local): 8 p.m. Turkey's foreign ministry has condemned the Utrecht tram shooting that killed at least three people. In a written statement Monday, the ministry said it "strongly" condemned the attack, "regardless of the identity of the perpetrator and the motivation behind it." Police in Utrecht released the picture of a 37-year-old man, identified as Turkey-born Gokmen Tanis, who they said was linked to the incident. A suspect is now in custody in the Netherlands. The Turkish ministry said it stood with the Dutch people and the government. Diplomatic relations were shattered in 2017 after the Netherlands blocked Turkish government officials from holding campaign rallies for a referendum back home that expanded presidential powers. Turkey's president, in campaign speeches, compared Dutch and German politicians to Nazis and fascists. The two countries re-appointed ambassadors in September 2018 to "normalize relations." The ministry said earlier that Turkish and Dutch officials would meet Tuesday to discuss "bilateral relations" and cooperation. ___ This item has been corrected to show that Turkey-born man's last name is Tanis, not Taskin. ___ 7:40 p.m. The Dutch justice minister has told The Associated Press that the suspect in the Utrecht tram attack had a criminal record. Ferd Grapperhaus said it was too early to say whether the attack suspect had a terror motive but acknowledged he had a criminal history. He warned against early speculation about motives and said "it is important that now the independent investigation will thoroughly go through" the evidence. "Yes, the suspect was known within the justice department. He had a criminal record. That is indeed what we know. I can give no more details." Local networks said that the suspect had been charged several times over the past years, anything from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. The networks said that only two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of woman in 2017. Story continues ___ 7:20 p.m. The Dutch justice minister says the attacker in the deadly tram shooting in Utrecht "was known" to authorities. Ferd Grapperhaus was speaking shortly after the Utrecht police chief announced that the gunman was detained. Grapperhaus didn't provide further details about how the suspect was known to authorities. Prime Minister Mark Rutte, speaking at the same news conference, said some of the wounded "are still in critical condition." Rutte said "three people are dead, three people are fighting for their lives. There was an attack today in the Netherlands if it had terror motives, that is being investigated. But it was very serious. The world shares our grief." The attack killed at least three people and wounded five others. ___ 7 p.m. Dutch authorities have reduced the threat level in the central city of Utrecht back to four out of five following the arrest of the suspect in the city's deadly tram shooting. The country's counterterror coordinator announced the scaling down of the threat level in a tweet Monday evening. He says the decision was prompted by "the arrest of the main suspect of the shooting." A level four terror alert is in line with the rest of the Netherlands. The decision came shortly after police announced the arrest at the end of a nationally televised press conference. Three people were killed in Monday's shooting and five were wounded, according to police. ___ 6:40 p.m. Utrecht's police chief says the suspect in the deadly tram shooting in the Dutch city has been detained. At the end of a news conference Monday evening in Utrecht, police chief Rob van Bree told reporters: "I just heard that the suspect we were hunting has been arrested." Further details were not immediately available. ___ 6:25 p.m. The father of the suspect in the Utrecht tram shooting says his son should be punished if he's to blame. Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey who they said was "associated with the incident." The photo identified him as Gokmen Tanis. Police say three people were killed in the shooting Monday and five wounded. Mehmet Tanis, his father who lives in Turkey's central Kayseri province, told the private Demiroren news agency that he hadn't spoken to his son in 11 years. He says "if he did it, he should pay the penalty." Separately, Turkey's official Anadolu news agency said the suspect's relatives believe he shot at someone close to the family due to "family issues." ___ 4:45 p.m. Police in Utrecht say they are reducing to five the number of people who were injured in a deadly shooting on a tram in the Dutch city. Earlier, police said nine people had been wounded in the shooting on Monday. The death toll of three in the shooting has not changed. Dutch police announced the updated number of wounded in a tweet but did not immediately give a reason for changing the number. Heavily armed police are now in a manhunt in the central Dutch city, searching for the suspect. ___ 4:30 p.m. The mayor of Utrecht has withdrawn advice issued earlier by his municipality for the city's residents to stay indoors in the aftermath of a deadly shooting on a tram. Mayor Jan van Zanen says in a video tweeted by the Utrecht municipality that the earlier advice to remain indoors was based on fears that shots had been fired at more than one location in the city. He now says "that is not the case, as far as we know." Van Zanen says police are hunting for a suspect in the shooting that left three dead and nine injured. He says "there could be other suspects, we don't know yet." ___ 3:10 p.m. The mayor of the Dutch city of Utrecht says that three people have been killed in an attack on a tram and adds that a "terror motive" is the most plausible option. Jan van Zanen also said that nine have been wounded, three of them seriously. Van Zanen said that "we cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more." Dutch authorities have named a 37-year-old Turkey-born man as linked to the tram shooting. ___ 2:55 p.m. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says that the Netherlands has been hit by an attack in Utrecht and that terrorism isn't excluded, after one person was killed in a tram shooting along with an unknown number of wounded. Rutte says that "our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht. It is clear there were shots on tram passengers in Utrecht, that there are wounded," without specifying how many. He said that "a terror motive is not excluded." Rutte said that throughout the nation, "there is a mix of disbelief and disgust." He said "if it is terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence." Dutch authorities have named a 37-year-old Turkey-born man as linked to the tram shooting. ___ 2:30 p.m. Dutch authorities have named a 37-year-old Turkey-born man as linked to the tram shooting in the central Dutch town of Utrecht. Police showed the picture of a bearded man sitting on public transport and dressed in a dark blue top with a hood tucked in his neck. Police identified him as Gokmen Tanis. It was the first image distributed of someone linked to the shooting. Police warned citizens not to approach the man but call authorities instead. __ This item has been corrected to show that the spelling of Turkey-born man's name is Gokmen, not Gokman. ___ 1:30 p.m. German police say they have upped surveillance on the country's border with the Netherlands and are on the lookout for the gunman behind a shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for the federal police in the border state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told The Associated Press on Monday that additional police had been added to watch not only major highways, but also minor crossings as well as railway routes. He says the federal police are in close contact with authorities in the Netherlands and have a description of the suspect. He says initially German authorities were told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact sedan but now have been told it was found abandoned in Utrecht. ___ 1:15 p.m. Heavily armed anti-terror officers have gathered in front of an apartment block close to the scene of a deadly shooting on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht. Authorities say that a suspect is still on the run following the shooting late morning Monday in which one person was killed and police said multiple others were wounded. From the tram scene, security officials have moved to a location some 200 meters away where they are awaiting further instructions. Police said they were searching for the shooter "with all possible means." ___ 12:35 p.m. The Dutch anti-terror coordinator has raised the threat alert to its highest level around the central Dutch town of Utrecht following the shooting incident on a tram in the city, with the shooter still on the run. Anti-terror coordinator Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said in a statement that the "threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province," referring to the highest level. "The culprit is still on the run. A terror motive cannot be excluded," he said in a Twitter message. He called on citizens to closely follow the indications of the local police. Dutch police say they are looking for a least one person who might have fled by car. Spokesman Bernhard Jens did not exclude more people might be involved. "We want to try to catch the person responsible as soon as possible," Jens said. ___ 12:30 p.m. Police have erected a white tent over an area where a body appears to be lying next to a tram following reports of a shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Earlier, footage showed what appeared to be a body lying under a white blanket. Police had said that there were "multiple" people wounded in the shooting Monday morning. ___ 12:10 p.m. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say they are investigating a shooting in a tram that left "multiple" people injured and are considering the possibility of a "terrorist motive." Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting that happened Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the situation "very worrying" and the country's counterterror coordinator said in a tweet that a crisis team was meeting to discuss the situation. There have been no reports yet of any suspects arrested. ___ 11:40 a.m. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. Utrecht police say that trauma helicopters were sent to the scene Monday and they are appealing to the public to stay away to allow first responders to do their work. Further details were not immediately available. Legislators allied to the Orange Democratic Movement have warned Deputy President William Ruto against attacking Raila Odinga and interfering with party affairs. Led by Party Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna, the MPs rebuked the DP accusing him of being against the fight against corruption. They claimed that Dr Ruto is discontented with the March 9, 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga. The handshake was supposed to calm political temperatures and deal with longstanding issues such as corruption. Now you can see that after the war on corruption has been intensified, the corrupt have chosen to politicise this war and they are making noise all over the place and looking for diversions, said Sifuna at a press address in Nairobi on Sunday. He added: We dont want to be taken back to the issues that almost split this country. The handshake happened and those still living in the past and want to drag us back into the issues of elections let them not dare ODM because we have wounds that have begun to heal and if you want us to reopen that discussion we are very ready. Sifunas remarks were echoed by Rongo MP Paul Abuor who warned that they could introduce a motion to impeach DP Ruto if he continues being an impediment in the war against corruption. If the deputy president continues being an impediment in the fight against corruption, we as leaders are going to put a motion of impeachment of the deputy president in the National Assembly and get him out of office, said Abuor. On Saturday, DP Ruto took issue with Raila Odinga led ODM party saying it was hiding in the handshake deal to assume to power in 2022. They are after tearing apart the Jubilee party and derail its development projects so that it becomes campaign bait, Ruto said. They are serial liars whom Kenyans cannot believe in. Our plans on matters development will not be undermined by leaders who want to demean the Jubilee track record, added DP Ruto. He was speaking in West Pokot and Elgeyo Marakwet Counties during various meetings with wananchi. Ruto added: I know Raila Odinga, he has the tendency of breaking parties, he broke CORD, NARC, KANU, ODM and recently he disunited NASA. He is now in Jubilee to bring it down but he should be wary because we will protect our party and ensure that Kenyattas projects and legacy is upheld. He will not take us back to the politics of tribalism and disunity because he is known for negativity and destruction. By John Irish NAIROBI (Reuters) - On a trip to East Africa last week, a beaming French President Emmanuel Macron was driven through the grounds of the Kenyan president's official residence in a locally assembled Peugeot 3008 car. Two days earlier, he toured churches hewn into the rock in Ethiopia. On a visit last year, he went to a Nigerian nightclub. Macron, 41, is trying to recast the style of France's engagement in Africa, where it was once a colonial power, hoping that building warmer cultural and personal ties will help boost business, trade and investment. He signed contracts worth about 2 billion euros ($2.27 billion) while in Kenya, whereas British Prime Minister Theresa May did not conclude any on a similar trip last August. A consortium led by Vinci secured a 30-year concession worth 1.6 billion euros to operate a highway linking the Kenyan capital and Mau Summit in western Kenya. Renewables firm Voltalia sealed a 70-million-euro contract for a solar power plant and an Airbus-led consortium won a 200 million euro deal for coastal and maritime surveillance. But Macron's four-day tour of Kenya, Ethiopia and former colony Djibouti showed how big a battle France faces in Africa, where China, Turkey and others have moved in quickly and aggressively, and competition is fierce from African countries. In 2017, French exports to Kenya, a former British colony, were about $200 million -- about half Uganda's exports to its neighbor. China exported $3.8 billion, making it Kenya's biggest trading partner. The personal touch is vital when competing with China, French officials say. "We've always used that form of diplomacy to implant ourselves," said a French diplomat in the region. "But it becomes all the more important when facing China, because it differentiates us from their contract-oriented, low-cost, low-interest model of doing business." TOUGH TASK Trade figures across the continent show how tough the task ahead is for France, the world's sixth largest economy. From 2000 to 2017, the portion of all French exports that went to Africa halved from 11 percent to 5.5 percent. The main competition has come from Chinese goods, particularly in French-speaking West Africa. Since coming to office in May 2017, Macron, who spent several months as a diplomatic intern in Nigeria in the early 2000s, has visited 16 African states, with two visits each to Mali and Morocco. He has focused mainly on long-running relationships in French-speaking Africa, particularly the Sahel, where the responsibilities of the 4,500 French troops deployed there include fighting Islamic State. But he also has sought to build ties with Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia. Last week's trip was a chance for Macron to show that "for too long we treated these East African countries like Banana Republics and they don't like that," said a former French envoy. "They have resources, financial means and growth. "I'm not convinced that what is seen as 'our Africa' (France's former colonies) can offer the business opportunities we have elsewhere on the continent." France is now seeking more targeted investments in specific sectors. The national development agency pours about 5 billion euros a year into Africa yet that barely scratches the surface alongside the cheap loans, big infrastructure investments and financing by China. "It's not easy to develop these economic links," said Francois Gualme of the French Institute of International Relations, who worked for France's development agency. "There's a political presence, but the economic presence remains small." "FRANCE MUST COME BACK" In Ethiopia, Macron said he wanted a new economic relationship, but Beijing has also been forging economic ties with Addis Ababa. China rebuilt, and financed through a multi-billion dollar loan, the rail link between the Ethiopian capital and Djibouti that was constructed by the French in 1917. There are many signs of China's presence, including Chinese laborers building skyscrapers or greetings of "Ni Hao" from children. Some Ethiopians resent the Chinese influence and hark back to when French and European influence was felt more widely. Near the old French railway terminus in Addis Ababa, a group of former rail employees sat chatting in French at the Railway Workers' Club in between games of petanque. "You are from Paris, this is all from Paris," said one who gave his name only as Getachew. "France must come back." That sentiment was expressed elsewhere in Ethiopia, where France has said it will share its expertise to develop tourism and rebuild the landlocked country's navy. "China is bad for us," said Wonde, a 30-year-old taxi driver. "They bring China here -- workers, food, women -- and leave nothing for the Ethiopians." But the small group of business leaders that accompanied Macron on his trip showed few signs of cashing in on this sentiment. The delegation included the chief executive of telecoms group Orange, which wants to position itself in Ethiopia before the state telecoms operator is privatized, but its prospects are no clearer after the trip. Diplomats and members of the delegation said the potential is great in Ethiopia, a country of 100 million people, but complained about slow and excessive bureaucracy. "There's the political will from the prime minister, but the administration doesn't necessarily agree with everything that's being done," said one French executive. "It will take time to clear the bureaucratic hurdles." PROSPECTS IN KENYA In Kenya, an economy with a long record of enterprise and a British-style bureaucracy, the prospects appear brighter. Automaker Peugeot assembles two models in the country and a range of French companies -- from Vinci to water and waste utility Veolia, energy firm Total and electricity group EDF -- are vying for opportunities in the East African country. But French businesses account for just 1.4 percent of the total market share in Kenya, and France ranks only 17th among trading partners in the region's most dynamic economy. "The relationship is not so much unbalanced between our two countries," Macron said alongside Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. "It is worse -- it is weak to poor. Macron said France should develop manufacturing projects based in Kenya. Kenyatta appeared to welcome that but did not respond directly when asked what France could offer that China and other countries could not. There was, at least, success during the trip for a smaller business. Christophe Passelande, chief executive of Malteries Soufflet, said his barley malting company broke ground on a vast new plant on the outskirts of Nairobi he hopes will tap into Kenya's large and growing beer market. "When it comes to malting, the important actors are not Chinese," Passelande told Reuters. "Our industry has real French know-how, and because of that we're here first." But there is no sign that France is about to catch up with China in Ethiopia. Asked whether France was a preferable partner to China, an Ethiopian businessman accustomed to working with the Chinese said: "Why would we want to put all our eggs in one basket?" (Additional reporting by Marine Pennetier and Richard Lough; Editing by Luke Baker and Timothy Heritage) PHOENIX (AP) A man has been arrested for allegedly threatening and intimidating members of a northwest Phoenix mosque. Police say 40-year-old Noel Thomas Becht was taken into custody Saturday night on suspicion of trespassing, disorderly conduct and threatening and intimidating. Authorities have ramped up surveillance around local mosques since a man opened fire Friday on two mosques in New Zealand, killing 50 people. Phoenix police say Becht entered the United Islamic Center of Arizona, said he was curious about the Muslim religion and asked to sit in on a prayer service. He later entered rooms he wasn't permitted to be in without invitation and asked unusual questions regarding mosque service times. When questioned by one of the mosque leaders, Becht allegedly put his finger to his neck and made a sawing motion. Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) announced Monday that he will not support the recently introduced Equality Act as it is currently written, breaking from the rest of his caucus in arguing that the legislation, which would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, will be too difficult to implement. Senate Democrats on Wednesday re-introduced the bill, which was first introduced in 1974 and would prohibit employers, landlords, school administrators, and others from discriminating against transgender and homosexual Americans. In a statement, Manchin said that he would be open to supporting the bill with some unspecified changes, but could not support it as it stands now. I strongly support equality for all people and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, the statement read. No one should be afraid of losing their job or losing their housing because of their sexual orientation. After speaking with local education officials in West Virginia, I am not convinced that the Equality Act as written provides sufficient guidance to the local officials who will be responsible for implementing it, particularly with respect to students transitioning between genders in public schools. I will continue working with the sponsors of the bill to build broad bipartisan support and find a viable path forward for these critical protections so that I can vote in support of this bill. The bill, which was introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D., Wisc.), would expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes, in a move progressive lawmakers argue is in keeping with the spirit of the original legislation. We have introduced the Equality Act because everybody deserves to have the same opportunities and the same opportunity to chase their ambitions and the same shot at success, Baldwin told Elle. The Equality Act is our answer to this challenge. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D. Calif.) vowed during an October speech to prioritize the passage of the Equality Act if her caucus reclaimed the House majority, and reaffirmed that promise during her maiden speech as speaker in January. Story continues We will make America fairer by passing the Equality Act to end discrimination against the LGBTQ community, Pelosi said while accepting the speakership. The bills critics, however, claim that any federal mandate that ties federal funding to a certain view of how biology and gender intersect likely violates a number of constitutional rights. Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of Alliance Defending Freedoms U.S. legal division, told the Catholic News Agency that the legislation would undermine the fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, and conscience that the First Amendment guarantees for every citizen. Disagreement on important matters such as marriage and human sexuality is not discrimination, she added. Manchin is the lone Senate Democrat publicly opposing the bill and he is joined by just one fellow Democrat in the House, Representative Dan Lipinski of Illinois. More from National Review (ITV) Michael Buerk has waded into the Comic Relief white saviour row, saying that he believes celebrities posing on charity missions infantilises Africans. In February, David Lammy MP had got into a spat with Strictly Come Dancing winner Stacey Dooley when she posted social media snaps of her holding an African child during a Comic Relief trip, telling her The world does not need any more white saviours. Read more: How the David Lammy and Stacey Dooley race row escalated Now, journalist Buerk has said that he agrees with the politician after a weekend which saw the charitys latest campaign fall 8 million short of its last fundraiser. The world does not need any more white saviours. As I've said before, this just perpetuates tired and unhelpful stereotypes. Let's instead promote voices from across the continent of Africa and have serious debate.https://t.co/LySa0BXeyi David Lammy (@DavidLammy) February 27, 2019 Buerk told Good Morning Britain: I think David Lammy has got a point. It makes you feel slightly uncomfortable Comic Relief does a fantastic job, and does it normally pretty sensitively, raises an enormous amount of money, but more importantly raises consciousness about those particular issues and should be applauded for that. But you know, there is something rather uncomfortable about celebrities jetting in and posingit kind of infantilises Africans in a way that I find rather uncomfortable. However, the former South Africa correspondent whose 1980s reporting on the Ethiopian famine inspired Band Aid added: But having said that, I spent a decade as a kind of business class misery tourist, going from war to famine and all the rest of it, making a living out of it, so who am I to complain. Read more: Comic Relief defends Stacey Dooley Host Piers Morgan asked Buerk about Lammys suggestion that concentrating on poverty in Africa took attention away from progress being made in the area. Story continues David, is the issue with me being white? (Genuine question) because if thats the case, you could always go over there and try raise awareness? Comic relief have raised over 1 billion pounds since they started. I saw projects that were saving lives with the money. Kids lives. https://t.co/pPgez9OxN8 Stacey Dooley (@StaceyDooley) February 27, 2019 Buerk said: Thats a really difficult argument its an easy argument to make, but its so complex, there are still countries that are in the most desperate of straits and what we do to help them is I think important, and we dont think enough about it, we think in cliche terms all the time. Theyre improving loads and loads of peoples lives, but on the other hand, we tend to now categorise Africans as victims who are incapable of helping themselves, whereas actually if you go and live in Africa, you find that they have robust ways of dealing with things and there are really positive things to say. Read more: David Lammy denies he snubbed Comic Relief But Buerk didnt seem to agree with presenter Susanna Reids suggestion that the white saviour row had contributed to 8 million less being raised than during the previous Comic Reief. He said: Do you think that was a direct result of this controversy, or the fact that people get a kind of compassion fatigue about these things? EBU Photography March 18, 2019 When a mom named Jessica Trinkle was just over 23 weeks into her pregnancy, she learned that her baby boy, who she named Parker, had a lesion on his spinal cord. He was soon diagnosed with Spina Bifida, a type of neural tube defect (NTD) that affects the spine and is usually apparent at birth. But given the information Trinkle received before welcoming Parker, she obviously wanted to do everything she could for him, as soon as possible. "In the midst of searching for any ounce of hope, I then came across myelomenigocele, a form of Spina Bifida that allows mothers to undergo open fetal surgery to prevent further damage," she told Scary Mommy. According to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, fetal Spina Bifida surgery is a "delicate procedure during which fetal surgeons open the uterus and close the opening in the baby's back while they are still in the womb. Fetal Spina Bifida surgery is shown to offer significantly better results than traditional repair after birth. Because spinal cord damage is progressive during gestation, prenatal repair of myelomeningocele may prevent further damage." They even have a video of the surgery being performed. Trinkle explained to FOX8 that after learning more about the operation, she and her husband spoke with a specialist. The neurosurgeon brought up fetal surgery, and my first words were, 'Yes, thats what I need to do,' she said. "'Let's do it.'" She and her husband Spenser and their 2-year-old Aria traveled to Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies. The health care providers there explained that this was the fourth surgery of its kind done at the hospital, but the doctor had already done 60 surgeries at other hospitals. Trinkle was 25 weeks along when she underwent the procedure. The surgery itself was extensive and consisted of a team of more than 13 doctors and nurses, Trinkle explained. Together, our surgeons made about a 10-inch incision into my abdomen, which is then followed by about a 5-inch incision into the uterus. Mock amniotic fluids are also infused constantly into the uterus to keep the fluid levels safe for Parker and me. Story continues The surgery went well, and afterward, Trinkle spent three weeks in Orlando recovering and following her medical team's orders. On February 6, when she was 37 weeks along, Parker was born via C-section. I was so thankful that all these people in the room invested their time and knowledge into my son in helping give my son the best possible outcome in life, she said. Everything went so well, in fact, that Parker became the first baby in 70 years to be born with Spina Bifida and not admitted to the NICU. To mark Parker's heartwarming arrival, EBU Photography captured the beautiful family of four in this stunning newborn shoot. EBU Photography EBU Photography On March 6, Spenser took to the family's Facebook page Positively Parker to share a sweet update: Today little man is 1 month and in that month our world has changed. Although at times that change has been overwhelming, I can honestly say he has made this family stronger than I ever knew possible. Of course I wish I could say my son was perfectly healthy and didnt have special needs, yet at the same time, Ive come to realize: he is just that special. Beira (Mozambique) (AFP) - A cyclone that slammed into Mozambique last week has damaged or destroyed 90 percent of the city of Beira, the Red Cross said Monday, as the death toll in the country and neighbouring Zimbabwe rose to 157. "The scale of damage caused by cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement. It said 90 percent of Beira and its surrounds are "damaged or destroyed". A large dam burst on Sunday and cut off the last road to the city of some 530,000 people, the statement added. Idai tore into the centre of the country on Thursday before continuing on to Zimbabwe, bringing flash floods and ferocious winds, washing away roads and houses. A toll compiled Monday by AFP from official sources puts the death toll in Mozambique at 68, including 55 in Beira alone, and 89 in Zimbabwe, up from a previous toll of 127. "The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous, the IFRC's Jamie LeSueur was quoted as saying in the statement. "Almost everything is destroyed. Communication lines have been completely cut and roads have been destroyed. Some affected communities are not accessible," he said. "Beira has been severely battered. But we are also hearing that the situation outside the city could be even worse." The IFRC warned that the death toll could rise once the full scale of the devastation is known, with further heavy rains are forecast. Kenya Power is targetting at least 2,000 buildings as demolition of illegal structures on power line reserves enters its second week today, Monday 18, after a long hiatus. Kenya Power Security Services Manager Geoffrey Kigen said about 700 illegal structures were flattened last week in the operation dubbed Ondokea Laini. This week they will be bringing down structures in Mihango, Mowlem and Dandora power substation. Last week, the operation was done in some parts of Buruburu Farmers land. We gave them notices in December last year, done sensitisations, marked the buildings on the wayleaves and told the owners to remove them. Apparently, some had not done so and those are the ones we are removing. This week we will concentrate on the main KPLC line, said Mr Kigen. Mr Kigen noted that Ondokea Laini is a multi-agency operation involving over 20 government agencies. We have removed thousands of such illegal structures and we have around 2, 000 structures pending, he said. The power firm notes that there are thousands of buildings illegally built on wayleaves that stretch 5,300km countrywide. Since the demolition exercise was first launched in March last year, at least 10,000 illegal structures extending 6km have been removed in Imara Daima, Mukuru kwa Njenga, Mukuru kwa Reuben and Sinai village. Other areas mapped for demolitions include Tena, Umoja Phase 1, Inner Core, Embakasi Baraka Estate to Tassia Estate, Mathare Valley slums. The illegal and unsafe structures not only pose a danger to the squatters in the event of an electrical accident, but also deny us the ability to maintain our power supply lines, noted Kigen as quoted by Nation.co.ke. Kenya Power guidelines allow structures built 20 metres on either side of a 220kV power line and 15 metres on either side of a 132kV line. The agencies involved in the operation include the Nairobi City County Government, the National Disaster Management Unit, the National Construction Authority, the National Environment Management Authority, Kenya Pipeline Corporation, the National Building Inspectorate, Kenya Railway Corporation, Water Resource Authority, and the National Police Service. YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's army said on Monday it had set up a military court to investigate its conduct during a crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017 that forced more than 730,000 to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The court comprising a major-general and two colonels will investigate events in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in August 2017, the military said in a statement posted on the website of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the army commander-in-chief. "The information is released that the investigation court was formed with the following persons to further scrutinize and confirm the respective incidents," the military said. The court will respond to allegations made by the United Nations and rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accusing security forces of mass killings, rape and arson. Myanmar forces launched their offensive in Rakhine State in response to a series of attacks by Rohingya insurgents on security posts near the Bangladesh border. A U.N. fact-finding mission last year said the military campaign was orchestrated with "genocidal intent" and recommended charging Min Aung Hlaing and five other generals with the "gravest crimes under international law". Myanmar has denied the accusations of murder, rape and other abuses by its forces though Min Aung Hlaing said last month "a number of security men may have been involved". A previous military investigation in 2017 exonerated the security forces of any crimes. The new court is "another bad faith maneuver" to fend off international pressure, said Nicholas Bequelin, Southeast Asia and Pacific Director of Amnesty International. "The military stands accused of the gravest crimes under international law and has shown no sign of reform," he said. "The idea that the Tatmadaw could investigate itself and ensure justice and accountability is both dangerous and delusional," Bequelin added, referring to the army. Story continues The military information unit did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Myanmar is facing growing international calls for accountability over the Rakhine campaign. The International Criminal Court has opened a preliminary examination into the violence, while a commission of enquiry formed by Myanmar and including Filipino diplomat Rosario Manalo and Kenzo Oshima, Japan's former ambassador to the U.N., is due to publish its findings this year. The creation of the military court was based on assessments and suggestions from the military-appointed Judge Advocate-General, as well the allegations contained in human rights reports, according to the army statement. (Editing by Darren Schuettler) London (AFP) - The Democratic Unionist Party, whose votes Prime Minister Theresa May is courting to save her Brexit deal, is a hardline Northern Irish group whose tough negotiating tactics were honed in a civil war. Rather than willingness to compromise, "no" has more often been the watchword of the DUP, known for fiery rhetoric and steely determination. With a power-broker role in the British parliament and its position on the Irish border holding up approval of a divorce deal with Brussels, the party is at the sharp end of Brexit. Their role is even bigger in the Brexit endgame: with less than two weeks to go until the scheduled departure date, a growing group of holdouts say they will switch sides and back May's agreement if she manages to get the DUP onside. The group's 10 members of parliament in the lower House of Commons have propped up May's Conservative government since a June 2017 snap general election. The Conservatives lost their majority and turned to their fellow right-wingers for support in a "confidence and supply" deal. The agreement came at a price of 1.0 billion ($1.3 billion, 1.15 billion euros) in extra funding for Northern Ireland, a payment May's government is expected to renew in the coming months. Though the DUP opposes May's current Brexit deal, it kept its word and fended off an opposition bid to bring down her government in January. In any Brexit deal with the European Union, the party wants Northern Ireland to be treated exactly the same as the rest of the United Kingdom. The DUP is concerned that the agreement could accord Northern Ireland a different economic status from mainland Britain and lock the country as a whole indefinitely into the EU's customs union. The DUP campaigned for Brexit but is also faced with concern in Northern Ireland about the possible reimposition of physical checks on the Irish border. It is feared that a so-called hard border could threaten the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to decades of civil strife between British Protestants and Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. Story continues On the lowest UK regional turnout of 63 percent, 56 percent in Northern Ireland backed the UK staying in the EU. The DUP are the only Northern Irish party in the British parliament: Irish republicans Sinn Fein do not take their seven seats and there is one independent unionist. The four other major parties in the province -- who were all against Brexit -- fear the DUP is not representing the views of Northern Ireland as a whole. - 'Christian fundamentalist' party - Deeply socially and economically conservative, the DUP is rooted in Northern Ireland's Protestant, pro-British community. The self-styled "Christian fundamentalist" party has softened its fiery anti-Catholicism since it was founded by Protestant evangelical minister Ian Paisley in 1971. But the party that in 1977 launched the "Save Ulster (Northern Ireland) from Sodomy" campaign still holds hardline religious views, particularly on issues such as abortion. It was a surprise to many in 2005 when Paisley agreed to enter a power-sharing arrangement with socialists Sinn Fein -- once the political mouthpiece of the Irish Republican Army paramilitaries. Although the Northern Ireland Assembly appeared to operate with reasonable cordiality for several years, the power-sharing executive collapsed in January 2017, with Sinn Fein citing a breakdown in trust. The Irish republicans have blamed the DUP's deal with May's government for the failure to get a devolved Northern Irish government up and running again. A Nasa astronaut carrying out a space walk. The agency has conducted research which shows the herpes virus can flare up in space. Stock image. NASA has issued a warning about space herpes after a study found the virus was reactivating in crew aboard Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. According to the agency, while only a small proportion of the astronauts develop symptoms as a result of the dormant virus awakening, it could spell danger for longer spaceflight missions for instance to Mars. NASA astronauts endure weeks or even months exposed to microgravity and cosmic radiation not to mention the extreme G forces of take-off and re-entry, said Dr Satish Mehta. This physical challenge is compounded by more familiar stressors like social separation, confinement and an altered sleep-wake cycle, added Dr Mehta, senior author of the paper and academic at the Johnson Space Centre. A transmission electron microscopy image of the human herpes virus (Photo by: BSIP/UIG via Getty Images) Fronties in Microbiology has published the journal which reveals serious concerns about previous herpes viruses, including chicken pox, shingles and cold sores, reactivating when the sufferers are in space. The research is published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology and concerns the reactivation of the virus, rather than a new virus which had developed in space, Sky News reports. NASAs thorough medical systems measure the physiological impact of spaceflight by analysing astronauts saliva, blood, and urine throughout spaceflight. During spaceflight there is a rise in secretion of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which are known to suppress the immune system, the study found. In keeping with this, we find that astronauts immune cells particularly those that normally suppress and eliminate viruses become less effective during spaceflight and sometimes for up to 60 days after. Read more: At least one killed after shooting in Dutch city of Utrecht No-one noticed meteor exploding over Earth in November Teenager stabbed in far-right incident in Surrey Due to this suppression of the immune system, the astronauts bodies are less able to keep dormant viruses down, allowing them to reactivate. To date, 47 out of 89 (53%) astronauts on short space shuttle flights, and 14 out of 23 (61%) on longer ISS missions shed herpes viruses in their saliva or urine samples, reported Dr Mehta. Story continues These frequencies as well as the quantity of viral shedding are markedly higher than in samples from before or after flight, or from matched healthy controls. Only six astronauts developed any symptoms due to viral reactivation, said Dr Mehta. All were minor. There are eight known herpes virus, including the strain for chickenpox, which once contracted will stay within their hosts nerve cells for their entire life. They are mostly kept suppressed by the immune system, but if the immune system itself is suppressed by space exploration, then they could pose a significant risks to astronauts travelling to Mars or beyond. The research found that the longer the spaceflight mission, the more it seemed the viruses were reactivating. h3>Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK The stellar price experienced a notable spike shortly before Coinbase announced that the asset was live on Coinbase.com. | Source: Shutterstock The stellar cryptocurrency has completed its Coinbase rollout following its listing on the retail-facing brokerage platform Coinbase.com. Stellar Goes Live on Coinbase.com & Mobile Apps The US-based crypto exchange announced just minutes ago that stellar was now available on the Coinbase website and mobile apps, approximately five days after the cryptocurrency launched on order-book exchange Coinbase Pro. coinbase, stellar, cryptocurrency The stellar cryptocurrency is now available on Coinbase.com and the firms mobile apps. | Source: Coinbase/Twitter Stellar Price Makes Notable Jump Just Before Announcement The stellar price made a small, but noticeable, jump in the hours before Coinbase made the announcement. Shortly after 11:30 UTC, XLM was trading at a global average of $0.109, according to CoinMarketCap. By 13:00, XLM had reached $0.113 where it continued to trade at the time of writing. stellar price, crypto, coinbase The stellar price made a small but notable jump in the hours leading up to the Coinbase announcement. | Source: CoinMarketCap The 3.7 percent jump would ordinarily attract little attention, but its notable given that Coinbase has faced accusations of insider trading related to its crypto token launches, particularly the bitcoin cash listing which occurred at the height of the crypto boom in 2017. The company claimed to have found no evidence that its employees had violated company policy by trading on the announcement ahead of time. Nevertheless, Coinbase altered its listing process in the wake of that scandal in a bid to be more transparent. Among other things, the company published an article in December 2018 informing users that it was exploring support for stellar and more than two dozen other cryptocurrencies. Read the full story on CCN.com. Managua (AFP) - Nicaragua's opposition alliance suspended its participation in peace talks with Daniel Ortega's government Monday in protest over the regime's "violence and repression" of demonstrators. Riot police used tear gas against opposition demonstrators and reporters on Saturday while temporarily detaining more than 100 people after they attempted to protest for the release of political prisoners. The government accused the opposition of staging a "provocation." The United States condemned Ortega's government over the detentions. "We call on the Ortega regime to release immediately and unconditionally all arbitrarily detained persons, respect Nicaraguans' freedom of assembly and expression and commit to electoral reforms and to holding free and fair elections early," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said. The local Civic Alliance for Justice rights group "energetically condemned" the government crackdown on dissent. In a statement, it said the government "is holding more than 700 political prisoners simply for defending their citizens' rights." "It has in its hands the power to free them, (to grant them) the absolute respect of their rights and the end to repression," the group added. "What happened on Saturday adds to the desperation felt by hundreds of homes that continue to see family members unfairly detained, and to the pain we all feel for the dead and disappeared." The alliance said that peace talks had so far failed to produce hoped for "legitimate results." Early elections, currently slated for 2021, is one demand Ortega has steadfastly refused to contemplate. A previous round of peace talks broke down in June over his refusal to countenance such a move. "Now is the time for swift, just solutions and proof of good faith," said Palladino. "Nicaraguans deserve to have a government that listens to their voices and respects their human rights and fundamental freedoms." Story continues - Brutal crackdown - Talks between the two sides began on February 27 but were suspended for three days last week until the government gave in to an opposition demand to release prisoners. Around 50 prisoners were released to house arrest Thursday on top of 100 released under the same conditions on the day talks began. More than 700 people were arrested between April and October last year during protests that also left 325 dead after a brutal crack down by security services. The government acknowledges 199 deaths but says most of those were members and supporters of the security services. The protests initially erupted in opposition to a since scrapped pension reform before morphing into general dissatisfaction with Ortega's 12-year rule. The former left-wing guerrilla leader and his wife Vice President Rosario Murillo have been accused of rights abuses and authoritarian rule. Two members of the opposition alliance were detained on Saturday, but all those arrested were released a few hours later following mediation from Vatican envoy Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag. The government said the opposition's participation in a demonstration was "inconceivable, contradictory and unusual," describing it as "a provocation and disturbance of public order." Managua disputes the opposition's figures for detained political prisoners and has ordered a report by the penitentiary system on the number of such detainees. One of the best investments we can make is in our own knowledge and skill set. With that in mind, this article will work through how we can use Return On Equity (ROE) to better understand a business. To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, well use ROE to better understand NIIT Technologies Limited (NSE:NIITTECH). Our data shows NIIT Technologies has a return on equity of 21% for the last year. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each 1 of shareholders equity it has, the company made 0.21 in profit. Check out our latest analysis for NIIT Technologies How Do I Calculate ROE? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for NIIT Technologies: 21% = 3.8b 20b (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.) Most readers would understand what net profit is, but its worth explaining the concept of shareholders equity. It is all earnings retained by the company, plus any capital paid in by shareholders. Shareholders equity can be calculated by subtracting the total liabilities of the company from the total assets of the company. What Does Return On Equity Mean? ROE measures a companys profitability against the profit it retains, and any outside investments. The return is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. A higher profit will lead to a higher ROE. So, all else being equal, a high ROE is better than a low one. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. Does NIIT Technologies Have A Good ROE? Arguably the easiest way to assess companys ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. As is clear from the image below, NIIT Technologies has a better ROE than the average (11%) in the IT industry. NSEI:NIITTECH Past Revenue and Net Income, March 18th 2019 Thats clearly a positive. I usually take a closer look when a company has a better ROE than industry peers. For example, I often check if insiders have been buying shares . Story continues Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE Most companies need money from somewhere to grow their profits. That cash can come from issuing shares, retained earnings, or debt. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the use of debt will improve the returns, but will not change the equity. In this manner the use of debt will boost ROE, even though the core economics of the business stay the same. NIIT Technologiess Debt And Its 21% ROE NIIT Technologies has a debt to equity ratio of just 0.0079, which is very low. The combination of modest debt and a very respectable ROE suggests this is a business worth watching. Careful use of debt to boost returns is often very good for shareholders. However, it could reduce the companys ability to take advantage of future opportunities. The Key Takeaway Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to take a peek at this data-rich interactive graph of forecasts for the company. Of course NIIT Technologies may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Filin optical disturbance station can blind the adversary at a distance of two kilometers and deny him a chance of precision fire at a warship. Integral Director for quality Vladimir Zharov told the Zvezda broadcaster about the prospective design in the sphere. At present, several models of the blinder are being designed. Filin optical disturbance station can blind the adversary at a distance of two kilometers and deny him a chance of precision fire at a warship. Integral Director for quality Vladimir Zharov told the Zvezda broadcaster about the prospective design in the sphere. At present, several models of the blinder are being designed. The Filin 5P-42 optical interference system (Picture source: Roselectronika Holding / Zvezda) Filin was designed as a weapon to protect warships and vessels in coastal waters at a distance of two kilometers in twilight. It can also be used to transmit light signals and as a powerful search light. The station modulates the frequency of emission brightness. The impact of non-coherent emission of Filin was confirmed by trials, held jointly with the Institute of applied problems. The research determined the strength of the emission flow which, on the one hand, does not cause irreversible eyesight loss and, on the other hand, blinds the eyes. Volunteers who shot at targets at ranges said precision fire was impossible. They all suffered dizziness and loss of orientation. They saw a light spot floating before the eyes. In contrast to western analogues, the blinder does not cause a fatal loss of eyesight. Filin does not have direct analogues. All foreign analogues use laser emission which burns out the eyes. The Russian blinder does not cause a loss of eyesight, but decreases fire precision three-five times. The blinder can be carried by any warship. Yet, small ships have to be upgraded due to their size and weight characteristics. But the upgrade will not take much time. Nowadays, several models of the blinder are being designed. They will be portable and vehicle-carried. Roselectronika Holding has designed a new emitter with a varifocal lens that increases emission power three times and extends the impact to three-four kilometers instead of two. The existing blinder will be replaced by a station that would affect human eyesight and technical vision, robotic complexes and other optical and electronic day and night sights. Integral research shows that only laser coherent emission can produce such a blinding effect in daytime. The emitter will have a laser beam angular deviation scanner in the area of threat to create a spatial suppression zone. It will be much broader than the beam itself. It is also planned to add the so-called visual-optical reconnaissance means and data transmission to detect targets and transmit their coordinates and images to the command for automatic aiming of coherent and non-coherent disturbances at selected targets, Integral Director for quality Vladimir Zharov told the Zvezda broadcaster. Copyright 2019 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Northrop Grumman Corp.s NOC subsidiary, Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., recently secured a $45.5-million contract to support the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Mission Modules Program, by providing engineering services. The contract was awarded by the Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C. Work related to the deal will be performed in Bethpage, NY; Mayport, FL; San Diego, CA and other locations across the United States. Tasks related to the deal will get completed by March 2020. Northrop Grumman will utilize fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance; other procurement; research, development, test, and evaluation; and weapons procurement (Navy) funds to complete the task. A Brief Note on Littoral Combat Ship A Littoral Combat Ship or LCS is a type of relatively small surface vessel developed for operations in the littoral zone. It is an agile, focused- mission platform that can operate in near-shore environments and open ocean. The LCSs primary missions are antisubmarine warfare (ASW), mine countermeasures (MCM) and surface warfare (SUW) against small boats, particularly in littoral waters. Our View In the last few years, the United States has strategically strengthened its naval power by developing and upgrading combat ships to tackle the rising widespread geo-political tensions across the world. Inevitably, demand for technical expertise, support services and other services for the proper functioning of these ships remains high and benefits defense contractors like Northrop Grumman to a great extent. Meanwhile, the fiscal 2019 U.S. defense budget has made provisions for spending $18.4 billion on shipbuilding, which specifically included an allotment of $254.1 million for the procurement of LCS mission module equipment. Such budgetary developments reflect solid growth prospects, as demand for various technical services related to the modules program will also increase. Such developments, in turn, are likely to boost Northrop Grummans profit margin. Price Performance Shares of Northrop Grumman have plunged about 21.4% in a year compared with the industrys decline of 4.1%. Story continues Zacks Rank & Key Picks Northrop Grumman currently carries Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A few better-ranked stocks in the same sector are The Boeing Company BA, Spirit Aerosystems Holdings SPR and Heico Corporation HEI. While Boeing and Spirit Aerosystems sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Heico carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete .list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Boeing came up with average positive earnings surprise of 17.08% in the last four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has risen 11.3% to $20.13 in the past 90 days. Spirit Aerosystems long-term growth estimates currently stand at 7.80%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has risen 3% to $7.56 in the past 90 days. Heico Corporations long-term growth estimates currently stand at 12.10%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings has risen 5.4% to $2.14 in the past 90 days. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Boeing Company (BA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Spirit Aerosystems Holdings, Inc. (SPR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Heico Corporation (HEI) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Novartis NVS announced that its eye-care unit, Alcon acquired privately-held, U.S.-based medical device development company, PowerVision, Inc. Per the terms, Alcon paid $285 million to PowerVision at closing, with additional payments based on specified regulatory and commercial milestones starting 2023. PowerVision develops fluid-based accommodating intraocular lenses for cataract surgery patients. The acquisition will advance Alcon's commitment toward driving growth and innovation in advanced technology intraocular lenses (AT-IOLS) for cataract surgery patients. Last month, Novartis shareholders approved the proposed 100% spin-off of the Alcon eye-care division. The spin-off is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2019. The spin-off will be completed through the distribution of a dividend-in-kind of new Alcon shares to Novartis shareholders and ADR (American Depositary Receipt) holders. The last year was a transformative year for Novartis, as it restructured its business to focus on becoming a core drug-focused company, powered by data and digital technologies. In September 2018, Novartis announced that it agreed to sell selected portions of its Sandoz U.S. portfolio, specifically the Sandoz U.S. dermatology business and the U.S. oral solids portfolio. The divestiture is in accordance with Sandozs strategy of focusing on complex generics, value-added medicines and biosimilars to achieve sustainable and profitable growth in the United States in the long run. The transaction will be completed in 2019. Novartis also sold its stake in consumer healthcare joint venture to GlaxoSmithKline GSK for $13 billion. Novartis stock has gained 11.8% in the past six months compared with the industry's 4.2% growth. The company is looking to solidify its presence in the gene-therapy space. It acquired U.S.-based clinical-stage gene-therapy company, AveXis, Inc. The company also acquired Endocyte to expand expertise in radiopharmaceuticals. We expect further acquisitions in the coming months as the company looks to further restructure its business. Story continues Zacks Rank Novartis currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). A couple of better-ranked stocks in the healthcare sector are Bristol-Myers Squibb Company BMY and AstraZeneca PLC AZN. Both the stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Bristol-Myers earnings estimates have been revised 1% and 6.4% upward for 2019 and 2020, respectively, over the past 90 days. AstraZenecas earnings estimates have been revised 1.7 % north for 2019 over the past 60 days. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Novartis AG (NVS) : Free Stock Analysis Report GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) : Free Stock Analysis Report Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research NEW YORK A 24-year-old man was arrested in the shooting death this week of reputed crime boss Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali and will face murder charges in New York, police said Saturday. Officials identified the man as Anthony Comello and said he was in custody in New Jersey pending extradition to Staten Island. "The investigation is far from over," NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea told reporters. "We do not believe this is a random act." Shea said police were still working to determine the suspect's motive and whether he was working with or for other people. "We are well aware of Mr. Cali's past. That will be a part of this investigation as we determine what was the motive for the incident on Wednesday evening," Shea said. Comello had multiple residences, including one in Staten Island, Shea said. Comello had "crossed paths" with New York police multiple times in limited circumstances including a parking summons the day of the alleged murder. Comello is being held in the Ocean County jail on a murder count, according to authorities. More: Alleged Gambino crime boss Francesco 'Franky Boy' Cali shot and killed in front of New York City home More: Gambino murder sparks Mafia rumor mill: A couple of guys got to get killed now Cali, 53, died at a hospital after being shot multiple times in the torso in front of his home in Staten Island. Police found Cali wounded after receiving a 911 call reporting an assault about 9:15 p.m. Wednesday. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had referred to Cali in court filings in recent years as the underboss of the Gambino organization, related through marriage to the Inzerillo clan in the Sicilian Mafia. Multiple press accounts since 2015 said Cali had ascended to the top spot in the gang, although he never faced a criminal charge saying so. His murder marked the most notable killing of a Gambino boss since 1985, when Paul Castellano was shot dead in front of the Sparks Steak House in Manhattan. Cali lived less than a half-mile away from Castellanos Staten Island mansion. Story continues Cali was a native of Sicily, and his wife is the niece of Gambino head John Gambino. The Gambino family was once among the most powerful criminal organizations in the United States, but federal prosecutions in the 1980s and 1990s sent its top leaders to prison and diminished its reach. Contributing: John Bacon, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: NYPD: Man arrested in death of Frank Cali, reputed Gambino crime family boss Three people were killed and several people were wounded in a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday morning, according to local authorities. Police said they were investigating whether terrorism could have been a motive. Local media images from the scene showed a tram at a standstill on a tramline between two roads. Mayor Jan van Zanen has confirmed three people have died after the shooting. Burgemeester Jan van Zanen reageert op het schietincident eerder vandaag pic.twitter.com/PzI6t2tPtX Gemeente Utrecht (@GemeenteUtrecht) March 18, 2019 Police said the attack took place at 24 Oktoberplein, a junction to the southwest of the city center. A shooting occurred on the #24oktoberplein in #Utrecht. The incident has been reported at 10.45 hour. Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off and we are investigating the matter. Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019 The Dutch news website AD reported that anti-terror police had been called to the scene. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism at The Netherlands Ministry of Justice and Security, said the offender is still at large and the provinces threat level was raised to five, the highest level. Threath level raised to 5, exclusively for the province of #utrecht untill 18 hrs. Perpetrator on the run. We cannot rule out terrorist motive. Follow local authorities for instructions. PJ Aalbersberg NCTV (@PJAalbersberg) March 18, 2019 Police say they are searching for Gokmen Tanis, 37, born in Turkey, in connection with the shooting. (They had previously misidentified him as Gokman Tanis.) De politie vraagt u uit te kijken naar de 37-jarige Gokman Tanis (geboren in Turkije) in verband met het incident vanmorgen aan het #24oktoberplein in Utrecht. Benader hem niet zelf maar bel direct de opsporingstiplijn 0800-6070 pic.twitter.com/QZ88s3Wl0k Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019 This is a developing story. Please refresh for updates. Somewhere in Texas, filed on the fly by a glossy-magazine correspondent, and totally not as a parody written by Jim Geraghty Its all about vision, Beto ORourke tells me, standing tall upon the Texas prairie, or brush, or whatever this high hilltop area is supposed to be called. Were watching the sun set in the west. Sometimes you look out at this country, and the awesome potential of it all is just so blinding. It can make your eyes water. You see flares and flashes and lights moving around, and it just becomes like something of an epiphany, a message from someplace I cant explain, and it just feels good. For several minutes Ive been staring at the sun with ORourke, the second day of several days of following him around as he hints, flirts, alludes, suggests, and finally decides that hes running for president. ORourke has been discussing the darkness of the Trump years, the enlightenment that the progressive political agenda can offer, the illumination that removing border fencing would provide, and the radiance of the Green New Deal. The photographer who is traveling with me wants to get the light of the sunset to reflect in ORourkes eyes just right, so the former congressman and I stare directly at the setting sun for 15 minutes. Weve burned our retinas pretty badly, and all I can see is a series of blurry shapes floating around. But ORourke shakes it off, as he is already booked for a series of events in the evening, and he is running, in every sense of the word. The responsibility of leadership weighs on ORourkes sweaty shoulders like a pile of heavy metaphors. Hes sweating less than he did in summer, when his sweat dropped down like rain upon a parched prairie as so many droplets of hope. Back then, ORourke was running to save the soul of Texas, to stand up as a representative of his people and all the states Latinos against the dangerous tide of white nationalism represented by incumbent Republican Ted Cruz. Story continues [Editors note: Wait, his people? Isnt Ted Cruz Cuban American? And isnt Beto ORourke Irish American? Correspondent: I meant metaphorically .] ORourke is now in the drivers seat, literally, at the wheel of his Toyota Tundra, and the engine revs like a well-oiled machine, much like the network of supporters and volunteers and staffers who have been hanging around awaiting for the go signal and who are now assembling in the form of a campaign. [Editors note: Wait, doesnt a Toyota Tundra get up to 15 miles per gallon in the city and up to 19 on the highway? I thought this guy was worried about climate change. Correspondent: Of course that kind of truck is an environmentally conscious consumer choice, its called a Tundra, duh.] ORourke is a man in a hurry, fueled by caffeine and Whataburgers, always on the move even when his Tundra comes to stop signs. Hes the physical embodiment of momentum lanky mass and constant velocity, refusing to be slowed down by critics or partisanship or the argument that he needs to wait his turn or observe posted speed limits. We zip through an intersection on the yellow of the traffic light. Well, it was yellow for part of the way. ORourke is in the middle of a monologue about the blind obliviousness that grips so many Americans, how theyre so focused on media-generated minutiae that they cant see whats happening right in front of their eyes. The pedestrians jumping out of the way of the oncoming Tundra yell Run! Run! in what is clearly a sign that theyre yearning for ORourke to run for president. We need to bring the American people a new sense of optimism, ORourke says. Without optimism, were never going to be able to deal with the fact that within eleven years or so, climate change will be irreversible and were all gonna die. The economys never been worse, the border wall is architectural fascism, Trumps Twitter feed turns people into Nazis, theres never been a greater need for optimism. ORourkes first stop is an empanada and kale-smoothie shack literally bringing the Tundra to a stop against the wall of the shack. As ORourke drove up to the scene, waving with one hand and taking a selfie with the other, controlling the steering wheel with one knee, the assembled crowd parted like the sea before Moses. They leaped and dove to the ground as the Tundra approached, almost prostrate with reverence for the presidential candidate. As in that biblical story, they have faith that a tall leader will lead them to a promised land. Standing before a crowd a teeming crowd, a sprawling crowd, a ballooning crowd at the empanada stand, Rourke talks about how career politicians have loused everything up, and how he spent six years on the El Paso city council and the past six years in Congress fighting against career pols. He talks about the inequities in Americas justice system, and how hes seen that problem close up and firsthand. He talks about how only in America could the son of a judge and furniture-store owner grow up to be on magazine covers and sit on Stephen Colberts couch. At one point, during a typically honest answer, ORourke blurts out the word balls. The crowd swoons upon the word so blunt, so direct, so homespun, so American. Its light years away from the crude ranting of the current president. From ORourke, profanity is like poetry, illuminating, elevating, stirring the souls of the audience and perhaps the very soul of the country itself. Then were off and running again, back in the Tundra, headed across town at top speed. I dont understand why everyone keeps comparing me to the Kennedys, ORourke says. Jack, Bobby, Patrick, I dont know where it comes from. He pauses, thoughtfully, as he hits the brakes to avoid ramming into a guardrail as we cross a bridge. I just tell people that we shouldnt ask what our country can do for us, and that we should be asking what we can do for our country. I mean, if not me, who? If not now, when? Everything you get done begins with the decision to try. I point out that its mostly Democrats who are making the Kennedy comparisons and that maybe he should just accept the associations out of party loyalty. Beto turns his head and looks at me with a penetrating, cerebral stare: Sometimes party loyalty asks too much. A local Democratic activist named Wilhelm screams in enthusiasm as ORourkes Tundra speeds by him, skidding to a stop for a rally-voter-registration-event party at a local theater. The marquee reads BETO OROURKE IN CONCERT TONIGHT. The candidate shakes his head and smiles. Oh, those guys! I told them not to do that. He goes to the trunk and removes a case containing a bass guitar, wires, and a portable amplifier. Lucky I just happened to bring this. Its a remarkably lucky coincidence, one that suggests something else is at work in ORourkes effort, some sort of higher power guiding him to these sorts of magical moments. [Editors note: Or, you know, his advance team.] Inside the theater lobby, ORourke is mobbed by supporters. He stands up on a table so everyone can see him, and when he decides that isnt enough, he stacks a table onto other tables to make an even higher platform. He tells the enthusiastic fans around him that hes still not high enough, and they commence building a small pyramid of tables. ORourke stands on the third table, bumps his head on the ceiling, and then steps down to the lower table. Im born to be in it, and thats what democracy is all about! Thats what Washington and Jefferson and Franklin fought for! The crowd cheers. Indeed, I nod, the predestined selection of our rulers because of the circumstances of their birth was exactly what drove the spirit of the American Revolution. Within a few minutes, ORourke is on stage, shredding like Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Stevie Ray Vaughn. After the set, fans ask him to sign campaign posters, T-shirts, a pig mask, a sheep onesie, and a floral-pattern dress. Were supposed to move on to the next event, but the crowd is begging ORourke to do some skateboard tricks, and somehow, improbably, ORourke just happened to have left his skateboard in the trunk as well. Back in the car, I ask ORourke what he thinks his best attribute is. I think it is my ability to listen to people, ORourke answers. I ask him for examples of where it helped him in Congress. He lists off the concert-tour dates and cities of his rock band Foss from the summers of the early 1990s. Its possible that ORourkes ears are still ringing from the concert, but his answer is still illuminating, a hint of a suggestion of an illustration of the promise of the change to come. Rock concerts are cool, and Donald Trump has never done anything so cool as thrilling an audience by singing. [Editors note: Wait, didnt Trump sing Green Acres at the Emmys?] Its the promise of coolness in the Oval Office again, a future so bright we have to wear shades. To get the obligatory to be sure paragraph, I reach out to a grizzled veteran Texas political consultant. You do realize that every bit of ORourkes persona, image, and message is designed to get you to write glowing profile pieces like this one, right? the political consultant, an irredeemable cynic, tells me. Its as if he had been grown in a lab to make middle-aged magazine journalists feel theyre youthful rebels again, that theyre sticking it to The Man like theyre teenagers, so you can avoid the thought that youve become The Man and are in fact at least partially responsible for a political culture and electorate that evaluates presidential candidates on shallow charisma and appearances instead of their policy agendas and records of accomplishment. The man wants to be commander in chief, but youre covering him like hes the leading man of the next big Hollywood blockbuster. Hes the Aaron Sorkin protagonist right out of your dreams. I nod. The consultant is partially right about Beto ORourke; he is the candidate of our dreams. In a country full of doubts and anxieties that were getting older and our best years are behind us, that weve become hopeless dweebs with mortgages and kids and a 401(k), a new hope for us has ridden out of the West. Beto ORourke embodies the American dream the dream that one of the cool kids whos in a band will hang out with us, and well get a snack at Whataburger and do skateboard tricks in the parking lot and use bad words and talk about going on a road trip through the western states just because we can, because freedom, man. Rock on, Beto! More from National Review Major oil producers led by Saudi Arabia agreed Monday to keep working together to prop up crude prices, but said they would decide only in June on whether to extend production cuts. Meeting in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, members of the OPEC+ alliance said they would continue coordinating efforts to "stabilise" the oil market through production cutbacks. But they postponed a planned April meeting and said a decision would be made in June on whether to extend production cuts into the second half of 2019, once the impact of US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela is more clear. In a joint statement after the talks, members of the alliance stressed the need to "restore market stability and prevent the recurrence of any market imbalance" -- shorthand for keeping prices from dropping too low. The 24-nation alliance came together in 2016, when the Saudi-dominated Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia agreed on the need to limit production in the face of tumbling prices. The OPEC+ alliance has endured, with regular meetings and agreements to extend production limits, helping oil prices rise from around $40 per barrel in 2016 to an average of $70 per barrel last year. The meeting in Baku brought together the group's monitoring committee to review the latest extension, which saw OPEC+ nations agree to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day from January to June. The committee was due to meet again next month but on Monday that meeting was postponed until May. The joint statement also said that the decision "on the production target for the second half of 2019" would be taken at an OPEC Conference meeting on June 25. - New OPEC+ committee members - The move to wait until June took place amid confusion over the impact of US sanctions on OPEC members Iran and Venezuela, with Russia saying more time was needed due to high volatility. Addressing Monday's meeting, Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih urged OPEC+ members to maintain the alliance. Story continues "It is more important than ever that we continue to collaborate," he said. OPEC, and mainly Saudi Arabia, have made it clear they would like to formalise longer-term cooperation with Russia, though Moscow has been hesitant. Falih raised the issue again in Baku, saying that "institutionalising a framework for longer-term cooperation" was very important. The alliance said after the talks that Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates had also become new members of the committee. The pact has breathed fresh life into OPEC and brought Russia new influence as an arbiter on the oil market. Creating the alliance was not an easy decision after years of fierce competition for market share that lead to overproduction. - Uncertainty over US sanctions - Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said it was hard to plan for months ahead because of the volatility due to the sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. "We have to take these uncertainties into account in making decisions on the market," he was quoted as saying ahead of Monday's meeting. US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a nuclear accord with Iran in May last year and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. From late April, US companies and citizens will be barred from dealing in Venezuelan crude, as Washington ramps up punishment against President Nicolas Maduro's government. But Trump has also urged OPEC to take steps to lower prices, saying in a tweet last month: "Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy." The Saudi energy minister was defiant in response, saying at the time that OPEC was pursuing a measured response and that he was leaning towards extending production cuts in the second half of 2019. Host Azerbaijan is one of the alliance's non-OPEC members and analysts said the ex-Soviet republic has used its participation to court investment in its oil sector. After years of growth, Azerbaijan's oil and gas production is stabilising. Analysts at S&P Global Platts said the country is forging closer ties with Riyadh and in recent weeks hosted several Saudi delegations. Azerbaijan "needs to attract new investment if it is to successfully replace current reserves and maintain production volumes over the next few decades," they said. New OpenTable Policy Tees Up Fight for Diner Data When the Priceline Group (now Booking Holdings) acquired OpenTable in 2014, many doubted the synergy between the business. What could an online travel agency do with a restaurant booking site? In the years since the acquisition, the market has devalued the partnership. Booking CEO Glenn Fogel continues to place his faith in the company, though he admitted in September at Skift Global Forum that they havent made the moves they should on OpenTable. The reservations platform went through a round of layoffs last June and OpenTables CEO, Christa Quarles, left the company in October. Now under Kayak CEO Steve Hafners leadership, OpenTable introduced a change that seems positioned to set a precedent for control of all-important customer data. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported a change in the OpenTable client agreement contract. As of March 15, restaurants can no longer share access to OpenTable with any unapproved third-party system that has the intent of using that data for use on their own service. This change seemingly takes direct aim at at least one competitor, SevenRooms, a reservations and customer relationship management software company. In an email to OpenTable customers, the company stated, In order to maintain the security of our systems, diner and restaurant data, and to ensure compliance with applicable privacy laws, weve clarified concepts regarding unauthorized third-party access to our software and systems. The email cites recent implementation of GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act, and recent interest by regulators in third-party access to certain social media and technology platforms. A second email, signed by Hafner, followed. We cant afford to wait, it stated. Public and regulatory scrutiny of privacy and data sharing practices has never been higher. In the WSJ report, Hafner cited diner privacy as the reason that OpenTable was implementing this new, closed-door policy on its data. Story continues Now, the WSJ reported, OpenTable will charge its clients who also use SevenRooms $250 per month for the data but new clients who want to use both platforms can expect to pay $1,000 per month for the same ability. Restaurants own their reservation data, guest notes, and any diner data that consumers have either given them directly or who have opted in to share to the restaurant via OpenTable, Hafner told Skift Table. Nothing has changed here, and they have always been allowed to download that data and give it to their vendors to use. This seems to contradict the most jarring part of Hafners Wall Street Journal interview. That information is absolutely not the restaurants, he said in the piece, referring to OpenTable customer data. The difference, he clarified, has to do with so-called unauthorized vendors. The only nuance now is that unauthorized vendors who may not have respected diners wishes to opt out will no longer have access to OpenTable systems, he said via email. Who Owns the Diner Data? Competitor Tocks CEO Nick Kokonas has been openly fighting OpenTables strategy for years, calling it detrimental to restaurants. A core piece of Tocks product offering and marketing strategy is that restaurants on the Tock platform own their data. SevenRooms also uses this direct connection to customers to market itself to businesses, as noted in previous Skift Table reports. The difference is that many SevenRooms customers who use the software for customer relationship management also use OpenTable to accept reservations, a different model than Tock, Resy, or Yelp Reservations. Understanding how the companies differ is key to understanding this situation. SevenRooms founder and CEO Joel Montaniel explained his companys mission in 2017. Our idea was, instead of trying to recreate another consumer booking platform, lets be the first company that actually plugs into as many of the channels as possible where discovery and booking is happening, he said. With most of the other platforms its always been an either or philosophy. With our model, its and and and. Its this philosophy thats targeted by the policy change at OpenTable, and their message is clear: if you want to use our data, youll have to pay. What This Means for Restaurants In theory, OpenTables new client contract will affect any restaurateur that shares OpenTable data with other technology service providers deemed unauthorized by OpenTable. Hafner characterized authorized partners as those who have agreed to accept our terms and conditions and we have a formal partnership in place. They also receive direct API integration. Arthur Li, the chief financial officer of New York City-based Altamarea Group, which owns eight fine dining restaurants and is a client of both SevenRooms and OpenTable, said that shutting SevenRooms out of OpenTables data will be detrimental to the restaurants that he oversees. Our restaurants are utilizing SevenRooms to discover new key clients based on guest profiles and spend data, deliver tailored hospitality, and cross-promote our sister restaurants, Li said in an email to Hafner, which SevenRooms shared with Skift Table. Most importantly, the SevenRooms team (from ownership to sales to customer success to account management) has spent quality time with us to understand our needs, pain points, and objectives, then nimbly and methodically deploy our suggestions into their product and technology. Candidly, we have never had even close to that level of support and relationship with anyone at OpenTable. Now that the new fee structure is in place, SevenRooms clients can share diner data gathered through OpenTable as long as they shell out up to $1,000 per restaurant for the ability to do so. Hafner estimated that the change will affect about 400 restaurants that use both OpenTable and SevenRooms services. [The affected restaurant operators] are paying slightly more for their current vendors but will receive a superior experience, Hafner said. SevenRooms, for example, will now talk directly to our systems via a direct integration instead of relying on bots. Data will be more realtime, accurate, and responsive to diner opt-out requests. For partners that have formal agreements with OpenTable and use the companys API integration to facilitate data sharing, the contract changes shouldnt affect their businesses. Outside of the particular grievances between OpenTable and SevenRooms, the big question here is: How will this change set a precedent with other businesses? The war over customer data between the restaurants themselves and third-party services such as delivery (Grubhub) and reservations (OpenTable) is a real risk to the livelihood of restaurants who are being disaggregated from their customers, said Zach Goldstein, founder and CEO of restaurant marketing platform Thanx, which facilitates reservation bookings on its apps but doesnt currently integrate directly with OpenTable. The recent move by OpenTable will make it harder for restaurants to identify their top customers and communicate with them directly which in turn makes it harder for the average restaurant to compete. Hafner maintains that the decision to crack down on unauthorized data usage was for the sole benefit of customer privacy. Our intent with this program is to protect consumer privacy and new and upcoming regulatory standards not to make money, Hafner said. Subscribe to Skift newsletters covering the business of travel, restaurants, and wellness. Beira (Mozambique) (AFP) - The death toll from a cyclone that ravaged three southern African countries last week headed Thursday towards 400, as officials estimated that more than 1.7 million people had been affected by the storm and 15,000 people were still stranded in floodwater. As the toll surged from the region's biggest storm in years, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced plans to tackle an emerging threat to survivors from malaria and cholera. Cyclone Idai smashed into the coast of central Mozambique last Friday, unleashing hurricane-force winds and rains that flooded the hinterland and drenched eastern Zimbabwe. Mozambican Land and Environmental Minister Celso Correia said 242 lives had been lost and 15,000 out of 18,000 stranded people still needed to be saved, many of them on rooftops or even in trees. "Yesterday we had counted 15,000 people that still need rescue today -- 15,000 people who are in bad shape. They are alive, we are communicating with them, delivering food, but we need to rescue them and take them out," he told reporters. A total of 65,000 people are in transit centres, he said. "Our priority now is to make sure we take food, shelter and medicine to the people that are isolated in small islands or in big islands and villages," Correia said at Beira airport, the humanitarian relief coordination hub. On Wednesday there were just five helicopters rescuing the marooned, according to Adrien Nance who is heading the operation. "Its encouraging that the humanitarian response is really starting to come to scale. But more help is needed," said Jamie LeSueur of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Herve Verhoosel said the number of people affected in Mozambique was 600,000, but warned: "That number will definitely go up." Ultimately, around 1.7 million people in Mozambique will need assistance, Verhoosel said in Geneva. Story continues Pall bearers waded through flood waters carrying a black coffin containing the remains of Tomas Joaquim Chimukme, who died after his house collapsed on him in Beira. - Zimbabwe toll - In Zimbabwe, state broadcaster ZBC said the death toll had risen to 139, up from 100 on Wednesday, while the WFP said its estimates of the number of people there affected by the cyclone had jumped from 15,000 to 200,000. In Chimanimani, close to Zimbabwe's border with Mozambique, "some 90 percent of the district has been significantly damaged," Verhoosel said. An AFP reporter in the area said the district had been cut off. Roads had been gobbled up by massive sinkholes and bridges ripped to shreds by flash floods -- a landscape that Zimbabwe's acting defence minister Perrance Shiri, who is also agriculture minister, said "resembles the aftermath of a full-scale war". Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, after touring the area, said the country would observe two days of mourning from Saturday. Mozambique declared three days of mourning, taking effect on Wednesday. "In Rusitu, I saw unmitigated despair," Mnangawa told reporters in Harare. "Big boulders (were) recklessly strewn on what used be a settlement, a banana market and even a police post." At the police station, "both serving officers and prisoners were washed away alongside other government structures and private residences," he said. Mnangagwa also announced steps to cope with future disasters, including mapping the country for weather-related risk, creating a national disaster fund and stepping up global advocacy on climate change. In Malawi, the WHO said on Wednesday, the storm had affected 922,000 others, of whom 82,000 had been displaced. The WHO announced an emergency plan for 10,000 people. "The displacement of large numbers of people and the flooding triggered by Cyclone Idai significantly increases the risk of malaria, typhoid and cholera, said Matshidiso Moeti, the agency's regional director for Africa. The three countries are some of the poorest in the region and depend heavily on foreign aid. - Call for help - The UN launched an appeal for assistance overnight. "We do not yet know enough about the level of destruction to give an accurate estimate of the amount of this call for funds, but it will be important," spokesman Farhan Haq said at UN headquarters in New York. Aid agencies said they were prepared for the cyclone but not for the massive floods that followed. Mozambique bore the brunt from rivers that flow downstream from its neighbours. Air force personnel from Mozambique and South Africa have been drafted in to fly rescue missions and distribute aid in central Mozambique. Roads out of Beira have been destroyed and the city itself, home to around half a million people, has been 90-percent damaged or destroyed. burs/sn-ri Paris' police chief is to be replaced for failing to quell riots in the French capital on Saturday - AFP The Paris police chief has been fired for failing to contain violent riots that saw a string of flagship restaurants and shops torched along the French capitals famed Champs-Elysees. The government announcement came after top security officials acknowledged that attempts by 5,000 police to stop several hundred black-clad rioters running amok along the worlds most beautiful avenue for seven hours on Saturday had been an abject failure. Nominally part of the yellow vest" movement, masked rioters burned down the famous Fouquet's restaurant as well as several newspaper stands, a string of luxury shops and vehicles. The shocking weekend scenes, in which a mother and child narrowly escaped death in a burning building, pose a fresh security headache to Emmanuel Macron, the French president, after four months of gilet jaunes protests and amid opposition claims he is a soft touch on hooligans. Caught napping, Mr Macron had rushed back from a ski break to pledge "strong measures amid calls on social media for fresh violence next Saturday. The Right-wing opposition accused the president of being a soft touch, while police unions said they had not been given sufficiently robust orders to engage with rioters. Paris' police chief is to be replaced for failing to quell riots in the French capital on Saturday Credit: ZAKARIA ABDELKAFI/AFP After crisis security talks on Monday, Edouard Philippe, the French prime minister, said: The strategy for maintaining order was not correctly executed. As a result, he said Paris police chief Michel Delpuech would be replaced by the current state prefect of the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, Didier Lallement. Mr Philippe pledged to ban yellow vest demonstrations in the worst-hit areas - including the Champs-Elysees but also squares in the cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse - if police deem they have been infiltrated by ultra-violent trouble makers. In these three areas, police will have greater autonomy to disband any groups with the use ofdrones and marker products to identity individuals. Story continues Fines for those who participate in illegal gatherings will be significantly increased. Mr Philippe also promised to beef up Paris polices security doctrine to engage in more contact with rioters at the behest of police unions, despite the risk of greater injury. "You have to take responsibility and engage, with the possibility that people will get hurt," said Frederic Lagache of the Alliance police union. France has for decades preferred to tackle mass protests with tear gas and rubber bullets but avoid physical clashes against large groups. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced the government decision to replace the Paris police chief and ban "yellow vest" protests in trouble spots Credit: BERTRAND GUAY/AFP In another potentially controversial move, Mr Philippe effectively backed greater use of defensive ball launchers, or LBD, which a top French rights ombudsman and the UN have criticised as too dangerous. Dozens of protesters have been injured by these, including some who claim to have lost an eye after being hit by such rubber projectiles. One police union said LBDs had been replaced with marshmallows to placate such groups, leaving officers exposed against protesters hurling paving stones and other weapons. Mr Philippe said he regretted that inappropriate orders had been given (on Saturday) to reduce their use. The new surge in violence came as the four-month-old yellow vest movement demanding economic justice was dying down and a nationwide great debate on those demands came to a close. Mr Macrons participation in a string of discussions had seen his popularity rise after plummeting early on in the protests but commentators said the latest violence risks seeing those gains falter. Some 91 businesses were damaged in last Saturday's riots Last month the French parliament passed an "anti-troublemakers" bill, which will only take effect once the Constitutional Council rubber stamps it. If enacted, it will grant regional prefects powers to prevent people seen as a serious threat to public order from protesting, and would force protesters involved in violence to pay for damage. It would also make it a crime for protesters to conceal their faces, punishable by up to one year in prison and a 15,000 (13,000) fine. The bill has been criticised by rights groups, opposition members and even members of Mr Macron's centrist party as going too far in restricting freedoms. The Right-wing opposition says it doesnt go far enough. The Paris region's Chamber of Commerce said 91 businesses suffered damage in the Champs-Elysees riots. It called for an "emergency plan" to support the those shopkeepers and employees. The French insurance federation put the figure for claims linked to yellow vest violence over the past four months at 170 million, not counting last Saturday's damage. Emory University President Claire E. Sterk issued the following statement on March 18: We send our deepest sympathies to the victims and their loved ones of the recent massacre at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. These horrific attacks on religion go against the values of compassion and equality that we hold dear at Emory. We must stand together to reject violence at home and around the world. It is our duty to speak out against all forms of hate anywhere it may occur. The dignity and value of all human beings must be respected, regardless of where we live, what we believe, or how we worship. We embrace our diversity at Emory and will continue to create and promote a world in which all can feel safe and thrive. Chicago (AFP) - The US Midwest struggled Monday with historic flooding that claimed at least three lives, displaced residents and damaged hundreds of homes and businesses. Swollen waters hit much of Nebraska, as well as parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, after a major storm last week dumped snow and rain, even as melting snow was already raising the levels of area waterways. Neighboring states could also be affected as floodwaters drain, officials said. President Donald Trump on Monday described the floods as "devastating" and said the White House would remain in close contact with state officials. "Our prayers are with the great people of South Dakota," he said in one tweet. In another aimed at Iowa residents, he said: "We support you and thank all of the first responders working long hours to help the great people of Iowa!" - 'Historic' flooding - The National Weather Service (NWS) described the flooding as "major" and "historic," forecasting that it would continue across large sections of the middle of the country. "Flood Warnings and Advisories are scattered throughout the Plains, Mississippi Valley, and western parts of the Ohio Valley region, with a focus in Nebraska and western Iowa," the NWS said in an advisory. "Farther west and north, areal flooding is also possible in the Northwest and Northern Plains as snowmelt continues over frozen ground." The early damage assessment total for the state of Nebraska was more than $260 million, according to emergency management officials. Record flooding was reported in 17 locations in the state and 10 American Red Cross shelters were operating for displaced residents. At its highest point, the Missouri River was expected to crest at 47.5 feet (14.5 meters), beating its 2011 record by more than one foot. "Comparisons to 2011 were inevitable," the NWS office in Iowa tweeted, "but these floods have resulted in many more rescues and widespread damage in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa." Story continues Failing levees were blamed for flooding in numerous communities -- damaging homes and businesses. The US Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains federal levee systems, said a majority were compromised along an approximately 100-mile portion of the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska. - Military base under water - Hundreds of people were rescued in Nebraska, where 54 cities issued emergency declarations, as did four Native American tribal areas. Fremont, a city of more than 25,000, was surrounded by floodwaters over the weekend and cut off from aid. It finally received food and other emergency supplies Sunday after crews managed to clear debris and mud from a road, officials said. Three dozen Iowa counties were under states of emergency. Roads were closed throughout Wisconsin and more than 200 people were evacuated, according to officials. A third of Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was overcome with floodwater, and was not expected to be dry again until Thursday. "It's important to understand that this is going to take weeks and months to recover so this will be a prolonged effort," one of the base's leaders, Kevin Humphrey, said in a statement. Three people were reported killed. A Nebraska farmer died Thursday, during the height of the storm, trying to rescue a motorist stranded by floodwaters, the Omaha World-Herald reported. On the same day, 80-year-old Betty Hamernik died after being trapped by floodwaters in her home in rural Columbus, Nebraska, according to the newspaper. Aleido Rojas Galan, 55, was killed Friday in Iowa when his vehicle was swept away by floodwaters, TV station KETV said. It seems that Petrobras PBR has managed to emerge from the multibillion-dollar Operation Carwash Scandal, and is currently riding high on the back of its impressive portfolio and strategic initiatives. Cost-containment efforts and ambitious divestment plans have been helping the company to trim its debt and improve credit ratings. Such upsides have kept the stock in investors good books. Notably, shares of the Brazilian oil giant have rallied 31% over the past three months, outperforming its industrys 22% cumulative growth. Lets take a closer look at the factors that have helped the company maintain its appeal among investors. Divestments and Cost Discipline Paying Off While Petrobras involvement in the massive corruption scandal of 2014 had been a major overhang for the firm, scarring its credit metrics, things have finally started looking up. One cannot deny that the state-owned energy giant has been making serious efforts to trim its leverage metrics. Notably, while the companys net debt of $100 billion peaked in 2015, concentrated efforts to lower its leverage, and boost liquidity through operational efficiency and divestment of non-core assets have helped Petrobras to deleverage to a considerable extent. Its net debt declined to $69.4 billion in 2018, decreasing from $84.9 billion a year ago and $96.4 billion in 2016. Just a week back, the company announced its intent to rev up its five-year divestment plan of $26.9 billion to further trim its debt load, streamline portfolio and sharpen focus on other profitable segments for achieving top-tier results. In fact, Branco, Petrobras CEO, aims to divest around $10 billion of assets by April 2018. This signals the divestment of TAG assets worth $8 billion, which had been stalled by the court earlier. The bidding for TAG pipeline network has been reopened again and is set to give a new boost to the divestment targets of the firm. The company has a target of achieving a net debt to EBITDA ratio of less than 1.5 in 2020 compared with 2.9 as of Sep 30, 2018. Petrobras plans to slash operating expenses by $8.1 billion from the original projection of $122.6 billion for its five-year plan through 2023. Story continues Markedly, in 2018, Petrobras registered its first annual profit in five years, reflecting the firms cost discipline, as well as reduction in debt and interest payments. On a further encouraging note, Petrobras rating recently got upgraded owing to improved liquidity. Impressive Portfolio Boosts Output Targets Boasting a lucrative portfolio, particularly in Brazils pre-salt reservoirs that lie below the Espirito Santo, Campos and Santos basins in deep and ultra-deep water, Petrobras intends to sharpen its focus on these exploration areas.The firmis in an enviable position to maintain an impressive production growth profile for years to come. Per its ambitious five-year plans, the company intends to boost average production in 2019 to an expected 2.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, with 5% average annual growth till 2023. The plan will be supported by the 13 new platforms coming online by 2023. Petrobras is entering into various strategic partnerships with foreign oil giants to drive exploration momentum. In this regard, the company has inked deals with major players like TOTAL S.A. TOT, Royal Dutch Shell plc RDS.A and Equinor ASA EQNR. Ambitious Capex Program to Drive Top Line In the wake of its aggressive growth plans, Petrobrasintends to invest $84.1 billion between 2019 and 2023, representing nearly 13% increase from projected investment of $74.5 billion in the 2018-2022-time frame. While more than 80% of the companys investment will be targeted toward upstream activities, nearly $13.9 billion is likely to be spent on refining and natural gas, up from $13.2 billion projected in the previous five-year plan.The state-controlled energy firm intends to boost its position in the refining and petrochemicals market, and establish itself as a more competitive and an efficient business. Investments in pipelines, natural gas processing units and RNEST refinery will majorly drive its investment in downstream operations. The company intends to optimize its natural gas market, and tap into the profitable renewable energy market with primary focus on solar and wind energy, which is the need of the hour. Final Thoughts While the companys share price bottomed out in 2016 to as low as around $3, it has been on a gradual recovery road since then owing to improving operations and cash flows, along with managements prudent initiatives and ambitious targets. Although Brazilian governments political interference and poor corporate governance history remain concerns, we believe that the Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company will be able to tide over these risks and maintain its bullish run. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Petrobras committed efforts to improve production, liquidity and operational efficiency, along with its ambitious five-year plans make us optimistic of the stock. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.- Petrobras (PBR) : Free Stock Analysis Report TOTAL S.A. (TOT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDS.A) : Free Stock Analysis Report Statoil ASA (EQNR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research A tram passes a rose at the site of a shooting incident in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 19, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Investigators probing the deadly tram shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht sharpened their focus Tuesday on a possible extremist motive, as judicial authorities revealed that the main suspect was released from jail this month and faces a rape trial in July. The nature of the Mondays attack and a note found in a suspected getaway car suggest a possible terror motive, prosecutors said in a statement, but they add that other possible reasons also are being investigated. Based on the letter, we think he had a terroristic motive, police spokesman Joost Lanshage told The Associated Press. He declined to elaborate. Speaking in parliament, anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders said the note expressed support for the suspects Muslim brothers. Prosecutors also said that investigations so far have not established any relationship at all between the main suspect, Gokmen Tanis, and the shooting victims. Three people died: a 19-year-old woman from the neighboring town of Vianen, and two men aged 28 and 49 from Utrecht. Three others were seriously wounded and four more suffered minor injuries, according to prosecutors. (AP) See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr. See more photos below: Dutch police stand guard outside a house where the suspect of a shooting incident in a tram was arrested in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A tram passes a Dutch flag flying half-staff at the site of a shooting incident in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 19, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A tram passes flowers placed at the site of a shooting incident on a tram, in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 19, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Flowers are seen at the site of a shooting incident in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 19, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, right, and Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus, center, observe a moment of silence after putting flowers at a makeshift memorial for victims of a shooting incident in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 19, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A body is covered with a white sheet after a shooting in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A forensics expert looks for clues inside a tram after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A woman talks on her mobile phone as Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A resident peers out from a window as Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Special Police forces inspect a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. A gunman opened fire on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on March 18, 2019, killing at least one person and wounding several in what officials said was a possible terrorist incident. (Photo: Ricardo Smit/AFP/Getty Images) Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) A body lying on the ground is covered near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. (Photo: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images) Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. P(Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Police forces stand near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. (Photo credit should read Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images) Police forces and emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. (Photo: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images) Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) In this image taken from video, a body lays next to a tram as emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Ambulances are seen next to a tram after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Rescue workers install a screen on the spot where a human shape was seen under a white blanket following a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) In this image taken from the Twitter page of Lilian Bruigom, emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) Rescue workers install a screen on the spot where a body was covered with a white blanket following a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. (Photo: Peter Dejong/AP) _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Are we living inside an alien zoo? (Getty) If our civilisation met truly advanced aliens, they might well put us in a planet-sized zoo much as we do with less intelligent species. And it might have already happened, scientists have already warned (and that would explain why weve never seen any aliens. At a meeting of the the METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Project in Paris this week, scientists discussed the idea of whether we really are in a zoo. Perhaps surprisingly, they also suggested how to attract the attention of the zookeepers and get out. Read more: At least one killed after shooting in Dutch city of Utrecht No-one noticed meteor exploding over Earth in November Teenager stabbed in far-right incident in Surrey Douglas Vakoch, president of METI said, Perhaps extraterrestrials are watching humans on Earth, much like we watch animals in a zoo. How can we get the galactic zookeepers to reveal themselves? Vakoch believes that simply showing that we are searching for extraterrestrial life could be the key, Forbes reports. Vakoch said, If we went to a zoo and suddenly a zebra turned toward us, looked us in the eye, and started pounding out a series of prime numbers with its hoof, that would establish a radically different relationship between us and the zebra, and we would feel compelled to respond. We can do the same with extraterrestrials by transmitting powerful, intentional, information-rich radio signals to nearby stars. WASHINGTON Amid signs that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference may be near its conclusion, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds that trust in Mueller has eroded and half of Americans agree with President Donald Trump's contention that he has been the victim of a "witch hunt." Support for the House of Representatives to seriously consider impeaching the president has dropped since last October by 10 percentage points, to 28 percent. Despite that, the survey shows a nation that remains skeptical of Trump's honesty and deeply divided by his leadership. A 52 percent majority say they have little or no trust in the president's denials that his 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow in the election that put him in the Oval Office. That number does reflect an improvement from previous polls. One year ago, 57 percent had little or no trust in his denials; in December, 59 percent did. Twenty-eight percent say they have a lot of trust in former FBI director Mueller's investigation to be fair and accurate. That's the lowest level to date and down 5 points since December. In comparison, 30 percent express a lot of trust in Trump's denials, the highest to date. President Donald Trump Mueller indicted 34 people, including Russian intelligence operatives and some of Trump's closest aides and advisers. The indictments detailed the eagerness of the Trump campaign to benefit from a sophisticated Russian effort to influence the 2016 election but have not accused the presidents aides of participating in that operation. Last week, Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was sentenced to a total of 7.5 years in federal prison for financial crimes. The poll's findings set the stage for a ferocious partisan battle when Mueller submits his report to Attorney General William Barr. The president's cascade of criticism of those pursuing him has fortified his support and raised questions about his investigators. Story continues More: Did Trump keep promises to insulate himself from his business? Only he knows Trump tweets about Mueller That campaign continued this weekend. "What the Democrats have done in trying to steal a Presidential Election, first at the 'ballot box' and then, after that failed, with the 'Insurance Policy,' is the biggest Scandal in the history of our Country!" Trump declared in a tweet Sunday night. Friday, Trump tweeted that "there should be no" report from Mueller, who was appointed in May 2017 to investigate how Moscow tried to influence the presidential election and whether Team Trump cooperated. "This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime," Trump wrote Sunday, adding in a follow-up tweet, "THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO A PRESIDENT AGAIN!" Fifty percent say they agree with Trump's assertion that the special counsel's investigation is a "witch hunt" and that he has been subjected to more investigations than previous presidents because of politics; 47 percent disagree. Just 3 percent don't have an opinion. There is, unsurprisingly, a stark partisan divide on that question: 86 percent of Republicans but just 14 percent of Democrats say Trump is the victim of a "witch hunt." Among independents, 54 percent say he is; 42 percent say he isn't. The president's success in persuading half of the electorate that hes been subjected to unprecedented scrutiny is notable, says David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center. "Even among people who said they had some trust in the Mueller investigation, half agreed with President Trump's witch hunt allegation, he says. More: What happens when special counsel Robert Mueller delivers his report? "Trump, he gets badgered every single day," says Robert Lynch, 62, of Selden, New York, a Republican who describes himself as a "100 percent" supporter of the president. Mueller's report is "going to say no collusion, absolutely none," he predicts. Annette Lantos Tillemann-Dick, 66, an innkeeper from Denver and a Democrat, disagrees, saying evidence of collusion by Trump's campaign is obvious: "You don't need a report to see it. It's in our face." Lynch and Tillemann-Dick were among those surveyed. The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cellphone Wednesday through Sunday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. "I hope that illegal collusion makes it very difficult for the Republicans to continue to defend undefendable behavior on the part of the person who is sitting in the chief executive's office," Tillemann-Dick says. "And I hope that it would lead to him being removed from office." (Tillemann-Dick, who was called randomly in the survey, happens to be the daughter of the late congressman Tom Lantos, D-Calif.) A shift on impeachment Support for impeaching Trump has cooled, the poll shows, in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's declaration that she opposed the idea unless there was bipartisan support for it. Among Democrats, 41 percent say Pelosi's comments had some or a lot of impact on their opinion about impeachment, about equal to the 42 percent who say they had no impact. Pelosi's argument that trying to remove Trump from office would divide the nation apparently flipped the public's expectations of what Congress will do. Last fall, the poll found that a 54 percent-32 percent majority said a new Democratic majority in the House was likely to seriously consider impeachment. Now, by 46 percent-41 percent, those surveyed predict that the House won't. "If he doesn't get impeached, it's not like it's going to be the end of the world because 2020 is not super-far away," says Calvin Crawford, 18, a political independent and a senior at University High School in Spokane, Washington, who was polled. "I think Trump is probably going to lose if a candidate comes out and starts to propose things that people actually want." Overall, Americans by 62 percent-28 percent say the House shouldn't seriously consider impeaching Trump, compared with 54 percent-39 percent last October. While a 53 percent majority of Democrats support impeachment, just 6 percent of Republicans do. Gloria Davy, 65, a Democrat from Tucson, says it would bring her "great joy" for Democrats to push for impeachment, but she worries about the upheaval that could follow. "I can't imagine what would happen to the stock market," the Arizona retiree says. "So it's probably best not to impeach him and to just have him run for his second term and lose. That would be the safest thing for our economy." She is eager to see Mueller's report. "I'll read it cover to cover," she says. Release the report? As Mueller's inquiry winds down, the debate over what to do about the confidential report he is required to submit to the Justice Department is heating up. Last Thursday, the House unanimously passed a resolution calling for public release of the report, but Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blocked passage of the nonbinding measure in the Senate. The poll found overwhelming and bipartisan support for releasing the report, whatever it finds. In all, 82 percent say it is important to them that the report be made public; 62 percent call that "very important." More: What happens after Mueller delivers his report? Congress braces for battles Assessments of Mueller have become less positive and more partisan during his investigation. In June 2017, before he had brought any indictments or won any convictions, 30 percent viewed him favorably and 16 percent unfavorably, a net positive rating of 14 points. Twenty percent had never heard of him, and 33 percent weren't sure what they thought. In the new poll, 33 percent view him favorably and 31 percent unfavorably. That net positive rating of 2 points is his narrowest to date. As recently as last October, he had a net positive rating of 17 points, 42 percent-25 percent. Few Americans expect the conclusion of the special counsel's investigation is going to settle the controversies surrounding the president. House committees controlled by Democrats launched a series of inquiries into Trump, his administration, his business practices and his family. Views of those investigations are narrowly divided: 49 percent say Democrats are doing the right thing by pursuing the investigations aggressively; 46 percent say they are going too far. "Now we're going after Ivanka, so there will be more and more and more," said Davy, the Democrat from Arizona, "and he can't veto it." Lynch, the avid Trump supporter from Long Island, says Mueller's report will clear Trump and should recommend another investigation to follow into his 2016 opponent. "It should say, 'OK, now we're going after Hillary.' " More: USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: What do Democrats want in 2020? Someone new This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Poll: Half of Americans say Trump is victim of a 'witch hunt' as trust in Mueller erodes Washington (AFP) - Locked in a tough re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week will host a visit from the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before flying to Washington for a possible meeting with President Donald Trump. But Pompeo's Jerusalem visit -- sandwiched by additional stops in Kuwait and Beirut -- reflects a larger agenda than simply lending US support to an important regional friend at a key time. "The common thing in each of those places is helping those countries bolster their efforts to push back against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo recently told Fox News. The Trump administration has made its struggle against Iran's "destabilizing influence" a key plank in its regional policy. On a lengthy Middle Eastern trip in January, Pompeo urged "unity" against Iran. The administration then organized a conference in Poland to attempt -- with scant success -- to enlarge its anti-Iran "coalition." On his upcoming Beirut visit, Pompeo will focus on the Hezbollah movement, which the US considers a pro-Iranian "terrorist" group even though it is represented in the coalition government of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, himself a US ally. And with Israel as one of the most outspoken members of the anti-Iranian grouping assembled by the US, Iran is sure to be a central focus of Pompeo's talks this week in Jerusalem. The US diplomatic chief "will reaffirm both privately and publicly during that visit our unwavering commitment to Israel's security and its right to self-defense," a senior State Department official said. - 'Tough, smart and strong' - Netanyahu is struggling to keep his grip on power as he faces allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, with legislative elections fast approaching on April 9. He undoubtedly is looking forward to the show of US support. But Washington insists it is not interfering in Israeli politics. Story continues Pompeo will be meeting Netanyahu "as the head of government in Israel," the senior official explained. "We have major US interests with Israel. Those interests don't go away. They don't go into suspension because of the electoral cycle." For that reason, the official added, Pompeo has no plans to meet with Netanyahu's rivals, including former military chief of staff Benny Gantz and ex-finance minister Yair Lapid, who together formed a centrist alliance to challenge the prime minister. Yet Trump has made clear that Netanyahu's legal problems have not lowered his opinion of the man, saying last month that the prime minister was doing "a great job" and was "tough, smart and strong." So while the Republican president has alienated many of America's traditionally close allies, his relationship with Israel seems unshakable. - A shift on Golan Heights - The Trump administration has the closest ties to Israel in years. The president has confirmed that relationship in ways both symbolic and concrete: breaking with most of the world to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and cutting off essential aid to Palestinians. Washington has taken a series of small steps deemed so "hostile" by the Palestinian Authority that it now refuses any contact with the US administration. The last step was a shift in terminology from referring to Syria's Golan Heights not as "Israeli-occupied" but as "controlled" by the Hebrew state -- a semantic shift seen by some as a prelude to US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. To capitalize on Trump's popularity among Israelis, Netanyahu will travel to Washington in the last week of March for the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an event sponsored by the influential lobbying group that draws thousands each year. While a meeting has not been officially confirmed, Netanyahu hopes to use the opportunity of his Washington visit to meet with Trump in what would be a distinctly high-profile photo op coming just weeks before the Israeli legislative elections. That April 9 vote will also start the countdown for the presentation, expected before summer, of the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that a small White House team -- strongly pro-Israeli, analysts say -- has been quietly preparing under the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The UK pound was sliding again on Monday as traders reacted to news that prime minister Theresa May was being blocked from putting forward her Brexit deal for another parliamentary vote this week. Parliament speaker John Bercow made the announcement on Monday afternoon, saying the government cannot legitimately resubmit to the House [of Commons] the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week. However, he said, another vote could go ahead if Mays Brexit deal was significantly changed. Mays Brexit deal with the European Union was rejected by the UK parliament twice once in January and once last week. Instead of accepting the deal, British members of parliament (MPs) now hope to get an extension to the Brexit deadline on 29 March. The UK pound (GBPUSD=X) slid by as much as 0.8% against the US dollar on Monday to trade just below $1.32, but then recovered some lost ground. Sterling (GBPEUR=X) was down by as much as 0.9% against the euro, with losses accelerating after Bercows announcement in parliament. The UK pound dropped sharply on Monday against the US dollar. Chart: Yahoo Finance This is a big blow for the government as it effectively closes off another vote this week unless May can pull a rabbit out of the hat, said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com. However, it is worth noting that the government has already rowed back expectations for a third vote, with government ministers saying over the last day or so that they would only bring a vote if they thought they would win it, he said. British MPs voted overwhelmingly against the deal during the two previous votes and there was little hope that a third vote would seal the deal. Mays deal was defeated by 230 votes in January and then by 149 votes on 12 March. May had earlier warned lawmakers that unless they approved her Brexit pact, Britains exit from the EU could face a long delay. Many Brexiteers fear this could mean Britain may never leave. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Canada House last week [Photo: Getty] Last week it was confirmed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would have their own separate royal household, breaking away from the joint office they currently share with the Cambridges under Kensington Palace. The Queen has given permission for Harry and Meghan to base their office at Buckingham Palace, but its understood that wasnt what they wanted. In a bid for independence, the parents-to-be reportedly wanted to have their own household entirely. According to The Sunday Times, a royal source has said: They wanted their household to be entirely independent of Buckingham Palace, but were told no. There is an institutional structure that doesnt allow that kind of independence. The feeling is that its good to have the Sussexes under the jurisdiction of Buckingham Palace, so they cant just go off and do their own thing. The Cambridges and Sussexes at the Commonwealth Day service last week [Photo: Getty] The Queens former press secretary Dickie Arbiter tells Yahoo UK: Prince Philip called The Royal Family The Firm, so you cant go off and start creating your own establishment. The Sussexes are part of that Firm, therefore they have to set up within the Firm. You cant start splitting off and doing your own thing, he [Harry] is part of the Royal Family and he is there in support of the Queen and so is Meghan. It makes practical sense, they are part of an establishment, part of an organisation and as such, they operate within that organisation and not as an independent unit. READ MORE: What you need to know about Meghan and Harrys new royal household Mr Arbiter says the split of Kensington Palace is nothing new for the Royal Family. The Prince of Wales has established his own press office at Clarence House, just like Harry and William formed their own to begin with, at Kensington Palace. Meghan and Harry are soon to move to Windsor ahead of their babys arrival [Photo: PA] While Harry was a single man, his comfort zone was William and Catherine, he says. The brothers are close, youll never break that closeness, theyll always be close, but when people get married, there is a slightly drift because they concentrate on their own family. Story continues Harry is now married and his comfort zone now is with Meghan, hes going to be dad soon and theyre setting up home in Windsor. With William being second in line to the throne, he has a different path to take than Harry. Mr Arbiter adds: Their interests are very different and therefore they need dedicated staff to focus on those interests. Simferopol (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin flew into Crimea on Monday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Moscow's annexation of the strategic peninsula from Ukraine which was condemned by the West but remains popular among Russians. Russian flags flew in the main city of Simferopol while posters celebrating Crimea's "return to its native land" hung in shop windows and on public transport. Putin used the visit to officially open two new power stations on the Black Sea peninsula, which was almost wholly dependent on electricity from Ukraine before the annexation. Moscow took over Crimea in March 2014 after months of tensions with Kiev following the ouster of a pro-Russian leader. The move resulted in a major boost to Putin's popularity. But the takeover was denounced by Kiev and the West as an annexation and, along with Moscow's support for separatist forces in Ukraine's east, has prompted wide-ranging sanctions against Russia. "March 18 is a remarkable day for Sevastopol, for Crimea and for the whole country," Putin said. He said the plants' opening in the port city Sevastopol represented "another important step to strengthen the energy security of Crimea". Kiev stopped supplying energy to Crimea in late 2015, leaving the peninsula reliant on an underwater cable running from Russia and facing frequent supply problems. The plants were at the centre of a scandal last year, after the US sanctioned Russian officials who supplied them with turbines built by German engineering giant Siemens -- a violation of European Union sanctions against Moscow. - 'No progress' - On Monday evening Putin appeared on stage at an open-air concert in Simferopol, after a smaller meeting with selected representatives of civil society. Activists have accused Russia of cracking down on civil society since the takeover. The Crimean Tatars, a Muslim-majority community that is largely opposed to the annexation, have faced pressure from Russian authorities. Story continues In Russia, March 18 has been proclaimed the "Day of Crimea's Reunification with Russia" and celebrated with events across the country. In Crimea, it is a public holiday. "There is a feeling of newness, of independence, of freedom," retired teacher Valentina Dorozhko told AFP. She said she felt "reborn" when Russia took over. But Oleg Ivanov, a man in his 40s, called for Putin to change course. "If we have sanctions imposed on us, then you need to sit down, negotiate and change something," he told AFP. "And if there's no progress, then it's time for someone else to have a go." - 'Part of Russia forever' - Putin signed an agreement on March 18, 2014, with local representatives to make Crimea part of Russia, two days after a referendum condemned by Kiev and the West as illegal. Pro-Kremlin media on Monday carried reports of improvements on the peninsula under Russian rule. "There is growing understanding in the world that Crimea is part of Russia and will be forever," Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament, wrote in a column for newspaper Izvestia. But the liberal press painted a more sombre picture, saying the takeover had made Russians poorer and more isolated from the world. The annexation prompted euphoria and a wave of patriotism in Russia but five years later Crimea has "stopped being a source of political benefit" for authorities, liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta said. According to a survey published by the Centre for Public Opinion (FOM) in early March, only 39 percent of Russians believe the annexation brought Russia more good than harm. In 2014, that figure was 67 percent. - NATO warning - Last week, the US, Canada and the European Union slapped new sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials and businesses in response to what they called Moscow's "continued aggression in Ukraine". Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is facing a difficult election this month, vowed on Monday that Crimea would return to Ukraine if he was re-elected. NATO on Monday meanwhile condemned Russia's "ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up" on the peninsula. The US-led military alliance warned there would be no return to "business as usual" with Moscow until there was "a clear, constructive change in Russia's actions". MOSCOW (Reuters) - United States Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov are due to meet in Rome this week to discuss the situation in Venezuela, diplomats from the two countries said. Venezuela, a close ally of Moscow, is in political turmoil. The United States and many other Western countries back Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly who invoked the constitution in January to assume an interim presidency, while Russia says President Nicolas Maduro remains the country's only legitimate leader. Washington says Moscow is propping up Maduro's administration. But U.S. diplomats say there could come a point where Russia decides that Maduro's rule is beyond salvaging. Russia's Interfax news agency cited Ryabkov on Sunday as saying that the main day of talks with Abrams would be on Tuesday and that the two sides would discuss how they might encourage negotiations between the Venezuelan government and opposition. "The positions of Moscow and Washington on this question are diametrically opposed, but that's not a reason not to talk," Interfax quoted Ryabkov as saying. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn) Washington (AFP) - More than a year before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved a secret campaign to silence dissenters, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The campaign included surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudis, said the report which cited US officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the effort. American officials referred to it as the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, the Times said. At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, suggesting his murder was part of a wider campaign against dissidents, the report said, citing the US officials and associates of some Saudi victims. The murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, generated global outrage including an order from US senators for President Donald Trump to designate and punish those responsible. He did not comply. The senators, briefed by the heads of US intelligence agencies, said they were convinced that Prince Mohammed was responsible for the Khashoggi killing. Saudi Arabia has stressed the prince was not involved. The kingdom initially said it had no knowledge of Khashoggi's fate but later blamed rogue agents for his death. Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor has charged 11 people over his murder. Among its activities, the Rapid Intervention Group appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of prominent women's rights activists arrested last year, the Times said. The intervention team was so busy that in June its leader asked a top advisor to Prince Mohammed whether he would give them bonuses for Eid al-Fitr, a major holiday at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saudi officials declined to confirm or deny that such a team existed, or answer questions from the Times about its work. Story continues The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an AFP query for comment. The Rapid Intervention Group was authorized by Prince Mohammed and overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court insider, American officials told the Times. US intelligence reports did not specify how involved Prince Mohammed was with the group's work, but said that the operatives saw Qahtani as a "conduit" to the prince, the report said. Qahtani has been sacked over Khashoggi's murder but Saudi authorities have not said if was among those charged. Five of the accused face the death penalty. Police (left) hunt Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis (right) - Wenn.com/Politie Utrecht Dutch police have arrested a 37-year-old man suspected of shooting three people dead and wounding five others in a possible terror attack on a tram. The Turkish-born suspect, Gokmen Tanis, was on the run since Monday morning, forcing vast parts of Utrecht city including mosques, schools and businesses into lockdown. Although the local terror threat level was set to a maximum of five, as the day progressed increasing evidence on social and international media suggested the attack could have been personally motivated. During the eight-hour manhunt, residents were advised to stay indoors and police were sent to secure mosques across the Netherlands. In an unusual move, police had named and released photographs of Mr Tanis, a local resident born in Turkey, who is thought to have unleashed a volley of shots on a tram in a quiet, residential area before fleeing in a stolen, red Renault Clio. Police named Tanis as someone they wanted to speak to following the shooting Local chief public prosecutor Rutger Jeuken said that early indications suggested a terror attack. The first interpretation of what happened according to witness statements and the evidence we have found suggest a terrorist motive, although we cannot rule out other motives, he said in a press conference in the evening. But the police acknowledged in a Twitter feed of press releases that other reports in Dutch and Turkish media suggested that there might have been personal motives, possibly targeting a woman who could have been a step-sister or ex-partner. Mr Tanis had reportedly been sentenced for an attempted killing in 2013 after he fired shots towards an apartment building. Armed police were scrambled to a manhunt in Utrecht after three people were killed in the attack Credit: BPC/WENN He was in court two weeks ago accused of a rape in 2017, and had previously been arrested for attempted vehicle theft, driving under the influence of intoxicants and spitting at police. Mark Rutte, the prime minister, said in a press conference that all flags on government buildings would hang at half-mast tomorrow: It is still unclear what the motive behind the attack was: terrorist or otherwise, we don't know and we can't exclude anything. Story continues "[Whatever the] motive, three people have died and three are fighting for their lives. The whole world is feeling this, and we should not think of this as less than it is. The shooting took place at the 24 Oktoberplein area, and eye-witnesses said that after shouts of shooter, people fled from the tram. The area was quickly shut off by police, three trauma helicopters were called, and armed police and anti-terror forces flooded the streets. Greet Oldenlam, 65, said that she saw paramedics carry a body covered with a bloodstained sheet from the tram. I cant believe this happened in my city, she said. [It] seems like nowhere is safe now. Those poor people attacked in the tram on a quiet Monday. A witness on the tram, Daan Molenaar, told Dutch broadcaster NOS: I saw someone lying behind the tram and thought she had been ridden over. "People came out of cars running towards her. Then a shooter came running with a pistol up, and heard people shouting shooter! I ran. As schools and businesses closed their doors, inhabitants stood outside their homes, looking up dumbfounded as helicopters and drones flew over the area. Police forces and emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht Credit: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP Later, armed police surrounded a first-floor apartment in the nearby street of Trumanlaan and the red car was discovered on a nearby road with doors open and engine running. In a press conference on Monday evening, police announced that a second suspect had also been arrested during the day. Today is a black day for our city, said mayor Van Zanen. Sign up for your essential, twice-daily briefing from The Telegraph with our free Front Page newsletter. Mohsan Ali had just finished his prayers when the bullets flew past. He cant explain how he managed to escape the shooters barrage but somehow found himself outside and cowering behind Al Noor mosques parking lot wall. Then the true panic set in. I suddenly realized my pregnant wife was still inside in a separate prayer room, the 37-year-old tells TIME outside Christchurchs Hagley Community College, where friends and relatives of New Zealands worst ever mass shooting on Friday are receiving care and counseling. Ali raced around to the other side of the building to find an alternative entrance, but was instead confronted by dead and injured lying in the road. It seemed like an eternity until he finally learned his wife was safe, having hidden in the mosques bathroom with three other women. Many others were not so lucky. The death toll from Fridays terrorist attack at Christchurchs Al Noor and Linwood mosques has risen to 50, with 34 more being treated at Christchurch hospital, 11 in critical condition including several children. Many others remain missing. On Saturday, Australian national Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, appeared in court charged with murder. Hes been detained without bail and is next due to appear in court in April. An avowed white supremacist, Tarrant posted a hate-filled 74-page manifesto decrying a white genocide and calling for an atmosphere of fear targeting Muslims several days before the attack. Read more: New Zealand Picks Up the Pieces After the Worst Massacre in Its History The bloody execution of those threats has shattered the calm of this sleepy city of 400,000, the second largest in New Zealand, which is ranked as the worlds second safest country. It was a chilling reminder of how nationalist and right-wing sentiment have become normalized across Western society. The rise of white nationalism is a huge threat domestically and internationally, and weve failed in tackling it as a problem, says Wajahat Ali, a prominent Muslim-American journalist and commentator. The problem is we dont name it: its domestic terrorism, thats what it is. Story continues Anne Aly, Australias first female Muslim MP, says its important to recognize the social context that allows white nationalism to flourish. Its almost like [we had] to have a mass attack in order to say, look, see, we told you, she says. The shooter began his rampage at the Al Noor mosque at 1:45 p.m., pausing to reload and even swap assault rifles, before driving across the city to Linwood mosque, where he carried on killing until he was disarmed by a worshipper and fled. The entire episode was live-streamed on Facebook via a helmet-mounted camera. Ramzan Ali had to hide under bodies in Al Noor to escape the shooter. He fell over and a couple of other bodies fell on him, and he just lay still in a pool of blood, Ramzans nephew, Farhaad, tells TIME. The shooter must have thought he was dead. He couldnt even tell us the story, he was so shaken. One and a half days later and hes still shivering. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a mosque-goer at the Kilbirnie Mosque in Wellington, New Zealand on March 17, 2019. Speaking to media on Sunday, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded to growing calls to ban automatic rifles of the type used in the attack, saying there will be changes to our gun laws. Tarrant was granted a firearms license from 2017 and owned five guns despite a brazenly xenophobic and threatening social media presence. Facebook says it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours, but along with other social media platforms has faced criticism for not acting quickly enough. Ardern said there will be further questions to be answered over the role social media sites had in broadcasting the carnage. Even those mourning loved ones have had easy access. Mogamat Ajam flew back to Christchurch from Melbourne, Australia, where he now works after spending 12 years in New Zealand, upon learning that his cousin had been shot in the back in Al Noor mosque. I have the shooters video on my phone and could see all the places where we would normally sit in the mosque, he says. My two boys would go every Friday during the school holidays. If we were still living here all the family would have been there. Ajams 19-year-old daughter was actually en route to the mosque when the attack began, but was serendipitously delayed at a mechanics shop while getting her car serviced. Those five minutes likely saved her life. Im just scared to death now, she says. Hairdresser Anwar Alisaisy, 53, was listening to the Linwood mosques Imam give the lesson when he heard shots outside. We thought maybe it was a gang or the police were chasing someone, he tells TIME. So we just keep praying but the shooting kept getting closer. Suddenly a man entered the prayer room wearing a flak jacket and military fatigues, and ordered everyone to lie on the ground. Then he opened fire on the helplessly prone crowd. He was standing by the doorway shooting and I fled to the backroom, says Alisaisy, who moved to Christchurch from Iranian Kurdistan 17 years ago. Children were crying, women yelling, and we could hear him keeping on shooting. Several worshippers in Linwood attempted to tackle the gunman. First, Pakistan-born Naeem Rashid, 50, was shot while confronting the assailant. Then another worshipper, Adul Asis, instinctively picked up the nearest object, a credit card machine, and hurled it at the gunman, causing him to drop his rifle in the melee. Asis then picked that up, too, and threw it at the attackers car has he attempted to retrieve another weapon, smashing the vehicles window. The shooter was then apprehended by police while speeding from the scene. Crowds gather on Takapuna beach for a vigil in memory of the victims of the Christchurch mosque terror attacks, Auckland, New Zealand, March 16, 2019. Faye Fraser, 77, who moved to New Zealand from Winnipeg in Canada in 1974, was intending to walk past the Linwood mosque at the time of the attack but luckily stopped by her home to change clothes. It was better that he was an outsider and not one of us, she says. Expressions of solidarity for the victims have come in from across New Zealand society and overseas. Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikhs offered food and support for survivors and victims families. Even the feared Black Power gang appeared outside the Linwood mosque, all face tattoos and motorcycle patch jackets, to perform a traditional Maori haka war dance in tribute to the fallen. For Ajam, a native of Cape Town who grew up in Apartheid-era South Africa, the attempted fomenting of a race war in multiethnic New Zealand is all the more disturbing. This is happening everywhere in the world but you dont expect it in New Zealand, because its so isolated, and people are very friendly, he says. New Zealand will be stronger because of this. Not everyone is so sure. I just came here because I thought its the safest place in the world, says Ali, who gave up his career as a high court lawyer in Lahore, Pakistan, to work in a Christchurch gas station. I lived in London three years and saw lots of robberies. So I chose this country because its safe for my kids and family. But now I think were not safe. I will talk to my wife about going back. With reporting from Elizabeth Thomson, Harry Poland and Connor Stirling / Christchurch and Hillary Leung / Hong Kong Southwest Airlines LUV inked a tentative labor deal with the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) the union representing 2,400 mechanics at this low-cost carrier. Tentative Deal Follows Bitter Dispute This latest provisional pay-related deal comes after six years of negotiations between the parties. In fact, operations at Southwest had been hampered of late due to the dispute with AMFA. The company had to cancel multiple flights as mechanical issues continued to render them unfit for flying. Consequently, the Dallas-based carrier declared an operational emergency and also apologized to its passengers for the harassments. Per Southwests CEO, the flight cancellations/delays resulted in the carrier losing millions of dollars on a weekly basis. Subsequently, the carrier filed a case against AMFA as it believed that the union was aiding the illegal slowdown in operations. Realizing that the situation might go out of control, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in an unusual move, warned the parties that the conflict between them might pose safety-related risks. Mediation followed the FAAs warning and led to the tentative deal. The tensions between the parties also caused the Southwest stock to shed 10.9% of its value in the past 30 days. One-Month Price Performance What Lies Ahead? Even though a provisional agreement has been reached between Southwest and AMFA, there is still some way to go before it becomes effective and mechanics clinch the long-awaited contract. Notably, tentative agreements do not necessarily mean that the deal will be operational. The provisional deal will now be voted on by the mechanics and will be operational only if the voting outcome is favorable. On completion of the ratification process, the deal will be valid for five years and guarantee mechanics at Southwest a 20% pay hike in addition to bonuses worth $160 million. Story continues Naturally, we expect investors to keenly await further updates on this burning issue. Zacks Rank & Key Picks Southwest carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks in the same space are Azul AZUL, Air China Ltd. AIRYY and SkyWest SKYW, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Shares of Azul, Air China, and SkyWest have gained more than 16%, 21%, and 15%, respectively, on a year-to-date basis. Is Your Investment Advisor Fumbling Your Financial Future? See how you can more effectively safeguard your retirement with a new Special Report, 4 Warning Signs Your Investment Advisor Might Be Sabotaging Your Financial Future. Click to get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) : Free Stock Analysis Report SkyWest, Inc. (SKYW) : Free Stock Analysis Report Air China Ltd. (AIRYY) : Free Stock Analysis Report AZUL SA (AZUL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Designed to provide broad exposure to the Broad Emerging Market ETFs category of the market, the SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF (EDIV) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 02/23/2011. What Are Smart Beta ETFs? Market cap weighted indexes were created to reflect the market, or a specific segment of the market, and the ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on this strategy. Market cap weighted indexes work great for investors who believe in market efficiency. They provide a low-cost, convenient and transparent way of replicating market returns. But, there are some investors who would rather invest in smart beta funds; these funds track non-cap weighted strategies, and are a strong option for those who prefer choosing great stocks in order to beat the market. Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance. While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results. Fund Sponsor & Index The fund is managed by State Street Global Advisors. EDIV has been able to amass assets over $512.14 M, making it one of the larger ETFs in the Broad Emerging Market ETFs. Before fees and expenses, this particular fund seeks to match the performance of the S&P Emerging Markets Dividend Opportunities Index. This Index generally includes 100 tradable, exchange-listed common stocks from emerging market countries that offer high dividend yields. Additionally, stocks must have positive 3-year earnings growth and profitability. Stocks are weighted by annual dividend yield. To ensure diverse exposure, no single country or sector has more than a 25% weight and no single stock has more than a 3% weight. Cost & Other Expenses Story continues When considering an ETF's total return, expense ratios are an important factor. And, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins in the long term if all other factors remain equal. With on par with most peer products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.49%. The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 3.20%. Sector Exposure and Top Holdings Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis. Taking into account individual holdings, China Mobile Limited (941-HK) accounts for about 2.88% of the fund's total assets, followed by Ptt Global Chemical Plc Nvdr (PTTGC.R-TH) and Ptt Public Co. Ltd. Nvdr (PTT.R-TH). Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 25.15% of EDIV's total assets under management. Performance and Risk The ETF has added roughly 6.57% and is down about -7.48% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 03/18/2019), respectively. EDIV has traded between $27.94 and $35.88 during this last 52-week period. The fund has a beta of 0.81 and standard deviation of 17.68% for the trailing three-year period, which makes EDIV a medium risk choice in this particular space. With about 136 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk. Alternatives SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF is not a suitable option for investors seeking to outperform the Broad Emerging Market ETFs segment of the market. Instead, there are other ETFs in the space which investors should consider. IShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) tracks MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index and the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) tracks FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China An Inclusion Index. IShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF has $59.38 B in assets, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF has $63.75 B. IEMG has an expense ratio of 0.14% and VWO charges 0.12%. Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Broad Emerging Market ETFs. Bottom Line To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF (EDIV): ETF Research Reports Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO): ETF Research Reports iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Khartoum (AFP) - Scores of Sudanese protesters chanting "freedom, peace, justice" rallied in Khartoum on Monday, witnesses said, as a campaign against President Omar al-Bashir's rule was poised to enter its fourth month. Protests erupted in Sudan on December 19 over soaring bread prices and have since turned into at times deadly rallies against Bashir's 30-year rule, with demonstrators demanding he step down. Anger has been brewing for years in the east African country over financial woes, with demonstrators accusing Bashir's administration of mismanaging the economy. Protesters took to the streets Monday in the capital's northern suburb of Bahari, in an area called Street 60 and the upmarket district of Riyadh, witnesses said. "Protesters are chanting freedom, peace, justice," a witness said, referring to a slogan that has become the movement's catchcry against Bashir's rule. Police fired tear gas at demonstrators in Street 60 area, while some students also protested in a college in another upmarket Khartoum district, witnesses said. "Who killed our martyrs?" asked protesters as they gathered in Street 60 area, a witness told AFP. Officials say 31 people have died in violence during the protests so far, but Human Rights Watch has put the death toll at 51, with medics and children among those killed. The campaign against the veteran leader's administration was initially led by the Sudanese Professionals' Association, a group of teachers, doctors and engineers. Several political parties have since joined the SPA to form an umbrella network called the Alliance for Freedom and Change, which is now leading the campaign. Bashir, 75, has remained defiant and imposed a nationwide state of emergency on February 22 to quell the protests after an initial crackdown failed to rein in the movement. A slew of measures accompanied the state of emergency, including a ban on unauthorised rallies, the setting up of special courts to investigate violations and more powers granted to the security forces to carry out raids without warrants. Story continues - Dwindling numbers - Bashir also dissolved the previous federal government and installed a new cabinet tasked with tackling the worsening economic crisis. The protest campaign is seen as the biggest challenge Bashir has faced since he swept to power in 1989 in an Islamist-backed coup. The scale and intensity of protests, however, have shrunk in recent weeks, particularly since the state of emergency came into effect. "The number of protesters are not big these days," said Sawsan Mohamed, 25, who was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment by a special emergency court for taking part in a rally in Khartoum. "I think the violence unleashed by the security forces and lack of leaders on the ground is keeping many protesters away." Several opposition leaders, activists, journalists and prominent protesters are still in detention following the crackdown on protests. During the first two months, the demonstrations spread through villages, towns and cities across the country. The protests have over the past month turned largely into weekly rallies, mostly in Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman. But experts say the demonstrations have changed Sudan. "It's already a game changer and the genie can't go back into the bottle now," a senior Western diplomat based in Khartoum told AFP on condition of anonymity. "For the moment I see a holding pattern... until there is some sort of breakthrough. The breakthrough can come any moment." Convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo enters a courtroom in Spotsylvania, Va., two years after the 2002 attacks that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. WASHINGTON The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether life-without-parole sentences for the primary gunman in a series of murders that terrorized the Washington region in 2002 must be reconsidered. The justices will hear the state of Virginia's appeal of a federal appeals court ruling that Lee Boyd Malvo should be resentenced because he was a teenager at the time of the crimes. Malvo was 17 during the shooting spree that killed 10 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. The planner of the murders, John Allen Muhammad, was executed in 2009 for his role. Malvo received four sentences of life without parole in Virginia and six sentences in Maryland. The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory life-without-parole sentences cannot be imposed on juveniles unless they committed murder and were deemed permanently incorrigible. That ruling was made retroactive in a subsequent high court decision four years later. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacated Malvo's sentences last June and asked the trial court to decide whether his "crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility" or "reflect the transient immaturity of youth." Even if Virginia must resentence Malvo, he still faces life without parole in Maryland for six murders committed there. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court will decide if convicted sniper in 2002 District of Columbia-area killings can get new sentence The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a case about Social Security identity fraud by undocumented immigrants, part of its increased focus on immigration laws. WASHINGTON Undocumented immigrants who use false Social Security numbers to get jobs would be easier to prosecute under a case the Supreme Court agreed to hear Monday. The justices will hear Kansas' appeal of a lower court's decision that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over such cases a ruling the Trump administration agrees should be overturned. The key to the case is the appearance of the false Social Security numbers on a federal immigration form. Kansas and a coalition of 10 other states say they should be able to use that information to combat identity theft. The Kansas Supreme Court threw out convictions of three undocumented immigrants, ruling that only the federal government could prosecute such cases based on information that comes from the federal form. "The victims of identity theft can face devastating consequences," Kansas Solicitor General Stephen McAllister said in urging the justices to hear the case. "This nationwide, indeed worldwide, problem and its consequences are more than the federal government alone can address." Lawyers for the immigrants argued in court papers that allowing states to use federal documents to prosecute undocumented immigrants could lead to discriminatory treatment and an end-run around federal immigration laws. "Congress has comprehensively regulated the employment verification process," they wrote. "That precludes the states from doing so." Learn more: An immigration lexicon, including DACA, Dreamers, Sanctuary city and refugees This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court to decide if states can prosecute undocumented immigrants for identity theft The Supreme Court appeared divided Monday on Virginia's use of race to draw election districts. WASHINGTON Virginia's use of racial demographics to draw election districts over the past decade divided the Supreme Court Monday, a week before it will consider an even more explosive issue: partisan gerrymandering. The court's conservative justices seemed inclined to let the state's Republican-controlled House of Delegates defend the racially drawn districts, even when the Democratic executive branch refused to do so. They also defended the GOP's decision to make 11 districts 55 percent African American, which a federal district court struck down as unnecessarily excessive. "I'm wondering why 55 is so problematic here, given that the states have to have some flexibility," Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh told lawyers for the state and individual challengers. "If a state ... said, 'We're going to do 52 percent or 53 percent', they would be hammered from the other side, saying you are discriminating against African American voters." But liberal justices argued that the GOP House lacked the authority to defend the districts because it does not represent the governor or state Senate. And they expressed doubt about the way the lines were drawn. "They drew lines in the middle of a street, with black houses on one side and white houses on another side," Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. "I don't know how you can look at that and not think that race predominated." It was the second time the high court has heard the case. In 2017, it sided with challengers in demanding further review of the districts by the lower court. The 7-1 ruling was a temporary victory for Democrats who argued that the maps were drawn to pack more blacks than necessary in some districts to give Republicans the advantage in many more surrounding districts. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires states to draw districts that enable African-Americans to elect their chosen representatives, lest blacks not form a majority anywhere. Story continues Two decades ago, Democrats used the law to demand "majority-minority" districts. After Republicans took over many state legislatures in 2010, they began drawing districts with what critics claimed were more African-Americans than necessary, in order to protect surrounding districts. A federal district court panel originally upheld the Virginia lines in 2015. Paul Clement, representing the House of Delegates, said they were used to protect black voters and lawmakers from a potentially low African-American turnout. During the first oral argument in 2016, Marc Elias, the attorney representing black voters, said the lower court allowed legislators to "corral" them "because we think they all vote alike, and we don't want them infecting the neighborhood." After the Supreme Court sent the case back, a three-judge federal district court panel ruled 2-1 in June that the 11 districts were racially gerrymandered. It ordered the General Assembly to draw a new map for this fall's state legislative elections. Those elections will determine which party controls the redistricting process after the 2020 Census. Republicans control both the House and Senate by the narrowest of margins. On Monday, Clement and Elias were back, but it was Clement's task to convince the justices to overrule the district court. He had a difficult time just convincing them that the House of Delegates was qualified to bring the case. Elias decried what he called "a one-size-fits-all, 55 percent racial rule" for all 11 challenged districts that left fewer African Americans to influence a far greater number of other House elections. He likened it to "racial stereotyping." The federal government, represented by assistant solicitor general Morgan Ratner, argued that the House did not have standing to bring the case. But on the merits, she said, the district court's ruling should be overruled. Virginia Solicitor General Toby Heytens defended the state's right to represent itself, rather than cede to the GOP-controlled House. He denied that Democrats' decision not to challenge the lower court ruling was because of political self-interest. "You can just use common sense," Chief Justice John Roberts retorted. "I haven't seen the case, I don't think, where the Democratic legislature has challenged an alleged gerrymander because it was too favorable to Democrats, or vice versa." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court seems divided on Virginia's use of race to draw election districts As the director of research for Buckingham Strategic Wealth, The BAM Alliance and Loring Ward, a question Im frequently asked relates to the view that the U.S. is a safer place to invest because of our capitalist systemwhile much of the rest of the world (Europe, in particular) is doomed to underperform because of their more socialist policies. That view is probably influenced by the well-known bias of recency, with U.S. stocks far outperforming international stocks over the past decade. As anecdotal evidence supporting that view, I wasnt getting that question during the period from 2003 through 2007. Perhaps the reason was that, while the S&P 500 Index provided a total return of 83%, it dramatically underperformed the 171% return of the MSCI EAFE Index and the 391% return of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. I thought it worth sharing how I address the issue. I begin by pointing out that it is important to not make the mistake of confusing information with value-relevant information. If the market (investors in aggregate) knows something (such as a country having socialist policies that might dampen economic growth and corporate profits), that information must already be embedded in prices. Thus, it has no value to you. Its also important to understand that markets dont price for growth, they price for risk. Informed investors know not only that growth companies (with faster rates of growth in earnings) have produced lower returns than value companies (with slower growth in earnings), but also that there is a slightly negative relationship between growth rates of country GDP and stock returns. For example, in his study Economic Growth and Equity Returns, Jay Ritter found that, over the 103-year period of 1900-2002, the correlation of per capita GNP growth and stock returns for 16 countries was actually negative (-0.37)countries with above-average growth rates provided below average returns. We find the same evidence in the returns of individual stocks. For example, growth stocks, which have higher growth in earnings than value stocks, have produced lower returns. Using data from Fama-French (FF) research indexes, from 1927 through 2017, the FF U.S. large growth research index returned 9.7%, while their large value research index returned 12.1%. We see the same thing in small stocks, with the FF U.S. small growth research index returning 8.9% versus 14.8% for the FF U.S. small value research index. To repeat, markets price for risk. Story continues Prices Reflect All Known Information The bottom line is that, in an efficient market (the annual SPIVA results demonstrate that the markets are highly efficient), current stock prices reflect the aggregate expectations of market participantsthe wisdom of crowds. In other words, when setting prices, investors consider many issues, including a countrys commitment (or lack thereof) to market-oriented institutions and policies as well as how changes to those institutions and policies might impact future cash flows and discount rates. In addition, prices change almost instantaneously as new information becomes available, often well in advance of when a policy is finalized or implemented. Thats the theory. Now lets look at the historical evidence. Historical Evidence Using the economic freedom scores from the Fraser Institutes Economic Freedom of the World Report as a proxy for the degree of government intervention in the economy, Dimensional Fund Advisors analyzed the relationship between a countrys commitment to market-oriented policies, institutions and stock returns in that country. The report measures economic freedom across five broad areassize of government, legal system and property rights, sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulationand produces rankings in those areas as well as an overall ranking of economic freedom. Annual scores are available for most countries from 2000 through 2016. Exhibit 1 below illustrates average annual stock market returns versus average economic freedom score for developed and emerging markets over the 2000-2016 sample period. As you might expect, emerging market countries tend to score lower than developed markets on economic freedom. Emerging market countries have also had higher returns on average. Thats consistent with the notion that emerging markets expose investors to greater political and economic risk than developed markets, which investors demand a premium to bear. As the chart demonstrates, within developed and emerging markets, theres little discernable pattern between economic freedom score and average returns. (For a larger view, click on the image above) Includes all countries in the MSCI World and Emerging Markets Indices, as of December 2018. Economic freedom scores are from the Economic Freedom of the World: 2018 Report. Equity returns are represented by each countrys MSCI standard index (net dividends). MSCI data 2019 MSCI Inc., all rights reserved. Exhibit 2 below shows the market performance for high and low economic freedom groups formed from sorting countries annually on current year economic freedom score. Dimensional defined high (low) economic freedom countries as those whose economic freedom score is above (below) the median score for a given year. In developed markets, high economic freedom countries had, on average, higher average returns than low economic freedom countries. In emerging markets, average returns were higher for countries ranking lower on economic freedom. But in both cases, the t-statistics for the return spreads indicated the differences were not reliable. These results suggest that even perfect foresight of future developments in economic freedom may not be useful for timing equity markets. (For a larger view, click on the image above) Summary The core investment philosophy should be that, in liquid and competitive markets, where capital is free to move around the globe, security prices reflect the aggregate expectations of all market participants. Among the many considerations by market participants when setting prices are political risks, information about government spending in the economy, the strength of the rule of law and the regulatory framework under which the private sector operates. Thus, investment decisions should not be based on countries economic freedomthe knowledge of which is already embedded in prices. A truly global perspective offers a broader opportunity to manage idiosyncratic risks of countries. The bottom line is that your global equity allocation should look similar to how the wisdom of crowds (in aggregate, all investors) allocates capital. Today that is about one-half U.S., three-eighths developed non-U.S. and about one-eighth emerging markets. For those interested, the year-end 2018 CAPE 10 earnings yields (as good a predictor as we have for future expected real returns) was as follows: U.S., 3.6; Developed non-U.S., 5.8, and Emerging Markets, 7.3. (Data provided by AQR Capital Management.) Larry Swedroe is the director of research for The BAM Alliance, a community of more than 130 independent registered investment advisors throughout the country. Recommended Stories Permalink | Copyright 2019 ETF.com. All rights reserved Damascus (AFP) - Syrian government forces will reclaim control of northeastern areas controlled by the US-backed Kurds, whether by force or through reconciliation, the defence minister warned Monday. Marginalised for decades, Syria's minority Kurds have carved out a de-facto autonomous region across some 30 percent of the nation's territory since the devastating war broke out in 2011. Backed by a US-led coalition, Kurdish forces have spearheaded an offensive in Syria against the Islamic State group. Washington's shock December announcement that it would withdraw its troops from Syria has sent the Kurds scrambling to rebuild ties with the Damascus regime, but talks so far have failed to reach a compromise. Syrian Defence Minister Ali Abdullah Ayoub said the Syrian government will recapture territory controlled by Kurdish-led forces in the same way it "liberated" other parts of Syria. "The only card that remains in the hands of the Americans and their allies is" the Syrian Democratic Forces, he said, referring to the force leading the battle to wipe out the last remnant of the IS group's "caliphate". "The Syrian government will deal with this issue in one of two ways: a reconciliation agreement or liberating the territory they control by force," he said at a joint press conference with the military chiefs of staff of Iran and Iraq. His comments come as the SDF, backed by the US-led coalition, battle jihadists in their last patch of territory in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border. Eight years into a war that has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions, Syrian government forces control almost two-thirds of the country. Just two areas remain beyond their control: the jihadist-held northwestern region of Idlib, and the third of the country under the control of the SDF. Ayoub on Monday said Idlib will also be recaptured by government forces. "The Syrian government will reassert its complete control over all Syrian territory sooner or later," he said. Story continues "Idlib is no exception." The Idlib region borders Turkey and is dominated by an alliance led by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Idlib has been protected from a massive offensive by President Bashar al-Assad's regime since September, thanks to a buffer zone deal agreed by Damascus's ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey. But it has been hit by sporadic government shelling. The defence minister's comments come after a rare meeting with the military chiefs of staff of Iraq and Iran in Damascus. Ayoub stressed the importance of cooperation and coordination between the three militaries to combat mutual threats. He said what emerged from talks "will help us to continue to confront challenges, dangers and threats" posed by terrorism. IS seized large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, but has since lost most of that to various offensives, including by the Russia-backed regime. A map illustrating Chinas silk road economic belt and the 21st century maritime silk road, or the so-called One Belt, One Road megaproject, is displayed at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, China. Photo: Reuters/Bobby Yip The UK parliament has voted down prime minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal twice and a third is apparently on the table. But while politicians also voted to reject Britain leaving the EU without an agreement, there is still a possibility that there could be a no-deal Brexit also known as a hard Brexit. This means there is still a risk to contagion spreading to other parts of the globe. In a recent research note from Nomura, entitled What the Brexit saga means for Asia, authors Rob Subbaraman and Michael Loo said that Asia would only face serious contagion in the event of a hard Brexit. The note was published just before the second parliamentary vote and the authors, like most analysts, pointed out that a hard Brexit was an unlikely event. However, even though members of parliament have voted to reject a no-deal Brexit when Britain is legally meant to leave the EU on 29 March, that vote is not legally binding and a hard Brexit could still be an outcome for the nation further down the line. Nomuras Subbaraman and Loo said that the UK crashing out of the EU would likely drive the economy into recession and prompt a large depreciation of GBP. The [Bank of England] could be forced to raise rates, putting considerable strain on the UK financial sector. While the UK is not a major export market for Asia, it is Britains connections to the Asian financial sector that pose a great risk, according to the note. Reflecting the UKs position as a global financial hub UK financial sector assets account for over 8x its GDP the financial channel is significant, Subbaraman and Loo said. UK banks have relatively large claims on Asia, particularly in the two financial hubs, Hong Kong and Singapore, but also in Malaysia and Taiwan. A global asset market sell-off could add to this financial channel, through negative wealth, confidence, and liquidity effects. However, we believe only in the unlikely event of a hard Brexit would there be a high risk of UK banks retrenching from Asia and activating these financial channels. Tripoli (AFP) - France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Monday praised "significant progress" made in southern Libya by strongman Khalifa Haftar, a rival to the UN-backed government. Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army launched an offensive in January to take over the vast southern desert region, which had become a holdout for jihadists and traffickers. "Significant progress has been achieved in the south of the country in the face of terrorist groups, organised criminals and armed foreign groups who, for a long time, have fuelled instability in the region," Le Drain said during a visit to Tripoli. France hosted a landmark meeting between Libyan rivals in May 2018, during which they agreed to hold elections, although violence and political divisions have meant no vote has been scheduled. Haftar met in Abu Dhabi last month with Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the administration supported by the United Nations, where they reasserted the need to hold elections. "France hopes that this agreement will be executed quickly, in a spirit of national harmony and cooperation," Le Drain said after meeting Sarraj. France's top diplomat is also due to meet Haftar and UN envoy Ghassan Salame during his Libya visit. Haftar's southern offensive was viewed with suspicion by Sarraj's Government of National Accord, which accuses him of wanting to install a military dictatorship in the North African country. Libya has been mired in chaos since the fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising, as the two rival administrations and numerous militias grapple for power. Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court on Monday took up a lower court's ruling that some Virginia districts were deliberately redrawn to diminish the impact of the African American vote -- an urgent issue as the eastern swing state prepares for legislative elections. The state, whose population is nearly 20-percent black, underwent redistricting in 2011 by the House of Delegates, the lower house of the state legislature. Residents mounted a legal challenge, arguing that the electoral map was drawn to concentrate African American voters in certain districts, in order to diminish their influence in other districts. The stakes are important in a country where most blacks vote for Democrats, while whites tend to favor Republicans. A lower court found in favor of the plaintiffs but the Supreme Court, the first time it took up the issue, found that the court's arguments were flawed and sent the case back. In its new ruling, the lower court found that voters' skin color had played a preponderant role in the mapping of 11 districts, in violation of the US Constitution. The court's judges approved a redistricting map drawn up to correct the 2011 map, and analysts say the changes appear to favor Democrats. The House of Delegates' majority Republicans are appealing the lower court ruling to the Supreme Court. The nation's top court must first decide whether the Republican members of the lower house have standing to appeal the ruling. Normally, it would fall to the state's attorney general to appeal but Virginia's attorney general, a Democrat, has opted not to do so. - Invitation to 'discord' - At Monday's hearing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the high court's liberal wing warned accepting the Republicans' standing to appeal "would invite complete discord in the state." The Trump administration supports the Virginia Republicans' position on the substance of the case. But it opposes granting them standing to appeal, warning that would have "far-reaching and unexpected consequences" in states like Virginia where Republicans and Democrats share power. Story continues If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the Republicans' appeal, it will then proceed to rule on the substance of the case. Its task is complicated because the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 law that sought to remove barriers to African Americans exercising their right to vote, allows black voters to be grouped in districts to ensure they have some representatives. But it is illegal to concentrate black voters in certain districts in order to weaken their overall electoral impact. In the Virginia case, the 2011 redistricting sought to satisfy the requirements of the Voting Rights Act by capping the number of black voters in a district at 55 percent. "It needs to be a little more tailored than that," said Justice Stephen Breyer. The Supreme Court should rule in the next few months. It's possible, though, that would come too late for the next state election on November 5, when all seats in Virginia's House of Delegates and Senate are up for grabs. Electoral redistricting, or gerrymandering, as it is widely known, has long been used by American political parties to gain advantage in elections. The word gerrymandering was inspired by a 19th century Republican governor, Elbridge Gerry, who redrew a district in his state to such an extent it was said to resemble a salamander. Donald Trump has angrily complained he is being blamed for the far-right terror attack in Christchurch, which has claimed the lives of 50 people. "The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!" Mr Trump tweeted on Monday morning. It comes after the US president was criticised for directing followers on Twitter to Breitbart, a far-right website with a history of anti-Muslim rhetoric, in the hours after the shootings at two mosques in New Zealand last week. He later extended his "warmest sympathy" and "best wishes" to the "people of New Zealand, but failed to label the shootings a terror attack or criticise the white supremacist ideology behind it - in stark contrast to his rapid response to Islamist terror attacks. Mr Trump later denied there was a "rising threat" from white nationalism in the wake of the atrocity. "I think its a small group of people that have very, very serious problems," he told reporters at the White House on Friday. It came despite white supremacist killings in the US more than doubling last year, according to Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), which monitors extremist violence. In a report last month, the organisation accused the president of pushing noxious anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim ideas into the public consciousness. Some commentators have claimed Mr Trump's hostile policies and rhetoric about Muslims has contributed to an emboldening of white supremacism and Islamophobic views. During his campaign for the presidency, Mr Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the US and told supporters he would look at ways to "get rid of them" from the country. The massacre on Friday has sparked renewed warnings about the growing threat of neo-Nazism, and followed deadly far right attacks in the the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe in recent years. Story continues The suspect charged over the Christchurch attack is believed to have links with violent racist groups in Europe and Asia. Brenton Tarrant is thought to have met with extreme right-wing organisations in Europe two years ago, according to security sources. In a self-styled manifesto published online, the 28-year-old said he had been inspired by white supremacist terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011. He also referenced Dylann Roof, who shot dead nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 in a purported attempt to start a race war. President Donald Trumps support among white evangelicals has dropped nearly 10 percentage points since taking office in January 2017, according to new data from the Pew Research Center released Monday. Roughly seven-in-10 white evangelical Protestants, or 69 percent, approve of the way Trump is handling the job, according to Pews latest polling from January. This is down from 78 percent who approved of him shortly after he took office. Trump has been a divisive figure within the evangelical community, with some prominent evangelicals like Jerry Falwell, Jr., the president of Liberty University staunchly defending Trump and his policies. More: Trump is the best friend the religious right ever had in the Oval Office Others, like founder of Living Proof Ministries Beth Moore, who has a large following of mostly female evangelicals, openly oppose Trump. And some leaders, like Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback megachurch in Orange County, California, which serves more than 20,000 congregants on a weekly basis, have expressed mixed feelings about Trump. Warrens attitudes reflect that of many evangelicals: According to an August 2018 survey, half of white evangelicals do not think Trump has set a high moral standard for the presidency since taking office, according to Pew. Since declaring himself a candidate for the presidency, Trump and his administration have been engulfed in scandals. Multiple women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, recently testified to Congress that Trump ordered Cohen to pay hush money to Stephanie Clifford, an adult film star who goes by the name Stormy Daniels and alleges that she had an affair with Trump in 2006, shortly after the birth of his son with first lady Melania Trump. More: President Donald Trump and Michael Cohen call each other liars over pardon request Still, evangelicals overwhelmingly continue to support Trump. In its latest survey, Pew found that nearly 75 percent of white evangelicals support Trumps plan for a substantial wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Story continues More: See what the fight over the wall boils down to: 200 miles on a 2,000-mile border According to Pew, white Protestants and white Catholics are less approving of Trump compared with white evangelicals, but still more approving that religiously unaffiliated Americans. Roughly 48 percent of white Protestants approve of the president, while Trump's approval among white Catholics is 44 percent. Religiously unaffiliated Americans consistently disapprove of Trumps performance, ranging from 17-27 percent approval, according to Pew. Most black Protestants and non-white Catholics also consistently disapprove of Trumps performance, according to Pew, which did not provide data on black Protestants because of insufficient sample size. Meanwhile, about 26 percent of non-white Catholics back the president. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Most white evangelicals support Trump's plan for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, poll shows Donald Trump has defended Fox News host Jeanine Pirro after she made Islamophobic comments about congresswoman Ilhan Omars hijab. Pirros show Justice With Judge Jeanine did not air over the weekend, while the networks schedule for next Saturday also omits the programme. The president tweeted on Sunday about the hosts absence, saying she should be brought back. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country, Mr Trump wrote. Fox must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don't give it to them. Fox News has strongly condemned Pirros commentary on Ms Omar, a first-term Democratic representative from Minnesota. She had questioned if the congresswomans decision to wear a hijab was indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is in itself antithetical to the US Constitution. Fox said the comments did not reflect the network and it had addressed the issue with her, but did not specify what action had been taken. Ms Omar, a practicing Muslim who was born in Somalia before moving to the US as a child, thanked Fox for its statement. Writing on Twitter, she said no ones commitment to the constitution should be questioned because of their faith or country of birth. Pirro said her intention had been to start a debate, but that being Muslim did not mean someone did not support the Constitution. She has invited Ms Omar on her show. Usually a frequent tweeter, the Fox News host has been absent from the social media site since her comments first aired. Additional reporting by AP WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that he urged General Motors Co's chief executive to "do something quickly" to reopen the company's Lordstown, Ohio, plant that was idled more than a week ago. "I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING," Trump said. Referring to his conversation with CEO Mary Barra, Trump added: "I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW union I dont care, I just want it open!" he tweeted. Trump also tweeted on Saturday to urge GM to reopen the plant, saying: "Toyota is investing 13.5 $Billion in U.S., others likewise. G.M. MUST ACT QUICKLY. Time is of the essence!" Earlier on Sunday, the United Auto Workers, which has filed suit challenging GM's decision to end Cruze production at Lordstown, thanked the president "for fighting alongside the UAW against @GM. We will leave no stone unturned to keep the plants open!" GM said in a statement that it and the UAW would decide what happens to the plant. "We remain open to talking with all affected stakeholders, but our main focus remains on our employees and offering them jobs in our plants where we have growth opportunities," it said. "We have opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees." The last Chevrolet Cruze rolled off the assembly line on March 6 at Lordstown, the first of five plants in North America to end production this year, and ending U.S. production of the Cruze. The idling of the Lordstown plant is costing 1,500 jobs there. Since 2017, GM cut two of the three production shifts there, eliminating 3,000 jobs amid sagging demand for small cars. GM is continuing to produce the Cruze in Mexico for other markets, but not for the United States. The company has noted that over 400 Lordstown employees had accepted offers at other GM locations and that jobs were available at other assembly plants for anyone willing to relocate to other states. The 6.3-million-square foot Lordstown assembly complex has manufactured more than 16 million vehicles since it opened in 1966, including nearly 2 million Chevrolet Cruze cars since 2010. (Reporting by Diane Bartz and David Shepardson; Editing by Peter Cooney) Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan goes before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the Defense Department budget on March 14. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP) President Trumps visit to the Pentagon Friday morning fueled speculation he was on the verge of nominating acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to the top position, but that didnt happen, and a Pentagon official later said the purpose was a top secret briefing about Afghanistan and other national security issues. Trumps visit appears to have left Shanahan, who many believe is the likely pick for the top job, hanging. But the bigger question, however, is whether Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, is up to the job. Shanahan was confirmed as deputy secretary of defense in July 2017 and became acting defense secretary at the start of the year, following the resignation of Secretary James Mattis. He has received mixed reviews so far, with some sources crediting him for his focus on efficiency, but others criticizing his management style and for being overly deferential to Trump. Hes a very good nuts and bolts guy, said a former senior Pentagon official, who added that despite having no previous Defense Department experience, Shanahan during his time in government has quickly mastered how you get things done in the Pentagon, how you exercise power over the budget. The former Boeing executive is a guy that understands large organizations and how to make them function properly and get the most out of them, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Guy Swan, a vice president at the Association of the U.S. Army. Swan described Shanahan as a man who could make the trains run on time, a phrase repeated verbatim by another person who spoke to Yahoo News. Some observers credit Shanahans business experience as an asset in the Pentagon. Hes brought some really important insight to the department, particularly as weve grappled with the idea of accelerating innovation in response to new and emerging threats, said a former senior military officer. He brings a different point of view, a different culture to the department, and that can be disruptive, but it can also be very positive. Story continues Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan fires a modified paintball gun that shoots pepper balls during a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico on Feb. 23. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) Although Shanahans industry experience was in aerospace, his support for Army modernization efforts has given him a strong base of support among the services leaders, according to Swan. From the Armys perspective, having him in that position [of defense secretary] is viewed as a very positive development, Swan said. In particular, Shanahan has supported Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milleys modernization priorities and the establishment of the Army Futures Command, the services first new four-star command since 1973, Swan said. With Trumps announced intention to nominate Milley to succeed Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that relationship will be crucial if the president nominates Shanahan to the defense secretary job permanently, Swan added. When Trump ruffled Air Force feathers with his plan to create a Space Force, against the wishes of most in the Pentagon, it was left to Shanahan to make it happen. This led to friction with Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who announced her resignation on March 8. But a former senior Pentagon official said Shanahans handling of the Space Force issue exemplified one of his strengths: his ability to translate Trumps diktats into palatable policy directives. Hes been great at taking crazy stuff the president says and somehow translating it into something halfway reasonable, the former senior Pentagon official said. After Trump declared his intent to create a Space Force, over congressional and Air Force opposition, Shanahan took charge of that and steered the policy. The plan is now to place the Space Force inside the Air Force, much as the Marine Corps falls under the Department of the Navy, the former senior Pentagon official said. He was able to maneuver through that bureaucratic mess and sort of make the president happy without upending the entire Pentagon. But this ability, if anything, makes it less likely that Shanahan will stand up to Trump, according to the former senior Pentagon official. In positions like this, you have to be willing to respectfully speak truth to power, but in the Trump administration, everybody who has respectfully spoken truth to power eventually gets canned, the former senior official said, adding that Shanahan will have watched and learned not to rock the boat. His biggest benefit to the president is hes a loyal soldier, the former official said. He will be a yes man for the president. Patrick Shanahan listens as President Trump speaks during a signing event for "Space Policy Directive 4" on Feb. 19. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP) However, the former senior Pentagon official had no worries about Shanahans lack of previous defense experience, noting that on highly operational issues the defense secretary would typically defer to the Joint Chiefs chairman. A bigger challenge for Shanahan will be the role that a U.S. defense secretary is expected to play on the world stage, at NATO summits and things like this, according to the former senior Pentagon official. This is where he really doesnt have the policy background. This will be a steeper climb. Its also possible that the president may leave him in place in an acting capacity, meaning that Pentagon bureaucrats might slow-roll any Shanahan initiatives they oppose, in an attempt to wait him out. They do that a little bit with political appointees anyhow, if they dont like whats going on, but theyll for sure do it with acting appointees like Shanahan, said the former senior Pentagon official, because acting has less stature than the real Senate-confirmed permanent person in the job. Shanahan, even if he is nominated, will also have to overcome sound doubts on the Hill. Last week, he endured some tense exchanges with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the 2020 defense budget. Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia lambasted Shanahan for his departments obfuscation regarding military construction projects threatened by Trumps use of Pentagon money to fund a border wall. Shanahan also faced allegations that the Pentagons overseas contingency operations fund had become a slush fund to pay for things that had nothing to do with U.S. wars. Shanahan told the committee that later that day he would provide it with a list of the construction projects at risk. This incensed Kaine, who said that the committee staff had been asking for the list since mid-February, and Shanahans promise to deliver it later that day meant it would not arrive before the Senates early afternoon vote on Trumps emergency declaration. I feel completely sandbagged, Kaine said. I dont think that you giving us that list today after the vote, when weve been asking for it for a month, is a good-faith response to the request of this committee. Shanahan, who appeared calm throughout the hearing, told Kaine that there has not been a deliberate attempt to withhold information and that his team had worked to be 100 percent transparent with Congress. (Cover thumbnail photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) _____ Read more from Yahoo News: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior U.S. senators called on Monday for the Trump administration to correct a slowing pace of U.S. sanctions designations on North Korea, saying there had been a marked decline in the past year of U.S. engagement with Pyongyang. In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Republican Cory Gardner and Democrat Ed Markey called for a recommitment to robust enforcement of U.S. and United Nations sanctions on North Korea. The senators, the chairman and ranking member respectively of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, complained that the pace of sanctions designations on North Korea had "slowed considerably" in the past year of U.S. diplomatic engagement with the country. They cited research by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank saying that the Trump administration had sanctioned 182 persons and entities for North Korea sanctions violations since March 31, 2017, but only 26 since Feb. 23, 2018, "despite ample evidence of illicit behavior from Pyongyang and its enablers." The letter pointed to a 2019 U.N. report which found that North Korea had continued to defy U.N. sanctions with a massive increase in smuggling of petroleum products and coal and violation of bans on arms sales. While welcoming U.S. diplomatic efforts aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, the senators' letter said "the status quo is unacceptable and is contrary to the administrations 'maximum pressure and engagement' doctrine." U.S.-North Korea engagement has appeared to be in limbo after a second summit in the past year between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke down last month over conflicting demands for sanctions relief and denuclearization. The State and Treasury Departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Senators' letter. Pompeo said in a radio interview on Monday that the administration had "the toughest economic sanctions in history," on North Korea "but the most promising diplomatic engagement in history" with the country as well. Speaking to B98 FM in Kansas, Pompeo said Washington aimed to reengage with Kim. Pompeo said on March 5 that he was hopeful he could send a team to North Korea "in the next couple of weeks," but there has been no sign of such direct engagement since the Feb. 27-28 summit. The State Department said the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, who has led working-level talks with Pyongyang, would travel to London on Tuesday to meet British, French, and German counterparts to discuss coordinated efforts to advance North Korean denuclearization. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish) By David Shepardson (Reuters) - U.S. officials have not yet validated data from the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed killing all 157 people on board, emphasizing the investigation remains in the very early stages, two officials briefed on the matter told Reuters Sunday. Earlier on Sunday, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Transport Ministry said the data from the black boxes was successfully recovered and teams from the United States and Ethiopia had validated it. Citing analysis of the black boxes recovered from the wreckage of the March 10 disaster, the spokesman said the crash had "clear similarities" with October's Lion Air crash. Investigators are trying to determine why the aircraft plunged into a field shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, searching for possible similarities to an October Lion Air crash that killed 189 people. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are assisting the investigators. The officials said after investigators reviewing black box data return to Addis Ababa and start conducting interpretive work, the NTSB and FAA will assist in verification and validation of the data, the officials said. NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss did not immediately comment Sunday on the report that the NTSB had "validated" some data but said As the U.S. accredited representative to the Ethiopian-led investigation, the NTSB is a full partner during this fact-finding phase." "That includes providing assistance in analyzing the FDR data, working to develop a transcript from the CVR, processing and documenting on-scene evidence and participating in interviews." The FAA said Wednesday that some physical evidence recovered at the scene was part of the governments decision to order the planes' grounding. (Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, writing by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - A U.N. envoy condemned Gaza's ruling Hamas group on Sunday for what he called its campaign of arrests and violence in confronting street protests over the past few days against high prices. Hundreds of people have taken to the streets across the enclave in "We want to live" demonstrations. Human rights officials said dozens of people have been detained or hurt. Cellular phone videos posted on social media showed Hamas security forces beating protesters with clubs, and gunshots could be heard. Tires have been burned and rocks thrown at the Hamas men. Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special coordinator for Middle East peace, said in a statement that "the long-suffering people Gaza" have a right to protest at "the dire economic situation" without fear of reprisal. "I strongly condemn the campaign of arrests and violence used by Hamas security forces against protesters, including women and children, in Gaza over the past three days," he said. Contacted by Reuters, a Hamas spokesman had no immediate comment on Mladenov's remarks. Most of Gaza's two million people live in poverty. Its economy has been impacted by blockades by Israel and Egypt - with both countries citing security concerns - and disputes between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Hamas has accused the security services of the rival Fatah movement, the main faction in the Palestinian Authority, of masterminding the protests in an attempt to weaken it. Fatah officials denied the allegation. The Palestinian Authority has been imposing economic sanctions in Gaza to try to force Hamas, which seized the enclave in 2007, to implement a power-sharing agreement. In a bid to boost Hamas government revenues, Gaza's economy ministry slapped additional fees on imports, leading to a hike in food prices, a local economist said. In his statement, Mladenov said he was particularly alarmed by "the brutal beating of journalists and staff from the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) and the raiding of homes". Local rights groups said several of their employees were beaten or detained by Hamas police while monitoring the protests. Organizers of the demonstrations, who have kept their identities hidden from the public, said in a statement that protesters were exercising their right to freedom of expression under Palestinian law. (Reporting by Nidal Almughrabi, Editing by Jeffrey Heller, William Maclean) By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court handed a defeat on Monday to a bed and breakfast owner in Hawaii who turned away a lesbian couple due to her Christian beliefs, but it could soon take up another major case on the conflict between gay and religious rights. The justices refused to hear an appeal by Phyllis Young, who runs the three-room Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Honolulu, of a lower court's ruling that she violated a Hawaii anti-discrimination law by refusing to rent a room to Diane Cervilli and Taeko Bufford in 2007. A state court ruled that Young ran afoul of Hawaii's public accommodation law, which among other things bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Litigation will now continue to determine what penalty Young might face. The Supreme Court's action came nine months after it sided on very narrow grounds with a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for two men, citing his Christian beliefs. The justices could decide as soon as next week whether to take up a strikingly similar case from Oregon in which a bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple for religious reasons. The Colorado baker decision did not resolve the question of whether business owners can claim religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. The court, however, did reaffirm in the baker ruling that businesses open to the public must serve everyone. Young, who is Catholic, said her decision to turn away Cervilli and Bufford was protected by her right to free exercise of religion under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Young also argued that Hawaii did not give her fair notice that her business was covered by the public accommodation law. "The freedom of religion does not give businesses a right to violate non-discrimination laws," said Peter Renn, a lawyer with gay rights group Lambda Legal who represents Cervilli and Bufford, who are no longer a couple. "The Supreme Court declined to consider carving out an exception from this basic principle when a business discriminates based on the sexual orientation of its customers." James Hochberg, Young's lawyer, said his client was merely trying to work in accordance with her religious beliefs. "The government went after Mrs. Young's constitutionally protected freedom simply for adhering to her faith on her own property. This kind of governmental coercion should disturb every freedom-loving American no matter where you stand on marriage," Hochberg added. At Young's bed and breakfast, "the only romantic partners allowed to share a bedroom are a married man and woman," her lawyers said in court papers. The justices avoided a broad ruling in the Colorado case by merely deciding that a state commission did not handle the case against the baker appropriately and sent the dispute back for further proceedings. In October, the commission threw out its case against the baker. The Supreme Court in that case also did not address important claims including whether baking a cake is a kind of expressive act protected by the First Amendment's free speech guarantee, a question not raised in the Hawaii case. The baker ruling was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a champion of gay rights and author of the 2015 ruling legalizing gay marriage. Kennedy retired last year and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's second appointee to the court. During his Senate confirmation hearings last September, Kavanaugh declined to discuss his views on gay marriage. He was not involved in any gay rights cases in 12 years as an federal appeals court judge. Of the 50 states, 21 including Hawaii, Colorado and Oregon have anti-discrimination laws protecting gay people. In the Hawaii case, Cervilli and Bufford sued in 2011 and were joined in the litigation by the state's civil rights commission. The cake cases, along with similar litigation around the country concerning photographers and florists, are part of a conservative Christian backlash to the 2015 gay marriage ruling. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider a bid by Kansas to revive the state's policy of prosecuting people for identity theft for using other people's Social Security numbers to gain employment in a case linked to immigration issues. The justices will hear the state's appeal of a 2017 Kansas Supreme Court ruling that voided the convictions of three restaurant workers and found that a 1986 federal law, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, prevents states from pursuing such prosecutions. The three men - Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara - had provided their employers Social Security numbers that were not their own before being prosecuted for identity theft. President Donald Trump has taken a hard line against illegal immigrants. His administration filed court papers siding with Kansas urging the justices to take up the appeal. Lawyers on both sides refused to comment on why the three men did not have or did not use their own Social Security numbers, saying it was not relevant to the legal question. People who enter the country illegally do not get assigned Social Security numbers, which are given by the U.S. government to all legal residents. The number is primarily used to identify people for employment and tax purposes. Its original purpose was to track each person's payments into the Social Security program, which provides money for retirees and people eligible for other social welfare programs. The state appeals court found that the federal law defined the circumstances under which immigrants can be penalized for providing incorrect information to employers. The law required employers to fill out a form, known as the I-9, attesting that they have reviewed prospective employees' documents and can confirm they are authorized to work in the United States. The law also stated that the form "may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of this act." Story continues Lawyers for the three men said that because they were using the Social Security numbers listed on their I-9 forms to establish their eligibility to work, they cannot be prosecuted under state law. The cases were prosecuted in Johnson County, located near Kansas City, Missouri. The U.S. Justice Department said the federal law, signed by former President Ronald Reagan, does not prevent the use of information contained on the I-9 form if the same false information is also included on other forms, namely federal and state tax forms. During the prosecutions, the state specifically said it was not relying on the I-9 forms. "Nothing in the statute suggests that Congress intended to carve out an exception to generally applicable state laws for the exclusive benefit of unauthorized aliens," Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the Trump administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, said in the court filing. Kansas is one of several conservative-leaning states that has sought to crack down on illegal immigrants. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials have warned their Brazilian counterparts of their security concerns about Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co during talks in Washington, a senior American official said on Monday. The United States has said Huawei technology in next-generation 5G networks could be used to spy on the West. China has rejected the accusations. The 5G issue is one of many security, defense and trade matters on the agenda as President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are slated to meet for the first time on Tuesday. "They (Brazilian officials) have had a whole host of different meetings here where they've heard from our experts on security, intelligence matters, and otherwise in order to understand the consequences of these networks and how frankly dangerous and how they could undermine their security domestically," the U.S. official told reporters on a conference call, speaking on condition of anonymity. A Brazilian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Brazil did not want to get in between the United States and China on the Huawei dispute. The official said that at the moment, no barriers were foreseen for Huawei in Brazil. Bolsonaro, who embraced closer ties with the United States during his campaign for office last year, visited the CIA on Monday. Brazil is also working during the trip to win U.S. backing for economic reforms to win its support to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. official told reporters that Brazil's efforts on economic and regulatory reform were welcome. "We see those efforts and that positive movement in a favorable light and clearly we want to help Brazil achieve its goals and will do everything we can in order to help them achieve their goal," the official said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Lisandra Paraguassu, Editing by G Crosse and Alistair Bell) (This March 15 story corrects author's name) By Lee Van Der Voo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of youngsters are planning to skip school to join a rally in Washington on Friday as part of what organizers are calling an international Youth Climate Strike to seek action on climate change. Organizers expect some 2,500 students to join the event in front of the Capitol Building, where Congress sits, with similar rallies taking place in 46 states. The demonstrations, which will call on politicians to take action to combat climate change, express support for measures including the Green New Deal, an ambitious Democratic environmental proposal that has become a lightning rod for Republican criticism. "So many kids are going to be in the street, so many kids are going to influence people, so many kids are finally going to be able to have their voices heard, so many adults are going to finally wake up," said 12-year-old Haven Coleman of Denver, one of three youth organizers of the protest in the United States, in a phone interview. The event is the offspring of youth strikes in Europe inspired by Greta Thunberg, a lone 15-year-old picketer at the Swedish Parliament. Organizers said they hope staging the event during the school day will signal the importance that students attach to fighting climate change. The two other leaders of the U.S. movement are Isra Hirsi, the 16-year-old daughter of newly-elected Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, of Minneapolis, and Alexandria Villasenor, 13, of New York. The group is calling for a "national emergency" on climate change and for the United States to stop all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The scientific community broadly agrees that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to net-zero by 2050 to halt the catastrophic effects of climate change. Most of the declared Democratic candidates for the White House have already voiced support for the Green New Deal, a measure proposed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - a sweeping 10-year blueprint for combating climate change that involves reducing carbon emissions and retrofitting infrastructure. Republicans have dismissed the proposals as unreasonably expensive and disruptive to the U.S. economy. They have tried to use some of the measures to sow discord within the Democratic party, painting their political rivals as shifting to the left and embracing extreme policies. (Reporting by Lee Van Der Voo, writing by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O'Brien) Are you lost in the wild? Sorry, but the page you're looking for has not been found Try checking the URL for errors, goto home or try to search below. LONDON (Reuters) - A Brexit-supporting British lawmaker said a "lot of people" in parliament still remained opposed to Prime Minister Theresa May's European Union withdrawal deal, with hostility going beyond opposition to the so-called Irish backstop. "This is a very bad agreement," John Redwood told BBC radio. "Quite a number share my overall concerns that we don't need this kind of binding treaty. "It's a lot of people and it goes far wider than the ERG group who have been particularly keen to have the right kind of Brexit," he added. (Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Kate Holton) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain's government will only hold another meaningful vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal on Tuesday if it is certain that the divided House of Commons would back it at a third attempt, the foreign minister said. Jeremy Hunt, in Brussels for talks with his EU peers, told journalists on Monday when asked if the vote would take place the following day: "We hope it will. "But we need to be comfortable that we'll have the numbers." "The risk of no-deal, at least as far as the UK parliament is concerned, has receded somewhat but the risk of Brexit paralysis has not," he said. Hunt said there were "cautious signs of encouragement" that May's deal could go through. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alison Williams) LONDON (Reuters) - The United Kingdom voted in 2016 to leave the European Union but it is still uncertain when or if that will happen. Below is a timeline of its tortuous journey in and out of the European project: WHY DID BRITAIN SHUN THE ORIGINAL BLOC? London declined to join the European Union's forerunner, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), when it was founded in 1952. Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee told parliament in 1950 his party was "not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody". There was also concern it might prejudice close ties with the United States and the Commonwealth group of mainly former territories. Britain also stayed out of the European Economic Community (EEC) when it was formed from the ECSC in 1957. Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan reversed this position in 1961 and sought membership of the EEC. With Europe divided by the Cold War, he said the promotion of European unity and stability through the bloc was "so essential a factor in the struggle for freedom and progress throughout the world". But France led resistance to Britain's membership in the 1960s, with Charles de Gaulle blocking Britain's accession in 1961 and 1967, accusing the British of "deep-seated hostility" to the European project. WHEN DID BRITAIN FINALLY JOIN? Britain joined the EEC in 1973 after France dropped its objection's following de Gaulle's resignation in 1969. As he signed the treaty taking Britain into the common market, Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath said "imagination will be required" to develop its institutions while respecting the individuality of states. 1975 - BRITAIN'S FIRST EUROPEAN REFERENDUM In 1975, new Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, faced with splits among his ministers on Europe, decided to hold an "in-out" referendum on membership. He backed staying in after saying a renegotiation on terms of membership had "substantially though not completely" achieved his objectives. Britons voted 67 percent to 33 percent to stay in the European Union in 1975. WHY DID THE 1975 VOTE NOT SETTLE THE ISSUE? Although new Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher backed the campaign to stay in the bloc in 1975, her party become increasingly divided by the issue and her own relationship with European leaders was tense at times. She attacked the idea of a single currency and too much power being centralized in EU institutions, telling the then-Commission President Jacques Delors "no, no, no" over his plans for more European integration in 1990. However, days later she was challenged for the leadership of the party by pro-European Michael Heseltine, and was forced from office when she failed to beat him outright in November 1990. Her successor, John Major, was forced to pull sterling out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) on so-called "Black Wednesday" - Sept. 16, 1992. The ERM had been intended to reduce exchange rate fluctuations ahead of monetary union. Major was also beset by divisions over Europe, describing three euroskeptic cabinet ministers as "bastards" in 1993 after narrowly surviving a confidence vote over the EU Maastricht Treaty. After Labour's Tony Blair won the 1997 election, his finance minister, Gordon Brown, effectively ruled out euro entry by setting out five economic tests that had been worked out with his top aide, Ed Balls, in a New York taxi. CAMERON'S GAMBLE BACKFIRES The tenure of the next Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, was also, ultimately, defined by Europe. The Conservatives returned to office in 2010 after 13 years of Labour government. In a bid to shore up support in the face of a split party and the small but staunchly euroskeptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), Cameron promised an "in-out" referendum on a renegotiated deal on membership in the party's 2015 election manifesto. Cameron said he was satisfied that negotiations with the EU gave Britain enough for him to back a "remain" vote. But though Britain's biggest parties backed the campaign to stay in, the people voted to leave by 52 to 48 percent on June 23, 2016. Cameron resigned the morning after the vote and was replaced by Theresa May. MAY DAYS May triggered Article 50, the formal EU divorce notice, in March 2017, setting the exit date of March 29, 2019 for Britain to leave - with or without a deal. In a bid to gain backing for her Brexit plan, she called a snap election for June 2017. The gamble backfired. She lost her parliamentary majority and formed a minority government, supported by the euroskeptic Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). On Nov. 13, she reached agreement on the terms of Britain's departure from the bloc with EU leaders. Lawmakers voted 432-202 to reject the deal on Jan. 15 in the biggest parliamentary defeat for a government in modern British history. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN? May dashed to Strasbourg on March 11 and in a late night news conference announced she had secured legally binding reassurances on the so-called Northern Irish border backstop, an insurance policy aimed at avoiding post-Brexit controls on the United Kingdom's border with EU-member Ireland. Many Brexiteers and the DUP fear the backstop will trap the United Kingdom in the EU's orbit, and have sought guarantees it will not. But the new documents were not enough to sway the most euroskeptic wing of her party and the DUP, and the deal was voted down again on March 12. In the following days lawmakers voted to avoid a "no-deal" Brexit and to ask for a delay to Brexit. By law, Britain is due to leave at 2300 GMT on March 29, 2019, the end of next week. But May has said that she will ask for a delay until June 30 if parliament approves a deal by Wednesday. "Such a short technical extension is only likely to be on offer if we have a deal in place," May said on March 13. "The House has to understand and accept that, if it is not willing to support a deal in the coming days, and as it is not willing to support leaving without a deal on 29 March, then it is suggesting that there will need to be a much longer extension to Article 50." (Corrects date in first paragraph of final section.) (Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Giles Elgood) New York (AFP) - Flight recorder data recovered from the wreckage of Boeing 737 MAX planes that crashed in Ethiopia and Indonesia shows "clear similarities," Addis Ababa said Sunday as the US maker announced it was finalizing a software update for its under fire anti-stall system. Pressure was mounting meanwhile on the US Federal Aviation Administration, which insisted it had followed standard procedures in certifying the plane model, even as it was reported to have come under investigation by the Department of Transport. "The 737 MAX certification program followed the FAA's standard certification process," the agency said in an email to AFP. It said its procedures were "well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs." But reported similarities between the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8, killing all 157 on board, and the Lion Air crash in October of the same model of plane in Indonesia, leaving 189 dead, have raised serious doubts and triggered Boeing's biggest crisis in decades. The 737 MAX is a relatively new aircraft, having entered service only in May 2017 as Boeing's answer to Airbus's medium-haul A320 Neo. Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said Sunday that a study of the flight data recorder retrieved from the Ethiopian plane had shown "clear similarities" to that of the Lion Air flight in Indonesia. She said the parallels would be the "subject of further study." - Pilots had complained - As investigators continue their work, preliminary findings in the Lion crash have focused on a possible malfunction of an anti-stall system known as the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System). Boeing developed that system, because of the unusually forward placement of the plane's engines, to avoid a stall. The manufacturer said Sunday it was close to releasing a long-awaited software patch to the system. Story continues "While investigators continue to work to establish definitive conclusions, Boeing is finalizing its development of a previously-announced software update and pilot training revision that will address the MCAS flight control law's behavior in response to erroneous sensor inputs," president and CEO Dennis Muilenburg said. Experts have questioned the FAA's certification process after learning that American pilots had lodged serious complaints about the system. According to a Wall Street Journal report Sunday, the FAA had come under an "unusual inquiry" by the Department of Transport over the issue, and has warned officials to safeguard computer files, according to sources quoted by the paper. The Journal said the probe would zero in on Seattle-area FAA offices. Boeing airliners are built near Seattle. A Seattle Times report Sunday said the FAA had delegated part of the certification process for the plane -- including the MCAS -- to Boeing engineers. The original safety analysis provided to the FAA by Boeing contained "several crucial flaws," the newspaper said, adding that the process was carried out hastily as Boeing struggled to catch up with Airbus's more advanced work on the A320 Neo. The report was dated 11 days before the Ethiopian Airlines accident, the newspaper reported. - 'All requirements... met' - The FAA refused on Sunday to comment on the newspaper reports, noting the various investigations still under way. In the face of budget cuts, the FAA since 2009 has delegated some certification work to aircraft manufacturers or to outside experts, a procedure known as ODA (Organization Designation Authorization). On Sunday, the agency defended its practice, insisting that the 737 MAX had to pass multiple tests and reviews before being authorized to fly. It said the aircraft's design was minutely examined, ground and flight tests were conducted, and other civil aviation authorities were consulted to ensure the "airplane complies with FAA standards." A statement provided by Boeing to The Seattle Times said that "the FAA considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements." It said, without elaborating, that there had been "some significant mischaracterizations" of the certification process. Peter DeFazio, chairman of the House of Representatives' transportation and infrastructure committee, is planning to launch an investigation into the 737 MAX's certification, congressional sources said. Michel Merluzeau, an analyst at AirInsight, urged a cautious process. "There may be a need to re-examine what works and what does not work (in the certification process) -- but it should not be done emotionally," Merluzeau said. Another analyst, Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group, said the FAA's credibility is at stake -- "as is Boeing's. And, the global system of aircraft certification reciprocity is at risk too," he said. Washington (AFP) - The United States strongly denied Sunday a report that it intended to leave almost 1,000 troops in Syria, adding plans for a residual force of around 200 troops had not changed. The Wall Street Journal had reported Sunday that as talks with Turkey, US-backed Kurdish forces and European allies have failed to produce a deal on a "safe zone" in northeastern Syria, the US now intended to keep working with Kurdish fighters in the country. It quoted US officials as saying the plan could see up to 1,000 US forces spread across the country. "A claim reported this evening by a major U.S. newspaper that the U.S. military is developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is factually incorrect," General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement. "There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President's direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence." But he added the US was continuing to "conduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border." "Planning to date has been productive and we have an initial concept that will be refined in the coming days," he said. "We are also conducting planning with other members of the Coalition who have indicated an intent to support the transition phase of operations into Syria." President Donald Trump had abruptly announced in December the immediate and complete withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops deployed in northeastern Syria, declaring victory against the Islamic State group. The decision prompted his defense secretary Jim Mattis to quit. Then, under pressure from Congress and the Pentagon, he agreed to leave a residual force of some 200 US troops, which he wants to be reinforced by allies in the anti-IS coalition. An objective of the international force is to guarantee the security of its Syrian Kurd allies. Turkey, a NATO member, views the Kurdish combatants as terrorists, and the Europeans fear they would be vulnerable if Ankara launched an offensive. Geneva (AFP) - The US ambassador to Germany led protests outside the UN Monday over what he termed the "bigotry" faced by Israel at the Human Rights Council, as nations weighed condemnations of the Jewish state. Several hundred people joined the protests which were largely focused on the council's so-called Agenda Item 7, a fixture on the council's schedule exclusively devoted to resolutions condemning Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Israel is the only country with a dedicated agenda item, which is one of the main factors that prompted the United States to leave the rights council last year. "This is not just a form of bigotry. It is a sign of intellectual and moral decay," US envoy Richard Grenell told the crowd. "Like a drug-addiction, anti-Semitism is both a disease and a source of comfort" for states that habitually condemn Israel at the UN, said Grenell, who stirred controversy in Germany last year over his stated ambition to promote conservatives throughout Europe. The protests were organised by the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch, which seeks to flag alleged anti-Israel bias within the UN, among other issues. As the protest took place, council members attending the Item 7 session were debating the results of a probe which found that Israeli troops may have committed crimes against humanity in their response to the Gaza protests last year. Israeli officials have rejected the probe's findings and accused investigators of bias. Santiago Canton, who headed the commission of inquiry, told reporters he also does not "personally agree" with Agenda Item 7. But even though the probe was initiated by the arguably flawed Human Rights Council, "that doesn't mean the work of the independent commission cannot be objective," he said. "If (critics) want to discredit our report they should discredit (it) on the facts and the law." Israeli officials have said the commission ignored the violent threat posed by Gaza protesters and downplayed the role of Hamas in orchestrating the unrest. Washington (AFP) - Boeing and US aviation regulators are coming under intense scrutiny over the certification of the 737 MAX aircraft after news that two recent crashes share similarities. On March 11, just a day after the Ethiopia crash left 157 dead, a grand jury in Washington issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in the plane's certification, according to a Wall Street Journal article citing people close to the matter. The subpoena, which came from a prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal division, seeks documents and correspondence related to the plane, according to the report. A criminal inquiry is "an entirely new twist," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of the Leeham Company, who recalled a probe of a 1996 ValuJet crash as the only other aviation probe that was not a civil investigation. "Unlike France, where criminal investigations into aviation accidents seems common, it is very, very rare in the US," Hamilton added. The Transportation Department's inspector general also is probing the approval of the 737 MAX by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), The Wall Street Journal also reported. Neither department responded to requests for comment from AFP. The probe is focusing on the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, implicated in the Lion Air crash, which authorities have said shared similarities with the latest accident. The Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 came less than five months after a 737 MAX 8 operated by Lion Air crashed in Indonesia, killing 189. While it may take months for definitive conclusions, Ethiopian officials said Sunday there were "clear similarities" between the two catastrophes based on information from the flight data recorder. The two incidents have prompted air transport regulators to ground 737 MAX aircraft worldwide, a surprising setback for a line of jets that has been flying for less than two years and is Boeing's top seller. Story continues An investigation by The Seattle Times -- in the city where Boeing has a large manufacturing presence -- showed numerous problems with the MCAS, including that it would repeatedly override a pilot's actions based on one faulty sensor. The paper asked for a response from Boeing and the FAA at least a week prior to the latest crash. Shares of Boeing dropped another 1.8 percent on Monday to $372.28. The company has fallen about 12 percent since the Friday before the crash. FAA officials had no comment Monday on the investigations but reaffirmed that the certification for the plane followed standard procedure. Boeing said it followed the rules in bringing the plane to the market. "The 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the identical FAA requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives," Boeing said. "The FAA considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements." Later Monday, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg sought to reassure clients and passengers of the firm's commitment to safety in a video message. "Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing, and ensuring safe and reliable travel on our airplanes is an enduring value and our absolute commitment to everyone," Muilenburg said. "Soon we'll release a software update and related pilot training for the 737 MAX that will address concerns discovered in the aftermath of the Lion Air Flight 610 accident." - Auto-certification? - The 737 MAX was certified as a variant of the 737 Next Generation, the plane it replaced, despite major differences in the engine and the addition of the MCAS, according to documents available on the FAA's website. The motors on the new plane are heavier than in the 737 NG, posing more of a risk of stalling, so the MCAS was designed to protect against the possibility. But the Lion Air accident showed the system can erroneously correct for a stall when the plane is taking off, based on one bad sensor, and continuously fight the pilot for control. US pilots complained to Boeing about the issues following the Lion Air crash. Because of budget constraints, the FAA delegated aspects of the approval process to Boeing itself, according to sources. Under a program, known as the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA), employees of Boeing are accredited by the FAA to assist in approving the aircraft -- including design, production, flight tests, maintenance and other systems -- as well as signing off on the training procedures of pilots on new planes. The FAA last week said it already had ordered Boeing to develop a fix for problems with the MCAS system. But the agency was not able to describe any changes in the plane implemented by Boeing after the Lion Air accident. According to one aviation expert who requested anonymity, Boeing had readied some modifications for the system by the end of 2018 but the regulatory approval and subsequent installation of the changes were delayed by the five-week US government shutdown. Legislators Peter DeFazio, chairman of the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Ted Cruz, who chairs a Senate transportation subcommittee, have each called for hearings to look into the 737 MAX's certification. By Jennifer Hiller BIG SPRING, Texas (Reuters) - Mike Christensen strides among rows of gleaming steel tanks, pointing to pipelines that arrive from miles around to this corner of former farmland near Midland, Texas, the heart of the largest oil patch in the United States. His company is one of dozens opening sites like this one that handles, not the lucrative oil, but the shale industry's dirty secret: wastewater. While U.S. oil production has reached record levels on account of the shale revolution of the last decade, much of the supporting infrastructure has failed to keep up, including how to transport the large quantities of water used in the hydraulic fracturing process and the water that is produced from wells alongside oil and gas. Once managed individually by energy producers, the job of supplying, collecting and disposing of water is a rising cost, and has spawned a $34 billion a year business in the U.S. that has lured investors including TPG Capital, Blackstone Energy Partners LP and Ares Management Corp to back these firms. Oil production in the Permian basin that spans West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is expected to rise to rise 35 percent to 5.4 million barrels of per day (bpd) by 2023, requiring even more water supply and disposal, said analysts. In two New Mexico counties, firms produced 505 million barrels of oil from 2016-2018, and five times that in water, a Reuters analysis of state production data showed. "You cant bring production online until you have a solution for the water," said James Lee of Riveron Consulting. There are 5,500 Permian wells to be drilled, requiring 2.75 billion barrels, or 115 billion gallons to complete, a Morgan Stanley report estimated. While much of the water in the Permian is transported for high fees by trucks, which also exacerbate traffic congestion around production sites, midstream companies build and use pipelines which energy producers pay to utilize. Story continues Christensen's company, On Point Oilfield Holdings, owns a water disposal network that this year will take up to 375,000 bpd of wastewater. Some of that water will be recycled, but millions of gallons will eventually be sunk deep underground in West Texas. "Water was always an afterthought for producers," said Christensen, who stretches him arm and draws a 360-degree arc to show the locations of lines carrying oilfield bilge to the site. "Now it's a business plan in itself." Raising cash at a time when the industry is under pressure to restrain spending and improve returns has also fueled the trend, prompting some producers to cash in on their water projects. In December, Hess Corp got $225 million for some of its water handling assets from a joint venture with Global Infrastructure Partners, while Halcon Resources received $200 million in cash and up to another $125 million over five years from WaterBridge Resources LLC for its water infrastructure assets. "When capital discipline is higher on the priority list, it's very attractive to monetize" water management assets, said Benjamin Shattuck, an analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie. $14 BILLION WATER BILL AND RISING The average frack job now consumes 13 million gallons (49 million liters), up 40 percent in two years, according to a Reuters analysis of Permian producers' data reported to FracFocus.org. That translates to water bills in the Permian Basin soaring 17 percent this year to $14 billion, according to consultancy IHS Markit, more than three times what North American producers spent last year on sand to frack their wells. That lure is attracting investors who once viewed oil and gas as the prize. TPG last week agreed to pay $930 million for a majority stake in Goodnight Midstream's water pipeline network, which consists of more than 420 miles (670 km) in three U.S. shale basins. Other private equity firms, including ARM Energy Holdings and Ares Management, have committed $4 billion to buy or start water management firms over the last four years, according researcher Global Water Intelligence. {nFWN1UM0IP] Water management at this scale is in its infancy compared with the business of moving oil and gas by pipeline, but more private equity firms are looking for investments, said Jim Summers, chief executive of Houston-based water company H20 Midstream. A FRACTION OF THE COST Acquiring and disposing of water costs between 50 cents and $4 per barrel, depending on whether it moves by pipelines or more expensive trucks, and can be a steep cost for producers when oil dips as low as $40 a barrel in the Permian, as it did late last year. The cost has inspired some companies to shift gears. ARM Energy formed a company, Salt Creek Midstream, to gather oil and gas and was quickly pulled into offering water management, said CEO Zach Lee. By hiring Salt Creek, shale producer Lilis Energy expects its water disposal costs to fall to 48.5 cents per barrel from $2. Not all producers, however, want to let go of their water management. Diamondback Energy Inc is considering selling shares in a subsidiary that manages its water, oil and gas transport, but would retain control of the subsidiary. "If I have to wait on somebody to get a pipeline built or a saltwater disposal system put in place, that is going to be a bad day. I need to be in control of that, not the other way around," said Diamondback's CEO Travis Stice. Parsley Energy Inc spent $150 million to develop a water system that can handle up to 1 million bpd, which helped cut its wastewater costs by two-thirds, to 50 cents per barrel, CEO Matt Gallagher said. "If you want to be a good shale operator you have to be excellent at water sourcing and management," said Gallagher. Otherwise, "the whole operation could come to a screeching halt," he said. (Reporting by Jennifer Hiller; editing by Gary McWilliams and Marguerita Choy) WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - The White House pushed back on Sunday against any attempt to link President Donald Trump to the accused shooter who killed 50 people in two New Zealand mosques, saying the act of a disturbed individual cannot be blamed on any one politician. "The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that," White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on "Fox News Sunday." Trump on Friday condemned the "horrible massacre" at the mosques and the White House called the shooting a "vicious act of hate." Asked by a reporter on Friday if he sees white nationalism as a rising threat around the world, Trump said: "I dont really. I think its a small group of people." The accused gunmans manifesto praised the U.S. president as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose," even though he did not support his policies. The reference revived criticism that Trump has not been strong enough in condemning hate speech and has fomented anti-Muslim sentiment. RELATED: New Zealand mosque shootings "I don't think it's fair to cast this person as a supporter of Donald Trump," Mulvaney said. "Any more than it is to look at his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto and align him with (Democratic House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Ocasio-Cortez," a Democratic congresswoman. "This was a disturbed individual, an evil person," he said. Trump drew strong criticism in the days after a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 when he equated white supremacists with counter-protesters and saying "both sides" were to blame. "Time and time again, this president has embraced and emboldened white supremacistsand instead of condemning racist terrorists, he covers for them. This isn't normal or acceptable," Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said on Twitter after Friday's mosque shootings. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) Weather Alert ...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT CST TONIGHT... * WHAT...Snow and freezing drizzle. Additional snow accumulations of 1 to 3 inches. A light glaze of ice possible in some spots. Winds gusting as high as 35 mph. * WHERE...Portions of east central and northeast Nebraska and southwest and west central Iowa. * WHEN...Until midnight CST tonight. * IMPACTS...Plan on slippery road conditions. Patchy blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. Icing is most likely on untreated and elevated surfaces, including bridges and overpasses. The hazardous conditions will impact the evening commute. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Slow down and use caution while traveling. The latest road conditions for the state you are calling from can be obtained by calling 5 1 1. && Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has ambitious plans for the crypto unicorn. | Source: TechCrunch/Flickr Coinbase is the most popular U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. The company boasts more accounts than the likes of Charles Schwab. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has the ambitious goal for Coinbase to become the Google of crypto, suggesting that its relevance to Web 3.0 could rival that of the internet search giants stamp on the early version of the internet. Armstrong himself was named among Fortunes 40 under 40 list and has influenced Americans for bitcoin. Unfortunately, rather than being celebrated, Coinbase increasingly resembles a victim of its own success. Despite having more to lose than many of its peers, Coinbase at times appears to be sabotaging its own reputation, making some wonder if the growth has come too soon, too fast. Clearly, Armstrong and his team have a vision in mind to take the company in the direction they want it to go. At times, however, their decision-making process appears haphazard, almost like shoot first and ask questions later in their quest for adoption among big investors. Lets reflect on a few of those decisions, shall we? Last years botched Bitcoin Cash (BCH) rollout, which seemingly sent the BCH price soaring prior to the exchanges announced listing. This years controversial Neutrino acquisition, which led to the #deletecoinbase movement. And most recently, Coinbases decision to overhaul the fee structure on its professional platform, Coinbase Pro. The latter changes involve lifting combined fees for smaller customers by one-third while slashing fees for bigger clients, as economist and trader Alex Kruger noted in a tweet. Coinbase Pro raising fees for smaller clients by 33% while lowering fees for larger clients. Reason: "to further optimize the market health of our platform". pic.twitter.com/zS3KMSPCND Alex Kruger (@krugermacro) March 15, 2019 Fee Overhaul Coinbase has good intentions for the fee overhaul, saying it will further optimize the market health of our platform. They further expect it to bolster liquidity, improve price discovery, and create smoother price movements. The unintended consequences, however, suggest that it might not be worth it. Read the full story on CCN.com. There is a lot to be liked about Shanghai Industrial Holdings Limited (HKG:363) as an income stock. It has paid dividends over the past 10 years. The company currently pays out a dividend yield of 5.5% to shareholders, making it a relatively attractive dividend stock. Does Shanghai Industrial Holdings tick all the boxes of a great dividend stock? Below, Ill take you through my analysis. Check out our latest analysis for Shanghai Industrial Holdings 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 its annual yield among the top 25% of dividend-paying companies? 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? SEHK:363 Historical Dividend Yield, March 18th 2019 How well does Shanghai Industrial Holdings fit our criteria? The company currently pays out 30% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a payout ratio of 32% which, assuming the share price stays the same, leads to a dividend yield of 5.7%. Furthermore, EPS is forecasted to fall to HK$3.2 in the upcoming year. When considering the sustainability of dividends, it is also worth checking the cash flow of a company. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow. 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. Whilst its per-share payments have increased during the past 10 years, there has been some hiccups. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again. Story continues Relative to peers, Shanghai Industrial Holdings has a yield of 5.5%, which is high for Industrials stocks. Next Steps: Considering the dividend attributes we analyzed above, Shanghai Industrial Holdings is definitely worth keeping an eye on for someone 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. Ive put together three essential aspects you should look at: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for 363s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for 363s outlook. Historical Performance: What has 363s returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading. Maurice Wysocki, an information technology worker, was looking to branch out on his own as a contractor last year, allowing him a more flexible schedule and sharply reduced hours some months of the year. But then the Poughquag, New York, resident hopped on the federal health care exchange to see how much he would have to pay for insurance for himself, and his wife and two children. It was a huge amount, Wysocki, 49, says, roughly 10 times his current costs as an employee of a financial services company. I chickened out. Many Americans who would like to dial back and work part time have been discouraged from doing so because of sharp premium increases in the individual health insurance market the past few years, experts say. They include single mothers, baby boomers approaching retirement and disabled people. Top salaries: These are the 25 highest paying jobs in the US Electric cars: Comedian Jay Leno says 'all modern cars are good,' but electric cars 'will be the future' As a result, analysts say, the portion of U.S. employees choosing to work part time has leveled off and then dipped slightly, edging down further early this year. It had been rising the first few years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect in 2014 and provided part-time and freelance workers, as well as the unemployed, less expensive health insurance options than they previously had. Some of the health cost hikes can be traced to market forces, while others are due to Trump administration efforts to weaken the health care law, says Mark Hall, director of the health law and policy program at Wake Forest University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The ACA is still there and you can still get insurance, but theres a lot of uncertainty about how long the ACA is going to be there, Hall says. Part-time work grew after ACA After the ACA, also known as Obamacare, took effect on January 1, 2014, the share of employed Americans voluntarily working part-time rose steadily from an average 13.1 percent in 2013 to 13.6 percent in 2016, according to data from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and the Labor Department. That figure generally had been falling for nearly two decades. Story continues But the share of voluntary part-timers flatlined in 2017 and slipped to 13.58 percent last year. In January and February, it averaged 13.4 percent, though the monthly data can be highly volatile. We did see an increase in voluntary part-time employment because of the ACA, says Dean Baker, co-founder of the CEPR. Now were seeing that level off, if not decline, as the ACA becomes less attractive. College admissions: Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are not alone. See the list of who has been charged. Corvette power: GM's new Corvette is so powerful, it's warping the frame in tests, report says Baker acknowledges that some of the drop-off could stem from a low unemployment rate (currently 3.8 percent) that has spawned more labor shortages and pushed up wages, prodding some part-time workers to take full-time jobs. But he says the rise and dip in voluntary part-time employment hews so closely to the timeline of ACA developments that the health care law is the biggest factor. After the ACA was enacted, health insurance providers competed vigorously with low prices on the federal exchange, Healthcare.gov, and some state exchanges. But the insurers generally lost money from 2014 to 2016 and many left the market. Those that remained responded with 13 percent average premium hikes in 2016, and 20 to 30 percent increases in 2017 and 2018, ultimately allowing the firms to be profitable. Trump moves hobble health law President Donald Trump, who campaigned on repealing the ACA, has further chipped away at the law, Hall says. He spearheaded the elimination of the mandate for individuals to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, encouraging healthy, less-costly subscribers to go without coverage. The Trump administration also did away with cost-sharing reduction payments, which reimbursed insurance providers for cutting out-of-pocket medical expenses for subscribers who qualified for federal subsidies. More broadly, White House efforts to roll back the health care law have created political uncertainty that caused some insurers to leave the market, a July 2018 report by Hall says. All of these moves have prompted insurance companies to boost premiums to maintain profits, Hall says. In addition, he says, the administration has substantially scaled back marketing of the federal exchange. The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment. $20,000 vs. $2,160 Wysocki says he would have paid more than $20,000 a year for family coverage through the exchange compared with his current $2,160 annual cost as a full-time employee. While he was also concerned about having to constantly drum up new clients as a contractor, the health insurance expense was a big reason" he nixed the idea. Amid higher premiums and reduced promotion, enrollment on the federal and state exchanges fell 3.7 percent in both 2017 and 2018, and 2.5 percent this year to 11.5 million, according to Halls report. Americans who receive subsidies based on their income and make up the vast majority of exchange subscribers have continued to sign up. But several million of those who dont get aid have dropped coverage in recent years, Hall says. Many are likely former part-time workers who took full-time jobs to obtain more affordable health insurance, Baker says. Traditionally, a vibrant labor market that creates more full-time jobs is celebrated. The number of part-time workers who prefer full-time positions has fallen dramatically since the recession. But, Baker says, workers who want part-time jobs because of their life situation should have that option as well. Young women who want to spend more time caring for children or pursuing their education account for a disproportionate share of workers in that category, according to a 2018 study by the CEPR. You shouldnt have to work 40 hours just to get health insurance, Baker says. Life decisions One of the real benefits of the ACA thats underappreciated is it gave you the freedom to make changes in your life in (leaving) a job you dont like, a career you dont like or a marriage you dont like, Hall says. 10 til 2, a Denver-based staffing agency, launched in 2003 with the mission of placing workers in part-time jobs exclusively. But about 18 months ago, the firm added a full-time jobs division. Employees said theyd like to work full time, partly because of the health benefits, says CEO Brian Strandes. Julie Terstriep, 57, a business manager at Western Illinois University, has thought about taking a part-time job to help care for her parents and spend time with her grandchildren. But she figures it would cost $15,000 to $20,000 a year for health insurance to cover her husband, Steve, and herself, compared with her current $2,400 tab. We just have to have health insurance, she says, noting her husband owns a 1,000-acre farm with 400 head of cattle and has chronic back problems. It definitely causes you to make life decisions based on insurance. Have you wanted to work part time but stayed in your full-time job? What held you back? Tell Paul Davidson over email pdavdison@usatodaycom, or on Twitter: @PDavidsonusat. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Working full time for health coverage? Many who want part-time jobs are stymied by costs (Reuters) - Xerox Corp said on Monday it was exploring the possibility of a "strategic transaction" for its customer financing business, which accounts for more than 65 percent of its overall debt. The printer maker said its plan to simplify its operations would lead to gross savings of at least $640 million in 2019 and $1.5 billion by 2021. The move comes close on the heels of a plan announced by the company to restructure itself to become a wholly owned unit of a new holding company, which will trade under its current ticker. Xerox has been exploring options following the termination of a complex deal last year to merge with Fujifilm Holdings Corp after it ran into strong opposition from activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason. The financing unit accounts for about $3.4 billion of the company's total debt of $5.2 billion as of Dec.31, a presentation attached with the filing showed. It brought in 4 percent or about $300 million of Xerox's total revenue of $7.63 billion in fiscal 2018. Xerox was considering the sale of the financing unit, which lends money to customers to rent printer and equipment, Reuters reported last July. (Reporting by Sonam Rai and Sayanti Chakraborty in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun Koyyur) Home | Showtime | Celebrities | Talking About Ubi Isnt A PR Stunt, I was Blindsided Iyanya The past few days have been filled with stories from both Iyanya and Ubi Franklin and what transpired at Made Men Music Group. Former TripleMG music star Iyanya made certain strong allegations against his former manager and how he was betrayed by him after he realized he didnt co-own the record label. Ubi Franklin also with days tried to refute the accusations by telling his own side of the story and sharing documents to prove his point. In a recent interview Iyanya, reflects a little on the Ubi Franklin story while stating that it wasnt intentional to discuss him and his departure from TripleMG. I just want to focus on music. Right now, my major focus is on my new record label, Violet 360. I was actually doing a media tour for the new label before I got blindsided with the whole Ubi story; that was never meant to be the focus. I see it as a distraction. People can think whatever they like; I have no control over that. I just finished recording a song with Duncan Mighty and I would prefer we focus on that. Very soon, I will be putting out an Extended Play album titled, The Rebirth, he said. The Kukere crooner said he wont say anymore about his departure from MMMG unless given the right opportunity. Dont worry, Im going to tell my story soon, probably in a book or TV series; that way, I can make money off it. People have been asking me a lot of questions about that but I will like to keep mum for now. Iyanya spoke about his new song Halle with Duncan Mighty. Duncan Mighty has always been someone I admire. I respect his talent. Many people think I did the collaboration because Duncan is trending at the moment. But these same people forgot that I did a song with him about five years ago. We were just together recently and we decided to make another song together; and thats how the latest single came about. He also gave the inspiration behind his upcoming The Rebirth EP. I just want the work to speak for itself. But I feel fresh and renewed. I am the new king and I have put in a lot of hard work into this. I have also missed my fans, just like they have missed me, and this is an opportunity for them to see me in a new light. Meanwhile, Ubi Franklin has also urged those doubting his story to go to CAC and check things up. Go to CAC and look for the documents. I am not interested in talking about it. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Celebrities Home | News | General | List of the most popular Celine Dion songs The tragic Titanic story, the beautiful love fairytale of the Beauty and the Beast and many other beautiful tales will forever be connected with the voice of this marvellous lady. Her songs are filled with uniqueness and tenderness. Do you know the name of this woman? She is Celine Dion. So if you want to plunge in the atmosphere of romance and affection, go on reading, and you will discover top trending Celine Dion songs. Image: Instagram.com, @celinedion Source: UGC This Celine Dion song list is arranged according to the views on the stars official YouTube channel. The number of people watching her music videos is awe-inspiring. So join them and listen to Celine Dion songs below! Where to listen and download Celine Dion songs? Several of her songs are in French the most beautiful language on the Earth. Enjoy the musical compositions below, and if you do not know what some songs in French are about, it will be explained in the article. 1. Celine Dion - I'm Alive (146 million views) [embedded content] This song gathered a crazy amount of views. Nothing is surprising in it because the motive and lyrics are extremely powerful. One may even use the following words from the song as a love poem. "When you call on me When I hear you breath I get wings to fly I feel that I'm alive When you look at me I can touch the sky I know that I'm alive. You can download the song I'm Alive and add to the playlist of your favourite songs. 2. Celine Dion - That's The Way (142 million views) [embedded content] That's The Way is an incredibly inspirational musical composition. If you happen to have problems in life or relations with your beloved, just listen to it, it will encourage you. Celine Dion says that all we will be happy if we are persistent and faithful, and this is how life rules work. When you want it the most There's no easy way out When you're ready to go And your heart's left in doubt Don't give up on your faith Love comes to those who believe it And that's the way it is. 3. Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On (125 million views) [embedded content] My Heart Will Go On is a brilliant soundtrack from a famous movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. This clip the third most watched video on the stars YouTube channel. As you have already understood this is that very song from Titanic movie. It is more than just a musical composition; it is a whole story about eternal love that had no chances to survive. However, be careful, tears may well up your eyes if you listen to it! Near, far, wherever you are I believe that the heart does go on Once more you open the door And you're here in my heart And my heart will go on and on. Image: Instagram.com, @celinedion Source: UGC 4. Celine Dion - A New Day Has Come (118 million views) [embedded content] It can be said that it is exciting and fascinating to listen to the touching music composition A New Day Has Come because it has unusual sounding effects. You may hear different instruments accompaniment in the melody. You need to listen to it to enjoy the gamma of music. After the song was released in 2002, it became extremely popular on the radio and became No. 1 on the Top 200 albums chart. We advise you not only to enjoy the melody but also try to hear beautiful thoughts of the author: Let the rain come down and wash away my tears Let it fill my soul and drown my fears Let it shatter the walls for a new, new sun A new day has come. 5. Celine Dion - The Power Of Love(101 million views) [embedded content] One may turn on this marvellous song waking up with a beloved person in the morning. A musical composition is soaked with bright sunshine, warmth and kindness. It is called The Power of Love, and it really illuminates powerful beams of affection. So do not fail to charge with them and listen to the song. The whispers in the morning Of lovers sleeping tight Are rolling by like thunder now As I look in your eyes I hold on to your body And feel each move you make Your voice is warm and tender A love that I could not forsake. Image: Instagram.com, @celinedion Source: UGC 6. Celine Dion - Pour que Tu m'aimes Encore (96 million views) [embedded content] Pour que Tu m'aimes Encore is the first song by Celine Dion in French in our rating. It is a song expressing the emotional state of a woman or girl who is a fighter for love. This composition will definitely encourage you to break the walls and travel thousands of kilometres to get love back. Below you will find a translation: I'll find other languages to sing your praises I'll pack our bags for the fields of eternal harvests I'll say those magic words spoken by African healers I'll say them with no regrets so that you love me still. 7. Celine Dion - It's All Coming Back To Me Now (85 million views) [embedded content] It is so sad when love is lost, but it is so wonderful when it is found again. This lyric and tender song called It's All Coming Back To Me Now will first make you cry, and then will make you smile. It is so controversial and marvellous at the same time. Sing together with Celine Dion: But when you touch me like this And you hold me like that I just have to admit That it's all coming back to me When I touch you like this And I hold you like that It's so hard to believe, but it's all coming back to me. READ ALSO: Celine Dion age and recent pictures 2019 8. Celine Dion - Parler a mon pere (67 million views) [embedded content] It is one of those Celine songs sang in French. But Parler a mon pere is peculiar and beautiful not because of the language, but because of its topic. This musical composition is about a particular and tender connection between a father and daughter. Only a father can understand that powerful love of a parent who sees his daughter growing old. It is a perfect composition for a wedding dance of a father and his little girl. Just read the lyrics in English translation: I would like to pass the ocean, cruise the flight of a gull Think of all this I have seen and go as well to the unknown I would like to take down the moon; I would as well like to save the Earth But before everything else, I would like to talk to my father Talk to my father. 9. Celine Dion - Encore un Soir (59 million views) [embedded content] This musical composition called Encore un Soir will remind you that time passes, and you should enjoy wonderful moments and live now. So, take your chance, and listen to the song right now! But it was only yesterday', my memory would lie to me And those children faces, and mine in that mirror Oh, I'm not complaining, don't worry about that Life spoiled me; I'm having a hard time turning it off Oh, my God, I've had my share And even more, in so many ways. 10. Celine Dion - Ashes (from "Deadpool 2" movie) (58 million views) [embedded content] A song Ashes was created for a Deadpool movie in 2018. According to David Litch, a person who directed both the film and the music video, this song is part of the plot and theme of the movie, instead of just being a fun music video. Cause I've been shaking I've been bending backward till I'm broke Watching all these dreams go up in smoke. The unique voice and charming musical accompaniment in Celine Dion songs will charm you for sure. So enjoy her compositions and share with the world, because the world needs more love! [embedded content] READ ALSO: Top trending Chris Morgan songs 2019 CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | APC House of Reps member-elect dies weeks after winning National Assembly election A House of Representatives member-elect Garba Muhammad Butalawa, representing Kura, Madobi and Garun Mallam in Kano state, has died, The Nation reports. The Late Garba, who contested on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was said to have died after a protracted illness at the Prime Clinic, Lamido Crescent on Saturday, March 16 at around 2:30pm. His death was confirmed to the news daily by his driver Balarabe Shehu Butalawa READ ALSO: Goodluck Jonathan denies plans to defect from PDP Legit.ng had earlier reported that Ezekiel Afon, a lawmaker representing Pengana constituency in the Plateau state House of Assembly died hours after he was re-elected to represent the constituency. Bashir Sati, the secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the state confirmed the lawmakers death to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, March 10, in Jos. According to Sati, Afon died Sunday afternoon, March 10, after a brief illness. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda In a similar vein, Legit.ng reported that an Adamawa House of Assembly member, Adamu Kwanate (APC- Nasarawo/Binyeri), died on Wednesday, March 6, four days after another lawmaker, Abubakar Abdurahman (ADC-Mubi South) passed away after a long illness. Kwanate, who was seeking reelection in the election slated for Saturday, March 9, was said to have collapsed during a campaign engagement in his constituency and was rushed to a hospital in Yola, where he died. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better Angry Nigerian says he needs Atiku to become president and sell the country - on Legit TV [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Bauchi guber: INEC's position compromised, evil plot against APC - Nabena - APC chieftain, Yekini Nabena, has rejected INEC's position on the suspended governorship election in Bauchi state - Nabena accused the Festus Okoye-led committee of the electoral commission of evil plot against the ruling party - Okoye had led the committee on a fact-finding mission to the state and recommended that the election would be concluded without a re-run The deputy national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekini Nabena, has said that his party rejected in entirety the position taken by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) regarding the governorship inconclusive election in Bauchi state. Nabena made the position known on Sunday, March 17 while speaking to journalists in Abuja. He accused the Festus Okoye-led committee of the electoral commission of evil plot against the ruling party. Okoye had led the committee on a fact-finding mission to the state and recommended that the election would be concluded without a re-run. READ ALSO: Buhari will not interfere in rerun elections - Presidency Nabena said the position taken by INEC contravened the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended. Considering the letters and spirit of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999 as amended), and the INEC Guidelines for 2019 General Elections, INEC is not empowered to reverse any decision taken at the Collation Center by the Returning Officer appointed for that purpose. Such decisions can only be reversed by a court of law, especially when INEC cannot approbate and reprobate, he stated. He also accused the Festus Okoye-led committee of denying it fair hearing, claiming that APC as agents were not invited during the hearing to ascertain the circumstances leading to the cancellation of the Tafawa Balewa local government election result. The composition of the committee is also questionable as the Committee chairman, Festus Okoye Esq, is a close ally of and ex-personal Solicitor of Hon. Yakubu Dogara of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). No justice can be done by the committee chairman who is interested in the whole issues and the instant circumstances, he said. Meanwhile, Engineer Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and APC chieftain, has urged Governor Muhammad Bindow to honorably concede defeat in the interest of peace in Adamawa state. Lawal was reacting to the release of delimitation details of polling units for governorship re-run election fixed for Saturday, March 23 as released by INEC in the state. The delimitation details revealed that the total number of registered voters in the 44 polling units stands 34,101 against 40,948 being speculated. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Umaru Fintiri of the PDP is already leading with 367,471 votes against the 334,995 votes polled by Governor Bindow, with a margin of 32,467 votes. Lawal said his call for the governor to concede defeat is aimed at strengthening democratic norms, adding that another election is only four years away. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Election not a do or die affair - Sanwoolu | Legit TV [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Group blames Taraba government, PDP over Jalingo post election violence - A group in Taraba state says the post election violence in the state was caused by PDP members - The group, Concerned Taraba Citizens Forum, also said the state government should take responsibility for the violence - The group was reacting to a statement by the Taraba state commissioner for information, Simon Dogari, who accused the APC of instigating the violence A group, Concern Taraba Citizens Forum, has alleged that the post election violence that has trailed the re-election of Governor Darius Ishaku in Taraba state was caused by members and supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The group in a statement sent to Legit.ng on Sunday, March 17 and signed by its coordinators Kefas Bulus and Muhammad Umar, said the state government should take responsibility for the violence that engulfed the state capital, Jalingo, after the elections. The group was reacting to a statement by the Taraba state commissioner for information, Simon Dogari, who accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of instigating the violence. They described the allegations by the ruling party in the state as irresponsible, insisting that the PDP was desperately attempting to cover its track by introducing religion politics to the state in 2015 and had vigorously sustained it till the recent election. READ ALSO: APC's House of Representative-elect dies in Kano The group berated the state government for accusing the APC of encouraging religious politics in the state, saying its not only disheartening, double standard but also ludicrous. The group added that the violence started when PDP members celebrating Governor Ishaku's victory at the poll started attacking APC supporters after the polls. When INEC declared Ishaku as Governor-elect those who went on celebration were PDP supporters not APC but instead of doing the traditional rally as APC supporters did in the aftermath of presidential victory, they went on rampage; breaking shops, smashing doors and windows and attacking innocent people along Nasarawo and Mallam Joda areas of Jalingo. The worst of it all was their blasphemous attack on the faith of the Muslims insinuating APC as Muslims party and that a Muslim will never rule Taraba state because Taraba is for Christ and PDP is a Christians party. Taraba state belongs to everybody, Nigeria is a secular state, therefore no religion should claim monopoly of any state in the country, the group stated. The group added that the just concluded governorship election in the state was never free, fair and credible. Both international and domestic observers unanimously agreed in their condemnation of the excessive rigging perpetuated by the PDP in form of vote buying, intimidating other party agents and forcing INEC officials into compromise by force or by cash. Also many PDP supporters were caught with hundreds of PVCs and thump printed ballot papers in favour of PDP and some were even paraded by the DSS where they directly admitted to being sponsored by high ranking state government officials, the group concluded. PAY ATTENTION:Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room) has called for an independent inquiry into the conduct of 2019 general elections. The group made the call at a press conference addressed by its convener, Mr. Clement Nwankwo on Sunday, March 10. The group said the inquiry should address many issues that have bedeviled the conduct of the polls including procurement, logistics management, role of the military and abuse of process by INEC officials amongst others. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Election not a do or die affair - Sanwo-Olu | Legit TV [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Top 30 list of inspiring prosperity scriptures Success is one of the motivational factors that keep you focused on your goal. That motivation helps you set up your alarm to wake up early to work on your steps towards glory. Now, here is the exciting part: If you are religious, you do not have to look far for encouraging words to keep you going. You just need to turn to the Holy Book for prosperity scriptures like the ones highlighted below. Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC To prosper and be successful can connote different things based on the setting of your society and beliefs. That is why you find people questioning the connection between being rich with a lot of money and evil. Have you ever had that debate with yourself? As you think about it, here is a collection of inspirational texts about succeeding. READ ALSO: What does the Bible say about fear? Bible prosperity scriptures In the Bible, prosperity refers to the physical and financial well-being of Christians because of the will of God. As a believer, diligent donations, positive speech, and faith are the factors that you should observe to increase your material wealth on earth. In a nutshell, if you believe in the word of the Bible and have faith in God, you will receive success and security. As such, here is a list of Bible verses about success and prosperity. The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto, and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Deuteronomy 28:8. He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat. Proverbs 28:25. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. 3 John 1:2. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Isaiah 53:10. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalm 1:3. He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. Proverbs 10:4. 1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditates day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalm 1:1-3. Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. Acts 19:25. And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Deuteronomy 28:11. The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22. 5 The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but of everyone that is hasty only to want. Proverbs 21:5. If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. Job 36:11. READ ALSO: Top 20 healing scriptures What does the Bible say about money being evil? Besides the monetary aspect of success, it is equally essential to consider your self-being, and the following soul prosperity scriptures will come in handy. They are all about how individuals should understand the concept of money and the evil mannerisms that can engulf you in those moments. Image: unsplash.com (modified by author) Source: UGC For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Luke 18:25. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Psalm 73:12. A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. Psalms 37:16. But my God shall supply all you need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot* serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, one thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. Mark 10:21. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:10. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Psalms 37:1-2. READ ALSO: Top 35 Bible verses about love What does the Bible say about success in business? As a business owner or at a personal financial level, reading some scriptures on financial prosperity can kick start your day, month, or year positively. For that matter, here is a list of sayings from the Holy Book that should encourage you in your quest for success in your business. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11. The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children. Psalm 115:14. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. Deuteronomy 8:18. Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase and so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Proverbs 3:9-10. And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee. Deuteronomy 28:10. And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Deuteronomy 28:11. The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. Deuteronomy 28:12. 27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. Psalm 35:27. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Joshua 1:8. READ ALSO: Top 20 Bible verses about joy Regardless of the circumstances, nobody ever wants to fail. The best part about that ever-growing urge to succeed is that you can draw a lot of inspiration from the Bible. The list of prosperity scriptures highlighted above are examples of encouraging verses that you can read every morning as you start your day. The collection is versatile; hence some of the sayings can double up as Bible verses about success in school. [embedded content] READ ALSO: What does the Bible say about anger? CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Give us power, Elumelu begs Buhari Says domestic investors should benefit from national assets By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief Chairman of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) Plc, Mr. Tony Elumelu, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to give priority attention to the electricity sector of the economy. Speaking at the 2018 Annual General Meeting of the group, in Abuja, weekend, Elumelu said: Let him help us with power, arguing that constant power supply would drastically reduce the cost of doing business in the country and make economy more competitive. Tony Elumelu With poor electricity supply across the nation, corporate organisations and individuals have had to spent huge sums of money on diesel and petrol to fuel their generators. Transcorp spent a whopping N1.292 billion as energy cost in the year under review, according to the companys Annual Report and Financial Statements. Elumelu noted that the N701 billion Power Payment Assurance Plan, PAP, initiative of the Federal Government under the management of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading, NBET, Plc greatly improved liquidity in the sector but noted that the problem of huge unpaid invoices of Power Generating Companies, GENCOs, persisted in the fiscal year. This challenge, he said, must be addressed by the Federal Government to significantly impact the receivables of the GENCOS, gas suppliers and transporters in the sector. The Trasncorp boss also urged President Buhari to make it possible for Nigerian investors to benefit from the nations assets. Let him encourage domestic investors to benefit from the assets of this nation, Elumelu said. The Federal Government had announced plans to sell some of the national assets, although details of that programme have not been made known. Transcorp power plant Transcorp Power Ltd, operators of Transcorp Power s 972 megawatts gas-fired plant at Ugheli , Delta State, was described as one of the subsidiaries with great positive effects on the groups performance in the year under review. The chairman said the plant had consistently led power generation companies in the country in terms of electricity generated and wheeled unto the national grid. According to Elumelu, the company has remained the stabilizer among the power generating companies by provision of black start, free governor and a number of other ancillary services . The five-year period given to the Gencos to meet their respective minimum generation targets lapsed in 2018. Transcorp Power surpassed its generation target of 670MW well before the five-year timeline. He said when the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, carried out its capacity test, it confirmed the feat of 680MW achieved by Transcorp Power Plant, thereby qualifying it to be de-listed from companies that will continue to be subjected to post-privatisation monitoring by the bureau. Transorp Oil & Gas activities On the companys inroad into the oil and gas sector, the chairman said its subsidiary, Transcorp Energy Limited, would continue its push towards the development of OPL 281 oil block and fulfilling work obligations under the Production Sharing Contract, PSC, entered into with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. He said: This was further enhanced by NNPCs extension of Phase I of the exploration period by two years.The extension has given us additional time to complete our work commitments under that phase and ultimately deliver on our work obligations under the PSC. According to Elumelu, those activities were critical to achieving the companys objective of discovering hydrocarbons in commercial quantity and the resultant conversion of the Oil Prospecting Licence to an Oil Mining Lease, OML. During the 2018 review year, the chairman said that the subsidiary also held significant engagements with Socoil Holdings Ltd which later transformed to Efora Oil, with the engagements ending in an understanding on the key issues that led to litigation by both parties. He told shareholders that the two parties entered into renegotiations for assignment of the 40 per cent participating interest in OPL 281 to Efora and the Joint Operation Agreement that would govern and advance the partnership for the development of the oil block. On its renovation work at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja, the chairman disclosed that guest rooms on floors 2-10 have been completed . Similarly, two of the three wings of floor one have been completed and returned to operation. The meeting rooms have equally been completed and now in use. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Edo Police nab suspects over Afuze attack By Gabriel Enogholase BENINHOODLUMS involved in the killing of four policemen in Afuze Divisional Police Headquarters have been arrested and would be paraded today by the Police. In a statement by Special Adviser to the state governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie, the state government said proper briefing of the operation that led to the arrest of the suspected killers will be given during the parade. According to him, it is a bit of closure that the Police has apprehended some of those suspected to have attacked the Police station. Police Though we hear a good number of the suspects have been apprehended, we hope to get more information when the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Muhammed Danmallam, briefs the press tomorrow(today). He said the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration was committed to protecting lives and properties in the state and would never allow criminals have a free reign in the state. His words: The state government is committed to the security of Edo people and residents in the state. The incident in Afuze is condemnable and we commiserate with the affected families. NDelta agitators threaten fresh oil war, ask Buhari to restrain Amaechi We also hope that the speed at which the suspected culprits were arrested will bring some closure to the families, even as we await the full briefing from the police commissioner. Recall that a gang of criminals attacked the Afuze Divisional Police Headquarters, Owan East Local Government Area of Edo, killing the Divisional Police Officer and three other officers on duty. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Don't grant Amosun last-minute loan - Ogun APC tells banks - Banks and other financial institutions have been cautioned against granting loan to the outgoing governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun - Ogun state chapter of APC claimed that Amosun has been exerting pressures on the financial institutions to grant the loan immediately Dapo Abiodun was declared governor-elect - According to the party, incoming administration will not honour any loan that does not receive the prior approval of the states House of Assembly The Ogun state chapter of APC, on Monday, March 18, cautioned banks and other financial institutions against granting loan to the outgoing governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. In a press statement issued in Abeokuta and signed by the APC Caretaker committees publicity secretary, Tunde Oladunjoye, the party warned that any institution that grants such requests does so at its own risk, Daily Sun reports. The press statement read: It has come to our notice that the outgoing governor has been exerting pressures on banks and financial institutions to grant frivolous loans, overdrafts and other instruments immediately Dapo Abiodun was declared governor-elect. READ ALSO: I was unaware of Onnoghens suspension when I was sworn in as acting CJN - Tanko Mohammad We are equally aware that files and other sensitive government documents are being moved out of government offices on the order of the outgoing governor, his excellency, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. It is therefore important to let it be known to the concerned public officers that it is part of their duties to protect public properties, including files, documents and information at their disposal. As anything contrary to this will be running foul of the laws and their oath of office. The allegiance of the civil servants is to Ogun state and not to any individual, no matter who. As for the banks, we want to state categorically that the incoming administration believes so much in the rule of law and due process. ''Therefore, the administration will not honour any obligation that does not follow due process or any loans that do not receive the prior approval of the states House of Assembly. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics, Ogun states Internally Generated Revenue has increased by 590 per cent in eight years totalling N74, 835, 979, 000.51. Why the outgoing administration still wants injury-time loans despite those already incurred, beats ones imagination and leaves much to be desired. The incoming administration will not honour such shady loans. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! 2019 elections: Do you still trust INEC to conduct fair elections? - Nigerians speak| Legit TV: [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Lady opens up about how she almost got molested by a potential abuser who spiked her drink - Nigerian fashion entrepreneur, Sharon Ojong, has taken to social media to recount how her drink was spiked by a stranger she met at an event - According to Ojong, the man in question had tried on several occasion to get her attention but she wouldn't budge and thus, reportedly laced her drink with a substance - She revealed on her Instagram page her determination to ensure justice is brought upon the man whom she identified as Abraham Omotosho The rape culture in Nigeria seems to be on the rise despite numerous campaigns, sensitization and the call for legal actions against the ill practice. Nigerian fashion entrepreneur, Sharon Ojong, left many people in shock after she revealed how she escaped getting abused by a stranger at an event in Lagos. In the series of videos she put up, she recounted how she met a man identified as Abraham Omotosho at an event in Lagos. According to her, the man in question kept pestering her, much to her displeasure. She stated that he followed her all over the event even though she made it clear she was not interested. She revealed that she eventually gave her number to him through which she was able to get his full name. Afterwards, he told her he was leaving the event. Ojong stated that it was a few minutes after he left, she took a sip from her drink and discovered it taste 'funny' and had particles in it. What scared her the most was the fact that she saw him standing by the bathroom door which her friend took her in to help. READ ALSO: Personal letter from the Editor-in-Chief of Legit.ng (former NAIJ.com) See photo of her glass below: Sharon Ojong revealed that although her mind is still blank due to the drugs, she is very certain he tried to drug her in order to take advantage of her. She wrote the following on her Instagram page as she shared a series of videos, talking about the incident. "Im so grateful to God for being with me as well as having a proactive friend who was with me and got me out of there ASAP. Although Ive spoken to medical professionals and taken what I needed to get the acid and ingredients out of my system, the past 48hrs have been long and restless with the drug in my system. I feel extremely disparaged. "For a second, I feared speaking out will attract ill-mannered and uncouth comments but he chose the wrong woman. I refuse to be discouraged and silent. Over two hundred women are being r*ped daily, with less than a hundred reporting to the police. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News on Legit.ng News App She revealed that she will not be discouraged from speaking out/@sharonojong Source: Instagram "Very few of these cases will be investigated, prosecuted, and no more than ten will result in a conviction and lenient sentence (with most perpetrators end up serving half their sentence). Most times nothing else has been done to pursue the investigation simply because victims cant provide any information to take this investigation further. "But thank God for social media, this type of men need to be shamed!!! P/S - For legal reasons, this post was taken down for more investigation. But back up now because I have never doubted my instincts and my suspect is blatantly lying instead of owning up and apologizing for attempting to kill or r*pe me." Meanehile, Kenyans have been saddened by the demise of a reformed substance addict who was rescued from the streets by his former schoolmate. Patrick Hinga, who first hit local and international news headlines in October 2017, was pronounced dead on the morning of Sunday, March 17. HELLO! NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. 28-yr-old widow gets help after Legit.ngs report | Legit TV [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Lucky woman delivers a set of sextuplets all in the space of 9 minutes (photo) A woman from the United States has delivered six children, that is, a set of sextuplets in a span of just nine minutes. Many could not help but be happy for the woman as they took to wishing her lots and lots of goodwill. Thelma Chiaka who resides in Houston gave birth to four sons and two daughters on Sunday, March 17. Even more, she had her bundles of joy in the space of just nine minutes. According to Daily Mail, hospital staff members asserted that the kids are in the advanced neonatal intensive care unit where they are in stable condition. The kids were born in the wee hours of the morning between 4.50am and 4.59am. Quite a time to put to bed! Thelma Chiaka who resides in Houston gave birth to four boys and two daughters on Sunday, March 17. Photo: Women's Hspital of Texas READ ALSO: 15 Memorable Photos From The Amazing Baby Shower Of Meghan Markle In March 2019, 28-year-old Evelyn Namukhula from Kakamega County delivered five kids through Cesarean section at Kakamega General Hospital. The young mum who gave birth to three girls and two boys had four kids who reside with their father Herbert Nabwire in Sikokhe village, Navakholo constituency. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The mother of one was excited to welcome her bundles of joy into the world as she plead with good Samaritans to help provide for the newborns. "I thank God for this miracle. However, I appeal to any well-wisher for any help because I will not be able to raise them alone," she said. PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group After her plight, well-wishers came through and showered the mother of nine with gifts hours before her kids developed breathing complications and got transferred to Eldoret County. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app In the meanwhile, a five-year-old Nigerian female child has been regarded as one of the most beautiful girls in the world. In fact, she is now an international model. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Man who lost wife after delivery of quintuplets cries for help | Legit TV [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | News | General | Rerun election: Kano elders blow hot, say acts of violence will not be tolerated - Security agencies have been urged to remain at alert until the formal declaration of the rerun election results in Kano state - The chairman of the group also urged security agencies to be upright and above board and completely nonpartisan in discharging their duties - Youths were called upon to wake up to reality, while the media has been urged to promote political correctness The Kano Concerned Citizens Initiative (KCCI) has urged security agencies to remain alert from now until the formal declaration of the rerun elections results in the state. The groups chairman, Alhaji Bashir Tofa, alongside other members of the group, made the call while addressing newsmen on Monday, March 18, in Kano. Tofa said that KCCI was determined to ensure that acts of political violence were decisively dealt with before, during and after and the elections. READ ALSO: I was unaware of Onnoghens suspension when I was sworn in as acting CJN - Tanko Mohammad He said the elders would do everything possible to protect the state, saying that they would not allow the area to burn on account of ambition of an individual. He also said that adequate number of security personnel must be detailed to each of the 234 polling units in more than 88 registration areas (wards) in 30 local government areas to make up for the 141,694 votes cancelled by INEC. Tofa, the presidential flag bearer of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), also urged security agencies to be upright and above board and completely nonpartisan in discharging their duties. They have done well during the previous elections but the rerun exercise may yet prove to be more arduous and daunting. We expect them to once more emerge with flying colours, he said. Tofa also called on political leaders to desist from unguarded utterances capable of inflaming passion, which could trigger violence. Open monetary and other unlawful inducements must never be condoned or countenanced during the rerun elections. Kano people shall never allow our state to burn on account of any bodys vaulting ambition to lead or govern us. We cannot afford to let the polity overheat. Peace is the only recipe to healthy and positive development. No society can thrive in chaos and discord, he said. The chairman called on the youth in the state to wake up to reality, adding that it is their future which KCCI and every well-meaning person in Kano state is trying to nurture and secure. Tofa also urged the media to do all they could to promote political correctness. Privatisation and commercialisation should never be an excuse for allowing fake news, hate speech and political free-for all on the airwaves. It is the responsibility of the media to do all in their power to blunt political foul language; uncouth and unguarded utterances in the name of campaigns or promotion of candidates or a political direction, he said. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update The chairman said that the KCCI is an NGO, formed two years ago to galvanise the different strata of the society as part of an honest quest to bring about tangible and positive changes in the socio-economic and political affairs of the state. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the All Progressives Congress (APC) accused Kano police commissioner Wakili Muhammad, of helping the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rig elections in the state. According to the ruling party, Kano state is a stronghold and key support base of the APC and the PDP has no chance in the supplementary election billed for Saturday, March 23. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Suspected political thugs hijack ballot materials in Rivers state | Legit TV. [embedded content] CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General Home | World | Africa | Zimbabwe cyclone death toll rises to 40 The death toll from Tropical Cyclone Idai is now at 40 after more bodies were recovered in Chimanimani and Chipinge, Manicaland province. A high powered government delegation today visited Chimanimani and Chipinge as efforts to assist and rescue victims intensify. The Minister of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare, Sekai Nzenza who was part of the delegation said with the death toll now at 40 and with continued infrastructure destruction, the government will certainly finds ways to attend to the situation. The Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development, Joel Biggie Matiza said the government with the assistance of development partners will move in swiftly to make the roads passable and effectively attend to the situation in Chimanimani and Chipinge. Umvumvumvu Bridge along Chimanimani - Mutare road has been swept away this morning, increasing the number of big bridges that have collapsed to five and making the road to the interior of Chimanimani impassable. People in Chimanimani hailed the stance taken by the government, saying they are now in a desperate situation. The continued rains that have hit hard on Chipinge and Chimanimani are putting the lives of thousands of people in danger with an urgent intervention required. The Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing July Moyo as well as the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Rtd Air Chief Marshal Perrance Shiri are among the ministers on the ground. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa Home | World | Africa | Mugabe, former lieutenants shift blame: Who really was behind Gukurahundi genocide? WHEN former president Robert Mugabe was swept away through a popular coup, the world celebrated the departure of an "evil dictator". Many hoped for a fresh start but that dream remains elusive for victims of Gukurahundi, a dark phase in the country's history when an estimated 20 000 people were killed. So far President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the man who kicked out Mugabe from power, has refused to apologise for the killings even as his allies open up old wounds and pin all the blame on his mentor. Recently, deputy minister of Defence, one of Mnangagwa's top allies, Victor Matemadanda blamed the massacres on Mugabe's shoulders, but new documents and historical narratives point out that the Zanu-PF leader was just as complicit. Recently, declassified diplomatic cables by the United States' State department have pinned Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF for the Gukurahundi atrocities. The authoritative voice on Gukurahundi comes from the Catholic Commission for Peace and Reconciliation which in a 1999 report put the death toll up to 20 000 although ruling party officials dispute the figure. But still, Mnangagwa who has promised a break from the past when he was assisted to ascend to the presidency by the military, prefers to keep the past buried. Mnangagwa has refused to apologise over the atrocities which saw a government militia killing people mostly in the Midlands and Matabeleland regions saying "he cannot change the past". His name features prominently in that past. In the latest cables, Mnangagwa who was then State Security minister is quoted vowing to crush the dissidents so as to rid the country of people who were bent on causing anarchy in the country. In May 1983, the then Swedish ambassador to Zimbabwe Bo Heinback discussed the situation in the southern part of the country with the late Nathan Shamuyarira, who was back then the minister of Information. "Heinback said a committee of five persons representing twelve private voluntary organisations active in Zimbabwe had met with Mugabe on March 3 and had presented a full catalogue of Fifth Brigade atrocities. Mugabe had with him ministers Mnangagwa, (Sydney Sekeramayi and (the late Hebert) Ushewokunze. The PVO people found Mugabe's response less than satisfactory, as he recounted at length the history of Zanu-Zapu relations In effect to justify current policies," reads part of the cables. The cables further revealed that Mnangagwa had information that Zapu leaders, although they were denying any connections to the dissidents, secretly supported them. "During a cordial one hour courtesy call by Ambassador Miller on minister of State Security Emmerson Mnangagwa on June 18, Mnangagwa volunteered to be informal channel on important foreign affairs questions. He also castigated Zapu officials for publicly decrying dissident actions, but privately continuing their support to dissidents, implying that the government would continue and possibly extend its anti-Zanu-PF activities," read the cables. Mnangagwa was quoted in the cables saying these Zapu networks in the countryside "have existed forever" and they have to be exposed and "cleaned out. It is our duty to protect citizens and overall national security, regardless of what others think". Although countries like the US turned a blind eye, they were concerned with the way government was banning Zapu activities and raised concerns in the cables. Mnangagwa and his apologists have refused to take the blame for the sad chapter in the country's history placing the blame on the shoulders of Mugabe. Matemadanda, who is also the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, claimed that Mnangagwa played no role in the Gukurahundi. Addressing a press conference early this week Matemadanda blasted Mugabe who stirred a hornet's nest last month when he accused Mnangagwa of using soldiers to kill innocent civilians. "Even though you may want to forgive the old man I do not think he deserves forgiveness because surely how can Mugabe have the audacity to tell Mnangagwa not to kill when he is the specialist in that area. "We survived by fleeing this country, Mnangagwa himself escaped death by a whisker, Mugabe is the known and approved killer, I think he should have said you are taking my job. "I once went to Matabeleland told chiefs to take cattle from Gushungo Dairies for him to appease the spirits of those he killed during the Gukurahundi; this is what is making Mugabe lose his senses," said Matemadanda. However, the man who dispatched Mnangagwa back in the 1980s insists his henchman was the one who went after the "dissidents". "... You know he (Emmerson Mnangagwa or ED) was the minister of Intelligence, he's the one with Stannard, the two of them, who led that (arms caches findings) and who even led Gukurahundi. I know one of the vehicles, (then Zapu/Zipra intelligence chief) Dabengwa's vehicle, which they blasted, they said he's carrying arms," said Mugabe. In his own words as captured by the State media, Mnangagwa said "Likening the dissidents to cockroaches and bugs, the minister said the bandit menace had reached such epidemic proportion that the government had to bring DDT' (pesticide) to get rid of the bandits." "In yet another speech captured by the State media Mnangagwa who often quotes the bible said "blessed are they who will follow the path of the government laws, for their days on earth will be increased. But woe unto those who will choose the path of collaboration with dissidents for we will certainly shorten their stay on Earth."' Matemadanda's attempts to exonerate Mugabe's successor and former henchman Mnangagwa drew brickbats from the likes of former Higher and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo who revealed that he used his time in government to gather information on those who were involved in the massacres. Moyo, a former politburo member, now living in self-exile revealed on micro-blogging platform twitter that he used his time in government to gather information about Gukurahundi. "Only fools think we didn't access critical information on Gukurahundi when we were in government. A lot of critical information (including dockets) was collected and secured from 13 to 30 November 2017. Gukurahundi is so well-documented that the truth is known," said Moyo. While Matemadanda portrayed Mugabe as the arch-villain and mastermind of the brutalities that targeted supporters of Zapu led by the late Joshua Nkomo, Moyo said the director of the whole episode was Mnangagwa, who was back then the minister of State Security in charge of the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). "The deadliest force in the #Gukurahundi atrocities was the CIO, the lead. Directed by Mnangagwa, who administered the State of Emergency Act & liaised with exRhodie & apartheid killers, the CIO gathered intelligence' through barbaric torture and murder on an industrial scale," said Moyo. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa EDITOR, Zimbabwe is my motherland. My heart bleeds when I see Zimbabwe in such a terrible state. Our elders took over the reigns from colonial masters and we all celebrated because we thought we are now in full ownership of our country. When some people in Africa hear names of their presidents they will start to tremble. Zimbabwe, our president is not a god but has to be our head of State and to serve us. I am worried when I see our country falling apart. Many Zimbabweans are facing hardship and life is at standstill. Many Zimbabweans are scattered abroad and have endured hardships, unrest, drought and political stigma. Who is behind the suffering of the masses in Zimbabwe? Is it the selfish Zanu-PF government? How many have died for voicing their concerns on bad governance by Zanu-PF? When you mention Zimbabwe, all the time what comes into the minds of the people is plenty of fresh waters, Victoria Falls, sunshine, minerals, fear, uncertainty and corruption. Zimbabweans are going through harsh economic conditions. Our countrymen thrive by all means to make a living. We have brilliant brains and the highest literacy rate in Africa. For how long shall we call ourselves learned and not able to solve our own crisis? How many years have we suffered at the hands of the Zanu-PF government? The economic harsh conditions and the environment have generated fear such that citizens can not express their constitutional rights at will. We continue to suffer with no solution in sight. Our way of solving our problems will never be the same as western countries. Whatever happens in Zimbabwe be rest assured we the citizens are the solution. Corruption is worshipped by the current government. Where is our US$15 billion from our diamonds? No one talks about it anymore. They failed to act. Where on earth would you find a government in such an economic situation chasing away health personnel because of airing their grievances on better working conditions? When they fall sick they don't use our local health facilities, they are always airlifted abroad. They don't rely on our health sector. An amazing thing when they go there, they are treated by our own countrymen who sought greener pastures abroad. Yes, it can be for greener pastures but the issue is on social, economic and political conditions which are not favourable. Nothing has been done to solve these problems for the past 38 years. Poverty is the number one enemy the country is facing. How many are eating a decent meal a day among our countrymen? A citizen with a full stomach has a healthy mind and can concentrate on developing the nation unlike the citizen with an empty stomach. E Denhere Home | World | Africa | Wonders never cease AFTER watching the-PFeesident's sidekick Victor Matemadanda's soporific homily on one online television, one gets an abiding feeling that indeed Zimbabwe is a God-forsaken country. Things are likely to get worse before they get better not least because of the hypocritical leaders presiding over our country. Inordinate amount of airtime is given to vacuous mouths like Matemadanda and his ridiculous analogies. Besides being the-PFeesident's full-time lapdog, Matemadanda is the deputy minister of Defence and War Veterans who also is moonlighting as "ovets" leader. Without any sense of irony, Matemadanda heaped blame for the Gukurahundi massacres on Mugabe. He declared that the old man was a worse killer than Mnangagwa following the latter's birthday message criticising the-PFeesident over the deaths that occurred ever since he assumed the leadership of this country. How so disingenuous! Was the-PFeesident not the minister of State Security at that material time? Why then are his minions trying so hard to exonerate him from Mugabe's egregious errors? As if that is not enough, "ovets" leader held the former head of State solely responsible for the economic hardships facing the country following 37 years of misrule. It really boggles the mind because his current boss was part of the Mugabe regime for years on end since independence and never once did he try to disassociate himself from Mugabe's misrule. If anything, him and his acolytes egged Mugabe on. Matemadanda said Mugabe, during his tenure, travelled across the globe inviting sanctions by insulting world leaders. Phew! Had it not become part of Zany-PF culture to ululate every time Mugabe poured his diatribe to other world leaders at international fora? Is Matemadanda suffering selective amnesia? The scales have fallen Granted; Mugabe during his tenure was an ineffable ogre. However, our opinions on him will not be shaped by hypocrites like Matemadanda whose views only changed in the latter part of his rule not least because they had a political axe to grind with him. Matemadanda and his bogus war vets brigade were Mugabe's biggest cheerleaders for years on end. They cheered him on when he set on the path to destruction, they were dead blind to his misdeeds only for their scales to fall when they fell out of favour with him. Matemadanda says Mugabe does not deserve forgiveness. Ironically, the same individuals want us to accept their-PFeesident, who up until the twilight moments of Mugabe's rule was widely seen as his chief enforcer, lock, stock and barrel! Matemadanda says Mugabe is a known hang man or killer. He also says many people have disappeared during Mugabe's era including some who are recent (read: Itai Dzamara). While there is no gainsaying such a view, it behoves us well if Matemadanda were to tell us the names of people who were killed by Mugabe to bring closure to their long-suffering families. Inevitably, it then begs the question, at what point in Matemadanda's life did he realise that Mugabe is a killer? Was it before or after he got into the old man's bad graces? Does this not sound so hypocritical? There you have it, it is impossible for Zanoids to impute the problems facing the country to Mugabe without implicating themselves. Non-apology apology We were told that the two MPs who recently turned the Parliament into a kindergarten school apologised for their disorderly conduct. However, it was Dexter Nduna's apology that left a sour taste in the mouth. He said: "When you are fighting, there is no formula, you use a hoe, pick and wheelbarrow or anything at your disposal. I want to profusely apologise for my words. "I did not mean anything that I meant. I take back my words. I want to be treated in the same way I am presenting this apology so that the decorum of Parliament can be upheld," he was quoted saying in The Horrid. This is a textbook definition of what propaganda or PR practitioners call a non-apology apology. Is this the abiding philosophy in Zany-PF to use anything at their disposal when fighting? Is this not tacit admission to violence? Is it any wonder why our country finds itself in the state it is? What sanctions? Donald Trump recently renewed targeted sanctions against the Harare regime. As a matter of course, Zany-PF responded with the usual hysterical rhetoric. Zany-PF secretary for information and publicity Simon Khaya Moyo came up with the usual facile statements we have become accustomed to over the years. The same Khaya Moyo who does not even scruple to serve in the administration of the same man he said is dishonest and lacked probity. What is worrying is that the Zany-PF spokesperson seems to be stuck in a time warp. He still prefixes the word sanctions with the term illegal. What is illegal about the sanctions at all? Fadzai Mahere's response could not have been more apposite. She tweeted: "US sanctions against Zimbabwe aren't illegal. They're authorised by their legislature. "They're not forced by any domestic or international law to associate with Zimbabwe beyond what they're comfortable with. "Our opinions on this are irrelevant. If we want them lifted, must play ball. "If they're (Zimbabwe government) serious about wanting the sanctions lifted, they must demonstrate serious commitment to meeting the stated conditions. "The US has no qualms with imposing sanctions for decades (see Cuba). "Unless there's reform, we'll be singing the same tired tune in 20 years' time." It does not look like Zany-PF knows the reason why sanctions were imposed in the first place. If they do, then they are feigning ignorance. Instead of reforming a dead-beat Zany-PF, the regime fritters scarce green backs paying PR companies in the US to lobby for their removal. Marching to the past Is it me alone feeling that we are marching back to our country's dark past besides these empty claims of a new dispensation? Zimbabwe's youngest National Assembly member, Joanna Mamombe and a slew of other MDC MPs are being charged with Mugabe-era trumped up charges of treason. Mamombe for her part, is being accused of addressing a press conference in her constituency encouraging people to revolt against the government. This is very sad, it is like Mugabe never left. Where is the new dispensation at all in this? Ramaphosa can't have his cake and eat it While South Africa's president flew to Zimbabwe to offer moral support to his counterpart, his compatriots and party members back home are fed up with Zimbabweans in that country. One such person is an ANC member and Premier of the Gauteng Province David Makhura who was last week quoted in the Sowetan saying: "I think there is a degree in which we need to have a conversation with our Sadc counterparts. "There are countries that must pay for their citizens to use our health services. Those countries must pay. Some of these countries are just running as if they are not governments. "Think of Lesotho Swaziland (Eswatini) Zimbabwe and Mozambique. We've governments there but their citizens get almost everything from South Africa. If someone is ill and arrives at a hospital, which is (an institution) about saving lives, you cannot turn them back and say just because they are Zimbabweans (they shouldn't be treated). "The nature of health institutions and services is to save lives. "We must go to the government of Zimbabwe and say we've treated so many citizens of your country in our facilities because you are not providing (them with these services and you must pay back the money we've spent on treating them). "We must collect this money from these governments." CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa Home | World | Africa | Fuel prices up by 8 cents Retailers have hiked petrol and diesel prices by up to 8 cents per litre, adding to the burden of consumers dealing with record prices and amid rising political pressure on the Emmerson Mnangagwa-led government. The marginal increase comes just two months after government more than doubled the cost of petrol to $3,31 a litre and diesel to $3,11 a litre, sparking violent protests. A survey by the Daily News on Sunday in Harare showed the price of petrol was hiked to $3,37 a litre, while diesel was raised to $3,19 a litre Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera) communications officer Gladman Njanji said the increase has been necessitated by a recent revision in excise duty. At the beginning of the month, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) hiked customs and excise duty by threefold after government gazetted Statutory Instrument 32 of 2019, which legalised RTGS dollars as legal tender. "These figures take into account the revised excise duty and represent maximum Freight on Board (FOB) prices. "Operators may however, sell at the prices below the cap depending on their trading advantages," Njanji said. With effect from March 11, Zera recommended a fuel maximum pump price of $3,19 and $3,37 per litre for diesel and petrol respectively. The authority also recommended that with effect from Monday, fuel retailers can charge up to $3.20 for diesel and $3.38 for fuel. The increase comes at a time when the fuel crisis still persists, with fuel queues having resurfaced in most parts of the country. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa Crude oil inventories in the world are rising despite U.S. sanctions, which have affected Venezuelan and Iranian production, Saudi Arabias Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said, as quoted by Reuters, at a briefing in Baku where OPEC is meeting with its production cut partners to discuss future steps. According to Falih, its U.S. production that is more than offsetting the decline in Venezuela and Iran. Unsurprisingly, Falih once again said the cuts may need to extend beyond April and even into the second half of the year. My assessment is that the job still remains ahead of us... We are still seeing inventory builds... We need to stay the course certainly until June, the official said, adding We like to remain ready to continue monitoring supply and demand and do what we have to do in the second half. OPEC and its partners led by Russia agreed to remove 1.2 million bpd from global supply in December in a bid to prop up falling prices. Although Saudi Arabia has been cutting more than agreed, like last time, compliance has not yet reached 100 percent. As of February, it stood at 89 percent, an improvement from 83 percent for January. Iraq and Nigeria were behind the lower compliance rate as they produced more than they had agreed to. Saudi Arabia, Al-Falih said earlier this month, will continue pumping 9.8 million bpd in April as it plans to do this month, which is lower than what it agreed to produce under the December agreement. If it decides to maintain this production rate beyond April, however, this might rekindle concern about insufficient supplies. Related: Oil Markets In Limbo Ahead Of OPEC Meeting Interestingly, Goldman Sachs said early this month it expected the cartel to clear up the supply overhang by April, which would make it unnecessary to continue producing less until June. Goldmans commodity chief Jeffrey Currie told CNBC, "OPEC is pursuing a shock and awe strategy," cutting production faster and deeper than the investment bank expected. This suggests that supply will tighten sufficiently by April for OPEC to call the mission accomplished. After that, Currie said, OPEC will probably take a month or two to announce how it will proceed with dialing back the cuts and this would discourage U.S. producers from boosting their own production further, bringing about another price crash. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Russias crude oil production to date is 140,000 bpd lower than the average daily rate for October 2018, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said as quoted by TASS. The October 2018 average was taken as a basis for the cuts agreed by OPEC and its partners in December. Yet 140,000 bpd is less than what Russia said it would cut in December, which was over 200,000 bpd. However, Novak warned from the start that the production cuts would be gradual, citing winter conditions that made it harder to reduce production. Russias portion is more than 50 percent of the total non-OPEC cut, which stands at 400,000 bpd. The cartel itself is cutting 800,000 bpd. MarketWatch reported on Sunday the partners in the production cut deal are still split on the question of whether the cuts need to be extended into the second half of the year, which is what Saudi Arabia has indicated it wants. Russia, though, has been reluctant to cut from the start and it is unlikely it will embrace the idea of longer cuts as they do not translate into direct benefits for it. Earlier, Novak said Russia will achieve full compliance with the OPEC+ cuts by April, which is when the partners will meet to review their progress. As far as the meeting is concerned we, of course, discussed the situation with the execution of the agreement (and) we stressed once again that Russia is discharging its obligations in accordance with the agreement to smoothly achieve the target output," Novak told CNBC. "As for the target output level that forms part of the signed agreement, we plan to reach those figures by the end of March (or) beginning of April. This is earlier than in the same period two years ago by about one month," Novak also said. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The crisis in Venezuela threatens to disrupt the global oil market, but OPEC has a much stronger base of spare capacity that offers a supply cushion, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Although there are signs that the situation is improving, the degradation of the power system is such that we cannot be sure if the fixes are durable. Until recently, Venezuelas oil production had stabilised at around 1.2 mb/d, the IEA said in its March Oil Market Report. Independent analysts have estimated that Venezuelas oil exports may have temporarily plunged as low as 500,000 bpd after ports and other oil operations went offline due to the blackout. The electricity losses have been mitigated somewhat in recent days, and a key oil export terminal recommenced operations, but the threat to supply is significant. Nevertheless, for the global oil market, the disruption does not present an apocalyptic scenario because OPEC has plenty of oil sitting on the sidelines to handle any lengthy outages from Venezuelas 1.2 mb/d of production. As it happens, 1.2 mb/d is also the size of the output cuts agreed by OPEC countries and some non-OPEC producers, the IEA wrote. Due to the cuts, OPEC members are sitting on about 2.8 mb/d of effective spare production capacity (Iran and Venezuela are excluded from the calculation), with Saudi Arabia holding two-thirds of it. By backing out 1.2 mb/d of production, OPEC has tightened up the market. But it also rebuilt spare capacity. So, while the oil market is tightening, and a deficit is looming, the spigot can be turned back on. Its the exact opposite scenario of last summer, when OPEC was producing flat out, helping to add barrels onto the market, but burning through spare capacity. Moreover, as the IEA notes, the quality of production that is being held on the sidelines by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies is similar to that of the heavy oil in Venezuela. Therefore, in the event of a major loss of supply from Venezuela, the potential means of avoiding serious disruption to the oil market is theoretically at hand, the IEA said. Even so, the market has been tightening. Demand has been solid at a time when OPEC has been keeping barrels off of the market. The IEA sees a surplus in the first half of 2019, but a deficit of about 0.5 mb/d in the second half. Related: U.S. Aims To Bring Iran Oil Exports Below 1 Million Bpd The IEA said that rising U.S. oil exports also offers another layer of global supply security. This year US seaborne oil trade will move into surplus with net exports rising to nearly 4 mb/d of by 2024. The rising profile of the US not only brings greater choice to consumers, but, crucially, it enhances security of supply, especially when, as now, there are heightened geopolitical concerns, the IEA wrote. The sanguine tone is rather notable, given that oil prices have jumped to their highest levels in four months. After last years experience, it would seem likely that OPEC would be hesitant to abandon the production cuts too early. In June 2018, thats exactly what they did, expecting a deficit to overwhelm the market. After ramping up supply, the market crashed at the end of the year, though much of the blame can be pinned on the Trump administration for over-hyping supply losses from Iran. This time, Saudi Arabia will likely be more willing to let the market overtighten rather than return supply to the market too soon. The OPEC Secretariat called upon oil producers yesterday to prevent another oversupply this year at all costs, Commerzbank wrote in a note to clients on Friday. This sounds like an appeal to extend the production cuts which will expire mid-year until the end of the year. (Click to enlarge) By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Chinese refiners are expected to process more than 13 million barrels of crude oil per day for the first time ever in the third quarter this year, a Reuters survey of 20 refiners showed on Monday. The rise in processing rates at Chinas refineries is also expected to result in a worsening glut of refined oil products on the domestic market, and some refiners may opt to reduce run rates or focus on chemicals in order to avoid direct competition in transportation fuels, which will further dampen refining margins in China and the region. In the first two months of 2019, Chinese refineries processed 102.49 million tons of crude oil, or 12.68 million bpdthe highest on record and a 6.1-percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to Chinas customs data. Most of the processed crude came from imports of crude oil, which continued to increase this year compared to the same months of 2018. In February, China imported 39.22 million tons of crude, or 10.23 million bpd, up 21.6 percent on the year. In January, imports stood at 42.6 million tons or 10.03 million bpd, up 4.8 percent on the year. Going forward, at least eight refineries in China will enter maintenance or overhauls in the second quarter, which will result in lower processing rates in April-June, according to the Reuters survey and calculations. But then in Q3, a total of 800,000 bpd in new refining capacity from two large refineries is expected to come online, likely boosting the collective Chinese refineries processing rate to a new record of more than 13 million bpd, but dragging down margins as it would exacerbate an already large transportation fuel oversupply. Zhejiang Petrochemical and Hengli Petrochemicals are each expected to have their respective 400,000-bpd refineries up and running at full capacity by the end of the third quarter this year, according to the Reuters survey. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Irans President Hassan Rouhani officially launched four new development phases at the giant South Pars offshore gas field, which will add 110 million cubic meters to the daily output of the field. The expansion cost US$11 billion, Reuters reports. Last week, Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh said South Pars will produce from 27 phases of development within a year. He added production from the fieldthe worlds largestwould reach more than 750 million cubic meters later this year. Irans total to date stands at 841 million cubic meters daily, which should rise to 880 million cubic meters daily by next March and 950 million cubic meters daily in the year after that. South Pars was supposed to be developed by French Total and Chinese CNPC in partnership with the local national oil company. However, when U.S. sanctions snapped back last November, Total was forced to retreat and quit the project. At the time, expectations were that CNPC would take over its 50.1-percent share in the project and continue working on it on its own. However, the Chinese state giant also has substantial exposure to the U.S. banking system, which effectively put a stop to work on Phase 11. Now, Zanganeh says, Iran is in talks with the Chinese company to resume work on the project as China is a major destination for Iranian gas. Related: How The Californian Oil Boom Died The South Pars field is the biggest gas deposit in the world, shared by Iran and Qatar. The 20-year development project, of which Total and CNPC were a part of, envisaged bringing gas production from the field to 2 billion cu ft of gas daily. Now, Iran is going it alone, apparently, and planning more exports. First, however, it needs to settle an export dispute with Pakistan, one of the worlds fastest-growing gas markets. As far as gas exports to Pakistan are concerned, legally speaking, we are in the position of claimant, and they also have political excuses, saying they are under pressure from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but we have a valid contract; Pakistan cannot find any gas cheaper than Irans, Zanganeh said this weekend. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Kazakhstan will shut down production at its giant Kashagan field to comply with production cuts agreed by OPEC and its partners in December. S&P Global Platts quoted the countrys energy minister, Kanat Bozumbayev, as saying "Output there is currently between 300,000 and 350,000 b/d, so it will be a significant cut, almost 200,000 b/d. We expect that in April and May we will have a low output level, then in June it will pick up and so our average output for the six months will be less than 1.8 million b/d." A cut of 200,000 bpd would be equal to what Russia agreed to remove from its daily production rate as part of the deal with OPEC. It is also a substantial portion of Kazakhstans overall production, which in February stood at 1.893 million bpd. Kashagan is one of the worlds largest offshore oil fields, with reserves of 13 billion barrels of crude and in-place resources of as much as 38 billion barrels. Its development has been challenging, mainly because of climatic and geological peculiarities, and because of cost overruns that saw the final budget swell more than double on the initial US$20 billion to US$50 billion, but the field eventually came online in 2013. There have been plans to bring the fields production rate to half a million barrels daily. Its worth noting Kazakhstans minister apparently does not envisage a future in which the OPEC+ cuts stretch for longer than six months while his Saudi counterpart said at the meeting in Baku that they might need to be extended not just beyond April but beyond June as well. OPEC and its partners led by Russia agreed to cut 1.2 million bpd from global supply to push prices higher. However, rising U.S. production has interfered with their plans for a quick rise in prices. In fact, now Saudi Arabias Khalid al-Falih is saying the worlds supplies of crude are rising despite U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran, which is why the cuts may have to be extended. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Venezuela may re-route crude oil that was initially bound for the United States to Russia and other countries, Manuel Quevedo, Venezuelas Oil Minister and head of the state oil firm PDVSA, said on Monday. Venezuela, under U.S. sanctions on its oil industry since the end of January, will decide where its own crude oil will go, and one of its key goals is to boost ties with Russia, Reuters quoted Quevedo as saying on the sidelines of an OPEC+ panel in Baku, Azerbaijan, today. Russia is the staunchest supporter and ally of Nicolas Maduros regime in the political power struggle in the Latin American country sitting on top of the worlds largest oil reserves, while the U.S. and many European nations have recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate interim president. Russia has stood by Maduro for years and has poured billions of U.S. dollars in Venezuela in the form of loans and oil investments. In another sign of the closer Maduro-Russia ties, Quevedo said in Baku this weekend that he would visit Moscow in early April to open the PDVSA office that Maduro had ordered moved from Lisbon to the Russian capital earlier this month. Related: LNG Sector Dangerously Dependent On Chinese Demand Venezuelas key oil export terminal Jose is now back in operation, Quevedo also said at the meeting in Baku. Earlier this month, a massive power outage in Venezuela shut down oil production and processing operations as well as the main oil export terminal. Meanwhile, more than 6 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil on 11 tankers, initially bound for the U.S., are sitting stranded in the Atlantic due to the U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported last week. PDVSA is now asking for prepayment for oil shipments, but the U.S. firms are not allowed to pay PDVSA because of the sanctions; instead they are directed to deposit the payments in escrow accounts to which the Venezuelan opposition, not Maduros regime, has access. This situation has resulted in U.S. refiners Valero Energy and Citgo, the U.S. unit of PDVSA, proposing to return crude oil loaded before the sanctions were imposed, while Chevron has unsuccessfully tried to legally pay for oil it had contracted to buy, Reuters reported, citing an internal document of the Venezuelan state oil firm it had seen. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: If You Enjoy My Articles, Please Consider Supporting My Writing By Giving A Donation Of Any Amount. Thank you! Tunisian authorities have officially demanded France to extradite Belhassen Trabelsi, the brother-in-law of deposed and exiled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Tunisian Justice ministry in a statement on Saturday said it asked the foreign ministry to demand Belhassens deportation from France, in line with bilateral agreements between the two countries. Belhassen on the run since January 2011 was arrested in Marseille, south of France last week in connection with alleged financial wrongdoings. The elder brother of the former Tunisian first lady Leila Trabelsi is wanted in his country for fraud and government funds embezzlement. The 56-year old man is facing 47 international arrest warrants and 17 issued against him in his own country. Belhassen fled Tunisia in January 2011 after the Ben Ali couple sought refuge in Saudi Arabia as the Arab Spring revolution swept away his two-decade-long autocratic tenure. Belhassen sought permanent residence in Canada but the request was turned down in 2015. Belhassen who calls himself businessman is owner of a portfolio that includes an airline and hotels. Jamas nos callaran Fisica y culturalmente Nec plus ultra, nec variatur Precio del Brent To get the BRENT oil price, please enable Javascript. Precio del WTI To get the oil price, please enable Javascript. Paginas vistas en total Dolar USA Vs Euro Sin ellas, no seremos Deja vu Nada que celebrar Hasta cuando? Colombia Hoy Para nunca olvidar 'Parasite' painted on a statue of Queen, Elizabeth in Kent, England Sin palabras La UE le apunta a la paz Cada vez mas solo Precio del Oro To get the gold price, please enable Javascript. LULA y su Pueblo Bye Bye Homenaje al genial Quino Fueron ellos Una imagen que resume Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero? Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante) Ladrones al poder Asi mira el perrito a su amo Crazy Clamor popular La nueva inquisicion Bolivia Chile Hoy Eso es todo amigos! Piensalo! Pinerachet No More Trump Adios Macri, hasta nunca La Marioneta se desinfla Asi o mas cinico Almugre Mexico en 1794 Mas arrastrado imposible Hasta cuando! La pura verdad Solidaridad con Palestina Serie Capitalismo Espejismos de la clase trabajadora Asi es! Comerciantes o delincuentes No pasaran! Asi es la vida USA HOY 01/01/1959 La avaricia no tiene limites AYUDA HUMANITARIA? Chile Hoy Asi son las cosas Mapa Electoral de Venezuela Patagonia argentina? Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad Retrato del franquismo en Espana Visca Catalunya! El Chulo de Madrid Cuando la policia se roba la democracia Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras La purita verdad Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia Mi pobre clase media Como Chavez nadie Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear Programa de la MUD Asi o mas clarito Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte? Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio? Una verguenza nacional La luz que nos guia La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz? Feudalismo ayer y hoy Obama, el mentiroso Curiosa coincidencia Un mundo de cerdos No es extrano? La Marioneta Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran MARICORI Y OBAMA Cuantas muertes este ano? 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate 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! " " BrainStuff: How Do Accents Work? HowStuffWorks When Talk Like a Pirate Day rolls around, many people change their accent. But, all those "arrr" and "matey" additions aside, what really creates an accent? And can we truly change accents over time while sticking to the same language? First, let's dig into just what an accent is. The term refers to the way words are pronounced. As our BrainStuff host Ben Bowlin explains in the video above, accents are part of a larger group of like-minded pronunciations called a dialect, which refers not only to pronunciation but to the grammatical rules that are applied. Every person has an accent that is the result of how, when and where they learned the language they speak. And that accent can tell others a lot about you. Someone might be able to trace an accent to a particular part of the world, coming to the conclusion like: "This guy is from Baltimore," or "This lady is from London." Advertisement The two biggest factors that influence accent are human nature and isolation. Human nature, vague as it sounds, simply refers to our innate love of being in groups. When a human is part of a crowd, they identify membership by wearing certain styles of clothing or eating specific foods. That group of people also may speak a certain way so distinctly so that an accent becomes part of the group's identity. As for isolation, imagine a group of people that speaks the same language but becomes divided onto two islands. This geographical and social divide means that each group will evolve distinct dialects, or accents, over time. In fact, the language used by these groups may diverge so much to sound like completely different languages. But here's the thing: Humans are remarkably well-traveled, and don't often exist in isolation. When we come across other distinct groups, it's possible to pick up another accent, either by choice or by long-term exposure. Ever meet a college student who returns from a semester in England, for instance, sounding subtly different? Whatever way a person picks up an accent, it tells a lot about the individual and the geography that person has inhabited, or the groups they've belonged to. Even the regions believed to have people that speak "accent-less English," like the United States' Upper Midwest, still have accents. These accents are called reference varieties because English dictionaries and pronunciation guides are based on these accents. These are the accents that are taught to foreign students learning English, but make no mistake there is no such thing as accent-free speech. After all, take that supposedly accent-free Upper Midwest American and put her in the middle of Scotland, and see who's the one with the accent then. " " Multiple individuals who speak the same language but sound totally different? We're talking accents. Gary Waters/Getty Images Now That's Odd A stroke or traumatic brain injury can make people suddenly sound like they're from another country, even if they've never set foot on its soil. Foreign Accent Syndrome is a speech disorder that replaces a person's native speech with a strong accent. " " Respect at long last: The verb "MacGyver" made it into the Oxford Dictionaries in 2015. ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images The idea seems so Internet-driven, so social-media hip: Take a noun, make it a verb and watch it go viral. The thing is, it's not something new. Advertisement Take these examples. Matt Damon (in 2015's "The Martian"): "I'm gonna have to science the s*** out of this." Ginger Rogers (in "Young Man of Manhattan," 1930): "Cigarette me, big boy." Anonymous Frat Boy (2016): "Beer me!" Anonymous Frat Boy (1960s): "Hey, don't Bogart that joint!" Nouns used as verbs came along long before the Internet went and tried to Kanye them. Shakespeare, in fact, is credited for verbifying hundreds of nouns. The practice is enough to unhair (that's a Shakespearean one) English teachers and fussy practitioners of the language everywhere. They consider it butchering the language. Of course, they may not realize that the word "butcher" was once used solely as a noun. The point is, language changes. It evolves. And that's OK. The Internet's Role Even though the Internet wasn't strictly invented for verbing or verbifying, or for making what linguists call denominals the two make a perfect pair. In a recent JSTOR Daily piece "Do You Even Language, Bro? Understanding Why Nouns Become Verbs" author Chi Luu points out the allure: Verbing ... thrives in a fast-paced, short attention span internet culture, which is all about the viral sharing and remixing of pop culture memes. If you get the reference, you too can be a member. After all, punchlines are no fun if they have to be over explained. Eve and Herbert Clark, two Stanford professors, have spent their careers studying linguistics, among other things. In 1979, they collaborated on a paper in the journal Language titled "When Nouns Surface as Verbs." In it, they list some 1,300 example of nouns-turned-verbs. They're of the mind that MacGyvering the language is not only OK. It's natural. "You can try being prescriptive, because you like your particular brand of English, let's say, from when you were growing up. Or you just say, 'Look, languages change. Different groups become fashionable,'" says Eve Clark, who was the lead author on that 1979 paper. "Most linguists I know just say, 'Look, language change is a fact of life.' What we want to do is track what the usage is, not try to put things back 50 years or 100 years." So those who want to pooh-pooh nouns as verbs we may have gone too far with that one are denying what has been for years. And continues today. "People who have been prescriptivists [those who consider one type of language as better, or more correct] are typically not linguists. They tend to be like English teachers or writing instructors who are just tired of seeing sloppy writing," says Herb Clark, who is a professor of psychology with a specialty in psycholinguistics. "Their prescriptions are usually just the wrong prescriptions." Anyone Can Verb Anyone can twist nouns into verbs and do it well. Some restrictions apply. If there's already a shortened version of the noun you're wanting to convert, it's probably not a good idea to muddy the waters. You don't airplane to Barbados. You fly there. Most important, your new word has to be instantly understandable to your audience. That might be easier to pull off than you think. Eve Clark studies children and their unique grasp on the language. Though kid-talk may not seem particularly proper to some and much of it vanishes as kids age it more than does the job of getting a point across. "Kids are fabulous. They think nothing of innovating with nouns as verbs. This is just trivial for them," Herb says. "They will do things that adults cannot do." One such invention is what Eve calls "characteristic activity," assigning a verb to a noun based on that object's perceived activity. "So the flag is flagging, the cement truck is cementing," Eve says. "They've heard things like, 'Brush your hair,' 'Give me the brush,' so they know there are lots of these pairings around. So they just extend that, very readily." What is kids' play, then, becomes easy for adolescents and then young adults. Now, the young adults growing up with social media and the Internet have avenues to broadcast their wordsmithing we'll stop soon that nobody had in 1979. That new, easy way of communicating has sparked new denominals as well. Much the way the advent of computers ushered in such now-common noun-turned-verbs as "keyboarding" and faxing," the Internet has brought us "emailing" and "blogging" (from "Web log"). Social media has given us "tweeting" and "posting." All have their roots in nouns. It's not so far removed from plowing or churning or, earlier, stoning. Even earlier than that: raining. "I don't think," Eve says of the noun-to-verb, "that they've actually changed very much." So when you hear that a friend is Netflixing out for the night, or that a nervous roommate is Mentosing up for his date, know that it's nothing new. Those innovators are simply following the natural order of the language. They're just Darwinning. Now That's Cool Some denominals have root nouns so dated that the original meaning is almost lost. Example: In Ireland in the 1800s, activists encouraged employees of an English captain to voluntarily stop farming the land, and shopkeepers were asked to stop catering to the captain. Now, when someone refuses to "buy, use, or participate in (something) as a way of protesting," they are said to be boycotting. The object of the Irish scorn: Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. " " A priest takes confession to a woman before the return of Pope Francis to Mexico City on Feb. 13, 2016. DIANA ULLOA/AFP/Getty Images After being given supersized powers to forgive the gravest of sins, 1,142 Catholic priests and monks are now fanning out around the globe at the behest of Pope Francis. These so-called "missionaries of mercy" or "super-confessors," were dispatched by the pope on Feb. 10, which the Christian church celebrated as Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season of fasting and prayer. The super-confessors have less than a year to perform their charitable works. The pope decided to commission them as part of his Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, a special 12-month period during which the Catholic Church is focusing on forgiveness, especially the forgiveness of Catholics who left the faith but now wish to return. The Year of Mercy began Dec. 8, 2015, and will end Nov. 20, 2016. Advertisement (Pope Francis shown below with some of the missionaries of mercy.) In the Catholic religion, most sins are forgiven through the sacrament of confession, performed by one's parish priest. Not so for those sins the church believes to be the most heinous. Since the 12th century, these most reprehensible sins, called "reserved sins," can only be forgiven by a bishop or the pope himself. Reserved sins are so serious, not many people have committed them. These sins include physically attacking the pope; apostasy (renunciation of the Christian faith); heresy; schism (rejection of the pope's authority); violating the secrecy of the confessional; consecrating a bishop without authorization; and desecration of the Eucharist believed to be Christ's body by, say, using it in a satanic ritual. Actually, there is one more reserved sin, and it is quite common: abortion. The Catholic Church considers abortion a reserved sin both for the woman who has one and anyone who performs or facilitates the obtaining of one. The moment an abortion occurs, in fact, those involved are automatically excommunicated from the church, which means they cannot receive its sacraments. (They also can't be employed by, or hold any position in, a parish or diocese, and they can't receive a Catholic burial. But they can still attend Mass.) The missionaries of mercy, who come from dioceses around the globe, all readily volunteered for their positions with the approval and recommendation of their superiors. Indeed, a far greater number of priests applied for the positions than expected. Normally, papal absolution for reserved sins comes via a ruling of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a special tribunal in Rome, and not through a one-on-one with the pope himself. It is this more cumbersome process of needing to seek forgiveness through one's bishop or the Apostolic Penitentiary that Pope Francis wishes to streamline through his super-confessors. Just in case business is slow for the super-confessors, Pope Francis has given them another task: helping dioceses throughout the world by conducting retreats and parish missions. According to the Jubilee of Mercy website, the men are also simply to be seen out in the world as "heralds of the joy of forgiveness" and "inspiring preachers of mercy." Now That's Interesting One of the more notable world citizens to be excommunicated was Fidel Castro, in January 1962. The reason is murky. It may have been due to his devotion to Communism in 1949, Pope Pius XII decreed Catholics couldn't support Communist governments or it may have been because Castro expelled a bishop and 135 priests from the island nation in 1961. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro arrived in Washington on Sunday to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump and cement a budding conservative-populist alliance that, in part, aims to ramp up pressure on Venezuela. The far-right leader flew out of Brasilia early Sunday with six ministers, among them Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and Justice Minister Sergio Moro, Brazilian media reported. They touched down at Joint Base Andrews, on the outskirts of Washington, at 3:40 pm (1940 GMT). "It's the first time in a long time that a Brazilian president who is not anti-American, comes to Washington," Bolsonaro said on Twitter after he arrived. It is Bolsonaro's first trip abroad for a bilateral meeting since taking office on January 1. He attended the Davos summit in Switzerland in January. Bolsonaro, who will also meet in Washington with the head of the Organization of American States (OAS), is scheduled to return to Brazil on Tuesday. Outside the White House Sunday afternoon, dozens of demonstrators gathered to protest the visit -- holding signs including one that accused Bolsonaro of being a "murderer" over apparent links to suspects in the killing of rights activist Marielle Franco. Police have said those ties are coincidental. - Admirer of Trump - A Trump-Bolsonaro bond could see the leaders of the Americas' two most populous democracies working in concert on a range of regional issues. Most pressing is the crisis in Venezuela, where the United States and Brazil -- and dozens of other countries -- have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president with the goal of pushing President Nicolas Maduro from power. The tough-talking Bolsonaro has long expressed his admiration for Trump. He echoes the US leader in spurning multilateral organizations and leftist politics, while promoting businesses over environmental concerns at home. Their shared nationalist sentiment can be seen in another relationship: that of Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, who is a federal lawmaker, with Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon. Eduardo Bolsonaro announced in early February that he was part of the Brussels-based group known as The Movement, which Bannon set up to promote far-right nationalistic values and tactics. The older Bolsonaro announced on Saturday that one main result of his trip would be the signing of an agreement under which the United States might gain access to a satellite-launching base in Brazil near the equator. - Eyes on Venezuela - But most eyes will be on developments surrounding Venezuela, which shares a border with Brazil. "Brazil and the United States together throw fear into defenders of backwardness and tyranny around the world," Bolsonaro said on Twitter, which he is a prolific user of, like Trump. "Those who fear ties with a free and wealthy nation? That's what we've come looking for," Bolsonaro added. Previous Brazilian administrations took a friends-to-all approach to neighboring countries. But not Bolsonaro. The 63-year-old former paratrooper shares Trump's hostility to the "dictator" Maduro, who took over after the death of socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2013. Trump has repeatedly insisted that "all options are on the table" with regards to Venezuela, a phrase understood to include military action. But Bolsonaro, like other members of the mostly Latin American Lima Group, has ruled out military action in favor of a policy of tightening the economic and diplomatic pressure against Maduro. As well as a "private meeting" with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Bolsonaro will sit down with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, and participate in various forums to promote economic opportunities in Brazil. The country's economy is the largest in Latin America, and the US is Brazil's second biggest trade partner after China. On Sunday night, Bolsonaro dined at the residence of Brazilian ambassador Sergio Amaral with "opinion makers" including, according to press reports, Bannon and US-based Brazilian writer Olavo de Carvalho, considered Bolsonaro's ideological guru. Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead, American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp and Chris Buskirk, who edits the blog "American Greatness" were among others expected at the event. Bolsonaro is staying in Blair House, the official US state residence opposite the White House used for visiting dignitaries. After his return to Brazil, Bolsonaro is planning a trip to Chile and then, in late March, to Israel. THE National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) has removed over 650,000 campaign materials all over Metro Manila.NCRPO Director Major General Guillermo Eleazar urged the candidates to also do their DESPITE seeing faucets go dry or having their water rationed, Filipinos show varying levels of concern about drought, a study conducted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) said. Only 12 percent of Filipinos reported feeling extremely concerned about being affected by drought, the HHI DisasterNet Philippines study said. The study, conducted in 2017 with 4,368 adult respondents, is the first nationwide household survey on disaster preparedness in the Philippines, an HHI press release said. According to the report, at the national average, only 12 percent of Filipinos reported feeling extremely concerned, 24 percent were concerned, 21 percent were somewhat concerned, 16 percent were a little concerned, and 26 percent were not at all concerned of being affected by drought. In regions where there was less rainfall in the last five months associated with the weak El Nino in the Pacific Ocean, less than half of each regions population expressed any concern about being impacted by drought, the study said. It added that in Zamboanga Peninsula, where Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay have been experiencing drought since February this year, only 25 percent were concerned about drought before the disaster. Zamboanga City, Zamboanga Sibugay and Pagadian City have already been placed under a state of calamity. The study said, in terms of preparedness, a mere 2.4 percent of the countrys population reported having a plan for drought. In addition, the study showed that fewer Filipinos, 4.3 percent, think that the delayed onset of the rainy season is a consequence of climate change. Even as a significant part of the population, 42 percent, cited that the impact of climate change poses a high level of threat to them and 83 percent said they had experienced the effects of climate change. The weather bureau said a weak El Nino started this month and will continue in May. Rainfall this year is expected to start in June and continue to August. Story continues Looking at these percentages, you would see how consumers are concerned only about the immediate, that there is no water for cooking, laundry and bathing, and not realize what came before and what could happen in the future. They complain about no water but they do not think of what must have caused it except to point to the so-called usual suspectscorrupt government officials and irresponsible water service providers. But climate change is a factor to why the dry season started early or the wet season will be delayed. And what are the causes of climate change? Practices of companies or individuals that damage the environment. There is no more denying that climate change is here and is causing water, air and food supply to go awry. This was the same message of students who walked out of their classrooms in over 100 countries to protest climate inaction in a global climate strike. They said their governments failed them and future generations by not acting to curb global warming and carbon emissions. Club Med owner Fosun Tourism swings to profit during its first year of listing in Hong Kong Fosun Tourism Group, the Chinese owner of the Club Med resort chain, swung to profit in 2018, the year of its Hong Kong listing, as its resorts attracted more tourists. Full-year profit attributable to shareholders was 308.4 million yuan (US$45.9 million), or 0.30 yuan per share, compared with a loss of 196.5 million yuan in 2017, said the company in an exchange filing on Sunday. Revenues increased 38 per cent to 16.3 billion yuan, according to the statement. Business volumes from Club Med rose 8 per cent last year and the operating profit jumped almost 42 per cent, Fosun Tourism said in the statement. About 3.2 million tourists visited its Atlantis Sanya, a luxury resort in Chinas southernmost province of Hainan, it said, without giving comparable figures. Fosun Tourism, a spin-off unit from Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, raised US$428 million from a Hong Kong initial public offering in December, after pricing the shares at the bottom of the indicated range. Its shares fell 0.3 per cent to HK$16 on Friday, FROM its IPO offer price of HK$15.60 Fosun International bought control of Club Med, the Paris-headquartered luxury holiday group, for US$1.07 billion in 2015 after a two-year takeover battle, a record in France, as the conglomerate running businesses from pharmaceuticals to steelmaking counts on Chinas burgeoning tourism industry as its major driver for revenues. Club Med operates in more than 40 countries, with 42 resorts in Europe and the Middle East, 15 in Asia-Pacific and 12 in the Americas. The resort expanded into China in 2016 and has since opened six locations from Sanya in the southernmost province of Hainan to Yabuli in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. China has been the worlds largest tourism market since 2012, with a rising middle class spending more on holidays and leisure. Still, the industry had a headwind in 2018 as an economic slowdown and the escalating trade war with the US hurt consumers confidence. Story continues Fosun Tourism will start construction of two more tourist resorts in Lijiang in the Yunnan province and Taicang in Jiangsu province this year, it said in the statement. This article Club Med owner Fosun Tourism swings to profit during its first year of listing in Hong Kong first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Presidential Spokesperson Secretary Salvador Panelo | Presidential Photo MANILA, Philippines Malacanang on Monday (March 18) dismissed the statements from critics that the countrys withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) could lead to impunity and more human rights abuses as misleading and baseless response. The Philippines withdrawal from the ICC took effect on Sunday (March 17) following the failure of the Supreme Court to issue a ruling on consolidated petitions seeking to stop the pullout. Gabriela Party-list has warned that the countrys withdrawal could lead to nastier rights abuses while the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) believes that impunity will win as a consequence of the withdrawal. The Amnesty International also said the pullout is a futile attempt to evade international justice. Malacanang has denounced the statements, accusing these groups of engaging in conspiracy theories. It is open for conspiracy theories by the political opposition, the left and the human rights, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said. The Duterte government has repeatedly alleged that these groups are in conspiracy with each other. March 17 has passed, the sky has not fallen and the sun still rises in the east, our people desire policies with results rather than noise emanating from groups closely associated with the [Communist Party of the Philippines-New Peoples Army-National Democratic Front] and defeated major political party which is presently fighting for political survival and relevance, Panelo added. The Philippines withdrawal took effect a year after it told the United Nations that it was leaving the permanent war crimes tribunal. The move was prompted by ICCs move to launch a preliminary examination in 2018 on accusations that President Rodrigo Duterte committed crimes against humanity through his war on drugs. Duterte cited outrageous attacks on his administration and the supposedly illegal attempt to place him under the ICCs jurisdiction as reasons for the countrys pullout. Story continues Panelo stressed that the governments war on drugs is anchored on national survival as well as accountability of those who seek to destroy the nation. He reiterated that extrajudicial killings are not state-sanctioned but rather consequences of turf wars among drug syndicates. He added that deaths in police operations happen because suspects resist arrest with violence that endangers the lives of police officers. There is no culture of impunity under this administration. The countrys criminal justice system continues to be operational and strictly compliant with the constitutional requirement of due process, Panelo said. He also urged those who assert that drug-war deaths were state-sponsored to file complaints before appropriate administrative and judicial bodies. Failure to undertake this process can only mean that they are engaged in conjectures and politicizing the matter to the advantage of drug personalities and criminals, he said. Panelo has earlier reiterated that the Philippines has never been a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. The Philippines cannot leave that which has never joined in the first place, he added. The Philippines never became a state party to the Rome Statute which created the ICC. As far as we are concerned, this tribunal is non-existent and its actions a futile exercise. Despite the withdrawal, the ICC said it will continue the preliminary examination it launched in February 2018. But Panelo said that should the ICC proceed with its undertakings relative to the Philippines and violate the provisions of the instrument which created it in the process, it can only mean that it is bent on interfering with the sovereignty of our republic. Meanwhile, former Presidential Spokesman, Harry Roque, an expert on international law, admitted to being very sad over the countrys decision to pull out from the international court. He stressed, however, that the Administration made the right decision to withdraw, underscoring that the ICC was never intended to be a court of first resort. Roque stated that at the time when the Philippines joined the Rome Statute of the ICC, it was under the principle of complementarity, which means, there is no overlapping in jurisdictions between the two parties. Roque also reiterated that the Philippine local courts are still functioning and that, it is only when local courts are unable and unwilling to invest the most horrendous crimes committed against international community that the ICC should take and exercise jurisdiction. The Philippines is the second country to quit the ICC next to Burundi in 2017. Gambia and South Africa also withdrew their membership from the Hague-based body but later reversed its decisions. ICCs 123rd member Meanwhile, the Philippines neighboring country, Malaysia, took a different path by joining the ICC as its 123rd member. Malaysia said its move to join the Hague-based body reflects its commitment to combating international crimes for global peace and security. The ICC, for its part, said it was inspired to see Malaysia joining the ICC, adding that its accession to the Rome Statute was a veritable act of recognition of the continuing value of the Rome Statute and the ICC. Robie de Guzman The post Malacanang takes swipe at critics as PH formally pulls out of ICC appeared first on UNTV News. THE National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) has removed over 650,000 campaign materials all over Metro Manila.NCRPO Director Major General Guillermo Eleazar urged the candidates to also do their A MILITARY official challenged to a debate on Monday, March 18, the activist group, Karapatan, as a response to the call of its leader for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to release pieces of evidence linking them to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-New Peoples Army (NPA). AFP deputy chief of staff for operations Brigadier General Antonio Parlade, who is also a member of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF), said they have subversive documents, videos and other pieces of evidence to prove that Karapatan, Ibon Foundation, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and other activist groups have links to the CPP-NPA, which is considered a terrorist group. Parlade said there was also an invitation to the groups from CPP founding chairman Jose Mari Sison for an assembly, books with radical teachings for Lumad students, and a list of militant group members with husband or wife who are members of the NPA. Ang sinasabin natin kay Karapatan hindi tayo nagsasalita ng walang ebidensya hindi katulad nila dakdak sila ng dakdak kung ano-ano ang sinasabi nila tungkol sa gobyerno, kung ano-anong fabricated statements and reports ang ipinapadala nila sa UN (United Nations) na ebidensya nila kung bakit tayo sirang-sira sa national community, he said. So yung mag-asawa, si karapatan at si NPA. Pamilya. Marami pa niyan, napakarami pa niyan. Karapatan sa umaga, NPA sa gabi, he added. Parlade said the AFP will file a formal complaint against Karapatan before the European Union (EU) for the withdrawal of its funding. Earlier, Parlade said EUs ambassador admitted that the regional bloc will be releasing at least two million euros to the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines -- an inter-diocesan and inter-congregational organization of religious, priest and lay people. He said Belgium, meanwhile, is funding seven groups, including Karapatan and Ibon foundation. Earlier, Karapatans secretary general Cristina Palabay maintained they have no links to the CPP-NPA and that what the military is doing is a mere red-tagging to discredit their organization, which aims to protect everyones human rights. It is not lost on us that Parlade was among the jesters who ridiculously peddled the 'Red October' destabilization plot, which fizzled out after a lack of any evidence. Now, these fictionists are taking their stage to the international platform, this time targeting other governments and persuading them to discredit and question the organizations which the defunct 'Red October' plot failed to do. These false claims are built on untruths, fake news, and a sinister agenda to cripple the machinery of all those who remain critical to the Duterte government, she said. The military is not a credible institution, yet it still insists on making these laughable and unsubstantiated claims. We do not discount the possibility that in the coming days, not only will we be subjected to continuous smear campaigns, but that our human rights workers will be further subjected to an array of trumped-up charges and other forms of violations. After all, the military is an expert at creating allegations out of thin air, Palabay added. (SunStar Philippines) The Italian police has opened an investigation into the death of an Italian model of Moroccan origin who has been key in the prosecution against former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi involved in a sex scandal with a Moroccan teenager, Karima El Mahroug, known as Ruby. Imane Fadil, 34, an important witness in the sex scandal involving Berlusconi and Ruby that the former Italian leader paid for love intercourse several times during his bunga bunga parties, died March 1 near Milan after falling sick in January. The young woman who suffered a month-long agony told her family and lawyer that she feared she had been poisoned, police told state-run news agency ANSA. She died as result of a progressive organ failure and post mortem toxicology tests revealed the presence of radioactive substance in her body, reports say. Imane Fadil wrote her story book titled I met the devil, HuffPost Italy reports. Copies of the book which has not been published yet have been seized by the Italian justice, the media notes. The police has not established any connection between the book and the death by poison. But in January during her last public comments on the sex scandal, the young woman said she had suffered since she was 25 from Berlusconi and his entourage who attempted several times to bribe her. The young woman also regretted her exclusion as a civil claimant in the trials. The former Prime Minister who is embroiled in alleged fraud and corruption had been cleared in the case. Judges in 2015 ruled that Berlusconi did not know Rubys real age, 17, when she attended his bunga bunga parties. The former Italian leader reportedly also denied knowing Imane Fadil. JOINT operatives of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) discovered Sunday, March 17, a "encampment" and marijuana plantation of the New Peoples Army JOINT operatives of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) discovered Sunday, March 17, a "encampment" and marijuana plantation of the New Peoples Army (NPA) in Sarangani. Police Regional Office-Soccsksargen Director Brigadier General Eliseo Rasco said joint elements of the PNP, AFP, and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency conducted an anti-illegal drug operations against members of the NPA, led by a certain Toto and Dandan Navarro, who are allegedly cultivating marijuana plants in the hinterlands of Barangay Nalus, Kiamba in Sarangani province. Rasco said the operating units move toward the area, where they encountered an unidentified number of NPA rebels. The clash lasted for 15 minutes. The enemy then withdrew. There was no casualty on the government side, said Rasco. Seized during the operation were one unit of caliber .30 carbine rifle, two units of caliber .38 pistol, one bandolier with eight magazines and 81 caliber .30 ammunition, subversive documents, and one NPA flag. Rasco said the NPA rebels may have been using the encampment as a training and plenum area. In a follow-up operation around 3 p.m. Sunday, March 17, troops found the marijuana plantation. The plants, however, have already been uprooted based on the traces of marijuana plant holes and presence of dried plants with stalk, leaves, and seeds. The recovered pieces of evidence will be brought to Kiamba Municipal Police Station for proper disposition, said Rasco. (SunStar Philippines) AMID the delayed approval of the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019, Congress should focus on the interest of the Filipino people and not on its "personal" differences, Malacanang AMID the delayed approval of the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019, Congress should focus on the interest of the Filipino people and not on its "personal" differences, Malacanang said on Monday, March 18. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made the remark after San Juan City Representative Ronald Zamora revealed that the House of Representatives finally gave in to the Senate's call to withdraw the House "itemized" version of the proposed 2019 budget. In a press conference, Panelo said it was good to know the Senate and the House of Representatives seemed to have patched up their differences to pave the way for the much-delayed budget for this year. Panelo said the Palace remained optimistic that Congress would soon transmit its enrolled version of the 2019 national budget to President Rodrigo Duterte's office. "If that's true, that's good," he said, reacting to Zamora's confirmation that the House of Representatives has agreed to recall its version of the proposed 2019 budget. "We welcome it. We welcome that they have finally settled their differences so we hope that they would be submitting the enrolled bill; and for the President to go over it and sign it if it conforms with the Constitution," he added. In a phone interview, Zamora said the House of Representatives would recall its version of the 2019 general appropriations bill (GAB), in an effort to break an impasse triggered by supposed "insertions" in and realignment of the proposed budget. Zamora said the House of Representatives made the move in "good faith." "I don't think we should take too long about this [proposed 2019 budget]. It is the economy that is suffering. It is not congressmen. It is not senators," the lawmaker said. Zamora's statement came after Duterte met with the leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives to settle the apparent rift between the two chambers that stemmed from the disagreement about the proposed budget. Story continues But in a separate statement, House appropriations committee chairperson Rolando Andaya Jr. said he has yet to be briefed about the supposed recall of the GAB for this year. "The 2019 GAB was approved in plenary at the House of the Representatives. The ratification of the bicameral conference report on the national budget was also made in plenary. Recall of the 2019 GAB must also be done in plenary session, with majority members of the House in approval," Andaya said. "No congressman has the authority, without plenary approval, to order the recall of the enrolled form of any bill already transmitted to the Senate," he added. Panelo said the executive was still optimistic that the senators and congressmen should set aside their conflicts "for the general welfare." "Well, they should always look at the interest of the people as the primary objective not personal differences with members of each house," he said. (SunStar Philippines) A POLICE officer was gunned down Monday morning, March 18, by three unidentified men in Pilar, Sorsogon.The Sorsogon police identified the slain cop as Chief Master Sergeant Juje Razo, 52, who was assigned A POLICE officer was gunned down Monday morning, March 18, by three unidentified men in Pilar, Sorsogon. The Sorsogon police identified the slain cop as Chief Master Sergeant Juje Razo, 52, who was assigned at the Pilar Municipal Police Station. Razo was shot dead by three assailants who used long and short firearms while traversing along Barangay Marifosque in Pilar onboard his motorcycle, said police. The victim sustained several gunshot wounds in the body, resulting in his instantaneous death. The gunmen fled onboard a motorcycle. Investigation is ongoing. (SunStar Philippines) THE National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) has removed over 650,000 campaign materials all over Metro Manila.NCRPO Director Major General Guillermo Eleazar urged the candidates to also do their THE police chief of Tayabas City in Quezon and three other cops were relieved from their post to pave the way for investigation on the alleged shootout that resulted in the killing of a town mayors son. Quezon Police Provincial Office Director Osmundo de Guzman said relieved were Tayabas Police Chief Mark Joseph Laygo, Police Officer (PO) 3 Christopher John Siman, PO1 Perry Malabaguio, and PO1 William Ricamonte. The relief came after elements of the Tayabas police killed in an alleged shootout on March 14 Cristian Gayeta, the 21-year-old son of Sariaya Mayor Marcelo Gayeta. The shootout reportedly happened after policemen responded to a report from a gasoline boy, who said that two unidentified persons onboard a motorcycle shot him twice for no reason. The gasoline boy was unharmed. Gayetas companion was also killed in the firefight. The Tayabas City Police Station has asked the Quezon Provincial Crime Laboratory Office to conduct an autopsy and paraffin examination on both hands of the alleged suspects. They also requested for identification on the firearms recovered from the crime scene. De Guzman assured that they will conduct a thorough investigation and that the Quezon Police Provincial Office will be fair in handling the case. (SunStar Philippines) Questions have been raised about why the Boeing 737 MAX was approved so quickly, despite flaws to its flight system Boeing said Monday that the flight stabilization system under scrutiny following two deadly 737 MAX plane crashes, met all US regulations. "The 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the identical Federal Aviation Administration requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives," Boeing said Monday. Boeing and regulators face increased examination over the stall prevention system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS, which authorities have said was likely a factor in deadly crashes in Indonesia in October, while the crash in Ethiopia earlier this month showed similarities. "The FAA considered the final configuration and operating parameters of MCAS during MAX certification, and concluded that it met all certification and regulatory requirements," Boeing added. Since the Ethiopian crash, which claimed 157 lives, questions have been raised not only about Boeing, but also the FAA and its close relationship with the company. While it may take months for definitive conclusions, experts are asking why the MCAS was given the green light despite objections by American pilots who had voiced concerns with the system. Investigation into the Lion Air crash in October implicated the MCAS which can erroneously force the plane down when the autopilot is engaged, if it detects the plane may be at risk of a stall. Both crashes happened shortly after takeoff. American pilots had complained of the flaw, and Boeing has been working on a software upgrade to the system and issued new instructions about how to override the issue in the meantime. In service since May 2017, the 737 MAX 8, one of several variants of the 737 MAX, has now experienced two deadly tragedies, a scenario that is unprecedented for a new aircraft. The US Transportation Department's inspector general is probing the FAA's approval of the MCAS, the Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper also said the criminal division of the Justice Department was looking into the development of the plane. The 737 MAX was certified as a variant of the 737 Next Generation, the plane it replaced, despite major differences in the engine and the MCAS, according to documents available on the FAA's website. But because of budget constraints, the FAA delegated aspects of the approval process to Boeing itself, according to sources. Under a program, known as the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA), employees of Boeing are accredited by the FAA to assist in approving the aircraftincluding design, production, flight tests, maintenance and other systemsas well as signing off on the training procedures of pilots on new planes. Explore further Boeing crashes cast spotlight on US aviation regulator 2019 AFP A file handout picture released by BirdLife Cyprus and taken in the Larnaca district on September 27, 2013 shows a Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) caught on a lime stick The mass killing of migratory birds in Cyprus has reached a record low mainly due to a clampdown on illegal trapping in British military-controlled areas, a conservationist group said Monday. Birdlife Cyprus said its 2018 autumn survey showed a 90 percent decrease in trapping levels with mist nets compared with 2002 when data collection began. "This positive all-time low is mainly due to the progress achieved within the Dhekelia British Sovereign Base Area over the last two years, one of the main trapping hotspots of the island," it said in a statement. Britain retained sovereignty over two military base areas when Cyprus gained independence in 1960, and it has a police force in Dhekelia that tackles poachers. Birdlife said its analysis "shows a positive and continuing decrease in bird trapping levels in Cyprus" but pointed to a "worrisome discrepancy of trapping decreasing in UK military base areas against an increase in the Republic". "While the big picture is one of welcome success and relief for Europe's migrant birds, the increase in killing with mist nets in the Republic recorded in autumn 2018 warns us to keep our feet on the ground," said Birdlife. An estimated 335,000 birds were still trapped across Cyprus last autumn, according to the NGO. Birdlife said the decline in the number of birds trapped was down to the approach of police in the base areas. "By increasing police patrols, introducing deterrent sentencing for trappers, enabling covert surveillance work and continuing operations targeting trapping habitat, SBA police played a key role in the dramatic reduction of trapping levels," it said. The group acknowledged efforts by the Cypriot authorities, including the issuing of on-the-spot fines, but it said more needed to be done. "This year's increase in trapping levels in the Republic not only strikes a cautionary note as regards to the dynamic nature of the trapping culture in Cyprus but also reminds us that the trapping problem is not yet solved," said Birdlife. Bird trapping with mist nets and limesticks is a damaging and non-selective practice that affects over 150 species of birds, mostly migratory. The main killing season is autumn when trappers are after protected blackcaps to be sold in Cypriot restaurants as illegal delicacies known as ambelopoulia. "Lack of enforcement against the illegal sale of trapped birds in restaurants and against big, organised trappers remain persistent problems, centred in the Republic," said Martin Hellicar, the head of Birdlife Cyprus. Explore further Cyprus poachers kill 2.3 million songbirds in 2016 2019 AFP This image shows the bright light of a solar flare on the left side of the sun and an eruption of solar material shooting through the suns atmosphere, called a prominence eruption. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SDO ANU scientists have found that Earth is made of the same elements as the Sun but has less of the volatile elements such as hydrogen, helium, oxygen and nitrogen. Lead author of the study, Dr. Haiyang Wang, said they made the best estimate of the composition of Earth and the Sun with the aim of creating a new tool to measure the elemental composition of other stars and rocky planets that orbit them. "The composition of a rocky planet is one of the most important missing pieces in our efforts to find out whether a planet is habitable or not," said Dr. Wang from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA). Other rocky planets in the Universe are devolatised pieces of their host stars, just like Earth. Co-author and RSAA colleague Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver said every star had some kind of planetary system in orbit around it. "The majority of stars probably have rocky planets in or near the habitable zone," he said. Co-author Professor Trevor Ireland, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said the team conducted the study by comparing the composition of Earth rocks with meteorites and the Sun's outer shell. "This comparison yields a wealth of information about the way the Earth formed. There is a remarkably linear volatility trend that can be used as a baseline to understand the relationships between meteorite, planet and stellar compositions," he said. The research will be published in the journal Icarus. Explore further Strong planetary magnetic fields like Earth's may protect oceans from stellar storms More information: The Volatility Trend of Protosolar and Terrestrial Elemental Abundances, arXiv:1810.12741 [astro-ph.EP] Journal information: Icarus The Volatility Trend of Protosolar and Terrestrial Elemental Abundances, arXiv:1810.12741 [astro-ph.EP] arxiv.org/abs/1810.12741 Any rescue of Italy's flagship carrier will now have to happen without easyjet British no-frills airline easyJet said Monday it had withdrawn from a possible partnership with Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) and Delta Air Lines to rescue troubled national carrier Alitalia. "Following discussions with (FS) and Delta Air Lines about forming a consortium to explore options for the future operations of Alitalia, easyJet has taken the decision to withdraw from the process," it said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange. Britain's biggest low-cost airline added it "remains committed" to Italy, where it currently carries 18.5 million passengers every year and employs 1,400 pilots and crew. FS announced last month that it was in discussions with easyJet and American carrier Delta about a potential rescue deal. Alitalia, which employs more than 11,000 people, has struggled to compete with its no-frills European rivals and has been placed in administration. EasyJet was said to be mulling with Atlanta-based Delta whether to jointly buy up to 40 percent of the Italian carrier. German airline Lufthansa had also previously expressed an interest in Alitalia, but in October ruled out any deal that involved the Italian state. Explore further Troubled Alitalia says gets three takeover bids 2019 AFP Credit: CC0 Public Domain Once a piece of ransomware has got hold of your valuable information, there is very little you can do to get it back other than accede to the attacker's demands. Ransomware, a type of malware that holds a computer to ransom, has become particularly prevalent in the past few years and virtually unbreakable encryption has made it an even more powerful force. Ransomware is typically delivered by powerful botnets used to send out millions of malicious emails to randomly targeted victims. These aim to extort relatively small amounts of money (normally 300-500, but more in recent times) from as many victims as possible. But according to police officers we have interviewed from UK cybercrime units, ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly targeted at high-value victims. These are usually businesses that can afford to pay very large sums of money, up to 1,000,000 to get their data back. In 2017 and 2018 there was a rise in such targeted ransomware attacks on UK businesses. Attackers increasingly use software to search for vulnerable computers and servers and then use various techniques to penetrate them. Most commonly, perpetrators use brute force attacks (using software to repeatedly try different passwords to find the right one), often on systems that let you operate computers remotely. If the attackers gain access, they will try to infect other machines on the network and gather essential information about the company's business operations, IT infrastructure and further potential vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can include when networks are not effectively segregated into different parts, or are not designed in a way that makes them easy to monitor (network visibility), or have weak administration passwords. They then upload the ransomware, which encrypts valuable data and sends a ransom note. Using information such as the firm's size, turnover and profits, the attackers will then estimate the amount the company can afford and tailor their ransom demand accordingly. Payment is typically requested in cryptocurrency and usually between 35 and 100 bitcoins (value at time of publication 100,000288,000). According to the police officers we spoke to, another popular attack method is "spear phishing" or "big game hunting". This involves researching specific people who handle finances in a company and sending them an email that pretends to be from another employee. The email will fabricate a story that encourages the recipient to open an attachment, normally a Word or Excel document containing malicious code. These kind of targeted attacks are typically carried out by professional groups solely motivated by profit, though some attacks seek to disrupt businesses or infrastructure. These criminal groups are highly organised and their activities constantly evolve. They are methodical, meticulous and creative in extorting money. For example, traditional ransomware attacks ask for a fixed amount as part of an initial intimidating message, sometimes accompanied by a countdown clock. But in more targeted attacks, perpetrators typically drop a "proof of life" file onto the victim's computer to demonstrate that they control the data. They will also send contact and payment details for release of the data, but also open up a tough negotiation process, which is sometimes automated, to extract as much money as possible. According to the police, the criminals usually prefer to target fully-digitised businesses that rely highly on IT and data. They tend to favour small and medium-sized companies and avoid large corporations that have more advanced security. Big firms are also more likely to attract media attention, which could lead to increased police interest and significant disruptions to the criminal operations. How to protect yourself So what can be done to fight back against these attacks? Our work is part of the multi-university research project EMPHASIS, which studies the economic, social and psychological impact of ransomware. (As yet unpublished) data collected by EMPHASIS indicates that weak cybersecurity in the affected organisations is the main reason why cybercriminals have been so successful in extorting money from them. One way to improve this situation would be to better protect remote computer access. This could be done by disabling the system when it's not in use, and using stronger passwords and two-step authentication (when a second, specially generated code is needed to login alongside a password). Or alternatively switching to a virtual private network, which connects machines via the internet as if they were in a private network. When we interviewed cybercrime researcher Bob McArdle from IT security firm Trend Micro, he advised that email filters and anti-virus software containing dedicated ransomware protection are vital. Companies should also regularly backup their data so it doesn't matter if someone seizes the original. Backups must be tested and stored in locations that are inaccessible to ransomware. These kind of controls are crucial because ransomware attacks tend to leave very little evidence and so are inherently difficult to investigate. As such, targeted ransomware attacks are not going to stop any time soon, and attackers are only likely to get more sophisticated in their methods. Attackers are highly adaptive so companies will have to respond just as smartly. Explore further Why ransomware is on the rise This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original articl Credit: Dominik Rattenbacher Researchers at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany have recently demonstrated that a molecule can be turned into a coherent two-level quantum system. In their study, published in Nature Physics, they placed an organic molecule inside an optical microcavity and found that it behaved as a coherent two-level quantum system. "Organic molecules have been studied and applied in various contexts for many decades," Vahid Sandoghdar, the head of the research team, told Phys.org. "Our research group has been interested in using them in quantum optical measurements, which have traditionally been done on atoms in a vacuum chamber." Sandoghar and his colleagues found that an organic molecule placed into an optical microcavity actually behaves as a coherent two-level quantum system. This enabled the researchers to extinguish 99% of a laser beam with a single molecule. The remarkable efficiency of this interaction also meant that they could saturate a molecule by about only 0.5 photon, whereas one usually requires a considerable amount of power to achieve saturation. The nonlinear nature of this effect was also manifested in non-classical generation of a few-photons of super-bunched light. "The great advantage of our system is that a single molecule sits at exactly the same place in its surrounding crystal for days and weeks, whereas a single atom is usually kept on time scales of the order of seconds only," said Daqing Wang, who did his doctoral research on this project. The effect of a single molecule on the cavitys transmission spectrum. The cavity frequency was tuned across the molecular frequency (1-12). When the molecule is on resonance with the cavity (see 7, 8), it blocks completely the transmission of the cavity, i.e., it works as a nearly perfect mirror. Credit: Wang et al. An individual molecule has several vibrational energy levels, which provide multiple decay channels for its excited state. To turn a molecule into a two-level quantum system, the researchers had to speed up one of these transitions to such an extent that the molecule's decay rate to the other levels would become negligible. In other words, this process prevented the molecule from decaying to levels that the researchers did not want it to go to. "To make this happen, we have enclosed the molecule in a cavity consisting of two mirrors separated by a very small distance in the order of one micrometer," Wang explained. "The transition of choice is resonant with the cavity so that a photon can go back and forth many times, in our case several thousand times." The researchers carried out their experiment at about 2 Kelvin, to ensure that thermal agitations of the crystal didn't affect its interaction with the laser light. In addition to showing that a molecule can act as a coherent two-level quantum system, they demonstrated that their molecule-microcavity system could interact with single photons generated by a second molecule in a distant laboratory. "Quantum mechanical systems are building blocks of the emerging field of quantum engineering, but they can easily lose their quantumness," Sandoghdar said. "The dream is to wire up many quantum mechanical systems in a way that their fragile quantum mechanical interactions are preserved. Our work shows that an organic molecule, which is usually associated with fluorescence microscopy in biology or with colors of a T-shirt, can do what one expects from an ideal quantum mechanical system." In the future, the study carried out by the team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute could enable the development of linear and nonlinear quantum photonic circuits based on organic platforms. "What we have shown so far is that we can really interact a single photon with a single molecule in an efficient manner," Sandoghdar said. "We are now working on doing that on a chip and then extending it to a quantum photonic circuit, where many molecules are connected via nanoscopic waveguides." Explore further Single molecules show promise to optically detect single electrons More information: Daqing Wang et al. Turning a molecule into a coherent two-level quantum system, Nature Physics (2019). Journal information: Nature Physics Daqing Wang et al. Turning a molecule into a coherent two-level quantum system,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-019-0436-5 2019 Science X Network The Government of Ghana and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will host an Investment Forum to discuss ways to crowd-in private sector investment for clean energy projects in Ghana that are financially viable. The forum will be a platform to discuss and showcase proven climate solutions and investment-ready climate action projects to attract support from all relevant stakeholders and mobilize investments for climate action in Ghana. Stakeholders from international/development organizations, government agencies, civil societies and academia are expected to participate in the forum. According to Ghanas Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the country needs about $22.6 billion investments from domestic and international public and private sources to finance its climate actions, starting from 2020. He said about $6.3 billion is expected to be mobilized from domestic sources and $16.3 billion will come from international support. The Ghana forum is in line with the Paris Agreement. The Agreement requests each country to outline and communicate its post-2020 climate actions, known as their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Africa Climate Week (ACW) 2019 will convene in the lead-up to the UN Secretary-Generals Climate Summit in September 2019, bringing together diverse actors from the public and private sectors. Participants will focus on how engagement between Parties and non-Party stakeholders can be further strengthened in key sectors for Africa, including energy, agriculture and human settlements. The event will also showcase the role of future carbon markets to enhance climate action towards the goal of sustainable development, and seek to facilitate implementation of countries NDCs and SDG 13 (climate action), among other Goals. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Studies have shown women are more risk-averse than men, more likely to opt for the smaller sure thing than gamble on an all-or-nothing proposition, a trait experts say could help to explain the persistent wage gap between men and women. New research suggests those gender differences in risk aversion are shaped by culture and the social environment and that those differences can shift, at least in children. "Environment is extremely important in shaping risk aversion," said Elaine Liu, associate professor of economics and author of a paper on the subject published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "If we can teach girls that they should be more risk loving, perhaps that will shape their future decision-making." Liu and co-author Sharon Xuejing Zuo of Fudan University looked at the behavior of children from two distinct culturesthe matrilineal Mosuo and the traditionally patriarchal Hanwho attended the same school in Yunnan, China. When the children first began elementary school, Mosuo girls took more risks than Mosuo boys, while Han girls were less likely to take risks than Han boys, in keeping with their parents' cultural norms. But that began to change as the children were exposed to the other culture. It worked both ways, Liu said. Mosuo girls became more risk-averse, while Han girls became more risk-loving. "There was a convergence," Liu said. "The Mosuo girls took more risks than Han girls at the beginning, but their attitudes toward taking risks become more similar as they spent more time together." The researchers studied children in elementary and middle school; Liu said it's not clear whether the changes will be sustained as the children return to their home villages. She and Zuo hope to launch a long-term study to determine if the shift in attitudes toward risk-taking is permanent. They measured students' attitudes toward risk-taking through a lottery-style game, offering the students six choices ranging from a guaranteed three-yuan payout to a 50/50 percent chance of winning 10 yuan or nothing. Ten yuan would allow the children to buy five notebooks or about five popsicles at a local store; the amount of the reward was chosen after consulting with school principals. Liu and Zuo conducted their research in Yunnan, a province in southwestern China, because it is one of the few places where children from cultures with distinctly different gender norms come together in one place. But Liu said the basic discoverythat risk aversion is quite malleable at a young ageshould be applicable across cultures. "Gender norms are slow to change, but there are social influences that could play a role in how we shape that behavior," Liu said. And that could have long-term economic consequences, she said, even potentially shrinking the gender pay gap if it led to women choosing riskier but higher-reward career paths. Explore further Gender stereotypes begin at age 10 More information: Elaine M. Liu el al., "Measuring the impact of interaction between children of a matrilineal and a patriarchal culture on gender differences in risk aversion," PNAS (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Elaine M. Liu el al., "Measuring the impact of interaction between children of a matrilineal and a patriarchal culture on gender differences in risk aversion,"(2019). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1808336116 Snowmobile is a common mode of transport in Inuit communities. Temperature influences machine functioning, potential of getting stuck and conditions of ice and snow Credit: Dylan Clark, McGill University, Canada Inuit communities' travel skills and regional knowledge have helped mitigate the effects of Arctic climate change on travel conditions, according to a new study. The Arctic is warming nearly twice as quickly as the rest of the world and has the potential to affect many aspects of life for the people that live there. The semi-permanent trails used by Indigenous communities on sea-ice, rivers and frozen ground are vulnerable to warming conditions which can cause sea-ice melt and flooding. These trails are critically important for travel between settlements, to cultural sites and for practicing traditional hunting, fishing and gathering activities. Until now, understanding whether climate change has affected the ability of Inuit to use these trails has been elusive, making it difficult for communities and regional and local governments to decide how to plan for climate impacts. A study led by Professor James Ford, from the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, used interviews with nine Inuit communities in the eastern Canadian Arctic to assess trail viability and compared this to 30 years' worth of weather records to determine changes in travel conditions. They found that despite significant changes in climate-related conditions between 1985-2016, including warming temperatures, overall trail access was affected much less than they expected. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, suggests trail conditions have only changed by roughly one or two days in the last 30 years and that the combined number of suitable travel days per year for the three types of travel examinedover snow on land, over sea ice and on open waterhas actually increased. While changing ice conditions are reducing sea-ice trail access for using snowmobiles in the autumn and winter, improvements in visibility and wind appear to be offsetting this by enhancing both land and water trails in the spring and summer. To assess trail access and viable travel days, the team, for the first time, took into account the skill level and risk tolerance among trail users to determine viable travel days. For example, ice concentration is critical for safely using small boats. Low or no ice concentrations are preferred by Inuit for boating. Accidents where boats have been sunk by ice strikes or occupants have been thrown overboard are more prevalent in high ice conditions. Visibility is important in wayfinding and monitoring the safety of surrounding ice conditions. Credit: Dylan Clark, McGill University, Canada The study suggests that less than 30 per cent ice coverage is generally preferred for boating. However, in determining thresholds for trail access among users with a different levels of skill sets and risk tolerance, 50 per cent ice coverage was set as the upper limit for trail users with a high risk tolerance and skill set, while only 10 per cent ice coverage was the cut off point for users with low risk tolerance and fewer skills to traverse water trails. Professor Ford, Chair in Climate Adaptation at the Priestley Centre, explained: "Previous studies on Arctic transportation and climate change do not take into consideration different types of trail users. "We found that an understanding of how trail conditions are affected by changing conditions, as well as a knowledge of alternative routes, and a well-developed skillsets, such as being adept with snowmobile or recognising dangerous ice conditions, had a greater impact in determining whether trails were safe to use, more so than the change in travel conditions due to climate. "Highly skilled travellers are able to use the trails more than twice as often as travellers whose skillsets are not as well-developed. The study estimated that travellers of high skill can expect roughly 100 more days of suitable travel conditions per year compared to travellers with a lower skill set. Professor Ford said: "While climate models can provide a bigger picture of the overall effects of climate change, it can be harder to determine how environmental variables are affecting specific activities within different communities in affected regions. "The study highlights how the close involvement of the people in question is essential to understanding how the ongoing changes to the environmental will affect specific activities of different groups. Incorporating this practice, or a "bottom-up" approach, is central for understanding what climate change means for people and developing responses tailored to specific contexts. "However, while the skill set of the Inuit community may be mitigating the effects of climate change on travel conditions for now, there is no doubt that the warming conditions in the Arctic are having detrimental effects on the region. "The shrinking sea-ice and shifts in seasonal temperatures are a serious threat, particularly to the region's native species and ecology which form an essential part of the Inuit community's tradition and culture. And while the effects of climate change to date on trail access were not totally what we expected, communities are very concerned about what future change may mean." Explore further Inuit are on the right track More information: Changing access to ice, land and water in Arctic communities, Nature Climate Change (2019). www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0435-7 Journal information: Nature Climate Change Changing access to ice, land and water in Arctic communities,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0435-7 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Researchers at A*STAR have compared six data-analysis processes and come up with a clear winner in terms of speed, quality of analysis and reliability. The top performer took large, complex biological data sets and spat out key relations between parameters (such as grouping blood and marrow cells according to cell type) in a fraction of the time of the other techniques. Measurements on single cells alone can generate huge data sets that have anywhere from 20 to more than 20,000 parameters. The mind-boggling size and complexity of biological data sets make it extremely challenging for scientists to uncover meaningful relationships between parameters. Mathematicians have developed statistical techniques that simplify complex data sets by grouping data according to their similar characteristics. The most well-known technique is principal component analysis (PCA), which was developed in the early twentieth century. Recently, more powerful techniques, that harness the power of machine learning, have been developed. Now, Evan Newell and Florent Ginhoux at the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), and their colleagues have used single-cell data to test six such machine-learning techniques and discovered one that stands out from the rest in terms of speed, quality of analysis and reliability. This technique is called the uniform manifold approximation and projection, or 'UMAP'. "When Evan and Etienne Becht in his group at SIgN started to benchmark UMAP, we realized that it was much more powerful than anything we had used before," recalls Ginhoux. An analysis that might take days using other methods can be done in a few hours using UMAP, which will allow scientists to investigate larger data sets. "With UMAP, we can analyze data for two or three million cells, whereas we generally avoid going beyond 100,000 cells with other methods," says Newell. UMAP grouped similar cells in the most intuitive way, making it easier to interpret its results. "I think it's really groundbreaking," says Ginhoux. "Researchers I meet at conferences are already starting to use it." In an earlier study, the group demonstrated UMAP's power by using it to discover a new population of cells in blood. Newell notes that UMAP is highly versatile and can be applied to data generated in fields as diverse as astronomy and crystallography. "Basically, any data that can be expressed in matrices can be analyzed by UMAP," he says. In addition to using UMAP to analyze data on a daily basis, the team plans to continue to work with informaticians to tailor UMAP to their needs. Explore further A machine learning approach helps sort and label cell clusters in multiple dimensions More information: Etienne Becht et al. Dimensionality reduction for visualizing single-cell data using UMAP, Nature Biotechnology (2018). Journal information: Nature Biotechnology Etienne Becht et al. Dimensionality reduction for visualizing single-cell data using UMAP,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/nbt.4314 For neuroscientists, human hearing is a process full of unanswered questions. How does the brain translate soundsvibrations that travel through the airinto the patterns of neural activity that we recognize as speech, or laughter, or the footsteps of an approaching friend? And are those same neural processes universal, or do they vary across cultures? With support from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE), Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Josh McDermott is leading a research team seeking to answer those questions. Their work lies at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience and engineering. To identify whether there are aspects of auditory perception that are universal across cultures, McDermott and his team have traveled into places ranging from Boston to remote Amazonia, where they record sounds ranging from the clatter of a noisy diner to the stillness of a woodland path. McDermott spends much of his time studying how the brain processes sound. A typical day finds him reviewing results from experiments involving human brain imaging, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. This line of research has revealed that the human auditory cortex contains neurons that respond selectively to musicnot to speech or environmental sounds. This work has shown that sound processing in the auditory cortex happens in stages, beginning with the analysis of low-level features, such as loudness and pitch. That processing proceeds step-by-step into higher-level features, such as the source of the sound production (for example, whether the sounds are produced by speech) and the identity of the person or thing producing the sound. McDermott's team has also developed an artificial neural network that can recognize sound and music. The network can identify words in speech and genres of music with the same accuracy as a human subject. Because the researchers can "look under the hood" of the software to see how it handles information at every stage of processing, they can compare each stage with the functions of the auditory cortex, as imaged with fMRI. This comparison has shown that certain stages in auditory processing in the computer program are similar to those performed by the brain. The long-term goals of the research include improving treatments for those with hearing impairments and designing machines that can interpret sound with abilities that rival those of humans. Provided by National Science Foundation America's 26 million asthmatics may be able to breathe a sigh of relief, thanks to Dr. Sailaja Paruchuri, a University of Akron researcher who has received a $1.9 million Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH-NIAID). The research project seeks to understand how asthma symptoms and other inflammatory conditions are aggravated by examining the link between two lipid mediators formed from fatty acids. Paruchuri hopes that uncovering the mechanisms of this process will lead to new discoveries for the research and treatment of common respiratory disorders and allergies. Currently, a leukotriene receptor blocker alone is in use for treatment of asthma and similar ailments, branded as Singulair from Merck. "But it is not as potent as steroids," remarks Paruchuri, the James L. & Martha J. Foght Associate Professor in our Department of Chemistry. "My team proposes that a combination of a leukotriene blocker along with a prostaglandin blocker can be a better treatment." The Research Project Grant (R01) is the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by NIH. Paruchuri, one of only a dozen recipients of this grant at UA, has dedicated herself to research on these bio-lipids since her doctorate studies in Sweden, and is pleased to put the grant to use with her colleague and co-investigator, Dr. Adam Smith, an associate professor in chemistry. "This is a very exciting time, as we have recently published our work in a prestigious journal, Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, and succeeded in securing this significant R01 grant from NIH, which is a gold standard in health science research," Paruchuri says. The R01 grant will also help train graduate students to become future scientists and continue to build UA's reputation as a place of research and discovery. Working with these future scientists to help secure this funding is what Paruchuri says she finds so meaningful. "I want to take this opportunity to thank my past and present post-docs, graduate students and undergrad students for all their hard work, enthusiasm, and perseverance," she notes. Provided by University of Akron A young officer from the Polisario front decided on Monday, March 18, to rally the motherland. A Polisario rebel executive, claiming to be a captain, acting as deputy commandant of a Katiba (battalion) of the so-called Gendarmerie of the separatist front, showed up this Monday morning at the defense line in the area of Farcia (Oued Draa region), declaring his intention to rally his motherland, Morocco, military sources said, according to MAP news agency. The 29-year-old, who was aboard a multi-colored jeep, said there are still other repentant separatists who want to return to their country, the military source said. Over the years, many senior executives of the Polisario have returned to their native land after they realized that the separatist front is fooling them with independence dreams that will never come true. The Italian ambassador to Libya has called on the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) to provide security measures for an Italian company awarded a road construction tender to link the far east of the country to the western region. The request came during a meeting between the Italian envoy Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi and the Libyan Transport Minister Milad Maatoug, on Sunday, Libya Observer reports. The road project dubbed The Alternative Road will link Imsaad in the east and Ras Ajdair in the far west, the media notes. The report does not mention the company entrusted with carrying out the project but notes that the GNA gave the contract to Italy as part of the Italian occupation compensation deal, which is part of the 2008 Italy-Libya Friendship Agreement. Grimaldi requested proper security measures for the work. Libya has become since 2011 a lawless country with two different rival administrations competing for foreign support. The GNA, established in 2015 under the Skhirate agreements signed in Morocco, has been struggling to impose its authority over the entire country. The eastern region of the oil-rich country has been under the realm of a rival government supported by the so-called Libya National Army (LNA) of warlord Khalifa Haftar. Rome in November tried to snatch an agreement from the rival parties but the talks failed with Haftar refusing to sit with GNA leader Faiez Serraj. 1 hour ago U.S. government deficit down 17% from same period a year ago WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. budget deficit totaled $356.4 billion in the first two months of the budget year, down 17% from the same period a year ago thanks to a sharp jump in government revenues that offset a smaller increase in spending. In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Friday that the government's deficit in October and November was $72.9 billion below the deficit in the same two months last year. Read Article In recent days, Pakistani authorities staged a major crackdown on militant groups. Dozens of people were arrested and many facilities were shut down. However this wasn't the first time Pakistan has taken these types of actions, but many observers and analysts were struck by the large number of people targeted in this latest crackdown. What triggered this move, and how significant is it? And does it signal that Islamabad is finally serious about taking irreversible steps against terrorists--including those with ties to the state--or is just another short-lived effort to respond to international pressure? These questions and more are addressed in the latest episode of The AfPak File, which features Simbal Khan, an Islamabad-based security expert; Ahmad Shah Azami, a Prague-based journalist and editor of RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal; and Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center. Muhammad Tahir, RFE/RLs media relations manager moderates the discussion. Text/Audio Famine In The Soviet Kazakhstan As many as 1.5 million people died in Kazakhstan during the great Soviet famine which spanned the winters of 1931-33. While other former Soviet states, notably Ukraine, have marked the famine, the Kazakh government has sought to bury this bitter memory along with the forgotten victims. In an interview with RFE.RLs Kazakh Service, author of the book Famine In The Soviet Kazakhstan, Sarah Cameron, shares a revelation in the horrors of soviet history. See the Project March 18, 2019 in FileMaker (E) [prMac.com] Fremont, California - .com Solutions Inc. has released FmPro Migrator Platinum Edition 8.74 as a maintenance release providing improvements to the FileMaker to LiveCode, Image Export to SQL, data transfers to MySQL and AppleScript automation. This release supports FileMaker Pro Advanced 11 - 17 on macOS and Windows. A summary of improvements in FmPro Migrator 8.74 includes: * Fixed an issue with the LiveCode conversion project FmPro Converted Scripts.txt output file growing too large. * Added local variables to the CreateConnectionObject handler in the LiveCode template stack. * Fixed cosmetic issue in display of the Image Export SQL results text if 0 records were transferred. Also, added the clearing of the results text when switching tables. * Fixed a cosmetic text label issue within the Manage Deleted Fields window. * Updated the list of reserved words to support MySQL 8 when creating tables. * Improved the display of Unicode error messages returned from database servers during the Get Fieldsize, Create Table and TransferData steps. * Image Export to SQL error reports now contain the name of the table as part of the filename and the number of errors listed at the top of the report. * Fixed an incorrect error message about 2 copies of FileMaker running on macOS due to the PSConversionHelper.xpc also running. Pricing and Availability: FmPro Migrator Developer Edition is priced at ($199) per developer, FmPro Migrator Platinum Edition is priced at ($599) per developer, and both versions are available immediately. Founded in 1999 by David Simpson in Sunny California, .com Solutions Inc. develops multi-platform graphical applications supporting FileMaker Pro, SQLite, Oracle, MySQL, Access, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL, VB6, LiveCode and Visual FoxPro developers. FmPro Script Diff, compares and edits FileMaker Pro scripts. SQLite Diff compares SQLite database schema and data. Copyright (C) 1999-2019 .com Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved. FileMaker is a registered trademark of FileMaker, Inc. - An Apple Subsidiary. Apple, the Apple logo and macOS platforms are trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. ### 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 Chinese designer WANG FENG combines luxury advanced craftsmanship with modern design feeling to create an enviable brand for every student Hand - made custom dress, perfect into the beautiful color scenery, and you enjoy the beauty of aomori. 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Designer wang feng As a tiger heart, to sniff the rose dress craftsman, with excellent imagination, in the continuation of the classic beauty of the dress At the same time, it embraces fashion and the purest natural beauty Read more at:plus size bridesmaid dresses uk The director and chairperson of South Africas Central Energy Fund board has been dismissed, the minister of energy, Jeff Radebe said in a statement. The Central Energy Fund (CEF) manages defined energy interests on behalf of the government, including the development of the countrys oil and gas assets. The board of the CEF also oversees South Africas state-owned oil company and energy assets. According to the Energy Ministry, CEF chairperson Luvo Makasi was removed from his position following serious allegations that were brought to the attention of the minister. Luvo Makasi has allegedly attempted to solicit a bribe of $2.5m from oil trading firms from Glencore and Vitol on behalf of senior politicians and officials, including deputy president David Mabuza, minister of energy Radebe, ANC treasurer general Paul Mashatile, and senior officials in the department during a meeting in November 2018. Luvo Makasis case is one among other serious cases that have affected South Africa in recent years. Since the end of apartheid, leaders of the A.N.C. have reportedly siphoned off, for their own benefit and the benefit of their allies, tens of billions of dollars of public funds meant to improve the lives of black South Africans. When Cyril Ramaphosa took over as president of South Africa last year, he spoke of the need to clean out the corruption that had tainted the almost nine-year rule of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, and make the government more accountable. As consultations are still ongoing to form a new government in Algeria in a bid to address the wrath of the people standing against the extension of President Bouteflikas term that the protesters call a fourth term bis, the Bouteflika clan must face another front of resistance from within. Actually, 72 high dignitaries of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) signed, Sunday (March 17), a statement in which they voice support for the awakening of conscience of the popular masses. The 72 mouhafedhs (FLN leaders at the regional level), out of 120 in the country, were clear in their support for the popular protests against Bouteflika. In their statement, the dignitaries hailed the popular protest movement, saying they support all the legitimate claims and distance themselves from the statements made by the president of the unlawful leadership of the party. We warmly welcome the awakening of conscience of the popular masses, as well as their sense of responsibility and civilized behavior, which express in all sincerity the aspirations of the Algerian people to build a democratic and modern state, rooted in justice and freedom, the signatories added, calling for new elections to replace the illegitimate leadership of the party that has ruled the country since its independence. Also on Sunday, Former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, who was until recently a cacique of the Algerian regime and who was sacked only last week, expressed support to the protesters and asked the regime to respond as soon as possible to the demands expressed by the Algerians. Ahmed Ouyahia, who played a leading role in the countrys politics as President Abdelaziz Bouteflikas chief of staff during several years before he was appointed Prime Minister in 2018, has expressed his sympathy with the demonstrators, who call for a regime change, in a letter he sent Sunday to the militants of his party, the RND. In the letter that was published by the Algerian media, Ahmed Ouyahia calls the authorities to respond as soon as possible to the demands peacefully expressed by the Algerians against the system in place. He calls on the authorities to respond as soon as possible, in order to avoid Algeria a drifting (in the unknown). Ouyahia has thus joined the growing clan of those who utterly changed or softened their positions with regard to the protesters, including Ahmed Gaid Salah, the armys Chief of Staff and Deputy Minister of National Defense. Ahmed Gaid Salah actually distanced himself from his own stands at the beginning of the protests that started on February 22 when he had threatened to crackdown on the demonstrations. Today, the people and the army share the same vision on the future of the country, Ahmed Gaid Salah had declared a couple of weeks later, precisely on March 10. Another influential component of the Algerian power, the Mujahideen or Resistants, represented by the National Organization of Chouhadas Children, the National Organization of Mujahideen, the Association of the elders of MALG (intelligence service of the National Army of Liberation during the war of independence), have also deserted the Bouteflika clan. Since the start of the demonstrations, these organizations announced the withdrawal of their support to the regime and denounced its maneuvers to perpetuate a system that has reached its limits and risks to lead the country to most serious dangers. Several local branches or unions affiliated to the powerful UGTA (General Union of Algerian Workers) have also distanced themselves from the union chief, Abdelmadjid Sidi-Said, who is a staunch supporter of President Bouteflika. Resignations were also announced in the Forum of entrepreneurs, an employers organization led by Ali Haddad, who is very close to Said Bouteflika, the Presidents brother. Algeria has been embroiled since February 22 in a political crisis sparked by President Bouteflikas plans to run for a fifth term in office despite his health conditions at the April 18 presidential elections. To calm down protests, Bouteflika scraped his candidacy plans, and instead postponed the elections sine die and proposed a transition to be marked by a national conference to discuss a new constitutions. However, the move did not abate the demonstrations, while opposition parties, including Talaie El Houriat of former Premier Ali Benflis, the countrys largest Islamist part, MSP, of Abderrezak Makri, and the Workers Party of Louisa Hanoune continue to call for the withdrawal of Bouteflika and all his entourage from Algerias political life as a pre-condition for the transition. Meanwhile, the corporations of doctors, magistrates, lawyers, journalists, teachers, as well as students continue their mobilization on the street as well as on social networks, calling for an end to time-buying manoeuvers and for a regime change in their country. As e-commerce continues to grow in Malaysia, Samsung is evolving its device strategy to tap into this huge market. The Galaxy M20 is the first Samsung smartphone to be an online-exclusive device, in partnership with Shopee. The Samsung Galaxy M20 follows the trend started by Chinese smartphone makers that sell devices on a high specs, low price basis. By selling the Galaxy M20 exclusively online, Samsung can keep costs down and sell it at a lower price. There is a shift in retail paradigm and consumers are shopping online now more than ever before. Taking this into consideration, we decided to go fully-digital in our sales approach for the new Galaxy M series, said Yoonsoo Kim, President of Samsung Malaysia Electronics. At RM799, the Samsung Galaxy M offers plenty of value compared to previous Samsung devices at that price point. Its outstanding feature is a massive 5,000mAh battery the first on a Samsung smartphone, and even larger than that on the Galaxy Note 9 (at just 4,000mAh). The Galaxy M20 also has USB-C fast charging, and a power management feature built into the device for lower power consumption. Other notable hardware specs include an Exynos 7904 octa-core processor with 4GB of RAM, a huge 6.3-inch FHD+ Infinity-V teardrop notch display, and 64GB of internal storage (expandable with microSD cards). As for the cameras, theres a dual rear camera comprising of a 13MP f/1.9 main sensor and a 5MP f/2.2 120-degree ultra-wide angle sensor. The front camera is a 8MP sensor embedded in the notch. Samsung is working with Shopee Malaysia to offer the Galaxy M20 exclusively on the e-commerce platform. Shopee will be holding a Samsung Brand Day on 20 March, where the Galaxy M20 will be available for sale starting 9am for both colours: Charcoal Black and Ocean Blue. The first 2,000 buyers will receive a Logitech X50 Bluetooth speaker and a JBL T450 worth a combined RM227, while the next 2,000 buyers will receive the Logitech X50 speakers only. On top of that, Shopee will also offer a voucher for an additional RM100 off any product sold in the Samsung Official Store on Shopee but this voucher is limited to the first 100 buyers only. 0 0 votes Article Rating SHARE As many as 84% of Malaysian youths spend a large chunk of their monthly income servicing a car loan. Despite the financial burden of purchasing a car, many young Malaysians believe that they have no other choice. This could be down to car ownership being a societal norm in Malaysia, or simply due to a lack of better options. Many Malaysians still find it impractical to rely on public transportation to get around despite recent improvements. Meanwhile, taxis and ride-hailing services can be expensive and inconvenient. Are these options really the only alternatives to car ownership out there? SOCAR is a car-sharing platform that allows you to book a car for your use by the hour, day, or week, all through an app on your phone. In the long run, using SOCAR can bring you more convenience and financial advantages compared to purchasing and maintaining a car. Get More Rewards And Savings With SOCAR Be a Rockstar: Spend RM250 per month (without coupon) on SOCAR, receive 5x 25% off coupons on all SOCAR models! Spend RM250 per month (without coupon) on SOCAR, receive 5x 25% off coupons on all SOCAR models! Be a Superstar: Spend RM500 per month (without coupon) on SOCAR, receive 5x 50% off coupons on all SOCAR models! *Only total spend without coupon redemption each month will be eligible for both Rockstar and Superstar rewards. To top it off, using SOCAR is easy, instant, and convenient. All you need to do is download the app, sign up with a valid drivers license, and get authorised. Make your first reservation by choosing your car model, booking window, and pick-up location. (There is a one-off RM50 membership fee to be paid with your first reservation, but heres some good news the membership fee has been reduced to RM35 until 31 March!) If youre not using SOCARs door-to-door function which delivers the car straight to your desired pick-up point, make your way to the reserved SOCAR Zone and use your app to unlock the car. Take photos of the car and send it to SOCAR through the app, and youre free to drive! Better yet, SOCARs prices are inclusive of 20km worth of petrol per hour. So, instead of tying yourself down with a car purchase when youve just started working or adding another car to your household, consider car-sharing with SOCAR instead. To view all of SOCARs available car models and their respective prices, head on over to the SOCAR website and see how having choices is always a good thing. 5 1 vote Article Rating SHARE Botswana's Debswana Diamond Mining, a joint venture between De Beers and the southern Africa country's government, have awarded Thiess subsidiary CIMIC a $1.2-billion contract to extend the lifespan of their Jwaneng mine. Jwaneng, which began operations in 1982, is currently 650 metres deep, but its owners want to deepen the pit to 830 meters (2,700 feet), which will allow continuing operations for another 11 years, to 2035, and extracting a further 53 million carats. Debswana will invest approximately $2 billion over the life of the project, dubbed Cut 9, which involves removing waste from the bottom of the mine to both widen and deepen the pit. Jwaneng, which began operations in 1982, will continue in operations unit 2035. At its peak, Cut-9 is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs, the majority of which will be held by locals. With global consumer demand for diamonds reaching record levels in 2018, the extension will enable us to continue to meet the needs of our consumers all over the world, Debswanas chairman Bruce Cleaver said in the statement. This is not the first time Debswana decides to invest in expanding Jwaneng, the worlds No.1 diamond producing mine by value, which contributes almost 70 percent of the partnerships total revenue. Related: Major Gold Analysts Predict A Good Year For Precious Metals The company completed in November a $3-billion, 10-year-long expansion plan, Cut 8, which extended the lifespan of the mine to 2024. Debswana was formed in 1969 as a 50/50 partnership between the Botswanas government and De Beers Group. The unit is a significant contributor to the countrys economy with more than 80 percent of its profits going back to Botswanas citizens. Diamonds from Debswana bring in about 50 percent of public revenue, representing 33 percent of GDP and over 80 percent of foreign earnings to Botswana. By Mining.com More Top Reads From Safehaven.com: No sooner did news break that Ford will be laying off 5,000 workers in Germany than it was also reported that the company's CEO, Jim Hackett, saw his pay rise to $17.75 million in 2018, despite what can only be described as a lackluster year for the company. The CEO's compensation was up about 6 percent in what he described as a "mediocre by any standard" year for the company. Hackett's total compensation was up from about $16.7 million in 2017. He benefited from increases to his salary, stock awards, perks, and benefits, while his bonus pay fell, according to a regulatory filing by the company. Right now, Hackett is tasked with leading an $11 billion restructuring of the company that involves layoffs, closing plants, updating the company's lineup and exiting the North American sedan market while, at the same time, investing in electric and autonomous vehicles. The company's net income was down by more than half last year, as Ford lost money in every other region in the world aside from North America. Over the course of the year, the company's stock was down 39 percent, as it fell out of favor with Wall Street. In January, the CEO sent out an internal memo saying that the company should have earned double what it earned in 2018, additionally telling his employees to "bury the year in a deep grave". His bonus was cut 28 percent for the year after missing targets for earnings margins, cash flow and revenue. Related: The Biggest Bottleneck In The Renewable Revolution Ford has recovered slightly in 2019, with its stock up about 10 percent to start the year. The company is also conducting alliance talks with automaker Volkswagen, who it has a joint venture with for producing commercial vehicles. The cooperation could expand to electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, and Hackett is being praised for spearheading the relationship. This year's outlook remains conservative and vague. Ford is going to be re-designing many of its most profitable trucks and SUVs, including the Ranger pickup and Explorer SUV. It also needs to negotiate a new UAW contract for its 56,000 hourly union workers. In the company's proxy filing, Hackett's pay was revealed to be 276 times the $64,000 earned by the company's median employee. Ford has its annual meeting scheduled for May 9, which will be conducted online for the third year in a row. By Zerohedge More Top Reads From Safehaven.com: Andrew Yang. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images Andrew Yang may not yet be a household name, but hes a bona fide superstar online. One of a seemingly endless stream of Democratic candidates for president, the 44-year-old Yang, an entrepreneur who has no political experience, is basing his campaign on one very big idea: universal basic income, or UBI. Yang wants to give every American $1,000 a month, paid for via a consolidation of welfare programs and a value-added tax. On the strength of that hyperfocused platform, plus some other technocratic but unorthodox policy positions eliminating the penny and permanent daylight savings time among them Yang has fostered a devoted fan base of young, meme-loving voters, who call themselves the Yang Gang (or #yanggang, for online purposes). He has also earned the unlikely devotion of a less desired group: white nationalists. Intelligencer spoke with Yang about his burgeoning campaign, what he plans to say at the Democratic debates, and his unsavory admirers. You told the New York Times recently that there will be riots in the street in the coming years as a result of 1 million truck drivers losing their jobs through automation. Are you saying that the economy wont fill in any of the economic gaps with new jobs and industries, the way it has in previous times with technological upheaval? Certainly there will be many new jobs created, and many of the impacted truck drivers will leave the industry and get retrained. But if you look at our history, in the first industrial revolution, we had mass riots that killed dozens of people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. And according to McKinsey, and Bain, and MIT, this industrial revolution will be three to four times faster and more dramatic than that one. So even if you were just to take history as your guide, you would expect mass riots at some point with a shift this big. And if you look at whats going on right now, dozens of truckers its something called the Slow Roll, in Indianapolis, where they slow down traffic to protest the electronic monitoring of their driving time. If you can imagine their reaction to their livelihoods being threatened, Im willing to suggest that well see something many times more dramatic. Given Americas culture of workaholism, it might be hard to win the public over on universal basic income plan, simply on a political level. I was wondering why you prefer this approach the freedom dividend, as you call it to other possibilities like a jobs guarantee, which is another old policy idea thats been gaining steam in recent months and years. I think that putting money into peoples hands will actually become much more popular, much more popular than anyone imagined. And even now, this campaign is getting tons of support from conservatives, independents, libertarians, and others. And of course many Democrats are excited about it too. So Im not sure about the premise that its going to be difficult for Americans to understand that were in the midst of the greatest economic and technological transformation in the history of the world, and that we should look back not only at what Martin Luther King and Milton Friedman argued for, but at the fact that theres been a dividend for 37 years in Alaska thats proven to be wildly successful, and which has created thousands of jobs in a deeply conservative state. So if you were to look around and say, Hey, is there a state that has a dividend? There is! And if you look around and say, Hey, is there a state with a jobs guarantee, there isnt. So Im not sure I would agree with the premise that one would be easier to pass than the other. But just look at how difficult it is to push any social program through Congress, whether its Obamacare or anything else. This would be that times a billion. Well, not quite a billion. But one of the things to note here is that Alaska, the state that has the dividend, is a deep red state, and the law was passed by a Republican governor. And after Im president in 2021, many Democrats and progressives will be very excited to work with me. Many Republicans and conservatives will look up and say, Wait a minute. This dividend would help rejuvenate rural areas. It would help revitalize many states in the interior that are being depleted in various ways. So I think that theres going to be bipartisan support for this, in a way that you struggle with for many other proposals. What do you make of the experiments that have gone on with UBI so far in places like Finland? And I believe there was a vote on it in Switzerland Yeah, there was a vote a number of years ago for Switzerland, but they suggested an average income of approximately $36,000 a person, which is quite high. And that did not win. Now, the Finland trial was not even universal basic income. What it was was cash transfers to a relatively small number of unemployed people. And even there, the data was very positive on dimensions like mental health and optimism and physical health. So theres a lot of misinformation about that, but the Finland trial wasnt even truly universal basic income. And what youre going for is significantly less than $36,000 a year. Its up to the poverty level. Yeah, thats right. The poverty levels around $12,700. Reading interviews with you, youve ascribed a lot of the anger in society right now, the kind of anger that got us Donald Trump as president, to people losing their jobs. But study after study shows that Trump voters were more motivated by cultural resentment, by immigration, by a feeling that white people are increasingly being left behind in America. And millions of those voters already have pretty good jobs. Do you think its possible that solving this automation problem wont result in any more of a harmonious country or society than we currently have? If you cant pay your bills, it has a really tough effect on your mental state. And so I certainly dont think that theres any one single explanation. The two are intertwined. Yes, thats exactly right. So if you have a group of people that feel like their future is more economically insecure, might that group also be more receptive to various ideas that scapegoat other people? Its all interrelated. I would not suggest that giving everyone $1,000 a month is somehow going to heal every division. But I would suggest that it would take the pressure off of many Americans to a level that would enable us to at least start doing the work of bringing people together. Another one of your planks is human-centered capitalism a vision of a less corporate-focused system than the current one. How does it differ from ideas being put out by candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? I think that we have to evolve to the next stage of our economy. And technology is changing many of the rules of capitalism in fundamental ways. Now, I line up with other Democratic candidates on many elements of our platforms, but I think I have a different emphasis on upgrading our economic measurements so that they would matter to American families, and then actually trying to drive resources in those directions. To me, its not about either socialism or capitalism. Its about trying to make our economy work for human goals and values. Im not going to compare that to other ideas that the others are proposing, because for all I know, they see their plan in the exact same way. But one of the things that might be different is that I think GDP is an archaic measurement that does not tell us how were doing. If you look at the numbers right now, Americas life expectancy has declined for the last three years, the first time thats happened in a century. We have record levels of suicides, drug overdoses, and mental health problems. What good is a high GDP if your people are killing themselves or dying of drugs? And so you need measurements that actually correspond to how were doing, and then hopefully you can direct resources towards making those problems better. Im about trying to measure our economy differently, because GDP is something we made up almost 100 years ago during the Great Depression, and its long past overdue for an upgrade. What is a better way of measuring it, other than life expectancy? I really like the labor force participation rate, which, if you used that, youd see that were at 63.2 percent, close to a multi-decade low, and at the same levels as Ecuador and Costa Rica. And thats when were in an expansion. So one of the major problems is that were cheerleading three numbers: GDP, stock market prices, and headline unemployment. And all three of those measurements are somewhere between flawed and disastrous. GDP will keep going up, even as more Americans get left behind. The bottom 50 percent of Americans own zero stock. And the bottom 80 percent own only 8 percent of stock. So cheerleading stock market prices is really just getting excited about something thats going on for the richest 20 percent of Americans. And the headline unemployment rate doesnt take into account people leaving the workforce or people who are underemployed and doing jobs or multiple jobs that are not what they would be doing if they had the choice and a better opportunity. Right now, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates, according to the New York Fed, is as high as 44 percent. Does that show up in the headline unemployment rate? Headline unemployment says, Thats great, this person is a barista. But then, if you talk to a college grad who owes $40,000 in debt and is a barista because they need a means to live are they pumped about the headline unemployment rate? Our numbers are leading us astray, and we need new and better ones that actually speak to the realities of 2020. Youve made some pretty unconventional appearances for a Democratic presidential candidate. You went on Joe Rogans popular podcast, which was a breakthrough moment for the campaign. And you were on Tucker Carlsons show shortly after that. Can you describe the kind of person youre trying to reach with this unconventional strategy? Ill share our policy, which to say yes to just about any media request that has a significant audience. Is not like I turn down MSNBC or CNN in favor of these other outlets. Its that theyre the only ones that would have me on. So I wouldnt lay it at the feet of some brilliant media strategy. Im an entrepreneur trying to let the American people know that its not immigrants that are causing economic problems, it is the fact that our economy is advancing in ways that is making human labor less and less essential. And so I was taking advantage of any opportunity to speak to a large number of Americans in an honest way. Has the level of media interest changed at all? Its changing as we speak. More people are hearing your name now. Yeah. More people in the media are becoming aware of the campaign today or tomorrow Im going to clear the 65,000 individual-donor threshold, which is necessary to qualify for the Democratic primary debates. [Yang cleared that mark last week.] And so now, just about every mainstream press outlet will have a desire to talk to me, because they know Im going to be at the debates in June and July. Lets hear your strategy for the debates. The trap you get into is thinking that you only have 12 minutes to make an impression on the American people. And you have some canned line or zinger that youre just waiting to bust out on people. And then when everyone hears it, they actually groan. So Im just gonna keep doing what Im doing, which is try to convey both the reality of the magnitude of the problems we face to the American people, and advancing meaningful solutions. Im excited about the debates. Many Americans will be meeting me for the first time, but I think making too much of that particular opportunity would be a mistake. Theres another single-issue candidate who might be there with you, Jay Inslee. Do you think climate change is on equal footing as universal basic income in terms of importance? I think climate is an existential threat to our way of life, as the last four years have been the four warmest years on record. But I think the issues are actually incredibly intertwined, because if you have a population that cant pay its bills, its very, very hard to get people focused on climate change. Right now, 78 percent of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and 57 percent cant afford an unexpected $500 bill. So, if you say, Hey, we need to combat climate change, theyll look at you and say, I cant pay my bills. The penguins can wait. And so, by putting $1,000 a month into Americans hands, we can start focusing on the big problems. And climate change is the biggest problem of them all. Youve become an internet favorite, including on places like 4chan and Reddit, where Andrew Yang memes have proliferated among white nationalists who have somehow interpreted your message as being in line with their beliefs about preserving racial hegemony. Whats going on there? Most people looking at it realize that we did not intentionally court anyone, and also that Im the son of immigrants and one of the first Asian-Americans to run for president. And theres no place on this campaign for anyone who has a racist or bigoted or white nationalist or alt-right or anti-Semitic agenda. And were going to focus on bringing a positive message to the American people. Ninety-nine percent of the people that support me are excited about solving problems. Other than the extreme elements, are you enjoying your enthusiastic online fan base? Oh yeah, I mean, its a lot of fun seeing your face on top of various animations and what not. I find those hysterically funny. Its really entertaining. I like seeing that. And thats the spirit I take it with. Do you have a favorite meme of yourself? I think theres like a dragon. He looks sort of vaguely Asian and hes friendly. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. It might have been the luck of the Irish that let the 2019 Buellton Wine and Chili Festival Experts uncovered a watering hole attack against the Pakistani Govts passport application tracking site, hackers used the Scanbox Framework to steal visitors data. Security experts at Trustwave have shared their findings of a recent data breach suffered by a Pakistani government website. The attackers used the Scanbox Framework, the intrusion is similar to another attack that last week hit the Bangladeshi Embassy in Cairo. Experts at Trustwave uncovered the infection on March 2, 2019: Our earliest detection of Scanbox on this Pakistani government site was on March 2nd, 2019 and though we cant say for sure how long before that Scanbox has been gathering information, we know with certainty that on that day alone Scanbox managed to collect information on at least 70 unique site visitors, about a third of them with recorded credentials. reads the analysis published by Trustwave. Attackers injected the Scanbox Javascript code to steal data about the visitors devices along with recording visitors keystrokes. The application simply collects data from the host and send it to the command and control server, in particular, it is able to detect the applications running on the targeted machine and information that could be used later by an attacker to serve specific exploits. Scanbox has numerous plugins that could be used to enumerates software installed in the system (e.g. Flash versions, Flash versions, etc.). The Scanbox framework is used by multiple APT groups, including the Stone Panda APT group and LuckyMouse, to carry out watering hole attacks. Most of the victims of the hack were, of course, Pakistani citizens, followed by Saudi Arabia, the United States, and China. Most of AV solutions were not able to detect the infection, Trustwave revealed that on the day it discovered the Scanbox infection, attackers obtained information about 70 unique visitors and login credentials of about one-third of them. These recent cases raise concerns regarding the security of government sites, especially ones where services provided online may involve access to sensitive information. From the perspective of an APT, a tool like Scanbox would only be the beginning of a potentially more elaborate attack. concludes Trustwave. This isnt the first time that Pakistan entities are under attack, in November security firm Cylance uncovered a sophisticated state-sponsored campaign, tracked as Operation Shaheen, against the Pakistan Air Force. In November, Group-IB experts a new large set of compromised payment cards details that was put on sale on Jokers Stash, one of the most popular underground hubs of stolen card data. The new set of dumps, unauthorized digital copies of the information contained in magnetic stripe of a bank card, came with the payment details of 177,878 cards from Pakistani and the other international banks. In February, Group-IB experts discovered new databases with a total of 69,189 Pakistani banks cards that have shown up for sale on the dark web. Pierluigi Paganini ( SecurityAffairs ScanBox, Pakistan government) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On Split Seventh Circuit panel tangles with Second Amendment's second-class status and felon exclusion from right to bear arms | Main | SCOTUS takes up Miller retroactivity, unanimous juries, the insanity defense and criminal preemption in latest order list! March 17, 2019 Encouraging new reports about encouraging new compassionate release realities thanks to FIRST STEP Act In this post last month, which was titled "Compassionate release after FIRST STEP: Should many thousands of ill and elderly federal inmates now be seeking reduced imprisonment in court?," I speculated about the possible impact of a key change of the FIRST STEP Act allowing federal courts to directly reduce sentenced under compassionate release statutory provisions. Excitingly, in recent days I have seen two article reporting on encouraging action in this arena: From the Houston Chronicle, "Pill mill doctor among first released under law for dying prisoners" From NPR, "Seriously Ill Federal Prisoners Freed As Compassionate Release Law Takes Effect" Here is an excerpt from this latter piece: FAMM's Facebook group has been sharing information about how to prepare petitions for release. And the group's lawyers are doing what they can to support families seeking help, too. "Now, thanks to the First Step Act, when I hear from someone struggling with the compassionate release process, I don't have to say, 'I'm sorry,' " FAMM general counsel Mary Price told NPR. "Instead, I can say, 'Let me see if I can find you a lawyer.' " Price said the new possibilities opened up by the law have changed her work. "It is the most amazing feeling to work with the many lawyers who are filing and beginning to win compassionate release motions for prisoners who I know would never have made it to court, were it up to the BOP." A few prior related posts: March 17, 2019 at 09:49 PM | Permalink Comments Post a comment A Malaysian court set a new pretrial hearing date for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. relating to the state investment fund 1MDB. (Source: REUTERS/Olivia Harris/File Photo By Elffie Chew and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen (Bloomberg) A Malaysian court set a new pretrial hearing date for the criminal case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. relating to the state investment fund 1MDB. The June 24 hearing will give the court more time to serve summons against two of three Goldman Sachs units at the center of the allegations. At a hearing in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, only the U.S. firms Singapore unit was a respondent. The New York-based bank is accused of misleading investors when it helped 1MDB raise $6.5 billion through bond deals in 2012 and 2013, while allegedly knowing that the funds would be misappropriated. Prosecutors have said they will seek criminal fines in excess of the $2.7 billion allegedly misappropriated from the bond proceeds, and the return of $600 million of fees received by Goldman. Malaysia has filed the charges against Goldman Sachs International (UK), Goldman Sachs (Singapore) and Delaware-based Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC. Goldman Sachs has denied the allegations and said it will defend the charges, which Malaysia announced in December. Malaysia also leveled the same criminal charges of securities law violation against former Goldman Sachs bankers Tim Leissner and Roger Ng, fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, known as Jho Low, and 1MDBs former general counsel Jasmine Loo Ai Swan. The next hearing on Ngs case was set for April 15, as prosecution lawyers await documents from an unidentified Singapore investment firm. They are also seeking cooperation from authorities in the U.S., U.K. and Hong Kong to provide documents relating to the case. 2019 Bloomberg L.P City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images Perhaps youre reading this in the back of an Uber (hopefully not in the drivers seat), while you wait for scores of pedestrians to waddle across the street and get out of the way of your left turn. Or youre one of those slow-moving pedestrians, glancing up from your screen long enough to register the fleet of mammoth Escalades snorting in impatience while you cross. Or youre sitting on a bus that keeps its doors open while a passenger maneuvers her walker over the mound of snow thats been plowed up against the curb. Maybe youve saved these words for later because right now youre busy threading your bike through the mesh of foot and car traffic and dodging a delivery truck parked in the green-painted lane that has theoretically been set aside for your use. All of us drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, subway riders, cops, and delivery workers are locked in a matrix of mutual dependency. Many of us pass frequently from one category to another: Anyone who steps out of a car instantly becomes a pedestrian. When one group cant move easily and safely around the streets, it usually means the rest of us cant either. Its because of this complex, interlocking system that a 104-page transportation plan released by New Yorks city council speaker usually the kind of dry, chart-filled document that generates a frenzy of yawns is actually exciting. Speaker Corey Johnson has made himself suddenly indispensable by swooping in on one issue that affects virtually everyone: how we move around. Attention has focused on his proposal that the city take control of its own transit system. Its a rare politician whos eager to take responsibility for the subways failings, but potentially even more transformative is Johnsons ambition to overhaul the streets. He begins from a deceptively simple principle: New Yorkers should be able to get around without sacrificing their dignity, their sanity, or their health. Johnsons report begins from the premise that the status quo is broken; each topic opens with the heading Whats Not Working. Thats not an easy sell. Everyone loves to grumble, but most people cling to the status quo anyway, no matter how menacing it is for others. And it is menacing. I walk wherever I can but all it took was a minor injury to make me feel, literally in my bones, how unforgiving this city is of physical frailty. A broken (or nonexistent) subway elevator, a blocked storm drain, an unshoveled sidewalk each of these contretemps can transform an ordinary errand into a harrowing trek. New York should be a global leader in mobility of every kind; instead, its bogged down in good intentions. We know how to do better. Fixing the subway is a colossal and expensive task, but making the streets more livable requires no advanced technology or multibillion-dollar deals only paint and asphalt, plus consistent enforcement and political stick-to-itiveness. Protected bike paths and dedicated bus lanes work. Banning cars leads to less pollution and fewer deaths. Its not mysterious. Whats innovative about Johnsons approach is that it places all these basic tools at the service of a comprehensive transportation vision. True, that phrase that can read like politico-speak for doing nothing, while promising to do more eventually. And yes, Johnson has taken some heat for opposing a temporary busway on 14th Street that was designed to alleviate the misery of the now-averted L train shutdown. Transit advocates in this city fight hard for incremental steps, and they hate to see one scrapped without a fight. But you can keep taking baby steps and stay pretty much in the same place forever. New York is a rusted machine, clotted and creaky, and the only way we can all move through it more smoothly is if we overhaul the whole contraption. Without concrete, long-term goals for redesigning streets and intersections, it is difficult if not impossible to objectively measure the Citys progress on transforming our streetscapes for improved safety, Johnson writes. He points to the surgical street designs that the Department of Transportation carries out in crash-prone spots or to help pedestrians with disabilities. These interventions are great, and the report calculates that the DOT is on track to finish all of New Yorks 47,000 intersections right around, oh, 2189. (There should be fewer intersections to worry about by then, since many could be underwater.) Sick of waiting, some neighborhoods are coming up with comprehensive visions of their own. The Financial District Neighborhood Association commissioned a proposal meant to reclaim its streets from cars, garbage, and construction debris an ambitious DIY urbanism effort that beleaguered residents of less affluent areas could never afford. Johnson wants to do it all, urgently: overhaul the subway, fix intersections, stitch the city together with protected bike paths, give buses their own inviolable lanes and priority at street lights, redesign streets, turn over large chunks of the city to pedestrians, halve car ownership, rethink deliveries, and maybe even tear down part of the BQE. If all that seems wildly out of step with reality, consider how quickly and thoroughly New York transformed itself over a century ago to accommodate the horseless wagon. The first crash on city streets took place in 1896. In a little over a decade, the father of traffic laws, William Phelps Eno, had invented the rotary circle, the stop sign, and the one-way street. In the ensuing decades, workers ripped up sidewalks to make way for additional traffic lanes, and belted the boroughs in highways. Starting in 1950, drivers could park their cars on city streets overnight, and sanitation crews cleaned around them. No city in the world could afford to defy the automobile without turning itself into a backwater, and New York was a leader in the automotive revolution. Now its past time to undo that obsolete form of progress, and this time, New York is falling behind. Oslo has banned cars completely from much of its center, and reclaimed hundreds of parking spots. Far from crippling the local economy, as business owners feared, the pedestrianized areas are attracting more foot traffic. Compared to plans in Paris, London, and Madrid, our efforts to pedestrianize streets have been piecemeal and timid, Johnson writes. Simply put, the City remains mired in a car culture. Hes in a hurry to haul us out. SINGAPORE (Mar 18): Ayondos CFO was the first to quit last July. This was followed by the resignation of its CEO in January. In its latest announcement over the weekend, it seems Ayondos CMO has thrown in the towel too. In a regulatory filing on Saturday, Ayondo said Sarah Brylewski, 45, had resigned from her role as group chief marketing officer "to pursue other interests" after almost five years in the role. According to Ayondo, the developer and operator of social trading platforms, Brylewski had earlier left Frankfurt-based Ayondo GmbH, a technology and service provider, on March 6. Company sponsor UOB Kay Hian said it had spoken with Brylewski and "is not aware of any material reasons" for her resignation. Brylewski would be the third C-suite executive including chief financial officer Richard Fulton and chief executive and founder Robert Lempka to have left Ayondo in the past nine months. To recap, Ayondo on Jan 30 called for a trading halt before revealing there was a disagreement between auditors KPMG LLP and Ernst & Young LLP over how a key metric of financial strength was calculated for its 99.91%-owned UK subsidiary, Ayondo Markets Limited (AML). As AML deals in CFDs (contracts for difference) and spread betting business activities which are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the subsidiary is required to maintain a Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio. In January, following feedback by one of Ayondo's employees regarding the calculation of CET1 ratio, KPMG in the UK was engaged to assess the appropriate accounting and regulatory treatment of certain items related to the determination of AML's regulatory capital position under UK's financial reporting standards. Bear in mind that Ayondos independent auditor, EY Singapore, had audited Ayondo, including subsidiary AML, during the groups IPO in March 2018 and concluded the group's financial statements gave a true and fair view of the state of the company's affairs as at Dec 31, 2017. It turned out that KPMG's views were different from the accounting treatment process adopted by AML in the past which had been reviewed by EY. If KPMG's views with respect to technology software expenditures and inter-company balances and transactions were adopted by AML, it would have a negative impact on AML's CET1 ratio. Argentina's former president Cristina Kirchner was charged in yet another corruption investigation Monday, in this case over the fraudulent import of liquid gas. Judge Claudio Bonadio, who Kirchner accuses of political persecution, requested that the ex-president be placed in pre-trial detention, but her partial immunity as a senator shields her from imprisonment. Among the 10 cases brought against Kirchner, the most notable is the "corruption notebooks" scandal in which she is accused of having received tens of millions of dollars in bribes. In that case, the prosecution claims that a total of $160 million in bribes were handed over between 2005 and 2015. Center-left politician Kirchner was president for successive terms from 2007 to 2015, but her late husband Nestor preceded her in the top job. She hopes to stand in October's presidential elections and is the closest rival to center-right president Mauricio Macri, according to polls. Kirchner is currently in Cuba, where her daughter Florencia is receiving hospital treatment. She will face trial for corruption in May in a case in which she is accused of having favored businessman Lazaro Baez in the attribution of 52 public works contracts worth 46 billion pesos ($1.2 billion) during her presidency. Baez's BTP company secured large contracts in Santa Cruz province, where Nestor Kirchner served as governor for more than a decade. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro left for Washington on Sunday to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump and cement a budding conservative-populist alliance that, in part, aims to ramp up pressure on Venezuela. The far-right leader flew out of Brasilia early Sunday with six ministers, among them Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and Justice Minister Sergio Moro, Brazilian media reported. It was Bolsonaro's first trip abroad for a bilateral meeting since taking office on January 1. He attended the Davos summit in Switzerland in January. Bolsonaro, who will also meet in Washington with the head of the Organization of American States (OAS), is scheduled to return to Brazil on Tuesday. - Admirer of Trump - A Trump-Bolsonaro bond could see the leaders of the Americas' two largest democracies working in concert on a range of regional issues. Most pressing is the crisis in Venezuela, where the US and Brazil -- and dozens of other countries -- have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president with the goal of forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power. The tough-talking Bolsonaro has long expressed his admiration for Trump. He echoes the US leader in spurning multilateral organizations and leftist politics, while promoting businesses over environmental concerns at home. Their shared nationalist sentiment can be seen in another relationship: that of Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, who is a federal lawmaker, with Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon. Eduardo Bolsonaro announced in early February that he was part of the Brussels-based group known as The Movement, which Bannon set up to promote far-right nationalistic values and tactics. The older Bolsonaro announced on Saturday that one key result of his current trip would be the signing of an agreement under which the US might gain access to a satellite-launching base in Brazil near the Equator. - Eyes on Venezuela - But most eyes will be on developments surrounding Venezuela, which shares a border with Brazil. Previous Brazilian administrations took a friends-to-all approach to neighboring countries. But not Bolsonaro. The 63-year-old former paratrooper is vehemently opposed to leftist currents, at home and abroad, and he shares Trump's hostility to the "dictator" Maduro, who took over after the death of socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2013. Trump has repeatedly insisted that "all options are on the table" with regards to Venezuela, a phrase understood to include military action. But Bolsonaro, like other members of the mostly Latin American Lima Group, has ruled out military action in favor of a policy of tightening the economic and diplomatic noose around Maduro. As well as a "private meeting" with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Bolsonaro will sit down with OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, and participate in various forums to promote economic opportunities in Brazil. The US is Brazil's second biggest trade partner after China. After his arrival Sunday, Bolsonaro will dine at the residence of Brazilian ambassador Sergio Amaral with "opinion makers" including, according to press reports, Bannon and US-based Brazilian writer Olavo de Carvalho, considered Bolsonaro's ideological guru. Bolsonaro will be staying in Blair House, the official US state residence opposite the White House used for visiting dignitaries. After his return to Brazil, Bolsonaro is planning a trip to Chile and then, in late March, to Israel. He forged close ties with Israel's conservative leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when the latter attended Bolsonaro's inauguration. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is welcomed by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini ahead of a meeting in Brussels Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is welcomed by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini ahead of a meeting in Brussels, Belgium March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman By Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) - China dismissed U.S. security warnings against its telecoms equipment maker Huawei as groundless and "abnormal" on Monday, as the Chinese government's top diplomat went to Brussels to cool growing European frustration over trade. In a veiled reference to Huawei Technologies Co., which the United States says could spy on the West, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi told Washington to stop its attempts to "bring down" the company. "What we oppose are groundless accusations for political purposes and attempts to bring down a foreign company," Wang told a news conference, although he did not name Huawei, which is seeking to sell the next generation of mobile technology in Europe, its top market outside China. "We think such practices are abnormal, immoral and have no support," he said after talks with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, before meeting EU foreign ministers in Brussels. While eager to talk up "win-win" cooperation with the European Union, the world's biggest trading bloc, Wang held talks against a backdrop of intense EU diplomacy. The bloc is seeking to translate a new wariness about China into a more defensive EU policy, diplomats and officials say, despite being more open to Huawei's 5G networks than the United States. Mogherini told Wang that EU governments were growing impatient with what officials say is China's failure to follow through on commitments, mainly over promises on free trade, according to one person present. After lunch with Wang Spain's Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told reporters the state councillor defended Huawei as a privately-owned company, not the arm of the state. EU leaders will discuss China at a summit on Thursday for the first time in years, part of a flurry of high-level meetings as President Xi Jinping travels to Italy and France from this week and the bloc holds a summit with China in April. Story continues Italy has angered its EU partners by planning to sign infrastructure deals with Xi, pushing itself as a big backer of China's multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road trade and logistics plan. That has raised fears of a sellout of sensitive technologies and the handover of critical know-how, although the EU says it is not considering the kind of trade tariffs that the United States has imposed on China or outlawing Chinese firms. "President Trump was the first to sound the alarm ... but it doesn't mean that his measures have worked. The protectionist measures have not had any effect," Borrell said. In a draft statement declaration for the April 6 EU-China summit in Brussels, seen by Reuters, the bloc is seeking to set deadlines for Beijing to open up its economy. In a shift in tone, the European Commission, the EU executive, last week described China as a "systemic rival" and called on the bloc to be more assertive after years of welcoming Chinese investment virtually unhindered. Wang acknowledged the mood change in his public remarks, saying competition between China and the European Union "may be inevitable", although he and Mogherini continued to refer to a strategic partnership between them. CHINA DEADLINES Highlighting what the EU says is China's refusal to allow the unfettered foreign investment access that Chinese companies enjoy in Europe, the bloc's trade deficit with China increased in January, according to EU data on Monday. The EU deficit in goods trade with China widened slightly to 21.4 billion euros ($24.28 billion), from 20.8 billion euros a year earlier, according to Eurostat. In the April 9 EU-China summit draft joint communique, the European Union will seek Beijing's agreement for deadlines to open up China's economy, trying to coax it into making good on promises to deepen trade ties. China and the EU will "agree by summer 2019 on a set of priority market access barriers and requirements facing their operators", according to a six-page joint communique drafted by the EU, which still requires Chinese approval. The draft statement, dated March 8, said the two trading blocs would set "deadlines for their swift removal by the next EU-China summit 2020 at the latest". The statement, which is likely to change, sets 2020 as the goal for a special treaty to increase investment flows that has been under negotiation for almost a decade. ($1 = 0.8812 euros) (Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Catherine Evans and Ed Osmond) A starving whale with 40 kilos (88 pounds) of plastic trash in its stomach has died after being washed ashore in the Philippines, activists said Monday, calling it one of the worst cases of poisoning they have seen. Environmental groups have tagged the Philippines as one of the world's biggest ocean polluters due to its reliance on single-use plastic. That sort of pollution, which is also widespread in other southeast Asian nations, regularly kills wildlife like whales and turtles that ingest the waste. In the latest case, a Cuvier's beaked whale died on Saturday in the southern province of Compostela Valley where it was stranded a day earlier, the government's regional fisheries bureau said. The agency and an environmental group performed a necropsy on the animal and found about 40 kilograms of plastic, including grocery bags and rice sacks. The animal died from starvation and was unable to eat because of the trash filling its stomach, said Darrell Blatchley, director of D' Bone Collector Museum Inc., which helped conduct the examination. "It's very disgusting and heartbreaking," he told AFP. "We've done necropsies on 61 dolphins and whales in the last 10 years and this is one of the biggest (amounts of plastic) we've seen." The 15.4-foot (4.7-metre) long whale was stranded in Mabini town on Friday where local officials and fishermen tried to release it, only for the creature to return to shallow water, said the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. "It could not swim on its own, emaciated and weak," regional bureau director Fatma Idris told AFP. "(The) animal was dehydrated. On the second day it struggled and vomited blood." The death comes just weeks after the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternative released a report on the "shocking" amount of single-use plastic in the Philippines, including nearly 60 billion sachets a year. The Philippines has strict laws on garbage disposal but environmentalists say these are poorly implemented. The problem also plagues the archipelago's neighbours, with a sperm whale dying in Indonesia last year with nearly six kilograms of plastic waste discovered in its stomach. In Thailand, a whale also died last year after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags. A green turtle, a protected species, suffered the same fate there in 2018. Israeli forces on Monday hunted a Palestinian who they said killed two people in the occupied West Bank, an attack that put security back at the forefront of the country's electoral campaign. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose popularity rests largely on his reputation as a security hardliner, visited the site of the attack and pledged tough action, including the demolition of the assailant's home. But Netanyahu and his allies also came under fire from both his centrist opponents in the April 9 elections as well as those on the far-right, though for different reasons. The centrist Blue and White alliance criticised Netanyahu's camp for what it said was the politicisation of Sunday's attack, which killed a 19-year-old soldier and a rabbi. Far-right politicians meanwhile blamed Netanyahu's government for what they see as being too weak toward the Palestinians. The campaign rhetoric was another sign of how much security has come to dominate Israeli politics, which has moved firmly to the right in recent years. Opinion polls show Netanyahu in a tight race with the Blue and White, which includes three former military chiefs of staff, including the centrist alliance's leader, Benny Gantz. Netanyahu is running for re-election while under threat of indictment on corruption charges and has sought to further bolster his security credentials as part of his strategy. "These terrorists will not uproot us from here," Netanyahu said while visiting the site of the attack near the Ariel settlement in the West Bank on Monday. "The complete opposite will happen. Our response is simple: The more they afflict them, the more they multiplied and spread," he added, referring to a verse in the Bible's Book of Exodus. He noted that the construction of 840 more homes was due to begin on Tuesday in Ariel, which already has a population of nearly 20,000. It was yet another nod by Netanyahu ahead of the polls to Israel's settler movement, which holds important influence in the country's right-wing politics. He also pledged security forces would track down the attacker in addition to his vow the assailant's home would be demolished, a policy regularly carried out by Israel. - 'Political propaganda' - Israeli security forces say Sunday's incident saw a 19-year-old Palestinian attack a soldier with a knife at a junction near Ariel and steal his weapon. He later fired on three vehicles -- hitting a 47-year-old rabbi, who later died -- before taking one of the cars to another nearby junction. The rabbi, a resident of the Eli settlement, fired toward the attacker during the incident, according to his family. At the second junction, the Palestinian opened fire and wounded another soldier, who was in serious condition, the army said. The Palestinian, identified by Israeli authorities as Omar Amin Abu Laila from the West Bank town of Az-Zawiya, then fled. Israel's army said its troops were searching for him and his home had been surveyed "to examine the possibility of its demolition." Palestinian attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers occur sporadically in the West Bank, under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War, but Sunday's came amid the final weeks of the electoral campaign. Shortly after the attack, Culture Minister Miri Regev, sticking with Netanyahu's campaign strategy, sought to label the Blue and White leftists whose government's policies would lead to more such incidents. Regev, a strong supporter of the premier, alleged the alliance's leaders would ally with Arab politicians to try to keep Netanyahu from forming a coalition after the elections. Gantz's alliance responded that "never in the history of the country has an Israeli minister taken advantage of the death of the victims of attacks for political propaganda even before the funeral of the dead." Since Gantz joined with former finance minister Yair Lapid to form Blue and White on February 21, polls have shown the alliance would win the most seats. But the centrists have more recently slid in polls, and a new survey out Sunday showed Netanyahu's right-wing Likud winning the most seats for the first time since February 21. According to the poll, Likud would win 31 compared with Blue and White's 30. The election is expected to be close and much may depend on post-poll negotiations to form a coalition. Chevrolet is a brand thats probably made even popular by the Transformers movie franchise. Thanks to Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro, Chevrolet maintained and has probably made its brand even stronger. Similar to other car brands, Chevrolet has a humble beginning before it managed to enjoy the global success it has today. This American automaker is known for several cars such as the Camaro, Corvette, Silverado, among others. In the Philippines, the Trailblazer and Colorado are often regarded as Chevys popular carstwo vehicles that are among the ideal choices in its respective segment. As such, here is a brief story of how Chevrolet became a global brand. History of Chevrolet The story behind the foundation of Chevrolet is a reflection of how powerful a dream is. It also symbolizes how anyone can find success if one believes in his/her own vision and goal. Chevrolet was founded by two individuals: William C. Durant and Louis Chevrolet. Durant and Chevrolet officially established the Chevrolet brand on November 3, 1911. Obviously, Chevrolet was named after Louis Chevrolet, who was a race car driver for Buick. On the other hand, Durant was kicked out of the company he co-founded, which was General Motors. Durant and Chevrolet then decided to team up and start a car company. Durants expertise in business operations took care of the brands financial side while Chevrolets knowledge in cars became the foundation of the companys technical or engineering side. Yes, you could say that Durant and Chevrolet were a two-punch combo. Chevrolets logo or emblem dubbed as the Bowtie was released in 1913. Theres no exact explanation as to what the Chevy bowtie logo stands for. Sources point to different interpretation about Chevys logo. Some say that it was inspired by a Swiss Cross due to Louis Chevrolets heritage while some explained that the bowtie logo was taken from a wallpaper in a French hotel room Durant stayed in. Story continues The two-punch combo of Durant and Chevrolet came to a sudden end as the two individuals found themselves in a company dispute in 1915. This led Chevrolet to sell his stake in the company to Durant which made him the major shareholder of the brand. By 1916, the Chevrolet brand had become so successful that, with the backing of Pierre Samuel du Pont of the prominent du Pont family, the company acquired a controlling stake in General Motors and Louis Chevrolet once again headed the company he was once booted out of. In 1918, Chevrolet began producing a vehicle that featured a truck-based platform. The reason for this was that Chevy wanted to make a vehicle that can transport individuals as well as haul equipment. Five years later, in 1923, Chevrolet achieved its 1,000,000 millionth vehicle production milestone, a testament to its success and presence in the automotive industry. Chevys momentum continued to grow during the years. By 1940s, this American automaker had produced 7,000,000 vehicles worldwide, which shows that Chevy has the capability to produce about a million vehicles annually. With that in mind, Chevrolet made itself a competitive car brand. The brands positive sales performance resulted in a rivalry. Its an open secret that American automakers Chevrolet and Ford have been rivals in the industry. These companies even went to forge ties with emerging Japanese automakers in order to gain additional technical know-how and to further expand its market reach. When World War II started, Chevrolet was asked by the United States government to help in the countrys war effort. In 1942, Chevrolet stopped the production of its vehicles and the company transformed its plants to make military hardware. After the war, Chevrolet immediately went back to manufacturing cars. In 1953, Chevrolet introduced the Corvette, which is said to be the first production vehicle that made use of a fiberglass body and panels. The Corvette was received well by the market and it has become one of the popular cars of Chevrolet to this date. In 1954, Chevrolet produced the 50 millionth car General Motors car, a gold 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air that was featured in a nationally-televised parade. In 1964, the pony car class was born and Chevrolet needed something to compete in the segment. Three years later, in 1967, the Camaro was introduced to the public for the first time. As the oil crisis struck the world in 1973, diminutive and economical cars from Japan started to flood the American market. In response, Chevrolet built its own subcompact hatchback in the Chevette. In 1979, Chevy builds its 100 millionth car, a Monza. In 1986, the Corvette is the first Chevy to get anti-lock brakes. In 1992, the one-millionth Corvette is built; a convertible with an arctic white exterior and red leather interior which duplicated the color scheme of the original 1953 model. Weakened by the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, GM files for bankruptcy and is bailed out by the US government, sacrificing the Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saab brands along the way. A year later, in 2010, Chevy sells 4.26 million vehicles globallyan average of one every 7.4 seconds. In 2015. General Motors and the various brand under its umbrella mark a milestone as it celebrates 500 million GM-branded vehicles built globally over the past 106 yearsthe most of any automaker by far. Today, Chevrolet is one of the largest car brands globally. In the Philippines, Chevrolet offers a wide range of brand-new cars ranging from a subcompact hatchback to a full-size SUV. It has a vehicle that can suit every lifestyle. Locally, the Spark is one of the ideal choices when youre on the lookout for a city car. Meanwhile, you can opt to get the Trailblazer or Colorado if youre the kind of individual who takes pleasure in driving through rough terrain. Visit CARMUDI PHILIPPINES to get more information about the Chevrolet brand. You can also start shopping for your next brand-new car here. The post INFOGRAPHIC: History of Chevrolet appeared first on Carmudi Philippines. Thinking of another good tweet. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images President Trump woke up in a bad mood Saturday. And again on Sunday. We know this because he tweeted all the way through it, attacking a long and varied list of people, including autoworkers, members of his own party, and even a few Fox News anchors. For everyone who had something better to do than comb through Trumps incessant whining this weekend, heres a list of everything he attacked over the 49 tweets he sent out Saturday and Sunday. Conspicuously absent following the attacks on two New Zealand mosques Friday: a condemnation of white supremacy. Autoworkers Trump wants the UAW in Lordstown, Ohio, where a General Motors plant recently shut down, to stop complaining and get the job done. What job theyre supposed to get done is not at all clear. Democrat UAW Local 1112 President David Green ought to get his act together and produce. G.M. let our Country down, but other much better car companies are coming into the U.S. in droves. I want action on Lordstown fast. Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Clinton, Hillary Trump dropped his all-time favorite nickname, Crooked Hillary, amid a rant about the Russia investigation. Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from send in watchers of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Democrats Theyre sore losers who concocted the Russia investigation after Trump won in 2016. They also tried to steal a Presidential Election. What the Democrats have done in trying to steal a Presidential Election, first at the ballot box and then, after that failed, with the Insurance Policy, is the biggest Scandal in the history of our Country! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Fake News Media Its working with Democrats to silence Jeanine Pirro, who was reportedly suspended for Islamophobic remarks related to Representative Ilhan Omar, out of jealousy for her good ratings. Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox ..... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 France The country sucks and so does the Paris Climate Accord. How is the Paris Environmental Accord working out for France? After 18 weeks of rioting by the Yellow Vest Protesters, I guess not so well! In the meantime, the United States has gone to the top of all lists on the Environment. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019 Fox News anchors Arthel Neville, Leland Vittert, and Shepard Smith Trump suggested in a tweet that the first two were trained by CNN before joining Fox News, and called Smith the news channels lowest rated anchor. Were @FoxNews weekend anchors, @ArthelNeville and @LelandVittert, trained by CNN prior to their ratings collapse? In any event, thats where they should be working, along with their lowest rated anchor, Shepard Smith! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 General Motors Trump called GM CEO Mary Barra to complain about the company closing its plant in Lordstown, Ohio: She blamed the UAW Union I dont care, I just want it open! Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors about the Lordstown Ohio plant. I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union I dont care, I just want it open! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Google The tech giant is helping China and their military, but not U.S., Trump complained. He was echoing comments made in congressional testimony last week by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Joseph Dunford. Google is helping China and their military, but not the U.S. Terrible! The good news is that they helped Crooked Hillary Clinton, and not Trump....and how did that turn out? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019 Google denied Trumps accusation in a statement: We are not working with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare. McCabe, Andrew The former deputy director of the FBI is disgraced. So, if there was knowingly & acknowledged to be zero crime when the Special Counsel was appointed, and if the appointment was made based on the Fake Dossier (paid for by Crooked Hillary) and now disgraced Andrew McCabe (he & all stated no crime), then the Special Counsel....... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2019 McCain, John Seven months after his death, John McCain found himself on the business end of some grumpy Trump tweets this weekend. On Saturday, Trump went after McCain for his dramatic vote against repealing Obamacare in 2017, and for spreading the fake and totally discredited Steele dossier. Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain. Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel. He had far worse stains than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019 Then on Sunday, Trump went after McCain again, this time calling him last in his class (Annapolis) John McCain. He was actually fifth from last. So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) last in his class (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Omar, Ilhan It wasnt a direct attack, but Trump retweeted an article about Minnesota Democrats trying to recruit a primary challenger to take on Omar. Russia investigation, The The Russia investigation was Trumps favorite topic of the weekend, thanks in part to obsessive coverage on Fox News. Trump tweeted a video of Jason Chaffetz, the former Utah congressman, criticizing the FBI, the Clintons, and Mueller. Trump called the probe an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime, blamed the Democrats for launching it as revenge for the 2016 election, and attacked members of Muellers team. ....should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report. This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime. Russian Collusion was nothing more than an excuse by the Democrats for losing an Election that they thought they were going to win..... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2019 Republicans who voted to end his emergency declaration Trump praised the Republicans who voted against the resolution to end his declaration of an emergency at the border. As for those who voted for the resolution, which he vetoed, Trump retweeted a video of Diamond and Silk introducing a new nickname for them: We call them now the new Swampettes, because they went along, singing along with Democrats. Saturday Night Live An SNL rerun caught Trumps eye Saturday, leading him to suggest that the show should draw the attention of the FCC and FEC because it makes fun of him too much. Its truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of the other side. Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows...... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 ....Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Steele, Christopher Amid Trumps ranting about the Russia investigation, he attacked former MI6 officer Christopher Steele for using unverified information from CNN iReport, the news networks shuttered citizen journalism arm, to fill out portions of his infamous dossier. Steele admitted this in a deposition last summer. Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from send in watchers of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Weissmann, Andrew A prosecutor on Muellers team, Weissmann will reportedly leave the investigation soon. Trump retweeted an article from the Daily Caller calling Weissmann the kingpin of prosecutorial misconduct. Michael Ben-Ari from the Jewish Power party delivers a statement to the media together with his party's members, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir in Jerusalem Michael Ben-Ari from the Jewish Power party delivers a statement to the media together with his party's members, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir in Jerusalem, March 17, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's top court disqualified on Sunday a far-right Jewish politician from next month's national election and approved the candidacy of a disputed Arab party, overturning March 6 decisions by the election board, a court statement said. The Supreme Court rulings were widely expected and unlikely to shake Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to craft a rightist alliance that might secure him a record fifth term. But they deepened the vitriol of a campaign in which his camp has cast itself as the victim of judicial over-reach and media bias, and has in turn been accused by centre-left rivals of race-baiting and fear-mongering. The court found in favour of appellants who argued that Michael Ben-Ari of the Jewish Power party had displayed anti-Arab racism. That view was backed by Israel's attorney-general. Other members of Jewish Power, a small faction that is part of an ultra-nationalist list which last month forged an election alliance with Netanyahu's Likud party, remain eligible to run. The Central Elections Committee, a monitoring body made up of delegates of parties in the current parliament, last month approved Ben-Ari's candidacy while disqualifying Raam-Balad, a joint party list representing some of Israel's 20 percent Arab minority. Israel has in the past prosecuted two Balad figures for contacts with Palestinian militants and accused a former party leader of helping Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon war. The court voided the ban on Raam-Balad, a mix of Islamists and Arab nationalists which describes itself as a democratic movement. NEWCOMER Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, a fellow rightist in Netanyahu's outgoing coalition, said in a statement that the court's blocking of Ben-Ari "while declaring terror-backing parties kosher is a crass and misguided interference in the heart of Israeli democracy". Netanyahu's bid for reelection has been challenged by a centrist newcomer, former armed forces chief Benny Gantz. Their escalating exchanges of allegations have included corruption, bigotry, forsaking national security and abetting Israel's foes. Story continues The premier's partnership with Jewish Power also drew rare censure from the U.S. pro-Israel lobby and normally staunch Netanyahu backer AIPAC, which branded the party "racist and reprehensible". A poll aired by public broadcaster Kan on Sunday put Likud narrowly in the lead to form the next coalition government with a projected 31 of parliament's 120 seats against 30 for Gantz's Blue and White party. If reelected, Netanyahu will become Israel's longest-serving premier in July. That bid was dealt an unprecedented blow last month when Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit announced a plan to indict Netanyahu for bribery and breach of trust. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing and could forestall formal charges in a review hearing after the election. Raam-Balad, which held eight seats in the last parliament, said the Supreme Court had upheld its "fundamental right to represent our electorate while Netanyahu and Gantz compete to see who can incite more powerfully against the Arab public". (Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Gareth Jones and Ros Russell) An Italian charity ship rescued 49 migrants at sea off Libya Monday, prompting fresh threats from Rome against all private vessels saving people off the coast of north Africa. Italy's hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has repeatedly declared Italian waters closed to NGO rescue vessels, leaving several of them stranded at sea in the past in a bid to force Europe to take its share of asylum seekers. "Mare Jonio has just rescued a rubber boat in distress that was sinking with around 50 people on board," the Mediterranea collective of aid groups and associations that runs the ship said. The vessel was headed for the Italian island of Lampedusa, "the closest safe port", in deteriorating weather conditions, it said. "We have formally asked Italy, under whose flag we sail and which legally and geographically bears responsibility, to indicate a port for disembarkation," it added. Volunteers aboard the Mare Jonio pulled the 49 migrants -- including 12 minors -- from their dinghy some 40 nautical miles off the coast of Libya. A Libyan coast guard vessel had approached the dinghy while the rescue was underway. It was not immediately clear whether the Mare Jonio had defied an order from the command centre in Rome telling it to leave the rescue to the Libyans. - 'Facilitating human trafficking' - "Those on board had been at sea for almost two days... and are exhausted and dehydrated," Mediterranea said in a statement. Rome, with the support of the EU, has been training the Libyan coast guard since 2017 to intercept boats as part of a controversial deal that has seen a sharp drop in migrant arrivals to Italy. NGO ships have drawn fire from Rome by attempting on occasion to stop migrants being taken back to crisis-hit Libya, which human rights organisations insist cannot be considered safe for repatriations. The Italian interior ministry released a directive reiterating "the procedures that must be followed" after sea rescues. "Saving lives remains a priority, but immediately afterwards the orders of the national authorities of the competent territory must be obeyed, according to the international rules of search and assistance at sea. "Any deviance from those rules can be read as a premeditated action to bring illegal immigrants to Italy and facilitate human trafficking," it warned. Should the Mare Jonio request permission to dock, and be refused, it would be the first such stand-off between the Italian government and an Italian-flagged ship. "Good luck & thank you. We hope the disembarkation outside of Libya will be faster than what we witnessed before," tweeted Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR's special envoy for the central Mediterranean. Mediterranea insisted those rescued by the Mare Jonio were "saved twice: from the shipwreck, and from the risk of being captured and returned to the torture and horrors from which they were fleeing." The Mare Jonio is the only privately-run rescue ship currently operating in the central Mediterranean. The others are either undergoing repairs, docked for a crew change or blocked by administrative or judicial hurdles. Some 348 migrants have been brought to safety in Italy so far this year, compared to 6,161 in the same period last year. "Despite a dangerously low SAR (search and rescue) capacity in the Mediterranean due to Italy & EU policy, people continue to risk their lives to seek safety," tweeted Doctors Without Borders. Some 234 people have died in the Mediterranean in 2019, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Malaysian prosecutors said Monday they will summon Goldman Sachs units in London and Hong Kong to appear at a June hearing of a case linked to corruption in state investment fund 1MDB. The Wall Street titan is accused of misleading investors in the case when it helped 1MDB raise $6.5 billion through a series of bond issues in 2012 and 2013. Malaysian authorities are seeking fines in excess of the $2.7 billion allegedly misappropriated from the bond issues as well as the $600 million Goldman earned in fees. Last December, Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs units in Singapore, London and Hong Kong as well as two of the bank's former employees. A representative from Goldman's Singapore unit and a team of local lawyers appeared in a Malaysian court Monday for a pre-trial hearing. Prosecutor Aaron Paul Chelliah told reporters that "fresh summonses" will be served on the bank's Hong Kong and London offices ahead of the next pre-trial hearing on June 24. This would mean representatives from all three Goldman units would appear in court in June, he added. Allegations that huge sums were looted from 1MDB and used to buy everything from yachts to artwork, in a fraud that involved former Malaysian leader Najib Razak, contributed to the last government's shock defeat at May elections. The new administration under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has filed dozens of charges against Najib and barred him from leaving the country. The ex-premier has denied any wrongdoing. The Goldman units and former bankers Tim Leissner and Ng Chong Hwa, a Malaysian, are accused of misappropriating $2.7 billion, bribing officials and giving false statements in relation to bond issues they arranged for the fund. At a separate Kuala Lumpur court Monday, a frail-looking Ng was led handcuffed into court, where a judge fixed April 15 for another pre-trial hearing of his case. Ng was charged last December with abetting Goldman to provide misleading statements in the offering prospectus for the 1MDB bond sales. New York-based Goldman has denied the allegations and vowed to defend the charges, saying it had been misled by Leissner and senior officials in the Malaysian government about the role of a key intermediary in the scandal, Low Taek Jho. Better known as Jho Low, the jet-setting Malaysian financier, whose whereabouts is unknown, is accused of being the mastermind of the fraud. jsm/mba/fa GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP A CCTV footage taken at a Virgin Active Singapore gym. (PHOTO: Virgin Active Singapore) Over the weekend, gym-goers at Virgin Active Singapore shared their concerns on Reddit forum about them possibly being secretly taped without consent. It stemmed from user Adeline Ho, who queried on their official Facebook page on Saturday (16 March) as to why there was a CCTV camera recording in the changing room, located in the gym at Raffles Place. Screenshot from the Reddit forum. (PHOTO: Reddit) An employee who was managing the social media account responded: Hi Adeline, as we have mentioned and you can see in the images in our post, the CCTV is positioned where our female members can pick up a bathrobe before using our relax and recovery facilities, which are located in a communal area past the changing room. And while we celebrate body positivity just like anyone living in the now times and is morally obligated to stay woke and is part of the me too movement, we trust our members are aware enough to be covered up when moving through the club. Alex Chan, a Virgin Active spokesperson told Yahoo! Singapore that there is a temporary sign to inform users, that the footwalk area is being recorded by CCTV. Virgin Active is currently pending permanent signage to be delivered by their contractor. Commenting on the responses left on their official Facebook page, Alex added: We, as the staff, were just commenting to how we conduct ourselves, in todays day and age with the whole awareness of everything, being body positivity for both female and male members; while its all on-going, people should be appropriately dressed when they walk across the club. User Tyler Ng left a comment to say some PDPA laws can be violated if the club failed to inform its users: Story continues While user Chloe Fair discounted the clubs response as being snarky: Hi Virgin Active Singapore, as this particular area is in between the showers and the sauna where people are at maximum in a robe or towel and possibly less, I think its absolutely necessary to have signage that makes members aware of the CCTV. At least they can take the proper precautions or decide how they are comfortable being filmed from there. I can tell you that Im extremely unhappy finding out that I was unaware of cameras in this area after patronising the club for more than 2 years. And when members express their disappointment and discomfort, theyll appreciate an apology and steps to rectify the situation, not some snarky, off (sic) tangent social media responses about body positivity and the me too movement. READ MORE: 4 brand new bars opening in Singapore that offer great food James Wan secretly made another Conjuring spinoff Police investigating videos taken of PM Lees eldest son Major oil producers led by Saudi Arabia agreed Monday to keep working together to prop up crude prices, but said they would decide only in June on whether to extend production cuts. Meeting in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, members of the OPEC+ alliance said they would continue coordinating efforts to "stabilise" the oil market through production cutbacks. But they postponed a planned April meeting and said a decision would be made in June on whether to extend production cuts into the second half of 2019, once the impact of US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela is more clear. In a joint statement after the talks, members of the alliance stressed the need to "restore market stability and prevent the recurrence of any market imbalance" -- shorthand for keeping prices from dropping too low. The 24-nation alliance came together in 2016, when the Saudi-dominated Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia agreed on the need to limit production in the face of tumbling prices. The OPEC+ alliance has endured, with regular meetings and agreements to extend production limits, helping oil prices rise from around $40 per barrel in 2016 to an average of $70 per barrel last year. The meeting in Baku brought together the group's monitoring committee to review the latest extension, which saw OPEC+ nations agree to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day from January to June. The committee was due to meet again next month but on Monday that meeting was postponed until May. The joint statement also said that the decision "on the production target for the second half of 2019" would be taken at an OPEC Conference meeting on June 25. - New OPEC+ committee members - The move to wait until June took place amid confusion over the impact of US sanctions on OPEC members Iran and Venezuela, with Russia saying more time was needed due to high volatility. Addressing Monday's meeting, Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih urged OPEC+ members to maintain the alliance. "It is more important than ever that we continue to collaborate," he said. OPEC, and mainly Saudi Arabia, have made it clear they would like to formalise longer-term cooperation with Russia, though Moscow has been hesitant. Falih raised the issue again in Baku, saying that "institutionalising a framework for longer-term cooperation" was very important. The alliance said after the talks that Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates had also become new members of the committee. The pact has breathed fresh life into OPEC and brought Russia new influence as an arbiter on the oil market. Creating the alliance was not an easy decision after years of fierce competition for market share that lead to overproduction. - Uncertainty over US sanctions - Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said it was hard to plan for months ahead because of the volatility due to the sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. "We have to take these uncertainties into account in making decisions on the market," he was quoted as saying ahead of Monday's meeting. US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a nuclear accord with Iran in May last year and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. From late April, US companies and citizens will be barred from dealing in Venezuelan crude, as Washington ramps up punishment against President Nicolas Maduro's government. But Trump has also urged OPEC to take steps to lower prices, saying in a tweet last month: "Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy." The Saudi energy minister was defiant in response, saying at the time that OPEC was pursuing a measured response and that he was leaning towards extending production cuts in the second half of 2019. Host Azerbaijan is one of the alliance's non-OPEC members and analysts said the ex-Soviet republic has used its participation to court investment in its oil sector. After years of growth, Azerbaijan's oil and gas production is stabilising. Analysts at S&P Global Platts said the country is forging closer ties with Riyadh and in recent weeks hosted several Saudi delegations. Azerbaijan "needs to attract new investment if it is to successfully replace current reserves and maintain production volumes over the next few decades," they said. BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, through its newly appointed governor, announced that the Philippines outstanding external debt remained at US$79.0 billion as of the end of 2018. This is up by US$2.5 billion (or 3.3 percent) from the end of September 2018 level which was at US$76.4 billion. The BSP media release said, As of year-end, the maturity profile of the countrys external debt remained predominantly medium- to long-term (MLT) in nature [i.e., those with original maturities longer than one (1) year], with share to total at 79.7 percent (US$62.9 billion). BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno further said that the growth in the debt level during the quarter was due largely to net profits of US$1.6 billion as private banks borrowed offshore to fund purchases such as: a) high-quality liquid assets in preparation for the increase in the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) threshold as part of the Basel 3 reform package issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision; and b) Republic of the Philippines (RP) bills, among others.. The BSP statement also mentioned the positive foreign exchange (FX) revaluation adjustments amounting to US$1.0 billion to have further contributed to the increase in the debt stock as the Philippine peso appreciated against the US dollar during the reference period. The rise in the debt stock was partially offset by US$139 million increase in residents investments in Philippine debt papers issued offshore, it added. The statement also said that year-on-year, the debt stock grew by 8.0 percent from the end-2017 level of US$73.1 billion due largely to net availments by both public (US$3.5 billion) and private sectors (US$3.2 billion). Specifically, this is attributed to the National Government (NG)s increased financing for its infrastructure development and social spending programs, private banks preparation for the increase in the LCR threshold under the Basel 3 liquidity rule and to source funding for purchases of RP bills while other private firms decided to increase working capital, expand funding base, and extend term liabilities. Prior periods adjustments (US$594 million) further increased the debt levels, the central bank said. Story continues It added, however, that the increase in resident holdings of Philippine debt papers issued offshore (US$1.2 billion) and negative FX revaluation adjustments (US$125 million) partially tempered the sharp increase in the debt stock during the year. Diokno further stated that key external debt indicators remained at prudent levels despite the rise in external debt. He added that the Gross International Reserves stood at US$79.2 billion as of end-2018 and represented 4.9 times cover for short-term debt under the original maturity concept. The debt service ratio (DSR), which relates principal and interest payments (debt service burden) to exports of goods and receipts from services and primary income, is a measure of adequacy of the countrys FX earnings to meet maturing debt obligations. For the period January to December 2018, the ratio increased to 6.3 percent from 6.2 percent recorded for the same period in 2017 due to larger payments made from January to December 2018. However, the ratio improved compared with 6.8 percent for the period January to September 2018. Diokno highlighted that the DSR has consistently remained at single digit levels, and well below the international benchmark range of 20.0 to 25.0 percent. The ratio indicates the countrys sustained strong position to service foreign borrowings in the medium to long-term. By definition, external debt refers to the portion of a countrys debt that was borrowed from foreign lenders including commercial banks, governments or international financial institutions. Maris Federez The post PH external debt ratios still OK despite external debt rise in 4th-quarter 2018 appeared first on UNTV News. Scammers are trying to cash in on the Christchurch mosque massacres, using phishing emails with links to fake bank accounts to ensnare people keen to donate, New Zealand's cyber security body said Monday. The attack on two mosques in which 50 worshippers were killed, allegedly by a white supremacist, has caused an outpouring of grief and prompted a flood of donations -- well over NZ$7 million (US$5 million) -- to those affected. But CERT NZ, a government agency that responds to cyber security incidents, said emails with links to fake banking logins or fraudulent accounts were being sent out requesting money following the tragedy. Westpac New Zealand bank warned separately in a statement that scammers were sending emails under its brand to swindle money out of people. The warning was posted on Facebook, where the scam drew a furious reaction from users. "Disgusting these low lives are trying to scam money out of people when they're most vulnerable" wrote one. "What a shameless act," wrote another. Some NZ$5.8 million has been donated via online fundraising platform givealittle, and a second -- launchgood -- has received more than NZ$2 million. Forty pages have so far been set up on givealittle to bring in donations to help those affected by the mass shooting, Robyn Lentell of the Spark Foundation that runs the platform was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald newspaper. New donation pages are "popping up every hour", she said, adding each was "extensively" checked and had warning signs posted if they had not yet been moderated. SilkAirs six Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft currently service flights to Bengaluru, Cairns, Chongqing, Darwin, Hiroshima, Hyderabad, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Phnom Penh, Phuket and Wuhan (Reuters file photo) SilkAirs Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are currently operating as scheduled, said the airlines parent carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Monday (11 March). The SIA added that it is closely monitoring developments following the recent crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane of the same model. Nairobi-bound Flight ET302 crashed six minutes after it took off on Sunday, killing all 157 passengers and crew members. There were no Singaporeans aboard the flight. SilkAirs six Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes currently service flights to Bengaluru, Cairns, Chongqing, Darwin, Hiroshima, Hyderabad, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Phnom Penh, Phuket, and Wuhan. Another 31 planes of the same model are on firm order, said an SIA spokesperson. We are saddened by the loss of flight ET302 and our hearts go out to those affected. We are in contact with Boeing and are closely monitoring developments, added the spokesperson. The safety of our passengers and crew is of utmost importance to SilkAir. Plane that crashed was new Ethiopian Airlines, Africas largest carrier, said on Monday that it was grounding its remaining fleet of six Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes until further notice. The plane that crashed on Sunday was new and delivered to Ethiopia on in November, it added. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane is the latest version of Boeings workhorse narrow-body jet that first entered service in 2017. Chinas aviation regulator has also grounded nearly 100 Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 planes operated by its airlines, more than a quarter of the global fleet of the jets. The deadly crash comes less than five months after an aircraft of the same model operated by Indonesian Lion Air crashed 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta last October. All all 189 people on board perished in the incident. Boeing has described its MAX series as its fastest-selling airplane ever, with more than 4,500 orders placed by July from 99 customers worldwide, according to Reuters. Yahoo News Singapore has reached out to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore for comment. Story continues More Singapore stories: HIV data leak: Ler Teck Siangs appeal against conviction, prison term rejected Man fined for jumping on Grab car bonnet, climbing onto roof in viral video Parents who treat foster children like their flesh and blood New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images The day after a white nationalist killed 50 people in two mosques in Christchurch, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that her cabinet would pursue gun reform in New Zealand. I can tell you one thing right now: our gun laws will change, Ardern said on Saturday morning. Now is the time for change. On Monday, Ardern made good on her pledge, and met with her cabinet to begin the process, announcing an in-principle decision to reform gun-ownership laws in New Zealand. Ardern also stated that she would open an inquiry into the countrys intelligence services, believing the community was too focused on potential threats from Muslim sources. BREAKING: Prime Minister @jacindaardern says Cabinet has made "in principle" decisions on gun laws, which will be made public by next Monday - so there will be gun reforms within 10 days of the Christchurch terrorist attack. Checkpoint (@CheckpointRNZ) March 18, 2019 The ten-day turnaround between mass shooting and political action represents a radically different approach to gun reform than in the United States, which averaged at least one deadly mass shooting per month in 2018. New Zealand has to have this debate, Alexander Gillespie, a law professor at the University of Waikato, told the New York Times. This is a place where your car has to be registered, your dog has to be registered. But your gun doesnt. Its likely that debate in New Zealand will revolve around military-style semi-automatic rifles, of which the Christchurch shooter had two. (All of his five weapons were obtained legally with a gun license.) At a vigil on Friday, Attorney General David Parker reportedly announced that the government would push a wholesale ban on semi-automatic weapons, though he walked back that pledge on Saturday. We need to ban some semi-automatics, perhaps all of them, he told Radio New Zealand. Those decisions have yet to be taken but the prime minister has signaled that we are going to look at that issue. As of 2018, 15,000 of New Zealands 1.5 million firearms were military-style semi-automatic rifles. The minimum age to own a gun is 16, but for semi-automatics, New Zealanders must be at least 18. Last year, such weapons reentered public debate: similar to the conflict over bump stocks in America, police in New Zealand pushed for tighter regulations of aftermarket accessories and high-capacity magazines that can turn guns into semi-automatic assault weapons. Gun laws in New Zealand are more restrictive than those in the United States, though firearms are common throughout the country. Of the 3.9 million New Zealanders old enough to own guns, around 6 percent have a firearm license compared to 3 in 10 American adults who said they owned a gun in 2017. New Zealanders do not have a constitutional right to bear arms, and it is prohibited by law to obtain a gun strictly for reasons of self-defense. Gun owners must pass a firearms test and a background test before they can purchase any weapons. For New Zealanders to obtain some firearms, like guns and semi-automatic weapons, they must get endorsements from police, and additional permits that need to be renewed once a decade. All types of guns must be registered, save for shotguns and hunting rifles. Handguns require a permit for each purchase, making it more difficult for an individual to build a large cache. Since 2005, civilian gun ownership in New Zealand has increased 62 percent, and most guns can be sold legally on the internet or in newspaper ads. But it appears that the private sector may be matching the governments decision to crack down on the distribution of firearms after the deaths in the Christchurch shooting surpassed the countrys homicide total for 2017. On Monday, Trade Me, which advertises itself as New Zealands #1 auction & classifieds site announced that it would no longer sell semi-automatic weapons. This post has been updated. A Singaporean couple was on Monday jailed for abusing a Myanmar maid after the pair force-fed her with a funnel, made her eat her own vomit and threatened to kill her family if she reported the maltreatment. In a case described by Singapore prosecutors as "arguably one of the worst of its kind" in the city-state, the married couple -- who were sentenced two years ago over the abuse of another maid -- beat and kicked their helper and made her clean the house in her underwear. Moe Moe Than, 32, was also given little food, limited use of the toilet and faced threats that her parents in Myanmar would be killed if she reported the abuse, court documents showed. District Judge Olivia Low on Monday sentenced the woman, Chia Yun Ling, to 47 months in prison and ordered her to pay a fine. Her husband, Tay Wee Kiat, a former information technology manager, was jailed for 24 months. They were ordered to pay compensation to the maid. Their mistreatment of Than during her employment of nearly a year in 2012 was detailed in more than 20 charges. "In the present case, the accused persons had systematically and persistently abused Moe Moe Than both physically and psychologically throughout the period of her employment," state prosecutors told the court. One charge said Chia, a former senior sales manager, force-fed the maid a mixture of rice and sugar through a funnel after the helper told her she did not have enough food to eat. This caused the victim to choke and she ran to the toilet to throw up, the charge said. Chia followed, scolded and slapped the maid, and instructed her to throw up into a plastic bag "and thereafter (made) to eat her own vomit," the charge added. The same couple were in March 2017 sentenced to jail terms for abusing their Indonesian maid -- the husband for two years and four months and the wife for two months. They have yet to serve those sentences. Singapore has taken a tough stand against maid abuse to protect some 250,000 domestic workers from other parts of Asia who work in the affluent nation for higher salaries. In February, a Singaporean salon manager and her husband were imprisoned for forcing their maid to pour hot water on herself, leaving her with burn marks and blisters. Equities rose in Hong Kong and China on Monday, as investors await the introduction of a bidding process that will allow technology start-ups to raise capital in Shanghai, another step in the liberalisation of mainland China equity markets. The Shanghai Composite Index gained 2.5 per cent, or 74.67 points, to 3,096.42 at the close, while the benchmark in Shenzhen added 2.7 per cent to 1,685.79. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index rose by 1.4 per cent, or 396.75 points, to 29,409.01 for its highest close since June 20, while the China Enterprises Index, which tracks the performance of Chinese companies, or H shares, on the exchange, climbed 1.5 per cent. Shanghais stock exchange, which was ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping in November to open a new board for technology start-ups, will accept submissions for initial public offerings from Monday, according to Beijing-based media group Caixin. Sentiment was also buoyed by traders ramping up buying of companies that are expected to report solid first-quarter earnings. A total of 371 mainland China companies will release their earnings this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. We are in the middle of the earnings season, so the market is now returning to corporate fundamentals, said Wang Zheng, chief investment officer at Jingxi Investment Management in Shanghai. Chinese traditional liquor producers are the ones that are seen by investors as the safest bet in terms of earnings. A gauge of staple consumer stocks made up mostly of liquor makers on the CSI 300 Index surged by 5.9 per cent for the biggest gain among 10 industry groups. Kweichow Moutai rose 4.2 per cent to a record 810.09 yuan, taking its market capitalisation past 1 trillion yuan (US$149 billion). Anhui Golden Seed Winery jumped by the 10 per cent daily limit to 6.48 yuan. Luzhou Laojiao surged by 10 per cent to 58.60 yuan and Wuliangye Yibin rallied by the same margin to 86.66 yuan. Shenwan Hongyuan Group, a Shanghai-based brokerage, said profits at most liquor producers had probably risen by between 10 per cent and 20 per cent in the first quarter, with the industrys benchmark product, Moutai liquor, in short supply. Story continues Companies linked to electronic cigarettes tumbled after Chinas central television said in an annual consumer day gala show on Friday night that the product was detrimental to consumers health. Shanghai Shunho New Materials Technology, which sells electronic cigarettes through a controlled unit, tumbled by 7.8 per cent to 11.54 yuan. Shantou Dongfeng Printing, a maker of cigarette packaging materials, fell 0.6 per cent to 10.55 yuan. In Hong Kong, shares of Aoyuan Healthy Life Group, a landscaping and property management company, jumped by 22 per cent on their trading debut to HK$4.45, from their IPO price of HK$3.66. Italian luxury goods maker Prada declined by 11 per cent to HK$22.35 after it said its operating profit had deceased by 10 per cent from a year earlier because of less spending by Chinese tourists in Hong Kong and Macau. Hong Kong subway operator MTR added 0.3 per cent to HK$47.70 on Monday, reversing a loss of as much as 1.3 per cent, despite a collision between two of its trains during the test run of a new signalling system early in the morning. This article Hong Kong, China stocks rise as Shanghai tech board kick-off signals further capital market liberalisation first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Plus SC Ventures launches fintech bridge for startups and Tookitaki raises US$7.5 million Cambodian startup-owner raises important funding round [e27] Groupin, a company that owns Little Fashion and Mediaload (famous for Khmerload) announced today it raised US$5 million from Belt Road Capital Management, a Mekong-focussed private equity firm. The company claimed that the funding is the largest in the history of Cambodian tech startups. Little Fashion and Mediaload are now squarely one of the most important startups in Cambodia, a country that has a small-but-burgeoning startup ecosystem. Mediaload had previously raised financing from 500 Startups. SC Ventures launches programme to match fintechs with Standard Chartered [Press Release] SC Ventures, a corporate VC arm of Standard Chartered, announced today it has launched a new programme called the Fintech Bridge which aims to connect fintech companies with the bank. The goal is to bring startups into Standard Chartered and have the fintechs pitch solutions that may help fix problems at Standard Chartered. The programme is making four commitments to help improve the relationship between startups and corporates. They are: Connecting the the correct people No time wasted Funding guaranteed for proof of concepts Exposure to our markets Tony Fernandes quits Facebook after New Zealand terror attack [CNN] Tony Fernandes, the Founder and CEO of AirAsia, quit Facebook after the platform was used to spread a video of the New Zealand mosque attack, according to CNN. He said that the platform needs to clean itself up and that the harm of social media can outweigh the benefits. According to the article, Facebook removed 1.5 million instances of the mosque attack video. OVO acquires P2P lending startup Taralite [KrAsia] In a bid to start making marks in online lending sector, Indonesian conglomerate-owned e-wallet OVO has bought Indonesia-based P2P lending service Taralite, as first reported by KrAsia. Story continues The acquisition is said to be finalised in February, but no terms from the deal are revealed. For the larger part, the decision to join OVO is because the link-up will help Taralite diversify the types of loans and credits we offer and reach a bigger scale, said Abraham Viktor, Taralites founder, who will remain Taralites CEO after the buyout. Singapore regtech startup raises US$7.5 million [e27] Singapore-based Tookitaki, a regulatory tech company that aims to enable financial institutions to develop sustainable compliance programmes, today announced that it has raised a US$7.5 million in Series A funding round. The funding round was co-led by Illuminate Financial, a London-based early stage enterprise fintech investor, and Jungle Ventures, a Singapore-based Southeast Asia-focussed venture capital (VC) firm. Enterprise Singapore, Supply Chain Angels, and VWX Capital also participated in the funding round. In a press statement, Tookitaki Founder and CEO Abhishek Chatterjee said that a large portion of the funding will be used to strengthen the companys R&D capabilities. The post Todays top tech news, March 18: Cambodias largest funding round and Tony Fernandes quits Facebook appeared first on e27. An early morning Monday post from the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta confirmed that two of our countrys citizens have died in yesterdays Lombok earthquake. Both died in a landslide triggered by the 5.8 magnitude quake at 2:07pm, followed by a 5.2 aftershock two minutes later. Gempa Bumi di Lombok Timur, Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB), 17 Mac 2019 (Kemaskini)Kedutaan Besar Malaysia, Jakarta Kedutaan Besar Malaysia, Jakarta 2019317 The first victim was identified as Datin Tai Siew Kim, 56, a deputy executive chief editor at Sin Chew Daily, one of Malaysias most popular Chinese newspapers; the second victim was named as Lim Sai Wah. Her body was found stuck amidst debris that had fallen near the Tiu Kelep waterfall sightseeing spot. Rescuers have, as of yet, not been able to remove her body from the difficult terrain. Officials are hoping they will be able to recover her remains today. In total, seven Malaysians were reported injured, and are now in hospital, and 13 have been marked safe on the island. A local tour agent reported that 28 Malaysians had arrived on the island Thursday, intending to leave Monday evening. On Sunday afternoon, 22 of the group had gone to the waterfall spot, while six others stayed at the hotel in Mataram. Reports have indicated that in addition to the two Malaysians killed, one Indonesian also perished, with nearly 500 homes being destroyed on the island. This article, Two Malaysians confirmed dead in Lombok earthquake, say embassy, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! What if? This is a question we commonly ask ourselves when we think about our past and any regrets we might have. In a recent article on ST, first published on NYTimes, author Jeneen Interlandi pondered just that. For her, the main regret was that she picked up smoking when she was just 15, blaming government bodies for not doing enough then to prevent underage smoking, or to make it less accessible for teens. She went on to raise todays state of affairs, claiming that even today, underage smoking is rampant, and perhaps made more prevalent due to alternative tobacco products like e-cigarettes, often wrongfully labelled a gateway drug. In Singapore, e-cigarettes (or vapes), have been banned alongside Heat-Not-Burn also known as heated tobacco products. The general sentiment echoes that of Ms Interlandi: that these products should remain banned because the impressionable youths who use them might eventually move on to conventional cigarettes or even drugs, both of which have substantially negative health effects. Ensuring that the future is no less than a perfect one for our children and youth is an argument weve heard countless times for any hot topic, good or bad. Insurance agents want us to buy life policies so that our offspring will have a healthy sum to tide them by difficult periods. Environmentalists want us to fight the war against climate change, so our grandchildren can experience the lush greens and the snow caps just as we have. Now, we are taking away a legitimate way of getting people to quit smoking, just so youths wont start smoking. Such appeals to our morality are nothing new. The what about our children? argument is often trotted out in an attempt to forecast an impending crisis, should we not be careful. Yet such arguments consistently fail to account for several things, the first of which is the fact that not everyone who can pick up smoking will. Take someone like me for example. I am ambivalent towards smoking, which is to say I neither hate nor enjoy the smell of cigarettes. Even though I have been pressured my whole life to smoke, I have never picked it up. Story continues From my years in poly when the cooler kids would try and persuade me to pick up smoking, to being called a pussy for not hanging out in the yellow boxes in my army camp, and even at work, where I would be left out of conversations between my colleagues who try to write and smoke like Jack Kerouac. In the end, Ive decided that smoking is not for me, because of the strain on my finances and my health in the long run. To this end, anti-smoking campaigns have been hugely successful. Apart from me, there continue to be many Singaporeans who have been given the opportunity to pick up smoking, only to turn it down. Even then, people like myselfthe non-smokers who embrace the smoking habits of their peersstill lose out. We are still regular consumers of second-hand smoke, a hazardous byproduct in conventional cigarettes that isnt produced by e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. So yes, anti-smoking and I Quit campaigns work. But they dont work for everyone. And as smokers continue to smoke, we need to start looking more seriously at alternative solutions. Focusing efforts on getting people to quit smoking, be it by public education or making tools like alternative tobacco products more accessible, would essentially be killing two birds with one stone. First, smoking cessation rates will increase. This will then reduce the amount of second-hand smoke in the environment. Accordingly, non-smokers such as myself will benefit from being in a smoke-free environment. To get to this point, we need to recognise that smoking isnt as straightforward as it is often made out to be. There are many variables as to why people start smoking, and smoking e-cigarettes doesnt necessarily set you on the path of becoming a smoker. These thoughts were echoed by Professor Kenneth Warner, Dean Emeritus of University of Michigan School of Public Health at a recent Public Health Thought Leadership Dialogue at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He asserted the fact that no one even knows for sure that the children who smoke e-cigarettes will eventually become smokers. If you look at the data, they have a 3.5 higher risk of trying a cigarette in the next 6-18 months. But if you look at the data in some of those studies, that means that they try 1 or 2 cigarettes over a year. Thats not becoming a smoker, he concluded, drawing the distinction between consuming a cigarette versus becoming an consistent, habitual smoker. Therefore, to ban e-cigarettes on purely the gateway drug premise makes little sense. Besides, if a child truly wanted to rebel, banning e-cigarettes would not be enough; far more controversial substances have found their way into the hands of youths. Bans, health scare tactics, and plain packaging wont offer much in the way of stopping them. If theres one thing we know about those bent on rebelling, it is that they relish having obstacles in their way, just so they can knock them down. In the final paragraph of Ms Interlandis opinion piece, she mentions that although she takes full responsibility for choosing to smoke, she wishes there had been measures in place to make smoking less accessible for her when she was younger and perhaps more impressionable. She then ends the piece, declaring her hopes that teenagers of today would have a safer environment to live in. I fully understand that the youth of today represent our future. However, like everything else, we can regulate alternative tobacco products like we already do cigarettes and alcohol. Even in those cases, underage consumption is still a problem. Yet no one has banned them. As much as the welfare of todays youth is important, let us not forget about those who are currently cigarette smokers. A good amount of them want to quit, but find it too difficult to do so. Alternative tobacco products can also serve as a way for smokers to quit smoking conventional cigarettes. In England, smoking cessation rates in 2018 were the highest ever, and the success has been attributed to the introduction and legalisation of e-cigarettes as well as heated tobacco products. By going on the offensive and banning alternative tobacco products in the hopes that we can protect the next generations of would-be smokers, we are taking away what has proven to be one of the more realistic and effective methods of smoking cessation that weve come across as a species. To put it bluntly, this is as good as handing current smokers a death sentence. Or as Professor Kenneth Warner put it in the recent NUS Dialogue, the likely benefit to adult smokers in terms of helping them to quit substantially outweighs the risk to young people starting nicotine use. So if theres even a fighting chance that e-cigarettes and heated tobacco might help smokers quit, is the government not morally obligated to offer them that alternative? The last thing any of us want would be to look at that relative who never quite managed to quit smoking, on his deathbed, spending the last few hours of his life pondering that very same question: What if? Do you think that the current ban on alternative tobacco products like e-cigarettes will hamper the chances a current smoker has of quitting? Tell us your thoughts at community@ricemedia.co The post Vaping, and the Misguided Morality of What About Our Children? appeared first on RICE. SINGAPORE (Mar 18): It started the day after I returned to Penang from Singapore, a visit filled with the usual shopping and dining, as well as catching up with friends and relatives. An earache prompted a quick visit to the GP, but it didnt mar the family reunion dinner that night. But by the first day of Chinese New Year (Tuesday), it was obvious that the heavy coughing and phlegm was not the usual over-merrymaking, hangover or food-poisoning mishap. Still, I hung on with 4,000mg doses of paracetamol and an antibiotic course over the next two days, thinking it to be a bad case of the usual flu and believing that this too, shall pass. By 5am on Thursday, however, I was being wheeled into the accident and emergency ward of a private hospital. Dengue, with bleeding in the lungs, it was pronounced. Had I walked through a jungle trail recently? Nope, I had been walking the urban jungle of Singapore malls and Changi Airport, if that helps, I answered in between wheezing through the ventilator tubes and what not. Of course, it was also likely that I had been bitten where I reside George Towns heritage enclave with its ambience of crowded tenements, clogged drains and brackish canals. The difference between private and public hospitals became obvious in the following days. Anyone knows that you need to place a deposit first, thank you, before they roll you in. Not a problem for me, I have a credit card. I also have a premium insurance plan (not MySalam, folks) but initially, the health maintenance organisation (HMO), which negotiates between insurers and hospitals, could not find my insurance policy. It was a caring, private not-for-profit hospital, so I was sure they would not cut off the oxygen. The billing administrator who had been huffing and puffing up the stairs between me and her office for a while was apologetic but as it got sorted out and as she noted my terms and benefits, she asked solicitously, Dont you want a single-bed room? A four-bedroom is fine, I replied. In my mind, single-bed rooms are usually too cold, and they are for terminal cases where a maid or a relative has to suffer along with you. Story continues In any case, I never got to test the executive suite upgrade because my oxygenation level was deteriorating and fluctuating badly, along with other issues. I was soon upgraded to the intensive care unit (ICU), a minimalist floor of special beds with red-uniformed nurses (not because of the Lunar New Year but to categorise them separately from other wards). Four days after entering the private hospital and going through all the tests and scans the specialists required (I was assigned two a general physician for the dengue and a chest specialist for the lung problem), it was obvious that while I was supposed to tough it out, the chest infection was not good. Could it just be dengue with chest complications? My wife conducted a series of second opinions and reviews and concluded that I should transfer to surprise, surprise not some spanking-new private facility but the old 1882-built Penang General Hospital, said to be the best place for infectious diseases, including dengue. As the ambulances siren wailed to clear the Penang traffic, here was where the public and private worlds changed. With permission granted, an emergency bed was ready and I was rushed through to the Penang GH ICU with no credit card swipe and no deposit-taking. It was then I realised that thats the motto of the public health service to be the frontline and backline when the going gets tough. I was informed later that even if I were a foreigner or undocumented worker, admission is immediate for infectious diseases, the rationale being if the hospital were to insist on legal or monetary verification, patient zero would be back in the world and who then would take responsibility for a pandemic all for want of a valid credit card? A virus does not discriminate. Within 24 hours, they determined my problem was not dengue. It was viral influenza A, subtype H1N1. Not a bacterial infection in the lung but severe viral pneumonia. Strapped with an oxygen mask and tubes of fluids and medicines flowing in through the veins of both hands, the mind got a high as one stared at the surrounding scene of organised chaos, ICU beds being filled and emptied, and the daily crowd of medical interns passing by to discuss your special case. Reflecting on MySalam Lying there on the ICU bed, ventilator-strapped, cathethered and constipated, one could do nought but reflect, like on the MySalam insurance scheme for 36 critical illnesses recently announced by the Malaysian government, and what not. The debate on the scheme is still on going, but if I were a B40 (bottom 40% income group) person, the insurance scheme would not cover infections like mine or many of the hundreds of illnesses that hit people, whether B40, M40 (middle 40%) or top 20. On the other hand, if you have cancer, RM8,000 ($2,659) will be too little, too late. Insurance for selected critical illnesses is basically a marketing category created and upsold to add on to term or life insurance policies. It is obviously good for insurers. The industry is all about managing risk and the actuarists have done all the morbidity calculations, so if payouts are hefty, you probably would not be seeing this product around. My view is it distracts from a more comprehensive approach to healthcare reform in short, public health services structured to prevent and treat all illnesses. And why discriminate by income class when everyone is a taxpayer, whether by direct or indirect tax? If I am registered as a B40 income category but my burger business does well and my income moves up, does that disqualify me from future protection? The devil, as they say, is in the details. The best social responsibility role a foreign insurer could have now is to divest, pay your dividends and taxes. The solution to our fiscal constraints is not more public- private partnerships, which blurs where profits go and who absorbs the costs. And it is the taxes collected that enabled a 2019 budget increase of 7.8% (RM2 billion) for the health sector (total RM29 billion) which, if properly spent and monitored, will generate a healthy outcome. Back to the bed Once discharged from the ICU to the common ward, I could see why many prefer private hospitals to the government-run ones. The difference is in the service and hotel provisions. If you need help in a private hospital ward, just press the button. In the Penang Hospital respiratory ward, there is no button. I vainly tried the modest royal wave to no avail. Guttural call-outs did not always work because in a respiratory ward, every other person sounds the same. I learnt that it is all in the eye contact. Services at government hospitals have transformed over the years, certainly with a better focus on delivering quality service, comfort and pain minimisation to patients. But it is an overworked sector. The issue is not just underfunding, but whether our health services get the best value for the money used. Look up the profit records and profit margins of Bursa Malaysia-listed pharmaceutical and facility management, waste and cleaning service suppliers with their long-term monopoly contracts, and ponder. Just a day before Chap Goh Meh (15th day of Chinese New Year), the ward doctor said simply, You can go home today. I guess it is not everyone that gets to sample two ICUs and two hospital wards within a two-week festive season. My family and I are grateful to the professionalism and dedication of the staff at Penang GH ICU, led by Dr Lim Chew Har, and the doctors and nurses at the respiratory ward, headed by Dr Goon Ai Khiang. Billing and financing Meanwhile, I found out that the private hospital was still totalling up the fees and charges even though I had transferred out a week before. And I try not to speculate on the discussions between the HMO and the hospital. My wife went to the Penang GH billing department. I had been treated by the best ICU and medical centre on infectious diseases up north. Ample drugs, fluids as well as nursing and medical care had been provided unconditionally. Okay, the hospital food was just decent. The billing clerk took note of my wifes government pensioner card. I am listed as spouse. Okay, then, the bills sum total is RM0.00. And do remember to come back to the chest clinic for another X-ray in two months, they say. What should I make of this? Isnt this pricing unrealistic in a globalised world of unfettered capitalism, market-driven healthcare and financing? Its not Malaysia Baru policy as the administration is still new. Its Malaysia Lama but should be understood in its context. Over the decades, the runaway rentier state with its cronyism and corruption had sucked so much from the assets and resources of the country that subsidised healthcare for the urban working class and rural poor was probably one of the few patron-client obligations that remained. Perhaps that is why national healthcare insurance proposals in whatever form had sat on the back burner for decades because it would have been a big burden and tested the legitimacy of the old order. As for the future, whats wrong with allocating more funds to build an even stronger public healthcare service? One of the benchmarks of a developed country is how it treats and cares for its people affordably and equitably, irrespective of class, ethnicity and whether you live in the city or the countryside. B K Tan is a director of think tank Institut Rakyat. He was managing director of The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd. The views from the hospital bed are his personal opinion. This story appears in The Edge Singapore (Issue 873, week of Mar 18) which is on sale now. Subscribe here President Trump. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images The man who murdered 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, has hailed President Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity. But Trumps supporters piously deny he is any such thing. If you find yourself using the tragedy in New Zealand to take backhanded swipes at conservatives in America many of my colleagues already have then you really have no shame and you are part of the problem, complains Texas representative Dan Crenshaw. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney appeared on Face the Nation to insist, I dont think anybody can say that the president is anti-Muslim. Anybody? Really? If bald-faced lying were not already a mundane practice for this administration, it would be astonishing to watch its defenders deny such a plainly obvious truth. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration made a concerted effort to distinguish between the radical sectarians who carried out the attacks and the broader Muslim population. By the end of the Bush era, though, a nativist hysteria was bubbling up from the grassroots, as evidenced by vivid scenes from McCainPalin campaign stops in which delirious Republican voters voiced paranoid theories that Barack Obama was a secret Arab or Muslim. During Obamas presidency, control of the Republican line on Muslims unmistakably passed into the hands of the bigots. Trump, who led the birther crusade, played a key role in this change. While Trump usually confined his racist sentiments about the African-American community to private conversations, he regularly articulated slanders against the Muslim community in public. He spread the lie that thousands of American Muslims cheered the 9/11 attacks. He insinuated that Ghazala Khan, a Muslim-American Gold Star mother whose husband spoke at the Democratic National Convention, wasnt allowed to speak publicly. He claimed Islam hates us, and has deliberately refused to recognize a distinction between radical Islamists and the broader population: Its very hard to separate, because you dont know who is who. Trump naturally attracted and promoted the most viciously anti-Islamic figures within his party. His first strategist, Steve Bannon, calls Islam a religion of submission and has tried to build a global religious conflict between Christians and Muslims. His first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, made wild public claims like, Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL. They attempted to enact a Muslim travel ban, later couched in euphemism, as an effort to prevent a multidimensional and multigenerational threat from Muslim-American communities enshrining into official policy the notion that Muslim-Americans posed an inherent security threat and could not assimilate. Trumps bigotry against other minority groups is usually couched in euphemism, and in the case of Jews counteracted by displays of fervent philo-Semitism that obscures his racist dog-whistling. When it comes to Muslims, though, theres no dog whistle, just a loud series of yelps. At the same time his party was insisting he has not a trace of bigotry, Trump spent the better part of his Sunday morning demanding the reinstatement of Jeanine Pirro, who was suspended for anti-Islamic bigotry so blatant not even Fox News could tolerate it. The presidents enablers clearly long for him to give them some plausible basis to claim that he is free and clear of animus against Muslims. But he has not bothered to hide his intentions. It is telling that the partys response to this refusal is either to ignore the presidents undisguised bigotry or to lie on his behalf. When reading the most original novelist in America, Kathryn Davis, I recommend keeping in mind the first sentence of her 2002 novel, Versailles. My soul is going on a trip, Davis wrote, and that seems the best frame of mind to adopt when opening any of her booksespecially the most recent, The Silk Road. Davis produces books that sometimes dont seem like novels at all. They dont have main characters, and while dead bodies and mysteries crop up a lot (Davis has professed her love of Agatha Christie), these books cant really be said to have plots. Most experimental writing is about writing itself, and this tends to give it a solipsistic quality that I find a chore to read. But Davis fiction wants to expand its readers blinkered understanding of what a novel can be about. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Imagine, Davis seems to be urging, that this story is about more than one or two people, and then imagine that its about more than people, period. Her books are always about everything. The Thin Place, her 2006 masterpiece, is set in a town in Vermont, but Davis idea of the town comprises not just everyone who lives in it, but also everybody who ever lived in it and is now dead, and also the dogs, the beavers who keep damming up the mill pond, the deep geological history of the place, and, while shes at it, the thin sliver of cosmic time during which humanity itself has existed. Part of that novel is told from the point of view of a 90-year-old woman who contemplates the inadequate new potatoes served during her birthday dinner at a nursing home, and part of it is told from the point of view of some lichen. The effect is sometimes bewildering but always exhilarating. Advertisement Advertisement The Thin Place remains the first book Ill recommend to adventurous readers interested in checking out Davis work, but The Silk Road is also a feat of flashing enchantment. I read it in a state I can only describe as baffled wonder, and no small part of the wonder came from how much I enjoyed the novel considering the fact that much of the time I had no idea what was going on. It begins with the ending of a yoga class that has taken place in a labyrinth surrounded by permafrost. Narrated in the first-person plural, the story is told by a group of eight characters, male and female, known only by their professional labels: the Cook, the Topologist, the Archivist, the Astronomer, the Botanist, the Keeper, the Geographer, the Iceman. All of them are aware that the world was coming to an end and that if we worked at it hard enough we would never die. A ninth character, Jee Moon, is their elusive guide and teacher. They have either known her since childhood or first met her when she walked out of the snow and into their arctic redoubt; they cant seem to remember which. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The memories of these characters swirl and intermingle. They all recall growing up on Fairmont Avenue, next to a prison, with an imperious, perfumed, secretive mother, a nanny bearing armfuls of warm towels, and a father who could always be heard whistling a tune from a popular show but we could never figure out what room he was in. What they remember less clearly is how they made their ways through the labyrinth to the settlement where they now reside. The Topologist was hiking in central France, following a trail designed for pilgrims paying tribute to St. Roch. The Geographer had been mapping a glacier. All the Archivist can remember is an overwhelming need to keep a long-standing appointment. The rest are even less clear: Advertisement Advertisement When you arrive at the edge of the world you stop remembering things like how you got there. Your attention keeps pouring over the edge, out and away from the footprints left behind you in the snow, unable to focus on anything except the cove of sparkling light there at the foot of the escarpment. It was either a real pool full of something like waterwe were in agreement on that if nothing elseor just a gathering of attention, all of it in one place, as solid and bright-surfaced as a jewel but otherwise beside the point. Advertisement Advertisement The above is Davis in her mode of radiant, bemused stillness; at other times, she is wry, as when the Topologist is tempted to receive a blessing from a bishop along with the rest of the pilgrims because it comes with the gift of a plastic rosary: It was hard to resist the kind of prize a person got for doing something for which youd normally get nothing. The siblings, if thats what they are, quarrel over the details of an excursion they once took to celebrate their mothers birthday, but mostly they try to reconstruct, over a cascade of cross-talk, their journeys to the settlement. These tales involve spouses and lovers (It was always so exhausting to find a mate, said the Geographer) and an academic cocktail party in honor of a narcissistic poet, but at some point they found themselves traveling togetheror was that the excursion on their mothers birthday? The two events flow into and out of each other like twinned streams. Advertisement Advertisement History intermittently collapses in this novel; within two sentences, a character will inhabit first the present and then the Middle Ages. They arrive on a floatplane and then they are wearing particolored and striped hose and walking past piles of the dead. Plague is a recurring motif. St. Roch protects those who pray to him from plague, and the bubonic version arrived in medieval Europe from Asia via the Silk Road. A modern-day pestilence may have brought about the destruction of the world as we know it now, but surely it seemed that the world was ending in the 14th century, as the Black Death rampaged across the continent, and yet on humanity went. You could say that every time a human life ends, a world ends with it, and that this is the doom the characters in The Silk Road want to elude. Advertisement Advertisement Then again, perhaps its too late. The characters memories appear to be disintegrating and dispersing like those of a dementia patient, from the most to the least recent. Other memories from other times seep into them, along with mythic apparitions. Their journeys are harried by a dog-headed beast, and at one point the Botanist floats through the air like a ghost. Long before an afterword in which Davis acknowledges The Tibetan Book of the Dead as one of the animating spirits of the novel, many readers will have begun to suspect that the eight siblings are already dead and possibly multiple aspects of a single person. But could that be the solution to this ravishing, enigmatic novel? Surely not. The only proper way to read the fiction of Kathryn Davis is in a state of happy, profound, and irreducible uncertainty. Here is the place where the membrane between the mundane and the mystical becomes so thin as to be transparent. No answers will be supplied, and the metaphors will bend your imagination to its breaking point: The sky was dark but the darkness still had a sheet of light inside, the way a philosophic tenet is backed by intuition. If you can countenance all of that, the rewards are infinite. The Silk Road is a mystery for sure, just not the kind that Agatha Christie ever wrote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I can be an impatient reader when I sense a writer is being obscure for obscuritys sake, but Davis has an oddly humble approach for someone whose work is so ambitious. She only wants you to understand how stupendous creation is, as well as all the works of human ingenuity and passion. I spotted lines from Lucretius On the Nature of Things, but theres probably a lot more I missed. Perhaps if she were more grandiose (or, lets face it, male) shed have a large following of fanboys intent on decoding her every allusion and device, like Thomas Pynchons. As it is, she has a devout but tiny band of admirers. Join us. Slate has relationships with various online retailers. If you buy something through our links, Slate may earn an affiliate commission. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. All prices were up to date at the time of publication. This article is published through a partnership with New York Medias Strategist. The partnership is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. Every editorial product is independently selected by New York Media. If you buy something through our links, Slate and New York Media may earn an affiliate commission. The very first thing I did when moving into my 100-year-old house a decade ago was install a dishwasher; I couldnt wait one minute to have a machine do all the dishwashing. But there are some things you cant just stuff in the dishwasher and be done with, such as a frying pan coated with dried scrambled-egg residue. Cleaning such items with a sponge just makes the sponge gross and gak-covered, so I bought this little set of three hard plastic pot scrapers instead. I initially found the doodads when an insurance salesman mailed one to my mother as a promotional item in the 1980s, and while I thought it was clever as kid, Im even more impressed by it now, considering that shes still using the exact same one in her kitchen some 30 years later. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I use them to scrape stuck-on food residue directly into the trash, saving my pipes and keeping my pans pristine. The hard plastic edge of the scraper cleans any sort of stuck-on gunk without scratching your pots, pans, or dishes: baked-on eggs, burned cheese, hard-as-a-rock brownie pan residue, crusty lasagna, crusty oatmeal. It gets into every nook and cranny with minimal elbow grease, and once youre done scraping, just rinse the scraper off or toss it in the dishwasher its hard plastic, so no filthy food debris is able to stick to it. Advertisement Advertisement All Scrub Daddy addicts, take note: That smiley-faced thing might be cute, but it still gets coated with whatever youre scrubbing, rendering it filthy and disgusting after one or two uses. (Plus, it only lasts about eight days max before it totally disintegrates, leaving you with a wrinkled, dejected face that I like to call the Scrub Granddaddy.) Not to mention the fact that throwing away a sponge every week or so results in a ton of waste. Ask my mom: Youll lose these little scrapers long before they wear out. More Strat-approved pot scrubbers Japanese Tawashi Brush Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Writer Foster Kamer tipped us off to the wonders of this Japanese scrubber, which he learned about from artist Jenny Holzer: Its got a rich, century-long history, and its since become one of the most common household objects in Japan. After ten minutes cleaning with it, youll know why. On first glance, its angry little brown fibers look like theyll do more damage to your hands than your pots. But fear not: Those fibers, made of hemp palm, soften under water, enough for you to get a cozy, ticklish hold on. And then they will proceed to absolutely obliterate any grime youll come across, on any surface. They clean easily. Casabella Loop 3-Piece Dish Brush Set Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Remember the kitchen-sponge scare of summer 2017? We went and found alternatives to sponges that were much less bacteria-friendly. These brushes fit the bill. Scrub Daddy Scratch-Free Sponges (4 Count) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement If youre still clinging to the sponge, you could do worse than the Shark Tankintroduced Scrub Daddy, which by now is perhaps the worlds most famous sponge. Slate has relationships with various online retailers. If you buy something through our links, Slate may earn an affiliate commission. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. All prices were up to date at the time of publication. The manifesto of the terrorist responsible for the horrific attack at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Fridaya 78-page rambling text titled The Great Replacementpaid tribute to an array of racially motivated terrorists, including Americas Dylann Roof, Italys Luca Traini, Swedens Anton Lundin Pettersson, and Britains Darren Osborne. But the New Zealand attacker, a 28-year-old Australian named Brenton Harrison Tarrant, seemed to place Anders Behring Breivik in a separate category, at once a symbol to be revered but also as a call to action, a justification for political violence. Tarrant specifically mentioned Breivik as someone who, through his actions, was willing to take a stand against ethnic and cultural genocide. He also mentioned that while he read the writings of Dylann Roof and many others, he considered Breivik to be his only true inspiration for launching the attack, demonstrating just how significant the Norwegian terrorists impact was on Tarrants own willingness to act. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As more information emerges about the attack, one thing has become particularly clearthe perpetrator was heavily influenced by Breivik, the Norwegian white supremacist responsible for killing 77 people at a summer camp in 2011. The manifesto echoed themes in Breiviks own pre-attack manifesto, titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, which railed against such themes as cultural Marxism and Muslim immigration. Breivik believed that his attack would awaken Europeans to what he saw as the evils of multiculturalism. He targeted a youth summer camp attended by the children of liberal Norwegian politicians as revenge for the Norwegian governments embrace of Muslim immigrants. In his manifesto, Breivik lamented that Europe had drifted astray from what he viewed as the idyllic social norms of the 1950s, with strict gender roles and a homogenous ethnic population. Even years after his attack, Breivik has remained a staunch supporter of white supremacy, flashing the Heil Hitler sign in court appearances. Advertisement Advertisement Breivik has become an inspiration for others on the fringes of right-wing ideology, labeled Saint and Commander by some of his followers. Tarrant even claimed to have made contact with Breivik, whom he praised with the honorific Knight Justiciar, in a nod to the reputation he has attained in white supremacist circles. (Norwegian attorneys have treated the claim with skepticism.) Breivik was also cited as an inspiration for the recently disrupted terrorist plot by U.S. Coast Guard member and avowed white supremacist Christopher Hasson. Breivik has become an inspiration for the fringes of right-wing ideology, labeled Saint and Commander by some of his followers. Contrary to his own self-aggrandizing claims, Breivik was never the leader of an official or formal terrorist group. But since 2011, he has grown into something potentially more dangerousa symbol, hero, and martyr for individuals and groups that fall under the broad tent of neo-Nazi ideology and white supremacy, particularly those that advocate for the use of violence against perceived adversaries: immigrants, Muslims, Jews, and any politicians deemed to have liberal leanings or who embrace multiculturalism or tolerance of other races, religions, and sects. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is precedent for Breiviks transformation. Many terrorist groups have appropriated the use of symbols to help drive cohesion, morale, fundraising, and recruitment by appealing to the cultlike status of the figurehead of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a terrorist group with ethno-nationalist motivations. This role was filled by member Bobby Sands, who died on a hunger strike while in prison. Throughout the 1980s, murals of Sands were splashed all over the sides of buildings from West Belfast to Derry, serving as a reminder of the dedication and commitment to fighting what many Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland viewed as a British occupation. In Turkey, the long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan serves as an inspiration for the Kurdistan Workers Party and its legions of supporters. In Sri Lanka, Velupillai Prabhakaran led the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for more than three decades, affording him godlike status among Tamil militants. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas cultivates the image of suicide bombers as martyrs, whose surviving family members are feted and taken care of financially by the groups leadership. The Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara became a well-known icon for leftist militants during the Cold War. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For all his infamy, the Norway killer led a remarkably unremarkable life, similar to many underachievers who go on to commit acts of right-wing terrorism. But his violent rampage and continued defiance have led his ideological allies to lionize Breivik as a defender of Christian civilization and a white male population that sees itself as under siege from liberal politicians, declining economic fortunes, and shifting demographic patterns. For right-wing extremists and their supporters, Breivik is seen as prophetic, someone who was able to foresee the social and cultural challenges associated with absorbing a large influx of Muslim immigrants, which many European countries are now grappling with. In addition to the death toll in Norway, which brought even more notoriety to his crime, his ideas have resonated with the so-called outer ring of white nationalists, namely, those who support these ideas or are at least unwilling to speak out against them. His ideology is often inadvertently echoed by populist politicians railing against immigration to score political points, as has occurred in Hungary, Italy, and Poland. His manifesto fits the narrative that all of Europes social ills can be attributed to immigrants, who bring with them crime and terrorism. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Policymakers in New Zealand, Australia, the U.S., and Canada may be surprised at the resonance a 40-year-old Norwegian white supremacist could have with their own domestic populations. But similar to other forms of terrorism, especially in the modern era, symbols and figureheads transcend physical boundaries. As terrorism expert Daniel Byman recently described in Slate, right-wing terrorism has, like Salafist jihadi ideology, gone global. Just as thousands of analysts became experts on al-Qaida through the Arabian Peninsula propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, there needs to be a renewed focus on symbols like Breivik, and which right-wing groups seem most determined to strike. Funding for programs to counter violent extremism have been shortchanged under the Trump administration and on numerous occasions, the president has downplayed the threat posed by white nationalism. After the attacks in New Zealand, he remarked that its a small group of people, when asked whether the threat posed by white nationalists was growing. Advertisement Symbols and martyrs have always played a significant role in terrorist propaganda, but the internet adds a new dimension. With social media and a variety of web forums to choose from, not to mention the dark web, extremists and terrorists can use symbols to traverse generational divides, bridging the gap between the young and old guard in some movements. Right-wing extremists traffic in memes on websites like Gab and 8chan, sites that have been labeled as safe havens for neo-Nazis to interact and where praise for Hitler and the Nazis is disturbingly commonplace. Individuals like Breivik can act as force multipliers, providing some semblance of coherence to a disparate group of individuals with seemingly inchoate worldviews, all existing along a spectrum that ranges from those who engage in trolling for irony to the hardcore true believers hovering on the precipice of political violence. Fine, maybe Beto ORourke does have a reason to run for president. The former congressman and current White House hopeful, whom I am very skeptical of, announced Monday that he had raised $6,136,763 in the first 24 hours following the official launch of his presidential campaign. That total tops the previous first-day champ, Sen. Bernie Sanders. ORourkes haul is remarkable for two reasons, which run at least somewhat counter to the undercurrent of backlash from political journalists that greeted Betos entrance into the race. The first reason is that the Texan initially opted against sharing his first-day numbers, which most observers took as a sign that hed underperformed out of the gates, but that now looks like proof that ORourke knows how to play the expectations-managing game. The second is that, expectations and assumptions aside, thats a lot of money! Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While theres no authoritative record book for these thingscandidates dont always announce their first-day hauls and politicos havent always paid close attention to such totals in the pastwe now know that Beto pulled more cash than the two declared Democratic candidates with the best early polling numbers: Sanders, who brought in $5.9 million to start his 2020 campaign, and Sen. Kamala Harris, who brought in $1.5 million. The Great 24-Hour Fundraising Primary does not award any delegates, but it does confirm Beto has the potential to be the top-tier presidential candidate many saw him as while he was still running for Senate. And yet, as impressive as Betos show of fundraising force was, it doesnt change the assessment that he brings nothing of gravity to a deep, diverse, and experienced Democratic field. As I argued on the eve of the ORourke entrance, he is a man without a clear political ideology, a signature legislative achievement, a major policy issue, or a concrete agenda for the country. All the fundraising in the world wont change the substance of Betos campaign; it simply confirms that a sizable slice of the Democratic Party likes the style of it. New Yorks Jonathan Chait argues that being a highly charismatic and inspirational campaigner is in and of itself a good enough reason to run. I disagree, and I definitely dont think its a good enough reason to back Beto. His fundraising prowess simply brings the two sides of that debate into starker relief. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement One other important thing to keep in mind when considering Betos big haul: He started this race with a huge advantage, otherwise known as his email list from the Senate race. When the New York Times looked at six years of federal election filings from ActBlue, the Democratic Partys dominant donation-processing platform, they found that Sanders and ORourke had by far the top two small-donor networks of any potential Democratic hopeful2.1 million and 743,000, respectivelyand each was, in the papers words, poised to be a fund-raising phenom. Past donations dont guarantee future ones, but Sanders and ORourke didnt have to work nearly as hard as their rivals to find people who are friendly to their cause and willing to prove it with a few bucks. Its no surprise, then, that their first-day totals dwarfed the field. We know support for each of their candidacies runs deep, but well have to wait until next month to see their first FEC filings to know how wide it is beyond those fans who were waiting around to donate on day one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement (One note: Betos team has not disclosed the number of individual donations he received in the first 24 hours, so theyve effectively chosen the metric by which their man is being compared to Bernie, who says he had roughly 225,000 individual donations in his first 24 hours, which was believed to be a record.) Advertisement Advertisement Still, Betos fast fundraising start isnt of no consequence. It implies many of his 2018 donors were cutting checks at least as much out of their love for him as for their hatred of Cruz, which up until now had been an open question. It proves ORourke can go toe-to-toe with Sanders in the fundraising department, despite the latters two-year head start building a network of small donors. More immediately, it suggests Betos biggest fans werent turned off by the initial wave of criticism voiced by journalists and commentators of all stripes. And more broadly, the fact that both Beto and Bernie could so quickly attract such large boatloads of cash is a good sign that Democrats will be willing to open their wallets for whoever ends up taking it to Trump in the end. Who is responsible for the terrorist attack that killed at least 50 New Zealanders as they prayed in their mosques? Looked at one way, the answer is simple: The shooter alone bears the guilt for his crimes. But the picture is wider than that. In the days since the attack, attention has rightly been focused on the shooters admiration of white supremacists, especially violent ones like Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, whom the shooter called his true inspiration and who allegedly gave his blessing for the attack. His manifesto called Donald Trump a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose, and uses words that directly echo Trumps own. The discussion can even be expanded to those who have helped shape the U.S. presidents message, like Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Donald Trump Jr. Its not unreasonable to place some measure of blame on those who have stoked the international spread of white-supremacist ideology. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So why do I feel so guilty? And why am I so angry not just at the obvious targets, but at my country? Im a white Australian. I know that blaming myself and my cohort is illogical, but I cant escape the feeling that all of white Australia is implicated in the deathsa white majority that has fomented and let foment hate. Though he may have labeled himself a European, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant was an Aussie through and through, growing up in a country town north of Sydney, steeped in mainstream Australian racism and our particular national brand of Islamophobia. He grew up in the same Murdoch-controlled mass media environment that the rest of us didone that recently trashed Islam 2,891 times in a single yearand under the same governments, with prime ministers who have repeatedly stoked anti-Muslim sentiment for votes, with one major party making it central to their electoral strategy. Advertisement Advertisement I grew up steeped in the same environment, just two years younger than Tarrant, and when I was a child the omnipresent racism seemed, well, normal to me. Australia was a proud multicultural country, I was told, but this also seemed to encompass race riots and the turning back of boats filled with brown, black, and Muslim refugees. Publicly demonstrative racists like Australian Sen. Pauline Please explain Hanson were a national joke, not a national threatthe refugees were the threat, apparently. These days, as one local from Tarrants hometown told the New York Times, There is still a lot of racism around the place. Its usually sort of hidden a little bit. Advertisement You could say the same of federal politics, with its coded appeals to white, racist fearits only hidden until suddenly you cant avoid it. Indeed, many white Aussies will tell you that the persistence of racist tropes is mostly harmless, as many did after the Serena Williams cartoon incident. Australians: Were just a bunch of fun-loving, cheeky larrikins, right, mate? Well, we can now say that one of the deadliest hate crimes in history was perpetrated by a white Australian. But not just by a white Australian: As Amy Remeikis at the Guardian put it, the massacre was carried out in the name of white Australia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ive long felt that racism is Australias most serious problem, our festering soreIve written about it before. Many other Aussies have also been unsurprised, as I was, to learn that Tarrant was one of oursbut that lack of surprise should be more damning, not less. I have not myself stoked racial resentment, nor did I vote for Sen. Fraser Anning or the governments that made race-baiting appeals. But did I do enough to stop the ideologys spread? Did I condemn hatred loud enough? Did I fight white supremacy every day? I did not pull the trigger, but it does not feel right to say I bear absolutely none of this national burden. Advertisement Advertisement Shame, guilt, remorse, disgustwhatever you want to call it, Im not alone. A number of Australian commentators are expressing similar feelings over the actions of one of our citizens. We face an overdue and now unavoidable reckoning with the role our anti-immigrant politics and culture played in shaping and normalizing Tarrants brand of hate. Advertisement Advertisement We are a nation born of shame. What also cannot be ignored is that our citizen went and did this as a guest in another nation. As Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel told CNN: He did not develop his hatred here. He came here to perform this act of terrorism. Why did he go to New Zealand if he was an Australian citizen angry about Muslim immigration? Partly it may have been Australias strict gun laws; his attack would have been much harder to pull off at home. Tarrant didnt originally intend to target New Zealandhe was only living there while he planned and trainedbut he soon decided that New Zealand would bring to attention the truth of the assault on our civilization, that no where in the world was safe, the invaders were in all of our lands, even in the remotest areas of the world. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The horror of this attack is compounded by the fact that New Zealand is meant to be our mateour greener, funnier, more progressive little sibling. There are many cliched metaphors to describe the special relationship between Australia and New Zealand, and they feel especially meaningless now, but its the closest relationship we have. Its a closeness Tarrant took advantage of, committing his crime in the country that welcomes us without a visa. We are a nation born of shame. A white-majority Australia exists only as the result of a genocidal invasionanother irony missed by Tarrant (and Trump) in his rants about invasion. Its an original sin the country has recently grappled with: In 2008, the nation officially apologized to Indigenous Australians for its extreme mistreatment of them, in particular the horrendous policy of taking Indigenous children from their familiesa great stain [on] the nations soul, said the prime minister at the time. Australians have also taken collective responsibility for more local tragedies. Earlier this year when Palestinian exchange student Aiia Maasarwe was murdered walking home in Melbourne, Australians were stricken. When her father Saeed came to Australia and took part in a televised interview, presenter Jamila Rizvi told him: I know I speak for every Australian when we say were so sorry that your daughter came to visit us and we didnt take better care of her. Following Christchurch, ashamed Australians are apologizing personally to New Zealanders on Twitter. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But what has become clear is that the shameand the apologiesare no longer enough. White Australians must no longer tolerate those mainstream voices who give white supremacy a platform and megaphone. Instead of brushing aside the racism in our homeland, or pointing instead toward Trump and the United States, we must call out dog whistles in our own government, in our own backyard, every chance we get. We must condemn hate speech not just when someone like Anning goes too far, and we must deny visas to alt-right figures who come to our shores expecting a friendly welcome not just in the wake of right-wing terror attacks, but always. We must fight the normalization of Islamophobia. And above all we must accept responsibility for the hatred we have normalized. Rather than go easy on ourselves, we must go hard. Resist the urge to blame, wrote Quillette founder Claire Lehmann. On the contrary, this is exactly when we need to be assigning more blame and scrutinizing the racist swamp from which Tarrant emerged. And we should be wary of those, like Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who would protest this as politicization. Jess Dweck satirized this kind of response as: Please dont bring politics into this tragedy in which the perpetrator was clearly inspired by my politics. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You might think that this is all too strong, that placing at least some of the blame on white Australia is a kind of self-centered masochism, that blaming a nations culture for the sins of a citizen is like blaming humanity for the crimes of one man. But its better than the alternative, of saying #notallAustralians and looking the other way, thinking, well, theres nothing I can do. White Australians may not be strictly answerable for Tarrants crime, but we have some big questions to ask ourselves. If youre an Australian and reading this makes you feel defensive, you should ask them now. Two years before he stepped down from the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy pushed to expand the Constitutions protection of juvenile offenders. In 2016s Montgomery v. Louisiana, Kennedy sharply limited states ability to imprison minors for life without the possibility of parole. He also applied this rule retroactively, giving thousands of rehabilitated felons a new shot at early release. Kennedys Montgomery ruling was a liberal landmark, compelling courts to reserve juvenile life without parole, or JLWOP, for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes reflect irreparable corruption. Lower courts have interpreted it, correctly, to create a strong presumption against JLWOP, one that prosecutors must rebut beyond a reasonable doubt. Advertisement And on Monday morning, the Supreme Court signaled that it may toss Kennedys expansive safeguards for juvenile offenders into the dustbin of history. The court announced that it will hear Mathena v. Malvo, which revolves around one of the D.C. snipers. Malvo is an emotionally charged case involving heinous, notorious, and relatively recent crimesan ideal weapon for SCOTUSs hard-line conservatives to use against Montgomery. If Kennedy were still on the court, the formal abolition of JLWOP might be on the horizon. But with Justice Brett Kavanaugh serving in his stead, the court seems poised to scrap a central facet of Kennedys legacy. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The United States is the only country in the world that imposes life sentences without parole on juveniles. As of 2018, more than 2,000 people were serving JLWOP sentences, and Kennedy spent his later years on the bench trying to shrink that number. (Today, 1,100 people are still serving JLWOP sentences; 1,700 have been resentenced under Montgomery but remain in prison, while 450 people have been released.)* In 2010s Graham v. Florida, the Supreme Court struck down JLWOP sentences for non-homicide crimes in an opinion written by Kennedy. Then, in 2012s Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court struck down mandatory JLWOP schemeslaws that automatically imposed life without parole on minors convicted of certain offenses, usually murder. (By contrast, discretionary JLWOP allows, but does not force, a judge to imprison a minor for life.) Advertisement Advertisement In Miller, a 54 decision with Kennedy joining the liberals, the court explained that children have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility and a vulnerability to negative influences. Children also have limited control over their own environment and thus lack the ability to extricate themselves from horrific, crime-producing settings. Moreover, minors characters are not well formed; their traits are less fixed than adults. Put simply, juvenile offenders are less culpable than adults and more likely to be rehabilitated. In light of these conclusions, the court held that the Eighth Amendments bar against cruel and unusual punishments outlaws mandatory JLWOP sentences. Instead, a judge must provide an individualized sentencing to minors and apply JLWOP only when their crimes reflect irreparable corruption. Advertisement Given the clear meaning of Montgomery, the Supreme Courts decision to hear Malvo is puzzling. Four years later, in Montgomery, the court revisited and expanded this holding. First, the court applied Miller retroactively, to all offenders sentenced to JLWOP before 2012. Second, the court clarified (and arguably expanded) the meaning of Miller. In his opinion for the court, Kennedy explained that judges violate the Eighth Amendment any time they impose JLWOP without first deciding that the offenders crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility rather than the transient immaturity of youth. In other words, the Constitution doesnt just prohibit mandatory JLWOP laws. It forbids the application of JLWOP in all circumstances unless prosecutors have proved an offenders permanent incorrigibility. And any prisoner currently serving a JLWOP sentence, whether mandatory or discretionary, has a constitutional right to either be considered for parole or be resentenced. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Given the clear meaning of Montgomery, the Supreme Courts decision to hear Malvo is puzzling. The case involves Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 years old when he helped John Allen Muhammad murder 10 people during the D.C. sniper shootings. After a Virginia jury convicted Malvo, a judge sentenced him to life without parole. Malvo, who was allegedly brainwashed by Muhammad, now profoundly regrets his actions and seeks a new sentence under Montgomery. In 2018, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Malvo does, indeed, have a right to resentencing to determine whether his crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. Advertisement Advertisement Under any plausible reading of Montgomery, the 4th Circuit is plainly correct. Yet now the Supreme Court will review its decisionan ominous sign. In its petition, Virginia asks SCOTUS to rule that Montgomery does not actually require a new sentence or parole hearing for juveniles who were sentenced to life without parole at a judges discretion, rather than under a mandatory scheme. But that is obviously untrue; by its own terms, Montgomery applies to all JLWOP offenders, regardless of whether a judge had discretion in condemning them to die behind bars. So, as Malvos attorneys note, Virginia is really just asking SCOTUS to overturn Montgomery. Advertisement Few seriously believe that Kavanaugh will adopt Kennedys expansive interpretation of the Eighth Amendment and continue his pursuit of justice for juvenile offenders. To the contrary, it seems likely that Kavanaugh, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, voted to take this case because it allows them to bolster JLWOP using a very unsympathetic defendant. (Who wants to go to bat for one of the D.C. snipers?) It takes just four votes to hear a case, so the courts arch-conservatives may be forcing Chief Justice John Roberts to decide whether to maintain his Eighth Amendment centrismor veer rightward in Kennedys absence. If so, theyve put Roberts in a tough spot. The chief justice dissented in Miller, but joined the majority in Montgomery, perhaps out of respect for precedent. Once again, Roberts will have to choose whether his preference for institutional stability outweighs his conservative instincts. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The tragedy of Malvo is that it forces JLWOP opponents to play defense when they should be on the brink of total victory. Since Miller, at least 18 states and the District of Columbia have abolished JLWOP. Six had already eliminated the sentence before 2012. Thirteen more states have effectively abandoned JLWOP by ceasing its imposition. Under the evolving standards of decency test, the Supreme Court should consider this trend as evidence that JLWOP is no longer compatible with civilized society and rule that it always runs afoul of the Eighth Amendment. Kennedy favored this standard and seemed to be moving in that direction on this issue when he retired. Now he is gone, and Roberts must decide how quickly he will kick Kennedys more progressive Eighth Amendment jurisprudence to the curb. Malvo will be a momentous test of his priorities as the new swing justice. Will Roberts stand by Montgomery or turn it into an empty promise? Kennedys legacy, and the Supreme Courts commitment to juvenile justice, appears to lie entirely in his hands. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images As investigators determine if the Boeing 737 MAXs flight control system caused the crashes of the Lion Air flight in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 last week, a new report states that the Federal Aviation Administration hurried along the planes approval process, allowing Boeing to tackle key aspects of the regulation procedure themselves. According to the Seattle Times, the FAA has made a habit of delegating parts of the regulation process to Boeing due to cuts in funding. For the 737 MAX, FAA managers reportedly pressured the agencys safety engineers to hand over safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to green-light the companys findings. Remarkably, the paper was working on the report prior to the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines flight, which killed all 157 occupants onboard: Both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the second crash of a 737 MAX last Sunday. In 2015, Boeing reportedly pushed to expedite the 737 MAXs approval in order to compete with the comparable Airbus A320neo, which had hit the market nine months ahead of Boeings newest 737 model. Several FAA employees told the Seattle Times that their managers asked them to hurry up the process, and hand over more work to Boeing. There was constant pressure to reevaluate our initial decisions, said one former FAA safety engineer. Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates. Much of Boeings self-certification concerned the 737 MAXs flight control program, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). The FAA reportedly allowed Boeing to handle the safety analysis on the MCAS, and the report the company handed over which certified the plane as flight-ready had several flaws. According to the Seattle Times, the safety assessments understated the power of the [MCAS], which could move the planes tail four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis. The extra power was necessary because the MAXs large engines were placed farther forward on the wing. However, the system failed to account for how it could reset itself each time a pilot responded. On the Lion Air flight, black-box data suggests that each time the captain pulled the planes nose up, the MCAS kicked in to push the nose down again, causing the plane to crash into the Java Sea 12 minutes after takeoff. To help get the 737 MAX into the air more quickly, Boeing reportedly decided that its pilots would not need a full round of training on the MCAS system. According to the Seattle Times, it wasnt even mentioned in their flight manuals. Dennis Tajer, a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association at American Airlines, told the paper that his training on the 737 MAX was made up of a one-hour session on an iPad that did not have simulator training. By cutting down on pilot instruction, Boeing was able to cut significant costs for the airlines that bought the plane. The Boeing site promised prospective buyers that as you build your 737 MAX fleet, millions of dollars will be saved because of its commonality with the prior 737 generation. With the 737 MAX grounded by the FAA, its own safety engineers believe that the agency must rework the delegation process that allowed Boeing to self-regulate the development of its own plane. We need to make sure the FAA is much more engaged in failure assessments and the assumptions that go into them, an FAA safety engineer told the Seattle Times. Meanwhile, the FAA has required Boeing to overhaul the MCAS software no later than April. AUCKLAND, New ZealandThe world closed in on us on Friday. All the hate and violence we had long watched happening hundreds of thousands of kilometers away finally landed in New Zealand. It arrived with semi-automatic weapons, a white supremacist ideology, and a video-game style of terror that aimed to dehumanize victims and glorify a terrorist. It left at least 50 men, women, and children dead after two mosques were attacked during Friday prayers in the city of Christchurch.Terrorism came, it devastated, and now were left questioning who we are as a nation. How this could happen here. What we do next. Advertisement Friends changed profile photos to a this is not us filter, people talked about their shock, their grief. As a New Zealand Muslim, messages started to flood my phone from people who wanted me to know they cared about me, remind me that this was not a reflection of our nation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But in many ways, it is. Racism is a small but real part of our society, a palpable undercurrent that we live with, as strong as the love and inclusion that the world knows us for. There is a cultural environment in New Zealand where a crime like this was possible. New Zealand is a double-edged blade of cruelty and kindness, and that is why this hurts so much. Advertisement This attack was a wake-up call for much of the country, but for many in the Muslim community, it was an escalation of what we have experienced for some time. For the first time in my life, my mosque is closed because it may not be safe for us to congregate. The heart of our community is closed until further notice. Almost every visibly Muslim person I know has experienced some form of abuse in New Zealand. I have been attacked in broad daylight. Friends, colleagues, strangersalmost everyone has a story. Even in the immediate aftermath of the deadliest act of terror in our nations history, ignorance and hate reared their heads. Two visibly Muslim women were verbally abused by a man at a train station in Auckland just 48 hours after the attack. The women had convinced their parents it would be safe to leave their homes during the day and it wasnt. The incident left the women scared. So many in the Muslim community are scared. For five years, the Islamic Womens Council had been asking the government to do something to protect our communities from a very real threat posed by the rising tide of alt-right hate groups and white supremacy. For five years, it met with government representatives, but no action was taken. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In New Zealand there is no hate crime legislation, no official record kept of hate-fueled crimesbig or smallcommitted against individuals. We have no way to measure the extent of this problem. Proactively or reactivelythere are gaping holes in the protection of our minority communities. Advertisement Advertisement For the first time in my life, my mosque is closed because it may not be safe for us to congregate. The heart of our community is closed until further notice. When I try to verbalize how I feel, the words are simple: I am angry. I am sad. I am skeptical. But I am trying to be hopeful. Our nation is grieving, but it is not inactive. The mass turnout to vigils across the country last weekend demonstrates to me that we, as a larger society, will not accept violence like this. Advertisement Advertisement We grieve together, surrounded by people, from all walks of life, who like me have no words to describe how broken our hearts are. There is power and comfort in that unity. None of us want to be defined by this act of terror. We refuse to be sucked into a cycle of repeat events where nothing changes, like many other countries. We have witnessed what has happened elsewhere, and I hope we know better. Advertisement Advertisement Already our prime minister and attorney general have gun legislation reform underway. Meanwhile, people have begun voluntarily handing in their guns. New Zealanders and parliamentarians alike are calling for an inquiry into our intelligence services to make sure these agencies are focused on the protection of all our communities. Many people have demanded better moderation of Facebook and comment sections on our top news sitesa cesspool of xenophobic and racist rhetoricand some now realize they need to take a zero-tolerance approach to racism and hate in all its forms. This is already so much stronger than thoughts and prayers. And it is also a much truer picture of who most of us arekind, compassionate, and willing to stand up and speak out when we see something wrong. This is my New Zealand, and my New Zealand wants action. In another reminder of his inability to hold back from sharing offensive ideas and statements, Rep. Steve King of Iowa posted a meme on Saturday to an official Facebook account that seemed to revel in the idea of people in more conservative states killing those in more liberal states in an armed conflict. Folks keep talking about another civil war, the meme said. One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesnt know which bathroom to use. Advertisement King captioned the image with a smirking emoji. Wonder who would win. he wrote. King has since removed the Facebook post, but many social media users captured it in a screenshot before he decided to do so: Just an elected official joking on his verified Facebook account over the weekend about a civil war and how his side would be more heavily armed pic.twitter.com/DrzHr0q4V5 Tim Mak (@timkmak) March 18, 2019 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As some on social media noted, King apparently did not notice that the person who designed the graphic lumped Iowa, Kings state, in with the blue states and part of the losing side. King, a notably racist member of Congress, has in the past openly voiced support for white supremacist ideas. An incomplete list of things he has said and done includes calling white people the subgroup of people who have contributed the most to the world; tweeting that we cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies; blaming immigrants for ISIS and Ebola; displaying the Confederate flag, despite his state, Iowa, not having been a part of the Confederacy; blaming abortion for killing millions of white babies; and complaining that for every child of undocumented immigrants whos a valedictorian, theres another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Advertisement In January, King finally appeared to have crossed a line for his own party when he voiced explicit support for white supremacy. White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilizationhow did that language become offensive? King told the New York Times. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? Soon after he made the statement, his party stripped him of all his committee assignments. After Saturdays post, Kings Facebook page went on to share posts mocking feminists for being confused; joking that Democrats have literally never solved a problem; for some reason defending the racist YouTube star Pewdiepie along with President Donald Trump and Candace Owens, all of whom were either criticized for fomenting Islamophobia or mentioned in the New Zealand shooters manifesto; and arguing prison shanks prove that gun control is pointless. According to writing that he left online, the apparent perpetrator of last Fridays massacre at two mosques in New Zealand believes that the white race and Western civilization are under threat from immigration, particularly Muslim immigration. In the wake of the attack, its been pointed out that this belief about the West is shared by some of Donald Trumps biggest online supporters and has been espoused to varying degrees of explicitness by Trump and his advisers themselves. Advertisement On Monday, Trump wrote on Twitter that the implication that he thus deserves blame for the mosque killings is So Ridiculous (random capitalization his). While it might be unfair to blame even the worst politicians for many radical acts of terror, in Trumps case, his engagement with online extremists and promotion of their white-nationalist talking points does make the connection strongera reality underlined by the fact that, when I went to check on some of the more infamous white nationalismadjacent accounts that Trump and his son Don Jr. have engaged with since launching his presidential campaign, I found that a number of them have been suspended by Twitter. (You cant tell from looking at a suspended account why it was shut down, but abusive behavior is one of the things you can get kicked off for. Also, for the record, Im using the term white nationalist here because of its political connotationthe belief that its acceptable for a country to define itself in racial terms. Obviously that idea also often corresponds with a belief in white racial superiority that you could describe as white supremacist.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement These accounts include: @whitegenocidetm, the anonymous Twitter user who made a joke about Jeb Bush that then-candidate Trump retweeted in January 2016. (White genocide is the far rights term for the lefts alleged goal of replacing white populations with non-white ones through immigration.) @neilturner_, whose Twitter bio (per Politico) included the phrase #WhiteGenocide is real, and who Trump @d or retweeted six times during the 2016 primaries. @keksec_org, an account whose archived tweets include racial slurs and race-war rhetoric and who Trump retweeted five times. (According to the Hill, @keksec_org also tweeted frequently about the alleged unique attractiveness of white women.) More prominently, theres Jayda Fransen, a far-right British politician who was publicly kicked off Twitter not long after Trump retweeted three hoax videos from her account that purported to show Muslims engaging in violence against whites. (Fransens fringe party, in the description of the New York Times, believes that white Christian civilization is under threat from Muslims.) Advertisement Theres also Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart writer who has been revealed to have solicited input on Breitbart stories from self-avowed white nationalists (including the proprietor of a neo-Nazi site called the Daily Stormer) and was booted from Twitter for inciting harassment against black actress Leslie Jones. Trump never retweeted Yiannopoulos account per se, so I didnt count him for purposes of the headline, but he did take a question from Yiannopoulos during a campaign Reddit Q&A and promoted him by name on Twitter after taking office. As a candidate, Trump also infamously retweeted a fake graphic about black crime and an anti-Semitic Star of David image from accounts that appear to have been self-deactivated. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trump Jr., meanwhile, has been caught following (or caught, because maybe he doesnt care who knows it) at least three openly racist and/or anti-Semitic accountsa writer named Vox Day, a notorious far-right figure who goes by the anonymous handle Ricky Vaughn, and a random racist with the handle AdolfJoeBidenTMthat are now suspended. And this all on a service that has frequently come under criticism for being too hesitant to suspend or ban white supremacists. All in all, you might say that it is not So Ridiculous at all to suggest that Donald Trump has encouraged the online white-nationalist community and its most hateful behavior. If you thought IBM using quietly scraped Flickr images to train facial recognition systems was bad, it gets worse. Our research, which will be reviewed for publication this summer, indicates that the U.S. government, researchers, and corporations have used images of immigrants, abused children, and dead people to test their facial recognition systems, all without consent. The very group the U.S. government has tasked with developing best practices and standards for the artificial intelligence industry, which includes facial recognition software and tools, is perhaps the worst offender when it comes to using images sourced without the knowledge of the people in the photographs.* Advertisement The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, maintains the Facial Recognition Verification Testing program, the gold standard test for facial recognition technology. This program helps software companies, researchers, and designers evaluate the accuracy of their facial recognition programs by running their software through a series of challenges against large groups of images (data sets) that contain faces from various angles and in various lighting conditions. NIST has multiple data sets, each with a name identifying its provenance, so that tests can include people of various ages and in different settings. Scoring well on the tests by providing the fastest and most accurate facial recognition is a massive boost for any company, with both private industry and government customers looking at the tests to determine which systems they should purchase. In some cases, cash prizes as large as $25,000 are awarded. With or without a monetary reward, a high score on the NIST tests essentially functions as the tech equivalent of a Good Housekeeping seal or an A+ Better Business Bureau rating. Companies often tout their test scores in press releases. In recognition of the organizations existing market approval role, a recent executive order tasked NIST with developing a plan for new standards for the artificial intelligence industry, which includes facial recognition technology among other machine learning and algorithmic tools.* Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Through a mix of publicly released documents and materials obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, weve found that the Facial Recognition Verification Testing program depends on images of children who have been exploited for child pornography; U.S. visa applicants, especially those from Mexico; and people who have been arrested and are now deceased. Additional images are drawn from a Department of Homeland Security scenario in which DHS staff simulated regular traveler-image capture for the purposes of testing. Finally, individuals booked on suspicion of criminal activity are the subject of the majority of the images used in the program.* Any one of us might end up as testing material for the facial recognition industry. When a company, university group, or developer wants to test a facial recognition algorithm, it sends that software to NIST, which then uses the full set of photograph collections to determine how well the program performs in terms of accuracy, speed, storage and memory consumption, and resilience. An input pattern, or single photo, is selected, and then the software is run against one or all of the databases held by NIST. For instance, one test, known as the false non-match rate, measures the probability of the software failing to correctly identify a matching face in the database. Results are then posted on an agency leaderboard, where developers can see how theyve performed relative to other developers. In some respects, this is like more familiar product testing, except that none of the people involved in the testing know about, let alone have consented to, the testing. Advertisement Advertisement Altogether, NIST data sets contain millions of pictures of people. Any one of us might end up as testing material for the facial recognition industry, perhaps captured in moments of extraordinary vulnerability and then further exploited by the very government sectors tasked with protecting the public. Not only this, but NIST actively releases some of those data sets for public consumption, allowing any private citizen or corporation to download, store, and use them to build facial recognition systems, with the photographic subjects none the wiser. (The child exploitation images are not released.) There is no way of telling how many commercial systems use this data, but multiple academic projects certainly do. Advertisement Advertisement When we reached out to NIST for comment, we received the following from Jennifer Huergo, director of media relations: Advertisement Advertisement The data used in the FRVT program is collected by other government agencies per their respective missions. In one case, at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NISTs testing program was used to evaluate facial recognition algorithm capabilities for potential use in DHS child exploitation investigations. The facial data used for this work is kept at DHS and none of that data has ever been transferred to NIST. NIST has used datasets from other agencies in accordance with Human Subject Protection review and applicable regulations. Advertisement Advertisement In a follow-up conversation after this article was published, Huergo asked us to clarify that her statement of one case does not refer to one use of the child exploitation data set but rather to the one case of that operational data set having been created. Huergo acknowledged that the child exploitation data set is in fact used for the facial recognition vendor test program, which to date includes 100 corporations, universities, and other developers. While Huergo pointed out that the exploitation database remains housed with DHS, she also confirmed that a global set of developers, many of whom are working on commercial technologynot on tools designed to help solve open cases of exploitationare in fact testing their commercial applications against images of exploited children. We asked Huergo whether the families of the children in the images had consented to their use for these purposes or even been notified of their use, and she replied that she has no information on that. She did point out that the images are de-identified to the degree possible (no names or other geolocation information attached beyond what might be in the pictures) and that no NIST staff view the images. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement We also asked Huergo why consent had not been gathered for individuals represented in the mug-shot and visa-image databases. She responded that the government uses data that it has on different people in ways that are consistent with regulations. While we understand that NIST trusts its counterparts to follow their respective missions, U.S. government agencies have a long history of targeting and bias. Additionally, pointing to human subject review and regulations is a deflection from conversations about data ethics in a way that is both familiar and deeply troubling. [Update, March 22, 2019: We now have confirmation of the nonconsensualpossibly without notification evenuse of a range of images in the possession of the government, including mug shots that are obtained before any charges are brought or a crime has been proved committed, visa application images, and child exploitation images.] Advertisement The use of these image databases in not a recent development. The Child Exploitation Image Analytics programwhich is a data set for testing by facial recognition technology developershas been running since at least 2016 with images of children who range in age from infant through adolescent and the majority of which feature coercion, abuse, and sexual activity, according to the programs own developer documentation. These images are considered particularly challenging for the software because of the greater variability of position, context, and more. The Multiple Encounter Dataset, in use since 2010, contains mug shots, notably taken before anyone has been convicted of a crime, and deceased persons supplied by the FBI. It reproduces racial disparities that are well-known in the U.S. legal system. According to our calculations, while black Americans make up 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, they make up 47.5 percent of the photographs in the data set. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This sort of bias in source data sets creates problems when software needs to be trained on its task (in this case, to recognize faces) or tested on its performance (the way NIST tests facial recognition software). These data set biases can skew test results, and so misrepresent what constitutes an effective facial recognition system. In light of recent incidents of racial and other bias in facial recognition tools, academics, industry leaders, and politicians alike have called for greater regulation of this training. But calls for greater diversity in data sets come at a costcooperation with organizations like NIST and enrolling more nonconsensual faces into data sets. As scholar Zoe Samudzi, for example, notes, It is not social progress to make black people equally visible to software that will inevitably be further weaponized against us. Rather than focusing on greater diversity, we should be focusing on more regulation at every step in the process. This regulation cannot come from standards bodies unfit for the purpose. Advertisement Instead, policies should be written by ethicists, immigration activists, child advocacy groups, and others who understand the risks that marginalized populations in the U.S. face, and are answerable to those populations. How do we understand privacy and consent in a time when mere contact with law enforcement and national security entities is enough to enroll your face in someones testing? How will the black community be affected by its overrepresentation in these data sets? What rights to privacy do we have when were boarding a plane or requesting a travel visa? What are the ethics of a system that uses child pornography as the best test of a technology? We need an external, independent regulatory body to protect citizens from the risk that conversations about ethics in facial recognition technology may become a smoke screen for maintaining government and corporate interests. Without informed, responsible, and accountable regulators, the standards that NIST creates will continue to take advantage of the most vulnerable among us. Advertisement Advertisement Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Correction, March 22, 2019: This article originally misstated that NIST has a regulatory role on facial recognition under a newly released executive order. NIST does not create regulations, but is a testing body, and under the new executive order has been given 180 days to develop a plan for standards. The executive order also refers more broadly to artificial intelligence, not specifically to facial recognition. The article also misstated that boarding photos from airports had been used as a data set for testing facial recognition algorithms. Those images came from a Department of Homeland Security scenario and involved volunteers. This article is part of Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University. On Wednesday, Future Tense will host an event in Washington about how law enforcement is using genetic genealogythanks to consumer DNA testingto solve crime. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website. Almost a year ago, police apprehended Joseph DeAngelodubbed the Golden State Killerfor more than a dozen murders and 50 rapes committed in the 1970s and 80s. His arrest was thanks to the advent of open-source DNA databases, which allowed law enforcement to match his DNA to that of a family member who had submitted their own genetic information for genealogical purposes. While this technology clearly helped bring DeAngelo to justice, it has raised a Pandoras box of privacy concerns. One in particular has been largely neglected thus far by both policy advocates and the media. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement DNA testing, once an expensive technology, is now so inexpensive that approximately 26 million people have taken advantage of it. With sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe, you can easily submit samples of your DNA and receive information about your family history and health. Both sites allow individuals to obtain raw DNA data files, which they can then upload to an open-source database like GEDmatch in order to connect them to distant family members. While the files are supposedly anonymous, one study found that an outside individual could identify an anonymous set of data using GEDmatch in just one day. Anyone can upload genetic informationeven if its not their ownto open-source sites. Officers can create a user profile for a suspect to a crime, upload the suspects DNA, and find a match, all without a court order of any kind. More than 20 arrests, many in cold cases, have occurred in the past year thanks to this technology, including one just last week in South Dakota. Advertisement Advertisement In the months that followed the Golden State Killers arrest, the media applauded the use of technology to bring a bad guy to justice. At the same time, they also recognized some of the privacy concerns that this technology entailsnamely the fact that when individuals submit their DNA to find family members, they probably dont realize that the state could be using that information as part of a criminal investigation. Unlike fingerprints, DNA is linked across families, meaning that these individuals may unwittingly expose sensitive information about their family members to law enforcement. But theres another piece to the privacy puzzleone less readily evident than the first piece but no less important: the suspects right to privacy. Indeed, suspects in these scenarios have no idea that law enforcement is uploading their DNA to a public website. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At first glance, this seems like a clear-cut case of the concern for public safety outweighing the right to privacy. After all, the suspect is the bad guy, and bad guys shouldnt have a right to privacy regarding their identity. The truth is that most criminal cases are not akin to that of the Golden State Killer. But criminal cases are rarely so unambiguous. In this case, every step of the DNA processfrom collection to testing to storagerequires human intervention, meaning human error can affect the outcome. For example, law enforcement may collect DNA from a crime scene that officers believe belongs to the suspect but in reality belongs to someone else. This could lead to officers uploading an innocent persons DNA to a public database, thus compromising that individuals identity without their consent. And even if the state tries to delete the open-source database file after discovering the mistake, there is no guarantee that the citizen sleuth, a hacker, or an insurance company hasnt already copied the DNA data file for their own gain. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When mistakes are made with DNA, the cost is higher than ever. Unlike other pieces of information that have been improperly releasedsuch as a credit card numbersbiometric information like DNA cannot be changed. And even if the government does submit the correct persons file, uploading a suspects DNA to an open database has significant repercussions and could affect a persons ability to get a job or insuranceas both employers and insurance companies might discriminate against those with genetically determined risk. The truth is that most criminal cases are not akin to that of the Golden State Killera man who committed dozens of violent crimes including burglary, rape, and murder for more than a decadewhere suspending privacy feels like a relatively small price to pay to apprehend a serial killer. Rather, 80 percent of cases in state criminal dockets are misdemeanors like loitering, trespassing, and traffic violations. Additionally, the criminal justice systems reach is vastin fact, as many Americans have criminal records as have college degrees. Without regulations governing the uploading of DNA to open-source databases, we could soon be living in a future where many individuals sensitive information is routinely compromised. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whats more, the data published on open-source websites includes more sensitive information than ever before, thanks to the way sites like 23andme and Ancestry.com engage in DNA testing. Before open-source databases, law enforcement relied solely on CODIS, an FBI database for internal use, which all states participate in. Additionally, law enforcement agents could only test noncoding regions of DNA, meaning that results would identify the individual but would not provide any other information about their health, appearance, or ancestry. However, sites like 23andme and Ancestry.com employ a different form of testing called single-nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP, testing. SNP testing is far more comprehensive than FBIs traditional testing: For example, Ancestry.com advertises that it tests a persons entire genome at over 700,000 locations. This means that when a suspects DNA is uploaded, its not just their identity at stake; their genetic predispositions, health information, and ancestry information could all be compromised. And while the government is allowed to possess sensitive information, this authorization does not give officials the right to publish it. Advertisement The harms of publishing a suspects DNA online will far outlive their time in the criminal justice system. We know that 95 percent of individuals will one day be released from incarceration and re-enter society. These individuals already struggle to secure employment, educational opportunities, and housing because of their convictions. In fact, as evidence has become increasingly clear that public safety suffers when individuals cant reintegrate back into society, more states than ever before are considering expungement and record-sealing laws to try to give re-entering citizens a real chance at a fresh start. Advertisement Advertisement It isnt hard to imagine a world where individuals face another collateral cost to being involved in the justice system, one that expungement is unlikely to ever remedy: violations of their genetic privacy. By uploading their DNA data to a public website, where it would be accessible to insurance companies and employers alike, law enforcement might forever compromise the ability of a person to truly re-enter society. Even worse, the privacy rights of family members, including children of those involved in the system, could also be compromised. DNA testing technology will only become cheaper, with the resulting databases growing ever more expansive. We have a window of opportunity to formulate policies to govern law enforcements use (and possible abuse) of these powerful tools. If we truly believe in second chances for those who have made mistakes, then we must also craft policies to protect suspects genetic privacy. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. 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. Crowd investing - a lesser known path to sources of capital which offers regional businesses the necessary foundation for international growth and innovation. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Crowd investing is often associated exclusively with start-ups. A risky bet on finding the one which will ultimately outperform the rest ... But theres also a different perspective professional crowd investing bringing proven private equity principles and returns to regional investors. Private investors and institutions provide regional businesses with alternative sources of capital, a necessary foundation for international growth and innovation in every strong economy. In exchange for providing capital, regional investors participate in value created on their home turf which doesnt leave but gets recirculated and strengthens the regional economy. There are several stages in the lifetime of regional, often manufacturing companies, small and middle-sized enterprises or family-owned businesses when they need financing. Outside capital can be an additional source for the company owners to expand organically or via acquisitions, make desired changes in the ownership structure, secure market positions faster or sell a part or the whole company to interested investors. Bank financing might not do the job. There are and always will be companies, which wont get any or additional bank financing for their expansion plans due to the nature of their business and the increasingly tougher banking regulations. These companies may also be too early or out of scope for venture capital or other investment funds. On the other hand, acquiring expansion capital through a listing on a stock exchange is unattainable to the vast majority of private companies, despite a healthy and profitable business. The majority of private equity investments and company sales thus happen outside of public markets. Thanks to professional crowd investing, private investors can access, invest and buy into such private companies. Companies, on the other hand, gain financially and personally engaged experienced professionals on top of just financial capital. Innovative companies, be it start-ups or mature SMEs, are attractive to private investors for multiple reasons, beyond just financial returns. Investors are motivated to co-own and participate in their entrepreneurial journey, so they stay close to new ideas, products, technologies and market trends as an inspiration to improve their own businesses, while still having interesting investment return potentials. The motivation to share gathered experience or financial means and give back to the entrepreneurial community, mentor entrepreneurs, expand their own business and investor networks are a part of the investors motivation as well. Slovak companies expanding to international markets Expanding to new markets, delivering game-changing innovation, developing a new product, increasing manufacturing capacity or even expanding the team in todays competitive environment is challenging. All of these challenges may require, at some point in time, external funding to support and enable the companys growth and establish an internationally or even globally successful business. Expansion in the CEE and SEE region and beyond usually sits on top of the list of local businesses but might not find the support via bank financing. Such expansion capital however is the lever the company can use to multiply its business value. In 2013, Zuzana Sevcova and Jozef Sevc founded a family owned premium dairy which quickly became successful throughout Slovakia and a couple of neighboring regions selling more than a million yogurts a year. Expanding in CEE, the company needs capital to increase its manufacturing capacity and broaden its product portfolio. The bank renders such expansion plan as too risky, which is why the company looked for alternative capital sources and approached smart investors via crowd investing. Profitable and established companies are likely to expand their business through acquisitions of competition or in their value chain. We are likely to see more acquisitions by Slovak businesses in the CEE region in the near future. An example is CreativePro, a Slovak live marketing agency, which expanded through the acquisition of its polish partner agency in 2017. Despite 14 years of existence, profitable and established presence in CEE, the acquisition capital had to come from private investors, who were paid the first dividend only a few months following the investment. Beyond providing the capital, the investors actively support the company on its expansion path. Innovation cant wait for the profit to come Having skilled people with technical and IT background, Slovakia is becoming a strong innovation hub in CEE. Globally successful companies such as Eset, Pixel Federation, Sli.do, Sygic or Visicom, once startups themselves, are followed by newer generations of Slovak companies targeting global markets, among others Ecocapsule, Exponea, MultiplexDX, SEAK, Sensoneo and Voltia. Building innovative companies from scratch or bringing SMEs to the next level increasingly requires external investors capital. Such capital accelerates a companys innovation power and enables it to maintain its lead over the competition. Such external capital should be used as a lever to achieve results and achieve them faster. Some investors also use investments as a gateway to companies innovation power and as a source of inspiration for their own businesses. Planning for succession and changes in ownership structure Family-owned companies with a stable business and no next generation family member to run the company in the future are seeking solutions how to transition the company management and ownership. Structural changes in a companys ownership with the support of outside investors capital can enable a partial or complete sale of family ownership, realizing an early dividend and a gradual transition to new company owners and/or management. Investors on the other hand have the possibility to buy into well-established businesses and participate in their results. Michal Nespor is Partner at Crowdberry Originally published in Connection, the magazine published by AmCham Slovakia The sale of flight tickets increased 94 percent compared with the same period in 2018. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Slovaks living abroad cannot vote in the presidential elections if they are not in the country on election day. Many of them seem to have flown back home to cast their ballot during the first election weekend, according to data gathered by Pelikan, a website used to search for cheap air tickets. The sale of return air tickets to Bratislava or Vienna increased by 94 percent compared with the same period in 2018. Read also: Read also: Election results: Caputova and Sefcovic will go head-to-head in the second round Read more The most frequent foreign destinations were Switzerland, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France. Many, many Slovaks work in these countries, according to Pelikan. More than a 90-percent increase in return air tickets from abroad to Bratislava and Vienna is really unprecedented and there is no other explanation, said Jozef Rybar, PR manager of Pelikan, as quoted in a press release. When eliminating other factors, such as the overall increase in the number of travellers using air transport, the launch of new flight connections and various discounts, the growth represents tens of percent. The interest of Slovaks in returning home to vote was enormous, he added. Return in two weeks? It would be interesting to check whether this trend will be repeated in two weeks time when the second round will take place, Rybar opined. It would be interesting to find out whether foreign-based Slovaks are able to invest even more money in flight tickets again or if they have kept their money for the second round, Rybar added. Read also: Read also: These election statistics might surprise you Read more It is another signal to politicians that they should allow the possibility of voting from abroad, he added. Among the destinations, from which people flew to Bratislava or Vienna in the monitored period, were also the USA and even Hong Kong. Air tickets booked for a specific date from these destinations can be really expensive. If people purchase them at the last minute, they can cost hundreds or even thousands of euros, Rybar summed up. The $11,500 Preferred 2 Handicap Pace feature on the Sunday, March 17 card at Flamboro Downs went to Pretty Handsome, who won going wire to wire as the odds-on favourite in 1:54.4. Driver Jonathan Drury drove for the lead from post four and maintained control through a clip of :27.3, :57.4 and 1:26.1. Toot Toot N tipped off the rail from fourth passing the half and drew within two lengths of the lead passing three-quarters but failed to make a dent in Pretty Handsome's lead one-and-a-quarter length lead heading to the wire. Pocket-sitter Hes Got Swagger settled for third. A four-year-old gelding by Mach Three, Pretty Handsome won his third race from six starts this season and his 16th from 26 overall, earning $170,720. Andrew McCabe trains the $3.10 winner for owner Glenview Livestock Ltd. Also sent the odds-on favourite, Canadian Pharoh flew to a three-length 1:57.2 victory in the $8,500 Preferred 3 Pace earlier on the card. Canadian Pharoh sat fourth as Dewar N Jack, Senior Market and Paparazzi Hanover battled for the lead spread three wide through a :27.3 opening quarter. Paparazzi Hanover soon brushed to the lead, pocketing Senior Market and shuffling Dewar N Jack to third. Driver Louis-Philippe Roy pulled first over with Canadian Pharoh at the :57.3, ranged within a nose of the lead past a 1:27.1 third quarter and propelled to the front through the lane. Paparazzi Hanover chased from second with Smooth Mara N taking third. Owned by Rod Therres and Carol Ann Leeson, Canadian Pharoh won his ninth race from 32 starts, earning $191,919. Richard Moreau trains the four-year-old Mach Three gelding who paid $3.10 to win. To view Sunday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Sunday Results - Flamboro Downs. Photo: Jeanine Pirro/Twitter Of like mind about who they dont like. Fox News has suspended host Jeanine Pirro over Islamophobic comments she made during last weeks broadcast of Justice with Judge Jeanine, which did not air on Saturday night. Fox News has not publicly confirmed the suspension, but a source told CNN that the network had indeed benched the popular host. It is not clear how long the suspension will last, or whether anxious advertisers will continue to support the program, or if Trumps subsequent attacks on the network will intensify and what that could mean to his and the networks shared base. In her last show, Pirro questioned the patriotism of Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, one of the two first Muslim women to be elected to Congress last November. Pirro asked viewers to think about how Omar wears a hijab before suggesting that Omars belief in Islam was incompatible with being a loyal American. Implying that Muslims are inherently un-American is hardly new territory for right-wing pundits, but in this case Pirros retread didnt just earn widespread criticism, but a rare public rebuke from her network. One day later, Fox News said it strongly condemned Pirros comments and that it had addressed the matter with her directly. By then, Pirro had already tried to backtrack after being publicly called out by a Muslim colleague at the network. She was just asking questions, she claimed. Pirros absence from the airwaves on Saturday certainly caught the attention of her biggest fan, the president of the United States. On Sunday morning, Trump published a thread of tweets demanding she be reinstated and accusing Fox News of succumbing to political correctness. In doing so, the president brushed away Pirros Islamophobia two days after a white supremacist gunman killed 50 people at a pair of mosques in New Zealand, and also launched into a strange call to arms against his enemies, real and imagined: Bring back [Judge Jeanine.] The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against Fox News hosts who are doing too well. must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, dont give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Be true to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for [Pirro]. Your competitors are jealous they all want what youve got NUMBER ONE. Dont hand it to them on a silver platter. They cant beat you, you can only beat yourselves! Though Trump released an official statement on Friday expressing his sympathy over the horrifying mosque attacks, he also made another comment that day which likely signaled sympathy with the white supremacist ideology the gunman claimed to espouse in a manifesto he published before the massacre. At a publicity event vetoing the Senates attempt to block the fake national emergency he declared to scrounge up border wall money, Trump once again called migration from Latin America to the U.S. an invasion. People hate the word invasion, but thats what it is, Trump said. The Christchurch shooter, who wrote that Trump was a symbol of renewed white identity in his manifesto, doesnt hate the term either. He referred to Muslim immigrants as invaders in his justification for the rampage. The gunman who massacred 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last October said that he was concerned about invaders too, writing in social media posts that he blamed Jews for the caravans of Central American migrants who have been traveling to the southern U.S. border migrant groups that were also promoted by Trump and his allies as a cynical scaremongering tactic to drive up turnout among his base in the midterm elections. Trump and others have even tried to suggest, without any credible evidence, that Muslim terrorists have been hiding among the poor Hondurans and Guatemalans in the caravans. White supremacist rhetoric makes regular use of the concept of immigrants or other nonwhite people being part of an invasion, and taking advantage of anxieties over migration is a textbook move for far-right political parties seeking more power. On Sunday, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to dismiss the altogether obvious link between growing white nationalist violence and Trumps rise to power on the back of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy ideas. Mulvaney said it was absurd to suggest any connection between the Christchurch shooter and Trump, and made it clear he is sick of insisting insisting that the president who has called violent neo-Nazis very good people, Mexicans rapists and killers, and who campaigned on (and then partially implemented) an U.S. entry ban for foreign Muslims is not a white supremacist. Responding to a question about the New Zealand attacks on Friday, the president downplayed the threat of white supremacist terrorism. I think its a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, he said a statement which, at best, misunderstands some important and dangerous political changes going on across the globe. In his tweets on Sunday, Trump once again made it clear where his sympathies lie. Jeanine Pirros suggestion that Muslims cannot be trusted because of their faith is either correct or irrelevant in Trumps mind. What really mattered was making sure his figurative us was holding the line against them. Trump says they are the radical Democrats and the media, but he could just as easily be talking as he has in the past about Muslims, Latin Americans, or people of color from what he dismisses as shithole countries. Some have even suggested that the president, or whoever wrote the tweets he sent, was speaking in some kind of white nationalist code. Journalist Judd Legum commented on Twitter that one phrase, be strong & prosper echoed part of an account of the 1683 Battle of Vienna, a historical event white nationalists revere and something the mosque shooter referenced in his propaganda dump. Legum also concedes that it may just be coincidence. No extremism scholars appear to have made a similar or expanded link in response, and somewhat similar expressions can also be found in the Bible and Star Trek. Then again, why on earth does Fox News need to hear the warning be weak and die from the U.S. president? But if the connection is a mistake, its an easy one to make. The difference between white nationalism and Trump nationalism is often in the ear of the beholder. The native language of Trumpism has always been grievance, suspicion, and us-vs-them ultimatums, and he served up another big helping of them on Sunday. Whether you believe the tweets were directed at Fox News or racists with arsenals (or both), the message is the same. The tweets say that Trumps enemies are using every trick in the book to SILENCE the majority. They are coming for the ones who are doing too well. The solution is to fight back and not be politically correct, because that will only bring you down, when its time to be fighting for our Country. Why? Because the losers all want what you have, but dont give it to them. Dont give up being NUMBER ONE or your loyalty be true to the people that got you here. Its a choice of stay strong and prosper or be weak and die. The ominous they cant win unless you beat yourselves. Thats not code. Its his reelection campaign. And its the same kind of thing that helped him win the last time. Hunter College at the City University of New York Hunter College. set in New York City, offers an MFA in Dance program to interested students that requires the completion of 60 total credit hours. The curriculum is split into several different categories, from dance technique to pedagogy and theory. A course in physical training must be completed four times in order to earn the MFA and is tailored to each student's dance style, interests, technique, and goals. Students also have the opportunity to select 12 credits worth of elective coursework according to their interests, and students are encouraged to pursue new areas of research as is possible. New York University New York University offers a unique program for students which will allow them to earn both an MFA in Dance as well as an M.A. in Teaching Dance by the time they complete the program. Graduates will be prepared to pursue their own careers as dancers and also will have the ability to teach dance from pre-kindergarten to university level. This program can be completed in two continuous years of full-time study (including summers), during which students must take 76 credits worth of coursework to fulfill the requirements for both degrees. Two semesters of student teaching in New York City are included. Courses will cover topics in teaching creative movement, philosophy of dance, history of dance, and dance composition. The program culminates with an experience in which students will perform in-residence with the Second Avenue Dance Company, during which time they will be able to create and perform their own choreography, as well as that of other dance professionals. Sarah Lawrence College Located in Yonkers, Sarah Lawrence College offers an MFA in Dance program in which students must complete 48 credit hours over the course of two years. This full-time program focuses on helping its students maintain and further develop their proficiency in dance and also encourages them to explore research in dance, as well as develop a final project that students must present at a showcase at the end of the program. During each semester, students must participate in three graduate seminars, each of which is devoted to a different aspect of the study of dance. Students will also take courses to complete the requirements of the degree, some of which may cover topics like movement awareness, dance improvisation, and physical conditioning. The College at Brockport, State University of New York Another option for students is the 60-credit MFA program in dance offered by the College of Brockport - State University of New York. The program focuses specifically on choreography and performance, as is reflected in the curriculum. Students are required to complete nine credits of core courses that focus on dance research and history, as well as dance at the secondary school level. In addition, students must complete 15 credits of dance technique courses. Another 24 credits must be completed through elective courses, which include options like somatic, dance therapy, and opportunities to study at foreign dance institutions. The remaining 12 credits are completed through graduate seminars and a master's thesis. University at Buffalo The University at Buffalo also offers an MFA program in dance, which requires the completion of 60 credit hours over a span of three years. The curriculum of this program is split into several different areas. Students will complete 10 credits of physical practice courses; nine credits of creative process classes; twelve credits that are focused on dance history, theory, and research; three credits of anatomy; five credits of teaching pedagogy; and two credits of technology. Additionally, nine credits are earned through the completion of a master's thesis, and students must earn an additional ten credits by taking elective courses. Reports of the possibility that Iran could take control of the port of Lattakia have ramped up tensions between them and Russia, as the two countries jostle for influence in a post war Syria writes Ana Press. As part of its ongoing efforts to expand, extend and penetrate into Syria, Iran has begun talks with the Syrian regime to take over the Lattakia port, with the aim of securing a commercial route from Tehran into the Mediterranean Sea, according to the BBC website. This has stirred questions about Russias position on the regime handing over this port to Iran, which suggests the possibility that there could be confrontations between Moscow and the Assad regimeor with Iranover this, especially given that Russia does not want Iran to approach the Syrian coast. According to the BBC, the talks began last month to transfer the container port in Lattakia, which is about 150 miles north of Damascus, over to Iranian administration from Oct. 1that is, when the lease ends. The London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper has also revealed that there have been disputes, caused by a crisis of trust between the Syrian regime and Russia, after Bashar al-Assads visit to Tehran. According to the paper, the matter of Bashar al-Assad allowing the Iranians to administer the Lattakia port has stirred Russian ire, especially given that Russia considers the port integral to its security in Syria, and that it has signed agreements with the Syrian regime for a long-term presence in the area. The paper confirmed that Iranian companies tied to the Revolutionary Guard have begun shipping goods through the port, indicating that Tehran could use it as an alternative route to transport weapons into Syria, which in turn could lead to new Israeli airstrikes and increasing tensions between Russia and Iran at a time when the two are fighting for influence in post-war Syria. The paper added that Russia does not want to see Iran close to them. The paper quoted its sources as saying that, despite the fact that both of them are fighting for Assad, there are differences and competition between them. Commenting on the Iranian expansion into Syria, the Syrian opposition member Samir Nashar told Ana Press that in light of the American sanctions on Iran, which were strengthened after the cancelation of the nuclear deal, Iran is trying to find ways to break the blockade imposed by the United States. According to Nashar, Iran needs an important and necessary outlet to the Mediterranean to access Europe, which opposes the American sanctions and is still maintaining the nuclear deal with Iran. If Iran succeeds in dominating the Lattakia port, it will have made a major achievement in accessing the world through the sea. Regarding the Russian position on Irans expansion, the Syrian opposition member believed that, its too early to answer that question right now given the common but sometimes contradictory interests between the Russians and Iranians, especially in light of the Wests rejection of reconstruction before a political solution based on Geneva, and not Astana, is implemented. Nashar believes that, President Hassan Rouhanis visit to Iraq with a large delegation of businessmen, companies and economic bodies in Iran, where they signed many agreements with the Iraqi government, also comprised an important economic outlet for Iran, which will help lighten the impact of the blockade. Journalist Ahmed Mudhar Saadou told Ana Press that the Iranians today believe that Russian interests are competing with them in Syria, and they are trying to pounce on what remains and to send a message to the Russians that they can take the Lattakia port, while the Russians control Hemeimeem and the Tartous port. This is a conflict of interests and will escalate in the coming days. Saadou closed by saying, It seem that the Iranians, who are enduring extremely difficult economic conditions, cannot afford to give up on their interests in Syria. The American blockade is forcing them to call up the Syrian regimes debts from the unlimited Iranian support during the years of Assad-Iranian-Russian aggression against the Syrian people. The Syrian government has previously signed a long-term economic agreement with Iran that covers various sectors, most importantly oil, electrical energy, agriculture and the banking sector. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. On the anniversary of the start of the civil war, France, Germany, UK and US have reiterated their condemnation of the Assad regime and attacks on civilians. The government envoys to Syria of France, Germany, UK and US have released a statement on the 8th anniversary of the Syrian conflict. Below is the text of the statement. Eight years ago today, tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets to claim the right to express themselves freely, call for reform, and demand justice. The Assad regimes brutal response, and role in the conflict that followed, resulted in the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. We recognize the brave men and women from across Syrias diverse society who have worked towards a better future for all Syrians. We also remember the countless civilians who have lost their lives from torture, starvation, and attacks by the regime and its backers. Over 400,000 men, women, and children have been killed. Tens of thousands have been disappeared into Assads prison system, where many have been tortured and killed. Countless families still have no news of the relatives they have lost, and have no closure. Whilst the Assad regime and its backers try to convince the world that the conflict is over and that life has returned to normal, the reality is that the regimes suppression of the Syrian people has not ended. Approximately 13 million Syrians are now in need of humanitarian assistance, many of them still denied safe and unhindered humanitarian access by the regime. Over 11 million half of Syrias prewar population are displaced, unable to return home. The violence in Idlib has recently increased, and airstrikes have taken the lives of civilians and humanitarian workers. The military solution the Syrian regime hopes to achieve, with backing from Russia and Iran, will not bring peace. The only way to end the violence and economic hardship as well as to secure a lasting settlement to the conflict is a negotiated political solution. And only a political solution can provide the necessary guarantees for all components of Syrian society as well as for Syrias neighbors. The Governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States reiterate our support for the UN-led process in Geneva and UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2254 to bring about a peaceful and stable Syria, and to consolidate the gains achieved by the liberation of territory from ISIS. We will continue to pursue accountability for the crimes committed in the Syrian conflict in order to achieve justice and reconciliation for the Syrian people. We are clear that we will not consider providing or supporting any reconstruction assistance until a credible, substantive, and genuine political process is irreversibly underway. Russia and Syria must respect the right of Syrian refugees to return home voluntarily and safely, end pretenses that conditions are right for reconstruction and normalization, and we call on them to engage seriously in the negotiations that alone can bring peace to Syria. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Syrian Observer. A funding shortfall, the US withdrawal from Syria, attacks on Baghouz and the Syrian National Coalition in Europe. Catch up on everything that happened over the weekend. 1. On Thursday, international donors pledged nearly seven billion dollars in aid for civilians caught up in Syrias bloody civil war but the total fell short of what the UN says is needed. According to AFP, the European Union led the pledges with two billion euros, but the conference failed to drum up the nine billion dollars the United Nations said was needed to help the millions of Syrians forced to flee the country as well as those facing a humanitarian crisis at home. European powers reiterated that progress on a UN led peace process must come before they release funds to rebuild Syria although they have dropped their insistence that President Bashar al-Assad must go. 2. US Special Envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, said on Friday that there is no timetable for an American military withdrawal from the war-torn country, and that a small number of troops will remain in Syria for the foreseeable future. During an online briefing, Jeffrey was quoted by Al-Araby al-Jadeed as saying that there is no timetable for the US American withdrawal and confirmed that a smaller force would remain. We anticipate that with a smaller force and with far less combat [and] with the final battle against the Islamic State about to finish we will have far less costs than [before], he said. 3. Ten civilians were killed in the latest aggression launched by the US-led coalition on Baghouz in the southeastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor. Civil sources told SANA that the warplanes of the US-led coalition on Sunday shelled Baghouz and its surroundings, claiming the lives of at least ten civilians, including children and women fleeing from Islamic State terrorists. 4. US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has voiced her support for the Syrian people, as they commemorate the eighth anniversary of the uprising against Bashar al-Assads regime. A message sent out on Saturday by Rep. Omar on Twitter stated her backing of Syrians, coinciding with the eight anniversary of the revolution, which began on Mar. 15, 2011. The people of Syria revolted against Assads repressive dictatorship eight years ago today, demanding a more just and free government. Peace loving people around the world stand in solidarity with them in this struggle! 5. President of the Syrian National Coalition, Abdurrahman Mustafa, and an accompanying delegation will arrive in the German capital Berlin on Monday as part of a European tour. He will discuss the consequences of the Assad regimes serious military escalation against civilians in Idleb as well as ways to push the political process forward. According to the Syrian National Coalition, the delegation will be meeting with a number of officials from the German government and parliamentary blocs on Monday and Tuesday. Mustafa said that the Coalition is discussing with allies ways to prevent the Assad regime from committing more crimes against civilians. He added they will discuss the situation in northeastern Syria, pointing to the need to clear the region of all terrorist organizations and enable the Coalition to work on the formation of local councils elected by the local population to restore stability in that region. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Syria has said that the statement released by the Western states is full of lies and part of a conspiracy to create a new form of colonialism writes SANA. Syria has confirmed that the statement issued by the United States, France and Britain on Syria is a document full of lies, hypocrisy, deception and falsifications. That came in a statement from an official source at Foreign and Expatriates Minister to SANA on Sunday. The source held those countries fully responsible for the bloodshed in Syria and other countries in the region. The countries that killed and destroyed are not invited to contribute to the reconstruction, the source said, stressing that they should only pay compensation for the killing and destruction that resulted from their heinous crimes and stop their blatant interference in internal affairs. Developments of the events, according to the source, confirmed that what Syria and some countries of the region have witnessed is the product of a US-led Western conspiracy to create a new form of colonialism, which confiscates the will of regional countries, looting their wealth and enabling Israel to have the upper hand at the expense of Arab rights and interests. The source added that the crimes and atrocities committed by terrorist groups in Syria and those committed by the US-led illegal coalition, especially in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, will forever remain a stain on the forehead of these false democracies, which pay no head to human life and flagrantly violate international law and human rights law. The Syrian people and the brave army are more determined than ever to fully defeat the Western project and preserve Syrias independent decision making and the unity of its people and land, the source concluded. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. The two side spoke of the need for coordination in the fight against terrorism, while tensions between Iran and Russia continue to rise reports Etihad Press. On Sunday, an Iranian military delegation, including the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagheri, headed to the Syrian capital Damascus for a joint meeting with an Iraqi military delegation and officers in the Syrian regime army command. According to the Iranian Fars agency, the Iranian delegation to Damascus included an inspection tour by Bagheri conducted during a meeting with his countrys military advisers in Syria. The Iranian agency added that the meeting between Bagheri and the Iraqi and Syrian chiefs of staff aimed to coordinate efforts to fight terrorism, but the tripartite meeting also comes after the emergence of Iranian-Russian tensions around Syria. In recent days, Baghdad has seen increasing visits by Iranian political and security figures, indicating that Tehran is trying, through this meeting, to bolster its influence in Syria and Iraq. Disputes between the two sides came to the surface following the conflict of interests and priorities between Moscow and Tehran in Syria. Iran fears an Israeli-Russian convergence, as well as Russians and Iranians competing for influence over military, political and economic influence, and Russias attempts to remove the Iranian military presence in Syria. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Food safety section of the Uttarakhand Health Department has served notices to Swiggy and Zomato for delivering non-vegetarian food in restricted areas of the holy city of Haridwar. The food department claimed that both the leading food delivery aggregators have violated the bylaws of the city by delivering non-veg food which also hurts the sentiments of the locals. While giving out details, RS Pal, the deputy food safety officer in Hardiwar said, "Local residents had complained to city magistrate Jagdish Lal recently. Following which, we were asked to investigate the matter. The two companies failed to show Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence to the teams that had gone to inspect their offices. The firms also had not obtained no-objection certificates from the municipal corporation to deliver non-veg products." He added, "The bylaws of Haridwar municipal corporation prohibit sale of non-vegetarian food, including meat and meat products, within the city limits. This also goes to areas such as Kharkari, Har-ki-Pauri, Kankhal, Jawalpuri, Motichur and Haripur areas of the city." Reportedly, both the food aggregators have issued statements regarding the issue. They apologised for hurting the religious sentiments and said that the incident would not happen again. The Zomato's statement read, "We respect the religious sentiments of the holy city and will oblige with the directives set by the authorities." Zomato further added that they've applied for the licence in Haridwar and were working with FSSAI to ensure there are no complaints. A spokesperson from Swiggy said that they deeply regret the omission for delivering non-vegetarian food in the restricted areas of the city. "We have addressed the issue and would like to reiterate that as of March 16, Swiggy is delivering only vegetarian food in Haridwar. Swiggy has a central FSSAI licence and only lists FSSAI registered restaurants on the platform," the statement quoted. Also Read: E-commerce and consumer internet companies raised over $7 billion in PEVC capital in 2018: EY Also Read: From Oyo to Paytm, Indian e-commerce firms raised over $7 billion in 2018: EY If youre like me and put aesthetics above everything else, youd be happy to hear that that everyones favourite 13 inch powerful laptop, the ASUS ZenBook UX333 is now available in a brand new sexy colour: Burgundy Red. The laptop comes with tech specs that include the 8th Gen Core i5 processor and i7 processor, Full HD display, a 512GB PCIe Gen3 x2 SSD, 8GB RAM (2133MHz LPDDR3) and NVIDIA GeForce MX150, 2GB GDDR5 VRAM. Among the features of this stylish laptop includes a large screen-to-body ratio with slim bezels (approximately 95%), a touchpad that doubles up as a number pad and a 3D IR camera which allows for fast login which works pretty decent even in low light. If youre interested in getting your very own Burgundy Red ASUS ZenBook UX333, you can head on over to one of their many authorized dealers in Malaysia. To find out more about the device, you can find ASUSs product page! Burgundy Red is definitely a buying factor for me. What about you? Make sure to check out TechNave.com for the latest ASUS news! Were less than a month away from the OPPO Renos launch in China on the 10th of April and tech specs and features for the device has begun to leak. Leaked information about the device surfaced earlier today, showing off some of Renos features such as the 50W Super VOOC fast charging as well as the Snapdragon 855 chipset. The OPPO Reno is said to come in 3 models: 8GB RAM + 256GB internal storage, 10GB RAM + 256GB internal storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB internal storage. Besides that, the device may be powered by a 4065mAh battery and is kept cool by the Super Ice Cooling technology. The company claims that the 6th generation fingerprint scanner is 15x faster than current optical in-display fingerprint scanners on the market. Design-wise, the OPPO Reno may have a FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED display that supports HDR10+. Both the back and front glass may consist of the Corning Gorilla Glass 6. The device may be slim, measuring less than 8mm in thickness and the body may be made from 7-series aluminum alloy. You can expect the device to come in gradient colour options. In addition, the 32MP selfie camera housed may come equipped with a Sony IMX510 sensor. As for the 48MP selfie camera, it may be bundled with the Sony IMX586 snapper alongside a 120 degree super wide angle sensor and a telephoto lens with 10x lossless zoom to make up the rear triple camera setup. Several devices comparing charge speeds: (From the left) OnePlus 6, a Huawei SuperCharging device, the presumed OPPO Reno and a Xiaomi device. There may be a OPPO Reno Lite Deluxe Edition of the device which may come in in two variants: 8GB RAM + 128GB internal storage and 8GB RAM + 256GB internal storage. This device may have slightly lower specs compared to the regular OPPO Reno model with Snapdragon 675 and 5x lossless zoom instead of 10x and may not come with the Sony IMX510 selfie sensor. Not enough oomph for you? The leak also revealed a Lamborghini version of the OPPO Reno with 12GB RAM + 256GB internal storage alongside 5000mAh battery capacity. It may come with a liquid metal body. A 5G version apparently is also available with the same specs as the Lamborghini version of the device with the exception of the battery capacity. Bundled with the Snapdragon 855 may be the X50 LTE modem. So far, we havent heard of any Malaysia release date or Malaysia price yet but we may be seeing the device coming to Malaysia in 4 colours. Besides that, heres a list of speculated prices for the devices: OPPO Reno 8GB + 256GB: 4999 Yuan (~RM3038) 10GB + 256GB: 5499 Yuan (~RM3342) 12GB + 256GB: 6999 Yuan (~RM4254) OPPO Reno Lamborghini Edition 12GB + 512GB: 9999 Yuan (~RM6075) OPPO Reno Lite Deluxe Edition 8GB + 128GB: 3699 Yuan (~RM2247) 8GB + 256GB: 3999 Yuan (~RM2430) Personally, I think the 10x lossless zoom shown off by OPPO at MWC 2019 was pretty impressive but it isnt really a selling factor for me. Seeing the specs of the OPPO Reno clearly labels the device as a flagship. The mid-rangers are likely to be the OPPO Reno Lite Deluxe Edition. So is the lossless zoom technology by OPPO a selling factor to you? For the latest smartphone news, leaks and rumours, TechNave.com is your best source! Credit: Stanley Robotics Many air travelers, whether frequent or infrequent, find that boarding, checking luggage and clearing documents at busy airports are not as stressful as one more experiencetrying to find a parking space. Hopefully, this month's debut at an airport in France suggests parking at airports will be much less stressful. Congratulate a robot named Stan. Airport Technology quoted the COO of Stanley Robotics, Stephane Evanno. "It's a machine that autonomously detects a vehicle, slides under it, lifts it gently by the wheels and moves it to a storage area." We are not talking about a biped hero grinning at the blue Mercedes. These Stan robots are what James Vincent in The Verge described as "essentially self-driving forklifts." Stan robots made their service debut this month at France's Lyon-Saint Exupery airport, in an impressive show of robot valet technology at an airport. How does the robot system work? The Verge: Customers park their cars in special hangars. The cars are scanned for make and model. Stan enters, "slides a platform underneath the vehicle, lifts it up, and carries it away and parks it." Romain Dillet in TechCrunch said the Stan robots will make your car accessible shortly before you land. "For the first time in the world, Stanley Robotics' outdoor automated robotic valet system, developed in partnership with Aeroports de Lyon, was presented in operation on Thursday, March 14," the French company said, in a promotional video. These are completely autonomous robotic valets. They pick up vehicles at a drop off point and park them for passengers in an outdoor car park. How easy is that? Airport Technology: "For many passengers, finding a parking space at the airport is the cherry atop the towering wedding cake of stress that comes with air travel." The Stanley Robotics sounds as if it will remove at least that source of stress. For those who fly frequently, the minutes saved not having to hunt for a parking space are inviting; more minutes are freed to fulfill any other pre-boarding actions. Environmental impact? Stan gets good marks in being a "green" solution; the battery-driven robots, 100 percent electric, are polluting less than other cars moving around in search of a space. "The setup includes four autonomous robots and 12 cabins for vehicle drop-off and collection. As the vehicles are deposited within a few centimeters of one another, the innovative system will enable more than 500 vehicles to be parked in P5+, a potential space saving of up to 50%," said Karima Kouidri in Airport Benchmarking. Stanley Robotics had submitted the Stan system to testing. Dillet in TechCrunch: "You can't walk on the parking lot. You just interact with a garage at the gate of the parking. After the door is closed, the startup controls the environment from start to finish." Stanley Robots is not ignoring the need for human scrutiny, though, should intervention be needed. Airport Technology: The team intends to offer "maintenance personnel that can regularly check the technology on-site and perform fixes." They are also talking about "redundancy solutions in case something goes wrong." And then there are contingency plans. For the most part, the company has an easy time to predict incoming lows, as passengers need to book ahead for flights and parking, but there always needs to be a proactive "but." Airport Technology quoted Evanno. "We also plan to have some spare robots just to cope with any unexpected event, [such as] too many planes landing at the same time." The robot group can decrease the number of robots that are needed, or the size of the car park could be adjusted for use as for other operations. On the airport side of the business, one does not have to think very hard as to why there might be a business case for the robot valet parking system. TechCrunch's Romain Dillet remarked how "many airports don't have a ton of space. They keep adding new terminals and it is becoming increasingly complicated to build more parking lots." The system in operation means the airport can safely park vehicles closer to each other. This in turn could add capacity "in an already full-to-the-rafters car park," as Airport Technology put it. The Stanley Robotics site makes a business pitch to airports as a space-creating solution and in "optimizing parking space." The team said, "An intelligent management software coordinates all of the robots. It also ensures a more pragmatic use of space by arranging more vehicles within a given area." What's next? The service is going live on a large scale for passengers in the coming weeks. This is a strategic partnership with Lyon-Saint Exupery airport and its owner, Vinci Airports, said Airport Technology. Reports said the company hopes to expand to more parking spots at the airport soon. Explore further Robot valet to park cars at German airport 2019 Science X Network On Christmas morning , each of the four girls woke up to find a copy of Pilgrim's Progress under her pillow. Meg told her sisters that she was going to read a little each morning , both to keep her spirits up and to help her be good. Then Jo spoke up. "Look how good Meg is. Come on, girls, let's do the same." Soon, all four sisters were seated at the little tables in their bedrooms reading their books. After a half hour, they went downstairs to wish their mother" Merry Christmas," only to find that she wasn't there. Meg asked where she had gone, and Hannah replied, "Someone came a callin' and your ma went straightaway to see if she could help." The girls got everything ready to surprise their mother. Jo softened the new slippers by dancing around the rooms as Meg readied the gift basket . Beth showed off the handkerchiefs, which she had lovingly embroidered with the word "Mother". "Where's Amy's perfume? Meg asked. Jo replied, "She went to find a piece of ribbon to tie around the bottle." A door slammed and the girls heard steps in the hallway. "Quick," said Jo, "there's Mother. Hide the basket!" It was only Amy, who looked liked she was up to something. Meg asked, "What's that behind your back?" "Now don't laugh at me," Amy said, "but I've exchanged my little bottle for a big one, and I've used up all my money." She took the new beautiful bottle out of the bag to show her sisters, who hugged her. "I was ashamed of my present after reading about being good and kind this morning, ao I went to get Marmee something better." The door banged a second time. Meg shoved the basket under the sofa, and the girls went to the table, eager for their Christmas breakfast. When their mother came into the room, they all cried out, "Thank you for the presents, Marmee. We've already read some, and will read more each day!" "Merry Christmas, little dauthters! I 'm glad you're enjoying the books. Now, I want to say something. A very poor family lives nearby. They have no fire and are very hungry. Will you girls give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?" The girls were desperately hungry after waiting an hour for Marmee, so at first no one said anything. Then, Jo piped up: "I'm so glad we hadn't started yet!" Beth said she would love to help carry the food to the poor family. And Amy said she would take the cream and the muffins--the food she loved most. Meg was already covering the pancakes and putting the bread on a plate. Mrs. March smiled at her daughters. "When we get back, we'll have bread and milk for breakfast. Then, we'll have a wonderful dinner to make up for everything." They were soon ready and left in the cold to help the family in need. When they arrived, they were shoked to see the bare, unheated , miserable room. A sick mother held her crying baby. Six other children huddled under one blanket, but they managed a smile as the March family came inside. "Angels have come to help us!" Mrs. Hummel, the mother, cried. Jo grinned. "Funny angels in hoods and mittens." Everyone laughed. In a few minutes, the room completely changed. Hannah made a fire with wood she had carried. Mrs. March gave Mrs. Hummel tea and oatmeal. Tenderly, she wrapped the newborn. The four March sisters fed the children near the fire. They were very happy to see their joyful faces. Once back at home, the girls set out their presents while their mother was out collecting clothed for the poor Hummels. Jo screamed with glee, "She's coming! Beth, play a tune. Amy, get the door. Three cheers for Marmee!" Jo marched around on her long legs. ( With less than a month to go for the Lok Sabha polls, Congress General Secretary and eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her 3 day election campaign from her great grandfather and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's birthplace Prayagraj (Allahabad) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency Varanasi by boat. The Congress General Secretary will cover a distance of 140 kilometers during her 3-day yatra by boat, from Chhatnag in Prayagraj to Assi Ghat in Varanasi. She began her 'Ganga Yatra' boat rally to Varanasi with a 'boat pe charcha' with the students from across Uttar Pradesh. Priyanka will also visit Bhadohi and Mirzapur districts before reaching Varanasi where she will visit Kashi Vishwanath temple and take part in Holi celebrations with workers. Also Read: Priyanka Gandhi targets PM Modi in first speech after officially entering politics Before beginning her 'Ganga Yatra', she offered prayers on the banks of Sangam -- a confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. Priyanka in a tweet on late Sunday evening recalled her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While putting me to sleep at night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," the Congress leader said in a tweet in Hindi. Soon after her arrival at the party office in Lucknow on Sunday, Priyanka said political stagnation in Uttar Pradesh had left the state's youth, women, farmers and labourers distressed and it was her responsibility to change the politics here. Also Read: Priyanka rakes up jobs, money in bank accounts in her first public speech "Due to stagnation in the politics of the state, youngsters, women, farmers and labourers are worried. They want to share their pain and agony, but in the noise of political arithmetic, their voice is completely absent from the policies of the state," she said in an open letter. Gandhi said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a 'sacha samwaad' (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in politics. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. The Congress leader said she would reach out to people through various means of transportation, including waterways, buses, train and 'padayatra' (on foot). Also Read: Modi govt did not fulfil promises of providing jobs: Priyanka Gandhi "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our 'Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb' (cross culture). It does not differentiate among people. Gangaji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," the letter read. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. The four-time Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, 63 bid adieu to the world on Sunday after a year long battle with pancreatic cancer. Always dressed in his trademark half-sleeved untucked shirt and leather sandals Parrikar was known for his frugal lifestyle, and yet was a rare national leader from Goa with cross-cultural appeal who dominated the state politics for two decades. Often ascribed as the original Aam Aadmi, Parrikar was often seen riding scooter to work and was hailed for his grounded and humble nature. "People ask me whether I travel on a scooter. I tell them that I don't any more. My mind is filled with work-related thoughts and if I ride my scooter while my mind is somewhere else, then I could meet with an accident," Parrikar had recently told BJP workers. Also Read: Manohar Parrikar's Final Journey Live Updates: Funeral procession to begin at 4:00pm; PM Narendra Modi to attend He rose from a pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to become the chief minister of Goa and also the country's Defence Minister, living a simple life in the politically-volatile coastal state. Parrikar served Goa four times as chief minister and had also been appointed as the Defence Minister in the Modi government. Parrikar is survived by his two sons and their families. The government has declared national mourning on Monday. The former Defence Minister's health took a turn for worse over the weekend. Parrikar was diagnosed with pancreatic ailment last year and was discharged from the Goa Medical College and Hospital near Panaji on February 26 last month. Parrikar was a simple person and a leader with ambition, ingenuity and disposition to battle it out, someone who enjoyed acceptance from all sections of the BJP cutting across party lines. Also Read: Lok Sabha elections 2019: Political instability returns to Goa as Congress stakes claim to form government He was born on December 13, 1955, into a middle-class family and began his political career as a pracharak for RSS and continued with the Sangh even after graduating from IIT-Bombay. Parrikar joined electoral politics in 1994 after he won on a ticket from BJP for the Panaji constituency. He had led the Opposition from June to November 1999 and became famous for his speeches against the Congress-led government of that time. He took oath as chief minister of Goa for the first time on October 24, 2000. However, his tenure lasted till February 27, 2002. Parrikar was re-elected on June 5, 2002, and served another term in the state as the chief minister. Congress's Pratapsinh Rane subsequently replaced Manohar Parrikar as chief minister, when BJP was defeated by Congress' Digambar Kamat in 2007 assembly elections. In 2012, Parrikar, while riding a popularity wave, gave BJP the historic victory with 21 out of 40 seats in the state assembly. He again became the chief minister of Goa. After Modi Cabinet was sworn at the Centre in 2014, Parrikar was offered a ministerial berth in the party. He remained in berth till 2017 when his party failed to gather a majority in the assembly polls in Goa. His health started to deteriorate from February last year and he was admitted at Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai, for the pancreatic ailment. Later, in the first week of March, he was flown to the United States and was under observation at the hospital till June 2018. Parrikar returned to India and attended the monsoon session of Assembly and left again for the US on August 10 for further treatment. He returned on August 22, 2018. After being treated at his residence, Parrikar was moved to the AIIMS, New Delhi on September 15, 2018. He reached the Chief Minister's office on January 2 and stunned everyone. He attended the inauguration of the third bridge on the Mandovi River on January 27 along with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. He also presented Goa's Budget of 2019 on the very next day of the union budget session, which was held on January 29. He was once again taken to AIIMS, New Delhi, for treatment on January 31 and returned to Goa on February 5. Parrikar, during the last few days, had been moving in and out of Goa Medical College for treatment but was mostly present at his residence. Goa Chief minister Manohar Parrikar passed away at his private residence on Sunday at the age of 63. Following the death of Parrikar, the Centre has announced national mourning day on Monday, March 18. Also, the Goa government has announced seven-day mourning after the chief minister's death. Meanwhile, Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari has arrived in Panaji for the BJP legislature meet to search for a new leader to replace Parrikar. Parrikar was heading a coaliation government comprising BJP, Goa Forward Party, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and independents. Moreover, with CM Parrikar's demise, the Pananji assembly seat will go for fourth bypoll in Goa where by-elections are scheduled for the Shiroda, Mandrem and Mapusa assembly constituencies on April 23. ALSO READ:Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar passes away: President Kovind, PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi pay tributes Follow BusinessToday.In LIVE blog for more updates: 6.30pm: Bhartiya Janata Party's President Amit Shah, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Pramod Sawant arrive in Panaji for a meeting. BJP President Amit Shah,Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and BJP Goa MLAs including Pramod Sawant arrive at a Hotel in Panaji for a meeting pic.twitter.com/Wu1DSmE2c2 - ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 6.15pm: Pramod Sawant, Goa Assembly Speaker, will swear-in as the new Chief Minister of the state tonight. Additionally, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party's Sudin Dhawlikar and Goa Forward Party's Vijai Sardesai will also swear-in as the deputy chief ministers. 6.00pm: Goa's four-time CM Manohar Parrikar cremated with full state honours. 5.50pm: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to late Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. Paid tributes to my friend Shri Manohar Parrikar. He personified humility, simplicity and compassion. The good work he has done will be remembered for years to come. pic.twitter.com/AX2o3yJZHe - Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 18, 2019 5.30pm: Visuals from the final ceremony of late Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar in Panaji. Panaji: Visuals from the last rites ceremony of late Goa Chief Minister #ManoharParrikar. pic.twitter.com/LrdsXHmRuB - ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 5:10pm: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari leaves for the funeral site. 4:45pm: Late Goa chief minister's funeral procession from Kala Academy to Miramar has begun; last rites to be performed shortly. 4:30pm: A huge crowd walk behind the coffin carrying the mortal remains of the departed leader, who would be accorded a state funeral with full military honours this evening, according to the home ministry. 4.00pm: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that Manohar Parrikar used to say that despite working in the government, he felt that his heart was in Goa. 3:50pm: Haryana government declared a one-day state mourning on Monday as a mark of respect to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. "The State government has decided to observe a one-day state mourning as a mark of respect to the departed dignitary. The national flag will fly at half-mast on March 18," an order issued by Haryana Chief Secretary's office said. 3:45pm: An artist from Amroha, Mohammad Zuhaib, pays his last respects to late Goa Chief Minister #ManoharParrikar by making a charcoal portrait. pic.twitter.com/QsZUuB8wYZ - ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 18, 2019 03: 30 pm: Reports suggest that BJP's allies have put forth their conditions to accept the CM candidate suggested by the national party. 03:19 pm: Senior BJP leaders have gathered in Panjim to pay their last respects to Manohar Parrikar. Apart from PM Modi, union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, and Smriti Irani met the family members of Parrikar and expresseed their condolences. Nitin Gadkari had arrived in Goa in the early hours of Monday to help BJP tide over the power tussle in the absence of Parrikar. Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah will also be present in the funeral. 03:10 pm: Union Minister Smriti Irani got emotional as she was paying her last repects to Goa CM and her former colleague Manohar Parrikar. Panaji: Union Minister Smriti Irani gets emotional as she pays last respects to Goa CM #ManoharParrikar. pic.twitter.com/NOOucOU8iO ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 02:39 pm: PM Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Governor Mridula Sinha meet Manohar Parrikar's family in Panjim. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Governor Mridula Sinha meet family of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar, in Panaji. pic.twitter.com/X11DkUJofU ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 02:30 pm: PM Narendra Modi has reached Kala Academy in Panjim to pay his last respects to Manohar Parrikar. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has also arrived. The mortal remains of the Goa CM will be taken to Miramar beach in a funeral procession starting 4:00 pm. The last rites will be performed around 5:00 pm. The funeral will happen close to the memorial for first Chief Minister of Goa. Panaji: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pay last respects to Goa CM #ManoharParrikarpic.twitter.com/aNUC7nEJPm ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 02:10 pm: Goa Speaker and BJP MLA Pramod Sawant and health minister Viswajit Rane have reportedly been shorlisted for the post of Goa CM. The final decision will be taken after taking the allied parties in confidence, Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo told India Today after his meeting with union minister Nitin Gadkari over the matter. 02:04 pm: Manohar Parrikar's body has been brought to Kala Academy in Panjim. People have lined up the to pay their last respects. 01:51 pm: Goa BJP chief Vijay Tendulkar said that the party will decide the next CM candidate by 2:00 pm and the swearing in will happen around 3:00 pm. Tendulkar himself is one of the favourites for the post. Also, the funeral procession of Manohar Parrikar will start around 4:00 pm. Goa BJP president Vinay Tendulkar: I think everything will be clear by 2 pm. The swearing-in ceremony of Goa CM will happen today around 3 pm. pic.twitter.com/lJ3c95HAv4 ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 01:43 pm: Talking to reporters after meeting the Governor, Chandrakant Kavlekar of Goa Congress said that they have staked claim to form government in the state as they have 14 MLAs. He expressed his sorrow on the demise of Goa CM Manohar Parrikar. Chandrakant Kavlekar, Congress: We met the Governor&staked claim to form government as we are the single largest party in the state. We have 14 MLAs and we should be given the chance to form the government. We have told that we will prove majority. Saddened by demise of Goa CM pic.twitter.com/vuBtmDd74M ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 01:35 pm: A delegation of Congress leaders have met Goa Governor Mridula Sinha. The party has already approached the Governor, staking a claim to form government in the state. #Goa: Congress delegation meets Governor Mridula Sinha in Panaji. pic.twitter.com/pjQhHcwHxx ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 01:31 pm: Despite the lack of support from allies, BJP's Pramod Sawant has the best chances of becoming the next Chief Minister of Goa. Viswajit Rane, yet another BJP man, is also a strong contender for the office. BJP is likely to declare its next CM within a few hours. 12:55 pm: Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party has finished its meeting with Nitin Gadkari. MGP chief Sudin Dhavlikar told India Today that the picture will be clear by 3:00 pm. He has suggested his name for the post of Goa CM. 12:51 pm: The BJP-led alliance in Goa is still indecisive over the who will be the next CM of Goa after Manohar Parrikar. BJP's Pramod Sawant, who is one of the forerunners for the office, has reportedly been turned down by the party's allies in the state. 12:00 pm: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will reach Goa at 1:30pm today. 11:47 pm: There still is no certainity over the next CM for Goa yet. Talking to ANI, BJP MLA Glenn Ticklo said that one of the 12 BJP MLAs should be the one to be named the next CM. The BJP's allies in the state, Goa Forward Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, have not arrived at a consensus either. Notably, Congress has apprached Governor Mridula Sinha, seeking permission to form government in the state. 11:20 pm: PM Narendra Modi will shortly leave for Goa to attend the last rites of Manohar Parrikar. 11:10 pm: Visuals from Panjim BJP office, where hundreds of people reached to pay their last respects to Manohar Parrikar. 11:00 pm: IIT Bombay will hold a condolence meeting for Goa CM Manohar Parrikar, an alumnus of the premium tech college. 10:46 pm: While there is no clarity on who will be the next Goa CM, several names have come up so far. BJP MLA and Goa Speaker Pramod Sawant, and state Health Minister Vishwajit Rane have been suggested by the BJP. Party's state chief Vinay Tendulkar and Shripad Naik are other names doing the rounds. Reports also suggest that Maharashtra Gomatak Party's leader Sudin Dhavlikar has put forward his name for the post of Goa CM. 10:40 pm: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has arrived at the Panjim BJP office to pay his last repects to his former colleague in the Union Cabinet and Goa CM Manohar Parrikar. Goa: Mortal remains of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar brought to BJP office in Panaji. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari arrives to pay last respects to him. pic.twitter.com/nvg5j1Of4c ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 10:32 pm: Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari is till considering the names of probable candidates for the office of Goa CM in a meeting with legislators from the BJP, the allied parties - Goa Forward Party and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party - and the independents. 10:18 pm: People turn up in numbers at the Panjim BJP office to pay their last respects to Goa CM Manohar Parrikar. Goa: Visuals from BJP office in Panaji. Mortal remains of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar will be brought here for people to pay last respects to him. pic.twitter.com/zSHGEZqwBu ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 10:13 pm: An event to unveil a new poster of the biopic on PM Narendra Modi was reportedly cancelled following the demise of Goa CM Manohar Parrikar.BJP president Amit Shah was supposed to attend the unveiling, IANS reported. 10:07 pm: The procession with the mortal remains of Manohar Parrikar has reached rhe BJP office in Panjim. Hundreds have arrived at the place to pay their respects. 09:49 pm: Mortal remains of Goa CM Manohar Parrikar being taken to Panjim BJP office. Goa: Mortal remains of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar being taken to BJP office from his residence, in Panaji. pic.twitter.com/Ksr8afYDNa ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 09:40 pm: PM Narendra Modi will be flying to Panjim to attend the last rites of Goa CM Manohar Parrikar. The funeral will be performed at Miramar beach in Panjim at 5:00 pm. 09:36 pm: The mortal remains of Manohar Parrikar have been to the BJP office in Panjim, where it will remain till 10:30 am. After that, Parrikar's body will be taken to Kala Academy where the people can pay their last respects. The funeral procession will begin at 4:00 pm. 09:04 pm: The High Court of Bombay at Goa and District will remain closed today, ANI reported. #Goa: High Court of Bombay at Goa and District Courts in the state to remain closed today in view of passing away of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar. ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 09:01 pm: The mortal remains of Goa CM Manohar Parrikar being taken to the Panjim BJP head office. Visuals from outside the residence of #ManoharParrikar in Panaji, Goa. pic.twitter.com/5M6lzmaVWv ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 08:45 pm: After Manohar Parrikar, the BJP is left with 12 MLAs in the Goa state assembly, out of total 36 seats. The party has an alliance with Goa Forward Party and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, both of which have three MLAs each, along with three independents. This makes the BJP-led alliance the one with majority in the state. 08:30 pm: The BJP and its allies in Goa are yet to reach a consensus on the successor to Manohar Parrikar as Chief Minister of the state. A decision is likely to be made today. 08:15 pm: Digambar Kamat has refuted speculations of a BJP offer take up the mantle of Goa CM. Kamat had held the post before Manohar Parrikar from 2007 to 2012. Didn't get any offer from BJP to become Goa CM: Digambar Kamat Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/Cu7pDRc6uYpic.twitter.com/V7ePfsC8Y2 ANI Digital (@ani_digital) March 17, 2019 08:10 pm: Congress writes to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha seeking permission to form government. Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship. Political and cultural commentary from the perspective of radical common sense. Opposition to the AMERICAN BIPOLARCHY and ideological fanaticism in all forms. Don't take our word for anything: figure it out for yourself. A Surat-based doctorate student who recently completed his thesis on Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in news not for his academic work, but his name! His name is Mehul Choksi. Yes, he is the namesake of the absconding businessman Mehul Choksi accused in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam worth Rs. 13,000 crore. It's little surprise that the fact he has done a thesis on PM Modi has tickled the funny bone of many on social media. Mehul Choksi who has masters in Political Science took up higher studies at the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University in Surat and submitted his thesis on the topic "Leadership under Government- Case Study of Narendra Modi." Also Read: PM Modi calls Nirav Modi 'Nirav Bhai', Mehul Choksi 'Mehul Bhai', says Rahul Gandhi Choksi formulated a survey for his research and interviewed 450 people including government officials, farmers, students and political leaders asking them questions concerning the leadership quality of PM Modi. Speaking to ANI, Choksi said, "The questionnaire had a total of 32 questions. After tabulating the answers given by 450 people it was found that 25 per cent believed that Modi's speeches are most appealing while 48 per cent were of the view that Modi's political marketing is the best." The doctorate student who is also a lawyer, completed his PhD under the academic guidance of Dr Nilesh Joshi of Arts Department, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University. Also Read: ED chargesheet names Nirav Modi's wife Ami Modi in PNB scam Choksi started his PhD in the year 2010 when Modi was Gujarat's Chief Minister. In the initial phase, questions related to Modi's successful leadership were asked and he said he received positive feedback from 51 per cent and negative response from 34.25 per cent. 46.75 per cent of people said to gain popularity, a leader should take decisions that benefit the public. "81 per cent people think that positive leadership is important to be the prime minister of the country, 31 per cent believe authenticity is necessary and 34 per cent believes that transparency is a must," Choksi told the news agency. Dr Nilesh Joshi also stated, "We found the topic of the case study very interesting. We faced some challenges as it is difficult to write about the person who holds a higher position and that too without any biases." Also Read: PNB scam: Mehul Choksi says use of Antigua PM's powers to extradite him violates nation's democracy Reaching out to people and seeking their response was also one of the challenging parts of the study, the professor said. However, the fact that the doctorate scholar shares his name with the fugitive diamond trader tickled the funny bone on social media. Choksi fled India last year after the PNB scam was unearthed and has taken up the citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda to circumvent extradition and arrest by Indian authorities. Opposition has often targeted Modi government over its inaction in apprehending Choksi and Modi who are said to be leading comfortable lives abroad. Also Read: PNB fraud: Special court issues non-bailable warrant against Nirav Modi's wife The acclaimed British director Mike Leigh, known for his gritty "kitchen sink realism" style, held a special masterclass at the Cinematheque for the Luxembourg City Film Festival. On Saturday 16 March, the "living legend of European social realism" spent an afternoon discussing his work with Michel Clement. The festival also screened four of his films: Peterloo (2018), Mr Turner (2014), Another Year (2010), and Naked (1993). The famed director also spoke with RTL Today in an interview. In the above clip, he discusses his favourite experience in Luxembourg and advice to young filmmakers. For the full interview with Leigh, watch below! 25 million were invested in the new Brasserie de Luxembourg brewery in Diekirch. Energy and water saving systems as well as carbon footprint reduction strategies lie at the heart of the impressive new building. Back in January 2010, rumour had it that Diekirch may no longer be brewed... in Diekirch. To avoid negative publicity of this kind, the owner of the Brasserie de Luxembourg (multinational drink and brewing holdings company AB InBev) decided to invest a significant sum and set up a new brewery. According to the director of the Brasserie de Luxembourg, Gilles Nackaerts, this investment demonstrates the company's "undeniable will to stay true to its roots and its customers." The location of the new brewery also shows commitment to the city of Diekirch, he added. The new brewery was designed by the Luxembourgish architecture firm Beiler Francois Fritsch. Building works began in 2017 and, 25 million later, the new brewery was finally inaugurated this Friday. Several officials, including prime minister Xavier Bettel, were present during the inauguration. Modernity and green technologies The company hopes that the new state-of-the-art brewery will do justice to the expectations and demands of the costumers. Technological innovation plays a key role in this context, Nackaerts explained. In fact, the brewery will reduce electricity consumption by 15%. The main brewing room is also equipped with a vapour condensation system that allows it to recover energy and consequently reduce calorific energy by 38%. Water consumption will similarly decrease by 10%. As operational director Pierre Van Vynckt enthusiastically explains, the brewery also prides itself on its new filtration system, which is unique in Europe. A membrane filter allows filtration of the beer without the use of any filter additives. No bottling in Luxembourg Even though the Brasserie de Luxembourg produces both Diekirch and Mousel beer, the priority for now remains Diekirch, Nackaerts confirmed. Operational director Pierre Van Vynckt added that the alcohol-free version of Diekirch beer is produced in Belgium, where the company has the infrastructure required to de-alcoholize beer. The bottling of the beer also takes place in Belgium. In Diekirch, the beer is only put in barrels that are then shipped to Louvain. Considering the current popularity of microbreweries, Nackaerts does not exclude the possibility of starting to brew other beers. If their infrastructure allows it, a small seasonal series may be an option, he explained. At around 11.45 pm on Saturday night, two CFL employees were brutally attacked by a group of about 10 teenagers. A train from Wasserbillig to Luxembourg City had just entered Oetrange train station, when a security guard noticed people moving on the tracks. He consequently asked the teenagers to clear the tracks for safety reasons. The group, however, brutally attacked the guard and beat him up. The train driver rushed to the help of his colleague but was also beaten. After the attack, the teenagers (estimated to be between 16 and 18 years old) took off. Emergency services transported both victims to the hospital. Police have launched an investigation. Object on the train tracks Luxembourg's federation of transport personnel Syprolux published a press release in the wake of the violent incident. They explained that unknown suspects had also placed a large piece of metal on the train tracks on the same route. The piece of metal was 1.20 m wide. A train, which drove over the metal, had to perform an emergency stop, coming to a halt near Munsbach station. It is possible that the two incidents are connected. Syprolux highlighted that this act could have had serious consequences. They also denounce the brutal attack on the two CFL employees. The aggressors should be caught as soon as possible and be held responsible for their actions, they said. Syprolux also emphasised that it was time for politicians to tackle this kind of issue and to take adequate steps - the protection of employees working in the public transport sector needs to be ensured. Just over 100 gynaecologists are currently working in the Grand-Duchy, but the profession is slowly losing its appeal, according to physician Marc Stieber. A possible reason that working as a gynaecologist in Luxembourg is losing its appeal is partly insurance-related, but also due to the lack of support from the political environment, especially in terms of night duty in hospitals. The new hospital plan intends for hospitals that count more than 1,500 childbirths a year to have gynaecologists on duty 24/7. Maternity wards that do not reach these numbers, the hospital in Esch being one example, do not have to follow these exact guidelines. However, doctors will still have to be on call in case they are needed. According to Robert Lemmer, president of the Luxembourg Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, having to be on duty and on the premises of the hospital is unnecessary, as there have not been any known problems in the past. Physician Marc Stieber feels that the idea of being on duty in hospital 24/7 has not been fully thought through, as the law in question has not considered the lack of budget required for not only the gynaecologists themselves, but also paediatricians and anaesthesiologists who would also have to be on-call non-stop. Additional uncertainties arise: would doctors who were on call for the night have an off day the following day? How would those costs be covered, especially as their regular doctors practises would have to remain open for standard consultations as usual? Another issue, according to Stieber, is that of insurances. Gynaecologists would, of course, not practise medicine without being covered for insurance. To be more specific, as doctors would be treating new patients when urgent care is needed, this comes with a lot more risks, largely due to the fact that they do not necessarily know the patients and their medical history. Whilst physicians are covered by the professional responsibility of the hospitals and the Ministry, larger insurance companies would most likely not be willing to take the risk. On a slightly different note, birth rates went down from 6,581 to 6,702 between 2014 and 2016, according to a recent report. As reported last week, Luxembourg's lawmakers are preparing for a no-deal Brexit as the UK's deadline looms. We've examined the draft bills affecting British citizens that are being processed by the Chamber of Deputies. As MPs promised in a session last weekend, the British citizens residing in Luxembourg will be protected by adequate legislation. On Monday, the official website of the Chamber of Deputies published information pertaining to a number of draft bills currently being processed in case of a hard Brexit. The draft bills concern measures in the financial sector, the recognition of professional qualifications, and others. Of course, if a withdrawal agreement approved by the European Union is passed in the Houses of Parliament in the UK, then the rights of British citizens in Luxembourg will depend on measures outlined in the agreement. As the UK remains in limbo, we have gone through the various draft bills in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Draft bill 7412 - transition period for Britons in Luxembourg Status: Approved by MPs forming the parliamentary commission on foreign affairs on Monday morning. Draft bill 7412 details an amendment to the legislation of 29 August 2008 on the free movement of people and immigration. The withdrawal agreement, which has yet to be approved, detailed a transition phase up to 31 December 2020, in which British citizens would continue to hold European rights in terms of free movement and residence. After 1 January 2021, British citizens would be considered third country nationals and would require them to apply for residential permits during the transition period. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' expert specified that the above would only be valid in the case of an orderly Brexit. However, MPs in Luxembourg highlighted the issue of British citizens' rights in Luxembourg if a no-deal Brexit goes ahad. The ministry's expert announced that the Luxembourgish government has decided to adopt a "generous approach" in that matter, as recommended by the European Commission. This approach will allow Britons residing in Luxembourg to continue to live and work in the Grand Duchy without a residential permit for a year. This will allow them to regulate their situations after they no longer have the rights of a EU citizen. Several MPs requested a legal foundation for the government's decision and enquired about the situation of Luxembourgish citizens in the UK. The ministry's expert claimed that the British government should provide assurances about the rights of EU citizens residing in the UK. Draft bill 7409 - automatic recognition of medical qualifications Status: discussed by the parliamentary commission on higher education, vote due before end of March. Draft bill 7409 was examined by the MPs forming the parliamentary commission on higher education. The bill will guarantee that students receiving medical degrees will have their qualifications automatically recognised, even after the UK's exit from the European Union. Degrees that fall under the umbrella of the draft bill are medical degrees, specialist medical degrees, general medical degrees, nursing qualifications, dentistry degrees, specialist dentistry degrees, veterinary degrees, midwifery degrees, pharmacy degrees, and architectural degrees. Any students who gain those qualifications in the UK and go on to seek employment in Luxembourg will have their qualifications recognised automatically following this legislation. The ministry's expert was unable to divulge whether the British government will reciprocate the measure. Draft bill rapporteur Andre Bauler (DP) has confirmed that the vote in the commission and in the Chamber of Deputies will take place before the end of March with an expected entry into effect on 29 March 2019. Draft bill 7406 - protecting the rights of British citizens as private employees of the state Status: Presented to the parliamentary commission on the civil service. On Wednesday 13 March, Minister of the Civil Service Marc Hansen presented draft bill 7406 to the MPs forming the parliamentary commission. The legislation protects the rights of British citizens currently employed as civil servants for the Luxembourgish state. These civil servants will become private employees of the state according to the legislation. Draft bill 7406 primarily concerns 45 British citizens working in the Ministry of Education and are considered important employees within the ministry. MP Gusty Graas (DP) is the rapporteur for the draft bill. Draft bill 7401 - avoiding instability in the financial sector Status: Discussed by the parliamentary commission on finance on Friday 15 March. The draft bill has been in the works since January, when Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna presented the broad lines of the legislation. The draft bill aims to protect the financial sector in Luxembourg following the UK's departure from the European Union. It examines any potential consequences of a no-deal Brexit on Luxembourg's financial sector. More generally, the draft bill will also extend EU financial passports for British financial businesses currently active in the Grand Duchy. This will allow these actors to continue working normally, even if the deadline for Brexit passes without a withdrawal agreement in place. The draft bill envisions a transitional period of 12 months for certain domains. Predominantly, the legislation concerns services in the financial sector, such as payment services, the fund industry, alternatives funds, and insurance. Wonder Caves: Ideal Spot for Hikers and Cave Explorers Cash-strapped Jet Airways has grounded its operations at Abu Dhabi Airport from today for an indefinite period, citing operational reasons. Abu Dhabi is one of the two international hubs of Jet Airways. Dutch capital Amsterdam is the European gateway for the airline for its operations to Europe and beyond. "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from March 18 due to operational reasons," Etihad Airport services said in a notification to its passengers Sunday. Etihad Airport Services is the ground handling arm of Jet Airways investment partner Etihad Airways. Abu Dhabi airport also serves as the main hub of the UAEs national carrier. "Further to the short notice of flight cancellation, (Abu Dhabi) hub may face minor disruption)," the company said in the statement. Responding to PTI queries on the cancellation of its operations from Abu Dhabi, the airline in a statement said, " Jet Airways has pro actively taken certain adjustments to its flight schedule keeping in mind the likely yet interim non-availability of some aircraft in its fleet in the foreseeable future." Jet Airways has also informed the regulator directorate general of civil aviation and the passengers about these changes, it added. Jet Airways has been looking at various ways to raise funds amid acute liquidity crunch that has forced it to ground aircraft, cancel flights in large numbers, shutdown stations and delay salary payments to its pilots and engineers along with other senior staff. On March 8, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas that Jet has sought an urgent funding of Rs 750 crore from its equity partner Etihad. He said that the airline is in a "very precarious" position, which has only worsened following the grounding of 50 of its planes. Jet Airways has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore and needs to make repayments of up to Rs 1,700 crore by the end of March. It has already defaulted on an ECB payment earlier this week but is servicing its domestic debt. The Jet Airways board had on 14 February approved a bailout plan whereby the lenders led by the State Bank of India (SBI) would become the largest shareholders in the airline by converting the airline's debt into equity at a nominal price of Re 1. The Jet Airways bailout plan was approved by the shareholders on 21 February. Also read: Jet Airways' pilots write to Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar over salary arrears Also read: Jet Airways may default on another tranche of $109 million loan to HSBC L&T is reportedly planning to buy 20.4 per cent stake of V G Siddhartha, the top shareholder in Mindtree. This aggressive move is looked upon as a 'hostile takeover' of Mindtree by the infrastructure giant. But, what does 'hostile takeover' really mean? Mergers and acquisitions are inevitable in the corporate world. Acquisitions can be friendly as well as hostile. A friendly acquisition is one in which controlling group of the target company sells its shares to another group wilfully. However, if the management of the target company is unwilling to negotiate, the acquirer can directly approach the shareholders of the company by making an open offer. This is known as a hostile takeover. There have been very few instances of hostile takeovers in the Indian corporate history. However, only two such attempt resulted in change of ownership: In 1983 London-based NRI Swaraj Paul sought to control the management of two Indian companies, Escorts Limited and DCM (Delhi Cloth Mills) Limited by picking up their shares from the stock market. While he was ultimately unsuccessful, Paul's hostile threat sent shockwaves through the Indian business world. In 1998, India Cements Limited ("ICL") in its hostile bid for Raasi Cements Limited ("RCL") made an open offer for RCL shares at Rs 300 per share at the time when the share price on the Stock Exchange, Mumbai ("BSE") was around Rs. 100. In this case investors felt cheated as the promoters themselves sold out their stake to the acquirer leaving little room for them to tender their stake to the acquirer during the open offer. However, ICL also bought out the FIs in the open offer and thereby increased their holding in RCL to 85%. In October 2000, Abhishek Dalmia, made an open offer to acquire 45% of the share capital in Gesco Corporation at Rs 23 per share at a total. This transaction entered in to a drama of hostile takeover until the promoters of Gesco corporation and the Dalmia group announced to have reached an amicable settlement in the battle for Gesco, with the former buying out Dalmias' 10.5% stake at Rs 54 per share for a total consideration of Rs 16 crore. The Gesco Corporation takeover drama showed that a bidder with admittedly poor financial resources could drive the price up of shares only to exit later with a huge profit via a negotiated deal. In 2008, hostile takeover triggered between Emami and Zandu in May 2008 when Emami acquired 24 per cent stake in Zandu from Vaidyas (co-founders) at Rs 6,900 per share. Open offer for further 20 per cent stake followed with co-founders giving in their 18% after 4 months of futility to save the company. Rs 750 crore was the consideration paid by Emami for a 72 per cent stake in the company. In 2012, Essel Group's Subhash Chandra sought to control Iragavarapu Venkata Reddy Construction Limited (IVRCL), an infrastructure company. The promoters in the target company had only 11.2 per cent stake in IVRCL. Subhash Chandra's Essel Group after acquiring 10.7 per cent stake in IVRCl, made a u-turn and decided to exit its shareholdings in the target company. A company has a host of options through which it can prevent hostile takeover. Some of these options make the takeover expensive for the acquirer. In some cases the most attractive assets of the target company are even sold off, so that the acquiring company may lose interest and back out from the hostile takeover. Described below are some of the commonly employed tactics by the target company to counter hostile takeover bids. Poison Pills: A specially designed shareholder rights plan is called poison pill; it comes with with certain conditions drafted specifically to thwart attempted takeovers. Poison pills come into play when a hostile bidder acquires a certain percentage of the target's voting shares, following which the target shareholders become entitled to new shares offered at deep discount, making the target company's shares much more expensive to buy. To deter hostile takeovers a company may make special amendments to its legal charter which becomes active only when a takeover is attempted. It is commonly known as a porcupine provision. These are put in place largely to reinforce the ability of a firm's board of directors to remain in control. Techniques such as staggered or classified board structures may be implemented through which only specified directors are re-elected to the board while others have a fixed tenure, thereby forcing a hostile bidder to wait until the completion of tenure. Pac-Man Defence: Pac-man defence is a bold move in which the target company prevents a takeover by buying stocks in the acquiring company and ultimately gaining control of the acquirer. Sale of Assets: In a move to make the acquisition less interesting for the acquiring company, the target company may sell the whole company or the most important assets of the company. Thereby making the sale less attractive for the acquiring company. White Knight: Where a hostile takeover seems imminent, the target may seek out other investors which are friendly to the target company, and sell the company or substantial stocks of the company to the friendly investor. Such friendly investor is called a white knight. Greenmail: Similar to blackmail, greenmail refers to the money paid to an hostile entity to stop or prevent its aggressive behaviour. Greenmail is an anti-takeover tool in which the target company pays a premium, (known as greenmail), to purchase its own shares back at increased prices from a hostile acquirer. Vietnams Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has called for stricter administration of illegal trading and transport activities involving pet pigs across borders into the country amidst the African swine fever (ASF) epidemic spreading in the northern region. The call was issued by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien, at a time when an increasing number of miniature pigs kept as pets are illicitly transported from neighboring countries to Vietnam. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a mini pet pig is sold for a few million dong. (US$1 = VND23,256) Pet pigs conceal high risk of ASF spread as the epidemic, a severe viral disease which affects both domestic and wild pigs. It is incurable and the infected swine have a 100 percent fatality rate, thus ASF can result in serious production and economic losses. China, which shares Vietnams northern border line, reported a total of 113 AFS outbreaks in 28 provinces, resulting in forced destruction of more than 1.1 million pigs from March 8 to 16, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Meanwhile in Vietnam, 18 localities have reported cases of ASF and 26,807 pigs have been incinerated as of Saturday. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Academic curriculum and learning style at international schools are always a worth-discussing topic in education since they are known to be different from local schools. As for history, a subject generally regarded as a content-heavy course with so many names and dates to memorize, the question of how students study this subject at international schools arouses curiosity among parents. To find out more about how history is taught as per the international curriculum, we talked to Bradley Minchin, Head of Humanities at the British International School Hanoi (BIS Hanoi), who shared with us how they create an engaging learning experience for students to explore history. At BIS Hanoi, History is regarded as an ongoing process of discovery and interpretation in which the students not only study challenging concepts by following the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) but also sharpen their skills through various active learning methods, Mr. Minchin said. We aim to make sure that every history classroom is one that is built with both high ceilings and solid floors. High ceilings - stretch and challenge Mr. Minchin explained that all students are challenged to excel in their learning and have high expectations in terms of their own progress and attainment. With more complex content and concepts from the IGCSE syllabus, students are required to be ambitious in the classroom. They have been exploring the causes of World War 2 and have used critical thinking skills to link and prioritize factors. Group work is emphasized in history as students are provided opportunities for discussion and debate, which reinforces the idea that history itself is not a finished product but an ongoing process of discovery and interpretation. Specifically, students in Year 8 are enabled to see for themselves how different perspectives on events throw up competing versions of what is true about the past. They will evaluate the strength of differing arguments on why the slave trade was abolished, and broaden their understanding of how historians themselves revise what we know about the past in light of new available evidence. All of these studies closely link to another subject, namely Theory of Knowledge (ToK), which is also a pivotal part in the pursuit of success in IB Diploma Programme. Mr Bradley Minchin (left) with his students in a history class. Another great thing about the history curriculum is flexibility. There is no prescribed period of history that the teachers have to cover, which means they can choose the most exciting and relevant topics for their students. For instance, Year 12 and Year 13 students explore a diversity of themes such as Nazi Germany and the Cold War. In addition, they look in details at more advanced controversies in history, e.g. why did Nicholas II survive a revolution in Russia in 1905 but lose his throne in March 1917. These are more open-ended enquiries which require critical thinking and evaluation of different arguments. Apart from the world history topics discussed in school, it is highly significant and meaningful that the students start from their own past. BIS students are encouraged to learn about their family history to understand more about their ancestors and origins. We also advise students to take the chance to learn while traveling, either inside Vietnam or abroad. Those trips allow the children to develop a sense of the past and history in the making, he added. Solid floors - support and enable For those students whose English is not their first language, studying history will help them to improve their language skills and get them ready for tertiary education. We adapt and tailor our lessons to ensure that barriers to learning and progress are removed, Mr. Minchin shared. All the teachers in the History Department are trained and experienced in teaching students for whom English is an additional language. We use the Content and Language Integrated Learning [CLIL] model to plan and deliver lessons so that students knowledge and understanding of history are enhanced in tandem with their literacy skills, he said. Doing this involves encouraging our students to practice their English in a range of styles and genres, e.g. news reports, group presentations and debates. Students prepare for a group presentation. Moving to BIS Hanoi from domestic schools in South Korea and Vietnam, Jung Eun Ji (Year 13) and Nguyen Ha Minh (Year 11) have seen a refreshing change thanks to history classes. In the beginning, both of them were struggling with English and only able to understand a small part of the lesson. However, studying in an English-speaking environment, especially in history classes in which they have to do academic reading and writing, Ha Minh and Eun Ji notice themselves an enormous improvement in terms of English language skills. We are taught to look at multiple sides of things, analyze sources and elaborate our points in the essays, Ha Minh said. All factors are weighed and taken into consideration in order to achieve a balanced argument. The process ends with our own conclusion that states the most appropriate interpretation. There are not many subjects which allow that much freedom. History teaches us to listen to both sides of the argument and build up reasons for our own verdict. For Eun Ji, history lessons at BIS bring her a unique learning experience. Since South Korean schools place a great emphasis on national history, only high school students study world history and this is still an optional subject in their curriculum. Here at BIS, I am able to see what happened to the world in the past and share my opinions with classmates who come from various different cultural backgrounds, Eun Ji said. Studying history at BIS Hanoi is far beyond simply learning dates and names by heart! Your browser does not support the audio element. An event organized by a group of young people to clean up canals in Ho Chi Minh City was called off at the last minute on Sunday after officials told them a permit was required for the activity. Vu Ngoc Chien, a former professional swimmer, is behind the idea of assembling a group of young people who are interested in paddleboarding to put their hobby to a good cause by paddling along Ho Chi Minh City canals to clean up garbage littered into the watercourses. Chiens call for volunteers was answered by nearly 100 youths, who planned to launch their campaign on Sunday morning starting with polluted canals in the Thao Dien area in District 2. All participants had received training on paddling techniques prior to the event and was equipped with life jackets for safety, Chien said. However, the voluntary work was called off at the last minute on Sunday after local officials showed up and asked to see the groups permit to organize the event, which they didnt have. Volunteers paddle and clean up trash on a canal in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Thanh Hieu / Tuoi Tre The groups activity is commendable, but since it concerned directly with the safety of participants the administration of Thao Dien Ward had no choice but to call it off until a permit is acquired, a Thao Dien official told Tuoi Tre (Youth). A member of the organizing team said they had wanted to apply for a permit but had no idea where to go to get one. They had once sought a permit for a cleanup event on the Nhieu Loc Thi Nghe Canal but were told by every authority they contacted to seek permission from another one. Currently, all trash collecting boats are specifically designed for the purpose and operated by professionals, said an official from the municipal Department of Transport. If these young people really wish to organize such an event, they are welcome to reach us for more detailed directions on the steps to follow, the official said. Volunteers paddle and clean up trash on a canal in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Thanh Hieu / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Media watchdog the Australian Communications and Media Authority has commenced a formal investigation into whether content broadcast by commercial, national and subscription broadcasters of Fridays terrorist attack in Christchurch breached current rules. The investigation will focus on any content of the perpetrator-filmed, live streamed footage of the shootings that was broadcast on Australian television. Networks have been criticised for screening live streaming footage showing gunfire, in some instances inside a Christchurch mosque. The ACMA is also concerned about content made available or linked to on broadcasters websites. While this is currently beyond its regulatory remit, the ACMA is in close contact with the Australian Press Council as it reviews its members coverage of the attack. ACMA Chair Nerida OLoughlin will write to the CEOs of all broadcasters requesting urgent information on the nature, extent and timing of the broadcast of content relating to the shootings, in particular from the day of the attack. The ACMA will also request urgent meetings with Free TV Australia and the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association to discuss whether current rules are providing adequate protections for Australian audiences. Dozens of graves dug in Christchurch 18 March, 2019 Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love Types of Casino Payment Methods Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos Are Slot Developers Important for players? Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry Woke Bingo CHRISTCHURCH: Dozens of graves were being dug in a Christchurch cemetery on Monday for the 50 worshippers killed in two mosque attacks, as families clamoured for the return of their dead. Coroners said they hoped to let grieving relatives fulfil Islamic burial customs soon, but insisted they had to move carefully through their investigation into the horrific multiple murder. As New Zealand grappled to come to terms with the slaughter the worst attack on Muslims in a Western country in modern times tales of heroism, suffering and incredible grace emerged. Farid Ahmad, whose 44-year-old wife Husna was killed as she rushed back into a mosque to rescue him, refused to harbour hatred toward the alleged gunman, Australian-born, self-avowed white nationalist, Brenton Tarrant. I would say to him I love him as a person, Ahmad, who uses a wheelchair, told AFP. Asked if he forgave the 28-year-old suspect, who is being held in custody after appearing in court, he said: Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity. Husna Ahmad was among four women believed to have been killed by Tarrant, who documented his radicalisation and two years of preparations in a lengthy, meandering and conspiracy-filled far-right manifesto. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was holding a cabinet meeting Monday to address gun laws and intelligence failures, was among about 30 officials who received the document ahead of the attacks. It did not include a location, it did not include specific details, she said, adding that it was sent nine minutes before the rampage and handed to security services within two minutes. Around Christchurch, New Zealand and the world there have been vigils, prayers, memorials and messages of solidarity. An emotion-filled haka the Maori war dance was performed by a New Zealand biker gang to honour the Christchurch dead. The country remained on high alert, with police on Sunday briefly closing an airport in the southern city of Dunedin where Tarrant had lived after an unidentified package was spotted on the airfield. The airport re-opened a few hours later. In Australia, counter-terrorism police searched two homes early Monday, both near the town of Grafton where Tarrant grew up. The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation, a police statement said. Islamic custom dictates that the dead should be buried within 24 hours, but strained authorities desperate to make sure no mistakes are made or the complex investigation harmed said a quick process was difficult. All of the deceased have had a CT scan, their fingerprints are taken, the property they were wearing or had with them is removed, said Chief Coroner Deborah Marshall, adding that dental impressions were taken and post-mortems performed. Ardern said she expected all the dead would have been returned to their families by Wednesday. An AFP reporter early Monday saw workers and excavators preparing dozens of graves in Christchurch cemetery, though it was unclear when the funerals might start. Its a massacre, what else do they need to know?, said school principal Sheikh Amjad Ali, expressing frustration over the wait for loved ones remains. The dead from Fridays attack span generations, aged between three and 77, according to a list circulated among relatives. Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt. At least two of the dead came from the same family a father and son. Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead, including one man who died trying to rush Tarrant. Authorities said 34 people remained in hospital. Among those fighting for their lives is four-year-old Alin Alsati. The pre-schooler was praying alongside her father Wasseim at the Al Noor mosque when she was shot at least three times. Her father, who was also shot, recently emigrated to New Zealand from Jordan. The number of dead and injured could have been higher, were it not for people such as Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz. Aziz was at the Linwood mosque with his four sons when he rushed the attacker armed with the only weapon he could find a hand-held credit card machine. He then picked up an empty shotgun discarded by the gunman and shouted come on here in an effort to draw him away from his sons and the other worshippers. I just wanted to save as much lives as I could, even if I lose my life, he told AFP. The mosque attacks have shaken this usually peaceful country, which prides itself on welcoming refugees fleeing violence or persecution. Ardern has said she would use the cabinet meeting to press for a ban on semi-automatic weapons of the type used by Tarrant. A series of reform attempts in recent years have failed. Ardern also wants answers from social media giants over the livestreaming of the carnage. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack around the world in the first 24 hours.Dozens of graves dug in Christchurch for mosque martyer CHRISTCHURCH: Dozens of graves were being dug in a Christchurch cemetery on Monday for the 50 worshippers killed in two mosque attacks, as families clamoured for the return of their dead. Coroners said they hoped to let grieving relatives fulfil Islamic burial customs soon, but insisted they had to move carefully through their investigation into the horrific multiple murder. As New Zealand grappled to come to terms with the slaughter the worst attack on Muslims in a Western country in modern times tales of heroism, suffering and incredible grace emerged. Farid Ahmad, whose 44-year-old wife Husna was killed as she rushed back into a mosque to rescue him, refused to harbour hatred toward the alleged gunman, Australian-born, self-avowed white nationalist, Brenton Tarrant. I would say to him I love him as a person, Ahmad, who uses a wheelchair, told AFP. Asked if he forgave the 28-year-old suspect, who is being held in custody after appearing in court, he said: Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity. Husna Ahmad was among four women believed to have been killed by Tarrant, who documented his radicalisation and two years of preparations in a lengthy, meandering and conspiracy-filled far-right manifesto. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who was holding a cabinet meeting Monday to address gun laws and intelligence failures, was among about 30 officials who received the document ahead of the attacks. It did not include a location, it did not include specific details, she said, adding that it was sent nine minutes before the rampage and handed to security services within two minutes. Around Christchurch, New Zealand and the world there have been vigils, prayers, memorials and messages of solidarity. An emotion-filled haka the Maori war dance was performed by a New Zealand biker gang to honour the Christchurch dead. The country remained on high alert, with police on Sunday briefly closing an airport in the southern city of Dunedin where Tarrant had lived after an unidentified package was spotted on the airfield. The airport re-opened a few hours later. In Australia, counter-terrorism police searched two homes early Monday, both near the town of Grafton where Tarrant grew up. The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation, a police statement said. Islamic custom dictates that the dead should be buried within 24 hours, but strained authorities desperate to make sure no mistakes are made or the complex investigation harmed said a quick process was difficult. All of the deceased have had a CT scan, their fingerprints are taken, the property they were wearing or had with them is removed, said Chief Coroner Deborah Marshall, adding that dental impressions were taken and post-mortems performed. Ardern said she expected all the dead would have been returned to their families by Wednesday. An AFP reporter early Monday saw workers and excavators preparing dozens of graves in Christchurch cemetery, though it was unclear when the funerals might start. Its a massacre, what else do they need to know?, said school principal Sheikh Amjad Ali, expressing frustration over the wait for loved ones remains. The dead from Fridays attack span generations, aged between three and 77, according to a list circulated among relatives. Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt. At least two of the dead came from the same family a father and son. Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead, including one man who died trying to rush Tarrant. Authorities said 34 people remained in hospital. Among those fighting for their lives is four-year-old Alin Alsati. The pre-schooler was praying alongside her father Wasseim at the Al Noor mosque when she was shot at least three times. Her father, who was also shot, recently emigrated to New Zealand from Jordan. The number of dead and injured could have been higher, were it not for people such as Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz. Aziz was at the Linwood mosque with his four sons when he rushed the attacker armed with the only weapon he could find a hand-held credit card machine. He then picked up an empty shotgun discarded by the gunman and shouted come on here in an effort to draw him away from his sons and the other worshippers. I just wanted to save as much lives as I could, even if I lose my life, he told AFP. The mosque attacks have shaken this usually peaceful country, which prides itself on welcoming refugees fleeing violence or persecution. Ardern has said she would use the cabinet meeting to press for a ban on semi-automatic weapons of the type used by Tarrant. A series of reform attempts in recent years have failed. Ardern also wants answers from social media giants over the livestreaming of the carnage. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack around the world in the first 24 hour Kratu, the Carpathian-Mioritic mix dog was performing at the recent Crufts Dog Show in Birmingham. The adorable rescue dog entertained the audience and announcer by doing his own thing in an obstacle course race. Everyone was in fits of laughter as Kratu completely ignored his owner, Tessa Eagle Swan, who had rescued the cute mutt from a precarious situation in Romania when he was a small puppy. Cute as a button, Kratu has managed to steal the Crufts Dog Show for two years in a row but went home with no prizes. Rescue dog steals the show In the video below, Kratu can be seen performing in the rescue dog agility display at Crufts, taking his time and generally doing his own thing while ignoring Swans instructions. As he did last year, he took a meandering journey through the obstacle course, frustrating Swan no end. In an interview with Crufts, Swan explained that Kratu is a teenager who has been incredibly hard to train. She says he is stubborn and is determined to only do as he wants. However, she did say that Kratu makes her laugh with his funny antics, as he loves performing tricks, which he does all the time. Swan told Crufts that Kratu was rescued with his two sisters in Romania, both of which are also in their own fur-ever home in the UK. When Kratu finally arrived in the UK, they bonded instantly. Tessa added that Kratu is a natural clown, which makes his performance all that much more fun and interesting. If he doesnt want to do something, he doesnt do it, but he does love to please her sometimes. As a big character, Kratu will always try to do whatever he wants, rather than whatever she wants him to do. She added that he is quite determined and challenging. As noted from the lyrics from a popular Fleetwood Mac song, You can go your own way. Go your own way. Kratu loses to a Papillon The winner of the obstacle course race was Gabby, a tiny Papillon, who also zoomed through the obstacle course last month at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. As noted by Today, Gabby zigged and zagged rapidly through the course, almost giving the audience whiplash! As can be seen from the tweet above, Crufts was more than happy to have Kratu back and while the rescue dog from Woodgreen didnt receive any prizes for his slow and funny approach to the obstacle course, he did receive a standing ovation from the audience as he left the course. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed his steady and slow take on the obstacles, doing what he does best going wherever he wants and doing whatever he wishes! Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson, better-known through a shorter version of her name, Paris Jackson, is currently in the headlines. Several news reports from TMZ, an American tabloid website, claim to have close insider reports of her suicide attempt. From unknown, unnamed and vague wordings of sources to the Neverland documentary, Michael Jackson's second daughter has a lot on her plate. TMZ claims suicide Early Saturday morning, the 16th of March 2019, Paris was rushed to the hospital, TMZ reported. Hours later, she was in a better state, as seen in a video taken by the paparazzi. With her jacket on, the girl seemed in a much better state than before and gave a smile as she passed by in a car. However, hours later, TMZ uploaded an exclusive with the headline "Paris Jackson released from hospital after attempted suicide". Back in 2013, Paris did try to commit suicide and failed. This time, however, she is responding angrily at the allegations of her attempting suicide that morning. TMZ claims that they have insider sources such as law enforcement, sources with knowledge, and family sources. With these vague descriptions for sources, they've also added that Paris is currently under monitoring, "5150 Hold." 5150 Hold is a section of the California Welfare and Institution Code, Lanterman Petris Short Act. This authorizes a qualified officer or doctor to confine a patient involuntarily suspected of having a mental disorder or in this case, trying to commit suicide. Paris' response and state On Twitter, Paris tweets "F*** you, you f****** liars" addressing the allegations, followed up by a tweet containing eight "question marks and an emoji to express lack of amusement on her part," UK News Yahoo noted. TMZ claims that her attempted suicide was directly connected to HBO's documentary "Leaving Neverland." This, the family expressed, was a documentary to simply make money, and is one-sided and untrue. It was later confirmed that Paris did not attempt suicide and nor is she under the 5150 hold. It turns out Paris had a minor accident, which was treated, allowing her to go home the same day. Paris' side clarified things through a response, saying that there was no suicide attempt, pointing out that she was later released. TMZ has yet to make a statement about their allegations. 'Leaving Neverland' sued for $100m (75m pounds) The Jackson's estate struck back at HBO and documentary makers Wade Robson and James Safechuck. The documentary caused Michael's old TV clips and music to be muted since the documentary premiered and gained massive attention. "Leaving Neverland" is a documentary that accuses the deceased pop star of sexually abusing children. The estate claims that the two documentary makers are opportunistic and liars. On the suicide report, Paris' side clarified things through a response, saying that there was no suicide attempt, pointing out that she was later released. TMZ has yet to make a statement about their allegations. Remember, if you have thoughts of suicide, reach out to family or friends or call the Samaritan helpline: 116 123 New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has visited Kilbirnie Mosque in the capital Wellington, two days after the terror attacks on mosques in Christchurch. The death toll of the attacks now stands at 50. Wearing a black headscarf and embracing mourners, she was seen consoling the mosque-goers and was visibly moved as she spoke with them. After her visit, Ardern said, The message was one of gratitude for the outpouring of love that they have experienced from the people of Wellington, and an acknowledgement of the grief that the community feels. Ardern went on to speak of New Zealands gun laws. She said they "need to change, regardless of what activity may or may not have happened with gun retailers. They will change." A police spokesman in Christchurch described the attacks as unprecedented, and indeed they are the worst ever committed against the Muslim community in a Western country. Noble acts of courage among the victims Tales of heroism have been emerging as survivors give their accounts of the attacks. Farid Ahmads wife Husna was killed when she rushed back inside to rescue him. The couple were attending the Al Noor Mosque, the first to be targeted, and Husna was seen helping get worshippers out of the womens and childrens halls. Heading back inside to find Farid, who is in a wheelchair, she was killed. When asked if he could forgive the perpetrator, now believed to be a lone attacker identified as Brenton Tarrant, Mr Ahmad said, Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity." In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May released a statement where she said, The UK stands ready to support New Zealand however we can. Through terror attacks that have taken place on UK soil, we know only too well the pain that such horrifying attacks can cause. There can be no place in our societies for the vile ideology that drives and incites hatred and fear. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of New Zealand. pic.twitter.com/vEE3vZRW0H Theresa May (@theresa_may) March 15, 2019 Four arrested in Greater Manchester for racist abuse Meanwhile, four people have been arrested in separate incidents in the UK following racist abuse concerning the attacks. Officers attended Rochdale after receiving reports that a taxi driver was harassed with threatening language related to the events in New Zealand. A man and woman were arrested. Separately and also in Rochdale, a woman was arrested and kept for questioning following comments made online. A man in Oldham was also held by police after pledging his support for the attacker online. Russ Jackson, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, described these actions as frankly disgusting and stressed they would not be tolerated. He emphasised that these were, however, a small number of incidents, and stated, It is absolutely clear that compassion, support is how the overwhelming majority of people feel and, as always, Greater Manchester stands together. Manchester was the site of the Arena attack which claimed 22 lives and injured 139 in 2017. FILE PHOTO: OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo speaks with the media during his visit to Abuja, Nigeria Febuary 27, 2017.REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde By Nailia Bagirova and Vladimir Soldatkin BAKU (Reuters) - The investments needed to ensure stability in the global oil industry are returning after a downturn, but the pace is still slow, OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo said. Barkindo was talking to Reuters and an Azeri TV station Real on the sidelines of an OPEC and non-OPEC monitoring committee, which is meeting this weekend in the Azeri capital of Baku. He also said leading oil producing nations have made significant achievements in terms of cooperation and efforts to avoid imbalance between the supply and demand on the global oil market. Barkindo added he would welcome greater engagement with the United States to tackle industry issues. According to estimates from Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser last year, the global oil and gas industry needs to invest more than $20 trillion over the next 25 years to meet expected growth in demand and compensate for the natural decline in developed fields. "A number of challenges are arising from the down cycle that we have seen, and at the top of that list is an issue of investments. We have seen investments contract for couple of years and even at the moment the rebound is very, very minimal," Barkindo said. "For the long cycle projects, which are the base for the global economy, the picture is still not encouraging. Therefore we welcome the United States to join us in this global energy dialogue to address this and other issues affecting this industry." The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other large oil producers led by Russia have agreed on joint efforts to curb their oil production in order to restore the balance on the global oil market and support the price. The first such deal was signed at the end of 2016 in Vienna. "We remain on course and we have made significant progress in ensuring that we do not allow the market to return to an imbalance," Barkindo said, speaking in English. Story continues "All participating countries are committed to ensuring that supply and demand remain balanced through stock movement that would remain within the five-year industry average," Barkindo added. "That remains our key metrics in assessing the state of the oil market and so far so good." (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Keith Weir) The brain may take about three decades to become properly connected and mature, according to experts. People do not become fully adult until their 30s, according to brain scientists. The rocky path to adulthood also varies from person to person, with some individuals making the transition faster than others, say experts. New insights into how the brain is wired and reshaped throughout much of a persons life have major implications for society, they claim. Currently the judicial system in the UK recognises a person of 18 as being a mature adult. In fact someone of this age is still undergoing tumultuous changes in the brain that can affect behaviour and susceptibility to mental health disorders, research has shown. Processes that involve boosting the conductivity of nerves, building neural networks and pruning away unwanted connections begin in the womb and continue for decades. Upheaval in the brain is thought to account for the notoriously difficult behaviour of adolescents, typified by comedian Harry Enfields character Kevin the Teenager. Professor Peter Jones, from Cambridge University, told journalists at a press briefing in London: What were really saying is that to have a definition of when you move from childhood to adulthood looks increasingly absurd. Its a much more nuanced transition that takes place over three decades. He added: I guess systems like the education system, the health system and the legal system make it convenient for themselves by having definitions. Prof Jones is one of a number of international leading experts attending a neuroscience meeting hosted by the Academy of Medical Sciences in Oxford. He suspected that despite the legal definition of adulthood, experienced judges recognised the difference between a 19-year-old defendant and a hardened criminal in his late 30s. I think the system is adapting to whats hiding in plain sight, that people dont like (the idea of) a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, he said. Story continues There isnt a childhood and then an adulthood. People are on a pathway, theyre on a trajectory. American colleague Professor Daniel Geschwind, from the University of California at Los Angeles, stressed the degree of individual variability in brain development. He pointed out that for practical reasons, education systems mistakenly tended to focus on groups, rather than individuals. Prof Geschwind added: These are larger questions that go beyond the science. If one takes one thing away its that there are individual trajectories, (and) that development takes place over decades. But this varies from individual to individual. A key topic at the meeting was research into serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Once thought to have a purely genetic cause, schizophrenia and other psychotic conditions are now known to arise from a complex interplay of genes and environmental influences. Schizophrenia is typically diagnosed in older teenagers and the risk of developing the disease falls dramatically from the late 20s onwards. The incidence pattern is thought to be linked to brain development. Once the brain has sorted out its circuits and finally matured, the risk of psychosis greatly diminishes. Prof Jones said studies had shown that people living in cities, especially poor and migrant populations, faced an increased risk of serious mental disorders. Urban living produced a potent cocktail of environmental influences that could affect the developing brain, he argued. He said: Being a migrant isnt specifically about one particular group, its about being a minority within a majority. Its probably to do with having to live constantly on the alert. I mean a low level of vigilance that minorities experience when theyre living in host communities. Prof Jones referred to one study focusing on a population living on the outskirts of Paris, France, which suggested that being part of a minority group tripled the risk of schizophrenia. An on-going investigation in the US, the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study, is following the progress of almost 12,000 children aged nine and 10 looking for early signs of future mental problems. ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's newly-appointed Deputy Prime Minister Ramtane Lamamra is expected to visit several countries including Russia, China, and some EU nations to explain the crisis in Algeria, a foreign ministry official said. Thousands of Algerians have been protesting for over three weeks against ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and have rejected the new prime minister's offer to create an inclusive government that will change the political landscape. (Reporting by Algiers bureau; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Catherine Evans) By Lisandra Paraguassu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro visited the CIA on Monday as he sought support from the Trump administration for his security agenda and courted the U.S. business community on his first official trip to Washington. The three-day visit underscored Bolsonaro's embrace of U.S. influence in Latin America to confront what he calls a communist threat against democracy a theme he remarked on at a dinner on Sunday evening with his ministers and right-wing thinkers. In a gesture aimed at boosting tourism, Bolsonaro also waived a visa requirement for visitors from the United States in a decree published on Monday afternoon. President Donald Trump will receive Bolsonaro at the White House on Tuesday, a meeting organised within weeks of the far-right leader's Jan. 1 inauguration after the two populist firebrands expressed mutual admiration for each other. Their ideological common ground has raised expectations of greater cooperation between the two biggest countries in the Americas, although their aides have played down the potential for major breakthroughs on this first visit. The United States will strengthen military ties with Brazil to a level usually reserved for NATO allies, Brazilian government officials said last week. A half dozen ministers travelling with Bolsonaro are also preparing accords for collaboration on nuclear energy, aerospace and law enforcement, along with more open trade of agricultural goods. Still, the Brazilians showed little interest in getting caught up in the U.S. trade war with China, which has long since replaced the United States as Brazil's biggest trade partner. Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said on Monday in Washington that friendlier U.S. relations would do nothing to reduce Brazilian trade with China. In a late edition of Brazil's official government gazette, Bolsonaro issued a decree waiving a visa requirement for visitors from the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan. Story continues The U.S. government is not planning to reciprocate with a visa exemption for Brazilians, according to officials with knowledge of the matter. TWEETING VISITS Like Trump, Bolsonaro and his family have a penchant for breaking with protocol. Presidential advisers, including his official spokesman, had said during the Sunday dinner that Bolsonaro's agenda on Monday morning would be kept private. But the president's son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, revealed the CIA visit in a Twitter post. The president's office said the visit to the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, conveyed the importance that Bolsonaro places on "fighting organised crime and drug trafficking and the need to strengthen intelligence." The CIA declined to comment. Brazil is suffering from a wave of drug-related violence and homicides that Bolsonaro pledged to fight in his electoral campaign, though he has provided few details on how he will achieve this. Bolsonaro was scheduled to meet later on Monday with former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and deliver remarks at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu, Alexandra Alper and Jonathan Landay; additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; writing by Mary Milliken; editing by Rosalba O'Brien) By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will announce as expected on Monday that it is extending a 200-strong military training mission in Ukraine, a source directly familiar with the matter said on Sunday. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan are scheduled to hold a news conference at 1 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Monday. "It is the Ukraine extension," said the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. A spokeswoman for Sajjan declined to comment, while representatives for Freeland did not reply to requests for comment. The troops, who first went to Ukraine in 2015, are due out at the end of March. Political and military sources had made clear the soldiers would stay longer, given continuing tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Canada will not be sending any additional trainers, the source added. The House of Commons defence committee recommended last December that Ottawa expand the mission, a message that Ukraine's ambassador to Canada subsequently stressed in interviews with Canadian media. Canada's defence ministry said in December that the contingent had trained more than 10,000 members of the Ukrainian security forces. The Canadian contingent is in western Ukraine, far removed from clashes between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country. Freeland, a vocal critic of Russia's move to annex Crimea in early 2014, said in a statement on Saturday that "we continue to condemn this violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the strongest terms." Canada, the United States and the European Union on Friday imposed new sanctions on a number of Russian officials to punish Moscow for its 2018 attack on three Ukrainian ships and the seizure of Crimea, which had been part of Ukraine. The Canadian trainers are in Ukraine as part of a larger mission that involves the United States, Britain, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Cooney) People were forced to queue for more than five hours over the weekend. Eurostar is urging passengers to avoid travelling until after Wednesday unless their journey is absolutely necessary. The cross-Channel rail operator warned that industrial action by French customs workers will continue to cause delays and long queues over the coming days. Passengers were forced to queue for more than five hours over the weekend. On Monday, Eurostar cancelled three trains and several others were delayed due to the industrial action. French customs officials are demanding more pay and resources ahead of Brexit. They have been working to rule by carrying out more stringent checks than normal in an attempt to demonstrate the impact of tighter border controls after the UK withdraws from the EU. This caused long queues at the port and Eurotunnel terminal in Calais, northern France last week. Eurostar said in a statement: French customs officers at Paris Gare du Nord continue to take part in industrial action. As a result, the regular pre-departure security checks are taking longer than usual and this is causing delays on departure in Paris. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this is causing passengers, and to provide as much flexibility as possible we are offering a free exchange or refund to any passenger who would prefer to postpone their trip. Muslims are stereotyped and mischaracterised,deliberately in hate speech: Maleeha Lodhi The deadly terror attack on two mosques in New Zealand is "another grim reminder" of rampant Islamophobia sweeping the world, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, told a gathering of delegates on Sunday. The senior diplomat was addressing a side-event on "Breaking Stereotypes: Muslim Women as agents of change", one of the four events organised by her, at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, a global gathering of women activists, Lodhi linked the Christchurch terror to stereotyping, which she argued can have serious consequences as it can lead to misconceptions, demonisation and violence. "It's a slippery slope when Muslims are stereotyped and mischaracterised, sometimes deliberately by those who engage in hate speech," Ambassador Lodhi said. She made a distinction between culture and religion, highlighting Islam's role as an enabling agent for Muslim women, contrary to Western misconceptions about the religion with respect to women's rights. According to Lodhi, the barriers to emancipation of women are patriarchal social structures and an overall lack of education in societies. The annual meeting of the commission, which dates back to 1947, brought to the UN more than 9,000 representatives from civil society organisations. It will conclude on March 22. Khawar Mumtaz represented Pakistan and delivered her statement on Friday. The event, a brainchild of Ambassador Lodhi, attracted a large audience with people prepared to stand throughout the hour and half event. About her own professional journey as a Muslim woman, she said it involved facing obstacles, overcoming fears but always keep dreaming. "My professional path," Ambassador Lodhi said, "Constantly entailed challenging, defying and overcoming stereotypes." "This almost becomes a lifetime occupational hazard for women [across the world], and not just in the Muslim world," she said. "The important thing is never to allow this to distract or diminish us." She said women have two choices when confronted with attitudes shaped by stereotypes or when facing barriers: either seethe with resentment or press ahead vigorously to make a difference. She added that anger is not a strategy. The new Formula One season has kicked off with the Australian Grand Prix. Like every year, there are changes afoot: new drivers, tweaks in vehicle aerodynamics, revised rules and regulations. But behind the scenes, another transformation is taking place. In both the UK Motorsport Valley and the Italian Motor Valley the two regions where the main players are clustered companies have been reinventing themselves for the digital era and selling their tech know-how to other sectors. Formula One race cars are the most technologically advanced cars in existence. Every car is equipped with 120 sensors which generate over a million pieces of information every second. This torrent of data, flowing from cars to pits, allows teams to adapt their racing strategy in real time, and is key to winning races. The focus on processing data has turned the likes of the UKs McLaren into a specialist in the field. McLaren was quick to make data central to the whole company, alongside the engineering expertise involved in building race cars. It set up McLaren Applied Technologies around a decade ago to sell its knowledge to other sectors, having already been successfully selling equipment to other motorsport players McLaren has supplied electronic control units to every Formula One team since 1993, for instance. New tracks for growth McLaren Applied Technologies is in healthcare, for example, where it has developed sensors for implanting in patients who have suffered strokes, are recovering from surgery, or risk developing diabetes. These sensors collect health data for doctors to craft more personal, tailored treatments. The information is processed by wearable devices using algorithms, negating the need to upload it to a server first which drains batteries. McLaren originally developed these processing algorithms for units on board race cars, since under motorsport rules, sensor data cant be sent back from the garage to the car during a race. Using similar transferable ideas, Applied Technologies is also involved in everything from train wifi facilities to optimising air-traffic control to performance enhancement for elite athletes. Story continues Italy-based Dallara Automobili is another motorsport company branching into new areas. Though not a household name, Dallara has almost a monopoly in supplying motorsport chassis to clients including Ferrari, Haas, Maserati, Bugatti, Honda, Lancia and Renault. Like McLaren, Dallaras move beyond motorsport coincided with an internal digital transformation. Much of this has been linked to the virtual process Dallara developed for testing chassis. Where the company used to endlessly test prototypes on race tracks and wind tunnels, now it models a cars surroundings using supercomputers that accurately simulate weather and track conditions. Where testing used to take three years, it now takes closer to nine months. Andrea Pontremoli, the chief executive who arrived from IBM in 2007, has sought to turn the Italian manufacturer into a knowledge company, building a fluid project-based organisational structure to make the most of the technical expertise. A substantial number of new hires are mathematicians and data scientists. Dallara now offers consulting services in aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics based on its supercomputer-powered simulations to manufacturers of everything from cars to military jets. It has also leveraged its engineering expertise in carbon fibre to create lighter factory robots for the likes of Coca-Cola, while other clients have included the Honolulu metro system. How to transform For both companies, there are signs these moves are paying off. McLaren says Applied Technologies has doubled in size in the past five years, and believes it will be a major engine of future growth. The division will have turned over around 60m in 2018, and recently hired former Qualcomm senior executive Anthony Murray as its chief executive. Dallara has tripled its number of staff in recent years and is seeing strong demand from the market for its new digital products and services, Pontremoli told Benoit Leleux in an interview. Both companies have gained insights in their specialist areas by co-developing new technology with their clients. Pontremoli says Dallaras unofficial policy is to choose customers that will allow the company to acquire new knowledge, as opposed to customers that will net high profits. It is easier said than done to move in this kind of new direction, however. The vast majority of companies who try to undergo digital transformations struggle. Take Ford Motors, which set up a Smart Mobility segment nearly three years ago to focus on how the internet, is revolutionising the car industry. It oversees the Ford SYNC app, which allows drivers to remotely access information about their cars, as well as experimenting with smart parking and driverless cars. But Smart Mobility has failed to change the company, arguably because it moved too slowly and was not central enough to Fords core business unlike in the case of McLaren and Dallara, who have both seen digital transformation as a fundamental organisational shift. Fords share price has fallen almost 50% in five years. Ford share price, 2014-19 General Electric, another American juggernaut, has spent billions of dollars failing to become a leader in the industrial Internet of Things. It identified the opportunity to use sensors on machines to gather data early, but badly underestimated the cost of developing solutions in this area. Its industrial internet platform, Predix, faced delays and technological issues and struggled to compete. When it comes to getting such shifts right, we need to be wary of saying you can simply write a recipe based on what has worked elsewhere. Clearly, however, there are likely to be rewards from spotting opportunities early, and recognising that the culture may need to change right across the organisation. Firms commonly make the mistake of believing that product innovation is all thats needed to become a digital player, but those who succeed also change the way they bring their offerings to market, form new types of partnerships and join different sectors. Both Dallara and McLaren have benefited from understanding what clients need even though they are in other sectors, which is partly about having a clear understanding of your core competencies. Equally, you need old-fashioned business skills like hiring the right people and correctly foreseeing things like demand and costs. What these motorsport companies demonstrate is that the new digital world can be an opportunity for transformation, and a means of developing entirely new business streams at the same time. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The Conversation The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) Federal prosecutors in North Dakota are seeking a lengthy sentence for a Rhode Island woman who funneled lottery scam money between the U.S. and Jamaica through her airline job. A jury last September convicted 28-year-old Melinda Bulgin of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering in the scam that authorities say bilked more than 100 mostly elderly Americans out of more than $6 million. She's to be sentenced April 17. Federal prosecutor Jonathan O'Konek is asking for 14 years, citing Bulgin's lack of cooperation and lack of empathy for victims. That's more than double what the government sought for the scam's mastermind, who accepted a plea deal and got six years. Bulgin's attorney says she shouldn't be punished for taking her case to trial. Chad McCabe says he'll seek a sentence that's "more reasonable and appropriate." (The March 13 story edits the 31st paragraph to remove reference to website) By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - The emails, tweets and blog posts in the "abuse" folder that Michael Sharpe keeps on his computer continue to pile up. Eight years after he published results of a clinical trial that found some patients with chronic fatigue syndrome can get a little better with the right talking and exercise therapies, the Oxford University professor is subjected to almost daily, often anonymous, intimidation. A Twitter user who identifies himself as a patient called Paul Watton (@thegodofpleasur) wrote: "I really am looking forward to his professional demise and his much-deserved public humiliation." Another, Anton Mayer (@MECFSNews), likened Sharpe's behaviour to "that of an abuser." Watton and Mayer have never been treated by Sharpe for their chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood condition that can bring crushing tiredness and pain. Nor have they met him, they told Reuters. They object to his work, they said, because they think it suggests their illness is psychological. Sharpe, a professor of psychological medicine, says that isn't the case. He believes that chronic fatigue syndrome is a biological condition that can be perpetuated by social and psychological factors. Sharpe is one of around a dozen researchers in this field worldwide who are on the receiving end of a campaign to discredit their work. For many scientists, it's a new normal: From climate change to vaccines, activism and science are fighting it out online. Social media platforms are supercharging the battle. Reuters contacted a dozen professors, doctors and researchers with experience of analysing or testing potential treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome. All said they had been the target of online harassment because activists objected to their findings. Only two had definite plans to continue researching treatments. With as many as 17 million people worldwide suffering this disabling illness, scientific research into possible therapies should be growing, these experts said, not dwindling. What concerns them most, they said, is that patients could lose out if treatment research stalls. Story continues A spokesperson for Twitter said the platform "exists to serve the public conversation. Its strength lies in providing people with a diversity of perspectives into critical issues all in real-time." Where someone used anonymity for bad purposes, Twitter would take immediate action, the spokesperson added. Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or CFS/ME, is described by specialists as a "complex, multisystem, and often devastating disorder." Symptoms include overwhelming fatigue, joint pain, headaches, sleep problems and isolation. It can render patients bed- or house-bound for years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, estimates the illness costs the U.S. economy $17 billion to $24 billion (12.8 billion to 18.1 billion) annually in medical bills and lost incomes. It is thought to affect as many as 2.5 million people in the United States. No cause has been identified, no formal diagnosis established and no cure developed. Many researchers cite evidence that talking therapies and behavioural approaches can help in some cases. Yet some patients and their advocates say this amounts to a suggestion that the syndrome might be a mental illness or psychosomatic, a notion that enrages them. They would prefer that research efforts focus on identifying a biological cause or diagnosis. One of those leading the campaign against research into psychological therapies for CFS/ME is David Tuller, a former journalist with a doctor of public health degree from University of California, Berkeley. Tuller, who describes himself as an investigator, not a campaigner, told Reuters he wants to help CFS/ME patients. Crowdfunded by a global band of CFS/ME sufferers, their families and patient activists, Tuller has since October 2015 published more than 140 blog posts amounting to tens of thousands of words attacking studies of psychological treatments and conferences that have showcased them. He's recently complained to the CDC, New York's Columbia University and Netflix. In 2018, Netflix ran a docu-series about CFS/ME patients. It said it wanted to show the difficulties of patients "suffering from elusive and misunderstood illnesses." Tuller refers to researchers who explore and test treatments for CFS/ME that feature a psychological element as "insane" and a "cabal" suffering from "mass delusion." They are bent on pursuing "bogus and really terrible research," he told Reuters. Sharpe no longer conducts research into CFS/ME treatments, focussing instead on helping severely ill cancer patients. "It's just too toxic," he explained. Of more than 20 leading research groups who were publishing treatment studies in high-quality journals 10 years ago, Sharpe said, only one or two continue to do so. The world's largest trials registry, clinicaltrials.gov, indicates that over the past decade there has been a decline in the number of new CFS/ME treatment trials being launched. From 2010 to 2014, 33 such trials started. From 2015 until the present, the figure dropped to around 20. This decline comes at a time when research into ways to help patients should be growing, not falling, because the condition is more widely recognised, scientists interviewed by Reuters said. Reuters spoke to three specialists in CFS/ME in Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands who have reported receiving online abuse but continue to work in the field. The specialist in the Netherlands, a psychologist who works at a chronic fatigue treatment centre, said that a few years ago, research teams there had five treatment studies looking at cognitive behavioural therapies for CFS/ME patients. Now, they have no treatment studies at all. Junior researchers are wary of entering the field because of the abuse they've seen others suffer, said the specialist in Britain, a doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity. Per Fink, a professor at the Research Clinic for Functional Disorders at Denmark's Aarhus University Hospital, said he kept going because he didn't want to let down patients, some severely ill, who are "open to any treatment that may help them." UNCERTAINTY The term myalgic encephalomyelitis was first used in 1956 to describe a condition associated with post-illness fatigue among patients at London's Royal Free Hospital. Thirty years later, the name chronic fatigue syndrome was coined. Now, the combination term CFS/ME is used by most people patients, doctors and researchers and by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The trigger for the condition is not known, although it can follow a bout of severe illness or extreme physical endurance, or a viral infection such as glandular fever. There is no biomarker or blood test to establish diagnosis, and patients often face misunderstanding from family, friends and doctors. Patient advocates say the condition has a history of being dismissed as "yuppie flu" or plain indolence. With no pharmacological or physiological treatments on the horizon, scientists and doctors explored psychiatry and psychology for ways to ease the symptoms. Some patients and campaigners say that diverted attention and funding away from scientific efforts to define what causes CFS/ME and how it can be properly diagnosed. Simon Wessely, a professor of psychological medicine at King's College London and former president of Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists, said he decided to stop conducting research into treatment approaches for CFS/ME several years ago because he felt the online abuse was detracting from his work with patients. But he is still the subject of what he calls "relentless internet stalking." Recent tweets directed at Wessely include one accusing him of playing "pathetic ego driven games" with the lives of people with CFS/ME, another saying "Wessely is a dangerous and evil individual" and another saying "We die, b/c of u." Wessely's employers at King's College London have taken advice on the potential risk and have instituted X-ray scans of his mail, he says. "Everything I say and do in public, and sometimes even in private, is pored over and scrutinised," he said. Wessely's experiences are echoed by Aarhus University Hospital's Per Fink, who runs a clinic that offers patients exercise and talking therapies. Fink said he and the organisers of a conference he addressed at Columbia University in New York in October 2018 were hounded by complaints and protests from CFS/ME activists. A petition calling for Fink to be disinvited was signed by 10,000 people. Tuller who in his blog wrote that the person who invited Per Fink to speak at the conference must be "uninformed or stupid or both" called Fink a "scary guy" whose methods had "destroyed families." Tuller urged readers of his blog to go to the Columbia conference and demonstrate. Describing himself as a doctor and researcher "who just does my job in an attempt to help people," Fink told Reuters his trip to New York was worse than anything he's experienced before. "They are scaring people away," he said. "Doctors don't want to speak about it they try to keep a low profile. And many researchers and clinicians say they won't go into this area of therapy because it's so difficult." SOCIAL MEDIA SUPERCHARGE The idea of critics or activists challenging researchers and seeking to hold science to account isn't new. Most researchers say they are happy to engage in discussion. But with social media, email and internet now accessible from almost every home, mass communication gives online activists a voice with unprecedented power. In the field of CFS/ME research, it's often personal. Those at the centre of it say it's gotten out of control. "The toxicity of it permeates everything," Sharpe told Reuters. The campaign to have evidence-backed treatments discredited was "doing a terrible disservice to sufferers from this condition," said Wessely. "Patients are the losers here." At the heart of the attacks on Sharpe, Wessely and other chronic fatigue treatment researchers is a study known as the PACE trial, which sought to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of therapy in CFS/ME patients. Published in The Lancet medical journal in 2011, the results found that cognitive behavioural therapy designed to help patients change their thinking and behaviour and graded exercise therapy in which patients are encouraged to start from very low levels of daily activity and then incrementally raise them are safe and moderately effective treatments for some people. Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, said his journal had received emails and letters about PACE but has no plans to retract it. He said what is needed to allow for progress in any field of medical research is "an open and respectful approach by all parties to one another." In April last year, Tuller secured $87,500 in online crowdfunding to "debunk" the PACE trial findings. He refers to the study as "a piece of crap" and "garbage" and says he is determined to see it discredited. At speaking events filmed and shown on YouTube, he has ripped up copies of the study to show his feelings about it. Tuller has also posted a 15,000 word review of it. Tuller cut his teeth as an AIDS activist in the 1980s. Now 62, he blogs, sends hundreds of letters and emails, and travels the world giving speeches and holding meetings as supporters send him donations and praise for his CFS/ME campaign. Tuller himself hasn't conducted or published any peer-reviewed clinical trials on CFS/ME. He has co-authored a critique of PACE. His argument is that the therapies evaluated in the PACE trial are based on a misguided hypothesis that CFS/ME patients suffer from "unhelpful" beliefs that they have a biological disease, and that their symptoms of fatigue are made worse by deconditioning due to inactivity. He also says he thinks the trial's methodology was flawed. The scientists involved reject those arguments. "My goal is to completely discredit the PACE trial," Tuller told Reuters. "And if they have moved out of the research field, then that's great," he said of the CFS/ME researchers he's targeting. "They shouldn't be in the field. They shouldn't be doing research at all." Tuller disputes that his campaigning amounts to harassment. In comments to Reuters in an interview and in emails, he said his criticisms are valid. And he added: "I refuse to act in the normal bounds of academia." Asked about his motivation, he said he does not have the condition. He said he had a long-time friend who was diagnosed with CFS/ME in the early 1990s but has "no other personal stake." He said his work is helping patients by "clearing out the bad science to make way for some good science," such as research into the condition's biological basis. Another campaign, which goes by the acronym MAIMES, or Medical Abuse in ME Sufferers, operates from Britain. It has a standard letter for people to send to their local member of parliament demanding a public inquiry into the PACE trial. There's also a Facebook page called "Abuse of ME Patients by Health Care Professionals" which has some 680 followers. The page runs stories from unnamed patients who accuse Sharpe and others of harming sufferers by calling them "lazy" and forcing them to exercise when they can't. The campaigner and doctor behind MAIMES, Sarah Myhill, has posted YouTube videos setting out her views: "I liken it to child abuse," she says in one that has been viewed more than 8,000 times. "This amounts to a form of abuse, because these people" CFS/ME patients "do not have the energy to defend themselves." Myhill has published several books advocating what she calls a "naturopath's" approach to treating symptoms of CFS/ME one using a tailored combination of nutrition, rest and medicines. She hasn't published peer-reviewed research on the efficacy of her approach. Myhill told Reuters that she had complained to the General Medical Council the body that maintains the official register of medical practitioners in the UK about Sharpe and other scientists involved in the PACE trial, but her complaint was rejected. Myhill showed Reuters the letter she received from the General Medical Council. It said it was "not able to identify any issues which would require us to open an investigation" into the researchers. Contacted by Reuters, the Council did not elaborate. As well as dissuading researchers from working in the CFS/ME field, scientists fear that pressure from campaigners has also begun to show in the wording of guidance for patients and doctors from national health authorities. In the United States, the CDC has removed references to cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise therapy from its website. The head of the CDC's chronic viral diseases branch, Elizabeth Unger, told Reuters this was done to remove jargon and medical terms that are not widely understood by the public. "We received feedback that the terms were confusing and too frequently misinterpreted," she said in an email response to questions. Unger said the CDC's advice stresses that each CFS/ME patient's needs are different. "For some, carefully managing exercise and activities can be helpful," she said. "Likewise, some patients may find that talking with a therapist helps them." In Britain, government guidelines on treating CFS/ME published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), currently recommend cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise. But these too are under review, due to be revised and republished by 2020. A source close to NICE told Reuters the agency had been subjected to "a lot of lobbying" aimed at getting it to review the guidelines "and in particular to change recommendations around graded exercise therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy." The source declined to go into detail about who was behind the lobbying. Publishers, too, are feeling the heat. In a move described as "disproportionate and poorly justified" by the researchers involved, editors of the Cochrane Reviews science journals said in October that they would be temporarily withdrawing a review that analysed evidence from eight studies on exercise therapy for CFS/ME patients. Cochrane Reviews evaluate the best science on a given subject and are considered a gold standard in scientific literature. The review in question, led by a Norwegian research team and published by Cochrane in April 2017, had concluded there was moderate quality evidence to show that "exercise therapy had a positive effect on people's daily physical functioning, sleep and self-ratings of overall health." Tuller told Reuters in emails in October that he considered the Cochrane Review to be "fraught with bias" and said its authors have bought into "delusions that these studies (the ones they reviewed) represent good science." After hearing news of the review's temporary withdrawal, Tuller said he'd had a "long meeting" with Cochrane editors in Britain last summer, and had "pressed them hard." "So did others," he said. Cochrane's editor in chief, David Tovey, confirmed that he had met with Tuller, but said the meeting had nothing to do with his decision to temporarily withdraw the review. He said complaints about the review from patients and campaigners had raised "important questions" about how the review was conducted and reported which he and his fellow editors felt needed to be addressed. Lillebeth Larun, a scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health who led the Cochrane Review, is one of several scientists who vociferously disagreed with Tovey's decision to withdraw it. For her, the move is a sign that the activists who have plagued her for years have now got to her editors. In the decade or so that she's been conducting research in this area, she told Reuters, she's endured online attacks and abusive emails, and at various points had to take a break from working due to the pressure. Returning to a CFS/ME project would make her feel physically sick with anxiety. "Attempts to limit, undermine or manipulate evidence based results, pressure or intimidate researchers into or away from any given conclusions, will ultimately have a negative effect," she told Reuters. "It will only lead to those researchers choosing to work in other areas and reduce the resources dedicated to providing the help patients so desperately need." Some CFS/ME patients disagree. Reuters contacted the Twitter user who identifies himself as Paul Watton to ask him about his online attacks. Speaking by phone, Watton said he has been ill with CFS/ME and unable to work in his former job as a builder for 15 years, and feels let down by the medical establishment. Reuters was unable to independently verify his account. "I agree entirely with what David Tuller says," Watton told Reuters. "This is a chronic illness for which there is currently no curative treatment." In Britain there are at least 50 specialist chronic fatigue syndrome services that treat around 8,000 adults each year under government guidelines, offering behavioural and psychological therapies. Research published in July 2017 showed around a third of adults affected by the illness who attended these specialist clinics reported substantial improvement in their health. In the survey, more than 1,000 patients were asked about fatigue, physical function, general function, mood, pain and sleep problems before and after getting the services. Colin Barton, chairman of the Sussex and Kent CFS/ME Society a patient group in southern England said talking therapies and graded exercise helped him recover to the point that he can lead an almost normal life. He told Reuters that in his experience, patients who talk about having been helped by psychological or graded exercise therapies come in for abuse just like the researchers. They face accusations that they were never ill in the first place; that their condition was misdiagnosed; and that their recovery is therefore fake, he said. As a result, he said, many recovering or recovered CFS/ME patients feel forced to withdraw from the debate. (reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Janet McBride and John Blanton) BAGHOUZ, Syria (Reuters) - Falling bombs raised smoke over Islamic State's last enclave in east Syria on Sunday, obscuring the huddle of vehicles and makeshift shelters to which the group's self-declared "caliphate" has been reduced. Air strikes and artillery began hitting the area and smoke billowed overhead late in the afternoon as U.S.-backed forces resumed their weeks-long attack, a Reuters reporter said. After dark, a Kurdish TV channel broadcast live footage showing fires raging and the swift glow of rockets pounding into the enclave accompanied by the sound of intense gunfire. During an earlier lull in fighting, tiny figures of people still inside were clearly visible walking among hundreds of trucks, cars and minibuses clustered around a few concrete buildings by the bank of the Euphrates. It is all that remains to Islamic State in the heartland of the territory it seized in 2014, taking advantage of chaos in Iraq and Syria to grab about a third of both countries and eradicating the border between them. However, the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still at large and regional officials believe it will remain a threat after it has lost all its land. The enclave is in Baghouz, a handful of hamlets in farmland next to the river along the Iraqi border. Despite its tiny size, more than 60,000 people have fled it in the past two months, said the besieging Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia. Nearly half of them were surrendering Islamic State supporters, mostly family members of jihadist fighters, though 5,000 armed militants also gave themselves up, said SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel. Another 34,000 civilians were evacuated. Former residents from the region say many of the civilians who left the Baghouz area in recent weeks were Iraqi Sunnis with close tribal ties on the other side of the border in Deir al-Zor, a Sunni heartland. They sought sanctuary in Syria for fear of reprisals by the Iraqi Hashd al Shaabi, the Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias in Iraq, the former residents said. Story continues AERIAL BOMBING Another SDF spokesman, Mustafa Bali, told Reuters only about 100 militants and their families had surrendered overnight in the spot where hardline insurgents have been mounting a desperate last-stand defence. "We had expected the surrender of a large number of terrorists and their families but only a small group came out," Bali said. On Friday suicide blasts targeted some of the people leaving Baghouz and surrendering to the SDF. The SDF said 1,306 "terrorists" had been killed alongside many who were injured in the military campaign that began on Jan. 9, while 82 SDF fighters had been killed and 61 injured. The SDF said another 520 militants had been captured in special operations in the last Islamic State bastion. Former residents say hundreds of civilians have been killed in months of heavy aerial bombing by the coalition that have razed many of the hamlets in the area along the Iraqi border. The coalition says it take great care to avoid killing civilians and investigates reports that it has done so. The SDF has mostly transferred the tens of thousands who have fled Islamic State's shrinking territory in recent months to a camp at al-Hol in the northeast. A senior International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) official said last Monday an estimated 20,000 Iraqi women and children in the camp were expected to be sent home within weeks or months. The United Nations says the camp now holds around 67,000 people, 90 percent of them women and children - well beyond its capacity. Camp workers say they do not have enough tents, food or medicine. GRAPHIC - How Islamic State lost Syria: https://tmsnrt.rs/2O7l4mN (Reporting by a Reuters journalist in Baghouz, Writing by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Angus McDowall; Additional reporting by Rodi Said; Editing by Toby Chopra, Ros Russell, William Maclean, Gareth Jones) WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES A dead whale that washed up in the Philippines had 40kg of plastic bags inside its stomach, researchers have said. The Cuviers beaked whale was recovered by workers from DBone Collector Museum east of Davao City earlier in March. In a Facebook post, the museum said the animal was filled with the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. There were 16 rice sacks in its stomach, as well as multiple shopping bags. A Cuviers beaked whale recovered by workers at DBone Collector Museum recovered east of Davao City, in the Phillipines was found to have 40kg of plastic in its stomach. A Cuviers beaked whale recovered by workers at DBone Collector Museum recovered east of Davao City, in the Phillipines was found to have 40kg of plastic in its stomach. The museum will post a full list of the items found in the whale over the next few days. I was not prepared for the amount of plastic, the museums founder and president, Darrell Blatchley, told broadcaster CNN. It was so big, the plastic was beginning calcification. The use of throwaway plastic is a particular problem in some South East Asian countries, including the Philippines. Read more: At least one killed after shooting in Dutch city of Utrecht No-one noticed meteor exploding over Earth in November Teenager stabbed in far-right incident in Surrey Five Asian nations China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand accounted for up to 60% of the plastic waste that ends up in oceans, according to a 2015 report by environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment. In June last year, a pilot whale died in Thailand after swallowing 80 plastic bags. Its death came shortly after a report for the UK government revealed the level of plastic in the ocean could triple in a decade unless steps are taken to curb litter. h3>Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney will meet his EU counterparts in Brussels on Monday as the Brexit impasse continues. Mr Coveney is in the Belgian capital to attend a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council where discussions on Moldova, China and Yemen are on the agenda. But the UKs withdrawal from the EU is also likely to form part of the debate. The meeting comes ahead of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels later this week and amid mounting pressure on UK Prime Minister Theresa May to get MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement deal in a third vote in the House of Commons this week. A sign on the from Irish border between Derrylin, Co Fermanagh and Ballyconnell, Co Cavan (David Young/PA) Mrs May warned MPs on Sunday that if they fail to back her Brexit deal at the third time of asking then Brussels might insist on a lengthy delay, potentially scuppering chances of leaving the European Union altogether. If Mrs May cannot get the votes she is expected to attend the EU summit on Thursday to ask for a longer extension. Mr Coveney told RTE News on Sunday: If shes asking for a longer extension I expect there will need to be a plan to go with that ask to convince EU partners that there is method behind that approach. Presumably that will mean seeking time to build consensus around a new approach to Brexit coming from London but of course that brings with it a lot of uncertainty. Irish premier Leo Varadkar will meet European Council president Donald Tusk in Dublin on Tuesday to consider any requests from the UK to delay Brexit. Meanwhile the Irish government continues to prepare for a no-deal scenario. Irish President Michael D Higgins signed the governments draft emergency Brexit contingency legislation into law on Sunday evening. Mr Coveney thanked Mr Higgins for signing it into law but said he hoped it was never required. He tweeted: Legally we are as #Brexitready as we can be, thanks to the cooperation of all political parties. Lets hope this legislation is never needed, thanks @PresidentIRL #Brexit. Story continues Legally we are as #Brexitready as we can be, thanks to the cooperation of all political parties. Lets hope this legislation is never needed, thanks @PresidentIRL #Brexit . https://t.co/b4XrJrTqqG Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) March 17, 2019 Speaking ahead of the EU foreign affairs meeting, Mr Coveney said: My EU colleagues and I will discuss the situation in Moldova, following the recent parliamentary elections there, and the political perspectives for EU engagement with Moldova. Ministers will also examine the EUs relations with China, ahead of the upcoming EU-China Summit. This is a very important relationship, given Chinas increasingly prominent role in global forums and the turbulent global environment, he said. We will also have the opportunity to discuss this relationship with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. Finally, we will have an exchange of views on what the EU can do to support the UN-led peace process in Yemen and facilitate the delivery of vital humanitarian aid. Theresa May has received fresh backing for her Brexit deal - but still faces a fraught battle to win enough support for her withdrawal agreement ahead of an EU summit this week. In a significant boost for the prime minister, former Conservative chancellor Lord Lamont and ex-Northern Ireland first minister Lord Trimble have both argued there are reasons to support her deal, despite their previous objections. Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said new support for the prime minister's deal had given the government "cautious signs of encouragement". :: Add to Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker. However, some opponents to Mrs May's deal, such as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, repeated their opposition to her agreement and urged her to go back to the EU again to try to win further concessions. The prime minister has said, if MPs approve her deal by Wednesday, she will head to a Brussels summit on Thursday to ask for a three-month delay to Brexit to give parliament time to pass necessary legislation. However, if MPs continue to decline to back her withdrawal agreement this week, she has said a much longer delay to Brexit is likely, which could also see the UK take part in EU elections in May. Downing Street has said there must be a "realistic prospect" of success for the prime minister's deal, before a third "meaningful" vote on her withdrawal agreement is held in the Commons. Lord Lamont, a prominent eurosceptic, used an article in the Daily Mail to warn the opportunity to leave the EU "will never happen again and history will not understand if it is Conservative MPs who prevent us reclaiming our self government". He claimed delay to the UK's departure from the EU of a year or more would see Brexit as "truly dead", with the mandate from the 2016 referendum diminishing further. "If the PM's deal is rejected by the House of Commons, we may not leave the EU for many months and possibly not all," Lord Lamont wrote. Story continues Meanwhile, Lord Trimble, a former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party who now sits as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords, has co-authored a new report that argues the potential impact of the Irish border backstop arrangement has "significantly changed in the course of recent negotiations". Lord Trimble previously took the government to court to claim the backstop - an insurance policy to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland if talks on a future EU-UK trade relationship break down - is in breach of the Good Friday Agreement and should be removed from Mrs May's Brexit deal. But, in a research note for the Policy Exchange think tank, he argued that, in recent weeks, the government "has succeeded in securing substantive changes that will affect and limit the impact of the Irish backstop, if it is ever put in place". Although neither Lord Lamont or Lord Trimble will vote in the Commons on Mrs May's deal, their opinion could prove significant in persuading Brexiteer MPs to finally back the prime minister. Prominent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chair of the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory eurosceptics, also signalled he could now drop his opposition to the prime minister's deal. He told LBC Radio on Monday: "No deal is better than a bad deal, but a bad deal is better than remaining in the EU." However, Mr Rees-Mogg said he would continue to oppose the deal if the DUP, who are engaged in discussions with the government over the backstop, also fail to find a reason to support it. Yet, Mr Johnson is holding firm in his opposition, using his weekly Daily Telegraph column to demand the prime minister use this week's EU summit to "get real change to the backstop". Twenty-three Tory MPs also penned a letter in the Daily Telegraph to suggest they will maintain their "no" vote against the Brexit deal, despite the prospect of a long delay to leaving the EU. They wrote: "It is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices, but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other." Despite a third Commons vote on Mrs May's withdrawal agreement being expected this week, Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox - along with Downing Street - have since said the government will only go ahead if they are confident of winning. The prime minister's deal has already been twice rejected by an overwhelming majority of MPs. Over the weekend, former Tory cabinet minister Esther McVey - who quit the government in protest at Mrs May's Brexit strategy - told Sky News that Brexiteers like her would have to surrender "purity" in order to prevent Brexit being stopped altogether. Matthew Elliott, the boss of the Vote Leave campaign during the EU referendum, has also told MPs to "see the grave risks" of voting down the prime minister's deal again and to support the agreement. However, former Brexit secretary David Davis, who resigned in protest against the deal but then voted for it last week, has said he could change his mind once again. Labour MP Peter Kyle told Sky News on Monday he has received "broad support" from party leader Jeremy Corbyn for his plan to hold a "confirmatory" referendum, in which the public will be asked to choose between the prime minister's deal or cancelling Brexit. He will push his proposal via a Commons amendment when Mrs May's agreement is voted on again by MPs. 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. Pervez Musharraf shifted to hospital in Dubai Former military ruler retired Gen Pervez Musharraf has been shifted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease for which he is already under treatment, his party said on Sunday. The former president was rushed to the hospital as an "emergency" on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said. APML Overseas President Afzaal Siddique said that Musharraf had suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president has been receiving medical care. "He is expected to be discharged by tonight (Sunday night)," he said. According to the party, the former military ruler has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. It asked the nation to pray for Musharraf's health. Siddiqui had disclosed Musharraf's illness in October last year, saying the former president's disease had "weakened his nervous system". At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. "Due to amyloidosis, broken protein starts getting deposited in various organs," Siddiqui had explained. "[As a result] Pervez Musharraf has difficulty in standing and walking." The APML official had then said that Musharraf's treatment could continue for up to five or six months. Upon his full recovery, Siddiqui had said, Musharraf intends to return to Pakistan. "Why don't immigrants just come the legal way?" That's one of many questions Americans ask when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration. To find out for myself, I've been visiting the federal courthouse in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, which oversees immigration cases. When I was there last week, I met Matt Benson, an immigration attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio, who represents immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from around the globe. Benson says that the path to legal residency isn't as easy as many Americans imagine and under President Donald Trump, it's become even harder. Lawyer says it can be 'very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain legal status' "I represent a wide range of individuals, including a lot of women and children asylum seekers from Central America. Many come not for just economic reasons, but as a result of fleeing gang violence, domestic violence and on some occasions even politically motivated violence," Benson says. "I also represent a lot of asylum seekers from African countries who fear politically motivated violence and persecution based on their race or religion." Benson says his clients, even the ones who came to the U.S. illegally, want "nothing more than to become permanent residents, and one day, U.S. citizens." The vast majority of my clients are really good people, who not only want a better life for themselves and their families but also oftentimes flee violence and danger in their home countries. They work hard and for the most part, most of them abide by our laws here," Benson says. " Unfortunately, for those who enter the country unlawfully, it can be very difficult if not impossible to obtain legal status. I think that is one of the biggest misconceptions out there is that it's easy for someone, here unlawfully, to get legal. Nothing could be further from the truth." Many of Benson's clients request Relief from Removal, which allows undocumented immigrants and people who overstayed visas relief from deportation if they meet certain requirements: they've been here at least 10 years, show good moral character, and have no serious criminal convictions. Discuss this news on Eunomia Benson says many of these requests are denied under the Trump administration. "The biggest change is that ICE no longer exercises any discretion in terms of the individuals the target for enforcement or prosecute in removal proceedings," Benson says. "Under Obama, ICE used its limited resources on removing illegal immigrants with serious criminal records or a history of egregious immigration violations--like multiple, recent unlawful entries, or fraud. Now essentially everyone ICE encounters who is undocumented is put in proceedings." The Trump WH has made it much tougher for asylum seekers "Through former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Trump administration has made it much tougher on those seeking asylum from Central America," Benson says. "They did this by issuing a series of decisions in which the Attorney General referred to himself. This was a practice that prior to Trump was used very rarely by Attorneys General." The crackdown has resulted in undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, many of whom have been here their whole lives, being apprehended by ICE and slated for possible deportation. "I currently represent a woman who is three months pregnant and detained by ICE," Benson says. "She is a 35-year-old citizen of Mexico but was brought to the U.S. when she was only 16 months old. She attended school here and is completely Americanized. She also has no criminal convictions, only one pending misdemeanor criminal charge. That was enough for an immigration judge to deny bond." Depending on the outcome of her pending misdemeanor case, this woman--and her unborn child--could be deported to Mexico, a country they have never called home. Shah Mehmood Qureshi reached China Beijing: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has arrived on Monday in Beijing on a three-day visit to China. Shah Mehmood Qureshi was received by Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing and Pakistani Ambassador to China Masood Khalid. During the three day visit foreign minister will participate in the Pakistan-China Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue. Important matters of bilateral concern including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor will be discussed in the meeting. Qureshi will also meet the senior leaders of China and hold a meeting with his Chinese counterpart. The two Foreign Ministers will also talk about the issue of peace and security in the region. ASHEVILLE, N.C. (TWH) Syren Nagakyrie revealed a new project earlier this month, Deepening Resilience: Earth-based Responses for Climate Change. The project provides a platform that is focused on bringing together Pagans, Witches, Polytheists, Animists, and other spiritual practitioners to discuss how earth-centered communities can build resilience in the face of climate change. The basis of the project is to encourage others to write and share their articles on topics outlined. The program spans 12 weeks and covers seven topics, everything from what ecological resilience looks like to addressing grief and implementing and applying resilience and green initiatives within communities. The project is currently in week three which began on March 15 and explores the topic: What are your fears about climate change? What barriers to preparedness do you face? Anyone can choose to participate in the program at any time by submitting and sharing an article under the topic that is being examined and discussed. The project runs through May 12, 2019. In addition to the resources for sharing and discussion to be found on the Deepening Resilience site, there is also a Facebook group by the same name and open to those who wish to participate. * * * FLINT, Mich. The tea drinking Witches of Flint have announced several new events. This week on March 20, 2019 at 6pm they will be hosting their second Tea Talk at Totem Books located at 620 W. Court Street in Flint, Michigan. This newly launched, regular monthly event is free and will feature a specific topic of discussion. The guest speaker for this month is Melodie Bolt and will offer a discussion and workshop on Poetry in Praise of the Divine. Bolts writing has been published in a variety of Pagan publications, she holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University, and is President of Flint Area Writers. She is also High Priestess of the Sisters of the Burning Branch. Witches Tea Flints mission is to raise awareness for the Pagan Community and raise funds for local charities while having a magically good time. They have raised several thousand dollars with their teas and other events for charities like: YWCA of Greater Flint, Wellness Services, The Ellen Bommarito Book Fund, The Vanessa Goldman Scholarship, The Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, Humane Society of Genesee County, VFW Post 822, and the Flint Public Library. They have several upcoming fundraising events: Tea and Tarot Bingo on April 12, 2019 at 6 PM, Love of the Mother Fair on May 10, 2019, and Magical Goods Fair on June 14, 2019 all taking place at The Good Beans Cafe, located at 328 N. Grand Traverse Street in Flint, Michigan. * * * SANTA CRUZ, Calif. Community Seed, a Santa Cruz-based nonprofit organization, announced will be presenting a one-night-only concert as part of its annual Beltane celebration. Community Seed serves the local Pagan community by providing opportunities to gather, learn and celebrate. The concert will feature musicians Sharon Knight and Winter performing their Celtic-infused music, as well as a performances by dancer Faelan Shiva, director of the Satinka Belly Dance troupe and founder of the Trillium Belly Dance Studio, and Angus McMahan on percussion and congas. The concert will take place at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center located at 320-2 Cedar Street in Santa Cruz on April 26, 2019 at 7:30pm. Tickets are available online. In other news : Members of the Black Power biker community performed a Maori traditional tribal dance known as a Haka outside of the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, NZ to honor those killed and injured last week. A report from the New Zealand Herald contains video of the tribute. As reported by Wired, Romanian witches, also known as the vrajitoare, are using social media platforms and websites on the internet to live-stream rituals, consult with clients, and offer other services. Witchcraft is recognized in Romania as respectable profession, as evidenced by its inclusion in legislation in 2011 that required practicing Witches to pay taxes. A glass witch ball found in the collection of Historic Environment Scotland was recently examined and found to date to be somewhere in the 20 th century, despite earlier testing suggesting it was a hundred years older from the 19 th century. The Scotsman article reporting the dating change also reviews the history of watch balls and how their name got changed to witch balls and how they were used as protective charms. century, despite earlier testing suggesting it was a hundred years older from the 19 century. The Scotsman article reporting the dating change also reviews the history of watch balls and how their name got changed to witch balls and how they were used as protective charms. Irish Central Morgan Llywelyns book, Lion of Ireland will be the basis for an eight-part mini-series about Brian Boru, the 11th century king of Ireland. The rights to Llywelyns novel were purchased by Irish author Michael Scott and BCDF Pictures. No date for release of the mini-series has been announced yet. In witch hunts news : JAMSHEDPUR, Jharkhand, India Pandugda Mundain, a 70 year old woman was murdered by her 25 year old nephew, who believed his aunt was practicing witchcraft. The nephew, Isha Munda was arrested and charged with murder. KABALE, Uganda Tom Karegyesa, 65, his wife Jessica Mbirirwe, 66, and their daughter Miracle Natamba, 22 were brutally beaten and then set on fire by relatives of a woman, Anet Fridah, who died in her sleep of unknown causes. The relatives of Fridah believed Karegyesa was responsible for using witchcraft directed at Anet and causing her death and the deaths of several others in the area. It is unclear from news reports whether authorities have arrested anyone, though they are actively investigating the deaths. JHARKLAND, India Two brothers, Vijay Malegandi, 28 and Singhe Malegandi, 26, from the Simbanda village were arrested for the murder of Phulmani Devi, 30 after her headless body was found on railroad tracks in northeaster India. The police have charged the two men with murder and have identified their actions as a witch-huntcrime. This is the fourth murder since the beginning of January that has been identified as a witch-hunt murder. GHATAL, India In the Ishwarpur village, 51-year-old woman, Adarmani Hansda was lynched after being forcibly brought before a group of villagers who accused and convicted her of practicing black magic and making others in the village sick. Four other women who were also accused of being witches were rescued by police and were taken to Ghatal hospital, where they were admitted. The police were initially blocked from entering the village and had to wait for reinforcements. They also recovered the body of Adarmani Hansda. Arrests were not initially made and reports on the matter are not clear if anyone has been charged in the murder. SAMFYA, Zambia Rodgers Chapo 49, of Sakana village, chief Kalasamukoso in Samfya district was poisoned and died by a local traditional healer, Emmanuel Kasuba, after seeking help for his 20 year old daughter who has epilepsy. Kasuba instead decided Chapo was a wizard and administered an herb under the guise of cleansing him. Police have arrested Kasuba but the exact charges are unclear. Tarot of the week by Star Bustamonte Deck:Tales of Mystical Cats by Lunaea Weatherstone, art by Mickie Mueller, published by Llewellyn Books. Card: Two (2) of Sea This week could provide opportunities to fall in love or renew a relationship that has seemed to wane. Remember, it doesnt necessarily have to be a personwe fall in love with many things, and express passion in many ways. Conversely, if there is an absence of love, look for blockages caused by fear, unfinsihed business, and jealousy. Decks generously provided by Asheville Raven & Crone. RTHK: NZ to tighten gun laws, suspect rejects lawyer New Zealand will tighten gun laws in the wake of its worst modern-day massacre, the government said on Monday, as it emerged the white supremacist accused of carrying out the killings at two mosques will represent himself in court. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her coalition was unified on the need to reduce the availability of the kind of weapons used by Brenton Tarrant as he went room to room shooting Muslims gathered for Friday prayers. "We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified," she said, flanked by her coalition partner and deputy prime minister, Winston Peters. Peters, whose New Zealand First party has previously opposed changes, said he backed the prime minister fully. "The reality is that after one pm on Friday our world changed forever, and so will our laws," he said. Ardern, the youthful premier who has become the face of the nation's tragedy, said there would be an inquiry into the horrifying attack, as questions swirl over whether intelligence agencies should have spotted warning signs. Meanwhile the Australian charged with murder plans to represent himself and appears "rational", his court-appointed lawyer said. Duty lawyer Richard Peters, who represented him during the preliminary court hearing, said the 28-year-old "indicated he does not want a lawyer". "He wants to be self-represented in this case," said Peters, who played down suggestions that Tarrant may not be fit for trial. "The way he presented was rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. That's how he appeared. He seemed to understand what was going on," Peters said. In a related development, the arms dealer who sold weapons to Tarrant said he felt no responsibility for the deaths. David Tipple, the managing director of Gun City, confirmed he sold the alleged gunman four firearms and ammunition. "We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder," Tipple told a press conference in Christchurch. Asked if he held any sense of responsibility, Tipple said: "No, I do not." He added he would continue to sell weapons to anyone with the same credentials as the gunman. It was the responsibility of the police to vet firearms licence applications, he said. Tipple said the military-style semi-automatic the gunman was seen using did not come from his store. Tarrant obtained his standard "A-category" firearms licence in November 2017 and bought four weapons over four months using an online service, Tipple said, adding Gun City had records of the purchases and had provided full details to the police. Around Christchurch, New Zealand and the world there have been vigils, prayers, memorials and messages of solidarity. An emotion-filled haka the Maori war dance was performed by a New Zealand biker gang to honour the Christchurch dead. The country remained on high alert, with police on Sunday briefly closing an airport in the southern city of Dunedin where Tarrant had lived after an unidentified package was spotted on the airfield. The airport re-opened a few hours later. (AFP) ______________________________ Last updated: 2019-03-18 HKT 15:17 This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A federal appeals court has upheld the expulsion of an Oregon high school student whose personal journal include a hit list of 22 fellow students, even though the student said he was merely venting his anger and never circulated the journal. The number of reported tragic school shootings over the past two decades emphasizes the need for school districts to have the authority to take disciplinary action when faced with a credible threat of school violence, said a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco. The case concerns a student identified in court papers as CLM, who was a sophomore at Sherwood High School in the Sherwood School District in Oregon in the spring on 2014 when his personal journal was discovered. The journal stated I Am God and All These People Must Die, naming 22 Sherwood students and one former school employee. Other entries included graphic depictions of violence. CLMs mother found the journal in her sons bedroom, copied some pages, and told a therapist, who was alarmed and believed she had a duty as a mandatory reporter to inform the police. The police searched the familys home and confiscated a .22 caliber rifle and 525 rounds of ammunition belonging to the student. CLM told the police that sometimes he thinks killing people might relieve some of the stress he feels, the 9th Circuit opinions says, but he also said he uses the journal to vent and that he would never carry out such thoughts. The police did not file any charges, but they informed the school district of CLMs hit list and the fact that he had weapons and lived closed to his high school. Pursuant to an Oregon law requiring schools to inform parents of a student named on a hit list, the district took that step. Before long, the media learned of the hit list and CLMs picture appeared on social media in connection with the list. CLM was suspended, and district officials soon recommended the one-year expulsion for making a threat of violence that caused a distinct and substantial disruption to the school environment. A hearing officer adopted the recommendation for expulsion, and CLM began alternative education that included online learning, tutoring, and courses at a community college. CLM and his parents sued the district, arguing that the students First Amendment free-speech rights and 14th Amendment equal protection and due process clauses were violated. A federal district court held that the school district could regulate ALMs off-campus speech because the hit list had a sufficient connection to school and that the one-year expulsion did not violate CLMs rights because a student-authored hit list would cause a substantial disruption in any community. In its March 14 decision in McNeil v. Sherwood School District 88J , the 9th Circuit panel affirmed the district court. The panel said the case bore some similarities to a 2013 decision of the 9th Circuit in Wynar v. Douglas County School District , which upheld the expulsion of a student who sent threatening instant messages to fellow students from his home computer. There is always a sufficient nexus between the speech and the school when the school district reasonably concludes that it faces a credible, identifiable threat of school violence, the 9th Circuit panel said in the new decision. We have recognized repeatedly that the specter of school violence places a weighty social responsibility on school districts to ensure that warning signs do not turn to tragedy. That responsibility does not mean schools may expel students just because they are loners or wear black and play video games, the panel said. It does mean, however, that a students intent, although relevant, does not necessarily define the threat of violence, the opinion said. We reaffirm our holding in Wynar that regardless of the speakers intent or how speech comes to a school districts attention, a school district may take disciplinary action in response to off-campus speech when it reasonably determines that it faces an identifiable and credible threat of school violence. The court upheld CLMs one-year expulsion, noting that the student did not challenge the length of the discipline, only whether the district had the authority to expel him at all. The court hinted that the one-year term of expulsion may have been excessive, saying that at a certain point, discipline may lose its basis in reasonable, ongoing concerns of campus safety, disruption, or interference with the rights of other students, and instead become primarily a punitive, retrospective response to the students speech. But the district prevailed in showing that CLMs presence at the school after the hit list was revealed would have caused a substantial disruption of, or material interference with school activities and would have interfered with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone. That language is from the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark 1969 student free speech decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District . Three more Pakistanis martyred in Christchurch mosque attack: FO Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Faisal Sunday confirmed that three more Pakistanis had been martyred in the horrific terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. In his tweet, Dr Faisal said Zeeshan Raza, his father Ghulam Hussain and mother Karam bibi have now been confirmed to have embraced martyrdom in the terrorist attack. He said a total of nine Pakistani have embraced martyrdom in attack on two mosques. The names of Pakistanis who lost their lives in Fridays attack are: Sohail Shahid, Syed Jahandad Ali, Syed Areeb Ahmed, Mahboob Haroon, Naeem Rashid, Talha Naeem, Zeeshan Raza, Ghulam Hussain and Karam. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a private TV channel said that families of four Pakistani martyrs of Christchurch terror attack have requested for bringing bodies of their loved ones to Pakistan, while relatives of two victims wanted their burial in New Zealand. He said the government will fully cooperate in bringing the bodies of four Pakistani martyrs back to the country. The bodies of some of the victims in New Zealands mosque shootings were set to be released on Sunday to loved ones for burial, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, as the death toll rose to 50 when police found another body. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. Fridays attack, which Ardern labelled terrorism, was the worst ever peacetime mass killing in New Zealand and it has raised its security threat level to the highest. Footage of the attack on one of the mosques in the city of Christchurch was broadcast live on Facebook, and a manifesto denouncing immigrants as invaders was also posted online via links to related social media accounts. Huge piles of flowers were laid at sites near the mosques and passers-by of all faiths stopped to pay respects. Ardern said police would be posted at all mosques while they are open. Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the body of the 50th victim was found at the Al Noor mosque, where more than 40 people died after a gunman entered and shot at people with a semi-automatic rifle with high-capacity magazines, before travelling to a second mosque. Police rammed the suspects vehicle and arrested him as he drove away from the second mosque in the suburb of Linwood. by Thomas ODwyer On April 1, one hundred years ago, Walter Gropius established the Bauhaus school of design in Weimar, central Germany. It lasted a mere 14 years exactly the same time as the Weimar Republic. In 1933, the Nazis destroyed both. Short life or not, Bauhaus opened up a modern way of thinking about arts and crafts, the marriage of form and function, education, and the growth of cities. Its ideas have had an impact well beyond the school, its locations and its era. And there have been some resurrections. Sleepy Weimar has regained its pleasant obscurity and the recovery of Bauhaus has been a little uneven, but robust and international. Nazi thuggery was dealt a satisfying poke in the eye by one living monument to Bauhaus, the White City of Tel Aviv in Israel a UNESCO World Heritage site. Gropius revolutionary school of art and design was an achievement of modernism itself. It began as the Thuringian state Bauhaus in Weimar, moved as a school of design to Dessau, and finally as a private institute to Berlin. Its themes grew from an active arts and crafts movement and when the Nazis crushed it, these ideas flooded out of Germany with thousands of emigrants. The influence of Bauhaus has been immense, especially in the United States, where many artists moved before and during World War II. As well as Tel Aviv, built by Jewish German refugees, there are World Heritage Bauhaus sites in a dozen states around the world. The 100th anniversary this year is being marked by exhibitions, theatre, music and modern dance events. A flood of books has appeared, most destined to languish unread on post-Bauhaus bookshelves. What the term Bauhaus means to the wider public today is hard to pin down. It can be buildings with rounded balconies and white walls. There are Barcelona chairs, Wagenfeld table lamps, and a mundane Gropius door handle. Perceptions vary. Bauhaus can be the boring historic project of the humourless, dry-old-stick Gropius. It can mean dreary concrete, metal factories and soaring glass boxes of industrial space. It has meant boxy homes with flat leaky roofs, without hearth or heart. In his 1981 book, From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe played to some of the public prejudice against architecture believed to be Bauhaus inspired: Every child goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse Every $900,000 summer house in the north woods of Michigan or on the shore of Long Island has so many pipe-railings, lamps, metal spiral stairways, sheets of industrial plate glass, banks of tungsten halogen lamps, and white cylindrical shapes, it looks like an insecticide refinery. I once saw the owners of such a place driven to the edge of sensory deprivation by the whiteness & lightness & leanness & cleanness & bareness & spareness of it all. Wolfes tirade against Bauhaus and the modern movement was already passe. By the late 1970s, post-modernism was coming, crafting a new style for itself and bringing back architecture with a sense of history. Bauhaus had gone, like many movements born in the grime of Europe after World War I. It was no longer about making life better for the poor and ill-housed, as Gropius and his followers had wished. It was now an arty topic to be mulled over by the middle-class elites who read Tom Wolfe. Expensive art books on the subject gathered dust on their modernist coffee tables. Bauhaus itself was never one thing, one trend. It was more a collection of ideas that reached into every aspect of daily life with the aim of creating beauty in the simplest objects. It collated global trends in architecture, design, arts and crafts, and even photography and typography. The founding ideas of Bauhaus came from the German Arts and Crafts Movement of the prewar period. It became as renowned for its teaching methods as for its artistic concepts. Its brief life as a school for design and its constant physical relocations meant reinventing itself as it went along. Former teachers and students built networks across Europe and beyond to disseminate Bauhaus. Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society, Gropius wrote. The ultimate aim of all artistic activity is building! Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all get back to craft The artist is a heightened manifestation of the craftsman Let us form a new guild of craftsmen without the class divisions that set out to raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists. Let us together create the new building of the future which will be all in one: architecture and sculpture and painting. The name bau-haus (building-house) suggested a workers fraternity constructing a new society. Its guild of teachers included Gropius, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers. Discussions at the Works Council for Art, where German intellectuals and artists met in late 1918, had a decisive influence on the programme of the first Bauhaus established at Weimar. One workgroup, which included Gropius, discussed a serious reform of the German education system. In early 1919, the group developed a concept paper that served as a basis for the Bauhaus manifesto that Gropius drafted. Gropius created the Weimar State Bauhaus in 1919 from the former Grand Ducal Saxonian School of Arts and Crafts. A Belgian designer, Henry van de Velde, had founded this and it had gained some international reputation. Gropius appointed Klee, Kandinsky, and Moholy-Nagy as masters at the Bauhaus, along with Oskar Schlemmer, Gerhard Marcks, Lyonel Feininger and Johannes Itten. During its time in Weimar, up to 1925, the Bauhaus became an important centre for Europes avant-garde. Around 200 students enrolled at the Bauhaus Weimar almost half were women and up to 30 percent were foreign. There were no academic requirements, so talented young people of any education, gender or nationality could study there. The Thuringian state government gave the Bauhaus school financial support, but political tensions were rising. By 1923, right-wing politicians saw the school as sympathetic to communism and the education ministry cut its funding in half. Gropius was already looking elsewhere for support and in March 1925 the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, changing from a state entity to a school of design. Far from retarding the development of the school, with the move to Dessau Bauhaus entered a short golden age as it pursued its goal to unite art and technology in buildings and everyday products. The Bauhaus Dessau school, which Gropius designed, remains one of the 20th centurys best-known modernist buildings. Most of the products and buildings that still define the image of the Bauhaus were created in Dessau. Gropius founded the company Bauhaus GmbH which allowed the schools students to share in the success of the products developed there. The teaching method was based on a community of artists working together with the aim of integrating art into everyday life. Architecture, performing arts, graphic design, photography and applied arts were grafted on to a fine arts curriculum. The Bauhaus manifesto that Gropius wrote was not political, but even a laundry list could be interpreted politically in this noisy era. His movement did end up being despised by Nazis for its decadence and by Stalin for its lack of socialist realism. Lenins 1917 revolution in Russia had been followed, in 1918-19, by a civil war in Germany, between monarchist rightists and socialist leftists. The Bauhaus founder denounced designers and decorators, not politicians or activists. Art is not a profession, he wrote, and also criticised the contemporary isolation of the artist from everyday life. The complete building is the final aim of the visual arts. Their noblest function was once the decoration of buildings. Today they exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all craftsmen. His manifesto urged cooperative practice in the arts, ensuring that the political right would detect echos of communism. Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist. Gropius and his school were first welcomed by a liberal mayor and town council in Dessau. But before long, the activities of the school raised the ire of those who began taking their cultural cues from the philistine Adolf Hitler. As the worlds economy lurched into crisis, the elitist lifestyle of the Bauhaus with its theatre, musical ensembles and cultural festivals caused resentment. From 1927 Gropius was again caught in a fight to save his school in Dessau, as had previously happened in Weimar. By 1931, Nazis already dominated Dessau city council and they ordered Bauhaus to close in September 1932. The school moved for one last time to an old telephone factory in Berlin but had no time to reorganize itself before it was shut down for good in July 1933. Among students at the Dessau Bauhaus from 1930 until its closure was a Japanese couple, Iwao Yamawaki and his wife Michiko. When they went home, Iwao took with him a collage he had made Der Schlag Gegen das Bauhaus (The Attack on the Bauhaus). He published it, without comment, in the architecture magazine Kokusai Kenchiku in December 1932. In the collage, men in uniforms and boots march into the center of the picture, across the facade of the Dessau Bauhaus. The man in the middle of the picture is Ernst Rohm, the brutal leader of the first Nazi militia. A civilian, with a hat and coat, is Alfred Hugenberg, a press mogul who crafted the media strategies that brought Hitler to power. At the bottom of the picture, four students, three men and a woman, shout angrily, one clenching his fist. In the background are more stormtroopers and six ominously prostrate figures. The now-famous collage was Iwaos fitting epitaph for Bauhaus. For Gropius, there was life after Bauhaus. In 1934 he fled to Britain and lived in an arts community in Hampstead, London, where he worked with the British architect Maxwell Fry for three years. He next moved to the United States with his second wife, Ise and 12-year-old daughter, Ati. He built a home in Lincoln, Massachusetts on the principles developed at the Bauhaus simplicity, economy, aesthetic beauty. The Gropius House, made a National Landmark in 2000, was influential in bringing the modern movement in architecture to the U.S. Gropius went on to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1937 and became chair of the Department of Architecture, where he remained until he retired in 1952. He died in Boston in 1969, aged 86. It may be difficult to comprehend what the Bauhaus centers around the world are celebrating this centenary year. The Bauhaus means something different to everyone, whether layperson, artist or designer. It was an odd phenomenon, its roots and context now unfamiliar to anyone living today. It is of course associated with a style of architecture, yet there were no architecture lessons in the early classes. Painters, not architects, dominated the Bauhaus. Only at Dessau did the curriculum tilt at last towards architecture. Walter Gropius himself could not even draw he depended on assistants and partners all his life. Tom Wolfes book enshrined one fallacy about the Bauhaus. He blamed it for the boring corporate buildings and bleak inhuman housing projects of the 1950s-60s. It was industrial greed, not Gropius, that all too successfully achieved the aim of merging art with technology. Unfortunately, the art was lost along the way. Property developers found the minimalist formula for steel-and-glass high-rise buildings to be cheaper to build than the old masonry structures, so culture be damned. Big-business turned the ideals of the community-designer Bauhaus into soulless capitalist tools for profit. Bauhaus was both a child and a victim of its troubled times and historical tides, as Gropius himself admitted later in life. About ninety percent of the unprecedented efforts made by all participants in this undertaking went into countering national and local hostility, and only ten percent remained for actual creative work, he wrote. Maybe only one percent of the Bauhaus venture remains visible in the UN World Heritage sites and the clean lines of much modern design. But those unprecedented efforts still look worthwhile, a hundred years later. by Gabrielle C. Durham I teach two kinds of group exercise classes, and part of the certification processes for both disciplines devoted no small amount of attention to how to speak to your minions, uh, students. Negative forecasting is a no no. (Example: Dont think about the searing pain youre probably feeling is not considered positive forecasting.) Use the imperative rather than the interrogative. (Examples: 1, 2, 3, lift those legs behind your neck. Now! vs. Could you please move this way, pretty please?) Try not to use overly involve anatomical terms, especially when referring to the butt. (Example: Use seat rather than almost any other term that all students would understand and potentially complain about. Its happened.) To be fair, the setting for such interactions matters. I teach in a gym, so word of mouth is terrifically important to getting bodies in the room, and you never know when you are going to offend someone with an offhand remark. At the studio where I also torture people for money, I have a bit more leeway with such rules. Im still not supposed to say that a particular move will hurt or cause pain. Other rules include expectations such as: Dont kill your client directly, try not to insult the client, come on time, wear clothing, et cetera. Most dance classes, such as Zumba, NIA, Polynesian, or hip-hop, but not ballet, require almost no words, so thats a factor that you can reasonably eliminate from this consideration of how language is used. If you can find the beat and see the instructor reasonably well, you can follow along as expertly as you can manage. When I took ballroom dancing, this was not the case, but the less said about that, the better. Some classes emphasize the action of the movement less than in others. For example, in a restorative yoga class, the action described by the teacher might not use action verbs because that would detract from the goal of mindfulness for the student. In cardio-heavy classes, there is not as much verbiage. Why? The anaerobic quality of the class precludes much profound communication. A teacher in a spinning class (bicycle, not weaving) might use more inspirational/motivational you-can-do-it language. (Youre almost there! Another minute at this level before we take it down a notch.) Some people love that, and some do not (see point 3). That nonsense makes me wanna slay a Buffy with her headset, but thats just me. Other students respond really well to the drill sergeant model. Again, not I. Because a major focus is to motivate people to move safely, considerations of visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners is less of a concern than it would be in a primary school classroom. I mostly teach adults, so learning styles matter less (ostensibly). That being said, I find that just saying the words (only satisfying auditory processing) results in more vacant looks and listless stillness than if I am also simultaneously demonstrating the desired exercise (both auditory and visual processing are in play). Of course, many people go to the gym and have no interest in taking classes or even refuse to set foot in a place that advertises how it will make you sweat until you bleed. Some folks use apps and online videos to work out and have preferences for their preferred style of teacher. As we used to say in the late 90s, its all good. Regardless of how you feel when you are working out, chances are that there is some communication occurring at some level, even if it is a hard eyeroll after hearing an instructor tell you to breathe through your ribs as you hug your midline (guilty). Theres the chipper quotient to contend with, which seems to be a prerequisite for every fitness teacher Ive ever met. Perkiness is pretty much baked into teaching group exercise, although Im not sure if that applies to male or male-identifying teachers as much as it does women. Overly cheerful is not my default setting, but I do teach with a sense of humor, which can smooth over some of my more glaring personality flaws. In the classes I teach, I give cues throughout the practice to keep students safe and engaged. They tend to work up a sweat as we laugh and strive to lengthen the spine, work the abs, and feel joyful together for an hour a couple times a week. Theres not much that tops witnessing a student get into a pose correctly for the first time, to really get how it should feel. None of this is likely to compel you to check out a group exercise class if thats not how you roll. As long as youre not Prancercising, were cool. by Carol A Westbrook What song did you have in your head when you woke up today? Was it, Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling as you recalled your St. Patricks Day celebration from the previous weekend? Probably not. Chances are, the song in your head was not a slow, melodic ballad with simple lyrics, but a catchy, snappy tune. It might have been a line from a popular song, such as Lady Gagas Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah from her song Bad Romance, or Queens Bohemian Rhapsody. Maybe it was an annoying commercial jingle 1-8-7-7-Kars-4-Kids. Maybe youre thinking of food, and getting hungry. O-Oh! How about some Spaghetti Os? Or Rice a Roni, that San Francisco treat? If you didnt wake up with a song in your head, you probably have one after reading this far. Ive just infected you with an earworm. An earworm is a catchy tune that worms its way into your head when you hear or even read it, and then seems to get stuck there. And its really hard to get rid of. Many people enjoy these tunes that loop through their brains, much like they enjoy listening to music on the radio or their iPod. Others find them distracting. And for a very small number of people, they can be incapacitating. Neurologists and psychologists have been interested in earworms for years, referring to them as involuntary music imagery (INMI). INMI are interesting to scientists because they are involuntary thoughts that we dont consciously put into our heads, but they seem to appear there on their own. As a matter of fact, 40% of our thoughts are not under our conscious control, but musical thoughts based on popular songs or jingles are perhaps easiest to study because they are readily described. Most people find that having an earworm is a pleasurable experience. Brain imaging research using MRI scans has confirmed that the pleasure of listening to an earworm is experience by the brain in much the same way as listening to external music, for instance songs played on the radio or an iPod. These studies also showed that certain regions of the brain are thicker or more developed in subjects who are prone to frequent earworms. We dont really need a neurology experiment to tell us that earworms can lighten our mood as they keep us company in our morning shower, or when we are sitting in a waiting room with nothing else to do. And just like we find that some songs give us pleasure and some annoy us, stuck songs can be very annoying when they portray a song that we find annoying in real life. How do we select an earworm? We dont. It selects us. Since earworms were first described in the early 1900s, it has been recognized that some songs and melodies are most likely to become stuck in our brains, whereas others are not. What makes a tune sticky and another not is a subject of much interest, especially to the advertising companies who are vying to write the catchiest jingles to make us remember to purchase their product. Scientists have reported that sticky songs are usually 15-30 second in length, and three-fourths of them have lyrics. (I would add that the earworm lyrics are catchy, but the lyrics following the sticky segment are usually harder to remember.) A more comprehensive study by researchers in the UK asked 3,000 people to identify songs that they felt were sticky, and compared it to a list of songs that none of the participants picked. They found that most earworms are upbeat, have predictable melodies, and include a surprising twist inside that melody. Like Lady Gagas Bad Romance. This would leave out slow, sad ballads like Danny Boy, and most traditional Christmas songs. And you may have noticed that commercial background musicoften referred to as Muzakdoes not seem to produce earworms. Thats because the bland tunes of Muzak are carefully selected to stay in the background and not take up our attention with a repeating loop of song. Their purpose is to direct us to other activities: to keep us in the store and buy more things, to get us out of the elevator fast, or to remind us that its Christmas (spend money). Interestingly, there are few Christmas tunes that reliably produce earworms, though one of the most notorious is Mariah Careys, All I Want for Christmas is You. You can find any number of online polls asking readers for their most common earworms, and they are heavily influenced by which songs are in the popular consciousness at the time. In a recent poll, the top was Bad Romance, which, in case you forgot, goes rah rah, ah ah ah. Lady Gaga seems to have a talent for writing tunes that become earworms. In a recent survey she achieved 3 of the top positions, and Im sure that he recent Oscar-winning song Shallow will be on the list, too. It is for me, anyway. Lady Gaga may have a rare inborn talent for creating earworms, a talent that most advertising executives would pay dearly for. Unlike Muzak, which is crafted to stay in the background, advertising jingles are created to stick in your head. Jingles have been used to sell products since commercial radio made its appearance in the 1920s. The first known advertising jingle was in a 1926 Wheaties radio ad. It was the jingle, Have you tried Wheaties? to the tune of Jazz Baby popular tune at that time which is probably why Wheaties licensed the tune. Its common for advertisers to use popular tunes for their jinglesremember Microsofts theme, Start Me Up,by the Rolling Stones? Yet the most memorable advertising tunes are those that stand alone. Many of us have fond, lasting memories of these tunes, many of which date back to a time when everyone watched the same TV programs (and the same commercials). These include such catchy tunes as Im a ToysRUs Kid, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner, and that indelible800-588-2300, Empire. Here is a fun list including videos of some of the most memorable, stickiest jingles. You can probably sing them all by heart. But be warned: one may get stuck in your head and you will have trouble getting rid of it. Annoying earworms go away eventually for most people, but for a few folks they can persist and become distressing or disturbing. When psychiatrists evaluate someone with a stuck song, they must first determine if the patient perceives the song are arising from within an earwormrather than from external sources, such as outer space, or the Devil, or God. Songs that are perceived as external songs are a form of hallucination, and are the symptom of a much more serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia. In contrast to auditory hallucinations, persistent and distressing earworms that wont go away can be a sign of OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. People with OCD who are prone to stuck songs that they know are internal can go to extraordinary means to avoid sources of music, such as ringtones and radios. In these cases, doctors look for other signs of OCD, such as compulsive behavior, checking urges, etc. Medications are sometimes used, especially when earworms and other compulsions disrupt normal life. But if you are a normal person and have an earworm youd like to exterminate, there are any number of strategies to do this. The first is to embrace it, go with the flow, and sing the song aloudto its ending. You may have to Google the lyrics, because the first line may be all you remember. If singing aloud is not feasible, try distractionlisten to different music, or do something physical like a sport, or take a walk. Chewing gum works for some people. You can even try to replace it with a song that you find less annoying. Whats your earworm for today? When it comes to weeknight drinks, nothing gets us like the dilapidated charm of cheap neighborhood watering holes. For no-frills drinks, greasy bar bites, quirky decor, graffiti-scribbled bathrooms, analog photo booths, and jukeboxes, these are San Francisco's most beloved dive bars. Cheers, gang. Li Po Cocktail Lounge See on Instagram Nestled on the edge of Chinatown, Li Po Cocktail Lounge exists as a dimly lit former opium den, where, instead of illicit drugs, now live bands and potent drinks fill the halls and basement. Their signature Chinese mai tais are the go-to libations here, which you can sip seated alongside the wraparound bar or atop a "well-loved" red leather booth. Ubiquitous, traditional Chinese lanterns hang from the celings for decoration and practicality. On your way out, feel free to send a silent offering to the gold-plated Buddha statue near the door. // 916 Grant Ave. (Chinatown), lipolounge.com The Knockout See on Instagram Akin to Beauty Bar's SF installment, sans the obvious nightclub chain normalities, the Knockout houses DJ dance parties, live punk band playings, bingo nights, and an all around no-frill dive bar experience. Knockout's weekly Sweater Funk Superfly dance party is reason enough to bob and weave to Motown and Soul anthems after downing a bit of liquid courage. A word to the wise: Don't leave without signing a pose in the photo booth. // 3223 Mission St. (Bernal Heights), theknockoutsf.com Kozy Kar Bar See on Instagram One of our favorite NSFW-skewed watering holesporn, straight and gay, plays on the wall-mounted televisions when the sun goes downKozy Kar harkens back to the care-free 70s. The drinks are, as you'd expect, remarkably cheap for SF, and the ambiance is, say, That-70s-Show-meets-the-HGTV's-roster-of-home-decorating-shows. (Custom vans, eight track players, CB radios, waterbeds, chain steering wheels, shag carpets, oh my!) Leave any semblance of prudence at home, please. // 1548 Polk St. (Polk Gulch), kozykar.com Zeitgeist See on Instagram The award for the diviest and most beloved of San Francisco bars probably has to go to Zeitgeistbecause let's be honest, this is where you go for cheap drinks (preferably bloody marys) once you're already drunk enough to eat one of their greasy-ass burgers. And there's just nothing better, especially when you and your gang can crowd in at a picnic table on a sunny day to get sloshed. // 199 Valencia St. (Mission), instagram.com/zeitgeist_sf The Cinch Saloon See on Instagram A haven for button-up gays in flannel and billiards enthusiasts, The Cinch exudes old-school dive bar vibes from everyone of its weathered corners, albeit with a hella homo twist. The drinks are effusively slung and quite strong; the outside patio is intimate, and also smoke-friendly; pool and pinball machines fill the narrow lounge. Keep an eye out on their Facebook page for updates on drag shows, community potlucks, and more. // 1723 Polk St. (Polk Gulch) Aces Bar See on Instagram Sports fans know Aces as home base for NY Giants and Wisconsin Badgers game. Everyone else comes to the no-frills Polk Gulch hub for the friendly bartenders and the slurpee machine that stirs a frappuccino-like Irish Coffee available from 6am to noon, making for a potentially left-of-center morning coffee run. Inexpensive, straightforward cocktails fill the menu, as well as a Keg Table, which can be reserved in advance. Jukebox playings revibrate off the red-painted walls, essentially all hours they're open. // 998 Sutter St., (Polk Gulch) acesbarsf.com Hi Dive Bar See on Instagram Waterfront views and pier-inspired decor serve as the diving platforms for bar bites and cheap(ish) libations. Brunch at Hi Dive (10am to 2pm Saturday and Sunday) centers around their famous spicy Bloody Mary, served saddle-side with such staples lake Mission Huevos, chorizo scramble, and more. Take your shot at the pool table in between drinks. And don't worry, you're not going crazy: There really is a bike hanging from above the bartop. // 28 Pier (Embarcadero), hidivesf.com Zam Zam See on Instagram One of the oldest, most beloved bars in San Francisco, Zam Zam has been Haight-Ashbury fulcrum for quenching a thirst since 1941. A Persian barwith like-culture interior paraphernalia, including a drop-dead gorgeous back bar muralspecializes in the martinis of yesteryear. Suffice to say that this cash-only (and prior Anthony Bourdain approved watering hole) is a must for locals and tourists, alike. // Open daily; 1633 Haight St. (Haight-Ashbury), facebook.com Louie's Bar See on Instagram Louie's Bar is a bit more unassuming than its sister Pour Guys-owned watering hole, Tempest...to say the least. But it's this bar's bashful, brick-faced facade that makes is all the more worthwhile to checkout. A former whalers drinking establishment, with roots back to the 1930s, Louie's Bar splays its daily round of cocktails, mocktails, and other drinks across chalkboards. Upscale pub grub include such morsels like pork belly tacos, vegan cauliflower burger, you name it. // Open daily; 55 Stevenson St. (SoMa), pourguys.com Tempest Bar & Box See on Instagram The long-standing and undoubtedly most popular dive bar in San Francisco, Tempest is the brick-exposed, rustic mecca for frugal drinks and live music (though shows remain on hold due to Covid). The bar, itself, maintains some of its old vintage 50's-era fixtures, mixed in with modern-day technologies and convienes (free WiFi!) The Tempest, too, doubles as a culinary playground for Box Kitchen; the chicken karaage nuggets are, alone, worth the after-work-day wait. // Open for outdoor seating and takeout 11:30am to midnight weekdays, 3:30pm to midnight Saturday and Sunday; 431 Natoma St. (FiDi), pourguys.com/tempest-bar The Saloon See on Instagram Set in a late-1800s atmosphere, The Saloon presents itself as a window into a simpler, less high-strung way of drinking in the city. Live music is a daily calendar event, where relaxed vibes and a diverse crowds intersect across the bartop; The Saloon, above all else, is an ode to an SF of past, one you can see, hear, and even smell when walking through their single narrow entryway. Cash is the preferred payment method here, so make sure you've got some bills on you, beforehand. Please note that, as of press time, The Saloon remains temporarily closed due to Covid-19 but is expected to reopen in Summer 2021. // 1232 Grant Ave. (Jackson Square), sfblues.net/saloon It's going to be a major week. Get ready for all kinds of festivalsartisan cheese, Bay Area brews, and even one for runners; catch the SF Ballet's annual fashion show, this year with Jason Wu; try a VR workout; head to Jurassic NightLife; and dance all day and night. Have a good one! Monday, March 18th See on Instagram Get your VR workout on. When: 6am to 9pm weekdays, 8am to 4pm weekends Where: Black Box VR, 1390 Market St. Suite 102 (Civic Center), blackbox-vr.com/sf Looking to amp up your fitness routine? Drop by the Black Box VR, a new virtual reality gym, where you can reserve a 10-by-10-foot personal VR room and then sweat your way through a 30-minute game session of high intensity cardio and resistance training. // Pricing is $199 per month for unlimited sessions. Support Kimberly Ellis for California Democratic Party Chair When: 7pm to 830pm Where: The Assembly, 449 14th St. (Mission) Want to help elect the first black woman chair to the California Democratic Party? Pop by this women-powered fundraiser tonight. // $100 minimum donation; RSVP at act.myngp.com. Tuesday, March 19th See on Instagram Trivia Tuesday When: 6pm to 7:30pm Where: Rosenblum Cellars, 10 Clay St. (Oakland), rosenblumcellars.com Test your intellect with five rounds of trivia questions about pop culture, music, and more. Want to get a leg up? Hunt down some pre-contest clues on Rosenblum's Facebook page. // Free to attend, more info on rosenblumcellars.com. Earthquakes and fires and floods, oh my! When: 6pm to 7:30pm Where: Manny's, 3092 16th St. (Mission), welcometomannys.com If you live in the Bay Area, you my find yourself worrying from time to time about "the next big one," or maybe it will be a tsunamis or a wildfire that takes us all out. This is normal right? Listen in on a discussion with SF Port executive director Elaine Forbes and Department of Emergency Management executive director Mary Ellen Carroll about the city's emergency contingencies and the logistics of building a seawall. You may walk away feeling a little more prepared. // Tickets (free with RSVP) are available on eventbrite.com. Taste of Temescal 2019 When: 6pm to 8:30pm Where: Telegraph Avenue from 40th to 52nd Streets, Temescal Alley, and Claremont Ave (Temescal) Explore eats and drinks from more than 20 Oakland restaurantsincluding Dona Tomas, Hawking Bird, Cafe Colucci, and The Wellat this 10th annual walkabout tasting. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the East Bay school or organization of your choice. // Tickets ($40) are available on brownpapertickets.com. Donkey & Goat Winemaker Dinner When: 5:30pm to 1opm Where: Commonwealth, 2224 Mission St. (Mission), commonwealthsf.com Keep it local with a winemaker dinner featuring the East Bay's Donkey & Goat Winery at Michelin-starred restaurant Commonwealth. Expect five tasty courses, each paired with natural wines. // Tickets ($195) can be made on opentable.com. Wednesday, March 20th See on Instagram Fashion Show With Jason Wu When: 11am to 2pm Where: Bently Reserve, 301 Battery St., bentlyreserve.com This year, the San Francisco Ballet's annual fashion show luncheon will feature Fall 2019 looks from designer Jason Wu. High roller? Donate at the grand benefactor level and take yourself to the much fancier pre-event dinner at Ken Fulk's Magic Factory the night before. // Proceeds benefit SF Ballet programs, tickets ($500 and up) can be found on sfballet.org. Check out Burma Club. When: 5pm to 10pm, Tuesday through Saturday Where: Burma Club, 8 Mint Plaza (SoMa), burmainc.com From the folks behind Burma Superstar, Burma Club arrives at Mint Plaza with all the specialtiestea leaf salad, samusa soup, platha bread and dip, curries and more. Stop in for happy hour at the posh long bar, or make an evening of it with a full dinner spread. Rock Paper Scissors Pub Crawl When: 8:30pm to 2am Where: Northeast corner of Broadway and Kearny Streets Think you're the master of rock-paper-scissors? Test your skills with this moving bar crawl, where you'll play new competitors at each bar. The champion will win a bar tab. // Free to attend, attendees must check in between 8:30pm and 8:45pm at the meet-up point; more event info on Facebook. Thursday, March 21st See on Instagram Jurassic NightLife When: 6pm to 10pm Where: California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Drive (Golden Gate Park), calacademy.org Break up your week with a dino-themed NightLife night. Explore new dinosaur exhibits with life-size replicas, listen to the Jurassic Park score performed by the Awesome Orchestra, and view dinosaur fossils, teeth, and claws. // Tickets ($15) are available on calacademy.org. 140 Years of the Conservatory of Flowers When: 7pm to 8pm Where: Western Neighborhoods Project, 1617 Balboa St. (Inner Richmond), outsidelands.org This year the iconic Conservatory of Flowers celebrates 140 years in business. Spend an evening admiring photos of the building as it evolved over time, and hear tales of its history, origin, some interesting characters, and a few disasters. // Tickets ($20) can be found on outsidelands.org. Tenderloin Cocktail Culture When: 7pm to 9pm Where: Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St. (Tenderloin), tenderloinmuseum.org As the city's notorious and celebrated center of vice, Tenderloin bars, restaurants, and hotels have played a starring role in the emergence of San Francisco cocktail culture. Tonight, head the TL's museum for a talk and tasting led by Shana Farrell, author of Bay Area Cocktails: A History of Culture, Community and Craft. In collaboration with the California Historical Society, the event is part of The Match Book: Tenderloin Historical Ephemera Project, a concurrent exhibition in which you can view historic local bar signs, glassware, postcards, menus, and matchbooks (of course). Friday, March 22nd See on Instagram A Gay Brit Concert When: 8pm Where: Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave (Civic Center), sfsymphony.org Spend a musical evening watching the three-hundred person San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus perform The Brits are Coming!, backed up by a five-piece band and featuring songs from The Beatles, Adele, Queen, and more. The show is only one night so make sure you get over to this one. // Tickets ($25 to $125) are available on sfgmc.org. Piano Meditation When: 8pm to 9:30pm Where: Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St. (Nob Hill), gracecathedral.org Unwind your week with a guided piano meditation in the zen Grace Cathedral with pianist Rave Mehta. Beginners and advanced meditators welcome. Ommmmm. // Tickets ($35 to $85) can be found on eventbrite.com. DJ Mark Farina's 50th Birthday When: 9:30pm to 4am Where: The Great Northern, 119 Utah St. (Mission) Legendary DJ/producer Mark Farina invites you to dance your ass off for his big 5-0 at tonight's all-night rager featuring sets by DJs from around the country and, of course, the man himself. // Tickets ($10-$20) at eventbrite.com. Saturday, March 23rd See on Instagram California Artisan Cheese Festival When: Saturday and Sunday Where: Locations throughout Santa Rosa, artisancheesefestival.com If cheese is your obsession, head up to Wine Country for a weekend packed with dairy delights. Events include farm tours, pairing classes, seminars, a best-cheesy bite competition, and an artisan tasting and marketplace with 100+ crafters of cheese, cider and beer, and more. // Tickets ($25-$150) can be purchased on eventbrite.com. Bay Area Brew Fest When: Noon to 8:30pm Where: Pier 35, 1454 The Embarcadero Head over to the pier for the Bay Area Brew Fest, where you can get unlimited pours from tons of breweries and grub from food trucks all set to DJ beats. // Tickets ($45-60) must be purchased in advance at eventbrite.com. Outdoor Fire Feast When: 6:30pm Where: Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch, 738 Main St. (St. Helena), longmeadowranch.com Spend your Saturday night at a new guest chef dinner series in Wine Country featuring live fire cooked meals. Long Meadow Ranch will bust out some of their best wines along with the bounty from their gardens to cook on an open flame. This specific dinner will feature the skills of Swedish chef Johan Jureskog (AG, ROLF's KOK), with dishes like black cod, smoked pork shank, smoked bone marrow, and more. // Tickets ($170) are available on longmeadowranch.com. According to the study report's Methods section, "Parents responded to the prompt, 'Has a doctor or other health care provider EVER told you that this child has" a mental health disorder? If the answer to that initial prompt was positive, parents were then asked to respond to a second query: "'If yes, does this child CURRENTLY have the condition?' "A mental health disorder was considered if the respondent reported yes to the second prompt for depression, anxiety problems, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder compared with no from the first or second prompt for these conditions," the researchers explained. Finally, parents were asked whether their child had received any treatment or counseling from a mental health professional (i.e., a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric nurse or clinical social worker) in the past 12 months. The researchers calculated prevalence estimates after adjusting for the survey design and selected covariates based on their relevance to children and outcomes. After excluding children without current health insurance and those younger than 6 years, they estimated that 16.5 percent of U.S. children between the ages of 6 and 17 -- about 7.7 million -- have at least one treatable mental health disorder (i.e., depression, anxiety or ADHD). Having continuous insurance was the only factor not associated with a mental health disorder. Children ages 12 to 17 were 65 percent more likely to have a mental health disorder than those 6 to 11, and non-Hispanic white children were nearly twice as likely to have a mental health disorder as non-Hispanic black children. At the state level, the prevalence of mental health disorders ranged from a low of 7.6 percent in Hawaii to a high of 27.2 percent in Maine. Other states with prevalence 20 percent or higher: Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia. Nationally, 49.4 percent of children with a mental health disorder did not receive necessary treatment or counseling from a mental health professional. Prevalence rates varied significantly throughout the country, ranging from 29.5 percent of children in Washington, D.C., to 72.2 percent of children in North Carolina. Notably, of states in the top quartile for prevalence of children with at least one mental health disorder, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah were also in the top quartile for prevalence of children with a mental health disorder who did not receive needed treatment. The authors attributed the wide range of prevalence percentages from state to state to different practices and policies. They suggested that more effort be put into creating programs that work across states to make it easier for children (and their parents) to access the mental health services they need. Family Physician Perspective Julie Wood, M.D., M.P.H., AAFP senior vice president for health of the public, science and interprofessional activities, told AAFP News that family physicians are in an excellent position to address their patients' mental health issues. "Promotion of mental health, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in the individual and family context are integral components of family medicine," Wood said. "Through training and continuing medical education, family physicians are prepared to manage mental health problems in children, adolescents and adults of all ages." Wood pointed out that the AAFP has a number of resources available to assist FPs in this area. "Family physicians should be aware of screening recommendations for children and adolescents," she said. "Empowering the practice team, including behavioral health and mental health professionals, whenever possible can ensure the best care for their patients." Wood also recommended the AAFP's Neighborhood Navigator tool. Family physicians can use the navigator, an integral component of the Academy's EveryONE Project, to connect patients with resources and programs in their communities. "Regardless of practice location, physicians should be aware of local mental health resources," Wood said. "This tool lists over 40,000 social services by ZIP code, including mental health services." More From AAFP American Family Physician: Practice Guidelines: Depression in Adolescents: AAP Updates Guidelines on Diagnosis and Treatment (10/1/2018) Mental Health Care Services by Family Physicians (Position Paper) Mental Health, Physician Responsibility Additional Resources CDC: Children's Mental Health Audio Attachment: ACP David Eklu in an interview on Peace FM's 'kokrokoo' The Ghana Police Service has expressed sadness over the fact that some persons looked on as a driver and his conductor physically assaulted a police officer. A commercial bus driver and his conductor who have been arrested were captured in a video assaulting a police officer who was trying to query them for parking wrongly. Speaking to this in an interview on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme, Director-General of Public Affairs Directorate of the Ghana Police Service, ACP David Eklu expressed surprise that 'people looked on as a man in uniform was being assaulted'. "I cant understand how . . . we are saddened that a lot of people were standing there doing nothing. I thought the public would have assisted but they didnt and it saddens us," he bemoaned. According to him, "the people around could have helped in arresting the two (citizen's arrest) since they were doing something wrong; attacking a man in uniform or they could have dialed the police emergency number". Meanwhile, the driver and his conductor will appear before court today. According to the policeman who is with the Odorkor police station, he was performing his duties when he was attacked by the civilians for confronting them when they violated the road regulation act. The Policeman revealed that he confronted the driver after he parked in the middle of the road to pick passengers which resulted in massive traffic. He also stated that he went to the scene to solve the situation but met an accident between a motorbike and a private car and attempting to remedy the situation he was almost run over by the driver who parked in the middle of the road. According to the policeman, he chased the driver on a motorbike which he managed to cross him and queried why he was driving recklessly. This resulted in a heated verbal argument which the drivers and their mates decided to pounce on the policeman and ended up beating him mercilessly. Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Noem earns strong poll support, except on legalizing marijuana With nearly three years as governor complete, and as she kicks off a reelection campaign, Gov. Kristi Noem is enjoying strong statewide support. Throughout her campaign, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham pledged to make New Mexico a climate and clean energy leader and she is now making good on that promise. In January, the governor signed an executive order to formally join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 22 governors working to address climate change and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The order also included a commitment to cut New Mexicos carbon emissions by at least 45 percent by 2030 evidence that Lujan Grisham is serious about bold climate action. As companies committed to clean energy, we commend the governor on her leadership. We know that transitioning to clean energy will be good for the states economy, while providing major benefits to our local communities. This action also sends a clear signal to businesses, the country and the world, that New Mexico is sincere in its pledge to reduce emissions and expand its use of renewable energy. State leadership on climate is more important than ever. As the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made clear, we must act now to dramatically increase the pace and scale of our ambition if we are to avoid the worst effects of our changing climate. Here in New Mexico, we are already feeling the impacts with extreme heat, drought and the growing threat of wildfires. That is why at Taos Ski Valley we are taking steps to reduce emissions in our operations and across our supply chains. Taos Ski Valley has committed to reduce our energy consumption 20 percent by 2020. Guzman Energy is committed to providing our customers with clean energy solutions to help them meet their sustainability goals and keep rates low. Guzman partnered with Kit Carson Electric Cooperative the local utility in Taos to build a four-megawatt solar array to service the local community. This array is part of Guzmans shared goal with Kit Carson to dramatically increase solar energy production by adding 36 megawatts of solar generation by 2023 across their service territory, saving cooperatives members more than $50 million over the next 10 years and reducing emissions by more than 73,000 tons. In addition to setting the state on a path to help meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, Lujan Grisham also directed state agencies to work with state lawmakers to increase the renewable portfolio standard, improve building efficiency codes, reduce transportation emissions and much more. With her support, the state Legislature passed a bill last week to increase the renewable portfolio standard to 50 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2040, and require investor-owned utilities to source 100 percent of their electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045. Combined, these actions will allow the state to expand the clean energy economy and grow the job market. New Mexico is already home to more than 9,600 clean energy jobs, and that number is poised to grow as skilled workers are needed to manufacture, install and operate new clean energy technologies. New Mexico has ample opportunity to harness power from the sun and wind, both abundant resources for our state. Ambitious clean energy targets and supportive policies can help us capture that opportunity and send a signal to investors and companies that New Mexico is open for business. This will help ensure that we take advantage of the enormous economic development potential as a growing number of companies look to invest in clean energy, which helps us to cut costs, avoid the volatility of fossil fuel prices and stay competitive. We applaud Lujan Grisham for following through on her promise to tackle climate change and expand clean energy in the Land of Enchantment. We look forward to working together with state leaders and members of the business community to make these ambitious climate commitments a reality. Doing so will ensure New Mexico businesses and residents thrive for years to come. A Presidential Staffer, Mr Charles Cromwell Nanabanyin Onuawonto Bissue, who has been accused of working against the countrys efforts to end illegal mining, has been interrogated by officials of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Police Service. In a documentary produced by investigative journalist, Mr Anas Aremeyaw Anas, Mr Bissue, who is also the Secretary to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), was seen on video taking money to allegedly facilitate for an unlicensed company seeking to circumvent laid-down processes to be given clearance for its mining operations. The undercover investigator, in his latest piece, captured on video some persons tasked with the fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, receiving various sums of money, ostensibly to facilitate the acquisition of mining licences. Confirmation The Director-General of the CID, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, told the Daily Graphic that Mr Bissue was invited for questioning in connection with the Anas galamsey video and he obliged. She declined to give further details but said all other actors in the expose were being investigated. No one above the law Meanwhile, Mr Bissue confirmed on his social media handle (Facebook) that he was at the CID Headquarters following an invitation to assist in investigations. I have subjected myself to the laws of Ghana, and since no one is above the law, I urge Tiger Eye PI and Anas to provide the CID with the raw, unedited footages, so that the good people of Ghana can have the benefit of knowing the truth, he wrote. On Wednesday, February 27, 2019, the Tiger Eye PI aired a documentary entitled Galamsey Fraud, alleging a case of bribery and corruption to my person, Charles Bissue, he added. Mr Bissue has denied any wrongdoing and given an assurance of his preparedness to avail himself to the investigative process. I reiterate that in the course of my duty as the Secretary to the IMCIM, I have never received any money as consideration to render a service as a public officer, he stated. He expressed his appreciation for the solidarity demonstrated by friends and acquaintances from all walks of life who believe in my integrity and can attest to my values and principles. Anas reacts Meanwhile, Mr Anas has told the Daily Graphic in an interview that his team submitted a petition to the Office of the Special Prosecutor on February 27, 2019 to which it attached the unedited videos. For the record, the much-touted raw footage has already been submitted to the Office of the Special Prosecutor by Tiger Eye. That is where the action is, he said, and wondered if the two bodies were conducting parallel investigations. The complaint against Mr Bissue, dated February 27, 2019, was received at the Office of the Special Prosecutor on February 28, 2019. Anas said, indeed, a letter dated March 11, 2019, dispatched to Tiger Eye on March 14, 2019 and signed by the Special Prosecutor himself invited Tiger Eye to submit a formal complainant and a witness statement to the investigators. He said the Special Prosecutor made it clear to the investigative team that the suspects would have the right to confront their accusers, should that become necessary, during the course of the investigations. The Special Prosecutor had earlier, in the said letter, indicated that his office was ready, able and willing to commence investigations into the allegations made in our complaint against Mr Bissue and Mr Thomas Andy Owusu for any or all suspected corruption-related offences after it had studied the information provided in our complaint, Mr Anas explained. Source: Graphic.com.gh 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 Call it what you want, we have issues coming from our border with Mexico. Drugs flow freely into our state. From marijuana to heroin, meth to fentanyl, its all easily accessible in each of our communities. Addiction runs rampant statewide. Drug addiction leads to crime. Auto theft, burglaries, armed robberies, child prostitution. We see it time and again. Crimes that should never be tolerated. Crimes that cost us a lot of money, even if were not direct victims. Our insurance rates rise and our taxes increase. We are held accountable for the costs of treatment in rehab facilities, and incarceration of criminals. Diseases that have been eradicated in the U.S. are being brought to the border. Once these immigrants, legal or illegal, arrive in our state, the government is compelled to tax us in order to provide for their sustenance. The costs just keep piling up. Yet, with all of these obvious and clearly problematic issues plaguing our state, we continue to elect politicians who take exception to policy that would alleviate many of these challenges. U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland made it clear during her campaign for Congress, that she supports abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE agents work tirelessly to ensure the safety and wellness of all Americans, including Haaland, yet she doesnt want them around to protect us. We elected her anyway. State Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, sponsored legislation in 2017 and 2018 restricting state land from being used to support any federal efforts to construct or replace any barrier on the border with Mexico. We re-elected her anyway and she introduced it again during the 2019 session. Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, Sen. Richard Martinez and Sen. Linda M. Lopez have co-sponsored legislation to prohibit state agencies from helping federal authorities in detecting, apprehending, arresting, detaining or prolonging the detention of persons facing deportation. We elected the three of them, too. At the top of the pile sits our newly elected governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham. Yep, thats right, we elected her, and not just barely. Now were forced to sit back and watch as she pulls troops from our border, all the while declaring that I havent seen anything to indicate that we have an emerging crisis here at the border. Apparently she is blind to the facts associated with the aforementioned drugs, crime, disease and fiscal calamity. We seem content to be bludgeoned by the same politicians with the same policies, since we continue to elect them to office. Is this what we really want? Do we really want drugs and crime in our streets? Do we really want re-introduced diseases? Do we really want more and more financial burden placed upon us? We New Mexicans need to be more prudent with our vote. We need to pay attention to what policies the candidates represent before we rush out and vote for things we dont really want. And, once elected, we need to hold our officials responsible for securing the health and safety of New Mexicans first, rather than doing something as a political statement, without regard to putting their electorate in peril. Lets start evaluating our elected officials starting now, and all of the new candidates as they announce their candidacies. We deserve nothing less than leaders who put New Mexicans first. In about 25 years, the U.S. Census Bureau projects, Americans of Hispanic ancestry will become fully one-fourth of the U.S. population, a significant milestone for a country with a long legacy of Hispanic history, even if most Americans are unaware of it. While many Hispanic-American leaders have focused on preparing this younger and browner generation to be well-educated and well-equipped for a modern workforce, not enough focus has been placed on preparing them to be strong civic leaders. Luckily, we dont have to wait to see how our democracy would fare with such a sizable Latino constituency. In New Mexico, where the Hispanic National Bar Association is holding its annual Corporate Counsel Conference this week, Hispanic leadership is deeply embedded in the states history. In total, of the 13 state governors with Hispanic ancestry in all of U.S. history, seven of them were elected in New Mexico, including the only two Latina state governors, Republican Susana Martinez and Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham. It makes sense. For most of its history, Hispanics have made up a sizable minority if not an outright plurality of the states population and electorate. This rare dynamic has produced tangible results. More than 40 percent of the New Mexico state House and Senate are Hispanic legislators. Two of the three U.S. representatives to Congress are Hispanic, and the third is of Native-American ancestry. In contrast, while Latinos make up 18 percent of the nationwide population, they represent only 8 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives and just 4 percent of the U.S. Senate. Similarly, only 7 percent of federally appointed judges are of Hispanic descent. The difference in policy outcomes for Hispanic communities could not be starker. In New Mexico, its diverse governing bodies have led to laws that protect and uplift immigrant families and communities of color. While the federal government is focused on deporting DACA recipients and separating asylum-seeking families, Dreamers who grew up in New Mexico are afforded the opportunity to attend state universities at in-state tuition costs. While other states have engaged in divisive and costly political fights over bilingual education and ethnic studies, New Mexico has been a steadfast leader in preserving and promoting both. Thats not to say New Mexico doesnt have its challenges. Last year, when the New Mexico Senate majority voted in an all-white leadership slate, Hispanic state senators of both parties formed a bipartisan Legislative Hispanic Caucus in response to the oversight and other legislative concerns. The incident underscored a powerful lesson for Latinos in New Mexico and across the country: Representation still matters. In sheer numbers, young Hispanics nationally are driving an uptick in potential voters every two years, but every two years their turnout rate is consistently below the national average. As I go state from state, meeting with young Latino attorneys and law students, I have felt their visceral apathy toward our national political processes. I have heard them openly question: Why bother voting at all, if it wont change anything anyway? Across the nation, we need to inject a sense of urgency in the newest Latinx generations about their civic duty. The HNBA is working with young Latino legal minds to help them hone their legal, political and advocacy skills and become emerging leaders in their fields and in the public sphere. We want them to understand what authentic leadership looks like and how its public face can be of any shade of brown. We want them to internalize that Hispanic leadership should be the rule, not the exception. And thats why we brought them to Albuquerque this week: to see the future. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal Gayle Marie of Jackson Hole, Wyo., says she had no intention of buying art last spring and certainly had not planned to spend a total of $1,000 on three pieces. But something happened when she visited Hat Ranch Gallery, about 30 minutes south of Santa Fe on the Turquoise Trail. The gallerys owner, Sara West, presented Marie and her friends with guacamole and margaritas when they arrived. West later invited Marie to a European-style salon for a light dinner and a discussion with a small group of art-loving strangers. Marie made multiple purchases from West over the month she was in Santa Fe. She says she plans to return there in the future, though this time she wont be unprepared to buy art. The guacamole, the salon, the hosting: West describes it as part of her attempt to create a gallery that stands out from the rest. Since it opened in November 2017, West estimates more than 1,000 people have visited Hat Ranch Gallery, and that her average visitor spends between 60 and 90 minutes there. No longer are we in the time when you can put a shingle out and make thousands of dollars from walk-in tourists, West said. . . . To thrive, you need to give people a different kind of experience. West isnt alone in that sentiment. Gallery owners across New Mexico are tweaking their business models to accommodate a customer base that increasingly buys art online and in smaller quantities than in the past. Will the new approaches succeed? The answer will resonate throughout the states art scene as well as the New Mexico economy. Shifting trends Simon Brackley, CEO and president of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, describes art galleries as one of the hardest businesses to track. Transactions often take place out-of-state, leaving little paper trail available for analysis, and galleries may be inconsistently categorized in economic data, depending on the services they offer. But he said the impact on the states financial health is undeniable, even if the numbers are hard to come by. (Galleries) are a real job creator, whether its selling the art itself, shipping it or having someone install lighting in the building, Brackley said. Its quite a multiplier. Jeffrey Mitchell, director of the Bureau of Business & Economic Research at the University of New Mexico, said that multiplier impact is declining as an increasing number of customers purchase online instead of visiting galleries in person and spending money on hotels and restaurants in the process. Still, Mitchell says galleries are clearly big business in (New Mexico), though the frequency of out-of-state transactions often means New Mexico doesnt collect gross receipts tax in the process. A 2015 report, the most recent year for which such data is available, estimated the states 500 galleries generated about $300 million annually in sales. Mitchell says todays numbers are likely much higher. Its not just the shift to e-commerce that is challenging the traditional gallery model. Lauren Tresp, publisher and editor of Santa Fe-based arts publication The Magazine, says while the market for high-end art and those sold at low-dollar points appear to be relatively healthy, the market for middle-range art is collapsing nationwide. Part of the issue, Tresp says, is that younger buyers appear to be more reluctant to own things generally, let alone art that costs thousands of dollars. For the upcoming generation, collecting and owning art just doesnt feel like a contemporary thing to do, Tresp said. Everyone, for example, subscribes to Netflix. Were in this subscription mode. Tresp said its not yet clear what kind of strategy will prevail in light of that shift. In this state, she said, it will likely require showing the public that art in New Mexico isnt just Canyon Road (Santa Fes historic arts district) and Meow Wolf. The pop-up The success of Meow Wolf, the Santa Fe-based art collective that has received international attention for its immersive and experiential spaces, is a source of optimism for Gabriel Gallegos. Gallegos, along with Michelle Sena and Greg Tafoya of Chicana lifestyle brand All Chola, run Secret Gallery, currently at the One Central building in Downtown Albuquerque. Like Meow Wolf, Secret Gallery is all about the experience of being present in the space, Gallegos said. Meow Wolf was told so many times their idea was dumb, said Gallegos, who is also founder of the Enchanted Pop-Up art collective. But they succeeded. So how can we make something cool happen here in Albuquerque? Quite a bit has happened for Secret Gallery since it launched on Feb. 1. The gallery has hosted about a thousand visitors so far, many of them the young adults that Tresp said have been hesitant to participate in the art-buying scene. Gallegos attributes that to the organizations approach: its run entirely by New Mexicans of color, who primarily showcase local artists and host regular, party-atmosphere events complete with a DJ. The revenue stream is more traditional, with Secret Gallery taking a commission on all purchases. Budget constraints have meant that Secret Gallerys location has been ephemeral, so the organization has embraced a pop-up model by necessity rather than design. Before it was housed at One Central, the gallery was at 505 Central SW next to Humble Coffee. Though Gallegos said the gallery is interested in eventually finding a permanent home, for now it is happy to use vacant spaces downtown. Its a strategy in keeping with Secret Gallerys punk rock spirit, he said. The gallery model that worked forever was, your first step is to collect artists, your second step is to collect collectors,' Gallegos said. The contemporary model has to shift. Art isnt just for a small group of really rich people. Embracing digital One day recently, Sallie Scheufler unwrapped an art piece that had been shipped to Richard Levy Gallery and stared at it in wonder. I hadnt realized it glittered, said Scheufler, the Albuquerque contemporary art gallerys assistant director. Theres only so much you can tell from a photo. Harnessing the multi-dimensionality of contemporary art on screen has become an increasingly critical challenge for Scheufler, who runs the gallerys social media accounts in addition to her other responsibilities. For a show that included a series of moving light boxes, that meant creating a series of videos that were shared on the social media platform Instagram. Its still important to see work in person, but online is often the way these days, Scheufler said. In fact, at Richard Levy Gallery, a staple of the Albuquerque art scene since 1991, in-person sales are down, but online sales are up in comparison to recent years, according to Scheufler. Gallery staff still spend a significant amount of time traveling to art events around the world, but theyve also invested in a new website to more clearly display their catalog to online visitors. Embracing the shift to e-commerce has paid off for the gallery. Scheufler said that in one case, a customer purchased a piece of art online after Scheufler uploaded a single image of it to the gallerys Instagram account. The price tag was in the thousands of dollars, she said. At Hat Ranch Gallery, West says she spends at least half her day posting to Instagram and Facebook, updating the gallerys website and emailing or otherwise engaging with customers online. But when visitors arrive, she abandons the devices and does whatever she can to connect in person. She likens her business to building an eccentric but sturdy house slowly, one with two-foot-thick walls and a lot of funk. I will still be standing here when the wind blows, because Ive laid the foundation deep, she said. NEW YORK The Labor Department has issued its long-awaited proposed regulations on overtime. The proposal would raise the pay threshold at which workers would be exempt from overtime to $35,308 from the current $23,660. The proposed rules, which the department says would make more than 1 million workers eligible for overtime, are most likely to affect workers with jobs like shift supervisor or assistant manager at restaurants, retailers and manufacturing companies. While they affect workers at companies of all sizes, small businesses that have less of a revenue cushion are likely to more keenly feel the impact of higher overtime costs than larger businesses would. The proposal revises rules written during the Obama administration that would have doubled the pay threshold at which workers would be exempt from overtime to $47,476. The Trump administration proposal is about halfway between the current threshold, which has been in effect since 2004, and the Obama administration rules, which would have affected an estimated 4.2 million people. The Obama regulations were scheduled to take effect in 2016 but were put on hold by a federal lawsuit. As part of the federal rule-making process, the Labor Department proposal is posted on the federal website www.regulations.gov where the public can post comments. It can be found in a search for the regulations docket number, RIN 1235-AA20. The final regulations are likely to be similar to the proposal, but there may be changes made in response to the comments, says Marty Heller, a labor law attorney with Fisher Phillips in Atlanta. Small-business owners have expected since Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta took office that there would be an increase in the threshold, although they generally do not like it when the federal government intervenes on wage issues, says Karen Kerrigan, president of the advocacy group Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. But the rules included a provision that owners would be happy with, providing for increases in the exemption threshold every four years via the rule-making process rather than automatic increases in the Obama plan, Kerrigan says. Business owners who dont want to pay additional overtime have said they were exploring options including giving affected staffers raises to put them into the category of exempt employees. Owners also said they might limit workers to eight-hour shifts. Such strategies are legal, but owners should think about the impact they could have on morale, Heller says. The current job market is demanding that employers not just comply with law but make decisions to be competitive with one another, he says. NEW YORK When cyberthieves attacked Empire Industries computer network, technology manager Rich Shemanskis could see files in the process of being infected by malicious software. We were looking at the network, and I noticed it, and another guy noticed it. Were looking at the files and watching them change, Shemanskis recalls about the attack three years ago. Shemanskis told staffers to quickly shut down their PCs, which helped limit the malwares spread, but the company did lose about a days worth of work. The saving grace for the Manchester, Conn., manufacturer of building materials was it had backed up most of its files. A cyberattack that leads to downtime and lost data can be more costly for smaller companies than for larger businesses an average of $763 per affected computer or other device versus $470, according to a 2018 study by the Poneman Institute, which researches data protection. Many small businesses dont have sophisticated systems to protect themselves from hackers, viruses, malware and whats called ransomware, which renders files inaccessible unless a computer user pays thieves to release them. And many owners arent tech-savvy enough to anticipate potential problems or dont make use of technology staffers or outside help to strengthen their defenses. After the attack, Empire reassessed its security. We already had antivirus protection, but we upgraded everything we added more layers of security, Shmanskis says. Empires experience shows why its critical for small businesses to keep strong defenses against cybercriminals. The nature of the threat continues to evolve, says Diana Burley, a professor at George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Education and Human Development whose expertise includes cybersecurity. Cyberthieves use increasingly advanced technology and develop attack methods that are harder to detect and foil, she says. A companys computers can be invaded indirectly a supplier or customer could be attacked and the virus or malware is passed along if computer systems are linked. Thats how cyberthieves hacked into the computers of discount retailer Target in 2013 they broke in after first invading the system of one of Targets vendors. Target had to settle legal claims for having not protected customers information that was stolen. Smaller businesses are likely to be even more vulnerable, Burley says, adding that it is the responsibility of the business to be aware that those things can happen. Sometimes the invasion is more low-tech. Jay Marose, who has a Los Angeles-based publicity business, allowed a longtime friend who was also a client to use his password to access his website-building account. The friend logged into the account after their work relationship ended, took files that didnt belong to him and reversed his payment to Marose. The incident cost the publicist $10,000 and two clients. Marose realizes that giving the password to someone else was a mistake. But the theft was made easier by the website companys weak security it didnt use two-factor authentication, which requires a temporary passcode in addition to a password. Marose now guards his information closely. It changed the way I do business going forward, Marose says. The attack on Amanda Naors website showed her why its critical to back up content and data. Naor, who has a photography business in Los Angeles, tried to log into her site early last year but her password was rejected. Technicians at the company that hosted her site found that someone had hacked in and changed the password. Naor created a new password, but a week later was again locked out and her website was completely disorganized pictures and text were jumbled haphazardly. She had no backup. A website security company Naor hired found malware on her site and was able to restore her content. Technicians said she was targeted because cyberthieves develop their skills by practicing on small websites. Essentially, I was a playground for a hacker, says Naor. She now has a backup and an ongoing relationship with the security company. When hackers get hold of a small-business owners personal information, the company can suffer. Josh Lamonts Social Security number was stolen five years ago and discovered his accounts had been hacked when a $13,000 charge to an adult website appeared on his credit card. His bank froze his accounts, including those used in his consulting business, while it investigated what had happened. I didnt have access to a single account for a good three or more weeks, says Lamont, whose business, JRL Strategies, is based in Menlo Park, California. Moreover, he had to help with the investigation; that cut into his work time. Lamont has been taking steps to make his business more secure, among them obtaining an Employer Identification Number from the IRS to be used on business accounts instead of his Social Security numbers. Southbound Interstate 25 was closed for hours Sunday evening as police investigated a homicide near the Montano on-ramp. Albuquerque Police Department officer Simon Drobik said callers reported that they saw someone with a gun and somebody was on the ground. When officers responded to the scene, they found a man dead. Two people who had apparently been riding in the same vehicle as the man who was killed have been taken into custody and are being treated as witnesses at this time, Drobik said at a news conference. It looks like something happened here on the side of the freeway between these three individuals, Drobik said. By Sunday evening, several police vehicles surrounded a blue hatchback parked on the interstate shoulder with the drivers door open. A body lay beside it. While the city has seen two road-rage-fueled shootings this year and an initial APD news release said preliminary information suggested road rage could be to blame for Sundays homicide Drobik said later that he wouldnt deem it a road rage incident yet. Alisa Corriea lives in a nearby apartment complex and heard three gunshots in quick succession as she hung out on her balcony. We didnt actually know what it was at first, because it happened so quickly, she said. Police are asking anyone with information on the shooting to contact Crime Stoppers at 843-STOP. Journal staff writer Matthew Reisen contributed to this report. A federal investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein had flagged scores of potential underage victims, including the 14-year-old girl who first alerted police. But when he pleaded guilty in state court in 2008, the only minor Epstein was convicted of soliciting was 16 years old at the time the offenses began, according to information obtained by The Washington Post. The younger girl who initially notified police has long believed that hers was the case referenced in the guilty plea, her attorney said. Some media accounts said as much. Publicly available charging documents contained no name or age, however. Pressed to resolve the ambiguity, state prosecutors in Florida recently provided The Post with the victims date of birth. The decision to charge Epstein with a crime involving an older teen part of a plea deal that has already been criticized as overly lenient has eased his obligations to register as a sex offender. In New Mexico, for instance, where Epstein has a 7,600-acre property called Zorro Ranch, he is not required to register, state officials said, because his victim was not under 16. The case has faced growing scrutiny since last month, when a federal judge ruled that the prosecution team led by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, now President Donald Trumps labor secretary, violated the rights of alleged victims by not notifying them of an agreement not to bring federal charges. Some House Democrats are calling for the resignation of Acosta, whose department oversees investigations into sex trafficking and workplace abuses. Attorneys for the alleged victims are seeking to void the nonprosecution agreement, which ended the federal probe and granted immunity to any potential co-conspirators. They were cutting a plea deal. It wasnt a prosecution, said attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represented the 14-year-old girl who alerted police, referencing the number of victims court records say federal prosecutors identified. They had 40 girls to choose from. He and his client believed she was the victim in the state case in part because of her role in reporting Epstein. Upon learning that she was not, Kuvin said: Its unbelievably upsetting. The rug has been swiped out from under the one girl who was brave enough to come forward and break this thing. Epstein, now 66, was charged with soliciting a minor between Aug. 1, 2004, and Oct. 9, 2005, according to court documents. Based on the birth date provided by the state attorneys office, this victim would have been 16 when the solicitation began and on the eve of her 18th birthday the age of consent in Florida when it ended. The state and federal prosecutors offices in Florida that were involved in Epsteins case declined to comment on why the older victim was selected. Through a spokeswoman, Acosta also declined to comment on that issue, as did an attorney for Epstein. In some states, the age of consent is a factor in deciding whether a sex offender convicted out of state is required to register. The age of consent is 16 years old in more than half of the states, according to surveys and government reports, potentially allowing Epstein to own homes in many of those places without having to register. Society in general is much more punitive and harsh if the victim was 14 versus 17, said attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, who was not involved in the Epstein case but belongs to a New York City Bar Association group studying the registration law. The collateral consequences, including registration, are much more serious with a younger victim. An investigation by the Miami Herald late last year reported that 80 girls and women say they were victimized by Epstein, citing civil lawsuits, interviews and other records. Epstein served 13 months in jail on two felony solicitation charges. One involved a minor, and the other makes no reference to a specific victim, according to charging documents. In a letter to the editor published this month by The New York Times, several of Epsteins attorneys wrote that the number of young women involved in the investigation has been vastly exaggerated. At his Senate confirmation hearing in March 2017, Acosta said state prosecutors had considered a lesser charge that could have resulted in zero jail time, zero registration as a sexual offender and zero restitution for the victims in this case. He said an agreement that guarantees that someone goes to jail, that guarantees that someone register generally and that guarantees other outcomes is a good thing. During the plea negotiations, the lead prosecutor under Acosta, Marie Villafana, accused Epsteins defense team of trying to fool our office into letting Mr. Epstein plead to a non-registerable offense, according to a letter by Villafana published by the Daily Beast in 2011. Sex-offender registration is designed to keep perpetrators on a tight leash. In many states, sex offenders cannot live near schools or playgrounds. Their addresses and license plates appear on public websites, alerting potential employers and landlords. Victims may use the registries to determine where their attacker lives. A review of records in Epsteins case shows the difficulty of tracking a sex offender who owns private planes and homes in New York, Paris, Florida, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Epstein, who made his fortune as a money manager, appears to travel frequently among his homes and other locations. A plane-tracking database shows his Gulfstream jet in five states; the Virgin Islands; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Paris between August 2018 and January 2019, though The Post could not confirm his presence on the flights. After inquiries from The Post, Epsteins permanent residence as listed on Floridas online registry has changed three times in recent weeks: from the Virgin Islands to New York on March 7; to Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday; and back to the Virgin Islands on Friday. Updates to residential information in the database are based on reports from offenders, officials said. Epstein has met the registration requirements in Florida and in the Virgin Islands, authorities said. In the Virgin Islands, where he is classified as a low-risk offender, and in Florida, his reporting requirements are far less stringent than they are for many other sex offenders, authorities said. Epstein attorney Martin Weinberg declined to comment on the information provided to sex offender registries. He said that his client has fully complied with all applicable registration obligations under federal and local law, and will continue to do so. He added: Mr. Epstein accepted responsibility, served his sentence, made significant monetary settlements, and fully met his legal obligations under these agreements. The New York registry lists Epsteins primary residence as the Virgin Islands, records show. In the Virgin Islands, he owns a small private island called Little St. James, which he lists as his residence. In Paris, where Epstein owns a home near the Arc de Triomphe, the sex-offender registry is not public. The New York registrys website shows that Epstein has heeded the rule to submit photos annually. Information about whether he is complying with other requirements in New York is not public, an official said. In New York, where he owns a 19,000-square-foot mansion in Manhattan, Epsteins attorneys went to court in 2011 to challenge a state boards decision to classify him as posing the highest level of risk, on a scale of one to three. Asked by the judge about the victims age, attorney Sandra Musumeci said the Florida victim and Epstein met when she was 16 or 17. The age of consent in New York is 17. She gave him approximately 15 massages, including with sexual contact, and ultimately when she is 17 had intercourse with him, she said, according to a transcript of the Jan. 18, 2011, hearing. Media coverage of the hearing made little or no mention of the victims age. She is a child, said state Supreme Court Judge Ruth Pickholz, adding, He procured her at 16. At the 2011 hearing, Musumeci also argued that Epstein primarily lives in the Virgin Islands and maintains only a vacation home in New York. To require Mr. Epstein to register as a Level Three offender in New York would actually require him to come to New York more than he does normally, it would require him to come every 90 days and renew his registration, she said. Pickholz, again, was unmoved. I am sorry he may have to come here every 90 days she said. He can give up his New York home if he does not want to come every 90 days. New York police see his obligations differently. Epstein does not have to check in every 90 days, because hes claimed the Virgin Islands as his primary residence, said detective Sophia Mason, a police spokeswoman. She said the last time Epstein checked in was in 2010, before the hearing. The judge stands by her interpretation of the law, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the New York courts. Musumeci did not respond to requests seeking comment. In 2010, days after Epstein completed his probation under house arrest in Palm Beach, he notified Florida officials that he was heading to his ranch in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, records show. Authorities in Florida, in turn, alerted New Mexico officials, who sent Epstein a letter telling him that you are a sex offender and that you meet the requirement to register in New Mexico. Two days after Epstein registered, state officials reversed course because in his case the law requires registration only if the victim is under the age of 16. You are not required to register with the State of New Mexico at this time, they wrote. WASHINGTON Its a tale with everything youd need for a soap opera: star-crossed lovers, a stable relationship threatened by younger suitors, pregnancy and loss, and a hungry raccoon. Washingtonians, along with a global community of eagle-watchers, have been transfixed this winter by Liberty and Justice, bald eagles whove nested and raised eaglets together for 14 years on the grounds of the citys police academy. Their annual mating ritual, egg-laying and hatching process normally draws thousands of viewers to a special eagle cam. But this year has been unusually dramatic, with twists and turns that became headline news outside the eagle-watcher community. Its been a roller-coaster ride, said Tommy Lawrence, managing director of the Earth Conservation Corps, which runs the eagle cam and has been instrumental in repopulating the local bald eagle community. People kind of take ownership of the eagles and really become invested in their well-being. The saga of Justice and Liberty isnt the capitals only eagle drama. Last Wednesday, the Blue Line of Washingtons Metro was delayed to rescue an injured bald eagle from the tracks . The bird later had to be euthanized. Another eagle cam , at the National Arboretum, also has chronicled relationship tensions this year. Two eagles, known as Mr. President and The First Lady, experienced a comparatively mild relationship drama when another female showed up and tried to woo Mr. President. The interloper was chased off by The First Lady. But the bigger drama involved Liberty, the female, and Justice. Their mating season started normally. Together they prepared the nest theyve shared for 14 years. They mated on Feb. 9. Normally at that point, Liberty would lay eggs usually two and spend most of her time sitting on them while they incubated and the male sought food for the family. But this year, Justice disappeared almost immediately after mating, leaving Liberty with no way to gather food while keeping the eggs warm. During his absence a younger male eagle began appearing at the nest and courting Liberty. Researchers named him Aaron Burrd and speculated that he had fought Justice and driven him from the territory. A second young male rival also made some appearances. After about 10 days, Liberty began making short flights away from the nest, meaning the temperature of the eggs dropped too low to hatch. On Feb. 23, Liberty flew away with one of her new suitors for two days, essentially abandoning her nonviable eggs. The next day, Justice reappeared after a more than two-week absence to reclaim his place. When Liberty returned, she didnt accept him back at first but gradually they reconciled. Then came a final Darwinian twist. While the reunited pair was away from the nest, a raccoon climbed up and ate both eggs live on camera . Nothing was actually lost. The eggs were never going to hatch. But Lawrence said some newer eagle-cam devotees didnt fully understand what had happened. The reaction was intense, Lawrence said. People would start freaking out on Facebook and asking why we didnt rescue the eggs and then some older members of the community would calm them down. When interviewed Friday by The Associated Press, Lawrence announced breaking news: Justice and Liberty, after slowly rekindling their relationship, had mated the day before. Now the watch is on to see if Liberty is still fertile this late in the mating season and will lay more eggs. Justice, by the way, has continued his mysterious disappearances. On March 7, he vanished for five days before returning. We dont know where he keeps going, Lawrence said. Our minds go to Does he have a second nest somewhere? The twists and turns have been covered by multiple local media outlets with Kardashian-level of detail. Now speculation is running hot as to whether Justice and Liberty have a long-term future together or whether the younger suitors are a glimpse of the future. It does seem like theres all these young bucks out there looking for some action, Lawrence said. If the aging Justice is going to face regular challenges from younger males going forward, Lawrence said he might discover that his mate is fiercely loyal to the nest. The female will give up her mate before she gives up her nest, he said. Liberty basically has the keys to the house and she decides who she lets in. The cult-like following for the eagles is a testament to the wildly successful mid-1990s campaign to bring them back after they had died out locally in the late 1940s. Starting in 1994, the Earth Conservation Corps brought 16 new eagle hatchlings four per year from Wisconsin and raised them locally so they would develop an affinity for the area. Mature eagles leave the nest after four months to six months, and leave their home territory for several years, then frequently return to their home area to mate like going to college, Lawrence said. Eagles generally live about 30 years, so that first batch of eaglets would be a middle-aged 25 now, but much of the now-healthy local bald eagle population is presumed to be the children and grandchildren of those first few hatchling batches. Dan Rauch, a wildlife biologist who is responsible for Mr. President and The First Lady, praised the following that has developed around both local eagle cams. The community is great! Some people are very involved and are watching all day. They really have an emotional investment in these birds, he said. Rauch attributes the popularity to the comeback story, the eagles status as Americas national symbol, and the natural fierce magnetism of the winged predators. The bald eagle itself is a very charismatic animal, he said. Lawrence said he has learned not to underestimate the power and devotion of the eagle-watcher community. He recalls last year when a special cable malfunctioned and knocked out the eagle cam. Lawrence put out an appeal on Facebook asking if any IT professionals could donate their time and take a look. Literally a few hours later I get a call from the people who lobby for Verizon saying, Weve received a bunch of phone calls, including from two congresswomen, asking us to fix this, he said. ___ Follow Khalil on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Ashrafkhalil Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal Editors note: Today the Journal concludes its series on the influx of migrant families seeking asylum with a look at possible solutions. LAS CRUCES The surge in asylum seekers arriving on the border has local, state and federal officials looking for ways to respond to the humanitarian crisis while also protecting the border. Border Patrol is coping with a record number of Central American families and minors on their own turning themselves in and asking for asylum in the El Paso sector, which includes all of New Mexico. In the same region, Customs and Border Protection officers have a waiting list of thousands of people who want to make an asylum claim at an official port of entry. Manpower Both CBP and Border Patrol are stretched thin and have vacancies that need to be filled. Border Patrol agents are busy taking hundreds of migrants a day into custody and transporting them back to the El Paso Processing Center. Yes, it is very time consuming, and it does draw away from those who are able to patrol the border, El Paso Sector Border Patrol Chief Aaron Hull said. You see the overwhelmed system is encouraging people to cross because now its cheaper, easier for them and its safer for the smugglers because a lot of them are not even coming into the U.S. anymore, Hull said. Hull said a combination of a border wall in strategic locations and technology can help secure the border, but agents are the most important resource. He noted that someone has to watch the wall, and a camera cant make an arrest. Rep Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., recognizes the need for more manpower on the border and introduced the bipartisan U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rural and Remote Hiring and Retention Strategy Act with Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas. The legislation focuses on CBP developing strategies to address recruiting and retention issues. Torres Small represents New Mexicos 2nd Congressional District, which includes more than 200-plus miles along the border with Mexico. She has pushed to get tools to help CBP adapt to handle the surge in family migration, including transportation, humane holding cells and the ability to more quickly process asylum seekers. While all those pieces are in place, we have to have the manpower, and technology and infrastructure where necessary to stop the bad guys, to stop the human traffickers, the drug traffickers and the violent criminals as well, Torres Small said. Technology In some parts of New Mexico, improved technology is part of the solution. A slow internet connection can affect the ability of agents to process migrants or others who cross the border, Torres Small said. State officials, meanwhile, are concerned that lack of cell phone coverage can pose a security problem in remote areas of the border that have long been drug smuggling corridors and have recently become crossing points for large groups of migrants seeking asylum. Theres a big shadow of no communication capability in the Bootheel of New Mexico. Its quite concerning to all of us, said state Secretary of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Jackie White. White said the state is reaching out to universities to help solve some of the communication issues on the border by developing a smart app. The app would allow users to share critical information in real time to help local, state and federal authorities respond in remote areas. White was in Washington, D.C., this past week meeting with officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Were all really trying to pull in the same direction and solve these problems together, and when we do that I think we create that force multiplier that can only help the safety and security of New Mexicans, White said. She toured the New Mexico border with the governor in January. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham met with CBP and Border Patrol officials and toured their facilities in January weeks after the deaths of two migrant children in Border Patrol custody. The governor was not available for an interview because she was busy as the state Legislature wrapped up its session. But in an emailed statement, Lujan Grisham said, We are taking calculated action on the border. Facts, not fear tactics, drive our decision-making. Lujan Grisham called back the New Mexico National Guard from the border in February, although she left about a dozen troops in the Bootheel region after reviewing the situation. She also added six state police officers to help local law enforcement in Hidalgo County. Weve had multiple teams from state agencies assess the needs, and they have reached the same conclusion: There is indeed a humanitarian crisis, as I have said, and not a national security crisis, certainly not one that would necessitate a national emergency,' Lujan Grisham said, referring to President Donald Trumps national emergency declaration. Thats why we have responded in the way that we have our priority is to help vulnerable children and families where we can and assist with public safety efforts where possible, she said. Humanitarian response The governor has also moved to help with the need for medical services in the border region where local hospitals and clinics have treated the growing number of migrants brought in for care by the Border Patrol. We are here to be proactive to address this problem, said Abinash Achrekar, deputy secretary for the N.M. Department of Health. Achrekar was in the parking lot of a Las Cruces church were the states mobile medical clinic was parked. Doctors and nurses in the clinic were seeing migrant parents and kids staying at the church that also helps provide shelter for families. The conditions were mostly minor ailments, including mild dehydration. Its not only helping these migrants here its also helping our local community because we are trying not to inundate our local health care system, Achrekar said. Were all volunteers; nobody gets paid. Doctors are coming in after they get off their shift, said Frieda Adams, a volunteer nurse. Adams is coordinating the states migrant medical response in southern New Mexico, working with churches that serve as temporary shelters. Personally, Im responding because I can. Its as simple as that, Adams said. I can help. Theres a need. As a community, as churches, as community members, and as the state, we all feel an obligation to help. This is a growing humanitarian issue. She retired as the director of the office of border health in December as the number of migrant families crossing the border into New Mexico grew. I quit my job to do this, Adams said. Thats what my heart told me to do. Reform and root causes Other solutions include easing the backlog of asylum cases in immigration court by hiring more immigration judges. Congress and the president have already signed off on a budget package that includes funding for additional immigration judges. I think that should be a bipartisan issue because the clearer you are, the quicker people receive result in the scope of due process, the more likely you can challenge the misinformation that might be used by human smugglers, Torres Small said. While reporting in Guatemala, the Journal found that smugglers were telling migrant families they would be allowed to stay in the U.S. and work if they were seeking asylum. The backlog in immigration court means it may be months or even years before a judge rules on an asylum case. Torres Small said immigration reform is a key solution, including more work visas. How do we make sure people who want to work hard, and obey our laws and contribute to our economy can do that in a legal way? she asked. The ultimate solution may involve both Congress and the Trump administration finding ways to help with the root causes driving migrants to make their way up to the New Mexico stretch of border. Torres Small points out that many migrants are fleeing gang violence or escaping poverty. There are things that we can do to invest to change that, (such as) supporting economic development in the northern triangle, she said. 8 hours on the border by Albuquerque Journal on Exposure CAN I SHOW A PIC OF MY INSURANCE AND REGISTRATION? DT emails that advice about identity theft often suggests keeping no identifying documents in your car, i.e., registration and proof of insurance. In light of that, I photographed those documents and keep them only on my phone. They are clear and easy to read. If stopped by Albuquerque, Bernalillo County or N.M. State Police, would I get a citation? Probably not for the insurance. But it depends, sometimes on the agency and sometimes on the officer. And the registration is a totally different animal. In June 2017, a Journal story reported New Mexico is poised to be the only state in the nation in which police are not required to accept electronic proof of auto insurance, such as in an email or phone app, during a traffic stop. (The District of Columbia doesnt either, and Massachusetts includes insurance information on its registration documents.) While most of the states large police agencies say there is an informal policy of accepting such proof, the state law doesnt address electronic proof at all. That leaves the decision up to individual officers, who could choose not to accept it. New Mexico State Police is the only one of the large police agencies to formally instruct its officers to accept such proof. A follow-up story examined an unpublished state Court of Appeals ruling that there is no meaningful difference between a hard copy of an insurance card and an electronic copy. And it included then-Albuquerque Police Department Chief Gorden Eden announcing his officers must accept digital proof of insurance, such as through an app or email. A Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman added that agency was considering doing the same, but in the interim she thought most deputies accepted electronic proof of insurance. In other words, accepting electronic proof of insurance is not on the books, so depending on it is a gamble. A month later in this column, APD explained proof of vehicle registration is different. Officer Simon Drobik said providing a photo of your registration card is not enough, that allowing for electronic proof requires an accessible database and New Mexicos MVD is not there yet. Neither are most states, though Michigan approved electronic proof of registration in 2017. Drobik added that drivers should be careful when handing their cellphones over to officers to show proof of insurance State Police policy suggests having drivers hold their phones for officers to read and for officers never take the device out of the owners sight because no officer wants to be responsible when you toss your iPhone X or Galaxy S10 out the window and he/she doesnt catch it, or to be accused of privacy/search and seizure violations. ELLISON REPAVING A YEAR AWAY: Dawn asks in an email when is Ellison on the West Side going to be repaved? The road is just horrible, and quite frankly my tires are getting worn and my butt is sore. Id buy a seat cushion. Johnny Chandler, public information coordinator for the citys Department of Municipal Development, says the department has re-paving of Ellison drive on our radar. We tentatively have that roadway scheduled for re-paving in the summer of 2020. Editorial page editor DVal Westphal tackles commuter issues for the Metro area on Mondays. Reach her at 823-3858; dwestphal@abqjournal.com; or 7777 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, N.M., 87109. Former National Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress [NDC], Kofi Adams says Prophet Owusu Bempah is not behaving like a real man of God with his numerous public outbursts of rage over the years. According to him, he doubt if Rev Owusu Bempah is from God Even Jesus Christ doesnt get angry like the way he [Rev Owusu Bempah] does. Who is he serving? The only time Jesus got angry is when he went into the temple of God, and cast out all of them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those that sold doves, he added. Prophet Owusu Bempah, on Friday morning, stormed the offices of Accra-based Radio XYZ in search of broadcaster Mugabe in the company of some men where they shoved the administrator of the station as they ransacked the offices in their frantic search for the presenter, claiming the latter had called him pig on radio. This comes a day after former President John Mahama had called out the prophet for false claims Rev Owusu Bempah has alleged that some members of the National Democratic Congress including Mahama are scheming to eliminate President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and vice president Mahamudu Bawumia. In an interview with NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie, Kofi Adams who has made a report against Rev. Owusu Bempah to the Criminal Investigations Department(CID) said the questionable conduct of the man of God, if not checked, will have dire consequences for the peace of the nation. We must condemn what he is doing before it gets out of hand, he told the host Mac Jerry Osei Agyeman. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007 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 SANTA TERESA Science teacher Monica Nunez made a trip to Antarctica last year and now she is headed to the Arctic Ocean after being selected to participate in the 2019 PolarTREC Fellow program. Nunez teaches at Santa Teresa High School in the Gadsden Independent School District. From December 2017 to January 2018, Nunez made an Antarctic trip as part of a fellowship from the National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow program. According to a statement from the school district, this year, she plans to visit the North Pole region to study environmental factors affecting polar bears, among other research topics. PolarTREC is a program for K-12 teachers to participate in field research in the polar regions in order to improve their knowledge of polar science and expand the reach of current scientific research beyond the scientific community. Teachers involved in PolarTREC spend two to six weeks collaborating with scientific research teams, and connecting with students and the public via online media. PolarTREC is funded by the National Science Foundation and managed by the Arctic Research Consortium. Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal A nonprofit agency that trains and employs people with disabilities is under investigation and facing a lawsuit for allegedly paying workers less than the state and local minimum wage. New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas on Monday launched an investigation into whether Adelante Development Center has been underpaying its employees with disabilities. The investigation was announced on the heels of a state court lawsuit that was filed against the nonprofit last week by employees who said they were paid less than 25 cents an hour in some cases. Adelante has certifications from the U.S. Department of Labor that exempt some of its workers from federal minimum wage requirements, but their certificates dont exempt the agency from New Mexico or other local minimum wage laws like the one in Albuquerque, according to the lawsuit. Adelante CEO Mike Kivitz said in a prepared statement, We welcome an investigation by the Attorney General as it will give us a chance to clear Adelantes name before a lengthy court battle may allow. Adelante places a priority on competitive community employment and finding good paying jobs for people with disabilities at other local businesses. We stand by the people with disabilities we support and their families. The employees identified in the lawsuit Tammy Duggan, Efren Romero and Angie Valdez have worked for Adelante for less than state and local minimum wage, according to the lawsuit. Were alleging that Adelante has federal approval but doesnt have New Mexico approval to pay less than minimum wage, said Joseph Turk, an attorney for the plaintiffs. The lawsuit seeking class-action status filed last week identifies the three Adelante employees, but Turk said there may be hundreds of others who have worked for below the minimum wage. Balderas said, I am disturbed that an organization tasked with helping some of New Mexicos most vulnerable people would intentionally take advantage of them. My investigators are already on the case, and we will not rest until we get to the bottom of these disturbing allegations. Balderas said in an interview that the investigation is in to civil matters as opposed to criminal. A spokeswoman for Adelante said Monday that the company finds community employment for people with disabilities and it is the largest provider of supported employment services for that population in the state. She said the organization was only served a copy of the lawsuit on Friday and learned about the attorney generals investigation on Monday from media outlets. The lawsuit against Adelante, filed March 12, says that the company has paid disabled workers as little as $0.18 an hour, in some cases. The suit says that Adelante profits by paying its employees lower than minimum wages for jobs like document imaging and destruction, which gives it an advantage over its competitors. The company also earns money by collecting state and private funds for the work done by people with disabilities, according to the lawsuit. Last Friday, state Rep. Elizabeth Thomson and five other legislators sent Balderas a letter asking his office to review the system of subminimum wage agreements to disabled individuals. The letter, which did not mention Adelante or other businesses by name, said it was sent as a response to publicized allegations of financial exploitation. Disabled New Mexicans are highly vulnerable and exploitable populations, and so we are highly concerned that state and federal laws do not adequately protect the rights of disabled individuals in our state, the letter states. FARMINGTON The San Juan Mine could continue to provide coal to the San Juan Generating Station, or another customer, until 2033, according to an Environmental Impact Statement. The final EIS for the mines Deep Lease Extension recommends allowing up to 53 million tons of coal to be removed from the mine, according to The Daily Times in Farmington. That would allow it to supply coal to the power plant for at least another decade should it stay open past 2022. Public Service Company of New Mexico has said it intends to shut the plant by 2022. A far-ranging bill sent to the governor by the state Legislature will allow the company to sell bonds to help pay for the closure and provide economic help to the region. The bill requires PNM and other utilities to shift to carbon-free generation by 2045. The federal Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement released the final EIS on Friday after years of working on it. A record of decision will be issued in April, according to a news release. The document and responses to public comments can be viewed online at wrcc.osmre.gov. The final EIS evaluates three alternatives: keeping the mine open until 2033, closing the mine this year and keeping the mine open through 2022 when its coal supply contract with the power plant expires. While most of the power plants owners plan to stop receiving electricity from it in 2022, the city of Farmington is trying to acquire the shares it does not own. It has signed a non-binding letter of intent with Acme Equities LLC for the New York firm to take ownership of the plant and keep it open after 2022. It would need a coal supply contract with San Juan Mine to continue operations. An OSMRE press release states the proposed action in the final environmental impact statement would add 10 to 14 years to the life of the mine. It states the mine supports 526 jobs in the Four Corners region. The mine itself accounted for 282 of those jobs in 2017, according to the EIS. Activities to mark the 20th anniversary of Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II since his ascension to the throne are expected to be launched officially today. There has been feverish preparation at the Manhyia Palace the official seat of the Asantehene and DAILY GUIDEs checks show that the official launch will be done amid pomp and pageantry. There will be a durbar to be attended by paramount chiefs in Asanteman, divisional chiefs and other traditional leaders apart from the many dignitaries across the country who are expected to grace the occasion. The Otumfuo is expected to sit in state to supervise the launch himself. At the launch, members of the planning committee for the anniversary will be made known to the public for the first time. A palace source told DAILY GUIDE that virtually all the paramount chiefs in Asanteman are expected to partake in the historic durbar. According to the source, the rich Ashanti tradition and culture, which dates back to about four centuries, will feature prominently in the 20th anniversary programme. Otumfuos Reign Then known in private life as Barimma Kwaku Duah, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, succeeded his late uncle, Otumfuo Opoku Ware II in 1999. His ascension to the sacred Golden Stool of Asanteman was met with excitement and hope by the people. Achievements Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who is widely known as a development-oriented leader both in Ghana and abroad, has so far lived up to expectations. His 20-year stay on the Golden Stool has brought about massive infrastructural development, peace, total growth and fame to the Asante Kingdom, which is famous globally. Education For instance, more than 20,000 needy students in Ghana, drawn from various tribes and regions, have benefited from the Otumfuo Education Fund. Immediately after being enstooled as Asantehene, Otumfuo publicly stated that education is the key to development in this computer age. He then set up the Otumfuo Education Fund to give a chunk of Ghanaian youth the opportunity to climb high the educational ladder. Otumfuo has also created a mobile library van project, which travels to areas without libraries to promote reading among pupils. Infrastructure The Asantehenes extraordinary leadership style has brought about massive infrastructural transformation to the famous Manhyia Palace in Kumasi. He has also contributed significantly to the construction of various modern classroom projects, especially in the hinterland, to help boost education. Health Aside from the aforementioned, the Asantehene set up the Otumfuo Charity Foundation, which has played important roles to help boost healthcare delivery for the people. The foundation, apart from assisting the poor and needy in society, has also provided financial support for children whose parents have died through HIV/Aids, among other philanthropic activities. Chieftaincy Disputes Again, Asanteman has experienced total peace during the 20-year reign of the Asantehene, as virtually all chieftaincy disputes had been resolved through Otumfuos intervention. Awards Otumfuos excellent leadership style has been recognized across the globe as he has been the recipient of several top awards from states and universities all over the world. For instance, several top universities in the world have conferred doctorate awards on Otumfuo, who is the Chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. Otumfuo has also embarked on countless state visits both in Africa and beyond, where he has always preached about peaceful existence of people without discrimination. 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. Featured Video CHICO, Calif. - Chico police detectives have arrested a suspect they believe is connected to a string of armed robberies over the past month. During the investigation, detectives learned that Andrew Martin Shephard, 36, of Chico, could be the main suspect. On March 15, detectives spotted Shephard riding a bicycle and also learned that he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest from an unrelated incident. Shephard was arrested and taken to the Chico Police Department. Detectives obtained a search warrant for Shepard's home in an attempt to link him to the robberies. After the search, detectives had enough evidence to book him on three counts of armed robbery and a single count of attempted robbery. The first robbery occurred on Feb. 17, at the 7-11 store on 1st Street and Main Street. During that robbery, the suspect entered the business with a firearm and demanded cash. Throughout the next month after that first incident, authorities investigated three additional robberies at three different businesses in Chico. The last robbery incident was an attempted robbery at the Safeway gas station on East Avenue. In that incident, the suspect also entered the store armed with a handgun and demanded cash. Authorities were able to link Shephard to the robberies. He was booked into Butte County Jail. BIGGS, Calif. - A man was found in his wrecked vehicle in a field in Biggs early Sunday afternoon after his car collided into a piece of farm equipment. The driver of the Hyundai Sonata was pulled out of the wreckage and taken to a local hospital by helicopter. This occurred in Biggs off of Afton Road and 8th St. at approximately 1:20 Sunday afternoon. REDDING, Calif. -The Redding Police Department says a man is behind bars for terrorist threats and domestic battery against his girlfriend. Police responded to a home on Nebula Street in Redding at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday due to a call that Arlend J. Bonsey, 49, was in an argument with his girlfriend and her two daughters. The victim reported that Bonsey had been drinking alcohol and made threats to shoot her and her daughters. The victims also warned officers that Bonsey was armed. Officers called Bonsey on the phone to try to negotiate with him, and Bonsey ultimately left the home and was arrested. A gun was found at the home. Officers say they confirmed Bonsey tried to load the gun while threatening to kill the victim and had hit the victim earlier in the night. He is now behind bars at the Shasta County Jail for terrorist threats and domestic battery. REDDING, Calif. - The Shasta County Arts Council is working to raise money for a Carr Fire mural in Redding. The council has been in talks with New York artist 'BK Foxx to do the mural. It would go on the outer west wall of the Cascade Theater, facing the U.S. Bank parking lot in downtown Redding. "Really, it's a celebration of the resilience of the community," said Tyler Whitlow, a fundraiser with the council. "You're going to see an amazing piece of artwork that represents what Redding and Shasta County had to go through during the Carr Fire and even the Paradise fire, and just our community strength and highlighting that and celebrating that." The Shasta County Arts Council is hoping to raise $28,000. So far, more than $10,000 has been raised. To donate, CLICK HERE. FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - Some Native Americans say convincing the masses that portraying them as savages, illiterate and humorless is insulting and has been a slow movement. The country has spent most of the year coming to grips with blackface and racist imagery. Most recently, a TV host painted her face brown in a parody of Oscar-nominated Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio. Yet, Native Americans say they do not see significant pressure applied to those who perpetuate Native American stereotypes. Throughout America's history, people have donned redface, worn fringe and feathers, and spoken in broken English as they "played" or portrayed Native Americans. Some scholars say redface may get less attention because of ingrained misconceptions and feelings of entitlement to Native American culture and land. Native Americans, they say, are also a relatively small group. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press) Debris removal process begins again in Camp Fire burn scar The debris removal process is set to start back up again Monday in the Camp Fire burn scar area. The Camp Fire incident management team will send 80 crews of up to five people out Monday and 10 more crews on Wednesday. Work was delayed due to the heavy rains making the area dangerous. Chico police make arrest in suspected DUI crash Chico police have a suspect behind bars for a suspected DUI crash early Monday morning. The crash happened on Humboldt Avenue between Wall and Flume Streets around Midnight. We are working to learn more about the condition of the others involved and the suspect's identity. Search crews find missing snowboarder dead near Lake Tahoe Search crews found a missing snowboarder dead at Northstar California Resort near Lake Tahoe. The park's ski patrol found Danieson Crowder in a tree well, which is a snow pit at the base of a tree. Placer County Sheriff's Office continues search for Sacramento man The Placer County Sheriff's Office will resume a search for a Sacramento man missing in the American River. Officials say he fell into the swift-moving water in the area of No Hands Bridge in Auburn at around 7 p.m. Sunday night. Anderson parents sentenced in murder of child Anderson parents Cynthia and Robert Mcbroom will be sentenced for the murder of their three-month-old child in 2014. Both could be sentenced to up to 25 years to life in prison. Police bust massive credit card skimming ring in Sacramento Law enforcement in Sacramento have busted a massive credit card skimming ring at ATM machines from Sacramento to the Central Valley in Fresno. Officials warn, even with the suspects behind bars, there may still be skimming devices installed. Law enforcement encourages people to cover keypads while entering pin numbers. Rooster in Redwood City tests positive for Newcastle Disease In the first confirmed case this year, a rooster in Redwood City has tested positive for Newcastle Disease. It's a highly contagious, deadly virus in birds that can wipe out entire flocks. Right now, vets say birds should not be moved and owners need to take extra care cleaning up after handling them. Following the success of Share A Coke campaign which rejuvenated relationships, Coca-Cola India, one of the countrys leading beverage companies has taken the personalized campaign further with #SayItWithCoke. The campaign aims to deepen Coca-Colas connect with consumers by uniting them through a universal passion Music. 140 songs in five Indian languages will make their way on labels of Coke bottles. Coca-Cola has brought on board Ranbir Kapoor as the new brand ambassador for the campaign. Shrenik Dasani, Vice President, Sparkling Category at Coca-Cola India & South West Asia at The Coca-Cola Company said, Coca-Cola always seeks to uplift everyday moments and make them special. In India, songs have always had a way of expressing emotions in a special, memorable way. This is what inspired us to bring to consumers our latest campaign #SayItWithCoke, which invites them to share a Coca-Cola with someone to express their heartfelt emotions through the words of their favorite songs. Whether they do this physically or digitally, we are sure they will make many moments sparkle. Whats more, our brand ambassador Ranbir Kapoor joins us in extending this invitation in a way only he can, and together we hope to bring a smile to fans everywhere. The ad film starring Ranbir and Paresh Rawal has been unveiled that captures the essence of using music to convey messages which otherwise might seem difficult to say. The ad opens inside a house with Ranbir handing over a cheque for rent to his landlord, played by Paresh. The landlord while giving a stern look accepts the cheque and begins to leave. Just then, Ranbir stops him and hands him a bottle of Coca-Cola. The landlord is confused by this gesture. Ranbir begins to explain how the landlord doesnt let anything go unnoticed and observes everything. Explaining this thought, he reveals the label on Coke bottle which says Jaaddoo Teri Nazar, and the popular song plays in the background. The landlords frown turns into a smile and Ranbir is surprised, as this is perhaps the first time the two have a had a lighter moment. Highlighting the thought behind the ad, Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific and CEO & CCO, McCann Worldgroup India added, "This campaign is our unique take on relationships with charming storyline and innovative use of songs and lyrics which am positive will strike a chord not only with younger audience but with people at large." For #SayItWithCoke, Coca-Cola India conducted a survey amongst Indians in 18 25 age group to identify the most popular songs to express feelings. The preferred list of songs included timeless classics as well as timely songs to capture wide range of emotions. This process helped the company understand the songs that best capture feelings and emotions of todays youth. Labels have been created in five languages including English, Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Bengali. The campaign also introduces interactivity feature with the packaging that enables consumers to get access to custom playlist to suit their feelings and emotions. With the announcement of dates for the General Elections, News18 Indias renowned show Bhaiyaji Kahin is set to travel the length and breadth of the country to capture the pulse of the electors and highlight ground level issues that will drive the choice of voters. A travelogue-cum-chaupal show, Bhaiyaji Kahin has a long established legacy of covering elections and highlighting the aspirations and expectations of common citizens. Starting from Uttar Pradesh, the show will travel across India and cover key constituencies in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana & many more. With his down to earth and people-oriented approach, shows anchor Prateek Trivedi will speak with the voters as one amongst them only and thereby allowing them to open up completely. Through its unique interactive format, the show will bring voters and the political leaders on a common platform encouraging open dialogue. As the show travels across the nation, it will be able to track what people in the various parts of the country are saying, are the issues similar or are they being impacted by local issues. Undoubtedly this unique show will be a true representative of the peoples voice in line with the commitment of News18 India to bring the most insightful and impactful coverage of General Elections 2019 Watch Sabse Bada Dangal Bhaiyaji Kahin, Monday to Friday at 5:45 PM & Tuesday to Saturday at 9 AM only on News18 India As part of rural expansion plans, brand Kurkure announces the roll-out of Caravan Talkies a mega consumer connect program in Uttar Pradesh. Caravan Talkies will travel across 1000+ towns and villages, reaching out to the rural population of Uttar Pradesh. As part of this initiative, Caravan Talkies will conduct street plays (Nukkad Natak) in these 1000+ towns and villages followed by movie screenings for the consumers. The Nukkad Natak, written exclusively for Caravan Talkies will be performed by a team of professional artists, highlighting Kurkures new positioning Khayaal toh chatpata hai that focuses on progressive ideologies that the homemaker holds today. The Nukkad Natak will be delivering thought-provoking stories in a fun and interactive way across various cities and districts in UP namely Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, Moradabad, Bariley, Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Kheri, Bahraich, Balrampur, Kannoj, Unnao, Rampur and Baghpat among others, starting this March till May 2019. In addition, the Kurkure team will travel in a branded caravan to designated villages meeting with retailers and educating them about the brand and helping them in setting up with displays and branding. Speaking about Kurkures rural expansion, Dilen Gandhi, Director Marketing, Foods Category, PepsiCo India shared Rural market, today, represents the next phase of growth in India. As Kurkure accelerates its rural expansion, our initiative is designed to connect and engage with consumers and retailers through relevant brand experiences. This expansion is timed perfectly, as we embark on a new journey with our brand mantra, Khayaal Toh Chatpata Hai. The new positioning underlines brands continued efforts to recognize the Indian homemaker, who has been the center force in bringing families together. We are confident that Caravan Talkies will help us in taking this thought forward amongst our consumers The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is set to investigate reports that 13 medical doctors have allegedly refused postings to the Central Region. The President of the GMA, Dr. Frank Ankobea, has therefore urged the Ministry of Health to provide the GMA with names of those medical doctors for investigation to commence. There were recent media reports that suggested that 13 medical doctors that were posted to the Central Region to work had rejected the postings. What influenced the medical doctors not to accept the postings was not immediately known but some suspected that the deprived nature of Central Region could be a possible cause. Commenting about the issue on Kumasi-based OTEC FM, Dr. Frank Ankobea said the GMA was not aware of the development, for which reason it would probe the issue. He, however, did not state what punitive action the GMA would take against the 13 doctors if their investigation proved that they indeed refused postings to the Central Region. He said it is the responsibility of every trained medical doctor in the country to accept postings to any place in the country to work so I will be surprised if the report is true. Dr. Frank Ankobea, however, suspected that the 13 medical doctors might have travelled outside the country to work, hence their refusal to go to the Central Region. He complained that newly qualified medical doctors usually stay in the house without work for far too long before government gives them financial clearance to start work. I suspect the newly trained doctors are leaving the shores of Ghana to work in other countries because they are made to stay in the house for far too long before they are posted. Doctors are highly trained professionals but unfortunately we are losing them to other countries that did not spend a pesewa on their training, he bemoaned. Dr. Frank Ankobea entreated government to quickly address the delay in the posting of newly trained doctors, so that brain drain would not hit medical doctors. The GMA president also admonished government to give some incentives to medical doctors that are posted to the deprived areas to help motivate them. 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. Featured Video Following the recent fall of events where the Indian TV channels were despised for meddling with matters of national security and sensitivity, Natak Pictures releases a fiction short film 'Prime Time', touching upon the damage irresponsible media reporting can cause. The Delhi-based film studio has released the short on Youtube this month. Revolving around the ill-effects of sensationalized news shown during the prime time on TV news channels, the film re-iterates the basics of news reporting. Just like other short films created by the channel, Prime Time, Natak's tenth short is a small-budget film designed to subtly convey a strong social message; this time to the India media-#ReportResponsibly. Commenting on the release of the film, Rahul Bhatanagar, film Writer and Director said, " The idea behind 'Prime Time' was to harp on the important role Media plays in today's time. In a democracy like ours, I believe, Media evidently and rightly has the power to seed, shape and mould perceptions. But as goes the popular words of wisdom 'With power comes responsibility', and in the case of media, where one wrong report or even a statement can mislead a large population and in some cases have devastating repercussions, the responsibility is multi-fold. The film is aimed at sending out a message to all the media houses to utilise their power - the freedom of bringing out truth, RESPONSIBLY". The film entails an over-night flip in the life of young working girl introduced by the misleading 'prime time' news. The role of the working girl, the protagonist, has been played by Radha Bhatt, a popular actor from the TV serial industry. With less than a month to go, political campaigning has started in all earnest across mediums. Media observers see the campaign battle shifting to digital in a major way in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the most connected politicians on social media today, with over 46.3 million followers on Twitter. He himself follows 2,121 people. Sounding off the poll bugle, Modi released BJPs digital campaign on March 15, 2019 via a video film of 3.44 minute duration Main Bhi Chowkidar which has already garnered 436,862 views. The Main Bhi Chowkidar topped global trend on Twitter within hours of its launch. Your Chowkidar is standing firm & serving the nation. But, I am not alone. Everyone who is fighting corruption, dirt, social evils is a Chowkidar. Everyone working hard for the progress of India is a Chowkidar. Today, every Indian is saying-#MainBhiChowkidar Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 16, 2019 The film starts off with Modis Independence Day speech, where he had called himself the nations chowkidar, standing firm & serving the nation. The film showcases people from all walks of life declaring themselves to be the nations chowkidar fighting corruption, poverty, dirty surroundings, and striving to bring in self-employment, education for all, equality and progress. Everyone declares themselves Main Bhi Chowkidar. Reaction to the campaign has been overwhelmingly positive on Twitter with over 1 lakh impressions and 45K retweets at the time of filing this article. Several BJP leaders as well as people on Twitter have pre-fixed Chowkidar to their Twitter handles. A few days prior to this, Modi had caused another stir on Twitter went he launched 29 tweets from his official handle, addressing industry leaders across the spectrum of the country to raise voter awareness for the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. The official Twitter handle of Modi also kept the momentum of the campaign alive by sending an automated response to the citizens, who pledged their support for the campaign in a personally signed Thank You note by the Prime Minister. PM @narendramodi has changed his Twitter handle to "chowkidar Narendra Modi" #ChowkidarPhirSe pic.twitter.com/GXFJFddrxd Narendra Modi (@narendramodi177) March 17, 2019 WARC has released the results of its first-ever Best of the Best global index of excellence, to showcase the best all-round agencies and brands by aggregating results from across all threerecently released WARC Rankings Creative 100, Effective 100 and Media 100. The WARC Rankings, successor to the Gunn Report and WARC 100, are annual rankings providing a global benchmark for campaign, agency, network, holding company, brand and advertisers success. The Best of the Best 2019 has been calculated by combining the 2018 results of the most prestigious and rigorous global and regional creative, effectiveness and media awardsshows and competitionsas determined by the industry following a worldwide survey and consultation. David Tiltman, Head of Content, WARC, said, The culmination of the WARC Rankings is the newly launched Best of the Best.Thisidentifies the best-performing companies across ourthreebenchmarks of marketingexcellence creativity, effectiveness and media excellence. BBDO New York and BBDO Worldwide are the best agency and network, respectively, across the WARC Rankings. BBDO New York performed strongly in both creativity and effectiveness, and its parent network, BBDO Worldwide, had a total of 59 offices contribute to its winning network total. Commenting on their success, Andrew Robertson, President and CEO, BBDO Worldwide, said, The Best of the Best. It literally cant get better than that when it comes to public recognition of BBDO Worldwide. I am proud of, and grateful to, our clients and all of the people in our agencies who made this happen. Having four agencies from four regions all ranked in the Top Ten, including BBDO New York at No.1, demonstrates the breadth of talent in the network. Omnicom Group tops the Best of the Best holding company ranking. BBDO Worldwides strong performance was supported by top 10 ranks for DDB Worldwide, PHD Worldwide and TBWA Worldwide. Its a proud moment to see Omnicom and its agencies topping the Best of the Best list as the #1 network, #1 and #2 agency, and #1 holding company, said John Wren, Chairman and CEO, Omnicom Group. Employees across the globe come to work every day ready to deliver world-class services for our clients, and that shines through as theyre recognized by WARC for their creativity, marketing effectiveness and media excellence. Congratulations to all our people who can take great pride in these accomplishments. Burger King tops the Best of the Best brands, with placings in the top 50 in all three rankings, and in first place in the Creative 100. The retail brand had 23 award-winning campaigns across all three rankings. Procter & Gamble topped the advertiser ranking by less than a point, as the two leading FMCG players continue to produce highly successful work, particularly in effectiveness and media. However, neither had a brand in the top 10, instead, both had multiple successful brands throughout the depth of the rankings. The top companies in WARCs Best of the Best2019 are: The worlds top 10 agencies across the WARC Rankings Rank Agency Location Points 1 BBDO New York, USA 489.8 2 adam&eveDDB London, UK 466.7 3 McCann New York, USA 413.1 4 AMV BBDO London, UK 410.8 5 MediaCom London, UK 390.8 6 Colenso BBDO Auckland, New Zealand 351.8 7 LOLA MullenLowe Madrid, Spain 343.1 8 McCann London, UK 316.6 9 Host/Havas Sydney, Australia 288.3 10 AlmapBBDO Sao Paulo, Brazil 281.0 The worlds top 10 agency networks across the WARC Rankings Rank Network Points 1 BBDO Worldwide 3207.1 2 McCann Worldgroup 2912.0 3 Ogilvy 2006.7 4 DDB Worldwide 1746.7 5 MediaCom 1511.2 6 IPG Mediabrands 1430.9 7 PHD Worldwide 1395.2 8 TBWA Worldwide 1315.0 9 Dentsu Aegis Network 1298.2 10 Mindshare Worldwide 1174.2 The worlds top 10 agency holding companies across the WARC Rankings Rank Network Points 1 Omnicom Group 8926.6 2 WPP 8556.4 3 Interpublic Group 5772.1 4 Publicis Groupe 2714.6 5 Dentsu 1398.5 6 Havas Group 1151.5 7 Accenture 260.3 8 Hakuhodo DY Group 259.3 9 MDC Partners 189.8 10 BlueFocus 152.7 The worlds top 10brands across the WARC Rankings Rank Network Points 1 Burger King 593.2 2 McDonalds 465.0 3 IKEA 339.0 4 Coca-Cola 327.9 5 Pedigree 321.0 6 KFC 299.6 7 Greenpeace 260.4 8 Skittles 260.3 9 Palau Legacy Project 258.0 10 Nike 257.8 The worlds top 10 advertisers across the WARC Rankings Rank Network Points 1 Procter & Gamble 969.8 2 Unilever 969.1 3 Mars 963.3 4 Restaurant Brands International 593.2 5 Anheuser-Busch InBev 567.6 6 Volkswagen Group 553.8 7 McDonalds 573.5 8 The Coca-Cola Company 469.5 9 Heineken 382.3 10 PepsiCo 347.3 The Best of the Best ranking aggregates points across the three rankings. To ensure performance in each ranking has equal weight in the Best of the Best tables, a weighting for the effectiveness and media rankings has been calculated that inflates their scores versus the creative rankings. For this reason, points in the Best of the Best are not simply the total of the three individual rankings. Someone who's informed about education in the UK needs to explain how the latest government move to provide 39 MORE SPED SCHOOLS (3,500 more places) relates to a announcement back in 2015, also providing more schools. How is it possible that without question, the British (England only here) willingly provide MORE AND MORE SPECIAL NEEDS PLACES while expecting things to be even worse in coming years??? (There are endless other stories about the UK on LossOfBrainTrust.com ) I found one story on March 17 th that could be titled, Britain acquiesces to the decline of childhood. Four years ago, the talk was about 27 new schools (22 were specifically FOR AUTISTIC STUDENTS). So are we talking about 66 new schools all together? (It's impossible to miss the fact that MORE AUTISM is the reason behind all of this. Stories all say so.) Is this the future for Britain, just keep on building? And what about the counties that werent picked to receive a new school? Will they just go deeper and deeper in debt paying for disabled children to be outsourced for school? Grim years ahead for those not chosen Mar 17, 2019, Schools Week: Rejected special school bids in areas facing biggest shortfalls The majority of local authorities that have been refused new specialist schools will run out of places three years from now, Schools Week analysis shows. The Department for Education announced on Monday that 39 local authorities had been successful in their bids for new special needs or alternative provision schools, out of 65 to apply. But our analysis shows that 54 per cent of the local authorities that were not successful are facing shortfalls in secondary pupil places by 2021. That compares to just 39 per cent of those given the go-ahead. Furthermore, the two councils facing the biggest shortfall in secondary places were among those refused. One of those, Manchester City Council, had two bids for specialist schools rejected despite needing more than 8,500 school places in three years from now. Four years ago Mar 27, 2015, UK, New Schools Network: 22 new free schools create 2,000 new autism school places During Autism Awareness Week, analysis by education charity New Schools Network shows that the free school programme has created 2,000 new places open to young people with autism. There are now over 400 free schools open or approved to open, of these 27 are special schools. Once full, these schools will create more than 2,200 new places, representing an increase of more than two per cent (2.2%) in SEN places available nationally. Together they cater for a wide range of special educational needs, including autism, and will offer a high quality education to thousands of young people. Of the 27 open or approved to open special schools, 22 will cater for pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), when full, they will be providing over 2,000 new places special school places. Natalie Evans, Director of the New Schools Network, said: Free schools are offering a new choice to parents of children with autism. When you consider that there are just over 1,000 special schools in England at the moment, these 22 new schools are providing a significant addition to provision in England. According to the National Autistic Society, more than half of children with autism are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them, which is why charities such as NAS and Ambitious about Autism, existing schools and groups of parents have all embraced the opportunity to set up new schools. As Autism Awareness Week puts these issues in the spotlight, the positive contribution that free schools have made to increasing the choice of children with autism and other special educational needs across the country should be recognised.... Further information Special free schools are catering for a wide range of needs from social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) and Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD). Autism now affects about one in 100 children and there are around 100,000 children with autism in the UK (ONS). 71% of children with autism are educated in mainstream schools and the remainder in specialist provision (Department for Education (2012) Special Educational Needs in England). Over 63% of children with autism are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them (NAS). Its clear that these schools are for children who cannot be educated in traditional school settings. Multiple stories describe these as places for students with autism, social emotional behavior issues and mental health problems. Britain continues to struggle to provide services for the new type of special needs child. *It should be noted that in 2014 the UK government extended special education services to age 25, instead of stopping at age 19. While this lessens the burden on adult services, its more pressure on schools. Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism. https://www.aish.com/jw/s/What-Are-You-Doing-to-Confront-Anti-Semitism.html A crucial lesson from Mordechai and the story of Purim. Last time I checked, Tel Aviv is not disputed territory in anyones book. It isnt a settlement, occupied or an obstacle to peace. When rockets are launched at Tel Aviv, whether someone pushed the button on purpose or by accident, they are sent for one reason. Evil people seek the annihilation and elimination of the Jewish people. Those rockets are weapons of anti-Semitism, but they are not the only kind. When anti-Semitic lyrics are shared, when Jews are accused of dual loyalty or of owning the country, controlling the media or using their Benjamins to buy elected officials, those are verbal rockets, also weapons capable of great destruction. The rockets from Gaza were met by the Iron Dome high in the sky, exploding them and protecting our brothers and sisters down below. What were the verbal rockets of Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib met with? The same elected officials who thankfully help supply Iron Dome to Israel failed to provide it to us, their own fellow citizens. Instead of being met with a dome of protection, blowing up such words and accusations, protecting good people below, the House of Representatives allowed them to fall, exploding and causing us great pain, worry and fear. True, there were exceptions. Congressman Ted Deutch, gave an impassioned, compelling, balanced speech on the House floor and we should be very grateful to him. But his colleagues failed him and failed us; they allowed verbal rockets to be launched and, even worse, to land without protecting us. They couldnt bring themselves to pass a resolution singularly condemning anti-Semitism. And now we have to ask ourselves, if those whom we rely on to protect us fail us, what will we do about it? When Haman approached Achashveirosh with his diabolical, genocidal plan to exterminate the Jews, he said, there is a nation scattered abroad and dispersed among the nations. The Talmud (Megillah 13b) expands on this conversation. When Haman targeted the Jews for annihilation, he said to Achashveirosh, Lets destroy the Jews. Achashveirosh replied, Not so fast. I am afraid of their God, lest He do to me what He did to my predecessors. Haman relieved the King of that fear when he said, Yeshno am echad, which translates literally as there is a certain nation. The Talmud quotes Rava, who explains that Haman was telling the King something much more strategic and insightful. Not yeshno am echad, there is a certain nation, but rather yoshnu am echad, there is a sleeping nation. Said Haman, They have been negligent of mitzvot, they are divided, fighting with one another about brides playing drums at weddings. They are arguing amongst themselves but at the same time they are fast asleep as to what we want to do and how we threaten them. We were on the brink of extinction as a people because we were asleep. We were vulnerable and literally on the brink of elimination and extinction as a people because we were asleep. Our eyes were closed to what was happening around us. We didnt take the threats seriously and we didnt stand up for our right to simply exist. Haman recognized and took advantage that there is a nation that is sleeping. All he had to do was continue to lull the Jewish people into a false sense of security, to breed complacency and apathy, and at that moment he could accomplish his goal of ridding the world of our people. Indeed, Rabbi Soloveitchik suggested that the true miracle of Purim is that an anti-Semite rose, threatened us, and we believed him. We didnt excuse him, accept his bogus apologies or say he didnt really understand what he was saying. We didnt just reject his tropes, we confronted him, we took him at face value, and we were determined not to let him threaten our people. Identifying an anti-Semite, taking him or her seriously and doing something about it is nothing short of a miracle. So how did we survive? What spoiled Hamans plan? Why did we ultimately triumph over Haman such that we are here today and he is a distant memory? The answer is simple: Mordechai and Esther. We understand Esthers heroism. She risked everything: her life, her family, her people, to go out on a limb and confront the king without permission. But what made Mordechai a hero? If you think about it, Mordechai may actually be a villain, a perpetrator in the story, responsible for initiating the decree to exterminate the Jews of Shushan and beyond. Would it have been so terrible for him to just bow down? Just once? Not only does Mordechai refuse to bow down to Haman, he insists on antagonizing him by camping out on Hamans route so that Haman would see him every day and be bothered by the one Jew who refuses to show him honor. Mordechais behavior provokes Haman and he responds by declaring his intention to destroy not only Mordechai, but all of Mordechais people, the Jews. Even after Hamans plan has been pronounced, Mordechai continues to snub him. When Achashveirosh remembers what Mordechai had done to save his life and sends Haman to reward him by parading around publicly, Mordechai could have declined the honor. Instead, he accepts, humiliates Haman and infuriates him further! And this is the person we consider a hero of Purim? Why? A closer look seems to indicate that Mordechais ego put the Jewish people at risk. What was the source of Mordechais intransigence? You might think its simple - bowing down was idolatry, one of the three cardinal sins for which we must give up our lives rather than violate. Indeed, the Ibn Ezra suggests that Haman was wearing idolatrous symbols. Rashi comments that Haman had declared himself a deity. Either way, it would seem Mordechai was right not to bow down, he was simply following Jewish law and it was his peers who were wrong for bowing, even if not doing so would mean risking their lives. But thats not the whole story. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 61b) says that the law of sacrificing your life rather than engaging in idolatry applies if in fact one is buying into the divine nature of the idol. If one is bowing simply out of fear, one is not liable. So why didnt Mordechai simply bow down in an effort to save the Jewish people? Yes, Mordechai would have been entitled to bow down. To save his life, he could have been apologetic for his Jewishness and submitted to a virulent anti-Semite, bowing down to Haman and his worldview that wants a world without Jews. But Mordechai understood what was at stake. Mordechai understood the antidote: To stand firm, to stand strong, and to stand as a proud Jew, a Torah Jew. Mordechai, a humble scholar and righteous sage witnessed the growing anti-Semitism of Haman and his desire to see Jews and Judaism erased and he understood the antidote. If Jews were fast asleep, excusing away even the anti-Semitic tropes of their time, the answer was not to bow down, even if it was technically allowed. The answer was exactly the opposite. To stand firm, to stand strong, and to stand as a proud Jew, a Torah Jew. The answer was to not apologize for being a Jew, but rather to be the proudest and most tenacious Jew, and that is exactly what he did. And this is how is Mordechai is known in the Megillah: Ish Yehudi haya bShushan habira There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital. What do you mean a Jewish man; there was only one? There was a large Jewish population in Shushan! The Megillah is telling us that true, there were many Jews, but some were abandoning their Judaism and others were failing to stand up for it. The Jewish community was asleep; there was only one Ish Yehudi, an unashamed, unembarrassed, unapologetic Jew. What happens when Jews stand up for ourselves, when we call out and confront anti-Semitic song lyrics, tropes and yes, call out anti-Semites themselves? By the end of the story, the Megillah tells fear of the Jew had fallen on them and so no man could stand up against them. Why? Because Mordechai, the proud, unashamed, unapologetic and fearless Jew earned the respect of his multitude of brothers, he sought the good of his people and spoke for the welfare of the next generation. One of the critical, but too often neglected, lessons of Purim is that the answer to our enemies is not to hide, apologize, or erase our Jewishness. To the contrary, it is to swell with and share our Jewish pride. When we act with confidence and pride, we gain respect. It is no coincidence that Mordechai emerges as a leader not only of the Jewish people, but a dignitary in the Persian government. The mitzvah of Purim is to get to a point that we cant tell between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordechai. We are very good at the blessed is Mordechai. We look to explain, excuse, justify and see everyone as a blessing. But we need to get to a point of remembering that identifying a Haman and cursing him is as important as blessing a Mordechai. We have to call out an anti-Semite, hold them accountable, hold those whose silence makes them accomplices accountable. None of us know what the future brings. It could be that we will look back at these few weeks as an aberration, a small moment in time that bigoted voices spoke freely but we will go back to strong support, tolerance and freedom. But it also could be that history will look back at this moment, when members of Congress could espouse anti-Semitic views with impunity, without condemnation or consequence, and identify it as an inflection point, the beginning of defense of Jewish people turned. This Purim, dont just dress up like Mordechai; act like Mordechai. If you share that concern, that uncertainty, the question is: what will you do about it? Certainly we have to write letters, make phone calls, attend rallies and hold anti-Semites and those who fail to condemn them accountable. But there is something else we must do. We must appeal directly to the American people, to carry ourselves with pride, but also with dignity, honesty, integrity and righteousness. If like Mordechai our neighbors come to know and respect us, they will be intolerant of leaders who dare promote anti-Semitic rhetoric or tropes. If we carry ourselves properly, those we work with, work out with, shop with, or live near will speak out and stand up to demand resolutions of condemnation and removal of voices of hate from critical committees. This Purim, dont just dress up like Mordechai; act like Mordechai. Be an Ish Yehudi. Government has reached final agreements with the India Export-Import (EXIM) Bank for the take-off of financing arrangements to improve agricultural mechanization services in farming communities across the country, and provide water for the inhabitants of Yendi and its surrounding towns and villages. This was made known after a meeting between officials of EXIM Bank of India, led by its President, Mr. David Raaquinha, and a Ghanaian delegation led by the Vice President of the Republic, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, on the sidelines of the ongoing 14th CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Partnership Project in New Delhi, India. Following a visit by H.E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to India last year, discussions were opened on the possibility of financing agreements between the Government of Ghana and EXIM Bank of India for a $150 million credit facility to finance the strengthening of Agriculture mechanization services in Ghana, and a further $30 million facility for the Yendi Water Project. Legislative approval for the two deals have since been passed by Parliament. At a closed door meeting between Vice President Bawumia and officials of India EXIM Bank on Monday 18th March, 2019, all final discussions for the take-off of the two projects were sealed with final sign off set for next month. The agriculture mechanization project is expected to provide equipment and training for the various Agriculture Mechanization Services Equipment Centers (AMSEC) across the country, while the Yendi Water Project will provide water to the over 133,000 residents of the Yendi Municipality and the surrounding towns and villages who contribute to the agriculture sector through the production of food and cash crops on a large scale. Vice President Bawumia expressed satisfaction at the commitments and assistance offered by the EXIM Bank of India and the Government of India to Ghana over the years, and pledged enhanced friendship and cooperation between the two countries. Earlier, Dr. Bawumia had an interactive meeting with leaders and captains of industries in India, where he took the opportunity, together with the key stakeholders in Ghanas investment drive, to showcase the Ghana Project and what Government is doing to create an investor-friendly environment conducive for business to thrive. Leaders of Indian-owned companies already operating in Ghana also took the opportunity to tell the Ghana story, while providing crucial feedback on ways to make the business environment even better. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video CAIRO Egypts grand imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, has been under fire recently over his comments on polygamy. In 90% of cases and I am not exaggerating polygamy involves injustice toward the wife, her family and her children, Tayeb said March 1 during his weekly televised interview broadcast on Channel 1 TV. Al-Azhars Twitter account also posted Tayebs statements from the interview. He said, Polygamy is an example of a distorted understanding of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. Tayeb also said that polygamy is a right that is restricted by conditions, such as the condition of fairness. If there is no fairness, polygamy becomes haram [Arabic for prohibited]. This issue is not open for experiments. Interpreting the verse of al-Nisa in the Quran, which reads, But if you fear that not you cannot do justice, then (marry) one, Tayeb said that fear of being unable to achieve fairness is an essential reason for refraining from polygamy. He also stressed that it is forbidden for a man to be unfair toward his first wife. In response to these comments, some Salafi leaders called March 3 for polygamy to be encouraged for men. They said this would be in the best interest of women and society in general. A social media campaign was launched under a hashtag whose English translation is let him have many [wives]. The campaign was launched by Salafi preacher Sameh Abdel Hamid Hamouda, a former member of Al-Nour party, which is affiliated with the Salafi movement in Egypt. Al-Azhar media center issued a statement March 2 clarifying Tayebs comments on polygamy. The statement said the grand imam never talked about prohibiting or banning polygamy, but mentioned restrictions on polygamy in light of the injustice it causes women in the present era. On the same day, the National Council for Women praised in a press statement Tayebs position on polygamy. The statement said, The interpretation by the grand imam of polygamy is that polygamy is a restricted right that must be justified, is subject to the precondition of fairness and is not open to experiments. This [interpretation] emphasizes that Islam has honored women and conferred to them rights that did not exist before. Hamouda, both defending and promoting polygamy, told Al-Monitor, Polygamy is not an injustice to women at all, but is rather in their best interest. Polygamy is a societal solution to the crisis of spinsterhood in Egypt. He continued, It is necessary and important to encourage polygamy among men who can afford it. This would give many unmarried girls the chance to have a family and children before they miss the boat. This would spare them major psychological and societal suffering. Hamouda underlined that polygamy should be promoted in order to achieve social harmony. But member of parliament Amna Nosseir, a professor of Islamic philosophy at Al-Azhar University, has a completely different opinion. She said polygamy at the beginning of Islam was a necessity in light of the nature of society at the time. Things have changed for contemporary women. Their situation is completely different from what it was centuries ago. Women have acquired a great deal of education, independence and self-reliance and they are now equal to men. Commenting on the issue from a religious perspective, she told Al-Monitor, Islam has stressed that men cannot achieve fairness no matter how hard they try. The Quranic Verse 129 of Ayat Al-Nisa says, And you will never be able to be equal [in feeling] between wives, even if you should strive [to do so]. Therefore achieving fairness is almost impossible. Nosseir added, Tayebs perception of polygamy as an injustice to women is fully consistent with the present social situation of women. This is also true from the religious perspective, which stressed the difficulty for a man to achieve fairness among his wives no matter how keen he was on doing so. She categorically refused, however, the idea of a law in Egypt that bans polygamy, as is the case in Tunisia. I am absolutely against prohibition. But religious institutions and other concerned state institutions ought to raise awareness on this matter and clarify the full picture of polygamy, she said. Polygamy is an exception in specific circumstances and is never the rule. It should be noted that the Tunisian law prohibits polygamy and even sets sanctions that could include imprisonment against a husband who marries a second wife. Tayeb had a clear position against any legislation that bans polygamy. In his speech at the International Ifta Conference in October 2016, he said, I do not call for any legislation that bans polygamy, stressing his rejection of any legislation that would alter or undermine the regulations set out by the Quran or the Sunnah in any way whatsoever. One may say that Tayeb has affirmed that polygamy, in the absolute sense of the word, is an injustice to women and children. This is a major shift in religious discourse and could be seen as a victory for women in light of the determination by the grand imam of Al-Azhar Mosque to restrict polygamy as an exception subject to limits and conditions rather than a rule. This, however, comes in tandem with another clear position by Tayeb refusing any law that categorically bans polygamy. Soha Hossam, a 33-year-old pharmacist, had been too discouraged by her first marriage to think of marrying a second time. Hossam divorced in 2015, and although she has received marriage proposals since then, she could never bring herself to take the plunge a second time. But a recent government program called Mawada (Affection) may help change her mind. The program, which aims to prepare would-be couples about challenges and difficulties of matrimony, will provide 30 hours of courses to young people on the problems of adaptation they may encounter as they try to harmonize their lives and on possible ways to cope, communicate and understand each other. When I think of how [unprepared I had been the first time], I think this is a very important program that every would-be couple has to go through. It would greatly contribute to helping couples deal with their problems at the beginning of their marriage or throughout, Hossam told Al-Monitor. Egypts ever-increasing divorce rates have long troubled the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, himself a vocal critic of divorce. Nudged by the president, various state bodies have launched a number of programs to keep Egyptians married ranging from establishing a special marriage counseling unit in Al-Azhar the countrys highest authority on religion to pre-marriage counseling, which would include sexual education for would-be couples by Dar al-Ifta, an institution that studies and interprets Islam. The new program, which was officially launched March 15, will begin with a pilot project that will cover three governorates Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said that top the divorce rates in the country. After July, it will be extended to the whole country. According to data released by the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in 2018, divorce rates increased by 3.2 % between 2017 and 2016 from 192,079 to 198,269. The program aims to reach 800,000 people with 30-hour courses that would be free of charge. The Ministry of Social Solidarity, in cooperation with Al-Azhar and the Christian Coptic Church of Egypt, will carry it out. The key target will be people between the ages of 18 and 25, particularly those who are at university. However, government statements quoted by the local media imply that they would also be open to those who have concrete plans to marry, as well as those who may want to marry one day. The program will reach out to people who are planning to marry or are at the age of marriage. It will talk with them about everything related to marriage, including psychological, physical and emotional aspects and the problems that they could encounter during marriage, member of parliament Mohamed Abu Hamed told Al-Monitor. In a press statement Feb. 15, Solidarity Minister Ghada Waly said the program would also aim to reach people through a radio program called With Affection, We Will Complete Our Lives. A play on how to make a marriage work would also be produced on stage in state-run theaters, and short advertisements will be aired on television. The content on the lessons, the plays and the program would be revised at the pilot stage, and changes will be made if necessary. Abu Hamed said the project is a long-awaited move, as it would address two key problems false expectations and a lack of education that cause divorce. Of course, the reasons behind the rising divorce rates in the country are complex, but more awareness on what to expect may help, he said, adding that the course should be obligatory just like medical checkups before marriage. Abu Hamed said economic woes, which also need to be addressed by the government, were also among the main reasons behind growing divorce rates in Egypt. Mona el-Hadidi, professor of sociology at Helwan University, told Al-Monitor that the existing divorce rates might be low, as there are many people who remain married but live separately. El-Hadidi said that such a program should also be included in the countrys educational curricula at elementary school. Children should learn right from the start of their education about marriage and how to be good husbands and wives, [and they should] be prepared for the challenges they may face during marriage and how to deal with them, she told Al-Monitor. Turkeys interior minister announced today that Ankara and Tehran have launched joint operations against Kurdish rebels along Turkeys eastern border. But Iran almost immediately denied the report, raising suspicion about Ankaras motives in making the assertion. Why it matters: Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the joint operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) began at 8 a.m. local time on March 18 and marked a first in history. Speaking at a campaign rally in the southern coastal town of Serik ahead of local elections on March 31, Soylu vowed to announce the outcome once the operation was over. So far the Turkish Defense Ministry has not confirmed any such operation. Soylus announcement comes as US-Turkey relations continue to deteriorate. A key point of contention is Washingtons continued support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), its on-the-ground partner in the battle against what remains of Islamic State terrorists. The SDF, which includes both Arab and Kurdish fighters, is composed primarily of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which administers northeastern Syria. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist offshoot of the PKK. As such, Ankara has an interest in telegraphing to Washington that it will work with any willing partner in its fight against the PKK even at the expense of undermining the Donald Trump administrations so-called maximum pressure campaign to isolate Iran. The US told us not to enter Afrin in northwestern Syria, Soylu exclaimed defiantly. But we damn did it, didnt we! Whats next: Iran has denied the claim. Iran has no involvement in Turkeys military operation, the Tasnim News Agency reported, citing official sources. Most experts also rule out Iranian involvement across the border. And if Iran was involved, it would want to keep its participation as discreet as possible. Kamal Chomani, a Middle East policy expert at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told Al-Monitor last week that Iran has no interest in provoking retaliation from the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the Iranian extension of the PKK. Why should Iran provoke clashes on its border and in its cities? Chomani said. Know more: Read Mahmut Bozarslans latest on the history of questionable Turkish claims of cooperation with Iran against the Kurds here. For more on the standoff between Turkey and the United States, check Al-Monitor diplomatic correspondent Semih Idizs latest here. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the Donald Trump administration continues to walk back its pullout from Syria and is now considering leaving as many as 1,000 US troops in the country to defeat the remnants of the Islamic State. The Pentagons top general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, immediately pushed back, calling the report factually incorrect. Why it matters: The internal debate represents another twist in the US administrations Syria policy, which has gone through a series of hairpin turns over the past year. Even if US troops remain, the administration will have to work to regain the trust of its Syrian Kurdish allies, who are increasingly talking of turning to Bashar al-Assad to protect them against Turkish incursions. Heres a timeline of US shifts on Syria: March 29, 2018: President Trump tells an Ohio rally that US troops will be coming out of Syria very soon. April 2, 2018: State Department freezes $200 million in recovery funds for Syria. April 3, 2018: US Central Command chief, Gen. Joseph Votel, insists pulling out of Syria would set back US goals; at the same moment, Trump calls for letting the Gulf Arab states take over and pay for stabilizing and reconstructing areas liberated from the Islamic State, according to Washington Post reporting at the time. April 13, 2018: The United States strikes suspected Syrian chemical weapons facilities for the second year in a row. "America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria under [any] circumstances," Trump says in a White House speech. "As other nations step up their contributions, we look forward to the day when we can bring our warriors home." July 16, 2018: Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin at a bilateral summit in Helsinki, Finland. National security adviser John Bolton tells top Pentagon and State Department officials that Trump told Putin that forcing out Iran is a primary US objective in Syria. Aug. 17, 2018: Former US Ambassador to Turkey Jim Jeffrey becomes the State Departments special representative for Syria engagement. Dec. 14, 2018: Trump tells Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Syria is all yours. We are done. Dec. 19, 2018: Trump tweets that the United States has defeated [the Islamic State] in Syria and that the 2,000 US troops in the country will be coming home. Dec. 21, 2018: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis resigns in the wake of the Syria withdrawal decision. Brett McGurk, the US envoy to the coalition to defeat the Islamic State, follows Mattis out the door Dec. 22 (McGurk had already been planning to leave in February). Jan. 13, 2019: Trump promises to start long overdue US pullout from Syria and pledges to create a safe zone to protect US-backed Kurdish allies. Jan. 29, 2019: Syrian Kurdish delegation visiting Washington says they will consider joining forces with Assad if the United States withdraws. Around Feb. 15-17: Behind closed doors at the Munich Security Conference, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan tells European allies that the United States plans to exit Syria by April 30. US lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are furious. Feb. 21, 2019: White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders says the United States will keep a peacekeeping force of 200 troops in Syria for a period of time. That number is quickly revised to up to 400 US troops. The Trump administration asks European allies to contribute another 800 to 1,500 troops, per CNN. March 11, 2019: The State Department unveils a budget request for fiscal year 2020 that zeroes out stabilization aid for opposition-held areas of Syria. With friends like these: After nearly a year of turmoil, even Americas closest friends have questions. The Wall Street Journal reports that even if 1,000 American troops stay, US European allies have yet to commit to the new mission, which would support the counter-Islamic State fight but not a safe zone for the Kurds. Whats next: Dunford said in his statement rebutting the Wall Street Journal article that the United States has conducted detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff and has an initial concept that will be refined in the coming days. But Turkey may be moving more quickly than the Pentagon had anticipated: Ankara said in a statement today that it had carried out joint strikes with Iran against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Know more: Read our roving correspondent Amberin Zamans on-the-ground reporting on Syrian Kurds turning to Assad as the United States equivocates. Even if the United States doesnt cut back its mission in Syria as much as initially proposed, it will have less money to throw around, Pentagon correspondent Jack Detsch reports. - Jack Detsch President Hassan Rouhanis rise to the highest elected position in the Islamic Republic in 2013 was mostly centered on his campaign promise to reduce tensions with Western countries through a comprehensive nuclear deal that would remove international sanctions against Iran. However, the nuclear deal Iran signed in 2015 was quickly scrapped by a new US administration, diminishing Rouhanis promises of economic prosperity. As a result, the Rouhani administration and others who domestically supported the nuclear deal have been left scrambling, either moving the goal posts or attempting to diffuse the blame. While the US sanctions have been reimposed and investment from Western companies never materialized, Rouhani has been touting other achievements of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). During a speech to government officials in the southern port city of Bushehr, Rouhani spoke about the significance of Chapter VII sanctions on Iran under the UN Charter being removed due to the nuclear accord. Sixteen years ago they occupied Iraq and before the occupation they took Iraq to Chapter VII of the UN Security Council, and today the people and government of Iraq are feeling the consequences of that, Rouhani said. He added, We have to know the value of our diplomats because a great and historical task was accomplished. On his promise of friendly relations with Western countries, Rouhanis tone has become more hostile toward the United States. Someone who prevents the import of medicine and food is a criminal. And the judicial institutions must pursue those domestically and outside US officials and those who design sanctions for crimes against humanity, he said. This is the first time Rouhani has discussed pursuing criminal cases against US officials for implementing sanctions against his country. Iran has already sued the United States at the International Court of Justice for breaching the JCPOA; however, what Rouhani is suggesting here seems different, though it is equally dubious that Irans judiciary will impact US decision-makers. Despite the blowback from engaging with US officials on a nuclear deal, Rouhani is certain his administration chose the right path. The enemies of Iran, and US officials, should know that the course we went on was correct, he said, adding that Iran wants to have good relations with everyone in the world based on mutual respect and good behavior. If they do us a favor we will not forget, and if they oppress us we will stand against them. Headlines in conservative media outlets emphasized Rouhanis comments that we must damn the Zionists and Americans wherever we see problems. Based on the transcript, the context of those statements was unclear, but Rouhani continued, Im surprised that the enemy has been able to breach the minds of some. The comments are particularly striking for a Western-educated Iranian official who staked his political fortune on breaking a taboo of open direct talks with the United States. This week, Israel, Lebanon and Kuwait will be hosting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on what will be yet another drive by the Donald Trump administration to push back against Irans maligned regional interests. This visit comes on the heels of Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis visit to Iraq last week, one of whose goals is to do what the United States opposes: expand relations with regional countries, namely Iraq. For Israel, one of the main questions from Rouhanis visit to Iraq in general, and his unprecedented audience in Najaf with top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in particular, will be whether it will strengthen the hands of Iranian moderates in Iranian domestic politics. The likely answer in this case is: hardly. While there are, as noted in an Al-Monitor article titled Rouhani leverages Sistani visit to maneuver on Iran's regional policy, approximately 49,000 students based at 300 seminaries in Iran who received stipends from Sistani in 2013, today such numbers do not provide much leverage in Iranian domestic politics. Religious organizations in Iran since former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads election in 2005 have started to lose their political influence. Before then, presidents used to visit important marjas in Qom to gain support for important political decisions. What about now? Well, how many times has Rouhani visited Qom since coming to office? Seemingly only one. Rather than visiting Qom, in Iranian politics today and for Rouhani factors that comparatively provide far more leverage are: first and foremost support from the supreme leader, followed by support from regime military organizations, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The third most important factor in terms of providing leverage is support from regime political organizations, especially the Guardian Council, followed by support from various regime economic organizations such as bonyads (foundations). Did Rouhanis recent visit increase support for him from such organizations? Hardly. As respectable as Sistani is and as unprecedented his audience with a sitting Iranian president was, and as notable as Rouhanis economic deals in Iraq were, none of these regime organizations are likely to increase support for Rouhani as a result of this trip to the point where he can change major decisions. For example: Will the recent visit by Rouhani tip the balance in favor of the moderate wing of Iranian politics who want Iran to join the international Financial Action Task Force watchdog? Very unlikely. Will the recent visit have an impact on Iranian regime intelligence organizations, such as IRGC intelligence, that have been arresting (kidnapping) dual Iranian-European citizens, something which is against the interest of Rouhani government as it deters investment? Again, this is unlikely. The recent visit is also unlikely to increase the leverage of the Rouhani administration in foreign policy decision-making by much, including when it comes to Iraq. The IRGC Quds Force has its own top of the line access in Baghdad through Ambassador Iraj Masjedi, who is a former adviser to Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. He is likely to have as good if not better everyday access to various Shiite militias and top Iraqi politicians, past and present. Meanwhile it is unclear whether Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarifs recent resignation provided the Foreign Ministry in particular, or the Rouhani administration in general, with more leverage. This is despite the statement of support from Soleimani after his resignation. Soon after Soleimani expressed his support, Zarif was publicly ridiculed, albeit indirectly, when deputy Quds force commander Ismail Ghaani said Syrian President Bashar al-Assads top-secret trip to Iran was arranged by the Quds Force. Ghaani added, Those who needed to know knew about it, and those who didnt need to know, didnt hear about it. Although he also said, It was, after all, a sensitive operation. [Rouhani] was informed and that the failure to inform Zarif goes back to them (coordination within the Cabinet), this could easily be interpreted as informing the Iranian public that Zarif does not have security clearance and could not be trusted with such top-secret information. The next important question for Israel will be: Will the visit lead to any changes in Irans Syria strategy? This is an important question to ask, as Irans proxy militia forces in Syria are reported to include Shiite militia fighters from Iraq. The answer here again is likely to be negative. Although Sistanis fatwa was crucial in bringing many thousands of Iraqis to fight IS, the numbers required for the IRGCs Quds Force to run operations in Syria are smaller. Therefore, Soleimani does not need Sistanis backing in the same manner. This can be viewed from the fact that despite the negative view of some Shiite clergy in Iraq to the war in Syria, there are still Shiite Iraqis going to fight in that war. What is likely to be more important for Israel is not what was happening in Iraq on March 12 when Rouhani was there, but what happened in Iran on the same day in the Assembly of Experts. The members of this 88-member body, whose tasks include choosing the next supreme leader, held a vote to choose its next deputy chief. One of the top contenders was former judiciary chief and current head of the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani. The other top contender was Ebrahim Raisi, the current head of the judiciary and former head of the important, multibillion-dollar Mashhad-based bonyad, Astan-e Quds Razavi. Both are believed to be contenders for the role of the supreme leaders successor and both will need the majority of votes at the Assembly of Experts for this position. Raisi defeated Larijani in a 42-27 vote to become the deputy chief of this important assembly. Raisis larger vote in this instance in the same assembly that will vote to choose the next supreme leader could theoretically be interpreted as a sign that he has a stronger chance of becoming supreme leader than other contenders, including Larijani. To Israel, this development and its consequences are of more importance than Rouhanis recent visit to Iraq. The same could apply to Rouhani as well, as Raisi could end up being his next boss as supreme leader. The two, who were rivals in the 2017 presidential election that Raisi lost, have not had the best of relations. Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis recent landmark trip to Iraq was closely monitored and discussed from various aspects by the media and analysts around the world. Some observers put their focus on the bilateral aspect, talking about the importance of the visit in terms of Irans growing influence in Iraq, while others analyzed it within the context of Irans plans to overcome the US sanctions. There have been also debates on the meaning of Rouhanis trip for internal political divisions in Iran and Iraq. But a largely ignored and yet very important aspect of the Iranian presidents three-day visit to Iraq is the explicit and implicit implications of the trip for Irans policy in Syria. The first point in this regard is related to Irans plans for the process of Syrias postwar reconstruction. After concluding a number of economic agreements and memorandums of understanding with the Syrian government over the past several months, it seems that Iran is moving forward with more concrete plan for playing an active role in Syrias reconstruction. One of the main agreements signed during Rouhanis visit to Baghdad was on the construction of a railway connecting Irans Shalamcheh border crossing to Basra. This, in fact, is a part of Irans plan to establish a rail connection between its western borders and Syria, to be stretched toward Syrias Mediterranean port of Latakia. The railway is defined within Tehrans longer-term plan for achieving a central role in Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, acting as a transit hub between the East and the West. At the same time, some reports published during Rouhanis visit to Iraq indicate that the Syrian government is going to hand over the management of the Latakia ports container terminal to Iran. As such, Tehran is apparently speeding up its ambitious transit plan by simultaneously reaching out to the Syrian and Iraqi governments. On the other hand, upon Rouhanis departure to Iraq on March 11, the head of Irans Chamber of Commerce, Gholamhossein Shafei, unveiled another economic plan involving both Iraq and Syria. Given Irans future plans for more participation in economic activities in Syria, the Iranian Chamber proposes a trilateral treaty between Iran, Iraq and Syria based on free trade, Shafei said. Its not clear whether the idea was discussed during Rouhanis talks with the Iraqi officials, but it means that Iran is mulling the establishment of new economic structures in the region with the participation of friendly states. While Rouhani was visiting Baghdad, a Syrian trade delegation was in Tehran, conducting negotiations with Iranian economic officials. The talks were reportedly concluded with the signing of 18 memorandums of understanding. The abovementioned developments mean that Iran is apparently defining the issue of Syrias reconstruction, as well as its economic presence in postwar Syria within a regional framework. Although Irans new push for developing economic ties with its neighbors is widely seen as an attempt to circumvent the US sanctions, Tehrans move into this direction is apparently taking a more structured and multilateral form. This would herald the emergence of a regional geo-economic agenda in Iranian foreign policy, with Iraq and Syria as its two main pillars. The political importance of Rouhanis visit for Irans Syrian agenda was no less important. This aspect of the issue should be seen as a follow-up to the recent visit of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Tehran, where he met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as Rouhani. Assessing Assads visit to Tehran as having been successful, Irans Ambassador to Syria Javad Torkabadi on March 11 talked of Rouhanis possible visit to Damascus in the near future. Although no concrete details have been announced so far on this issue, the possible visit could signal a message to the world that Irans influence in Syria is not limited to the military sphere and has a political wing as well. In other words, although the common narrative is that Irans regional policy is effectively conducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and especially its external arm, the Quds Force, the Iranian presidents recent visit to Iraq and his possible visit to Syria indicate a growing role for the Iranian administration in regional files. This does not mean that Rouhani is pursuing a different agenda from whats been agreed upon at the highest level of the Islamic Republic's political establishment, nor does it mean that Rouhani is trying to sideline the IRGC. Instead, this might indicate a kind of division of labor in the making between the two institutions, whereby the IRGCs military achievements and security influence in the region would be translated into concrete political and economic benefits by the Rouhani administration. As such, it comes with no surprise that Abdollah Ganji, managing director of conservative newspaper Javan, which is close to the IRGC, called on Rouhani to organize a trip to Syria immediately after returning from Iraq. This emerging division of labor could also make the realization of an understanding between Iran and its rivals regarding the region, including Syria, more likely. Thats because other states would be assured that they dont have to deal with different Iranian agendas at the same time. And Rouhani's meeting with Faleh al-Fayyad, the head of Iraqs Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), may provide insight into one of the most challenging aspects of Irans presence in Syria, the future role of the pro-Iran armed groups. Once known as a rather loose alliance of Iraqi Shiite groups combating the Islamic State, the PMU is now considered by Tehran to be at the same level as Iraqs official governmental institutions, with its head included in the list of the Iraqi officials to be met by the Iranian president. The same pattern can be expected to be applied to pro-Iran groups in Syria. In other words, the most desirable scenario for Iran would be to help those groups unify under a single banner and closely work with the future Syrian government while staying loyal to the Islamic Republic. Whether or not such a scenario can be realized is a matter of wait and see, but this could be the best way for Iran to preserve its influence in postwar Syria. The Belfast Agreement that went into force 20 years ago, also known as the Good Friday Agreement, ended the long, bloody conflict in Northern Ireland. Most parties supported the agreement. The people of Northern Ireland and of the Irish Republic approved it in two referenda, and its leading architects John Hume and David Trimble were awarded the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize months after the signing. The governments of the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic signed the agreement, and both the Unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, and their Republican rivals pledged to implement it. The deal included disarming all militias within a few years, a commitment to ending the conflict by democratic means and establishment of an autonomous government in Belfast with equal representation of Catholics and Protestants. It also stipulated that the Legislative Council could only approve proposed laws with a Republican and a Unionist majority, and British sovereignty would be eased for example, by disbanding the British army units in Northern Ireland. However, the Northern Irish autonomy would remain under UK sovereignty until residents vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or join the Irish Republic. This temporary agreement with no end date in sight was probably convenient for all sides. It granted Northern Ireland a proto-state status with most of the characteristics of independence, and restored calm. By avoiding a final status decision, the sides prevented a renewal of the violent clashes between them. I came away from talks I had in the past with the head of the autonomous government, First Minister David Trimble, and with others on both sides of the divide, with the impression that no one was in a hurry to reach a permanent agreement and that the interim deal was best for all. The agreement, to which then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair devoted much time and energy, was balanced down to the minutest detail, and the young leader was very pleased with his achievement. From him, too, I understood that everyone would be just fine with the interim status for a very long time. There is no doubt that the membership of both the United Kingdom and Irish Republic in the European Union (EU) contributed greatly to the success of the agreement by avoiding the need to set a border between the Republic and the Northern Irish autonomy, and providing residents of the north with full and convenient access to both the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom. Not that everything ran smoothly. Each side complained, of course, that the other was violating this or that article of the agreement. In light of the refusal of the paramilitary Northern Irelands IRA to abide by its commitment to disarm, the autonomous government stepped down and Northern Ireland was administered from London for several months. There were also occasional terror attacks carried out by radicals who refused to accept the 1998 compromises. However, the agreement was a success story by and large and most of it was implemented. Then came the 2015 Brexit vote. Former Prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron is to blame for instigating the Brexit crisis. Cameron feared that criticism over "the dictatorship" of the EU and its Brussels officials would damage his partys chance to win the 2015 elections. And so, in order to avoid that criticism, he promised to hold a referendum about Great Britain staying in the EU. Cameron won the elections, but was stuck with the referendum promise. He expected the majority of Brits to support staying in the EU, but was defeated, at a terrible cost for his country. For three ridiculous years since that unnecessary referendum, Theresa May the home secretary under Cameron who opposed Brexit served as prime minister. Three years that took a heavy toll on the country. In trying to agree on the terms of their divorce, the issue of a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic has proven to be one of the thorniest problems, if not the most problematic. If the border would be established between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland this is currently the official borderline between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom it would mean that Northern Ireland would be outside of the EU. If the border would be established between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom (in the Irish Sea), and if Northern Ireland keeps obeying by the EU rules, then its a different situation. This would mean that, on the practical level, Northern Ireland would become part of the Irish Republic. And if the Brits Brexit the EU? Even if, officially, Northern Ireland would not come under the sovereignty of the Irish Republic, the whole Irish island would become one entity, in spite of the referendum that was not conducted, as decided 20 years ago. The British Parliament rejected on March 12 a proposal for a temporary custom-border solution. Those objecting it argue that absent a long-term solution, the maritime frontier between the United Kingdom and the Irish island would become its border with the EU. Thus the United Kingdom would lose Northern Ireland. Suddenly it appears that the decision to leave the most critical decision for a later stage and to drag out the interim agreement for over 20 years came at a cost. As long as there is no permanent arrangement, a changing and unpredictable reality could dictate decisions. What seemed convenient for all has now turned into a major headache for all, with Britain unable to find a way out of the stalemate in which it is trapped. True, a referendum among residents of Northern Ireland on a final decision could have sparked renewed violence. However, it is safe to assume that those who have enjoyed the outcome of the Belfast Agreement over the past two decades and want to see calm maintained, would have accepted whatever the public decided. The conflict between the Unionists and the Republicans bears many similarities to the Israeli-Palestinian one: A mixture of religious and nationalist aspects, a long history, use of violence, a sense of victimhood, the difficulty in recognizing the other as a terrorist or oppressor, and so on. There is also similarity in the deep reluctance to tackle the core issues of the conflict and resolve them. Residents of Northern Ireland could find their fate decided for them by a large degree by the EU rather than making a decision themselves on whether they should remain part of the United Kingdom or join the Irish Republic. In Israel, unless we hurry and make a decision on dividing the land between ourselves and the Palestinians, reality will dictate a one-state solution of the type proposed in the past by Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi who dubbed it Isratine. This state would have a Jewish minority ruling an Arab-Palestinian majority until that majority decides to put an end to its subservience. Before others decide for us, we would do well to make the tough decisions ourselves. Second Lady of Ghana, Hajia Mrs. Samira Bawumia, through her not-for-profit organization, the Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Projects (SEHP), has secured twelve (12) scholarships and free services for children needing special pediatric care abroad. A number of qualified Ghanaian students are set to enjoy partial and full scholarships in two Indian Universities. Health professionals are also set to receive training to improve their skills, while paediatric patients recommended for treatment abroad are to benefit from free health care in a leading Indian Teaching Hospital. Ghanas High Commissioner to India, H.E. Michael Aaron N. N. Oquaye (Jnr), made the announcement in New Delhi, India on Monday, 18th March, 2019 at an event organised by the Delhi Chapter of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GIPIO) in collaboration with the Samira Empowerment & Humanitarian Projects (SEHP). At a brief ceremony ahead of the programme; witnessed by the Vice President of the Republic, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, and the Second Lady, Mrs Samira Bawumia, H.E. Oquaye revealed that Parul University is offering two (2) full scholarships, catering for tuition and boarding, to qualified Ghanaian applicants, while Crescent University is offering 10 partial PhD scholarships to deserving students. Also, the Ghana Health Service has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Yenupoya Teaching Hospital for the training of Ghanaian health workers and the provision of free health care for paediatric patients needing special care abroad. The training is for fellowship training in sub-specialities in Medicine and allied health health and Nursing to the level of BSc, MSc and PhD H.E. Oquaye expressed the appreciation of the Ghana Government for the opportunity to give further training to qualified Ghanaians, saying it is a reflection of the deep bonds of friendship between Ghana and India. On her part, Second Lady expressed her appreciation to the Universities and health institutions that offered the scholarships and free health services. She added that, people in positions of privilege should be guided by Martin Luther Kings Jrs quote - Lifes most persistent and urgent question is;what are you doing for others Mrs. Bawumia is in India with H.E Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, for the 14th CII Exim Bank Conclave on India-Africa Partnership Project. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video In the middle of December 2018, two senior members of the Shin Bet brought the following news to the office of former Lt. Gen. Chief of Staff (COS) and now head of the Blue and White party Benny Gantz: Hostile agents had hacked Gantz cellular phone and acquired sensitive information that could embarrass him. Gantz intentions of entering politics were only made known a short time before, in September 2018. On Dec. 21, a short piece in the Maariv newspaper announced a cyber breach in Gantz office but offered no further details. On Dec. 27, Gantz himself announced the establishment of the Israel Resilience party and his intention to run for the premiership. A few more days passed, and on Jan. 8 of this year, Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman announced in a Tel Aviv University convention that a foreign power would try to meddle in Israels elections via cyber technology. Argaman was clear and incisive. He said he had no idea which party would be favored by said foreign power. However, he added, I know what Im talking about. The media, including an Al-Monitor article, all thought that Argaman was referring to Russian involvement. Now it turns out that was not the case. Evidently, the Russians intervene in elections via the "accepted method" of creating fake news on social networks via phony accounts, robots and bots. But the power that initiated the cyberattack was Iran. This bombshell was hurled on March 14 into the Israeli campaigns boiling epicenter in a television report of Channel 12 News: Iran had hacked Gantz mobile phone. According to the report, two high-level Shin Bet people warned him that the hacker was likely to use sensitive material against him. Boom. The hullabaloo that erupted with the announcement continues to this very moment, despite the fact that it was clear from the beginning that Gantz mobile phone contained no sensitive security information. Gantz had ended his COS term of office four years earlier and was no longer connected to the security system or to intelligence. There was no concern that any such assets had leaked into Iranian hands. But what did appear on the mobile phone? Here is where we enter the private domain. Social networks were flooded with rumors regarding the contents of the hacked device. A furious Gantz told the senior members of his party Yair Lapid and the two former chiefs of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Yaalon that no such intimate video clip existed, as certain agents had circulated to the public. Beyond that, he refused to address the issue and resolutely insisted that no one can blackmail me. In other words, he was saying that no foreign agents had access to sensitive information about him that could (theoretically) be used as blackmail. These announcements did not calm the flames; perhaps even the reverse is true. Blue and White, Gantz party, tried to turn the affair into a boomerang tool against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The partys heads, especially Yaalon, repeatedly argued that they dont believe Iran is really behind a cyber breach. The party demands that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit immediately begin an investigation into the affair, including tracking down the identities of those who leaked the information to the media. Those in the Prime Ministers Office hurried to make it clear that the Shin Bet head did not update Netanyahu about Gantz breach in light of the political rivalry between the two men. According to Netanyahus people, this fact proves that Netanyahu was not the one who leaked the affair since he knew nothing about it. Gantz and his people are trying to pin the whole affair on Netanyahu anyway by hinting that he used his various powers (as the prime minister is also head of the National Cyber Security Authority) in order to discredit the former COS and disseminate personal information about him. Of course, the Likud denies this completely. The Blue and White people started to direct their hints at the "special relationship" Netanyahu enjoys with Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen. According to their theory, the Mossad must be involved in this affair thus, Cohen could have updated Netanyahu. As we know, the distance from Netanyahus close circle to the media is short. However, the Mossad vigorously denies this claim too. This leaves protagonists Gantz and Netanyahu facing off in a cyber mud bath and everyone else searching for the pictures drawn from the mobile phone. Now it emerges that others beside Gantz have had their phones hacked. Ehud Barak, former prime minister and defense minister, went through a similar experience. Hacking attempts were directed at the mobile phones of high-level Cabinet ministers too. Most of the signs point to the probability that Iran conducted planned cyber attacks on senior Israeli politicians and public figures in the past as well in their effort to draw out as much security information as well as embarrassing personal information. The Shin Bet and perhaps the Mossad too uncovered these Iranian efforts, but only after the fact. It is not clear yet whether the Iranians really hold information ostensibly drawn from breached cell phones and the like. If so, what does this material contain? Only Benny Gantz and the Iranian intelligence minister know the truth. The political ruckus that erupted following this affair has not yet died down. There are those in Blue and White who felt that Gantz should have certainly updated his cohorts in the new party early on before they joined the united partys bandwagon. This kind of event cannot remain secret, one of the partys higher-ups told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The source added, It would have been much better if Gantz would have told us all in advance and prepared us for a possible embarrassment. Nonetheless, at this stage, the partys leaders stand by Gantz and back him to the hilt. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is trying to create reverse spin by saying that Iran supports Gantz and reminds everyone that they [Gantz and Lapid] backed the Iran nuclear deal. Three weeks before the April 9 elections in Israel, and it is already clear that this is Israels dirtiest election campaign ever. Gantz, who defeated an amateurish attempt two weeks ago to smear him with sexual harassment charges that ostensibly took place more than 40 years ago, now faces an additional, more difficult test. In the background is the absolute equilibrium in the surveys between the parties and the clear advantage that returned to the right-wing block despite the rockets fired over the weekend from Gaza to Tel Aviv. Most of this political storm is still to be expected. GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' cabinet is down to the wire once again as its extended deadline to submit a 2019 general budget draws near. Under Palestinian law, the Council of Ministers should have submitted a draft general budget to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) at least two months before the beginning of the next fiscal year, which is the same as the calendar year. However, the law does provide for a three-month extension if necessary. When Dec. 31 came and went, officials received the extension, which expires March 31. Almost three months into 2019, the government has discussed the budget only twice, on Feb. 12 and March 12. At the March meeting, the cabinet deferred any action to an undefined future session. The failure to approve the 2019 budget can supposedly be attributed to two reasons. The Palestinian consensus government resigned Jan. 29 so a new government can be formed (though it has stayed on in the interim), and Israel decided Feb. 17 to deduct around 502 million shekels ($138 million) of Palestinian customs revenues. Israel claims the deducted amount is equivalent to the amount paid by the PLO in 2018 as stipends for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the families of Palestinian victims killed or wounded in confrontations with Israel. The revenues are taxes on Palestinian imports collected by Israel on behalf of the PA, a monthly 670 million to 700 million shekels ($185 million to $188 million). The revenues account for almost 70% of the Palestinian governments income. The PA uses those funds to pay on average about 556 million shekels (around $154 million) in monthly salaries to more than 180,000 public employees. But Palestinian civil society organizations say the failure to draft a budget on time is unjustified and has stirred a wave of criticism against the government. Lamis Faraj, coordinator of the Civil Society Team for Enhancing Public Budget Transparency, told Al-Monitor, Regardless of Israel's deduction of revenues, nothing justifies the delay by the Palestinian government in preparing the draft general budget for 2019. Faraj pointed out that the budget should have been drafted and discussed in October, before the government resigned and Israel began deducting customs revenues. Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said at a March 10 press conference in Ramallah that the ministry had drafted a preliminary budget according to 2018 data but is now operating under an emergency budget. Bishara added that on March 9, Abbas met with Fatah Vice President Mahmoud al-Aloul as well as Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee; intelligence chief Majid Faraj; Palestinian Authority Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh; Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Maliki; and Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr. Bishara said Abbas agreed to a budget based on rationing. An official at the Finance Ministry who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity confirmed the ministry has drafted a 2019 general budget that the government is expected to approve soon. However, even if approved, the budget won't be implemented in light of the emergency financial situation since Israel's deduction of customs funds and the decline of foreign financial support, he said. The official also confirmed that the ministry is currently working on an emergency budget based on rationing and reducing expenses. This means halting appointments and promotions in public service, halting acquisition of real estate properties and the replacement of old government cars with new ones, he said. This budget will remain applicable until the revenue-deduction crisis is resolved. Only then will an approved 2019 budget apply. Azmi Shuaibi, a consultant to the board of directors of the Coalition for Integrity and Accountability (AMAN), told Al-Monitor that the government's excuses for its failing to approve the 2019 budget are weak. The government has been violating the law for years by not submitting budgets on time, he noted. According to Shuaibi, AMAN has endeavored since the beginning of the year to obtain a copy of the draft budget, but has failed amid strict instructions by Bishara not to leak anything related to the budget. We will find the right way to get the draft budget or the emergency budget. We will request the Civil Society Team for Enhancing Public Budget Transparency, composed of 55 Palestinian nongovernmental organizations, to discuss it and give its opinion," Shuaibi said. The budget controversy was really no surprise in light of economic predictions for 2019. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported in December that gross domestic product growth slowed by 0.7% in 2018. The report expects a 1% increase in government revenues, but also a 1% increase of expenses and a 1.3% rise in the budget deficit. Osama Nofal, director general of studies and planning at the National Economy Ministry in the Gaza Strip, told Al-Monitor he predicts the next Palestinian government will seek to overcome the fiscal deficit by cutting spending in the public sector, raising local taxes and forcing thousands of employees into early retirement in the West Bank, as has happened in the Gaza Strip over the past two years. AL-BAB, Syria Mohammad Hariri is worried about news coming from the eastern Damascus suburbs that the regime recaptured in April 2018. On Feb. 28, security forces affiliated with the Syrian regime arrested three women in the town of Kafr Batna in eastern Ghouta on charges of conspiring against the regime, according to local news websites. Those arrested had contacted their relatives in opposition-controlled areas in northern Syria on the phone. Such incidents have been on the rise lately in regime-held areas, making Hariri reluctant to communicate with his relatives in his hometown Douma, in eastern Ghouta. Hariri currently lives in al-Bab in opposition-controlled Aleppo governorate. He left Douma along with thousands of civilians in 2018, as per an agreement that allowed residents to leave to opposition-controlled areas before the regime forces entered in April. While showing us his cellphone call record, Hariri told Al-Monitor, I am currently not in touch with my relatives in Douma. The last time I spoke to them was eight months ago. They think the regime is watching everything and that its security apparatus can read messages and listen in on calls. They are afraid of texting and calling me because it might raise security suspicions or lead to arrests. He added, Although we talk about day-to-day matters that have nothing to do with politics, I feel their fear of answering my calls. In March 2018, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad passed Law No. 9, which establishes specialized courts for criminal cases related to phone calls and technology. Observers believe this decision gives the authorities more power to oppress freedom of expression and online communication. Although cellphones caused a revolution in the field of communication, they expose their owners and contacts to certain risks, especially in Syria. Cellphones contain complete archives of the owner's life, such as conversations, images, (work) emails and call registers, which can be used by the security apparatus. By searching cellphones at checkpoints and monitoring calls or even hacking systems and online accounts, the Syrian regime is trying to tighten its security grip on the country, especially in areas that it recaptured. Still, citizens seem to have little information and insufficient experience in the field of digital safety. The nonprofit SalamaTech project was launched in August 2012, and is managed by the SecDev Foundation from its headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. The SalamaTech team offers technical support and training to Syrians, especially those working in the humanitarian field, to ensure digital safety and protection of online accounts and information. Al-Monitor attended a SalamaTech workshop in al-Bab. Trainer Majd al-Din began by saying, Always remember that as long as you have awareness and knowledge, nobody can hack your devices or tap your calls and steal your information. Din told Al-Monitor, Digital safety has become essential and all Syrians must adopt it. If information is leaked from somebodys cellphone, they might face arrest, social harassment or breach of privacy. Syrians mainly use social media to stay in touch with family members and friends who migrated to other countries since the start of the conflict. Din, a programmer and media activist, has been holding digital safety training sessions on behalf of SalamaTech since 2013. He said that an increase in arrests due to call monitoring and users not being aware of digital safety techniques have pushed his team to intensify efforts to teach users what information telecommunication providers have access to and how to communicate safely online and via a cellphone. Din said that telecommunication companies in Syria Syriatel and MTN and the government can listen in on calls and record them through the mobile network. He advised citizens to use messaging apps that ensure encrypted channels such as Wire or Signal. Syria ended at the bottom of the list in the 2018 internet freedom index, after China and Iran, issued annually by Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world. The index indicates the least liberal and most oppressive countries of internet freedom and those that abuse users rights the most. Bloggers and online journalists are the most vulnerable to the risks of using cellphones and the internet. Din said, Our trainings focus on targeting journalists and activists who work in civil society organizations. When they work in dangerous or hostile environments, they are too focused on doing their job and they overlook potential digital risks. He added, We can resort to easy techniques to remain safe such as VPN services or TOR to hide the connection to the internet and activate a two-step verification on social media to block intruders. The SalamaTech team consists of nine digital security experts who are deployed in opposition-held areas in northern Syria, and occasionally in regime areas. Samar Abdul Rahman, a member of the team trains women. Abdul Rahman told Al-Monitor, Women need simplified and focused training on digital safety more than men, because the interests of Syrian women do not usually include technology and communication. At the same time, they cannot give up their cellphones. She added, Women feel that their cellphones are a dangerous responsibility, because many of them do not know how to delete their photos completely or deactivate their accounts on social media. She noted that going through regime checkpoints poses a significant risk to those traveling with cellphones or laptops. They may be subject to inspection and asked for their passwords, which might reveal unsuitable content such as photos of protests or membership of an opposition social media account, leading to arrest and torture. TUNIS, Tunisia The Coalition for Legalizing Cannabis, a civil coalition of young activists, announced Feb. 23 at a press conference in Tunis that it is working on a bill aimed at legalizing the production and consumption of cannabis in Tunisia. Work on the project is ongoing and consultations with parliamentarians is still underway in order to find a legal formula that is acceptable to all parties. The coalition said that it is consulting with parliamentarians to develop legal frameworks for the production and consumption of cannabis, under which the state would reverse the sole right to produce and distribute cannabis, as well as that it would be entrusted with monitoring and regulation. Chapter 2 of the Law on Narcotic Drugs of May 18, 1992, strictly prohibits the cultivation, consumption, production, promotion, harvesting, possession, acquisition, transfer or promotion of narcotic plants. Qais bin Halima, a member of the coalition, told Al-Monitor that the legislative initiative includes a proposal to establish a subsidiary to the state, similar to a tobacco or alcohol company, which would be in charge of producing and promoting cannabis. He explained that legalizing cannabis and putting it under the states control would reduce its consumption by controlling distribution routes, and would provide the state huge financial returns, given the high number of users who now buy it illegally. Halima said that the bill to legalize the production and consumption of cannabis was not only limited to discussing the issue in the parliament, but he, along with some youths, founded a movement called the Paper Party to run in the Oct. 6 legislative elections, and they are planning to include the bill in its electoral program. He noted that this youth movement, which he heads, is in the process of actively mobilizing hundreds of young Tunisians through social media, with the aim of establishing regional offices in order to prepare for the elections through a political and economic program based on the idea of enacting a law to legalize cannabis, setting legal frameworks and an institution to directly oversee it under state control. Halima added that representatives of the Paper Party in Tunisia and abroad in Dubai, Kuwait, Germany, the United States, Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom and France have been campaigning to promote the party program and the legalization of cannabis. He said that a heavy cannabis user is not a criminal but an addict who should be treated, and that the right place to treat users are addiction clinics, not prisons. He called on the state and parliament to positively respond to his initiative. Halima defended the moderate consumption of cannabis, which he said does not count as addiction, stressing that his initiative aims to reduce the phenomenon of addiction, especially among the youth by organizing channels of production and distribution and putting an end to illegal distribution of this drug. On March 6, speaking to Radio IFM, Ennahda movement leader Lotfi Zeitoun called for legalizing cannabis through state intervention and monitoring of the distribution channels. He stressed that this solution, inspired by Western experiences such as the one in Uruguay, would reduce the consumption of this substance among young people. On April 25, 2017, the Tunisian parliament ratified the revision of Chapter 12 of the Law on Narcotic Drugs to abolish prison sentences for first-time users of cannabis, especially students. Chapter 12 of Law No. 52 of 1992 on Narcotic Drugs stated that drug offenses are subject to the provisions of Chapter 53 of the Criminal Code, which includes harsh prison sentences. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi announced during a TV interview on March 20, 2017, that he had refused to impose prison sentences against cannabis consumers, especially on new users. He resorted to his general pardon powers to approve the release of some first-time users from prison. On Dec. 10, 2014, in an open dialogue with a group of young civil society activists from across the country, Essebsi had promised in his electoral campaign to abolish prison sentences for first-time cannabis users should he win. He lived up to his promise. In Tunisia, there are no official figures for the number of cannabis users except for studies by civil associations. In October 2017, head of the Tunisian Society of Addiction Nabil Ben Salah told Radio Jawhara that about 400,000 Tunisians consumed cannabis in 2017. About 20% of Tunisians suffer from addiction of all kinds, be it injecting drugs, using cannabis, smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, Ben Salah said. Theres no doubt, the historyespecially the music historymakes the area of The Shoals consisting of cities Florence, Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals, and Sheffield worth a visit. But thats not all this area of Northwest Alabama, just over two hours from Birmingham, has to offer. From nationally acclaimed fashion brands to a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright himself, its not only music that contributes to Florences rich culture. Florences small-town charm is evidentits quaint downtown makes quite sure of that. But if you stick around, you might just find that this town of 40,000 has a few other tricks up its sleeve. Day 1 10:30 a.m. Breakfast at Staggs Grocery You wont find a lot about Staggs Grocery online, but ask any local and theyll tell you: Theres no place like Staggs if youre in search of a good, hearty breakfast. Theres especially nothing like it if you go on a Friday morning when the grocery-store-turned-restaurant serves its famous chocolate gravy. Akin to molten chocolate pie filling, the gravy is served alongside a fluffy Southern-style biscuit. Only open weekdays from 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., it pays to take your trip during the week just to experience breakfast at this one-of-a-kind dive. The Rosenbaum House is Alabama's only Frank Lloyd Wright house. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 11:30 a.m. Tour the Rosenbaum House The Greatest American Architect of All Time left his mark on Florence in 1939 with his commissioned work for local newlyweds Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum. Alabamas only Frank Lloyd Wright house was purchased and fully restored by the city in 1999; since then it has functioned as a museum. In fact, its the only open-to-the-public Frank Lloyd Wright structure in the Southeast. The traditional Usonian homes narrow hallways, wood built-ins, and floor-to-ceiling windows give the peculiar effect of feeling like youre on a boat, when really youre on solid ground. 12:30 p.m. Lunch at Wildwood Tavern Do your part to Keep Florence Funky by stopping into Wildwood Tavern, an eclectic bar/restaurant attached to its sister restaurant Chicago Cafe. Inside the laidback local haunt, find innovative takes on hot dogs and pizzas, like the Jamaican Sensation pizza with jerk sauce and grilled pineapple or the buffalo-inspired Wing Pie. A 9-inch personal flatbread is modestly priced at $6.99. If you get a dog, The Sweet Heat Dog is best (house Sriracha mayo, housemade sweet banana peppers, and Cajun spices). The Billy Reid flagship store is located in downtown Florence. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 1:30 p.m. Explore Downtown Florence After lunch, linger downtown and wander the streets filled with local boutiques and galleries housed in restored buildings built in the 1800s. One cant-miss windowfront is that of nationally renowned fashion designer Billy Reid. You might know him for his award-winning menswear line (featured in the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall) or because of his annual Shindig party, but to locals, hes a neighbor and friend. His clothes (both for men and women) evoke a certain Southern sensibility thats refined with just a touch of rebellion. Alabama Chanins all-in-one flagship store, factory, school of making, and cafe is in Florence. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 3:00 p.m. Visit Alabama Chanins Factory For more wearable art, head to Alabama Chanins all-in-one flagship store, factory, school of making, and cafe. The brainchild of designer Natalie Chanin, each top, skirt, sweater, and dress in her womens line is handmade entirely by local artisans using all organically produced materials. The shop even sells do-it-yourself kits where you can buy fabrics and patterns to make Natalies designs at home. During your exploration of the multi-functional space, grab a coffee and pastry in the adjoining cafe. The GunRunner Hotel features 10 themed suites. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 4:00 p.m. Check into the GunRunner Boutique Hotel The GunRunner hotel pays homage to the Shoals with its 10 themed suites that each represent a part of the Shoals, from music and art to fashion and history. The Lions Den is decked out in gold and purple for the University of North Alabama. The Billy Reid suite is outfitted with design sketches covering one wall and even features a king bed made by Reid himself. Each of the hotels rooms is centered around a 3,200-square-foot common area that features comfortable seating areas, exposed beams and brick walls, and a large wooden bar inlaid with honeycomb onyx. You also can relax with a spa treatment at the attached Gallaher Spa. The Carriage Wine & Market has cozy areas for seating. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 5:30 p.m. Drinks at The Carriage Wine & Market If you dont grab a pre-dinner drink at the GunRunner bar (located in an old freight elevator), head back downtown to The Carriage, a conjoined wine shop and specialty food store with farm-fresh produce from the owners farm. In the wine half of the store, order a glass of red or white, or try one of their signature wine cocktails. The Carriage Tonic (white port, tonic, and lime served over ice) is the perfect light drink to segue into dinner. Odette serves elevated American fare with both Southern and international influences. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 6:30 p.m. Dinner at Odette Head around the corner from The Carriage for the piece de resistance to a day well-spent in the Shoals. Arguably Florences most-talked-about restaurant, Odette serves elevated American fare with both Southern and international influences, like in the deviled farm egg duo of pimento cheese with bacon and red curry. The braised pork shank, cooked in the style of a Peruvian peanut stew called carapulcra, subs potatoes for turnips and wilted spinach. And the broccoli salad small plate is the perfect blend of charred broccoli, crispy onion, and smoked cheddar crisps. At the bar, choose from their large selection of bourbons or try a cocktail from the ever-changing menu. The pairings are unusualtry scotch with mezcal, agave, mole bitters, activated charcoal, and grapefruitbut strangely satisfying. Day 2 The iconic recording studio is now open for tours. Photo by Chris Granger for Visit Florence, AL. 10:30 a.m. Tour Muscle Shoals Sound Studio When you arrive at 3614 Jackson Highway, you may not realize the significance of where youre standingyou may not even realize youve arrived at all. The nondescript brown-brick building with a simple blue-and-white sign noting its address is the same place The Rolling Stones recorded Wild Horses and Brown Sugar off their internationally acclaimed Sticky Fingers album. The humble recording studio also hosted the likes of Rod Stewart, Paul Simon, and Cher in the 1960s. Run by the Swampers, a group of four session musicians-turned-studio-owners, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio grew to become one of the music industrys most legendary venues. Today, you can take a tour and see where history was mademany, many times over. This story appears in Birmingham magazines March 2019 issue. Subscribe today! A Chambers County woman is suing student loan corporation Sallie Mae for damages after she says the company called her more than 200 times attempting to collect on student loans. The seven-page lawsuit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern Division of the Middle District of Alabama, says the company violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) as the woman requested the calls to stop. The TCPA regulates telemarketing and automated telephone systems. The plaintiff is identified as a graduate of Columbus State University in Georgia and a special education teacher in Tallapoosa County. She claims in the suit that Sallie Mae used an automatic telephone dialing system, which has the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called. The suit states the plaintiff instructed callers last October to stop calling her cell phone number as she could not afford to make her payments and did not wish to receive further telephone calls. Even then, the suits states she continued to receive calls up to three times a day. Frank Kerney, an attorney for Morgan & Morgan representing the plaintiff, said the robocalls were not only illegal, theyre cruel. The TCPA was enacted to prevent companies like Sallie Mae from invading peoples privacy and to prevent abusive robocalls, Kerney said. Mobile-area law enforcement officials turned out Monday to express support for a bill intended to make it easier for judges to deny bond for defendants. Republican Rep. Chip Brown said he intends to introduce the bill Tuesday. If passed in the current legislative session it would then put a constitutional amendment on a statewide ballot for consideration by voters in 2020, Brown said. Brown represents House District 105, which covers the southern portion of Mobile County Currently, Section 16 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 holds that "all persons shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses, when the proof is evident or the presumption great; and that excessive bail shall not in any case be required." The proposed amendment would reformulate that, significant increasing judges' discretion: "Every person charged with a crime may be entitled to pretrial bail on reasonable conditions, unless charged with a capital offense or an offense punishable by life without parole or life imprisonment when the proof is evident or the presumption is great. If no conditions of release can reasonably protect the community from risk of physical harm to the accused, the public, or both, ensure the presence of the accused at trial, or ensure the integrity of the judicial process, the accused may be detained without bail. Excessive bail shall not in any case be imposed or required." As Brown announced the bill on Monday he was joined by Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich, Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste and Mobile's Executive Director of Public Safety, James Barber. Rich, an outspoken critic of bond decisions she finds overly lenient, said "we support this bill one hundred percent." "We all know there are many defendants who need to be held with no bond that are not charged with capital crimes. This will help us and allow us to do that in those type of situations," said Rich. "So we are very, very grateful that we have a member of the house that will introduce this bill for us." "It's long been necessary," said Barber, adding that the issue had prompted "a real serious discussion between us and the judges about how do we protect our communities." Barber and Battiste said one benefit they anticipate from the proposed change is that by keeping suspects in violent crimes off the street, it could cool down a cycle of retaliation they say is particularly prevalent in gang-related shootings. Battiste referenced "the emotion of a violent weekend," referring to several shootings in Mobile over the last few days, and said being able to hold defendants would help the community by "giving the victim's family a time to cool down." "We had several shootings over the weekend," said Cochran. "I suspect as we stand here today, bonds are being set on several people that were arrested for shooting or murder of people in the last few days in Mobile County. And that's what we're trying to do, is enumerate specific circumstances where the judges can hold them without bond and keep our communities safe." "When you have gang activity involved in a shooting, especially if that leads to the death of another gang member, that ends up in retaliatory gunfire from the other gangs or from the family members of the victim," said Barber. "What we're seeing in law enforcement is that once they start pulling the triggers on guns, they don't stop until they're incarcerated." Rich cited the case of Aaron Johnson as a specific example. Johnson was found guilty of murder earlier this month for a murder that took place in July 2016. The defendant was on probation when he committed a murder and a robbery, Rich said. The only way he was held with no bond until that trial that happened last week, two years later, was because he had a probation revocation against him. Had he not had that probation revocation, he would have been entitled to a bond, even though the only sentence, once convicted, that the judge could have sentence him to was life in the penitentiary. Brown said he had modeled his bill on Florida law. He said he expects critics to "come out of the woodwork" but said he was "very confident from a constitutional standpoint we're on solid ground." I like our chances of getting this through, he said. Christopher Madison, the Alabama man accused of strangling to death 11-year-old Amberly Barnett, pretended to help search for the girl after she was reported missing, court testimony revealed. On the night Barnett was reported missing, Madison claimed he had searched a wooded area behind his DeKalb County home without finding any sign of the missing girl, an investigator testified. But hours later, on the morning of March 2, the DeKalb County sheriffs office found Barnetts strangled body lying in the woods with a blue rope around her neck. Madison, 33, is charged with capital murder in Barnetts slaying. He appeared in DeKalb County District Court for a preliminary hearing on Monday afternoon. Judge Steven Whitmire ruled prosecutors have probable cause for the capital murder case. #Breaking: Judge rules prosecutors have probable cause for capital murder charge against Christopher Madison, a suspect in the slaying of 11-year-old Amberly Barnett. She was found dead March 2 in DeKalb County, Ala. pic.twitter.com/shGrJ00B6I Ashley Remkus (@aremkus1) March 18, 2019 Barnett is from Georgia, but she had been living with her aunt and aunts boyfriend in the Mount Vernon community of DeKalb County since this past summer. Madison lived with his girlfriend in the mobile home next door on County Road 822. Madisons girlfriend and the boyfriend of Barnetts aunt are siblings. On the evening of March 1, Barnett stayed home alone while her aunt and aunts boyfriend went shopping, Investigator Davis testified. When the family returned, Barnett was missing. The sheriffs office was called to the scene around 7:30 p.m. Madison claimed he saw a dark Dodge Durango pull into the driveway at Barnetts home. But Davis testified that neighbors never saw the vehicle and other evidence contradicted Madisons story about the SUV. When authorities were searching for Barnett, Madison claimed he already checked the woods behind his home without finding the girl, Davis testified. It was dark outside, and sheriffs deputies didnt find Barnetts body during searches that night. Around 6:30 the next morning, authorities found her body. On a tree in the woods, investigators found a long blonde hair, Davis testified. Nearby, in what appeared to be a path where the body was dragged, authorities found a sock that was believed to be Barnetts, Davis testified. The girl was wearing only one sock when they found her dead. Inside Madisons home, Davis testified, investigators found a bloodied pair of his jeans in the dryer. There was blood in the bathroom sink and on the walls, mattress, bed frame and a sheet of paper in a bedroom. Authorities havent said why they believe Madison killed Barnett. Madison had an interest in bondage, Davis testified, citing Madisons girlfriend and children. Inside Madisons home, investigators found a clamp and a bolt in the floor that allegedly had been used previously as part of his interest in bondage. Davis didnt provide further details about the bondage. Investigators and DeKalb County Chief Deputy District Attorney Bob Johnston left the courtroom without granting interviews to members of the news media. When police showed Madisons girlfriend a picture of the blue rope that was found around Barnetts neck, the woman said the rope had been inside their home the day before, according to Davis testimony. Another piece of blue rope was found wrapped around a knife in the backyard of Madisons home, Davis testified. In interviews with investigators, Madison admitted the knife was his. Authorities said they dont yet have the results of forensic testing to be performed on the blood and other evidence found at the scene. That evidence also includes a black hair that was found on Barnetts body, Davis testified. Defense attorneys Brian White, of Decatur, and Jake Watson, of Huntsville, declined to comment. Alabama court records dont show a criminal record for Madison, who previously lived in Georgia. A search of court records in Cobb County, Georgia didnt reveal a criminal history. However, a woman in DeKalb County, Alabama last year sought a protection from abuse order against Madison. In court records, the woman alleged that Madison had hit her in the head with a hammer, punched her in the face, smacked her head on the floor and strangled her to the point she passed out. A judge dismissed the petition when the woman and Madison failed to show up for a court hearing. If convicted of capital murder, Madison faces either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Updated at 5:07 p.m. with new information throughout. Updated at 7:15 p.m. to correct the dates of Barnetts disappearance and the day her body was found. The 2018 arrest of the alleged Golden State Killer through use of a genealogy and DNA database sparked the chain of events that led to the break in an Alabama cold case that has haunted an entire region for decades. Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker on Monday said it was that California case in which 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested on suspicion of being the man who killed 12 people and raped more than 50 women in the 1970s and 1980s which led he and other investigators to reach out to Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, which specializes in DNA engineering. Walker said investigators goal has long been to break the case before the 20th anniversary of the murders, which will be July 31, 2019. When the Golden State Killer case was cracked, Walker said, I was like, lets try that, he said at a press conference held Monday. Im a spiritual guy and its all Gods work. Walker said they started the process in August 2018 and it culminated in the arrest of 45-year-old Coley McCraney, a truck driver who spent some time in the military and has led a crime-free, low-profile life up until the time he was taken into custody. McCraney is charged with one count of rape and five counts of capital murder in the 1999 deaths of high school seniors Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both 17, who vanished on the way home from Beasleys birthday party on the night of July 31. According to Hawletts mother, Carole Roberts, the girls had been lost and could not understand the directions they were given before stopping at a convenience store in Ozark after the party in Headland. God gave her to me. He didnt have the right to do that. I just want to know why, said Roberts, who wore a button featuring her daughters photo at the news conference announcing the arrest. Hawlett had two school-age brothers at the time of her death and Roberts said the whole family slept in the same bed for a time after the slayings out of fear. She still remembers her last conversation with her daughter, who called to see if Beasley could spend the night after the party, which was for Beasley's birthday. Last words out of her lips were, mama, I love you, said Roberts. Last words out of my mouth to her were, I love you. The girls were found the next day inside the trunk of Beasleys black Mazda 929, on the side of Herring Avenue about one block away from the Dale County hospital. Both girls had each been shot once in the head, but there were no other signs of foul play. The girls jewelry, purses and money were not missing and state forensics experts at the time said neither girl had been raped. However, authorities have now charged McCraney with raping Beasley. In the years immediately after the killing, investigators conducted more than 500 interviews, overworked forensics experts and tested the DNA of more than 70 potential suspects, according to past published reports. Police arrested Johnny William Barrentine, who they said implicated himself by putting himself at the crime scene during an interview with authorities. Barrentine later said he told police his fake stories to get the reward money that was promised at the time. Barrentine was later cleared when semen found on Beasleys clothing and skin did not match Barrentines DNA. Following the Golden State Killer arrest, investigators sent DNA evidence from the girls murders Walker said he couldnt yet say whether that DNA was hair, blood, or semen to Parabon. The company traditionally used the genetic genealogy to help connect family members but quickly moved into the law enforcement realm. They upload DNA evidence from crime scenes to GEDmatch in an attempt to identify perpetrators. Last year, the company said they found matches in 20 cases out of 100 and, in November 2018, they said they were working on 200 cases and 55 percent had produced leads. After receiving the evidence from Ozark investigators, they devised a list of possible matches. One of the names on that list jumped out at Walker and other investigators. McCraney had grown up in Ozark and the police knew him from school and beyond. I was very surprised, Walker said. I was surprised when I saw the results and every person I talked to said the same thing, but DNA doesnt lie. Several weeks ago, investigators brought McCraney in to take a DNA swab from him. They sent his DNA to Parabon which was a match to the DNA taken from the 1999 crime scene. I had to sit in my chair for three hours, Walker said. Weve all been working on this for so long. Its one of those things where you say, Is this really happening? McCraney was taken into custody Friday during a traffic stop near Daleville, Walker said. He was arrested without incident. Walker declined to comment on whether McCraney confessed to the crimes or made any statements at all to investigators. In 1999, he lived not far from where the girls bodies were found. Court records show McCraney has at least three children and was divorced in 1998. He had spent time serving in the U.S. Air Force in Biloxi, Mississippi, after graduating from Carroll High School Ozark, according to the Dothan Eagle. He served from 1993 to 1997. According to WTVY, he remarried soon after Hawlett and Beasley were killed and has led a quiet life in Dothan. The news agency reported that state records show he founded a non-profit religious ministry, Spirit and Truth Lifeline Ministries, based in Dothan. McCraney was booked into the Dale County Jail Saturday night. He made his first court appearance Sunday, and a judged ordered he be held without bond. Authorities have not identified the relative who had apparently submitted DNA for genealogy research nor said when that DNA was submitted. McCraney, who has his own church and preached recently, is cooperating with authorities, said defense attorney David Harrison. My heart goes out to the victims families, Harrison said. Its a tragedy. We dont need to make it make three tragedies by convicting him. Harrison said McCraney is an outstanding community member who is married with children and grandchildren. Aside from preaching, records show he worked as a truck driver for years for several different companies. Harrison also said he was concerned about his client getting a fair trial. Its going to be difficult to find a jury thats not already aware of the facts, he said. I might have to ask that it be moved to another venue to get a fair trial. A lot of emotions are flying. Dale County District Attorney Kirke Adams spoke at the press conference and explained why there are five capital murder charges against McCraney: one charge each for the girls deaths, one because a murder was committed during the course of a rape, one because two or more people were murder and one because the murder was committed with a deadly weapon inside the vehicle. Adams said he will seek the death penalty. Multiple agencies have worked tirelessly to bring this day together, Adams said. My office will be the voice for J.B. and Tracie. I pledge you that. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall also attended the news conference. DNA evidence recovered from Beasleys body and clothing helped to create a profile of the suspect, but despite our best combined efforts law enforcement were never able to find a genetic matchuntil now, Marshall said. He noted McCraney had no prior criminal record which would have previously provided his DNA profile to law enforcement in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) run by the FBI. McCraney has remained anonymous to investigators until new DNA testing of forensic evidence utilizing family genetic analysis finally led law enforcement to McCraney as a suspect. Today, all who have sought justice for Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasleyincluding all the residents of the Wiregrassare finally near closure in this long and painful case, Marshall said. Ozark (Ala.) Police Chief Marlos Walker comments during a press conference Monday, March 18, 2019 announcing the arrest of Coley McCraney of nearby Dothan for the 1999 slayings of Dothan teens J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett. McCraney was arrested Friday and is held in the Dale County Jail with no bond. (Jay Hare/Dothan Eagle via AP)AP Walker thanked those who helped in the investigation and arrest of McCraney: Ozark and Dothan police; the Dale County Sheriffs Office, the Houston County Sheriffs Office, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Dale County District Attorneys Office, the Alabama Attorney Generals Office and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. This is joyous time, Walker said. To the families, we thank yall for your patience. We know its been a tough road, a long road. Sherry Gilland, who lived near a store where the girls were last seen, said the killings changed the community. Afterward, Gilland said, she was afraid to let her own daughter ride her bicycle or walk too far from home. It has been a cloud over the town, but now its lifted, she said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The Hartselle Police Department has a message to a woman in a red Honda: Dont worry we have your meth. The police posted a message to Facebook Sunday night after the drugs were found at a local gas station. To the young lady in the red Honda visiting the Hartselle Chevron on Main Street at I-65 on Sunday around 7:50 p.m. You are evidently having a bad night! You seem to have dropped your eightball of methamphetamine. No worries, its in good hands!! If you wish to retrieve the item please come to the Hartselle Police Department, we would gladly allow you to claim ownership! Better luck next time! Looks like youll get to sleep tonight! Hope you hadnt made late night plans for the next week as sleeping should now be possible! A photo accompanying the post showed the drugs on a scale. They weighed 3.7 grams. Two articulated trucks carrying 600 bags of cocoa beans went up in flames Monday morning following a head on collision near the Tema motorway roundabout. One of the trucks was moving from a waiting yard towards the weighbridge area while the other was making a U-turn to join a queue for the weighbridge when they collided resulting in a spontaneous fire outbreak. No casualty was recorded in the 7:35am incident as the two drivers managed to escape before the fire intensified. The timely intervention by the Ghana National Fire Service saved cocoa beans and the trucks from totally burning. The trucks, registered GN 4814 Y and GS 4519-11 belong to the Produce Buying Company and Trans Royal. It took us five minutes to get to the place. Upon arrival, we realise two trucks had collided resulting in the fire outbreak, Deputy Fire Regional Commander at Tema, Timothy Affum told 3news.com. He said both truck got partially burnt and affected some of the beans, noting the intensity was such that we had to use tree fire tenders to bring the situation under control. Mr Affum said personnel from the Motorway Fire Station arrived at the scene first but had to seek assistance from the Industrial Area Fire Station. According to him, they needed more water so the Tema Metro Fire Station was called in. Owners of the Tarzan yard where the incident occurred expressed shock at the development. Source: 3news.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 We know this: If something sounds too good to be true, you can bet your favorite thats exactly what it is. Not true. At least not for long. We know this. Still, we wanted to believe Goodloe Sutton was gone. We wanted to believe the 80-year-old who wrote a wretched editorial saying hed like to see the Ku Klux Klan ride again had galloped into the West Alabama sunset. We wanted to believe the man who owned and published a small, once-reputable newspaper in Marengo County, the Democrat-Reporter, had given up the helm just days after his hateful, written rant rekindled the ugliest crevasses of racism our state simply cannot shed. Then, we really wanted to believe thisthat he was replaced by a black woman, Elecia R. Dexter, an African-American human resources professional whose father was born in the predominantly black county. It even made us chuckle a bit. It was the essence of karmaof chickens coming home to, well, fry the cook. Of course, it was too good to be true. Naming Dexter as Suttons replacement as Editor and Publisher on February 21 was way too good to be true. At least for very long. Shes goneran off, says the frustrated local mayor, by Goodloe, whom, it seems, never went anywhere at all. He just sat there, Linden Mayor Charles Moore told Al.com, inside the one-room shanty housing the newspapers office. Most every day. Worse, Sutton undermined Dexter, she told The New York Times. Just a week after her arrival, she said, he sent a Goodloed version of the newspapers February 28 edition to local media and advertisers containing an article on him doubling-down on defending his views and chastising the Montgomery Advertiser for its coverage of him. It was in the space where Dexter had placed an article on his retirement. [Sutton] never left the building, Moore said. Now, Dexters done just thattaking, she told Times, her integrity and well-being with her. Good for her, but not for the rest of us. Especially the good folks in Marengo County. They deserve insightful coverage of the issues that matter most to them and their neighborsthe kind, people say, the Democrat-Reporter once provided. Before his late wife, Jean, died 16 years ago. When she passed away, said Moore, all the credibility of that newspaper left." Now, most of the civilized, dont-bring-back-the-KKK worldraising my hand here, toowants Sutton to go away. Quickly. Which, of course, would be too good to be true. Unless the good people of Marengo County stopped buying it, and any enterprises still advertising in its pages deem it no longer prudent to support hateful views. He said a few weeks ago the newspaper, which claims about 3,000 subscribers, was for sale. As much as Id like it to happen, that seems too right to be true, too. People like Goodloe Sutton dont sell. Not when it seems to be all they have. When it allows them to believe they still matter. When news of Suttons hateful, revisionist editorial initially surfaced last month, I ignored it. I did so because I didnt want to give it lifedidnt want to be part of the $10 million in free publicity he grossly claims it generated. Didnt want to make it seem he mattered. He doesnt. Hate, however, does. Whether it spews from a tiny rag in a tiny Alabama Town, or from the man occupying the Oval Office. It matters, tragically, when it manifests itself 8,000 miles away in the heinous murder of 50 people (and counting, potentially) worshiping in two New Zealand mosques. The accused self-proclaimed white-supremacist, minutes before allegedly committing the horrendous act (even live-streaming several minutes of the killing), apparently send an email containing a lengthy, racist manifesto to the office of Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. Hate matters in ways we wish were not true. Sadly, they are. We know this. Roy S. Johnsons column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Hit me up at rjohnson@al.com. Follow me at twitter.com/roysj or on Instagram at instagram.com/roysj/ Its Spring Break for many places in Alabama and that means more people are headed to the beach. This week and the next are popular times for school closures and family vacations. Those who are taking a break at Alabama and Florida beaches will find cooler temperatures but moderate surf, according to the latest beach update. Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Panama City Beach, Destin and South Walton area beaches are flying yellow flags, indicating the presence of moderate surf and rip current conditions. Purple flags indicating the presence of dangerous marine animals were flying late last week in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores due to the presence of Portuguese Man O War, a jellyfish-like creature capable of stinging humans. Those purple flags were taken down Saturday. Temperatures at the beach in the next week are expected to range from lows in the upper 40s to highs in the mid 60s. According to NWS, the water temperature is around 65 degrees. Despite the chilly temperatures, the UV risk is rated as very high. Take extra precautions. Unprotected skin will be damaged and can burn quickly. Minimize sun exposure between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Otherwise, seek shade, cover up, wear a hat and sunglasses, and use sunscreen, NWS recommended. Low risk of rip current According to the National Weather Service in Mobile, the rip current risk is low through Tuesday night for an area spanning from Dauphin Island in the west to Destin in the East. The risk will increase to moderate by Wednesday into Wednesday evening. Duane Chapman, better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter and his gang got their man. Chapman, his wife Beth, his son Leland and his associates known as The Dirty Dozen have been in Alabama hunting fugitives for their upcoming WGN America series Dogs Most Wanted. The crew spent a week in North Alabama, zeroing in on Morgan County, where they searched for fugitive Bradford Houser, who was wanted for multiple felonies, including theft and home invasion. Ultimately, the bounty hunters got their man. Houser was captured in Somerville in a St. Patricks Day raid. This was an epic hunt," Duane Chapman said. To search and find a man who knows these woods and caves was a challenge- and took our team a few tries, but we were successful today. Houser had been on the run from authorities for more than four months, and was ultimately captured by Leland Chapman. Leland Chapman was pictured yesterday dropping his fugitive off at the Morgan County Jail. According to the Morgan County Sheriffs Office, Houser, 40, was arrested on a felony warrant of failure to appear on the pending charge of theft of property in the first degree. Houser was previously arrested on Aug. 2, 2016 and released on a $25,000 bond and failed to appear as scheduled. The warrant for his arrest was issued on March 11. In addition to Houser, Chapman and his team yielded the capture of five other fugitives. Jeanine Pirros popular Fox News program did not air Saturday, a scheduling change that comes after her controversial comments about Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The network told USA Today it would not comment on internal scheduling matters, leading to speculation Pirro was suspended for her remarks. The Saturday episode of Justice with Judge Janine was replaced by a return of the documentary series Scandalous: The Trial of William Kennedy Smith. Fox News later condemned remarks saying they did not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly." Several advertisers pulled their spots in the wake of the controversy. Pirro has not commented on the decision to pull the show but President Trump weighed in, calling for her return. Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro, the president tweeted. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. He urged the network to stop working soooo hard to being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our country. Oman, a Democrat from Minnesota, has drawn criticism including from some in her own party for comments she made that were considered anti-Semitic. Alabama will have to release its execution protocol to news organizations, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling comes after U.S. Chief District Judge Karon O. Bowdre ruled in May that the public has a "common law right of access to the sealed records relating to Alabamas lethal injection protocol. She ordered the release of the lethal injection procedure as it was at the time of Doyle Hamms botched execution attempt in February 2018. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshalls office appealed the ruling to the 11th Circuit, which affirmed Bowdres ruling. Alabama Media Groupwhich includes AL.com, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, and The Mobile Press-Registerfiled the motion seeking the release of the protocol, along with The Associated Press and The Montgomery Advertiser. The motion was originally filed in a lawsuit brought by Hamm, who had been on death row in Alabama for 30 years and was scheduled to die on Feb. 22, 2018. After hours of attempting to insert an intravenous line for the execution drugs, the Alabama Department of Corrections stopped the execution just before midnight when the death warrant expired. Legal battles prior to the execution date centered around Hamms health and if his veins would be suitable for the procedure. The appeals court affirmed the lower courts ruling, stating in their Monday order, The court properly balanced the interests of Alabama and the (media companies), concluding that Alabama had not shown good cause sufficient to overcome the common law right of access. This public right of access, based in the common law, may only be overcome when a court determinesafter balancing the respective competing interests of all partiesthat the party seeking to keep the information confidential has shown good cause. Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion, the appeals court wrote. Arrest records of June Mama June Shannon, mother of Alana Honey Boo Boo Thompson, were made public Monday following her arrest last week on drug charges at an Alabama gas station. The 39-year-old reality star from Georgia and her boyfriend, 43-year-old Eugene Geno Doak, were arrested March 13 in Macon County. According to a deposition in the case, deputies responded about 3 p.m. that Wednesday to the Sunoco gas station on Pleasant Spring Drive near Tuskegee. Records list Shannon as the victim in a domestic violence case against Doak, and state she was verbally attacked. During the investigation, however, drugs and drug paraphernalia were found. Shannon and Doak, according to the criminal complaint, were in possession of crack cocaine and a crack pipe. Both are charged with felony drug possession and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, which is a misdemeanor. Additionally, Doak was charged with third-degree domestic, also a misdemeanor. Records state Doak told Shannon that he was going to kill her with the intent to carry out the threat. Macon County Sheriff Andre Brunson said he may release more information and mugshots at some point. TMZ reported an audio of a conversation between Shannon and the tow truck driver after she was released. She was trying to get her car out of impound. June sounds manic as she describes what she says went down, the show reported. "Mama June and Honey Boo Boo first came on the reality television scene in 2012 on TLCs Toddlers and Tiaras. That led to a spin-off show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which aired on TLC from 2012 through 2014. The show was cancelled after it was learned that Shannon was dating a registered sex offender. Another spin-off featuring Shannon aired in 2017 call Mama June: From Not to Hot, documents her weight loss transformation from 460 to 160 pounds. The National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress [NDC], Samuel Gyamfi has described President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addos response to the NDC on disbanding of party militia in Ghanas politics as sad and unfortunate. We have officially received the letter from the president and let me say here that, its very sad and unfortunate for the president to send us [NDC] such letter in responses to our earlier letter to him on the way forward to disband vigilante groups, he bemoaned. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo today, Tuesday, March 05, 2019 expressed dismay at the leadership of the main opposition National Democratic Congress [NDC] for suggesting that the National Peace Council and other relevant bodies should mediate talks between the NDC and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) on disbanding party militia in Ghanas politics. The NDC, through its National Chairman, agreed to Nana Akufo-Addos call for the two parties to meet over how to disband party militia groups in the country, but outlined some conditions for their participation in the dialogue. Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo addressed to the president said the call for disbandment should be extended to all political parties, civil society organisations, representatives of the media, representatives of the military, police and other security agencies as well as any other relevant stakeholders. They also proposed that the National Peace Council and other relevant bodies such as the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Center, the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], the National Commission for Civic Education [NCCE], and Institute for Democratic Governance [IDEG] join the National Peace Council to facilitate the process. But President Nana Addo in his response said I am not aware of any vigilante groups that are associated with any of these bodies as your letter suggests. Political party vigilante activity in the country has unfortunately been associated with the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party. I, thus, see little basis for your request. Speaking on the issue on ASEMPA FMs Ekosii Sen political program, Tuesday, March 05, 2019, Sammy Gyamfi noted that the NDC is not happy with the presidents reply hence, dialogue to disband the most talked about groups [Vigilante groups] in the country is likely to hit the rocks. According to him, the NDC will still insist that all parties and other institutions including journalists must be involved in the dialogue process to break up vigilante groups. We will continue to impress on the President so we all have the holistic approach in solving this situation. If we will go by what the president is proposing, then it will be a waste of time and a waste of resources, he said. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007 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 And why are the European Parliament elections so important? London, United Kingdom Last weeks Brexit drama led to MPs opting to delay the European Union divorce at least until the end of June. However, the decision is not unilateral and any extension of Article 50 of the EU treaty which allows members to leave the bloc must be approved unanimously by all 27 remaining states. The next opportunity for EU leaders to discuss the issue will be at a two-day European Council (EC) meeting starting on Thursday just a week before the current Brexit deadline of March 29. But it is not yet clear whether this meeting will prove decisive, or how long the granted extension will be. After Prime Minister Theresa Mays deal with the EU was voted down by parliament for the second time this year, MPs also cast a non-binding vote to rule out a no-deal Brexit. The option of a disorderly departure at the end of March remains on the table, however, as no deal is the default legal position under Article 50. Looking further ahead, European Parliament elections are expected to take place between May 23 and 26. Extending, but what for? May aims to make a third attempt, on Tuesday, at getting her deal through Parliament. If it is a case of third time lucky, she will ask for an extension ending before the European elections, which should be granted at that stage. If it doesnt, or if Tuesdays vote is pulled as some British media have speculated, the scenarios will be more complex. And so will the choices facing the EU. A number of EU leaders have said they remain open to an extension as long as the United Kingdom can provide a valid justification for it. They will want to make sure an extension is a price worth paying, that its going to make a difference, Georgina Wright, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government in London, told Al Jazeera. If theres a general election, a second referendum, or a change in the governments own red lines, then there might be more appetite for a longer extension. May is hoping to avoid this and has been trying to get the Eurosceptic wing of her own Conservative Party and Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) behind her deal, saying a long delay might lead to Brexit being cancelled. They have so far voted down the deal over concerns for the backstop protocol of the withdrawal agreement, which aims to keep an open border in the island of Ireland. Critics, however, argue it could trap the UK within EUs trade rules indefinitely. The opposition Labour Party wants to see a softer Brexit, including a permanent, UK-wide customs union and close alignment with the single market. Over the weekend, it emerged that Labour, which has recently announced its official support for a second referendum, will push an amendment to the so-called meaningful vote that would make support for Mays deal conditional on putting it to the people. The EU has no interest in making it easy to leave the bloc. With the rise of populism in the European Parliament, you do not want to give the impression that the EU is a bad negotiator. Sarah Wolff, director of the Centre for European Research The amendment doesnt specify whether remain or leave without a deal could be other options on the ballot paper. Eurosceptics believe no deal is better than a bad deal, and Leave campaigners have talked about events in Parliament this week as a betrayal of the publics will. Former UKIP leader and current MEP Nigel Farage urged EU leaders this week to veto the extension. The European Parliaments lead Brexit spokesman, Guy Verhofstadt, spoke out against a long extension beyond the European elections, arguing it could be hijacked by the Brexiters. We will talk only about [Brexit], and not about the real problems, and the real reforms we need in the European Union, said Verhofstadt. If Mays third attempt does not pass but theres a significant improvement in the consensus for it, a fourth meaningful vote is tipped as a possibility. An existential problem The EU has made clear that if the UK wants a longer extension, it will have to take part in the European Parliament elections at the end of May. The new assemblys first sitting is on July 2, and should the UK still be part of the EU by then, it will be required to have representation. According to some British media reports, a leaked document to EU ambassadors claimed that legal issues could arise if the UK was still part of the bloc by that date without participating in elections. The document said the EU would cease being able to operate in a secure legal context meaning it would have to terminate the UKs membership to prevent the functioning of EU institutions from being affected. While legal opinion remains divided on this issue, purely from a technical point of view, the EU needs to know now if the UK is going to participate because currently theyre drawing up their party lists on the basis of a new European Parliament that doesnt have UK seats in it, Wright explained. Secondly, youd be denying UK and EU citizens living in the UK the right to stand and vote in the elections. Sarah Wolff, a lecturer and director of the Centre for European Research at Queen Mary, University of London, argued that without further guarantees on a way forward, the EU has little to gain in granting a long extension or watching the UK take part in the European Parliament elections. The EU has no interest in making it easy to leave the [bloc]. With the rise of populism in the European Parliament, you do not want to give the impression that the EU is a bad negotiator and that you can actually come back to it. [Brexit is] the third crisis we have faced in the past decade, Wolff said, adding that while the eurozone and migration crises caused rifts between the members, there hasnt been much divergence on the issue of Brexit. EU leaders have understood that with Brexit, it is important to show coherence and unity. And they are already moving forward. Robert Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester, points out that while the UK participation in the European elections could provide a contingent of additional allies for other eurosceptic forces who are likely to do well in the European Parliament, it wont make a difference to EU institutions or campaigns everywhere else. The European Parliament elections arent about Europe anywhere, Ford said, people tend to vote according to national agendas and national political context. Meirs tenure was marked by racist comments about Palestinians and contentious events on her watch. Golda Meir, Israels only female prime minister, once commented on her fairly advanced years upon securing the countrys top job, saying Being 70 is no sin, but its not a joke either. But Meir, who was confirmed by the Knesset as prime minister 50 years ago on Sunday, was also renowned for her more xenophobic remarks, particularly at the expense of Palestinians. There were no such thing as Palestinians, she was quoted as saying in the Sunday Times and Washington Post in June 1969. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist, Meir said. For her critics, Meirs jingoistic comments concerning Palestinians remain one of her defining and most damning legacies. She Elinor as an achievement for women. She thought of it as an achievement for Golda.] Meir, said Elinor Burkett, author of Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East (2008), was not a subtle thinker. Indeed she was, according to many observers, incapable of contemplating that the creation of Israel had given Palestinians, who lost their homes in the wake of its rise, a different narrative of events. [Meir] was intent on ethnically cleansing the indigenous population from Palestine to make room for Jewish immigrants, the American Muslims for Palestine, a US-based group dedicated to educating the American public about Palestine and its heritage, said. She had no problem with forcibly removing people from their homes and kicking them out of their country in order that Israel may exist. Jonathan Ofir, an Israeli musician, conductor and blogger based in Denmark, wrote of Meirs observations about Palestinians: If one wanted to be apologetic, one could attempt to see Meirs comments as a mere reference to national definition, as I have heard even liberal Israelis seek to do. But, as mentioned, the view of the nationality and local connection as non-existent played a part in the Israeli-Zionist ideology of dispossession. Meir, right, is escorted by Israeli Major General in the Reserves Ariel Sharon, left, while visiting the Sinai Peninsula, then occupied by Israel, October 29, 1973 [File: Yehuda Tzion/Government Press Office/Handout/Reuters] Meir grabbed the reins of the prime ministers post and held on tight for five years. Her tenure saw her make headlines for her terse and aggressive comments, but also for those events that happened on her watch not least the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed and the 1973 October War. But, according to Burkett, this Jewish immigrant to the United States and Israeli stateswoman was certainly no feminist. American feminists loved to adopt Golda, but she was not interested, Burkett told Al Jazeera. It wasnt that she was hostile to womens achievements, it was that she ignored gender prejudices. And she was like a bulldozer She didnt think of her [premiership] as an achievement for women. She thought of it as an achievement for Golda. Born into poverty in what is today Ukraine, in 1898, she emigrated to the US as a child with her family and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she completed her education and eventually became a teacher. In 1921, after marrying, she and her husband immigrated to Palestine, then under British mandate. From then on, her political trajectory took flight and by 1948, when the state of Israel was established after the British mandate expired, she had already cemented her place in Israeli history. Prior to her assuming the most powerful job, Meir, a socialist Zionist, cut her teeth as a cabinet minister, not least as minister for labour and then as foreign minister. In the former role, and as Jewish immigrants flocked to settle in the new nation-state as Palestinians were forced from their homes, she oversaw the construction of housing and a new welfare system. As foreign minister, [her activities] with Africa kept Israel popular at the UN, much, much longer than would have been expected, Burkett, the biographer said, referring to Meirs foreign policy overtures in supplying aid and technical know-how to emerging African states. But it was her alliance with the US that many of her advocates see as her ultimate achievement as the states top diplomat. People forget that the alliance between the United States and Israel, coming from the top of the US government, was not so clear before Golda was foreign minister, continued Burkett. But Golda made that happen. By the time this mother of two took over as prime minister in March 1969, Meirs fire was fading and she was at an age where many, even today, would consider calling it a day. Her perceived successes as a politician and her role in 1948 in raising millions of dollars in funds from the US to aid Israels evolution had given her national clout like few others as the rise of Israel saw the rights of Palestinians become ever-more superfluous. However, Meir, who was secretly undergoing cancer treatment at the time and who often played up to her craggy appearance as a good-natured Jewish grandmother, now faced a very different kind of role in the hot seat, which opened up following the death of then-Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. In this time of turmoil, Meir, tempted back having previously retired from politics, found favour with her Labour Party as a consensus candidate. Her motive as prime minister was dont rock the boat, said professor Meron Medzini, author of Golda A Political Biography, to Al Jazeera of Meirs temporary job that lasted half a decade. No revolutions, no changes, no experiments both at home and overseas. This had partly to do with her age and partly to do with the fact that she had lost her revolutionary zeal Her achievements were before she became prime minister. That said, Meir was, as political leaders the world over, at the mercy of events. Arguably, the most contentious of all was the 1973 October War, which saw Egyptian and Syrian forces launch a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Israel soon turned the tide but at great military cost. Meir, whose government was lambasted for its lack of preparedness and who remains the subject of fierce criticism from some in Israel for allegedly ignoring previous peace overtures from then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, stepped down amid the political fallout in April the following year. Israeli left-wing activists wear T-shirts with pictures of first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, right, and fourth Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir as they participate in a rally against West Bank Jewish settlements, in Jerusalem on May 15, 2010 [Sebastian Scheiner/AP] Shunned by Palestinians who recall her indifference to their rights, Meir, who died in Jerusalem in 1978 at the age of 80, is not beloved by all Israelis, despite many in her country recalling her with fondness. Ofir, himself born in the early 1970s, told Al Jazeera that, while he felt pride for Meir in his younger days, his views of Israels uncompromising stateswoman had changed rapidly over the years. In the end, her attitude towards Palestinians was basically a macho, chauvinist, denialist attitude, which is intrinsically inherent in Zionism, he added. Follow Alasdair Soussi on Twitter: @AlasdairSoussi Suspect in New Zealand mosque massacre doesnt appear mentally unstable and will represent himself, ex-attorney says. The Australian man accused of shooting dead 50 people at two New Zealand mosques doesnt appear mentally unstable and plans to represent himself, his court-appointed lawyer said on Monday. The announcement raises concerns that white supremacist Brenton Tarrant could espouse his extreme views in court as he conducts his own defence. Tarrant was charged with one count of murder and appeared at Christchurch District Court on Saturday after the rampage during Friday prayers. He will face more charges when he appears in court again on April 5. Duty lawyer Richard Peters, who represented him during the preliminary court hearing, said the 28-year-old indicated he does not want a lawyer. He wants to be self-represented in this case, Peters told AFP news agency. At his first court appearance, Tarrant didnt speak but appeared unrepentant, smirking at journalists and flashing an upside down OK sign a symbol associated with white power groups around the world. She saved everyones life but unfortunately she sacrificed her life. Farhana Akhter tells Al Jazeera about her aunts courage during the mass shootings on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday. pic.twitter.com/yz9WWVgj5G Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 17, 2019 Peters told the New Zealand Herald newspaper that Tarrant appeared lucid and mentally sound, other than the extreme views he held. The way he presented was rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. Thats how he appeared. He seemed to understand what was going on, he said. Selling guns Tightening New Zealands gun laws was at the top of Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns agenda as she met with her cabinet on Monday for the first time since the massacre. What the public rightly are asking right now is why is it and how is it that you are currently able to buy military style semi-automatic weapons in New Zealand, and thats the right question to ask, Ardern told TVNZ. There are ways we can bring in affective regulation of firearms that actually target those we need to target and that is our focus. Ardern later told a press conference that the cabinet was unanimous in plans to change gun laws but said details would be announced at a later date. New Zealand, a country of only five million people, has an estimated 1.5 million firearms. The minimum age for a gun license is 16, and 18 to own a semi-automatic weapon. A Christchurch gun shop on Monday acknowledged selling guns online to the 28-year-old attacker. At a news conference, Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition to Tarrant through a police-verified online mail order process. The store detected nothing extraordinary about the purchaser, he said. None of the guns sold to Tarrant was military-style semi-automatic weapons. Emotional responses Tipple said he felt no responsibility for the tragedy and refused to say whether he believed gun ownership laws should change in New Zealand. Ardern has said the attacker used five guns, two of them semi-automatic, which were purchased with an ordinary gun license and modified. It was not clear if any of the firearms Tarrant purchased from Gun City were used in Fridays mass shootings. This man wrote in his manifesto that the purpose of using a firearm was to divide us, Tipple said. If we allow him to make changes in our ideology, in our behaviour, hes won. Tipple said his company had operated legally for 40 years and New Zealand was a country of laws and not a country of emotional responses. Raids made to obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation. Australian police raided two homes linked to the alleged gunman who killed 50 worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand. The homes on Monday were searched in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged attacker, grew up. The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation, a police statement said. Tarrants family continues to assist police with their inquiries and there is no information to suggest a current or impending threat to the community, it said. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has been charged with murder in New Zealand after the mass shooting on Friday that left 50 dead and dozens wounded, many in critical condition, at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. It was New Zealands deadliest shooting in modern history. Tarrant had worked as a personal trainer at the Big River Gym in Grafton, a small city 500km northwest of Sydney. Some of Tarrants family members expressed shock and sorrow in interviews with Australian media on Sunday. Were all gobsmacked, we dont know what to think, Marie Fitzgerald, Tarrants grandmother, told Channel Nine television. The media is saying hes planned it for a long time so hes obviously not of sound mind I dont think. Its only since hes travelled overseas that that boy has changed completely from the boy we knew. Now everyones just devastated, she said. In 2016, Tarrant visited Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, where he stopped by historic battle sites, before travelling in Western Europe in 2017. He also visited Turkey, Bulgaria and Israel. We say sorry for the families over there for the dead and the injured. I cant think nothing else. I just want to go home and hide, said the alleged attackers uncle, Terry Fitzgerald. Disgraceful Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said on Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terrorism watch lists. He rejected as disgraceful criticism that Australias counterterrorism agencies had neglected the threat of right-wing extremists such as Tarrant because of their focus on combatting groups such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS). He said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the countrys main security agency, closely tracked the activities of far-right groups. These extremist groups neo-Nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groups, whatever term you want to apply to them theyve been squarely on their radar, he said in a televised interview. They are well and truly looking at this threat, they are dealing with the threat and to think that theyve just discovered it or they are coming late to the party is complete rubbish, he said. ASIO officials were due to brief the cabinet of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the New Zealand attacks and the threat of the far right in Australia later on Monday. Australia is making public grants available to help places of worship bolster security after Fridays attack in neighbouring New Zealand. Morrison said $39m in total will be made available to add security video, fencing, lighting and alarms. He said religious freedom has to start with the right to worship and meet safely without fear of violence. Somali-born Abdi Sheikh Hassan says he never thought New Zealand would witness such horror as the Christchurch attacks. Christchurch, New Zealand At about 2pm on Friday, when the gunfire at Christchurchs Linwood mosque finally let up, Abdi Sheikh Hassan found himself underneath a pile of bodies. Hassan says he was at the front of the mosques prayer hall, close to the imam, when a man armed with an assault weapon approached the building and opened fire. Trapped by the spray of bullets, worshippers in the back rows piled on top of those at the front. A number of them never got up again. There was blood everywhere, Hassan recalls. Shaking with fear but unharmed, the 28-year-old stood up to take a look at the carnage. His friend, lying next to him, had been shot in the head. Seven people were dead and so many people were injured, [among them] women and children everyone was in shock. Hassan would later find out that Christchurchs small, tight-knit, Muslim community had been the target of the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealands modern history. Shortly before the assault at Linwood, the gunman had killed more than 40 worshippers at the Al Noor mosque, some seven kilometres away. Altogether, at least 50 people were killed, and dozens more wounded, in what Jacinda Ardern, New Zealands prime minister, called a well-planned terrorist attack. A 28-year-old Australian man, identified as Brenton Harrison Tarrant, has been charged with one count of murder so far, with many more charges expected to be levelled against him. At least 50 people were killed in Fridays attack on two Christchurch mosques [Mark Baker/AP] One of those presumed killed during the massacre was three-year-old Mucaad Ibrahim. Hassan knows the family well. Like Mucaads Somali-born father, Adan Ibrahim, Hassan also fled violence and instability in Somalia eight years ago, in search of a place at peace. Security was bad at home and we didnt think anything bad could happen here, Hassan says. But we, as Muslims, believe anything that happens, good or bad, is Allah testing us, to see if we are following the rules of the Prophet Muhammad, he adds. About 50,000 Muslims call New Zealand home, a small minority in a population of nearly five million. From India and Indonesia to Pakistan and Palestine, the Pacific Island countrys Muslims come from around the world. Mourners across New Zealand have paid tribute to the victims of the mosque shootings [Edgar Su/Reuters] In Christchurch, a city of nearly 400,000 people, Muslims number no more than a few thousand people, and the tragedy of Fridays loss has affected nearly every Muslim household in the city. We know each other, in the Muslim community, very well, Hassan says. We spent a long time praying together and now we are busy with organising how to bury all the bodies. Despite the tragedy, Hassan has no plans to leave Christchurch. Having trained as an engineer and built a life in New Zealand, he is determined to carry on living and working in the place he now calls home. Part of that, he says, means going back to the shuttered Al Noor and Linwood mosques once they are reopened. I still believe now it is a safe place and that New Zealand is the best country for us, he says. In any place, you can find good and bad people, but most of the people here, Alhamdullilah [thanks to God], are good people and look after us. What Allah has given us, we are happy with. Exiled politicians accused of incitement to commit felony and plotting treason after announcing plans to return. Phnom Penh, Cambodia A court has issued arrest warrants for top Cambodian opposition politicians living abroad, as the exiled activists began preparations to return to the country. Sam Rainsy, the founder of the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was one of the politicians accused of incitement to commit a felony and plotting to commit treason. Warrants were also issued for CNRP vice-presidents Mu Sochua and Eng Chhay Eang as well as five others. The CNRP was controversially dissolved in 2017 on accusations of trying to overthrow the Cambodian government, despite virtually no evidence to support such a claim, say activists. CNRP cofounder and then-president Kem Sokha was arrested for treason on similarly flimsy pretences. The pre-election banishment allowed the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party to win what was essentially an uncontested election, garnering all 125 seats in the National Assembly and extending Prime Minister Hun Sens 33-year grip on power. Hun Sen is taking Cambodia to a really dark place, Sochua said in a recent interview with Al Jazeera. Sochua and others fled the country during the crackdown, while Rainsy has lived abroad to avoid politically tinged charges since 2015. The political repression, which was accompanied by the dismantling of Cambodias free press, has been roundly condemned by Western powers. In response, the European Union has begun the process of withdrawing its preferential trade agreement with Cambodia the Everything But Arms (EBA) deal that allows Cambodia to export products other than weapons at discounted tariff rates. The United States is also considering revoking a similar trade agreement. The Cambodian governments attack on democracy has coincided with a shift towards China. While Western powers have criticised the move, the regional superpower continues to offer unconditional support to an increasingly authoritarian Cambodia. Government spokesman Phay Siphan declined to comment when contacted by Al Jazeera and a spokesman for Cambodias Ministry of Interior did not immediately respond to requests for an interview. Sochua warned that Hun Sen was willing to sacrifice the welfare of millions of its people and Cambodias sovereignty in order to preserve his own personal wealth and his grip on power. Recently, Rainsy announced he would return to Cambodia, initially pledging to arrive by the Khmer New Year in mid-April. He has since put back that deadline, claiming there was no point in returning only to be arrested or killed. Politically motivated Phil Robertson, a deputy director of Human Rights Watchs Asia division, said the warrants should be considered a pre-emptive attempt to block Rainsy and Sochuas return. PM Hun Sen is trying to slam the door on these leading members of the CNRP ever being able to return to Cambodia, Robertson said in an email to Al Jazeera, adding the entire politically motivated crackdown on the CNRP was based on fabricated accusations. Robertson said that returning at this juncture would put their freedom and even their lives in jeopardy. The government is putting these opposition leaders on notice that if they enter Cambodia, they will certainly face immediate arrest, a long period of pre-trial detention, and then a kangaroo court trial where evidence is not necessary for a conviction, wrote Robertson, adding such a sentence could prove fatal given the dire conditions of Cambodias prisons. However, Sochua, who is in charge of the planning committee for the return, thinks the CNRP leaders will eventually be back in Cambodia. The plan is not being taken off the shelf, we will move forward, she said. Sochua said they wouldnt let legal threats intimidate them from returning, but added that the details and logistics of their arrival were still being hammered out. We can be arrested, we can even be shot down on the tarmac, who knows, she said. The warrants come as the EU is preparing to send a fact-finding team to assess the human rights situation in Cambodia. While the process of withdrawing the EBA has already begun, the EU can halt its suspension if it believes the Cambodian government is showing signs of progress. These charges are the equivalent of PM Hun Sen throwing sand in the face of the European Union and its EBA negotiators due in the country next week, Robertson said. Hun Sen is showing hes solely interested in maintaining power at any cost, even if that means hurting the economy by this spiteful action that will make it harder to maintain EBA trade privileges for Cambodian exports. Chess match European political scientist Astrid Noren-Nilsson said that all eight politicians would likely face arrest should they return. She said that she didnt expect Cambodians to react strongly, based on the current political climate. It is highly unlikely that this would prompt significant protests, but it would nonetheless open up for quite complicated scenarios, she said via email, explaining the outcome would be hard to predict. Noren-Nilsson also said that both sides were looking at the international situation from a strategic point of view and playing mind games with each other. She said the opposition leaders initial plan to return should be seen as an attempt to take advantage of the increased scrutiny on the Cambodian government during the EBA withdrawal process. The government is now responding that it will not cede ground status quo will be maintained, she said. However, opposition leader Sochua had a different take on the situation. She said that Hun Sen was using his political enemies as bargaining chips with the EU. She expected the prime minister would offer concessions to the EU by releasing some political prisoners and offer pardons while refusing to make meaningful changes. Hun Sen is a chess player, however, we cannot allow Hun Sen to play chess with democracy, she said. Legal issues could arise for children in relation to the EU Settlement Scheme, says Coram Childrens Legal Centre. London, United Kingdom Thousands of children with EU citizenship or those of European nationals could fall through the cracks of the UKs registration system after Brexit, according to a UK charity. The Coram Childrens Legal Centre released a report on Monday pointing to issues that might arise for children and young people in relation to the EU Settlement Scheme, which will be fully rolled out by the end of the month. The scheme is designed to register around 3.5 million citizens in the UK from the EUs 27 countries. They must apply online for settled status if they have lived in the UK for at least five years, or pre-settled status if they havent reached that threshold. The application is free. Anyone who fails to apply or is denied status by June 2021 if the UK leaves the EU with a deal, or December 2020 of it leaves without, will become undocumented. The government and Prime Minister Theresa May have repeatedly assured EU citizens they will be able to continue living and working in the UK after Brexit. But rights groups have raised concerns that should even a fraction of applications go wrong, given the scale of the task, it could result in thousands of people living in the UK becoming undocumented two years down the line. Vulnerable groups Among the vulnerable groups, says Coram, are unaccompanied children and young adults who have grown up in UK care homes or foster care, as well as children from disadvantaged families. Children separated from one of their parents are also at risk. The Home Office from the start hasnt recognised the complexity of the lives that are going to be interrupted by the scheme, Marianne Lagrue, a policy manager at Coram Childrens Legal Centre and co-author of the report, told Al Jazeera. For people who are working, its very straightforward. Everything is almost automatic. But for anyone whose life falls outside that straightforward pattern, it gets quite complicated quite quickly, she added. According to the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, there are an estimated 900,000 children of EU-born parents living in the UK, excluding Irish citizens. About 239,000 of them were born in the UK but do not have an automatic right to British citizenship. The Home Office, the government department in charge of migration and security, has estimated there are approximately 5,000 EU children in care in the UK, not including care leavers. The government has been running pilots of the EU settlement scheme since August 2018 with universities and other private and health institutions. The final test phase was opened to the public at the end of January. According to government figures, out of 150,000 applications submitted so far, nearly 90 percent have been closed 70 percent of which were granted settled status and the rest pre-settled status. Other vulnerable groups may include the elderly, carers, the Roma community, and anyone who has lived in precarious or temporary accommodation, or has relied on informal work. The Coram Childrens Legal Centre took part in one of the pilots and found that in a fifth of cases, the child did not have the documentation needed to apply for the scheme. 190313131636062 In half of those cases, they really didnt know how they were going to get it, said Lagrue. Applicants to the EU settlement scheme must be able to prove both residence, mainly through tax records, and nationality. For children separated from their parents, this could prove challenging. If you are a Polish child and you dont live with both parents, to get a passport for the first time, a national identity document, you need either both of your parents to support your application in person or a court order explaining you only have one parent exercising parental responsibility, Lagrue said, adding that this could be difficult if the child has lost contact with one parent. Rights groups are also concerned that unaccompanied EU youth may face further obstacles when they turn 18. We know particularly for care leavers that they are vulnerable to being homeless, or unemployed, and we anticipate that will be similar for EEA nationals, Ilona Pinter, a policy and research manager at the Childrens Society, told Al Jazeera. So, having documentation will be particularly difficult because their status relies potentially on their parents, or the local authority they are in the care of. If just 15 percent of the current population of EU national children fail to regularise their status before the cut-off point, 100,000 children would be added to the UKs undocumented child population overnight, nearly doubling it, said Kamena Dorling, head of policy and public affairs at Coram. This second Windrush generation of children and young people will be unable to work, unable to open a bank account or drive a car and effectively barred from college, university and secondary healthcare. Filipe Nyusi says more than 100,000 are at risk after storm hit Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. President Filipe Nyusi feared the death toll could rise to 1,000 in Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Idai he said in a nationwide address on Monday. For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area this morning to understand whats going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths, he said. So far the total death toll has risen to at least 215 after the storm tore into central Mozambique last week before continuing on to Zimbabwe and Malawi, bringing flash floods and ferocious winds. At least 126 people were killed in Mozambique and Malawi, according to the Red Cross, and Zimbabwes information ministry on Monday put the number of dead at 89 in the country. Hundreds are missing and more than 1.5 million people have been affected across the three countries by widespread destruction and flooding. Most of the deaths in Mozambique happened in the central port city of Beira, 90 percent of which was destroyed, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). A large dam burst on Sunday in the city, cutting off the last road to the city of about 530,000 people, the IFRC said in a statement. The scale of damage caused by Cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying, it said. The IFRC warned that the death toll could rise once the full scale of the devastation is known, with further heavy rains expected. The cyclone destroyed 90 percent of Beira, according to the Red Cross [Adrien Barbier/AFP] First came ferocious winds and torrential rain that lasted almost four days. It only eased up a short while ago, said Al Jazeeras Malcolm Webb, reporting from central Mozambique. The damage is extensive even 300km [from the cyclones landing area] where we are. Hundreds of houses are destroyed in this district alone. People are sheltering in schools or with neighbours. Euloge Ishimwe, the IFRCs Africa region communications manager, told Al Jazeera from Kenyas capital Nairobi that the shelters were immediate needs, but healthcare, clean water supply and sanitation also were high priorities. These are some of the things we are trying to provide. Mozambique Red Cross volunteers are already on the ground as well as the IFRCs international team, he said. "This is a real humanitarian disaster. More than 100,000 people are in danger" Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi More than 1,000 feared killed by Cyclone Idai in Mozambique https://t.co/QEWoATgiV4 @AFPgraphics pic.twitter.com/Nk1oJIkkz5 AFP news agency (@AFP) March 19, 2019 Neighbouring Zimbabwe In Zimbabwe, Idai tore across the eastern and southern parts of the country, a government official said on Monday, creating a humanitarian crisis in a nation grappling with economic woes and a drought. Chimanimani district has been cut off from the rest of the country by torrential rains and winds of up to 170km an hour that swept away roads, homes and bridges and knocked out power and communication lines. Rescuers are struggling to reach people in Chimanimani, many of whom have been sleeping in the mountains since Friday after their homes were flattened by rock falls and mudslides or washed away by torrential rains. Many families cannot bury the dead due to the floods. The government has declared a state of disaster in areas affected by the storm, the worst to hit the country since Cyclone Eline devastated eastern and southern Zimbabwe in 2000. The country of 15 million people is already suffering a severe drought that has wilted crops. A United Nations humanitarian agency says 5.3 million people will require food aid. Teachers who plan to stay in the classroom and work in the same state for their entire career will have a steady stream of income for the rest of their life. But those who leave the profession sometime before the 30-year mark, or even change states, wont have enough saved to retire comfortably. Thats according to a new study from the Bellwether Education Partners, an education nonprofit group. State pension plans are leaving all but the longest-serving teachers without adequate retirement savings, the study found. The study estimates that 81 percent of teachers who start working at age 25 will fail to qualify for adequate retirement benefits under a typical defined-benefit pension plan. See also: Teacher Pay: How Salaries, Pensions, and Benefits Work in Schools Most experts recommend that people save at least 10 to 15 percent of their annual income toward retirement, in addition to Social Security, the study says. With that savings plan, people can retire and maintain a similar standard of living. But most teachers participate in defined-benefit pension plans, which offer teachers a specific payout upon retirement based on a formula, rather than by investment returns. The formula takes into account the teachers final average salary and the number of years served. According to the study, pension wealth spikes at 33 years of experienceand in the first two decades of a teachers career, the plans offer little retirement savings. In most states, teachers become vestedmeaning able to withdraw their employers contributionsin their pension plan five years into their career. But a sizable number of teachers leave the profession before they become vested. (Education researcher Richard Ingersoll estimates that 44 percent of new teachers quit within five years.) And Chad Aldeman, a principal at Bellwether Education Partners and an author of this study, said even after teachers are vested, it can take 25 years before the pension is worth more than the teachers contribution. Also, pensions are not always portable, so teachers who move states at some point in their career will lose out on retirement savings, Aldeman said. He also noted that teachers in 15 states are not eligible for Social Security. For those teachers who dont accumulate adequate retirement servings, theyll need to increase their savings rate later on, work longer, rely on family or governmental support, or live a more modest lifestyle in retirement, the study says. Other Pension Plans About 85 percent of teachers are enrolled in a defined-benefit pension plan, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. But there are some alternatives. About 8 percent of public school teachers are enrolled in defined-contribution plans that are based on individual investment decisionslike the 401(k) account common in the private sector. The study says that Alaska is the only state that has a mandatory defined-contribution plan for teachers, but five other states offer that plan as an option for teachers. Those plans would help teachers reach adequate retirement savings much earlier, the study found. There is no large spike of benefits at any particular age, so teachers would have at least minimally adequate savings as soon as their plan vested. Just 48 percent of teachers would end up with inadequate retirement savings under this plan, as opposed to the 81 percent with defined-benefit pensions. Another five states automatically enroll new teachers into hybrid plans, which include a mix of the defined-benefit and defined-contribution components. The study estimates that it would take a teacher 25 years to qualify for adequate retirement benefits with a hybrid planslightly less time than with the defined-benefit plan, but still leaving 78 percent of teachers with inadequate savings. Finally, some states have transitioned to cash-balance plans, which are a type of defined-benefit pension that guarantees employees a rate of return on their investments. Kansas, for example, has been enrolling all teachers hired after 2015 into one of these plans. Under cash-balance plans, teachers would have minimally adequate savings as soon as their plan vested. About half of teachers would still have inadequate retirement savings. Policy Recommendations Another factor with defined-benefit pension plans: Theyre expensive for states. As of now, pension debt for teacher plans tops out nationally at more than $516 billion , and states such as Connecticut, Illinois, and Michigan project they wont have enough money within the next decade to pay teachers what theyre owed at retirement. Aldeman recommends states make significant reforms to their existing defined-benefit pension planschanging the way benefits are calculated. Or, a simpler option might be for states to transition to a new pension system, like a cash-balance plan or a hybrid plan. He stressed that these recommendations would be for new teachersand would not affect current or retiring teachers. Still, making changes to pension systems can be politically risky. In Kentucky, teachers shut down schools three times last year with the pension flu"an orchestrated sickout to protest proposed changes to their pension plan. (The state, which has the worst-funded retirement system in the nation, ultimately set up a cash-balance plan for new teachers, but made no changes to benefits for retired or current teachers. The state Supreme Court struck down the law in December because of how the legislation was introduced and rushed through the process in just a day.) See also: Costly Pension Plans Are Fanning the Plans of Teacher Unrest This year, Kentucky lawmakers have weighed similar changes againand a handful of school districts have already been forced to close up to four times as teachers called in sick to protest proposed pension reform, among other legislation. The state teachers union has come out against the changes, saying that the structure of the pension plan isnt the problemthe amount of state funding is. But Aldeman said defined-benefit pensions plans are still flawed for most teachers. That is sacrificing the future to keep a structure that is not working, he said. It would be better to look at how we could envision the structure going forward to protect everyone. Chart via Bellwether Freight train was carrying stowaways when it derailed in Bena Leka settlement, killing mostly children, officials say. At least 24 people have been killed and 31 injured in a train accident in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to police and medical services. A freight train was carrying stowaways on Sunday when it derailed in Bena Leka settlement, 140km north of Kananga, one of Kasai provinces main towns. We have retrieved 24 bodies, mostly children. It is a provisional toll because the wagons are still overturned, a railway police official in Bena Leka told AFP news agency. Most of the passengers are stowaways because it is a freight train. We have suspended the search because night has just fallen in the area, said the source, who was at the site. Several wagons have fallen into the water at the bridge over the Luembe River and five more wagons are still overturned. Derailment confirmed Casualties with severe injuries were taken to the hospital in nearby Kakenge settlement. We are overwhelmed by the number of injured. We are working urgently. We have already admitted 31 injured, said Dr Jean Claude Tshimanga of Kakenge hospital. The national rail company confirmed the derailment. It is the third rail accident in about a month in central DRC. Five people were killed in a passenger train accident last month at the station in Kalenda. Rail accidents in DRC are frequent and often deadly because of decrepit track and ageing locomotives dating from the 1960s. The arrests across the occupied West Bank follow an attack by a Palestinian on Sunday that killed two Israelis. Israeli forces arrested at least seven Palestinians from various areas of the occupied West Bank, in multiple overnight raids across the area, Palestines news agency (WAFA) reported on Monday. According to reports, three youths were arrested in Jenin, one in al-Khader town, southern Bethlehem, and another youth in the town of Az-Zawiya, western Salfit. Israeli forces also arrested a Palestinian in the town of Beit Ummar, northern Hebron, according to the Qatar News Agency (QNA). The army said the individuals were arrested for suspected involvement in terrorist activities and had been referred to relevant authorities for further investigation. Israeli forces on Monday continued to hunt a Palestinian they said killed two people and injured a third near the illegal Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the site of the attack on Monday and pledged tough action, including the demolition of the assailants home. These terrorists will not uproot us from here, he said. Netanyahu also pledged security forces would track down the attacker and he said the assailants home would be demolished, a policy regularly carried out by Israel. He noted that the construction of 840 more homes was due to begin on Tuesday in the illegal settlement, which already has a population of nearly 20,000. Sunday attack Israeli security forces say Sundays incident saw a 19-year-old Palestinian man kill Israeli soldier Gal Keidan with a knife at a junction near Ariel and steal his weapon. He then reportedly fired on three vehicles, hitting a 47-year-old rabbi who later died, before hijacking a car and driving to another nearby junction. At the second junction, the Palestinian opened fire and wounded another soldier, who was in serious condition, the army said. The Palestinian has been identified by Israeli authorities as Omar Amin Abu Laila from the West Bank town of Az-Zawiya. Israels army said its troops were searching for him and his home had been surveyed to examine the possibility of its demolition. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the army had arrested some of Abu Lailas relatives on Monday morning. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, praised the West Bank attack as a natural response to crimes committed by the Israeli occupation. The attack came after two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces last week in separate West Bank incidents. On Thursday, two rockets from Gaza were fired towards Tel Aviv in a rare attack into the heart of Israel that looked to set the sides into another round of escalation. Hamas denied Israels accusation it was behind the rocket fire. However, Israel went on to target several sites belonging to Hamas military wing in Gaza with about 100 missiles. Supreme Court bans far-right candidate Michael Ben-Ari from April elections, citing his display of anti-Arab racism. Israels Supreme Court has banned the leader of a far-right ultranationalist party from running in next months elections. Reversing the decisions of Israels elections committee earlier this month, the court ruled on Sunday to bar Michael Ben-Ari, the leader of the Jewish Power party, in an 8-1 vote. Ben-Ari has come under fire for comments he made about Palestinian citizens of Israel, which Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit previously said amount to incitement to racism and calling for a violent renunciation of the Arab populations rights. These include a May 2018 speech in which Ben-Ari called Israeli Arabs enemies from within, according to the Haaretz website. The court ruled in favour of appellants who argued Ben-Ari had displayed anti-Arab racism, Reuters news agency reported, citing a statement by the court. Ben-Ari condemned the ruling, according to local media. There is a legal junta that seeks to take over our lives. Its not a democracy, he was quoted as saying by the Haaretz. Other members of Jewish Power remain eligible to run. The court upheld the candidacy of Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right lawyer and fellow leader of Jewish Power. According to Jewish Power, Ben-Aris disqualification marks the first time a candidate approved by the committee has been banned from standing in elections. Jewish Powers leaders are successors of the late rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and creating a Jewish theocracy. In a widely criticised bid to unite Israels nationalist bloc, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brokered a deal to see Jewish Power join with two far-right parties to create a single electoral list. The Supreme Court rulings were widely expected and unlikely to shake Netanyahus efforts to craft a rightist alliance that might secure him a record fifth term. The top court also backed a candidate from the far-left Hadash party, Ofer Kassif, and approved the two main Arab alliances, Hadash-Taal and Raam-Balad. The elections committee had initially barred the latter over its alleged support for violent resistance. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said in a statement that the courts blocking of Ben-Ari while declaring terror-backing parties kosher is a crass and misguided interference in the heart of Israeli democracy. Netanyahus bid for re-election has been challenged by a centrist newcomer, former armed forces chief Benny Gantz. Their escalating exchanges of allegations have included corruption, bigotry, forsaking national security and abetting Israels foes. A poll aired by public broadcaster Kan on Sunday put Likud narrowly in the lead to form the next coalition government with a projected 31 of parliaments 120 seats against 30 for Gantzs Blue and White party. If re-elected, Netanyahu will become Israels longest-serving premier in July. That bid was dealt an unprecedented blow last month when Mandelblit, the attorney general, announced a plan to indict Netanyahu for bribery and breach of trust. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing and could forestall formal charges in a review hearing after the election. Raam-Balad, which held eight seats in the last parliament, said the Supreme Court had upheld its fundamental right to represent our electorate while Netanyahu and Gantz compete to see who can incite more powerfully against the Arab public. Geneva, Switzerland Israeli forces committed violations against Palestinian protesters in Gaza last year that may amount to war crimes, a United Nations report said on Monday. A UN Independent Commission of Inquiry found that Israeli soldiers used live ammunition against unarmed protesters, killing at least 189 Palestinians during protests near the separation fence between Israel and Gaza last year. Over 6,000 Palestinians were also injured in Israeli live fire in the period between March 30, 2018, and December 31, 2018. The Israeli Security Forces committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, said UN Commissioner Kaari Betty Murungi. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel. The 252-page report scrutinises the Israel Defence Forces directives for snipers use of lethal force against Palestinian protesters, who have been regularly demonstrating along the separation fence. The Commission found there was no justification for Israels security forces killing and injuring persons who pose no imminent threat of death or serious injury to those around them, including journalists, health workers and children, said Santiago Canton, the chair of the commission. Canton said the commission, which presented the report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, had reasonable grounds to believe that during the protests, labelled the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers killed and gravely injured civilians who were neither participating directly in hostilities nor posing an imminent threat to the Israeli Security Forces, or to the civilian population in Israel. When examining the Israel Defence Forces use of live fire against the Palestinian protesters, the Commission, however, found that application of lethal force was in the majority of cases authorised unlawfully. This inevitably led to arbitrary deprivation of life, said Canton. The Commissioner Canton called upon Israel to immediately ensure that the rules of engagement of their security forces are revised to comply with international legal standards, especially in view of the one-year anniversary of the protests. 190228102451058 We hear that crowds are going to be large at the official protest sites. The excessive use of force that took place on 30 March, 14 May and 12 October 2018 must not be repeated, Canton said. Israeli security forces shot and wounded 6,016 protesters with live ammunition in the period investigated, while 189 people died at the protest sites, 183 of these from live fire. A significant number of persons also died in the days and weeks after they were injured. A total of 73 Palestinian protesters died of gunshot injuries sustained on May 14, 2018. We strongly disagree with the suggestion that the targeting of these demonstrators meets the high human rights standards for using lethal force. Under these rules of engagement, 4,903 unarmed persons were shot in the lower limbs, many while standing hundreds of metres from the snipers, said Canton. Velocity bullets and rifles The investigation found that Israeli snipers used high velocity bullets and long-range sniper rifles equipped with sophisticated optical aiming devices. They saw the target magnified in their sight and they knew the consequences of shooting, but still pulled the trigger, not once or twice but more than 6,000 times, said Commissioner Sara Hossain. The snipers killed 32 children, three clearly marked paramedics, and two clearly marked journalists. They shot at unarmed protesters, children and disabled persons, and at health workers and journalists performing their duties, knowing who they were, she said. 190307063207081 Israel said it is now carrying out criminal investigations into the killing of 11 Palestinians but the commissioners called for an investigation of all the incidents where Palestinians were either killed or permanently disabled. Israel claims that the protests by the separation fence masked terror activities by Palestinian armed groups. However, the commission found that the demonstrations were almost entirely civilian in nature, with clearly stated political aims and did not constitute combat or military campaigns. While the demonstrations were at times violent, with many protesters hurling stones, cutting through the separation fence at points, and launching kites and balloons with burning coals and rags attached to them, the commission found that the use of lethal force against the protester was neither necessary nor proportionate. Only in two incidents the use of lethal force by the Israeli security forces may not have been unlawful. The New York Times says MBS authorised a clandestine campaign against Saudi dissenters before Jamal Khashoggis murder. More than a year before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabias powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, approved a secret campaign to silence dissenters, the New York Times has reported. The campaign included surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudis, said the report published on Sunday citing the US officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the effort. American officials referred to it as the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, the Times said. One of the victims of this group was a university lecturer who reported on the situation of women and was tortured last year, prompting her to attempt suicide. Saudi Arabia has a long history of pursuing dissidents, including those based outside the country, but this practice has seen a major upsurge following Prince Mohammeds promotion as the crown prince in 2017. At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by the members of the team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, suggesting his murder was part of a wider campaign against dissidents, the report said, citing the US officials and associates of some Saudi victims. These members were involved in at least a dozen operations beginning in 2017, the officials said, including forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries. Authorised by MBS The murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, generated global outrage, leading to a call by some US senators for President Donald Trump to designate and punish those responsible. Trump did not comply. The senators, briefed by the heads of US intelligence agencies, said they were convinced that Prince Mohammed was responsible for the Khashoggi killing. Saudi Arabia has stressed the prince was not involved. The kingdom initially said it had no knowledge of Khashoggis fate but later blamed its rogue agents for his gruesome murder. Saudi Arabias public prosecutor has charged 11 people over his murder. The Rapid Intervention Group was authorised by Prince Mohammed and overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court insider, American officials told the Times. US intelligence reports did not specify how involved Prince Mohammed was with the groups work, but said that the operatives saw al-Qahtani as a conduit to the prince, the report said. Al-Qahtani has been sacked over Khashoggis murder but Saudi authorities have not said if he was among those charged. Five of the accused face the death penalty. Harassing rights activists According to the New York-based newspaper, the Rapid Intervention Group has been involved in the harassment of arrested prominent human rights activists and womens rights defenders, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef and Iman al-Najfan. Alia al-Hathloul says that al-Qahtani attended several such sessions to torture her sister. He also threatened to kill Loujain and throw her body into the sewers, Alia says. According to the newspaper, the women were beaten, subjected to electric shocks, waterboarding, and threatened with death and rape during the interrogations. Loujains sister says that at first the Saudi authorities did not send the arrested women to jail, but in a secret location in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. According to US intelligence assessment, the brutal interrogations prompted university professor al-Najfan to attempt suicide. The womens trial began last Wednesday after nearly a year in detention, but the Saudi government did not announce the charges against them. Saudi denial The intervention team was so busy that in June its leader asked a top adviser to Prince Mohammed whether he would give them bonuses for Eid-ul-Fitr, a major festival at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saudi officials declined to confirm or deny that such a team existed, or answer questions from the Times about its work. According to a spokesperson for the Saudi embassy in Washington, the kingdom takes any allegations of ill-treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously. The warning signs of extreme white supremacy were everywhere well before the mass shootings at the two mosques in New Zealand. The mass shootings at the two mosques in New Zealand have shocked the country, but some people point out that the warning signs for this atrocity were everywhere. Susan Devoy, the former race relations commissioner of New Zealand, joins Al Jazeera from Melbourne in Australia to discuss this. The West condemned the takeover of Crimea, a defiant Russia has built power plants and a new bridge to the peninsula. Russias President Vladimir Putin marks the fifth anniversary of Moscows annexation of Crimea from Ukraine with a visit to the Black Sea peninsula on Monday. Putin attended the launch of new power plants in Crimea, part of Moscows efforts to upgrade the regions infrastructure. Ukraine cut off energy supplies to the peninsula and blocked shipments of Crimea-bound cargo via its territory after Moscow annexed the region in 2014. The situation has changed radically, Putin said, adding that the new power facilities will fully cover Crimeas needs. 181228145700919 Russia has also built a 19-kilometre bridge which opened last year across the Kerch Strait in a $3.6bn project that gave Crimea a land link to Russia, replacing a sometimes unreliable ferry service. Putin signed a treaty with representatives from Crimea on March 18, 2014, to make it part of Russia after a military intervention and controversial referendum. Kiev and many of its allies condemned the annexation as a violation of Ukraines sovereignty. NATO and the European Union once again strongly condemned the land grab on the anniversary. Russia celebrates In Russia, March 18 has been proclaimed the Day of Crimeas Reunification with Russia and celebrated with events across the country. In Crimea, it is a public holiday. In Moscow, city authorities have thrown a street festival called Crimean Spring that hosts jazz concerts, cooking workshops and a photography exhibition a stones throw from the Kremlin. Up to 10,000 people are expected to take part in a flash mob in the Moscow region on Monday, dancing to the Soviet-era song Waltz of Sevastopol the Crimean city home to Russias Black Sea fleet. Hundreds are expected to participate in another flash mob recreating the Russian flag in the Crimean seaside resort, Yalta. The annexation of Crimea was followed by a seizure of parts of Ukraines Luhansk and Donetsk regions by Moscow-backed rebels. The war that erupted in the east of the country has killed more than 13,000 people. Last week, the United States, Canada and the EU slapped new sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials and businesses in response to Moscows continued aggression in Ukraine. But Putin, whose approval ratings soared after Moscow took over Crimea, has repeatedly rejected any prospect of returning the peninsula to Ukraine. What, have you gone mad? he told a journalist who asked him if there were any circumstances under which he would be ready to give up Crimea in a documentary aired last year. There are no such circumstances and never will be. 190315174459207 According to a survey published by the Center for Public Opinion (FOM) in early March, only 39 percent of Russians believe the annexation brought Russia more good than harm, compared to 67 percent in 2014. NATO allies said of the annexation in a statement Monday that we strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. They also criticized Russias military buildup in Crimea and alleged rights abuses including arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture against members of the Crimean Tartar community. Crimean Tatars Ukraines Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told the AFP news agency that all these five years there has been an atmosphere of both open and hidden terror against the people of Crimea. The Crimean Tatars, a Muslim-majority community that is largely opposed to the annexation, have faced pressure from Russian authorities. Russia has banned the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars elected assembly which resisted Russian rule, denouncing it as extremist. Crimea was taken away from the Crimeans, their homeland was taken away from them, Klimkin said. Ukraine feels pain for this every day and the international community will never recognise the annexation, he said. Kurdish-led militia and US air power have rained fire down on ISILs last village for a week with thousands fleeing. A US-backed militia in Syria said thousands of people are still believed to be inside the last ISIL enclave as it sought to flush out fighters with air attacks and shelling. Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks and they still keep coming. The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down its offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS) At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, white smoke rose above the enclave as the sound of air attacks and shelling rang out. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout ISIL fighters are making a last stand. The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire down on ISIL for a week, leading thousands of fighters and family members to surrender. But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference that according to the latest group of fighters who left the pocket an estimated 5,000 people are still holed up inside. He cautioned, however, the SDF was not been able to verify that figure. Those fleeing the village have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred. Surrenders and evacuations The SDF spokesman said there was no clear timeline for the end of the operation, estimating it might take several more days at least before ISIL is driven out. I hope it wont take more than a week but this is a personal estimate, he said in the village of Sousa in eastern Syria. Gabriel said nearly 30,000 ISIL members and their relatives have surrendered to forces backed by the United States since January 9, including more than 5,000 fighters. An additional 34,000 civilians were evacuated from the ISIL redoubt over the same period, he said. The exodus has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced further north, where civilians have been transported. More than 1,300 combatants have been killed and about 520 captured in special operations by the SDF since the battle for Baghouz started, Gabriel said. They include Europeans, Turks, Chinese, Iraqis and Syrians. ISIL has launched a series of suicide bombings in recent days to hamper the SDF advance. On Friday, ISIL launched three suicide attacks outside Baghouz, killing six people as they fled the village. Stiff resistance Ali Khalaf Ibrahim, an SDF fighter, said fighters were putting up a strong defence. Several times they tried to infiltrate [SDF positions] with explosive belts but they were intercepted by SDF fighters, he said. At the height of its brutal rule, ISIL controlled territory in Syria and Iraq the size of the United Kingdom, with a population of millions. The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border caliphate it proclaimed more than four years ago. But ISIL still retains a presence in eastern Syrias vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast. Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it started in 2011. Prominent workers groups turn down talks with new PM, as Bouteflika again defies mass protests for his resignation. More than a dozen of Algerias most influential trade unions have turned down an invitation by the newly appointed prime minister to hold talks aimed at forming a new government and ending a crisis triggered by unprecedented protests against President Abdelaziz Bouteflikas 20-year rule. The discussions, which were set to begin on Monday, are part of the ruling National Liberation Fronts (FLN) efforts to form a new technocratic government that Bouteflika said would support a national conference to approve a new constitution and an election date. The 82-year-old leader had bowed to demonstrators last week by reversing a decision to stand for a fifth term, but he postponed polls due in April until the implementation of political reforms. But representatives of the 13 unions, which operate in sectors such as education and healthcare, refused to attend Mondays meeting with Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui, saying on Sunday that the talks were in contradiction to our position and that of the Algerian people. We consider that the conditions necessary for the success of such a dialogue have not yet been met, said the National Union of Public Health Practitioners (SNPSP) in a statement. Despite the governments effort to appease protesters, demonstrations continued for a fourth consecutive Friday as hundreds of thousands of people marched through Algerias capital calling for an end to the ailing leaders rule. But defying the demands, Bouteflika on Monday insisted on his plan to step down only after the national conference approved a new charter. In a letter read out on Ennahar television, Bouteflika said the forum, which would be held shortly, would take decisive decisions. No problem without a solution His comments came hours after Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaid Salah, the armys chief of staff and the deputy defence minister, said the military would play a role in finding a solution to the ongoing crisis. The army will remain a fortified fortress for the country, Salah said on state TV. We should be responsible for finding solutions as soon as possible. There is no problem without [a] solution. In a separate development, former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, who stepped down last week, called on the government to respect the Algerian peoples demands. As just as all the peaceful demands of our people are to be saluted, we must respond to them as soon as possible, Ouyahia said in a statement to his Democratic National Rally (RND) party on Monday. Vowing to pursue Algerias best interests, the former prime minister called on all parties, including protesters and the government, to compromise in order to [convince citizens] of the credibility of the transition process. Boualem Amoura, secretary-general of the Union of Autonomous Workers in Education and Training (SATEF), told TSA news website that his group would not hold discussions with the system. Last Tuesday, we [teachers] walked by the thousands in cities across the country to demand the departure of this system and today, it invites us to discuss, Amoura was quoted as saying on Sunday. We will not hold discussions with the system The people demand the departure of this system and we are with them. The governments attempt to reach out to civil society actors such as trade unions is one event among many that signalled a change in the countrys power dynamics, said Isabelle Werenfels, a research associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. What is symbolically important is that in the past, they [trade unions] were not or were hardly received by the government, said Werenfels. Their strikes and their demands were seldom acknowledged While now, they are being sought so something has changed in the balance of power. I think theres quite a lot of pressure on the movement because people from all sides are trying to coopt them, to get them to join the national conference, said Werenfels. So far, weve seen a lot of resistance to that. The announcement that trade unions would not take part in Mondays meeting comes on the back of several defections by members of the ruling FLN and the main workers union, the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTT), whose secretary-general, Abdelmadjid Sidi Said, is a supporter of Bouteflika. Additional reporting by Ramy Allahoum. Follow him on Twitter @rallahoum UK Speaker of Parliament John Bercow ruled that May could not put her deal to a new vote without changing it. Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans were thrown into further turmoil on Monday when the speaker of Parliament ruled that she could not put her separation deal to a new vote unless it was re-submitted in a fundamentally different form. In comments that blindsided Mays office, Speaker John Bercow said the government could not bring forward proposals for a vote in Parliament that were substantially the same as had already been defeated twice before, in January and last week. If the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same, nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House this would be entirely in order, Bercow said. 190318160824624 What the government cannot legitimately do is to resubmit to the House [of Commons] the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week which was rejected by 149 votes. The ruling put the UK in a difficult place Brexiteers seeking a complete break from the European Union saw a no-deal exit as now more likely while others thought May might put off Brexit beyond the set March 29 departure date, if the EU approves. One of the governments senior law officers, Solicitor General Robert Buckland, said: Were in a major constitutional crisis here. He told the BBC that one way to bring Mays deal back for a vote in the House of Commons could be prorogation ending the parliament session prematurely and starting a new one. But the government has rejected that. The Government has no plans to prorogue parliament and remains committed to delivering an orderly exit from the EU in line with its pledge to deliver on the outcome of the referendum, it said Monday. Maddy Thimont Jack, a researcher at the Institute for Government in London, said that while Bercows decision clearly frustrates Theresa Mays initial plans to bring a third meaningful vote back to parliament this week, it does not prevent her doing so. Essentially what he is trying to say is Look what you have done has not got a majority, it has been roundly rejected twice, you need to try something else this time, she told Al Jazeera. However, Thimont Jack believes May can still secure a vote by having MPs pass a paving motion to get round Bercows ruling that simply states that they now wish to vote on the deal. If there is will in the House, if MPs want to vote for it, I dont think Bercow is going to get in the way of that, thats not his role and that would be quite a significant issue, said Thimont Jack. Surprise announcement Bercows pronouncement appeared to take Mays Downing Street office by surprise. 190318000011664 Mays spokesman said her office had not been warned the statement was coming. Nor could Downing Street say anything about plans for a new Brexit vote or when it might be held. Sterling dropped below $1.32 with investors saying it had damaged Mays already sagging prospects of getting her EU withdrawal agreement ratified by parliament before March 29. EU leaders have ruled out renegotiating the exit deal. As it stands, Britain is due to leave the EU by default in 11 days. But Parliament voted last week for a delay and May is expected to seek an extension to that deadline when she meets EU leaders at a summit on Thursday. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: They are highlighting the proposed sale of more Eurofighter Typhoon jets to the Saudis which they say is illegal under international law. Opponents of the Saudi-led war in Yemen have been protesting against UK government arms sales. They are highlighting the proposed sale of more Eurofighter Typhoon jets to the Saudis which they say is illegal under international law. Thousands of civilians have died in the conflict in Yemen, many in air raids blamed on Riyadh. Al Jazeeras Laurence Lee reports from the protest in London. Police say they have captured the shooting suspect after an hours-long manhunt but motive remains unclear. A suspect is in custody in the Netherlands after a shooting on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht killed three people and wounded five, says the citys police chief Rob van Bree. Dutch authorities had raised the threat level to its highest after the shooting. It was reduced once the hours-long manhunt came to an end. Utrecht police had earlier published a photo of the suspect, identifying him as 37-year old Gokman Tanis, who was born in Turkey. In a tweet, Utrecht police had warned residents. Do not approach him yourself, but immediately call authorities it said. After the shooting, police flooded the streets and the city was put in lockdown. Schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports and other vital infrastructure. Security was also stepped up at mosques. The shooters motive was unclear. Police said they could not rule out terrorism but the Turkish news agency Anadolu said the suspects relatives believe he shot at someone close to the family due to family issues. A witness told NOS he saw an injured woman running from the tram. She appeared to have been shot in the chest and had blood on her hands and clothes. I brought her into my car and helped her. When the police arrived, she was unconscious, NOS cited the witness as saying. Emergency services, including police and medical helicopters, were at the scene of the shooting. Heavily armed police patrolled the streets of Utrecht and people were urged to stay inside. [Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters] Political parties have announced they are suspending campaigning for the provincial elections that are due to take place on Wednesday. Prime Minister Mark Rutte had convened crisis talks, saying he was deeply concerned about the incident, which came three days after the killing of 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. An act of terror is an attack on our open and tolerant society, the prime minister said. If this is a terror attack, then there is only one answer: our rule and democracy are stronger than fanaticism and violence. We will not accept intolerance. Jacinda Ardern also announces an inquiry into Christchurch mosque attacks that left 50 people dead. New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that her cabinet has made an in-principle decision to tighten gun ownership in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosques massacre. We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified, said Ardern. The New Zealand prime minister also announced an inquiry into the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday that left 50 people dead. Ardern said the details are still to be worked out but the changes to the countrys firearms laws will be announced in full within 10 days. She also said that while the man charged with carrying out the shootings was not a New Zealand citizen, it could not ignore the problem of white supremacy supporters within the country. A Christchurch gun shop on Monday acknowledged selling guns online to the 28-year-old white supremacist accused of killing 50 people in mosque shootings. Anti-immigrant manifesto At a news conference, Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition to suspect Brenton Harrison Tarrant through a police-verified online mail-order process. Ardern has said the attacker used five guns, two of them semi-automatic, which were purchased with an ordinary gun licence and modified. 190317005749685 It was not clear if any of the firearms Tarrant purchased from Gun City were used in Fridays shootings. We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder, Tipple said, referring to the shooter. Gun City has been criticised for leaving out a roadside advertising billboard that shows a parent helping children with rifle target practice in the wake of the shootings. On Monday, Tarrants lawyer said his client was not mentally unstable and planned to represent himself in the court. At his first court appearance, Tarrant didnt speak but appeared unrepentant, smirking at journalists and flashing an upside down okay sign a symbol associated with white power groups around the world. The suspect had posted a muddled, 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto online before the attacks and apparently used a helmet-mounted camera to broadcast live video of the slaughter. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million videos of the shootings during the first 24 hours after the massacre. The revelation in a tweet provided a chilling snapshot of how quickly provocative and often disturbing images circulate on the internet. Delay in burials The New Zealand prime minister, who has earned praise for the handling of the mass shootings, said her view is that more can and should be done to prevent such content from being shared on social media. Ardern was the first signatory of a national condolence book for the countrys worst mass killing that she opened in the capital Wellington on Monday. 190318004442753 On behalf of all New Zealanders, we grieve together. We are one. They are us, she wrote in the book. Frustration was building among the families of victims as under Islam it is custom to conduct burials within 24 hours, but bodies will not be released until post-mortems are carried out. Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha said the first body was approved for release on Sunday night, but the family was yet to take the body because another relative was also killed and they wanted to collect them together. He said there would be no burials on Monday. Weve been working fairly hard through the night to ensure the process of returning the deceased to their loved ones is taking place expediently, he said. The burial process, which usually involves washing with three kinds of water, salving wounds and scrubbing skin, would be complicated, volunteers in Christchurch said. Interior minister says Turkey and Iran launched joint operation against PKK, a claim state media in Tehran denies. Turkey and Iran have launched a joint military operation against Kurdish rebels along Turkeys eastern border, according to an official. Suleyman Soylu, Turkeys interior minister, said the offensive on Monday targeted the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). As of 8:00 this morning, we started an operation with Iran aimed at the PKK on our eastern border, he told a crowd in the Mediterranean city of Antalya. We will announce the outcome [later]. Soylu, who first spoke of the planned offensive on March 6, did not provide further details. However, Irans official news agency IRNA citing an anonymous army source said Iranian forces were not involved in the offensive. 190306093920959 The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara and many Western countries, has fought the Turkish state for more than three decades seeking autonomy for the countrys Kurdish minority. Tens of thousands have been killed in the conflict. The group operates in Turkey and northern Iraq under its own banner, and as the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. Its Iranian offshoot, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), has fought on and off with Tehran since 2004. Peace talks between the PKK and Ankara collapsed in 2015, and the Turkish military has stepped up air and land assaults against the group, both inside Turkey and in northern Iraq, where the groups main base is located. The military has also launched two operations in northern Syria Euphrates Shield in 2016 and Olive Branch in 2018 to prevent the YPG from controlling territory along Turkeys southern border. Ankara has also persuaded Russia the main backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alongside Iran to exclude the YPGs political wing from talks with opposition groups while reiterating a 1998 deal with the Syrian government not to allow the PKK to operate on Syrian territory. Ankara-Tehran military cooperation On Monday Irans chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, travelled to Damascus to discuss combating terrorism with his Syrian and Iraqi counterparts, according to local media. The Iranian Students News Agency quoted him as saying that foreign forces in Syria, including the territory controlled by the YPG, must leave the Syrian soil as soon as possible an apparent reference to the US troops whose presence in Syria has so far prevented Ankara from carrying out a large-scale attacks on the YPG. The group forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the USs main ally in Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). With the support of US air power and weaponry, the SDF has reduced ISIL control over northeastern Syria to a small pocket of territory near the Iraqi border. But with US President Donald Trumps decision in December to withdraw US forces from Syria, Turkey has repeatedly threatened to attack the YPG. Alexey Khlebnikov, a Middle East analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, said if Turkey and Iran were indeed cooperating against the Kurds, it could have wider implications for the region. It might be seen as a strong message to Kurds in Syria and to the US, he said. Ankara-Tehran military cooperation might be well extended to Syria. But Ziya Meral, a London-based researcher, said Turkeys alleged operation with Iran should be viewed with caution. Many in Ankara still think Iran engages with the PKK and enables it while also wanting to contain its Iranian affiliate PJAK, he said. Meanwhile, on Sunday, the Iraqi army also clashed with PKK fighters in Sinjar, near the countrys border with Syria, while the Kurdistan24 news outlet reported that unidentified fighters carried out attacks on Iranian border guards in Irans Kurdish region. The moves, experts said, raised the possibility the Kurdish rebels could face a crackdown in the four countries they operate in. In the absence of further details about the alleged joint Turkey-Iran operation, Paul Levin, director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies, said it could all be coincidence or more of the same low-intensity conflict weve seen for years. If not, a stepped three-front fight against Iraq, Turkey and Iran would be difficult for the PKK and its allied forces in the region, he said. About the show A weekly programme that examines and dissects the worlds media, how they operate and the stories they cover. Watch The Listening Post every Saturday at 0830GMT I'm a devoted husband, father, doctor, proud American, and serious Jew. I'm 63 years old. I have kids who recently graduated college. I've been around the block a bit, experienced a lot, read and learned a lot. One thing I've noticed is that many in our colleges and universities are now interested in socialism and leftism. Many Americans my age will look at that and be full of dismay and anger. They say, "This is not what American young men and women should be embracing. How could these young people be so ungrateful?" I don't have anger about it. I have understanding. Here is why. The more you leave behind childhood, the more you realize you never really leave it behind. When the most confident, mature men and women come wheeling into an emergency room scared and sick, most of the time, you see the needy, vulnerable kid there coming out. It's a compassionate and sensitive doctor's responsibility to recognize that part of the patient and address that child spirit with comfort and hope. And that's what this socialism is pretty much all about. It's about the frightened child inside us who doesn't want to go out into the big, scary world. It's about that part of ourselves that just doesn't want to give up Mom and Dad caring for us. It's about the Jews who want to go back to Egypt so they can be taken care of again by their slave-masters, so they don't have to face the demands of caring for themselves as they travel forth. But we must leave home and go forth as men and women into an uncertain, tough, beautiful, but often scary and tragic world. There is no choice. Trying to remake the reality of life on Earth leads to very bad things. That is what America, this country that has given so much, is all about. It's about adulthood, maturity, and liberty. You can't grow up; you cannot be free; you can't be a happy man; you cannot build a good strong society and lead a truly rich human life by channeling that child inside. Socialism is the world of the child. It is the world of "Take care of me, Mom and Dad State. Make the State big and powerful so it can give me free stuff free daycare, free food, free savings for retirement, free school and college, free birth control pills." It's understandable, this attitude. I have it deep inside me as well. When unleashed on society's economic and governing systems through socialism, all that childishness does is spill out and wreck things, like a nation-sized kid with a massive temper tantrum. That's why Cubans live in slavery-lite on $25 a month and bring their own sheets to their dirty run-down hospitals. It's why Venezuelans are today sifting through garbage cans to feed their kids. Its why a billion people in communist China and the old Soviet Union lived for decades in forms of slavery, grinding poverty, perhaps celebrating the apple or orange they might get a couple of times a year. It takes gritty, hard, American, adult sweat and tears, risk and initiative, maturity and self-denial to create anything that's good. It takes the adult American ideology of small government, massive liberty, and protection of private property. It takes the adult realization that nothing is free; everything takes expense and hard work. It takes, in summary, the adult world of capitalism, not the child world of socialism to get us those iPhones, Boeing 737s to fly us cheaply all over the world, clean water from our sinks, MRI scanners just down the road, and blueberries in winter at Whole Foods. All this stuff disappears, or becomes available only to the politicians who lord it over us, if the child is unleashed and told to run the place with socialism. Bernie, Barack, Ocasio-Cortez, and the great majority of our college professors and administrators are the children in adult bodies who have arrived on our shores with their socialism. They have taken over the Democratic Party, our universities, Hollywood, and our public government-monopoly schools. Soundly reject them and their ideology if you want to lead a decent, dignified American life. Embrace American adulthood. I understand the allure of socialism and leftism. I don't make fun of those who ascribe to them or their thoughts. I just encourage everyone to channel who he is meant to be not the child he always carries with him. Let people take care of themselves and the people around them as brave, strong, and free American adults. Mom and Dad are really gone from your lives. The big, iron-fisted State of socialism and leftism will not and cannot replace them. All leftism, in all its forms, from communism to Democrat socialism, does is keep us small, weak, dependent, impoverished, and very un-free little boys and girls. What shocked even the old timers in my hometown was that Mayor Hugh Addonizio, the man who gave me my Eagle Scout Award, would accept kickbacks in cash right across his desk. They were troubled less by his criminality -- that was expected in Newark -- than by his lack of subtlety. Addonizio paid for his indiscretion with a lengthy prison sentence. So it is with the current college admissions scandal. People have been scamming their ways into prestige universities for decades, maybe centuries, but in the past they have had the good sense not to put the cash on the table. It seems that in this scandal a few of the bribers and their brokers may well pay for their indiscretion with prison sentences as well. The media pretend to be shocked. In an editorial on the scandal, the New York Times singled out Harvard University for its special admissions preferences and back doors for certain applicants. This is the same New York Times, however, that published an entirely uncritical article three years prior headlined, Malia Obama Rebels, Sort of, by Choosing Harvard. Malia is the fourth member of the Obama family to attend that august university, none of whom, save perhaps for Grandpa Obama, deserved to be there. Lets start with Obama Sr., the only member of the extended family to attend college before the affirmative action/diversity era. Obama arrived at Harvard in the early 1960s with the goal of getting a Ph.D. in economics. According to biographer Sally Jacobs, Obama struggled with his studies but managed to get a Masters degree. Alas, the university booted him out on moral grounds before he could get his doctorate. An inveterate playboy despite his two ongoing marriages, Obama had an affair with a high-school girl. Denied his Ph.D., says Jacobs, He goes on to claim the title, nonetheless. He's Dr. Obama. The older he gets, the more he claims it. As will be seen, intellectual fraud runs in the family. Michelle was the next to attend Harvard, in her case Harvard Law School. Told by counselors that her SAT scores and her grades werent good enough for an Ivy League school, writes Christopher Andersen in Barack and Michelle, Michelle applied to Princeton and Harvard anyway. Sympathetic biographer Liza Mundy writes, Michelle frequently deplores the modern reliance on test scores, describing herself as a person who did not test well. She did not write well either. Mundy charitably describes her senior thesis, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community," as dense and turgid. The less charitable Christopher Hitchens observed, To describe [the thesis] as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be read at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language. Hitchens exaggerated only a little. The following summary statement by Michelle captures her unfamiliarity with many of the rules of grammar and most of logic: The study inquires about the respondents' motivations to benefit him/herself, and the following social groups: the family, the Black community, the White community, God and church, The U.S. society, the non-White races of the world, and the human species as a whole. Michelle even typed badly. Still, she was admitted to and graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law. I have been told by those on the inside that there are ways of recognizing affirmative-action admissions. Still, one almost feels sorry for Michelle. She was in so far over her head it is no wonder she projected her angst onto the white people around her. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich [sic] I interact with whites at Princeton, she wrote in the opening of her thesis, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second." Barack was the smarter and better educated half of the couple. That said, had Obamas father come from Kentucky not Kenya and been named OHara not Obama, there would been no Harvard Law Review, no Harvard, no Columbia. In his overly friendly biography, The Bridge, David Remnick writes that Obama was an unspectacular student in his two years at Columbia and at every stop before that going back to grade school. A Northwestern University prof who wrote a letter of reference for Obama reinforces the point, telling Remnick, I dont think [Obama] did too well in college. As to Obamas LSAT scores, Jimmy Hoffas body will be unearthed before those are. How such an indifferent student got into a law school whose applicants LSAT scores typically track between 98 to 99 percentile and whose GPAs range between 3.80 and 4.00 is a subject Remnick avoids. Obama does too. Although he has admitted that he undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during his academic career, he has remained mum about some reported back door influence peddling that may have been as useful to him as affirmative action. In late March 2008 the venerable African-American entrepreneur and politico Percy Sutton appeared on a local New York City show called "Inside City Hall." When asked about Obama by the shows host, Dominic Carter, the former Manhattan borough president calmly and lucidly explained that he had been introduced to [Obama] by a friend. The friend's name was Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, and the introduction had taken place about twenty years prior. Sutton described al-Mansour as "the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men." The billionaire in question was Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the same billionaire whose anti-Semitism caused Mayor Rudy Giuliani to reject his $10 million gift to New York City post 9/11. According to Sutton, al-Mansour had asked him to "please write a letter in support of [Obama]... a young man that has applied to Harvard." Sutton had friends at Harvard and gladly did so. Three months before the election it should have mattered that a respected black political figure had publicly announced that an unapologetic anti-Semite like al-Mansour, backed by an equally anti-Semitic Saudi billionaire, had been guiding Obamas career perhaps for the last twenty years, but the story died a quick and unnatural death. As for Malia, whose grades and scores are as much a state secret as her fathers, the old man damns with the faint praise of capable and conscientious. But hell, Bills daughter Chelsea got into Stanford and Georges daughter Barbara got into Yale, so this particular path to the back door was well worn. Barack Obamas back door, however, was unique to him. Before prosecutors send some of the dimmer Hollywood stars to the slammer for their dimness, they might want to ask just how much influence a Saudi billionaire peddled to get Obama into Harvard. Whatever the reason, the last presidential election appears to have destroyed any confidence that the Democrats had in the idea that Republicans are merely misguided. A currently growing cleavage within the Democratic Party itself cannot hide the fact that virtually all Democrats appear to agree on the idea that Trump is fundamentally evil and that the 63 million people who voted for him are evil for having supported him. From the very beginning even before the emergence of a new and powerful strain of progressive ideology within the party the "resistance" movement was more concerned with rejecting the morality of Republicans than with challenging their policies. The willingness of the Democrats to boycott Trump's inauguration is evidence of this, as is the enthusiasm for an investigation into his behavior without reference to any specific criminal act. Of course Trump's policy actions are resisted; this is standard practice by whatever party is out of power. The point is that the Democrat condemnation of Trump was proclaimed loudly and openly before he was sworn into office. He was to be impeached even before having done anything. At that time, those who voted for Trump began to fear that Democrats harbor an abhorrence for them as voters for having elected such an evil person. The Democrat "resistance" has done little to reason Republicans away from their support for him; instead, it has treated Trump-supporters as willing lackeys in an evil plot. It increasingly labels them as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. For all their rhetoric about how divisive the president is, it is the Democrats themselves who have forced the grand division by refusing to accept a properly elected president as legitimate. By focusing on what they fear he might do in the future rather than what he has been doing in the past and present, Democrats have found it appropriate to condemn him in an unqualified and unequivocal manner. The message for his supporters is clear: "you are willing accomplices to a fascist agenda." No self-respecting "fascist" is going to accept such slander lying down, and over the past two years, increasing numbers of Trump-supporters who at first were shrinking violets in the face of such Democrat opprobrium have become hardened against such condemnation and shaming and now look upon Trump the flawed and uncouth warrior as an exemplar. In short, Trump has set an example and ever larger numbers of his supporters are now prepared to fight back not so much because he is always right, but because the Democrats have proven to be traitors to the social contract. Democrats no longer accept Republicans as having moral integrity, an attitude that with time will destroy the republic. The great majority of Trump-supporters have come to terms with the fact that the Democrats hate them, and human nature being what it is they now view Democrats as deserving of like treatment. Self-preservation requires that Republicans respond by distrusting Democrats, and we have good logical reasons for embracing such distrust. Here are a few: 1. The efforts to delegitimize the Trump presidency that started even before he took office. 2. The constant personal attacks on the president himself rather than his policies. 3. The silence regarding anything positive that happens during the Trump presidency. 4. The willingness to undermine the president while he is engaged in foreign affairs. Above and beyond these telltale behaviors are two watershed events that have done the most to cement a Republican distrust of Democrat motives. The first is the dishonorable way in which all Democrats attempted to destroy Brett Kavanaugh with no clear evidence that he was guilty of anything. The words of Senator Lindsey Graham captured the outrage and disgust that Republicans felt regarding Democrat behavior. Indeed, his condemnation of all Democrat senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee transformed him from a suspect RINO into a conservative hero. Now we are in the middle of an even greater watershed event that is in the process of hardening Republican distrust of Democrats on a personal level. The evidence has become irrefutable that the Obama FBI spied on Trump with no solid basis for doing so; that a formal investigation of Trump was undertaken without notifying Congress, as the FBI was legally obliged to do and without notifying Trump himself; that the spying on Trump was effectuated by obtaining a FISA warrant based on a now discredited piece of opposition research assembled by the Clinton campaign; that Clinton was exonerated of documented law-breaking because the Obama Justice Department commanded it; and that the Obama administration illegally orchestrated the selective unmasking of multiple Trump staff members so as to damage the Trump campaign and then the Trump presidency. The rank-and-file Democrat had nothing to do with these many examples of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by highly placed officials in the Justice Department, the FBI, and even the Obama inner circle, but now that the evidence is out there in plain view, those rank-and-file Democrats have an obligation to condemn the perpetrators. Until they do, Republicans will condemn them as morally bankrupt. Polarization of opinion is historically common. Whenever a divisive issue seizes the attention of the American public, passionately held views conflict to an alarming degree, and a great gulf opens up between the two sides of the divide. Recent examples might include the war in Vietnam, the abortion debate, and the question as to whether access to health care is an inalienable right. Disagreement about these sorts of serious matters is perfectly normal. Usually, both sides claim to adhere to principled points of view, and their differences arise from the priority that the two parties agree upon moral principles principles that to a greater or lesser degree they both hold in some regard. But now the situation is dire: Democrats no longer trust Republicans, and Republicans are rapidly growing to distrust Democrats. Only if Democrats begin to openly admit that Trump however bad he may be in their eyes did not collude with Russia can Republican suspicions regarding their motives be assuaged. Only if Democrats reluctantly come to terms with the fact that a Democrat administration broke the law will there be any chance of re-establishing public trust in our governmental institutions. The $1.1 billion spent to repair Oroville Dam is failing as water is seeping through the rebuilt spillway threatens new mass evacuations over the risk of the dam collapsing. According to national dam expert Scott Cahill of Watershed Services of Ohio, Oroville Dam is on the same failure track as in 2017, with visible water seepage trickling from the foot of the dam and dozens of points along the dam's principal spillway. Cahill warns that warming temperatures magnified by precipitation is a growing threat to the dam. American Thinker reported on March 1 that the Sierra snow pack was at a record 113 inches, but another 44 inches fell in the next 10 days. With temperatures spiking this week to 75 degrees in the valleys and 41 degrees in the high mountains, dam inflows are running twice the outflows, and the water levels rose from 800 to 839 feet. As America's tallest earthen dam with a 770-foot face and 901-foot top of the spillway, the lake behind the Oroville Dam can hold 3.5 million acre-feet of water. Its viability is a crucial element for the effectiveness of California's system of 1,250 flood-control dams. The last time the water level rose to 815 feet in February 2017 and engineers began opening eight huge spillway gates to allow 100,000 acre-feet per second to race down the face of the dam, the spillway's midsection began seeping water at many points. The difference of the huge water pressure on the dam and the lower pressure from water running down the spillway caused the huge cement plates to rise and fall. As water seepage turned into porting streams, the spillway buckled and then washed away. Facing the risk of a 30-foot wall of water racing toward metropolitan Sacramento, the Butte County sheriff issued a mandatory evacuation of 188,000 residents. The rains ebbed, and the dam survived, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's after-action 537-page Independent Forensic Team Report found: The Oroville Dam spillway incident was caused by a long-term systemic failure of the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), regulatory, and general industry practices to recognize and address inherent spillway design and construction weaknesses, poor bedrock quality, and deteriorated service spillway chute conditions. California's potential liability for the 2017 Oroville Dam crisis was reinforced on March 14, when Sacramento Superior Court judge James McFetridge ordered discovery to begin in a lawsuit against the state for hundreds of millions in damages by the City of Oroville, dozens of farmers, businesses, and others during the two-month crisis. The plaintiffs' motion included wide-ranging allegations of dam employees suffering from sexual and racial harassment, extensive theft of equipment by dam officials, filing fraudulent financial reports, shoddy maintenance records, and a pattern of actively destroying evidence to conceal liability and criminal actions. President Trump has blamed California for systematically failing to fund known state infrastructure and safety needs, then billing the Federal Emergency Management Agency under its 75 percent reimbursement for national disaster relief claims. Based on the reports of incompetence, FEMA denied $306 million of California's first $639-million national disaster reimbursement requests for the 2017 Oroville Dam crisis. Since the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, six people who were connected in some way to the protests that followed the incident have died. Is someone or some group targeting Ferguson activists for death? Associated Press: Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose. Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play. Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officer's fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown and that only two were homicides. But activists and observers remain puzzled, especially since people involved in the protests continue to face harassment and threats. Some of the deaths, under the circumstances, seem suspicious: Fox News: One of the first activists to die was Deandre Joshua, according to the Associated Press. Joshua, 20, was shot in the head before his car was torched. Darren Seals, who was shown on video during the night of the protests comforting Brown's mother, was shot multiple times with his body torched in a vehicle as well in September 2016. Four others had also died, three of them ruled suicides. MarShawn McCarrell, an Ohio man who was an activist in Ferguson, shot himself outside the Ohio Statehouse in February 2016, police said. Edward Crawford Jr., 27, shot himself in May 2017 after telling his friends he was upset over personal issues, police said. Crawford was seen in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo firing a canister back at Ferguson police during the protests. Danye Jones, 24, was found hanging from a tree in a yard north of his home in October. His mother claimed that he had been lynched but the death was ruled a suicide, according to the Associated Press. Bassem Masri, 31, was found unresponsive on a bus and toxicology results showed he had died as a result of a fentanyl overdose. The Palestinian American had livestreamed Ferguson demonstrations. Many activists still feel a sense of hopelessness after the protests. But it's unclear if the suicides had been related to the effects of the Ferguson aftermath. What's going on? Against the backdrop of the protests, these random events become ordered in our minds and connected simply because that's how our brains are hardwired. What do we know about these dead men? The "activists" involved in the protests do not live in safe, crime-free neighborhoods. Is it easier to believe in a conspiracy to kill protesters? Or is it easier to accept that random acts of violence occurred? Is it easier to believe that three deaths were made to look like suicides, but they were murdered by white supremacists? Or is it easier to believe that hopeless, desperate, poor people decided to end their own lives? Occam's razor is useful here. The simplest explanation is the best one. You can't necessarily fault people for believing they are being targeted. Black protesters have been targeted before. But people with only a tangential connection to the protests, as these six dead men were, are almost certainly not being targeted for death. Congress has voted against President Trump's declaration of a national emergency regarding illegal immigration, and Nancy Pelosi is among many claiming that this is a "fake emergency." She doesn't seem interested in condemning any of the previous emergencies declared by any other president and renewed by President Trump. There are 31 such emergencies mentioned at the link above. Almost all of them are responding to situations in other countries that represent no immediate danger to the United States of America. They block property, persons, and transactions that might support negative situations in those other countries. I can see where these are emergencies for those other countries, but I fail to see how they are emergencies for the United States. Shouldn't our national emergencies apply to our nation, not foreign countries? Can't Congress pass laws blocking persons, etc. related to other countries? If not, maybe these aren't lawful at all, much less emergencies. The increasing influx of illegal aliens actually does affect our country. No matter how peaceful and law-abiding they might be, they do further burden schools and other infrastructure, and the additional maintenance has to be paid for. Add in the diseases many of them have, the crimes they commit, the jobs they take (under the table, for lower pay), and the exploitation of our laws by having anchor babies and collecting welfare, and we are all affected by letting these people in. Surely, when the entire nation is potentially affected in a negative way that is forecast to get worse, it is a national emergency. If Trump used that argument to declare a national emergency regarding climate change, the Democrats would all be applauding. We are in more immediate danger of diminished quality of life from mass immigration than from farting cows. Hot air does not endanger us as much as disease and violent crime. Carbon dioxide is not affecting our quality of life like increased taxes to support people who are economic migrants, not really eligible for asylum. Previous emergencies didn't undermine something Democrats want to have more of. The declarations didn't specifically allocate money to do something about the alleged emergencies. The emergencies didn't really affect our nation at all. They were for show, not substance. Now that Trump has declared an emergency against something the Democrats want, that deeply affects our nation, and that he wants money to support through actual concrete (or steel) action, the Congress is clutching its pearls about his "overreach." God forbid a president actually follow through on trying to keep the nation safe. In Iran, the tradition of "Charshanbe Soori" is the festival of fire, which occurs every year on the night before the last Wednesday of the Iranian calendar year. During this festival, which dates back to the 7th century, Iranians traditionally celebrate by lighting bonfires and jumping through the flames. In this ancient custom, they sing: "Sorkhie to az man, zardie man az to," which means: "I give my ill to the fire and receive the redness and warmth from fire." This ancient Persian "Festival of Fire," with its historic and ceremonial roots, is one of the most beloved celebrations among the Iranian people. This year, Iranians will hold the fire festival on March 19, 2019. It always begins at the sunset of the last Wednesday of the Persian year. It will begin that way this year, too. For Iranians in recent times, it has become an occasion to air their grievances against the leaders of the regime. In recent years, Iran's security forces have been cracking down on celebration early to discourage it up to two months before it begins, actually, by banning firecrackers, sparklers, and even gatherings of families and neighbors in streets. In this fire festival, ordinary Iranians pile tinder from bushes and pieces of wood in public places such as streets, alleys, and squares and then set them alight. People gather around the bonfires and jump over them with shouting. The intention is to hope for enlightenment and happiness throughout the coming year. But it's not only that. What's problematic for Iran's detested rulers is that, with the help of fire, the people also recall tribulations. The fire is conducive to meditative thinking. These include the long battle against dictatorship and the ignorance of reactionary forces throughout their history. For Iranians today, this especially includes the 40-year dark era of the ruling mullahs in Iran, from 1979 until now. By the light of the fire, Iranians think about the reality of their situation and, for many, the need to end the regime. The fire festival also has other customs. Spring housecleaning is carried out to welcome the new year. This year, many people hope the whole country will wipe out the regime for a complete cleaning. So with the fire festival, it is not uncommon for Iranians to think of ending the repression, torture, executions, and human rights abuses that have taken over their country and contemplate how the arrival of spring, as the New Year begins (on March 20, 2019) and brings hope for ending this regime forever. In response to the festival this year, the mullahs and their security forces have put bans in place on fireworks, letting businesses know they can lose their licenses to do business. These economic threats are meant to discourage people from buying fireworks to celebrate the festival. Additionally, checkpoints are being put in place, and the security forces are making it uncomfortable for individuals to gather to celebrate. The MEK (the Farsi initials for the democracy-promoting People's Mojahedin of Iran) inside Iran have called for mobilization by the Iranian people together with the "resistance units" during the celebration, marking the festival as an annual anti-regime event. They have made this fire festivity a platform for the uprising and to welcome new year. Statements issued by the prosecutors general and revolutionary prosecutors of various provinces and cities throughout Iran indicate that they are preparing for an influx of arrests. It's so extreme that in many instances, they have declared the creation of a separate branch to deal with violations and possible crimes related to the fire festival. I am not projecting as I describe the Iranian festival this way: during the past decades, the fire festival in cities across Iran became the scene of protests and expressions of outrage against the regime. Last year, the sound of exploding grenades and firecrackers was heard constantly in many cities, following the explosion of firecrackers by angry young Iranians. In this case, the regime's agents blacked out a whole town where it happened, and the attack of security forces on people turned to confrontation. Then clashes broke out between the youths and regime's mercenaries, who tried to disperse them. But this year, the fire festival will be very different from that of last year, especially after protests that rocked Iran during the past 16 months. The regime is even more fearful of the fire festival this year and has issued harassing directives in the public media to deter the people from holding the customary annual celebration. The mullahs not only fear more of the ongoing protests by Iranians throughout the country, but fear new calls for a nationwide uprising to mark this particular celebration by the resistance units. Senior Iranian officials have also acknowledged the resistance units as the organizer of the recent flare-up of protests across the country. The upcoming fire festival and the calls for protest make the situation more crucial for the regime and its suppression forces. With the coming heated fire festival, the people in Iran have this message for the regime: "Fire is the symbol of our long battle against dictatorship, we are all altogether, and repression will not affect us." Imagine the fear of mullahs! Image credit: WSJ YouTube screen grab. Most left-leaning Democratic presidential candidates are touting "single payer" health care insurance, which, as candidate Kamala Harris has admitted, does mean giving up one's private insurance, whether you like it or not, and having the government take over. It's billed as the new solution. Here's the problem with having the government make all of your health care decisions for you, based on a New York Times report from socialist Venezuela: In interviews, 16 members of Cuba's medical missions to Venezuela a signature element of relations between the two countries described a system of deliberate political manipulation in which their services were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion. Many tactics were used, they said, from simple reminders to vote for the government to denying treatment for opposition supporters with life-threatening ailments. The Cuban doctors said they were ordered to go door-to-door in impoverished neighborhoods, offering medicine and warning residents that they would be cut off from medical services if they did not vote for Mr. Maduro or his candidates. Many said their superiors directed them to issue the same threats during closed-door consultations with patients seeking treatment for chronic diseases. One former Cuban supervisor said that she and other foreign medical workers were given counterfeit identification cards to vote in an election. Another doctor said she and others were told to give precise voting instructions to elderly patients, whose infirmities made them particularly easy to manipulate. Hear that? Once the government has a monopoly on health care, it can do whatever it wants with how it doles that care out. The patient becomes powerless. Venezuela does have a private health care system, or at least did, payable via market rates (and some charity care), but the vast majority of the people were condemned to the public system, and from that pre-Chavez public system, the Cuban doctors become the super-public version, with then-strongman Hugo Chavez's constitution decreeing "health care a right." In an age like ours, where political dissidents are being singled out and censored with impunity on monopolistic platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, it wouldn't take long for a government monopoly on health care to kick in, with political picking and choosing on who gets what health care and, eventually, who gets health care at all. In Venezuela, it took only 20 years for the full hell to become evident. Single-payer health care is billed as a panacea by Democrats now, because Obamacare, with its arbitrary one-size-fits-all mandates, is such a failure, and people loathe it. Wouldn't it be great to get the government to do everything instead? Like Denmark? Like Cuba? Well, in Denmark, you do have to pay. In Cuba and Venezuela you get what you pay for, and with no money in the country, your vote becomes the way you pay. Seriously: your vote. So now we return to the U.S., and all the fermenty talk by Democrats about ripping out the current health care system, which, with Obamacare, involves high costs for getting quality care. Obamacare was sold to voters as an improvement over the existing private system, and now single-payer is the new panoply of promises. Obamacare is bad but the one thing that would make it even worse would be to have the government choose the care we get. Bureaucrats would be hired, the government apparatus would replace the private one, and costs would skyrocket. Then, as shortages follow, rationing kicks in, and money runs out, the whole government care thing will eventually be premised on how we vote, with some creepily vague rationale such as "terms of service." Image credit: Jose Alfaro via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fox's newest fan is a Jew-hating member of Congress. Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar is extremely grateful that Fox defended her and punished Judge Jeanine Pirro for asking a legitimate question. On Saturday, Fox suddenly canceled Pirro's highly rated weekly show Justice with Judge Jeanine. After Justice failed to appear on Fox's upcoming weekend schedule, a spokesperson for the network refused to comment on "internal scheduling matters," according to USA Today. In a statement following Judge Jeanine's opening remarks on March 9, Fox News "strongly condemned" Pirro's comments about Muslim Rep. Omar. A Muslim Fox News associate producer, Hufsa Kamal Khan, also called out Pirro, asking her to stop "spreading the false narrative" that Muslim women wearing a hijab "aren't American enough." The funny thing is, the judge's logical examination of the origin of Omar's anti-Semitic statements was not bigoted, nor false, nor inciteful. She asked a valid question. From YouTube: Think about this. She's [Omar] not getting this anti-Israel sentiment doctrine from the Democrat Party. So if it's not rooted in the party, where is she getting it from? Think about it. Omar wears a hijab, which, according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they won't get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?" Why does the never-ending call for "dialogue" between non-Muslims and Muslims in this country exclude asking Jeanine's hard question relating to possible conflicts between a Muslim congresswoman's fidelity to Islamic teachings and the Constitution? As a salaried representative of the American people, Congresswoman Omar should be able to answer the following: "Are you an American or a Muslim first?" In September 2017, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a far-left member of Omar's Democratic Party, essentially grilled a Catholic conservative judicial nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about this very issue. From the N.C. Register: "You are controversial," Feinstein declared. "You have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail. When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that's of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country." "The dogma lives loudly" in a Catholic judicial nominee but not in a Muslim congresswoman? If Feinstein's interrogation of Barrett is the Democratic Party's standard for determining whether a government official's faith-based convictions will prevent him from upholding the Constitution, then Rep. Omar's fealty to the tenets of Islam is fair game. As the host of a "free forum" that debates topics with politicians and pundits from across the political spectrum, Jeanine's inquisitive argumentation is truly within her job description. Fox's censorship of Judge Jeanine over a genuine analysis and probing into Omar's anti-Semitic comments puts the network in the same league as other networks and social media giants who allow open criticism of Christianity and Judaism while suppressing any cynical commentary concerning Islam. Predictably, conservative threads reveal that Fox is in serious trouble with its viewers. When the popular Judge Jeanine gets removed from her show for confronting Jew-hatred by an elected representative, yet Omar, who had to delete anti-Semitic tweets, and who is coddled by an Islamic extremist organization known as CAIR, gets an apology, something is insanely upside-down over at Fox. Edit: question for Omar re-worded The nation is focused on foreign influence on American politics in any number of ways. The issues range from the discredited witch hunt directed at President Trump, the prosecution of Paul Manafort for failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), congressional investigations into whether Russians used social media to influence elections, Chinese spyware, Representative Ilhan Omar's hostile statements about lawmakers' alleged dual loyalty to Israel, and whether green groups are acting as unregistered foreign agents to the recent announcement by the Justice Department of plans to step up FARA investigations and even the larger debate about whether foreigners entering the United States illegally have the requisite intent of being loyal to our constitutional rule of law a legitimate concern that any sovereign nation may impose on those who seek permanent inclusion within its boundaries and protections. Last week, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro found herself in curious hot water for asking a legitimate question about Ilhan Omar: "Omar wears the hijab, which according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they won't get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?" It was the late Justice Antonin Scalia who raised the profile of the intellectual, constitutional debate about foreign law and its influence on American legal interpretation. Scalia and other originalists have recognized the First Amendment right of Muslims to practice their faith. That issue, however, is distinct from whether foreign law may be used to construe or influence American law under our Constitution, which is our fundamental and paramount law governing government itself. The question of whether sharia or any foreign laws, including those from socialist regimes, may be used to dilute or even construe American constitutional law is fundamental to our national political debate. Those who seek to suppress that debate in their pursuit of political correctness do substantial harm to the First Amendment under, which they purportedly operate. Judge Jeanine's question posits correctly that sharia law "is antithetical to the United States Constitution," not that Muslims may not practice their faith. The National Center for Constitutional Studies, for example, writes that "Shariah is Anti-Constitutional" and makes these observations about conflicts between sharia law and the U.S. Constitution: Whether pursued through the violent form of jihad (holy war) or stealthier practices that shariah Islamists often refer to as "dawa" (the "call to Islam"), shariah rejects fundamental premises of American society and values: the bedrock proposition that the governed have a right to make law for themselves; the democratic republic governed by the Constitution; freedom of conscience; individual liberty freedom of expression (including the liberty to analyze and criticize shariah); economic liberty (including private property); equal treatment under the law (including that of men and women, and of Muslims and non-Muslims); freedom from cruel and unusual punishments; an unequivocal condemnation of terrorism (i.e., one that is based on a common sense meaning of the term and does not rationalize barbarity as legitimate "resistance"); and an abiding commitment to deflate and resolve political controversies by the ordinary mechanisms of our democratic republic, not wanton violence. The subversion campaign known as "civilization jihad" must not be confused with, or tolerated as, a constitutionally protected form of religious practice. Its ambitions transcend what American law recognizes as the sacrosanct realm of private conscience and belief. It seeks to supplant our Constitution with its own totalitarian framework. Andrew McCarthy wrote in 2016, "[F]oreign policy of the United States has for a generation proceeded on the absurd assumption that sharia and Western liberalism are perfectly, seamlessly compatible." This absurdity is only advanced in suppressing legitimate debate. A recent conversation I had with my new Muslim friend coincidentally, on a visit to the Fox News studios affirms that there is no inconsistency in what Judge Jeanine asked. He said, "So many Americans complain, but they don't know how lucky they are," referring to God's blessings. We may have a different faith about what God directs, but my new Muslim friend clearly appreciates America's freedoms and benefits under our Constitution, unlike so many politically correct American malcontents. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who has been trying to sell himself as Hispanic, was trolled by the Republican National Committee on St. Patrick's Day with a tweet that featured his mug shot from a 1998 drunk driving arrest and hinted that his Irish heritage had something to do with his drinking. Washington Examiner: "On this St. Paddy's Day, a special message from noted Irishman Robert Francis O'Rourke," the post said, which featured his mugshot with a leprechaun hat atop his head, along with the message "Please drink responsibly." On this St. Paddy's Day, a special message from noted Irishman Robert Francis O'Rourke. pic.twitter.com/JRjMEXhZRY GOP (@GOP) March 17, 2019 I am not insanely sensitive to slights of this sort. Frankly, I don't think it's a big deal, despite being the grandson of Irish immigrants. The hard drinking, hard fighting stereotype of the Irish has been ingrained in American culture for 150 years. It used to be something of a source of pride among the Irish. But making ethnic jokes about anyone is poor form these days. The RNC got an earful from several Republicans. "Do better, @GOP," tweeted Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., who has criticized his party for its decorum during the Trump presidency. "Be better." Doug Stafford, an aide to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also denounced the tweet. "If you think you're funny or clever by stereotyping and making fun of any race or nationality to score political points, you're an idiot, and you should probably not tweet," Stafford said. Conservative commentator Erick Erickson suggested the RNC's commentary was petty and childish. "Will an adult please take the Twitter keys away from whichever child is tweeting at the RNC?" he wrote in a Twitter post. I think we've gone over the top in being offended by jokes. This is borderline offensive, but hardly an occasion to call someone an "idiot" for thinking it up. We used to be able to laugh at ourselves and each other, basing some of that humor on stereotypes because we were all familiar with them. Irish drank a lot, Germans were industrious and serious, British had a stiff upper lip it's how we used to think of our neighbors and ourselves. Certainly, racial stereotypes are hurtful and should never be used. It's painful to watch TV from the 1950s today and see the portrayal of blacks, Indians, and Asians. But perhaps we've matured enough as a nation that ethnic stereotypes should be shelved as well. I still think that ethnic jokes are fine, as long as they're not hurtful or demeaning. But times have changed, and people are looking for reasons to be outraged today. No sense in giving them what they want. Revenue garnered from the United States' Section 232 tariffs - in place for almost a year - stood at $4.3 billion for steel and $1.4 billion for aluminium as of Thursday February 21, 2019, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection. While the blanket 25% steel tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration has helped US steel mills reap record profits, restart idled capacity and expand new projects, it has also resulted in rising supply chain costs across various sectors. US importers have been forced to pay additional taxes on roughly $23 billion in steel imports, according to the recently introduced Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act of 2019. But there are some ways that companies can better manage trade under Section 232, sources told Fastmarkets AMM. Vietnam takes duties in stride, quietly builds market share Vietnam, not a traditional supplier of flat steel products to the US, has quietly been making inroads into the US market since the Sections 232 tariffs were imposed. While Canada and South Korea remain the top suppliers, US flat steel imports from Vietnam rose to 781,760 tonnes last year, up by 79% from 436,850 tonnes in 2017, International Trade Administration data show. The Section 232 tariffs have caused traditional suppliers to pull back from the US market. Countries such as China, Japan, Europe, Mexico and Canada are subject to 25% Section 232 tariffs, while imports from South Korea, Argentina and Brazil are locked in at certain volumes under quota agreements. This has given Vietnam an opportunity to step in, industry participants and legal experts said. Vietnamese suppliers are willing to sell flat products below cost for now to gain US market share in the long run. For example, basic hot-rolled commodity grades that were priced at $800 per tonne would be offered by Vietnam at $600 per tonne or even lower, potentially attracting more buyers. Moving upstream an expanding slab market Rather than go downstream for a finished product to avoid tariffs, the other option is to go one or a couple of stages upstream. An importer needing HR product, for example, can instead import slab and run it through a re-roller to get the final product. There is excessive rolling capacity in the US, particularly with a slowdown and price decline in the HR market. The advantage is that the customer can pay the 25% tariff on a lower dollar-per-tonne input cost. Fastmarkets AMMs daily US Midwest HRC index was calculated at $34.61 per cwt on March 15, down by 1.4% from $35.09 per cwt the day before and off 0.8% from $34.90 per cwt a week earlier. The price had hit a nearly decade-high of $45.84 per cwt in early July of last year. Fastmarkets weekly assessment of the Brazilian slab export price reached $500-540 per tonne fob on March 15, unchanged from the previous week but up from $490-530 per tonne fob at the end of February. The price had hit a 12-month high of $600-610 per tonne fob in mid-April of last year. Similarly if a customer needs to roll cold-rolled or galvanized product for automotive applications, it can import HR and re-roll it in the US or it can import slab. US slab imports averaged about 5 million tonnes per year from 2015-18, with Brazil the top supplier, US International Trade Commission data show. And the Section 232 tariffs have helped this market expand, industry participants and trade lawyers said. Semi-finished steel imports, slab being the majority, have steadily gained market share since 2015, comprising 39% of total imports in October 2018 - the highest level in more than 20 years - and 23% of total imports last year as a whole. All five major slab converters in the US AM/NS Calvert LLC, Evraz North America, JSW Steel (USA), California Steel Industries Inc and NLMK USA, last year submitted requests for exemptions from the Section 232 tariffs on imported semi-finished goods. In late February, the US Commerce Department denied CSIs exemption request for slab imported from Japan, Brazil and Mexico, as well as Evraz NAs request to exempt Russian semi-finished goods. Going downstream - fabricated products moving offshore Companies buying steel to make finished products, such as filing cabinets, have also started shifting production abroad in reaction to the Section 232 tariffs. One example is in thick wire rod, for which the re-rolling business is moving offshore and the final product then shipped to the US. Freight costs would typically be a barrier to this scenario, but it becomes more economical when factoring in the 25% Section 232 tariffs on steel. While this transition takes time, it is nonetheless under way in some segments of the industry, legal experts said. It changes the math which drives people to shift what products they are shipping. But that change takes a little time as industries do not just react immediately, one trade lawyer said. The Trump administration is fully aware of this shift and is mulling whether to expand Section 232 to downstream products, legal experts in Washington said. Swap deals under Section 232 Companies can also blend their imports from tariffed countries by doing swap deals with countries having agreed quotas, although legal experts caution that only companies with operations in multiple countries can manage that well. Cost sharing, bonded warehouse Cost sharing is another common way to manage the Section 232 tariffs, especially for commodity-grade steel items such as HR, CR and coated steel. In some cases, companies are evenly split with a 50:50 share. For value-added or downstream products, such as pipe and tube, cost sharing might not always work. One example is the US pipeline market, which is booming due to new fracking and natural gas projects. Importing steel pipe when there is a set delivery schedule could involve huge financial penalties if deliveries are missed. So in this case, the customer might have to shoulder the 25% tariff so that the steel pipe can arrive on time even if the contract was negotiated the prior year and prices are much higher at the time of shipment. Fastmarkets AMM's monthly assessment of US import X52 line pipe stood at $1,090-1,250 per short ton cif port of Houston on February 26, up from $900-$930 per ton at the same point last year, and that for US domestic X52 line pipe rose to $1,200-1,260 per ton fob mill from $1,100-$1,125 per ton in the same comparison. Utilizing a bonded warehouse can also help companies tackle Section 232 by slowing the impact of the tariff and changing the value of the sale. Duties on merchandise in a bonded warehouse aren't paid until it is removed, and goods can be kept there for up to five years. So importers with large inventories can use that as a mechanism to manage cash flow problems. What some of these companies are doing is putting everything in there and only taking out what they absolutely must take out to serve their customers, and hoping and praying that soon enough the tariffs will be lifted and then they can ultimately release the goods, a second trade lawyer said, noting that quotas can quickly fill up on tight categories. The goods are on the water, and then the quota fills, they are stuck. The only thing they could do is either to export it or put it in the bonded warehouse, sit it out and wait for the quota to reopen, so thats your possibility there, this trade lawyer added. The Mauthausen concentration camp, situated about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz in Upper Austria, was the hub of one of the largest labor camp complexes in the German-controlled part of Europe, with a central camp near the village of Mauthausen, and nearly one hundred other subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. Among these Mauthausen had the most brutal detention conditions. It was classified Grade III, where the most incorrigible political enemies of the Reich were sent to be exterminated, often through exhaustion by grueling forced labor. The SS called Mauthausen Knochenmuhle, or the bone grinder. The camp was located on the edge of a granite quarry where camp inmates were sent to work. Indeed, the site for the camp was chosen because of the quarrys close proximity to Linz, a city Hitler planned to rebuild with grandiose buildings as envisioned by Albert Speer. The Stairs of Death at Mauthausen concentration camp, then and now. Several times throughout the day, prisoners were forced to carry blocks of stone, often weighing as much as 50 kilograms, up the 186 stairs of the so called "Stairs of Death". Often, exhausted prisoners would collapse and drop their load on top of those following, creating a horrific domino effect with prisoners falling onto the next, and so on, all the way down the stairs. The heavy stones would crush their limbs and bodies. People died on these stairs every day. Sometimes, the SS guards would force the exhausted prisoners to race up the stairs carrying blocks of stone. Those who survived the ordeal would then be placed in a line-up at the edge of a cliff, the SS called "The Parachutists Wall". At gun-point each prisoner would have the option of being shot or pushing the prisoner in front of him off the cliff. Some prisoners, unable to bear the tortures of the camp, would willfully jump off the cliff. Such suicides were frequent. Today, the "Stairs of Death" form part of the guided tours at the Mauthausen Memorial. The stairs have been redone and straightened so that tourists can easily climb up and down them, but at that time they were tilted and slippery. From the accounts of Christian Bernadac, a French resistance fighter who was imprisoned at Mauthausen, and later wrote a book titled The 186 Steps, Those who visit the Mauthausen quarry today, don't see the same thing, for since then, the steps have been redone - a real stairway, cemented, and regular. At that time, they were simply cut with a pick into the clay and rock, held in place by logs, unequal in height and tread, and therefore extremely difficult, not only for climbing but also for the descent. Stones rolled under our wooden-soled sandals, and we were forced to keep moving at a very rapid pace. The work consisted of carrying up a stone of considerable size and weight, along the 186 steps, after which there was still a considerable distance to cover. The man who chose a stone found to be too small was out of luck. And all of this went on at the rate of eight to ten trips per day. The pace was infernal, without a second's rest. The Mauthausen quarry is now overgrown with trees and bushes. Much of the camp site is also covered by residential areas built after the war. There is a museum now and a visitor center. Photo credit: Ramon Cutanda Lopez/Flickr Photo credit: Sonya Brunt/Panoramio Photo credit: Martin/Flickr Photo credit: damian entwistle/Flickr Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia SS officers climbing the "Stairs of Death", April 1941. Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia View of the Wiener Graben quarry and stone "stairs of death" (Todesstiege) at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Prisoners at forced labor in the Wiener Graben quarry at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Sources: Wikipedia / scrapbookpages.com / www.wien.gv.at Nokia 9 PureView https://youtu.be/sjGXdahzz7Y Nokias comeback as an Android vendor has been a bit of a slow rollout, but 2019 is ready to deliver one of the most anticipated flagship devices in recent memory: the Nokia 9 PureView. Rumored for months and dreamed about for years, Nokias legendary mobile photography skills have been put to the test and have generated one of the most interesting concepts in mobile photography that weve ever seen. A 5-camera array sits on back, providing a uniquely detailed and color-accurate view of the world, touting the ability to create significantly more accurate bokeh effects as well as the ability to refocus the entire scene after taking a picture. Advertisement At a special $599 price the Nokia 9 PureView represents the most advanced mix of computational photography and hardware prowess in the industry, and theres plenty of processing power left over for every day tasks too. Its also part of the Android One ecosystem which means that it gets all the latest updates as soon as theyre available from Google. Nokias support of its Android One-powered phones over the years has been phenomenal, to say the least, and theyre still providing major OS upgrades for phones that are several years old without delay. Looking for an affordable, pure Android experience with one of the best cameras in the business? Look no further but be sure to act quick, as this is a limited edition phone. Nokia 9 PureView - Amazon Nokia 9 PureView - Best Buy Advertisement Nokia 9 PureView - B&H Photo HONOR View20 https://youtu.be/-yKLN4ZkX4E Advertisement Theres no doubt that camera technology has been a huge selling point of phones lately, somehow even more so than years past, but there have been some significant technological achievements to create this extra buzz. The HONOR View20 is the first phone to launch with Sonys latest generation IMX586 sensor, the first 48-megapixel camera sensor ever equipped on a smartphone. This, combined with HONORs truly excellent camera software and image processing makes the View20 one of the very best cameras you can buy, especially when considering the price of the View20. At $499, the HONOR View20 undercuts most flagship phones by selling at half the cost, all while delivering an identical (or better) camera experience and even packing Huaweis latest-generation flagship SoC, the Kirin 980. It also ships with a heavily modified version of Android 9 Pie, dubbed MagicUI 2, and bears a striking resemblance to Huaweis EMUI 9. HONOR has created a design thats incredibly attractive, including unique colors and a pattern that catches the eye immediately. The HONOR View20 isnt just a great value, its also an unmatched camera experience at the price. HONOR View20 - Amazon Advertisement Razer Phone 2 As a brand, Razer has long been a staple for gamers that want both style and performance. This DNA has been brought over to Razers second generation Android-powered smartphone, which features all the performance you want, coupled with that glowing RGB style that you know and love. Razer just dropped the Android 9 Pie update, as well as a huge drop in the price. Retailing for $499 for the month of March, the Razer Phone 2 is an easy recommendation for folks who want a snappy OS, liquid smooth 120Hz screen, the loudest stereo front-facing speakers on any phone, and some notable enhancements for mobile gaming. Advertisement Razer Phone 2 - Amazon Read more: Razer Phone 2 Android 9 Pie Update Sony Xperia XZ3 Advertisement Sonys mobile division is known for pumping out many similar-looking flagship devices several times per year, but the past few releases have curbed this idea for a more dramatic approach. The Sony Xperia XZ3 represented a big shift in design language from past Xperia flagships, including the inclusion of Sonys first-ever OLED panel on a smartphone, as well as the companys first curved display. This without detracting from any of what made the Xperia XZ2 incredible, such as stereo front-facing speakers and an amazing selfie camera, all while shrinking bezels and slimming down the build. The rear camera is no slouch either, and while its not quite as impressive in every situation as some other smartphones, Sonys got plenty of tricks up its sleeve. 4K HDR video recording is something that only LG offers on the V40, while Sony now has two flagship phones with this ability. Its also got the best super slow-motion video recording in the business and a unique way of predicting when a picture needs to be captured, offering ways to select the best picture taken from an automated burst. Our review below will fill you in on all the details if youre interested in Sonys latest. Sony Xperia XZ3 - Amazon Advertisement Read more: Sony Xperia XZ3 review LG V40 ThinQ https://youtu.be/L4Z27kl3mjQ LGs V-series has earned a name for itself in many ways, and the V40 ThinQ has caught plenty of attention since its launch back in the Fall of 2018. Since then the phone has seen a handful of updates that addressed a few issues at launch, including the addition of a bunch of new features specifically related to the camera experience. As is the case with many flagship phones, the LG V40 ThinQ places a heavy emphasis on the camera experience, but LG does it a little differently by offering up a more versatile camera experience than most OEMs could dream of having on their phones. 3 cameras on back and 2 cameras on front, all offering a wide range of focal lengths and manual settings controls for each and every one. These manual settings arent just for pictures either, theyre also for video, which is something no other smartphone line on the market does. Its also got the highest quality audio output on any smartphone, with a quad-DAC that reduces white noise and provides a significant increase in overall quality and balance when compared to other phones. Check out the links below to find out more, particularly our reviews for LGs latest. LG V40 ThinQ - AT&T LG V40 ThinQ - Sprint LG V40 ThinQ - T-Mobile LG V40 ThinQ - Verizon Read more: LG V40 ThinQ camera review Read more: LG V40 ThinQ phone review OnePlus 6T OnePluss ascent in the market is nothing short of extraordinary, coming from an invite-only smartphone OEM to one of the largest OEMs in quite a few parts of the world. With the OnePlus 6T the company officially expanded to the US, thanks to T-Mobile, and can now be bought in any T-Mobile store as well as the usual online retailers. The OnePlus 6T represents one of the best values in the smartphone industry, which is something OnePlus has been doing since its original OnePlus One smartphone. Offering one of the fastest experiences on any Android phone, the OnePlus line is also marked by an excellent update schedule thats faster than most other OEMs, all while continually offering meaningful feature updates and additions over the years. OnePlus 6T - OnePlus.com Read more: OnePlus 6t review Huawei Mate 20 Pro Huaweis Mate 20 Pro heralded in the era of reverse wireless charging and brought a gorgeous curved OLED screen, an in-glass fingerprint scanner and a sleek curved body design to Huaweis already incredible line of flagship devices. The Mate 20 Pro packs an award-winning triple camera system around back, making this the single best smartphone photography experience on the market without a doubt. This system provides a brand new ultra wide-angle camera around back, which doubles as a super macro camera, as well as a 5x optical zoom telephoto lens too. Be sure to check out our in-depth camera review below to find out why its such a great experience and why Huaweis phones have been so lauded for their abilities. Much like the other phones on our list that primarily focus on the camera, the rest of the experience isnt lacking in any way. A full-featured EMUI 9 OS thats built upon Android 9 Pie powers the experience alongside a huge 4,000mAh battery which reliably delivers 2-day battery life for the average user. Its also got a super-fast Kirin 980 SoC and plenty of RAM to keep the experience smooth without compromising on everything else. Aside from the price being a deterring factor, its nearly impossible not to recommend Huaweis latest, especially if taking photos is an important part of your life. Huawei Mate 20 Pro - Amazon Read more: Huawei Mate 20 Pro camera review Read more: Huawei Mate 20 Pro review Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 Xiaomis Mi MIX line has been incredibly innovative from the beginning, launching the whole no bezel craze back in 2016 when the original Mi MIX launched. Since then weve seen a further reduction in bezels, specifically with the Mi MIX 3 which has virtually no bezel around the entire phone. This is achieved by using a sliding mechanism to reveal the front-facing cameras, which are hidden behind the screen normally, and makes for not only an interesting phone, but a beautiful one too. To further enhance this look, Xiaomi has kept the ceramic build across all three generations of Mi MIX phones, giving the MIX 3 a unique look and feel when compared to other smartphones. Xiaomis own MIUI 10 is a brilliant OS thats build upon Android 9 Pie and brings about some significant visual and navigational changes from Googles own. The Overview/Recents screen, for instance, looks completely different from stock Android which, in this case, is a very good thing since it not only allows for more information on the screen at once, but also makes multitasking a far easier and quicker process. Couple this with fantastic battery life, the best camera Xiaomi has ever put on a smartphone, and frequent updates on a regular schedule and youve got a phone thats well worth taking a look at. Oh, and dont forget the price, which is regularly half the price of similarly specced flagships from companies like Samsung or LG. Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 - Amazon Read more: Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 review Samsung Galaxy Note 9 https://youtu.be/5gi4wtUbuWc Samsungs Galaxy Note 9 may have launched before every other phone on this list, but that just goes to show how much of a powerhouse phone it was back in early Fall 2018. Samsung held nothing back with the Note 9 and it feels just as good today as it did over half a year ago. Sure, it seems ridiculous to think that half a year sounds old for a product, but given the rate of change in the smartphone industry, 6 months can be a very long time in making a product look or feel old. That said, the Galaxy Note 9 remains the single most well-rounded device on the list, especially at the reduced prices you can find it for across the globe. What makes the Galaxy Note 9 so good? Everything, really. Theres no real shortcomings to the Note 9 as a product thats purpose-built to fulfill every need you could have for a smartphone. Industry-leading display, fantastic audio output quality, a 3.5mm audio jack with great audio reproduction, huge battery with full-day battery life, wireless charging, IP68 water and dust resistance. Basically, you name it, the Note 9 probably has it, and the venerable S-Pen was an industry-changing idea when it launched and remains the best built-in stylus on any device. Need a phone that does it all and does all of that very well? The Note 9 is a perfect choice. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 - Samsung.com Read More: Samsung Galaxy Note 9 camera review Read More: Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review Samsung Galaxy S10 Samsung is changing things up in big ways with the Galaxy S10 family, which now comes in four different sizes and prices. Available this month are the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, and the Galaxy S10+. Two of these devices are nearly identical aside from size, while the Galaxy S10e packs similar components in a smaller, less expensive package. The experience is largely the same, no matter which model you pick, and the choice in the end revolves around how capable you need your smartphone to be on a daily basis. All three have brilliant screens, big batteries, fast processors and plenty of RAM, and the S10e even changes out that curved display for a flat one, giving users a choice if they dont like curved displays. The biggest differences will be found in the camera experience, where the Galaxy S10 and S10+ both feature three cameras around back, while the S10e only features two. These cameras brings about the widest focal length on any Galaxy series phone to date, and the widest ultra-wide angle camera on any smartphone as well. Its not just about cameras though, as OneUI brings a fresh new look to Samsungs software experience, as well as a brand new ultrasonic in-glass fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S10 and S10+. That fourth model, the Galaxy S10 5G, wont be available for a while yet, but when it launches itll bring about a faster wireless experience and even more premium features than the already top-specced Galaxy S10+. Take a look at all your options below to see what fits best for you, but know that whichever you choose, its likely the very best experience youll find on an Android-powered device without fail. Pre-Order Samsung Galaxy S10 Read more: Samsung Galaxy S10 Family Sonys newest mid-range smartphones, the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus are now available. These smartphones, unlike the high-end bunch, are not made of glass, but you are still going to want a case for these. That is because these smartphones are taller than most others, making them a bit tougher to hold onto, especially one handed. Youll also want some other accessories for these like a PopSocket so you can hold onto it. Weve rounded up the best accessories for both the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus smartphones, that you can buy. These are all available today, not up for pre-order. AVIDET Clear Case Xperia 10 Plus Advertisement The Xperia 10 Plus may not have the best design out there, but it is pretty unique. Some people may still want to show off the design of the Xperia 10 Plus and with this clear case from AVIDET, youll be able too. Its a clear case with reinforced sides that will take impact, if the phone is dropped for some reason. Definitely a good thing for those that might be a bit clumsy. This is a fully TPU case, so its going to stay pretty lightweight and not add a lot of bulk to your smartphone, which is always a good thing. Advertisement You can pick up the AVIDET Clear Case for the Xperia 10 Plus from Amazon for about $8, using the link down below. SCL Carbon Fiber Case Xperia 10 Advertisement SCL has a really good looking carbon fiber case for the Sony Xperia 10. Which is going to protect your entire Xperia 10. It does also have reinforced sides, which should give it some cushion if it does get dropped. This case also has a slight lip over the display, so that it will also protect the display if that is dropped at all. With this having a carbon fiber feel on the back, it not only looks cool, but it also adds some texture. This texture makes it easier to hold onto the phone, so that it wont slip out of your hands. You can pick up the SCL Carbon Fiber case for the Xperia 10 from Amazon using the link below. It is currently priced at just $7. Advertisement PopSockets PopSockets are great for taller phones like the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus. These make it easier to hold onto your phone, so you dont risk dropping it. The PopSocket will fit between your fingers, making it almost impossible to drop the phone. PopSockets can also double as a stand for your phone. So if you are on a plane and want to watch a movie on your phone, you wont need to hold it in your hand the entire time which can be rather annoying, to be honest. Advertisement This is something that every smartphone owner should have. You can place it on the back of your case, and its going to be a life saver. Whether you are not used to handling larger phones, or taller phones, or just want a way to prop up your phone to watch a movie, this is the route to go. And for its price, it cant be beat. These are available in all sorts of colors and patterns. PopSockets start at $9.99 and go up from there. They are definitely worth the price, and while they do add some bulk to the back of your phone, it is definitely a nice accessory to have. Especially on these larger phones. You can pick one up from Amazon using the link below. AUKEY USB-C Charger Advertisement Sony does include a quick charge charger in the box with both the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus. But it never hurts to have an extra one laying around. This USB-C charger from AUKEY is capable of Power Delivery or PD, which is actually safer than Quick Charge over USB-A. Its also pretty small, so its great to keep in your bag when traveling, or to have at the office. This wall charger is capable of doing around 18W for USB-C PD, which is going to be plenty fast for most smartphones. It wont be fast enough for charging laptops and possible tablets though. As those usually need 30W (closer to 60W for laptops), to actually charge. Especially if you are using them. Advertisement You can pick up this USB-C wall charger from AUKEY for just $17 and its available from Amazon using the link below. Anker PowerLine+ Anker has its own line of USB-C to USB-C cables, which are currently available and a really great cable for the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus. They will also work out well with the USB-C charger that we listed above. The Anker PowerLine+ cables are great because they are plenty long, coming in at about six-feet, and they are also braided. This means that they are going to be a lot more durable than some of the other cables on the market. You wont need to worry about them getting bent, as it can withstand more bends than the normal plastic coated USB-C cables. You can pick up this Anker PowerLine+ cable from Amazon in black, red or white colors. It is available for just $16. Which might seem pricey for a cable, but this is one that you likely will never need to replace. RAVPower 24W 4.8A Dual-USB Car Adapter RAVPower has a dual-port car charger here, that will do 2.4A out of each port, and make it great for charging your smartphone while youre driving. This car charger is also pretty small, which is a bit surprising, given the charging speeds that it offers. Its not quite as small as the ones from AUKEY though, which fit flush. This car charger does 4.8A or 2.4A each. Thats about the same speed as Quick Charge 2.0, but slower than Quick Charge 3.0. It uses RAVPowers proprietary iSmart+ technology which will automatically charge your phone at the fastest speed possible, without damaging the phone. That way when you get to your destination, youre going to have a fully charged battery. Something everyone can appreciate. You can pick up this RAVPower dual-port USB car charger from Amazon using the link below. It is currently priced at $6.99 which is an absolute steal. Sony CH700N Wireless Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones Both the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus have headphone jacks, but that doesnt mean you cant embrace the wireless future. The Sony CH700N Wireless Headphones are a great purchase to go with either of these smartphones. The CH700N are a pair of more inexpensive noise cancelling headphones from Sony. These do offer some great noise cancellation, and some great sound quality. The only real difference here is that there is no EXTRA BASS support. Meaning that you wont be getting that deep bass that you may experience on some other headphones on the market. Battery life is also pretty good, coming in at around 35 hours. You can pick up the Sony CH700N Wireless Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones from Amazon using the link below, for just $79.95. Samsung EVO Select 128GB Micro SD Card Sony has equipped the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus with 64GB of internal storage. But sometimes, that is not enough space. So a micro SD card is going to be a great option for those that need some extra space. And this Samsung micro SD card is a great option. For about $20, you can basically triple your storage on your smartphone. Remember that with a micro SD card, you wont be able to store all of your apps and games on it, but you can store your pictures, videos and such on that micro SD card. So if you are one that keeps a lot of music available offline, this is going to be a really good option. Or, if you are one that takes a lot of photos or shoots a lot of video, this will also be a good option. You can pick up the Samsung EVO Select 128GB Micro SD Card from Amazon using the link below, for just $20. Wrap Up The Sony Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus smartphones are some of the best looking and best specced mid-range smartphones released in 2019 so far, so its no surprise that these are going to be popular smartphones. These both offer the 21:9 aspect ratio displays that Sony is trying to make popular. Sony also gave both of these metal backsides, which makes them a bit more durable than a glass backed Xperia 1. But youre still going to want a case for these smartphones, as well as a few other accessories. Whether youre looking for a better way to hold onto the Xperia 10 or a way to charge it while youre in the car, this list has everything for you. From car chargers, to wall chargers, to USB-C cables and everything in between. The PopSockets also listed here is something that every smartphone owner should have. It really makes a huge difference, especially for those that do have smaller hands, and are not used to holding onto larger phones. With the Xperia 10 and Xperia 10 Plus being much taller, that is going to be an issue with these phones. According to a new report, Samsung will supply displays for the upcoming Huawei P30 Pro flagship. In fact, Samsung will be the sole supplier for the Huawei P30 Pro OLED panels, claims this report. Interestingly enough, the report mentions only the P30 Pro, though we can assume that the same will be the case with the P30 as well, as both devices are expected to sport OLED panels, and if rumors are to be believed, both will include fullHD+ panels. This information surfaced on Weibo, and the post claims to have inside information. Some reason for this move on Huaweis part are also listed in the report. The source claims that the main reason is Samsungs status in the industry, Samsung is the biggest smartphone OLED supplier, and has all it takes to pull off the high demand that Huawei needs for the P30 Pro, and possibly P30 as well. Choosing Samsung also ensures fewer leaks, even though that plan is not bulletproof either, as weve already seen quite a few leaks out there. On top of everything, this move may solve the quality problem control, or at least minimize it. Some of you may remember that Huawei supplied panels from BOE and LG for the Mate 20 Pro, and had a few road bumps along the way. Advertisement It remains to be seen if there is any truth in this report, is Huawei really getting displays for the Huawei P30 Pro (and possibly P30) from Samsung, and is Samsung Huaweis sole supplier. Such agreements are not exactly out of the ordinary, as the largest companies out there usually work together in this manner, in fact, tons of smartphone OEMs supply parts for smartphones from Samsung, so this is not exactly all that surprising. Huawei will announce its P30 series of devices on March 26, and in addition to the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro flagships, the Huawei P30 Lite will also be announced. The Huawei P30 Pro will be the most powerful P30 smartphone, the P30 wont be far behind, while the P30 Lite will be the companys mid-ranger. Both the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro will be fueled by the Kirin 980 64-bit octa-core processor, which is the most powerful chip made by Huawei to date. That very same chip was included in the companys flagship Mate 20 series, and its quite a performer. Both of these phones will be made out of metal and glass, and both will include a tiny notch on the display, along with a thin chin below the display. Both phones will also ship with three vertically-aligned cameras on the back, though the P30 Pros setup will be somewhat more powerful, and include a 10x optical zoom tech. Advertisement The Huawei P30 will be smaller, and will include a flat display, while the P30 Pro will ship with a curved panel. Android 9 Pie will come pre-installed on both of these devices, along with Huaweis Android skin. The Huawei P30 Pros battery will be larger, due to the larger display, while most other internals will be identical. The two phones may ship in different RAM and storage setups as well, though, so keep that in mind. According to a new report published by iGyaan, Xiaomis first foldable smartphone will be considerably more affordable than Samsungs, half the Galaxy Folds price, in fact. Investors in Xiaomis supply chain said that the companys foldable phone will launch at the end of April, or in early May, claims iGyaan. The phone will be announced during a separate event which will be hosted in China, while several localized launches will follow in important markets. As far as price is concerned, the source claims that the phone will cost $999 / 999 (depending on the market), which means it will cost half as much as the Galaxy Fold, and 2.6 times less than the Huawei Mate X. As a reminder, the Galaxy Fold is announced to cost $1,980, while the Huawei Mate X will be priced at around $2,600. The source even offers an explanation for this price tag, in other words, how will Xiaomi be able to offer such a price tag for a foldable phone. Its display is listed as one of the reasons, as Xiaomi is expected to use Visionox Technology OLED displays, compared to Samsung and Huawei, as Samsung will use its own panel, while Huawei will use BOEs displays. Advertisement Visionox has, allegedly, developed flexible displays as per Xiaomis requirements, and Xiaomi has also funded development and manufacturing resource infrastructure costs for Visionox Technology, the source claims. Xiaomis upcoming foldable smartphone is rumored to be called the Mi Fold or Mi Flex, and we dont have all that much info about its specifications, though it is expected to ship with the Snapdragon 855 64-bit octa-core processor. In addition to that, the phone will probably include at least 8GB of RAM, though its possible Xiaomi may include 10GB or 12GB instead, or in addition to 8GB of RAM, as the phone may ship in more than one variants. Xiaomis CEO had already demoed the companys foldable smartphone prototype via a Weibo (Chinese social network) video, though chances are that the companys upcoming phone will differ in terms of the design, as that was just a prototype. In any case, it is possible that it will fold outwards, and that it will fold in two places, like the prototype phone. If that ends up being the case, Xiaomis approach will be somewhat different to those of Samsung and Huawei. Advertisement Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi are not the only smartphone manufacturers who are planning to offer their foldable phones for purchase in the near future, Motorola is also planning to join the fold, same goes for several other smartphone manufacturers who are currently working on foldable smartphones, like LG, for example. Motorola will revive its Razr brand with its upcoming foldable smartphone, and that phone is expected to offer a clamshell design. It will include one large display on the inside, and once you fold it, a small display on the outside will be available. This design was shown in one of Motorolas patents way back, and that design was widely welcomed by critics, though it remains to be seen if the final design will differ from those patent sketches. Posted on: March 18, 2019 8:49 PM The Church of England has called for communities to join together in conversation and prayer as discussions over the UKs departure from the European Union reach a pivotal point. The debate is splitting communities in the UK. The UK Government and the EU have reached a withdrawal agreement; but this has twice been rejected by the countrys Parliament. Today, the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled that the government could only bring it back for a third vote if the motion was substantially different. Britain risks leaving the European Union without a deal on 29 March unless the other 27 EU member countries agree to a British government request for an extension. Churches are being encouraged to host informal cafe-style meetings over the weekend of 30 March to bring together people of all standpoints and encourage open discussion. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Justin Welby and John Sentamu, have today backed newly-commissioned resources to invite people to get together and chat over a cup of tea and pray for our country and our future. Under the slogan Together, the packs include specially-chosen Bible passages, prayers and questions designed to prompt conversations. The introductory notes urge participants to have respect for the integrity of differently held positions, encouraging communities which feel the same about the issues to use their imagination to consider the viewpoints of those who feel differently. As followers of Jesus Christ we are called to demonstrate that love for God and for each other, along with compassion, solidarity and care for the poorest, are our defining values, Archbishop Justin said. These values have been the bedrock of our national life for many centuries. They are not simply our history: they are also our best hope for the future. For this reason, a century from now the Church will be remembered for how it responded at this crucial moment in the life of our nation and country. Will we be those who worked to defuse tension and hostility? Will we be those who called for civility and respect in how we speak about, and treat, each other? Will we be those who never stopped praying with urgency and hope for our country, our communities and our political leaders and for a way forward that allows every person, family and community to flourish? This is an opportunity for the Church of England to join together in prayer for Gods kingdom to come, and for the good of all in society. I hope that each of us will take hold of these resources to help us pray for our country at this critical time. Dr Sentamu added: St Paul advises and urges Timothy to offer petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone, for sovereigns, and for all in high office so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life, free to practice our religion with dignity. Such prayer is right, and approved by God our Saviour, whose will it is that all should find salvation and come to know the truth. . . (1 Timothy 2:2 ff). Beloved in Christ, let us also pray without ceasing. Other Anglican Churches in Britain and Northern Ireland are also urging prayer. Last month, the Scottish Episcopal Church College of Bishops said that they had been praying for and supporting all those involved in the debate on Brexit as well as those who believe they will be adversely affected by the outcomes of the debate and decisions made. As the debate has continued and Parliaments inability to reach an agreement has become more obvious, we have become increasingly concerned at the level of aggression heard in the media and at times in parliamentary behaviour in regard to those from across Europe who we firmly believe are valued members of our communities. They continued: Scotland is rooted in values that make us an inclusive place and that is mirrored in the life of The Scottish Episcopal Church. We would emphasise that our church welcomes all those from beyond Scotland and the UK who choose to live amongst us. We celebrate all that they bring to our communities and we offer them our support at this anxious time. We are ready to welcome new Scots from across the world: those who bring such beautiful diversity to Scotland. The bishops of the Church in Wales have warned that Brexit could bring a time of confusion and anxiety as the country begins a new era. They are calling on people in the country to pray for the nation on 29 March, and have asked churches to be kept open for private or corporate prayer or simply for people to spend time in quiet reflection. Leaving the EU will impact on almost every area of our lives; and as we approach 29 March many people are fearful at the prospect of leaving without a negotiated deal, leading to unknown consequences for people, businesses and communities, the Bishop of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy, said. The Bishops of the Church in Wales are calling for 29 March to be a day of prayer for our nation, at this time of confusion and anxiety, she added. In addition, churches are being advised to prepare for Brexit in several other practical and pastoral ways. These include being aware of the pressures facing businesses, employees and families with members abroad; helping any EU citizens in their congregations with the new registration process; making sure foodbanks are well supplied with goods and volunteers; reaching out in friendship to other faith and minority ethnic groups and teaching about the importance of welcome and hospitality to promote community cohesion; and praying for politicians, negotiators and civil servants. The Church of Ireland covers both the Republic of Ireland a continuing EU member and part of the UK in Northern Ireland. The status of the border between the Republic and the North has been one of the sticking points in the British Parliament accepting the agreement. Belfast Cathedral, in Northern Ireland, is hosting a series of public theology Lent talks focused on Brexit, in partnership with the Corrymeela Community, an ecumenical reconciliation and peace-building group on the island of Ireland. The talks, at St Annes Cathedral, are based on the Book of Ruth, and include topics including Ruth and the Law, Crossroads Decisions, The Challenge of the Migrant, Who is Family?, and The Political importance of Compassion Posted on: March 18, 2019 7:37 PM A former Roman Catholic priest, Daniel Genovesi, has been consecrated to serve as interim Bishop of Uruguay after considerable prayer and discernment. The Bishop-elect was consecrated in Buenos Aires Cathedral on Saturday (16 March). He and his wife Mercedes will start their new ministry in Uruguay described as the most secular country in South America on Monday 1 April. The missionary diocese of Uruguay was created by the Anglican Church of South America more than 30 years ago. Prior to that, the mainly English chapels at Montevideo, Fray Bentos and Salto were part of the Diocese of Argentina. During that time it has developed its own distinctive style, and sought to grow as a local church. Differences in theology and churchmanship from the rest of the Province and frustration about the non-ordination of women led at a bid from the Diocese to leave the Anglican Church of South America and join the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil the Anglican Church in Brazil. The move was rejected by the Province of South America. More recently, the diocese has faced a series of difficulties involving personnel, finances and a gradual reduction in clergy numbers, bringing into question even the ability of the diocese to function independently and elect a new diocesan bishop, the Bishop of Northern Argentina, Nick Drayson, said. In response to an approach from the Diocesan Council, the Provinces House of Bishops proposed the appointment of an interim bishop who would work with help from the Primate and Bishop of Argentina, Presiding Bishop Greg Venables, and other colleagues to strengthen the diocese. Bishop Daniel, who had served as Priest of San Marcos in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, for nearly 12 years, reacted to the appointment with surprise and joy, as well as enthusiasm and the desire to go to a new place in order to listen, accompany, encourage, orientate and recreate in the name of Jesus. Both Daniel and Mercedes, known as Mechi, are professional psychologists. Daniel is author of a number of books. Prior to their marriage, Daniel was a Roman Catholic priest and Mercedes a nun. They have lived for many years in Buenos Aires, but are originally from the interior of the country. Kathmandu, Nepal, March 18: Former king Gyanendra Shah, who is now in Teria visit, has been consulting with his supporters over the recent political development of the country. Though former King Shahas visit to Teria districts was religious trip, he has been consulting with his supporters on ranges of issues including the recent political development of the country. Huge mass of the people affiliated to royalist political groups and Hindu right-wing party have been welcoming him in most of the places. On Sunday, he reached in Saptari to offer prayers at Chinamasta Bhagwati temple. He had spent about 20 minutes at the temple. Posted on: March 18, 2019 6:25 PM The head of the New Zealand Church Missionary Society, Steve Maina, has been elected as the next Bishop of Nelson. The Bishop-elect was born and raised in Kenya, where he was ordained a priest in 2004. After serving in the Anglican Church of Kenya, where he planted a new church as Missions Pastor at Nairobi Chapel, he was appointed General Secretary of Church Army Africa before being recruited to lead CMS in New Zealand. Steve brings a proven mission focus to all aspects of his ministry and is widely respected for his energetic and innovative proclamation of the Gospel, the three Archbishops of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia said in a statement. His leadership of NZCMS has revitalised its response to the sending of mission partners around the world, dramatically increased the numbers serving overseas, and involved a significant number of young people in mission initiatives. We look forward to sharing with Steve in the leadership of our Church at a time when the challenges of presenting the Gospel in word and action require creative responses, alongside confidence in the enduring and simple Gospel message of Gods love for all people made known in Jesus Christ. Steve brings both a pastoral heart and a clear-thinking strategic approach to all that he does. The Bishop-elect, who will succeed Richard Ellena when he is consecrated, said that he was overwhelmed and absolutely humbled to have been chosen as Nelson Anglicans new leader. I would also say that I feel terrified!, he told Anglican Taonga. Can a son of Africa really do this? Someone from Kenya? But I also feel absolutely excited, and expectant and full of hope, because I believe that the Gospel gives hope. Jesus is in the business of transforming people. And I cant wait to see what He will do. Bishop-elect Steve was born in 1970. He is the son and grandson of Anglican priests. He is married to Watiri; and the couple have two teenage daughters, Rinna and Tanielle. My heart has always been to see the church in New Zealand passionate about mission so, this is really an extension of what I've been doing in CMS, he told Anglican Taonga. Mission begins from the local church. My reasons for considering the Nelson role were seeing, first of all, the challenges that Western Christianity is facing in the 21st century. Challenges from secularism, individualism, materialism and consumerism we have a society which is pushing God out. We are seeing God at work in many places within the church but I also see the challenges of apathy, decline and lack of confidence in the Gospel. I yearn to see the gospel proclaimed, and to see Nelsons Anglican churches growing and thriving. The new service is in line with the airlines commitment to provide courteous and hassle-free travel experience to its customers. The new service has been to all Indigo customers effective March 10, 2019. Adding more ease to the overall customer experience, this new feature will enable passengers flying out of Abu Dhabi airport to check-in 24 hours prior within the city i.e. before reaching the airport. Maarten De Groof, chief commercial officer, Abu Dhabi Airports, said: We are delighted to welcome IndiGo passengers to stop by our easily accessible and conveniently located remote check-in facilities. Ensuring a seamless and efficient customer is one of our top priorities at Abu Dhabi Airports, and we look forward to introducing travelers to our world-class services and unique brand of Arabian hospitality. India has always been one of our most important and largest areas of operations, and we are looking forward to continuing to work closely with IndiGo passengers to meet the markets growing demand. William Boulter, chief commercial officer, IndiGo said: We are delighted to introduce this new check-in feature for our passengers in Abu Dhabi which will both add convenience and ease to their travel experience with us. We thank the Abu Dhabi International Airport team for extending us all the support to make this feature live. We are providing this service to all IndiGo passengers starting March 10, 2019. IndiGo will continue to enhance its hassle-free experience which is one of the core. AnadoluJet offers its advantageous prices to the passengers flying from Gaziantep and/or Diyarbakr to Erbil. The flights from both of these two cities will start on March 21, 2019. Turkish Airlines Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee M. Ilker Ayc said: Turkish aviation history is undergoing a significant period of change. Istanbul Airport gives courage to Turkish Airlines and its sub brands to make strides towards their goals. I am quite happy to see that AnadoluJet, our successful sub brand, aims further than its borders by adding Erbil to its flight network following TRNC -Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. David Jinks MILT, head of consumer research at ParcelHero said: Across the world, anyone planning to send a parcel or waiting for a typical 2-3-day international parcel service could find unexpected delays. Jinks said: One of the unexpected impacts of the tragic crashes of the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 this month, and Lion Airs crash of the same aircraft just six months ago, is there could be delays to smaller-sized international shipments. He added: International goods and parcels are not only flown in specially designed cargo aircraft. Many passenger flights also carry some freight, as well as passengers and their baggage. In fact, passenger airlines make up to 10% of their revenue from freight carried in the cargo hold of passenger jets. In the USA, the US Postal Service leases space on around 15,000 of the 25,000 scheduled flights every day. The sudden loss of all the 737 Max 8s already in service for Southwestern Airlines, American Airlines, Air Canada, etc could have a big impact. The 737 Max 8 is a narrow body aircraft. That means it has nothing like the 5,3330 cubic ft cargo capacity of its big brother 747. But its ideal for carrying smaller items such as e-commerce shipments. The lower deck compartment of the 737 MAX 8 that air cargo shares with baggage is around 1,540 cubic feet, or 43.6 cubic meters. On average, a 737 Max 8 can accommodate between 2,500-5,000lb of freight and parcels (in addition to passengers baggage), Typically, narrow-body aircraft like the 737 carry cargo loads consisting primarily of mail, express parcels and smaller freight and e-commerce items. Jinks added: That means smaller e-commerce goods are exactly the type of items that would usually be booked onto a 737 Max 8 flight and could find themselves grounded until alternative aircraft can be found. If you are sending merchandise into countries served by 737 Max 8 aircraft, or are expecting items from countries such as the USA or China - which flies 98 of this type of aircraft currently, you could well experience some issues as part of the continuing fall out of the tragic recent accidents. Kathmandu, Nepal, March 18, 2019: Parliamentary proceeding of the House of Representatives is obstructed by the Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) for the third time on Monday. The Madhes based party, which has recently withdrawn support given to the incumbent government, has been obstructing the parliament demanding publicize the report of the Girish Chandra Lal Commission on the Madhes protest. Speaking in the parliament, party's presidium member Anil Jha raised question over the governments indecision to their demands to publicize the report of the Girish Chandra Lal Commission on the Madhes protest. To do that, we first need to go down a rabbit hole of, well, history (recent history). Do we remember this? In 2013, [the owner] made plans to tear down the building and replace it with condos, as part of a larger ongoing movement to tear down the entire city of New York and replace it with condos. The art community protested, and Wolkoff whitewashed the building overnight, destroying the artwork. Uff. AV Club Do it yourself if you can We accept in principle that private equity can deliver (somewhat) excess returns over most other asset classes. But there are a lot of qualifications attached to that, and most of them are very relevant to whether and how pension funds should invest in private equity. The city of Aspen is drafting an ordinance that would ban all flavored tobacco sales, including menthol cigarettes and many types of chew and vaping products. Recently, Mavin Group inaugurated an animal feed warehouse in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang. Covering an area of nearly 1,000 sq.m, it accommodates up to 1,000 tonnes of animal feed to serve customers in the southwest and Ho Chi Minh City, thus strengthening Mavin brand in the region. Earlier in May 2018, the group inaugurated an animal feed plant in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap, which was its largest and modern plant in the region. Mavin put into use a warehouse in Dong Thap and a breeding pig farm in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang with 200 sows, 100 boars and 3,000 young pigs, contributing to improving sow quality in the locality. VNA With cyber-criminals successfully pulling off large heists via email fraud, InfoTrack has launched a secure platform for real-estate agents, lawyers, and conveyancers to hash out deals. Securexchange is the technology developers new service. It provides a secure platform that verifies professionals involved in property transactions, facilitates the exchange of details and information, streamlines the communication process, and provides transparency on the progress of the transaction. The launch of Securexchange comes after several headline-grabbing schemes pulled off by hackers that left parties involved in property transactions out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Last year, a group of Victorian property buyers lost more than $200,000 after hackers gained access to email accounts of real-estate agents and diverted deposits to different accounts. In October 2017, two property buyers in South Australia lost close to $1m after scammers impersonated conveyancers via email and asked for deposits to accounts they control. Im sending a salute of respect & gratitude to the Blackhawk Squadron u 1st Armored Division for the honor of naming their tank, Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Heavy duty, bad ass, https://t.co/fkMAVMq2a1 Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 16, 2019 It all happened at the end of last week, when The Rock finally caught up with his Twitter mentions and he noticed that soldiers in the 1st Squadron 1st Cavalry Regiment based in Fort Bliss, Texas, had named one of their tanks after him. So now, theres a The Rock tank that can be put to use by the military.The actor took this as the highest honor, having always been a vocal supporter of US troops. He went on to thank the soldiers on his social media, both on his Twitter and his Instagram . He also called the tank words that many of his fans found offensive.Im sending a salute of respect & gratitude to the Blackhawk Squadron u 1st Armored Division for the honor of naming their tank (the most advanced in the world) Dwayne The Rock Johnson, he said. Heavy duty, bad ass, sexy AF and built to take care of business but most importantly, thank you all for your service. Grateful to the bone.While no one seemed to mind the fact that Johnson took the time to thank the soldiers for doing their duty in protecting the country, they did find his description of the tank a bit out there. After all, a tank is, no matter how you look at it, a killing machine. And killing cant be sexy AF, not even if its The Rock saying it.At least, thats what many of his fans are saying. In between vouching to unfollow him for this and poking fun at him ("The Rock, now in a country near you, blowing up your kid"), they also strove to educate him on this. How much innocent people is that tank gonna kill, one user ponders, while another adds, Built to take care of business like killing children for money.As of the moment of writing, The Rock has not addressed the controversy. Chances are he never will, since like everything else this too is bound to blow over. Happy holidays s pic.twitter.com/wnvilmsKCr Ben Wardrop (@wardrop_ben) March 16, 2019 Ben Wardrop was on board that flight. He captured the fight on camera and posted the video on his Twitter. Hes also been speaking to the British media about it, telling The Sun that one of the men actually bit off the other mans nose in the altercation.For the record, both men were fairly drunk when the plane touched down at its destination, which is the British way of saying they were totally intoxicated. The fight started as a verbal spat when one of the mens girlfriend thought walking around barefoot was a good idea. The other man got offended by it and picked on her.It all started over a woman not wearing her shoes on the flight going to the toilet, and a very drunk man pulled her up about it, saying that someone would stand on her toes, then the woman's boyfriend stepped in and tried to defuse the situation, Wardrop says.This wasnt the end, either. The two started yelling at each other again, as the plane was preparing for descent. By then, they had drunk more alcohol and were drunk. One female flight attendant was desperately trying to keep them apart, but to little success: as you can see in the video at the bottom of the page, one gent ended up with his face trickling with blood. The other one had apparently bit him on the nose.Wardrop says the incident was scary and tense, because of the closed space in the cabin. Police came on board when the plane landed and took the two away. Presumably, by then, the woman had also deigned to put on her shoes.In a statement, Ryanair says, The aircraft landed normally and police removed and detained two individuals. We will not tolerate unruly or disruptive behavior at any time and the safety and comfort of our customers, crew and aircraft is our number one priority. This is now a matter for local police. Like many luxury auto brands in the Philippines, Rolls-Royce Manila does not exactly announce the price given the level of bespoke options available, but the ultra-luxury SUV will start at about PhP 53 million, or about USD 1 million. Last year, Rolls-Royce shocked the world by revealing their first ever SUV model , the Cullinan. Now, just almost a year later, the high-riding luxury motor car has officially made its way to the Philippines. With the arrival of the Cullinan, the Rolls-Royce model lineup in the country is finally complete. Philippines is an SUV country, and we are very excited to launch Cullinan today. Cullinan is the car our customers have been waiting for, perfectly suited for this market with an unmistakable presence on and off-road. This is the car that will set the new benchmark for super-luxury in the SUV segment, an all-purpose Rolls-Royce for our captains of industry, said Willy Tee Ten, president of Autohub Group, authorized distributors of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in Manila. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Manila officially welcomed the Cullinan SUV last March 13 at the Manila Polo Club and promises to redefine luxury travel in the country, be it in the city or the province. It rides on the brands 'Architecture of Luxury' platform, which also underpins the all-new Phantom. Despite being an SUV, the Cullinan features all of the signature Rolls-Royce design cues. To start, it features a long hood, short deck design. Up front, it looks nearly identical to the flagship Phantom sedan from the brands signature pantheon grill to the rectangular LED headlights. The Cullinan then rides on 22-inch wheels, which help lift it off the ground. Like all other Rolls-Royce models, it also features suicide doors for the rear. At the back, there is a uniquely designed rear end with tall vertical taillights and a split tailgate. Under the hood, the Cullinan is powered by Rolls-Royces signature 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 engine mated to an 8-speed automatic transmission. The twelve-cylinder unit produces 563 PS and 850 Nm of torque, allowing the luxury SUV to hit an electronically limited top speed of 250 km/h. All-wheel drive and all-wheel steering come standard. For the interior, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Manila offers customers a number of options to choose from. From handcrafted wood to custom leather upholstery, those interested may pick out what they want, creating a truly bespoke model. The Cullinan is offered locally in both four- or five-seat models and is currently available for order with deliveries beginning in Q2 of 2019. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on March 18, 2019 2019/03/19 As agreed by China and Pakistan, the first China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue will be held in Beijing on March 19. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will co-chair the dialogue. Q: The Foreign Ministry announced this morning that President Xi Jinping will pay state visits to Italy, Monaco and France. Could you give us more details on the visits? What is China's expectation? A: At the invitation of President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella, head of the Principality of Monaco Prince Albert and President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron, President Xi Jinping will pay state visits to these three countries from March 21 to 26. During his visit to Italy, President Xi Jinping will hold talks with President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and meet with President of the Senate of the Republic Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati and President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Roberto Fico, and the two sides will exchange in-depth views on China-Italy and China-EU relations and international and regional issues of mutual interest. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the China-Italy Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and the bilateral relations are developing with sound momentum. President Xi Jinping's visit this time is the first visit to Italy by a Chinese head of state in a decade, which will add new dimensions to the China-Italy relations and is of important significance in building on the past and opening up the future for the bilateral relations. We believe this visit will further consolidate the political mutual trust between the two countries in the new era, deepen across-the-board practical cooperation under the Belt and Road, expand cultural and people-to-people exchange and mutual learning and work for new progress in the China-Italy Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in the new era and contribute to promoting China-EU relations and world peace and development. During his visit to Monaco, President Xi Jinping will hold talks with Prince Albert and they will exchange views on the development of China-Monaco relations in the new era and other issues of mutual interest. This will be the first ever visit to Monaco by a Chinese President and it is of historical significance to the development of China-Monaco relations. We stand ready to work with Monaco to deepen political mutual trust and across-the-board cooperation and exchange, move forward China-Monaco relations and continue to set an example of friendly relations and win-win cooperation between countries of different sizes. During his visit to France, President Xi Jinping will hold talks with President Macron and meet with French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, President of the National Assembly and Speaker of the Senate. The leaders of the two countries will exchange in-depth views on the China-France relations, China-EU relations and major international and regional issues of mutual interest. France is the first major Western country to establish official diplomatic ties with China. The China-France relations have always been at the forefront of China's relations with Western countries. The China-France relations continue to grow with sound momentum, as evidenced by frequent high-level visits, continuous new progress and breakthroughs in practical cooperation and deepening cultural and people-to-people exchange. The two sides also maintain close communication and coordination in upholding multilateralism, improving global governance, coping with climate change and other major issues. President Xi Jinping's visit this time is the first visit to France by a Chinese head of state in five years. This visit is made as the two sides celebrate the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties and is of special significance to the bilateral relations. China always attaches strategic importance to China-France relations and stands ready to work with France to take this opportunity to deepen political mutual trust, open up new prospects for practical cooperation and cultural and people-to-people exchange, and elevate the close and enduring comprehensive strategic partnership to a new height. Q: A follow-up question on President Xi Jinping's visit. Can you tell us precisely which day he will arrive in France and which cities he will visit? A: I've told you all what I can tell you. Q: You just mentioned that Pakistan's foreign minister has arrived for a dialogue with State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in China. I presume that India-Pakistan tensions following the terror attacks in the India-controlled Kashmir will be part of the discussions with the Chinese interlocutors. Since China has already declared that it wants to play a role of facilitation between India and Pakistan, what do you think can be the follow-up steps to this visit? A: Like I just said, on March 19, that is tomorrow, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi will co-chair the first China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue in Beijing. The two sides will exchange views on China-Pakistan relations and international and regional issues of mutual interest. As you said, tensions have arisen in this region recently and the two sides will surely talk about this in the dialogue. I would like to say that as a friendly neighbour of India and Pakistan, China has actively promoted peace talks and played a constructive role in easing the recent tensions. China will continue to encourage India and Pakistan to meet each other halfway, resolve differences through dialogue and jointly uphold regional peace and stability. Q: You mentioned the dialogue with Pakistan. We know that China has invested a big sum of money through its Belt and Road Initiative and other programs in predominantly Muslim countries around the world. And yet compared to the West, we often hear less criticism if not any criticism at all from predominantly Muslim countries over China's treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang. Is China using these investments to buy the silence of Muslim countries? A: The mutually-beneficial cooperation between China and relevant countries, especially that under the Belt and Road Initiative, follows the principle of consultation and cooperation for shared benefits and all participants have taken part in it on voluntary basis and benefit from that. This has nothing to do with the attitude of these countries regarding the Xinjiang-related issues. As for China's position on Xinjiang-related issues, we have made it clear on many occasions. The measures the Chinese side has taken in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region are for preventive counter-terrorism and de-radicalization purposes, on which the international community has fair judgment. The resolutions adopted by the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation not long ago have demonstrated that fairly. Q: There are rumors about a possible meeting between Pope Francis and President Xi in Rome while he is in Italy. Are you in contact with the Vatican? Can you give us some confirmation about it? A: I am not aware of that. China remains sincere as always about improving relations with the Vatican and has made unremitting efforts in this regard. In September 2018, China and the Vatican signed a temporary agreement on the appointment of bishops, a landmark in the improvement of relations. China stands ready to work with the Vatican to meet each other half way and enhance understanding and accumulate mutual trust through constructive dialogue to achieve greater progress in the improvement of relations. Q: On March 14, India and Pakistan held the first meeting on Katarpur Corridor and discussed clauses of an agreement on Indian pilgrims traveling through the corridor to Pakistan. Some commentaries say that this was the first official face-to-face meeting between the two sides for a while and is therefore of symbolic significance for the easing of relations. What's your comment? A: We welcome this latest interaction between India and Pakistan and hope it will help further ease bilateral relations and contribute to improving the regional situation. India and Pakistan are neighbors that cannot be moved away. Good neighborly relations serve the fundamental interests of both countries and are the common aspiration of the international community. We hope they will continue to show goodwill, meet each other half way, properly handle differences through dialogue, work for improvement of relations and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability. Q: Releasing the US State Department's annual human rights report titled Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that China is in a "league of its own" when it comes to human rights violations. How do you respond to that? A: China firmly opposes such groundless accusations and has made stern representations with the US side. As to how China's human rights situation is, the Chinese people is in the best position to pass a judgment and most members of the international community also have a correct view on that. Last Friday, the UN Human Rights Council adopted China's report on its third Universal Periodic Review in a smooth process. Head of the Chinese delegation and Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng expounded on China's human rights development path, ideals and practices, informed the Council of the latest progress on the 30 new measures China announced during the review process last year, and made further response on Xinjiang-related and other issues. The session spoke highly of China's human rights achievements, commended the open, confident and candid attitude China demonstrated during the whole process, welcomed the serious and responsible feedback China gave to the recommendations it received last November, and decided to adopt China's national report. This fully demonstrates that China's human rights development path, achievements and determination to promote human rights situation have won wide recognition of the international community. I would like to remind you that out of 346 recommendations, China accepted 284, or 82% of the total, that suit its national conditions and are conducive to China's human rights development. The sheer number and proportion placed China ahead of many other major countries. This showcases China's determination to protect and promote human rights and that the Chinese people honors its words and acts on its promises. I want to add that it is an invaluable quality for a man to "know thyself". As a country that has pulled out of the Human Rights Council with its own stained record of human rights, it has been pointing fingers at other countries' human rights conditions year after year. I have to say that this country must be feeling so good about itself that it failed to see how other countries are repelled by its words and actions. We hope that this country can do some serious reflection and adopt a correct attitude when handling human rights issues and conducting human rights dialogue and cooperation. Q: The DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui recently said that US officials obstructed the constructive efforts of the two leaders and that if the US does not change its way of negotiation, the DPRK has no intention to continue. What's your comment? A: We have noted the remarks by Vice Foreign Miniser Choe Son-hui of the DPRK as well as the US response expressing hope for continued dialogue and negotiation on denuclearization. I'd like to point out that after the Hanoi Summit, both the US and the DPRK expressed readiness to continue dialogue. China applauds and encourages their attitude. It is China's consistent position that the Korean Peninsula issue can only be resolved peacefully through political dialogue. The key to keeping up dialogue and making progress is to accommodate all parties' legitimate concerns in a balanced way and follow a phased and synchronized approach with a package solution, starting with the easier tasks and then advancing progressively. As State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out at the press conference during the Two Sessions, as the nuclear issue has dragged on for decades and complicated factors are at play, one cannot expect it to be solved overnight. All parties need to have reasonable expectations. One shouldn't set the bar too high at the outset or make unilateral, unrealistic demands. We hope the DPRK and the US will cherish and safeguard the hard-won momentum for dialogue, seize the opportunity, meet each other half way, accumulate mutual trust and consensus, stay in the course of dialogue and strive for positive outcomes leading to peace on the peninsula. The international community should encourage both sides to keep moving in the correct direction of denuclearizing the peninsula and establishing a peace mechanism. China stands ready to contribute to this goal by playing its due role. Q: According to reports, the meeting between President Xi and President Trump is likely to be pushed back. Do you have any updates on the progress of setting up a summit between the two leaders? Do you have anything to say about that? A: If I remember it correctly, my colleague already responded to that last week, and I have no updates to that. I would like to reiterate that we noted that recently President Trump said on many occasions that he is looking forward to meeting with President Xi Jinping again. President Xi also said in his message to President Trump that he will maintain close contact with President Trump through various means. Q: US Assistant Secretary of State Tibor Nagy said recently during a trip to Uganda that the effects of China-Africa cooperation is being over-exaggerated. US input in good governance and security in Africa far outstrips that of China and yet has not received much attention. In contrast, stadiums built with Chinese assistance got a lot of attention from the public in Africa, which is very annoying. China's loans increased Africa's debt burden and Chinese people are stealing business and jobs from the local people. What's your comment? A: We noted that recently US officials, one after another, made many irresponsible remarks on China-Africa cooperation during trips to Africa. Such groundless accusations filled with cold-war mentality is typical sour grapes and reflects a deep-seated zero-sum game mindset of some in the US. I want to point out that these flawed allegations based on anything but facts will find no audience at all in Africa. The long-standing China-Africa friendship has withstood the test of time and changing international landscape and stands as a towering tree that no force could topple. In advancing cooperation with Africa, China is committed to the principle of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and always pursues the greater good and shared benefits. We have Africa's development and African people's welfare at heart and never seek selfish political gains. We put our strengths and resources where Africa needs them most. When providing financing options to African countries, China always respects their will, bears in mind the local conditions and puts great weight on the economic and social impact of projects. Through such means, China has contributed significantly to African countries' endeavor to achieve self-reliant sustainable development. As we speak, China-Africa cooperation is yielding fruitful results all across Africa, bringing tangible benefits to every aspect of local people's lives. It is these people who are in the best position to judge the effects of China-Africa cooperation projects. Today, what Africa needs least is a grand lecture by someone that dictates to them what should or should not be done. What it needs is sincere cooperation between partners. As a matter of fact, many state leaders and people in Africa have stepped up to refute those blaming China for Africa's debt issues. We advise the US officials visiting Africa to listen to the voices of Africa and help Africa through concrete actions. Q: Further to what you said about Pakistani foreign minister's visit, the Chinese Ambassador to New Delhi yesterday expressed positive impression about the issue of the listing of the particular militant leader for the Jaish-e-Mohammed, saying that this matter will be resolved. So is that going to be figured in the talks between the two foreign ministers tomorrow? A: I'm not getting ahead of the China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue regarding the specific agenda. But like I just said, the dialogue will surely involve China-Pakistan relations and international and regional issues of mutual interest. The India-Pakistan relations and the recent tensions in this region will surely be among the topics in the dialogue. As for the listing issue you mentioned, I believe you know China's position very well and I'm not going to repeat it. I would like to stress that China will continue to handle this issue in a constructive and responsible manner, and will stay in close communication with relevant parties including India and Pakistan. Q: Italy is planning to endorse the Belt and Road Initiative, but it seems that on the US side, there is still a strong pressure to stop this. So what's your comment on this? A: My colleague already replied to similar questions last week. I would like to stress that the cooperation between China and Italy under the Belt and Road are mutually beneficial and win-win. We hope and believe that Italy will make the right decision and choice based on its own interests. Q: The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou has earlier visited Pakistan. Is there any proposal of his visit or any other senior Chinese official's visit to India? A: China and India have maintained close diplomatic communication. If there is such a visit, we will usually release the information in a timely manner. Q: Just would like to ask you if you can confirm President Xi Jinping will visit Palermo during his state visit in Italy? A: I just briefed you on President Xi's upcoming visits to the three European countries. I have no more details to offer regarding the visits at this moment. A press briefing will be held at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 20 in the MFA Press Hall (Lanting, South Building). Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao will brief on President Xi Jinping's state visits to Italy, Monaco and France and answer questions of the press. Your attendance will be most welcome. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. The future of package delivery has arrived in Reno, Nevada with the FAAs approval of beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations by Flirtey. The companys drones will first be able to deliver automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to medical emergencies. The drones will be operated by pilots using onboard cameras to maneuver the aircraft. The medical deliveries are a prelude to the gradual integration of commercial package delivery in the city. Public safety is our top priority, and the use of drones to provide life-saving AED technology to cardiac patients will save lives across our community, Reno MayorHillary Schieve said in a statement. Reno is one of 10 locations approved for experimental drone operations under an FAA program. The significance of the FAA approval was highlighted by Flirtey CEO Matthew Sweeney. Flirteys industry-leading technology is now approved for drone delivery beyond visual line of sight, a major milestone that brings life-saving and commercial drone delivery another step closer to your doorstep, Flirtey founder and CEO Matthew Sweeny said in a news release. Among its partners in developing the technology are Dominoes and 7-Eleven. Ethiopias transport minister told reporters on Sunday that preliminary data from Ethiopian Flight 302s flight data recorder showed clear similarities to data pulled from a similar Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed off Indonesia last October. Dagmawit Moges said the FDR, which appeared significantly damaged from the Ethiopian crash, is actually relatively intact. The black box has been found in a good condition that enabled us to extract almost all the data inside, she told reporters Sunday evening. The FDR is being analyzed by the BEA, Frances aviation authority, and Moges said Ethiopia will release its full findings within a month. The Lion Air investigation is focused on faulty data supplied by an angle of attack sensor to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System that is supposed to protect against high-speed stalls by adjusting the angle of the horizontal stabilizer. The Lion Air plane pitched up and down about two dozen times before diving into the ocean. Early flight tracking data suggested the Ethiopian aircrafts flightpath was similar to that of the earlier crash plane. The new Boeing is grounded worldwide pending a fix from Boeing that is anticipated in the coming week. Meanwhile, the impact forces in last Sundays crash were so severe that officials say it will be six months before victims remains can be properly identified and turned over to relatives. In the meantime, families are being given a one-kilogram box of charred dirt from the crater created by the plummeting airliner. There were 157 people from 35 countries aboard the plane. Many were on their way from Addis Ababa to Nairobi for a U.N. climate change conference. The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation (MCAS) system at the center of investigations into two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 was misunderstood and mischaracterized in a flawed certification process as Boeing and the FAA rushed to bring the new jet to market, a Seattle Times investigation published Sunday alleges. Citing named and unnamed sources, the Times Dominic Gates says the final certification of the system, which was intended to give pilots a control feel on the aerodynamically different MAX similar to that of previous iterations of the 737, not only gave unlimited authority to the stabilizer for nose-down trim, it literally fought the pilots attempts to correct the condition possibly to the point where they were physically unable to fight the stabilizer down force any longer. It had full authority to move the stabilizer the full amount, Peter Lemme, former Boeing flight controls engineer, told the Times. There was no need for that. Nobody should have agreed to giving it unlimited authority. The Times story said the profound ability of the system to take over a key flight control action should have resulted in close scrutiny in the certification process. But the original specifications of the system called for MCAS to limit its ability to move the horizontal stabilizer .6 degrees at a time. By the time deliveries began, it could pitch the stabilizer 2.5 degrees, about half its total travel, in one movement, the result of flight testing tweaks aimed at finessing the flight control feel. The system would also pivot the stabilizer that much repeatedly as long as data inputs indicated the aircraft was about to stall, regardless of the pilots strenuous efforts to overpower the system. In the October Lion Air crash, which killed 189 people, the flight data recorder counted the captain countering the system 21 times with the first officer taking over for few tries before the captains final futile efforts to arrest a 500-MPH dive. The data indicated the nose-down yoke forces peaked at a little more than 100 pounds. The newspapers investigation said that engineers involved in the safety assessment of MCAS were not aware the system could move the tail five times more than the original specs called for. The certification documents should have been amended to reflect the final configuration but they apparently were not, according to the Times report. If they had been, the seriousness of a potential failure of the system would have required it to receive data from at least two sources. MCAS gets data from only one of two angle of attack indicators on the MAX and the flight data recorder on the Lion Air airplane showed the AOA feeding MCAS was malfunctioning. A hazardous failure mode depending on a single sensor, I dont think passes muster, said Lemme. The newspaper is reporting that Boeings software fix will wire MCAS to both AOAs and only allow the system to move the tail feathers once, instead of repeatedly battling manual control inputs. It will also require additional pilot training and operating manual changes, both of which were called for by pilots unions following the Lion Air crash. Boeings position, endorsed by the FAA, has been that because MCAS is only supposed to trigger in extreme circumstanceshigh angles of attack and accelerated stallsthat additional pilot training was not necessary. The company has also said that it assumed that based on their existing training on earlier models pilots would recognize the erroneous nose-down commands and hit cutoff switches that would disable the system. This is a standard runaway trim scenario for all aircraft. The assumptions in here are incorrect. The human factors were not properly evaluated, the Times quoted an unnamed FAA safety engineer as saying. The story also suggests that due to budget cuts the FAAs certification managers were under increasing pressure to delegate more and more of the safety assessments to Boeing itself. The unprecedented levels of self-certification in the MAX were compounded by the urgency to get the airplane into service because of competitive pressure from Airbuss new A320neo series. There wasnt a complete and proper review of the documents, the former FAA engineer is quoted as saying. Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates. Some of the Air Forces most expensive and strategically sensitive aircraft have been evacuated from Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, after it was flooded by the Missouri River over the weekend. At least nine aircraft were flown to other bases and crews were working around the clock to try to protect facilities that are the heart of NORADs strategic and intelligence operations. By Sunday, more than a third of the base was underwater and since much of the most sensitive facilities at the base are underground, the threat from the flooding could be catastrophic. According to thedrive.com, the Air Force just finished moving a command bunker that controls the U.S.s strategic nuclear forces underground. The new bunker was commissioned in January. Its not clear if it was affected. The base is also home to the so-called doomsday planes, the Boeing 747s that the president uses in times of threat and crisis to act as an airborne military command post. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California on Thursday ruled that migrants who crossed the border without authorization and failed to qualify for asylum status have the right to appeal the rejection by immigration authorities. Why it matters: This decision which is likely to reach the Supreme Court provides more legal protections for asylum seekers and will allow them stay longer in the country while the appeal process plays out. Its also yet another setback for the Trump administration amid efforts to expedite deportations of unauthorized migrants. Asylum seekers in the states where the court has jurisdiction Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington can immediately request an appeal from a federal judge. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expects to detail gun law reforms within days after achieving in principle Cabinet support, she said while announcing an inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks. Details: The inquiry will examine the actions of agencies including the countrys intelligence services in the lead-up to Friday's shootings to see whether anything could have been done differently, Ardern said at a press conference Monday evening local time. Police say assault weapons modified to make them more deadly were used in the attack all legal under current laws. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said they believe the attacker acted alone but may have had support. The latest: Christchurch Hospital was treating 31 patients injured in the attacks Monday evening local time 9 in a critical condition. A 4-year-old was in a serious but stable condition in an Auckland children's hospital. Her father was also transferred to the city. The FBI and Australian Federal Police are now on the ground in the country to help in investigations and investigators were assisting in Australian states. Australian suspect Brenton Harrison Tarrant, 28, a self-declared white supremacist, intends to defend himself at trial, Richard Peters, the duty lawyer who represented him in Christchurch District Court Saturday told local media. Australian counterterrorism police raided the house of Tarrant's sister t Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. Christchurch Gun City store owner confirmed he had sold 4 weapons to Tarrant. New Zealand's largest online auction website Trade Me has stopped selling semi-automatic weapons, as many New Zealanders handed in their firearms to police. An 18-year-old man accused of sharing a livestream of the mosque attacks was remanded in custody after appearing in Christchurch District Court. He's charged charged with offences under NZ's Films Videos and Publications Classification Act. The big picture: Thousands of people continued to hold vigils. In a powerful tribute, near the memorial for the mosque victims, some students performed a haka a traditional Maori ceremonial dance. A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. What's next? Ardern said there would be a national memorial event to commemorate those who were killed in the mosque attacks at a date soon to be confirmed. Hundreds of students gathered at the Deans Avenue Mosque memorial to pay their respects to the massacre victims. Tarrant has been charged with a single count of murder, but police expect to lay more charges. Go deeper: NZ mosque attack victims' families anxiously wait to bury remains An Australian senator critcized by two prime ministers after striking a teenager who egged him and blaming Muslim immigration for the fatal Christchurch mosque attacks defiantly stands by his actions, Australian media report. What he's saying: Sen. Fraser Anning held a wide-ranging press conference in Brisbane, Queensland, Monday afternoon local time in which he addressed the controversy head-on. On the boy egger: "He got a slap across the face, which is what his mother should have given him long ago, because he's been misbehaving badly. When someone cracks you on the back of the head you react and defend yourself." On a move to censure him in Parliament: "I hope it's not too painful." On a petition to remove him from Parliament: "A million people from Australia I am not sure they are all from Australia but yes, a million have signed the petition. However, quite a lot of people have told us they're happy for me to stay where I'm at." I met Ahmet, a disabled young man, during a visual ethnography I conducted in Istanbul, Turkey (2009), where I worked with people with disabilities related to rheumatoid arthritis a chronic, painful disease, affecting the joints. During our interview, I ask Ahmet what type of toilets he prefers, knowing that in Turkey, toilets are typically squat and hardly ever accessible. To my surprise, he answers: I mean it doesnt matter really, as long as the toilet is narrow. I mean if the walls are close enough so that I can hold onto them in case I lose my balance, or close enough so that I can hold onto them and take support. As long as the toilet space is not too wide, it is fine. Otherwise it doesnt matter if it is water closet or squat. It is not the Western style seated WC that makes a toilet accessible for Ahmet, as I expected, but the proximity of its walls. It is their narrowness that gives him the support he needs to hold onto and balance a very support that would, in an accessible toilet, be afforded by grab bars. Figure 1. Accompanied by the researcher, Ahmet walks towards his home, leaning on the support of his crutch. All images by the author. In the doing of any action, our properties complement the properties of the environment. This is what ecological psychologist James Gibson calls affordances (1979). What emerges in Ahmets affordance, however, is not just any other organism-environment complementarity. It is the creation of one where none exists. In the absence of an accessible toilet with grab bars, it is the tightness of space that complements Ahmets impaired joints, allowing him to lean on and take support from the walls as he kneels down and stands up. In fact, this newly created organism-environment reciprocity, I further argue, involves a kind of politics and a form of activism one that is hardly ever recognized in disability studies. This is the very politics and vital activism that my work develops, at the crossovers of critical disability studies and performance studies. The crux of my intervention is: when existing affordances of the world leave no room for disabled peoples atypical bodies and minds, when the world becomes most unresponsive to the impairments, diseases and pains they live with, and when the worlds offerings become unreachable in states of deprivation and debilitation, disabled people may make up and at the same time make up for whatever affordances that are not readily provided with. They invent, in short, what I call micro-activist affordances. Originally proposed by Gibson, affordances refers to possibilities for action, the actualization of which is shaped by the reciprocity between the properties of the organism and those of the environment. With a critical disability theory of affordances, I ask: What happens when that reciprocity cannot readily be found in the given order of things, and thereafter? I have come to develop this theory over the course of the last ten years, by working with differently disabled people, all of whom I would call affordance-makers, in two ethnographies I conducted in Turkey and Quebec, and in doing an autoethnography of my own affordance-creations as a disabled person (Dokumaci 2013, 2017, forthcoming). This theory of micro-activist affordances is born from disability knowledge. So, what might a micro-activist affordance be? Or first, how can we describe disability in terms of affordances? Defining disability ecologically Ecologically, we can think of disability as a narrowing of the environment and its existing set of affordances in response to non-conventional or non-normative bodies and minds. Given what disability rights movements and the social model have taught us, this would not be a revelation. Yes, the built/social environment disables. But here is the part that the social model leaves out, and that my ecological definition takes into account: chronic pain, disease and debility are also experienced as a narrowing of the environment and its available affordances. Pain, as described by Scarry (1985), is the only bodily event without a world-counterpart (161). In fact, we can think of chronic pain as the negation of affordances. Similarly, it is world-as-opportunity or the world-as-affordances I would say that disease, as suggested by its etymology, calls into question (Leder 1990, 81). States of living that do not (originally) involve any impairment can slip into the vicinity of disability as war, structural inequalities, and violence continue to make basic sustenance unavailable and maim (Puar 2017) the very infrastructures needed to sustain life. Neither the presence of impairment (as the medical model would have it) nor the barriers of a disabling society (as the social model would counter) would suffice to understand what runs through these disparate experiences. But if we think of disability in terms of affordances, as I propose to do, then we have a vocabulary to articulate what could possibly reverberate through the localities of disability in the Global South and North. My ecological definition of disability goes as follows: disability, in all of its variegated manifestations, is experienced as the contraction of the environment and its existing set of affordances, regardless of the cause of the contraction.[1] To experience disability is to experience the slipping of the worlds available affordances from ones grasp. Imaginary space of performance opens up By contraction or narrowing down, I certainly do not mean to invoke a deficit approach. Instead my theory of micro-activist affordances can be read as a response to Kafers yearning for stories that not only admit limitation, frustration, even failure, but that recognize such failure as ground for theory itself (2013, 141). Because in calling attention to such moments of shrinking and constraints, I seek to foreground precisely what happens afterwards. When the environment fails to afford a readily available world-counterpart to our non-standard, painful, sick and debilitated bodies, I claim that it is the improvisatory space of performance that opens up and lets us make the very same environment afford otherwise and slantwise. This is how I build a new theory of affordances based on disability and performance. Performance, in the way I define it, is what allows us to imagine the very same recalcitrant materiality for something other than what it currently is and what it readily affords. Upon facing the limits of what the environment presently offers, disabled people may begin moving, sensing, behaving (or literally making up things) in such impromptu ways that they get to invent affordances that would have otherwise been unimaginable. It is through the imaginary condition of performance that disabled people move beyond the environment as is, and relate to its surfaces and substances as if they were something else. As does Ahmet by way of leaning onto and taking support from the walls of a narrow toilet, imagining (as he does so) the very affordance of grab bars in their absence. As does another interlocutor by way of bending her head, bringing her arm towards her bent head and pulling her hair down, actualizing (as she does so) the affordance of an elongated comb that would have saved her impaired shoulders from being moved (figure 2). As do I by biting the caps of bottles that are to be twisted off. As does Cindy by engineering with unlikely things (Hendren and Lynch 2016). As does Zebreda by devising all sorts of affordances in affordable ways.[2] As does a disabled father who, living in a resource-deprived Syrian refugee camp in Turkey, invents a prosthesis out of tuna cans, which allows his disabled daughter to move around the dusty grounds of the camp.[3] To be clear, when disabled people move their bodies and belongings in the particular ways they do, they do not perform just another body technique. Instead, they bring into being what is otherwise an inherently absent world-counterpart (or rather what is absent as a counterpart in already materialized affordances). I claim this because neither Ahmet had access to a toilet with grab bars, nor the Syrian father to a prosthesis. Neither did my interlocutor (figure 2) own or even know of the adapted tool next to her image. And yet they were able to imagine the affordances of such assistive tools, devices and accessible places in and through their movements and impromptu creations. It is exactly to these ingenious choreographies, creative hacks and workarounds, with which disabled people make the environment afford action possibilities that it did not initially seem to afford, that I refer to as micro-activist affordances. I define micro-activist affordances as micro, unfinished, ephemeral acts of world-building, with which disabled people literally make up, and at the same time make up for, whatever affordance that fails to readily materialize in their environments. Micro-activist affordances are ways of occupying niches that are yet to be occupied (Gibson 1979, 128), especially when existing niches of the world fail our sick, impaired, maimed and non-fitting bodies and minds persistently and pervasively. Figure 1. On Falling Ill, Arseli Dokumaci, Performance Research: A journal of the Performing Arts, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com. On the left-hand side is an image of a woman combing her hair with her micro-activist affordance. On the other side is an image of an elongated comb that represents the materialized form of her very affordance (Dokumaci 2013, 401). Why the need for a critical disability theory of affordances? No doubt we all do things differently. Further this difference is always already embedded in the notion of affordances (making the proposal of a new theory sound perhaps redundant). But I feel the need to go beyond Gibsons theory (and its existing interpretations) because to come up with affordances where none exists in actuality, to make up for what one is not provided with conveniently, to carve out a livable niche in an inherently inhospitable world is nothing trivial is, in fact, a 24/7 labor and an act of activism that needs to be acknowledged, articulated and theorized. Hence my proposal for a theory of micro-activist affordances. Micro-activist affordances is, simultaneously, a call to rethink what counts as disability activism, who gets to practice it, and under which conditions. Of course, we cannot understand what could possibly be activist about these affordances if we limit our understanding of activism to fight for civil rights, freedom from barriers, and to intentional and explicit acts targeting public space. But if we think of activism as bringing new ways of being into life, then these affordances very much so count as activism. Micro-activist affordances, in the way I define them, are humble acts of world-building that occur within the most micro of moments and the most ordinary of actions, perhaps without any explicit intention of changing the world or an audience present to acknowledge such fortitude. Micro-activist affordances bring what Friedner and Cohen term inhabitable worlds (2015) into life albeit within the transience of performance and without a solid claim on what those worlds should be or look like. In fact, we can think of micro-activist affordances as the imagining of, what some scholars call, accessible futures, and actualizing these imagined futures within the very act of doing; within the ephemerality of performance where things can always be imagined otherwise. When a micro-activist affordance emerges, it is as if an accessible future already existed in the here and now of performance, as a future in the present (Munoz 2009, 49), and we are yet to recognize and inhabit these futures. Micro-activist affordances are how we bring accessible futures into being regardless of geography and what makes us disabled (ableism, barriers, illness, pain, debilitation). Notes [1] Maarten van Westen (2018) discusses how the specificities of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (and dementia) result in the shrinking life-worlds of patients as the affordances around them become less relevant. In my ecological definition of disability, however, I propose that it is disability that is experienced as the narrowing down of the environment, and its already utilized affordances, and that this narrowing down is not specific to a disease category; but is, in fact, a general condition of the experiencing of disability regardless of its causation. [2] See Zebreda Makes it work! http://www.zebredamakesitwork.com [3] See Al Jazeera News. 2018. Syrian girl who used tuna cans for legs receives prosthetic limbs. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/syrian-girl-tuna-cans-legs-receives-prosthetic-limbs-180707083338874.html Works Cited Dokumaci, Arseli. 2013. On Falling Ill. Performance Research 18, no. 4: 107115. Dokumaci, Arseli. 2017. Vital Affordances / Occupying Niches: An Ecological Approach to Disability and Performance. RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 22, no. 3: 393-412. Dokumaci, Arseli. Forthcoming. A Theory of Micro-activist Affordances: Disability, Improvisation and Disorienting Affordances. The South Atlantic Quarterly. Friedner, Michele, and Emily Cohen. 2015. Inhabitable Worlds: Troubling disability, debility, and ability narratives. Somatosphere. April 20. http://somatosphere.net/2015/04/inhabitable-worlds-troubling-disability-debility-and-ability-narratives.html. Gibson, James. 1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hendren, Sara and Caitrin Lynch. 2016. Engineering at Home. Accessed at http://engineeringathome.org/. Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Leder, Drew. 1990. The Absent Body. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Munoz, Jose Esteban. 2009. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: NYU Press. Puar, Jasbir. 2017. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Durham: Duke University Press. Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain: The making and unmaking of the world, Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Westen, Maarten. 2018. Opening up Shrinking Life-worlds. Somatosphere, October 1. http://somatosphere.net/2018/10/opening-up-shrinking-life-worlds.html Arseli Dokumaci is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies Department at Concordia University. Her interdisciplinary research and media-creations explore how disabled people reimagine the everyday, make, and improvise vital affordances. She is currently working on her monograph, Micro-activist Affordances: An Ecological Approach to Disability and Performance. Disability from the South: Toward a Lexicon is a series edited by Michele Friedner and Tyler Zoanni. Contributors in this series consider what changes in theorizations of disability when research is located in places marked Southern and offer reconfigurations of keywords and concepts typically utilized in the study of disability. Share this: Share Email Facebook Twitter Reddit Tumblr LinkedIn [view academic citations] [hide academic citations] Here she comes, again. Catch up quick: Having today secured a parliamentary mandate to extend the Brexit deadline, Prime Minister Theresa May plans to bring her remarkably unpopular plan up in Parliament for a third and final time next week. If she fails, its off to the Continent to seek a delay that could ultimately last over a year. Flashback: May has already cut a deal with the EU, which Brussels considers its final offer. That deal was defeated by the heaviest margin (230 votes) in modern U.K. history. On Tuesday, the margin was a mere 149 votes. May has already cut a deal with the EU, which Brussels considers its final offer. That deal was defeated by the heaviest margin (230 votes) in modern U.K. history. On Tuesday, the margin was a mere 149 votes. The latest: Having overwhelmingly rejected on Wednesday the idea of a no deal Brexit, which would see the U.K.s trading arrangements with the EU vanish overnight, Parliament today collectively conceded that this wont get solved by March 29. Having overwhelmingly rejected on Wednesday the idea of a no deal Brexit, which would see the U.K.s trading arrangements with the EU vanish overnight, Parliament today collectively conceded that this wont get solved by March 29. Between the lines: May is desperate to deliver Brexit without tearing whatever threads still hold her Conservative Party together. Shes hoping fear of the unknown will lead Brexit enthusiasts in the party who declare that her deal would spurn a historic opportunity to regain sovereignty back into her camp. Hence, the third vote. The big picture: This isnt just about Brexit anymore. Its a genuine political crisis. The prime minister has been repeatedly humiliated. The opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has largely been irrelevant. No one is at the wheel. Watching this weeks proceedings, you could be forgiven for forgetting that the U.K. in many ways remains an economic, military and cultural power (perhaps a bold sentence for an American to write, I'll admit). The Economists Brexit editor, John Peet, sums it up (podcast): British stability has been built around the two main parties but Brexit has cast across that stability because the bigger divide now is between those who support Remain and those who support Leave and both parties are split from top to bottom on this issue. The debate goes beyond politics. Brexit is a feeling, a British former diplomat told me this week. He cited a 2017 YouGov poll that found a majority of Leave voters would support Brexit even if it damaged the economy, while just 38% said theyd change their vote to save their job, or a family members. What theyre saying: The British have always kind of been a model for us, one diplomat from a small European country told me. I dont really know what to think. Its tearing a country apart. Its actually tearing a lot of countries apart and its a shame that it has to be that way, President Trump said today. Im surprised by how badly its gone from the standpoint of a negotiation. Whats next: If May passes her deal by March 20, shell need a short extension from the EU to get the necessary legislation in order. If not, shell head to Brussels to face a roomful of exasperated European leaders. Theyre also anxious to avoid no deal, but dont want to simply give the U.K. more time to continue the current squabble. European Council President Donald Tusk today supported a long extension to allow the U.K. to rethink its Brexit strategy and build consensus around it. If any of the 27 member states vetoes an extension, though, things will get more chaotic still. Looming ever larger is the prospect of a second referendum to break the deadlock. May has long said a re-do would betray the faith of the British people in their government. In the meantime, how about that third vote? Top Democrats in both the Senate and House have asked the FBI to launch criminal and counterintelligence investigations into "credible allegations of potential human trafficking, as well as unlawful foreign lobbying, campaign finance and other activities" by Li "Cindy" Yang, the founder of a chain of Florida massage parlors, NBC News reports. The big picture: Yang, a Trump donor who was photographed with the president at a Super Bowl party last month, runs an investment firm believed to have been selling White House access to clients in China. She is a member of the "Florida Association for China Unification" part of a global network of pro-government groups backed by the Chinese Communist Party. In their letter, the Democrats note that "China has frequently used non-traditional intelligence collectors and businesspersons to compromise targets." At least three people have died after a "bomb cyclone" dumped rain on the frozen Plains late last week, causing record flooding from ice jams and snowmelt along the Missouri and Platte rivers. Dams have been virtually obliterated, levees have failed and entire communities marooned. The latest: Flood warnings remained in place Sunday evening across eastern Nebraska, parts of Iowa and southern Wisconsin. The National Weather Service forecast the areas would be subjected to major flooding possibly until Wednesday. The National Guard warned had earlier told Nebraskans the flooding could last for "quite some time." Details: Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said it was the worst flooding in Nebraska for at least 50 years. The National Weather Service warned hazardous flooding would likely last throughout the weekend in the state, as well as in south and west central Iowa. The worst affected area would be around the Platte and Missouri rivers. The big picture: Throughout Nebraska, rivers were breaking record highs with heavy rain on top of significant snowpack, suddenly thawing ground and a surge of snowmelt traveling from upstream. Ice on rivers were causing ice jams that have exacerbated flooding in some areas. In many areas, rivers are hitting levels that are historically unprecedented, and the old records are being exceeded by several feet, which is an unusually high margin for such milestones. Were just smashing some records on the big boys, the Missouri and the Platte, National Weather Service meteorologist Jeremy Wesely told the Omaha World-Herald. Details: Nebraska Emergency Management Agency spokesman Mike Wight told Reuters one man died trying to tow a trapped car with his tractor when waters swept him away. Another man who died had failed to evacuate, though authorities have yet to determine the cause of death, he said. Another man was trying to tow a trapped car with his tractor when waters swept him away. A third man died when he became submerged in floodwaters in the town of Riverton, the Fremont County Sheriff's Office said, according to NBC News. Air Force personnel have been trying to contain flooding at Offutt Air Force Base, home to Strategic Command as well as the fleet of E-4B airborne command aircraft and RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft. Aerial photos on Saturday showed water lapping up against the base's single runway, with some aircraft still parked on the base. Offutt is now the second major U.S air force base to be hit by a weather-related disaster in less than a year, after Hurricane Michael tore through Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. It said Sunday evening the water had remained at the same level for hours and was not expected to rise. In Fremont, Nebraska, roadways flooded and 2 levees were breached on Saturday morning, according to the Fremont Tribune, requiring mandatory evacuations. There were evacuations along the rising Missouri River and in the town of Brownville, Nebraska. A spokesman for the state's Public Power District told the Omaha World-Herald if the river rises to 45.5 feet, the Cooper Nuclear Power Station which produces 35 percent of NPPD's power would be shut down. Our thought bubble, from Axios science editor Andrew Freedman: These floods are, in parts of Nebraska in particular, worse than longtime residents have experienced and in many cases are downright unprecedented in historical records. This will be a slow-rolling disaster unfolding for the next week as floodwaters move downstream to affect other states in the Mississippi River Valley. A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. The unprecedented flooding has affected up to 74 million Americans from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers deployed the state National Guard after declaring an emergency as flooding was magnified by "rapid snowmelt." Columbus, Wisconsin, opened shelters for people who had been evacuated. In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly issued a state of emergency for Doniphan County as flash floods wreaked havoc on the community. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds also issued a disaster proclamation on Friday. A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted. Go deeper: In photos: Staggering destruction from historic flooding in the Plains A global reckoning around the future of the internet is underway as autocratic regimes look to censor the internet in their countries, and races to develop new internet technologies, such as blockchain and 5G, heat up between the U.S. and China. Why it matters: The next version of the internet could be split between countries that embrace an open web and isolationists that don't. It could also be fractured by different technologies that could fundamentally change the interconnected nature of the network and limit who can do business where. "Four to five years ago, you saw a broad shift taking place towards one, global internet. But the reality today is that we are now moving towards a Balkanized internet, with borders being shaped by governments and corporations." John Borthwick, Founder & CEO of Betaworks, an early-stage investor firm for internet companies Driving the news: India recently announced a proposal that would install a Chinese-style of internet censorship ahead of its elections. The proposed rules would allow Indian officials to demand that big web platforms remove content that they deem libelous or bad for society. The move brings India, which has the second-largest internet population, closer to China's censorship strategy and farther from other democratic republics around the globe. Elsewhere, nations are using election security risks and geopolitical threats as a means to introduce heavy-handed censorship rules. Some efforts mimic broader isolationist policies instituted for the expressed purposes of global defense. Russia is considering a plan to temporarily disconnect from the internet as a way to test its cyberdefenses. President Vladimir Putin has indicated that the country is thinking about creating an autonomous Russian internet in the event that foreign adversaries cut off Russia from its networks. is considering a plan to temporarily disconnect from the internet as a way to test its cyberdefenses. President Vladimir Putin has indicated that the country is thinking about creating an autonomous Russian internet in the event that foreign adversaries cut off Russia from its networks. Some African nations are continuing to use censorship to manipulate elections. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, for example, have faced uproar and external pressure to reduce efforts to censor or shut off the internet ahead of elections this year. are continuing to use censorship to manipulate elections. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, for example, have faced uproar and external pressure to reduce efforts to censor or shut off the internet ahead of elections this year. China has long used a firewall to block access to certain sites and web franchises from being accessed within its borders. Some users try to avoid such barriers by using illegal VPNs (or network access points.) What's next: New technology and shifting economics will also be driving forces in how the internet develops around the world. Blockchain: Some experts see blockchain, the open-source technology that powers bitcoin, as a tool that will drive the expansion of an open web. "I see bitcoin as the real heir of this open decentralized web," says Phil Chen, Decentralized Chief Officer at HTC. "Its open, neutral and censorship-resistant. It's so distributed, it's borderless, and I dont see how thats stoppable." 5G: The fifth generation of mobile connectivity (5G) will be so much faster than the current network that experts think the first region or corporation to create an expansive 5G network will create its own version of the web. "This is a fundamental strategic competition for who builds the platform for the next round of the internet," says Janice Stein, political science professor at the University of Toronto. "That is just as important if not more than who builds the state of the art harbors, railways and highways over the next 20 years I think it is the biggest strategic issue that overarches everything else." The bottom line: The internet, which for years has been perceived as the driving force for global connectivity, could one day wind up separating parts of the world even further. 1 big thing: Mixed signals on trade As the world economy has slowed economists are beginning to look for signs of whether it's headed toward recovery or recession. One of the most popular metrics is global trade, which unfortunately is flashing divergent signals. On one hand: Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank, argues that global trade is rebounding. The Harpex and Dry Baltic shipping indexes, which track global container and raw materials shipping, both suggest global trade bottomed toward the beginning of the year and started improving. "A pre-condition for being bullish U.S., European, and Asian growth later in 2019 is that we need to see a stabilization in world trade volumes," Slok wrote in a note to clients. "So the question is to what degree the observed move higher in prices is enough to signal a coming stabilization in volumes." On the other hand: The shipping numbers are contradicted by the worsening picture in manufacturing around the world. As we detailed Friday, Germany's manufacturing numbers have been ugly and the same is true for much of the euro zone. Globally, it's the same story. In February, IHS Markit released its most recent report on global PMI numbers, titled, "Worldwide manufacturing growth close to stalling as trade flows deteriorate." The tracker fell to a 33-month low, after hitting its lowest in 27 months in January. "The economy is spinning its wheels and not gaining any traction yet in this soft patch produced by trade wars and stock market turbulence and the government shutdown," Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG, told Reuters. Bloomberg's PMI tracker, which follows every region in the world, shows data have slowly moved two levels down from "improving" for much of 2018 to "neutral" at the start of 2019. The PMI slump is "alarming in Japan, Korea and Taiwan," and "appears to reflect a disruption in global trade that may relate to US tariff policy," Greg Gibbs, analyst at Amplifying Global FX Capital, said, according to FXStreet. U.S. PMI fell to its lowest in 18 months. Manufacturing output fell for the second consecutive month in February, the first back-to-back decline since 2017. China, the No. 1 trading partner with most of the world, saw its PMI fall into contraction in February and record the weakest reading since February 2016. Purdue Pharma is asking an Oklahoma court to ban all video cameras from the company's upcoming trial, arguing the filming would inappropriately influence jurors and witnesses, and would create a "media circus." Law360 first reported Purdue's motion. Why it matters: The Oklahoma case is the first major legal battle between public officials and the companies involved with making, distributing and selling prescription painkillers and the industry wants the case to be in as controlled an environment as possible. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a set of controversial measures into law Monday that criminalize the dissemination of information online that "exhibits blatant disrespect for the society, government, official government symbols, constitution or governmental bodies of Russia," the Washington Post reports. Why it matters: Russian lawmakers say the bills are intended to combat fake and abusive comments online, but critics have labeled the legislation "direct censorship" and yet another step toward autocracy. Online publications and users that repeatedly spread "fake news" will "face fines of up to 1.5 million rubles, or $22,900." Repeat offenders that publish information deemed insulting to Russian authorities including Putin could face 15 days in jail. An extra-parliamentary party espousing radical views has announced the start of a process to incorporate Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia as a province, one of its leader said on Monday. Varuzhan Avetisian, a founding member of Sasna Tsrer, a party formed on the basis of an armed group that carried out an attack on a police compound in Yerevan in 2016, said at a press conference that this process starts now because there was a need to have a political and organizational unit in Artsakh [ed: Nagorno-Karabakh] first. Now there is such a unit in the form of the Sasna Tsrer of Artsakh party that was recently registered in Artsakh and its main task is to ensure this process, said Avetisian. To the question of RFE/RLs Armenian Service as to whether people in Nagorno-Karabakh that once voted for an independent status would want their incorporation into Armenia as a province, Zhirayr Sefilian, a leading member of the party, said: We are convinced that an absolute majority shares this idea, and I am convinced that this process that we start is to everyones liking. There are numerous legal ways in the process. It can be through referendums, it can also be done through the National Assemblys ratification or through national elections, said Sefilian, citing dangers of geopolitical developments and possible Russian influence over Nagorno-Karabakh. Avetisian was one of 31 members of an armed group that stormed a police compound in Yerevan in July 2016, demanding that then President Serzh Sarkisian free Sefilian, who was arrested a month before the deadly attack. The Sasna Tsrer group also demanded Sarkisians resignation and a tougher stance in negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Together with other members of the group Avetisian surrendered after a 15-day standoff with security forces and spent over two years in prison. Most of the Sasna Tsrer members, including Avetisian, were released from prison pending investigation after last years change of government. Sasna Tsrers latest initiative comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity around the Nagorno-Karabakh issue ahead of a possible first-ever formal meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev mediated through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europes Minsk Group. Since a 1994 ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh that put an end to large-scale Armenian-Azerbaijani hostilities official Yerevan has publicly opposed the idea of formal recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh or its incorporation into Armenia and the status of the disputed territory has been a matter of internationally mediated negotiations. Azerbaijan has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the talks if Armenia either recognizes Nagorno-Karabakhs independence or recognizes it as its part. Last week, Pashinian co-chaired a joint session of the Security Councils of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in Stepanakert during which he reiterated that Armenia will seek Nagorno-Karabakhs becoming a full party to the talks currently conducted between Yerevan and Baku. Leaders in Azerbaijan have rejected the idea of changing the format of negotiations. By Trend Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 24 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said March 18, Trend reports. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Azerbaijan's cooperation with Saudi Arabia on energy sector has entered a new phase. Two countries will cooperate in the field of renewable energy sources. Azerbaijani Ministry of Energy and Saudi Arabian company ACWA POWER signed a memorandum of understanding on renewable energy following the meeting between Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih on March 17. The document was signed by Deputy Energy Minister Samir Valiyev and Director of ACWA POWER Ayad Al Amri. The Memorandum of Understanding defines the basic principles of cooperation in investing in the use of renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan, capacity building and conditions for it. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Shahbazov stressed that the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission is being held today, while the 13th meeting of the Joint OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee will be held on March 18. Speaking about the meeting that was held, Shahbazov stressed that the sides discussed a wide range of issues. We discussed many issues of bilateral cooperation and a number of projects, the minister said. Of course, an important part of the negotiations were the issues related to OPEC and tomorrows meeting. Samir Valiyev noted that the Ministry of Energy is cooperating with international companies to ensure efficient utilization of rich renewable energy sources in Azerbaijan, to strengthen energy security and diversify the country's power generation capacity. At present, a legislative framework for the development of renewable energy is being prepared and mechanisms are developed to attract investors. Cooperation with ACWA POWER will contribute to the effective organization of activities in this area, to study and apply advanced experience in reducing renewable energy production costs, and to the future implementation of renewable energy projects, added Deputy Minister. As a company mainly specializing in renewable energy sources and seawater desalination, ACWA POWER is implementing energy and water projects. The company is currently implementing wind and solar energy projects in Asia and Africa, including Egypt, Jordan and other countries. The Azerbaijani government is planning to increase the share of alternative energy by 30 percent by 2030 in total power generation. The capacity of the energy system of Azerbaijan is more than 6,000 megawatts. At the same time, according to the experts, the potential of renewable energy sources in the country is more than 25,300 megawatts. At present, 18 percent of electricity production in Azerbaijan fell on alternative energy sources, in which hydro power plants hold main share, although most of the country's potential in this area falls on solar energy (estimated at 5,000 megawatts). Some 4,500 megawatts accounts for wind power, 1,500 megawatts -- for biomass, 800 megawatts -- for geothermal energy, and the remaining 350 megawatts -- for the small hydro power plants (HPP). Azerbaijan is planning to introduce the new draft law on alternative energy sources by May 2019. In this context, the Norwegian DNV GL helps create a support system and a legal framework in Azerbaijan's alternative energy sector. The Energy Ministry is cooperating with BP, Total and Equinor to develop alternative energy cooperation as well. Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission of the OPEC and non-OPEC Countries and the Joint Monitoring Committee held on March 17. The participants discussed the current situation in the oil market, existing problems and other issues. The presentation on the pace of development of the oil market was held and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on oil production indicators for February was heard during the meeting. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz A fascinating new book which explores, for the first time, how religion was used to justify the creation of penal colonies, attempt reforms and ultimately overthrow the transportation of British and Irish prisoners is published next month. Empire of Hell by Professor Hilary Carey from the University of Bristols Department of History, also examines the West Countrys links with convict transportation, particularly the role played by the noted reformer Matthew Blagdon Hale (1811-1895) the first Bishop of Perth in Western Australia who was born in Gloucestershire and spent his retirement in Bristol. Approximately 380,000 convicts were transported across the British Empire, with 160,000 British and Irish prisoners transported from the UK and Ireland - most famously to Australia and Van Diemens land, modern day Tasmania. Bishop Hale was a notable figure in the anti-transportation campaign. Besides his attempts to reform convict transportation, Hale campaigned for Aboriginal education and autonomy. Before heading to Perth, he argued that penal colonies were only justified if they reformed prisoners and brought prosperity to all. He was soon convinced that neither was likely in Western Australia. During her research for the book, Professor Carey made use of Hales personal papers which are held by the University of Bristol's Special Collections Library to study the way religious arguments were used to challenge government policy. Hale was not soft on crime and believed that penitents should acknowledge their faults. He notes in his journal, now in the Bristol library, that when he preached to 393 prisoners in the Fremantle Penitentiary on 2 September 1860, his text was Guilty before God. Bristol has strong connections with the earlier history of transportation. Following the Transportation Act of 1717, about 30,000 convicts were transported to the American colonies where their labour augmented that of slaves and indentured servants. According to Bristol historian Kenneth Morgan, Bristol merchants shipped about a third of the convicts sent to Maryland before the trade was halted by the American War of Independence. University of Bristol students are studying the convict trade as part of a third-year history unit on Convicts and the Colonies using the papers and research of Hale and Morgan. Professor Carey said: British convict transportation was part of a global trade in convict labour practised by many European powers. British and Irish convicts endured brutal conditions, but contemporaries observed that discipline was no worse than that inflicted in the army and navy. While the Irish political prisoner, John Mitchel, called the system an Empire of Hell, it was not the living death endured by slaves. Religious reformers and anti-convict transportation campaigners finally brought it to an end, partly because it was not seen as tough enough and served to demoralise rather than reform prisoners. By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade New flights from Riga and Yekaterinburg will be launched to Baku. Ticket prices range from 137 and 177 euros respectively, Sputnik Azerbaijan reports. The Russian side is increasing the number of flights between Yekaterinburg and Baku. A new flight between the cities will be launched in the summer of this year by the Irkutsk airline IrAero from the Koltsovo airport in the city of Yekaterinburg. The flight will start operating from June 18, 2019 on Tuesdays; the flight will be performed by the Russian airliner Sukhoi Superjet 100. The flight time from Yekaterinburg to Baku will be three hours. With the launch of this flight, the number of direct flights from Yekaterinburg to the Azerbaijani capital will increase to three per week. According to data on the Koltsovo Airport website, current cost of the flight is more than $ 200. Also from May of this year, the Latvian airline AirBaltic will launch direct flights between Riga and Baku. The agency said, citing a source in the airline market. This flight will be operated from May to December 2019. The minimum cost of a flight ticket on the airline's website is indicated in the amount of 131.99 euros. Baku increasingly spreads its flight map over the world. Azerbaijans low-cost airline Buta Airways announced another new destination in Russia. Starting from May 12, the Airline will launch direct flights from Baku to Ufa. Flights will be operated twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays. Buta Airways will also launch direct flights from Baku to two more cities of Ukraine - Odessa and Kharkiv. Flights to Odessa will be operated starting from May 16 this year on Thursdays and Sundays, while to Kharkiv starting from May 3 on Tuesdays and Fridays. Romanian airline company TAROM will launch Bucharest-Baku direct flights, starting from April 3, 2019. Moreover, the first direct flight was launched from the capital of Azerbaijan Baku to Sofia at the beginning of 2018 year. In addition, several new charter flights were opened in 2018. Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) launched the first flight on the Baku-Geneva route as part of a joint charter program in 2018. Another charter flight Baku - Sharm El Sheikh was opened during the winter season of the last year and will last till the 4th of April. They are carried out by Pasha Holidays and Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL). According to the State Civil Aviation Agency of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, 21 airlines are represented in the countrys market, namely, ATA Airlines, Montenegro Airlines, Etihad Airways, Air Arabia, Nordwind Airlines, Ikar Airlines, Ir Aero, Al-Naser Airlines, Pobeda Airlines, SalamAir, Komiavaiatrans, Jazeera Airways, Kuwait Wataniya Airways, Mahan Air, Taban Air, Israir, Arkia Israel Airlines, Flynas, Gulf Air, Nordavia Regional Airlines, Pegasus Airlines. The Heydar Aliyev International Airport set a new record for passenger traffic volume - last year it served a total of 4.43 million passengers. This is 9 percent higher than in 2017. In 2018, base airlines of the Airport - AZAL and Buta Airways carried 1.89 million and 442,000 passengers, respectively. A total of 3.81 million passengers were carried on international flights and 620,000 passengers on regional flights. As many as 33.4 percent of total number of international passengers accounted for AZAL, 11.6 percent for Buta Airways, 55 percent international airlines. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade Baku will host the International Contest of Young Performers of Classical Music and Folklore "WORLD HARMONY on April 2-8, Trend Life reports citing the press service of the Baku City Main Department of Culture. The competition will be held with the joint organization of the Interstate Fund for Humanitarian Cooperation of the CIS Member States, the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan, the Main Department of Culture of Baku and the Gara Garayev Central School of Arts. Competition "WORLD HARMONY" will be held in the following nominations: solo - piano, string instruments, wind and percussion instruments, folk instruments; vocal - academic, national, pop; dance (solo and ensemble), instrumental ensembles (classical and folk), vocal ensembles (academic, folk and pop), choral and dance groups. Representatives of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Ukraine are expected to take part in the competition, which will be held among various age categories. Participants will be judged by a competent jury composed of experts from Azerbaijan, Belarus, France, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Hungary, Russia and Ukraine. Pedagogues and students of the Musical Lyceum of St. Petersburg will perform at the Muslim Magomayev Azerbaijan State Academic Philharmonic Society on April 4th, and a gala concert and award ceremony will be held on April 7th. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova Art works of world-famous artist Sakit Mammadov have been showcased at Baku Crystal Hall. The exhibition is timed to the 60th anniversary of the national artist, Trend Life reported. Mammadov won the hearts of thousands by his mastery of painting. He can even be called a master of colored paints, bringing light to darkness, calmness to anxiety and inspiration to reluctance. The works of Sakit Mammadov are among those that collectors want to get with great pleasure at the world museums, galleries, and the auctions. The name of the famous Azerbaijani artist is well known to art lovers far beyond the borders. His works are exhibited in many prestigious galleries of the world. Artist's paintings are exhibited in the galleries of Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Russia, Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Australia and other countries. Addressing the event, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov, First Deputy Minister of Culture Vagif Aliyev and others stressed the great contribution of Sakit Mammmadov to the development of national art and its propaganda abroad. The exhibition presents more than 150 works of artist. These colorful paintings are different, but all of them are combined by opal colors - pale pink and blue. Sakit Mamamdov believes that a person should search for life and strive for development. "The main reward for me is the talent that the God awarded me, without him I would not take place as an artist," artist said. Sun, passion and bright colors are the key tools of Sakit. His paintings are full of energy. They create good mood in their viewers. They are filled with generosity and lively spirit. Mammadov's painting helps the viewer to feel the world depicted through the artist's imagination. His paintings create a special atmosphere. At first glance, they might seem simple, but to look attentively, they seem more complicated and delicate. The works represent an excellent blend contrasts, being modern and traditional, powerful and delicate, complex and simple. He has won hearts of thousands by his mastery of painting. He can even be called a master of colored paints, bringing light to darkness, calmness to anxiety and inspiration to reluctance.... Sun, passion and bright colors are the key tools of Sakit. His paintings are full of energy. They create good mood in their viewers. They are filled with generosity and lively spirit. A portrait of Pope John Paul II can be definitely called one of the artist's most famous paintings, as it brought Mammadov many proposals from Italy, Turkey and Georgia. Mammadov, however, rejected all these offers, because no one would know that the picture was painted by the Azerbaijani artist. And he was right. Now, this picture is being hung in the Vatican Museum. It has been donated to Pope on behalf of the Republic of Azerbaijan. As a member of UNESCO Union of Artists, Mammadov pays special attention to Azerbaijan's culture. Seeking to continuously improve his works, Sakit believes that it is necessary to strive for world recognition. An interesting offer to the artist was associated with a Monica Bellucci's portrait. After he completed the work, the artist received an offer to draw the gorgeous actress naked. The client said that they would pay a large amount of money to get the picture, which they would present to Bellucci herself. However, the artist rejected the offer, saying that he could do it only after the actress's approval. Opalism is a school, a style the foundation of which was laid by academic artist Sakit Mammadov. Opalism words etymology was taken from the opal stone. The warm color pattern in opal had won Sakit Mammadovs admiration from the youth. Almost in all his works the colors of stone is found. The fact of proud is that the Opalism school created by Sakit Mamedov is presented by the students of the artist with high professionalism. The exhibition will run until March 25. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sefik Dzaferovic. President Ilham Aliyev thanked Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sefik Dzaferovic for his participation in the 7th Global Baku Forum, and described this visit as a good opportunity for discussing the bilateral ties. The head of state noted that political relations between the two countries are rapidly developing. Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sefik Dzaferovic expressed gratitude for inviting him to the Forum. Sefik Dzaferovic hailed the high level of political relations between the two friendly countries, saying they are expanding on the basis of mutual interest. He praised the bilateral cooperation as well as Azerbaijan`s support for Bosnia and Herzegovina and humanitarian projects implemented by Azerbaijan in his country. Sefik Dzaferovic underlined that as a member of the Bosnian Parliament he was personally involved in the adoption of a document supporting Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity and condemning the Khojaly genocide. The member of the Presidency invited President Ilham Aliyev to pay an official visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The head of state thanked for the adoption by the Parliament of the friendly Bosnia and Herzegovina of the resolution on the Khojaly genocide. President Ilham Aliyev mentioned the fact that Baku and Sarajevo became sister cities in the 1970s, and noted the significance of cooperation among the cities, people-to-people contacts and the development of cultural and humanitarian ties. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The European Union has welcomed the decree to pardon more than 400 people in Azerbaijan, Trend reports citing the website of the organization. The European Union expects that further similar steps will follow in future in line with Azerbaijan's international commitments. The EU will continue its engagement with Azerbaijan to step up the cooperation, including on human rights, which constitutes an essential element of our relationship, reads the statement. Under the presidential decree, a total of 431 people were pardoned. Among them, 399 people were freed from the unserved part of their prison sentences. The punishment of one person sentenced to life imprisonment has been replaced by 25 years in prison and that of two people by 20 years in prison. In addition, one person is exempt from serving delayed sentence. Eleven people have been exempted from conditional sentence. One person was freed from public works, 12 people were exempted from punishment in the form of a fine. Among the pardoned are 14 foreign citizens, including three Georgian citizens, two from Russia and Nigeria each, and one from Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Cameroon, India and Belarus each. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend On the eve of the Novruz holiday, on March 17, the Open Doors Day was held in military units with the participation of parents and relatives of soldiers, as well as representatives of the public and cultural workers, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said March 17, Trend reports. The leadership of the Ministry of Defense led by the Minister of Defense, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov took part in a festive event held within the scope of the Open Doors Day in one of the military units. During the event, the citizens who visited the military unit got acquainted with the conditions created here, and also visited the office and administrative buildings, soldiers' barracks, and mess halls. During the meeting with the leadership of the ministry, the issues of interest to parents were discussed and all questions were responded. After discussions with the parents of the soldiers, the minister gave relevant instructions in connection with the solution of a number of issues. After the festive concert organized for the military personnel, the Minister of Defense, servicemen, and visitors dined together at the festive banquet. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend On the instructions of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, the Open Doors Day is being held today for parents and relatives of soldiers in all military units of Azerbaijan Army on the eve of the Novruz holiday. The event is held to enhance public control, ensure transparency, strengthen unity between the army and the people, improve the fruitfulness of working with families of soldiers, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said March 17, Trend reports. Within the scope of the events, the relatives of soldiers and members of the public are getting acquainted with the housing and living conditions created in military units, as well as visiting official, administrative buildings, soldiers' barracks, and mess halls. During the Open Doors Day, it is planned to hold meetings of the command of military units with parents, during which all issues they are interested in will be discussed. The concert programs and other cultural events on the occasion of Novruz holiday will also be organized. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A citizen of Nigeria, Obu Oniedike Mozes, pardoned and released today, thanked President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev for this, Trend reports. "I expected President Aliyev to make such a decision because he is a humanist. My family is happy. I spent four years in prison and now I am free. I thank the Azerbaijani government. I thank Azerbaijani citizens. I will always pray for Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani President, Heydar Aliyev Foundation," he said. Under the presidential decree, a total of 431 people were pardoned. Among them, 399 people were freed from the unserved part of their prison sentences. The punishment of one person sentenced to life imprisonment has been replaced by 25 years in prison and that of two people by 20 years in prison. In addition, one person is exempt from serving delayed sentence. Eleven people have been exempted from conditional sentence. One person was freed from public works, 12 people were exempted from punishment in the form of a fine. Among the pardoned are 14 foreign citizens, including three Georgian citizens, two from Russia and Nigeria each, and one from Turkey, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Cameroon, India and Belarus each. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A meeting was held at the Baku City Executive Power between the Mayor of Baku Eldar Azizov and a delegation from the Russian cities of Derbent (of Republic of Dagestan) and Magas (of Republic of Ingushetia), Trend reports. The Mayor of Baku noted that Azerbaijani-Russian relations have reached a level of strategic partnership, and that the North Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation have played a special role in establishing these ties. "Azerbaijans relations with Dagestan and Ingushetia are developing in many areas. Mutual visits open up new opportunities for the further development of relations, and high-level political relations also affect economic relations," Azizov said. Noting that the peoples of the North Caucasus have lived in peace and friendship with Azerbaijan since time immemorial, Khizri Abakarov, Mayor of Derbent, said that relations with Azerbaijan are particularly valued in Dagestan. Mayor of Magas Beslan Tsechoyev stressed the high level of relations between Azerbaijan and Ingushetia. The special role of the executive structures of the cities of Baku, Derbent and Magas in the expansion of said relations was noted during the meeting. Issues of mutual interest were also discussed. The meeting was concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation between Baku, Derbent and Magas. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The main goal of oil-producing countries is to normalize global levels of oil reserves, said Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Trend reports March 18. He was speaking at the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku. He said that last year the market was stabilized thanks to the implementation of a number of measures. He added that despite all the success, much remains to be done. I am very pleased that this meeting is being held here in Baku, the homeland of oil, he noted. We are here today to celebrate the success of Azerbaijans oil industry. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz In his new novel "Now I'm Here, author Jim Provenzano paints a vivid picture of gay life in small town Ohio from the late 1970s to the early 90s. The book, now available in Kindle and paperback editions at Amazon, tells a poignant tale of love found, lost, and found again. Joshua is a musical prodigy who was sickly as a boy. David is the rough-around-the-edges son of a pumpkin farmer. They meet when David steps in to defend Joshua from a schoolyard bully. Joshua instantly falls in love, but David has a girlfriend. It isn't long before David and the girl break up, which leads to the boys becoming closer and closer. Their first date is to a concert by the legendary rock band Queen, and they are soon deeply in love. Things take a sour turn when a school prank by David goes horribly wrong hes sent to a halfway house for delinquents, and the pair are separated for several years. Eventually they reconnect as adults, moving in together just as the horrific specter of AIDS begins to engulf the gay community. In an interview, Provenzano explains why he felt it was important to make the AIDS pandemic part of the story. "AIDS was and is the most impactful experience of an entire generation," he said. "To ignore it in a gay novel, unless it's set long before it or on another planet, would be inauthentic. I had written about AIDS from many aspects, including my own experiences in New York City, in three previous novels. But most of the novels and memoirs of that time take place in big cities. I had several high school friends who stayed in Ohio, or who returned there, and died. I wanted to tell their stories." But "Now I'm Here" is so much more than an AIDS story. The book touches upon themes of religious intolerance, rejection from family members, and the sometimes harsh realities of gay life in rural America. For Provenzano, writing the book was reliving his youth. "While I was born in New York City, our family moved to Ashland, a small town in Ohio, when I was four," he said. "Serene, the fictional town I created, is smaller and farther south, but it is built from a lot [of] my own experiences going to the mall to buy concert tickets, driving around with friends, getting drunk and stoned at 'the cool kids' parties. I knew farm boys and actually worked on a produce farm one season when I took a break between college years. It was excruciating work, but it left a strong impression. All those details are quite real. Ever since then, I've had a special affection for pumpkins." Provenzano acknowledges that Joshua and David are two very different types of people. He explains what brings them together. "Their first encounter is a playground fight in grade school," he said. "I had crushes on boys even then, and David is based on a combination of guys I knew or admired secretly. I made David's invitation for Joshua to join him at a Queen concert a tie-in to their common interests. It sparks their friendship. Both of them have a sort of distance from the popular kids, but in different ways. That they are so different makes it work, because they don't judge each other." The music of Queen plays a prominent role in the telling of the story the book derives its title from Queen's song "Now I'm Here. Queen is a big part of Joshua's life his brilliant piano cover of the band's classic song "Bohemian Rhapsody" wins him a few appearances on television and a brief burst of minor fame in Hollywood. "Queen had a significant meaning for me," said Provenzano. "I knew, of course, that Freddie Mercury was gay. So to see him take the stage, at the same 1978 concert described in the novel, in all his flamboyance, was a revelation. Also, as in the novel, I performed a piano solo version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" for my high school recital. Joshua's later TV appearances are fictionalized. I loved learning how to play rock music on an old upright piano my father retrieved from a demolition site in Cleveland. I still can't believe that my family tolerated all that playing for hours every day." Even at over 350 pages, "Now I'm Here" is a quick and easy read. Joshua and David come to life through Provenzano'a prose, as does the town of Serene. The story beautifully conveys the exhilaration of love, the power of music, and the profound sadness of loss. The book is also a slice of pre-internet life, when downloading music or meeting people online wasn't an option. In those days people had to listen to the radio or buy records in order to hear their favorite songs. They would meet by chance, as David and Joshua did, in real life situations. The late 70s and 80s were, in many ways the last remnants of a more innocent time. Provenzano's deft writing whisks readers back to those halcyon days. "Back then you had to work to find a community," he said. "This story covers the last years of 'analog' life, pre-internet and before cell phones. I wanted very much to document that kind of life before it's forgotten. Even though this is a fictional story, I value cherishing real life experiences and memories." In "Now I'm Here, Provenzano's memories serve up a bittersweet nostalgia and a plethora of emotions which readers of all ages can relate to. Now I'm Here" by Jim Provenzano 358 pages, Beautiful Dreamer Press By Trend The decision to extend the OPEC+ deal may be made in June this year, Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih told reporters on the sidelines of the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, Trend reports March 18. The minister added that in April its too early to make an extension decision. On Dec.7, 2018, an agreement was reached at the fifth ministerial meeting of the non-OPEC member and non-OPEC countries in Vienna to cut daily oil production by 1.2 million barrels. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is underway in Baku March 18. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova SOCAR Petroleum SA - a subsidiary of SOCAR in Romania is planning to open 17 filling stations under the SOCAR brand this year, the company told Report. Number of SOCAR filling stations will increase in large cities. According to the long-term development strategy of the company, the number of filling stations is planned to increase to 80 in the next few years. The company has developed a long-term development strategy in Romania. The works are underway in accordance with the program. SOCAR filling stations are located mainly in major cities with heavy traffic, as well as on highways in the direction of Central Europe. It was emphasized that SOCAR has become one of the five key players in the energy market of Romania. SOCAR Petroleum SA has been operating in Romania since 2011 to manage the purchase and sale of petroleum products in Romania and provide supply services that meet international standards and a diversified transportation infrastructure. There are 42 filling stations under SOCAR brand in 19 Romanian regions. Total investments made by SOCAR to Romania amounted to $ 77.7 million in 2011-2017. SOCAR paid $ 86.4 million tax to Romanian budget in the same period. As a result of the activities of SOCAR Petroleum SA in Romania, energy cooperation between the two countries is expanding, at the same time, the Romanian companies are actively participating in the implementation of energy projects in Azerbaijan. SOCAR carries out various operations, including sales, transportation and trade operations across all continents in more than 40 countries, among over 100 points of sale. The company is also exploring opportunities to enter new markets and develop operations in existing markets. ROMGAZ and TRANSGAZ, two of the most important Romanian companies in the natural gas sector, have long-standing cooperation relationships with SOCAR. Recently, SOCAR has expressed its interest in cooperation with ROMGAZ in exploration and production of gas in the Black Sea, while Romanian company voiced its intention to cooperate with SOCAR both on the onshore area of Azerbaijan and on the offshore area in the Caspian Sea as well. Earlier, Transgaz and SOCAR signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that envisages strengthening cooperation in the gas transportation, studying opportunities to use Romanias potential in the gas transit and distribution at the expense of gas supplies from Azerbaijan, the Caspian region and other promising directions, jointly studying the possibilities of cooperation in the supply and trading of natural gas and LNG in the Romanian market on the basis of long-term contracts and spot trading as part of the AGRI (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector) project. AGRI energy project is aimed at diversifying the energy supply sources of the European Union and involves the transport of Azerbaijani natural gas to Romania and Central Europe. AGRI may be considered as additional supply route for the BRUA interconnector (which is expected to connect the natural gas transmission systems between Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria) currently under execution. The countries, engaged in the BRUA project may take over some of the gas volumes that could be available through the Southern Corridor's infrastructure. The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority projects for the EU and envisages the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. The participants of the AGRI project are SOCAR, Georgia's Oil and Gas Corporation, as well as MVM (Hungary) and Romgaz (Romania). --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirmed on Sunday they were in talks about a merger, although both cautioned that a deal was far from a foregone conclusion, Trend reported citing Reuters. Germanys two largest banks issued short statements following separate meetings of their management boards, a person with knowledge of the matter said, indicating a quickening of pace in the merger process. In light of arising opportunities, the management board of Deutsche Bank has decided to review strategic options, Deutsche said in its statement. Christian Sewing, Deutsche Banks chief executive, told employees in a note that Deutsche still aimed to remain a global bank with a strong capital markets business...with a global network. Sewing also said that experience has shown that many economic and technical factors could prevent a merger. For its part, Commerzbank described the outcome as open. Formal disclosure of talks appears to boost the chances of concluding a deal floated in 2016 before the banks opted to focus on restructuring and which has since been the subject of renewed speculation. The German government has pushed for a combination given concerns about the health of Deutsche, which has struggled to generate sustainable profits since the 2008 financial crisis. The government, which holds a stake of more than 15 percent in Commerzbank following a bailout, wants a national banking champion to support its export-led economy, best known for cars and machine tools. Berlin also wants to keep Commerzbanks speciality - the funding of medium-sized companies, the backbone of the economy - in German hands. We are going to seriously evaluate a merger, said the person with knowledge of the matter ahead of the announcement. A person with knowledge of the matter had earlier this month told Reuters that the management board of Deutsche had agreed to hold talks with Commerzbank on the feasibility of a merger. A merged bank is likely to rank as the third largest in Europe behind HSBC and BNP Paribas. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The Armenian lobby of the U.S. is trying to get additional funds for Armenia and occupied Karabakh from Washington in speculative ways. In a relevant subcommittee on the appropriations of the U.S. House of Representatives, the co-chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), Van Krikorian, called for $100 million to be allocated to Armenia in 2020 to promote democracy and the economy. He also asked for at least $10 million for external strategic financing and international military education and at least $25 million for "assistance" to occupied Karabakh. Krikorian explained such considerable appetites with the April coup in Yerevan, the reception of Syrian Armenians by Armenia, who are presented to them as "Christians who are in danger in Syria and in the Middle East." But even more frivolous is the justification of the claim of $ 25 million for the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh. Krikorian believes that the separatist regime in the region is an "example of democracy," where the HALO Trust operates. HALO Trust is a dubious structure that is currently illegally engaged in mine clearance in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The HALO Trust has been operating in the occupied territories since 2000 and is banned in Azerbaijan. It was blacklisted for illegal activities in occupied Karabakh. In 2011, Azerbaijan banned the transportation of HALO Trust equipment through the countrys territory to Afghanistan, after which it appealed to the UN with a complaint against Baku. However, the Azerbaijani side again demanded the cessation of unauthorized work. In the end, after negotiations through diplomatic channels, the equipment was sent to Georgia. Previously, the organization was funded by the United States, but then the Americans lost interest in its financing, and the HALO Trust found itself on self-reliance. Today, it actually acts on the money of the Armenian diaspora. Funding for the organization was unexpectedly discontinued in 2013. It was reported that international donors refused to finance the HALO Trust due to the inability to verify the accuracy of its reports. Remarkable that the Director for Legislative Issues of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Raffi Karakashyan addressed the same occasion (asking for funds) the day before. According to ANCA on Twitter, Karakashyan presented to the U.S. House of Representatives members a program of financial assistance to Armenia and occupied Karabakh, which includes economic assistance to Armenia in the amount of $30 million in trade, $10 million in military aid to Armenia, $20 million in support of Syrian refugees, $6 million in aid to Karabakh separatists, as well as $4 million for dispatching gunfire locators. So, the demands of Karakashyan are a bit more modest than those with which Krikorian spoke. The State Department repeatedly claimed that the U.S. does not recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh and its leadership is not recognized by the United States. Thus, true U.S. support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan should entail a firm rejection of the Armenian occupation - in the form of cessation of funding for occupied Karabakh. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The leadership of Armenia and the Gazprom Armenia company for two months did not agree on the issue of gas prices. Gazprom Armenia issued a statement announcing an increase in gas prices at the border on December 31, 2018. It was noted that the company will continue to work with the relevant state bodies of the Armenian government on the structure of domestic gas tariffs. Earlier, Deputy Director General of Gazprom Armenia Vakhtang Mirumyan, said that the preliminary terms of the discussions had been determined - about two months from the date of the company's announcement. After the specified time, Sputnik Armenia sent a request to the company to clarify whether any agreements were reached. As it turned out, there are no results yet. "Considering the need to conduct narrowly specialized studies arising from changes in the price of natural gas supplied to Armenia, working discussions are ongoing in order to make decisions about the size of the tariff margin in the structure of natural gas sold to consumers," a statement said. Consultations are held between the relevant experts of the government authorized body in the field of energy, the commission for regulating public services and the company Gazprom Armenia. Gazprom Armenia, a 100 percent subsidiary of Gazprom, distributes gas within Armenia. While the price of Russian gas for Armenia was relatively high, representatives of the Armenian subsidiary of Russian Gazprom explained this high price by the fact that the country consumes little gas, so there is such an imbalance. If factories and plants consuming a lot of gas worked in Armenia, then the price would, respectively, decrease. So, when the main consumer is only the private sector, which heats its houses in a cold winter, less gas is spent, and the price, respectively, is higher. At the end of December 2018, it became known that the Russian company Gazprom raised the price of gas supplied to Armenia by 10 percent from $150 to $165. The authorities of Armenia, in order not to spoil the pre-Christmas mood of the Armenian society, announced that gas will not be more expensive for consumers, and the difference will be compensated by reducing the costs of Gazprom Armenia. The source of the Armenian edition said that Gazprom Armenia is not going to take the burden of the price increase, and even negotiations were not held on this issue with the company. Thus, the debt of $15 million is accumulating, and since Gazprom Armenia is 100 percent Russian property, it remains only to speculate that Armenia this time will give Russia to pay off its debt. Most likely, it will be more probably Yerevan Thermal Power Plant," the newspaper writes. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Some 78,400 real estate properties were sold in Turkey in February 2019, which is 18.2 percent less than in February 2018, Trend reports referring to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK). During the period, 11,400 real estate properties were sold in Istanbul, 7,600 properties in Ankara, and 4,400 properties in Izmir, according to the TUIK. "The remaining 55,000 real estate properties fall to the share of other cities," the TUIK said. In February 2019, 3,300 real estate properties were sold to foreigners in Turkey, which is 92.1 percent more than in February 2018. In February 2019, Iraqi citizens acquired 628 real estate properties in Turkey, Iranian citizens purchased 307 properties, while citizens of Afghanistan, Kuwait and Russia purchased 166, 150 and 236 properties, respectively. "The remaining 1,800 real estate properties fall to the share of citizens of other countries," the TUIK said. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The launch of the Ravon brand on the Uzbek market is a natural stage of development and confirmation that the brand is developing successfully. Currently, the Ravon brand is represented by models Ravon R2, Ravon R4, Ravon Nexia and Ravon Gentra. Uzbek cars Ravon entered the Russian market at the end of the 2000s and took a strong position in the segment of budget cars, suddenly disappeared from car dealerships. Dealerships still have samples of Ravon cars, however, all of them are not younger than 2015. As the dealer noted, the lack of new cars of this brand in car dealerships in Russia is the result of a sharp price increase. Judging by the facade, the dealer does not see any prospects for Ravon. Already dismantled all outdoor advertising associated with this brand. Only when you request on the Internet you can see how it was before. Now we have all the cars Ravon 2015 and 2014, without a run, with a guarantee. The average cost of a car is about 500,000 rubles ($7,700), says the dealership manager Dmitry Lvov. Price-quality ratio allowed the concern Ravon to maintain a strong position in the niche of budget cars. Many motorists have appreciated this brand, even created their car clubs. Yuri is one of the participants in such a community, the owner of the one and a half-year-old Ravon R4. He speaks of his car with warmth and love. Basically everyone is happy, no one has such large problems. There was a warranty case for R4: the door's gum fell off, the dealer changed it without any problems. People are satisfied, they took approximately within these limits - 500,000-600,000 rubles ($7,700-$9,280), and it was a bestseller at that time, says Yuri Makarenko, a participant in Ravon club pro. The representative office of the company finds it difficult to answer further prospects for selling Ravon cars in Russia. The operator with uncertainty speaks of a possible resumption of supply closer to the summer of this year, but nobody knows how close it is to reality. The operator by phone said that the exact dates are not known yet, orient them closer to summer. Prices are increasing, by how much - nobody knows yet. There will be no shipments until there is no agreement. There are many different factors: an increase in the cost of transportation costs, an increase in customs duties, an increase in the cost of components, concluded operator. Today, local and Korean automakers have firmly occupied the niche of budget cars in Russia. The quick return of the Uzbek brand to experts seems rather vague - the ruble will not strengthen soon, and Ravon is not in a hurry to localize its production in Russia. Diplomatic relations between Russia and Uzbekistan were established on March 20, 1992. The trade turnover between Russia and Uzbekistan in 2018 increased by 21 percent to $5.7 billion. The structure of Russia's exports to Uzbekistan includes metals and products, wood and pulp and paper products, machinery, equipment and vehicles, food products and agricultural raw materials, mineral products, chemical products. The structure of imports of Russia from Uzbekistan includes textiles and footwear, chemical products, machinery, food products and agricultural raw materials, metals and products from them. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Today, Uzbekistan together with the KFAED has implemented several large projects, aimed at improving the water supply to the population, transport infrastructure and the development of the medical care sector in the country. The Board of Directors of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) has approved the allocation of a preferential credit line for $ 30 million to Uzbekistan, Podrobno.uz reports. This became known after the talks of the KFAED regional manager for Central Asia and Europe, Fawaz al-Adsani, and the ambassador of Uzbekistan in Kuwait, Bakhromjon Aloev. Fawaz al-Adsani noted that in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Uzbekistan and the KFAED, about the provision of concessional loans in 2017-2019, the Funds Board of Directors approved the allocation of the second tranche of concessional loans worth $ 30 million on March 10, 2019. "These loans will be used to finance infrastructure projects included in the Program for the construction of individual housing in rural areas in Uzbekistan. They will be implemented in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, Kashkadarya, Samarkand, Surkhandarya, Fergana and Tashkent regions," the press service of the Foreign Ministry said. Experts of the Kuwaiti Fund are currently preparing a visit to Uzbekistan to identify projects and prepare a draft loan agreement, which is planned to be signed in the second half of this year. In addition, following the negotiations, the parties reached an agreement to start joint work on the preparation of the next Memorandum of Understanding between the Uzbek government and the KFAED on the provision of soft loans in 2020-2022 to finance social projects in Uzbekistan. "Thanks to its sustainable economy and creditworthiness, Uzbekistan is one of the reliable partners of the Kuwait Fund. In the period from 1997 to 2018, the KFAED allocated concessional loans of $ 183.1 million for the implementation of nine social projects and grants of $ 2.4 million for preparing a feasibility study for five projects," said Fawaz al-Adsani. As he noted, they were used in such areas as improving water supply, restoring the irrigation network and drainage system, equipping regional medical centers of the Republican specialized center for cardiac surgery with modern medical equipment, developing engineering infrastructure in rural areas and reconstructing roads and others. In January 2018, the parties signed a loan agreement, under which the KFAED allocated the first tranche of soft loans for $ 30 million. At the end of November 2018, the KFAED Board of Directors approved a decision to allocate a grant of $500,000 to prepare a feasibility study of two projects - Improving the water supply system in Kagan and Kagan district of the Bukhara region and Improving the drinking water supply system in Sherabad district Surkhandarya region." Diplomatic relations between Uzbekistan and Kuwait were established on July 8, 1994. The official visit of the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov to Kuwait in January 2004, gave a significant impetus to the development of relations between the two countries. During the visit, the legal basis was created for the further strengthening of bilateral relations. In July 2008, the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, made an official visit to the Republic of Uzbekistan, during which the parties signed a number of documents to strengthen Uzbek-Kuwaiti relations and enhance trade, economic and investment cooperation. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The resolute mood of the OSCE Minsk Group on the non-admission of occupied Karabakh to the negotiations finally overshadows Armenia. "For many months it has been said that our agenda of negotiations will be that we will discuss exclusively the possibility of Karabakhs participation in the negotiations, and only after that we will be able to hold tripartite negotiations, that is, there will be OSCE parties and mediators, and only in this case, we will begin negotiations," Ara Hakobyan, member of the founding committee of the National Agenda party, reminded Nikol Pashinyan. Hakobyan noted that during Pashinyans visit to Brussels, EU officials voiced the position that no changes are planned in the format of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn stated that there should be no preconditions for negotiations and Armenia should be fully involved, he added. The member of committee recalled the statements of European officials, even if there is a need to change something regarding the format, it must necessarily be coordinated with all the parties, and specifically with Azerbaijan. The statement of the OSCE Minsk Group says that it is necessary to conduct negotiations around the existing agenda. Hakobyan believes this is one of the worst possible scenarios that Armenia may have. Recently, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, made a remarkable statement. Russia as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing country has repeatedly spoken about the negotiation format, which can change only on the basis of the consent of the parties. This is not only our stance but also the position of other OSCE MG members, she said. The U.S. Embassy in Armenia spoke in the same vein in response to a request from the Armenian media about whether the co-chairs really refused to return occupied Karabakh to the negotiating table through their statement. "As a co-chair of the Minsk Group, the United States remains true to its willingness to support the parties in a peaceful and long-lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. For more information, see the statement of the Minsk Group co-chairs on March 9," the U.S. diplomatic mission said. So the situation is more than certain. Against this background, the statement made on the eve of Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan sounds like another attempt to reassure the internal audience, very excited by the failures. Armenia has new approaches in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process, Mnatsakanyan told reporters in parliament. "We are moving on the agenda, which was clearly announced in the speech of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Karabakh. Around these approaches and according to this logic, we want to continue negotiations with Azerbaijan," he stated. The only question is whether Azerbaijan wants to hold negotiations with Armenia according to this logic, which provides for the inclusion of separatists in the negotiations and the rejection of the return of the occupied territories. No doubt, official Baku will not talk with Yerevan in the framework of such Armenian logic. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend An Uzbek-American business forum will be held in Washington in October, Trend reports via Uzbek media. The parties agreed on that after a briefing on the achievements of Uzbek economy, which was held in Washington DC. It is planned that the leading US companies in the fields of agriculture, energy, infrastructure development, high technology, medicine, transport and others will take part in the business forum. The representatives of The US Department of Commerce also discussed the organization of a trade mission of American companies to Uzbekistan in June. Participants from the number of US companies stated that they intend to expand their presence in the Uzbek market, and representatives of leading international banks are ready to support these aspirations, the press service of Uzbek Foreign Ministry noted. For the first 9 months of last year, Uzbekistan and the United States increased their bilateral trade almost 2 times and brought it to $332 million. Currently, over 210 enterprises with the participation of American capital are successfully operating in Uzbekistan; last year alone, more than 25 new enterprises were created with the participation of investors from the United States. The total amount of US investments and loans attracted to the economy of Uzbekistan from 1998-2017 exceeded $1 billion. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz (WB) A coalition of 161 major businesses including Apple, Coca-Cola and Target Corp.has formed to urge Congress to ban anti-LGBT discrimination with passage of the Equality Act, the Human Rights Campaign announced Friday. The initiative, known as the Business Coalition for the Equality Act, was first launched in 2016 with 60 members, but now includes nearly three times that number of businesses. Forming a coalition organized by the Human Rights Campaign, these companies operate in all 50 states, have headquarters in 26 states, more than $3.7 trillion in combined revenue and more than 8.5 million employees in the United States. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include LGBT people, will be introduced next week. Capitol Hill sources have told the Blade the bill will be introduced on Wednesday. Pelosi has already said passage of the Equality Act will be a priority for the New Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement the 161 businesses are sending a loud and clear message that the time has come for full federal equality. By standing with the LGBTQ community and joining the fight to pass the Equality Act, these companies are demanding full federal equality for the more than 11 million LGBTQ people in this country who deserve to earn a living, raise their families and live their lives free from discrimination, Griffin said. These leading employers know that protecting their employees and customers from discrimination isnt just the right thing to do its also good for business. Kevin Walling, chief human resources officer of new coalition member Hersheys, said in a statement the Equality Act is consistent with his companys mission. At The Hershey Company, we recognize that our talented employees are our business edge, and that retaining our place as the market leader in our category requires the best talent, Walling said.To help us achieve our goal of recruiting the nations top employees, we know that we must foster a business culture that is welcoming to all, regardless of sexual orientation, or gender, or race, or other status. By the same token, if our nation is to compete on a global stage, our federal laws must ensure that all employees are treated with the same respect. That is why The Hershey Company supports the Human Rights Campaign and the Equality Act. Downtown Bakersfield is getting its first brewery in nearly 80 years with the fall opening of 2nd Phase Brewing Co. If you go Monday: The developer of the proposed off-campus dorms will host a talk-back session with interested parties at St. John's Lutheran Church at 5:30 p.m. Opponents of the project expect to see several hundred neighbors in attendance. April 9: A Board of Zoning Adjustment has been tentatively scheduled to consider whether to grant a conditional use permit for the dorms proposal, which would be located on land zoned for offices rather than residential. The Conservative Political Action Conference isnt known for being a confab for supporters of LGBT rights, but this year brought surprise support for the Trump administrations recently announced global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality. Attendees at the recently held 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference who spoke with the Washington Blade many of whom were wearing business suits and Make America Great Again hats as they moved from event to event were uniformly in favor of the plan. One such attendee, who wore a MAGA hat as well as a button on his lapel with the phrase Socialism sucks in a style mocking Bernie Sanders campaign logo, was Charlie Honkonen, president of the University of Maine College Republicans. Honkonen told the Blade he absolutely support[s] the initiative, which was announced last month by U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-ranking openly gay person in the Trump administration. I love gay rights, Honkonen said. I think gay people are great. I have no problem with them. Asked by the Blade how he could support the initiative while backing Trump and deriding Sanders, Honkonen said he sees no conflict with those positions. I think socialism has nothing to do with gay rights, Honkonen said. I think Donald Trump has always been a proponent of gay rights You see the picture of him back in the campaign with the LGBTQ flag? I dont think hes ever said anything that hes led for me to believe that hes against gay rights and I think this initiative proposed by his office shows exactly that. In an exclusive report last month to NBC News, Grenell announced the Trump initiative, which seeks to decriminalize homosexuality in the 71 nations where it is illegal. The initiative seems focused on Iran, a longtime adversary of the United States where homosexual acts are punishable by death. The Jerusalem Post, a conservative publication in Israel, reported recently Iran executed a gay man in a public hanging. Mike Cernovich, a conservative activist and filmmaker closely associated with the Pizzagate conspiracy theory against Hillary Clinton, told the Blade he supports the Trump initiative in the abstract, but has questions about it. How do you make Iran or nations decriminalize homosexuality? Cernovich said. What do you do? So yeah, but is it a good idea? How are you going to tell Qatar quit killing gay people, right? I agree that it should be done, but what the plan looks like, well see. Asked whether hes generally in support of gay rights, Cernovich said opposing them has never been a thing for him as a libertarian. If you just start from the fundamental proposition that people ought to be able to live their lives largely unmolested by the government, then you would realize most things just arent your concern, Cernovich said. So, whatever consensual activities youre engaged in, Ive never in my whole life cared about that. To me, if I say, gay rights, that means the same thing as can I watch the TV I want to watch? Its a question that never really made much sense to me. Of course, you ought to be able to. Theodore Milk, a 21-year-old student at the University of Jamestown, North Dakota, also said he supports the Trump administration global initiative. I dont think gays should be persecuted, Milk said. At this point, I think its almost a human right to kind of be supportive and what your sexual preferences are (sic). I dont think that should be something that should be persecuted around the world. Asked whether he thinks being in support of the initiative is inconsistent with being a conservative, Milk said younger conservatives are changing the movement. Its funny because I think theres a branch of younger conservatives that are a little bit more socially liberal, a little bit more libertarian, Milk said. I think thats just a fact of the times are changing. I think the Republican Party is changing a little bit, especially from my more youthful standpoint, conservatives are kind of shifting to be a little bit more socially liberal. Milk admitted not all conservatives are ready to accept gay rights, but insisted a sect of younger Republicans are coming into the movement with a different mindset as a result of the changing of the times. James Dorsey, whos 22 and from Hampton Roads, Virginia, said he absolutely supports the Trump administration global initiative. I dont think that any human being should have to live in fear or live in shame of who they are, Dorsey said. Im not a homosexual myself. I cant say that I have many homosexual friends or family members, but, frankly, I think its a very archaic belief that people should be persecuted for who they are and thats about the most un-American thing I can think of. Dorsey said theres a breed of conservatism that would agree the movement is anti-gay, but that represents a misunderstanding of conservative principles. True conservatism I think, is ideologically opposed to those kinds of misconceptions about people, Dorsey said. I think that investing in a person and not the group is more conservative. I think that looking at someone based on the content of their character and not by the color of their skin and what they belong to, what their sexual preferences are, things like that. Thats about the most conservative thing I can think of, and thats about the most American thing. The most prominent attendee at CPAC after President Trump Vice President Mike Pence has previously indicated through a spokesperson he supports Trumps global initiative, even though Pence is notorious for his anti-LGBT record. (During his speech at CPAC, Pence again defended his wife and second lady Karen Pence for teaching at a Christian school that refuses to employ LGBT teachers or admit LGBT students on religious grounds.) But what about Trumps anti-LGBT initiatives? Things got trickier when the Blade asked attendees about the Trump administration initiatives criticized for being anti-LGBT, including the transgender military ban and religious freedom initiatives seen to enable tdiscrimination against LGBT people. Last year, the Trump administration interceded in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, siding with Colorado baker Jack Phillips who asserted a First Amendment right to refuse to make custom-made wedding cakes for same-sex couples on religious grounds. The U.S. Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court and sent U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco to argue before the Supreme Court on Phillips behalf. Honkonen said he doesnt think either the transgender military ban or the religious freedom issue are gay rights issues. On the transgender military ban, Honkonen said the issue is about having the fullest level of service you can. To be able to serve in that capacity to a high level that you need to in the military, a lot of times folks who are transgender dont have that ability to serve, Honkonen said. They can be hormonal, they can have struggles to achieve the same levels, so I dont think thats an issue about gay rights at all. The House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee recently held a hearing on Capitol Hill where five transgender service members testified about their commitment to service and having no impediments to their ability to perform their duties. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association have both concluded there are no medical or mental health reasons to ban transgender people from the military. Honkonen said refusing services to LGBT people for religious reasons is not a gay rights issue, thats a First Amendment issue. I think that theres so many places in the United States where a gay person can go to get their wedding cake made, Honkonen said. I dont think they should worry about mom and pops who run a nice Christian bakery and maybe dont agree with them. I think there are many places for them to go and they shouldnt focus on the negativity, they should focus on the people who want to support them, and theres going to be people who disagree with them. I think thats OK, thats what made America so great is that everyone can have their own opinion. Cernovich, when asked about the Trump administrations anti-LGBT policies, reiterated his general support for LGBT rights, including transgender rights. In contrast to the Trump administration, Cernovich said he supports allowing transgender people in the military. People should be able to live how they want to live, Cernovich said. So if youre trans, youre trans, you ought to be able to live your life without being fucked with. Thats just my general outlook. If you can meet physical requirements and everything, then sure, yeah, of course, Cernovich said. Milk had a complicated response when asked about the other Trump administration anti-LGBT policies, including the transgender military ban. A lot of it has to do with when you dont want the military funds going towards transgender problems and different things like that, Milk said. So, I think its a little bit deeper than I can give you a simple answer towards, but at the same time, I dont think thats overly persecuting against someone whos transgender, but at the same time, Im not someone that believes theres five different genders or something like that. Quinton Zimmer, a 16-year-old high school student from Columbus, Ohio, also said he supports the Trump administration plan to decriminalize homosexuality, which he said builds on previous advancements of LGBT rights in the United States. I think we had a really big win for gay rights and homosexual rights in 2015 with Obergefell v. Hodges, and that victory in America has really shown that were committed and Trump is definitely through his policies very supportive of the LGBT community, Zimmer said. Asked about other anti-LGBT policies in the Trump administration, Zimmer said he was unaware of them. He had no comment on the transgender military ban. Im not really well versed in particular efforts on his behalf, but I have kind of read up on his effort to decriminalize homosexuality in other countries, and I definitely support at least that part of his administration, he said. Zimmer also disputed being conservative is at odds with supporting LGBT rights. I think that the true meaning of being a conservative is valuing people based on their character rather than being in the group that may define them, so if were really looking at individual rights and the power of the individual, it really doesnt matter, your sexual orientation, Zimmer said. On March 7, 1965, nearly 600 voting rights advocates were brutally assaulted by armed police officers during a confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside of Selma, Alabama. The event, which was captured by television cameras and broadcast across the country, became known as Bloody Sunday, and was a catalyst for the passing of the Voting Rights Act five months later. Last Thursday, on the 54th anniversary of the attack, 15 Boston College students walked solemnly beneath the bridges painted steel arch, reflecting on its violent history. Before leaving, they came together to pray. Evil took place right here, said Michael Davidson, S.J., director of BCs Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center. How can we move from hatred to love in 2019? At the time, the group was midway through the Magis Civil Rights Immersion Trip, a six-day tour through Georgia and Alabama with stops at major sites related to the civil rights movement. Earlier in the week, students visited the tomb of Martin Luther King, Jr. and toured the Rosa Parks Museum, located at the site of her arrest. The trip, which coincided with BCs Spring Break, encouraged students to gain a deeper understanding of historic events, and of their own place within the continued battle for racial equality in the United States. Part of understanding who we are as individuals is an appreciation of where we come from and the history of struggle by our forebears that allows us to experience the liberties we take for granted these days, said Fr. Davidson, who designed and led the trip with Special Assistant to the Vice President of Student Affairs Dan Bunch and Associate Director of the Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center Danielle Date. The civil rights movement is a pivotal part of this for many of us, white and black alike. For Bianca Lopez, a first-year student in the Connell School of Nursing, the most memorable part of the trip came during a visit to the recently-opened National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. The memorial features 805 hanging steel rectangles, representing each of the counties where a documented lynching took place. It was very impactful because I knew it happened, and I knew it happened in the South where Im from, she said, but seeing the names of the people who were lynched in places I pass by in my daily life back home connected with me on a personal level. As they toured various sites, students drew context from a course on the civil rights era taught by Associate Professor of History Martin Summers. Each evening, they reconvened for an hour of reflection, sharing how it felt to be physically present in places they had previously learned about in the classroom. As they discussed everything from lynchings to mass incarceration, Fr. Davidson encouraged students to consider all issues, both past and present, with facts but also with hope. This message hit home for Lopez, who was struck by a similar message she received during a tour of the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. The woman guiding us was telling us that we should choose to love instead of hate, and I think that was the overall takeaway from this triplearning how to stand up for what you believe in but to do so in a respectful way, she said. Youre choosing to love those who dont necessarily show that emotion towards you. Alix Hackett | University Communications | March 2019 First Ever Find on Washington Coast: Oregon Crew Discovers Pacific Snake Eel Published 03/15/2019 at 7:53 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Seaside, Oregon) A new or certainly rare find on the Pacific Northwest coast: a Pacific Snake Eel (Ophichthus triserialis). A crew from the Oregon coasts Marine Mammal Stranding Network helped rescue the odd and far-flung creature on Thursday, found languishing in the sands on the Long Beach Peninsula of the southern Washington coast. (Photos courtesy Seaside Aquarium). Pacific snake eels reside nowhere near the Oregon coast: theyre normally found around Peru and north of there, only making it as far north as southern California with any regularity. To date, there are only three recorded incidents of these being found in Oregon. Whats even more remarkable is that rescuers from Seaside Aquarium found it alive and were able to bring the creature back to their facility. The aquariums Tiffany Boothe said such a creature has never been found this far north, however. Being part of the Southern Washington/ Northern Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network, we are used to getting strange calls at all hours, she said. Yesterday evening at 6:00 p.m. we received a call about a strange animal buried in the sand on the Long Beach Peninsula. We were very surprised to find out that it was a Pacific Snake Eel (Ophichthus triserialis) an animal which has never been seen on the Washington coast. Candace Woodbury found the fish buried in the sand but far from the waters edge. Concerned and curious about what type of fish is was, she called the Seaside Aquarium. Pacific snake eels live at a depth of about 25 to 500 feet. They were initially sent some pictures of the creature and immediately knew this was unusual. Since it was buried in the sand, it was clear the eel had been out of the water for some time. When we arrived, we uncovered the fish which was remarkably still alive and got it into sea water, Boothe said. Too lethargic to be returned to the sea, we decided to bring it back to the Aquarium. The eel is currently in an isolated in a tank which we are slowly warming to make the eel more comfortable. There is some damage on its pectoral fins that we are hoping will heal. Woodbury created a video of the rescue, showing aquarium manager Keith Chandler slowly digging the eel out of the sand. Rather dramatically, it starts to move, showing signs of life to the cheers of those around it. (See the video below) In April of 2017, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) talked about the recorded first-ever known appearance of this eel on the Oregon coast. One had washed up in January of that year; the second in April. Before that, the only known appearance of the species was back in 1975. Seaside Aquarium - on the Prom in Seaside. 503-738-6211. Oregon Coast Lodgings in this area - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted Warm, Sunny Portland and Oregon Coast This Week; Spring Break Starts Wet, Large Waves Published 03/18/2019 at 5:53 AM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Portland, Oregon) UPDATES: REVISED WAVE HEIGHTS - Unusually warm temperatures for the inland portions of the state are happening this week, and the Oregon coast also gets unseasonably warm. While large waves have made a spectacle this week, these calm down but return again over the weekend. This is where the bad news begins for the valley and the Oregon coast: spring break will start off wet and windy. The large wave action wont bode well for spotting whales, and the National Weather Service (NWS) is looking at somewhat rainy conditions on Saturday, the day of the SOLVE Spring Beach Cleanup. For the coastline, today and Tuesday will be magnificently sunny and warm and in the low 70s. Farther north, around Cannon Beach, 73 may well be the daytime highs. Part of this is due to a large dose of east winds, which which will be heavy at a steady 20 mph and with gusts around 30 mph. This could cool things off in spite of the spring-like conditions. On Wednesday, the coast gets mostly cloudy and dives down towards 60 degrees, but winds become very light. Thursday also looks at mostly cloudy conditions and temps down to around 55. High pressure and offshore flow will persist across the forecast area through Tuesday, along with unseasonably warm temperatures, the NWS said. Several valley locations climbed into the lower 70s already Sunday; more should do so today as offshore flow increases and the air mass remains warm. Most areas will start off the day a few degrees warmer than Sunday morning, providing a higher floor for temperatures to warm from. This should allow lower 70s to be a bit more widespread this afternoon, and some locations may even push into the mid 70s. Similar temperatures are expected Tuesday in the inland valley, but temps will remain above 60 the rest of the week. Just as spring break begins, things get a little wet for both areas. Saturday gets rainy, but Sunday opens the skies to slightly sunnier conditions. The next and better chance for rain comes with the next shortwave ejecting out of the northeast Pacific low Friday and Friday night, the NWS said. Without a ridge preceding it, this system appears more likely to retain its strength, pushing a cold front inland Friday and Friday night. Chances for precipitation then diminish Saturday into Sunday as the wave slowly moves northeast. Waves have been quite large along the Oregon coast in recent days but they are subsiding. However, sizable east winds are still expected to develop, which is causing the NWS to issue a small craft advisory for everything north of Lincoln City. Combined seas are still at a respectable 10 feet over the next two days, lowering to just below ten feet for a little while, but then possibly rising to as much as 18 feet on Friday and 17 feet on Saturday. Those heavy waves will make for some impressive storm watching along the rocky ledges. How long those large waves last is not clear yet, but such conditions hide whales from view. Saturday is the beginning of Whale Watch Week. Those combined high seas of 17 feet seem as if they could jeopardize the SOLVE Spring Beach Cleanup as well, but SOLVE told Oregon Coast Beach Connection this does not alter the event at all. Oregon Coast Beach Connection will provide spring break weather updates early in the week. See Oregon Coast Weather. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this event - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted Oregon Coast Whale Watch Week Begins Soon, Includes Live Stream Published 03/17/2019 at 4:53 AM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Oregon Coast) Numbers and sightings of Gray whales have already been good in this area in the last two weeks, so in comes the climax. The Spring Whale Watch Week festival of cetaceans returns to the Oregon coast, March 23 through 31, offering help in spotting the mighty, watery beasts on their peak migration northward. (Above: drone footage of gray whale from Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department) Some 20,000 Gray whales are expected to wander past this coastline over the period stretching from March into early summer, but the biggest chunk of them appears right about now. Whale Watch Week brings dozens of trained volunteers from the Whale Watching Spoken Here program to various high vantage points, assisting visitors in seeing the spectacle. These people are stationed from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day of the event. A map of the 24 volunteer-staffed sites is available on whalespoken.org. All of these are higher spots, such as major headlands like Yaquina Head, Neahkahnie Mountain, Ecola State Park, Cape Perpetua, Cape Meares, etc. In Lincoln City, the only spot is the top of the Inn at Spanish Head hotel. One of the newer features this year: the Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay will have a webcam streaming live from its viewpoint. Last year was the first year for this, and it showed a lot of dead time in between whales. Still, those that happened upon the webcam at the right time got plenty of whale thrills. You can see it on the Oregon State Parks YouTube channel. Gray whales are currently migrating north from the birthing regions of Baja, Mexico towards Alaskan waters. Many of the pods will have new calves in tow. Also in the mix: you may see some Humpback whales as well. There have been recent reports of Orcas too, which were apparently on their way to the Astoria area to feed on the inundation of seals there. However, that area has not reported them yet. Killer whales often show up in April along the central Oregon coast to feed on the migrating baby gray whales, so its possible they will make a showing as well. Every year, there are what officials call the resident whales along the central coast, attracted to this area because of lots of krill and mysid shrimp. Many linger here during the migration, often stopping to dine. These areas are full of this food source because of the thick kelp forests. Gray whales chomp on about 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds of the tiny creatures every day. See Best Lodging for Whale Watching - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted When you think of great American food cities, New Orleans is often at the top of the list. Ive made the 4-hour drive from Beaumont many times, drawn by the promise of delicious Creole rewards at old standbys like Domilises, Mr. Bs Bistro and Antoines. But in the past few years, my trek down Interstate 10 has stopped well short of New Orleans, in the city of Lafayette, the center of Cajun country. Walk into any convenience store on even the most obscure back road and you often will find links of boudin the traditional rice-and-pork sausage of this area made with the decades-old recipe of the family that owns the store. Like barbecue tours of Central Texas, boudin tours of south-central Louisiana are becoming more popular among adventurous food explorers. In the spring, long-dormant boiling pot restaurants flicker to life as crawfish begin to surface. At Cajun Claws in nearby Abbeville, locals and tourists line up early to get a seat for arguably the best crawfish in the area. Just as Texans love to line up for barbecue, so do Louisianans line up for crawfish. Until recently, one cuisine you would not find in Cajun country is Texas-style barbecue. But on a trip there this month, in between overflowing platters of crawfish, fried shrimp and seemingly endless strings of boudin links, I stopped by Blanchards Barbeque, the first Central Texas-style craft barbecue joint in Cajun country. Owners Matt and Christy Kissy Blanchard took a long and circuitous path to opening a Texas-style barbecue joint in a nondescript shopping center in Lafayette. Matt was born in Sulphur, La., and lived in various cities throughout the southeastern U.S. growing up. As one of five children, his parents decreed that each child had to do chores one day a week, either cooking or cleaning. I didnt like to clean, Blanchard says. So I learned to cook. He took cues from his father, a dedicated backyard griller. Blanchard and family eventually landed in Baton Rouge, where he graduated from St. Amant High School and spent a few semesters at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. He met his wife during his time in Baton Rouge. After taking various jobs there, including as a chemical plant technician, Matt and Kissy moved to Memphis, where he took a job as a cook in a large church. Tasked with feeding crowds as large as 800 people, he improvised by building a 6-by-16-foot cinder-block pit and cooking dozens of pork shoulders for a pulled-pork dish. I thought now this is fun, Blanchard says. In 2014, Matt and Kissy moved to Lafayette, where his family had settled. A friend offered him another job in a chemical plant, but he wanted to pursue his passion for barbecue and knew it was probably his last chance before settling down and starting a family. At the time, food trucks were all the rage, so the Blanchards started by cooking Texas-style barbecue from a trailer, with Matt as pitmaster and Kissy working the order window. Over the next few years they built up a loyal following, as well as a savings account that allowed them to open the brick-and-mortar location in mid-2018. Blanchards barbecue menu is faithfully Central Texas-style. On my recent visit, Blanchards prime-grade brisket was skillfully cooked with excellent smoke flavor and a classic peppery bark. Side dishes are all made from scratch the green chile corn casserole and smoked beans were standouts. He makes all his sauces in-house, and the Creole mustard sauce is certainly a worthy homage to local cooking traditions. Though a few Texas-style barbecue joints have opened in New Orleans in recent years, Blanchards is the first foray of craft barbecue into deep south-central Louisiana. By all accounts, the locals in Lafayette have responded favorably, with Blanchard cooking up to 10 briskets a day a significant number for a newly opened barbecue joint. And there are always plenty of expatriate Texans in the local oil-and-gas industry who will appreciate a taste of home. jcreid@jcreidtx.com twitter.com/jcreidtx Houston Public Library officials apologized Friday for failing to conduct a background check on a registered sex offender who read books to children at an event hosted by drag queens. Albert Garza, a 32-year-old registered sex offender, participated in the program under the name Tatiana Mala-Nina, according to the conservative anti-LGBTQ group, MassResistance. Library officials acknowledged in a statement Friday that Garza has "a criminal background that should have prevented him from participating" in the Drag Queen Storytime program, in which drag queens read books at the Freed-Montrose library. Department of Public Safety records show Garza was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of an 8-year-old child in 2009, for which he received five years of probation and community supervision. Mala-Nina did not respond to attempts Saturday to confirm her apparent criminal background. "We assure you that this participant will not be involved in any future HPL programs," the library's statement reads. "...We deeply regret this oversight and the concern this may cause our customers. We realize this is a serious matter." RELATED: Controversial story time draws protesters to Montrose library The development is the latest in an ongoing effort by conservatives seeking to end the Drag Queen Storytime program. In January, a federal judge granted the city's request to terminate a lawsuit against Mayor Sylvester Turner and the city's chief librarian, Rhea Lawson. Though a group of conservative Christian activists alleged in the suit that the storytellers had violated the Constitution's freedom of religion clause, a federal judge found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue and had failed to establish a constitutional violation. MORNING UPDATES: Get the Houston news you need for your day, delivered each morning Meanwhile, the activists have sought background information about the drag queen storytellers, filing public records requests that the city denied, said Tracy Shannon, a MassResistance member and plaintiff in the suit. The activists then uncovered Garza's history through social media, Shannon said. "We might not all agree that having adult entertainers is the right way to entertain young children or promote literacy, diversity and acceptance and inclusion," Shannon told reporters Friday. "But we can all agree that it's inappropriate to have a ... sex offender entertaining children at the library." NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Latin American cities dominate the list of the most violent municipalities in the world, but a few U.S. cities remain neck-and-neck with those that regularly deal with gang wars and cartel violence, according to an annual study by Mexico's Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice. St. Louis, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, were the only two U.S. cities in the top 25. Only two other U.S. cities Detroit, Michigan (No. 46), and New Orleans, Louisiana (No. 50) made the top 50 list. The Citizens' Council tracked homicide totals and rates per 100,000 people in cities with more than 300,000 residents. The purpose of the study is partly to apply pressure to leaders in those urban areas, according to a summary on the group's website. Despite the political objective, the group said it didn't twist the data to produce a desired outcome. "Our interest is just to know the truth," according to a translation of their methodology. The list also isn't immune to error, according to the methodology. Some municipalities don't provide accurate homicide statistics. It those cases, the researchers used conservative estimates to arrive at annual figures. Most of the cities on the list have been ravaged by cartel violence or gang wars or both, including the Mexican cities of Juarez (No. 5) and Acapulco (No. 2). A March 2017 report from The Journal Times indicated that Mexico's murder total had been rising from 2014 to the first months of 2017. Another article from Time said Mexico was on track to surpass the grim 2017 homicide numbers (26,168) in 2018. Brazil and Venezuela also accounted for large portion of the most violent cities. The list did not include cities that suffer open war conflicts, such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. >>> Chron.com compiled a slideshow of the top 25 most violent cities on the list. To view the full list, visit the council's website. 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 | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Congress is trying once again to fix the National Flood Insurance Program, and its persistence on this issue is admirable even though its performance has not been. Lawmakers must find a way to get more homes into the program without raising rates too high to discourage that goal. Thats a tough challenge, but almost anything would be an improvement over the current program. Only about a fourth of all homes have flood insurance, and some of them are in dangerously flood-prone areas. The latest proposal is to use private-sector data to calculate the flood threat for each home and set costs based on that data. Previously, the main decider was whether a home was inside or outside of the 100-year flood plain. A FEMA spokesman described the change as, Our new system will determine a customers flood risk by incorporating multiple, logical rating variables like different types of flood, the distance a building is from the coast or another water source, or the cost to rebuild a home. Boardman, Ohio-based Orthopaedic Surgery Center leaders went to Columbus, Ohio to find ways to make their new ASC as cost-friendly as possible, Business Journal Daily reports. What you should know: 1. OSC is developing a $7 million ASC in Boardman, expected to open in December. 2. OSC leaders visited an ASC in Columbus on a fact-finding mission. While the Columbus facility is a few years old, OSC staff left with several takeaways. For example, OSC Administrator Taylor Cera said the Columbus center regretted its decision to build several overnight stay rooms. 3. Physicians at the Columbus center perform more outpatient than overnight procedures, and demand for outpatient procedures continues to rise as patients and payers look to cut costs. 4. OSC President Michael Engle, MD, said reducing costs was one of its key tenants. 5. "If we can take procedures that are routinely done in a hospital inpatient setting, or even outpatient, and move them into ambulatory centers, we're helping everyone involved," said Dr. Engle. 6. OSC's new center can be expanded if demand necessitates it. California Ambulatory Surgery Association President Deborah Miller expressed support for state Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, and proposed healthcare reform strategies in an opinion article on Capitol Weekly. Three takeaways: 1. Ms. Miller praised several elements of Gov. Newsom's proposed budget: Allocating 53.5 percent of the state's budget, or roughly $34.7 billion, to the California Department of Health Care Services Issuing an executive order encouraging California state agencies to pressure pharmaceutical companies into lowering prices Proposing the expansion of Medi-Cal and restoration of the insurance coverage individual mandate 2. Along with advancing all three goals of the Triple Aim improving population health, enhancing patient experience and outcomes, and lowering per-capita care costs Ms. Miller said the administration must expand access to ASCs. 3. Ms. Miller also critiqued the state's oversight system for ASCs, saying it "can be confusing to the public." ASCs can operate under three different models in the current system: Medicare certification with California Department of Public Health oversight Accreditation with oversight by the Medical Board of California State licensure "Traditional models of coverage, care structures and cost methodologies are inevitably changing, and as such, it's time to take a look at existing barriers that can easily be removed in order to expand efficient, high-quality care to those that need it most," Ms. Miller said. "... we're confident that ASCs can help to fill this critical need and are part of the solution in truly realizing the Triple Aim here in California." An operating room nurse at Jefferson Surgery Center - Washington Township (N.J.) participated in a ceremony honoring American veterans March 12. Three highlights: 1. Carlos Vascos, BSN, RN, chairs the township's Veterans Affairs Committee. To honor American prisoners of war and service members missing in action, the committee presented a commemorative chair at the township's municipal building. 2. Mr. Vascos is chairperson of Jefferson Surgery Center's Nursing Unit Council, as well as an infusion nurse for a home care company. He served as a Corpsman in the U.S. Navy. 3. He graduated from the Helene Fuld School of Nursing in New York City and the W. Cary Edwards School of Nursing in Trenton, N.J. Bristol (Conn.) Hospital CEO Kurt Barwis and several hospital board members discussed the institution's robust C-suite compensation packages in light of a state tax revenue proposal, according to HartfordBusiness.com. Four things to know: 1. A 2017 IRS filing noted that Mr. Barwis earned more than $750,000 in salary and fringe benefits, while the health system made $174 million in revenue. Mr. Barwis told the publication that while he knows his salary as CEO of a nonprofit hospital is public knowledge, he takes issue with how the figure may be perceived by others. "People look at [the salary] and think it's just a big number, and they don't understand what it takes to actually get into this role, how much education and training, how much responsibility there is. There's not an executive in any of these organizations who's not on a 24-7-365 [schedule]," he said. 2. Connecticut hospitals and the state government have had a tense relationship since the former governor's administration brought back a hospital tax in 2012. The original tax leveraged higher federal reimbursements benefiting hospitals and the state. However, the state began taking more in funds to balance its budgets, a move that negatively affected hospitals. 3. Bristol Hospital CFO Richard Braam told the publication the governor's budget would take $516 million more in tax revenue than hospitals expected. While the net effect on hospitals would only be about $43 million above expectations, those losses would hurt hospitals' ability to recruit specialized talent, among other issues, Mr. Braam said 4. Despite the issues, Gov. Ned Lamont said after a recent keynote speech that state officials are "in very good discussions with the hospitals, it's a reset of that relationship as well, and we'll see what happens going forward, but this year, [the hospital tax] is staying in the budget." To access the full report, click here. Only seven months after NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission wrapped its last field campaign on the world's largest island, an OMG crew is back in Greenland to collect more data. With two or three field projects a year since 2016, no wonder OMG has made the most comprehensive measurements yet of how ocean water lapping at the undersides of Greenland's melting glaciers affects them. All that data has answered a lot of existing questions -- and it's raised plenty of new ones. "We've seen some really surprising results that suggest the oceans have a huge effect on Greenland's biggest glaciers," said OMG Principal Investigator Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This year, we hope to figure out whether the ocean's impact is widespread or if it's just a few big glaciers that care about ocean temperatures." JPL engineer Ron Muellerschoen has flown back and forth across Greenland during its snowiest season for the last three years. He might be excused for feeling a little blase about spending a few more weeks in an aircraft over Greenland's ice sheet. But no. "It's huge. It's just amazing," Muellerschoen said. "I'll never reach a time where it's 'just snow' out there. I feel really lucky to be able to do this four years in a row." Besides the scenery, Muellerschoen is looking forward to this year's inevitable technological challenges. Although he flies NASA's Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN-A) radar on a NASA G-III aircraft each year, "It's never the same," he said. "We're always trying to push the limits of what we can look at in the field. There's new hardware, new configurations for installing equipment on the plane, and we have a new recording system." The GLISTIN-A radar maps the edges of glaciers along the entire coastline of the island and measures their heights precisely. As a glacier loses ice and speeds up, it stretches out and gets thinner, so that its surface is lower than before. The height measurement enables researchers to estimate how much ice has been lost since the preceding year's measurement. OMG also measures ocean temperatures around the coastline every fall and has completed a multiyear effort to make high-precision maps of the ocean floor off the coast. With these combined data sets, scientists have a complete view of Greenland's 200 or so coastal glaciers and how they are responding to changes in the water below and the air above them. The G-III aircraft and its crew are based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. This spring campaign is using two bases: Keflavik, Iceland, and the U.S. Air Force's Thule Air Base in Greenland. Flights began last week from Keflavik to map glaciers in southern and eastern Greenland. The crew will soon transit to Thule to survey western and northern Greenland. The campaign will continue until all measurements have been completed -- around March 20, depending on weather. Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services sees a new partnership with the University of Minnesota, also in Minneapolis, as an opportunity to cut medical expenses through new technologies and research, according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Fairview Health President and CEO James Hereford said the health system is looking at using artificial intelligence, telemedicine and automation to deliver medical services to patients at a lower cost. Mr. Hereford said doing so is a top priority of its partnership with the university. Under the deal, Fairview Health agreed to give at least $40 million each year to the University of Minnesota to fund clinical research. Mr. Hereford added that in addition to research funding, Fairview Health will be working with the university to get patients into clinical trials. "If you're going to be effective in experiments and clinical trials, etc., you need to have a large body of patients to work from," Mr. Hereford told the Pioneer Press. "You can't simply do it as the stand-alone ivory tower on the hill, which is where many academics were." The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission's March report to Congress recommends phasing in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital cuts more gradually over a longer period. The commission also recommends restructuring the DSH allotment methodology distributing the reductions so that they gradually improve the relationship between DSH allotments and each state's nonelderly, low-income population. Additionally, the commission recommended requiring HHS to apply the reductions to unspent DSH funding first. "The commission is concerned that the magnitude of DSH cuts assumed under current law could affect the financial viability of some safety-net hospitals," a report chapter summary says. "If Congress chooses to proceed with DSH cuts, MACPAC recommends that it takes specific actions to minimize the impact of the cuts on safety-net hospitals and better align the existing allotment methodology with the cost of uncompensated care." Assuming uncompensated care costs would decrease as the number of insured people increased, the ACA adjusted Medicaid payments for hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients. A $4 billion reduction in DSH payments is scheduled for the Oct. 1 start of fiscal year 2020. But the commission's report noted that while increased coverage under the ACA has reduced unpaid costs of care for the uninsured, "there has been a net increase in hospital uncompensated care costs for DSH hospitals because of an increase in Medicaid shortfall, which is the difference between a hospital's Medicaid payments and its costs of providing services to Medicaid-enrolled patients." National healthcare groups, including the American Hospital Association, have continued to urge Congress to delay the cuts. The commission's full report, which also addresses upper payment limit supplemental payments to hospitals, is available here. More stories on healthcare finance: North Carolina agrees to increase reimbursement rates for rural hospitals HHS, states discuss instituting Medicaid block grants without Congress Hospitals in 15 states could take financial hit from Medicaid work requirements Quorum Health began selling off hospitals in 2016, and the Brentwood, Tenn.-based company plans to further refine its hospital portfolio this year. Quorum is focused on selling hospitals to improve financial performance. Since its spinoff from Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems in April 2016, Quorum has divested 10 hospitals and closed one other. The company has received $86.5 million in net proceeds from hospital divestitures, and it has used the bulk of those funds $84.8 million to pay down its debt, according to a March 12 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, Quorum said it intends to divest or close underperforming hospitals. Quorum President and CEO Bob Fish provided more details about the company's divestiture plan during a fourth-quarter earnings call on March 13. Mr. Fish said the company is actively marketing both individual hospitals and groups of hospitals. "We continue to see active interest in the assets being marketed," he said. "Once we're able to complete our currently planned divestitures, we expect the profile of our business to consist of 18 to 20 premier rural and non-urban hospitals generating $1.2 million to $1.4 million in revenue with enterprise adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-teens." Quorum, which currently owns 27 hospitals, plans to make progress toward its divestiture goal this year. In January, the company entered into a definitive agreement to sell Scenic Mountain Medical Center in Big Spring, Texas. Quorum expects that deal to close by the end of April. More articles on healthcare industry transactions: 7 hospital mergers called off in past year Rennova acquires Tennessee hospital Swedish Covenant, Rush consider merger Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh resigned from the University of Maryland Medical System board of directors amid scrutiny for failing to disclose a previous deal with the organization, according to The Baltimore Sun. Five things to know: 1. In a statement obtained by The Baltimore Sun, Ms. Pugh said, "It has been an honor to have been associated with the important work of the UMMS Board, but the fact is, I have many other pressing concerns that require my full attention, energy and efforts." 2. Ms. Pugh's resignation follows public scrutiny after she failed to disclose a $500,000 business relationship she has held with the health system since 2011, according to a second report from The Baltimore Sun. 3. The mayor recently submitted an amendment for reports filed with the state ethics commission between 2010-16. During that period, Ms. Pugh established a company to sell her series of children's books to the medical system. 4. The amended disclosure forms state the health system purchased Ms. Pugh's Healthy Holly book series and distributed them to schools in the city in 2012, 2013 and 2015, the report states. City and UMMS officials told the publication the health system spent $500,000 to purchase 100,000 copies of the book series in during the years of 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2018. 5. In disclosure forms that must be filed by UMMS board members, Ms. Pugh incorrectly reported that she received $100,000 in profit from the sale of her book series. The mayor said March 14 those figures were incorrect. "The net profit to my company after illustration, printing and shipping costs amounted to approximately $20,000 in each of the [five] years that the University of Maryland Medical System purchased the books. The gross revenue of $100,000 listed as 'profits' in my board disclosure was incorrect," she said. Ardent Health Services completed the sale of its interest in Bay Medical Sacred Heart in Panama City, Fla., to Ascension on March 14. Nashville, Tenn.-based Ardent and Sacred Heart Health System, part of St. Louis-based Ascension, jointly operated the 323-bed hospital. In November 2018, Ardent agreed to sell its interest in the hospital and its affiliated physician offices and clinics to Ascension. Ascension plans to invest $47 million in Bay Medical, according to WHJG. A portion of those funds will be used to repair damage caused by Hurricane Michael in October 2018. Ascension also plans to increase the number of private rooms at the hospital. More articles on healthcare industry transactions: 7 hospital mergers called off in past year Rennova acquires Tennessee hospital Bankrupt California hospital chain closes $235M sale Registered nurses across New York City plan to strike on April 2 at Montefiore, Mount Sinai and NewYork-Presbyterian locations, according to a union news release. The strike, which will affect about 10,000 nurses at the health systems, comes amid negotiations between the New York State Nurses Association and the New York City Hospital Alliance. The union said nurses are striking because hospitals will not hire enough bedside caregivers, which forces nurses to care for up to 19 patients at one time and negatively affects patients. "In March, over 97 percent of nurses across the three hospital systems voted to authorize a strike because it has become a matter of life and death for our patients," the union said. "We do not want to strike, but we are determined to make changes that will guarantee safe staffing to properly take care of our patients." Greater New York Hospital Association President Kenneth E. Raske stressed the association's respect for nurses but called the strike "irresponsible." "It comes at a time when GNYHA and the 1199SEIU labor union are fighting with every ounce of energy, including a massive rally in Albany tomorrow, to protect New York's healthcare community and secure contingency funding against horrific proposed federal cuts. The very existence of many safety net hospitals is at stake," he wrote in a statement on March 18. "Furthermore, the rigid, inflexible nurse staffing ratios that NYSNA may strike over are so discredited that voters in Massachusetts overwhelmingly rejected them just five months ago. Forced nurse staffing ratios would deny hospitals real-time staffing flexibility, crowd out other members of the healthcare team, and cost billions to implement. Staffing decisions are best made at the bedside by expert, experienced nurses," added Mr. Raske. An alliance spokesperson also expressed disappointment about the strike and said the group will continue to work with nurses to reach an agreement. More articles on human capital and risk: Baystate Health leaders guilty of attempted union-busting, NLRB finds Hospitals and unions: 6 recent conflicts, agreements Nurses strike at 2 California hospitals From the former CEO of a Texas hospital pleading guilty to fraud charges to Humana settling a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines. 1. Co-owner of medical billing company pleads guilty to drug-testing scheme The co-owner of a medical billing company based in Nicholasville, Ky., pleaded guilty to participating in a drug-testing scheme that led to $1.3 million in fraudulent payments. 2. BCBS Association: It's too late for UPMC to join federal antitrust lawsuit against BCBS plans The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association asked a court to deny Pittsburgh-based UPMC's request to join a lawsuit that argues 36 BCBS insurers unlawfully conspired to divide markets and avoid competition with one another. 3. Arizona hospitals can't impose financial liens on patients, court rules The Arizona Court of Appeals voided sections of a law that allowed hospitals paid by the state Medicaid program to file financial liens on patients. 4. DC drops lawsuit against Ascension over hospital closure The District of Columbia dropped its lawsuit against St. Louis-based Ascension and its Washington, D.C.-based hospital over the facility's closure March 6, just days before both parties were scheduled to appear in court. 5. Humana settles pregnancy discrimination lawsuit Humana agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of pregnancy discrimination. 6. Former Texas hospital CEO pleads guilty to defrauding 3 major insurers The former CEO of Palo Pinto General Hospital in Mineral Wells, Texas, pleaded guilty to defrauding BlueCross BlueShield of Texas, Cigna Texas and UnitedHealthcare out of millions of dollars. 7. New York physician admits to orchestrating $16M false billing scheme The former operator of two medical clinics in New York City pleaded guilty to his role in a scheme to defraud government payers and illegally sell prescriptions for millions of pain pills. 8. Pipeline Health accused of acquiring Illinois hospital under false pretenses The village of Melrose Park, Ill., filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles-based Pipeline Health, alleging the company made fraudulent misrepresentations when it acquired Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park. 9. Kansas physician gets life in prison for selling opioids for cash A Kansas physician was sentenced to life in prison on March 8 after he was convicted of selling opioid prescriptions to patients without a legitimate medical reason. 10. Florida hospital on hook for $1.1M jury award after woman's fall A woman who slipped on the wet floor at Tallahassee, Fla.-based Capital Regional Medical Center in 2016 was awarded $1.1 million by a jury. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: Former UPMC employee pleads guilty to criminal HIPAA violation Ohio physician accused of fatal medication orders is immune from civil suits, lawyer claims Update to Stark Law coming later this year, CMS chief says Here are seven lawsuits involving payers posted by Becker's Hospital Review since the first week of March: 1. Anthem, Cigna await court's decision on multibillion-dollar breakup case A chancery court judge in Delaware is set to decide whether Anthem or Cigna is owed money in a breakup battle that ensued in the two years after their failed merger. 2. Judge orders hearing before signing off on CVS-Aetna deal A judge tasked with signing off on a government settlement allowing CVS Health to acquire Aetna ordered a hearing on the matter. 3. BCBS Association: It's too late for UPMC to join federal antitrust lawsuit against BCBS plans The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association asked a court to deny UPMC's request to join a lawsuit that argues 36 BCBS insurers unlawfully conspired to divide markets and avoid competition with one another. 4. Humana settles pregnancy discrimination lawsuit Humana agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of pregnancy discrimination. 5. Cigna fraud case dismissed by appeals court The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a class-action lawsuit filed against Cigna that accuses the health insurer of committing securities fraud. 6. Former Texas hospital CEO pleads guilty to defrauding 3 major insurers The former CEO of Palo Pinto General Hospital in Mineral Wells, Texas, pleaded guilty to defrauding BlueCross BlueShield of Texas, Cigna Texas and UnitedHealthcare out of millions of dollars. 7. Insurers request $2B+ in unpaid ACA payments Three health insurers filed status reports with the federal government March 5 asking for billions in unpaid cost-sharing reductions payments. While the insurers don't agree on the estimate, a group of insurers' class-action lawsuit estimates damages of more than $2 billion. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is suing pharmacy benefit manager OptumRx to recoup $16 million in alleged overcharges, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Mr. Yost initially sought mediation in the dispute on behalf of the Bureau of Workers' Compensation, which hired OptumRx to manage prescription benefits. "It's been 30 days, and we only just now have a meeting scheduled to talk," Mr. Yost told The Columbus Dispatch."Time's up; give us our money." In mid-February, Mr. Yost sent a letter to OptumRx asking them to repay $16 million to the Bureau of Workers' Compensation. In the letter, Mr. Yost claims that OptumRx has overcharged the bureau since 2015. In particular, the PBM overcharged the bureau $6 million in 2015, $2.7 million between the beginning of 2016 and the end of October 2016 and $7.2 million between Nov. 1, 2016, and Oct. 27, 2018. An OptumRx spokesperson told The Columbus Dispatch that the "allegations are without merit" and they are "working with the state to resolve the bureau's concerns." Read the full report here. Here are 10 hospitals, health systems or healthcare organizations that posted job listings seeking chief medical information officers during the past month. Note: This is not an exhaustive list. Job listings were compiled from job seeker websites. Organizations are listed in alphabetical order. 1. Anne Arundel Medical Center (Annapolis, Md.): Seeking a physician with five years of clinical informatics experience to serve as CMIO 2. Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (Colton, Calif.): Seeking a physician to serve as full time CMIO 3. Freeman Health System (Joplin, Mo.): Seeking a physician with seven years of clinical experience to serve as full time CMIO 4. Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.): Seeking two physicians with five years of clinical informatics experience to serve as regional CMIOs 5. PeaceHealth (Vancouver, Wash.): Seeking a physician with 10 years of experience to serve as CMIO 6. Tallahassee (Fla.) Memorial Healthcare: Seeking a CMIO with five years of clinical informatics 7. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: Seeking a physician with five years of information technology experience to serve as CMIO 8. Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center (Augusta, Ga.): Seeking physician with two years of medical experience to serve as chief health information officer 9. UnitedHealth Group (New York City): Seeking a physician to serve as CMIO advisor for a New York City-based health system 10. Valley Health System (Ridgewood, N.J.): Seeking a physician to serve as full time CMIO SpaceX's Crew Dragon returned to Earth with a splash in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida's eastern shore at 8:45 a.m. EST, completing an end-to-end flight test to demonstrate most of the capabilities of its crew transportation system to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The mission, known as Demo-1, is a critical step for NASA and SpaceX to demonstrate the ability to safely fly missions with NASA astronauts to the orbital laboratory. The Crew Dragon launched March 2 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the first commercially-built and operated American crew spacecraft and rocket to launch from American soil on a mission to the space station and autonomously dock to the station. To complete the docking, both the station and Crew Dragon's adapters used the new international docking standard. Crew Dragon is returning to Earth some critical research samples from science investigations conducted to enable human exploration farther into space and develop and demonstrate in the U.S. ISS National Laboratory new technologies, treatments, and products for improving life on Earth. Also traveling aboard the spacecraft is an anthropomorphic test device named Ripley outfitted with sensors to provide data about potential effects on humans traveling in Crew Dragon. SpaceX's recovery ship, Go Searcher, is equipped with a crane to lift Crew Dragon out of the water and onto the main deck of the ship within an hour after splashdown. NASA and SpaceX still have work to do to review the systems and flight data to validate the spacecraft's performance and prepare it to fly astronauts. Already planned upgrades, additional qualification testing, and an in-flight abort test will occur before NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will climb aboard for Demo-2, the crewed flight test to the International Space Station that is necessary to certify Crew Dragon for routine operational missions. Crew Dragon's splashdown in the Atlantic was almost 50 years after the return of Apollo 9 on March 13, 1969, the last human spacecraft to return to the waters off the East Coast. On-Orbit Status Report SpaceX (SpX) Crew Dragon Demonstration 1 Undock and Splashdown: Following five days docked to the ISS, today the SpX Crew Dragon Demo 1 successfully undocked. Physical separation occurred at 1:32 AM CT with splashdown within the anticipated landing zone in the Atlantic Ocean at 7:45 AM CT. SpX's two recovery ships were positioned nearby to recover the spacecraft and return it to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. This uncrewed flight test marks a significant step towards returning capability to launch astronauts on a U.S. built spacecraft from U.S. soil. Plasma Krystall-4 (PK-4): Today the crew initiated 3 runs of group 4 for the PK-4 study, performed a chamber cleaning and deinstalled the video monitoring equipment. PK-4 is a scientific collaboration between the ESA and the Roscosmos, performing research in the field of "Complex Plasmas": low temperature gaseous mixtures composed of ionized gas, neutral gas, and micron-sized particles. Space Automated Bioproduct Laboratory (SABL): The crew completed teardown of the Microscope hardware from the SABL-E2 unit in preparation for upgrading Lab ER-1 with an Improved Payload Ethernet Hub Gateway (iPEHG) next week. The Space Automated Bioproduct Laboratory (SABL) supports a wide variety of experiments in the life, physical and material sciences with a focus on supporting research of biological systems and processes. It has over 23 liters of temperature-controlled volume with LED lighting for scientific hardware and experiments. It can be fitted to provide 5% CO2 for cell cultures and has 2 USB 2.0 ports and 2 Ethernet LAN connections. It also has switchable 28vdc and 5vdc power supplies for experiment use. Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Preparations: Today the crew completed an On-orbit Fit Check Verification (OFV) for ExtraVehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) 3008 in support of upcoming P4 Integrated Equipment Assembly (IEA) Channels 4A and 2A Battery EVAs planned for March 22 and 29. Completed Task List Activities: None Ground Activities: All activities are complete unless otherwise noted. SpX undock activities EMU 3008 OFV Look Ahead: Saturday, 03/09 (GMT 068): Payloads: PK-4 Chamber Gas neon exchange and stow and Data HD changeout (RUS) VEG-03H install (NASA-Virtual task list) Systems: EMU Li-Ion battery charge initiate Weekly housekeeping Sunday, 03/10 (GMT 069): Payloads: Off-duty Systems: Off-duty Monday, 03/11 (GMT 070) Payloads: Glacier4 Desiccant swap (NASA) Circadian Rhythms (CSA) Systems: None - crew off duty Today's Planned Activities: All activities are complete unless otherwise noted. USOS Window Shutter Close Dragon Forward ISS Video Setup Dragon Foward Departure Monitoring Regeneration of 2 Micropurification Cartridge (start) PK-4 data hard drives exchange Cleaning FGB Gas-Liquid Heat Exchanger () Detachable Screens 1, 2, 3 Water Recovery and Management (WRM) Waste Water Bus (WWB) Split Countermeasures System (CMS) Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) Exercise Session Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (RGN) Wastewater Storage Tank Assembly (WSTA) Fill PK-4 Experiment Run 4/1 Health Maintenance System (HMS) ISS Food Intake Tracker (ISS FIT) Microscope Hardware Teardown PK-4 Experiment Run 4/2 Node2 Forward Stowage Restow Part 1 PCS Laptop Relocate Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) Portable Emergency Provisions (PEPS) Inspection PK-4 Experiment Run 4/3 ISS CREW/CSA CONFERENCE Dragon Forward Monitoring Tools Teardown Dragon Forward - Station Support Computer Relocate Inventory Management System (IMS) Conference PILOT-T. Experiment Ops. Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Equipment Lock Preparation Part 1 Robotic Workstation (RWS) Teardown EMU OFV Extravehicular (EV) EMU OFV Intravehicular (IV) PK-4 Chamber Filling with Cleaning Gas PK-4 Video Monitor Deinstallation Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. With the Arizona Senate's unanimous support of a telemedicine bill, the House is debating whether to expand remote-access care statewide, according to local news radio station KJZZ. The bill, which is supported by the University of Arizona's Center for Rural Health, would require payers to cover virtual care services similarly to in-person coverage. Private insurers now only cover limited access to telemedicine providers. Patients in rural areas would benefit most from the bill, as many primary care providers in these areas continue to retire. Arizona is the fifth fastest-growing state, according to the report, and less the half (42 percent) of its booming population visits primary care physicians. Spine surgeons face unique challenges and opportunities outside of urban markets. Gary Snook, MD, is a board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon at Tooele (Utah) Medical Group Spine Surgery and a member of the medical staff at the 44-bed Mountain West Medical Center in Tooele. He recently spoke with Beckers Spine Reviewabout challenges and opportunities facing surgeons in rural areas. Question: What challenges do surgical specialists face in rural hospitals? Dr. Gary Snook: Outmigration of specialty care hurts rural hospitals. Outmigration of patients to larger health systems can make it difficult to recruit and retain quality surgical specialists as well as other healthcare professionals like nurses and surgical technicians. When appropriate care is available locally, yet patients seek services in larger, more urban markets, volumes decrease and recruitment and retention efforts become increasingly difficult. As a result, the rural hospital's ability to provide specialty services to the community is damaged. According to Merritt Hawkins, as of July 2018 there were 6,739 Health Care Professional Shortage Areas for primary care in the U.S., about double the number identified by the Health Resources and Services Administration 15 years ago. Over 65 million people live in a primary care HPSA, and 67 percent of HPSAs are in rural areas. With so many shortages in basic primary care, the need to support rural specialists is even more important. Q: How do rural markets attract physicians? GS: If you have access to a specialty physician in a rural area, it's likely because the physician chose to live there and made a commitment to the community. Physicians select certain regions of the country for many different reasons. Often, it's because they are passionate about providing access to care in remote areas, and they likely also enjoy what a rural lifestyle offers, such as hunting, fishing or mountain biking. Q: What opportunities do rural practice present? GS: Aside from having a doctor who is invested in the community, patients may also receive more personalized care in rural areas. A rural healthcare setting allows for a more personable approach with patients. Your surgeon can be there every step of the way, from gathering your patient history to negotiating with insurance companies for approvals. Consumers in rural areas may not be accustomed to having access to specialty care, making outreach mechanisms an essential part of creating healthier communities. For example, Mountain West Medical Center recently implemented an online Spine Health Risk Assessment to help consumers learn methods for healing, pain management and prevention. Depending on their assessment results, a patient may receive instructions on how to connect with a local specialist or primary care physician, depending on the severity of symptoms and risk category. Northern Ireland agri-food giant Fane Valley has acquired an Irish duck producer and exporter. Fane Valley, which also owns Linden Foods and White's Speedicook, paid an undisclosed sum for Silver Hill Foods in Emyvale, Co Monaghan. Fane Valley has supplied feed to the company for around 10 years. Silver Hill's management team is to stay on in the business, though some new Fane Valley directors will join the board. Fane Valley chief executive Trevor Lockhart said: "We have acquired a highly reputable Irish agri-food business. "We are committed to future investment in production facilities on the Emyvale site." He said Fane Valley now hoped that the company could build sales in new markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Brexit was not mentioned as a factor behind the purchase. Silver Hill Foods owner Stuart Steele said: "Keeping the business in Irish control and based in Emyvale was an intrinsic part of the negotiations and subsequent sale. "Silver Hill Foods has attracted the interest of many potential overseas buyers over the years, particularly from the UK, Europe and even Asia." Trevor Lockhart, Fane Valley Group chief executive, said: "Fane Valley is committed to future investment in production facilities on the Emyvale site to enable Silver Hill to meet growing demand, particularly in Asian markets including new areas such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. We are excited by the growth prospects and the opportunities this will present for all stakeholders in the business." The accountant behind the privatisation of electricity in Northern Ireland has been honoured by a professional body for his "huge contribution" to public life. Chartered Accountants Ireland (CAI) recognised Sir Desmond Lorimer (94) as one its most distinguished members and as a leading light in the world of business at an event in Belfast's Waterfront Hall. Feargal McCormack, the accounting body's president, praised "one of the pillars of the community" for his contribution to the economy. "As a young chartered accountant, he was certainly one of the people who I very much looked up to," he said. "He is a great ambassador for our institute and a fantastic example of the lasting impact that our members can make in their career." The father of two, who was the first ever chairman of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, also headed up Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) in the early 1990s. A Queen's University PhD graduate, he was also the first chairman of the Industrial Development Board which preceded the setting-up of Invest NI. Sir Desmond was presented with a Galway Crystal gift after he addressed the institute's council members on the 50th anniversary of his tenure as president from 1968 to 1969. The accountant, who was credited with helping the institute renew its focus on "openness, transparency and engagement", noted strong growth in female members. He wished them all every success as they continue to push for progress in the future. Budget British airline easyJet has pulled out of plans to form a consortium to bid for bankrupt Italian carrier Alitalia. EasyJet said that following discussions with state-controlled railway Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane and Delta Air Lines about forming a consortium to explore options for Alitalia, it has now withdrawn from the process. The Italian government is conducting a sales process for Alitalia, which was placed into special administration in 2017. Had a deal gone through, it would have given easyJet and Delta around 40% of the Italian carrier. Expand Close A deal would have given easyJet and Delta 40% of the airline (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A deal would have given easyJet and Delta 40% of the airline (PA) EasyJet added that it remains committed to Italy. The Luton-based firm carries 18.5 million passengers every year in the country and employs 1,400 pilots and crew, all on local contracts. We continue to invest in the three bases in Milan, Naples, Venice, as we have done by basing additional aircraft in Venice and Naples last summer, the company said. The announcement comes just weeks after Italys deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said he was confident that talks with easyJet and Delta would result in a relaunch of Alitalia. For its part, Delta said it remains interested in working with Alitalia and discussions are on-going. A group of people affected by IRA violence have written to a US politician urging her to withdraw a posthumous award to Martin McGuinness. San Francisco Mayor London Breed caused outrage after bestowing a Certificate of Honour that referred to the late Sinn Fein politician's "courageous military service". She has since apologised for "the pain" the award caused. However, victims said she must go further. In a letter to Ms Breed, published by this newspaper today, they call for her to withdraw the certificate and to meet with people affected by IRA terrorism. The signatories include Pam Morrison, whose three brothers were murdered in separate incidents in Co Fermanagh, and Ann McCabe, widow of murdered Garda Jerry McCabe. The letter states there was "no excuse" for honouring Mr McGuinness, who the writers describe as "a commander of death and destruction". They add that the award was "deeply hurting" to them and tens of thousands of others. In the letter the victims call for Ms Breed to: Apologise unequivocally for making the posthumous award to Mr McGuinness. Rescind the award. Commit to meeting with victims of IRA terrorism. Mr McGuinness, who died in 2017 aged 66, was a senior IRA man before becoming a key figure in the peace process. The award was commissioned on March 8 and was signed by Ms Breed, the Democratic Mayor of San Francisco. The certificate cites reasons for honouring the late republican, including his "courageous service in the military". Other factors included his role "as a negotiator (who) helped cement and shape the Northern Ireland peace process and construct the Good Friday Agreement". The Mayor later explained that Mr McGuinness had been selected as one of five honorary "Grand Marshalls" for the award. She said: "The language on the Certificate of Honour should have taken more care to apply these values when reflecting the history of Mr McGuinness's life towards peacemaker and his role in the peace process that resulted in the Good Friday Agreement." Ms Breed said she apologised for "the pain this certificate has caused". But relatives of those who died or were injured through IRA violence are unhappy the award was not rescinded. Among those putting their name to the letter is Ms Morrison, whose brothers Ronnie, Cecil and Jimmy Graham were murdered in separate incidents between 1981 and 1985 in south Fermanagh. Kathleen Gillespie, who had criticised the award in the Belfast Telegraph last week, has also signed the letter. Her husband Patsy was forced to drive a car bomb to an Army checkpoint near Coshquin, Co Londonderry, which was then detonated, killing him and five soldiers. The other signatories include Neil Tattersall, who was injured in the 1992 Manchester bombing; James Miller, the grandson of David Miller, one of nine murdered in the 1972 Claudy bombings, and Mrs McCabe, whose husband Jerry was murdered in Adare, Co Limerick, in 1996. The sixth person to sign the letter is Mark Tipper, whose brother Simon was one of four soldiers murdered in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing. The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has warned that "an infrastructure of suspicion and division" could set back decades of progress between communities on both sides of the border. In his message for St Patrick's Day to the people of Ireland at home and abroad, Archbishop Eamon Martin expressed concern over the impact of the ongoing political and economic uncertainty over Brexit. "I hope this weekend that the prayers and example of Saint Patrick will help our politicians, community leaders and all of us to treat each other with respect in these trying times," the Archbishop of Armagh said. He added that Ireland's patron saint was a champion for the peaceful resolution of problems. The Archdiocese of Armagh will be seriously affected by Brexit as its flock lives on both sides of the border. Today, Armagh - where St Patrick founded a church in 445AD - is the primary seat of both the Catholic Church in Ireland and the Church of Ireland, and both cathedrals in the town are named after Patrick. The scene of the incident in Cookstown, Co Tyrone (Liam McBurney/PA) The Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown on March 18th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) A teenager who died following reports of a crush outside a St Patrick's Day disco was a "beautiful soul", her cheerleading group has said. Lauren Bullock, 17, was the "backbone" of the team, Euphoria Allstar Cheerleading NI said. Read More Two boys aged 16 and 17 also died outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, on Sunday evening. The cheerleading team said: "Euphoria are absolutely devastated to say we lost one of our senior athletes, Lauren Bullock, in the tragedy in Cookstown last night. "My heart is broken writing this. You were the most down to earth, beautiful soul and our Coral team will never be the same without you. "You were an incredible cheerleader and were the backbone of our team." Several hundred people were trying to get into the venue after being dropped off by buses. A 17-year-old girl and two boys aged 16 and 17 died, one at the scene and two later in hospital, police confirmed. A 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition in hospital, while a further two teenagers were treated for injuries they suffered during the incident. People struggled to get off the ground and there was confusion in the immediate aftermath between 9pm and 10pm on Sunday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) added. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: "It is a truly awful incident, heart-wrenching for everybody, particularly the families." Efforts to resuscitate were made by emergency crews at the scene. The senior officer added: "Everybody did their best for them last night but it is a truly appalling incident." He added: "Unfortunately three are dead, the last person died this morning unfortunately with his parents near him." One of the deceased died at Antrim Area Hospital, the other at Craigavon Area Hospital in Co Armagh. The nightlife venue in Mid Ulster can take up to 500 people. Mr Hamilton said preliminary investigations show there was a crush towards the front door of the hotel, and in that crush people seem to have fallen. Security camera footage is being examined and police have appealed for videos captured by those present. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA The Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died The senior officer added: "We are examining now to see if the people who have fallen are those who are deceased. "There seemed to be a little bit of struggling going on to get people up off the ground and that might explain also why there was a report of some fighting." A social media user said she fell while in the crowd, recalling a "traumatic and stressful" experience. She saw paramedics trying to resuscitate a young boy. Six emergency ambulances and two rapid response vehicles responded shortly after 9pm on Sunday. Four emergency doctors were deployed along with ambulance officers. Northern Ireland Ambulance Service medical director Dr Nigel Ruddell said everything pointed towards it being a tragic accident. He said initial reports were confused. A major incident was called. Police made a direct appeal for people with footage of the incident to hand it to police, rather than post it on social media. Mr Hamilton added: "We are of an open mind... it looks like a crowd of young people, a large crowd, pushing up against the front of the hotel to get in to this event. "People then seem to have fallen and then got crushed. I would urge you to use that with some caution. "Certainly it appears to be at the minute a crush, people have fallen and then been fatally injured. "We are continuing to interview people who were there to establish the full facts and I would appeal to anyone who witnessed what happened to contact police on 101 ext 52014. "We need parents to talk to their children this morning and encourage them to come and tell us what happened. Please do not post photographs or videos online. Please share them with the PSNI." He added: "We need people to come forward and tell us what happened last night. Three young people are dead, they deserve a full inquiry. Their parents need to know what happened to them." Police posted on Twitter shortly after the incident, urging parents to pick up their children from the venue in Drum Road. A DUP councillor who broke ranks to support the LGBT community has resigned from the party. Last month, Ards and North Down Borough Council representative Tom Smith was deselected by the DUP for local government elections in May. In December, Mr Smith went against the party and voted in favour of a motion to light up Ards Town Hall in rainbow colours to mark LGBT Awareness Week. Read More Following his deselection, he lambasted the DUP over the decision and said he will never be a "nodding dog" for the party. "It is clear that the DUP were asking me to do something that I have not done in the past, that is to sit on council and just be a nodding dog for them, someone ready to put their hand up for a vote whenever it is required," he said. "If that is the price they are asking to become one of their candidates then it is a price I am not willing to pay. "Of course, I am sure there will be those who will be more than happy to sit there and put their hand up on command and do very little else. That isn't me." In a Tweet on Monday, Mr Smith said he has now resigned from the party. Last month, Tom Smith was strongly criticised by DUP MLA Jim Wells over his support for lighting up Ards Town Hall in rainbow colours, stating that he hoped Mr Smith "will soon be an ex-DUP councillor". Mr Smith has also hit out at the party for selecting councillor Thomas Hogg to stand in May's election, after he was convicted of drink driving. In a social media post above a BBC story about Mr Hogg's suspension, he wrote: "I am disgusted that the party has selected this guy to run as a candidate in the council elections. He is a convicted drunk driver currently suspended from being a councillor. I know many in the party feel the same but will they speak out? They should. Police in Northern Ireland are continuing separate searches for two missing women - Ruth Maguire and Nicola Murray Mrs Maguire was part of a 32-strong hen party who had travelled to Carlingford in Co Louth to celebrate an upcoming wedding. She was last seen by friends at around 11.30pm on Saturday. An Irish Coastguard helicopter, the Greenore Coastguard, the Belfast Coastguard and Kilkeel Lifeboat joined in a search when it emerged that she had posted a photograph on social media with Carlingford Lough close by. However, the search operation was suspended last night. The Garda is expected to give an update this morning. Friend Colette Delaney wrote on Facebook that Ms Maguire had no coat and it was freezing. She said she was worried sick. Please God help her be found safe, she added. Expand Close The search has resumed for a Belfast woman missing after a hen party in the Republic of Ireland. Ruth Maguire travelled to Carlingford, County Louth, on Saturday, to celebrate her friend's upcoming wedding. Newraypics.com / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The search has resumed for a Belfast woman missing after a hen party in the Republic of Ireland. Ruth Maguire travelled to Carlingford, County Louth, on Saturday, to celebrate her friend's upcoming wedding. Expand Close Ruth Maguire went missing in Carlingford on a hen night / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ruth Maguire went missing in Carlingford on a hen night Ms Maguire lives with family in Newcastle, Co Down, and works at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry. According to her friend Katrina OHare, the group all headed home to the house they were staying in at 11.30pm on Saturday. The house is less than five minutes from Taaffes Bar, where the group was enjoying the hen party. Within minutes they realised that Ruth was not with them. Katrina said: This is totally out of character. The group, the majority who are from Belfast, began searching for her straight away but could not find her. A doorman heard her say she might make her way home to Newcastle. Her partner and children had gone to Belfast at the weekend. Her partner drove to Newcastle from Belfast yesterday morning but she was not there. Last night it emerged Ruth had taken a photograph and posted it to Instagram at around midnight. However, her phone appeared to be turned off and yesterday her coat was found in the bar she was last in with the group of friends. Ruth is tall, slim, has blonde hair and was wearing a black T-shirt saying Member of Irish Bride drinking team, and black jeans. The hen party arrived in Carlingford on Saturday and was due to leave today. Expand Close Nicola Murray disappeared from Cushendall / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nicola Murray disappeared from Cushendall Meanwhile, in the Glens of Antrim concerns are growing for the welfare of Cushendall woman Nicola Murray. Ms Murray (43) was reported missing on Saturday. She is approximately 5ft 3ins tall, of slim build, with dark brown shoulder-length hair, which is slightly greying and normally tied back in a ponytail. The PSNI said: Nicola was last seen leaving her home address in Cushendall at approximately 6.15pm on Saturday March 16, 2019. She was wearing a short red padded coat, dark blue jeans and a pink-coloured beanie hat. If you have seen Nicola or can provide any information in regards to him please contact police on 101. Rescue teams from Coleraine, Ballycastle and Larne were dispatched, and Red Bay RNLI lifeboat was launched in a search. On Monday, March 18, the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency informed the racing industry that the implementation of the new edition of the CPMA Elimination Guidelines that was announced last month will be delayed until further notice. The contents of the CPMAs announcement regarding the delay appear below in both English and French. Delayed implementation of the new edition of the CPMA Elimination Guidelines The Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency (CPMA) would like to advise the Canadian horse racing industry that the implementation of the new edition of the CPMA Elimination Guidelines, as announced February 18, 2019 (New edition of the CPMA Elimination Guidelines), will be delayed until further notice. The CPMA will be engaging industry stakeholders regarding some of the proposed changes. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding the above or any other pari-mutuel betting matter, please do not hesitate to contact the CPMA by telephone at 1-800-268-8835 or by email at [email protected]. Report de la publication de la nouvelle edition du Guide delimination de lACPM LAgence canadienne du pari mutuel (ACPM) souhaite informer lindustrie canadienne des courses de chevaux que la publication de la nouvelle edition du Guide delimination de lACPM, comme il a ete annonce le 18 fevrier 2019 ( Nouvelle edition du Guide delimination de lACPM ), est reportee jusqua avis contraire. LACPM consultera les intervenants de lindustrie concernant certaines des modifications proposees. Si vous avez des questions ou des preoccupations au sujet de ce qui precede ou de toute autre question liee au pari mutuel, nhesitez pas a communiquer avec lACPM par telephone au 1-800-268-8835 ou par courriel a ladresse [email protected]. Tributes have been paid to Morgan Barnard who was killed in the Greenvale Hotel incident as his family come to terms with another tragedy on St Patrick's Day. Morgan's great uncle Patrick was killed in a UVF car bombing of the Hillcrest Bar in Dungannon in 1976. The 13-year-old was standing outside at the time with his best friend James McCaughey. They had been on their way to a disco. Speaking to the BBC, independent Councillor Barry Monteith said it was "just horrific for that family". "And indeed for all three families." Mr Monteith said the three families would all be well-known in the area and well respected. "It's extremely traumatic, there would have been a lot of young people there that witnessed what happened. There is a lot of work going on in the community to provide support... you know just to be together and to work their way through this horror." He added: "People have just been numb.. There are no answers, this does not make any sense. "For young folk to go for a night out and not come home is every parents' worst nightmare." Expand Close Morgan Barnard / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Morgan Barnard Read More Morgan's family took to social media in an appeal to help trace his final movements and who he was with so they could get answers to their questions. The 17-year-old was a pupil at St Patrick's Academy in Dungannon. It held a prayer service on Monday in memory of the teen and also Connor Currie who also died in the incident at the hotel. Tributes flooded social media as news of his tragic death spread. He was described as a "lovely, young, bright lad". "He was such a great lad, great manners and always had a smile for everyone," was one tribute. "School will never be the same without you." One friend wrote: "Doesnt seem real that your gone, always brightened up our classroom with your humour and smile." Another tribute said: "Heartbreaking, thoughts and prayers to their families." Morgan was killed in the incident along with Lauren Bullock and Connor Currie. Several hundred people had been trying to get into the Co Tyrone venue after being dropped off by buses shortly before 9.30pm on Sunday. Police said preliminary investigations showed there was a crush towards the front door of the hotel, and in that crush people seem to have fallen. They have appealed for anyone with video footage from the night to contact a special investigation team. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: "It is a truly awful incident, heart-wrenching for everybody, particularly the families. "Everybody did their best for them last night but it is a truly appalling incident." Owner Michael McElhatton gave CPR to the victims. Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Morgan Barnard, Lauren Bullock and Connor Currie. Lauren Bullock Conor Currie, who died at the Greenvale Hotel. A floral tribute near the Greenvale Hotel (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Morgan Barnard, Lauren Bullock and Connor Currie. He was clearly emotional as he said: "We are all deeply shocked and saddened by the traumatic events of last night. "We offer our heartfelt sympathies to the families and friends of the three young people who have lost their lives." A 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition in hospital, while another two teenagers were treated for injuries. Detectives can be contacted at the dedicated incident room at Dungannon police station by calling 101, extension 53055. Anyone with any images or footage can pass it to police via the following link: https://mipp.police.uk/operation/PSNI19O08-PO1. The owner of the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown has spoken of the shock and sadness after the tragic events at the venue on Sunday evening. In a short but emotional statement, hotel owner Michael McElhatton said management and staff were assisting the police with their investigation. He performed CPR to those caught up in the incident. "We are all deeply shocked and saddened by the traumatic events of last night," he said. "We offer our heartfelt sympathies to the families and friends of the three young people who lost their lives. Our thoughts are also with those who have been injured or affected in any way by this tragedy. "The management and staff are assisting the police with their investigations." He added: "I would like to place on record our appreciation for the speedy response of the emergency services to last night's terrible events." Read More Cheerleader Lauren Bullock, 17, keen sportsman Connor Currie, 16, and Morgan Barnard, 17, from Dungannon in Co Tyrone, died in the incident. Police said it appeared that people had fallen and then been fatally injured in an apparent crush, but are still investigating the cause. Several hundred people were trying to get into the venue, Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, after being dropped off by buses shortly before 9.30pm on Sunday. Emergency services attended within minutes and attempted to resuscitate the victims. Two were taken to hospital critically ill but died later. One died at the scene. People struggled to get off the ground and there was confusion, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: "It is a truly awful incident, heart-wrenching for everybody, particularly the families. "Everybody did their best for them last night but it is a truly appalling incident. "Unfortunately three are dead. The last person died this morning, unfortunately, with his parents near him." Expand Close Michael McElhattaon owner of The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown Co Tyrone. Pic: Liam McBurney/PA Wire PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Michael McElhattaon owner of The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown Co Tyrone. Pic: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Mr Hamilton said preliminary investigations showed there was a crush towards the front door of the hotel, and in that crush people seem to have fallen. Security camera footage is being examined and police have appealed for videos captured by those present. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has suggested that under-fire Secretary of State Karen Bradley should be replaced. In an interview with Politics Home, the MP said the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) had been a "dysfunctional department for quite some time" and called for "strong leadership" from it. Mrs Bradley faced calls to resign after she told the Commons that killings carried out by the security forces "were not crimes", but the actions of those "fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way". She later clarified her comments, before making a grovelling apology to victims the following day. Mr Dodds said: "I think that Karen has, perhaps, not been as out there in terms of getting across the people in Northern Ireland, taking to them, meeting with groups and all the rest of it, as some of her predecessors. "I know that, however, Brexit and the votes here has meant that maybe she hasn't had as much time. "But her basic policy approach has been flawed in the sense that she has decided that Northern Ireland could just stand still, leave it to the civil servants. "For that, that's a glaring failure on her part. "She has not taken a grip and shown the leadership that she could have." Asked if a change of leadership at the NIO was needed, he replied: "I think the Government needs to have a change of leadership in a number of departments, yes, across the board." The DUP did not respond to a request for comment. Mr Dodds said that the past week has been "one of the most incredible weeks in my experience in politics", as chaos reigns in Parliament with Theresa May struggling to obtain a consensus on her Brexit withdrawal agreement. "It's obviously a very febrile atmosphere, things are very tense, unpredictable," he said. "MPs from across the parties are finding it quite mentally and emotionally draining. These are very big decisions. For all the criticisms of MPs, these decisions are weighing on them very heavily." The DUP's leader at Westminster said he was "conscious of the pressure" on MPs to break the Brexit stalemate. "Of course, within the Westminster bubble, you feel that pressure very intensely," Mr Dodds added. "The DUP MPs have long experience of that kind of pressure and are very connected to their constituents and their constituencies back home. So, we have learnt over many years of experiences of how to balance that. "But we are conscious of our wider responsibilities to the nation. But we believe that that is complementary to our responsibilities to Northern Ireland." The car bomb in London that killed Conservative MP Airey Neave in 1979 The family of Tory MP Airey Neave deserve justice over his murder 40 years ago this month, a DUP MP has said. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was speaking after it emerged that an INLA fugitive suspected of murdering Mr Neave is running a Celtic-themed pub on the popular Spanish tourist island of Majorca. Mr Neave was Margaret Thatcher's shadow Northern Ireland Secretary and a Second World War hero. The 63-year-old was killed on March 30, 1979 when a booby-trap bomb exploded under his Vauxhall Cavalier car as it left the House of Commons underground car park. Harry Flynn (65), who was named in court in 1982 as chief of the INLA, now runs the Celts Well pub in Santa Ponsa, where the terror group's emblem is flown over the building and memorabilia glorifying republican terrorists is on open display. Flynn was in the INLA from 1975 and that same year he was charged with stealing 3,500 in an armed bank robbery in Belfast. The following year he escaped from the Maze Prison before his trial. Five years later he was caught rioting in Dublin and was jailed for 18 months. He was sentenced to five years in France in 1986 for illegally importing 70,000 of weapons. Britain tried to extradite him in 1987 but failed as his crime was deemed political. He is believed to have been living in Santa Ponsa since around 1998. Sir Jeffrey said he will be writing to the Home Secretary Sajid Javid to see what steps the UK is taking to have Flynn extradited to stand trial for Mr Neave's murder. He said: "In the wake of the decision to prosecute a member of the Parachute Regiment for the shootings in Londonderry, it highlights again the need for the Government to be proactive in pursuing those who were responsible for terrorist murders. "The murder of Airey Neave at Westminster was an assault on democracy in the United Kingdom. "The fact that an INLA suspect is living openly in Spain and doesn't appear to have been actively pursued by the UK authorities is yet another example of the unbalanced approach that has been taken to dealing with the legacy of our troubled past. "I will therefore be writing to the Home Secretary to enquire what steps he intends to take to pursue the extradition of this suspect from Spain to stand trial in the United Kingdom in connection with the murder of Airey Neave. "Airey Neave was not only a Member of Parliament but he was a very courageous man who served his country during the Second World War. His family are deserving of justice and I believe it is time for the Government to pursue cases like this." Last Thursday, as it was learned a British soldier is to face murder charges over Bloody Sunday, Flynn wrote of his disappointment that only one paratrooper would face prosecution. "Feel for the Bloody Sunday families today," he posted on Facebook. Trust staff will be responsible for cleaning their own work areas Staff at the Northern Health Trust have been told they will now be responsible for cleaning their own work area, a move branded as "absurd" by a trade union. Office staff at the Trust, in addition to their normal duties, will be required to mop floors and clean shelves, according to a memo seen by the BBC. The Trust said the decision was made following a review of cleaning services and it was "mindful of the need to protect the health of everyone who uses our premises". While staff will be responsible for their own workspaces, regular cleaning staff will continue to clean other spaces such as corridors and toilets. Kevin McAdam of the trade union Unite said the idea was "absurd" and urged the Trust to reverse the decision. "There is nothing wrong with trying to save money or indeed use money wisely, but this is penny wise pound foolish," he said. "So you are asking people on senior salaries to do other roles and this is not in any way demeaning cleaners - they are a vital part of the team in the health service." "Cleaners do a valued role in the health service and are a valued part of the health team, but distracting senior clinicians from their equally valuable role just makes a mockery of the service. "Do we pay our taxes to train nurses allied health professionals and other senior office based staff to clean their rooms or provide direct clinical care to patients?" A Northern Health Trust spokesperson said they would provide basic cleaning equipment for staff to carry out their new duties. "To ensure we can meet the highest standards for environmental cleanliness in areas where patients and clients are cared for, we previously reprioritised cleaning in administrative areas," the said. "We focus on cleaning staff washrooms, kitchens and public areas including meeting rooms. We have, however, asked staff to keep their office spaces clean and tidy and have made available some basic equipment such as vacuum cleaners." An autistic man charged with a murder in east Belfast claims he was threatened by knife-wielding intruders demanding drugs and money, a court heard today. David Matchett is accused of killing 21-year-old Reece Leeman, who died from stab wounds after collapsing at Connsbrook Drive early last Friday morning. But Matchett, 28, alleges he acted in self-defence following a struggle at his home on nearby Kyle Street. A judge was also told how the defendant knew the deceased and remained at the scene until police arrived. Appearing before Belfast Magistrates' Court alongside a registered intermediary, Matchett spoke only to confirm he understood single charge of murder. A detective inspector opposed bail by claiming he posed an "unmanageable" risk of harm to himself and the public. She said that while in custody he made comments about killing himself and admitted being a regular cannabis user. "Police believe controlled drugs played an important part in the offence," the detective added. Defence solicitor Hugh Edgar said Matchett gave an account of two men forcing their way into his home while he was in bed and demanding cannabis and money. "He makes the case that he was threatened with a knife that was brandished at him," the lawyer submitted. "He grabbed the blade of the knife as it swiped across his face, just missing him." Matchett sustained lacerations to his hand during the encounter, according to his solicitor. The detective responded that one of the alleged intruders denies they came to the house with any knife. She confirmed that man has been questioned about a suspected aggravated burglary at the Kyle Street address. Mr Edgar argued that his client was the victim of the break-in by two men wearing hoods and scarves. "He's a vulnerable young man in his own house at 1am and this trouble comes to him," he said. "There's an altercation after which both men leave the house, and when Mr Matchett realises the gravity of the situation, because one of the two men has fallen by that stage, he rings police and stays at the scene." The accused has also shown remorse over what happened, the court was told. "Mr Matchett expressed his condolences because, as it turned out, he knew the deceased," his solicitor added. "This is a tragic case and no-one is more aware of that than my client." Police also disclosed that a knife was discovered in a wheelie bin behind Matchett's house. But the defence disputed claims it had been an attempt to conceal the alleged murder weapon. District Judge Oonagh Mullan also heard the accused changed out of pyjama bottoms into trousers because he knew he was going to be taken to a PSNI station. Granting bail under strict conditions, she cited the "rather unusual" circumstances where Matchett phoned police and then alleged cooperated. She ordered that he is not to be released from custody until a passport is surrendered and a 750 cash surety is lodged on Tuesday. Matchett is due back in court in two weeks time. ends Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney will meet his EU counterparts in Brussels on Monday as the Brexit impasse continues. Mr Coveney is in the Belgian capital to attend a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council where discussions on Moldova, China and Yemen are on the agenda. But the UKs withdrawal from the EU is also likely to form part of the debate. The meeting comes ahead of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels later this week and amid mounting pressure on UK Prime Minister Theresa May to get MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement deal in a third vote in the House of Commons this week. Expand Close A sign on the from Irish border between Derrylin, Co Fermanagh and Ballyconnell, Co Cavan (David Young/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A sign on the from Irish border between Derrylin, Co Fermanagh and Ballyconnell, Co Cavan (David Young/PA) Mrs May warned MPs on Sunday that if they fail to back her Brexit deal at the third time of asking then Brussels might insist on a lengthy delay, potentially scuppering chances of leaving the European Union altogether. If Mrs May cannot get the votes she is expected to attend the EU summit on Thursday to ask for a longer extension. Mr Coveney told RTE News on Sunday: If shes asking for a longer extension I expect there will need to be a plan to go with that ask to convince EU partners that there is method behind that approach. Presumably that will mean seeking time to build consensus around a new approach to Brexit coming from London but of course that brings with it a lot of uncertainty. Irish premier Leo Varadkar will meet European Council president Donald Tusk in Dublin on Tuesday to consider any requests from the UK to delay Brexit. Meanwhile the Irish government continues to prepare for a no-deal scenario. Irish President Michael D Higgins signed the governments draft emergency Brexit contingency legislation into law on Sunday evening. Mr Coveney thanked Mr Higgins for signing it into law but said he hoped it was never required. He tweeted: Legally we are as #Brexitready as we can be, thanks to the cooperation of all political parties. Lets hope this legislation is never needed, thanks @PresidentIRL #Brexit. Legally we are as #Brexitready as we can be, thanks to the cooperation of all political parties. Lets hope this legislation is never needed, thanks @PresidentIRL #Brexit . https://t.co/b4XrJrTqqG Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) March 17, 2019 Speaking ahead of the EU foreign affairs meeting, Mr Coveney said: My EU colleagues and I will discuss the situation in Moldova, following the recent parliamentary elections there, and the political perspectives for EU engagement with Moldova. Ministers will also examine the EUs relations with China, ahead of the upcoming EU-China Summit. This is a very important relationship, given Chinas increasingly prominent role in global forums and the turbulent global environment, he said. We will also have the opportunity to discuss this relationship with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. Finally, we will have an exchange of views on what the EU can do to support the UN-led peace process in Yemen and facilitate the delivery of vital humanitarian aid. Three teenagers have died at a St Patrick's day event in the Greenvale Hotel in Northern Ireland. PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said the victims were a 17-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy. Read More A 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition in hospital following the incident at the hotel in Cookstown, County Tyrone. A further two teenagers were treated for injuries. "Two of them died in hospital and one died at the scene," said Mr Hamilton. "It is heartbreaking that an event which should have been fun for these youngsters on St Patricks night should end in such a terrible tragedy. "Our investigation is at an early stage, and while the exact cause of the incident is still unknown, there are reports of a crush at the scene and initial enquiries indicate that a large group of young people were waiting to enter a disco. We also have reports of some fighting after the incident commenced and at least one person has reported that they were assaulted." he said. Mum Emma Heatherington, whose two teenage sons were at the disco, described how she felt physically sick when she heard the police appeal about the incident. "I don't think I'll ever experience a fear like it again. It was just horrendous," she told U105. "I lifted my phone and saw that police had put out an appeal for parents to pick up their children from the Greenvale Hotel because their had been an incident. You can imagine the blow to my stomach when I saw it. "I rang my son immediately and he answered, thank god, and the two of them were okay." Expand Close Three teens have died at St Patrick's disco in the Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown on March 18th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Three teens have died at St Patrick's disco in the Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown on March 18th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service received a 999 call at 9.30pm last night with reports of people injured outside the hotel. They declared it a major incident and police, Fire Service and Environmental Health then also attended the scene. Dr Nigel Ruddell, medical director of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, described the events as a "tragic accident". Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Three teens have died at St Patrick's disco in the Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown on March 18th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA The Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Three teens have died at St Patrick's disco in the Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown on March 18th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) He said six emergency ambulances, four emergency response doctors and four emergency officers attended the scene after receiving the emergency call at 9.26pm. "At this stage everything points toward it being a tragic accident and our hearts absolutely go out to the families of those involved and everybody who was caught up in this incident last night," he said. Ulster Unionist Councillor Trevor Wilson said the Cookstown community is in a state of shock following the incident. Expand Close Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police at entrance of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three people have died These young people were heading out to enjoy themselves and celebrate on St Patricks night and then this tragedy unfolds. Its hard to take in what has happened," he said. I spent most of the night at the scene and can say that the emergency services did everything they could to help those who were in distress. Young people and their parents have been traumatised and will need a lot of support in the coming days. "The Cookstown community is in a state of shock at what has happened but I know that they will rally round to provide whatever support they can." Cookstown is a tightly knit community and the loss of life will be felt right across the entire area. Mid Ulster DUP MLA Keith Buchanan The Drum Road in Cookstown was closed off in the wake of the incident. DUP leader Arlene Foster said her "thoughts and prayers (are) with everyone impacted by this tonight". Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O'Neill said what was supposed to be a day of celebration "ended in heartbreak and sadness for those involved". My thoughts and prayers today are with the families and friends of those killed in this tragic incident," she said. I also want to wish a speedy recovery to the young people injured and those who witnessed the incident, we will work to ensure they have the services and support necessary to deal with the trauma of this tragedy in the time ahead." Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said: I cannot fathom the horror that the parents of these children are going through this morning. What should have been a night of fun and celebration for young people has turned into a night of tragedy. I wish to extend my deepest sympathies and condolences to all the families affected at this time of heartbreak, shock and loss." SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone said: "I would encourage anyone with information or any footage from the event to contact the PSNI. However, I would ask that people do not share any footage online at this time. "This is truly every family's worst nightmare. My thoughts and prayers are with the deceased and their loved ones at this devastating time." Alliance MLA Kellie Armstrong described the news as "absolutely heartbreaking". "As the mother of a teenager the same age, I cant even begin to imagine the pain and suffering they must be going through. I hope support is also given to their friends and anyone who was at the event," she added. "While any investigation into this tragedy will be at an early stage, with the reports of a crush, I would hope the Health and Safety Executive would be involved to consider if crowd control and access to and from the venue was properly managed." Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley said her thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims. "I have spoken this morning to ACC Mark Hamilton, of the PSNI, who is leading the investigation alongside the Health and Safety Executive, and I asked to be kept updated," she added. "I want to thank the police, ambulance and fire services for all that they did last night in responding to this incident." The family of an 85-year-old great-grandfather from Londonderry who died after being struck by a car say they are "distraught" at his loss. Robert Henry Miller, known as Robbie, had celebrated his 61st wedding anniversary with wife Nellie just three days beforehand. Mr Miller, who had three children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, died on Friday after being knocked down the previous night. PSNI Inspector Louise Cummings said: "The collision involving a silver Citroen car and a pedestrian occurred at around 8pm on Thursday evening. The injured man was taken to hospital but sadly passed away from his injuries. "The driver of the car was spoken to by officers at the scene and the road was closed for a number of hours following the collision." Mr Miller's son-in-law David McGaffin (52) said the retired Ulsterbus driver, who was a member of the Royal Black Preceptory and had been in the Orange Order for 60 years, had been crossing at a pedestrian crossing at Crescent Link in Derry when he was struck. "Nellie is distraught, she relied very heavily on Robert and they were very close, she really has lost her right hand," he said. "Last year they got a card from Her Majesty for their 60th wedding anniversary. "To have been taken from us in such a manner, whether it's a 25 or an 85-year-old, is a shock to anybody." After the incident Mr Miller was initially taken to Altnagelvin Hospital before being transferred to Belfast. However, he passed away surrounded by loved ones. "His family was given time to spend with him in his last moments, and Nellie was with him," Mr McGaffin added. "It's not much, but it's a small consolation." He said Mr Miller, who was originally from Claudy and a member of Faughan Anglers Association, was "very active". He was also a member of Kildoag LOL 1164 and the Royal Black Preceptory Donemana. "He wasn't frail. Someone said to me that he didn't walk anywhere, he marched, as he was going with purpose," said Mr McGaffin, who added that his father-in-law had been "well respected across the community" and had "driven the length of the country" during a career of over 40 years with Ulsterbus. He is survived by Nellie, children Alwyn, Valerie and Shirley, siblings Cecil and Ethel, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His funeral service will take place at 1.30pm tomorrow in Waterside Presbyterian Church, followed by burial in Enagh Cemetery in Limavady. It has been announced that three planned sites have been targeted to conduct live Standardbred racing in the State of Nevada, and one of those sites is somewhere in Las Vegas. Officials with the recently-formed Nevada Standardbred Association have officially announced the formation of their organization. Via the NVSA website, the organization has announced that it is working with the Nevada Racing Commission and the Diamond Alliance to establish and build an aged sires stakes program. The NVSA has conveyed that since harness racing in Nevada is in its early stages, the NVSA is also working with the state racing commission and the Diamond Alliance to establish and build the two- and three-year-old sires stakes program. The NVSA has stated that breeding operations will be a key to the growth of this program and that the organization is working closely with breeders to make the program happen. The NVSA has commented on the three planned sites for live Standardbred racing to be conducted. In addition to the Las Vegas track, the NVSA has said that the other two planned sites will be at Laughlin which is located at the southernmost tip of Nevada and Reno. Additional information regarding the three planned sites is contained in the bullet points which appear below. Laughlin is located in the southernmost tip of Nevada, along the Colorado River, where Nevada, California, and Arizona meet. The region has become a major national tourist destination and gambling resort. The region touts that it is focused on building a vibrant and prosperous resort town that increases tourism, promotes recreation, and educates youth. The planned site will have a five-eighths-mile track with a training facility that houses 300-500 racing stock and will provide industry training for caretakers and industry professionals. Additionally, the site plan includes significant acreage for breeding farms to enable organic growth. Reno is the second planned site for a track, which is planned to be developed as a complimentary site to the Cal Expo track in California. The potential location is in northwest Reno which is within two and a half hours of Cal Expo. Track size and training facility capabilities are under case study and will be announced when determined. Las Vegas is the largest targeted pari-mutuel racing venue for the State of Nevada. The targeted site is less than two hours from Laughlin and may be a ship-in location, complimenting the location. Signature races are targeted for Las Vegas. Formed in November 2018, the NVSA board consists of TJ Bohannon (president/treasurer), Bobbie Jo Martin (secretary), John Martin (director), and Barbara Burns (director). Gary Kennedy was recently added as a district leader in the Laughlin, Nevada area. The NVSA promotes and supports harness racing, as well as Standardbred breeding and development programs in Nevada. The NVSA assists racetrack start-ups and represents members in negotiations. The NVSA recommends rule changes and regulations and cooperates with other Standardbred Associations such as the California Harness Horsemens Association. The NVSA also consults with higher education to increase equine care and training within Nevada. For further information visit nevadastandardbreds.com or call 702-449-2061. (With files from the NVSA) A former soldier is to hand back a service medal in protest at the decision to charge an ex-Para over Bloody Sunday. The Public Prosecution Service says there is enough evidence to prosecute 'Soldier F' for the murders of James Wray and William McKinney on January 30, 1972. He is also facing prosecution for the attempted murders of four others. Now in his 70s, he is the only former Paratrooper to be charged over the massacre. The Saville Inquiry declared all 14 civilians shot dead by the Army on Bloody Sunday as innocent, and Prime Minister David Cameron issued a state apology in the House of Commons, describing the actions of the Parachute Regiment that day as "unjustified and unjustifiable". Writing on Facebook, one former soldier said he had decided to send back his NI General Service Medal. He wrote: "In light of Soldier F, as a show of solidarity I plan to send my NI medal to 10 Downing Street with a letter telling the powers that be how disgusted and ashamed we are with them, and what they can do with our medals and how far they can shove them." Angry veterans are planning to march on Downing Street, and to picket the courthouse during the trial. They are also raising funds to provide Soldier F with an independent legal team because they fear lawyers appointed by the Ministry of Defence could put the Government's interests first. The veterans have received the backing of former Army Colonel Richard Kemp. He said: "While IRA terrorists were given early releases and royal pardons, our soldiers have been hounded. Soldiers have been treated worse than terrorists." Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said, however, that it is right members of the armed forces are held to account for incidents during the Troubles. Mr Corbyn said the "law must apply to everyone", and denied there was a discrepancy between investigations into soldiers and those into republican suspects who were sent "comfort letters" offering effective immunity from prosecution. Speaking on Sky News, Mr Corbyn said "we should have a fair and proper judicial process", adding that what happened on Bloody Sunday was "awful and appalling". He added: "I do think it's important to have the independence of a legal process, and there has to be an insurance that everyone has to abide by the law." Mr Corbyn was pressed on whether it was fair, given how those members of the IRA suspected of crimes were offered an amnesty in the peace process. The Labour leader replied: "The Good Friday Agreement was important, seminal and complicated, but it does not provide complete immunity for everyone, it was never intended to." Meanwhile, Labour's shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti has criticised the comments of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson in support of Soldier F. Mr Williamson has said the Ministry of Defence will pay the former soldier's full legal costs. Ms Chakrabarti told BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show she approves of anyone accused of serious crimes getting "full, complete five-star legal aid". But she added: "It's not about wannabe Prime Ministers who are currently Defence Secretary giving coded messages of support to one defendant or another, it's about saying anybody who's been charged with murder, which is the most serious offence in our law, should get the best possible defence and it should be paid for by the state." Some 500,000 enjoyed Dublin's St Patrick's Day parade as organisers splashed out nearly 2m celebrating the capital's five-day festival. Families from across the globe turned out in Dublin, as the sun shone on O'Connell Street in the heart of the city. Check out our galleries from the St Patrick's Day parades in Belfast - Armagh - Strabane and Omagh - Newry And as the event marked Ireland's rich history of storytelling, the old and new Irish told their own stories and the value they place on Ireland's national holiday. Irish president Michael D Higgins watched the festival with wife Sabina after attending Mass at the Pro Cathedral. In his traditional message, he said: "May I, on this St Patrick's Day 2019, send my warmest greetings as Uachtaran na hEireann, President of Ireland, to all our extended family across the world. Wherever you may be, and in whatever circumstances, you are part of Ireland's global family joining with us as we celebrate our shared Irishness, its culture, heritage and history." Though the forecasters had predicted a cold, wet and windy day, the spring sunshine saw crowds basking in a party atmosphere as they enjoyed an array of floats from across the world. The Forests of Fado float showcased children dressed as flowers and trees coming to life while Charlotte Catholic High School marching band from North Carolina entertained the crowds, along with the University of Iowa marching band. Meanwhile, the Irish Embassy in Chicago is seeking answers as to how both Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and MMA fighter Conor McGregor both led the city's famous St Patrick's Day parade on Saturday. Mr Varadkar confirmed he was not aware the mixed martial arts star was taking part in the parade. Mr McGregor was arrested and charged with robbery in Miami earlier this week after allegedly stamping on a fan's mobile phone. Asked if he thought it was appropriate to have McGregor officially taking part in the parade and "representing the country", he said: "I think that's up to the organisers of the parade to decide who they want to march in the parade. I don't think he was representing the country, that's kind of what I was doing and that's why we are here." A-list celebrities including Madonna and Ben Stiller have donated thousands to a fundraiser for the New Zealand terror attack victims. The GoFundMe page has reached 77,000 US dollars (57,912) of its 100,000 dollar (75,211) goal after being set up by Guy Oseary, the manager for Madonna and the band U2, who pledged 18,000 dollars (13,537) himself. Expand Close Actor Ben Stiller, who has donated to the appeal (Ian West/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Actor Ben Stiller, who has donated to the appeal (Ian West/PA) Actor Stiller, filmmaker Judd Apatow and actor Ashton Kutcher each pledged 1,000 dollars (752). Other donations came from comedian Chris Rock, who donated 5,000 dollars (3,760) with Madonna pledging 10,000 dollars (7,521). Expand Close US actor Ashton Kutcher also donated (Yui Mok/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp US actor Ashton Kutcher also donated (Yui Mok/PA) Mr Oseary wrote on the page: I read the frightening details and could barely find the strength to watch a short clip of the disturbing footage. My heart breaks for the victims and for their families We will work with GoFundMe to ensure all funds are transferred to an organisation providing support to the families and community. We will provide additional information about the distribution of funds as soon as it becomes available and are actively researching the best organisations in New Zealand to receive what is raised. Theresa May is trying to get support from the DUP and Eurosceptic backbenchers for her Brexit deal (Steve Parsons/PA) Theresa Mays hopes of delivering Brexit could hinge on intensive efforts to persuade the Democratic Unionist Party to back the Withdrawal Agreement. The 10 DUP MPs are viewed by Downing Street as crucial, not just for the votes they provide but the influence their stance has on Conservative Eurosceptics concerned about the Irish backstop. The Prime Minister will not risk bringing her deal back to the Commons unless she is confident of avoiding a third humiliating defeat on the package. Negotiations with the DUP are expected to continue on Monday, although Downing Street said a formal meeting is not scheduled. Ministers have stressed that unless the deal is approved by MPs before Thursdays summit of European Union leaders, the UK will be forced to accept a lengthy delay to Brexit. That would require the UK to participate in Mays European elections and Mrs May warned it might result in Brexit never happening. Will there definitely be a third "meaningful vote" on #Brexit next week? #Marr asks Chancellor Philip Hammond https://t.co/lJpkUkMdDC pic.twitter.com/H1mgUluItC BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) March 17, 2019 She said that if MPs did not back her deal before the European Council summit we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever. As part of the effort to put pressure on Tory hardliners and the DUP, Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox made clear that the Prime Minister would not chance a third defeat on her deal after the 230-vote loss in January and last weeks 149-vote reverse. Mr Hammond told BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show: We will only bring the deal back if we are confident that enough of our colleagues and the DUP are prepared to support it so that we can get it through Parliament. Expand Close Theresa May and husband Philip attend church ahead of another potentially difficult week for the Prime Minister (Steve Parsons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May and husband Philip attend church ahead of another potentially difficult week for the Prime Minister (Steve Parsons/PA) Dr Fox told Sky News Sophy Ridge On Sunday: I would say to my colleagues: all actions have consequences, and if you really want to deliver the Brexit we all promised then we need to back the Prime Ministers deal because there is no other deal on offer. 'There would be no point having the vote if we'd no chance of winning that' - International Trade Secretary @LiamFox says the third meaningful vote, speculated to take place this week, might not go ahead.#Ridge For more, head here: https://t.co/JAa7I2R2yW pic.twitter.com/wyZXt4a1yG Trevor Phillips on Sunday (@RidgeOnSunday) March 17, 2019 He added: If we had an extension with no agreement and this was just kicking into the long grass with the chance that Brexit might not happen at all, that would be very, very hard for most people to swallow. The possibility of Brexit being delayed or overturned in a second referendum is swinging some Eurosceptics reluctantly behind the deal ahead of a third vote on the package. But so far the number of Tories publicly switching positions falls far short of the 75 MPs Mrs May needs to change sides. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson used his Daily Telegraph column to say that further changes were needed to the backstop, claiming it left the UK vulnerable to an indefinite means of blackmail by Brussels. If we agree this deal and unless we have a radical change in our approach to the negotiations we face an even greater humiliation in the second phase, he said. But he added: There is an EU summit this week. It is not too late to get real change to the backstop. It would be absurd to hold the vote before that has even been attempted. Former Brexit secretary David Davis, who backed the deal last week, told The Times he might change his mind: If they have not answered the Northern Ireland question properly I might not vote for it this time. I took them on trust last week. But now they have got to solve the problem. Bolton West MP Chris Green told BBC Radio 4s Westminster Hour: I want to vote against it because I dont believe when Parliament defeated it by the biggest margin in the history of Parliament that was because it was in any way a good deal, and the substance of the deal hasnt changed. But he added that a shift in the DUPs position would have a big impact and the implications of rejecting the deal for a third time weighed heavily on him because it could lead to a general election, and we dont know how that will pan out. Other Tories made clear that the price for support could be Mrs May saying she will quit once the deal is through. Conservative MP for Dover Charlie Elphicke said there needs to be a change of leadership in order for him to support the deal, telling BBC Sunday Politics South East we need a new face and a new team to take us forward to the future relationship. Former Cabinet minister Esther McVey told the BBC: She needs a dignified departure. Fellow Tory Andrew Bridgen told The Sunday Times: Ive been approached by whips offering the PMs resignation if I vote her deal through. Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans said Mrs May would have to go if there was a lengthy delay to Brexit. She promised to become Prime Minister to deliver what the 17.4 million people voted for, that is what she has to deliver and if she cant do that, she has to go. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will have a series of meetings with other Westminster leaders including the SNPs Ian Blackford and Liberal Democrat Sir Vince Cable and influential backbenchers in an effort to find a consensus on a rival Brexit strategy. The Opposition could back an amendment to the deal calling for it to be pushed to a referendum, although Mr Corbyn said he was not supporting Theresa Mays deal at all. Mr Corbyn said his meetings this week were what the Government should have started two years ago namely reach out, engage and listen to different views and find a consensus on Brexit which helps bring our country back together. A woman who died after she was hit by a car while crossing a road in Dalkeith has been named by police. Margaret McKenzie, 80, was struck by a light-coloured Suzuki Jimny at the junction of Mayfield Road and Easthouses Road at around 1.40pm on Friday. Emergency services attended but she died at the scene. The driver of the vehicle and members of the public also stopped to assist. PEDESTRIAN DIES FOLLOWING COLLISION #DALKEITH Margaret McKenzie, 80, died following the collision at the junction of #MayfieldRd & #EasthousesRd at around 1.40pm on Friday 15 March. Anyone who witnessed what happened is asked to come forward. Read more: https://t.co/ynZHJnWHMx pic.twitter.com/Iq5ETINRr1 Midlothian Police (@MidLothPolice) March 18, 2019 Police are urging anyone with information to contact them as they continue their investigation into the incident in Midlothian. Sergeant Dominic Doyle from Dalkeiths Road Policing Unit said: Our thoughts remain with Ms McKenzies family and friends and officers will continue to support them at this time. A number of members of the public stopped to help emergency services at the scene and we are grateful to them for their assistance. We are eager to hear from any driver or pedestrian who may have been on Easthouses or Mayfield Road around the time of the collision and who witnessed what happened to come forward to assist our inquiries. Anyone who may have been recording by dash-cam and who could have footage of the incident is asked to provide this to officers as soon as possible. The road was closed for around three and a half hours for investigations. Anyone with information should call Police Scotland on 101 and quote incident number 1970 of March 15, or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 where anonymity can be maintained. The cockpit voice recorder from the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet (BEA via AP) Preliminary information from the flight data recorder of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed a week ago and killed 157 people shows clear similarities with an earlier disaster involving the same kind of Boeing aircraft in Indonesia, Ethiopias transport minister has said. The disclosure came as thousands marched in the capital of Addis Ababa, accompanying 17 empty coffins at a funeral for the Ethiopian victims of Flight 302. The coffins were empty because authorities have said that recovering and identifying the remains will take months. Expand Close Mourners pay their respects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mourners pay their respects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) The crash of Ethiopian Flight 302 on March 10 and that of a Lion Air plane in Indonesia in October both of them Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliners have prompted a number of countries to ground the aircraft. The flight recorders from Flight 302 that went down shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa for Nairobi were recovered in a good condition that enabled us to extract almost all the data inside, transport minister Dagmawit Moges told reporters. Information collected so far from the flight data recorder has indicated clear similarities between both crashes, she said. Both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were sent to Paris for analysis by the French air accident investigation agency BEA. Ms Moges did not elaborate on what the similarities were. The US Federal Aviation Administration has already said satellite-based tracking data showed that the movements of Flight 302 were similar to those of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed off Indonesia, killing 189 people. Both planes flew with erratic altitude changes that could indicate the pilots struggled to control the aircraft. Shortly after their take-offs, both crews tried to return to the airports but crashed. Suspicions emerged that faulty sensors and software may have contributed to the crashes. Ms Moges said the Ethiopian government intends to release detailed findings within a month. At the memorial service earlier in the day, some of the relatives who marched behind the flag-draped coffins were overcome with grief and fainted. Expand Close An Ethiopian relative of a crash victim grieves next to a floral tribute at the crash site (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An Ethiopian relative of a crash victim grieves next to a floral tribute at the crash site (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) The service came one day after officials began delivering bags of scorched earth from the crash site to family members of the victims because of the problems with identifying the remains. Family members said they were given a sack of dirt from the crash site. Many relatives already have gone to the dusty field outside Addis Ababa where the plane went down to pay their respects. Relatives grieve next to empty coffins draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) Thousands of Ethiopians have attended a mass funeral ceremony in the countrys capital, a week after a plane crash killed 157 people. Some victims relatives fainted and fell to the ground during the procession through Addis Ababa on Sunday. Seventeen empty caskets were laid to rest in remembrance of the victims from Ethiopia. The victims came from 35 countries. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members instead of the remains because the identification process is going to take such a long time. Expand Close Mourners pay their respects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mourners pay their respects in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) Many families have held religious ceremonies and relatives have gathered at the rural, dusty crash site outside Ethiopias capital. The funerals took place as the countrys transport minister said the black box from the crash was in good condition. Dagmawit Moges told reporters that data so far shows there is a clear similarity between the Ethiopian Airlines crash and an earlier one in Indonesia that involved the same type of plane. Earlier, it emerged families are being given a 1kg sack of scorched earth taken from the crash sites. The soil came as it became impossible to identify bodies and hand over remains to family members, a family member said. We will not rest until we are given the real body or body parts of our loved ones. Expand Close An Ethiopian relative of a crash victim grieves next to a floral tribute at the crash site (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An Ethiopian relative of a crash victim grieves next to a floral tribute at the crash site (Mulugeta Ayene/AP) Forensic DNA work has begun on identifying the remains but it may take six months to identify the victims. However, authorities say they will issue death certificates within two weeks. Interpol and Blake Emergency Services, hired by Ethiopian Airlines, will work with Ethiopian police and health officials to identify the bodies, Dagmawit Moges, Ethiopias Minister of Transport said on Saturday. Expand Close The cockpit voice recorder from the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet (BEA via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The cockpit voice recorder from the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet (BEA via AP) Preparation for the identification process has already started and we will make sure that the post-mortem investigation will start as soon as possible, she said. The US National Transportation Safety Board has sent about 16 members to assist the investigation, she said. In Paris, investigators started studying the cockpit voice recorder of the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet on Saturday. The French air accident investigation agency BEA tweeted on Saturday that technical work on the recorder began. The BEA also said work resumed on the flights data recorders. The recorders, also known as black boxes, were sent to France because the BEA has extensive expertise in analysing such devices. Experts from the US National Transportation Safety Board and the planes manufacturer Boeing are among those involved in the investigation. The Ethiopian disaster and a crash last year in Indonesia were both of the Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. The United States and many other countries have grounded the Max 8s. The US Federal Aviation Administration said regulators had new data from satellite-based tracking that showed the movements of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 were similar to those of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed off Indonesia in October, killing 189 people. Boeing said it supports the grounding of its planes as a precautionary step, while reiterating full confidence in their safety. A steady stream of mourners paid tribute yesterday at a makeshift memorial to the 50 people killed by a gunman at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Hundreds of flowers were piled up amid candles, balloons and notes of grief and love outside the Al Noor mosque. As a light rain fell, people clutched each other and wept quietly. "We wish we knew your name to write upon your heart. We wish we knew your favourite song, what makes you smile, what makes you cry," read one of the tributes, which contained cut-out paper hearts under a nearby tree. "We made a heart for you. 50 hearts for 50 lives." Two days after Friday's attack, the country's deadliest shooting in modern history, relatives were still waiting for authorities to release the bodies. Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Supporters arrived from across the country to help with the burials and authorities sent in excavators to dig graves in readiness at a site that was newly fenced off and blocked from view with white netting. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was hoped to release all the bodies by Wednesday, and police commissioner Mike Bush said authorities were working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they could. "We have to be absolutely clear on the cause of death and confirm their identity before that can happen," Mr Bush added. "But we are so aware of the cultural and religious needs. So we are doing that as quickly and as sensitively as possible." Police said they had released a preliminary list of the victims to families, which has helped give closure to some who were waiting for news. The killer, white supremacist Brenton Harrison Tarrant (28), appeared in court on Saturday amid tight security, shackled and wearing all-white prison garb. He showed no emotion when the judge read one murder charge and said more would probably follow. What appeared to be a jumbled 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto was posted online before the attacks. Ms Ardern said the manifesto had been sent to her office email about nine minutes before the attacks, although she had not received the email directly herself. She said her office was one of about 30 recipients and it was forwarded to parliamentary security within a couple of minutes of it being received. Mr Bush said at a news conference that another body had been found at Al Noor mosque as they finished removing the victims, bringing the number of people killed there to 42. A further seven people were killed at Linwood mosque and one more person died later at Christchurch Hospital. Indonesian police and soldiers search for residents who need assistance at a flooded neighbourhood in Sentani (Tumbur Gultom/AP) The number of people killed after torrential downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides in Indonesia has climbed to 79, officials have said. The disaster-prone country was also hit by an earthquake on Sunday, triggering a landslip that hit a popular waterfall on the tourist island of Lombok, killing at least three people and damaging hundreds of homes. The worst-hit area from the flooding was Sentani sub-district, where tons of mud, rocks and trees from a landslip on a mountain early on Sunday rolled down to a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. Expand Close This aerial photo shows the area affected by flash floods in Sentani, Papua province (Barce Rumkabu/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp This aerial photo shows the area affected by flash floods in Sentani, Papua province (Barce Rumkabu/AP) Floodwaters and landslips destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua provinces Jayapura district following days of torrential rains, hampering rescue efforts, Mr Nugroho said. The combination of natural factors and human activities has caused this fatal disaster, he said. Mr Nugroho said 79 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes by Sunday. Another 74 people were taken to hospital, many with broken bones and head wounds. Mr Nugroho said the number of dead and injured would likely increase since affected areas had not been reached and rescuers were still searching for 43 people reportedly still missing. We are overwhelmed by too many injuries, said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. We cant handle it alone. Papua military spokesman Colonel Muhammad Aidi said rescuers saved two injured infants who had been trapped for more than six hours. The parents of one of the babies were washed away and died. Expand Close A plane washed away by flash floods in Sentani (Tumbur Gultom/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A plane washed away by flash floods in Sentani (Tumbur Gultom/AP) Mr Nugroho said rescuers evacuated more than 4,200 people to temporary shelters as more than 600 houses and buildings were damaged and submerged. Television footage showed hundreds of rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals. Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslips and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains. Expand Close Indonesian soldiers and a rescue team search for earthquake victims in Bayan, North Lombok (Bimbo/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Indonesian soldiers and a rescue team search for earthquake victims in Bayan, North Lombok (Bimbo/AP) Meanwhile, a moderately strong earthquake triggered a landslip on Lombok island on Sunday. The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.5 and struck at a depth of 15 miles. The earthquake was felt across the island, located next to Bali, panicking residents still recovering from a major quake last August that killed more than 300 people and left thousands homeless. Sundays quake triggered a landslip from Mount Rinjani and hit dozens of tourists at the Tiu Kelep waterfall located in the foothills of the active volcano, said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman. Two Malaysians and a 14-year-old Indonesian boy were killed in the landslip, Mr Nugroho said. He said rescuers managed to evacuate 22 Malaysians and 14 Indonesians from the waterfall site and 56 others mostly local surveyors from government institutions, the military and the police from the mountainous area. At least 182 people were injured in the quake, including 26 Malaysians, Mr Nugroho said. About 525 homes were damaged, including 32 that were flattened. A gunman has killed three people and wounded five on a tram in what authorities said may have been a terror attack, and a suspect was seized after a manhunt that convulsed the Dutch city of Utrecht. Justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the attacker identified as Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37 was known to authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. If it had terror motives, that is being investigated. But it was very serious. The world shares our grief, prime minister Mark Rutte said. Our thoughts go to the victims relatives, to the families who have lost a beloved member. Our thoughts also go to the wounded, who are now fighting for their lives. The whole of the Netherlands shares your deep pain. Full statement https://t.co/VBOPf232R3 Mark Rutte (@MinPres) March 18, 2019 The attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. Dutch authorities reduced the threat level in the city back to four out of five following the arrest, which came after a manhunt involving heavily armed officers with dogs. During the hunt, police released a photo of a bearded Tanis on a tram in a blue hooded top. Expand Close Dutch counter-terrorism police (Peter Dejong/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dutch counter-terrorism police (Peter Dejong/AP) We cannot exclude even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen said as police searched for the suspect. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Dutch military police tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country, and Mr Rutte said: If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence. The shooting took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighbourhood. Police erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A dog wearing a vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over recent years with offences ranging from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping a woman in 2017, news reports said. The Netherlands anti-terror co-ordinator, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, raised the threat alert to its highest level, five, around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000, until Tanis was captured. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the make-up of parliaments upper house. In neighbouring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border, watching not only major highways but also minor crossings and train routes. German authorities said they were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht. Supergill, a $500,000 yearling in the fall of 1986 who went on to become one of the top sires in Italy, passed away at 7:24 a.m. on Sunday, March 17. He was 34 years old and living at the Toniatti family farm in S. Michele al Tagliamento, Italy. Roberto Toniatti said Supergill lost the appetite and could no longer chew grass and it was obvious it was time for him to end his days. He had been retired from breeding for only five years. It is always tough to lose a friend even if Supergill had reached a high age. I will miss him and not least for his outstandingly wonderful temperament. Supergill was happy and cheerful and always came forward and greeted me, Toniatti told Swedens SulkySport magazine. Toniatti said a memorial is already in place and Supergill will be buried next to the top Italian sire Sharif di Iesolo. Supergill is a son of Super Bowl and the champion filly Winkys Gill, who lived to be 34. He was bred by Castleton Farm and Ulf Moberg sold as a yearling at Tattersalls and was trained by Continental Farm Stable. Supergill was the top colt of his generation and won the Peter Haughton Memorial. As a three-year-old he finished second in the Breeders Crown and third in the World Trotting Derby. He was expected to be a top contender in the Hambletonian, but finished off the board. Stretch footage of Supergills victory in the 1987 Peter Haughton Memorial Trot appears below. Supergill stood at stud at Castleton Farm and sired the Hambletonian winner Malabar Man as well as the stakes winners Supergrit, Toss Out, Gramola, Running Sea and former world champion mare Giant Diablo, who set a world record at the Red Mile in 2007. Her record stood for almost seven years. As a broodmare sire his daughters have produced Coreleone Kosmos, Elitlopp champion Ringostarr Treb, and the former world champion Swedish mare D One. The Toniatti family paid big money for Supergill in the fall of 1995 and it would prove to be a good investment, although Supergill was a slot starter in the breeding shed once he got to Italy. Supergill, pictured in victory Supergill was not happy when he was going to jump on the phantom, so we had to collect semen from him when he stood with all four hooves on the floor and it worked just as well, said Toniatti. Although he had that moment, he was extremely fertile. In Italy he sired 1,548 offspring with 259 sons and daughters in Sweden. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the connections of Supergill. (Harnessracing.com) A police officer stands guard outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch (Vincent Yu/AP) New Zealands prime minister has said gun law reforms will be announced within 10 days in the wake of the mosque shootings in Christchurch that killed 50 people. Jacinda Ardern said Cabinet ministers had met and made an in-principle decision to tighten gun ownership but details still need to be worked out. Ms Ardern also announced an inquiry into the countrys intelligence services. Expand Close Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque to lay flowers among tributes to Christchurch attack victims on Sunday (TVNZ via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque to lay flowers among tributes to Christchurch attack victims on Sunday (TVNZ via AP) Separately, a Christchurch gun shop acknowledged selling guns online to the alleged gunman. At a news conference, Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition through a police-verified online mail order process. The store detected nothing extraordinary, about the buyer, he said. Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police are certain a lone gunman was responsible for the shootings. I would like to state that we believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this, he told a news conference. That doesnt mean there werent possibly other people in support and that continues to form a very, very important part of our investigation. Expand Close Gun City owner David Tipple (Vincent Yu/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gun City owner David Tipple (Vincent Yu/AP) None of the guns sold were military-style, semi-automatic weapons, according to Mr Tipple. In vowing to tighten gun laws, Ms Ardern has said the attacker used five guns, two of them semi-automatic, which were purchased with an ordinary gun licence and modified. Three days after the attack, New Zealands deadliest shooting in modern history, relatives were anxiously waiting for word on when they can bury their loved ones. Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Aya Al-Umari, whose older brother Hussien Al-Umari died at the Al Noor mosque, wept as she talked about a kind man. Expand Close A student lights candle during a vigil to commemorate victims of Fridays shooting (Vincent Yu/AP AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A student lights candle during a vigil to commemorate victims of Fridays shooting (Vincent Yu/AP On Monday, the family was still waiting for the release of Husseins body. Its very unsettling not knowing whats going on, Ms Aya said. I understand the police need to do their job because its a crime scene, but you need to communicate with the families. Members of the Muslim community and police were at a cemetery which has been fenced off and obscured with white netting. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Kawthar Abulaban, 54, who survived the shooting at the Al Noor Mosque, came to the burial site to see the preparations. I will not change my opinion about New Zealand. Its my country, said Ms Abulaban who emigrated to New Zealand from Jordan 17 years ago. You know I have lots of support, lots of love, lots of kindness from all of the New Zealand people. Expand Close Students gather for a vigil in Christchurch (Vincent Yu/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Students gather for a vigil in Christchurch (Vincent Yu/AP) Ms Ardern has said authorities hoped to release all the bodies by Wednesday and police said authorities were working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they could. Brenton Harrison Tarrant, an Australian citizen who lived in New Zealand, appeared in court on Saturday where the judge read one murder charge and said more charges would likely follow. Mary Lou McDonald marching in New York ahead of St Patricks Day with the controversial banner Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald has been heavily criticised after marching in the US behind a banner reading: 'England get out of Ireland'. It happened during the annual St Patrick's Day parade in New York on Saturday. Sinn Fein posted an image of her on social media, tagging in the Dublin TD, stating: "No explanation needed." Read More However, rival politicians also took to social media to demand an explanation from Sinn Fein, with many unionists saying the banner was "anti-British". DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said: "Its clear that republicans dont do explanations. Neither do they do apologies. Theyve never explained let alone apologised for the terror their armed wing conducted for so long. "There certainly has never been any apology for the IRAs indiscriminate bombing, sectarian murder or wilful use of torture, said Mr Dodds. "Like truth and respect, explanations are demanded, but never offered by Sinn Fein." DUP MP Gregory Campbell said the slogan "sums up" Sinn Fein's attitude to explanations, truth and respect. "When slogans such as 'Brits out' or 'England out of Ireland' are used, the unionist community are well within their rights to see themselves as the intended focus," he said. "The 'British presence in Ireland' is the unionist population in Northern Ireland. "The republican focus on 'Brits' in the city of Londonderry saw thousands of unionists move out en masse from the Cityside as the IRA began their 'war'. "It's clear that republicans don't do explanations. Neither do they do apologies. "They've never explained, let alone apologised, for the terror their armed wing conducted for so long." Tanaiste Simon Coveney accused Ms McDonald of poor leadership and of being an embarrassment. He tweeted: "Mary Lou McDonald this is NOT leadership - it's offensive, divisive and an embarrassment - grow up, this is NOT Ireland in 2019! We are better than this!" Former Victims' Commissioner Patricia MacBride told BBC NI's Sunday Politics programme that she understood the sign gained prominence in New York in the early 1980s. "I think it was very much of its time and needs to be consigned to history at this point in time and moving forward," she said. Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann MLA said: "Once again Mary Lou McDonald, as president of Sinn Fein, has shown them up for what they are really all about, as she posed behind a banner which was highly offensive and wrong on so many levels. "It demonstrated that bigotry and hypocrisy were alive and well within their version of republicanism. "It is clear that when Sinn Fein talk about respect, honesty and integrity, that they are as sincere as Gerry Adams using equality as a Trojan horse to attack unionists. "Their words about rights are only a veneer to hide their true intention." Speaking on BBC radio, Alliance leader Naomi Long hit out at what she called Sinn Fein's "Anglophobia". She added: "Politicians can get giddy on the kind of high of hanging around with people in the Irish-American lobby, who perhaps don't see the subtle distinctions that we are aware of back home. "I think that anti-English sentiment, Anglophobia, is one of the last permissible kinds of xenophobia that we accept. "And I don't think it's good enough." The East Belfast MLA said the banner "sends out a hostile and offensive message to anyone English or of English extraction on this island". Sinn Fein accused the party's critics of playing politics. "The most divisive and offensive act on this island for almost the last 100 years has been the partition of Ireland," the party said. "It should come as no surprise that Sinn Fein wants a new united Ireland under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement. "The faux outrage of some of our political opponents owes more to the silly season of a holiday weekend and petty political point-scoring. "However, if Simon Coveney and the government is serious about achieving a new and agreed united Ireland, then he should immediately convene an all-Ireland forum on Irish unity." Belfast's Sinn Fein Lord Mayor Deirdre Hargey also defended the banner. "It's no surprise that republicans feel that the future of Ireland should rest with the people who live in Ireland," she told the BBC. "Partition happened here almost 100 years ago. That was the role of England, little England attitudes, and the Westminster Government. "That's what the banner signifies in my view, in terms of that issue of partition." Students hold candles during a moment of silence at the vigil Vincent Thian/AP/PA) More than 1,000 students from Christchurch schools and different religions have taken part in a vigil to honour the 50 lives lost after a gunman attacked two mosques in the New Zealand city. In a park across from the Al Noor mosque, where dozens were killed by a white supremacist gunman, the students sat on the grass in Mondays fading daylight, lifting flickering candles to the sky as they sang a traditional Maori song. Hundreds then stood to perform a passionate, defiant haka, the famed ceremonial dance of the indigenous Maori people. Expand Close A student lights candle during the vigil (Vincent Yu/AP/PA) AP / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A student lights candle during the vigil (Vincent Yu/AP/PA) Most of the students spent hours locked down in their schools on Friday as police tried to determine if any other people were involved in the attacks. Those at the vigil told harrowing tales of being forced to hide under classroom tables or on a school stage behind a curtain, of being instructed not to speak. After the ceremony officially ended, many lingered, standing in circles, arms draped around each others shoulders, singing Leonard Cohens Hallelujah and Maori songs. The students vigil was a striking and healing counterpoint to Mondays developments in the mass shooting. Expand Close Gun City owner David Tipple (Vincent Yu/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gun City owner David Tipple (Vincent Yu/AP) A Christchurch gun shop acknowledged selling guns online to the 28-year-old white supremacist accused of killing 50 people. At a news conference, Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition to Brenton Harrison Tarrant through a police-verified online mail order process. The store detected nothing extraordinary about the buyer, he said. Separately, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said gun law reforms would be announced within 10 days and an inquiry conducted into intelligence and security services that failed to detect the risk from the attacker or his plans. Expand Close Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque to lay flowers among tributes to Christchurch attack victims on Sunday (TVNZ via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque to lay flowers among tributes to Christchurch attack victims on Sunday (TVNZ via AP) There have been concerns intelligence agencies were overly focused on the Muslim community in detecting and preventing security risks. Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police are certain that Tarrant was the only gunman but are not ruling out that he had support. I would like to state that we believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this, he said at a news conference. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) That doesnt mean there werent possibly other people in support and that continues to form a very, very important part of our investigation. None of the guns sold to Tarrant were military-style, semi-automatic weapons, according to Mr Tipple. It was not clear if any of the firearms Tarrant purchased from Gun City were used in the shootings. In vowing to tighten gun laws, Ms Ardern has said the attacker used five guns, two of them semi-automatic, which were purchased with an ordinary gun licence and modified. Tarrant, an Australian citizen who lived in New Zealand, appeared in court on Saturday, where the judge read one murder charge and said more would likely follow. Tarrant had posted a muddled, 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto online before the attacks at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Masjid Mosque, and apparently used a helmet-mounted camera to stream live video of the slaughter. Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (Martijn van der Zande via AP) Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood Gokman Tanis is being hunted by police in the Netherlands. Police in the Netherlands have released a photograph of suspected gunman Gokman Tanis following the deadly attack on a tram in Utrecht. Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed the number of people killed and injured in the incident, saying the authorities were likely to "assume a terror motive". Tanis, aged 37, is believed to have been born in Turkey. The public were urged not to approach him. Read More Police, including heavily-armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting that happened on Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection. There have been no reports yet of any suspects arrested. The country's anti-terror coordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around the central Dutch town following the shooting incident. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said in a statement that the "threat level has gone to five, exclusively for the Utrecht province," referring to the highest level. "The culprit is still on the run. A terror motive cannot be excluded," he said in a Twitter message. He called on citizens to closely follow the indications of the local police. Dutch police spokesman Bernhard Jens did not exclude that more people might be involved. "We want to try to catch the person responsible as soon as possible," Mr Jens said. Expand Close Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has described the shooting as "hugely concerning news" and said the UK "stands with the people of the Netherlands". He tweeted: "Hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day. "We are in contact with Dutch authorities, urgently seeking further information. "The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands." Dutch media were reporting that two suspects are on the run and that security has been increased at the country's parliament in The Hague. Police are appealing to the public to stay away to allow emergency services to do their work. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the situation "very worrying" and the country's counter-terror co-ordinator said in a tweet that a crisis team was meeting to discuss the situation. Ruth Dudley Edwards speaking at the TUV conference in Cookstown at the weekend On Saturday, after spending the day in Cookstown with the good folks of the Traditional Ulster Voice party discussing, among other things, tribalism, it seemed appropriate to go to the Holyland in Belfast to check out how traditional nationalist students were celebrating St Patrick. I'd been asked by the TUV to give the keynote speech at its conference, which I was happy to do. I say yes to invitations from friends and foes alike. I have one or two TUV friends and some values in common with the party, but on the foes side I've spoken, for instance, at a disaffected anti-Agreement republican meeting in Dublin, as well as at the West Belfast Festival. I knew that my consorting with the TUV would enrage Shinnerbot bigots on social media, but they make me laugh, so that's okay. Asked for a title for my speech, I offered 'Sinn Fein, a cancer on the island of Ireland', as I like to start off with a topic I know the audience will like, and I take any opportunity I can to put the boot into the self-serving hate-mongers and wreckers who drive that party's strategy. For instance, when talking to those not-an-inch republicans in Dublin, I was happy to say that it was wrong to call them dissidents, since it's Sinn Fein who are the dissidents from the violent republicanism they championed until they lost to the security forces and took the Queen's shilling. In theological terms, the present buffet of IRAs are right to say they're the true heirs of the 1916 leaders, who started a revolution in a democracy with neither justification nor public support. But back to the TUV. I'm not religious, though I fervently back the right of Christians to defend their beliefs and values in a hostile secular environment. And though I disliked many aspects of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement they oppose, I supported it on pragmatic grounds. But I'm with them on Brexit and on the importance of integrity in public life. Packing in London on Friday, I picked up my favourite jacket and then hesitated. Might some sensitive souls think I was wearing bright green as a political statement? For those who don't know rebel songs, the MOPE (Most Oppressed People Ever) classic The Wearing Of The Green has a verse: "She's the most distressful country/That ever yet was seen/They're hanging men and women there/For wearing of the green." And then, I thought, the hell with this. I'm sick of the Shinners appropriating my country's flag and history. Green is my favourite colour, and in my experience unionists - unlike nationalists - are rarely offence-takers on trivial issues. In fact the only person who commented on the colour was a BBC journalist and, of course, a few on social media, including some idiot who described it "as the wearing of the Green". TUV members are nice people and I appreciated their decency, courtesy and ability to laugh at themselves. I particularly appreciated that when the chairman said they would now be singing the national anthem, he said it would be fine for me to sit it out. Of course I sang it. I consider myself British-Irish, so I lustily sing both anthems. Anyway, that evening, with two intrepid friends, I set off to observe what mayhem the young people from west of the Bann were creating in a residential area near Queen's University that has long-suffered from their raucous celebrations. The answer was none, since although they were loading up with boxes and bags of alcohol, the cold and the rain was driving them indoors. We investigated a pub where most of the young were gazing at their phones and we couldn't hear ourselves speak, so we too chickened out and went indoors. On Sunday morning the sun was shining and I returned to the Holyland around 9.30am to see if anyone was about. Hardly anyone was, but there was a doughty survivor of the night before shivering in a thin T-shirt and an Irish flag and staggering as he tried to get cash from an ATM despite clearly having a problem remembering his PIN number. At least he wasn't wearing the Green. What does Sinn Fein stand for? Obviously for a united Ireland, presumably to be achieved through a border poll. And for the Good Friday Agreement, because they say so. And equality. Yet the simple act of walking behind a banner which demands that England get out of Ireland throws all this into question. According to the Good Friday Agreement, England can not simply "get out". That would betray a core principle of the Agreement that the consent of the majority in Northern Ireland must determine whether we stay in the Union or go. Indeed, the only party to the Union, ironically, that has no say in whether we are in or out is Great Britain. And this is so at odds with the traditional republican reading of our historic subjection to imperial rule that it probably would be difficult to explain it to Irish-American chauvinists raised on the old simplifications. So perhaps Mary Lou McDonald is due a little sympathy. She gets invited to stand behind a banner with an 18th century slogan and she either has to keep smiling or take someone aside and give a lecture on how things have changed. Easier to just go along with the old "wrap the green flag round me" tripe and endure a green beer at the end of it. For don't we all know that Irish-America doesn't get it? And there is probably a better chance of getting support dollars out of them while they are misreading the problem. Of course, the other possibility is that Mary Lou doesn't actually understand the Good Friday Agreement either. She stood before the party conference when she was appointed president and assured the faithful that this generation would see "the rising of the moon". She likes the sentimental codswallop herself. There's no need to unpack the meaning and remember that the "rising of the moon" stands for the resumption of the war when orders come from the captain and "the pikes will be together". Surely Mary Lou was not actually threatening a return to armed struggle? Of course not. It's much more reasonable and plausible to assume that she just has an unfortunate knack of hitting the bum note. Or that, at worst, she just gets an occasional heady lift from the recital of the rebel tradition. Perhaps she feels that she has to ham up her affectation of republican ardour because she doesn't have the stripes. It would be altogether more reassuring if Mary Lou could demonstrate that she understands the complexity of the problem she is trying to solve. For that, she needn't wholly empathise with the DUP. Who could? But she might at least acknowledge the steps taken by her own party. Those steps were away from anticipating a future war and towards accepting that the problem is not simply that England has invaded and refuses to leave. Britain has already acknowledged the right of Northern Ireland to secede from the UK on a majority vote. I suspect many of them would be keen on us doing that as soon as possible. As many again probably wouldn't even notice if we did. Okay, she has to humour old Irish-Americans who think the answer is for England to go home. And if they really are so behind with developments, one can pity the effort it would take to explain the 20th century to them. So long as we don't have to explain it to Mary Lou. And I'm not so sure we don't. In the 1970s and 80s, despite all that Northern Ireland had to put up with, humour was still something we held on to. There was little else. There was Frank Carson, with his catchphrase: "It's the way I tell 'em." And speaking of catchphrases, Roy Walker's deadpan delivery of "say what you see" was heard on TVs in every home. Take those famous lines and plant them into the world of politics today and one fits perfectly into the mantra of the TUV - they say what they see. Party leader Jim Allister is no shrinking violet. It's the other line that the party - and unionism in general - needs to work on, the TUV was told at Saturday's conference at the Royal Hotel in Cookstown. Unionists, according to guest speaker, political commentator and author Ruth Dudley Edwards (right, with councillors Stewart McDonald and Brian Collins), do not tell their stories well. And certainly not as well as republicans. Amidst the over-riding sense of betrayal - by Stormont, by Theresa May over her Brexit stance, and even by other unionist parties - there was general agreement on that. "It's imperative we find a better way of getting the message across," said TUV councillor Stephen Cooper. Some 150 gathered to hear Mr Allister, the public face of the TUV, address delegates. Belligerent, determined, focused, he, as Roy Walker would advise him, says what he sees. He is the glue that binds the party together in a united sense of discontentment that drives the party machinery - anger over the betrayal of Brexit, anger at what they see as the ineptitude of other unionist parties to stand up to agents of terror. It's old school unionism as it was in the 1970s and 80s, holding fast to traditions and unwilling to let go, attempting to stand alone as the bastion of integrity, free from the sleaze and dishonesty they see around them. They see others in the unionist family as failing when it comes to values. Old school or not, they will not cease fighting to have their voice heard as long as Mr Allister is around. There's no doubt Mr Allister is the party's trump card, but you have to wonder where the party would be without him. They all hold dear to the memories of loved ones, and memories of atrocities throughout the Troubles. As long as Mr Allister leads, that grip on those memories will be firm. The TUV refuses to betray that legacy. The party faces a challenge in the next local government elections to find a few more voices to join Mr Allister in the publicity stakes. A failure to make inroads in May could necessitate a re-think if that core of representation fails to materialise. Delegates were urged to find a way of telling their stories to the youth of today, with reference made to the DUP's 2016 conference at the La Mon Hotel where younger members struck up a chorus of 'Arlene's on fire' in the place where 12 people died as the result of an IRA fire bomb in 1978. TUV press officer Sammy Morrison told delegates: "Sure they were only young, they didn't know the story. There is the problem." Finding a way of tapping into that youth will be key, but are the youth of today as motivated by the wrongs of the past to give the party a future? As with the best comedians, it's all about stage presence and delivery. It's something members agreed: unionists need to be better storytellers, take a leaf from Frank Carson's book and learn the way to tell 'em. A huge fireball exploded in the Earths atmosphere in December 2018, according to Nasa. The blast was the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and the biggest since the fireball over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago. But it went largely unnoticed until now because it blew up over the Bering Sea, off Russias Kamchatka Peninsula. The huge fireball explosion was the kind of event expected to happen only two to three times per century. Picture via GettyImage The space rock exploded with 10 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Lindley Johnson, planetary defence officer at Nasa, explained that a fireball this big is only expected about two or three times every 100 years. So what did happen? At about noon local time on 18 December, the asteroid barrelled through the atmosphere at a speed of 32km/s, on a steep trajectory of seven degrees. Measuring several metres in size, the space rock exploded 25.6km above the Earths surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotons. Chelyabinsk (top centre-right) and this new giant impact (top far-right) are the standout events That was 40% the energy release of Chelyabinsk, but it was over the Bering Sea so it didnt have the same type of effect or show up in the news, said Kelly Fast, near-Earth objects observations programme manager at Nasa. Thats another thing we have in our defence, theres plenty of water on the planet. Military satellites picked up the blast last year; Nasa was notified of the event by the US Air Force. Dr Johnson said the fireball came in over an area not too far from routes used by commercial planes flying between North America and Asia. So researchers have been checking with airlines to see if there were any reported sightings of the event. Whats the significance for better monitoring? It is hard to monitor asteroids. The latest event over the Bering Sea shows that larger objects can collide with us without warning, underlining the need for enhanced monitoring. A more robust network would be dependent not only on ground telescopes, but space-based observatories also. A mission concept in development would see a telescope called NeoCam launched to a gravitational balance point in space, where it would discover and characterise potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140m. Dr Amy Mainzer, chief scientist on NeoCam at JPL, said: The idea is really to get as close as possible to reaching that 90% goal of finding the 140m and larger near-Earth asteroids given to Nasa by Congress. She said that if the mission did not launch, projections suggested it would take us many decades to get there with the existing suite of ground-based surveys. Well, I really dont know if we are safe on Earth. A good alternative could be mining celestial objects as they contain tons of precious metals. [CNEOS, BBC] Follow us: Facebook and Twitter. By the way you can also support us on Paypal. Please and thank you! A retired diplomat who went missing in Bangladesh in December 2017 has returned home, his daughters said Monday, but they declined to give further information. The case looked set to become the latest in a series of unsolved disappearances in the South Asian nation in which the missing person turns up but reveals little about what happened. A police official in the Dhanmondi area of Dhaka confirmed Maroof Zamans return on Monday, although it was not clear whether the authorities actually saw him. Maroof returned. After getting confirmation of his return we sent police to his house, but his daughter Samiha Zaman informed police that he is not in a position to talk, Abdul Latif told BenarNews. Samiha told police that he returned around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday. He was confused to identify his own house. Later, the caretaker noticed him and helped him to get in, Latif said. After 15 and a half months, or 467 days ... my father is back, another daughter, Shabnam Zaman, posted on her Facebook page on Saturday. My sister and I are both profoundly grateful to those individuals who have supported us throughout this period. We would now like to request privacy so that we can process and heal. We have no further comments or details to share at this time. The former Bangladeshi ambassador to Qatar and Vietnam disappeared on Dec. 4, 2017, on his way to the airport where he was to meet a daughter who was returning from Europe. Disappearance details After leaving his house, Zaman called home twice and instructed his housekeeper to hand over his computer, phone, camera and other electronic devices to a few people who will come to my home, Samiha Zaman told BenarNews at the time. The number displayed on the Caller ID did not belong to any mobile or landline operator in Bangladesh and was probably run through a device that changes the number, an official from a telecom operator told the Al Jazeera network in December 2017. At around 8 p.m. on Dec. 4, three unarmed men who did not identify themselves came to the house to search it and take away the items, said his daughter, citing the account of her housekeepers. Her fathers car was found parked in a street 4.8 km (three miles) from the airport. Police were investigating his disappearance, Monirul Islam, the chief of the Bangladeshi polices counter-terrorist branch, told a news briefing the next day. Global rights watchdog Amnesty International accused Bangladesh security forces of targeting more than 80 people through enforced disappearances in 2017 in its annual report for that year. We do not believe in abducting anyone. Our law enforcers have been discharging their duties sincerely. The allegation of pursuing a policy of forced disappearance is completely baseless, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told BenarNews last year. In many instances, we have investigated the cases of forced disappearance and detected that they willingly went into hiding to embarrass the government internationally, he added. Mubashar Hasan, a professor who went missing for six weeks in 2017, returned home after unidentified abductors left him blindfolded on a busy Dhaka highway. In a brief news conference he said he had been kidnapped for money and held in a small windowless room. He mostly has lived outside of Bangladesh since then. A Malaysian police officer checks documents during a security check in Lahad Datu, after about 200 members of the Royal Sulu Force occupied part of the coastline of eastern Sabah state, March 8, 2013. Four Filipinos who fought alongside the Maute brothers in the southern Philippine city of Marawi in 2017 were among 13 suspected militants arrested in Malaysian Borneo last week, Malaysias police chief said Monday. The national polices counter terrorist unit also arrested suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Royal Sulu Force (RSF) in a two-day operation in Sabah states Semporna and Tambunan districts that ended on March 12, Police Inspector-General Mohamad Fuzi Harun said in a statement. We detained 12 Filipinos and a local in the operation. Those arrested were believed to be either part of ASG, RSF or the Maute terror group and there were also those who were arrested for providing shelter to foreign terrorists hiding in Sabah, Fuzi said. Sabah has become a hiding place for suspected militants from the nearby southern Philippines, a police source who requested anonymity told BenarNews. At the moment there is no information that the group members are hiding in the peninsula, but there could be some. Sabah is their favorite location because it is close to the southern Philippines, the source said. They have relatives here who can help them. The influx of migrants from the southern Philippines in Sabah is also a plus point for them. They lead a low-profile life there, the source added. The first arrests, on March 11, involved five Filipinos and a local man between the ages of 40 and 60 in Semporna, according to Fuzi. Four of the suspects are believed to have been involved in the Maute insurgency in the town of Marawi in the Philippines, in 2017. They were also involved in providing protection to Maute insurgents and other Middle-Eastern citizens hiding out in Sabah, Fuzi said. As for the two other suspects, they are suspected members of the RSF, the group involved in Sabahs Lahad Datu and Semporna incursions in 2013, he said. In February 2013, a band of about 200 armed men arrived in a flotilla of rickety boats from the nearby Sulu islands in the southern Philippines and occupied part of Sabahs coastline for several weeks. Previous court documents showed that the band of 200 allegedly belonged to the RSF and had identified themselves as followers of the late Jamalul Kiram III, the self-proclaimed sultan of Sulu. Seventy-two people, including 56 Sulu gunmen, 10 members of the Malaysian security forces and six civilians were killed in gunfights that spread over several weeks. The fighting ended when the remaining militants fled and returned to the Philippines. Fuzi said the two suspects arrested last week had allegedly recruited new RSF members by selling membership cards to Filipinos residing in Sabah. Both the suspects fled to southern Philippines after the RSFs defeat (following the Lahad Datu incursion). However, they slipped into Semporna again in November 2018 to reactivate the RSFs activities in the state, Fuzi said. The RSF members said their goal was to gain control of East Sabah, according to the anonymous police source. In addition, the Malaysian suspect had allegedly provided shelter to the Maute insurgents, the source said. Slipped into Sabah from Philippines A second round-up on March 11 led to the arrest of five men and a woman all Filipinos between the ages of 23 and 63, according to Fuzi, who said one of the suspects worked at a construction site and was an ASG member suspected of involvement in the Marawi battle. The five-month Marawi battle ended in October 2017. The suspect slipped into Sabah in December last year, together with other members of the group, to escape from an operation by the Philippines military. The five others picked up had provided shelter to members of the ASG and the Maute group, who are still at large, Fuzi said. A 39-year-old Filipino construction worker who gave shelter to ASG and Maute group members was arrested March 12, according to Fuzi. Police said the arrests followed six months of surveillance. Since the beginning of the year, Malaysian police said they had arrested 26 terror suspects 13 Filipinos, six Egyptians, five Malaysians, one Pakistani and one Tunisian. Fuzi said police were confident they could trace and track the remaining ASG and Maute group members hiding in Malaysia. He said police had also arrested 10 Filipinos who had no valid travel documents, and turned them over to the Immigration Department. A soldier casts his early ballot in the Deep Souths Yala province in advance of the March 24 general election, March 17, 2019. Nearly 87 percent of 2.6 million eligible Thais cast early ballots on Sunday, the election commission chief said Monday, pointing to likely enthusiasm among voters after eight years without a national vote. About 51.4 million people are eligible to vote in Thailands general election, which is set for next Sunday, March 24. It will be the first parliamentary polls since the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra was toppled in May 2014 through a coup led by army Gen. Prayuth Chan-o-cha. He has since served as prime minister and is seeking to be elected to the top post. I am satisfied with the turnout, Election Commission chairman Ittiporn Boonprakong said. There were 2.6 million people signed up for advance voting. We found 86.98 percent exercised that right and, in some [areas], more than 90 percent of those registered turned out to vote. In the previous national election in 2011, about 75 percent of 46.9 million nationwide came out to vote, according to the commission. Thais said they were pleased to again have a voice in democracy. I feel good to have voted today ... I am pleased and enthusiastic about this election, Warisara Damrilertworakul, a Bangkok-based businesswoman from Pitsanulok province, told BenarNews. I hope this election makes the country better. We have faced hardships over the past years. The vote comes amid criticism that the 2016 constitution was tailored to give an advantage to pro-junta parties and Prayuth by empowering 250 senators handpicked by him to help the lower house choose the next prime minister. Those senators include military leaders. To control the government, a party must win at least 376 seats one more than half of the 500 seats in parliament and 250 seats in the senate combined. Turnout On Sunday, hundreds of military personnel cast ballots. Defense ministry officials affirmed that they were free to vote for any party or candidate. In Pattani, one of the insurgent-stricken provinces in the Thai Deep South, an army leader said he led soldiers to vote. About 1,900 soldiers from the 15th Infantry Division signed up for advance voting and came out to vote today. We are showing that soldiers are also good citizens, Col. Surathep Nookaew told BenarNews. We invited election commission officials to educate us because the voting process this election has changed. We want to vote correctly without invalidating our rights. Critics, meanwhile, claimed that the soldiers trucked to polling places were compelled to vote for pro-junta parties. On Monday the juntas legal officer filed a formal complaint requesting that police investigate the administrator of a U.S.-based Facebook page, CSI LA, for allegedly uploading a false statement. The administrator, who was not named, posted what he said was a photo of troops listening to their leader as he told them to vote for the junta. The armed forces does not have a policy to compel soldiers to vote for certain party candidates, it is their personal freedom, legal adviser Col. Burin Thongprapai said. The CSI LA administrator responded that he had heard complaints from military personnel. I have evidence from military insiders. I just act as the voice of the voiceless, the administrator said. Last year, the administrator posted photos of Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon wearing luxury watches, leading Prawit to claim that the watches had been borrowed and were returned, Thai media reported at the time. Glitches Ittiporn told reporters there were some irregularities during the first day of voting. A stack of ballots was stolen and marked for a certain party in Samut Songkram, on the outskirts of Bangkok, he said. Police spotted the ballot stack and destroyed it. We replaced the stolen ones with new ballots and filed a complaint with police, Ittiporn said without elaborating. In addition, police were notified of someone using anothers identification card to cast a ballot in Uthai Thani province, he added. Ittiporn also admitted that officials handed the wrong ballots to voters in a certain constituency without naming where. We cannot do anything to fix this issue after the ballots were collected and packed for further counting, Ittiporn said. But we can inform the police. Justin Clark, franchise owner of Chick-fil-A in Moncks Corner, poses with the location's 2019 Leadership Scholarship winners: Hugh Huxford, Savannah Dean, Kristin Heider. Clark made the announcement March 8 at the eatery. The Chick-fil-A foundation hands out the educational funding annually to thousands of team members. Goose Creek, SC (29445) Today Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable. Meghan Mahowald, known professionally as MEGG, said she hopes to make the event an annual tradition, with proceeds going to a different local foundation every year. beratung@intmig.berlin.de for appointments and consultation by e-mail Tel.: (030) 9017-23172 to arrange an appointment for a consulation to arrange an appointment for a consulation Tel.: (030) 9017-23126 for general questions. Counselling at the Welcome Center takes only place by appointment. Contactor call on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. During your appointment, you must wear an FFP2 mask and maintain a minimum distance of 1.5 meters between yourself and others. The Conversation Africa is an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community. Its aim is to promote better understanding of current affairs and complex issues, and allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversation.Go to: https://theconversation.com/africa Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo should not oppose journalist Steve Mwanyo Iwewe's appeal of a year-long prison sentence for insulting a provincial governor, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Congolese police officers hold back members of the media in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on January 12, 2019. Journalist Steve Mwanyo Iwewe was recently fined and sentenced to one year in jail for insulting the governor of Equateur province. Credit: CPJ/Jerome Delay/AP. Iwewe, a reporter at the privately owned broadcaster Radio Television Sarah, was convicted on March 1 in the Mbandaka criminal court on a charge of insulting Equateur Governor Bobo Boloko Bolumbu, according to the journalist's lawyer, Souverain Pontife Ikolombe, who spoke with CPJ. Iwewe was sentenced to one year in prison and instructed to pay $200 in damages to Bolumbu, his lawyer said; Iwewe is currently in Mbandaka central prison, where he has been detained since his arrest on February 27.Ikolombe told CPJ that he will appeal the judgment tomorrow at the Tribunal de Paix de Mbandaka appeals court, alleging that the original trial was improperly held.Iwewe is the first journalist CPJ is aware of having been imprisoned in the country since president Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo took office on January 24."The Democratic Republic of Congo may have a new president, but it seems the ambition to censor journalists whom the authorities find undesirable is unchanged," Angela Quintal, CPJ's Africa program coordinator, said in New York. "Governor Bobo Boloko Bolumbu should not contest Steeve Mwanyo Iwewe's appeal, so his conviction can be overturned and he can be released."Iwewe was arrested and beaten by the governor's security agents on February 27 in Mbandaka while covering Bolumbu's arrival at a protest against an increase in state taxes, according to his lawyer. Security officers told Iwewe to stop filming and taking photographs, but the journalist refused, Ikolombe told CPJ."You came here to do your work, let me also do mine freely," Iwewe told the officers when they told him to stop reporting, according to local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger . The governor then ordered Iwewe's arrest for insulting him, Ikolombe told CPJ.CPJ's repeated calls and WhatsApp messages to Bolumbu spokesperson Rossi Bolekwa went unanswered. CPJ also called Tresor Nsaebeinga, the director of Radio Television Sarah, but did not get a response.The lawyer said that Nsaebeinga and Yanick Mbombo, another reporter at the station, had gone into hiding for fear of arrest following Iwewe's detention. By Delana Isles DESPITE being offered a $76 million tax penalty write off, Beaches Resort and Spa has responded that it is still going ahead with its lawsuit against the Government for alleged overpaid taxes. On Thursday (March 14), the resort company released an official statement to the press declaring its intention to pursue its lawsuit and reclaim money it believes is owed. The news came close on the heels of Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinsons House of Assembly announcement that she will be granting the company and several others in the TCI an amnesty to pay owed taxes and write off of the interest/penalties. Robinson said the Government will forfeit $85,191,912 in interest on $28,638,820 of principal tax owed, should companies that are in arrears take advantage of the amnesty period. She revealed that Beaches owes the Government $26.7 million in principal taxes and $76.4 million in penalties. But the company maintains that it does not owe taxes, rather, it is owed a refund of taxes that have already been paid. In January, the resort company filed suit against the Government in relation to their claims. "We wish to make it very clear that the alleged unpaid tax of $26,708,618 plus interest at 213 percent per annum, arose because the TCI Government, having entered into binding host country agreement(s) with Beaches to encourage our expansion of the hotel, undertook a tax audit and although finding no violation of our agreement, unilaterally and without warning, imposed back taxes in breach of the host country agreement and other written assurances given by the TCI Governments. "As made clear in a previous statement, Beaches TCI has for the past 23 years in which it has operated in the Turks and Caicos Islands, punctually and accurately paid taxes according to law. As a matter of fact, we are always first in line when it comes to paying our taxes. "Rather it is the Government of the TCI that is indebted to Beaches in respect of genuine overpaid taxes and refunds. The company stated that two of the largest items it has overpaid taxes in are on taxes for children under 12 and custom processing fees. It added that there are other areas of overpayment and positive tax adjustments which the Government "is required to make in favour of Beaches, and that these and other related matters are the subject of lawsuits which "regrettably we have been compelled to file. The company states that it is unfortunate that it has had to litigate against its host country, but given the "injustice it was left no alternative. The company added: "Based on the number of communications that our organisation has been receiving, it is clear that the investment and banking community, together with the travel trade, and including the airlines, are all paying close attention to see whether the Government will honour its commitments. Beaches and Club Med account for 96 percent of the amount of back-taxes that are outstanding, the Government announced last week. The Cartwright Robinson Government and the Opposition consider the back-tax claims against the resort company to be a "cleaning up exercise which has been a genuine oversight of both the PDM and PNP Governments since 1997. The findings that the Government was owed massive amounts of money was discovered following an audit - spanning September 2014 to August 2016 - commissioned by former minister of finance, Washington Misick. Allegedly, there is no written agreement between Beaches and successive Governments that they should only pay 60 percent of the 12 percent tax, except a letter written by Hon. Misick in 2014 confirming this to be the practise. The PDM Government has requested that the resort company now pay the full 100 percent of taxes owed for the audited period. Efforts to reach the premier and Government ministers for a statement on Beaches announcement that it is going ahead with its lawsuit, were unsuccessful up to press time. This job expired on 17 May 2019. THE TURKS and Caicos Islands has joined dozens of countries in banning Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aeroplanes from entering its airspace. The decision was made by the TCI Civil Aviation Authority after 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed in Ethiopia last week and Indonesia last October, killing everyone on board. On Wednesday (March 13) the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the entire fleet. "The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analysed today, it said in a statement. "This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision. Boeing also issued a statement saying it had recommended to the FAA that the entire global operations of the fleet be suspended. Dennis Muilenburg, president, CEO and chairman of the Boeing Company, said: "We are supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution. "Safety is a core value at Boeing for as long as we have been building airplanes; and it always will be. There is no greater priority for our company and our industry. "We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again. On Tuesday, the UK Civil Aviation Authority issued a safety directive which applies to Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft. It directed pilots and operators of any of the aircraft registered in the United Kingdom or in a third country, not to conduct any flights. It also banned Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 planes from entering UK airspace. The Turks and Caicos Islands Aircraft Register operates in accordance with the UKs policy on Aircraft Registers in the UK overseas territories. Therefore, the TCI Civil Aviation Authority is taking similar action. On Thursday (March 14), Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson said: "As premier I am informed by the TCI Airports Authority, that no airline currently offering services to our country, use these crafts. "This therefore means that there will be no flight interruptions. The Civil Aviation Authoritys direction will remain until further notice. Israel: The destabilising element in the Middle East 18. 3. 2019 / Jan Darmovzal cas cteni 6 minut Kids as young as 10 are arrested, interrogated, told their mothers will be shot if they dont confess to trumped up crimes Israel jails hundreds of Palestinian boys a year. These are their testimonies - Israel News - https://t.co/HPoT8yuDmr https://t.co/R7bXPn3xrE Charlotte Edwardes (@chedwardes) March 17, 2019 The United States of America arranged for an anti-Iran conference to take place in Warsaw on 13th and 14th of February. Iran was supposed to be the main subject of this conference alongside Palestine. Both of these geo-political challenges seem to have added many wrinkles to the American administration since both have remained largely unresolved. Irans growing influence in the Middle East and the so called Deal of the Century (a peace settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis) were the two central topics of the conference. Understandably, neither the Iranian nor the Palestinian officials took part in this shenanigan. Why should they be listening to the obnoxious representatives of the United States and Israel? Americans have been mistreating Iran for decades, since the administration of President Eisenhower who toppled the democratically elected government in Iran headed by Dr. Mossadegh in 1953. The Americans have not shown any goodwill by admitting their mistake of overstepping in the past, or by showing that they are willing to take a different approach now one that is more fair and less intrusive. Instead, they have imposed multiple sanctions on Iran. These sanctions are not as much cancerous for Iran as they are for the global reputation of the United States and its ally Israel. To be clear on this issue, American sanctions against Iran are supposed to be the toughest in history, but looking at the geopolitical map of the Middle East one can clearly see that Iranian influence is growing as never before, be it in Lebanon, in Syria or in Iraq. On top of that, Iran has became a real superpower in terms of domestic weapons production and its ballistic missile program is incredibly successful. Iran is completely self sufficient not only in the area of defence, but also in civil engineering, energy and food production. These are the results of the ill-minded language of sanctions favoured by United States and Israel. Similarly disastrous are the American efforts to bring peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Trumps administration has proved that it has no interest in being a fair mediator in this long-standing conflict. Instead, the American leaders have voluntarily labelled their own country Israels mercenaries due to the continued and unconditional diplomatic support they have been providing to Israel. Readers should know and bear in mind that this diplomatic support shields Israel from being condemned and tried for endless human rights violations, countless breaches of international law and war crimes against Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank. The world clearly sees the vicious acts which Israeli soldiers are committing daily and will surely not let the corrupt and disillusioned characters of Zionist leaders and their devoted servants in the United States override the principles of justice, human dignity, morality and respect for the rule of law. The international community has been silent and defenceless long enough perhaps because out of its respect for the United States or perhaps because out of fear. Would there be economic, political or other consequences if a country attempted to challenge the United States on this issue? Respect and fear make a powerful combination that discourages many. We need to keep in mind, though, that the human rights of other people who have been living under a brutal occupation for more than fifty years and who struggle for their lives on a daily basis are neither negotiable nor exchangeable for any economic benefits for for benefits of any other kind. We have long been brainwashed by the argument that the Palestinian people have adopted terrorist practices.and many people around the globe believe this, unfortunately. Though the real terrorism that kills everybody regardless of gender or age, that tortures and attacks everything Palestinian remains undiscovered, unpunished and even approved of by some. This terrorism is being committed by the Jewish state and it is the Jewish state that needs to be brought to justice for all these atrocities it has committed since 1948. To a sound and observant person it must be clear that the American Middle Eastern policy has failed and it has brought nothing good. It has been the source of increased brutality with which Israeli soldiers treat Palestinians. In spite of that the US has been increasing its donations to the Israeli defence budget (which is now roughly 3.5 billion USD every year). Some countries including Ireland and Chile have taken concrete steps to let the Israeli leaders know that the current way of treating Palestinians is unacceptable and will not be tolerated anymore. Israel has never really been willing to accept the establishment of a viable Palestinian state in the area of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital. Instead, Israel has been pursuing activities that are in sharp conflict with the international law. Furthermore, Israel is not responsive to resolutions passed by the UN Security Council and is turning a blind eye to reports produced by human right organizations. Israel with its criminal conduct does not give the international community many options on how to react to the current situation. Israeli disrespect to all the credible institutions that rightfully criticize Israel for its conduct and instead are baselessly labelled as anti-semitic is unprecedented and worrying. As much as the world would prefer a diplomatic settlement to the conflict, Israel has never shown any willingness towards real negotiations with the Palestinians (for example: to make concrete steps towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the full area of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital). Instead, Israel continues to build illegal settlements, expropriating Palestinian land, demolishing houses and otherwise trampling on the Palestinians legitimate rights. It is now the right time for the international community firmly to let Israel know that if it continues its criminal apartheid policies towards the Palestinians, economic sanctions will be applied and diplomatic ties cut as the way it is allowed by the enforcement measures of the International legal framework. In conclusion, the American symbiotic relationship with Israel has been very harmful to the US national interests. Although the American and the Israeli national interests might seem nearly identical, they have never been more different. They require diametrically different approaches. A strong support for Israel despite its countless grave violations of international law has harmed the American reputation worldwide. The United States are no longer regarded as an impartial and honest peace broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Israel has tried to put on the veil of the only democracy in the Middle East which is a good joke at best considering its implementation of the Nation State Law that truly shows its apartheid tendencies. The real terrorism threat that the Middle East has been facing for decades comes neither from Iran nor the Palestine, although the Prime Minister Netanyahu was fervently trying to convince delegates in Warsaw about the opposite. Rather it comes from the well established occupying power Israel. 0 With surface waters threatening to flood in Minnesota, a west central Minnesota county's concerns about water use might seem an oddity. But as Tom Cherveny reports in Swift County sees increasing groundwater demands, it's no trivial pursuit. Cherveny writes: [Tim] Gieseke said the DNR is encouraging the formation of what it calls Community-based Aquifer Management Partnerships. The goal is to bring elected officials and water users together to jointly manage groundwater usage before conflicts occur. "It's not an emergency, but it is concerning," Anne Hall, a DNR hydrologist, told the audience. ... Other monitoring wells around the county all show downward trend lines as well. None has remained flat, according to Gieseke. Current trends point to the potential for conflicts. The water level in a monitoring well in the city of Benson has declined by about 15 feet since the early 1990s. It's located in the middle aquifer, the largest of the aquifers available to the community. Increased demand on that aquifer by new users led the city of Benson to develop a third and deeper well to tap a lower aquifer for additional water about 10 years ago. What's causing the aquifer draw down? According to the West Central Tribune article The increased demand comes from a variety of users. Irrigation on farmlands has been growing, and represents the largest use of groundwater in the Benson area. The county has seen the arrival of large dairies in recent years. Benson also has seen large industrial users including the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company and, until recently, the Fibrominn power plant tap into aquifers serving the community. Much of the decline in aquifers can be attributed to the increased usage. It was also asked whether increased subsurface drainage on farmlands is diverting water that would otherwise help recharge the aquifers. Hall said a white paper by the Minnesota Groundwater Association determined that research is needed to answer that question. To help readers envision the impact of those dairies, for example, we need only turn to the 2017 Tribune article, Riverview plans fifth large dairy west of Willmar: Riverview Dairy LLP of Morris is planning to develop a fifth large dairy farm in the state Highway 40 corridor west of Willmar. ... It will hold 9,500 animal units of Jersey cows in a free stall barn facility, according to the environmental assessment worksheet. ... The dairy will develop wells to provide 120 million gallons of water per year. Riverview Dairy operates two other large dairies in Swift County, the East Dublin (about 3,953 cows) and West Dublin (about 8,890 cows) operations. A 2002 expansion Environmental Assessment Worksheet for the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company plant noted that water usage would be 165 million gallons of water per year. We'll keep an eye out to see what the task force Cherveny reports the county is forming comes up with. Graph: The increased usage of groundwater in the Benson area has resulted in a corresponding decline in groundwater levels, as shown by this graph from a monitoring well in Benson. Submitted image in the West Central Tribune. If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button. Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient. When Is Holi? Holi is a festival of two days. While the first day is known as Holika Dahan, the second day is called Holi. It is the second day that people mainly refer to while speaking about Holi. The day of Holika Dahan is also known as Chhoti Holi colloquially. The day got its name because of the ritual performed on this day. Holi falls on the Purnima Tithi (full moon day) in the Hindu month of Phalgun every year. This corresponds to March as per the Gregorian calendar. This year, the festival of Holi will be observed from 9-10 March. The Purnima Tithi will begin on 03:03 am on 9 March. Holika Dahan Muhurta will start from 06:22 pm and end at 08:49 pm, Bhadra Punchha is from 09:37 am to 10:38 am, Bhadra Mukha is from 10:38 am to 12:19 pm and Rangwali Holi will be celebrated on 10th March. Most Read: Holi Colours As Per Astrology Why Is Holi Celebrated Every Hindu festival has a spiritual significance behind it. Similarly, Holi has a legend of Lord Vishnu associated with it. Lord Vishnu had two gatekeepers named Jaya and Vijaya who were cursed by four divine kids to be born as demons on earth. Jaya and Vijaya were then born as Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha, the two demonic rulers and brothers. Hiranyaksha got killed at the hands of Lord Vishnu. This invited the fury of elder brother Hiranyakashipu who decided to avenge his brother's death. Hiranyakashipu went on to kill every devotee of Lord Vishnu and demanded that he should be worshipped instead of God. However, he did not realise that his own son, Prahlad had started worshipping Lord Vishnu. When he came to know about it, he made many attempts to stop him. When every attempt failed, he finally asked his sister Holika for help. Holika had a magic shawl which would save her from fire. As per the plan, she sat on fire with Prahlad on her lap thinking that she would be saved and the kid would get burned. However, much to everybody's surprise, the lady got burned and the kid got saved. Since then, the day of Holika Dahan is celebrated where a statue of Holika is burned on the day. The next day is celebrated as a day of joy and happiness celebrating the escape of the kid Prahlad from death. How Lord Krishna Is Associated With Holi Lord Krishna used to visit the village of Goddess Radha on this day, and play with all the Gopis there using colours and water. In remembrance of the same tradition started by Lord Krishna, Hindus celebrate the day in a similar way every year. Lord Shiva Is Also Associated With Holi It is said that Lord Shiva fell in love with Goddess Parvati on the same day. Probably that is why, there is a tradition of drinking Bhang in some regions of India on this day. (Bhang was very dear to Lord Shiva). Even their son Kartikeya is also supposed to have been born on the same day by some Hindus. Most Read: Astro Tips For Wealth, Peace And Prosperity North Caicos man guilty in firearm case A PROVIDENCIALES jury last week found Lawrence Tino Forbes guilty of illegal possession of a firearm following a very brief trial. The jury returned their verdict on one of two charges Forbes was initially charged with, after a trial that last two and a half days. The defendant is now remanded to prison pending sentencing sometime in April. The case against Forbes co-accused, Rudolph Taylor has since been dismissed by the Director of Public Prosecution Eugene Otuonye QC. Man guilty of rape A HAITIAN man has been found guilty by a Grand Turk jury for the rape of a female Haitian national. Jeff Kenson, who has been on remand for the charge for some 15 months, learned his fate on March 7. Kenson will be returned to court at a later date for sentencing before judge Shiraz Aziz. Reports are that both the victim and now convicted perpetrator were residing illegally in the territory. Man rearrested due to ballistic findings A MAN who was recently set free at his sufficiency hearing on charges of robbery and gun offences has been rearrested by police. Reports from police are that ballistic tests tying 23-year-old Peterson Sylvain to the crime prompted his re-arrest. Sylvain was released in February due to lack of evidence. The man was charged with two others Wilkinson Beaute, 24, and Simon Jean, 26, after they took police on a high-speed chase around Providenciales in a stolen white Toyota Corolla car last December. The alleged bandits had stolen the vehicle from a Haitian man at gunpoint the week before. Cops were successful in capturing the trio after opening fire on the car, ramming it off the road and into some bushes. They were all arrested on the scene. The men are charged with robbery, using a firearm, carrying firearms, carrying 10 rounds of ammunition, possession of imitation firearm with intent to cause fear and theft of a conveyance (vehicle). By Delana Isles NEWLY elected leader of the Progressive National Party (PNP) Washington Misick has offered an explanation to the TCI public on his unexpected move to contest the partys leadership. This comes more than week after Misick was resoundingly returned as the leader of the party at their national congress, after over one year of publicly declaring he was stepping aside. In statements to the Weekly News on Thursday (March 14), the veteran politician outlined that like many others before him, many of them famous, his retirement plans dismayed many, and prompted calls for him to return to active duty. Having taken solicited and unsolicited counsel on the matter from many, he, on March 2, decided to contest the leadership race. But, he added: "I believe I owe TCI voters an explanation for my recent decision to contest the PNP leadership and in defence of the charge of flip-flopping on my departure. "In fairness, I have made several statements indicating my desire to retire from frontline politics. "First, after being defeated in the 2003 general elections by some five votes; I saw this as an opportunity to vacate active politics and I did sit out for ten years in preference for a younger generation of politicians. However, in 2012, Misick said many people strongly urged him to return to the frontlines, believing that his experience and democratic was needed. "I answered the call. The people of these Islands elected me as an all-island candidate and I was subsequently appointed as the minister of finance, trade and investment. After the partys defeat in the 2016 general elections, Misick was then elected as interim leader of the PNP and the Opposition in December of that year. "Yes, I indicated to the PNP party and the country that I would be seeking to step down as party leader and resign from frontline politics after this current term would have expired. "Yes, it was my hope for the second time in my career to pass the baton and let the sun set on my political career. "However, as it was in the past, I have been persuaded that the Turks and Caicos Islands needs my experience, and democratic pragmatism. He said he accepted the call graciously and for the same reasons he accepted it in 1988, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2012 and 2016. "The least that I can do is to set aside my own private ambitions and give back to a country that has given so much to me. The party leader said he is committed to ensuring that as far as the PNP is concerned, there is a built-in mechanism for succession. "In that regard I invite the youths of this country to take a hard look at the party organisation as a place to cut their political teeth, Misick stated. "Like Caleb in the Old Testament, during his senior years who still believed that he could take a mountain; I am re-energised, fired up and ready to go. The window is closing on this countrys ability to reach our promise land, but with unity, progressive thinking and bridging the gap to the next generation, we will get there. He further outlined that as leader of the Progressive National Party, and in the upcoming general elections, "I will be asking this country to elect this party as its Government and me as its premier to secure a legacy for the benefit of generations yet unborn. "So, to employ a military reference from a protege of mine, I am reporting for duty, he added. Meanwhile, the party leader promised that in due course, the public will be presented with the rest of the PNP team. Misick has served faithfully in the TCI legislature for close to 24 years, and has been elected by voters in five non-consecutive elections. At two pivotal points of his political career, he signalled the end of the road for him - 2013 and 2018. If elected at the 2020 general elections, Misick will for the first time be a premier, having served as chief minister of the territory from April 1991 to January 31, 1995. ATTORNEY Mark Fulford is calling on the Human Rights Commission to advise the police force to cease the new fingerprinting requirements for record certificates. This comes after the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force introduced a new fingerprinting policy on Friday, March 8. People applying for clearance certificates are now required to have their fingerprints taken for identification purposes. In a statement issued on Friday, Police Superintendent Kendal Grant of the National Crime Intelligence Unit said the new policy will not be used to assist in crime detection and only used to properly identify applicants. He said: "This could also shorten the processing time allowing people to begin new jobs or assume other responsibilities sooner. Lawyer Fulford in a statement issued on Monday (March 11) urged the public to refuse the new requirements which he says a flagrant violation of human rights. "If the police are requesting a fingerprint when you apply for a police certificate it is in breach of the Police Force Ordinance Cap 18.01 and your constitutional rights, he said. "When you provide a fingerprint it can leave a sweat deposit and therefore it is possible to obtain a persons DNA from that sweat deposit. He argued that sweat could be classed as an intimate sample and therefore a court order and written consent would be required. "People come to our shores and automatically assume that we all have no sense and they can do as they like to us without any fear of us defending ourselves. "Thats because we have always been an accommodating and welcoming set of people, but dont take our kindness for weakness and this is exactly what Commissioner James Smith is doing to us by asking all of us to give him our fingerprints. Fulford further said the peoples biometric rights are protected in the constitution of the TCI. "And if the police think that we will just give up our constitutional rights without it being lawful, they are wrong and all general applicants for police records who have never been convicted of an offence should refuse to give their fingerprints unless and until Commissioner James Smith can show you the law which overrides your constitutional rights. He further rebuffed the police forces claim that the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Ordinance 2017 provides the legal grounds to request the fingerprints of any resident as a form of identification. He said: "The Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Ordinance 2017 does not give police the power to request fingerprints for general applicants for police records. "This law only give the police the powers to request fingerprints from applicants who are rehabilitated (convicted) offenders who have not been re-convicted "The storing of fingerprints in a database violates the right to privacy enshrined in s9 of our constitution and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, he contended. Back in 2017, Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson said the Government was planning to introduce biometric surveillance legislation that would aid police in solving crime. According to the premier the biometric system would see the entire populace being entered into the database. She said: "We will have legislation in place for that, it would be absolutely nonsensical to just do part of the population, we must fingerprint everyone. The PDM Government has long maintained the position to introduce legislation that will allow police to determine whether or not they wish to use biometrics. The law will also determine the legality of using the technology in the financial sector. The police force already uses forensic technology such as DNA and fingerprint identification during the course of criminal investigations. In information technology, biometrics refers to technology that measures and analyses human body characteristics, such as DNA, fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, voice patterns, facial patterns and hand measurements for authentication purposes. According to police, the documents required for a police record will remain the same but from April 1 the processing fee for clearance certificates will increase to $40. (By Olivia Rose) The Brandon Sun has received a National Newspaper Award nomination in local reporting for court reporter Erin DeBooys seven-part series on the impact that methamphetamine has had on the Brandon community. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us The Brandon Sun has received a National Newspaper Award nomination in local reporting for court reporter Erin DeBooys seven-part series on the impact that methamphetamine has had on the Brandon community. DeBooy is among the 63 finalists, nominated in 21 different categories, in this years 70th National Newspaper Awards, including The Suns own sister paper the Winnipeg Free Press. Brandon Sun court reporter Erin DeBooy has been nominated for a National Newspaper Award in local reporting for her seven-part series on methamphetamine titled "Rock Bottom." (File) The award for local reporting is given for exceptional reporting of a significant local issue. "I feel very honoured to be recognized, Im also in shock a bit," DeBooy said. "Its an issue that needed to come to the forefront of the conversation and I also feel so grateful for the families who trusted me with their stories and really helped bring to light what this drug is doing to our people and to our community." Described by the National Newspaper Awards as "an unflinching look at the personal and human toll caused by methamphetamine use in her community," The Sun published the first installment of DeBooys series, "Rock Bottom," nearly a year ago on April 28, 2018. In the weeks that followed, DeBooys stories highlighted the voices of addicts and their families, politicians and police, as well as those trying to find a solution to a problem that has spread across Manitoba and much of the Prairies. Also nominated for the award in local reporting are Grant LaFleche from the St. Catharines Standard and Greg Mercer from the Waterloo Region Record. "Erins definitive series on the rising scourge of methamphetamine in Brandon hit all the right notes," Sun managing editor Matt Goerzen said. "Rock Bottom is an informative, well-researched and provoking series that shines a light on the drug-induced nightmare affecting our city. Her nomination for the National Newspaper Awards is well deserved, in my opinion." "Erins seven-part series also sparked a similar set of stories from our sister paper, the Winnipeg Free Press Ice Storm: Manitobas Meth Crisis," Goerzen added. "While I am pleased to see reporters from both The Brandon Sun and the Free Press receive such accolades, I hope the work these talented people have done, and continue to do, will prompt workable solutions." The Sun has won three national newspaper awards in the past, the first in 1961 for an editorial by Lubor Zink and twice by photographer Tim Smith for best feature photo in 2010 and 2015. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Toronto on May 3. The Brandon Sun OTTAWA - Canada has learned a lot about how to protect against foreign election meddling through its support of Ukraine in its ongoing battles with Russia, says Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A member of the Canadian Forces stands on tarmac at the Canadian Forces base in the Persian Gulf, Sunday, February 19, 2017. Canada is extending its military missions in Ukraine and Iraq, both of which were due to expire at the end of the month.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz OTTAWA - Canada has learned a lot about how to protect against foreign election meddling through its support of Ukraine in its ongoing battles with Russia, says Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Freeland described Ukraine as a "laboratory" for Russia's disinformation campaigns in cyberspace as she and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced Monday that Canada is extending its military missions in the eastern European country and Iraq commitments that were both due to expire at the end of the month. The extensions shore up Canada's contributions to the effort to curb Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and to the fight against Islamic militants in the Middle East. Ukraine is bracing for Russian interference in its upcoming presidential election on March 31, and Freeland said the threat has implications for Canada's own federal vote later this year. "We do need to be concerned about malign actors seeking to interfere in the elections in Ukraine and seeking to interfere in our own elections. That is all the more reason for us to be very active in countering this threat," she said. "Ukraine tends to be a laboratory for malign intervention and disinformation." Canada is committed to helping Ukraine and its neighbours counter the cyberthreats from Moscow, and broader disinformation campaigns, the minister said. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland make an announcement in Ottawa, Monday, March 18, 2019 about Canada extending its military missions in Ukraine and Iraq, both of which were due to expire at the end of the month. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick "We help them a lot, but I'll tell you, we learn a lot from them." The mission of about 200 Canadian Forces personnel in Ukraine will be extended to the end of March 2022. The Forces have been involved in Ukraine since September 2015, helping train the country's military, which is battling Russian-backed separatist forces. The decision to extend Canada's commitment was welcome news to Ukraine as it continues to cope with Russia's annexation of its southern Crimea region in 2014, and the continuing unrest in its eastern Donbass region, which is plagued by a pro-Russian rebellion. Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko said cyberattacks by Russia have become an everyday occurrence as the election nears. "There are constant cyberattacks on the Ukrainian objects of critical infrastructure," he said in an interview. "We see massive cyberattacks on our election digital infrastructure, and our media sector." Shevchenko said his country is "like a workshop where you can see in real time how our neighbour is trying to interfere with our election." Canada has trained almost 11,000 Ukrainian military personnel, with techniques that have helped save many lives on the front line of the conflict with Russia, he said. Shevchenko said Canada's military commitment to his country shows global leadership. He also cited Canada's contribution of election monitors and Friday's imposition of additional sanctions on 129 people, companies and organizations over Russia's treatment of Ukraine. Canada said the measures were a response to the ongoing occupation of Crimea and the Russian arrests of 24 Ukrainian sailors in the Black Sea last November. Former foreign-affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy is leading a delegation of Canadian election monitors to Ukraine. Canada will also host an international conference on Ukraine's economy and political reforms in July that will include foreign ministers from the European Union, the G7 and NATO countries, Freeland said. Canada also has about 500 troops leading a NATO battlegroup in Latvia, part of the alliance's broader effort to deter Russia along Europe's eastern flank. "For defence and deterrence to work, we need to make sure that Russia knows what our capabilities are. That's how deterrence operates," said Sajjan. "It's very important to send our NATO allies a very strong message that we will be there for them, but also to send a very strong message to Russia." Canada will also extend the Canadian Forces' contribution to the Global Coalition Against Daesh and the NATO mission in Iraq, until the end of March 2021. Canada has about 500 military members in Iraq, including 200 who are part of a NATO training mission and 120 special forces who have been helping Iraqi forces root out Islamic State insurgents around the northern city of Mosul. Those are parts of Canada's larger Middle East strategy, which also includes humanitarian assistance and diplomatic engagement in Iraq, Syria and the surrounding region. HALIFAX - Atlantic Canada's largest children's hospital is warning parents about the risks of edible weed after a flood of cannabis-related calls to its poison centre. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Edible marijuana products are displayed for sale at a Weeds Glass & Gifts medical marijuana dispensary in downtown Vancouver on May 1, 2015. Atlantic Canada's largest children's hospital is warning parents about the risks of edible weed, after a flood of cannabis-related calls to its poison centre last year. The IWK Health Centre says its centre fielded three times as many cannabis calls as it had in 2015. It says poison centres across country have reported increased weed exposures since it was legalized last October, with the most notable increase being concentrated cannabis products and weed-infused food, especially in kids 12 and under. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck HALIFAX - Atlantic Canada's largest children's hospital is warning parents about the risks of edible weed after a flood of cannabis-related calls to its poison centre. The IWK Health Centre says it fielded three times as many cannabis calls to its poison line last year than in 2015. The Halifax hospital says poison centres across the country have reported increased weed exposures since recreational pot was legalized last October, most notably with concentrated cannabis products and weed-infused food, especially in kids 12 and under. It says edibles look like the snacks kids love, and children can't tell the difference between a brownie and a brownie with cannabis. The IWK is urging parents to take measures to protect their kids. Edible cannabis products remain outlawed, but are expected to be legalized this October. "Right now, there are no regulations for safe storage of cannabis products, such as child-resistant packages or warning labels. That's why it's crucial to store all cannabis products in a locked space or container, out of the reach of kids," Julie Harrington of the IWK's Child Safety Link says in a statement. The IWK says all weed products should be clearly labelled and stored in a locked place out of the reach of children. It also recommends not using "cannabis in any form" in front of children. "Children are more sensitive to the effects of the active ingredients in cannabis," Laurie Mosher, clinical leader of the IWK Regional Poison Centre, says in a statement as part of Poison Prevention Week. "Parents may not realize that children have eaten a toxic amount of a cannabis or nicotine product until they have symptoms, such as profound drowsiness and other serious symptoms." The IWK says liquid nicotine exposures have also increased and recommends similar measures. OTTAWA - Facebook is launching a new advertisement library that will capture detailed information about political ads targeted at voters in Canada, including who pays for them and whom they target. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A Facebook logo is displayed at a start-up companies gathering in Paris on January 17, 2017. Facebook is launching a new advertisement library that will capture detailed information about political ads targeted at voters in Canada, including who pays for them and whom they target. The move is part of the social-media giant's response to changes the Trudeau government has made to Canada's election laws aimed at stopping bad actors -- foreign or domestic -- from interfering with Canada's upcoming federal election through advertising. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Thibault Camus OTTAWA - Facebook is launching a new advertisement library that will capture detailed information about political ads targeted at voters in Canada, including who pays for them and whom they target. The move is part of the social-media giant's response to changes the Trudeau government has made to Canada's election laws aimed at stopping bad actors foreign or domestic from interfering with Canada's upcoming federal election through advertising. Bill C-76, which received royal assent in December, bans the use of money from foreign entities to conduct partisan campaigns. It also requires online platforms, such as Facebook and Google, to create a registry of all digital advertisements placed by political parties or third parties during the pre-writ and writ periods and to ensure they remain visible to the public for two years. Google recently said the demands of the new law are too onerous for its advertising system, which auctions ad space on the fly. It's simply refusing to take political advertisements in Canada around the upcoming election. Kevin Chan, head of public policy in Canada for Facebook, says the company is trying to exceed the standards the Canadian law sets. "C-76 is, in fact, very important and consequential legislation. It actually regulates online platforms, including Facebook," Chan said. "In order to comply we actually need to build new systems and new products to be able to do this, so right now we have our product-engineering teams working very, very hard between now and the end of June to ensure that we will be in compliance with what C-76 requires." Advertisements that refer to political figures, political parties, elections, legislation or issues of national importance will have to go through an authorization process. This will capture the information of the entity or group buying the ad and ensure the buyer is based in Canada. Political ads that appear on Facebook during the pre-writ and writ periods will be labelled with a "paid for by" disclosure. People will be able to click the disclosure and see the ad library. This library will include information on the ad's reach who saw it, their gender and location, as well as a range of its impressions. Information in the library will be viewable and searchable online for up to seven years, which exceeds the period required in the new election laws. Another effort to exceed the legislative rules will see Facebook using its artificial-intelligence technologies and algorithms to detect ads or content that tries to circumvent the rules. "We recognize that there's going to probably be the potential for bad actors to try to work around the system in other words, they may want to run a political ad and not seek to self-declare and not seek to be authorized," Chan said. "That is obviously problematic for us because we recognize that the spirit of what Parliament intended and what we intend, in terms of what we're trying to do, is provide the most transparency for political ads as possible." To help Facebook predict what issues might become key points of debate in the federal election, the company has amassed an group of policy advisers from a wide range of political backgrounds and expertise. The group includes: former NDP MP Megan Leslie; former Stephen Harper aide Ray Novak, who is the managing director of Harper and Associates; Antonia Maioni, McGill University's dean of arts; Ry Moran, executive director of the truth and reconciliation centre at the University of Manitoba; and David Zussman, a professor at the University of Victoria's school of public administration. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday encouraged students at an Italian school to be cultural ambassadors between the two countries. Students of the school holding the magazine Instituto Confucio. [Photo:hanban.org] The Chinese leader made the remarks in a response letter to President Paolo M. Reale and eight students of Rome Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II, an Italian boarding school. On the eve of Xi's upcoming state visit to Italy, Reale and the students wrote him a letter to express their eager expectations for his visit and their willingness to promote friendship between Italy and China. In his letter, Xi said he is very pleased to see that the students can express themselves in fluent Chinese. "Your school has successfully opened a Chinese-language international scientific high school and nurtured a host of young men and women devoted to promoting China-Italy friendly relations," he said. Students from Convitto Nazionale "Vittorio Emanuele II" di Roma read Chinese poems to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year in Rome, Italy, Feb. 23, 2018. [Photo:cri.cn] In their letter, the students said the Confucius Classroom program has provided them with an opportunity to have a closer look at China and enabled them to see the vastness of the world and the value of cultural diversity. "This is a harvest you have reaped from learning and practice," said the Chinese president. Xi said he highly appreciates the students' determination to promote dialogue of minds and cultural exchanges between the young generations of the two countries and cement the friendship between the two peoples. "I hope you will become modern-day Marco Polos, as cultural ambassadors between Italy and China in this new era," he said. Rome Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II is a prestigious boarding school in Italy, which opened in 2009 an international high school that teaches science-related courses in Chinese. The school has the largest Confucius Classroom in Italy, and learning Chinese language and culture is popular among the students. THE PRINCE of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are set to visit several Caribbean islands during a regional tour over the next few weeks. St Lucia, Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada are all on the list but the royal couple will not be in the TCI on this occasion. The tour will celebrate "the monarchys relationship with these Commonwealth realms, a press release from the Prince of Wales official website said on February 15. The prince and duchess will also pay the very first official visit from any member of the British royal family to Cuba. This is in order to "highlight the growing bilateral relationship with the UK and showcase some of the cultural links between the two countries. They will finally visit the British overseas territory of the Cayman Islands to celebrate its place within the British family. From March 17 to 29, their Royal Highnesses will call on six countries and one overseas territory, undertaking more than fifty engagements across ten islands. The tour will begin in St Lucia on Sunday (March 17), where the Prince of Wales will be guest of honour at an event to mark the countrys 40th anniversary of independence, following a welcome to the island by the governor general and the prime minister. The Prince of Wales will later attend a reception for guests from across the island. On March 19, the couple will undertake a number of engagements in Barbados including a parade and wreath laying at the Cenotaph in Bridgetown. Prince Charles will then have the chance to visit the oldest synagogue in the western hemisphere, which was recently restored with the help of the Barbados National Trust. He will attend a demonstration on the islands hurricane preparedness mechanisms and meet teams involved in responding to recent natural disasters across the region. His Royal Highness will also learn more about the work that The Princes Trust International has been doing locally. The Duchess, Camilla, who is president of the Women of the World Festival, will attend an event for Barbadian women of influence. The Women of the World festival (WOW) is a global festival movement to celebrate and encourage women and girls to overcome inequality. She will also join a Commonwealth Big Lunch, and visit a diabetes clinic, before joining His Royal Highness for a meeting and reception at the prime ministers residence. The royal pair will visit St Vincent and the Grenadines on March 20, where key themes in the programme will include youth opportunity and female empowerment, as well as the preservation of the islands natural environment. Her Royal Highness will visit the St Vincent and Grenadines Community College and St Vincent Girls High School, where pupils have been busy creating their entries for The Queens Commonwealth Essay Competition. On March 21, the prince and duchess will visit both parts of the dual-island nation of St Kitts and Nevis and will undertake a programme that will demonstrate the countrys commitment to heritage restoration, the environment and local culture. The Prince of Wales will also have the chance to return to the Brimstone Hill Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that he last visited in 1973. He will learn more about the history of the fortress, the restoration work that has been undertaken there, and attend a showcase of local culture, dance and music. Their Royal Highnesses will also attend receptions on both islands for members of the community, featuring local music and culture. The prince and duchess will visit Grenada on March 23 where they will learn more about local agriculture and the importance and history of cocoa and spice production on the island. Prince Charles will attend a meeting on the importance of the blue economy and meet organisations involved in marine protection and conservation. They will arrive in Cuba on March 24 where, after an official welcome, they will commence their visit to the country with a wreath laying at the Memorial of Cubas national hero the essayist and poet Jose Marti. "The prince and duchess visit will highlight cultural and academic connections, links between the people of the UK and Cuba, and explore key themes, such as the arts, youth entrepreneurship, heritage restoration and sustainable agriculture, the statement said. On March 25, the touring royals will undertake a varied programme in Havana including a joint visit to a community and arts centre. His Royal Highness will also be able to meet some of Cubas young entrepreneurs at an event in central Havana. That evening, the president of Cuba will welcome them before hosting an official dinner. On their second day of engagements in Havana they will have the chance to meet a group of owners of British classic cars and pay a visit to a Cuban music recording studio. Their Royal Highnesses will also visit one of the countrys leading dance studios and the Prince of Wales will travel out of Havana to learn more about renewable energy and organic farming in Cuba. They will later attend a reception hosted by the British Ambassador. Their Royal Highnesses visit to Cuba will end on March 27. The prince will visit Cubas south coast to learn more about the countrys flora and fauna. His Royal Highness will also attend a roundtable discussion on environmental conservation, whilst Her Royal Highness will visit an equestrian centre helping students from primary school level through to the countrys national team. The Duchess of Cornwall will also attend a roundtable to discuss the work being done to help those affected by domestic violence. The prince and duchess will arrive in the Cayman Islands later that day, officially opening the new airport upon arrival. They will attend a meeting with the premier and the governor. They will visit all three of the Cayman Islands, will meet members of the local communities from each island and attend a series of engagements focusing on sustainability and marine conservation. The duchess will visit a crisis centre for young people and their families who have been affected by domestic abuse, as well as a new hospice providing end of life palliative care for those in need. Her Royal Highness will also attend a cultural performance at a local primary school. The Prince of Wales will have the chance to meet hurricane relief personnel based on the islands. The visit will end with a reception and celebration showcasing local music and culture. Prince Charles last visited the Caribbean after hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 with visits to Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda and the British Virgin Islands. OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered an emotional clarion call Monday as he urged people of all political stripes to turn the page on hateful ideology and condemn the sort of intolerance that fuelled the brutal killing of 50 Muslims in New Zealand. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered an emotional clarion call Monday as he urged people of all political stripes to turn the page on hateful ideology and condemn the sort of intolerance that fuelled the brutal killing of 50 Muslims in New Zealand. A visibly angry Trudeau denounced the "small, toxic segments" of society that peddle the belief diversity is a weakness, spewing hatred and inciting brutality. Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Minister Ralph Goodale waits to appear before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence in Ottawa, Monday, March 18, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld "We see it here in Canada in online harassment, anonymous letters, defaced places of worship, acts of violence and even murder," he told the House of Commons as party leaders expressed solidarity with the victims in Christchurch and their families. "When we fail to denounce hatred with total conviction, we empower those people and legitimize their violence." Trudeau expressed sorrow at the many attacks in recent years that have taken the lives of defenceless people at mosques, temples, churches, synagogues, concerts, schools and malls. "I'm sick and tired of extending our thoughts and our prayers. People around the world are exhausted by the carnage," he said. "We have to chase out this hatred from our parties, fight it online, denounce it at town halls, push back when it reaches our front door." Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer joined Trudeau in stressing the need to condemn all racist ideologies and doctrines of prejudice. Canada has, from its inception, been a country built on values that transcend religious, ethnic and linguistic divides, Scheer said. "This is who we are, and this is who we will always be. Those who think otherwise have no place in our democracy." In his maiden speech to the Commons, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the use of dehumanizing language and making immigration out to be a threat can breed fear and fuel hatred. "Let's open our hearts and replace the ignorance, the lack of knowledge with understanding, which will create the climate for compassion, so we care for one another," he said. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale suggested Friday's deadly mass shooting, which killed 50 people and wounded 50 more as they gathered at a pair of Christchurch mosques, will spur parliamentarians to take a careful look at Canada's gun laws. The massacre has sparked a global sense of concern that will prompt Canadian politicians to make some timely decisions, Goodale said Monday after appearing before a Senate committee. Goodale said cabinet colleague Bill Blair will deliver recommendations soon, having been asked last August by Trudeau to study the possibility of a full ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada. A visibly galvanized Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's prime minister, said her government plans to announce gun-law reforms within days. A bill already before Canada's Senate would, among other things, expand the scope of background checks on those who want to acquire guns here. The bill would also require gun retailers keep records of firearms inventory and sales, and ensure the purchaser of a hunting rifle or shotgun presents a firearms licence, while the seller would have to verify it. Follow @JimBronskill on Twitter MONTREAL - The Quebec government has convened a panel of experts and given it one year to come up with recommendations on improving support for sexual assault and domestic violence victims, who often feel let down by the system. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Helene David of the Liberal party, Quebec Justice Minister Sonia Lebel, Veronique Hivon of the PQ and Christine Labrie of Quebec Solidaire, left to right, listen to a question after announcing the formation of a committee of experts to accompany victims of sexual assault and of domestic violence in Montreal on Monday, March 18, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson MONTREAL - The Quebec government has convened a panel of experts and given it one year to come up with recommendations on improving support for sexual assault and domestic violence victims, who often feel let down by the system. Justice Minister Sonia LeBel was joined by members of Quebec's other main political parties as she announced the committee Monday in Montreal. LeBel, Helene David of the Liberals, Veronique Hivon of the Parti Quebecois, and Christine Labrie of Quebec solidaire held non-partisan meetings on the issue in January amid debate over whether a special tribunal should be established to handle sexual assault cases an idea Premier Francois Legault has said he is open to. "There's a very present lack of confidence in the justice system from the point of view of the victims," LeBel said. "We are very concerned by that, and through our discussions we agreed on specific things we should address, and we decided the way to do it is to look at it from the victim's point of view." The panel will look at measures already in place and study options to provide more sustained support. "How can we make certain that ... whatever happens at the end of the process, they have confidence that they were believed, they were accompanied and they were not victimized a second time by the system?" LeBel asked. A special tribunal has been floated as one way to improve the system. LeBel said a change to federal law such as shifting the burden of proof to the defendant is not on the table. But proponents of a tribunal say it could give victims an increased role in the process and provide a framework for judges, prosecutors and court staff to follow. Hivon, who has pushed for such a tribunal, drew a parallel with the province's right-to-die legislation, which she played a large role in bringing forward. "Quebec can do a lot to change things," Hivon said, noting that she often heard during the assisted-death debate that not much could be accomplished because it was under federal jurisdiction. LeBel said Monday a tribunal is one of many possibilities the panel members will look at, and if it is part of their recommendations, the government will study it further. "We are not attached to any one solution, but this is something the committee has the mandate to look at," LeBel said. "Everything is possible." The 13-member panel will consist of a former chief judge of the court of Quebec, academics, a provincial police representative, lawyers, frontline workers and victims' advocates. Among the members is actress Patricia Tulasne, who represents the group of complainants called "Les Courageuses" (The Courageous Ones), who are suing former Just For Laughs head Gilbert Rozon over alleged assaults. Some organizations that work with victims said it's clear more funding will be needed. "We hope that when they talk about supporting victims, they will ensure that groups that specialize in dealing with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence will have the means to do their job," said Louise Riendeau, who speaks for an organization that represents shelters for abused women. She noted funding hasn't risen to meet demand in recent years, and there are waiting lists for spaces in shelters. The share price is down only 7% but the US airlines chiefs have been found wanting in their handling of the safety questions raised by the Ethiopian crash, writes Kyran Fitzgerald. When the mettle of leaders gets tested in a crisis, many are found wanting. A week on from the tragic crash of the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft near to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, those in charge at the manufacturer have been struggling to come to grips with the crisis. Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg has come in for some stick over his response. Initially, he resisted requests that all of 737 Max 8 planes the type involved in the Ethiopia crash along with the crash just months earlier in Indonesia be grounded across the US. Mr Muilenburg called President Donald Trump to reassure him about the safety record of the 737 aircraft, the major revenue earner for the company. There have been concerns about the new 737 Max 8s software systems and about the level of pilot training required for the effective operation of the planes. Sniffing out the popular mood, Mr Trump tweeted: I dont want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. Boeing had been salivating over the earnings potential of the Max 8 planes, which are now in the crosshairs of the safety experts following the two crashes. Analysts have estimated that they could account for around 40% of Boeing earnings over the next five years. Since the crash, Boeing shares have fallen 7% but they are still up by 17% from a year ago. The Boeing share price had doubled in the past two years, becoming Americas largest industrial company in terms of share value. This is no fragile flower. A prolonged grounding of planes may be painful, but hardly terminal. The CEO has displayed a tin ear in responding to the concerns of his critics and this is hardly good for the Boeing brand. Writing in the Harvard Business Review last week, economist Sandra Sucher took the CEO to task: Moments like this are a trial by fire for leaders. All this confusion does no one any good not investors, employers, passengers. The PR industry has also been fairly scathing. According to a headline in PR Week, Boeing lost control of comms and faces a crisis of confidence. Ms Sucher is more on the money in suggesting that Mr Muilenburg could have framed things differently. His approach was to treat it as a technical matter to be resolved through pilot training. According to Ms Sucher: A better frame would be: This is a technical problem that we do not fully understand. In the light of that uncertainty, we recommend grounding the 737 Max 8s and 9s until we are sure we know what caused the crashes. Back in 1982, several customers were poisoned after Tylenol capsules were interfered with. Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer won praise for their response to the situation. The then chief executive James Burke chose not to highlight the poisoning aspect of the story and treated it instead as a public health problem. He set in motion what has been described as a gold standard reaction. All 32 million bottles of Tylenol were recalled, against the advice of the regulator, the Food and Drugs Administration. When another poisoning scare emerged four years later, the company replaced the capsules with tamper-proof packaging. Mr Burke recognised that his company faced a potential meltdown if people lost faith in the safety of Tylenol. General Motors boss Mary Barra faced a similar situation, in 2014, shortly after she took over as CEO. Around 1.7 million GM vehicles were hit by an ignition switch defect that cost 12 lives. Here was another case of potential reputational Armageddon. Ms Barras approach was to issue a filmed statement in which she issued a mea culpa. She showed a human side and survived, remaining in the job to this day. But there have been famous missteps by leaders faced with a crisis. One of the most famous was the response by former British agriculture minister John Selwyn Gummer to evidence of the spread of BSE in cattle. In a publicity stunt, Mr Gummer was filmed on BBC feeding burgers to his young daughter Cordelia, arguably transforming her into a human lab rat for political PR purposes. Since then, there has been a succession of food and animal scares. Irish food producers have had to tackle crises such as the dioxin scare of 2009. On the whole, the industry here has done a good job in maintaining and promoting the image of Irish produce. It was the effective response of then newly appointed Aer Lingus chief executive Willie Walsh now boss of IAG to the events of 9/11 as they impacted on the airlines transatlantic business, which helped propel his career. But there have been plenty of examples of top executives who have resorted to the telling of porkies who come across as complacent, out of touch or simply self-absorbed. A stand out performer was Gerald Ratner owner of a one leading British jewellery business who whipped up a crisis for his business from nowhere. At an Institute of Directors dinner in 1991, Mr Ratner the guest speaker decided to crack a joke or two. He started with a favourite anecdote about a Ratners sherry decanter retailing at 4.95. People ask me how you can sell it for such a low price. My answer is that its because it is complete crap, he quipped. For good measure, he added that Ratners earrings were cheap because they had a shorter life than an M&S prawn sandwich. A furious reaction, led by the tabloids, was unleashed. Sales tanked and the value of the business plummeted. As Mr Ratner recalled, recently: That speech caused me to lose my reputation and my fortune. More recently, a similar lack of judgement was displayed by BP chief executive Tony Hayward, in the aftermath of the Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr Hayward soon became Americas most hated man. His gaffes were the stuff of legend. He opined that the spill was relatively tiny. In an unwitting echo of the fictional broadcaster Alan Partridge, he said: Theres no one who wants this over more than I do. Id like my life back. He got his life back when he was subsequently fired. They never seem to learn. Back home, there have been many examples of similar utterances from former Irish bank chiefs over 10 years ago as the banking crisis enveloped the country. In truth, in many cases, crises simply cannot be managed because the organisations had rotted at the core. One of the latest examples is dieselgate where the German giant VW and key former executives, find themselves accused by the SEC of profiting from deceptive claims about the environmental impact of their vehicles. But other emergencies come about due to external events for which the firms bear little or no responsibility. A no deal Brexit could bring such crises in its wake to businesses, here and in such an environment, the ability to firefight will be a core requirement and indeed strength. Irish executives may need to add this intangible quality the ability to stay calm in a crisis to their skills set. A Dublin councillor has taken aim at Donald Trump's Republican Party over an attack on Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke. The party's official Twitter account yesterday posted an image mocking O'Rourke for a 1998 arrest for drunk driving. A former Waterford TD has died at the age of 91. John "Jackie" Fahey was a Fianna Fail TD for more than 25 years and was part of the gang of five who helped elect Charles Haughey to become leader of the party. Mr Fahey who was born in Clonmel, Co Tipperary in 1928 passed away at around 3.30am. He was educated locally at the Christian Brothers School. The popular former deputy first entered politics in 1950 when he was elected to Waterford County Council. He held his seat on that authority until 1970, and later from 1974 to 1999. He was first elected to Dail Eireann as a TD for the Tipperary South constituency at the 1965 general election. From the 1977 general election onwards, he was elected for the Waterford constituency. Mr Fahey played a prominent role in securing the Fianna Fail leadership for Charles Haughey in 1979, and remained a staunch ally of the former Taoiseach, inside and outside the Dail. He was part of the "gang of five", with Albert Reynolds, Tom McEllistrim, Sean Doherty and Mark Killilea, who campaigned within the Fianna Fail parliamentary party for Jack Lynch's replacement by Charles Haughey. At the time, Jack Lynch's government, with its 20-seat majority, was becoming increasingly unpopular. The group received the enthusiastic support of several backbenchers, who had been elected in Jack Lynch's landslide victory in 1977, and felt that their seats had become vulnerable. More than 20 of them signed a secret letter, circulated by Tom McEllistrim, calling for Lynch's resignation. Jack Lynch had already decided to step down early in 1980 but brought his retirement forward several months to help George Colley's chances of succeeding him. Haughey was the eventual winner and rewarded Fahey by appointing him Minister of State at the Department of Environment, a post he held for three years from 1979 to 1981. He was not re-appointed in any future Haughey government but remained a loyalist. Fahey contested the 1989 European Parliament election for the Munster constituency but was not elected. He was annoyed at his running mate in the constituency and subsequently voted against the proposed Fianna FailProgressive Democrats coalition which subsequently lost him the party whip. He re-applied for membership of the party in 1990 and was re-admitted. Fahey lost his seat at the 1992 general election. He served out his council term on Waterford City Council, and retired from politics in 1999. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin paid tribute to the late politician. "Jackie lived a life of public service and represented the people of his constituency at both a local and national level. He served with great commitment and diligence through many turbulent times," Mr Martin said. Jackie spent a total of 45 years on Waterford County Council having been first elected to it at the age of twenty one, and this record alone is testament to the work he undertook across the community, and the respect in which he was held by the people. On behalf of myself and the Fianna Fail organisation I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Jackies family and wide circle of friends." A High Court review of a challenge by environmental lobby group CHASE to An Bord Pleanala's decision to grant planning permission for an incinerator in Cork Harbour is set to get underway tomorrow. The review, sought by Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment (CHASE), is expected to run for two weeks. Children's Minister Katherine Zappone today begins a historic Irish Government visit to Namibia. A series of top-level meetings have been planned to mark the first visit by an Irish Minister to the republic that was formerly South West Africa. Minister Zappone's visit is part of a St Patrick's Day mission to the region which will see her visit six cities in six days to strengthen social, economic and political links. She will meet Namibia's first lady as well as senior ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, to discuss climate change, human rights, and existing trade links. The Minister will today also announce a fellowship in the name of Irish Noble Peace Prize winner Sean McBride who previously served as UN Commissioner to Namibia. She will underline Ireland's continued commitment to peacekeeping and reform as part of Ireland's campaign to secure a seat at the UN Security Council. The Irish Prison Service has sought to ease fears of a backlog of sex offenders waiting to enter its tailored treatment programme following criticism from a visiting committee at one of the country's main jails. The Visiting Committee for Arbour Hill prison - one of two jails that deal with men convicted of sexual violence - had warned in its recently published 2017 annual report of "an ongoing waiting list for prisoners to engage in the psychology services". The committee noted that Arbour Hill "is currently the centre of excellence for the treatment and rehabilitation of sex offenders" but also said that the sudden death in 2017 of a senior psychologist mean it was "imperative" that a replacement be found as there was "an extra workload" for the remaining psychologist. The Irish Prison Service confirmed that the senior post has been filled on an acting basis since last April and that a permanent senior psychologist has recently been appointed and will commence work shortly. According to the prison service there are between 380 and 400 individuals convicted of sexual violence in the prison system at any one time, with approximately 300 in the Midlands prison and 100 in Arbour Hill prison. Both prisons work together to provide a National Programme of Excellence in order to reduce risk of re-offending and enhance public protection to the greatest possible extent. The National Programme, known as the Building Better Lives (BBL), has operated since 2009 in Arbour Hill prison and can be delivered as a group or individually, depending on the persons needs. Typically, men have engaged in the programme within the final two years of their sentence. Delivery of the programme is in three stages: Exploring Better Lives (EBL), Practicing Better Lives (PBL), and Maintaining Better Lives (MBL). Since 2016, the EBL group has moved to the Midlands prison and individuals then transfer to Arbour Hill prison to complete the Stage 2 PBL element. The MBL is currently facilitated by the Probation Service in Arbour Hill. According to the Prison Service: "A review of the BBL was conducted in 2018 and both elements of the programmes were revised to facilitate an increase in the number of participants engaging in interventions, to reduce risk. There are currently 11 prisoners on the waiting list to participate in the EBL in Arbour Hill. It is anticipated that all prisoners on the PBL waiting list will be offered a place on the programme in 2019." The EBL in the Midlands Prison has around eight participants engaged on a rolling basis while the PBL stage in Arbour Hill has a similar number. The Irish Prison Service said that a number of other sex offenders, who either do not wish to engage with BBL or fail to meet the criteria for inclusion, can participate in a range of other programmes. The Arbour Hill Visiting Committee report also noted the lack of weekend in-house medical provision for what it said was an ageing prison population in the jail. The Irish Prison Service said it was currently making arrangements for procuring the expertise required to carry out a comprehensive healthcare needs assessment of the prison population across the prison estate, including Arbour Hill Prison, with a view to determining the current and future healthcare requirements of prisoners. "AN UPSTANDING young man with a bright future ahead of him was just one of the praises that poured in over the weekend following news that Mauquency Carter had died in a road accident. Reports are that Carters grey Jeep Wrangler collided with a womans car at about 2am on Commonwealth Day (March 11) on Leeward Highway in the vicinity of Provo Plaza. Officer Carter was reportedly thrown from the vehicle, and sustained life threatening injuries. Emergency personnel responded quickly to the scene and Carter was transported to Cheshire Hall Medical Centre, where he was pronounced dead at 2.47am. The female driver of the grey Honda car involved in the collision was also taken to the hospital where she was treated for her injuries. Condolences In a message to members of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, Commissioner of Police James Smith stated: "I am very distressed to learn that Constable Carter has died as a result of this incident and I know that his passing will be felt by all of us, his family and friends and the community in TCI where he was much loved. "We have lost a very special individual who will be sorely missed. This is going to be a very difficult time for Carters family and for each of us. Carter was enlisted in the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police in September of 2007 after graduating from the Royal Bahamas Police Training School. He was assigned to the Tactical Unit. Flags in the police compound were lowered to half mass, and friends and colleagues gathered at the scene of the fatal crash for a candlelight vigil in Carters honour. The police force, which organised the vigil, thanked everyone for attending and showing their respects. Acting Commissioner of Police Trevor Botting remembered the deceased constable: "PC Carter was a professional, positive, intelligent and committed police officer. "I saw first-hand the excitement in his eyes as he embarked on growing in his career to serve others and I know how much he was liked both within the RTCIPF and the wider community. "The entire force is mourning, with many officers taking his passing particularly hard. "This was the job that he was meant to do. He enjoyed serving. Botting added that the force has taken great heart from the love and support shown by the local community, and expressed appreciation for the support. Deputy Governor Anya Williams, who heads the civil service, also shared her thoughts on Carters passing. "The passing of Officer Carter or Quincy as we all affectionately knew him, has sent the entire Turks and Caicos Islands into a state of shock and grief. "Quincy was a well-mannered, devoted and respected police officer who loved his job as a police officer as much as he loved his family and his zeal for life. He was a highly skilled officer who dedicated over a decade of service to the RTCIPF and served across various islands and in various capacities, but was most proud of his service to the Tactical Unit where his level of skill and precision was greatly admired, Williams said. He was also a member of the RTCIPF Police Band and spent a significant amount of time mentoring troubled young men throughout the Islands and the various high schools. The deputy governor revealed that in recent weeks Quincy was assigned as a CPO to Governor John Freeman and worked from the Office of the Governor/Deputy Governor in Providenciales where his level of professionalism and attention to detail continued to be placed on display. "Quincys personality was bigger than life and he was loved and well respected across the entire Turks and Caicos Islands where he will be a great miss. "Our hearts grieve for this great loss and we extend our deepest sympathies to his entire family most especially his children AZhi and Adonai Carter, his grandmother Mrs Valeria Houseman, his siblings Aretha, Moses and Mauqueita, aunts, uncles and the rest of the family circle. "You have served your country well and we are forever grateful for your service Macquency. World champion boxer Kellie Harrington has put her 2015 National Elite belt up for auction in aid of neighbours who lost their home to fire. Their house in Dublin's north inner city was destroyed last week, and the family doesn't expect to be able to return for at least a year. Latest: The suspect in the deadly tram shooting in Utrecht which left three people dead has been detained, Dutch police have said. At the end of a news conference on Monday evening, police chief Rob van Bree told reporters: I just heard that the suspect we were hunting has been arrested. Five people were also injured in the incident and authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the highest level. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old Turkish-born man they identified as Gokmen Tanis and said he was associated with the incident. Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said three people were killed and police put the number of wounded at five. We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, Mr van Zanen said. (PA Graphics) If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger that fanaticism and violence, he added. The shooting took place at a busy junction in a residential area. Police erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht (Martijn van der Zande/AP/PA) Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one person might have fled by car and he did not rule out the possibility that more than one assailant was involved. The countrys anti-terror co-ordinator Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg raised the threat alert to its highest level, five, around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the make-up of Parliaments upper house.- Press Association Three dead, nine wounded in Utrecht shooting; suspect named By Denise ODonoghue Update 2pm: The Mayor of Utrecht says three people have died following a shooting on a tram in the city. A further nine people were injured, with three in a serious condition. De politie bevestigt dat het beeld op dit moment is dat er sprake is van 3 doden en 9 gewonden. #24oktoberplein #utrecht In the case of the shooting at the #24oktoberplein in Utrecht the police confirms 3 death and 9 injured. Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019 A search is underway for suspected gunman Gokman Tanis, 37, who was born in Turkey. Burgemeester Jan van Zanen reageert op het schietincident eerder vandaag pic.twitter.com/PzI6t2tPtX Gemeente Utrecht (@GemeenteUtrecht) March 18, 2019 Dutch police said a Red Renault Clio had been hijacked shortly before the shooting, and was later found further south in the city. They asked for anyone with information about the car to get in touch. Earlier: Dutch police release image and name of shooting suspect Update 1.23pm: Police in the Netherlands shared a photo of the man they are searching for in connection with a shooting in Utrecht. A search is underway for 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, who was born in Turkey. Utrecht police have warned the public not to approach Tanis if they see him, but to contact emergency services. One person has died and there were multiple injuries following the shooting on a tram in the city this morning. The investigation into the Utrecht shooting is considering the possibility of a "terrorist motive". Gokman Tanis Earlier: One dead, several injured in 'horrible and radical' shooting in Utrecht Update 11.43am: One person has died and there are multiple injuries in the shooting on a tram in Utrecht, Dutch police have said. Emergency services at the 24 Oktoberplace. Photos: EPA/Robin Van Lonkhuijsen Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level and said they are considering the possibility of a terrorist motive in the attack. Dutch military police went on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. The countrys anti-terror co-ordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province. Heavily-armed police have massed outside a building near the site of the tram shooting. Beweging. Politiemannen rennen richting de Trumanlaan. Pers wordt op afstand gehouden. Yelle Tieleman (@YelleTieleman) March 18, 2019 The Municipality of Utrecht said police are still looking for the offender and further shootings cannot be ruled out. Nav het schietincident van het 24 Oktoberplein adviseert de gemeente Utrecht, de politie en het OM (driehoek) iedereen in Utrecht binnen te blijven tot er meer bekend is. Nieuwe incidenten worden niet uitgesloten. De politie is op dit moment nog op zoek naar de dader. Gemeente Utrecht (@GemeenteUtrecht) March 18, 2019 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the situation very worrying and the countrys counter-terror co-ordinator said in a tweet that a crisis team was meeting to discuss the situation. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said no-one had been detained yet in the shooting and one possible explanation is that the person fled by car. He did not rule out the possibility that more than one person was involved in the attack. We want to try to catch the person responsible as soon as possible, Mr Jens said. The Mayor of Utrecht described it as "a horrible and radical incident in which victims have fallen". "The police and the public prosecutor are currently looking for the person responsible for this incident," said Mayor Jan van Zanen. "The most important thing at the moment is taking care of the wounded and investigating the circumstances of the incident. We do not exclude anything, not even a terrorist attack." Olympian David Harte says he is safe in Utrecht and appealed for others in the area to stay indoors. Ireland hockey captain Mr Harte, who is from West Cork, has been living in Utrecht since 2010. He plays professional club hockey with SV Kampong in the Dutch Hoofdklasse. Additional reporting by PA Earlier: 'Multiple injuries' in shooting incident on Utrecht tram Update 10.48am: Police in the Netherlands say several people have been injured after a shooting in a residential area of the city of Utrecht. Utrecht police posted on social media that a "shooting incident" had taken place in a tram at 24 Oktoberplein. The alarm was raised at 10.45am (9.45am Irish time). Local media reports that a man started shooting on the tram, which was travelling towards Utrecht Centraal train station. It is reported the gunman fled the scene by car. BREEK - Volgens getuigen heeft een man in een tram op weg naar Utrecht CS een wapen getrokken en meerdere personen neergeschoten. Hulpdiensten massaal aanwezig en bezig met eerste hulp in de tram. pic.twitter.com/eQOWF2e5Ze Yelle Tieleman (@YelleTieleman) March 18, 2019 Trauma helicopters have been deployed and "multiple injuries" have been reported. The scene has been cordoned off and police appealed for the public to avoid the area. Melding schietincident #24oktoberplein in Utrecht was om 10.45 uur. Het gaat om een schietincident in een tram. Meerdere traumaheli's zijn ingezet om hulp te verlenen. Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019 The investigation into the Utrecht shooting is considering the possibility of a terrorist motive, Dutch police have said. China's banks may have a flood of bad loans waiting in the wings. Not that you'd know it from looking at official levels for 2018, which suggest the problem was broadly contained. The reality is that newly soured debt was coming through the front door as fast as banks could shovel it out the back. The central bank last month swapped 1.5 billion yuan of its one-year bills for perpetual bonds, the first use of a new tool aimed at increasing market acceptance of the securities and encouraging commercial lenders to sell more. Credit:Bloomberg Authorities worked hard to restrain financial-system leverage in 2018. Outstanding credit increased a relatively modest 10 per cent, with growth in new loans falling 14 per cent. The government accomplished this primarily by tightening restrictions on shadow banking and moving that lending into the formal banking system, which recorded a 13 per cent jump in new loans last year. To make way for that increase, and with new deposits falling 1 per cent last year, banks sold a lot of nonperforming debt to asset management companies. Sales to AMCs and other disposals totaled almost 1.8 trillion yuan ($380 billion), according to a report by Jason Bedford, executive director of Asian financials research at UBS Group AG in Hong Kong. To put that in perspective, China began the year with 1.7 trillion yuan in bad loans and ended it with 2 trillion yuan ($420 billion). In other words, after selling roughly their entire declared stock of soured advances, lenders still closed the year with more than they started with. Singtel Optus faces criminal convictions and fines after admitting it failed to disclose donations it made to the Liberal and Labor parties when submitting planning applications for works at the Thredbo and Perisher mountain resorts ahead of the ski season. The nation's second largest telecommunications company has plead guilty to breaching NSW donation disclosure laws after failing to detail thousands of dollars in political donations from 2014 and 2015 on the development applications. Optus has found itself in hot water after failing to disclose donations to the Liberal and Labor parties in planning applications and amendments. Telcos frequently make planning applications to cover mobile towers and sites for equipment. Documents filed with the NSW Local Environment Court list six donations totaling $5585 ($4085 to the Liberal Party, $1500 to the Labor Party) that were not disclosed on four different applications. The donations included money paid for meals with government decision-makers, such as lunches and dinners with Andrew Constance, Pru Goward, the NSW Premier and the NSW Leader of the Opposition. Pilots and aviation experts have expressed alarm that proposals to force Australia's aviation regulator to consider the financial interests of industry operators could compromise the country's air safety regime. The role of aviation safety regulators has been in the spotlight following the fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 last Sunday, with the US Federal Aviation Administration facing questions about whether it gives too much weight to the US aviation industry's profits. An employee works on a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane at the company's manufacturing facility in Renton, Washington. Credit:Bloomberg The FAA grounded all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in the US on Thursday, two days after Australian and European authorities ordered the relatively new aircraft to stop flying. The 737 MAX crises has prompted fresh scrutiny of a bill the Morrison government introduced to parliament last month that would require the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for the first time to "consider the economic and cost impact on individuals, businesses and the community" when making aviation safety rules. Dell and Alienware in India launched its gaming machines; Alienware Area-51m, Alienware m15 and Dell G7 catering to a growing PC gaming market comprising amateur and professional gamers. Alienware Area-51m with new Legend design is the worlds most powerful gaming laptop with multiple firsts: The newly launched Alienware Area-51m is the worlds most powerful and upgradeable gaming laptop1. The Area-51m reaches performance levels previously capable only with desktops as it is the first and only laptop with a 9th generation 8 core desktop processors. It is also the worlds first gaming laptop that supports upgradable NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics, 64GB of memory & 2.5Gbps Ethernet technology. This powerful machine is at the forefront of PC gaming and personal computing design, being the first expression of Alienwares new Legend brand Identity. The Area-51m is stuffed with an array of gaming must-haves, including the Tobii eye-tracking technology and the latest Alienware Command Center. Focusing on portability in gaming machines, the Alienware m15, is the thinnest and lightest 15 Alienware laptop, for gamers on-the-go who prioritize weight and thinness for mobility. Powerful enough to handle high-graphic games, yet portable enough to take from destination to destination. At 2.16 kg(4.78lbs) &17.9mm thinness, it is 30% smaller and 38% lighter than the current 15-inch Alienware laptop, the Alienware m15 offers gamers unbeatable performance with maximum mobility. A powerful machine for gamers, it has 8th generation Intel Core i7 processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 & 2070 MQ design graphics cards. Both Alienware Area-51m and Alienware m15 offer Cryo-Tech v2.0, an advanced thermal technology that maximizes overall performance and keeps these machines cool to the touch. Dell has also updated its G Series gaming laptops with the launch of all new G7. For those who are looking for an affordable yet powerful gaming system G7 offers an immersive gaming experience. With a thin and sleek design that is 20% thinner at 19.9mm thinness, it is the thinnest G Series laptop to date. Powered by the 8th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce 20 series RTX graphics card, and 144Hz refresh rate panel, the G7 optimizes demanding AAA game titles and can also be utilized for everyday use. Dell also continues to offer its top-tier consumer support service, Premium Support Plus powered by Dells exclusive SupportAssist technology. This is the first and only consumer service to find issues proactively, predict problems before they start, remove viruses automatically and optimize performance for consumer PCs. Premium Support Plus is available for all Dell XPS, Inspiron and Alienware systems. Alienware Area-51m Upgradable laptop: Alienware Area-51m supports the upgradability of its internal NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics as well as 9 th generation Intel Core i7 and i9 processors Alienware Area-51m supports the upgradability of its internal NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics as well as 9 generation Intel Core i7 and i9 processors The reimagined Area-51m is the most powerful, upgradeable gaming laptop ever conceived. It marks the first and only laptop with a 9th Gen 8-core desktop processors, Supports up to 64GB2 of memory, 2.5Gbps Ethernet technology, upgradeable graphics and desktop processors, and 17 Alienware laptop with a narrow-bezel display with 144Hz. Premium keyboard features: Designed with premium Alienware TactX keyboard featuring 2.2mm of travel, anti-ghosting technology, per-key RGB LED lighting, N-Key rollover technology, and a steel backplate for rigidity and uniform feedback Designed with premium Alienware TactX keyboard featuring 2.2mm of travel, anti-ghosting technology, per-key RGB LED lighting, N-Key rollover technology, and a steel backplate for rigidity and uniform feedback Customizable lighting: AlienFX customizable lighting available across various zones including the power button, LCD cover Alien head, and a new infinite loop AlienFX customizable lighting available across various zones including the power button, LCD cover Alien head, and a new infinite loop Sleek and sturdy: Magnesium alloy construction enables the Area-51m to conserve on weight while maintaining structural rigidity and relative thinness Magnesium alloy construction enables the Area-51m to conserve on weight while maintaining structural rigidity and relative thinness Enables full support for the Alienware Graphics Amplifier enabling dedicated PCI-Express bandwidth for desktop graphics cards from NVIDIA or AMD enabling dedicated PCI-Express bandwidth for desktop graphics cards from NVIDIA or AMD Thermal control : Alienwares Advanced Cryo-Tech 2.0 technology platform offers the most robust notebook cooling solution yet moving more CFM of ambient air than any previous Alienware notebook : Alienwares Advanced Cryo-Tech 2.0 technology platform offers the most robust notebook cooling solution yet moving more CFM of ambient air than any previous Alienware notebook Alienware Area-51m is available in Lunar Light and Dark Side of the Moon color options Alienware m15 Performance : Alienware m15 features the 8 th generation Intel Core i7 processors along with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 & 2070 MQ design graphics cards : Alienware m15 features the 8 generation Intel Core i7 processors along with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 & 2070 MQ design graphics cards Thin and light experience: Despite being thinner than the Alienware 13, the Alienware m15 offers greater performance with a bigger screen for truly optimized design Despite being thinner than the Alienware 13, the Alienware m15 offers greater performance with a bigger screen for truly optimized design Customizable lighting to add to the look: AlienFX customizable lighting across 6 zones including keyboard, power button, and LCD cover Alien head AlienFX customizable lighting across 6 zones including keyboard, power button, and LCD cover Alien head RGB-enabled keys: Designed with the new Alienware m-series keyboard featuring a 4-zone AlienFX RGB enabled keys Designed with the new Alienware m-series keyboard featuring a 4-zone AlienFX RGB enabled keys Advanced thermal technology: Alienwares Cryo-Tech 2.0 technology Offers top-notch performance enhanced by superior thermal management keeping the surfaces of the laptop cool and the performance hardware working to its maximum potential Alienwares Cryo-Tech 2.0 technology Offers top-notch performance enhanced by superior thermal management keeping the surfaces of the laptop cool and the performance hardware working to its maximum potential Alienware m15 is available in Epic Silver and Nebula Red color options Dell G7 15 Performance & Graphics : The all new G7 features 8th Gen Intel Core processors and the powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series discrete graphics with 6GB GDDR6 video memory : The all new G7 features 8th Gen Intel Core processors and the powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series discrete graphics with 6GB GDDR6 video memory Stunning from every angle: Delivers sharp gameplay from virtually every angle on the 15 FHD anti-glare display screen with 3-sided narrow borders, wide-viewing angle and in-plane switching. The 144Hz display technology delivers a clear, immersive viewing experience Delivers sharp gameplay from virtually every angle on the 15 FHD anti-glare display screen with 3-sided narrow borders, wide-viewing angle and in-plane switching. The 144Hz display technology delivers a clear, immersive viewing experience Flawless gaming: G7 offers Killer Gigabit Ethernet Controller designed to deliver incredible throughput and lower latency gameplay, reducing any instances of lagging or jittering while playing. G7 offers Killer Gigabit Ethernet Controller designed to deliver incredible throughput and lower latency gameplay, reducing any instances of lagging or jittering while playing. Superior audio experience: Dell G7 offers superior sound with two front-firing speakers tuned with Waves MaxxAudio Pro Dell G7 offers superior sound with two front-firing speakers tuned with Waves MaxxAudio Pro Built for speed: Dual drives with SSD options including NVMe PCIe ensure faster performance and better reliability Dual drives with SSD options including NVMe PCIe ensure faster performance and better reliability Sleek and sturdy: At only 19.9mm tall, this system is both powerful and portable. Three-piece metal construction braces the system for exceptional rigidity in spite of the thin profile, with a luxe palm rest with brushed metal finish. At only 19.9mm tall, this system is both powerful and portable. Three-piece metal construction braces the system for exceptional rigidity in spite of the thin profile, with a luxe palm rest with brushed metal finish. The Dell G7 15 is available in Abyss Grey with blue accents Pricing and availability Alienware Area-51m starts at INR 299,590 (inclusive of GST) and is available on dell.co.in Alienware m15 starts at INR 178,399 (inclusive of GST) and is available on dell.co.in Dell G7 15 at INR 157,399 (inclusive of GST) and is available on dell.co.in This new portfolio will be available in large format retail including Reliance, Croma and multi-brand stores across the country from April 1, 2019. Frank Azor, Vice President & General Manager, Alienware, Gaming and XPS said, This is an exciting time for PC gaming all over the world, as well as in India. Over the last two decades, we have lead the gaming market to what it is today. Alienware has been a pioneer in gaming PCs before there were any other players in this space, and we are proud to see how this segment has grown with innovation in the entire gaming eco-system. We are delighted to introduce ground-breaking, high performance gaming machines like Area-51m and m15. After all, gamers across levels love us and we want them to know that, like before, we are here to make the best tech available to them. According to P. Krishnakumar, Senior Vice President, Consumer and Small Business (CSB), Asia Pacific and Japan said, As a world leader it is our responsibility to develop the ecosystem for a new, burgeoning PC user segment. With the increasing acceptance of PC gaming as a new age career, this young workforce will turn to Dell for the best in gaming tech. Weve always led the industry from the front, with meaningful technology and a sustained customer experience and will continue to maintain that momentum. Anand Subramanya, Director, Product Marketing, Dell India said, PC gaming is growing at a remarkable rate in India. Our engagement over the years with amateur and professional gamers in Indian metro cities as well as regional towns has given us an insight into their evolving tech needs. With this launch of innovative and path breaking products, we will be able to address what they want most performance and function. Our all new gaming laptop range will be available via Dells wide network of offline and online retailers. The Supreme Court may have told former WelleCo chief executive Andrea Horwood and her former BFF Elle Macpherson to shuffle off into mediation to prevent the plant based health supplements brand being wound up, but that has certainly not stopped the turmoil within. Its quite a turnaround from this time last year, when a private equity outfit run by the two operators behind the rapid expansion of vitamins giant Swisse Michael Da Gama Pinto and Stephen Ring took a big stake in WelleCo as it pushed into the booming United States market. A number of head office staff have departed WelleCo, co-owned by Elle Macpherson, in recent months. Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit: Last out the door was the companys head of American operations Marianna Satanas, following hot on the heels of WelleCos wholesale boss Olivia Poushkine, whose departure coincided with a steep increase in the gap between actual and projected sales. Meanwhile, Macpherson was hard at work at Gwyneth Paltrows Goop Summit in New York, alongside crystal ear seed therapists, retailers offering the Ayurvedic herb ashwagandha to boost immunity (RRP $60 for 111 grams) and WelleCo elixir-infused Pina Chlor-adas. Meal delivery service Five Point Four has filed for administration, telling customers it has stopped taking orders or making deliveries, and switching off its social media accounts. A number of customers and social media influencers told this newspaper they received an email from the company last week citing "increasing competition" and costs for the decision. FivePointFour Holdings Pty Ltd is listed as being in external administration on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission company database. Meal delivery subscription Five Point Four offered weight loss, vegetarian and gluten free food delivery. Credit:Youtube. Influencers who had worked with the brand, which offers ready-made meal subscriptions to cater to specific nutritional requirements and weight loss, say they are shocked by the news. "I was so surprised, their meals were awesome and I felt like they had a big customer base," one Queensland food blogger who has been working with the company as recently as a month ago said. Employer groups have warned that NSW Labor's plans to overhaul the state's industrial relations system would create too much complexity for employers and be bad for business. Labor's plan to restore an industrial relations court in NSW was also described as a "retrograde step". NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright said attempts by a future Labor government to regulate the state's industrial relation laws would risk conflicting or confusing laws "that in some cases may be impossible to comply with". NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright. Credit:Peter Stoop For the private sector, the power to regulate the workplace was transferred to the federal government decades ago, and there is a well-established protocol in this country that state governments should not try to regulate in the same space as the federal government," Mr Cartwright said. Ahir Shah: 'If you can say ''there has been some sort of sense that I vaguely know how to do my job'', that makes a difference.' "I think I wanted to hold back so long so that the second show was perfect," he says. "And it's not perfect. But it is the next show. It's the very opposite of The Cane Toad Effect. There's no message, there's no grand, high-falutin' theme, it's me doing silly jokes and talking about being in love and being fat for 55 minutes." Gadsby is also back with a new show this year, Douglas. After all of the attention Nanette brought upon her, she's staying away from the press while the new work finds its feet. There's no lack of comics who experienced the ups and downs of a sudden spot in the global spotlight, however. James Acaster: 'I forgot that comedy is meant to be about writing stuff that I'd like.' "It's a big emotional rollercoaster, winning an award," says Coombs Marr. "It reveals a lot to you. Some people think it changes everything but it's not like becoming the president or something. You don't get a new address. You don't get new friends." British comic Ahir Shah has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award twice. In a few years he went from handing out flyers for shows he'd performed in tiny pub rooms ("Hello, this is me, I'm in there, I'm hopefully good") to selling out shows in the West End. 'If something works its really scary to start doing something else,' says Zoe Coombs Marr. Credit:Edwina Pickles This was going to be the first and last attempt to say what I wanted to say. Corey White Like Coombs Marr, Shah says the benefits of being shortlisted for his profession's top gong aren't life-changing. "It's always useful as a way to prove that you're not shit. Particularly with such an intensely subjective form. If you can say 'there has been some sort of sense that I vaguely know how to do my job', that makes a difference." After two nominations he has learnt to temper his expectations. "You don't want to kid yourself into thinking this thing's definitely going to happen or that you would be crushed if it didn't happen. Because that way lies madness. Particularly when you realise that very few people outside of the context of the Edinburgh Fringe have heard of the Edinburgh Fringe, let alone the Edinburgh Comedy Award. It was nicer to treat it as a lovely way to be able to close off a particular chapter." Corey White scored his own TV series after his farewell-to-comedy show was a hit. Fellow Brit stand-up James Acaster can go a step further. Three, actually. He's been in the running for the Edinburgh Comedy Award five times in a row, and thus holds the record as being the prize's most nominated comedian. He remembers his first time. "It was weird. That time felt really great but also I knew that my girlfriend at the time had already made it clear that if I got nominated she would be pretty pissed off. She was doing a show as well. She wasn't a good girlfriend. This was a long time ago and we split up pretty soon after that. I already knew that she was going to give me shit for it, which she did, so that ruined it a bit. And then you never get that first time again." Acaster was 27 when he received his first nomination, and had only been performing stand-up for four years. The sudden attention meant his follow-up show had a difficult birth. "I definitely got in my own head about it. It didn't feel like the previous year, which had felt very organic and quite a joyous process. I'd suddenly made it this thing that comedy never should be. I forgot that comedy is meant to be about writing stuff that I'd like, that I'd like to see and instead wrote a show for other people thinking that this was what people expect of me. I'd better write something to please the audience or the critics or whoever." Obviously it still worked, as did subsequent shows. His string of also-rans have helped him develop perspective as to why he does what he does. "If you're a stand-up comedian the main thing is never awards or reviews or anything like that. It's improving and writing a better show and that honestly is what matters. I know that people who don't work in stand-up hear that and don't believe us and I'm sure there are some comics where that's not the case but you simply don't enjoy this job if awards mean too much to you." Jordan Brookes is another British comic whose Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination was offset by a relationship ending. His then-girlfriend featured in a joke as part of his 2017 show Body of Work, which put him in contention for the award. "When we broke up we were discussing the breakdown of the relationship and doing all sorts of postmortems on it as people tend to do, and the joke came up as one element of why our relationship started to break down. I felt so stupid and embarrassed and guilty for not having realised that." Brookes' 2018 follow-up show saw him turn a mirror on his own success. It opened with him repeating the phrase "I'm the riskiest comic in the biz!" until the declaration descended into absurd self-parody, and the ensuing show in part explored how chasing one's own success can be a fool's game. "It's about making your happiness dependent on things beyond your control," he says. "About being successful and thinking this is who you are, and how if you lose that then who are you?" When Brookes was starting out he heard an interview in which a seasoned comic warned comedians not to alter their onstage persona. "They should just be consistently 'this is me, I am the grumpy comic and you come to see me every year and expect the same persona and the same tone and same framework every time'. I remember hearing that and thinking 'but why not make it different? Why not do stuff that reflects where you are as a human being and where we're all at as human beings?"' Sudden success can freeze a comic in their tracks, though. "If something works it's really scary to start doing something else, which is why people do the same tight five for 15 years," says Coombs Marr. "But the longer you do it and don't step outside of it the more impossible it feels to do anything different." Trigger Warning saw Coombs Marr in her alter ego of Dave, a brilliant rendition of the lazy bloke stand-up that has historically dominated Australian comedy. Less a satire and more a full-bodied possession, the show was the culmination of many years' work in which she honed the character to crystalline perfection. After Trigger Warning, Dave could have become Coombs Marr's thing. You can easily picture him/her appearing in character on both The Footy Show and at a feminist forum, as a radio personality or a sitcom character. But Trigger Warning was Dave's last call. "What I didn't want to do with Dave is fall into a hack thing," says Coombs Marr. "Dave himself is a hack act, and I felt if I kept doing Dave I'd become what I was critiquing." Instead, her follow-up show, Bossy Bottom, saw the stand-up returning to the stage as herself for the first time in more than half a decade. "Dave had arisen out of this frustration that I wasn't getting anywhere and wasn't being heard, that I couldn't be myself on stage. But the success of Dave opened that up and it meant that it wasn't actually true any more. That I could be myself on stage. Dave had created the space for me to be able to do what I wanted to do." For each of these comics, awards and acclaim might put more bums on seats but their real success or otherwise is made clear to them by the people attached to those bums. "I'm here, alone, in front of you," says Shah. "There is an immediacy of response where I know instantaneously whether what I've said is dog shit or whether there's anything to it." What sets stand-up apart from other artforms, White echoes, is that "comedy is so objective in the metric of what makes it successful. Are you getting laughs? Whereas if you're in a band you can be like: 'people had their backs turned to us, but I think it was because they were crying about how good our songs were?' As a stand-up comedian the only KPI is 'did I hear people make throat sounds?"' The 2019 Melbourne International Comedy Festival runs March 27-April 21. Corey White is performing at Brisbane Comedy Festival from March 21 to March 24, and Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) at the Greek Centre - Mykonos, Melbourne, from March 28 through to April 21. Zoe Coombs Marr is performing at MICF from April 9 to April 14 at The Westin. Hannah Gadsby is performing at MICF from March 27 to April 7, at Arts Centre Melbourne. Ahir Shah is performing at MICF at the Mantra on Russell on April 7, 9-14, 16 and 21, and at Melbourne Town Hall on April 15. Donald Trump telephoned a grieving Jacinda Ardern in the aftermath of New Zealands largest ever mass murder. The President asked what the United States could do and received an answer he cant have been expecting. Sympathy and love for all Muslim communities, the Prime Minister told him. Jacinda Ardern has been widely praised as doing a magnificent job in a situation no national leader should have to face. In response to unimaginable horror, she is deliberately employing language of empathy not hate. She has chosen a message of togetherness instead of reaching for the easy, crude politics of division that have worked so effectively, and for so many, in the past. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern listens to the Muslim community in Christchurch on Saturday following Friday's mosque massacres. Credit:Kirk Hargreaves In these circumstances, kindness is a radical act. The traditional script for a world leader reacting to a terrorist attack on home soil is one of power and retribution, to prosecute an "us and them" case. By way of example, you might recall that US President George Bush wanted to "find out who did this and kick their ass" in the wake of 9/11. He later declared that Osama Bin Laden would be taken "dead or alive". A trout hatchery in the Snowy Mountains has lost 30,000 fish due to high river temperatures and low rainfall, which a water ecologist has blamed on the effects of climate change. The NSW Department of Primary Industries, which oversees the Gaden Trout Hatchery outside of Jindabyne, confirmed the loss occurred when the Thredbo River hit temperatures of 28.5 degrees around January 26. A Brown Trout in Lake Eildon. Credit:Justin McManus Trout are a northern hemisphere fish and begin to stress and die at 24 to 26 degrees, a department spokeswoman said. "Fish deaths on this scale at Gaden have not been experienced in the last 20 years," she said Eggs, other foodstuffs, Queenslanders and unpopular politicians have a colourful pedigree in Australia. On November 29, 1917, at the height of the second referendum on conscription for the Great War, prime minister Billy Hughes pulled into Warwick Railway Station in South-East Queensland to address a rowdy crowd. The nuggety Little Digger was at the height of his oratory, exhorting the mob to support the idea that Australian men should be forced to go to the Western Front when from out of the crowd a perfectly aimed egg arced through the morning and splattered against his head an instant before another shattered at his feet. The culprits were two Irish-born brothers Bart and Pat Brosnan who were severely beaten up by Hughes supporters for their trouble - I know, weird, right? - adding injury to insult. To Hughes chagrin the Queensland police officer with him, Sergeant Kenny declined to arrest the two prominent ringleaders for a deliberate and violent breach of Commonwealth law, because he recognised the laws of Queensland only. And that, friends, was the start of the Commonwealth police, born to, among other things, protect the person of the prime minister. Nigh on a hundred years later, on May 30, Prime Minister Julia Gillard had her own federal police officers with her but was still the target of a salami and tomato sandwich, thrown by a lad from Marsden State High School south of Brisbane. Gillard laughed the episode off, noting it was just a little act of hi jinx, and sought no punishment for the lad. After 13 years of flying under the radar, a Gold Coast man's luck has run dry after he was fined $10,000 for illegally producing and selling moonshine. The Nerang man's house was raided by the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation and he was hauled before Southport Magistrates Court, following complaints made in April 2018. The man appeared in court last Monday and was fined. Credit:Chris Hyde OLGR acting executive director Brian Bauer said key evidence was found at the man's house. "When searching the mans home OLGR officers found a 35 litre still, together with over 200 bottles and 24 containers containing up to 25 litres of a variety of spirits," Mr Bauer said. Brisbane City Council wants to charge electronic scooter company Lime a flat $5000 three-month permit fee and an annual $570 fee for each scooter, if approved by the council next week. On Monday the scooter company was given an 11-day extension to stay in Brisbane after the council put the company on notice two weeks ago, following multiple reports of serious injuries from a wheel-locking issue. Lime was given two weeks to remedy a dangerous glitch or risk losing their permit. Credit:Albert Perez/AAP Deputy mayor Adrian Schrinner said on Monday the council was satisfied the safety glitch was corrected and had extended the electronic scooter's permit for Brisbane until March 29. "Cabinet has just today approved a submission that will come through to council next week for a vote, this is all about opening up the competitive tender process for other operators," Cr Schrinner said. The fate of two Bundaberg men who went out prawn fishing on a trawler three years ago and never returned is set to be explored in Queensland. An inquest is due to start in Gladstone on Tuesday to investigate the deaths of eight fishermen from two trawlers that sank in rough seas off the Queensland coast. Trawlers that were dispatched to search for the two men after their vessel overturned off Fraser Island in the early hours of April 4, 2016. Credit:Andrew Quilty The first week will look at the deaths of the two Bundaberg men who perished when the FV Cassandra overturned off Fraser Island in the early hours of April 4, 2016. Skipper Matt Roberts, 61, and crewman David Chivers, 36, had been trawling for prawns when it capsized about 3am. Kaspersky Lab has one of the most widespread and deep distributor network in India. It has been a crucial factor that has helped the brand to maintain its position as one of the leaders in the highly competitive Indian cyber security sector. Earlier this month, it further strengthened its network by appointing Supertron Electronics as its B2C distributor in India. Supertron Electronics is a leading distribution house of Information Technology and Telecom Company that has a strong presence across all 29 Indian states and 7 Union Territories. Supertron Electronics was founded in 1993 by Mr. VK Bhandari and has grown from strength to strength over the past 25 years. With over 11,000 channel partners and over 50 offices across India, it will help Kaspersky Lab to grow its footprints deeper into key markets. Mr. ShrenikBhayani, General Manager, Kaspersky Lab (South Asia) said, Its a great honor for us to welcome Supertron Electronics to the Kaspersky Lab family. They are one of the leading distributors in India, with a deep insight into the business for over 25 years. More importantly, Kaspersky Lab and Supertron Electronics share the same business ethos and believe in ethical, positive business growth. As the demand for our B2C products increases across India, Supertron Electronics immense strength across the length and breadth of the country will really bolster our aggressive growth plans. We are sure that together, we will script a great partnership! Mr. V.K. Bhandari, Chairman and Managing Director, Supertron Electronics Pvt Ltd. said, Kaspersky has proven its commitment to delivering world-class, innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the products at the forefront of computing and technology. With our pan India branch network and marketing capabilities, we are confident that Kaspersky will capture the top bracket in the category of next gen computer users. We are excited to have Kaspersky product ranges in Supertrons basket in India and look forward to a fruitful association ahead! Supertron Electronics has already started working with Kaspersky Labs wide portfolio of B2C products. As India races towards digitization that penetrates deeper into its Tier II and Tier III cities, Kaspersky Lab hopes to keep up with the nations urgent and continuous need to stay protected when theyre online at work and home. Headstones were damaged when thieves prised 52 brass plaques at a cemetery north of Brisbane at the weekend. Police said the plaques, bearing the names of those buried below, were worth as much as $26,000 and were stolen some time between Friday afternoon and early Monday morning. Six headstones were damaged when 52 brass plates were stolen from the Caboolture and Districts Lawn Cemetery. Credit:Queensland Police Service Six headstones were damaged when the thieves ripped off the plated from the Caboolture and Districts Lawn Cemetery, about 38 kilometres north of Brisbane. Detectives were appealing to people who may have noticed suspicious activity around the cemetery at the weekend. In her song Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell lamented paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. Maz Salt, whose buzzy shipping container bar Section 8 breathed life into nearby Tattersalls Lane, wants to do the opposite. The Chinese archways that mark the entrances to Melbourne's Chinatown. Credit:Scott McNaughton He wants to dig up an open lot car park on Little Bourke Street, which all sides agree has been an eyesore for decades, plant trees and create a piazza with an outdoor restaurant called Park. But his proposal has sparked fierce debate about what constitutes appropriate development in Chinatown. Lawyers for the man accused of murdering mafia lawyer Joseph Acquaro want access to royal commission documents to learn whether police had any other suspects. Mr Acquaro, who was gunned down outside his Brunswick East cafe three years ago, is understood to be one of eight police informers referred to the Royal Commission into Management of Police Informants. High-profile lawyer Joseph Acquaro. Credit:Courtesy, Channel Nine The royal commission will focus on Nicola Gobbo, the former underworld lawyer also known as Informer 3838 or Lawyer X, who provided police with information about her clients while she was acting for them and how police handled her. The royal commission heard last month that alongside Ms Gobbo, Victoria Police had disclosed seven other people who breached their professional duties by passing information onto police. Mr Acquaro is understood to have been one of those seven people. Homicide Squad detectives have charged a man in relation to the death of a 30-year-old Moora woman. Police were called to a residence in King Street, Moora about 1am on Sunday and found the woman injured. She was taken to Moora Hospital in critical condition and flown to Royal Perth Hospital where she died later that evening. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the womans death was opened and a 21-year-old man from Northcliffe has since been charged with murder. He is due to appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Monday. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton stressed on Monday morning, in an interview with the ABC, that Tarrant had spent just 45 days in Australia in the past three years. He said that from the moment he started in his portfolio, security agencies had been discussing the far-right threat. A law enforcement source said he had long believed the next large-scale terrorist attack by an Australian would be by a right-wing extremist. A steady stream of mourners paid tribute to the 50 people slain by a gunman at two mosques in Christchurch. Credit:AP "When you look at it logically, the attacks by right-wingers have usually had the highest body counts." The majority of terrorist attacks in the United States for instance had been by members of the far-right. He said not enough was being done to track far-right groups. But he added that Tarrant would have been very hard to pick up unless he had made a mistake. Most experts and insiders say that Tarrant most resembles Anders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist who killed 77 people in 2011, who also acted alone. One informed insider said that unless Australian authorities were able to fully monitor the "dark web" - the extreme edges of the internet where many extremists and criminals connect - they would struggle to pick up people such as Tarrant. A former skinhead who now works with the group Exit Australia to help people get out of the far-right scene said he had told federal and state governments they needed to pay more attention to right-wing extremism. He asked not to be named because he consults for governments around the world on far-right violence. Loading "This is a massive issue in Australia. For the last couple of years, we've only really worried about Islamist terrorists. That's left a big gap. Sadly, I've actually been waiting for this to happen." He said he was aware of about 100 far-right groups in Australia. Only one far-right terrorism case has recently reached the courts. Phillip Galea has been charged with planning to bomb three targets including the Trades Hall in Melbourne. Experts took varying views on whether Australian authorities had paid insufficient attention to far-right extremism because they were focused on Islamist extremism. Security authorities have frequently raised right-wing extremism as a concern. ASIO boss Duncan Lewis has repeatedly told Senate hearings it is a threat, including in October when he said that while it was "coming off a very low base", the far-right was a rising concern because "they're probably a little bit better organised than they have been in the past". Loading The far-right has mostly been regarded as fragmented, disorganised and beset by infighting. Michele Grossman, a world-renowned expert in radicalisation based at Deakin University who has worked with state and federal police, said far-right groups had been around for decades but recently had become more organised and were being emboldened by a "permissive environment" that now existed for extreme views. The Christchurch killings showed "a new willingness to carry out violent actions based on that narrative that right-wing extremists globally are spreading". "I would now expect to see a very significant pivot of attention and resources into that area because we are now effectively looking at an accelerated profile in terms of risk and threat in relation to right-wing extremism." Loading She said that although authorities had focused more on Islamist terrorism than threats from right-wing extremists, it was also the case that violent right-wing extremists such as Tarrant were hard to spot because they tended to be lone actors or work in very small cells. And unlike Muslim communities, there were few trusted local channels for members of the public to come forward when they were worried about a far-right extremist in their community. Julian Droogan, an extremism expert at Macquarie University in Sydney who edits the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, said the far-right was definitely growing as a political movement. "Certainly from the research that weve been doing, we see a huge growth in far-right sympathies and political opinions," he said. Labor's climate policies would cause higher electricity prices, lower wages and a massive hit to economic growth according to independent modelling that the opposition says it "utterly rejects". The Morrison government said the projections were proof that Labors emissions targets were aggressive, economy-wrecking and an attack on Australian families. Labor has rejected a report that says its climate policies would be a major hit to the economy. Credit:AP A report by independent consultancy BAEconomics to be released on Tuesday compared the economic consequences of Labors and the governments emissions reduction targets. The government would cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030, based on a 2005 baseline the goal Australia has committed to under the Paris agreement. Experts say the target is not in line with the internationally agreed goal of keeping global warming below the critical 2 degree threshold. A series of powerful political campaigns will seek to defeat far-right candidates at the federal election as major parties and activist groups warn against the rise of extremism in the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks. Australians will be urged to reject Pauline Hansons One Nation and controversial Queensland senator Fraser Anning amid accusations they have inflamed racial hatred. The fortunes of the far-right have depended in the past on preference deals with the major parties, but similar arrangements are now off the agenda ahead of the election. Labor has vowed to put One Nation and Senator Anning last on its how-to-vote cards at the election in May, while the union movement and activist group GetUp! are also preparing to mobilise against right-wing candidates. The budget is expected to show a fall in the annual intake of permanent migrants from about 190,000 to about 160,000, in line with Mr Morrisons comments last year about making the growth more sustainable. While the permanent intake does not include hundreds of thousands of overseas students and temporary workers, the official cut is likely to lead to a fall in projected tax revenue to be confirmed on budget day. The government is also finalising measures to encourage migrants to work in regional areas after months of debate about sponsorship programs with regional councils. Mr Morrison warned that the "mindless tribalism" of political debate could undermine practical work on migration and was fuelling a wider hatred in public life that could lead to immense costs. "We cannot allow such legitimate policy debates to be hijacked like this," he said in a speech to the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne. Loading "Managing our population growth is a practical policy challenge that needs answers answers I will continue to outline as we approach the next election." He said this would include road and rail investments as well as setting the migration programme to meet the needs of the economy as well as the "capacity of our cities" and the needs of the regions. The warning against an "us and them" debate triggered a swift response from Mr Morrisons critics, who blamed him for fuelling anxiety about migrants and refugees. "This is the same man who has built his career on scaremongering against people of colour and asylum seekers," said Tim Lo Surdo, founder of activist group Democracy in Colour. "Scott Morrison is a professional fear-monger whose desperate scapegoating of the Muslim community over many years has normalised the kind of hatred that was at the root of Fridays terrorist attack. He has no moral footing to talk about a better standard of public debate." Labor frontbencher Ed Husic said Mr Morrison and other Liberals and Nationals shared responsibility for failing to speak up against racism in the past. Labor MP Ed Husic. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Mr Husic said he had been targeted by Liberal opponents who raised his Muslim faith against him during the 2004 election campaign and he did not see Mr Morrison, who was NSW Liberal Party director at the time, express any concerns at the tactics. "I think there is a need for leadership in political and media circles to be exercised at the right point of time not some time later when youre trying to airbrush whats gone on, but to deal with in the public space," Mr Husic said. "People should not be victims of terrorism or extremism regardless of what background or faith they are. We all have a responsibility to speak up and deal with it." Mr Morrisons speech comes at a time of incendiary debate over the responsibility of conservative politicians and some parts of the media, such as conservative commentators at Sky News, for fuelling racial hatreds, even if the same politicians and media outlets express sorrow at the killings in Christchurch. Former prime minister Tony Abbott dismissed the problem of Islamophobia less than two years ago, while Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was subject to strong criticism from the Muslim community for questioning the contribution of Lebanese Muslims to Australia. Mr Morrison used his speech to announce $55 million in new funding to offer grants to mosques, churches, synagogues, Hindu temples and religious schools to protect against attacks. The grants will range in size from $50,000 to $1.5 million and will be made available for safety measures such as closed-circuit television cameras, lighting, fencing, bollards, alarms, security systems and public address systems. Loading "When I say I believe in religious freedom and I am one of its staunchest defenders in Parliament I know it starts with the right to worship and meet safely without fear," Mr Morrison said. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten also called for caution in public debate but focused his remarks on the media and, especially, the social media platforms that spread the live-streamed video of the first Christchurch attack. "The traditional media newspapers, radio stations, television they have to exercise caution before they publish stories. Now with the new media, with the new social media platforms, we havent seen that same caution before something is published," Mr Shorten said in Perth. "And after the event, eventually, despicable, dangerous, vile, perverted things get taken down. Prime Minister Scott Morrison will announce $55 million in community grants to toughen security at mosques, churches, synagogues, temples and religious schools in response to growing concerns about extremism in the wake of the terrorist attack in Christchurch. Mr Morrison will commit the new funding in a speech on Monday that emphasises the need to defend freedom of religion by protecting Australians at their places of worship. The grants will range in size from $50,000 to $1.5 million and will be made available for safety measures such as closed-circuit television cameras, lighting, fencing, bollards, alarms, security systems and public address systems. "When I say I believe in religious freedom and I am one of its staunchest defenders in Parliament I know it starts with the right to worship and meet safely without fear," Mr Morrison is expected to say at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce on Monday. NSW Labor leader Michael Daley has been captured on video claiming that young people were leaving Sydney and being replaced by foreigners who were "moving in and taking their jobs". In the video, Mr Daley can be seen telling an audience at a pub in the Blue Mountains that a "transformation" was under way in Sydney and young workers were being replaced by Asian immigrants. "Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs," Mr Daley can be heard saying in a video. "There's a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs. Loading According to a new survey by campaigning group Diversify, whose results were published last month, four in five of those surveyed and caught up in this process say it is affecting their health or the health of family members. One cited: "Depression. Social isolation. Fear. Doubt. Anxiety. Loss of sleep. Caused sick days from work, poor performance at work. Caused a break-up with my partner." Said another: "My family and I feel stressed, uncertain and a feeling of loss. I cannot focus on my job and daily life." Meanwhile, Sweden's Chamber of Commerce has complained in a new report that Sweden has a skills crisis that has become a "competence crisis", urging that not only must kompetensutvisningar end, but the Migration Agency has shown such incompetence that "we want someone else to be responsible". McDonald, a computer programmer, moved to Stockholm in 2016 and, by 2017, was described by a local tech podcast as "emblematic of the new breed of developer that the IT industry is calling out for". She also met a local guy. And, in February, they had a daughter. But it was not an easy pregnancy - hyperemesis gravidarum or excessive nausea had her in hospital several times. And then the letter arrived, at the 28-week mark. "It just made everything 10 times worse," she said. "A few weeks later the baby moved and my legs weren't working properly. It was all very stressful for me - and my partner and unborn fetus." The most frustrating fact was that McDonald was actually one of the lucky ones. Or so she thought. McDonald had had an inkling there would be trouble - her small IT start-up employer at the time had been slow on the work visa paperwork, not helped by the Migration Agency's clogged phone lines and glacial processes. So, inspired by the Australian Parliament's citizenship crisis, she'd dug into her family history and discovered she was eligible for Cyprus citizenship. She applied for it, was approved, and the certificate was in the mail. She'd told the Swedish authorities all this. She had a Swedish partner and a Swedish daughter on the way, an employer desperate to keep her, and now she was also an EU citizen. Nevertheless, the letter came ordering her to leave. She has appealed and, on March 1, her lawyer told her she had been successful. But it has been a stressful and frustrating time. "It is super crazy," she says. "I have friends at work [who are immigrants]; they're constantly scared that any day this could happen to them. I don't have any trust in the system any more. "I want to stay here, I want to stay with my family. We have everything set up. I'm just disappointed. Loading "If another programmer asked me what it's like to work in Sweden I'd say 'Well it's not going to be easy' you have to suspect it's not going to work out. You shouldn't get comfortable, you should always feel like you're not welcome." The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported the case of Steve Moloney, an Australian coffee entrepreneur and award-winning barista, told to leave Sweden because of Migration Agency delays in renewing his work visa. The Diversify survey reported that 1 per cent of respondents were Australian, meaning five or six of those who responded to the call-out for respondents over social media and professional networks. According to official figures, the Swedish Migration Agency had a backlog of more than 10,169 work permit applications as of the end of January. The backlog is growing: in January it received 4494 work permit applications but made only 3838 decisions. Diversify chief operations officer Matt Kriteman, himself a US immigrant, said Sweden had adopted an open, liberal labour migration model in 2008, but after a change in government in 2014 it started to tighten immigration requirements. Migrant children from Syria sleep outside the Swedish Migration Agency's offices, in Marsta, Sweden, in 2016. Sweden has since clamped down on what were some of the world's most open migration policies. Credit:AP Measures introduced at the time of the huge 2015 refugee influx, when Sweden absorbed more asylum seekers per capita than any other country in the EU, were designed to protect the mistreatment of low-qualified labour but had ultimately led to kompetensutvisning. The issue was polarised along with the general migration debate during an intense election year in 2018. "In many ways this is part of a learning process for Sweden to deal with non-EU workers," Kriteman said. Utrecht: Three people have been killed and five injured in a shooting in the Netherlands. It remains unclear what motivated the alleged shooter, identified by police as 37-year-old Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, to gun down people inside the tram before fleeing the scene. Five people were wounded in the attack, with three of them in critical condition, Mayor Jan van Zanen said. A second suspect was arrested in connection with the crime, but the extent of his involvement in Monday's events was unclear. Regarding the main suspect, Tanis, Dutch Interior Ministry officials and Utrecht police said it had yet to be determined if the 37-year-old was motivated by terrorism or a private feud. New Zealand telecommunications companies Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees have written to Google, Facebook and Twitter calling for change in the wake of the shootings, Stuff.co.nz reports: The letter calls on the three social media giants to "urgently discuss" a solution to the problem of videos such as live footage of the Christchurch shootings being upload and shared on their platforms. "We call on Facebook, Twitter and Google, whose platforms carry so much content, to be a part of an urgent discussion at an industry and New Zealand government level on an enduring solution to this issue," the letter said. The letter sent by Spark managing director Simon Moutter, Vodafone NZ boss Jason Paris and 2degrees chief executive Stewart Sherriff said they acknowledged the issue was a "global" one but said "the discussion must start somewhere". But they said they were "the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, with blunt tools involving the blocking of sites after the fact", and that it was impossible for them to "prevent completely" access to the material. Islamabad: Naeem Rashid, 50, a teacher and father of three who emigrated from Pakistan to New Zealand a decade ago, was busy this month planning the wedding of his son Talha, 21. Neither father nor son lived to celebrate the occasion. Video footage of the shootings showed Naeem Rashid trying to tackle the gunman before being shot. Both were killed on Friday, along with seven other Pakistanis, when a gunman struck at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing at least 50 people and wounding scores. But since then, Rashid has become a national hero in his native country, after video footage of the shootings showed him trying to tackle the gunman outside one mosque before being shot. Christchurch: It's been performed on the red carpet and on the rugby field, at funerals and weddings. The haka, the ceremonial dance of New Zealand's Maori people, is traditionally used on the battlefield but also used to mark the significance of an occasion, be it a celebration or a commemoration. In the aftermath of Friday's mosque shootings, which killed 50 Muslim worshippers and injured more than 40, New Zealanders came together across the country to honour the victims. Using terror laws against accused Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant could fuel his ability to grandstand in court, according to the only lawyer to lead a case under New Zealand's anti-terrorism law. And former judges have said a jury trial with the accused killer representing himself will pose challenges for the court. Graves being prepared for the victims of the shooting in Christchurch. Credit:AAP A document Tarrant purportedly published online before the shootings cited a desire to plead not guilty, and he reportedly plans to represent himself. Tarrant has already fronted court in Christchurch on one count of murder, and is due to face more charges. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC This parade brought the cheer and the queers! Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Brooklynites proudly celebrated their Irish heritage with hundreds of others on Sunday, when they marched through Park Slope during the boroughs eponymous St. Patricks Day parade for the first time in the events 44-year history. Organizers decision to diversify the parade thrilled its spectators, who cheered the LGBTQ marchers on as they stepped along the pavement, according to a participant. We were just overwhelmed with the positive response that we received, both from other marchers in the parade, and from people along the sides, said Lisa Fane, a co-founder of the Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ Organization, whose members joined the March 17 procession. We had a great time. The privately funded Brooklyn St. Patricks Day Parade which kicks off near 15th Street before snaking down Seventh Avenue, turning onto Garfield Place, and then heading back up towards 15th Street via Prospect Park West began in 1976, and has grown to become Kings Countys grandest celebration of Irish heritage, according to its chief organizer, who said it now attracts annual participants from roughly 50 organizations, including the Clann Eireann Pipe Band, the OMalley Academy of Irish Dance, local Boy and Girl Scout troops, the Ancient Order of Hybernians, and Park Slopes Holy Name of Jesus Church, where many marchers attend mass before stepping off each year. Its a parade that the people want, said Brooklyn St. Patricks Day Parade Chairwoman Mary Hogan. And earlier this year, Hogan and fellow organizers further expanded its ranks after Fane, her Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ Organization co-founder Matthew McMorrow, and Park Slope Assemblyman Robert Carroll whose grandfather helped start the tradition submitted the first application to march from a queer organization since 1999, when parade chiefs denied an application to march from LGBTQ advocates with the Lavender and Green Alliance, whose members led protests at that years procession, resulting in their arrest. The parades first formal LGBTQ marchers this year stepped alongside nearly 50 supporters, including Park Slope Councilman Brad Lander, Park Slope Rep. Yvette Clarke, Boerum Hill Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, and Borough President Adams, all of whom walked with giant ribbons attached to their jackets that combined the colors of the Irish and rainbow flags. Grand Marshall Bernadette Kash, the owner of the Buckley School of Irish Dance on Prospect Park West, led the 2019 festivities, after marching in every incarnation of the beloved procession since its founding, she claimed. I had parents tell me the kids couldnt sleep the night before they were so excited, said Kash, who processed along with roughly 100 of her students, all dressed in green. And more pedestrians packed the sidewalks lining the route this year than for marches past, perhaps due to the parades newfound diversity or that it occurred on the day of the holiday it celebrated, according to Hogan. The fact that the parade was on St. Pats helps, she said. We were very happy. Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixs on@cn gloca l.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. 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. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Last week, an investment trust led by Brookfield bought RIL's East West Pipeline for Rs 13,000 crore ($1.87 billion). On Monday, it announced the Rs 3,950-crore deal to acquire five assets Hotel Leela Venture. Two announcements in two weeks could be a coincidence as both were in the works and it can take 8-9 months to close a deal. They are optimistic about India, and see value,'' says the CEO of a large infrastructure ... 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. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Start-ups that make superfoods like plant-based nutritional powder, organic products and herbal tonics are some of the unconventional ventures that SoftBank-backed co-working giant WeWork is nurturing at its labs in India. New York-based WeWork, which was last valued at $47 billion, had unveiled its Labs initiative in India last October, starting from Gurugram. The company said its programme is different compared to what is being offered by firms like Google, Microsoft and Cisco. We have firms that a venture capitalist may not look at because it may not appear to be ... The Tamil Nadu Advance Ruling Authority (ARA) has said tyre major MRF may avail of input tax credit only to the extent of the value of the invoice in question, not on the discounts offered by vendors on interface software. In the MRF case, the company intended subscribing to an online platform, C2FO, which would connect the buyer with vendors. Those of the latter that are registered with the e-platform place a discount offer, either annual percentage rate or a flat discount, to receive early payment. Invoices for discount are picked up by the software algorithm, based on which the ... Putting minor scrambles and skirmishes over allotment of party tickets largely behind them, the main political parties in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana hit the ground with election rallies even as the process of filing of nominations in the two states began Monday. Parties in the two sibling Telugu states have got the shortest possible time of just one month to reach out to the electorate, as polling is scheduled on April 11 in Phase-1. 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. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems convinced that the rush of entrants prominent and low-profile in the party over the past few weeks is a marker of the upper hand it holds over the Congress and the Opposition in the Lok Sabha polls. Defections and departures are normal before an election because it is not as though the Congress and other parties have not seen turncoats gravitating in search of tickets. However, since 1996-- when the BJP began its independent ascent towards power in the Centre it sought to beam larger signals through the political arch ... Theresa May is threatening to give up trying to get Brexit done any time soon unless euroskeptics in her Conservative party back down and promise to vote for her deal this week. The British prime minister is still working to win support for her divorce agreement but she wont bother putting it to another vote in Parliament as planned on Tuesday unless there is a strong chance it will be approved, ministers said. Instead, May will head to a summit of European Union leaders on Thursday to seek a lengthy extension to the Brexit process, potentially taking talks back to ... The owner of a New Zealand gun store said on Monday the man charged with murder in Christchurchs mass shooting had bought firearms and ammunition online from the store, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the mosque shootings. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. Fifty people were killed and dozens wounded at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday. Gun City owner ... A day after demanding that General Motors Co. keep open a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that its idling, President Donald Trump said he asked Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra to sell the plant and tried to shift blame to the Democratic leader of the local union. I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING, Trump said in a tweet Sunday after he said he had just spoken to Barra about the plant. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors about the ... 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. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor A total of 131 chartered accountants reaffirmed their faith in government data on Monday and rejected recent claims by some economists and social scientists that official statistics were being fudged. "Even international agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund confirm data given by government agencies. Therefore, it is apparent that opposition parties had choreographed the entire move," they said in a signed statement. The new GDP series introduced is compliant with the United Nations guidelines in System of National Accounts 2008 for the first time, said the chartered accountants. It takes information for the corporate sector and has better estimates of the unorganised sector on unincorporated enterprises, as well as data on sales and service taxes. "Changing of GDP base year is a regular feature. Instead of taking issue with specific areas, a general bunch of allegations has been made. This leaves one guessing about the motivation of the signatories." The professionals said data revisions are part of a healthy practice to balance between timeliness and accuracy. For example, all data sources have their bases changed at periodic intervals as well as a provisional and final data. Such revisions are not statistics in shambles, but a reflection of robustness of the process within the limitation of size and scale of data collection., they said. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two people died and several others got injured after police lathi-charged protesters at Vedanta Aluminium Plant at Lanjigarh in Odisha's Kalahandi district on Monday. The protesters were demanding employment. The two dead--one protester and one Odisha Industrial Security Force (OISF) personnel--succumbed to their injuries later, police said. Thousands of unemployed youths were agitating in front of Vedanta Aluminium plant at Lanjigarh demanding employment. This agitation soon became violent and the OISF personnel resorted to lathi-charge to disperse the agitators. More than 20 persons were injured and admitted to hospitals at Langigarh, Biswanathpur and Bhawanipatana hospital. Due to tension in the area, the district administration of Kalahandi has imposed Section 144 of the CrPC. In a statement, a spokesperson of Vedanta said: "We are deeply saddened by the news and we offer our condolences to the families of the deceased. We will work with full cooperation with the appropriate authorities who will be looking into the incident." "We sincerely appeal to the protestors not to resort to such acts when every situation can be resolved amicably through discussions," said the spokesperson. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It seems like Mark Ruffalo didn't get the memo. The 'Avengers' actor didn't even give time for fans to speculate the reason behind him not being portrayed as his superhero alter ego Hulk in the 'Avengers Taking a jibe at himself, the actor posted a meme on his Instagram account where he clubbed a close-up shot of himself from the upcoming 'Avengers' film poster with the original poster. Above the two photos, a caption reads "when nobody tells you it's a costume party", referring to him being the only superhero in the poster posing without his costume. This is not the first time that the 'Avengers: End Game' poster has come under the limelight following its release on Friday. Previously, Marvel received criticism from the fans, due to the omission of 'Black Panther' actor Danai Gurira's name from the credits at the top of the poster. Following the backlash, Marvel Studios dropped a new poster of the upcoming film and in the caption wrote, "She should have been up there all this time. Check out the official Marvel Studios' #AvengersEndgame poster. @DanaiGurira #WakandaForever." 'Avengers: Endgame' will feature a stellar star cast which includes, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, and Chris Pratt. 'Endgame' also marks the final film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe's current generation, which comprises 22 films, including 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' and recently released Captain Marvel. It will also be the last Marvel movie for some of the key characters, including Chris Evans's Captain America. The film is all set to hit the theatres on April 26, 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ethiopia's transport minister Dagmawit Moges on Sunday said that the black box data of Ethiopian Airlines indicated "clear similarities" between the crash that took place last week and Lion Air which crashed in Indonesia last year. Moges said that the condition of "black boxes" (flight data recorder) was good and enough data had been recovered. She said that the Ethiopian transport ministry's Accident Investigation Bureau will release a preliminary report in 30 days on the fate of Flight 302 at the time of the crash. "During the investigation of the FDR (flight data recorder), clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further investigation," Moges was quoted by The Washington Post as saying. Initial data from the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines jet showed an erratic flight course when the plane was in the air for about six minutes before it crashed into a field just outside Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital on March 10, killing all 157 passengers on board. Satellite information revealed that the plane had been ascending and descending at times while flying at speeds beyond what was mandated during the normal takeoff procedure. The pilot of the ill-fated jet Yared Getachew was considered very experienced with more than 8,000 hours of flying time. On Thursday, Ethiopian investigators took the voice and data recorders to France, where they were being investigated by the Bureau of Inquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety. Moges had informed that the US National Transportation Safety Board was also involved in the analysis procedure of the black box. According to a preliminary report, the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 was blamed due to erroneous data from a sensor which was causing the plane's new automated stabiliser system to push the aircraft's nose down. The pilots of the ill-fated jet tried hard to pull the plane up but kept on descending before it ultimately plunged into the Java Sea, killing all 189 passengers on board in October last year. Meanwhile, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said on Sunday that the US-based aircraft manufacturer was finalising a software update and pilot training linked to the MCAS anti-stalling feature, in the wake of deadly crashes involving two of its 737 MAX jets. "Boeing is finalising its development of a previously-announced software update and pilot training revision that will address the MCAS flight control law's behaviour in response to erroneous sensor inputs. We also continue to provide technical assistance at the request of and under the direction of the National Transportation Safety Board, the US Accredited Representative working with Ethiopian investigators," Muilenburg said in a statement. Underlining that safety is Boeing's "highest priority" while designing and building aircraft, Muilenburg stated: "As part of our standard practice following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate, institute product updates to further improve safety. While investigators continue to work to establish definitive conclusions." "In accordance with international protocol, all inquiries about the ongoing accident investigation must be directed to the investigating authorities," he added. Boeing had announced on Thursday that it has paused deliveries of its 737 MAX planes after the jet model was grounded across the in the wake of the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash involving one of its planes. While no time frame was announced on when the deliveries might resume, the production of the 737 MAX jets will still continue. The decision came after the 737 MAX aircraft were grounded and banned from airspace of several countries, including the US, Canada, Singapore, UK, Ireland, France, India, Egypt, Japan and the Netherlands. In a statement, Boeing had said that it remains confident in the safety of the jets, but that it recommended the shutdown itself "out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft's safety. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US' National Security Advisor (NSA) John Bolton on Sunday hit out at North Korea, asserting that they were "unfortunately not willing" to take steps to finalise a deal with the US aimed at Pyongyang's denuclearisation. "The North Koreans were unfortunately not willing to do what they needed to do. Just last night they issued an unhelpful statement that they're thinking of going back to nuclear and ballistic missile testing, which would not be a good idea on their part," The Hill quoted Bolton as saying while speaking at a radio host show here. "President Trump wants this threat resolved through negotiations. He wants North Korea to be free of nuclear weapons, that's for sure," he added. Bolton's remarks came two days after North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui slammed at the US over its "gangster-like" demands on denuclearisation, threatening to suspend talks with Washington and resume missile launches and nuclear tests. "We have no intention to yield to the US demands (put forward at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind," she said. Choe blamed Washington for not reaching a consensus in Hanoi and said the US "was too busy with pursuing their own political interests and had no sincere intention to achieve a result." Furthermore, Bolton batted for China's role in putting back the stalled negotiations on track between the US and North Korea. "The idea that there's a role for China in the negotiations is something that we'd be willing to consider if we could see some movement on North Korea's part," he said. Underlining that China, which is North Korea's chief ally, also wished for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the US NSA put forth, "The Chinese have said repeatedly they don't want to see North Korea with nuclear weapons at all because they think it destabilizes North East Asia. "In theory, China has the same position we do. What they could do more of is apply more pressure on North Korea. They could apply the UN sanctions more tightly. They control 90 per cent of North Korea's external trade, so China could have a very important role here. There's no question about it." "China is building up its nuclear capacity now. It's one of the reasons why we're looking at strengthening our national missile defence system here in the United States. And it's one reason why if we're going to have another arms control negotiation, for example, with the Russians, it may make sense to include China that discussion as well," Bolton further said. On February 27 and 28, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had met for the second time in Vietnam's Hanoi city, which ended in a stalemate with no agreement reached amid several reports surfaced by South Korea's spy agency and two American think tanks speculating that restoration work was underway at the long-range missile launch site in Dongchang-ri in North Korea. There are also speculations about North Korea's possible preparation to launch a missile or a satellite-carrying rocket, which has also been reported by the US media, wherein they stated that there has been an increase in the activity at the missile assembly facility in Sanum-dong. Ties between the US and North Korea have hit a roadblock over the ease of sanctions, where Pyongyang sought relief as recognition of the steps taken towards denuclearisation. Washington has, until now, reinforced that relief in sanctions would only be given after the communist country carries out "complete and verifiable" denuclearisation. Meanwhile, a pro-North Korean newspaper, Choson Sinbo, based in Japan has demanded that US should drop its "unilateral" and "unfair" demands in denuclearisation talks with North Korea, warning that the negotiations will not move forward. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 34-yr-old Chinese Li Zhiwei was arrested on Saturday for flying a drone over Eastern Command of Indian Army, police said. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) spotted him flying a drone around 1.5 km from Fort William, which is the headquarters of the eastern command of the army. When the CISF personnel learned about the suspicious activity, they apprehended him and handed him over to Hastings police station. Lee, who was produced before the court on Sunday, has been sent to Police custody till March 25. So far four Pakistani drones have been shot at by the Indian security forces since the Indian Air Force carried out air strike at the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camp in Balakot in Pakistan on February 26. On March 4, the second drone was shot down in the Bikaner sector of Rajasthan, while the first drone was shot down on the morning of February 26 after it intruded Indian air space in Kutch district of Gujarat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Central Election Committee (CEC) of Congress party will meet on Tuesday morning to hold discussion over Bihar and West Bengal Lok Sabha candidates. The meeting will start at 10 am in the morning. Earlier on Sunday, West Bengal Congress ruled out the possibilities of an alliance with the Left Front and announced that it would contest 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state on its own. Moreover, the Congress party has said that it will field 11 candidates in Bihar for the ensuing elections where 40 parliamentary seats are at stake. The grand alliance formed by the Opposition in Bihar includes Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), Congress, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), Lok Jantrantrik Dal (LJD) and Vikas Sheel Insaan Party (VIP). Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) supremo Jitan Ram Manjhi has asked for five seats from the 'mahagathbandhan' out for his party. Bihar will go to polls in all the seven phases on April 11, 18, 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19. The results would be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Samajwadi Party (SP) Chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday endorsed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati's statement that the BSP-SP alliance can alone defeat the BJP without Congress' support in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. "SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh is capable of defeating BJP. Congress should not create any confusion," tweeted Akhilesh. On the one hand, Mayawati in a clear message to the Congress said in a series of tweets that Rahul Gandhi-led Congress should feel free to contest in all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, the Congress on Sunday had announced its decision to leave seven Lok Sabha seats for SP, BSP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh where 80 seats are at stake. "Congress is fully free in Uttar Pradesh and should field its own candidate for contesting on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats. Our alliance (SP-BSP) alone is capable of defeating the BJP. Congress should not forcibly spread rumours by leaving seven seats in UP for the SP-BSP alliance," tweeted Mayawati. The former chief minister also clarified that her party is not in alliance with the Congress in any state across the country. "BSP once again wants to make it very clear that in Uttar Pradesh and in the country as a whole we are not in any form of alliance or agreement with Congress. Our people should not pay heed to the rumours spread by the Congress." It is worth mentioning that SP, BSP and RLD have forged an alliance to take on the BJP in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in the state. Akhilesh had, however, claimed that the Congress party is with the SP-BSP alliance in UP. The SP-BSP has left Rae Bareli and Amethi seats for the Congress. As per the seat-sharing agreement, the SP is contesting 37 seats and BSP 38. Three seats have been given to the RLD -- Mathura, Muzaffarpur, and Baghpat. The Lok Sabha elections have been scheduled to start from April 11 and will go on till May 19 in seven phases. The polls in Uttar Pradesh will be held in all seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Monday took a swipe at Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi's 'Ganga yatra' and said the latter is "rowing a direction-less boat". Congress star campaigner Priyanka, kicked-off three-day party campaign for the polls today. She took a boat from Sangam to Arail ghat. The campaign which was launched from Prayagraj will end in Varanasi. "She is rowing an aim-less and directional-less boat, which is destined to drown as the promises they have made will never be fulfilled. I hope she remembers us as she rows through it because the holy water would never have been this clean if it were not for BJP," said Trivedi while talking to media personnel. Reacting on Priyanka's remarks that the country and the constitution are in danger, he said: "If the Congress is so concerned about corruption, they should first introspect. The family who has been accused of corruption since time forgotten is now talking about how the country is in danger because of it. They are the epitome of corruption and are 'chor' in their own establishment." "They don't have the capability to call out such a thing. This has become a symbol of their 'gradual decay'," he added. Accusing Congress of robbing the country, he said, "Everyone is familiar with who is 'chowkidar' and who is 'chor'. They have been looting the country for ages. I believe at that time the 'Chowkidar' was not 'chokanna' enough. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Leader of Opposition in Goa Assembly Chandrakant Kavlekar led Congress delegation on Monday told Governor Mridula Sinha that the party will prove majority to form the government in the state. "We met the Governor and staked claim to form the government as we are the single largest party in the state. We have 14 MLAs and we should be given the chance to form the government. We have told that we will prove majority. We are saddened by the demise of Goa Chief Minister," Kavlekar told media after meeting the Governor. The Congress communicated their claim to form the government hours after the death of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's death. The opposition Congress is the single largest party in the 40-member Goa assembly. However, BJP MLA Glenn Ticlo on Monday said that one among the 12 BJP MLAs should lead Goa since the demise of Parrikar. Ticlo's reaction came after the Congress wrote to the Governor for the second time in the last two days staking claim to form the government. The four-time Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Manohar Parrikar died on Sunday evening after a prolonged battle against cancer at the age of 63. The present strength of the Goa Assembly stands at 37 instead of 40. The Congress is currently the single-largest party in Goa with 14 MLAs. The BJP has 13 legislators and its government is supported by three MLAs each of the Goa Forward Party and Maharashtra Gomantak Party, and three Independents. Two Congress MLAs have resigned after defecting to the BJP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Richwood, TX (77531) Today Cloudy this evening with thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Cloudy this evening with thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. The Supreme Court has asked the Madhya Pradesh government to consider the case of Gajendra Singh Chauhan, a murder convict who has served 18 years in jail, for his release under the remission rules if he satisfies all the necessary requirements. The order was passed by a bench of Justices Abhay Manohar Sapre and Dinesh Maheshwari last week. A Madhya Pradesh sessions court had on September 19, 2001 convicted and sentenced Gajendra Singh Chauhan to life imprisonment under 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Chauhan, along with his accomplices, had poured kerosene on two persons and set them ablaze following which they succumbed to their injuries in the year 2000. The sessions court order was upheld by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur on March 25, 2013. It was subsequently challenged before the apex court. In the appeal against the high court order in the top court, senior lawyer Pandit Parmanand Katara, appearing for the convict, had pleaded for his release under the remission rules. "The petitioner has so far undergone about eighteen years of jail sentence. We request the court to release him under the remission rules," Katara had said. He had submitted that the high court wrongly upheld his conviction solely on the basis of of the dying declaration of the deceased who had narrated different versions of the incident and their statements were inconsistent. Katara had also stated that the convict was only a 33-year-old at the time of the commission of the offence and he had no criminal record before that. The counsel had argued that the high court ignored the material fact as both the deceased - Guddu and Basant Rai - who had suffered 90 and 100 per cent burn injuries, were unfit to talk to the doctors for recording their statement. As per the prosecution, on November 20, 2000, Gajendra, along with his associates, had allegedly demanded money from the victims, and on refusal, they poured kerosene and set them on fire. They were immediately rushed to a hospital. During the treatment, they recorded their dying declaration. They succumbed to their injuries two days later. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The death toll from Cyclone Idai which ravaged Zimbabwe earlier this week rose to 65, officials confirmed on Sunday. However, the number of people missing is unclear as an entire village in Chimanimani East district was swept away due to flash floods triggered by torrential rains, said Joshua Sacco, a lawmaker from the affected area. "We are talking about the loss of lives, at the moment 65 deaths have been confirmed," Sacco told Anadolu Agency. Stressing that death toll could rise in the coming days, Sacco said: "We are worried about an area called Copper where Rusitu and Nyahode Rivers meet and that's where the whole police camp and several government houses were swept away. We don't know where those workers are." Rescue efforts have been challenging owing to the inclement weather and Zimbabwean military forces are being forced to use road transport for providing immediate aid, despite facing challenges and dangers of encountering several damaged bridges. Meanwhile, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has cut short his visit to the UAE due to the ensuing crisis and is closely monitoring the situation. Cyclone Idai has left a trail of destruction in eastern Zimbabwe, with flash floods sweeping away houses and destroying trees and crops. The tropical cyclone which made landfall first in Mozambique on Thursday evening, spread to Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa affecting millions of people in the region. Farmers in the affected areas said that massive losses have been recorded as agricultural fields have been inundated, destroying crop plantations. In Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa, more than 100 people died in the torrential rains owing to Cyclone Idai, affecting nearly 8,50,000 people across south-eastern Africa, according to reports. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of mourners on Monday gave a teary tribute to Goa's four-time chief minister Manohar Parrikar as his body was cremated with full state honours. The final rites were performed with Vedic Hindu rituals as Parrikar's son lit the pyre. The final journey of Goa's 'son of the soil' begun from Kala Academy in Panjim. A teeming column of mourners followed on foot and vehicles. The news of Parrikar's demise was shared by President Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday evening. "Extremely sorry to hear of the passing of Shri Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa after an illness borne with fortitude and dignity. An epitome of integrity and dedication in public life, his service to the people of Goa and of India will not be forgotten," he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman paid last respects to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar by visiting his mortal remains in Goa and consoling the bereaved family. While Congress president Rahul Gandhi observed a two-minute silence at a public rally to pay homage to Parrikar, Congress-led opposition leader in Goa assembly Chandrakant Kavlekar called him a "leader of great abilities whose loss is certainly irreversible and incalculable." Embodying 'work is worship,' Parrikar efficiently led from the front till his last breath. Exactly 10 days before his death, he was last pictured on March 7, in his trademark attire of a simple shirt and trouser, unveiling the plaque of foundation stone for a sewerage scheme. His political journey of about 28 years took him from one high office to other, only culminating in the position that he often referred as most close to his heart. In October 2000, Parrikar had become the Chief Minister of the state for the first time. He was the first IIT graduate politician to take reins of the coastal state. His love for Goa was so earnest that even after he moved to New Delhi to take on the post of country's defence minister, Parrikar left no chance to visit his hometown frequently. Hence it wasn't much of surprise that after the BJP failed to get a complete majority after the 2016 state assembly polls, the allies clearly stated their faith in Parrikar. Even for the brief period of little less than three years that he served as the Defence Minister, Parrikar earned friends and admirers at the and global level. His untimely death was also condoled by the United States and Russia. Parrikar not only transformed Goa's infrastructure but also oversaw the first surgical strikes of 2014 as the defence minister. Born in a middle-class Gaud Saraswat Brahmin family, his trademark image of wearing a simple shirt and trouser and waiting patiently in queues at different public places will remain itched for long in public memories. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the country's second largest car manufacturer and largest exporter, organized the mega 'Experience Hyundai Camp' to provide Hyundai experience to customers for various service-related needs, new product purchase, and evaluation of the existing car. The mega 'Experience Hyundai Camp' was organized at 574 locations in 343 cities to provide personalized assistance to customers. "Being a modern premium brand, our aim is to establish Hyundai as the brand of choice for our customers by offering higher value beyond customer expectations to make their life - a happy life. Hyundai's impeccable service standards have set a benchmark in the industry and helped Hyundai Motor India to retain J D Power CSI No. 1 rank for two consecutive years, 2017 and 2018, amongst mass-market brands. The mega 'Experience Hyundai Camp' intends to further strengthen trust among consumers for Brand Hyundai," said S S Kim, MD & CEO, Hyundai Motor India Ltd at the inauguration of the camp. The mega 'Experience Hyundai Camp' was set-up at malls, residential areas, parking spaces and petrol pumps, to educate customers about importance of regular service for their vehicles, promote dry wash for cars, acquaint them with new sales scheme, used car evaluation and exchange offers, extended warranty details and display of the all-new Santro etc. This story is provided by BusinessWireIndia. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an attempt to curb the menace of black money during the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, the Director General of Income Tax (Investigation) has announced a slew of measures and has also called upon the people to report financial irregularities if noticed by them. Speaking to media persons here, Mumbai's DGIT (Investigation) Kishore Kumar Vyawhare said: "To curb the use of black money in elections, we have deployed 200 officials, who will be alert round the clock. We are monitoring all the regions and special focus will be on Mumbai region." "We have also set up a toll-free number and anyone can register a complaint through it. In Mumbai, our officers will be deployed at domestic airport and international airport among other places, as most of the black money is brought in through air routes," he said. "Hence special attention will be paid to the airports. We are also in touch with intelligence officials. Our toll-free number, landline, WhatsApp number, e-mail-id, all these will be available for twenty-four hours." He also said that quick action teams have been stationed at prime spots of the city. "In 2014, we had received over 100 complaints but action couldn't be initiated in all cases as the teams couldn't reach many places," he said. "That is why we have stationed teams in all corners of Mumbai and six quick response teams have been formed. Our attempt will be to reach the spot within one hour. Six teams will be led by Deputy Commissioner level officers," he said. He also said that action will be taken by the I-T Department if the recovered amount is more than Rs 10 lakh. "The person will also be interrogated about the origin of the cash amount," he said. "Keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections we will also be keeping an eye on the co-operative banks," he said. Vyawhare also requested the people of Mumbai to contact him if any illegal financial transactions are observed by them during the elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has released its 'Health Manifesto' and urged all political parties to give priority to the health sector. The IMA manifesto contains various suggestions to improve public health, change policy directions, streamline medical education and improve medical research."There is insufficient funding in the healthcare sector and the GDP in healthcare is at a dismal rate of 1.2 per cent. The out of pocket expenditure is one of the highest for our country and every year over 3.3 per cent of people are pushed below the poverty line due to expenditure on health," said IMA president Dr Santanu Sen here on Monday. "In order to improve the overall healthcare sector and cope up with the out of pocket expenses, the GDP must be increased to at least 5 per cent," added Dr Sen. He said that the IMA will soon launch a countrywide 'Health First Campaign' to propagate the manifesto amongst the candidates, political parties and the public. The local units of IMA will conduct public meetings and seminars in which the candidates for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections will also be invited."The primary and preventive care should be given top priority. Wellness centres have to be reconceived and they have to be manned by MBBS graduates," said Dr R V Asokan, Secretary-General, IMA. "MBBS doctors are ready to work in rural areas and IMA can facilitate the availability of manpower to the primary care centres. There should be recruitment boards to recruit MBBS graduates for primary care," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj unveiled a plaque of the renovated Indira Gandhi Memorial (IGM) Hospital in Maldives on Sunday. She dedicated the hospital to the people of the Maldives. Swaraj, who arrived in Male on Sunday for a two-day visit to the island nation at the invitation of Shahid, is accompanied by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and other senior officials. The IGM Hospital was built in 1995 with Indian assistance and was inaugurated by then Indian Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. It is the first and largest government healthcare facility in the Maldives. "Commitment to the welfare of the people of Maldives EAM @SushmaSwaraj unveils a plaque dedicating the renovated IGM Hospital to the people of Maldives in the city of Male. IGMH is the first and largest government healthcare facility in Maldives, built with Indian assistance," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India has deployed an elite contingent of its commando-trained armed CRPF personnel to guard the Indian embassy and its diplomats in Iraq's capital city Baghdad. The deployment was initiated two months ago and more than 40-member squad is performing its task. The multi-skilled CRPF troops have taken charge of the embassy complex located in the Al Mansour area of the Iraqi capital. This comes as there is a slow return to normalcy in Iraq after the defeat of terrorists of the dreaded Islamic State (IS) outfit in the war-torn country. In December last year, Iraq declared victory over the IS, which had seized control of nearly a third of the country and neighbouring Syria in 2014, establishing a self-styled caliphate. The Iraqi government has also executed scores of people for their alleged involvement with the dreaded terror group. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India on Monday issued a Note Verbale to Pakistan Foreign Ministry saying Pakistani agencies are "harassing and tailing" Indian diplomats in Islamabad again. According to the note, India cited 13 instances of harassment in the month of March itself and asked Pakistan to stop such incidents and investigate the matter. On March 8, a First Secretary was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security agency personnel in a car while proceeding from the Chancery to the bank. On the same day, the Naval Adviser was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security agency in a car while proceeding from Chancery to his residence, the note read. The note also cited instances of two Indian officers receiving a number of hoax calls during the last few days. On March 9, Deputy High Commissioner was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security agency personnel on a motorcycle. The following day, the Deputy High Commissioner was again aggressively followed by personnel on a motorcycle while going from his residence to a market, the note mentioned. On March 9 and 10, the Naval Adviser was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security agency personnel in a car while going from residence to Islamabad Club and to another officer's residence, the note further stated. It further mentioned that on the same dates, one Pakistani agency personnel was observed keeping static surveillance outside the residence of Deputy High Commissioner. The agency personnel was also observed meeting the local security guard outside the residence regularly and asking details regarding availability of the officer and details of occupants of the residence. They were found keeping surveillance outside the residence during a dinner party at his residence, it said. On March 9 and 10, Pakistani personnel were spotted "keeping static surveillance" outside the home of the Deputy High Commissioner and they also met the local security guard regularly and sought details regarding the official. Furthermore, the High Commissioner was being followed by two Pakistani agency personnel, the note said. India has asked Pakistani authorities to "investigate these incidents urgently and instruct the relevant agencies to ensure that similar incidents do not recur". It stated that such incidents of harassment were in clear violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and that the safety and security of Indian High Commission officers, staff members, and their families is the responsibility of the Pakistan government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Google+ is shutting down in April and with it, the company will start deleting data from the social network too. Before the data is deleted forever, the Internet Archive and the ArchiveTeam are working on preserving the public posts. As The Verge reports, the sites announced that they are in the process of archiving the posts using scripts to capture and back up the data in an effort to preserve it. The efforts will only be to safeguard posts that are currently available to the public. Threads beyond 500 comments will not be preserved. Images and videos will not be preserved at full resolution. If you posted content which you do not want to be preserved, then it is recommended you delete your account. Google announced the shutdown of its social network service earlier this year after a security breach was discovered. In February, Google disabled the ability to add new profile pages and communities. Consumer data will be deleted on April 2, 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Aerial photo taken on March 18, 2019 shows the Haiwen Bridge, Hainan Province. The cross-sea bridge, which was built over seismic faults, officially started operation on Monday. [Photo: Xinhua/Guo Cheng] The Haiwen Bridge opened to traffic Monday in the island province of Hainan as the first cross-sea bridge crossing active faults and the most earthquake-resistant bridge in China. Aerial photo taken on March 18, 2019 shows the Haiwen Bridge, Hainan Province. The cross-sea bridge, which was built over seismic faults, officially started operation on Monday. [Photo: Xinhua/Guo Cheng] The 5.59-km bridge connects the Hainan capital Haikou and Puqian, an island town in the city of Wenchang which is also known as the hometown of many overseas Chinese. Aerial photo taken on March 18, 2019 shows the Haiwen Bridge, Hainan Province. The cross-sea bridge, which was built over seismic faults, officially started operation on Monday. [Photo: Xinhua/Guo Cheng] The six-lane bridge, which cuts the travel time between Puqian and Haikou from 1.5 hours to just 20 minutes, is expected to promote the integration of coastal industries in northeast Hainan, said Lin Dong, head of the provincial department of transportation. Aerial photo taken on March 18, 2019 shows the Haiwen Bridge, Hainan Province. The cross-sea bridge, which was built over seismic faults, officially started operation on Monday. [Photo: Xinhua/Guo Cheng] With a total investment of 3 billion yuan (about 447 million U.S. dollars), the bridge was under strict marine monitor throughout its construction. Beleaguered carrier Jet Airways on Monday said it has grounded four more aircraft and cancelled all flights to Etihad's hub in Abu Dhabi. Etihad owns 24 per cent of Jet and is contemplating to hike its stake in a bid to bail out the troubled airline. Meanwhile, UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Al Banna said in New Delhi that it is for Jet and Etihad to break the impasse in talks. "They may be facing some difficulties but it is up to them to decide what they want to do," he said. Facing the worst financial crisis of its 25-year existence, the airline has grounded about half its fleet, cancelled flights, delayed salaries and defaulted on the loan and other payments. "Further to our letter on March 13, we now write to inform you that an additional four aircraft have been grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under their respective lease agreements," Kuldeep Sharma, Jet's Vice President for Global Compliance and Company Secretary, informed stock exchanges in regulatory filings. The company is actively engaged with all its aircraft lessors and regularly provides them with updates on the efforts undertaken to improve its liquidity, he said adding aircraft lessors have been supportive of the company's efforts in this regard. Jet said it is also making all efforts to minimise disruption to its network and proactively informing and re-accommodating its passengers. The company also continues to provide required and periodic updates to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in this regard. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In yet another blow for British Prime Minister Theresa May, Speaker of the British Parliament John Bercow said on Monday that lawmakers cannot vote again on the Brexit deal as the same agreement was rejected twice. Citing parliamentary procedure, Bercow underlined that the British government cannot put forth a motion repeatedly before the parliamentarians if it had been previously rejected in the same session. "What the government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition -- or substantially the same proposition -- as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes," Bercow was quoted by CNN, as saying. The UK Parliament has already rejected the Brexit deal twice by substantial margins, even though May repeatedly stated that the hard-pressing issues were resolved and asserted that "this is the only deal possible." According to some reports, the British government was mulling to bring the deal back for a third time. Also, some reports had surfaced that if lawmakers had disapproved the agreement again, then May could attempt to push another motion in her fourth attempt. However, dispelling the speculations, Bercow noted that the first two motions on Brexit deal were "sufficiently different not to have broken parliamentary convention." With just 10 days before the March 29 deadline approaches, it now seems unlikely that May will push for a new vote on her controversial deal before the European Council summit slated to take place in Brussels on March 21. On January 15, May's Brexit deal was voted down by the parliamentarians at the House of Commons by a resounding majority of 230 votes. The deal was voted down by 432 votes to 202, the worst defeat for any sitting government in the UK. Around 118 Conservative Party MPs had voted against the withdrawal agreement. Subsequently, she presented an alternate path in a bid to secure Parliamentary support for a Brexit deal, which was also rejected. On March 12, May suffered another blow when the UK Parliament rejected her beleaguered deal for the second time in two months, despite the British Prime Minister securing further guarantees from Brussels over its most controversial elements. The House of Commons voted by 391 to 242 to reject the deal. A day later, British lawmakers voted to reject a no-deal Brexit, which allows the UK to leave the EU without any agreement. The motion was rejected by 321 votes to 278. On March 14, the British Parliament voted in favour of delaying the Brexit process beyond the scheduled date of March 29 and overwhelmingly rejected a call for a second referendum, plunging the country into political chaos. The vote to delay the UK's exit from the European Union was passed by 412 votes to 202 in the House of Commons, which means the British parliamentarians acknowledged that more time is required to break the deadlock, amid the uncertainty surrounding the country's status in leaving the European bloc. Apart from this, British lawmakers rejected a motion to support a second referendum on Brexit by 334 votes to 85. The vote was indicative and would not have been legally binding if it was passed in the House of Commons. May had earlier warned that the Brexit process could be delayed longer if her agreement was rejected for the third time. If that happens, it would force the UK to elect members to the European Parliament in the elections slated to be held in May. The Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, has time and again labelled the withdrawal agreement as a "botched deal", having previously announced his Labour Party's intent of holding a public vote to avoid a "damaging Tory Brexit. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a major development, a London court on Monday issued an arrest warrant against diamond merchant Nirav Modi, who is wanted in India for an alleged loan default case, according to the sources in the Enforcement Directorate. The arrest warrant was issued by the Westminster Court, the sources added. India had already requested the extradition of Nirav Modi from the United Kingdom. The development comes days after the fugitive was tracked down to a 33-storey Centre Point Apartment complex in London's Theatre District. The tower was an office complex and was converted into luxury residences with prices ranging from PS2 million to PS55 million all with superb views over the city of London. Modi is believed to be living in a property worth PS8 million apartments in the tower, the rent for a similar apartment in the tower comes to approximately PS17,000 a month, stated the Daily Telegraph. On March 9, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said that India is making strong efforts to bring back the fugitive businessman and was waiting for a response from the United Kingdom with regard to its extradition request sent in August last year. At a media briefing here, Raveesh Kumar said the government is aware of Modi's presence in the UK and had made the request for his extradition in August last year. He added that the fact the UK was sent that request clears that India is aware of his presence in that country and action has been initiated for his extradition. Nirav Modi, one of the prime accused in the PNB scam in India. Modi is the subject of an extradition request by India, along with an Interpol Red Corner Notice being issued for the PNB scam accused. Modi is the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB fraud, along with his uncle Mehul Choksi. Choksi was granted citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda on January 15, 2018, while Modi is in London. Both Modi and Choksi left India in January last year before the PNB scam came out in the public. The duo has not returned to India despite repeated summons from probe agencies and courts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maryam Nawaz Sharif, daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, on Monday said that since the past five days she has not been allowed to have any communication with her ailing father, who is currently serving imprisonment at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore. Maryam took to Twitter saying, "I am still waiting for permission to meet MNS. He is unwell and it's been 5 days that I have no access to him. Not even his personal physician has been allowed to see him." "I am very upset because he said that if something happened to God, he would not say to anyone," she added, noting that she had no knowledge of her father's condition at present. Geo News reported that the daughter of former Prime Minister waited outside the jail for permission to meet her father, adding that not even the personal physician of Sharif was allowed to see him. "A humble reminder: Force of retribution never sleeps," she added. Sharif was shifted to Jinnah Hospital on February 15 after he complained of fever, stomach ache, and headache. However, he was later moved to the jail after Islamabad High Court last week rejected his petition seeking bail on medical grounds. Citing inadequate availability of medical facilities in jail, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) members, in February, had requested the Punjab Assembly secretariat to grant permission to the three-time Prime Minister to go abroad for his medical treatment. Sharif, who is serving a seven-year jail sentence, was shifted to Kot Lakhpat jail in December 2018 following his conviction in the Al-Aziziya Steel Mills corruption reference in line with the Supreme Court's July 2017 verdict. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday snubbed the Congress for saying that it will leave 7 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh for the coalition of the SP-BSP-RLD coalition. Both Mayawati and Akhilesh asserted that they don't need the Congress support and asked the Rahul Gandhi-led party not to create "confusion". The Congress on Sunday had announced that it would leave seven Lok Sabha seats for SP, BSP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh where 80 seats are at stake in the upcoming polls. "The Congress is fully free in Uttar Pradesh and should field its own candidates for contesting all the 80 Lok Sabha seats. Our alliance (SP-BSP-RLD) alone is capable of defeating the BJP," Mayawati tweeted. "The Congress should not forcibly spread rumours by leaving seven seats in UP for the SP-BSP alliance," the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister added. Hours later, Akhilesh also tweeted, "SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh is capable of defeating the BJP. The Congress should not create any confusion." As per the seat-sharing agreement, the SP is contesting 37 seats and BSP 38. Three seats have been given to the RLD -- Mathura, Muzaffarnagar, and Baghpat. The alliance has left Rae Bareli and Amethi seats for the Congress as these are the constituencies of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi. In an apparent reciprocal gesture, UP Congress chief Raj Babbar yesterday said his party would not field any candidates at the seats from where Akhilesh's family members would be contesting, like Mainpuri, Kannauj and Firozabad. The Congress also will not field any candidates at the seats from where Mayawati, RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary would be contesting. Mayawati, in her tweets, also asserted that her party is not in alliance with the Congress in any state and asked her party cadres not to pay heed to the "rumours spread by the Congress". "BSP once again wants to make it very clear that in Uttar Pradesh, and in the country as a whole, we are not in any form of alliance or agreement with the Congress. Our people should not pay heed to the rumours spread by the Congress," she said. The Lok Sabha elections have been scheduled to start from April 11 and will go on till May 19 in seven phases. The polls in Uttar Pradesh will be held in all seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A mobile application to cope with exam related stress and anxiety for students and their parents has been developed by Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar, Gujarat, (IIPHG) in collaboration with National Mental Health Program, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat. The mobile application is called 'Conquer Exam, Be a Warrior.' "It is that time of year where exam stress hits a peak. There is a way to beat stress, as well as anxiety during the exam. 'Conquer Exam - Be a Warrior' is a powerful and intuitive collaborative idea of IIPHG to create awareness and help students and parents to analyse and overcome exam pressure. It is designed to provide assistance to empower students to do the best use of their ability and knock the exams season with help of parents. We have currently launched the app in English language only. Very soon, we will incorporate Hindi, Gujarat and Marathi language too," explained Dr Somen Saha, Associate Professor at IIPHG and Principal Researcher. The app that has open access reminds students to stay motivated. It enables students to share their creative memorizing learning tips with others as they can write their success stories and share funny school experiences. It helps them stay focused and positive and send gratitude messages to loved ones. A parent can share advice and tips for other parents, and this will empower them to support their child. Currently, this app is available for Android devices only and IOs version will be available soon. The app Conquer Exam, Be a Warrior can be downloaded from Google Play Store. Exam Warrior, the book by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a source of inspiration to launch this app - 'Conquer Exam, Be a Warrior' by IIPHG. IIPHG offers several academic courses including two years Master in Public Health and Master in Hospital Administration. (This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One out of the seven Indian nationals who were kidnapped in Afghanistan's Baghlan province in May last year, returned safely to India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Monday. "We are grateful to the Government of Afghanistan for their support in securing the release and repatriation of the Indian national," the MEA stated. "We continue to work closely with the Government of Afghanistan for safe and early return of the remaining six Indian nationals," it added. The seven Indians were kidnapped by Taliban militants in northern Baghlan province on May 6 last year. The Indian nationals were employed in RPG Group company KEC International and were working on a project for the construction of a power sub-station in the country when they were abducted. Following the incident, India had said that it was in touch with Afghan authorities, adding that the lives of the seven Indian nationals were at stake. "We are in touch with the Afghan authorities on this matter. Our External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and our National Security Advisor Ajit Doval have had the telephonic conversations with their counterparts and we have requested for all the possible assistance from them," MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had told reporters on May 10 last year. "This is a sensitive matter. Lives of seven Indians are involved. Thereby, we cannot share much about where we are at this point of time in a public forum," he had said. India has been carrying out re-construction activities and various development projects in Afghanistan. It has provided at least USD 2 billion aid to the war-torn country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman paid last respects to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar here on Monday. Parrikar, four times Goa Chief Minister and former Defence Minister died on Sunday after fighting a long battle with cancer. The Prime Minister also met with the bereaved family and conveyed condolences. BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani also paid last respects to her party colleague. Parrikar was born in Mapusa in the coastal state of Goa in 1955 when it was under Portuguese control. Parrikar was also one of those leaders who rose in ranks from RSS to BJP. Parrikar had joined RSS even during final years of his school days and later became the Sanghchalak at the age of 26. Often referred to as the 'Chief Minister of the Common' by many, Parrikar was known for his simple style of living and for being easily approachable by the people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This Indian Premier League (IPL) season, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have decided to make their home matches pet-friendly at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The Bengaluru franchise has invited spectators with their pets at an exclusive pet-lounge or dog-stand named "DogOut" with seating designed for people and canines. "Royal Challengers Bangalore believes in being compassionate and inclusive. We care about all the fans that are dearly associated with the team. One such group of fans is pet-parents and lovers. Pets are extension of their families and we as RCB would like to make them very much a part of our RCB family," an RCB statement said. "Now this year onwards, RCB is thrilled to invite all the pet-parents and lovers to watch home matches with their pets at an exclusive pet lounge called "DogOut" not "DugOut"," the statement added. In addition to this, the RCB is partnering with pet care experts Ashita Mathew, Rashi Narang and Ridhima Coelho from HUFT, who will be curating exclusive content around pet nutrition, grooming and wellness on the new official RCB Application. Royal Challengers Bangalore will meet Mumbai Indians at their home ground in Bengaluru on March 28. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that Republican senators who backed his emergency declaration to build a border are being "uniformly praised" in their home states. "Those Republican Senators who voted in favor of Strong Border Security (and the Wall) are being uniformly praised as they return to their States. They know there is a National Emergency at the Southern Border, and they had the courage to ACT. Great job!" he tweeted. According to reports, Congressmen are in their respective home states for district work period for the next two weeks. On March 14, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to disapprove the emergency declaration by 59 votes to 41, in what was a sharp rebuke to Trump. The resolution was already passed in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives by 245 votes to 182 last month, with 13 Republicans supporting the Democrats. Minutes after the vote, Trump tweeted in capitals, "VETO!", an indication that he would reject the resolution. Subsequently, the US President Donald Trump issued his first veto rejecting as "dangerous" and "reckless" congressional resolution of his emergency declaration and asserted that Americans would be "put at risk" at the southern border with Mexico if the measure became a law. Trump vetoed a resolution of disapproval of his emergency declaration, which was declared to get his wall funded and built along the US-Mexico border. The resolution will now return to the House of Representatives, which is expected to vote on overriding Trump's veto on March 26. However, lawmakers lack the two-thirds support of the chamber required to pass the measure. It was the first time that the US President used his veto power to block a legislation which came after 12 Senate Republicans sided with the Democrats to reject Trump's use of his emergency power to bypass the Congress and fund the border wall's construction. On February 15, a defiant Trump declared a national emergency to bypass Congress and fulfill his long-pending demand of building the wall along the border with Mexico. Defending his move, the US President asserted that he had "no choice" but to use his emergency powers to stop illegal immigrants spreading crime and drugs. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South Korea is trying to end the stalled talks between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearisation after the Hanoi summit held between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month ended without an agreement. On Monday, Seoul's Presidential Blue House issued a statement saying that the time was now right for the two Koreas to hold further talks, reports South China Morning Post. "We agree with the view that no deal is better than a bad deal. However, in reality, it is difficult to achieve complete denuclearisation at one stroke," the statement quoted a high ranking official as saying. According to the Blue House statement, South Korea wanted North to "agree with a broad road map aimed to achieve the overarching goal of denuclearization." "On the basis of that, we should make further efforts to turn a small deal into a deal that is good enough. In order to achieve meaningful progress, we need one or two early harvests for mutual trust-building to move on toward the final goal," the statement further added. In last month's Hanoi summit Trump had informed the media that Pyongyang wanted the sanctions to be lifted in their entirety which could not be done. Hence, they had to walk away from it. North Korea, however, contradicted this with the country's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho saying that they had made realistic proposals and asked for a partial lifting of sanctions. Following this, North had threatened the US of suspending all channels of communication and even restart its missile tests. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma on Monday accused the Congress party of "politicising" the demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. "The way they have come forward to stake claim to form the government in the state shows that they had been waiting for him to die. It is highly insensitive on their part to play even in such situations," said Sharma while talking to ANI. Parrikar, a senior BJP leader died on March 17 evening after a prolonged battle against cancer at the age of 63. "I was very close to him. He has done a lot not only for the state of Goa, but for India, too. He lived his life as an honest politician and served the nation till his last breath," he said. Sharma also took a jibe at Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, calling her boat yatra "a boat yatra for the votes." Priyanka, Congress' newly appointed general secretary and in-charge for eastern Uttar Pradesh, has started her three-day long Ganga Yatra from Manaiya Ghat at Prayagraj on Monday. "The boat ride has only been possible because of several initiatives taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clean the Ganga and beautify the ghats. I hope while travelling through the Ganga water, she is reminded of the good work done by our Prime Minister," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States Ambassador to India, Kenneth Juster, on Monday condoled the demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. "Our heartfelt condolences and prayers go to the family and friends of Manohar Parrikar, Goa Chief Minister and former Indian Defence Minister. He was greatly respected by the United States, and his loss will be deeply felt," Juster tweeted. Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev also expressed his deepest condolences to Parrikar's family. "Your party and India have lost a charismatic leader, an eminent politician and a statesman of perfect integrity, whose role in political and social life was significant and inspiring. In his capacity as Defence Minister, he contributed greatly to the development of the mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation between our two countries and will be remembered in Russia as a true friend," Kudashev wrote. Russian Embassy in India tweeted, "#Russian Ambassador to #India H.E. Mr Nikolay #Kudashev expressed his deepest condolences to the family of Chief Minister of #Goa H.E. Mr Manohar #Parrikar, who passed away yesterday." Senior BJP leader Parrikar, 63, breathed his last at his residence in Dona Paula near Panaji on Sunday evening. A four-time Chief Minister of Goa and a former Defence Minister, Parrikar had been in and out of the hospitals since February last year. It was in October last year that the state government made a formal announcement about Parrikar suffering from a pancreatic ailment. He had undergone treatment in the United States as well as in New Delhi. Parrikar took charge as the Chief Minister on March 14, 2017, and held the office till his end. He had previously served as the Chief Minister of the state from 2000 to 2002, 2002 to 2005 and from 2012 to 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least one person was feared dead and several others injured after a terrorist fired gunshots inside a tram in Utrecht city of the Netherlands on Monday, police said. Authorities raised the terrorist threat to its highest level in Utrecht. Schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports and other vital infrastructure. Security was also stepped up at mosques. Police launched an anti-terror squad to investigate the incident considering "a possible motif of terrorism." Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who had to interrupt a weekly cabinet meeting to monitor the shooting situation, dubbed the incident as "very worrying." Local media said air medical services were sent to the accident site immediately after the shooting was reported around 10:45 am. Tram operations in the city came to a halt and people were asked to stay away from the site at October 24 Square. The suspected gunman escaped in a car. "A shooting occurred on the 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht," police said. "Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off. In this, we also take into account a possible terrorist motive." Utrecht police said in a tweet. The municipality of Utrecht set up a dedicated phone line to address public concerns. The University Medical Centre opened a specialised disaster unit in response to the shooting. This incident comes immediately after the twin terror attack in New Zealand's mosques that took place last week, killing 50 people and injuring 49 others. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Highlighting the close maritime proximity between India and Indonesia, Indian Coast Guard Ship 'Vijit' became the first-ever Coast Guard ship to visit Sabang, Indonesia. During its maiden voyage from March 17 to 20, officers and crew of Vijit will hold interaction with officials of Bakamla (Indonesian Coast Guard), Indonesian Armed Forces and the civil administration at Sabang, read a press release from Indian embassy in Jakarta. This visit of the coast guard ship follows from the first-ever-visit of Naval Ship INS Sumitra to Sabang in July 2018. Vijit's visit also highlights strengthening cooperation in the area of maritime security and safety between New Delhi and Jakarta. "The ship is commanded by Comdt T Ashish (0532-J), who is a long Navigation Direction officer. ICGS Vijit is the 2nd in the series of 90 meter Offshore Patrol Vessels and was commissioned at Goa on 11 Dec 2010. 'Vijit' meaning "Winner or Victorious" is the testimony of India's shipbuilding capabilities and the resolve of Govt of India to safeguard country's maritime interests," read the press release. It further stated, "The ship's complement includes a team of 15 Officers and 90 men who are highly motivated and fully trained to excel at all tasks with alacrity and elan in keeping with Coast Guard's motto 'Vayam Rakshamah'." Fastest in its category with a designed speed of 26 knots at a displacement of 2393 tons, this new generation ship is equipped with the advanced Navigational and Communicational equipment, sensors and machinery including an Integrated Bridge System (IBS), Integrated Machinery Control System (IMCS), Power Management System (PMS), High Power External Fire Fighting System (ABS Fi-Fi Class-1) and one indigenous Close Range Naval (CRN) 91 Gun Mount along with an IR/ UV fire control system for day and night usage. According to the press release, the ship is designed to carry one twin-engine HAL built Advance Light Helicopter and five high-speed boats for Search and Rescue, Maritime Law Enforcement and Marine Pollution Response. The ship is also fitted with advanced Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) making it a very versatile platform to carry out Search and Rescue operations in Indian Search and Rescue Region (ISRR) besides carrying out other tasks as mandated in CG Charter. "The sustenance and reach coupled with most modern weapons, sensors and communication systems, provides her with the capabilities of performing the role of a command platform for the conduct of Coast Guard operations at high seas and near the coast," stated the press release. The press release read, "It may be noted that during the visit of Prime Minister of India to Indonesia in May 2018, both sides had arrived at a 'Shared Vision of Maritime Cooperation in the Indo Pacific' under which deepening economic and people to people exchanges, including connectivity with port of Sabang was identified as a key priority area. A series of steps have since been undertaken by both sides to improve the same. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The premiere of a new documentary "Wild Edens The documentary puts an emphasis on the unique and delicate habitats of India and Bangladesh and the region's rarest and most spectacular wildlife. Brought to you by Rosatom, it will be broadcasted by National Geographic starting this spring. Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, the world's leading producer of safe and clean energy, is deeply concerned by the threats associated with climate change. The nuclear power industry is constantly evolving and has firmly established itself as an integral part of the green energy mix. The Wild Edens seeks to highlight the threat of global warming to flora and fauna around the globe as well as the importance of nuclear energy, as a low-carbon energy source, in decarbonization. The "Wild Edens: South Asia" captures the region's breathtaking landscapes, where wildlife may be endangered in the future. From dense forests to remote deserts, along with wild mountain ranges to the mighty River Ganges, the South Asian nature has a story for each and every one. Freida Pinto, actress and activist, the Wild Edens project ambassador will be the special guest of the event. Freida is not just a terrific actress but a true nature lover, who throughout the years has supported multiple sustainable development causes, including the UN Global Goals campaign. She gave her voice to the film and expressed her excitement about the film being shot in her home country. "We all share a common vision that humankind has to be inspired to focus on the planet before the effects of global warming become absolutely irreversible. I would also like to say how pleased I am that Wild Edens will devote an entire episode to my native country of India. With this, millions of people around the world will have the opportunity to see my country as an exotic mix of wild nature, rare animal life, unique wildlife sanctuaries and magnificent landscapes that are mesmerizing and are also under the threat of dangers of climate change", said Ms Pinto. This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is quoting at Rs 406.8, up 2.65% on the day as on 12:54 IST on the NSE. The stock is down 5.56% in last one year as compared to a 13.31% jump in NIFTY and a 21.67% jump in the Nifty Energy index. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd gained for a third straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 406.8, up 2.65% on the day as on 12:54 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is up around 0.09% on the day, quoting at 11437.65. The Sensex is at 38033.8, up 0.02%. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd has gained around 21.34% in last one month. Meanwhile, Nifty Energy index of which Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is a constituent, has gained around 12.49% in last one month and is currently quoting at 16046.2, up 1.03% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 46.16 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 55.31 lakh shares in last one month. The benchmark March futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 406.8, up 2.68% on the day. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is down 5.56% in last one year as compared to a 13.31% jump in NIFTY and a 21.67% jump in the Nifty Energy index. The PE of the stock is 12.87 based on TTM earnings ending December 18. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Headline indices of the Mainland China equity market gained further ground, settling near 6-1/2-month highs on Monday, 18 March 2019, with investor sentiment brightened by report about substantial progress in U. S.-China trade negotiations as well as indications of more Chinese economic stimulus. At closing bell, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index advanced 2.47%, or 74.67 points, to 3,096.42. The Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, rose 2.71%, or 44.42 points, to 1,685.79. The blue-chip CSI300 index climbed 2.85%, or 4106.75 points, to 3,851.75. The Chinese government has additional monetary policy measures that it can take to support economic growth this year, and will even cut "its own flesh" to help finance large-scale tax cuts, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday. Li's comments suggest Beijing is ready to roll out more stimulus measures to ensure the economy grows within a targeted range of 6-6.5%. On the trade front, top officials from the world's biggest economies working on an agreement to end their long-running tariffs spat, which was a major drag on markets at the end of 2018. While there are few details on the talks as they stand - and a floated summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping looks to be later than expected - upbeat comments from both sides are keeping investors broadly happy for now. Shanghai's stock exchange, which was ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping in November to open a new board for technology start-ups, will accept submissions for initial public offerings from Monday, according to Beijing-based media group Caixin. Sentiment was also buoyed by traders ramping up buying of companies that are expected to report solid first-quarter earnings. A total of 371 mainland China companies will release their earnings this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Shares of consumer firms led the advance on the mainland, as companies are widely seen as beneficiary of Beijing's measures to boost domestic consumption. Kweichow Moutai rose 4.2% to a record 810.09 yuan, taking its market capitalisation past 1 trillion yuan (US$149 billion). Anhui Golden Seed Winery jumped by the 10% daily limit to 6.48 yuan. Luzhou Laojiao surged by 10% to 58.60 yuan and Wuliangye Yibin rallied by the same margin to 86.66 yuan. Companies linked to electronic cigarettes tumbled after China's central television said in an annual consumer day gala show on Friday night that the product was detrimental to consumers' health. Shanghai Shunho New Materials Technology, which sells electronic cigarettes through a controlled unit, tumbled by 7.8% to 11.54 yuan. Shantou Dongfeng Printing, a maker of cigarette packaging materials, fell 0.6% to 10.55 yuan. CURRENCY NEWS: China's yuan rose against the U. S. dollar on Monday, on the back of firmer mid-point fixing by central bank and as further signs of receding economic momentum in the United States suggested the Federal Reserve could take a distinctly dovish turn at its meeting later this week. Prior to market opening on Monday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the midpoint rate at 6.7088 per dollar, 79 pips or 0.12 percent firmer than the previous fix of 6.7167. In the spot market, the onshore yuan opened at 6.7142 per dollar and was changing hands at 6.7122 at midday, 18 pips firmer than the previous late session close. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jubilant FoodWorks rose 1.18% to Rs 1,358.90 at 10:18 IST on BSE after the company said that Domino's Pizza was officially launched in Bangladesh with the opening of its first restaurant in Dhaka. The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 15 March 2019. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 221.49 points or 0.58% at 38,245.81 On the BSE, 15,000 shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 94,000 shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 1,365.20 and a low of Rs 1,349 so far during the day. Jubilant FoodWorks said that Domino's Pizza was officially launched in Bangladesh with the opening of its first restaurant in Rangs Fortune Square, Dhanmondi, Dhaka. Domino's Pizza entered Bangladesh via a joint venture between Jubilant FoodWorks and Golden Harvest QSR, a part of Golden Harvest Group. The brand will operate under the JV named Jubilant Golden Harvest. Domino's Pizza comes to Bangladesh with a menu that is a unique combination of some top international favorite pizzas along with pizzas that were developed specifically for Bangladesh. Jubilant FoodWorks' net profit jumped 46.18% to Rs 96.51 crore on 18.08% growth in total income to Rs 942.85 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q3 December 2017. Jubilant FoodWorks is one of India's largest food service companies with a network of 1,200 Domino's Pizza restaurants across 271 cities (as of 31 December 2018). The company & its subsidiary have the exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino's Pizza brand in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. At present, it operates in India and Sri Lanka. The company also has exclusive rights for developing and operating Dunkin' Donuts restaurants for India and has 32 Dunkin' Donuts restaurants across 10 cities in India (as of 31 December 2018). Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China on Monday said it has arrested 12,995 terrorists since 2014 in the troubled region of Xinjiang, where, according to human rights organisations around a million Muslims are being held in internment camps. China's State Council published a white paper titled "The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang", in which it says 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs have been disbanded and 2,052 explosive devices seized in the last five years. Some 30,645 people have been punished for 4,858 illegal religious activities and 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials confiscated, Efe news quoted the document as saying. According to the white paper, "incomplete statistics show from 1990 to the end of 2016, separatist, terrorist and extremist forces launched thousands of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, killing large numbers of innocent people and hundreds of police officers, and causing immeasurable damage to property". In the document, Beijing defended the actions it is taking "in accordance with the law" against "all sorts of violent and terrorist activities that violate human rights, endanger public security, undermine ethnic unity and split the country". However, it asserted the government "fully respects and safeguards civil rights, including freedom of religious belief" and its actions were aimed at "containing extremism". "It is not Islam. These inhuman, anti-social and barbaric acts have brought enormous suffering to all ethnic groups in Xinjiang," it said. China also accuses the "East Turkistan" forces, both inside and outside the country, of stepping up collaboration since the 1990s to establish "East Turkistan" through "jihad". "It is indisputable that Xinjiang is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory. Xinjiang ethnic cultures are an inseparable part of the Chinese civilisation," said the white paper, adding Uyghurs, the largest ethnic group of the region, came into being in the long process of migration and ethnic integration and "are not descendants of the Turks". According to human rights groups, close to one million ethnic Uyghurs are being held in Xinjiang re-education camps, which the government calls vocational training programmes aimed at eradicating terrorism and religious extremism. --IANS ksk/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee on Monday termed the 2019 Lok Sabha polls "a duel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee" and urged the voters in the state to put all their force behind her. "The voters must remember that the coming elections are not for a panchayat, a municipality or the assembly. It is a battle between the communal Modi and Bengal's firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee. Everyone has to come together and fight to help her win this battle," said Banerjee, the nephew of the TMC Chief. Campaigning for veteran TMC leader and state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who is the party's Lok Sabha candidate from Bankura, Banerjee claimed that the coming elections were a battle to protect the culture and traditions of Bengal from BJP onslaught. "The BJP government has been doing a of bluff since it came to power. They are fuelling riots in the name of religion and are trying to foment unrest in Bengal," he alleged. "Remember this is a fight against Delhi's (Centre's) atrocities and bulldozing attitude," he said. Banerjee pointed out that his party Chief had given a call for a secular and progressive government in the country by ousting the BJP, and said it was the duty of the people of Bengal to give her strength by being on her side. "We won 34 of the 42 seats in 2014. Because we had the majority in Bengal, we were able to fight against the Centre's anti-people policies like fuel price hike, revoking of LPG subsidy," said the MP from Diamond Harbour. "The BJP thought they would be able to tame the TMC like the Congress or the CPI-M, but they were wrong. This is Mamata Banerjee's party, built with people's emotions and pride. We did not surrender before BJP's pressure. We rallied for people's right when other parties like CPI-M or Congress were nowhere to be seen," he added. --IANS mgr/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra Congress on Monday urged the Election Commission of India to act against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Bharatiya Janata Party's latest campaign, 'Main Bhi Chowkidar', an office-bearer said. In a letter to the ECI, the state party secretary Taufiq Mullani has said that in the video of the new campaign - which is viral on social media - Modi has been shown riding on an Army tank, and interspersed with clips of the Indian soldiers fighting. "This is a blatant violation of the ECI's order of March 9, 2019, reiterating its earlier directive of December 2013, prohibiting display of pictures of defence personnel or defence-related events for election campaign and political propaganda," Mullani told IANS. The party pointed out that on one hand, Congress President Rahul Gandhi stood solidly behind the government in the wake of the Pulwama attacks, on the other, the BJP is "taking credit for the sacrifices of the soldiers and exploiting it politically during elections" through the aMain Bhi Chowikdar' campaign. Attempting to turn the tables on the Opposition parties, Modi on Sunday launched the 'Main Bhi Chowkidar' campaign and changed his Twitter handle name to 'Chowkidar Narendra Modi'. Soon, several party bigwigs and ministers also followed suit and prefixed their Twitter handle names with the word 'Chowkidar' (watchman). --IANS qn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goa stands on the verge of a new but possibly shaky political era, with its tallest leader and Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar cremated with full military and state honours on Monday and the BJP identifying his replacement in Pramod Sawant. However, the elevation of Sawant, currently the Assembly Speaker, has not been fully accepted by potential alliance partners till late on Monday, according to political sources. Sources said that after attending Parrikar's cremation, which saw thousands take to the streets to bid their leader goodbye, BJP President Amit Shah late on Monday assumed charge of negotiating with potential allies and tried to convince them to accept Sawant, 46, as the new face of the BJP-led coalition government. Bharatiya Janata Party sources said that one of the formulas being worked out by Shah is to allot a Deputy Chief Minister position to one of the two key alliance partners - the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward. Both parties have three MLAs each and their support is essential to form a government in the coastal state, whose 40-strong assembly is currently down to 36 members. "The arrangement will be worked out and finalised tonight," a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who has been camping in a city resort since late on Sunday night, had already said that the BJP had already "finalised" it's CM candidate and the party was in talks with political parties and independent candidates who were a part of the erstwhile BJP-led coalition government. However, both Vijai Sardesai, who heads Goa Forward and Sudin Dhavalikar, the legislature party chief of the MGP, had refused to publicly endorse Sawant's candidature till late on Monday. Dhavalikar himself has put his hat in the ring for the Chief Minister's post according to BJP MLA Michael Lobo, who was part of the BJP negotiating team. The Congress has 14 MLAs while the BJP has 12, the MGP and Goa Forward three each, the National Congress Party one, while there are also three independent MLAs. The Congress has been repeatedly requesting Governor Mridula Sinha for an opportunity to form the government as it is the single largest party in the assembly. "We have a natural claim to form the government," Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said. Earlier on Monday, the mortal remains of Parrikar were cremated amid a 21 gun salute at the Miramar beach, which is a part of Parrikar's Panaji assembly constituency. The funeral pyre was lit by his elder son Utpal Parrikar. Parrikar is survived by two sons, two daughter in-laws and a grandson. Top politicians from across India, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Suresh Prabhu and Ramdas Athawale also offered floral tributes to Parrikar. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also paid his last respects to the departed soul. --IANS maya/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Army on Monday paid tribute to the soldier killed in Pakistan firing on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir' s Sunderbani sector. Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand said in a statement today: "Pakistan Army resorted to unprovoked firing on own post in Sunderbani Sector on the LoC today. In the incident, Rifleman Karamjeet Singh was critically injured and later succumbed to his injuries." Rifleman Karamjeet Singh, 24, belonged to village Janer, Tehsil Dharamkot, District Moga in Punjab. He is survived by his parents. "Rifleman Karamjeet Singh was a brave and sincere soldier. The nation will always remain indebted to him for the supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty. "GOC and all ranks of Crossed Swords Division salute the braveheart and offer deepest condolences to his family," the spokesman said. --IANS sq/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An international team of astronomers has discovered 83 "quasars", extremely luminous active galactic nucleus powered by supermassive black holes in the distant universe, from a time when the universe was less than 10 per cent of its present age. A supermassive black hole becomes visible when gas accretes onto it, causing it to shine as a quasar. Using the massive Subaru Telescope, located at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii, the scientists from Japan, Taiwan and and the US, focussed their attention on objects located about 13 billion light years away from Earth. They found 83 new very distant quasars. Together with 17 quasars, previously known in the survey region, the researchers found there was roughly one supermassive black hole per cubic giga light year. The finding increases the number of black holes known at that epoch considerably and reveals, for the first time, how common they are in the universe's history. "The quasars we discovered will be an interesting subject for follow-up observations with current and future facilities," said lead author Yoshiki Matsuoka, from the Ehime University in Japan. "We will also learn about formation and early evolution of supermassive black holes, by comparing the measured number density and luminosity distribution with predictions from theoretical models," Matsuoka said. The study also provides new insight into the effect of black holes on the physical state of gas in the early universe in its first billion years. Supermassive black holes, found at the centres of galaxies, can be millions or even billions times more massive than the sun, and were likely born in the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang that took place 13.8 billion years ago. "It is remarkable that such massive dense objects were able to form so soon after the Big Bang," said co-author Michael Strauss, Professor at Princeton University. "Understanding how black holes can form in the early universe, and just how common they are, is a challenge for our cosmological models," Strauss said. The research appears in a series of five papers published in The Astrophysical Journal and the Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Japan. --IANS rt/ksk/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The deadlock over seat sharing in the "Mahagathbandhan" (Grand Alliance) in Bihar continued on Monday and it is unlikely to resolve in the next 24 hours. After camping in New Delhi for four days to finalise the seat-sharing formula, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav is likely to return to Patna on Monday night without reaching any final decision on the matter. Speculations are rife that the deadlock is caused by the RJD and the Congress as both the parties are not ready to compromise on the number of seats. "The RJD and the Congress are still busy bargaining over contesting more seats. As a result, the seat-sharing deal has not been finalised, so far," a senior RJD leader said. The Grand Alliance comprises old allies like the Congress and the RJD, and new entrants such as the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), the Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) and the Vikashsheel Insaan Party (VIP). RLSP chief and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha, on return from New Delhi on Monday told the media the seat-sharing deal would be finalised soon. Leaders of two other Grand Alliance partners, HAM chief and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and VIP President Mukesh Sahani, have also returned to Patna from Delhi. They were invited to the national capital last week to finalise the formula. According to the Congress leaders, talks were still on between the Grand Alliance allies over seats. Three days back, Bihar Congress Campaign Committee Chairman Akhilesh Prasad Singh had announced that the party would contest 11 of the 40 seats in Bihar. He also claimed the Grand Alliance had worked out seat sharing and a formal announcement would be made soon. But nothing has happened so far. --IANS ik/arm/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police and Election Commission officials have seized an amount of over Rs 54 lakh from four individuals in West Bengal's Alipurduar district, an official said on Monday. Based on prior information, the police and a team of the Chief Electoral Officer seized the money in Joygaon, said Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjay Basu. "Common people can carry cash from one place to another, but they should be able to provide documents. There is also a cash release committee to see if a commoner's money is seized by mistake, " he said. He said since the announcement of the elections, 59 arms, 235 rounds of ammunition, 3,782 litre of liquor, 136 kg ganja, 6,750 kg ammonium nitrate (used for manufacturing explosive), 2,676 kg gelatin stick powder, and other items like cough syrup have been recovered. Sharing the details of 'Vigil App' Basu said, "As many as 1,139 complaints have been registered so far out of which 677 have been resolved". Also, they have received 361 complaints via ECI's National Grievance Services (NGS) portal and 287 of them have been addressed. The citizens portal of NGS recorded 486 complaints out of which 437 have been already resolved, Basu said. --IANS bnd/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The recent India-Pakistan tensions after the February 14 Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 CRPF troopers, will figure in the talks between the Chinese and Pakistani Foreign Ministers which will begin on Tuesday. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived in Beijing earlier on Monday on a three-day visit during which he will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi under the first China-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue. The meet comes at a time when India's ties with China and Pakistan, who are close allies, have come under strain after the suicide attack claimed by the Pakistan-based terror outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) whose chief Masood Azhar, Beijing once again refused to declare as an international terrorist. Though the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday confirmed that India-Pakistan tensions will be discussed during the meet, it said that it was not aware if the listing of Azhar as an international terrorist will figure in the talks. "On March 19 in Beijing, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will have the first China-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue with Pakistani Foreign Minister to discuss the international and regional issues of mutual concern," Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said here. "As you said, the issues causing regional tensions will be discussed. As a neighbour, China would like to see the easing of tensions between the two countries and would like to see the two nations engage in dialogue for peace and stability in the region," Geng said when asked if the aftermath of the Pulwama attack will be discussed. Geng, meanwhile, welcomed India-Pakistan talks on the Kartarpur corridor which will enable pilgrims from India to travel to the Sikh shrine inside Pakistan through a dedicated corridor. "India and Pakistan are neighbours and they will always live with each other. A harmonious relation serves the fundamental interests of both and the common aspirations of the international community. We hope that two sides can continue to show goodwill, meet each other halfway, resolve differences through dialogue and improve relations and uphold regional peace and stability." Asked if the Azhar issue will figure in the talks, Geng said: "Well, I cannot prejudge the topics that are going to be discussed in the meeting. But as I said, they will discuss the issues of bilateral relations and regional and international issues of mutual concern. "So, as for the listing issue, I believe you are well aware of China's position so I will repeat here. China will continue to deal with this issue in a responsible and constructive manner and will maintain close communication with all parties, including India and Pakistan." On March 13, China for the fourth time put a technical hold on the proposal by the UK, US, and France to the UN to ban Azhar who is responsible for deadly terror attacks in India. Following the Pulwama attack, the Indian Air Force pounded the JeM's hideout at Balakot, Pakistan, after which Islamabad scrambled its fighters jets that resulted in a dogfight with Indian warplanes. Each side downed one jet of the other side. An Indian pilot was captured by Pakistan but Islamabad released him as a "peace gesture". --IANS gsh/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka's ruling coalition allies Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) hope to "outsmart" the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by jointly contesting the 28 Lok Sabha seats across the state in April, a party official said. "With the JD-S and Congress contesting together, there will be no splitting of secular votes in the state. The seat-sharing pact well positions our parties to outsmart the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections," JD-S spokesman and a former Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Ramesh Babu told IANS. The vision of the coalition allies was to combine their forces to keep the BJP out of winning the majority seats, he added. The ruling parties committed to a pre-poll alliance for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in the state, to be held in two phases on April 18 and 23, with eight seats for the JD-S and 20 for the Congress. Admitting that JD-S and Congress, which bitterly fought against each other in the May 2018 Assembly elections, had differences in a few constituencies, Babu said the parties were working to strengthen their unity. "We fought the Assembly elections as rivals, particularly in the old Mysuru region, where both parties have significant strength. So, it is natural for differences to exist. The parties' leaders are working to resolve the differences right down to the worker level," the JD-S spokesman said. The Congress party also believes that if the coalition partners stay united and end their "bickering", they can "comfortably" win the Lok Sabha elections. "If the JD-S and Congress stay united, they can project the failures of BJP at the Centre like the issue of unemployment. We can comfortably win the Lok Sabha elections if the parties avoid bickering," Congress state unit Vice President B.K. Chandrashekar told IANS. The BJP was far less likely to benefit due to the "charm" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the ensuing general elections, the Congress leader said. "The Modi factor did not work for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Assembly elections in 2018 either, and it just about saved them in Gujarat Assembly elections in 2017. It is far less likely to work for the BJP in Karnataka during the general elections," Chandrashekar explained. The JD-S and Congress leaders expect the Rs 48,000-crore farm loan waiver announced by the coalition government of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy to have a positive impact on the poll outcome. "Farm loan waiver is a palliative to farmers. If we didn't waive the loans, the indefinite suffering of farmers will continue," the Congress leader added. The BJP, on the other hand, mocked the JD-S and Congress seat-sharing pact as "superficial". "The seat-sharing agreement is only on paper and is a superficial one. The two parties fought against each other in the Assembly elections in 2018. Their workers still can't stand one another and are spewing venom against each other," BJP state unit spokesman G. Madhusudhan told IANS. The infighting between the two parties will only help BJP win more votes, he added. "We are sure to gain more votes due to the positive work that has been done by the Modi government and also from the congenial atmosphere in the country after the recent air strikes against Pakistan in retaliation to the (February 14) Pulwama attack," the BJP leader asserted. The "patriotic" atmosphere that prevails after the air strikes would favour the right-wing party across the country, the spokesman assessed. While the BJP was aiming to win at least 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies, the coalition parties were together aiming to win in 22 seats. (Bhavana Akella can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in)A --IANS bha/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Insisting that it was too late for an alliance in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday said it had waited long "enough" for the Congress and now there was no question of taking back its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The AAP on Sunday named its candidates for all the seven seats in Delhi. Senior AAP leader Gopal Rai told IANS that the party waited for long before it decided to field its candidates, who have already started campaigning. "We waited enough for the Congress but there was no formal communication from them. With the election so close, we cannot waste our time. "We don't want to spend even a single second thinking about the alliance now. We've announced our last candidate for Delhi and now there is no possibility that we will roll back any of our candidates. All our seven candidates will contest," he said. According to Rai, the Congress was not serious about Delhi and the contest in the state was between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the AAP. "If it (Congress) was interested, its leaders would have contacted us, but they are only speaking to the media. Apart from a meeting between (Congress Chief) Rahul Gandhi and (AAP Chief) Arvind Kejriwal, there has been no formal communication between the two parties," he said. "They are launching candidates and making efforts wherever they are serious. But in Delhi, different people are saying different things. May be they don't care about these seven seats," he added. Rai pointed out that the AAP decided to join hands with the Congress as a compromise in the national interest even though its party workers were not ready for the alliance. "They don't have any MP or MLA in Delhi. And yet they were behaving as if we were powerless. We won the last Lok Sabha elections and will win this one too," he insisted. The AAP leader said his party will focus on the issue of full statehood for Delhi during the polls. Asked about the other issues that it will highlight, Rai said "statehood for Delhi will resolve almost all the major issues of the city". (Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) --IANS nks/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Letterheads of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jammat-ud-Dawa, Hizbul Mujahideen and other terrorist organisations are among various "significant evidences" that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) says are enough to book top separatist leaders, including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in its ongoing probe in the J&K terror funding case. The NIA investigators have scrutinized these letterheads which were recovered in a raid the agency conducted at seven locations in Srinagar last month. An NIA officer, privy to the investigation, told IANS that Farooq, the Chairman Awami Action Committee, and more than six top separatist leaders "may soon face the heat" in the terror funding case the agency registered in May 2017. The officer, however, did not clarify whether an FIR will be registered against these separatist leaders or they will be arrested. He only confirmed that "something big would happen soon before June". Asked about the names of those separatist leaders, the officer, on condition of anonymity, said Yasin Malik, Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, and Naseem Geelani, son of Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani, are on the NIA list. The agency on March 9 issued summons to them to appear before its headquarters here for questioning. Geelani has been questioned on more than three occasions in the case. Other separatist leaders on NIA radar are Mohammad Ashraf Khan, Chairman Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Masarat Alam, General Secretary, All Party Hurriyat Conference, and Zaffar Akbar Bhat, Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Salvation Movement. Scrutiny of a high-tech internet communication setup and documents relating to recommendations for visa for admission in a few Pakistan educational institutions are other evidence which are crucial in linking relations of Farooq and other suspected separatist leaders to Pakistan-based terror outfits, said the official. According to the official, some property papers, financial transactions receipts, bank account details and electronic devices including laptops, e-tablets, mobile phones, pen drives, communication system and digital video recorders are also the part of these evidence that are enough to prove how these separatist leaders have been indulged in "anti-national operations" on directions of the heads of these terror groups. The evidence are part of February 26 raid the NIA conducted at the residential premises of these suspected separatist leaders including Shabbir Shah, President of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party. The NIA in January 18 last year filed chargesheet against 12 including Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven Kashmiri separatist leaders and others. The separatist leaders arrested in the case on July 24, 2017 are Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah. Altaf Ahmad Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir's merger with Pakistan. Shahid-ul-Islam is an aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Khandey is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat. Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali was also arrested in the case on August 17, 2017, and was on September 12 granted bail by the Delhi High Court. (Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in)--IANS rak (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of the premiere of "Wild Edens: South Asia" documentary in India, actress Freida Pinto urged people to "focus on the planet before the effects of global warming become absolutely irreversible". The documentary highlights the issue of climate change with an emphasis on the unique and delicate habitats of India and Bangladesh and the region's rarest and most spectacular wildlife, read a statement. So being an ambassador of the "Wild Edens: South Asia" project, Freida said: "We all share a common vision that human kind has to be inspired to focus on the planet before the effects of global warming become absolutely irreversible. "'Wild Edens...' will devote an entire episode to my native country of India. With this, millions of people around the world will have the opportunity to see my country as an exotic mix of wild nature, rare animal life, unique wildlife sanctuaries and magnificent landscapes that are mesmerizing and are also under the threat of dangers of climate change." The documentary will be premiered on Tuesday here. It will air on National Geographic. --IANS sim/dc/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after the BJP gave Bihar's Nawada Lok Sabha seat to the LJP, Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Monday expressed unhappiness and hinted he may not contest from Begusarai where he is being shifted. "Why should I contest from Begusarai? Why not from Araria? I am being shifted to Begusarai as I belong to Bhumihar caste," Singh was quoted as saying by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader close to him. Giriraj Singh has reportedly made clear his unhappiness to the party's central leadership over the way the Nawada seat, from where he was elected in 2014, was given to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Nawada has a sizeable population of Bhumihars. Former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar is likely to contest as the Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate from Begusarai. He has the support of the opposition's Grand Alliance's. Last week, Giriraj Singh announced he would either contest from Nawada or would not contest in the Lok Sabha elections at all. BJP leaders here maintain that Giriraj Singh will eventually contest from Begusarai. "He will abide by the party decision... The LJP is likely to field Veena Devi, the sitting MP of Munger from Nawada." Lalan Singh, a Bhumihar, won from Munger in 2009 but lost in 2014 when the JD-U contested the elections on its own. Giriraj Singh, known for his controversial statements, is a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the seat-sharing formula, the BJP and the JD-U will contest 17 seats each while the remaining six seats will go to Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. --IANS ik/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday vowed to unveil reforms to the country's existing gun laws in the wake of the March 15 Christchurch mosques shootings that claimed the lives of 50 people. At a news conference here, Ardern said her cabinet has agreed "in principle" on proposals to change the country's gun laws in response to the terror attack, but she stopped short of revealing what those changes might be, CNN reported. Ardern said more details will be released once her cabinet "has worked through the in-principle decision" taken on Monday. "As a Cabinet we were absolutely clear, the terror attack on Friday (March 15) was the worst act of terrorism on our shores," she said. Echoing the Prime Minister's remark, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who also appeared beside Ardern, said: "This was a cabinet decision... The reality is after March 15, our world changed forever, and so will our laws," Peters said. New Zealand First is part of the ruling coalition along with Ardern's Labour Party. It's the third-largest political party in the country and leans to the right on many issues, including immigration. Ardern also confirmed there would be a review of security agencies' actions following the shootings at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Masjid that also left over 40 others injured, The New Zealand Herald reported. The review will look at what the agencies knew, or should have known, and whether there were any blocks to information-sharing. It will also probe accused gunman, the 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant's travel and use of social media. Regarding the injured persons, health authorities said on Monday that nine people were still in a critical condition. David Meates, chief executive of Canterbury District Health Board, said in a statement that two others would be released from hospital on Monday. "There is still a four-year-old girl in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland," Meates said. "Her father has been transferred to Auckland and remains in a serious but stable condition." Meanwhile, TradeMe, one of New Zealand's biggest internet auction websites, said in a statement that it will pull all semi-automatic weapons from its platform, following their use in the attacks. The site said that it would halt the sale of semi-automatic weapons while it waited "for more clarity from the government". --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi has said his country will not return to the "policies of destructive wars". He made the comments on Sunday during a meeting with Qatari Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari and his accompanying delegation here, according to a statement by the Prime Mininster's media office, Xinhua reported. "Iraq is a peace element that would serve the region and will not return to the policies of destructive wars," the statement quoted Abdul Mahdi as saying. "Our interests are with our neighbours and we have a strong will to open and cooperate with Qatar in all fields, and to exchange interests in the economic, trade and investment fields," the Prime Minister added. For his part, Al-Kuwari said Qatar is determined to increase cooperation with Iraq and expand relations in economic, trade, construction and investment. The Qatari Minister also expressed his country's desire to sign a free trade agreement with Iraq to exchange, encourage and protect investments between the two countries. Earlier in the day, Al-Kuwari, heading a delegation of more than 30 businessmen and investors, arrived in Baghdad with the aim of boosting bilateral relations, particularly in the economic and investment sectors. The visit of the Qatari delegation to Iraq comes just days after the visit of a Saudi economic delegation, which aimed at activating relations on the strategic level and opening new horizons for cooperation in politics, economy, trade and investment. --IANS pgh/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Israel's Supreme Court has disqualified the leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, Michael Ben-Ari, from next month's elections. In doing so, it overturned an earlier decision by the electoral committee, the BBC reported on Sunday. Ben-Ari has faced criticism over his comments about Israeli Arabs. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has said they amount to "incitement to racism". The court also reinstated Israeli Arab parties previously banned from contesting the April 9 poll. They had been barred from standing for their critical remarks about the state of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. Ahead of the elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had forged an alliance with several far-right parties to try to shore up support. His right-wing Likud party is seen as a strong contender despite an investigation into corruption allegations against him. All governments in Israel are coalitions because the country's system of proportional representation makes it unlikely for single parties to be able to govern alone. The court backed an appeal from left-wing politicians who argued that Ben-Ari had made racist remarks. The Times of Israel website reports that the appeal cited Ben-Ari from August 2018, saying: "We have to change the equation regarding anyone who dares to speak against a Jew. "(Such a person) is a dead man. He must not come out alive. No expelling him, no stripping him of his citizenship. He does not live! A firing squad takes him out as the Arabs understand (best)." Ben-Ari has claimed that he was referring to Hamas leadership -- not all Arabs. And responding to Sunday's court ruling, he said: "There is a judicial junta here which wants to take over our lives. "They tell you there is a democracy here. It's not a democracy, there is a judicial junta here, unfortunately, which took power into its hands." The court's decision marks the first time that a single candidate -- not an entire party -- has been banned from running in elections since electoral law changes were adopted in 2002. --IANS pgh/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a new move, the Income Tax Department has deployed the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) at Mumbai airports to detect any cash 'smuggling' during the ongoing election season, a top official said here on Monday. The AIU teams have been stationed at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport's domestic and international termini, the Juhu Airport and at Vakola, said IT Director-General (Investigations) K.K. Vyawahare. The latest measure is in addition to the IT Department's special efforts to track movement of cash and valuables during the polls season, announced last Thursday. "To encourage Mumbaikars to contribute to this, the people calling up our control room numbers can remain anonymous, without disclosing any personal details. What is vital is that the information received is credible and actionable," Vyawahare told the media. The IT has implemented a three-tiered system to check use of black money and valuables in elections, with one Nodal Officer for Election Expenditure, Expenditure Officers and six sub-Nodal Officers, in coordination with the Election Commission. To respond quickly to any intelligence, six Quick Response Teams - one for each of the six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai - have been deployed which would reach any location within an hour and conclude the process on the actionable information within 6-7 hours. For Mumbai alone, 200 officers have been deployed and if needed, additional manpower would be deployed depending on the volume of intelligence, said Vyawahare. The IT Mumbai is also coordinating with the state and central agencies to gather information on black money, cash and valuables movements to ensure free and fair elections. The IT Department has already set up various control room numbers, helpline numbers, WhatsApp numbers where people can call up and give tips to the sleuths for suitable action. --IANS qn/rs/bg/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Passengers have been stranded at Abu Dhabi airport, finding it tough to return over the sudden cancellation of flights by Jet Airways. The cash-strapped Jet Airways, which has been forced to ground over 50 per cent of its fleet due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors, is regularly grounding aircraft as it unable to pay the lessors. "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from March 18, 2019, due to operational reasons, further to the short notice of flight cancellation, HUB (Abu Dhabi) may face a minor disruption," said Etihad in a statement. The cancellation comes on the day, which was set by founder and Chairman Naresh Goyal to announce an update on the resolution plan. On Monday too, following the similar pattern, Jet Airways informed BSE that four aircraft were informed to be grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors. Earlier, cash-strapped Jet Airways pilots' union had written to the government, seeking its help in recovering their pending salaries along with the accumulated interest. Jet Airways currently has 1,900 pilots on its rolls. In a letter written to Minister of Labour and Employment Santosh Gangwar, the National Aviators Guild (NAG), which represents the majority of Jet's pilots, said that all pleas to the Jet management in this regard "have fallen on deaf ears". In the letter, a copy of which was accessed by IANS, NAG General Secretary Tej Sood, wrote, "This situation is leading to extreme tension and frustration among our members, hardly an ideal situation for pilots in the cockpit. Monthly EMIs have to be met, school & college fees have to be paid, along with medical bills of ageing parents etc." Ironically, Jet has cancelled its flights from Abu Dhabi on a day when it was supposed to announce a resolution plan to its employees. Several of Jet pilots have been approached by rival IndiGo and GoAir and they would decide on their future course depending on what Goyal tells them. --IANS ravi/sn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Congress leader A. Manju resigned from the party over the alliance with the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) for the Lok Sabha elections. "The recent developments in the Congress, especially the alliance with JD-S, is a disaster," Manju wrote in a letter dated March 17 to state Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao which he shared with the media here. Manju joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Hassan district on Sunday. He was a three-time MLA from the district and a former Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Minister. --IANS bha/pg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao on Monday formally invited Congress President Rahul Gandhi to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the state. In his letter to the party chief, Gundu Rao noted that the state has always stood by the Congress in "troubled times" and it had in the past returned his mother Sonia Gandhi and grandmother Indira Gandhi to the Lok Sabha. The letter was sent three days after Gundu Rao made a similar request on the social media and posted it on Twitter. He said if Gandhi accepted the offer, it "will give very good message across south India." There has been a growing demand from Congress leaders in the south that Gandhi should contest the Lok Sabha elections from a seat there, as well. The party has already announced that Gandhi will contest from his traditional seat of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP is likely to again field Union Minister Smriti Irani against him. Gandhi had won the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Amethi by a margin of 1.07 lakh votes, while he had won the seat by a substantially higher margin of over 3.70 lakh votes in the 2009 general elections. The letter to Gandhi said that the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) "takes pride to invite you to kindly contest from Karnataka in the coming Lok Sabha election." "Our state has stood by the Congress party whenever we were in troubled times. The present scenario in India is that our party will emerge stronger in the ensuing elections," it said. The letter said that Gandhi's candidature from Karnataka "will not only boost the rank and file of our party in the entire state but also in South India." "The ruling NDA is losing its shine and our alliance in the south is on a strong wicket. The state had the honour of sending former Prime Minister Indira Gandhiji and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhiji to the Lok Sabha in the past," it said. In his tweet earlier, Rao had urged Gandhi to consider contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Karnataka. Other party leaders including former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have made similar requests to Gandhi. Incidentally Dinesh Gundu Rao's father R. Gundu Rao along with party leader Devaraj Urs had played a crucial role in Indira Gandhi's victory in a Lok Sabha bypoll in Chikmagalur in 1978, which marked her political comeback. Indira Gandhi had defeated Janata Party candidate Veerendra Patil in the bye-election held after the defeat of her party in the 1977 general elections. Sonia Gandhi, one year into politics, had won from Bellary in Karnataka against BJP leader Sushma Swaraj in 1999. --IANS ps-nks/in/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Diversified conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday took its first step to acquire Mindtree by buying V.G. Siddhartha's 20.4 per cent stake in the the mid-tier IT services company for approximately Rs 3,300 crore. Siddhartha is the biggest shareholder in Mindtree. The next step expected from L&T is to present an open offer to further buy public shareholders spending Rs 8,000 crore and taking a controlling stake in the company, said sources. The move from L&T came even as the founders of Mindree were looking to pass a board resolution on Wednesday to undertake share buyback on their own to avert a hostile takeover and subsequent change of management. On Sunday, Mindtree co-founder and ex-Chief Executive Officer Subroto Bagchi resigned as the head of the Odhisa Skill Development Authority, saying that he was returning to the company. "An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me resign from the government to be able to go save the company," Bagchi tweeted. "I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers and saw chains to cut it down so that in its place they can build a shopping mall," he added. Mindtree shares rose over 1.74 per cent to Rs 962.50 per share at the close of market hours on the BSE on Monday. This will be the first ever hostile takeover move in India's technology sector. The four remaining founders of the two-decade-old, Bengaluru-based company -- Krishnakumar Natarajan, Subroto Bagchi, N.S. Parthasarathy and current CEO Rostow Ravanan -- together hold 13.32 per cent stake in Mindtree. The four remaining founders are holding on to their shareholding and want to increase it through a buyback. But their financial muscle would come into question if they take on the might of L&T. --IANS ravi/sn/arm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Diversified conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) may checkmate Mindtree founders by proceeding ahead with its hostile bid to acquire the mid-tier IT Services company as early as Monday evening or early next day. Sources privy to the development told IANS that last-minutes discussions were on between the leadership team in L&T and that a decision will come out soon. The founders of Mindtree have given a call for a board meeting on Wednesday to discuss the buyback plan that would stave off threat of a hostile takeover by L&T. L&T proposes to buy out Cafe Coffee Day founder and Mindtree's largest shareholder, V.G. Siddhartha, and proceed with an open offer to further buy public shareholders spending close to Rs 7,000 crore and taking a controlling stake in the company, said the sources. Siddhartha with his holding of 20.4 per cent in Mindtree is the single largest shareholder. L&T is looking to take up its stake further to around 51 per cent post the open offer. On Sunday, Mindtree co-founder and ex-CEO Subroto Bagchi resigned as head of the Odhisa Skill Development Authority, saying he was returning to the company. "An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me to resign from the government to be able to go save the company," Bagchi tweeted. "I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers & saw chains to cut it down so that in its place, they can build a shopping mall." Mindtree shares rose over 1.74 per cent to Rs 962.50 at close of market hours on the BSE on Monday. This will be the first-ever hostile takeover move in India's technology sector. The four remaining founders of the two-decade-old, Bengaluru-based Mindtree - Krishnakumar Natarajan, Subroto Bagchi, N.S. Parthasarathy and current CEO Rostow Ravanan - together hold 13.32 per cent in Mindtree. They are holding on with their shareholding and want to increase it through a buyback. But their financial muscle would come into question to take over the might of L&T. --IANS sn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Madhuri Dixit Nene and her husband Shriram Nene's upcoming Marathi production "15 August" is set to release on Netflix on March 29. "There's always been a part of me that wanted to create and back meaningful films, and there couldn't be a better starting point for me than '15 August'," Madhuri said in a statement. She added: "This is an endearing, relatable story that has been brought to life beautifully by the talented Swapnaneel Jayakar and actors Rahul Pethe, Mrunmayee Deshpande, and Adinath Kothare." Set in a Mumbai chawl, the film follows the course of a series of mishaps that occur on a single day, as its residents prepare for the Independence Day flag-hoisting ceremony. The film revolves around how the course of the day unfolds on a not-so-typical Independence Day -- when a lover, in his quest to win over his beloved, ends up creating complete mayhem, compelling all the residents to unite and help him out of his mess. The film highlights what independence, love and affection mean to the residents of the colony. --IANS dc/nn/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A gunman on Monday opened fire inside a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht injuring several people that police said can be a possible terror attack. The gunman reportedly fled the scene by car, the police added. They said they were investigating a "possible terrorist motive", the BBC reported. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was "deeply concerned" and cancelled his weekly coalition talks. The shooting took place around the 24 Oktoberplein junction at about 10.45 a.m. Three helicopters have been despatched. "A man started shooting wildly," one eyewitness told Dutch news site NU.nl. Another witness told Dutch public broadcaster NOS he saw an injured woman with blood on her hands and clothes. "I brought her into my car and helped her," he said. "When the police arrived, she was unconscious." It is unknown how many were injured or how seriously they were hurt. The area in the west of the city has been cordoned off by authorities. Police have asked people to stay away from the area and schools were closed. Utrecht's transport authority said some tram services later resumed running in the city although warned travellers to "take into account additional travel time". --IANS in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former porn star-turned-sports commentator Mia Khalifa is engaged to long-time boyfriend chef Robert Sandberg. Sandberg proposed to her in Chicago. Sandberg reportedly hid a ring in a bowl of dried ingredients and the Lebanese-American star almost ate the ring but he was on ground to warn her, and he proposed to her on the spot. She said yes, reports guardian.com. Sharing the news on his Instagram page, Sandberg wrote: "We went to Chicago this weekend and had a wonderful dinner at Smyth. I proposed to Mia Khalifa and she said yes! "The ring was hidden in a bowl of dried ingredients and came out as a 'new serving'. Mia was too curious and too eager to taste so she started to eat the inedible ingredients. I told her not do it and then I put the ring on the finger. I love you so much." Khalifa confirmed the news on her Instagram page. "Thank you a million times over for the entire team at Smyth Chicago for helping Robert Sandberg propose... This trip and dinner was supposed to celebrate him getting his visa. "Robert has planted the seed so deep in my mind for so long that he hates restaurant proposals so I never, ever, saw this coming. I love you all so much! Thank you!" --IANS dc/nn/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The board of IT player Mindtree will meet on Wednesday to consider a share buyback programme to avert the hostile takeover bid by the L&T Infotech, according to company sources here. According to media reports, Larsen and Toubro (L&T) is set to sign a binding agreement to buy out Cafe Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha's 20.4 per cent stake in the company. Siddhartha is the largest shareholder in Mindtree. The reports spoke of a hostile takeover bid by the engineering major, which may make an open offer to increase its stake to 51 per cent in Mindtree. On Sunday, Mindtree Co-founder and ex-CEO Subroto Bagchi resigned as head of the Odhisa Skill Development Authority, saying he was returning to the company. "An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me to resign from the Government to be able to go, save the company," Bagchi tweeted. "I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers & saw chains to cut it down so that in its place, they can build a shopping mall." Mindtree shares rose over 2 per cent in early trade on the BSE on Monday. --IANS ravi/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq is ready to cooperate with the National Investigation Agency but wants that he be questioned by the agency here, a Hurriyat spokesman said. The NIA had issued its second notice to Mirwaiz to appear before the agency for questioning in Delhi on Monday. A spokesman of the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat conference said that the Mirwaiz had replied to another notice served to him by the NIA asking him to be present before the agency, and through his counsel, to the notice dated March 14, and received on March 15, asking him to come to New Delhi. "Mirwaiz has reiterated that he is willing to cooperate in the matter, but has asked for the venue for examination to be shifted from Delhi to Srinagar as the concerns and apprehensions regarding travel to Delhi, expressed by him through his counsel in the earlier response dated March 10 continue to remain so." In his reply, counsel for the Mirwaiz has said that on several occasions earlier, many persons have been examined by the agency at Humhama Budgam while conducting the investigation and the Mirwaiz sees no reason why he cannot be examined in a similar manner. --IANS sq/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Reliance Infrastructure Ltd.'s Mumbai Metro One on Monday launched a 2-in-1 travel card in collaboration with TMW Fintech Pvt. Ltd. and the Federal Bank, an official said here. The smart card, to be powered by MasterCard, will enable commuters to enjoy a hassle-free travel by Mumbai Metro besides availing of hybrid banking services. The TMW Metro Card can be used as a Metro Smart Card to travel and reload as and when required, and also at any MasterCard location as a prepaid bank card after activation. The commuters can access all the services they enjoy from a bank with the convenience of a prepaid wallet and its multiples features would help them plan and manage their routine finances smartly. The Mumbai Metro One has a daily week-day ridership of around 450,000 and passengers use a closed loop card either as a Store Value Pass or Monthly Trip Pass. The TMW Metro Cards are available at all Mumbai Metro customer care counters with one-time payment of Rs 50 of which Rs 30 will be credited in the customers' accounts after activation, said the spokesperson. The RInfra's Mumbai Metro operates the state's first metro railway on the 11.40 km Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar corridor with 12 stations, slashing the travel time from 90 minutes to 21 minutes. --IANS qn/rs/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Pakistan Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf has been shifted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease for which he is already under treatment, the media reported. The former leader was rushed to the hospital as an "emergency" on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said. APML Overseas President Afzaal Siddiqui told Dawn news that Musharraf had suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president has been receiving medical care. According to the party, Musharraf has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. Siddiqui had disclosed Musharraf's illness in October 2018, saying the former President's disease had "weakened his nervous system". At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. The APML official had then said that Musharraf's treatment could continue for up to five or six months. Upon his full recovery, Siddiqui had said, Musharraf intends to return to Pakistan. On March 31, 2014, Musharraf was indicted for suspending the Constitution on November 3, 2007. He, however, left the country in March 2016 for Dubai to "seek medical treatment" and hasn't returned since. --IANS ksk/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a big blow to the promoters of debt-ridden Essar Steel, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Monday approved a Rs 42,000 crore takeover bid for the insolvent firm by the world's largest steel maker ArcelorMittal. A two-member bench, headed by Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya, directed ArcelorMittal to deposit the amount with the Committee of Creditors (CoC) to complete the resolution process that has been in the bankruptcy courts for well over 500 days. The NCLT had approved the resolution plan on March 8 but the matter went to the appellate tribunal, following an appeal filed by Essar's promoters and Standard Chartered. Ruias had pleaded that their offer of Rs 54,389 crore was superior as it clears 100 per cent outstanding dues of both financial and operational creditors. Sources said that while the NCLAT decision paves the way for ArcelorMittal to finally proceed and take over the management of Essar Steel, a fresh legal challenge in Supreme Court may be mounted by the Ruia family to retain control of the steel entity. However, this will only proceed after vetting by a legal team that would take a call whether or not to move the apex court. An earlier plea in the Supreme Court last year was sent back to the NCLT. According to a resolution plan proposed by ArcelorMittal, financial creditors will get Rs 41,987 crore out of their total dues of Rs 49,395 crore, while operational creditors would get just Rs 214 crore against the outstanding of Rs 4,976 crore. While hearing the matter last week, the NCLAT suggested that all operational creditors below Rs 1 crore should get 100 per cent of the dues and so should the employees of Essar Steel. Only 90 per cent of Rs 42,000 crore should be allowed for financial creditors, it had said. In its order last week, the NCLT also asked ArcelorMittal to offer 15 per cent of the upfront cash settlement of Rs 42,000 crore, or Rs 6,300 crore, to operational creditors. The original resolution plan only offered Rs 196 crore to operational creditors against claims of Rs 4,976 crore. The NCLT order means financial creditors - the banks - will have to take a deeper haircut on the assets. If ArcelorMittal is finally able to take control of Essar Steel, it would be the first major move of the entity to enter the Indian market where it first tried to set up a steel facility more than a decade ago. ArcelorMittal's entry would also bring new product category to the steel market with its expertise in producing value added and special steel. ArcelorMittal has indicated that it will not only turn around the stressed asset of Essar Steel, but will also explore setting up a new steel plant closer to the company's current pellet unit at Paradip in Odisha. The capacity of steel plant in Gujarat also may be ramped up to full scale of 10 million tonnes (mt) and further to 15 mt. Essar Steel is among the largest single location steel producers with a 10 million tonnes per annum liquid steel capacity. The integrated facilities comprise hot rolling facilities, cold rolling facilities, plate mill etc, located in Hazira, on the western coast of Gujarat. It also has downstream processing and distribution capacity of 4 MTPA. ESIL also has beneficiation and pellet making capacity of 20 MTPA spread across Vizag and Paradip. The company employs approximately 4,500 persons directly and more than 30,000 people indirectly. --IANS sn/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Paris, TX (75460) Today Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 41F. SW winds shifting to NNW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 41F. SW winds shifting to NNW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40%. After experimenting with the interactive storytelling format with "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch", online streaming platform Netflix is set to launch a live action interactive series "You Vs. Wild", starring Bear Grylls next month. Netflix announced the show at the Netflix Labs 2019, a press event, here on Monday. Viewers will join "Man Vs. Wild" famed survival expert Grylls on the new eight-episode adventure, and will decide what he eats, encounters, and experiences on the show, which will be live from April 10. There will be dense jungles, towering mountains, brutal deserts, and mysterious forests, and viewers will have the choice to decide whether or not Grylls succeeds. Each episode features an interactive experience with multiple choices, where a user may direct the course of the story. Grylls said in a statement: "I'm so proud to deliver this first-of-its-kind live-action interactive series, really giving viewers an all access pass to explore the world and its landscapes in my boots. The stakes are high in this one." The show will be directed by Ben Simms. The announcement for "You Vs. Wild" comes just months after "Bandersnatch", an interactive film in the science fiction anthology series "Black Mirror", scored a success among an audience fed on linear content with only the content creator with a hold on where the story steers. Todd Yellin, Vice President, Product, Netflix, stressed on the flexibility for innovation that the streaming platform offers, and how it has opened up space for experimentation. In an interactive series, it becomes vital to know how often to have choice points and what are the questions to ask, Yellin said here. On a recent visit to India, Yellin had said interactive storytelling is something Netflix is keen to bet more on, and that viewers must expect more on that front. --IANS rb/pgh/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A collective of some of New Zealand's biggest companies is set to pull ads from Facebook and Google in the wake of the March 15 Christchurch mosques shootings in which the gunman live-streamed his massacre of 50 people. Using a GoPro camera, the gunman broadcast extremely graphic footage of him shooting people at the Al Noor Mosque via Facebook Live. The livestream was available to watch on social media for hours after the attack. Besides being livestreamed on Facebook, the video, lasting 17 minutes, was shared repeatedly on YouTube and Twitter, before being removed by the social media giant. The New Zealand Herald said on Monday that the collective, including ASB Bank, Lotto NZ, Burger King, Spark, has come together to take a stand against the harm caused by unmoderated content on the Internet. At this stage, it is still unclear how extensive the pull-back will be or for how long the companies are likely to pull their digital ads. Other brands have also acted independently, The New Zealand Herald reported. Kiwibank suspended all digital advertising on March 15 shortly after the carnage took place at the Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Avenue Masjid that also left over 40 others injured. On Sunday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that she intended to ask Facebook how the gunman was able to livestream the massacre. Facebook has on its part said that as many as 1.5 million videos of the attack were removed from its platform in the first 24 hours. This is not the first time New Zealand companies have pulled ads from these platforms. Earlier this month, telecom company Spark pulled all its advertising from YouTube over concerns about paedophilic content. Spark's move was part of an international response, which also saw Disney and Nestle pull ads from the site. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday said the country's existing gun laws will be reformed within the next 10 days, adding that her Cabinet has "completely unified" in the decision that comes in the wake of the March 15 shootings that were carried out by a "lone gunman" at two mosques in Christchurch. The Cabinet met earlier on Monday and made the "in principle" decision about changes to the gun laws in the aftermath of New Zealand's worst ever terrorist attack that killed 50 people and injured over 45 others, The New Zealand Herald reported. "As a Cabinet we were absolutely clear, the terror attack on Friday (March 15) was the worst act of terrorism on our shores," she said. She has also called on gun owners to surrender their weapons to the police. "You can surrender your gun to the police at any time," Ardern said at her weekly post-Cabinet press conference. "I've seen reports that people are in fact already doing this. I applaud that effort and if you're thinking about surrendering your weapon, I would encourage you to do so." Ardern also confirmed that there would be a review of the security agencies' actions following the shootings at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Masjid. The review will look at what the agencies knew, or should have known, and whether there were any blocks to information-sharing. It will also probe the accused gunman, 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant's travel and use of social media. Hours before Ardern's appearance, the country's biggest online auction site, TradeMe, banned semi-automatics and "associated" accessories, saying "it is clear public sentiment has changed", reports the Guardian. Another arms site, Hunting & Fishing New Zealand, also confirmed that it was pulling all "military-style" semi-automatic guns from sales nationwide. Meanwhile, the New Zealand Police on Monday confirmed that the shootings at both the mosques were carried out by a single gunman. "We believe that there was only one attacker responsible for this horrendous event," Police Commissioner Mike Bush told the media here. Bush added that police have not ruled out the possibility that others could have helped prepare the lone attacker ahead of the shootings. Tarrant has been arrested and charged with one count of murder, with further counts expected to be laid. He is expected to appear again in front of the Christchurch district court where he will defend himself as he did not want any legal representation. Also on Monday, an 18-year-old teenager was charged with distributing a livestream of the mass shooting and was denied bail. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over a billion feature phones would be sold over the next three years as the segment is forecast to generate around $16 billion cumulatively in wholesale hardware revenues globally, a new report by Counterpoint Research said. India continues to be the largest market in terms of potential feature phone volumes followed by Bangladesh and Nigeria. According to Counterpoint research, in contrast to the smartphone market which contracted for the first time in 2018, the feature phone market has continued to grow over the last three years. In 2019, a little more than 400 million feature phones would be sold globally. "India and the Middle East Africa region will see cumulative shipments of around 800 million feature phones out of more than one billion global feature phone shipments over the next three years," Peter Richardson, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said in a statement. Feature phone shipments are further expected to cross one billion units by 2021. Much of the growth of feature phones in India has been driven by the revival of the Nokia-branded features phones and the popularity of the Jio Phone, a smart feature phone which packs a chipset and an operating system that can support sophisticated smartphone-like features in a traditional feature phone form-factor. "There are more than three billion people across the world who live on an income of less than $2.50 per day. This segment can neither afford a smartphone nor the data services demanded by the growing advancement in smartphone use-cases. Thus, a feature phone, coupled with basic mobile services, has been the go-to offering for these users to communicate and connect," said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research. The rise of 4G capability in feature phones would be one of the key trends moving forward which would allow the feature phone segment to remain relatively resilient in the medium term. --IANS ksc/rs/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The closure of Pakistan's airspace, since the Indian Air Force (IAF) strikes in Balakot on February 26, has affected international flights to and from India over the last 20 days, with Air India being a major victim. Flights from across the world have either been cancelled or rerouted, since the closure was announced on February 27. Pakistan partially opened its airspace, only for the flights bound for the country. Air India, which operates 33 weekly services to the US and 66 to Europe, has curtailed operations due to the airspace closure. It has clubbed together several US and Europe bound flights. According to reports, around 400 flights have been affected a day, with the national carrier being the worst hit. The airline had to reschedule several flights to Europe and the US. It has kept passengers informed through its Twitter handle. Flights to the US and Europe are now diverted over Mumbai and then northwards over the Arabian Sea through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) airspace. The new technical stops on the route are Sharjah in the UAE, and Vienna in Austria. The Delhi-Washington flight has a stopover at Mumbai. The flights from the US have been taking a longer route, which has extended their duration on the already long-haul journeys. The AI Mumbai-New York-Mumbai flight, launched in December 2018, has been combined with the Mumbai-Newark-Mumbai flight for duration between March 16 and May 31, the airline tweeted on March 14. Another newly launched flight, between Delhi and Najaf in southern Iraq, has been cancelled, as are the Delhi-Madrid-Delhi, Delhi-Birmingham-Delhi and Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham and Birmingham-Amritsar-Delhi flights. --IANS rrb/sn/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will begin his three-day official visit to China on Monday during which he is scheduled to attend the first Islamabad-Beijing foreign ministers' strategic dialogue. During the visit, both sides will hold comprehensive discussions on bilateral relations, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). They will also discuss the regional situation and cooperation, Dawn news reported. Qureshi will address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties' dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. He will also call on Chinese leadership. According to an official statement issued here, Qureshi's visit will add momentum to close and broad-based bilateral ties and reinforce efforts to deepen economic engagement under the CPEC. The Foreign Minister's trip comes after China on March 13 vetoed sanctions against Masood Azhar, the chief of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group. It was the third time that the UN Security Council had taken up a resolution to include Azhar's name in the UN sanctions blacklist, which will subject him to global travel ban and freezing of assets. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi arrived in China on Monday on a three-day trip during which he is scheduled to attend the first Islamabad-Beijing foreign ministers' strategic dialogue. Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing and Pakistan's Ambassador to China Masood Khalid, along with other embassy officials, received Qureshi at Beijing airport, reports Dawn news. During the visit, both sides will hold comprehensive discussions on the entire range of bilateral relations, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Both sides will also discuss the regional situation and cooperation. Qureshi will also address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties' dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. He will also call on the Chinese leadership. The Foreign Minister's trip comes less than a week after China on March 13 vetoed sanctions against Masood Azhar, the chief of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad terror group. It was the third time that the UN Security Council had taken up a resolution to include Azhar's name in the UN sanctions blacklist, which will subject him to a global travel ban and freezing of assets. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu Police on Monday lodged Thirunavukkarasu, the main accused in the Pollachi sexual abuse-cum-blackmail case, in a prison here. The Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) got his custody on Friday and had interrogated him at an undisclosed location. Thirunavukkarasu, Sathish, Sabarirajan, Vasanthakumar, all in their 20s, have been accused of sexually assaulting women in Pollachi town and filming the act to blackmail them for money or for physical submission over the past seven years. Traders in Pollachi, which is in Coimbatore district, are planning a protest shutdown on Tuesday and a rally to demand a court-monitored probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Speaking to IANS, a trader said the shutdown and rally would see participation of different political parties and social organisations. --IANS vj/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi's journey on the Ganga on a boat is marked by religious and political symbolism to counter the BJP's Hindutva thrust ahead of Lok Sabha elections but her tweets so far have been apolitical. Gandhi sprung a surprise when she decided to undertake a journey in boat from Prayagraj to Varanasi to shore up the Congress prospects in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh where the party is fighting most of 80 seats on its own. The choice of the the two destinations is significant both politically and religiously. Both the cities, located on the Ganga, are regarded sacred in the Hindu pantheon and are known as seats of learning. The BJP won both the seats in 2014 elections with Varanasi electing Prime Minister Narnendra Modi as its MP. Priyanka Gandhi began her Ganga Yatra on Monday on a boat from the Sangam in Prayagraj after worship. She went to have 'darshan' of Akshaywat and worshipping at the Bade Hanuman temple. In her remarks during her interactions with people during the journey, she made veiled attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government. But in all her tweets so far since she made her debut on the social media site, Gandhi has been apolitical. "Loved sharing my journey with these intelligent, dynamic young women from Allahabad University this morning. I met so many talented students today - they deserve a future in which their hopes and dreams can be realised," she tweeted on Monday about her Ganga yatra. In an earlier tweet, she tweeted a picture of the room at Swaraj Bhawan where Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting at the Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother was born. She used to tell me the story of Joan of Arc while putting me to sleep. Her voice resonates in my heart even today. She used to say, 'Be fearless. everything will be good'." Priyanka Gandhi is often compared by Congress workers with Indira Gandhi in her mannerisms as well as her looks. The tweet was also an invocation of Nehru-Gandhi family's long legacy stretching to years before India's Independence. In her earlier tweets, Priyanka Gandhi also expressed condolences to bereaved family of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and also over the horrific terrorist act in New Zealand, saying that the incident should be a warning to the whole world that hatred is never benign. Priyanka Gandhi had tweeted for the first time last week and these were related to her first visit to Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram prior to the meeting of the Congress Working Committee. "In the simple dignity of Sabarmati, the truth lives on," she said. She also tweeted words of Mahatama Gandhi along with a picture of some of his belongings including his charkha (spinning wheel). "'I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent' Mahatma Gandhi," she had said in another tweet. --IANS ps/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Kerala Producers Association on Monday met state police chief Loknath Behra with a request to speed up the probe against popular Malayalam film director Roshan Andrews for allegedly roughing up producer Allwyn Antony. Suresh Kumar, who led the delegation, told IANS that last week a group of people led by Andrews barged into Antony's house near Kochi and thrashed him and others. "They were looking for Antony's son, who worked as Andrews' assistant as there were some issues between them. But when they couldn't find the son, they thrashed Antony and others. We have asked Behra to speed up the probe into the matter," said Kumar. Andrews, 44, shot to fame after the release of his first film as a full-time director in 2005. The film, "Udayananu Tharam" starring superstar Mohanlal, went on to become one of the biggest hits in the history of Malayalam cinema. Since then Andrews has emerged as one of the most sought after directors in the Malayalam film industry. "We have also told the producers associated with Andrews to be careful," Kumar said. Andrews has also filed a complaint with the police, alleging that it was he who was roughed up by Antony and his friend. --IANS sg/arm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Azernews By Leman Mammadova Azerbaijan is attracting many foreign countries to further deepen economic cooperation due to its growing economy and implementation of infrastructure projects of regional significance. Latvia is interested in working together with Azerbaijan on land transport connections, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia Edgars Rink?vi?s said in an interview with Trend. "Transit is an important part of Latvias economy. Together with related industries, it accounts for 3 percent of our GDP. Recognizing the sectors importance, Latvia is constantly working to upgrade its capacity and offer better services to our partners. Improvement of transport networks and infrastructure is also a priority for the European Unions Eastern Partnership policy, which we actively support," said the foreign minister. He noted that Latvia is interested in working together with Azerbaijan on land transport connections between Asia, Central Asia, the Black Sea countries and Northern Europe. "As we see it, there are two important international transport corridors passing through Azerbaijan: the North-South International Corridor, eventually with a connection to the Baltic Sea region; and the Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA), which is a part of the New Silk Road and creates a strategic link between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea," said Rink?vi?s. Therefore, according to the minister, Azerbaijan is an important partner to Latvia in the development of new transport routes in Eurasia. Latvia and Azerbaijan have common interests in the railway and port infrastructure, and both countries benefit from this cooperation, he added. Touching upon the investment issues, Minister said that Latvia would welcome investments from Azerbaijan in ports and logistics centers. Noting that Latvian companies are working in Azerbaijans market in transport and logistics, engineering, IT and telecommunications, architecture, tourism and education sectors, the foreign minister said Latvia is interested in expanding this cooperation. "In 2018, Azerbaijan opened its Trade House in Riga seeking to build stronger economic cooperation with Latvia. Azerbaijani companies have shown an interest in developing contacts with Latvia in the food, pharmaceutical, environmental, agricultural and industrial sectors. Latvia would welcome investments from Azerbaijan in ports and logistics centres. This April, we look ahead to hosting a business delegation from Azerbaijan. Hopefully, this visit will contribute to boosting our economic exchanges," said Rink?vi?s. He went on to add that investment in small and medium-sized business would bring a lot of benefit to economic relations between Latvia and Azerbaijan. "We already have examples of successful investment in the areas such as wholesale trade, transportation and consulting. Latvia is interested in increasing mutually beneficial investments," added the Latvian foreign minister. Further, he said that the trade turnover between Latvia and Azerbaijan increased for more than 20 percent year-on-year amounting to 19.84 million euros in 2018. "Latvian exports to Azerbaijan include food products, construction and building materials, wood products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals. Latvian entrepreneurs are interested in exploring new export markets. We are confident that more Latvian products ranging from electronic equipment to cosmetics will be delivered to Azerbaijan in the coming years," he added. Bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Latvia after the restoration of independence of both countries are successfully developing in political, economic, cultural and other spheres. Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Latvia were established in 1994. Trade relations are one of the main directions of bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and Latvia. Although the indicators on mutual trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Latvia are not high so far, progress achieved in this area can be noted in recent years. The Joint Declaration on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership, signed between the two countries in 2017, has contributed to the ongoing political dialogue, the program of economic cooperation, as well as the interaction in the field of education and culture. Azerbaijan invested $ 164 million to Latvia, while the Latvia invested $ 84 million in the economy of Azerbaijan so far. About 40 Latvian companies operate in construction, service, industry, communications, transport, trade, banking and insurance sectors of Azerbaijan. Latvia appreciates Azerbaijan's role in a number of energy projects, including TAP and TANAP. On July 23, 2018, Azerbaijan's Trade House was opened in Riga, Latvia, aimed at promotion of the Made in Azerbaijan brand in the Latvian market, expansion of the export of Azerbaijani products, organization of sales in Latvia and work coordination in this field. Latvia is currently working to open a similar business venture in Baku. A total of 160 private companies and NGOs on Monday made an appeal to all political parties to include decentralised renewable energy solutions in their manifestos for the general elections. The appeal was signed by Panasonic India, Barefoot Power, CSIR-NEERI, Observer Research Foundation, Prayas Energy Group and several others. The appeal was sent on behalf of Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN), which is an all-India representative organisation with a mandate to improve rural livelihoods and promote economic growth and jobs through the deployment of decentralised renewable energy. "India is already doing better than many other countries in fighting climate change, but better is not enough. Radical changes need to happen sooner rather than later. It is increasingly becoming clear that unless we take urgent action to keep in check rising global temperatures, we are not going to be able to sustain life as we know it," CLEAN President Svati Bhogle said. CLEAN has called upon political parties to take heed of the global movement in which school students and ordinary citizens are calling on their governments to take rapid action. In its appeal, CLEAN outlined six specific points that political parties could include in their manifestos. The appeal calls upon political parties to recognise decentralised renewable energy as an integral part of India's energy planning, to promote investment in renewables, to create rural renewable based jobs, to reduce carbon emissions, expanding on clean cooking mission, and to resolve regulatory issues of mini-grids. The appeal also says that mini-grids not only ensure 100 per cent reliable, quality energy access, but also solve issues of last-mile connectivity while addressing energy security in India. The framework for deployment of mini-grids, laid down in the amendment to National Tariff Policy in 2016, stipulates that an appropriate regulatory mechanism should be put in place to mandate compulsory purchase of surplus power generated by mini-grids into the national grid. A fillip was provided to the segment with the issuance of the Draft National Mini-grids Policy in June 2016. However, this policy has not been finalised nearly three years later. With regard to creating jobs, the appeal states that the decentralised renewable energy sector is already generating new jobs and creating opportunities for rural entrepreneurship. Yet there is huge untapped potential. Decentralised renewable energy applications also add value to the agricultural sector, creating new and additional markets for the farming community. "Decentralised renewable energy solutions are one way to tackle climate change as well as remain committed to India's developmental needs. We appeal to all political parties to consider adding decentralised renewable energy as way to India's energy security into their election manifesto," Bhogle said. --IANS vg/pg/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback has said the US will continue to support the Dalai Lama's 'middle-way' approach and urged China to resume formal dialogue with him or his representatives, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said on Monday. Brownback said this during a visit to Taiwan for the 2019 Regional Religious Freedom Forum, last week, where President Tsai Ing-wen was also present. Brownback noted in his speech March 2018 marked "the 60th anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama being forced into exile." According to a CTA post, the US Ambassador criticised China's occupation of Tibet saying it "demonised and criminalised the Buddhist faith that lies at the core of Tibetan civilisation". "Tibetans understandably continue to lament his absence from Tibet and long for the day that he is able to return and resume his rightful place as their most important religious leader," he said. "We urge the People's Republic of China to resume formal dialogue with His Holiness or his representatives immediately," he said and added we would continue to support the Dalai Lama's middle-way approach for meaningful autonomy for all Tibetans across the Tibetan Plateau, while remaining a part of the China. Condemning the Chinese government, he cited persecution of Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and Christian groups in China. Some 60 years ago, around 80,000 Tibetans along with the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa for India after a failed uprising against the Communist rule over Tibet. China and the Dalai Lama's envoys have held nine rounds of talks since 2002 to resolve the Tibetan issue. In the last round of talks -- the ninth -- in Beijing in January 2010, the CTA submitted an "explanatory" note to the Chinese leadership to clarify its stand on genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people. Since then, there has been no movement forward. The Tibetan exile administration, called the CTA, is based in this northern Indian hill town, where the spiritual leader also lives. --IANS vg/rs/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Facebook livestreaming of New Zealand mosque shooting has brought to the fore a critical issue for the law enforcement agencies to deal with, as tech giants struggle to find a solution to pro-actively stop such incidents. Strapped with a GoPro camera to his head, the gunman broadcast graphic footage of shooting people via Facebook Live for nearly 17 minutes that was later shared in millions on other social media platforms. The point here is not that the social media platforms removed the shooting footage from their platforms, the real problem is: Why couldn't they automatically catch the upload and re-uploads of such footage? According to The Verge, exact re-uploads of the video will be banned by YouTube, but videos that contain clips of the footage have to be sent to human moderators for a review. "Part of that is to ensure that news videos that use a portion of the video for their segments aren't removed in the process," says the report. The YouTube tool searches re-uploaded versions of the original video for similar metadata and imagery. If it's an unedited re-upload, it's removed. If it's edited, the tool flags it to a team of human moderators, who determine if the video violates the company's policies, says The Verge. The real problem is that the YouTube's system is not built to deal with breaking news events. YouTube's tool takes "a couple of minutes, or sometimes even hours, to register the content" and catching live streams is nearly impossible for the algorithms to detect and act upon. This is not the first time livestreaming of a shooting incident has taken place on social media. In January 2018, the family of a slain Cleveland man sued Facebook, alleging the social media platform could have done more to prevent his murder. The killing of Robert Godwin, Sr., 74, was recorded and made viewable on Facebook in April 2017. Steve Stephens, the man who killed Godwin, announced his intent to kill someone on Facebook before killing him. Stephens later logged onto Facebook Live and described the attack. In July 2016, a Facebook livestreaming showed three men listening to music inside a car in Norfolk, Virginia, being suddenly shot by a gunman. The video posted on Facebook by TJ Williams was viewed 1,634,815 times and is still available on YouTube. In the same month, Antonio Perkins, 28, was shot in the head and neck in Chicago. The live video of Perkins showed him and a group of people talking before gunshots are heard. The video was posted on Facebook with a warning message about its graphic nature, according to media reports. In July 2016, A Minnesota police officer shot and killed Philando Castile of African origin during traffic stop. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, took out her cellphone and started livestreaming on Facebook after the shooting. The video gathered over 2.7 million views before the stream disappeared from Facebook. --IANS na/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an Indiana Jones style promotional campaign for Dubai Tourism, its ambassador and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is seen performing death defying stunts to unravel mysteries. SRK features in a series of videos that are part of Dubai Tourism's #BeMyGuest campaign. It consists of a series of films across social media and online platforms, highlighting iconic locations and sites in the Middle Eastern city. The third video launched on Monday starts off with the "Chennai Express" star reading a riddle: " In the jewel of the ocean, they fall from the sky." The subtitle quotes Shah Rukh saying: "I need to solve some clues." He then jets off on an exciting adventure, exploring and solving riddles till he reaches his destination La Perle, an acrobat show. The video ends with Shah Rukh narrating to his friend the mystery he solved, which would lead to the next one. Throughout the video, Shah Rukh reaches out to his fans across the world, seeking their help in solving the riddles, and inviting them to find what other fantastic experiences await them in Dubai. The 53-year-old star tweeted the minute-long video on his twitter handle: "Three coins, one old box and tons of clues to solve. Wonder what my next challenge will be?" --IANS dc/bc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Sharman Joshi, who is gearing up for release of his first Hollywood film "The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story", says the movie sends out the message of love, peace, tolerance and harmony. On what made him to be part of the film, Sharman said: "We have made this with really good intentions. The end message is about love, peace, tolerance and harmony. This incident (on which the film is based) happened in Odisha. It could have happened in the US, Europe, Middle-East or in any part of the world." The film, based on real life story of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines who worked among the tribal poor and leprosy victims in Odisha, comes 20 years. He was burnt to death along with his sons by alleged members of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu fundamentalist organisation. Talking about Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Avenue Masjid shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday in which 50 people were killed, Sharman said: "It's very unfortunate. I feel such extreme acts are detrimental for our as well as future generations." "I feel all of us hold a responsibility for it and help stop it in our little way by spreading message of love, peace, harmony and tolerance. I feel only through awareness we will be able to fight these horrific acts. That's what I have endeavoured through this film." Stating that though it was a Graham Staines' story, Sharman said "the bigger message is what happened was extremely unfortunate. It should not happen again. Love and peace is the only way of living." Talking about the film "The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story", Sharman said: "It's story about missionary Staines against whom allegations were made that he was forcibly converting Hindus to the faith of Christianity. The story is seen through the eyes of a journalist, Manav Kaul, played by me." The film was released in the US last month and will be released in India on March 29. "After the India release, the film will be released in South Africa, East Africa and Europe," he said. Directed by Aneesh Daniel, the film also stars Stephen Baldwin, Shari Rigby and Prakash Belawadi. --IANS iv/dc/pcj (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US military is considering keeping up to 1,000 troops in Syria, further drifting away from President Donald Trump's original plan of a total withdrawal, a media reported. The troops will be deployed from northern Syria to the south, continuing to work with Kurdish fighters, The Wall Street Journal said in the report on Sunday citing administration officials. The officials said the number of troops to be left in Syria is still to be decided. Meanwhile, Washington plans to withdraw hundreds of American forces when "the last bastion of Islamic State (IS) is seized", a move that will be in accord with Trump's original plan, according to the report. On February 21, the White House announced that the US would leave about 200 troops in Syria after the planned pullout. Trump confirmed the next day that a small fraction of US forces would remain in Syria with troops from other countries. Citing a senior administration official, US media later reported that American military would leave about 400 troops in two different regions of Syria. Currently, there are about 2,000 US troops in Syria. Declaring victory over the Islamic State, Trump last December announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, leading to the resignation of then Secretary of Defence James Mattis. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Type address separated by commas Your Email: An Army jawan was killed and four others were injured when the Pakistan army violated ceasefire for a second day Monday, resorting to heavy mortar shelling and firing along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, officials said. The Pakistani army initiated unprovoked firing about 05:30hours targeting the LoC area in the Sunderbani Sector with mortar bombs and small arms, a defence spokesman said. The Indian Army retaliated effectively, he said. "In the incident, rifleman Karamjeet Singh was critically injured and later succumbed to injuries," the spokesman said, adding four other soldiers were injured and condition of two of them was critical. The 24-year-old deceased rifleman belonged to Janer village, under Dharam Kot Tehsil in Moga district of Punjab and he is survived by his parents, he said. The defence spokesman paid tribute to Singh describing him as a brave and sincere soldier. "The nation will always remain indebted to him for his supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty." As per officials, the causality was caused in the Pakistani shelling along the LoC in Keri Battal forward area in the Sunderbani sector. On Sunday too, the sector was targeted by the Pakistan Army in unprovoked ceasefire violation. The border skirmishes witnessed a spurt after India's air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot on February 26 in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. The year 2018 witnessed the highest number of ceasefire violations, numbering 2,936 by Pakistani troops, in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. Pakistan continues to violate the 2003 ceasefire agreement with India despite repeated calls for restraint and adherence to the pact during flag meetings between the two sides. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Azernews By Abdul Kerimkhanov The resolute mood of the OSCE Minsk Group on the non-admission of occupied Karabakh to the negotiations finally overshadows Armenia. "For many months it has been said that our agenda of negotiations will be that we will discuss exclusively the possibility of Karabakhs participation in the negotiations, and only after that we will be able to hold tripartite negotiations, that is, there will be OSCE parties and mediators, and only in this case, we will begin negotiations," Ara Hakobyan, member of the founding committee of the National Agenda party, reminded Nikol Pashinyan. Hakobyan noted that during Pashinyans visit to Brussels, EU officials voiced the position that no changes are planned in the format of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn stated that there should be no preconditions for negotiations and Armenia should be fully involved, he added. The member of committee recalled the statements of European officials, even if there is a need to change something regarding the format, it must necessarily be coordinated with all the parties, and specifically with Azerbaijan. The statement of the OSCE Minsk Group says that it is necessary to conduct negotiations around the existing agenda. Hakobyan believes this is one of the worst possible scenarios that Armenia may have. Recently, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, made a remarkable statement. Russia as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing country has repeatedly spoken about the negotiation format, which can change only on the basis of the consent of the parties. This is not only our stance but also the position of other OSCE MG members, she said. The U.S. Embassy in Armenia spoke in the same vein in response to a request from the Armenian media about whether the co-chairs really refused to return occupied Karabakh to the negotiating table through their statement. "As a co-chair of the Minsk Group, the United States remains true to its willingness to support the parties in a peaceful and long-lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. For more information, see the statement of the Minsk Group co-chairs on March 9," the U.S. diplomatic mission said. So the situation is more than certain. Against this background, the statement made on the eve of Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan sounds like another attempt to reassure the internal audience, very excited by the failures. Armenia has new approaches in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process, Mnatsakanyan told reporters in parliament. "We are moving on the agenda, which was clearly announced in the speech of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Karabakh. Around these approaches and according to this logic, we want to continue negotiations with Azerbaijan," he stated. The only question is whether Azerbaijan wants to hold negotiations with Armenia according to this logic, which provides for the inclusion of separatists in the negotiations and the rejection of the return of the occupied territories. No doubt, official Baku will not talk with Yerevan in the framework of such Armenian logic. A teenage girl was allegedly raped by a man claiming to be an exorcist in a village in Devbhoomi Dwarka district of Gujarat, police said Monday. The parents of the 14-year-old survivor had approached the accused, a self-styled exorcist, for help as their daughter had not been keeping well, said a Kalyanpur police station official in the district. The incident took place Sunday at Bhatvadiya village, around 400km from Ahmedabad, he said. The accused, Bharat Sonagara, claimed to banish "evil spirits" from people, he said. "The victim, who belonged to Bhatiya village (in the same district), was unwell and her parents approached the accused to help her out. "The accused asked the girl's parents to wait as he took the girl to an isolated area and raped her," the official said, quoting from the FIR lodged at the Kalyanpur police station. Sonagara threatened the girl and asked her not to tell anything about the incident to her parents, the police official said. However, the survivor narrated her ordeal to her parents after they reached home, he said. The survivor's parents lodged a police complaint against Sonagara who was subsequently booked under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and also provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he said. The accused is absconding and efforts are on to nab him, the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A total of 15 temporary polling stations are being set up in Mamit district of Mizoram exclusively for Bru community voters living in relief camps in Tripura. Of the 15 temporary polling stations, nine would be for Bru voters of Mamit district and three each for Lunglei and Kolasib districts of Mizoram, state Chief Electoral Officer Ashish Kundra said Monday. A little over 12,000 Bru voters who originally hail from the three districts but now stay in six relief camps in the neighbouring state would exercise their franchise for the lone Lok Sabha seat in Mizoram on April 11. Thousands of Bru community people had been lodged in the six relief camps in North Tripura district since late 1997 after they fled from Mizoram in the wake of a communal tension. They would vote in the temporary polling stations being erected at Kanhmun village near Tripura border, Kundra said. The Bru voters had cast their votes at the temporary polling stations at Kanhmun village during the Mizoram Assembly election held on November 28 last year. The NGO Coordination Committee, an umbrella organisation of major civil societies and student bodies, had earlier threatened to launch agitation if temporary polling stations for the Brus were set up. The organisation was of the opinion that those living outside Mizoram should not be allowed to vote in the state. Appealing to the civil societies not to harden their stance, the CEO said launching a stir is a democratic right but thwarting the voting, also a democratic process, by agitation should be avoided. The Centre and the governments of Tripura and Mizoram had taken steps to repatriate the Bru refugees but those efforts did not yield much. Six companies of the central armed police force (CAPF) would be deployed during the Lok Sabha polls in the state as against 40 companies during the Assembly elections, he said. Meanwhile, the People's Representation for Identity and Status of Mizoram (PRISM) party Monday announced that TBV Lalvenchhunga would be its candidate for the state's Lok Sabha seat. Lalvenchhunga had unsuccessfully contested the state Assembly polls from Champhai North seat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three persons were killed and five others injured here on Monday when a pickup van rammed into the rear of a truck, police said. The deceased were the occupants of the pickup van and they were on their way to offer prayers at Kaila Devi Dham in Karauli district when the accident occurred on the Rajakheda-Dholpur road, Superintendent of Police, Dholpur, Ajay Singh said. The accident apparently took place after the driver of the truck suddenly applied the brakes, police said. Ram Babu (58), Prem Chand (40) and Gajendra (32), all residents of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, died in the accident while the injured were referred to a hospital in that district, the SP said. The bodies were handed over to the family members after post-mortem and a case was registered against the truck driver, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five Uttar Pradesh policemen have been convicted for the custodial death of a 26-year-old man by a Delhi court which said that the police feel they have power to manipulate the evidence and will not be held accountable. Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra said one of the reasons for custodial death was that the police were confident that they will not be held accountable even if the victim dies in the custody and the truth revealed. "The police play a major role in the administration of criminal justice. One of the reasons for custodial death is that the police feel that they have a power to manipulate the evidence as the investigation is their prerogative and with such manipulated evidence they can bury the truth. "They are confident that they will not be held accountable even if the victim dies in custody and even if the truth is revealed," the court said in a recent order. The court held Uttar Pradesh Police's Sub Inspectors (SI) Hindveer Singh and Mahesh Mishra, Constables Pradeep, Pushpender and Haripal Singh guilty of abducting victim Sonu, making incorrect entries in the General Diary to mislead evidence and torturing him which lead to his death. Sonu was apprehended on the suspicion of being involved in a robbery. The court further directed DGP of Uttar Pradesh Police to take appropriate action for prosecution as well as for disciplinary proceedings against Inspector Deepak Chaturvedi and Constable Manoj Kumar, who were posted as Station Officer and GD writer respectively on that day for their connivance with accused persons in recording wrong entries in the GD Register and for causing disappearance of evidence. The Supreme Court had transferred the case from a sessions court in Uttar Pradesh to a court in Delhi and observed that the manner in which the investigation was conducted after registration of the case unmistakably showed that free and fair trial would not be possible within the state as the accused were members of the police force. "It has been duly proved beyond reasonable doubt that the five accused policemen... in connivance with Kunwar Pal Singh (middleman) and in furtherance of their common intention abducted Sonu from his native village Hazrat Pur (in Uttar Pradesh) and maliciously confined him till he was declared dead knowingly that by confining him illegally they were acting contrary to law as they were apprehending his involvement in a robbery case without any evidence or reasonable suspicion against him," the Sessions Court said. "Not only this, they tortured Sonu while he was in their custody knowingly that by such beatings/torture they are likely to cause his death. Further, in order to claim a false defence that they lodged Sonu in hale and hearty condition, they in collusion with their colleagues got prepared an incorrect general diary," the court said. The court convicted the five police officials for the offences under sections 365 (abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person), 220 (confinement by person having authority who knows that he is acting contrary to law) 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 34 (criminal acts done by several persons with a common intention) of the IPC. It held Pal guilty of offences of kidnapping and conniving with the other accused. The court, however, acquitted SI Vinod Pandey, one of the accused, of all charges due to lack of evidence against him. The court is likely to pronounce order on sentence of the convicts later this week. The maximum punishment for the offences under which they have been convicted is 10 years. According to complaint lodged by the father of the deceased, in September 2006, Kunwar Pal, who worked as a property dealer with his son, came to his house with five police officials in civil dress. Pal had told Sonu that the five persons accompanying him had come to purchase a land and asked him to show the land to them. On the pretext of showing the land, they took him in a car in which they had come, it said. The complaint further claimed that he was taken to a police station on the false implication of a robbery case where he was tortured by the officers. Sonu's father claimed that his son was murdered by the police after being tortured and they had given it colour of suicide. "Due to false implication in robbery case and on account of atrocities caused by the police, Sonu, due to physical and unbearable mental stress committed suicide under depression and he was found hanging in the lock up," the complaint said. The police officials were charged for abduction of Sonu, making incorrect entries in the GD register and for his murder which were not the acts done by them while performing their public duties. During the trial, all the accused had denied the charges levelled against them. The medical report of Sonu showed that there were contusions on the back of his abdomen and elbow and abrasions on his knee and shoulder. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Six people, including a presiding officer, were shot dead on Monday by unidentified gunmen in Bangladesh's southeastern hills on the second phase of a nationwide sub-district polls, police said. Eight others, including some policemen, were injured in the shootings at Baghaichhari sub-district headquarters in Rangamati district. "The presiding officer and five others were killed as they were returning to (Baghaichhari) sub-district with ballot boxes after the voting concluded at a remote polling centre there," a police official said. Rangamati's police chief Alamgir Kabir said the group came under attack in Noymile area. He added police were yet to track down the miscreants. The southeastern hill tracts in recent years witnessed re-emergence of violence attributed to factional feuds among the local tribal outfits after a landmark 1997 peace agreement drew an end to a two-decade long insurgency demanding autonomy of ethnic minority groups. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One person is missing and six others rescued after a boat capsized Monday afternoon in the Arabian Sea off the Worli coast in Mumbai, police said. The boat "Revati" was carrying seven persons and a Coast Guard helicopter and speed boat, and personnel from the Mumbai police's coastal unit were deployed for the rescue effort, he informed. The search and rescue operation for the seventh occupant of the boat is still underway, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One person is missing and six others rescued after a tug boat capsized Monday morning in the Arabian Sea off the Worli coast in Mumbai, police said. The tug boat "Revati" was carrying seven persons and a Coast Guard helicopter and an inshore patrol vessel, and personnel from the Mumbai police's coastal unit were deployed for the rescue effort, he informed. Revati was on its way to Tarapur from Mumbai with a crew of seven when it capsized in the morning, a Coast Guard spokesperson said. A distress call was received from the vessel after which Coast Guard Ship Amartya, a fast patrol vessel on surveillance duty, was diverted for the search and rescue operation, he said. ICGS Amartya reached the spot and rescued six occupants from the sinking tug, he said. The search and rescue operation for the seventh occupant of the boat is still underway and two ships and a Chetak helicopter have been deployed, he added. Apart from a surface search by the two ships, two helicopter sorties have been launched as part of a coordinated sea-air search and rescue operation for the seventh person, he said. The rescued tug occupants have been given medical aid and their condition is stable, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of the elections, about 70 organisations from across India have come together to reach out to voters and campaign in 50 cities, highlighting the "failures" of the Narendra Modi government in creating employment, its leaders said Monday. Young India National Coordination Committee, the platform comprising mostly of left-backed outfits, will start its campaign from Badaun in Uttar Pradesh in the first week of April, they said. The first phase of Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to be held on April 11. "The YINCC marched on February 7 against the government, where youth of the nation raised questions on why the promises of quality education and employment were not fulfilled. The YINCC has now decided that it will campaign against Modi during the elections and ask people to not vote them," said N Sai Balaji of students' outfit AISA. The campaign will start from Badaun because Najeeb Ahmed, the Jawaharlal Nehru University student who has been missing since October 2016, is from there, he said. "Modi had promised that his government will give 2 crore jobs every year. They are not even providing 2,000 jobs. Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal will urge people to vote against this government in the upcoming elections," Nisar Ahmed of Samajwadi Yuvajan Sabha said. Echoing Ahmed, Gopal Tiwari, who led the SSC movement, said time has come for youth of the country to "teach the prime minister a lesson". Ashish, a leader of the All India Railway Apprentices, said, "Modi has done drama in Allahabad by cleaning feet of sanitation workers. If he is concerned about them, then generate employment for them." "The health sector was the most neglected area where the government did not do anything. The pathetic condition of government hospitals has forced the patients to opt for private hospitals. This government has made poor people to feel like second class citizens," said Harjit Singh Bhatti, former president of AIIMS' Resident Doctors' Association. SFI leader Dipshita Dhat claimed that they are not against Modi but will fight the "RSS ideology on which the current government is running". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court has said that acid attack is an "uncivilised and heartless crime" which does not deserve any clemency. The apex court observed this while asking two convicts, who have already undergone five year jail for throwing acid on a 19-year-old girl in 2004, to pay Rs 1.5 lakh each as additional compensation to the victim. The top court also asked the Himachal Pradesh government to pay compensation to acid attack survivor under the Victim Compensation Scheme. "Indeed, it cannot be ruled out that in the present case the victim had suffered an uncivilised and heartless crime committed by the respondents (two convicts) and there is no room for leniency which can be conceived," a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi said. The bench further said, "A crime of this nature does not deserve any kind of clemency. This court cannot be oblivious of the situation that the victim must have suffered an emotional distress which cannot be compensated either by sentencing the accused or by grant of any compensation." The court delivered its verdict on an appeal filed by the state challenging the March 24, 2008 judgement of the Himachal Pradesh High Court which had reduced the 10-year jail term awarded to both the men by a trial court to five years. According to the victim, she was on her way to college on July 12, 2004 when the two men came on a two-wheeler and threw acid on her and fled the spot. She had suffered 16 per cent burn injury in the incident. The police had filed charge sheet against both the accused and the trial court convicted and sentenced them to 10 years jail term along with a fine of Rs 5,000 each. Later, the convicts approached the high court against the lower court's verdict. The high court reduced their sentence to five years and increased the fine to Rs 25,000 each. The apex court, in its verdict, noted that the girl had suffered 16 per cent burn injury "which was caused due to acid attack on the darkest day of her life". The top court was informed that both the convicts had undergone the sentence and deposited the fine as per the high court's judgement and they were released from jail on December 9 last year. The bench, which said the high court's verdict convicting both the persons needed no interference, asked them to pay additional compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh each to the victim. It also asked the state to pay compensation to the girl under the victim compensation scheme and deposit the same before the trial court within three months. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Afghanistan on Monday marked National Journalists Day amid a spike in violence that has already seen four media workers killed so far this year, in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the press. Gunmen killed Sultan Mahmood Khairkhaw, a journalist working for a private TV channel and radio station in southeastern Khost province, on Friday - the latest media worker to be killed in the war-torn country, which saw its deadliest year on record for journalists in 2018. "Freedom of expression is the most important achievement for us," Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan's second vice president told a gathering of journalists in Kabul. "During the Taliban regime ... any voice would be considered against their movement. And it is not acceptable to us to put people under censorship and pressure anymore," he said. The attack on Khairkhaw came two days after another journalist was seriously wounded when a sticky bomb ripped through his vehicle in southern Helmand province. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan's media has been one of the country's few success stories. Hundreds of free media organisations have mushroomed, giving rise to a lively and largely free press - something that had never before existed in the country's history. The media landscape in the Afghanistan today includes over 100 TV channels, 284 radio stations and just over 400 newspapers and magazines, according to a recent government report. Most of the outlets are private. But growing violence has made the country one of the most dangerous environments for the media. Last month, two journalists were shot and killed when gunmen stormed their radio station in Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province in north-east Afghanistan. The pair, both men in their 20s, worked for Radio Hamsada, a private broadcaster. In January, Afghan citizen journalist Jawid Noori was snatched from his car and murdered by the Taliban in Farah province, in the country's west. Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported that 2018 was the deadliest year on record for journalists in Afghanistan. "Eighteen journalists lost their lives in the line of duty last year," Danish said. According to RSF, 60 journalists and media workers have been killed in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 - an average of around three a year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Developers and construction experts should design, engineer and construct a building with not only sales in their minds, but also consider the environment, efficiency, manageability, user comfort and wellbeing, said Abdulmajid Karanouh, the head of Interdisciplinary Design and Innovation, at Drees & Sommer, a leading international real estate and construction consultancy Drees & Sommer. Karanouh was moderating the first in a series of high-profile roundtable discussions being hosted by Drees & Sommer where leading construction professionals were outlining the best practice for the implementation of technology and smart design. The roundtable, which was chaired by the company's general manager Bob Hope, brought together 12 construction industry experts from a diverse range of companies. It included architects, consultants, engineers, contractors, facility managers and developers who discussed and identifed the most effective way of implementing technology and smart design into the construction sector. A leading European consulting, planning and project management enterprise, Drees & Sommer has supported private and public clients and investors for almost 50 years in all aspects of real estate and infrastructure both analog and digital. The company recently released the findings of the first in a series of studies addressing the issues impacting the construction industry. "Satisfied tenants bring more value to developers than just a one-time purchase, they become endorsers of projects both present and future," said Karanouh. The four key findings of the discussion included the importance of bringing representatives from across the industry into the early planning stages to maximise efficiency; the need for sustainability; the ease of tech use; and cost implications. It was identified there is a desire by developers and investors to implement new technologies into their buildings, however, many are reluctant first, due to concerns related to maintenance of the smart systems throughout the service life of the building and second, the possibility of them becoming obsolete. There is a need for construction and real estate professionals to communicate the value of new technology in a market that doesnt yet have benchmarks. Society needs to adapt and find new improved ways of living and as developers we understand this, but we need solutions to last long term, said Sami Elmadalla, COO of First Invest Group. This sentiment was echoed by Fadi Nwilati, CEO of Kaizen Asset Management, experts in real estate and property management who has witnessed building management systems that simply dont work and due to poor construction quality, which then creates difficulties retrofitting the existing digital solutions, further underscoring the need to bring industry professionals together at the initial stages. From a sustainability perspective it was agreed developers want to implement the best solution for their projects, however, the challenge is keeping operational expenditure low. Muhammad BinGhatti, the chief executive of Binghatti Developers, who have an investment value of Dh3 billion ($816 million), said: There are two ways to justify this, the first is using sustainable building materials that will last with minimal maintenance and the second is to implement technology that helps by keeping operational costs low such as light motion sensors. It was also outlined that developers can no longer rely solely on a brand name on the quality of products and that Dubai tenants in future will be looking for added value, including savings on energy consumption that contribute to more sustainable living or operating a business. Neil Doe, CEO of QI-Energy, experts in the innovation and renewables space, said: Smart or renewable energy considerations are often an afterthought when it comes to construction and, as a result, buildings dont operate to their full sustainable capacity. We need to change our overall way of thinking about how to create solutions that will serve future needs. We must focus more on what else our buildings can do for the environment in which they are built. Rounding out the discussion it was agreed that digitalisation of buildings needs to be feasible and pragmatic, key criteria of Drees & Sommers approach to development and implementation of smart technologies. "We dont want buildings filled with overly technical gadgets that are not easy for tenants to use," remarked Stephan Degenhart, the Associate Partner of Drees & Sommer and Managing Director of Middle East office. "Each element used when revitalising or digitalising a building must be carefully planned to serve the building and its tenants now and for the future," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday mocked Prime Minister's "Main Bhi Chowkidar" campaign describing it as a 'jumla' (rhetoric) which will not solve any problem of the people of the country. The BJP has intensified its "Main bhi chowkidar" (I too am watchman) campaign with Modi and other party leaders, including its president Amit Shah prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their Twitter profile. Modi's Twitter account profile identified him as "chowkidar Narendra Modi" as did other BJP leaders in a coordinated campaign against Gandhi's sustained "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe at the prime minister over the Rafale deal. "Such slogans do not help fill the stomachs of our poor people, they do not give jobs to our youth," Amarinder Singh said in an informal chat with mediapersons here. He was interacting on the sidelines after a meeting with MLAs, zone in-charges and heads of frontal organizations of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) from Patiala here ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The meeting had been convened to review the party's preparedness in the Patiala constituency, which is presently represented by rebel AAP MP Dharamvira Gandhi. The "jumla party" "failed" to deliver on any promise all these years, and was now resorting to more "jumlebaazi" in a desperate bid to win votes, Singh said hitting out at the BJP. "The people of India are fed up with these hollow slogans and promises. They wanted to know what the BJP-led government had done for them in the last five years," he added. Asking the PPCC to be fully prepared for the parliamentary polls, Singh said he was confident the party would win all the 13 seats in Punjab, which goes to polls in the final phase. "The Congress is in a very strong position in the state," he said. He reiterated his earlier stand that the party did not need any alliance and would go it alone in the state. Asked if the Indian Air Force's Balakot air strikes would make a difference to the poll-scene, the Chief Minister said that was not likely to happen "as what the BJP government did is nothing exceptional". "It was the duty of the government in power to retaliate after the Pulwama attacks and even the Congress would have done the same had it been in power," he added. Pointing out that the defence forces were apolitical in nature, which made them the real 'chowkidars' of India, the chief minister lashed out at the BJP for allegedly seeking to politicise the forces. "The Congress never did that, and no political party worth its name would indulge in such pettiness," he said. When former Congress MP Preneet Kaur, who is Singh's wife, was asked about her readiness to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Patiala, she described herself to be fully prepared and geared to take on the opposition. The Congress has worked for the development of Punjab, including Patiala, and the people appreciate it, said Kaur, who lost the last elections to Dharamvira Gandhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least one person was killed in a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, the Dutch ANP agency reported on Monday. The victim was completely covered with a sheet and lying on the tracks between two carriages, ANP quoted one of its reporters as saying. There was no immediate official confirmation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australian counter-terrorism police on Monday searched two homes linked to the family members of the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch to obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their investigation into the terror attack. The attacker, identified by authorities as Australia-born Brenton Tarrant, 28, targeted immigrants during Friday prayers. Witnesses said victims were shot at close range. He was arrested shortly after entering two mosques --Masjid Al Noor and Linwood - with high-powered weapons and shooting dead 50 people, including five Indians. The New South Wales (NSW) Joint Counter Terrorism Team on Monday two properties on the state's mid-north coast. One of the properties being searched belongs to Sharon Tarrant, the mother of the attacker. ''Around 8.30 this morning (local time) officers from the NSW JCTT executed a search warrant at a home in the town of Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour. A short time later, a second search warrant was executed at another home in Lawrence near Maclean,'' the statement said. ''The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation,' it said adding ''the family of the Australian man arrested in Christchurch continues to assist police with their inquiries.' Police further assured the community that that there was no information to suggest a current or impending threat related to this search warrants. The NSW JCTT comprises representatives from the Australian Federal Police, NSW Police Force, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the NSW Crime Commission. In an interview with Nine News, Tarrant's family expressed shock and apologised for his role in the shooting. His uncle, Terry Fitzgerald, mourned the victims in Christchurch. "We are so sorry for the families over there, for the dead and injured," he said. His grandmother, Marie Fitzgerald, told reporters she could not fathom how "somebody in our family would do anything like this. The 81-year-old said her grandson was "obviously not of sound mind. The family had dinner with Tarrant 12 months ago for his sister's birthday in Grafton. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, lived in Grafton, 500km northwest of Sydney, where he worked as a personal trainer at Big River Gym. He moved to the New Zealand city of Dunedin at some point in the last two or three years. Tarrant did not request bail during a brief court appearance on Saturday and will next appear on April 5. He has been charged with one count of murder but further charges are expected. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton defended the ASIO and the Australian Federal Police against suggestions they had failed to identify the danger Tarrant posed. He said Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. His social media ravings were missed because of the massive amount of digital traffic which has to be monitored. "There is only so much content that can be covered, assessed and analysed by ASIO and other partner agencies," said Dutton. He also rejected claims the security authorities were only focused on Islamic terrorists, ignoring right-wing extremists. Dutton said Australia's security agencies are very concerned about retaliatory or copycat attacks in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack. Tarrant's travels through Europe, Turkey and Asia are now being examined in detail, in part to see if he had any overseas help in carrying out the massacre. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday announced more funding to defend religious establishments against potential attack in the wake of the mosque massacres in neighbouring New Zealand. Morrison said he would provide Aus$55 million (US$39 million) in "community safety grants" with a priority placed on security at "religious schools, places of religious worship and religious assembly". The funding, he told the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, would include "CCTV cameras, lighting, fencing, bollards, alarms, security systems and public address systems". "I so wish we didn't need this on places of worship in Australia, whether they be at temples or schools or mosques or churches," said Morrison. "It grieves me that this is necessary. But, sadly, it is." The gunman accused of killing 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch hails from Australia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes early Monday linked to the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques last week, police said. The homes were in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged shooter, grew up. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation," a police statement said. They said Tarrant's family "continues to assist police with their inquiries" but that there is no information to suggest "a current or impending threat" to the community. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has been charged with murder in the country after the mass shooting on Friday which left 50 dead and 50 injured in two mosques in the city of Christchurch on. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. He rejected as "disgraceful" criticism that Australia's counter-terror agencies had neglected the threat of right-wing extremists like Tarrant due to their focus on combatting Islamist radicals. He said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country's main counter-terror agency, closely tracked the activities of far-right groups. "These extremist groups -- neo-nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groups -- whatever term you want to apply to them, they've been squarely on their radar," he said in a televised interview. "They are well and truly looking at this threat, they are dealing with the threat and to think that they've just discovered it or they are coming late to the party is complete rubbish," he said. ASIO officials were due to brief the cabinet of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the New Zealand attacks and the threat of right-wing extremism in Australia later on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Monday accused the BJP of creating an "artificial majority" in Goa at the directions of the Centre, and urged Governor Mridula Sinha to invite the opposition party to form a government as it was the single largest party. The coastal state is in a politically fluid situation after the death of BJP Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar Sunday. While the Congress has staked claim to form the next government, the BJP is also meeting its allies to decide on Parrikar's successor. Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said in New Delhi, "I will like to attract the attention of whole country as well as the media that democracy should be established (in Goa). And governors, who sit on the position of a judge, should take correct decision. "The one who has a majority should form a government. It is not right for democracy if artificial majority is created as per the directions of central government," he told a press conference. On Governor Sinha not responding to the Congress' demand for allowing it to form a government in the state, Azad said, "The governor should work as a governor and not for a party." He also referred to the last Assembly elections in the state and mentioned that the Congress emerged as the single largest party and tried form a government. "What we tried before, we are trying again. When elections happened in Goa, the Congress emerged as the number one party. The BJP got fewer seats (than Congress). Now, the BJP's MLA count has gone down (further). BJP's MLA count is 11 and Congress's is 14. We have three MLAs more as compared to them," he told reporters. Azad said among the other parties, the Goa Forward Party has three, the MGP has three, the NCP one and remaining three are independents and there is one speaker. All the 14 Congress MLAs, led by Leader of the Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, went to Raj Bhawan and handed over a letter to Sinha, saying it was the single largest party in the Assembly and should be allowed to form the government. "We are saddened by the chief minister's demise, but before his final rites are performed, a new government has to be formed...The governor has acknowledged that the Congress is the single largest party and she said she will get back to us," Kavlekar told reporters here. The opposition party had earlier also written to Sinha, staking claim to form the government on Friday and then again on Sunday. Union minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari is also in Goa to try and find a candidate for the post but a consensus eluded his party and its allies. Gadkari said in Panaji the BJP had zeroed in on the next CM candidate but its allies were yet to get on board. He, however, did not reveal who the BJP had chosen. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hoping to capture a big victory in the Lok Sabha elections, Uttar Pradesh's ruling BJP is working to keep its team of small parties together by offering them tempting deals where it can and lending a sympathetic ear to their demands. With the Lok Sabha elections beginning next month, the ruling party in the state plans to challenge the SP-BSP-RLD with help from its allies Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) and Apna Dal (S). Smaller parties with sizeable vote banks are gaining traction in the politically-crucial state, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats, explained a party insider. It was keeping this factor in mind that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently gave minister of state (MoS) rank to 75 leaders of his party and allies to keep them in good humour. "The backing from smaller parties will prove to be the icing on the cake. These parties have considerable vote banks that can help our party in consolidating its position," a party functionary, requesting anonymity, said. Although the Bharatiya Janata Party was on a comfortable footing in 2014, the 2019 general elections might be a different ball game, party leaders said. Even RSS leaders reportedly admitted that the caste challenge posed by the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) combine is formidable. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, these parties had a combined vote share of 42.98 per cent, while the BJP clocked 42.63 per cent. The BJP got 71 seats and the Apna Dal two. From 1991 to 1999, the BJP got at least 30 per cent votes in each of the four elections it contested in the state during this period. Its worries started from 2004 when its vote share slipped to 22 per cent and plummeted to an embarrassing 17.5 per cent in 2009, before party president Amit Shah deftly tapped into the 'Modi wave' to spin a turnaround in the Hindi heartland in the 2014 general elections. Come 2019, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to keep its smaller allies SBSP and Apna Dal (S) content. Leaders of the SBSP and Apna Dal (S), key allies of the National Democratic Alliance, have been appointed top office bearers heads of various commissions, councils and corporations with the perks and status of a minister of state. SBSP's Arvind Rajbhar, for instance, has been made chairperson of the UP Small Industries Corporation Limited. He is the son of state cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar. Rana Ajit Pratap Singh, another office-bearer of the SBSP, is now chairperson of the UP Seeds Development Corporation. Rajbhar's party is reportedly also lobbying for two Lok Sabha seats and the BJP is likely to accept the demand, party leaders said. Apna Dal leaders Ram Lakhan Patel and Rekha Verma were also given MoS ranks and two others from the party have been appointed members of state backward classes commission. "We are satisfied with BJP's gesture," Arvind Sharma of Apna Dal said, adding that the appointment of its party leaders to backward classes commission would help them raise issues related to the backward section effectively. The opposition parties are looking at the BJP's extension of an olive branch to its smaller allies as a sign of "eroding confidence". "The manner in which these appointments were made hours before the model code of conduct kicked in smacks of BJP's lack of confidence," an SP leader said. Apna Dal comprises 'Kurmis', an OBC sub-caste, whereas the SBSP enjoys the support of another OBC sub-caste--Rajbhars--whose voters are spread evenly in eastern UP constituencies. Both these parties are from Purvanchal from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an MP. Modi represents Varanasi, which falls in the Purvanchal region, in the Lok Sabha. "This is the region where the opposition will put maximum pressure," a political expert said. There are also reports that the BJP is toying with the idea of entering into a pact with Raja Bhaiya's fledgling political outfit Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik). A BJP leader from Pratapgarh, the stronghold of Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, said, "There are murmurs, but nothing concrete. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah claimed on Monday that bureaucrats, who backed early Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, were being "browbeaten and threatened" using performance appraisals against them. Abdullah has been outspoken against the Election Commission's decision to not hold assembly elections in the state simultaneously with the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. "I'm shocked to hear how officers who have supported early assembly elections are being browbeaten & threatened using their performance appraisals against them to get them to toe the line," Abdullah, a former chief minister, said in a series of tweets. Soon after the Election Commission announced not to hold assembly elections in the state for the time being, the NC leader had said that the Centre has surrendered before Pakistan, militants and separatists as they were the ones who did not want the polls to be held in time. "No honest officer should fear these threats. We must put the greater good ahead of our personal preferences & benefits. Those people making the threats will not remain in the state for very long," the former chief minister said. Abdullah said while some of the officers posted in Jammu and Kashmir had no stake in the state, few others were securing post-retirement postings. "Some have no stakes in the state & some are looking at post retirement postings in cushy appointments. What ever their reasons they have chosen to put their personal interest ahead of the greater good," he said. "One day we will talk about the cabal of officers in J&K who for their own selfish reasons have taken it upon themselves to scuttle democracy in the state," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former US president George W. Bush on Monday called immigration a "blessing and a strength," as lawmakers tussled with Donald Trump over border wall funding. The Republican, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight after leaving office in 2009, did not explicitly criticize Trump or the border wall policy. Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 51 new American citizens at the George W Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas, the nation's 43th president called for reform of "outdated and ineffective" immigration laws. He also emphasized: "Borders are not arbitrary and they need to be respected." "Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength," Bush said in prepared remarks. "I hope those responsible in Washington can dial down the rhetoric, put aside and modernize our immigration laws soon." Bush's remarks came as Congress and the White House were gearing up for a court fight over Trump's declarations of an emergency to fund construction of a border wall at the US-Mexico border. Congress had refused to appropriate money for the project -- a central promise of the Republican's 2016 election campaign. In an embarrassing rebuke to Trump, some fellow Republicans joined Democrats in voting to terminate his declaration of an emergency. Trump vetoed the legislation Friday. Opponents, who accuse Trump of executive overreach and hyping the problem on the border, could now fight the emergency measure in court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has slammed leaders' unwillingness to call out hate, while parliament unanimously passed a motion to stand against white supremacy in the wake of the Christchurch mosques attack. "I stand here today to cast a light on this hatred and on our unwillingness to call it out," Trudeau said in the House of Commons Monday. "As leaders, as (a) privileged few with power and an audience, we have a responsibility to do something." Trudeau said allowing bigotry in party politics, online, at town halls and "when it reaches our front door" amounted to nothing more than complicity and cowardice. "I'm calling on like-minded countries of the world to stand with Canada in this fight. Muslims, Christians, Jews, black, white, all of us, we must fight this hatred as a team." The prime minister's comments come amid a heated debate over religious and racial bigotry in the neighbouring US that saw President Donald Trump berated over his tepid response to the New Zealand massacre. After the attack on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, which left 50 dead and 50 injured, Trump voiced sympathy and solidarity with the victims and people of New Zealand. The alleged gunman -- identified as an Australian white nationalist -- referred to Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose." But in comments to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump dismissed concerns that white nationalism represented a growing danger around the world. "I don't really. I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess," Trump said. The Quebec City mosque shooter, who killed six worshippers in 2017, had scoured Twitter for Trump, right-wing commentators and alt-right figures before the attack. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 290 world renowned skin care experts will offer their key insights on the most crucial skin care during 272 scientific sessions at the Dubai World Dermatology and Laser Conference and Exhibition Dubai Derma that opened today (March 18). The 19th edition of the largest scientific skincare gathering in Mena and the Indian Subcontinent was inaugurated by Sheikh Hasher bin Maktoum Al Maktoum, Director General of Dubai Department at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center to run until March 20. The conference includes 79 hands-on workshops to enhance the clinical expertise of dermatology professionals and specialists while 77 poster display presentations and 112 case studies are designed to encourage students and professionals to pursue research in dermatology. Dr Ibrahim Galadari, chairman of the Dubai Derma Conference and Professor of Dermatology at the UAE University said: This year Dubai Derma features great discoveries in therapeutics for very common skin conditions such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis and alopecia areata, which recently made headlines in Dubai. These skincare concerns will be highlighted tremendously with exclusive information that was announced at the annual AAD meeting in Washington DC 2 weeks ago. He added: The latest edition of Dubai Derma is even more special as we have the presence of many international and well recognized dermatology societies involved in various scientific sessions. As Dubai is home to more than 200 different nationalities, it is extremely important for local and regional doctors to raise awareness about maladies that may afflict those coming from different parts of the world. The representation from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa in Dubai Derma is key to disseminating this crucial knowledge and information across the globe. Dr Abdul Salam Al Madani, executive chairman, Dubai Derma, said: In its current edition, Dubai Derma Conference and Exhibition brings together top skincare specialists, leading dermatology experts, surgeons and industry leaders to exchange knowledge on the latest advances in treating various types of skin diseases and disorders. This year, we witnessed a remarkable increase in the size of the exhibition which occupies an overall space of 20,000 square meters and attracts 594 leading skin care brands and companies showcasing their latest products and services. This clearly reflects the confidence reposed by the dermatology industry in Dubai Derma and I hope all attendees will take best advantage of this event. Running parallel to the conference, the Dubai Derma exhibition featured the presence of leading skincare brands, technology firms and companies from the region and the world, offering visitors and participants a great opportunity to learn about the latest advances in skin treatment while also giving exhibitors a chance to engage and network with top notch experts in skin health. Dubai Derma is organized by Index Conferences & Exhibitions - a member of Index Holding, in cooperation with the Pan Arab League of Dermatology, Arab Academy of Dermatology & Aesthetics (AADA), American Academy of Dermatology, (AAD), European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) and GCC League of Dermatologists with the support of the Government of Dubai and Dubai Health Authority (DHA). TradeArabia News Service Central forces conducted route march in various parts of the city on Monday as part of area domination and confidence building measure among the people ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. A contingent of central forces along with officials of Kolkata police conducted route march in various parts of north Kolkata. Ten companies of central paramilitary forces had arrived in the state since Friday and are conducting flag marches in different parts of Kolkata and elsewhere before the seven-phase polls in the state beginning on April 11. On Saturday during their route march the central forces personnel knocked at the doors of the people and assuring them not to be afraid of hooligans. The ruling Trinamool Congress Sunday said the central paramilitary personnel should not "terrorise" the people in the "name of making them feel safe and secure". The BJP has alleged that TMC is afraid that due to presence of central forces their plans to rig the polls might fall flat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The J-10 fighter jets of the Chinese air force will participate in Pakistan's National Day parade on March 23, state-media reported Monday. The J-10 fighter jets of the People's Liberation Army Air Force's Bayi Aerobatic Team arrived in Pakistan on Saturday in preparation for a flight performance there, Global Times reported. Contingents from countries including China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will participate in the parade, with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad being the guest of honour, the report said. Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of International Relations, told the daily that China sending fighter jets to celebrate Pakistan Day is symbolic of the friendship between the two countries noting that Pakistan is an "all-weather friend" of China. Recently China announced plans to upgrade the JF-17 fighter jet being jointly produced by both the countries. In addition to the J-10's flight performance, Chinese analysts expect more Chinese elements at Pakistan Day parade as the country operates a variety of Chinese weapons. The Pakistan Air Force also operates the ZDK-03 early warning aircraft, which is developed by China and is reportedly capable of aerial detection and sharing real time battlefield information. The MBT-2000 main battle tank developed by China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) is designated the Al-Khalid in the Pakistan Army, the report said. Pakistan also operates the likes of China's HJ-8 anti-tank missile and FM-90 air defence missile, according to China Military Online. Hu noted that China has contributed to Pakistan's military development, as China has been helping the country with its national defence industry for decades. China is likely to have more joint development projects and arms sales to Pakistan in the future, the Global Times report said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese President will travel to Italy, Monaco and this week, the foreign ministry said Monday, with expected to join his global trade infrastructure programme despite reservations in other European countries. Xi will pay state visits from March 21 to March 26, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement, without providing more details about his itinerary. An Italian official said last week that would sign a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Beijing to officially support Xi's massive $1 trillion Belt and Road initiative, also known as the New Silk Road. Beijing has financed infrastructure, maritime, rail and road projects in Asia, Africa and Europe, but critics warn that it mainly benefits Chinese firms while setting up a "debt trap" in more financially vulnerable countries. Following Italy's announcement, French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that European Union countries should have a "coordinated approach" regarding China. "It's a good thing that China is participating in the development of many countries, but I believe in the spirit of equality, reciprocity. The spirit of equality means respecting the sovereignty of nations," Macron said. China said Monday it had arrested about 13,000 "terrorists" in a massive crackdown against militants in the volatile Uygur Muslim-majority Xinjiang region since 2014, denying criticism that Beijing is "buying" silence of the Muslim world with heavy investments in Pakistan and other Islamic countries. China has faced mounting criticism for the detention of thousands of Uygur Muslims in massive "education camps". "Since 2014, Xinjiang has destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials," a white paper released Monday said. It said that some areas in Xinjiang were severely disturbed by terrorism and the infiltration of religious extremism. "For this reason, some people cannot speak, read or write in standard Chinese, have a weak understanding of rule of law, and have difficulty finding employment through a lack of employable skills. As a result, such people are more inclined to be incited or coerced into criminality by terrorist and extremist forces," it said. China has made significant progress in its counterterrorism and de-radicalisation efforts in Xinjiang, it said. "However, the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism are not gone; their influence can still be felt. And the 'East Turkistan' forces are in search of opportunities to create trouble. We still face a severe and complex situation in combating terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang," it said. Separately, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang has denied China is "buying the silence" of Muslim countries with massive investments through the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project. Diplomats from Pakistan and several other Muslim countries, who were recently taken on a guided tour of Xinjiang following allegations of detention of over a million Uygurs, said there was no religious and cultural repression. Asked whether China's was investing heavily in Muslim countries to buy their silence, Geng told the reporters that the BRI investments had nothing to do with Xinjiang related issues. "China pursues preventive counter terrorism measures. I believe the international community recognises this," he said. The UN human rights panel said in August last year that it had received many credible reports that about a million ethnic Uygurs in China in "massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy". China defended the camps, saying they are re-education camps aimed at de-radicalising sections of the Uygur Muslim population from extremism and separatism. The US and several other countries, besides UN officials, have expressed concern over the camps. Xinjiang has been in turmoil for the last several years following Uygur protests over large scale settlements of Han Chinese into the resource-rich province. China blames the separatist East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for the violent terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of the country in the last several years. A number of Uygurs reportedly joined Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and were planning to return. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Representative Image Ahead of its planned second forum to promote its much-touted Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China for the first time announced plans to seek global partners to join the project which drew criticism over its predatory loans leaving smaller countries in huge debt. China will be holding the second Belt and Road Forum (BRF) in April, which Chinese Foreign Minister stated would be bigger than the one held in 2017. India boycotted the first BRF meeting over its objections that the BRI flagship project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), traversed through Pakistan-occupied (PoK). The second BRF meeting, in which China plans to rope in several heads of state and government around the world including Italy, is being held amid growing criticism from several countries, specially from the US and India, that the massive loans being doled out for different projects, specially in smaller countries over and above their capacity to pay, has resulted in long term indebtedness. It is also being held at a time when the Chinese is showing signs of slowdown, resulting in the government tightening its expenditure, specially investment finance. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who had lowered the GDP target to 6 per cent from 6.5 per cent for this year, had said that the government at all levels would have to make bold and courageous sacrifices, "turning the blade inward" and "cutting our own wrists". China last year grew at 6.6 per cent. "The China Investment Corporation (CIC), the country's USD 940 billion sovereign wealth investment fund, is seeking global partners to jointly establish a special cross-border investment instrument which will further finance the Belt and Road projects," said Tu Guangshao, vice-chairman and president of the CIC. "We call it the Belt and Road cooperation fund," Tu told the state-run China Daily. Other arrangements, including the scale of fund, specific investment methods and investment currency, are all "too early to be determined", he said. Tu said that a cooperation fund usually selects projects and makes investment decisions based on the common interests of all shareholders. "A legal framework and clear governance structure will be set at the initial stage. This method could also avoid investment destination countries imposing restrictions on any single fund member," he added. Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford on Thursday told a Senate Armed Services Committee that Pakistan owes its "all weather friend" China at least USD 10 billion debt for the construction of the Gwadar port and other projects. "Saddled with predatory Chinese loans, Sri Lanka granted China a 99-year lease and 70 per cent stake in its deep-water (Hambantota) port," Dunford said. The Maldives owes China roughly USD 1.5 billion in debt - about 30 per cent of its GDP - for construction costs, he said. In Africa, Djibouti owes China over 80 per cent of its GDP and in 2017, the country became host to China's first overseas military base. "China is diligently building an network of coercion through predatory economics to expand its sphere of influence," Gen Dunford said, adding that nations around the globe are discovering the hard way that China's economic "friendship" via BRI can come at "a steep cost". The US is now openly warning other countries to be cautious before getting involve in BRI projects, but governments from Kuala Lumpur to Islamabad are scaling back their commitment because of debt concerns. The main criticism stems from China doling out huge loans spanning to billions of US dollars to small countries for infrastructure development over and beyond their capacity to pay back. Chinese foreign minister, however, refuted the criticism saying that "plenty of facts are proof that the BRI is not a debt trap that some countries may fall into, but an economic pie that benefits local populations. It is not a geopolitical tool but a great opportunity for shared development." The latest manifestation of this was the establishment of the China-Japan Cooperation Fund, a bilateral fund, in October 2018. Tu said the global partners for the BRI Fund could be the China-Japan as well as China-France fund. The scale of China-Japan Cooperation Fund' is expected to be USD 1 billion. Other similar investment mechanisms, including the 1 billion euro (USD 1.13 billion) China-France fund, is under preparation, Tu said. "We are also considering transferring part of the bilateral funds into the Belt and Road fund," he said. The CIC is also a shareholder of the Silk Road Fund, which mainly provides investment and financing support for the BRI projects. CIC now holds a 15 per cent share in the Silk Road Fund, which has a total capital of USD 40 billion and 100 billion yuan (USD14.9 billion). The BRI cooperation fund will be different from the Silk Road Fund, Tu said. because the latter's sponsors are mainly domestic. The CIC which seeks maximum returns for its shareholders within an acceptable risk tolerance range achieved a record high of 17.59 per cent net return on overseas investment in 2017, the China Daily reported. In a rare acknowledgment, China Monday described the 2008 Mumbai attacks carried out by Pakistan-based LeT terror outfit as one of "the most notorious terrorist attacks". In a white paper on its massive crackdown against militants in the restive Xianjiang province, China said the global spread of terrorism and extremism over the years had inflicted agony on humanity. The paper described the Mumbai terror attacks as one of "the most notorious terrorist attacks", adding that the "global spread of terrorism and extremism over the years has inflicted agony on humanity". The release of the paper titled "The Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang", interestingly coincided with Pakistan Foreign Minister's Shah Mehmood Qureshi's visit to China. Throughout the world, terrorism and extremism gravely threaten peace and development, and endanger the life and property of individuals, said the white paper released by China's State Council Information Office. The paper came days after China for the fourth time blocked a bid in the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to designate Pakistan-based chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group Masood Azhar as a "global terrorist" by putting a technical hold on the proposal, a move India termed as disappointing. The JeM has claimed responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead and escalated tensions between India and Pakistan. "Striking aggressively at terrorism and furthering the de-radicalisation effort is the common responsibility of the international community and essential to the protection of human rights," it said. China opposes all forms of terrorism and extremism, and opposes double standards on fighting terrorism, said the white paper, adding that Beijing opposes linking terrorism and extremism with specific countries, ethnic groups or religions. China advocates comprehensive measures to address both the symptoms and the root causes, with the dual purposes of striking at terrorist activities and eliminating poverty, so that there will be no room for terrorism to breed, it said. In one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in the country's history, 166 people, including Americans, were killed and over 300 injured as 10 heavily-armed terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) created mayhem in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Nine of the attackers were killed by police while lone survivor Ajmal Kasab was captured and hanged after handed down death sentence by an Indian court. Perpetrators of the 26/11 attack, including its mastermind and banned Jamat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Speed, continue to roam freely in Pakistan. The US has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) When Farhaj Ahsan, 30, left his Christchurch home he shared with his wife Insha Aziz, 3-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son to attend Friday morning prayer, his family members did not know they were seeing him alive for the last time. The software engineer was among 8 Indians or persons of Indian-origin who were killed when an Australia-born gunman stormed two mosques in New Zealand and killed 50 people. Ahsan, who moved to New Zealand few years ago from the city of Hyderabad, where his parents still live. The Indian High Commission Sunday said five Indians had been killed in the attack by a 28-year old man who reportedly targeted immigrants. It identified them as: Maheboob Khokhar; Ramiz Vora; Asif Vora; Ansi Alibava; and Ozair Kadir. An Indian consulate official in New Zealand when contacted through an emergency number said Ahsan was listed missing soon after the attack. He said Ahsan was not an Indian citizen now. "Ahsan used to hold Indian passport in the past," the official said. Ashan did his master's degree at the University of Auckland in 2010 before settling in Christchurch. Friends supporting Ashan's wife at the couple's Christchurch home said she was not accepting he was among the dead in the mosque. His family had been informed of his death by the New Zealand authorities, his brother Kashif told the BBC. "Nobody was imagining in New Zealand - which is a peace-loving country - such situation arises," his father Sayeeduddin told BBC Telugu. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted on Saturday night that Ahsan had passed away. Indian-origin Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60, a leader of the Fiji Muslim League, also died at the Linwood Mosque. He was visiting Christchurch with his wife. Mohammad Imran Khan, 47, was also killed in the attack. Khan's family has roots in India. He owned two restaurants in Christchurch. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu Bishops' Council has moved the Madras High Court seeking re-scheduling of the April 18 Lok Sabha elections and assembly bypolls in the state, saying the date clashed with Easter Triduum, a key religious event for Christians, and polling percentage may be affected. In his petition, Madurai Archbishop and president of the bishops' council Antony Pappusamy submitted that there were around 50 lakh Christians in the state and for them the Holy Week starts with the Palm Sunday on April 14 and culminates with Easter Sunday on April 21. The election date coincided with Maundy Thursday, when the Last Supper takes place on the eve of crucifixion and death of Jesus on Good Friday, the petitioner submitted. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter were called Holy Triduum (holy three days), he said, adding thousands of faithful will visit churches and prayers would continue throughout the night on these days. Hence it may affect the turn out of voters, the petitioner said. He also submitted that the Catholic Church was running around 2,800 schools in the state and most of them were used by the government as polling stations for any election. If the polling booths were located in the schools, it would restrict movement of people in the preceding days of polling. The archbishop said the council had already submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission and there was no response. There was an urgent need for rescheduling the polling date in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry from April 18, he said, and prayed the court to direct the Election Commission to change the schedule. The petition is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Several civil society organisations Monday said they will launch a nation-wide campaign later this week to highlight the failures of the ruling BJP-led government ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The organisations which include Swaraj Abhiyan, National Alliance of Peoples' Movements, All India Kisan Sangharsh Samnvay Samiti and Pension Parishad said the campaign will aim at bringing "real issues back into electoral focus" and increase awareness about issues like farm distress, hate crimes and unemployment. Over 600 civil society organisations will launch 'Desh Mera Vote Mera Mudda Mera' campaign on March 23, observed as Shaheed Divas, during which rallies, marches, human chains and seminars will be held across the country. "At a time when the whole narrative of elections is being hijacked under the garb of nationalism, it has become imperative that civil society organisations, social movements and groups who share a commitment to our constitutional values co-ordinate their energies to restore democratic balance," said social activist Harsh Mander. Yogendra Yadav of Swaraj Abhiyan said the aim of the campaign is to increase awareness about issues such as farm distress, hate crimes, unemployment and attacks against Dalits, women journalists and human rights activists. "Just when substantive and inconvenient issues had begun to surface in this election, suddenly the focus has been shifted to issues of national security that allows the current regime to avoid critical scrutiny of its record," he said. Extending support to this campaign on behalf of farmers organisations, V M Singh, Convenor of AIKSCC, emphasized that two pro-farmer bills pending before the parliament must be passed. Madhuresh of National Alliance of People's Movement pointed out that the campaign will start early morning from Tinsukhia in Assam on March 23 and conclude with a late night 'adivasi sammelan' in Nandurbar in Maharashtra. At the national level, the campaign has received endorsement from various forums, a statement added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress and the BJP Monday slammed TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao over his comments that the two parties had "failed" to meet the aspirations of the people and he would form a national party "if necessary". "KCR ji said he will form a national party. The election notification has been issued. Is he going to start a national party after elections?" state Congress working president A Revanth Reddy told reporters. Rao is talking about starting a national party "to acquire a new avtar (form)" as the federal front advocated by him earlier is not in existence, Reddy alleged. The national party talked about by Rao would not be able to take shape before the conclusion of Lok Sabha election process, he said. Accusing the BJP and the Congress of failing to meet the aspirations of the people, the Telangana chief minister has said he would start a national party "if necessary" to herald reforms and "unite the country." The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president kicked off his party's poll campaign from Karimnagar on Sunday where he stressed the need for an "alternative federal politics" in the country. Of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, the TRS is seeking 16 for itself leaving one for its ally All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), led by Asaduddin Owaisi, to ensure that the state gets a "good" deal post the general elections. Referring to this, the Congress leader said the TRS already had 16 seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha. "He (Rao) will not start national party. He cannot do it. Is he not going to seek votes in this election if he does not start a national party before this elections. Let KCR ji say that. He says (he will gather) 120 seats (MPs). How will 120 seats come? Does he have Alladdin's magic lamp," Reddy said. About Rao's comments about the need for a qualitative change in politics, state BJP president K Laxman referred to several MLAs from Congress switching over to the TRS. Laxman, who played an audio clip of Rao's purported comments earlier against defections, alleged that "wholesale defections" were taking place now under the TRS regime. "Do you want to bring these (defections) at the national level?" he said. On Rao's remarks appreciating the progress achieved by China, Laxman alleged that it was one-party rule in China which is being followed in Telangana (through defections). Taking exception to Rao's reported comments that the Centre could not address problems with Pakistan, Laxman said the NDA government took decisive steps on issues of national security and international relations. TRS MP Kavita, Rao's daughter, had earlier spoken in a way questioning the existence of Jammu and Kashmir, Laxman claimed. On TRS president remarks that BJP leaders spoke as if they have taken "contract for Hindu religion", Laxman said it was "devil quoting the scriptures" as the TRS joined hands with the AIMIM which is "anti-Hindu". "What is your party's stance on Ram temple issue?" he asked. The ruling TRS was in favour of giving 12 per cent reservation to Muslims, he said. The BJP would "expose" the "double standards" of the TRS, he said. Rao talked about launching a national party but what happened to the federal front mooted by him earlier, the BJP leader asked. He said the BJP had played a key role in realising separate Telangana as it had supported the demand as main opposition party before 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The number of people killed after torrential downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides that tore through mountainside villages in Indonesia's easternmost province has climbed to 79, with dozens of others missing, officials said Monday. Indonesian soldier and rescue team search for earthquake victims in Bayan, North Lombok, Indonesia, Monday, March 18, 2019. [Photo: AP/Bimbo] On Sunday, the disaster-prone country was hit by an earthquake, triggering a landslide that hit a popular waterfall on the tourist island of Lombok, killing at least three people and damaging hundreds of homes. The worst-hit area from the flooding was Sentani subdistrict, where tons of mud, rocks and trees from a landslide on a mountain early Sunday rolled down to a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. Floodwaters and landslides destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua province's Jayapura district following days of torrential rains, hampering rescue efforts, Nugroho said. "The combination of natural factors and human activities has caused this fatal disaster," he said. Nugroho said 79 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes by Sunday. Another 74 people were hospitalized, many with broken bones and head wounds. Nugroho said the number of dead and injured would likely increase since affected areas had not been reached and rescuers were still searching for dozens of people reportedly still missing. "We are overwhelmed by too many injuries," said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding that some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. "We can't handle it alone." Papua military spokesman Col. Muhammad Aidi said rescuers saved two injured infants who had been trapped for more than six hours. The parents of one of the babies were washed away and died. Nugroho said rescuers evacuated more than 4,200 people to temporary shelters as more than 600 houses and buildings were damaged and submerged. Indonesian police and soldiers search for residents who need assistance at a flooded neighborhood in Sentani, Papua Province, Indonesia, Monday, March 18, 2019. [Photo: AP/Tumbur Gultom] Television footage showed hundreds of rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals. Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains. Meanwhile, a moderately strong earthquake triggered a landslide on Lombok island on Sunday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.5 and struck at a depth of 23 kilometers (15 miles). The earthquake was felt across the island, located next to Bali, panicking residents still recovering from a major quake last August that killed more than 300 people and left thousands homeless. Sunday's quake triggered a landslide from Mount Rinjani and hit dozens of tourists at the Tiu Kelep waterfall located in the foothills of the active volcano, said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman. Two Malaysians and a 14-year-old Indonesian boy were killed in the landslide, Nugroho said. He said rescuers managed to evacuate 22 Malaysians and 14 Indonesians from the waterfall site, and 56 others mostly local surveyors from government institutions, the military and the police from the mountainous area. Indonesian police carry the body of a flood victim in Sentani, Papua Province, Indonesia, Monday, March 18, 2019. [Photo: AP/Tumbur Gultom] At least 182 people were injured in the quake, including 26 Malaysians, Nugroho said. About 525 homes were damaged, including 32 that were flattened. Indonesia sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations was ready to help Indonesia cope with the disasters. "The United Nations expresses its solidarity with the Indonesian authorities and stands ready to work with them as they respond to the humanitarian needs resulting from both natural disasters," the spokesman for the secretary-general said in a statement. Khimji Ramdas Shipping recently partnered with Ceco Environmental Peerless Manufacturing Company as inland haulers in Oman for the export of high and low pressure separators made in Oman. The haul, executed in coordination with the Ministry of Transport and the Royal Oman Police (ROP), involved 1200-metric tonnes of finished products to be transported over 700 km from Nizwa to the Port of Duqm and the subsequent loading onto chartered ships heading to Kuwait. Arjun Parthsarathy, senior manager projects from Ceco-Peerless, said: This project has been one of the most important and prestigious venture for us and has spanned over 18 months from launch to realisation. The event was picked amongst many prestigious bidders for this massive operation that involved obtaining special permits from the related ministries and the ROP, customs clearance, stool-down, and port coordination amongst others. Through years of expertise and strong relationships, the company has executed the assigned tasks seamlessly which is highly commendable; we indeed are glad to have made the right choice, he said. Separators are pressure vessels used for separating an oil well stream into gaseous and liquid components. Manufactured by Special Technical Services (STS) an oil field equipment manufacturing company, the separators are the first-of-its-kind to be exported from the sultanate. MC Jose, chief executive officer, Khimji Ramdas Shipping, said: A shipment of five units of high and low pressure separators were moved earlier this month. Our expertise and experience were illustrated whilst handling this heavy and out of gauge cargo in their haulage from Nizwa to Port of Duqm. We also facilitated the load out of the separators on to the vessel carrying them to their final overseas destination, Jose said. This being the first ever export of such separators from Oman, makes the shipment a special one and we are so proud to be associated with. It is also an opportunity for us to demonstrate to the Project Handlers around the globe the capabilities of Oman to provide effective logistics solutions for all types of cargo movements in an attempt to promote Oman as a major logistics hub in the region for heavy cargo discharge, storage and distribution, Jose added. Throughout the past few years, Khimji Ramdas Shipping had systematically extended its services to every segment of Logistics. Project cargo handling started in 2016 after having adequate technical team on board, the same year Khimji Ramdas Shipping moved two rigs for an oilfield in Oman and also a sea mining dredger. Thereafter Khimji Ramdas Shipping has been playing a crucial role in handling the transportation of heavy lift cargoes to different destinations within Oman, it stated. TradeArabia News Service The Congress is united in Haryana and will display this unity when leaders undertake a bus yatra to launch its election campaign there, a top party leader said Monday, denying differences among functionaries over a state committee. Congress general secretary in-charge of Haryana Ghulam Nabi Azad's remark came days after a coordination committee in Haryana was withdrawn soon after it was made public. Reportedly, a section in the state unit expressed resentment over inclusion and exclusion of some leaders in the panel. Two days ago, the party had announced the coordination committee for the state and later withdrew it, but there was no major reason, he said. The committee is likely to meet on Tuesday with former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as its chairman, Azad said. The Congress leader has denied any resentment or differences over the committee's formation. In its proposed meeting on Tuesday, it would decide the date for the launch of the 'bus yatra' as part of its Lok Sabha poll campaign in the state, Azad said. Polling in 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be held on May 12. The bus yatra would also mark the party's campaign for the assembly elections slated later this year, he said. "We will now follow the Andhra-Karnataka model, which I had started about two decades back, to put all the leaders in one bus and take them around," Azad said. The Congress did it in Karnataka in 1999-2000 and in Andhra Pradesh in 2003-2004, he said. "They are different before entering the bus, but when they come out of the bus after a few weeks, they are one. Twenty leaders become one. "When they speak from one stage, when they eat from the same plate, they become one. So, we are working out this plan for a bus tour," Azad told reporters here. During the yatra, he said, leaders would be laying the foundations of the party's campaign for the assembly elections. "We have another 6-8 months before the state assembly elections are here and we would try to touch all assembly constituencies during this bus tour," Azad said. The other members of the panel are PCC President Ashok Tanwar, CLP leader Kiran Chaudhary, former central minister Kumari Selja, AICC communications in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, he said. Former ministers Kuldeep Bishnoi, Mahendra Pratap Singh and Ajay Singh Yadav; Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda, former MPs Naveen Jindal and Kailasho Saini; former MLA Anil Thakkar; MLA Kuldeep Sharma, Jaiveer Singh Balmiki and Sardar Jaipal Singh Lali are also part of the panel. "We have tried to bring in a mix of senior leaders and leaders of all communities and tried to accommodate all of them. "Hopefully, tomorrow we will have a meeting of the coordination committee and we will discuss the plan of touring the entire state. Of course, I will accompany them. That goes without saying," Azad said. The senior Congress leader said the parliamentary elections in Haryana are much later in the sixth phase and a date for the launch of the poll campaign would be decided soon. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pope Francis met Monday with Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, France's highest-ranking Catholic official, who was expected to tender his resignation after receiving a six-month suspended jail sentence for failing to report sex abuse by a priest under his authority. The Vatican confirmed the meeting took place within the city state but did not provide any details. Barbarin, 68, is the most senior French cleric caught up in the global paedophilia scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church. He said after his March 7 conviction that he would travel to Rome to tender his resignation. If accepted, Barbarin would become "bishop emeritus" of the southeastern French city of Lyon but remain cardinal, meaning he could still vote on a new pope. The Argentine pontiff could take several weeks to decide whether to accept the resignation. The pope has previously defended the cardinal, saying in 2016 that his resignation before a trial would be "an error, imprudent". But Francis said in February that "no abuse must ever be covered up, as has happened in the past", or be under-estimated. A court in Lyon found Barbarin guilty of failing to report allegations that a priest, Bernard Preynat, had abused boy scouts in the Lyon area in the 1980s and 1990s. The priest, who was charged in 2016, is expected to be tried this year. Barbarin's lawyer immediately announced plans to fight the landmark ruling, which was hailed by abuse victims as ushering in a new period of accountability in the French Church. It remains to be seen however if the pope will accept his resignation ahead of the appeal ruling. His trial comes as Francis battles to restore faith in the Church following a slew of abuse scandals that have spanned the globe, from Australia to Chile and the United States. Less than a week after Barbarin's conviction the Vatican's former number three, Australian Cardinal George Pell, was sentenced to six years in prison by a Melbourne court for the "brazen" sexual abuse of two choirboys. Barbarin, an arch-conservative who took over as archbishop in Lyon in 2002, was an outspoken opponent of gay marriage. He had long been accused by victims' groups in Lyon of turning a blind eye to child abuse in his diocese, which blighted dozens of lives. "I cannot see what I am guilty of," Barbarin told the court at the start of the trial in January. "I never tried to hide, let alone cover up, these horrible facts." But the court found otherwise, saying the archbishop, "in all conscience", chose not to tell authorities of the abuse allegations "in order to preserve the institution to which he belongs". Two other senior French religious figures have been convicted of failing to report child abuse in the past: Pierre Rican, the archbishop of Bayeux-Lisieux, in 2001, and the former bishop of Orleans, Andre Fort, last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Impatience with the inability of opposition Grand Alliance in Bihar to resolve the thorny issue of seat-sharing came to the fore on Monday with the CPI(ML) asserting that decisions relating to the state "could not be taken while sitting in New Delhi." "You cannot take a decision about Bihar by holding parleys in New Delhi. You have to be here, among the people of the state, to assess the situation on the ground and then take a realistic decision," CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya told a channel. Bhattacharya made this remark in the backdrop of the "Mahagathbandhan" still working out seats for various constituents in the formation even though the NDA announced its formula long back and came out with details as to which seat the respective constituents BJP, JD(U) and LJP will contest on Sunday. He said "the stand of the Left is clear. Our primary objective is to defeat the NDA but for that the Mahagathbandhan must leave at least six seats for the Left Front. Left parties had contested 20 out of 40 seats in the last general elections. We have already scaled down. It is now up to the Grand Alliance to decide as to whether it wants an electoral understanding with us or not." The Left Front which in Bihar comprises the CPI(ML), CPI and CPI(M) retains some pockets of influence despite much of its cadre having been dwindled over the years on account of the weakening of the communist movement across the world and mobilisation of rural masses along caste lines since the implementation of Mandal Commission recommendations. The "Mahagathbandhan" in Bihar formally acknowledges Congress, RJD, Upendra Kushwahas RLSP, Jitan Ram Manjhis HAM, Sharad Yadavs LJD and Mukesh Sahnis VIP as its constituents. Attempts are being made by Madhepura MP Pappu Yadav whose wife Ranjeet Ranjan is a Congress MP to seek entry into the formation though the same is being opposed by the RJD which had fielded him on its ticket five years ago but expelled him later on disciplinary grounds. Yadav has since floated an outfit Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) and been trying to carve out a niche for himself. Sharing of seats in the Grand Alliance has been hampered by squabbles between smaller partners like the RLSP and the HAM with each party demanding a share that was bigger than what the other was to get. Sources in the "Mahagathbandhan" also say that things have reached an impasse on account of the Lalu Prasads RJD asking the Congress to be content with eight seats, but the latter making a "demand" of not less than 11. While leaving for the national capital on Monday for yet another round of talks with leaders within the party as well as partners in the coalition, BPCC president Madan Mohan Jha sought to refute such reports, claiming "we have made no demands. Seat-sharing talks are making good progress. The elections have just begun. Wait for two-three days and you will come to know our formula as well as other details." Four of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar would go to polls in the first phase, notifications for which have been issued on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi government has decided to challenge the High Court order setting aside a rule which barred private schools built on public land to hike fees without seeking prior permission, a senior official said Monday. The Delhi High Court had last week allowed private unaided schools in the city to go ahead with an interim hike in fees to implement the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission on salaries of teachers and other employees. "This condition (permission for hike in fees) was part of the agreement that the government had made with such schools at the time of allotting land. Also, if they get a free hand to arbitrarily hike fees ultimately parents will suffer, which we are not in favour of. So we will challenge the order," a senior official of the Directorate of (DoE) said. As many as 325 private schools in the city, including some well-known ones, are built on government land. The High Court observed that "so long as the fees charged by the concerned educational institution(s) did not amount to 'commercialisation of education', thus understood, the Constitution clearly advocates a 'hands off' approach by the government, insofar as the establishment and administration of the institution, including the fixation of fees by it, was concerned. This would also immunise the institution from the requirement of being called upon to explain its receipts and expenses, as before a chartered accountant". The court went on to add that the interim hike, as a temporary measure, did not infract the fundamental rights, either of the institution, or of those to whom it imparted and therefore, it "was perfectly in order". The DoE had in 2017 allowed the schools to go ahead with an "interim fee hike" up to 15 per cent in line with the seventh pay commission's recommendations provided they get their financial accounts audited by the government in a fixed period of time. The order was withdrawn by the AAP government last year, saying that the schools would have to obtain prior permission from it before increasing their fees and any hike would be permitted only after an audit of the schools' accounts. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Firebrand BJP leader and union minister Giriraj Singh was on Monday apparently left sulking after the Nawada Lok Sabha seat, which he represents, went to NDA ally LJP. "Compulsions of seat-sharing may be there. But I wish to underscore that no other union minister from Bihar may have to give up his sitting seat," the veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told media persons here. "This is despite the fact that I have worked so much to nurture my constituency," Singh added. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had on Sunday announced the list of candidates and their respective seats to be contested by its three constituents-- the BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. As per the announcement the BJP and the JD(U) will contest 17 seats each and six seats were allotted to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Asked whether he had expressed his wish to seek re-election from Nawada to state BJP president Nityanand Rai, Singh said: "I must have done so 200 times". "Five years is a long time and I have become attached to Nawada and its people. Rai had assured me that I would get a ticket from wherever I wanted. Why this (denial of ticket) happened is for him to answer," Singh told reporters here. On reports that he might be asked to contest from Begusarai, the seat which he had wanted to fight in 2014, Singh replied with a hint of bitterness, "I was a party worker, am a party worker and shall always remain a party worker." Besides Giriraj Singh, the other union ministers from Bihar are Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Buxar), R K Singh (Ara), Ram Kripal Yadav (Pataliputra) and Radha Mohan Singh (Motihari). All these seats have been retained by the BJP and it is believed that the sitting MPs may be fielded again from their respective seats. Interestingly, in the last general election Giriraj Singh had initially expressed his wish to contest from Begusarai, which is dominated by the Bhumihar caste to which he belongs. But the seat then went to Bhola Singh, a party-hopper who had been previously associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI), Congress and the Janata Dal. Giriraj Singh was then given the ticket from Nawada, a less safe seat given its social profile which he won riding the Modi wave. The Nawada seat has gone to LJP this time in exchange for Munger, which has been given to the JD(U) reportedly at the insistence of Nitish Kumar who wanted it for close aide Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh. Lalan Singh had represented Munger from 2009 to 2014 when he lost it to LJPs Veena Devi, who is the wife of mafia don-turned-politician Suraj Bhan Singh. With Begusarai lying vacant on account of the death of Bhola Singh, speculations are rife that Giriraj Singh may be fielded from there. However, he is said to be wary of the possibility that former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar may make his electoral debut on a CPI ticket from the seat. Belonging to the same caste as Giriraj Singh, Kanhaiya is likely to pose a tough challenge as Begusarai has been a stronghold of the CPI and has earned the epithet-- 'Moscow of Bihar'. Moreover, being a Bhumihar himself, Kanhaiya may cut into votes of the dominant caste besides getting support from a cross-section of other social segments since it is being speculated that the Grand Alliance comprising Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and other smaller parties may support him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 24 people were killed and 31 injured when a freight train carrying stowaways derailed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, police and medical services said. The accident occurred Sunday in Kasai province, in the centre-west of the central African country. "We have retrieved 24 bodies, mostly children. It is a provisional toll because the wagons are still overturned," a railway police official in Bena Leka, 140 kilometres (90 miles) north of Kananga, one of the main towns in Kasai, told AFP. "Most of the passengers are stowaways because it is a freight train. We have suspended the search because night has just fallen in the area," said the source, who was at the site. "Several wagons have fallen into the water at the bridge over the Luembe River and five more wagons are still overturned." Serious casualties were taken to the hospital in nearby Kakenge. "We are overwhelmed by the number of injured. We are working urgently. We have already admitted 31 injured," said doctor Jean Claude Tshimanga of Kakenge hospital. The national rail company confirmed the derailment. It is the third rail accident in about a month in central DRC. Five people were killed in a passenger train accident last month at the station in Kalenda. Rail accidents in the sprawling former Belgian colony are frequent and often deadly because of decrepit track and ageing locomotives dating from the 1960s. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The father of the Turkish-born man suspected of killing three people in an attack Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht said his son should be punished if found responsible, a Turkish agency reported. "If he did it he must be punished," the DHA agency quoted Mehmet Tanis, father of 37-year-old suspect Gokmen Tanis, as saying after what Dutch officials said was likely a terror-related attack. Dutch police said they had made an arrest after issuing a picture of Gokmen, whose family originally hails from Yozgat in central Turkey, media reports said. His father revealed he had lost contact with his son having returned to his homeland in 2008 after divorcing his wife, DHA reported. She remained in the Netherlands with Gokmen. Mehmet Tanis said he had since remarried and now lives in the central province of Kayseri. "I have had no dialogue, no contact with my son for 11 years. We have not spoken to one another since 2008," he told DHA. "He did not have an aggressive attitude -- but 11 years have gone by. What happened, what has he experienced? I know nothing whatsoever," Mehmet Tanis said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Representative image The has got election commission approval for its 23 requests for putting out advertisements in the electronic media while the submitted its first application Monday, officials said. The Aam Aadmi Party is yet to make an application, they said. The model code of conduct is in place since March 10, when the Election Commission of India announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls. When the MCC is on, political advertisements have to be certified by the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) within 24 hours of submission. In case the MCMC finds something objectionable in the proposed advertisement, it sends it back to the party and asks them to submit it again with modifications within 24 hours. The officials said the MCMC approved 23 applications of the for advertisements in electronic media and the party made two fresh requests on Monday. Any application might contain several cases which may pertain to radio spots, advertisements on social media and television. Some of the applications of the ruling party has had as many as 11 cases, the officials said. The made its first application to the Chief Electoral Office of Delhi for approval on Monday and its was under consideration, they said. The MCMC has the job of certifying content and see whether it is fit for being aired in conformity with the guidelines set by the Election Commission Of India. The Commission has engaged the services of social media company Becil, a public sector undertaking, to monitor social media and create voter awareness through Facebook and Twitter. Every election is a "picnic" for the Gandhi family, the BJP said on Monday while seeking to downplay Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's three-day Uttar Pradesh visit during which she will cover 100 km by boat in the river Ganga. "For the Gandhi family, every election is a picnic. They come, they see and resort to rhetorical speeches. After the elections are over, they head towards Switzerland or Italy," senior BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma told PTI here Monday. "As soon as a new election is announced, a new member of the family emerges and assumes magical leadership," he said, adding, "The respected leader (Priyanka) has campaigned for the Congress in earlier elections as well and despite campaigning, her party suffered defeats at the hustings." The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh kicked off her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in the state on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam -- the confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. During her visit, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her ride down the river is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade long wilderness in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court Monday ordered the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence to not take any coercive steps against a 51-year-old embryologist accused of importing human embryos from Malaysia. A division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre also directed embryologist Dr Goral Gandhi to appear before the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) to record her statement. According to her plea, Gandhi runs an IVF clinic in suburban Bandra. "The petitioner does not import embryos as part of her business," Gandhi's lawyer Sujoy Kantawalla said. According to the plea, on the night of March 16, certain people claiming to be DRI officials conducted a search at her clinic and seized certain documents. The officials handed over summons to the petitioner directing her to appear before the investigating officer concerned of the DRI for further probe. DRI's lawyer Rebecca Gonsalves told the court that on March 16, a person was intercepted at the city's international airport. "During search of his luggage, a canister was seized and DRI officials found a human embryo inside it," Gonsalves said. Gonsalves added that upon questioning, the man told the officials that the canister was to be delivered to the petitioner's clinic. "Human embryos cannot be imported unless the person has obtained a permit to do so from the Indian Council of Medical Research," Gonsalves argued. The bench directed the DRI to file its affidavit in response to the petition and posted the matter for hearing on April 3. The court said the petitioner should appear before the officer concerned on March 22 to record her statement. "No coercive action shall be taken till further hearing," it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Leading global companies were in Dubai to take part in the International Architectural Glass Conference which put the spotlight on key topics including the lessons learnt from the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, security and acoustic glazing. The event was hosted by Emirates Glass, one of the largest processors of flat architectural glass in the Middle East, at Dubai Investments House. The open forum of dialogue and discussion gave glass professionals an insight into a number of important industry topics. These included safety and security glazing and the increased use of laminated glass in the Mena region, the effects of acoustic pollution, new developments in silicone sealant glazing design and anisotropy of heat-treated glass, and the benefits offered by retrofit films. A session was fully dedicated to the causes and lessons learned from the Grenfell Tower fire, a 2017 tragedy that took the lives of over 70 lives in a London tower block. Others ranged from the performance of laminated glass, sealant compatibility, adhesive backed polymeric film design and anisotropy. The one-day event, held in co-operation with the Glass and Glazing Federation Mena region (GGF), brought together industry experts and speakers from a range of international firms from the US, UK, Europe and the region, to present to over 130 delegates on a broad range of subjects. Rizwanulla Khan, the executive president of Emirates Glass, dubbed it as a unique event that provided an open forum of dialogue and discussion for the audience. "The goal was to have all stakeholders, including architects, consultants, glass processors, aluminium fabricators, and suppliers disseminate information and knowledge gathered from years of research and hands-on experience," he noted. "The platform not only deliberates on current issues that the industry is confronted with but also lays the groundwork for the future by exploring innovations that are imperative for the glass industry to thrive in the Middle East and beyond," he added. Pascoal DSilva, the chairman of GGF and quality and technical manager at Gulf Glass Industries, said: "GGF has accumulated data over nearly 40 years from their successes and failures in the glass and glazing sector." "This is the only technical conference that dissects the issues faced by GFF and gives architects, consultants, contractors, glaziers, and glass processors in the Mena region comprehensive and tried and tested information to launch from with rather than start from scratch," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Female voters hold the potential to be game-changers by playing a significant role in ensuring more gender-inclusive laws and policies, making the year 2019 India's "year of women", Chair of the Hinduja Bank, Switzerland, Hinduja SP Shanu said as the country readies for its upcoming crucial national elections. Shanu said that as India heads to the polls this spring, it is important to note that more women are heading to the ballot than ever before, with voter turnout among women having been higher in several state elections in the country. "More female voters are additionally likely to lead to more gender-inclusive laws and policies. Gender awareness not only transforms how candidates campaign, but also opens doors for more female candidates in the running, and greater opportunities for female leverage within national decision-making bodies," Shanu, the Chair of the Hinduja Foundation US, said in an opinion piece given to PTI. Shanu pointed out that the upsurge in women voters exercising their democratic and constitutional right shows that the determination of women across India to have a voice and exercise their rights is on the rise. She said women are fighting back across the political landscape around the world. She added that for the US, the year 2019 marks 'the year of women', with a record number of women 127 having entered Congress. Starting with Women's Marches in over 650 communities across the US, female activists worked together, forming a pragmatic network that saw four million people taking to the streets. She stressed that one can see collective action in India as well, citing the country's first all-women's political party, the National Women's Party (NWP), launched recently. The party has said it will contest 283 Lok Sabha seats - half of total seats - in the upcoming polls. "The NWP now has a platform to break down the deeply entrenched traditional cultural values and beliefs that dictate women's role in society and act as a barrier to achieving and sustaining gender equality. As the world celebrates International Women's Day, perhaps 2019 will be India's year of women too," Shanu, who is also Co-Chair and Director of Hinduja Global Solutions Inc, said. In the opinion piece, that also appears in Brussels publication 'New Europe', Shanu emphasised that endorsing women's empowerment is crucial to India's prosperity and success as an economic powerhouse particularly if it is to hit its development targets. Fair representation is fundamental to achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal number 5 for Gender Equality. "We need to recognize that investing in women is not only morally critical but also a considerable business opportunity. Women contribute approximately one-sixth of India's overall economic output, one of the lowest shares in the world, she said. As women and girls across the country become more literate, educated and empowered, they are also becoming more politically aware. "India's recent collective action was indicative of a revolutionary tide surging across the country," she said. Further, the #MeToo movement and the US Mid-Term election results prove that there is power in insurrection and coming together to demand change. The women's resistance movement has organized, mobilized, and empowered on a vast scale and at an unprecedented rate, she said. Across the world, Shanu said women are empowering other women and this grassroots resistance against a regressive and sexist political system broke into the highest level of politics, allowing women to revitalize the political landscape. She, however, added that the challenges that women face across the country stand as a testament to the lack of political support and will coming from its judicial system. She noted that existing political structuring and male-dominated parties have blocked the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill, which would compel the Indian Constitution to reserve 33% of all seats in the Lower House of Parliament, the Lok Sabha and all state legislative assemblies for women. Shanu also said the #MeToo movement, which "rocked establishments" around the world, shook India and its gendered barriers. Dozens of women across the country have taken to social media to expose their experiences of sexual assault and those culpable, she said. #MeToo is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault. The government Monday cautioned against fake websites claiming to be registration portal for Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM) scheme and said such websites may be misusing the collected data. The scheme, formulated by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), aims to promote use of solar energy among the farmers. "It has been noticed that few websites have cropped up claiming to be registration portal for KUSUM scheme. Such websites are potentially duping general public and misusing data captured through fake registration portal," the ministry said in a statement. The MNRE further said that DISCOMs or electricity distribution companies and state nodal agencies shall implement the KUSUM scheme for which the detailed guidelines will be issued soon. All potential beneficiaries must avoid depositing any registration fee or sharing important data on fake websites, it said, adding "they can contact their DISCOMs/state renewable energy nodal agencies or can visit official portal of the ministry for necessary information related to the scheme." Last month, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved launch of KUSUM scheme with the objective of providing financial and water security to farmers. The scheme consists of three components -- 10,000 MW of decentralised ground-mounted grid connected renewable power plants, installation of 17.50 lakh standalone solar powered agriculture pumps, and solarisation of 10 lakh grid-connected solar powered agriculture pumps. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jharkhand unit of the BJP Monday lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer L Khiangte that some government officials were removing party flags put up on houses of its workers and supporters. The complaint was made after the party leadership received reports from some districts in this regard. "We have given a letter of protest to the CEO, who said proper steps will be taken so that there will be no problem to anyone," Prabhakar told reporters. He accused some sub-divisional officers, block development officers and circle officers of doing this "with a prejudiced mind". "By rule, the EC should be informed only before using hoardings and banners and not party flags and stickers," Prabhakar said. On February 12, BJP national president Amit Shah had launched "My family, BJP family" campaign by hoisting the party flag at his residence in Gujarat and sought to cover over five crore houses across the country under the drive by March 2. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Gujarat Congress Monday alleged the BJP has violated the model code of conduct by holding a meeting of the party's State Parliamentary Board at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's official residence, prompting the poll panel to order a probe. The main opposition party lodged a complaint in this regard with the Election Commission (EC). However, the BJP rejected the Congress's charge. On receiving the complaint, sent by the Congress through fax, Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Murali Krishna ordered an inquiry into the matter. "We have received the complaint. We will conduct an inquiry into the issue," Krishna told PTI. In its complaint, the Congress alleged the CM's official residence in Gandhinagar is a government property and no political activity is permitted from a government premises when the model code of conduct is in force. Polling for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will be held in a single phase on April 23. The model code of conduct came into force when the poll schedule was announced on March 10. The ruling party is holding a three-day meeting of the State Parliamentary Board at Rupani's official residence to prepare a panel of probable candidates for all the 26 seats. The names, being shortlisted with help from state BJP observers and Rupani, will be sent to the Central Parliamentary Board which is likely to announce the final candidates after March 25. Defending the move of organising the three-day meeting, which began Sunday, at the CM's official residence, Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani told reporters the gathering does not violate any rules. "We have to also take care of the CM's security. Arranging such meetings at CM's residence is an old tradition. "Party leaders are only doing brainstorming here. We have not arranged any political rally or engaged in any poll campaigning here," he said in Gandhinagar. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A gunman killed three people and wounded nine others on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday morning in what the mayor said appeared to be a terror attack, touching off a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with dogs zero in on an apartment building close to the shooting. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level. Dutch military police went on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey who they said was "associated with the incident." The photo showed a bearded man on board a tram, dressed in a dark blue hooded top. Police warned citizens not to approach the man, whom they identified as Gokmen Tanis, but call authorities instead. The Utrecht attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. They later erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Utrecht police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Heavily armed anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A sniffer dogs wearing a tactical vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed three deaths and said that nine people were wounded, three of them seriously. "We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more," van Zanen said. "Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. He said that "a terror motive is not excluded." Rutte said that, throughout the country, "there is a mix of disbelief and disgust." "If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence," he added. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one possibility "is that the person fled by car." He did not rule out the possibility that more than one shooter was involved. The Netherlands' anti-terror coordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000 people. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the "threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province." Dutch political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of the Dutch parliament's upper house. In neighboring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for federal police in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said additional officers had been detailed to watch not only major highways, but also minor crossings and railway routes. German authorities were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact sedan, but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht, Onstein said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Trinath Gomango, the BJD MLA from Gunupur assembly seat in Odisha, on Monday resigned from the ruling party citing "neglect" meted out to him by the party. Like Nabarangpur MP Balabhadra Majhi and Nilgiri MLA Sukant Kumar Nayak, who had resigned from the regional party recently alleging "neglect", Gomango said he had also been "ignored" and "sujected to neglect" in the party. Gomango, the brother-in-law of former Congress chief minister Giridhar Gomango who had later joined the saffron fold, was elected to the Assembly from Gunupur seat in Rayagada district in 2014. The Gunupur MLA sent his resignation letter to BJP president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. "I have today tendered my resignation from the primary membership of Biju Janata Dal (BJD). I joined the BJD in 2009 and have worked for the party for five years," the tribal leader said. "The party has let me down by organising a rally at Gunupur without my presence," Gomango told reporters outside the residence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Gomango also alleged that the party had "ignored" him and instead projected Raghunath Gomango as a probable candidate from the seat for 2019 elections. He said he had apprised the BJD president Naveen Patnaik of his grievance but it was "never addressed". Asked about his next course of action, Gomango said he will take a decision after consulting his supporters and well wishers. Simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls will be held in Odisha in four phases from April 11 to April 29. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Congress entrant Hardik Patel Monday prefixed his twitter handle with the word "Berojgar" (jobless), apparently to mock the BJP's "Main Bhi Chowkidar" campaign on the social media. The twitter handle of the Patidar quota spearhead, who joined the Congress in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi recently, now reads as: "Berojgar Hardik Patel". 'Main Bhi Chowkidar hoon' narrative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to counter Opposition's oft-repeated jibe, "Chowkidar chor hai", aimed at him. In his rallies and addresses, PM Modi terms himself as a 'chowkidar' or watchman of the country. Under "Main Bhi..." campaign, BJP leaders, Union ministers, chief ministers are prefixing the word "chowkidar" (watchman) to their twitter handles. Rahul Gandhi has been attacking the prime minister with the "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe in the context of the Rafale fighter aircraft deal. The Congress alleges that Modi government has failed to create promised jobs in the country after coming to power in 2014, which has increased unemployment significantly. Gujarat Congress IT cell vice president Hiren Banker said several Congress workers are adding "Berojgar" to their twitter handles. However, he also clarified that the Congress is yet to officially adopt the 'Berojgar' campaign. The 'Berojgar' began trending Sunday when several youths added the new nomenclature to their twitter handles. "Several workers of Congress have also joined the 'campaign' and the engagement is increasing. However, we have not yet officially adopted this," Banker said, adding that the Congress would adopt the "Berojgar" campaign after consulting party officials. The Congress is countering the BJP's 'MainBhiChowkidar' hashtag, which was trending on the micro-blogging site since this morning, with its 'ChowkidarChorHai' hashtag. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Haryana government declared a one-day state mourning on Monday as a mark of respect to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday. "The State government has decided to observe a one-day state mourning as a mark of respect to the departed dignitary. The national flag will fly at half-mast on March 18," an order issued by Haryana Chief Secretary's office said. Parrikar, a four-time chief minister, died at his private residence Sunday evening after battling the pancreatic ailment since February last year. The IIT graduate represented Panaji Assembly seat in the state for over two decades. Parrikar's final journey will begin after 4 pm. He would be accorded a state funeral with full military honours, according to the home ministry. The central government has announced national mourning on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court Monday sought response of Christian Michel, arrested in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, and the CBI on Tihar Jail authorities' plea challenging an order allowing him to make international phone calls in violation of prison rules. Justice Mukta Gupta issued notice to Michel and CBI on the jail authorities plea in which they alleged that no facts and circumstances were considered by the trial court for granting an "illegal and improper privilege of communication". The trial court had in January allowed Michel to make international phone calls to to his family, friends and lawyers and he was granted 15 minutes a week for making calls. Advocate Avi Singh, appearing for Tihar Jail, said the prison manual provided only for 10 minutes per week for making calls. He said that as per the January 27, 2017 circular of prison authorities, a foreign national is only allowed to make calls to the country of his or her origin. Michel's country of origin is the UK and as per the jail call records, he has been mostly contacting his "legal representative" in Italy. The high court listed the matter for further hearing on April 22 and said that Michel be produced before it on the next date, if already not released from jail. The accused, lodged in jail under judicial custody, had approached the trial court seeking permission to make phone calls to his family and others, claiming that the prison authorities had rejected his plea. Michel, extradited from Dubai, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on December 22 last year. He was later arrested by CBI in the case related to Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland deal. The court had earlier imposed restrictions on Michel meeting his lawyers while he was in the ED's custody, after the agency had said he was misusing the legal access by passing chits to his lawyers, asking them how to tackle questions on "Mrs Gandhi". Michel is among the three alleged middlemen being probed in the case by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The others are Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa. ED, in its charge sheet filed against Michel in June 2016, had alleged that he had received 30 million euros (about Rs 225 crore) from AgustaWestland. CBI, in its charge sheet, has alleged an estimated loss of 398.21 million euros (about Rs 2,666 crore) to the exchequer due to the deal that was signed on February 8, 2010 for the supply of VVIP choppers worth 556.262 million euros. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court Monday stayed an order of the Central Information Commission which held that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) fall within the definition of 'information' under the RTI Act. Justice V K Rao sought response of the CIC and an applicant, who had sought access to an EVM maintained by the Election Commission (EC) under the Right to Information Act, on a plea filed by the poll panel. EC has filed petition challenging CIC's February 12 order holding that the EVM, which is available with the EC in a material form and also as samples, is an information under the RTI Act. Senior advocate Sandeep Sethi and advocate Sidhant Kumar, representing the EC, said that EVM does not fall under the scope of the RTI Act which is primarily concerned with documentary records and representative models. "The EVMs maintained by the petitioner (EC) are utilised in the conduct of elections all over the country in accordance with law. Further, the petitioner also maintains a small number of EVMs for the purposes of training of election officials and use in awareness programmes under the strict supervision of the petitioner. It is further submitted that the petitioner does not maintain any EVM in sample or model form," the poll panel said in its plea filed before the high court. It added that all EVMs are securely stored in accordance with the manual on EVMs issued by the EC and the Representation of People Act. The CIC's order had come on a plea by Rajasthan resident Razaak K Haidar who had said that as per Section 2(f) and 2(i) of the RTI Act, the definition of 'information' and 'record' also includes 'any model or any sample' held by a public authority. He had initially filed an application with the Central Public Information Officer designated by ECI seeking access to an EVM maintained by the poll panel. It was rejected, after which Haidar filed an appeal before the Appellate Authority which also reiterated that the request is beyond the scope of RTI Act. Thereafter, he approached the CIC with the same plea. Section 2(f) of the RTI Act defines 'Information' as any material in any form, including records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, samples, models, data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a public authority under any other law for the time being in force. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three people were shot dead and nine wounded on a tram by a gunman in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday. Police said they were hunting for a 37-year-old Turkish man involved in the apparent terrorist attack, said a Reuters report. Dutch authorities raised the terrorism threat to its highest level in Utrecht province, schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports and other vital infrastructure and also at mosques. Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks, saying he was deeply concerned about the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The police asks you to watch out for 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis (born in Turkey) in connection with this mornings incident, Dutch police said in a statement. They issued an image of the man and warned the public not to approach him. They gave no further details. The Algemeen Dagblad newspaper, citing a witness, said the gunman had targeted one woman on the tram and then shot other people who had tried to help her. Dutch television showed counter-terrorism units surrounding a house in Utrecht, but there was no official confirmation that the gunman might be inside. Local broadcaster RTV Utrecht quoted a witness as saying he had seen a woman lying on the ground amid some kind of confrontation and several men running away from the scene. The Madras High Court Monday said it will pronounce orders on a petition filed by the DMK challenging the election of AIADMK's A K Bose from Thiruparankundram assembly segment by Friday. DMK's Saravanan challenged the election of AIADMK candidate A K Bose in the 2016 bypoll. The Thiruparankundram seat fell vacant following Bose's death last year. Saravanan had recently moved the court seeking withdrawal of his election plea over which the court had already reserved its orders. The withdrawal petition was filed in the backdrop of the Election Commission announcing bypolls to 18 assembly constituencies leaving out three other vacant seats, including Thiruparankundram. It had cited pending court cases as the reason for not declaring by-elections in the three seats. A special mention was made before Justice P Velmurugan by DMK's senior counsel P Wilson that they would like to withdraw the petition as the Election Commission, by citing the litigation pending before the court, did not pronounce the bypoll date for the Thiruparankundram seat with all other 18 assembly segments that had fallen vacant. The judge observed that when there is no order from the high court, what is the need for the EC to cite the litigation pending before the court for not announcing the date of bypoll to the constituency. The judge said orders on the election petition would be pronounced on or before Friday. Besides Thiruparankundram, the DMK has also made a representation to the poll panel for holding bypolls to two other vacant seats, the Ottapidaram and Aravakurichi constituencies. Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo had recently said bypolls are not scheduled for the Thiruparankundram, Ottapidaram and Aravakurichi constituencies as election petitions are pending in the Madras High Court. The Ottapidaram constituency is represented by disqualified AIADMK MLA Sundararaj, while Aravakurichi is represented by Senthil Balaji, an AIADMK legislator who is now with the DMK. Petitions challenging their elections are pending in the Madras High Court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Hiranandani Group Monday said it has commenced operation of its 30-bedded multi-specialities Hiranandani Parks Hospital at neighouring Oragadam here. The Group currently runs hospitals in two locations - Powai, Mumbai and the other in Thane. Oragadam is the third such location, a press release said. The hospital would provide medical care options to the Oragadam-Sriperumbudur region and also to residents on the periphery of Chennai. Hiranandani Group CEO Dr Niranjan Hiranandani said the company was committed to the aim of creating a better life for communities since its inception. "The Hiranandani Parks Hospital marks a significant step in this direction. It is our endeavour to provide the finest healthcare facilities with expert healthcare professionals and latest equipment", he said. The Hiranandani Parks Hospital is designed to be one of the leading and most preferred healthcare service providers in Chennai, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hotel Leela Venture Ltd Monday announced sale of its four hotels, including one in the national capital, and a property to Canadian investment fund Brookfield for Rs 3,950 crore. It will sell hotels located in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Udaipur as well as 100 per cent sharing holder of the company in Leela Palace and Resorts Ltd, which owns property and holds licenses for the development of a hotel in Agra, Hotel Leela Venture said in a regulatory filing. Proceeds of the sale "will be paid to the lenders of the company towards repayment of dues," it said. "After completion of the aforesaid transaction, all borrowings of the company from all the banks and financial institutions would stand repaid." Post sale, the company will continue to operate the hotel in Mumbai and own certain land in Hyderabad and the joint development project of residential apartments with Prestige Developers in Bangalore. "Brookfield will have a right of first refusal over the company's hotel in Mumbai, as a part of the transaction," it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) Monday held a condolence meet to pay tributes to its alumnus, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar. The meeting was held at the institute's P C Saxena auditorium here, an IIT-B spokesperson said. Parrikar, 63, who had also been the defence minister, died on Sunday evening at his private residence in Goa after battling pancreatic cancer for over a year. Some of those who attended the meeting recalled that in 2017, Parrikar addressed the 55th convocation of the Mumbai-based institute where he told the graduates to take up jobs in social and development sectors. An alumnus of the famed institute, he had also asked students to join politics and the Army, said a former IIT-B student. ' The institute said Parrikar's demise came as a shock to them. "He was the institute's distinguished alumnus and keenly involved with many initiatives at IIT Bombay. He was also deeply involved with the launch of IIT Goa," the IIT-B spokesperson said. On the Alumni Day in 2014, IIT-B felicitated Parrikar, who graduated in metallurgical engineering from the institute in 1978, in recognition of his contribution to the development of the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India and Africa should examine if they can enter into a free trade agreement or preferential trade agreement, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu has said. Addressing a conference here, the minister said India's exports of services and merchandise together would touch a record USD 540 billion in the current financial year ending March 31, reflecting its robust economic fundamentals. "Please think about a free trade agreement between Africa and India. We can think about a preferential trade agreement....and the fundamental principle would be how Africa will benefit first and India later," he said, adding this could be another way of increasing Africa's share in the global marketplace. The India-Africa trade stands at USD 62 billion. India mainly exports pharmaceuticals, engineering and electronic products to Africa and imports natural resources and diamonds. According to the minister, India received record FDI inflows in the last fiscal, and the country's outbound investment flows are also increasing. Africa would be the preferred destination for Indian investments, Prabhu said. Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said the balance of trade is in favour of Africa. In 2017-18, India's exports to Africa were valued at USD 24 billion, whereas India's imports from Africa were at USD 38 billion. He said there is a huge potential to expand India-Africa bilateral trade flow, towards which India should look to geographically diversify its ties with African countries, as also diversify the bilateral trade basket. Addressing the CII EXIM Bank Conclave on India Africa Partnership here Sunday evening, he said India is committed to working with Africa in areas prioritised by African countries in the spirit of 'Partners in Progress'. The minister added that even as India gears up to become a USD 5 trillion economy in the next few years, and a USD 10 trillion economy thereafter, the country endeavours to help Africa sustain its own economic growth momentum. He pointed out that while physical connectivity between the two regions is being strengthened, the opportunity to expand digital connectivity between India and Africa could obviate the need for widespread and capital-intense physical infrastructure connectivity. Keeping in view Africa's central location on the global map, India could help establish strong logistics linkages in the region, Prabhu said. He also highlighted the opportunities for deeper India-Africa bilateral cooperation and partnerships in agriculture and food processing, power projects, new and renewal energy development, skills development, among others. He added that Indian industry will extend all support to African nations to process natural resources in Africa itself. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India has lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over several incidents of alleged harassment of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad between March 8 and 11, and demanded an immediate investigation into them, official sources said Monday. The Indian High Commission issued a "note verbale" to Pakistan Foreign Ministry on March 13, giving a detailed account of the incidents including tailing of India's Deputy High Commissioner, Naval Adviser and a first secretary on multiple occasions, they said. The sources said the deputy high commissioner was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security personnel on March 9 and 10 while the first secretary faced similar harassment on March 8. The Naval Adviser in the mission was subjected to aggressive tailing by Pakistani security personnel on March 8, 9, 10 and 11, they said. One Pakistani agency personnel was observed keeping surveillance outside the residence of the Indian Deputy High Commissioner on March 9 and 10. Sources said two Pakistani security agency personnel have been following the High Commissioner on a daily basis. In the note verbale, which is a diplomatic communication, the Indian High Commission has sought an urgent investigation into the incidents, saying such cases of harassment are violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. India's strong protest over the incidents came in the midst of severe strain in bilateral ties between the two neighbours. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group JeM training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China said on Monday that tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terrorist attack would figure in the first strategic dialogue between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday. Qureshi is visiting China, days after Beijing for the fourth time blocked a bid in the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Wednesday to designate Pakistan-based chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group as a "global terrorist" by putting a technical hold on the proposal, a move India termed as disappointing. The JeM has claimed responsibility for the February 14 that left 40 CRPF personnel dead and raised tensions between India and Pakistan. The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US on February 27. "As neighbour, China would like to see easing of tensions between the two. We would like to see the two countries continue to engage in dialogue for the peace and stability of the region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here. "I believe the issues causing regional tensions will be discussed," Geng said. To another question whether the issue of listing of Azhar would figure in the talks specially in the backdrop of Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui expressing confidence that it would be resolved, Geng said, "well I can't prejudge the topics" that are going figure in the talks. "But they will discuss issues of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern," he said. As per listing of Azhar, "China will continue to deal with the issue with a responsible and constructive manner and will maintain close communication with all parties, including India and Pakistan," he said. Lu on Sunday exuded confidence of resolving the sticky issue of designating Azhar as a global terrorist through consultations. "I am quite sure this matter (listing of Azhar by the UN) will be resolved. This is only a technical hold and the matter can be resolved through continued consultation," Luo said on the sidelines of an event at the Chinese embassy. According reports in the Pakistani media, Qureshi, during his three-day visit to China will hold comprehensive discussions on the entire range of bilateral relations, including the (CPEC). Both sides will also discuss the regional situation and cooperation at multilateral fora. Qureshi will also address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties' dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. He will also call on the Chinese leadership, the reports said. The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Balochistan with China's Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India is opposed to the project as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Geng said China welcomed the talks between India and Pakistan last week to open the Kartarupur Corridor. India and Pakistan last year agreed to open up a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur - the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev - to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district. "We welcome this interaction. Hope this can further ease tensions between both sides and improve regional situation. India and Pakistan are neighbours and always live with each other," he said. Good relations between both will serve the interest of both and common aspirations of the international community, he said. "We hope the two sides continue to show goodwill meet halfway, resolve difference through dialogue and uphold regional peace and stability together," he said. Asked whether Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou who recently visited Pakistan would visit India also, Geng said "as far as I know China and India maintain communication at various levels. So if there such a visit we will release the information in a timely manner. (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.) China on Monday said that it would like to see the easing of tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack and the issue would figure in the first strategic dialogue between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday. Qureshi who arrived here on Monday is visiting China, days after Beijing for the fourth time blocked a bid in the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to designate Pakistan-based chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group Masood Azhar as a "global terrorist" by putting a technical hold on the proposal, a move India termed as disappointing. The JeM has claimed responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead and escalated tensions between India and Pakistan. The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US on February 27. "As neighbour, China would like to see easing of tensions between the two. We would like to see the two countries continue to engage in dialogue for the peace and stability of the region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here. "I believe the issues causing regional tensions will be discussed," Geng said. To another question whether the issue of listing of Azhar would figure in the talks specially in the backdrop of Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui expressing confidence that it would be resolved, Geng said, "well I can't prejudge the topics" that are going figure in the talks. "But they will discuss issues of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern," he said. Regarding the listing of Azhar, "China will continue to deal with the issue with a responsible and constructive manner and will maintain close communication with all parties, including India and Pakistan," he said. Lu on Sunday exuded confidence of resolving the sticky issue of designating Azhar as a global terrorist through consultations. "I am quite sure this matter (listing of Azhar by the UN) will be resolved. This is only a technical hold and the matter can be resolved through continued consultation," Luo said on the side-lines of an event at the Chinese embassy. According to reports in the Pakistani media, Qureshi, which is on a three-day visit to China, will hold comprehensive discussions on the entire range of bilateral relations, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Both sides will also discuss the regional situation and cooperation at multilateral fora. Qureshi will also address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties' dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. He will also call on the Chinese leadership, the reports said. The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Balochistan with China's Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India is opposed to the project as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Geng said China welcomed the talks between India and Pakistan last week to open the Kartarupur Corridor. India and Pakistan last year agreed to open up a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur - the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev - to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district. "We welcome this interaction. Hope this can further ease tensions between both sides and improve regional situation. India and Pakistan are neighbours and always live with each other," he said. Good relations between both will serve the interest of both and common aspirations of the international community, he said. "We hope the two sides continue to show goodwill meet halfway, resolve difference through dialogue and uphold regional peace and stability together," he said. Asked whether Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou who recently visited Pakistan would visit India also, Geng said, "As far as I know China and India maintain communication at various levels. So if there such a visit we will release the information in a timely manner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Army Monday began a 10-day military exercise with armed forces of 17 African nations at Aundh in Maharashtra, reflecting the growing strategic ties between India and the Africa continent. The countries participating in the inaugural edition of the Africa-India Field Training Exercise (AFINDEX) include Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Benin and Botswana, the Army said here. The inaugural ceremony of the exercise held at the Aundh military station was attended by defence attaches and other senior officials of the participating nations. "The exercise will focus on exchange of best practices between the participating nations, team building and tactical level operations in conduct of the UN mandated tasks," the Army said. In the last few years, India has been gradually enhancing military and defence cooperation with a number of African countries. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior opener Shikhar Dhawan Monday reckoned that the Indian batsmen would need to score the bulk of runs for Delhi Capitals to harbour hopes of winning the Indian Premier League. Dhawan joined the rest of the Delhi Capitals squad here on Sunday after having taken part in the recently concluded One-Day series against Australia. The left-handed batsman also took part in a T20 practice match organised by the Delhi Capitals to prepare for the upcoming season. "In IPL, the team who wins the trophy is always the one who has the best balance in the squad. Our team this year is also very balanced as we have good all-rounders, spinners and batsmen. The most important thing for us will be that our Indian batsmen play well and our top 4-5 batsmen are Indian, so I am expecting a great season ahead," said Dhawan. A regular in India's limited overs scheme of things, Dhawan has spent 10 seasons away in IPL before joining the Delhi franchise. "It is like a second homecoming for me, and I am very excited to be a part of the Delhi Capitals for the IPL season. It is a very happy feeling for me to have come back to my home city of Delhi after spending 10 seasons away in the IPL," said Dhawan. He continued, "Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium has been my home ground since my early days, and I will be doing my best to perform for the team as I know the conditions and pitches well. "Apart from that, I will also be looking to help our younger players get used to the pressure of playing in such a big tournament, and hopefully I can spur them on to perform on the field to the best of their abilities." For Sunday's practice T20 match, the squad was divided into two teams, one led by Rishabh Pant, who joined them over the weekend, and the other by Shreyas Iyer. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), a leading global energy and petrochemicals group, has signed an agreement awarding the exploration rights for Abu Dhabi Onshore Block 4 to Japans Inpex Corporation. A wholly-owned Inpex subsidiary, Jodco Exploration Limited, will hold and manage the interest in the concession on behalf of Inpex. The award has been endorsed by Abu Dhabis Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) and represents the deep commercial and economic relationship as well as long-standing energy partnership between the UAE and Japan. Inpex will hold a 100 per cent stake in the exploration phase, investing up to Dh646 million ($176 million), including a participation fee, to explore for and appraise oil and gas opportunities in the block that covers an onshore area of 6,116 sq km from Abu Dhabi city to the boundary with the Emirate of Dubai. Following exploration activities and appraisal of the existing discoveries, Inpex will have the opportunity to develop and produce any commercial discoveries. Adnoc has the option to hold a 60 percent stake in the production phase of the concession. The agreement, with a term of 35 years, was signed by Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Adnoc Group CEO, and Takayuki Ueda, president and CEO of Inpex Corporation. Dr Al Jaber said: This award to Inpex is a further demonstration of how Adnoc is utilizing value-adding partnerships and new technologies to accelerate the exploration and development of Abu Dhabis substantial untapped hydrocarbon resources. It is an important part of our 2030 smart growth strategy, helping to ensure we stay ahead of the long-term increase in demand for energy and oil and gas products, further strengthening Abu Dhabis position as an essential energy provider to the world. For over 40 years, Inpex, along with its subsidiary Jodco, has been a strategic partner to Abu Dhabi and Adnoc. Todays agreement, following a competitive bid round, extends that long-standing partnership between one of the worlds leading oil and gas resource holding countries and the third largest global economy, and represents an attractive and strategic opportunity for both parties that will deliver mutual benefits. There are two existing undeveloped oil and gas fields in the new concession area, Ramhan and Hudairiat, which both will be appraised by Inpex who will be particularly targeting the geological formations in which they have rich experience through other Abu Dhabi concessions. The blocks proximity to the onshore oil producing fields of Al Dabbiya and Rumaitha as well as the offshore field of Umm Al Dalkh, suggests it has very promising potential. Takayuki Ueda said: Inpex positions Abu Dhabi as one of its core business areas, and we look forward to working in close cooperation with Adnoc to help it unlock value from Abu Dhabis substantial hydrocarbon resources while further expanding and strengthening our own business portfolio. This agreement to explore and appraise oil and gas opportunities in a highly promising sector of Abu Dhabi underpins the importance of our ongoing partnership and the further strengthening of a decades-old and progressive business relationship between Inpex and Adnoc. Comprehensive health, safety and environmental impact assessments will be conducted ahead of operations to ensure any potential impacts of the exploration and development activities are mitigated to protect areas of environmental importance and reduce any disruption to the local communities, both through the operational approach and the technologies deployed. As well as drilling wells to appraise existing discoveries, the exploration phase will see Inpex leverage and contribute financially and technically to Adnocs mega seismic survey, which is already acquiring seismic data onshore and offshore within the block area. The survey is deploying industry-leading technologies to capture high-resolution 3D images of the complex geology up to 25,000 feet below the surface and will be used to identify potential hydrocarbon reservoirs. Ras Sadr-1, the first exploration well drilled in Abu Dhabi is located in Onshore Block 4. It was completed in April 1951 having reached a depth of 13,001 feet and was, at the time, the deepest oil well drilled in the Middle East. Inpex's involvement, through Jodco, in the oil and gas industry in Abu Dhabi started in 1973 with its participation in the Umm Shaif and the Lower Zakum fields. Jodco then joined in the development of three other offshore oil fields, the Upper Zakum field in 1977, Umm Al Dalkh in 1978 and Satah in 1980. In 2015, Inpex was awarded a 5 per cent interest in the Abu Dhabi Onshore Concession. Furthermore, in 2018, Inpex was awarded a 10 per cent interest in the new Lower Zakum offshore concession and, at the same time, also extended its 40 per cent stake in Satah and increased its stake in Umm Al Dalkh from 12 per cent to 40 per cent. The UAE provides Japan with 25 per cent of its crude oil imports. Following the recent award of Offshore Block 1, Offshore Block 2 and Onshore Block 3 Concessions, Onshore Block 4 is the latest block awarded to an international bidder of the geographical areas that were offered for commercial bidding by Adnoc in April 2018. Studies suggest Abu Dhabis exploration blocks hold multiple billion barrels of oil and multiple trillion cubic feet of natural gas. TradeArabia News Service Indian Coast Guard ship INS Vijit is on a four-day visit to the Indonesian port of Sabang to highlight the proximity between the two countries and the strengthening cooperation in maritime security and safety, Indian embassy in Jakarta said Monday. Commanded by Comdt T Ashish, the ship includes a team of 15 officers and 90 men and is on a visit to Sabang port in Indonesia's Aceh province from March 17 to 20, the embassy said in a statement. The officers will interact with Bakamla (Indonesian Coast Guard), Indonesian Armed Forces and the civil administration at Sabang, 1,855 kilometers from Jakarta. "INS Vijit's visit to Sabang highlights the close maritime proximity between India and Indonesia and the strengthening cooperation in the area of maritime security and safety," the statement said. Indian naval ship INS Sumitra visited Sabang in July last year, highlighting the maritime proximity between India and Indonesia, it said. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Indonesia in May 2018, India and Indonesia arrived at a shared vision of maritime cooperation in the strategic Indo-Pacific to deepen economic and people-to-people exchanges. Connectivity with Sabang port was identified as a key priority area within that vision, the statement said. "A series of steps have since been undertaken by both sides to improve maritime cooperation," it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the Indian couple Abdul Nazer and Ansi Alibava, life in New Zealand was peaceful and promising until Friday's mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch that shattered their dreams. Both were both inside the Al Noor mosque in central Christchurch when the first shots were fired by a white supremacist, in one of New Zealand's worst mass shootings, that killed 25-year-old Alibava and 49 others. The couple borrowed some USD 48,000 to move to New Zealand from Kerala last year so that she could do a master's degree in agribusiness management, which she completed just three weeks ago. Nazer, 34, was working at the local supermarket to help pay the bills. When Alibava graduated, they hoped she would get a high-paying job and they would live and work in New Zealand. Friday's mass shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch changed everything for the couple. Recounting the horrible attack, Nazer told CNN that he and Alibava were seated separately inside the mosque -- men sat on the left, women on the right. "Right before the main prayer, I heard a single shot firing and I thought that some kids outside might have popped a balloon," Nazer said. Seconds later a series of staccato shots from a high-powered weapon sent 300 or so people in the mosque scrambling for the exit. Nazer said he was close to an emergency door and escaped after someone smashed the glass. Others were not so lucky. "People started falling over me, I saw people with blood on their shirts," he said. He ran to a neighbouring house and phoned the police for help before returning to the mosque to find his wife. The scene that confronted him on his return to the mosque was horrifying, with bodies scattered on the street beside pools of blood. Then he saw the motionless figure of Alibava, lying face down in the street. "I ran towards her and then a policeman stopped me and told me to move somewhere else," he said. It was not until Saturday night, more than 24 hours after he had fled the mosque, that New Zealand police confirmed that Alibava was one of the 50 people killed in Friday's attacks by Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, who has been charged with murder. Nazer's friend, George, was with him when police provided them, and other families, a list of the people confirmed dead. Until then they had clung on to the hope that perhaps Alibava was in hospital. "We thought it might be one of those miracles that could happen," George said. Nazer and Alibava had an arranged marriage two years ago, but friends say they have no doubt that the couple soon fell deeply in love. According to Tali Ao, Alibava was the brightest student on her course at the Lincoln University. "Her professors, everyone loved her," Ao said. On Monday, the university's students and staff bowed their heads on the lawn for one minute's silence in remembrance of the dead, CNN reported. "For some of our family's victims to be attacked because of their religion is inconceivable," said Acting Chancellor Bruce Mckenzie. Meanwhile, the Kerala community in Christchurch has rallied around Nazer to help him through the tragedy. They have started a Givealittle page to help him pay back the huge loan they took out in India to pay for Alibava's studies in New Zealand. Nazer wants to send his wife's body back to Kerala to be home with her mother and brother in Kodungallur in Thrissur district. Her father died several years ago. Nazer is unsure what the future holds, but he says he knows he wants to stay in Christchurch, where he and his wife spent most of their married life together. "She had so many dreams," he says. "No one would expect something like this would happen. There are a lot of good people here ... This shouldn't happen to any family." The Kerala Chief Minister's Office has said that all efforts were being made to bring the mortal remains of Alibava from New Zealand. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indonesia summoned Canberra's ambassador Monday after an Australian senator blamed last week's mosque attacks by a white supremacist in New Zealand on immigration. Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi said she had called ambassador Gary Quinlan to her office to convey the Muslim majority country's "strong condemnation" of Queensland Senator Fraser Anning's controversial comments. The 50 Muslims killed in Friday's massacre in Christchurch included one Indonesian, while another was seriously injured. "Ambassador Quinlan conveyed his reassurance that the statement made by Senator Anning does not reflect the position and sentiments of the government and the people of Australia," Marsudi wrote on her official Twitter account. She added: "Indonesia strongly condemns this act of terrorism which has no place in New Zealand or anywhere else in this world." On Friday, Anning said in a statement the attack in the southern New Zealand city was the result of Muslim immigration into the country. Anning's remarks drew condemnation from across the political spectrum in Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the comments as "appalling" and "ugly" with "no place in Australia", as he announced a bipartisan motion of censure would be launched. Former PM Kevin Rudd dubbed Anning a "racist and a fascist", and encouraged Australians to sign a petition calling for him to be booted out of parliament. On Saturday, Anning -- elected in 2017 by a fluke of Australia's proportional voting system, having received only 19 first preference votes -- had to be restrained after punching a teenager who threw an egg at him in protest over his comments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), a regional tribal party of Tripura, Monday announced candidates for both the Lok Sabha seats in the state. The INPT decided to declare its candidates after its talks for seat sharing with the opposition Congress failed, party president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl said. Hrangkhawl, an insurgent turned politician, said INPT leaders met Congress president Rahul Gandhi recently in New Delhi and signed a memorandum of understanding for joint fight against the BJP. "However, the Tripura Pradesh Congress president gave us a condition that I have to resign as the party president and contest as an independent. This is unacceptable to us," Hrangkhawl told a press conference. Hrangkhawl and INPT general secretary Jagadish Debbarma would contest from East and West Tripura Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. The INPT president said his party had also held dialogues with several other regional parties. Reacting to the development, state Congress president Pradyot Kishore said the INPT wanted to contest East Tripura (ST) seat, "which is not acceptable to us". "We offered support to the party if it contests independently. I don't think our poll prospects will be affected if they go it alone," he said. The Congress, and the ruling BJP, are yet to announce their candidates. Both the Lok Sabha seats in the Northeastern state are now held by the CPI(M) and the party has declared the sitting MPs as its candidates. Contesting separately, the IPFT, ally of the ruling BJP, announced candidates including state Revenue Minister NC Debbarma, for the two seats. Tripura will go to vote in two phases on April 11 and 18 for West Tripura and East Tripura Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Iran's president is urging Iranians to put a curse on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia blaming the US and its allies for his country's ailing economy. Monday's televised remarks by Hassan Rouhani were meant to deflect criticism of his administration's performance amid a spiralling economy after the Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran last year, targeting Iran's vital oil sector. Rouhani urged Iranians to "put all your curses on those who created the current situation" and added that "the United States, the Zionists" and Saudi Arabia were to blame. He didn't say what kind of curses the Iranians should invoke. The crisis that s gripping Iran has hurt ordinary Iranians and emboldened Rouhani's critics to openly call for his ouster. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Israeli man wounded in a Palestinian attack that killed an Israeli soldier and injured another one in the occupied West Bank died of his injuries on Monday, his family said. Ahiad Ettinger, a 47-year-old rabbi who lived in the Eli settlement in the West Bank, was shot in the gun and knife attack on Sunday. Israel's army said the assailant attacked a soldier with a knife at a junction near the Ariel settlement and snatched his weapon. He later fired on three vehicles before taking one of the cars to another nearby junction, where he opened fire and wounded a second soldier. The second soldier was said to be in serious condition. Israeli security forces were pursuing the alleged attacker on Monday. Ettinger was the father of 12 children, Israeli media reported. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two of China's biggest action stars Jackie Chan and Wu Jing are teaming up for an action adventure film that revolves around scaling Mount Everest. Tentatively titled "Climbers" in English, the movie is about the first Chinese mountaineers to summit the world's highest peak. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Daniel Lee and produced by Shanghai Film Group. "Climbers" will recreate the real-life expedition of Chinese climbers Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo, and Qu Yinhua, who made a historic ascent up Mount Everest's North Ridge in 1960. The Chinese team was the first to successfully climb the north side of Everest, which is known to be especially perilous. The trio famously left a small statue of Chairman Mao atop the summit, before returning midway down the mountain to rescue a fourth member of their team who was unable to complete the climb. Popular young actor Jing Boran and TV star Hu Ge star as the two other climbers in the quartet. Zhang Ziyi is set to play a Chinese meteorologist who assists the mission. "Climbers" is currently shooting in China and is expected to be released either on China's National Day holiday or during Chinese New Year in 2020. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Japan has assured all assistance to India in its fight against terrorism, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh said, noting that the two countries have also stressed on strengthening parliamentary exchanges, economic and strategic ties. The assurance was given by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Japan with whom a parliamentary delegation from India interacted. Harivansh, who led the delegation, said terrorism tops the list of existential threats that the world faces today and he thanked Government of Japan for expressing solidarity with India in its fight against global terror. The people of India and the international community look up to Japan's leadership in strongly articulating against terrorism in this year's G20 Summit, he said, adding the speaker of House of Representative, Japan condemned terrorism and assured assistance to India in the fight against it. The parliamentary delegation from India visited Japan and interacted with members of Japan-India Parliamentary Friendship League (JIPFL) on matters of mutual interest for the two countries in general and the two Parliaments in particular. The delegation included MPs Bhubaneswar Kalita, Shamsher Singh Manhas and Banda Prakash, besides the Rajya Sabha secretary general, and other officials of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. Appreciating the role of JIPFL in providing bipartisan political support for strengthening relations between Japan and India, the deputy chairman said it would be ideal if the Upper Houses of both Parliaments sign an agreement to strengthen parliamentary cooperation. Referring to a 2018 summit meeting between both the prime ministers, which achieved numerous milestones covering diverse areas, Harivansh called upon Japanese companies to participate in flagship initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, Smart cities etc. Appreciating the role of Japanese companies in skilling youth, the deputy chairman mentioned the flagship skill cooperation initiative of Japan-India Institutes of Manufacturing (JIM) and Japanese Endowed Courses (JEC). This is a win-win opportunity as both sides stand to benefit from such initiatives, he said. Harivansh said close people-to-people contacts remain the bedrock of bilateral relations and called upon authorities to ensure greater flow of two-way tourists. Underlining the popularity of Japanese language in India, he said that more and more youngsters were learning it given the opportunities in Japan on areas ranging from the research and innovation to IT sector to skilled employment. The Rajya Sabha deputy chairman said given the close friendship between the people of the two countries and growing engagement in many fronts, the future of India-Japan bilateral relation is full of promise and potential. India and Japan continue to be close partners for peace, progress and prosperity in the 21st century, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Eight people were killed in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, near the border with Cameroon on Monday when a vehicle hit a roadside mine, security sources told AFP. The vehicle, part of a civilian convoy under military escort, veered off the road in an attempt to overtake another vehicle when it hit the device. Military and civilian militia sources blamed Boko Haram jihadists for planting the mine, underlying the persistent threat to civilians in the remote region. "The vehicle exploded and all the eight people inside were killed," said a military officer. "Seven more people from the other vehicle we're injured from the explosion." The incident happened at about 10:00 am (0900 GMT) at Warabe village, some 15 kilometres (nearly 10 miles) from the town of Gwoza, said civilian militia leader Umar Ari. The convoy had left Gwoza and was heading to Pulka some 20 kilometres away on the border with Cameroon he added. The Boko Haram faction loyal to its long-time leader Abubakar Shekau is known to be active in the area, which is some 130 km southeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. In 2014 the jihadists seized Gwoza, which they renamed "Darul Hikma" ("House of Wisdom" in Arabic), and declared it the headquarters of their short-lived caliphate. Although Nigerian troops later reclaimed the town, the group still launches sporadic attacks on troops and civilians. Last month three people were injured and a mosque was partially damaged when grenades were fired into Gwoza from a hilltop outside the town, security sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena Monday expressed disappointment at Singapore for not responding to a request to hand over its national who is wanted in the alleged 'bond scam' of the country's central bank. Former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran has been accused in a probe appointed by Sirisena of passing inside information to his son in law Arjuna Aloysius, whose firm purchased more than 50 per cent of the bonds auctioned in 2015. The transaction is popularly known as the 'bond scam'. Addressing the launch of his new 5-year plan to eradicate bribery and corruption, Sirisena said he was disappointed over Singapore's "inaction". The president said during his last visit to Singapore he had asked Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on the need for Mahendran to be brought back to Sri Lanka to face justice. "Nothing has happened and I am disappointed at the inaction," Sirisena said. "At least the government of Singapore should clarify as to whether this individual is living in their country or not," he said. The president appears keen to press on the issue as it is a likely that he and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe would be rival candidates when the next presidential election would be called later this year. Interpol served Mahendran with a Red Corner Notice after Sirisena's probe panel on the bond issue scam came out with a report in January last year. His son in law and his company CEO were remanded in custody in February last year and were released on January 1 this year. Sirisena appointed the commission to probe any irregularities in the issues of Central Bank bonds in February 2015 and March 2016. Aloysius' firm Perpetual Treasuries it was alleged had benefited from insider information on the two issues of bonds resulting them making large profits. The opposition cried hoarse on the scam even demanding that Wickremesinghe resign. Sirisena in mid-2016 sacked Mahendran from the bank. Sirisena had appointed Sri Lanka-born and now a Singaporean national Mahendran to the job on Wickremesinghe's advice. The alleged scam rocked the government headed by Sirisena and Wickremesinghe. The issue was the first which triggered differences between the leaders of the unity government. Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe as prime minister late last year, creating a constitutional impasse which lasted nearly 2 months. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Park Regis Kris Kin Hotel, an upscale five-star property located opposite of Burjuman Centre in Dubai, has appointed Marie Bernadette Ortiguerra as its marketing and communications manager. In her new role, Ortiguerra will oversee the department ensuring that all actions are in line with StayWell standards. Ortiguerra brings more than 12 years of experience in the hospitality industry. She started her journey with Rotana brand in 2007 in Sharjah Rotana as a sales secretary. With her tremendous effort and dedication, she climbed the ladder and transferred to the former biggest Rotana property in Dubai the Al Ghurair Rayhaan and Arjaan by Rotana where she was part of the pre-opening team in 2012 as marketing and communications executive. After three years of hard work, and awarded as employee of the year, Ortiguerra was promoted to assistant director of marketing and communications. Commenting on Ortiguerras appointment, Jane Frazer, regional director Revenue Generation of the growing Park Regis brand, said: We are excited to welcome Marie to the Park Regis Middle East team. We are confident that with her dynamic and strong personality, innovative ideas and drive for results, Park Regis will meet its set goals and be known in the market as the preferred travel destination in Dubai." Prior to joining Park Regis Kris Kin Hotel, Ortiguerra worked with AccorHotels Swissotel Al Ghurair as assistant director of marketing and communications where she headed the successful rebranding of the first Swissotel in UAE. - TradeArabia News Service CPI General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy Monday said the Left Front cannot accept Congress' "unjustified" demand on seat-sharing issue in West Bengal, and it now looks like that the two would fight the Lok Sabha polls in the state separately. He termed as "unexpected" the West Bengal unit of the Congress calling off on Sunday seat-sharing talks with the CPI(M)-led Left Front for the Lok Sabha polls. West Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha seats. "They (Congress) were asking 17 seats. Left Front offered them 12 seats. They are asking for five more seats which are Left front seats... (it is) unjustified. In some of these seats they got two to three per cent votes (in the previous elections)," Reddy told PTI here. He said in Basirhat Lok Sabha seat of West Bengal, CPI got four lakh votes in the previous elections, and the Congress one lakh votes. "But still they demand that the seat should be given to them. This type of demands cannot be accepted by the Left Front. They are asking for one All India Forward Bloc seat, and three CPI(M) seats. So, it will be very complicated," Reddy said. Now, it looks like the Left Front and the Congress would fight the elections in West Bengal separately, the veteran communist leader said. According to the Left Front's seat-sharing formula, CPI(M) would contest in 22 seats, the CPI and AIFB three each and the RSP two, with the remaining 12 to be left to the Congress. With the Congress deciding to go solo, the Left front is meeting Monday to decide how to distribute the 42 seats among the partners, Reddy said. The West Bengal unit of the Congress on Sunday called off seat-sharing talks with the CPI(M)-led Left Front for Lok Sabha polls, after weeks of hectic parleys failed to resolve the impasse over distribution of seats. "It has been decided by our party unit that we don't want any adjustment or alliance by compromising our dignity. The Left can't dictate us on who will be candidate and who won't. We will fight alone in Bengal," state Congress chief Somen Mitra said in Kolkata after closed-door party meet on Sunday evening. The Congress' decision on Sunday paved the way for a four-cornered contest in Bengal involving the Trinamool Congress, the BJP, the Left Front and the Congress. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP workers have hit the ground running in the Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency, from where Union Minister Nitin Gadkari will file his nomination again this year, to reach out to voters ahead of the upcoming general elections. The party workers and office-bearers are making detailed plans to woo voters and leaving nothing to chance. A massive team of 65,000-70,000 BJP workers and supporters has fanned out in every assembly segment that falls under the Lok Sabha constituency, which has 1,903 voting booths, BJP sources said. One 'panna pramukh' has been deployed for each voters list. There are around 55,000 people working as 'panna pramukh' (page in-charge) in the constituency. The 'panna pramukh' is the first point of contact for voters under the BJP's election management strategy. Besides, 10,000-20,000 BJP office-bearers and workers are part of other campaigning verticals, they said. BJP's Nagpur spokesperson Chandan Goswami told PTI that party workers have started a door-to-door campaign to reach out to the voters. The workers will apprise the voters about various welfare schemes launched by the BJP-led state and central governments, he said. Details of the Nagpur metro project, the first phase of which became operational in early March, and the Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN) will also be shared with the voters, he said. Gadkari, in his public rallies last month, had said infrastructure projects in Nagpur have attracted investment worth Rs 80,000 crore. At public rallies, the former BJP chief often highlights the work done by him for the city, the second capital of Maharashtra. A team of 50 workers will be actively working in each Vidhan Sabha constituency under the Nagpur Lok Sabha seat, Goswami said. There are six Vidhan Sabha segments in Nagpur. Similarly, a micro-planning team is working under the leadership of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Gadkari himself is overseeing all the campaigning work in Maharashtra, Goswami said. Likewise, 'cluster pramukhs' will be working under Nagpur Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, he said. These 'cluster pramukhs' will look after campaigning on social media in assembly constituencies and door-to-door campaigns, Goswami said. A manifesto team has also been formed under local legislators who will be going to the voters with the BJP's manifesto, he added. Besides, several public meetings have been lined up. State and Union ministers will address these meetings, he said. There are a total of 40,24,197 voters, including 19,57,995 women, in the Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency, where voting will take place in single phase on April 11. The Congress has fielded Nana Patole, a former BJP MP from Gondia Bhandara who joined the party last year, from Nagpur. The results for Lok Sabha polls will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shares of Lupin Monday fell by 4 per cent after the company said it has been cautioned by the US health regulator that its Somerset (New Jersey) facility may be subject to regulatory or administrative action. The shares declined 3.92 per cent to close at Rs 754.50 on BSE. During the day, it plunged 5.59 per cent to Rs 741.35. At NSE, the shares dropped 3.98 per cent to close at Rs 753.90. Lupin Saturday said it has been cautioned by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) that its Somerset facility may be subject to regulatory or administrative action, and the regulator may withhold approval of any pending applications or supplements in which this facility is listed. The company's subsidiary Novel Laboratories Inc has received a letter from USFDA classifying the inspection conducted at its Somerset (New Jersey) facility in December 2018, as Official Action Indicated (OAI), Lupin said in a regulatory filing. 'Official Action Indicated', means approvals of pending applications or supplements from the site maybe withheld. "The company is in the process of sending further updates of its corrective actions to the USFDA and is hopeful of a positive outcome," Lupin added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two persons, including a 24-year-old woman, have been arrested for allegedly killing the editor of a magazine in Maharashtra's Thane district and then disposing of his body, police said Monday. India Unbound editor Nityanand Pandey's body, with injuries to the head, was found on Sunday near a creek in Khardi village in Kharbao in Bhiwandi here. Pandey (45) had gone missing on March 15 and his kin had filed a missing person complaint with Kashimira police station. Addressing a press conference Monday, Thane Superintendent of Police Shivaji Rathod said the killing was the result of alleged sexual harassment faced by the arrested woman at the hands of Pandey over the last two years. "Based on our probe, we have arrested Ankira Mishra, who worked as an assistant to Pandey, and Uma Shankar Mishra (34), who ran a printing press where the deceased's magazine was printed," Rathod told reporters. "Ankira was working with Pandey for three years and she has said she was facing sexual harassment at his hands for two years. She then conspired with Uma Shankar to eliminate him," he said. "On March 15, the two accused took Pandey on the pretext of showing him a row house in Uttan. They spiked his protein drink which rendered Pandey unconscious. They then strangled him and threw his body in a creek near Khardi village," he said. A case under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against the two accused, the SP said. India Unbound, as per its website, is a monthly and views magazine mailed directly to over one lakh households across the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A total of 1.2 lakh people in Assam will not be able to exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as they have been marked as 'D' (Doubtful) voters, a senior Election Commission official said Monday. However, the people who have been left out of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be able to vote if their names figure in the electoral rolls, Assam Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Chandra Sahu also said. There are 40.08 lakh people whose names have been left out of the complete draft of the citizens' register after including the names of 2.9 crore people out of a total 3.3 crore applicants, he said. The system of 'D' (dubious or doubtful) voters was introduced in 1997 by the Election Commission of India, which prepared a list by incorporating names of those who could not provide evidence in favour of their Indian nationality. It does not exist anywhere else in the country. 'D' voters were not allowed to vote in the 2014 general elections too. "Currently, we have 1.2 lakh 'D' voters in the electoral rolls as per the last revision. The rolls are being updated continuously and the list will be finalised on the last date of nomination. Therefore, it will be separate for all the different phases," Sahu said. The existing draft roll was published on September 15, 2018 and the final roll was released on February 6. "There has been a slight fall in the current number of 'D' voters from the last revision due to disposing of court cases. The current figure is likely to change at the time of election," Sahu said. On security arrangements, Sahu said that 33 companies of central forces have already reached Assam and have been deployed at various places as a confidence building measure. "More central forces will come to the state during the election. We have made a detailed security arrangement considering the sensibilities of different polling stations. Our state nodal police officer has already held meetings with the Ministry of Home Affairs on this," he added. As per the last summary revision, over 2.17 crore voters, including at least 7.06 lakh first timers, will exercise their franchise in the three-phase elections in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam. The voting in Assam will take place in 28,143 polling stations on April 11, 18 and 23, EC sources said. In the first phase, voting will be held for Tezpur, Kaliabor, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur constituencies at 9,574 polling stations where 75.16 lakh electorate will exercise their franchise. In the second phase on April 18, polling will be held in Karimganj (SC), Silchar, Autonomous District (ST), Mangaldoi and Nawgong constituencies where a total 68.36 lakh electorate will vote in 8,992 booths. Dhubri, Kokrajhar (ST), Barpeta and Gauhati seats will see elections in the last phase on April 23 in 9,577 polling stations where 74.08 lakh people will vote. There are also about 60,000 service voters, who are staying outside the state and will vote through postal ballot, the EC sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A massive fire broke out at a chemical paint factory situated at Swaran Park in West Delhi's Mundka, fire officials said Monday. The fire department received a call at around 11.35 pm and dispatched 18 fire-tenders to the spot. The fire was doused at around 3.05 pm officials said. Officials said no casualties were reported. According to Atul Garg, Chief Fire Officer, "The factory did not have a no objection certificate (NOC) from the department." The investigation has been initiated and the exact cause of fire will be ascertained after that, a senior fire official said. A senior police officer said once the fire department will be done with their investigation then police will take appropriate action. In another incident, a minor fire broke out at a shop in Govindpuri. Three fire-tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire was doused successfully. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Recognition enables to offer clearing services to UK-based entities in case of Brexit The recognition comes additional to a recognition by ESMA, received in 2017 Metropolitan Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (MCCIL), an arm of Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India, has become the first SEBI recognised clearing corporation in the country to receive recognition as a Third-Country Central Counterparty (TC-CCP) by Bank of England. The recognition, granted under United Kingdom's Temporary Recognition Regime (TRR), enables MCCIL to offer clearing services to UK-based entities once Britain's exit from the European Union (BREXIT) comes into effect. So far, MCCIL is the only clearing corporation recognized by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to figure in the interim list of third-country CCPs issued vide a notification by Bank of England on February 28. There are currently seven clearing houses recognized by SEBI including BSE's Indian Clearing Corporation Ltd and NSE's NSE Clearing Ltd. In October 2017, MCCIL had received recognition as a third country CCP by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). As per these norms, a CCP not established in the European Union may provide clearing services to members or trading venues established in the European Union only if it is recognised by ESMA TC-CCP. In wake of Brexit, Bank of England had issued its own requirements for granting recognition to third country CCPs. If UK were to exit European Union, TC-CCP status granted by ESMA would not be applicable in the UK. As per recognition granted by UK, CCPs will enter the TRR and remain there, so long as they continue to meet the eligibility criteria. The TRR will enable eligible non-UK CCPs to provide clearing services and activities in the UK for up to three years from the commencement of the TRR, extendable by HM Treasury in increments of 12 months. Commenting on the development, Mr Balu Nair, Managing Director, MCCIL, said, "The approval holds significance with interoperability of clearing corporations kicking in from 1st June, this year. Keeping investor interest foremost, MCCIL anticipated the importance of this recognition and proactively applied for it. This recognition is mandatory and would be an added comfort for clearing members. Today, we clear and settle trades for MSE and ICEX, which do not have significant FPI participation except in currency derivatives. Most FPI trades are witnessed on NSE and BSE. This recognition and interoperability will help us boost our business and attract new institutions, especially those constituted in UK." On December 16, 2016, the European Commission had determined that India has an equivalent regulatory regime for central counterparties to the European Union. On June 7, 2017, the Union Cabinet (India) gave its approval to SEBI for entering into a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ESMA in relation to Mutual Co-operation. On June 21, 2017, SEBI established the MoU with ESMA under EMIR. About MCCIL MCCIL is a subsidiary of Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India Ltd. (MSE), a new age Clearing Corporation constituted to undertake clearing and settlement of deals in multi asset classes. The company offers best-in-class services to its clearing members with the help of its state of the art risk management framework and unparalleled clearing and settlement systems with dedicated linkages with clearing partners. The company commenced its operations on February 16, 2009 with clearing and settlement of trades for MSE. From October 1, 2018, MCCIL also started its clearing services for ICEX, thereby becoming the only SEBI recognised clearing corporation to provide services for multiple exchanges and multiple asset classes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq did not appear before the NIA in New Delhi on Monday for questioning in connection with a terror funding case and said he was willing to be quizzed here as he fears for his security in the national capital. The Mirwaiz, who is one of the religious heads of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley, again wrote to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), saying he had no knowledge of the case mentioned by the agency in its summon served on him on Saturday. The NIA had issued a summon to the Mirwaiz to appear before the agency headquarters in the national capital on Monday in a case related to funding of terror and separatists organisations in the Kashmir Valley. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference, on Monday again skipped a date with the National Investigation Agency, carrying a probe into a terror funding case, and said that he was willing to be quizzed here as he fears for his security in the national capital. The spokesman of the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of some separatist groups, issued a statement saying that the Mirwaiz has sent a reply to the NIA summon through his counsel. In the reply, it has been reiterated that he is willing to cooperate in the matter but has asked for the venue for examination to be shifted from Delhi to Srinagar as the concerns and apprehensions regarding travel to Delhi, expressed by him through his counsel in the earlier response on March 10 continue to remain so, the spokesperson said. The counsel mentioned in the reply that his client had informed him that on several occasions earlier, many persons have been examined by the agency at Humhama Budgam while conducting investigation and he sees no reason why his client cannot be examined in a similar manner. Earlier, he had been served a notice for appearing before the agency on March 11 but the lawyer of the Mirwaiz informed the NIA, through a four-page letter, that his client was willing to cooperate as he could not travel in view of the "conditions of hostility". "Under the prevailing conditions of hostility wherein there is a threat to the personal safety of my client, it becomes unwise for my client to travel to Delhi," counsel for the Mirwaiz, Aijaz Ahmad Dhar, had said. He had also maintained that his client is not acquainted with the subject matter of the FIR referred to in the NIA's notice. The NIA is investigating a case related to funding of terror and separatist organisations in Kashmir through hawala channels. The agency last month carried out a series of raids on separatists, including the Mirwaiz. Ahead of his second notice, the Mirwaiz, during his last Friday sermons, had mentioned about the NIA notice and said from the pulpit of Jama Masjid and said "the NIA wants to know about my hidden treasure, my people are my hidden treasure". The NIA had questioned two maternal uncles of the Mirwaiz -- Maulvi Manzoor and Maulvi Shafat -- and his close aides last year. Both Manzoor and Shafat are retired senior government officers. The NIA probe seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, pelting of stones on security forces, burning down of schools and damaging of government establishments. The case names Hafeez Saeed, Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), the front for banned Lashker-e-Taiba, as an accused, besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference factions led by Geelani and the Mirwaiz, Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Millat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Mizoram Assembly Monday unanimously passed a bill that seeks to detect foreigners illegally residing in the northeastern state, that shares an over 700-km border with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Introducing The Mizoram Maintenance of Household Registers Bill, 2019, Chief Minister Zoramthanga said the influx of foreigners into the state through its porous borders has remained a serious concern for several decades. The measures proposed under legislation are intended to provide credible individual identification system and to prevent "usurpation" of benefits of developmental schemes by those who are not entitled, the bill says. It defines "citizens" as a person registered as such, or having requisite qualification as prescribed under the Citizenship Act, 1955, the bill said. The chief minister said that in many cases the benefits of development are found to have been eaten away to a large extent by such foreigners who "clandestinely" stayed back and got assimilated among the people of the state by taking advantage of the mistaken identity and of difficulties in detecting them. Even the Supreme Court has expressed concern over such continuous influx of foreigners and their assimilation in the mainstream and it was felt imperative by the state to invoke its legislative powers to enact a suitable law, he said. Such influx had resulted in abnormal increase in the population which posed a serious threat to law and order as well as the state's internal security, Zoramthanga said. "It is, therefore, a strongly felt necessity to develop a comprehensive database in respect of all the residents of Mizoram - whether in villages or in towns and whether permanent or temporary and to ensure its updation and maintenance," he said. He said the update is required for improvement of the system of delivery of benefits of welfare schemes as well for security purposes, by way of enumerations and verification from time to time. The Centre, he said, had mooted a system of National Register of Indian Citizens and issue of multi-purpose national identity cards based on such a register. It had also suggested this before the apex court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mocking the Prime Minister's 'chowkidar' campaign, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday said Narendra Modi was attempting to convert the whole country into chowkidars after being "caught" in the Rafale fighter jet deal. Attacking Modi's "Main bhi chowkidar' (I too am watchman) blitz, he said "Chowkidar was caught indulging in theft and as he was caught, chowkidar says the whole of Hindustan is chowkidar. "But before getting caught, the entire Hindustan was not chowkidar." Gandhi stepped up the attack a day after BJP intensified its "Main bhi chowkidar" campaign with Modi and other party leaders, including its president Amit Shah prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their Twitter profile. Modi's Twitter account profile identified him as "Chowkidar Narendra Modi" as did other BJP leaders in a coordinated campaign against Gandhi's sustained "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe at the prime minister over the Rafale deal. "Before getting caught only Narendra Modi was chowkidar. Thief has been caught (chor pakdagaya). The whole country knows that "Chowkidar chor hai"," Gandhi said at a public rally in Kalaburagi, Lok Sabha constituency of Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in north Karnataka. He told the crowd, "You had said- Chowkidar chor hai. But yesterday and day-before-yesterday Narendra Modi was attempting to turn whole country into chowkidars." Gandhi said, "when he became Prime Minister, he said don't make me Prime Minister, make me chowkidar, do you remember? He had never said make whole of Hindustan into chowkidaars."At an interaction with entrepreneurs in Bengaluru, Gandhi claimed that Modi and Anil Ambani would land in jail if the documents of parallel negotiations with the French government by the PMO become part of an inquiry into the Rafale deal. "If the documents become part of inquiry, Modi and Ambani would go to jail. Why is he not having an inquiry? That's why this campaign 'Chowkidar Chor Hai'...," Gandhi said. He also said, "If the prime Minister wasn't guilty, he should have said- I'm investigating this thing , the people who are responsible are going to jail..why is he not doing that?" "My friends in the media..these days they are pressurised, they are controlled, so they don't really like to talk about these things," Gandhi said while talking about Rafale. He said he could give a list of defence contracts that Anil Ambani and "Modi's friends have been given, one after the other, and they have only got caught on Rafale, which happens to be the really big contract in the world. So that's why everybody is saying chowkidar chor hai." Gandhi said in the country today, there is an environment "which is angry, where there is tension, viciousness-you don't just close your mind, you close the entire ecosystem." "What is happening today is India's liberal nature, India's open system, India's institutions are being attacked, they are being suppressed.....with the bad environment you are going nowhere." At the Kalaburagi rally, the Congress president charged the Prime Minister and RSS with attempting to scrap the Constitution. "It is Narendra Modi's wish that just as he scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes through demonetisation, he wants to scrap the Constitution," Gandhi said. Gandhi said the Congress would never let Modi and RSS succeed in their mission. Elaborating, Gandhi alleged that the note ban was effected without asking the RBI. He also alleged that the Supreme Court was not allowed to function while the Election Commission was being pressurised. The Congress president accused Modi of spreading hatred between different faiths. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Emirates Group is once again gearing up for Careers UAE 2019, offering diverse career opportunities for UAE nationals at the three-day exhibition, which will run from March 19-21 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. This year, the group will reveal a new programme, targeting national school graduates who aspire to be part of the exciting world of Applied Technology. The programme, dubbed the Technologists, will consist of four years of academic education and two years of on-job training, providing students with a solid training and exposure to the wide spectrum of technologies and technical capabilities. Upon completing the programme, graduates will be able to work in operational or enterprise technology roles and continue to build upon their new found skills and experience. In addition to the new programme, the group will also be showcasing its other National School Graduate Programmes, including the National Cadet Pilot, Emirates Airport Service, Skycargo, and dnata Travel. These programmes are specifically designed to help train and educate UAE Nationals, empowering them with knowledge and preparing them for a career with the Group. The Emirates Group will also offer various job opportunities, catering to all interests and educational backgrounds. Job-seekers at Careers UAE can explore employment opportunities in Emirates airline and dnata across different business units such as Human Resources, Procurement, IT, Facilities Management, and Internal Audit and Finance. The Emirates Group revealed its Emiratisation Strategy, Rehlaty, back in 2015 to target and recruit UAE nationals and equip them for a dynamic career with the Emirates Group. This strategy has proven to be a success as UAE nationals continue to prosper, contributing to the Groups accomplishments and occupying leadership positions within the organisation. - TradeArabia News Service Mocking the Prime Minister's 'chowkidar' campaign, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday said Narendra Modi was attempting to convert the whole country into chowkidars after being "caught" in the Rafale fighter jet deal. Attacking Modi's "Main bhi chowkidar' (I too am watchman) blitz, he said "Chowkidar was caught indulging in theft and as he was caught, chowkidar says the whole of Hindustan is chowkidar. "But before getting caught, the entire Hindustan was not chowkidar." Gandhi stepped up the attack a day after BJP intensified its "Main bhi chowkidar" campaign with Modi and other party leaders, including its president Amit Shah prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their Twitter profile. Modi's Twitter account profile identified him as "Chowkidar Narendra Modi" as did other BJP leaders in a coordinated campaign against Gandhi's sustained "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe at the prime minister over the Rafale deal. "Before getting caught only Narendra Modi was chowkidar. Thief has been caught (chor pakdagaya). The whole country knows that "Chowkidar chor hai"," Gandhi said at a public rally here in the constituency of Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, in north Karnataka. He told the crowd, "You had said- Chowkidar chor hai. But yesterday and day-before-yesterday Narendra Modi was attempting to turn whole country into chowkidars." Gandhi said, "when he became Prime Minister, he said don't make me Prime Minister, make me chowkidar, do you remember? He had never said make whole of Hindustan into chowkidaars."The Congress president said Modi had asked the people to make him the Prime Minister and he would become their chowkidar. "Whose chowkidaari has he done? Did he do chowkidari of Anil Amabani or not? Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya- he did their chowkidari." Gandhi said that on the day the Pulwama attack occurred when 40 CRPF men killed in a suicide bomber attack in Jammu and Kashmir, the same day "Chowkidar had given Adani six airports of Hindustan." Stating that "Rafale is an aircraft of Hindustan's air Force," he said it was the "biggest" defence deal in the world. "There is no bigger defence deal than this in the world. It is of about thousands of crores of Rupees." Gandhi claimed that the UPA government had clearly said Hindustan Aeronautics Limited would get the contract and that the Rafale aircraft would be manufactured in Bengaluru, Odisha and in different parts of the country. The then Defence Minister A K Antony had clearly said each aircraft would cost Rs 526 crore, "but Modi, who only took Anil Ambani along with him to France, changed the whole contract", he alleged. "Rs 526 crore aircraft, Chowkidar ji brought it for Rs 1,600 crore," Gandhi claimed. He told the youth of Karnataka that Modi "took away" jobs from them. "HAL had to manufacture the aircraft, youth of Karnataka had to get jobs, but Narendra Modi said, No. Chowkidar will give it to Anil Ambani." Ambani's company, which had done nothing, was given the world's "biggest" defence contract by Modi and Ambani got "direct benefit of Rs 30,000 crore", he alleged. Gandhi said the Prime Minister had also made false promises where ever he went, like putting Rs 15 lakh into each citizen's bank account and providing jobs to two crore youth. The Congress president charged the Prime Minister and RSS with attempting to scrap the Constitution. "It is Narendra Modi's wish that just as he scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes through demonetisation, he wants to scrap the Constitution," Gandhi charged. Gandhi said the Congress would never let Modi and RSS succeed in their mission. Elaborating, Gandhi alleged that the note ban was effected without asking the RBI. He also alleged that the Supreme Court was not allowed to function while the Election Commission was being pressurised. The Congress president accused Modi of spreading hatred between different faiths. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Automotive Tyre Manufacturers' Association (ATMA) Monday said MRF Chairman & Managing Director K M Mammen has been unanimously elected as its chairman. The tyre industry also said JK Tyre & Industries Whole-time Director Anshuman Singhania has been elected as vice-chairman. The core group has also been reconstituted with Rajat Nangia, senior general manager Replacement Sales, MRF becoming the new convener of ATMA Industry, Public & Economic Affairs (IPEA) Group that looks at developing new markets and increasing export competitiveness of Indian tyre industry, ATMA said in a statement. Similarly, Ceat Vice President Procurement, Roopesh R will now head ATMA Supply Chain & Resources (SCR) group that works to ensure fair and sustainable supply of raw materials to the industry, it added. JK Tyre & Industries Technical Director V K Misra has taken over the reins of ATMA Technology, Environment, Safety & Standards (TESS) Group, it added. ATMA further said its policy formulation aspects will now be taken care by Apollo Tyres Group Head Accounts, APMEA, Rohit Arora as convener of ATMA Government Affairs & Legislation (GAL) group. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has been shifted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease that has weakened his nervous system, his party has said. General (retd) Musharraf, 75, who has been living in Dubai since March 2016, is facing the treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offence for which he was indicted in 2014 A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment The former army chief left for Dubai for medical treatment and has not returned since, citing security and health reasons. Musharraf was rushed to the hospital as an "emergency" on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said Sunday. APML Overseas President Afzaal Siddiqui told DawnNewsTV that Musharraf had suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president has been receiving medical care. According to the party, the former president has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. Siddiqui informed about Musharraf's illness in October last year, saying the former president's disease has "weakened his nervous system". At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. "Due to amyloidosis, broken protein starts getting deposited in various organs," Siddiqui had said. "[As a result] Pervez Musharraf has difficulty in standing and walking." Amyloidosis is a rare disease that occurs when a substance called amyloid builds up in your organs. Amyloid is an abnormal protein that is produced in your bone marrow and can be deposited in any tissue or organ. Amyloidosis can affect different organs in different people. Amyloidosis frequently affects the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, nervous system and digestive tract. Severe amyloidosis can lead to life-threatening organ failure. The APML official had then said that Musharraf's treatment could continue for up to five or six months. Upon his full recovery, Siddiqui had said, Musharraf intends to return to Pakistan. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, has been declared a fugitive in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case and the Red Mosque cleric killing case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court Monday said it will decide on framing of charges in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assault case on March 25. Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha posted the matter for the next date after hearing arguments of the CBI, which has chargesheeted 21 people. During the arguments the accused denied the allegations levelled against them. Several girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at an NGO-run shelter home in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. The incidents came to light following a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). An FIR was lodged in the case on May 31, 2018. During the arguments, the accused told the court that there was lack of evidence against them to put them on trial. "There were several contradictions in the agency's case. At one place they something else, the medical report produced by them says something else," said Advocate Dheeraj Kumar Singh, who appeared for the prime accused Brajesh Thakur and others. CBI had earlier claimed in the court that several girls were sexually assaulted in the shelter home and charges for the offences under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including Section 375 (rape) and POCSO Act were made out against the accused. On February 7, the Supreme Court had ordered transfer of case from Bihar to a court for Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) in Saket District Court complex in Delhi. It said trial in the case be concluded within six months by preferably holding day-to-day hearing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Fighting between Myanmar's military and ethnic Rakhine insurgents has now reached the ancient temples of Mrauk U, the former capital of the Rakhine kingdom and a popular tourist site, local residents said Monday. Rakhine state in Myanmar's west is riven with ethnic and religious divisions. It came under the global spotlight after the bloody 2017 army crackdown that forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh. But now the army is waging war against the Arakan Army (AA), an insurgent group fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, a population that also stands accused of aiding the military in their expulsion of the Rohingya. Several thousand people have been displaced by the spreading violence which has neared the state capital Sittwe and has now engulfed the town of Mrauk U. "We've been hearing gunshots and heavy artillery fire since about 7:30pm," local historian Khin Than told AFP by phone on Monday evening, adding that she saw soldiers shooting from about 10 vehicles as they drove around town. "We dare not go outside and are hiding in our homes," she said. "We do not want our ancient treasures destroyed in the fighting." Among the most vulnerable are some 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine without citizenship, restricted to either camps or their villages. Fighting over the weekend raged around the town of Kyauktaw, wounding three Rohingya, including two teenagers. "We are stuck in the middle," one Rohingya man told AFP, preferring not to give his name. "Our injured villagers cannot go anywhere for treatment because of the situation. We can't do anything," he said. The military ramped up operations against the AA after the armed rebels launched a brazen attack on police posts in early January that killed 13 officers. The area is in strict lockdown and information is difficult to verify independently. On Saturday, AA insurgents ambushed a cargo ship on the Kaladan river, temporarily abducting the crew and setting the vessel on fire, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said. The rebels enjoy widespread support from many ethnic Rakhine, who have felt marginalised for decades in one of the country's poorest states. The group has expanded its ranks since its formation in 2009 and is now believed to have several thousand recruits. It is feared the expected verdict on Tuesday in the trial of a popular Rakhine politician for alleged treason could be a further flashpoint in Sittwe. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Almost 40 per cent of new HIV cases in the US occur because people do not know they are infected, while a similar proportion know but are not in treatment, a new study has said. The report released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is based on 2016 data and aims to bolster a strategy outlined by President Donald Trump to end the epidemic within 10 years. The strategy has two main strands: far more widespread screening, and enabling the infected better access to treatment from the moment they test positive. The study found that 38 per cent of infections came from HIV-positive people who were unaware of their status, and 43 per cent from people who knew they were infected but took no anti-retroviral drugs. The remaining infections came from people who were receiving HIV treatment but were not yet "virally suppressed." The CDC blamed financial, social and other reasons for people not using medication, which these days typically comes in the form of a daily pill with minimal side effects. The study said that the infection rate from the half million people in the United States who take medication and are virally suppressed -- meaning they cannot pass on the disease to others -- was zero. The most at-risk group remains homosexual men, with almost three-quarters of new infections coming from men having sex with men, the report said. Five per cent of infections came from intravenous drug abuse among homosexual men, while 10 per cent came from injecting drugs among the rest of the population. Twelve per cent of infections were among heterosexuals. Overall, the highest rate of transmission was among 13 to 24-year-olds. The Trump administration has said it will invest $291 million in the next financial year to fight HIV/AIDS, which has plateaued since 2013 to around 39,000 annual transmissions. The goal is to reduce that number by 75 per cent within five years and by 90 per cent in 10 years. Questioned about the relatively small amount of money earmarked for the multi-billion dollar task of treating HIV carriers, CDC head Robert Redfield said he was "confident that the resources that are required to accomplish this mission are in the long term plan." The CDC wants doctors to make HIV screening a routine procedure. "Everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 should get tested for HIV at least once in their lifetime," said Eugene McCray, the head of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. "Those at higher risk should get tested at least annually," he said. "The key to controlling is helping those with HIV to control the virus," said the CDC's Jonathan Mermin, who focuses on preventing the spread of the HIV as well as other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and hepatitis. "Time spent working closely with patients who are having trouble paying for, picking up or taking their daily medications is time well spent". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Australian white supremacist accused of carrying out a massacre at two mosques in New Zealand briefly visited Israel in 2016, Israeli officials said Monday. Brenton Tarrant arrived on a three-month tourist visa and stayed in Israel for nine days in October 2016, immigration authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said. She was not able to provide further details on the visit by the 28-year-old. Tarrant has been charged with murder over the worst modern-day massacre in New Zealand in which 50 people were killed at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday. He grew up in the small town of Grafton in Australia, but had travelled widely in recent years. Social media posts suggested his travels included trips as far afield as Pakistan and North Korea. He had also visited Greece, Croatia and Bulgaria, among other countries. Tarrant had recently lived in Dunedin, some 350 kilometres (220 miles) from Christchurch. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Australian charged with murder in the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques appears "rational" and aware of the situation, his ex-lawyer told AFP on Monday. Duty lawyer Richard Peters represented the 28-year-old during a preliminary court hearing, but was dropped after Brenton Tarrant indicated he wanted to represent himself. "The way he presented was as a rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. That's how he appeared. He seemed to understand what was going on," Peters said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP-led alliance in Goa did not reach a consensus over the next chief minister on Monday, a move necessitated by the demise of Manohar Parrikar. Parrikar (63) died on Sunday evening at his residence near here after battling pancreatic cancer for over a year. Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, who arrived here in the early hours of the day, could not secure a consensus between the saffron party and its alliance partners in the state, party MLA Michael Lobo said. While Gadkari was not available for comments, BJP MLA Lobo said Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLA Sudin Dhavalikar wanted to be the chief minister due to which the discussions came to a halt. "Sudin Dhavalikar wants himself to be the CM, while the BJP wants that the leader of the alliance should be from their camp. We could not reach to any decision," Lobo told reporters outside a hotel after a night-long meeting. He said a solution to the crisis is expected to be found later in the day. Lobo said BJP MLAs have suggested the names of Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant for the post. Earlier, Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai, emerging from the meeting, had said that the parties were yet to reach a conclusion. The meeting was inconclusive and "the BJP has informed them that they will get back later during the day," Sardesai had said. He said the parties expressed apprehensions on how to proceed in the absence of Parrikar. "We are expecting them to respond to our apprehensions soon," he added. The GFP leader, however, said the party had not yet shut its doors on the BJP. Sardesai was accompanied by his MLAs, Jayesh Salgaonkar and Vinod Palyekar, and Independents Rohan Khaunte, Govind Gawade and Prasad Gaonkar. Meanwhile, speaking to reporters, Dhavalikar said that Gadkari held one-on-one meetings with the MLAs and asked them certain questions. "I can't disclose about the questions as they are confidential. We are expecting Gadkari to announce name of the CM candidate in the next one hour. The MGP will take proper resolution supporting the government after that," he said. The MGP MLA added that Gadkari had heard each of the MLAs individually and would soon announce a new leader. With the demise of Parrikar, the strength of 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly has been reduced to 36. BJP MLA Francis D'Souza died last month, while two Congress members had resigned last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A security man was burnt to death by a mob and a protestor killed in clashes near the Vedanta alumina refinery in Odisha's Kalahandi district, after locals demanding jobs tried to storm its premises Monday, police claimed. Twenty people were also injured in the clashes that broke out between Odisha Industrial Security Force (OISF) personnel and the protestors, police said. The incident took place when residents of Rengopali and nearby villages were staging a demonstration near the refinery at Lanjigarh demanding jobs and other facilities, Kalahandi Superintendent of Police (SP) B Gangadhar said. They were also demanding admission of their children in a school run by the company and jobs to local youth at the refinery, police said. Some of the agitators tried to enter the refinery's premises through the main gate, but were stopped by OISF personnel deployed there, they said. The protesters fought a pitched battle with the security personnel and resorted to stone pelting in a bid to storm the refinery campus, police said. The security men chased the mob away using batons and around 20 persons suffered injuries, a police officer said, adding that one of the agitators succumbed to injuries at a hospital. He was identified as Dani Patra (35) from Chatrapur village. The SP said some of the agitators vandalised the community service centre at the alumina plant and set afire OISF staff Sujit Kumar Minz, after locking him in a room. Minz was burnt to death, Gangadhar said "Our staff were attacked by the agitators and we had to act in our defense... They were extremely violent and refused to calm down despite several attempts," OISF Inspector Ashok Kumar Roul claimed. A spokesperson of Vedanta Limited said the protests at the Lanjigarh plant led to violent agitation. According to hospital authorities, one protester and one OISF staff succumbed to injuries, he said. "We are deeply saddened by the and we offer our condolences to the families of the deceased. We will offer full cooperation to the appropriate authorities, who will be looking into the incident. "We appeal to the protesters not to resort to such acts, when every situation can be resolved amicably through discussions," the spokesperson said. The SP said prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC have been imposed in Lanjigarh, as part of measures to prevent any flare up and fresh violence. The situation is tense but under control, Gangadhar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amaravati, March 17 (IANS) Telugu actor Pawan Kalyans Jana Sena on Sunday finalized seat-sharing with the Left parties for the next months Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh. The Jana Sena has decided to leave seven Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats each to the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Part of India-Marxist (CPI-M). This was announced by Jana Sena leader after talks with CPI state Secretary K. Ramakrishna and CPI-M state Secretary P. Madhu in Vijayawada. Support TwoCircles Pawan, who also decided to have an alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), is likely to take a decision soon on the number of seats to be left for the party. The Lok Sabha seats left by Jana Sena for the CPI are Anantapur and Kadapa while the CPI-M will field its candidates in Kurnool and Nellore constituencies. The actor said the Left parties which fight on peoples issues should have representation in the legislature and hence he decided to have alliance with them. Elections to 175-member Assembly and all 25 Lok Sabha seats are scheduled on April 11. Jana Sena has already announced candidates for four Lok Sabha and 32 Assembly constituencies. Ten months after being kidnapped in Afghanistan's Baghlan province, one of the seven Indian nationals has safely returned to India, the External Affairs Ministry said Monday. It said India continued to work closely with the Afghan government for the safe and early return of the remaining six Indian nationals. "We are grateful to Government of Afghanistan for their support in securing the release and repatriation of the Indian national," the MEA said. The seven Indian engineers were kidnapped by Taliban militants in the restive northern Baghlan province on May 6 last year. The Indian engineers of KEC International, an RPG group company, were working on a project for the construction of a power sub-station in the country. India has been carrying reconstruction activities in the war-torn country. It has already provided at least USD 2 billion aid to Afghanistan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has attacked his rivals for criticising the government for renaming this year's Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh, saying the opposition does not have an "iota of knowledge" about Indian traditions. The state government had renamed the Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh and the Kumbh as Maha Kumbh in 2017. The Kumbh was held in Allahabad from January 15 to March 4 at the Sangam -- the confluence of the Yamuna, Ganga and the mythical Saraswati rivers -- and as per government data, it was attended by over 24 crore people. "When the entire country feels proud about the valour and heroic deeds of the armed forces, they (opposition) seeks evidence of surgical strikes and air strikes. "When the entire world praises the divya (divine) and bhavya (grand) Kumbh, then they do not feel proud and express sadness as to why Ardh Kumbh was made Kumbh," Adityanath told PTI in an interview on Saturday. The chief minister attributed the success of the recently culminated Kumbh to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying it was a "swachh (clean) and surakshit (safe) Kumbh". "If they (opposition) had even an iota of knowledge pertaining to Indian traditions, then I would have told them something. But, it is futile to make them understand, and the public will eventually and in time teach them a lesson," he said. There was a "saatvik taakat (pious force)" that wanted "faith and trust" to prevail come what may in the Kumbh, Adityanath said. "But, there was also a big section, that was spreading disinformation about India, Indianess and the Sanatan Dharma. Disregarding all of them, we moved ahead and achieved our mission," he said. Prime Minister Modi was a source of inspiration and he "guided us from the beginning, and he has said a safe and clean Kumbh had been organised", Adityanath said. "When the entire world is facing the menace of terrorism and living in an atmosphere of fear, we were able to successfully organise a surakshit Kumbh in which more than 24 crore devotees came," the chief minister said. He said with the prime minister's efforts and motivation, India's biggest spiritual and cultural gathering was recognised by the UNESCO as an "intangible cultural heritage of humanity". On the issue of stray cattle in the state, the chief minister said it is an "manmade problem (kritrim aapdaa)". "This problem is not caused by nature, but by the society, and the society should come forward to redress the problem. In some of the districts, members of the society have come forward and contributed," he said. In January this year, the state government had cleared a plan to levy cow welfare cess to help generate funds for its plans to build cow shelters for stray cows. The new cess is applicable on excise items, road toll plazas and Mandi Parishads. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling Congress in Punjab is confident of winning all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state as it faces a "faction-ridden" and "divided" Opposition in the hustings. Congress will be firing on all cylinders to take on the SAD-BJP alliance and AAP in the parliamentary polls beginning April 11. "We are seeing the opposition the way it is. Akali Dal has disintegrated and AAP has also broken into groups. BJP, within its cadres, has a lot of infighting," said Asha Kumari, Congress Punjab affairs in-charge. She exuded confidence that Congress will win all 13 seats in the state. To accomplish its 'Mission 13', Congress will highlight the achievements of its two-year regime and target the BJP-led Centre for its "failures" at the national level. Both Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) will highlight the "non-performance" of the Punjab government on poll promises like farm debt waiver and smart phones for youths etc. It is going to be interesting to see how SAD fares in the elections in the backdrop of expulsion of Taksali (old guard) leaders Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Rattan Singh Ajnala and Sewa Singh Sekhwan. The three floated SAD (Taksali) late last year. SAD president Badal has described the leaders as of "no consequence". The resignation of senior leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa from party posts in September last year also did not augur well for SAD. It came at a time when the party was facing heat over sacrilege of religious scriptures and pardon granted to Dera Sacha Sauda chief in a blasphemy case. The SAD, which claims to be the "only custodian" of Sikh issues, has rejected the Ranjit Singh Commission report, which dealt with sacrilege incidents in Punjab. It also accused the Special Investigation Team, probing the 2015 sacrilege and police firing incidents, of implicating party leaders at the behest of Congress. The going is likely to be tough for AAP as well, which has grappled with infighting and factionalism in the state unit. It is going to be an uphill task for the party to retain the four Lok Sabha seats which it had won in the 2014 polls despite a Modi wave across the country. Senior leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira parted ways with AAP after he was ousted from the post of the leader of opposition. Khaira, along with seven other MLAs, had formed a parallel ad hoc political affairs committee and declared the party's state unit "autonomous", before resigning from AAP in January this year. He floated a new party -- Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP). The Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) comprising PEP, Bahujan Samaj Party, Lok Insaaf Party, suspended AAP MP Dharamvira Gandhi-led Punjab Manch, CPI and Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMPI) is also in the fray. The PDA has announced seven candidates for the parliamentary elections. Besides AAP's four seats, Congress had won three, SAD won four and BJP bagged two in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, in 2017 Gurdaspur bypoll, necessitated by the death of BJP MP Vinod Khanna, Congress candidate Sunil Jakhar won the seat. Polling will be held in Punjab in single phase on May 19 and results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) LJP leader Chirag Paswan Monday said all NDA allies in Bihar may name their Lok Sabha poll candidates together and also took a dig at the opposition, saying its "so-called grand alliance has turned out to be an illusion". He told reporters after a meeting of his party's parliamentary board that the Lok Janshakti Party has finalised its candidates for the six seats it will contest in Bihar, but withheld announcing their names due Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's death. Asserting that a joint announcement by all the National Democratic Alliance parties - the BJP, Janata Dal (United) and the LJP - on the seats they will fight in alliance have sent out a positive message, Paswan said they may also name their candidates together, but added that a final call on this is yet to be taken. While Paswan is set to contest from Jamui, the seat he represents in the Lok Sabha, Ram Chandra Paswan will be fielded from Samastipur, which he had won in 2014. With the party supremo and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan not contesting the Lok Sabha election this time, his brother Pashupati Kumar Paras may contest from his pocket borough of Hajipur. Party sources said its MP from Munger, Veena Devi, is likely to be fielded from Nawada and Bina Singh, whose husband Dinesh Singh is a JD(U) MLC, may contest from Vaishali. Asked about Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh's "unhappiness" over being denied renomination from the Nawada seat, from where he had won in 2014, Paswan said he will speak to Singh to resolve the matter. Singh is likely to be fielded from Begusarai as Nawada was allocated to the LJP. Chirag Paswan said the ruling alliance has divided seats among its partners amicably, but the grand alliance of opposition parties has not been able to decide on the number of seats each of them will contest. "The so-called grand alliance has turned out to be an illusion," he said, asserting that the NDA under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership will win more than 350 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The Bharatiya Janata Party, JD(U) and the LJP have announced they will fight 17, 17 and six seats respectively in Bihar. They have also divided among themselves the seats each of them will contest. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over 30,000 pirated NCERT books worth Rs 50 lakhs were recovered after the Delhi police arrested a 28-year-old man allegedly running a printing press in east Delhi's Gazipur village, officials said on Monday. The accused, Abhishek Chaudhary alias Goldy, a resident of Shakarpur was arrested on March 12 after police got a tip off following which they raided the spot along with an NCERT team, Rajiv Ranjan, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) said. There has been a sudden rise in demand for the NCERT books after the HRD Ministry made it mandatory for CBSE affiliated schools, he said. Pirated NCERT books of Mathematics, Hindi, English, Economic, Chemistry, Hindi and History of class VI to XII were being published at this unit, he said. Chaudhary used to procure NCERT watermark paper from Chawri Bazar after which he prepared a complete set of books and distributed them to different states in North and South India. A case under appropriate section of law under Copy Right Act has been registered, the officer said. The accused dropped out while doing his B.Com and started helping his father in his press. In 2017, he came in contact with Rahul Jain, a resident of Karawal Nagar who was also running an offset press. He came to know through Rahul that there was huge profit in publishing pirated NCERT books, as these books were always in shortage. Following this, Chaudhary established a offset press at Gazipur village and solely started publishing pirated NCERT books of class VI to XII, the officer added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi Monday filed his nomination papers to contest in Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency which goes to the polls on April 11. "Hyderabad Parliamentary Constituency has been the voice of India's impoverished, oppressed & weak. Ishallah, it will continue to be so", he said on Twitter. Owaisi has won the Hyderabad seat three times in a row, from 2004. The ruling TRS has already declared that the party would extend him its support. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan and China should not create hurdles in designating JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, a leading Pakistani daily said Monday, emphasising the need to crackdown hard on terror groups in the country as it will help Islamabad regain the respect of the international community. The Dawn newspaper in an editorial said that there are no "good" or "bad" militants groups and all have either caused or are capable of wreaking havoc in the country. "That outlook is hopefully a thing of the past now, as the prime minister (Imran Khan) has promised that no groups will be allowed to use Pakistani territory for militant activities. "He must make good on that pledge. This is the only way Pakistan will regain the respect of the international community, and counter India's constant campaign to isolate it," it said. "Most (of the terror groups) have been banned but much more is required to ensure that they are eliminated and never come back to life. If the world wants to blacklist Masood Azhar, there should be no hesitation on Pakistan's part. Neither should China use technical reasons' to block such a move," the daily said. China for the fourth time blocked a bid in the United Nations (UN) Security Council last week to designate the Pakistan-based chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed as a "global terrorist" by putting a technical hold on the proposal, a move India termed as disappointing. The JeM has claimed responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead and raised tensions between India and Pakistan. The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US on February 27. The daily said while India has been "thirsting for revenge" in the post-Pulwama period, its efforts to blacklist the Jaish and its chief are not altogether altruistic." The paper said despite India's efforts to portray Pakistan as a hub of jihadi activity, there is still a case to be made for the country to clamp down further on the Jaish and others of its ilk - for its own security. "The dangers of the path adopted by the Jaish are clear. Azhar's aim was to blur the distinction between pro-Kashmir jihadi groups and those subscribing to sectarian militancy within Pakistan." When Gen (Pervez) Musharraf proscribed the Jaish, he was targeted by the group, barely escaping two attempts on his life. The attempt to rein in the Jaish's activities caused a large section of the group to join hands with the TTP to attack the state and religious minorities. It said that stern action is necessary against all militants - whether they were allegedly using Pakistani soil to plan attacks outside the country, or killing and maiming thousands within the country. The daily said that Pakistan should have learnt a lesson from the Americans who encouraged jihadi elements in Afghanistan, "only to be confronted by a monster of their own creation in later years". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who died after a long illness, would be accorded state funeral with full military honours on Monday, according to the home ministry. Parrikar, 63, who had also been the defence minister, died on Sunday at his private residence in Dona Paula near the state capital after battling a pancreatic ailment since February last year. MHA Joint Secretary S K Shahi, in an order issued on Sunday, said the Ministry of Defence is requested to make arrangements for state funeral with full military honours. "It has been decided by the government that state funeral will be accorded to the departed dignitary," Shahi has said in the circular. The final rites of Parrikar will be performed at 5 pm on Monday at the Miramar beach here, next to the memorial of Goa's first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar, who was also cremated there, a state BJP spokesperson said. After Parrikar's demise on Sunday evening, the body was kept at his residence for the night. "His mortal remains would be brought to the BJP office in the morning where they will be kept for an hour before being taking to the Kala Academy to allow people to pay their last respects before his final journey," the spokesperson said. The central government has announced national mourning on Monday, officials earlier said. The national flag will fly at half-mast across the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Manohar Parrikar was 17th chief minister in the country and second in Goa who died while still in office. Parrikar, 63, a former defence minister, died on Sunday at his private residence in Dona Paula near the state capital after battling a pancreatic cancer for over last year. Before Parrikar, Dayanand Bandokar, the leader of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), died in August 1973 while occupying the post. He had swept the polls in 1963 to become the first chief minister of Goa. Under his leadership, the party swept the 1967 and 1972 polls in the state. The MGP is currently an ally of the BJP in the state. Tamil Nadu witnessed deaths of three sitting chief ministers. The first one was C N Annadurai, a mentor to future chief ministers of the state. Under his leadership, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) defeated the Congress in the 1967 assembly polls. The Congress has been out of power in the state since then. Annadurai died just two years after being in the office. The legendary thespian M G Ramachandran, and the founder of All Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) also died while in office in December 1987. Ramchandran's protege and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa won the assembly polls for the fourth time in May 2016. However, her tenure was short-lived as she died in December 2016. Chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died while they were in office. Gujarat also saw two of its sitting chief ministers die. Balwantrai Mehta was killed after his aircraft was shot down by Pakistan Air Force during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. Chimanbhai Patel headed the state government from 1990 until his death in 1994. Three chief ministers, including Mehta, died in air accidents. Incidentally, all were from the Congress. S Rajashekara Reddy, the chief minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh died in a helicopter crash in September 2009, months after he swept the polls. Dorjee Khandu, the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, also died in a helicopter crash in May 2011. Beant Singh, a chief minister from Punjab, was killed in a bomb blast at the state secretariat in Chandigarh by Sikh extremists in 1995. Marutrao Kannamwar, the second chief minister of Maharashtra (1962-63), died while still in office. Noted freedom fighter Bidhan Chandra Roy was the chief minister of West Bengal from 1952 until his death in 1962. Barkartullah Khan, the only Muslim chief minister of Rajasthan, was at the helm from July 1971 until his death in October 1973. Congress' Shri Krishna Singh was the first chief minister of Bihar and he held the post from 1952 until his death in 1961. He was also the premier of Bihar from 1937 to 1939 and 1946-52. Ravi Shankar Shukla was the chief minister of Central Provinces from November 1956 until his death in December 1956. Gopinath Bordoloi died in August 1950. He was the premier of Assam, a post he held twice. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday revoked the expulsion order on veteran politician Prafulla Ghadai, ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections next month. Ghadai was expelled from the BJD in September 2014 for allegedly issuing a statement against party president Patnaik. He has represented the Sukinda assembly seat five terms since 1990, and has been the finance minister in the Patnaik government. He was also dropped from the ministry by Patnaik in August 2012, and denied a ticket to seek re-election from the Sukinda Assembly seat in 2014. His son Pritiranjan Ghadai, was instead, given a BJD ticket, and won in the 2014 elections from the Sukinda segment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even a week after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the poll schedule, political activities are yet to pick up pace in Jammu and Ladakh divisions with most parties busy finalising nominees for the Lok Sabha seats. Voting to elect the 17th Lok Sabha will be held over seven phases from April 11 to May 19 and the counting of votes will take place on May 23, the ECI said Sunday last. The state has six Lok Sabha seats. Except the party offices of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress, the National Conference, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP), which are bustling with activists, not much campaigning is going on in the state. "We are busy at the head office here in finalising the poll plan, chain of meetings of office bearers, and organising of morchas," a senior BJP leader in Jammu told PTI on Monday. The leaders said they are currently giving final touches to their digital campaigns, posters, banners, schedule of star speakers, dates of poll rallies and door-to-door campaigns. Most of the parties, including national outfits the BJP, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, and regional ones, the PDP, the NC and the JKNPP, are yet to announce their candidates for the parliamentary constituencies. "We have not yet announced candidates in Jammu and Kashmir. It is in the final process", a senior state Congress leader said. The leaders opined that once candidates are named, campaigning will start in full swing. The Congress and former ally National Conference (NC) have initiated talks over a seat-sharing arrangement. Similarly, the PDP and National Party Congress are weighing their options for a tie-up. "The NC got a proposal from the Congress (on seat sharing arrangement). But we made it clear that the NC will field its candidates from all three Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir valley. If it suits the Congress, the NC is ready to talk about other seats (in Ladakh and Jammu regions). We are awaiting their response," said NC vice-president Omar Abdullah on the sidelines of a party convention in Anantnag Sunday. The PDP has opened channels with the Congress high command, offering unconditional support in the Jammu province, sources said. "The party leadership is mulling over supporting the Congress nominees in the two Lok Sabha seats in Jammu province Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda," said a senior PDP leader on condition of anonymity. In Rajouri and Poonch, continuous Pakistani shelling has given way to fear psychosis among the lakhs of the people living in these villages along the LoC. The political outfits are on guard before campaigning in Sundcerbani, Nowshera, Manjakote, Balakote, Bhimbhergali, Krishnagati, Mendhar, Poonch sectors, leaders said. Jugal Kishore, who has won Nagrota Assembly seat twice for the BJP (2002 and 2008), was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2014 with a margin of about 3 lakh votes, defeating two-time MP and former minister Congress' Madan Lal Sharma. Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh had defeated former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in his electoral debut in 2014 in Udhampur parliamentary constituency by an impressive margin of over 60,000 votes. Azad was later elected to the Rajya Sabha from Jammu and Kashmir and is presently the Leader of Opposition. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP swept all three seats in the Ladakh and Jammu regions (Jammu-Poonch, Udhampur-Doda and Ladakh), while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the three seats in the Kashmir Valley. However, in 2016, PDP leader, Tariq Hamid Karra had resigned from the party as well as the Lok Sabha and later joined the Congress while another PDP MP from Anantnag, Mehbooba Mufti, the party president had quit her Parliamentary seat after being elected as the Chief Minister in July 2016. NC president Farooq Abdullah was elected as Lok Sabha member from Srinagar in the by-poll in April 2017 while by-election to Anantnag seat was suspended and could not be held since then. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her party's campaign for the in Uttar Pradesh on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam. During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her Ganga cruise is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade long wilderness in the state. The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh offered prayers on the banks of Sangam -- a confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. In a tweet, Priyanka recalled her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While putting me to sleep at night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," the Congress leader said in a tweet in Hindi. - pic.twitter.com/q8Ecdb2RsL Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) March 17, 2019 Soon after her arrival here on Sunday, Priyanka said political stagnation in Uttar Pradesh had left the state's youth, women, farmers and labourers distressed and it was her responsibility to change the politics here. "Due to stagnation in the politics of the state, youngsters, women, farmers and labourers are worried. They want to share their pain and agony, but in the noise of political arithmetic, their voice is completely absent from the policies of the state," she said in an open letter. Gandhi said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a 'sacha samwaad' (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in politics. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. The Congress leader said she would reach out to people through various means of transportation, including waterways, buses, train and 'padayatra' (on foot). "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our 'Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb' (cross culture). It does not differentiate among people. Gangaji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," Priyanka said letter read. As part of her campaign tour, Priyanka will also visit Bhadohi and Mirzapur districts. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. A group of lawyers on Monday handed a letter to the district magistrate, claiming that Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should not be allowed to enter the Kashi Vishwanath temple as she is a Christian. The letter claimed that Priyanka was a Christian and she should be stopped from entering the temple, keeping in mind the ancient values of Sanatan Dharma. The letter, addressed to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, stated that her place of worship was a church. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seeking to navigate the Congress towards regaining its lost political moorings in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday began her 'Ganga Yatra' on boat to reach out to voters urging them to bring "a government that works for them" and asserting that "my brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says". The 47-year-old Congress general secretary, clad in a green cotton saree and pink blouse, interacted with a cross section of people, including students, and invited some of them to join her on the motorboat as she undertook her much anticipated ride from the Manaiya Ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj district. Kicking off the Lok Sabha election campaign with her three-day visit to eastern Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi , the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and will also visit several temples while literally testing the political waters of UP where the Congress has been in wilderness for nearly three decades. She started her river journey with a visit to the Sangam and performing puja along with party leaders at the Bade Hanuman Mandir, popular as 'Letee Hanuman Ji' near Prayagraj Sangam. Priyanka was accompanied by party leaders including BJP turncoat Savitri Bai Phule and Congress MLA from Rampur Khas (Pratapgarh). Sitting cross-legged on the motorboat, the Congress leader, who has been assigned the task of leading the campaign in the region where political opponents like the BJP and the BSP-SP have a strong footing, was all ears as the locals residing on the river bank apprised her of their issues. Taking a halt at the Dumduma Ghat under the watchful eyes of SPG personnel escorting her, Priyanka in her brief address said that she had come here to listen to the people and learn about their problems rather than giving speeches. She asked the people to "bring a government which works for you...my brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says... in MP, in ten days of Congress coming to power, farmers' loans were waived...same in Rajasthan." "I want to urge you, my brothers and sisters, to vote wisely in these elections and form a Congress government so that your problems could be looked into...this area has specific problems," she said, adding that she is aware that sand mining rights are not given to boatmen who are 'ganga putra' and added that "Rahul has said that a separate ministry for them will be created". Taking another halt at the Sirsa Ghat, she said that the electorate has witnessed Congress governments during which schemes like MNREGS was launched and regretted that jobs have become scarce in the present times. "Elect a government for yourself as the responsibility of the country is on you... it is because of you that we are standing here," she said. "When you will strengthen the Congress and Rahulji, you will see in the times to come that development is taking place," she said referring to her brother and Congress President. After a night halt in Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district, the Congress leader will resume her onward journey tomorrow morning that will culminate in Varanasi on Wednesday. The party's newly appointed general secretary had said she would contact the people using various means of transportation, including waterways and padayatra (on foot). "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (culture). It does not differentiate among people. Ganga-ji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," she had said in an open letter on March 17. Arriving here from Lucknow on Sunday night to a rousing reception by party workers who shouted slogans of 'dahan karo Modi ki Lanka, behen Priyanka behen Priyanka', the Congress leader tweeted an image of the room at Swaraj Bhawan. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While making me sleep in the night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said in a tweet. After making a political buzz with a roadshow in Lucknow last month, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had on Sunday said that political stagnancy had left the youths, women, farmers and labourers distressed in Uttar Pradesh. She said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a sachaa samwaad (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in We will move towards solving your problems," she said. Congress spokesman Anshu Tripathi said, "These villages and people have been living on the fringes since long and have been neglected by successive state governments in the last 30 years. This is an attempt by the Congress leadership to let them know its sincerity for all sections of people, including the neglected ones." The BJP, meanwhile, ridiculed Priyanka Gandi Vadra's boat campaign, saying every election is a "picnic" for the Gandhi family. "They come, they see and resort to rhetorical speeches. After the elections are over, they head towards Switzerland or Italy," BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seeking to navigate the Congress towards regaining its political moorings in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday began her 'Ganga Yatra' on boat with a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged voters to bring in a government that works for them. The 47-year-old Congress general secretary, clad in a green cotton saree and pink blouse, interacted with a cross section of people, including students, and invited some of them to join her on the motorboat as she undertook her much anticipated ride from the Manaiya Ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj district. Addressing the people at Sirsa Ghat and other places where she halted during the boat-ride, Priyanka took a swipe at Modi's "main bhi chowkidar' campaign, saying "chowkidars are for the rich, not for farmers", and alleged that the issues of religion and caste are being raised as the government has failed on the development front. "Unki (Prime Minister) marzi apne naam ke aage kya lagaen. Mujhe ek kisan bhai ne kaha ki 'dekhiye chowkidaar toh ameeron ke hotey hain, hum kisan toh apney khud chowkidaar hotey hain ("It is up to him what prefix he uses in his name. Yesterday I met a group of farmers. One of them told me, chowkidars are for the rich. We farmers are our own chowkidars)," she said. Citing BJP's promises which have remained "unfulfilled", she asked: "Have two crore jobs been given...has our prime minister ever come here...he has been travelling all over the world." "They think that by misleading you all they will remain in power. All institutions are being destroyed...the country cannot run like this...," she said. "I could have also sat at home. I have come out as the country is in danger, the country's Constitution is in danger...so vote wisely," Priyanka said. "We have the intention, not 'jumley' (rhetoric) and we worked and showed it in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan on loan waiver promise," she said and asserted that "my brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says". Priyanka, who kicked off the Lok Sabha election campaign with her three-day visit to eastern Uttar Pradesh, will cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and will also visit several temples while literally testing the political waters in UP where the Congress has been in wilderness for nearly three decades. She started her river journey with a visit to the Sangam and performing puja along with party leaders at the Bade Hanuman Mandir, popular as Letee Hanuman Ji' near Prayagraj Sangam. Taking a halt at the Dumduma Ghat under the watchful eyes of SPG personnel escorting her, Priyanka, who was accompanied by other party leaders, said she had come here to learn about people's problems rather than giving speeches. "Bring a government that works for you. Form a Congress government so that your problems could be looked into," she said, adding that she is aware that sand mining rights are not given to boatmen who are 'ganga putra' and added that "Rahul has said that a separate ministry for them will be created". At the Sirsa Ghat, she said the electorate has witnessed Congress governments during which schemes like MNREGS wre launched and regretted that jobs have become scarce in the present times. After a night halt in Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district, the Congress leader will resume her onward journey tomorrow morning that will culminate in Varanasi on Wednesday. Sitting cross-legged on the motorboat, the Congress leader was all ears as the locals residing on the river bank apprised her of their issues. "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality... Ganga-ji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," the party's newly appointed general secretary had said in an open letter on March 17. Arriving here from Lucknow on Sunday night to a rousing reception by party workers who shouted slogans of 'dahan karo Modi ki Lanka, behen Priyanka behen Priyanka', the Congress leader tweeted an image of the room at Swaraj Bhawan. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While making me sleep in the night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said in a tweet. Addressing people and party workers at Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district on Monday, Priyanka said the BJP is citing the same excuse that it used to make during the previous election. "They blame the Congress for all problems, like unemployment...but you are running the government for five years, what have you done?" she posed. The crowd responded saying "janata ko dhokha diya". She told the audience that "Rahulji wants the welfare of the people and does not run after power". Priyanka said, "Like you, I too am sick of this government which undermines our Constitution, institutions and does not care for the people.... Responsibility is yours. Chunao nahi chunauti hai (It not an election but a challenge)." "I know my brother. We have faced lots of struggles and martydom of our father and sacrifice by our family members," she added. The BJP, however, ridiculed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's boat campaign, saying every election is a "picnic" for the Gandhi family. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A multi-city run cum walk was organised by the Organisation for Rare Diseases India (ORDI) in the city to raise funds for patients of rare diseases in India. According to the organisers, 'Race for 7', a first-of-its-kind event symbolically represents 7,000 rare diseases with 7,000 people running for seven kilometers to represent the average number of years it takes to diagnose a rare disease. The run was organised in the national capital on Sunday. It will be conducted in nine more cities - Bengaluru, Mysuru, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Bikaner, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi over the next few days. Several rare disease patients and their families will participate in 'Race for 7' to draw attention to the challenges they face and the need for governments and other institutions to recognise their unique needs and create enabling policies and a more supportive environment for them, Prasanna Shirol, founder director of ORDI, said. The theme for Rare Disease Day this year is 'Bridging health and social care', focusing on the need to better coordinate all aspects of care to improve the lives of people living with a rare disease. What started as an awareness walk to commemorate the World Rare Disease Day in February 2016 has now grown into a significant campaign, conducted simultaneously in multiple cities and two countries India and the USA, Shirol said. Father of a rare disease patient, Shirol said, "One in every 20 Indians suffers from a rare disease. Besides lack of access to early intervention and treatment because of the lack of widespread awareness about rare diseases, the cost of treatment where available is often prohibitively expensive. "We urgently need national and state policies that address the unique requirements of the rare disease community and enable them to lead lives of dignity and self-worth." India currently has over 8,000 patients with rare diseases, which includes genetic disorders like rarest of rare ones such as Hunter Syndrome, Gaucher Disease and Fabry's Disease. While Fabry's Disease interferes with the body's ability to break down a specific fatty substance, Hunter Syndrome is a serious genetic disorder that interferes with the body's ability to break down specific mucopolysaccharides. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Main bhi chowkidar' campaign on Monday drew more ridicule from Congress president and party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Raising the Rafale issue, said Modi was attempting to convert the whole country into chowkidar after being "caught", while Priyanka said chowkidar are only for the rich not the poor. "Unki (Prime Minister) marzi apne naam ke aage kya lagaen. Mujhe ek kisan bhai ne kaha ki 'dekhiye chowkidaar toh ameeron ke hotey hain, hum kisan toh apney khud chowkidaar hotey hain ("It is up to him what prefix he uses in his name. Yesterday I met a group of farmers. One of them told me, chowkidars are for the rich. We farmers are our own chowkidars)," Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said. She was speaking after kicking off the election campaign in eastern Uttar Pradesh with her 'Ganga Yatra' on boat. Rahul, who has been targeting the PM with "Chowkidar chor hai" (watchman is a thief) jibe alleging corruption in Rafale fighter jet deal, said, "Chowkidar was caught indulging in theft and as he was caught, chowkidar says the whole of Hindustan is chowkidar." "But before getting caught, the entire Hindustan was not chowkidar," said Gandhi. The prime minister had in his election rallies said that he would work as a watchmen against the corrupt. Rahul and his sister stepped up the attack a day after BJP intensified its "Main bhi chowkidar" (I too am watchman) campaign to counter the Congress' offensive, with Modi and other party leaders, including its president prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their Twitter profile. Modi's Twitter account profile identified him as "Chowkidar Narendra Modi" as did other BJP leaders. said, "When he became Prime Minister, he said don't make me Prime Minister, make me chowkidar, do you remember? He had never said make whole of Hindustan into chowkidaars." "The whole country knows that 'Chowkidar chor hai'," Gandhi said at a public rally in Kalaburagi, Lok Sabha constituency of Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in north Karnataka. "If the documents become part of inquiry, Modi and Ambani would go to jail. Why is he not having an inquiry? That's why this campaign 'Chowkidar Chor Hai'...," Gandhi said on Rafale. He claimed he could give a list of defence contracts that Anil Ambani and "Modi's friends have been given, one after the other, and they have only got caught on Rafale, which happens to be the really big contract in the world. So that's why everybody is saying chowkidar chor hai." Addressing public meetings, Modi had alleged that the corrupt were having sleepless nights and had targeted the opposition saying they were coming together against him as he was working as a watchman for the country. The prime minister on Saturday urged his supporters to take the 'main bhi chowkidar' (I too am watchman) pledge, saying he is not alone in the fight against graft and social evils. "Your Chowkidar is standing firm & serving the nation. But, I am not alone. Everyone who is fighting corruption, dirt, social evils is a Chowkidar. Everyone working hard for the progress of India is a Chowkidar. Today, every Indian is saying-#MainBhiChowkidar," he wrote on Twitter. A day before the expiry of Supreme Court set deadline, Reliance Communications Monday paid Rs 458.77 crore to Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson, clearing outstanding dues and fending-off a possible jail term for its billionaire Chairman Anil Ambani. Sources close to RCom said the payment was made to Ericsson Monday evening, a day before the four-week deadline set by the Supreme Court to clear dues expires. An Ericsson spokesperson confirmed that the telecom gear maker had received the full payment from the Reliance Communications (Rs 458.7 crore) on Monday and Rs 118 crore previously. The amount paid by RCom also includes interest. Source of funds for the payment was not immediately known and it was expected that RCom will come out with a statement on the issue soon. The Supreme Court had last month held Ambani in contempt for not paying Ericsson's dues despite promising to do so. It had threatened to send the billionaire as well as Chhaya Virani and Satish Seth - chairmen of two RCom units, to jail if they fail to pay the dues in four weeks. Ericsson had moved a bankruptcy court in 2017 alleging it had not been paid dues of around Rs 1,600 crore after signing a deal in 2013 to operate, maintain and manage the telco's nationwide network. It extracted a personal guarantee from Ambani to pay the dues. But repeated failure by RCom to comply with the promise and Ambani's personal guarantee landed him in trouble last month when the Supreme Court held him in contempt. Thereafter, it suffered another blow when National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) last week refused to free up Rs 260 crore tax refunds withheld by lenders saying it did not have jurisdiction to do so. Banks had opposed release of the tax refunds. The apex court on February 20 had held Ambani guilty of contempt of court and ordered the debt-laden company to clear the dues to Ericsson within four weeks or face a 3-month jail term. The last date of making the payment was March 19. In a verdict that had come as a setback to Ambani, the court on February 20 had pulled up the industrialist for his "cavalier attitude" demonstrated through the affidavit filed in the court and said any "unconditional apology" given must be rejected. "The RCom group is directed to purge the contempt of this Court by payment to Ericsson the sum of Rs 453 crore within a period of four weeks from today. In default of such payment, the Chairmen who have given undertakings to this Court will suffer three months imprisonment," the bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran had said last month. It had also directed the registry of the apex court to pay Rs 118 crore deposited by the RCom group to Ericsson. The payment made on Monday is expected to bring curtains down on the bitter and protracted face-off between Reliance Communications and Ericsson over the outstanding dues. Shares of RCom closed at Rs 4 apiece on the BSE Monday, 9.30 per cent lower than the previous close. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cash and jewellery altogether worth Rs 5 lakh were stolen from former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankersinh Vaghela's house near here allegedly by a domestic help couple from Nepal, police said Monday. The theft at the residence of Vaghela, a former Congress leader who is now in the NCP, took place in October last year, but a police complaint was lodged only Sunday by Vaghela's employee Suryasinh Chavda, they said. Vaghela's house, a palatial bungalow named 'Vasant Vagado', is situated near Pethapur village on the outskirts of the Gandhinagar city. As per the complaint lodged with the Pethapur police, the couple - Shambhu Gorkha aka Basudev Nepali and his wife Sharda - had allegedly stolen Rs 3 lakh in cash and gold jewellery worth Rs 2 lakh and fled to their native place in Kailali district of Nepal. The cash and jewellery were kept in Vaghela's wife Gulab Baa's room in the bungalow, the police said, quoting from the complaint. According to Chavda's complaint, suspicion fell on the husband-wife duo after they did not return from Nepal as promised when they left for their native place, the police said. "Shambhu was hired around four years back. He along with his wife and kids used to live in the bungalow premises. "In October, the couple left for their native place in Nepal claiming they wanted to admit their children in a school there," said Chavda in the complaint. On February 7, Vaghela's wife noticed that cash and jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh, meant to be used for a marriage function in the family and kept in a cupboard, were missing, said police sub inspector of Pethapur A G Anurkar. "When the family asked other servants about the missing valuables, it came to light the couple was tasked with cleaning of the room where they were kept. "When Chavda contacted Shambhu over the phone, he promised to return soon. "However, when he did not return, it got confirmed that the couple had stolen the valuables from the room and then fled to Nepal," said Anurkar, adding an investigation in the case was underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State Bank of India (SBI) Monday said its central board will meet later this week to consider extension of approval accorded by it for raising equity capital of up to Rs 20,000 crore from the market till the end of fiscal 2020. In December last year, shareholders of the country's largest lender approved its plans to raise up to Rs 20,000 crore through various modes, including a follow on public offer (FPO), to fund its growth. "A meeting of the central board of the bank is scheduled to be held on March 22, 2019 to consider inter alia the extension of approval accorded by central board for raising equity capital of up to Rs 20,000 crore from the market till March 31, 2020," SBI said in a regulatory filing. Shares of SBI were trading 0.74 per cent lower at Rs 295.50 apiece on BSE. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A large number of people raised pro-Modi slogans outside the venue of a function here at which Congress president Rahul was addressing entrepreneurs Monday. Raising pro-prime minister slogans 'Modi, Modi', the protesters put up placards asking Gandhi to leave the venue. As the noise intensified, the police removed the protesters. BJP sources alleged several protesters, whom they referred to as techies, were taken into custody. The BJP condemned the police action and alleged that Congress workers attacked the protesters. "Congress workers attack techies who shouted "Modi Modi" slogans when Rahul Gandhi went to Manyata Tech Park in Bengaluru..." state BJP general secretary C T Ravi tweeted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP president Amit Shah will meet alliance partners in the Goa government Monday evening to decide the next coastal state's chief minister amid stalemate over the issue, a party leader said. The BJP has not been able to convince its alliance partners the Goa Forward Party (GFP), the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Independents on naming the successor of Manohar Parrikar, who died Sunday, the leader said. "Shah will meet alliance partners - the GFP, MGP and independents - and try to convince them to arrive at a consensus on the candidate for the chief ministerial post," the BJP functionary said. The meeting is scheduled at a star hotel at Dona Paula near here. Shah is in Goa to pay tributes to Parrikar, who was holding the top post since March 2017. The BJP chief also attended the funeral of the late leader at the Miramar beach here. Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, who is in Goa since Sunday, has also been holding parleys with the party's alliance partners to select Goa's new chief minister through consensus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Himachal Pradesh government transferred the Deputy Commissioner-cum-Returning Officer (RO) of Shimla on the directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI), a state official said. Director Town and Country Planning, Rajeshwar Goel, has been posted as new Shimla DC in place of Amit Kashyap, Himachal Pradesh Special Secretary Personnel Amarjeet Singh said. Kashyap has been shifted as Director tourism and civil aviation with additional charge of Director Town and Country Planning, he added. Kashyap has reportedly been shifted in connection with his "inaction" in alleged tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs) by then Chopal Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Mukesh Repaswal in October last year. Repaswal had already been transferred on ECI's directions as Special Secretary, Education, on March 12. A day after Repaswal's transfer, the state Congress demanded registration of a criminal case against him for allegedly tampering with EVMs. In a written complaint to the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Himachal Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore said a criminal case should be registered against Repaswal for "tampering" with EVMs. Talking to mediapersons, state Congress general secretary Rajneesh Kimta demanded Repaswal's custodial interrogation to find out at whose behest he had "tampered" with the EVMs. The Congress leader alleged Repaswal had tampered the EVMs at the behest of BJP leaders and that similarly EVMs may have been tampered in other places as well. Central Armed Police Force (CAPFs) should be deployed outside strong rooms where EVMs have been kept, he said. Repaswal had reportedly ordered the opening of the EVM strong room in October last year without seeking prior permission. Kimta said Repaswal had opened the strong room in October last year without taking any permission from the Election Commission under the excuse of holding his revenue court there. Repaswal had broken the strong room's lock, he alleged. The Congress leader said his party had lodged the complaint with ECI and the state government at the time "but the state government did not bother to take any action". The ECI transferred him after model code of conduct came into force, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A six-year-old boy, who was undergoing treatment for vector-borne West Nile fever, died at a hospital here Monday. Announcing the death, state Health Minister K K Shylaja said there was no need to panic and steps were being taken to prevent the spread of virus, transmitted to humans through a mosquito bite and is mostly reported in North America. The boy, hailing from neighbouring Malappuram district, was admitted to the intensive care unit of the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital here one week ago after he tested positive for the virus. Shylaja said she had asked the Director of Health services to immediately intensify steps to prevent the spread of the virus. "There is no need to panic and stringent steps are being taken to prevent its spread", she told reporters. After the virus was reported in Malappuram, a special medical team had been deputed the area, she added. The union health ministry had last week said that it had sent a four-member multi-disciplinary central team from National Centre for Disease Control to the state and was closely monitoring the situation. Union Health Minister J P Nadda has directed that all support be extended to Kerala for prevention and management of the disease, it had said adding there were no reports so far about the spread of the virus in other parts of the country. Symptoms of the virus infliction include cold, fever, fatigue and nausea. There had been a case of West Nile fever last year in Kozhikode, which was confirmed by the Manipal Centre for Virus Research (MCVR), however, the National Institute of Virology had not yet confirmed it, official sources said here. Malappuram district collector held a meeting with health officials this morning, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Late Congress leader M H Ambareesh's wife and actor Sumalatha on Monday announced she will contest from Mandya seat as an independent candidate in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Sumalatha will be contesting against Nikhil Gowda, an actor and son of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. She said she would file her nomination from Mandya on March 20. Flanked by Kannada actors Yash and Darshan, Sumalatha said her decision to fight the elections from Mandya would cost the Congress dear as it would be very tough for the party to make a comeback in that region. "Many Congress leaders in Mandya are facing identity crisis and they came to me and requested me to contest the election. Therefore I decided to contest. This decision would cost the Congress dear. It would be very tough for the party to make a comeback in that region (Mandya)," she said. She said she had approached Congress leaders seeking to contest from Mandya, but the party denied her a ticket due to coalition compulsions. However, many Congress workers and leaders who were facing identity crisis in Mandya requested her to fight the elections, Sumalatha said. Congress leaders including Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah had declined her a ticket. Thereafter, Sumalatha also met former union minister and BJP leader S M Krishna and sought his support, but did get any offer from the BJP, despite a section of the party leaders being keen on fielding her. Asked if she still expects the Congress and BJP leaders to support her in the elections, Sumalatha hoped that they would do that because they loved Ambareesh as he was loved by all parties. "I have been reading in the media about some BJP and Congress leaders willing to extend support to me. I hope I will get their support because Ambareesh was an apolitical being and he was loved by almost all political parties," she said. Asked which party will she support if she wins from Mandya, Sumalatha said she would take a decision after consulting the people of Mandya. She said she was not bothered about losing or winning the election, but jumped into the fray because of the demands of the fans and supporters of Ambareesh. "I declined so many posts including MLC's offered by the Congress in the past. I am entering in to for the people of Mandya. I have heeded the people's request. It is Mandya or nothing for me. I am going to fight for Mandya. I am not bothered about winning or losing," she added. Asked if she would invite Bollywood and Sandalwood stars to campaign for her, Sumalatha said, "I have not invited any stars, but Yash and Darshan came on their own as they consider themselves a part of my family. However, I have faith in the people of Mandya and they would vote for me to fill the vacuum left by Amareesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tehran is preparing a lawsuit in Iran against US individuals involved with economic sanctions imposed by Washington, President Hassan Rouhani said Monday. Rouhani said the presidency's legal affairs office as well as the justice and foreign ministers have been tasked with "drawing up a lawsuit against all those within America involved with designing and executing these sanctions". The case would be lodged in a "competent court inside Iran," he said, quoted by state television. Speaking after the last cabinet meeting of Iran's calendar year which ends on March 20, Rouhani condemned the sanctions as a "crime against humanity" that was hitting ordinary Iranians. "The world should know that what America has done was not against the Iranian state, it was not against Iran's nuclear programme, it was against the wellbeing of the Iranian people," he said. Rouhani said the sanctions targeted "the normal life of the people... the food supply... the medical supply of the people". Last May, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. The renewal of American sanctions, which had been eased in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear programme, sent shockwaves through Iran's economy. The IMF reported that the Iranian economy slumped into recession in 2018 and has forecast a 3.6 percent decline in GDP for 2019. The sanctions have indirectly impacted medical and food supplies, and a steep decline in the value of the rial has pushed up prices of basic goods. In October, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the United States to lift sanctions affecting imports of "humanitarian" goods to Iran. The court said sanctions "may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals on the territory of Iran". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two men died after an unidentified vehicle rammed into their bike on the NH-27 near Kishanganj town of Rajasthan's Baran district Monday, police said. The incident took place when the two brothers, Mulchand Rao (52) and Chothmal Rao (45), both residents of Kunj Vihar colony in Baran city, were travelling to Kishanganj from Baran, Station House Officer (SHO) Kishanganj police station Manoj Kumar Soni said. Both were severely injured and rushed to the government hospital, Baran, where the younger brother succumbed to his injuries while Mulchand was referred to MBS hospital in Kota where he died during treatment, he said. The bodies were handed over to the family after post-mortem, the SHO said. A case has been registered against the driver of the unidentified vehicle and efforts are underway to nab him, the police officer added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A key TRS leader hinted on Monday that two-third of Congress MLAs in Telangana are likely to join the ruling party in the state. Since the beginning of this month, eight of the total of 19 Congress MLAs have announced their decision to join the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. The development, which comes close to the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana, has set in a sense of despondency in the Congress. On accusations that the TRS is engineering defections, Nizamabad Lok Sabha member Kalvakuntla Kavitha, an influential party leader and daughter of the chief minister, said, "The way the state is progressing, many senior Congress party leaders and various people from the TDP, they all want to join the TRS." "And when the number is more than two-third (of total strength), we have been encouraging them (to defect). Otherwise, single MLA... we are not encouraging the defections," Kavitha told PTI. The Congress has accused the TRS of encouraging the defection of its MLAs and said it would meet the governor besides launching a campaign against the ruling party. Congress Legislature Party leader M Bhatti Vikramarka alleged that the chief minister was "conspiring to eliminate the opposition as he lacked courage to answer their questions". In the December 7, 2018 assembly elections, the TRS won 88 seats in the 119-member House, pushing the Congress to a distant second position. The BJP had won one seat. In the chief minister's first term (2014-2018), 12 of the total 15 TDP MLAs had joined the TRS. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UAE played an important role in reducing the recent tensions between India and Pakistan by giving "words of wisdom" on sorting out differences in a peaceful manner, the Gulf nation's ambassador here said Monday. Ambassador Ahmed Al Banna, however, clarified that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) did not mediate between the two countries and that the aim of its efforts was to decrease the tensions which had spiralled in the wake of the air strike by Indian jets at a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot, Pakistan, following the Pulwama terror attack. The UAE envoy, while speaking at an interaction at IIT-Delhi, also referred to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and deputy commander of the armed forces Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan's telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan amid escalating tensions. "We played an important role in reducing the (Indo-Pak) tensions that took place. On the day there was a huge escalation, there was a phone call from our Abu Dhabi Crown Prime to Prime Minister Modi and to the Pakistan Prime Minister," he said in response to a question on the role played by the UAE in de-escalating Indo-Pak tensions. "Our role was to give words of wisdom and try to sort out the differences in a peaceful manner just like the UAE has done in its relationship with Iran," he said. On whether the UAE had successfully mediated in reducing Indo-Pak tensions, Al Banna said: "We did not mediate. When you talk about mediation there has to be a request from both parties. We tried to decrease tensions by using our special relationship (with the two countries)." Asked about India's action to strike the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot, Al Banna said what India or any country decides in terms of its policy, the UAE does not interfere. "In general, we are against radicalism, we are against terrorists, we are against terrorism. A lot of people talk about definitions, but for us a terrorist act is a terrorist act. A lot of time we interact with Indian authorities and make suggestions and it is up to the Indian side to take it or not," he said. To another question on India's presence at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers meet in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, he welcomed New Delhi's participation. Asked about Kashmir being raised by the Islamic grouping, the envoy stressed that the declaration made in Abu Dhabi at the OIC meeting made no mention of the "Kashmir problem". The UAE envoy also said that there was strong cooperation between India and his country on counter terrorism. "We would like to enhance counter-terror cooperation. We want to stop this nonsense of killing innocent people...Islam has been hijacked by some of those terrorists and they have hijacked the actual purity of Islam," Al Banna said. Asked if the UAE had given any message to Pakistan on terror sanctuaries, Al Banna said: "Without mentioning any specific person, name or country, the UAE has a long standing (position of) preventing, fighting act of terrorism and those radical organisations, so we work with all partners in the region to make our region a peaceful region." Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. In his address, the envoy said it was the UAE and Saudi Arabia that covered the shortage of oil for India after Iran sanctions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A London court has issued an arrest warrant against jewellery designer Nirav Modi, the main accused in the USD 2 billion PNB scam case, in response to an ED request for his extradition in a money laundering case, officials said Monday. They said the investigative agency has been informed about the issuance of the warrant by the Westminster Magistrate Court against Modi and he is expected to be put under formal arrest by the local police soon. Modi will be subsequently brought before the court to secure bail and the legal proceedings for his extradition will begin thereafter, they said. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), early this month, had said that United Kingdom's home secretary Sajid Javid had referred India's request for extraditing Modi to a court for initiating legal proceedings against the diamantaire. A British daily had recently published a report and video showing Modi walking in the streets of London and said the fugitive diamantaire was living in a swanky 8 million pounds apartment in the city's West End and that he was involved in a new diamond business. The ED and the CBI are investigating Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others for alleged money laundering and corruption to perpetrate the alleged scam in the Brady House branch of the PNB in Mumbai that was unearthed last year. Modi, 48, is currently living in a three-bedroom flat occupying half of a floor of the landmark Centre Point tower block in London, where rent is estimated to cost 17,000 pounds a month, The Telegraph newspaper of the UK had reported. Modi has been chargesheeted by both the agencies and the ED has also attached his assets worth Rs 1,873.08 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and has also seized assets linked to him and his family worth Rs 489.75 crore. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A conflict broke out on the border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan shortly before the informal summit of heads of Central Asian states. This is the most serious confrontation of the neighboring republics' residents over the past five years. It was reported that two people were killed and a few dozen injured as a result of being hit by stones. A government commission has been created to investigate the causes of the collision. The reason, meanwhile, is on the surface - this section of Tajik-Kyrgyz border is not demarcated or at least delimited. It has been said that when the time comes for practical work on delimitation, it is possible that these works will have to be carried out under the protection of CSTO troops or UN blue helmets to avoid collisions. As for the option of exchanging territories, such discussions alone can cause a political crisis in Kyrgyzstan. President of Tajikistan Emomalii Rahmon and President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbay Jeenbekov announced that they are taking control of the border situation and agreed to set up a joint commission to investigate and prevent such incidents in the future. An agreement was also reached on intensifying negotiations on delimitation. It's not the first time when the presidents agree on this issue. In February last year, they discussed the cross-border problem during official talks in Dushanbe. However, despite the presidents' statements about their intention to resolve the issue, the delimitation and demarcation of the border's disputed parts have not been started. The total length of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is 976 km, of which only 504 km have been delimited and demarcated. The remaining parts are considered controversial. The construction of a road in the Batken region has caused the current aggravation. Deputy Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Jenish Razakov and Deputy Prime Minister of Tajikistan Azim Ibrohim left for the border. They agreed to establish a group of police officers to patrol the border area 24 hours a day. A closed meeting was held the Kyrgyz parliament on the situation in the border area. Kyrgyz political analyst Denis Berdakov visited the scene and shared his observations with Vestnik Kavkaza: - The Fergana Valley is an intermontane area in the territory of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan with the highest population density in Central Asia. In Soviet times, local residents did not attach much importance to who lives where. However, after the USSR collapsed, the situation has changed radically. Not only independent countries were formed, but also enclaves. The borders of three countries - Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekstan - converge in the Batken region. - Conflicts are usually accompanied by a difficult socio-economic situation. What about this in the current conflict area? - The conflict occurred in Tajikistan's Vorukh exclave, where about 35 thousand people live on 130 square kilometers. Over the past 18 years, the number of people living there has increased 30 times. The neighboring village of Aksai belongs to Kyrgyzstan. And then comes the Tajik territory of Chorku, which divides the Batken region into two parts. The border there is not demarcated or delimited. Understanding that neither side will make concessions in determining the border, Kyrgyzstan has begun the construction of the Koktash-Ak-Sai-Tamdyk bypass road in 2013. There is one more road since Soviet times, but the problem is that it is located on the territory, which is claimed by both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, Kyrgyzstan decided to build its own road on the territory, which Tajikistan has never claimed. Tajikistan initially agreed that Kyrgyzstan builds a road on its territory and connects the two parts of the region. Thus, the construction was started in 2013 in Batken and brought to the Aksai-Vorukh disputed section. But in 2014 the troubles have started. The new road is not profitable primarily for Vorukh - it loses its trade advantages. - That is, the conflict is provoked by the Tajik side? - More often, yes. Tajikistan cannot ban the construction of a road, but is trying to hinder it in some way. The Tajik side mainly starts protests. But the Kirghiz are also ready to fight for every piece of land. Therefore, the situation is always tense. - How to solve the conflict? Is there a way out? - The situation is really difficult. The border in this area is not delimited. Both sides favor demarcation. An attempt was made last year by President Sooronbay Jeenbekov. But the principle of "to get something, you must give something away" does not work here. - The land is not suitable for living. Is it logical to sacrifice some pieces of rocky terrain, but not to risk people's lives? - After Bishkek transferred the land to China, the situation developed in a way that if the authorities sign a document on the transfer of even one hectare of land, but receive five times as much in return, they will become 'national traitors'. Therefore, the Kyrgyz authorities will only compromise if the border is fully delimited. - There were also difficulties with Uzbekistan, but the situation was resolved. - It was easy to sign an agreement on the border with Tashkent, because it was delimited by 70%. There are no mountains, no controversial sites. But the situation with the remaining 30% is difficult. It will be easier if Kyrgyzstan builds a road. It will receive the "connected" Batken region and then the intensity of the dialogue with Tajikistan will be defused. Despite the fact that the situation has been stabilized, in fact, it is a vicious circle - as soon as the construction of the road resumes, protests by Tajikistan will be also resumed. But if they do not build a road - half of the Batken region will remain cut off. Political analyst Arkady Dubnov believes that the conflict on the border poses serious problems for the summit to be held on April 12 in Tashkent - a meeting of the heads of the five Central Asian states, whose goal is to create a certain community of Central Asian countries united by common values. "Of course, there was a serious provocation, which threatens aspirations of the leaders of the five states to define and realize their goals. I think that if Rakhmon and Jeenbekov meet personally in Vorukh or Aksai before April 12, this meeting would be effective. They would demonstrate to the local residents that the two countries cannot fight each other. They must restore peace, solve the problem of border delimitation in a short time, perhaps with mutual territorial concessions and exchanges," Dubnov said in an interview with Azatlyk radio. A version of the Tajik side was presented by the press center of the head department of the border guards of the State Security Committee of Tajikistan: "On March 13, the construction of the Koktash-Aksay road was started in violation of the bilateral intergovernmental protocol on the territory of the jamoat (district - VK) Tamdyk. Residents of the Vorukh jamoat of the city of Isfara protested against these actions of Kyrgyzstan. In response, the Kyrgyz opened gunfire at the residents of the named jamoat," the official statement reads. Two dead and dozens of wounded were reported. In addition, the Kyrgyz blocked the Isfara-Vorukh road and took hostage passengers of local minibuses and car owners - from 30 to 60 people, according to various sources. All of them are kept at the Kyrgyz border. The conflict spread to the neighboring village of Khojai Alo. A resident of the village, a Tajik teacher of the village school Hakim Huseynov was killed by a hunting rifle. Four more people were injured. "At the initiative of Kyrgyzstan, a commission was established to investigate the causes of the conflict. A preliminary investigation was conducted. One person was injured in the chest. Another 10 people received injuries of varying severity from stones. All this information is documented and provided to the Tajik side. The Tajik side hasn't provided its documents, but reported one victim," Denis Berdakov said. - In 2014, when the Tajik side used a mortar, the defense ministers of the two countries intervened. Then an agreement on the non-use of weapons was reached. The situation threatened to escalate into ethnic conflict. This time, Kyrgyzstan is acting as openly as possible in investigating the incident." It is possible that when they start to demarcate the border, they will have to deploy UN troops. Otherwise, conflict cannot be avoided. As for the option of exchanging territories, it will instantly cause a political crisis in Kyrgyzstan. A partnership between a UK university and property consultancy celebrated the creation of new homes in Gujarat through fundraising and staff and student participation. De Montfort University in Leicester (DMU) tied up with local construction and infrastructure consultancy Pick Everard for its Square Mile India project to provide 50 new homes for the Loving Community, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The community is populated by more than 430 residents, 40 of which are former leprosy sufferers. Working with the Loving Community' has not only been transformational for the families involved but also our architecture students, Mark Charlton, associate head of public engagement at the university, said last week to mark a year since the project began. "The homes are funded through support from Pick Everard and contributions from DMU staff and students, as well as the local community in Leicester and we are thrilled with the positive impact that this collaboration has brought to the Loving Community', he said. Due to poor infrastructure and local topography, the community is prone to flooding during the monsoon period and many people have to leave their homes as they become uninhabitable. Since February last year, DMU's School of Architecture has been working in collaboration with architect Anand Sonecha to develop designs to raise the homes above flood level. Construction began in April 2018, with the cost of the works being met by fundraising. Each house costs approximately 5,000 pounds and the designs include the potential to be enhanced further when funding is available to families, the university said. "An architect's job is to design buildings and create the physical environment in which people live. But the most successful architecture goes beyond building four walls it changes people's lives, and this project reflects that, said Nish Tailor, an architectural assistant at Pick Everard, who has been helping the students project-manage the building work. The Loving Community' residents had to fend for themselves after being outcast by society more than 40 years ago. Despite no longer being contagious due to the disease being treated, the stigma surrounding leprosy is so strong that they are still not welcome in their native villages, Tailor said. The homes are funded through support from Pick Everard and contributions from DMU staff and students, as well as the local community in Leicester a city with a significant Gujarati-origin population. Paul Rothera, national director at Pick Everard, said: The development of the new houses has been tremendous. There are no shortcuts in the construction and the quality is superb. Among the first residents to benefit were widow Narshama Bhan and daughter Akshera, who are relieved that the new homes will not flood, have light and space and even their own courtyard area, the university said. Speaking through an interpreter, Narshama said: Before I was so fed up and tired and every monsoon it was a very bad and unhealthy situation for all of us. I never had a thought, or even a dream that I would be living in such a nice home. I thank the Lord that finally I have a nice home. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A UN report released Monday showed an increase in allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by staff working in UN agencies and their partner organisations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an annual report however there was a drop in cases of rape and exploitation involving UN peacekeepers, down to 54 in 2018 from 62 the previous year and 104 in 2016. Guterres has vowed to stamp out sexual abuse at the United Nations following a string of cases over recent years that have severely tarnished the image of UN peacekeepers and staff. In all, there were 94 allegations against UN personnel in 2018 and 109 targeting staff of local organisations that work with the United Nations worldwide, up from 25 in 2017. Eleven cases involve child rape, according to the report. The World Food Programme received 19 allegations of sex abuse against its staff and partner organizations in 2018, compared to 26 over the previous 12 years. The UN refugee agency UNHCR reported 34 allegations in 2018 compared to 19 in 2017 while there were 15 allegations at the UN children's agency UNICEF last year compared to eight in 2017. The increase was in part attributed to improved efforts to encourage victims to come forward. The latest figures suggest that "awareness-raising and outreach efforts are having an impact and that there is increased trust among victims and witnesses and increased understanding of the need to report," said the report. Among peacekeepers, the majority of claims - 74 per cent - in 2018 came from two UN missions, in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Under UN rules, it is up to governments to take action against their troops sent as peacekeepers who face credible allegations of rape or other misconduct but there were few details on prosecutions, with many cases still under review. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three persons including a businessman and a ward councillor were shot dead by bike borne gunmen in Bihar's East Champaran and Bhojpur districts on Monday, police said. Siyaram Prasad Kushwaha, a ward councillor of Kadamwa panchayat, and Shambhu Rai, who was riding pillion with Kushwaha, were killed when after they came out of an office of the Ghorasahan block, East Champaran Superintendent of Police Umesh Kumar Sharma said. The victims, both 50-years-old, were taken to Motihari Sadar Hospital where doctors declared them dead on arrival, the SP said. Prima facie, it seems that the murders could be the fallout of an old enmity, Sharma said adding that the culprits have been identified and would be arrested soon. In the other incident in Bhojpur district, three bike borne assailants gunned down a 32-year-old jewellery shop owner near Piparahiya rail bridge under Mufassil police station. They shot Dhananjay Kumar Soni in the head killing him on the spot, Superintendent of Police Aditya Kumar said. The incident occurred when Soni was on his way on motorbike to his jewellery shop located at Akhgaon bazaar under Sandesh police station of the district. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mouni Roy says her casting as the main antagonist in Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt-starrer "Brahmastra" came as a surprise for her. The 33-year-old actor, who made her Bollywood debut with Akshay Kumar's "Gold", says she wants make versatile choices. "I am playing the main villain in the film. I am really looking forward to it. What is more liberating for me is playing different characters that challenges me. I was surprised initially that they wanted me to play the villain. "Ayan Mukherji (director) had seen something from 'Naagin' and felt I could play the villain. So you never know what clicks with whom. As an actor you should be willing to experiment and be versatile otherwise you can't learn and grow," Mouni told PTI. "Brahmastra" also featuring megastar Amitabh Bachchan, will serve as the first film in the trilogy. Mouni says working with the team has been an enriching experience. "My life is fulfilled after working with Mr Bachchan. Ranbir and Alia are sweethearts, they are too good. They all are such big stars that you get scared walking on the sets. "They all have been so generous, welcoming and made me feel comfortable. With great success and talent they als have that humility and are accepting people from outside," she adds. "Brahmastra", produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Production, will release on December 20. Mouni will be seen next in "RAW: Romeo Akbar Walter" opposite John Abraham. The film releases on April 5. The actor said she had a great time working with John and is happy with the way her role has shaped up in the film. "'RAW' was offered to me after 'Gold' and Bramashtra'. This was last year. I am playing John's love interest, it is integral to the story. She is a banker. It was superb working with John. Both Akshay Kumar (her 'Gold' co-star) and John Abraham have lot of similarities like they are so so focused and disciplined." Her upcoming films also include"Made in China" with Rajkummar Rao, in which she plays the role of a Gujurati housewife, and "Bole Chudiyan" with Nawazuddin Siddiqui. "This girl in ('Bole Chudiyan') is very fiery, drives tractors and dances. It is a full on Hindi film heroine. I am excited about it. I was waiting fir something like this," Mouni says. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UAE on Monday said its played an important role in reducing the recent Indo-Pak tensions by giving "words of wisdom" to the leadership in both countries for sorting out differences in a peaceful manner. Ambassador Ahmed Al Banna, however, clarified that the United Arab Emirates did not mediate between the two countries and that the aim of its efforts was to decrease the tensions which had spiralled in the wake of the air strike by Indian jets at a JeM terror camp in Balakot, Pakistan, post Pulwama terror attack. Referring to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and deputy commander of the armed forces Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan's telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan at the peak of tensions between the two neighbours, the UAE envoy, while speaking at an interaction at IIT-Delhi, said,"We played an important role in reducing the (Indo-Pak) tensions that took place." "On the day there was a huge escalation, there was a phone call from our Abu Dhabi Crown Prime to Prime Minister Modi and to the Pakistan Prime Minister," he said in response to a question on the role played by the UAE in de-escalating Indo-Pak tensions. "Our role was to give words of wisdom and try to sort out the differences in a peaceful manner just like the UAE has done in its relationship with Iran," he said. On whether the UAE had successfully mediated in reducing Indo-Pak tensions, Al Banna said: "We did not mediate. When you talk about mediation there has to be a request from both parties. We tried to decrease tensions by using our special relationship (with the two countries)." Asked about India's action to strike the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot, Al Banna said what India or any country decides in terms of its policy, the UAE does not interfere. "In general, we are against radicalism, we are against terrorists, we are against terrorism. A lot of people talk about definitions, but for us a terrorist act is a terrorist act. A lot of time we interact with Indian authorities and make suggestions and it is up to the Indian side to take it or not," he said. To another question on India's presence at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers meet in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, he welcomed New Delhi's participation. Asked about Kashmir being raised by the Islamic grouping, the envoy stressed that the declaration made in Abu Dhabi at the OIC meeting made no mention of the "Kashmir problem". The UAE envoy also said that there was strong cooperation between India and his country on counter terrorism. "We would like to enhance counter-terror cooperation. We want to stop this nonsense of killing innocent people...Islam has been hijacked by some of those terrorists and they have hijacked the actual purity of Islam," Al Banna said. Asked if the UAE had given any message to Pakistan on terror sanctuaries, Al Banna said: "Without mentioning any specific person, name or country, the UAE has a long standing (position of) preventing, fighting act of terrorism and those radical organisations, so we work with all partners in the region to make our region a peaceful region." Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group JeM training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. In his speech at the event, the envoy said it was the UAE and Saudi Arabia that covered the shortage of oil for India after Iran sanctions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said certain state government schemes should not come under the purview of the Election Commission's model code of conduct, which is in force in the state ahead of next month's Lok Sabha polls. Banerjee also said that the West Bengal government would apprise the EC on the need to continue with such schemes during the duration of the general elections. The CM, replying to a query, said state government programmes like the 'Rupashree' (financial grant to underprivileged women above 18 years) and 'Somobyathi' (financial assistance in cremation/burial for poor households) should not be stopped because of elections. "We don't want people to stop getting benefits of government schemes launched much before announcement of election dates, for the entire poll period. Will marriages not be scheduled during elections? If there is a death in a poor family, should it face difficulties in performing the last rites of the deceased?" she said. Banerjee said the chief secretary would soon brief the Election Commission about the nature of these schemes. To another query on when the chief minister and her party, the Trinamool Congress, would start campaigning for the polls, she said, "We will start it at the right time". "First, let us release the manifesto. With the ICSE, CBSE and ISC exams still continuing, we don't want to inconvenience the students," Banerjee added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission (EC) Monday told the Bombay High Court that it will issue directions prohibiting all social media platforms from displaying political advertisements not pre-verified by it. The EC, through its counsel Pradeep Rajagopal, told the high court that a meeting between the commission and all social media intermediaries was scheduled for Tuesday. Following the same, its new directions imposing several prohibitions on political advertisements, and other ads concerned with "national interest", will be finalised and implemented. Rajagopal made the submissions before a bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice N M Jamdar. The bench has been hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by lawyer Sagar Suryavanshi, seeking directions to the EC to regulate fake in the form of paid political ads on social media. In compliance with the court's previous orders, the commission submitted an affidavit on Monday, informing the HC of the proposed pre-verification rules for political ads. In its affidavit, the EC said it will also "evolve a notification mechanism" for identifying and flagging such political ads that have not received its pre-verification, but have been posted on social media platforms. "The intermediaries will also have to expeditiously remove any advertisement or information already posted without the verification certificate from the commission," the affidavit said. "A code of conduct is being evolved in consultation with the Internet and Mobile Association of India and the social media intermediaries to incorporate the above measures and any other direction issued by this court," it said. On previous hearing, social networking portal Facebook told the HC that it had introduced a strict "verification processes" for all political ads and paid content of "national interest" in India ahead of the general election. The new system ensures that only bonafide individuals, who are citizens of India, and political organisations based in the country can place political ads. Twitter and YouTube had told the bench that they permitted only such political ads which were verified by the EC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maldives on Monday reaffirmed its "India-First Policy, saying it looks forward to working closely with India on all issues and will remain sensitive towards its security and strategic concerns as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with the country's top leadership. The Maldivian leaders also expressed commitment to support India's efforts to combat terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and crimes such as piracy, organised crime, narcotic drugs and human trafficking. Swaraj arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the strategically located Indian Ocean island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. She held talks with President Solih, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid, former President Mohamed Nasheed and other top leaders. The External Affairs Minister and Solih took stock of the progress made in bilateral relations since his visit to India in December 2018. Swaraj and her Maldivian counterpart Shahid during their meeting on Sunday discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and also noted the number of high level exchanges, between the two countries over the past three months. They recalled the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the swearing-in ceremony of President Solih in November as well as his visit to India in December. The bilateral talks between the Foreign Ministers was followed by a joint ministerial meeting in which Swaraj held discussions with Shahid, Defence Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi, Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer and other ministers. She also met Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla on Monday and discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in bilateral relationship. "Foreign Minister Shahid reiterated his government's "India-First Policy and said that his Government looks forward to working closely with the Government of India on all issues. He also reiterated that the Government of Maldives would remain sensitive towards India's security and strategic concerns, " according to a joint statement. Maldives is an important country for India's maritime security and there have been concerns in India over China's growing influence over the country in the last few years. The two foreign ministers agreed on the importance of maintaining peace and security in the Indian Ocean Region, and to strengthen coordination in enhancing regional maritime security. Shahid expressed the commitment of the Maldives to support efforts to combat terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and crimes such as piracy, organised crime, narcotic drugs and human trafficking. They reiterated the importance of an effective multilateral system as a key factor in tackling global challenges and agreed on the need to pursue reform of the main UN bodies, including the General Assembly, and the UN Security Council. The Maldivian side expressed its support for India's candidature for permanent membership of an expanded and reformed UNSC. The Maldivian side also reiterated support for India's candidature for non-permanent seat for the year 2020-21. The two sides signed three agreements, including on exemption from visa requirement for holders of diplomatic and official passports, an MoU regarding Indian grant assistance for implementation of high impact community development projects through local bodies and a pact on collaboration in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Shahid thanked India for its support towards the renovation of Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), which stands as an enduring symbol of friendship between the two countries. The IGMH is the first and largest government healthcare facility in the Maldives, built with Indian assistance. Shahid also thanked India for providing financial assistance in the form of budgetary support, currency swap, and concessional lines of credit to the island nation. Welcoming the increase in trade volume over the past few years, both foreign ministers agreed to improve connectivity as a means to promote the exchange of goods and services, culture, and people. The ministers also agreed on the need to boost private sector involvement, and to hold the Maldives-India Business Forum in 2019. Shahid expressed the government's appreciation for the continued support extended from India towards the development of human resources, including capacity building programmes, and provision of training and scholarship opportunities. He highlighted in particular, the 1000 additional slots over the next five years for training and capacity building, announced during the State Visit of President Solih to India. Highlighting the importance of combating the impacts of climate change, especially detrimental to developing countries, including Small Island Developing States, the Foreign Ministers agreed on the need to strengthen the global response to climate change, through multilateral forums including the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, the statement said. Swaraj reiterated that India attaches the highest importance to its relationship with Maldives, which is marked by trust, transparency, mutual understanding, and sensitivity. She said that in line with Government of India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy, India stands ready to fully support the Government of Maldives in its socio-economic development. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mobile gaming has seen immense growth lately. The nation is yet to come out of the PUBG fever and games like Asphalt 9 or Fortnite have had our youngsters hooked to their devices. HyperX, a brand known for its reliable gaming accessories, recently came out with an earphone exclusively designed for mobile and Nintendo gamers. Kingston products are known for their reliability and the new earbuds from their HyperX brand is no exception. While it is innovative to have a dedicated gaming earpiece for mobile gaming, the signature red and black finish stays and is perhaps the only major ... A Saudi relief organization is taking the lead in helping to tackle the biggest humanitarian crisis to face the world. With a record 70 million people displaced around the globe, the Kingdom is working with the UN World Food Program to make life easier for struggling refugee families. Arab News reports in its article How Saudi Arabia helps refugees that the country is taking a novel approach to the situation by running food-for-work projects in refugee camps in Sudan and many other countries. The aim of the Saudi International Organization for Relief, Welfare and Development (IORWD) is to change the mindset in the way refugee families are supported, to improve their productivity and increase incomes. We want to gradually stop direct support and replace it with sustainable development, and improve the situation of these families, said Dr. Taha Al-Khateeb, director-general of programs and welfare at the organization. He was speaking at the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development Conference and Exhibition (Dihad), which is themed People on the Move and aims to tackle the core issue of migration. Al-Khateeb said the principle behind IORWDs role in the process was to teach families to fish rather than provide them with fish every day. It does this by offering interest-free loans of SR1,000 to SR5,000 ($265 to $1,333) per family. The first SR1,000 is a contribution towards the familys needs, while the rest is repaid in installments, in a bid to support their work in handicrafts, cooking, and developing food products or clothes. These projects have been able to improve the capacity of families to provide for their needs, Al-Khateeb said. Its a good but painful story some families only need one product to improve their productivity, so our aim is to ensure they become productive and not needy. So far, the project has been implemented in three camps in Sudan, with more planned. We are trying to change the mindset in the way we provide support to these families, he added. We prefer to go through development programs to help them improve their productivity and increase their income. We are still working on improving our (approach). The organization also works with 100 refugee families in camps in Lebanon, providing them with education, health care and relief. During Ramadan, meals are offered to those fasting, as well as for Eid. In total, the IORWD has sponsored 5,111 Syrian and Palestinian orphans in Lebanon and Jordan, as well as 1,638 Palestinian students in Egypt, Jordan and Yemen, 351 teachers and 40 educational institutes in Palestine. It also distributed 2,000 uniforms and school bags to Palestinian students in Palestine. In Bangladesh, the organization supports six schools for refugees, including 42 teachers and 2,000 students, as well as 200 Syrian students in Turkish refugee camps with SR2.25 million. In Yemen, it sponsors another six Eritrean refugee teachers. We must treat all migrants with the dignity and respect they deserve, Al-Khateeb said. In the Quran, it states that we are all treated equal and it requires us to be respectful towards migrants. The most vulnerable groups of migrants are children and those subject to exploitation, he said. Its important to manage their situation well, and the same can be said about women. Of the millions fleeing their countries, 80 percent are women, youths and children and many are at risk of human trafficking. According to the US Congressional Research Service and the US State Department, up to 2 million people are trafficked annually worldwide, mostly from Asia. Not only is migration a deeply sensitive issue at the top of international and governmental agendas across the world, but the drivers and dynamics of movements are becoming ever more complex, said Antonio Vitorino, director-general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at the opening of Dihad. With 13 million people affected by the crisis in Syria and 5.5 million refugees in surrounding countries, such as Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, large-scale movements of people driven by diverse motivations have posed political and humanitarian challenges to the international community in recent years. It taught us that regional solidarity towards hosting those in need is the first and most important element of an international humanitarian response, Vitorino said. We must learn to identify and effectively respond to the needs of the vulnerable on the move, both refugees and migrants, and to maintain the credibility of international systems of cooperation and governance. Today, 25 percent of the Lebanese population are refugees from Syria and other countries, and more than 1 million Syrian refugees are into their ninth year in Lebanon. As the factors affecting movements shift and deepen, countries are being urged to adapt. The impact of environmental change will intensify and the effect on populations will spread, Vitorino added. While some groups will be directly and repeatedly affected by climate-induced disasters such as flooding, drought and extreme weather events, others will find themselves affected by growing desertification, coastal erosion and instability stemming from resource scarcity. When combined with continued inequality, ongoing political fragility and demographic change, Vitorino argued it was clear that large-scale internal and international movements are likely to become more frequent, as people search for sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their families. We are confronting some of these problems and asking ourselves what this will mean for our work over the coming decades, he added. What will rapid urbanization mean for food delivery and how can cities become centers of innovation in delivering services, enabling diverse populations to thrive, and what proportion of the internally displaced that we see in the world today will become the vulnerable migrants and refugees of tomorrow? If we cannot meet their needs effectively, how can the established tools of migration management be updated to reflect the reality of increased mobility and transnationalism in todays migration population? With more than 26 million refugees in the world today, the highest number in the past 50 years, time is of the essence. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has started working with regional governments to help alleviate the burden. Last week, Amin Awad, director of the Middle East and North Africa Bureau and regional refugee coordinator at the UNHCR, visited Syria, the epicenter of one of the largest crises of our time. His trip included visits to the capital Damascus, the city of Homs, and the village of Al-Hamah. We are deeply concerned by the impact of the conflict on much of the population, those displaced and those who remained, w said at the conference. The isolation and distance of services, livelihood and education have taken a toll on the population at large. We need more countries to share the burden. In its bid to give a tough competition to Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Bharti Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has actuated talks with Dish TV, to merge Airtel Digital TV with the DTH player. "The talks are at exploratory stage," one of the persons in the know of the developments said. "Idea is to consolidate operations and give a strong fight to Reliance Jio. Together, Airtel Digital TV and Dish TV will be a giant," the source told Economic Times (ET). If the deal comes through, the combined entity will become world's largest TV distribution company with over 38 million subscribers and 61 per cent DTH market share in India, the report said. Also Read: You should read this before recharging your Tata Sky, Airtel DTH conncections Both Airtel and Dish TV refused to comment on the news. The consolidation in the Indian DTH space started when Dish TV completed its merger with Videocon d2h in March last year. Airtel, in the past, had tried to sell its DTH business to Tata Sky but failed to take the talks through to reach an agreement. However, in December 2017, the telecom service provider sold 20 per cent stake in Bharti Telemedia, the holding company of Airtel Digital TV, to private equity firm Warburg Pincus for Rs 2,258 crore ($350 million), valuing the DTH business at Rs 11,300 crore. Also Read: TRAI new rules: Is your Tata Sky, Airtel DTH bill going up or down? According to TRAI data, Dish TV combined with Videocon d2h leads with a 37 per cent market share, followed by Tata Sky with 27 per cent share and Airtel Digital TV with 24 per cent share. In the third quarter of December, 2018, Dish TV had 23.6 million subscribers and it reported the operating revenue of Rs 1,517.4 crore. Airtel Digital TV, on the other hand, had 15 million subscribers towards the end of Quarter 3, FY 19 and its revenue from the DTH business stood at Rs 1,033 crore. Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, accused of masterminding the Punjab National Bank last year, is all set to be arrested by the London authorities, suggested media reports. A provisional arrest warrant against billionaire diamantaire, who was recently spotted on the streets of London wearing an Ostrich skin jacket worth almost Rs 10 lakh, has been issued by the Westminster court, top sources told India Today TV. Sources told that absconding diamond merchant can be arrested any moment now by London police and later will be produced before the Westminster Court. However, strict civilian laws in the United Kingdom might allow him to get bail instantly. Also Read: Nirav Modi case: Fresh charge sheet filed; ED, CBI teams to leave for London The UK Home Secretary's office moved the extradition file of Nirav Modi to the Westminster Court in London on March 7, finding his case "fit for extradition". A request for the extradition of Nirav Modi to India was sent in July 2018. Back home, the Enforcement Directorate had registered a money laundering case against Nirav Modi and others on February 15, 2018, under the provisions of PMLA on the basis of FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation. As per the fresh charge sheet, Modi reportedly channelled Rs 934 crore of the defrauded money into his personal account and two other accounts in the name of his family members. Officials told the daily that Rs 560 crore was credited into Modi's account while Rs 200 crore was diverted into his wife's account and Rs 174 crore into his father Deepak Modi's personal bank account maintained abroad. Also Read: PNB fraud case: Nirav Modi secured fake LoUs to divert funds through dummy firms, says ED The fugitive diamond merchant, who has been on the run since February 2018, has been found to be doing diamond business in one of the best and high-end markets of London despite India's efforts to bring him back. Edited by Chitranjan Kumar Even as Congress staked claim to form the government in Goa following Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's death on Sunday, the BJP-led alliance held extensive discussions continuing late into Sunday night with no consensus whatsoever on who will be the next chief minister after Parrikar's demise. The four-time Goa Chief Minister passed away after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer at his private residence near Panaji. Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari arrived in Panaji in the early hours of Monday but could not secure a consensus between the BJP and its alliance partners in Goa, Party legislator Michael Lobo said. Meanwhile, Gadkari was not available for comments, Lobo stated that Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) legislator Sudin Dhavalikar wanted to become the Chief Minister due to which the discussions could not go ahead. Also Read: Manohar Parrikar: Half shirt, sandals and the love for scooter rides; truly an aam aadmi! "Sudin Dhavalikar wants himself to be the CM, while the BJP wants that the leader of the alliance should be from their camp. We could not reach to any decision," Lobo told reporters outside a hotel after a night-long meeting. He said a solution to the crisis is expected to be found later in the day. Lobo also said that BJP MLAs have suggested the names of Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant for the post. Earlier, Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai, emerging from the meeting, had said that the parties were yet to reach a conclusion. The meeting was inconclusive and "the BJP has informed them that they will get back later during the day," Sardesai had said. Also Read: CM Manohar Parrikar dead at 63: government declares national mourning on Monday He said the parties expressed apprehensions on how to proceed in the absence of Mr Parrikar. "We are expecting them to respond to our apprehensions soon," he added. The GFP leader, however, said the party had not yet shut its doors on the BJP. Vijai Sardesai was accompanied by his MLAs, Jayesh Salgaonkar and Vinod Palyekar, and Independents Rohan Khaunte, Govind Gawade and Prasad Gaonkar. Meanwhile, speaking to reporters, Dhavalikar said that Gadkari held one-on-one meetings with the MLAs and asked them certain questions. Also Read: Manohar Parrikar's Final Journey Live Updates: PM Modi to leave for Goa shortly to attend last rites "I can''t disclose about the questions as they are confidential. We are expecting Gadkari to announce name of the CM candidate in the next one hour. The MGP will take proper resolution supporting the government after that," he said. The MGP MLA added that Mr Gadkari had heard each of the MLAs individually and would soon announce a new leader. Meanwhile, a Congress delegation submitted a fresh letter to governor Mridula Sinha on Sunday to form the government in Goa. The letter signed by opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar was submitted to Sinha's office Sunday evening and also sought an appointment with the governor to stake its claim to form the government in the state. Congress MLAs gathered at Kavlekar's residence in Panaji to cobble the numbers. Amid a strong speculation that Margao MLA Digambar Kamat was going to resign and join BJP, he remained closeted with the Congress camp, according to a Times of India report. Kamat reached Dabolim airport Sunday evening from Delhi amid rumours that he will become the next CM of Goa, however, he cleared that his visit was finalised three days ago and has nothing to with the speculations, the report said. With the death of Parrikar, the strength of 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly has been reduced to 36. BJP MLA Francis D'Souza died last month, while two Congress members had resigned last year. (With inputs from agency) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday met Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla and discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in bilateral relationship. Swaraj arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. Swaraj held talks with her Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid on the first day of the visit. "Good meeting between EAM @SushmaSwaraj and Maldives Minister of Home Affairs @ShimranAb on the second day of her visit to Maldives. Discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in our bilateral relationship," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. Working together on an ambitious agenda of cooperation Warm discussions between EAM @SushmaSwaraj & Foreign Minister @abdulla_shahid. Reviewed progress on important bilateral issues, including implementation of agreed outcomes of the State Visit of President @ibusolih to India pic.twitter.com/2FVT6X51gx Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) March 17, 2019 Swaraj will also call on President Solih on Monday. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and a number of senior officials are accompanying Swaraj during the trip. Officials said it will be the first full-fledged bilateral visit at the political level from India to the Maldives after the new government assumed office. They said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Maldives in November only to attend Solih's swearing-in ceremony and no substantive discussion had taken place then. Sources said the Maldives was aware of Indian government's limitations due to the election code of conduct and that Swaraj's visit will be to enhance overall ties which came under strain during the presidentship of Abdulla Yameen, who was known to be close to China. Relations between India and the Maldives deteriorated after the then President Abdulla Yameen imposed emergency on February 5 last year. India had criticised his decision and asked his government to restore the credibility of the electoral and political process by releasing political prisoners. The emergency lasted for 45 days. Solih became president in November after he defeated Yameen in presidential elections. Indian Railways recently announced a list of 'Holi Special Trains' for the convenience of passengers travelling to their hometown or to visit family/friends on the occasion of the festival of colours. Holi falls on March 21, 2019 and passengers can now enjoy the festival without having to worry about the route or last-minute bookings. Recently, the Northern Railways tweeted the list of all Holi special trains giving out details regarding their time, stations and route. As per the tweet, these trains will operate from Chandigarh-Gorakhpur Junction, Anand Vihar-Patna Junction, New Delhi-Barauni Junction, Hazrat Nizamuddin-Pune Junction, Lucknow-Kolkata, Anand Vihar-Kamakhya, Firozpur Cantt-Katihar Junction, amongst others. Pre-booking is open and the tickets can be booked from the official website of the Indian Railways. Here are the details of the 'Holi Special Trains': 1. From Chandigarh to Gorakhpur Junction This special train will run from March 14 to March 21. It will depart from the Chandigarh station at 11.15 pm every day and will reach Gorakhpur Junction the next day. Then it will leave from Gorakhpur Junction at 10.10 pm and will reach the Chandigarh station at 5.30 pm. The stoppage stations would be Ambala Cantt, Saharanpur, Muradabad, Bareilly, Lucknow, Barabanki, Gonda and Basti station. 2. From Anand Vihar to Patna Junction This special train started a couple of days ago from March 16 and will run till March 23. This train will depart from Anand Vihar Railway Station on Saturday at 12 am and will reach Patna Junction the next day at 6 pm. Then it will leave from Patna at 7.35 pm and will reach Anand Vihar Railway Station by 2.20 pm. The stations would be Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Allahabad, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction and Ara Junction. 3. From New Delhi to Barauni Junction This special train will run from March 12 to March 22. The train will depart from New Delhi railway station on Tuesday and Friday at 7.25 pm. It will reach Barauni Junction the next day at 7.45 pm. Then, from Barauni, the train will only leave on Wednesday and Saturday at 9.35 pm. It will reach New Delhi the next day at 10.10 PM. The stoppage stations would be Moradabad, Bareilly, Lucknow, Barabanki, Gonda, Dasti, Gorakhpur, Chappra, Hazipur, Muzzafarpur, amongst others. 4. From Hazrat Nizamuddin to Pune Junction This Holi special train started operating on March 12 and will operate till March 26. It will depart from Hazrat Nizamuddin on Tuesdays at 9.35 pm and will reach Pune the next day at 9.25 pm. Then, it will leave from Pune at 5.15 pm on Thursday and reach Nizamuddin the next day at 5.35 am. This train will be in service till March 28. The stoppage stations would be Mathura, Kota, Ratlam, Vadodara, Surat, Lonavala Station amongst others. 5. From Lucknow to Kolkata This Holi special train started running from March 11 and it will be in service till March 25. It will depart from Lucknow station every Monday at 11.45 pm and will reach Kolkata the next day at 10.15 pm. Then, it will leave from Kolkata every Tuesday at 11.55 pm and reach Lucknow at 9.45 pm. The stoppage stations would be Sultanpur, Varanasi, Patna, Durgapur, amongst others. 6. From Anand Vihar to Kamakhya This Holi Special train started operations from March 13 to March 20. It will depart from Anand Vihar Railway Station every Wednesday at 11.45 pm and will reach Kamakhya station the next afternoon at 2.45 pm. Then, it will leave from Kamakhya at 5.35 am every Saturday and will reach Anand Vihar the next day at 6.15 pm. The stoppage stations would be Ghaziabad, Hapur, Kishanganj, Katihar, Alipur, amongst others. 7. From Firozpur Cantt to Katihar Junction This Holi special train has started functioning from March 16 to March 23. It will depart from Firozpur Cantt every Saturday and reach Katihar Junction the next day at 10.40 am. Then, it will leave from Katihar Junction every Sunday at 11 pm and reach Firozpur Cantt at 7 pm. The stoppage stations would be Ludhiana, Ambala Cantt, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Bareilly, Hazipur, amongst others. (Edited by: Nehal Solanki) Also read: From shopping to LCD screens: Indian Railways offer new airport-like facilities to train travellers Also read: More options for holiday-goers as IRCTC set to launch 5 new tourist trains A structural auditor was arrested Monday in connection with the last week's foot overbridge collapse that left six people dead, police said. Neerajkumar Desai's firm had reportedly carried out the structural audit of the bridge and declared it safe for use despite some corrosion in the structure, police said. "We detained Desai Sunday after ascertaining negligence on his part and arrested him," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone I) Abhishek Trimukhe told reporters here. Police also recorded statements of other officials, including Additional Municipal Commissioner, BMC, Sanjay Darade, he said. The bridge linking the bustling CSMT train station collapsed Thursday evening leading to the death of six and leaving 31 injured. Police initially booked officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which was responsible for its maintenance, and the Central Railway (CR) under section 304-A (Causing death by negligence) of the IPC, but rescinded the move later. That section was removed and section 304-part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC was imposed against Desai, police said. Also Read: Fugitive billionaire diamantaire Nirav Modi to be arrested soon, UK court issues warrant 18 Mar 2019, 1:29 PM How did FB allow livestream of New Zealand attack? PM Ardern asks FB Facebook's troubles have only just begun. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Sunday said she would be looking for answers from Facebook and other social media firms about how an attack that killed 50 mosque-goers was livestreamed on their platforms. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar passes away: President Kovind, PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi pay tributes Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar passed away at the age of 63 on Sunday. Parrikar, who was diagnosed with a "life-threatening disease" , was discharged from the Goa Medical College and Hospital near Panaji on February 26 last month. He had undergone treatment in hospitals of the US and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.The former Defence Minister's health took a turn for the worse in the past two days. Several BJP leaders and allies in the ruling government in the state had met him on Saturday. With Parrikar's passing away, search for new Goa CM set to begin With the demise of chief minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday, the BJP-led coalition in Goa has to search for a new leader to replace him. The death of the former defence minister, who represented the Panaji assembly seat, will also necessitate a fourth bypoll in Goa, where by-elections are scheduled for the Shiroda, Mandrem and Mapusa assembly constituencies on April 23. These will held in the state along with the Lok Sabha polls. BSNL to approach NCLT for recovering dues worth Rs 700 crore from RCom State-owned telecom firm BSNL will approach National Company Law Tribunal this week to recover dues of about Rs 700 crore from Reliance Communications, according to official sources. Earlier, debt-ridden RCom in its plea before the NCLAT said that it wants to voluntarily go back into the insolvency process, as it will help to sell its assets in a time-bound manner. In India, most complaints by flyers are about harassment by airline staff Most complaints filed by air passengers in the Civil Aviation Ministry's grievance redressal system relates to behaviour of airline staff and harassment of flyers, according to an official document. 'Loss of baggage' category in Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring system (CPGRAM) has received second highest number of complaints from air passengers, showed a Ministry document accessed by PTI. CAIT asks government to probe Chinese goods imported via hawala channels Traders' body Confederation of All India Traders Sunday urged the government to probe Chinese goods imported through hawala channels, which is resulting in huge revenue loss to the exchequer. CAIT, in a statement, also claimed that "such hawala money might be transferred to Pakistan for conducting terrorist activities". Paytm Payments Bank launches mobile app for Android, iOS Paytm Payments Bank has unveiled a mobile banking app for both Android and iOS platforms. The Paytm payments bank was launched in the year 2017 and as many as 4.3 crore savings bank customers have registered with it in India. The new Payments Bank app will allow customers to have seamless and secure access to all basic banking services. Xiaomi is all set to launch its budget Redmi 7 smartphone alongside the China variant of the Redmi Note 7 Pro at 11:30am today. Xiaomi has already launched Redmi Note 7 Pro in India and its China variant is expected to be slightly different from the recently launched Indian version. The Redmi 7 comes as a successor to the Redmi 6 and will be powered by the Snapdragon 632 SoC. According to the initial information, Redmi 7 will run on Android 9 Pie based on MIUI 10. Earlier, the smartphone was spotted on TENAA which had revealed the complete specs sheet of the Redmi 7. As far as the specifications are concerned, Redmi 7 will have will have a 6.26-inch LCD HD+ display with screen resolution of 1520 x720 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19:9. It will reportedly have an octa-core processor along with 2GB, 3GB, and 4GB RAM options, and 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB storage versions. The camera module on the Redmi 7 includes a dual camera setup on the back with a 12-MP sensor and an 8-MP sensor. For selfies, the device will come with 8-MP camera and a lot of AI features. The device measures 158.65x76.43x8.47mm and weighs 180 grams. The device will come packed with a 3,900mAh battery. The TENAA listing also listed an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, fingerprint sensor, and a proximity sensor. The Redmi 7 and Redmi Note 7 Pro will be launched at around 2pm CST (11:30am IST) today, March 18 in China. You can watch the live stream on the Mi's official website. As far as the pricing is concerned, the Redmi 7 is expected to be priced between CNY 700 to CNY 800 (roughly Rs 9,300) for the base 2GB Ram and 16 GB storage model, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun tipped in an earlier post. As for now, there is no news regarding the launch of Redmi 7 in India but the smartphone might make its way into the country considering Redmi 4, Redmi 5 and Redmi 6 have all managed to find a space in the Indian market. Edited By: Udit Verma Also Read: Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro review: Look no further for a phone under Rs 15,000 Also Read:Xiaomi launches Redmi Note 7, Note 7 Pro at aggressive price points Speculations about Turkey's possible refusal to buy Russian S-400 systems under U.S. pressure are being actively fueled. However, Moscow claims that the contract to supply the Triumph S-400 air defense missile systems to Turkey is underway, being implemented as scheduled and will be completed before the end of the year. On the sidelines of the International Winter School in Istanbul, organized by BILGESAM, expert on Turkey-NATO relations Mustafa Kibaroglu, answered Vestnik Kavkaza's questions about Turkeys position on Russia's S-400 and U.S.'s Patriot systems. - How do you think the story with Turkey's purchase of S-400 and Patriot systems will end? Does Ankara have a long-term U.S. and NATO strategy on this issue? - Turkey, the U.S. and NATO have 66 years of relations, as many high-ranking Turkish officials have said many times - both President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. The latter just a few days ago said that Turkey will remain to be a NATO member as long as the alliance exists. The issue of Turkey's purchase of S-400 from Russia provoked tension in Ankaras relations with NATO and the United States. The United States objected Turkey's purchase of Russian defense system from the very beginning. Washington claims potential problems from the use of the S-400 systems by a NATO member country along with NATO capabilities and the alliances missile shield. These are politically correct issues. But, in my opinion, the U.S., as well as other allies concerned about Turkeys purchase of Russian anti-missile systems, should ask themselves why Turkey came to this decision, why Ankara had only one option left - the purchase of Russian systems. As far as I understand, the decision on S-400 has been made, half of the money has already been paid to Russia, there is no possibility to abandon the deal. However, this system will not cover the whole territory of Turkey. It will act autonomously, protecting only four zones - Ankara, Istanbul and possibly the south-eastern territories and part of the Aegean region. NATO allies need to understand Turkey's need of the air defense system, they can still discuss the possibility of introducing the Patriot system or some European system, even with the S-400. Even with the deployment of S-400 systems, Turkey will need an additional missile defense system, and the United States can meet these needs. Turkey's NATO allies should understand its requirements. Ankara is not going to leave the North Atlantic Alliance. I do not think that it would be better for NATO and Turkey if the United States starts imposing sanctions, refuses to provide F-35 or spare parts of F-16. Neither Turkey nor NATO will benefit from sanctions. - What are the advantages of S-400 over the Patriot systems? - Technically speaking, the S-400 missiles and air assets are better than those of the Patriot system. But experts say that the S-400 ballistic missiles are not so well tested and their effectiveness has not been proven. Both systems have both advantages and disadvantages. I think the main advantage of S-400 is that even if the United States agrees to sell its system, Turkey will not be satisfied by the conditions of the Americans. There are also temporary and financial aspects. But it's better for Turkey and the U.S., Turkey and NATO to walk together; if their paths diverge, it would be of benefit to no one. Turkey is not better off without NATO, and NATO is not better off without Turkey. - The United States considers Turkey an important NATO ally on the southern flank. What do you think of it? - I agree completely. Without Turkey, NATO would not be able to achieve its goals, either geographically or politically. Yes, the S-400 deal has complicated some aspects of cooperation, but Turkey will still need a missile defense system. I think Turkey and NATO can help improve the security situation in the world in general. - Has Russia-Turkey partnership become closer after the S-400 deal? - There can be different periods in bilateral relations. Today's period will last 10-15 years. Today, the country are friends, and tomorrow they are rivals - it all depends on the attendant circumstances. Moreover, many aspects of relations depend not only on positions of the two states, but also on non-state actors, for example, on terrorists. In each country, terrorism is perceived in its own way. Turkey and Russia had both good and bad periods. So it will continue - good relations will be replaced by contradictions on some issues that need to be resolved. Turkey and Russia need each other. I hope the counties manage to avoid conflicts and will cooperate. In Syria, Turkey, Russia and Iran are fighting against a common enemy, because they are interested in stable Syria. Common sense should always prevail. news, history, An independent service supported by the ACT government told the new owner of a heritage-listed Hall property that a pre-1900 stone cottage on the block had no heritage significance before the structure was demolished. Documents released under freedom of information laws have shed light on what authorities last year called "an unfortunate misunderstanding" that resulted in the heritage cottage being destroyed without the ACT Heritage Council's approval. The documents show the council approved demolition of the main house on the Palmer Street block known locally as Ottocliffe on April 20, 2016, after the house was found to contain Mr Fluffy loose-fill asbestos. The council's statement of heritage effect approval related only to the main house and made no mention of the stone cottage, which was free of asbestos. The freedom of information documents reveal that in May 2017, while still a prospective buyer, the new owner of the property emailed ACT Heritage and sought advice on the stone cottage. An unnamed ACT Heritage employee replied a week later and gave the new owner contact details for the ACT Heritage Advisory Service, which is a free service provided by Philip Leeson Architects and supported by the ACT government. The block sold for $985,000 at an auction in late May 2017, and land title records show Stephen and Deborah Fleischer were granted a 99-year lease for the block a month later on June 26. Mr Fleischer has previously told the Sunday Canberra Times he believed he had all the necessary approvals to demolish the stone cottage. According to the freedom of information documents, David Hobbes, of Philip Leeson Architects, inspected the stone cottage to assess its heritage significance on August 16, 2017. "In my opinion this structure does not have heritage significance," Mr Hobbes wrote in advice given to the property's new owner and ACT Heritage. "It appears to have been constructed from a variety of salvaged materials over a period from the 1950s to the present." Former Ottocliffe owners have asserted that the cottage was built by the pioneering Southwell family before 1900 and that it was one of the earliest buildings in Hall, while a 2000 heritage study of Hall also refers to the cottage as a heritage structure. The freedom of information documents say while Mr Hobbes' advice came from a government-supported service, the advice had "no statutory effect" and the stone cottage was demolished on October 3 and 4, 2017. On October 11, a week after the cottage was demolished, ACT Heritage team leader Meaghan Russell sent a lengthy email to the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate's legislation team, seeking advice on whether the demolition contravened the Heritage Act. Ms Russell said in the email that according to the Asbestos Response Taskforce, the 'retained improvements schedule' annexed to the sales contract for the property clearly identified that the stone cottage was subject to heritage requirements. The reply she received from the legislation team two days later said "there would appear to be reasonable grounds for Heritage to proceed on the basis that actions taken were likely to amount to a breach of section 74 of the Heritage Act". But following an Access Canberra investigation, the ACT government decided not to prosecute anyone involved in the cottage's demolition because it felt there were no reasonable prospects of conviction. The decision angered Hall residents, who told the Sunday Canberra Times in December they feared for Canberra's built heritage if no action was taken over unauthorised destruction of heritage buildings. The ACT government ruled that releasing a copy of the report on Access Canberra's investigation as part of the freedom of information request would be "contrary to the public interest" and withheld the document. According to Heritage Minister Mick Gentleman, the process of establishing "strict liability penalties and repair provisions" under the Heritage Act has begun in the wake of the cottage's destruction. In a letter to Hall resident Jonathan Palmer, one of those who spoke out after the demolition, Mr Gentleman said the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate was also sending "educational letters" to the people involved in the demolition of the cottage to improve their understanding obligations under the Heritage Act. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/7f967f0b-4315-467a-85c2-ae272bdf3a00/r0_277_2560_1723_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, crime A teenager has been charged with attempted murder after an alleged random attack on three people in the northern Canberra suburb of Palmerston on Friday night. An 83-year-old man is in hospital with critical injuries after the incident, which police said left another two people injured as well. They said they responded to a call for help about 10.15pm Friday, and the 17-year-old boy "engaged police". Officers used capsicum spray in their attempts to restrain him. "Police will allege the boy randomly attacked the three individuals in their vehicle as they arrived at a residence in Tamborine Close," police said in a statement. "Three victims were identified - including an 83-year-old man with critical injuries. All three were transported to hospital as well as the 17-year-old boy." On Monday, the ACT Children's Court convened at Canberra hospital for a bedside hearing. Magistrate Robert Cook charged the teenager, who cannot be named because he is under 18, with attempted murder as well as assault occasioning actual bodily harm, threat to kill, property damage, intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm and resisting police. He did not enter pleas. The teenager did not apply for bail, and bail was formally refused. It's understood the teenager will be discharged from hospital on Monday. The case is next due in court on April 8. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/499e48a8-4f5b-4ab2-b3eb-fa5c6792e98e/r0_64_1557_944_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg comment As a Muslim, and as someone born and raised in this beautiful city [Canberra], I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for this community's response in the aftermath of the massacre in Christchurch. Quite a number of people have delivered flowers and cards to our local mosque in Monash; there are some very touching messages written on these cards, messages that truly melt the heart. On Sunday night we were gathered in the mosque around the time of the sunset prayer, reading these messages, looking at the flowers, and marvelling at the goodwill in this community. Among all the bad news, it can be so easy to lose sight of the reality that there is so much good in this world. God created humanity in a state of purity and innocence, with an innate inclination towards faith, compassion, and beauty. Evil is an aberration, and we should always see it as such. Unfortunately, it is so much easier to tear things down than to build them up; yet, for every person who is willing to take an innocent life, there are a thousand others who are willing to save that life. God is far greater than any of us know. On behalf of all Muslims, thank you, people of Canberra, our brothers and sisters in humanity, for your support. D. Roseby, Stirling For decades both the Liberal National Party and the Labor Party and their leaders have been demonising the refugees from wars we started who have fled to Australia. They have all allowed the vicious right wing to spew out their hatred. We have been bombing, killing and maiming Muslims in three separate nations around the world since 2001. Before that we bombed Iraq and kept our silence when Russia invaded Afghanistan. We are still silent when Israel slaughters more and more Palestinians. Australia since 2001 has been waging a monumentally horrific war on Muslims here and overseas. Then we pretend we care for Muslims when one of us slaughters 50 of them. Give me a break. Marilyn Shepherd, Angaston, SA Like Waleed Aly, I, too, am not surprised by the massacre of Muslim worshippers in the Christchurch shooting. What surprises me is Trump's expression of sympathy and solidarity with New Zealanders at this act of hate. That's so Kafkaesque. He can't be serious. Trump has demonised and cultivated hatred for Muslims, refugees and migrants from day one of his campaign for US presidency. It's his kind of racial bigotry and far right ideology that is responsible for encouraging white power foot soldiers to embark on misguided missions of slaughter. Trump's sympathy is hollow. Rajend Naidu, Glenfield As an Ahmadi Muslim Australian, the New Zealand terror attacks hit very close to home. They reminded me of the deadly attacks on two Ahmadiyya Muslim mosques in Pakistan in 2010 where 94 people were brutally murdered at the hands of terrorists. I acknowledge and commend that most of our political leaders have rightly called this terrorism because that is exactly what he intended to do. However this must not come as a surprise when leaders in Western nations are promoting a fearmongering rhetoric (Trump, Abbott, Anning, Hanson et al) against immigrants and Muslims in particular. This type of hatred must be stamped out and we cannot afford to normalise these events that are part of everyday life in many countries across the world. He wanted to kill all Muslims in the West and replace all mosques with churches. He was a Christian. He was a terrorist. But I will not glorify this as Christian terrorism because this defies the teachings and message of Jesus Christ. Terrorism and terrorists have no religion. Monus Shaikh, Spreyton, Tas The racists in Christchurch and elsewhere who have deliberately killed innocent people are in essence the same as the violent Muslim jihadists they might claim to oppose. They all reject the key principle of civilisation: live and let live. None of them are admirable glamorous heroes, they are all just hateful bloodstained murderers. Sadly, as humans, they are us: nowhere is free of this disease. Not New Zealand, not Norway, not here in Australia, not anywhere. Where there are people there will always be some haters and killers. We must work together in order to clearly and resolutely deny them moral and material support. R. Neville, Fraser Apart from the awful carnage itself, there are two aspects of the Christchurch massacre that deeply concern me. One is that certain right-wing politicians, commentators in the News Corp press and radio shock jocks have for years stirred up islamophobia. This may well have inspired the accused killer, Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant used an AR-15 assault rifle, a semi-automatic weapon with a 30-round magazine that can be converted to automatic mode, making it ideal for a mass shooting. I find it extraordinary and troubling that a person with known extremist views on race and religion and a standard firearms licence could be permitted to purchase such a deadly weapon. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is to be commended for her undertaking to change her country's gun laws, but this should have been done many years ago. Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, let it be known that it is not OK to promulgate hatred or abuse, or to denigrate anyone on the basis of their culture, their ethnicity, their religion, their gender, their sexual preference or a disability. The racist, bigoted, sexist nation that we once were, is over. Today, the true Australian extends the hand of friendship and treats our fellow citizens as equals. Today, our first Australians can stand as equals among us, proud of their ancient culture and their role as the natural custodians of our land. Today, all women are to be respected irrespective of how they look or their mode of dress. Today, our children should expect to live their childhoods without fear of physical or emotional abuse. To wrap yourself in our flag does not make you a true Australian. It is what is in your heart that counts. Alan Nelson, Bonython Jennie Goldie (Letters, March 18) in her complaint about us "anti-light rail correspondents" and the lack of legitimacy of our sentiments, rightly states we need to move rapidly from fossil fuels to renewable energy and recognises this can be achieved with electric buses the same as trams. I disagree with her opinion that the advantage of light rail (over buses) is that it carries a lot of people on new carriageways, not on roads. Transport studies have shown buses have the capacity to transport similar numbers of people. The original policy intent of the Labor government was to have fixed busways similar to those in Brisbane and Auckland. They would have run on separate carriageways in much the same way as the tram will. Discussion papers, issued by the ACT government, show the cost of busways was far cheaper than the light rail option. Buses are more flexible than light rail in that they have the capacity to operate off the fixed route as well as on it. A busway is also cheaper, and less disruptive, to construct. If I lived in Cooma, like Jennie, I might happily ride the tram but as, unlike her, I have to pay for this through my excessive rates, I feel I have a very legitimate reason to prefer a cheaper busway system. On the same issue, Don Sephton (Letters, March 18) is spot on with regards to Bill Shorten's $200 million tram to Woden promise. I doubt it will give Labor any overall increase in votes if we consider those who oppose the excessive rates we have to pay for our trams. If it had gone to health, housing or aged care places and packages then no one would oppose that. Gina Pinkas, Aranda I was aghast at the hypocrisy of the ACT government's endorsement of the climate change walk (and ACT school students' participation in it) and frustrated at the innocence (and ignorance) of those who organised this event without placing climate change in its broader context. Climate change is a very important issue but that it has captured our interest and concern at all is because it will have, and is having, a devastating impact on the environment. It is, to a considerable degree, caused by human activity. It is very important for all people, both young and old, to understand that, although we might delay or arrest climate change through such things as renewable energy, we will not end the relentless decline in the natural environment. That is because, climate change is only one of the factors contributing to this. If we are genuinely concerned about the environment, we must strike at the heart of the problem: that is too many people consuming too much. Yet, this is our governments' (on both sides of the political spectrum) preferred economic model. They want more and more people consuming more and more forever. Although the ACT is in the vanguard of renewable energy initiatives, it continues to gorge itself on perpetual and, therefore, unsustainable growth. Herein lies the appalling hypocrisy of the government's endorsement of this march. It has wilfully participated in this smoke and mirrors nonsense that addressing climate change will end humanity's assault on the environment. It will not. In the failure to explain this wider picture (no doubt to evade a necessary but contentious discussion of things like population and, yes, immigration) those who focus on climate change and ignore our "growth forever" idiocy are complicit in an extraordinarily irresponsible act of deceit. We are selling our future generations desperately short, and that is unconscionable. Graham Clews, Kambah On Friday, I attended the school students' strike in Garema Place and was greatly heartened by their enterprise and commitment. As a science teacher for many years I was always aware of just how talented and idealistic most young people are. Sadly, many adults have lost such idealism. Conservative politicians urged students to not slack off and to stay in school where they belonged, expecting them to go quietly into the night and accept their fate of being adults in a failing world. It is a world facing annihilation largely caused by our over-consumption and a focus on the short term rather than the future. Of course, it should have been us protesting years ago as all that is happening was foreseen. We have had many real chances to do something to avert the disaster we are now all beginning to experience and of which young people will bear the brunt. Maybe we were just too busy, or overwhelmed or complacent. The students are trying to change the position of many of our political leaders who maintain wilfully ignorant positions on climate change because of their fixed ideology and the political benefits they get from supporting the fossil fuel industry despite all the evidence it is destroying the planet. It was good to see parents and Baby Boomers at Garema Place, but next time there is a rally on climate change we need to be out there in our tens of thousands to show that we really do care about the next generation our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. Elizabeth Dangerfield, Crace Of all the clever placards carried by young people the one that struck me as most pertinent said "Why'd U have 2 make tings so complicated". A straightforward carbon tax on generators, fuel depots, iron smelters, and cement factories set on a rolling triennial basis by a reserve bank model organisation would be simple and efficient. 'Tings' will cost more and we will adapt our lifestyle to accommodate it by emitting less and substituting with sustainable materials such as wood. Steve Thomas, Yarralumla The published version of my letter "Electric cars still flawed" (Letters, March 16) referred to a typical energy usage of a small electric vehicle of 12kW per day. What I submitted, and what should have been published, was 12kWh per day. Terry Werner, Wright HEINOUS VIOLENCE It is heartbreaking to hear about the shootings in Christchurch. My heartfelt prayers are with the victims and their families and friends. We must condemn such heinous acts of violence and discourage violence on the name of religion. Usman Mahmood, Bowenfels, NSW NZ'S PM INSPIRATIONAL Jacinda Ardern you are truly inspirational. Doug Hodgson, Pearce GOODWILL HEARTENING I'm absolutely sickened by what has happened in Christchurch. That said, it is heartening to see so much good-will, dare I say love, pouring out. That is the last thing the killer would have wanted to happen. Kim Fitzgerald, Deakin IF ONLY WE HAD ARDERN If only Jacinda Ardern could come to Australia and be our prime minister. David Fisher, Curtin NZ COULD SEND HIM BACK Can we expect the New Zealand government to send the Christchurch massacre accused back to us? That is what they will do if they follow our government's example. Robin Trinca, Narooma A TERRORIST ACT The perpetrators of the New Zealand shooting are terrorists. Don't you dare call them anything else. Keith Binns, Goulburn, NSW THOSE DANGEROUS EGGS I've heard a rumour Senator Fraser Anning now wants the sale of, and carrying of, high-capacity egg cartons banned. Doug Steley, Heyfield, SA TREES ANSWER TO DRONES Don't just complain about drones flying overhead and delivering take-always to your suburb. Do something positive and plant a tree. Trees in your backyard will shield you from overhead views and trees in your front yard and street will stop flat white coffees being winched down in front of you. Those trees will also cool your house, sequester carbon, reduce traffic noise and improving your health. Plant up Canberra. C. Brack, Evatt LEAVING A SINKING SHIP Has there ever been a time since Federation when so many ministers have departed the government at election time? Should we be reading anything into this? Jeff Bradley, Isaacs STUDENTS ACT THEIR AGE Heard from a child at the children's strike in Garema Place on Friday: "We'll stop acting like adults if you'll stop acting like children, ScoMo." Angela Giblin, Lyneham FOCUS ON COURAGE Let us focus on the tales of courage and resolution that have come out of New Zealand, not just the horror and the hate. N. Ellis, Bonython Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message eld, not as an attached le. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610. Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to Canberra Times reports should include the date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published). /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/2b7ad2f9-3e02-4d64-8902-20cd8eb3f884/r0_103_2000_1233_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Baku is holding the 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) today. The event then will feature a presentation on the pace of oil market development, and the report of the Joint Technical Commission on production figures for February will be read out. A day before the JMMC meeting, Baku hosted the 27th meeting of the Joint Technical Commission. In February the level of compliance with the oil output cut deal reached 89% compared with 83% in January. It is expected that Azerbaijans Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov, chairman of the Joint Monitoring Committee, Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih, president of OPEC, People's Minister of Petroleum of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Manuel Salvador Quevedo Fernandez and Secretary General of OPEC Mohammed Barkindo will make an opening speech at the meeting. The meeting on March 18 will also include ministers and senior representatives of Algeria, the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Congo, Russia, Kazakhstan, Bahrain and Brunei. The Saudi Arabian Minister of Energy said before the start of the meeting of the ministerial monitoring committee that the job of OPEC and its allies was not done yet adding that the group of oil producers needed to "stay the course" at least until June when the current global supply cut agreement is due to expire. The minister added that its too early to make an extension decision in April. He said Saudi Arabias oil production in April will be below its output target under the OPEC-led deal. "We will continue to lead by example and do what we have to do," Reuters cited him as saying. Falih added that OPEC + has invited Iraq, Kazakhstan and Nigeria to join the monitoring committee. "We invited Iraq, Kazakhstan and Nigeria," he said. Russia's Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said at the opening of the meeting that Russia is committed to the implementation of the OPEC+ agreement and oil production volumes in the country show this. He expressed hope that today's meeting will become another step to achieve better results in the oil market, to provide even better understanding and elimination of uncertainty, and to discuss further steps during the first six months of the agreements implementation. Parviz Shahbazov in his address stressed that Azerbaijan is ready to further support the efforts of OPEC to maintain balance in the oil market. He noted that today's "event shows the historical role of Azerbaijan in the oil industry." "Azerbaijan doesnt export oil in large volumes, but plays a big role in ensuring energy security in the world," the minister added. He expressed hope that the "OPEC+ charter will be finalized soon." Parviz Shahbazov pointed out that cooperation between countries is important to prevent risks in the oil market. "OPEC+ provides main support to the oil market. We see positive results of this agreement," Azerbaijans Energy Minister concluded. A joint OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial monitoring committee includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Algeria, Venezuela and Oman. news, latest-news The ACT government was aware there were risks to the light rail being completed on time months before the start date was officially pushed back, internal documents have shown. Heavily redacted ministerial briefs and meeting notes obtained under freedom of information indicate the government had doubts about the timeline the consortium building stage one light rail, Canberra Metro, had set out. This was despite repeated public assurances the program would be completed on time. As early as May, project director Megan Oldfield gave a presentation to the project board's meetings about the risks to the on-time delivery and how those were being managed. A briefing note to Transport Minister Meegan Fitzharris from last August said while Canberra Metro maintained a December 21 completion date, there were growing risks to the project being completed on time. "During the reporting period Canberra Metro have used most of the contingency allowances held within the program and are therefore at a higher risk of missing the forecast completion date," the minister was advised. "Previous delays have been mitigated through the resequencing of logic and acceleration of activity durations, which has ultimately resulted in parallel execution of design and testing activities and a back-end compression of the program." However, the brief said, "Canberra Metros current program again shows slippage against the program." In early October, while noting Canberra Metro still held that the project would be ready by December 21, a brief to the minister said, "Transport Canberra does not yet have sufficient information to form a view as to the likely date of services commencement but is continuing to liaise with Canberra Metro in this respect". Later that month, another brief from Transport Canberra officials said while Canberra Metro maintained the project would be completed by that date, the minister should change her language around the operational timeline to be more vague. Since May 2018 Canberra Metro has forecast the light rail date of operations commencement to be 21 December 2018. Indeed the most recent program received by the territory from Canberra Metro on 8 October 2018 still maintains an operations commencement date of 21 December 2018," the documents read. As such - notwithstanding risks identified by Transport Canberra in Canberra Metros program - until that time it has been appropriate for you in public discourse to make statements along the lines of 'Canberra Metro has advised it proposes to open the project in December'. "Following from the above, Transport Canberra recommends that for the indefinite future you describe the expected light rail operations to date to simply be 'in early 2019'. You may also wish to note that the date is subject to third party accreditations [and] Canberra Metro will be able to provide greater clarity on the exact date closer to the end of the year." That same day Ms Fitzharris's office contacted the media to advise that the start date would be pushed back into 2019. The documents add weight to admissions from Under-Treasurer David Nicol during last year's annual reports hearings that the government had repeatedly asked Canberra Metro whether its construction program was achievable. At the time, Ms Fitzharris's office played down that there were any doubts about the program before the start date was delayed. They also provide background as to why the minister will still not nominate a date for light rail to begin operations, even though it's due to start next month. Recently, she said the service would begin running "on a Saturday in April". The government has also said the light rail would be up and running when the new bus network goes live on April 29. A government spokesman said Transport Canberra and the minister had been consistent and accurate in reporting both Canberra Metros program and the fact that risks exist with the program. In verbal conversations with Canberra Metro Transport Canberra officials reached the conclusion the next iteration of Canberra Metros program may not show a December opening date. Under the [public-private partnership] contract structure, it is appropriate for the territory to publicly discuss the opening date shown in Canberra Metros latest program, the spokesman said. As soon as Canberra Metros program changed and no longer showed a December opening date, so did Transport Canberras advice to the minister and the minister immediately updated the Canberra community. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/b95060bf-4e17-4fac-9f8c-2c3ebf827cef/r0_284_5257_3254_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, federal-politics Some Australian Border Force officers are considering taking second jobs, or leaving their roles at Australia's regional ports, after a Fair Work Commission decision drastically reduced the allowances for workers by thousands of dollars. Staff are concerned remote ports could be vulnerable to drug smugglers and even people smuggling if experienced and skilled staff leave work in places like Port Hedland and Dampier in Western Australia or Gladstone in Queensland, which handle millions of tonnes of cargo a year. After years of negotiations between unions and the Department of Home Affairs ended in a workplace determination from the Fair Work Commission, the system of allowances for workers at regional and remote ports was overhauled, and is now based on the public service award classification. Allowances have also been reduced for members of the Marine Unit, raising concerns patrols may not be deployed if the unit can't be fully staffed. They are concerned illegal maritime arrivals might be missed if there aren't enough patrols across Australia's northern seas. There could also be economic impacts if cargo can't be cleared quickly enough to make its way into Australia. Some staff expect the ports could become fly-in, fly-out operations if staff can't be found to take the remote postings. In some remote locations, staff posted there had rent paid by the department, or they lived in department-owned accommodation. Now staff must cover their own costs in places where living expenses are high. The Fair Work decision made transition arrangements for people receiving allowances under the old system who would no longer receive them in the new system, reducing the allowances by 25 per cent every six months over a two-year period. The main public sector union said its members were weighing up whether they could afford to continue working in remote locations and for the Marine Unit of Border Force. "These people put themselves and their families through significant hardship working at sea and in locations where accommodation and living costs are generally savagely expensive, often for second-rate housing and groceries," Community and Public Sector Union National President Alistair Waters said. Mr Waters said the union had warned the department and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton retention of staff would become difficult. "Weve now got frontline officers in regional offices and the Marine Unit whose take-home pay is less than it was six years ago. For many people were talking about thousands of dollars less a year," he said. "If the department cant find suitably qualified and experienced staff to work in remote locations and the Marine Unit, clearly thats going to have an impact on the integrity of Australias border. In the case of the Marine Unit, it only takes a comparatively small number of vacancies in key crew positions to stop Marine Unit vessels being deployed at all." A Home Affairs spokeswoman said the department was working as quickly as possible to implement the new arrangements and "other measures to maintain attractiveness of district officers, retain talent and secure new talent". "The workplace determination provides a range of entitlements for employees in remote localities including: district allowance; additional leave and respite leave fares. Departmental policy also provides housing assistance to employees posted or temporarily transferred to remote localities," the spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman said that while the conditions for determining remoteness was based on the Australian Public Service Award, the rates of allowance in the workplace determination were still higher than those in the award, and continued to be competitive with or higher than other public service agencies. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/e6bb9716-d055-4919-a0e1-e7a6a5b523ef/r0_97_2000_1227_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg A meeting was held at the Baku City Executive Power between the Mayor of Baku Eldar Azizov and a delegation from the Russian cities of Derbent and Magas. The mayor of Baku noted that Azerbaijani-Russian relations have reached a level of strategic partnership, and that the North Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation have played a special role in establishing these ties. "Azerbaijans relations with Dagestan and Ingushetia are developing in many areas," Trend cited Azizov as saying. The mayor pointed out that mutual visits open up new opportunities for the further development of relations, and high-level political relations also affect economic relations. Recalling that the peoples of the North Caucasus have lived in peace and friendship with Azerbaijan since time immemorial, Mayor of Derbent Khizri Abakarov stressed that relations with Azerbaijan are particularly valued in Dagestan. Mayor of Magas Beslan Tsechoyev stressed the high level of relations between Azerbaijan and Ingushetia. The special role of the executive structures of the cities of Baku, Derbent and Magas in the expansion of said relations was noted during the meeting. Issues of mutual interest were also discussed. The meeting was concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation between Baku, Derbent and Magas. 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. Istanbul will never become Constantinople and Turks will never leave this city, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, commenting on the recent terrorist attack in New Zealand mosques against Muslims. According to Erdogan, it is apparent that there is still a hatred of Islam and Muslims in some circles. The Turkish leader earlier said that the terrorist who had attacked Muslims in mosques in New Zealand had twice been to Turkey, and the purposes of his visits and who he met with are currently being specified. Shootings took place at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on March 15, with 50 killed and 20 seriously injured. Four suspects were detained. The shooting at one of the mosques was carried out by an Australian citizen of ultra-right views Brenton Tarrant, a native of Australia's Grafton. He streamed the attack online, and before the attack, published a 37-page manifesto, in which he called his actions a terrorist attack. WHAT: Getting more people tested and in HIV care is a vital part of the proposed federal initiative, Ending the HIV Epidemic A Plan for Americaexternal icon. At a media telebriefing on the first day of CDCs 2019 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, CDC will release new data showing the proportion of new infections transmitted from those who either did not know they have HIV, or were not in care. The findings highlight the power of testing and treatment to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Admiral Brett P. Giroir, M.D., will join CDC spokespeople to discuss the new report and its implications for HIV prevention efforts in the U. S. WHO: Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS, Admiral Brett P. Giroir, M.D. CDC Director Robert Redfield, M.D. Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H. Director, CDCs National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Eugene McCray, M.D. Director, CDCs Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention WHEN: Monday, March 18, 2019, at 1:00 PM, ET DIAL-IN: Media: 888-795-0855 Non-Media: 800-369-1605 INTERNATIONAL: 1-630-395-0331 PASSCODE: CDC Media Briefing Title: Powerful HIV Prevention Tools Remain Underutilized *Please dial in 10 to 15 minutes before the start of the press conference. IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS If you would like to ask a question during the call, press *1 on your touchtone phone. Press *2 to withdraw your question. You may queue up at any time. You will hear a tone to indicate your question is pending. TRANSCRIPT Cement importers refute claims of sub-standard cement ICR Newsroom By 18 March 2019 Importers of cement into the Philippines have disputed claims that their cement fails to meet regulatory standards. "All legally-imported cement retailed in the Philippine market is guaranteed to meet stringent quality controls. Our members import cement from various countries, including Vietnam. But wherever imported cement is sourced, we wish to stress that imported cement undergoes a three-tier quality control procedure mandated by (Department of Trade and Industry)," the Cement Importers Association of the Philippines (CIAP) said in a statement over the weekend. In addition, CIAP said imported cement undergoes quality controls that are stricter than those imposed on domestic cement, whose producers undergo only one annual audit. "Although the ideal situation is for unannounced audits, local manufacturers undergo only once-a-year audits and the audits are even announced and mutually scheduled. In other words, cement products of local manufacturers are tested only once a year," CIAP said. "On the other hand, for imported cement, each and every batch is tested by the DTI. If there is more than one batch in one shipment, we are required to provide samples for each batch for DTI to test," the association added. Published under The European Union reiterates that it does not recognize the results of the Crimean referendum, according to the EU declaration on Crimea and Sevastopol. "The European Union remains committed to fully implementing its non-recognition policy, including through restrictive measures. The European Union calls again on UN Member States to consider similar non-recognition measures in line with the UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262," High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini noted in a statement. The statement also stress that the EU believes that these actions have led to a "dangerous increase in tensions at the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov". On March 16, 2014, Crimean authorities held a referendum on reuniting with Russia. On March 18, President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty on Crimeas reunification with Russia and the Federal Assembly approved the document on March 21. Cement sales rise by 16% in Saudi Arabia in February 18 March 2019 Cement and clinker sales in Saudi Arabia rose 15.7 per cent YoY to 4.24Mt (including exports) in February 2019 compared to 3.67Mt in the previous year. Clinker inventory increased 17.6 per cent YoY, but fell one per cent MoM to 41.88Mt in February 2019. Cement dispatches, however, jumped 9.3 per cent YoY, says Aljazira Capital. Meanwhile, the total utilisation rate of Saudi cement sector declined to 52.8 per cent in February compared to 61.4 per cent in the same period last year. Southern and Yamama Cement recorded the highest YoY increase in sales of 47 per cent and 38.8 per cent, respectively. However, Arabian Cement showed the highest decline of 46.1 per cent YoY, while Yanbu Cement fell 44.5 per cent YoY. In February, Southern and Saudi Cement recorded the highest market share of 16 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively. Published under Iran will conduct joint military operations with Turkey against the militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari said. According to him, the PKK is a threat to everyone. At the same time, Iran's Deputy Interior Minister stressed that there are no problems on the Iranian-Turkish border. In early March, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that Turkey and Iran will conduct joint operations against the PKK terrorist group. The Kremlin is not considering plans of demanding Ukraines compensation for losses sustained by Crimeas economy when the peninsula was its part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "Im not aware that this issue has been considered in the Kremlin," TASS cited the spokesman as saying. Peskov added that the Kremlin has heard about this idea for the first time. On March 15, Russias State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin suggested using European parliamentary institutions to make Kiev reimburse the losses Crimea suffered during 25 years of being part of Ukraine. Several fire agencies battled a two-alarm fire at the Patron Mexican Grill on Waldens Ridge early Monday morning. At 6:30 a.m., a motorist called 911 reporting heavy smoke at the Patron Mexican Grill at 3720 Taft Highway. Waldens Ridge Emergency Services, Signal Mountain Fire Department, Red Bank Fire Department, Chattanooga Fire Department, Dallas Bay Volunteer Fire Department, Mutual Aid Chief Mike Williams and Hamilton County Marine Rescue responded to the scene. Waldens Ridge Emergency Services was the first unit on the scene confirming fire through the roof. Chattanooga Fire, Waldens Ridge Emergency Services and Dallas Bay VFD conducted a tanker shuttle to add additional water lines to fight the large fire. No injuries were reported but HCEMS was on the scene for any potential injuries to the firefighters. The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Hamilton County Fire Investigation Task Force. Damages are estimated at $350,000. Hamilton County Sheriffs deputies temporarily closed the 3700 block of Taft Highway and Hollister Road due to the fire. The roads reopened just before noon. Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan is the Hamilton book of the week nominated by Whitney Fessler, the librarian at Lookout Mountain Elementary. The kids at my school love historical fiction, especially the World War II period. This book shows the story of three different kids and one special harmonica that they all share, and their experiences during the war, Ms. Fessler said. About the book: Echo is a longer book, but well worth the read.Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. D"ecades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. Echo is an uplifting, historical, and interesting book for readers of all ages.Editorial ReviewsFrom Amazon -Five out of five stars from Amazon ReadersFrom CommonSenseMedia.org -Echo is a historical novel with a fantasy element. It includes information about the beginning of the Holocaust, the Great Depression, and what life was like in America after Pearl Harbor, including how Japanese people were sent to internment camps. Readers also will learn that in some California school districts in the 1940s, kids with Mexican ancestry were sent to separate and inferior schools. The three main protagonists -- Friedrich, Mike, and Ivy -- all face injustice. Nazi soldiers call Friedrich "the ugly son of a Jew-lover" after taking his father to a labor camp. Mike and Frank are at the mercy of a cruel and calculating orphanage director and later thrown out of a store, suspected of being thieves. Ivy must go to a school for Mexican students. They learn about other injustices, too (for example, the family that owns the farm Ivy lives on is sent to a Japanese internment camp). There's some violence, from fistfights to war injuries, and one soldier dies. But the protagonists speak up in their own way for what's right and continue to think of ways to help others who also are suffering. They eventually learn "to hope for the best and that no matter how much sadness there is in life, there are equal amounts of maybe-things will-get-better-someday-soon."To see all Hamilton Book of the Week editions, visit here "Hamilton Book of the Week seeks to move Hamilton County Schools closer to district goals found in the Future Ready 2023 action plan," officials said. "We hope to encourage kids to read more books for fun by sharing books popular at area schools.Goals addressed by more students reading include:- Reading improvement will increase the number of students on-track or mastering English language arts;- Improve the district ACT score to a district average of 21; and- Reach the target goal of a 90 percent graduation rate by 2023 After an extensive nationwide search, the Home Builders Association of Greater Chattanooga has announced Doug Fisher as its executive officer. Mr. Fisher is responsible for leading the Home Builders Association of Greater Chattanooga which has over 450 members and is the professional voice of the home building industry in the Chattanooga area. Mr. Fisher, who most recently served as director of external affairs for the Big South Region of Comcast NBC Universal and as the executive director of the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association, has a distinguished private and public career, spanning more than 30 years. He operated his own businesses for over 12 years, DH Fisher and Associates and Chattanooga Regional Interconnect, specializing in marketing, strategic planning, brand development, public affairs, telecommunications and government relations. For seven years, the Chattanooga native and graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, served as vice president of Governmental and Corporate Affairs for the Erlanger Health System, the seventh largest public healthcare system in the nation. Mr. Fisher also served as district director for U.S. Congressman Zach Wamp and, prior to that, as a Staff and Press Advance Officer in the Reagan White House. He was also Press Secretary to Tennessee Governor Winfield Dunn. In addition to his extensive work with U.S. and Tennessee state officials, telecommunications and healthcare industries, Mr. Fisher also has a background in law enforcement, having served as Public Information Officer for the Chattanooga Police Department. During that time he traveled extensively nationwide educating public agencies on successful management of crisis situations. Mr. Fisher is married to Chris Swafford Fisher, a 30-year Merck Oncology Pharmaceutical Representative. The Fishers have three grown children Kelly, Grant and Andi. This month, March 2019, is Women's History Month in the United States and we Tennesseans have much to celebrate. We celebrate Tennessees role in being the state that made the perfect 36 required for the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. In a tribute to the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett dedicated the 2019-20 Blue Book this month. As League members, we are especially proud because the League of Women Voters is the successor organization to the Tennessee suffragists who worked so tirelessly to pass the 19th amendment. We commend Secretary Hargett for recognizing the significant role Tennessee played in our nation in guaranteeing all women the right to vote. Notwithstanding our states proud history, however, in 2016, Tennessee was ranked 48th in the nation for voter turnout among all states and the District of Columbia. 48 out of 51, almost dead last! But here is more good news. According to the recently released report America Goes to the Polls 2018 prepared by Nonprofit VOTE and the US Elections Project, in 2018 Tennessee moved up in the rankings, from 48th place to 45th place. Tennessee voter turnout for the 2018 midterm elections was over 18 percentage points higher than in 2014. That means more of us are playing a role in selecting our leaders. Yet, we believe that even 45th place is not good enough for Tennessee. As Tennesseans, we know we can do betterour democracy depends on it! There is more work to be done. Voter turnout varies widely from state to state. While it is true that voters are more engaged in highly competitive state and local races, that factor does not explain everything. The data analysis of this national report points to the more important factors of election policies that made it harder or easier to vote. In Tennessee, the 2017 implementation of online voter registration has been very successful and is likely a contributing factor to the huge increase in voter turnout in Tennessee. But lets not stop there. We should consider additional policy changes to make it easier to vote that have a proven track record of success in other states. States with higher rates of voter turnout have adopted policies that include same day registration, automatic voter registration, and easy access to absentee ballots or other vote at home methods. Automatic Voter Registration makes registration at motor vehicle and other government agencies an opt-out rather than an opt-in activity. Seventeen states have AVR, including Georgia, which, as a result, reported a tripling of voter registrations from driver services and record voter turnout. Officials report benefits such as applications processed more quickly and efficiently, fewer election day complaints about voters having to go vote where they were formerly registered, fewer provisional ballots and cost savings. The League of Women Voters commends the TN Election officials for recent implementation of online voter registration and the thoughtful implementation of Election Day Convenience Vote Centers. We will continue to advocate for additional improvements so that Tennessee can move from the bottom 10 to the top 10 in participation in our democracy! Marian Ott President Debra Gould Vice President/Advocacy Chair Diane DiIanni Advocacy Co-Chair The 64-member Baylor Concert Choir received the top score in the High School Concert Choir category and the highest score of any ensemble performing in any category at the OrlandoFest adjudicated musical festival. The festival was the culmination of the group's annual Spring Tour, which included stops for masterclasses at the University of Georgia, First United Methodist Church in Valdosta, Ga., and the University of Florida. The students were able to squeeze in a trip to Universal Studios and led in the Sunday worship service at Northlake Presbyterian Church before heading back to campus. According to Baylor's Director of Choral Music Vic Oakes, the annual tour is an opportunity for members to represent Baylor beyond the campus, provides affirmation and critique outside of the Baylor family, and allows students to visit college campuses where choral singing may be a part of their college experience regardless of what major they may choose. "The members of our choir demonstrated magnanimitas far beyond the concert stage," said Mr. Oakes. "While acknowledging our students' considerable musical talents, several of our clinicians also commented on how responsive they were to suggestions and critique 'a sign of certain maturity and a desire to know more,' according to one college professor." The Concert Choir also performed at the J. B. Lyle Choral Festival at the Center for Creative Arts in Chattanooga on March 15 and received a rating of "superior," the highest score given at the event, from all three performance judges. One judge complimented the group, "Outstanding work and a very musical performance of strong literature." In addition, the choir received the top score in sight-reading, where they performed rhythmic and harmonic musical excerpts at sight with just a brief study period. The Concert Choir will present its annual spring concert in Alumni Chapel on May 13. Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak and Azerbaijani Minister of Energy Parviz Shahbazov discussed in Baku the possibility of supplying Russian oil to the STAR refinery in Turkey, owned by SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state company, Azerbaijan's Energy Ministry reported. The meeting was held as part of the meeting of the Monitoring Committee of OPEC Ministers and non-cartel countries, which will be held in Baku on March 18. The ministers discussed measures to preserve stability in the global oil market within OPEC+, the state of implementation of the December agreement, as well as the bilaterial energy cooperation. Alexander Novak informed about measures to reduce oil production in Russia. According to him, to determine the next steps in the global oil market, it would be advisable to hold a discussion in May. Speaking about trends in the oil market, Parviz Shahbazov stressed the importance of continuing cooperation in order to maintain price stability. In addition. the sides also discussed the coordination of the Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran energy system, the transportation of oil to Russia, the Turkish Stream project and other issues. The parties agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding to strengthen and further develop cooperation. Chattanooga National Cemetery will hold a Vietnam War 50th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony to thank and honor veterans of the Vietnam War. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 27 at 10 a.m. at the Chattanooga National Cemetery Pavilion. Mr. Bill Norton, Vietnam War veteran, USMC, will be the keynote speaker."The Department of Veterans Affairs Chattanooga National Cemetery will honor the service, sacrifice, and enduring achievements of the Armed Forces in a 50th Anniversary event," officials said."The event will commemorate Vietnam War veterans and include a pinning ceremony to all Vietnam veterans in attendance that have not been previously been pinned. There will be a wreath placed to honor the Vietnam Era veterans. The City of Chattanooga will make a Proclamation noted that March 29 will be National Vietnam Veterans Day."The lapel pins will be presented in a dignified manner to each Vietnam veteran during the event, and include accompanying remarks to reflect the nations thanks for their service and sacrifice." Southern Adventist University will host the Choir of Clare College for a performance on Saturday, March 30, at 7 p.m. in the Collegedale Church of Seventh-day Adventists, 4829 College Dr. E. in Collegedale. "Based in Cambridge, England, the Choir of Clare College has gained an international reputation as one of the worlds leading university choirs," organizers said. "Under the direction of Graham Ross, this mixed-voice choir keeps an active schedule of recording, broadcasting and performing. Since it was founded in 1972, the group has traveled the world extensively, sharing it gift of song on nearly every continent." This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 423-236-2814. Senators Lamar Alexander and Tom Carper (D-Del.) today urged the Trump Administration to withdraw a proposed rule that could lead to changes to the Environmental Protection Agencys Mercury Rule. The senators said that the proposed rule could lead to the undoing of the Mercury Rule, which they say is critical to protect our children and families from dangerous mercury pollution. Other senators joining the letter were Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).We strongly oppose any action that could lead to the undoing of the Mercury Rule (the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Rule).We write to urge you to withdraw the Environmental Protection Agencys (EPA) December 27, 2018, proposal that finds it is no longer appropriate and necessary to regulate mercury and air toxic emissions from coal and oil fired power plants which could lead to the undoing of the rule. Mercury is a deadly toxin that harms the development of fetuses and children. It makes no sense to take any action that could lead to the weakening of mercury emission standards, the letter stated.In a letter sent today to EPAs Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, the senators say they support the Mercury Rule because cleaner air means better health, a better economy and better jobs for the residents of our state.As a result of the Mercury Rule, power plants are emitting nearly 90 percent less mercury than a decade ago and we are already seeing the public health benefits. We agree with EPAs decision to keep the Mercury Rule in place. We believe it is critical to protect our children and our families from dangerous mercury pollution, the letter also stated.The full text of the letter is available here The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (the Mercury Rule) was finalized in February 2012 to reduce emissions of toxic air pollutants from power plants. In June 2012, Senators Alexander and Carper voted to support the Mercury Rule on the Senate floor. The EPA released a proposed rule on December 27, 2018, to revise regulations related to the Mercury Rule.Several health and medical organizations in Tennessee support the Mercury Rule, including the American Lung Association in Tennessee, the American Academy of Pediatrics Tennessee chapter, the Mental Health America of the MidSouth, Physicians for Responsibility Tennessee chapter, Rural Health Association of Tennessee, Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians, Tennessee Association of Adult Day Services, Tennessee Charitable Care Network, Tennessee Nurses Association, Tennessee Primary Care Association, Tennessee Public Health Association and the Tennessee Society for Respiratory Care. Chattanooga State Community College will host its second annual Student Film Festival on March 28-30. All events are free and open to the public. The festival will commence on campus in room C-30 in the Center for Advanced Technology on Thursday, March 28, with the screening of international film, Kedi, a documentary that details the daily activities of the many feral cats living in Istanbul, Turkey. Free food from Kabob-ster will be served at 4 p.m., with the film starting at 4:30 p.m. Following the screening, industry expert, Bo Wheeler, will discuss strategies for creating a successful documentary. The festival hosts student film screening downtown at The Palace Theater on Friday, March 29. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with plenty of time to network and grab some concession snacks before the films begin screening at 7 p.m. Audience members also will have a chance to cast their votes for this years Audience Award. The festival will culminate in an awards ceremony, cash prizes, and a panel discussion on Saturday, March 30, at 6:30 p.m. back on campus in C-30. Prizes will be given for Best Short Film, Best Short Documentary, Best Music Video, The Chattanooga State Honor Award, and The Audience Award. Free food and drinks will be served throughout the evening. This event will also include a special panel discussion with Lisa Stark, Elijah Piersaul, and Christian Eaves on how to break into the film industry. For more details on this years festival including times and locations, visit https://www.facebook.com/ChStateFilmFest/. Direct any questions to sarah.page@chattanoogastate.edu. The Chattanooga trucking firm headed by Joseph Lipsey III, who was arrested on charges of supplying cocaine and alcohol to teens, has reiterated that he will have no management or ownership role with the firm going forward. Lipsey was arrested on serious federal felony charges along with his wife and 19-year-old son relating to teen parties at Aspen, Col. It was speculated that some of the firm's lucrative disaster supply contracts with the federal government might be in jeopardy in the wake of the high-profile arrests. Lipsey officials said Monday, "Effective immediately, Johnny Jones has been named Chief Executive Officer of Lipsey Logistics and as Chief Executive Officer of Lipsey Trucking. The position is a permanent one. Mr. Jones will also continue in his current roles as President and Chief Operations Officer of Lipsey Logistics. "Joseph Lipsey III, the companys former Chief Executive Officer, has relinquished his management roles and ownership shares in the company in light of personal allegations against him and members of his family. While the allegations relate to personal matters and have nothing to do with our business, the company takes them seriously and does not wish for them to distract from our operations. Mr. Lipsey has transferred all of his voting shares in the company to Mr. Jones. In the past, Mr. Lipsey was principally an investor in the company and has never been involved in its day-to-day operations. Regardless, we would like to assure the public that his exit from the business is immediate and permanent, and that he will have no ownership of or control over the companies going forward. "Additionally, we are pleased to announce that in October 2019, John White, current President of Lipsey Transport and former President of U.S. Xpress, will step in to backfill the role of President of Lipsey Logistics. Mr. White brings extensive knowledge and experience in the trucking and transportation space, having served in a variety of senior operational and marketing roles at U.S. Xpress over the course of a number of years. "Despite recent news media reports about this management change, this message contains the most accurate current information about Lipsey Logistics. We will also be sharing any future important information about the company directly on our website. "We value our customers and sincerely appreciate the trust they place in our company. We are committed as ever to delivering the high-quality services they expect and deserve." Elizabeth Olsen and Danai Gurira both portray major characters in Marvels Avengers: Infinity War. However, while most known for sharing the screen as Scarlet Witch and Okoye respectively, they also share a common history. So, what exactly do the two scintillating supers have in common? Elizabeth Olsen and Danai Gurira both attended the same elite institution: NYU. More specifically, they studied at NYUs Tisch School of the Arts. Joining the ranks of other famous alumni, such as James Franco, Alec Baldwin, and Lady Gaga, its no surprise that these two are so convincing in their respective roles. Elizabeth Olsen Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage Via Getty | Danai Gurira Photo by Matthew Sperzel/Getty Images NYU Tisch is one of the most competitive college programs in existence. With a 26% acceptance rate, the college rivals schools like University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Brigham Young University, Northeastern University, and the University of Virginia. Several alumni from NYU Tisch have gone on to become some of the most celebrated actors, musicians, and directors in the industry. Elizabeth Olsen: from NYU to movie star Elizabeth Olsen graduated from Campbell High School in North Hollywood, California before going on to study at NYU. Olsen studied at NYU intermittently over the course of six years and graduated in 2013. While mostly spending her time studying at NYU, Olsen also spent a semester studying in Moscow at the Moscow Arts Theatre School a the Eugene ONeill Theatre Center. The theatre is named after the famous playwright behind The Iceman Cometh which recently appeared on Broadway with Denzel Washington in the title role and Long Days Journey Into Night, which was on Broadway starring Jessica Lange in 2016. Elizabeth Olsen got her big break as Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron; however, she had previously appeared in Old Boy, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Very Good Girls. Elizabeth Olsen, with former training and an impressive run as an Avenger under her belt, likely has a successful acting future in her cards. Avengers placed this talented actress on the map, yet distant from her fashion designer sisters she was previously often tied to. Danai Gurira: Macalester College to NYU to celebrity Danai Gurira, unlike Elizabeth Olsen, did not complete her Bachelors degree at NYU; instead, she first attended Macalester College and received her BA in Psychology. Danai Gurirr attended NYU for her Masters of Fine Arts degree in Acting. Gurira made her acting debut in 2009 on Broadway. Starring in August Wilsons famous play Joe Turners Come and Gone, she portrayed Martha Pentecost. Danai Gurira, though widely known for her role Avengers: Infinity War, wrote and starred in several plays before appearing on the silver screen as Okoye in Black Panther. Gurira is the playwright behind Familiar and Eclipse, the latter of which Lupita Nyongo starred in at The Public Theatre in 2015. Gurira has also starred in the television series The Visitor, and you may recognize her from the popular film Ghost Town or My Soul to Take. Chris Evans sister attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts too (not an Avenger, but close) Carly Evans, Captain Americas sister, attended NYUs Tisch School of the Arts and now teaches high school drama and English at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High school, which is where Chris Evans attended high school before going off to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Given that Evans plans to direct movie movies in the upcoming future, and his sister is clearly a talent to be reckoned with, maybe we will get to see a movie starring the Evans siblings in the near future. Scott Evans (brother to Chris and Carly) acts as well, so maybe this family will become the Baldwins of the 21st century! Many have said that Five Feet Apart is set to be the new Fault In Our Stars. The 2019 film will introduce yet another teen couple who fall in love but experience tragedy when physical illness gets in the way. Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse in Five Feet Apart | via Instagram Though this type of love story is not the ideal situation, it was for one couple who is said to be the inspiration behind this film. The film surrounds two teens who find love in a hospital Just five years after the release of the heartwrenching love story, The Fault in Our Stars, another film about two teenagers battling illnesses who find love is making us feel that same type of heartbreak. Five Feet Apart tells the story of Will Newman and Stella Grant (played by Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson). The two teenagers both have cystic fibrosis, a chronic genetic disorder that affects the lungs and limits a persons ability to breathe over time. Will and Stella meet in the corridor of the hospital they are both receiving treatment at and instantly feel a connection. Even though they like each other, they are not permitted to get within five feet of one another. Though they want to be able to touch, patients with cystic fibrosis must keep their distance from each other in order to avoid cross contamination. With this story only being a fiction , this genetic disorder affected a real-life couple who did not let their cancer get in the way of their love. This film is very similar to a highly publicized love story Just like Hazel and Gus in The Fault in Our Stars, Will and Stella resemble a real-life couple who made headlines a few years back as cancer patients who fell in love. 18-years-olds Katie Donovan and Dalton Prager met each other in 2009 on a Facebook page for those suffering from cystic fibrosis. They instantly fell hard for one another and constantly sent each other love messages on Faceboo k since they were not able to meet in person due to the risk of cross-contamination. In Dalton case, the risk of contamination was heightened since he suffered from Burkholderia cepacia, a bacteria resistant to antibiotics that can lead to lung function decline. In Five Feet Apart, Will has the same infection as Dalton and doctors continue to urge him to stay away from Stella. Doctors urged Katie not to meet Dalton, but she ended up doing so anyway. Dalton and his mother drove six hours from their home in Missouri to Kentucky so he could meet Katie for the very first time. My heart was racing, but I just went right up to him and hugged and kissed him on the mouth without even saying hello, she said about that day. Im usually not that kind of girl, but it just felt so right. For their first date, Katie and Dalton spent a few hours having fun at an amusement park in Ohio. Though they had the best time together, Katie soon contracted Burkholderia cepacia from Dalton. Their love continued until their final days Even though Katie ended up contract ing the infection from Dalton, that did not stop them from continuing their relationship. In 2011, two years after their first date, Katie and Dalton married and bought a house together in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. The couple lived happily together and even remained relatively healthy for the next few years. I knew that there was a possibility that we would get sicker and something could happen, Katie told People. I just told Dalton Id rather have somebody that I was totally in love with for five years, than be either lonely or not as happy with somebody for 20 years. In 2014, both Katie and Dalton entered the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center due to the infection in their lungs worsening. On November 17, Dalton received a lung transplant and Katie received her transplant a few months later. Daltons was doing well at first but eventually developed lymphoma. Katies procedure did not go as well as Daltons and she eventually started receiving hospice care at her home in Kentucky. Though Dalton overcame Burkholderia cepacia, he was soon hospitalized in Missouri with pneumonia and a viral infection. He was soon put on a ventilator. Daltons family wanted to find a way for him to be transferred to a hospital in Kentucky in order for him to be closer to Katie, but Dalton was just too weak. On September 17, 2016, Dalton Prager died at the hospital in Missouri while Katie was speaking to him on FaceTime. Just five days later, Katie passed away. Before Katie died, she knew her and Daltons love story was one that needed to be shared with the world. She knew that their story would live on for years to come all because of the joy and happiness the gave each other. I think that if we had gotten the chance to write a book that it would have been a bestseller, Katie said. And they lived happily ever after, in each others arms for eternity. The countdown is on for the birth of Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys first child! The royal baby will be here before we know it, and fans simply cannot wait to see how many of their predictions come true in regards to the babys name, gender, and birth weight. Being born into the royal family definitely comes with many honors and privileges that Meghan and Harrys baby will experience from the start. However, many fans may not realize that the life of Baby Sussex will be a little different than the lives of Prince William and Kate Middletons kids. So, how exactly will the life of Meghan and Harrys baby differ from the lives of the Cambridge children? Baby Sussex may not have a royal title The Cambridge kids, George, Charlotte, and Louis are famously known as Princes and Princesses. When Baby Sussex arrives, chances are, he or she will not be given a royal title. The reason for this is because Harry is not a future king. While it is true that he is sixth in line to be the monarch, chances are, he will never take the throne. His place in line will be pushed even further back in the future when the Cambridge children become parents themselves. The baby will not grow up in London As most people already know, Meghan and Harry are renovating Frogmore Cottage, located near their wedding venue in Windsor about 40 miles outside of London. This will allow their child to be raised in a quieter setting, outside of the hustle and bustle of the city. The new royal baby will be able to enjoy the English countryside and experience life in the small, quaint town of Windsor, away from London and somewhat out of the public eye. Meghan and Harry may not hire a nanny Prince William and Kate Middleton have extremely busy schedules, so although they are very hands-on parents, having a nanny is a necessity due to their many royal duties and obligations. Although Prince Harry and Meghan have full schedules themselves, it is thought that they are considering having Meghans mother, Doria Ragland, look after the baby when they are not able to do so themselves. This would be a definite first for senior members of the royal family since Prince William and Harry had a nanny themselves when growing up. However, with Doria reportedly being over the moon about the arrival of her first grandchild, it is really no surprise that she wants to help out in any way she can! Baby Sussex will have a much more private life While the Cambridge children have been seen on occasion at public events, this will not be the case for Meghan and Harrys baby. Chances are, he or she will be kept out of the spotlight as much as possible, not appearing at as many events as William and Kates children have in the past. Given that Prince George is a future king, it was highly expected that Will and Kate introduce him to the world shortly after he was born, and they followed suit with their other two children as well. Since baby Sussex will be seventh in line to the throne, not many people are expecting to see Meghan and Harry emerge on the hospital steps immediately following the babys arrival. It is thought that they may very well keep certain things private until they feel ready to release details. We certainly cant wait to meet Baby Sussex! Meghan and Harry are both famously great with kids, and they are sure to make excellent parents themselves. No matter which type of parenting style they decide on, their baby is sure to have a wonderful upbringing, unique and perfect in Meghan and Harrys own way! If youve been paying attention to rumors that Angelina Jolie is making plans for a French wedding with an uber-wealthy Brit, forget them. More than one tabloid has falsely announced an upcoming marriage for the Maleficent star, and none of them are correct. Heres whats really going on: Bogus reports to ignore A recent Life & Style magazine cover story proposed the outlandish idea that thrice-married Jolie was about to tie the knot with a mystery man at Chateau Miraval, her home in France where she exchanged vows with Thelma and Louise actor Brad Pitt back in 2014. The bogus tipster who supplied L&S with the story offered details that were close enough to truth to be believable. But they werent, so investigative reporters at Gossip Cop went to work to refute -or confirm- the story. According to Gossip Cops insider source, the L&S story is 100 percent not true and Jolie is, in fact, focusing on her career while raising six kids as a single mom. Interestingly, Gossip Cop busted the same tabloid back in October for touting rumors that Jolie was romantically involved with Jennifer Anistons estranged husband, Justin Theroux. If it were true, it would be the second time that the raven-haired actress became intimately involved with someone the Friends star was married to. But, it wasnt. A penchant for co-stars (and her moms boyfriend) Angelina Jolie Voight was born into an acting oriented family in Los Angeles on June 4, 1975. Jolie evinced an interest in following her actor parents footsteps at a young age. When she was just 11 years old, Jolie was admitted to the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in West Hollywood. As a teen, Jolie spent time in Manhattan where she studied various aspects of film making at New York University before returning to Los Angeles and hooking up with the Met Theatre Group. In 2009, the UK Daily Mail previewed the contents of a new book by Andrew Morton in which the author claimed that Jolie bedded her mothers live-in boyfriend when she was just 16 years old. According to the unauthorized biography, when Jolie confessed the affair to her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, it ruined their relationship forever. Bertrand passed away in 2007 due to complications of ovarian cancer. She was 56 years old. By 1993, Jolie was making her way up the Hollywood ladder to stardom. She made an uncredited appearance in a Lemonheads video, Its About Time and acted in several short films, as well. During the filming of Hackers, Jolie became entangled with her co-star, Jonny Lee Miller. The on-set affair ultimately led to the sultry actress first marriage in March 1996. Three years later, Jolie called off the marriage and filed for divorce. She did not remain unattached for long, however. The same year Jolie split with Miller, she met Slingblade star, Billy Bob Thornton, on the set of Pushing Tin. At the time, Thornton was engaged to Laura Dern and Jolie was dating her Playing God costar, Timothy Hutton. Jolie and Thornton called off their respective relationships and married in Las Vegas on May 5, 2000. The couple adopted a child from Cambodia in 2002, but the marriage ended in 2003. The following year, Jolie fell for yet another co-star, Brad Pitt, on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Each denied romantic involvement at the time, but paparazzi pics blew the secret and Pitts then-wife, Jennifer Aniston, filed for divorce. Pitt and Jolie were married in France on August 23, 2014. Is Angelina married to anyone at the moment? Yes and no. Although the couple dubbed Brangelina made a very public split in September 2016 and have not lived together since, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are still legally married. Its official, our favorite foursome is splitting up only, its not as dramatic as it might seem. In the midst of on-going feud rumors, Buckingham Palace confirmed the official split between Prince William and Prince Harrys royal courts last week. Now, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle must part ways with Kensington Palace for good. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage Prince William and Prince Harrys Kensington Palace split Since October 2018, speculations surrounding a royal split have caused quite a frenzy. And, now, with confirmation from the royal family, Prince William and Prince Harry have made their final decision. According to reports, the royal brothers plan to separate their courts as Prince William prepares for his future responsibilities in the royal family. Although we hate to believe it, Prince William and Prince Harrys split was inevitable. The two have very different roles in the royal family and it doesnt make sense for them to share a royal court. Instead, they will forge their own royal courts with duties more in line with their current (and future) royal duties. Prince William and Kate Middletons royal court will continue to focus on specific royal responsibilities as they prepare to become the Prince and Princess of Wales (and, one day, King and Queen Consort). Similarly, Prince Harry and Meghan Markles royal court will continue to focus on their philanthropy efforts. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex originally wanted to separate their court completely from the royal family. However, Queen Elizabeth vetoed their request and insisted they cut ties with Kensington Palace and operate out of Buckingham Palace going forward. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle plan to make Buckingham Palace their London home The Duke and Duchess of Sussexs new Windsor residence, Frogmore Cottage will be their full-time family home. However, theyll need a place to stay when working in London. Since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle no longer call Kensington Palace home base, they must part ways with their beloved Nottingham Cottage (where the couple has lived together since their engagement). According to reports, they will instead move their London residence to Buckingham Palace with other part-time city residents, including Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, and Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex. That said, Buckingham Palace is currently undergoing a massive renovation, which has required some royal residents to move out of their part-time pad. Prince Edwards and Sophie, Countess of Wessex plan to live nearby at St. Jamess Palace for the time being. Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, and other royals impacted by the renovation must also move out. The renovations on Buckingham Palaces East Wing begin in April 2019, which means that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle probably wont move into the abode any time soon. However, their staff might still operate out of the royal family headquarters, accompanying the 120 staff members in the palaces West Attic (known as The Footmans Floor) which was recently updated to an open-plan office space. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! The OPEC and non-OPEC countries fulfilled their obligations to reduce oil production, according to the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) communique, seen by Vestnik Kavkaza. The 13th meeting of the OPEC/non-OPEC JMMC was held in Baku today. The Committee discussed the monthly report prepared by its Joint Technical Committee (JTC), as well as recent developments in the global oil market and current prospects for the remaining period of 2019. The Committee recalled the crucial role played by the Declaration of Cooperation in helping maintain market balance and stability since December 2016, and noted the commitments made by all member countries to ensure future stability on an ongoing basis, given that the level of compliance with the oil output cut deal reached almost 90% this February, compared with 83% in January, the document says. The JMMC acknowledged the current uncertainties around the oil market during 2019 and stressed that all countries participating in the OPEC+ agreement are responsible for restoring market stability and preventing any imbalance. All participating countries individually and collectively assured the Committee that they would voluntarily reduce oil production in the coming months. The JMMC also called on all member countries, including those not present at today's meeting, to reach full and long-term agreement on their voluntary regulation of production, according to decisions taken at the 175th meeting of the OPEC conference on December 6, 2018 and at the 5th OPEC and non-OPEC ministerial meeting on December 7, 2018. Moreover, a recommendation was adopted to postpone the OPEC ministerial meeting to May before the OPEC conference, which will be held on June 25. The committee also supported the planned production cuts in Brunei, Ecuador and Malaysia., as well as welcomed new members - Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the UAE.. The committee also thanked Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for his generous hospitality and noted his invaluable support for the Declaration of Cooperation. Baku's unique role in the history of the oil industry was emphasized and gratitude was expressed to all representatives of Azerbaijan who took part in the preparation of the meeting, in particular, to Minister of Energy Parviz Shahbazov. According to the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, Minister of Energy, Industry and Natural Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid Abdulaziz Al-Falih, speaking at the press conference, cited Azerbaijan as an example of the country which fulfills the OPEC+ deal. He noted that it is not only a matter of volumes, but also that of a very active participation of Azerbaijan. "I am sure that Azerbaijan will always be one of the leaders of the deal, especially after we endorse the OPEC+ Charter. We are always happy to welcome new participants and hope that Azerbaijan, with its intrinsic pragmatism, will help us attract new countries," the minister said. "As a minister of Saudi Arabia, I want to say that we are always interested in cooperating with Azerbaijan. We discussed it with President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday during the bilateral talks," Al-Falih said. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are officially parting ways with Kensington Palace. Last week, the royal family announced the split between Prince William and Prince Harrys courts and the royal brothers are due to part ways this spring. As part of their royal split, the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs current staff will allegedly remain at Kensington Palace under Prince William and Kate Middletons royal court, as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have hired new staff, who will work out of Buckingham Palace. While their new team has yet to be announced, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have allegedly already hired Sara Latham as Head of Communications. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have a new Head of Communications. | Samir Hussein/WireImage Who is Sara Latham? We take a closer look at her work history and her new role in the royal family, ahead. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle hired Sara Latham as their Head of Communications Its no secret that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have more liberal beliefs and their newest staff member proves it. According to royal commentator, Omid Scobie, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex hired Sara Latham, former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. Latham will report directly to Queen Elizabeths Communications Secretary, Donal McCabe. Sara Latham (former senior advisor on @HillaryClinton's 2016 US presidential campaign) has been appointed to head up comms for Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan, reporting directly to The Queens Communication Secretary. Omid Scobie (@scobie) March 14, 2019 The former campaign advisor left a recently-appointed role at Freuds, where she was in charge of global corporate accounts and put emphasis on executive thought leadership. Prince Harry and Meghan Markles new head of communications has dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom and has worked with several important figureheads, including former United States president, Barack Obama. According to Scobie, Latham was hired in 2008 as a transition official for the then president-elect. Additionally, Prince Harry and Meghan Markles new staff member also helped organize Bill Clintons re-election campaign in the 90s and also has experience with Tony Blair. The Milken Institute confirms she is one of few Americans to have served as a political appointee in both the US and UK governments. Harry and Meghans household office will be based at Buckingham Palace and their staff will also form part of communications team there. Full @RoyalFamily statement below pic.twitter.com/gHiwqtExy9 Omid Scobie (@scobie) March 14, 2019 Those close to Latham describe her as very smart and very good at dealing with difficult characters, The Daily Mail reports. She is also very diplomatically adept and not in it for the money, her former colleague explained. Sara Lathams salary Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are paying top dollar for their newest staff addition. According to The Daily Mail, their new Head of Communications has an alleged salary of 140,000 or $185,000. The royal couple was apparently quite impressed by her experience and appreciate her firm but fair approach, a source told the publication. How did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet Sara Latham? Some believe George Clooney introduced Sara Latham to his royal friends. | Chris Jackson/Getty Images Sara Latham has worked with her fair share of politicians and world leaders. But, how did the new royal Head of Communications land a job at Buckingham Palace? The Daily Mail reports that George Clooney might have played a part in their introduction. Clooney and his wife, Amal, are close friends of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Additionally, the American actor helped raise money for Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. His connection to her campaign which Latham was heavily involved in leads the outlet to believe that Clooney might have had something to do with their introduction. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Last week, Buckingham Palace confirmed the rumored split between Prince William and Prince Harrys royal courts. Since October 2018, royal experts and fans alike have suspected a separation between the royal brothers, ahead of Meghan Markles due date this spring. That said, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex didnt get the deal they were hoping for. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle asked for independence from the royal family Queen Elizabeth denied Prince Harry and Meghan Markle royal freedom.| Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images Throughout their discussions with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Prince William, and other royals involved in the split, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle allegedly proposed total independence from the royal family. They wanted their household to be entirely independent of Buckingham Palace, but were told no, a source dished to The Sunday Times. There is an institutional structure that doesnt allow that kind of independence. The feeling is that its good to have the Sussexes under the jurisdiction of Buckingham Palace, so they cant just go off and do their own thing. Additionally, the source added that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex proposed total royal freedom, but the queen denied their wishes. After cutting ties with Kensington Palace (and Prince William and Kate Middleton), Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will base their household out of Buckingham Palace. They will likely also have staff in their full-time home, Frogmore Cottage, as thats where they plan to spend most of their time. Prince William and Prince Harrys Kensington Palace split An official split between Prince William and Prince Harry doesnt necessarily mean the royal brothers are feuding. In fact, its quite the opposite. With their current and future roles in the royal family, the Duke of Cambridge and Duke of Sussexs responsibilities have grown apart from each other, which is why an official royal split makes sense. Prince William is entering a new phase of his royal life and needs to spend as much time as possible learning from the queen and his father, Prince Charles. Contrarily, Prince Harry has turned much of his royal duties to philanthropy and he and Meghan Markle plan to focus their efforts there. Will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle move to Buckingham Palace? Moving their office and headquarters to Buckingham Palace doesnt mean the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have to move as well. They will continue on with plans to make Frogmore Cottage their main place of residence but likely settle into Buckingham Palace as a part-time abode whenever they are in town for royal engagements, meetings, and other official business. That said, renovations on Buckingham Palaces East Wing where royal family members live start this April and many residents have already (or are planning to) moved out temporarily. The renovation comes at a perfect time, as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle plan to take time off for maternity and paternity leave. If the East Wing is not ready by the time they are due back in London, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might join Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, and other Buckingham Palace inhabitants down the road at St. Jamess Palace for the time being. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Chris Harrison wasnt kidding when he said this past season of The Bachelor was the shows most shocking season yet. The drama that occurred between Cassie and Colton will certainly go down in Bachelor history books. Cassie and Colton | Randy Holmes via Getty Images The real reason Colton returned to The Bachelor after he jumped the fence The most dramatic evening of Coltons season of The Bachelor took place on his fantasy suite date with Cassie. Just before the date, her dad flew into Portugal to talk with her about her relationship with Colton. The conversation led her to decide to break up with Colton that night. Partway into their date, Cassie told Colton that she was leaving the show. Colton was, understandably, hugely upset, and jumped a fence to escape the shows crew. He recently told People Magazine in an interview that the only reason he returned after the infamous fence jump was to break up with Tayshia and Hannah G. The person I fell in love with and wanted to be with was gone. I didnt see a purpose in continuing. There was no room in my heart for anybody but Cassie. The only reason I came back was out of respect for the other two women. I had to do what was right and have that tough conversation, he said. Cassie didnt feel right about her breakup with Colton Cassie says she felt horrible after breaking up with Colton; she felt no relief. When Colton appeared at her door shortly after the breakup, she said she felt incredibly understood and heard. The day after I left, I was a mess. I had no sense of relief. I was just heartbroken, and I did think he could possibly be engaged to one of the other two women, and that hurt to think about. When he came back, I was shocked. But it felt nice that he understood where I was coming from and were here today because we took it at our own pace, she said in the interview with People. We didnt want to rush something that was going to be forever. Colton doesnt resent Cassie for the breakup Its been apparent for a while now how much Colton loves Cassie. But he knows that people move at different paces in a relationship. The last thing he does is resent Cassie for not being ready for an engagement. In any relationship, there are times when someone loves somebody more than the other. There are going to be days when I have a bad day and dont give her the love she deserves, and shes going to pick it up for me and give it to me in return. Cassie and Colton are thankful for their complicated story Even though their road to love has been a bumpy one, both Colton and Cassie wouldnt change their story. I wouldnt change anything. Everything that happened got us to where we are now, said Cassie. As for Colton, he simply did what he had to do. Cassie leaving was one of those moments that was bigger than the show itself. It was about the rest of my life, and I found someone I couldnt picture my life without, said the former bachelor. Read more: The Bachelor: Demi Was the Star of Women Tell All Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! The names of Hannah B.s Bachelorette contestants were recently released, and it seems there may be a bad egg in the bunch. Matt Dione, from Winter Springs, Florida, has been accused of repeatedly harassing Twitter user @SamSmithburger. Hannah Brown | John Fleenor via Getty Images Sam Smithburger says Matt Dione relentlessly hit up her DMs for two years This guy used to dm me on insta consistently for like 2 years and now hes a contestant on the new Bachelorette lmao, she tweeted on March 15, along with supposed screenshots of their one-sided conversation. This guy used to dm me on insta consistently for like 2 years and now hes a contestant on the new Bachelorette lmao pic.twitter.com/bhUuZsTKQG sam smithburger (@SamSmithburger) March 16, 2019 He also replied to one of her Instagram story selfies with Seriously? as in, Seriously? Youre going to post hot selfies and not reply to my messages because I am a creepy entitled man? reported Refinery. Because if a woman shows signs of being alive and well, as is evident in her story selfie, she owes you a conversation. A few other women chimed in and said they know Dione and arent surprised A few Twitter users responded to the screenshot with their own alleged personal experiences with Dione. I used to work with him n went on a few dates& he was crazy !!! I was 19 at the time & he was trying to get me a fake ID so he could lie to his friends abt my age & still responds to my friends snap stories when Im on them saying how Im a bitch &think Im better than everyone, wrote @ames033. Also looking at these receipts..I dated him towards the end of 2017 very beginning of 2018 and this is around the time he was messaging her responded @VicMoheb. Hannah B. isnt afraid to let out the beast We all know Hannah B. from Coltons season of The Bachelor, where she was an awkward southern former beauty pageant winner who liked to keep it real. But, as we learned on The Bachelor, under all that southern charm is a beast: Hannah Beast. When Hannah B. went on The Ellen Show, Ellen DeGeneres called the persona Hannahs alter ego. DeGeneres also asked Hannah B. if the beast would be making an appearance on The Bachelorette. Oh for sure, she replied. I cant wait actually to unleash the beast on some jabroni. Looks like Hannah B. may just get her chance to sick the beast on jabroni Dione. The Bachelorette has had problems with its male contestants in recent years The Bachelorette has a problem with letting problematic men on the show On the last season of The Bachelorette, contestants Leo Dottavio and Lincoln Adim were accused of sexual assault. Adim was actually convicted of indecent assault and battery. It was revealed that Garrett Yrigoyen, the winner of Becca Kufrins season, had been known to post and like sexist and racist content on his social accounts. Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss responded last year to the fact that abusive a******* keep getting put on the show. For the record, I am horrified that any of these abusive assholes are on our shows. We are working very hard to find ways to do better. Mike Fleiss (@fleissmeister) June 24, 2018 Abusive a******* may make for good television, but at the cost of The Bachelorettes safety and well-being? Two months isnt a lot of time to get to know someone (the length of The Bachelorette process). Hannah B. and other future Bachelorettes could potentially end up with bad, or dangerous, people if the show doesnt start vetting their contestants better. Read more: The Bachelor: Colton Knew That Cassie Loved Him All Along Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! JOS, Nigeria, March 18, 2019 (Morning Star News) Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed 10 Christians in southern Kaduna state, Nigeria on Saturday (March 16), bringing the lives lost in the past five weeks to 140 with 160 houses destroyed, sources said. We were all asleep in our various homes when at about 4 a.m. [Saturday], we heard gunshots everywhere in my village, Amos Samuel, 40, of Nandu Gbok village in Sanga County told Morning Star News. Everyone ran out of their homes to escape from the Fulani herdsmen. Three hours after the herdsmen left, those of us who survived the attack returned to the village to find that our houses were destroyed and 10 of our villagers killed. About 30 houses were burned in the attack, Sanga chairman Charles Danladi told Morning Star News, who also said 10 people were killed. The attack occurred while the villagers were still sleeping, he said. Normalcy has now been restored in the village, and we are making efforts to assist victims. Shehu Nicholas Garba, a member of Nigerias parliament, the National Assembly, and a resident of the area, said in a press statement that about 10 people were killed and about 30 houses were burned. Our communities are helpless and are pleading that all persons of conscience should speak out, Garba said. The Kaduna governors spokesman said Saturday night (March 16) that nine people died in the attack. The security agencies have so far recovered nine corpses, including children, Samuel Aruwan said in a press statement. Violence has left an unacceptable toll of death and injury, loss of livelihoods, pain and fear. The government condemns this attack on the life and security of citizens and appeals to our communities to resist those who do not want peace. Security agencies have been deployed in the area, and the State Emergency Management Agency has been directed to immediately provide relief materials to the affected community, Aruwan said. 130 Killed Previously In Kajuru County, also in southern Kaduna state, Muslim Fulani herdsmen have killed 130 Christians since Feb. 10, sources said. Ungwan Barde village was attacked twice, resulting in the killing of 28 people, said Luke Waziri, an area attorney and national assistant secretary of the Adara Development Association, an umbrella body of the predominantly Christian Adara ethnic group. Another 102 people were killed in attacks on Karamai, Inkirimi, Dogonnma and Ungwan Gora, he said. Kajuru land and by extension the Adara nation has been gripped by a fully funded and supported group of terrorists that have been wreaking havoc in our lands for long, while those saddled with the responsibility of securing us deliberately looked the other way, Waziri said in a press statement. First, Ungwan Barde was attacked on Feb. 10, 2019, and nobody said anything, even though those in government knew. Furthermore, the government pretended that the 11 people killed didnt matter. The herdsmen next attacked Karamai on Feb. 26, killing 38 people, he said. A resident of Karamai, Paulina Irimiya, confirmed to Morning Star News that Fulani herdsmen attacked while Christians were at a church service, killed at least 32 Christians and burned down 40 houses. While the victims were buried in a mass grave and the injured yet to recover, Waziri said in the press statement, Ungwan Barde village was attacked again on Sunday, March 10. Seventeen people were killed and dozens of houses burned. The next day, Inkirimi and Dogonnoma villages in Maro were attacked, killing 52 people and wounding dozens, he said. The smoke had barely settled when an attack was launched in the evening at Ungwan Gora (Labi Village), with dozens injured and 43 houses burned down, he said. A total of 64 Christians were killed in the villages of Inkirimi, Dogonnma and Ungwan Gora, he said. About 100 homes were destroyed in the attacks, and thousands of people who fled are now moving from one village to the other in search of refuge, Waziri said. In all these, not a single person has been arrested, nor even questioned, he said. This is despite the fact that all the attacks took place either in the morning or in the evening in full glare of everyone. Hundreds of terrorists had time to kill and leave without anyone being caught or apprehended, he said. However, in a strange twist of the application of justice, nine Adara elders and village chiefs were indiscriminately arrested and thrown into the Kaduna prison on allegations of complicity, Waziri said. The victims that have been killed and brutalized are the same ones being arrested and thrown into prison, while the real killers are being pampered, supported and allowed to freely continue their onslaught on people and our land. In the Inkirimi, Dogonnma and Ungwan Gora Communities, 43 houses were destroyed, Waziri said. Christians make up 51.3 percent of Nigerias population, while Muslims living primarily in the north and middle belt account for 45 percent. Nigeria ranked 12th on Open Doors 2019 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution. If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved. If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/donate/? Article originally published by Morning Star News. Used with permission. Photo courtesy: Ovinuchi Ejiohuo/Unsplash LAHORE, Pakistan, March 18, 2019 (Morning Star News) A Christian with a mental disability in Pakistan has been arrested under the countrys blasphemy law after a Muslim neighbor outside his home overheard him arguing inside, sources said. Francis Masih, older brother of 42-year-old Stephen Masih, said that Muslim neighbor Hafiz Mudassir on March 11 burst into their home in Imranpura, Wadiala, Sialkot District, beat the younger brother and accused him of speaking ill of the prophet of Islam after overhearing an argument. At about 7 a.m. Stephen Masih, who belongs to a Pentecostal church, had become embroiled in a heated discussion with a Christian brother-in-law over fasting and praying during Lent when he lost his temper and started shouting loudly, Francis Masih said. This is when Mudassir barged into our house and started beating Stephen without any reason, he told Morning Star News. We told Mudassir that it was not right for him to intervene in our family issue, but he took offense and raised hue and cry in the street, alleging that Stephen had committed blasphemy. Soon a mob gathered outside their house, he said. Mudassir and Mohammad Rafiq, another neighbor, provoked them to attack Stephen, Masih said. They not only beat him up mercilessly but also attacked other family members who tried to save him. Someone called police, and they rescued Stephen Masih from the violent mob, he said. The police took my brother away, and it was after some time that we learned that he had been charged with blasphemy, Masih said, adding that the family has not seen him since his arrest or heard about his condition. We have been running from pillar to post, as we are very worried about his condition, especially since he was ruthlessly beaten up by the mob, but the police are not arranging our meeting. They keep telling us that he is safe and being taken care of. Their mother has not eaten enough or slept well since the arrest, he said. The police should show some mercy for the sake of my mothers health and allow us a meeting, Masih added. Mudassir alleged in the First Information Report (FIR) registered at Badiana Police that he was standing outside his house when he heard Stephen Masih shouting derogatory words about Muhammad. I and another neighbor, Mohammad Rafiq, repeatedly asked Stephen to refrain from uttering blasphemous remarks, but he did not pay heed to our requests, Mudassir said in the FIR. This blasphemous act has caused immense agony to Muslims of the neighborhood, therefore Stephen should be punished as per the law. The FIR was registered under Section 295-C of Pakistans blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for defaming Muhammad. The sub-inspector who registered the case, Mohammad Ashraf, told Morning Star News that police have yet to determine whether the accuseds mental capacity will be a factor. We are investigating the matter, but I cannot yet comment on the familys claim that Stephen is mentally disabled, he said. It is up to the judge to decide once we present him in court. Condition Unknown Francis Masih said his brother has been mentally disabled since birth, but that his condition worsened after the death of their father a little over 17 years ago. The entire locality knows about Stephens mental health status, his brother said, adding that area residents used to tease him, provoking him into quarrels. A doctor had advised them to admit him to a mental health facility, but their mother was unwilling to send him away, Masih said. And now we dont even know where he is being kept and in what condition, he said. Lahore High Court attorney Sardar Mohammad Akhtar told Morning Star News that Section 84 of the Pakistan Penal Code states, Nothing is an offense which is done by a person who, at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law. Intent must be demonstrated for a blasphemy conviction. Pakistans blasphemy laws have long polarized public opinion, with intense emotions leading to assassinations of senior politicians and judges who have advocated for repeal. Critics within Pakistan and in the international community point to the malicious use of the laws to harm minorities, while advocates say the self-proclaimed Islamic nature of the Pakistani state mandates such laws to justify its existence. Although the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has long recommended Pakistan be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), the U.S. State Department had never done so until last November. On Nov. 28, the United States added Pakistan to its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom, the government announced on Dec. 11. Pakistan ranked fifth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2019 World Watch list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved. If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/donate/? Article originally published by Morning Star News. Used with permission. Photo courtesy: Morning Star News A federal judge Friday blocked a Kentucky law that would ban abortions when a heartbeat is detected, ruling that the plaintiffs in the case had shown a strong likelihood of success. The injunction by U.S. District Judge David Hale blocks a law that bans such abortions unless they are required to save a womans life or to prevent substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman. It passed the state Senate, 31-6, and the House, 71-19. Both are controlled by Republicans. GOP Gov. Matt Bevin signed it Friday. The ACLU sued on behalf of Louisvilles EMW Women's Surgical Center, which performs abortions. The fundamental right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right to choose to have an abortion, subject to certain limitations, wrote Hale, who was nominated by President Obama. The Supreme Court, Hale wrote, has stated in no uncertain terms that [r]egardless of whether exceptions are made for particular circumstances, a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability. The temporary injunction expires 14 days from the date it was issued, although Hale by then could release a permanent injunction. Other states, including Arkansas, North Dakota and Iowa, have passed heartbeat bills, only to see them blocked in federal court. The laws findings say the Commonwealth of Kentucky has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of an unborn human individual who may be born. More than 90 percent of pregnancies survive the first trimester if cardiac activity is detected, the findings say. In order to make an informed choice about whether to continue her pregnancy, the pregnant woman has a legitimate interest in knowing the likelihood of the fetus surviving to full-term birth based upon the presence of cardiac activity, the findings say. Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com. Photo courtesy: Pixabay Two bills allowing physician-assisted suicide failed in New Mexico and Arkansas last week. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Rep. Deborah Armstrong (D-Albuquerque) of New Mexico requested to table the HB 90 bill for the 2019 legislative session. At the time, we are just a few votes shy to pass the bill, she said. She and Sen. Elizabeth Stefanics (D-Cerrillos) sponsored the bill. HB 90 would allow patients to end their lives after authorization from two medical providers and a 48 hour waiting period once life-ending drugs had been prescribed, as reported by the Las Cruces Sun News. The Santa Fe New Mexican also included other stipulations of the bill: Patients who had six months or less to live would be required to get two witnesses signatures on the request; doctors must discuss alternatives, such as hospice care; and, a patient must acquire a second opinion. Opponents of this bill include Rep. Gregg Schmedes (R-Tijeras), who believed this bill could allow for abuse from predatory family heirs or others. It allows for the perfect crime, he said. Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, claimed the HB 90 bill was the most extreme assisted suicide bill shed ever seen, according to Life News, because it allowed euthanasia. Death with Dignity, an organization that promotes dignity laws for dying individuals, said, There is an identical companion bill [to HB 90] in the New Mexico State Senate. The bill allows a terminal ill, mentally capable adult the optionto die peacefully in their sleep if their suffering becomes unbearable. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that it is currently a felony to assist a patient in ending life in New Mexico. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that medical aid in dying is not a constitutional right. In Arkansas, Rep. Dan Douglas (R-Bentonville) sponsored a bill to also allow physician-assisted suicide. According to KATV, he said that the bill did not allow euthanasia. It was about giving terminally-ill Arkansans an option. Similar to the bill in New Mexico, Douglas bill would not require doctors or health care facilities to participate in the procedure, according to the Washington Times. The patient would have to ask a doctor twice within 15 days to write a prescription for a lethal-dose of drugs. It would be an exception to Arkansas ban on physician-assisted suicide. The bill failed in the House Public Health Committee when it didnt receive a motion to send to the chamber floor, according to the Washington Times. The Christian Post reports that physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state, the District of Columbia, and Montana. Photo courtesy: Daan Stevens/Unsplash The husband of a human rights attorney in Iran recently announced that his wife has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. 55-year-old Nasrin Sotoudeh faces spending most of the rest of her life in prison and an excruciating lashing simply because she defended seven women who had been arrested for protesting Irans hijab law by removing their head coverings in public. Sotoudehs husband, Reza Kahndan, said that she faced charges of assembly and collusion against national security, propaganda against the state, encouraging corruption and prostitution, appearing at the judiciary without Islamic hijab, disturbing public peace and order, and publishing falsehoods with the intent to disturb public opinion. The Revolutionary Court in Tehran tried her in absentia when she refused to appear because she could not choose her own attorney. She told her husband that she has not received the length of her sentences in writing, but that she faces 5 years for one case and 33 for another. This was not the first time Sotoudehs human rights work drew the ire of Iranian authorities. She was arrested in 2010 and sentenced to six years in prison for activities against national security and propaganda against the regime. She served some time before being released along with 10 other political prisoners just before the Iranian President addressed the United Nations. The government arrested Sotoudeh in her home last June without any explanation for the arrest. She has been held at Evin Prison in Tehran ever since. Global human rights groups condemned Sotoudehs sentence and called for her immediate release in light of the news about her sentence. Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director for Amnesty International, said It is absolutely shocking that Nasrin Sotoudeh is facing nearly four decades in jail and 148 lashes for peaceful human rights work, including her defense of women protesting Irans degrading forced hijab(veiling) laws, He added, Nasrin Sotoudeh must be released immediately and unconditionally and this obscene sentence quashed without delay. European Parliament President Antonio Tajini condemned the sentence as utterly outrageous, saying she has dedicated her life to defending womens rights and speaking against the death penalty. Sotoudeh and Khandan have two young children. Khandan has been posting updates about her situation on Facebook and has not yet been arrested by the government for doing so. Scott Slayton writes at One Degree to Another. Photo courtesy: Pixabay Last Friday, Muslim worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, suffered a terrorist attack at the hands of an avowed white supremacist. 50 people were killed, with another 50 injured. Prior to the attack, the citizen of Australia posted a lengthy manifesto to social media, filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim themes. He then proceeded to livestream the shooting. Some victims originally hailed from Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Given recent attacks on Christians in their places of worship, including many in Muslim nations, CT invited evangelical leaders to weigh in: How should Christians respond to Christchurch? Richard Shumack, director of the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology, Australia: The thing that came to mind immediately is Jesus beatitudes. How should Christians react to Christchurch? With mourning, a hunger for justice, and peacemaking. Christians must mourn with their Muslim brothers and sisters, thirst for the perpetrators of this heinous crime to be brought to justice, and put every possible effort into brokering peace in an age of furious tribalism. I also embrace wholeheartedly the poignant wisdom of Dostoevsky quoted by the Anglican bishop of Wellington, New Zealand: At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of human sins, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide, I will combat it with humble love. If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it. Mark Durie, Anglican pastor from Melbourne, Australia, and author of books on Islam: Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed that to do evil, a human being must first of all believe that what he is doing is good. Brenton Tarrant, the accused Christchurch killer, wrote that his violence was intended to usher in a racial war between whites and immigrants, whom he calls invaders. This law-of-the-jungle genocidal purpose is an utter repudiation of the core of Christianity. Jesus taught the opposite: to love our neighbor as our very selves. In a fitting answer to this hatred, countless expressions of solidarity with the Muslim victims have been coming in from around the globe. Christians living in Muslim countries today are far more likely to be killed for their faith than are Muslims living in the West, yet the teachings of Jesus are an antidote to dogmas of hatred. The true followers of Jesus will be quick to show compassion and care for the suffering victims of this appalling tragedy. Martin Accad, director, Institute of Middle East Studies at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (Lebanon), and associate professor of Islamic Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary: The main thoughts that have been running through my mind after hearing of the New Zealand shootings is that the church has a crucial responsibility to play in this tragedy. Admittedly, the shooters did not claim a Christian worldview or motivation, but rather seem to have been motivated by racism, white supremacy, and xenophobia. However, Christians must search their souls for any contribution they might have made to the current shape of our societies attitude towards Islam and Muslims. Our churches are feeding on too many aggressive, polemical, and fearful writings about Islam and Muslims. Many books written by evangelicals in recent years contribute to fear and xenophobia instead of fighting these feelings and reactions with the loving and peaceful attitude that our Lord Jesus taught us and modeled for us. The church at this juncture has to work aggressively on fighting these perceptions by putting out new research and writing that emphasizes the common ground and heritage of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. We must inaugurate a new trend of thinking and writing that sees Muslims as neighbors, and Islam, its prophet, and its holy book as grounds for dialogue and peace-building in celebration of what unites us and serves as bridges between us. It is on common ground that we will be able to work towards multifaith societies built on coexistence in search for the common good. It is in the context of such societies that we will be able to proclaim the uniqueness of Jesus and his love that attracts us to God and invites us into his salvific Kingdom. John Azumah, professor of World Christianity and Islam, Columbia Theological Seminary, and the Lausanne Movements Catalyst for Islam: I am just heartbroken for the familiesinnocent men, women, and childrenmany of whom fled to New Zealand for refuge, a majority Christian country with all the biblical teaching and injunctions about caring for strangers and the vulnerable. And yet, that was the place 50 of them were slaughtered, in their places of worship. What can anyone, any Christian, say about this except to cry out maranatha (come quickly, Lord!)? As a Christian, I am very worried about the radicalization of Muslims and the discrimination, persecution, and hatred directed towards Christians around the world. But what troubles me more is the way radical Islam is radicalizing Christians along the way. In fact, it seems to me that radical Islam is now defining Christian witness and filling Christians with fear, hatred, and even violence. This is what deeply troubles me. I am not sermonizing that Christians should love Muslims. I am troubled about what fear and hatred is doing to our witnessand even more importantly, what it is doing to our congregation members. These are unhealthy emotions which do not hold well for the wellbeing of individual members and the whole body of Christ. We have to resist the temptation of deploying the same weapons the enemy is using: be it conspiracy theories and outright falsehood to preach fear and hatred, or the use of violence against anyone, least of all the most vulnerable. Otherwise, we become the mirror image of the enemy we say we are fighting. Rather than demonizing Islam and all Muslims, the church needs to identify and work with Muslim scholars and leaders who oppose the radicals and militants in their midst. Just as the extremist elements within Islam have hijacked the Islamic faith, Christians need to be mindful not to allow extremist fringe groups like white supremacists to highjack the Christian faith and witness. Bob Roberts, founding pastor of NorthWood Church in Texas: First, Christians should unequivocally condemn this as a terrorist act that is wrong. No quasi- or weak supporting statements that could be construed as less than condemnation of this act of terror. A verbal full-throated rejection of white supremacy is also very important. Let there be no doubt where we stand. Second, Christians should intentionally reach out and verbally affirm Muslims right to worship and their personal support of that as well. This should be a moment to reach out to your Muslim neighbors and invite them to your home and build those bridges. Third, Christians should stand up against hate speech any time and any place they hear it. Our countrys intense polarization, unrestrained speech, and incivility has created a culture that is destroying all of us. Dehumanizing, labeling, and the belittling of races, religions, and hurting people at the lowest levels of society is the ultimate sin of arrogant and self-centered people. Social media has taken hate to new levels. Fourth, your church should visit a mosque on Friday and pass out flowers or statements of support. The pastor could also invite the imam to church Sunday and publicly tell him they support their right to religious freedomand pray for them. And dont forget all that Jesus stuff about loving God and your neighbor, the least of these in hunger, thirst, shelter, prison, and homeless, and that youll be judged before God for what you do. Sara L. H. Shady, professor of philosophy, Bethel University, and author of From Bubble to Bridge: Educating Christians for a Multifaith World: While we lament the terrorist attacks in New Zealand as yet another tragic reminder that the world is not as it should be, we must remember the words of 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. There is no better response to violence rooted in hatred and fear than a persistent commitment to love God and love all neighbors. We can do this by speaking out against Islamophobia around the world, as well as by showing compassion and support for Muslims in our own neighborhoods and communities. May our words and actions promote the peace of God throughout the world and cast out all forms of hatred and fear. Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders and commissioner in the US Commission for International Religious Freedom: I felt sick to my stomach. Then I thought about how often I have been the recipient of condolences from Islamic leaders around the world at the first news of an extremist attack on a church, as well as other profound actions of Islamic solidarity with persecuted Christians. Muslims in Egypt circled around Cairos largest evangelical church to protect it from extremists during the Arab spring, and in the last two years alone several Muslim police officers have died in multiple countries protecting churches from extremists. For their heroism, they received praise from Sunni Islams al-Azhar University, which issued a decree honoring them as martyrs. These are the stories that the extremistswhether they are neo-Nazis, white nationalists, anti-Semites, or Islamistsdo not want us to tell because they degrade the clash of civilizations narrative they promote. Yet these are the stories that we must tell; and these are the friendships we must build, as Christians, and especially as evangelicals. Im very proud of the unbelievable strides weve made between evangelicals and Muslims in recent years, at a local level and at the highest level, and in every corner in the world. While one cannot rush trust, we must expedite these efforts, and extend them to all other religious communities. Orthodoxyeven the exclusivist kindis not at enmity with friendship. That's why I grabbed my phone off my bedside table and shot off a simple tweet, that was shared by tens of thousands of Muslims around the world, including in New Zealand: Nothing is more evil than killing someone at prayer. Muslims have stood in solidarity w/ Christians when their churches have been terrorized; today, Christians stand in solidarity w/terrorized Muslims. Mourning w/those who mourn; Weeping w/those who weep. . Joseph Cumming, pastor of the International Church at Yale University, has worked among Muslims for three decades and travels regularly to the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia as an advisor to Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders: Fridays right-wing extremist, white nationalist terror attack on Muslims at prayer transported me in memory to October 1993, when a terrorist attacked the Catholic Cathedral in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania before Mass, gravely wounding and nearly killing two friends of mineFathers Rene and Paul. The attacker told police I was his next intended target, and might have been his first. That was a frightening time for my wife and me with our twin toddlers, living nearby. We were deeply grateful for every Mauritanian Muslim who spoke out in solidarity with us or reached out to us in love. Jesus says we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Do we want Muslims to speak out defending Christians targeted by terrorists overseas? Do we want Muslims to reach out in love to support their suffering Christian neighbors? Then we must speak out defending Muslims. We must reach out to Muslim neighbors, communicating love and support. This is a frightening time for Muslims in America, as it was for Tree of Life Synagogue, for Mother Emanuel Church, and others. This time is also an opportunity to demonstrate the perfect love which the Bible says overcomes fear. Warren Larson, senior research fellow and professor at the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies, Columbia International University: Images of what a 24-year-old white male did at a mosque in Christchurch reminded me of something: We have seen the face of evil and it is us. We may have thought that the greatest threat in the 21st century is Islamic terrorism. It is a threat; but equally so is our own bigotry, hatred, and racism toward others who are a little bit different. Islamophobia is turning into Muslim-phobia, and it may be time to think of Muslims as a persecuted minority in certain contexts. Besides, if we want them to stand up for Christians against Islamic terrorists, we need to speak up, and stand up, when they are targeted. Didnt Jesus say, Do unto others as you would have them do to you? We must, therefore, take the initiative and respond with courteous acts of kindness, warmth, and generosity to Muslims in our midst. Albert Einstein put it this way, The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who dont do anything about it. Robert Nicholson, president of The Philos Project and editor of Providence magazine: The killing of Muslims in a house of worship is appalling and must be condemned. But it reminds me that the West, and Christians in particular, need to have a serious and thoughtful conversation about Islam. Eighteen years after 9/11, Im not sure weve even started one. The crisis between Islam and Christianity is realor at least, many Muslims and Christians perceive it to be real as social media reactions after the Christchurch massacre showed. The pent-up frustration is reaching a fever pitch. Liberals try to paper over differences between the two communities in a quest for positive consensus, but that approach doesnt resonate with believers on either side. The time has come for an honest and direct, albeit respectful, conversation between conservative Muslims and Christians. A conversation that begins from a recognition of difference rather than similarity. Only a no-holds-barred approach to tough questions can begin to help the two sides speak freely, listen intently, and begin to understand each other on their own terms. In the aftermath of Christchurch, Christians should lead the way. Efraim Tendero, secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), issued a joint official statement with the New Zealand Christian Network (NZCN): The New Zealand Christian Network has expressed horror and great sadness about the violent attacks today on Muslim people and mosques in Christchurch. NZCN spokesperson Stuart Lange called the attack utterly appalling and said it will be deplored by all New Zealand people of all faiths or none. The network urges people to pray for all the families and communities which will be deeply affected, and to offer them support in every way possible. Efraim Tendero, secretary general and CEO of the WEA, said: With this terrorist attacks at Christchurch, we are once again reminded of the intertwined and deadly nature of prejudice and extremism, how it seeks to destroy and sow enmity among peace-loving people and communities. As followers of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, we condemn such violence and state in the clearest terms that there is no justification whatsoever to commit such a heinous crime against people of any faith or no faith. We mourn with the families of those who have lost loved ones in this tragic attack and pray for God to give comfort and healing to them as well as the community. As we all seek accountability and justice for all the victims of this tragedy, we are convinced that in crucial times such as this we need to all the more demonstrate the best in humanity by not repaying evil with evil, but by overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21). As a global family of evangelical Christiansa diverse family that includes people of all complexions, ethnicities, languages, cultures, and social standingswe are committed to upholding that according to the Bible, God has created each human being in his image, which gives eternal value to each individual life. It is our hope and prayer that rather than dividing the community with hatred, this tragic event will bring the community together in condemning such hatred and that they would reach out to each other across any social or cultural barriers to extend comfort and support at this time. (The attack came on the same day the WEA presented an oral statement at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that denounces nationalism. Furthermore, as part of its effort to build bridges of respect and understanding between people of different faiths and no faith, the WEA has also been engaged in dialogue with Muslims for many years. A recent example is Tenderos participation in the Global Conference on Human Fraternity in Abu Dhabi last month.) (CNN) People talk about quitting Facebook in protest. AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes did it. Fernandes, who had 670,000 followers, said in a series of tweets on Sunday morning that Facebook needs to "clean up" after videos of the New Zealand mosque attacks were uploaded to the platform. "The amount of hate that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good," he said in a tweet Sunday. "Facebook could have done more to stop some of this." For at least 17 minutes on Friday, a suspected terrorist streamed live video of a mass murder at a mosque in New Zealand. New Zealand police alerted Facebook to the livestream, and Facebook said it quickly removed the shooter's account and the video. Facebook also said it was removing praise or support for the shooting "as soon as we're aware." But that was not enough for Fernandes, CEO of the Malaysian airline company. Although Fernandes said he was a "social media fan," the livestream caused him to leave Facebook. "It is a great platform to communicate," he tweeted after canceling his Facebook account. "Strong engagement and very useful but New Zealand was too much for me to take along with all the other issues." Fernandes said he had been "a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories" and decided to close down his account. Facebook needs to "clean up and not just think of financials," he said. On Saturday, Facebook said that it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack. "We continue to work around the clock to remove violating content using a combination of technology and people...," Mia Garlnick, spokesperson for Facebook New Zealand, said on Twitter. Fernandes also said he was debating leaving Twitter, but said Sunday that "on Twitter I think the battle for me goes on." Fernandes has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers and has sent more than 20,000 tweets. This story was first published on CNN.com, "AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes quits Facebook: 'New Zealand was too much for me'." Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a start to operation of Balaklavskaya and Tavricheskaya thermal power plants (TPP) in Crimea with full capacity. First power units of both thermal power plants were put into service last October. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, Energy Minister Alexander Novak, head of Crimea Sergei Aksenov and Chief Executive of the Rostec state corporation Sergei Chemezov attended the official ceremony of new power units start, TASS reported. The total capacity of two TPPs in Crimea has grown to 940 MW as a result of second units commissioning, amounting to about 90% of consumption in the region. The overall power capacity of Crimea net of wind and solar power plants and mobile gas-turbine power plants will be about 2,070 MW, fully covering needs of the peninsula subject to redundancy and providing the opportunity to transmit power to other regions. 48 hours in Arlington: Seeing Washington without visiting Washington Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment I saw the nations capital without ever visiting Washington itself. If youre wondering how that happened its because I stayed across the Potomac River in Virginias Arlington County. Arlington, once part of the District of Columbia, is perhaps best known as the home of the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and Reagan airport. Speaking of Reagan, many people are surprised to learn the airport they landed at isnt actually in Washington proper. Arlington has also been in the news after successfully bidding for Amazons HQ2. While plenty of people stay in Arlington hotel rates are significantly cheaper than D.C. many of those visitors wrongly think of it as a bedroom community with little to see and do. Spending 48 hours on a citycation in Arlington gives one a unique experience. You get Washington without Washington because lets face it: Two nights is hardly enough time to get to know the nations capital, but its the perfect amount of time to discover everything this side of the Potomac has to offer. What to do and see Arlington is home to five major memorials and monuments, including the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial and the U.S. Air Force Memorial, which reaches 402 feet into the sky. Of course, anyone who has ever seen the iconic photograph of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima will instantly recognize the Marine Corps War Memorial. Then there is Arlington National Cemetery. Arguably best known for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the grave of slain President John F. Kennedy, its also the final resting place for thousands of other heroes buried in its sacred grounds. The cemetery is also where you find Confederate General Robert E. Lees Arlington House. Congress designated the Greek Revival stately home, which is closed through the fall for exhaustive restoration work, as a memorial to Lee in the 1950s. Today, you find it largely preserved as it would have been in the antebellum period. Another must-visit is the Pentagon, though booking a tour isnt as easy as it could be. Exhausting your patience going through the lengthy process is well worth the tour. Just be sure to book well ahead of time, especially during peak tourist season. The relatively new Observation Deck at CEB Tower with its sweeping panoramic views of the regions cityscape is beyond impressive. In the warmer months the 88-acre Theodore Roosevelt Island is popular for outdoor activities. While part of the District of Columbia it is accessible by foot from Arlington. Where to stay and eat I stayed at The Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City. As you would expect from its name the hotel is located near the Pentagon. The luxury hotel is conveniently attached to a major shopping mall and sits above the Pentagon City Station on the blue and yellow lines of the Metro, as the subway is called. I recommend booking a room with club lounge access, as the daily breakfast and open bar, which included Virginia wines when I stayed there, is worth the extra cost. Family-owned Lebanese Taverna, a stones throw from the hotel at Pentagon Row, is popular with locals at lunch. For dinner, try Lyon Hall. Getting there All of the major airlines fly into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Outside of some flights from Canada, international flights arrive farther away at Washington Dulles International Airport. Spires and Crosses, a travel column exclusive to The Christian Post, is published every week. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter and Instagram. Christian B&B must serve same-sex couples, Supreme Court lets ruling stand Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The United States Supreme Court declined to hear oral arguments in a case about a Hawaiian bed and breakfast that refused on religious grounds to serve a lesbian couple, allowing a ruling against the business to stand. In an order released Monday, the high court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari in the case of Cervelli v. Aloha Bed & Breakfast, thus upholding a lower court ruling against the small business. Phyllis Young, owner of the three-room Aloha Bed & Breakfast, will now face a penalty for her refusal in 2007 to rent a room to Diane Cervilli and Taeko Bufford, according to Reuters. In 2011, Young was sued by the lesbian couple over the 2007 incident, being represented by the pro-LGBT law firm Lambda Legal. When you open the doors of your business to the public, Hawaii law absolutely forbids you from discriminating against your customers, said Peter Renn, staff attorney at Lambda, in a 2011 statement. You cant roll up the welcome mat when you see a lesbian or gay couple, just as you cant refuse to do business with Jewish customers, African-American customers, or disabled customers. Young was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that has won multiple cases before the Supreme Court on issues involving religious liberty. The ADF argued that because Phyllis only rented 1-3 rooms in her personal home she did not fall under the Hawaii public accommodations law that makes sexual-orientation discrimination unlawful. And the Constitution also protects Phyllis right not to promote behavior her faith teaches is immoral or to associate with people who are unwilling to respect her deeply held religious beliefs, added the ADF. In 2013, a court ruled against Aloha B&B and in February of last year, Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals upheld that ruling. In May 2018, Aloha B&B filed an appeal with the Hawaii Supreme Court, only to have the states highest court reject the appeal request last July. Church mourns after two pastors, including Indy 500's 'Priest in the Pits, die in one week Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A day after Saint Susanna Church gathered to mourn their former pastor, Father Kevin Morris, who was killed in a tragic car crash last Tuesday, they were sent reeling in grief again when the man who replaced him in 2012, Father Glenn O'Connor, an auto-racing enthusiast known in racing circles as the "Priest in the Pits," succumbed to stage 4 cancer on Friday. "You could tell people have a lot of anguish, a lot of pent up anxiety over the loss of these two great men in three days time," Saint Susanna Parish Deacon Charlie Giesting told Fox 59. Authorities noted in an RTV6 report that Morris died Tuesday afternoon in a head-on crash after his car crossed the center line on U.S. 40, just outside of Richmond, Virginia, and hit the other vehicle. Morris who would have been 64 in October, led Saint Susanna Church from 1999 until 2012. In a Facebook post on the day he died, the church noted that he was well-loved by the Saint Susanna community. At the time of his death he was serving as pastor of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. Even though Morris spent most of his priestly life in Virginia, his obituary noted that it was at Saint Susanna that he blossomed as a priest. He blossomed as a priest and developed the foundation of his ministry to an active, hospitable and growing parish. The schoolchildren of St. Susanna, many of them now young adults, credited him with lighting the fire of faith in their souls and nurturing it toward active participation in the church, it said. Father OConnor who was well known for his faith as well as his presence on the auto racing track in Indiana, was 66 when he died after his unsuccessful battle with cancer. For more than four decades, O'Connor, according to the Indy Star, was a fixture at the Indianapolis 500 and other races. "During the 500 last year, I thought it was funny and maybe a sign of good luck to have him in front of my pit, IndyCar driver Simon Pagenaud told the publication. "It was always a sense of comfort to have him around and he was a lover of life." In 2005, OConnor expressed his love for auto racing days before the Indianapolis 500. "After 30 years at the Speedway, it's still like walking on sacred ground. I have a lot of respect for the drivers, and I love the thrills and the competition. Win, lose or draw, it's an honor to be part of the tradition, he said. And Pagenaud said his passion for the sport was undeniable. "He wouldnt hesitate to help out any team that needed it," he said. "Rest in peace." The Indianapolis Motor Speedway also released a statement on OConnors passing. Everyone at INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is saddened about the passing of Father Glenn OConnor. His passion for auto racing, especially his beloved Indianapolis 500 and the Month of May, made him a legendary and revered figure across the paddock, the organization said. His devotion to serving God and people through his various ministries fueled a life of inspiration, giving and character. Father Glenn had such a warm personality, with a wide smile and hearty laugh that he shared with everyone he met, whether he was celebrating Mass in Gasoline Alley with his trademark checkered flag stole or turning a wrench for an Indy 500 team. Were going to miss him dearly, the statement ended. As Deacon Giesting recalled the legacy left behind by both men, he said he was confident where they are now. "We know where they are at. We will get there too; it will take a little bit of time," Giesting told Fox59. "When I was reading about the transfiguration as our Gospel this week, and I saw Moses, and I saw Elijah next to Jesus. I also imaged in my mind Father Glenn and Father Kevin standing next to Jesus in that heaven," he said. OConnor, he recalled, was an expert in connecting his message with Scripture and was full of energy. "He backed up everything he said and more by what he did every day. The man was non-stop. He was always doing something thinking about Gods kingdom," Giesting said. Father Morriss funeral will be on Monday. Details on Father OConnors funeral date are still pending. Erwin McManus warns believers that blaming the devil removes ownership of one's life Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Erwin McManus, pastor of Mosaic Church Los Angeles, says he wants to guide this generation out of being devil-blaming into warriors of peace who take ownership of their lives. McManus says The Way of The Warrior: An Ancient Path to Inner Peace, is the most important book he's ever written, and will equip readers with the weapons they need to fight like a warrior and conquer their fiercest enemy (themselves) to take back their lives. "I was driving through Hollywood with my wife and I actually just had this internal narrative. I heard this inner voice say, 'the warriors aren't ready for battle until they have come to peace, it's just the way of the warrior.' I can't explain it," said McManus in an interview with The Christian Post, "but I heard it and I looked at my wife and I said, 'I know what my next book is, I know what the first line is.' And that actually is the first line of the book. "I felt like the book came to me, it just sort of felt like an explosion of things inside of my soul. All the unexplainable acts of violence and rage with school shootings, the conflicts across the world, the acts of terrorism and then here in our congregation I come across 20-year-olds who are dealing with panic attacks and stress and anxiety and depression and worry and suicidal thoughts. [Those] have become normal as a part of the internal struggle of this generation, he said. I felt like we're reflecting on the outside world what's going on in our inner world, and the world is raging with war because there's a war raging within us. So in a very unique way, I wanted to fight for world peace by fighting for inner peace. In his book, McManus highlights teachings from biblical heroes such as Adam, David, Solomon and Elijah, and unveils eight dynamic codes of the warrior he believes are a timely message for this generation. "So much of the book surprised me as I was developing it. I felt like chapters were unwrapping themselves to me. I format this book as an old samurai mentoring a young samurai and teaching them how to live life where violence doesn't take over their soul but they only live to create peace, the pastor explained. In the shortest chapter of the book, which introduces code five, McManus teaches that the warrior owns defeat. That chapter talks about ownership. I think it's one of the most important concepts in the entire book. [It says,] if you do not take ownership for your life, you will become powerless to change your life. If you don't take responsibility for your failures, you're never going to be able to step into the [next] level of success, he maintained. McManus added: "We have a false framework in our culture where we either try to deny failure and say, 'there's no such thing as failure or we always blame our circumstances or society, or the government, or the church, or our parents. So we keep blaming everyone else for the condition of our soul. And even if other people in the world are responsible for the wounds and the brakes in us, we are responsible for who we become from this point forward. The El Salvadorian native explained that he took that framework and directed the readers to take ownership of their lives if they want to change. McManus pointed out that one's fiercest enemy is themselves because most people are quick to blame the devil for things they just wont take ownership of. "One of the nice little nuances of Instagram is that young pastors and preachers are always posting short clips of their messages. What struck me is that almost every millennial pastor I know, at least all the ones I've seen, passionately talk about the devil and they blame the devil for every problem in everyone's life, McManus said. What I think is dangerous is that conservative churches go, 'Yes, they believe in the Bible.' And actually what they don't realize is happening is that they found a biblical way to abdicate responsibility for their life. They blame everything on the devil and so they are powerless to change, he declared. "I think it's a dangerous thing because a lot of Christianity in America still believes in magic and we're not dealing honestly about the human dilemma, it's not even biblical, McManus continued. We keep giving the devil characteristics as if he's God's brother. The devil is not all powerful, all knowing, and all present. The devil can't attack everyone because the devil can't be everywhere. "So when everyone's blaming the devil for everything, they're acting as if the devil is the same as God. The devil is not the same as God. He is massively limited in his capacity to do evil. And frankly, most of us aren't that important for the devil to give us his personal attention. The California-based minister believes most people are messing up their lives all on their own. If we don't take ownership and responsibility for our lives, we're going to keep blaming the devil and he's going to sit back and go, 'we didnt have to do anything, they're doing it to themselves,'" he emphasized. The Way of The Warrior speaks to those of all ages who are struggling with anxiety, stress and depression. McManus pointed out that people today are inundated with information that adds to the anxiety of the world. "I think the human spirit, our psychological construction, we're not really prepared to take endless amounts of the psychological barrage that we now have through massive information, social media, McManus said. I think you have 12-year-olds who are handling the emotional weight that full-blown adults would never have experienced 100 years ago. "The level of trauma and challenge and uncertainty is weighing so hard on our generation, on our culture, that 8-year-olds are having to take on the emotional weight of things that you wouldn't even know if you were president. He maintained that the average American has more information than a president did just 50 or 100 years ago. "We're more aware of what's going on all over the world than any world leader during World War II. This is what children are dealing with, this is what 22-year-olds are dealing with, he lamented. McManus also pointed to the pressure young people feel to be perfect because mistakes now have the potential to go viral and ruin someone's life. If you made a mistake in 1950, your family might know, one or two people might know, there might be three or four people whose trust you have to regain or who you had to process shame and guilt with. Now if you make a mistake, a million people might know in a matter of minutes. So the consequence of your action is multiplied at an exponential rate, he added. McManus acknowledged that no ones built to endure that psychological weight of guilt, shame, fear, worry, stress and anxiety. Its multiplied at a level that I don't think the human spirit has been structured to handle without an immense amount of that resilience, he accentuated. The emerging church leader revealed that he used the word warrior to illustrate what God gave him to share in this book because he loves to reclaim language and use words the way they should be used. A part of the reason I chose this language is because if you look at it pragmatically, there isn't a single man the world that's going to carry an open a book that deals with the real issues of fear, anxiety, depression, and stress. We're just not going to want to be in that conversation, he told CP. I wanted to say, 'Hey, this is not a conversation for the weak; this is not a conversation for the person who can't handle life; this is not a conversation for the person who hasnt given up; this is a conversation for a warrior, a person who refuses to give up on themselves and on the world. "The women who are fighting this battle, they're warriors, the men who are fighting this battle, they are warriors. When you're dealing with hitting head on depression and suicide and anxiety and panic attacks and worry and fear, this doesn't make you a coward, this means you have the courage to rise up and live the life you were created to live, McManus reiterated. McManus, who has overcome his own battles with depression after fighting cancer, has written 10 books but believes The Way of The Warrior contains a most urgent message that God wanted him to share. "I have a sense this is the most important book I've ever written. I have never felt an intense passion or almost like urgency to get a book out in my life. This time, it feels very different for me. I feel like we're at a critical urgent time in our culture. I have a deep sense that there are people who need someone to speak into these issues in their life, McManus added. "I wrote this book in a way that it feels like I am with that person guiding them through the darkest moments of their life. For more information on The Way of The Warrior visit McManus website. Ireland Votes to Repeal Abortion Ban; Prime Minister Calls It 'Quiet Revolution' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Ireland's prime minister praised a "quiet revolution" in his country as exit polls, backed up by early results Saturday morning, show a landslide vote in favor of repealing the constitution's ban on abortion. It's the "culmination of a quiet revolution that has taken place in Ireland over the last couple of decades," said Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, according to the Irish Independent. "The public have spoken. The result appears to be resounding in favor of repealing the Eighth Amendment," which gives an unborn child the same right to life as a pregnant woman. The counting of votes in Friday's referendum started Saturday morning and is expected to be over by the evening. An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI exit poll suggested that voters backed lifting of the abortion ban by 68 percent to 32 percent, and an RTE/Behaviour & Attitudes poll indicated it was 69 percent to 31 percent. The apparent decisive victory "demonstrates to me that we are a country that is not divided but a country that is united, a country that says that we respect women, that we trust women and that we support them in the choices and decisions they make," Varadkar added. Political leadership in the country has said lawmakers will promptly pass new legislation to allow abortion up to 12 weeks, or as late as 23 weeks if the baby has abnormalities, the mother has a medical emergency in which her life is at risk, or the mother suffers from depression. The Irish Family Planning Association hailed the vote. "The Yes vote ends decades of stigma, shame and silence around abortion and unintended pregnancy. It ends the rejection and abandonment of women by the state," its chief executive Niall Behan said in a statement. Pro-choice campaigners argued that abortions were already happening in the country as over 3,000 women travel to Britain every year for terminations and others order pills illegally online. However, pro-life campaign Save the 8th called it a tragedy. "The Eighth Amendment did not create a right to life for the unborn child it merely acknowledged that such a right exists, has always existed, and will always exist," the campaign said in a statement Saturday. "What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions. However, a wrong does not become right simply because a majority support it." Abortion has only been legal in Ireland in medical emergency cases or if three doctors agree that a mother is at risk of suicide; and it was not legal in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities. Ireland warns women against using abortion pill reversal that could save babies' lives Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Women in Ireland are being warned against seeking the abortion pill reversal treatment thats been successfully used in the U.S. to save babies lives. The Irish Department of Public Health is advising women that there is no such thing as abortion reversal and attempts to do so could result in either a miscarriage or an unhealthy outcome for the pregnancy. Similarly, the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, described efforts to inform women about the abortion pill reversal as offensive and entirely unnecessary. But according to Sue Turner, director of Physicians for Life, if a pregnant woman who has taken the first of two abortion pills decides shes made a mistake and wants to keep her baby, she would have a relatively high chance of delivering a healthy baby if she was to undergo the reversal, she told The Christian Post. Turner cited a U.S. study that showed a 64 percent to 68 percent success rate of delivering a healthy baby after a woman has been given the natural hormone progesterone thats essential to maintaining a healthy pregnancy. CP previously reported on that study and its results here and here. In a medical abortion, women are given two drugs: mifepristone or RU-486, and misoprostol. Mifepristone works by blocking the effects of the natural pregnancy hormone progesterone. Misoprostol induces contractions and a miscarriage. If the mifepristone is blocking the progesterone we give a pregnant woman more progesterone to rise above that limit, Turner said, then she should get enough progesterone to hold the baby in place. Its not like its something that doesnt work, Turner said in response to the Health Service Executives claims that its not a reliable medical practice and that theres no such thing as an abortion pill reversal. Theres nothing to back up that statement, she asserted to CP. Natural progesterone has been used for decades to stop miscarriages. The doctors will give the mother natural progesterone to stop her from having contractions and help hold the baby in place until she gets closer to her due date. That was why they used it in the first place, Turner explained. CP contacted both Harris, Ireland's minister for health, and the HSE for further comment on their advisory that women should avoid attempting the abortion pill reversal despite results showing that hundreds of women have given birth to healthy babies after doctors administered progesterone. Harris did not respond to CP and Emma Lynam with the HSE press office said they had no further comment on the matter. Since Jan. 1, women in Ireland have had the legal right to access abortion up to 12 weeks gestation, and up to 23 weeks if the mother has a medical emergency in which her life is at risk or she suffers from health complications, or if the baby has abnormalities. The law also mandates a three-day waiting period before an abortion can be performed. At least 274 general practitioners and 10 hospitals have signed up to provide abortion services in Ireland. CP reported last month that Irelands HSE is advertising for open positions at the Dublin-based National Maternity Hospital in gynecology and obstetrics, but only for doctors and nurses who are willing to perform or help administer abortions. Irish citizens voted in May 2018 (66 percent to 34 percent) to repeal the Eighth Amendment that gave an unborn child the same right to life as a pregnant woman, thus banning abortion except in limited circumstances. Under that amendment, abortion was only legal in a medical emergency or if three doctors agreed that a mother was at risk of suicide. Abortion was also not legal in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities. Because abortion was illegal, some women were going online to buy abortion pills through telemedicine sites. Taking that risk was one argument deployed by pro-choice advocates as a reason to legalize abortion in Ireland. Harris, the minister for health, and Peter Boylan, the chair of the Institute of Obstetricians, warned against buying abortion pills online as they campaigned for the legalization of abortion last year. Turner told CP that there are many websites that encourage women to take misoprostol to induce an abortion. I shudder to think what happens to her and what she goes through in that process because in about 30 minutes she starts having horrific contractions. And women can die. If the cervix doesnt open it can cause all kinds of horrible problems for her, she said. Now, women seeking an abortion up to nine weeks can opt to have a medical abortion in which they take two pills 24 to 48 hours apart to induce contractions and ultimately a miscarriage. The pills are dispensed by either a general practitioner or by a doctor at an abortion clinic. Women who are between nine and 12 weeks must have their medical abortion at a hospital, according to the HSE. Turner said that when mifepristone first came out, the U.S. FDA had a protocol for it to be used through seven weeks, or 49 days from conception. But the longer you wait, she said, the less effective it is. Because many abortion clinics in the U.S. were ignoring the FDAs protocol and using the drug in chemical/medical abortions up to 60 days, states began passing regulations saying they had to follow the FDAs protocol. They didnt want to have to follow the FDA protocol, so [then President] Obama made the FDA change it to the later date, the 60 days, to match up with what the abortion providers were doing. The drug was less effective," she said, and abortionists then had to also perform a surgical abortion, which meant that women were being charged for both chemical and surgical procedures. Turner suspects that in Ireland, more women will also have to go back and have a surgical abortion those who waited past 49 days for the medical abortion. Last month, on the same day the Irish Times published a series of news articles opposing the abortion pill reversal, in which it called the treatment unproven and bogus, Dr. Donna Harrison, a board-certified OB/GYN, was giving her testimony to the Kentucky House Health and Welfare Committee about its efficacy. In her testimony, Harrison, executive director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said: The natural hormone progesterone has been used for over 40 years in the IVF industry to help women carry pregnancies after the embryo is transferred into her womb. There is a very long and solid history of safety of the use of natural progesterone in pregnancy. Natural progesterone use in pregnancy for the last 50 years has not been associated with any increased risk of any birth defects. She added: Mifepristone alone has also not, to date, been demonstrated to have any increased risk of birth defects. Thus, to date there does not appear to be any risk of birth defects in the unborn child from abortion pill reversal. Moreover, abortion pill reversal offers another reproductive choice for women facing the abortion decision. Every woman exposed to chemical/medical abortion should know about this option. Turner, in her interview with CP, agreed with Harrison, adding that, To block a woman from having informed consent about what she is about to do is deceptive and wrong. For all medical procedures patients are informed about the positives and negatives, as well as the different treatments, she noted. "Why shouldnt [women] be entitled to that same information for an abortion? An investigation carried out by The Irish Times over a period of months looked into the strategies employed by pro-life groups, specifically the Dallas, Texas-based Sidewalk Advocates for Life, which was training pro-life organizers in Ireland on how to approach women seeking abortion and give them information about the abortion pill reversal, which was described by the Irish Times as an unproven technique. The Irish Times investigation was carried out by two reporters who posed as pro-life advocates to infiltrate the U.S. group and learn their practices. Both declined to be interviewed by CP. The pieces published last month sought, in part, to expose the abortion pill reversal as being unsupported by medical or scientific evidence. The articles also suggested that progesterone was not effective in reversing the effects of mifepristone. It cited the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 2017 guidance that said the abortion reversal was not supported by science, but did not include counter arguments by the AAPLOG, an organization formed by pro-life OB/GYNs who broke away from ACOG after it began advocating for abortion on demand and abortion for minors without parental consent. The AAPLOG said it seeks to provide an evidence-based rationale for defending the lives of both the pregnant mother and her unborn child. The idea of abortion reversal is popular among American anti-abortion activists, right. It is based on the theory that flooding a womans body with the hormone progesterone can reverse the effects of the first abortion pill and allow the pregnancy to continue. There is no medical or scientific evidence to support this theory, The Irish Times asserted in a piece that was also reported by the U.K. Times. A guide to medical abortion from the HSE crisis pregnancy advice service, says that mifepristone is irreversible. If you decide not to take the second medication, there is a risk of harm to the fetus if you continue the pregnancy, The Irish Times continued. Some U.S. states have adopted laws meaning that doctors are required to tell women that a medical abortion can be reversed after the woman has taken the first pill. As part of her oral testimony supporting Kentuckys Chemical Abortion Reporting Act, Harrison explained why pregnant women should be fully informed about all of their options, including the ability, in some cases, to reverse their abortion. A network of Abortion Pill Rescue physicians exists around the country so that women who change their mind after taking Mifeprex (mifepristone) can be put in contact with a physician who will give natural progesterone to reverse the abortion, Harrison said. But the woman has to know about this option in order to call the network in time." That is why it is critically important that a woman be informed of all of her options, including abortion pill reversal, as part of a full informed consent process prior to starting a chemical abortion, added Harrison, who has authored peer-reviewed articles on the adverse events reported to the U.S. FDA after use of the abortion drug mifepristone. By giving a woman progesterone, the Mifeprex (mifepristone) abortion can be stopped and the chances of the baby surviving increase from 25 percent (the survival rate without natural progesterone) to 68 percent (the average survival rate after giving natural progesterone), she continued, detailing how progesterone is an antidote to the abortion-inducing drug. Turner said that since 2012, over 500 healthy babies have been born because of the reversal process. As long as they have it early enough it works very well. They just cant take it after the misoprostol, which is the second pill. We hear all the time about women who take the first pill and realize it was a mistake. So in a way its a silver lining because there is an option for them. They can continue their pregnancy, she added. Its a lot better than surgical abortion because once they do that theres no turning back, its done. Even if a woman tries it and for some reason it doesnt work, then at least she knows she tried to save her baby, Turner said, citing the Abortion Pill Reversal website that offers a 24/7 helpline and information for women seeking help with reversing the effects of mifepristone. To thwart the efforts of pro-life groups in approaching women outside clinics to inform them about the abortion pill reversal, lawmakers were urged last year to draft legislation to set up exclusion zones (also known as barrier zones or safe zones) to bar sidewalk counselors or abortion protesters from getting near clinics that perform abortions. Harris, the minister for health, said that efforts by the U.S. pro-life group Sidewalk Advocates for Life to approach women and talk to them about their options was manipulative and its deeply disrespectful of our democratic process, according to the Times. The idea that anybody, but particularly outside groups would be trying to undermine our democratic decision and effectively, in my view, harass and intimidate Irishwomen is something that is quite despicable and shows why we need to get on doing what I intend to do regarding safe access zones, that piece of legislation is a priority for me, Harris added, in an interview with RTE Radio 1. Harris said the government aims to have draft exclusion zone legislation prepared by this summer, according to the journal.ie. Words and images that would also be banned in the exclusion zones include anything referencing abortion, baby, mom, fetus, soul, kill, Hell and murder. Nigeria genocide: 9 more, including children, killed by armed men in Kaduna; houses burned Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Nine more people have been killed and more homes have been destroyed as Fulani violence in Nigerias troubling Kaduna state has seen the death of dozens upon dozens of Christians in the last few weeks. Kaduna Gov. Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai confirmed that the latest attack occurred on Saturday morning in the Sanga local government area of the Kaduna state, which lies in the northern part of Nigerias Middle Belt. The security agencies have so far recovered nine corpses, including children, El-Rufai said in a statement. The attackers also burnt several houses in the village. The government condemns this attack on the lives and security of citizens and appeals to our communities to resist those who do not want peace. The governors statement vowed that the government, security agencies and religious institutions will work towards creating "sustainable peace. In this moment of grief, we must come together to defeat the machinations of those who have no notion of respect for the lives of others, Rufai said. Violence has left an unacceptable toll of death and injury, loss of livelihoods, pain and fear. We must overcome this by respecting our common humanity, settling differences peacefully and promptly reporting threats and suspicions to the appropriate authorities. Evil will never triumph over our common humanity. In addition to security agencies being deployed to the district, the State Emergency Management Agency has been directed to provide relief to the impacted community. Although the perpetrators of the latest attack have not been identified, the attack comes just a few days after a Christian human rights group warned that at least 120 Christians have been killed by Fulani militant attacks on various areas in Kaduna since the beginning of February. Last Monday, at least 52 people were killed and at least 140 homes were reportedly destroyed in the Maro district of the Kajuru Local Government Area in Kaduna by suspected Fulani militants. In late February, another attack in the Maro district saw the loss of at least 32 lives and the destruction of homes and a church. While the Kaduna state has been the hardest hit by the recent string of violence, there were at least 70 Christian deaths that occurred between the last week of December 2018 and first week of March 2019 in the Adamawa, Taraba, Plateau and Benue States, according to the Nigeria-based NGO International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law. In 2018, it was reported that thousands of Christians in the Middle Belt were killed by Fulani radicals. As Agence France Press notes, Nigerias Middle Belt has suffered from years-long violence between mostly Muslim Fulani cattle herders and indigenous Christian grain farmers. Some Christian leaders, however, have rejected the narrative that the Fulani violence against Christian farmers is a simple farmers/herdsmen clash. Last year, Christian leaders accused the federal government headed by President Muhammadu Buhari, who is from a Fulani family, of pushing false propaganda and deceit while pushing a policy idea to establish cattle ranches and colonies on the ancestral farming lands of the attacked communities. Although the violence between the Fulani herders and Christian farmers have been territorial, it has been noted that the violence in recent years has taken on religious dimensions. Stephen Enada, the co-founder of the International Committee on Nigeria who fled from Nigeria after his own cousin was killed by Fulani radicals in the Benue state, told The Christian Post last year that Fulani militants have begun to take after radical Islamic groups like Boko Haram. He recounted the similarities in the way Fulani militants are now attacking communities and farms with sophisticated weapons in order to drive out the population and occupy the lands. Recently we have seen Fulani militias have Boko Haram branding and wreaking havoc in communities with sophisticated weapons and anyone who stands in their way is killed or decimated, he said. When this happens, they occupy. "It is not that they are unknown. It is just that government is looking the other way, Enada added. If someone is a terrorist and overruns a community, the government should make sure certain people are arrested and prosecuted." Buhari condemned the violence and the ethnic and religious bigotry in a statement Saturday. However, he stressed that all communities involved must find a lasting solution. [The] lack of cooperation by those involved might frustrate governments efforts towards finding a lasting solution, especially if those efforts are politicized, Buhari said in a statement released through an assistant. If the people resist governments efforts to hold the perpetrators and their sponsors accountable, it would be very difficult to bring the violence to a permanent end. Nigeria ranks as the 12th worst nation in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USAs 2019 World Watch List. PCUSAs only seminary in Western US to become part of nonsectarian Calif. University Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Correction Appended Presbyterian Church (USA)s only seminary located in the western United States will soon become part of a private nonsectarian university based in California. San Francisco Theological Seminary of California, founded in 1871 and the lone PC(USA) seminary located west of Iowa, recently entered an agreement with the University of Redlands that will make it into a new Graduate School of Theology. The Rev. Dr. Jim McDonald, president of the Seminary, stated in a recent open letter that the Seminary and Redlands signed onto an Agreement in Principle back in February, with the finalization of the merger being hammered out over the next few months. We are very excited about the opportunities this new relationship creates for students from all walks of life, wrote McDonald. We remain committed to educating persons for transformational ministries of peace, healing, and justice as we pursue these new pathways of possibility. In an interview with The Christian Post on Wednesday, McDonald explained that with the agreement, his Seminary is expanding our access to students in Southern California who may be attracted to an SFTS-inspired education. Embedding within a larger university is a proven model for seminaries to thrive, and this partnership allows SFTS to preserve its time-honored mission and identity, said McDonald. SFTS will continue as a Presbyterian (PCUSA) seminary within the Reformed Tradition theologically, and embedded within a larger, U. of R. nonsectarian, multicultural and interfaith Graduate School for Theology. The Christian Post reached out to Presbyterian Church (USA) on Tuesday for more information. However, a PC(USA) spokesperson replied that it was too early in the process to comment. According to an FAQ on their website, the Seminary will still hold classes at their current campus in San Anselmo, though Redlands courses will likely be introduced to the location. The Seminary has approximately 225 enrolled students pursuing masters or doctorates who will be able to complete their programs, according to Presbyterian News Service. However, the Seminary will be cutting its staff, with McDonald telling PNS that he is planning to officially step down as seminary president sometime in the summer. When CP asked McDonald about staff cuts, he responded that all of SFTSs core faculty will be retained with rank and tenure in the University of Redlands by virtue of an appointment within the new Graduate School of Theology. As with any structural merger of this nature, there will eventually be a process of careful evaluation of staffing needs for the newly merged organization, he added. Seminary programs such as the Center for Innovation in Ministry, the Shaw Chaplaincy Institute for Spiritual Care and Compassionate Leadership, and the Applied Wisdom Institute will continue to be offered. The Seminary will also retain its affiliation with the Graduate Theological Union, which is a Bay Area consortium of Protestant and Catholic schools. University of Redlands President Ralph W. Kuncl told CP in an interview on Tuesday that the acquisition of the Seminary will create the seventh Redlands in the Bay Area. Acquisitions are becoming commonplace in higher education as institutions especially small to mid-size private liberal arts institutions seek to mitigate the threats of a shrinking student pool, rising costs such as healthcare and student services, regulatory burdens, and other challenges, explained Kuncl. We have already successfully collaborated, launching a joint certificate in mental health counseling. This program offers community leaders the opportunity to enhance their skills in promoting mental health, providing spiritual care, and facilitating community engagement. Kuncl also told CP that if the outlook remains strongly positive, he expected the acquisition of the Seminary will be formalized and finalized sometime before July. Correction, March 18, 2019: A previous version of this story misreported SFTS enrollment. It is 225, not 160. Q&A with Abby Johnson: Abortion must not be illegal, but unthinkable Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment On the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, My Faith Votes gathered alongside hundreds of thousands of pro-life supporters in Washington DC to stand for life. We marched down Constitution Avenue to the steps of the Supreme Court armed with a new approach to the anti-abortion movement pro-life is pro-science. My Faith Votes sat down with Abby Johnson, one of the keynote speakers of the March, and she explained the power behind this years March for Life theme, Unique from Day One. As science becomes more advanced, we know more about the person in the womb, more about what makes them unique, Johnson said. [Science] reaches everyone. For people of faith like me, I know science comes from my Creator. Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood Director, experienced a complete perspective change herself after witnessing a 13-week old fetus struggle for his life during an ultrasound-guided abortion procedure. I realized there was humanity in the womb, and abortion was taking an individual human life, she said. As science strengthens the debate for pro-life activists, it supplies greater evidence to the workings of God the Creator. This shift reminds todays pro-life supporters they have the opportunity to rewrite history, protect the most innocent and ultimately, change how Americans view abortion. While Johnson continues to lobby for efforts to eliminate abortion, she recognizes this pro-life movement demands a radical culture change that legislation alone cannot solve. Our end goal cannot be to simply make abortion illegal; our end goal must be to make abortion unthinkable, Johnson said, so that when a woman experiences an unplanned pregnancy, she never even thinks about darkening the door of a facility that will exploit her, manipulate her and take the life of her child. According to Johnson, one in three women are affected by abortion which also means one in three men are too. This is why Johnsons ministry And Then There Were None advocates for the pro-life cause and serves those affected by abortion through a personal experience or through work at an abortion facility. As to how pro-life advocates, including Christians, should engage with pro-abortion supporters, Johnson encourages a spirit of love and tenderness. The majority of people I know who support abortion do so because they themselves have had abortions, Johnson observed. We have to remember that someone whos yelling in our face or giving us a piece of their mind on Facebook is someone whos deeply wounded and broken. Its not about winning an argument. Its about reaching the heart of the person youre speaking with and showing them love goes further than throwing facts at them. My Faith Votes has partnered with Johnsons upcoming film, Unplanned, which shares her story as a Planned Parenthood clinic director turned pro-life activist after a life-changing experience. The film premieres March 18 and hits theaters nationwide March 29. Trump, wife attend worship at DC church on St. Patricks Day Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attended worship at an Episcopal congregation located near the White House on Saint Patricks Day. The president and his wife went to St. Johns Church of Lafayette Square, with interim rector the Rev. W. Bruce McPherson welcoming the Trump family, according to the Associated Press. Trump rarely attends regular worship services. According to Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Jacobs, Trump does occasionally attend holiday services at Bethesda-by-the-Sea when hes at Mar-a-Lago. Earlier on Sunday morning, Trump took to Twitter to attack the long-running program Saturday Night Live, which has often poked fun at him over his remarks and policies. Its truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of 'the other side.' Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows, tweeted Trump. Although Trump has stated he is Christian and was elected in large part because of support among evangelicals, many have questioned the sincerity of his beliefs. For example, last December at the funeral of former president George H.W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral, Trump garnered criticism for refusing to say the Apostles Creed. A noted Christian statement of faith, Trump and his wife were seen not reciting the creed, even though the words were provided and the former presidents beside him were doing so. Evangelical leader and longtime Trump supporter the Rev. Franklin Graham defended Trump at the time, comparing it to his refusal to sing hymns during worship. Guess what I dont usually sing in church. Why? Because I cant carry a tune! And, I have no rhythm, stated Graham on his Facebook page. Nay-sayers always pointing an accusing finger. Instead, lets be thankful for all of the incredibly positive things he has done for our country (its a long list) and lift him and Melania up in our prayers. St. Johns held its first worship service in 1816 and is known as the Church of the Presidents, as the church stakes claim to having had every president beginning with James Madison attend worship there at least once. St. Johns sanctuary has a pew, known as Pew 54 or The Presidents Pew, which is specifically reserved for the commander in chief. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the government would file a legal case in Iran against U.S. officials who imposed sanctions on the country as a precursor to action in international courts. The Iranian president said in a speech broadcast live on state television that if the Iranian court finds against the U.S. officials, Iran will pursue the case in international courts of justice. Rouhani said he had ordered the ministries of foreign affairs and justice "to file a legal case in Iranian courts against those in America who designed and imposed sanctions on Iran." "These sanctions are crime against humanity," Reuters cited him as saying. The United States reimposed sanctions on Tehran after U.S. President Donald Trump chose last May to abandon Irans 2015 nuclear accord, negotiated with five other world powers. UFO sighting tourist destination becomes 'sanctuary city for the unborn' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Roswell, New Mexico, the southwestern United States city famous for a 1947 incident that some claim involved an alien spaceship crashing to earth, has passed a resolution in support of the unborn. The vote came the same week that the New Mexico state senate rejected a pro-abortion bill. Roswells city council voted last Thursday in support of Resolution 19-28, known as A Resolution in Support of the Unborn. The resolution states among other things that each and every innocent human life is unique and precious to God, innocent human life must always be protected and preserved, and that the protection of all human life is important to the people of the City of Roswell. innocent human life, including fetal life, must always be protected and that Society must protect those who cannot protect themselves, resolved the City Council, stressing their opposition to any diminution by the New Mexico Legislature of the limitations on abortion. Be it further resolved that the City Council honors the rights of healthcare providers to object on moral grounds to performing abortions and opposes any regulation or law seeking to violate that right. The pro-life group Abortion Free New Mexico celebrated the passage of the resolution, declaring that Roswell has become a sanctuary city for the unborn. Roswells resolution appears to be modeled off of a resolution passed by the Lea County Board of County Commissioners last month, though the County resolution did not include a call to protect conscience rights for healthcare providers. Both resolutions came in response to the New Mexico legislature considering a measure to repeal an unenforceable statute criminalizing abortion. Supporters of the repeal bill sought to remove the statute from state law in response to a possible overturning of the United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in the near future. The provision of abortion care wont change, but we know its at risk, stated ACLU of New Mexico spokesperson Ellie Rushforth, which supported the repeal, as reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican. Although the repeal passed the state house, last week the New Mexico Senate killed it in a vote of 18-24, in which all 16 Republicans and 8 Democrats rejected the pro-choice measure. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham denounced the state Senates vote to keep the statute, calling it an embarrassment. This old, outdated statute criminalizing health care providers is an embarrassment. That removing it was even a debate, much less a difficult vote for some senators, is inexplicable to me, stated Grisham, as reported by the New Mexican. Physician-assisted suicide bills die in New Mexico, Arkansas Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The New Mexico and Arkansas legislatures both defeated bills that would have legalized assisted suicide. Writing in LifeNews Thursday, Alex Schadenberg, who heads the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, reported that bill HB 90 in New Mexico has been tabled. The legislation, which was later amended, was, in his view, the most radical bill of its kind in that the language provided for euthanasia and allowed the practice to expand. The New Mexico bill, which was known as the Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act, passed through two House committees earlier this year, but was quietly tabled in the lower chamber of the legislature in late February, The Santa Fe New Mexican reported this week. At the time we are just a few votes shy to pass the bill, said Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque, who sponsored the legislation along with Sen. Elizabeth Stefanics, D-Cerrillos. What we do have, though, is the drive and the commitment to keep building momentum, to keep reaching out to legislators on both sides of the aisle and to keep educating people about medical aid-in-dying something like this takes time, Armstrong said. The bill would have allowed medical doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to those who wish to end their suffering and take their lives. The New Mexico legislation was awkwardly worded, Schadenberg said in January, having previously understood it to mean that the bill would enable "suicide tourism," allowing people from other states to come to New Mexico for assisted suicide. A bill that would have allowed assisted suicide in Arkansas also died Thursday. The News & Observer reported Tuesday that the Arkansas measure died in the House Public Health Committee after it failed to receive a motion to send the bill to the chamber floor. The bill, which was sponsored by Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, would have added an exception to the state's existing ban on physician-assisted suicide. "Douglas' proposal would not have required doctors or health care facilities to participate in the procedure. A patient under the proposal would have to ask a doctor twice within 15 days to write a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs before the doctor could fulfill the request," the Arkansas outlet reported. As of the beginning of 2019, physician assisted suicide remains banned in most U.S. states but is legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Colombia. In Montana, physician-assisted suicide has been legal by State Supreme Court ruling since 2009. SBC leaders back Texas bill allowing churches to disclose sexual misconduct allegations Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Newly proposed legislation in Texas would allow churches and nonprofit organizations to disclose allegations of sexual misconduct without being sued. The bill comes amid fallout from extensive investigative reporting in the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News about hundreds of cases of sexual abuse where both leaders and volunteers in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes. Their investigations explained how, in dozens of instances, churches failed to disclose concerns about former staff members who were abusers and who sought employment at other churches, and would go on to abuse more victims. The measure, HB 4345, was introduced by Texas House Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney, who's also a Southern Baptist minister, and is the latest among similar proposals around the country now being considered in light of the #MeToo movement and other religious sexual abuse scandals, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. A spokesperson for Sanford said the bill was brought to us by faith leaders and that Sanford saw this as an important step to reporting and preventing sexual abuse. The legislation came together within the past month, according to the spokesman for the Texas state convention of the Southern Baptist denomination, Gary Ledbetter, who noted that he did not know what "directly prompted" the legislation. Lawyers often advise churches to say nothing except that the person did work here when discussing former employees with potential new bosses, Ledbetter said. Basically, we dont say anything, he said. This bill would encourage churches to tell the truth as best as they know. Executive director of the Texas SBC, Jim Richards, also supports the bill, and told the Houston Chronicle that the convention must do everything we can to protect the innocents from predators." "As a convention of churches we will continue to work on ways to provide a safe environment for the vulnerable. We hope HB 4345 will facilitate this goal, he said. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the SBC's public policy arm, also backs the bill. Widespread sexual misconduct and systematic cover-up of the perpetrator's crimes occurring within churches and their affiliated ministries has come to the fore in recent months not only with the release of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's report on clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church but in Independent Fundamental Baptist churches and Southern Baptist congregations. Abuse within the SBC, the Texas newspapers found, was allowed to go on because of local church autonomy. Although connected by a common mission and an overarching denominational structure, each Southern Baptist congregation governs itself and governs itself independently. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. "This is a scandal crying out to Heaven," wrote Russell Moore, who leads the ERLC, when the story broke in the Houston Chronicle last month. "The churchs message to survivors should be a clear communication that they are those who have been sinned against, not those who have sinned, that they are not troublemakers in the church but those who are helping the real 'trouble' to come to light." Similarly, SBC President J.D. Greear, who pastors Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, said that the February report means that it was time "to mourn and repent" as a denomination. "Changes are coming. They must. We cannot just promise to 'do better' and expect that to be enough," he said. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The appointment of Cleric Ebrahim Raisi as head of the Iranian judiciary on Thursday was met with wide-ranging international condemnation. Statements from groups such as Amnesty International have highlighted Raisis record as one of the most brutal figures in the modern history of Iranian jurisprudence, owing especially to his leading role in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988. The National Council of Resistance of Iran echoed this criticism. It has sought over the years to bring broader international attention to the massacre. This is to be expected, since the NCRIs main constituent group, the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK/PMOI), was the main target of the bloodbath which sought to wipe out organized opposition to the theocratic system. Raisis ascendance to the head of the judiciary is just the latest example in a trend that the NCRI has also repeatedly sought to highlight. Tehrans worst perpetrators of human rights abuse have frequently been rewarded for their crimes with promotions to more influential positions, while facing no genuine consequences on the world stage. There is another aspect to this trend that the NCRI emphasized in its statement on the Raisi appointment. By elevating the hardline judge and former presidential candidate, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proves once again that as the head of the crisis-stricken theocratic regime, he finds no solution other than a hard turn towards further repression, the NCRI stated. The crisis in question is twofold: widespread domestic unrest, the effects of which have been amplified by rising levels of international isolation for the Iranian regime. The domestic unrest began in earnest in the final days of 2017, and by mid-January 2018, public protests had spread to well over 150 cities and towns. Participants chanted slogans like death to the dictator, leaving no doubt about the popular demand for regime change. Against the backdrop of that unrest, Khamenei was forced to acknowledge that the demonstrations spread had been driven in large part by the MEK, a break from prior portrayals of the Iranian Resistance as marginal and lacking in social influence. President Hassan Rouhani personally called French President Emmanuel Macron to demand that he limit the activities of the NCRI in France. Macron refused. Raisis promotion also speaks to the foolishness of the stubborn adherence in some circles to the myth of moderation, wherein Rouhanis 2013 election as president of the Islamic Republic was greeted as a victory. But by the time that Donald Trump took office as Rouhanis counterpart in Washington, it had become clear that the promised moderation was not forthcoming. Repressive policies included expanding the separation of women and men in public, banning additional media outlets and online services, and enhanced deployment of morality police to confront everyday Iranians over alleged violations of Islamic law. Notwithstanding Tehrans supposed compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, its foreign policy continued to be characterized by belligerence toward the West, ballistic missile tests, a military buildup, and provocative maneuvers in the presence of Western vessels as they transited the Persian Gulf. Not to mention successive terrorist plots on European and US soil. All of this speaks to an overarching impulse to avoid moderation at all costs. But despite launching a harsh crackdown, the ruling regime has been unable to crush the rising tide of unrest. Protests, strikes, demonstrations and clashes continue to erupt in villages, towns and cities. In this sense, the appointment of Raisi as the new judiciary chief is just the latest in a series of efforts to reassert a national identity that is under threat of overthrow at the hands of a resentful and overwhelmingly pro-democratic population. The regime may see no other solution than a hard turn towards further repression, but ultimately, that is no solution. The Iranian people have continued to demonstrate in favor of dramatic reform and outright regime change even in the wake of thousands of protesters being arrested, and dozens killed. The resilience of Irans activist community was on display here in Washington this week, as thousands of Iranian-Americans marched in support of the NCRI and its 10-point Plan for an Iran that is free, democratic, and nonnuclear. They sought to bring the message of Irans people to Washington. Simply put, they have had enough. They are strong. They are capable. And theyre determined to succeed in overthrowing this evil and illegitimate regime. They deserve moral and political support from the democratic nations of the world. Ken Blackwell is the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The following is not a hypothetical scenario. Your four-year old daughter comes home from school and says, I can wear my brothers clothes and he can wear mine. I can change my name to a boys name. Again, this scenario is not hypothetical. This is exactly what happened to British mum Mariam Ahmed recently. According to the UK Telegraph, Ahmed immediately checked with the parents of other children who attend the same school. Many, according to Ahmed, had the same story to tell. They learned that their Birmingham school, Parkview Community School, was participating in the No Outsiders program. The goal of the program is to raise awareness of LGBTQ+ issues for children ages 4 through 11. No Outsider was launched by Parkview Communitys assistant headmaster, Andrew Moffatt, an openly gay educator whos been awarded by the Queen for services to equality and diversity in education. Now, as you might have guessed by the name, Ahmed is a Muslim. In fact, Parkview Community School is 98 percent Muslim. And as you may have guessed, most Muslim parents take a pretty dim view of this kind of thing. They believe that such programs arent really about raising awareness of LGBTQ+ issues, but more about the sexual indoctrination of their children. As Tariq Iqbal, the father of two children at Parkview Community told Britains iNews: My children and nieces and nephews are going around school corridors, hearing its okay to be gay or lesbian. We dont have an issue with the orientation. Thats a personal concern and a personal debate. But what were not happy with is the way that theyre drumming it into the children. For many, like Mohammed Aslam, age is also an issue. Aslam reports that his daughter, age six, came home from school one day confused and crying. She said she was told children can have two mummies and two daddies, and that she can wear boys clothes. In response, the Muslim community has decided not to take this indoctrination lying down. Ahmed started a petition against the No Outsiders program. Parents organized a protest outside the school, which has been going on for weeks. On one Friday, 600 of the schools 740 families kept their children at home. Now those from other communities are joining in the protest. Dr. Lisa Nolland, a Christian professional, drove from Bristol to congratulate the Muslim parents for showing the way on how to deal with indoctrination. As Nolland told the Telegraph, This isnt about religion, it isnt even about parents, its about whats best for kids . . . This is literally eroticising child development. This is damaging children. The numbers of child-on-child sex abuse are awful. Turn the volume down. While the Parkview parents have in some measure succeededthe school has temporarily suspended the programthe national attention garnered by the protests has not been always favorable. For instance, one Muslim politician who sided with the parents and said the students were too young to be taught about homosexuality, has since apologised for his comments and has been formally reported to Birmingham City Councils Standards Committee by Conservative councillor Gareth Moore, who is gay. Commenting on the situation, Rod Dreher at the American Conservative wrote, Notice that the parents, even though they believe homosexuality is immoral, do not object to age-sensitive treatment of the issue in schools. What they object to is this gender ideology being jammed down the throats of their young ones. That critical distinction is crucial for American parents as well. The Muslims in Birmingham realize that British society accepts homosexuality and theres no way their children can avoid the issue. But these parents insist that the indoctrination, especially at such a young age, must stop. American parents can learn from this, and also insist, forcefully and civilly and no matter the pushback, that the government stop indoctrinating and sexualizing our children. Resources How an LGBT+ sex education programme sparked a five-week protest in a primary school in Birmingham, Jasmine Andersson | inews.co.uk | March 8, 2019 Solidarity With Parkfield Muslims, Rod Dreher | American Conservative | March 10, 2019 School defends LGBT lessons after religious parents complain, Nazia Parveen | The Guardian | January 31, 2019 The culture clash about sex education thats turned a primary school into a battlezone, Eleanor Steafel | Telegraph.co.uk | March 8, 2019 Originally posted at Breakpoint. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Who has authority over the abyss? That may be the most important question in the wake of the recent horrific events in New Zealand, Nigeria, and other parts of the world where it seemed that all hell broke loose. In New Zealand, a gunman massacred at least fifty Muslim worshippers in the sanctuary of their mosques. In Nigeria, more than one hundred Christians were slaughtered in the sanctity of homes and churches by religious fanatics. Many Bible students wonder when the Great Tribulation will come. The survivors of the New Zealand and Nigeria bloodbaths and their families might conclude that great tribulation is already here. So would millions of asylum seekers who have been persecuted because of religion. In this age, it seems the bottomless pit has cracked a seam, and the misery blasts up into the world like solar flares from the deep core of the sun. One of the most relevant voices now is that of a man dead for decades. Christopher Dawson was a serious Catholic Christian, a philosophical historian. An Englishman trained at Oxford, Dawson would ultimately teach at Harvard. Dawson focused on the biblical view of nations and cultures. He was fascinated by the spiritual significance and undertones of historic events. Bradley J. Birzer, a Dawson biographer, wrote that in his span of the twentieth century, Dawson watched the rise of nationalism, communism, fascism, the holocaust camps, the gulags, the killing fields, and the sheer mechanization and overwhelming destruction of human life... All the events of the last years have convinced me what a fragile thing civilization is, Dawson wrote. He looked deeply into all this and more, and feared the unloosing of the powers of the abyss. The recent events in our times are abysmal in the most literal sense of the word. The abyss, according to the Bible, is the habitation of the beast (Revelation 11:7), the prison of fallen angels (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6) Who or what has the authority to restrain these powers that push so hard to bring their torments into the world? Apparently no one in the view of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her hubristic soul mates who mock thoughts and prayers when murderous madness breaks out. Many who sit in the seat of the scornful believe there is no abyss, but only behaviors the state must do a better job of controlling. By the reality revealed through the Bible, it is the statists who are irrelevant. They are unable to pass enough laws and mouth enough slogans to stop the carnage. This is why Christopher Dawson noted the fragility of civilization. Russell Kirk, one of Dawsons most influential disciples, concluded that a civilization cannot long survive the dying of belief in a transcendent order that brought the culture into being. Thus we cannot look to Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow secular progressives to close the snarling mouth of the abyss and rescue us. Who, then, has authority over the abyss? All authority is given to Me, said Jesus of Nazareth. Christs authority over the powers of the abyss was demonstrated every time He cast out demons. It continues today whenever and wherever the name of Jesus is used to drive out the demonic, when the Word of God is proclaimed against the lies and delusions of the pit, or when Christ-exalting praise and worship displace the darkness. When those things happen, Christs Kingdom is manifest. How is the Lord Jesus Christ present midst the abysmal tragedies of our time? The answer is seen when Jesus gives the keys of the Kingdom to Simon Peter, and, through him, to the church. It is on this basis Christs followers are to go into all the world, proclaiming the Kingdom, baptizing, making disciplesapprenticesof Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. Jesus also describes the church as His body, and the Apostle Paul builds on that theme in his letters to the churches. It is the church that is to continue Jesuss love-driven incarnational ministry in the world, through the power of the Holy Spirit. But which church? When Christopher Dawson wrote of the church and the Kingdom of God he thought of Christendom, that era and expanse when the Catholic Church held great power in Europe. However, the church that inherits the authority of the Kingdom is that which professes Jesus Christ as Lord, whether Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic, or whatever denominational alignment or human categorization. The church that restrains the powers of the abyss is that which worships Gods transcendent majesty and reveres His holiness. Such churches are Jesus-centered, doing in their communities what Jesus did in His incarnate work. Abyss-restraining churches are energized by the Holy Spirit rather than merely mesmerized by the deeds of the flesh. The authentic church is anchored to the Word of God and its changeless truth. The church with authority over the powers of the abyss has compelling vision of Christs Kingdom, and the blessings its brings to the worldbeginning with its own neighborhood and all the way out to the uttermost parts. The less the church functions in the world as the body of Christ, the more the state will try to step in and use sheer power to try to tame the powers of the abyss. So in this age when the deadly, spiritually sulfuric stench of the abyss darkens the nations, poisons their cultures, and chokes the life out of their societies, let the church be the church! Wallace Henley is senior associate pastor at Houstons Second Baptist Church, a former White House and Congressional aide. His newest book is Call Down Lightning, from Thomas Nelson-Emanate. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment One of the disturbing trends I have witnessed in ministry comes from pastors who neglect their families for their churches. It would seem for some that busyness and pulling long hours is the mark of a successful pastor. However, when we learn of countless pastors who burn out from exhaustion or from those who lose their families due to neglect or infidelity, one must wonder whether this model is good after all. The Scripture places a high emphasis on the family unit. It seems to indicate that the pastors first ministry must be to his family. Furthermore, Scripture seems to indicate that placing family as ones first priority, after God alone, is a prerequisite for ministry. Neglect of Family Compared to Unbelief (1 Tim. 5:8). In 1 Timothy, the young pastor is given sage advice by the aged apostle Paul on how to serve in ministry. It is of no surprise that one finds the words, But if anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8, CSB). How is it that this verse is missed? A child depends on his or her parents for their wellbeing. If a pastor is not caring for his familys needs, he cannot serve the church because he is failing at his first calling. Care for Family is a Prerequisite for Ministry (1 Tim. 3:4-5). The apostle lays forth the prerequisites that Timothy must consider before placing a pastor or deacon in office. Almost all the prerequisites for the pastor (i.e., the overseer, Gk. Episkopos) are the same for the deacon (i.e., the servant, Gk. Diakonos) except for the need to teach. The CSB uses the phrase manage his own household. Interestingly, proistemi is the term used. Proistemi as used in the NT indicates leadership, but in a greater sense it means for a person to to care for someone or something. Thus, if this meaning is implied, then Paul is saying that a pastor must first care for his family before he can care for the church. The family must be the pastors first calling. Caring for the Family is Part of the Greatest Commandment (Dt. 6:7). Jesus indicated that the greatest commandment is the Shema which is found in Deuteronomy 6:5. The Shema says, Listen (Heb. Shema), Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength (Dt. 6:5, CSB). But two verses below, the text says that the parent is to Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (Dt. 6:6-7). Religious and spiritual instruction begins at home. A pastors highest calling is not the sermons preached on Sunday mornings, but the instruction that is given to his children each day. I have tragically seen many pastors ruin their families in order to obtain what they feel is pastoral and/or ministerial accomplishment. The family is sacrificed at the altar of success. However, I have witnessed something quite profound at the Lords leading. My grandfather was a wonderful pastor. He related to people in delightful ways. However, when my grandpa died, the numerous people from the churches he served were not there holding his hand as he took his final breath. His children and grandchildren were there with him. My grandmother would have most certainly been there had she not suffered with Alzheimers. This point is not to begrudge anyone from the churches he served. The same is true for numerous other pastors and deacons who have died. It simply relays a profound pointput first those who will be there for you when you take your final breath. Sacrificing your family for ministerial success is not only unbiblical, it disqualifies you from serving. 2019. BellatorChristi.com. Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com and is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University. Brian has been in the ministry for over 15 years and serves as a pastor in northwestern North Carolina. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment I received yet another inquiry today: Do you have any recommendations for a student minister? We just cant seem to find one. Weve been looking for over six months. For several years, I would get similar inquiries about worship leaders or worship pastors. Today, there seems to be a dearth of both worship pastors and student pastors. So, where have all the student pastors gone? I asked some key leaders I trust on this issue. Here are their and my perspectives: A number of young leaders decided to plant a church rather than enter into or continue in youth ministry. Youth ministry traditionally has been a field dominated by young males. Many of these young males began narrowing their vocational choices to student ministry or church planting. A large number decided to plant churches. On the one hand, thats a really good development. We definitely need more church planters. On the other hand, many churches are now pleading for student pastors. Youth ministry traditionally has been a field dominated by young males. Many of these young males began narrowing their vocational choices to student ministry or church planting. A large number decided to plant churches. On the one hand, thats a really good development. We definitely need more church planters. On the other hand, many churches are now pleading for student pastors. Fewer schools are offering training in student ministry. Its a chicken or egg question. Are fewer schools offering this training and, as a consequence, fewer young people are becoming student pastors? Or, are fewer young people seeking the training and, thus, the schools are closing the programs because of diminished demand? Either way, there are fewer trained youth ministers. Its a chicken or egg question. Are fewer schools offering this training and, as a consequence, fewer young people are becoming student pastors? Or, are fewer young people seeking the training and, thus, the schools are closing the programs because of diminished demand? Either way, there are fewer trained youth ministers. It is becoming increasingly common for many churches to call a student pastor from their own congregations. These youth ministers then do not always seek training from a college or seminary and, thus, the schools often close their programs. Smaller churches typically do not have the pool of internal candidates the larger churches do. And these churches are among the most frustrated in their search for student pastors. These youth ministers then do not always seek training from a college or seminary and, thus, the schools often close their programs. Smaller churches typically do not have the pool of internal candidates the larger churches do. And these churches are among the most frustrated in their search for student pastors. Some churches have eliminated the position of student pastor and replaced it with a family pastor position. Family pastors often have much broader roles than ministering to middle school and/or high school students. Thus, these churches have lost a specific focus on student ministry for adolescents. Family pastors often have much broader roles than ministering to middle school and/or high school students. Thus, these churches have lost a specific focus on student ministry for adolescents. Fewer middle school and high school students attend church. The Gen Z generation has fewer in church than previous generations. This development is not new. It began with both Gen X and the Millennials. But the trend continues unabated. Fewer students means a diminished need for student pastors. A number of churches that contact me believe a good student pastor is the magic bullet solution to help grow their churches and make them younger. If a church is in decline and growing older, it is unlikely that one person can reverse those trends. The church as a whole must change first and follow in greater obedience to the Great Commission. I am curious. Are you seeing this same dearth of student pastors? Have you been looking for one for your church unsuccessfully? I would love to hear your story on this topic. Let me hear from you. Originally posted at ThomRainer.com. Dr. Thom Rainer is president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. New gun laws to make New Zealand safer after mosque shootings, says PM Ardern New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days, after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. 'Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer,' Ardern said at news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealand's worst ever mass shooting. In addition to the 50 killed, dozens were wounded at two mosques in the South Island city during Friday prayers. Gun City owner David Tipple said the alleged gunman legally bought four weapons and ammunition online from the store between December 2017 and March 2018, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the massacre. 'The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms,' Tipple told a news conference in Christchurch. Under New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. Live-streamed video of a gunman in one mosque showed a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine round. Tipple said he supported Ardern's move to reform gun laws as the Christchurch shootings had raised legitimate concerns. Ardern did not detail the new gun laws, but has said she supports a ban on automatic weapons following the Christchurch shootings. Australia introduced some of the world's toughest gun laws after its worst mass killing, the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which a lone gunman killed 35 people using a semi-automatic AR-15 the same weapon used in the Christchurch massacre. Australia banned semi-automatic weapons, launched a national gun amnesty in which tens of thousands of guns were handed in, and made it much tougher to own firearms. Gun owners surrender weapons Ardern encouraged gun owners who were thinking of surrendering their weapons to do so. 'The clear lesson from history around the world is that to make our community safer, the time to act is now,' she said. 'I strongly believe that the vast majority of gun owners in New Zealand will agree with the sentiment that change needs to occur.' John Hart, a farmer and Green Party candidate from Masterton said on Twitter on Monday that he had surrendered his semi-automatic rifle. 'Until today I was one of the New Zealanders who owned a semi-automatic rifle. On the farm they are a useful tool in some circumstances, but my convenience doesn't outweigh the risk of misuse. We don't need these in our country. We have make sure it's #NeverAgain.' New Zealand's top online marketplace Trade Me Group said it was halting the sale of semi-automatic weapons in the wake of Friday's attack. New Zealand, a country of only 5 million people, has an estimated 1.5 million firearms. A Radio New Zealand report, based on police data secured through an Official Information Act request, said more than 99 per cent of people who applied for a firearms licence in 2017 were successful. A New Zealand standard A-category firearm licence is issued after a police and background check. Only firearm owners are licensed, not weapons, so there is no monitoring of how many weapons a person may possess. Still, violent crime is rare in New Zealand and police do not usually carry guns. Before Friday, New Zealand's worst mass shooting was in 1990 when a man killed 13 men, women and children in a 24-hour rampage in the seaside village of Aramoana. He was killed by police. Ardern said an inquiry will be held into what authorities knew or should have known about Tarrant and the events leading up to the massacre, to see whether the attack could have been prevented. There were 250 detectives and specialists across the country working on the investigation, said police. burial frustrations Ardern was the first signatory of a national condolence book that she opened in the capital Wellington on Monday. 'On behalf of all New Zealanders, we grieve together. We are one. They are us,' she wrote. Frustration was building among the families of victims as under Islam it is custom to conduct burials within 24 hours, but bodies will not be released until post mortems are carried out. The burial process, which usually involves washing with three kinds of water, salving wounds and scrubbing skin, would be complicated, volunteers in Christchurch said. 'These people died in prayer, on their way to prayer, on our holy day, a Friday, in the precincts of our holy places,' said Rehanna Ali, from the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand. 'And faith was what they died for. And so faith is now part of the healing process for their loved ones.' The two mosques involved in the shootings have been closed since the massacre, but are expected to reopen by Friday prayers after cleansing blessings were carried out. Muslim leaders conveyed messages of love, compassion and appreciation for the community support they had received as hundreds of people visited the scenes to pray, sing and offer condolences. Over the weekend, tens of thousands flocked to memorial vigils around New Zealand and a victim support website raised more than NZ$5.5 million (2.8 million). NINE BEATS: How the beatitudes of Jesus speak to a broken world We're three months in and already 2019 has been a hell of a year literally, if you live in Aleppo or in South Sudan, Yemen or Venezuela. Or in any one of the countless communities worldwide buried below the poverty line. Elsewhere, our political institutions have not delivered a better world but only hate, fear and greater division. Post-truth there is nothing we trust. Wars, shootings and bombings are carried out against and in the name of every religion and ideology. Refugees many of them children have crossed continents and risked death at sea to sleep on the streets of Western European cities. Climate chaos and school shootings have brought our young people out on the streets, demanding that things should be different. For those willing to listen, those who are awake: the world is not as it should be. We are hurting. The system isn't working. The empire is bust. But now is not a time for despair. If you feel something is broken, then listen for the strains of an ancient teaching that have been there all along. Listen for the whisper of another world. Two thousand years ago, Jesus stood on a Palestinian hillside and declared that the poor, the grieving, the meek, and the persecuted are blessed. The outsiders, the oppressed, and the forgotten are included. In the beatitudes Jesus invites us to trust, not fear; lament, not denial; cooperation, not comparison; agency, not despair; compassion, not judgement; honesty, not pretence; human embrace, not division; surrender, not retaliation. A growing tribe of us are exploring these nine sayings nine beats as a path of recovery, back to reality. They are an invitation to walk through life differently, a rhythm we are desperate to feel reverberating through our world, up through the soles of our feet, right to our bones. In a world where Christianity has become toxic to many with the Bible too often wielded as a weapon against difference the beatitudes call us back to the radical way of Jesus. The counter-cultural manifesto of the nine 'beats' is as relevant now as it's ever been. Early in 2016 what became the NINE BEATS Collective first gathered to explore the beatitudes together at a retreat centre in the hills above Los Angeles. Many of us hadn't met before connected together loosely through friends of friends and word of mouth. We were a strange collection of artists, musicians, theologians, and activists, drawn together from three continents. The beauty of NINE BEATS began in diversity of culture, music, perspectives, background, race a gloriously wide canvas to create from. It shouldn't have worked but with these beguiling, subversive, inclusive words spoken by Jesus 2,000 years ago as the common thread, somehow it did. And if it worked here, why not everywhere? What began as a creative hothouse soon became an album of music inspired by the wisdom of the beatitudes. A big concept album, musical styles ranged from classical to African vibes, and pop to 'dirty gospel'. As Collective member Vince Anderson described it: 'You have a collection of songwriters, artists, musicians, that aren't trying to set the beatitudes to music but rather try to find the essence of what they are and write around that. It's almost like we're writing in between the cracks of the beatitudes. There's a space in between each beatitude that this album is trying to fill.' Gigs and gatherings followed, and we began to find ourselves truly captivated if not a little obsessed by the beatitudes. These strange upside-down blessings connect with the real struggles of our lives and our world. And we find their echo everywhere, as communities practise peace and justice and forgiveness in ways both profound and everyday. You'll recognise them too. We've filmed stories around the world from people walking to this beat. There's a priest in California who arrived as a child from the hills of El Salvador and daily builds community with street-sleepers and undocumented migrants. A journalist in the UK who took her years of practice as a foreign correspondent and began to tell stories of how people forgive, in the face of unimaginable pain. A former 'street child' in Uganda who uses his success as a music artist to advocate for children's rights. And there's us all of us who dare to hope for change. And who know that change has to begin with us. NINE BEATS is so much more than an album. We hope it's a movement. Will you join us? Here come the oppressed, they own the future. Here come the grieving, they will be comforted. Here come the enslaved, they will have the whole earth. Here come the ones who are starved of justice, they will be filled. Here come the gracious, they will be shown grace. Here come the uncorrupted, they will see God. Here come the peacemakers, they will be protected. Here you come you oppressed, you wrongly accused. Take heart, they did this to heroes whose ghosts will not die. (The beatitudes an invocation, by Matt Valler/NINE BEATS Collective.) Danielle Welch is a founding member of the NINE BEATS Collective and co-author of 'The Ninefold Path experiments in the beatitudes'. Find out more at www.9beats.org. Danielle lives in South London and is a community leader at Oasis Waterloo. Around 350 personnel from 24 NATO member states and partner countries are set to kick off 11 days of joint military exercises in Georgia today. The drills, dubbed NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019, are to run until March 29 at the Krtsanisi National Training Center near Tbilisi. The exercise is "an important exercise for Georgia and a significant milestone in strengthening NATO-Georgia military-political cooperation," the NATO statement reads. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is set to visit Georgia during the exercise to meet with the republic's leadership and attend the drills. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO, observer) will also be present during the exercise, Agenda.ge reported. It is the second NATO-Georgia exercise to take place within the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP). The first NATO-Georgia exercise was conducted in 2016 involving NATO allied and partner nations, with 14 nations in total. 5 minutes with A pair of Chinese Export reverse mirror paintings These 18th-century mirror paintings offered on 20 March in New York were created by Chinese artisans using flat sheets of mirrored glass imported from Europe. As such, says specialist Victoria Tudor, they reflect a unique period of cultural exchange This extremely fine pair of Chinese export reverse mirror paintings offers us a snapshot of Canton [now known as Guangzhou] in the 18th century during a pivotal moment in trade between China and the West, says Victoria Tudor, decorative arts specialist at Christies in New York. It also reflects a highly romanticised vision of what the East wished to portray to the West. In the 1750s European trade with China was restricted to Canton, allowing the Chinese state under the Qianlong Emperor to collect taxes on goods traded and to monitor interactions with the West more easily. Canton became the only hub of commerce on mainland China, where an exchange of goods as well as ideas occurred, Tudor explains. This style of export mirror painting emerged and ultimately flourished in a unique environment of cultural exchange. The painstaking process of making mirror paintings was undertaken by Chinese artisans who were already experts in painting and calligraphy. Of course, artists in China had been painting for centuries, but the notion of painting on the reverse of a glass was inspired by Europeans, the specialist explains. The production of flat sheets of glass had yet to be accomplished in China, so large mirror plates were imported for local artisans, who combined traditional Chinese ink painting with learned Western techniques to create new, highly desirable works of art. The painting purports to capture for the Western viewer what life was like in China, but its clearly very idealised Victoria Tudor To create the reverse glass paintings, artisans traced the outlines of their designs on the back of the plate and, using a special steel implement, scraped away the mirror backing to reveal glass that could then be painted. Several layers of paint were applied to one side of the glass, in the reverse order of those laid down on an easel or panel painting, while the painting would be viewed from the other side. The reverse mirror paintings were made almost entirely for export, and the works reflect the impact that China had on the imagination of the West. There are distinct European influences represented in the imagery of the two Chinese ladies of rank sitting by the Pearl River surrounding Canton, says Victoria Tudor In the painting above, a pastoral scene features two Chinese ladies of rank sitting by the Pearl River which flows through Canton. The painting purports to capture for the Western viewer what life was like in China, but its clearly very idealised actually quite amusing, says Tudor, pointing out the womens impractical ensembles of sumptuous silk robes and intricate headdresses on the industrial waterfront. The exuberant and bright colours, along with the fineness in detail, made these artworks extremely popular in the West. Sign up today The Online Magazine delivers the best features, videos, and auction news to your inbox every week Subscribe Collecting stories: Jean Bonna As a group of Old Master and 19th-century drawings from Jean Bonnas collection come to auction in New York, Lisa Johnson meets the collector in his elegant 1860s Geneva townhouse For Jean Bonna, the special thing about drawings is that they represent the first thoughts of an artist. Generally, before you paint or sculpt or print, you draw, explains the Swiss collector and retired banker, seated in the drawing room of his elegant 1860s Geneva townhouse, surrounded by framed works by some of the biggest names in European art. Drawings 12 of which go on sale at Christies in New York in January 2020 (see below for lots offered) were not Bonnas earliest passion, however. An avid reader, he bought a first edition of Rabelais at the age of 9 (The third volume was a dictionary of all the rude words, he says), and he has gone on to assemble one of the worlds most complete collections of first editions of French literature 4,000 volumes, including a rare incunabulum by the 15th-century poet Francois Villon. It was the illustrations in such incunabula that sparked Bonnas interest in Renaissance prints, and the prints led to the drawings. Prints are complicated a good-quality work can be worth 1,000 times more than one of lousy quality, he says. Bonna bought his first drawing, a Hubert Robert, in 1982, and now has 482 high-quality figurative works that cover literally the walls of his two Swiss homes. Most are from the Italian Renaissance and French 17th to 19th centuries, although there are also significant works by Northern artists and a few British drawings; together, says Christies specialist Stijn Alsteens, they constitute one of the broadest, largest and most valuable collections of Old Master drawings in private hands in the world today. Bonna likes them all, he says, and is hard-pressed to choose which one he would save in a fire, finally plumping for one of his five drawings by Boucher, although the most valuable is undoubtedly a Raphael. He has rarely sold a drawing and is only doing so now because theres no room left: he is giving his house on Lake Geneva to one of his sons and doesnt like putting works in drawers. Jean Bonna with the curator Nathalie Strasser, who has catalogued his collection of drawings Bonnas drawings have been exhibited at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum in New York; more unusually, they have also been eloquently and beautifully catalogued by the curator Nathalie Strasser. They met when she was working in the print room at Genevas Musee dArt et dHistoire and he agreed to fund an exhibition catalogue of illustrations for La Fontaines Fables. Bonnas principal motivation in cataloguing his collection was to create a record for posterity, and the fact that he has always believed provenance to be extremely important; learning more about his drawings as Strasser has added her discoveries to the annals of art history has been a bonus. Bonna is still collecting and would love a Van Dyck. He describes collecting as an incurable disease, but not an inherited one, and his advice to novice collectors is that they should only buy whats right for them. His own collections are two very different creatures: while the complete nature of the book collection means it has to include authors he doesnt enjoy (such as Rousseau), with the drawings, he has simply bought what he could afford and what he admired consulting specialists, curators and dealers, who have become close friends, to help him evaluate quality. Francois Lemoyne (Paris 1688-1737), Etude d'un cavalier casque tenant une lance. Black chalk, stumped, heightened with white. 14 x 7 in (36.6 x 19.7 cm). Sold for 81,250 on 27 March 2019 at Christies in Paris One such example is the beautiful black chalk drawing by Francois Lemoyne (above), which came from a historical collection that belonged to the 18th-century collector and jeweller J.D. Lempereur. I like it because, although the figure is finished, like most of my drawings, the imagination is left to complete the rest, explains Bonna. In fact, adds Nathalie Strasser, its one of nine known preparatory drawings and studies that Lemoyne did for Tancredi and Clorinda, an oil painting inspired by Tassos 16th-century epic poem, Jerusalem Delivered, which is now at the Musee des Beaux-Arts et dArchaeologie in Besancon. Lemoyne was wildly successful: he won the Prix de Rome, painted at Versailles, and was first painter to the king under Louis XV. He would start by drawing nude figures, to get the movement right, then add the clothes. Jean Bonna admires works by Francois Lemoyne (top) and Jean-Baptiste Greuze from his collection Jean Bonnas personal taste, he has latterly realised, gravitates towards grace and harmony; there are more women than men, and more landscapes than battlefields. But hes clear on what he doesnt like (contemporary art, and French neoclassical art its too artificial) and on what propelled him to collect in the first place. Sign up today Christies Online Magazine delivers our best features, videos, and auction news to your inbox every week Subscribe Midland oil company Diamondback Energy is preparing to drill 17 new horizontal wells targeting a diverse group of geological layers on state-owned lands in the Permian Basin of West Texas. Diamondback is seeking permission from the Railroad Commission of Texas to drill seven oil wells targeting the Spraberry geological layer on four state-owned leases in Howard and Martin counties; four horizontal wells targeting the Hoefts TK field of the Wolfcamp geological layer on three state-owned leases in Pecos County; and six horizontal wells targeting the Phantom field of the Wolfcamp geological layer on three state-owned leases in Reeves and Ward counties. Diamondback filed for 230 original drilling permits in 2018. The companys 532 leases produced more than 24.3 million barrels of crude oil and more than 42.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2018, Railroad Commission figures show. Permian Basin The Woodlands oil company Anadarko Petroleum is gearing up to drill eight new horizontal wells on state-owned lands in West Texas. The company is seeking permission to drill oil wells on four leases owned by University Lands in Loving County. All eight wells target the Phantom field of the Wolfcamp geological layer. Eagle Ford Shale Arkansas-based Murphy Oil is preparing is seeking permission to drill 10 new horizontal wells on its Tyler Ranch lease in McMullen County and another four on its Walnut and RLT Unit B lease in Atascosa County. All 14 wells target the Eagleville field of the Eagle Ford geological layer down to a total depth of 14,000 feet. Haynesville Shale More Information Top 10 Texas Drillers (Wednesday, March 6 through Tuesday, March 13) Diamondback Energy 17 Murphy Oil 14 Endeavor Energy Resources 13 Felix Energy Holdings 10 Exxon Mobil 10 EOG Resources 9 Shell 9 Concho Resources 9 Aethon Energy 8 Anadarko Petroleum 8 Source: Railroad Commission of Texas See More Collapse Dallas oil and natural gas company Aethon Energy continues to expand in East Texas, seeking permission to drill eight horizontal wells on two leases in San Augustine County. All eight wells target the Carthage field of the Haynesville shale down to a total depth of 14,000 feet. Barnett Shale Fort Worth exploration and production company 1849 Energy Partners plans to drill its first gas wells in North Texas. Launched in January 2017, the company bought dozens of leases with producing wells last year. The company has now filed for its drilling permits with three horizontal wells on its Maeyers lease in Wise County targeting the Newark East field of the Barnett Shale geological layer down to a total depth of 9,000 feet. Conventionals Wichita Falls exploration and production company Gunn Oil is preparing for a pair of vertical drilling projects in West Texas. One would target the Gadriden City South field of the Wolfcamp geological layer on its RPOR lease in Fisher County down to a depth of 7,000 feet. The other would target the Canyon and Sedwick geological layers on its ORS Unit lease in Fisher County down to a depth of 9,000 feet. sergio.chapa@chron.com twitter.com/sergiochapa The Houston Ship Channel region is shipping out more than 35 percent of the nation's crude oil exports after the Houston area roughly tripled its volumes from 2017 to 2018. All of the Texas Gulf Coast accounts for about 80 percent of the nation's crude shipments with the Beaumont and Corpus Christi regions ranking second and third nationwide, according to a new report from Morningstar energy analyst Sandy Fielden. This Texas dominance won't end anytime soon. Most of the new crude production is coming from West Texas' booming Permian Basin and there's a race to build a bevy of new export terminals along the Texas coast and even offshore of Texas. The proposed offshore terminals are in deeper waters that can more easily handle the world's largest crude vessels. "The limit to world appetite for U.S. crude is unknown today, but current bets on export infrastructure assume it won't be reached soon," Fielden said. RELATED: U.S. to dominate energy production, exports Nationwide crude exports last year averaged about 2 million barrels of oil a day, up 73 percent from 2017. And, this year, volumes already are averaging more than 2.5 million barrels daily. Crude exports are expected to top 4 million barrels a day in the coming years, according to the International Energy Agency. More than 90 percent of those exports come from Gulf Coast ports in Texas and Louisiana. The remainder mostly is shipped from northern states to Canada. More than 35 percent of the exports last year came from the Houston Ship Channel region from Houston to Galveston, or more than 700,000 barrels daily last year. That's more than triple the 2017 Houston Ship Channel volumes of about 225,000 barrels a day. The Houston area is now outpacing the Corpus Christi region - for n0w - in exports. The Corpus area last year exported more than 440,000 barrels a day. But the Beaumont area also surpassed Corpus last year, growing from about 260,000 barrels a day to nearly 460,000 barrels. Louisiana and Mississippi - largely from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, called LOOP - combined to ship almost 250,000 barrels a day. RELATED: Gulf Coast becomes net crude exporter As for the race to build new exporting terminals, Houston's Enterprise Products Partners plans to build the Sea Port Oil Terminal, or SPOT, offshore of Freeport and Galveston. A consortium led by Canada's Enbridge and Houston's Kinder Morgan plans another offshore one, Texas Crude Oil Loading Terminal, or COLT. And global commodities trading firm Trafigura is proposing another, but smaller, crude export terminal offshore of Texas. Onshore, there are plans to build or expand terminals in Corpus Christi, Freeport and farther south in Brownsville. These proposals add up to about 4 million barrels a day of additional crude exporting capacity if they're all built, Fielden said. Oil hit a high for the year after OPEC and its allies reiterated their commitment to production cuts and recommended deferring a decision on whether to extend them until June. Futures in New York gained as much as 1.2 percent on Monday. The group known as OPEC+ closed its weekend meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan after reaffirming its intent to continue its output cuts. But it deferred until June a decision on extending the curbs. At the same time, production in Venezuela and Iran is expected to continue its decline. "They will likely continue to do what they were doing in terms of keeping 1.2 million barrels of cuts on and most likely comply even further with their targets," said Bart Melek, head of global commodity strategy at TD Securities in Toronto. "And this is all happening at a time where we expect Venezuela to provide less crude and a tighter grip on Iran." RELATED: OPEC+ affirms commitment to cuts, defers decision to extend Oil in New York has rallied 30 percent this year as efforts by OPEC+ to reduce supply in light of the supply glut caused by the U.S. shale boom continue. Meanwhile, the fears of a global slowdown that sent oil prices crashing at the end of 2018 have yet to be borne out. "We keep hearing talk of a slowdown here, there and everywhere but oil demand globally hasn't really slowed down all that much," said Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc. in Chicago. "We might never get the big demand drop everyone is talking about and it really hasn't happened yet." West Texas Intermediate for April delivery was 21 cents higher at $59.04 a barrel at 12:26 p.m. in New York. Brent for May settlement gained 27 cents to $67.43 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude traded at an $8.11 premium to WTI for the same month. PRODUCTION: Rig count dips slightly: North Dakota rises, Oklahoma falls As the producer group's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee met on Monday, Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister, Khalid Al-Falih, said OPEC+ remains committed to curbing output while there's still a supply glut. There was less evident support for extending the production cuts from Russia and Iraq, the coalition's other two biggest suppliers. They suggested the group should monitor the market until May or June before making a decision on their output policy. OPEC's JMMC is now said to be planning another ministerial monitoring committee meeting in Jeddah in May, while Iraq said the next full meeting would be in June. Al-Falih said the strain on supplies from Venezuela and Iran hasn't changed his view on the need to persevere with output curbs, as losses in both those countries haven't been severe enough to prevent further buildups of oil inventories. Meanwhile, OPEC+ delegates said compliance with pledged cuts reached 89 percent in February, the highest since December 2017. --With assistance from James Thornhill, Tsuyoshi Inajima and Alex Longley. 2019 Bloomberg L.P. March 4 At 1:30 a.m., Officer Vorhees conducted a traffic stop on a maroon Chrysler 300 in the 5000 block of Bissonnet Street. The driver was identified by his Texas ID. The driver was subsequently found to be operating a motor vehicle while his Texas Drivers License was currently under suspension. The driver was placed in custody and transported to the Bellaire Jail where he was booked for the charge of driving while license suspended / enhanced. Cpl. Clawson and Officer Ortega assisted at the scene. At 8:10 a.m., Officer D.Rocha conducted a traffic stop on a white Chevrolet van for defective brake light in the 5400 block of Bellaire Boulevard. The driver was subsequently found to be operating a motor vehicle while his Texas Drivers License was currently invalid/ suspended. Driver was arrested and booked at the Bellaire Jail for driving while license invalid / suspended / enhanced with no valid insurance. Officer J. Jenkins (badge #316) assisted at this scene. Between 7 and 7:05 p.m., an unknown suspect(s) broke the passenger window of the victims vehicle in the 4900 block of Maple Street and removed a backpack from the front passenger seat and fled the scene without being seen by the victim. March 5 At 8:41 p.m., Officer Trujillo was dispatched to 5410 Bellaire Blvd. in reference to a theft call. Upon arrival he spoke to the victim who stated a suspect went into his unlocked office and took his wallet. March 6 At 8:37 a.m., Officer Jenkins was dispatched to the 800 block of Anderson Street concerning a report of a stolen vehicle. The reportee stated she last saw the vehicle at 8:30 p.m. March 5. She stated she went out at 8:20 a.m. March 6 to take her children to school and the vehicle was gone. The vehicle was located on March 8 by HPD unoccupied in the 6100 block of Gulfton. At 10:55 a.m., Officer Lysack was dispatched to the 4400 block of Wendell Street in reference to a burglary of a habitation. Officer Lysack arrived on scene and met with the victim and reportee who stated they left the garage doors open about three feet above the ground the previous evening to allow ventilation due to heavy fumes from a project. Sometime while the doors were open, an unknown suspect crawled under the doors and stole multiple power tools and fishing lures. Officer Quimby assisted with this case. At 11:32 p.m., Officer Schwausch was patrolling the 5400 block of IH 610 NB when he observed a black Dodge travelling in front him with expired registration. Officer Schwausch initiated a traffic stop on the vehicle and found the driver was driving with a suspended driver license and without proof of financial responsibility. The driver was arrested for driving while license invalid-enhanced. March 8 At 1:12 a.m., Officer Schwausch was patrolling the 8000 block of IH610 SB when he observed a vehicle speeding. Officer Schwausch initiated a traffic stop and made contact with the operator of the vehicle. Further investigation found the driver to be driving while intoxicated. The driver was charged with driving while intoxicated and transported to the Bellaire Jail without incident. At 8:11 a.m., Officer Quimby was dispatched to the city of Bellaire City Hall at 7008 S. Rice Avenue in reference to a male subject who was sleeping in an exterior storage room. Upon arrival at 8:13 a.m., Officer Quimby contacted the reportee who stated he located a Hispanic male sleeping in an exterior storage room, which had been secured the night before. The male was previously told to leave the storage room on March 6, 7 and 8. Officer Quimby placed the suspect into custody for criminal trespass. He was transported to the Bellaire Jail for processing and detention. Officer Rocha arrived as backup officer. Between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., an unknown suspect(s) forced entry into a vehicle parked in the 4600 block of Locust by breaking the door handle. The suspect(s) rummaged through the vehicle but did not remove any items. At 11:41 p.m., Officer Schwausch was patrolling the 8000 block of IH610 SB when he observed a vehicle speeding. Officer Schwausch initiated a traffic stop and made contact with the operator of the vehicle. Further investigation found the driver to be driving while intoxicated. The driver was charged with driving while intoxicated and transported to the Bellaire Jail without incident. March 9 At 2:51 a.m., Officer Younger initiated a traffic stop on a vehicle for an unsafe lane change in the 7000 block of IH 610 West Loop South. Officer Youngers traffic stop investigation found the driver being placed into custody for driving while intoxicated 2nd and the front passenger in custody for public intoxication. March 10 At 3:05 a.m., Officer Bellard and Officer Bailey observed a gray Isuzu truck driving without its head lights on in the 5500 block of Bissonnet. A traffic stop was conducted for this offense. Upon further investigation driver was found to be driving while intoxicated. Officer Munoz of the West University Police Department assisted in this case. Saudi Arabia led fellow members of the OPEC+ coalition to reaffirm their commitment to output cuts, but conceded they should defer until June the decision on whether to extend the curbs. A committee of the most influential members in the 24-nation alliance, which includes Russia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, agreed to go beyond their pledged supply curbs in the coming months. They also recommended canceling a planned April meeting, saying it would be too soon to determine whether the cuts should continue into the second half. The change in timing, which still needs to be agreed by the wider coalition, reflects what the committee described as critical uncertainties in the oil market, with U.S. sanctions threatening to remove significant supplies from Iran and Venezuela. Its also the latest sign that Russia, not Saudi Arabia, is setting the agenda for a group that controls more than half of global crude production. BIG DATA: Big Tech aims for a piece of Big Oil When OPEC and its allies agreed their production cuts in December, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih was initially in favor of a decision to extend them into the second half of 2019 at the planned April meeting. Speaking before talks in Baku, Azerbaijan on Monday, he acknowledged that April will be premature to make any decisions. Russia and Iraq, the pacts two other major producers, had pushed back against committing to rolling over the OPEC+ cuts agreement so soon. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that uncertainties arising from production in Venezuela and Iran make it difficult for the coalition to determine its next step before May or June. New Members The Saudi minister spoke ahead of a meeting in Azerbaijans capital of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which oversees the production cuts. It was formed when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries first formed its alliance with non-members in late 2016, initially consisting of Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, Venezuela, Russia and Oman. PRODUCTION: Rig count dips slightly: North Dakota rises, Oklahoma falls They agreed on Monday to add Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates to the committee, while Oman gave up its place. The groups cuts have helped engineer a 25 percent recovery in Brent crude this year. Prices were little changed near $67 a barrel on Monday, well below the levels that most of the producers need to cover government spending. Market fundamentals have significantly improved but more needs to be done, Al-Falih said on Monday. Were seeing inventories building, and even if they stop building we still have a long way to go to bring the market back into balance. OPEC has faced pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to relax its stance on curbing supply, as severe strains on output from Iran and Venezuela threaten to trigger a shortage. Al-Falih said the crises havent changed his view on the need to continue output restraints, as losses in both those countries havent been severe enough to prevent a renewed accumulation of oil inventories. The oil market is getting tighter, but not enough to reverse the cuts, he said. IRAN: U.S. oil waivers that rocked market in 2018 coming back to focus If the slump in Iranian and Venezuelan supplies intensifies, OPEC is prepared to respond as it has in the past, Al-Falih said. Better Compliance Producers are conforming well with output cuts they agreed to make starting in January, and their compliance is improving and will easily exceed 100 percent in March, Al-Falih said. Saudi Arabia will pump about 9.8 million barrels a day in March and April and export less than 7 million barrels daily in both months, he said. The kingdom has a production target of 10.3 million barrels a day. We agreed today we need to keep monitoring the situation and by May or June to discuss decisions for the second half of the year, Novak said on Sunday. Russia has trimmed its output by an average of 140,000 to 150,000 barrels a day in March compared with October, the reference month for Russias cuts, Interfax reported. Currently, the price is acceptable to all the parties, both to consumers and producers, and you can see that the level of volatility is extremely low, Novak said in an interview with Bloomberg. We may be balanced today but we dont know whats going to happen. Iraq is doing its best to adhere to its pledged reduction and will pump less in March than in either January or February, Thamir Ghadhban, the Iraqi minister, said. While welcoming the price boost from the current accord, he said he hopes that producers continue to put into effect the cuts theyve promised. We should continue till June and then decide, but we are continuously observing and analyzing the market, Ghadhban said. --With assistance from Grant Smith and Salma El Wardany. 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Eric Fagan, a former Houston police officer with 34 years of law enforcement experience, has launched his campaign for Fort Bend County sheriff. Born in Louisiana but raised in Texas, Fagan has been a Fort Bend County resident since 1991 and has received the Officer of the Year award three times by at least two agencies. I want to bring the sheriffs office in Fort Bend into the 21st century, Fagan said. I want to bring proactive police work to the county. We cant be retroactive. Fagan, a Democrat, said his top priorities as sheriff include bringing back community-orientated policing, addressing human trafficking and domestic violence and creating partnerships with community groups to address crime and social issues. Although hes running as a Democrat, Fagan said he would like the sheriffs office to be non-partisan. COMMUNITY EVENT: Commissioner Andy Meyers to host sixth annual Fort Bend Arts Festival Current Sheriff Troy Nehls, a Republican, could not be reached for comment to confirm whether he is running for re-election, but many in the community have speculated that Nehls is instead planning to run for Congress in 2020. In 2017, Nehls chose to not run against incumbent Congressman Pete Olsen (TX-22) in the March Republican primary but said he would consider a 2020 run, according to Houston Public Media. In a video, Fagan said he wants the sheriffs office to reflect the diversity in Fort Bend County. When I was a police officer in Houston, I started an outreach program with the two largest police unions: the African Americans Police Officers League and the Houston Police Officers Union, Fagan said in the video. ICYMI: Fort Bend County Democrat wins district attorney race and longtime GOP county judge defeated About 55 percent of people in Fort Bend County are white, while 24 percent, 21 percent and 20 percent of the population is Hispanic, African-American and Asian, respectively, according to 2018 U.S. Census data. Fagan has been married for 33 years. He and his wife have two children, a daughter and a son, who died in a car crash in 2013, according to Fagans website. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice and his Master of Science in juvenile forensic psychology from Prairie View A&M University. He served as an investigator of welfare fraud and child abuse for the State of Texas. michelle.iracheta@chron.com District 10 U.S. Rep. Michael T. McCaul, the Republican leader of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the chairman emeritus on the House Homeland Security Committee, said his office is accepting submissions for the 2019 Congressional Art Competition. The Congressional Art Competition is a special opportunity to showcase the talent of our local high school artists across the country in the halls of the U.S. Capitol, he said. Every year I continue to be stunned by the extraordinary work submitted by the young artists in Texas 10th district. I look forward to seeing this years entries and invite all high school students to consider submitting their artwork. The Congressional Art Competition is open to all high school students living in the 10th Congressional District. The winning piece will be on display for one year in the U.S. Capitol along with other winners from across the country. The winner will receive two complimentary airline tickets to Washington, D.C. to view the exhibit and will also be invited to a reception for all of the winners across the nation. The second place artwork will be on display in one of McCauls four district offices: Austin, Brenham, Katy or Tomball. Artwork can be delivered to any of these offices by the April 26 deadline. Students are advised to call the office beforehand to coordinate the drop-off. McCauls office will also award the Peoples Choice Award; images of the artwork will be posted on McCauls Facebook page, and people will have the opportunity to vote until 5 p.m. May 8. The student whose artwork receives the highest number of likes will be designated the winner of the Peoples Choice Award. Artwork entered in the contest may be up to 26 inches by 26 inches (including the frame) and may be up to 4 inches in depth and weigh up to 15 pounds. All entries must be two-dimensional and original in concept, design and execution. Eligible types of art include paintings, drawing, prints, collages, mixed media, computer generated art, and photography. Visit https://mccaul.house.gov/services/art-competition for more information and guidelines. The Congressional Art Competition is an opportunity to recognize and encourage the artistic talent in Texass 10th district and throughout the country. Since it began in 1982 as an opportunity for members of Congress to encourage and recognize the artistic talents of their young constituents, over 650,000 high school students have been involved with the nationwide competition. For more information, contact McCauls Austin office at 512-473-2357 or visit his website at https://mccaul.house.gov/.On the website, students will find guidelines as well as the student release form. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said that Washingtons dialogue with Moscow is hindered by accusations of "conspiring with Russia" after every attempt by countries to agree on something. Bolton stressed that such accusations are put forward by opponents of U.S. President Donald Trump. "Everything is used by Trumps opponents as evidence of conspiracy with Russia. I have been negotiating with Russia for a long time on many issues ... But the political atmosphere in Washington makes this work very difficult," Bolton said. At the same time, he stressed that the United States is taking tough measures against Russia, including sanctions, RBC reports. Director of the Institute of Political Studies Sergei Markov, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted in the first place that although this factor in the inter-American struggle interferes with the normal relations between Russia and the United States, it is not the main one. "If he is opposed by only Trumps opponents among the Democrats, he could have ignored them," the expert said. According to him, the whole point is that in addition to the democrats, so-called 'deep states' are in favor of a rift with Russia. "These are special services, the Pentagon, corporations, leading media outlets, leading research centers - think tanks. It is hard for Trump to ignore their opinion. And when both the Democratic Party and 'deep states' come together, it becomes the force that determines the policy," Markov explained. In addition, he drew attention to the fact that Bolton's statement has a certain positive signal for Russia. "I think that this statement can be interpreted in such a way that even leading officials of the administration, politicians, everyone understands how deep the irrational phase of Washington's Russophobic policy is. They are trying to find rational explanations for this fact that looks simply irrational. Bolton is trying to explain his own administration's madness with insanity of other people," the director of the Institute of Political Studies concluded. The deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association, Andrey Baklanov, in turn, noted that current situation in Russian-U.S. relations is unique. "We have always proceeded from the fact that the U.S. president is not a completely independent figure. Previously, the U.S. ruling circles managed to reach internal compromises and give the president an opportunity to pursue the foreign policy - and now this traditional American scheme has crumbled. President Trump is the mouthpiece of financial and economic American military circles, but he does not represent interests of another powerful group which has completely different views on foreign policy," he explained. "First of all, it means that it's not the right time to develop long-term agreements with the United States. Consequently, our line should be to somehow correct this completely unhealthy situation. This means more active work in the area of public, professional and scientific organizations, organizing a dialogue between the intelligentsia of the two countries," Andrei Baklanov stressed. "Since Trump, in order to reinforce his authority, is inclined to act very hard from time to time, a tough answer must be given in response. American politicians are trying to show that each of the parties is a big guardian of U.S. interests, but both of them do not consider interests of the rest world, in particular, of Russia. This line must be stopped," the diplomat urged. 3 1 of 3 100 Women Who Give a Damn of Fort Bend / 100 Women Who Give a Damn of Fort Bend Show More Show Less 2 of 3 100 Women Who Give a Damn of Fort Bend / 100 Women Who Give a Damn of Fort Bend Show More Show Less 3 of 3 The mission of 100 Women Who Give a Damn of Fort Bend is to be a group of philanthropic women making a positive impact in the community. The women meet quarterly for a networking happy hour, with the agreement for each attendee to donate $100 to that evenings chosen Fort Bend charity. At the groups first two events, 80 women raised $8,000 in donations to two Fort Bend charities, directly benefiting the county. Tara Wilson never anticipated she would become part of the popular Coworking movement a couple of years ago when she bought the small building next to the post office in downtown Katy. She just needed some work space for her event planning business and its handful of employees. But others quickly reached out to ask if they could rent an office from her. And now Wilson will soon be opening another, much larger facility nearby to combine commerce and community. I have a business that I started in 2002 and had leased space for a long time. As a small business owner, it made sense for me to purchase something, Wilson said, sitting in the break room of her first building called The Hub on 4th, owing to its location on Fourth Street in downtown Katy. The new building, set to open sometime in May or June, is called The Hub on 1st. It will located across the street from Katys MKT Railroad Museum at 5615 First Street. Wilson had a full house about a month after she put up the sign announcing the office space for rent. Her tenants included a therapist, a couple of pharmacy sales representatives, and a couple who own several restaurants in the Katy area. The key to success is tailoring the spaces for rent to the clients needs. Some require their own office capable of being locked while others just need a desk set aside for their use. Still others have no need for offices or desks at all and just require a place where they can meet up with clients, Wilson said. Susan Smith and her husband operate restaurants and a catering business. For several years they owned their own office building but later opted to scale back and move into The Hub on 4th. One of the benefits is having someone else take care of the logistics. Tara and the Hub concept is just really wonderful, Smith said. The location of both of the units being in downtown Katy is really nice. There are lots of amenities. The Hub has a double meaning for Wilson: Katys designation as the hub of three counties - Harris, Fort Bend and Waller - and Hub as a type of meeting space. San Franciso-based software engineer Brad Neuberg is generally credited with starting the coworker movement in 2005 as a way to combine a freelancers independence and freedom with the sense of community that comes with working alongside others. Ive run my business for almost 20 years and Ive tried every model. Ive done executive suites and Ive worked from home, Wilson said. I can absolutely work (from home) but it didnt help me grow my network. Wilson said she basically gutted The Hub on 4th to make it appealing for future tenants. She had walls knocked out to make offices and had new flooring installed. There is a waiting area for guests and a conference room for tenants. Janitorial and security services are part of the package and WiFi for all. Snacks in trays are scattered throughout the facility and coffee is readily available. She turned what used to be a back yard into a space where outdoor parties can be held for tenants, clients and friends. She keeps it well stocked with snacks, Smith said. We really love the place. The grand opening for The Hub on 1st is expected to be in the May-June 2019 time frame. Wilson believes movements such as coworking are the wave of the future. With traffic congestion in Houston continuing to explode, businesses will be looking for ways for their employees to work without making the trek into the city. I think this is a much better way to work, she said. From the outside, The Hub on 1st may not look particularly enticing for a dot.com entrepreneur looking for work space. Its a dull gray building constructed in the 1970s that had spent time as a feed store and a lumbar yard. Wilson decided to have the building completely gutted and converted into another, even more expansive, collective work space. Like the smaller building on 4th Street, it will offer potential tenants a private office or just a single desk and a secure storage system. A full-time receptionist will be on hand and social networking events will be a regular feature. I love that it was empty and a little dog of a building but its going to be beautiful, Wilson said. In January, Katy officials broke ground on their Katy Downtown Plaza revitalization project. It will include a visitors center, walking areas and public restrooms. Wilson said she was glad her own expanding business might be part of a renewal of Old Town Katy. I dont think it will be that long before we see that. Im investing in that belief, thats for sure, she said. I think Katy has the potential. mike.glenn@chron.com . . Construction of the as-yet-named Elementary School No. 43 will be on the consent agenda when Katy Independent School District trustees meet in a regularly scheduled work study meeting on Monday, March 18. The trustees will meet in the board room of the Katy Independent School District Education Support Complex, 6301 S. Stadium Lane. The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a closed session, where trustees may discuss certain issues but take no action. The open meeting will begin at approximately 6:30 p.m. The agenda includes a 2019-20 budget update and a consent agenda item on the consideration of future board approval of a proposal for the construction of Elementary School No. 43. According to the Districts Monthly Construction report from December, the original allocation for Elementary School No. 43 is more than $35.6 million. It is projected to open its doors in July 2020 at 6631 Greenwood Orchard Drive. Monies for current construction projects come from various millions in bonds authorized, including Series 2015 ($180 million), Series 2016 ($275 million), Series 2017 ($293.12 million) and Series 2018 ($200 million). Other consent agenda items include: Replacement of skylights at Cinco Ranch High School. Replacement of field lighting at Rhodes Stadium. Kitchen renovations and floral cooler additions at multiple campuses. Go to http://tinyurl.com/yymuh28y to check the agenda. Drainage project The city of Katy will be performing a drainage restoration project to enhance the drainage for Katy Hockley Road between Morton and Clay Road, beginning Monday, March 18, for approximately three weeks, weather permitting. To accommodate school bus traffic, Katy Hockley Road will be closed to through traffic daily, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Residents and emergency services will have controlled access during these working hours. All other traffic will be detoured to Katy Hockley Cutoff or Pitts Road. The process will entail heavy equipment operation, multiple vehicles and roadway access/use interference. Residents are asked to remove all personal items, equipment, vehicles or material from the right-of-way in order to allow an effective and efficient operation. Anyone with questions or concerns can contact the Public Works Department at info@cityofkaty.com or 281-391-4820. Business Builders Breakfast Monday is the deadline to register for a Katy Area Chamber of Commerce Business Builders Breakfast this week that will feature Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls. Nehls will talk about Crime in Fort Bend County at the breakfast which will be from 6:45-8 a.m. March 19 at Premier by Best Western-Energy Corridor, 1549 Westborough. Email info@katychamber.com, visit www.katychamber.com or call 281-391-5289 for information. After the breakfast, chamber officials will cut the ribbon at 8 a.m. at Destiny Marketing Solutions at 1549 Westborough Drive. Visit www.destinymarketingsolutions.com or call 713-857-8403 for details. Camping deadline Wednesday, March 20, at 5 p.m. is the deadline to register for the spring Community Campout at VFW Park, 6202 George Bush Drive. The free overnight event will begin at 4 p.m. Friday, March 22, and continue through 9 a.m. Saturday, March 23. The family event includes a Friday night hot dog dinner and outdoor movie with a Saturday breakfast. Register in person at City Hall, 901 Avenue C, or download the 2019 Spring Community Campout Registration form at https://tinyurl.com/yxn93446 and email to katyparks@cityofkaty.com. There will be no onsite registration. Bring any camping and personal supplies needed, including bug spray. No electricity is provided and camping trailers are not allowed. There are public restrooms on site. No glass, alcohol or pets are allowed. Flammable materials are also prohibited. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Katy Taste Fest Katy Taste Fest will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, March 23, at Villagio Town Center, 22764 Westheimer Parkway in Katy. Thirty-five restaurants will be participating in the annual event. Visit www.katytastefest.com for more information. Katy Color Run The third annual Katy Color Run 5K-10K will be 8 a.m.-noon Saturday, March 23, at Kingsland Baptist Church, 20555 Kingsland Blvd. Proceeds from the event will benefit six nonprofits: Katy Christian Ministries, The Ballard House, Compassion Katy, Christ Clinic, Hope Impacts and Clothed by Faith. There is no race day registration. Visit https://tinyurl.com/hpmuhua to register and for information. Harmony Public Schools Job Fair The first of three teacher job fairs for Harmony Public Schools is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 23, in at Harmony Public Schools Central Office, 9321 W. Sam Houston Parkway South, Houston, TX 77099. Harmony Public Schools are tuition-free charter schools serving K-12th grade with a focus on STEM, and college and career readiness. For more information, go to www.harmonytx.org. rkent@hcnonline.com The University of Houston System is asking the legislature for an additional $75 million to construct a second 150,000-square-foot facility at the site of its Katy campus, where crews are already working round-the-clock. An 80,000-square-foot campus is set to open in Katy on 46 acres of land near the intersection of Interstate-10 and the Grand Parkway this fall, but now UH wants to expand that by adding an additional facility, said Chris Stipes, UH director of media relations. Katie Hoerth, award-winning poet and editor, continues the Montgomery County Literary Arts Councils spring season on Wednesday. She is the author of four poetry books. Her most recent poetry collection, Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots (Lamar University Literary Press, 2014) won the Helen C. Smith Prize from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her work has been included in journals such as Mezzo Cammin, Raintown Review, and Think Journal. She teaches at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and is the 2017 Langdon Writer in Residence. She lives in deep south Texas. She will read and sign her books at Lone Star College Montgomery at 7 p.m. on March 20 in Room G-102. Next up, on April 17, in celebration of National Poetry Month, Octavio Quintanilla, 2018 San Antonio Poet Laureate, is the visiting author. He is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014). His work has appeared in Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. He is a CantoMundo Fellow and holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas. This years Walt Whitman celebration will be on May 2 and will feature Steven Herrmann at 3 p.m. at LSC-Montgomery in Room G-102. Herrmann has published over 40 papers, several chapters, and four books, William Everson: The Shaman's Call, Walt Whitman: Shamanism, Spiritual Democracy, and the World Soul, Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward and Emily Dickinson: A Medicine Woman for Our Times. As always, the finale of the event and the spring season, will be the annual Gathering of Poets at Martins on the Square in Conroe. Over 20 distinguished poets, led by 2011 Texas Poet Laureate, Dave Parsons and Dede Fox, Montgomery County Poet Laureate, will read their favorite Walt Whitman poem and one of their own works. The event will also be a dinner and silent auction to benefit the Literary Arts Council, a 501c3 nonprofit. All readings are free to the public and made possible through the support of Conroe City Parks & Recreation, Greater Conroe Arts Alliance, SWIRL: Montgomery College Literary & Arts Journal, and Montgomery County Literary Arts Council. For more information contact Dr. Cliff Hudder, clifford.w.hudder@lonestar.edu or Dave Parsons 936-524-6537. Diaper Drive at Conroes Ashley HomeStore Ashley HomeStore in Conroe, located at I-45 at Teas Nursery Road, is hosting a collection for the Houston Diaper Bank, now through the end of March, when shoppers can donate fresh diapers or make a cash donation to help infants and toddlers stay clean, dry and healthy. All sizes of diapers will be accepted. As an additional incentive, those who donate a package of diapers or $20 in cash can take 20 percent off their same-day purchase at the Ashley HomeStore in Conroe. Ashley HomeStore in Conroe is open daily, 10 a.m. through 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. More than 500 people packed the First Baptist Church in downtown Conroe Monday to honor J D Lambright as those who remembered him reminded the crowd to continue to live by Lambrights well known philosophy do the right thing for the right reasons. Lambright, 69, passed away March 9 following a brief battle with cancer. But Monday wasnt about Lambrights death, it was celebration of his life, his accomplishments and his legacy. Family, friends, county employees and elected officials county wide attended the service. Congressman Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, called Lambrights life remarkable. He was truly special, Brady said adding Lambrights professional success and wide interests from playing the drums to riding motorcycles to his love of bull riding made him and his life unique. That was J D; he just exceeded expectations. While Lambright had many interests, Brady said, his one true love was his wife Belinda. Lambright and Belinda were married 43 years. Happy is the man who finds a true friend and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife, Brady quoted. He found that friend in Belinda. Brady said Lambrights life was too important to limit to Montgomery County prompting him to introduced into the congressional record in the United States House of Representative Lambrights life. Brady and Rep. Will Metcalf, R-Conroe, presented Belinda with a United States flag and a Texas flag flown over the United State capitol and the capitol of Texas respectively. Today we say goodbye to an outstanding public servant, Metcalf said. Montgomery County will long remember J D Lambright for service to his community, his integrity, his positive attitude and most of all his wife Belinda. J D was truly a positive, joyful person. First Assistant County Attorney B.D. Griffin recalled the last six years working under Lambright as the best noting he not only found a great job and boss, but a true friend. No one could ever ask for a better boss, Griffin said adding Lambright loved his role as county attorney. He cared about each and every one of us. In fact, during his tenure, Lambright was named Boss of the Year twice and his office named department of the year three times. He brought passion and perseverance to the County Attorneys Office that was unmatched, Griffin said. He was extremely proud of his team at the County Attorneys Office and his team at the County Attorneys Office was extremely proud of him. Rusty Reeve, who meet Lambright in high school, described Lambright as a really cool guy and his closest, lifelong friend. Reeve told stories about his time with Lambright, including Lambright accidentally eating spoiled food, getting an antenna wrapped around the axle of his car and riding motorcycles together, bringing laughter to the audience. J D could tackle any project and be successful at it, Reeve said. His work ethic of do the right thing for the right reason extended to his personal life. I would just like to say I am truly honored to have J D as a loyal friend, a wonderful mentor over these last 54 years. I was blessed to be at his side with his lovely wife Belinda when he took his last breath. We will all miss this guy who had such a heart for life . District Attorney Brett Ligon recalled the many times people would confuse their roles as attorneys with the county. Finally we resolved between us that if it was something good we would take credit for it and if it was something bad we would blame the other one, Ligon said who met Lambright in law school. That went on quite a bit. Ligon said he and Lambright shared many secrets of county events, staff and elected officials. I thought which ones can I say today, what names can I name, Ligon quipped as the audience laughed. Judge (Phil) Grant gave me two rules, dont name names and dont cuss. I thought, well, I dont know how I am going to tell any of these county secrets. However, Ligon did recalled Lambrights to successfully certify Don Collins to be tried as an adult even though he was a juvenile at the time that he burned Robert Middleton over 99 percent of his body. Working together with the District Attorney's office, Collins was indicted and the successful trial team comprised of assistant district and county attorneys saw the maximum punishment imposed Collins at the conclusion of the trial bringing justice for the now-deceased Middleton and his family. Ligon also recalled working one of the largest livestock seizure of more than 200 horses several years ago. Ligon called Lambright his greatest ally and admired his ability to stand up to the Montgomery County Commissioners Court about what was right and ethical. J D did not squander vanity in friendship for results, J D had the battle scars because J D stood up for what was right, Ligon said. Belinda, thank you for allowing J D to serve with us and I am a better man for knowing him. County Treasure Melanie Bush, Tax Assessor-Collector Tammy McRae and Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack also spoke highlighting Lambrights role with the county. McRae said Lambright was quick to call after she took office, offering his advice and friendship. We often joked about him being on speed dial, McRae said. J Ds smile was contagious and he genuinely loved serving others. J D was not only my attorney, he was my friend and will be truly missed. Bush, whose husband has battled cancer, called Lambright a a cancer warrior. He was always positive no matter what, Bush said. That kind of positively doesnt come from within ones self, it comes from a joy from walking and knowing Christ. J Ds positivity wasnt about J D, but something far greater than himself. Noack, who took office in 2013 alongside Lambright, said he and Lambright stood together on issues. He was a great man. He was my friend and mentor and will be missed, Noack said, pointing out Lambright being a stickler for the countys three-minute limit on public comment during commissioners court meetings. We all know there was no short conversation with J D and I think we would all like to have one more. J D, my time here has expired and I hate that our final three minutes have come to an end because now it is time to say goodbye until we meet again. According to information provided by the County Attorneys Office, Lambright grew up in the west Texas town of Pampa. He was a proud Texas Tech Red Raider, receiving both his bachelor and his master of science in Electrical Engineering degrees from the institution. He went on to receive a law degree from South Texas College of Law. Before opening his own law firm in 1999, Lambright enjoyed a 25-year career at Shell Oil Co. and Shell E&P Technology Co. in Houston as a geophysicist / electrical engineer. During his employment at Shell, he managed numerous technical geophysical projects, both operational and research, in various areas around the world, including onshore & offshore continental United States, Alaska, South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. During his last two years at Shell, he was a Business Interface Manager for Shell E&P Technology Company, the research division of Shell Oil Co. After retiring from Shell, Lambright owned and operated a private law practice for 13 years in Conroe. During that time, he handled a broad variety of civil, family, criminal, and probate cases. As the chief legal advisor for Montgomery County, Lambright oversaw a staff of approximately 30 people including attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, investigators and an administrative manager. Under Lambright leadership, the County Attorney's office was recognized three times as the Department of the Year for Montgomery County. In 2014, Lambright was selected as Montgomery Countys Boss of the Year. He was again the recipient of the Boss of the Year honor in 2015. Lambright served three terms on the board of directors of the Montgomery County Bar Association, and he served for 11 years as a director and General Counsel of the Montgomery County Dispute Resolution Center. He was a 2010 graduate and former board member of Leadership Montgomery County, and he was a 2009 graduate of the Conroe Police Department Citizen Police Academy. Additionally, Lambright was a member of the Conroe Noon Lions Club where he previously served on the board, and was a lifetime member of the Montgomery County Fair Association. cdominguez@hcnonline.com A couple of hundred volunteers were invited to come together for a day of barn-workin, sweatin, and fair-preppin on Saturday at the Montgomery County Fair Grounds. Anybody and everybody comes out here, pours their heart here, and they do great job, Kiah Kamman with the Montgomery County Fair Association said. The Committee and Grounds Workday is one of the most important days of the year for the Montgomery County Fair Association, which invites the volunteers, committee members, and youth to setup show barns, pens, chutes, exhibits, special projects, signs, equipment, materials, ribbons, packets, and more. The hard work lays the groundwork necessary to host the 62nd annual Montgomery County Fair and Rodeo, which is set for March 29-April 7, and will also feature a carnival and barbecue cook-off. Its amazing how all of our volunteers come out here and sacrifice a day of their life, Kamman said. They could have more important things on their plate to handle, but they come out here time and share their time to put this fair together and it is all for the youth of our Montgomery County. We are very blessed this fair family and the volunteers that come out here to do that for them. MCFA officials estimate about 4,000 to 5,000 people will make the fair possible again this year. Since 1993, when the Scholarship Trail Ride Committee was established, the fair has awarded over $2 million dollars in Montgomery County Youth Scholarships and sees as many as 60,000-plus attendees each year. In 2018 alone, MCFA gave $148,000 to Montgomery County Youth in scholarship funds. College-bound graduates received 51 $2,500 academic scholarships and $20,500 in prize scholarships from a combination of the Fair Queen Contest, Colt Show Hi-Point Program, Replacement Heifer Program and Calf Scramble Program. During the workday, the volunteers also had a chance to enjoy lunch and fellowship together. Some of the people who came out for the workday and each weekend have been involved with the fair for several years. There are some committee members that come out here every weekend, they may not announce it or make it known to the public, but there are a lot of them that come out here just about every Saturday at 9 a.m., and sometimes dont leave until about four or five in the afternoon. Beth Traylor, who Kamman called the Bible of the Fair has been involved since 1980 and once again came to help out in the office and has watched the fair grow from tents to what it is today. I really think you have to have the fair in your blood, Traylor said. All the years I worked, I never dreaded coming to work. I loved it all the time and I feel like the volunteers are the same way, they really have a love for the fair, and so many of the same people have been here as long as I have been here and are still on a committee. Thats a long time, and I think the main thing is just having a love for it. The fair will be held at fairgrounds located at 9201 Airport Road. Tickets are available online and at the gate. For more information, visit mcfa.org. mellsworth@hcnonline.com An intense fire churned through massive chemical storage tanks Monday at a facility east of Houston, continuously pumping plumes of black smoke that drifted across the region as firefighters fought to contain the blaze for a second straight day. Although the fire is expected to burn another day or two at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, local health and emergency officials said early air quality tests indicate the fire has not posed a serious health risk to residents. No injuries were reported. By late Monday, the fire was believed contained within six storage tanks at the ITC site, where gasoline components and other chemicals are housed in 80,000-barrel tanks. "Right now, what we're seeing is no elevated levels (of pollutants) because the plume is high enough that it's not affecting us here close to the ground," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a press conference early Monday afternoon. The plume of smoke rose up to 4,000 feet Monday afternoon, aided by relatively dry and clear conditions, allowing particles to dissipate above the ground. County officials said the plume could fall to a height of about 400 feet overnight a distance still unlikely to impact residents' health as the air cools and grows heavier. "I don't expect a large number of people to have their health affected unless circumstances change or the fire worsens," said Arch Carson, a medical toxicologist at the School of Public Health at UTHealth. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Government officials on Monday eased some directives issued in the hours after the tanks caught fire, lifting a shelter-in-order for the city of Deer Park and reopening a stretch of Texas 225 near the plant. Deer Park and La Porte ISDs, which combine to serve about 20,500 students, canceled classes Monday but will reopen Tuesday. Deer Park ISD also tweeted that it would be "restricting outside activities for the duration of the incident." Portions of Independence Parkway, the main road off which ITC is located, will remain closed until further notice. "Everything from the local level, from the Deer Park school district and the city, we're being very cautions in how we deal with this, because we want to make public safety the number one priority," Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. said. "It is a very dangerous and active event that is occurring, and it's still going on." DEER PARK FIRE: What you need to know about the chemicals The fire ignited on the grounds of the 47-year-old ITC site located about two miles north of Texas 225 near the Battleship Texas State Historic Site and Buffalo Bayou. The company's storage facility contains 242 tanks capable of holding petrochemical liquids and gases, as well as oil products. It is located along the Houston Ship Channel in an area dominated by energy-producing corporations synonymous with Houston. Intercontinental Terminals Company is owned by the Japanese behemoth Mitsui & Co., which once owned Toyota and Toshiba. Mitsui is one of the largest trading companies in Japan and owns several other Texas-based companies, including the oil and gas investments company MEP Texas Holdings, Houston-based methanol production facility MMTX Inc and feed additive manufacturing plant Novus International. About 300 people work at the Deer Park facility. ITC officials said the fire started in tanks containing Naphtha and Xylene, both components of gasoline, and spread to a small patch of containers that included Toluene, a chemical used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinners. Exposure to harmful levels of the chemicals can cause headaches, dizziness, vomiting and irritation of the nose and throat, among other effects. The risk of additional tanks catching fire remained minimal, company officials said late Monday. ITC leaders initially said seven tanks caught fire, but they later said one of those containers emerged unscathed. "We have made some headway that (only) three of our tanks are still on fire," ITC spokeswoman Alice Richardson said. "Three others are intermittent fires. They flare up and they go down." Carson, the UTHealth toxicologist, said the primary hazard from petrochemical fires typically involves smoke descending over residential areas and leaving particulates in its path, primarily causing breathing-related issues. He said even if the smoke drops to 400 feet, as predicted, that would be too high to cause health effects. HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM INVESTIGATES: Dangerous chemicals create hidden dangers in Houston Local and state government officials said they are watching fixed testing sites that monitor air quality on an hourly basis, while also deploying mobile testing devices to various areas in the county. A fixed monitor site about five miles southwest of the plant reported elevated levels of carbon monoxide and nitric oxide two by-products of fuel burning but neither came close to exceeding government-established limits for safety. Measures for particulate matter were lower than those taken several other days in March before the fire. In addition, ITC's third-party independent air monitoring contractor, Kemah-based Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, found no dangerous particulate measurements. The center used handheld devices to measure air quality at several dozen locations throughout Deer Park, Pasadena, southern Houston and eastern Harris County. The results, however, were not enough to quell concerns of environmental activists and residents living near the plant. Neil Carmen, the Sierra Club's Texas Clean Air Program director, said air quality measurements also should be taken above-ground, in the area of the smoke billow. Air-bound tests can measure larger swaths of the region and more particles. Elena Craft, senior director of the Environmental Defense Fund, said environmental consequences will extend well beyond the initial fire. "The chemicals and flame retardants used to put the fires out get into the environment and some of those are serious contaminants," Craft said. "There are long-term consequences of these events, and the fact that we have them so frequently is just amazing." SEE WHAT HOUSTON SEES: Submitted photos show giant smoke cloud hanging over Houston As she sat in her car alongside the road leading to ITC's facility, Deer Park resident Jodie Thompson worried the fire would differ from the flares she has seen during her 34 years living in the area. "I trust that they actually know what they're doing, but inside, I have this doubt," Thompson said, watching the flames from her driver's seat. Late Monday, ITC established a website (ITCclaims.com) for "businesses and individuals" to submit damage claims. The statement said "ITC is aware that claims have arisen as a result of the 3/17/19 incident." Company representatives did not immediately elaborate on the number of claims and the nature of the possible damage. The ordeal, in some ways, is part of life in Deer Park, an east Harris County city of more than 33,000 people. Residents said they were familiar with the risks that come with living by the refineries and chemical plants. Heather Trevino, 42, grew up in Deer Park and lives there now with her 9-year-old daughter. She had taken shelter before, but didn't recall an incident as long and intense. Trevino saw the smoke rising above her neighbor's roof Sunday, her eyes and throat itching. When she got the alert to shelter-in-place, she knew to bring in her two dogs and shut off the air conditioning. "We kind of get it ingrained in us," Trevino said. "Living here, it's just kind of part of what you accept, that there's something that could possibly happen." Staff writers Matt Dempsey, Emily Foxhall, R.A. Schuetz and Sarah Smith contributed to this report. The latest chemical to cause concern at the Intercontinental Terminals Co. facility in Deer Park is benzene, which was detected at elevated levels early Thursday morning and prompted shelter-in-place alerts. The benzene release comes after a massive fire burned through the tank farm for three days and created a miles-long plume of smoke visible throughout the Houston area. The fire was extinguished Wednesday, but officials previously warned of the possibility of other chemical exposure in the area. RELATED: Shelter-in-place alert issued for Deer Park after elevated benzene levels detected Fire officials said benzene leaked out from a foam blanket smothering the tank farm in Deer Park. ITC officials added that the benzene levels "are below those that represent an immediate risk." Cities were advised to shelter in place as a precaution, officials said. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Benzene is made mostly from petroleum and is used to make Styrofoam, synthetic fibers, rubbers and pesticides, among other substances. RESIDENTS WARNED TO STAY INDOORS: What does it mean to shelter-in-place? Here are the necessary steps to take Risks of benzene exposure fluctuates depending on the concentration. Short-term health effects of concentrated exposure include dizziness, nausea, headaches, drowsiness, tremors and loss of consciousness, according to a report from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. Continuing exposure can lead to "permanent suppression of bone marrow functioning so that few new blood cells are formed, a condition known as aplastic anemia," the report said. Other chemicals that burned in the fire include Naphtha and Xylene, two components used in gasoline. The fire eventually spread to more tanks, one of which was storing Toluene, a chemical used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner. The fire affected up to eight tanks at one time. While air quality levels were listed as "good" or "moderate" in the Houston area for much of the fire, health officials warn of side effects from exposure to these chemicals. DEER PARK PLANT FIRE: Officials say it could last for days Naphtha can irritate the nose and throat when breathed, and poisonous gases are produced when naphtha is exposed to fire, according to earlier reports in the Houston Chronicle. Luke Metzger, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Environment Texas, previously told the Chronicle that Naphtha can cause headaches, dizziness nausea and vomiting in the short term. Long-term side effects include risk of cancer and risk to the nervous system, he said. Xylene exposure produces similar side effects, including including headaches, dizziness, confusion and change in one's sense of balance, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease registry. Exposure to Xylene at very high levels can cause unconsciousness and, in some cases, death, according to the registry. HOW TO FILE A CLAIM: ITC sets up hotline to cover damages of Deer Park fire Toluene's short-term side effects also include confusion, headaches and dizziness. Weakness, memory loss and nausea can also occur, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. HOUSTON CHRONICLE EXCLUSIVE: Deer Park company battling fire accused of intentionally polluting water during Harvey In the long-term, Toluene can cause brain damage, as well as damage to the kidneys and liver. Read more about the side effects here. HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM INVESTIGATES: Dangerous chemicals create hidden dangers in Houston 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 | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Dozens of spectators gathered around a gated pen in the far east end of the NRG Center on Sunday afternoon to watch a ewe go into labor, give birth to a baby lamb, pass the placenta, and get up and walk in the span of seven minutes. All while a rapt audience oohed and ahhed and recorded the experience. She didnt even need any drugs, said Amy Crenshaw, a spectator from Houston marveling at the ewes stoicism and relatively smooth labor. The normalcy of such an event is what makes the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo unique the lamb was the fourth newborn to arrive on Sunday alone and a reminder that while the big draws at the rodeo are typically the evening performers, ranging from rap stars like Cardi B to country legends like Garth Brooks, the educational experiences around agriculture are often the most illuminating for attendees. For Rich Knebel, a dairy farmer from northern Indiana who runs the rodeos birthing center , it was simply another beating heart the 97th at the birthing center over the course of the three-week event. Were here as an educational exhibit to help bridge the gap between the producer and the consumer, Knebel said. Im really big on seeing what we do and why we do it. An estimated 2.5 million people have made their way to the vast rodeo complex at NRG Park in 2019, good for the second or third-best attendance in the events history, according to Joel Cowley, the president and CEO of the Houston Rodeo. The attendance number is doubly impressive considering that numerous frigid and rainy days over the last three weeks put a damper on the outdoor portion of the event. Only on HoustonChronicle.com: Brad Paisley gets up close and personal with RodeoHouston fans Cowley, reflecting on the rodeo, which concluded Sunday night with a George Strait concert, said that the goal is always to provide attendees with a total value proposition, that amid the petting zoos, cowboy merchandise, smoked turkey legs, and ferris wheels, people come away learning something about agricultural life they hadnt known before. Cowley said that the rodeo this year went a step further in its marketing, increasing the focus on non-country music performers to tap into Houstons vast and diverse population as the carrot to draw new attendees to the vast rodeo complex at NRG Park. This included the wildly successful Go Tejano day, celebrating Mexican cowboy culture, which became the rodeos hottest ticket and shattered its concert attendance record with a performance by Los Tigres Del Norte. Once they come on sight, we hope we teach them something about agriculture, whether its on here the grounds or here in the stadium, and we hope that theyll come back year after year, Cowley said. The new attendees allowed the livestock show and rodeo to expand its contributions to educational pursuits, committing over $27 million in educational support in 2019, including over $14 million in scholarships. The rodeos educational programs were on display throughout the NRG Centers Agventure hall on Sunday. Spectators filled three rows of bleachers to watch a cow milking seminar run by Southwest Dairy Farmers, an alliance of dairy farmers from Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina. A milking claw was attached to the udders of a dairy cow standing on a stage, simulating hand milking and suctioning the milk into a large glass container. Audience members flocked to ask Larry Graham, the dairy farmer, questions about the milking process after the 15-minute presentation. You can just drink it the way it is, said Adam Limon from Houston after talking to Graham. (He) said thats the way we did it 150 years ago. Across the hall at the Agventure Bees section, Marcy Bryant, a volunteer, used her iPhone flashlight to try and locate the queen marked with a white dot by one of the beekeepers among the cluster of bees in a glass-encased beehive on display. A group of eager children swarmed to the hive. They really want to see (the queen), Bryant said. I think they think shes gonna have a little crown on her head or something. Theyre all very impressed when they find them, because its very difficult. The spectacle of the ewe giving birth was a clear highlight in the Agventure section. One of the birthing centers handlers took the microphone and narrated the birthing experience for the audience, which crowded around the ewe pen. A cameraman filmed the birth, which was viewed live on a large projector screen on a wall behind the birthing center. The audience gasped as one of the handlers pulled the baby lambs legs out of the ewes birth canal. The mother ewe passed the placenta, gathered itself, and walked over to lick its newborn. Theres a chance she might have a twin in there, the handler said. If not, were gonna step back and let her be a mom. John and Amy Crenshaw of Houston came away stunned by the experience. Thats something you never see before, John Crenshaw said. A once in a lifetime deal. nick.powell@chron.com PREVIEW: Get our experts picks for concerts, kids stuff, fine arts, movies and more each week in our entertainment newsletter. Texas State Technical College in Fort Bend County invites all prospective students, community leaders and neighbors to its annual Open House. The open house will be Friday, March 22, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at TSTCs Brazos Center located at 26706 Southwest Freeway in Rosenberg. This is an opportunity for us to showcase our campus and the type of technical education TSTC is providing to the local community and the state, said TSTC student recruitment coordinator Yulonda Durst. Events like this are eye-openers and give people a better understanding of who we are and what we provide. TSTC in Fort Bend County is one of 10 campuses throughout the state. It offers certificates and associate degrees in programs such as Cyber Security, Diesel Equipment Technology, Electrical Lineworker Technology and Welding Technology. We offer degrees in two years or less that can lead to great-paying jobs, said Durst. Were focused on providing the skills needed for successful careers and on providing the state with a quality workforce. According to research conducted by the National Skills Coalition, 53 percent of all jobs are at the middle-skill level, but only 43 percent of the United States workforce is trained for this type of work. Closing this skills gap and building a stronger economy is what Texas State Technical College has set out to do. The National Skills Coalition reports that the majority of middle-skill job opportunities require education and training beyond high school, but not a four-year degree. Durst said that during Open House those in attendance can learn firsthand about the training opportunities TSTC has to offer. Programs will offer hands-on activities and demonstrations to give attendees the TSTC experience. We offer a wide variety of programs that have an in-demand workforce, said Durst. And so we hope that many will find TSTC a good fit for them. During the open house, TSTC will also offer 30-minute sessions on financial aid, college admissions and the 411 on TSTC. Campus tours and lunch will also be available. And every student who applies to TSTC during the Open House will be entered to win a TSTC scholarship for tuition, books and supplies. We want to encourage everyone whos interested or curious about TSTC to stop by, said Durst. This is going to be a one-stop shop to get everything needed for registration ready. This could be the start to someones successful future. Registration for the TSTC Open House is online at https://bit.ly/FtBendOH19. Save the QR code to save time on the day of the event. For more information on TSTC in Fort Bend County and the programs it offers, visit tstc.edu. For seven years, Kyndra Purnell could find no clinic near her home on Maryland's Eastern Shore that would prescribe the hormones she desperately needed. She relied on the black market, buying estrogen injections from the few other transgender women she knew in the area. Then, about three years ago, she found Chase Brexton Health Services, a medical provider in Baltimore that offers hormone replacement therapy and other types of health care for the transgender community. But the clinic was more than two hours from Purnell's home in Ocean City. Still, every three months, she made the drive, taking time off from her full-time job. "Down here, there's not much help for people like us," Purnell said. "So many people are just at a loss." In large swaths of Maryland and Virginia, options for medical care are limited for those in the transgender community. Their need for specialized care and LGBT-friendly providers can force them to travel many hours. Of the 1,837 patients Whitman-Walker Health - a Washington-based provider that specializes in LGBTQ care - served in 2018, more than half lived in Virginia or Maryland; about 50 patients traveled from as far away as South Carolina and Alabama. In response, a local transgender advocacy group has launched an initiative to try to close gaps in gender-affirming health care. Last fall, the DC Area Transmasculine Society, known as DCATS, rolled out an online database that allows transgender individuals to recommend and review medical and wellness providers based on their competency of transgender needs. Health care is the primary question that comes up in support groups for the transgender community, said Jamison Crowell, the executive director of DCATS. For years, many have used word of mouth to share suggestions for transgender-friendly medical providers, posting in Facebook groups and other online forums. The Yelp-style online lists have had inaccurate or outdated information about providers in the Washington region, Crowell said. What makes this database, called the Trans Wellness Information Network, different is that each review must be submitted and authorized by someone who identifies as transgender. About 125 providers have been added to the database so far. After filling the database with recommendations from the transgender community, the group plans to have local providers fill out a questionnaire that DCATS staffers will evaluate to create a five-star measure of transgender-care competency. The questionnaire will include free-response questions asking providers to describe any training they have received specific to catering to the transgender community. It will ask to what extent a provider incorporates the World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care and whether a provider's intake process allows patients to indicate the names and pronouns they would like to be called. It also aims to hold workshops and panels to educate local medical and wellness providers, in collaboration withTrans Healthcare MD, which advocates for expanded access to transgender-competent health care. Lee Blinder, a founder of Trans Healthcare MD, said the group has focused in large part on urging Planned Parenthood to begin offering hormone replacement therapy in its Maryland clinics, as it does in clinics in 28 other states. Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington recently told The Washington Post that it plans to do just that. It will begin offering hormone therapy at each of its three regional health centers, in Northeast Washington, Suitland, Maryland, and Gaithersburg, Maryland. The move will expand access to care in some parts of Maryland but will still leave gaping holes in areas further from the District of Columbia and Baltimore. In the western part of the state, for example, Blinder said very few - if any - clinics allow a transgender patient to use what is called the "informed consent" model of accessing hormone replacement therapy. The model, pushed by transgender rights advocates and used by providers such as Whitman-Walker and Chase Brexton, allows transgender patients to quickly obtain a prescription for hormone replacement therapy after discussing the risks with a medical provider. The alternative, older method - still used by many health centers in the region - requires a patient to first meet with a mental health provider, who must then sign a letter authorizing the use of hormones. That requirement, Blinder says, means therapists become "gatekeepers" capable of creating further barriers to receiving hormone treatment. Some mental health providers require a patient to meet for months of therapy before starting hormones. "People can get stuck in the system for a long time," Blinder said. "Many people don't end up getting a letter at all. The provider will make up excuses as to why they're not ready." It's just one of the hurdles transgender patients can endure. Despite the Affordable Care Act regulation preventing providers and health insurance companies from discriminating against transgender people, many patients continue to battle with insurance companies that refuse to cover certain procedures. Sometimes the toughest feat is to find a primary care provider that will use a transgender patient's correct name and pronouns. Purnell, the transgender woman from the Eastern Shore, who now lives in Salisbury, Maryland, said she frequently has to go to a nearby emergency room for recurring cluster headaches. While the hospital staffers have known her for years, they continue to call her by the wrong name, Purnell said. Last week, Purnell said, a doctor walked into the hospital room and suggested that there had been a mix-up. "I think we're in the wrong room," the doctor said, Purnell recounted. "This has you marked down as him." Elliot Ayres, a 22-year-old transgender man in D.C., said he once went to a primary care provider in Northern Virginia and asked about some pain he had been experiencing from binding his chest. The doctor not only misgendered Ayres - he didn't even know what a the chest-flattening practice was, Ayres said. As frustrating as the appointment was, Ayres said it wasn't particularly surprising. "Trans people oftentimes have really low expectations," Ayres said. "Our success stories are like, being gendered correctly and people using our names. I think we can ask for more." The plume of smoke coming from a petrochemical fire in Deer Park is now visible across the Houston area. The smoke, which has been billowing from the facility for more than 24 hours, is also starting to show up on weather radar images, according to a tweet for Meteorologist Jeff Lindner. Several new faces cracked the top 20 highest-paid superintendents in the Houston area for the 2018-2019 school year, including the CEO of a lauded charter school network. YES Prep Academy CEO and superintendent Mark DiBella earned $230,000 during the last school year and $270,000 this year, making him the 17th highest-paid superintendent in the Houston region, according to Texas Education Agency data. On HoustonChronicle.com: Small Houston charter school pays top dollar to leader, owns luxury condo He was the only charter school leader to rank in the top 20. Last year, two other charter school superintendents ranked in the top 20, according to the data. Another new face, interim HISD Superintendent Grenita Lathan, earns $345,060. Katy ISD Superintendent Lance Hindt again ranks No. 2 for the Houston region. However, he officially resigned from his post in January following a scandal in which a former classmate accused Hindt of bullying him more than 30 years ago, according to previous reports in the Houston Chronicle. With a salary of $394,587 for the 2018-2019 year, Hindt was expected to get a $750,000 payout after leaving. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Superintendent John Henry remains the highest paid superintendent in the region this year with a salary of $406,484. Statewide, seven Houston-area superintendents were listed among the top 20 highest paid. The list above ranks superintendents by base pay, which does not include bonuses, benefits or expense allowances. >>> Click through the slideshow to see what other superintendents made in your area 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 | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Google Maps A man fell two stories to his death Sunday night while fleeing police officers in downtown Houston, according to authorities. The 35-year-old man hopped over the railing of a building on the University of Houston-Downtown campus at Girard Street and Travis Street in an attempt to escape the officers. A fatal plunge was on the other side, police said. A man was shot to death inside a west Harris County apartment Monday, police say. The Harris County Sheriff's Office said the man was found dead inside an apartment complex in the 4200 block of Clay Hill Drive, near Clay Road and Texas Highway 6. The circumstances of the man's death were not immediately clear. No one appears to be in custody as of 3 p.m. No other information was available. Check back for updates as they come in. 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 | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Cardinal Daniel DiNardo left a religious ceremony at the Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in a wheel chair the same night he suffered what doctors diagnosed as a mild stroke, according to a witness and a Catholic insider blog. The 69-year-old cardinal was leading the Stations of the Cross ceremony across the street from the downtown Houston chancery Friday night when church attendee Jared Gogets noticed DiNardo was having problems standing and walking. The cardinal then complained that something was wrong with his leg, the witness said. He looked like he was fine until about the third station, said Gogets, who attends St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Houston. It looked like he almost fell over. Deacons and priests rushed to bring DiNardo water and check his pulse, he said. Their concerns were audible over a microphone the cardinal was wearing inside the cathedral. They kept asking him if he was OK. He said he was fine. He said something is going on with my leg, Gogets said. DiNardo continued the ceremony for another 10 to 15 minutes before he left the ceremony in a wheelchair, which was first reported by the Catholic insider blog Whispers in the Loggia. Auxiliary Bishop George Sheltz finished the ceremony in DiNardos absence. Only on HoustonChronicle.com: Amid abuse crisis, DiNardo carries hopes of many for church reform A bulletin for the Houston church published ahead of the March 15 ceremony announced DiNardo was to lead The Way of the Cross: An Evening of Prayer for Healing & Purification in the Church event at 7 p.m. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston issued a statement Saturday night confirming that DiNardo had suffered a stroke. Since the stroke, DiNardo has been resting comfortably at an unspecified Houston hospital and is expected to remain there for a few more days of testing and observation, the statement read. He will then be transferred to a rehabilitation facility. The statement said DiNardo was looking forward to getting back to work. Archdiocese officials did not respond to requests for comment Sunday. Gogets initially believed what happened to DiNardo near his seat at the parish was just a dizzy spell. It wasnt until Saturday night that Gogets considered the alternative. It made a lot of sense, Gogets said. Seeing it, I didnt think stroke at all. I thought he was fasting, that he was probably feeling weak. DiNardo, as leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been under mounting pressure to address how the church handles allegations of child sex abuse since last years release of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report and the arrest of former Conroe priest Manuel La Rosa-Lopez on four counts of indecency with a child. He moved from the Sioux City, Iowa, diocese to Houston in 2004 and was named cardinal of the nations fifth-largest Catholic religious jurisdiction in 2007. nicole.hensley@chron.com NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Floridas Palm Beach County is keeping five recent recruits in the dark to boost productivity: The Lights-Out Court Document Processing project has five robots working 24/7 to process some of the thousands of documents the county court receives each week. Its an example of how artificial intelligence and humans can work alongside one another and shows how enterprises can enhance manual systems with AI. Attorneys and other frequent filers at Palm Beach County Court are required to submit documents electronically, using a dedicated portal thats available 24/7. Altogether, they file about 40,000 court documents a week this way, each of which must be docketed that is, associated with the correct case, tagged and indexed so that it can be found in the courts records. Its a laborious process, one that Sharon R. Bock, clerk and comptroller for Palm Beach County, saw as ripe for automation. Bock, who oversees around 700 employees and a $70 million budget, is always looking for more efficient ways to perform statutory and constitutional duties. With payroll accounting for 95 percent of her spend, using automation technology to deal with some out-of-hours- filings and help staff do more during regular office hours was an obvious target. Narrowing the field The project, which received a 2019 Digital Edge 50 Award for digital innovation, was undertaken in collaboration with Florida software developer Computing System Innovations (CSI), which supplies the software the county uses to redact court documents. CSI developed a machine-learning system to automate the docketing and to access relevant court filings, says Cindy Guerra, the countys chief operating officer for courts and official records, and the projects business sponsor. We used the same interface, so it was actually very seamless, she says. Palm Beach County first identified the teams that would work on the project, and the types of filings the county would entrust to the system. They chose to work with documents that were very frequently docketed but did not pose a risk if something went wrong, Guerra says. They also aimed for documents that would allow the highest quality OCR (optical character recognition). For that reason, we excluded anything coming from a pro se filer, or self-represented litigant, because those tend to be handwritten, and the OCR quality is not going to be as good, Guerra says. Those criteria narrowed the load to seven docket codes, three of which were selected to begin the project: notice of hearing, notice of taking a deposition, and notice of cancellation. None of these documents require further action, such as the court asking the clerk to issue a writ or a summons, nor do they involve money. Training the new recruits To train CSIs machine learning software, the countys business analysts worked with the employee with the most knowledge of the countys processes and documents to index 500 to 600 documents of each type, extracting and tagging the relevant information from them. The county set up five instances of CSIs automated docketing software on its servers, giving them human names, with a hint of robot in each: Arnold Connor, Hal Isaac, Rosie Tober, Walley Bishop and Kitt Robbie. Documents processed by these robots are electronically stamped with their names rather than docketed by a robot. Guerra jokes: We didnt want to alarm our judges. Once the software was trained, it was time to audit it. We don't audit 100 percent of our humans, but we did audit 100 percent of the machines, says Guerra. I was 100 percent skeptical, that's why we did 100 percent auditing. The documents were presented to auditors in the same way, whether they had been processed by a robot or a human. The audit found that the machine learning system was 98 or 99 percent accurate with its three document codes, much better than humans. We were the first instance in using this type of software, so we were very apprehensive, and we didn't know we could trust it. Now we know, says Guerra. Machine learning is more accurate than humans in that, once you teach the machine that it made an error, it will never ever make that error again. When we teach our clerks that they have made an error, sometimes it takes multiple trainings for them to actually get it right. After the project went live, Guerra received a call from a supervisor who had spotted a mistake in a docket. She called up saying, I can't find the clerk who made this error, I can't find her in our telephone list, her name is Walley Bishop. Well, we had to chuckle! Guerra says. It's so seamless that it just looks like a clerk did it. Since the system went live in March 2018, it has been trained to read and process 26 docket codes and now dockets more than one in six electronically filed documents, with the goal of docketing more than one in three by July 2019. Right now, the five robots are doing the docketing work of eight employees, and theres capacity available to do the work of 19, says Guerra. To reach that, the robots would have to be retrained to deal with less common or more risky documents. The impact of shifting to AI Palm Beach County employees neednt fear for their jobs, according to Bock. With robots available to do the work that is most repetitive and error-prone for humans, We have been able to retrain our staff into more thinking jobs, she says. We have also now raised the level, the career level, the experience level and the technical level of our employees so that we've now reclassified them into higher wages. That move to higher-paid roles has had the slight downside of eroding some of the cost benefits of increasing capacity through adding robots rather than more staff, says Bock, but AI in our experience is actually allowing our workforce to move from a minimum wage environment for a certain group of people into not only a living wage but into a technical career that's transferrable, that is exciting, that is thought-provoking. She expects that virtuous circle to continue as staff seize the opportunity to learn something new and see that their greater understanding allows for further innovation and the creation of new applications. Other would-be adopters of AI shouldnt expect instant results, though. This is not an off-the-shelf, plug-and-play product, Bock cautions. The project took several years from inception to completion, with CSI and county staff working together a lot of the way. [Guerras] deep distrust as the business sponsor is one of the reasons that we were successful, she says. Setting up the auditing team meant that we caught the mistakes and retaught, taught, retaught. Looking to the future, Guerra wants to start working with more risky documents, Those that require further actions, so that the machine can learn to make those further actions whether its email someone, prepare a writ or prepare a summons, she says. Another goal is to have the robots issue receipts for documents submitted with payment. Meanwhile, Bock hopes that the system, currently dealing only with civil filings, can be extended into the criminal segment. Visitors from the Federal Bankruptcy Court have come to look at the system, and Bock and Guerra both hope other courts will adopt lights-out document processing too. As other counties in the state of Florida go online, we benefit from the work that they do, Bock says. Bock, a lawyer by training, concludes: This is the most exciting thing I've ever done in the 27 years of my career. After pushing for single-payer health care for the past 27 years, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried has heard all the reasons why the state is not ready for it. New York is too big. There is not enough funding. Federal waivers are needed. More study is needed. What about protecting moderate Democrats in the next election, the critics ask. Sitting in his Albany office one recent morning, Gottfried explained how the recurrence of such questions creates a sense of legislative deja vu. This is a bill that has been analyzed and questioned and picked over for a couple of decades now, he said. A lot of very smart people have looked at it and asked a lot of questions about it. I think those questions have all been answered. Yet, people keep asking including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who could single-handedly block the measure. Yet if the New York Health Act were to pass in the state Legislature this year, it would be a major landmark in the history of U.S. health care a progressive dream come true. Right now, governments at all levels have pushed for universal health care by expanding the current health insurance system. But Gottfried wants to replace that system with one in which a single government-run insurer would provide all 20 million people statewide with medical, dental, vision, mental health and long-term care services. This is a bill that has been analyzed and questioned and picked over for a couple of decades now. Assemblyman Richard Gottfried A single-payer health care system has never been successfully implemented at such a scale in the U.S. If New York made it happen, other states particularly California would take notice. Theres no reason to wait, said Gottfried, the longtime chairman of the Assembly Health Committee. Americans still hear the word taxes as a dirty word. But an increasing number of people understand that what matters is whether the money we spend is reduced. While single-payer health care has not been a major topic of debate this budget season, the political storm clouds are gathering around the issue. Gottfried has already gotten the New York Health Act through his committee, and his counterpart leading the state Senate Health Committee, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, plans to hold hearings on the bill as soon as next month. Hopefully, both houses will be able to take the bill up before we adjourn in June, Gottfried said. But the Realities of Single Payer a coalition of business, labor, insurance and other groups is growing and gearing up for a fight at the upcoming hearings. Were just waiting to see when and where, coalition spokeswoman Leanne Politi said. Democrats might agree on single-payer in principle, but interviews with more than a dozen Democratic legislators shows that some are skittish about passing single-payer at least for now. An unfriendly federal government means that funding a single-payer system originally required an estimated $139 billion in additional taxes and voters might balk at seeing their taxes go up, even if society as a whole might save money in the long run. However, even if supporters of the New York Health Act cannot win the legislative battle now, they remain confident that they are winning the broader war in the realm of public opinion over what universal health care really offers. The insurance market, Gottfried said, is like the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic. New Yorkers are flailing about and drowning among high premiums and high copays, and he wants to help them get something better than your standard American health care plan. Its better to be in a lifeboat than treading water, he said. But what is really better is to be onboard a ship heading back to New York Harbor. But there are fears that the New York Health Act like the Titanic would be a colossal disaster that risks the health care coverage, however imperfect, that the vast majority of New Yorkers already have. The current system already provides 95 percent of people with health insurance. By expanding coverage to the remaining 5 percent and codifying provisions of Obamacare into state law, the governor has argued that state government will have done its job. We must enshrine the protections of the Affordable Care Act into State law to continue our historic progress whatever happens in Washington, he said in a statement last month. A spokesperson for the governor could not be reached for comment, but the governors proposed budget did not include a single-payer proposal no surprise given his position that he supports the idea, but only when implemented at the federal level. It would double everybodys taxes, the governor told The Atlantic when asked recently how far to the political left he would go. You want to do that? Lets go, he said. They can never pass it. But I have no problem with the dare. Every union is against it. The hospitals are against it. The Civil Service Employees Association is against it. The 1199 health care union is against it. That is the only issue. Marijuana, Im there. Voting rights, Im there. Contraceptive Care Act? Im there first. Anything else you can name, Im there. However, whether in jest or not, the interview appears to have been the first time the governor said, If they pass it, Ill sign it. This is, in my opinion, an impossibility in the next two years. state Sen. James Skoufis Another proposal in the governors budget would set up a commission of health policy and insurance experts to figure out how best to deliver health care statewide. But leading lawmakers say the commission, which would be supported by the Department of Health and the Department of Financial Services, is a non-starter because it would give any nominal supporter of single-payer an excuse to wait on its findings, which would not be due until December. Its a way of just kicking the can down the road in a way that we dont feel is productive, said Rivera, who is sponsoring the New York Health Act in the state Senate. But given the governors power over the budget process, the commission may well be created and could, at a minimum, delay the New York Health Act. Single-payer was an issue that many progressive candidates embraced on the campaign trail, whether in New York City, on Long Island or in the Hudson Valley. Despite large Democratic majorities in the state Senate and Assembly, lawmakers from Long Island and the Hudson Valley say they do not see single-payer happening anytime soon. This is, in my opinion, an impossibility in the next two years, said state Sen. James Skoufis, who voted for the bill when he was in the Assembly. Until there is a new federal administration, I dont know how we can do it. Single-payer is a concept that tends to make independent, moderate suburbanites nervous. Lawrence Levy, Hofstra University National Center for Suburban Studies executive dean The inclusion of long-term care in the New York Health Act has also given lawmakers reason to qualify their support for the bill, especially considering how it would add to the costs of a program that, if enacted, would likely double the states annual budget. The bill now is not the bill that existed then, said state Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Long Island Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation last year. Its a behemoth. So far this year, only 26 out of 39 members of the Senate Democratic conference have signed on to the bill, compared to the full conference last year when they were in the minority. While the Assembly has passed the bill the past four years, there is no guarantee that it will pass again this time around with Democrats in control of the Senate. To some extent, a resistance to raising taxes for any reason is to be expected from suburban lawmakers, especially on Long Island, said Lawrence Levy, executive dean at the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University. Single-payer is a concept that tends to make independent, moderate suburbanites who are very conservative about their taxes nervous, he said. Even if they are supportive of the concept, they know the devils are in the details. Among the biggest unknowns with the New York Health Act is how it could work without the help of the Trump administration. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already signaled that it would not support federal waivers to allow the state to redirect billions of dollars in Medicare, Medicaid and other funding to a single-payer system. Gottfried said there would be ways to work around this by setting up shell health care plans that would receive federal money and then redirect it to New York Health, the state entity that would oversee single-payer in New York. Doctors and hospitals and patients would never have to know the difference, he said. (Single payer) would disregard all those sacrifices that our members have given up to have their health insurance protected. Shannon Hutton, Civil Service Employees Association communications director Then there is the matter of raising taxes to fund New York Health. A 2018 study from the Rand Corp. found that under positive conditions, single-payer could save the average New Yorker money. However, explaining how it would do this in a way that is understandable to voters is a challenge. As of now, the legislation does not include specific tax rates, but the goal is to set up a progressive system in which high-income earners pay more say 13.5 percent of income while low-income people pay something close to 4.5 percent. Either way, this would cover about 20 percent of the costs associated with health care, with employers picking up the other 80 percent. Then there are the divisions among labor unions. Gottfried likes to say that organized labor supports the New York Health Act. A very large chunk of the labor movement is very fully committed, he said, including the the New York State Nurses Association and 32BJ SEIU. Representatives of these unions did not respond to requests for comment. But if private insurance were eliminated statewide, where would that leave unions who have negotiated for health benefits at the expense of higher pay? Basically this would disregard all those sacrifices that our members have given up to have their health insurance protected, said Shannon Hutton, director of communications at the Civil Service Employees Association. While CSEA, New York State United Teachers whose president, Andrew Pallotta, praised the New York Health Act last year and other unions say they favor single-payer at the national level, lawmakers say they are feeling pressure from some unions to block single-payer at the state level. There has been a lot of pushback, said Assemblywoman Karines Reyes, a Bronx Democrat who is a registered nurse, even to the point where they question whether Im a supporter of labor and Im like a rank-and-file member. State Senate Democrats signed on to the New York Health plan: This combination of union pressure, taxpayer backlash and the opposition from the Trump administration makes it difficult to convince lawmakers to pass the New York Health Act this year. But if the upcoming hearings do not convince reluctant legislators to get behind the bill, they might want to also consider that this could be their best chance to pass the bill, Gottfried said. Democrats have commanding majorities in the Assembly and state Senate now, and there are no guarantees that progressive voters will support them again if they fail to make single-payer a reality in New York. Nobody can accurately predict the political future, Gottfried said. And as with any number of other issues that we have taken up this year, I think progressive Democratic legislators campaigned on this issue and ought to deliver. OHCHR Moldova: Apel deschis pentru aplicatii din partea OSC-urilor pentru a beneficia de suport in desfasurarea activitatilor de advocacy la nivel international in contextul celui de-al treilea ciclu de EPU a R. Moldova (CNN) Matthew Charles was released from prison a few months ago and since then has been trying to start a new life. But that has proven much harder than he hoped. When he first applied to rent an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee, Charles was rejected. When Kim Kardashian offered to pay his rent in advance, he was rejected again. Charles served 21 years for drug-related offenses and, in January, became one of the first prisoners released as a result of the First Step Act, according to the White House. The new law "reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African-American community," President Donald Trump said during his State of the Union address, where Charles was a guest. In February, Charles told CNN's Poppy Harlow the "welcome home" from Trump and hearing "that society was on board with giving me a second chance -- was just amazing." But not everyone seems to be on board with letting Charles start over. In early March, when Charles found out his rental application had been rejected, he spoke out about the stigma associated with being a felon. "The violence on my wrap sheet occurred back in 1988, when I was completely young, dumb, and wrong. ... It's 31 years ago," he said on Facebook. "This is about obstacles to successful re-entry and reintegration back into society for ex-felons, that I and many released felons face on regular basis that need addressing and remedied." "If having a place to live and a job to work are essential for every citizen," he said. "Why would that not be the essential case for every citizens, regardless of being a past convicted felon?" When Charles heard about Kardashian's offer, he posted the news to social media. "Kim did not do this for attention or publicity," he said. "I had to share it, because it's (too) good not to, and my heart is about to burst with happiness, that I wish you to rejoice in this news with me." But according to Kardashian's later tweet, even with that offer on the table, Charles' application was rejected again because "of his criminal record." "If there are any landlords w a 2 bedroom in Nashville willing to give Mr. Charles a 2nd chance, contact mocapt615@gmail.com," she wrote on Twitter. "Serious inquiries only, thank you." This story was first published on CNN.com, "Kim Kardashian tried to pay a former prisoner's rent so he could start a new life. But he was denied an apartment." In early February, Jill Abramson told The Cut that she had never recorded an interview in her decades-long career as a journalist. Im a very fast note-taker, she said in a staid Q&A that generated a mudslide of online criticism from those who took Abramsons admission as evidence of recklessness. That she was accused, the next day, of plagiarizing passages in her new book on the media industry, Merchants of Truth, only added to the impression that the former executive editor of The New York Times plays it fast and loose. Putting aside the issue of plagiarism, the truth is that, depending on the circumstances, many journalists do not record their interviews. That isnt to say its the norm, but interviewing practices vary, primarily because journalism, unlike law or medicine, is an intuitive profession that requires no formal training (for better or worse). ICYMI: Top journalists reveal the best reporting advice they have received How journalists memorialize their interviews seems to be divided, in many ways, along generational lines, with older reporters relying more on their notebooks and younger reporters clinging to their recording devices, which were once clunky and somewhat forbidding but came into wider use around the end of the 20th century with the advent of digital technology. But it also depends on the person. Gay Talese, for example, is vehemently opposed to tape recordersand views their widespread use as the death knell of literary reportagewhile E. Jean Carroll prefers to videotape her interview subjects with her smartphone so she can capture facial expressions, which often serve as psychological tells. Below are testimonials from 18 journalists. Most of these testimonials came via email; some are excerpts from phone interviews, which were not recorded. All have been edited for length and clarity. *** Sign up for CJR 's daily email Kara Swisher Editor-at-large, Recode; contributing opinion writer, The New York Times I both take notes and record now unless very brief. Its just safer and better for all to memorialize it in audio. David Weigel National political correspondent, The Washington Post I have a Sony recorder now and an iPhone, and if I sit down for an interview and its on the record, I usually have both recording, especially since, if anyone has an iPhone, they know spam callers who promise you a free vacation can interfere at any time. Gustavo Arellano Features writer, The Los Angeles Times When Jill started getting rained on for her note-taking philosophy, I thought to myself, Whats so wrong with that? I almost never record interviews. I feel its a crutch that too many reporters depend on, and one that prohibits them from actually listening to what the person is saying because they figure itll all be on tape, so why bother to pay 100 percent attention? I also dont trust technology, and am always paranoid that the interview I recorded will somehow disappear. Im with Jill on note-takingIm a very fast note-taker. And in my 17-year career as a reporter, not once has anyone ever complained that I misquoted them. Hannah Dreier Immigration reporter, ProPublica When Im working on an investigation and a source says something really damning, I do the same thing Abramson describes, and wait a few beats to write it down, to try to keep the person from getting spooked. Thats actually one reason I do use a pocket recorder (and sometimes my phone also, as a backup)I dont want to have to telegraph what Im finding useful and what Im not interested in. I find that sources are really tuned in to when I write in my notebook, and sometimes I write things down just to try to manage how people are feeling about how the interview is going. Sometimes my notebook is more of a prop, because I know everything is being recorded and I can pull a transcript later. I dont usually record people who are talking to me on background, or who are giving me tips on the understanding that their name wont be used, because I find that recorders really scare nervous sources. But then, Im never going to quote those people, so I dont need an exact transcript of their words. Im usually more casual about recording when Im doing more hang-out style reporting, and just following a person through their day. But I worked with magazine fact-checkers for the first time last year, and found that it was really helpful to be able to give them recordings. A few people denied ever having talked to me, or denied saying what they said, and we probably would have had to cut that material if I hadnt been able to give recordings to the fact checkers. So now I try to record whenever I can, unless theres a powerful reason not to. Astead W. Herndon National political reporter, The New York Times I record almost every phone call using an app called Automatic Call Recorder, which also is attached to a transcription service. Even when I record I often take notes so that I know which sections of the tape to come back to, or if Im working on deadline its a way to keep moving quickly. The app sends me a rough transcription of the phone call about five minutes after its completed. If Im in-person Ill use my phone as a recorder, and usually let the person know its on. Ill also jot down notes and important times by hand. I dont use a recorder for some person-on-the-street stuff, but in those instances I almost always go over the persons quote with them, since they usually have less media literacy and I would not want a person to be surprised. Bryn Stole Investigative reporter, New Orleans Advocate Its nearly always my preference to record any conversations I have while reporting, but there are a few circumstances where I dont, either because its not possible or not preferable. On Capitol Hill, I almost never see reporters carrying pen and pad, and sticking phones or recorders right in a politicians face is entirely expected and acceptable. But thats not always the case in other circumstances. I try to always record politicians and other officials and review their quotes by transcribing tape. Thats because those sources strike me as the most likely to challenge a quotationand because spokespeople often sit in on those interviews and record on their end as well. But there are circumstances when I might prefer not to record. While working as a crime reporter, Id approach bystanders, witnesses or relatives at a crime scene. Id visit grieving families the next day in their homes. Id try to chat up police officers whose department policies forbid talking to me. Immediately pulling out a recorder and putting it in their face can sometimes be intimidating, adding a degree of tension to a conversation or shutting down a potentially illuminating voice, in ways a simple pen and pad isnt. I can write quickly and am confident in my ability to accurately summarize a conversation in written notes. I trust that most reporters are able to do the same with some practice. If Im not recording, I try to listen to shorter quotesones Im sure I can jot down quickly and accuratelyand otherwise paraphrase what someone said in an interview. If Im not entirely confident in the accuracy of a quotation, Ill summarize and wont put quotation marks around it. And then there are some situations where its actually impossible to record. Federal and Louisiana state courts prohibit audio recordings and obtaining a transcript of proceedings is often prohibitively expensive even in the few circumstances its possible. Federal courthouses in particular usually prohibit electronics inside, period, meaning youll have to lock your recorder in the car and usually rely on a pen and pad even for hallway interviews with lawyers, witnesses and relatives. If a reporter isnt comfortable relying on notes without a recordingand doesnt invest the time in building those skillshow are they supposed to be able to cover trials and court proceedings? Rex Reed Film critic, New York Observer; author, Do You Sleep in the Nude? There was a time, early in my career, when I really had a photographic memory and I didnt need anything more than notes. I still have steno pads full of notes on interesting people I interviewed, including the subjects of long magazine-length pieces. But as I grew older, my memory grew less dependable and I started using tape recorders. They were clumsy, inconvenient and a big bore to drag around and listen to for hours, and I also kept running out of tape at the most crucial moments. Also, there were instances in which interviewees objected to their use. Cantankerous Jerry Lewis pulled out his own tape recorder to record me while I recorded him. For my now famous Esquire piece on Ava Gardner, which Tom Wolfe reprinted in his book The New Journalism, she forbid me to use a tape recorder at all, so I had to keep continually racing to the bathroom to jot down her most pungent quotes, prompting her to ask, Whats the matter, baby? Got a bladder problem? But in retrospect I am grateful for the strategy of taping interviews because I now have irreplaceable conversations between myself and people that I treasure. What fun to replay verbal ping pong with Audrey Hepburn, Tennessee Williams, and Bob Hope. Bijan Stephen Features reporter, The Verge Basically, my process is offloading all the memory work to a device, which is usually my iPhone, and I take backup notes by hand with my notebook. I dont delete anything I dont have to. And for larger projects, I create a specific Google Drive folder with recordings, pictures, and drafts. Never delete, homie. Elizabeth Spiers Founder, The Insurrection I record whenever its possible, and when I cant, I generally wont quote people directly unless Ive confirmed exact wording during the interview. The only exception is when Im gathering background info, and then its because I know Ill do a follow-up interview about anything I want to use and re-confirm at that point. I dont have a set period of time. Theyre all digital at this point and in the cloud, and I dont really have any compelling reason to delete them. I think journalists have a responsibility to be as accurate as they can, and a reasonable person knows that memory is fallible and that notes that arent perfectly transcribed can be unintentionally misinterpreted later. If youre trying to do your job well and with integrity, why take the risk? I think saying you cant always record is reasonable; but never recording on principle because you think you dont need to is just hubris. Seth Lipsky Founder and editor, The New York Sun I record very little. Maybe a dozen times in my career, which goes back to 1962. Im a very slow note-taker and only write down things Im sure of. I put within quotes only material as it was actually said. I find that sifting processputting within quotes only phrases or short sentences Im sure I got rightmakes me really wait for the pith. Yashar Ali Contributor, HuffPost and New York I always record on-record interviews. No exception. I will record interviews on background or off record only with the permission of the subject. Some say yes and some say no. But on-record interviews are always recorded and obviously they either see me turn on the tape recorder or I tell them Im about to tape record. Would never ever delete recordings. EVER! ICYMI: The FBIs secret investigation of a journalist Amanda Petrusich Staff writer, The New Yorker I always record my interviews, and I truly cant think of a single reason not toideally, two digital recorders, in plain sight, with fresh batteries in my pocket. I might jot notes on a notepad if there are things I want to remember about the location, what someone looked like, the weather, the feel of the air; I might excuse myself to go the bathroom, and then desperately thumb out two paragraphs on my phone. But those are impressions, details, ideasnot quotes. Memory is so deeply, hilariously fallible. I know theres been some talk of reporters eschewing recorders in order to make a subject feel comfortableIm not sure thats a reporters job, exactly, but regardless, I find that frantically scribbling notes is infinitely more distracting than a digital recorder quietly sitting on the table. Also, in my experience, part of being a good reporter is training yourself to listen intently and carefullyto listen more fully than you usually doand I couldnt possibly do the difficult work of listening well and deeply while also simultaneously trying to write a bunch of stuff down. If its not a traditional interview situationif, say, Im spending a lot of time with a subject, and some conversations are happening between the formal sit-downsIll still try to to keep a recorder on me, and Ill pull it out whenever someone starts saying something interesting. That can be a little jarring for a subject, but whatever, they know what Im there to do. I can see how there might be a situation where you simply cannot access or use your recorder for some reason, and if that happens, well, okay, Ill take a notebut for me, thats an exception. It makes me nervous to think I might accidentally misrepresent someones language. Im okay with extrapolating meaning from an interviewdrawing conclusions that the subject might not agree withbut being misquoted feels violent and awful. I also find the audio document of an interview to be really useful later, when I sit down to writethere are all these little tells its hard to notice in the moment, because your adrenaline is going, youre locked in, youre hyper-focused on the arc of the conversation. The way someone pronounces a word, the timbre of their voice, a pause, a strain, a lightness, a darkness, whateverthat stuff is grist for the mill, too, and its easy to miss. Also if I didnt have to do the excruciating work of transcribing my own interviews, I dont think Id learn as much from my own mistakes. I cant think of a better way to improve as a reporter than by having to listen to yourself fumble an exchange, or ask the wrong follow-up, or let something important go. Its really useful training! Ive got several shoeboxes full of those mini-cassette tapes crammed under my bed. With digital recordings, I usually back them up to a hard drive and forget about them. Im admittedly not great at organizing or archiving digital materials, but I have yet to purposefully delete interview audio; I guess I figure, You never know. But interviewing is only a small fraction of my jobI would totally understand a beat reporter routinely cleaning house. Lizzie Johnson General assignment reporter, San Francisco Chronicle I usually record my interviews, but I dont always listen back through the whole thing. Ill take notes by typing on my laptop or jotting things down in a notebook. If theres a particular quote I want to use from someone, Ill reference the time stamp on the recording. I go back later and listen to that snippet, just to make sure Im accurately quoting the person. But for numbers, figures, general information, et cetera, I dont usually go back through the entire recording and will refer to my notes. I dont have a system for how long I keep recordings for. Some of mine from years ago are still saved on iTunes. Others get deleted when I get a new iPhone. Clyde Haberman Former reporter and columnist, The New York Times If I remember correctly, Truman Capote said that he took no notesand certainly did no recordingsof his interviews for his classic book In Cold Blood. I never understood, or even believed, that. Its hard for me to believe that anyone can remember huge snatches of dialogue, regardless of how smart he or she may be. So, indeed, I always use a notepad and pen. In general, though, I too prefer not to use recording devices. Its certainly not necessary all the time, especially if youre not going to be quoting someone verbatim at length. For some interview subjects, the presence of a recorder can be inhibiting, though the devices today are smaller and thus less intrusive than in the past. For the most part, recording routine interviews can be a pain. You then have to play back the conversation, and that is time-consuming and especially unhelpful if youre right on deadline. There are exceptions. I always record conversations when I know I will be quoting a person at some length, as I have in personality profiles and the like. And Ive done my fair share of interviews, both in this country and as a foreign correspondent, with presidents, prime ministers, and other top officials. I almost always have used tape recorders in those situations. The last thing any reporter wants is to misquote a government leaderor, perhaps more likely, miss a nuancewith the possibility of its producing unfortunate consequences. Theres an element of self-protection as well. You dont want officials unhappy with an article to claim they were misquoted, when they were not. Some Ive erased fairly quickly, others Ive kept, though why I did so isnt always logical. I have consciously held onto a few interviews that Ive done with people whose advance obituaries I wroteand who are still living. But generally theres no pattern to my recorded interviews in terms of how long to hold onto them. I will admit to times when quotes that I wrote down in my notebook didnt precisely match what was on the tape. Not that I misunderstood the essence of what the person saidnot at all. Im not talking about distorted meanings. But sometimes when I checked the tape, I saw that what I had in my notebook did not match it word for word. Perhaps the person said wouldnt and I wrote down would notsimple mistakes that did not alter the basic accuracy. Its an argument against assuming that even the fastest and most assiduous note taker is going to get everything down on paper with absolute precision. It seems impossible to me. It always has been, and frankly, I think its more unlikely than ever as I get older and my memory frays a bit at the edges. E. Jean Carroll Advice columnist, Elle I have a storage space in Warwick, [New York], and half that storage space is filled with old tapes, box after box after box of tapes. Its just incredibleI lived by my tape recorder. And now, my most recent story, called Miss Jeans Wild Ride, now, I only do video. I have found that people love to perform in front of a cameralove it! To me, this is the Roger Ailes school of journalism. Its more important how you look when youre talking than what youre saying. Barry Newman Former report, The Wall Street Journal; author, News to Me: Finding and Writing Colorful Feature Stories I used cassette recorders very rarely for the first 30 years of my career. My interviews were usually face-to-face, especially in 20 years overseas, often with interpreters. When people you interview watch you take notes, they seem to give you a chance to keep pace with their talk. Taping wasnt necessary. When I got back to the US in 1997, the digital recorder was becoming cheap and easy. I began using one for long, complicated interviews, usually over the phone. These interviews were largely informational and technical, with lawyers, doctors, scientists, executives, flacks. I wasnt using them to fish for talking-head quotes, but to prepare myself for getting out of the office to meet my real subjects, and to hunt for scenes and incidents. I transcribed those recordings and found them invaluable for sorting out the complexities of things like immigration law. Without those transcripts, I guarantee I would have made many more mistakes than I did. Nancy Jo Sales Magazine journalist; author of The Bling Ring I record everything and I take notes as well. Recording is important to me not only for accuracy but for giving the tone and flavor of the persons use of language. Since I interview a lot of teenagers, I like to get the exact diction and rhythms of their speech, which you cant do as precisely with notes. I also take notes to remember facts and feelings. Now that there are iPhone cameras I also take pictures of subjects (if its OK with them) so I can remember what theyre wearing or how their home looks. iPhone recordings I keep forever; you just store them on your computer. When I used cassette tapes I had a huge box of them. I had a small apartment and they took up a lot of space. So for the ones that were 10 or more years old, I just chucked them. I still have the transcripts, of course, but Im really sorry I threw out the tapes. Some of them were Donald Trump (who knew?), Gwyneth Paltrow should have kept them even as kind of professional keepsakes. Gay Talese Literary journalist and author of several books, including The Kingdom and the Power I loathe tape recorders. I never owned one and do not even know how to operate one. I also never owned a cell phone. I dont want to talk to people on the telephone. I want to see them up close, face-to-face, and listen patiently and respectfully while noting their gestures and other signifying signs of how they feel and think. I often ask them, once Ive gotten to know them, What were you thinking when you did such-and-such?, and it is amazing how often they reveal themselves in interesting and intimate ways which I will later paraphrase in my written account. I often paraphrase, rather than use a direct quote, because people rarely speak in full and clear sentences and, as a writer (yes, a good reporter must also be a good writer!) I believe I can be more honest as well as readable when I use my own language in telling the story rather than surrendering to the verbatim and often stilted language caught on a recorder. I fear that the new technology has turned todays young journalists into lazy professionals who invest too much of their time sitting behind their laptops and staring down into their smartphones instead of hitting the road and spending great amounts of time in person with a variety of different kinds of people whose thoughts and stories demand being told more than they now are. Reporters must be storytellers, skilled and deep-digging researchers whose ambitions should rival the artistic goals of novelists and short story writers and yet hold true to the highest standards of accuracy and verifiability. I often ask the same question at least two or three or four times. Why? Because I want to be sure I understand the full meaning of another persons feelings and viewpoints. I jot their words down on strips of cardboard (shortboard) that I cut to fit in the breast pocket of my jacket. When I write something down, I sometimes show it to the person Im interviewing, and I say: Look at this. This is what I just heard you say. Cant you be more clear? Can we go deeper here? I might then pause, and if the person seems reluctant to go on, I might say, Look, I dont mean to be difficult. But what you say for the record is very important. And you yourself are more important than perhaps you think you are. Many, many people are interested in your point of view, and Im trying to do the best I can as a writer and reflector of your private world and how you represent it in the larger world that surrounds us. Tape recorderswhich came into prominence when I was a daily reporter on the Times in the late 1950shave ruined the art of magazine writing. The recorder has introduced the Q&A interview into modern magazine writing. The result? The writer has forgotten how to listenand ask the same question repeatedly (as I do), and surrender to the person who is the subject of the piecethat is, the movie star, or other celebrity or politician, have taken over the article. What they say (not the writers voice) has become the essence of the article. The writer today lacks stature. It was not that way when I began writing for magazinesalong with Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, et al. Sadly, the journalist today is, more often than not, a stenographer. Thanks, tape recorder! ICYMI: Why the left cant stand The New York Times Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Matthew Kassel is a freelance writer whose work has been published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Slate. Before 2018, journalism in Malaysia was a risky profession. There were direct controls on mainstream outlets across print and television. The party of the Prime Minister, Najib Razak, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), partially owned Utusan Malaysia, the largest Malay-language newspaper, which it used as a political tool. Journalists, bloggers and even one cartoonist who satirized Najib were arrested. In 2015, after the Wall Street Journal broke a story that alleged $700 million from a state fund had gone into Najibs personal bank account, Malaysia clamped down on the medias ability to report it. It also went after the few outletssuch as MalaysiaKini and the Malaysia Insiderthat had defied the crackdown. There were people who went to jail for reporting on [the state fund], [outlets] who lost their licenses for it and journalists being sued, Shannon Teoh, president of the Malaysian Foreign Correspondents Club, says. ICYMI: Malaysias R.AGE builds a business from advocacy journalism But last year an election abruptly shifted the atmosphere, and brought unexpected freedoms, especially for the media. The incumbent Barisan Nasional coalition, led by UMNO, had been in power since Malaysia gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, making it the longest ruling elected party in the world. On May 9, 2018, the opposition coalition swept to victory in what many called the Tsunami Rakyat (Peoples Tsunami). The country has since seen a blossoming of press freedoman exception in a region where greater censorship and state control is becoming the norm. The charges against the cartoonist, Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, known as Zunar, were dropped. And parliament repealed a broadly criticized law imposing criminal penalties for fake news. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Mainstream media outlets which previously only covered positive stories about the ruling party are now free to cover increasingly controversial topics, and give space to the opposition. In July of 2018, MalaysiaKini, in a collaboration with the Nepal Centre for Investigative Journalism, published an investigation examining the ways Nepali migrant workers came to Malaysia. Our investigation revealed a corrupt collaboration between the migration agencies of the governments of Nepal and Malaysia, with private companies, to fleece Nepali workers, says Ramu Sapkota, the investigative journalist with the Center for Investigative Journalism Nepal who had reported the story with Alyaa Alhadjri, a journalist at MalaysiaKini. The story alleged that $434 million was illegally collected from migrant workers through illegal fees and extra charges. It implicated former Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, whose family was directly connected to a company contracted by the government, and which had been illegally collecting fees from Nepali workers. This time, the Malaysian government began an investigation into the allegations. Other outlets picked up the story. And in October 2018, Ahmad was charged with corruption by the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commissionthe same entity that barely investigated Najib. If you break the right story at the right time and with the right partners, it can have a great impact, Sapkota says. So far the changes in the environment are not so much legal as political; the laws that were used to suppress and censor in the past are still there. Talks between civil society groups, journalists, and the government have begun on creating an independent Media Council that, if set up properly, would codify and protect press freedom no matter who is in power. Last month UNMO sold shares in the newspaper Utusan Malaysia. It no longer formally has a controlling stake. The retreat of political patronage, while welcome, means that the paper and others like it must now compete, like the rest of global journalism, for funding and attention. In Malaysia, its a welcome problem. If you take a big picture view, things have become better, Teoh says. Youre allowed to have a freer hand in criticizing politicians without any vague laws and regulations being used against you. ICYMI: Student uncovers decades of sexual misconduct allegations against professor Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Nithin Coca is an Asia-focused freelance journalist covering environment, human rights, and politics. South Africas president endorsed Zimbabwes government Tuesday, ignoring reports of human right abuses by the military to crush persistent dissent in the neighboring country, the news article said. Later, it talked about violence in Zimbabwe when the military again opened fire to put down anti-government protests. Protesters dissent, and dissenters protest. Is there a difference? Of course, or this wouldnt be a column. ICYMI: How we got the terms postlude, prelude, and interlude Both protest and dissent can be a noun or a verb. Add a suffix and you have a dissenter or a protester. (Only one, though can be spelled a different way: You can be a protestor, but not a dissentor.) They both mean to express displeasure with something, usually of a political or social nature. In legal terms, a dissent meant to express a minority view. (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a special dissent collar when she disagrees with a Supreme Court ruling. Its really called a jabot, but lets not argue about that here..) Sign up for CJR 's daily email Merriam-Webster says that the noun dissent is a difference of opinion, with other definitions including political opposition to a government or its policies. The intransitive verb is to withhold assent or approval. (Yes, assent is an antonym to dissent.) The verb form was the earliest to come in to English, the Oxford English Dictionary says, in the early 15th century. It comes from the Latin sentireto feel or thinkwith the negative prefix dis-. Its earliest use was to withhold assent or consent from a proposal. The noun version first appeared in the late 16th century, in Spensers Faerie Queene. (If youre wondering, there were noun and verb forms of sent with no prefixes. They both meant assent, the OED says, though they are now thankfully obsolete.) Protest traces both its noun and verb forms to the 15th century, again with the verb leading the way by a few years. But its earliest verb use, the OED says, was a now-obsolete legal term protest for, meaning petition, advance a claim; to put forward a protestation. Protestation itself at the time meant A condition or reservation put forward to protect the rights or interests of a party in a lawsuit, the OED says. It didnt mean disagree; that usage didnt come into about 1550, the OED says: to make a formal (often written) declaration against a proposal, decision, etc. (Italics are the OEDs.) Around 1850, protest took on the meaning we see most commonly today: Of a (large) number of people: to express collective disapproval or dissent publicly, typically by means of an organized demonstration; to engage in a mass protest, usually against a government policy or legal decision. Thats an intransitive verb, meaning you dont have to protest something. The OED also has a chiefly US transitive version, To object to (an action or event); to challenge or contest; (also) to make the subject of a public protest or demonstration. Think of a protest as a public demonstration of dissent. Dissent is often the subject of government regulation. Authoritarian governments seek to quell dissent whether it is expressed through protests or in rhetoric, as we see in the Zimbabwe passage quoted above. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, known for cracking down on opponents, claims that dissent is fine, but protest is not: Wala naman kung dissent langthose are just expression. I need more overt acts, Duterte said, referring to chants to oust him during rallies, and that rebellion is another matter. Harvard has Protest and Dissent guidelines. Its fine to dissent during someones speech with silent actions, picketing, or otherwise protesting noiselessly, the guidelines say, unless the protest interferes with the audiences view or prevents the audience from paying attention to the speaker. Once the dissent becomes disruptive, its a protest. One more word to discuss: dissident. Like its cousin dissent, it began it English life as a mere difference of opinion, an adjective first seen around the mid-16th century. The noun form showed up late in the 18th century, the OED says, in a religious context: The kingdom of Poland labeled as a dissident anyone who was not a Roman Catholic. Political dissidents showed up around 1950, the OED says, to mean Disagreeing in political matters; voicing political dissent, usually in a totalitarian state. That totalitarianism angle persists in the OED entry, last updated in 1989, but Merriam-Webster says dissidents are people merely disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief. No totalitarianism required. Dissident has more of a political tint than protester, and, if Nexis is any judge, dissident is more likely to be applied to someone protesting policies of a foreign government than those of United States. Everyone who is protesting is probably dissenting, but not every protester is a dissident. ICYMI: The term shoddy used to have a different meaning Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl. On Saturday, March 9, Jeanine Pirro, on her regular Fox show, lit into Ilhan Omar, the freshman Democratic representative from Minnesota. Omar wears a hijab, Pirro said. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which, in itself, is antithetical to the United States Constitution? It was a scandalous diatribe. On Saturday, Pirros show was off the air. Instead, Fox reran an episode of the documentary series, Scandalous, focusing on a 1991 rape case involving JFKs nephew. The schedule change irked one high-profile viewer. Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro, President Trump tweeted, tagging Fox. Had Fox brought Judge Jeanine to justice? The network wouldnt say, but CNNs Brian Stelter reported, based on a conversation with a source, that Fox had, indeed, formally suspended Pirro over her Omar comments. The New York Timess Michael M. Grynbaum soon confirmed that reporting. According to Stelter, Fox has not fired Pirro. Its not yet clear when her show will return. Nor was it clear when, or why, the decision was taken. Fox publicly condemned Pirros remarks the day after they airedan unusual move for the network. Some observers speculated that Fridays horrifying mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, may have been decisive given the Islamophobic tenor of the scandal. Maybe [Fox] had a nightmare vision, Jay Rosen, a professor at NYU, tweeted. Pirro on a short leash, but getting urged on by Individual One [Trump], with the NZ attacks as fuel for a wildfire she could start with one remark. ICYMI: New Zealand massacreJournalists divided on how to cover hate Others, including Stelter, suggested pressure from advertisers likely factored into Foxs calculus. As The Hollywood Reporters Jeremy Barr reported early last week, at least four corporate advertisers dropped Pirro after the Omar episode. At the same time, advertisers also fled Tucker Carlsons show after Media Matters for America, a left-wing media monitoring group, dug up and published offensive comments Carlson made on Bubba The Love Sponges shock-jock radio show. Last Wednesday, Media Matters organized a noisy protest outside Fox Newss Manhattan headquarters, timed to coincide with an ad-pitch meeting going on inside. The boycott and Media Matters is having an effect on them, and I really think its a bottom-line effect, David Zurawik, a media writer at The Baltimore Sun, told Stelter on Reliable Sources yesterday. Fox is no stranger to ad pressure following on-air controversy. Laura Ingraham faced an advertiser boycott last year; Sean Hannity faced three. In December, at least 18 companies yanked commercials from Carlsons show after he said immigrants make the US poorer and dirtier and more divided. The Washington Posts Paul Farhi wrote, during that episode, that these boycotts have tended to be like snowstorms: initially disruptive and attention-getting but usually ephemeral. Sustained outrage is a long-term ratingsand revenuedraw for Fox; in the short term, the network has been known simply to move ads to less controversial shows. Its rarer for hosts to go off air, but hardly unprecedented. In the past, Bill OReilly, Jesse Watters, and Ingraham have all taken abrupt vacations. Stoking controversy is obviously tiring work. As Farhi noted, sustained ad boycotts have forced change in the past: in 2011, a two-year campaign forced Glenn Beck off Fox. And as Zurawik said on CNN yesterday, moving ad inventory away from prime time is not a sustainable tactic. Nonetheless, it would be naive to expect that Foxs benching of Pirro will prove a tipping point. Weve seen this dance before: Fox, under advertiser pressure, makes a short-term concession, tries to keep it low key, then reverts things to the way they were before. Pirro was not granted the vacation excuse. But we shouldnt be surprised if shes soon back and picking up where she left off. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Below, more on Pirro and Fox: A quick PSA: The Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia Journalism School is hosting its inaugural symposium with Jelani Cobb, the centers director, on Monday, April 1, at 4.30pm. Panelists include Carol Anderson, Martha Mendoza, Jenni Monet, Ginger Thompson, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. For more information, click here. Other notable stories: ICYMI: A mosque massacre is livestreamed Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop. About the photo: A member of a search and rescue team wades through floodwaters after Hurricane Florence in Carolina Beach, North Carolina on Sept. 17, 2018. Photographer: Callaghan OHare/Bloomberg Climate advocates say an overhaul of the nations flood insurance program being unveiled by the Trump administration will spur communities around the country to better plan for extreme weather, but could drive up costs for some homeowners. The changes being announced Monday by the Federal Emergency Management Agency represent one of the most significant reforms in the history of the National Flood Insurance Program. It will tie premiums to the actual flood risk facing individual homes nationwide starting in October 2020. The current system sets prices based largely on whether a home is inside or outside of the 100-year flood plain. This is badly needed, said Shana Udvardy, a climate resilience analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists. She called the shift a huge step in the right direction, so we can let communities, particularly those communities that have been repetitively flooded, know what their actual risk is. We have too much disaster suffering because we dont have insured survivors. -- David Maurstad, FEMA But the change risks increasing costs in the most flood-exposed areas, Udvardy cautioned. We also have concerns about affordability, she said. How do we protect those people that are historically disadvantaged and low-income, and that are also on the front lines of flooding? The initiative, which FEMA calls Risk Rating 2.0, follows a string of catastrophic events, including the Baton Rouge flood in 2016, Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017 and Hurricane Florence last year. In each of those events, a large share of damaged homes lacked flood insurance, in part because FEMAs current system didnt accurately measure their risk. We have too much disaster suffering because we dont have insured survivors, David Maurstad, FEMAs deputy associate administrator for insurance and mitigation, said in a phone interview Friday. He said the recent disasters spurred the agency to improve its risk identification, mapping and prices, and use those prices as a signal for homeowners. The new rating plan will help customers better understand their risks, Maurstad said. I believe that will actually increase the demand for our product. The overwhelming majority of American households with flood coverage receive their policies through the National Flood Insurance Program, which covers about 5 million policyholders, including approximately 3.5 million single-family homes. Despite the growing risk of flooding due to climate change, the number of policies under the program has fallen about 10 percent from its peak in 2009. The pricing overhaul comes as climate change places growing pressure on the publicly subsidized flood insurance program. Claims often outpace premiums, saddling the program with a debt that topped $30 billion in 2017. The models that determine those rates ignore certain kinds of flooding, like heavy precipitation. And many Americans at risk of flooding nonetheless dont buy insurance. Maurstad said the agency doesnt yet know what effect the change will have on total premiums. Were not going to design it to either increase or decrease revenue, he said Friday. Our effort is to improve our product and price it more fairly. In a follow-up email, FEMA press secretary Elizabeth Litzow said the new approach could have the effect of raising total revenue, by accounting for new types of flood risk. Risk Rating 2.0 will be introducing new sources of flooding, such as intense rainfall, that have not been previously considered in the rating structure, Litzow wrote. While these new sources of flooding have a lesser impact on risk and rates than those already considered, their introduction could result in the increased premium levels. Under the change, FEMA will use private-sector data to calculate the real flood threat for each home. A briefing document used by the agency last October offers the example of two homes in a 100-year flood plain. The first home, at the edge of that zone, faces low risk of flooding from inland flooding or storm surge; the second faces higher risk from both. Under the current system, each home pays the same premium. With the changes, the first homes premiums would fall by 57 percent, while premiums for the second home would more than double. Rates are likely to go up in neighborhoods with the greatest exposure to flood risks, which could hurt property values in those areas, according to Michael Berman, a former chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association who worked on housing issues for the Obama administration and has been briefed on the plan. Still, Berman said the initiative was an important one. Anything that they can do to improve peoples understanding of flood risk compared to binary 100-year flood plain is good for consumers and good for investors in the long run, even if it raises premiums, he said. Increasing the cost of flood insurance tends to depress home values for two reasons, according to Asaf Bernstein, an economist at the University of Colorado at Boulder whose research includes asset pricing and household finance. Not only do higher premiums raise the cost of owning a home; they also act as a warning to potential buyers about the likelihood that a house will flood. Past attempts to base flood insurance premiums on risk have sparked political blowback. In 2012, Congress passed changes that would impose premiums that reflected the full risk for homes, only to back down two years later in the face of intense public opposition. Whats different now, and what Maurstad said helped prompt FEMA to overhaul its pricing structure, is that the flooding has gotten worse. Were seeing more intense events, Maurstad said. Were going to have a program thats going to be able to serve the nation better in the years to come. DETROIT A rabbi who packs a gun. A church installing security cameras. A police car protecting a mosque. Houses of worship have traditionally been places of refuge where strangers are welcome. But high-profile attacks in recent years on an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, a synagogue in Pittsburgh and now mosques in New Zealand have made many worshippers and their prayer leaders rethink how protected sanctuaries really are. People are fearful for their lives, for their houses of worship, for the sanctuary of this mosque and other places of worship like the synagogues and African-American churches that are being attacked. People are concerned, said Imam Mohannad Hakeem while attending Friday prayers at the Islamic Center of Detroit. He spoke after a horrifying attack in New Zealand left 50 people dead at two mosques during midday prayers. A 28-year-old Australian is the main suspect and called himself in a manifesto a white nationalist out to avenge attacks in Europe by Muslims. ``We pray on one hand, but we're also armed on the other hand, not in a vigilante way ... " -- Rabbi Yaakov Zucker History shows sanctuaries are not immune from violence, as illustrated by bombings at African-American churches during the Civil Rights era. And in countries struggling with sectarian violence, attacks on houses of worship are much more frequent. But for countries at peace, the attacks are much rarer. For many, houses of worship are sanctuaries where congregants bond with their shared sense of faith and community. The recent attacks have made some question whether houses of worship have turned into soft targets, losing some of their sense of sacredness. In the parking lot of the Islamic Center of Detroit Friday, a watchful police officer sat in a squad car, keeping an eye out for any signs of potential trouble. Worshippers thanked the officer _ offering him food, drinks, a handshake. Inside, Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad greeted congregants with handshakes and hugs. Dearborn is a Detroit suburb with a large Arab and Muslim population. Haddad said he doesnt know if houses of worship are more of a target today than in previous times, but the scale and scope of the attacks in New Zealand clearly attracted his attention. Given what happened in New Zealand last night, we want to make sure that our community feels safe and secure, he said. In Chicago, the Muslim Community Center and the Downtown Islamic Center increased security during Friday prayers. Several armed police officers stood guard outside and inside throughout the afternoon service. Dana Al-Qadi, 29, an engineer, was committed to attending after the attacks but said doing so brings her a feeling of peace mixed with fear. People are their most vulnerable when theyre at the masjid (mosque). Its where they bring their worries, their weaknesses, and try to speak to God. Theyre in such a vulnerable state of mind and spirit. In that moment, someone decided to be such a transgressor. That brings me so much sadness, she said. For many in the Jewish community, last years synagogue shooting attack in Pittsburgh sparked a similar sense of vulnerability. Eleven people died in what was the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history on Oct. 27 when an anti-Semitic truck driver is believed to have spewed his hatred of Jews as he opened fire on the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue. Robert Bowers has pleaded not guilty to counts including using a firearm to commit murder and obstruction of religious exercise resulting in death. After the attack, Rabbi Yaakov Zucker of Chabad Jewish Center in the small town of Key West started going to target practice along with a handful of congregants. We pray on one hand, but were also armed on the other hand, not in a vigilante way I hope Ill never have to use it, but I am ready for any threat that enters my temple. I do feel responsibility, he said. Zucker said he doesnt have the funds to hire a full-time security guard but makes sure at least one other person at the temple is also armed. After the Pittsburgh attack, he started asking local police to hang out during big events or for holidays and he says theyve obliged. He lamented that temples and other places of worship, always seen as places of refuge are now soft targets and said he fears copycats after the New Zealand attack. African-American churches struggled with similar challenges after the June 17, 2015 shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which a 21-year-old white supremacist killed nine parishioners. Jamaal Weathersby, the pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in New Orleans, said the attack was a turning point for his church and others in terms of thinking about their security. Their church has eight or nine doors, he said, but now people are only allowed through one entrance for services. Security cameras were installed and security agents will be hired for an upcoming revival. I think that now the way that people think about church in general whether it is the mosque, synagogue or what have you, its not sacred anymore, he said. In Jackson, Mississippi, the New Horizon Church International beefed up security after the Charleston shooting, but Bishop Ronnie Crudup said its important for the church not lose its open and welcoming environment. We seek to not lose ourselves and our own purpose and who were supposed to be as we react to the present dilemmas that were in, he said. Even with heightened security, worshippers said the attacks would not prevent them from gathering together for prayer. In Chicago at the packed Muslim Community Center on Friday, the imam told his congregants they cannot be afraid to come to the mosque. And it the Ramat Shalom Synagogue in Plantation, Florida, congregant Allan Ribbler warned against fear overcoming faith. If you let things like this stop you from doing this, weve given up our lives, said Ribbler. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ATLANTA Georgias timber industry is facing many headwinds as it seeks to recover from the severe damage wrought by Hurricane Michael late last year. The storm erased three-quarters of a billion dollars in timber, The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. Aside from Hurricane Michael, the industry has been facing other stresses: difficulties in finding log truck drivers; and costs for insurance, equipment and fuel. In late February, state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black was at the Georgia Capitol, conferring with Gov. Brian Kemp about a proposed federal aid package for areas hit by Hurricane Michael. Those discussions are still ongoing. For every tree that was snapped or blown over to harvest all of it, to have gotten it to market would have required 1.2 million log trucks, Black said. Once a tree has snapped 10 feet up, the wood might be unsafe to harvest or too smashed up to sell for much, anyway, the newspaper reported. Debbie Buckner, a state lawmaker from the Talbot County town of Junction City, said she feels for the many people who lost their retirement savings to Hurricane Michael. The timber plots that blanket much of Georgia represent a retirement for their owners, or perhaps a childs tuition or a rainy day fund. Buckner, a Democrat, also said there are concerns in the industry about obstacles to becoming a truck driver. Several state schools teach commercial truck driving, but log trucks drivers need specialized training to handle conditions such as dirt roads and very heavy loads that are liable to shift, the newspaper reported. Also, the insurance is so expensive that its difficult for anyone to be a self-employed driver, Buckner said. Where we really see sensitivity is the harvesting and logistics sides of things, said Andres Villegas, CEO of the Georgia Forestry Association. The trade group covers landowners, loggers, manufacturers and others. Villegas said the association wants to let students know that whether they have a GED diploma or PhD, theres a place for them in the industry. Folks can make a very good living and not have to deal with the traffic in Atlanta, he joked. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Two Washington state woman are accused of scamming more than $400,000 from AFLAC by filing multiple fraudulent claims from 2012 to 2015, according to Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidlers office. Darcy Nicole Brioso and Delta Lynn Jackson were charged in Clark County Superior Court in connection with an insurance fraud investigation bythe insurance department. Brioso, 44, was charged with first-degree theft and first-degree identify theft. Jackson, 24, was charged with first-degree theft. Brioso is Jacksons foster mother, according to the state attorney generals office. According to the investigation, Brioso and Jackson filed claims involving fake medical bills for injuries, surgeries, hospital stays and medical treatments. The bills listed medical providers in Washington state, Idaho, Oregon and Montana. Many of the alleged bogus injuries also involved subsequent short-term disability claims, the insurance commissioners office said. Investigators said the woman filed a variety of claims. Brioso collected $91,000 for fraudulent claims for an ankle fracture during an all-terrain vehicle accident, a pneumonia diagnosis, broken bones from a car accident and short term disability. Jackson collected $34,000 for broke bones sustained in a car accident, a liver cyst and short-term disability. She also received $20,000 in medical bills for short-term disability claims filed on behalf of a former employee and roommate for a broken hip sustained in a car accident. Brioso and Jackson are scheduled to appear in Clark County Superior Court on March 26. AKRON, Ohio -- A one-mile section of the Towpath Trail in the Summit Metro Parks in Akron will close Tuesday and remain closed through early June. The closure runs from Manchester Road to Ohio 224, Summit Metro Parks spokeswoman Stephanie Walton told cleveland.com on Monday. There will be no detour. An Army Corps of Engineers invasive species project will construct a barrier in the area to prevent Asian carp from traveling into the waterways, Walton said. Cargill has utility lines running under the Towpath Trail and needs to move them in order for crews to complete the project. We generally discourage people traveling off of the Towpath onto local roads, so there will not be a marked detour available, Walton said. The section of the Towpath Trail will be open for the Towpath Century Ride on June 8, Walton said. Trail Alert: The Towpath Trail will be closed between Manchester Rd. and State Route 224 for utility work necessary for an Army Corps of Engineers invasive species project. The closure begins Tuesday, March 19 and continues through early June 2019. pic.twitter.com/6JTRNJ39JX Summit Metro Parks (@metro_parks) March 18, 2019 Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.coms Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. AVON LAKE, Ohio -- The City of Avon Lake invites residents or anyone employed in the city to take part in Avon Lakes very first Citizen Fire Academy. The academy will be held at the fire department at 32811 Walker Road for eight weeks, from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursdays beginning May 2. The last class will be from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 22, due to a special training exercise on vehicle extrication. Families are invited to see the exercise and may then participate in the graduation ceremony following the final class activity. Fire Chief Jeremy Betsa said the department is interested in giving people in the community an opportunity to see up close what firefighters and paramedics do. We also want to inspire some of our younger generation to get into the field of firefighting and paramedics, he said. We have pivoted to a more active outreach. Getting into the community has always been important, but this year, its a primary pillar (of our plans) with the fire academy, which will include CPR certification. The timing for the implementation of a fire academy is good, said the chief, because some residents have been asking for it and the department is now set up with the personnel and instructors to follow through. The effort is a serious one, he added. This is not to just go through the motions, but to understand our professions and to really get a look into the training and education. Not many people fully grasp what we do. To prepare to attend the academy, Betsa said students of all ages who will participate in the various fire demonstrations and activities should wear pants of a heavier material, such as jeans, as well as OSHA-approved safety boots. The boots, he said, are not expensive and can be purchased at most discount stores or at Avon Boot Shop. Without the proper dress, a student can observe, as opposed to participating in the exercises. We hope to inspire young minds, said Betsa. The younger generation is our future, and we want our professions to continue to grow and stay strong. To apply for the Citizen Fire Academy, send an email for an application to: info@avonlakefire.org. Applicants must be at least 17 years old by the first class. The class is limited to 12 students. HUNTING VALLEY, Ohio -- Recovered property, SOM Center Road: A detective in Memphis, Tenn., called on March 5 about recovering a pistol listed as stolen from a village home 15 years ago. The gun, a fairly rare Smith & Wesson .32 M&P ("Military and Police") model, was seized by the Memphis Organized Crime Unit in a traffic stop, and the serial number confirmed that it was stolen. A Tennessee man, 44, considered a suspect, was being uncooperative with police there, who requested the original report. Detectives added that the gun may be needed by prosecutors in Memphis until the final disposition of the case. Hunting Valley Police Chief Michael Cannon said that when the gun was initially reported missing in January 2004, the incident was listed simply as a theft because there were no signs of a break-in and the possible timeline given for the guns disappearance from the residence was vast. The investigation was continuing on both ends of the case. Public assist, Fairmount Boulevard: A lost man discovered walking near the police station shortly before 4 p.m. March 11 was transported to Lake Health West Medical Center in Willoughby for an appointment. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. MEDINA, Ohio -- The Medina City School District has teamed up with Main Street Medina, the Medina County Arts Foundation and Huntington Bank to create a student art show that is spread across the citys historic district. School district Director of Community Relations Amy Busby said the district started the art show during last years bicentennial celebration as a way to celebrate Youth Art Month. She said the great response led to the schools doing it again this year. The response from not only the businesses but the staff and the students who participated was great, and everyone was very excited to try and do that again, Busby said. This year, 400 pieces of art are on display across 29 locations. Busby said at least 250 students participated in the show, and that art is on display from all grade levels and from each school in the district. The month-long art show kicked off with an event at Huntington Bank on March 2, and the art will stay on display until March 31. Busby said all of the parents whose children have art on display were sent invitations to the event. Then, each of the parents got to find out where their students art was and visit businesses in the district looking for it. "Its gives people an opportunity to go into businesses that they might not have normally gone into, Busby said. Courthouse Pizza is displaying art by Ella Canavan Elementary School students. (Sean McDonnell, special to cleveland.com) The art show also gave Medina High School a chance to show off its new class, digital photography. Photos taken in the class are among the art scattered throughout the historic district. It's a great chance for those students to show what they're learning, Busby said. Busby said the Medina High School Student Council and Key Club helped prepare the art by attaching pieces to 4-by-4 plastic boards and helping to move it throughout the district. Girls Leadership Council helped out by greeting guests at the opening event. She said the district plans to keep holding the event yearly, and that next year they can hopefully expand the art show into South Town, Main Street Medinas new area south of the square. She said the community response has been a part of continuing the event. I think the fact that it engages our families and our community, and the businesses really appreciated being able to host those students pieces of art, Busby said. Its not only from the business perspective, but also to be able to show off our student talent. BROOK PARK, Ohio -- Like many other Ohio municipalities, Brook Parks proposed 2019 budget exemplifies a conservative plan with an emphasis on mindful spending. This is not the wish list, Mayor Mike Gammella said during City Councils March 12 review of his 2019 financial plan. It is the cut-down list and absolutely what we must have to run this city for the next year. Its a very lean budget. Were putting a great deal of money into the roads program. The city carried over a $5 million-plus fund balance from 2018, reported Finance Director Greg Cingle. Total general fund revenue is projected to be $22.1 million, though estimated income tax receipts will be down .5 percent from 2018 actual collections, at $19.5 million. The closing of Ford Middle School contributed to a 9.5 percent decrease in the non-profit sector, Cingle said. On a positive note, he anticipates property tax collections for 2019 will increase more than 5 percent over last year, due to Cuyahoga County property re-evaluations. Councilman Jim Mencini asked if that trend will continue for the near future. I would say any increase would be minimal at best, Cingle replied. Absent any new jobs at Ford Motor Company, I would say the automotive sector probably would decrease moving forward, but a lot of that will depend on the Ford contract. Major road work will begin on Sheldon Road this year in collaboration with Middleburg Heights. Each community will contribute $478,000. Improvements totaling more than $2 million also will be done to Holland Road. West 150th Street ($1.7 million total project cost) and West 130th Street ($180,000 cost to Brook Park) will also be addressed. Due to a county agency policy whereby multiple reimbursements through its grant programs are not given to a city in the same year, the Smith Road project has been delayed until 2020. Crack sealing will be done to the citys west end streets this year. One of the points highlighted was the cash reserves balance, which Cingle indicated would sustain the city for at least two months if no other dollars were received. That is probably one of the key, most important factors in this whole budget, said Councilman Rick Salvatore. Im very pleased that were right on target with that. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Cleveland man awaiting trial in two attempted murder cases asked a federal judge to release him from the Cuyahoga County Jail because of the conditions within the troubled facility. Michael Davis Jr., 36, sued former jail director Ken Mills, Common Pleas Judge Deena Calabrese, Sheriff Clifford Pinkney, Executive Armond Budish and others for what he said was cruel and unusual punishment and inhumane conditions. The lawsuit, filed March 12, was handwritten and filed pro se, meaning Davis filed it himself. Davis said he has filed complaints with jail staff, yet nothing has changed. This is a cry for help, Davis wrote. We have to breath (sic) in asbestos black mode (sic) and drink polluted water Davis wrote that food trays smell like feces and that inmates were denied church services. He also said there is no law library or drug classes. He also said he suffers from mental health issues and that there is nobody to speak to during a crisis. I have witnessed suicidal attemps (sic) and I myself feel hopeless I feel like these people are using Red Zone living conditions and medications to get inmates to plea out in court, the suit states, referencing a practice in understaffed jails where a single corrections officer oversees between 100 to 200 inmates spread across two to four hosing areas called pods. It often resulted in large groups of inmates placed on lockdown for hours with little to pass the time. Davis, who has been in the jail since his July 2017 arrest, says he spoke with Calabrese about these things but she didnt do anything. He said he wants released from jail and claims the courts violated his due process. He also seeks an unspecified amount in compensation. Davis faces attempted murder and other charges stemming from two separate incidents on April 8, 2017 and July 5, 2017, court records show. Court records show he was arrested in 2017 and is awaiting trial in both cases. He was evaluated by psychiatrists at North Coast Behavioral Healthcare last year and found competent to stand trial. Court entries say he intends to represent himself at trial, though has refused several times to go to court for hearings and to view discovery materials. Davis has previous convictions for witness intimidation, burglary and felonious assault, among others. His lawsuit comes months after the U.S. Marshals Service issued a report in November that said investigators found inhumane and unconstitutional conditions in the jail, including an understaffed crew of corrections officers and inadequate access to medical health care. The county has faced multiple lawsuits related to the conditions the marshals said they found. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Mondays crime and courts comments section. RAVENNA, Ohio Former Macedonia Mayor Joseph Migliorini has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with an August 2018 home invasion in Streetsboro and could face up to six months in jail, court records show. Migliorini, who served as mayor from 1988 to 2001 and was re-elected in 2015, attempted to violate a protection order issued by the state of Florida after he broke into a home on the 9800 block of Creekside Way, according to Streetsboro police. His former girlfriend was visiting a friend, the homeowner, when Migliorini entered the home, police reported. The ex-girlfriend and her friend soon called 911 and Migliorini later surrendered to Streetsboro police. Migliorini, 66, entered a written plea of guilty to a first-degree misdemeanor of attempted violation of a protection order, according to Portage County Court of Common Pleas records. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped felony charges of violating a protection order and burglary, court records show. Portage County Court of Common Pleas Judge Laurie Pittman accepted the plea and found Migliorini guilty on Friday, court records show. He faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Pittman referred the case to the adult probation department for a pre-sentencing report, court records show. A sentencing hearing had not been scheduled as of Monday afternoon. Migliorini is free on a $10,000 bond, which Pittman continued, court records show. A temporary protection order bars him from contacting his ex-girlfriend. Migliorini resigned as mayor in July citing an April incident outside a Palm Beach, Florida restaurant in which he pulled his girlfriends hair and slapped her, according to police. He was charged with misdemeanor battery and is scheduled to appear in court April 8 for a plea conference, Palm Beach County court records show. Migliorinis lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. To comment on this story, visit Mondays crime and courts comment section. CLEVELAND, Ohio A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a request by imprisoned former Summit County Councilwoman Tamela Lee to overturn her corruption-related convictions. Lee argued using a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court case that deals with how prosecutors handle bribery cases involving public officials that a federal judge should have dismissed the indictment against her before her case went to a trial. A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. A jury in February 2017 found Lee, once second in command of the Summit County Democratic Party, guilty of six federal charges following a week-long trial. That August, U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko sentenced her to five years in federal prison. Lee took money, food, cigarettes and home improvement services from Omar Abdelqader, who is affiliated with several convenience stores and businesses in the Akron area, in exchange for her intervention in a criminal case involving his nephews. She also wrote a letter of support to the IRS for George Albanna, the owner of Prestige Auto Group in Tallmadge, who was under investigation at the time. Her appeal relied heavily on McDonnell v. U.S., a decision the nations high court issued that overturned the convictions of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. The Supreme Courts ruling narrowed the definition of an official act that prosecutors are required to prove as part of a federal bribery charge to a decision or action involving a formal exercise of governmental power by an officeholder who demands or receives something of value in return. Lee argued that one public officials urging or pressuring another public official to do something can only be considered an official act if the first public official is tasked with advising the second, or has power over them. The appeals court panel disagreed and wrote that the charges against her that she challenged were within the parameters the Supreme Court set in McDonnell and previous cases. The panel also rejected arguments that jurors did not have enough evidence to find her guilty. Lee, 60, is a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Her scheduled release date is Jan. 25, 2022. The Supreme Courts ruling in McDonnell was also used by former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora in his attempt to overturn dozens of corruption convictions that stemmed from his years as a local power broker. Dimora, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence, staked his freedom on the Supreme Courts ruling and argued that federal prosecutors in Cleveland didnt present any official acts during his 2012 trial. U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi disagreed, ruling in October that Dimoras convictions should stand. She wrote in an opinion that evidence of many official acts were presented at trial. If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Mondays crime and courts comments section. Click here to read the opinion on a mobile device. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The murder trial of a man charged in the April 2017 slayings of a couple at their used car dealership is slated to begin Monday with jury selection. Joseph McAlpin, 29, faces the death penalty if he is convicted of aggravated murder in the deaths of Michael Kuznik, 47, and Trina Tomola, 46, at Mr. Cars Inc. in the citys Collinwood neighborhood. McAlpin, 29, was arrested in June, and a grand jury later handed up a 25-count indictment against him. Hes also accused of shooting the couples Rottweiler, Axel. Both Kuznik and Tomola suffered gunshot wounds to the back of their heads. Common Pleas Court Judge Brian Corrigan will preside over the trial. The process of jury selection is expected to take several days and could possibly take weeks. Here are a few things to know as that process plays out. Pro se defense McAlpin has elected to represent himself during his trial. He has filed a number of handwritten filings seeking to challenge the evidence against him. Corrigan denied many of those motions after a hearing last week. Two veteran defense lawyers, John Luskin and Kevin Cafferkey, will be present and act as McAlpins stand-by counsel throughout the trial. McAlpin originally planned to represent himself but dropped that quest in a November 2017 hearing. He agreed to let his appointed attorneys at the time, Fernando Mack and Joseph Pagano, handle his case. McAlpin decided to represent himself again and last year asked Corrigan to appoint a new pair of lawyers to advise him. DNA will be key Prosecutors are expected to lean on DNA and data pulled from cellphone records to convince jurors of McAlpins guilt. McAlpins DNA matched that found on the outside of Kuzniks pants, on a modem inside the dealerships office and on the steering wheel of a BMW that was stolen after the killings, according to court records. Records also show that McAlpin told police his cellphone number after he was arrested, and police obtained a search warrant to extract data from that number, records say. Accomplice expected to testify Another key moment in the trial will be the expected testimony of Andrew Keener, who on Feb. 25 pleaded guilty to charges including involuntary manslaughter for his role in the killing. As part of a plea bargain, Keener agreed to testify in McAlpins trial in exchange for prosecutors dropping an aggravated murder charge. The deal means Keener will not serve a life sentence. He faces a maximum of about 15 years in prison. A third man charged in the crime, Jerome Diggs, has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending. Killings rocked community Dozens have gathered at Mr. Cars Inc. on Cleveland's East 185th Street for a vigil in honor of owners Michael Kuznik and Trina Tomola, who were killed April 14 during a robbery at their business. Posted by cleveland.com on Friday, April 21, 2017 The killings rocked the Collinwood neighborhood. Kuznik and Tomola were high school sweethearts who found their way back to each other after marriages to other people, Tomolas sister, Selena Steele, told cleveland.com at a candlelight vigil days after the killings. Kuzniks parents started the business in 1977 and passed it on to him about a decade ago. The two left behind three children, a 6-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 19-year-old. The oldest son discovered the bodies of his parents when he went to check on them after they didnt return home from work, police said. Few crimes shock the conscious like the horrible act these individuals committed, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael OMalley said in a news release announcing charges in the case. To comment on this story, please visit Mondays crime and courts comments page. AKRON, Ohio -- Akron police are searching for a 23-year-old man charged with aggravated burglary, abduction and felonious assault. Paul Messenger, of Eva Avenue in Akron, should be considered armed and dangerous, Akron police Lt. Rick Edwards said Monday in a news release. A resident on the 900 block of Eva Avenue in East Akron called police around 10:30 p.m. Saturday to report a friend came over to her house to hide from her abusive boyfriend, Edwards said. The neighbor reported the woman had injuries consistent with assault, Edwards said. They heard a knock at the back door and the resident turned off the lights. A man, identified as Messenger, kicked in the back door and fired a shot into the house as he yelled for the victim to come out, Edwards said. The victim came out and left with Messenger. Anyone with information on Messengers whereabouts is asked to call Akron police detectives at 330-375-2490 or Summit County Crimestoppers Inc. at 330-434-2677. Tipsters can also text TIPSCO to 274637. Callers can remain anonymous. To comment on this story, visit Mondays crime and courts comment section. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Speakers for a one-day conference at Cuyahoga Community College will share methods for spotting trauma and abuse and share strategies to help those affected. For 2017, there were 3,396 domestic violence charges in Cuyahoga County, according to a report by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. A Northeast Ohio task force recovered more than 130 victims of human trafficking in a year between November 2016 and November 2017. Theyre on track to do the same for 2018, the Plain Dealers Roxanne Washington reported. The conference aims to show that the Cleveland community isnt afraid to discuss its darker side and tackle issues like domestic abuse, sexual violence and human trafficking, organizer Rhonda Fabrizi said. So many of our students here are victims of all these things, she said. It becomes difficult if not impossible to stay in school and to be successful when theyre carrying around this incredible baggage and scarring. Session topics include how trauma affects the brain, misconceptions about forgiveness, on-campus safety, the #MeToo movement, support for male sexual assault survivors and signs of sexual or domestic abuse. Teachers, law enforcement, legal professionals and mental health workers also can earn continuing education credits through attending the conference. Educators are often on the front lines of dealing with sexual or domestic abuse and sometimes dont receive appropriate training for their responsibilities as mandated reporters, Fabrizi said. The conference, which is free to Tri-C students, will offer connections to local resources and on-site counseling for attendees and students. Speakers include experts Jim Clemente and Francey Hakes. Clemente spent 22 years working for the Federal Bureau of Investigations and is a former prosecutor for the New York City Law Department. He started in law enforcement after being sexually victimized by a camp counselor as a child. Hakes is a former federal prosecutor. She also served as the first National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction. Cost for regular attendees is $100. Register to attend here. CLEVELAND, Ohio CLEVELAND, Ohio Whatever happened to plans for an iconic footbridge linking downtown with Lake Erie? Instead of a $33 million steel span, momentum has shifted to a land bridge: a 5.5-acre, $70 million, parklike extension of the Mall, over the train tracks and Shoreway. The Green Ribbon Coalition proposed the land bridge in 2017. Now Coalition Executive Board Chair Dick Clough believes the city of Cleveland favors the idea over the cable design proposed by Boston architect Miguel Rosales in 2014. The city is really leaning in our direction, Clough said in a phone interview. When we proposed this some viewed it as a wild-eyed idea. But its not. Land bridges are being built around the country. Were right in step with utilizing air rights over freeways and railroads. Clough mentioned projects in Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Philadelphia. One advantage of the land bridge plan is an enclosed walkway atop the park, which would lead from the Huntington Convention Center to a building proposed between the Great Lakes Science Center and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to be built by Cumberland Development. Cumberland last fall opened Harbor Verandas apartments north of the Rock Hall. Now it aims to build more than 1,000 apartments, offices, a hotel, shops, restaurants, recreation areas and parking north of FirstEnergy Stadium. I think it would have a tremendous impact, Clough said. Wed actually be connecting downtown to the harbor in a parklike setting where you can move a lot of people. The land bridge gives the mall a northern destination. The idea is far from final. The Green Ribbon Coalition will host a lakefront dialogue series, beginning in April. In August the group will host a summit on Clevelands waterfront, with representatives from the city, council, business community and citizens. I hate to call it a master plan, but we want to give design guidance to the city on how to really create a world-class lakefront. That would include connections the land bridge, a trail system, other amenities. So how would we pay for such a grand plan? Clough believes he could raise donations to augment local, state and federal money. The city and Cuyahoga County each pledged $10 million for a the earlier pedestrian bridge plan, and the state of Ohio promised $5 million. The Green Ribbon Coalition will continue to corral support, explaining the concept to people and courting donors. Were trying to put our best foot forward every day, Clough said. Its the front door to the city. Its a good front door. Advertisement By WestKyStar & WKCTC Staff Mar. 17, 2019 | PADUCAH By WestKyStar & WKCTC Staff Mar. 17, 2019 | 12:32 PM | PADUCAH Clark Elementary School K-5 science specialist Julie Sheffer was recently named the 2018-2019 Challenger Learning Center at Paducah's Outstanding Educator during a presentation of President's Awards at West Kentucky Community and Technical College. Sheffer was one of three individuals to receive the special recognition from Dr. Anton Reece during WKCTC's second annual Regional Educators Awards and Scholarship Program March 7 at the Clemens Fine Arts Theatre. Terry Sullivan, director of West Kentucky GEAR UP, and Art Davis, principal at Paducah Tilghman High School also received President's Awards. The special awards came after the college honored more than 45 educators, administrators and staff in pre-kindergarten through 12th grades and named two finalists and a winner in each of four categories - distinguished administrator, distinguished faculty (PreK-5th grade), distinguished faculty (6th - 12th grade) and the Cornelia Reece Unsung Hero staff award. The Challenger Outstanding Educator Award was included in the annual recognition program for the first time this year. Sheffer is in her second year as the K-5 science specialist at Clark Elementary School in the Paducah Public Schools. She has been teaching for 22 years, all of them at Clark. Sheffer has taught third, fourth and fifth grades with 20 years emphasis in science. Mellisa Duncan, director of the Challenger Learning Center at Paducah, said Sheffer "believes that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education is very important as it reaches into all aspects of our daily lives," she said. "One way she utilizes STEM in her classroom is by bringing students to the Challenger Learning Center, which she has done since it opened in 2002." Sheffer has a Bachelor of Science degree and a master's degree, both in elementary education and both from Murray State University. She has also achieved a Rank 1 in reading and writing. Sheffer will attend the center's NASA and STEM: On the Move teacher professional development this summer free of charge. COLUMBUS, Ohio - Last week, the State Medical Board of Ohio, approved 35 more doctors to recommend medical marijuana, increasing to 448 the number of physicians in the program. Medical and osteopathic doctors must have unrestricted licenses with the state and complete a two-hour continuing medical education course. The State Medical Board approves physicians monthly. Some readers may need to use this link to search for doctors by name and zip code. Patients interested in obtaining medical marijuana must suffer from any of 21 conditions. A state-certified doctor can help them begin the process to enter the patient or caregiver registry, which they need before they can go to a dispensary. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Michelle Obama stopped in Cleveland Saturday and spoke to a sold out Playhouse Square audience about her autobiography, Becoming. Obama is traveling across the country, and the world, promoting the book, which details her early life on the South Side of Chicago, her experiences as a professional, a mom and as first lady. In Cleveland, Obama spoke candidly about her time on the campaign trail, her experiences in the White House and her return to life as a private citizen. Her book tour will next stop in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Canada before traveling to Europe next month. Read more from her talk at Playhouse Square below. GOODYEAR, Arizona: Scribbles in my notebook after as the Indians played the Reds on Sunday: 1. I wasnt going to write about the bullpen until Nick Wittgren threw a pair of scoreless innings. I remember Tribe President Chris Antonetti being intrigued when the team acquired Wittgren from Miami in exchange for minor leaguer Jordan Milbrath. 2. Wittgren had a 9-5 record and 3.60 ERA in parts of three seasons (118 games) for Miami. He has dealt with some elbow issues, but has been effective when healthy. Wittgren gave up four runs in his first spring appearance. Since then, he has thrown seven scoreless innings, allowing only two hits. He doesnt throw especially hard. His changeup is perhaps his best pitch. 3. Brad Hand was knocked around for three runs, but Im not worried about the Tribes closer. Nor is Terry Francona. But the manager wants to find reliable relief before the ninth inning. Thats why Wittgrens performance is important. So is Jon Edwards, who impressed late last season. He has struck out 10 in 7 1/3 scoreless innings. 4. Veteran Alex Wilson is on a minor league deal. He has a career 3.23 ERA in six big-league seasons, mostly with Detroit. Francona talked about how Wilson doesnt have overpowering stuff, but usually ends up with an ERA between 3.00 and 3.50. 5. Adam Cimber has allowed only one run in 7 1/3 innings. Dan Otero, Oliver Perez and Tyler Olson have all have had excellent springs. As Francona said, Were facing some tough decisions (picking relievers). 6. The Tribes bullpen ranked No. 13 last season with a 4.64 ERA. Thats why there has been a real overhaul while the Indians look for improvement. Last season, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen had a combined 4.68 ERA. 7. Greg Allen ripped a double down the right field line. Hes batting .419 this spring. Allen got off to a slow start in 2018, batting .209 (.533 OPS) at the All-Star break. But in the second half, he was a .310 hitter (.783 OPS). 8. Maybe the 26-year-old Allen is figuring out the big leagues. He is a switch-hitter. He can play all three outfield positions. He doesnt hit for much power, but steals bases. 9. When the Indians and Reds were talking trade in the winter, the Tribe insisted upon rookie Nick Senzel being included in any deal. The Reds wanted either Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer. Senzel would have been a big part of the deal. He is batting .310 this spring and playing center field. He also can play third base. 10. Senzel was the Reds top pick in the 2016 draft. In 231 minor league games, hes a .314 hitter (.904 OPS) with 27 HR. The Reds didnt want to part with him, and the talks never became serious. 11. When Jose Ramirez came to the plate, the Reds played four outfielders. He was batting left-handed, and almost the entire left side of the infield was open. He grounded to first base. He later flied out to left field. 12. I wonder how often teams will be using four outfielders and three infielders against certain hitters and will the hitters at least try to hit a ground ball to the opposite field? I know, fans want these guys to bunt, but you know how that goes....nowhere. Thats because most of these guys cant bunt well enough to beat the shift, and it has been that way for decades. 13. In one of my stories, I reported Naquin was out of minor league options. That was later corrected. But to be clear, he has a minor league option left. Francona on Naquin: He has survival instincts...hes not scared. I sense the Indians would like Naquin to make the team, be it in right or left field. Podcast of Interview with InvestorIntel at PDAC 2019 Ballarat, Mar 18, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - White Rock Minerals Ltd ( ASX:WRM ) ("White Rock" or the "Company") wishes to advise that the podcast of an Interview with InvestorIntel and White Rock's MD and CEO, Matt Gill at the 2019 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada "PDAC" Toronto Conference is now available on its website.To view the podcast, please visit:About White Rock Minerals Ltd White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM) (OTCMKTS:WRMCF) is a diversified explorer and near-stage producer, headquartered in Ballarat, Victoria. The Company's flagship exploration project is Red Mountain in central Alaska. At Red Mountain, there are already two high grade zinc - silver - gold - lead VMS deposits, with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 9.1 million tonnes @ 609g/t AgEq / 13% ZnEq. The Company is also exploring its recently discovered large intrusion related gold anomaly at Last Chance, also located in the Tintina gold belt of Alaska, home to multi-million gold ounce deposits like Pogo, Fort Knox and the Donlin Project. The Company also has the Mt Carrington project, located near Drake, in Northern NSW, which is a near-production precious metals asset with a resource of 341,000 ounces of gold and 23.2 million ounces of silver on an approved mining lease, and with a Gold First PFS and JORC Reserve. Matthew Arends, Head of UK Retirement Policy for Aon, said: We see the DWPs response to the CDC consultation as an endorsement of the broader concept of Collective DC benefits for the UK - something we have been advocates of for many years. Much of what we see in the response confirms the direction of travel set out in the consultation itself. However, one thing that surprised us is the lack of additional controls over the setting of the actuarial assumptions to value the CDC target benefits the DWP indicates that the Institute of Actuaries existing Work Review requirements will apply. Matthew Arends continued: This could mean that there will be no external scrutiny of actuarial assumptions for CDC schemes until they are published after the actuarial valuation is complete. As the actuarial assumptions and, in particular, the discount rate will directly determine the pace of pay outs to members, we were expecting that more explicit, external review and ratification of the assumption setting would be required. This would increase public confidence in CDC schemes. Kevin Wesbroom, senior partner at Aon, said: Overall, it is very pleasing to see so many responses to the DWP that were supportive of CDC, and that many were advocating multi-employer and decumulation-only CDC solutions. These are both things that we continue to support, since they address gaps in the current pensions architecture. Two questions that will be answered in separate consultations will be how the taxation of CDC benefits will be managed, and how CDC schemes will qualify for auto-enrolment. Both are key aspects of how CDC schemes will operate and we are confident that sensible outcomes will be offered. Kevin Wesbroom continued: The consultation makes it clear as we have argued that clear and accurate communication of CDC benefits to actual and prospective members will be a real challenge. The pensions industry is regularly accused of failing to communicate pensions effectively so the communication of CDC schemes needs to be an exemplar for the whole industry. Researchers, Entrepreneurs Named 2019 Carnegie Science Award winners March 17, 2019 A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering, a School of Computer Science professor and an alumna from the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy are all among the 2019 Carnegie Science Award winners. Established in 1997 by the Carnegie Science Center, the awards honor individuals and organizations whose contributions in the fields of science, technology and education significantly benefit Western Pennsylvania. Changing the Tune of Magnetic Materials The future of energy depends on new technology at the materials level. Specifically, power transformation components need to be smaller, more efficient and cheaper. To achieve this, a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon's Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and NASA Glenn Research Center have worked together to develop a novel manufacturing process to create electromagnetic cores that will revolutionize technological innovation for power electronic applications. In recognition of this achievement, the team will receive the Carnegie Science Award for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials. The award recognizes MSE Mike McHenry, MSE alumni Paul Ohodnicki and Alex Leary, researchers at NETL and NASA Glenn, respectively; Kevin Byerly, of NETL; and Vladimir Keylin, of NASA Glenn, for their breakthrough process of permeability engineering through strain annealing. Engineering the permeability, or tuning the magnetism, of an electromagnetic core is important for creating efficient metal components for electrical devices. The team's process uses strain annealing, or heating soft magnetic amorphous metal ribbons under tension, to control nanocrystallization and the tuning of the material's magnetic response. The process ultimately leads to a significant decrease in the size of power electronic components. The team applied the process to cobalt-based metal amorphous nanocomposite (MANC) materials that boast the world's largest response to permeability engineering. In the process, the metal ribbon is held under tension, and travels through a furnace heated to 500 to 600 degrees Celsius just before the final step of winding the ribbon into a tape-wound core. The researchers can optimize and tailor the core's magnetic permeability by carefully choosing the alloy chemistry and applied tension of the ribbon. The process allows for spatial variation in the magnetic permeability - lowering high frequency losses in the cores to make them more energy efficient. The impact of this technology is threefold: it can reduce the size of the electromagnetic components without losing any power; it transforms energy without significant heating for better efficiency and reliability; and it has fewer processing steps resulting in lower production costs. Technology like this is needed to address the future of electricity production, transmission and transformation, and will help revitalize the nation's aging energy infrastructure and enhance electric vehicles. The team was awarded a patent on the technology in January. "The thing that's most pleasing to me about this," McHenry said, "is that it was work between myself, some of my alumni, and other longtime collaborators. It's really a culmination of years of collaboration. It's a recent development, but something that wouldn't have happened if this group of people hadn't developed this level of trust among one another." Professor Eric Xing has been named the winner of the 2019 Carnegie Science Award for Startup Entrepreneur. Startup Star Eric Xing, a professor in the Machine Learning Department and Language Technologies Institute, has been named the winner of the 2019 Carnegie Science Award for Startup Entrepreneurs, recognizing his leadership of Petuum Inc., which developed and markets an AI software platform for a wide range of industries. Xing is founder and CEO of Petuum. Its software platform makes it easy for a wide range of users, from healthcare to manufacturing industries, to build virtually any type of AI application and deploy it on a variety of computing hardware. Since its establishment in July 2016, the company has raised $108 million in financing. Xing earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Tshinghua University in Beijing, a Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry at Rutgers University, and then a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the CMU faculty in 2004 and was named a full professor in 2014. He is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and a recipient of the NSF Career Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the U.S. Air Force Young Investigator Award and the IBM Open Collaborative Research Faculty Award. 412 Food Rescue, co-founded by Leah Lizarondo, will receive the Carnegie Science Award for Information Technology. Food Disruptor Created in response to the fact that 40 percent of the food supply in the United States goes to waste while one in seven people are hungry, 412 Food Rescue is the fastest-growing food recovery organization in the country. Co-founded by Leah Lizarondo, the organization partners with food retailers and other suppliers to pick up their healthy surplus food and deliver it to community nonprofit organizations, where it is directed to individuals and families experiencing food insecurity. "People hate that food gets wasted, it's a very visceral issue," said Lizarondo, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College in 2003 with a master's degree in public policy and management. The organization will receive the Carnegie Science Award for Information Technology for its innovative platform connects food donors with nonprofits that serve populations in poverty. The Food Rescue Hero app mobilizes a network of volunteer drivers to transport the food from donor restaurants, grocery stores, and farms to nonprofits in need of fresh food. In 2018, the program expanded to San Francisco, Cleveland and Philadelphia, and has a goal to be in 20 cities by 2020. Ryan Sullivan, associate professor of mechanical engineering and chemistry, also was recognized with an honorable mention for the Environmental award category. Sullivan is a faculty member in the Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies and investigates important physicochemical particle properties using custom single-particle instruments. These instruments allow him to rapidly characterize atmospheric aerosols in real-time, one particle after another. He also is developing improved analytical methods to measure individual particles using laser ablation mass spectrometry and laser spectroscopy. Also among the winners is Remake Learning, a network dedicated to education innovation and equity that will receive this year's Chairman's Award. Carnegie Mellon is among the network's members, as are the Robotics Institute, the Robotics Academy, the CREATE Lab and members of LearnLab. Patricia DeMarco, a visiting researcher in the department of chemistry, will receive the Environmental award for her work as a member of the Forest Hills Borough Council. All awardees will be recognized at the 23rd annual Carnegie Science Awards celebration on Friday, May 10, at the Carnegie Science Center. View the complete list of Carnegie Science Award winners on the organization's website. The accident was also a blow to the entire autonomous vehicle industry and led other companies to temporarily halt their testing. Scrutiny has mounted on the nascent technology, which presents fatal risks but has minimal oversight from regulators. The crash involved a Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle that Uber was using to test self-driving technology. The fatal accident was a setback from which the company has yet to recover; its autonomous vehicle testing remains dramatically reduced. Prosecutors' decision not to pursue criminal charges removes one potential headache for the ride-hailing company as the company's executives try to resolve a long list of federal investigations, lawsuits and other legal risks ahead of a hotly anticipated initial public offering this year. The Yavapai County Attorney said in a letter made public that there was "no basis for criminal liability" for Uber, but that the back-up driver, Rafaela Vasquez, should be referred to the Tempe police for additional investigation. Uber Technologies is not criminally liable in a March 2018 crash in Tempe, Arizona , in which one of the company's self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Vasquez, the Uber back-up driver, could face charges of vehicular manslaughter, according to a police report in June. Vasquez has not previously commented and could not immediately be reached on Tuesday. Based on a video taken inside the car, records collected from online entertainment streaming service Hulu and other evidence, police said last year that Vasquez was looking down and streaming an episode of the television show "The Voice" on a phone until about the time of the crash. The driver looked up a half-second before hitting Elaine Herzberg, 49, who died from her injuries. Police called the incident "entirely avoidable." Yavapai County Attorney's Office, which examined the case at the request of Maricopa County where the accident occurred, did not explain the reasoning for not finding criminal liability against Uber. Yavapai sent the case back to Maricopa, calling for further expert analysis of the video to determine what the driver should have seen that night. An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are still investigating. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office did not immediately comment on Tuesday. Uber in December filed confidentially for an initial public offering and is expected to seek a valuation of up to $120 billion. Its self-driving program, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars and does not generate revenue yet, is likely to come under scrutiny by investors. The ride-hailing company, which last year lost about $3.3 billion, is betting on a transition to self-driving cars to eliminate the need to pay drivers. At an autonomous vehicles conference in Silicon Valley last week, industry leaders lamented the loss of confidence from the public, regulators and investors that lingers a year after the Uber crash. There is no consensus on safety standards for the industry. In March 2018, authorities in Arizona suspended Uber's ability to test its self-driving cars. Uber also voluntarily halted its entire autonomous car testing program and left Arizona. In December, Uber resumed limited self-driving car testing in Pittsburgh, restricting the cars to a small loop they can drive only in good weather. The company is now testing with two people in the front seat and more strictly monitors safety drivers. The company also said last year it made improvements to the vehicles' self-driving software. Uber has not resumed testing in San Francisco or Toronto, where it previously had programs. An oil price of between $60 and $70 per barrel is both a "sweet spot" and "pain threshold" that rival oil producers in the U.S. and OPEC can tolerate when it comes to the price of oil and production, according to the head of EMEA Oil & Gas Research at JPMorgan. "$60-70 is the pain threshold that works both for the U.S. (and OPEC)" JPMorgan's Christyan Malek told CNBC on Monday. "Above $65 and you saw oil being released from (the U.S.') strategic (oil) reserves and we saw tweets from Trump (criticizing OPEC's production cuts). Equally, $65 to $70 is a level where Saudi and OPEC can manage in the context of their fiscal oil break-even (price per barrel). They'd ideally like higher but it does feel like the sweet spot," he said. Brent crude futures are trading at $67.26 Monday and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is trade at $58.46. Malek said that the trouble with cutting production -- and the corresponding rise in oil prices -- is that it encouraged more output from U.S. shale producers as the price per barrel becomes more attractive. More production from U.S. shale producers could affect supply and demand dynamics, putting downward pressure on oil prices if supply outweighs demand. "The issue, however, is that at that (price) level you are seeing more U.S. shale production, more non-OPEC non-U.S. production, meaning that what you could end up seeing is a transient period of tightness but just a continuation of this oversupply that continues to recur over the next 6-12 months so you never actually see a tight market." Google controls a "pipeline" of data and "we're preparing" an antitrust case against them akin to the federal case against Microsoft in the 1990s, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood told CNBC on Monday. The privacy practices of the Alphabet unit will also be called into question, added Hood, who is one of several state attorneys general turning up the heat on powerful tech companies. "We attorneys general have authority under consumer protection acts to do both," Hood said on "The Exchange." "So it'll be a multifaceted suit or, hopefully, we can get a settlement if we can get some agreement with them." Several state attorneys generals recently spoke about their willingness to go after the likes of Facebook, Google and other tech giants in interviews with The Washington Post. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich compared them to the monopolies of old in an interview with CNBC on Friday. He also pointed to the "inaction or inability" of Washington, D.C., to do anything about it. In a statement emailed to CNBC, Google said: "Privacy and security are built into all of our products, and we will continue to engage constructively with state Attorneys General on policy issues." Hood, who was elected to his post in 2003, said he wants Big Tech to adopt best practices, similar to the European Union's data policy, when it comes to handling user data. The Democrat said he would prefer tech companies to present proposals. His office is moving forward with litigation although it "takes forever" that could lead to a settlement. "At some point in the future, there will be a reckoning," he said. "It'll either be in Congress or in a court of law." Hood mentioned his state's pending 2017 suit against Google for mining students' data in public schools. He claimed the search engine profiled students to gain a competitive advertising advantage the "equivalent of gold." Google claims user information is extracted before the data is used and that it is not used to analyze student behaviors, according a 2018 article in The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. "At some point if we don't have successful legislation, at some point some court is going to rule to the effect that a person's private information is the equivalent of their intellectual property and that companies have to pay people for it," Hood said Monday. In the late 1990s, the federal government charged Microsoft with acting as a monopoly and limiting competition on PCs with its Windows 98 operating system and Internet Explorer web browser. The company was not forced to split up in the end, but the settlement diminished its web browser dominance. Stock growth stymied for about 15 years, but the company reclaimed its status as one of the world's most valuable public companies by market cap last year. About two decades later, Hood is accusing Big Tech of having a monopoly on data. Last week, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich also said he is prepared to go after Big Tech. "They control the pipeline and have the duty to protect that information as well as these other smaller companies," he said. "I wanna see us do some things like, you know, if you download an app, for example, you have to opt in to allow them to mine your data." Steven Cameron, Pension Director at Aegon, comments: The Royal Mail and its Union will be pleased the Government has confirmed its support for a new form of pension scheme, Collective Defined Contribution (CDC), for its employees. Royal Mail clearly has the best intentions and we hope the scheme will deliver good outcomes for its members. However, the industry is divided on the relative merits of CDC, which originated in the Netherlands. Supporters point to them offering greater certainty to individuals compared to Defined Contribution (DC) with the potential to pool investments and reduce charges. Critics point to the complexity of explaining the schemes benefits to members and their incompatibility with pension freedoms. Individuals are told what their target benefit is but this is not guaranteed and it is likely that actual benefits will be different from the initial target, making planning difficult. Most worryingly, there is a very significant risk that monthly pension income once in payment could fall. There is also the potential for one generation of members to subsidise another. At Aegon, we are open to new pension scheme designs being explored, but despite our parent company being based in the Netherlands, we are not convinced going Dutch with pensions will be right more broadly within the UK. There are huge challenges in automatically enrolling individuals into a scheme with such complex design features. CDC wont offer members a choice of investment funds and importantly may not provide access to the pension freedoms which have proved highly popular in allowing people to draw down from their pension flexibly. While we believe individuals may be allowed to transfer out to access freedoms, the terms for doing so are far from clear. We wish the Royal Mail every success with their scheme, but it is imperative that before enabling other employers or master trusts to go down this path, full consideration is given to how to address the many challenges CDC present, including to member understanding and security. Steve Webb, Director of Policy at Royal London said: It is good that the Government is moving forward with CDC scheme as part of the pension landscape, but the proposed legislation will be very narrow in scope. Even for the Royal Mail it is likely to be several years before a scheme could be up and running. If others employers want to use a different model, this could need new primary legislation and we would probably be talking about the mid 2020s before further schemes could be in place. One of the key features of CDC schemes elsewhere in Europe is the presence of a capital buffer to smooth the ups and downs of investments, and it is disappointing that the proposed legislation will not allow for this. I strongly suspect that the Government has very limited legal resources as civil servants are being diverted to work on Brexit-related legislation, and this is limiting their ability to produce more comprehensive legislation on CDC. Rob Harper, Partner at Hymans Robertson comments: Attaining an adequate, sustainable retirement income continues to challenge many UK workers since the shift in the balance of risk across from employers to individuals. There are clear benefits to be had from pooling of these risks across individuals and todays commitment to CDC from the Government is a step in the right direction. Compared to annuitisation and drawdown, CDC could potentially deliver more sustainable retirement incomes in an alternative and pragmatic way by pooling risk for members, particularly in the later stages of their retirement. However, the advantages of CDC in the pre-retirement saving phase compared to current DC schemes remain less clear. Ensuring clear member communications and strong governance are vital if CDC is to succeed and Im glad the Government has recognised this in its response. Pension provision is already far too complicated for many savers to fully understand and early transparency from employers and providers will aid member understanding of what CDC really means for them. The Government has also acknowledged industry concerns that its original proposals may be too restrictive by limiting CDC to single-employer schemes and I welcome their commitment to looking at this again in the future. Widening this criteria to include vehicles such as multi-employer schemes and Master Trusts may allow them to consider offering CDC sections to their members, which we believe would be an attractive proposition for both schemes and individuals. CDC is not a one size fits all solution and Im pleased the Government understands this. The sheer scale of assets and membership required to pool risk safely will limit this option to only the very largest schemes such as the Royal Mail or other arrangements that can achieve sufficient scale. FedEx shares have lost nearly 30 percent in the past year and Bank of America suggested on Monday that the logistics company could boost its stock by delaying planned purchases of Boeing airplanes. "Given the share price decline at FDX, we believe it may look to reduce capex to increase its planned buyback. The company could discuss such a plan when it reports on Tuesday," Bank of America analyst Ken Hoexter said in a note to investors. FedEx could add as much as $2.5 billion stock buybacks "if it delays half its planned purchases of Boeing 767 and 777 aircraft by 2 years," Hoexter said. That would give FedEx shares an "upside surprise." Hoexter did not mention the recent scrutiny of Boeing and its 737 Max planes following two deadly crashes in five months. While the 767 and 777 models do not appear to have major issues, Hoexter suggested FedEx could pause "the aircraft refresh" it's undergoing to improve its long term profits. FedEx is set to receive 35 Boeing 767s and seven 777s over the next two years. "However, the near term slowing of purchases would come at the expense of its fleet refresh, which would delay the benefits to its improvement plan," Hoexter said. FedEx closed 2.5 percent higher on Monday at $182.38 a share. The shares are off by 29 percent the last 12 months. Victoria's Secret is back in the swimwear business sort of. The lingerie retailer said Monday that its swim collection for 2019 is now available, but only online. "Due to overwhelming demand," Victoria's Secret said it just plans to sell pieces a "limited assortment" on its website, not in stores, for the upcoming spring and summer seasons. It said it will offer a new line of sunglasses in select stores, in addition to online. Victoria's Secret's move back into swim comes after the company pulled out of the category in 2016, costing it $500 million in annual sales. Shoppers who swore by its beach friendly products were outraged, with few other retailers offering quality swimwear to turn to. Victoria's Secret has since then been caught up in other struggles, as its sexy image has fallen out of favor with today's shoppers, and online lingerie retailers like Adore Me, Lively and ThirdLove are taking market share at Victoria's Secret's expense. The company had teased it would be getting back into the swim category during a call with analysts last November. In its latest earnings report, Victoria's Secret parent company L Brands said it planned to shut 53 of the lingerie retailer's stores this year, compared with an average of 15 closures in prior years. It's working on trimming its real estate, while making investments to revamp some products for its PINK brand to be more appealing to younger women and teens. Analysts who cover the company are watching to see how much momentum the swim relaunch brings. L Brands' shares have fallen more than 30 percent over the past 12 months. The stock was up a little more than 1 percent Monday afternoon. On its website, Victoria's Secret is now selling a sweetheart neckline one-piece suit for $152, an active highneck halter top for $88 and a bikini bottom for $28. Beto O'Rourke, former Representative from Texas and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, shakes hands with an attendee during a campaign stop in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, U.S., on Friday, March 15, 2019. Beto O'Rourke enjoyed strong support from tech industry workers and executives during his ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign last year in Texas, which could give the breakout Democratic star a fundraising edge over his primary opponents as he seeks to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. Yet, it will likely be a point of contention for the new campaign. O'Rourke who announced Monday that he raked in a record $6.1 million in the first 24 hours of his 2020 campaign and several of his Democratic rivals have made it a point to distance themselves from corporate money. Likewise, perceived coziness with big tech could pose political risks with rising bipartisan calls to crack down on and regulate the industry. During his shockingly close loss to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in deep red Texas, O'Rourke raised tens of millions of dollars, much of it from so-called small donors, or people who give $200 or less. As the Democratic former congressman touted his success among smaller donors, while rejecting money from corporations and super PACs, he also reaped the benefits from bigger-dollar donors, such as executives and employees from major tech companies such as Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Amazon's top spokesman, Jay Carney, gave $1,500 directly to the O'Rourke campaign. Carney previously served as White House press secretary to President Barack Obama, to whom O'Rourke has been compared. Brian Olsavsky, the company's financial chief, wrote a check for $2,700 to O'Rourke's 2018 campaign, which is the most an individual can give in an election. Amazon employees, overall, gave $75,751 to his campaign. O'Rourke finished the 2018 campaign having raised $80 million, with 45 percent coming from small donors. The rest came from people giving more than $200, including important players at Facebook and Apple. Chris Espinosa, who was designated Apple's eighth employee after the company was founded in the 1970s, gave O'Rourke $2,700. Apple employees gave O'Rourke's campaign just over $90,000 during the 2018 campaign. Alex Stamos, who was Facebook's chief security officer until August, also gave $2,700 to O'Rourke's campaign. Stamos told CNBC that he has not decided whom to support among the Democratic field. But he did say he is advising campaigns on cybersecurity in the wake of Russia's interference and hacking during the 2016 cycle. "One of the great benefits of not being a professional political operative is that I don't have to pick sides 20 months before the general election," Stamos said. "I've been trying to be helpful to multiple Democratic campaigns, and right now my focus is on helping them get their campaign technology stacks set up in a secure manner." He declined to name the campaigns he's helping. It is also not clear whether Carney, Olsavsky or Espinosa would support O'Rourke during the 2020 campaign. Representatives from Facebook, Amazon and Apple did not return repeated requests for comment. A spokesman for O'Rourke did not return an email seeking comment. O'Rourke's 2020 campaign has yet to announce how much of his recent $6.1 million haul came from smaller donations. The Texas Democrat has repeatedly said his campaign will not be financed by political action committees, corporations or special interests. In the run-up to O'Rourke's first big fundraising splash of the presidential campaign, Louis Susman, a bundler for Obama, had been privately making calls to "family and friends" to coax support for O'Rourke, he told CNBC last week. O'Rourke himself was once involved in the tech industry, having founded the internet services and software company Stanton Street Technology Group. Up until the middle of 2017, his wife, Amy, ran the business, which is based in their home city of El Paso. A recent Reuters report, meanwhile, revealed that O'Rourke was involved decades ago with America's oldest hacking group, the Cult of the Dead Cow. Support from people in the tech industry could have downsides for O'Rourke as several of his rivals have taken aim at Silicon Valley. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, has called for the breakup of big firms, such as Google and Apple. "Today's big tech companies have too much power too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They've bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation," she said in a blog post. Another 2020 Democratic candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, has called for tighter regulations on tech companies. Trump himself has attacked Amazon and Google. O'Rourke has yet to cite specific policy stances on regulating the tech industry. Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, says he talked to Google researchers on Monday about the application of artificial-intelligence technology in health care. The intersection of AI and health care is a longtime area of interest for Google. Researchers there have explored the use of AI algorithms for making predictions based on medical records. And Verily, another subsidiary of Alphabet alongside Google, is solely focused on health care. While Microsoft and Google are arch-competitors in many areas, including cloud computing and artificial intelligence research, the visit is an example of how Gates' broad interest in technology trumps Microsoft's historical rivalries with other tech companies. Gates brought up the visit spontaneously after a person in the audience at the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Symposium at Stanford University in California, held near Google's Mountain View headquarters, asked him about how to ensure that AI will operate ethically. Gates talked about the use of AI in weapons systems and autonomous vehicles before arriving at the subject of health care. "In the medical field, you know, we just don't have doctors. Most people are born and die in Africa without coming near to a doctor," said Gates, who is co-chair of the nonprofit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which concerns itself with improving global health among other things. "We're doing a lot of work with analyzing ultrasound, and we can do things like sex-blind the output, because we're not having anybody actually see the image. We can tell you what's going on without revealing the gender, which is, of course -- when you do that, it drives gendercide. And yet, we're doing the analysis, the medical understanding, in a much deeper way, and that's an example where it's all done with a lot of machine learning. "I was meeting with the guys at Google who are helping us with this this morning, and there's some incredible promise in that field, where, in the primary health-care system, the amount of sophistication to do diagnosis and understand, for example, 'Is this a high-risk pregnancy?' 'Yes.' 'Let's escalate that person to go to the hospital level,' even though you couldn't afford to do that on a widespread basis. So this stuff is going to be very domain-specific." In his talk on Monday Gates pointed to an interest in the potential of AI much earlier in his life. "When I started Microsoft, I literally wrote a note to my parents, and I said, 'Okay, I may miss a bunch of breakthroughs in AI, and that'll be what I give up to create this company, but oh, well,'" he said. "Well, for about 20 years, I didn't miss much. More recently, there's amazing things going on, and fortunately, Microsoft has gotten to a size that it, along with Google and many others, get to participate." Google didn't respond to a request for comment on Gates' visit. WATCH: Melinda Gates on global health and eliminating poverty Tech titan Mark Cuban listens to entrepreneurs' countless business ideas thanks to his starring role as a judge on ABC's "Shark Tank." But Cuban recently revealed what areas of technology he'd focus on if he were to launch a business today. "If I were going to start a business today, I'd build it around Alexa and Google Home," he told Recode's Peter Kafka at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. Alexa is the virtual assistant developed by Amazon. Google Home is the speaker system through which customers can use the voice-activated virtual assistant, accordingly named Google Assistant. "Alexa skills and scripting Alexa skills is really, really easy. But everybody thinks it's really, really hard. And so that disconnect is a great opportunity. And so I told my kids [and] other kids, learn how to script, and just go get your neighbors and set up all of these Alexa tools and you'll make $25, $30, $40 an hour," Cuban said. "Scripting Alexa skills" means coding voice commands to enable the robot to complete the intended task. Cuban also sees artificial intelligence as having a big future. He says the impact of AI will be more profound than most people realize. "As big as PCs were an impact, as big as the internet was, AI is just going to dwarf it. And if you don't understand it, you're going to fall behind. Particularly if you run a business," he said. "I mean, I get it on Amazon and Microsoft and Google, and I run their tutorials. If you go in my bathroom, there's a book, 'Machine Learning for Idiots.' Whenever I get a break, I'm reading it," Cuban told Kafka. Where the internet was once a futuristic idea, it's now a mainstay of everyday life. So, too, will AI, according to Cuban. He warns people to not take AI and its impact for granted. "If you don't know how to use it and you don't understand it and you can't at least at have a basic understanding of the different approaches and how the algorithms work," he said, "you can be blindsided in ways you couldn't even possibly imagine." Even with strong interests in AI and virtual intelligence, the 60-year-old Cuban, who is worth $4.1 billion, said he's no longer motivated to start a business, at least not in the way he was when he was younger. "The good news of having had the level of success I have is obvious, but the bad side is I kinda lost that piss and vinegar because I can think of 50 businesses I could start right now, ... but I don't want to give up time at home and all that," Cuban said in 2017 a conversation with Arianna Huffington. "So that's kind of the trade-off." Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank." Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! See also: The 27 European countries are considering whether or not to grant the U.K. a long extension to its European exit, but this could be the bloc's biggest Brexit gamble so far. The U.K. remains set to leave the European Union on March 29, but given that there is no support for Theresa May's deal with the rest of the EU, it is likely that the Prime Minister will request more time to nail down a compromise back home. In this context, the European heads of state are due to meet Thursday in Brussels to discuss a potential delay to Article 50 the legal framework by which an EU country can exit the union. It is up to the 27 heads of state to decide, unanimously, whether such delay can be granted. European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs the meetings between the heads of state, said last Thursday that he would "appeal to the EU27 to be open to a long extension, if the U.K. finds it necessary to rethink its Brexit strategy." Tweet 1 Some in Europe believe that a long extension would ultimately lead to a new stance from London. "Some in the EU are pushing for a long extension, to give the U.K. more time to find a way out of the mess that is its domestic politics right now," Carsten Nickel, managing director at Teneo Intelligence, told CNBC via email. Alberto Alemanno, a European law professor at HEC University in Paris, also told CNBC that a long extension could mean the U.K. will push for a closer relationship with the EU. "Given the limited likelihood of an approved Withdrawal Agreement before March 29, the EU envisages a longer extension to reopen the negotiations in a less constrained timeframe and in completely different political scenario in the U.K.," Alemanno said. WATCH: Brexit has turned into a student asking for a paper extension says Niall Ferguson A home destroyed by Camp Fire in Paradise, California on November 11, 2018. The Camp Fire in Butte County destroyed more than 10,000 homes and left 86 people dead. LOS ANGELES California is preparing to mobilize National Guard troops to reduce the threat of wildfires by clearing hazardous dead trees, vegetation and creating fuel breaks, according to Cal Fire. The fire agency has identified nearly three dozen priority projects in more than 200 communities around the state in areas considered high fire-risk zones. It comes as the state is bracing for perhaps another tough wildfire season after devastating 2017 and 2018 blazes that killed more than 120 people. Some of the National Guard troops set to help in the wildfire prevention efforts previously were focused on assisting in the Trump administration's U.S. border request. In February, California Gov. Gavin Newsom rebuked President Donald Trump's "manufactured crisis" at the border by announcing plans to pull more than 250 troops from the southern border. Last April, California's previous governor, Jerry Brown, agreed to send about 400 of the state's troops to the border at the request of Trump, who cited "a crisis" at the border due to a "combination of illegal drugs, dangerous gang activity, and extensive illegal immigration." "We're going to have [troops] spread out throughout the state to help us with the fuel reduction projects," said Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean. According to McLean, an initial 110 troops will start to get special training next month for their wildfire prevention assignments. The work includes prescribed burns, mechanical thinning of the forests and the creation of fire breaks. "It's not what they typically do," said McLean. "The governor has made it known that he is going to provide these troops to assist us in our work." In the past, the state has relied in part on assistance from inmate firefighters to clear brush and prepare for wildfire season. The state also uses inmates to battle fires as part of volunteer crews. State fire officials say current predictions are for the state's dry season this year to start in May. Many of the state's most destructive wildfires, though, have historically taken place later in the year after scorching summer temperatures dry grass and brush. This year's series of winter storms produced an abundance of grasses and other plant life in wildlands throughout the state, and that vegetation could add to the fire risk this summer and fall. In January, Newsom signed an executive order that directed the state's fire agency to prepare a plan with "immediate, medium-term, and long-term recommended actions that will have the greatest impact in preventing the impact of destructive, deadly fires." A key part of California's plan involves the National Guard helping to coordinate the fuel reduction operations statewide. More than 90,000 acres statewide are being targeted as part of the state's list of 35 priority fuel-reduction projects. "This will definitely make a difference, and we are going to be continuing this," McLean said. He said it will help bring the state's forests back to "resiliency" while also providing for the public safety. Last year, California experienced more than 7,600 wildfires that charred more than 1.8 million acres, up from 1.3 million acres in 2017. Six of the 10 most destructive fires in the state have occurred in the past two years. The state's most devastating blaze was the Camp Fire last November that ravaged the Northern California town of Paradise, killing 86 people and destroying more than 10,000 homes. Newsom also announced earlier this year that the state will spend $1 billion on forestland management over the next five years, with funding coming from proceeds from California's cap-and-trade auctions. Also, Newsom has proposed the state spend more than $300 million to upgrade its planning and response to wildfires and other disasters. Trump has been critical of California's wildfire prevention efforts and threatened to pull federal funds last October and then again in November as firefighters were still battling major blazes across the state. For example, in November he went on social media to blame "gross mismanagement of the forests" for the state's wildfires and added, "Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!" Again, the president in January renewed his attack on California's forest management practices and threatened to cut off federal aid. The lion's share of forest land in California is controlled by the federal government. Newsom has criticized Trump's threats and defended the state's management of forests. He also has called on the administration in January to boost its funding for fire prevention efforts in federal forests. The White House's proposed 2020 budget request calls for the U.S. Forest Service's total wildland fire activities to receive $2.35 billion, or an 18 percent decline, from the $2.88 billion estimated in 2019. The total amount reflects funding for preparedness and suppression activities. Meantime, Newsom has requested funding for year-round fire crews and equipment as part of his proposed 2019-20 budget. He also called for more fire-spotting cameras to help detect wildfires in high-risk fire areas before they can spread into larger blazes. The state plans to get delivery of the first of a dozen new Black Hawk fire helicopters in May or June. Some of the fires detected by the current fire-spotting cameras have been extinguished using aerial equipment. Boeing 737 MAX9 takes part in a flying display over the Le Bourget Airport during the 52nd International Paris Air Show on June 22, 2017, in Paris, France. Transport Canada is re-examining the validation it gave Boeing's 737 Max jets, following reports of a U.S. probe into the aircraft's certification by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said on Monday. Garneau told reporters in Ottawa that Transport Canada might not take any action but thinks it would be wise to re-examine the validation of the jet, which has been grounded worldwide for safety concerns following the crash of an Ethiopian plane. Canada accepted the FAA's March 2017 certification of the Max under a deal where such approvals by the United States are accepted by Canada and vice versa. Shipping containers sit stacked at Qingdao Port after snow on February 14, 2019 in Qingdao, Shandong Province of China. Visual China Group | Getty Images Beijing's incantations about "win-win cooperation" and its alleged search of a harmonious "great power relationship" ring hollow when confronted with an unwisely excessive and systematic trade surplus China maintains with the United States. All that talk is blatantly at odds with China's $794.4 billion trade surplus on its U.S. goods trade since the current administration took the helm in Washington in January 2017. One can also be forgiven for taking that as a brazen provocation of an American government pledging to stop the accelerating growth of its foreign debt, and to protect the little employment that remains in America's devastated import-competing manufacturing industries. Like all excesses, this one too can badly backfire on China. And it's not clear what China's economic and political interests are served as Beijing keeps deliberately pushing the U.S.-China trade relationship into a growing and unsustainable imbalance. No, China should know that, at some point, the abused party wants out sometimes violently. China is playing a dangerous game An act of enlightened statesmanship, therefore, would want to avoid such a conflict, especially if its guiding principles in international relations are a "win-win cooperation" and great power ties compatible with "a community of shared future for mankind." None of that can be seen in China's relations with the present U.S. administration. In the course of 2017, China's trade surplus on American trades increased 8.1 percent. Last year, the growth of China's trade surplus accelerated to 12 percent, with its exports to the U.S. surging 17.4 percent, to a whopping $594 billion, while China's purchases from the U.S. fell 7.4 percent to the pitiful $120.3 billion. That's not a mere provocation; that's a triumphant defiance. In spite of all that, President Donald Trump eagerly announced a few weeks ago that he could be hosting a trade deal signing ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping in Florida later this month. That sounds like an extravagant perhaps even foolhardy generosity of a man whose presidency is on the line as a result of losing an unassailable trade case against China. The legions of Trump's discontents, and those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by trade with China, are certain to remind him at the ballot box that allowing Beijing to get away with record-breaking amounts of net income on its American trades is an unforgivable piece of economic mismanagement. If that is not part of China's hidden agenda, here are some ideas of what Beijing could do to avoid a major bilateral crisis that could seriously damage an already dangerously tense U.S.-China relationship. WATCH: Trade deal or no deal, the U.S. and China are still fighting for global power Beijing can do much better First, approach the issue with a sense of urgency it deserves. Promptly begin to diversify Chinese exports away from U.S. markets, and strongly step up purchases of American goods and services to quickly stop and markedly reverse the trend of China's growing bilateral trade surpluses. Second, with such a sincere show of good faith, Beijing should adopt regulatory changes offering internationally comparable guarantees for the protection of intellectual property and prohibition of forced technology transfers to Chinese joint-venture partners. China's apparently large panoply of non-tariff barriers to trade should also be dismantled. The vigilant members of the China-based American and international chambers of commerce, and the World Trade Organization, will serve as keen observers that China is properly implementing and enforcing its trade regulations. Third, China can benefit from an enhanced International Monetary Fund surveillance, technically called Article IV consultations. That would make sure that China's monetary, fiscal and structural economic policies which include both domestic and foreign trade are fully in compliance with international rules and best practice policies. In addition to that, China may also wish to engage in extensive biannual economic examinations with the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to get an independent expert assessment of the entire spectrum of its economic policies. That's what the OECD does well, and that could be a very useful source of unbiased advice. Such examinations would also shield China from widely publicized amateurish attacks on its economic management. Fourth, the IMF consultations and the OECD's biannual examinations would provide unimpeachable expert opinions on China's monetary policies and its managed floating exchange rate. That would preserve China's monetary sovereignty and offer much-needed advice about the country's highly sensitive capital account transactions. How China frames those steps within the ongoing trade negotiations with the United States is a matter of its own judgment. But one thing should be clear: Dragging on the negotiating process while continuing to accumulate China's huge surpluses on American trades is over. Washington has finally come to the point where it can no longer tolerate inconclusive talk fests while China laughs all the way to the bank. To be sure, though, getting the trade surplus issue out of the way will not radically improve the U.S.-China relations. That's impossible as long as America's security experts consider China a "strategic competitor" and "a revisionist power" determined to challenge America's world order. One could expect, however, that a meaningful progress on bilateral trade problems could open more space to address acute security issues in a constructive manner, although, again, there is no guarantee for such an outcome. China's contested maritime borders, Korean problems and Beijing's Belt and Road transactions will remain America's war and peace issues for the foreseeable future. Investment thoughts Below is the transcript of a First On CNBC interview with Alexander Novak, Russian Energy Minister. The interview was first broadcast on CNBC's Squawk Box Asia on 18 March 2019. All references must be sourced to a "CNBC Interview'. Interviewed by CNBC's Dan Murphy Dan Murphy (DM): You met with Khalid Al-Falih today. Was it necessary to give him extra assurance that Russia will be compliant to the OPEC production accord? Alexander Novak (AN): As far as the meeting is concerned we, of course, discussed the situation with the execution of the Agreement; we stressed once again that Russia is discharging its obligations in accordance with the agreement to smoothly achieve the target output. We discussed both our own situation and the situation across the rest of the countries re their compliance with the agreement, as well as the situation in the global markets, forecasts, uncertainties, i.e. the traditional list of issues in order to assess how the agreement is working by our Monitoring Committee. DM: How soon before Russia becomes fully compliant to the cuts? AN: As for the target output level that forms part of the signed Agreement we plan to reach those figures by the end of March/beginning of April. This is earlier than in the same period two years ago by about one month. DM: Khalid Al-Falih has talked about a possible extension to the OPEC+ production accord. Would Russia support an extension? AN: Clearly today, two months later, it is a little premature to talk about this the deal after all covers the first 6 months of the year, so any extension will be discussed in May/June this year. We have a planned the meeting of our Monitoring Committee to take place in May, while the ministerial meeting will happen in June when we shall have a clearer understanding of the market conditions in the summer and any predictions for the second half of the year. DM: And at the moment US production is significantly high, we also have the duel-US sanctions against Iran and Venezuela impacting the market. Given the influence the United States has over the oil market today, would you like to see the US more involved in the conversation to stabilise the oil market? AN: Talking about the markets, yes, indeed, there are still a lot of uncertainties in the markets linked to the decisions being taken re sanctions against certain countries that we consider a wrong move, going against market interests and in breach of international norms and international law. This impacts the market and should be borne in mind. We are a very capital-intensive sector, we require solid investments, long term investments, so all this should be borne in mind when any decisions are taken. DM: Venezuela is in the midst of a political and social crisis at the moment as well. How are you assessing the impact of the US sanctions on Venezuela, and is Venezuela still a trusted and reliable partner for Russia in Latin America? AN: Yes, we are witnessing serious cuts in output in Venezuela, not even as part of the Agreement but as part of the specific situation with sanctions, with the restrictions that have been introduced. We are convinced that this impacts in a major way the state of play in Venezuela; we think that Venezuela should be able to address these issues; the production has stabilized at a certain level. We wish them a speedy economic recovery and a speedy recovery of production. DM: Is it necessary to protect Russian interests there in Venezuela given the situation? AN: We have a long-standing relationship with Venezuela; including very close relations in the energy sector; so we have a vested interest in the ongoing oil projects in Venezuela; we hope they continue to operate; that they do not incur losses and that we recoup investments in line with the market conditions. DM: On another matter, Nord Stream is in motion. Some who say it is not only an economic project for Russia, but a political project as well. A tool to extend leverage over Europe and the region is that a fair charge? AN: I reckon these are commentators who want to justify their own political actions and their economic interests to promote their own products/produce by linking some sort of political factors to the implementation of these large scale infrastructural projects. This is simply untrue; this is a purely commercial project which is being implemented on the basis of mutual benefit to those commercial companies that operate in the European energy market. DM: Finally Sir, does it concern you that Oleg Deripaska is suing the US Treasury Department? AN: These are the questions to be put to Mr Deripaska. DM: Is he a victim? AN: I know very little about this as this has nothing to do with the energy sector. END Media Contact: Clarence Chen Communications Manager APAC, CNBC International D: +65 6326 1123 M: +65 9852 8630 clarence.chen@cnbc.com About CNBC CNBC is the leading global broadcaster of live business and financial news and information, reporting directly from the major financial markets around the globe with regional headquarters Singapore, Abu Dhabi, London, and New York. The TV channel is available in more than 410 million homes worldwide. CNBC.com is the preeminent financial news source on the web, featuring an unprecedented amount of video, real-time market analysis, web-exclusive live video and analytical financial tools. CNBC is a division of NBCUniversal. For more information, visit www.cnbc.com The case, Basir v Larizadeh, initially went to trial in May 2018 when, following a motor accident, the claimant, Mr Basir, presented claims for personal injury as well as special damages for vehicle damage and credit hire. Despite the Judge ruling that Mr Basirs claims for personal injury were "wholly unbelievable in relation to injuries and therefore fundamentally dishonest, he was still awarded 1,824 for the credit hire claim as well as costs. Given the finding of fundamental dishonesty for the personal injury claim, Horwich Farrelly urged the Judge to dismiss the entire claim under Section 57 of the Criminal Courts and Justice Act 2015 (Section 57). The Judge interpreted the word 'claim' in Section 57 as referring to the claim for injury and, as that was dismissed, there was no award of damages for the purpose of the Act, thus Section 57 was not engaged. Unhappy with this outcome, Horwich Farrelly, on behalf of Aviva, appealed the decision on the basis that the law on Section 57 had been misapplied. The appeal hearing took place in Central London County Court, before His Honour Judge Saunders. Finding that the trial judge had been wrong in his interpretation of Section 57 and had misinterpreted the legislation by awarding the claimant damages (and, therefore, costs) for the credit hire claim, HHJ Saunders allowed the appeal and dismissed the whole claim. He commented that the decision of the lower court would give perverse results where a claimant who had completely fabricated their claim for personal injuries would be in a better position in claiming for vehicle damages than a claimant who had merely exaggerated their injuries. It is now clear that Section 57 applies to the whole of the claim and any damages claimed in the proceedings, whether related to the injury or not, can be dismissed on a finding of fundamental dishonesty. As a result of the successful appeal, Aviva was awarded the costs of defending the original proceedings and the costs of bringing the appeal on the indemnity basis. The costs totalled over 19,000 which are enforceable directly against the Claimant. Howard Grand, Director of Legal General Insurance, Aviva, said, We are pleased with the appeal judges finding in this important case. We must not return to the bad old days where honest motorists were, in effect, forced to subsidise the actions of fraudsters through inflated premiums. Aviva campaigned tirelessly for whiplash reforms, known as the Civil Liability Act, which will reduce the incentive for fraudsters and opportunists to exaggerate or fabricate their injuries. This ruling will form an important precedent to ensure that the judiciary apply similar rigour when hearing cases where claimants fabricate their injuries. This should send a clear message to would-be fraudsters that the courts will not tolerate any part of an exaggerated or fabricated claim. Jared Mallinson, Partner at Horwich Farrelly said: We are extremely happy that we persevered with this case on behalf of Aviva and it resulted in a successful appeal. Poorly drafted and at times confusing, Section 57 is open to some interpretation. It is crucial that the courts apply the ruling correctly to avoid cases where claimants can be found to be fundamentally dishonest yet still be awarded damages. The courts are, in the main, applying an eminently sensible approach in dismissing the entire claim when part of an injury claim is dishonest, no matter the make-up of special damages. However, it has been argued that this interpretation is wrong and only the losses associated with the injury claim ought to be dismissed. In finding that this argument is wrong, this judgment increases the effectiveness of Section as a deterrent to fraudulent claims because fraudsters can no longer expect to recover some damages even if they are found to be fundamentally dishonest. This is a great example of how we work closely with the insurance industry, going to great lengths in order to stop fraudsters in their tracks and ensure that the courts are on board. This ruling can be applied in future cases to ensure that both consumers and insurers benefit from the costs saved on unmerited claims. Below is the transcript of a CNBC Exclusive interview with Oleg Deripaska, Founder of Basic Element. The interview was first broadcast on CNBC's Squawk Box Asia on 18 March 2019. All references must be sourced to a "CNBC Interview'. Interviewed by CNBC's Geoff Cutmore Geoff Cutmore (GC): So, what I want to start by asking you is why now? Why proceed with this action against the U.S. Treasury now given that the sanctions were originally imposed back in April of last year? Oleg Deripaska (OD): As a businessman I always tried to see what would be less costly resolution. And since it was quite a huge surprise for us, this April 6 action, unexpectedIt was out in the ground. And in many sense, absurd. Then to disturb market, to disturb the way aluminum industry, the global aluminium industry function. Of course, we had almost no plan to be prepared. And I personally was taken, as you know, in the step, by full surprise. And I hope that sooner or later people will recognize it's wrong. We'll try to assess the facts and actually it's getting worse and worse. And last hearing in Congress when people start blaming me personally for any sort of things which I had no connection even with, not just based on fact just fantasy of course it's given me a total understanding that the legal system in U.S. maybe the last resort where people could assess the facts and to see what justice would be. GC: Can I ask you-- there will be a lot of American viewers of the decision that you've taken here who will question whether you've been given approval by the Kremlin to do this or whether in fact you were pressured by President Putin or the Kremlin as a way of testing the mantle of the Treasury and the U.S. legal system? OD: They are wrong. GC: So there's nothing to that? OD: It's totally wrong. GC: Why do you think you can win then if you've taken this action on your own behalf given how swinging the sanctions that were imposed originally were and how much pressure you were put under to distance yourself from Rusal and EN+. OD: Because I still trust U.S. legal system. There is no facts. You know, so very often when you know you can read in a very impressive title a lot of balderdash and then in the small sentence. If the facts are, or if it's true, and since they know no facts, no reason, for such action, existed then in April, when that was taken, then I still believe that justice could be achieved in this case. GC: So there was no pressure from the Russian government for you to take this action. Tell us then why you feel you need to do it for yourself. How personally have you been impacted by the sanctions both emotionally and financially? OD: As I told you when you talk when we met. It's a new life. It's a new reality. it's a very strong instrument which was developed and I still believe thatit's, I don't know liberal I would sayI'm maybe a little bit conservative on the economic issue but weaponizing financial system, opposition the financial system, using the position of U.S. Treasury and Fed, literally, as a weapon can be justified. If it's drugs, nuclear proliferation, trafficking. But to apply same means, same tools to entrepreneurs, crushing all concept of presumption of innocence, of fair process. I don't think it's something which will stay long. It's like the same way like you have a guy who supply water to the villages, down to mountain, sitting on top and he gives clean water to one village and then in one village which on a low level is being poisoned with it, of course sooner or later this village will develop its own well and say thank you. It's not. But again I still feel that the rest can do justice. And this is what in my case about - simple justice. GC: Is it true the reports about how much money you've lost as a result of the action that's been taken against you? Anywhere between five and seven billion dollars roughly your net wealth is that accurate, those figures? OD: And of course you have in a day, day to Day deviation in the price of assets. And you know this is going on in every day you know literally, you know, me my company my colleague and others they suffer they still suffer. GC: So this feels like an emotional decision. But is there any hard-headed business element to this? Some may say that you risk a backlash against both Rusal and EN+ by doing this. OD: No one done this, this is my burden. I've done a lot of things first time. First time, in the 90s, I bought a small stake in small aluminium company in the middle of an hour or so be a Siberia. I came by myself and I said I want to be part of the board and they said goodbye. It took me two years before I get a seat. And in these two years the company collapse because you know the market the famous crash in the 90s a lot of commodities flew out of Russia. I've got my seat and I become a CEO of this company you know. No money, no working capital, no raw material supplies, people on strike. I did first time in my country. Yeah, I understand, but again there is no facts no ground, statement which was as a press release at Treasury Department. Total absurd. This allegation was there for more than 20 years and people always hide. Of course I have a lot of opponents, I have a lot of people who I don't know why but strongly don't like me in the State Department, and spread all these rumours. Every time when I tried to check the facts, who is this victim? Give me his name. No. They always try - oh go and look on the internet. What's the justice look on internet? No you have to know by yourself. GC: But you have to understand a lot of the narrative around this. I mean people look at you and they look at the interest that you've displayed in American politics over the years. The fact that I think you, you met up with John McCain during his campaign I think that was facilitated by Paul Manafort, and they ask themselves why - why is this man so interested in the presidential process in the United States? What do you hope to get from that? What do you hope to achieve? OD: Maybe subject of a different interview. I'm sorry. Still I'm a little bit more focus on my issue. We can have a talk on the broad issue but it's not something which I'm interested in. And most of this allegation they use my brand. I am successful, from Russia. I know a lot of people. I've been lucky that channels like you have always been interested in my opinion on the markets and on the economy. Yes, they branded me. It was so easy you know "there is a bad Russia, [inaudible] activity and there is bad Russians." If you will mention any names from the street, from streets of Moscow who would care no one. So they decided to use my name. But now I tried to see how U.S. legal system will respond. It's very simple process. Justice Department will present facts. I hope that they will not hide behind national interests. Whateverthe spying sourceI'm a businessman, I'm an industrialist. What can prevent them to put the facts and lay down in a simple you know file to a court and the judge will see. Was it enough to prove he wasn't qualified to begin with these executive orders which been used to put sanctions on me and companies or not? GC: These two things are connected though. And I understand why you're reticent perhaps to talk about it but in many ways the reason why the sanctions were imposed in part because you're perceived to be the person that you are. So, I think it's relevant to ask you the question. I mean the former CIA station chief here Steve Hall who was in Moscow, I think talked about you and Manafort and the connection between you and Manafort and said if you want to understand this, this is like the connection between Putin and Trump. Now why would he say something like that if there wasn't a perception that somehow you're connected. I mean how do you respond to those kind of comments? OD: To be honest I didn't get that. I'm sorry. Can you just elaborate a little bit? GC: Do you not see the connection between the action that the Treasury has taken and the perception that you were connected with Paul Manafort and how somehow mixed up in the 2016 election campaign? OD: It's like you know, [inaudible] kind of story. Very Absurd. Manafort provided some service for a company which has investor founded. All the relations was all like seven or eight years ago - maybe more. No relation after 2011. Only interests, my lawyers tried to find him and tried to file and you know recover this money which was [improperly] taken as a credit and never returned and this investment that never happened. And it's quite a big sum of money, $50 million. Then this action in April when literally you know after I've been caught from any access to justice, you know legal firm needs to have license. No legal firm wants to be part of it because it will damage, and this narrative of course will affect the reputation. It was very healthy when he asked me why it takes one year you know it takes me nine months to hire a lawyer who is ready to take this case. And then I said and I repeat and my people publicly make available information that September 16 it was a nice intrusion in the morning when they came to be part of UN conference on climate. In my house where I'm staying and start asking a stupid question. And you know just it's absurd. Where is Manafort? Where is Russia? And the way it was even in a time when I think your president was like twelve point below Hillary Clinton in the beginning of September and it's still going on. Yes, it's again it's kind of a brand issue. They used Deripaska brand and use this narrative. And it's look like much but I'm surprised that you are saying that the guy who is a part of your intelligence who says the difference between the facts and if type of statement which journalism now in US tend to produce. GC: So, in your opinion this is just muck-spreading all these allegations that continue to crop up connecting you with that 2016 campaign. And Paul Manafort and 'special' briefings which apparently turned up in an e-mail. None of this is true in your opinion? This is journalists and just US Senators who are just spreading falsehoods? OD: US Senate what do you mean? Well, there is a lot of Senators. GC: Or Congressmen OD: I said if you want to hear the facts, I am ready to come. Then they start making this charade that I was asking immunity, blah blah blah. I didn't ask anything. You want to have straight answer then as I did 2016 when FBI came and stopped and questioned me on anything like that and I've said it's absurd. And I gave them argument which people should listen. No one wants to hear the fact, but your gentleman Mueller, sorry not your, U.S. Attorney Mueller, he will produce the facts and show the facts coming soon. GC: I think it's useful for us to use this opportunity for you to restate your position on these things because these questions keep coming up over and over again and it's almost like people don't feel they've heard the answers that they need to hear to be convinced that there was no connection. I mean what was your relationship to Konstantin Kilimnik? Did he pass any Trump polling information to you? OD: I never met him and by the way when you write itnot yousorry, I've become a little bit emotional. But when journalists write Russian Kilimnik, it's my understanding from open source he's Ukrainian. I'm not sure but this is something which also absurd why you would in a paint someone as a Russian if he's Ukrainian but I've never met him. I haven't seen Manafort since 2010 or 11. The only purpose for me or my people to have any interest in his, you know dealing future, was to get money back which was borrowed from my companies or and unproperly taken from investment which wasn't done. And it's a big sum up to 50 million. That's why when they seized some of -- your colleagues tried to paint success of Mueller probe, that they've been totally [inaudible]. For me it's also hard. It's not the money which would be taken from me if it would happen. I wouldn't find the lawyers who will defend my interest. GC: But you know how it's been represented. And why would that be the case? People suggested-- OD: Why would be the case that fact doesn't fit narrative well I don't know its US situation now. There is facts and there is something which you want to promote. GC: So in the emails that were released apparently Kilimnik wrote an email to Manafort saying you asked him to convey several important messages to Manafort. OD: Me? GC: Apparently. OD: It's not true. Let's state the facts. Manafort plus consultants which not tens of million which is balderdash in advance and blah blah blah Russian state. It's total balderdash. Never happened, never offered. Last consultancy was in Africa and not very good because it was no result. 2011. Never seen him after. In my view, after that he was totally, even from the open source, he was totally focused on Ukraine. Ukrainian clients. It's obvious for any investigative journalist who will go and check what these people were doing. They have a bunch of their clients and I'm sure his clients officers had caviar, I'm not eating caviar. GC: So, there were no political favours done for you in return for the financial debt or obligation that Paul Manafort incurred to you. That's what's been implied largely that he supplied you with information about the campaign because there was a financial obligation to you that he couldn't pay. OD: Absolutely not, absurd. GC: So just let me underline this. I want to move on and talk some more about some of the other issues that I think are very important to you and to us. But just to underline this. Do you have any knowledge that Paul Manafort or Mr. Kilimnik were working for a Russian secret agency or possibly the GIU to further the government's interests? OD: No. GC: You have no information or you don't believe that to be the case? OD: I don't believe. I have no information and I don't believe that to be the case. GC: You've talked about why you think OD: And I told this September 16 when I'd be taken by surprise, when this three FBI gentleman intruded into my house claiming that they were my friends to the lady who manages the house. GC: So, you told the FBI this? OD: Straight. September 16, I think it was 2014 September 16. GC: So why does the FBI represent that it continues to want to talk to you if you've already had that conversation? OD: I've never seen. How is it represented? GC: My understanding is that the FBI says it's been trying to talk to you for the last 10 years. You feel that you've answered enough questions as far as the FBI is concerned. OD: We had one case when they approached me to help. I don't want to mention it and I don't want them to share the feelings of the people who suffer. And the guy who's been on top who was this retired gentleman McCabe who in my view was very professional and the way he tried to save the other lives was very, for me it was important. And the way we discuss the issues, I said please, it was already more than 10 years and it was smoking this from the State Department. Saying I'm wrong guy, bad history. I don't want to just repeat this allegation myself. It's absurd. And he assured me that I said please give me file, give my lawyers file, we will try to look you know we'll try to connect the missing point. Just I want to clear my name. He said there is nothing there. If you talk about this conversation it was done in 2005, 2006 I don't remember. GC: Clearly you want to use this case against the Treasury to put this issue of sanctions to bed and move on with your life as you said, it's a different life you've been leading since the fresh sanctions were put in place. But do you see any opportunity here for the West and Russia to move on while this issue of sanctions remain very much at the heart of the relationship? OD: It's you know the way I see it from your side it's impossible. But if you look at the reality Russian people, American people they don't hate each other. Actually the U.S. was a model for people like me after Perestroika and decided to change the system and was peaceful transition again because people been, people believe that we can establish a system based on democracy, fair in the capital system, in the private economy, social system everyone seen around looking at Sweden. And of course in the heart of the Russian people I think there is a room not to go in and start new, new page. But the problem is, all of this muscle flexing from both sides, and we have three point four trillion dollar we spent today on military new equipment and defense and half of it maybe more than two trillion dollars are necessary. And if you put this money you know on environment or in any type of infrastructural development, to change situation in the Middle East, in Africa and Latin America even in Mother Russia. I mean Russia under tremendous pressure. 10 years, no growth. And of course when you ask sanctions, they're not just affect on me but on the Russian economy and of because it's a waste of time. I can't see any strategic dispute between US and Russia. For me you know we wipe 10 years of struggle for something which I couldn't figure out and it's cost Russia a lot of money. And of course it's not, we'll end up in anytime sooner. And of course it's hard to see how, how to resolve it. There should be very strong in the leadership and action from both sides. GC: Well let's face it 2014 and Ukraine and Crimea have been flashpoints in the relationship ever since. We're just weeks away from another Ukrainian presidential election. Do you think there is any opportunity here for the governments of Ukraine and Russia to come closer? OD: Ukraine and Russia it's a brotherhood nations. Of course, it had been known outside forces which will try to manipulate. Of course there is a certain GC: So you blame what's happened subsequently on external forces rather than OD: No, no, I blame all sides. But, now it's important what will be way out. I've been quite substantial, I invested a lot of money in Ukraine and those factories still are working well and business profitable. And I see you know how countries suffer, and Russia suffer as well as I mentioned. But again the economy grows and economic cooperation and I could speak only on this subject. It can heal and could help people to find a compromise. GC: We're coming up on another U.S. presidential cycle. There were great hopes here in Moscow. I think before President Trump was elected that there might be a fresh start in that relationship that hasn't happened. We have the Mueller investigation ongoing which still appears to be searching for evidence of collusion over determining the outcome of the 2016 election. You think there's any prospect of an improvement from a fresh president in the United States and an end to the Mueller investigation? OD: You really see that there is a chance for a fresh president? GC: I'm just floating the possibility -- I'm not the one -- I'm asking the questions of you. OD: I understand but I'm just trying to understand, are you serious? I think the way U.S. politics develop now everything will be the same in four years. GC: Why so pessimistic? OD: You need to change generation. It's look like we've come to the point when only new generation will do something. This would prefer to have fighting. I see comments from Congress, from people in the media, a lot of lobbyists which benefit out of conflict military complex. All of this that was a straight fighting. It's a profitable business. Why it will be stopped? What was this new idea this new (incomprehensible) which will stop people and tried to as you said, I just can't see it and it's very sad. GC: Let me come back to that. Do you think Mueller will run its course without anything being found? OD: Again I can see the same as you. Open source. But if there is no facts no evidence for last two years just can't see any surprise. I hope there will be no surprise. GC: We see two other issues on the table at the moment and I'd be interested in your opinion on these. One is Nord Stream 2 now which has become a fresh irritant with the United States looking to sell its own oil and LNG into Europe and other markets. And then of course there's the issue of Washington pulling out of the intermediate nuclear missile agreement. These are two fresh fronts in many senses. Again are you as pessimistic as you seem to be about resolutions on these issues and the reasons why they have become flashpoints? OD: To be honest I'm very busy today with my own problem. But I can give you a short comment. Nord stream it's competitive project. If gas wouldn't be competitive price delivered to the customer in Europe, then they will buy LNG and I understand that there is a still infrastructure problem but not so, not as suspended. That's why I just can't see. And a missile treaty. And it's all about China not about Russia. And everyone knows this. And I went to Munich conference tried to understand better. And again I was very surprised that this conference which was based in Munich very symbolic city as you remember. And the main reason to find peaceful solution this time was total, totally focus on how to advance you know this military bullying and consolidate around enemies, around Russia. Russia will never, in my view. As far as the Russians can see, we'll never attack and invade a NATO country. I just can't imagine what would happen in this case would began. GC: Why does Russia then believe that anybody would attack Russia? OD: And it's obvious -- why do we need to extend NATO's states towards the Russian border? Why in all these documents you claim Russia [inaudible]. Even Mitt Romney when he ran this presidential campaign and he's a great guy and I can see his achievement and maybe he's the only one in the Senate who is capable to do something because you have a lot of lawyers, people who are very highly educated but have no idea how to do something. Even he, for some reason, you know claims a Russian magistrate. I'm here I'm in Russia and living in Russia and I can see people and I just can't imagine. And to be fair when this tragic accident happened in Syria when the US-led coalition attacked Russian, even [inaudible]happy to slaughter so many Russians it was the first time in history you need to understand what the terror status first time in the history American openly attacked Russian. I just can't imagine even now that someone in the Russian military will use the same pleasure attack Americans. I just can't understand how and when was the breaking point when you know and after said to you ask why Russian leadership, governments are so focused on securing their military independence. It's obvious. As outside and not part of this conspiracy game. But I'm taking my view. GC: Yeah. OK. And that's, that's your view. I don't have all the detail on the situation that you referenced. OD: It's all open source it's open source. GC: By and large there has been reasonable communication to try and stay out of each other's way in that part of the world is my understanding but I don't want to get hung up on that because we didn't really come here to talk about that. But I do want to OD: It's not me. I mean I'd like to talk about my case and opportunity to seek justice in the U.S. legal system. You tried to broaden it - OK. But as I said my strategy is always to be as transparent as possible. As I said I started from nowhere. I was sitting in library in university when I ran out of money and I went in and tried to make money tried to make something for my living. You know I become mental trading, broker on commodity exchange. I invest in a plant. As long as I've managed to build successful enterprise I went to IPO. I filed tons of documents to investors where I present everything tried to open judges -- there was a legal firm, investment bank who could see it. No one found anything which was always stated by my opponent. Or I don't know, I'm not a politician. Why I've been targeted by US State Department, nothing's been found. GC: But you know why. Because people connect you with President Putin and they say that there is a close relationship and they also say that you became wealthy because you were prepared to deal with gangsters here in Russia at the time. You know I'm not saying any of these allegations are true. But you understand why people take the view that they take a view because of those allegations. OD: Thank you for reminding me. And let's go through the facts. I paid money, over a billion dollars, to buy out 50 percent stake in cash and asset from Abramovich before Putin becomes President. What's the connection tell me? I know, no connection and it's not fit with this narrative. I made my business transparent. I set risk assessment teams in all of my company just to make sure there is no one, criminal world who could touch my companies or companies where I was founder or major investor. And it's a proven fact by board of directors by auditors, yearly audits all these years yearly audit for more than 27 years. And there is only one on my scale in Russia would produce it. I was paying taxes back in the mid-90s. Why? Because this tax was a foundation for municipal services which were able to reinforce the law enforcement people who were working in Siberia without money just because they had been courage enough to fight organised crime. But again, it's not a subject. We have a simple issue. I've been unfairly treated in absurd action and my lawyers just asking the other side which will be represented by Justice Department presents facts which was led, and what action was taken 6 April. Very simple. And why doing this as you ask me, I just want to make sure that it will be hiding behind any national security interest or I don't know, why these facts couldn't be presented. And if facts didn't fit with action then I expect the justice. GC: And I think it's important to ask the questions that people will be asking around this let me just finish up with a final question to you. You've been a businessman here for many years. You understand the nature of the economy. People are constantly frustrated that they see Russia underperforming economically and there is an issue with productivity. The president has announced a 390 billion ruble plan to invest in key sectors. Do you think that that will help Russia achieve a higher level of growth from here? Will it help your business interests? OD: I'm sure you didn't get enough what's my position now. First of all, company which I founded. People who are trained, raised as a management run a very productive operation and we're maybe not excellent in operation practice, safety, quality control, innovation. But if you see the result of the companies which present regular public open it's not for us in many cases better even Chinese who is now in the lead in many, in many areas. I'm not just excluded from U.S. financial system. You understand my position. I'm also excluded from Russian financial system in a sense that Russian governments and central banks literally follow the sanctions. They don't want to risk any big institutions here to be part of a secondary sanction, fears that secondary sanctions could hurt them. And then you understand my action - because I was totally isolated. And I myself don't want to have to say put other interests and damage on them by not moving. I don't need money and I'm working always on them because I have an interest. In doing something new in developing or help people to grow. But even my charity when they tried to support scientific research and there is scientists who work in foreign countries and who would be offered to have a grant. They couldn't open bank account to get this money. When my charity in a building something I could not go and get construction in the service company and equipment providers, house, internet is open. You can google and you can see everything, bridge connected me to it and it was my life. I'm not something who hiding behind someone. I was always in the conducting business open and transparent. With old debt, declarations, taxes, you understand. GC: So when this fails OD: So when you talk about something which can benefit them as this moment, nothing could benefit them because I'm not in business. I've been kicked out for the next two years while I have this battle. GC: So if this fails what do you do next? OD. I already found. But it's for my own. If you allow me to keep it. END Media Contact: Clarence Chen Communications Manager APAC, CNBC International D: +65 6326 1123 M: +65 9852 8630 clarence.chen@cnbc.com About CNBC CNBC is the leading global broadcaster of live business and financial news and information, reporting directly from the major financial markets around the globe with regional headquarters Singapore, Abu Dhabi, London, and New York. The TV channel is available in more than 410 million homes worldwide. CNBC.com is the preeminent financial news source on the web, featuring an unprecedented amount of video, real-time market analysis, web-exclusive live video and analytical financial tools. CNBC is a division of NBCUniversal. For more information, visit www.cnbc.com US President Donald Trump speaks during a reception in honor of Greek Independence Day in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, March 18, 2019. President Donald Trump on Monday touted poll results that appeared to show more Americans than ever siding with his oft-repeated accusation that special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe is nothing more than a "witch hunt." But some polling experts took issue with the phrasing of the survey question, saying it may have skewed the results. "President Trump has called the Special Counsels investigation a 'witch hunt' and said hes been subjected to more investigations than previous presidents because of politics. Do you agree?" the new USA Today/Suffolk University poll asked 1,000 registered voters in live telephone interviews between March 13 and 17. The survey found that 50 percent of respondents said they agreed with the president's view of Mueller's probe of Russian election meddling and possible Trump campaign collusion in the 2016 presidential election. Forty-seven percent disagreed, while 3 percent were undecided, according to the survey. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the total sample results. Trump, who regularly decries the nearly 2-year-old Mueller probe as a politically motivated witch hunt, was quick to highlight the results of a survey that appeared to show the public on his side. Trump TWEET Wow! A Suffolk/USA Today Poll, just out, states, "50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Mueller's investigation is a Witch Hunt." Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out? But multiple polling experts took exception to the structure of the question. "I'm sorry to say this question violates three basic principles of questionnaire design," said Gary Langer, president of Langer Research Associates, which polls for ABC News and others. Langer said in an email to CNBC that the question is "triple-barreled" because it asks three things within a single question: whether the probe is a witch hunt; whether Trump has been subjected to more investigations than other presidents; and whether those probes have been lodged because of politics. "Answers to each can differ," Langer said. He added that asking respondents if they agree without asking if they disagree makes the question "unbalanced." And agree-disagree questions in general are "fundamentally biasing, because they lack the alternative proposition," Langer said. "In sum, it is a very good idea, in survey questions, to ask one thing at a time, and to do so in a balanced and neutral way," Langer said. In a statement to CNBC, a USA Today spokeswoman said: "USA TODAY and Suffolk University take seriously the framing of each question to ensure fairness and accuracy in response. We offer options that include 'undecided' or 'refused' for those who are unclear. Our reporting always specifies our methodology and with Suffolk University, we post the toplines and crosstabs to give transparency to the entirety of our polls." But other pollsters agreed with Langer. Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, tweeted his own gripes with the question. Murray TWEET 2. The unbalanced response option -- we have oodles of evidence that the number of positive responses goes up with the "agree" option is presented without explicitly presenting "disagree" as a choice as well. Veteran Democratic pollster Geoff Garin tweeted: "This is a badly written poll question, because it is asking two different things at the same time. Are respondents agreeing that the investigation is a witch hunt or that Trump is subjected to more investigations than other presidents?" David Paleologos, founding director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, responded to some of the criticism in an email to CNBC. "The statement links President Trump to his viewpoint on the investigation. If respondents were conflicted in any way, they opted for 'undecided' or 'refused,'" Paleologos said. The White House did not respond to CNBC's request for comment on the criticism of the survey question. Some prior polling on the witch hunt topic showed smaller proportions of Americans identifying with the president's rhetoric. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll from December found that 54 percent of those surveyed considered the Mueller probe to be a fair investigation, compared with 33 percent who saw it as a witch hunt. And an Economist/YouGov survey from May 2018 showed a 43 percent plurality of respondents viewing the probe a "legitimate investigation," versus 37 percent who thought it was a witch hunt. Strong majorities of Republicans in both of those polls called the probe a witch hunt. Micah Roberts, a Republican pollster for the CNBC All-America Economic Survey, told CNBC that the USA Today/Suffolk survey took the right tack by using Trump's exact language. But "if you were gonna pick nits on the question structure," Roberts said, "it's that it's asking two things that may not be exactly the same thing." "Basically it is what it is, and it makes perfect sense to repeat Trump's language and test that," Roberts added. "But the data is going to differ based on the questionnaire wording and what you use to define this term." USA Today did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., left, listens during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. Facebook shares had their worst day of the year on Monday, closing down 3.3 percent and extending last week's losses. The drop came after the company lost its chief product officer, Chris Cox, last week. Analysts at Needham downgraded the stock on Monday over growing concern that more top executives could follow the leads of Cox and Chris Daniels, the head of WhatsApp, who also resigned. Cox, one of the earliest Facebook employees and someone insiders called the "heart and soul of the company," left as CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to shift the company's focus towards private messaging instead of open posts on the News Feed. The stock dropped 2.5 percent on Friday and is down more than 13.3 percent over the past year. J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that the U.S. economy has essentially been split into those benefiting from thriving corporations and those who are left behind. "I don't want to be a tone deaf CEO; while the company is doing fine, it is absolutely obvious that a big chunk of [people] have been left behind," Dimon said. "Forty percent of Americans make less than $15 an hour. Forty percent of Americans can't afford a $400 bill, whether it's medical or fixing their car. Fifteen percent of Americans make minimum wages, 70,000 die from opioids" annually. "If you travel around to most neighborhoods where companies live, they're doing fine," Dimon said. "So we've kind of bifurcated the economy." Dimon was speaking at an event at the bank's New York headquarters to unveil a new $350 million program to boost job prospects for people in under-served communities. The J.P. Morgan chairman and CEO has frequently voiced concern about the declining labor force participation rate and the shortfalls of the educational system in preparing people for emerging roles. Making progress against these issues involves companies working with local organizations to provide skills outside of the university context, he said. "Companies have to be involved," Dimon said. "Businesses can bypass all these parts of society that have been suffering a little bit because they do it themselves. They have their own schools, their own training, their own everything." Dimon added that "we made a mistake by ignoring some of these things. If we don't [act], society is going to get worse, because these problems aren't aging well." The bank's new five year plan, announced Monday, includes $200 million to develop training programs for in-demand digital and technical roles and $125 million to boost collaboration between employers and the educational system. It also has $25 million to help spread labor market data and analysis to enable companies to focus on ways to lift people out of low-wage positions. "It's not about a college degree," said Dimon, who graduated from Tufts University and Harvard Business School. "Having gone I know just how worthless a college degree is sometimes." Dimon called the education system "broken" and said his bank stopped giving philanthropic dollars to colleges years ago. Instead, the company is focusing on community colleges and training programs. "Harvard and Princeton are not a philanthropy," Dimon said. "Helping these kids is." J.P. Morgan Chase is expanding a program designed to boost job prospects for people at risk of being shut out of the economy. The bank's new five year plan, announced Monday, includes $200 million to develop training programs for in-demand digital and technical roles and $125 million to boost collaboration between employers and the educational system. It also has $25 million to help spread labor market data and analysis that will help companies focus on ways to lift people out of low-wage positions. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has voiced concern about the declining labor force participation rate and the shortfalls of the educational system in preparing people for emerging roles. In 2013, the bank announced a $250 million commitment called New Skills at Work that was focused on people with a high school degree. The bank said it helped 150,000 people gain skills to compete for better-paying jobs. "The new world of work is about skills, not necessarily degrees," Dimon said in a statement. "Too many people are stuck in low-skill jobs that have no future and too many businesses cannot find the skilled workers they need. We must remove the stigma of a community college and career education, look for opportunities to upskill or reskill workers, and give those who have been left behind the chance to compete for well-paying careers today and tomorrow." The company will focus its efforts on education and job training programs that help women, people of color, veterans, among others, to prepare for roles in technology-related fields. Responding to calls for more bank services for low-income consumers, JPMorgan Chase on Monday began offering checkless accounts with access to its mobile app, branches and ATMs for $4.95 a month and no minimum balance. The accounts come with debit cards, digital payments and free check cashing, but do not allow overdrafts. Fees for overdrafts generated significant revenue for banks in the past. They have angered customers, brought down the wrath of politicians and discouraged people with low incomes from using banks. Thasunda Duckett, chief executive of Chase Consumer Banking, said she hoped the new accounts will attract more low-income individuals and people who have never had bank accounts. "The very first step in building financial health really starts with a bank account," Duckett said. The annual cost of $60 for the new accounts compares with charges of $200 to $500 a year at check cashing and money order services, she said. Some 6.5 percent of U.S. households had no one with a bank account in 2017, according to a study by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regulators have been pushing banks to do more to attract low-income customers. "Financial inclusion" has become a rallying cry for groups trying to help people out of poverty. JPMorgan's move comes after competitors Bank of America and Citigroup introduced similar accounts. The new accounts mark an expansion of low-cost services because JPMorgan has 16,000 ATMs and 5,000 U.S. branches, second only to Wells Fargo. Since 2012, JPMorgan has offered a prepaid debit card with many banking services for $4.95 a month. But customers said that card, called Liquid, came up short. It could not be used for Uber taxi rides and car rentals, for example. The new account, called Secure, offers those features. Financial technology startups, such as Chime and SoFi, offer accounts with large networks of ATMs and without monthly fees. Chase's fee, Duckett said, provides ATMs that accept checks and bankers to question in person. The accounts will make "some money," she said, but be less profitable than the bank's other businesses. Before the financial crisis, banks widely offered free checking, making money on overdrafts and merchant fees on debit cards. Post-crisis reforms slashed those fees and free accounts were cut back. Now that banks have built digital tools for better-off customers, the services can be extended to people with lower incomes. Kellyanne Conway, senior advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives on stage with U.S. President Donald Trump during the White House State Leadership Day conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018. At first, it looked like a package deal: Kellyanne Conway would join President Donald Trump's White House staff, her husband, George, the new administration's Justice Department. The former happened, but the latter did not. And now, in a Washington spectacle unseen since the wife of Richard Nixon's attorney general sounded alarms about Watergate, the spouse of a top presidential advisor is issuing urgent public warnings about Trump's mental health. As the Trump administration got underway, media reports placed George Conway in line to head the Justice Department's civil division. But then Trump rocked the agency by firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, and within weeks George Conway withdrew as a candidate to remain a private lawyer. Conway started publicly criticizing Trump days later. "Sad," he tweeted, invoking the familiar Trump lament, that the president had complicated the legal defense of his travel ban with impolitic comments. Soon afterward he sought to soften the impact. "I still 'VERY, VERY STRONGLY'" support Trump, he assured Twitter followers, "and of course, my wonderful wife." By the spring of 2018, Conway's tone had changed. After Trump called the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller unconstitutional, Conway wrote a Lawfare article rebutting that "meritless legal position." That summer, he ripped the president more sharply. As journalists scrutinized Trump's dubious assertions, White House disarray and diplomacy with Russia, Conway publicly mused about the fate of a business executive behaving similarly. "What if a CEO routinely made false and misleading statements about himself, the company, and results, and public attacked business partners, company 'divisions' (w/scare quotes!), employees, and analysts, and kowtowed to a dangerous competitor?" Conway tweeted. Kellyanne Conway bristles at questions about her husband's words as unrelated to her White House work. Trump accuses George Conway of seeking attention. Washington cynics dismiss his stance for a different reason. While she retains Trump's favor through unyielding public advocacy, they reason, he courts the president's foes with an eye toward life after the administration. But recent days make it more difficult to ignore the substance of what Conway says about the most powerful man in the world. Last week, Conway questioned Trump's mental fitness while excoriating him for false claims about federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson. "Have we ever seen this degree of brazen, pathological mendacity in American public life?" Conway tweeted. "Whether or not impeachment is in order, a serious inquiry needs to be made about this man's condition of mind." Over the weekend, the embattled president launched a scattershot volley of attacks against General Motors, "Radical Left Democrats," "the Fake News Media" and the late GOP Sen. John McCain. Trump retweeted mugshots, circulated by a well-known conspiracy theorist, of MS-13 gang members facing murder charges. "His condition is getting worse," Conway tweeted. GEORGE CONWAY TWEET Monday he got more specific. Conway circulated medical criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. "Don't assume that the things he says and does are part of a rational plan or strategy, because they seldom are," Conway tweeted. "Consider them as a product of his pathologies, and they make perfect sense." Others have raised such concerns. In his unsuccessful 2016 GOP presidential campaign, Sen. Ted Cruz called Trump an "utterly amoral pathological liar." Some mental health professionals that year publicly called Trump psychologically unwell. After Comey's firing, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein mentioned the Constitution's 25th Amendment outlining procedures for removing a president on grounds of incapacity, according to former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Rosenstein later said publicly he doesn't believe any basis exists for invoking the 25th Amendment and never advocated that. Conway on Monday raised the issue anew. "All Americans should be thinking seriously now about Trump's mental condition and psychological state, including and especially the media, Congress and the Vice President and Cabinet," Conway tweeted. If his wife thinks seriously about it, she doesn't show it. "No, I don't share those concerns," Kellyanne Conway told reporters at the White House on Monday. The four hottest years on record were 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to government institutions including NOAA and NASA. Getty Images Climate change questions don't get more fundamental than this one: How much time is left to act before it is too late? Right now the difficulty of answering that question is showing up in a place where many individuals are heavily invested in getting the answer right: The index funds responsible for meeting millions of Americans personal financial goals, from saving for a house, to a child's education, and a secure retirement. Before he died, Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle said one of the biggest issues the index fund would face in the future is its societal influence. Specifically, he meant the need to vote proxies on complex issues such as sustainability at annual meetings held by every publicly traded company and on behalf of so many individual fund shareholders. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, and Vanguard Group, the creator of the index fund, manage more than $11 trillion combined. Just in ETFs, they manage roughly $2.5 trillion. And their market influence continues to grow: Vanguard has attracted roughly $1 trillion in the past three years alone. "Larger mutual funds companies, like Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors, can move the market," said Mindy Lubber, CEO and president of Ceres, a nonprofit organization that works with big investors and companies on sustainability. "They can take a shareholder resolution from 10 percent to 40 percent." In 2017 both companies voted to require ExxonMobil to produce a report on climate change, a watershed moment showing what can occur when index funds punch their weight in proxy voting. Yet shareholder advocates say there have not been nearly enough of those ExxonMobil vote moments. Big funds in the bottom quartile A data analysis released by Ceres in early March shows that when BlackRock and Vanguard are measured on their up-or-down votes on climate change resolutions at stockholder annual meetings, they have among the worst voting records in the fund industry. Rob Berridge, director of shareholder engagement at Ceres, said when the group ran the numbers on 2018 proxy voting, there was plenty of reason for encouragement, just not among the biggest fund companies. "The overall trends are positive," Berridge said. "More firms are above 50 percent for resolutions. "The surprise is that the biggest firms aren't among those above 50 percent," he added. "Index funds are the ultimate long-term diversified investors, and it is in their interest to ask companies to address climate. "They need ExxonMobil to be in business in 50 years." Many are not even close to the 50 percent mark. Among 48 large fund companies that Ceres included in its review of up-or-down votes on climate-related shareholder proposals, Vanguard finished 42nd (voting for climate proposals 12 percent of the time), and BlackRock finished 43rd (voting in favor of these resolutions 10 percent of the time). T. Rowe Price Group, Putnam Investments and financial advisor favorite Dimensional Fund Advisors were all below BlackRock and Vanguard. "It is unfortunate that the biggest firms are at the bottom of the list," Lubber said. "When they vote proxies, as they did on Exxon, the votes changed substantially and the conversations do get started, at least." Fund companies say proxy votes aren't everything The fund companies can't argue with the data, but they do argue with placing all the importance on proxy votes. Both BlackRock and Vanguard are among the companies with corporate stewardship departments that focus on engagement with corporations on issues from climate change to executive pay and human rights. A Vanguard spokeswoman said that its Investment Stewardship team views voting proxies as one piece of a broader engagement strategy that also includes discussion with company boards and management and advocating on behalf of all shareholders. "A vote against a shareholder proposal does not always indicate we disagree with the broader issue. ... As near-permanent investors intently focused on the long term, we engage with companies over the course of years, not weeks or months." Vanguard pointed to its Investment Stewardship report, which listed engagements with more than 700 portfolio companies, 200 of which are involved in carbon-intensive industries. BlackRock declined to comment, referring questions to its published materials, which include its approach to corporate stewardship, its most recent stewardship annual report discussing climate change and a full voting history that includes a list of companies with which it engages. But here's the problem: Disclosure of a proxy vote is black and white; disclosure of ongoing engagement is not. Shareholder advocates say these lists may be long in the number of companies engaged, but fund shareholders don't know who specifically was engaged at the companies and what policy changes were offered as a result of the fund companies' efforts. Wide gap in progress between big funds over three years Jackie Cook, a specialist in corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure analysis and founder of FundVotes, which was acquired last year by Morningstar, said the "engagement first, voting later" rationale doesn't add up, because there is no reason why these companies can't do both. And the engagements suffer from a lack of transparency. "There is no standard disclosure structure," Cook said. "No one shows any granularity to the engagement. ... We want more transparency from the fund managers." A broad data set that Cook has compiled over the past three years the Ceres report is based on her analysis but uses a more narrow definition for climate-related proposals shows that in 2016 neither Vanguard nor BlackRock voted in favor of any climate change proposal. In 2017 they voted in favor of 4 percent. State Street Global Advisors, by contrast, voted for 38 percent of climate proposals in 2016 and 45 percent last year. Fidelity Investments went from voting in favor of no climate change proposals in 2016 to voting in favor of 45 percent last year. The fund companies counter with what amounts to a catch-22: They can't talk more openly about their engagement, because the nature of engagement precludes them from doing so. "We believe that Vanguard and portfolio companies need to have candid, direct dialogue, so we don't publicly disclose specific details about particular engagements," the Vanguard spokeswoman said. A report Cook published for Morningstar last Friday found something else disappointing. Socially responsible funds specifically created by these managers to target issues such as climate change don't always vote in support of climate resolutions, either. The BlackRock Impact U.S. Equity (BIRAX) voted against three greenhouse-gas and climate change shareholder proposals in 2018, including two that called for greater greenhouse-gas disclosure from oil and gas companies Chevron and Range Resources. The FundVotes' analysis found that environmental, social and governance funds from Vanguard, Fidelity Investments and TIAA-CREF, among others, cast a number of votes that seemingly conflict with an ESG mandate, including funds specifically aimed at the environment. "The main reason to have oil and gas companies in an 'impact fund' should be to improve the climate-related performance. ... Proxy voting is an obvious, simple way to do that," Berridge said. Funds do need to go beyond proxy voting and engage with these companies as part of their impact investing mandate, but he said, "Voting in conflict with an ESG mandate should raise red flags, above and beyond the red flags associated with not voting for these resolutions in a non-ESG fund." The first climate change bankruptcy Tim Smith, director of ESG shareowner engagement at Walden Asset Management, which has specialized in socially responsible investing and shareholder advocacy for decades, said there is a disconnect between BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's words on corporate stewardship and his firm's actions. "Larry talks about being deeply concerned and how he understands climate change, but the voting record is still backward-looking. They can argue they are engaging with management, but you don't end up voting only 10 percent of the time against management when you are engaging with this." Another thing that BlackRock and Vanguard have not done, even as they point to weakness in shareholder proposals as a reason for voting against them: offer their own shareholder proposals on issues such as climate change. They still need to up their game, because the situation is urgent. We don't have a calm five- year waiting period. Tim Smith Walden Asset Management Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan could take his time deciding whether to challenge President Donald Trump in a Republican primary next year. Hogan may not make up his mind on running for president until the fall, The Washington Post reported Monday. He wants to see whether GOP voters push for an alternative and what special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation reveals about the president. The former FBI director is wrapping up his probe into Moscow's efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin. Mueller is also looking into whether Trump obstructed justice. In an interview with the Post, Hogan stressed that he does not want to give "the impression that [he's] sitting here like this vulture waiting for some bad news." A Hogan spokeswoman did not immediately respond to CNBC's request to comment. A sitting president rarely faces a primary challenger. But Trump, who is relatively unpopular among voters, has sparked concerns within the GOP about his policies and his temperament. Already, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld has declared his candidacy. Both Hogan and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich have set themselves up as potential challengers. The question is whether Republicans want an alternative to Trump. Only 37 percent of GOP primary voters said they want to see another Republican challenge Trump, versus 59 percent who do not want another candidate in the primary, according to a late February NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Hogan, 62, won a second term leading the blue state in November by about a 12-point margin. He carried Maryland even as Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin won re-election by more than 30 percentage points. In the Post interview, Hogan billed himself as a traditional Republican with a more centrist bent. In an interview with CNBC last month, he said he disagreed with the national emergency Trump declared to divert federal money toward building a border wall. "I thought the entire thing was mishandled from the beginning, but the most recent iteration of this declaration of emergency is a mistake. It's not what the Constitution had in mind," he said. Read the full Post story here. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Floral tributes near Al Noor mosque in Christchurch on March 18, 2019, four days after 50 worshippers were killed in two mosques attacks, the worst on Muslims in a Western country. David Moir | AFP | Getty Images New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days, after 50 people were killed in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. "Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer," Ardern said at news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealand's worst ever mass shooting. In addition to the 50 killed, dozens were wounded at two mosques in the South Island city during Friday prayers. The owner of a New Zealand gun store the man charged with murder in the mosque shootings had bought firearms and ammunition online from the store, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the massacre. Gun City owner David Tipple said the alleged gunman bought four weapons and ammunition between December 2017 and March 2018. "The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms," Tipple told a news conference in Christchurch. The Gun City store is seen on the outskirts of Christchurch on March 18, 2019. Marty Melville | AFP | Getty Images Under New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. Video of a gunman in one mosque showed a semi-automatic with a large magazine round. Tipple said the online purchases followed a police-verified online mail-order process and A-category firearms were bought in three or four purchases. "We detected nothing extraordinary about the licence holder. He was a brand new purchaser, with a brand new licence," he said. The shock of the attacks has led to calls for an immediate tightening of laws to restrict access to some firearms, particularly semi-automatic weapons. Tipple said he supported Ardern's call for gun law reforms as the Christchurch shootings had raised legitimate concerns. New Zealand, a country of only 5 million people, has an estimated 1.5 million firearms. The minimum age for a gun license is 16, and 18 to own a semi-automatic weapon. A Radio New Zealand report, based on police data secured through an Official Information Act request, said more than 99 percent of people who applied for a firearms licence in 2017 were successful. A New Zealand standard A-category firearm licence is issued after a police and background check. No licence is required to buy a large round magazine, which can be illegally modified for use in such a weapon. Only firearm owners are licensed, not weapons, so there is no monitoring of how many weapons a person may possess. New Zealand's top online marketplace Trade Me Group said it was halting the sale of semi-automatic weapons in the wake of Friday's attack. Burial frustrations The 14-nation OPEC and a group of countries led by Russia launched a second round of production cuts in January after a glut of oil hit the market and crude prices collapsed at the end of 2018. The group began slashing production in 2017 but lifted supply caps last June as oil prices rose toward nearly four-year highs and the U.S. prepared to sanction Iran, then OPEC's third biggest producer. The group is delaying its decision because it expects the oil market to remain oversupplied through the first half of the year, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said at a committee meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. The delay also allows the producers to assess how U.S. sanctions on OPEC-members Iran and Venezuela will affect the oil market in the coming months, several news agencies reported. OPEC and other major oil producers on Monday canceled a meeting planned for April, leaving the alliance's price-boosting production cuts in place until at least June. When they agreed to the new production cuts in December, the so-called OPEC+ alliance said it would assess the oil market in April, two months ahead of OPEC's usual meeting in June. But on Monday, a committee tasked with monitoring the deal said "market fundamentals are unlikely to materially change in the next two months." The Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee said it will next meet in May, with the full group convening on June 25 to decide whether to extend the output cuts through the end of 2019. The latest round of cuts have helped boost oil prices from 18-month lows this year. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude has rallied 29 percent to more than $58 a barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude is up 25 percent to about $67 a barrel. OPEC and its allies are aiming to keep 1.2 million barrels per day off the market, but some producers are still pumping above their quotas, including Russia, the world's second biggest oil producer. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told CNBC on Sunday that Russia will hit its target in coming weeks. He said it is premature to to discuss whether the group should continue capping output beyond June. Falih said Monday he does not expect OPEC to leave the oil market "unguided in the second half," Dow Jones reported. Last month, the Saudi oil minister told CNBC he was leaning toward extending the production cuts through the end of the year. Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, says the group is likely to continue cutting production throughout 2019. However, extending the cuts will highlight divisions between Russia, where partly private companies produce oil, and OPEC members like Saudi Arabia, where state-owned energy companies underwrite the nation's budget. "The Russian corporates hate shutting in production. They benefit from volume. The state takes the upside of higher prices, so for them, they don't like the agreement," she told CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange" on Monday. "But for Saudi Arabia and for the rest of the OPEC producers, current prices still remain below their fiscal breakevens, so they would like to see prices a bit higher from here." GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy's office in Los Angeles was raided last July by federal investigators looking for records detailing his dealings with "Trump administration associates" and and foreign officials, according to a new report Monday. ProPublica, in its article about the raid, said that the sealed search warrant for Broidy's office listed three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering, and covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials. The report said that federal agents were authorized in that warrant to use Broidy's face and hands if needed to unlock phones that require either fingerprint or facial scans. The California businessman until last year was deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee, and had served as finance vice chairman of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and inaugural committee. ProPublica reported that the search warrant indicates that investigators are eyeing Broidy's alleged work on behalf of Jho Low, a fugitive Malaysian financier who is believed to have masterminded the looting of billions of dollars from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. And the article said investigators also intended to seize records from Broidy related to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as documents related to Chinese dissident businessman Guo Wengui. The New York Times reported in November, along with the Washington Post, that Broidy matches the description of a person identified as Individual No. 1 in court filings by federal prosecutors as someone who took part in a lobbying effort to have the Trump administration terminate a probe into the alleged theft from 1MDB. Lawyers for Broidy had no immediate comment when contacted by CNBC. One of those lawyers, Chris Clark, last year told The Washington Post that, "Elliott Broidy has never agreed to work for, been retained by nor been compensated by any foreign government for any interaction with the United States Government, ever. Any implication to the contrary is a lie." Broidy pleaded guilty in 2009 to a felony, rewarding official misconduct, for having given almost $1 million in gifts to state officials as part of an effort to win $250 million in pension fund investments by New York State in his firm. That charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor Broidy cooperated with investigators. He resigned as a top fundraiser at the RNC in April 2018 after revelations that he had, through a deal worked out by Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, agreed to pay a Playboy model to keep quiet about his extramarital affair with her. Read the full ProPublica story here. Police forces stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, on March 18, 2019 where a shooting took place. A suspect has been arrested in a shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht that left at least 3 people dead, according to authorities. Dutch security forces were hunting for a 37-year-old Turkish man suspected of having shot several people on a tram Monday, in what authorities said appeared to be a terrorist attack. The Mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, has since claimed that three people have been killed with nine more injured. Authorities raised the terrorism threat to its highest level in Utrecht province, schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports and other vital infrastructure, and also at mosques. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks, saying he was deeply concerned about the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. "The police asks you to watch out for 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis (born in Turkey) in connection with this morning's incident," Dutch police said in a statement. They issued an image of the man and warned the public not to approach him. They gave no further details. Tweet Earlier, the head of Dutch counter-terrorism said shots had been fired at several locations, without elaborating. Counter-terrorism units surrounded a house in Utrecht, Dutch television showed, but no one appeared to have been arrested. "A lot is still unclear at this point and local authorities are working hard to establish all the facts. What we already know is that a culprit is at large," Counter-Terrorism Agency head Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg told a news conference. Aalbersberg, who said the shooting "appears to be a terrorist attack", declined to comment on the number of injured or on their condition and did not confirm any deaths. To be sure, temporary or not, the tax breaks have been a boon for small businesses. The National Federation of Independent Business said at least 10 percent of small business owners have ranked taxes as their most important problem nearly every month since 1973 when the group began polling Main Street. But now, in the midst of the first tax season since the law went effect, Main Street advocates are cheering parts of the overhaul but are also arguing that the law didn't go far enough. Tax breaks enacted to help small businesses aren't permanent, and that's made it difficult for business owners to make long-term decisions. Some would like to see Congress move to make temporary tax breaks permanent. And Pol's not alone. Taxes have long been a sore spot for small businesses, which is one of the reasons optimism soared as President Donald Trump took office and began the process of overhauling the law. Pol said she also utilized Section 179 expensing to write off a major purchase of new semitrailers six in all, totaling $1 million. Taxes were often a top issue prior to reform, she said. "We're estimating around up to $40,000," Pol said. "By utilizing that, we gave our employees raises, knowing that was going to help us for taxes this year." The entrepreneur runs four small companies across Iowa, including Mowbility Sales & Service, which sells agricultural equipment, and Geetings Inc., a trucking and warehousing business. Pol said she saw a drop in her overall tax burden this year thanks to the qualified business deduction, a change made to the individual tax code, available for pass-through entities . Her savings look substantial. In the wake of the new law, however, taxes have not taken the top spot since December 2017, being outweighed by concerned about skilled labor and government red tape. Views on the benefits of tax reform have also waned somewhat, despite the boost it's given to sentiment, according to data from CNBC and SurveyMonkey. In the first quarter of 2018, 46 percent of small business owners said that government tax policy would have a positive effect on their business over the next year. By the fourth quarter, that number fell to 31 percent the lowest recorded in the two years since polling began. The qualified business deduction of 20 percent that Pol and other pass-through businesses used to lower their tax bill this year expires in 2025, unless Congress acts to make this permanent. The deduction is capped at the first $157,000 for individual filers and $315,000 for joint filers and is limited to certain types of businesses over that threshold. Corporations also got a permanent 21 percent tax rate, while the owners of pass-through businesses could face rates of up to 29.6 percent so the parity between big and small businesses that small business groups have long fought for did not exactly come to fruition. "We got some groundwork laid for parity for small companies but didn't actually get there. So big corporations that make millions of dollars are actually seeing their tax rates at a lower level than many small businesses that are pass-throughs," said Todd McCracken, president and CEO of the National Small Business Association. "And we don't think that's fair. We want permanence that's been our mantra since the beginning simplify, bring us parity and give us some level of stability and permanence." And for that reason, Pol admits that while her optimism is high now, she has concerns about the future. She recently expanded one of her businesses with a new 40,000-square-foot warehouse and said business in the area is strong. But planning is tough without permanent tax cuts in fact she recently went to testify on Capitol Hill on behalf of the NFIB on the positive impact of the new law on her business. While there, Pol also urged Congress to make the provisions she and other businesses benefited from a permanent part of the tax code. "Business in this area seems to really be booming. Down the line, what I am hearing and seeing, is that people are getting a little concerned because of the provisions not being permanent. I think there's great optimism for at least the next two, three years here. And after that, I think people will start getting a little more concerned," Pol said. The U.K. Parliament speaker John Bercow has warned Theresa May's government that it should not bring a replica of its proposed Brexit "Withdrawal Deal" back to lawmakers for a third vote. In a statement to Parliament, the speaker of the House of Commons said the first two votes had substantial enough differences to merit lawmakers voting on both. It was expected that a third vote on the PM's "Withdrawal Deal" would take place in the House of Commons on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. The two previous votes saw May's draft proposal defeated by a record margin of 230 at the first attempt and then 149 votes in the second. Bercow said the government could not "legitimately resubmit" a third proposition that matched the first two. The intervention will be seen as yet another obstacle to the U.K. government who are hoping to pass their deal by banking that lawmakers will change their vote, rather than risk any long delay to Britain's departure. Sterling dipped slightly following the statement. The Juno Inc. and Gett Inc. applications are displayed on an Apple iPhone. The boss of ride-hailing firm Gett said Monday that he plans to publicly list the company at some point in 2019. Speaking to the Financial Times Monday, founder and chief executive Dave Waiser said the initial public offering (IPO) would take place on either the London Stock Exchange or in Israel. Waiser said the expected listing of rival taxi firm Lyft would be instructive for Gett's strategy to raise public cash. "We will see how Lyft goes, we believe there's a lot of public capital waiting for the [technology] darlings [Uber and Lyft], but we also believe that our business model makes sense," he said. Unlike Uber, Lyft and other app-based ride-hailing firms, Gett uses its technology to link passengers with traditional operators such as New York's yellow taxi firms or the black cabs of London. Corporate sales currently account for more than half of the firm's revenue. For more on this story please click here. The tail and a next generation winglet of a A Boeing 737 MAX 8 are pictured at Boeing Field after its its first flight on January 29, 2016 in Seattle, Washington. Stephen Brashear | Getty Images The U.S. Department of Transportation is scrutinizing the development Boeing planes involved in two recent fatal crashes, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The DOT inquiry was launched after a new Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Indonesia's Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea in October, according to the Journal, which cited people familiar with the inquiry. All 189 people aboard died. Five months later, on March 10, a second Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 157 people on the Ethiopian Airlines plane. Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said Sunday that preliminary data retrieved from the plane's flight data recorder showed "a clear similarity" with the Indonesian crash. The Journal reported in an update to the article that a grand jury in Washington issued a broad subpoena one day after the Ethiopian Airlines crash to at least one person involved in the development of the Boeing 737 Max. The subpoena, which reportedly involves a prosecutor from the Justice Department, was said to seek relevant documents, such as emails and other messages. It is not clear whether the probe by the Justice Department is related to the DOT's investigation, according to the Journal report. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment, sent outside U.S. office hours. WATCH: Why Airbus and Boeing dominate 99% of the large plane market WATCH: CNBC's full interview with FAA Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. This July 27, 2017, file photo shows a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wastewater treatment plant in the San Juan Mountains outside Silverton, Colo. Effects of a storm that struck the area Wednesday, March 13, 2019 were still being felt, as fluctuating electrical power knocked the plant offline Thursday night, and an avalanche blocked the access road to the facility. Joey Bunch: "Flip to almost any page [of 'When Women Vote'], and there's something you probably didn't know ... . It lays out the issues in simple language: fair maps, voter registration, ballot-delivery options and primary election reform among them. Women tend to be better collaborators, according to research." Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday. South Africa: SA urged to donate to Idai relief efforts International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has urged South Africans to make donations for flood relief in neighbouring countries battered by Tropical Cyclone Idai. Over the past week, parts of Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique were affected by the tropical cyclone that left trails of destruction while claiming tons of lives in its wake. In a statement issued on Sunday, Sisulu appealed to South African NGOs, companies and individuals to make donations towards humanitarian aid for the affected countries. According to reports, at least 100 people have lost their lives as a result of floods that have left 400 000 displaced and in urgent need of shelter, food and other amenities. The Minister has, on behalf of the people of South Africa, sent a message of condolence to the people of Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique and wished those in hospital speedy recovery, the department said. We have directed all our Embassies and Diplomats to continue to work with the three countries to assess the damage. We have this afternoon received reports from our Missions and our teams on the ground who are working with authorities. What is urgent now is the provision of humanitarian aid, Sisulu said in the statement. The department urged South Africans affected by the floods to contact the Embassies or call the 24-hour DIRCO call centre on 012 351 1000. Companies, NGOs and individuals who are able to assist are requested to contact: SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Manila (CNN Philippines Life) Senatorial aspirants Glenn Chong, Toti Casino, Lawin Arellano, and Richard Alfajora laid out their plans during CNN Philippines fifth senatorial forum. Chong is a lawyer and former Biliran representative who is running under the Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP). Casino, who was a former consultant for the Commission on Elections, is also part of the KDP slate. Both are advocating for reforms on the electoral system. Arellano is the founder of the labor activist group, Kilusang Mayo Uno. He is part of the Katipunan ng Kamalayang Kayumanggi party (Katipunan) and is seeking a senate seat to junk contractualization and to ensure equitable distribution of wealth. Meanwhile, Alfajora, another Katipunan candidate, aims to redistribute the coco levy fund and to focus efforts on rural farming and growth. They were asked about their stance on the most recent issues that have been plaguing the country in the recent weeks, such as the withdrawal of the Philippines from the International Criminal Court and the release of a so-called narco-list with names of politicians. The senatorial bets were also asked about arguably the most pressing concern that has directly hit the day-to-day lives of Filipinos at the moment, the water crisis. Photo by JL JAVIER Arellano highlights that the crisis mirrors the lack of proper state governance of our public utilities. Ang problema ay ang tubig ay kontrolado ng mga malalaking namumuhunan at ang unang inaasikaso ay yung puhunan nila, he says. Kaya sa senado, aking imumungkahi na lahat ng mga korporasyon at kumpanya na gumagawa at nagdidistribute ng basic needs ay dapat isasapubliko gaya ng dati. Casino agrees. Sa simula pa lang mali na ang polisiya na i-privatize ang serbisyong pampubliko, he adds. Ibalik na ang kontrol sa pamahalaan at dagdagan natin ang ating mga dam. Chong, on the other hand, says that should he be elected senator, he deems it best to do an investigation and an in-depth research first as to whether privatization or nationalization is the answer before jumping into conclusions on what to do. Photo by JL JAVIER Alfajora echoes that an investigation is important. Gagawa tayo ng imbestigasyon [sa] buong bansa kung bakit yung water resource natin [nagkukulang], he says. Kahit ilang cooperatives ngayon naghihirap na. Kasi doon sa countryside cooperatives yung distributor so we need the oversight function [of the Senate] para mapag-aralan yun ng maigi. Prior to the discussions, CNN Philippines Life asked Chong, Arellano, Alfajora, and Casino a few rapid fire questions. The four do have very specific, individual advocacies but they also have similar causes that they want to champion, such as correcting electoral systems and serving the underprivileged. Photo by JL JAVIER Richard Alfajora The first thing Ill do if I win the elections is to pass a legislation like changing the voting technology from a counting machine to voting machine, with features on non-rewritable memory, automatic transmittal of votes, and e-balloting. I knew I was called to become a public servant when I understood Gods calling. [It was also] when I [was] attuned to [sa] hinaning [ng] taong bayan. The first bill I will file if elected is yung voting machine [at] pangalawa, yung integration of the tanod to the PNP para yung mga barangay captain, hindi na hahawak sa mga tanod [kasi] yun ang dahilan kung bakit meron tayong barangay captain na drug protector. Pag PNP na ang may hawak sa mga tanod natin, magiging totoo na auxiliary police [sila]. At marami naman iyong benipisyo, training, at para maganda na ang qualifications ng ating mga tanod. I want to become a senator because dala ko ang hinaing ng taong bayan, yung kahirapan doon sa countryside, sa rural areas, yung mga farmers, yung mga workers, yung mga magniniyog, yung mga doon sa sakahan palay, sakahan ng mais kasi ang ating pamahalaan ngayon lalo na yung mga congressman at iilang mga senator natin hindi tumututok sa problema ng taong bayan sa countryside. A principle that I always live by is integrity of being human, respect to my fellow human, and all living in the planet earth. Photo by JL JAVIER Lawin Arellano The first thing Ill do if I win the elections is equitable distribution of wealth. I knew I was called to become a public servant when earlier this year and after fifty years of [being a] civilian. The first bill I will file if elected is a bill that will reduce inequality. I want to become a senator because I want to serve the people, the underprivileged. A principle that I always live by is sincerity, honest, and integrity. Photo by JL JAVIER Toti Casino The first thing Ill do if I win the elections is get a hearing on the joint oversight Committee and question about the fraud in 2010, 2013, 2016 electoral Smartmatic Comelec. I knew I was called to become a public servant when I was invited, nominated, and they told me the partys political agenda which is to stop electoral fraud, oust Smartmatic, [address] the Devangxia scam, and dismantle the control of the oligarchs of public utilities particularly in electricity. The first bill I will file if elected is reform the election automation law and obviously, to suspend the EPIRA [Electric Power Industry Reform Act] law and then strengthen the renewable energy resources. I want to become a senator because theres much to be done in this country and its sad that after 33 years of the new constitution, were trailing behind from neighboring countries, and theres much we can do as a nation. A principle that I always live by is do what you can do for the good of men. Sacrifice yourself provided you leave something behind for the betterment of their lives. Photo by JL JAVIER Glenn Chong The first thing Ill do if I win the elections is investigate Smartmatic, kick it out, and replace it with a hybrid election systemy. I knew I was called to become a public servant when I first ran for public office in 2007. The first bill I will file if elected is reform the election system. I want to become a senator because I really want to improve the lives of our people. A principle that I always live by is if you cannot be trusted with small things, then you cannot be trusted with bigger things. For Assyrians Who Fled Iraq, New Zealand Attacks Brought Back Memories AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- The St. Addai Chaldean Catholic community in suburban Auckland felt the impact of the Christchurch mosque killings with a special poignancy, because many members have experienced the sufferings inflicted by terrorism. "There is a lady in my community -- they beheaded her son in front of her," Chaldean Father Douglas Al-Bazi told NZ Catholic. "Another man, they killed his parents in front of him." Father Al-Bazi, who was kidnapped for nine days by Islamic militants in 2006 in Iraq, suffering serious injuries -- including being shot in the leg by an assailant wielding an AK-47 -- said that when he heard of the events in Christchurch, he was "really angry." "There were thousands of questions in my head, and also for my people," he said. He said he told his parishioners that "we fully understand as Iraqi people, especially Christian, we really understand" the pain, "because we are survivors of genocide, systematic genocide." "I am still shocked, me and my people, how this could happen here in New Zealand," he added. Father Al-Bazi said people at his church have said they are scared in the wake of the events in Christchurch, fearful of revenge attacks. "I told them, no, this is not the time to be scared. It is the time to be united. So, show your happiness, show we are brave, and we have to tell the people how to be calm. Because already, we have had that experience. So, we have to guide people to tell them." Parishioners placed a floral tribute with a message of support in Arabic outside a local mosque the day after the shootings. Father Al-Bazi said most of his community came to New Zealand seeking a safe place, and the violence that happened in Christchurch is unacceptable. "I don't know what we can do for those survivors, for those relatives, the only thing we can do is pray for them and say, 'This is not New Zealand.'" At the end of Mass March 18, everyone at St. Addai Church sang the national anthem, "God Defend New Zealand" in Maori and in English. Police were stationed outside the church and told Father Al-Bazi, "It is for your protection." The priest said he asked the officers to park a little down the road, so as not to alarm Massgoers. Otto is editor of NZ Catholic. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form Microsofts cloud storage, OneDrive, can back up your files online. Its built into Windows 10. With it you can sync files on your Windows 10 PC to the cloud and to your other Windows PCs, your smartphone or tablet (with the OneDrive app for Android, iOS, or iPadOS installed), and even your Mac (via the OneDrive Mac app). Its handy for collaboration, too. You can share files or folders in your OneDrive with anyone by sending them a web link to it. If its a Microsoft Office file, then you and others can collaborate on it with the web app versions of Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Anyone with a Microsoft 365 subscription can also use the desktop versions of these Office apps to work together on the file. Here are the essentials for using Microsoft OneDrive on a PC. While these instructions focus on using OneDrive through Windows 10s built-in File Explorer, OneDrive integrates similarly with Finder in macOS. Lets get started When you sign in to your Windows 10 PC with a Microsoft user account, OneDrive is already activated by default. (If your company uses Outlook or you have a free account on Outlook.com, then you already have a Microsoft user account. If not, you can sign up for one for free.) Meet the Mini Maestro: 13-year-old winner of US reality show The Worlds Best Lydian Nadhaswaram, a 13-year-old Indian pianist from Chennai, emerged as the final winner in the American reality show The Worlds Best. He beat South Koreas Kukkiwon, a.k.a. The Flying Taekwondo Masters to secure the victory. The Mini Maestro, won millions of hearts and a whopping USD1 million (about INR7 crore) top prize on the CBS global talent show.The Mini Maestro, won millions of hearts and a whopping USD1 million (about INR7 crore) top prize on the CBS global talent show. Photo courtesy: Instagram/lydiannadhaswaramofficial The Mini Maestro, won millions of hearts and a whopping USD1 million (about INR7 crore) top prize on the CBS global talent show. The musical prodigy from India impressed the judges as well as the audience by performing two piano medleys in the finals. He stunned everyone at the contest by playing 280 beats per minute. He then increased his speed to 325 beats per minute. And the smile says it all. Photo courtesy: Instagram/lydiannadhaswaramofficial The Chennai star spent four years at the 'Mozart of Madras' AR Rahmans KM Music Conservatory and is now tutored by his father Varshan Satish, who is a music director by profession. Apart from 50 other judges, the show was judged by Faith Hill, RuPaul Charles and Drew Barrymore. The Chennai star spent four years at the 'Mozart of Madras' AR Rahmans KM Music Conservatory. Photo courtesy: Instagram/lydiannadhaswaramofficial After his great win, Music maestro AR Rahman took to his social media handle and lauded him. "I have been playing the Piano for four years. I got inspiration from my sister, who plays the piano and my father, who plays keyboards. I'm happy that I won this prize," Lydian was quoted as saying. KM Music Conservatory hosted a special function last week to honour Lydians achievements. Rahman even addressed Lydian as Indias music ambassador. A dream educational center for music that came true with the collective effort of so many people. It's been over a decade since the emergence of KM Music Conservatory & the journey has been beyond beautiful. Thank you... https://t.co/K6W1yvrJ3A A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) March 15, 2019 Lydian also featured on the Ellen DeGeneres show last week where he performed Mozart's 'Turkish March' blindfolded. Lydian is only 13 years old, and he can play Mozart blindfolded. Im 61 and I cant spell Mozart blindfolded, Ellen mentioned in a Facebook post. NTU launches new programmes to help students deepen industry exposure Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) will be launching six new SkillsFuture Work-Study Degree Programmes for undergraduates who want a deeper understanding of an industrys inner workings. A new minor programme focusing on youth-related issues will be offered, NTU said in a press statement on March 14. It will help student teachers understand issues plaguing at-risk youths and guide them in their personal development. There will also be six new engineering specialisations rolled out to ensure NTU programmes continue to meet changing industry needs brought about by the fourth industrial revolution. Photo courtesy: NTU "By collaborating with renowned industry partners, NTU is able to combine classroom learning with structured on-the-job training to equip students with the essential skills required to move into the workplace with confidence," said NTU Provost and Vice President (Academic) Professor Ling San. "This integration is paramount with the onset of Industry 4.0, and will greatly enhance our students employment opportunities in highly competitive industries, while also meeting the sectors high demand for quality graduates. Deepening industry exposure To help graduates to be workplace-ready, NTU is ramping up its line-up of work-study opportunities. Six new SkillsFuture Work-Study Degree Programmes (WSDPs) will be launched through the introduction of an apprenticeship track for corresponding degree programmes. Students from Bachelor programmes in Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering (Design), Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and Maritime Studies can opt for the respective WSDPs. They will complete three mandatory internships 40 weeks in total and an industry-sponsored final year project within the four years of their undergraduate programme. Students pursuing a Bachelors degree in Business (Business Analytics) or a double degree in Accountancy and Business (Business Analytics) can choose to take up the WSDP by completing three mandatory internships totalling 36 weeks. Those pursuing the double degree can choose to do two more internships, totalling another 18 weeks. Companies today want to be assured that their new hires possess not just deep technical knowledge, but also passion and enthusiasm, as well as the ability to integrate into the organisation. Internships and attachments open such doors, and serve as a useful mechanism for attracting and selecting prospective employees, commented Prof Ling. Managing youth-at-risk NTU's new Minor in Youth Work and Guidance programme will allow undergraduates to gain an understanding of the psychological aspects of human development, as well as the psychosocial issues faced by youth in contemporary societies. Some topics covered include psychological disorders common in young adults such as eating and depressive disorders, and developmental issues in childhood and adolescence. Primarily designed for student teachers at NTUs National Institute of Education (NIE), the Minor programme is also open to all other NTU students, who can select courses under this programme as electives. New engineering specialisations to match industry demand In addition, new and existing bioengineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE) students will have six new engineering specialisations to choose from. They are: - Advanced Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, - Machine Learning and Data Analytics, - Intellectual Property for Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and - Intellectual Property for Bioengineering. Prospective and current electrical and electronic engineering (EEE) students may choose to specialise in Data Intelligence & Processing, which replaces and updates the existing Digital Media Processing specialisation. This new specialisation will provide training and knowledge in Singapores rapidly developing data intelligence and analytics industry, where the skills required are different from those used in traditional multimedia processing methods. Mechanical and aerospace engineering students can opt for the new Smart Manufacturing and Digital Factory specialisation, focusing on digital advances that are changing manufacturing technologies and capabilities. Industry 4.0 and its components are taught in the courses offered as part of this new specialisation. Singapore kids are the youngest to get internet device: Google survey A new Google study revealed that kids in Singapore are among the youngest in the world to go online. Released on Monday, March 18, the study noted that the average age at which a child in Singapore receives his or her first Internet-connected device is eight. This is two years younger than the global average, ChannelNewsAsia said in a report. With children getting early access to the Internet, both parents and teachers are more concerned about child safety online, said a Google press release. "They also recognise the importance of digital literacy skills in young children." Photo courtesy: unsplash.com However, 96 percent of the teachers in Singapore expressed that they dont feel equipped enough to teach children about digital literacy and safety effectively. This is despite Singapore having the highest percentage of teachers (37 percent) among the countries surveyed to have attended a training/seminar/workshop on online safety and digital citizenship in person, according to Google. In terms of educating kids regarding online safety, Singapore teachers are the most concerned about preventing cyberbullying. This is followed by privacy and how to protect their personal information, ChannelNewsAsia reported. On the other hand, parents tend to prioritise privacy and security. Cyberbullying was placed fourth in their priority list. The study also showed that only half the parents interviewed were satisfied with online safety education offered in schools. However, 76 percent of teachers felt that parents are not doing enough to keep their children safe on the internet. The survey was conducted last December with 400 parents who have at least one child under 18 living at home and 200 teachers who taught students between ages six and 18 in the past year. The online safety survey was also conducted with more than a dozen other countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia and India. Singapore will build a community of care, love and harmony: Masagos Singaporeans should look beyond race and religion in showing love and care to others, which can help prevent disastrous and violent acts like the terror attack in New Zealand from happening here, asserted Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs of Singapore Masagos Zulkifli. Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs of Singapore Masagos Zulkifli. Photo courtesy: Facebook page of Masagos The Minister was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a donation programme at the Tampines West Community Club. Masagos observed, We have to go beyond. We have to make sure our care and love is regardless of whatever creed or race we belong to. And in making that our habit and culture, we will build a community of care, love and harmony; and we will prevent such disastrous and violent acts from happening among us. The Minister was attending a donation drive christened Projek Ihsan which was organised to collect Hari Raya clothes and accessories for poor families. Work we are doing today for example - where the Muslim community gives away pre-loved items that they used in the last Hari Raya for everyone to benefit - is just the first step for them to show their care, he said. Different organisations have condemned the dastardly terror attacks on two mosques in Christchurch that killed 50 people. The National Council of Churches of Singapore said in a statement that the incident was a reminder to people of different religious and racial communities that they should get to know one another on a personal level. Jamiyah Singapore, a Muslim charity organisation said, The gunman deserves universal condemnation from all of us, whatever our race, nationality and religion. The regular occurrence of these hate crimes in recent times must jolt us to accept the reality that terrorism has no religion. May wins over some MPs, but still has a way to go The Prime Minister should make a dignified departure in return for her deal, McVey urges Daily Telegraph Fox warns colleagues that failure this week means a deeply unpopular delay The Times Senior SNP rebels urge ERG Tories to back the deal Daily Telegraph The Government pins its hopes on winning over the DUP FT Hammond says DUP talks are not about money (but it might just help) The Sun Dutch Prime Minister compares May to Monty Python knight who lost all his limbs but fought on Daily Telegraph The EU is war-gaming the fall of the Government The Guardian Theresa May secured the backing of some staunch Brexiteers for her deal after personally lobbying MPs but last night remained significantly short of the number she needs to win a vote this week. Esther McVey, the former work and pensions secretary who quit over Brexit, confirmed her support yesterday after hinting late last week that she could back the deal. Charlie Elphicke, a member of the European Research Group (ERG) and former whip, also suggested that he could vote for the deal but linked his support to Mrs May standing down before the next stage of EU negotiations. The Times Opinion Editorial Brexiteers must back the deal or risk losing Brexit itself The Sun Says The deal might be the better option Daily Telegraph Leader Remainers now have the upper hand The Guardian Leader >Today: Chloe Westleys column: The EU, the Commons and last weeks votes. The people should fire the MPs who wont follow their instructions. >Yesterday: Johnson: For me to support the deal, the Government would need to shift drastically The Government could now reassure its understandably doubtful MPs by answering some basic questions about the next phase of the negotiations. Has the UK decided to abandon the Chequers approach? Can the PM promise that we will not become unrepresented members of the customs union and large parts of the single market? Are we really going to take back control of our tariffs, with full rights to vary them independently of Brussels? Are we really going to be able to do proper free-trade deals? Are we going to have full rights to make our own laws, just like any other sovereign nation? Have we really jettisoned the ludicrous and unworkable dual tariff or hybrid scheme? Are we going to make any changes whatsoever to a UK negotiating team which has so obviously failed this country at every level? After almost three years of humiliation, has the UK discovered some basic courage and belief in an open, independent, outward-looking and free-trading Brexit? At present the answer to all those questions is a resounding no. We need some better answers and we need them this week. Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph >Today: ToryDiary: Enter or rather exit the Spartans Trimble and Bew argue that substantive changes now limit the backstop Cox has no legal basis to change his view Philippe Sands, The Guardian Corbyn refuses to deny he would vote Leave in a second referendum Daily Express Italy ignores Brussels and cosies up to China Daily Telegraph Former Northern Ireland first minister Lord Trimble has hinted changes secured with the EU have improved its chances of getting through the Commons. He said the Tory government had succeeded in securing substantive changes that will affect and limit the impact of the Irish backstop. The peer and historian Lord Bew said widespread war weariness could be another reason for the deal being more successful in its third vote. They wrote in a paper for the centre-right Policy Exchange think tank: Not a word of Mrs Mays Withdrawal Agreement of November 2018, so heavily defeated twice in Parliament, has been changed. But we are now closer to acceptance of the same agreement. A widespread war weariness on all sides is a significant factor. But the Government has succeeded in securing substantive changes that will affect and limit the impact of the Irish backstop, if it is ever put in place at the end of the transitional period. Daily Express >Today: George Eustice on Comment: The Brexit solution now? Not Norway Plus, but the EFTA pillar of the EEA. Patel lends her support to TPA proposals for reform to aid spending rules The former international development secretary Priti Patel has joined calls for a radical shake-up of the aid budget rules, in a further sign that overseas funding could be a key issue in any post-Brexit Tory leadership race. She follows the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson in making calls for broadening the definition of British overseas aid. Patel, who resigned after she broke ministerial rules in her relations with the Israeli government, will on Monday back a pamphlet from the pressure group the TaxPayers Alliance calling for the international development budget to be reformed, and for the UK alone to decide what constitutes aid, rather than international organisations. The Tory MP remains committed to the statutory target of UK aid being set at 0.7% of GDP, but calls for changes in what can constitute aid, tighter controls on UK aid spent by multilateral bodies and changes to the requirement that the target is reached in every calendar year. While foreign policy does not normally feature in British party leadership contests, this may change in the context of the growing Tory debate about the UKs international role post-Brexit. The Guardian The UK must always be a force for good in the world Stephen Twigg and Gillian Keegan, The Times Rudd: Royal Mails new pension model could change the way we all save for retirement The model is successful in the Netherlands Daily Express Universal Basic Income would cost the entire saving made through welfare reform The Guardian Thompson says the BBC should not pay for free licenses for over-75s FT Almost two-thirds of the UKs highest-paid people live in London or the South East The Guardian Concern that children in care whose parents are EU nationals could become undocumented The Guardian Abuse victims call for pardon to enable them to work The Times NHS plan to woo back retired and expat GPs The benefits of CDCs are clear. Members get more certainty in their retirement, with regular pay-outs from their scheme. And unlike traditional final salary pension schemes, those pay-outs arent affected if your employer goes under. However, there are also risks returns are dependent on the performance of investments, so some fluctuations are possible. Thats why we need to keep a close eye on the inaugural CDC scheme, before rolling out more widely. It has long been obvious to me that a seismic change such as this introducing a completely new type of pension to the marketplace had the potential to go much further than just Royal Mail. Amber Rudd, Daily Express The NHS is offering thousands of pounds to British GPs working abroad if they return home in a bid to tackle a major shortage of family doctors. NHS England will pay up to 18,500 in relocation support for UK-qualified GPs to come back to the health service. It is part of a scheme that also aims to bring hundreds of GPs out of retirement and career breaks. Doctors will be put on an induction and refresher placement in a GP practice to get their skills up to scratch and paid a bursary of 3,500 a month. They will then have up to four fully-funded attempts at passing a competency assessment, after which they can apply for any GP job and expect to earn an average salary of 70,000 a year. Nearly 800 GPs have already taken part in the scheme, but the NHS is relaunching it today in a bid to recruit hundreds more to help tackle the chronic shortage of doctors. The Government pledged in 2015 to hire 5,000 new GPs by 2020 as part of a five-year forward view for the profession. But the latest statistics show the NHS had the full-time equivalent of just 28,596 fully-qualified GPs working in England in December 2018 593 fewer than 12 months previously. Daily Mail A third of NHS boards ignore guidelines by accepting sponsorship from baby formula firms Daily Mail Im with Wolly Wonka and Rees-Mogg against the nanny state Jane Merrick, The Times Ban fast food ads? Fat chance. The Times Leader Might Corbyn manage to repeat his 2017 poll feat in a new election? Brexiteer Tories could back a Labour no confidence motion The Sun Labour frontbencher allegedly demands thousands for speaking engagements Daily Mail The left seems to have forgotten that communism was an environmental disaster Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail Venezuelas disaster leads to the destruction of a national park The Times Five years on from Russias annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin retains pariah status Daily Telegraph Leader Spies warn Russia intends to meddle with Euro elections The Times Former Putin adviser bore injury consistent with being strangled The Times What does looking through this historical lens tell us? Firstly, that there is little reason why we shouldnt expect Jeremy Corbyns ratings to improve from their current low base again. Its not particularly unusual for party leaders to see their ratings rise as we get closer to an election, and hes already shown in 2017 that he can be more successful than most in achieving this. However, the big question is whether he can do it again to the same extent as he did in 2017. Margaret Thatcher had a big positive swing in her favour in 1986-87, and Neil Kinnock did better in 92 than in 87, but even then of course he did not manage to overtake John Major. Which raises another final point: opposition leaders arent the only ones who see boosts in their leadership ratings during an election (especially if we take a longer-term view). Glen Gottfried, The Times >Yesterday: WATCH: Is Corbyn enthusiastic about a second referendum? Watch him dance round the question. Moore: Attempting to outlaw Islamophobia would be grievous error Like Christianity, but unlike Judaism, Islam is a proselytising religion. It seeks to convert the whole of humanity. Therefore again like Christianity it inevitably enters the world of controversy in which its beliefs and practices are challenged. Muslims believe, for example, that Jesus was not crucified, and some call Christians cross-worshippers. Christians believe that Mohammed is not the last and greatest prophet of God. They have different scriptures. They cant both be right, therefore they are bound to disagree. For both, their faith is, in principle, more important than life itself, so they will sometimes disagree passionately. Atheists think that both faiths are nonsense, so they want to argue too. None of this is phobic. It is fatal, in our modern, plural civilisation, to seek to prevent or punish these disagreements. The art is to take the sting out of them. Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph I wont debate with Islamophobes any more Nesrine Malik, The Guardian New Zealand plans reform to gun laws The Guardian Remember the heroes, not the attacker The Times Chinas shameful assault on its muslim minority The Guardian Leader Surrey knife attack declared terrorist incident inspired by the far right Muslim Council of Britain requests security funding for mosques The Guardian The New Zealand attack must spur the West to take on the far right threat The Times Leader Other arrests over alleged racist offences Daily Telegraph The destructive force of big tech must be take on Clare Foges, The Times News in Brief Counter-terror police are leading the investigation after maniac reportedly screaming Kill all Muslims stabbed a teenager in a Tesco car park in Stanwell, Surrey. A 50-year-old man was arrested and the incident was initially treated as attempted murder. But it was today upgraded to a terror investigation. It comes after 50 people were slaughtered in a horrific Far Right attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Surrey Police were called just before 10.30pm on Friday after residents saw a man wielding a long, shiny, metal weapon while acting aggressively and shouting racist comments. The Sun Matthew Barber is the Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner for the Thames Valley. He is currently the Deputy PCC for that area. The role of the police is changing and so is that of Police and Crime Commissioners. The police are expected to do more than ever, no longer just the thin blue line of law and order. The public, indeed other parts of the public sector, call on the police in times of crisis, because they expect them to deliver. It is nearly seven years since the first elections for PCCs in England and Wales and the role, that for many was controversial, has evolved over that time. PCCs must also deliver for the public. One of the most notable changes of the role is that the and crime element of the title is growing, with a wider remit for PCCs in the criminal justice system. Initially just a convening role, it looks certain that the Ministry of Justice will continue to push more in the direction of directly-elected commissioners even if the cash doesnt follow the responsibility. I am delighted to have been selected as the Conservative Partys candidate for the Thames Valley in 2020. As the incumbent Deputy for the past two years, I have already been able to get to grips with the often insular world of policing and to develop my own vision for the future. Key to that vision has to be raising the profile of PCCs. I would say reminding the public of the good that they can do, but reminding is the wrong word, most people have never been convinced in the first place. When the Coalition government introduced PCCs it did so against the will of the Lib Dems, conceding a poll in November and without first winning the argument for the need to change. The challenge is a big one, but no less important. Having spent sixteen years in local government, seven as a council leader, I am well aware of how important policing and community safety is to our communities. Feeling safe in your own community and in your own home is one of the most fundamental things if we want, to deliver quality of life for the public. PCCs are undoubtedly a force for good in delivering an effective and efficient police force that is responsive to the needs of the local community. Yet most people still arent sure what a PCC is for or why they need one. This must change. As the Partys candidate for Thames Valley, that is my main focus over the next 18 months. In a time of turbulent politics, where the domestic agenda rarely makes the headlines, it is more important than ever that politicians demonstrate their worth by showing what can be achieved in our communities. During the time I have been involved with the police, I have not met a single officer who does not see the need for the police to be scrutinised and held to account on behalf of the public; but they also deserve and expect to received the support of PCCs for the difficult and dangerous job they do. Every day our police officers put themselves at risk to protect the public and they welcome strong leadership and a clear vision. If successful next May, my first Police and Crime Plan for the Thames Valley will be a Police and Criminal Justice Plan, emphasising that the remit of the PCC reaches beyond just the police. My plan will be to strengthen local policing, ensuring the police are visible to prevent crime and protect our communities. Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock on which everything else is built. This is particularly important in rural communities who can feel particularly vulnerable. We must fight fraud and cyber crime and be prepared for the new threats the public face. There is much to be done in improving the criminal justice system, working with the CPS, courts, prison service and probation. We must fight serious organised crime, not just as a national priority, but because it is the cause of so much of the crime that affects our local communities. We need a better plan to tackle illegal encampments. This is a challenge that goes beyond law enforcement by the police, but it has a real impact on many people that cannot be ignored, as it cuts right to the core of public confidence in policing. Police and Crime Commissioners need to engage with the public they serve to gain an understanding, a real understanding of the publics concerns. There are many distractions in a time of reduced resources, and politicians and the police need to focus on the issues that really matter. An open and honest dialogue with residents about the challenges we face, the changing nature of crime, and a concentration on the core business of policing are all required. Policing is a complex business these days but it is worth remembering those Peelian Principles set out in 1829. The police force exists to prevent crime and disorder the public rightly expect everything the police do to contribute to that objective. PCCs can and are genuinely improving policing, community safety, and criminal justice across the country, but there is still a job of work to do in order to convey that message and demonstrate the value of directly elected accountability. Will Quince is MP for Colchester. The rail fares system is not fit for the modern era. The current system was established in the 1990s, and has been incrementally tinkered with ever since. Layer upon layer of further requirements have been added in new franchise agreements. The result is a system that leaves the public unsure as to whether they are getting the best value fare. Thats why last summer I was pleased to see the launch of the rail industrys Easier Fares consultation, and why I welcome the fact that the industry has now come forward with proposals for change. The consultation ran for three months and almost 20,000 people responded. Businesses, local authorities, community organisations and accessibility groups also contributed and unsurprisingly their verdict was clear eight out of ten people want the fares system to be reformed. The calls for change in the consultation responses are overwhelming: 88 per cent of people want changes to how tickets are sold; 74 per cent want flexible ticketing and 90 per cent want smart ticketing in their area, with the potential for price capping, to be considered. The rail users in my constituency rightly ask for value for money, fair pricing, simplicity, flexibility and assurances that they are getting the best value fare for their journey. In response, the rail industry has now launched their proposals Easier Fares for All setting out how updates to regulations will deliver the fares system that people have asked for. I welcome the fact that the industrys proposals address some of the points raised by me and my former colleagues on the Transport Select Committee in our rail inquiries, such as the need for flexible and smart ticketing, and making the most of technology including online accounts, smartcards, smartphones and better integration of rail fares with those for other modes of transport countrywide. To deliver these benefits, the industry is proposing simple changes. At their core is moving to a single-leg structure, which could allow customers to choose the most appropriate ticket for each leg of their journey in a way they are unable to today. To give you an example: thousands of my Colchester constituents are commuters: many work flexible office hours, sometimes three or four days a week in the office, and their outward and return journeys are not always at peak time. However, they buy a weekly season ticket which means they are paying the same as a five-day a week peak time commuter. With flexible ticketing and the option of a pay-as-you-go tap-in tap-out system, they would instead only pay for what they use. Importantly, the proposals could also help reduce overcrowding on peak times and attract more people to travel, supporting increased investment across Britain. A simpler, reformed rail fares system, which guarantees that we are always getting the best value fare for your journey, is urgently needed to restore the publics trust and confidence in the rail system and get more people travelling by train. The Government launched the independent Williams Rail Review last year to look at the future of Britains railway. The Review is an important vehicle to help deliver the industrys changes to rail fares, but the industry is also right that the preparatory work must begin now to ensure we give the public the system they deserve. I also welcome the Governments decision to launch a twelve-week consultation on a possible roll out of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) ticketing to more rail stations across the South-East. PAYG is an efficient and cost-effective method that has made travel easier for a vast number of rail users already. I hope colleagues will join me in urging the Government and industry to work together to deliver this positive change for passengers now. Six years ago, the TaxPayers Alliance reported that in the last year, five times more Labour people were appointed to public bodies than Tories. Since then, the figures have varied, and some Conservative members or supporters have been selected to fill important posts. Nonetheless, it remains the case that, since it took office in 2010, our Party has punched beneath its weight when it comes to public appointments. One of the reasons seems to be that Tories simply dont apply in the same number as Labour supporters. To help remedy this, every week we put up links to some of the main public appointments vacancies, so that qualified Conservatives might be aware of the opportunities presented. Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership Chair As our new Chair youll certainly be kept busy. Youll lead us through the next stage of our development. This will include working through and shaping a new future following the LEP review, introducing a Local Industrial Strategy, embedding new relationships, engaging across the County, harnessing all the strengths of a high calibre private sector led Board, bringing us a national profile and ensuring a relentless focus on delivery. Youll serve all of Lancashire and every sector, visible to our 52,000 businesses and 1.5m people. Youll see the big picture, understand what makes our economy tick and whats needed to accelerate growth. With deep private sector experience, youll be relentlessly commercial, but understand that real cross-sector partnerships create strong foundations for success. Time: Five days per month when aggregated. Remuneration: Some flexibility dependent on candidate-specific circumstances. Closes: 22 March Public Weather Service Customer Group Chair The Public Weather Service Customer Group (PWSCG) is an independent body which acts as the customer on behalf of the public and public sector users of the Public Weather Service (PWS). It provides independent advice to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to enable the formal agreement of the PWS Customer-Supplier Agreement (CSA) between Government and the Met Office. It is responsible for defining the outputs required from the Met Office and holding them to account for delivering to a satisfactory level. The funding for the PWS is currently around 120M per annum, of which 100M is paid by BEIS. The PWS provides a coherent range of weather information and weather-related warnings that enable the UK public and professional bodies to make informed decisions in their day-to-day activities, to optimise or mitigate against the impact of the weather, and to contribute to the protection of life, property and basic infrastructure. Time: 54 days per annum. Remuneration: Up to 20,000 per annum. Closes: 24 March Food Standards Agency Deputy Chair Ministers are looking to appoint a Deputy Chair and three Non-Executive Members to the Food Standards Agency (FSA). The statutory role of the FSA is to protect the health of the public and the interests of consumers in relation to food. As a Member of the FSA you will be responsible for ensuring the organisation discharges its statutory duties. You will also set and reinforce the FSAs core values through the development and monitoring of strategic objectives, plans and policies. In addition to the responsibilities of a Board member, the Deputy Chair will deputise as necessary for the Chair over the full range of their responsibilities and act as a conduit between the Board members and the Chair, facilitating effective communication of consensus and opinions. Time: 35 days per annum. Remuneration: 13,900 per annum. Closes: 25 March Homes England Board Member We are the Governments housing accelerator with a mandate to use our land, money, powers and influence to increase the pace, scale and quality of new homes being built in areas of the greatest demand, creating great places to live across the country. We have an ambitious growth programme in place. Over the next few years, we will invest more than 27bn to help meet the Governments ambition to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. We also operate as a mortgage lender through the delivery of our Help to Buy product. We are working to build a different kind of public service. We must be bold, creative and think big to make a true difference to one of the most defining issues of our time. We now seek to appoint four commercial leaders to join our dynamic and ambitious Board at a critical time of our evolution. Time: ~24 hours per month. Remuneration: 25,000 per annum. Closes: 26 March Sport England Trustees We are keen to recruit new people to strengthen and broaden the skills of the Board to drive Sport England forward. As a member of the Board you will share responsibility for the overall direction, vision and strategy of Sport England. We are looking for candidates who can bring innovative ideas, enthusiasm for our values, and excellent judgment to help deliver our objectives. You will be prepared to assist our organisation in taking on any future challenges and play a key role in our success. The successful candidates will have held a position of responsibility in either the public, voluntary or private sectors and will have ability, at a senior level, in one or more of the following areas Time: At least seven meetings per annum. Remuneration: 218 per diem plus reasonable expenses. Closes: 10 April Department for Transport General Aviation Champion Ensuring the department is able to effectively take into account the specific needs of the GA sector by: collating and distilling for the Minister the views of the private and commercial General Aviation sectors (the GA sector) on the impacts of policies of relevance to them, indicating how much support various propositions have across the sector and where that support is located; undertaking visits and holding meetings with GA stakeholders wishing to make a case to the government for policy change or stability and to summarise for the Minister the features and findings of these events; assisting the GA sector in prioritising its concerns, setting them out in detail and with rigour and putting them into a wider context of government policy; [and] working with the GA sector to help it to present its position to a range of relevant government departments and to capitalise on interactions with and feedback offered by those departments. Time: Two days per month. Remuneration: 350 per diem. Closes: 19 April Financial Reporting Council Chair/Deputy Chair The mission of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is to promote transparency and integrity in business. These are cornerstones to generating public trust and confidence in UK business and help attract investment in successful companies that provide jobs, create prosperity and generate economic growth. The FRC sets the UK Corporate Governance & Stewardship Codes which aim to make investors more accountable to their clients and beneficiaries. The FRC also sets standards for accounting, auditing and actuarial work. As the UKs independent regulator and Competent Authority for Audit it monitors, and takes action where necessary, to promote the quality of corporate reporting and audit. It also operates independent enforcement arrangements for accountants and actuaries.. Time: 3 days per week. Remuneration: 150,000 per annum Closes: 22 April Ministry of Defence Defence Board Member (NED) The Secretary of State for Defence is seeking to appoint a Non-Executive Board Member to join the Board of the Ministry of Defence. The successful candidate will work with the rest of the Defence Board to support Ministers in setting the strategic direction of the Department, whilst also supporting and challenging the senior management team on the delivery of policy objectives. Non-Executive Board Members are expected to provide independent scrutiny for the department, support good governance and advise on policy matters and cross-government initiatives. Time: 15-20 days per annum. Remuneration: 15,000 per annum Closes: 26 April Chloe Westley is the Campaign Manager of the TaxPayers Alliance. The European Union is democratically flawed and vulnerable to corruption. Even some of the most passionate EU apologists would accept this. Instead, they have argued that it must be reformed from within, and that, by remaining in this failing institution, Britain can somehow radically change the culture and structure of its institutions. British voters, however, disagree. A supranational bureaucracy, which assumes power over policy areas previously controlled by national governments, can never be free from corruption or accountable to voters. Those elected to represent Britain in the EU Parliament have so little power to influence the legislation put forward by the Commission that there is almost no point in writing to them about anything. We voted to take those decision-making powers back to the British Parliament, so that the politicians that we elect, and that are held accountable at the local and national level, can take decisions on our behalf. We believed that our MPs would be free from corruption and, unlike the faceless bureaucrats of the European Commission, implement policies that are voted for in elections and referendums. Were we wrong to assume these things? Were we naive to believe that Westminster was any less corrupt than Brussels? Last week has made many wonder if British politics is broken beyond repair. The Speaker, who is supposed to be impartial, refused to select an amendment ruling out a second referendum which was signed by 127 MPs, including the entirety of the DUP and 13 members of the Labour Party. Naturally, however, he did select an amendment backed by Remainers calling for another referendum, leaving no one in any doubt about his political sympathies. And whilst the vote on ruling out No Deal was not legally binding, since the departure date is already enshrined in law, it was an insight into just how many MPs are willing to put their names to weakening the UKs negotiating position. If they had voted to reiterate their support for No Deal to remain the fallback position, EU leaders might indeed have some motivation to make provide legal assurances on the backstop. As it is, those MPs who voted against leaving with No deal simply voted to make a good Brexit more difficult. This week, all eyes will be on a possible third meaningful vote, and I dont envy Brexiteer MPs who must decide between risking a delay or no Brexit at all; or else signing up Britain to a deal which could make this country a permanent rule-taker. Mays deal gives the EU all the cards in the next stage of the negotiations, leaving Britain in a weakened position, and likely to be forced into signing up to a half in/half out arrangement. Everyone knows that large-scale political change in Europe is all but impossible. As EU leaders push for further federalisation and less sovereignty for national governments, ordinary citizens in Europe will have little power to change anything at all. Their votes will count for less, and the threat of the ballot box will no longer be a consideration for those at the very top of the Brussels bureaucracy. But we all believed that big political change in Britain was possible. There was a healthy scepticism about politicians but, at the end of the day, nobody believed they would mislead us all about their intention to implement Brexit. After the referendum, even the likes of Chuka Umunna and Anna Soubry said that they would accept the decision and not try to reverse it. Then we had an election during which the Conservative and Labour Party manifestos both committed to implementing a clean Brexit. It would have been unprecedented, surely, for so many MPs of those parties then to turn around, and defy that election promise? I believe that the actions of politicians over the last two years have seriously weakened trust in the political system. But I do not believe the damage is beyond repair. Voters still have the opportunity to fire those MPs at the next election. Meanwhile, Brexit hasnt been stopped yet. There is still hope. Only 85 MPs voted in favour of a second referendum. The rest know that another public vote on Brexit would be damaging for democracy, not to mention damaging for their own careers. If Brexit is halted, the ideals that we strived towards in that vote the rights of every citizen in this land to elect those whom rule over them will not disappear. Universal suffrage and the rights of the individual are both ideals that we will continue to defend and advocate. One of the most condescending arguments Ive heard of late is that because so many Leave voters had never voted before, they were politically disengaged and therefore wont notice if we simply fail to leave. I dont believe this to be the case at all. The fact that so many voted for the first time in their lives proves that those who had lost all faith in the system believed there was still hope for change. The last two and a half years have vindicated all those who feared the political system was geared against the little guy. But unlike the European Union, this system can still be saved. Our politicians may yet deliver Brexit. And if they dont, we will find a way to vote for politicians that will. For those who say that all is lost, I understand. The response to EU referendum result has been deeply disappointing. But Westminster is not yet as elitist and undemocratic as Brussels. We must not allow our disappointment in politicians to override our determination for independence. Many reading this will be Conservative voters, in one form or another. You still have your voice, and you still have a vote. Use it. If no meaningful vote is held before March 29, Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement becomes MPs Withdrawal Agreement as follows. The Prime Minister agrees an extension with the EU this week. Parliament confirms it next week and removes the date of Brexit from the EU Withdrawal Bill by means of a statutory instrument. Either before or after the extension, a Letwin/Cooper alliance takes control of standing orders. Brexit then passes into the hands of the House, which plumps for Customs Union membership; or Norway Plus, or a Second Referendum. This chain of events may or may not take place, but what matters today is that the Speaker clearly thinks that it will. Not even the mice in the Commons tea room believe he is an impartial umpire. Perhaps there wont be a Softer Brexit if Mays deal fails to come back to the House. Maybe No Deal will instead slip through the procedural, timetabling and political cracks. Perhaps Parliament will be prorogued. Maybe MPs will stumble into the general election that they plainly doesnt want. The Speakers gamble is that none of these events will happen and that, if there is no further meaningful vote, Brexit will soften further or vanish altogether. Which is what he wants. Now it must be conceded that Bercows ruling that the same Government motion should not be put to the Commons twice has a point, and then some. As he said, the second meaningful vote was different from the first, in that Ministers had new documents to put to the House: the joint instrument, the unilateral Government declaration, and so on. But as far as we know, a third meaningful vote would not, as things stand, offer substantial change from the second. There is some back and forth at the margins about the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, but Geoffrey Cox has not changed his legal advice (as far as we know). However, this is not the heart of the matter. Lets return to the concept of substantial change. The Speaker will pronounce not only on the fact of any change but on its amount in other words, on what change might or might not be substantial. This distinction crosses a line from fact to art. In consequence, Ministers must now seek changes to the deal, and hope that these can clear the bar which Bercow will set for them. We can expect him to place it very high indeed. How fast time moves! Only a few weeks ago, he told the Commons that if we only went by precedent, manifestly nothing would ever change. Then, he slighted precedent. Now, he embraces it 1604 and all. I am the law, the Lord Chancellor declares contemptuously in The Madness of King George. In his own mind at least, the Speaker is precedent. He is Erskine May. He is procedure. He can only be overuled by being deposed which surely, since he is the creature of one of the two main parties, wont happen. The crude effect of his ruling, crafted and sprung on a clueless Downing Street, is to make a third meaningful vote unlikely this week, and perhaps next week too. Number Ten will thrash around looking for ways out prorogation, election, challenging what it will claim is inconsistency between Bercows treatment of motions and amendments. Once upon a time, a boy small; slow to learn to speak; unpopular sat on the wall outside his parents house, almost hidden by the copy of The Times which he was reading. He may have dreamed, as small boys sometimes do, of revenge on those slighting him. At any rate, he made it to the Commons, and wanted to be Prime Minister. He fell out with his party. The call to Number Ten never came. But he could none the less still ache, in a diminished form, to be at the centre of events shaping them; making history; being someone special. In January, he gave that yearning trial expression. Today, he has upped it to the next level. Those childhood fantasies are coming true. 03/18/2019 Photo (c) Visitor7 - Getty Images Another for-profit college has shut its doors, leaving many of its students with no degree and lots of debt. Argosy University, which operated brick-and-mortar campuses in Virginia, California, Illinois, Florida, Arizona, and other states had to turn out the lights after the U.S. Department of Education expelled it from the federal financial aid program. It follows another for-profit institution, Corinthian Colleges, into oblivion. Corinthian shut down in 2015 when it also lost access to federal financial aid. The Department of Education said it acted against Argosy when it allegedly failed to pay out more than $16 million, as required, to students to help defray living expenses. In a letter to the school explaining its loss of eligibility for the financial aid program, the Education Department said: Argosy does not meet the fiduciary standard of conduct. 540 students in Florida The Florida Attorney Generals Consumer Protection Division has issued a Consumer Alert to inform Florida students of their options. There were approximately 540 students enrolled at Argosy Universitys Tampa campus at the beginning of the year. Argosy failed its students and now hundreds of Floridians trying to achieve a higher education are scrambling to figure out how to complete their degrees, said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. Argosy students need to carefully examine their options and act promptly to pursue relief through the United States Department of Education. The Department of Educations Office of Federal Student Aid has set up a webpage with information about the remedies available to Argosy students. Students can access the page here. Another online university offers help Claremont Lincoln University (CLU), a non-profit, regionally accredited online university offering masters degrees, said it will try to accept as many Argosy University master's degree students as possible. "I can't imagine how disheartening it must be for these students to be suddenly dropped from their academic programs," said CLU Chief Operating Officer Joseph Sallustio. "It's unfortunate and the feeling of uncertainty can take over. I want students to know we will do everything in our power to help them. CLU says it has set up an accelerated admissions process for Argosy masters degree students and has declared all Argosy transfer students eligible for scholarships. Federal student loans are supposed to be forgiven if the feds determine a school defrauded its students, consumer attorneys say, but as we reported last year, that still hasnt happened for some Corinthian students. The Project on Predatory Student Lending, a legal clinic at Harvard University, is suing the federal government on behalf of thousands of former Corinthian College students. A shortage of customer service employees may make it difficult for travelers to make a changes Airlines around the world are finally getting to enjoy life in the air again. With international flight restrictions eased and vaccinated passengers feeling good about their health safety, its all systems go for the holidays and 2022. While airlines have handed out great fares as a lure to get consumers back in the air after 20 months of pandemic fits and starts, will they jack up the prices again? The easy answer is yes. Most experts agree that prices will go up becau... 100% Website tygyoga.com uses latest and advanced technologies. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of 13723 bytes (13.40 kb uncompressed) and 130732 bytes (127.67 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2020-10-13, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. 100% Website volpes.co.za uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery and WebFonts. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 482489 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of 574405 bytes (560.94 kb uncompressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-12, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) announced Sanhua as Leadership Council of Applied Sector, which marks a great milestone for Sanhuas international influence upon air conditioning and refrigeration. AHRI Leadership Council of Applied Sector lists world famous HVAC/R industry world-famous enterprises. Sanhua, together with Carrier, Emerson, Danfoss, JCI, Ingersoll Rand, Honeywell, Daikin Applied, Lennox etc. are also on the list. The council is planned to serve two-year terms ending in November 2020, and its first face-to-face meetings will be at the upcoming Spring Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, which is the first membership-wide event under AHRIs new Reinvent structure that was approved by the Board of Directors in November 2018. This event will provide important policy s for members. Several certification, regulatory, and technical working groups also will meet to discuss sector- and product-specific issues. The Leadership Council of Applied Products will focus on promotion of high-efficient and energy-saving technologies such as electronic expansion valve, micro channel heat exchanger, inverter control etc. The council also centers on the advocacy of low-GWP Alternative Refrigerants and energy efficiency standard. Sanhua Senior VP and Chief Scientist Dr. Huang Lin-jie will attend the first face to face meeting of Leadership Council of Applied Products and join the industry effort in the development of standards, development and advocacy of regulatory and legislative policies. Last November, AHRI announced Sanhua International Inc. as an International Member company of the Air-Conditioning Heat Transfer Products Section. This is the second products section member since 2016 when Sanhua was approved as an international member of Flow and Contamination Control Products Section. Also in this November, SANHUA was invited to participate in the AHRI 2018 Leadership forum, held in Tucson, US. Together with other internationally renowned companies such as Carrier, Trane, JCI, Rheem and Renault, SANHUA attended AHRI CEO closed reception. AHRI new reinvent structure was approved by the Board of Directors in Nov 2018. AHRI has been adjusted to four sectors: applied, heating, refrigeration and unitary. Each sector has been divided three working groups, namely, standards committee, advocacy and certification. Each sector is managed by the Leadership council of 25 directors. The role of the AHRI Sector Leadership Councils will be to set the overall strategic direction of each sector and assign activities to task forces and working groups. The Councils also will serve as arbiters of disputes among members of specific task forces and working groups to enable timely completion of tasks. This chronic hate-monger entered Indian Kashmir in order to give impetus to the terrorist activities in the Valley in early 1990s but was arrested in February 1994 when Congress ruled the country. He was incarcerated in the Kot Bhalwal Jail, Jammu, to face charges of war against India which could lead to his hanging. Shockingly, this scum was released in exchange for the passengers of IACs plane which was hijacked on the eve of X-Mas, December 24, 1999. He was released with two other dreaded terrorists, namely, Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar who too organized large scale killings in the Valley. They were released unconditionally as per the demand of the Taliban patronized Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). These terrorists were picked up from the Kot Bhalwal Jail and put up in a special plane to Taliban controlled Kandahar, Afghanistan accompanied by the then foreign minister, Jaswant Singh. The Indian minister, a darling of RSS then personally handed over these terrorists to the Talibans, who were negotiating on behalf of the hijackers, on December 31. The hijackers were subsequently allowed to sneak into Pakistan by the Taliban militants. Incidentally, the current National Security advisor, Ajit Doval, was the IB chief at that time who also headed the 4-member Indian negotiation team at Kandahar which led to the release of these dreaded terrorists! Farcical hatred for China The moral of Jaitleys wisdom is that China is the biggest patron of Islamist terrorists like Azhar Masood who continues to use Pakistan as safe haven for attacking India. If it is true then Modi Government should have severed all relations with China, minimum could be done, was recalling of Indian envoy from Beijing. On the contrary reality is that Modi Government has more than cordial relations with China, the global patron of Azhar Masood. What to talk of sending a protest/warning letter to Beijing, out PM continues to meet Chinese President in different world forums. The highest statue of the world, named as Statue of Unity of Sardar Patel was not made in India but in China. The expansionist China continues to occupy hundreds of miles of Indian territory but there has been no protest from the Modi Government. In June 2017 China stopped Mansarovar pilgrimage through Nathu-la Pass in Sikkim but there was no protest from Modi or his Government. -- *Well-known academic. Contact: notoinjustice@gmail.com. Videos of interviews/talks in English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu and Gujarati available HERE The Modi government continues to buy lakhs of mats for its pet yoga project. Nehru who fought a war against China in 1962 is declared to be a supporter of China and Modi dispensation which continues to kowtow the Chinese expansionists in every field is patriotic! The present RSS-BJP rulers are using every dirty trick to hide the fact that blood thirsty criminal, perpetrator of the Pulwama massacre, Azhar Masood is roaming free thanks to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government which was ruling India in 1999. Instead of discussing who gave new lease of life to this sadist criminal who was also the master mind behind the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 (coming from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Delhi) to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1999, Mumbai terror attack in 2008, attack on Indian Parliament in 2001 and Pathankot Air Force attack in 2016 and now of course, Pulwama massacre, RSS/BJP government is discussing Nehru and China.The latest is Arun Jaitleys claim, a blatant lie, that it was due to Nehru favouring China that the latter got a berth at the Security Council. They believe discussing China would divert attention from the past criminal deeds of the Hindutva rulers. Arun Jaitely must tell the nation how Azhar Masood who was captured by the intelligence agencies of Congress Government in 1994 was released by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government in 1999, that too, unconditionally.It was Indian government-led by senior RSS ideologue and leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee in December 1999, which gifted this monster to perpetrate massacres not of Indian army personnel but large number of civilians. Frequently Asked Questions The Golden 1 CU savings products available include Regular Share Savings, Individual Retirement Accounts / IRAs, Money Market, and Share Certificates / CDs. Where can I find the The Golden 1 CU login for Online Banking? Access to your accounts with online banking is available - login here. Are The Golden 1 CU Auto Loans available? Car/Truck/SUV loans are offered at competitive rates and terms. Full details available online on the website. Contact this location and ask about pre-approval, payment address, or payoff address. Calculate Auto Loan amount with the easy online calculator. How can I apply for a The Golden 1 CU Credit Card? The credit union does offer credit cards to members. To get more information, current rates, and to apply for a credit card, go to the website. Is Bill Pay available? Members have the ability to pay bills online, start on the website. Customer Support Needing personal assistance from the credit union? Contact the CU from the website or call (877) 465-3361. What is the routing number for The Golden 1 CU? Get the routing number, assets, loans, and other financial information. Princess Cruises has announced it will operate 20 cruises to and from Adelaide for the 2020-2021 Australian season, calling it the biggest ever cruise industry commitment to South Australia. Princess Cruises Senior Vice President Asia Pacific Stuart Allison said it featured an unprecedented six roundtrip cruises from Adelaide on the 2,000-guest Sea Princess and 2,670-guest Sapphire Princess, as well as a further 14 one-way itineraries on Sea Princess, Sapphire Princess and the 3,560-guest Majestic Princess. This program represents the largest ever financial commitment to South Australia by a cruise line and will make Adelaide the fastest growing homeport for Princess Cruises in Australia, putting it firmly on the national cruise map, Allison said. Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, David Ridgway, welcomed Princess Cruises increased presence in South Australia, which will have significant flow-on economic benefits for the state. Princess Cruises significant investment follows a record cruise season for South Australia, which saw 82 ships bringing up to 170,000 passengers and crew into our ports and injecting more than $118 million into the local economy, said Minister Ridgway. The cruise line also announced that dArenberg wines would feature across the cruise lines recently reimagined wine menus. Adelaide itineraries on offer include two seven-night roundtrip voyages to Tasmania on Sea Princess visiting Burnie, Hobart and Port Arthur, with departures available on November 9 and 30, 2020. There is also a 14-night roundtrip voyage on Sea Princess exploring the Australian coastline and featuring the ships maiden call to Eden as well as visits to Burnie, Hobart, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane and Melbourne. A small fire broke out on deck 15 of the Costa Smeralda on Monday with the ship under her final construction phase at Meyer Turku. "There was stored equipment on fire, started by welding inside the ship," the yard said, in a prepared statement. "The fire started approximately at 16:45 Finnish time. The shipyard's fire brigade was the first ones on the site and started firefighting measures. Local fire brigades arrived shortly after. The ship was evacuated. Work continued in the ship at approximately 18:15." Ten people inhaled smoke, according to a yard spokesperson, and two had small injuries. "Material damages were minor and there is no effect to the building schedule of the ship," the yard said. The Costa Smeralda debuts for the Italian brand this October. Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line has announced two new hires to its Deerfield Beach, Fla. headquarters. Francis Riley has joined Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line in the role of Senior Vice President, Sales. In this role, Riley will oversee the sales team and handles the companys international business development and customer satisfaction. Prior to joining Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, Riley served as Senior Vice President of Sales for the Americas at Traveltek, Ltd. with additional relevant cruise experience at Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings for seven years, with the last four as Senior Vice President of International sales, marketing and operations. Riley graduated from Durham University in the UK with his degree in Travel and Tourism. During Rileys tenure as Senior Vice President of Sales at Traveltek, Ltd., he was able to build brand awareness, execute media plans and build a new sales team that resulted in a significant increase in sales. The combination of his valuable experience, trade relationships and leadership make him an ideal fit for Bahamas Paradise Cruise Lines next stages of growth, said Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line CEO Oneil Khosa. Clark Reber joins Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line in the role of Director of Partner Relations. In this role, Reber will act as the primary contact point for all current and prospective partnerships, focusing specifically on developing the companys travel agency business. Prior to joining Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, Reber spent 26 years at Norwegian Cruise Line, most recently as director of the independent travel professional channel from 2016 to 2017. Reber earned his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Columbia College in Missouri. Rebers strong leadership and people skills were evident during his tenure at Norwegian Cruise Line. His winning attitude and personality are assets that will complement and enhance our partner relations as we continue to provide innovative experiences to the marketplace, added Khosa. It feels like there is no more controversial brand in the tech industry right now than Huawei. The Chinese telco giant was recently banned by Australia from participating in their 5G network rollout amidst national security concerns, and its CFOMeng Wanzhouwas recently arrested in Canada for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. The growing concern regarding the company is that it may be acting as a spy for the Chinese government, collecting personal data and influencing politics. Apple is not subject to the Australian ban, which raises the questionis there any significant difference between Huawei and Appleboth of which manufacture devices in China? Huaweis rise in popularity Did you know that Huawei sold more smartphones than Apple in the second quarter of 2018? While Huawei still remains a distant second to Apple in terms of total earnings, the company is most definitely rising up the ranks and becoming one of the biggest names in technology, behind Apple and Samsung. However, increased scrutiny from around the globe regarding potential ties to the Chinese government has presented understandable concern, and led to lackluster sales in the United States, even while sales throughout the rest of the world have been very high. The question is, has Beijing started to influence control over Huawei, perhaps even accessing customer information? Huawei vs. Apple smartphones Given the recent controversy surrounding Huawei, some have floated the idea that Apple may be a privacy-compromised product as well since both companies produce their wares behind the worlds most stout communist curtain. However, critics argue that there is a distinction between Huawei and Apple that shouldnt be ignored, countering that the primary difference is that Huawei is a Chinese company, while Apple is an American company that just so happens to build products in China. Though some accuse Chinese tech giants like Huawei of not being free of Communist Party influence, critics remain adamant that China cannot have the same influence over Apple products. In fact, some experts claim much of the hysteria regarding Huawei has been incited by U.S. competitors who see the brand has a threat to their sales and wouldnt be above a little fearmongering to limit its market share. The founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, has gone on the record to say the company would definitely refuse a request from the Chinese government for customer information. Growing intelligence community concerns The backlash toward Huawei is not paranoia gone wild on the part of consumers and rival U.S. companies. The Five Eyes alliance (U.S, Canada, U.K., New Zealand and Australia) have all raised concerns about privacy on Huawei smartphones, with both Australia and New Zealand banning the company from their 5G networks on the basis of protecting national security. The intelligence community recognizes that smartphones contain a wealth of information and are naturally sought after by foreign governments, particularly hostile ones. Though China is known for wearing a pleasant face to the rest of the world, the country is also notorious for online censorship. Therefore, it is not out of the question that the Chinese government would attempt to spy on people through smartphones. However, tech insiders argue its not the company but the profile that consumers should be concerned about. Some insiders claim that it is highly unlikely that every Huawei phone listens in on its owner by default, but rather that any individual who is of an interest to the Chinese government could be at risk of being monitored. Are Apple smartphones more secure? There is a general consensus that Apple products like iPhones are more secure compared to smartphones produced by other manufacturers. For example, Apple iOS is well regarded for higher levels of scrutiny over what apps are deemed acceptable where Android has no limitations and is considered an open source operating system. Though the products are made in China, most argue that Apple continues to closely monitor and scrutinize its own supply chain and would keep a sharp eye on any apparent risk of their phones being compromised by the Chinese government. Still, imaginations ran wild in the wake of concern that President Donald Trump was spied on by Chinese and Russian officials as a result of conversations conducted on his personal iPhone. Furthermore, Apple recently announced a partnership with a Chinese government-owned company to operate its iCloud servers, prompting more concern. Data privacy and Huawei smartphones Most everyone would admit that Huawei could, theoretically, pass information to the Chinese government (if they arent already doing so). That being the case, its important that users consider encrypting their browsing experience via a virtual private network (VPN) when using a smartphone product made in China, be it Huawei or Apple. VPNs were created specifically for users to connect to the internet without risking identity exposure, and are growing in popularity with 25% of people who go online using one. But what if we were to tell you that more than half of all VPN services in the world are owned by China? Nearly 60% of all free VPN services offered on the Google Play Store and App Store are owned by Chinese companies, including many popular Canadian VPN services. In theory, VPN services should encrypt your browsing session and make it impossible for an observer to decipher the data that passes through its tunnel during online use. But to ensure that your devicebe it Huawei, Apple, Samsung or any otheris truly private, refrain from the temptation of free VPNs and also stay away from those providers developed or based in China. Reputation matters The bottom line is that Apple has a reputation of providing better privacy and protection for U.S. customers. Many are reluctant to use a Huawei device at all, even with VPN protection. The controversy surrounding these two mega-smartphone brands will surely continue into the future and is one that warrants monitoring. In case you werent aware, Huawei is a supplier of 45 of the worlds 50 largest mobile networks and telecommunications operators. That makes it a major player that cant be ignored regardless of which side of the argument you land on. Fairfield's dining scene will soon have a new entry with Malibu Taco at 1177 Post Road. The eatery promises to bring an "exciting yet balanced coastal California street food to a relaxed life-style taco bar." Based in a mixed-use retail/office property anchored by a Webster Bank branch, Malibu Taco will include an outdoor patio overlooking the Post Road shopping district, along with a dining and bar room. The Teamsters warned Stop & Shop that its members would support the supermarkets union in any labor stoppage as a result of the current impasse in contract negotiations, with nearly 700 warehouse workers and 250 drivers delivering food and other products to Stop & Shop stores in southern New England. More than 30,000 Stop & Shop employees have been working since Feb. 23 on the terms of an expired contract, with negotiations continuing last week between the Ahold Delhaize subsidiary and the United Food & Commercial Workers to which they belong. In the past few weeks, leaders with the Westport-based UFCW Local 371 and other affiliates have been advising Stop & Shop members to bring warm clothes and footwear to work in readiness for any sudden walkout. At negotiations last week in Providence, R.I., union members were on hand from Belgium and the Netherlands where Ahold Delhaize has its headquarters to express support, with Stop & Shop based in Quincy, Mass. The sides have kept their respective demands behind closed doors, with Stop & Shop having defended its pay and benefits as above industry averages in southern New England, based on surveys by Mercer. As of Monday morning, no additional negotiations had been scheduled but both sides have indicated they are open to a resumption of talks. According to the Stop & Shop negotiators, theyve heard us loud and clear, union leaders stated on UFCW Local 371s website last week. We are still far apart from reaching an agreement. In a letter to Mark McGowan, president of Stop & Shop, the head of the Boston-based International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 25 noted that in addition to food deliveries, its truckers pick up waste as well from Stop & Shop stores. The services Teamsters provide are an important element of ensuring that (Stop & Shop supermarkets) operate smoothly, stated Sean OBrien, president of Teamsters Local 25, in his letter to McGowan. It is my sincere hope that (Stop & Shop) reconsiders its position and negotiates fairly. The AFL-CIO has also expressed general support for Stop & Shop workers, without putting teeth into that support in the manner of the Teamsters letter. Locally, AFL-CIO member unions represent workers at Acme Markets in Stamford, Greenwich and New Haven; ShopRite in Milford, Stratford and the New Haven area; Fairway Market in Stamford; Kings Supermarket in Greenwich; and Food Bazaar in Bridgeport. On behalf of its 220,000 members, the Connecticut AFL-CIO has thrown its support behind Gov. Ned Lamonts proposal to increase Connecticuts statutory minimum wage to $15 an hour, while criticizing other aspects of his plan including reducing estate taxes. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman ANSONIA Police are advising drivers to slow down while approaching a speed bump that has been installed on Pershing Drive to accommodate the emergency sewer work. Lt. Patrick Lynch said the speed limit approaching the intersection with Clifton Avenue is now 10 mph. Additionally, he advised any heavy-duty, low-riding trailers to avoid the area. Temporary, pipes encased in steel housing have been installed under the road, creating a speed bump on both sides. Barricades have been set up, requiring drivers to slow down as they approach the bump. A police officer and a member of the Department of Public Works are on duty at the site, which was the scene of a major sewer pipe collapse on Feb. 21 that dumped raw sewage into the basement of the Lemko Club and threatened several businesses. The speed bump will probably be there another week or so, said Michael DAlessio, Ansonias Public Works director. Its there because we are diverting sewage from one manhole line to another because of the broken pipe. We had to go through the road to do that. A temporary pump working 24/7 is pushing sewage from Clifton and Howard Avenue as well as Pershing Drive along the alternate route. DAlessio, who spends a portion of each workday at the site where Frank Pepe and Brennan Construction companies are working, hopes a trench allowing access to the pipe which is at least 30-feet underground will be dug this week. Once they replace the broken pipe, its going to take another week and a half to close the hole, DAlessio said. The work could cost upward of $1 million if it is determined that the brick interior of a manhole leading to the trunk line that empties into the sewage treatment plant needs to be relined. DAlessio said the line will be inspected with a camera once the broken pipe is replaced. Recently, the Water Pollution Control Authority voted to pay the cost, using savings built up over the years. However, that decision led to the Board of Aldermen accepting the resignation of Nunzio Parente, the WPCA chairman, who was opposed to paying the full cost of the work and stormed out of the meeting after the approval vote was taken. If you still have old-style, home telephone service with copper wires in Connecticut, congratulations! Youre one of about 220,000 customers of that historic service of Southern New England Telephone Co., operating these days under the Frontier Communications brand name. Thats down from more than 2 million at the peak in 1994, according to the state Office of Consumer Counsel. A smaller number, perhaps just a few thousand, have no-frills, Plain, Old Telephone Service thats still subject to price regulation and other rules. Frontier which bought the SNET franchise from AT&T in 2014 says the time has come to end price regulation of the most basic, copper-wire service, with more than 30 companies in the state, including itself, providing unregulated phone service, wireless and wireline combined. And Frontier wants the state to exit, or partly exit, the chore of overseeing a more complicated chunk of the market, in which those dozens of competing companies use SNETs wires and switches to route their calls. Connecticut is in danger of being left behind. It is imperative for Connecticut consumers, as well as its traditional voice providers, that state statutes be updated to reflect the changing competitive landscape for voice services, Allison M. Ellis, a Frontier senior vice president, said in written testimony to a legislative committee last month. She added, Frontier alone is subject to the outdated regulatory regime, which negatively impacts its ability to compete fully and fairly in Connecticut. Hold on, some of Frontiers competitors and the states utility consumer watchdog say. The multi-state phone company, with its corporate headquarters in Norwalk and Connecticut base in the historic SNET building in New Haven, is trying to pull a fast one, they say. On Tuesday, the energy committee is scheduled to decide whether to grant that deregulation request from Frontier, sending it to the full House and Senate for possible votes or kill it. Dry as it seems, this remaining vestige of telephone regulation is a hot potato that could be worth millions of dollars to customers, Frontier or its competitors. And it speaks to whether Connecticut is, or is not, finally in 2019 a truly open market for phone service, no longer in need of state regulation. This bill is merely Frontiers annual attempt in deregulating itself at the expense of its ever-dwindling universe of customers and this bill essentially grants the ILECs the right to walk away from retail landline service, state Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz said in written testimony to the General Assemblys energy and technology committee, which handles most utility regulation issues. Pardon the acronym. Katz was referring to incumbent local exchange carriers, or ILECs, such as SNET, which were, way back in time, the monopoly providers. Most ILEC service in the United States were part of the Bell System, which the federal government broke up in 1984 into a handful of Baby Bells, which, in turn, consolidated into AT&T and Verizon, basically along with smaller, regional companies such as SNET. The bill would not strictly speaking let Frontier end the service, but, opponents say, by allowing prices to float upward, it would in effect end universal basic service, long a hallmark of phone regulation. A similar bill passed in the Senate last year and this years version leaves more regulation intact. Katz and the Frontier competitors, including Altice, which owns the Cablevision franchise, have a strong point. Frontier, like the Millstone nuclear power station in its recent benefits-grab, is attempting to play both sides of the market freedom when the company wants to raise prices for basic phone service, and protection when it wants to act like a monopoly. Heres the kicker: Under state rules, Frontier must repair outages of basic, wireline phone service within 24 hours. Freeing itself would mean that rule would in essence go away, even though its not explicit in the bill, because it is through the pricing rules that the repair rule is enforced. But Frontier cant say, hey, legislature, we dont need to be regulated anymore. On the contrary, SNET, through the previous owner, AT&T, paid the state a settlement of $525,000 in 2012, negotiated with Katzs office, and often paid out $5,000 a month for missing the repair targets afterward. Frontier paid the $5,000 fine for last July, August, September and November. On the wholesale side, Frontier still controls wires and switches that its competitors need to rent as they route their calls. Regulation of these deals stems from the days when the ILECs controlled the whole phone system, and in the 90s, reforms were written to allow competitors in. The outcome of this action would inevitably be to reduce competition and increase prices for consumers, Altice said in its testimony. And its not like the federal government is doing its job regulating utilities these days. Frontier says its being held to a higher standard than its competitors. Most states have significantly reduced or eliminated oversight of wireline telecommunications and SB 847 would modernize Connecticut statutes on voice services, many written decades ago when phone service was a monopoly, the company said in a written statement to me Monday. Frontier alone is subject to the outdated regulatory regime that is in place today, which negatively impacts its ability to compete in Connecticut. Perhaps so, but as Tom Swan, director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, said in his testimony, Frontier bought its way into the state understanding our regulatory framework. ... There is no benefit for consumers from this bill, which would disproportionately impact older residents of Connecticut. Katz went into detail in her testimony about how poorly Frontier is doing, with its stock price depressed, facing high debt for copper wireline phone systems that are outdated. But, she and Swan pointed out, thats not the customers problem and weve got plenty of utility cost headaches already. But, said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, whose district includes the Frontier corporate headquarters, cable companies have no regulationseven though the service is the same. He wondered whether the company could lower its rates if it were out from under the regulations. That seems unlikely. It does raise the question of whether theres a way to sort this out without a political solution. There is. Frontier has a right to bring a deregulation case to the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, or PURA. Let the pros, not the pols, decide based on technical merits whether competition is robust enough for the state to drop the rule. If the SNET franchise is in grave danger, the state has other remedies. A previous version of this story said Frontier paid a $525,000 fine in 2012; the fine was paid by the prior SNET owner, AT&T. dhaar@hearstmediact.com DERBY A lawyer who is an owner of downtown building that the city claims is in danger of collapsing has until noon Wednesday to submit a structural engineering report. Michael Hillis, who is a principal in Derby Shores, LLC, told Hearst Connecticut Media he will have a structural engineer inspect the site and report back to the city. However, Hillis said, he does not expect to find any structural issues since Derby Shores spent about $250,000 several years ago on repairs the city ordered. Meanwhile, the city has closed the sidewalk around the four-story, 195 Main Street building, on the corner of Minera and Main streets. They also stationed a fire watch around the site until a decision is made on its safety. The property owner has advised us they hired a structural engineer to inspect the interior, said Andrew Baklik, chief of staff to Derby Mayor Richard Dziekan. They have said they will have that report to us by noon Wednesday. Hillis blamed falling debris on a damaged roof. He said Derby Shores has a pending lawsuit against MESA Underwriters Specialty Insurance Company of New Jersey. The suit, filed Feb. 9, 2015, and pending in Milford Superior Court, alleges the insurer failed to pay for damage to the roof sustained during the blizzard that began Feb. 9, 2013. The suit claims heavy snow and ice along with strong winds caused damage to the roof. MESA has hired a lawyer and denies the claim. No court dates have been scheduled. More News Derby officials concerned Main Street building may collapse Baklik said Vincent Marino, the citys corporation counsel, has been in contact with Hillis and urged him to take the necessary steps to prevent anything else falling from the building The citys Water Pollution Control Authority has also filed a foreclosure suit against Derby Shores, LLC for failing to pay sewer use taxes totaling $4,868.52 for the fiscal years ending July 1, 2015, 2016 and 2017 as well as the accruing interests on those charges. That suit also claims Derby Shores took out a $600,000 mortgage on the building in 2006 that has been assigned to Hayden Asset VIII in East Hartford. It further claims New England Yankee Construction of Wallingford has a $12,861.58 judgment lien against Derby Shores. No court dates have been set on the lawsuit, which also is pending in Milford Superior Court. Hillis said Derby Shores hired a lawyer who is in the process of wrapping (it) up. Meanwhile, three of the four remaining buildings on the south side of Main Street have been demolished. The only one still standing rests at the intersection of Main and Factory Street. A major development is planned for the former Housatonic Lumber site on Factory Street. Site plans are expected to be accepted by the Planning and Zoning Commission during their March 26 meeting. The demolition is part of the states plan to widen Main Street, also known as Route 34, into a four lane highway beginning next year. Christian Abraham / ST MILFORD At 5:30 p.m. March 28, Milford Hospital, 300 Seaside Ave., will host a program on colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United States. Since the year 2000, March has been designated Colorectal Cancer Awareness month a time dedicated to spreading awareness and educating Americans about prevention and the importance of screening. The Milford Hospital program, titled Colorectal Cancer: What It Is, Why It Matters and What You Can Do About It will be led by gastroenterologist Dr. Benigno Varela. During his presentation, Varela will discuss the latest information on screening tests, diagnosis and treatment options for colorectal cancer. MILFORD Mayor Ben Blake has decided to sideline plans for a new police station, and neither the police chief nor the Police Commission chairman are happy about it. Milfords aldermen voted in 2017 to buy land for a new police station, but the mayor said late last week he has tapped the brakes on the project, and is instead having city workers fix immediate problems at the existing station. Blake said the city might look again in a few years at building a new police station, but not now. Its a big expense, Blake said. It would grow our debt service considerably for the next 20 years. While there is some disagreement about the total projected cost, Blake said the new police station will cost more than double the $30 million the city has budgeted. He also said the existing facility is in line with, if not larger than, police stations in similar towns, and he repeated what he said several months ago, that the city should continue to look at adding onto the existing building. To some degree I have to be the person to say its not in the budget, Blake said. If cost was not a factor, wed absolutely build the Taj Mahal of police stations. City leaders voted in 2017 to buy about six acres of land at 130-150 Boston Post Road for $4.5 million for a new Milford police station. The plan then was to eventually sell the current station for about $3.5 million to help recoup some of that cost. Blake said this week hes gotten several offers for those six acres, and if the city doesnt hold onto the land to build a new police station in the future, the parcel can be sold at a profit. Police Chief Keith Mello saw the Boston Post Road site as a perfect location for a new station when he became chief in 2004. It wasnt for sale then, so hed hate to see the city let it go. Mello said the most recent numbers as of April 2018 put construction costs for a new police station in the mid $30 million range, with total project costs at approximately $45 million. Im not sure where anyone is getting more than double $30 million from, Mello said. And he thinks that compared to police stations built in recent years, Milfords proposal is on point. The current Milford police station was built in 1978 at 430 Boston Post Road, and police and other city officials have said it was too small and obsolete from day one. Currently, we do not even have adequate interview rooms to conduct day-to-day operations and investigations, Mello said. We have over 100 male employees, but only locker space for 85. We have converted holding cells to storage spaces and we have inadequate storage for critical evidence. I think the public would be very surprised at the inadequacies of our current facilities. The current police station is about 43,000 square feet, plus another 5,000-square-foot garage. The department is also using about 12,000 square feet of space at the old Simon Lake School. The chief said plans for the new station call for 63,091 square feet, plus another 14,782-square-foot garage and outbuilding. Police Commission Chairman Rich Smith still wants to move forward with new construction, saying that the existing building cannot be brought up to speed. He said the building committee spent 18 months looking for ways to use the existing building. We looked at constructing a second building on-site as well as an addition to the existing building, Smith said. We looked at cost, functionality, operations, workflow and more. After exhaustive consideration it was determined infeasible to build on the current parcel responsibly. Smith said he hopes the mayor will change his mind and that the city will break ground on a new police station in the spring. But Blake doesnt seem ready to change his mind. He said the Public Works Department is addressing some of the immediate needs at the police station, reconfiguring space to allow for more locker room area, plus roof and driveway repairs. He said he wants his department heads to push for what they want, but in the end he has to weigh their views against the costs. Blake said the city might want to look at the idea of building a new police station in a few years. Mello said costs will increase in the coming years and hes upset that after 30 years of planning, the Police Department project appears to be going nowhere. MONROE The people behind a project to refurbish a local park need a few good volunteers. The Monroe Playground Foundation which is spearheading an effort to take down the Kids Kreation playground at Wolfe Park and replace it with a new, improved structure is sponsoring a meeting at 7 p.m. March 25 in the town hall annex, 7 Fan Hill Road, to find volunteers. The foundation is looking for people to get involved at many levels of the project, including a series of fundraisers that will take place between now and next spring, when the playground initiative is scheduled to start. Our main goal is to find chairs and committee members to help plan our slate of activities for the year, said Nina Gagnon, fundraising chair for the Monroe Playground Foundation. That will include Junes planned Party in the Park and several other events. Gagnon said the foundation is also looking for people to staff booths providing information about the playground project at upcoming community events, such as the Monroe Farmers Market. The original Kids Kreation playscape was built in 1992. It was paid for by community fundraising and built by community members. When it was determined that the popular playground, while still safe to play on, was showing signs of wear, concerned citizens formed the Monroe Playground Foundation. The group plans to get rid of the existing structure with the exception of a wooden pirate ship near the rear of the playground, dubbed the S.S. Pulliam, in honor of Alice Pulliam, who helped spearhead the original Kids Kreation. The plan is to move the ship to a place of honor near the entrance of the new playground. The playground will be replaced with a structure made from a manufactured wood that has a lifespan of 50 to 60 years. The new playground will include a lot of the elements of the current one, including slides, swings and the like. However, there will be an increased emphasis on accessibility, with the planned addition of such inclusive features as a wheelchair-accessible merry-go-round. As with the existing playground, the rebuild would be paid for via fundraising and the new structure would be made by community volunteers. The project is estimated to cost between $350,000 and $400,000. Gagnon said the March 25 event is an attempt to get as many people as possible involved with the project. Every kid in town is going to be using this playground for, hopefully, the next 20 years or more, she said. This is a way to bring the community together. Those who cant make the meeting but still want to volunteer can visit the Monroe Playground Foundation web site, www.monroeplaygroundfoundation.org. HARTFORD Two of Connecticuts largest school districts have so far failed to comply with requests for public information as part of a statewide test conducted by news organizations to mark Sunshine Week 2019. Both the New Haven and Hartford were among at least 41 school districts asked between Feb. 11 and Feb. 14 to provide copies of their Superintendents compensation packages as well as enrollment data for each of their schools. The Hartford school district acknowledged the request within four days, which is required by law, but has yet to provide the documents requested. A March 14 email from the district said they were working on the request. The statewide survey was conducted by seven news organizations to test compliance with the states Freedom of Information Act. Aside from CTNewsJunkie, other news organizations that took part in the survey were the Record-Journal, the Hearst Connecticut Media newspapers, the Journal Inquirer, the Bulletin, WFSB Channel 3, and NBC Connecticut. The purpose of Sunshine Week is to highlight the disclosure laws that allow the news media and public at large to monitor government and keep public officials accountable, said Mike Savino, president of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information and also an editor at the Record-Journal. Transparency is crucial to a healthy and vibrant democracy, so its disappointing that some of Connecticuts largest cities arent willing to fulfill fairly simple requests in a timely manner. As of this week, most of the school districts had complied with the requests. Enfields school district was among those that had yet to comply by Friday, according to the Journal Inquirer. The survey also included requests to town governments to provide lists of their top-10 highest paid non-school employees and for disciplinary records from each towns Public Works Department. A majority of the town governments complied with requests for information about their highest paid employees. But some have been slow to produce the disciplinary records of their Public Works employees. Hartford officials said they are in the process of redacting some of the records before sharing them publicly. The Record-Journal reported that the town of Berlin didnt provide letters of discipline for public works employees, citing a state FOI exemption for the invasion of privacy. Berlin Town Manager Jack Healy told the Record-Journal that the towns policy is not to release letters of discipline for town employees. Tom Hennick, the Freedom of Information Commissions public education officer, said there are exemptions to disclosure laws for medical information and privacy, but he said letters of discipline are public documents. Theres no blanket exemption for letters of discipline, Hennick said. While, organizations, by law, may not ask about an applicants age in an interview, a September 2018 AARP survey found that more than 90 percent of U.S. workers described age discrimination as somewhat or very common in the workplace, and 44 percent of older job applicants said they personally had been asked (illegally) for age-related information from potential employers. In short, age and experience are often perceived as a negative, rather than a positive, by companies. In fact, according to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commssion, age discrimination has consistently been the focus of more than 20 percent of its discrimination cases. So, what does this mean for the older female worker? Related: Ageism Is Hurting Your Tech Company's Hiring More Than You Realize The National Bureau of Economic Research looked at the issue directly. Testing for the prevalence of age discrimination in hiring, it found that that the resumes of older women get far fewer callbacks than both those of older men and younger applicants of either sex. No big surprise there: Plenty of organizations have been perceived to be clearing out older employees. Ohio State University was accused of calling older staff "deadwood." And, in the youth-oriented tech sector, HP has been accused of ageism practices, along with Google and Tinder. Some Facebook ads have not even been shown to older users, implying that ageism is literally baked into its algorithm; a lawsuit accuses Facebook of purposefully using algorithmic tools to feed job ads to younger workers. Sex discrimination isnt new, and neither, of course, is ageism. But, combined, they create the perfect storm for older women unfortunate enough to be looking for work. The new age demographic of the workforce Take a look at the overall data stemming from the population's glut of baby boomers and our healthier lifestyles: The number of Americans aged 65 and older is projected to more than double, from 46 million to over 98 million, by 2060. And every day in the United States, 10,000 people turn 65. For people born today, the likelihood that they will live to triple digits is strong: A child born in 2011 has a one in three chance of living to his or her 100th birthday. And, globally, the number of people aged 60 and older will increase to 2 billion by 2050. In other words, we are living longer; therefore, whether by choice or necessity, we are remaining in the workforce longer, and how we deal with this trend will determine how we ultimately deal with an older workforce. Some companies appear to not be dealing with it well: In a lawsuit last November, Saks Fifth Avenue was accused of age discrimination, when two employees, ages 68 and 70, said their younger counterparts had received help from supervisors. As a result, even though they kept up their sales, the suit says, these employees claimed they were "set up for failure" and unjustly terminated. Related: An Employment Lawyers' Perspective on Age Discrimination in Silicon Valley Women and ageism An old saying holds that, "Men age like a glass of wine, women like a glass of milk." Why is it that as a society we perceive older men as experienced and successful while older women are viewed as a burden or a sector that no longer has a purpose? Heres the double whammy: When women are younger, meaning of child-bearing age, it is assumed that they will take time off to raise a family. Then, when those same women are older, it is assumed that not only did they take time off, but that they therefore have less experience or are less qualified than a man of a similar age. In July 2016, female servers sued the Saks Fifth Avenue restaurants located within the flagship store in New York, claiming women over the age of 40 were unfairly terminated in favor of younger, more attractive male servers. In the lawsuit, the five women plaintiffs claimed they were let go because they were "not attractive enough" and "getting old. Its all about the money. Women live longer than men, so it's fair to argue that they need more income to provide for their retirement. However, women get paid less than men for similar work. A lot of people quote the "80 cents to $1" number which has been the accepted measurement of the gender pay gap for years Then there's the recent study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, which analyzed a longitudinal dataset showing total earnings over the most recent 15 years for all workers who worked in at least one year. That data, the Institute said, showed that women workers faced an actual wage gap of 51 percent in the 2001-2015 time period. Its research also found the cost of taking time out of the labor force to be exorbitant for women. For those who took just one year off from work, the study said, annual earnings were 39 percent lower than those of women who worked all 15 years between 2001 and 2015. So, what can we do? I believe these issues of ageism and sexism all start with the one question: Who is expected to stay home and raise the children? Heres how we can solve this question in a way that is more favorable to women. We need paid family leave and affordable child care. The same research found that 43 percent of todays women workers had at least one year with no earnings, which was nearly twice the rate of men with that experience. So, the conclusion is that we need to protect womens earning potential when they are out of work because, well, they made a human. We also need to encourage men to take family leave. I was at my companys marketing kick-off recently, and we were talking about maternity leave. I live in Ireland, where we have six months' paid leave (more, if we accept reduced pay). The United States is the only developed country that does not offer any federal paid parental leave! (Only five states and the District of Columbia have it.) American parents rely heavily on the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows parents (of either sex) to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave without penalty in pay or position. Often, men dont take advantage of the family leave available to them because they are concerned about how it might impact their career. We need to change that. So, we need to strengthen ageism laws. But one critical issue with really measuring ageism is that qualified candidates dont even get to the interview stage. We need to change what is happening inside organizations. Leaders need to be on board; HR needs to ensure it reviews a balance of resumes when hiring for a new position; and promotions need to reflect the diversity of people in the organization. Finally, we need to train workers better to counteract unconscious age bias. As an executive myself, I find this need particularly crucial. People have unconscious biases about older workers, especially older women. We need to change this and ... Enable people to recognize their prejudices. Develop recruitment programs for older people (afterall, research shows that more diverse groups make better decisions) Adapt cross-generational mentoring, which has been shown to increase retention rates. Recognize the research that shows the value to companies of a more diverse employee profile. As Jo Ann Jenkins, AARP CEO, has said,Studies have shown that the productivity of both older and younger workers is higher in companies that have mixed-age work teams than in companies that do not and that age diversity within a team heightens performance in groups that must undertake complex decision-making tasks. Related: Combating Reverse Ageism as a Young Entrepreneur In short, diversity is key -- for all kinds of groups but especially considering that this is Women's History Month, for women and older women, in particular. Related: Ageism and the Gender Pay Gap: Why Getting Older Can Be Problematic for Women Combating Reverse Ageism as a Young Entrepreneur Ageism Is Hurting Your Tech Company's Hiring More Than You Realize Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Dutch police have arrested a suspect after a shooting Monday on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht left three people dead and multiple people injured, police said. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level and said they are considering the possibility of a "terrorist motive" in the attack. Dutch military police were on extra alert at Dutch airports and key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey who they said was "associated with the incident." The photo showed a bearded man dressed in a dark blue hooded top. Police warned citizens not to approach the man, who had been previously identified as Gokman Tanis. Police in Utrecht later said they are reducing the number of people who were injured from nine to five. Dutch police did not immediately give a reason for changing the number. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on the tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. They later erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Utrecht police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Heavily armed anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment block close to the scene. "Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. He said "a terror motive is not excluded." Rutte said "there is a mix of disbelief and disgust" throughout the country. "If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy must be stronger than fanaticism and violence," he added. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one possibility "is that the person fled by car." He did not rule out the possibility that more than one shooter was involved. The Netherlands' anti-terror coordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000 people. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the "threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province." Dutch political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of the Dutch parliament's upper house. In neighboring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for federal police in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said additional officers had been detailed to watch not only major highways, but also minor crossings and railway routes. German authorities were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact sedan but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht, Onstein said. FAIRFIELD Town residents came out in full force Thursday at a campaign fundraiser for state Rep. Brenda Kupchick, who last month announced her intention to run against First Selectman Michael Tetreau. Dozens gathered at Local Kitchen and were high spirited as Kupchick, a Republican, confirmed her run to unseat two-term Democrat, Tetreau. If elected, Kupchick would be the second woman in Fairfield history elected to the position, after Jacky Durrell held the seat from 1983 to 1993. In 2011, Sherri Steeneck stepped in as acting first selectman. I am humbled by the amazing show of support since making my announcement and for this amazing turnout from residents from all political parties at our kick-off fundraiser, Kupchick said. ... Fairfield is my past, my present and my future. Fairfield is my hometown and has always been an important part of who I am. Board of Finance Chairman Tom Flynn, Kupchicks running mate, has filed to run for selectman, and Town Clerk Betsy Browne will seek another four-year term. Inspired by her many years of active involvement with the Fairfield PTA, Kupchick began her venture into politics in the mid-1990s after founding an education advocacy group called One Voice. Soon after, she served on the Representative Town Meeting and as an active member of the Board of Education for more than a decade before being elected as a state representative in 2011. State Sen. Tony Hwang attended the fundraiser and said, The energy here is palpable. We have such a great cross section which includes Democrats and Republicans. The one common theme here is this is all about Fairfield. Thats whats so exciting for me, is the fact that for us as state delegation members, our heart is always in the town that we live in. ... We do have problems and challenges but I truly believe what I see and feel in the spirit of this community and this event is the momentum that is necessary to move us forward. I think this is a historic race for obvious reasons, said interim campaign manager Alex Plitsas. But this is not being defined by gender its being defined by experience. A lot of people have commented theyre excited to have a woman in the race, but its not just simply a woman its Brenda Kupchick. ... She is truly uniquely qualified to take on the challenges that are coming and lead the town forward in the future, not only in terms of weathering the storm, but also being the person to promote growth to better situate us for the future. State Rep. Laura Devlin, R-134, said she too is excited about the prospect of Brenda Kupchick becoming first selectman of Fairfield and Tom Flynn as selectman. They are a dynamic team that has a great vision for our community. She is someone who has spent her life here and is so invested. James Millington, the Fairfield Republican Town Committee concurred. Brenda embodies what Fairfield is about, people love her, and she is so involved and connected. She has her heart in this and we are so happy to be supporting her, its going to be a great, positive campaign, he said. Easton First Selectman Adam Dunsby said, Shes an exceptional fiscal conservative, she has a big heart, her interest in animal welfare gives her incredible credit, she would be perfect for Fairfield. Currently serving in her fifth term as state representative for Fairfield, Kupchick is a third-generation Fairfield resident and attended both Norwalk Community College and Fairfield University. She and her husband, Peter Kupchick, have owned a small business in Fairfield for more than 30 years and have one son. In the age of political discourse thats filled with divisiveness, Kupchick said, I will work to be a uniter instead of a divider. I want to bring together the people of our amazing community, not as Republicans or Democrats, Independents or unaffiliates, but as Fairfielders listening to each other and working together to lead our town with a fresh voice and respectful dialogue. The Fairfield RTC plans to endorse candidates at a caucus scheduled for July 16. A former Hamden school employee, who resigned from her position Friday after a video showing her on a racist tirade in an East Haven grocery store went viral, called police numerous times about the incident. Four audio files were released by East Haven police on Monday to complain about what happened in the store. Listen to the calls here: ***WARNING*** ***GRAPHIC AND OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE USED *** Corinne Magoveny-Terrone first called Easton police. In the Easton call, a dispatcher has to take another call and puts her on hold briefly, and she yells "Don't you dare put me on hold!" When he comes back, she proceeds to tell him that she was in a grocery store talking to her children when a black man asked if she was talking to him and said a profanity, and she called him the n-word. The dispatcher calmly asks her what town this happened in and then informs her she called the incorrect department. She then called the East Haven Police Department. In a call that lasted longer than six minutes, she tells that dispatcher that she was walking down the center aisle at the store and got to the registers, said "Oh Jesus Christ" to her kids, and then a man in a scooter called her an offensive term and she says she called him the n-word because of what he called her. She also tells police there was "spitting back and forth" and that "I am pressing charges." In another call to East Haven police, she tells a dispatcher that the person who answered the phone previously was "completely unhelpful and useless." She calls back a third time, asks who she is speaking with and then says "I was just verbally assaulted at Shop Rite in East Haven." She then goes on to explain what happened in the store, and she says "I'm not gonna sugar coat what I said." Thousands of people shared two different videos on Facebook over the weekend that partially shows the incident. In the footage, posted by a user whose profile name is Tatiana Winn, Terrone yells the n-word three times and spits at two people, a black man and woman. It is unclear how the encounter began. After her first use of the racial epithet, the man appears to rush toward Terrone, who taunts, "Put your hands on me, come on!" and pulls out her phone to begin recording. The man then appears to quickly knock the device from her hand, and does not make further physical contact based on what is visible in the footage. As of Monday afternoon, police said nobody has come forward yet to file a formal complaint in the case. However, police said they are consulting the state's attorneys office and are "awaiting the final outcome of the DCF investigation." Hamden schools notified the state Department of Children and Families after they were made aware of the video, they said in a statement over the weekend. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the calls were made to 911. Magoveny-Terrone called the police departments at their non-emergency numbers. MILFORD - A colorful sign welcoming the gay community to Mary Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church in downtown Milford disappeared last week, but church officials said it has been found. The sign, which reads, "To be clear if you are queer LGBTQIA+ you are affirmed here!" was one of two signs posted in front of the church days after a vote at a special General Conference in St. Louis Feb. 23 to 26, when the United Methodist Church voted to strengthen its ban on gay clergy and same-sex marriages. Last week Milford church officials noticed the sign was missing and thought it had been stolen. When the second sign disappeared over the weekend church members really started to wonder. But then the two signs were found nearby, lying on the ground, and so the minister has chosen to believe it was the wind and not the work of vandals targeting a proclamation in support of the gay community. The signs went up in late February in protest of the General Conference vote. The New York Times last week reported that the vote is under review because of some irregularities discovered, and that has the pastor at Mary Taylor Church hopeful the decision will be amended. But across the country the vote is creating a rift in the church. Milford's Mary Taylor Church has long been an open and affirming church, one that sanctions marriages between those of alternative sexuality, and allows openly gay clergy. That is why the signs were posted so quickly on the church's front lawn. Other Methodist churches in the region posted similar signs after the vote, according to Mary Taylor Pastor Kristina Hansen, who served as chair of the conference delegation that represented all of Long Island, New York City, parts of upstate New York and Connecticut at the General Conference. "There are several big pieces to this, one of which is you can't be an 'out' clergy person, which I am," Hansen said. It is at General Conference where delegates "wrestle with today's issues in light of scriptural teachings and the church's understanding of that teaching," according to the United Methodist Church website. "Here is where the church's official stands and church policies are made regarding such issues as human sexuality, abortion, war and peace, as well as determination of ministries and funding." Hansen and others like her hoped to see the church take a more progressive stand at the gathering in February. She explained that the vote to support the "traditional plan," which opposes same sex marriages and openly gay ministers, was predominantly supported by conservatives in other parts of the world. While some progressive congregations have discussed separating from the mainstream worldwide United Methodist Church following February's General Conference, Hansen said that is a "knee jerk reaction." Another local church member said separation is complicated by the fact that in general, church buildings are owned by the church conference, as is the case with Mary Taylor Church in Milford. Hansen believes it is important to continue to move forward and work with the denomination, and as a senior pastor in a leadership position she is in a place where she can take part in those efforts. While that work moves forward, Mary Taylor Church in Milford will continue to sanction and perform marriages between people of all sexual orientations and allow openly gay pastors. Hansen said she is still confident and hopeful, and that before the February vote the United Methodist Church was at a standstill on the issue. "This has caused people to get up and finally take some action," she said. The United Methodist Church has since posted a statement on its website explaining the conference and the vote. "The Traditional Plan was passed by the 2019 Special Session of General Conference," the websites states. "This means our current statements about homosexuality, same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ persons have not fundamentally changed." Before the special session closed, a motion was passed to request a decision from the Judicial Council on the constitutionality of the Traditional Plan's legislative petitions, and that will be addressed when the Judicial Council gathers in Evanston, Illinois, April 23 to 25. "This means that we don't yet know what will change and what will not," the United Methodist Church website states. "Anything ruled unconstitutional can be addressed at the next regularly scheduled General Conference in Minneapolis on May 5-15, 2020." LGBTQIA people have not been banned by the United Methodist Church, the church makes clear on its website, but acknowledges "that many LGBTQIA people, their loved ones and allies were hurt by the speeches, rhetoric and decisions of the General Conference." In Milford, Hansen said Mary Taylor Church members will put the two welcoming signs back up, more securely this time, and hope they stay. The signs are already working, she said Sunday afternoon, noting that several new faces showed up at church on Sunday morning. In 1936, Connecticut's governor, Wilbur Cross, commissioned a Survey of the Human Resources of Connecticut that seemed better suited to Nazi Germany than the Constitution State. The survey classified state residents based on 21 factors including race and citizenship. A 1938 report based on the survey called for weeding out, either through forced deportation or sterilization, immigrants and various ethnic groups, as well as those thought to suffer from a variety of supposed disabilities including mild vision impairment. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, it's true, in all its ugliness. The eugenics movement, which would ultimately inspire Adolf Hitler, was born in the second half of the 1800s. Inspired by Charles Darwin's work, his half-cousin, Francis Galton, theorized that successful people could strengthen the human race by breeding with other successful people. Galton coined the term "eugenics" in 1883 from the Greek word for "well-born." His work inspired widespread eugenics research and found many receptive ears in the U.S. In 1909, Connecticut became one of several states to enact a sterilization law, by which those believed to have handicaps or mental illnesses could be sterilized without their consent. Between 1909 and 1963, more than 500 people were sterilized this way. This practice was only one of several ways eugenics infected the state. The American Eugenics Society was housed in New Haven with an office overlooking the city's green, and the state was home to many outspoken proponents of the movement, including Yale economics professor Irving Fisher, often hailed as the greatest U.S. economist in history. Of course, Connecticut was not alone. Across the Sound on Long Island, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory housed the Eugenics Record Office of Charles Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin, two prominent eugenicists. Research conducted by Laughlin and Davenport was used to justify the Immigration Act of 1924, which limited dramatically the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country from Southern and Eastern Europe. The term "moron" entered the lexicon in the early 1900s due to research from eugenist Henry H. Goddard. The practice of forced sterilization of the "unfit" in Connecticut and across the country was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case. "It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. ... Three generations of imbeciles are enough," wrote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his infamous opinion in the case. However, the Connecticut survey of the 1930s stands out, even in that era, for its disturbing ambition. In 1935, an act of the state's legislature called for the formation of a commission to, in the words of its title, Study the Laws and Facilities of Connecticut Pertaining to the Prevention, Treatment and Care of Mental Defects and Disease and Allied Problems. Gov. Cross signed the act into law, and the commission was established in 1936 and appointed Laughlin, from the Eugenics Record Office, to commence the study. Laughlin set up shop in the State Office Building in Hartford, and with some assistants began collecting data on state residents. "Laughlin's plan was to sterilize approximately 175,000 Connecticut residents or about 10 percent of the state's population," writes Edwin Black, a journalist and author. "To save expense, others would not be sterilized but simply thrown out of the state. Immigrants would be deported to their native countries. Unfit Americans would be expelled to their family's original locale." In recent years, Black's 2003 book War Against the Weak and an updated version released in 2012 have helped shine a light on the mostly forgotten survey. Fortunately, after its completion in 1938, the report seems to have had little impact. It was not published and does not appear to have been widely circulated. More recently, there has been debate about the level of responsibility Cross bears for the direction the survey ultimately took. In 2014, Linwood Branham Sr., an organizer of the Society of Former Slaves and Freemen, called for a discussion of whether the New Haven high school and parkway bearing Cross' name should be removed. The effort garnered media attention, but the high school and parkway's names remain unchanged. Even though it went nowhere, the very existence of the survey, along with the forced sterilizations, remain a shameful piece of Connecticut history that deserves to be better remembered. No matter how unsettling that memory might be. This article appeared in the March 2019 issue of Connecticut Magazine. Federal prosecutors alleged former Municipal Credit Union CEO Kam Wong, who is awaiting sentencing for stealing nearly $10 million, allegedly dissipated assets of nearly $700,000 to avoid the governments seizure of those funds. Wongs attorney, however, said Friday this allegation is false. According to court documents filed by federal investigators last week, Wong transferred funds from two Citibank accounts to two TD Bank accounts under his wifes name after a criminal complaint and his arrest in May. Before the complaint was filed and before he was arrested, the Citibank accounts were jointly held by Wong and his wife, making the TD Bank accounts subject to criminal forfeiture, according to court documents. A criminal forfeiture allows the federal government to seize the assets of any person involved in criminal activity. His bank account he shared with his wife was closed by the bank due to his arrest and he simply opened up a new account in his wifes name in order to prevent another closure of the account, Jeffrey Lichtman said, a New York lawyer who represents Wong. Welcome to episode nine of The CUInsight Experience podcast. Hosted by Randy Smith, co-founder and publisher of CUInsight.com. Our guest this week is Maurice Smith. Maurice is the president and CEO of Local Government Federal Credit Union (LGFCU) and the past chairman of CUNA. He is licensed to practice law in North Carolina, the District of Columbia and before the United States Supreme Court, and the author of Sowing Seeds: Life Lessons from My Father. Read Maurices full bio here. The goal of The CUInsight Experience podcast is to dive deeper with the people of the credit union community and find gems from their experiences that add value to all of us. In each episode we have wide ranging conversations with thought leaders from around the credit union community. What issues are facing credit unions? What are they working on to help? What leadership lessons and life hacks have they learned along the way? Whats the greatest album of all time? These questions and more are asked and answered. In this episode I had a wide ranging conversation with Maurice, a self-proclaimed cooperative nerd, about his idea that the time is right to add an eighth cooperative principle and the response he received from inside and outside the credit union movement. We discussed his path to where he is today and what his future holds as well as the life lessons he learned from his father and his inspiration to write the book. We wrap the conversation up with the rapid fire questions to get to know Maurice a little better. Listen to the full episode (and tell a friend about it) then check out the show notes and full transcript below. I had a blast recording this episode. In it we get a double dose of leadership and life hacks from Maurice and his father. I havent stopped smiling and telling people about it since we recorded it a few weeks back. I hope it puts a smile on your face and you leave as happy and inspired after listening as I did after having the conversation. Enjoy. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher How to find Maurice: Maurice R. Smith President and CEO of Local Government Federal Credit Union (LGFCU) maurice.smith@lgfcu.org www.lgfcu.org Twitter | Linkedin | Facebook Show notes from this episode: Credit Union Magazine article discussed: Its time to expand our cooperative principles by Maurice Smith (read it and be inspired) Looking for a refresher on the Seven Cooperative Principles? Weve got you covered. The book Maurice wrote for his family: Sowing Seeds: Life Lessons from My Father by Maurice R. Smith (he may have wrote it for his family but we can all learn from the lessons. Buy it!) Shout-out to Joe Prater and the Prater Principle that Maurice has taught other leaders on board relations over the years (Joe didnt even know he had a principle until a couple years ago). Favorite album of all-time: Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life Book mentioned: Judgement Days by Nick Kotz Shout-out to previous guests mentioned: Jill, Jim and Gigi Find all past episodes of The CUInsight Experience here. Full episode transcript: Randy Smith: Hello boys and girls of credit union land and welcome to the ninth episode of The CUInsight Experience. My name is Randy Smith. I am one of the co-founders and the publisher of CUInsight.com and its my job on the show to have conversations with the best and the brightest of the credit union community. I get to pick their brains and hopefully find a few nuggets that we can all learn from. My guest on todays show is Mr. Maurice Smith. Maurice is the president and CEO of Local Government Federal Credit Union. When I would ask people who I had to get on the podcast, Maurices name came up over and over and then a couple of things happened and I knew I had to reach out to him and get him on the show as soon as possible. First, Maurice wrote this amazing article for CU Magazine that weve linked to in the show notes about why nows the time to add a new cooperative principle. The second was that I found out that Maurice wrote a book for his family about lessons that he learned from his father, I had to talk about that. Maurices bio is long, I recommend you click on the link below and read that as well. In this episode we talked about why now is the right time for that cooperative principle. We talked about diversity and inclusion and then we talked about his book and the life lessons that he learned from his father. Im holding it in my hand right now. I just received it from Amazon. Its going in the backpack. I plan on reading it tomorrow on the plane. Talk about a double dose of the leadership and life hacks. We get all of Maurices knowledge from his long career, but we also get the bonus life lessons from his father that Maurice wrote about in the book. As always, we wrap it up with the rapid fire questions. To say that I enjoyed this conversation with Maurice would be an understatement. I left it smiling. Ive been telling others about it since the day we recorded it. I hope you do too. So without further ado, I give you my conversation with Mr. Maurice Smith. Enjoy. Randy Smith: Maurice, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I was really looking forward to this. So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to day. Lets just jump right into the questions youre recently wrote, what I thought was just an amazing article for CUNAs CU Magazine and thats where I wanted to start. I can tell you that we had the article on CUInsight and it was one of the most read for multiple days, so Im sure it did really well on CUNAs site as well. The article and Ill let you tell everybody about it since you are the author was about adding a new cooperative principle. Can you share with the listeners what that new cooperative principle is? And then number two, what motivated you to write the article? Maurice Smith: Absolutely. So some of the CUNA staff asked me to write an article about black history month and to just give them some impressions that I have about what the month means, and maybe some insightful thoughts about it. So it came to mind that we have these cooperative principles, seven principles. I live by them. I totally agree with them. Theyre big with me. My entire 40 year career in the credit union business. But then the notion of about diversity inclusion and equity has been part of a conversation for the last year or so, beyond that. But, but Ive been really engaged in it for the last year or so. And so I think about what did the cooperative principles say about diversity, equity and inclusion and how might we have a voice in that? So the thought is to add an eighth cooperative principle. Im not smart enough to figure out exactly what the language ought to say except that the principals ought to be explicit about what does it mean to have diversity, equity and inclusion in our industry and to our cooperatives worldwide. And so this essentially was a thought provoking piece just to get people talking and just to see where it would go. So far Ive received inquiries and feedback from the solar co-ops and the grocery co-ops, agriculture, electric co-ops who have had some concerns about, some thoughts about it, have all kinds of challenges to it. Its been a great conversation to. I have looked forward to having these discussions. Randy Smith: Oh thats fantastic. I mean outside of credit unions, people are reaching out to you in other cooperatives. Thats, thats pretty amazing. Maurice Smith: As you think about some of these principles have been around from the Rochdale, you era mid 1800s started with co-ops in Europe. And so these are like stone tablets that come off the mountain and someones going to have the audacity to actually take the stone tablets and chisel are in a whole new principle. Of course its going to create some conversation. There may be some hesitation about it, some thoughts about what does it mean to our values, worldwide values for a cooperative themselves. So to me, I find it exciting to engage and have a discussion about it. Randy Smith: I would tell you, I think thats why your article spoke to me was we can improve things, right? Just because they were written in stone, it doesnt mean that you read that make things better over time. I absolutely loved it. From the credit union standpoint, what do you see as the biggest barriers that are out there to inclusion in credit unions? Maurice Smith: You know, so there probably are some challenges for credit unions as we think about this. So credit unions operate with a field of membership. We have a defined market for each credit union who can join the credit union. You know what qualifications are there for the services that the institution offers? So when you talk about diversity and inclusion and equity, then if really about how do you treat the market, the audience that you have for that credit union, this should strike a familiar chord with credit unions as you talk about diversity, inclusion and equity. So think about your cooperative principles. The first one about open memberships and you think about democratic control. Those are things that we as credit unions practice each and every day. And so the idea that we want to bring more voices to the table to have conversations about the governance of the institution, how we serve our community. That shouldnt be a foreign concept for credit unions. But we think about how we serve our field of membership. So those are the things that each credit union have to navigate for themselves. And its not unlike the other co ops around the world depending on what kind of commodity and what services they offer for the community. They have to answer those same questions too. But I am really encouraged. I talked to my credit union colleagues who find this notion romantic and say, okay, how do we take a look at a principle that weve all grown up with and look for ways to make improvements in it. Its been fun to have the conversation. Randy Smith: I have to imagine it is. I know Ive talked, and you know Jill, shes talk a lot about whether its the board of the credit union or senior management of credit unions is looking more like their membership. And that kind of leads me to my next question, is the first step, or is the step down this road of recognizing this almost as a new cooperative principle, maybe down the road, but even just taking those first steps, is it something that needs to be done on the individual level, at the credit union? Is this a systematic thing that needs to come from the top or is it all three? Maurice Smith: Randall, I tend to lean to ward grassroots efforts, you know, really reflecting a communitys ideals and having sort of work his way up the hierarchy of governance. But we start at the individual level. We as individuals want to have a seat at the table. No matter who you are, no matter what system of governance it is. It doesnt matter what institution were talking about whether its co-ops, or talking about your local government in your hometown, you want to have a voice, you want to have a seat at the table. You want to be able to express what your needs and your interests are. You want to be valued for those. You want somebody to listen and you wanted to participate in the governance of those issues because you start with the individual by empowering me to make statements and to defend my position and then you go on through the institutional level that for the Credit Union, and the credit union say, this is good for us, it is good from a principle standpoint, its good from a philosophical standpoint, its good for business. We listen to our audience were listening to our membership. That hopefully credit unions say lets have a conversation with our leagues, the leagues say, lets have a conversation with our national association. The National Association said, well lets talk about our brother and sister co ops in other industries in the United States and it works its way up. By that time we having all these different conversations, and discussions, the notion is getting smarter, its getting more informed, youre getting more information and hopefully youre getting more grassroots support for it. So to your question, I think you really starts at the individual and by the individual expressing what we need and then it works its way up to their hierarchy to the powers that be, its going to change the principles and then new stone tablets come off the mountain and well see what they say. Randy Smith: Well, like I said, I, I thought it was amazing. I absolutely loved it. So I commend you on writing it. If someone is moved by it, what would you say to that individual? Whats the first step they should take? Maybe its a senior management person in a credit union and theyre like, hes right, I want to be part of that movement. Whats the first step? Maurice Smith: You know, Randy I think is really two fold. First of all, look at your own credit union community, your own financial institution. Say, what can we do? Are there barriers in our policies and procedures that might get in the way of instituting diversity, inclusion and equity for our credit union? How were listening to all our members, is there fair representation? Are we giving a voice to every member of our organization? So you think about individually what your institution can do. Leaders of the movement, I believe we have an obligation to be good citizens of the movement. So raise your voice, participate in the councils that the credit national association have, participated in your state leagues. Start having, write op-eds if you will. You communicate with your colleagues in the various arenas that you have conversations and collaborations and discussion with and just raised the level of the conversation about this to a heightened area. So if people are talking about it and you were actually walking the talk that we are expressing for ourselves, then its going to gain the momentum it needs to make real change happen and the market will pay attention. Members will notice it, the market would pay attention and our banking competitors will try to copy what were doing because theyll realize that were on to something Randy Smith: That were on to something, but we can be the leaders in that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit. Like I said the article we will link to below and make sure that everybody, uh, reads it again when this comes out. So you were at a meeting a few weeks back and Jill, who was a previous guest on the show, she had told me about a book that you wrote. And I will tell you that I was so intrigued by this. I was hoping that I was going to have it by the time that we recorded this, but I just checked Amazon and its arriving tomorrow by eight oclock. So I have it up on the phone. You do. And I was able to read the forward and I think the first couple pages of the first chapter, and I will tell you that when I was reading this, I actually talked to my father about your book. After hearing about this because my grandfather just passed away last year and he was a storyteller always. But you think of how many are now gone. And so like what youre doing, telling your fathers stories, before I talk about your book the whole time, can you tell everybody about the book and your motivation for writing this? Maurice Smith: So I guess Randall. It starts with my sister put me up to it. Theres no eloquent way of putting it. So the only son of four offsprings grew up on a small family farm near seaside town in North Carolina, a little place called Southport. My dad passed away 10 years ago. And my youngest sister says to me, you need to write down to stories and the lessons that dad shared with you because these are things he taught you that he didnt teach us sisters. And I thought, no, you know same stories I have. She said, tell me a story. So I told her story. She said, nope, never heard that. I told another story. She said, nope, that wasnt my experience. She said, would you just write them down? So what started out as a rough outline, then a manuscript, led to creating this publication and it was meant to be just a publication that I was going to give up to family and friends as Christmas gifts because a lot of them knew my father and I just wanted to share his essence with them, memorialize it for generations to come in. It turned into a publication that ended up on Amazon. I heard this speaker sometime ago, and forgive me for not remembering the name of the speaker. If that speaker hears this, she will remember that she said this. It stuck with me in the meantime, she said, we got two generations away from obscurity, and I said, what do you mean by that? She said, what do you know about your father? And knew a lot of things. He did this and we had these relationships and so forth. Great. What do you know about your grandfather? Well, lets see. I know this and I think I know a little bit. What do you know about your great grandfather? And so in two generations, my life experiences maybe lost on a future generation. My Dad was instrumental in making me the person that I am for programming my life for setting examples for me that Ive shared with so many and I didnt want his essence to be lost. And so I took my sisters advice, lets put some things down on paper and hopefully generations to come will read them and they will be inspired by some of the things that hes taught me. Randy Smith: What are the amazing gift, I think for your family. There was an interesting part in what I could read before getting the book. You kind of mentioned that, that, I mean it was obviously a different time. So what he shared with you and his expectations for you were much different than for your sisters. It sounds like your father set your path to credit unions when you were very young, like 14 years old. Was it that, he was like, what are you gonning do when you grow up? Maurice Smith: Exactly. People ask me Randall, how did you end up in the credit union business? When did you decide that you want to have a life in finance? It started when I was 12 years old, 12 years old and on a family farm in a potato field. So the manuscript and the book talks about the different life lessons hes taught me along the way and this was the first lesson that I chose to write about. So at 12 years old while out planting potatoes and he turns to me in the middle of the field and said, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Im 12 years old, 12, so I thought, no, this is, this is a meaningful moment. Even as 12 years old, I thought this is going someplace. So I asked my dad, could I have 24 hours to think about it? He said, thats fine. He said, if you dont choose a career, 24 hours, I would choose one for you. He said, son, the reason why we do this is you dont have the luxury of going through life without having goals and ambitions in front of you. He said, its okay if you change your mind and decide to do something else, but you substitute one goal, another goal. So the next day we took some farm receipts to the local community bank. A bank in Southport, North Carolina. Were standing in the teller line waiting to be served and I glanced to the side and theres this gentleman sitting in a glass office, a starch white shirt on and certificates on the wall. He looked really important. I turned to my dad, I said, Dad, who is that? He said, thats the bank president. And without any hesitation whatsoever, I turned back to my dad. Thats what I want to do. I want to be a bank president. Now, truth be told, the bank president didnt have dirt on him. He didnt have his back hurting from picking cucumbers that morning and he wasnt out in the hot field. That looked pretty nice being in an air conditioned office. So my dad turns to me and changes my life completely. Now he did not go to college. He served in the air force. Hes a successful business person. And I had never seen an African American sitting in a white collar job before, my dad turns to me and says, then you need to go to college. You need a major in business and I will help you. And so from age 12 to 18 when it was time to leave for college, he would quiz me in the fields about Keynesian economics and supply and demand, how money works. The disparity of economic power between community, compounding interest, having good credit rating. We didnt have credit scores back then. How do you save money? The rule of 72 these are self taught principles my dad had that he shared with me how money works. Randy Smith: When you were 12 did your dad already know all those principles or was he educated himself along the way to teach you? Maurice Smith: You know, Randall. Thats a really good question. I have never pondered that question. And if I had to speculate, he spent his evenings learning the principles. So when he and I were out in a corn field or driving to the farmers market or picking cucumbers, he was taking that time to tutor me on things that he has picked up for himself. Randy Smith: I could see why you wrote the book and Im sure for your sisters and for your children, to hear those stories that you had the opportunity to hear even back then that you know an experience that they never did. So now youve given them. Did you enjoy the process once you got into it, putting it all down on paper? Maurice Smith: You know, it was rewarding going down memory lane, it was eye opening on some of the lessons. So I not only had to review and revisit moments with my dad, conversations with my dad, but also review lifelong lessons as an adult and connection the dots between the two, it seemed fairly organic. If somebody lessons Ive learned in life as an adult, I use a principle that he taught me, but I didnt quite connect all the dots until I started writing the book and then I started writing them down and saying, thats how I arrive at that ideal. And thats why I believe what I believe. And that is why I chose that path versus another path because his voice was constantly in my head about heres right, heres wrong, heres what it means to be a man, heres what it means to take care of your family. You have responsibility to your community. Heres what citizenships stand for. Here are the things that you expected to do to be a responsible person. And Ive used those guidance and sort of guide post for what Im supposed to do. Hopefully we pass that along to our two children and hope everything, you think as young kids, theyre not paying you any attention. Then theyll say somethings, you were listening to us. So absolutely yes. Randy Smith: Last question on that. Like I said, the book were gonning like to it. I cant wait to read it. So did your dad see you become a, not a bank CEO, but a credit union president and CEO Maurice Smith: Randall. He did. He had the opportunity to see that and I believe everybody in my hometown followed my career from what he told them about it. He was my biggest fan Yes. Randy Smith: I love that and I just greatly appreciate you being willing to talk about it. So I think its an amazing story. So, um, and like I said, I think the book and the life lessons that you learned from your father ties into the second part of the podcast, which is about leadership and life hacks and life in general. And hopefully we can find some things that you can part on future leaders. You know, like some nuggets they can take from you and your distinguished career. Ill ask the first question that when you were 12, you wanted to be the bank president, what is it about credit unions that inspired you to not only get into the business, but to become the president and CEO of your credit union? Maurice Smith: Well thats a good question. Randall. So going to college, we talked about banking and economics and you know, venture capital banks and all kinds of stuff. You know, youre talking about the investment banks and Wall Street and it was not a single course about cooperatives or credit unions. And so I learned about co-ops after I graduated. I said, wait a minute, I can practice the discipline of banking, how banking works at operational standpoint and from a commodity standpoint. And I can do it when an institution that has a soul or taking care of its members and its community. How did I not know this before? And so I started my career in 1979 as a loan officer for State Employees Credit Union, worked there for 13 years before coming to Local Government Federal Credit Union. So when I came over to Local Government Federal Credit Union as an Executive Vice President, I already knew something about the credit union, some of the members of the credit union through the State Employees Credit Union branches. And so this just seemed like I was coming to another home. Okay. So this is my 40th year in credit unions, just this year, if I havent said that before, and I cant think of anything else in life Id rather be doing than this. Randy Smith: Well, it makes for a beautiful career, right? Maurice Smith: Yes sir. Yes sir. Randy Smith: Has that inspiration changed over the past 40 years? Maurice Smith: Not one iota. Im not sure if iota is a word or not, I love what Im doing, but you know Randall. When you reach a point in your life and you realize I was built for this, I was groomed for this. I prepared for this. This is the lifestyle, this is the career. This is my lifes work, this is what Im supposed to be doing. It all comes together. Theres a question I often ask applicants that we hired for our credit union and I asked them what do you want your life story to say? And theyll think about it for a moment and say I want to be known for this or that. I said, dont talk about your career, your life story. I said, case in point, someones going to write my life story someday. Its usually called in the obituary, but theyre going to say something about our family friends and Ill come around and its the only thing they can say about me is he was a really good credit union employee. I kind of consider that a failed life. Randy Smith: I understand that completely. Maurice Smith: But to work at an institution that allows me to pursue the passions that I have for helping other people, for being a participant in the community, trying to do good in the world and I get to do that in my occupation at the same time. I consider that a win win. Randy Smith: I was going to say, my guess is from picking cucumbers with your dad too last year at GAC you were in the White House. I imagine that. So a couple of questions because again, I know your career is very distinguished, was that the first time to the White House? Maurice Smith: My very first time, so I become the chair of CUNA. About noon. Im meeting with President Bush 43 we just want to take him home. Hes such a gracious gentleman and then two hours later Im meeting with president Trump. In the Roosevelt Room of the White House. So you know, from my experiences, Randall, forget about what you might see on cable news and all the other things that might come along. My experiences with president Trump, but he was knowledgeable on our issues. He was read up on it. He was authentic. He was friendly to me. He was a little bit joking with us, you know, weve found like we could hang out for a while, but just a mystique, a being in the White House just really was just, a kid from small farm in Southport, little country boy in North Carolina, and hes sitting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House of, the greatest nation on earth with the president of the United States. You know, it was a great way to kick off this year. Randy Smith: I was going to say there had to be, I would assume thats what of those times that youd kind of take a pause and go, wow. To me. Right. I had to ask you about that. But last year, at GAC last year and we talked about it with Jim on the very first podcast was just how it didnt matter your politics. I think everybody loved the conversation with President Bush. He just, he didnt seem, just like a good guy. Absolutely. That was a lot of fun. This is a a scratch my own itch question and I will tell you that I added this question, but it came from when I was doing some research on you, on the inter webs and seeing them all that youre involved in and even reading the foreword of your book, outside of credit unions youre very involved as well. So the word time management sounds Cliche, but how do you choose what to spend your energy on with such a busy life? Because Im assuming that theres a lot of asks of your time and maybe sometimes more importantly, and this is one of those things that I feel like Ive learned over time a little bit and I still struggle with it, is sometimes its the saying no thats important so that you have room to say yes to more meaningful things. You have a trick here for us that maybe struggle with that or how do you, how do you pack it in such a full life? How about that? Maurice Smith: Randall, I was hoping you have some ideas for me. Randy Smith: I wish I did. Maurice Smith: I struggle with that and my wife would, she would admit that I struggle with it. She admonishes me on you need to start seeing, no, you have to take care of yourself. You have to sleep more than four hours a night. Do you really need to take some time for yourself? And I really do struggle with that. But you know, part of the reason why we struggle is Randall, if youre in this business, this business of credit unions, of co ops, and you recognize the needs in the community, then you try to find ways to maximize your opportunity to take care as many people as you possibly can. Its really hard to say no when theres a need on the other end of that request. And so I find myself stretching myself too thinly. We have this philosophy here at our credit union. The answers always yes. If my board asked me a question, Maurice can we do whatever? The answer is yes. Now theres some provisos, providing as legal, provided we can afford it. Provided we have the scale, providing the market will accepted it. Theres a number of things. But when you go straight to yes, it forces you to look for innovative ways to make it happen as opposed to going to no and looking for ways to try to defeat a proposition. So in my personal life, I go straight to yes first decide is there a way of getting his done? Can I delegate it. Can I find a contractor cannot find a way to create an opportunity for somebody else to fill that need. But lets try to feed out an innovative way of taking care of the need. Well worry about the resources and the scale later. Randy Smith: You used the word that I know a lot of young people or young leaders, I will say, as theyre getting maybe into management struggle with, delegating, we want to do it ourselves. We love it. This is what got us here. Weve worked hard. So now to pass that off, I know its something that I talked to my team about a lot, where Im like, you need to delegate that. Any tips there? Maurice Smith: You know, Ive had to learn that lesson over the years about the importance and the necessity of delegation because its so much easier if I just put my hands on it and go do it myself. But part of the role and part of the responsibility of a leader of any organization is to help develop your colleagues and their particular crafts and the only way theyre going to develop, get better at what theyre doing, to hone their skills. If you allow them to practice their skills, give them more responsibility, letting them take some chances, exercise their judgment, go ahead and make a few mistakes. So hopefully not the kind of mistake thats going to sink an enterprise, like you allow them to grow. You know, Randall. Somebody had to allow me to grow at some point and I thanked him for having the confidence and giving me the opportunity to take a few chances. Its my responsibility to pass alone those opportunities as well. Randy Smith: That really goes in to a question that I have and Im not sure if youve thought of this, but if I were to ask your staff, your team, whats Maurices management style, whats he like as a leader? What would they say your style is? Maurice Smith: You know, thats a good question. Well have to ask them one day. I hope they would say that its participatory. That I want to hear all the voices in the room, that I wanted to make sure everybody participates in the conversation, and the reason why I hope that Randall, because if I think about mistakes that Ive made in my career in the past, it usually comes down to the fact that I did not identify all of the issues. I didnt think about all the alternatives, what options were available to me. I didnt fully consider all the costs or what the break even might be for it. I went into a decision uninformed and completely unprepared and thats when I have fallen flat on my face. So as we come a cross equations here at work, decisions that have to be made, were contemplating a strategy, and when its time to pull the trigger and make a decision, Im constantly asking myself, do I have all the information? Have I asked everybody who needs to be here? Do we have everybody around the table that needs to be here? And Im hoping that kind of participation makes us smarter as an organization. But Im hoping it makes me smarter. You know, as an employee as well. Im hoping my people would say participatory. Now it doesnt mean that from time to time you have to make a command decision and say lets move. I mean a torpedo is coming to sink ship. Somebody has to make a decision to say, get out of the way and do something. Randy Smith: The buck does stop with you in the end. Right. Do you think your style has changed? I mean youve been in a leadership role for quite some time, so from that first day as the new CEO, the new president and CEO, has your style changed over that time? Maurice Smith: It has changed, but its become more participatory. So early in my career I was more inclined to believe that I had the right judgement on the issue and I would treat an equation, treat an issue or a problem from an academic standpoint, like reading a case study and a textbook. I would sit there and think these must be all elements. These are the considerations I should have. Heres the likely outcome. And I would sit there and rationalize it for myself or just a small group of individuals. As Ive learned over time that it takes different individuals to come to the table with different perspective. We talked earlier about diversity and equity and inclusion that is all about having people with different points of view come in and help you make an informed decision. And so Ive learned over time, if anything, the rooms not big enough. I dont have enough voices around the table. Im not hearing enough perspective. So if anything over time Ive learned to become more participatory, invite more individuals and sometimes your best advice come from people who have nothing to do with your industry, has nothing to do with the problem. They are far removed from the equation and it will come along and identify your blind spot every time. Randy Smith: That leads right into a question that Ive been asking every guest on the show. And the question came from a podcast I was listening to where the CEO of Walmart was on it and he was talking about that when he runs into a problem or an issue at work, he will have these like fire days where he just tells his assistant to clear his schedule and he draws on, I saw you have whiteboard walls behind you, and draws out problems by himself. Its what he does. So I thought it was such an interesting question, if you run into a problem, is there something that you do, is it that you reach out to people outside? Just get that different look at it, hopefully bust through it and come to the other side. Maurice Smith: So 10 years ago, Randall, before my father passed away, I would call him. Who did not work in the financial services business and I said Dad I have this issue. He would say explain it to me and Id explain it to him and then he would come back with some insight, not on the technical aspects of how to fix a problem, but son, maybe you should think about it this way and have you considered this. And so that gives me an opportunity to get outside of the four walls in my office and get a completely different perspective. I search for those opportunities today and so there could be an accounting issue that crops up here but I might need to go down to the marketing people and talk to them about, did you have an idea on how we can solve this or they might be something going on with our management information services. The IT people and I want to go talk to internal audit, do you have an idea about that because I want to hear different points of view, different perspectives about it and when Ive done that, we usually get to a much better answer then had taken a unilateral approach and saying this is the only discipline I need to talk to isnt the only answer we are going to get. And when our fallen flat on my face, you have to approach Ive taken. Randy Smith: So is there something that youve said over and over again in your credit union, to your team, that they can finish your sentence? Maurice Smith: Oh, thats a good question. You know, Im not exactly sure, I probably have several refrains that I share with them on a regular basis, except what Im missing you early about the, the answer is yes. I will repeat that often. I have had that come back to haunt me when Ive asked questions and my colleagues have said yes, yes, I said, wouldnt mean, have you thought that through? I said, no, but well figure it out. Randy Smith: But we know thats the answer. So well get it done. Maurice Smith: I dont want to hear, no, Randy Smith: That is great. This is a question again that Ive been asking every guest and I was really excited to ask you this one because my guess is, was there, I think weve even talked about a few of them, so I dont know how you can come up with one, but is there a life lesson, a piece of advice that you received at some point that you constantly find yourself going back to almost like that centering thing and what weve talked about your dad, it seems like from your father there might be, theres a whole book of them? Maurice Smith: There are lots of lessons from him. So working in a credit union, reporting to a board of directors. Im kind of a corporate governance geek, you know, Im a nerd about all things governance. Just the whole system of decision making that goes on the credit union, you know, I just, it absolutely fascinating. So I arrived at Local Government Federal Credit Union in 1992. Im the second in command, executive vice president, and my successor and I are reporting to a nine person board and one day one of the board members called me aside, his name is Joe Prater. Joe Prater was the finance director for the town of Garner, was a local community, a bedroom community to Raleigh. He said, Maurice, you know a lot about credit unions and its obvious in the writing that you provide to us, the memos, the presentations, you give us a lot of detail about how credit unions operate from an operational and logistics standpoint. Now I need you to stop. I said, Joe, what do you mean? He says that when you come to a board meeting and you endeavor to make me just as smart as staff, to know all about the details, the inner workings of a credit union, then you have turned me as a board member into a staff person. I will think about logistics. I would think about all the small little finer details and as a result our board meetings will turn into one big staff meeting. As a director, I need to think about the big lofty goals. I need to focus on the strategy, whats on the horizon, but when you point my attention down into the weeds of the organization that I dont have the perspective of seeing whats coming around the corner, what innovation is occurring. He taught me that lesson. So from that point forward it became the Prater Principle for Joe Prater and as I bought new managers into the organization and have opportunity to talk to them, those who have insight and contact with our board, I say, let me talk to you about the Prater principal. So about two years ago I ran into Joe Prater in the local hardware store. I said, Joe its good to see you. We shook hands and we started, caught up a little bit and I said, Joe, Im still telling people about the Prater principal. He said the what? Randy Smith: I dont even know about it. Maurice Smith: Back in 1992 I shared with him almost verbatim the advice he gave me. He said, you remembered that and its become codified at one of the operating and you know, management principles of our organization. Joes long been off the board, but he said, well thank you for remembering that. But that was a piece of advice that stick with me today and as I serve boards is making sure I give them the tools they need to be successful and not unwillingly pour them into the staff and make them one of us. Randy Smith: He didnt even know you had a principal. Thats a great story. I love that. If you have a free day on the calendar, which probably doesnt happen often, maybe your wife would like you to have more of them. Whats the passion outside of the credit unions? Where did you do to recharge? Maurice Smith: You know, I get recharged by mission driven types of things. So Randall, at the age of 42 I went back to school to get my law degree and I did that because I wanted to learn what it takes to think like a lawyer, to rationalize like a lawyer, to reason like a lawyer, but also theres unfairness in the world and I wanted to play a role in trying to right some wrongs. So outside my credit union world, I provide representation and council to boards of nonprofit organizations. So you are a nonprofit organization. You have some of the same kind of business risks as a for profit institution do, and if youre a fledging organization thats providing an important social need for the community, you may not necessarily have the funding and the resources to pay for a lawyer to sit at your board meetings, to look over your contract, to help you think about, you know, how do I mitigate some of the risk of operating our nonprofit. So in my spare time I provide pro bono services, free services to nonprofit organizations who need some legal guidance, who need just a little bit of help on the side to help them think through strategically some of the things they ought to be doing. I find that to be a fun Saturday. Randy Smith: Thats a good Saturday. Wow. You went out and got the law degree at 42, thats fantastic. When a GiGi Hyland was on the show, she talked about her mother and her mother went back to law school after she had her children, but it was that idea, okay, just keep going here. Right. I want to be respectful of your time, so Id like to get into what I think is the fun part of the show and ask you some rapid fire questions so the questions are rapid, your answers do not have to be. First one. Is there a daily routine that you have that if you just dont do it, your day feels off? I journal in the morning. I kind of dump everything in my head to paper and then I move on with my day and feel much more productive. Do you have anything that you just have to do every day or the day just feels off? Maurice Smith: My day usually begin around 4:45 5:00 in the morning. Im an early riser and I script out my day. So when I arrived to the office, if the world is all perfect and nothing goes wrong, I pretty much know exactly what tasks I want to have accomplished by the end of the day. That usually does not happen, you know? So at least I have a plan. Usually by the end of the day I talked to the trashcan and start over again, but, but I script my day out at the beginning of each day. if I dont do that I feel like I dont have a plan for which I should attack things that are on my desk. Randy Smith: Do you write this down, in a digital way? Is it a legal pad or a notebook? Maurice Smith: it is written down on anything I could get my hands on, the corners of a newspaper, paper towel, anything I get my hands on. Ill make a list out of it. Randy Smith: Perfect. The a random question and were going to make one heck of a playlist at the end of the year off this, but whats the best album of all time? That one you can listen to from the beginning to end or youd take with you on a desert island if that was the only thing you could bring? Maurice Smith: Well it probably wouldnt be something from Snoop Dog. Randy Smith: Not a snoop Dogg fan, huh? Maurice Smith: I like some of the oldies, so take something like Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life. Randy Smith: Im a born and raised in Detroit guy, so I understand, I was brought up on it. That was what was playing in the house when I was a kid and so thats fantastic. Thats going to be a good one for the list. Im a big reader also. Like I said, Im looking forward to your book. Besides your book, is there a book over your lifetime that youve gifted or recommended others to read more than any other? Maurice Smith: Theres a book Im working on my second time of reading and want to makes sure that I didnt miss some principles in it. Its called Judgment Days and it chronicles the relationship between President Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King. So you have gentlemen here who from opposite end of the political and sociological spectrum who came together to work together to create, you know, pivotal, you know, legislation for our society. So as you and I will think about todays issues, whether its cooperative principles or whether its diversity, inclusion and yet there are lots of reasons for us to be divisive on a number of issues. But if people are committed to making good, positive change in the world and they come together and common ground, they can create amazing things. And so I read the book of second time just to make sure I didnt pass something along the line because I want to make sure those principles and those ideas and those leadership lessons are things that I instill in my field and use those in the future. Randy Smith: You just added a book to my reading list, it sounds like a great read and well link to that as well in the show notes. So if anybody else wants to check it out. As youve gotten older, has anything become more important to you? And on the flip side of it, whats become less important? Maurice Smith: Good question. Time has become more important to me. You know, Randall, Im trying to be very mindful of the moment and of the day, and activity, to company of good friends, conversation. Time is important to me. And you know, I turned 62 years old this year and time is moving by really quickly. And as I think about the future, what do I want to accomplish? What do I want to be? What improvements do I want to make for my community, for my family, for my life, and time, you know, thats a perishable commodity. Randy Smith: Thats the one we can control. Maurice Smith: Absolutely. Ive come to appreciate it more and more and take advantage of the opportunities that I have and the things that I want to move out of my life is idleness. You know, because I dont have a whole lot of free time. Mostly because I dont free time for myself. Usually if I have free time, Im exhausted and I just usually, you know, pass out from sheer exhaustion she or something. But I want to make sure Im taking advantage of every moment to be productive. So anything thats going to keep me off course, for whats important for our membership, for credit unions, for the community, for the charitable things that we do for our neighborhoods. If its going to keep me off course from that, Im going to try to avoid it. Randy Smith: Im going to throw in an add on question to this. Sure. What advice would you give to your 25 year old self? Maurice Smith: Oh, 25 years old. Oh, thats a long time ago by the way. Randall, I would tell myself to enjoy the ride. Dont be quite so anxious. Life is going to turn out just fine for me. That, you know, were gonna have a beautiful family and you know, things are going to go well. In terms of my opportunity that I have, I would tell myself just relax and enjoy the ride. Randy Smith: Enjoy the ride. The final question. Its the one that I didnt send you. Top of mind, first person you think of when you hear the word success? Maurice Smith: Success. Oh, it would be my father. Randy Smith: That doesnt surprise me at all and I think we can all read the book to find out why. To me that is the perfect way to wrap this up. Once again, Maurice, I thank you so much. Ive enjoyed this so much for you taking the time today. Is there any final thoughts or any ask that you have of our listeners? Maurice Smith: I thank the listeners for taking an opportunity to just hear a few words from me. You know, I dont take this for granted. Everybodys busy. I believe. There are more asks and more demands on our lives and our livelihood and our time than we have capacity and scale to address everything. And to the extent any of your listeners took the time to spend this moment with us, Ive deeply cherish and appreciate that. Randy Smith: And I echo that and I thank you again, Sir, so much for your time. Maurice Smith: Thank you. Randy Smith: And with that, I hope everybody enjoys. Have a great day. Maurice Smith: A pleasure. STORY LINK Pound Sterling Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) Exchange Rate Slips on Uncertainty over PM?s Third ?Meaningful Vote? Pound Sterling Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) Exchange Rate Falls as Third Meaningful Vote Edges Closer Japanese Yen (JPY) Rises as Industrial Production Contracts Japanese Yen (JPY) Rises despite Falling Japanese Exports Pound (GBP) Weighed Down as UK Rightmove House Index Fails to Bounce into Spring Pound Yen Outlook: Will the GBP/JPY Exchange Rate Rise on Dovish BOJ? Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: The Pound Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) exchange rate slipped over the course of Monday as Brexit pessimism weighed on Sterling.The pairing is currently trading at an inter-bank rate of 147.47.Sterling continues to struggle to hold onto last weeks gains as traders contemplate Brexit possibilities that have now opened up, including a general election.Uncertainty has emerged over whether Theresa Mays Brexit withdrawal agreement will be put to a vote for the third time this week.Later in the afternoon it was revealed that John Bercow has ruled out the vote if the agreement remains substantially the same as MPs could not be asked to vote on precisely the same subject twice.Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt has said that a lot more work is required to get MPs to back the Prime Ministers deal, although there were encouraging signs that objecting MPs were coming around.Hunt also said that the third meaningful vote would only be held before Thursdays European Union summit if ministers were confident of a victory.Early Monday morning saw the release of the Japanese industrial production did not contract as far as forecast.Monthly production slipped to -3.4%, rather than the predicted -3.7%.However, there has not been any growth in Japans industrial production since October 2018.Annual production rose by 0.3% in January, the largest annual rise since November 2018.Data released at the start of this weeks session showed that Japans exports fell for the third consecutive month in February.This is a sign of the growing strain on the trade-reliant Japanese economy, which may suggest the Bank of Japan will be forced to offer more stimulus.Commenting on this, Takeshi Minami, Chief Economist at Norinchukin Research Institute said:Exports to advanced nations like the United States and Europe still held firm, but China- and Asia-bound shipments were clearly sluggish.Exports will remain in a declining trend for the time being, which could curb capital spending and wages. Domestic economy will face a severe situation ahead of Octobers sales tax hike.Between February and March, the Rightmove House Price Index revealed that house prices only rose by 0.4%, with the annual figure contracting by -0.8%.This was the lowest monthly spring rise since 2011, with Rightmove blaming Brexit uncertainty for delaying the usual spring bounce.Commenting on the data, Rightmove Director Miles Shipside said:While March marks the start of spring, temperatures have yet to rise in the housing market. Buying activity remains cooler than usual, with hesitation as some buyers await a more settled political climate.[]This could be a temporary pause, and indeed market slowdowns at election time and around the original referendum result bounced back pretty quickly. Markets and people do not like uncertainty, though while sales agreed numbers are down by 7%, that means they are still running at 93% of last years levels.Looking ahead to Tuesday morning, the Pound (GBP) could slide against the Japanese Yen (JPY) following the release of the UK average earnings for January.If average earnings including bonuses rise by 3.3% compared to the previous 3.4% rise, it could dampen sentiment in Sterling.However, this could be offset by unemployment data, which is forecast to show unemployment within the UK is going to remain steady at 4%.Early during the start of Wednesdays Asian session the Bank of Japans (BoJ) Monetary Policy meeting minutes are due for release.If the monetary policy minutes continue to reflect a dovish tone, the Pound Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) exchange rate could rise. International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements. TAGS: Pound Yen Forecasts US Allies Dont Agree With Trump Blocking Huawei The Trump administration's push to get US allies to block Chinese firm Huawei from their next-generation wireless networks is facing skepticism from political and industry leaders in Europe. At a major global industry conference recently in Barcelona, many are pushing back on US claims that Huawei poses a national security threat. Industry players instead argue that a blanket ban on the Chinese telecom's hardware would set 5G deployments back years and inject more uncertainty into the rollouts. Nick Read, the CEO of the British telecom giant Vodafone, told reporters at the Mobile World Congress recently that swapping out Huawei equipment thats already in European networks would be a massive undertaking that structurally disadvantages the continent amid a global race to roll out the networks. Read said the US should present evidence that Huawei poses an unacceptable risk. We need to have a fact-based risk-assessed review, he told reporters at the event, according to Reuters. People are saying things at the moment that are not grounded, Im not saying that is the case for the US because I have not met them directly myself so I have not seen what evidence they have, but they clearly need to present that evidence to the right bodies throughout Europe. Vodafone has worked with Huawei in developing the next-generation wireless networks known as 5G, but it is still awaiting a UK intelligence report for the final word on whether the Chinese business will be permitted in their infrastructure. Last week, one of the UKs top cybersecurity officials said that any threat that Huawei poses could be managed. And German officials are reportedly leaning towards allowing the company to participate in their countrys 5G buildout. The Trump administration has emphasized 5G as essential to the US economy and national security. Proponents say that the new capabilities, which are still years away from being fully realized, will deliver much faster mobile download speeds that will unlock a technological revolution. But the pushback from US allies comes as Trump himself has signaled that he's open to a softer stance on Huawei, potentially undercutting his administration's efforts. The president suggested last week amid a new round of trade talks with Chinese government officials that the US would consider dropping charges against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December at the request of the Trump administration. Meng is facing extradition on charges of violating trade sanctions against Iran. After months of rumors that Trump would sign an executive order banning the use of Huawei's products from the nations wireless infrastructure, he appeared to back away from that last week. I want to have competition with China, the president told reporters in the Oval Office recently. Fair competition. I don't want to block out anybody if we can help it. Now if there's going to be a security reason or something, then we have no choice, but that is one of the things we'll be discussing today. We want to have open competition. We've always done very well in open competition. Huawei has become the worlds largest supplier of telecommunications equipment because it offers low prices that competitors have a hard time competing with, and the president has warned that U.S. providers need to catch up. The US is lagging behind, Huawei chairman Guo Ping said in Barcelona. His message is clear and correct, Guo added of Trump. Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and a staunch Trump ally, said in a phone interview with The Hill that Huaweis growth will give China extraordinary access to information and an extraordinary ability to manipulate it. Theyre a national security threat in the long run because what they want to do is go out to countries all over the world and offer them government-subsidized cut-rate deals and end up with Huawei providing all of the telecommunications capabilities, Gingrich said. The former Georgia Republican added that if Huawei had access to the worlds 5G networks, China would be able to amass troves of data that would give its intelligence services a huge advantage over the Wests. But thats proving to be a hard sell to many in Europe. Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, the CEO of Spains Telefonica, told Bloomberg there is no proof of any wrongdoing in any part of our networks and that the US should offer evidence showing that Huawei is a risk. For the time being there is a lot of noise, and we would really like to become factual on that issue, Alvarez-Pallate said. As for the US market, its still unclear whether Trump will sign the executive order keeping companies like Huawei out. Doug Dawson, a consultant for small telecommunications carriers, though, says that after years of warnings from lawmakers and intelligence officials, domestic companies have mostly avoided using Huawei parts out of fear they could soon be outlawed. They've been trying to break into the market with low prices, Dawson told The Hill. At this point, you'd never buy it new because you couldn't support it. Whether they actually have a backdoor, I don't know how any of us would know that, he added. The Hill: You Might Also Read: British Telecom Is Stripping Huawei Out Of Its Network: Why the Anderson family has never forgotten the impact of Pearl Harbor Cebu City (CNN Philippines, March 18) The confessed killer of 16-year-old Cebu student Christine Silawan is now in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Central Visayas NBI Director Tomas Enrile on Monday said Silawan's former boyfriend was arrested in Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City on March 16. Two other suspects who helped commit the gory murder are still being hunted. "Yes, totoo po yun na nahuli na yung suspect sa pagpatay kay Christine Silawan," Enrile confirmed, adding that the killer already confessed to the crime. Local reports quoted the NBI regional director as saying the boy committed the crime out of jealousy. He said security footage and text messages from Silawan helped track down the suspect whose name cannot be disclosed because he is a minor. The Justice Department earlier ordered the NBI to investigate and build up the case on the bloody murder of the high school student. Silawan was stabbed several times on her neck and body which was found in a vacant lot on Monday. Her skull was exposed and she was naked from the waist down. Initial medico-legal report showed she was also missing a number of organs including the neck, trachea, esophagus, and tongue. It remains unclear if she was also raped. Authorities said the young girl may have been dead for 12 hours when she was found. The marching season seems to be upon us. Last week there was (another) so-called strike by schoolchildren against climate change. The former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is now leading a march from the North East to London, protesting against the betrayal of Brexit by Theresa May. And on Saturday, the campaign known as The Peoples Vote is to descend on Whitehall and Parliament Square. The latter is bound to be much more numerous than Farages demo. Whatever he says, if Mrs May wins the parliamentary vote on the Withdrawal Agreement this week, the UK will have Brexit. And its when people are not getting what they want from Parliament that they protest in the largest numbers. Though they wildly exaggerate their support, even then. Students take part in the global school strike for climate change in Parliament Square last Friday. Many of them are pictured holding Socialist Worker placards Those who want a second referendum (to cancel out the first) insisted that their march on Parliament last October was joined by more than 700,000 people. It was only months later that a freedom of information request unearthed a debriefing document by the Greater London Authority which put the number of Peoples Vote marchers at no more than 250,000. And these days, when the social media can whip up a firestorm of outrage over nothing and everything, it is remarkably easy to get people to join a campaign. This was demonstrated by one Anders Colding-Jorgensen of the University of Copenhagen. In 2009 he created a Facebook group to protest against the demolition of the Stork Fountain (which adorns a square in the Danish capital). No fewer than 10,000 people joined in the first week; after a fortnight, the group had over 27,000 pledging fealty. Then Colding-Jorgensen revealed that he had been conducting a social experiment to show how easy it was to mobilise people via false claims on the social media: there never was a plan to knock down the Stork Fountain. Poorly informed: Parliament Square protesters wave a hammer and sickle next to a statue of Winston Churchill on Friday, March 15 This makes me wonder what has been told to the schoolchildren who have deserted their classrooms with the encouragement of their teachers to protest about alleged government inaction against climate change. Pictured: Nigel Farage at the March to Leave, which set out from Sunderland on Saturday They have been led to believe that British politicians have been doing nothing to reduce emissions of CO2. Whoever taught them that is either ignorant, or deliberately covering up the fact that UK CO2 emissions have fallen consistently in each of the past six years (the result of government-mandated action to shut coal-powered power stations). Last year, or so scientists tell us, UK CO2 emissions were at the lowest levels in more than 120 years, despite the fact that our population and output is vastly higher. Add to this that the UK contributes little more than one per cent of global CO2 emissions, and you wonder again what these children have been told by their teachers. Have they been told, for example, that China is building almost 260 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generating capacity (equivalent to roughly the entire U.S. coal power station fleet)? Have they been told that last year China also financed more than a quarter of worldwide coal plant construction (to the tune of $36bn)? If these striking school- children were at all informed on the matter that exercises them so much, they would be demonstrating not in Parliament Square but outside the London embassy of the Peoples Republic of China. Thousands of young people descended on Parliament Square, central London, on Friday to protest about climate change Thats the one with the red flag, as its government still claims to be faithful to Marxism. In fact, Communism is also fashionable among young would-be saviours of the planet. A number of those demonstrating last week were waving the red flag complete with hammer and sickle. One of them was standing on the plinth with the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. He had doubtless never been told by his teachers that the late Soviet regime and its Eastern European satellites made Donald Trump look like an ecologist. The Chernobyl nuclear blow-out was only the most spectacular example of its environmental blight and the only one which the Soviet government was unable to cover up or prevent being known about in the West. Students climb the Queen Victoria Memorial with a red flag in the protest last Friday But since the collapse of Soviet Communism we have learned much more. In 2013 a Russian scientist from Murmansk disclosed that, despite official denials, the Soviet navy had been dumping nuclear waste in the Barents Sea, several hundred miles from the Norwegian coast in a known fishing area. Apparently the Soviet fleet punctured the protective containers, so the barrels of radioactive waste would fill with seawater and sink, rather than risk them floating and being discovered. The real environmental gap between the West (so despised by those who fill pupils minds with the joys of Marxism) and the Soviet system was most clearly revealed in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A student waves the red flag as he climbs the Queen Victoria Memorial during the protest At the time of reunification, only half of the Easts domestic sewage was receiving treatment: half of the countrys lakes were considered dead or dying. And in some parts of Communist East Germany the level of air pollution was between eight and 12 times greater than found in capitalist West Germany. I fear the striking schoolchildren many of whom were chanting f*** Theresa May outside Downing Street have been taught to think that Jeremy Corbyn was right that East Germany was a workers paradise (the Labour leader holidayed there, he admired it so much). Perhaps its time for a march against Communism. Ending up outside the offices of the National Union of Teachers. TEST CASE TO CHALLENGE OFFICIAL CRUELTY Scarcely a week passes without fresh examples of appalling enforced treatment of young adults with learning disabilities. Yesterdays Mail on Sunday reported the case of an autistic man, Martin, seized from a farm where he was enjoying work experience and put into a care home two counties away. His mother, Sinead, told Ian Birrell (who has revealed how hundreds have been torn away from their parents in similar fashion): Our son had been kidnapped by the state and we were powerless to do anything. Help may be at hand. Three mothers of young adults with intellectual disabilities have launched a test case legal challenge with the solicitors Irwin Mitchell which will be heard next Monday by the Vice President of the Court of Protection. One of the mothers is my wife (our daughter Domenica is a 23-year-old with Downs Syndrome). Their purpose is to amend the Code of Practice which governs the courts interpretation of the Mental Capacity Act. It is only in the most difficult cases that parents or relatives are granted the status of welfare deputy a status that gives them decision-making authority over the treatment of their children. The mothers argument is that the courts should place much greater emphasis on what the young adults views and wishes are. But even if I were not the husband of one of the parties to this crowdfunded case (www.crowdjustice.com/case/3forallstagetwo) I would be convinced by the moral force of their claim: We love our children and need to continue to take care of them and make decisions about their welfare. We find it unbelievable that now they have become adults we have lost that right. Tired of the same old destinations and faded tourist traps? We've hunted high and low to unwrap the best hidden locations around the world, perfect for those seeking to escape the tourist trail and explore new, hidden treasures. Whether you're looking for an exotic, far flung trip or a secret gem a bit closer to home, ignite your wanderlust with these unspoiled areas of natural beauty. From awe-inspiring caves to remote islands and tranquil lakes, explore these intriguing locations and watch out for a little something extra. Feast your eyes on the breathtaking scenery below and see if you can spot the hidden gooey goody... Hide-and-seek: Off the shores of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico you'll find the awe-inspiring Hidden Beach ISLAS MARIETAS - MEXICO If you're on the lookout for something off the beaten track, the stunning Islas Marietas certainly fits the bill. Declared a National Protected Area of Mexico as well as a Biosphere Reserve by the UNESCO, the unusual rocky formations located off the coast of Puerto Vallarta were created by underwater volcanoes. The intriguing Hidden Beach (Playa Escondida) is a must-see thanks to its striking, sunken shape and can only be reached by swimming or kayaking through a tunnel. The island boasts rich marine biodiversity and is the perfect destination to spot amazing wildlife, offering one of the best diving experiences in Mexico. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for opening times before you travel as access is limited due to conservation work. Eagle-eyed: Go hunting for what lies beneath Lake Thingvallavatn in Iceland LAKE THINGVALLAVATN, ICELAND Dive deep into the waters of Lake Thingvallavatn in Iceland for a unique geological experience. The rift valley lake is the country's largest and is a secret mecca for intrepid divers, set in the beautiful Thingvellir National Park. There are plenty of hidden treasures awaiting those brave enough to make the 206-foot descent into the Silfra fissure. You'll be able to touch two continents at once as you swim between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, exploring the secrets that lie beneath. Set 25 miles northeast of the capital Reykjavik, the park is also well worth a visit for its impressive landscapes and historical significance. Searching for peace and quiet? Comb through the wilderness of Portugal's Flores Island FLORES ISLAND, PORTUGAL Go in search of peace and tranquillity by travelling to the little-known secret that is Flores Island. One of nine islands forming the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, the remote destination boasts eight natural lagoons, gorgeous green forests and waterfalls aplenty. Listed as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the offbeat location is a haven for eco-tourism and wildlife. Named after its abundance of flowers, Flores Island is perfect for both thrill-seekers and animal lovers keen to reconnect with nature. Enjoy a hilltop hike or take a coastal boat tour to capture the very best of the scenic views the island has to offer. Voyage of discovery: Seek out a natural wonder by visiting the Marble Caves in Chile MARBLE CAVES, CHILE For those in pursuit of something a little different, try Chile's unique and visually stunning Marble Caves. Carved into the side of the Patagonian Andes, they can be found in the General Carrera, a glacial lake on the border with Argentina. The blue walls mirror the sea surrounding them, changing colour depending on water levels and time of year, and are at their brightest in the warmer months. The striking effect is caused by waves crashing over the solid marble walls for over six thousand years. Prepare to be taken on a voyage of discovery since the hidden caves can only be reached by water. Hidden gem: Track down the little-known secret that is Blagaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina BLAGAJ, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA On the hunt for a new Eastern European destination outside of bustling Croatia and picturesque Prague? Take the road less travelled and discover a real life fairytale in Blagaj, a small town the south eastern region of the Mostar basin of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The peaceful setting is home to the Blagaj Tekija, a Dervish monastery built at the base of an impressive cliff. Nearly 600 years old, it was first founded during the Ottoman Empire and has been largely preserved in its original state. Escape to this hidden gem for some rest and relaxation and enjoy a drink while overlooking the river Buna. Kim Kardashian West made headlines last week after sharing a candid video of her face without makeup to show her psoriasis flare-ups. The 38-year-old reality star has been open more recently about her struggles with the chronic skin condition which causes red and dry patches on the skin due to a build up of cells at the surface. In the video, Kim shared a close-up of her face and labeled it simply 'psoriasis face' while showing the plaques resting underneath her eyes and along her cheeks. She then posted another selfie on Sunday morning showing the flare-ups right when she woke up. Upset: Kim Kardashian West, 38, shared on social media this past week the psoriasis patches on her face. The reality star was diagnosed with the chronic skin condition in 2011 Frustrated: She has been sharing on social media more and more how the psoriasis has spread to her face and even asked followers for advice on how to alleviate the patches Difficult: Experts recommend for people to visit with a dermatologist to discuss treatment options for psoriasis. It remains unclear the steps Kim has taken to relieve her own symptoms The chronic skin condition impacts more than eight million Americans, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation, and has no cure. Kim was first diagnosed with the condition in 2011 when it started along the lower half of her body. But it has since spread to other areas including her face. Just last month the beauty mogul expressed her frustration with followers about the condition when posting a selfie of her face covered in a herbal ointment to help relieve her dry patches. 'Psoriasis is the s***s,' the star joked in her caption after sharing the selfie. Kim also asked followers for suggestions on Twitter in December after realizing she should potentially try medication for the skin condition. 'I think the time has come I start a medication for psoriasis,' Kim wrote in the tweet. 'Ive never seen it like this before and I cant even cover it at this point. Its taken over my body. Has anyone tried a medication for psoriasis & what kind works best?' However, rather than turning to social media, experts advise anyone suffering from psoriasis to first seek help from a licensed professional or dermatologist. This comes after a study was released by researchers at the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland where they reviewed YouTube videos featuring remedies for the skin condition. In the study, researchers found 10 per cent of the psoriasis information advised in the videos could be 'potentially dangerous for users'. Annoyed: The doctor might prescribe a topical or oral medication to help alleviate the itchiness. Kim shared recently how she used a herbal ointment on her plaques Depending on the severity of the skin condition, the licensed professional could prescribe the person a topical for the patches or an oral medication to help relieve some of the symptoms. According to the Mayo Clinic, using topical creams alone can help relieve the symptoms of itchiness and dryness for someone who has mild psoriasis. Topical corticosteroids, for example, can reduce inflammation and itching along the skin. People can also purchase topical retinoids or use products with salicylic acid to help symptoms. But each topical should be used sparingly and at the advice of a doctor to avoid side effects. Keeping it covered: Other treatment options for people with psoriasis like Kim's include light therapy and avoiding stress Severe psoriasis is advised to be treated with the addition of an oral medication and/or light therapy to the area of concern. Light therapy a form of treatment Kim has used in the past to help eliminate psoriasis patches can be implemented in the form of natural or artificial ultraviolet lights. Doctors tend to recommend oral medication for people with severe cases of psoriasis. Oral medication prescribed by doctors could include a retinoid, Methotrexate or Cyclosporine to name a few. These medications work to slow down the production of skin cells that cause the plaques and redness along the skin. Moisturizing the skin consistently is also key for people to help alleviate the itchiness and dryness caused by psoriasis. When speaking to Health Central, dermatologist Dr. Debra Jailman recommended using CeraVe Moisturizing Cream because it contains essential ceramics and hyaluronic acid. These can work together as a protective barrier for the skin. Avoiding stress though difficult for some is another key recommendation by experts because stress can cause flare-ups across the body, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation. There are also some alternative medicine options for people who have exhausted other treatments, such as ingesting fish oil supplements or using Aloe Vera cream directly from the plant on flare-ups to relieving itching. Experts also recommend hydrating the skin with tea tree oil. But research is still limited on a permanent solution to psoriasis as the chronic skin condition continues to impact millions of people across the US. Two leading dermatologists have created a guide that reveals how to tell six of the most common moles apart - and which ones can be dangerous. Dermatologist Dr Daniel Glass of The Dermatology Clinic London explained while moles can vary in shape, colour and texture, there are some factors to be aware of to determine if these need to be assessed by an expert. Sydney dermatologist Dr Stephen Shumack told FEMAIL moles, or naevi, can be present at birth or appear later in life. Moles that have changed in shape, size and colour or have become itchy, painful or started to bleed should be seen by a specialist. Here, experts outline the features of six different moles as well highlighting those moles which could prove dangerous if left unchecked. 1. Junctional melanocytic naevi A junctional naevi (or flat mole) is the sort of moles that tends to appear in childhood and teenage years - and can show up anywhere on the body A junctional naevi is the sort of mole that tends to appear in childhood and teenage years and can show up anywhere on the body. These sorts of moles are flat and freckle-like in appearance. They are usually brown, dark-brown or black and tend to be uniform in colour. 'They do not usually occur in people over 50 years old and if they do they need to be watched carefully as they are more likely to turn into melanoma if they are new in the older age group,' Dr Shumack said. 2. Compound naevi Compound Naevi can be recognised by being slightly elevated in appearance and surrounded by a small flat patch These moles are comprised of 'nests' of naevus cells (pigment cells) which sit in a raised patch above the skin. These elevated cells are surrounded by a flat patch and there is also is some pigmentation depending on the person's skin tone. Dr Shumack said despite appearances, these moles are usually benign. However, if you have any concerns don't hesitate to get a mole checked. 3. Intradermal naevi Intradermal naevi are flesh-coloured, light brown, and usually, although not always, are smooth and dome-shaped in appearance Dermatologist Dr Stephen Shumack (pictured) said moles can be present at birth or appear later in life Intradermal naevi are flesh-coloured, light brown, and are usually smooth and dome-shaped in their appearance. The moles can start off brown and lose colour with age. This is related to how the cells lose their ability to produce pigment over time. They are most commonly found in adults, primarily on the head, neck and upper torso, and may also have a few hairs growing through them. Dr Shumack said these moles are mostly benign but he does recommend checking them from time to time. 4. Freckles If your skin is prone to freckling, you see more appear over summer, however, these will fade during winter These are small, pale to dark brown, flat spots that appear are being exposed to the sun. Freckles are common in childhood, particularly in people with fair skin, red hair and blue eyes. They are a response of melanocytes (pigment cells) to UV radiation exposure - the sun's rays. If your skin is prone to freckling, you'll see more in summer, however, these will fade over winter. Freckles are not a sign of any underlying skin disorders, and they do not require any treatment. 5. Lentigines Lentigines are generally associated with sun damage and are flat, brown and can sometimes be quite large in size Lentigines are also known as liver spots or age spots and are generally associated with sun-damaged skin. These are flat, brown and can sometimes be quite large in size. Unlike freckles, they do not fade when they are no longer exposed to the sun. Lentigines are mostly found on the face, arms, chest, shoulders, back and the back of hands. Their presence isn't a cause for concern. However, sun-damaged skin which results in a dark, flat spot which slowly changes colour and enlarges over time should be checked. This is important as the spot may develop into a melanoma, a type of skin cancer that begins in the top layer of skin and then invades the underlying skin layer. 6. Atypical naevi Aytpical naevi can be up to 5mm in diameter, are flat and tend to have irregular borders Atypical naevi usually occur in fair-skinned people and are due to sun exposure. These moles are often large, up to 5mm in diameter, flat and have irregular borders and pigmentation. 'This sort of mole should be assessed by an expert,' said Dr Shumack, 'as they can indicate a change to malignant lesions such as melanoma.' A British pensioner claims he was treated 'like a serial killer' when he was deported from Mexico after being mistaken for an 'international criminal'. When Tony Smith and his wife Carole, both 66, from Worthing, West Sussex decided to celebrate their retirement with a 3K holiday in Cancun, they were dreaming of sunshine, luxury and relaxation. Instead, they got the holiday from hell when retired businessman Tony was detained at Cancun airport for three days in a 10 sq ft room with no windows, no pillow and only two thin blankets for comfort. Although the exact reason for his detention still remains a mystery, the father-of-four was told by airport officials that his name was on a US watch list of international criminals. He's since discovered he shares his name with multiple wanted criminals in the US, although not the same date of birth. Tony has also discovered that airlines hand over passenger details from every plane travelling over American airspace to Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico - even if the flight never actually lands on US territory, so that officials can cross check this against the US No Fly List. The pensioner now fears going abroad again in case the same thing happens, but is at a loss how to clear his name. Anthony and Carole Smith, pictured on a previous holiday, found themselves on a holiday from hell when Tony, 66, was mistaken for an international criminal at Cancun airport and deported Four months on from the incident Carole, 66, who has been married to Tony for 30 years, said their holiday in November 2018 was 'strange' from the start. 'Whenever we travel abroad, we always check-in online and print out our tickets before leaving the house. But for some reason, we were unable to do so for this trip,' she recalled. 'So at Gatwick Airport, we handed over our paperwork to the lady on the British Airways check-in desk. 'But while my ticket printed out immediately, she couldn't get Tony's to go through. She struggled for 30 minutes, calling a colleague to help, before it finally processed.' Something amiss At the departure gate, once again Carole's ticket was checked with no problems. But when it was Tony's turn, a mysterious alert flashed up on the screen. Tony, 66, explained how the man taking the tickets asked his colleague if he knew what the alert meant, but they simply said: 'Never seen it before. Just override it.' He added: 'When my boarding pass was printed out, it had four Ss along the bottom, which was new to me. I've flown abroad many times, and never noticed anything like that before.' However, soon the Smiths were on their way to their sunshine holiday. Their all-inclusive deal had set them back 3,000, but they didn't mind forking out for their once-in-a-lifetime holiday. Wife Carole was taken to their hotel, bedroom pictured, but had no money or phone charger on her and said she couldn't enjoy the luxury break as she was worrying about her husband During his three-day wait for a flight back to the UK Tony was kept in a small room and made to sleep on a thin mattress, pictured, with only two thin blankets and no pillow The father-of-four was told to shower in a cramped space, pictured, stacked with mops But when they landed, thinks went wrong when Tony was ushered into a side room as he queued up to go through passport control. 'I couldn't understand what was going on. For half an hour I waited for him outside that room, but I wasn't particularly anxious,' Carole recalled. Finally, an official appeared to say she could go inside, to join her husband who was being questioned by a national security officer. Carole said: 'The man didn't speak much English, so was talking into a phone that flashed up translations of what he was saying. 'He barked at my husband: "Why are you here? How much money do you have with you? Have you ever been to America before?" Tony turned to his wife and rolled his eyes, saying: 'I've answered these questions 50 times already, but he isn't listening.' When is an individual added to the US No Fly list? As of August 2013, there were 47,000 individuals on the United States' No Fly list. People included on the list included those convicted of or arrested for acts of terrorism, assassins, bombers, hostage takers, associates of terror groups amongst others. The US can also decide to bar foreigners who have committed drugs offences without ever being charged. Would-be travellers can apply to have the ban lifted, but this can take months. In April 2014, Nigella Lawson was banned from leaving Heathrow on a U.S-bound flight because she had admitted to taking drugs. The 'Domestic Goddess' was forced to confess under oath during a trial that she had snorted cocaine seven times and smoked cannabis in front of her children. Frequent travel to areas known to be involved in terrorism or financial crimes, can also raise a red flag. Sometimes errors can occur - like the FBI ticking the wrong box on a form. A former Stanford University student was mistakenly suspected as a terrorist and placed on the government's 'no-fly' list for nine years because an FBI agent checked the wrong box on her form. Rahinah Ibrahim, 48, an architect and scholar, was finally allowed to return to the United States in 2014 after fighting to clear her name since 2005. In January of that year, Ibrahim was arrested and detained for two hours at San Francisco Airport as she boarded a flight to her native Malaysia with her 14-year-old daughter. Sharing a name with a wanted criminal or terrorist can also cause problems. Previously, the TV programme 60 Minutes researched and interviewed 12 individuals who shared names of people on the list. These included people who shared the name Robert Johnson, who had previously been convicted of plotting a bombing of a Hindu temple. All Robert Johnsons said they have had trouble getting on airplanes. Advertisement High security The father-of-four had already had his fingerprints and picture taken, but the official wanted a picture of Carole as well. Eventually the security man went off, then returned, telling the mystified couple: 'You're of no interest to Mexico. You can both go.' Tony recalled: 'We returned to passport control, thinking everything was going to be okay, and all this aggravation would just make an amusing story to tell our family, back home. 'But while they were happy to let my wife through the barriers, they said: "Mr Smith is awaiting clearance." 'Eventually, another official told me: "You're being denied entry to Mexico. You'll be detained at the airport until you can be sent home on the next flight - in three days' time." Mistaken identity Three hours after getting off the plane, yet another official informed the couple that Tony's name was on a US watch list of international criminals. Carole said: 'We didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My husband is a respectable pensioner. The most honest and trustworthy person you could ever meet. 'I kept saying: "Tony's done nothing wrong, you've made a mistake." But they wouldn't listen. I was in shock as my husband was led away and I was ordered to leave the airport.' Carole, 66, said she spent most of the three days in her room crying and was 'so stressed.' Pictured is the pool at the Haven Resort in Cancun where the couple had booked to stay By now, the transfer vehicle they had booked had long gone. Carole had to travel on alone in a taxi to their hotel. 'The journey with a driver who spoke very little English took me through what looked like a dark forest,' said Carole. 'On my own, I felt really scared and vulnerable. 'Then I realised, because I said goodbye to Tony in such a state, I hadn't a penny on me, to pay the taxi driver. All our cash was with my husband. 'Neither did I have any phone charger - that was in Tony's jacket pocket, too. Thankfully, the taxi driver didn't ask me for any more money.' Dinner for one When Carole arrived at the Haven Resort, Cancun, staff appeared to be unaware of any problems and produced a tray with two welcome glasses of champagne on it. She recalled: 'I said that my husband had been held at the airport. They didn't seem to understand, but I wasn't in the mood to spend ages explaining.' While the room boasted spectacular views, Carole was unable to view her surroundings as she was so worried about her husband. The couple, pictured on a previous holiday, were reunited at the airport and flew back to Gatwick together, although Carole had to pay 200 to change her flight Thankfully, Tony had been allowed to keep his mobile phone - so now his wife called him. He said: 'I'm shut in a little room, ten feet square, without any windows. It's not much better than a large cupboard. There is a security man outside to guard me. 'My bed is a thin mattress on the floor, without any pillows, and two thin blankets. The air conditioning is on full blast, all the time - it's freezing cold in here.' Bizarrely, he'd been offered a takeaway pizza to eat - he was just waiting for it to arrive. Desperate for help That night, both of them barely slept. Carole recalls: 'Next day, I wasn't allowed to visit Tony at the airport. So I spent hours in reception, calling the British Consulate, and phoning our four children. My bed is a thin mattress on the floor, without any pillows, and two thin blankets. 'None of the officials were much help. The consulate told me: "Because your husband has only been detained, and not arrested, there's nothing we can do." The Mexican authorities were putting Tony on the next plane home. Naturally, his wife wanted to go with him. But now British Airways made Carole pay a 200 penalty to change the booking for her return flight, using her credit card - then said that until the payment had cleared, they couldn't confirm the ticket had been issued or even that she'd actually be on that flight with her husband. If she didn't get a seat, she would have been forced to wait in Mexico another three days for the next flight. Carole tried to make the most of the resort and said: 'I did sit by the gorgeous swimming pool, pictured, a couple of times. I ordered that gin and tonic I had fantasised about sipping at the poolside. But it tasted sour in my mouth' Carole continued: 'I was frightened to text Tony too often, for fear of emptying my phone battery. But he told me: "I am confined to my cell except for when the security guard follows me down the hall, to the toilet."' Tony added: 'The facilities were awful. There was a broken urinal, no towels, and the shower cubicle was being used to store mops and buckets. All I could do to freshen up a bit was to have a strip wash.' Trapped in a 'comedy farce' To me, he was being treated like a serial killer Carole said: 'I know there were suspicions my husband was an international criminal, but to me, it sounded like he was being treated like a serial killer. But I felt powerless to do anything to help. 'For the three days I was at the hotel, I passed most of the time in my room, crying. I was so stressed, every time I went out, I seemed to get lost in the corridors. 'I tried to start up conversations with some of the other hotel guests, in the hope one of them might allow me to borrow a phone charger. 'But most of them were stand-offish and showed little sympathy. Finally a member of the hotel staff who felt sorry for me, lent me his own charger.' Thankfully, a kindly Canadian couple gave her $50 (38) so that at least she had some cash. She said: 'I did sit by the gorgeous swimming pool a couple of times. I ordered that gin and tonic I had fantasised about sipping at the poolside. But it tasted sour in my mouth. How could I enjoy myself while Tony was shut in a cupboard, unable to even get some fresh air? 'It felt like we were trapped in some kind of comedy farce - except it wasn't funny.' Reunited at last Three days after Tony was detained, it was time for the Smiths to fly home. But BA hadn't confirmed that Carole was on the flight, until the night before. 'I found their lack of care appalling,' she said. Finally, the couple were reunited at the airport. Tony recalled: 'I was led to the plane surrounded by two officials and two security guards. All the other passengers could see my walk of shame - it was really embarrassing and unnecessary. 'I was 66 years old, for heaven's sake, did they honestly think I was going to make a run for it? After arriving home Tony, pictured with Carole, researched the international watch list and found scores of men sharing the name Anthony Smith 'As I left, I joked with the people who'd been guarding me: "Have you ever heard of TripAdvisor? I'm only going to give you one star, you know." 'After I finally got back to Carole, we hugged each other in relief - we just couldn't wait to leave Mexico behind us and get back to normality.' Finally they arrived back at Gatwick, and this time they passed through the passport control without incident. One official even asked: 'Did you have a nice holiday?' Mexican immigration officers had advised Tony to contact the American Embassy to explain why he was 'flagged up' at the airport. He did so once the couple got home - but got no reply due to the ongoing US government shutdown. Hunting for answers But through his own research, he found a website called TruthFinder listing the criminals who could be on international watch-lists. There were scores of men sharing the name Anthony Smith, including one with Tony's birthday, although they were born several years apart. 'But my middle name is Inglis - a traditional Scottish name handed down the male side of his family for generations - and none of these people shared that,' said Tony. 'My middle name is recorded on my passport, so that should have made it quite clear that I wasn't one of these bad guys.' Tony's internet trawl also revealed a reason to explain why the national security official in Mexico kept asking if they'd been 'to the USA before', and why Tony was advised to contact the American Embassy. Carole's hotel room, pictured, was a world away from the conditions her husband was kept in Since 2012, the US government has insisted that airlines provide details of every passenger on any plane travelling over American airspace to Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico - even if the flight never actually lands on US territory. This is apparently because after the 2001 terror attack on New York, officials became increasingly concerned that terrorists might hijack another plane travelling over the US, and crash it into a building. Tony said: 'Looking back, and remembering all the difficulties with my ticket at Gatwick Airport, we wonder if that explains the delays we experienced. Should BA have anticipated that I would be taken for an international criminal and warned us, before we even got on our plane? 'With hindsight, we realise that once we landed, the Mexicans targeted me because of the American security requirements. But they must have known quite quickly they had the wrong man, thanks to my unusual middle name.' Scarred by their ordeal The reason Tony was denied entry to the country, even though he was obviously not a wanted man and was no threat to anybody, remains a mystery. The Smiths were so upset by their ordeal that they told nobody except their closest family and friends what happened, until three months after they arrived home. 'We used to love our holidays... but now we'll be frightened to travel abroad again, in case anything else happens.' By then it had become apparent that the Smiths' insurers were refusing to refund the cost of their dream holiday, saying the bizarre circumstances weren't covered under our policy's small print. Tony says: 'We've lost 3,000, but this has never been about the money. For us, it's about cleansing the stain on our reputation and making sure we won't have any further issues if we go travelling again.' Carole added: 'Of course, we can see that it might sound laughable. But in fact at the time it was horribly traumatic. Since our return, we've both suffered anxiety and insomnia.' They've written to their local MP, Sir Peter Bottomley, and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who would have jurisdiction to intervene. Carole added: 'We want to ensure that Tony's details are removed from the US watchlist and that his fingerprints and photographs have been deleted from databases related to wanted fugitives. 'We used to love our holidays, and were looking forward to many more. But until we get the assurances we need, we'll be frightened to travel abroad again, in case anything else happens.' A woman who was diagnosed with cancer just days before her wedding has told how she and her fiance came to the decision to keep her condition a secret and go through with their ceremony. Charlotte Drake, 34, from Oxfordshire was diagnosed with breast cancer after discovering a lump while checking her breast while lying in bed. The brand manager, who had dreamed of being a wife and mother since the age of ten, decided to go through with her nuptials to Luke Drake, now 32, in May 2014 because she wanted to have 'a wedding, not a funeral'. Despite having no family history of the disease, Charlotte was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer that could have killed her within two years. Charlotte - who was initially told by doctors that the lump was just a fatty cyst - admitted she was concerned about going through with the marriage after tests revealed the lump could be deadly. Charlotte Drake, 34, (pictured) from Oxfordshire was diagnosed with breast cancer a week before her wedding to Commercial Manager Luke, 32 Charlotte (pictured with Luke on their wedding day) discovered a lump while checking her breast which was initially dismissed by doctors as just a fatty cyst The senior brand manager (pictured right with Luke and their seven-month-old son Henry) pushed for a referral and decided to keep the cancer results secret from her wedding guests She said: 'When I was diagnosed I was 30, had no family history, I didn't smoke, rarely drank and was very healthy. 'Moments before I went into hospital for my results, I was agonising over which colour dress to buy online for my honeymoon. An hour later I was told I had cancer. It put everything into perspective and I couldn't believe I had been worrying about a dress. 'I was convinced my life was over and told Luke I didn't think we should get married. I thought I'd ruined his life and didn't want to become his wife, only for me to die. 'I felt like I was taking away his wedding day. But he was amazing and told me we were going ahead with it no matter what. 'In the days leading up to our big day, instead of sorting the last-minute details I was looking into where to have treatment. 'I'd been planning my wedding since I was a little girl. I had been so excited for the day to arrive, so I could finally slip into my dress and exchange vows with Luke. But now my life was on the line. 'I remember thinking, at least if I die everyone will have seen me at the wedding looking the best I was ever going to look. I would be going out with a bang.' Following the breast cancer diagnosis, Charlotte (pictured with Luke) suffered a panic attack in the days leading up to the wedding and was rushed to hospital A breast cancer surgeon scheduled surgery for Charlotte (pictured on her holiday) just three days after her wedding, and having a plan of action made the bride-to-be feel better Charlotte and Luke (pictured on their wedding day in May 2014) postponed their honeymoon to ensure she was able to have the surgery The stress of juggling wedding arrangements along with coping with the cancer diagnosis caused Charlotte to have a panic attack. Charlotte's mother Elizabeth Johnson, 66, who along with her father, sister and bridesmaids was the only person aware of the diagnosis rushed her to hospital. Charlotte said: 'Luckily for me, a breast cancer surgeon was at hospital that day. He booked me in for surgery three days after the wedding and knowing I had a plan of action made me feel better. This could be the last time people see me looking my best 'As our wedding approached I remember thinking, this could be the last time people see me looking my best so let's make it a really great day. 'Luke and I didn't tell our guests because we wanted it to be a happy occasion. We didn't want their pity, it was a wedding not a funeral after all.' 'I found the morning of the wedding tough. It was the day I'd been dreaming of for years - and I had cancer. But I managed to shake off my sadness and told myself the day wasn't just for me, it was for Luke and my family too. I had to suck it up and get on with it. 'For the rest of the day, the only thing that was hard was that people kept hugging me, which really hurt because I had just had a biopsy.' Following the wedding day on the Friday, Charlotte (pictured on holiday with Luke) had surgery on the Monday to remove her tumour and another operation a week later Charlotte decided to shave her head after she began losing hair (pictured); she also asked doctors to remove both of her breasts but was refused 'I'm most proud of how my parents and Luke held it all together when I'm sure they wanted to crawl away and cry. 'Instead they were all smiles and made sure the day went exactly as I had planned since I was a little girl.' Following the wedding, the couple postponed their honeymoon so Charlotte could have surgery just three days after they exchanged vows. A week later she had a another operation so the surgeon could get a clear margin, then she began chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The newlywed urged for her breasts to be removed following the experience but was refused by surgeons - who explained that a double mastectomy wouldn't stop the cancer coming back because she didn't carry the BRCA gene. She added: 'When I started losing my hair I bought an electric razor from Argos and told Luke he would have to shave my head. 'We had fun with it, cutting my hair into a bob, then a mohawk, before taking it all off. After that I wore a a hat most of the time.' Brand manager Charlotte (pictured on holiday with husband Luke) underwent nine months of chemotherapy, two months radiotherapy in addition to one year of taking herceptin Charlotte (pictured on a recent holiday) was able to fall pregnant after the cancer treatment which caused damage to her ovaries by using IVF and is now enjoying being a mother Charlotte and Luke (pictured painting their house) tried for a baby naturally for a year before becoming pregnant with one free round of IVF, and welcomed their child at 36 weeks Charlotte who had nine months of chemo, two months radiotherapy and then one year herceptin, feared the treatments had affected her chances of becoming a mother. Chemotherapy damaged her ovaries and only two eggs were retrieved, both of which were bad quality. The newlywed turned to IVF and fell pregnant after just one free round. She recalled: I was actually out on a work lunch when I first got a positive result. I was overwhelmed and desperate to tell Luke, but he was abroad with work. I avoided talking to him over the next few days so I didn't have to tell him over the phone. 'Then when he got back, I handed him a box containing two pairs of booties, one pink and one blue. His face was a picture when he realised we were going to have a baby.' At 30 weeks into her pregnancy, Charlotte haemorrhaged due to having a low-lying placenta and was kept in hospital for the last six weeks to be closely monitored. Charlotte (pictured) and Luke returned to the same church where they were married to christen their son Henry last month What is the BRCA gene and how does it affect people's risk of cancer? Having a mutated BRCA gene - as famously carried by Angelina Jolie - dramatically increases the chance a woman will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, from 12 per cent to 90 per cent. Between one in 800 and one in 1,000 women carry a BRCA gene mutation, which increases the chances of breast and ovarian cancer. Both BRCA1 and BRCA2 are genes that produce proteins to suppress tumours. When these are mutated, DNA damage can be caused and cells are more likely to become cancerous. The mutations are usually inherited and increase the risk of ovarian cancer and breast cancer significantly. When a child has a parent who carries a mutation in one of these genes they have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the mutations. About 1.3 per cent of women in the general population will develop ovarian cancer, this increase to 44 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 mutation. Advertisement Then at 36 weeks, she had a C-section and their son was born. 'As I looked at Henry and then at Luke, it felt like everything we had been through had been worth it. There are so many miracles that have happened and Henry is the greatest one.' Last month, the pair held Henry's christening in the same church that they got married in. They also returned to Blenheim Palace - this time with their son. 'It was so strange being back in the place where I had broken down in tears over a year earlier, desperate for a baby. This time around, I was thrilled to be there with my very own family.' Now Charlotte has regular check-ups and scans and is encouraging everyone to check their breasts regularly. She said: 'My mum has always taught me to be breast aware and check my breasts, even though we have no family history of breast cancer. I am convinced she saved my life. 'If you do find a lump, act quickly. When I found mine, my doctor thought it was a fatty cyst but I pushed to be referred to a specialist so I could be checked further. 'My cancer was an aggressive type and if I hadn't pushed, I was told I could have been dead within two years.' Charlotte is raising funds to support people affected by breast cancer by walking 20 miles at the Breast Cancer Care Pink Ribbon Walk in association with Skechers. To sign up, visit breastcancercare.org.uk/ribbonwalk There are some clothes that, after years of service, suddenly fall out of favour and become the opposite of fashion. Shirtwaisters, for example. Twinsets. Stretch pant suits. And the trouser cut all of us once relied on: the bootcut. We all remember bootcuts, the narrow flares we wore through the late Nineties and into the Noughties. When skinny jeans arrived on the scene, we couldnt believe they would catch on who wants jeans that grip your knees and calves? But they did and we got used to them. In between, weve done our best with boyfriends (the ones that make you look fat), flares (the ones that make you look fab worn over four-inch wedges), wide-ish and straight, and cropped. Stylish: Reese Witherspoon wears bootcut jeans as she walks out in LA Still, when you look back, nothing has come close to the everywoman ease of bootcuts. Or the glamour. Think of Liz Hurley in her white bootcuts and espadrille wedges. Or Elle Macpherson on the school run (always bootcuts and a furry gilet). Or any French fashion editor you care to mention with a navy pea coat and skinny silk shirt. Sigh! While bootcuts have vanished from the fashion scene in recent years, dont we wish there was something out there a lot like a bootcut? Most of us dont want to, or cant, wear skinnies any more. The wide-legged look relies on narrow hips and a pert bum; flares are too everyday. We want something in between, something thigh-flattering and leg-lengthening. A bootcut by anothera name. And guess what? There is a new bootcut. Its not the same as the Nineties style its leaner in the flared part, higher in the waist and its not called a bootcut. Some brands are calling them kick flares or mini flares or mini boots. Weve christened them the skinny bootcut. This is the streamlined version of its predecessor with added support in the middle section in other words, made for grown-ups. Meghan Markle made her first public appearance with Prince Harry at the Invictus Games wearing skinny blue ripped jeans and flat pumps. Fast-forward to after the wedding, and now the Duchess of Sussex, a global fashion icon, has upgraded to inky black skinny bootcuts and heels. Far more elegant. Mango has a pair in dark blue that could do a similar job (35.99, mango.com); & Other Stories does a high-rise kick flare pair of jeans (59 stories.com) in a paler wash that are a bit more casual. Meghan Markle made her first public appearance with Prince Harry at the Invictus Games wearing skinny blue ripped jeans and flat pumps If you dont wear jeans, the slimmer flare comes in suiting (green trousers, 39.99, zara.com) with a matching jacket. The big difference with bootcuts is you really have to wear a heel with them, which is daunting for those of us who now prefer flats. Happily the new bootcut has arrived at the moment when practical cropped cowboy boots and Cuban-heeled ankle boots are having a moment. There are two ways you can wear your skinny bootcuts. Either with a chunky heel, a funnel-neck sweater and a teddy bear coat. Or dress them up with a sharp blazer, a silk shirt (lemon yellow, tucked in), baroque faux pearl earrings (our new obsession) and light, slim-heeled sandals. Cropped bootcuts are on course to be big news for summer (wear with mules) fashion girls are already wearing Frames Le Crop mini boot trousers (110, farfetch.com). Well never say: So long skinnies, youve had your day. But now theres a new shape we can do business with. I want to break free, run for the hills or sail off through night and day. It is the incessant noise of it all. Every day a new drama or trauma, and a Prime Minister armoured in ever bigger necklaces, as if trying to invoke talismanic powers. Even the weather went stark raving mad last week. There are more children in peril and terrifying situations to escape, in Maile Meloy's heart-jolting Do Not Be Alarmed, in which two American families embark on a cruise of Central America that goes horrendously wrong From glowering skies, a belligerent Storm Gareth hurled abuse, strafing shorelines, lashing out at anything in its path, then showing psycho glimmers of sunniness. In between increasingly urgent news bulletins and doom weather watching, I spent what downtime I had looking at Scottish holiday rentals online, half wondering if any might double up as a bunker should order break down. I asked my parents if things had felt worse in the Seventies. But they had fled abroad to work by the Winter of Discontent, possibly spurred by my trilling Happy Birthday every time the lights went out. Claire Fuller's gripping, chillingly atmospheric Our Endless Numbered Days is set during that politically tumultuous period. In 1985, in London, teenage Peggy discovers a forgotten photograph of her father James: 'He didn't look like a liar.' Then the action spools back to 1976, when James, a survivalist, abducts nine-year-old Peggy, taking her to a remote hut in the German forest, after explaining they are humanity's sole survivors. In this Grimm fairy tale setting, who will leave a breadcrumb trail for its child heroine? Claire Fuller's gripping, chillingly atmospheric Our Endless Numbered Days is set during that politically tumultuous period. In 1985, in London, teenage Peggy discovers a forgotten photograph of her father James: 'He didn't look like a liar.' There are more children in peril and terrifying situations to escape, in Maile Meloy's heart-jolting Do Not Be Alarmed, in which two American families embark on a cruise of Central America that goes horrendously wrong. Theirs is not a tale of derring-do I would ever want to be part of, but David Balfour's Jacobean misadventure in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped is. No writer evokes the tumult of the Atlantic or the stark majesty of the Highlands so vividly. It is transporting fiction: pacey, but also breathtakingly assured as nature writing. I was yearning to run to the hills, and Stevenson takes me there. A plus-size shopper has been left furious after being told by a Kmart employee that it wasn't their job to 'make you feel good about yourself' after filing a complaint online. The woman claimed she visited a Sydney store recently where she struggled to find outfits in her size after a staff member pointed her in the wrong direction twice. Frustrated by the in-store experience, she complained about the lack of plus-size clothing via the discount retailer's Facebook page last week - but she received an abrupt email reply on Monday morning. 'Thank you for contacting us. Whilst we try to cater for as many people as possible please understand people come in all shapes and sizes and we can't cater for absolutely everyone,' the customer service member said in the email. 'It is not entirely our job to make you feel good about yourself.' An Australian shopper who complained about the lack of plus-size clothing at Kmart has been left furious after she received a blunt response from a customer service member The woman claimed she made a complaint with Kmart after she struggled to find clothing in her size, but she was shocked when she received a very abrupt response A Kmart spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'We are truly sorry for these comments and have spoken directly to this customer to apologise. 'This does not reflect Kmart's views at all. We want every customer that interacts with Kmart to have a pleasurable shopping experience and on this occasion we have not lived up to this commitment.' The comment comes after the Australian woman called out Kmart for not stocking enough plus-size clothing at her local store. 'You have no idea how hurtful this is. I struggle to find anything anywhere that fits me, I'm just trying to find workout clothes and my whole section is gone,' she said in an emotional direct message to the Kmart Facebook group. 'When I do find it, there's nothing appropriate! Not to mention that your activewear doesn't go up in sizes either. 'Fat people deserve better. I shouldn't have to humiliate myself by asking a staff member where the fat section is only to be pointed to the wrong place anyway. I'm so disappointed. It's 2019. Step it up, please. 'Let us have clothes that make us feel good and happy, and remember that fat people have shapes and don't need to be 'flattered' all the time. It's like your store wants fat people to feel ashamed, but I'm not ashamed. I'm just angry.' The Sydney woman initially made a complaint via the Kmart Facebook page before she was told she would receive an email from a customer service staff member for further inquiries The woman claimed she visited a Sydney store recently when she struggled to find clothing in her size after a staff member pointed her in the wrong direction twice (file image) She also claimed the plus-sized clothing range was limited to 'half a rack and shoved in the darkest part of the store in between the pyjamas and maternity wear'. 'Kmart doesn't cater to activewear for bigger plus sizes so I tried to hunt down at least a pair of their cheap tights and the store was so poorly laid out that I couldn't find those in ANY size let alone mine,' she claimed. 'I asked store employees for help and both times was pointed in the wrong direction. It was a really frustrating experience.' After complaining via Facebook, the woman received an apology. 'Thanks for sharing your experience at Kmart recently. At Kmart, it's important to us that you leave our store feeling confident and happy. We're sorry this wasn't the case and we'd love to take any feedback on board as to how we can improve our plus-size range for you and other women in our stores,' the Facebook response said. The woman was then told she would be contacted via email by a customer service staff member for further inquiries. 'I immediately wrote to Kmart on FB (sic), including how the whole situation felt really s***ty , and I was told to pass on my email address for a response where they would be able to take more details and follow up any suggestions I had,' she said. But instead she received the blunt response. 'This is the response I get. Kmart needs to f***ing do better,' she said. A sex worker who sleeps with married men claims she is helping save their marriages and keep their families together. The mum-of-two, from Sussex, argues it's better for men to get their fix with her and return home to their wife after rather than going out and establishing an emotional attachment to another women. She tells her story as part of new 5Star documentary Sex on the Streets - due to air tonight - but remains anonymous 'for the sake of her kids'. Another sex worker who appears on the show and goes by the name of Lola admits she too sleeps with married fathers, but has to 'detach' herself in order to banish the guilt. Journalist Storm Huntley meets with an escort who goes by the name of Lola, left, and works out of her south London home, where her neighbours believe she's a teacher 'with lots of male clients' The shocking documentary sees journalist Storm Huntley meet various women on the front line of sex work - one of whom reveals she thought a punter was going to rape and her kill her after he thrust a bin bag over her head when she asked for payment. She also speaks to a wife who discovered her husband had been visiting sex workers after finding incriminating pictures and videos on his phone. Storm travels to Sussex to meet with one escort who got involved in the sex industry after falling into debt following the birth of her two children. She once made 3,000 in six days by entertaining three 'clients' a day. She explains: 'My friend used to do it and she just said give it a shot, and I've not looked back.' Storm speaks to women working in the sex industry, including one mum-of-two (who remains anonymous) who claims she helps save marriages The woman, who refuses to reveal her identity for the sake of her kids, says despite the stigma around sex work, she 'enjoys her job' and believes she helps families stay together when the man has the urge to stray. 'For a man to go out to and meet a normal woman and get emotionally attached to her is far worse than coming to get your sex and going back home again,' she argues. 'I feel like actually I help families and help keep them together.' She admitted there are some 'services' she refuses to provide and always insists on male partners wearing a condom, as 'you do get blokes who hate on escorts and deliberately give out STIs'. During the programme Lola receives a message from a married father who wants to book her services, provided she can do the splits - a long-time fantasy of his When Storm points out some sexually-transmitted infections can be passed even when wearing a condom, she simply retorts: 'But if you stand next to someone with the flu or cold you can catch that as well.' She admits she often 'fakes it' if she doesn't find her client attractive, and manoeuvres herself into a position where she can't see them and pretends they're Brad Pitt. Storm also meets with a wife from south London who discovered her husband had been seeing prostitutes after finding incriminating videos and pictures on his phone. When she confronted him he said it was an 'old habit for him'. 'It was like it's an itch he has to scratch, like it's compulsive,' she told Storm. Storm also meets with another escort who goes by the name of Lola and works out of her south London home, where her neighbours believe she's a teacher 'with lots of male clients'. Not all women on the show speak so positively about their experiences in the industry, as Storm discovers after speaking to one woman who feared she was going to be raped and killed by a client 'You feel like youve been punched in the stomach, you feel sick, shaky, you can't eat, you can't sleep. 'He says it doesnt reflect on what you've got at home; just because you've got really nice food at home doesnt mean you don't want to eat out. 'He said as a man you don't want to have sex with the same person all the time, it gets really boring, you want to try out different bodies, access to much younger women.' She adds that her husband has a very 'respectable' life whose friends would be 'very shocked' they knew about his sordid secret. Despite everything, she admits she has stayed with him as it's affected her so badly that her confidence has been severely knocked. 'I haven't had the survival instinct it would take to change my life,' she confesses. During the programme Lola receives a message from a married father who wants to book her services, provided she can do the splits - a long-time fantasy of his. Lola admits discovering the man who contacted her for sex has a wife and kids does make her feel 'slightly different' about their hook-up When he reveals he can only come round after his other half has gone to bed, Lola admits it does make her feel 'slightly different' about their hook-up. She says: 'Yeah there's an element of guilt, but I just have to detach myself.' Not all women on the show speak so positively about their experiences in the industry. Strict prostitution laws make sex work LESS safe While is legal to buy and sell sex in England and Wales, related activities such as soliciting and kerb crawling - drivers cruising the streets for prostitutes - are illegal. A study last year claimed sex workers are more likely to face violence, not use condoms and contract HIV in countries where selling or buying sex is illegal. An international team of researchers analysed the effects of different laws from 33 countries - in what they say was the first review of its kind - and found that restrictive policies lead to increased health and safety risks. Sex workers exposed to arrest and imprisonment were three times as likely to suffer sexual or physical violence from clients, partners and other people - and twice as likely to contract HIV or similar diseases as those working in countries that tolerate their profession, the study found. Lucy Platt, lead author of the university-led study, said: 'Where some or all aspects of sex work were criminalised, concerns about their own or their clients' arrest meant that sex workers often had to rush screening clients.' The research, published in journal PLOS Medicine, reviewed data from more than 130 studies across the 33 countries - from Britain to Uganda - which had been published in scientific journals between 1990 to 2018. Advertisement One reveals she thought she was going to be raped and killed after a client high on drugs pulled a bin bag over her head when she asked him to pay up. She says: 'I was terrified, I was struggling with him, then he put me on the ground and I thought, he's got me here to rape and kill me. 'He kept saying "shut up", I was like, "just let me go, Ive got a son, let me go". He said "give me all your money". Thats the last thing I remember before I passed out.' Luckily the man's father was upstairs and heard the commotion. He offered to drive her to the police station, but she admits she was too scared in case social services then tried to take away her son. During the show Storm meets with George McCoy, a married man who has written guidebooks to brothels for 40 years. He describes himself as the 'Compare the Market' of the adult industry and claims women should only be able to charge a 'reasonable price' for their body if they provide 'a decent service'. When Storm asks him to justify his reviews, which accuse escorts of putting on weight and being 'past their sell-by date', he argues: 'These ladies of their own free will have decided to offer intimate sexual services. They can do it well or they can do it badly, all I do is indicate which is which.' Quizzed if he's ever worried women have been forced into the sex industry, George replies: 'I was unhappy when I was in school and I got over it 'A lot of them have said to me, "George, tell it like it is. We have all these do-gooders making out that we don't like doing what we're doing, and we do".' Sex on the Streets airs tonight at 9pm on 5Star. The Duchess of Sussex channeled her inner Jackie O when she stepped out in vintage Dior for Lena Tindall's christening over the weekend. Meghan, 37, who is expecting her first child in a matter of weeks, looked perfectly stylish in the silk burgundy coat, which looked strikingly like one worn by Mrs Kennedy while she was pregnant in November 1960. Meghan's 1960s coat is believed to be from William Vintage, a favourite store of close friend Amal Clooney which specialises in luxury pre-worn and second hand goods. It comes days after she won comparisons to the former First Lady when she wore a white pillbox hat to a Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey last week. Meghan, 37, who is expecting her first child in a matter of weeks, looked perfectly stylish a vintage Dior coat as she joined Prince Harry, 34, for Lena Tindall's christening on Saturday It bore a strong resemblance to one worn by Mrs Kennedy when she joined her husband on stage for his victory speech following the 1960 presidential election, pictured Stepping out on Saturday, the Duchess of Sussex teamed the coat with a Stephen Jones hat and a box bag by Victoria Beckham as she joined Prince Harry, 34, for the service at St Nicholas Church in Cherington, Gloucestershire. It bore a strong resemblance to one worn by Mrs Kennedy when she joined her husband on stage for his victory speech following the 1960 presidential election. At the time the incumbent First Lady was expecting her son, John F. Kennedy Jr, and her coat skimmed her blooming baby bump in a very similar fashion to Meghan's, pictured While it is not known whether hers was also Dior, it did have a similar shape and button placement. However hers appeared to be made in a heavier fabric. At the time Mrs Kennedy was expecting her son, John F. Kennedy Jr, and her coat skimmed her blooming baby bump in a very similar fashion to Meghan's. Last week, the Duchess of Sussex nodded to one of Mrs Kennedy's favourite hat styles when she sported a pillbox to Westminster Abbey. Last week, the Duchess of Sussex nodded to one of Mrs Kennedy's favourite hat styles when she sported a pillbox to Westminster Abbey, pictured Mrs Kennedy in a yellow pillbox hat and matching coat as she joins President Kennedy on a visit to Paris in 1961 Meghan's cream hat, worn with a Victoria Beckham ensemble, led dozens of royal fans to tweet about the likeness to the former First Lady The cream creation, worn with a Victoria Beckham ensemble, led dozens of royal fans to tweet about the likeness to the former First Lady. One tweeted: 'This is a definite Jackie O look. I approve.' Another posted: 'Did yall see Meghan Markel today at Commonwealth services, looking all kinds of Jackie O.' The princess stepped out in a black and white optical illusion dress as she attended a launch in Frederiksberg on Monday. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, 47, was given flowers by a child as she arrived at the event and braved the cold weather with bare legs and the elbow length dress which also had a white collar. The royal was attending the launch of the research competition Green challenge, where competitors collaborate with companies to develop research solutions that could benefit the environment. Crown Princess Mary, 46, was given flowers by a child as she arrived at the event and braved the cold weather in an elbow length dress which also had a white collar As the mother-of-four arrived at the Department of Food Science at University of Copenhagen, where the launch was taking place, she had a sweet interaction with a young girl, who handed her flowers Her smart dress, which also nipped in at the waist with a black bandeau, was paired with a light pink bag and Mary-Jane style patented heels. As she arrived at the Department of Food Science at University of Copenhagen, where the launch was taking place, she had a sweet interaction with a young girl, who handed her flowers. The mother-of-four also wore her brunette locks down for the occasion, with pretty flower diamond earrings and classic make up. The princess was joined by the minister for higher education and science, Tommy Ahlers, who made a presentation at the competition. The royal smelt one of this years entries for research competition Green challenge - three entries are picked to be developed The royal was attending the launch of the research competition Green challenge, where competitors collaborate with companies and organisations to develop research solutions that could benefit the environment Her smart dress, which also nipped in at the waist with a black bandeau, was paired with a light pink bag and Mary-Jane style patented heels As the Crown Princess Mary arrived inside the venue she met some of this years competitors and was shown around by minister for higher education and science, Tommy Ahlers. The royal and minister for higher education and science both looked like their were enjoying their roles as they laughed and even smiled through the competition. The Green Challenge is a research competition, where entrepreneurs aim to make a contribution to the society with their ideas and pair with companies and organisations to develop them. The three best research solutions will be chosen - based on how they will benefit the environment and the climate. Crown Princess Mary, 47, was given flowers by a child as she arrived at the event and braved the cold weather with bare legs and the elbow length dress which also had a white collar The princess was joined by the minister for higher education and science, Tommy Ahlers (middle) Crown Princess Mary who is married to Prince Frederik has four children; Prince Christian, 13, Princess Isabella, 11, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, eight. Mary who was born is Tasmania, first met Prince Frederik who is the heir to the Danish throne at a bar in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics. The Royal couple married in 2004 . While cases of missing people such as Madeleine McCann and Claudia Lawrence are seared in the collective consciousness, many other families are going through the same heartbreak. Families of missing people will share their harrowing stories on a Channel 5 news special tonight at 6:30pm in order to shed light on less well-known cases to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Yorkshire chef Claudia Lawrence. Among the families still coping with the unexplained disappearance of a loved one is Kevin Gosden, a father from Doncaster, whose son Andrew skipped school in 2007 to go to London and was never seen again. His family have no idea if he's alive or dead, and Kevin - who says he'd 'rather have a bag of bones' than live with not knowing - has tried to take his own life and spent some time in a psychiatric facility. 'It is a daily struggle every morning for me to feel like I want to be alive,' he says. Meanwhile, the family of Mary Mustafa, 37, also known as MJ who went missing last year from London reveal how her mother refuses to leave the house and just sits looking out the window for her daughter every day. Andrew Gosden, 14, skipped school in his hometown of Doncaster in 2007 and left for London. He was never seen again. His father Kevin went through a breakdown after his disappearance Kevin Gosden, from Doncaster, lost everything when his son Andrew went missing in 2007. Kevin says he would rather know that his son was dead than to be stuck in 'limbo' Speaking of his longing for closure, Andrew's father Kevin admits he would rather 'have a bag of bones,' than 'being limbo all the time.' 'Then you would have closure to it,' he adds, 'however painful. 'The depression, anxiety you get with it the post-traumatic stress aspect- gives you nightmares, flashbacks, I mean the last time I had a complete nights sleep I can barely remember.' Kevin lost everything following Andrew's disappearance. He quit his job and says it took a 'huge toll' on him. Kevin showing Andrew's room in tonight's The Mystery of Missing People: A 5 News Tonight Special. The show looks at several missing person's cases 'I kind of feel like Ive lost everything, and every single day feels like a battle,' he says. 'You go back all the time thinking of every single possibility. What might be going on in any 14-year-olds head...We just dont know what made him disappear off that day,' Kevin tells Five News. 'We dont know what he was planning to do, where he was planning to go exactly. 'One thing I would say that my wife, my daughter and I really agree on is we cannot imagine Andrew being cruel enough to stay away for all this time and never get us a message just to say he was okay, none of us can. Mel Mustafa's sister Mary (left) went missing last year. The family still struggle to cope with her disappearance and are frustrated with the investigation surrounding Mary. Cousin Ayse Hussein (right) says Mary's mother won't leave the house, hoping for her daughter to return still 'You know there just wasnt a shred of his personality that would make us think that he could do that and live with himself, so that perhaps makes us think is he dead?' he adds. The father admits he can understand how hard it would be for his son to contact his family after all this time. 'You think well if youre alive and well out there somewhere, we all equally well understand how difficult it could seem or feel to actually kind of make that contact, you know, and say "I am alive and well again, sorry for the decade plus of hell but I am okay. It just seems endless to me.' Mel Mustafa, whose sister Mary, 37, also known as MJ went missing last year from London also reveals her family is struggling to cope with the disappearance. Mary Mustafa, also known as MJ or Jan, went missing in 2018. Her sister said 'weve been everywhere weve looked everywhere' 'Its like your brain, it just totally slows down, because weve been everywhere weve looked everywhere, she says. 'Weve done what we can, and its like were getting no other help.' Mel shares her frustrations concerning the investigation into her sister's disappearance and says she feels more could have been done early on to find her. 'My auntie's so depressed,' adds MJ's cousin, Ayse Hussein, 'all she does is look at the window.' 'She just wants [Mary] to come home, she just sits everyday and looks at that window, she just won't go out.' Both Jan and Ayse then break down and cry during the emotional segment. Paul Green from the Missing Persons Bureau at the National Crime Agency who is investigating leads relating to MJ, tells Five News: 'We dont know whats happened to her her family are concerned for her, her sister and her children are leading their own inquiries. 'There are lots of people out there looking for her. You just cling to the hope that in the past that she has found safe havens, and thats the case in this instance shes just gone taken herself away, found somebody that can look after her for the time being, help her, and then when she feels better, she can make contact with her family,' he adds 'If not, hopefully our inquiries can lead to that resolution, and we can ensure that Mary is safe and reunited with her family, if thats what she wants.' But he adds that some missing people that are eventually found prefer to keep their locations unknown to their families, a choice authorities have to respect. Joe Apps, from the National Crime Agency says: Its very challenging for police forces to deal with missing people, because there are so many. In one year, there were 380,000 calls for service - to police. 'So theres a huge demand on policing services, and the police have to decide really quickly what the risk is to the missing person, and then apply resources accordingly, and thats a very challenging thing for police forces, which is why theyre keen to invite in assistance as soon as they can for the most challenging cases.' Sue Heal went missing because of her depression. She said she felt numb and thought her family would be better off without her but eventually returned to her loved ones of her own accord Sue Heal went missing for three days when she hit the rock bottom because of her depression. 'It was like somebody flipped a switch, and I didnt care anymore, or I felt very numb, and thats when I walked out,' she says. 'Every missing person goes missing for a different reason I think, but a clinically depressed person is just sort of not thinking about their relatives at all really, or if theyre thinking about them, theyre thinking that theyd be better off without them.' The Mystery of Missing People: A 5 News Tonight Special will broadcast tonight, Monday 18 March at 6.30pm on Channel 5. They have only been dating for a few months, but Princess Beatrice and boyfriend Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi looked very much in love as they were spotted strolling through New York hand-in-hand on St Patrick's Day. Beatrice, 30, and Edoardo, 34, at first kept their romance out of the spotlight since they started dating in October 2018. But in recent weeks they've been spotted out and about together on several occasions, including making their first official public appearance at a National Portrait Gallery gala with the Duchess of Cambridge last week. Beatrice wrapped up warm in a grey coat as the couple strolled through the streets of New York, laughing and chatting enthusiastically. Thumbs up from Edoardo: the young couple grinned as they strolled through New York on St Patrick's Day The loved up pair have reportedly been together since October, but have been friends for years before their friendship evolved into love Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi chatted enthusiastically to Princes Beatrice as they walked through New York on St. Patrick's Day The young couple kept close and held hands during a shopping trip to the John Varvatos boutique, a men's designer clothing brand. The Princess kept an understated look, wearing a grey wool coat with a patterned dres and black knee high suede boots. Her long, red hair flowed gracefully over her jacket, and she beamed as the loved up pair chatted and laughed together. Meanwhile Edoardo wore a brown trilby style hat and a simple navy jumple with black skinny drinks. Senior sources told the MailOnline last week that an engagement may soon be on the cards for the pair The loved up couple looked animated as they chatted throughout their walk, smiling and holding hands Princess Beatrice has been spotted more frequently with Edoardo recently, as things become more serious for the couple He finished the outfit off with a pair of navy shoes, with a fun vinyl toe detailing. They were seen together earlier this month for their first red carpet event together at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Princess Beatrice, reportedly started dating property developer and father-of-one in early October. It's thought the two were friends for years before before their friendship evolved into a romance. The couple appeared to enjoy their Sunday afternoon walk, stopping off at designer men's boutique John Varvatos Princess Beatrice, who currently lives in New York, wore a casual outfit for the walk and wrapped up warm against the March weather Princess Beatrice also donned a stylish pair of sunglasses as she held hands with her beau of six months Edoardo - whose nickname is Edo - chatted enthusiastically to the young princess, as rumours swirled about a potential engagement announcement Edoardo is the stepson of ex-Prime Minister David Cameron's late friend Christopher Shale. The couple went public when they attended the annual gala for the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture in New York in December. Mozzi founded real estate firm in 2007, and serves as its CEO to this day. The company specializes in finding and developing homes for wealthy clients. Princess Beatrice, who lives in New York and works full time as a consultant that introduces start-ups to potential financial backers, has been spotted with her boyfriend several times recently, suggesting that potentially their relationship is becoming more serious. Princess Beatrice also wore her stylish jacket over her shoulders in a cape style, revealing her patterned grey dress The couple kept close as they wandered through the streets, with Edoardo leaning in close to the princes as they spoke Princess Beatrice is said to be keen to settle down with Edorado, who has a son Wolfie from a previous relationship The couple were all smiles as they ambled along, and wore casual outfits for the afternoon outing Beatrice, who was single for two years after the break up with her American boyfriend Dave Clark in 2016, grinned as the couple took an afternoon walk At one stage on the walk, the princess peered into the shopping bag from men's designer boutique John Varvatos Senior royal sources have told MailOnline that palace circles are tipping a wedding announcement before Christmas ahead of a Spring wedding. Beatrice, 30, is said to be keen to settle down with the man she loves and think about starting a family after seeing her younger sister Princess Eugenie, who is 29 this month, find happiness with husband Jack Brooksbank. Princess Beatrice split with previous boyfriend Dave Clark in 2016 after 10 years of dating. A number of flight attendants have revealed the various different things they say they cannot travel without. Flight attendants who work for Delta Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines told Domino how they prepare for a flight - and the essential items that they never leave home without. The workers revealed that luggage organizers, Ziploc bags and journals are among their must-haves when flying around the globe. Those who revealed their go-to items for travelling included Vinnie De Jesus, who works as a fight attendant for Delta Airlines, as well as Hawaiian Airlines attendant Theona Kapoi. Hawaiian Airlines attendants Mapuana Faulkner, Heather Sanchez and Joyce Foley also spoke to the publication about their favorite things they regularly carry on flights. Interesting! A number of flight attendants who work for Delta Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have revealed their must-have items for travelling Ziploc bags Theona Kapoi, who works for Hawaiian Airlines said she likes to bring the small plastic bags on board with her in order to save space and carry different items with her. She told the publication: 'Putting things in Ziploc bags and squeezing the air out helps give you lots of space, keeps you organized, and protects your belongings in case your luggage gets rained on.' Although they may not be the most environmentally-friendly choice, they definitely come in handy. Phone chargers, USB sticks and any other important items can be easier to find when they're in an individual bag, rather than sporadically thrown into a carry-on case or handbag. A reusable water bottle Hawaiian Airlines attendant Joyce Foley has a more eco-friendly must-have item that she brings with her as she travels for work. The flight attendant recommends bringing a reusable water bottle on flights, rather than using small plastic cups. As well as avoiding unnecessary plastic waste, bringing your own bottle will ensure that you stay hydrated throughout the flight, as cabin-pressure tends to dry out the air. She said: 'Flight attendants can always fill up your flask. This will help you stay hydrated, which also helps with jet lag and bloating.' Journal Vinnie De Jesus, who works as a fight attendant for Delta Airlines, said he likes to bring a bullet journal along with him as he travels. He uses the journal to write down his thoughts, as he says travelling can become stressful at times. 'As one who travels a lot, staying "grounded" in an emotional sense is often more important,' he told Domino. 'Take something with you that helps ensure you are in the right head space. For me, that would be my bullet journal and Bible. 'These items help keep me focused on the things that matter and are a comfort to me when traveling gets stressful,' he added. An over-sized scarf Mapuana Faulkner, an attendant for Hawaiian Airlines, said she can never leave without an over-sized garment. She says she uses the scarf for a number of things, including covering her face while she sleeps, using it as a picnic blanket and wearing it as a casual pool cover up. 'Hawaiian flight attendants never leave home without at least one pareo. Its a colorful, oversize scarf extraordinaire. 'It can be a soft, breathable fabric throw to toss over your head on the plane so no one sees you sleeping with your mouth open, a casual pool cover-up, or an impromptu picnic blanket,' she added. Sweet potatoes Another travel essential of Mapuana's is sweet potatoes, which she snacks on when she's hungry. She says she eats the vegetable for its high levels of fiber and antioxidants. Mapuana explained: 'Always consider agricultural restrictions when traveling to certain destinations. 'Theyre much easier to consume without making a mess and are generally made up of the same components,' she added. Luggage organizers Vinnie explained that, as well as carrying a journal, he brings luggage organizers with him on his travels. The flight attendant said using the organizers will help 'compartmentalize and compress clothing'. Books Vinnie also makes sure he has a good book on hand while travelling for work. He said having a good distraction on a flight is key to helping passengers, especially those suffering with anxiety, to relax. And if reading isn't for you, Vinnie explained that reading is just one way to ease the your nerves, but there are others too. 'Try to watch a movie, read a book, or start a conversation with your seatmate,' he said. Michelle Obama is incredibly proud of her two daughters for turning into such poised, graceful, and resilient young women in the face of such an unusual childhood. The 55-year-old former first lady sat down with Conan O'Brien for a new episode of his Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, and spoke warmly Malia, 20, and Sasha, 17 and the capable young adults they have become. 'I am in awe of my children for the way they have managed this whole thing with poise and grace. There's a resilience that they've had to develop,' she said. Talkin'! Michelle Obama spoke to Conan O'Brien for a new episode of his podcast On air: She is promoting her book, Becoming, and spoke about her life as first lady and her family Michelle said that it hasn't been easy for them to grow up in the public eye both because of the vitriol they've had to face as well as the uncommon attention paid to their parents. She admitted that they found her and former President Barack Obama 'hugely embarrassing'. 'Imagine showing up to parent-teacher conferences with a 20-car motorcade and police officers yelling at the teachers, "Move out of the way!"' she said. But the embarrassing bits weren't even the hardest parts. 'We've given them so much more than any of us have ever had they have met the pope and the queen and theyve done things no kid would ever do but they've also had to sacrifice a lot of their childhoods,' she went on. 'Living in this glare and being the subject of some of this nastiness themselves and learning from a very young age how to recover from that, how to steal yourself.' Tough: Michelle said that it hasn't been easy for her daughters Sasha, 17, and Malia, 20, to grow up in the public eye Rising to the occasion: She added, 'I am in awe of my children for the way they have managed this whole thing with poise and grace. There's a resilience that they've had to develop She recalled a time, years ago, when Malia was much younger and on a field trip with her class at a museum. While they were there, another class of fifth graders recognized her and started taking pictures. 'And she had to take it upon herself, because no teachers were stopping this, no grown-ups. She gathered them around, and said, 'Now, I'm very excited to see all of you, but I'm here with my school so I can't take pictures with all of you." She took the moment to be gracious. 'That's how my kids have had to operate. Strangers approaching them. And being angry if they don't want to take pictures. 'Imagine trying to have your first kiss or sneak a cigarette and you're on Page Six. They've had to learn how to steel themselves and then come out not being resentful, not being cynical, and still being curious about the world. My hat's off to them.' Since they couldn't completely avoid the strangeness attached to Obama's job, Michelle said that she and Barack had to make things as normal as they could for their girls. She said: 'Living in this glare and being the subject of some of this nastiness themselves and learning from a very young age how to recover from that, how to steal yourself Challenge: Michelle said she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, has to create 'this cocoon of normalcy in a pretty crazy, abnormal world' 'We had to parent by creating this cocoon of normalcy in a pretty crazy, abnormal world,' she said. She likened the experience to seeing a toddler bump his or her head: If mom and dad freak out, so will the toddler so she and her husband had to be the calming force. 'We spent eight years just going, "Its okay. Youll be fine. This is normal. Just go to school,"' she said. 'It was very much keeping them in their reality, making sure we went to parent-teacher conferences and we went to their games and we were sitting on the sidelines with them and that they had sleepovers,' she said. 'And we had kids sleeping over at our house... our house being the White House,' she went on. 'My kids were like every other kid like, "Why would people want to come here, mom?"' she recalled them saying. 'It's the White House, I guarantee you they want to come and watch a movie.' Babies! Sasha, now 17, and Malia, now 20, weren't even teenagers yet when their father became president Proud: Michelle recalled stories about her daughters, including when Malia was on a field trip for school and fans approached her Eventually, the girls came around to sleepovers at the White House. In fact, they insisted on having one one last time before they moved out. Appearing at a Becoming book tour event in St. Paul, Minnesota last week, Michelle said that final slumber party the night before the Obamas moved out was 'chaos.' 'I wasn't sure how these eight little girls were going to get out of that house on time,' she said. 'Uber? The staff was crying, my girls were crying and all I kept thinking was "I can't be crying right now, people will think I'm crying for different reasons." So, I had to fix my face, but then I was "Like Bye Felicia!"' She also praised the two young women at the event, saying, 'My girls have taught me resilience. I'm in awe of how normal they turned out.' Malia, now a sophomore at Harvard University, was just ten when she moved into the White House. Sasha, now a senior in high school, was seven. Michelle has been singing their praises for years, but has really focused on her pride in her children since she started promoting her book last fall. 'You want your kids to grow up normal,' she told Jenna Bush Hager in an interview for the Today show in October. 'You want them to be able to have the wonderful experiences privately. And you want them to be able to fail and stumble privately. Like any other kids. 'You know, it's an odd thing for the world to see you transition from a child to a young woman. And so they've grown up. And they've had their stumbles, and they've had their triumphs,' the former first lady said. When Jenna told her that one of the hardest thing for her own mother was to hear Jenna and Barbara criticized she said it 'crushed her' Michelle agreed that that was especially tough. Like any mother, she wanted her kids to be able to grow up privately and experience any failures or hiccups behind closed doors. Mrs. Obama also spoke about her daughters facing criticism and former first daughters being there to guide them on GMA that same week. 'I am so proud of those little girls,' she told Robin Roberts. 'They have managed this situation with poise and grace, and they are normal and kind and smart and friendly and open.' 'Gosh, and it could've gone so wrong,' she added. 'But I will also say that they had support from a lot of the other former first kids Jenna and Barbara and Chelsea. I love those girls. I will love them forever for what kind of support they provided to my daughters throughout that. They always had their backs.' Michelle noted that whenever anyone would 'go after' her daughters in the press, Jenna would 'say something' and Chelsea would 'send a tweet out.' 'That made a big, big difference, so [Malia and Sasha] are doing well,' Michelle said. Speaking to People in in October, she noted that her daughters have gained quite a bit from facing things that most people don't namely a strength and an ability to power through. '[They took] a level of maturity and resilience that not even Barack or I had to have,' she said. 'They are the most recognized teenagers in the world, trying to be out in the world like regular kids. And that's hard when you're a child, and every day people are watching you, and you know that. Support: Last fall, Michelle acknowledged how great Barbara and Jenna Bush were in helping Malia and Sasha as they prepared to leave the White House (left in 2004, right in September) The former first daughter is pictured in October 'There's no time to just be... to blend in and have fun and make mistakes or smoke your first cigarette or have your first kiss or have a boyfriend and to have your boyfriend's biography written [in the press] before you even know he likes you.' Sharing: Michelle has been promoting her book, Becoming, since it came out last fall. It was the best-selling book of 2018. Malia has found herself in the press quite a bit in the past few years for these reasons. When the first daughter smoked at a concert and socialized at a party where there was beer, other attendees snapped her photo and shared it online. And when she started dating fellow Harvard student Rory Farquharson, the public couldn't get enough. 'I try to remind them that even the toughest parts of this have value. They've grown up with being able to maneuver it with grace,' the former first lady said. In the magazine interview, Michelle was also asked about how she'll soon have an empty nest, with Malia off at Harvard and Sasha set to go away to college soon. But she said she's not particularly weepy about it since it's so easy to stay connected. 'I have the resources that, if I get sad, I'll go see them,' she said. Unlike my parents, who dropped me off at college and just had a phone call, I text with my kids. 'I can text Malia right this second and I know what's thinking. I feel like she's off on her next adventure, so I'm excited for her. I don't need my children to make me happy. I had then so they'd be happy.' Michelle has been promoting her book, Becoming, since it came out last fall. It was the best-selling book in the US in 2018, selling more than two million copies in the US and Canada by the end of November. It was also the number one seller in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Greece. Tiffany Trump and her boyfriend Michael Boulos are enjoying some time in Washington, D.C. after their romantic spring break vacation in Serbia. Both the first daughter and her billionaire beau took to Instagram on Sunday to share artsy photos of themselves posing in front of installations at the digital art gallery Artechouse. 'Mesmerized,' Tiffany, 25, captioned the black and white images, which include a snapshot of herself holding hands with Michael. Cultured: Tiffany Trump and her boyfriend Michael Boulos both shared photos from their trip to the digital art gallery Artechouse in Washington, D.C. on Sunday Artsy image: The first daughter posed in front of one of the multimedia installations wearing a black T-shirt, skinny jeans, and boots The couple viewed the exhibition 'Everything in Existence' by the Italian artist studio Fuse during their visit to the modern art space. According to Artechouse's website, the four multimedia installations by Fuse are 'designed to remind us that we are all part of something bigger.' In one photo, Tiffany is posed in front of a black and white screen projection of what looks like a root growing in soil. The first daughter is wearing a black T-shirt, black skinny jeans, and boots; a black handbag is slung over her right shoulder. She is looking over her left shoulder, away from the camera, while her photo is being taken, presumably by Michael. The next snapshot shows Tiffany posing with her back to the camera, her long blonde hair flowing down her back as she looks at the art. Focused: The couple viewed the exhibition 'Everything in Existence' by the Italian artist studio Fuse during their visit to the modern art space Look of love: Tiffany and Michael can be seen sitting on a bench and holding hands in one of the snapshots In the final image she shared, she and Michael are sitting on a bench and holding hands, their backs facing away from the camera. Although she posted the images on Sunday, the exhibition closed to the public on March 10. However, it's possible that the first daughter was able to score a private tour after she returned home from Belgrade, Serbia. Like his girlfriend, Michael posted a snapshot of himself with his back to the camera as he walked around the exhibition. He also shared a picture of himself holding hands with Tiffany as they stood side-by-side in front of one of the installations. 'Eventually, everything connects,' he captioned the images. The two appear to be taking in all the sights they can during Michael's visit to Washington, D.C. Close as can be: Michael, the heir to the multi-billion-dollar Nigerian trading conglomerate Boulos Enterprises, posted similar photos on his Instagram page Deep: 'Eventually, everything connects,' Michael captioned the images A few hours before she posted the museum photos, Tiffany shared a photo of herself posing in front of the White House fountain, which was dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Tiffany is wearing a black jacket with plaid sleeves over a black top and a flouncy gray skirt. She accessorized the look with black tights, over-the-knee black boots, aviator sunglasses, and a black cap. She used a shamrock emoji and the hashtag #happystpatricksday to caption the festive photo. The two also visited Great Falls Park in Virginia. Michael posted an Instagram Stories video of the rushing Potomac River while enjoying the view. Tiffany, who is a law student at Georgetown University, spent most of her spring break vacation in Belgrade with Michael before returning home to D.C. just in time for class on Monday. She and Michael were photographed holding hands while picking up a new suitcase at the Delta City mall in Belgrade on Wednesday, just one day after he purchased five fur coats for her at Serbian designer Irena Grahovac's boutique. Feeling festive: A few hours before, Tiffany shared a photo of herself posing in front of the White House fountain, which was dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Keeping busy: The two also visited Great Falls Park in Virginia. Michael posted an Instagram Stories video of the rushing Potomac River while enjoying the view Tiffany opted for a sporty look that day, donning a black and white Adidas track jacket with three black straps running down the arms, dark jeans, and combat boots. The couple, who started dating last summer, walked hand in hand as they made their way through the shopping mall together. Michael, the heir to the multi-billion-dollar Nigerian trading conglomerate Boulos Enterprises, was seen carrying two shopping bags, although it's unclear if they were Tiffany's or his. It's possible that they visited the mall specifically to buy a new suitcase to fit the hefty coats that Michael had purchased for the first daughter. Michael spent more than an hour picking out five coats and jackets to buy his lady love on Tuesday while shopping at Irena Grahovac's store in Belgrade. The pair met on vacation in Mykonos over the summer, less than a year after Tiffany called it quits with her ex-boyfriend Ross Mechanic in late 2017. Travels: Tiffany, who is a law student at Georgetown University, spent most of her spring break vacation in Belgrade, Serbia, with Michael (pictured) before returning home to D.C Sightseeing: The first daughter took to Instagram last Tuesday to share a photo of herself posing next to a statue of the late Karl Malden, an American actor with Serbian heritage Long-distance love: Tiffany and Michael met on vacation in Mykonos over the summer. He is based in London, while she is attending law school in D.C. Michael's family is of Lebanese descent, and while he was raised in Lagos, he is now based in London. The two appear to be getting the hang of their long-distance relationship. Tiffany traveled to London in January to visit her beau before she returned back to Washington, D.C. to start her spring semester of law school. She seemed to be having a blast taking in the sights in Belgrade during their latest getaway together. The first daughter took to Instagram last Tuesday to share a photo of herself posing next to a statue of the late Karl Malden, an American actor with Serb heritage. In the snapshot, Tiffany is holding on to one of the poles on the moment as she pops up her foot and leans back. 'Greetings from Serbia,' Tiffany captioned the image in Serbian Cyrillic script. A sexist supervisor manual advising male bosses on how to deal with female employees in the 1940s has revealed the patronizing attitudes that women faced when they entered the workforce. Created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the guide assured men that women are 'teachable' and warned against 'kidding' around in front of them because they may 'resent it.' The manual was made in response to the growing amount of women who were brought into factories for the first time to replace the men who were enlisted as soldiers during World War II. Hard times: A supervisor manual created by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in the 1940s has revealed sexist attitudes women faced when they joined the workforce Patronizing: The guide assured men that women are 'teachable' and warned against 'kidding' around in front of them because they may 'resent it' Helping hand: The guide was made in response to the growing amount of women who were brought into factories for the first time during World War II Between 1940 and 1945, the percentage of the U.S. workforce made up of women increased from 27 per cent to nearly 37 per cent, according to History.com. By 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home, many of them in jobs that were traditionally held by men, including those in aviation and manufacturing. Titled When You Supervise A Woman,' the manual detailed how men should go about integrating female employees into the workplace. One section in the guide focused on the dos and don'ts of supervising female workers, all while assuring men that 'women are teachable.' 'Make clear her part in the process or product on which she works,' the manual stated. 'Allow for her lack of familiarity with machine processes.' Bosses were told to make sure that her 'working set-up is comfortable, safe, and convenient' and to 'start her right by kindly and careful supervision.' 'Avoid horseplay or "kidding,"' the guide warned, because 'she may resent it.' Not quite equal: Although the language is undoubtedly misogynistic, many of the items in the guide suggested treatment that any employee would want Who doesn't want that? According to the manual, female employees should be given brief rest periods in the middle of each shift and 'nourishing foods' for lunch periods What women want: There was an entire section dedicated to the things a 'trained woman counselor' in the department should deal with Men were also advised to 'suggest rather than reprimand' and to tell female employees when they were doing a good job. The RCA manual implied that male workers have thicker skin, take criticism better, and aren't as emotional as their female counterparts. Although the language is undoubtedly misogynistic, many of the items in the guide suggested treatment that any employee male or female would want. Misogyny: The RCA manual implied that male workers have thicker skin, take criticism better, and aren't as emotional as their female counterparts According to the manual, female employees should work no more than eight hours a day, 48 hours a week, if possible. They should be given brief rest periods in the middle of each shift and 'nourishing foods' for lunch periods. Others common-sense items included providing clean drinking water, sanitary restrooms, music during fatigue periods, and avoiding hazardous work conditions. 'Recommend proper clothing for each job; safe comfortable shoes; try to provide lockers and a place to change to her work clothes,' the manual advised. Although the guide is all about how male bosses should supervise female workers, there was an entire section dedicated to the things a 'trained woman counselor' in the department should deal with. The RCA guide stated that a female counselor would be better suited 'to find out what women workers think and want' and 'to interpret women's attitudes and actions.' Photos of the guide have been around for a few years, but they re-emerged this month on International Women's Day. A micro-preemie who weighed just over a pound at birth and was given a 50 per cent change of survival is now a normal, healthy teenager. Courtney Jackson's birth was a scary one. Born at just 23 weeks in 2001, doctors said that her odds of survival weren't great. And like other micro-preemies, she'd likely face lifelong health complications if she lived. But nearly 18 years later, the Bloomfield, Iowa, teenager is now a senior in high school, set to graduate at the end of the school year and according to People, she's defied the odds to become a perfectly healthy young adult. Very little: Courtney Jackson was born at only 23 weeks in 2001 due to her mother's health complications. She weighed just over one pound Defying the odds: Courtney stayed in the hospital for five months and needed an oxygen tank for the next year, but she is now a senior in high school with no health complications A micro-preemie is a baby born weighing less than one pound, 12 ounces, or one born before 26 weeks. Full-term babies usually weigh anywhere between five pounds, eight ounces, and eight pounds 13 ounces at birth, according to Healthline. Courtney's mother Jennifer was just 23 weeks along when doctors induced her. Jennifer, who was 25 years old when she gave birth to her daughter, had suffered eclampsia during pregnancy, and had already had four seizures in the days leading up to Courtney's birth. So when she was born incredibly early on June 19, 2001, she was still just over a pound, with only about eight teaspoons of blood in her whole body. The very tiny baby went on to spend five months at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where doctors thought she had a 50-50 chance of surviving. Usually micro-premies are born with a whole host of health issues due to being underdeveloped. They can have trouble breathing, are susceptible to infection, and require plenty of monitoring equipment. Scary stuff: Micro-preemies have a low survival rate and tend to have lifelong health problems, but she has defied the odds (pictured with her family Special: Now she is a 'normal teenager' who plays flute and piccolo and thinks it's 'cool' that she's been the subject of news articles If they survive, they often still have health problems through the rest of their lives, including intellectual disabilities, a 10 per cent chance of cerebral palsy, lung disease, digestive problems hearing loss, and blindness. 'When she was born, she was one of the 10 smallest babies at the time to ever have survived there,' said her dad, Chris Jackson. But Courtney beat the odds. 'She's been a fighter since the beginning,' said her mom. 'The doctors at that time didn't even really know what to expect. 'Then we really started to see her grow and she began to eat better and gain weight and maintain her temperature. Then you got excited to think, "Were actually going to get to take her home!"' During a 2002 interview with People, Jennifer revealed that doctors thought it would be close to a year before their daughter was ready to leave the hospital and go home with her parents. However, their little girl beat the odds and she was well enough to be discharged after just five months. Said her dad: 'We look back and we know that God blessed us with her. She's here for a reason' Their newborn still needed to use an oxygen tank to support her breathing, but she was well enough to celebrate her first birthday at home with her family and she was, according to her father, 'gobbling down sweet potatoes and banana pudding' by the time she reached that milestone. Even her doctor, pediatrician Nicole Schmidt, was impressed with the little girl's progress, remarking in September 2002: 'Shes doing beautifully. She may be walking before we know it.' From there, her health improved and now, months away from her 18th birthday, she is doing quite well. 'She has no complications from her prematurity. To look back to when she started to now, its just amazing,' her dad said. 'We look back and we know that God blessed us with her. She's here for a reason.' Now she is a 'normal teenager' who plays flute and piccolo and thinks it's 'cool' that she's been the subject of news articles. 'It's something that's unique about me,' she said. 'Were just thankful that Im here.' Incredible footage has captured the moment doctors removed a bullet lodged in a man's airway. The unidentified 45-year-old inhaled the bullet after passing out when he was shot in the cheek, doctors said. Medics who treated the patient, who lives in India, released scans showing the bullet lodged in the pipe that passes air to the lungs. The patient went to a hospital in Medanta - on the outskirts of New Delhi - after being shot. It is unclear why he was attacked. The unidentified 45-year-old inhaled the bullet after passing out when he was shot in the cheek, doctors said (pictured, the scan) The patient went to a hospital in Medanta - on the outskirts of New Delhi - after being shot. It is unclear why he was attacked (pictured, the casing of the bullet, left, and the inner part, right) He had three bullet holes in his body, with one in his stomach and another in his elbow, as well as the big wound in his jaw. Doctors at The Medicity Gurgaon were able to find the bullet in two of the wounds but not the jaw, they revealed in a case report. The team found he had inhaled a bullet which then became stuck in his tracheobronchial tree, where the lungs connect to the windpipe. The team of medics were able to remove the bullet in two parts. The first used forceps to remove the outer shell. The team found he had inhaled a bullet that was stuck in his tracheobronchial tree, where the lungs connect to the windpipe (a graphic explaining how it happened) The man survived and was left with no lasting disability, according to the tale published in the journal Respiratory Medicine Case Reports (pictured, surgeons removing the bullet) For the second part, surgeons led by Dr Ashish Prakash used a tool often used to remove bile duct stones to remove the inner part of the bullet. The usual procedure a right bronchoscopy was too hard because of the extensive facial trauma. The man survived and was left with no lasting disability, according to the tale published in the journal Respiratory Medicine Case Reports. Writing in the report, Dr Prakash and colleagues said: It is assumed that the bullet first hit the left cheek and lost its momentum. And they added: The patient lost consciousness and had a fall leading to inhalation of [the] bullet in the airway. A mother died of cervical cancer after missing just one smear test. Carly Gorst, of Speke, Liverpool, was told she had a four-inch tumour in her cervix in December 2017 after she began bleeding heavily. The 39-year-old endured surgery, chemo and radiotherapy to beat the cancer, however, it had already spread and became terminal. Less than 18 months after she was diagnosed she died in her husband Craig's arms on March 3. The couple married in their dream wedding just a week before the mother-of-two's death. Carly Gorst died of cervical cancer on March 3 after missing just one smear test. The mother-of-two is pictured with her husband Craig, who she married a week before she died Ms Gorst (pictured left in hospital) endured surgery, chemo and radiotherapy to beat the cancer, but it was not enough. Craig (pictured right with his wife) is 'heartbroken' by her death Speaking of his wife's tragic death, Craig said: 'I am heartbroken and numb. 'But I just need to share the importance of going for smear tests to save other lives before it's too late. 'Never miss a smear test girls; it has catastrophic consequences. 'I've just lost my gorgeous wife after being married for only a week. WHAT IS CERVICAL CANCER? Cervical cancer affects the lining of the lower part of womb. The most common symptom is unusual bleeding, such as between periods, during sex or after the menopause, but other signs can include: Pain during sex Vaginal discharge that smells Pain in the pelvis Causes can include: Age - more than half of sufferers are under 45 HPV infection - which affects most people at some point in their lives Smoking - responsible for 21 per cent of cases Contraceptive pill - linked to 10 per cent of cases Having children Family history of cervical or other types of cancer, like vagina Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement 'She only missed one smear test. 'But cancer kills if it's not caught early enough.' Ms Gorst - who leaves behind her children Ashley, 19, and Tom, 15 - worked as a carer to the elderly before she was diagnosed and was 'always smiling'. 'She loved being a mum and was devastated when she got ill that she couldn't do her usual "mum things" like make the kids tea or iron their clothes,' Craig said. 'All the things that people take for granted and moan about. 'She was a fantastic mum and an all round lovely girl. 'She was loved by everyone.' Figures published by NHS Digital last November revealed that just 71 per cent of women attended their last cervical screening invite - the lowest rate since 1997. Among the 25-to-49 age group, the uptake was just 69 per cent and at some GP surgeries it was as low as 25 per cent. Screening uptake spiked ten years ago following the death of reality TV star Jade Goody on March 22 2009. The 27-year-old had missed numerous smear test appointments despite having a history of abnormal results. But the national uptake has since plummeted, with rates being particularly low in London and other large cities. Ms Gorst (pictured with Craig while she battled the disease) discovered she had a four-inch tumour in her cervix in December 2017 after she began bleeding heavily Ms Gorst (pictured with Craig before she became ill) died less than 18 months after she was diagnosed. Her bereaved husband is speaking out to raise awareness of cervical screening Pictured while ill, Ms Gorst was 'always smiling' and loved being a mother to her two children A hairdresser with eczema so painful even hot water 'burned like hell' has seen a dramatic recovery by using a 4.50 baby moisturiser. Francesca Rhodes, 30, had been plagued by extreme contact dermatitis on her hands for five years. The mother-of-one, of Brigg, North Lincolnshire, had tried everything from steroid creams to UV therapy without success. After a day with her hands in water and chemicals all day, she would smother them in cream and bandage them at night. Her skin prone to cracking, weeping and bleeding, she feared she would need to stop her 14-year career as a hairdresser. But after trying Childs Farm, recommended by a client, her skin drastically improved within two weeks - and now she swears by it. Francesca Rhodes, 30, a hairdresser from Brigg, North Lincolnshire, had been plagued by extreme contact dermatitis on her hands for five years without any successful treatment Her skin prone to cracking, weeping and bleeding, the mother-of-one feared she would need to stop her 14-year career as a hairdresser due to always being in contact with water Mrs Rhodes first saw signs of eczema, pictured at its worst, with itchy skin between her fingers Mrs Rhodes saw her skin drastically improved within two weeks after trying Childs Farm baby moisturiser for 4.50 that a client recommended Mrs Rhodes said: 'My skin ended up so raw that even water would burn like hell. Washing up, having a shower or having my hands in water all day was agony. 'I love my job, but I was in that much pain that every time I came home, I'd have to smother my hands in steroid cream and wrap them in a bandage, then wear cotton gloves to help it absorb quicker. 'My confidence was at an all time low, too. I felt disgusting and diseased. 'But now, life has completely changed for me. I still can't quite believe it's all thanks to a 4.50 moisturiser for babies.' Mrs Rhodes saw the first signs of dermatitis - a complaint usually caused by something irritating the skin and sparking an allergic reaction - after she started itching between her fingers. Mrs Rhodes, who has a son, Charlie, six, with her steel worker husband Chris, 33, thought it was nothing more than a reaction to exposing her hands to water and chemicals, like those in hair dye, at work. But, over the course of three weeks, her symptoms worsened - with over-the-counter products making no difference. So, after consulting her GP, she was referred to a dermatologist at Lincolnshire's Scunthorpe General Hospital. Mrs Rhodes had tried different therapies for the eczema on her hands, which was so bad she would need to bandage them every evening Mrs Rhodes was warned by her doctor that she may need to quit her job as a hairdresser Mrs Rhodes said her skin 'got used' to steroid creams and would soon flare up again Mrs Rhodes would hide her hands as much as possible in fear of judgement WHAT IS DERMATITIS? Dermatis is an inflammation of the skin. Depending on the type of dermatitis, areas of skin may become red and itchy with some acute attacks causing crusty scales or blisters that ooze fluid. Dry, reddish, itchy skin indicates some kind of dermatitis, or skin inflammation, of which there are many types: for example, contact dematitis, which is a reaction against an irritant. Symptoms may include: Red, itchy, circular patches of weeping, scaly, or encrusted skin suggest nummular dermatitis, common in older people who have dry skin or live in dry environments. Greasy, yellowish scales on the scalp and eyebrows, behind the ears, and around the nose indicate seborrhoeic dermatitis; in infants it is called cradle cap. Scaling, sometimes ulcerated skin appearing inside the lower legs and around the ankles, may indicate stasis dermatitis. Extreme, persistent itchiness may signal atopic dermatitis (atopic eczema). Very often, however, itchiness results simply from dry skin. Source: WebMD Advertisement She said: 'I was prescribed a steroid cream, which worked for a while, but then my skin almost got used to it and the symptoms flared up again. 'So, I was given a different type of steroid cream, which I'd apply every night and bandage up my hands to keep the moisture in. 'But it soon stopped working again and we were back at square one. That rigmarole of going back and forth carried on for years.' At her lowest point, Mrs Rhodes even had daily sessions of phototherapy, which involves using UV light to treat a range of skin conditions. But it made no difference. Eventually, doctors warned her that, if they could not find something soon to alleviate her symptoms, she could have to consider quitting her hairdressing career. 'I'd been a hairdresser for 14 years, so I couldn't just walk away. There had to be something out there that could help,' she said. As time wore on with no sign of her symptoms improving, Mrs Rhode's self-esteem was in tatters. She continued: 'I was so self-conscious of my hands. Doing hair meant I couldn't even cover them up. 'If I ever went out, I'd wear a cardigan or jacket I could shove my hands in the pocket of. Mrs Rhode, pictured with her husband, Chris, 33, said her self-esteem was in tatters The mother to Charlie, six, swears by the cream that was recommend by a client Childs Farm baby moisturiser has many success stories 'I remember paying for something one day when the cashier demanded to know what was wrong with my hands. I left the shop in tears. 'I'm sure she didn't mean for it to sound nasty, but when you already feel down, a comment like that makes you paranoid that everyone is staring at you.' At the end of her tether, Mrs Rhodes feared she may never find anything to help. Then, everything changed last year, when a client suggested she tried Childs Farm. While the products are mainly aimed at newborns, babies and children, Mrs Rhodes figured that their gentle ingredients would not irritate her skin any further, so gave them a try. And, within two weeks of using the 4.50 cream, she saw a marked improvement. She said: 'It wasn't an immediate, overnight change, but I knew I had to stick with it if I wanted results, so I pushed on and within two weeks, my skin was softer and smoother. 'Now I've only had one flare up in about a year, but it soon went away when I applied Childs Farm. It's really reassuring to know I have something there that can help. 'Now I recommend it to everyone. It's absolutely changed my life.' For information, visit www.childsfarm.com. A doctor has performed the first ever brain surgery over a 5G mobile network, according to Chinese media. A patient with Parkinson's disease allegedly had an implant put in their brain by a doctor who was more than 1,800miles away (3,000km). The doctor who did the operation said the new technology could make it easier for medics to operate on people who live in more remote areas and can't travel. Dr Ling Zhipei (pictured), a surgeon who normally works in Beijing, has allegedly performed a deep brain stimulation implant operation from nearly 2,000 miles away The operation was performed using surgical robots controlled by Dr Ling who connected to them through a 5G mobile network while he was working in another city. He hopes the technology will make it easier to treat people living in remote areas Dr Ling Zhipei, a surgeon at the People's Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing, did the procedure while thousands of miles away, according to China Global Television Network (CGTN). Using surgical robots he inserted a deep brain stimulation implant a device used to try and control the tremors Parkinson's patients suffer into the patient's brain. The procedure was carried out on Saturday and lasted about three hours. It isn't clear exactly how Dr Ling controlled the machines from his location, only that he was able to use mobile internet to move them 'almost in real time'. Dr Ling was working in the city of Sanya on the island of Hainan, which is off the south coast of China, near Vietnam. Beijing, meanwhile, is in the north. Dr Ling said: 'The 5G network has solved problems like video lag and remote control delay experienced under the 4G network, ensuring a nearly real-time operation,' according to CGTN. 'And you barely feel that the patient is 3,000 kilometers away.' WHAT IS DEEP BRAIN STIMULATION? Deep brain stimulation (DBS) helps to control movement problems and is the main type of surgery used to treat Parkinson's. It involves implanting very fine wires with electrodes at their tips into the brain. These are connected to extensions under the skin behind the ear and down the neck, which then connect to a pulse generator. When the device is turned on, electrodes deliver high-frequency stimulation to the targeted area, which changes signals in the brain that cause Parkinson's symptoms. The brain is not destroyed in the process. DBS is usually reversible. It does not stop Parkinson's progressing and is not a cure. Source: Parkinson's UK Advertisement A deep brain stimulation implant is a device which acts as a sort of pacemaker for the brain. Electrodes are placed deep inside the organ and used to regulate electrical signals which pass through it. Parkinson's disease is caused by nerve damage in the brain which means electrical signals are uncontrolled, which can cause stiffness and shaking in muscles. The incurable brain disease is thought to affect as many as 10million people globally approximately 145,000 in the UK. By regulating nerve signals the implant can help to bring a patient's movements under control and restore normal muscle function. Experts hope improvements in remote-controlled surgery will make it easier for people to have operations without travelling to major cities. In a video posted on YouTube by New China TV, Dr Ling said: 'We hope in the future we can take advantage of the 5G network to enable more hospitals to carry out remote surgery. 'In this way more patients will be able to receive teatment at their local hospitals.' Dr Ling performed the operation from Sanya, on the island of Hainan, while his patient was in Beijing more than 1,800miles (3,000km) away The operation was performed with the help of the China Mobile network and and Huawei's 5G technology. CGTN said operations have already been carried out over 5G notably a liver surgery last week but not on neurosurgery patients. The patient who received the brain implant from Dr Ling reportedly said 'I feel good', after the procedure. Your social circle may be the reason you are overweight, a study has suggested. Experts have warned that obesity can spread through communities like a 'social contagion'. Researchers studied hundreds of military families - who can't choose where they live - across the US. Their results revealed if you move to an area with a high rate of obesity, it increases your risk of becoming obese, too. For every percentage-point increase in the local obesity rate, the chances a person would be overweight or obese increased by up to six per cent. Obesity can spread through communities like a 'social contagion', researchers at the University of Southern California have said after finding that if you move to an area with a high rate of obesity, it increases your risk of become obese, too The University of Southern California researchers said people adopt behaviors of others subconsciously. Dr Ashlesha Datar and colleagues recruited families of US Army personnel at 38 military bases across the country. A total of 1,314 parents and 1,111 children participated, whose rates of obesity were reflective of the national rates. One in three adults in a typical US county is obese, and in the UK, around a quarter of adults and a fifth of children are obese. Some of the bases were in counties with higher rates of obesity. Rates ranged from 21 to 38 per cent. The study showed when assigned to bases in counties with higher rates of obesity, residents were more likely to become overweight or obese. For every single percentage-point increase in obesity rate of local people, the chances that a teenager would be overweight or obese went up by four to six per cent, while the odds that a parent would be obese went up by five per cent. The risk of the parent becoming obese or overweight went up by five per cent for every single percentage increase of obesity in the area. FAST FOOD PORTIONS ARE BIGGER AND UNHEALTHIER THAN EVER Portion sizes are nearly 20 per cent bigger than they were 30 years ago, a new study finds. Researchers say that - despite attempts to add healthier menu options - the number of calories and sodium have increased as the size of burgers, fries and ice cream in our meals have swelled. Over the last three decades, entrees have about 90 more calories than they once did while nearly 200 calories have been added to desserts. Additionally, nearly 14 per cent of the daily recommended value of sodium has been added to our sanwiches and about 12 per cent has been added to our fries and chips. The team, from Boston and Tufts Universities, says the results show that the larger portions and calories have likely played a huge role in the obesity epidemic crippling the US. Advertisement The longer the families lived there, the more likely they were to see the weight pile on. Dr Datar said: 'Social contagion in obesity means that if more people around you are obese, then that may increase your own chances of becoming obese. 'Subconsciously, you are affected by what people around you are doing. 'If you move to a community where a sedentary lifestyle is the norm, you join that. There is this social influence.' The researchers accounted for environmental factors that could have explained the obesity rate, such as if there was a lack of gyms but lots of fast food restaurants. Despite this, the obesity connections were still apparent, suggesting other factors were to blame, the study said. 'We cannot say for sure that we accounted for everything that might influence eating and exercise behaviors,' Dr Datar said. 'But we did account for things that researchers in this field typically measure and found that shared environments did not play a critical role in explaining our results.' Co-author Dr Nancy Nicosia, a senior economist at RAND Cooperation, said: 'Although we could not measure social contagion directly, our findings support a role for social contagion in obesity.' Obesity can be caused by many variables, and previous research shows that living in certain communities carries a higher risk of obesity than living in other communities. But the association has been challenging for scientists to explain. One possibility is that people with similar interests and backgrounds tend to locate in similar areas. Another explanation may be people are all influenced by the shared environment, such as opportunities for exercising and healthy eating. A third explanation may be that obesity is transmitted through social influence. Dr Datar said: 'Assessing the relative importance of these explanations has been a challenging task and yet is important for designing effective policies to address obesity. Our study sought to take on that challenge.' A teenage boy suffered a near-fatal stroke and required 11 hours of brain surgery after he ignored his headaches for a year. Luke Hallam, of Grimsby, thought his near-constant headaches were just a normal part of his life. But in March last year, the now 20-year-old suddenly lost all feeling in the right side of his body and later collapsed. After being rushed to Scunthorpe General Hospital, Mr Hallam was told he had suffered a arteriovenous malformation stroke (AVM), which occurs when a tangle of blood vessels in the brain bypass normal tissue. The then-teenager was forced to wait ten months for surgery to prevent the stroke occurring again, despite doctors warning he needed the procedure within six weeks. This is due to Mr Hallam missing letters about the operation when he failed to tell his GP he had changed his address. After finally going under the knife in January this year, the sales assistant is still virtually wheelchair-bound two months on and has developed depression as a result of the ordeal. Luke Hallam spends most of his life in a wheelchair (seen left) after he suffered a stroke at just 19. The now 20-year-old still struggles to walk two months on from surgery. Doctors told Mr Hallam surgery (scar seen right) would reduce his risk of a second stroke by 95 per cent Mr Hallam collapsed in March 2017 after he lost all feeling in the right side of his body. He is pictured as a child with his brother Ryan (left) and mother Julie Speaking of his symptoms, Mr Hallam said: 'My body was just numb, I couldn't move it. 'It was scary, I thought it was pins and needles, I couldn't even get off my chair. 'When I got to hospital, doctors told me I had suffered a stroke and a bleed on the brain.' Hearing the extent of his injuries, the naturally-pessimistic Mr Hallam became convinced he would not make it. 'I was sure I was going to die,' he said. 'I can be quite a negative person, but when you're 19 and they tell you that you have a bleed on the brain you think it's the end. 'It was scary because I never thought at my age I could have a stroke, I didn't expect it at all. 'What was even more frightening was I don't have any history of it in the family or any pre-existing health condition. WHAT ARE ARTERIOVENOUS MALFORMATIONS? An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a specific term used to describe a tangle of blood vessels with abnormal connections between arteries and veins. High pressure arteries containing fast flowing blood are directly connected to low pressure veins, which normally only contain slow flowing blood. This means that blood from the arteries drains directly into the veins - without stopping to supply the normal tissues in that part of the body with essential substances like oxygen and nutrition. Over time this can lead to the normal tissues becoming painful or fragile. It also means that the AVM gets progressively larger over time as the amount of blood flowing through it increases, and it can cause problems due to its size. Finally, it may also mean that the heart has to work harder to keep up with the extra blood flow. Some doctors describe an AVM as 'a ring road that bypasses the high street of a town'. Traffic (or blood) will use the bypass rather than the high street which suffers as a result. AVMs are thought to affect approximately 1.4 in every 100,000 people. Source: Great Ormond Street Hospital Advertisement 'It just happened after having headaches throughout the year.' Mr Hallam initially underwent a week's worth of tests and MRI scans at Scunthorpe General Hospital before being transferred to Hull Royal Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with AVM. Doctors told the then-teenager he could have radiotherapy, which would reduce his risk of a second stroke by 65 per cent. Alternatively, he could undergo 11-hour brain surgery, which would lower the risk by 95 per cent. After choosing to go under the knife, Mr Hallam then waited almost a year for the procedure. He finally had the operation at Hull Royal Infirmary in January. 'Having to wait ten months for my surgery has really affected my recovery, I could have been eight months into getting better it if I'd had the operation within six weeks,' Mr Hallam said. Speaking of life now, Mr Hallam - who is cared for by his girlfriend Tia Revell - said: 'Now, when I walk short distances, I have to use a walking stick and remain in a wheelchair when going into town. 'It has left a huge impact on my life, I can get a little depressed, and I don't dare go out in case it happens again.' Mr Hallam is speaking out to raise awareness of AVM, which makes up just ten per cent of stroke cases in the UK and rarely affects young people. 'I get tired so easily, and I get stressed and angry really quickly - it had a real impact on my mental health,' he said. 'I'm sick and tired of just laying around but my therapy is going well, and I have a very supportive family and girlfriend that really keep me going. 'I'm hoping I can get back into work soon.' A spokeswoman for Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust added: 'We would like to remind patients of the importance of informing us of any change in their personal circumstances, such as their address, to ensure they receive correspondence.' Teenagers had 20 percent fewer babies in Colorado after the state made long-acting birth control like the IUD more accessible, a new study reveals. Colorado allocated more funding to its Title X clinics - federally subsidized family planning clinics - with the specific purpose of making IUs and implants more readily available to low-income patients. New research from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) indicates just how effective that program was at driving down teen and unwanted pregnancies without reducing birth rates among older women. But those improvements are in jeopardy after the Trump administration issued a 'gag rule,' denying funding to any Title X clinic that provides abortions or even refers patients for abortions. Planned Parenthood and other Title X clinics are the only resource not only for abortions but for birth control for many women. And the new study, conducted by Texas A&M University and Miami University scientists, demonstrates just how key funding for these clinics is to reducing teen pregnancy. Access to free IUDs (pictured, file image) and other long-acting contraception drove a 20 percent reduction in unintended teen pregnancies in Colorado, a new study found Nearly half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended, and result in about one third of all births. In 2015, unintended pregnancies cost American taxpayers $21 billion. Conversely, federal and state investment in family planning - through Title X - saved the US $13.6 billion in spending on health care and outcomes for women and their families. Although the proportion of women using some form of contraceptive is higher than it ever has been in the US (over one third), most of these women use patently less effective forms of birth control. Forms like the pill, patches and condoms are between six and 18 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, largely due to inconsistent use by patients, whereas IUDs have a failure rate under one percent. Plus, these devices provide protection for anywhere from three to 12 years, so even if patients using them are not regularly seeing a doctor, they will continue to be safeguarded from unintended pregnancy. Yet only a small proportion of women - 12 percent of adults and five percent of teenagers - use IUDs or implants, according to the new study. In an effort to change that, Colorado instated its progressive Family Planning Initiative in 2009, using $23 million of private donations to give women free access to long-acting contraception at all of its 68 federally funded Title X clinics. The program was an enormous success, according to the new research (as well as prior reviews of the effort). 'Distance to a clinic matters because a lot of work shows that distance does effect the take up of services...so there is much more scope to expanding services than maybe has been documented before,' co-author Andrea Kelly, a Texas A&M University economics PhD candidate, told DailyMail.com. 'Investment in these programs and access to these devices is a really strong investment in women and children.' Kelly and her co-authors looked at how birth rates changed among women living in the vicinity of the clinics (and thus most likely to be low-income) and women of different ages. For area teenagers (between 15 and 19), the program drove birth rates down by 20 percent. And for both teenagers and young women between 20 and 29 living further from clinics, uptake of IUDs and implants increase significantly. The researchers also saw that, after the introduction of the Family Planning Initiative, there was a lower incidence of low birth weights and other complications that make pregnancy and childbearing more costly to taxpayers. 'It speaks to the fact that the pregnancies that are still occurring are less costly than those that would have occurred in the absence of the program,' said Dr Kelly. Overall, the program did not change birth rates for women living further from the clinics or for older women. Those women - who live more than seven miles from Title X clinics - account for nearly 60 percent of Colorado's population. So the study suggests that, successful though it was, more women needed more access to such services to see a greater reduction - not less, as will likely be the result of the Trump administration's gag rule. Over a dozen organizations pooled together $2 million to keep the program alive temporarily in 2016. Ultimately, a measure to allocate $5 million in state funding to the initiative for that fiscal year did not pass the Colorado legislature. Ironically, the new study suggests that the availability of IUDs at Title X-funded clinics also reduced the number of teen pregnancies that ended in abortion. 'We were not able to do a comparison at the zip code level, but when we compared [data] at the county level, for the women that live within seven miles of a clinic, we found some evidence that abortion falls for teenagers,' by about 20 percent, Kelly said, although she notes that this data is less precise. Kelly said the Trump Administration's gag rule is an effort to discourage abortions without overturning Roe v Wade, but could have a ripple effect for other family planning services that could help to prevent unintended pregnancies and drive down abortion rates. The new rule 'is probably not going to help women have access [to long-acting birth control] in any way, and it could potentially have significant effects,' said Kelly. 'My sense is that these devices are fairly expensive and the structure of Title X clnics in all cases is that they are sliding scale and their purpose is to serve any women, but in particular low-income women and they have a difficult time providing them access to long-acting contraception. 'So to cut funds might mean that providing that access is going to be even more difficult.' An Oregon teenager is recovering in the hospital after doctors removed a nearly 25-pound tumor from his abdomen. Kristion Kim, 15, from Tualatin, began rapidly losing weight over the summer - which led doctors to believe he had an eating disorder. However, his stomach was hard and bulging a bit. His pediatrician thought it was constipation, but suggested to Kristion's mom, Staci, that she could get an X-ray and ultrasound done to rule it out. After a few days of scans and tests, Kristion was diagnosed with a very rare cancer that arises in the fat cells, reported KOIN 6 News. Kristion learned an extremely large tumor had been constricting his stomach and bowels to such an extent that he hadn't been able to keep any food down. Kristion Kim, 15, from Tualatin, Oregon, lost about 40 pounds between the beginning of the summer and the end of January 2019. His pediatrician was convinced that he had an eating disorder. Pictured: Kristion before his diagnosis, left, and after, right The pediatrician felt the stomach and sensed it was hard, but she just assumed he was constipation and sent the family home with gas and laxatives. She suggested that his mom, Staci, could get an X-ray and ultrasound done to rule it out Pictured: Kristion's tumor Courtesy of KOIN Between the beginning of the summer and the end of January 2019, Kristion lost about 40 pounds. 'I saw him bending down and I could see his ribs showing...from his back,' his mother, Staci, told KOIN. Staci took her son to countless appointments with his pediatrician. But the doctor believed that Kristion was purposely losing weight. She was allegedly ready to refer the teenager to a psychiatrist, believing that he had an eating disorder. But Staci wasn't convinced. Even though Kristion was losing weight, he had a stomach bulge. 'One of the times I saw his stomach, his stomach was bulging out,' she told KOIN. 'That bulge is not normal. I said: "I want to see a [gastroenterologist]. I want more tests." I said: "Something needs to be done now!"' The pediatrician told Kristion to lay on the exam table and felt his stomach. It was hard, but she just assumed he was constipation and sent the family home with gas and laxatives. Staci said she wanted to see a GI and more scans, and the pediatrician suggested the family could get an X-ray or an ultrasound to rule out constipation. Technicians told Staci that she could get an appointment in a few weeks, but she demanded for one the very next day, which she got. Kristion had the ultrasound, which was quickly followed by an emergency CT scan that showed a mass was enveloping his entire stomach. Oncologists were not sure what cancer the teen had, but told Staci that the tumor has shuffled around the organs in his abdomen. The ultrasound and an emergency CT scan showed that a mass was enveloping Kristion's entire stomach. Pictured: Kristion, left, and his mother Staci in the hospital A few days later, Kristion was diagnosed with liposarcoma, which is a rare tumor that begins in the fat cells. About 2,000 cases are diagnosed each year in the US. Pictured: Kristion before his surgery, left and after his surgery, right A few days later, Kristion was diagnosed with liposarcoma. Liposarcoma is a rare tumor that begins in the fat cells, mostly in the limbs or the abdomen. Symptoms can include abdominal pain and swelling, feeling full sooner after eating, constipation and bloody stool. Doctors are unsure of what causes liposarcoma, but know the tumor forms when fat cells have mutations that cause them to multiply quickly. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, about 2,000 cases are diagnosed each year in the US. Treatment usually involves surgery first to remove the tumor. If it cannot completely be removed, then patients undergo radiation therapy to kill remaining cancer cells. On February 26, doctors removed a nearly 25-pound tumor from Kristion's abdomen. According to a GoFundMe page, doctors were shocked that the tumor wasn't attached to any organs or blood vessels. Kristion told KOIN that when he first saw a picture of his tumor, he was 'kind of disgusted' and said it was similar to 'having a monster in your body at all times.' Because surgeons successfully removed the entire tumor, Staci says that her son won't need radiation therapy or chemotherapy. On February 26, doctors successfully removed the entire tumor, meaning that Kristion won't need radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Pictured: Kristion in the hospital after surgery The family hopes to take him home soon, but he's been unable to keep food down since the surgery. Pictured: Kristion's back when he was losing weight, before his diagnosis However, he will need to undergo scans for the 10 years, with one occurring every three to four months for the next three years in case of recurrence. The family hopes to take Kristion home soon, but the teenager has been suffering complication since the surgery. The tumor had been constricting his stomach and bowels to such an extent that he's been struggling to keep food down and may need a feeding tube. Staci says the experience has taught her how important it is to be an advocate if you feel like your concerns aren't being taken seriously. 'If you feel like something is wrong, you need to speak up,' she told KOIN. 'Speak up for yourself, speak up for your child, speak up for your mother, father, if you're taking care of them. You need to be that person's advocate.' The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of medical expenses. So far, more than $3,700 has been raised out of a $5,000 goal. Girls with fraternal male twins may earn less and be less likely to thrive in society, new research suggests. Researchers in Norway and at Northwestern University posit that exposure to their brother's testosterone in the womb may damage the female twin, resulting in poorer cognitive functioning and fertility. Though studies on humans vary, it may be that this testosterone exposure alters the way females develop, leading to more masculine traits that could explain the lower probability that these girls find partners and marry later in life. Understanding these outcomes is more important now than ever, the researchers say, as IVF has let to a near two-fold increase in the number of twins born annually. Developing in a womb shared with a male may mean that testosterone exposure leads female fraternal twins to be less fertile, earn less and be more at risk of dropping out of school The disparities between any man and any woman in the US (and abroad) are clear and undeniable. Men make more but die earlier. Women are now more likely to get a college degree but have poorer access to healthcare. The list goes on. But twins share a rare influence on one another, beginning in the womb - and it's becoming increasingly clear that even between twins, the female may be at a disadvantage. Certain patterns and trends in male-female pairs have long been observed, including some worrying possible disadvantages for the girl half of the pair. A number of studies have tried to examine how sharing a womb might affect twins, especially if they are of different sexes. Though unproven, the 'twin testosterone-transfer hypothesis' suggests that the roots these divergent paths might be traced back to male hormones that a female twin is exposed to when developing alongside a boy. Fetuses develop in an amniotic sac swirling with nutrients, antibodies and hormones and get their blood supply from their mother - and twin fetuses share this fluid and blood supply with one another, too. The mother's levels of both estrogen and testosterone - the female and male sex hormones, respectively - increase steadily over the course of pregnancy, whether she is carrying a boy, girl, both or multiples. But the concentration of those hormones does differ in the amniotic fluid. So, the theory is that, in order to support the development the boy she's sharing a womb with, a developing twin girl's amniotic fluid and bloodstream may get flushed with more male hormone than it would have otherwise. Prior studies have noted this, but hardly been large enough to prove the effects. Other research has dismissed this theory, suggesting instead that the later-in-life differences seen in girls were just a product of their being socialized differently because they were raised in tandem with a boy the same age. But the new study, from Northwestern University and the Norwegian School of Economics, is the largest to-date to look at everything from testosterone levels in the womb to outcomes over 30 years of the lives of twin pairs of two girls compared to twin pairs of one boy and one girl. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study also compared these data to information on female twins whose male or female siblings had died shortly after birth, so the researchers could see how the way these children were raised was different from how testosterone in utero effected them. The researchers logged and analyzed data on 13,800 pairs of twins born in Norway between 1967 and 1978. Compared to the other groups of twins, female twins who developed alongside a boy in the womb had several disadvantages later in life. They were 15 percent less likely to graduate high school and almost four percent less likely to finish college. These female twins also had nearly six percent lower fertility rates, and were almost 12 percent less likely to marry. And they earned less than even girl twins whose sisters were girls too, but 8.6 percent. These differences remained even if a girl's twin brother had died just after birth, suggesting that it was the testosterone exposures, not the way she was raised, that explained the differences between her and other twin girls. Exposure to more estrogen in the womb did not appear to be linked to any significant differences for boy twins. 'This is a story about the biology of sex differences,' said co-author David Figlio, Dean of Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy. 'We are not showing that exposed females are necessarily more 'male-like,' but our findings are consistent with the idea that passive exposure to prenatal testosterone changes women's education, labor market, and fertility outcomes.' Although they note the possibility that this pattern will only become more common as IVF is on the rise, leading to a doubling of twinning, the researchers also said their findings shouldn't be cause for alarm. 'While we found moderate effects at the national level, these results reflect mean differences, not everyone will be affected in the same way, and some female twins may not be effected at all,' said study co-author Krzyzstof Karbownik of Emory University said. 'And, these effects are highly unlikely to result from any individual fertility decision made by a woman or couple, given that twins are a small subset of births and male-female twin pairs even rarer yet. 'We certainly do not advocate against delayed reproduction or the use of IVF, which are complex decisions made by individuals balancing a range of personal factors.' 'Debbie was the love of my life. I loved her with all my heart, says Mike Kellard. She was the kindest and the happiest person you could hope to meet. I had absolutely no idea this was going to happen. Mikes life unravelled one July morning in 2017, when he got a call at work to say Debbie, 41, hadnt arrived at her office. Nor was she answering her phone. Mike went straight home, where he found Debbie Headspeath, his cherished partner of 20 years, lying dead. She had her coat on ready to leave. She had collapsed shortly after I left for work, he recalls. The cause of death, her family believe, was an accidental overdose of opioid painkillers. Mike's life unravelled one July morning in 2017, when he got a call at work to say his partner of 20 years Debbie Headspeath (pictured), 41, hadnt arrived at her office Debbie had started taking over-the-counter codeine for back pain about ten years ago, says Mike, 54, a Post Office worker from Ipswich. She then developed a dependency on the drug which initially she tried to deal with on her own Mike says the couple only ever had one conversation about it, one night about four years before she died. She told me she was addicted to painkillers and needed help. She then went to the doctor and he had devised a plan to supply her with reducing amounts of codeine. As far as I was concerned, that was happening. In fact, unbeknown to Mike, as well as prescription painkillers from her GP, Debbie was taking codeine she had bought online after she died, he found that in the nine months before her death she had taken some 3,700 codeine painkiller tablets bought from 21 legal internet drug suppliers. I believe she just couldnt cope with the dose being reduced, says Mike. She went online to get it. These suppliers operate outside this country and theres apparently nothing you can do. Mike went straight home, where he found Debbie (pictured) lying dead Opioid painkillers can be life-transforming for short-term pain, say experts. However, there have been growing concerns about their use for chronic pain because the drugs often dont ultimately work for this form of pain, and carry the risk of addiction. This has led to demands for better guidance for GPs prescribing the drugs and better support for people trying to come off them, including a 24-hour helpline calls backed by the Mail. Following these calls, Public Health England (PHE) is reviewing prescription pill dependency, and campaigners hope this will lead to changes in guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for opioids and antidepressants. Yet as Good Health has discovered, another major problem is emerging, in the internet pharmacy free-for-all, with an uncontrolled supply of powerful, opium-based painkillers such as codeine and tramadol highly addictive drugs that are chemically similar to the street drug heroin readily available online. So whatever any new NICE guidelines might say about when doctors should prescribe the drugs, patients can simply turn to the internet. Even if doctors become restrained in their opioid prescribing, people will be able to go online to get more, says pain specialist Dr Cathy Stannard, widely recognised as one of Britains leading experts. Owen Bowden-Jones, a consultant psychiatrist who leads Addiction to Online Medicine (Atom), Britains only clinic to help those affected by the issue, explains: It really got going a year and a half ago. Patients would tell us they had been started on one of these drugs by their GP, who then said they couldnt increase the dose. The patients then started finding it online and were often surprised at how easy it was to obtain without prescription or speaking to their doctor. They would find sites that would post the medication next day. The cause of death, Debbie's family believe, was an accidental overdose of opioid painkillers (Debbie pictured) There are online pharmacies where there is a pretence of screening and others supplying prescription medicines without any attempt at offering healthcare. A lot of them arent in the UK. As we have previously reported, most other European countries have prevented their citizens being prescribed drugs by a remote online doctor from another country in the EU. The UK Government has not closed this loophole, however, even though the number of people admitted to hospital here after overdosing on opioids has doubled to 11,500 a year in the past decade. Deaths from prescription opioid painkillers are bundled up with those from heroin addiction by the Office for National Statistics, but fatalities from these two sources have soared to around 2,000 a year, a rise of more than 40 per cent in a decade. Why she was able to do it The number of online prescription websites is rising. Legal, UK-registered internet medicine sellers, which carry the logo of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), have almost doubled since 2015, from 380 to 713. But as Sophie Courtneys story (see panel, below) shows, people can use the same prescription at different online pharmacies to get more pills. Prescriptions can also be obtained outside the UK from legal sites in the EU, where EU-qualified GPs and pharmacies are able to approve remote prescribing. However, Britain is among a minority of EU member states that allow this. There are also illegal sites based elsewhere in the world, which expose buyers to the extra risks of receiving counterfeit or bogus drugs. Advertisement An inquest into Debbies death is scheduled for May. The coroner, Dr Daniel Sharpstone, has asked for witness statements from the owners of all the websites that supplied her drugs. His inquest will also consider whether the circumstances of her death breached the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires the state to protect its citizens from harm. If you investigate the sites, its apparent that if you say the right things you can get your prescription and its quite easy to learn what to say, one of the coroners staff who did not want to be identified told Good Health. The systems in place online for monitoring repeat prescribing seem very weak. Individuals can hop from one site to another. It is not clear whether inquest findings have much impact. Back in 2003, a 24-year-old Durham University physics graduate, Liam Bracknell, became one of the first online pharmacy casualties. Evidence at his inquest showed he was getting 300 tablets of various kinds of drugs delivered daily to his home. Last October, an inquest was told that 51-year-old Jennifer Lacey had been found dead in a South London Travelodge with the remains of 210 tramadol tablets in her body and that many had been obtained via a doctor registered in Prague who had never seen her and had no access to her medical records. Nicki Hari, 50, a former call centre worker from Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, has spent the past seven years as a UK Addiction Treatment counsellor, after emerging from 25 years as a painkiller addict. She says there has been a huge increase in the number of victims in the past two years, which she believes is linked to the rise in the drugs availability online. She speaks as one who used to obtain the pills this way herself. Her own dependency began in her early 20s, when she was prescribed co-codamol for chronic knee pain. She has since endured 15 operations which left her taking painkillers for so long my body became quite immune to the effects and dependent on them. I would make appointments with different GPs. When they said they would review the medication, I just changed my doctor. I used to borrow them from my friends, then about 15 years ago I started getting them online. If you say you are in pain, you just get given painkillers. Dr Cathy Stannard is deeply concerned about the potential risks of online opioid prescriptions. People shouldnt be able to use an online question-and-answer tool to get these powerful drugs, says Dr Stannard, who is chair of Opioids Aware, an online resource. Debbie (pictured) had started taking over-the-counter codeine for back pain about ten years ago, says Mike, 54, a Post Office worker from Ipswich I dont understand why its being allowed. It should be possible to develop a robust system that links into healthcare records in the NHS structure. We all know its difficult to get GP appointments, but online prescribing is not the answer. I dont think it would disadvantage anyone if none of these painkillers was available online. The Royal College of GPs, the General Pharmaceutical Council, which regulates pharmacies; the Care Quality Commission, which regulates healthcare providers, and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have expressed concern. Psychiatrist Owen Bowden-Jones adds that he doesnt think there is a single solution but we do need to educate users about the risks of these medications, the risk of fake treatments or medicines mixed with other things. Nicki Hari adds: Anyone who has been on one of these drugs for a month should worry. Unless you have multiple sclerosis or some chronic condition, these drugs are just masking the pain, which is probably going to worsen the underlying problem. We need education about the dangers, and people who cant cope on the prescriptions they are given should ask to be referred to a pain management clinic. Since that fateful day in 2017, Mike Kellard has felt bewildered by his loss. The couple had no children and Debbie devoted her life to Mike, her full-time work for charities including Suffolk Refugee Support and Blind Veterans UK, and a prodigious output of hundreds of poems. As far as I was concerned, the dose of her painkillers was being reduced, says Mike, who is being comforted by Debbies parents and siblings. She was feeling really positive and talking about the future when she died. One in three women suffers with incontinence, usually as a result of weakening of the muscles that control urination, such as the urethral sphincter, or the pelvic floor (a hammock of muscles that runs from the pubic bone to the spine, supporting the bladder, bowel and womb). There are different types, including stress incontinence the most common form which leads to leaks of urine when you cough, sneeze or laugh. Urge incontinence causes a sudden need to go as the bladder spasms. There is a range of products that claim to help with these problems. We asked Dr Penelope Law, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Hillingdon Hospital and The Portland Hospital in London, to assess a selection. We then rated them. INCOSTRESS INCOSTRESS: This soft silicone device is said to place pressure against the urethra, supporting it to prevent the involuntary loss of urine 31.99, Boots CLAIM: This soft silicone device, inserted like a tampon, is said to place pressure against the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder and out of the body, supporting it to prevent the involuntary loss of urine. EXPERT VERDICT: This will support the urethra and the pelvic floor to stop urine leakage. It is a good short-term solution for extra support while exercising, for example, to prevent stress incontinence, but I wouldnt advise using it for too long as Id be worried about the risk of infection as a result of urine being stopped and bacteria building up in the bladder. It also looks like it would be quite heavy and uncomfortable to wear all day. 7/10 INNOVO INNOVO: This hand-held controller attached to special shorts sends impulses to the pelvic floor in each 30-minute session 249, LloydsPharmacy and restorethefloor.com CLAIM: A hand-held controller attached to special shorts. It sends impulses to the pelvic floor in each 30-minute session via conductive gel pads (attached to your upper thigh and buttocks). The idea is that electrical impulses strengthen the pelvic floor, which in turn reduces incontinence. The manufacturer advises using it for 30 minutes five days a week for up to three months to see results, then twice a week to maintain strength. EXPERT VERDICT: Although there is evidence muscle stimulation can be effective for incontinence, Im not sure this would get to the deep muscles in the pelvis. It would firm up the gluteal muscles in the buttocks, but not the pelvic floor. Its also very expensive. 3/10 CONTRELLE ACTIVGARD CONTRELLE ACTIVGARD: A disposable foam device that expands inside the vagina Box of 30, 95.99, incontinencechoice.co.uk CLAIM: A disposable foam device that expands inside the vagina. Soak it in water then insert. It unfolds to support the bladder. It can be worn for 16 hours before being replaced. The manufacturer claims 35 per cent of users say they are completely continent after using it. EXPERT VERDICT: This may be OK as a short-term option for exercising, say, but I cant see what would make it more effective than a tampon to hold up the vagina and the pelvic floor. It also requires a lot of effort to insert, as its quite fiddly and you have to align it properly where the urethra is. I imagine anyone who is frail, has arthritis or is overweight would struggle to insert it. 5/10 NEEN PELVIC EDUCATOR NEEN PELVIC EDUCATOR: This device checks your pelvic floor technique 10.20, Boots and amazon.co.uk CLAIM: This device checks your pelvic floor technique, using a probe inserted like a tampon which is attached to an indicator wand to give you feedback. As you contract your pelvic floor muscles, the indicator wand will show if you are doing it correctly. EXPERT VERDICT: This is a simple idea, is reasonably priced and will do the job of helping you strengthen your pelvic floor and give you feedback to guide you so that you are doing the exercises correctly. 8/10 EXERCISER RING EXERCISER RING: This is a 14in ring with grip pads 19.99, healthylivingdirect.com CLAIM: This is a 14in ring with grip pads. You simply place the ring between your thighs and squeeze, activating your pelvic floor muscles, the maker says. EXPERT VERDICT: Im not sure how helpful this exercise ring would be for treating incontinence I dont think it is specific enough to improve the pelvic floor muscles, although it might give your buttocks and thighs a general workout. To work your pelvic floor, you have to pull upwards from the inside to identify the right muscles, try to stop your urine mid-flow when you are on the loo. 2/10 VSCULPT VSCULPT: This external, hand-held device delivers a combination of LED light energy, heat and vibrations through the skin around the pelvic region 375, uk.vsculpt.com CLAIM: This hand-held device delivers a combination of LED light energy, heat and vibrations around the pelvic region. Used for ten minutes a day, every other day over eight weeks, the manufacturer says it can help to rebuild the collagen to improve vaginal tissue and strengthen pelvic floor muscles. The manufacturer says it improves blood flow and increases collagen. One study by the company conducted at a gynaecology clinic in Seattle, U.S. and published in the journal International Urogynecology, found that in 55 patients who used the device, only 18 per cent had moderate to severe leakage after 24 sessions over 50 days, compared with 82 per cent before the study. EXPERT VERDICT: A combination of light, heat and vibration energy can help to make pelvic tissue tighten. So in principle this might be useful, particularly after childbirth, to tighten lax vaginal muscles. However, theres no high-quality trial evidence with large numbers of people to say this works for incontinence, and until there is, I wouldnt spend nearly 400 on it. 4/10 TENSCARE ELISE PELVIC EXERCISER TENSCARE ELISE PELVIC EXERCISER: This uses TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) technology which is said to work your pelvic floor muscles for you with gentle stimulation 54.94, amazon.co.uk CLAIM: Consisting of a small probe that is inserted and operated using a small box this uses TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) technology which is said to work your pelvic floor muscles for you with gentle stimulation. The manufacturer recommends using it for 20 minutes a day for three months for stress and urge incontinence. There is also a version for men. EXPERT VERDICT: TENS machines are helpful for pain relief by blocking pain messages from nerves. In this context, it would be the vibration mechanism that could strengthen pelvic floor muscles. This strikes me as quite a good product, its small, easy to insert and control and you can do your pelvic floor exercises at the same time as the stimulation. I think it would be effective. 9/10 US car maker Ford will cut more than 5,000 jobs in Germany and will reduce its workforce in Britain in a bid to return to profit in Europe, the company announced last week. The brand - which produces the volume-selling Fiesta and Focus - has offered voluntary redundancy programmes for employees in Germany and Britain, it said in a statement. The manufacturer said job losses in the UK was 'still to be determined', though it is believed to be in the region of 1,150 staff to be culled. Job losses at Ford UK: The car maker said it will be reducing staff numbers in Britain, though the total number is 'still to be determined' The announcement is the first official communication regarding a turnaround plan hinted in January that ultimately could involve plant closures as well as job cuts. In a statement released on Friday, the brand said: 'Through these programmes and other initiatives, Ford of Germany expects to reduce its headcount in excess of 5,000 jobs, including temporary staff. 'The total number of positions affected in Britain is still to be determined,' it added. According to Britain's Unite union, Ford plans to axe 1,150 jobs in the country. In France, the group is also expected to close a plant making gearboxes near Bordeaux, costing 800 jobs and drawing the ire of the French government. Ford also announced on Friday that it would streamline its lineup by 'improving or exiting less profitable vehicle lines'. In total, Ford employs around 53,000 people in Europe. Of those, around 12,000 are based in Britain, spread across facilities in Bridgend, Croydon, Dagenham and Liverpool where engines and transmissions are predominantly manufactured. Some 24,000 employees are based in Germany, including the assembly line for the Fiesta supermini in Cologne and Focus and C-Max in Saarlouis close to the French border. Ford employs around 12,000 people in Britain, including those at the Bridgend facility in Wales Ford manufacturers mainly engines and transmissions for vehicles in the UK, including the facility in Dagenham The US brand confirmed it would also streamline its lineup by 'improving or exiting less profitable vehicle lines' The job cuts are part of a 14 billion global cost-cutting programme to make European outputs more efficient. This will include splitting the business into three groups - commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and imports. Ford will also take measures to boost production of its strongest European-made cars and at the same time ditch less popular models. Pictured: The 20 Millionth engine comes off the line at Ford Bridgend Engine Plant in September 2016 In a statement released on Friday, the brand said: 'Through these programmes and other initiatives, Ford of Germany expects to reduce its headcount in excess of 5,000 jobs, including temporary staff' job cuts are part of a 14bn global cost-cutting programme to make European outputs more efficient Ford Europe has been losing money for years and pressure to restructure its operations has increased since arch-rival General Motors raised profits by selling its European Opel and Vauxhall brands to France's Peugeot. Ford's turnaround plan is aimed at achieving a six per cent operating margin in Europe. The brand has already confirmed a team up with Volkswagen in a bid to reduce costs in an increasingly competitive industry. The two car makers will jointly develop commercial vans and pickups from 2022 and are also in talks about potentially cooperating on electric and self-driving cars, the latest example of rivals joining forces to save on the massive research and development costs needed for the switch to future technologies. Ministers have been told to consider a national system of road tolls to compensate for the huge loss in revenue from fuel duty when electric cars become mainstream on the back of new research. At present, fuel duty - the tax on petrol and diesel - is charged at a rate of 57.95p for every litre UK motorists pump into their cars. It alone is expected to raise 28.2billion for the Treasury in 2018-19. However, this revenue stream looks set to shrink significantly by 2040 when UK ministers plans to ban the sale of vehicles with combustion engines in a bid to persuade drivers to switch to electric cars. A new study by Bloomberg News Energy Finance claims a road toll scheme charging up to 9p a mile should be introduced to compensate for the 14 billion lost in fuel duty revenue - a move that would cost motorists 710 a year. Taking a toll: Bloomberg NEF said global economies could plug the loss of revenue collected from fuel taxation by charging motorists for each mile they drive While the mainstream adoption of electric vehicles will - in theory - have a positive impact on global air pollution, the switch away from petrol and diesel will do little to help bolster government coffers. In fact, by Bloomberg NEF's calculations reported by the Times, nine of the world's leading economies are set to lose a staggering amount when the time comes that they can no longer reap the financial benefits of fuel taxation. It estimated that the likes of the US, China, Germany and the UK would see a collective 1.4trillion wiped from earnings over the next 22 years as motorists swap petrol pumps for plug sockets. UK think tank Policy Exchange estimated last year that the imminent uptake of electric models could cost the government up to 170 billion by 2030. As a result, governments are starting to come under increased pressure to find a replacement for fuel duty, especially when the ban on sales of petrol and diesel-powered vehicles comes into force in 2040. To recoup these lost earnings Victoria Cuming, head of global policy at Bloomberg NEF, said the UK would need to introduce a mileage-based charge for drivers. She suggested this should cost 7.5p by 2030, increasing to 9.1p a decade later when new petrol and diesel vehicles are banned from sale. Based on the latest Department for Transport figures, which show that household motors covered an average of 7,800 miles a year, that would result in motorists paying 585 a year in 2030 and 710 by 2040. The Treasury is estimated to earn over 28 billion from fuel duty - the tax on petrol and diesel - in 2018-19 The Government is pushing for motorists to switch to electric vehicles to reduce air pollution. However, this causes a dilemma when it comes to taxation of fuel The decision is likely to rile most drivers, who have suffered years of fuel taxation accounting for almost 50 per cent of their total cost at the pumps. The ruling Labour government in 2005 had suggested a road pricing policy where drivers would be forced to pay 1.34 per mile to use motorways at peak times. However, the national road pricing plans were scrapped two years later following a public outcry and a petition against the proposal signed by 1.8million Britons. It leaves ministers in a difficult position, especially with the demand for vehicle pollution outputs to be significantly reduced. Last year, AA president Edmund King said any decision to reintroduce a road pricing scheme would be 'political suicide'. Instead, he suggests an alternative strategy called 'Road Miles' - a scheme he and his wife - economist Deidre King - conjured as a more driver-friendly taxation. The Labour government in 2005 suggested a road pricing policy where drivers would be forced to pay 1.34 per mile to use motorways at peak times - however, this received widespread opposition from the nation's motorists and plans were scrapped by 2007 AA president Edmund King has suggested an alternative scheme called Road Miles. This gives a free allowance of 3,000 miles each year. Anything above that and motorists would be charged per mile driven The Road Miles pricing scheme suggested would provide an allowance of 3,000 miles per year free of charge to all drivers. Anything over that distance and motorists would be expected to pay a fee for every mile, as put forward by the Bloomberg NEF research. King's strategy would allow motorists living in rural areas and electric vehicle owners to receive more free miles, and the whole scheme would be phased in gradually as fuel duty was scaled back. An individual's mileage would likely be tracked by a device plumbed into the car's diagnostic port or, for older cars, checked annually as part of the MOT. The Kings were shortlisted for the prestigious Wolfson Economics Prize for the proposal. No solution has been proposed by government yet, but it's expected to be investigated as the sale of fuel drops as part of the pay off of increasing EV uptake. Ian Isam: 'It's not about the money, it's the principle involved' A bereaved father has won a 600 payout from delivery giant DHL after spending weeks fruitlessly trying to track down his late daughter's pension pot. Ian Isam from Derbyshire, who is his daughter Lisa's executor, claims he got 'brusque' treatment from her former employer when he informed it of her death. He was attempting to ask about her retirement savings on behalf of his granddaughter, who is Lisa's heir and has just turned 16. It eventually turned out DHL had the right to keep Lisa's entire 575 pension pot for itself rather than pay a penny to her estate, due to a couple of obscure technicalities. The case highlights the arcane pension rules surrounding jobs held for short stints, and an administrative quirk of channelling your contributions via a company's 'salary sacrifice' scheme. Mr Isam says he was told by a staff member his daughter's pension money had been 'lost', despite his having old payslips showing deductions going into the company scheme, but was given no further explanation. Seeking answers, he appealed to former Pensions Minister and This is Money columnist Steve Webb, who has replied here. This website helped Mr Isam discover that due to complicated - and some now defunct - pension rules, and the fact Lisa left DHL three weeks short of two years' service, the firm was able to keep her pot. But after the intervention of This is Money, the delivery company sent him a letter expressing deepest condolences for the passing of his daughter, and made a 600 voluntary payment to Lisa's estate as a 'gesture of goodwill'. DHL said: 'We are sorry for Mr Isams experience at what must be an extremely difficult time. Our team has been in touch with Mr Isam directly. We would like to thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.' This is Money asked DHL if its pension scheme has any formal policy for dealing with bereaved relatives of its members, or specialist training for staff on handling such cases, but received no response on this issue. Mr Isam said he was pleased his granddaughter could now inherit the money, but added: 'It's not about the money, it's the principle involved.' What happened to Lisa's pension pot? DHL had the right to withhold Lisa Harris's pension pot from her estate due to two separate issues. The first relates to now abolished rules on pension transfers for early leavers from an employer which has a pension scheme run by trustees, as opposed to one operated by an outside contractor like one of the big insurance giants. Anyone who, like Lisa, joined a trustee-run pension scheme before 1 October 2015 but then left their job within the first two years got the right to transfer their pot to another scheme. However, your old scheme would set a deadline for you to exercise your transfer rights, after which you lost your employer contributions and could only get your personal payments back. The scheme had to inform early leavers of its transfer deadline - typically three months after departure - but it was then their responsibility to meet it. But these rules have now changed. For new entrants to pension schemes since October 2015, these rules are only imposed if you leave a job within the first month, not two years as before. Anyone who stays longer than a month gets to keep whatever pension pot they have built up during their period of employment. The change brought workplace pension schemes run by trustees into line with those contracted out to insurers, which already allowed workers to retain rights to old pots whenever they moved jobs. Lisa was in the DHL scheme from October 2013 to September 2015, and didn't transfer her pension before its three month deadline, so fell foul of the old rules in terms of losing her employer contributions. But a second issue related to Lisa being signed up to DHL's salary sacrifice scheme meant she also lost what in other circumstances could have counted as her own personal contributions, and would therefore been refunded to her at the time, or later to her estate. Salary sacrifice allows employers and their staff to cut their National Insurance payments, through workers taking pay cuts on their pre-tax income in exchange for perks such as payments into pension schemes. We explain how they work here. Lisa was 'sacrificing' 1 per cent of her salary, which was being diverted into her pension, and this appeared on her payslips as a deduction labelled 'pens fund'. However, this process meant her money now technically counted as an employer contribution, and not a personal one. So, under the now defunct rules for early leavers, DHL could also withhold this portion of her pension pot from her, and eventually from her estate. This was why the DHL staff member told Mr Isam his daughter's whole pension pot was 'lost'. The case does not necessarily have widespread implications for other people signed up for salary sacrifice, since it also involved short service rules which are now abolished and affect a dwindling number of workers. This is Money has covered several previous cases where early leavers were at risk of losing their employer contribution into pension pots as a result of not moving them within the three month deadline. One employer relented and paid up all contributions, but another refused. However, none of the cases involved a salary sacrifice scheme as an extra complicating factor, so the savers retained the right to their personal contributions. What is the fallout from this case? Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London said: 'Where employers and pension schemes are dealing with bereaved relatives they must ensure that those who take calls treat relatives sensitively. Steve Webb: 'Where employers and pension schemes are dealing with bereaved relatives they must ensure that those who take calls treat relatives sensitively' 'This clearly did not happen in this case. I am however pleased that following the involvement of This is Money, DHL have agreed to refund the money in this pension account. 'This case does however highlight the complexity around "salary sacrifice" arrangements, and it is important that those signing up for a salary sacrifice scheme have all the implications explained to them.' When This is Money first began investigating this case, Mr Isam told us that although the sum of money involved was not huge, Lisa was a single parent with a young daughter, and if she had invested her money into a pension scheme the firm shouldn't be allowed to have it. 'It's a global multi-billion company that is keeping my daughter's money. I thought it was really poor,' he said. He added regarding his talk with a DHL pension scheme staff member: 'It was quite a short conversation. She didn't offer any condolences or anything like that. She was fairly brusque.' After receiving DHL's letter offering the 600 payment, Mr Isam said: 'It's not about the money, it's the principle involved. My daughter was employed by DHL and she paid into this pension. When I eventually got through to the scheme, someone there just said there was no money there. 'I am pleased at the outcome but I am sure it wouldn't have come about without your intervention.' As well as being his daughter's executor, Mr Isam is also legal guardian to his granddaughter. The DHL payment has been transferred to her bank account. Bereaved father Ian Isam appealed to This is Money columnist Steve Webb for help after his late daughter's former employer told him her pension was 'lost'. We cover the full case here, including a response from DHL which has now made a voluntary payment to Mr Isam's daughter Lisa's estate. My daughter died recently and whilst going through her paper work I found evidence of a DHL pension. I have a letter welcoming her to the pension scheme dated 1 October 2013. The name of the scheme is DHL Group Retirement plan - auto enrolment defined contribution section. Her contribution was 1 per cent and the company's was 2 per cent. I do have payslips that show contributions were made. Late daughter's pension: Steve Webb explains the old and current rules for people who save into schemes for only short periods I think that she was in the scheme for less than two years as I have found a payslip from her next employer dated 30 September 2015. I have contacted DHL by email, as the phone is never answered, and a lady rang me back and told me that because my daughter had not transferred her pension to a new fund, that the money was lost. She may have had her contributions refunded, I have no way of checking this. But if the money was refunded why would they say that it was lost? I do realise that we are only talking about a small amount here, but my daughter was a single parent and had to make every penny count. SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK YOUR PENSION QUESTION Steve Webb replies: Please accept my condolences on your recent loss. This is Money and I have been doing our best to help, and I am pleased to hear that you have received a payment to your late daughters estate. We thought however it would be worth explaining the rules around small pension pots for the benefit of other readers. Steve Webb: Find out how to ask the former Pensions Minister a question about your retirement savings in the box below What you can do with a small pension pot, or one built up during a short period of employment, depends on the type of pension you have and how it was created. The simplest situation is if you are automatically enrolled into a pension and immediately opt out. As long as you do this within a month of being enrolled then you will get your contributions back (and the employer is refunded as well). In this specific case, it is as if you had never been part of the pension scheme. A similar first month rule applies to those who are placed into a workplace pension as part of their contract of employment when they join a new firm. Once you have been in a pot of money pension for more than a month, you are no longer able to get the money out until you reach age 55, other than in cases of serious ill health. It used to be the case that if your pot of money pension was an occupational pension - that is, it had trustees looking after it rather than it being contracted out to an insurance company - you could apply for something called a short service refund during the first two years of your employment. You could have a refund or transfer your entire pot, including employer and personal contributions, to another scheme. However, you had to do this within a certain deadline, typically three months, otherwise you would lose the employer contributions and only get your own back. But the ability to take a short service refund from this sort of pension was abolished from October 2015, when the system I described above took effect for occupational schemes too. At the time the rule was abolished, around 20,000 people a year were taking refunds of this sort. The process of automatic enrolment is likely to generate large numbers of small pension pots as people move from job to job. In most cases there will be nothing to stop you combining all of these pensions in a single larger pot if you wish, but you will still be subject to the age 55 rule if you actually want to take money out of your pension. Some people will have pension rights arising from short-term membership of a salary-related pension scheme. These days it is mostly people who work in the public sector who build up salary-related pensions, but many people may still have such a pension from a previous job. In this case, provided that the scheme rules allow it, you may be able to apply for a refund of your contributions if you were a member of the scheme for more than three months but less than two years. However, it is worth bearing in mind that if you do apply for a refund you are likely to be throwing away the money that your employer contributed into the scheme, and this will have an impact on your standard of living in retirement. A teen who watched porn for up to four hours a day has opened up to DailyMailTV and revealed her vow to wait until marriage for her first kiss now that she has conquered her addiction. Gracelyn Sorrell, 19, said her first exposure to porn occurred at 14 years old when an explicit picture on social media triggered her 'impure desires' and prompted her to delve further into X-rated websites. The teen said her habit took hold while her father was dying in 2013. She had been left behind in Chicago while the rest of her family traveled to Maryland to take care of her dad. It was during this time she was sexually assaulted by a woman who was a trusted family friend. Shortly after, her father died and Gracelyn said pornography became a way to comfort herself and escape from the grief of losing her father and the assault. She would secretly access the porn on her cell phone and regularly stayed up until 3am trawling through porn websites and apps. The high school student would binge on porn for four hours every day but said her splurges of pornography and masturbation left her feeling guilty and ashamed. By 2016, Gracelyn was surviving on just three hours sleep each night which caused her grades to plummet. Gracelyn Sorrell, 19, said she was 14 when an explicit picture on social media triggered her 'impure desires' and prompted her to develop a porn addiction. The teen sadly lost her dad in 2013 and said pornography became a way to comfort herself and escape from the grief The teenager finally confided in her mom Karen, an office manager, in August 2016 who encouraged her daughter to find healing through the family's Christian faith. Gracelyn said: 'My phone was the easiest way I could access porn. 'I could sneak around and do it in the afternoon when I got home from school and my mom was at work. 'I had my own room and my older sisters and brothers were usually at work. 'After everyone went to bed I would turn off the lights and watch videos, sometimes until 3am. I was watching about four hours of porn every day, one in the afternoon and then three or four hours non-stop at night. 'I was watching about four hours of porn every day, one in the afternoon and then three or four hours non-stop at night. 'When I watched the videos it gave me an adrenaline rush. It was like insulin to me, I needed it. 'I was finding a place for my soul but it was an impure space. The porn and masturbation was never fulfilling. 'It was always a chase. It was dehumanizing. I felt guilt and shame afterwards. 'I lost my focus on my schoolwork because my addiction was always on my mind. 'I was always so tired because I would stay up until the early hours of the morning watching porn. I was very stressed out. 'I grew up in a Christian household. I basically grew up in the church my whole life. 'I felt like I was leading a double life because I was this Christian girl in school but secretly I was addicted to this drug of sin. 'When I went on vacation with my family I was stressed because I should have been enjoying Thanksgiving with them but in the back of my head I was thinking, ''I just can't wait until night time when I can watch the videos''.' The teenager finally confided in her mom Karen (pictured together), an office manager, in August 2016 who encouraged her daughter to find healing through the family's Christian faith The 19-year-old (pictured at her high school graduation) has beat her addiction and is now an advocate for abstinence and has made a vow not to kiss or have sex before marriage After confiding in her mother, Gracelyn began expressing her feelings to God through journaling and purged her phone of apps which might rock her 'self control'. The teen said her mother was very supportive and encouraged her to come to her for counselling when ever she was struggling. Gracelyn said: 'My mom was so supportive and she told me we had to pray about it. 'From that moment on I started journaling. I forced myself to have self control. 'I stopped taking my phone to bed and I took extra precautions like deleting the apps and deleting YouTube. The teen said her mother was very supportive and encouraged her to come to her for counselling when ever she was struggling. 'When you're addicted to something, it is all you can think about. You have this powerful urge to watch. 'But I dedicated those urges to my journals and Bible worship. 'I didn't have professional counselling but my mom has a lot of experience and is spiritually in tune with God. Gracelyn is now a public speaker who travels around the US to share her experience with addiction. The 19-year-old is also an advocate for abstinence and has made a vow not to kiss or have sex before marriage. Gracelyn said: 'I have had relapses. Not many, but I have had times where I just couldn't fight it.' She continued: 'Some nights in bed I would cry afterwards and feel sorry I failed again. 'I slipped back into it for short periods of time. Whenever I had a relapse I confided in my mom. She was never judgmental. 'I felt like that transparency helped me get back on track. I haven't relapsed since 2016. 'I am waiting until marriage to kiss and have sex. I always say it was my impurity that made me pure. I believe it's up to a man to find a wife so I'm not searching. If he comes into my life then great. 'Right now I am not looking for a relationship. I believe it's up to a man to find a wife so I'm not searching. If he comes into my life then great.' A 2008 study from the University of New Hampshire indicates that 93 percent of males and 62 percent of females reported seeing porn as adolescents. Gracelyn believes politicians need to do more to protect children from the dangers posed by pornography, which blighted her teenage years. Gracelyn said: 'My advice to anyone going through this would be to keep on trying and turn to God. 'Confide in someone close to you about what you're going through. 'Be transparent and find that safe place where you can talk without judgement. Get out of your bedroom and verbalize it. 'I think access to these sites should be blocked, or at least blocked until a certain age. 'The videos are dehumanizing especially to women. It's not healthy to watch. I wish it could all just be taken off the internet for good.' To follow Gracelyn visit https://www.gracelynsorrell.com/ A series of bungles by officers handling the investigation into the murder of Karen Ristevski led to her husband Borce receiving a plea deal that is likely to see him walk free from prison in less than 20 years. Daily Mail Australia has been told that police were caught on the hop when the 47-year old mother went missing from her Avondale Heights home in Melbourne's northwest in the early hours of June 29, 2016. Ristevski took everyone by surprise when he pleaded guilty to his wife's manslaughter on Wednesday, on the eve of his murder trial. Crown prosecutors decided to drop the murder charge after Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale ruled the prosecution could not use evidence about Ristevski's conduct after his wife's death to prove he had murderous intent. The murder case had hinged on this evidence. 'Lots of egos get in the way of a good investigation,' a legal source told Daily Mail Australia. Wife killer Borce Ristevski carries the coffin of his wife Karen. At the time he had denied killing her and carried out a shameful ruse. He pleaded guilty to her manslaughter this week Karen Ristevski went missing from her Avondale heights home in 2016 sparking a nationwide 'who dunnit'. her body was found stuffed between two logs in bush land outside of Melbourne. Some now argue her killer will never truly receive justice Multiple sources claim the Ristevski investigation was mismanaged by force command from the beginning, because Mrs Ristevski's disappearance was regarded simply as a missing person, rather than potentially a murder victim. 'It wasnt handled correctly from the start by a crew of junior members and inexperienced bosses,' the insider said. The revelations fly in the face of comments by Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton this week, who said investigators were 'relieved' by the plea deal. 'I think it allows for justice to move through a lot more quickly in that case, Mr Ashton said on Melbourne radio. 'I'm not disappointed, everyone's worked very hard on that case.' But Daily Mail Australia has been told senior detectives are actually frustrated at the plea deal - particularly given the lessons that ought to have been learnt following the successful prosecution of Fernando Paulino, 55, in 2018. Paulino stabbed his wife Teresa Paulino to death in the garage of her parents' Reservoir home, where she was living, in July 2013. He was sentenced to a minimum of 25-years jail after being found guilty in a ground-breaking trial for domestic murders. Legal sources have told Daily Mail Australia the decision by Justice Beale should have come as no surprise to prosecutors after a similar ruling went against them in Paulino. In that trial, Justice Kevin Bell set a benchmark for what investigators could expect when bringing suspected wife killers to court. 'Paulino set the benchmark for domestic-related murders,' a legal expert said. Borce Ristevski is comforted at the funeral of his wife Karen. He pleaded guilty to killing her on the eve of his Supreme Court murder trial. He will now receive a heavily discounted sentence Channel 7 reporter Cameron Baud flat out asked Ristevski (right) if he killed his wife. Baud - known in media circles as the Harvester of Sorrow - was bagged at the time. But his question has now been answered Fernando Paulino was given similar opportunities at trial provided to Borce Ristevski. Unlike Ristevski, Paulino rolled the dice and ran a murder trial. It didn't end well for him Teresa Paulino had been a doting mother to her two children. Her wicked ex-husband Fernando Paulino murdered her in cold blood and tried his best to get away with it. Justice was eventually served with a 30-year maximum jail tern being delivered his way HOW BORCE RISTEVSKI MAINTAINED HIS INNOCENCE TO THE VERY END At the funeral of his wife, Ristevski broke down and cried in the arms of friends and family. He sat in the front row of the church, and listened to friends and family tell stories of their enduring love, and how it ended too soon. Later, alongside Mrs Ristevski's brother, Stephen Williams, he would carry his wife's coffin as a pallbearer at the emotional service in Essendon. It was a truly galling performance. In the months after his wife went missing, Ristevski and members of his extended family suggested his wife may have packed up and just left. Ristevski's brother, Vasko, went so far as to claim she had jumped on a plane and left Australia on a fake passport. When her body was eventually found, it was so decomposed an autopsy could not determine her cause of death. Detectives scoured Victoria for clues and hit the jackpot when CCTV footage of Mrs Ristevski's black Mercedes emerged showing it travelled between Avondale Heights and through Diggers Rest on the day she went missing. Both her and her husband's phones were later found to have 'pinged' off mobile towers along that very same route. It was evidence that would ultimately lead to his deal with prosecutors. Ristevski will return to the Supreme Court of Victoria for a pre-sentencing plea hearing later this month. Advertisement Justice Bell's various rulings saw every piece of direct evidence police had gathered to put Paulino at the murder scene ruled-out to enable him a fair trial. This included binning evidence that placed his wifes DNA on three items of his clothing and on the rear drivers side of his car. He also threw out CCTV footage of Paulino's car driving around the murder scene and ordered the jury to dismiss evidence provided by witnesses that observed Paulino declaring he would kill his wife. Prosecutors then appealed the decision. But the Court of Appeal agreed with Justice Bell and the evidence was scrapped. 'It seems to me that, on any view, the case against the respondent, whether with or without the DNA evidence, is quite overwhelming,' the court stated. Justice Bell further set a benchmark with his maximum 30-year sentence. Daily Mail Australia has been told force command ignored offerings of advice with the Ristevski prosecution by those closely involved with the Paulino trial. The case shared many similarities with the Paulino prosecution, including a reliance on CCTV video of the supposed killer's car. Police planned to use CCTV footage they claimed was Mrs Ristevski's black Mercedes-Benz SLK coupe travelling towards Mount Macedon, the area her body was found, on the day she disappeared. 'Borces lawyers wouldve referred to the Paulino case for all their submissions in disallowing evidence - CCTV, DNA, relationship,' the expert said. 'Once a judge makes a decision other cases can refer to those decisions - Especially cases so similar. CCTV footage of Mrs Ristevski's car being supposedly driven by her husband was to be a crucial part of the prosecution trial until the court ruled that such evidence could not be used to prove he had murderous intent In Justice Beale's published findings, it is revealed the Ristevski prosecution relied so heavily on the killer's behaviour after committing the crime that it was not confident in even opening a murder trial without it. This behaviour included inconsistent police statements, omissions, blatant lies and his general attitude towards the police investigation. 'The accused did not dispute that that conduct and most of the other conduct referred to ... could be used by the prosecution to prove that he killed his wife unlawfully,' Justice Beale said. 'The accused, however, submitted that it was not open to the jury to infer from the alleged incriminating conduct that he killed her with the intention of causing death or really serious injury.' Stary Norton Halphen lawyer Sam Norton, who represented Ristevski during his pre-trial hearing, was coy when asked by Daily Mail Australia today how his client was doing. 'Much better now,' he said. Ristevski's confession on the eve of his five-week murder trial has left relatives shocked, with many now trying to figure out why he suddenly changed his story. It is a mystery that even has seasoned detectives baffled. 'I'm not sure what caused him to admit it as we have no cause of death,' one officer said. Ristevski himself appears to have told his legal team the death of his wife was spontaneous. In arguing to dismiss his post-conduct behaviour, RIstevski's legal team argued police had no clues as to a possible motive for murder. 'The general lack of any evidence going to premeditation in this case, supporting the inference that the accuseds conduct was spontaneous and that his post-offence conduct was consistent with a panicked reaction,' they stated. 'For example, the accused did not switch his phone off until 11:09am on 29 June 2016, 26 minutes after he had been driving his wifes car and he did not switch off his wifes phone until 11:40am. 'Further, there was photographic evidence of a couple of shovels left in the garage, which did not appear to have been used in any effort to bury Karen Ristevski.' Ristevski further dismissed he murdered his wife because of the dire financial situation of their business. 'The accused submitted that the financial situation of the Ristevskis was likely to deteriorate if Karen Ristevski was killed given that she was in effect the heartbeat of the Bella Bleu clothing business which they operated,' his barrister told Justice Beale. 'Her importance to that business was a motive for the accused not to kill her.' Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart offered some words of advice to the residents of a northwestern Wisconsin town on what they should do if they bump into 13-year-old Jayme Closs as she continues to recover from her abduction. 'If you see her, it's okay to smile, but don't stare. If you want to talk to her, write her a letter, and let her decide if she wants to read it and respond,' Smart told an audience of about 1,300 people on Friday night at Barron High School. Residents of Barron, Wisconsin - a community of 3,400 located an hour north of Eau Claire - are trying to understand how they can support Closs, who authorities say escaped from captivity in January, nearly three months after her parents were shot dead at their home. Elizabeth Smart (left), who was kidnapped and held hostage at the age of 14 for nine months in 2002, speaks on Friday in the aftermath of the abduction of local teen Jayme Closs (right) at Barron High School in Barron, Wisconsin Smart is pictured above speaking at the town hall forum at Barron High School in Barron Friday Authorities have charged 21-year-old Jake Patterson with killing Jayme's parents with a shotgun back in October and abducting her. Smart, 31, is one of just a handful of people in the position to understand the mindset of an abduction survivor: she was 14 when she was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home in 2002 by Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. After spending nine months in captivity, during which time she was repeatedly raped, tied up and plied with drugs and alcohol, Smart was rescued. Jake Peterson, 21, has been charged with killing Closs' parents and kidnapping the 13-year-old in October Mitchell is now serving two life sentences in federal prison, while Barzee was released on parole in January, despite Smart's pleas to keep the woman locked up. During her 30-minute presentation on Friday, which was free and open to the general public, Smart, who is now a married mother-of-three, an author and a child victim advocate, spoke about her own abduction, escape and eventual readjustment to normal life. 'It was the most terrifying experience of my life,' she said. 'When I was kidnapped, it brought a whole new meaning to terror. They told me I was going to be their wife; that I was going to be their slave. If I didn't do what he [Mitchell] wanted, he would go and kill my family,' she continued. After being reunited with her family following her escape, Smart said she found that she was not the same young girl she was she was she kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom: her old clothes no longer fit, and she could not leave the house without getting recognized by strangers, or seeing her own face staring back at her from the covers of magazines at the grocery store, reported The Chippewa Herald. Closs escaped from captivity in January. She is pictured above with her cousin Bailey Lynn Sikora (left) and another relative Smart urged the residents of Barron to respect Closs' privacy and let her decide for herself whether she wants to share her story. 'The things she suffered are hers, and hers alone to share,' she said. She also urged the members of the community to 'never ask a victim a question that starts with the words 'Why didn't you,' because they hear 'You should have?'' Closs' accused kidnapper is due back in court on March 27. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, kidnapping and armed burglary. Smart has recently marked 16 years since she was rescued from captivity as a 14-year-old Brian David Mitchell Patterson told police after his arrest that he decided to kidnap Closs, whom he did not know, after seeing her get off a school bus one day. Three months after the teen vanished from her family's home, where her mother Denise Closs, and her father, James, were found shot to death, Jayme reappeared. The girl was able to flag down a dog walker in the street while Patterson was away from home for a few hours. Closs has since told police that Patterson forced her to hide under the bed for hours at a time, including on Christmas Day when he had family over. In a recent jailhouse phone interview with a Minnesota reporter, Patterson said he 'loves' Closs and said their time together was filled with playing board games and cooking. The gun club where accused Australian right-wing terrorist Brenton Tarrant allegedly trained in the lead-up to the Christchurch massacre has closed down. Bruce Rifle Club vice-president Scott Williams told Daily Mail Australia the venue had closed following the tragedy that saw 50 shot dead as they prayed inside two Christchurch mosques as a mark of respect to the victims. 'We didn't feel it was appropriate to be open as a mark of respect for victims of the tragedy,' he said. Mr Williams said members of the club had been 'shocked, stunned and saddened' to hear details of the horrific crime. On Sunday, metal fences with two locks blocked off every entrance to the forest where the rifle club is (pictured), and the area was being watched by police Bruce Rifle Club vice-president Scott Williams told Daily Mail Australia the venue had closed following the tragedy that saw 50 shot dead as they prayed inside a mosque 'Myself and a few of the members have been trying to think back, to see if there was anything that should have made us think twice about this guy, but there wasn't anything,' Mr Williams said. Membership to the Bruce Rifle Club was 'heavily dependent' on firearm safety - and shooters needed three club meetings to prove they met the expected standards. 'Our focus has always been on firearms safety, we don't want any accidents to happen - that would be the main criteria we assess people on,' he said. 'We don't usually think, 'oh well we should ask this guy if he's a white supremacist' or anything.' Mr Williams, who works for a security firm, said Tarrant had been 'polite and well spoken', and nobody had ever raised a complaint about him. 'I don't know anything else about him. I would speak to him about Bruce Rifle club, but I didn't know anything about his life outside of that,' he said. He said the Australian-born gunman had 'beefed up' before his alleged attack. It's believed that Tarrant regularly attended the Bruce Rifle Club and had his own key to access the premises The club president said Tarrant had been 'polite and well spoken', and nobody had ever raised a complaint about him 'He looked musclier than before,' he said. 'I couldn't tell you how long he'd taken to do it there might have been a big gap between when I had seen him last, but I remember he looked a lot bigger than the last time I saw him.' Members have their own key to the range, but were sent a letter on Saturday advising them to stay away. 'We aren't going anywhere near the place,' Mr Williams said. 'We sent out a letter to members on Saturday telling them the club would be closed for the foreseeable future, thanks for your understanding.' On Sunday, metal fences with two locks blocked off every entrance to the forest where the rifle club is, and the area was being watched by police. A school bus driver is facing a DUI charge after crashing a vehicle with 33 elementary school students on board. Lesley Harvey is accused of driving while drunk, failing to report an accident and leaving the scene of an accident after the bus hit a security barrier in Kentucky. The 54-year-old has also been charged with 33 counts of wanton endangerment, one for each of the Crestwood Elementary School pupils she was driving. School bus driver Lesley Harvey (pictured in a police booking photo) is facing a DUI charge after crashing a vehicle with 33 elementary school students on board No-one was injured in the crash, which Harvey reported to her supervisor before allegedly driving away, saying there was no damage. School officials then ordered Harvey to stop, police said, before she was transported to a hospital for a breath test. Police were then contacted and she was arrested on Friday afternoon. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal she had been employed as a bus driver since December 2014. The parents were informed of the crash later on Friday, a spokeswoman for Oldham County Schools said. Harvey was charged with DUI after crashing a vehicle with 33 pupils from Crestwood Elementary School in Kentucky (pictured) on board 'We appreciate the seriousness of this matter, and will follow state and federal laws and applicable board policy in handling this incident,' she said. The bus is reported to have suffered minor damage to its rear bumper and an access panel on the side. According to online jail records Harvey is due to appear in court on Monday morning. Anyone with information about the crash is urged to call the Oldham County Police Department on 502-222-1300. A cheeky major offered parenting advice to the Duchess of Cambridge as she celebrated St Patrick's Day with husband William by watching the traditional parade of the Irish guards today. William, who has been colonel of the regiment since 2011, arrived with Kate on this morning for the couple's annual visit to the 1st Battalion at its base in Hounslow, west London. During their visit, in a tradition stretching back more than a century, Kate presented sprigs of shamrock to officers and warrant officers, before a march past where her husband took the salute. After watching the 350 soldiers march on Parade Square Kate was given a cheeky piece of parenting advice while cooing over a 12-week-old sleeping newborn. Kate was visiting the 1st Battalion at its base in Hounslow, west London, today and met a sleeping newborn called Rory The Duchess of Cornwall met the proud parents and Major Ben Irwin-Clark joked 'a drop of whiskey in the milk' kept his young son resting peacefully He quickly added 'not its a joke' much to the amusement of Kate Middleton, who then offered up her own maternal wisdom As the adorable infant slept, Major Ben Irwin-Clark joked 'a drop of whiskey in the milk' kept his young son resting peacefully. But he quickly adds 'no its a joke', causing the group to laugh at the quip. Kate later asked the company commanded of number two company, 'Is he a good sleeper?' 'Oh well enjoy, it just gets better and better,' she added, imparting some maternal wisdom as she waved goodbye. Since 1901, when the regiment was first founded by order of Queen Victoria, the tradition has traditionally been presided over by a woman - with the exception of 1950, when King George VI presented the shamrocks to mark the regiment's 50 anniversary. The shamrock's three heart-shaped leaves represent Ireland and the Holy Trinity. God and country and, on St Patrick's Day every year, it's handed out to Irish Guards who fight and die in the British Armed Forces. In times of war, the shamrock is shipped out to them to be tucked into their Kevlar helmets, and for those at home the ultimate honour is to have it presented by a senior female member of the royal family family. The tradition which began in 1901 later became the trademark of the Queen Mother who maintained it until she died - once missing her favourite day's racing at Cheltenham to be at the St Patrick's Day parade. It was later taken up by Princess Anne, however since 2012 the duty has fallen to the Duchess of Cambridge whose husband is the current royal colonel of the Irish Guards. Kate has attended every year since - except for 2016, with her decision to remain at Anmer Hall with her two young children causing controversy - and is dressed in head-to-toe green. A leading suicide prevention researcher has described the soaring rates of Aboriginal youth suicide as a humanitarian crisis. The 2019 suicide toll among indigenous Australians now stands at 31 after four Queensland Aboriginals aged 15- 23 took their own lives within two days last week. A 15-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman took their own lives in Townsville in north Queensland last week. The tragedies occurred with a day of two young men, 19 and 20 dying in separate incidents in Mount Isa in the state's north-west, The Australian reported. The soaring rates of Aboriginal youth suicide described as a humanitarian crisis (stock image) Five committed suicide in just nine days earlier this year, which began with a 15-year-old in Queensland followed by girls aged 12, 14, 15 and 12 in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. A third of the 2019 death toll were children, including two 12 year-olds, while almost half were female, according to Gerry Georgatos, who heads the federal government's indigenous critical response team. Around 165 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders took their own own lives in 2017, according to official figures. Five young Indigenous girls took their own lives across Australia in January (pictured Rochelle Pryor, from Perth, took her own life after a cry for help on social media) The rates of Aboriginal young females taking their own lives is on the rise, according to suicide prevention researcher Gerry Georgatos (pictured) While the 2018 figures are yet to be released, Mr Georgatos believes last year's death toll was at least 180, including around 50 under the age of 18. 'The suicide crisis for First Nations peoples remains an uninterrupted three-decade-long tragedy and it is a humanitarian crisis, with more children and females lost than ever before,' he told The Australian. He added that poverty was a common factor among those who took committed suicide. Indigenous children, aged between five and 17, die from suicide at five times the rate of non-indigenous children, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics. Figures show one in four people who took their own life before turning 18 were Aboriginal. Four Queensland Aboriginals aged 15- 23 took their own lives within two days last week, including two young men in Mount Isa (pictured) Despite 125 of the 165 deaths in 2017 being male, Mr Georgatos said the rates of Aboriginal females taking their own lives was on the rise, particularly in regional and remote Australia. 'Almost a half of suicides are now female, whereas historically the proportion was around nine to one, male to female, although that had increased in the past years or so to about a quarter being women or girls,' he said. Curtin University senior indigenous research fellow Hannah McGlade said the links between child sex abuse and indigenous youth suicide need to be addressed. Dr McGlade also called on governments to address gender-based violence against indigenous women and girls. This is the horrifying moment a motorcyclist was almost hit by a car driving into oncoming traffic. Police say the driver of the rogue vehicle had stolen the car just moments earlier and was trying to evade authorities. The driver, 17, was speeding down Main South Road, in Adelaide, when he nearly wiped out the motorbike rider. Dash-cam footage obtained by 9News shows the motorcyclist merging on to the highway before narrowly missing the car by centimetres. The motorcyclist escaped the new-miss collision with just a small scratch on their bike. Police received reports of a suspected stolen car driving down the wrong side of the road just before 11am on Friday. The teenager is alleged to have dumped the car in Oaklands Park shortly after the footage was recorded but he was caught hours later by police. A police spokesperson said that the boy was charged with illegal use of a motor vehicle and hinder police. The boy was bailed and will appear in the Christies Beach Youth Court on 11 April. Dash-cam footage obtained by 9News shows the motorcyclist merging onto the highway before narrowly missing the car but centimetres A Saui immigrant has become the 50th victim of the Christchurch massacre. Mohsin Al-Harbi was shot and killed in New Zealand's gun rampage on Friday, which is now the English-speaking world's second worst peacetime massacre by a lone gunman. The 63-year-old water desalination plant worker, who moved to New Zealand 25 years ago, is the latest victim of the carnage. Mohsin Al-Harbi's son Feras Al-Harbi (left with his dad) said his father was a devout Muslim and a part-time imam, who occasionally gave Friday sermons at the Al Noor Mosque He died in Christchurch Hospital eight hours after Australian Brenton Tarrant allegedly opened fire on Muslims during their weekly prayers at the Dean Street Al Noor Mosque and at the nearby masjid on Linwood Avenue. In another awful twist, his wife Manal became so distressed as she desperately searched for him that she collapsed and had a heart attack. She is now fighting for her life in hospital in a critical condition. Mohsin Al-Harbi's son Feras Al-Harbi said his father was a devout Muslim and a part-time imam, who occasionally gave Friday sermons at the Al Noor Mosque. 'My father lived a full life. It was a good life,' he told Arab News. The grieving son said his father's finger gesture was a sign of his religious devotion. 'Eight hours later he passed away,' Feras Al-Harbi said. Mohsin Al-Harbi's (pictured) death has made the Christchurch gun massacre the world's worst peacetime shooting 'We accept his destiny and Allah's will. I'm grateful and thankful to Allah in all situations and circumstances.' Mohsin Al-Harbi's death has made Christchurch's alleged lone gunman massacre the English-speaking world's worst peacetime shooting, second only to the Las Vegas carnage of October 2017 which saw 58 people shot dead in the United States. The death toll is now worse than the June 2016 Orlando, Florida massacre, which saw 49 people killed at the Pulse gay nightclub. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has flagged introducing sweeping new gun laws in a nation where semi-automatic rifles can still be bought at gun shops with a licence. 'The mere fact that this individual had acquired a gun licence and acquired weapons of that range, then obviously I think people will be seeking change, and I'm committing to that,' she told reporters on Saturday. 'While work is being done as to the chain of events that led to both the holding of this gun licence, and the possession of these weapons, I can tell you one thing right now our gun laws will change.' New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured in Wellington comforting a Muslim woman) has flagged introducing sweeping new gun laws in a nation where semi-automatic rifles can still be bought at gun shops with a licence Australia banned automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles after 35 people were killed at Port Arthur in Tasmania in April 1996, which was then the world's worst peacetime mass shooting. New Zealand amended its gun laws in 1992, after the Aramoana massacre of November 1990, which saw 13 people shot dead in a small township near Dunedin, following a neighbourhood dispute. Background checks and special permits were introduced 26 years ago, however New Zealand lacks a national gun registry. New Zealand's gun lobby thwarted attempts to reform gun laws in 1999, 2005, 2012 and 2017. Compared to Christchurch and Las Vegas, far-right Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik killed more people in 2011, but he had also used an explosive device before killing 69 participants of a Workers Youth League summer camp on the island of Utoya. President Trump stepped up his pressure on General Motors to reopen an Ohio manufacturing plant that recently closed and put 1,700 people out of work. Trump's arm-twisting came in a series of tweets on Saturday and Sunday. He capped his weekend rant against GM with a tweet disclosing that he had vented his frustrations during a conversation with the company's CEO, Mary Barra. 'I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING,' Trump wrote. 'I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union - I don't care, I just want it open!' President Trump (left) slammed General Motors and its union leader on Sunday over the closure of a manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Trump said he spoke with GM CEO Mary Barra (right) 'I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING,' Trump wrote. 'I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union - I don't care, I just want it open!' The union is the United Automobile Workers, which represents the employees who lost their jobs in the Lordstown closure. Trump had previously told a UAW leader, David Green, to 'get his act together and produce' for the Lordstown workers. Green didn't respond to a request for comment Sunday. General Motors says in a statement released Sunday evening that the future of plants scheduled to be closed 'will be resolved between GM and the UAW.' The automaker also says that it has 'opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees' at plants that are to be shuttered. 'We remain open to talking with all the affected stakeholders, but our main focus remains on our employees and offering them jobs in our plants where we have growth opportunities,' the company said. Even as he said he talked to Barra, Trump was calling on GM to reopen its Lordstown plant or find another owner, while insisting that the Detroit automaker 'must act quickly.' Trump had previously told a UAW leader, David Green, to 'get his act together and produce' for the Lordstown workers He also blasted GM for letting down the U.S. and asserted 'much better' automakers are coming to the country. Trump praised Toyota for its investments in the U.S. in an apparent attempt to depict GM as being less committed to its home country than the Japan automaker. The Lordstown closure has become a hot-button issue in an area of Ohio that is expected to be critical for Trump if he seeks re-election as promised in 2020. Trump prevailed in Ohio in the 2016 election, a win that helped him win enough electoral votes to become president despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That may be one reason why Trump joined a coalition of Ohio lawmakers in efforts to get the Lordstown plant running again. The tweets marked some of his most pointed criticism of GM so far. Amy Drennen, right, of Lordstown, Ohio, an employee at General Motors for 12 years, receives a hug from Pam Clark, as people gather in front of the General Motors assembly plant on March 6 - the last day of the plant's production of Chevrolet Cruze cars Trump has skewered several other U.S. companies for not doing more to help their country's economy, but his remarks so far have been more bark than bite. For instance, he has publicly called upon Apple to shift most of its manufacturing from China to the U.S., but the Silicon Valley company continues to make its iPhones and most other products overseas. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, last week expressed doubts GM will reopen its Lordstown plant, but he said the automaker indicated it's in talks with another company about using the site. More than 16 million vehicles were made at the Lordstown plant during its 53-year history until GM closed it earlier this month as part of a massive reorganization. The company also intends to close four other North American plants by early next year. A man accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl at a Melbourne train station last month has been charged. The 34-year-old suspect, from Footscray, Victoria, handed himself in to a metropolitan police station on Monday, police said. Detectives from the Transit Safety Division had urged the accused predator to come forward after CCTV footage captured a man leaving the Footscray Railway Station on February 21 at the time of the attack. Police released stills taken from CCTV footage on Sunday of a man they wanted to question CCTV footage captured a man leaving the Footscray Railway Station on February 21 at the time of the attack Detective Senior Constable Ashley Marsland warned the man to hand himself in after officers obtained the footage. 'We will find you, we've got good pictures of you,' he said at the time. The girl had reportedly been on her way home from school when she was allegedly sexually assaulted in front of station staff in broad daylight. The man walked away after witnesses quickly intervened. He has been charged with sexual assault of a child under the age of 16 and will face Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Monday. A mother who was cleared of killing four of her children has said Kathleen Folbigg 'could be innocent'. Carol Matthey faced accusations that she killed her four children between 1998 and 2003 but the highly publicised case was thrown out of court because evidence centred on 'cot death theory' did not meet the judge's standards. On 60 Minutes on Sunday night senior journalist Tara Brown interviewed Ms Matthey about her children's tragic deaths. The dramatic interview came ahead of the a landmark inquiry reviewing the conviction of Kathleen Folbigg who was found guilty of killing her four children in 2003. Scroll down for video Carol Matthey (pictured), who was accused of killing her four children before being cleared, has defended one of Australia's worst serial killers who was convicted for killing her children Carol Matthey faced accusations that she killed her four children between 1998 and 2003 Ms Matthey has spoken out ahead of the review to defend Folbigg who became known as Australia's worst female serial killer. 'Medical experts can be wrong and are wrong,' Ms Matthey said. 'She could be innocent.' Ms Matthey's four children all died at a young age. Jacob was seven months, Chloe, nine weeks, Joshua, three months, and Shania three-and-a-half when they were found dead by their mother. Now Ms Matthey has defended Folbigg, who is serving a 30-year sentence for the murder of her children. Folbigg's was convicted after experts testified it would be impossible for four children in the same family to die of cot death. Other evidence used against Folbigg included diary entries where she said all she wanted was for her daughter to shut up and 'one day she did'. Matthey said by speaking out she hopes it will help to overturn Folbigg's conviction and help both of them clear there names in the 'court of public opinion'. She said she can understand being judged in the court of public opinion and the deaths of all the children could just as easily have been a result of a 'medical mystery' like in her own case. '[I'm] someone dealing with an unimaginable amount of grief, I'd do anything to have all my babies back,' she said. Ms Matthey's son Jacob died in 1998 before his sister Chloe would die two years later. Doctors would rule both deaths were a result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), 9 News reported. Less than two years later Ms Matthey's son, Joshua, died from a suspected blood infection before her daughter Shania also tragically passed away. It was the death of Shania that roused suspicion because at three-and-a-half, she was deemed too old to have died from SIDS. Ms Matthey faced the Victorian Supreme Court accused of killing all four children but the case was thrown out of court as there was not enough sufficient evidence to suggest foul play Ms Matthey faced the Victorian Supreme Court accused of killing all four children but she was cleared and the case was thrown out of court as there was not enough sufficient evidence to suggest foul play. Despite the case against her being dropped, Ms Matthew became an outcast in her community. On Monday is was revealed that Kathleen Megan Folbigg will give evidence related to her personal diary entries at a Sydney inquiry into her convictions. Folbigg was jailed for at least 25 years after she was found guilty of killing her four babies - Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura - in the decade from 1989. The four children all died aged between 19 days and 19 months. A hearing into her convictions began at Lidcombe Coroners Court complex on Monday after the NSW government agreed to a judicial review of her case in August 2018. Ms Matthey chose to speak out after it was announced a new landmark inquiry is being launched into the conviction of Kathleen Folbigg (pictured) 'Ms Folbigg is allowed to give evidence, if she wishes to do so, about the diary entries, possession of the diaries and her disposal of the diaries,' counsel assisting Gail Furness SC said in her opening address. Folbigg's evidence and cross-examination will be restricted to those issues. Ms Furness cited various diary entries by Folbigg which were presented to the trial jury as circumstantial evidence. These included comments about baby Sarah who 'left, with a bit of help' and Laura being 'a fairly good-natured baby' which 'saved her from the fate of her siblings'. 'I think she was warned,' Folbigg wrote in December 1997. Laura, her fourth child, died in March 1999. The inquiry will focus on medical advances and new research, including on multiple infant deaths in the one family attributed to unidentified natural causes. John Jonchuck, 29, goes on trial Monday for the 2015 homicide of his five-year-old daughter Phoebe in Tampa Bay, Florida A father who dropped his five-year-old daughter to her death from a Florida bridge four years ago will plead insanity, it has emerged. John Jonchuck, 29, goes on trial Monday for the January 8, 2015, death of his daughter Phoebe, whom he dropped 62 feet into Tampa Bay as a St. Petersburg police officer watched helplessly. Jonchuck is charged with first-degree murder, but prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted, he will automatically go to prison for life. If his attorneys' insanity defense works, he would be sent to a psychiatric hospital and it's unlikely he would ever be released. To be eligible, he would have to prove he was no longer mentally ill or dangerous. Pinellas County Public Defender Bob Dillinger told the Tampa Bay Times he knows of no Florida case where a killer was found not guilty by reason of insanity of first-degree murder and eventually released. "He'll be in a state prison for the rest of his life, or a state hospital for the rest of his life," Dillinger said. Successful insanity defenses are rare. Under Florida law, Jonchuck's attorneys must convince the jury his mental illness was so severe that he didn't know what he was doing or that it was wrong. Jonchuck did have a long history of mental problems before he and his daughter ever reached the Dick Misener Bridge - his family told the Times he had been involuntarily committed 27 times - and seemed to be having a breakdown. Phoebe Jonchuck, 5, died on January 8, 2015 after her father dropped her off a bridge onto another roadway in Tampa Bay, Florida Pheobe's father had been involuntarily committed 27 times for mental health issues prior to killing his daughter in 2015 Michelle Kerr, mother of Phoebe Jonchuck, wipes her eyes as she leaves the church after memorial services for the late five-year-old at Lake Magdalene Methodist Church in Tampa Bay, Florida in January of 2015 Mourners exit the church after memorial services for 5-year-old Phoebe Jonchuck at Lake Magdalene Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida Pallbearers load Pheobe's casket into a hearse after her memorial service in January 2015 Twelve hours before Phoebe's death, Jonchuck's divorce lawyer, Genevieve Torres, called a state child protection hotline, fearing for the girl's safety. Torres told the Department of Children and Families operator that Jonchuck had driven to three churches in his pajamas with Phoebe in tow that morning, called Torres "God" and asked her to translate his stepmother's century-old Swedish Bible, which he carried and had become obsessed with. The attorney said Jonchuck was also paranoid that Phoebe wasn't his child. "He's calling the office every five minutes and saying these religious things and saying the child might not be his - it just really concerns me," Torres told an operator. She added, "It's all craziness and it doesn't make any sense and he's out of his mind." Torres also told the operator, who was inexperienced, that the department had an open investigation after an earlier caller accused Jonchuck of violence, substance abuse, and inadequate supervision. John Jonchuck appears in court for a pretrial motions hearing at the Pinellas County Justice Center in Clearwater, Florida on March 14, 2019 But the operator thought the attorney was more worried about Jonchuck's safety than the girl's and did not report the call to authorities. Just after midnight the next day, Jonchuck's PT Cruiser raced past officer William Vickers, who was heading home from his shift in his patrol car. He started following Jonchuck, but never got close enough to read the license plate and didn't know Phoebe was inside. As they reached the bridge's crest, Jonchuck stopped and got out. Vickers, fearing an ambush, stopped behind him, pulled his gun and yelled at Jonchuck to show his hands. He saw no weapon. Jonchuck yelled at the officer, "You have no free will." He grabbed Phoebe from the back seat, held her over the side momentarily and then dropped her. Vickers thinks she screamed. Jonchuck drove off, but was soon arrested. Vickers scrambled down a ladder to a dock below the bridge, but couldn't see Phoebe in the dark water. A marine rescue boat was summoned and her body was found hours later. The white supremacist accused of murdering 50 people in a terrorist attack at a Christchurch mosque has sacked his lawyer and plans to represent himself in court. Brenton Tarrant, 28, dismissed his court-appointed lawyer after his first court appearance on Saturday. Richard Peters said the gunman told him he wanted to represent himself as his case heads to a trial, NZ Herald reported. The shock decision has raised concerns Tarrant will use what will be a high-profile murder trial as a platform to spread hate and vile anti-Muslim rhetoric. The white supremacist who shot at and killed 50 people in a mosque in Christchurch has fired his lawyer and plans to represent himself in court Two women comfort each other after visiting Al Noor Mosque on March 18, 2019 in Christchurch after 50 people were killed and dozens more injured Mr Peters said while the decision may seem irrational, Tarrant appeared to be 'clear and lucid', and didn't appear mentally unstable. Tarrant never told him why he wanted to represent himself, but Mr Peters said he 'presumes the basis for that is that he thinks the job would be done better himself'. 'I suspect that he won't shy away from publicity, and that will probably be the way he runs the trial. The job of the trial judge will be to deal with that. 'But it's not a place for any views to be put forward. It's simply there to determine innocence or guilt. 'The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views.' Tarrant is currently facing one charge of murder, but more charges are expected to be laid in the coming days. He did not apply for bail or for his name to be suppressed, and is expected to front the High Court on April 5. Muslim mourners paying their respects at a park outside the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, after 50 people were killed and dozens more injured Corrections officers confirmed Tarrant is being held in a secure facility and is currently segregated from other prisoners. He is being observed 24-7 in custody. He faces a life in prison if convicted and is already a 'marked man' behind bars, the NZ Herald reported. Gang members visiting Hagley High School in Christchurch on Sunday condemned Tarrant's alleged actions calling them 'disgusting' and 'wrong in every way possible'. They had visited the school to offer their condolences to the affected families and referred to the Muslim community as 'our people.' 'That stuff that happened [on Friday], that was disgusting, there was no need for it. We're a club, we do our things but, nah, that's just wrong in every way possible,' one said. One gang member appeared to offer a warning, saying 'we've got friends inside [prison] too.' Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured) told reporters she is 'seeking advice' on Tarrant's deportation Tarrant was able to enter New Zealand without a visa and had been visiting 'sporadically,' but it is unclear how long he had been living in the country. A spokesman for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was considering all options, including whether Tarrant will be deported to Australia before or after serving a sentence. Police said they are also considering further murder charges, as well as additional charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act. The accused gunman, who was born in Australia and grew up in Grafton, NSW, had been living in Dunedin when he allegedly carried out New Zealand's worst mass murder in history on Friday. He stormed the Al Noor mosque and later Linwood Masjid on Friday, where he shot dead 50 people and left dozens more critically injured. Tarrant livestreamed the entire ordeal online, where he entered the mosques and opened fire on worshippers during afternoon prayers. Accused gunman Brenton Tarrant appeared in court on Saturday where he was charged with one count of murder under the Crimes Act. Police say they are now considering additional charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act Tarrant had published a 73-page manifesto detailing his hatred and how he was inspired by Norway mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 in 2011. He said he initially planned to target a mosque in Dunedin, but changed to the Al Noor and Masjid Mosques because they had 'far more invaders'. 'I am unsure as of this time of writing whether I will reach that target, it is a bonus objective,' he wrote. Tarrant said his objective was to 'most of all show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, our homelands are our own and that, as long as a white man still lives, they will NEVER conquer our lands and they will never replace our people. 'By the definition, then yes. It is a terrorist attack. But I believe it is a partisan action against an occupying force,' he said. A woman believed to be in her 40s has been stabbed to death in Leigh, a north-west town in Wigan. Detectives from Greater Manchester Police say that a man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the victim was found dead in her home in Manchester Road, near the junction with Sanderson's Croft road. According to the GMP's Twitter page, there is a 'heavy police presence' at the scene after an ambulance alert. Police say they are treating it as an isolated incident. Detectives from Greater Manchester Police say that a murder inquiry has been launched after the victim was found dead in her home on Manchester Road A witness is reported to have seen five police cars in attendance and a woman being carried into an ambulance. Superintendent Jon Chadwick of GMP's Major Investigations Team said: 'Our thoughts go out to this lady's family and friends at this devastating time. A witness is reported to have seen five police cars in attendance and a woman being carried into an ambulance 'We understand the concerns that the local community will have and we'd like to reassure them that we have a team of officers working on this case'. Supt. Chadwick added: 'An increased police presence will be noticeable for the coming days in the vicinity of Manchester Road and we'd encourage anyone with concerns to approach officers. 'We are appealing for anyone with information on this crime to come forward to police immediately.' Australian Formula 1 racing driver, Daniel Ricciardo, cheekily told an F1 journalist to 'shut the f*** up' after he had a terrible day at the Australian Grand Prix. Ricciardo was being interviewed by Dutch Formula 1 broadcaster, Ziggo Sport, about his bad luck on the track earlier that day when another F1 journalist began a live broadcast behind him. Jenni Gow, from BBC 5, began to talk louder as Ricciardo's interviewed continued. Ricciardo told the Dutch journalist interviewing him that he was distracted by Gow and after a few moments, he turned his head around and jokingly told her to 'shut f*** up'. Ricciardo was telling the Dutch journalist that said that it was 'really frustrating for it to be over so quickly,' when Gow began her report. He paused to tell his interviewer 'I'm sorry I can't concentrate. She's talking too loud.' The Dutch journalist accepted his apology and said 'as always'. Ricciardo tried to continue talking but as Gow spoke louder, he turned his head and told her to 'shut the f*** up' followed by a smile. Australian Formula 1 racing driver, Daniel Ricciardo, told F1 journalist, Jenni Gow, to 'shut the f*** up' after he had a terrible day at the Australian Grand Prix Gow had no idea what Ricciardo had said to her at the time as she had large headphones on and was busy reporting. She later found out what Ricciardo had said to her and she laughed it off. She posted a picture of her interviewing Ricciardo on Instagram with the caption 'he does like me really!' Gow posted a picture of her interviewing Ricciardo on Instagram with the caption 'he does like me really!' Ricciardo had a shocking start to the Australian Grand Prix when in the first five seconds of the race, the front wing ripped off his Renault. He struggled to pick up his performance as he was lapped by the race winner, Valterri Bottas. Ricciardo decided to retire his vehicle on lap 32 and was very frustrated with his performance. 'When the race is over in five seconds I feel that the preparation was not where it should be and I'm too busy pleasing everybody else,' Ricciardo told Sky News. A high school cheerleader, a keen football supporter and a promising Gaelic football player died in a horrifying crush last night. Lauren Bullock and Morgan Barnard, both 17, and Connor Currie, 16 were killed when pushing broke out in a crowd of around 700 teenagers waiting to get into the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Northern Ireland, at around 9.30pm last night. Around 100 young people were pushed off their feet in a mass of bodies against the closed gates of the venue, which was hosting a St Patrick's Day disco. Multiple eyewitness accounts have described the horror the teens fighting to breathe and screaming hysterically for space to move as dozens were knocked off their feet and crushed down. Lauren Bullock and Morgan Barnard, both 17, lost their lives in the horrifying crush last night Connor Currie, 16, who played for Edendork St Malachy's GAA club, was one of three young people to lose their lives. In a tribute on Facebook the club said: 'We are deeply saddened and devastated to hear of the tragic passing of our much loved and highly thought of player and member Connor Currie. 'Connor will forever be remembered with the greatest affection by all associated with our club and indeed the wider Edendork community.' Morgan Barnard, 17, whose Facebook profile shows a young man's love of football and cars, was also killed. In a harrowing account of the night's terrible scenes one friend called him an 'angel', recalling that she had spoken to him only moments before his death. And Lauren Bullock, a Year 13 student at St Patrick's College in Dungannon, also died in the awful crush. Heartfelt tributes were paid to teenage gaelic footballer Connor Currie who died in last night's horrifying crush of teenagers waiting to get into a St Patrick's Day disco Her high school principal, Catherine McHugh, paid tribute to Lauren as 'a beautiful girl, a shining light in our school community'. 'She gave generously of her time and talents. She was a leader among her peers and a quiet strong and loyal presence. A treasured friend and capable young lady with a bright future,' she said. Lauren was a member of the Pope John Paul Faith Team and the Rosary Prayer Group, the Irish News reported. Ms McHugh added: 'She was a role model for positivity, good relationships and kindness. We have lost someone very dear to us and we will miss her greatly. 'Our thoughts are with her parents, her family and her friends in the coming days as they try to come to terms with their immeasurable loss.' The party Lauren and friends attended was supposed to be a celebration of St Patrick's Day Lines of police tape have been strung across the courtyard outside the popular venue, where bottles shoes and bags are still scattered across the ground Lauren's cheerleading coach paid emotional tribute to her student, calling her a down to earth, beautiful soul In a moving Facebook post her cheerleading coach at the Euphoria Allstars squad said: 'Euphoria are absolutely devastated to say we lost one of our senior athletes Lauren Bullock in the tragedy in Cookstown last night. 'My heart is broke writing this. You were the most down to earth, beautiful soul and our Coral team will never be the same without you. You were an incredible cheerleader and where the back bone of our team. 'I honestly can't put into words how much you will be missed. Thank you Lauren for giving me the pleasure of coaching you all this time.' Police said this morning that the melee happened before the doors to the venue were opened Flowers outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three young people have died Today forensic investigators examined the scene as reports started to surface of the terrifying pile-up of teenagers knocked to the ground on top of one another outside the gates of the venue last night Witnesses told of scenes of panic and horror, with as many as 100 teens pushed off their feet and trapped in a press of bodies, as shocked onlookers attempted to resuscitate youngsters pulled out of the crush by emergency services. A 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition in hospital, while a further two teenagers were treated for injuries they suffered during the incident, which happened at about 9.30pm last night before the venue had opened its gates. A first person account by one girl, who named her friend Morgan as another victim of last night's night's tragedy, describes the terror experienced by those trapped under a press of bodies. On Facebook, Eimear Tallon's horrowing account begins: 'It started with pushing and shoving but everyone was still laughing and having a good time. Then the literal crushing started.' She goes on: 'Two of my friends fell to the ground. I tried to pull them up but at that point there was no room for them to even come back up. So I started screaming at the top of my lungs: My friends are on the ground, move back!My friends have fainted, move back! My friends cant breath, move back!- nothing. Not one bit of movement.' She said at the back of the crown some people were still laughing, oblivious to the danger at the front. 'At this point,' she writes, 'I thought my friends were going to die. 'I was standing up and I couldnt breathe so I couldnt imagine how they felt. I was hysterically screaming for people to move but it was only the people around me who knew the seriousness. 'With more and more pushing, I also fell. But the thing about me was that I wasnt on the ground, I was on top of someone, and this person was on top of someone else. 'As I looked down I could see multiple bodies underneath me and as I looked up I could see multiple bodies on top of me. 'It was the most traumatic, frightening and stressful moment of my life.' This morning, police tape cordons off the driveway in towards the Greenvale Hotel, where as many as 100 teens were caught in a terrifying crush last night in which three died Michael McElhattaon (left), owner of The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone in Northern Ireland, where three young people died Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton (left) of the PSNI, Nigel Ruddell (centre) of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, and Superintendent Mike Baird, District Commander for PSNI Mid-Ulster, at the scene this morning A shoe, seemingly lost in last night's crush of bodies, is photographed in the car park outside the Glenvale this morning She writes that at one point 'I closed my eyes for a little and accepted what was going to happen' but was jolted back awake by an elbow to the throat. She said people were scratching, biting and grabbing anything they could to pull themselves up in order to breathe, adding: 'I think thats what really shows the seriousness of it all, people were literally fighting for their lives.' She said that the children 'banged the windows of the hotel and tried to get help', adding that the gates were still locked. She describes being dragged out of the melee despite her leg and hair being trapped and her clothes pulled halfway off in the crush of people. Once she was free she looked around and saw 'a young boy lying motionless trying to be resuscitated by the ambulance crew', and said that his friends 'screeched' as they found out he 'wasn't going to make it.' Eimer said she lost one friend in the disaster, writing: 'Unfortunately, a friend of mine who I had seen in the line and chatted to minutes beforehand has died. 'Morgan and the two other angels, just like the rest of us, left their families last night for an enjoyable night out but unlike the rest of us, they didnt make it home. My heart breaks for their poor families.' One teenager told the Ulster Herald he was pinned down with other youngsters on top of him, in a crush of almost 100 teens who had fallen to the floor, for about 20 minutes. The scene outside the Greenvale Hotel night club in Cookstown, N Ireland, this morning One young man said it was the worst experience of his life and described pushing and shoving that led to dozens of teens being pushed to the ground unable to get out PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton briefing reporters this morning that preliminary investigations confirmed there had been a crush, in which some teens had fallen, and boys of 16 and 17, and a girl of 17, had died He said: 'It was the worst thing I've ever experienced, really frightening. I'm traumatised and after this I don't know if I ever want to go out again.' He explained that as the queue of teenagers were at the gate 'everyone just started swaying back and forth', and pushing side to side, and then there was a rush forward and the queue 'collapsed' with many people falling to the ground. 'There must have been 20 or 30 who fell first,' he said, 'and then everyone else just followed. I'd say there was more than 100 who were in that queue and fell. 'I was pinned down with others on top of me. We must have been there on the ground for 20 minutes unable to move. It was absolutely terrible. 'I didn't know what was going to happen or how I'd get out. Eventually I was pulled out and thankfully was able to walk away. 'There were ambulances and police all around. I could see them giving one person CPR treatment' The sign outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, NI, a popular party venue for young people where three teens have died The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, County Tyrone, is seen early this morning after the 'crush' Police officers stand outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown last night after the incident One teenager told the Evening Standard: 'Me and a group of our school friends arrived at approximately 9.20pm. 'The doors don't open until 10pm, so we were queuing with 500 to 700 people all pushing and shoving until we heard sirens. We were told by the bouncers to leave. Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, speaking from the scene, said: 'Our preliminary investigations show there was a crush towards the front door of this hotel, and in that crush people seem to have fallen. 'There seemed to be a little bit of struggling going on to get people up off the ground and that might explain also why there was a report of some fighting.' He made a direct appeal for people with footage of the incident to hand it to police, rather than post it on social media. In addition to the three teens confirmed to have died, a 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition in hospital, and a further two teenagers were treated for injuries they suffered during the incident. ACC Hamilton added: 'We are of an open mind ... it looks like a crowd of young people, a large crowd, pushing up against the front of the hotel to get in to this event. 'People then seem to have fallen and then got crushed. I would urge you to use that with some caution. Certainly it appears to be at the minute a crush, people have fallen and then been fatally injured. He went on: 'We also have reports of some fighting after the incident commenced and at least one person has reported that they were assaulted.' Initially some witnesses denied there had been a 'crush' and the venue's DJ claimed a 'number of young people had become seriously ill'. Emma Heatherington, 42, of Donaghmore, whose two sons, aged 17 and 18, had been at the event, told how she 'felt sick' when she saw the police appeal. She said: 'My two boys were there so I rang them, shaking and thankfully got them both. They were on their way home at that stage. 'They say there was a huge crowd waiting to get into the venue and then a lot of commotion up near the front of the queue. 'Then they said the emergency services arrived and they were all asked to leave. They came home very, very shaken with rumours that some people had died.' She added: 'While it's not clear exactly what happened, it's the most tragic ending imaginable to what was supposed to be a celebration of St Patrick's Day.' Meanwhile a source told Belfast Live: 'This is a desperate situation on what should have been a fantastic night. It will be memorable for all the wrong reasons now. Police check the perimeter of the hotel in Northern Ireland where three children have died Emergency services rushed to the hotel in County Tyrone last night amid reports of a crush 'A lot of people had congregated outside the Greeenvale and there was a lot of carry on but suddenly all hell broke loose and there was a big panic. 'People were running all over the place. We were trying to get away. Someone was doing CPR on someone on the ground.' Local councillor Trevor Wilson said he had been phoned from the scene by an eyewitness, telling the Belfast Telegraph: 'There seems to have been a stampede.' He added: 'There's clearly a deep sense of shock here tonight that an event for young people just wanting to celebrate St Patrick's night went so horribly wrong.' Police posted on Twitter shortly after the incident, urging parents to pick up their children from the venue on Drum Road. More than a dozen police cars and 21 fire engines arrived at the scene to help with the emergency. Police said this morning the incident occurred before the doors of the venue were opened. Police asked parents to 'immediately' collect their children from the hotel last night A paramedic vehicle leaves the hotel amid a huge response from the emergency services Police mounted a investigation and are examining all CCTV footage surrounding the tragedy A member of staff at the nearby Glenavon Hotel said he had heard the sirens as emergency services rushed to the scene, and police borrowed their defibrillator. He added: 'There were ambulances passing our entrance. It's scary, and you just hoped everyone was OK. It's very sad to hear what happened.' The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) said it had received several calls from about 9.30pm last night and sent two rapid-response paramedics, two doctors and five emergency crews to the scene. Colin Neill, chief executive of Hospitality Ulster, said: 'We are devastated to hear of the confirmed PSNI report of at least two deaths this evening at the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown. 'This is shocking and tragic news and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased.' A police officer watches as an ambulance drives past the scene in Northern Ireland last night The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service received several calls from about 9.30pm last night The Greenvale Hotel was hosting a St Patrick's Day event for teenagers last night (file photo) Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster tweeted that her 'thoughts and prayers' were 'with everyone impacted by this tonight'. Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O'Neill called it a 'parent's worst nightmare'. She added: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the families.' Former Democratic Unionist MP for South Antrim William McCrea said: 'We've got to see what lessons can be learned from this tragedy. 'I drove past this ten minutes before it happened, not knowing that ten minutes later an absolute tragedy would happen. 'The people that I've spoken to, they're very shocked. It's a close-knit community.' The Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley said this morning she was deeply sorry to hear the news and sent her thoughts and prayers to those involved. ACC Hamilton added: 'We are continuing to interview people who were there to establish the full facts and I would appeal to anyone who witnessed what happened to contact police on 101 ext 52014. 'We need parents to talk to their children this morning and encourage them to come and tell us what happened. Please do not post photographs or videos online. Please share them with the PSNI.' He added: 'We need people to come forward and tell us what happened last night. Three young people are dead, they deserve a full inquiry. Their parents need to know what happened to them.' * Were you there or do you know people who were? Email tips@dailymail.com * A Nationals MP in one of the government's most marginal seats has been caught liking sexist and raunchy Facebook pages. Michael Johnsen, who represents the rural, conservative Upper Hunter electorate, liked the social media pages with the titles Kinky Humour and Uncensored Adults. With just five days until the New South Wales state election, Daily Mail Australia has uncovered his Facebook page's likes for dubious pages, which include memes mocking women. Michael Johnsen a Nationals MP in one of the government's most marginal seats has been caught liking sexist Facebook pages Mr Johnsen admitted to Daily Mail Australia his individual Facebook page 'Michael Johnsen MP' had liked the social media sites but he denied endorsing the content. 'Liking or following a page does not mean I endorse its content,' he said on Monday. 'I did not click on or "like" any of those memes sent in your email, but given those examples you provided however, and which I did not see they had posted, I have disliked those pages. 'Thank you for bringing it to my attention.' The Nationals MP unliked the Facebook pages after being contacted by Daily Mail Australia but declined to explain if he or someone else had liked them on his social media account. His 'Michael Johnsen MP' Facebook page is separate to his official political social media account. The likes included one from the Kinky Humour Facebook page, which has a meme asking followers to answer: 'What makes a woman instantly unattractive?'.' They include one from the Kinky Humour Facebook page, which has a meme asking followers to answer: 'What makes a woman instantly unattractive?' Another meme from this social media group also suggested a woman's role was to be available for sex and domestic duties. 'A real woman is a freak in bed. A chef in the kitchen,' it said. Mr Johnsen's Facebook account had also liked Uncensored Adults. This social media page contained the meme: 'Touch my butt and make me pizza' over an image of a denim-wearing woman's bottom. Mr Johnsen, a first-term backbencher, holds the seat of Upper Hunter, north-west of Newcastle, by a slender 2.2 per cent margin. The rural electorate, taking in the coal-mining towns of Muswellbrook and Singleton, has not been a Labor-held seat since 1910. Despite its long, conservative history, it is the National Party's most marginal electorate in NSW going into this Saturday's election. Mr Johnsen's Facebook had had also liked Uncensored Adults. This social media page contained the meme: 'Touch my butt and make me pizza' over an image of a denim-wearing woman's bottom With just five days until the New South Wales state election, Daily Mail Australia has uncovered his official Facebook page's likes for dubious pages, which include memes mocking women and graphically describing oral sex It is also the Coalition government's second most marginal seat as the Liberal and National parties seek to win a third consecutive term in office for the first time since 1971. Mr Johnsen's 30-year marriage ended in late 2015, nine months after he was elected to Parliament. His estranged wife Zenda Johnsen last year revealed politics had destroyed their marital union. Adding to his woes, he faced a Nationals preselection challenge last year from Scone councillor James Burns. Mr Johnsen's state electorate overlaps with the federal seat of New England held by former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, whose own 24-year marriage broke up in late 2017 following revelations he had started a relationship with his former media adviser Vikki Campion. An emotional wedding serenade was brought to an abrupt half when the best man fainted face-first in the middle of the song. Guests at the nuptials in Snohomish, Washington were stunned when the man faceplanted the hard floor as the maid of honor sang for the bride and groom. Cameras captured the eye-watering moment the best man landed on his face, which was posted online on March 15. In the clip, an emotional maid of honor can be seen getting choked up as she performs for the newlyweds during the outdoor festivities. Suddenly, the best man begins to lose consciousness before falling face first into the pavement, making a loud 'splat' sound. The music stops as onlookers rush to the man's aid. An emotional maid of honor can be seen getting choked up as she serenades the bride and groom during the outdoor festivities Suddenly, the best man topples forward after apparently fainting in the heat The unfortunate young man hits the floor face first, knocking his teeth out 'Someone bring him water,' a person is heard shouting. The bride and groom look on in horror as guests gather around the stricken man, while others rush off to get help. Minutes later, the man is escorted away from the scene while holding a napkin to his mouth. According to Jukin Media, the man broke some of his teeth when his face hit the ground, but he did not suffer a concussion and was otherwise uninjured. The NHS is offering thousands of pounds to British GPs working abroad if they return home in a bid to tackle a major shortage of family doctors. NHS England will pay up to 18,500 in relocation support for UK-qualified GPs to come back to the health service. It is part of a scheme that also aims to bring hundreds of GPs out of retirement and career breaks. Doctors will be put on an induction and refresher placement in a GP practice to get their skills up to scratch and paid a bursary of 3,500 a month. NHS England will be offering up to 18,500 in relocation support for UK-qualified GPs to come back to the health service from abroad in an effort to boost numbers (stock photo) They will then have up to four fully-funded attempts at passing a competency assessment, after which they can apply for any GP job and expect to earn an average salary of 70,000 a year. Nearly 800 GPs have already taken part in the scheme, but the NHS is relaunching it today in a bid to recruit hundreds more to help tackle the chronic shortage of doctors. The Government pledged in 2015 to hire 5,000 new GPs by 2020 as part of a five-year forward view for the profession. But the latest statistics show the NHS had the full-time equivalent of just 28,596 fully-qualified GPs working in England in December 2018 593 fewer than 12 months previously. The shortfall is projected to get worse. Growing workloads mean experienced GPs are leaving the NHS, with two in five planning to retire or quit their jobs within the next five years. Although GPs benefited from a new contract under New Labour that led to soaring salaries and enabled them to give up out-of-hours work, morale is said to be at an all-time low. Many young doctors opt to take time out or move abroad as soon as they are qualified. The scheme also aims to bring hundreds of GPs out of retirement and career breaks, as the current local doctor shortfall is expected to get worse (stock photo) To be eligible for the refresher scheme doctors must previously have been on the General Medical Council GP Register but do not have to have worked for the NHS suggesting retired private doctors could be eligible. Applicants must have had at least two years out before applying and can have spent up to ten years abroad. For people working overseas, the NHS will offer moving expenses up to 18,500 and an extensive programme of support to assist with the practicalities. Its application website says: This will include help with organising transport and finding a home, schools, nurseries and other local facilities as well as support with administrative tasks such as setting up bank accounts and mobile phones. Relocation costs for things such as estate agent fees or transportation of belongings and pets will be paid for. It adds: If a GPs partner wants to pursue their own career in England, whether that is in healthcare or in another profession, the NHS in England will support them to learn or improve their English language and to find suitable work. Dr Nikita Kanani, of NHS England, said: General practice is the bedrock of the health service and is a priority as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. This is just one of several plans we have including having more trainees in place than ever before. We understand the pressures GPs are under, and have invested an extra 978million in core general practice funding by 2023-24 as part of the GP contract, together with a pledge to recruit more than 20,000 healthcare workers to support family doctors over the next five years. A third of NHS health boards have broken guidelines by accepting payments or sponsorship from baby formula companies, an investigation has revealed. The marketing of infant formula is strictly regulated to try to halt plummeting rates of breastfeeding. Companies are not allowed to advertise or promote formula designed for infants under the age of six months, and the World Health Organisation code of practice says no medical organisation or doctor should accept payments from formula firms. The World Health Organisation code of practice says no medical organisation or doctor should accept payments from formula firms. Experts believe companies use their specialised formulas as a Trojan horse to create links with doctors for their normal baby products [File photo] But 59 out of 195 clinical commissioning groups in England have recorded at least one breach of the WHO code since 2014, an investigation by Channel 4s Dispatches reveals. In Wales, five out of the seven local health boards recorded a breach. Experts believe companies use their specialised formulas such as hydrolysed products for children with allergies as a Trojan horse to create links with doctors for their normal baby formula products, which they are banned from marketing. Sue Ashmore of Unicef UK said: Powerful multi-national companies have been pushing the boundaries of existing legislation to promote their products. We urgently need better legislation to protect babies. Dr Laura de Rooy, a consultant neonatologist at St Georges Hospital, London, said she suspects some doctors are promoting products after being influenced by the industry. A spokesman for the Department of Health said: It is completely unacceptable for health care providers or workers to receive financial incentives of any kind to endorse particular brands. The British Specialist Nutrition Association, whose members include Danone Nutricia, Mead Johnson and Nestle, told Dispatches: We believe we have a responsibility to provide information [to healthcare professionals] so that they can advise parents about feeding their babies. 'We are only allowed to make legally approved claims and we believe it is irresponsible to suggest to parents and carers that they cannot trust these. The Great Formula Milk Scandal: Dispatches is on Channel 4 today at 8pm. Women could be forced to wait months for smear test results as the planned closure of dozens of screening laboratories sends the service into meltdown, experts claim. A Government campaign encouraging women to get the life-saving checks has coincided with the decision to shut 41 NHS testing labs. Dozens of staff have left their posts ahead of the reduction in the number of facilities from 50 to nine, leading to a shambolic backlog of samples waiting to be tested. Dozens of staff have left their posts ahead of the reduction in the number of facilities from 50 to nine, leading to a shambolic backlog of samples waiting to be tested Dr Alison Cropper, chairman of the British Association for Cytopathology, said: The service is in meltdown. She warned that women face an agonising wait for smear test results, which are meant to be sent within 14 days. There has been a surge in uptake for smear tests since Public Health England launched its first cervical cancer awareness campaign in January. Figures revealed screening rates were at an all-time low, a trend blamed on body image embarrassment. But Dr Cropper said the Government campaign was launched at the worst time there could possibly have been. It is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the NHS screening programmes following blunders which meant hundreds of thousands were not invited for breast or cervical screening. The Daily Mail has highlighted the tragic case of Julie OConnor, 49, an NHS nurse who died last month after being wrongly told six times by Southmead Hospital in Bristol that she did not have cancer. Washed by after a wild weekend of rain, thunder and hail from Storm Gareth Trail of plastic rubbish seen floating in canal outside BBC Salford headquarters Stretching across the canal basin, this raft of rubbish is grim testimony to our throwaway culture. Plastic bottles, food packaging, polystyrene, carrier bags and even car tyres have formed the floating island in the shadow of the BBC headquarters in Salford. The eyesore in the Manchester Ship Canal is a frequent sight following bad weather such as the heavy rainfall brought by Storm Gareth. David Lancaster, a Salford councillor, said it was part of an ongoing battle with Mother Nature. A huge floating island of rubbish has appeared in the quayside close to Media City in Manchester following a week of storms. Empty bottles, wheels and a fridge have been washed up Storm Gareth has caused havoc all over the country but this shocking sight will cause misery to the wildlife that have made the basin their home We are aware of this particular build-up, which is in our waters, and we have begun removing it, he told the Manchester Evening News. Five local rivers drain into the Quays so natural and other debris caught up in those rivers is washed down and accumulates. Debris builds up particularly quickly after heavy rain. BBC presenter Nicky Campbell posted a video of swans swimming in fly-tipped waste near the BBC complex last year. Volunteers taking part in the Mail's Great British Spring Clean are set to hit 400,000 as an army of litter-pickers dedicate spare time to tackle waste An army of more than 400,000 public-spirited volunteers have pledged their precious time to help clear the litter blighting our neighbourhoods. Over the weekend, another 10,000 people signed up to Keep Britain Tidys Great British Spring Clean, backed by the Daily Mail, from March 22 to April 23. This takes the total number of volunteers to 400,208 well above the 370,000 people who signed up for last years campaign. Encouragingly, this includes 144,711 children. With just a few days until the clean-up begins, the half a million mark is now in sight. And last night, campaign organisers at Keep Britain Tidy asked for one final push to hit this target. More than 400,000 volunteers have pledged to join Keep Britain Tidy's Great British Spring Clean, which is backed by the Daily Mail and takes place between March 22 and April 23 (stock image) It is hoped half a million people will sign up to the Great British Spring Clean, which has been backed by Theresa May (left) and Sir David Attenborough (right) Richard McIlwain, the charitys deputy chief executive, said: With a week to go before the formal campaign launch, we are now asking everyone across the country for one last big push to get us over the line and hit our target of half a million volunteers cleaning up the country. A shocking 30million tons of litter is collected from our streets each year, costing councils an estimated 1billion annually. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers will head out from Friday to take part in the biggest clean-up Britain has ever seen, with events organised across the country. Theresa May backed the campaign, with the Government recently announcing it would allocate 9.75million to allow every council to support local clean-ups. This is part of their drive to make littering culturally unacceptable within a generation. It has also been backed by Prince William and TV cookery stars Mary Berry and Prue Leith. Conservationists including Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham and Bear Grylls have also approved. Natasha Ray (right), Litter Heroes Ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy with pupils of Springdale First School at Broadstone in Dorset for the Great British Spring Clean Last week, United Nations Environment Assembly president Siim Kiisler praised the campaign for sending out a strong message that littering is unacceptable. After hearing about the mass litter pick in Britain, he told an international environmental gathering in Kenya that cleaning up towns, cities, beaches and the countryside was vital in raising awareness of waste disposal. Mr Kiisler said: They see that their friend, neighbour or colleague from work or member of their family went out and, with their own bare hands, picked up some trash because there is no other way to collect it. If they see their friends doing it, they will probably think twice before dropping litter again. Some high street giants have also lent their support, including Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, Greggs, McDonalds, Costa Coffee and John Lewis. The Daily Mail has long campaigned against the scourge of plastic in the environment, putting pressure on politicians and businesses which led to the tax on single-use plastic bags and the ban on microbeads in cosmetics. The Great British Spring Clean will run between March 22 and April 23. Register at gbspringclean.org In yet another blow for the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has urged Theresa May to postpone the Brexit deal vote. Mr Johnson last night urged MPs to vote down Mrs May's deal for a third time if it is put to a vote this week. But the under-pressure PM, also received a string of major endorsements that will give her fresh hope the deal could pass within days. Mr Johnson warned in his Daily Telegraph column that it gives the EU an 'indefinite means of blackmail' against the UK. In a direct attack on Mrs May, he paints her and her team as collaborators in the 'final sabotage of Brexit' just 11 days before Britain is due to leave the EU. The former foreign secretary urged her to postpone the vote and use a forthcoming EU summit to seek 'real change' on the Irish backstop. Mr Johnson said: 'It would be absurd to hold the vote before that has even been attempted.' Mr Johnson last night urged MPs to vote down Mrs May's deal for a third time if it is put to a vote this week He added: 'Every single important issue is still up for negotiation; and whether by accident or design, the UK will enter the second phase of the talks if this deal goes through in a position of almost unbearable weakness.' But in a significant boost for the PM, former Chancellor Norman Lamont urged his fellow Brexiteers to focus on the 'prize' of leaving the EU and back the deal. Writing on the page opposite, the Eurosceptic grandee warns wavering MPs that 'history will not understand if it is Conservative MPs who prevent us claiming our self-government'. Mrs May is hoping to build momentum behind her deal today with an agreement with the DUP that could bring dozens of Eurosceptics on board. In a major intervention last night, Northern Ireland's former First Minister David Trimble also dropped his objections to the so-called Irish backstop. The Nobel Peace Prize winner praised Mrs May for securing 'substantive' concessions on the backstop, adding: 'The chances of the PM getting the deal through Parliament have improved.' Former Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliot also came out for the deal, warning Euroscptic MPs: 'It's May's deal or nothing.' Theresa May, pictured yesterday arriving at church in Sonning, received a string of major endorsements for her Brexit deal last night that gave fresh hope it could pass within days But, with the trickle of Eurosceptic MPs declaring their support still failing to turn into a flood, the prospects for the deal remain on a knife edge. Mrs May was last night still deciding whether or not to press ahead with tomorrow's planned vote on her Brexit deal. Philip Hammond and Liam Fox both said it could be pulled if it looked like it would be defeated a third time. But Chancellor Hammond claimed 'significant' numbers of Tory MPs who opposed the deal were now considering changing their minds. Downing Street was braced for Boris Johnson to 'double down' on his opposition. And Tory sources said fellow leadership hopeful Dominic Raab was also indicating he would help Labour vote down the deal for a third time. Some senior figures believe tomorrow's vote should be delayed until next week, by which time Mrs May is expected to have requested an extension of Article 50. One Cabinet minister urged the PM to delay, adding: 'Whenever it comes it is going to be incredibly tight. I think the DUP will come across but we also need Boris and Raab and Rees-Mogg to have a chance. Even then, we will need some more Labour MPs to come on board.' At the start of a crunch week on Brexit: Philip Hammond angered Eurosceptics by saying it was now 'physically impossible to leave on March 29' following Parliament's decision to back a Brexit delay. Dutch PM Mark Rutte likened Mrs May to the Monty Python character the Black Knight, who refused to give in even after having his limbs chopped off. Former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey said she would reluctantly back the deal, but called for Mrs May and other 'feeble negotiators' to quit. David Davis urged Eurosceptic MPs to back the deal, saying it was 'capable of rescue' in Brussels. Brexit: What happens next? What happened last week? MPs twice rejected Theresa May's Brexit deal. They also voted against leaving with no deal, and now voted in favour of a delay. What will happen next? MPs have supported a delay, so May will have to request an extension to Article 50 from the EU. Could Brexit be delayed? If other member states agree to it, Brexit will be postponed, but May has said that this should be for no longer than three months. If, however, MPs do not support her deal, she warned that the extension could be far longer. Could Brexit be stopped? May has warned this is a possibility. While she will not revoke Article 50 herself, she has warned political chaos could see the Government replaced by Jeremy Corbyn or another pro-Remain administration. Will the Prime Minister face a motion of no confidence? It is possible. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he will only call another vote of no confidence if he has a chance of winning - but in January Mrs May precipitated one herself. Will May just resign after a second defeat? Unlikely but not impossible. Defeat would be another monumental blow to the PM's political authority. Will there be a general election? There are mounting calls for one. Tory MP Charles Walker said yesterday if the House could not pass the deal, the current Parliament probably needs to be replaced so a new Government can be formed to tackle Brexit. One of the advantages of an election is it would be much quicker to organise and resolve than a second referendum. Could there be a second referendum on Brexit? There are mounting demands for a new public vote - but probably not currently a majority in the Commons for it. A new referendum would take at least six months to organise and run. This could be optimistic as there is no consensus over what the question might be. Advertisement Mrs May's deal suffered a record 230-vote defeat in January and lost again by 149 votes last week. Ministers believe they are close to sealing an agreement with her DUP backers, which could see dozens of Eurosceptic Tories reluctantly fall into line behind the deal. Mr Hammond yesterday indicated the DUP could be handed more cash for Northern Ireland if they agree to back the PM's deal. He told the BBC's Andrew Marr show: 'This isn't about money. It's about a political assurance well, look, we are coming up to a spending review and we will have to look at all budgets, including devolved block-grant budgets.' Gordon Henderson, a Tory MP who has voted against the deal twice, told the Mail: 'If the Government can find a formula that satisfies our DUP colleagues, then it will satisfy me.' Ministers were helped last night by Lord Trimble's decision to drop his opposition to the backstop plans in the light of fresh legal assurances that it could only be temporary. In a paper for the Policy Exchange think-tank, he said: 'The Government has succeeded in securing substantive changes that will affect and limit the impact of the Irish backstop'. The intervention from Lord Lamont, a patron of the hardline Leave Means Leave organisation, could also prove significant. The former Chancellor, who served in the Thatcher government, warns fellow Eurosceptics that Brexit could be lost altogether unless they stop their infighting and back the PM. He said it was 'wishful thinking' to believe that Parliament wouldn't try to stop Brexit once it had been delayed. And he said there would be 'all to play for' in the second round of talks with Brussels, as long as the withdrawal deal was passed. He added: 'To assert as some Eurosceptics do that it is preferable to remain in the EU than to accept Mrs May's deal is absurd. The PM's deal is far from ideal. But it has one overwhelming advantage. Under her deal we will definitely leave.' Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, a member of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs, said: 'The mood is changing. People are getting tired of the infighting at Westminster and in the Conservative Party. They expect us to get this across the line.' Emma Lewell-Buck, who resigned from Labour's front bench last week to vote against a second referendum, said she and other like-minded MPs wanted to see Brexit delivered with the current deal. But some Tory hardliners suggested they would never back down. Andrea Jenkyns, a prominent member of the ERG, said: 'The British spirit is to fight on and not to back down to threats.' Jeremy Corbyn yesterday warned he was ready to call a vote of no confidence in the Government this week if Mrs May's deal is voted down again, potentially triggering an election. He also plunged Labour's Brexit policy into fresh confusion after revealing he could campaign to leave the EU if he succeeds in forcing a second referendum. McVey eyes up No 10 as she tells May: Step down or you'll lose vote Mrs May will have to promise to make a 'dignified departure' from Downing Street to get her deal through, a former Cabinet minister said last night. In a blunt intervention, the former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey became the most senior figure so far to warn that the price of winning Eurosceptic support for the Prime Minister's deal might be her resignation. Miss McVey, who indicated she will run for the Tory leadership when Mrs May steps down, said the 'feeble negotiators' who delivered the deal must not be allowed to oversee the next round of negotiations. Miss McVey resigned from the Cabinet last year over the deal, but has now said she will vote for it. She told Sky News that Mrs May 'will have to decide what to do', adding: 'What people will be asking for is for those feeble negotiators to go because they cannot take us forward to the next stage.' She praised the Prime Minister's 'dedication' but, when asked if she should resign, she added: 'I think that what is best for her is, really only she knows. But what I do know is we as a party want to be able to thank her. She needs a dignified departure, so however that works best for her.' Miss McVey said the next Tory leader 'would have to be a Brexiteer' and the Cabinet would have to be 'Brexiteer-minded'. And she made it clear she was ready to throw her hat into the ring when Mrs May indicates she is stepping down. Asked if she would stand, she said: 'If there were enough people who supported me. If it seemed there was a reasonable chance, I would.' Meanwhile, Tory MP Charlie Elphicke warned explicitly that his support for the deal depended on 'a change of leadership'. Mr Elphicke, a member of the hardline European Research Group, said: 'What I am clear on is that if we are going to support it, there needs to be a change of negotiating team for the future relationship because there's no way to be carrying on with Parliament. So I think for me we need to have a change of leadership, and a new face and a new team to take us forward.' Asked if his vote was 'up for grabs', Mr Elphicke told the BBC: 'I'm listening carefully, considering carefully about the balance of things. I'm also interested in what the Prime Minister says about how we're going to take forward the negotiation... so the problems in the withdrawal agreement are not replicated when we actually come to do the future relationship with the EU.' Mrs May's former policy chief George Freeman last week called for her to set out a timetable for her departure in the summer. And several Tory MPs have told the Daily Mail privately that a resignation promise could be a 'game changer'. One ERG source said: 'If she doesn't commit to go then they will not get the votes they need. It is not enough for the whips to hint that she might quit people need to hear it, in public, from her own mouth.' Tory MP Andrew Bridgen yesterday said: 'I've been approached by whips offering the PM's resignation if I vote for her deal.' But Government sources denied the claim. Advertisement A man had to be restrained by crew members after allegedly downing a bottle of vodka in the toilet on an international flight. The man, who was named only as 'Henry', was on Qantas Flight 37 from Melbourne to Singapore on February 28 when the incident occurred. Footage of the altercation, shared to Newsflare, shows the moment the man is cornered as he abuses a Qantas crew member. Henry is then retrained in a seat while he continues to verbally abuse staff. Scroll down for video A man had to be restrained by passengers and crew of an international flight after he allegedly consumed a bottle of alcohol in the toilet before abusing flight staff The man, whose name is not known, was on Qantas Flight 37 from Melbourne to Singapore on February 28 when the incident occurred A witness posted a breakdown of the dramatic incident and said they believed the man to be a school teacher from Melbourne. 'This incident happened mid-flight - I was shocked to hear shouting and abusive language behind me,' the witness said. 'The crew members attempted to subdue him however, he was very drunk and apparently he had brought on a bottle of vodka onto the flight from duty free and had consumed it in the bathroom without anyone else's knowledge.' When the video begins the man is filmed saying one of the crew members had been 'an asshole all his life'. The witness says the man allegedly punched a male crew member in the back before passengers rushed in to help. Two male passengers are seen coming to the aid of crew as they try to calm the man and stop people filming. Once the unruly passenger is restrained and seated one of the pilot's attempted to calm him down. But the man continued to rant at crew members, even falsely calling them 'paedophiles'. 'Paedophiles like George Bell, people like you look like George Bell alright yeah yeah people like you are paedophiles so you cannot tell me how to behave,' he says to one crew member. The Qantas pilots made the decision not to divert the aircraft as the closest airport was Singapore, which was their destination. After the aircraft landed, the man was arrested by Singaporean police officers. 'All passengers including myself were quite shocked that this happened but thoroughly impressed with how the Qantas Staff managed to control the man without any further incident despite his obvious abusive towards the staff,' the witness continued. 'His remarks to the male crew members likening them to George Pell and calling them paedophiles was very distressing and upsetting.' Daily Mail Australia contacted police but could not get confirmation on whether the man was charged over the incident. Taking a low-dose aspirin every day has long been known to cut the chances of another heart attack, stroke or other heart problem in people who already have had one, but the risks don't outweigh the benefits for most other folks according to new guidelines. People without heart disease who take a daily aspirin may lower their risk of a heart attack or stroke, but a new study confirms they also have an increased risk of severe internal bleeding. Although it's been used for more than a century, aspirin's value in many situations is still unclear. Its no longer recommended as a preventative for older adults who dont have a high risk or existing heart disease according to guidelines announced Sunday Doctors may consider aspirin for certain older high-risk patients, such as those who have trouble lowering their cholesterol or managing their blood sugars, as long as there is no increased risk for internal bleeding, the guidelines in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology say. European guidelines recommend against the use of anti-clotting therapies such as aspirin at any age. 'Clinicians should be very selective in prescribing aspirin for people without known cardiovascular disease,' John Hopkins cardiologist Dr. Roger Blumenthal, who co-chaired the new guidelines, said in a statement. 'It's much more important to optimize lifestyle habits and control blood pressure and cholesterol as opposed to recommending aspirin.' 'For the most part, we are now much better at treating risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and especially high cholesterol,' said North Carolina cardiologist Dr. Kevin Campbell to CNN. 'This makes the biggest difference, probably negating any previously perceived aspirin benefit in primary prevention.' The guidelines were put together by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. Campbell says, he "would advocate a healthy lifestyle, smoking cessation and risk-factor modification before even considering aspirin therapy in a patient without known cardiovascular disease." However, for anyone who has had a stroke, heart attack, open-heart surgery or stents inserted to open clogged arteries, aspirin can be life-saving. "Ultimately, we must individualize treatment for each patient, based on their individual situation," Campbell said. In some of the latest studies which have been the largest and longest to test the pennies-a-day blood thinner in people who don't yet have heart disease or a blood vessel-related problem. One found that aspirin did not help prevent first strokes or heart attacks in people at moderate risk for one because they had several health threats such as smoking, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Another tested aspirin in people with diabetes, who are more likely to develop or die from heart problems, and found that the modest benefit it gave was offset by a greater risk of serious bleeding. U.S. doctors have long advised adults who haven't had a heart attack or stroke but are at high risk for these events to take a daily aspirin pill, an approach known as primary prevention. Even though there's clear evidence aspirin works for this purpose, many physicians and patients have been reluctant to follow the recommendations because of the risk of rare but potentially fatal internal bleeding. In one study, people who took daily aspirin had a 0.38 percent lower absolute risk of heart attacks, strokes or deaths from cardiovascular events than people not taking this drug. However, aspirin was also associated with a 0.47 percent higher absolute risk of severe internal bleeding. Aspirin did not help prevent cancer as had been hoped. And fish oil supplements, also tested in the study of people with diabetes, failed to help. 'The results demonstrate that there are cardiovascular benefits, but that they are quite closely matched by increased risks of serious bleeding,' said lead study author Dr. Sean Zheng of King's College London and Imperial College London. 'There's been a lot of uncertainty among doctors around the world about prescribing aspirin' beyond those for whom it's now recommended, said one study leader, Dr. Jane Armitage of the University of Oxford. 'If you're healthy, it's probably not worth taking it.' New Zealanders living in Australia have performed a moving haka to honour the victims of the Christchurch massacre - joining in on the tributes held by gang members back home. Hundreds of people gathered at Surfer's Paradise in Gold Coast on Monday to observe a minute of silence for the 50 people killed in the country's worst mass shooting in history. The group of men who organised the event then invited members of the public to join them in their emotional performance of Ka Mate. Footage of the emotional tribute was posted on Facebook and has since gone viral. Hundreds of people gathered at Surfer's Paradise in Gold Coast on Monday to observe a minute of silence for the 50 killed in the country's worst mass shooting in history The emotional haka was performed by New Zealanders living in Australia to pay tribute to the the massacre victims. Footage of the performance was posted on Facebook and has gone viral Facebook user Levi Jones-Rapaea explained the haka is intended to convey a message of 'challenge, struggle, perseverance and achievement' Facebook user Levi Jones-Rapaea explained the haka is intended to convey a message of 'challenge, struggle, perseverance and achievement.' 'It is also used at tangi (funerals) to pay homage and respect to those who have guided young people through difficult times, such as these times we all face today. I hope we all find comfort and pride in the fact the we as people are still capable of great and beautiful things such as this heart moving gesture shown here, even in the face of unspeakable tragedy,' he said in a comment garnering more than 2,300 likes. One man in the video can be seen wearing Red Band gumboots in an apparent nod to New Zealand, where the brand originated. Dion Tuamata, who helped organise the tribute, told the Gold Coast Bulletin the community always 'pulls together' in the wake of tragedy. 'Christchurch is very dear to my heart and it's great to have the support of the community as always,' he said. 'It's a very emotional thing you've got to attach emotion to perform the haka and we're just trying to show support to the brothers and those ones that passed away.' The event comes a day after one of New Zealand's largest Maori gangs performed a haka near the police cordon at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch. Hundreds gathered to show support for the victims (pictured) On Sunday, one of New Zealand's largest Maori gangs Black Power performed an emotional haka near to Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch The poignant moment saw around 10 members of Black Power perform the haka (pictured) Nearly three days since the horrific terror attack in Christchurch, which left 50 worshippers dead, new details about the innocent victims are emerging The poignant moment on Sunday saw around 10 members of Black Power, which was first formed in 1970, perform the ceremonial dance for mourners who had gathered at a flower vigil to pay their respects to the victims of Friday's terror attack. A gang spokesman, who did not want to be named, said 'no words' could explain how hurt people were feeling. 'Even though people call us a gang and what not, we live in this community together and it has just brought everyone together, it doesn't matter what you wear or what colour your skin is, or what you stand for, your religion, it's just brought everyone together like the earthquakes,' he told The Daily Telegraph. The unidentified spokesman also warned that the type of extremism exhibited in the recent attack has been around for 'decades' and New Zealanders should be wary. 'That [white power extremism] has been here for years, it's been here for decades, every respect for a person who shows who they are but others hide behind something. Those are the people you have to be aware about and careful about because they do not express how they feel, they just blow up and something like this is the result,' he said. An average 14-year-old uses social media for three to four hours a day, it claims Social media giants are being allowed to operate in a lawless Wild West in which vulnerable children have to fend for themselves, a major report warns today. Teenagers are increasingly at risk of becoming addicted to sites such as Facebook and Instagram a problem so harmful that experts want officials to investigate whether it could be classified as a disease. MPs on the all-party parliamentary group on social media and young peoples mental health and wellbeing are calling for tough new regulations on social networking companies and want them in place within seven months. The report said the average 14-year-old is now using social media for three to four hours a day. At this level of use, 27 per cent of youngsters have symptoms of mental health problems, compared with 12 per cent of those who do not use social media [File photo] Their report said social media firms should be taxed to fund measures that protect young people. They proposed a 0.5 per cent levy on profits to fund research, educational programmes and clearer guidance for the public. Companies must also accept they have a duty of care to their users and must adhere to a legally-binding code of conduct to be enforced by Ofcom. Labour MP Chris Elmore, chairman of the group, said: Our report is the wake-up call needed to ensure, finally, that meaningful action is taken to lessen the negative impact social media is having on young peoples mental health. Teenagers are also under pressure to conform to beauty standards that are perpetuated and praised online, pushing them to achieve results, including disordered eating and body shame, the MPs conclude [File photo] For far too long social media companies have been allowed to operate in an online Wild West. And it is in this lawless landscape that our children currently work and play online. This cannot continue. As the report makes clear, now is the time for the Government to take action. The report said the average 14-year-old is now using social media for three to four hours a day. At this level of use, 27 per cent of youngsters have symptoms of mental health problems, compared with 12 per cent of those who do not use social media. Teenagers are also under pressure to conform to beauty standards that are perpetuated and praised online, pushing them to achieve results, including disordered eating and body shame, the MPs conclude. The report found 46 per cent of girls say social media has a negative impact on their self-esteem. The impact of social media on the young was thrust into the spotlight earlier this year by the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell. She showed no signs of mental distress, but took her own life after viewing graphic images on Instagram that glamorised self-harm. Teenagers are increasingly at risk of becoming addicted to sites such as Facebook and Instagram a problem so harmful that experts want officials to investigate whether it could be classified as a disease [File photo] Since then, the Government has indicated it will publish a white paper forcing social media firms to sign a code of conduct protecting young and vulnerable users. Dr Max Davie, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: Social media has changed the social landscape and our children and young people are the test pilots. Evidence suggests screen time in itself is not harmful to child health but when it displaces other important activities such as sleep, physical activity and face-to-face interaction it can lead to harm. Shocking footage has captured the moment a man armed with a knife was tasered and tackled to the ground by police in Sydney's west on Monday. Officers can be seen trying to talk with the man before they grabbed him outside Granville police station, near Parramatta, as morning commuters made their way to work. Two inspectors were walking towards the front door of the Carlton Street premises shortly after 7.30am AEDT when the incident occurred, the New South Wales Police Force has confirmed. Scroll down for video Shocking footage has captured the moment a man armed with a knife was tasered and tackled to the ground by police in Sydney's west on Monday That is when the man wielding a knife allegedly approached the officers. One officer deployed a taser after the man on the street had refused to comply with their directions and kept walking towards them. He was then arrested and will be taken to Westmead Hospital for assessment. The man, wearing a light blue jacket, was observed carrying a large knife. Other officers were seen running outside the police station on to the footpath a short time later in full view of the commuters heading to work. New Zealanders are stocking up on assault rifles as the country's relaxed gun laws appear set to change. White supremacist Brenton Tarrant allegedly killed 50 people in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said she is committed to strengthening the nation's gun control laws. David Tipple, managing director of Gun City - one of New Zealand's biggest firearm retailers - revealed on Monday the 28-year-old Australian had purchased four weapons and ammunition from the store, but they were not the same ones used in the attack. He was unable to confirm if the shotgun used in the shootings was purchased at Gun City. New Zealanders are stocking up on assault rifles as the country's relaxed gun laws appear set to change. Pictured: Firearms on display at Gun City in New Zealand Gun City managing director David Tipple said Brenton Tarrant placed 'three or four' online orders for guns from November 2017 up until the most recent order in March 2018. Pictured: A controversial Gun City billboard David Tipple, managing director of Gun City (pictured) - one of New Zealand's biggest firearm retailers - revealed on Monday the 28-year-old Australian had purchased four weapons and ammunition from the store Mr Tipple (pictured) said Tarrant placed 'three or four' online orders for guns from November 2017 until March 2018 'I have informed the police that Gun City sold the alleged gunman four ''A Category'' firearms and ammunition,' Mr Tipple said during a press conference. 'All Gun City sales to this individual followed a police-verified online mail order process.' Mr Tipple said Tarrant placed 'three or four' online orders for guns from November 2017 until March 2018. 'We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder. The MSSA (military-style semi-automatic weapon) reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City,' he said. 'Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only ''A Category'' firearms. 'I and Gun City fully support the Prime Minister's swift and decisive actions following this tragedy. 'We will be fully co-operating with the police and government to ensure that any review and changes to legislation prevent a reoccurance. 'Accurate concerns have been raised and we want to assist in ensuring effective responses. 'I am offering any help I can with improvements and am writing to the Prime Minister and police.' Tipple said he would keep the store open despite its closeness to the mosques where the shootings took place. 'We didn't sell him the rifle used in the incident. I watched the video and saw the rifle... and it was not from any Gun City-affiliated store,' Mr Tipple said. He said Tarrant bought the guns a month after he obtained his gun licence. Mr Tipple said he supported 'swift and decisive actions' following the massacre in Christchurch. Pictured: A Gun City billboard in Christchurch Mr Tipple (pictured) disputed reports that people have been 'panic buying' assault rifles Firearms owners and sellers reported increased buying of semi-automatic weapons following the shooting, while a gun shop owner in Auckland said their phone was ringing constantly with shoppers looking to buy. Gun City's Auckland store has sold out of AR15s but other semi-automatic guns were available to buy, Stuff reported. Mr Tipple disputed reports that people had been 'panic buying' assault rifles, saying that was not the case. The shop describes itself as the 'largest gun store in the world', and has stores in each major centre in New Zealand including Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Gun City was criticised in the wake of the shootings for a billboard showing a man teaching young children how to shoot air rifles in the backyard. Mr Tipple said he would consider removing the billboard. New Zealand's legislation concerning semi-automatic weapons was written after the Aramoana massacre in 1990, when David Gray killed 13 people after a dispute with his neighbour. Lightweight AR15s can be bought with a standard gun rifle licence, and can then be modified to become MSSA weapons. Three students from the same high school were killed in Friday's horror mosque shooting in Christchurch. Sayyad Milne and Hamza Mustafa both attended Cashmere High School in south Christchurch, and had been signed out of school early to attend Friday prayers. School principal Mark Wilson confirmed both boys, aged 14 and 16, were killed in the attack. Former Cashmere student Tariq Omar, 24, was also among the dead. Cashmere High School student Sayyad Milne (pictured), 14, who was at Friday prayers when the shooting started, died in the attack Mr Wilson described Sayyad as 'an awesome kid, with kind eyes, a big heart and a cheeky smile. 'He was planning to be an engineer or an architect,' he told Newshub. Hamza Mustafa's family fled the Syrian civil war and arrived in New Zealand to start their new lives. Mr Wilson said Hamza was a compassionate young man, who had made solid friendships in his short time at the school. He said he loved horses and hoped to be a veterinarian after he graduated. Hamza Mustafa (pictured) was shot and killed during the terrorist attack. He had left school early for the day to attend Friday prayers Hamza's mother, Salwa Mustafa, was on the phone to him when he was shot and killed on Friday during the attack. 'He said: ''Mum, there's someone come into the mosque and he's shooting us,'' and he was running with his brother who had been shot in his leg,' Ms Mustafa told Stuff. She described her late son as 'the most wonderful boy' who was 'very caring and polite.' His 13-year-old brother Zaid, who was also in the church at the time, is currently recovering in hospital after he was shot in the leg. Tariq Omar attended the school in his youth, and was also murdered in the brazen attack. Tariq Omar (pictured) attended the school in his youth, and was also murdered in the brazen attack His mother Rosemary Omar allegedly dropped Mr Omar off at the mosque before driving around the back in search of parking. She heard multiple gunshots and drove back to the front to find 'lots of bodies outside', NZ Herald reported. Two other fathers of pupils were also in the Al Noor Mosque during the attack, Mr Wilson said. One was injured, while the other man was shot dead. He said students at the school have already started fundraising for the families that have been impacted during the assault. Sayyad Milne and Hamza Mustafa both attended Cashmere High School (pictured) in Christchurch and had been signed out of school early to attend Friday prayers Brenton Tarrant has been charged with one count of murder, with more charges expected to follow in the coming days. The 28-year-old is accused of planning and executing the attacks on Al Noor Mosque and later Linwood Masjid on Friday, where he shot dead 50 people and left dozens more critically injured. The accused gunman, who was born in Australia and grew up in Grafton, NSW, had been living in Dunedin when he allegedly carried out New Zealand's worst mass murder in history on Friday. Advertisement The two heroes of the Christchurch mosque massacre have made an emotional return to the scene of the bloodshed. Linwood mosque Imam Abdul Lateef Zirullah, better known as Brother Lateef, and 'Eftpos machine hero' Abdul Aziz, from Australia, were re-united for a traditional Maori 'cleansing' ceremony at the Linwood mosque, where the pair's heroics saved many lives on Friday. An emotional Mr Lateef broke down in tears during the service and was comforted by mourners, including a police officer who was seen laying a friendly hand on the Imam's back. The service was held just metres away from a growing mountain of flowers, and on a street where strangers have spent the weekend spontaneously hugging Muslims. A picture of Mr Lateef soaked in blood has become one of the enduring images of the tragedy, which has been described as New Zealand's 'darkest day' with the loss of 50 lives. Mr Lateef was the first to spot accused gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant and raise the alarm outside the second mosque on Friday afternoon, warning worshippers to get down. Scroll down for video Brother Abdul Lateef Zirullah (left) and Abdul Aziz (right), the two surviving heroes of the mass shooting at Linwood mosque attack, have made an emotional return to the scene three days on Brother Lateef broke down in tears during a traditional Maori ceremony at the mosque. He was the first person to spot accused gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant out the window and warned worshippers inside, saving countless lives During Monday's ceremony a policeman placed a comforting hand on the back of Mr Lateef as he broke down in tears 'From the window, I sighted him (and) I thought maybe he was a policeman,' Mr Lateef told Daily Mail Australia. 'But then when I saw on the floor next to him was another (dead) lady, I said "no".' Mr Lateef could hear the killer's muffled, but clearly offensive, yelling, through the window. 'I can't hear him very well clearly inside but I know he was saying something, like using this vulgar word,' he said. 'I realised he is amiss and something must be done. Initially people didn't understand but eventually people got to know what happened.' After being alerted to the gunman by Mr Lateef, Mr Aziz picked up the first thing he could find - an Eftpos machine - and ran to confront the attacker. When he got outside Tarrant had returned to his car to swap guns. Mr Lateef told Daily Mail Australia that he saw Brenton Harrison Tarrant (pictured) out the window of the mosque and initially thought he was a policeman, before noticing a dead body on the ground nearby Moments after the gunman fled the scene Mr Lateef was photographed on the street wearing a bloodstained garment An emotional Mr Lateef was comforted by dozens of mourners during the traditional cleansing ceremony Mr Lateef told how after he warned worshippers, Abdul Aziz (right) grabbed an Eftpos machine and ran outside to chase the accused gunman When Tarrant returned to his car to get another gun Mr Aziz chased after him and hurled the gun at the car, shattering the windscreen and scaring him away Mr Aziz (right) said he could hear his two young sons inside the mosque urging him to come back inside and away from danger 'From the window, I sighted him... I thought he was a policeman,' Brother Lateef said. He then noticed dead bodies outside the mosque and yelled out to the worshippers at Friday prayers Mr Aziz then saw a discarded weapon on the ground and picked it up, before aiming at Tarrant and squeezed hard on the trigger - but it was empty. 'He got into his car and I just got the gun and threw it on his window like an arrow and blasted his window... that's why he got scared,' Mr Aziz said. Inside the mosque Mr Aziz said he could hear his two young sons, aged 11 and five, calling for him to come back inside. Mr Lateef said he had seen the iconic photograph of his robe covered in blood just moments after the massacre. 'I was trying to rescue some brothers,' he said. 'I was thinking I could do something to save their lives, but, unfortunately, some of them, most of them had passed.' Maori leader performs the traditional cleansing ceremony at the Linwood Mosque on Monday The ceremony, known as a karakia, is regularly held after tragic deaths and is similar to rituals performed by indigenous Australians Nearly three days since the horrific terror attack in Christchurch which left 50 worshippers dead, new details about the innocent victims are emerging VICTIMS OF THE NEW ZEALAND MOSQUE MASSACRES As of 2am AEDT Monday Mucad Ibrahim, 3 Abdullahi Dirie, 4 Sayyad Milne, 14 Khaled Mustafa, 45, and son Hamza, 16 Naeem Rashid and his son Talha, 21 Tariq Omar, 24 Ozair Kadir, 24 Syed Areeb Ahmed, 26 Ansi Alibava, 25 Ramiz Vora, 28 Farhaj Ahsan, 30 Mojammel Hoq, 30 Atta Elayyan, 33 Hussein Al-Umari, 36 Mohammed Omar Faruk, 36 Junaid Ismail, 36 Osama Adnan Abu Kwik, 37 Zeehan Raza, 38 Kamel Darwish, 39 Dr Haroon Mahmood, 40 Husne Ara Parvin, 42 Syed Jahandad Ali, 43 Mohammad Imran Kahn, 47 Mathullah Safi, 55 Amjad Hamid, 57 Lilik Abdul Hamid, 58 Arifbhai Mohamedali Vora, 58 Ghulam Hussain, in his 60s Karam Bibi, in her 60s Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60 Abdelfattah Qasem, 60 Ashraf Ali, 61 Mohsin Al-Harbi, 63 Linda Armstrong, 65 Maheboob Khokhar, 65 Muhammed Abdusi Samad, 66 Ali Elmadani, 66 Mounir Soliman, 68 Ahmad Gamaluddin Abdel Ghani, 68 Hussein Moustafa, 70 Abdukadir Elmi, 70 Haji-Daoud Nabi, 71 Still Missing: Zakaria Bhuiyan Advertisement Mr Lateef said he was 'very pleased' with a Maori cleansing of the land and blessing, which was held at the mosque on Monday morning. The ceremony, known as a karakia, is regularly held after tragic deaths and was organised by the staff of New Zealand deputy police commissioner Wallace Haumaha. Mr Haumaha said the process was much like an indigenous Australian cultural ritual. 'It's important to have that cleansing,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'We use it ... to ensure we have cleansed all the evilness - not so much evilness, but everything left behind by those deaths, to allow the living to move on.' It came after a Maori gang earlier performed a touching haka during a memorial at the Al Noor mosque on the other side of Christchurch. Around ten members of Black Power, which was first formed in 1970, gathered near the police cordon at the mosque to perform the ceremonial dance on Sunday. The death toll from the terror attack has risen to 50, with new details about the innocent victims continuing to emerge. They include, Junaid Ismail, 36, who left behind a wife, three young children and a mother who relied on him to care for her. Another, Ansi Alibava, 25, was eagerly awaiting her graduation ceremony from her masters degree in May, while Hussein Al-Umari, 36, was a regular at the Masjid Al Noor mosque. Ozair Kadir (pictured), 24, was a student pilot at the International Aviation Academy of New Zealand and had been in Christchurch for just a year when he was killed on Friday Syed Jahandad Ali, 43, from Pakistan was one of the 50 victims killed in the terror attack in Christchurch on Friday Maheboob Allarakha Khokhar (left), 65, who was due to return to India on Sunday after visiting his son in Christchurch and Husna Ara Parvin (right), who was reportedly gunned down as she tried to save her quadriplegic husband from the shooter Ashraf Ali (pictured) a respected imam at the Masjid Al Noor mosque who was originally from Fiji, is also thought to be among the dead Also among the dead is Tariq Omar, 24, who is remembered for his kind and humble nature and was a former student of Cashmere High School in Christchurch. Kamel Darwish, 38, who moved to Christchurch from Jordan six months ago and was awaiting the arrival of his wife and three children - was convinced to go to New Zealand by his brother, who had lived there since 2007 and said it was a 'safe place to raise a family'. Sixty-year-old Abdelfattah Qasem, from Palestine, was also killed on Friday at the Masjid Al Noor mosque - he was the Muslim Association of Canterbury's former secretary. Another among the dead is Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60, who was visiting Christchurch to see his son and was a highly respected leader of the Fiji Muslim League - he left behind his wife Saira Bibi Patel, three daughters and two sons. Ramiz Arifbhai Vora, 28, and his father Arifbhai Mohamedali Vora, 58, were both shot dead on Friday. The 28-year-old lived and worked in Christchurch and had a baby daughter a week before he was killed in the vicious attack - his father was visiting him from India at the time. Syed Areeb Ahmed (pictured), 26, from Karachi, Pakistan lost his life in the horrific shooting attacks in Christchurch on Friday Linda Armstrong (left), 65, and Tariq Omar, 24, were also brutally killed by the shooter on Friday in Christchurch Sixty-year-old Abdelfattah Qasem from Palestine was also killed on Friday at the Masjid Al Noor mosque - he was the Muslim Association of Canterbury's former secretary Ali Elmadani (right), 65, was a retired engineer who immigrated to New Zealand in 1998. Sohail Shahid (left), from Pakistan was also killed Ozair Kadir, 24, was a student pilot at the International Aviation Academy of New Zealand and had been in Christchurch for just a year when he was killed on Friday. Another among the victims is Maheboob Allarakha Khokhar, 65, who was due to return to India on Sunday after visiting his son in Christchurch. Four-year-old Abdullahi Dirie was also named among the dead after both he and his father Adan were shot at one of the mosques, while four of his siblings escaped unhamed. Abdullah's family fled Somalia in the 1990s and made New Zealand their home, he was the youngest in his family. Before he was brutally killed, Amjad Hamid, 57, was a senior Medical Officer and Rural Hospital Consultant at Hawera Hospital who has been remembered for his kindness, compassion and sense of humour. National-level futsal player Atta Elayyan (right) was reportedly killed on Friday. He is being remembered as an 'inspiration' A recently identified victim is 38-year-old Kamel Darwish who moved to New Zealand from Jordan six months ago (pictured) Ramiz Arifbhai Vora (left), 28, and his father Arifbhai Mohamedali Vora (right), 58, were both shot dead by the gunman on Friday. Mohammed Omar Faruk (pictured), 36, from Bangladesh was shot dead on Friday at the mosque attacks in Christchurch Another among the victims is Mounir Soliman, 68, from Egypt who was a design engineer working at Scotts Engineering in Christchurch since 1997. Zeehan Raza, 38, is also among those killed and was a mechanical engineer who moved to New Zealand from Pakistan in 2018 - both he and his parents Ghulam Hussain and Karam Bibi, were killed at the Linwood Masjid mosque. Another believed to be among the dead is Bangladeshi Husna Parvin, who was reportedly gunned down as she tried to save her wheelchair-bound quadriplegic husband from the shooter. Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim died in the arms of his father and brother, who only survived because he played dead. Mucad Ibrahim was attending Friday prayers with his father and older brother Abdi Ibrahim when a gunman stormed the al Noor mosque in Christchurch and opened fire on the worshippers. It's believed that at the time of the horrific attack, Mucad ran from the gunman while his father and brother played dead. Tarrant dismissed his lawyer on Monday morning and now plans to represent himself in future court proceedings. Richard Peters said the gunman had informed him he wanted to represent himself as his case heads to a trial. Ansi Alibava (pictured) came to New Zealand to pursue a Master of Agribusiness Management at Lincoln University Lilik Abdul Hamid, 58, from Medan, Indonesia (pictured), who died in the mosque left behind two children Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim (left) was also named among the dead after he passed away in the arms of his father and brother, who only survived because he played dead. Cardiologist Amjad Hamid (right) was mowed down after moving to New Zealand 23 years ago because he wanted a better future for himself and his wife Haji Daoud Nabi (pictured), 71, a father-of-five and retired engineer, moved to New Zealand from Afghanistan in 1977 and set up a new life as one of the 'first Muslims in New Zealand'. He is thought to be among the dead in the Christchurch shooting Khaled Mustafa (pictured) arrived in New Zealand only a few months ago from Syria with his family, his son Hamza, 16 also died Osama Adnan Abu Kwik, 37, from Palestine (pictured) was in the process of applying for New Zealand citizenship when he was killed Mojammel Hoq, 30, from Bangladesh (left) and Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60, from Fiji (right) also died in the shooting on Friday Talha Naeem, 21, (pictured) was shot at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Ave, his father was also killed on Friday Hussein Al-Umari, 35, (pictured) was a regular at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Ave, Christchurch, where he was killed Muhammed Abdusi Samad, 66, from Bangladesh (pictured) was a lecturer at Lincoln University and frequently led prayers at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Ave Mr Peters said while the decision may seem irrational, Tarrant appeared to be 'clear and lucid', and did not appear to be mentally unstable. Tarrant never told him why he wanted to represent himself, but Mr Peters said he 'presumes the basis for that is that he thinks the job would be done better himself'. The shock decision has raised concerns Tarrant will use what will be a high-profile murder trial as a platform to spread hate and vile anti-Muslim rhetoric. 'I suspect that he won't shy away from publicity, and that will probably be the way he runs the trial. The job of the trial judge will be to deal with that,' Mr Peters said. 'But it's not a place for any views to be put forward. It's simply there to determine innocence or guilt. 'The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views.' Tarrant is currently facing one charge of murder, but more charges are expected to be laid in the coming days. The 28-year-old who grew up in Grafton, in regional New South Wales, live-streamed his alleged attack on Facebook. He did not apply for bail or for his name to be suppressed during a brief appearance in court on Saturday, and is expected to front the High Court on April 5. Naeem Rashid (pictured), from Abbottabad in Pakistan, was hailed a hero after he tried to wrestle the gun from the Christchurch shooter on Friday. But he was badly wounded after sadly died later in hospital Cashmere High School student Sayyad Milne (pictured), 14, who was at Friday prayers when the shooting started, is believed to be dead. Although it's not been officially confirmed, his father has spoken of his loss Dr Haroon Mahmood (pictured) leaves a wife and two children aged 13 and 11 A spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that five Pakistani citizens are missing (pictured missing person Syed Jahandad Ali) At least one Jordanian was killed in the attacks and two are critical among the eight injured, Jordan's Foreign Ministry announced US-backed forces said on Sunday that thousands of people were believed to still be inside the last Islamic State group enclave in eastern Syria, as they sought to flush out die-hard fighters with airstrikes and shelling. Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks - and they still keep coming. The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down their offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the jihadists' once-sprawling proto-state. US-backed forces said on Sunday that thousands of people were believed to still be inside the last Islamic State group enclave in eastern Syria At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw white smoke rising above the IS enclave as the sound of airstrikes and shelling rang out. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout IS fighters are making a last stand. The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire on the jihadists for a week, blitzing thousands of fighters and family members into surrender. But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference Sunday that according to the latest group that quit the pocket, 'an estimated 5,000 people' are still holed up inside. Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks - and they still keep coming He cautioned, however, that the SDF has not been able to verify that figure. Those fleeing the pocket have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred. The SDF spokesman said there was no clear timeline for the end of the operation, estimating that it may take several more days at least before IS is driven from its last pocket. The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down their offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the jihadists' once-sprawling proto-state 'I hope it won't take more than a week but this is a personal estimate,' he said in the village of Sousa in eastern Syria. Gabriel said that nearly 30,000 IS members and their relatives have surrendered to US-backed forces since January 9, including more than 5,000 fighters. An additional 34,000 civilians have been evacuated from the IS redoubt over the same period, he said. At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw white smoke rising above the IS enclave as the sound of airstrikes and shelling rang out The exodus has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced further north, where civilians have been transported. More than 1,300 jihadists have been killed and around 520 have been captured in special operations by the SDF since the battle for Baghouz started, Gabriel said. The SDF said on Saturday that dozens of jihadists and their relatives had handed themselves over. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout IS fighters are making a last stand They include Europeans, Turks, Chinese, Iraqis and Syrians, it said in a statement. Die-hard jihadists who stayed behind to defend their last bastion have launched a series of suicide bombings in recent days to hamper the SDF advance. On Friday, IS launched three suicide attacks outside Baghouz, killing six people as they fled the village. Ali Khalaf Ibrahim, an SDF fighter, told AFP on Sunday that the jihadists were putting up a strong defence. The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire on the jihadists for a week, blitzing thousands of fighters and family members into surrender 'Several times they tried to infiltrate (SDF positions) with explosive belts but they were intercepted' by SDF fighters, he said. At the height of its brutal rule, IS controlled territory in Syria and Iraq the size of the United Kingdom, with a population of millions. The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border 'caliphate' it proclaimed more than four years ago. But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference Sunday that according to the latest group that quit the pocket, 'an estimated 5,000 people' are still holed up inside But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast. Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed 370,000 people since it started in 2011. Elsewhere in Syria, landmines left behind by IS have killed at least 17 people in a 24-hour period at the weekend, a war monitor said on Sunday. The SDF spokesman cautioned, however, that the SDF has not been able to verify that figure. An ordnance left behind by jihadists exploded in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Saturday, killing 16 people and wounding 32 others, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A separate landmine explosion in the northern province of Aleppo on Sunday killed one person, the Britain-based Observatory said. Another two SDF fighters were killed Sunday in a mine blast at Hajin, a town near Baghouz, that was claimed by IS in a statement on Telegram. Those fleeing the pocket have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred At least 44 people have been killed in landmine explosions across Syria in the past three weeks, it added. In Damascus, the UN envoy for Syria held talks on Sunday with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who stressed the need for a Syrian-led political solution to the eight-year war. Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen discussed efforts to find a political settlement to the conflict, including moves to form a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution, state media said. Pedersen arrived in Damascus on Sunday in the second such visit since he took up his post in January. The SDF spokesman said there was no clear timeline for the end of the operation, estimating that it may take several more days at least before IS is driven from its last pocket "I hope it won't take more than a week but this is a personal estimate," he said in the village of Sousa in eastern Syria Gabriel said that nearly 30,000 IS members and their relatives have surrendered to US-backed forces since January 9, including more than 5,000 fighters An additional 34,000 civilians have been evacuated from the IS redoubt over the same period, he said The exodus has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced further north, where civilians have been transported A fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) holds a weapon in the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria More than 1,300 jihadists have been killed and around 520 have been captured in special operations by the SDF since the battle for Baghouz started, Gabriel said A fighter of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walks carrying a machine gun at a position close to the camp of Baghouz The SDF said on Saturday that dozens of jihadists and their relatives had handed themselves over They include Europeans, Turks, Chinese, Iraqis and Syrians, it said in a statement Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stand at a position overlooking the camp of Baghouz Die-hard jihadists who stayed behind to defend their last bastion have launched a series of suicide bombings in recent days to hamper the SDF advance US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters stand near the village of Baghouz in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor A fighter of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is seen at a position in the village of Baghouz On Friday, IS launched three suicide attacks outside Baghouz, killing six people as they fled the village Soldiers of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are seen at a position in the village of Baghou Ali Khalaf Ibrahim, an SDF fighter, told AFP on Sunday that the jihadists were putting up a strong defence. "Several times they tried to infiltrate (SDF positions) with explosive belts but they were intercepted" by SDF fighters, he said At the height of its brutal rule, IS controlled territory in Syria and Iraq the size of the United Kingdom, with a population of millions The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border "caliphate" it proclaimed more than four years ago A battered riverside camp after US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) soldiers fought with Islamic State (IS) group jihadists near the village of Baghouz But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast Elsewhere in Syria, landmines left behind by IS have killed at least 17 people in a 24-hour period at the weekend, a war monitor said on Sunday An ordnance left behind by jihadists exploded in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Saturday, killing 16 people and wounding 32 others, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights A separate landmine explosion in the northern province of Aleppo on Sunday killed one person, the Britain-based Observatory said Another two SDF fighters were killed Sunday in a mine blast at Hajin, a town near Baghouz, that was claimed by IS in a statement on Telegram At least 44 people have been killed in landmine explosions across Syria in the past three weeks, it added In Damascus, the UN envoy for Syria held talks on Sunday with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who stressed the need for a Syrian-led political solution to the eight-year war Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen discussed efforts to find a political settlement to the conflict, including moves to form a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution, state media said The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is denying a report that the U.S. intends to leave 1,000 troops in Syria, claiming plans for a residual force of around 200 troops had not changed. The Wall Street Journal had reported Sunday that as talks with Turkey, US-backed Kurdish forces and European allies have failed to produce a deal on a 'safe zone' in northeastern Syria, the U.S. now intends to keep working with Kurdish fighters in the country. It quoted U.S. officials as saying the plan could see up to 1,000 US forces spread across the country. 'A claim reported this evening by a major U.S. newspaper that the U.S. military is developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is factually incorrect,' General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford has denied a WSJ report that Washington intends to leave almost 1,000 troops in Syria 'There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President's direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence.' But he added the U.S. was continuing to 'conduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border.' 'Planning to date has been productive and we have an initial concept that will be refined in the coming days,' he said. 'We are also conducting planning with other members of the Coalition who have indicated an intent to support the transition phase of operations into Syria.' President Donald Trump had abruptly announced in December the immediate and complete withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops deployed in northeastern Syria, declaring victory against the Islamic State group. The decision prompted his defense secretary Jim Mattis to quit. Then, under pressure from Congress and the Pentagon, he agreed to leave a residual force of some 200 US troops, which he wants to be reinforced by allies in the anti-ISIS coalition. An objective of the international force is to guarantee the security of its Syrian Kurd allies. Turkey, a NATO member, views the Kurdish combatants as terrorists, and the Europeans fear they would be vulnerable if Ankara launched an offensive. The WSJ report came as U.S.-backed forces fighting to recapture the last Islamic State group outpost in Syria admitted they were facing 'difficulties' defeating the extremists, saying they were being slowed by mines, tunnels and concerns over harming women and children among the militants. The battle to capture the extremist group's last patch of territory in eastern Syria - a collection of tents covering foxholes and underground tunnels in the village of Baghouz - has dragged on for weeks amid an unexpected exodus of civilians from the area. The sheer number of people who have emerged from Baghouz, nearly 30,000 since early January according to Kurdish officials, has taken the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces by surprise. Most have been women and children whose existence in a labyrinth of underground caves and tunnels was unknown to the fighters. In the last two weeks, many fighters appeared to be among those evacuating. But an unknown number of militants and civilians remain inside, refusing to surrender. 'We are facing several difficulties regarding the operations,' SDF commander Kino Gabriel told reporters outside Baghouz on Sunday. He cited the large number of mines and explosive devices planted by ISIS and the existence of tunnels and hideouts beneath the ground that are being used by the militants to attack SDF forces or defend themselves. People walk inside Baghouz, the Islamic State group's last pocket of territory in Syria, Sunday, March 17, 2019 The camp is all that remains of a self-declared Islamic 'caliphate' that once sprawled across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq. But a declaration of victory and the group's territorial defeat has been delayed as the military campaign sputtered on in fits and starts. A final push by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces started on Jan. 9 but has been paused on several occasions, mainly to allow for civilians to evacuate and fighters to surrender. Underscoring the struggles faced by the SDF as they try to flush the out extremists, three IS fighters emerged from Baghouz on Friday acting as though they wanted to surrender only to blew themselves up, killing six people. The campaign has also been hindered by bad weather. Intermittent storms have at times turned the battlefield to mud and ISIS militants have mounted counteroffensives on windy days, burning tires and oil to try to force the SDF back with smoke. With operations now stretching into the spring, Gabriel faced pointed questions from the press over whether ISIS would be able to resupply itself with water and goods, despite the siege. He said he was not aware of any smuggling tunnels still in operation, and that ISIS was cut off from the outside world. 'I don't think we will be seeing more IS terrorists appearing in this pocket, he said, referring to the group as the Islamic State. He said the SDF no longer estimates how many people remained in Baghouz but added that recent evacuees told the fighting forces that another 5,000 were still inside. The force and the Kurdish-led authorities that administer northeast Syria have banned in recent days journalists from interviewing evacuees from Baghouz. The evacuees are now living in detention-like camps in the self-administered region that international humanitarian organizations say are vastly overcrowded and underserved. They say disease is rampant in the camps and medical care is desperately needed. 'The Daesh terrorists are starting to feel hunger and thirst and we are seeing this in the people who are coming out of the camp,' said Gabriel, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Conservation groups say graphic photos of sharks left to die on drumlines should convince the Queensland government to finally ditch its controversial culling program. Humane Society International and the Australian Marine Conservation Society on Monday renewed their calls for the immediate removal of 173 drumlines on the Great Barrier Reef. They released photos showing two ensnared tiger sharks and a bull shark, which were hooked and left to slowly die off the coast of Magnetic Island. HSI Head of Campaigns Nicola Beynon said the photos left no doubt that the animals met a 'cruel' end. Conservation groups say graphic photos of sharks left to die on drumlines should convince the Queensland government to finally ditch its controversial culling program They released photos showing two ensnared tiger sharks and a bull shark, which were hooked and left to slowly die off the coast of Magnetic Island 'These images show the intense suffering inflicted on marine animals by this outdated practice. Not only does the Queensland Government insist on slaughtering sharks, but it has recently passed legislation making it illegal to document the horror.' Tiger sharks are the most frequently caught and the number of these sharks have dropped by up to three quarters in Queensland waters. The Australian Shark Report Card stated that the number of Tiger sharks will keep dropping unless their management is improved by the government. Humane Society International and the Australian Marine Conservation Society on Monday renewed their calls for the immediate removal of 173 drumlines on the Great Barrier Reef Tiger sharks are the most frequently caught and the number of these sharks have dropped by up to three quarters in Queensland waters The Queensland Government's Fisheries Amendment Bill 2018, which will come into effect soon, outlaws being within 20 metres of shark control equipment on the grounds of 'public safety'. HSI recently challenged the government's shark cull program in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Their lawyers argued the program is in conflict with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's responsibility to protect the reef. The tribunal, which has reserved its decision, also heard evidence that the shark cull program made no difference to the risk of shark bites. An 18-year-old New Zealand man accused of Facebook sharing a live-stream video of the Christchurch massacre that killed 50 people has been denied bail. Police have said the teenager - who cannot yet be named - was not involved in the attack on two mosques. Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with the Friday afternoon murders. The accused teenage Facebook poster appeared in Christchurch District Court on Monday and was granted an interim name suppression order, but he was denied bail by Judge Stephen O'Driscoll. The young man has also been charged with allegedly posting to social media a photograph of one of the South Island mosques being attacked with the message 'target acquired' along with other chat messages 'inciting extreme violence'. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also confirmed she would move to tighten national gun laws, following one of the world's worst peacetime shooting massacres in history. Scroll down for video An 18-year-old New Zealand man (pictured) was refused bail in Christchurch District Court on Monday Police allege the teenager shared a livestream of a mass shooting across two mosques. Pictured: Armed officers patrol a cemetery near Muslim graves in Christchurch The details behind the alleged Facebook poster's bail decision cannot be published. He will reappear in court in April. If found guilty, he could face up to 14 years' jail. Facebook earlier said it had taken down 1.5 million copies of footage of the shooting that had been livestreamed by Tarrant in the 24 hours after the carnage. Authorities and telecommunications companies last week also scrambled to have the videos taken down and urged the public not to share them. Ms Ardern said she had contacted Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg to voice her concerns about the social media giant's sharing of extremist live-streaming material. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also confirmed she would move to tighten national gun laws, following the world's second worst peacetime shooting massacre in history 'I haven't spoken to her directly but she has reached out, an acknowledgment of what has occurred here in New Zealand,' she told reporters on Monday. New Zealand gun laws Appliants for a gun owner's licence in New Zealand are not legally required to establish a genuine reason to possess a standard hunting or sports shooting firearm, but specific reasoning is required for pistols and Military Style Semi-Automatic weapons. That reason could be pest control. There's no restriction on the number of guns or quantity of ammunition a licensed gun owner can have. An applicant for a firearm licence in New Zealand must pass a background check which considers criminal, mental health, medical, addiction and domestic violence. Third-party character references are required. Authorities are required to interview an applicant's partner or ex-partner or next of kin before issuing a gun licence. Gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify every 10 years. An A category rifle, which requires only a standard licence, can legally carry a seven-round magazine. This weapon can be illegally converted into a semi-automatic weapon if that magazine is replaced with, say, a 30-round magazine and a pistol grip added to the stock so gunfire can be sprayed from the hip. Sources: GunPolicy.org and its founding director, Associate Professor Philip Alpers of Sydney University Advertisement 'This is an issue that I will look to be discussing directly with Facebook'. The New Zealand Prime Minister also confirmed she would push to reform the nation's gun laws, which haven't changed since 1992. 'To make our community safer, the time to act is now,' she told reporters on Monday. New Zealand's cabinet has agreed in-principle to a range of gun reforms, but Ms Ardern declined to provide more detail at this stage. The proposed changes could be announced before cabinet meets again next week. Semi-automatic assault rifles are expected to be banned in New Zealand, and gun owners are likely to face stricter registration criteria. 'There are details to work through,' Ms Ardern said. 'These aren't simple areas of law, so that's simply what we'll be taking the time to get right.' Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, who heads the conservative New Zealand First party, endorsed the plan. 'At 1pm on the 15th of March our world changed forever, and so will our gun laws,' Mr Peters said. New Zealand amended its gun laws in 1992, after the Aramoana massacre of November 1990, which saw 13 people shot dead in a small township near Dunedin, following a neighbourhood dispute. Background checks and special permits were introduced 26 years ago, however New Zealand lacks a national gun registry. Police also allege the 18-year-old (not pictured) posted a photograph of one of the mosques attacked with the message 'target acquired'. A youth mourning the attack is pictured above The Christchurch shooting was also New Zealand's first mass shooting since 1994. New Zealand's gun lobby thwarted attempts to reform gun laws in 1999, 2005, 2012 and 2017. Australia banned automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, where 35 people were killed. The death toll in Christchurch, so far, is second only to the Las Vegas carnage of October 2017 which saw 58 people shot dead in the United States, when it comes to firearm-only atrocities in a Western nation involving a lone gunman. Far-right Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik killed more people in July 2011, but he had also used an explosive device before shooting dead 69 participants of a Workers Youth League summer camp on the island of Utoya. New Zealand's biggest companies are set to pull ads from Facebook and Google after the Christchurch massacre gunman was able to live-stream his killing spree. Burger King, Lotto NZ, ASB and Kiwibank are among the companies boycotting ads to take a stand against the harm caused by unmoderated content. According to reports, the footage showed gunman Brenton Tarrant moving through the inside of the mosque in Christchurch and shooting at his victims indiscriminately. The video was later taken down but not before the social media giant was scrutinized for allowing the content. Major Kiwi companies like Lotto NZ and Burger King are set to pull ads from Facebook and Google after Friday's massacre was live-streamed to Facebook The extent of the boycott is still unclear, but the decision comes after the companies' marketing managers discussed what they could do to spark change in the industry. The Association of New Zealand Advertisers (ANZA) and the Commercial Communications Council called on social media platforms to do more to make sure such horrific scenes are never live-streamed again. ANZA chief executive Lindsay Mouat said he had a 'real outpouring of concern' from senior marketers asking what they could do to help change how advertising money is spent, he told NZ Herald. Police guarding the road outside Al Noor mosque in Christchuch where 50 people were killed on Friday, has since sparked concerns over a live-streamed video of the attack posted to Facebook Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken of her intentions to look into how social media can be better regulated, but Mr Mouat says this can take time. Mr Mouat is calling on businesses to seriously consider 'if they wish to be associated with social media platforms unable or unwilling to take responsibility for content on those sites'. He also said he found it really hard to believe that more couldn't be done to moderate the content on social media sites, saying live-streaming poses a massive risk of the same thing happening again. Facebook stands to lose a hefty amount in advertising revenue, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from digital advertising in New Zealand every year. The latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed that a total of $659.5 million was spent on search-based advertising in 2017. However it's not the first time Kiwi brands have pulled ads from certain social media sites. The decision comes just weeks after telco company Spark pulled its advertising from YouTube over concerns about paedophilic content targeted at children. Disney and Nestle followed suit, also removing their ads from YouTube over the content scandal. An 18-year-old is accused of sharing a live-stream of the Christchurch massacre and writing 'target acquired' next to a photo of a mosque faces 14 years behind bars as he's denied bail Several years ago, a number of Kiwi brands also pulled their money after it was revealed that their ads appeared alongside extremist content. France has also adopted a similar stance against graphic content being shared online, after their spate of terror-related killings in 2016. Following the attack in Nice, French media no longer published photos of the perpetrators of killings to avoid possible glorification. Meanwhile, an 18-year-old man accused of sharing a livestream of the shooting that left 50 dead has been denied bail. The teen faces two charges: one of sharing the livestream and a second for posting a photograph of one of the mosques attacked with the message 'target acquired' along with other chat messages 'inciting extreme violence'. He will reappear in court in April. Anthony Comello, 24, was arrested on Saturday in connection with the murder of Francesco 'Franky Boy' Cali'. He is not believed to be connected to the mafia New York law-enforcement officials are bracing themselves against a possible assassination attempt against the Staten Island man who is accused of gunning down mob boss Francesco 'Franky Boy' Cali. Although officials are not saying whether the Gambino crime family has posted a bounty on Anthony Comello's head there is a 'general feeling is that there's an 'X' on this guy's back.' 'He's going to have some issues in jail,' a high-ranking NYPD official said. 'Maybe there's some guys who are wiseguys in jail who will show their allegiance to the Gambinos and say, "We'll take care of this guy"', a source told the New York Post. The sources said that Cali's gangland cronies would more than likely wait until Comello, 24, was serving time in an upstate prison before making an attempt on his life. There is also the inherent risk that another inmate my take matters into their own hands to boost their reputation behind bars. Officials havent confirmed that the Gambino crime family has posted a bounty on Anthony Comello, but 'the general feeling is that theres an X on this guys back,' one source said Police at the scene where Gambino mob boss Frank Cali was fatally shot on Hilltop Terrace in Staten Island Members of the NYPD investigate the scene where Gambino crime family boss Frank Cali was gunned down outside of his Staten Island home Currently, Comello is in custody at New Jersey's Ocean County Jail pending charges in Wednesday night's fatal shooting of Cali, 53, outside his Staten Island home. Cali, the reputed boss of the notorious Gambino crime family, was murdered in cold blood outside of his Staten Island home on Wednesday March 13, shot by a hail of bullets and run over by a pickup truck It's believed the killing occurred as revenge for Cali preventing his niece from dating Comello. Cali was shot 10 times after being lured outside by the killer who used a pickup truck to intentionally ram the mafia don's parked Cadillac Escalade SUV. But Comello, who has no mafia ties whatsoever was tracked down after leaving his fingerprints at the scene. He was taken into custody on Saturday at his family's waterfront vacation home in Brick Township, New Jersey. It's believed that once he is extradited to New York he will be offered the chance for protection. Comello may be held in protective custody, or in a jailhouse medical unit away from other inmates likely to cause him harm. A member of the NYPD uses a metal detector to find bullet shells as NYPD investigate scene John Gotti Jr (left), who was acting boss of the Gambino crime family in the 90s, is demanding a police apology after authorities speculated his uncle mobster Gene Gotti could have been behind the murder of fellow gangster Francesco 'Frankie Boy' Cali (right), who was killed Wednesday Initially, police were thought to be considering heroin dealer Gene Gotti, 72, as the man behind the murder, suspecting he committed the crime in a power move to take over the mob as he was released from prison six months ago after 29 long years. 'Today, an arrest was made. A 24-year-old individual who did it for personal reasons, not street reasons. Is somebody going to apologize to Gene and his family?' 55-year-old Gotti Jr said to the New York Post. 'I wonder if these tremendously insightful law enforcement individuals are going to issue an apology to Gene Gotti,' he added. 'He has grandchildren and to have to endure the last several days of that propaganda nonsense. I'm sure it was hurtful to the kids and this is the problem we have today,' Gotti Jr said. Gotti Jr slammed law enforcement officials 'who are quick to speculate and their government cooperators are all too eager to contribute to these wrong theories.' 'You put individuals into a position where they are guilty until proven innocent,' the It goes to show you how broken the system is.Thank god there are cameras to help law enforcement to do their jobs,' the mobster, whose life was turned into a film called Gotti: in the Shadow of My Father, said. For Cali's slaying, the police are thought to have turned attention to Gene Gotti (above). He was the younger brother of the Gambino crime family's main leader John Gotti, and was just released from prison after 29 years in 2018 Authorities are believed to have thought Gotti coordinated Cali's killing in a power move. After it was revealed Cali's killer was a non-mobster, Gotti's family is now demanding an apology Despite his attempts to shame local police, one unnamed law enforcement officer involved in the case fired right back. 'Tell Junior we will apologize once his family apologizes to the Castellano, Lino and Johnson families, and all the other families whose relatives they killed and got away with. He should stick to the movie business, or whatever else he's doing to pay the bills,' the agent said. Following Cali's murder, police probed whether the killing was a part of mobster clash, with Gotti trying to claim power. Gotti was a famous drug trafficker with the Gambino crime family in New York and was convicted of running his multimillion-dollar heroin smuggling ring in 1989. He spent 29 long years in jail for heroin dealing. 'What troubles me to the core is the simple fact that for two days the Gotti name has been put into the press for these negative reasons and it's been done because it could be done. It's easy' Gotti Jr said. 'It bothers me because (Gene's) family was so excited to come home And to come home and deal with this nonsense Geno never complained. He's cut from his brother's (John Gotti) cloth,' he added. He went so far as to say if it wasn't for surveillance cameras, 'law enforcement would have gotten a government cooperator or cooperators to corroborate their theory and Gene Gotti and others would have been charged for that murder (Cali) within a year.' Police were led to the suspect after finding a finger print on the license plate of Cali's silver Escalade (above), which had fallen from the vehicle after the killer crashed into his car Investigators are seen with forensic equipment outside the Cali's home on Thursday Comello is not a mobster and is believed to have killed Cali in a dispute over a woman in Cali's family. Comello wanted to date the woman and Cali allegedly refused Comello was arrested on Saturday at his New Jersey home and is currently in a New Jersey jail = Comello , meanwhile, worked odd construction jobs has been described as 'a complete nut' and as a 'conspiracy theory type', various sources say. Crime scene investigators discovered a stash of weapons while searching Comello's Staten Island home on Saturday, sources told WCBS-TV. Comello claimed he was high on marijuana and was acting in self defense because Cali had a gun, but the sources say police have so far found no evidence to confirm that claim. Police say Comello has a limited criminal history, including a parking ticket he got on Staten Island on the day of the murder. Comello was arrested after cops reviewed surveillance camera footage from the Cali mansion that had recorded the incident. The footage shows Cali shaking hands with a man, speaking, and when the crime boss turns his back, the hitman unsheathes a 9mm pistol and opens fire. The gunman pulled the trigger 12 times, hitting Cali at least ten times. Scott Morrison's office has blasted The Project host Waleed Aly for 'defamatory' comments he made while calling for unity after the Christchurch mosque attacks. Aly choked back tears during his broadcast on Friday, hitting out at politicians who have allegedly expressed anti-Muslim sentiments in recent years. 'I know there are media reports going back eight years at a shadow cabinet meeting in which another senior politician suggested his party should use community concerns about Muslims in Australia failing to integrate as a political strategy,' he said. 'That person is now the most senior politician we have,' he added in an apparent swipe at Morrison. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Chief Press Secretary Andrew Carswell allegedly blasted Channel Ten after host Waleed Aly made a reference to the prime minister's alleged 'anti-Muslim' sentiments on air on Friday Aly's statement allegedly prompted Mr Morrison's chief press secretary Andrew Carswell to slam the network for defaming the Prime Minister, according to The New Daily. Aly's remarks were in reference to a 2010 meeting during which Mr Morrison, who was just an MP at the time, allegedly suggested the Liberal Party capitalise on 'growing concerns' about Muslim immigration. Five former members of the shadow cabinet, including Peter Dutton and Greg Hunt, denied claims that Mr Morrison encouraged the party to exploit those sentiments, according to The New Daily. A network source told the publication Mr Carswell contacted the channel accusing them of broadcasting 'discredited information' which he claimed was 'defamation effectively of the Prime Minister'. Mr Carswell allegedly said the network had 'failed journalism 101' by neglecting to check its claims. The Prime Minister's office declined to comment when contacted by Daily Mail Australia. Aly's video remains online and has been shared 12 million times. 'I'm gutted, I'm scared, and I'm overcome with utter hopelessness,' the 40-year-old devout Muslim said on Friday. Aly said that because of the global increase of far-right violence in western countries he was not shocked by the attack. Nearly three days since the horrific terror attack in Christchurch which left 50 worshippers dead, new details about the innocent victims are emerging A man was seen with bloodstains on his trousers near the mosque after the shooting 'The most dishonest thing would be to say that I'm shocked, there's nothing about what happened in Christchurch today that shocks me,' he said. The presenter said that as a devout Muslim, he knows what the victims would have been doing before they were shot. 'I know exactly what those moments before the shooting began would have been like,' he said. 'I know how quiet, how still, how introspective those people would have been before they were suddenly gunned down.' Witnesses inside the mosque reported seeing dozens being shot, including children The Project host slammed comments made after the horrific attacks by politician Fraser Anning which he said this kind of speech incites hate. 'I don't want to name him but all parties have denounced him,' Mr Aly said. He was clearly struggling to keep his composure during the speech. 'We are one community and everything we say to try and tear people apart, to demonise groups set them against each other - that all has consequences,' he said. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel Ten for comment. The 17-year-old boy who smashed an egg on the back of Senator Fraser Anning's head has been honoured with an enormous mural in a Melbourne lane way. Will Connolly, from Victoria, was behind Mr Anning at a Conservative National Party Meeting in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon when he egged the senator. Hosier Lane in Melbourne has become a famous tourist attraction in recent years as artists regularly paint over old murals and showcase their talents. The newest addition to the street appeared overnight and is a painting paying homage to the very moment Will filmed himself cracking an egg on Senator Anning. The artwork is believed to have been painted by regular Hosier Lane contributor, Van T Rudd - the nephew of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The 17-year-old boy who smashed an egg on the back of Senator Fraser Anning's head has been honoured with an enormous mural in a Melbourne lane way After the incident, the schoolboy was grabbed around the neck, tackled to the ground and restrained by up to five men. The incident was captured in confronting footage showing the teen being arrested and later removed from the premises. Since the video went viral, a GoFundMe page has been set up to pay for the teenager's legal fees and 'to buy more eggs'. Will Connolly, 17, (pictured) has been inundated with offers of free concert tickets from Australian bands Will Connolly, from Victoria, was behind Mr Anning at a Conservative National Party Meeting in Melbourne, on Saturday afternoon, when he egged the senator 'Our hero EggBoi takes on Fraser Anning, the senator for Queensland that is now despised around the world for comments made after the shooting at a New Zealand mosque,' the GoFundMe page says. The page has far exceeded its original $2,000 goal with more than 14,000 shares on Facebook and more than 1,400 people donating to the cause. It has since reached over $40,000 and is still climbing. 'I have spoken to EggBoi (Will) on the phone a short while ago and he is committed to sending a majority of the money to the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack. I will keep you all updated with how everything pans out,' an update on the GoFundMe page says. Mr Connolly was wrestled to the ground by members of the public after egging Mr Anning during his press conference Since the video of the egging went viral, the teen has seen his online following soar and gained recognition from a number of prolific Australian bands. Bands and music festivals have expressed their admiration for the teen's actions on Twitter. Several Australian music groups have offered the 17-year-old free concert tickets for life, including Hilltop Hoods, The Amity Affliction, The Living End and Violent Soho. 'Egg Boy, you have free entry to any Hoods show for life should you wish,' Hilltop Hoods wrote on Twitter. 'If Egg Boy likes Amity he can have free entry +1 to all of our shows forever,' Joel Birch from The Amity Affliction posted. Several Australian music groups have offered the 17-year-old with free concert tickets for life, including Hilltop Hoods, The Amity Affliction, The Living End and Violent Soho 'Holy s**t, he full smacks him with a lefty and egg boy just cops it and keeps filming. Cool as ya like mate, what a legend! Egg boy has guest list for life. Hell, he can be our official photographer too... Love you egg boy!' Violent Soho tweeted. 'This kid is welcome at any TLE show. Anytime. Anywhere. In egg boy we trust,' The Living End wrote. He's even received the offer from some groups in the United States, such as American hip-hop festival Rolling Loud and indie folk band The Mountain Goats. 'Someone put us in touch with Egg Boy because we want to give him free tickets for life,' Rolling Loud wrote. 'Guest list for life for there #eggboy,' The Mountain Goats said. After he was wrestled, and some Anning supporters even held him in a choke hold, the boy was then led away by police Twitter has erupted with praise of Egg Boy with many creating 'fan art' to show they stand with the 17-year-old The teen even has backing from high-profile criminal lawyers, including Adam Houda, who has publicly stated he will represent him in court free of charge Since the video's circulation, Adam Houda, a high profile criminal lawyer who has defended men charged with terrorist-related offences in the past, is now demanding Mr Anning face charges. On Twitter, the lawyer said it was a clear case of assault on a child. 'I've just seen the footage of the Fraser Anning egging. Anning reacts by assaulting the young man. The police are now obligated to charge Anning,' he tweeted. Mr Houda, who is the former lawyer of Sydney Lindt Cafe siege gunman Man Haron Monis, has offered to represent the teenager free of charge. 'The video evidence is clear. Anning has NO defence. I'll be monitoring the situation carefully. 'I've never chased a client, but I've put it out there that I'm happy to help him (pro bono) It's now up to him and his parents.' High profile lawyer Adam Houda has called for Fraser Anning to be charged after he took a swipe at a protester who egged him during a press conference Adam Houda, known as the go-to lawyer for men charged with terrorist-related offences, is now demanding Mr Anning face charges for his actions Victoria Police released a statement saying they are continuing to investigate the incident 'in its entirety' including the actions of Mr Anning and others. Disturbing footage has also emerged showing Mr Anning's supporters holding the boy to the ground in a choke hold as others taunted the teen. 'You are nothing but a weak f****** human being,' a man could be heard saying. The egging came a day after Mr Anning released a statement where he blamed Muslim immigration for the terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday, where 50 people were killed. 'The real cause of the bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place,' his statement said. He faced wide-spread backlash following the release of his statement. Senator Anning (pictured) took a swipe at a left-wing activist at a protest rally after the 17-year-old cracked an egg on his head A short scuffle ensued before the man was tackled to the ground by other members of the public Attendees of the event held the young man on the ground after the physical altercation One of the far right activists who helped restrain a teenager after he egged Senator Fraser Anning during a press conference is a convicted criminal wanted by police. Neil Erikson, a convicted stalker and racial vilifier, was among the first to intervene after Will Connolly, 17, slammed an egg on the politician's head in Melbourne on Saturday. He and fellow ultra-nationalist Ricky Turner, another to pounce on the teenager, have defended their actions and said they're not worried about the possibility of charges being laid against them. 'I was just making sure the Senator wasn't punched or stabbed,' Mr Turner told Daily Mail Australia on Monday. Erikson (left) and Mr Turner (second left) have defended their actions in restraining Connolly, the teenager who egged Fraser Anning on Saturday The pair helped restrain Connolly, now affectionately known as 'Eggboy' (pictured) and held him in a head lock after he cracked an egg on the controversial senator's head Ricky Turner (pictured with flag) was also one of supporters at the press conference and held Connolly in a headlock as they waited for police to arrive 'What many people don't realise was that he was hit quite hard when the egg was cracked on his head. I was flabbergasted. We didn't know what was happening.' Erikson said he was controlling access to the building when the drama unfolded and claimed had no idea it was a 17-year-old. 'I ran in and held his head down as we didn't know whether he had a knife or not. We held him down for his own protection more than anything,' he said. The pair claim disturbing footage of them holding the teen to the ground was taken out of context and that people were 'trying to make them look bad'. The other three men captured holding Connolly to the down weren't known to them, they said. It has since emerged there is a police warrant out for Erikson's arrest over an alleged invasion of the Gosford Anglican Church in May last year, the Daily Telegraph reports. Neil Erikson (pictured) was one of the first supporters to intervene after Will Connolly, 17, slammed an egg on the politician's head during a Conservative National Party meeting in Melbourne on Saturday Bystanders intervened after Will Connolly cracked an egg on Senator Fraser Anning's head However, it has since been revealed that Erikson (pictured) has a warrant out for his arrest after he invaded the Gosford Anglican Church wielding whips and swords in May Erikson (pictured right with Senator Anning) has long been associated with the controversial independent politican In January, taxpayers paid for Senator Anning to fly to Melbourne for a rally organised by Erikson and Cottrell which involved both right-wing extremists and anti-fascists NSW police confirmed Erikson is a wanted man after he allegedly stormed into the church wielding whips and swords, allegedly alongside convicted criminal United Patriots leader Blair Cottrell. Father Rod Bower, from the Gosford Anglican Church, said he was shocked to see Erikson handle the 17-year-old Mr Connolly with such force. 'There is a lot of difference between putting an egg on someone's head and holding them down in a headlock,' Fr Bower told the paper. 'Erikson is a physically big man and to get on top of that young man is an appalling act of violence. 'It just shows the type of person that is drawn to Senator Anning.' Father Rod Bower (pictured), from the Gosford Anglican Church, said he was shocked to see Erikson handle the 17-year-old Mr Connolly with such force Victoria Police continue to investigate Saturday's incident in Melbourne 'in its entirety' Mr Turner (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia that he held Connolly down with such force because he 'was just making sure the Senator wasn't punched or stabbed' Erikson and Mr Turner (in white cap) told Daily Mail Australia they don't know the other three men who help them restrain the teen Erikson has a long history of controversy and has made headlines for his heavy involvement in the right-wing activist group the United Patriots. He was arrested in 2015 alongside Cottrell for staging a beheading on a mannequin on the steps of the City of Greater Bendigo office during a protest against the construction of a Bendigo mosque. They were found guilty of inciting serious contempt for Muslims. In January of this year, taxpayers paid for Senator Anning to fly to Melbourne for a rally organised by Erikson and Cottrell which involved both right-wing extremists and anti-fascists. Victoria Police released a statement saying they are continuing to investigate the egging incident 'in its entirety' including the actions of Senator Anning and others. Connolly was removed from the premises but released without charge, pending further investigations. Erikson has a long history of controversy and has made headlines for his heavy involvement in the right-wing activist group the United Patriots - headed by Blair Cottrell (pictured) Far-right activist Cottrell (pictured with megaphone) was convicted alongside Erikson for inciting serious contempt for Muslims after they staged a mock beheading in protest of a construction of a Bendigo Mosque in 2015 A teenager who was molested by a sex-crazed female teacher ended up taking his owner life after feeling 'humiliated'. Corbin Madison, 18, was one of four pupils abused by Tennille Whitaker. He was found with a gunshot wound in a truck one year after the married Nevada teacher was arrested. Corbin's father, Terry, is now suing education bosses for allegedly letting her get away with the sexual acts not just with his son but other students too. Nevada elementary school teacher Tennille Whitaker (left) is already serving 20 years in jail after having sex with several teenage boys at her school. One of her victims, Corbin Madison (right) 18, has now taken his own life The lawsuit claims Corbin killed himself because of the 'depression, humiliation and embarrassment' triggered after being exploited and exposed by Whitaker according to The Elko Daily Free Press. The mother-of-two was jailed for 20 years last October on four counts of sexual conduct between a school employee and a pupil. It emerged how she managed to abuse her victims by setting up a 'private reading area' in her classroom that could not be seen from the hallway or any outside windows. Whitaker had sex with four boys, who were all minors, and assign them jobs as aides. She would then have sex with the students during a non-teaching hour. Another victim, Brennen Hooper, told how a school worker caught Whitaker sitting on his knee. Corbin Madison served as student aide in Whitakers classroom on two separate occasions and became part of an investigation that led to the arrest and felony conviction of Whitaker Corbin Madison, 18, was one of four pupils abused by Tennille Whitaker. He was found with a gunshot wound in a truck one year after the married Nevada teacher was arrested The lawsuit claims Corbin killed himself because of the 'depression, humiliation and embarrassment' triggered after being exploited and exposed by Whitaker That lawsuit accuses Elko County School District of a 'failure to address, prevent and/or remove known sexual predators from its ranks.' It also alleges that former Wells High School principal Chris McAnany was warned six times between early 2016 and March 2017 that Whitaker was having 'unlawful sexual relations with minor students.' McAnany had been given warnings by a school district director, a custodial worker, a parent and two teachers. Whitaker, 41, sexually harassed, molested and abused at least four high school boys who were serving as teaching aides in the fourth-grade class she taught at Wells Combined School The lawsuit says school officials 'intentionally ignored multiple complaints regarding Whitaker that allowed Whitaker to sexually harass, molest and abuse children for several years.' She gave them gifts, provided at least one alcohol in exchange for sexual gratification both on and off campus and sometimes drove them to hotels, the lawsuit said. School district supervisory personnel and administration 'had actual knowledge of Whitaker's history of 'grooming'' and abusing minor students between September 2015 and June 2017, the suit said. One school worker told of how they found Whitaker and a student the classroom with all the lights off and the door locked. The lawsuit said the district had a duty to protect the victims, but instead responded with 'deliberate indifference to this known and obvious danger,' and later 'suppressed, concealed or failed to disclose this information.' As a result, the victims suffered fear, anxiety, mental and emotional distress, embarrassment, lack of self-esteem, disgrace and humiliation. One was so traumatized he moved away from Wells days after his high school graduation last year and in August 2018 killed himself. The married mother-of-two had sexual relations while on school grounds. She is pictured here with her husband and two children The sheriff's department began investigating Whitaker's sexual antics after a tip-off from a parent. The mother of two is pictured here with her husband McAnany didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. District Superintendent Todd Pehrson said district officials cannot comment on pending litigation. 'We follow our policies and procedures. The safety of our students is our number one concern at all times,' Pehrson said in an email. Whitaker was arrested in June 2017. During her sentencing last October, Whitaker asked for forgiveness and tearfully apologized to the victims and their families. 'I will be ashamed forever,' she said, according to the Elko Daily Free Press. 'I am truly sorry for betraying the trust of the parents and the victims.' The lawsuit is seeking a total of $45,000 in damages. An ambulance worker who first responded to the horror shooting at a mosque in Christchurch has tearfully spoken about seeing blood seeping from the building's front door. Ambulance technician Paul Bennett said nothing prepared him for the scene he confronted on Friday when he arrived at the Al Noor Mosque after Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, 28, allegedly roamed the mosque, executing those there for Friday prayers. Mr Bennett said by the time he arrived 'there was a river of blood coming out of the mosque... it was literally flowing off the terracotta tiles'. He said he and his colleagues were forced to step over the bodies of the dead to find victims who had survived the massacre. An ambulance worker who responded to the horror shooting at a mosque in Christchurch has tearfully spoken about what he saw 'We tried to get our stretcher into the mosque but we couldn't because there were fatalities in the way. We ended up having to lift the bodies over the top of other bodies on to stretchers,' he said. St John Paramedic Karen Jackson said by the time they had arrived, the walking wounded had left the building. The only people who were left inside were critical, or had already died. Among those on shift when the news broke was a recent graduate from an Australian university on his first day on the job. Jason Watson, an ICU paramedic who was organising logistics at the scene said he was surprised only one victim had died in hospital following the attack People lay flowers and notes to pay tribute, at Deans Ave street close to the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch where at least 50 people were reportedly killed in twin terror attacks 'He had spent a total of four weeks in the back of an ambulance prior to that day, so baptism by fire,' shift supervisor Jason Watson said. 'He turned up at the mosque and took part.' Call handler Spencer Dennehy, nine months in the job, discussed how in her first call she had to keep a woman, whose two-year-old and husband were in one of the mosques at the time, from going after her family. 'She was very emotional and hysterical ... she determined to go,' Ms Dennehy, a Christchurch resident herself, said, noting all three survived. St John Paramedic Karen Jackson said by the time they had arrived, the walking wounded had left the building 'It was very, very distressing ... I was trying to be strong for her.' Jason Watson, an ICU paramedic who was organising logistics at the scene said he was surprised only one victim had died in hospital following the attack. 'A good half of the patients I saw go into the back of ambulances I expected to die within an hour,' he said. 'The fact that only one has is incredible and is a plus to the entire Christchurch emergency services community and members of the public that helped out. Twelve of 50 people injured remained in critical condition over the weekend, including one child. The Prime Minister's former chief aide, who left Downing Street last December after losing a power struggle with Mrs Johnson, claimed the decision by Mr Johnson to marry his third wife was an 'inevitable disaster'. In a Q&A on his blog, where he urged subscribers to 'ask me anything', he said: 'He's a shambles but the shambles has been made worse by hooking up with a wrong un [Carrie Johnson]who wants to control the country via him. He got a wrong un pregnant, listened to her insane advice/screaming, and went into a flat spin'. The renegade former civil servant said Boris 'hasn't heard the last' of the Christmas party scandal, claiming there will be pictures proving it took place, and said that he knew teenagers who would be better at the job than the Prime Minister. His extraordinary attack on the Prime Minister's wife came as she remained in hospital just 24 hours after giving birth to a baby girl. Mr Johnson, who became a father for the seventh time yesterday, is under pressure to quit over his handling of covid, allegations of multiple illegal Christmas parties and claims he lied about the funding of the lavish Downing Street flat refurbishment including 800-plus a roll gold wallpaper. He claimed Mr Johnson 'throws everybody under the bus' to save himself but predicted Tory MPs will wield the axe in 2022, adding: 'I know 15 year-olds who would do a better job at PM in all ways than Boris, except giving a speech - he cant actually do anything other than the words/bullsh*t side of things'. (ANSA) - Beijing, March 18 - Chinese President Xi Jinping will arrive in Italy on Thursday as part of a State visit that will also take in Monaco and France between March 21 and 26, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced on Monday, according to Xinhua. During the visit the Italian government is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, a huge infrastructure plan to create a sort of modern Silk Road connecting China to Europe and Africa. Xi is expected to meet President Sergio Mattarella on Friday and Premier Giuseppe Conte on Saturday. The Chinese president is also expected to pay a 'private' visit to Palermo on Saturday. China is confident Italy will make the "right" choice when it comes to its Belt and Road Initiative, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang said Monday. "I'd like to stress that the cooperation between China and Italy as part of the Belt and Road Initiative is mutually beneficial," he said. "I think Italy will do the right thing on the basis of its interests". Advertisement A man who was shot four times inside the Al Noor mosque had previously told friends he chose to move his young family to New Zealand because it was a tolerant country where they could safely practice their Muslim faith. Wasseim Alsati was shot twice in the back, once in the stomach and once in the toe when Brenton Harrison Tarrant allegedly began gunning down worshippers at random on Friday afternoon. Mr Alsati had been attending Friday prayer's with his eldest daughter Allen when Australian-born Tarrant burst into the mosque and allegedly opened fire. His five-year-old daughter was shot three times but is now in a stable condition. Just months before the Christchurch terror attack, Mr Alsati had shared a video on Facebook about the persecution of Muslims in China and other nations around the world - and compared it to the safety and tolerance of his adopted homeland. The father-of-two moved his family from Jordan in 2014, and told friends the respect shown to Muslims was behind his decision to choose New Zealand. Scroll down for video Wasseim Alsati (pictured with this two daughters) was shot four times during the Al Noor mosque massacre in Christchurch on Friday. His eldest daughter Allen, five, was at the mosque with him and was shot three times - they both remain in hospital Months before accused gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant opened fire, Mr Alsati has posted on Facebook explaining how in 2014 he had chosen to move his family from Jordan to New Zealand because it is a rare country where Muslims are safe 'One of the major reasons that I have decided to live in New Zealand is they don't care who you are,' Mr Alsati said. 'They just treat you as a human being and you're allowed to be whatever you want.' Prior to opening fire inside the Al Noor and Linwood mosque, accused gunman Tarrant wrote a 73-page manifesto detailing his hatred for Muslims. The 28-year-old, who was originally from Grafton in regional New South Wales, said the alleged mosque massacre was retaliation for terror attacks carried out elsewhere by Islamic extremists. Tarrant said he initially planned to target a mosque in Dunedin, but changed to the Al Noor and Linwood mosques because they had 'far more invaders'. Three days on from Friday's terror attack, the death toll stands at 50. Like his daughter, Mr Alsati remains in hospital in a stable condition and is hoping to be released in coming days. On Sunday he posted a video from his hospital bed thanking well wishers for their support and asking for prayers for his young daughter. 'Please pray for me and for my daughter, hopefully she will be so much better,' Mr Alsati says through stilted breaths. It comes as two of the heroes of the massacres made an emotional return to one of the scenes of the bloodshed. Brother Abdul Lateef Zirullah (left) and Abdul Aziz (right), the two surviving heroes of the mass shooting at Linwood mosque attack, made an emotional return to the scene of the bloodshed - three days after chasing Tarrant out of the mosque Brother Lateef broke down in tears during a traditional Maori ceremony at the mosque. He was the first person to spot accused gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant out the window and warned worshippers inside, saving countless lives During Monday's ceremony a policeman placed a comforting hand on the back of Mr Lateef as he broke down in tears Nearly three days since the horrific terror attack in Christchurch which left 50 worshippers dead, new details about the innocent victims are emerging VICTIMS OF THE NEW ZEALAND MOSQUE MASSACRES As of 2am AEDT Monday Mucad Ibrahim, 3 Abdullahi Dirie, 4 Sayyad Milne, 14 Khaled Mustafa, 45, and son Hamza, 16 Naeem Rashid and his son Talha, 21 Tariq Omar, 24 Ozair Kadir, 24 Syed Areeb Ahmed, 26 Ansi Alibava, 25 Ramiz Vora, 28 Farhaj Ahsan, 30 Mojammel Hoq, 30 Atta Elayyan, 33 Hussein Al-Umari, 36 Mohammed Omar Faruk, 36 Junaid Ismail, 36 Osama Adnan Abu Kwik, 37 Zeehan Raza, 38 Kamel Darwish, 39 Dr Haroon Mahmood, 40 Husne Ara Parvin, 42 Syed Jahandad Ali, 43 Mohammad Imran Kahn, 47 Mathullah Safi, 55 Amjad Hamid, 57 Lilik Abdul Hamid, 58 Arifbhai Mohamedali Vora, 58 Ghulam Hussain, in his 60s Karam Bibi, in her 60s Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60 Abdelfattah Qasem, 60 Ashraf Ali, 61 Mohsin Al-Harbi, 63 Linda Armstrong, 65 Maheboob Khokhar, 65 Muhammed Abdusi Samad, 66 Ali Elmadani, 66 Mounir Soliman, 68 Ahmad Gamaluddin Abdel Ghani, 68 Hussein Moustafa, 70 Abdukadir Elmi, 70 Haji-Daoud Nabi, 71 Still Missing: Zakaria Bhuiyan Advertisement Imam Abdul Lateef Zirullah, better known as Brother Lateef, and 'Eftpos machine hero' Abdul Aziz, from Australia, were re-united at the Linwood mosque on Monday where days earlier the pair's heroics saved many lives. An emotional Mr Lateef broke down in tears during the service and was comforted by mourners, including a police officer who was seen laying a friendly hand on the Imam's back. The service was held just metres away from a growing mountain of flowers, and on a street where strangers have spent the weekend spontaneously hugging Muslims. A picture of Mr Lateef soaked in blood has become one of the enduring images of the tragedy, which has been described as New Zealand's 'darkest day' with the loss of 50 lives. Mr Lateef was the first to spot gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant and raise the alarm outside the second mosque on Friday afternoon, warning worshippers to get down. 'From the window, I sighted him (and) I thought maybe he was a policeman,' Mr Lateef told Daily Mail Australia. 'But then when I saw on the floor next to him was another (dead) lady, I said "no".' Mr Lateef could hear the killer's muffled, but clearly offensive, yelling, through the window. 'I can't hear him very well clearly inside but I know he was saying something, like using this vulgar word,' he said. Moments after the gunman fled the scene Mr Lateef was photographed on the street wearing a bloodstained garment An emotional Mr Lateef was comforted by dozens of mourners during the traditional cleansing ceremony Mr Lateef told how after he warned worshippers, Abdul Aziz (right) grabbed an Eftpos machine and ran outside to chase the accused gunman When Tarrant returned to his car to get another gun Mr Aziz chased after him and hurled the gun at the car, shattering the windscreen and scaring him away 'I realised he is amiss and something must be done. Initially people didn't understand but eventually people got to know what happened.' After being alerted to the gunman by Mr Lateef, Mr Aziz picked up the first thing he could find - an Eftpos machine - and ran to confront the attacker. When he got outside Tarrant had returned to his car to swap guns. Mr Aziz then saw a discarded weapon on the ground and picked it up, before aiming at Tarrant and squeezed hard on the trigger - but it was empty. 'He got into his car and I just got the gun and threw it on his window like an arrow and blasted his window... that's why he got scared,' Mr Aziz said. Inside the mosque Mr Aziz said he could hear his two young sons, aged 11 and five, calling for him to come back inside. Mr Lateef said he had seen the iconic photograph of his robe covered in blood just moments after the massacre. 'I was trying to rescue some brothers,' he said. 'I was thinking I could do something to save their lives, but, unfortunately, some of them, most of them had passed.' Mr Aziz (right) said he could hear his two young sons inside the mosque urging him to come back inside and away from danger 'From the window, I sighted him... I thought he was a policeman,' Brother Lateef said. He then noticed dead bodies outside the mosque and yelled out to the worshippers at Friday prayers Maori leader performs the traditional cleansing ceremony at the Linwood Mosque on Monday The ceremony, known as a karakia, is regularly held after tragic deaths and is similar to rituals performed by indigenous Australians Mr Lateef said he was 'very pleased' with a Maori cleansing of the land and blessing, which was held at the mosque on Monday morning. The ceremony, known as a karakia, is regularly held after tragic deaths and was organised by the staff of New Zealand deputy police commissioner Wallace Haumaha. Mr Haumaha said the process was much like an indigenous Australian cultural ritual. 'It's important to have that cleansing,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'We use it ... to ensure we have cleansed all the evilness - not so much evilness, but everything left behind by those deaths, to allow the living to move on.' It came after a Maori gang earlier performed a touching haka during a memorial at the Al Noor mosque on the other side of Christchurch. Around ten members of Black Power, which was first formed in 1970, gathered near the police cordon at the mosque to perform the ceremonial dance on Sunday. The death toll from the terror attack has risen to 50, with new details about the innocent victims continuing to emerge. They include, Junaid Ismail, 36, who left behind a wife, three young children and a mother who relied on him to care for her. Another, Ansi Alibava, 25, was eagerly awaiting her graduation ceremony from her masters degree in May, while Hussein Al-Umari, 36, was a regular at the Masjid Al Noor mosque. Ozair Kadir (pictured), 24, was a student pilot at the International Aviation Academy of New Zealand and had been in Christchurch for just a year when he was killed on Friday Syed Jahandad Ali, 43, from Pakistan was one of the 50 victims killed in the terror attack in Christchurch on Friday Maheboob Allarakha Khokhar (left), 65, who was due to return to India on Sunday after visiting his son in Christchurch and Husna Ara Parvin (right), who was reportedly gunned down as she tried to save her quadriplegic husband from the shooter Ashraf Ali (pictured) a respected imam at the Masjid Al Noor mosque who was originally from Fiji, is also thought to be among the dead Also among the dead is Tariq Omar, 24, who is remembered for his kind and humble nature and was a former student of Cashmere High School in Christchurch. Kamel Darwish, 38, who moved to Christchurch from Jordan six months ago and was awaiting the arrival of his wife and three children - was convinced to go to New Zealand by his brother, who had lived there since 2007 and said it was a 'safe place to raise a family'. Sixty-year-old Abdelfattah Qasem, from Palestine, was also killed on Friday at the Masjid Al Noor mosque - he was the Muslim Association of Canterbury's former secretary. Another among the dead is Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60, who was visiting Christchurch to see his son and was a highly respected leader of the Fiji Muslim League - he left behind his wife Saira Bibi Patel, three daughters and two sons. Ramiz Arifbhai Vora, 28, and his father Arifbhai Mohamedali Vora, 58, were both shot dead on Friday. The 28-year-old lived and worked in Christchurch and had a baby daughter a week before he was killed in the vicious attack - his father was visiting him from India at the time. Syed Areeb Ahmed (pictured), 26, from Karachi, Pakistan lost his life in the horrific shooting attacks in Christchurch on Friday Linda Armstrong (left), 65, and Tariq Omar, 24, were also brutally killed by the shooter on Friday in Christchurch Sixty-year-old Abdelfattah Qasem from Palestine was also killed on Friday at the Masjid Al Noor mosque - he was the Muslim Association of Canterbury's former secretary Ali Elmadani (right), 65, was a retired engineer who immigrated to New Zealand in 1998. Sohail Shahid (left), from Pakistan was also killed Ozair Kadir, 24, was a student pilot at the International Aviation Academy of New Zealand and had been in Christchurch for just a year when he was killed on Friday. Another among the victims is Maheboob Allarakha Khokhar, 65, who was due to return to India on Sunday after visiting his son in Christchurch. Four-year-old Abdullahi Dirie was also named among the dead after both he and his father Adan were shot at one of the mosques, while four of his siblings escaped unhamed. Abdullah's family fled Somalia in the 1990s and made New Zealand their home, he was the youngest in his family. Before he was brutally killed, Amjad Hamid, 57, was a senior Medical Officer and Rural Hospital Consultant at Hawera Hospital who has been remembered for his kindness, compassion and sense of humour. National-level futsal player Atta Elayyan (right) was reportedly killed on Friday. He is being remembered as an 'inspiration' A recently identified victim is 38-year-old Kamel Darwish who moved to New Zealand from Jordan six months ago (pictured) Ramiz Arifbhai Vora (left), 28, and his father Arifbhai Mohamedali Vora (right), 58, were both shot dead by the gunman on Friday. Mohammed Omar Faruk (pictured), 36, from Bangladesh was shot dead on Friday at the mosque attacks in Christchurch Another among the victims is Mounir Soliman, 68, from Egypt who was a design engineer working at Scotts Engineering in Christchurch since 1997. Zeehan Raza, 38, is also among those killed and was a mechanical engineer who moved to New Zealand from Pakistan in 2018 - both he and his parents Ghulam Hussain and Karam Bibi, were killed at the Linwood Masjid mosque. Another believed to be among the dead is Bangladeshi Husna Parvin, who was reportedly gunned down as she tried to save her wheelchair-bound quadriplegic husband from the shooter. Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim died in the arms of his father and brother, who only survived because he played dead. Mucad Ibrahim was attending Friday prayers with his father and older brother Abdi Ibrahim when a gunman stormed the al Noor mosque in Christchurch and opened fire on the worshippers. It's believed that at the time of the horrific attack, Mucad ran from the gunman while his father and brother played dead. Tarrant dismissed his lawyer on Monday morning and now plans to represent himself in future court proceedings. Richard Peters said the gunman had informed him he wanted to represent himself as his case heads to a trial. Ansi Alibava (pictured) came to New Zealand to pursue a Master of Agribusiness Management at Lincoln University Lilik Abdul Hamid, 58, from Medan, Indonesia (pictured), who died in the mosque left behind two children Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim (left) was also named among the dead after he passed away in the arms of his father and brother, who only survived because he played dead. Cardiologist Amjad Hamid (right) was mowed down after moving to New Zealand 23 years ago because he wanted a better future for himself and his wife Haji Daoud Nabi (pictured), 71, a father-of-five and retired engineer, moved to New Zealand from Afghanistan in 1977 and set up a new life as one of the 'first Muslims in New Zealand'. He is thought to be among the dead in the Christchurch shooting Khaled Mustafa (pictured) arrived in New Zealand only a few months ago from Syria with his family, his son Hamza, 16 also died Osama Adnan Abu Kwik, 37, from Palestine (pictured) was in the process of applying for New Zealand citizenship when he was killed Mojammel Hoq, 30, from Bangladesh (left) and Musa Vali Suleman Patel, 60, from Fiji (right) also died in the shooting on Friday Talha Naeem, 21, (pictured) was shot at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Ave, his father was also killed on Friday Hussein Al-Umari, 35, (pictured) was a regular at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Ave, Christchurch, where he was killed Muhammed Abdusi Samad, 66, from Bangladesh (pictured) was a lecturer at Lincoln University and frequently led prayers at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Ave Mr Peters said while the decision may seem irrational, Tarrant appeared to be 'clear and lucid', and did not appear to be mentally unstable. Tarrant never told him why he wanted to represent himself, but Mr Peters said he 'presumes the basis for that is that he thinks the job would be done better himself'. The shock decision has raised concerns Tarrant will use what will be a high-profile murder trial as a platform to spread hate and vile anti-Muslim rhetoric. 'I suspect that he won't shy away from publicity, and that will probably be the way he runs the trial. The job of the trial judge will be to deal with that,' Mr Peters said. 'But it's not a place for any views to be put forward. It's simply there to determine innocence or guilt. 'The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views.' Tarrant is currently facing one charge of murder, but more charges are expected to be laid in the coming days. The 28-year-old who grew up in Grafton, in regional New South Wales, live-streamed his alleged attack on Facebook. He did not apply for bail or for his name to be suppressed during a brief appearance in court on Saturday, and is expected to front the High Court on April 5. Naeem Rashid (pictured), from Abbottabad in Pakistan, was hailed a hero after he tried to wrestle the gun from the Christchurch shooter on Friday. But he was badly wounded after sadly died later in hospital Cashmere High School student Sayyad Milne (pictured), 14, who was at Friday prayers when the shooting started, is believed to be dead. Although it's not been officially confirmed, his father has spoken of his loss Dr Haroon Mahmood (pictured) leaves a wife and two children aged 13 and 11 A spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that five Pakistani citizens are missing (pictured missing person Syed Jahandad Ali) At least one Jordanian was killed in the attacks and two are critical among the eight injured, Jordan's Foreign Ministry announced Johnnie Barto, 71, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania will be sentenced Monday for molesting 31 of his child patients throughout his career A former Pennsylvania pediatrician is scheduled for sentencing Monday in the sexual assault of 31 children, most of them patients, in a case that state medical regulators failed to act on nearly two decades ago. Dr. Johnnie Barto of Johnstown will be sentenced on dozens of counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors say he spent decades abusing boys and girls in the exam room at his pediatric practice in western Pennsylvania and at local hospitals, with his victims typically ranging in age from 8 to 12. One was an infant. Barto pleaded guilty in December to some counts and no contest to others. He's been jailed pending sentencing. His lawyer, David Weaver, has said Barto opted to enter pleas so "the healing could begin for his family, his victims and for himself." Authorities had a chance to stop Barto in 2000, when he appeared before the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine on administrative charges that he molested two young girls in the 1990s. But regulators threw out the case and allowed him to keep practicing medicine, saying the allegations were "incongruous to his reputation." At the time, the prominent pediatrician had a lot of support in the community. Lee Ann Berkebile holds a photo of herself as a child, taken in her home in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Berkebile says she was molested by Barto in 1994. Barto, now 71, went on to molest at least a dozen more young patients before his arrest in January 2018, according to the state attorney general's office. The medical board's 7-2 decision to let him off the hook in 2000 sparked outrage from victims and at least one former board member. Vivian Lowenstein, who had voted to strip Barto of his license, told The Associated Press last year that she was "sick about it" and that the case was as an example of how Pennsylvania's physician-regulators typically looked out for their own. The Pennsylvania Department of State, which provides legal and administrative support to the board and prosecutes administrative cases of doctor misconduct, said last year that "the Board of Medicine takes allegations of sexual misconduct by professional licensees very seriously." Regulators have not commented on the board's 2000 decision. The man accused of carrying out the New Zealand mosque shootings 'beefed up' ahead of the massacre with an 'obsessive' fitness regime at a gym, it has been claimed. Brenton Tarrant is said to have been deadlifting weights of up to 440 lbs (200kg) at a gym opposite an Islamic school and childcare centre in Christchurch. Dr Mohammad Alayan, the owner of the centre situated just across the road from where Tarrant trained, was critically injured in the shooting at the Al Noor Mosque on Friday. His son, Atta Elayyan, was shot and killed by the alleged gunman, who had compulsively attended the Anytime Fitness gym where the treadmills overlooked the centre his father owned. A man who attended the same gym as Tarrant said he initially believed the 28-year-old was a powerlifter, and claimed he had 'beefed up really quickly' in the lead up to the attack. Brenton Tarrant (pictured), the man accused of carrying out the New Zealand mosque shooting, 'beefed up' ahead of the massacre with an 'obsessive' fitness regime at a gym, it has been claimed Tarrant grew up in the north-eastern NSW town of Grafton, and his childhood friends still living there said he was a loner for most of his life. He played for the Grafton Ghosts under 15 rugby league team in 2005 (Tarrant is pictured top left) A fellow gym-goer claimed Tarrant had 'beefed up really quickly' at Anytime Fitness (pictured) in the lead-up to the attack '[Tarrant] did mostly strength training, like deadlifts, like powerlifting the massive ones. He's a strong man,' said the gym-goer, named as Adam. 'He was probably doing 140 kilos on the bench, which is quite a lot, and 200kg deadlifts.' Tarrant did not say much at the gym, he said, except to ask him how he was doing, and to talk about his own travels. Dr Mohammad Alayan (pictured left) was critically injured in the mosque attack, while his son Atta Elayyan (pictured right) was killed 'He'd just tell me about all these holidays he'd been on, Europe, France and all that, he'd ask me how my Christmas was he was real polite,' Adam said. Neighbours said Tarrant had become noticeably more muscular in the months leading up to the shooting at Al Noor mosque, and Adam readily agreed before suggesting he may have trained using steroids or other supplements. 'There's always the chance he's unnaturally training,' he said. 'If he's been travelling a lot it's definitely easy to get.' Tarrant allegedly live-streamed himself walking into Al Noor mosque on Friday afternoon and callously shooting Muslims who were attending a prayer service. He then left, and allegedly shot at members of a second mosque. Minutes before the horrifying attack, he sent out a bizarre 73-page manifesto, which explained his hatred towards Islam and the religion's followers. The document also revealed the attack was initially planned to take place in Dunedin, where he lived, before he decided to move it to Christchurch, where there were more Muslims. Adam said he was 'creeped out' when he heard what Tarrant had done, and revealed he was friends with one of the victims. 'One of my mates was in [the mosque], and he got shot,' he said. The gym Tarrant attended was opposite an Islamic school and childcare centre (Posters advertising the Islamic school and childcare centre picture) The image shows the Anytime Fitness Tarrant attended was just across the road from the Islamic school and childcare centre 'He pretended to be dead, he didn't get killed.' Mark Daly, a spokesperson for the Anytime Fitness gym Tarrant attended, told Daily Mail Australia they were 'horrified' by Tarrant's alleged acts. 'We are horrified and saddened by this hateful act. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and all New Zealanders,' Mr Daly said. The Christchurch shooting was New Zealand's first mass shooting since 1994. Tarrant is alleged to have stormed the Al Noor mosque and later Linwood Masjid on Friday, where he shot dead 50 people and left 50 more people injured. Twelve of 50 people injured remained in critical condition over the weekend, including one child. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party has been accused of racism over a social media post comparing Nationals MP Wes Fang to Kim Jong-un. The party's official account tweeted a picture of President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader, asking: 'Wes can you please explain this photo of you with Donald Trump? What deals were you doing?'. Mr Fang, who has a Singaporean heritage, told the ABC that the deleted tweet was 'clearly racism' and said there was 'no room in politics for racism'. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFF) tweeted the post comparing Nationals MP Wes Fang to North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un Nationals MP Wes Fang (left) said that the tweet was 'clearly racism and there's no room in politics for racism' 'If there's one good thing that comes out of today, it's that people will actually see the Shooters for who they really are,' he said. A SFF spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Monday the party's tweet was deleted within five minutes. 'It is ridiculous to make political capital out of this,' they said. The photo was posted in response to a tweet by Mr Fang on Monday in which he shared a photo of NSW Opposition Leader Michael Daley and SFF MP Robert Borsak talking and described it as a 'dirty deal.' The spokesperson added: 'It was in response to a tweet photo that made alleged untruthful comments.' The SFF tweeted that the photo was a 'response to constant trolling' from Mr Fang. 'A troll in response to a troll, deleted within five minutes of posting,' SFF said in a statement. It is alleged the party staffer who shared this post has now lost access to the social media account. Labor and SFF have made a preference deal in two regional seats prior to the NSW election on March, 23. A taxi driver who survived the Christchurch mosque massacre has told his incredible fence-jumping story of escape - and how terrified neighbours locked the back door on him in the chaos. Mirwais Wiziri fled the war in Afghanistan for the peace of New Zealand decades ago. He was attending prayers last Friday with his close friend Haji Daoud Nabi when the gunman arrived at the Al Noor mosque. The events that followed were a blur of blood and tragedy - with his mate shot dead while sitting beside him, one of the 50 people slain. A bullet grazed Mr Wiziri's head - but he managed to flee into the back car park and leap over a neighbour's fence. He paused for five or six minutes, breathing heavily, blood running down his head, as the pop-pop-pop sound of bullets rang out. Taxi driver Mirwais Wiziri (pictured) has recalled his remarkable brush with death during the Christchurch massacre last Friday The car park (pictured) where Mirwais Wiziri ran for his life after Brenton Tarrant opened fire in New Zealand last Friday The car park 'graveyard' in Christchurch (pictured) following last Friday's attack 'I thought it was going to stop,' he said on Monday, telling his story to gaping onlookers near a floral memorial for the dead. 'I didn't know this guy came with thousands of bullets, shooting everyone.' 'So I jumped to another house.' Meanwhile, the gunman was mowing people down as they fled up the footpath out the front of the mosque. Mr Wiziri then landed in another backyard. 'Because I had put myself on top of the bodies, I had blood on my clothes,' he recalled. 'There was an Asian couple living there at the second house when I jumped. Mirwais Wiziri (pictured left) lived to tell his story after a bullet grazed his head in last Friday's terror attack in Christchurch The Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch (pictured), scene of last Friday's horrific terrorist attack which claimed 50 lives Mirwais Wiziri (pictured) moved to New Zealand a few decades ago after fleeing the war in Afghanistan 'And they saw me - they were scared, they locked the door. 'They locked the door, thinking I'm a danger to them. 'I say, ''please I need a phone!'' I searched my pockets I had forgot my phone, I had left my phone behind. 'I knocked the door, ''please I need a phone to call my wife''.' 'They said ''go, go, go, go''. They didn't understand me.' He gave up and vaulted over the next fence. He was finally getting close to Dean Avenue, the street the mosque is on. 'I went there, and the guy, a 75, 76 year-old-man was standing there and he was talking on a small phone,' he said. 'I said ''please I need your phone. It's an emergency. Emergency's on the way, thousands of people have been killed, give me your phone''. Ambulance staff (pictured) transporting a man to hospital following last Friday's mass shooting in New Zealand Special force representatives (pictured) arrive on the scene following last Friday's terror attack in Christchurch 'He said, ''no, I have an injured person here! I'm getting the ambulance. Come on, help me. 'So he give me his phone. He was shaking the poor guy. Like, shaking. He was so scared to see the blood. There was blood everywhere in his kitchen. 'And he said to me, ''I never leave my garage door open. And today I left my door open''. 'My door was open, this guy came (needing) help, I help him.' The wounded man required urgent medical attention. Mr Wiziri asked him to bring something to press on his injury, and the bleeding stopped. He then told the homeowner he needed to shut his house up - including the garage - and ran from the house to safety. Wiziri begged two young women on a nearby street to ''please, please, please take me home''. Petrified, they initially locked their car door and put the window up. Haji Daoud Nabi (pictured) has been confirmed as one of the 50 people who was killed last Friday in Christchurch Yama Nabi (pictured left) and Omar Nabi with a picture of their father Haji Daoud Haji, who died last Friday 'I said, please take me. Please, even take me in the direction and I can get a taxi and go home. 'I'm safe, I won't hurt you, I need to go home, I don't have a phone to call my wife. 'I wanted to just assure her I was alive because we have a disabled child at home and other children were at school.' Eventually, Mr Wiziri arrived home safe. Bloody, but alive. Later, he learned the scale of the horror. 50 people dead, at least the same number injured. He is now surrounded by friends, some who have travelled all the way from Australia. The funerals will be held later this week, where he will remember his dead friend Haji Daoud Nabi. The 17-year-old dubbed 'eggboy' has been left shaken by his sudden fame after he smashed an egg on the back of Senator Fraser Anning's head. Will Connolly, from Victoria, was behind Mr Anning at a Conservative National Party Meeting in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon when he egged the senator. And since footage of the egging went viral the teenager has been hailed a hero, with murals now appearing in his honour. Will Connolly, from Victoria, was behind Mr Anning at a Conservative National Party Meeting in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon when he egged the senator Since footage of the egging went viral the teenager has been hailed a hero, with murals (pictured) now appearing in his honour Hosier Lane in Melbourne has become a famous tourist attraction in recent years as artists regularly paint over old murals and showcase their talents. A painting paying homage to the very moment Will filmed himself cracking an egg on Senator Anning has now appeared While most of world has been singing his praises, Mr Connolly has been left shaken, his parents told 9News. Mr Connolly's social media accounts have been silent since his sudden rise to stardom. The teen, who arrested at the scene and later removed from the premises, has been at home after a brief hospital check up, his parents said. The egging came a day after Mr Anning released a statement where he blamed Muslim immigration for the terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday, where 50 people were killed. Will Connolly, 17, (pictured) has been inundated with offers of free concert tickets from Australian bands The teen even has backing from high-profile criminal lawyers, including Adam Houda, who has publicly stated he will represent him in court free of charge Twitter has erupted with praise of Egg Boy with many creating 'fan art' to show they stand with the 17-year-old Public support has been growing for the teenager, with a GoFundMe page set up to pay for the teenager's legal fees and 'to buy more eggs'. 'Our hero EggBoi takes on Fraser Anning, the senator for Queensland that is now despised around the world for comments made after the shooting at a New Zealand mosque,' the GoFundMe page says. The page has far exceeded its original $2,000 goal with more than 14,000 shares on Facebook and more than 1,400 people donating to the cause. It has since reached over $40,000 and is still climbing. An update on the GoFundMe page said Mr Connolly plans to donate the majority of the funds raised to the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack. Senator Fraser Anning said the real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets on Friday is the immigration program that allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place Attendees of the event held the young man on the ground after the physical altercation Mr Anning has been slammed by politicians for his extremist stance, as Australians pay their respects to the victims of terrorist attack (pictured: man who egged Anning) Despite the public backlash over his comments and actions, Mr Anning has refused to apologise. Speaking in Brisbane on Monday, Mr Anning told reporters Mr Connolly 'got a slap across the face, which is what his mother should have given him long ago'. 'When somebody cracks you in the back of your head, you react and defend yourself. 'That for years is what Australians have been doing, luckily they did that in the trenches otherwise we'd be all speaking German now.' However, high-profile criminal lawyer Adam Houda, who has defended men charged with terrorist-related offences in the past, has said Mr Anning's claim of self-defence would not stand up in court. On twitter, the high profile lawyer said it was a clear case of assault on a child. 'I've just seen the footage of the Fraser Anning egging. Anning reacts by assaulting the young man. The police are now obligated to charge Anning,' he tweeted. Victoria Police released a statement saying they are continuing to investigate the incident 'in its entirety' including the actions of Mr Anning and others. China says it has arrested nearly 13,000 people it describes as terrorists and broken up hundreds of 'terrorist gangs' in Xinjiang since 2014. The remarks appear in a new report issued by the State Council in an apparently move to defend its controversial security crackdown in the far-west region. Beijing has come under international criticism over its policies in Xinjiang, where as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are being held in internment camps, according to human rights groups. China claims it has broken up hundreds of 'terrorist gangs' in Xinjiang since 2014. Pictured, Chinese soldiers patrol the streets of Urumqi in Xinjiang during the Uighur riots in July, 2009 Beijing says it is striking hard in accordance with the law at any conduct advocating terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang. Pictured, rioters throw stones at the soldiers during unrest in 2009 Omir Bekali and Kayrat Samarkand, who claimed to be former detainees of such camps, told the Washington Post last year that prisoners were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol - forbidden in Islam - as punishment. While a previous AP report claimed that detainees at such camps could have been used as forced labour to work in manufacturing and food industries for overseas companies. The U.S. State Department last week slammed human rights violations in China, saying the sort of abuses it had inflicted on its Muslim minorities had not been seen 'since the 1930s.' 'It is one of the most serious human rights violations in the world today,' said Michael Kozak, the head of the State Department's human rights and democracy bureau. China's State Council hit back again today with the white paper saying that the government 'is relentless in striking hard, in accordance with the law, at any conduct advocating terrorism and extremism'. A perimeter fence is constructed around what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre in Dabancheng in Xinjiang in China's far west region Residents walk through a security checkpoint into the Hotan Bazaar where a screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping in Hotan in western China's Xinjiang region Dozens of students are shown at their desks learning Chinese and law in the programme aired by CCTV that introduced the 'professional vocational training institutions' in Hotan The document is titled 'Xinjiang's counter-terrorism, anti-extremism fight and protection on human rights'. It states that Xinjiang has long been part of Chinese territory but that 'terrorist and extremist forces' have fomented separatist activities by 'falsifying' the region's history. 'Since 2014, Xinjiang has destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials,' according to the white paper. 'The counter-terrorism work and the de-extremisation struggle in Xinjiang have always been carried out in accordance with the rule of law,' it added. Image shows buildings around the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in Xinjiang last September. This is one of the internment camps, where up to one million Muslims are believed to be held A guard tower and barbed wire fences are seen around a facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park China has previously denied the presence of the internment camps, but have in recent months shifted to calling them 'vocational education centres'. Footage released by state media appears to show Muslim trainees working in one such vocational centre in Hotan, Xinjiang The reports gives nearly 30 examples on how terrorists and separatists have launched fatal attacks on civilians, religious people and government officials. The most serious case it cites took place in July, 2009, in the provincial capital of Urumqi. It says thousands of 'terrorists' carried out a killing spree towards cilivians and attacked government offices, police stations, shops and residential houses. The report says 197 people were killed and more than 1,700 people were injured in the incident, which it says were masterminded by the 'East Turkistan forces' in China and abroad. The paper was quickly condemned by a Uighur rights group, which called it a 'a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs'. 'The purpose of releasing the so-called white paper is a means of getting local support for its extreme policies and to cover up human rights abuses,' Dilxat Raxit, spokesman of the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said in a statement. Xinjiang, which shares a border with several countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan, has long suffered from violent unrest, which China claims is orchestrated by an organised 'terrorist' movement seeking the region's independence. Beijing has come under international criticism over its policies in Xinjiang, but it hit back with the report 'Xinjiang's counter-terrorism, anti-extremism fight and protection on human rights' China has previously denied the presence of the internment camps, but have in recent months shifted to calling them 'vocational education centres' akin to boarding schools, with students checking in voluntarily. The 'preventive measures' have brought a 'marked change' in the region, with people having 'a much stronger sense of fulfillment, happiness and security,' the white paper said. But former inmates have said they found themselves incarcerated for transgressions such as wearing long beards and face veils or sharing Islamic holiday greetings on social media. Patrick Poon, a China researcher for Amnesty International, said the report today showed the 'vague and broad definition of "terrorism" and "extremism" by the Chinese government'. 'It's exactly because of the Chinese government's arbitrary and vague definition of these terms that leads to mass arbitrary detention of many ordinary people in Xinjiang,' Poon said, referring to the alleged Muslim internment camps. Poon cited the many families that have lost contact with relatives who are suspected of having been detained. 'It's simply not normal at all for people losing contact with their relatives if they are merely receiving "vocational training" as the Chinese government claims,' Poon said. Beijing has also gone on a public relations blitz in recent months, taking journalists and diplomats on tours to visit the region and the centres. A disabled man whose wife was shot dead as she led women and children out of the mosque during the Christchurch massacre has forgiven the gunman. Farid Ahmed, a quadriplegic who wheeled himself out the Al Noor mosque after Brenton Tarrant, 28, allegedly stormed the building on Friday and began shooting at anyone who came in his path, said he could simply not hate him. 'I was asked ''how do you feel about the person who killed your wife?'' and I said 'I love that person because he is a human, a brother of mine''',' he told the New Zealand Herald. Farid Ahmed, who wheeled himself out the Al Noor mosque after Brenton Tarrant, 28, allegedly stormed the building and began shooting, said he could only 'forgive him' While admitting he did not support what Tarrant did, Mr Ahmed said he tried to rationlise the Australian's thinking before calling him 'a brother' of his While admitting he did not support what he did, he tried to rationlise the shooter's mental state. 'Maybe he was hurt, maybe something happened to him in his life but the bottom line is, he is a brother of mine.' 'I have forgiven him and I am sure if my wife was alive she would have done the same thing.' His wife, Husna Ahmed, 44, had screamed at worshippers to follow her outside a side-door as Tarrant allegedly sprayed the lobby with bullets. After successfully saving everyone she could, she returned for her husband. Husna Ahmed (pictured) was attempting to help everyone by ushering worshippers out a side door as the gunman sprayed the lobby with bullets - she was shot in the back as she returned to help her husband, Mr Ahmed Once back inside she was hit from behind and killed instantly. Mr Ahmed had already made it outside into the car park where he was hiding behind his vehicle. He was forced to sit idle as he watched streams of worshippers fall out of smashed windows and frantically jump over a fence - searching anywhere for salvation. Mr Ahmed even recalled locking eyes with a friend who ran straight passed him. He's since spoken with him and told him he understood his decision to save himself and that his wheelchair made him somewhat of a liability. After the gunman left, Mr Ahmed wheeled himself back inside and tried to help anyone he could. Mr Ahmed revealed in horrific detail how he returned the mosque after the gunman had left to try and help, but found his wheelchair wasn't able to get passed the piles of dead bodies that lined the floor Despite the carnage he witnessed, Mr Ahmed still said given the opportunity, he would hug Tarrant Piles of dead bodies made it almost impossible for him to reach anyone as he saw the carange Tarrant had left behind in mere seconds. A dad holding his son, a man pinned down by two lifeless bodies and carpet that was almost completely covered in blood and bullet shells. The police arrived swiftly and wheeled him back outside to deliver the bad news about his wife, telling him to go home to his daughter. Despite the aftermath that he witnessed and losing his wife to such a senseless killing, Mr Ahmed said he still wished he could hug the killer. 'I was trying to grieve and it came to me then that I wish I could give him a hug. Some people might call me crazy but I speak from my heart, I am not pretending - if I got an opportunity I would hug him,' he said. Australian-born Brenton Harrison Tarrant (pictured) allegedly opened fire at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques, killing at least 50 people. The 28-year-old is so far charged with only one count of murder, but police are expected to lay more charges The death toll in Christchurch currently stands at 50, and is second only to the Las Vegas carnage of October 2017 which saw 58 people shot dead in the United States, when it comes to firearm atrocities in a Western nation. It is also New Zealand's first mass shooting since 1994. Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, has so far been charged with one count of murder and will appear in court again in April where he's expected to be face more charges. The horrific terror attack in Christchurch claimed the lives of 50 worshippers - with new details emerging about the victims everyday Dr Tim Moriarty, 57, leaves a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing in Manchester earlier this month A gynaecologist has been suspended for three months after jokingly referring to patients as 'fallen women' while carrying terminations at an abortion clinic. Dr Tim Moriarty, 57, who worked in Northampton and Milton Keynes, left one patient in distress by telling her 'not all women are put on this earth to have babies' as she was awaiting a procedure. As nurses looked on in shock, Moriarty - who had previously been warned twice about his inappropriate language - was said to have added: 'Just because ISIS try to bomb us back to the dark ages, it doesn't change anything. It's a woman's choice and don't feel guilty about it.' The remarks were made during a series of inappropriate jokes Moriarty made in front of female staff at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, where he was the only man on the team. The NHS consultant obstetrician from Daventry, Northamptonshire, introduced himself to a new recruit, saying: ''Hi, I'm Dr Moriarty and I am tasked with looking after all the fallen women.' He also suggested a midwife would be need of a sex toy after learning her husband was going abroad adding: 'So the rabbit will be getting a good work out then.' In a further incident he threw a four letter temper tantrum when he was unable to find a piece of medical equipment during a termination. Moriarty worked at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in Milton Keynes (file picture) Moriarty was sent home in July 2017 after the midwife complained to the health trust claiming the jokes were 'vile' and 'made her skin crawl.' He left his job the following February following ten years in his post. At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester, Moriarty - who had previously been given letters of advice about his 'choice language' in February 2010 and May 2013 - was found guilty of serious professional misconduct. He denied his remarks were inappropriate and claimed some of his comments were made to 'put patients at ease.' But a colleague who overheard him refer to patients as 'fallen women' accused him 'showing off' adding: 'Over all he is a very good doctor but if I was a patient, I would not like to hear him say something like that. 'He said it in a jokey confident way and I understood it to mean that he looked after all the silly women in Milton Keynes who had got themselves into trouble.' Tribunal chairman Mr Angus MacPherson said: 'The Tribunal reached the view that Dr Moriarty was not speaking seriously when he uttered this remark. 'He was introducing himself in a jokey manner but it was inappropriate of him to suggest that the women he looked after were 'fallen women'. 'It did not at all consider that this represented his philosophy - he just used loose language when performing this introduction of himself. 'However this was a field of work which called for the utmost sensitivity and delicacy. Dr Moriarty's choice of language did not begin to address that requirement.' Referring to Moriarty's encounter with the patient, Mr MacPherson said: 'His words were uttered without reference to the sensitivities of the situation, without proper thought as to whether they were compassionate to the patient and indeed the staff. 'The tribunal was fortified in this conclusion in that Dr Moriarty explained that on previous occasions he had used analogies of witches being burnt and Guy Fawkes being burnt, to show that society had moved on from treating people in a certain way.' 'At a time when he should have been choosing words with great care and with great sensitivity, he was using phrases the meaning of which were not easy to understand and could easily upset and disturb. 'They conveyed an image of violence, and were the very opposite of reassurance and compassion. 'They were unlikely to instil confidence in a patient, who may be concerned as to whether she should go through with the procedure, that she had made the right choice and all would be well. 'Other practitioners would regard his use of this language to a patient as deplorable. 'There is a need to uphold standards of conduct and behaviour expected of members of the medical profession. 'The Tribunal accepted Dr Moriarty was well regarded in BPAS as a surgeon, that he did care for his patients and was capable of forming good relationships with other members of staff. 'However, he has not satisfied the Tribunal that he has addressed his shortcomings.' The complaints against Dr Moriarty began in 2017 after he and a midwife known as Miss B repeatedly disagreed over correct procedures, patient numbers and allocated rest periods. Giving evidence Miss B told the hearing: 'Dr Moriarty was quite dismissive, if I didn't understand something he would make me feel very small. He wanted things done in his own way, there was no bending. 'We needed to resolve things, and we did get on, but he started to revert back to how he was before. I couldn't work with him because of the way he made me feel. There was disharmony in the unit.' She told Moriarty: 'You would make comments about my uniform or my shoes. Things just built up to the point I had to sit down with you and have a conversation to try and understand how we were going to get on. 'I found your behaviour to be unreasonable. I explained to you that you made us feel uncomfortable with your outbursts. 'I didn't do anything to deliberately make you angry. You were raising your voice. It's not appropriate to be swearing to anybody. 'I was in tears in the phone to the Director of Nursing, I broke down. I don't believe that Muslims bomb us - that's a generalisation. The patient didn't make a comment but I was in shock and the healthcare assistant appeared to be staring into space.' Moriarty said there was a 'deliberate plan and a conspiracy' to force him out of his job and claimed he had been treated unfairly by the BPAS. He said: 'When I introduce myself to clients I simply say 'Hi, I'm Tim, welcome etc.' I have not recently said anything on the lines of 'I am tasked with looking after fallen women'. They are not fallen women. I may have said something like that four years ago, but not now.' Advertisement John Bercow was today accused of sabotaging Theresa May's Brexit after banning her from forcing a new vote on the same deal and told MPs: 'I have never been pushed around - I'm not going to start now'. The Commons Speaker cited a Commons precedent from 1604 to inflict an extraordinary blow to Mrs May's hopes of getting her divorce through Parliament - unless it is 'substantially' adapted with just ten days until Britain leaves the EU. The PM's Brexit plans have been left in tatters having spent days trying to convince the DUP, Tory Brexiteers and Labour rebels to back her deal at the last minute. Mrs May will fly to Brussels on Thursday and must get a new breakthrough from the EU before presenting it to Mr Bercow, who would have the final say on whether a new vote goes ahead. If she fails her deal will be killed off with No Deal or a long-term delay to Brexit the most likely outcomes on March 29. Mr Bercow told the Commons: 'If the Government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same or substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on March 12, that would be entirely in order. 'What the Government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition or substantially the same proposition that was rejected by 149 votes'. Asked if he was worried about the ramifications of his decision he added: 'I've never lost a wink of sleep over anything work related'. His 11th hour decision will infuriate No 10 who admitted that he had not warned them he was giving a statement - let alone what it was about - before dropping his Brexit bombshell this afternoon. The PM learned the news at just after 3.30pm today and minutes later her spokesman said: 'The Speaker did not forewarn us of the content of his statement or the fact that he was making one. We were not given any advance warning he was going to say that.' Getting around Mr Bercow's intervention could force the Government to end the current session early and hold a quick-fire State Opening of Parliament. While technically possible it would kill off a raft of laws and proposals in progress in Parliament - many of which are Brexit related - but is a certain way to also kill off the Speaker's bar on a new vote. May loyalist James Cleverly confronted the Speaker and demanded to know why he had not made the ruling after the first vote on January 15 claiming MPs may have 'voted differently' had he spoken earlier. Commons Speaker John Bercow gave a last-minute statement to the Commons today on Mrs May's Brexit deal, and effectively blocked a new vote Theresa May is seen arriving at Downing Street this morning as her deal hangs in the balance and she could delay it. Boris Johnson dealt a heavy blow to her hopes of winning in the Commons after he refused to back it today The PM had planned to go to Brussels on Thursday and apply for a 'long' Brexit delay unless MPs show they are ready to back her deal by Tuesday night. This afternoon Mr Bercow invoked a precedent from April 1604 - used 12 times in the Commons since then - to warn the PM that she must significantly change her deal if she wants to force another vote on it before the scheduled exit day on March 29. Why was John Bercow a controversial Speaker? A 'Boll**** to Brexit' sticker can be clearly seen in photographs of Mr Bercow's black 4x4, which has a personalised numberplate Brexit bias: John Bercow has revealed publicly that he voted for Remain in 2016, fuelling claims by Brexiteers that he tried to frustrate Brexit in the Commons. The claims were fuelled by an anti-Brexit sticker being spotted in a black Land Rover parked outside Mr Bercow's Commons home - he has insisted the car and sticker belongs to his wife. Brexiteers were also furious when he refused to accept an amendment that sought to rule out a second referendum on Brexit. It added to complaints through much of the time since the referendum that he sought to boost pro-EU supporters such as Dominic Grieve and Ken Clarke at the expense of Brexiteers. Bullying claims: John Bercow was hit by a number of bullying claims. He was said to have subjected staff to angry outbursts for years, mocking junior officials and leaving staff 'terrified'. A former private secretary, Kate Emms, said she was left with PTSD after working for him. And earlier this year Lord Lisvane, clerk of the House of Commons from 2011 to 2014, filed an official bullying complaint against him. Other allegations of bullying emerged shortly after, with Lieutenant General David Leakey, a former Black Rod, revealing he was filing his own complaint of 'intimidation and unacceptable behaviour' by Mr Bercow. Mr Bercow denied all the allegations. His wife Sally: Sally Bercow has courted controversy since her husband was first elected. She infamously posed in a sheet for a magazine interview soon after Mr Bercow was first elected and she took part in Celebrity Big Brother. A public Labour supporter, Mrs Bercow's political views led to claims she undermined the Speaker's independence. In 2015 it emerged Sally had an affair with Mr Bercow's cousin Alan - even leading the couple to move into the family home in Battersea while the Speaker stayed in his grace-and-favour apartment in Parliament. Expenses: Mr Bercow faced persistent criticism of his official expenses, which included lavish bills for chauffeur-driven cars, trips abroad and entertaining foreign dignitaries. Mr Bercow and his family lived rent-free in an opulent apartment at Parliament, where the taxpayer footed a 109 a month bill for the Arsenal fan's Sky subscription. Bias against the Tories: Conservative ministers and MPs long-complained Mr Bercow favours Labour. He repeatedly hauled ministers to the Commons to answer Urgent Questions and Emergency Debates - far more often than has historically been the case. Before the 2019 General Election, he tore up the Commons rulebook to allow backbenchers to seize control of the agenda and pass a law delaying Brexit. He also frequently reprimanded ministers, often sarcastically, and his behaviour prompted the Cameron Government to launch a near-unprecedented attempt to remove him in 2015. Mr Bercow provoked further fury by speaking out against Donald Trump and Brexit in defiance of protocol demanding he be impartial. Advertisement The Speaker cited page 397 of the Commons rulebook, Erskine May - and insisted today's ruling 'should not be regarded as my last word on the subject.' Mr Bercow told MPs: 'One of the reasons the rule has lasted so long it is a necessary rule to ensure the sensible use of the House's time and proper respect for the decisions which it takes. 'Rulings of the House matter. They have weight. 'In many cases, they have direct effect not only here but on the lives of our constituents.' The Prime Minister was already considering whether to shelve the third Commons vote on her deal after dozens of rebel Brexiteer MPs including Boris Johnson refused to back her - unless a 'realistic prospect' of success suddenly emerges, No 10 said today. Mrs May would instead head to Thursday's EU summit and then ask EU leaders to agree a delay of Brexit of up to two years. She had hoped to use that prospect to crank up the pressure on her MPs by holding a vote just days before Britain had been due to leave on March 29. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said today if there is no Commons vote for the deal Mrs May would fly to Brussels and ask the EU for a longer delay, which would also mean Britain holding elections to the European Parliament this year. The Government will have to table a motion by the end of business on Tuesday at the latest, giving rebel MPs including dozens of Tory Brexiteers until 10.30pm tomorrow to back down. Boris Johnson last night urged MPs to vote down Mrs May's deal for a third time if it is put to a vote this week and warned in his Daily Telegraph column that it gives the EU an 'indefinite means of blackmail' against the UK. In a direct attack on Mrs May, Boris Johnson paints her and her team as collaborators in the 'final sabotage of Brexit' just 11 days before Britain is due to leave the EU. Theresa May is being urged to quit as an incentive for Brexiteers to vote through her deal - but today it was claimed that No 10 could offer to sack her Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins instead, which is unlikely to sway many. Today crisis talks with the DUP continue and if the Northern Irish party backs Mrs May's deal a number of Eurosceptic Tories could follow - but a senior ERG source predicts that even with the DUP on board, the PM would still lose by 30 to 40 votes. David Davis says if the DUP moves then she has a '50-50 chance' of winning but said still may not vote for the deal while former ministers Priti Patel and Dominic Raab are expected to rebel even if Mrs May manages to win over Arlene Foster's party. But Brexit ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg is softening as he insisted Mrs May's deal was better than staying in for months or years, 'however bad it is'. Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC: 'I genuinely haven't made up my mind. There is a hierarchy. 'No deal is better than Mrs May's deal, but Mrs May's deal is better than not leaving. I don't think we will get another chance to leave the European Union. 'Delay is denial. The thought that if you get two years for something better is hopelessly optimistic.' Brexiteers are marching to London to 'save Brexit' today and arrived in Swainby, North Yorkshire, today on day 3 of the walk Brexit: What happens next? What happened last week? MPs twice rejected Theresa May's Brexit deal. They also voted against leaving with no deal, and now voted in favour of a delay. What will happen next? MPs have supported a delay, so May will have to request an extension to Article 50 from the EU. Could Brexit be delayed? If other member states agree to it, Brexit will be postponed, but May has said that this should be for no longer than three months. If, however, MPs do not support her deal, she warned that the extension could be far longer. Could Brexit be stopped? May has warned this is a possibility. While she will not revoke Article 50 herself, she has warned political chaos could see the Government replaced by Jeremy Corbyn or another pro-Remain administration. Will the Prime Minister face a motion of no confidence? It is possible. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he will only call another vote of no confidence if he has a chance of winning - but in January Mrs May precipitated one herself. Will May just resign after a second defeat? Unlikely but not impossible. Defeat would be another monumental blow to the PM's political authority. Will there be a general election? There are mounting calls for one. Tory MP Charles Walker said yesterday if the House could not pass the deal, the current Parliament probably needs to be replaced so a new Government can be formed to tackle Brexit. One of the advantages of an election is it would be much quicker to organise and resolve than a second referendum. Could there be a second referendum on Brexit? There are mounting demands for a new public vote - but probably not currently a majority in the Commons for it. A new referendum would take at least six months to organise and run. This could be optimistic as there is no consensus over what the question might be. Advertisement Mrs May could now tee-up a longer delay to Brexit at an EU summit on Thursday ensuring Tories who vote down her deal must also accept the blame for a lengthy delay to leaving the EU. Her final pitch to Tory Brexiteers backfired yesterday after saying her opponents are unpatriotic if they do not back her Brussels divorce but warned them: 'We will not leave the EU for many months, if ever'. The former foreign secretary urged her to postpone the vote and use a forthcoming EU summit to seek 'real change' on the Irish backstop. Mr Johnson said: 'It would be absurd to hold the vote before that has even been attempted.' Despite this pressure Mrs May received a string of major endorsements for her Brexit deal last night that gave fresh hope it could pass within days. In a significant boost for the PM, former Chancellor Norman Lamont urged his fellow Brexiteers to focus on the 'prize' of leaving the EU and back the deal. Writing on the page opposite, the Eurosceptic grandee warns wavering MPs that 'history will not understand if it is Conservative MPs who prevent us claiming our self-government'. Mrs May is hoping to build momentum behind her deal today with an agreement with the DUP that could bring dozens of Eurosceptics on board. In a major intervention last night, Northern Ireland's former First Minister David Trimble also dropped his objections to the so-called Irish backstop. The Nobel Peace Prize winner praised Mrs May for securing 'substantive' concessions on the backstop, adding: 'The chances of the PM getting the deal through Parliament have improved.' Former Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliot also came out for the deal, warning Euroscptic MPs: 'It's May's deal or nothing.' But, with the trickle of Eurosceptic MPs declaring their support still failing to turn into a flood, the prospects for the deal remain on a knife edge. Mrs May was last night still deciding whether or not to press ahead with tomorrow's planned vote on her Brexit deal. Philip Hammond and Liam Fox both said it could be pulled if it looked like it would be defeated a third time. Downing Street was braced for Boris Johnson to 'double down' on his opposition. And Tory sources said fellow leadership hopeful Dominic Raab was also indicating he would help Labour vote down the deal for a third time. ''No deal' will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed,' wrote the Tory MPs, including former ministers Owen Paterson, Sir John Redwood and David Jones. 'Our moral course is clear: it is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices, but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other.' Mr Johnson said Mrs May's Agreement would leave the UK 'in a position of almost unbearable weakness' for subsequent talks on trade, risking transforming the country into 'a kind of economic colony of Brussels'. The backstop arrangement - under which the UK remains in a customs union until both sides agree a trade deal - gives the EU 'an indefinite means of blackmail', said the Brexit figurehead. 'Unless we have some change - and at present, in the immortal phrase, nothing has changed - it is hard to ask anyone who believes in Brexit to change their mind,' he said. 'There is an EU summit this week. It is not too late to get real change to the backstop. It would be absurd to hold the vote before that has even been attempted.' Jacob Rees-Mogg appears to be softening towards backing Mrs May's deal if Brexit is threatened but Dominic Raab and Priti Patel are expected to oppose whatevere The 10 DUP MPs are viewed by Downing Street as pivotal, not just for the votes they provide but the influence of their stance on Conservative Eurosceptics. Which Tory MPs have signalled they will vote against the deal AGAIN? Boris Johnson Owen Paterson Priti Patel John Baron John Redwood Adam Afriyie Lucy Allan Crispin Blunt Peter Bone Andrew Bridgen Richard Drax Mark Francoix Marcus Fysj Chris Green Adam Holloway Philip Hollobone Ranil Jayawardena Andrea Jenkyns David Jones Julian Lewis Craig Mackinlay Sheryll Murray Andrew Rosindell Ross Thomson Michael Tomlinson Anne-Marie Trevelyan Sam Gyimah Jo Johnson Philip Lee Dominic Grieve Justine Greening Guto Bebb Advertisement DUP MLA Jim Wells told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We still have a huge difficulty with the backstop, because we see it as a waiting room for constitutional change. 'We could find ourselves locked in there forever in effect, and once you get in you can never get out. We have to have a mechanism where we can escape the backstop.' Mr Wells said a proposed 'gentlemen's agreement' that any changes to Northern Ireland's relationship with the EU would be mirrored by the rest of the UK might prove 'unenforceable'. And he denied that the DUP was taking part in a financial 'auction' for its support, insisting that 'money is not being discussed on the table at the moment'. Mr Wells estimated that as many as 30 Tory MPs will never vote for Mrs May's deal, meaning that a third defeat was 'inevitable' with or without DUP support. So far the number of Tories publicly switching positions falls far short of the 75 MPs Mrs May needs to change sides. Bolton West MP Chris Green told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: 'I want to vote against it because I don't believe when Parliament defeated it by the biggest margin in the history of Parliament that was because it was in any way a good deal, and the substance of the deal hasn't changed.' But he added that a shift in the DUP's position would have a 'big impact' and the implications of rejecting the deal for a third time weighed heavily on him 'because it could lead to a general election, and we don't know how that will pan out'. As part of the effort to put pressure on Tory hardliners and the DUP, Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox took to the airwaves on Sunday to make clear that the Prime Minister would not chance a third defeat on her deal. And Security Minister Ben Wallace, a close ally of Mr Johnson who chaired his abortive bid for the leadership in 2016, urged the former foreign secretary and other Tory Brexiteers to back Mrs May's deal. Sparks fly as the Speaker drops a Brexit bombshell Andrea Leadsom questioned Speaker John Bercow's ability to lead efforts to find a solution to the constitutional impasse he created John Bercow clashed yet again with his long-term parliamentary adversary minister Andrea Leadsom after setting off his Brexit bombshell in the Commons. The Speaker has had an acrimonious relationship with the Commons Leader since she took up the post over issues including bullying of parliamentary staff. He admonished her today for fiddling with her mobile phone during points of order, prompting her to take revenge by questioning his impartiality and ability to find a solution to the mess his ruling on a third meaningful vote had made. Mr Bercow had replied to a request from Kingston MP Sir Ed Davey for a Speakers Conference to help solve the constitutional pinch-point by saying the last time he offered to hold one there had been little interest from her predecessor, David Lidington. He then suggested that as Mrs Leadsom was a notable reformer in other respects she might feel she could have a key role in initiating such an important constitutional development adding: If she did i would be perfectly willing to play ball with it - it is nothing she and I have discussed, but you never know. She promptly got to her feet and said: I just want to be very clear I am indeed a reforming Leader of the House of Commons and for me, treating colleagues with courtesy and respect is at the forefront of that reform. Any Speakers Council would have to have that at its heart and I simply would not be confident that would be the case. As MPs laughed: Well so be it. I treat the House with respect, I have treated its members with respect, I chaired a previous speaker's conference and there was no criticism of the way I did so. One reason why the Leader of the House might not be well versed in that particular Speakers Conference and in a position to make a judgement about my chairmanship of it is very simply that it took place before the right honourable lady entered the House of Commons (in 2010). Advertisement DUP MP Nigel Dodds on Friday denied cash was being talked about in discussions with the Government but insisted his party was keen to support the PM's deal if they can How will Brexit be delayed and will MPs get a vote on it? Why is Brexit day set on March 29, 2019? There are two reasons. The first because it is the second anniversary of Britain formally telling the EU it wished to leave by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. This triggered a two-year divorce negotiation that will expire on March 29. The second reason is because British laws on leaving specify 11pm on March 29, 2019, as 'exit day'. Writing this into law triggered a political fight in the Commons because it was not actually necessary but the Government insisted on doing it. What needs to happen for the date to be changed? There are again two processes. First, Theresa May will need to go to Brussels and get political agreement for delay and the terms on which it happens. The second is British law will need to be changed to amend the date of Brexit. This will require a vote in both Commons and Lords. What will happen at the EU Council? Whatever the terms of delay, the Prime Minister will ask EU leader for what she wants and then they will make a decision - without her. Brexit issues are decided only by the 27 remaining states, without a British say. A delay to Brexit must be agreed unanimously - all EU states have a full veto. Mrs May has said if MPs have passed her deal, she will ask EU for a short extension of a couple of months to sort out UK law. If MPs have not passed the deal, she will have to ask for a 'much longer' extension. What needs to happen in the UK? Once a new date is agreed, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 has to be amended. This must be done via Statutory Instrument - a form of 'secondary legislation' that changes the law without going through the full parliamentary process. A minister will table the SI in Parliament setting out the new date for Brexit. The law says it must be done via the 'affirmative' procedure - this means there will have to be a straight vote in both the Commons and Lords, with no possibility of amendment. Will it happen? At this point, almost certainly. We know from last week there are enough votes in the Commons to block no deal. The EU also does not want no deal and is thought likely to agree both versions of the extension plan at the summit. Can a no deal Brexit still happen on March 29? Yes - if there is no political agreement on changing the date at the EU Council or Parliament rejects the SI, Brexit will still happen as the legal default. Could Brexit happen on March 29 with the deal? No - even if MPs pass the deal this week there is no practical way to get all the necessary laws through in time. Delay could in theory be limited to a couple of weeks, potentially. Advertisement 'I know Boris very well and I know he's passionate about leaving the European Union,' Mr Wallace told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'If he is passionate about that, he will recognise that voting for this deal is the way to deliver Brexit and the way to deliver leaving the EU ... I strongly urge my colleagues to vote for it.' Conservative MP Sir John Redwood dismissed Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement as 'a very expensive invitation to more talks about possibly getting out with a sensible trade agreement, or perhaps not, with the ultimate problem that Northern Ireland might not be allowed out at all'. Dutch PM says Theresa May's Brexit approach is like the Black Knight from Monty Python Monty Python's Black Knight refuses to admit defeat after a duel against Graham Chapman's King Arthur, suggesting they call it a draw despite losing all his limbs Dutch PM Mark Rutte likened Mrs May to the Monty Python character the Black Knight, who refused to give in even after having his limbs chopped off. Mr Rutte was commenting on Mrs May's wish to take her deal back to the Commons for a third vote - and could try for a fourth time next week. He then compared her to the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail who is fighting a losing battle. As a rival chops off his limbs he keep going insisting it's a 'merely a flesh wound' and 'I'll bite your legs off!'. Mr Rutte, who is campaigning in local elections in the Netherlands, told the country's WNL op Zondag television programme. 'I have a lot of respect for Theresa May -- she reminds me occasionally of that Monty Python character where all his arms and legs are cut off and then says to his opponent: let's call it a draw,' 'If the British ask for a delay, interesting, but that was also my irritation this week -- what do you want with that delay?' he said on Sunday. While the U.K. is 'in a very bad position right now,' Rutte respects his counterpart in London. 'She's doing incredibly, she goes on and on.' Advertisement Sir John told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'It violates the Conservative manifesto in many important ways. The manifesto is very clear that no deal is better than a bad deal.' He said that 'a lot' of Conservative MPs shared his concerns, but declined to estimate how many would vote against Mrs May's deal in a third meaningful vote. 'It's a lot of people, and it goes far wider than the ERG (European Research Group), who have been particularly keen to have the right kind of Brexit.' Sir John said that at this week's EU summit, Mrs May should say that 'we are going to be leaving on March 29 in accordance with her oft-repeated mantra, but that we would like a free trade agreement... and if they would just agree to talks on a free trade agreement we needn't impose barriers on each other'. Some senior figures believe tomorrow's vote should be delayed until next week, by which time Mrs May is expected to have requested an extension of Article 50. One Cabinet minister urged the PM to delay, adding: 'Whenever it comes it is going to be incredibly tight. I think the DUP will come across but we also need Boris and Raab and Rees-Mogg to have a chance. Even then, we will need some more Labour MPs to come on board.' At the start of a crunch week on Brexit: Philip Hammond angered Eurosceptics by saying it was now 'physically impossible to leave on March 29' following Parliament's decision to back a Brexit delay. Dutch PM Mark Rutte likened Mrs May to the Monty Python character the Black Knight, who refused to give in even after having his limbs chopped off. Former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey said she would reluctantly back the deal, but called for Mrs May and other 'feeble negotiators' to quit. David Davis urged Eurosceptic MPs to back the deal, saying it was 'capable of rescue' in Brussels. Mrs May's deal suffered a record 230-vote defeat in January and lost again by 149 votes last week. Ministers believe they are close to sealing an agreement with her DUP backers, which could see dozens of Eurosceptic Tories reluctantly fall into line behind the deal. Mr Hammond yesterday indicated the DUP could be handed more cash for Northern Ireland if they agree to back the PM's deal. He told the BBC's Andrew Marr show: 'This isn't about money. It's about a political assurance well, look, we are coming up to a spending review and we will have to look at all budgets, including devolved block-grant budgets.' Gordon Henderson, a Tory MP who has voted against the deal twice, told the Mail: 'If the Government can find a formula that satisfies our DUP colleagues, then it will satisfy me.' Ministers were helped last night by Lord Trimble's decision to drop his opposition to the backstop plans in the light of fresh legal assurances that it could only be temporary. In a paper for the Policy Exchange think-tank, he said: 'The Government has succeeded in securing substantive changes that will affect and limit the impact of the Irish backstop'. The intervention from Lord Lamont, a patron of the hardline Leave Means Leave organisation, could also prove significant. The former Chancellor, who served in the Thatcher government, warns fellow Eurosceptics that Brexit could be lost altogether unless they stop their infighting and back the PM. He said it was 'wishful thinking' to believe that Parliament wouldn't try to stop Brexit once it had been delayed. And he said there would be 'all to play for' in the second round of talks with Brussels, as long as the withdrawal deal was passed. He added: 'To assert as some Eurosceptics do that it is preferable to remain in the EU than to accept Mrs May's deal is absurd. The PM's deal is far from ideal. But it has one overwhelming advantage. Under her deal we will definitely leave.' Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, a member of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs, said: 'The mood is changing. People are getting tired of the infighting at Westminster and in the Conservative Party. They expect us to get this across the line.' Emma Lewell-Buck, who resigned from Labour's front bench last week to vote against a second referendum, said she and other like-minded MPs wanted to see Brexit delivered with the current deal. But some Tory hardliners suggested they would never back down. Andrea Jenkyns, a prominent member of the ERG, said: 'The British spirit is to fight on and not to back down to threats.' Jeremy Corbyn yesterday warned he was ready to call a vote of no confidence in the Government this week if Mrs May's deal is voted down again, potentially triggering an election. He also plunged Labour's Brexit policy into fresh confusion after revealing he could campaign to leave the EU if he succeeds in forcing a second referendum. (ANSA) - Rome, March 18 - An Italian migrant-rescue NGO on Monday rescued a migrant boat with 50 migrants aboard off Libya. The NGO, Mediterranea Saving Humans, said "the Mare Ionio (ship) came across a dinghy in trouble, which was sinking, with about 50 people on board. "The so-called Libyan Coast Guard arrived later, and it is heading towards us". The New Zealand mosque killer faces an 'unprecedented' sentence that bars him from ever applying for release, but could yet dodge terror charges, legal experts say. Brenton Tarrant has been charged with one initial count of murder over the mass shootings that killed 50 people in the southern city of Christchurch and faces life in prison. In New Zealand, being found guilty of murder usually comes with a minimum of 10 years in jail before possible parole. Legal experts said the 28-year-old Australian's alleged crimes were so extreme they could warrant the heaviest sentence imposed by a judge in the South Pacific nation since the abolition of the death penalty in 1961. But one academic said prosecutors may shy away from terror charges - despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labelling the massacre an act of terrorism. The New Zealand mosque killer faces an 'unprecedented' sentence that bars him from ever applying for release, but could yet dodge terror charges, legal experts say. Brenton Tarrant (pictured) has been charged with one initial count of murder over the mass shootings that killed 50 people in the southern city of Christchurch and faces life in prison Police are continuing to conduct searches around Christchurch today (pictured) as they probe the mass shooting Worshippers are pictured leaving the Al Noor Mosque today - days after it was the target of a mass killing 'He may be sentenced to imprisonment without parole. There is a very significant possibility,' criminal lawyer Simon Cullen told AFP, adding that such a sentence would be 'unprecedented'. 'This would seem to be... the type of situation that may well attract consideration of that type of sentence.' The longest-ever murder sentence imposed in New Zealand was in 2001 when a judge sentenced William Bell to life imprisonment with a 30-year minimum term for a triple murder. University of Auckland criminal procedure expert Bill Hodge said despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labelling the massacre an act of terrorism, prosecutors may shy away from terror charges. The Terrorism Suppression Act was only introduced in 2002, after the US 9/11 attacks and is untested in the courts. 'We haven't used our terrorism laws previously and the laws are designed to inhibit or prosecute those involved with groups and financing and publications and the like,' Hodge told AFP. 'I don't think there's any reason to use statues that have not been used previously when the Crimes Act - murder, attempted murder, manslaughter - are perfectly functional and well-understood.' Hodge said charging Tarrant under terrorism laws risked extending the appeals process. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a mosque-goer at the Kilbirnie Mosque on Sunday, as she meets with members of the Islamic community Tarrant was arrested on the sidewalk by two training police officers on Friday after he allegedly shot and killed 50 Muslim worshipers 'It has not been tested in the appeal procedure. Appeals courts point out where the problems might be.' While 50 people were killed in the rampage, police have so far charged Tarrant with one count of murder. This is not unusual in New Zealand, with the first alleged offence used as a 'holding' charge as police carry out their investigation, Cullen added. Meanwhile, experts said the charges faced by an 18-year-old, whose name was suppressed by a court Monday, for distributing Tarrant's livestream video of the deadly shooting were also breaking new ground. The teenager was charged with two counts for sharing the livestream of the attack and for making 'objectionable' online publications about one of the mosques. The teenager is so far not believed by police to be directly involved in his attacks. Hodge said the law is commonly used to prosecute people accused of sharing pornography and child pornography. 'I'm not aware of using it for terrorism-related subjects. It's unusual... when it is used for sharing something which is a news event,' he said. Queensland police have shot dead a weapon-wielding man after a showdown on a residential street. The fatal shooting occurred around 2.30pm on Monday at Endeavour Residential Park in Deception Bay, 32km north of Brisbane, after officers were called to the scene in response to information a man was armed with knives. When the officers arrived they were confronted by the unidentified male, and subsequently 'discharged a number of shots' which fatally wounded the man, Inspector Craig White confirmed. Scroll down for video The fatal shooting occurred around 2.30pm on Monday at Endeavour Residential Park in Deception Bay (Crime scene pictured) Inspector Craig White (pictured) confirmed that a man had been fatally shot on Monday When asked if the man had been making threats to residents of the caravan park, Mr White confirmed that police understood that 'threats were being made'. Mr White said initially one male officer and one female officer were involved in the incident, along with a number of units that provided assistance. 'Both officers are experienced operational officers one is a senior constable and the other is a constable. 'One male officer sustained slight laceration. At this stage he doesn't require any hospital treatment and he is going to be okay,' he added. The image shows the caravan park near to where the weapon-wielding man was shot dead by police However, Mr White failed to confirm how many shots were fired, stating that the matter was 'currently under investigation'. Although he did confirm 'there was more than one shot fired'. 'Officers involved in the shooting will be involved in what we call a walk-through of the scene and that's yet to be done. 'Under the situation under stress we need to confirm how many officers actually fired shots,' Mr White said. Mr White confirmed initially one male officer and one female officer were involved in the incident, along with a number of units that provided assistance (The caravan park pictured) 'Obviously very traumatic for the officers and the victims and their families. Police service will provide all assistance necessary to support those officers. 'It's a terrible tragedy for all concerned,' he concluded. He also added that the matter is being investigated by Ethical Standards Command, and investigations are continuing with police and other officers. At the time of releasing his statement, Mr White said the family of the deceased had not yet been contacted. The incident is being investigated on behalf of the coroner. A body has been recovered from water near to where a mother of three went missing during a hen party in Ireland. Ruth Maguire, 30, was out with friends in Taaffe's Bar in Carlingford, County Louth to celebrate a forthcoming wedding, but when her friends left the bar they realised she was no longer with them. Ms Maguire, who lived in Newcastle, County Down in Northern Ireland, had rented a property for the weekend with friends just five minutes' walk from Taaffe's. Police today stood down the search for her after a body was found in the water between Carlingford and Greenore. A gardai (Irish police) spokesman said: 'The body is believed to be that of missing woman Ruth Maguire. 'Gardai wish to thank the public for their help in this instance, the help of the volunteers and the Coastguard. No further assistance is required.' A body has been found in the search for Ruth Maguire, pictured above on the night she disappeared and in the clothes she was wearing A video shows coastguard helicopters circling and searching for Ruth yesterday Ruth traveled from home in Newcastle, N Ireland, to Carlingford in Ireland for the party. The hen do group rented a property in Carlingford and went to party at Taaffe's Bar Some of the women who were with Ruth on the hen party are pictured on the pier helping to search, before a body was found The town the group had been visiting sits on the shore of Carlingford Lough, a large bay which opens onto the Irish Sea. At some point on Saturday night she is believed to have told a doorman she intended to walk home to Newcastle, and at around midnight she posted a photo on Instagram with the Lough in the background. By 11.30pm, the rest of the hen party were back in the house and realised Ruth was not with them. Her friends started searching for her immediately upon realising she was missing. They then raised the alarm, prompting a much wider search by police, coastguard and members of the public. Ruth with her partner and three children. The nurse, originally from Belfast, was on a hen do with friends when she disappeared Ruth pictured with her partner James Griffin. She has not been seen since Saturday evening Coastguard helicopters could be seen circling over Carlingford Lough as they search for Ruth Emergency responders seen here wearing breathing apparatus have rushed to the scene Taaffes Bar in Carlingford, where Ruth was last seen on Saturday evening Her friend Colette Delaney wrote on Facebook that Ms Maguire 'had no coat and it was freezing', the Belfast Telegraph reported, adding that Ms Delaney was 'worried sick'. 'Please God help her be found safe,' she added. Her friend Katrina said: 'This is totally out of character.' A doorman heard her say she might make her way home to Newcastle, Co Down, but her partner and children had gone to Belfast. This morning he drove to Newcastle but found she had not returned home. Ruth had posted a photograph on social media with Carlingford Lough in the background. Ruth and her brother Ryan Maguire. Ruth's friends began the search for her immediately A police officer is under investigation after video of him punching a woman in the face as he arrested her was posted online. Footage shows the officer, who has not been named, hitting 20-year-old Dominique Difiore while clutching a stun gun outside a house in Chester, Pennsylvania, as St Patrick's Day celebrations got out of control. Difiore tumbles to the ground where witnesses said she was shot with the stun gun, leaving her bleeding profusely from her ear. Police in Pennsylvania have launched an investigation after one of their officers was filmed punching 20-year-old Dominique Difiore in the face during a St Patrick's Day brawl Chester Police say Difiore struck a police sergeant before getting hit, and video does appear to show the woman raising her arm before being knocked down. Nevertheless, the police department has opened an investigation into the brawl after footage was posted on Twitter, where it went viral. Latine Bethea, who saw the brawl, told CBS Philadelphia: 'I was shocked. I was really shocked. I couldn't believe a man hit a female like that.' Cameron Thomas, who also saw the fight, told what happened next: 'He dove to the ground, then tased her. Thats what made it excessive.' Police say the incident began around 5pm Saturday when a group of people tried to get into a house party during St Patrick's Day. Police say they arrested four people near Widener University after a fight broke out when a group of people were denied entry to a house party The group was turned away, officers say 19-year-old Jaylene Westfall attacked two of the people who lived at the house. The residents managed to lock Westfall out of the building but she kicked the door in before going inside along with other women and continued the attack, police say. Westfall was arrested alongside Difiore and two others - Shawn Connelly, 21, and 20-year-old Tess Herman. The brawl happened close to Widener University and reportedly after a Widener pub crawl, though the event was not sanctioned by the college. None of those arrested were students of the university. A statement from Chester Police said: 'A partial video of the event is circulating on various social media platforms. 'The incident, the video and the level of force used in connection with the event are all currently under investigation.' Methamphetamine is pouring into the United States and becoming cheap and easy to obtain, officials believe, amid fears it will follow fentanyl in causing a deadly drugs crisis. Seizures of the lab-manufactured stimulant have more than doubled since 2010 and deaths involving it have trebled, according to reports. Mexican drug suppliers are pushing more of the drug into the U.S. to compete with South American cocaine producers, the Wall Street Journal reported. The rising meth supply has affected New England and the Northeast, where drugs officials declared a growing threat in New Jersey last month. Methamphetamine (stock photo) is pouring into the United States and becoming cheap and easy to obtain, officials believe Jon DeLena, of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New England office, said: 'Everybody's biggest fear is what's it going to look like if meth hits us like fentanyl did.' There were reportedly 347,807 meth seizures sent to labs by law enforcement in 2017, up 118 per cent since 2010. In the most recent figures for meth-related deaths, in 2016, the figure had risen to more than 6,700, over three times greater than that in 2011. Drugs officials also believe meth has become a popular substance to help combat heroin withdrawal symptoms. 'Methamphetamine is readily available, inexpensive, and provides the user with a high that can last more than 24 hours,' the DEA said last month. 'These factors appeal to heroin users who are seeking relief from withdrawal symptoms and functioning heroin users who need to get through the work week without yielding to withdrawal symptoms. 'Another factor that makes methamphetamine appealing is the low price. Typically, a drug with a high purity results in a high price. Last month Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted 350 packages of methamphetamine (pictured) inside a truck carrying frozen strawberries 'The opposite is true for methamphetamine. Since 2009, as the purity of the drug has risen the price has continued to drop.' Fentanyl, which is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine, has helped to spark the deadly opioid crisis in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in a recent report that fentanyl is now the drug most often involved in fatal overdoses across the country. Last month Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted nearly $13million worth of methamphetamine inside a truck carrying frozen strawberries. Officers discovered 350 packages concealed within the trailer and seized 906 pounds (411 kilograms) of meth. The 42-year-old man driving the truck at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge cargo facility in Texas was arrested. This is the dramatic moment firefighters cut a hole in the wall to free a dog who had found herself stuck after chasing a squirrel into the attic. Firefighters in Tennessee, U.S. were called to the unusual rescue at around 7:30pm on Thursday after a miniature sausage dog fell down an opening in the roof. While chasing squirrels around the rafters the dog fell down into a wall cavity in the owner's house in Hixton, Tennessee. The long-haired, toy Dachshund, named Bella was heard yelping from the interior wall space of the master bedroom by her owners after she found herself unable to get free. Bella's owners didn't know how to save the dog themselves so decided to call the fire department who turned up in force. The footage captured by Chattanooga fire department in Tennessee shows the firefighter saw a door into the wall through the plaster and pull the dog out by it's hind legs. Chattanooga firefighter Shawn Roach tries to grab hold of the dog through a hole he has sawn in the wall The dog is removed from the makeshift hatch very quickly as firefighters were concerned she may get aggressive The dog is then quickly passed down to safety to the fire fighter below who was waiting to catch it. Firefighter Shawn Roach said he was not sure how the dog would react to the rescue which is why she was so quickly pulled out of the space. Captain Blevins and Lt. Paul Chapin of Chattanooga fire department arrived with firefighters in a fire engine, but only needed a small ladder and saw to carry out the rescue. Bella's owners were very grateful to the firefighters for rescuing their tiny Dachshund who was unharmed by her squirrel chasing adventure. The owners were happy to share the footage but want to remain anonymous. Chattanooga firefighters pose proudly with Bella, the rescued miniature sausage dog The alleged gunman behind the Christchurch terror attack would be 'the most targeted person in prison', an expert says. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, is currently held in a specialist facility and has been placed under 24-hour observation for his own safety following the death of 50 people in Christchurch on Friday. A gang member, who was part of a group that gathered to pay their respects to the victims of the shootings, shared a chilling message with NZME: 'We've got friends inside too.' Canterbury University criminologist Greg Newbold said the threats should be taken seriously. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, would be 'the most targeted person in prison' an expert has warned following the death of 50 people in Christchurch on Friday The white supremacist who allegedly killed 50 people in a mosque in Christchurch has fired his lawyer and plans to represent himself in court He warned Tarrant would be in 'extreme danger' behind bars and said Tarrant could 'easily be killed' in prison. 'There will be people in prison who will be pretty angry about it, particularly the fact that he's a white supremacist.' He said that while there were 'pockets' of white supremacy in the South Island, the majority of New Zealand's prison population was non-white. Canterbury University criminologist Greg Newbold (pictured) told NZME Tarrant would be in 'extreme danger' behind bars and said Tarrant could 'easily be killed' in prison. It is likely that if Tarrant is found guilty of the killings, he would serve his time in Auckland's maximum security facility where he would have to spend his life in segregation, Mr Newbold said. 'At the moment he would certainly be by far the most targeted person. There's not many people with much sympathy for that, even the white supremacists.' Tarrant faces life in prison if he is convicted. The accused gunman, who was born in Australia and grew up in Grafton, NSW, had been living in Dunedin when he allegedly carried out New Zealand's worst mass murder in history. He allegedly stormed the Al Noor mosque and later Linwood Masjid on Friday, where he shot dead 50 people and left dozens more critically injured. A 73-page manifesto was published detailing his hatred and how he was inspired by Norway mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 in 2011. Janet Samson, 41 (pictured outside Manchester Magistrates Court) was caught doing 38mph in a 30mph zone near her Manchester home three times between October 2017 and January 2018 A mother-of-three caught speeding three times by the same camera has been banned from driving despite claims she needs a car to take her children to school. Janet Samson, 41, was caught doing 38mph in a 30mph zone near her Manchester home three times between October 2017 and January 2018. She was given nine penalty points for the three offences and a further six for twice failing to declare she was the person driving the car. Samson begged magistrates in Manchester to let her keep her licence, claiming she would struggle to get a bus two miles to work and it would be 'very hard' to collect her children from school. But the magistrate was unconvinced, telling her: 'I'm sorry but we don't think those circumstances count as exceptional. 'We appreciate it will make things difficult but not exceptionally difficult. 'Therefore we have to uphold and impose a six month ban from driving. 'We understand what you say but your driving has been so bad that it has resulted in you being disqualified.' The hospital cleaner at North Manchester General Hospital wept as she explained how the ban would bring her 'exceptional hardship'. She told the court: 'I need to take the kids to school, Yes I can go by bus but it is going to cause a lot of problems. 'I have to be at work for 3.15pm so wouldn't work for me to get buses to take kids to and from school. 'It's going to make things very hard for me. I have two kids I have to bring to school and bring them back. 'This will make it very hard for me and this will really affect me and my children. I'll have no one to get them for me.' The camera that caught Samson is located in Victoria Avenue East, Blackley, Manchester, near her home in Moston. It captured her Honda Jazz well over the speed limit on three occasions, which on top of the six points for failing to declare the driver, pushed her three points over the 12-point threshold for disqualification. Samson begged magistrates in Manchester (court building pictured) to let her keep her licence, claiming she would struggle to get a bus two miles to work and it would be 'very hard' to collect her children from school, but she was banned anyway Samson, whose children are aged 12, 10 and eight, told the hearing her 4pm to 10pm shifts overlap with her Italian husband's 6am to 6pm job as a security guard, which means he would be unable to take over the school run from her. The court heard the primary school is a 10-minute car journey from the family home. She added: 'I go to work in the car and I don't know about points on a licence. I have provided information - I have provided details two times. I 'I can go on bus to work but to where I work from where I live is going to be hard. I can't leave my kids at home. 'My husband is here now. He has just joined me from Italy and he is a security guard in Bolton. He works 6am-6pm and me and my husband overlap work hours.' She was fined 280 and ordered to pay costs and surcharges of 110. After the hearing she was overheard complaining: 'This will cause me a lot of problems. This will be very bad for me.' A terrified Russian man has been filmed scaring off a moose - by hurling a cat at the bewildered animal. Residents in Oktyabrsky panicked when an inquisitive young wild moose suddenly walked into the Russian city from the forest. The scared animal had lost its mother and went on the rampage, denting cars and charging around children's playgrounds. People tried in vain to scare away the large calf by throwing snowballs and shouting. But as the moose approached one apartment block watched by a crowd of jeering people, a man suddenly threw his black cat at the moose. A terrified Russian man has been filmed scaring off a moose - by hurling a cat at the bewildered animal As the moose approached one apartment block watched by a crowd of jeering people, a man suddenly threw his black cat at the moose (pictured) Cat and moose: The wild animal fled - but there was outrage on social media over the 'barbaric act' The wild animal fled - but there was outrage on social media over the 'barbaric act'. The distraught moose collided with a car as it fled with people chasing it. It was later caught, loaded into a vehicle and driven to the outskirts of Oktyabrsky in oil rich region Bashkortostan - then returned to the forest. Pro-Kremlin NTV reported: 'Despite the absurdity of the situation, the "fluffy shell" worked - and the moose ran away.' Another headline read: 'Cat scares moose away.' But there has been a furious reaction. Residents in Oktyabrsky panicked when an inquisitive young wild moose (pictured) suddenly walked into the Russian city from the forest The moose was caught, loaded into a vehicle and driven to the outskirts of Oktyabrsky in oil rich region Bashkortostan - then returned to the forest The scared animal had lost its mother and went on the rampage, denting cars and charging around children's playgrounds Semya Gaysinykh said: 'This moose is a calf - the animals here are the people.' Venera Khasanova wrote: 'They are savages. First throwing the cat at the moose, then chasing it. 'But now the moose knows for sure that it must be afraid of people. In the forest, it won't meet such crazy animals.' Rustam Mugtamov complained: 'These are wild people, worse than any moose.' There were no reports on the condition of the cat after its ordeal. Devout Muslim and AFL footy star Bachar Houli has a message for the Christchurch mosque massacre gunman - thank you for raising awareness. The 30-year-old midfielder, who won a premiership with Richmond in 2017, believes the mosque killings, allegedly carried out by Australian Brenton Tarrant last Friday, offered one positive. 'The incident out of Christchurch, it's only made our community stronger so the killer's objectives, well, you have just raised awareness. So thank you,' he told news.com.au. Richmond Tigers midfielder Bachar Houli (pictured) has thanked gunman Brenton Tarrant for 'raising awareness' after his horrific actions in Christchurch Taking to Instagram, Houli also said he is 'super proud to be a Muslim Australian' after the united level of support following Friday's attack 'Sorry to say that to the people who have lost their lives. Because we feel it, I feel it. It was like one of my own had gone down. 'The one thing I love and I am so proud to be an Australian-Muslim is the fact that all of Australia have come out in support...'As Australian people, we feel for everyone.' Houli went on to state now is the time for 'people can learn a thing or two about Islam and stop living in an ignorant bubble.' Tarrant, 28, a self-described white supremacist, is accused of live-streaming the attack on Facebook last Friday. He has been charged with one count of murder and shown no remorse for his horrific actions. Houli also revealed he left pre-season training early last week at Punt Road as he was struggling to comprehend the senseless attack in Christchurch. 'The one thing that stands out to me and this should be a message to everyone is that the first person who got gunned down was a person who welcomed the gunman,' he said. 'He said, 'Welcome brother, please come in.' 'They were his last words before he passed away.' Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here. (ANSA) - Moscow, March 18 - Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Serghiei Riabkov will meet Tuesday in Rome with US special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, Riabkov told TASS Sunday. "We will warn the US against military intervention and other forms of illegal influence against the legitimate authorities in Caracas," he said. Pictured: A pigeon spotted flying inside the maternity ward at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow A pigeon was spotted flying inside a scandal-hit hospital where three people died after contracting infections. A 10-year-old boy and 73-year-old woman picked up cryptococcus, a fungus linked to pigeon droppings, at the 1billion Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow. Last Thursday 63-year-old grandmother Mito Kaur died after contracting a fungal lung infection at the hospital. That same day a pregnant mother filmed a bird flying freely within the hospital's maternity ward waiting area. The mother told the Daily Record: 'My son started pointing and we looked and saw a pigeon flying about. The dust from it was flying everywhere. 'It was disgusting. The staff didn't seem bothered, which was odd given the furore around the pigeon droppings scandal. 'My wee boy was running around shouting 'birdie, birdie'. The whole thing was a farce.' She claimed that during their 15-minute stay nobody turned up to deal with the bird, which worried her because she has to give birth in the hospital. She added that the bird 'must have been doing droppings all over the place'. Regarding the footage, an NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Our Maternity reception staff logged a call with our helpdesk as soon as they became aware of the bird on Thursday afternoon. Our specialist pest control contractors responded and removed the bird. An investigation was launched into conditions at the 1billion flagship hospital in Glasgow 'It is a fact that large buildings in cities often attract a lot of birds and we have taken a number of measures to help reduce this, including netting and spikes. We have recently taken further steps to deter them on the QEUH site, including the fitting of extra nets and spikes. 'Our Facilities staff will continue to use pest control measures to reduce the presence of pigeons and we are also consulting with pest control experts to seek other methods of control. 'We would like to apologise to this patient, and any others, for any upset this may have caused.' Mito Kaur, 63, died in the hospital after catching a fungal lung infection An inspection highlighted poor standards of cleanliness at the hospital last week, but the maternity section, located in an older building at the site, was not included, according to reports. The cryptococcus fungus was said to have only been a contributory factor in the death of the 10-year-old child - who died in December - but not the 73-year-old woman who died in January after contracting a similar infection. The death of shop worker Mrs Kaur is being investigated by prosecutors. The mother of four and grandmother of nine died on 2am on March 14 after her life support machine was switched off. Relatives criticised hospital staff, claiming they only found out about her condition from reports of a fungal outbreak in a press release on the hospital's website last month. Aamer Anwar, the Kaur family's lawyer, said he contacted prosecutors to advise them of the family's concerns, and their 'desire for a fully independent investigation to take place'. He said: 'I understand that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal have instructed the police to obtain a full report, following which an independent post-mortem will be carried out. A Scottish Government spokesman called for the Health Secretary to take 'swift action' after the deaths at the hospital 'In recent days an unannounced inspectorate report into the management of infection and control following two previous deaths was published; this was a devastating indictment of the culture that existed at the QEUH. 'The family remain highly concerned at the role of senior management and demand a full and independent inquiry.' The grandmother was taken to hospital after contracting flu which then developed into pneumonia. Mrs Kaur picked up the Mucor fungus and the infection caused her brain to swell and her heart became inflamed. A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde told The Herald on Sunday: 'We have investigated a number of potential sources for Mucor without discovering the source and our investigations have concluded.' Mrs Kaur's daughter previously said the family had not been told of their mother's fungal infection until they read about it on the NHSGGC website. She said she questioned doctors who confirmed their mother was one of those who had the deadly infection. Pigeons pictured roosting on top of the neurology building at the hospital in Glasgow NHSGGC denied this, insisting the family were told three days before any information about Mucor was made public. Mrs Kaur was moved to the intensive care unit at the QEUH, but then moved again to an open part of the ward, according to her family. Her ICU room had been sealed up, and it was reported that panelling from the walls had been stripped off to try and find out if a leak had caused the fungus. It was previously reported that the Mucor fungus which infected Mrs Kaur was thought to have been linked to a water leak. The Kaur family's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said: 'The family were told by the hospital that they had tried to trace the Mucor, but because of the nature of the fungus, it had been impossible to find. 'Mito's family remain highly dissatisfied with the explanation given and concerned in case another patient becomes seriously ill as a result of contracting the Mucor infection. 'The family are waiting on the post-mortem and inquiries being carried out by Crown Office before they will be able to comment fully on the nature and cause of their mother's death.' A Scottish Government spokesman said that the health board 'responded appropriately' to the incident, according to reports. Scottish Labour's health spokesman Monica Lennon has previously called on the Health Secretary to 'take swift action to ensure no other family is left grieving the loss of a loved one because of hospital-based infections'. A Crown Office spokesman said police had been instructed 'to carry out inquiries'. Eurostar cancelled their high-speed trains to Paris from London for three more days today as industrial action by French customs officials reaches its third week. Passengers should only use high-speed trains from Paris to London 'if absolutely necessary' due to delays of up to five hours caused by industrial action. Trade unionists have used the threat of Brexit to campaign for better pay and conditions and it is unknown how long a 'work to rule' strategy might last. Travellers queue at the Eurostar terminal this morning as militant French trade unionists use Brexit as an excuse for industrial action Stranded travellers wait in St Pancras for more information about their train to France. Trade unionists have used the threat of Brexit to campaign for better pay and conditions and it is unknown how long a 'work to rule' strategy might last This morning services from Paris are delayed for 45 minutes to an hour, according to a Eurostar spokesman. The spokesman said: 'French customs officers at Paris Gare du Nord continue to take part in industrial action. 'As a result, the regular pre-departure security checks are taking longer than usual and this is causing delays on departure in Paris. 'We are very sorry for the inconvenience this is causing passengers, and to provide as much flexibility as possible we are offering a free exchange or refund to any passenger who would prefer to postpone their trip.' Paris Eurostar Station at 8.55 this morning after industrial action led to border controls asking more security questions than usual Eurostar customers vented their frustration on Twitter after the continued strike action caused long delays Just one customs official processed passengers hoping to travel on high-speed trains from Paris today It is part of a nationwide protest by French officials, who caused disruption at stations including the Gare Du Nord in Paris (left) and 15-mile tailbacks around ports including Dover (right) Long queues built up at the Gare du Nord, the companys hub in the French capital, as passengers waited for up to five hours to get through customs checks. There were cancellations in London too, with the 7.31 service from London St Pancras to Paris scrapped first thing this morning. Gavin Esler, the broadcaster and Kent University Chancellor, tweeted a video of hundreds of passengers standing in line at St Pancras International station as early as Sunday night last week. A Eurostar train heads for France through Folkestone in Kent, as French customs officers continue their work-to-rule industrial action to protest over pay and show the effect Brexit will have on cross-Channel passengers He wrote: Eurostar tonight - queue out of the door- anyone thinking of going on holiday after March 29 [and assuming the Brexit sunlit uplands continue] might find the same. But hey, we can spend hours waiting for our flights, trains and ferries looking at our new blue passports. Questions passengers are asked include: Where do you live? and What do you do for a living? the kind that nobody is usually asked once their bags have cleared. One passenger identified only as Jonathan on his Twitter account wrote: Dangerous situation created at Gare du Nordis because customs have shut down 5 of 6 baggage scanners. Eurostar says customs in their right to express concerns over Brexit! Eurostar connives in grotesque treatment of passengers, exposing them to serious security risks. He wrote in another tweet: It seems not to have occurred to the geniuses at Eurostar that the situation at Gare du Nordis actually dangerous. As well as highly uncomfortable, stressful and miserable for customers who pay a fortune. A shameful performance by Eurostar, famous for being awful. The UNSA union last week refused to give an end date for the action, with a spokesman telling The Local that it 'might last a long time because officers are just doing their jobs'. Eurostar has been paying out thousands in compensation since the French action started at the beginning of the month. Which trains have been cancelled? Monday: 07.04am from Paris Nord to London St Pancras 08.37am from Paris Nord to London St Pancras 09.03pm from Paris Nord to Ebbsfleet International and London St Pancras Tuesday: 07.04am from Paris Nord to London St Pancras 09.03pm from Paris Nord to Ebbsfleet International and London St Pancras Wednesday: 7.04am from Paris Nord to London St Pancras) 08.37am from Paris Nord to London St Pancras 09:03pm from Paris Nord to Ebbsfleet International and London St Pancras Advertisement Last week five French unions representing 17,000 customs officials rejected a pay boost worth more than 12m a year, saying they wanted far more to deal with the extra workload caused by Brexit. Britain is officially meant to leave the EU on March 29, and the French customs are complaining that they do not have enough resources to deal with possible problems. This is why they have launched their industrial action calling for more money and resources. A spokesman for the CFDT, one of five French unions behind the problems, said: We are applying strict customs rules and reinforcing controls. The queues were mainly caused by uniformed French customs officials at the Gare du Nord interrogating all passengers once their luggage had passed through X-ray machines. In turn, passengers have accused the French of acting with brutal cynicism, as they already deal with thousands of non-EU passport holders every day. Camille Hulot, 19, was reduced to floods of tears by three uniformed customs men at the Gare du Nord last week as she travelled back to her classes in England. She was forced to wait in line for three-and-a-half hours, and then told she might have to queue again as punishment for being impolite. Ms Hulot said: All they wanted to do was hold people up so that their journeys were disrupted, while dishonestly using Brexit as an excuse. It is an absolute scandal. A spokesman for the Douane, the French customs, confirmed that staff were reinforcing controls. Travellers have been held up all over northern France during the customs work to rule, including at ports such as Calais, where lorries have been caught up in 15 miles tailbacks. A kindergarten teacher in China has been fired after surveillance footage caught her whipping children with her pointer in class. It is believed the pupils had disobeyed the teacher's order which enraged her. The 22-second clip shows the female educator violently hitting a boy on the head with her teaching tool before repeatedly beating a girl on the back. The female educator beats a boy on the head after apparently ordering him to read some characters on a blackboard. The incident took place last Friday in Huangshi city in China It appears that the teacher was ordering the children to read some characters on a blackboard before carrying out the abuse. The video of the physical punishment emerged on Chinese social media last week and went viral, which promoted the local authorities to launch an investigation. The shocking incident took place last Friday at the Golden Thumb Kindergarten in the city of Huangshi in central China's Hubei Province, according to a government statement. The teacher then turns around and starts whipping a small girl on the back in front of her classmate. The teacher has been sacked after footage of the incident went viral last Friday The government of the Huangshi Gang District, where the kindergarten is located, said it had ordered the kindergarten to dismiss the teacher and apologise to the parents of the children involved. The headmaster of the school received 'administrative penalties' and the kindergarten was given demerits by the local education bureau. The authorities did not explain why the teacher punished the children, but vowed to strengthen its supervision over local schools. According to Chinese law, a person could be jailed for up to three years for abusing those under his or her care, including children, the elderly, patients and people with disabilities. The news comes after two Chinese kindergarten teachers were arrested in Ital. They had been caught violently dragging, beating and kicking children by hidden cameras. One of the teachers, 38-year-old Zheng Moli who allegedly got her degree in education in China, claimed such 'teaching' methods were 'normal' in her home country and 'nobody has told me not to beat children with sticks in Italy', according to Chinese sources. Ms Zheng was also quoted saying the purpose of using sticks and clubs was to get the attention of children. Advertisement Your typical drone can withstand temperatures of up to 40C (104F), so it's just as well this one didn't get too close to a crater nicknamed 'The Door to Hell' - where the heat can reach 1,000C (1,830F). Aerial footage has captured incredible views over the apocalyptic Darvaza crater, a flame pit in the middle of the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, that has burned for more than 40 years. The 69 metres-wide by 30 metres-deep crater was formed when a group of Soviet engineers exploring sources of natural gas saw their rig collapse creating the hell mouth. Fearing dangerous gases would be released into the atmosphere, they set it alight in the hope it would burn off in a few weeks. This drone footage shows amazing views over the Darvaza crater, a flame pit in Turkmenistan that has been burning for more than 40 years The crater, which measures 69 metres wide by 30 metres deep, was formed when a group of Soviet engineers exploring sources of natural gas saw their rig collapse - and the hole that remained has been alight since that day in 1971 That very clearly didn't work. It hasn't stopped burning since that day in 1971 and has become a major tourist draw to the sparsely populated Derweze region. Drone operator and photographer Alessandro Belgiojoso captured the stunning high-definition footage of the eerie sight. He said: 'The crater's story is fascinating. The story goes that at the time of the Soviet Union, Russians heavily drilled the desert seeking natural gas in the fourth richest country in the world for natural gas reserves. The site, 150 miles from Turkmenistan's capital, Ashgabat, has become a draw for hundreds of curious onlookers each year. (File image) 'Some miscalculation led to machinery, and most probably operating engineers, falling into the ground. 'As gas poured into the atmosphere - making it impossible to live in small villages even at a great distance in the desert - the best option was to light up the gas and wait for the gas field to dry up. 'But this didn't happen and it has been astonishing visitors ever since. This story is not something to be proud of as tourism is not really welcomed by the authorities.' Despite this, the site, 150 miles from Turkmenistan's capital, Ashgabat, has become a draw for hundreds of curious onlookers each year, keen to catch a close-up glimpse of the mesmerising fire pit. The heat is on: Explorer becomes the first person to descend into the flame pit In 2013, a world-renowned explorer became the first person to descend into The Door to Hell. George Kourounis, 44, rappelled 100ft down into the crater and walked across its surface. The Canadian was part of the first-ever expedition into the flame pit. In 2013, 44-year-old Canadian explorer George Kourounis bravely rappelled down into the massive crater When Mr Kourounis, from Toronto, heard a rumour the Turkmenistan government was planning to extinguish the flames, he decided to up his efforts to visit the location. In the past he has taken on volcanoes and revealed that his aim, as well as to walk on the surface of the fire pit, was to collect samples of dirt to be analysed. He completed the challenge in the winter of 2013 and it was later discovered bacteria was present, despite the hot, methane-rich environment. Mr Kourounis would stay in the crater for around 15 minutes before being pulled out by the rigging team. He said: 'Since this was something nobody had ever done before there was a lot of uncertainty and questions. How hot was it at the bottom? Is the air breathable? Will the ropes survive? What if something goes wrong?' (File image) He was pictured at the time dangling precariously above the crater wearing a heat-reflective suit, breathing apparatus and a custom-made Kevlar harness. Mr Kourounis would stay in the crater for around 15 minutes before being pulled out by the rigging team. He said: 'Since this was something nobody had ever done before there was a lot of uncertainty and questions. How hot was it at the bottom? Is the air breathable? Will the ropes survive? What if something goes wrong? 'Nobody knew the answers - not even me. When I actually set foot at the bottom it was an overwhelming feeling. 'I was in a spot where no human had ever been. It was like stepping onto an alien planet - more people have been on the moon. It was exciting, adventurous, dangerous, a world first and a contribution to science. The expedition had everything I love.' Gabriella Thompson (pictured) was murdered by Tafari Walton in a fit of jealous rage A convicted criminal who was out on bail when he murdered his ex-girlfriend in a fit of jealous rage issued a chilling warning before he brutally stabbed her to death. Tafari Walton, who shared a baby daughter with Gabriella Thompson, is understood to have cautioned 'if I can't have her no one will' just days before he committed the crime while out on bail. The 21-year-old killer was shot dead by police on Thursday after he threatened officers with a knife, just 24 hours after he murdered Ms Thompson at her home in Glendale, 15km west of Newcastle. It's believed Walton was paranoid and thought Ms Thompson, who was six years his senior, was going to leave him for another man while he served time behind bars. 'He was obsessed with Gabriella and loved her desperately, she was older than him, and he always believed she could do better and at times he was violent, we lost her to domestic violence,' Ms Thompson's close friend Claudine Melinda told The Daily Telegraph. Tafari Walton (pictured), 21, threatened officers with a knife when they found him just before 9am on Thursday at his mother's house in Glendale It's believed Walton was paranoid and thought Ms Thompson (pictured) who was six years his senior, was going to leave him for another man 'His attitude was always ''if I can't have her no one will'', he said that days ago. 'The age gap meant he always worried she would find someone else but Gabriella loved him, she kept forgiving him hoping he would change and their relationship would get better,' Ms Melinda said. Another close friend, who remained anonymous, claimed prison made Walton, 'who suffered with mental illness' more violent. They also added that Ms Thompson had been fearful of Walton's impending release. He was shot dead by police after he stabbed his ex-girlfriend Gabriella Thompson (pictured), 27, at 10.30am on Wednesday Walton stabbed Ms Thompson in the head, under each armpit and cut her neck during the frenzied attack at her home. His mother and step-father arrived at her house to find Ms Thompson bleeding to death. Walton fled the scene in Ms Thompson's car. The stabbing was the first part of a wild crime spree carried out by Walton throughout Newcastle. Walton stabbed Ms Thompson in the head, under each armpit and cut her neck during the frenzied attack at her home (pictured) About 2am on Thursday he went to a home in Dudley, 15km from the scene of Ms Thompson's murder, and threatened acquaintances with a knife. He then stole a car before travelling to Wallsend at 5am, where he stole another car from a woman. MURDERED IN A JEALOUS RAGE: THE DEATH OF GABRIELLA THOMPSON 2015 Ms Thompson's boyfriend Tafari Walton is involved in an attempted robbery at The Iron Horse Inn in Cardiff, NSW 2016 Walton is at the centre of a siege at his mother's home in Glendale when he put a gun to his mouth and police surrounded the property. 2017 Walton is sentenced to two years and six months in prison in the Newcastle District Court. December 2018 Walton is charged with affray and wound with intent to cause grievous bodily harm while in prison at the end of his non-parole period and is denied release. January 23, 2019 Walton is granted bail but a magistrate in Kempsey Local Court on the condition he show 'good behaviour'. March 13, 2019 10.30am: Ms Thompson is stabbed to death by Walton at her home. March 14, 2019 2am: Walton arrives at a house in Dudley, 15km from the murder scene, and threatens people with a knife before stealing a car. 5am: Walton steals a car from a woman in Wallsend. 8.30am: Walton confronts an elderly woman at her home in Glendale, demanding her car keys. He drives to his mother's home and police follow him. 9am: Walton is shot dead by police. Advertisement Police began pursuing Walton before he confronted an elderly woman at 8.30am in Glendale. He demanded the woman give him her car keys, saying he urgently needed to see his mother. Police officers approached Walton, at his mother's house in Glendale, west of Newcastle in the NSW Hunter Region, and tried to subdue him with capsicum spray. Assistant Commissioner Max Mitchell said Walton lunged towards officers with a 10cm hunting knife. 'Due to his actions, police had no other alternative... but to unfortunately fatally shoot the attacking person,' he said. 'No police officer wants to be involved in these type of incidents but unfortunately our job is also about protecting the wider community.' Friends said Walton's life was derailed by drugs and criminal activity. Walton's mother Susan said she was 'too upset to speak' about her son's death. 'Why did police have to kill my son?' she said. Friends of Ms Thompson said she lived in fear of Walton, but found it hard to say no to him when he wanted to see their daughter. In a tribute to Ms Thompson posted to a Go Fund Me page, friends described her as a 'loving mother, daughter, sister, aunty and dear friend to so many'. 'You will be missed and forever in our hearts, fly high with the angels baby girl, love you always,' the tribute read. Homicide detectives are investigating the deaths of both Ms Thompson and Walton. Walton allegedly threatened officers with a knife when they found him just before 9am on Thursday at an address on Vena Street, in Glendale. Pictured: Walton's brother (centre in white singlet) at the scene New South Wales Ambulance paramedics had attempted to resuscitate Walton. Ms Thompson was taken to John Hunter Hospital, where she died a short time after arrival. Neighbours told 9 News that she was 'quiet' and 'caring', had only been living on the street for a short time. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Melinda for comment. U.S. border guards have seized a million pounds of Chinese pork over fears of African swine fever. The illegal imports have been confiscated at the port of New York and New Jersey over the last week following 112 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in China since August. Customs officers seized more than 50 containers of the illegally smuggled meat in Elizabeth, New Jersey, saying they could have caused 'grave damage'. The pork had reportedly been disguised as various other products including ramen noodle bowls and Tide detergent, NJ.com reported. Customs and Border Protection officials show off the packages of smuggled Chinese pork which were confiscated at the border amid fears of African swine fever 'The seizure was in an effort to battle the spread of African swine fever,' Anthony Bucci of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. Asked if the seized pork had African swine fever, Bucci said, 'This is an ongoing investigation.' Federal agents were working with U.S. Department of Agriculture on the issue, he said. Officials believe the disease could cause $10billion of damage to the pork industry if it reached U.S. livestock. China, home to the world's largest hog herd, has reported 112 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in 28 provinces and regions since August. The vast majority of the outbreaks have been found on farms, with one at a slaughterhouse. The disease can kill hogs in just two days, but is not harmful to people. About a million pigs have been culled so far in an effort to try to control the spread. The illegal imports (pictured) have been confiscated at the port of New York and New Jersey over the last week following 112 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in China Hog prices in China hit their highest in 14 months this week as the spread of the disease reduces output. U.S. officials decided to ramp up their fight to avoid the virus after Vietnam confirmed its first cases last month. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will add more dogs to sniff out illegal pork products at airports and seaports in an effort to keep out the contagious disease. The seizure at the port of New York follows a $132million cocaine bust in Newark on February 28. Some 60 packages weighing about 1.6 tons (1,437kg) were intercepted during the raid in the New York area's largest drug seizure for 25 years. The container discovered in Newark was due to be shipped to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and then onwards to an address in London. The U.S. Coast Guard, customs and border agency, drugs enforcement officials and New York City's police department were all involved in the raid. Claudia Lawrence (pictured) went missing as she walked to her job at York University 10 years ago today at the age of 35. Her body has never been found The mother of missing chef Claudia Lawrence believes she could still be alive and being held against her will - 10 years after she vanished. Today marks 10 years to the day that Claudia disappeared from her York home at the age of 35. On Monday afternoon, friends of Miss Lawrence gathered at York Minster to light a candle and appeal for information. The anniversary comes amid an ongoing hunt for Hull University student Libby Squire, 21, who went missing earlier this year. Claudia's mother Joan, 75, told Good Morning Britain her daughter could have been abducted and might still be imprisoned somewhere. She told the programme: 'I never thought I'd be 10 years down the line with still no contact, no message. 'If Claudia was abducted, what would she have gone through? What sort of fear? What sort of trauma? If she's still alive somewhere, what is she thinking?' Claudia was last seen at her home on March 18, 2009 and was reported missing after she failed to appear at work the next day. Friends of Miss Lawrence gathered at York Minster, above, to light a candle and appeal for information. Detectives said they are still waiting for information from the public to help them make major progress Friends are pictured lighting candles at York Minster 10 years after Claudia Lawrence vanished. Claudia's mother Joan, 75, told Good Morning Britain her daughter could have been abducted and might still be imprisoned somewhere Nine people have been arrested or interviewed in connection with her disappearance. Police submitted files to the Crown Prosecution Service in relation to several men in their fifties but there is insufficient evidence to bring charges. North Yorkshire Police earlier said the search for the University of York chef could be being hampered by people withholding vital information. Detectives said they are still waiting for information from the public to help them make major progress. Her mother told the York Press there are chilling similarities between the Libby Squire case and her daughter's. She appealed to her parents Lisa and Russell to get in touch with her, saying: 'I was quite upset when I saw about Libby Squire, because she's got long, dark hair and you can't help but be reminded when you see the searches going on. 'I understand how her parents feel, know exactly where they are coming from and if they would like to get in touch with me, I'm a good listener. 'It really helps if you talk to someone in the same situation. I have a lot of friends and they are really great, but say they can't imagine what it's like.' The disappearance of Libby Squire (pictured), a student at Hull University, reminded Claudia's mother Joan Lawrence of her own daughter going missing Peter Lawrence, photographed at his home near York, holds a photograph of his daughter Claudia Lawrence. Mr Lawrence, a retired solicitor, said the pain was 'less raw, but no less significant' Meanwhile, Claudia's father Peter said the decade of uncertainty had 'destroyed his family from the inside' and that he now struggles to believe his daughter is still alive. Mr Lawrence, a retired solicitor, said the pain was 'less raw, but no less significant', adding: 'It still eats into you, the not knowing'. He appealed for anyone with information to come forward and 'put the family out of their misery'. Yesterday, Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn, of North Yorkshire Police, said police 'do not believe Claudia fell victim to an attack by a stranger'. Her mother Joan (pictured on Good Morning Britain on Monday), 75, believes she could still be alive and being held against her will A video shows investigators searching Claudia's home as part of the probe into her vanishing He said: 'It remains the case that we strongly suspect key and vital information is being withheld that could provide the breakthrough that we all want to see, not least Claudia's heartbroken family. 'Unless we get information or intelligence to suggest that Claudia came to harm as a result of an opportunity taken by someone unconnected to her, the team and I still strongly believe the answer lies locally.' Detectives arrested butcher Pawel Relowicz, 24, over Libby's disappearance and said he 'remains under investigation'. He is to stand trial for unrelated offences after pleading not guilty to five charges of voyeurism, an indecent act and three burglaries. Part of British spy Christopher Steele's infamous 'dirty dossier' was based on unverified information submitted to a now-defunct CNN site, court papers reveal. Steele was forced to make the embarrassing admission during a court case involving Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who he accused of helping Russian hackers attack the DNC in his report. While being quizzed over what information he found against Webzilla and XBT, two of Gubarev's companies, Steele quoted CNN's iReport as a source. Part of the 'dirty dossier' that attacked President Trump over his links to Russian election interference was based on a CNN website that allowed people to submit their own news 'What do you understand iReports to be on CNN?,' one of the examiners asked him, according to a transcript seen by Fox News. 'I do not have any particular knowledge of that,' he responded. When asked whether he understood that the reports have no connection to CNN reporters, he answered: 'I do not.' 'Do you understand that CNN iReports are or were nothing more than any random individuals assertions on the Internet?', the examiner cotinued. British spy Christopher Steele was forced to admit that he didn't know what CNN iReport was when he used it as a source 'No, I obviously presume that if it is on a CNN site that it may have [sic] some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site.' The court case took place last year, but papers were only just unsealed after legal action by newspapers. Gubarev had been attempting to sue Buzzfeed for publishing the dossier, saying it had defamed his companies. The case was ultimately dismissed after a judge ruled that Buzzfeed's decision to publish the information was protected under the law. However, the court papers also reveal that a former FBI cyber security expert, Anthony J. Ferrante, found evidence that Gubarev's networks were used to conduct hacking operations. Those operations include the 2015 attack on the Ukrainian power network, and the 2016 DNC hack, Ferrante said. However, he could find no evidence that Gubarev knew that his networks were being used in this way, and could not say whether he cooperated with the hackers. It comes after a weekend in which Trump twice attacked the McCain family after the court papers revealed the dossier was leaked to Buzzfeed by an official at the McCain Institute. 'So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) last in his class (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!', the president wrote on Sunday. It comes after a weekend in which President Trump twice ripped on the McCain family as sources of the leaked dossier Trump hit out at the McCains after court papers revealed that an official at the McCain Institute met with Buzzfeed reporters just days before they published the dossier Earlier in the morning he tweeted a report from 'Fox and Friends' that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who researched and wrote the dossier, used information obtained from CNN in compiling the material. 'Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from send in watchers of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt!,' the president wrote. On Saturday, Trump said John McCain leaking the 'dirty dossier' was 'dark stain' on his legacy. Meghan McCain slapped back at the president, saying he will never be loved. 'No one will ever love you the way they loved my father.... I wish I had been given more Saturdays with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitterobsessing over mine?' the View co-host tweeted. A man who posted comments on social media in support of the Christchurch mosque massacre has been granted bail on condition he keep off the internet. Chad Rolf Vinzelberg hung his head and wept as he faced Elizabeth Magistrates Court on Monday. The 37-year-old has been charged with one count of aggravated possessing a firearm without a licence and four counts of using or possessing a prohibited weapon. Scroll down for video Chad Rolf Vinzelberg hung his head and wept as he faced Elizabeth Magistrates Court on Monday The 37-year-old has been charged with one count of aggravated possessing a firearm without a licence and four counts of using or possessing a prohibited weapon Police prosecutor Brevet Sergeant Peter Finey told the court police were on Friday made aware of comments posted by Vinzelberg and photos that showed him with a firearm. 'It was after the Christchurch massacre,' he said. 'He posted certain things on Facebook in support of that.' The court heard the discovery led police to search Vinzelberg's home at Smithfield, north of Adelaide, where they seized a fake pistol, extendable baton and two flick knives from under his mattress, and a medieval mace and crossbow from his shed. In an interview, Vinzelberg told officers he bought the fake pistol at a garage sale several years ago, and the other weapons were bought online, on Gumtree or at a shop at Salisbury. Chad Rolf Vinzelberg posted comments on social media in support of the Christchurch mosque massacre. Alleged gunman Brenton Tarrant (pictured) stormed the mosques, leaving 50 people dead 'The messages posted on Facebook by the defendant (that) brought him to police attention are significant in concern and, in light of that, the prosecution have a general concern for the safety of the public,' he said. But defence lawyers said a lot of the seized weapons were mounted ornamental items found in what Vinzelberg referred to as his 'man cave'. They also argued Vinzelberg worked 40-60 hours a week as a demolition rigger, pays the mortgage on his family's home, and had never been remanded in custody before. Magistrate Gary Gumpl released Vinzelberg on $2000 bail on the condition he does not access or post anything on the internet, and he will reappear before the court in December. Vinzelberg, who was supported in court by his partner and father, fled from awaiting media after he was released. A New Jersey man has returned an overdue library book - 53 years after he first borrowed the book. Fair Lawn resident Harry Krame says he checked out 'The Family Book of Verse' edited by Lewis Gannett from his school library in 1966 when he was 13 and Lyndon Johnson was president. The now-65-year-old found the book recently while cleaning out his basement and felt guilty about keeping it overdue for all those years. Harry Krame, 65, of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, returned a library book to Memorial Middle School 53 years overdue 'The Family Book of Verse' selected and edited by Lewis Gannett was published in 1961 and checked out in 1966 Memorial Middle School Vice Principal Dominick Tarquinio says a late fee at today's rate would be about $2,000, but says the district will let it slide. 'When he asked my name I told him I can't give it to him because I was in the witness protection program,' Krame told CBS New York. 'I took it out to read and never brought it back.' School librarian Susan Murray says she plans to use the book for a display to teach students about returning books. 'The Family Book of Verse' is a collection of poetry published in 1961. Harry Krame was 13, Lyndon B. Johnson was president and the Vietnam War was still underway when he checked out the book in 1966 (ANSA) - Rome, March 18 - A new package of measures against violence against women and minors was unveiled in the House Monday. The measures include raising the jail term for stalking and domestic violence to seven years, and to 17 years for disfiguring women. Prison terms of up to 24 years are proposed for those who rape children. Advertisement Bleary-eyed, giggling and struggling to sit up - Britain's drinking culture was as rife in 1909 as it is today. These 100-year-old Edwardian portraits captured the 'habitual drunkards' who regularly caused mayhem in pubs across London. The mugshots, compiled by the Metropolitan Police in 1909, helped them enforce the Licensing Act which gave police the power to apprehend those found drunk in a public place for the first time in Britain. A visual directory of these drunken troublemakers was then sent to pub landlords across the capital so they could refuse to serve them alcohol. Each drunkard's entry includes a photograph as well as descriptions about their reputation, profession, past crimes and various aliases. Just like Britain today, Edwardian society were increasingly concerned about the levels of public drunkenness. The Government reacted to this by passing The Licensing Act on January 1, 1902. The act gave the Police powers to arrest anyone found drunk in the street or any public place, including licensed premises. The legislation also prohibited the sale of intoxicants to habitual drunkards - such as the ones pictured. In an article that same year, the Spectator described how The Licensing Act was 'the latest attempt by the Legislature to deal with that unbridled indulgence in alcohol, that habitual tippling and drunkenness which are playing such havoc with our civilisation* Men and women hasten to forget their woes with the help of alcohol.' Constance Bodger, 39, was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the 19th December, 1908. She frequented the bars of Shepherds Bush. The inebriate reformatory was an alternative to a prison sentence and it was mostly women who were send there Found drunk outside a bar near Pimlico and Westminster Isabella Evans, 45, was ordered not to enter a public house for six months, on the 21st January, 1909. Arthur Oliphant was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the 26th January, 1909. The 54-year-old was a regular in the bars of Greenwich Rose Farmer, 35, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the 16th January, 1909, was found drunk outside a bar in Battersea A regular in bars of Sutton Leon Perone, 39, was caught drunk in the street and committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years on December 28, 1908 Maggie Osbourne, 42, was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years just three days before Christmas in 1908 after she was found drunk in Bromley. For those taken into custody for drinking alcohol was usually a desperate attempt to escape the evils of the Edwardian era that followed the reign of Queen Victoria Ethel Elizabeth Williams, 30, was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years on January 14, 1909. She was often found in the bars of Lavender-Hill, Battersea Sarah Gardiner, 45, was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years on January 18, 1909, when she was found drunk. She could often be found in the bars of Catford and Sydenham. She was sentenced under the Inebriates Act 1898 which saw those who had been found drunk four times in one year sent for rehabilitation Florence Taylor, 46, was also committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the January 5, 1909. She frequented the bars of Acton, Richmond and Twickenham Eliza Godfrey, 44, was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 5, 1909. She frequented the bars of Islington. The Habitual Drunkards Act 1879 had allowed authorities to establish retreats for inebriates but payment by the inmate was required and that excluded working-class drunkards who were most in need of additional care Mary Brown, 38, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the 11th January, 1909. She frequented the bars of Bermondsey and Southwark. A year after the Inebriate Act's passage, the Journal of Mental Science, who had been analysing those sent to reformatories, were disappointed by the act in part due to lack of funding, with no reformatories at all in Scotland or Ireland and with those in England insufficient to meet demand. The immediate need for a reformatory for men was noted Alice Read, 44, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the 17th December, 1908. She frequented the bars of Camberwell New-Road. As of December 1900, no state reformatories were built and councils did not fund any. Despite a slight increase in the number of reformatories over the next 20 years any that were built were closed by 1920 Louise Dearsley, 47, was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years just three days after Christmas in 1908. She frequented the bars of Woolwich. Lillie Cook, 27, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on the January 6, 1909. She frequented the bars of Tottenham Court Road. Cecilia Winifred Pearce, 32, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 21, 1909. She frequented the bars of Pimlico. Some councils made use of privately owned homes, such as Brentry, near Bristol, Duxhurst, near Reigate, and St Joseph's Reformatory at Ashford, Kent to accommodate those who were sentenced for alcohol dependency treatment Mary Brown, 51, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on December 31, 1908. She frequented the bars of Drury Lane and Piccadilly William Pike, 39, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 4, 1909. He frequented the bars of Epsom Frances Dobney, 40, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on December 17, 1908. She frequented the bars of Newington Butts and Causeway Mary Ditch, 48, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 14, 1909. She frequented the bars of Battersea Amy Amelia Mills, 35, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 6, 1909. She frequented the bars of Brixton. By 1904, women accounted for 91 per cent of those in inebriate retreats while accounting for 20 per cent of convictions for drunkenness Hetty Wilson, 34, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 12, 1909. She frequented the bars of Lambeth. Out of the 3,636 compulsory admissions between 1899 and 1910, 84 per cent were women. By 1906, nine of the eleven reformatories in England were exclusively for women, while the other two had space for both genders Rose Weller, 24, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 6, 1909. She frequented the bars of Kingston Minnie Collins, 43, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 27, 1909. She frequented the bars of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road Mary Burke, 45, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 5, 1909. She frequented the bars of Woolwich Annie Hill was often found drunk outside bars in Spitalfields in 1908. But before the end of the new year she found herself in an inebriate reformatory. From December 31, 1908, the 40-year-old spent three years in a treatment centre Alice Knight, 52, celebrated the coming of the year 1909 with slightly too much fervour. She was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years on December 31, 1908. She frequented the bars of Newington Butts Winifred Clarke, 39, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 27, 1909. She frequented the bars of Marlborough Street Thomas Campbell, 28, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 5, 1909. He frequented the bars of Woolwich Miriam Robbins, 31, who was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 29, 1909. She frequented the bars of Euston and Hampstead This 60-year-old was drinking in the bars of Enfield when she was picked up by police for drunkenness. Louisa Field was committed to an inebriate reformatory for three years, on January 18, 1909 The New Zealand Prime Minister has penned an emotional tribute to the 50 victims of Christchurch's horrific mosque terror attack. Jacinda Ardern signed a personal and touching note in a national condolence book after it was officially opened in Parliament House in Wellington on Monday morning. Fifty worshippers were gunned down as they prayed at the Al Noor mosque on Friday afternoon in one of New Zealand's worst mass shootings. 'On behalf of all New Zealanders, we grieve together. We are one. They are us. Tatau Tatau,' she wrote in the book. The meaning of Tatau Tatau in Maori language means, 'we, you'. Tatau Tatau: The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Arden wrote a touching tribute as a national condolence book was officially opened in Wellington on Monday morning She was the first to sign the book, which was opened in Parliament to pay respects to the 50 victims of the Christchurch mosque massacre on Friday The prime minister wrote 'For all the communities around Christchurch and around New Zealand who are suffering, our thoughts are with you,' The prime minister was also joined by Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy who opened an additional book. 'For all the communities around Christchurch and around New Zealand who are suffering, our thoughts are with you,' she wrote. Speaker Trevor Mallard and leader of House Chris Hipkins also attended the opening and wrote notes. Mr Mallard wrote: 'On behalf of all parliamentarians in New Zealand and many other Parliaments who have contacted me I place on record our horror and our love at the same time'. Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy (pictued) also attended the opening in Parliament on Monday Education Minister Chris Hipkins (left) and Speaker of the house Trevor Mallard (right) attended the opening of the condolence books at Parliament Mr Hipkins added: 'My heart and my thoughts are with all of the people of Christchurch and the Muslim community here in New Zealand and around the world you are welcomed, loved and respected'. An additional book was opened for the public at the National Library in Wellington that saw mourners rush in droves to sign their messages. The foyer of Parliament was also open to the public to sign the book but was heavily guarded with a number of security measures in place. Mourners lined up at the National Libary in Wellington on Monday to sign a national condolence book for the victims of the Christchurch terror attack Member of the public, Vanessa Blackwood said she found it hard to find the words to write down. 'There are just no words to express how awful it is, how horrified I am by it and how much New Zealand is in mourning right now,' she told RadioNZ. 'There should have been more done to protect people, to protect the Muslim community. They're welcome here, they're loved here and this white supremacy can never be allowed to happen again.' Ms Blackwood then went on to say how important condolence books are. 'No-one knows how to adequately mourn for something like this. This has never happened before in New Zealand. I think nobody knows how to express how grief-stricken they are,' she said. The books were set up for mourners from around New Zealand to pen thoughts, prayers or messages to the loved ones of the victims who lost their loves in the shooting on Friday The death toll in Christchurch currently stands at 50, and is second only to the Las Vegas carnage of October 2017 which saw 58 people shot dead in the United States, when it comes to firearm atrocities in a Western nation. It is also New Zealand's first mass shooting since 1994. Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, has so far been charged with one count of murder and will appear in court again in April where he's expected to be face more charges. Fifty worshippers have been confirmed dead from the horrific terror attack in Christchurch on Friday Ryan Harsany (pictured) was shot and killed during a robbery at his ice rink in California The owner of an ice rink was shot and killed during a night-time robbery at the California venue on Saturday. Ryan Harsany was found unconscious with gunshot wounds after the Grand Terrace police and fire departments found smoke rising from the building. Mr Harsany, who also owned a restaurant, died in hospital hours later and police in San Bernardino County have since begun a murder investigation. Friends described the Brawley resident as a 'very good friend' with a 'heart of gold' and are planning a vigil for him on Monday evening. Police had hurried to the CalSkate ice rink in the early hours of Saturday after the intruders had triggered a silent alarm. Officers saw smoke emerging from the building when they arrived, finding a fire inside and Mr Harsany lying unconscious with bullet wounds. One friend, Candra Lee May, said: 'You were a light in this world. 'My thoughts and prayers are with you, your mother and brother; as a mother and twin myself, I truly cannot imagine their pain right now. 'You were loved by so many and were making such an impact in your community. I am saddened by such a life being taken by violence. May you rest peacefully.' Another friend, James Belamide, wrote on Facebook: 'I got news last night that a very good childhood friend of mine was murdered at his business Cal Skate In Grand Terrace. 'My heart hurts, I'm so filled with sadness and anger at the same time. Ryan had a heart of gold and would take the shirt off his back for anyone. Ryan Harsany was found unconscious with gunshot wounds after the Grand Terrace police and fire departments found smoke rising from the CalSkate ice rink (pictured) '[He] put his 110 per cent in all he did, that's why his restaurant Inferno was so successful and he literally turned that skating rink around with Friday and Saturday nights being the most packed I've ever seen. 'Youll be forever missed and never forgotten. I will do what I can to help let your legacy live on my brother.' Manuel Ortiz paid further tribute, saying: 'Ryan was one of the most humble, funny, and hard working guys I knew. 'I met him when I moved down to Imperial for work and I would always go to his restaurant because the food was so amazing. 'You had a huge impact on the Brawley community and you will be missed Ryan.' Detectives from the Specialized Investigations Division, Homicide Detail responded to the scene to conduct the investigation. Anyone with information regarding the investigation is urged to contact the Specialized Investigations Division. They can contact Detective Max Kunzman at (909) 387-3589 or Sheriff's dispatch at (909) 387-8313. A butcher who was arrested in connection with the disappearance of a 21-year-old university student today pleaded not guilty to 12 unrelated offences. Pawel Relowicz from Hull was arrested on suspicion of abduction after Libby Squire vanished more than a month ago, and remains under investigation. But the 24-year-old Polish national has never been charged with anything in relation to the University of Hull student's disappearance. Pawel Relowicz (left) was arrested in connection with the disappearance of Libby Squire (right), 21, but has never been charged with anything in relation to her disappearance This morning at Hull Crown Court, he denied five counts of burglary, three of voyeurism, three of outraging public decency and one of receiving stolen goods. Relowicz, wearing a grey tracksuit jumper and joggers, showed no emotion as he sat in the dock at the back of the court in East Yorkshire. He spoke only through an interpreter to confirm his name and enter his not guilty pleas during the 15-minute plea and trial preparation hearing. Judge Paul Watson QC said he would stand trial on July 22 at Sheffield Crown Court. Police officers search dense undergrowth in Hull near Miss Squire's home on February 13 The judge added a review will take place in June to ensure everything is in place to allow for the trial to go ahead. Addressing Relowicz, Judge Watson said: 'There will be a further hearing of this case in June. You can attend by way of video link. 'As far as you are concerned the important date is July 22. There will be considerable contact between you and your lawyers before then. 'There is no application for bail at this stage so you will remain in custody. You can go.' Police officers search the River Hull in Hull on February 13 after the student went missing In previous magistrates' court appearances, it was told how the some of the three outraging public decency charges allege Relowicz of 'having your penis out'. He is also accused of performing a sex act on himself in Wellesley Avenue, where Miss Squire's student house is located, on January 19 this year. The defendant is also accused of stealing items including sex toys, underwear, condoms, photographs, electronic equipment and cash at five burglaries in the city between 2017 and 2019, and receiving a stolen mobile phone in November last year. Miss Squire, a philosophy student, was reported missing on February 1 in Hull. Adil Kayani has accused easyJet of racially profiling him after an air steward burst in on him in an aircraft toilet An easyJet passenger has accused the budget airline of Islamophobia after an air steward burst in on him when he spent more than 15 minutes in a plane's toilet. Adil Kayani, from Birmingham, was flying from Marrakesh in Morocco to Manchester on March 5 when he used the aircraft's onboard toilet. He said there was a heavy knock at the door and he shouted 'I'll be out soon, hold on a minute' before an air steward opened the door and looked in. The 35-year-old says he feels 'completely violated' by the incident, which he attributes to his Pakistani heritage and Muslim faith. EasyJet says the air steward was following the company's safety procedures, but has apologised to Mr Kayani. He says he turned down a 500 'goodwill gesture' following his complaint. Mr Kayani said: 'I think it was racial discrimination. They can see the colour of my skin. I was racially profiled. It was discrimination. I think it is Islamophobic. 'I was made to feel like a criminal. It was really humiliating for me.' Mr Kayani took a photo of the air steward he says burst in on him in the toilet of the plane The 35-year-old says he turned down a 500 'goodwill gesture' from easyJet He added: 'That is the first time anything like that has ever happened to me. The only way I can make sense of it is because of my racial background. 'Why else was no one broken in to? It doesn't make sense.' A video he made on the flight records him saying to another airline worker that he was 'putting my pants back on' when the man walked in. He said he was only given two to three seconds between the knocking on the door and the air steward's entrance. An EasyJet spokesperson said: 'EasyJet is sorry if Mr Kayani is unhappy, however the cabin crew correctly followed safety procedures by knocking on the toilet door and then opening it after there was no answer following a concern that a passenger had been inside for some time. 'This procedure is in place to ensure passenger safety of all passengers on board including the well being of the customer in the toilet. 'There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that race played a role.' UAE citizens were left baffled after a mysterious 'whirlpool hole' suddenly appeared in the sky above the city of Al Ain this weekend. The large circular patch of clear sky emerged inside the otherwise heavy cloud near the border with Oman, as if somebody had punched a hole in the atmosphere. Astronomer and meteorologist Ebrahim Al Jarwan posted a short video clip of the hole on Twitter, adding that the 'rare and beautiful' sight was referred to as a 'Fallstreak hole' or 'hole punch cloud'. One user replied that it looked as as if 'God has thrown a stone into a lake', while others pondered whether the strange phenomenon had been caused by an extra terrestrial UFO. The fallstreak hole appeared over the city of Al Ain in the UAE this weekend, close to the border with Oman But meteorologists quickly cleared up the mystery with a scientific explanation for the mystifying hole. They usually form in mid- to -high level clouds made up of supercooled water droplets - water below 0C but not yet frozen. Aircraft punching through this cloud layer can cause air to expand and cool as it passes over the wings or propeller. The phenomenon occurs when aircraft disturb a layer of cloud made up of 'supercooled' water droplets - which are below 0C but not yet frozen This change in temperature can be enough to encourage the supercooled droplets to freeze and form ice crystals which are large enough to fall from the cloud layer in this distinctive pattern. This is the 'fallstreak' that occurs in the middle of the cloud - which is essentially snow. The freezing crystals disturb the cloud layer and cause more freezing around them. The sudden change in temperature caused by an aircraft disturbing the cloud can cause the supercooled water droplets to freeze and form ice crystals which are large enough to fall from the cloud layer in this distinctive pattern Sometimes the holes in fallstreak formations can expand up to 30 miles (50 km) across within an hour of appearing as neighboring droplets start to freeze. Although scientists have a clear explanation for the origins of the photogenic phenomenon, fallstreak holes are not widely known about because of their rarity. As a result they are often blamed on UFOs. Advertisement Hundreds of students have gathered to pay tribute to those killed in the Christchurch massacre - with some performing a traditional haka dance. Tearful youngsters have staged vigils around New Zealand in the wake of the horrifying attack, that left 50 dead and dozens injured at two mosques in the city. Some came together for moving renditions of the haka - a traditional Maori ceremonial dance. Others lit candles and embraced outside the Al Noor mosque - one of two targeted by the terrorist on Friday. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after the mass shootings. Hundreds of New Zealand school children today gathered to pay tribute to those killed in the Christchurch massacre - with some performing a traditional haka dance (pictured) Some came together for moving performances of the haka - a traditional Maori ceremonial dance that has been performed by groups across New Zealand in recent days High school students performed a haka during a vigil near Al Noor mosque on Monday in Christchurch, New Zealand Students perform the Haka during a vigil to commemorate victims of Friday's shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Tearful youngsters staged vigils around the country in the wake of the horrifying attack, that left 50 dead and dozens injured at two mosques in the southern city Schoolgirls comforted each other as they viewed flowers and tributes to those who died in the shooting attacks at mosques in Christchurch Grief continued to wash across the nation today, with New Zealanders of all stripes gathering to express revulsion over the killings - and a unified front against racial hatred. Family and friends outside Al Noor mosque - the scene of the largest massacre - held a sunset prayer session, with their mournful cries echoing through a park as locals looked on. 'It just happened to be the time of our evening prayer. Anywhere you are, you can just pray anywhere,' Saiyad Raza, who had travelled from Auckland to bury his cousin who died in the shootings, told AFP. Earlier, a Maori cleansing ceremony was performed at the mosque, bringing together indigenous Kiwis, Muslim leaders and local officials. In Auckland, students at Orewa College gathered to form a heart and the message 'Kia Kaha' - 'stay strong' in Maori. Grief continued to wash across the nation today, with New Zealanders of all stripes gathering to express revulsion over the killings - and a unified front against racial hatred School children performed moving renditions of the haka outside the Al Noor mosque - the scene of a mass shooting on Friday The haka has been performed by a number of groups in New Zealand in the wake of the devastating attacks on Friday Some school students lit candles and embraced as they tried to come to terms with the horrifying events on Friday United in grief: Teenagers embrace as they pay tribute to those killed in the sickening mosque attacks in Christchurch on Friday A mourner takes a picture of candles commemorating victims of Friday's shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Young people lit candles during a vigil to commemorate the 50 people who were shot dead in Friday's terror attack Hundreds of students gathered to light candles and leave flowers outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch today Young women weep as they hold each other for comfort during a students vigil near Al Noor mosque A Muslim worshipper prays at a makeshift memorial at the Al Noor Mosque on Deans Rd in Christchurch Photos of the victims are seen among flowers at a makeshift memorial at the Al Noor Mosque Police have moved flowers to the front of the Al Noor mosque on behalf of those who want to pay their respects Members of the public look at flowers at a makeshift memorial near the Linwood Mosque on Linwood Rd in Christchurch A Muslim worshipper prays in front of the crime scene barrier at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand A man cries near his children in front of floral tributes across the road from the Masjid Al Noor mosque A small child adds a flower to tributes for those who were killed in the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch Mourners have placed flowers and tributes to those who were killed during Friday's attacks at two mosques Meanwhile, New Zealand's government has said it will tighten gun laws in the wake of its worst modern-day massacre as it emerged that the white supremacist accused of carrying out the killings at two mosques will represent himself in court. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her coalition was unified on the need to reduce the availability of the kind of weapons used by alleged gunman Brenton Tarrant. 'We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified,' she said, flanked by her coalition partner and deputy prime minister, Winston Peters. Peters, whose New Zealand First party has previously opposed changes, said he backed the prime minister fully. 'The reality is that after one pm on Friday our world changed forever, and so will our laws,' he said. Candles and hand-written messages scrawled on the pavement in chalk were left at a memorial site at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch Students light candles as they gather for a vigil to commemorate victims of Friday's shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Two people comfort one another as one breaks down in tears outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, today Students and staff at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch sat for a vigil as they remembered those killed in the horrifying attack Teenagers looked on in solemn silence as they commemorated the dead and showed their support for the city's Muslim community Two students broke down in tears as they attended the vigil outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand today Ardern said there would be an inquiry into the horrifying attack, as questions swirl over whether intelligence agencies should have spotted warning signs. The organisers of New Zealand's largest gun show - the Kumeu Militaria Show, near Auckland - announced Monday they had cancelled the event in the wake of the massacre and because of 'elevated security risks'. Despite having tightened the rules in the 1990s after the last mass shooting, New Zealand has relatively permissive gun laws, with licences granted to nearly every applicant. David Tipple, the managing director of Gun City, whose online store sold Tarrant four weapons, said he felt no responsibility for the killings. 'We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder,' he told reporters. Tarrant, who appeared in court on Saturday charged with murder, on Monday sacked his state-appointed lawyer. Richard Peters, who represented the alleged killer during the hearing, told AFP the 28-year-old 'wants to be self-represented in this case'. Hundreds off students and staff from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch gathered today to pay tribute to the victims of the terror attack Students held candles as they observed a moment of silence to commemorate victims of the Christchurch terror attack Heartbroken students linked arms as they supported one another during a vigil to remember those killed in the terror attacks Two students embrace as they join a vigil to remember the 50 people killed in the devastating terror attacks on Friday 'The way he presented was rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. He seemed to understand what was going on,' Peters said. Under New Zealand law, if Tarrant pleads not guilty his case would normally go to trial, raising the possibility that he could face survivors and victims' families in court. Mustafa Farouk, president of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, told reporters he had faith in the system. 'As a community, we would like that person to go through the process, the due process, and to be given all his rights,' he said. 'We believe in the justice system here and we know it will do what is right.' A police officer passes a candle to a schoolgirl during a students vigil near Al Noor mosque Paying tribute: Youngsters offered prayers and lit candles as they gathered for a moment of silence outside the Al Noor mosque Some played musical instruments, others lit candles and dozens sat in silence during the heartfelt vigil in Christchurch Staff and students alike paused to reflect on the horrifying events that unfolded on Friday Members of the public lay flowers and condolences near Linwood mosque in Christchurch - one of two mosques targeted on Friday Floral tribute: Hundreds of bunches of flowers have been left at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand Young people came together and supported one another as they paid tribute to those killed in the horrifying terror attack Candes were lit and left on the ground during a vigil to remember the victims of the terror attack on Friday A police officer places a candle among flowers and tributes near Al Noor mosque People place flowers at a memorial as a tribute to victims of the Fridays terrorist attacks on two mosques that left at least 50 people dead But, he cautioned, the attitudes that gave rise to the killing - documented in a rambling, racist screed released online minutes before the attacks began - must be tackled. 'This rise in hatred... by people who call themselves right-wing, whether smaller groups or through reckless politicians, should not be allowed to continue.' Frustrated families of the 50 victims were still waiting Monday for the release of the bodies of their loved ones, as officials worked their way through a painstaking investigation. Dozens of graves were being dug in readiness for that release, which Police Deputy Commissioner Wally Haumaha said would hopefully happen soon. High school students mourn the loss of two students at the Deans Ave vigil near the Al Noor Mosque, in Christchurch People light a candle to leave with flowers and tributes near Al Noor mosque A young woman weeps during a students vigil near the mosque where people were shot and killed in Christchurch, New Zealand Students write messages on a large tarpaulin during a vigil in Christchurch after the mass shooting Students hold candles during a vigil in Christchurch on March 18, 2019, three days after a shooting incident at two mosques in the city that claimed the lives of 50 Muslim worshippers School students attended a vigil in Christchurch on Monday, three days after a shooting incident at two mosques in the city A school student is pictured crying during the vigil in Christchurch to honour those who died in the shootings Candles and hand-written messages are seen at a memorial site at the Botanical garden in Christchurch A picture is left among flowers and tributes near Al Noor mosque to pay tribute to those who died in the shooting attacks 'The process has been highly emotional and stressful for all... as in accordance with Islamic faith the families have wanted the bodies to be returned as soon as possible,' he said. 'We have burial expert teams in place ready to receive the bodies at a point in time.' The dead span generations, aged between three and 77, according to a list circulated among relatives. Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt. At least two of the dead came from the same family - a father and son. Students comfort each other during a vigil in Christchurch to show respect to those who were killed in the mosques shootings Students attend a vigil in Christchurch on Monday three days after a shooting incident at two mosques in the city Students embraced and hugged each other during the vigil held near the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch Young people held each other arm in arm during the remembrance for those who died in the shootings in Christchurch Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead, including one man who died trying to rush Tarrant. Authorities said 31 people remained in hospital, nine in critical condition. Reigning Super Rugby champions Canterbury Crusaders, who play in Christchurch, said Monday they would consider changing their name after criticism that it was historically insensitive. Distinctive writing on the mosque attacker's weaponry included the names of figures from the Crusades, the religious wars waged by European Christians against Muslims for control of the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. A child sits among flowers and candles left in tribute to the victims of two shootings at mosques in Christchurch One of Theresa May's closest European allies has mocked her resilience over Brexit by likening her to a Monty Python character who does not know when to quit. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte likened Mrs May to the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In the classic 1975 comedy film the character loses his arms and legs in a duel with King Arthur but refuses to admit defeat by saying: 'I've had worse.' According to Bloomberg Mr Rutte, who is campaigning in local elections in the Netherlands, told the country's WNL op Zondag television programme: 'I have a lot of respect for Theresa May - she reminds me occasionally of that Monty Python character where all his arms and legs are cut off and then says to his opponent: let's call it a draw.' Mark Rutte (pictured yesterday in Amsterdam) made the comment on Dutch television while campaigning in Dutch local elections Monty Python's Black Knight refuses to admit defeat after a duel against Graham Chapman's King Arthur, suggesting they call it a draw despite losing all his limbs Theresa may arrived back in Downing Street today knowing she must get the DUP behind her Brexit deal for it to have any chance of being approved by MPs His comments came as it was reported Theresa May could now shelve the third vote on her deal that had been expected on Tuesday, and make her next move asking the EU for a Brexit extension after several rebel Brexiteer MPs including Boris Johnson refused to back her. The Prime Minister is said to prefer calling off a third vote on her deal if she 'has no chance of winning' it before Thursday's EU summit, and if she has not secured backing by then will ask EU leaders to agree a delay of Brexit of up to two years. She could then use that prospect to crank up the pressure on her MPs by holding a vote just days before Britain had been due to leave on March 29. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt with his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney at the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Monday Mr Rutte told WNL op Zondag he respected Theresa May but thought the UK was 'in a very bad position right now'. And he revealed that he was losing patience with Britain over the possible delay to Brexit, adding: 'If the British ask for a delay, interesting, but that was also my irritation this week - what do you want with that delay?' Meanwhile in another snub to Britain France's Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau is reported to have named her cat 'Brexit' because of his antics, Reuters reported. The agency cited her telling Journal du Dimanche: 'He wakes me up miaowing like mad because he wants to be let out. 'As soon as I open the door, he stands in the middle, unsure whether he wants to go out or not. 'When I put him out, he gives me an evil look.' France's Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau is reported to have named her cat 'Brexit' because of his nocturnal antics Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Monday the government still had work to do to secure parliament's backing in a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, and that it would be redoubling its efforts to get there. Mr Hunt, who is in Brussels meeting with foreign ministers including his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney, told the BBC: 'There are some cautious signs of encouragement... but there is a lot more work to do. 'The risk of no deal, at least as far as the UK parliament is concerned, has receded somewhat, but the risk of Brexit paralysis has not ... That's why we will be redoubling our efforts this week.' Asked if the vote would be held on Tuesday he said: 'We hope it will, but we need to be confident we can get the numbers.' Advertisement A gunman has killed three people on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht in what authorities said may have been a terror attack, and a suspect has been seized after an hours-long manhunt which saw schools and businesses in lockdown. Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37, was allegedly targeting one of his own relatives in this morning's shooting, which left five other people injured, and saw the terrorism threat level in Utrecht raised to the highest possible. The suspect - who 'was known' to authorities - was detained during a raid on the Oudernoord district of Utrecht, and the threat level in the province has been downgraded by one notch as a result of the arrest, Dutch police confirmed. Two other arrests were also made by police probing the attacks. Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte said some people wounded in the tram attack 'are still in critical condition', with 'three people fighting for their lives'. Tanis' relatives in Turkey told Anadolu news agency that the 37-year-old had opened fire on a relative 'for family reasons' and later shot at others trying to intervene. The Turkish intelligence agency are investigating whether the attack was personally motivated or an act of terrorism, President Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised interview. This photo, released by Utrecht police, shows Turkish-born Gokman Tanis, 37, on the tram's CCTV just minutes before the shooting began at 10.45am this morning Tanis is seen on the tram just a few minutes before one person was left dead and several others wounded from gunfire Incident: Emergency services cordoned off a tram in Utrecht, Holland, where an assailant opened fire on commuters at around 10.45 local time today Dutch police take into custody Turkish-born Tanis, 37, after finding the suspect in the 11-flat property According to local media the shooter shouted 'Allah Akbar' as he opened fire and that a note found in his car led investigators to initially believe a terrorist link. But officers are working on the theory that he was targeting an ex-love or her family and he merely shouted in Arabic. Mr Rutte added that 'a terror motive is not excluded' and that the attack was met throughout the country with 'a mix of disbelief and disgust'. 'If it had terror motives, that is being investigated. But it was very serious. The world shares our grief,' he said. The Prime Minister has issued instructions for flags outside government buildings to fly at half-mast tomorrow, to show 'the whole of the Netherlands shares [the victims'] deep pain'. Armed police raided a first floor apartment in Oudenoord, around two miles from where the attack happened, at 4pm, more than five hours after the incident. Witness Dick Van Dikkenburg told MailOnline: 'The police told me to go inside my home for my own safety. There were many officers and they had drones flying above too.' Tanis was hauled out of the flat at gunpoint with his face covered, after officers climbed over a barbed wire wall to surprise the alleged shooter from the back of the 11-flat building. A second man was arrested during the raids, with authorities suspecting he was involved in today's deadly incident, according to a police press release. Earlier today, Dutch police tweeted a photograph of Tanis, believed to have been captured on the tram's CCTV just four minutes before the incident at 10.45am this morning, and urged the public to 'look out for him but do not approach.' Police officers are seen in front the building where the main suspect of the shooting has been arrested in Utrecht Armed police raided a first floor apartment in Oudenoord, around two miles from where the attack happened, at 4pm, more than five hours after the incident Police stand outside the flat. Tanis was hauled out of the flat at gunpoint with his face covered, after officers climbed over a barbed wire wall to surprise the alleged shooter from the back of the 11-flat building Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after the shooting incident The city was put into lockdown after the shooting which authorities initially said was an apparent terrorist attack, with schools told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increasing security at airports and mosques. Following Tanis' arrest the National Counter-Terrorism Agency 'reduced the threat level for the province of Utrecht to level four. This brings the threat level for the Netherlands as a whole back to four,' the head of the Dutch counter-terrorism agency Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said. Meanwhile, the father of the suspect has said his son should be punished if he's to blame. Mehmet Tanis, Gokmen Tanis' father who lives in Turkey's central Kayseri province, told the private Demiroren news agency that he hadn't spoken to his son in 11 years, but added 'if he did it, he should pay the penalty.' Justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the attacker 'was known' to authorities, but did not provide further details. This comes after several Dutch newspapers, including Algemeen Dagblad, reported that Tanis had been due in court on March 4 in connection with a rape case, accused of sexually assaulting his victim several times, and threatening to burn down her home. Video and photos from Utrecht shows armed anti-terrorism police surrounding a building where the gunman, or potentially several gunmen, was believed to be located Several photographs show armed police officers surrounding a building in Utrecht just hours after the assailant fled the scene Special Police Forces inspect the tram where the shooting took place earlier on Monday as the perpetrator remains at large In 2013, he was suspected of attempted manslaughter by 'opening fire on a flat', and in recent years had been accused of committing burglary, shoplifting, drink-driving and assaulting a police officer by spitting them in the face. The gunman, believed to be Tanis, fled the scene of the shooting in a stolen red Renault Clio, which has since been found abandoned in Utrecht, Holland's fourth largest city with a population of around 340,000. Police in Utrecht had initially reported the number of wounded as nine, this was however reduced to five in a tweet on Monday afternoon, which did not give a reason for changing the number. Heavily armed police gathered in front of an apartment block some 200 yards from the scene for several hours and footage from outside the building showed officers preparing specially trained dogs and deploying a robot as they seemingly got ready to move in on the apartment block. At least three people died and a number of people were injured in the shooting on a tram in Utrecht, The Netherlands Incident: This map shows the location of the shooting in the city of Utrecht, south of Amsterdam Advice to all citizens in Utrecht to remain indoors, was lifted at 4.30pm local time by the city's mayor. It is not known if the previous instructions to schools in Utrecht to keep their doors closed had been lifted, although train traffic has now reportedly resumed. Earlier in the day, the head of the Dutch counter-terrorism agency Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said in a statement that the 'threat level has gone to five, exclusively for the Utrecht province,' referring to the highest level, adding that the shooting 'appears to be a terrorist attack'. 'A terror motive cannot be excluded,' he said in a Twitter message. He called on citizens to closely follow the indications of the local police. Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks, saying he was deeply concerned about the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. Mr Rutte said: 'Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht. It is clear there were shots on tram passengers in Utrecht, that there are wounded.' Dutch counter terrorism police use a robot as they prepare to enter an apartment block after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, just a few hundred yards from the scene of the attack Safety first: The black labrador Reporting for duty: The black labrador and the police officer are seen outside the apartment block on Monday afternoon after gearing up A photo shared on social media shows an armed policeman surrounding a building in Utrecht during the manhunt Video footage shows police surrounding an apartment block in Utrecht a few hours after the shooting took place Dutch military police were ordered to be on 'extra alert' at Dutch airports and 'vital buildings' due to the ongoing police manhunt earlier today. The first casualty was reported by the Dutch ANP news agency, which stated that the victim was completely covered with a sheet and lying on the tracks between two carriages. One witness told NOS News they had seen an injured person running out of the tram with blood on her hands and clothes who then fell to the ground. 'I brought her into my car and helped her. When the police arrived, she was unconscious,' the witness, who was not named, told the broadcaster. Video footage filmed just hours after the shooting shows heavily armed anti-terror officers in front of an apartment block some 200 yards from the scene the shooting Dozens of heavily armed police officers were seen near the building Dutch police searched for the shooter 'with all possible means' earlier today All tram traffic in the city had been shut down in the wake of the shooting on a tram, pictured, this morning Emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where the shooting took place Police could be seen amassing some 200 yards from the site of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Local resident Jimmy De Koster also witnessed the incident and told De Telegraaf: 'I was standing at the traffic lights on 24 Oktoberplein and I saw a woman lying down, I think she would have been between 20 and 35 years old. 'She shouted 'I didn't do anything'. At that time I heard 'bang, bang, bang', three times.' 'It's frightening that something like this can happen so close to home,' said Omar Rahhou, who said his parents lived on a street cordoned off by police. 'These things normally happen far away but this brings it very close, awful.' The Utrecht police said a square at a tram station outside the city centre had been cordoned off as emergency services attend the scene. Officials added that trauma helicopters were sent to the incident at 24 Oktoberplein. Armed police at the scene where a shooting took place, as police say they are considering a terrorist motive Ambulances are seen next to the tram where the shooting took place on Monday morning, at around 10.45am local time Emergency services at the 24 Oktoberplace where a shooting took place in Utrecht British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt tweeted his concern in the wake of the incident, saying the UK 'stands with the people of the Netherlands'. 'Hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day,' Mr Hunt wrote. 'We are in contact with Dutch authorities, urgently seeking further information. The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands.' All major political parties including Rutte's VVD announced that they were suspending campaigning ahead of Wednesday's local elections which will determine the make-up of the Dutch senate. Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht Police forces and emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplein as local media reported that counter-terrorism police was present at the scene Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof in The Hague, as security was increased at key sites across The Netherlands in the wake of the shooting Hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day. We are in contact with Dutch authorities, urgently seeking further information. The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) March 18, 2019 The Netherlands has been largely spared the kind of attacks which have rocked its closest European neighbours in the past few years, but there has been a series of recent scares. In August, a 19-year-old Afghan with a German residence permit stabbed and injured two American tourists at Amsterdam's busy Central Station before being shot and wounded. In September, Dutch investigators said they had arrested seven people and foiled a 'major attack' on civilians at a major event in the Netherlands. They said they had found a large quantity of bomb-making materials including fertiliser likely to be used in a car bomb. The men were arrested in the cities of Arnhem and Weert. In June, two terror suspects were arrested while close to carrying out attacks including at an iconic bridge in Rotterdam and in France, prosecutors said. The men aged 22 and 28, who were of Moroccan origin, made a film at the Erasmus bridge in which they sang a martyrdom song, they said. A town heartbroken by an unspeakable crime perpetrated by one of its own has come together to mourn the Christchurch massacre victims. Hundreds of locals packed Grafton's Christ Church Cathedral on Monday night, many in tears with grief and guilt. The northern NSW town is still reeling three days after Brenton Tarrant, 28, who grew up there, allegedly gunned down 50 Muslims two mosques during Friday prayers. Hundreds of locals packed Grafton's Christ Church Cathedral on Monday night to mourn Christchurch massacre victims Locals bowed their head as they prayed for victims, their families and members of the Muslim community Church leaders for multiple faiths and local politicians called for unity and healing, and for compassion for Tarrant's family. 'We gather here to express our solidarity and compassion for the people of Christchurch, especially the Muslim community,' Grafton's Anglican dean Gregory Jenks said. 'Also for the Tarrant family, we want them to feel loved and cared for and respected by their neighbours.' Paster Greg Holder from Riverside Church in Grafton urged locals to move past the tragedy and make something good from it, like Port Arthur did. Community members, especially families gathered at the church service to express solidarity and compassion Local school children participated in the ceremony by reading prayers and lighting candles 'Tonight is the first step towards healing something that is badly broken,' he said. 'Our hearts are truly broken. Everyone I've spoken to has a deep sense of brokenness and sadness. 'We live in unstable times... people lock themselves away and live in fear - this is not the way we were meant to live our lives.' Pastor Holder said attendees were there as a sign of respect and honour to the people of Christchurch and to the Tarrant family, who needed prayer and support. 'This was not - and never was - their fault. This is just an indicator of how a depraved person can commit an act against society,' he said. 'Our role as a community is to stand strong and support one another - every creed, every colour and every race - because we're all broken in some way.' Members of the community lit candles in memory of Christchurch victims Clarence Valley mayor Jim Simmons said: 'It's a reminder that no community is immune to terrorism and the people who perpetrate it' Clarence Valley mayor Jim Simmons praised the compassion he saw in locals since the massacre, saying it reflected the values and hear of the community. 'We are shocked and in grief that the alleged perpetrator came from such a close and caring community, it's almost impossible to comprehend,' he said. 'It's a reminder that no community is immune to terrorism and the people who perpetrate it.' Mayor Simmons said it was a warning that racial and religious hatred can't be tolerated and must be called out. 'We need to show a little extra kindness and compassion this week,' he said. A prayer was read by local schoolchildren for the victims of the massacre, as attendees whispered 'amen' frequently Church leaders for multiple faiths and local politicians called for compassion for Tarrant's family Local federal MP Kevin Hogan said the vigil demonstrated that good overcomes evil. 'A mother and a sister are not responsible for the sins of a son or a brother,' he added. NSW local member Chris Gulaptis spoke of his personal anguish, saying he hadn't slept well since Friday. 'I woke up at 3am and it was playing on my mind. I just can't understand what would drive a person to do what he did,' he said. 'I'm still shaken by it, I can't believe it happened in a place [of worship] just like where we are right now. Attendees were there as a sign of respect and honour to the people of Christchurch and to the Tarrant family 'The perpetrator was not a product of Grafton, we are a very warm and loving community. We will get through this. 'When our neighbours hurt, we hurt. When they bleed, we bleed. When they grieve, we grieve with them, as we are today.' Reverend Jenks read a message from the Islamic Council of NSW, after lamenting that no Muslims were there to say it in person. 'We convey our sympathies and reach out to the people of Grafton who have been affected by the terrible incident in Christchurch,' it read. 'This heinous act is an attempt to spread fear and hatred. 'We stand in solidarity with all Australians as one and must not allow such acts to divide us.' They said it was with 'great sorrow' that the letter even needed to be written. 'We pray that God gives us the patience and perseverance to respond and heal with love and wisdom,' the message continued. 'It is our heartfelt belief that we can be a better country by eliminating racism and Islamaphobia and hold our politicians and leaders accountable.' Grafton's Anglican dean Gregory Jenks said: 'We gather here to express our solidarity and compassion for the people of Christchurch, especially the Muslim community' A service booklet titled 'May peace prevail on earth' is held by a woman attending the prayer vigil A prayer was then read by local schoolchildren for the victims of the massacre, as attendees whispered 'amen' frequently. 'We pray for those mourning loved ones, neighbours stricken by the loss of friends, lovers torn apart through shocking violence,' they said. 'We pray for those who now begin the long road to recovery, those deeply injured and fighting for life, those who have witnessed unspeakable horrors, those who heroically sought to save lives, and those already working to rekindle the embers of hope. 'Our prayers this day are for all who strive for peace and for all those who are especially fearful this day. 'We pray for peacemakers, not the empty peace of keeping warring sides apart, but the deep peace in which enemies embrace.' A young couple pray during the vigil which was conducted by Reverend Dr Gregory Jenks ADANA (TURKEY-SYRIA BORDER) - UNICEF said 645,000 refugee children attend schools in Turkey, about 60% of the total of school-aged children. The UN organisation - together with the Turkish ministries of welfare and education and the Turkish Red Crescent - manages Conditional Cash Transfer for Education (CCTE), the country's largest support programme against school dropout. The project is financed through July with 85 million euros from the first instalment of three billion euros in aid from the EU-Turkey accord, which was reached on March 18 three years ago. The project will be extended with new resources already allocated by Brussels. Through the CCTE programme, 487,000 child refugees - 85% of whom are Syrian - have received economic support tied to regular participation in educational activities, in order to incentivise the most vulnerable families to send their children to school. Advertisement Fascinating photos of German war commander Erwin Rommel during the North Africa campaign against the British have come to light in a new book. Under the direction of Field Marshal Rommel, whose reputation as one of the most formidable tank commanders of the war earned him the nickname Desert Fox, the Africa Korps was recognised as a superb but fearsome fighting machine. The Korps famously outmanoeuvered the British at the Battle of Gazala in June 1942, which led to them capturing Tobruk in Libya. A German Panzer tank climbs a sand dune. Stick grenades can be seen mounted on the turret sides, with water bottle attached to the rear turret A destroyed Panzer tank is surrounded by debris where shells have struck the side of the vehicle, ripping off the track. One of the deceased crew can be seen sprawled out next to the vehicle General Rommel (left), who was nicknamed the Desert Fox, stands in a vehicle leading his men from the front on the battlefield But they were ultimately defeated in the iconic Battle of Alamein when they succumbed to an offensive led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The previously unpublished black and white photos feature in military historian Ian Baxter's new book, Images of War: The Armour of Rommel's Afrika Korps. They document German operations in North Africa between 1941 and 1943 and feature deadly heavy Panzer tanks, self-propelled guns, armoured cars and motorcycles. Rommel, who was given command of a small force in Libya in February 1941 to shore up the Italians, can also be seen studying maps as he plotted his next move. In another image, a crowd of locals watches on as a Kubelwagen armoured car leads a column of German vehicles through Tripoli in April 1941. In a display of power to locals, a column of German Panzer tanks advance along a road in Tripoli, the Libyan capital in April 1941 Members of the crew are seen eating their rations following the installation of an engine on a Tiger tank - one of the deadliest heavy Panzer tanks And there is a photo showing a Tiger tank crew resting in the desert while a Tunisian man and his camel pass by. Away from the heat of battle, some soldiers enjoy their down time by lounging in decks, while others played the accordion. Mr Baxter, who also is a World War Two photo collector, from Chelmsford, Essex, said: 'This book reveals the different armoured vehicles that fought in Rommel's force, ranging from the light, to the medium, to the deadly, heavy Panzers such as the Tiger. 'It shows the diverse armoured support, including self-propelled guns, armoured cars and personnel carriers, as well as field cars and motorcycles. General Rommel (left) directs the movements of his Panzer tank force with one of his commanding officers in the north African desert A column of the Africa Korps Tiger I tanks in the desert. The unit was recognised as a superb but fearsome fighting machine under the leadership of General Rommel A Horch field staff car emblazoned with the Nazi swastika leading a convoy of armoured vehicles in Africa during the Second World War Gereral Rommel is pictured plotting his first attacks against his enemy in 1941. Behind him are transport ships in the bay outside Tripoli A famous image of German commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (centre) speaking to other German and Italian commanders in the field 'It tells the story of the infamous Panzer divisions that fought successfully across the desert against determined British and Commonwealth forces, and then how it battled in despair and defeat. 'During its two year existence the Afrika Korps achieved unequalled progress in the evolution of its armoured vehicles. 'Its deployment of tanks and support vehicles had been masterly, planned by the brilliant tactician Rommel, the Desert Fox.' The Battle of Gazala, fought from May 26 to June 20, 1942, saw Rommel drive his army around the flank of the British army and into its rear. A long column of armoured vehicles in the African desert, behind a crew lining up a FlaK anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun weapon A German Panzer tank being unloaded from a transport ship. German machinery during the Second World War included deadly heavy Panzer tanks, self-propelled guns, armoured cars and motorcycles General Rommel (second right) inside an armoured vehicle during operations in El Alamein on Egypts Mediterranean coast, where Rommel's forces succumbed to an offensive led by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery Crew members standing next to their Panzer tank out in the open desert. Bottles of water can be seen on the turret side A German Afrika Korps crew sitting on one of their vehicles during some down time, while one crew member plays an accordion It was a risky move and they nearly ran out of ammunition, but they managed to repulse every British counter attack. They then destroyed the British armoured forces in a climactic battle near Bir Hacheim. However, German luck turned later in the year at the Battle of El Alamein where Montgomery launched a powerful offensive. Rommel wanted to withdraw but received a direct order from Hitler to stand firm, which he obeyed. As a result, the bulk of the Axis army was destroyed. Officers in the field take some time out and rest on Italian deckchairs from a Libyan beach in 1942. The Afrika Korps' greatest triumph occurred when they outmanoeuvred the British at the Battle of Gazala in Libya in June 1942 Rommel returned to Germany where he was implicated in a failed assassination plot on Hitler in July 1944. While most of those suspected of being involved in the plot were immediately executed, Hitler was mindful that to the German public, Rommel was a highly respected and beloved war hero. Instead, the Fuhrer sent two officers to his home to give Rommel the option of a very public show trial that would ultimately end in his execution, or committing suicide and keeping his reputation in tact. After seeking assurances that his family would not be persecuted, Rommel committed suicide using a cyanide pill on 14 October 1944. A German Panzer tank, set up as a command post in the middle of the desert. The tarpaulin was to protect the crew from the dust and intense heat Inhabitants of a Tunisian town flock around and climb onto a Marder III tank destroyer, which had been abandoned by German troops Hunt saboteurs were met with violent retaliation on Saturday after vehicles they were driving were rammed off the road and badly damaged. The shocking footage shows hunt saboteurs from Manchester , Sheffield, Liverpool , and West Yorkshire as they travel to disrupt a hunt on Gold Hill Farm in Edingley, Newark, by Grove & Rufford Hunt. As the Manchester hunt saboteur group drive towards the hunt's meeting place, a dark blue Toyota Land Cruiser with no licence plates leaves the farm and drives along side them. The Toyota then pulls up along side the saboteurs' vehicle, reversing along side them as they pull away. The Manchester hunt saboteur group who took the footage said: 'As it pulled up alongside us we could see that the occupants of the vehicle were looking for trouble so we decided to move on. 'As we attempted to pull away they reversed alongside us whilst trying to force us off the road. Drivers of the Toyota make offensive gestures as hunt saboteurs do the same back Toyota pulls up along side the saboteur's vehicle, reversing along side them as they pull away 'We managed to get away from them and drove further down the road to meet up with the Sheffield Vehicle. The Toyota Land Cruiser followed. 'A game of cat and mouse ensued where they tried multiple times to block our path. We eventually lost them and returned to meet up with the other groups of sabs.' The saboteurs reported the Toyota's behaviour to the police who attended. After the police had left the Toyota Land Cruiser returned and violently rammed two of the hunt saboteurs' cars as they filmed on dashcams. Wearing balaclavas the drivers of the Toyota square up with the saboteurs' vehicles The clip shows saboteurs parked up at the side of the road, with their black Subaru Forester in front of the vehicle they are filming from. The Toyota land cruiser, with occupants wearing balaclavas and camouflage clothing, is parked perpendicular to the vehicles on a dirt track. After a car passes, the Toyota drives directly into the side of the Subaru. Off camera, voices can be heard saying: 'What the f***?' A man says: 'Are you filming that?' Another male voice responds: 'Yeah.' The damage sustained to the saboteurs' vehicle after it was rammed by the Toyota A voice on a radio can be heard saying: 'Get the coppers here right now. We've just been rammed. Right now, right now.' The Toyota then reverses and turns to the saboteurs in the vehicle filming, driving into them head on, causing a collision. They then reverse and drive off, giving the middle finger, as one of the saboteurs responds with his own two-fingered gesture. The video posted to the Manchester Hunt Saboteurs' Facebook page has racked up more than 90,000 views. Facebook users were shocked by the tactics of the hunt supporters, some calling for more action from the police. Yvette N Carlos Dean wrote: 'Are the police going to stand by until a murder is committed?' Darren Evans commented: 'If the Sabs would have rammed the scum's car I bet the police would have been there in droves.' Michael Walker said: 'All this because they want to kill wildlife. Sick people indeed.' The dark blue Toyota Land Cruiser as it squares up to ram the saboteurs' black Subaru Forester Delivering a strong blow to the car the Toyota lifts the black Subaru Forester off its wheels James Clark added: 'Yet another blatantly corrupt police force ignoring dangerous driving from the hunt fraternity. This country is sick to the core.' However, there were a minority of users who supported the actions of the hunt supporters. Janice Kerr remarked: 'About time you got what you deserve. Might have helped them with my vehicle if I'd been there.' The saboteurs said they had planned to position themselves in areas where the hunt were likely to go for the day, but had to abandon these plans after their vehicles were damaged. Grove and Rufford Hunt have been contacted for comment. Two women had to be rushed to hospital after a leaking gas tanker exploded in Los Angeles on Saturday, sending manhole covers flying. Flames belched from storm drains while locals described seeing a 'tornado of fire' and said they feared an earthquake had struck after the blast around 7.45am. It took dozens of firefighters two hours to extinguish the blaze, but only after it had torched a family home next to the storage yard where the tanker had been sitting. Dozens of firefighters spent two hours extinguishing a burning gas tanker after it suddenly exploded around 7.45am Saturday in central Los Angeles Locals described seeing a 'tornado of fire' and storm drains belching flames after gas which was leaking from the tanker suddenly ignited Two women were hurt in the explosion, including one who suffered 30 per cent burns to her body, which also torched a neighboring family home One of the women suffered burns to 30 per cent of her body in the explosion, according to the LA Times, while another was cut by flying glass. The explosion also caused a pall of thick black smoke to rise over the city, which eventually blew out to sea. Crews responding to reports of a gas smell found the tanker fully engulfed and then were forced back by the force of the blast, officials said. Initially it was thought to be a natural gas explosion but authorities later determined it was 'a 9,000-gallon gasoline tanker that was leaking,' LAFD said on its website. A thick black pall of smoke was left lingering over Los Angeles as the blaze raged early on Saturday, before blowing out to sea Fire chiefs say the tanker should not have been on the storage lot where it exploded, adding that the incident is now under investigation The blast was so strong that it threw a manhole cover into the air (pictured) which split into two pieces as it hit the ground 'The fumes came into contact with an unknown ignition source and exploded into flames,' LAFD said. 'Fire was coming from a storm drain and a leaking tanker,' firefighter Nicholas Prange added. The smoldering tank, which was in a storage yard, lay on its side with one end blown wide open after the flames were extinguished. Officials didn't immediately know how much gas was originally inside the tank. The leak and subsequent explosion are under investigation. 'I can tell you that sized tanker should not have been in that lot,' Los Angeles fire Assistant Chief Jaime Moore said. Advertisement Young revellers donned green hats, wigs and wrapped Irish flags around their shoulders for a Newcastle night out yesterday. St Patrick's Day celebrations were in full swing last night as party-goers celebrated the luck-o-the Irish. But these revellers won't be looking so chirpy as they wake up the morning after the night before. Last night's shenanigans saw thousands descend on the chilly northern streets clearly wearing as much green as they could find. Some went all out and bought leprechaun hats, giant glasses, and even a luminous green wig to go out on the town in style. While others went for the more low-key but equally as effective wear anything green look. Excited party-goers grinned as they showed off their St Patrick's day accessories, including a bobbly headband and the green white and orange Irish flag These revellers each wore something green as they partied the night away. It is unknown whether they are still in possession of their hats this morning Thumbs up: Having a great time this girl is doing St Patrick's Day the best way - with a bright green wig. Her friends couldn't be happier to be out on the town as another girl rocks giant shamrock glasses Worse for wear: He partied a little too hard too early and needed to take a breather on a bench last night. But at least he was fully kitted out with an Irish flag and a giant Guinness hat While some were having a great time for others the night quickly turned sour as an Irish flag plastic hat and flag decorated Hawaiian garland failed to brighten the mood Engrossed in their food: Every good night out ends with chips and last night did not disappoint for these girls. Tucking into their takeaway they celebrate a successful night out spent in comfy rugby shirts A vulnerable man suffered shocking knife injuries and a fractured eye socket when he was repeatedly slashed in a knife attack in his own home. Paul McGregor, 55, suffered injuries to his face and body and needed dozens of stitches, after he was attacked at about 3am on Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland. Paul has mental health issues and is described by friends as someone who 'wouldn't hurt a fly'. Paul McGregor, 55, suffered injuries to his face and body and needed dozens of stitches, after he was attacked at about 3am on Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland Paul, who has mental health issues and is described as someone who 'wouldn't hurt a fly', also suffered a fractured eye socket in the brutal attack. He is barely able to open his eyes but his condition is stable at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. A close friend said Paul, who is known as 'Baz', is adamant he does not want to return home. The friend told the Daily Record: 'It's absolutely disgusting that someone would do this to anyone let alone Baz, who wouldn't do you a bad turn. 'He is well known in the area but he is adamant he doesn't want to return to his home now, and you can't blame him. 'They have taken advantage of a vulnerable individual. He would never hurt anyone so why would they want to do this to him?' The friend added that the psychological damage done could be more of a problem than his physical injuries. It's believed that Paul knew the people who attacked him and had refused them entry to his house. It is alleged that they then forced there way into his home before carrying out the horrific attack. His friend said that Paul can't see at the moment because he can't open his eyes but medics have told him that his sight 'should be okay'. Last night a crowdfunding page set up by a stranger after pictures of Paul's injuries were shared on social media had already raised 630. Paul's house has been vandalised with graffiti over the past few months. A crowdfunding page set up to raise money for Paul has already raised 630. Photographs of Paul's injuries have been shared online. Those that have commented on the pictures say they are disgusted at what happened and describe him as 'harmless' and someone who 'wouldn't hurt a fly'. He is barely able to open his eyes but his condition is stable at Glasgow Royal Infirmary James Carchrie, who set up the crowdfunding page, said on it: 'Nobody deserves to have this happen to them, so let's all band together please, and show some love and support to this poor fella. 'The money will be given to him simply so he knows that people care, and to help him adjust back into life once he has recovered.' Two teenagers, aged 17 and 18, have been arrested over the incident. Police said 'inquiries were ongoing'. Anyone with information is asked to contact the CID via 101.' Washington's state senate has passed a bill that would see Donald Trump's name dropped from 2020 election ballots unless he releases five years of tax returns. Senators approved the bill by 28 votes to 21 on Tuesday, sending it to the House of Representatives for approval. Lawyers say the move is 'likely Constitutional' but warned that it 'will definitely be challenged in court' if it passes the representatives. Donald Trump's name will be removed from ballot papers in Washington state in the 2020 election unless he releases five years of tax returns under a new law passed by the senate Democrats who backed the bill said it was necessary to restore democratic norms after Trump broke with 40 years of tradition by refusing to release his returns. Republican opponents say the bill is teeing the state up for an expensive legal fight while politicizing how elections are run in the state. Passing the bill would also put the state in an 'untenable' position in the event that Trump decides to defy their order. Republican Hans Zeiger told CBS: 'We're on really risky ground when we're trying to place conditions on a federal election.' Washington is not the first state to attempt to pass such a law. In February, a similar bill was passed in New Jersey but ultimately vetoed by governor Chris Christie, who called it a 'political stunt'. Trump is the first president since Nixon - whose tax returns were leaked to the press by an IRS official - who has refused to release any financial information Donald Trump became the first president since Richard Nixon to refuse to release his tax returns after winning the 2016 election. Trump initially said he would release the returns once an IRS audit was complete, but has since reneged on that pledge. The returns would reveal Trump's earnings, sources of income, and strategies he used to minimize his tax bill, along with a wealth of other information. As such, the documents have become a source of fascination for Democrats, who have vowed to use obscure legislation to force Trump to hand them over to the House Ways and Means Committee, which they now control. Nixon was the first president to have his tax returns disclosed amid claims of corruption after an official at the IRS leaked them to the press. Since then it has become an established norm for presidential candidates to release their returns during the election to prove they are 'clean'. Women who survived child sexual exploitation say they are still being punished because they must disclose criminal convictions they carried out while being abused when applying for jobs. Sammy Woodhouse, now 33, was 14 when she was targeted by Rotherham child groomer Arshid Hussain, and in 2016 gave evidence that helped jail him for 35 years. She says the government have ignored her request for a 'Sammy's Law' to pardon those who committed crimes while they were exploited children. Sammy Woodhouse (left, after giving birth to a son following a rape aged 15) and Fiona Broadfoot (right, outside the High Court) are two sex abuse survivors who want a pardon for convictions they carried out while being abused Fiona Broadfoot, 50, was forced into prostitution aged 15, and has to reveal her conviction for soliciting several decades on. Both women have their convictions revealed by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) when they apply for jobs or certain voluntary roles, reported The Times. Ms Broadfoot joined two other women in a High Court action that claimed the rules were a breach of their privacy. They won the case but the Home Office has said it will appeal. The current rules force people with two or more convictions or cautions to disclose them when applying for certain roles, such as working with children or vulnerable adults. Ms Woodhouse, now 33, (pictured) was 14 when she was targeted by Rotherham child groomer Arshid Hussain, and in 2016 gave evidence that helped jail him for 35 years 'The men who bought me never got arrested for raping a vulnerable child, but I still have to declare my convictions?' she asked. 'The Home Office need to hang their heads in shame.' Ms Woodhouse said she has met with Home Office minister Victoria Atkins to discuss Sammy's Law but the government had since 'done nothing'. She was convicted of possessing an offensive weapon and assault during the period she was being groomed. Ms Broadfoot was trafficked to London from Bradford. She left the sex trade 24 years ago after receiving 99 soliciting convictions, starting at the age of 17. A Home Office spokesman said: 'The Government wants to ensure that all victims and survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation feel that they can come forward to report abuse, and that they get the support they need when they do. 'Minister Victoria Atkins met Ms Woodhouse to discuss her experiences and what more can be done to help victims and survivors of exploitation. 'We are committed to working across Government to ensure these people are able to move on from the abuse they have suffered, including those with criminal convictions or cautions.' New Mexico is set to become the fourth state to replace the controversial Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day following a vote in the state senate. The Senate voted 22-15 in favor of the proposal on Friday and it had already passed in the state House. If Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs the bill, New Mexico will follow South Dakota, Hawaii and Oregon in replacing the holiday with the alternative celebration. New Mexico is set to become the fourth state to replace the controversial Columbus Day following a 22-15 vote in favor of the proposal in the state senate. If Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs the bill, New Mexico will follow South Dakota, Hawaii and Oregon in doing away with the holiday Sen Benny Shendo, who presented the bill, House Bill 100, on the senate floor, said: 'I see this as a reconciliation process, not only as New Mexicans but as Americans' Instead, on the 14 October the state will celebrate Indigenous People's Day. Sen. Benny Shendo, who presented House Bill 100 on the senate floor, told the Santa Fe New Mexican: 'I see this as a reconciliation process, not only as New Mexicans but as Americans.' Supporters said the alternative celebration would better reflect New Mexico's culture. According to US census data, Native Americans make up 12 per cent of New Mexico's population. However, Sen. Mark Moores criticized the move and said: 'I think this bill is more about dividing us than bringing us together.' The celebration of Columbus Day has become increasingly controversial because of the explorer's divisive history. However, Sen. Mark Moores criticized the move, saying, 'I think this bill is more about dividing us than bringing us together'. The day marks the Italian explorer's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492, in what is modern-day San Salvador, but some historians assert that Columbus committed atrocities against Native Americans after he had arrived in America The largest city named for Christopher Columbus - Columbus, Ohio also called off its observance of the divisive holiday in 2016. Pictured: Protesters gather around the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus, Ohio, in November 2016 The day marks the Italian explorer's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492, in what is modern-day San Salvador. Some historians assert that Columbus committed atrocities against Native Americans after he had arrived in America. The first statewide holiday was celebrated in Colorado in 1907, and it was made a statutory holiday in 1907. It was then made a federal holiday by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in April 1934. Virgin cabin crew are threatening to walk out over the busy Easter period over claims the airline is planning to cut their pay below minimum wage. Sir Richard Branson's firm wants to cut flight attendants' pay packets by slashing their annual benefits, worth 7,500, in half, according to insiders. This would take their salaries below the UK minimum wage, which is currently 7.83 an hour - due to rise to 8.21 next month, despite a small increase in net pay. Company sources told the Daily Telegraph Virgin air stewards are planning a strike over Easter, when hundreds of thousands of Britons are due to fly. Angry whisteblowers also claim Branson is trying to create a 'smokescreen' over the issue by relaxing rules on female staff wearing make up. Sir Richard Branson wants to cut Virgin flight attendants' pay packets by slashing their annual benefits, worth 7,500, in half, according to insiders. File image There are also concerns the alleged pay cut could widen the airline's gender pay gap - as the majority of its flight attendants are women and pilots are men, who remain unaffected. Virgin has reported one of the largest differences in men and women's pay in the country. It increased from 28.4 per cent to 31 per cent over the past year. Company sources claim Virgin air stewards (pictured) are planning a strike over Easter, when hundreds of thousands of Britons are due to fly A Virgin source told the newspaper staff are furious over the 'unfair' changes. They said: 'Even though we keep getting told we're doing a great job and meeting targets and even bettering them so we're boosting the reputation of the company, we're not being shown that in kind with pay. We're one of the worst paid cabin crew in the UK.' Virgin denies the claims. A spokesman told MailOnline: 'We are currently in negotiations with the Unite Union regarding our Cabin Crew pay deal. 'The offer represents a definite increase in Cabin Crew salaries and categorically does not take any of our people below the national minimum wage. 'The new pay structure will not result in a cost saving to Virgin Atlantic. On the contrary, Virgin Atlantic is investing heavily in our crew and the new package will result in a significant cost increase. 'On the whole, the new package (group pay and allowances) offered to cabin crew will make them better off than before. 'Our Cabin Crew are at the heart of Virgin Atlantic and we're committed to offering a pay deal that is competitive for such an important part of our workforce.' Pictured: Virgin founder and owner Sir Richard Branson (pictured in California last October) is allegedly behind the proposed changes The High Court had to intervene to block Virgin pilots going on strike over the Christmas break last year. They planned to walk out for four days over proposed changes to their benefits. Airline staff have large benefits packages to pay for their accommodation, food and drink when they fly overseas. But the festive strike was declared unlawful by High Court judges, saving hundreds of thousands from their flights being cancelled - amid extra drone chaos at Gatwick Airport. Virgin last year ruled its air stewardesses, who are famous for fronting its glamorous TV adverts, no longer have to wear make-up. Bosses said they were making the move in order to allow cabin crew 'more choice on how to express themselves at work'. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke raised more than $6.1 million online during the first 24 hours after he announced his White House bid, the highest 24-hour number reported by any candidate, his campaign said Monday. The 'record-breaking' haul of $6,136,763 came in 'without a dime' from PACs, corporations or special interests,' O'Rourke spokesman Chris Evans tweeted. It would be highly unusual for political action committees or corporate donors to contribute money to a presidential candidate whose sea legs are yet to stiffen under him. The $6.1 million is just above what Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders reported for his first day as a candidate. O'Rourke had played coy with reporters over the weekend, saying he had chosen not to reveal his day-one donation total. O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman, jumped into the 2020 presidential race on Thursday after months of speculation, shaking up the already packed Democratic field and pledging to win over voters from across the political spectrum. Former Texas ocngressman Robert Francis 'Beto' O'Rourke raised more than $6.1 million online during his first 24 hours as a presidential candidate, his spokesman said Monday Bernie Sanders raised $5.9 million on his first day as a presidential candidate this year, which was a record at the time O'Rourke spokesman Chris Evans tweeted about the 'record-breaking' haul of $6,136,763 HOW DEM' DAY ONE FUNDRAISING HAULS COMPARE Beto ORourke $6.1 million Bernie Sanders $5.9 million Kamala Harris $1.5 million Amy Klobuchar $1 million in 48 hours John Hickenlooper $1 million in 48 hours Jay Inslee $1 million in 72 hours Elizabeth Warren not disclosed but raised $299,000 on day she launched exploratory committee Does not include Democrats who have disclosed no fundraising totals for first days of exploratory committees or formal launches Advertisement O'Rourke raised an eye-popping $80 million in grassroots donations last year in his failed U.S. Senate race in Texas against incumbent Republican Ted Cruz, all while largely avoiding money from PACs. His early fundraising numbers in the presidential contest will be seen as an initial signal of whether his popularity during the Senate campaign will carry over to his White House bid. The new figures set O'Rourke and Sanders apart from the rest of the Democratic field in launch-day fundraising. California Sen. Kamala Harris reported raising $1.5 million in the 24 hours after she launched her campaign in January. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar reported raising $1 million in the 48 hours after launching her campaign in February. Asked last week if he thought he would top Sanders, O'Rourke said only, 'We'll see.' The Republican National Committee drew fire for promoting an anti-Irish stereotype on Sunday by tweeting ORourkes mugshot from his drunk driving arrest 20 years ago. The tweet included the caption: 'On this St. Paddy's Day, a special message from noted Irishman Robert Francis O'Rourke. PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY.' O'Rourke is of Irish descent, despite adopting a Latino nickname. The GOP's Twitter account added a green leprechaun hat on top of his head. O'Rourke raised $80 million last year for his Senate race without PAC money The Republican Party's official Twitter account showed an image on Sunday of 'noted Irishman' O'Rourke' 1998 DUI mugshot with a leprechaun hat, angering some Democrats O'Rourke claimed Sunday that being a white male in a crowded Democratic presidential primary field doesn't put him at a disadvantage. But he added that it would 'very difficult' to choose a man as his running mate, if he were to emerge as his party's presidential nominee. 'I would never begin by saying I'm at any disadvantage at all,' he said on 'Meet the Press.' 'As a white man who has had privileges that others could not depend on or take for granted, I've clearly had advantages over the course of my life,' he said. O'Rourke launched his presidential campaign on Thursday and headed for the early caucus state of Iowa, where he apologized for a series of gaffes including a joking statement that his wife raises their three children practically on her own. He said later in Dubuque, Iowa: 'It would be very difficult not to select a woman with so many extraordinary women who are running right now.' WSJ says US to keep 1,000 soldiers in Syria, Dunford denies Following Trump's announcement on troop withdrawal (ANSAmed) - WASHINGTON, MARCH 18 - The US is drawing up a plan that would keep about 1,000 soldiers in Syria, nearly half of the total, following US President Donald Trump's announcement three months ago of a total troop withdrawal from the country, said the Wall Street Journal, citing American officials. Meetings between the US, Turkey, European allies and Kurds have thus far not managed to guarantee a safe zone in northeastern Syria. US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, denied the WSJ report and called it "factually incorrect". "There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the president's direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence," Dunford said.(ANSAmed). Madeleine McCann could have been snatched by a sexual predator hiding his face with a surgical mask, according to a new documentary. Police feared that a man carried out a possible 28 attacks within a 40-mile radius of the apartment in Praia Da Luz, Portugal, where Madeleine went missing in May 2007, an investigator said. The masked man was said to have sneaked into rented properties in the area, targeting British families. In one incident a seven-year-old British girl woke up and found him lying next to her in bed wearing a surgical mask, the documentary revealed. Pictured: A reconstruction of the possible incident, broadcast on Netflix's The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann Apartment 5A in Praia Da Luz in Portugal, where Madeline McCann went missing in 2007 The eight-part series The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, currently available on Netflix, features a disturbing reconstruction of the event in its final episode. Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, two investigators who wrote a book about the case, claim the masked man was one of at least 12 suspects police are investigating. Mr Summers said British investigators found there had been at least 28 cases and the sexual predator typically targeted houses owned or rented by British tourists. Maddeleine playing at holiday kids club days before she was snatched at Praia da Luz Pictured: A still from the documentary that promised fresh theories into the disappearance The youngster's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have previously criticised the programme He said: 'One case that we came across, the parents of the children had been asleep in their bedroom with the door closed and their two daughters, an 11-year-old and a seven-year-old had been asleep in the next door room. 'He'd come in and laid down on the bed of the younger child. From what the little girl told her parents afterwards the man had come into the room wearing a sort of medical mask. 'The child had said: "Is that you daddy? He was speaking English saying "yes", but sounding like a foreigner.' He also claimed the man was said to have had 'a funny smell'. The Netflix documentary revealed how detectives showed locals an e-fit of a man without a nose, eyes or mouth in the week after the child's disappearance. Detectives showed locals an e-fit of a man without a nose, eyes or mouth (left) in the week after Madeleine (right) vanished The youngster the day she went missing from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz The second episode of The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann explained how officers showed the featureless e-fit drawing to those living in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May, 2007. The youngster's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have previously criticised the programme, claiming it 'could potentially hinder' the search for their daughter. Netflix said the series had access to 'never-before-heard testimonies from those at the heart of the story. Mr and Mrs McCann previously said in a statement: 'The production company told us that they were making the documentary and asked us to participate. 'We did not see - and still do not see - how this programme will help the search for Madeleine and, particularly given there is an active police investigation, it could potentially hinder it. 'Consequently, our views and preferences are not reflected in the programme.' Scotland Yard launched an investigation, Operation Grange, after a Portuguese inquiry failed to make any headway on Madeleine's disappearance. In November last year, a further 150,000 was granted to the investigation to allow it to continue until March 31. Jacob Rees-Mogg today signalled he could finally back the Prime Minister after admitting a 'bad deal is better than staying in the EU' - but up to 30 arch-Brexiteer Tories are still refusing to budge. Theresa May is expected to postpone the third Commons vote on her deal this week unless she can convince 75 MPs from the DUP, Tories and Labour to change their minds. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has repeatedly defied the PM, is softening and insisted Mrs May's deal was better than staying in the EU for months or years, 'however bad it is'. Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC: 'I genuinely haven't made up my mind. There is a hierarchy. No deal is better than Mrs May's deal, but Mrs May's deal is better than not leaving. I don't think we will get another chance to leave the European Union. Delay is denial. The thought that if you get two years for something better is hopelessly optimistic.' But today more than 20 Brexiteers promised to oppose Theresa May's Brexit deal to hold out for No Deal while Boris Johnson did not sign their letter but also urged MPs to vote it down claiming it gives the EU an 'indefinite means of blackmail' against the UK. In a letter to the Telegraph the Tories including Lucy Allan MP and Crispin Blunt said 'No Deal will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed. It is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices - but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other.' Jaco Rees-Mogg today signalled he could back the Prime Ministers after admitting a 'bad deal is better than staying in the EU' Mrs May faces an uphill battle to win a vote - if it happens - and needs to convince 75 MPs to change sides Downing Street has said ministers will want to be sure there is a 'realistic prospect' of success before deciding to call a third 'meaningful vote' this week on Theresa May's Brexit deal. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said that if the deal was passed by the Commons she would go to the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday to ask for a short 'technical' extension to the Article 50 withdrawal process. Which Tory MPs have signalled they will vote against the deal AGAIN? Boris Johnson Owen Paterson Priti Patel John Baron John Redwood Adam Afriyie Lucy Allan Crispin Blunt Peter Bone Andrew Bridgen Richard Drax Mark Francoix Marcus Fysj Chris Green Adam Holloway Philip Hollobone Ranil Jayawardena Andrea Jenkyns David Jones Julian Lewis Craig Mackinlay Sheryll Murray Andrew Rosindell Ross Thomson Michael Tomlinson Anne-Marie Trevelyan Sam Gyimah Jo Johnson Philip Lee Dominic Grieve Justine Greening Guto Bebb Advertisement If there is no Commons vote for the deal, the spokesman said she would ask for a longer delay which would mean Britain holding elections to the European Parliament. The spokesman said that if a vote was to be held before Mrs May goes to Brussels, the Government will have to table a motion by the end of business on Tuesday at the latest. Mrs May has been scrambling for support for the deal - particularly from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - in the hope of bringing it back before Parliament ahead of an EU summit on Thursday. But it is thought the Prime Minister could delay the crucial vote for another week unless she is confident of avoiding a third humiliating defeat on the package, which MPs rejected by 230 votes in January and 149 last week. She has warned that if her deal is not approved, the UK will have to seek a lengthy extension to negotiations, potentially losing Brexit altogether. Mr Rees-Mogg said he would wait to see what the DUP decided before finally making up his mind which way to vote. However, he said that Brexit supporters would need to weigh up whether, if the deal was defeated again, it would actually lead to a no-deal break - as they would prefer - or whether it would see Britain trapped in the EU. 'Mrs May's deal, however bad it is, means that we are legally outside the European Union,' he said. 'We have got as close to leaving as we will ever get under these circumstances. If it is thwarted now, no-one is ever going to allow us another chance to have a vote. 'The whole weight of British establishment opinion will prevent that ever happening again.' He added: 'As long as people think we can get to no deal, they will vote the deal down. That is my position.' Theresa May is seen arriving at Downing Street this morning as her deal hangs in the balance and she could delay it. Boris Johnson dealt a heavy blow to her hopes of winning in the Commons after he refused to back it today Earlier, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson called on Mrs May to postpone another vote on her deal, warning it would be 'absurd' to bring it back to the Commons without first securing change from Brussels. Brexit: What happens next? What happened last week? MPs twice rejected Theresa May's Brexit deal. They also voted against leaving with no deal, and now voted in favour of a delay. What will happen next? MPs have supported a delay, so May will have to request an extension to Article 50 from the EU. Could Brexit be delayed? If other member states agree to it, Brexit will be postponed, but May has said that this should be for no longer than three months. If, however, MPs do not support her deal, she warned that the extension could be far longer. Could Brexit be stopped? May has warned this is a possibility. While she will not revoke Article 50 herself, she has warned political chaos could see the Government replaced by Jeremy Corbyn or another pro-Remain administration. Will the Prime Minister face a motion of no confidence? It is possible. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he will only call another vote of no confidence if he has a chance of winning - but in January Mrs May precipitated one herself. Will May just resign after a second defeat? Unlikely but not impossible. Defeat would be another monumental blow to the PM's political authority. Will there be a general election? There are mounting calls for one. Tory MP Charles Walker said yesterday if the House could not pass the deal, the current Parliament probably needs to be replaced so a new Government can be formed to tackle Brexit. One of the advantages of an election is it would be much quicker to organise and resolve than a second referendum. Could there be a second referendum on Brexit? There are mounting demands for a new public vote - but probably not currently a majority in the Commons for it. A new referendum would take at least six months to organise and run. This could be optimistic as there is no consensus over what the question might be. Advertisement He said that as it stood, the Northern Ireland backstop - under which the UK remains in a customs union until both sides agree a trade deal - gave the EU 'an indefinite means of blackmail'. 'Unless we have some change - and at present, in the immortal phrase, nothing has changed - it is hard to ask anyone who believes in Brexit to change their mind,' he said. Mrs May's hopes of rallying Conservative MPs behind her were dealt a further blow by a letter to The Daily Telegraph from 23 Leave-backing backbenchers arguing for a no-deal exit. ''No deal' will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed,' wrote the Tory MPs, including former ministers Owen Paterson, Sir John Redwood and David Jones. 'Our moral course is clear: it is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices, but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other.' However, the Prime Minister received a boost from former chancellor Lord Lamont, who urged fellow Brexiteers to focus on the 'prize' of leaving the EU and back her deal. Writing in the Daily Mail, he said that 'history will not understand if it is Conservative MPs who prevent us claiming our self-government'. Negotiations with the DUP were expected to continue on Monday, although Downing Street said a formal meeting has not been scheduled. The 10 DUP MPs are viewed by Downing Street as pivotal, not just for the votes they provide but the influence of their stance on Conservative Eurosceptics. DUP MLA Jim Wells told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We still have a huge difficulty with the backstop, because we see it as a waiting room for constitutional change. 'We could find ourselves locked in there forever in effect, and once you get in you can never get out. We have to have a mechanism where we can escape the backstop.' Mr Wells said a proposed 'gentlemen's agreement' that any changes to Northern Ireland's relationship with the EU would be mirrored by the rest of the UK might prove 'unenforceable'. And he denied that the DUP was taking part in a financial 'auction' for its support, insisting that 'money is not being discussed on the table at the moment'. Mr Wells estimated that as many as 30 Tory MPs will never vote for Mrs May's deal, meaning that a third defeat was 'inevitable' with or without DUP support. A New Jersey man accused of murdering his brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew last year, allegedly because he was about to be cut out of the family business for stealing more than $75,000, pleaded not guilty on all counts on Monday. Paul Caneiro is accused of shooting his brother Keith, shooting and stabbing his wife Jennifer then stabbing their two children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, eight, on November 20. Their bodies were found at the family's burning mansion after Paul had allegedly set fire to it. He also set his own house alight in an attempt to shift suspicion from him but was arrested days later. Paul Caneiro, 52, appears in court in Monmouth County in New Jersey on Monday to plead not guilty on 16 counts including murder and theft Paul is accused of murdering his younger brother Keith, 50, and Keith's wife and children, Jennifer, 45, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, eight. Prosecutors say Paul had become panicked that he was going to be cut off from his more successful younger brother's business. THE CHARGES Murder x 4 Felony murder x 2 (In these charges, the prosecution does not have to prove that he intended to murder his niece and nephew) Aggravated arson x 2 Possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose Possession of a knife for an unlawful purpose Unlawful possession of a firearm Unlawful possession of a knife Theft Misapplication of entrusted property Hindering apprehension x 2 Advertisement He was arrested and arraigned last year on four counts of murder but last month, was hit with an additional 12 charges including stealing from the family. Paul returned to court on Monday to plead not guilty to those charges. The night before the murders, Keith made contact with associates and told them that money had gone missing from Square One, the technology company the brothers founded together but which Keith ran. He told an associate that he would stop making payments to Keith's wife until he find the missing money, according to prosecutors. Paul, 52, has denied the killings. According to prosecutors, he went to his brother's home in the middle of the night on November 20. First, he allegedly confronted Keith outside the property. He is accused of shooting him then stepping over his body to get into the house. Paul pleaded not guilty on all counts on Monday morning. He was emotionless throughout the hearing The father-of-two's family was not in court but they said through their lawyer last year that they supported him Caneiro said nothing throughout the hearing as his lawyer entered his plea on his behalf He then allegedly shot and stabbed Jennifer before stabbing the children in their beds. Caneiro then allegedly started a slow-burning fire in the mansion's basement and fled. He went back to his home and, according to police, set another fire to make it look as though both brothers had been targeted. His family then contacted the authorities and were seen standing outside their own house while his brother's home went up in flames nearby. Prosecutors say Paul shot his brother then shot and stabbed Jennifer before 'repeatedly' stabbing his niece and nephew in their mansion and then allegedly went to the basement of the home and set a fire that would take hours to get going. Above is the house as fire crews worked to put out the blaze Keith Caneiro (pictured with his wife Jennifer) had been talking 'openly' about cutting ties with the business partner brother before he was murdered, it emerged this week Pictured is the couple's daughter, who was killed in the fire By the time police were called to Keith's house, it had been several hours since Paul allegedly set it on fire. Paul's wife Susan and two adult daughters Marissa, 23, and Katelyn, 26, are supporting him At a hearing earlier this month, his lawyer said: 'Mr Caneiro loves his brother, loves his sister-in-law like a sister, loves those children. 'He would never do anything to harm them,' he said. Caneiro is facing life imprisonment if convicted. President Donald Trump stepped up his pressure Monday on General Motors' CEO Mary Barra to reopen an Ohio manufacturing plant that recently closed and put 1,700 people out of work. Trump's arm-twisting came in a series of tweets aimed at GM and the United Auto Workers union that stretched across Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 'General Motors and the UAW are going to start "talks" in September/October. Why wait, start them now!' the president tweeted Monday in his latest salvo on the Lordstown plant, which had manufactured the Chevrolet Cruze. 'Get that big, beautiful plant in Ohio open now. Close a plant in China or Mexico, where you invested so heavily pre-Trump, but not in the U.S.A. Bring jobs home!' he wrote. GM had said Sunday evening 'to be clear' that it was talking to the UAW, a tone which may have prompted the Monday tweet. Ohio will be a crucial battlefield in Trump's 2020 re-election fight: Saving 1,700 jobs there would be a major feather in the president's cap, but losing them would give Democrats much-needed ammunition in the American midwest. Trump capped his weekend of ranting with a tweet disclosing that he had vented his frustrations during a conversation with Barra. President Trump (left) slammed General Motors and its CEO Mary Barra (right) on Sunday over the closure of a manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio; On Monday he tweeted that GM should close a plant in China or Mexico to reopen the Ohio facility Why it matters: GM is a major employer across a swathe of three states won by Trump, two of which had been seen as part of Hillary Clinton's 'blue wall' 'I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING,' Trump wrote. 'I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union I don't care, I just want it open!' The union is the United Automobile Workers, which represents the employees who lost their jobs in the Lordstown closure. Trump had previously told a UAW leader, David Green, to 'get his act together and produce' for the Lordstown workers. Green didn't respond to a request for comment. In a Fox News Channel interview Monday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway siad Trump is frustrated with the negotiation timetable that's unfolding in slow motion as Ohioans lose their jobs. 'In the president's mind, it's March. You're scheduling a meeting for October. And in the meantime jobs are going to keep seeping out of the country like they did in past administrations,' she said. 'He wants them to come to the table before that. ... When you tell a businessman, a non-politician, "We're going to meet seven months from now," he's just saying, "Can we accelerate and have the meeting sometime faster?"' Share impacted? GM's stock price was down slightly on Monday but that was in line with a month-long downward trend Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway said Monday on the Fox News Channel that Trump wants GM and union leaders to meet soon enough to save the Ohio jobs GM Lordstown workers rallied outside the plant on March 6 as they prepared to stand down after the plant produced cars and other vehicles for 50 years 'I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING,' Trump tweeted on Sunday. 'I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union - I don't care, I just want it open!' Trump had previously told a UAW leader, David Green, to 'get his act together and produce' for the Lordstown workers WHAT GM SAID AFTER CEO'S CALL WITH TRUMP To be clear, under the terms of the UAW-GM National Agreement, the ultimate future of the unallocated plants will be resolved between GM and the UAW. We remain open to talking with all affected stakeholders, but our main focus remains on our employees and offering them jobs in our plants where we have growth opportunities. We have now placed over 1,000 employees from our unallocated plants to other GM locations, and we have opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees. Advertisement General Motors said in a statement released Sunday evening that the future of plants scheduled to be closed 'will be resolved between GM and the UAW.' The automaker also says that it has 'opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees' at plants that are to be shuttered. 'We remain open to talking with all the affected stakeholders, but our main focus remains on our employees and offering them jobs in our plants where we have growth opportunities,' the company said. Even as he said he talked to Barra, Trump was calling on GM to reopen its Lordstown plant or find another owner, while insisting that the Detroit automaker 'must act quickly.' He also blasted GM for letting down the U.S. and asserted 'much better' automakers are coming to the country. Trump praised Toyota for its investments in the U.S. in an apparent attempt to depict GM as being less committed to its home country than the Japan automaker. The Lordstown closure has become a hot-button issue in an area of Ohio that is expected to be critical for Trump if he seeks re-election as promised in 2020. Trump prevailed in Ohio in the 2016 election, a win that helped him win enough electoral votes to become president despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That may be one reason why Trump joined a coalition of Ohio lawmakers in efforts to get the Lordstown plant running again. GM's share price was down slightly on Monday but that was in line with falls which have hit it for the last four weeks, suggesting the markets were paying little attention to the Trump-Barra conflict. The tweets marked some of his most pointed criticism of GM so far. Amy Drennen, right, of Lordstown, Ohio, an employee at General Motors for 12 years, receives a hug from Pam Clark, as people gather in front of the General Motors assembly plant on March 6 - the last day of the plant's production of Chevrolet Cruze cars Trump has skewered several other U.S. companies for not doing more to help their country's economy, but his remarks so far have been more bark than bite. For instance, he has publicly called upon Apple to shift most of its manufacturing from China to the U.S., but the Silicon Valley company continues to make its iPhones and most other products overseas. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, last week expressed doubts GM will reopen its Lordstown plant, but he said the automaker indicated it's in talks with another company about using the site. More than 16 million vehicles were made at the Lordstown plant during its 53-year history until GM closed it earlier this month as part of a massive reorganization. The company also intends to close four other North American plants by early next year. It was the affair heard around the world, one that made her the butt of late-night jokes for years and changed her life forever. And now Monica Lewinsky has opened up to John Oliver about the 'avalanche of pain and humiliation' that she experienced after her relationship with Bill Clinton. Oliver's show Last Week Tonight hosted a special segment on public shaming, and interviewed Lewinsky about the scandal that rocked the nineties. 'You were on the receiving end of one of the worst internet-fueled public shamings of all time. How the f**k did you get through that?' Oliver asked her. 'I don't actually know,' Lewinsky replied. 'It was a s**t storm.' Scroll down for video Monica Lewinsky opened up to John Oliver about the 'avalanche of pain and humiliation' that she experienced following her relationship with Bill Clinton Oliver hosted a special segment on public shaming for Last Week Tonight , and interviewed Lewinsky about the scandal that rocked the nineties 'At 24 years old, it was really hard to hold onto a shred of dignity or self-esteem when you know, you're the butt of so many jokes.' Lewinsky revealed that it wasn't just the 'slut-shaming' that hurt her, but the many comments made about her appearance as well. 'Part of my vanity now comes from the wounds of having been made fun of for my weight, people saying I was unattractive,' she continued. 'It was terrifying not only because I was watching myself, or this version of myself, running away from me, but my identity - my identity was stolen in a different way.' 'Not to say that I wasn't flawed and that I didn't make terrible mistakes or do stupid things or say stupid things, because of course I did,' she added. 'You were 22!' Oliver interjected. 'Every 22-year-old is some version of an idiot.' 'You just lost a lot of viewers!' Lewinsky joked. 'But, it's not like I was this perfect angel right? But I watched this sort of deconstruction of me, and rebuilding of me.' Lewinsky revealed that it wasn't just the 'slut-shaming' that hurt her, it was the many comments made about her appearance as well She also told Oliver about how hard it was, even 10 years on, to find a job after the scandal was named after her Lewinsky said it can still be tough sometimes to get through a typical day, but that she found it even more difficult to find a job after the scandal. 'It was interesting because I went to graduate school in 2005 and I graduated in 2006 and I thought, "Okay, now I will begin my life, I will now put being Monica Lewinsky behind me and move on to be so and so's employee,'" she recalled. 'And when I couldn't find a job, you know somebody either offered me a job for the wrong reasons like "Oh you'll be coming to our events, that's your job, and there's media there" or people saying to me like, "Well, could you get a letter of indemnification from the Clintons because we rely on government money and Hillary might be president." 'So there was this wide range of not being able to support myself and also have a purpose, which is equally important to feel that you matter in some way.' Despite the difficulties, Lewinsky said she never considered changing her name. 'There were several reasons I didn't,' she said. 'I mean, first of all, I don't think it really would've even worked. But I think it was also a principle in the sense that, Bill Clinton didn't have to change his name. Nobody's ever asked him, did he think he should change his name?' 'And so, I think that that was an important statement. I'm not proud of all the choices I've made in my life, but I'm proud of the person I am. I'm not ashamed of who I am and I think that, as hard as it has been to have that last name sometimes and the pain I have felt of what it's meant for the other people in my family who have that last name, I'm glad I didn't change it.' Despite the difficulties, Lewinsky said she never considered changing her name, which she believed made an 'important statement' In the same segment, Oliver took responsibility for his own role in the late-night machine that launched hundreds of jokes at Lewinsky's expense In the same segment, Oliver took responsibility for his own role in the late-night machine that launched hundreds of jokes at Lewinsky's expense. 'My hands are not clean here either,' he said. 'I wasn't in the US at the time, but 10 years after the fact, I was in a Daily Show piece marking the 10th anniversary of the scandal above a graphic reading "10 suckin' years", which is gross!' Oliver said many comedians have since expressed regret about the things they said about Lewinsky. 'Although one who hasn't, and was among the most relentless, was Jay Leno,' he added, showing a montage of Leno making joke after joke about Lewinsky. 'Those jokes have not dated well in any sense of the word, and they're pretty rough, especially coming from a guy who just this week complained about late-night TV, saying he would "like to see a bit of civility come back,"' Oliver continued. 'You know, like that time he did a fake book about Lewinsky titled "The Slut In The Hat". And if that's what he means by civility, let me offer my new book "Oh, the places you can go f**k yourself Jay Leno!" Oliver said that Lewinsky was the 'perfect person to remind all of us what the consequences can be to a misdirected flood of public anger'. Lewinsky, who was in her early twenties at the time of the scandal, said it was 'really hard to hold onto a shred of dignity or self-esteem' as she became the butt of late-night jokes And Lewinsky revealed to Oliver that she believes shaming and bullying has only gotten worse in the 21st century And Lewinsky revealed to the comedian that she believes shaming and bullying has only gotten worse in the 21st century. 'I think with the advent of the internet and, of course, social media, we now have situations where it's exacerbated beyond what I think anyone could have imagined initially,' she said. 'And the anonymity that comes with that, that sort of unleashed these whole new personas for people.' But Lewinsky agreed with Oliver that there can be some positive effects to public shaming when the person being shamed has been hurting others with their behavior. 'We tend to look at it as a binary question,' she added. 'Should we public shame or shouldn't we? I do think there's a spectrum of behavior on which we could kind of judge as a society, "Is this where shaming is effective to change social behavior, or is it damaging?"' After 20 years, Lewinsky said she has been able to joke about the experience a bit. She even wore a beret for a party that had a nineties theme. The beret had become synonymous with Lewinsky after she was photographed next to Clinton while wearing one. 'For the first time in 18 years, I donned a black beret and went to my friend's party. In part because I thought it was funny,' she said. 'Berets, I can laugh at. Other clothing jokes, not so much,' she added, clearly referring to the infamous blue dress which became integral to the Clinton scandal. After 20 years, Lewinsky said she has been able to joke about the experience a bit. She even wore a beret - for the first time in 18 years - for a party that had a nineties theme Oliver then asked Lewinsky how her experience has been since joining Twitter, noting that he often sees a 'sewer' of terrible comments under her tweets. 'I get a lot of empowerment out of blocking people,' she revealed. 'I wish people would not say s****y things, but they do. And, literally to me, when I block someone, I'm going,' she said before sticking up her middle finger as Oliver laughed. 'That's literally what it feels like for me, is that I'm basically telling someone to f**k off, it feels great!' she continued. 'So I mean, I wish they hadn't said something that would make me want to block them to begin with, but blocking is unbelievably empowering. Actually I was lucky in some ways that social media wasn't around, I think that would have made it worse in some ways.' 'Could it have made it worse?' Oliver asked. 'Have you not maxed out how bad it could be? Do you really think it could have gotten worse?' 'You know, I don't know,' Lewinsky replied. 'It might have been worse in the sense that there certainly would have been a lot more opinions out there, but where it may have been better would have been that I would have heard some support from people'. Lewinsky (pictured at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2019) has since become an anti-bullying advocate and often talks about her experiences with public shaming Oliver then asked Lewinsky if it would have been meaningful at the time to just have a stranger tweet to her, "I think what you're going through is complete bulls**t'. 'Yeah it would, absolutely,' she said. 'One of the things that happens with these kinds of experiences is that you start to disappear, you start to think you don't matter' 'When someone sees you and just acknowledges your humanity in the smallest way, it really can make a world of difference and, you don't know, it could save someone's life. And I think that's important.' Lewinsky then revealed what her advice would be to anyone who is being publicly shamed or bullied online. 'You can get through it,' she said. 'You can move past it. I know it feels like in this one moment that your life will be forever defined by this, but it won't.' 'It may be hard, it may take more time than you ever could have imagined, but you can move past something like this.' A California special education teacher has been accused of refereeing a 'fight club' in his classroom that left multiple students injured. Federico Vargas, 41, allegedly hosted secret mixed martial arts-style fights between students at Cloverdale High School, according to statement released by the Cloverdale Police Department. 'The fights occurred on multiple occasions over a period of time not yet determined, but isolated to Vargas' classroom,' Sgt Chris Parker said. 'Multiple student injuries were reported during the investigation, one of which required medical attention as a result of the fighting.' At least one of the bouts was recorded on a student's cellphone, Parker said. Special education teacher Federico Vargas, 41, has been accused of hosting and refereeing a secret 'fight club' for students in his classroom at Cloverdale High School in California (above) Vargas has been charged with 13 counts of contributing to the delinquency of minors and five counts of endangering children. He is currently out on bail, according to Parker. The Cloverdale School District, for which Vargas taught for eight years, is conducting its own investigation into the alleged fight club. Superintendent Jeremy Decker said it is unclear whether the fights happened during class time or after school. It has also not yet been determined whether all the fighters were special education students. Decker declined to comment on the district's investigation but said administrators immediately contacted police after becoming aware of the allegations on March 7. 'It hit me in the gut. It hurts me to know that potentially some of our students in this town were placed in a situation that was unsafe,' Decker told ABC. The Cloverdale School District website lists Vargas as a member of the 'special education faculty'. His current employment status is unknown. A New Jersey woman is suing her boss for sexual harassment after claiming he unzipped his pants and exposed himself to her, left a dildo on her desk and regularly made 'vile' unwanted sexual advances towards her. Meaghan Martin, 27, claims Dru DiSilvestro - a manager at Eric M. Krise Electrical Contractor LLC in Elmer, New Jersey - sent her a photo of his genitals that he had taken in the office bathroom and was caught on camera bragging that women shouldn't have the same rights as men. In the lawsuit filed against DiSilvestro, Martin also alleges that the company's human resources manager created an 'inappropriate-comment jar' that resulted in $1 being contributed for any inappropriate comment made in the office. She claims that at the end of each week, the HR manager would pick out notes from the comment jar - many which related to DiSilvestro's conduct - and there would be enough fines to pay for lunch for the entire office. Scroll down for video Meaghan Martin, 27, claims her New Jersey boss Dru DiSilvestro, 33, regularly made 'vile' unwanted sexual advances towards her on a nearly daily basis Martin claims Dru DiSilvestro - a manager at Eric M. Krise Electrical Contractor LLC in Elmer, New Jersey - once put a sex toy on her desk and sent her a photo of his genitals that he had taken in the office bathroom Martin, a mother of three, was hired at the company as a receptionist in 2016 and was promoted to residential manager. She claims DiSilvestro, a 33-year-old married man, made almost daily sexual advances towards her during this time. According to the lawsuit, he once unzipped his pants and held his penis in his hand in front of her before asking: 'Isn't it nice and girthy?' He put a dildo on her desk in November last year and allegedly said: 'I bet you could take the whole thing'. Martin also alleges that DiSilvestro sent her a photo of his genitals from the office bathroom, saying: 'This is what you're missing out on'. She claims DiSilvestro had a conversation with her over Snapchat during work hours in October last year in which he alluded to wanting to have sex with her. Martin alleges that DiSilvestro regularly made comments about her physical appearance, hair, clothing, breasts and buttocks, according to the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, DiSilvestro allegedly put a dildo on Martin's desk in November last year and allegedly said: 'I bet you could take the whole thing' She claims DiSilvestro had a conversation with her over Snapchat (above) during work hours in October last year in which he alluded to wanting to have sex with her During the Snapchat conversation, DiSilvestro made sexually suggestive comments about how Martin could help him relieve stress She said he once told her 'those jeans make your butt look good'. Whenever she would bend over to pick things up in the office, DiSilvestro would also allegedly say: 'Mmmm,I would tear that up'. DiSilvestro began sending her text message in which he apologized in an attempt to mitigate the situation after she complained and took a leave of absence Martin filmed him going on a tirade about women's rights last month in which he stated: 'Women should not have the same rights as men do' and '(women) need to be told what to do'. Martin claims DiSilvestro's behavior was just dismissed by the company as an 'office joke'. According to the lawsuit, Martin's doctor ordered her to take a leave of absence due to anxiety and panic attacks brought on by the alleged harassment. Soon after, DiSilvestro began sending her text message in which he apologized in an attempt to mitigate the situation. 'As alleged in the complaint, Mrs Martin was forced to endure vile and unwanted sexual advances on a near daily basis,' her attorney, Matthew A. Luber, said. 'The video of Mr DiSilvestro's shameless and sexist comments is repulsive and shows why the vigorous prosecution of discrimination cases is so very important. We look forward to our day in court.' An attorney for DiSilvestro and the company said Martin's allegations were 'not well-founded'. He described DiSilvestro as a 'class clown' and accused Martin of trying to 'have a pay day'. Michael Daley apologised on Tuesday morning for saying young people were being forced to 'flee' Sydney because their jobs were being taken by educated Asian migrants. The NSW Opposition Leader made the comments in the Blue Mountains, in September, but the footage of the incidnet only emerged this week, just days from a state election. Mr Daley stunned members of the audience when he spoke of the 'transformation' that was happening in Sydney with 'foreigners moving in taking jobs'. Mr Daley stunned members of the audience when he spoke of the 'transformation' that was happening in Sydney with 'foreigners moving in taking jobs' 'Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs,' Mr Daley said in the video. 'So there's a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs.' When a man in the audience expressed his concern over Mr Daley's comments he went on to explain it was a statement of fact that young people were moving out of Sydney because they could not afford to afford to live there. He said they were being replaced by international workers, mainly from Asia. 'It's not a bad thing because Asian kids are coming to work here, it's a bad thing because I'd like my daughter to be living in Maroubra rather than St Kilda,' he said. NSW Labor leader Michael Daley (pictured with daughter Olivia, wife Christina and son Austin) has been recorded saying Asian immigrants were taking jobs from young Australians in extraordinary comments caught on camera Two months after the video was filmed, Mr Daley spoke at Chinese-only press conference, where his sentiments were vastly different. Premier Gladys Berejiklian has slammed Mr Daley, labelling him a 'hypocrite'. 'He's prepared to say one thing to one group and completely change his position in front of another because he'll say whatever he thinks they want to hear. That's not what a real leader does.' Greens MP David Shoebridge has called the video 'shameful and 'ugly'. 'Michael Daley's appalling narrowcasting is engaging in racist dog whistling against Asian Australians when he thinks no one critical is listening,' he told the Australian. The man Mr Daley replaced as Labor leader, Luke Foley, was wildly criticised when in 2018 he used the term 'white flight' when referring to struggling western Sydney suburbs. Premier Gladys Berejiklian has slammed Mr Daley, labelling him a 'hypocrite' Population has been a mounting issue for Sydney and Melbourne, as pressure has been building with congestion and infrastructure. Figures show about 70 and 80 per cent of all new permanent entrants choosing to live in the two major cities. The Government has been making moves to restrict immigration intake with the Expenditure Review Committee recently signing off on parts of its broader population policy, which will see an annual cap of 160,000 for permanent migration intake, The Australian reported. The cap will replace the 190,000 ceiling that was imposed in 2015 in a bid to reduce numbers to a more manageable level. The committee also signed off on a regional settlement policy that will require a set number of general skilled migrants to live in a different city not Sydney or Melbourne for a minimum of five years. On Tuesday Mr Daley made a formal apology and explained he had been discussing housing affordability when he made the comments, expressing a desire for 'all our children' to continue living in Sydney if they chose. 'Many are being forced to leave Sydney because of high cost of living and property prices, notwithstanding some recent declines,' he said in a statement. 'In making these points, I could have expressed myself better. I meant no offence and hope none has been taken. 'I apologise if any offence is taken.' Mr Daley's predecessor Luke Foley was wildly criticised in 2018 when he used the term 'white flight' when referring to struggling western Sydney suburbs. Two Romanian pickpockets have been jailed after they stole from Tube passengers across London and used the family to fly home to their families. Gabriel Gabara, 31, and Gigi Parnica, 28, carried out a series of thefts at Tube stations across the capital after arriving in the UK late last year. They were caught when a plain clothes police officer saw them trying to steal from a woman in her 70s at West Ham Station in east London on February 1. Prosecutor Geoffrey Porter told Snaresbrook Crown Court: 'They seemed to have a trolley bag with them, a feature of a number of cases. It makes you look as though you are a legitimate traveller.' Mr Porter told the court their victims included a mother travelling with her two young children and a tourist. Gabriel Gabara, 31 (left) and Gigi Parnica, 28 (right) carried out a series of thefts at Tube stations across London after arriving in the UK late last year. Most of the items stolen were not high in value, but the thefts included sentimental items such as jewellery and in one case, a photograph of the victim's parents. Mr Porter said of their arrest: 'The plain clothes police officers noticed these two defendants. 'They were paying attention to an elderly female, around 70 to 75 years of age. They circled her. 'She became aware that something was going on, that she was being pickpocketed. 'The officer stopped both of the defendants and spoke to the lady, she did not wish to give a statement.' Bridget Irving, defending, said: 'The situation is that they both came together in December last year on the promise of accommodation and work. 'When they arrived the work did not materialise but they were still obliged to pay rent and accommodation. They started to offend initially to pay the rent. 'They both decided for a while that they couldn't sustain this way of life and they returned to Romania.' The judge asked how the pair paid for their return flight, to which Ms Irving said it had been partially funded by the money they stole. Ms Irving told the court the pair then decided to return to London after a few weeks. 'The main mitigation is their guilty plea. They pleaded guilty at the Magistrates' Court to their credit. 'The last matter related to the 75-year-old there was no statement and they still pleaded guilty to it. 'If they receive a custodial sentence they would serve it and at the end they would most certainly be deported. They have no history of offending.' The men were caught by a plain clothes police officer at West Ham Tube Station (pictured) Sentencing them to 18 months in prison each, Mr Recorder Peter Guest said: 'I have to sentence you for what I am going to describe as a campaign of theft against innocent people travelling on, or in the vicinity of, the underground network. 'You, through your advocate tell me that you came to this country in November last year. 'When you were eventually arrested you, Mr Parnica, had in your possession a mobile telephone which was stolen by way of pickpocketing from a woman travelling with her daughter. 'The thefts began chronologically on 28 December. The loser was traveling through West Ham station, a busy interchange and she had with her her two young daughters. 'Her telephone was stolen by you while she was helping her children on the escalator,' added the judge. 'I am told that you left the United Kingdom and went back to your family in Romania. 'When I asked how you funded your flights the only answer is that it must have come from the proceeds of crime. 'You went back because you had no work and returned in three weeks or so, and within a few days of your return you committed your fourth offence. 'It is to be noted that in each of these cases the losers were women, one was a tourist, one had two young children with her and one was of advanced years, chosen, I am satisfied, either because they would be distracted or they were concentrating on finding their way.' Gabara and Parnica, both of Rainham, Essex, admitted three counts of theft and one attempted theft. Parnica also admitted to handling stolen goods. They were sentenced to 18 months in prison each. A Royal Navy sailor who broke down in tears when he was snared by 'paedophile-hunter' vigilantes posing as a 15-year-old girl has avoided jail. Kyle Catmull, 21, was confronted by a member of 'TRAP' when he went to meet what he thought was a young girl for sex in Fareham, Hampshire. Video footage of the sting, which was posted on social media, shows Catmull breaking down in tears as he is confronted. He was given an eight-month prison sentence at Portsmouth Crown Court, which was suspended for two years, after admitting a charge of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. Although he has avoided jail, he could lose his job because sailors who receive jail sentences are usually discharged from the navy. Kyle Catmull, 21, was confronted by a member of 'TRAP' when he went to meet what he thought was a young girl for sex in Fareham, Hampshire. A still from footage of the sting is pictured Catmull was given an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, at Portsmouth Crown Court after admitting a charge of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming. He is pictured outside court Catmull, 21, pictured hers in an undated social media image, admitted a charge of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming During his previous appearance last month, the court heard he had completed his 10-week basic training in HMS Rayleigh, Plymouth last summer. In the clip recorded on July 24 last year. Catmull is asked: 'Are you in the Navy?' Catmull replies: 'Yes.' The TRAP member asks him: 'Should you not know better?' Again, Catmull replies: 'Yes.' He is then asked: 'As a representative of our country fighting, you would be a hero fighting for our country and doing what you do, yes?' Catmull again simply replies: 'Yes.' The TRAP decoy tells him: 'You've now villainised yourself by doing it.' The court heard he went on a legitimate dating website called Badoo. Prosecutor Daniel Sawyer said the 'girl' told him she was 15. The conversation moved to WhatsApp and became sexualised before the pair arranged to meet at an Asda store in Fareham, with Catmull bringing a condom. It was there that he was confronted by members of TRAP and later arrested. Defence barrister Daniel Reilly said his client had accepted being 'naive and stupid' but there were 'no sinister features' with no pressure put on the girl for sex and no indecent images asked for or sent. He said positive references about Catmull from the Royal Navy showed 'the brightest of futures - now laying in tatters'. Judge William Ashworth said he had shown 'evident remorse'. Catmull was ordered to sign on the sex offenders register and take part in a sex offenders programme with 20 days of rehabilitation. A Royal Navy spokesman said: 'The Service will now consider the effect of this conviction on his career. 'While we cannot comment on specific cases, the awarding of a custodial sentence - including suspended custodial sentences - would normally result in consideration of an individual's discharge from the Service'. French 'yellow vest' demos caused 170 mn in damages Insurers say estimate does not include Saturday's protest (ANSAmed) - PARIS, MARCH 18 - Claims for damage linked to protests organized by the so-called 'yellow vest' movement in France since November 17 last year have been estimated at 170 million euros, the French Insurance Federation (FFA) said on Monday. This estimate does not include damages from the last demonstration on Saturday, when protesters were responsible for extensive vandalism on the Champs-Elysees, the famous Parisian avenue connecting the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. The FFA said that over 10,000 claims have been filed by retailers since the start of demonstrations over fuel taxes. Speaking to Europe 1, the head of the federation, Bernard Spitz, said that insurers ''have had enough of signing checks. But I am thinking in particular about the people who have been deprived of their activity, in particular newsagents who don't have enough strength to recover on their own''. Culture Minister Franck Riester on Monday went to the Champs Elysees to express solidarity to newsagents whose newsstands were damaged by protesters. A fundraising campaign has been launched online for them. ''Enough is enough. What happened on the Champs-Elysees on Saturday is just the repetition of what shopkeepers have already lived through'', the Confederation of small and medium-sized enterprises said in a statement on Monday. ''It's unacceptable that this was allowed to happen again'', it added, urging the government to ''take the measures that are part of its responsibility. Now''. (ANSAmed). Advertisement Chinese workers are building a massive bridge with its main tower taller than The Shard. The Pingtang Bridge, which will cost 1.5 billion yuan (168.7 million) to complete, is 2,135 metres (1.3 miles) long and connects two rural towns in the largely agricultural Guizhou Province. The cable-stayed bridge has three towers. Its main tower, standing a whopping 332 metres (1,089 feet), is 26 metres (85 feet) taller than The Shard in London and 32 metres (105 feet) taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Pingtang Bridge has three towers and the main tower is taller than The Shard with an impressive height of 1,089 feet Chinese workers are working hundreds of feet above the ground on a platform of the bridge, which is set to complete in 2019 The traffic link, which will cost 1.5 billion yuan (168.7 million) to complete, connects two rural towns in Guizhou Province Spanning over the Caoduhe River Valley, the structure will have eight traffic lanes with a speed limit of 49 miles per hour However, the impressive Pingtang tower is 11 metres (36 feet) shorter than that of the Millau Viaduct in France which is the tallest bridge in the world in terms of its structural height. Spanning over the Caoduhe River Valley in southern Guizhou, the eight-lane bridge will enable traffic to travel directly between the towns of Yazhou and Tongzhou in Pingtang County. Workers are expected to finish building the new local landmark by the end of this year after a 3.5-year-long construction period, according to Xinhua News Agency. The topping out of the three bridge towers was achieved last November. The impressive Pingtang Bridge is 36 feet shorter than the Millau Viaduct in France, which is the world's tallest bridge The main tower of the Pingtang Bridge in Guizhou, China, is 26 metres (85 feet) taller than The Shard (pictured) in London The Millau Viaduct (pictured) is the tallest bridge in the world in terms of structural height. Its main tower is 1,125 feet tall Workers are expected to finish building the Pingtang Bridge by the end of this year after a 3.5-year-long construction period The topping out of all three towers of the Pingtang Bridge was achieved last November, with the tallest one at 1,089 feet China is also building the world's longest double-deck suspension bridge, the Yangsigang Bridge, across the Yangtze River in the central city of Wuhan. The Yangsigang Bridge boasts a single span of 1,700 metres (5,577 feet) over the Yangtze River and will cost a whopping eight billion yuan (900 million) to construct. It is expected to complete in October. The bridge's span is 221 metres (725 feet) shorter than that of Japan's Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world. But the Japanese bridge, which crosses the busy Akashi Strait, only has one level. A 1,000-tonne steel beam is lifted to be installed last November at the construction site of the Yangsigang Bridge in China The enormous bridge over the Yangtze River will be the world's longest double-deck suspension bridge when it's complete Chinese engineers have constructed a number of world-record-holding bridges in recent years. Last October, the world's longest sea-crossing bridge officially opened to traffic in southern China. The gargantuan Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge consists of a 22.9-kilometre-long (14.2-mile-long) oversea bridge and a 6.7-kilometre-long (4.2-mile-long) undersea tunnel, which is connected to the bridge by two artificial islands. Stretching across 55 kilometres (34 miles), the bridge is 22.5 kilometres (14 miles) longer than the width of the English Channel from Dover in the United Kingdom to Calais in France. The structure is the sixth longest bridge on earth. In 2016, Chinese workers completed an impressive mountain overpass branded as the highest bridge in the world. The enormous Beipanjiang Bridge, which is built at over 563 metres (1,850) feet high, links two of China most remote provinces, Yunnan and Guizhou. These are the shocking images that have landed a mother under arrest in Argentina for allegedly torturing her children by forcing them to sit on an anthill and making eat food from the garbage. The woman, who has only been identified by her surname, Gauna, used the cruel punishment to discipline her four-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, police said. If they attempted to get up, she would reportedly whip them. Their distraught father, Hugo David Castillo, filed a police report at the local station in Saenz Pena, a town in the Argentine capital city of Buenos Aires, on March 12 after noticing the level of abuse his children had been subjected to. WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES Hugo David Castillo filed a police report against his wife and mother-of-two children in Argentina, accusing her of child abuse Argentine authorities in the province of Buenos Aires are investigating a woman who had police report filed against her by her husband of abusing her four-yea-old daughter and five-year-old son. Pictured is the boy's body Castillo told Argentine news outlet Diario 21 TV that he received a call from his estranged wife on March 11, notifying the unemployed dad to come pick up his son because he wanted to live with him. When Castillo arrived at at his former home, in the neighborhood of Pampa Napenay, he was met by his son who ran up to him in tears but initially kept quiet about the abuse as Gauna and her mother looked on. According to Castillo, his ex beat the children because they were misbehaving. 'My five-year-old son came out crying and said he wanted to go with me. He did not tell me at the time what was going on because he was with the grandmother and the mother,' he said while fighting to contain his tears. It wasn't until Castillo arrived at his home with his children that his son opened up about the extreme disciplinary actions his mother reportedly employed. A five-year-old boy in Argentina complained to his dad about the harsh treatment his mother subjected him and his younger sister to. His body (pictured) developed bruises from ant bites and whippings Images of his son provided by Hugo David Castillo showed signs of the alleged abuse his five-year-old suffered 'Daddy you know why I want to leave with you,' Castillo recalled his son telling him, 'because my mother was forcing me to sit on the anthill so that the ants could bite me. I had to and if I didn't, I would get hit with a whip.' 'The two kids are with me. The boy told me that the other smaller child was also mistreated the same way,' Castillo said. 'Both have scars from ant bites. They also ate junk that was thrown away from supermarkets - rotten, expired food expired.' Law enforcement and government officials are still investigating Gauna. No charges have been filed yet. Advertisement At least four people have been killed by the devastating Nebraska floods that have cut off access to several towns and ruined 500 homes in one county alone. Two other men are still missing and presumed dead in Nebraska. Rainfall and swollen rivers, left in the wake of the 'bomb cyclone' winter storm swirling through the US, has left Nebraska inundated with water, neighborhoods completely submerged, and bridges ripped apart. Governor Pete Ricketts declared a state of emergency in 53 counties, saying that one-third of the state has been affected in the devastating floods and 2,600 locals living near rivers were urged to evacuate on Friday. 'This is the largest widespread amount of flooding we've had in the last half century,' Ricketts said on the deluge. Some small towns and communities have been cut off by floods while others have seen fresh drinking water become scarce. The flooding, which is the worst the state has seen in 50 years, has badly damaged up to 500 houses in Sarpy County. Greg London of the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office said Sunday that one levee broke Thursday along the Platte River, and another broke Saturday. Scroll down for video At least three people have been killed by the devastating Nebraska floods that have cut off access to several towns and ruined 500 homes in one county alone. Two other men are still missing and presumed dead in Nebraska The Army National Guard base at Camp Ashland, Nebraska, was submerged in water after the levee to the north of the camp broke Rainfall and swollen rivers, left in the wake of the 'bomb cyclone' winter storm swirling through the US, has left Nebraska inundated with water, neighborhoods completely submerged, and bridges ripped apart. Flooded RVs (pictured) were washed away by the flood waters of the Platte River in in Merritt's RV Park in Plattsmouth, Nebraska A BNSF train sits in flood waters from the Platte River, in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, on Sunday. Flooding has also caused problems for passenger train service between Kansas City, Missouri, and St Louis The Missouri River flooded Offutt Air Force Base (pictured), with about one-third of it under water on Sunday. Spokeswoman Tech Sgt Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 completely inundated with as much as 8 feet of water London estimates that up to 400 houses and cabins in the area known as Hanson's Lake are damaged, including many that are completely submerged. Another 100 or so homes are damaged elsewhere in the county. The area is near where the Platte and Missouri rivers converge. A Missouri River levee nearby also breached on Thursday. London says many of the damaged homes are likely ruined. He says that while the area has had flooding before, this year's disaster is 'unprecedented'. Nebraska saw its various rivers break through their banks, cresting at up to 25 feet and rushing into neighborhoods, forcing locals to climb on their roofs and cry for help. The floodwaters from the Niobrara River in the northern part of the state were so strong they blasted through the 90-year-old Spencer Dam dam on Thursday, drowning the nearby town of Lincoln in water and completely washing out a bridge on US Highway 281. The Missouri River, which borders Missouri and Nebraska reached 26 feet on Saturday - a foot below what's considered major flooding - but is expected to crest on Wednesday or Thursday at 29.3 feet, according to WPTV. Crest records were set along the Platte and Elkhorn rivers. The Elkhorn reached 24.6 feet on Saturday in Waterloo, breaking the 1962 record by 5 1/2 feet. Rescue teams in boats have been pulling trapped residents out of the flood waters since Thursday. On Saturday two Nebraska National Guard Black Hawk helicopters spent the day placing massive 1,500-pound sandbags to fortify an island on the Platte River that holds the City of Lincoln's wells and water supply. Water from the swollen Platte River poured thousands of gallons of water into the low-lying areas of Camp Ashland, Nebraska Offutt Air Force Base was also engulfed by floodwaters, with about one-third of it under water on Sunday Amtrak said Sunday that its Missouri River Runner service between the state's two largest cities was experiencing delays up to five hours because of flooding and rail congestion Helicopters were sent to rescue residents trapped in the fast-rising waters. Locals in Arlington, Nebraska, are seen on their roof waiting for help to arrive as the state grapples with the worst flood in 50 years Rescue efforts on Saturday were hindered by levee breaches and the washouts of bridges and highway roads. Officials said power may be shut off in communities near the flooding rivers for safety reasons. Brave farmer 50-year-old James Wilke, of Platte County, lost his life when he tried to join the rescue effort on his tractor, despite the wind and rain, on Thursday. He died when a bridge collapsed as he was crossing it, according to the Omaha World-Herald. The bridge collapsed under the weight of the tractor and a frantic search was launched to find his body washed downstream about nine hours later. 'He was always the first to go help somebody,' his cousin Paul Wilke said. 'He was always the first to go help somebody.' A second Nebraska man 55-year-old Aleido Rojas Galan of Norfolk died at a hospital in Lincoln after he got caught in the rushing waters along the state line with Iowa on Friday evening. Galan was with two other men in a car when the vehicle got trapped in the floods and they tried to swim to safety. When rescuers arrived on the scene Galan and another man were 'hanging onto trees', according to the Fremont County Sheriff's Office. Galan later died from his injuries. Authorities said Monday that 80-year-old Betty Hamernik died in her flooded Nebraska home after authorities couldn't reach her last week. The Platte County Sheriff's Office said officials learned Thursday that she was trapped in her house by the flooding Loup River. The sheriff's report says rescuers from a Lincoln search team were unable to get to Hamernik because of the fast current, high waves and wind gusts of 60mph. A team from the Nebraska National Guard attempted to rescue Hamernik by air on Friday morning. After several attempts, crew members discovered that Hamernik had died. But they still were unable to get in the house. A dive team recovered her body Saturday. An unidentified elderly resident also died in rising waters after refusing to leave his home. No further details were immediately available At least two other people are also missing in the floods in the state. A Norfolk man was last seen on top of his submerged car late Thursday and got swept in the water and wasn't seen again. Another man got caught in the current when the Spencer Dam collapsed on Thursday. The Missouri River flooded Offutt Air Force Base, with about one-third of it under water on Sunday. Brave farmer 50-year-old James Wilke, of Platte County, lost his life when he tried to join the rescue efforts on his tractor and died when a bridge collapsed as he was crossing it on Thursday Highways were broken when dams burst and rivers swelled in Nebraska this week, thanks to rain and snow fall created in the 'bomb cyclone' winter storm Waterloo was hardly recognizable as water reached the height of treetops and only the tops of telephone poles were visible Authorities were forced to close Dodge Street due to flood waters on Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska, after the highway was submerged Gushing floodwaters broke a bridge near Genoa over the weekend as Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts declared a state of emergency The swollen Platte River in Nebraska (pictured above along the I-80 bridge near Ashland) was closed on Wednesday and reopened Saturday after the massive floods receded A farm near Fremont is seen above as the town turned into a virtual island after the Platte and Elkhorn Rivers flooded Spokeswoman Tech Sgt Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 completely inundated with as much as 8 feet of water. Military C-130 planes were evacuated last week from nearby Rosecrans Air National Guard base. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, where floodwaters reached record levels at 41 locations. Nearly 300 people have been rescued from high water across Nebraska. Nebraska Public Power District's (NPPD) Cooper nuclear plant in Nebraska was still operating at full power early Monday after the company said on Friday it was preparing for possible flooding, according to a report from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Officials at NPPD were not immediately available for comment Monday morning. The company said on Friday that the plant continued to operate safely and 'there is no threat to plant employees or to the public'. On Friday, NPPD declared an 'unusual event' at Cooper because of the possibility of flooding along the Missouri River following a powerful winter storm last week. NPPD said its workers have filled sandbags along a river levee and procured other materials and supplies for flood protection. The biggest danger to a nuclear plant from flooding is the loss of power, which can make it difficult to circulate the water needed to cool the uranium fuel in the reactor core and the fuel stored in the spent-fuel pool. That caused the fuel in some reactor cores at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan to partially melt down in 2011 after a giant earthquake and tsunami cut power to the plant. Since Fukushima, all US reactors have been upgraded with additional safety equipment, including portable pumps and generators to keep cooling water circulating through the reactor in case the plant loses offsite power. NPPD said its procedures require it to declare an unusual event to the NRC when the Missouri River tops 899 feet above sea level. It reached 899.05 feet Friday morning, the company said. Should the river rise to 900 feet above sea level, NPPD said plant workers will 'barricade internal doorways as another layer of protection for facility equipment'. If the river reaches 901.5 feet, NPPD said it would take the station offline as a protective measure. The plant was built at 903 feet above sea level, which is 13 feet above natural grade, NPPD said. The 770-megawatt Cooper station is three miles southeast of Brownville, Nebraska, near the Missouri River. One megawatt can power about 1,000 US homes. Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a situation similar to hundreds of people in neighboring Nebraska who have been displaced by the late-winter flood. In Iowa, the Missouri River reached 30.2 feet on Sunday in Fremont County in the state's far southwestern corner, 2 feet above the record set in 2011. The flooded Platte and Elkhorn Rivers turned the town of Fremont into an island. Fremont was issued a mandatory evacuation for residents by the Dodge County Sheriff's Office. 'We're like an island. You cannot get in or out,' Fremont Councilwoman Linda McClain said to the New York Times. An aerial view of damaged buildings after a storm triggered historic flooding, in Valley, Nebraska pictured above, drowning homes and businesses in water Swamped: Streets turned into rivers and Valley, Nebraska neighborhoods into swamps in the historic flooding Highway 275 is seen underwater after a storm the worst flooding in 50 years, near Waterloo, Nebraska on Saturday Governor Pete Ricketts shared pictures of the damage found in Fremont, Niobrabra and Lynch on his social media including this highway road eaten out by the turbulent waters Hundreds of homes have flooded in Missouri after the Missouri River overtopped and breached several levees, local officials said Monday. The late-winter flood has compromised about 200 miles of Missouri River levees in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. People in the towns of Bartlett and Thurman were being evacuated as levees were breached and overtopped. County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius said it wasn't just the amount of the water, it was the swiftness of the current that created a danger. 'This wasn't a gradual rise,' Crecelius said. 'It's flowing fast and it's open country - there's nothing there to slow it down.' High flows and water levels remain throughout the river basin south of Sioux City, Iowa. Lucinda Parker of Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management said nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated at eight Iowa locations since flooding began late last week. Most were staying with friends or family. Seven shelters set up for flood victims held just a couple dozen people Saturday night. Destroyed: Buildings and businesses were unrecognizable after they were washed out and battered by the floodwaters Highway road bridges collapsed and crumbled as they succumbed to the fierce, rushing floodwaters in the state Businesses, homes and farms, were buried underwater. The Platteview, Nebraska, community (above) was seen drowning under the overflowing Missouri River on Saturday Statues were submerged in the overflowing Missouri River. Pictured is the Monument to Labor Statue in Omaha on Saturday Flooding was causing problems for passenger train service between Kansas City, Missouri, and St Louis. Amtrak said Sunday that its Missouri River Runner service between the state's two largest cities was experiencing delays up to five hours because of flooding and rail congestion. All Missouri River Runner trains were canceled Monday. The service typically travels twice daily between the two metropolitan areas. Holt County Emergency Management Director Tom Bullock said Monday that many homes are inundated with 6 to 7 feet of water. The Missouri Department of Transportation has reported about 100 flood-related road closures. The National Weather Service (NWS) says the river should crest Thursday in St Joseph, Missouri, at its third highest level on record. The rising Mississippi River was also creating concern. The Mississippi was already at major flood level along the Iowa-Illinois border, closing roads and highways and swamping thousands of acres of farmland. Freeport City Manager Lowell Crow says the town of 25,000 residents west of Rockford could see an all-time record flood along the Pecatonica River. At best, the water level will get to its highest level in 50 years. Readings from the NWS show major flooding along the Pecatonica River at Shirland, Illinois, and along the Rock River in Moline and the Rockford area. Flooding has also been reported in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, officials said residents who evacuated their homes could return now that floodwaters have receded there. Governor Pete Ricketts (left) and Unicameral Speaker Jim Scheer (right) surveyed historic flooding in portions of northeast Nebraska on Saturday Not only was water a problem, but the cold temperatures led to slush and ice and bitter weather conditions And the perilous weather isn't over just yet. The US Central Plains states could face more flooding this week as rising temperatures accelerate snow melt across the region, weather forecasters said Monday. 'The good news is that apart from some very light rain tonight, this will be generally a dry week across the region,' said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the NWS Weather Prediction Center. 'But we're in a warming trend. Slightly above average springtime temperatures means more water from snow melt is going into already flooded river basins,' Oravec said. Temperatures across the hardest-hit areas of Nebraska and Iowa will be reach highs in the low 50 degrees Fahrenheit through midweek and into the 60s by Friday, he said. Water levels are expected to rise through the week, according to the NWS, prompting evacuations in communities along the Missouri River on the Nebraska and Iowa border, as well as the Elkhorn and Platte rivers. Water was seen seeping into the west side of town despite being the placement of sandbags in Fremont Horses that were being boarded in Inglewood, Nebraska, are moved through floodwaters to higher ground in Fremont Flooding is not expected to abate until at least midweek in the Plains and Midwest region, the NWS reported. 'The big ones (rivers) are at record stages right now,' Marc Chenard of the NWS said Sunday. 'There have been some levy breaks so there are towns that are flooded.' Gov Ricketts, who declared a statewide emergency last week, wrote on Twitter that he witnessed 'unbelievable devastation' when he visited several flooded communities on Saturday. 'Getting an update from local officials and public safety personnel in Missouri Valley today. Rain and melting snow have caused severe flooding all across Iowa,' Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said on Sunday on Twitter. Reynolds also issued an emergency proclamation at the outset of the flooding. Meteorologists have referred to the storm, which blew from the Western Rockies to the Central Plains last week, as a 'bomb cyclone' -- a winter hurricane that forms when the barometric pressure drops 24 millibars in 24 hours. 'That system brought 1 to 3 inches of rainfall but, on top of that, there was already a deep snowpack over much of the area. So a combination of the rain and snow melt had a large volume of water going pretty quickly into the rivers,' Chenard said. Surveyors with the USGS take measurement of the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday after its floods caused thousands to evacuate While Sunday was calm, rain and snow is expected to return on Tuesday, which could lead to more flooding According to the National Weather Service, the Platte River crested at a record 12.6 feet in Leshara, Nebraska, and at 13.75 feet in Louisville, Nebraska. The river is now in a minor flood stage in both areas Phone conversations between Borce Ristevski (pictured) and his associates reveal how he tried to avoid justice Secret recordings of Borce Ristevski's phone conversations reveal the true extent of the web of lies he created in an bid to avoid justice for killing his wife, Karen. A ruling made in the Supreme Court of Victoria last week and published on Monday revealed how Ristevski tried to mislead police and his family before pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his 47-year-old partner. Ristevski may have killed his wife, shoved her body in the back of her Mercedes-Benz and dumped her between two logs in a forest, but that didn't prove he meant to murder her, the court found. In 2016 Ms Ristevski vanished from her home in Avondale Heights, 12km north-west of Melbourne, and her body wasn't found until eight months later buried in a shallow grave in a bushland in Macedon Regional Park. When a reporter contacted Ristevski to tell him his wife's remains had been found, he replied 'it's got nothing to do with me', according to documents published with Justice Christopher Beale's ruling. Ristevski was aware his phone was being monitored by police at the time of the investigation in 2016, and asked his daughter's boyfriend to buy him a new SIM cards. According to the court documents, he changed his mobile number twice. Investigators had obtained phone calls between Ristevski and his friends and family, and in one conversation he said he knew 'they're listening'. In an intercepted conversation with his daughter Sarah (right), Ristevski (centre) said the '[police] don't give a f***'. Karen is pictured left In another intercepted conversation with his daughter Sarah, he said the '[police] don't give a f***'. In yet another recording, he told an associate to refuse to cooperate with police. 'Make sure you don't say anything don't let tell [them anything] that I spoke to you about, nothing at all,' he said, reported news.com.au. The publication also reported Ristevski told a friend he went to Lalor, a suburb of Melbourne, the morning his wife went missing - a claim he failed to mention to police. Borce Ristevski (right) has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter death of his wife Karen (centre), bringing the depth of his betrayal of his wife and daughter Sarah (left) into stark relief Ristevski may have killed his wife, shoved her body in the back of her Mercedes-Benz and dumped her between two logs (pictured) in Macedon Regional Park, but that didn't prove he meant to murder her, the court found Ms Ristevski's (pictured) body was buried in a shallow grave in bushland The court documents also showed Ristevski's couldn't keep up with his web of lies and changed his story at least three times. In his first account of the day his wife disappeared Ristevski said the couple had argued over finances and she had gone upstairs to cool off. But he later changed his story and said she left the premises straight away through the front door. In yet another version, he said she left through the garage. Despite his conflicting statements, Justice Beale said prosecutors could not rely on Ristevski's post-crime conduct to prove murderous intent. Why Borce Ristevski didn't face trial for murder A series of bungles by officers handling the investigation into the murder of Karen Ristevski led to her husband Borce receiving a plea deal that is likely to see him walk free from prison in less than 20 years. Ristevski took everyone by surprise when he pleaded guilty to his wife's manslaughter last Wednesday, on the eve of his murder trial. Borce Ristevski (centre right) and her daughter Sarah leave a press conference after pleading for information as police searched for Karen in 2016 Crown prosecutors decided to drop the murder charge after Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale ruled the prosecution could not use evidence about Ristevski's conduct after his wife's death to prove he had murderous intent. The murder case had hinged on this evidence. Multiple sources claim the Ristevski investigation was mismanaged by force command from the beginning, because Mrs Ristevski's disappearance was regarded simply as a missing person, rather than potentially a murder victim. The revelations fly in the face of comments by Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton this week, who said investigators were 'relieved' by the plea deal. 'I think it allows for justice to move through a lot more quickly in that case,' Mr Ashton said on Melbourne radio. 'I'm not disappointed, everyone's worked very hard on that case.' But Daily Mail Australia has been told senior detectives are actually frustrated at the plea deal. In Justice Beale's published findings, it is revealed the Ristevski prosecution relied so heavily on the killer's behaviour after committing the crime that it was not confident in even opening a murder trial without it. In arguing to dismiss his post-conduct behaviour, RIstevski's legal team argued police had no clues as to a possible motive for murder. Advertisement In his first account of the day his wife (pictured) disappeared Ristevski said the couple had argued over finances and she had gone upstairs to cool off Borce Ristevski (pictured in 2017 at Karen's funeral) pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the 47-year-old, ending the long-running charade that he was innocent Defence lawyers argued in pre-trial deliberations that there was a lack of motive for the 55-year-old to have murdered his wife, a lack of a history of violence and a lack of evidence of premeditation. They also argued the couple's financial position would likely deteriorate if Ristevski killed his wife, given she was the 'heartbeat' of the Bella Bleu clothing business they co-operated. Justice Beale said the killer's post-offence behaviour could have meant, as argued by his legal team, Ristevski feared estrangement from his daughter and substantial prison time. A ruling made by the Supreme Court of Victoria (pictured) led to prosecutors withdrawing the charge of murder 'In this case there was no evidence of murderous intent other than the post-offence conduct,' Justice Beale said in his reasons. He agreed with the defence team that a lack of evidence showing premeditation supported the inference that Ristevski's conduct was 'spontaneous' and his post-offence behaviour was consistent with a 'panicked reaction'. Ristevski will next appear in the Supreme Court of Victoria for a pre-sentence plea hearing on March 27. The family of Sophie Gradon (pictured in an undated publicity photo) insist she did not kill herself The family of Love Island star Sophie Gradon have demanded a new investigation into her sudden death after insisting she did not kill herself. New lines of enquiry have emerged which support the belief of the 32-year-old's family that she did not take her own life and other explanations are now being actively investigated by their lawyers. Her inquest, which had been due to begin on Thursday this week, has been postponed to allow more time for their investigations to continue. The delay came at the request of the Gradon family but with the full agreement of the Northumberland coroner, according to a family source. Northumbria Police officers today visited the home of Sophie's parents although the force says the case is still being treated as a non-suspicious death. Following her death it was reported she had taken her own life and had been suffering depression and financial worries, a version of events angrily disputed by her parents Colin and Deborah. It is now felt there is 'nothing to support' the suicide theory and the fresh investigation will look again at the evening of June 20th last year when Sophie was at her parents' home in Medburn, Northumberland, with her boyfriend of five weeks, Aaron Armstrong, 25. The two were alone in the large detached house and it is understood Mr Armstrong raised the alarm, prompting uniformed officers to attend the house. Ms Gradon's boyfriend, Aaron Armstrong, was found dead in his home 20 days after she had died The initial police response is being reviewed by lawyers acting for the Gradon family as they try to reconstruct her final hours with Mr Armstrong, who himself was found dead 20 days later. Mr Armstrong's inquest will take place on Tuesday to establish whether he took his own life whilst heartbroken over Sophie's death. Deborah Gradon said: 'There is nothing to support the suggestion that Sophie committed suicide. 'We are still working through things to find out exactly what happened that night but it would be wrong to talk about that now as we do not want to prejudice the inquest when it does go ahead.' One cause of concern for the Gradon family is that they say information has still not be extracted from Sophie's phone. Last month Mrs Gradon tweeted: 'As the heartbroken Mother of #SophieGradon we are still waiting for an inquest date 8 months after her unexplained death. Why? Because the Police cannot open her iPhone for data extraction. ' A Northumbria Police spokesman said: 'It remains a non-suspicious death and that hasn't changed since we first confirmed it. 'We have kept the family updated with any enquiries we carried out as we would with any sudden death.' Ms Gradon and her mother, Deborah Gradon, in an undated photo posted on social media Sophie was a former Miss Newcastle, attended Dame Allan's private school in Newcastle and left Northumbria University with a 2:1 in media and culture. She was a contestant in the 2016 series of Love Island, coupling with barman Tom Powell and then glamour model Katy Salmon in the show's first same sex relationship. Her relationship with Aaron Armstrong began a little over a month before her death and her parents didn't get to meet him. In a statement last year they said: 'Sophie spent an idyllic childhood in Gosforth, Newcastle, and then moved at the age of 10 to Ponteland in Northumberland. 'Sophie told us she had just met someone new and had been on a lunch date with him. 'She was excited at the prospect of starting a new relationship and it was her fullest intention to introduce us to him when the time was right. 'At the time of Sophie's sudden and tragic passing, she had only been involved with Armstrong for five weeks.' Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been slammed for using footage of the Christchurch terrorist massacre as part of an election rally. Erdogan told supporters in Izmir that the gunman who killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand had wanted Turks removed from Europe. Alleged mass murderer Brenton Tarrant shared footage of the horrific killings in a Facebook live stream, parts of which were shown to the Turkish crowd on a big screen ahead of local elections later this month. But Erdogan's use of the footage drew criticism from New Zealand's foreign minister Winston Peters, who said his country should not be 'misrepresented'. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan told supporters in Izmir (pictured, waving at the rally) that the gunman in New Zealand had wanted Turks removed from Europe According to BBC News, he went on: 'Anything of that nature that misrepresents this country - given that [the suspect] was a non-New Zealand citizen - imperils the future and safety of the New Zealand people and our people abroad and it's totally unfair. 'We had a long dialogue on the need for any other country, or Turkey for that matter, to ensure that our country, New Zealand, was not misrepresented.' Erdogan said the suspect had twice visited Turkey, and had warned that Turks have no place in Europe. He said: 'The wicked person who martyred 49 brothers and sisters is saying that we can stay on the [Asian] side, we cannot pass to the European side. Who do you think you are?' 'We do not want to see a cross and crescent conflict again,' Erdogan told the rally, referring to conflict between Christians and Muslims. The alleged killer's horrific 73-page 'manifesto' had mentioned Turks directly. Erdogan, pictured today in Canakkale, Turkey, said the New Zealand mass shooting suspect had twice visited Turkey, and had warned that Turks have no place in Europe Police cordon off the area in front of the Masjid al Noor mosque after the mass shooting in Christchurch on Friday morning Erdogan is heralded by Turkish flags as he attends a ceremony marking the 104th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign in Canakkale today On Friday, Erdogan said the suspected gunman had 'targeted our country, our nation and myself'. A senior Turkish security source said Tarrant had entered Turkey twice in 2016 - for a week in March and for more than a month in September. Turkish authorities had begun investigating everything from hotel records to camera footage to try to ascertain the reason for his visits, the source said. The gunman shot dead 50 people and wounded more than 40 others in the terrorist rampage in Christchurch on Friday. Australian national Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday following the mass shootings. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days. 'Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer,' she said today. Kellyanne Conway's husband George Conway took his cutting criticism of President Trump into the medical arena Monday, posting definitions of personality disorders that include 'deceitfulness' and grandiosity as symptoms. Conway, a prominent lawyer who has taken to pointing out Trump actions that Conway believes pose a direct threat to the rule of law, went after the president following a weekend Twitter storm where the president attacked the late Sen. John McCain as well as Saturday Night Live and other foes. Conway's wife, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, brushed off the incident, saying she was taking care of the couple's four children Monday. One definition George Conway posted was for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, afer he earlier posted the cover of a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders in a slap at Trump. George Conway, husband of counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, tweeted out images from a manual of mental disorders Strained? Kellyanne Conway brushed aside her husband tweeting that her boss had at least two mental disorders by saying she was getting their four children out the door and was not 'up to speed' ALL THE BEST SCORES: Conway seemed to be suggesting that President Donald Trump has a grandiose sense of self-importance or other narcissistic traits Conway also tweeted out signs of an antisocial personality disorder According to the definition, someone with the disorder has three or more of a list of symptoms. Among them are a 'Grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).' A person with a narcissistic disorder may also be: 'Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love;' 'Believes he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions);' 'Requires excessive admiration;' 'Has a sense of entitlement;' and 'Is interpersonally exploitative.' Before his stab at armchair psychiatry, Conway retweeted conservative commentator William Kristol, who urged people to think seriously about Trump's psychological state. 'Agree with this, but would add that *all* Americans should be thinking seriously *now* about Trumps mental condition and psychological state, including and especially the media, Congressand the Vice President and Cabinet,' Conway wote. Kellyanne Conway commented on the latest instance of her husband torching the president (who is her boss), brushing off a question by a reporter at the White House. 'I have four kids and I was getting them out of the house this morning before I got here, so I could talk to the president about substance. So I may not be up to speed on the whole thing,' she said. As Conway's tweet attacking the president's alleged narcissism reverberated, Trump weighed in on the New Zealand terror attack that killed 50, defending his own image and complaining that he was being blamed for the slaughter. 'The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!' the president wrote. Last year, former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson said Trump had aced a diagnostic test used to look at potential mental disorders. Trump got a perfect score on a test to look for memory loss or cognitive dysfunction. Trump bragged about his results as he blamed his predecessors for failing to solve problems in North Korea. 'I guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests,' Trump quipped at the time. The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration's approval of Boeing's 737 MAX models in the wake of two deadly crashes in just five months. Citing a government official, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that a grand jury in Washington has issued a subpoena seeking 'documents, including correspondence, emails and other messages' from at least one person involved in the development of the 737 MAX planes. The Justice Department's investigation is unusual in that it is said to involve a prosecutor in the criminal division's fraud unit, while typical safety probes are civil cases handled by the Department of Transportation's inspector general. The probe will reportedly be focused on an automatic safety system implicated in an October crash involving Lion Air in Indonesia. It is unclear whether the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed a week ago will play any role in this investigation or not, though officials have said there are 'clear similarities' between flight data from both crashes. The investigation comes as it emerged that during a 2012 audit, FAA employees warned Boeing had too much sway on the certification process. Transportation department auditors carrying out that probe concluded that the FAA wasn't doing enough to 'hold Boeing accountable'. Scroll down for video The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration's approval of Boeing's 737 MAX models in the wake of two deadly crashes in just five months (file photo) People stand near collected debris at the crash site of Ethiopia Airlines 302 on March 11. A screw found in the wreckage was set to push the nose of the plane down upon impact The 2012 investigation - which predated 737 MAX development - revealed that friction over Boeing's treatment had created a 'negative work environment' among FAA employees who approve new and modified aircraft models. Many employees said they'd faced retaliation for voicing their concerns over Boeing's influence. That influence has only expanded since the audit as the FAA shifted more approval authority over to the manufacturer itself, allowing Boeing to select many of the personnel tasked with overseeing tests and vouching for safety. 'It raises for me the question of whether the agency is properly funded, properly staffed and whether there has been enough independent oversight,' Jim Hall, an aviation safety consultant who was chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001, told Bloomberg. Boeing's marquee MAX fleet was grounded worldwide last week following the Ethiopian Airlines disaster on March 10 that killed 157 people. The airline, whose reputation also hinges on the investigation, said at the weekend initial analysis of the black boxes showed 'clear similarities' with a Lion Air flight from Jakarta in October which crashed killing 189 people. Both planes were MAX 8s and crashed minutes after take-off with pilots reporting flight control problems. Under scrutiny is a new automated system in the MAX model that guides the nose lower to avoid stalling. Lawmakers and safety experts are asking how thoroughly regulators vetted the system and how well pilots around the world were trained for it when their airlines bought new planes. Ethiopian Transport Ministry spokesman Muse Yiheyis said at the weekend that data recovered from the black boxes by investigators in Paris demonstrated parallels with the Lion Air crash and had been validated by US experts. US officials did not corroborate that, but FAA acting boss Daniel Elwell last week acknowledged that initial inspection of flight data indicated 'the flight was very similar'. With the prestige of one of the United States' biggest exporters at stake, Boeing has said the MAX series is safe, though it plans to roll out new software upgrades shortly. Boeing has halted deliveries of its best-selling model, one intended to be the industry standard but now under a shadow. There were more than 300 MAX airplanes in operation at the time of the Ethiopian crash, and nearly 5,000 more on order. After a 10 percent drop last week that wiped nearly $25billion off its market share, Boeing stock slid another 2.7 percent to $369.86 when the market opened on Monday. Media reports heaped further pressure on Boeing. The Seattle Times said the company's safety analysis of a new control system known as MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) had crucial flaws, including understating power. It also said FAA followed a standard certification process on the MAX rather than extra inquiries. The FAA declined to comment, but has said the process followed normal process. US officials decided to ground the 737 MAX after it was revealed that a screw-like device recovered at the scene was configured to push the nose of the plane down Last week, sources told Reuters investigators found a piece of a stabilizer in the Ethiopian wreckage set in an unusual position similar to that of the Lion Air plane. Ethiopia is leading the probe, though the black boxes were sent to France and US experts are also participating. It was unclear how many of the roughly 1,800 parameters of flight data and two hours of cockpit recordings, spanning the doomed six-minute flight and earlier trips, had been taken into account in the preliminary Ethiopian analysis. Flight 302 had unusual high speed after take-off before reporting problems and asking to climb quickly. The inquiry is crucial to give some closure to families of victims, who came from nearly three dozen countries. It also has huge financial implications. The MAX is Boeing's best-selling model, with a backlog of orders worth well over $500billion at a list price of $121million each. Norwegian Airlines has already said it will seek compensation after grounding its MAX aircraft, and various companies are re-considering orders. Mourners of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash react beside coffins during the mass funeral at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa on Sunday Boeing's main rival Airbus has seen its stock rise 5 percent since the crash, but cannot simply pick up the slack given the complicated logistics of plane-building. Some airlines are revising financial forecasts, too, given the MAX had been factored in as providing around 15 percent maintenance and fuel savings. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg sought to allay some fears, saying the company was finishing a software update and pilot training revision 'that will address the MCAS flight control law's behaviour in response to erroneous sensor inputs.' Dozens of regulators had grounded the MAX series before acting FAA boss Elwell said the United States would do the same. One source close to the probe said Ethiopian officials had been reluctant to share information with US investigation teams and the planemaker. 'There was a lot of distrust, especially at first, but it is easing,' the source told Reuters, asking not to be named. There have also been arguments over access to the crater left by the explosive high-speed impact of Flight 302. The agony for families of the dead in Ethiopia has been compounded by their inability to bury remains. Charred fragments are all that remain and DNA testing may take months. Kroger is to introduce self-driving cars at two of its Houston stores, allowing grocery orders to be delivered to homes without a driver following thousands of successful deliveries in a trial in Arizona. It will see the service offered at Houston's South Post Oak Road and Buffalo Speedway stores, Fox News reported. The Cincinatti-based supermarket chain has teamed up with Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup founded in in 2016 by two engineers who worked on self-driving cars at Google. Supermarket chain Kroger is to introduce self-driving cars made by Silicon Valley startup Nuro at two of its Houston stores, allowing grocery orders to be placed online and delivered to homes without a driver The firms first worked with each other in a 2018 trial in Scottsdale, Arizona, in which more than 2,000 grocery deliveries were made. Nuro now aims to roll out the unmanned driverless vehicle, the R1, in Texas within the next few weeks. People in zip codes 77401, 77096, 77005 and 77025 can access the service for same-day and next-day deliveries. The fully electric R1 is a 'Level Four' fully autonomous vehicle, meaning it does not require human instruction for most situations, relying instead on high-definition mapping. It navigates the roads using self-driving sensors including cameras, radars, and a spinning 'lidar' unit on its roof. Co-founder and president of the company Dave Ferguson said that the deliveries would initially be made with self-driving Toyota Prius vehicles, with safety drivers on board. The move comes following a successful trial in Arizona, which was started in 2018. It has reportedly seen thousands of deliveries made already Co-founder and president of the company Dave Ferguson said that the deliveries would initially be made with self-driving Toyota Prius vehicles, with safety drivers on board 'These are passenger vehicles just like regular Priuses that we've added sensing and computing to so they can drive themselves,' he said. Last year's trial run received praise from Arizona resident Shannon Baggett. 'It was very cool to see it pull up. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be,' Baggett said. 'I told my husband, "We just got our groceries delivered by a robot,"' she added But other residents said they're not ready for the change. Last year's trial run received praise from Arizona resident Shannon Baggett. 'It was very cool to see it pull up. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be,' Baggett said. She added: 'I told my husband, "We just got our groceries delivered by a robot"' 'I just don't think we are there yet to have a driverless car,' local resident John Jones said to ABC13. Customers can place orders from the markets' website or app for a $5.95 fee. Nuro will expand the number of cars fitted with self-driving hardware and software to about 50, according to Verge. It will operate in California, Arizona, and Texas with safety drivers behind the wheel. Syria: Italian fighting with Kurdish militia killed by ISIS In Baghuz. Jihadists post photo of 'crusader' (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MARCH 18 - ISIS has published a photo showing that it has killed an Italian in a battle at Baghuz, eastern Syria, according to the SITE website that monitors jihad-related activity on the Internet. The man in the photo, which was published to an ISIS-linked social media news platform, Aamaq, is described as ''Italian crusader Lorenzo Orsetti''. The picture shows the face and torso of the victim who is pictured lying down, surrounded by military boots probably worn by the ISIS militants who allegedly took the photo. Italian security forces confirmed the report and the identity of the victim, Lorenzo Orsetti, a 32-year-old Florence native who was fighting with the Kurdish YPG militia, who are linked to the Turkish PKK. Orsetti is said to have been killed in a firefight after an ambush by the jihadis. Kurdish military sources have confirmed to ANSA that Orsetti was fighting with YPG Kurdish militia against 'Islamic State' militants, as first reported on social media and local and international media outlets. The young man was recently interviewed by Italian media as an Italian volunteer fighting with Kurds against ISIS. Sources have said that Orsetti was in Baghuz, where a battle is ongoing against ISIS' last stronghold. Orsetti was allegedly ambushed with his battalion and shot dead. Orsetti's presence in Syria was documented between April and May 2018. Until 2017, he had been reportedly working at a wine bar in Settignano, a hill north of Florence. (ANSAmed). A man accused of punching a 10-week-old baby as his father held him will stand trial after pleading not guilty. Ian Douglas James Gordon, 27, allegedly approached a stranger outside The Saint pub in the Perth suburb of Innaloo on March 3. He briefly exchanged words with the man, who only wants to be known as Curtis, before allegedly striking the child. Ian Douglas James Gordon (pictured) is accused of punching a 10-week-old baby on March 3 Curtis (pictured) and Gordon had an discussion before the accused asked if the baby he was holding 'is real' He is believed to have asked the father: 'Is that baby real?', Nine News reported. Curtis confirmed that he was holding his baby son. 'I turned to him and said yeah mate, this is my son Cruz, and I pulled back the blanket and the next thing I know I saw a fist come past,' Curtis told Perth Now. Cruz suffered minor injuries and was taken to hospital for a check-up Gordon appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday and pleaded not guilty to endangering the life, health or safety of a person The altercation allegedly happened outside the Saint pub in Innaloo (pictured), in Perth, on March 3 'Even now, walking, I'm paranoid,' the father told the publication. 'I don't trust anyone around him.' Gordon appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday and pleaded not guilty to endangering the life, health or safety of a person. He remains on bail with several conditions and will face court again on May 28. The widow of a man killed in a pub attack just weeks after his wedding has slammed the arrogance of his killers as they were jailed for a total of eight years. Anton Collins and Jack Jordan attacked Andrew Watt outside the Poplar Kitten pub in Harlow, Essex over a 20 debt said to be owed by one of his friends. Mr Watt - who had married his wife Sarah just eight weeks before - was knocked to the ground and suffered catastrophic head injuries from which he later died. After Collins, 27, and Jordan, 24, were jailed for manslaughter this week, his widowed bride paid tribute to her husband as the 'cheekiest, funniest and most loving person' she'd ever met. Andrew Watt died after he was knocked to the ground outside a pub in a row over a 20 debt Recalling her wedding day, heartbroken Mrs Watt said: 'When I saw him standing there, I couldn't get down the aisle fast enough. I can remember my dad telling me to slow down.' She said his donated organs has saved the lives of four people, adding: 'His heart is still beating and a part of him still lives on.' Collins was jailed for six years and Jordan was jailed for two years after they were found guilty of manslaughter. There were angry shouts from the public gallery at Chelmsford Crown Court as the sentences were handed down. Judge Patricia Lynch QC said: 'It goes without saying that a kind, loving, peaceful person lost his life that evening in the most tragic of circumstances, and that you fought the cause and the trial found you guilty. 'A good man has lost his life for absolutely no reason at all, this was a man who had a whole new future ahead of him, he was just married.' Anton Collins (left) got six years for manslaughter. Jack Jordan (right) was jailed for two years The judge continued: 'Everyone in the pub that evening had been drinking, most had been taking drugs and almost all of them were enjoying themselves. 'But you two were there and you were working as a team. You have accepted that you did not start the disruption, but my goodness you finished it. 'Collins, you struck the final blow and Jordan, you were secondary in this.' Collins and Jordan had confronted Mr Watt and a friend of his over claims the friend owed money to Collins' father. Moments before the fatal attack, Collins baited Mr Watt with threats saying: 'I will bury you where you stand.' The fatal attack unfolded outside the Poplar Kitten pub in Harlow, Essex in August 2017 Speaking after the case, Detective Chief Inspector Martin Pasmore said: 'Today has been a very sad day for Mr Watt's family, and I would like to praise them for their dignity throughout this extraordinarily difficult time. 'Collins and Jordan took away someone irreplaceable to them, fuelled by alcohol and over an irrelevant 20 debt, and they still have not shown remorse. 'I hope that these sentences, and seeing both of these men behind bars, will be of some small comfort to them, and will allow them to start healing from this terrible tragedy.' Steve Bannon slammed Theresa May for fumbling the Brexit talks today, accusing the Prime Minister of 'not understanding' the negotiations. The former aide to Donald Trump said the Prime Minister was 'not terribly sophisticated' - and compared her to the 'inspiring' Boris Johnson. President Trump criticised Mrs May last week for failing to take his advice on the deal, which include suing the EU for leverage. Mrs May is scrambling to salvage her deal in time for the EU summit on Thursday at which she is due to go begging for more time from Brussels. Steve Bannon (pictured last week in Detroit) slammed Theresa May for fumbling the Brexit talks today, accusing the Prime Minister of 'not understanding' the negotiations The former aide to Donald Trump said the Prime Minister (pictured today arriving in Downing Street) was 'not terribly sophisticated' - and compared her to the 'inspiring' Boris Johnson Mr Bannon recalled the talks between Mrs May and Mr Trump on Brexit last year. He told Sky News she 'came over [to Washington], Trump sat there and said ''Listen, number one: overshoot the target on your deal because it will come apart. Number two: get on with it you ought to be on terms agreed within six months. And number three: use every arrow in your quiver even if you have to do litigation later''.' He added: 'She laughed it off. To be brutally frank about it she's not terribly sophisticated. 'I don't think she understood the complexities she was going into.' Amid looming failure of Mrs May's deal, Mr Bannon endorsed her leading rival Mr Johnson to take the reins in No 10. He said: 'I think Boris Johnson would make a good prime minister. I think Boris Johnson is a guy with big ideas. 'I think he's the new recreated Boris Johnson who's lost 30 pounds he's got a new haircut, he's a role model the way he's lost so much weight ... very inspiring.' President Trump (pictured yesterday in Washington) criticised Mrs May last week for failing to take his advice on the deal, which include suing the EU for leverage Speaking in the White House last week alongside Irish PM Leo Varadkar. Of his advice on Brexit, he told reporters: 'She didn't listen to that and that's fine, she has to do what she has to do. 'I think it could have been negotiated in a different manner. I hate to see everything being ripped apart right now.' President Trump said that it was a 'shame' that Brexit was 'tearing a country apart, it's actually tearing a lot of countries apart'. Asked if he thought the Brexit deadline should be extended, Mr Trump said: 'I think they are probably going to have to do something because right now there are in the midst of a very short period of time, at the end of the month and they are not going to be able to do that. 'We can do a very big trade deal with the UK. we are also re-negotiating our trade deal with the European groups and literally individual nations.' A man got stuck in his North Carolina home after opening the door to find a bear loitering outside. And after going to the window, he finds another on his driveway. In footage uploaded on Sunday, the man takes his camera over to his front door. When he opens it, a large bear is sitting just inches from the entrance. 'Well, what are you doing? Ain't no one home. Go home,' the man says to the furry intruder, closing the door as the bear looks to come inside the house in Asheville. 'Nope, yep, nope, nope, nope,' he mutters as he steps back. 'My gosh.' The camera gets right up in the snout of the bear parked right outside of the Asheville, North Carolina, man's front door He then makes his way to the curtained window to the left and peers out with the camera to see another bear making its way down across his driveway on an embankment above his pickup truck. 'This is why we don't have nice things,' he whispers at the spectacle. 'There's mama,' he notes looking at the second bear before coming to a realization that the bear at the door is her cub. 'Well, it's kinda hard to leave right now,' he says with a laugh looking at the first bear now moving into view of his window. Another bear, possibly the front-door bear's mama, is making its way down the steep hill near the pickup truck parked in the driveway As the man holding the camera assesses his situation, he spies the first bear now ambling by the window toward the garage door 'Where's Ferdinand, where's our attack cat?' he says as the clip comes to an end. Bears in Asheville, North Carolina, have become something of an issue of late, the Charlotte Observer reported last November. An estimated 100 to 200 bears live year-round in and around the city according to state biologists, with multiple encounters between the animals and people reported in 2018. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the state's plea to reinstate the life-without-parole sentence of a teenage terrorist who shot 10 people in a series of sniper attacks in and around Washington DC in 2002. Lee Boyd Malvo, now 34, was 17 when he and his 41-year-old 'mentor' John Allen Muhammed killed 10 people at random in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC. They struck at random over the course of three weeks, terrorizing the areas where the shootings occurred before being arrested while they were sleeping in their car. Prosecutors were never able to firmly establish their motive and Muhammed was executed in 2009. Malvo, who said he was sexually abused by the man and who has tried in the past to plead insanity, was given life sentences without the possibility of parole from both Maryland and Virginia but now, his legal team is fighting to have one of them undone. Lee Boyd Malvo, now 34, was 17 when he committed the murders. He is pictured in 2002 being taken to juvenile court They say that a change in law in 2012 that got rid of mandatory life sentences for juveniles means his sentences are unjust. His lawyers appealed it and the sentence was tossed out last year but now, the state of Virginia is fighting to have it put back in place. Malvo was also sentenced to six life sentences without the possibility of parole in Maryland and a judge there refused to review his case when he appealed it in 2017. He is also appealing those sentences. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled last year that while Malvo's life-without-parole sentences were legal when they were imposed, Supreme Court decisions that followed altered sentencing requirements for juvenile offenders. John Allen Muhammed, 41, was Malvo's mentor. He was executed in 2004. Malvo has claimed he was sexually abused by the man and that he would have done anything he said. The teen was spared the death sentence because of his age The pair were arrested in 2002 weeks after their terror spree began. They had been sleeping in their car The appeals court judges said a resentencing would determine whether Malvo qualifies as 'one of the rare juvenile offenders' who can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole because his 'crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.' They said if his crimes instead 'reflect the transient immaturity of youth' he's entitled to a sentence short of life without parole. Malvo and Muhammed killed several more people in the days before they launched their three-week long attack. Their spree began in February that year. In total, they slaughtered 17 people and committed robberies and burglaries. The victims in the coordinated attack were shot through store windows and in the street. Malvo, shown in court in 2003, had the sentence tossed out but the state is fighting to have it reinstated One victim, a babysitter, was killed as she read her book while she was waiting for the bus. The pair went undetected for weeks while public fear increased but they were eventually arrested after hearing from Muhammed's ex-girlfriend and realizing his car had been in the area of many of the attacks. The pair were found asleep and were taken into custody. In an interview in 2012, Malvo admitted that he lied during the police investigation and trials by saying he was entirely to blame because he knew he would not be given the death penalty and wanted to save Muhammed's life. 'I was a monster. If you look up the definition, thats what a monster is. I was a ghoul. I was a thief. I stole peoples lives. I did someone elses bidding just because they said so. 'There is no rhyme or reason or sense,' he told The Washington Post. A Russian mother allegedly threw her daughter from a ninth-floor window before jumping herself - but both mother and child survived the fall. The 21-year-old woman, who cannot be named, is accused of dropping her two-year-old child 88 feet from a block of flats in Ufa, southern Russia. She is said to have jumped herself after throwing her daughter, but both of them landed on a snowdrift and survived. The mother has been charged with attempted murder and faces up to five years in prison if she is found guilty. Child and mother: A Russian mother (pictured right being led into court) allegedly threw her daughter (pictured left) from a ninth-floor window before jumping herself According to the woman's relatives, she was in a very bad mood on the day of the incident. Her sister-in-law said: 'She was very nervous and tense. She was throwing tantrums and shouting at me all morning. 'We were getting ready for taking the child to a clinic for a routine medical examination and quarrelled in the process. 'At one point I went to the kitchen leaving them [the mother and the toddler] in the bedroom alone and hoping she would calm down a bit. 'Several minutes after, I came back and saw that the room was empty. I rushed to the open window, looked out and saw them both lying in the street.' The relatives rushed to the scene and called emergency services. Bakhtiar Galautdinov, who witnessed the scene, said: 'The child landed her head first. Her head and body were in the snowdrift and only her legs were sticking out of it. The 21-year-old mother, pictured left being led into court, is accused of dropping her child from the ninth-floor window (circled, right) of the block of flats in Ufa The window from which the mother allegedly threw her daughter. After she left hospital she was charged with attempted murder 'We pulled the toddler out of the snow carefully as the mother was lying beside and crying out in pain.' The girl was rushed to hospital in the intensive care unit. The mother was hospitalised as well. Health authorities spokeswoman Svetlana Kuskarbekova said: 'The child was hospitalised in a severe condition. The mother got away with bruises and her health was not in danger.' Doctors managed to save the toddler's life. Her current condition is stable and her life is not in danger at the moment. The mother was discharged from hospital several days after the incident. The sister-in-law said: 'My niece is okay now. Her father will be taking care of her and the whole of our family will be helping him. The family bedroom in the flat in Ufa. A relative said she had found the bedroom empty, looked out of the window and seen the mother and child lying in the street Soft landing: The spot where the mother and child were found after their fall. They landed on a snowdrift and both survived The toddler's family said her father, pictured left, would be taking care of the girl. Bakhtiar Galautdinov, right, who witnessed the scene, said the child had landed head first in the snow 'You have no idea what kind of shock we have experienced. My brother could not eat or sleep. He was praying for his child day and night. 'I believe that they are going to be fine.' After being discharged from hospital, the mother was arrested and charged with attempted murder of a minor. An Investigative Committee spokesperson said: 'The suspect was taken into custody. She is going to be sent for a mental examination soon. The investigation is ongoing.' According to sister-in-law, her brother is going to divorce his wife for the attempt to kill their child. She said: 'They were together for three years. But my brother says he will never be able to forgive her [his wife] for the attempt to kill their child. He is going to divorce her.' Advertisement The city is best known for associations with the Royal Navy, the Pilgrim Fathers and Sir Francis Drake. But Plymouth hopes it will soon be famous for a new landmark. The Messenger, a 23ft-high sculpture of a woman crouching, has been described as the Souths answer to the Angel Of The North. Less kind critics say the pose is more reminiscent of the poster for the 1958 B-movie Attack Of The 50ft Woman. The young, powerful figure, which weighs nearly 10 tons and cost 450,000, is the UKs largest bronze effigy. It was put in position outside the citys Theatre Royal yesterday ready to be unveiled on Friday. Britain's largest bronze sculpture has arrived at its new home at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, on Monday, after two years of construction. The statue, called Messenger, depicts a 'young, powerful' female figure holding a crouched pose The statue has drawn comparisons to the iconic 1958 B-movie poster for Attack of the 50ft Woman by critics Commissioned by the Theatre Royal as part of a 8million Arts Council-funded regeneration project begun six years ago, it was created by artist Joseph Hillier. Its design was inspired by a fleeting pose adopted by an actress he saw rehearsing Shakespeares Othello at the theatre. Messengers name refers to the pivotal role of a performer as they breathe life into words, the 44-year-old said. Its a powerful woman, a potent force, about to transform the world by her actions, he added. The actor carried the voice of her playwright or director she carried a message. Its a metaphor for what great theatre does. The pose is very small. Shes like a coiled spring. Visitors will be able to walk underneath Messenger into the theatre, as if passing under an archway. But the sculpture has attracted public criticism amid concerns it will attract vandalism and provide a backdrop for lewd photos. The sculpture was cast at the Castle Fine Arts Foundry in Wales and transported by barge to Plymouth Even though The Messenger will dominate the Plymouth skyline, it pales in comparison to Sir Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North at 66ft tall and 177ft wide It sat on a low-loader lorry and was paraded through Plymouth before reaching its final destination at the front of the Theatre Royal Hillier said: It was always going to be contentious. Every time I make a new piece I am faced with peoples reactions, which usually fall into two camps love and hate. Theatre chief executive Adrian Vinken agreed the statue will be controversial, mind-blowing to some and an abomination to others. The sculpture was cast in 200 sections at a foundry in Wales. It was welded together and transported in four pieces torso and head, two legs and the straight arm arriving in Plymouth Sound by barge. Mr Hillier explained that he found inspiration after an actor's split-second pose during rehearsal for Othello on the theatre's stage. 'It's a young powerful woman, a potent force, about to transform the world by her actions It's a metaphor for what great theatre does,' he said A hospital trust must pay 12million to an eight-year-old girl after staff failed to spot warning signs that she would be left disabled when she was born. The girl's delivery in 2010 at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent was delayed and the child was starved of oxygen, leading to 'profound' disabilities. Her lawyers sued Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, which admitted liability and apologised for the unacceptable standard of care. At the High Court, Mr Justice Martin Spencer said the eight-year-old girl's payout is expected to be worth about 12 million over her lifetime. The girl's delivery in 2010 at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent (pictured) was delayed and the child was starved of oxygen She will receive a 3.7 million up front and get tax-free annual payments to cover the costs of her care for life. Those payments will start at 280,000 a year, before rising to 297,500 a year in 2028 and to 330,000 a year in 2029. NHS counsel, Michael Horne QC, said liability for the girl's injuries was admitted at an early stage and the trust's chief executive had apologised. He added: 'The trust apologises unreservedly that the care provided fell below an acceptable standard and caused this tragedy.' The girl's lawyers sued Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, which admitted liability and apologised for the unacceptable standard of care He paid tribute to the girl's parents and wider family for the 'dedicated and unstinting care' they had given her. Approving the settlement, Mr Justice Spencer described the girl's disabilities as 'profound'. Her vision is severely impaired, she suffers from epilepsy, has to be fed through a tube and has no independent mobility. He added: 'The devotion and care lavished upon her by her parents has been absolutely awe-inspiring. 'It has enabled her to fulfil her life within the limits of her disabilities.' Taiwo Benson, 46, pleaded guilty to eleven further sex crimes against underage girls A 'dangerous and manipulative' convicted paedophile who had more than 1,400 conversations with 500 underage girls he tried to groom online and by phone has been jailed for a further two years. Taiwo Benson pleaded guilty to eleven further sex crimes, including four counts of penetrative activity with a girl under 16, which were brought to light as part of a two year police investigation. Benson, 46, is already serving a nine-year prison sentence at HMP Littlehey for similar offences against four underage victims aged between 13 and 15. He was sentenced in April 2016. But following his imprisonment, Scotland Yard found two phones belonging to him which revealed 1,435 conversations with other potential victims across various social media sites. He was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on Friday after pleading guilty on 23 November 2018 to: one count of causing a child aged 13 to 15 to watch an image of sexual activity, two counts of an adult meeting a girl under 16 following sexual grooming, two counts of causing a child 13 to 15 to watch a sexual act, four counts of engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15, one count of an offender over 18 causing a child 13 to 15 to watch a sexual act, and one count of offender 18 or over engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15. The disgusting array of crimes took place over the course of 2015, against nine victims. He was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, and returned to HMP Littlehey The two year term he was handed on Friday has been added on to to his existing jail term. The court heard how how Scotland Yard detectives from the Met's Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command (CASO) retrieved two mobile phones belonging to him, which revealed the startling list of conversation threads. The team spent more two years processing the evidence, travelling across the country and trying to contact the more than 500 girls they believed Benson had spoken to. He used pseudonyms including The Real MVP, Tony and Timi on apps including WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber and BBM (blackberry messaging). Benson groomed the girls, and the evidence indicated he had engaged in sexual intercourse with some of the victims. After making contact with his victims, he attempted to initiate a meeting for sex and requested images of them. He offered a range of goods, but primarily money to encourage them to meet with him. He remained undeterred when victims told him their young ages. Detective Inspector Laura Hillier, who led the investigation, said: 'Benson is a very dangerous and manipulative man. He has spent years targeting young girls on the internet for his own gratification. 'Many potential victims were spoken to by officers. I would like to commend the victims who came forward and bravely told officers how Benson groomed and committed offences against them. 'It is my hope that today's sentence brings a measure of comfort and satisfaction to the vulnerable young girls that he preyed upon. 'The internet is increasingly being used by offenders like Benson to target young victims, and this is something the Met is gearing its safeguarding efforts towards. 'Engaging with someone online is not the same as having just met them in person, but young people will often be more open to people who seem friendly or project a certain image of themselves online without thinking about what that person's intentions might be, or even whether they are who they say they are. 'We would encourage parents to talk to their children about the risks of speaking to people online, and how to stay safe on the internet.' American-backed fighters in Syria have seized buildings inside ISIS's last stronghold after a night of intense shelling and airstrikes. Troops for the Syrian Democratic Forces captured a cluster of buildings inside Baghouz early on Monday and were facing off against an ISIS counter-attack. 'Several positions captured and an ammunition storage has been blown up,' SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said on Twitter. Syrian Democratic Forces seized a cluster of buildings from ISIS troops in Baghouz, the terror group's last territory in Syria, early on Monday SDF commanders said their troops had advanced but were facing off against an ISIS counter-attack on Monday and that clashes were ongoing As well as seizing the buildings, SDF forces also destroyed an ISIS ammunition dump (pictured, an SDF solider uses a rocket launcher) A shroud of black smoke covered the Islamic State group's last Syria redoubt on Monday as US-backed forces battled holdout jihadists. On a hilltop overlooking the bombed-out bastion, an AFP correspondent heard the sound of gunfire and heavy shelling ring out. Men, believed to be jihadists, could be seen shuffling inside the redoubt, beneath a plume of smoke that obscured most of the encampment. Crouching behind rocks, SDF fighters opened fire at IS fighters that appeared near the banks of the Euphrates River. 'The SDF ground offensive has been very effective,' coalition spokesman Sean Ryan told AFP on Monday. 'The SDF continues to pursue a deliberate, methodical approach to removing the last remaining territory under Daesh,' he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. An SDF official who asked not to be named told AFP on Monday that his force has seized a cluster of buildings from jihadists in the latest bout of fighting. SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali on Sunday night said his force captured 'several positions' inside the pocket. 'SDF is now holding positions inside the camp,' he said on Twitter. It remains unclear exactly how many people remain inside the last IS pocket but SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel on Sunday said that those quitting the area put the number at up to 5,000 people. The Kurd-led force has also shied away from giving a timeline for the operation but Gabriel said that he hopes it would not take more than a week before jihadists are flushed out. At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday night, an AFP correspondent saw Kurdish fighters launching artillery shells towards IS positions from a nearby rooftop. Shelling and coalition air strikes engulfed the area in a crimson blaze. Two members of the SDF fire mortar rounds towards ISIS positions inside Baghouz, Syria, as they attempt to wrest control of the hideout from the jihadis It is thought there are around 5,000 people left inside the territory, which is located along the Euphrates river and the last under ISIS control The terrorist enclave resembles an encampment and is filled with stationary vehicles and tents where fighters and their families have been living After a momentary lull, the crackle of gunfire filled the air. 'They have started to respond,' said one SDF fighter, referring to jihadists. 'They will resist... these are their bullets.' An SDF fighter told AFP on Monday that 15 people, including two women from Turkey and Somalia, fled the camp towards SDF-held territory on Sunday, shortly before fighting erupted. More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have quit the last IS redoubt since January 9, according to the SDF. They include 37,000 civilians, 5,000 jihadists and around 24,000 of their relatives. An additional 520 IS fighters have been captured in special operations by the SDF. The huge numbers have flummoxed Kurdish forces who are struggling to accomodate jihadists in Kurdish-run detention centres further north. The exodus of civilians and relatives of fighters has also sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced, the biggest of which is overcrowded three times beyond capacity. The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border 'caliphate' it proclaimed more than four years ago. But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast. Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed 370,000 people since it started in 2011. The enclave resembles an encampment, filled with stationary vehicles and rough shelters with blankets or tarpaulins that could be seen flapping in the wind on Sunday during a lull in fighting as people walked among them. Kurdish forces are unwilling to give an official timetable for when the pocket will fall, and have vastly underestimated the number of jihadis it contained up to now Backed by air power and special forces from a U.S.-led coalition, the SDF has pushed Islamic State from almost the entire northeastern corner of Syria, defeating it in Raqqa in 2017 and driving it to its last enclave at Baghouz last year. However, while its defeat at Baghouz will end its control of populated land in the third of Syria and Iraq that it captured in 2014, the group will remain a threat, regional and Western officials say. The SDF has waged a staggered assault on the enclave, pausing for long periods over recent weeks to allow surrendering fighters, their families and other civilians to pour out. Since Jan. 9, more than 60,000 people have left the enclave, about half of them surrendering Islamic State supporters including some 5,000 fighters, the SDF said on Sunday. People leaving the area have spoken of harsh conditions inside, under coalition bombardment and with supplies of food so scarce some resorted to eating grass. Last month, the SDF said it had found a mass grave in an area it captured. Still, many of those who left Baghouz have vowed their allegiance to the jihadist group, which last week put out a propaganda film from inside the enclave calling on its supporters to keep faith. Suicide attacks on Friday targeted families of Islamic State fighters attempting to leave the enclave and surrender, killing six people, the SDF said. Late on Sunday, the Kurdish Ronahi TV station aired footage showing a renewed assault on the enclave, with fires seen to be raging inside and tracer fire and rockets zooming into the tiny area. The SDF and the coalition say the Islamic State fighters inside Baghouz are among the group's most hardened foreign fighters, though Western countries believe its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has left the area. UNICEF says 650,000 refugee children attend Turkish schools Three years since EU accord, 85 mn euros invested (ANSAmed) - ADANA (TURKEY-SYRIA BORDER), MARCH 18 - UNICEF said 645,000 refugee children attend schools in Turkey, about 60% of the total of school-aged children. The UN organisation - together with the Turkish ministries of welfare and education and the Turkish Red Crescent - manages Conditional Cash Transfer for Education (CCTE), the country's largest support programme against school dropout. The project is financed through July with 85 million euros from the first instalment of three billion euros in aid from the EU-Turkey accord, which was reached on March 18 three years ago. The project will be extended with new resources already allocated by Brussels. Through the CCTE programme, 487,000 child refugees - 85% of whom are Syrian - have received economic support tied to regular participation in educational activities, in order to incentivise the most vulnerable families to send their children to school.(ANSAmed). A stray cat has been saved after getting its legs stuck in an escalator at a subway station in China. The animal was freed thanks to the joint effort between commuters and subway workers. One commuter later took the moggy to a nearby vet, which gave it emergency surgery. One subway worker checks upon the cat trapped at a subway station in China on Saturday Commuters and subway workers rush over to help free the stray animal with joint effort The feline was spotted on Saturday at an entrance of the Metro Line 1 in the city of Xiamen in south-east China, according to the Xiamen Metro company which released footage of the rescue on its social media platform. Commuter Ms Zhao saw the cat firmly trapped in the escalator and went to find station workers for help. A supervisor at the station quickly rushed to the scene. He discovered that both of the cat's hind legs were jammed in a gap at the side of the escalator. Subway staff halted the escalator. With the help of Ms Zhao and several other passersby, they managed to remove the cat from the gap and put it into a cage. A nearby vet is treating the stray cat after giving it a three-hour-long surgical operation The cat was then taken to a nearby vet by Ms Zhao. According to Xiamen Media Group, the animal sustained comminuted fractures on its toes. It was also found to have serious skin tears on both legs, and its wounds had serious infection. The vet gave the cat a three-hour-long emergency operation and managed to save its paw pads and one toe on each feet, it is reported. The vet is reportedly giving further treatment to the animal. A high-speed train passenger has been arrested after breaking into the driver's cabin and telling him to 'slow down' before forcing a sudden stop using a fire extinguisher. The drama unfolded on Sunday morning as the Inter-City Express (ICE) travelled at an average 200mph between Paris and Frankfurt. 'The man had been drinking, and was convinced the train was going too fast and putting passengers' lives in danger,' said an investigating source. A German high-speed ICE train from Frankfurt in Germany arrives at Gare de l'Est station in Paris. A 30-year-old man faces charges of 'disrupting rail traffic and causing damage to property' after he threatened staff with a fire extinguisher and broke into the driver's cabin 'He was screaming and shouting as he broke into the driver's cabin and threatened staff with a fire extinguisher.' The train made an emergency stop at the German town of Morfelden-Wallfort, 20 miles from Frankfurt, where the 30-year-old suspect was arrested. He has not been named publicly, but police said he faced charges of 'disrupting rail traffic and causing damage to property.' A total of 18 trains were delayed by the unscheduled stop, which initially involved 220 passengers on the ICE, which is capable of a top speed of 226mph. A shocked customer claims an Amazon delivery driver ripped his letterbox of its hinges while attempting to deliver a book. The courier was delivering a book to Noel Hodson's house in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire on Friday. Noel claims the package was too thick for the letterbox and he discovered it jammed in it when he arrived home. Noel Hodson claims an Amazon delivery driver ripped his letterbox of its hinges while attempting to deliver a book. The courier was delivering to Noel's house in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire Noel claims the package was too thick for the letterbox and he discovered it jammed in it The book was for Noel's wife Gemma, who is studying a further qualification for her dog psychology business. The couple are pictured together Noel claims the package was too thick for the letterbox and he discovered it jammed in it. Paint sprayer Noel shared a picture of the parcel and letterbox on Amazon's Facebook page on Friday with the caption: 'Hi, this is the aftermath of your delivery driver trying to force a package through our letterbox today. 'Which of us is going to be paying for this then I wonder?' Other images taken by Noel show the letterbox has been slotted back into place. He says is not secured because the screw fitting has broken. Many commenting on Noel's post were shocked to hear about what allegedly happened. Jojo Cox wrote: 'Bloody hell. Talk about some force.' Deborah Freeman added: 'Jesus Christ. What did they push that through with a bloody hammer.' Noel said in his post to Amazon: 'The parcel had been completely wedged and stuck in the letterbox then forced so hard that the internal side of the letterbox was ripped clean off the door' Claire Young wrote: 'We've had packages jammed in our letter box too. Thankfully ours wasn't broken.' Speaking today Noel explained how he found his letterbox all over the floor. He said: 'The parcel had been completely wedged and stuck in the letterbox then forced so hard that the internal side of the letterbox was ripped clean off the door. 'The letterbox needs replacing as it is damaged beyond repair. I am expecting them to pay for a replacement letterbox at least and I am even happy to fit it myself.' 'My initial thoughts were total disbelief and how much force was needed to do that. 'Usually all our Amazon parcels get delivered to the house opposite as we have stated this on our Amazon accounts. 'I messaged Amazon UK via their Facebook page as trying to lodge a complaint through the website is nigh on impossible for this through the website.' An Amazon spokesman said the delivery of the book was made by a driver for an independent delivery company. He said: 'We are working closely with our delivery service provider to ensure this matter is resolved as quickly as possible and are in direct communication with the customer.' The book was for Noel's wife Gemma, who is studying a qualification for her dog psychology business. Switzerland is considering a new law that would force people to show their face when asked by officials after the government rejected a burka ban. The cantons of Ticino and St Gallen have already introduced bans on face coverings - but other areas such as Solothurn and Zurich have not. The government said that imposing a nationwide ban would raise the prospect of powerful cantons not being able to make their own rules. It gave an example of cantons no longer being able to determine how they would like to deal with burka-wearing tourists from Arab nations. Instead, a counter proposal suggests making it illegal for people to decline to uncover their face when requested to do so by certain officials. Switzerland is considering a new law that would force people to show their face when asked by officials after the government rejected a burka ban (file picture) According to The Local, the proposal would mean anyone repeatedly refusing to show their face to officials in sectors like customs, aviation and migration could face a fine. The plan, which must first be discussed by MPs, comes after a proposal was put forward for a nationwide ban on face coverings in public areas. It was suggested by the Egerkingen committee, which is said to have links to the county's right-wing Swiss People's Party. The government rejected the idea and instead has called for 'targeted action' in a draft law. In September, voters in St. Gallen approved by a two-thirds majority a ban on facial coverings, becoming the second Swiss canton to do so. Full-face coverings such as niqabs and burkas are a polarising issue across Europe, with some arguing that they symbolise discrimination against women and should be outlawed. The clothing has already been banned in France and Denmark. Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, voters in the northeastern canton demanded tightening the law to punish those who cover their faces in public and thus 'threaten or endanger public security or religious or social peace'. Two-thirds of Switzerland's 8.5 million residents identify as Christians. But its Muslim population has risen to 5 percent, largely because of immigrants from former Yugoslavia. One Swiss canton, Italian-speaking Ticino, already has a similar ban, while two others have rejected it. Muslims in the hometown of the alleged Christchurch mosque gunman are too afraid to practice their faith in public, a church leader says. Grafton's Anglican dean Gregory Jenks said the handful of Muslims in the northern NSW town 'didn't feel safe' in the wake of the attack. Brenton Tarrant, 28, who grew up in Grafton, allegedly shot dead 50 worshippers during prayers on Friday. Grafton's Anglican dean Gregory Jenks (pictured) said the handful of Muslims in the northern NSW town 'didn't feel safe' in the wake of the attack No Muslims spoke at the inter-faith vigil at Christ Church Cathedral in Grafton on Monday night No Muslims spoke at the inter-faith vigil at Christ Church Cathedral in Grafton on Monday night, Reverend Jenks instead reading a letter from the Islamic Council of NSW. 'They don't feel safe at the moment to be publicly involved in an event like this,' he said. Reverend Jenks said they were fearful after Friday's massacre in New Zealand, but had been withdrawn for years due to 'rhetoric from politicians'. He said the anti-Islam views expressed Senator Fraser Anning before and after the massacre were the most extreme, many others stirred up fear to win votes. In his speech to hundreds of Grafton locals attending the vigil, Reverend Jenks called for 'solidarity and compassion for the people of Christchurch, especially the Muslim community' The message he read from the Islamic Council of NSW conveyed their sympathies for those in Grafton affected by the shooting. 'This heinous act is an attempt to spread fear and hatred Reverend Jenks accused conservative leaders of 'dog whistling' through immigration policy and other public statements. He also accused the Shooters and Fishers Party of having a policy platform that amounted to promoting 'white supremacy'. Many of the town's Muslims were refugee doctors who worked at Grafton Base Hospital. 'They're the ones healing and keeping us alive,' Reverend Jenks said. 'We are determined they will feel safe, that they will know that we stand with them. 'I really want us to get to a point where they feel safe enough to openly practice their religion in Grafton.' The vigil was held at the Christ Church Cathedral in Grafton on Monday night and was attended by hundreds Grafton reportedly has no declared Muslims, but a small number meet in homes to worship in secret. In his speech to hundreds of Grafton locals attending the vigil, Reverend Jenks called for 'solidarity and compassion for the people of Christchurch, especially the Muslim community'. The message he read from the Islamic Council of NSW conveyed their sympathies for those in Grafton affected by the shooting. 'This heinous act is an attempt to spread fear and hatred. We stand in solidarity with all Australians as one and must not allow such acts to divide us,' the message read. They said it was with 'great sorrow' that the letter even needed to be written. ' We pray that God gives us the patience and perseverance to respond and heal with love and wisdom,' the message continued. 'It is our heartfelt belief that we can be a better country by eliminating racism and Islamaphobia and hold our politicians and leaders accountable.' Reverend Jenks said the anti-Islam views expressed Senator Fraser Anning before and after the massacre were the most extreme, many others stirred up fear to win votes An American man killed himself at the border after he was confronted by Mexican cops and ordered to open his trunk. Fernando Alfaro Jr., drove across the border into Mexico in the early hours on Sunday morning, at the El Chaparral port of entry. He had already been processed by the customs agents on the Mexican side of the border crossing, just south of California, when he stopped on the side of the road. The border agents became suspicious and Alfaro Jr., who was behind the wheels of a 2017 Honda Accord Touring with a California license plate, was ordered to pull over for a secondary inspection, according to Mexican news outlet Milenio. Mexican police agents surround a vehicle with California license plates at the El Chaparral port of entry in Tijuana after its motorist (pictured on the driver side) shot himself dead early Sunday morning during an inspection Officials in Mexico still have not revealed if they found anything hidden inside the trunk after Fernando Alfaro Jr. refused cop orders to open it and died from a self-inflicted gun shot to the head at a Tijuana border inspection site The California man, who authorities estimate was between the age of 35 and 40, parked his vehicle at the inspection site. He then reportedly locked the doors and rolled up the windows moments after the cops had ordered him to open the trunk. But Alfaro Jr. ignored the officers' continuous request before he inexplicably shot himself dead at about 3.10am local time. The Tijuana border crossing, located across California, is one of the busiest port of entries along the southern United States border with Mexico Several Mexican news outlets reported that the cops found a gun and ammunition during the initial search. However, authorities have not revealed any additional information on whether they found anything hidden inside the vehicle's trunk. DailyMail reached out to the El Chaparral Customs office for comment. An endangered orangutan was blinded after being shot at least 74 times with an air gun just a week after her baby died because she could no longer feed it, an official and veterinarian said Monday. Rescue workers discovered the 30-year-old primate, which they named Hope, curled up on the forest floor in Indonesia's Aceh province on March 9. An X-ray showed at least 74 air gun pellets in the animal's body, including four in its left eyes and two in the right, said Yenny Saraswati, a veterinarian with the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP). Veterinarians and volunteers of Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) tend to a female orangutan they named 'Hope' after conducting a surgery for infections in some parts of the body and to fix broken bones in North Sumatra, Indonesia She said the orangutan was blinded by the 'savage attack' and also had several open wounds believed to have been caused by sharp objects, broken brones, cuts and bruises. She had been repeatedly shot with metal pellets by cruel thugs in an unprovoked attack. Saraswati said Hope underwent surgery on Sunday to repair a broken collarbone and was recovering. A veterinarian says the endangered orangutan that had a young baby has gone blind after being shot at least 74 times, including six in the eyes, with air gun An x-ray taken by vets in Indonesia shows the metal pellets which had been fired into the majestic primate with an air rifle Conflicts between orangutans and people have increased as the palm oil, logging and paper industries shrink the animals' jungle habitat. Villagers spotted the severely wounded orangutan in a farm in Aceh province's Subulussalam district last week with its month-old baby son slumped by her side, severely dehydrated after being unable to fend for himself. He was suffering from critical malnutrition, said Sapto Aji Prabowo, who heads the Aceh provincial conservation agency. The baby died from malnutrition as rescuers rushed the two animals to an orangutan veterinary clinic in neighboring North Sumatra province's Sibolangit district. Prabowo said: 'Truly barbaric are those people who tortured them. The orangutan is currently in the care of the BKSDA.' Hope's one-month-old baby was severely malnourished and dehydrated when rescuers found them and succumbed to illness before he could be saved Volunteer orthopedic surgeon Andreas Messikommer of Switzerland conducts a surgery on a Hope after her baby orangutan died from malnutrition last Friday Government officials are now hunting those behind the senseless attack, which has left the mother too wounded to return back to the wild. 'Hopefully Hope can pass this critical period, but she cannot be released to the wild anymore,' Saraswati said, adding that during the operation they did not remove any of the air gun pellets because they had to prioritize fixing the animal's broken collarbone and the risk of infection that it posed. The orangutan conservation program said the use of readily available air guns to shoot and kill wildlife, including orangutans, is a major problem in Indonesia. SOCP vets and volunteers were also tending to a three-month old baby orangutan named Brenda that was evacuated from a village with a broken arm and required surgery. A veterinarian and a volunteer of Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) tend to a three-month old baby orangutan named 'Brenda' that was evacuated from a village with a broken arm The X-ray image of a three-month old baby orangutan named 'Brenda' who has undergone surgery for a broken arm The organisation said in the last 10 years, it has treated more than 15 orangutans with a total of nearly 500 air gun pellets in their bodies. Last year, an orangutan in the Indonesian part of Borneo died after being shot at least 130 times with an air gun, the second known killing of an orangutan that year. A 2018 comprehensive study of Borneo's orangutans estimates that their numbers have plummeted by more than 100,000 since 1999, as the palm oil and paper industries shrink their habitat and fatal conflicts with people increase. Only around 13,400 Sumatran orangutans remain in the wild. The species is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Conservationists predicted that without immediate action, orangutans are likely to be the first great ape to become extinct in the wild. The Forestry and Environment Ministry said in a statement: 'We condemn the savage attack on orangutans carried out by irresponsible people.' Hope receiving treatment at the veterinary clinic in North Sumatra after she was left with broken bones, lacerations and 74 pellets which had been fired into her The 30-year-old primate is being held at the rehabilitation as she continues her recovery without her newborn Costa Coffee has apologised after it was accused of using underhand tactics while trying to sell a special winter coffee blend. The coffee chain's Winter Character Roast is 25p more expensive per cup than its usual blend. But staff are not always warning customers of the additional cost when asking if they want to make a switch to the limited edition blend. The coffee chain's Winter Character Roast is 25p more expensive per cup than its usual blend (file image) And many customers have already agreed to change to the winter beans before being shocked at the price rise when it comes to paying. The Winter Character Roast features 'winter berries, dark cocoa and warming cinnamon'. Many customers have already agreed to change to the winter beans before being shocked at the price rise when it comes to paying But it is also 11 per cent more expensive than the usual mocha Italia blend taking a small white Americano from 2.30 to 2.55. Costa Coffee, who were recently bought by Coca-cola in a 3.9million deal, have been accused of 'upselling by stealth'. Martyn James, of consumer complaint handling site Resolver, told the Sun: 'If Costa wants to try out a new blend of coffee beans it should be upfront about it. 'I've fallen victim to this pressure tactic at Costa. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.' He told MailOnline: 'British people have a lot of sympathy for overworked and underpaid staff forced to promote new things - and often agree out of kindness. 'But it's a real slap in the face when you find that the company has charged you extra for the privilege, without bothering to tell you.' A spokesman for Costa Coffee said: 'Whilst we welcome our baristas offering customers the chance to enjoy one of our limited edition roasts, we do expect them to note the additional 25p charge prior to a customer paying for their coffee. 'We apologise to any customer who has opted for a new roast without being informed of the additional cost and will be reissuing communication to our store teams.' The third suspect charged with the murder of teenager Jodie Chesney dabbed his eyes with a tissue during his court appearance today. Svenson Ong-a-kwie, 18, from Romford, London was arrested on March 10 on suspicion of murder of Jodie, 17, who was stabbed in the back as she sat with friends in an east London park on March 1. He was remanded in custody after his appearance at the Old Bailey in London today, ahead of his September trial. Svenson Ong-a-kwie, 18, from Romford, London was arrested on 10 March on suspicion of the murder of Jodie Chesney. An artist sketch of him in court today is pictured Jodie (pictured), 17, was stabbed in the back as she listened to music with six friends on March 1 The Surinamese national, who was wearing a green and yellow tracksuit, spoke only to confirm his name. Friends battled to save Jodie but she collapsed in the park with an 18cm stab wound to her shoulder blade and was pronounced dead at the scene around an hour later. Manuel Petrovic, 20, and a 16-year-old boy have appeared in court separately charged with the murder of the young Explorer Scout. Manuel Petrovic, 20, and a 16-year-old boy have appeared in court separately charged with the murder of the young Explorer Scout. Petrovic , Ong-a-kwie (pictured) and the teenager will stand trial together on 2 September Police work at the scene in Harold Hill, East London, on March 3 after Jodie was fatally stabbed Manuel Petrovic (left; and right, in a court sketch on March 11), 20, has also been charged with the murder of the 17-year-old girl Ong-a-kwie, Petrovic, from Romford and the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are due to be tried together at the Old Bailey on September 2. Another three people - a 50-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, both from Dagenham, London and a 17-year-old boy who were arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender and have all been released on bail. Jodie's death on March intensified the outrage over knife crime in London and locals have paid tribute to her across Romford, laying dozens of bouquets and purple ribbons. Advertisement A small city in Southern California has been forced to close its public viewing of a super bloom of poppies after being overrun by tens of thousands of flower-crazed tourists trying to get the best Instagram photos. Authorities in the city of Lake Elsinore closed access to Walker Canyon on Sunday after 'Disneyland size crowds' flocked to the area and caused huge traffic jams on nearby highways. The super bloom of wild flowers, which is a result of extremely heavy winter rainfall, has resulted in the hillside being completely covered in bright orange poppies over the last two weeks. Tens of thousands of tourists have been spotted posing and lying among the scores of flowers for their photos. Scroll down for video Officials in Lake Elsinore in Southern California were forced to close its public viewing of a super bloom of poppies on Sunday after being overrun by tens of thousands of flower-crazed tourists Tens of thousands of tourists were spotted posing for pictures among the scores of flowers following the super bloom of poppies The color of the poppies is so vivid it can be seen from mountain tops hundreds of feet above. A super bloom occurs when warm temperatures follow stretches of winter rain and the explosion of flowers exceeds average spring-time blooms. The super bloom was originally met with excitement in the community of 66,000, which is about a 90-minutes drive from both Los Angeles and San Diego. But problems quickly arose this weekend, including traffic and people leaving trails and trampling the flowers. The hashtags #poppyshutdown and #poppyapocalypse began spreading on Twitter. The city initially tweeted that roads were jammed, traffic on Interstate 15 had stopped moving and law enforcement assistance was requested from neighboring jurisdictions to deal with the crush. But the city then shut down access saying the weekend had become unbearable and they were not able to sustain 'Disneyland size crowds'. The super bloom, which was the result of extremely heavy winter rainfall, saw the Lake Elsinore hillside completely covered in bright orange poppies. Thousands of tourists flocked to the area to take photos among the blooms Authorities in the city of Lake Elsinore closed access to Walker Canyon on Sunday after 'Disneyland size crowds' flocked to the area and caused huge traffic jams on nearby highways Residents of the small town experienced difficulty getting to and from their homes at the weekend due to widespread road closures and traffic congestion caused by visitors The city said they started experiencing problems, including people leaving the designated trails to take pictures A couple is pictured posing among the flowers as thousands of people flocked to the area for a glimpse of the super bloom Instagram was filled with super bloom photos of people posing among the flowers One of the main concerns from city officials was people leaving the trails and trampling the wild flowers The super bloom is the result of extremely heavy winter rainfall that saw the hillside covered in bright orange poppies The super bloom is an explosion of wild flowers that exceeds normal spring blooms Tourists have been flocking to the area for several weeks to see the super bloom but authorities were forced to shut off access on Sunday There was an estimated 50,000 visitors on Saturday alone and people started lining up at 5.30am to catch a glimpse of the flowers There was an estimated 50,000 visitors on Saturday alone and people started lining up at 5.30am to catch a glimpse of the flowers. 'The situation has escalated beyond our available resources. No additional shuttles or visitors will be allowed into Walker Canyon. This weekend has been unbearable Lake Elsinore,' city officials said on Facebook. 'We know it has been miserable and has caused unnecessary hardships for our entire community.' Residents of the small town experienced difficulty getting to and from their homes due to widespread road closures. Lake Elsinore Mayor Steve Manos said in the chaos over the weekend, one city employee was hit by a car and a visitor suffered a snake bite. The city had initially put measures in place, including free shuttle buses, to try and ease the congestion. Officials posted a photo of a flyer on Sunday that read: 'No more shuttles or Entrance' and 'No Viewing or Visiting.' It also featured hashtags including: '#PoppyNightmare' and '#IsItOver.' The super bloom was originally met with excitement in the community of 66,000 but problems quickly arose this weekend, including traffic and people leaving trails and trampling the flowers Tens of thousands of tourists have been spotted posing for pictures among the scores of flowers over the last month Official said on Sunday that they had been experiencing issues with people leaving trails and trampling the flowers Poppy fields are blooming on the slopes of Walker Canyon near Lake Elsinore after heavy rains in California boosted the growth of wild desert flowers The super bloom was brought about by heavy rains in California that boosted the growth of wild desert flowers A man photographs a woman painting a super bloom of wild poppies blanketing the hills of Walker Canyon A woman and a child were spotted sitting among the poppies earlier this month when the super bloom first occurred Tens of thousands of tourists have been spotted posing for pictures among the scores of flowers since the super bloom first occurred BELGRADE - Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said clashes and violence by opposition protesters at the weekend in Belgrade caused damage to the country's image. Dacic also criticised the silence by embassies from western countries and the EU. Dacic, speaking to private broadcaster Pink, said the message was that instability, crisis, clashes, and incidents reign in the country, a fact which he said "caused serious damage to Serbia". He lamented the fact that despite the seriousness of the violence on the part of demonstrators - which included breaking into the headquarters of public broadcaster RTS and blocking the presidential palace - there was no response from any western ambassador. "No one made a phone call, neither to the ministry nor to the president, to find out what was going on," he said. Serbian police chief Vladimir Rebic said 18 people were arrested during the demonstrations. Rebic said six officers were wounded in the clashes at the RTS headquarters. He emphasised the police's professional and responsible behavior, in that they deployed a very controlled use of force in order to contain the most violent demonstrators. Britain's biggest police force are targeting dozens of wanted suspects by driving around London for a week - with their mugshots plastered on police vans. The 'targeted week of action' by the Met Police will include an appeal to the public for any information regarding unsolved crimes in London. Officers have put up 38 mugshots of wanted men and women on the sides of two police vans that will be driven around the capital all week. Under 'Operation Venice', police are hunting suspected street robbers, burglars and others said to be linked to moped-enabled crimes. Left: Joshwell Harris, 28, wanted for burglary. Right: John Macdonald, 53, wanted for burglary Left: Mohammed Asri, 45, wanted for burglary and non-payment of fines. Right: Steve McMonagle, 35, wanted for burglary Left: Simon Marcus Rhodes-Butler, 42, wanted for burglary. Right: Roger Smith, 52, wanted for failing to appear for burglary Left: Shayne Young, 24, wanted for failing to appear in relation to driving offences. Right: Rodney Walsh, wanted for burglary They are aged between 18 to 58 and are wanted for offences including vehicle theft and burglary. One suspect, Derrick Roye, 47, is wanted in connection with a burglary in which a garage door on Seymour Road, SW19, was forced open and an expensive bicycle was stolen. He was said to have left his own bike behind at the scene. Another, Enrico Martin, 18, is wanted for failing to appear in relation to a series of linked knifepoint robberies in 2017. Chief Inspector Jim Corbett, from Operation Venice, said: 'These offenders have callously robbed, stolen or burgled from communities, commuters and tourists within London, often using violence and weapons, for their own financial gain. 'We are relentlessly pursuing violent offenders and bringing them to justice, but we need the help of the public as well. Somebody somewhere knows something about these criminals and I urge people to pass any information to us as soon as possible. Left: Costas Michael, 38, wanted for failure to appear in relation to multiple burglaries. Right: Konna Ward, 20, wanted for attempted GBH Left: Martin Ward, 28, wanted for burglary. Right: Mouhameed Zouhair, 22, wanted for burglary Left: Youssef Eldrissi, 27, wanted for violent disorder. Right: Mircea Eduard Musat, 22, wanted for burglary Left: Michaela Alldis, 40, wanted for burglary. Right: Michael Patrick Moloney, 22, wanted for burglary, handling stolen goods, non-payment of fines, and failing to appear Left: Michael O'Leary, 20, wanted for aggravated vehicle taking, burglary, and berach of court order. Right: Paul John Hansen, 30, wanted for recall to prison in connection with burglary 'One phone call could potentially solve or even prevent a crime from happening. All information is treated confidentially and if you don't want to speak to us, you can contact Crimestoppers who are totally independent of the police. 'If you see someone or you know the current location of someone who is wanted, please dial 999. Do not put yourself at risk, or confront the individual. Find an appropriate place to make the phone call where you cannot be seen or heard. 'If you are one of the individuals we wish to speak to, I would suggest handing yourself in to the nearest police station sooner rather than later. Knocking on our door is infinitely better than us knocking on yours!' Anyone who has any information in regard to these wanted individuals is urged to contact police on 999 or local police by dialling 101. Alternatively call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or tweet @MetCC with any information. Left: Omari Campbell Hawkins, 29, wanted for failure to appear in connection with burglary. Right: Anton Krasnioi, 38, wanted for burglary Left: Thomas Rowan, 26, wanted for recall to prison after conviction of numerous driving offences. Right: Hasan Murad, 18, wanted for breach of court order in relation to driving offences Left: Inteiaz Bheehkan, 34, wanted for burglary. Right: Ricardo Prevost, 33, wanted for money laundering, possession with intent to supply, and failing to appear Left: Marjo Marku, 30, wanted for burglary. Right: Leonard Reginald Scott, 52, wanted for burglary Left: Anthony Maughan, 27, wanted for handling stolen goods. Right: Bradley Allingham, 20, wanted for burglary The Met's appeal will also feature on BBCS Crimewatch Roadshow tonight, and operational teams will be working to respond to any live intelligence received. Officers said the appeal will feature more than 200 items of stolen property, including laptops, camera equipment and watches recovered by the Operation Venice team, in the hope of reuniting them with their rightful owners. Anyone who thinks their stolen property may be held by police is asked to email details of proof, including serial numbers, to cms@met.police.uk with the subject line Op Venice appeal. Left: Enrico Martin, 18, wanted for failure to appear in relation to knife-point robberies. Right: Anna Silva, 19, wanted for recall to prison for burglary Left: Bledar Zefi,28, wanted for burglary. Right: Dragos Marcian Ghoic, 34, wanted for failure to appear for a residential burglary Left: Derrick Roye, 47, wanted for breach of a supervision order and burglary. Right: Cameron Thorne, 18, wanted for theft of a motor vehicle Left: Ernes Aydin, 21, wanted for failing to appear for criminal damage. Right: Anthony Phillips, 58, wanted for burglary A Latvian waitress disappeared without trace after leaving a celebrity Spanish nightclub with two Britons including the son of a multi-millionaire, a court was told today at the start of their kidnap trial. CCTV footage showed Agnese Klavina apparently being forced into Westley Capper's Mercedes S63 before the property developer's son drove off from Aqua Mist in Puerto Banus with friend Craig Porter, the court heard. Police investigating the mystery disappearance said they categorised it as potentially 'high-risk' from the start and arrested the British pair after discovering Agnese was last seen leaving the nightspot with them and her phone stopped emitting a signal around five hours later. Essex-born Capper, 41, and Porter, 37 - who are facing up to 12 years in prison if convicted of a crime of unlawful detention - took the witness stand at Malaga's Audiencia Provincial court to deny 'making Agnese disappear' or disposing of her body at sea. Capper told the court she got into his car 'willingly' after they met in the club but refused to answer questions from lawyers acting for Agnese's family. Latvian Agnese Klavina (pictured) disappeared without trace after leaving a celebrity Spanish nightclub with two Britons including the son of a multi-millionaire, a court was told today at the start of their kidnap trial Essex-born Westley Capper (right, in court today) and Craig Porter face up to 12 years in prison if convicted of a crime of unlawful detention. Aqwa Mist doorman Siani Ousmane (left), who is accused of being an accessory to the Britons' alleged crime only by prosecutors for Agnese's family, told the court he had been asked to throw the pair out of the club by his boss because they were causing problems but insisted the missing woman never asked for his help CCTV footage showed Agnese Klavina appeared to be forced into Westley Capper's Mercedes S63 before the property developer's son drove off from Aqua Mist in the upmarket resort of Puerto Banus with pal Craig Porter (right, in court today), the court heard The Latvian-born waitress spent several years living in London before moving to the Costa del Sol around six months before she disappeared in the early hours of September 6, 2014. A three-page state prosecution indictment submitted to the court ahead of the start of today's trial claims the British pair asked Miss Klavina, 30 when she vanished, to accompany them to Capper's home on the exclusive El Madronal residential estate a 20-minute drive from Aqwa Mist. Prosecutor Maria del Carmen Tirado Galvez added in the indictment: 'Westley George Capper took advantage of the fact she was under the effects of alcohol and and her intellectual and volitive faculties were affected and led her to his Mercedes S63 AMG car. 'Agnese caused a fuss as she was led from the door of the nightclub to the car and showed she didn't want to accompany the accused. 'Despite this, Westley George Capper put her into the vehicle which he was driving, while Craig Ian Porter who was in the passenger seat was waiting inside. 'Agnese tried to get out of the car once she was inside but was prevented from doing so by the accused who then sped off towards El Madronal, both of them retaining Agnese Klavina against her will. As well as a 12-year prison sentence if convicted of a crime of unlawful detention, state prosecutors also want Capper (pictured, today) and Porter to pay Agnese's parents Vladimir and Daiga nearly 75,000 compensation Police investigating the mystery disappearance said they categorised it as potentially 'high-risk' from the start and arrested the British pair after discovering Agnese was last seen leaving Aqwa Mist (pictured) with them and her phone stopped emitting a signal around five hours later The Latvian-born waitress spent several years living in London before moving to the Costa del Sol around six months before she disappeared in the early hours of September 6, 2014 'Since then there has been no news of her and the accused have not offered any information on her whereabouts.' Capper, who today wore a white shirt and black trousers, admitted drinking beer and vodka and taking drugs the night Agnese vanished. But he insisted under oath she got into his car 'willingly' after they met in the club and agreed to go back to his home to carry on partying despite failing to persuade a girlfriend she was with to accompany them. He refused to answer questions from lawyers acting for Agnese's family, but told the state prosecutor he was holding her by the waist as they left Aqwa Mist because she was 'drunk and staggering.' Private-school educated Capper, whose father John made his fortune from real estate, said he dropped Agnese off near a roundabout around three minutes' drive from his home after she told him: 'Stop here, I've changed my mind, I want to go home, this is where I live.' Prosecutor Maria del Carmen Tirado Galvez asked Capper during cross-examination: 'Did you not think it's strange that she wanted to be left at 6am in high heels more than two kilometres from her home?' Capper replied: 'It was a well-lit area and I knew the turning near where I dropped her was full of houses. She said that's where her house was and I didn't know at the time she lived any further.' He also insisted a number of 999 calls from his phone the morning Agnese disappeared were made by accident and said he made repeated calls to a British friend called Paul Farmer - who was questioned but never charged - to try to buy drugs off him. The trial, due to last four days but not expected to finish until the start of next month, continues tomorrow. Pictured: Capper (left) and Porter (right) in court today Agnese's mother and sister are among the witnesses expected to give evidence at the trial Police records show he called his friend's phone 14 times between 6.23am and 6.38am before ringing him repeatedly later the same morning. Asked about a suitcase and a carpet seen being taken onto Capper's boat four days after Agnese's disappearance when it was boarded by four men including the two defendants, he said: 'I wasn't carrying a carpet. I was carrying a case but it had clothes in it and bedding for the boat because I was planning to go to Ibiza for the closing parties.' Porter, the first of the two men to take the witness stand, insisted he fell asleep in the passenger seat on the ride home to Capper's house and only discovered Agnese was no longer with them when they reached his friend's home. Asked if he intended to have sex with Agnese by his defence lawyer Inmaculada Garcia, he answered 'no' and said the only reason he did not go straight home despite being 'drunk and tired' was because he did not want to wake his wife and children. He admitted to going out to sea on his friend's boat Geofil II from Puerto de la Duquesa near Gibraltar on September 10, 2014. His defence lawyer asked him: 'On that day did you or anyone you were with dispose of Agnese's body?' Porter, who admitted to seeing missing posters shortly after Agnese vanished but insisted he had never looked at them properly and could not remember what she had looked like, replied: 'No.' Aqwa Mist doorman Siani Ousmane, who is accused of being an accessory to the Britons' alleged crime only by prosecutors for Agnese's family, told the court he had been asked to throw the pair out of the club by his boss because they were causing problems but insisted the missing woman never asked for his help. He described Agnese as a regular at the nightclub, where celebrities including Hollywood star Eva Longoria and boxer Amir Khan have partied and ex-TOWIE star Jake Hall nearly lost a kidney after being stabbed with a broken bottle in June 2016. He insisted he only opened the Mercedes car door for Porter in the hope of a tip to supplement his 51-a-night wage - and said the missing blonde got in the vehicle herself and he did not push her in. A National Police investigator, referred to in court only by his service number 11483 and not his name, said Agnese had a steady job and friends and had given no indication she was unhappy. He told the court: 'The CCTV footage we obtained from the nightclub showed she did not appear to be acting with her full will. 'It surprised us that Westley Capper had decided to leave Agnese where he said he did, on a road where there was not good lighting and no pavement and where it would have been difficult for a young woman in high heels to get to her home some 40 minutes' walk away.' Telling the court she had been prolific on social media up to her disappearance but had not touched her accounts since disappearing, he said Capper's repeated calls to his friend indicated an incident 'of relevance' might have happened in his life. He added: 'The person whose phone Westley Capper was calling, Paul Farmer, didn't want to offer us any explanation about those calls.' As well as a 12-year prison sentence if convicted of a crime of unlawful detention, state prosecutors also want Capper and Porter to pay Agnese's parents Vladimir and Daiga nearly 75,000 compensation. The trial, due to last four days but not expected to finish until the start of next month, continues tomorrow. Daiga and Agnese's sister Gunta are among the witnesses expected to give evidence. Footage shows hair-raising moment a safari guide has a face to face encounter on foot with a wild African elephant in South Africa. When encountering this African bull elephant in the Balule game reserve near Hiedspruit, Steve Baillie kept calm and let it acknowledge him before moving on. Mr Baillie is a highly trained and qualified Nature guide with over 24 years guiding experience with African wildlife and warns others against doing the same thing. Mr Baillie commented: 'Elephants are intelligent, curious animals, and in this case the young bull was more curious and wanted to get a closer look at the people that were sitting near some bushes.' However Mr Baillie also acknowledged that the encounter was incredibly dangerous: 'It is really important to remember that [I am] a highly trained and qualified field guide with over 24 years experience in the bush with wild animals. 'Such encounters can be dangerous and should not be attempted by idiots.' This video was filmed on December 5, 2018. The inquisitive elephant looks down at the guide as he lays on the floor in a non-threatening pose The curious elephant approaches on his own accord as the safari guide lies flat on the ground Flapping its ears the elephant seems to be friendly as he makes his approach A construction worker is suing Howard Schultz after he hurt his back while helping renovate the former Starbucks CEO's home in the Hamptons. Julio Guerrero claims he was forced to wear 'dangerous footwear' while doing construction work in Schultz's $14million East Hampton home in June 2017. Guerrero slipped and fell while wearing the booties on a ladder and cracked his back, the suit claims. A construction worker is suing Howard Schultz after he hurt his back while helping renovate the former Starbucks CEO's home in the Hamptons Julio Guerrero said he suffered 'spinal pathology' and had to under go surgery after falling on a ladder and cracking his back at Schultz's home The construction worker said he suffered 'spinal pathology' and had to undergo surgery for 'severe and permanent personal injuries'. Guerrero is now suing the Howard D Schultz Resident Trust for unspecified damages. Loren Hostek, who represents Schultz's trust, required all workers in the billionaire's home to wear booties, according to the lawsuit. The booties were meant to protect the floors from scratches or dirt. Guerrero had been hired to help renovate Schultz's $14million East Hampton home (pictured) in the summer of 2017 Loren Hostek, who represents Schultz's trust, required all workers in the billionaire's home to wear booties. The booties were meant to protect the floors from scratches or dirt Guerrero slipped and fell while wearing the booties on a ladder, the suit claims. Pictured is a sign Guerrero said was in the home while he was helping renovate the residence Guerrero claims that the ladder was 'inadequate, defective, and improperly placed' and that the workers were exposed to 'dangerous conditions'. Workers were also 'not provided with proper, adequate, and properly placed safety devices and safety equipment', the suit claims. Guerrero's suit comes just days after Schultz was forced to apologize after claiming he had spent more time with veterans than other presidential candidates - despite the fact that two Democratic hopefuls are members of the US Armed Forces. Schultz, a potential independent candidate for the 2020 election, made the gaffe on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show on Thursday. Guerrero (pictured) is suing the Howard D Schultz Resident Trust for unspecified damages When asked about his ability to run the military, he said: 'I probably have spent more time in the last decade certainly than anyone running for president with the military.' 'I've been to Okinawa, I've been to Kuwait. I've been to the national training center in the Mojave Desert.' But Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a lieutenant officer in the Naval Reserve. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 for seven months. And Hawaii Rep Tulsi Gabbard, 37, who launched her campaign for the presidency in January, is a major in Hawaii Army National Guard. She also served in Iraq and Kuwait. Guerrero's suit comes days after Schultz was forced to apologize after claiming he had spent more time with veterans than other presidential candidates - despite the fact that Democratic candidates Pete Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard are both soldiers Schultz made the comments but quickly apologized on Twitter after realizing Buttigieg and Gabbard had served in the armed forces Buttigieg tweeted hours after Schultz's comments: 'I remember a Green Beans Coffee at the exchange at Bagram, and a decent espresso machine run by the Italian NATO element at ISAF HQ. But I don't recall seeing any Starbucks over there.' Schultz later tweeted an apology to Buttigieg and Gabbard. 'Today I said I spent more time with the military than any candidate running for president. That was wrong,' he tweeted on Thursday. 'In that moment I made something that should unite us all, about me. I made a mistake and I apologize.' Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney to President Donald Trump, claims he has not been on television in almost two months because he thought special counsel Robert Mueller's report was 'imminent' and not because the president was upset with his repeated gaffes. 'About a month to a month and a half ago we decided, because we thought the Mueller report was imminent in the next four or five days, that it would be better not to comment until the report was filed or made public,' Giuliani told Axios of his absence on various news programs. 'Obviously those days have now expanded way beyond four or five days,' he added. Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney to President Donald Trump, dismissed speculation that he has not been on TV defending the president because Trump is mad at him He claims he has not been on television in almost two months because he thought special counsel Robert Mueller's (see above) report was 'imminent' The former Mayor of New York City is one of the president's most prominent public defenders. He was last seen on television defending the president on Sunday, January 20th, when he appeared on NBC's 'Meet the Press' and CNN's 'State of the Union.' He did make a short appearance on March 8 hit on the streaming channel of The Hill newspaper. But it was his unimpressive performance on the January 20th Sunday show circuit that enraged Trump allies and officials within the administration. DailyMail.com reported at the time that Giuliani's media blitz, which was filled with a dizzying array of misstatements and hurried clarifications, agitated President Trump and some of his allies, who then raised the possibility that the outspoken presidential lawyer should be sidelined from televised interviews at least temporarily. 'Every time he opens his mouth on TV it's like 'Cleanup on aisle Giuliani!'' a White House official told DailyMail.com on Wednesday. Giuliani told Axios has spent hours with the president in the last month and hasn't heard any complaints about his TV appearances from him. A former federal prosecutor, Giuliani has been the point person on defending the president from any allegations tied to the Russian investigation into the 2016 election and to undermine anything that may come out of the special counsel's investigation. But, in his Jan. 20 'Meet the Press' appearance, Giuliani dramatically altered the timeline regarding discussions about a Trump Tower in Moscow, now asserting they stretched until November 2016. Rudy Giuliani made a significant gaffe in a Jan. 20th 'Meet the Press' appearance that he later clarified Reports at the time indicated President Donald Trump was angry at Giuliani That statement, which suggested that the Trump Organization was engaged in business dealings with Russia up to and beyond the election, ignited a firestorm and then an abrupt walk-back from Giuliani. He issued a statement the next day saying his comments about the project 'were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President. My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions.' Reports at the time indicated the president was angry with Giuliani for the goof and that some aides were worried the former mayor was going on television after drinking. Giuliani has previously insisted he does not have an issue with alcohol, denying to Politico last May that it affected his interviews. He added: 'I may have a drink for dinner. I like to drink with cigars.' Advertisement It was revealed in court last week that actress Felicity Huffman would be released on $1 million bail following her arrest on a single charge of mail fraud in connection to her alleged actions in Operation Varsity Blues. At that time, it was noted that Huffman and her actor husband William H Macy had amassed a real estate portfolio over the years that is now valued at $20 million. DailyMail.com was able to track down these impressive plots, from their cabin in upstate Vermont and Huffmans childhood home outside Aspen to their massive Los Angeles compound, which expanded a few years back after the two purchased their neighbors property. Scroll down for video Humble home: Felicity Huffman has acquired over $20 million worth of real estate with her husband William H Macy over the past two decades (the couple's primary residence in LA, valued at $4 million) Hollywood Hills: They live in the uber exclusive Outpost estates neighborhood in Los Angeles, where they own a $4M home and the neighboring $3.8M property (above) Fall from grace: Huffman's real estate holdings were referenced in court last week when a judge set her bail at $1M for her alleged plot to falsify her daughter's SAT score (the amster bedroom at the neighboring property in LA) Music: Huffman purchased the 4,566-square-foot home with five bedrooms and three bathrooms in the Outpost Estate neighborhood of Los Angeles (above) back in 2013 On trial: Huffman is facing up to five years in prison on a charge of mail fraud (Huffman above after her arrest last Tuesday) The smallest property of the bunch is the one that Macy seems most proud of, and one he owned long before he met Huffman. In the 1980s, the actor purchased a cabin in Vermont near Goddard College, his alma mater. If anyone knows the importance of college it is Macy, as Goddard is where he met the man who would change his life and vice versa in David Mamet. FELICITY HUFFMAN'S REAL ESTATE RICHES Little Woody Creek Estate - $10M Los Angeles Compound - $8M Los Angeles Mediterranean - $2.5M Los Angeles Bungalow - $1M Vermont Cabin - $300K Advertisement The now-famed playwright was teaching at the school at the time, and he and Macy went off to form the Atlantic Theater Company, which Huffman would later join. Macy described the property in a 2006 piece for The New York Times. My little cabin actually started as three cabins. They were part of a motel called Toy Town, and they sat out on Route 2 until Daphne, the woman I bought the place from, moved them. I hooked them together, so although the cabin is only about 400 square feet, it has about 12 roof lines, said Macy. On one side of the largest cabin there was a little door that opened to a fuse box. I didn't have electricity, but I left the door there. One summer, for no good reason, I opened the door and a writhing mass of garter snakes fell out all over my feet. I jumped so high I left one of my shoes. That cabin is also where director Paul Thomas Anderson was staying when he wrote the script for his epic third feature film, Magnolia. He has said in the past it was those very snakes that inspired the film, as he was too afraid to go outside after seeing one on the porch. Their other vacation property is on 27 acres in Colorado, and is the same property where Huffman grew up and where she was later married to Macy. The structure on the property had to be demolished because it was not up to code after Huffman made the purchase, and in 2018 Architectural Digest got a look at the newly remastered property. In the end the changes increased the value of the property to over $10 million, with Huffman sharing the plot with the other women in her family. Thus the old-new house," as the couple calls it, has the same basic structure Huffman grew up with, but expanded and shifted 100 feet to the left of its original location. Now, each of the five upstairs bedrooms contains its own bathroom (a stark contrast to Huffman sharing one bathroom with her six sisters), wrote the reporter of that piece. They also threw out dead space like the formal dining room, opting instead to have roving dinners in several rooms. A weathervane-topped cupola still resides on the roof, but they pried off the pantry door marked with heights of their kids, and moved Huffmans moms bright yellow kitchen cabinets into Macys woodworking shop. That story also notes how Macy did a bit of the carpentry on that home as well, located in Little Woody Creek, just north of Aspen. Macy joked in that interview that the home was the Hollywood version of the original, saying: At one point I went in and said, This thing is more complicated than Versailles! Weve got to simplify it. They even called in a trompe loeil guy who did the switch plates and the covers of the music speakers! Before: The couple own 27 acres in Colorado, which is the same property where Huffman grew up and where she was later married to Macy (the house before renovations above) Tranquil: In the end the changes increased the value of the property to over $10 million, with Huffman sharing the plot with the other women in her family (gazebo on the property above) Rawhide: The structure on the property had to be demolished because it was not up to code after Huffman made the purchase (barn ion property above) Views: Macy joked that the home was the Hollywood version of the original after the remodel (above the home before with mountains in the background) Massive: The entire family has built houses on the property, and Huffman refers to her as the 'old-new house' That was not the couples first time in AD, with the magazine previously profiling the couple in 2000 after they restored a Los Angeles property in the Hancock Park neighborhood. They purchased the 1920s Mediterranean after getting married, and filled it with wood furniture handmade by Macy as well as things the two picked up during their honeymoon in Istanbul. Huffman and Macy also own a small home in Los Angeles' Northridge neighborhood. Then there is the compound. The couple went from critically-acclaimed actors to global superstars almost overnight back in 2004 following the success of Huffmans television series Desperate Housewives. Forbes reported that in the final two seasons of the show alone, Huffman took home $17 million for her Emmy-winning work. Once cameras had stopped rolling, she and her husband purchased a 4,566-square-foot home with five bedrooms and three bathrooms in the Outpost Estate neighborhood of Los Angeles. That is where Marilyn Monroe and Gore Vidal once live, and where Huffman and Macy were already living at the time. The home they purchased was actually next door to their own Hollywood Hills home, giving them a massive three-acre complex with two main houses. Real Estalker reported at the time that the $3.8 million property included a good-sized motor court, a semi-detached three car garage, broad flat lawns in both the front and back and a large swimming pool surrounded by a palm tree dotted terrace. Their own home was purchased in 1998, and has undergone major renovations over the years. It is now valued at $4 million, bringing the cost of the combined compound to just under $8 million. The couple has been renting out that new property for $19,500 per month while living next door in their own massive estate, and a few years prior to recreating Huffmans childhood home had sold a Colorado vacation home for $3.95 million. Starter home: In 2000, the couple restored a Los Angeles property in the Hancock Park neighborhood now valued at $2.5M (above) Bungalow: The cuple also own a home in the northern LA neighborhood of Northridge (above) Quaint: It is unclear if the couple ever use this home (above) or if it was purchased for a family member Hideaway: Macy also came into the relationship with a Vermont cabin now worth $300K (Vermont land where Macy's cabin is located above) Huffmans real estate holdings have proven to be smart investments over the years, unlike the $15,000 she allegedly donated to a charity which federal prosecutors now say was a front to pay off proctors and school officials who were able to assist struggling high school students gain admission to the schools of their - or perhaps more accurately their parents - choice. Federal documents show that while Huffman worked alone to iron out the details when the couple's first daughter allegedly had her SAT changed by a proctor to improve her score, Macy was aware of the situation and the payment came from the couple's joint account. He in turn took a more active role in organizing the younger daughter's fradulent SAT, agreeing to the money and a set place and time much like his wife had done one year prior with their other child. In that case however, the couple's daughter achieved the results she had hoped for on her own and the mastermind behind the operation was informed that she would not be needing to submit a fraudulent score. This does not mean Macy will not be charged down the line in the case. That would explain why Macy was not identified by name in court documents filed Tuesday and instead referred to as Huffman's spouse. Huffman paid a $15,000 'charitable contribution 'to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter,' states the complaint. 'Huffman later made arrangements to pursue the scheme a second time, for her younger daughter, before deciding not to do so,' according to the documents. The charging documents state that Huffman had the site where he daughter took the SATs moved from her own high school to a test center West Hollywood. That was to avoid a teacher who knew the girl, who had also applied for and received extended time to take the test, from being present. The girl's test was then administered by a proctor who had flown in from Tampa and told investigators that he 'facilitated cheating, either by correcting the student's answers after the test or by actively assisting the student during the exam.' That proctor, Mark Ridell, has also been charged. In this case, Huffman's daughter scored a 1420, which was a 400 point improvement from her PSAT results just one year prior. Soon after the proctor was paid $40,000 by Key Worldwide Foundation, the same organization that Huffman would later give a $15,000 donation to, according to the documents. The documents also include the transcript of a phone call between Huffman and the individual who facilitated the test in which she admits that her older daughter had assistance and expresses her desire for her younger daughter to get similar help. In a follow up call just this past December, Huffman and her unnamed spouse spoke about their daughter wanting to get into Georgetown. It was then decided that the young girl would take the exam twice, once on her own and once with help, to ensure she got the score necessary to get her into Georgetown, it is claimed. Then, at the last second, the couple decided not to have their daughter take the test with assistance. Macy appeared in court on Tuesday afternoon to support his wife, and was seen arriving with a lawyer. A Brooklyn man has been arrested after police say he pistol-whipped three revelers during a brawl that broke out outside a Manhattan bar following the St Patrick's Day Parade. Thomas Hickey, 37, has been charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and drug possession in the wake of the melee outside Mulligan's Pub on Madison Avenue shortly before 8pm on Saturday. According to the NYPD, Hickey used a stolen, loaded 9mm pistol to hit two men and a woman in the head during the alcohol-fueled fracas. Thomas Hickey, 37, has been charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and drug possession following a pistol-whipping incident outside Mulligan's Pub in Manhattan (pictured) after the St Patrick's Day parade on Saturday The female victim, aged 42, suffered an injury in the attack that required five stitches, reported the New York Daily News. The two others, ages 40 and 47, were said to have sustained lacerations and were taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatmet. Hickey himself was also hospitalized for injuries he suffered during the drunken post-parade melee, which spilled from the drinking establishment into the street. A portion of the confrontation was captured on cellphone video, which shows people throwing punches and furiously kicking each other in the middle of the street outside the pub. The recording ends with the shot of a man stretched out on the sidewalk, seemingly unconscious. According to unnamed police sources cited by the New York Post, the Smith & Wesson gun Hickey allegedly used to bash the victims in the head had been reported stolen by police in Virginia. Records indicate that Hickey has a history of run-ins with the law dating back to at least 1998 involving charges of marijuana possession and gang assault. At this time, it is unclear what sparked the violent confrontation between Hickey and the trio of victims. Sandwiched between a Pret A Manger eatery and a travel agency, Mulligan's bills itself as an 'authentic Irish pub' that has been in business in Midtown Manhattan for over 30 years. Donald Trump trumpeted a new poll on Monday that suggests Americans are beginning to internalize his near-daily angry drumbeat against Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. The Suffolk University/USA Today poll found 50.3 per cent of Americans who are registered to vote agree with the president that the Mueller probe is a 'witch hunt,' and that Trump has been 'subjected to more investigations than previous presidents because of politics.' At the same time just 28 per cent said the have 'a lot of trust' that Mueller is 'fair and accurate' in his investigation. Fully 82 per cent of Americans want to be able to see his report, however. They want the Justice Department to release 'all of' it. President Donald Trump gloated Monday on Twitter about a new poll that showed his claim about being the victim of Robert Mueller's political 'witch hunt' is gaining traction Mueller is investigating unproven claims that Trump's 2016 campaign operation colluded with Russian agents to tilt the election in his favor Trump took a victory lap in a tweet, projecting his view that the Mueller report won't contain a smoking gun that could lead to impeachment or criminal indictment Trump's favorite TV network, Fox News, featured the Suffolk poll on its air Monday morning Trump launched a three-tweet frontal attack at the special counsel on Friday, saying his entire inquiry into allegations of 2016 campaign collusion with the Kremlin is 'illegal' and never should have begun. Mueller 'should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report,' the president said. That's a view that four federal judges, including one he appointed, shot down last year. 'Wow! A Suffolk/USA Today Poll, just out, states, 50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Muellers investigation is a Witch Hunt. @MSNBC Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out?' he wrote on Twitter. Questions #16, 17, 18 and #20 in the Suffolk University poll, conducted for USA Today, provide a window into Americans' views of the Trump-Mueller clash Mueller is expected to wind down his probe soon and deliver his findings to Attorney General William Barr, who has the authority to decide how much of it to share with Congress and the American public. Trump's argument hinges on recent revelations that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had no information that a crime had been committed when he hired Mueller, a former FBI director, to open his investigation. The president also claimed Friday that a 'Fake Dossier' of unproven and sometimes lurid accusations against him, which was funded by Hillary Clinton's rival campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was the flame that lit Mueller's torch. And he accused Democrats of using 'Russian Collusion' as a jumping-off point to distance themselves from the loss of a winnable presidential campaign. As the day is thought to draw near when Mueller will send his final report to the Justice Department, Trump unleashed a three-tweet attack directly at his quiet nemesis Trump has made similar assertions ad nauseam during the past two years. 'If there was knowingly & acknowledged to be zero crime when the Special Counsel was appointed, and if the appointment was made based on the Fake Dossier (paid for by Crooked Hillary) and now disgraced Andrew McCabe (he & all stated no crime),' he wrote Friday, 'then the Special Counsel should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report.' 'This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime,' he added. 'Russian Collusion was nothing more than an excuse by the Democrats for losing an Election that they thought they were going to win. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO A PRESIDENT AGAIN!' Former Democratic National Committee chief Donna Brazile, who was fired by CNN for tipping off the Hillary Clinton campaign about debate topics in 2016, has joined Fox News Channel as a political commentator. Brazile said Monday she knows fellow liberals will criticize her for joining Fox, but that it's important for people not to retreat to 'safe spaces' where they just talk to people who agree with them. 'There's an audience on Fox News that doesn't hear enough from Democrats,' Brazile said in a statement. Her conduct at CNN was revealed as part of emails exposed by Wikileaks. She had contacted the Clinton campaign about topics that would be covered in a March 2016 town hall when the competition was Bernie Sanders. Donna Brazile, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, has joined Fox News as a political contributor Brazile was fired by CNN after it was learned she fed Hillary Clinton's campaign topics that the then-presidential candidate would be asked about at a March 2016 town hall event in Columbus, Ohio (above) Brazile initially denied the accusation, but admitted to it after the election. She wrote in March 2017 that sending emails to the Clinton campaign was 'a mistake I will forever regret.' At Fox, Brazile will not have anything to do with campaign debates or town halls, said a Fox employee with knowledge of the arrangement who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about contract details. That may be a moot point, anyway: the Democratic National Committee recently said it would not allow Fox News to host any of its upcoming primary debates. She'll now be going to work alongside some people at Fox who hammered her in the aftermath of the leaked questions story. On the day that she admitted to tipping off Clinton's team, guests on the Fox commentary program The Five laid into her. 'She's as corrupt as the day is long,' then-panelist Eric Bolling said. Fox has not given up on hosting any Democratic primary debates or town halls, and wants to counter charges from an explosive New Yorker magazine article that outlined its ties to President Trump. Fox News viewers were angry about Brazile's hiring, which came just days after the network suspended Jeanine Pirro (above) for comments about House Rep. Ilhan Omar Marj Gallun tweeted: 'Youve got to be kidding!! 'What we (the audience) needs is Judge Jeanine back' Another viewer tweeted: 'Watch as they plummet, now they hired Donna Brazile as a contributor and pulled Judge Pirro!' 'Disgusting!!' tweeted another angry user. 'No. 1 Fox News will now take a nose dive. Known liar & cheater Brazile!!' 'There are too many liberal contributors AND hosts on #FoxNews now!' tweeted another angry viewer. 'But I willingly trade a Shep Smith for a Brazile!' Another viewer tweeted: 'I sure dont want to hear her. So count me out along with some of the other libs. If I wanted to hear that nonsense, I watch something else' One angry viewer tweeted: 'Fox pulling Judge Jeanine and bringing on Brazile is like someone breaking up with you but you won't stop calling, so he/she has to take out an order of protection' Brazile said that if Americans learned anything from the 2016 election, 'it is that we can't have a country where we don't talk to those who disagree with our political views.' 'You can be damn sure that I'm still going to be me on Fox News,' she said. 'I'm going to do what I always do, and dish it out straight, exactly as I see it, with just as much New Orleans hot sauce as folks expect.' The decision didn't necessarily sit well with all Fox News viewers, either, particularly in the wake of the apparent suspension of Saturday night host Jeanine Pirro following remarks she made questioning the patriotism of Muslim U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. 'Omar wears the hijab, which according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they wont get molested,' Pirro said during her show on March 10. 'Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?' One angry viewer tweeted: 'Fox pulling Judge Jeanine and bringing on Brazile is like someone breaking up with you but you won't stop calling, so he/she has to take out an order of protection. 'Fox not being subtle about how much they hate their own viewers with their latest moves. 'Cut the cord.' 'Disgusting!!' tweeted another angry user. 'No. 1 Fox News will now take a nose dive. Known liar & cheater Brazile!!' Another viewer tweeted: 'Watch as they plummet, now they hired Donna Brazile as a contributor and pulled Judge Pirro!' 'There are too many liberal contributors AND hosts on #FoxNews now!' tweeted another angry viewer. 'But I willingly trade a Shep Smith for a Brazile!' Shepard Smith hosts an afternoon news program on Fox News. Smith has been known to criticize Trump. Another viewer tweeted: 'I sure dont want to hear her. So count me out along with some of the other libs. 'If I wanted to hear that nonsense, I watch something else.' Marj Gallun tweeted: 'Youve got to be kidding!! 'What we (the audience) needs is Judge Jeanine back. 'What the hell do we need with one more Dem on Fox. I thought that one on every show would suffice the left.' Even Trump over the weekend tweeted that Fox should reinstate Pirro. Some liberals on Twitter were also not happy with Brazile's new career move. David Rothschild tweeted: 'Donna Brazile blocked me years ago for calling her out as Fox News "Democrat" ... guess I was ahead of the curve there!' Amee Vanderpool said she was disappointed by Brazile's jump to Fox News 'Money talks and Donna walks,' tweeted another Twitter user 'Et tu, Donna?' tweeted the official Twitter account of the California Democratic Party Washington Post media critic accused Fox News of 'spreading hatred and Trump sycophancy in copious helpings' The conservative Breitbart News tweeted: 'Well, looks like she won't have access to any debate questions.' Some liberals on Twitter were also not happy with Brazile's new career move. 'Et tu, Donna?' tweeted the California Democratic Party. David Rothschild tweeted: 'Donna Brazile blocked me years ago for calling her out as Fox News "Democrat"... guess I was ahead of the curve there!' Another Twitter user tweeted: 'Money talks and Donna walks.' Erik Wemple, media critic for The Washington Post, tweeted: 'One thing's for sure: Having people like Brazile on the payroll is critical to the Fox News claim that it's an evenhanded news org - even though in its key time slots, it spreads hatred and Trump sycophancy in copious helpings.' Amee Vanderpool tweeted: 'I was so excited when Donna Brazile followed me back because I used to admire her so much. 'But when I questioned her statements during her book tour and asked for an explanation before I judged, she blocked me. 'Taking a job at Fox News is more disappointing than all of that.' Brazile made her debut as a contributor Monday afternoon on Dana Perino's program. 'We're not going to get ahead by yelling at each other and sending nasty tweets,' she said. A reputed Connecticut mobster who federal authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in history has been released from prison. Robert Gentile, 82, returned to his home on Friday after serving a four-year prison sentence for unrelated weapons charges. Gentile continues to maintain that he knows nothing about the unsolved theft of $500millon worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Thirteen masterpieces, including a rare Rembrandt painting, were stolen from the museum in 1990. Connecticut mobster Robert Gentile (pictured in 2017), who federal authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in history, was released from prison Gentile continues to maintain that he knows nothing about the unsolved theft of $500millon worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Pictured is where Rembrandt's 'The Storm on the Sea of Gaililee' used to be on display at the museum 'I had nothing to do with the paintings,' Gentile said in a phone interview from his Manchester home on Monday. 'It's a big joke.' But Gentile did blame federal prison officials for worsening health problems that have left him unable to get around except in a wheelchair. And he also criticized law enforcement officials for seizing his money and damaging his home during a raid in the weapons case. 'I'm all crippled up,' he said. 'They had me in a bed for a year chained up. I should have never been in jail. It's a joke.' Federal prison officials say there is no evidence to support the mistreatment allegations. Prosecutors have said they believe Gentile has some information on the stolen paintings. The art heist took place on March 18, 1990, when two men masquerading as Boston police officers got into the museum by telling a security guard they were responding to a report of a disturbance. Gentile, 82,(pictured in 2015 during his trial) returned to his home on Friday after serving a four-year prison sentence for unrelated weapons charges Empty frames from which thieves took 'Storm on the Sea of Galilee' and 'The Concert' by Vermeer, remain on display at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston The guard and a co-worker were handcuffed and locked in the basement while the thieves made off with the art. Missing pieces include Rembrandt's only known seascape, 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,' and Vermeer's 'The Concert,' one of fewer than 40 known paintings by the 17th-century Dutch painter. The FBI told The Associated Press in 2015 that two suspects - both Boston criminals with ties to organized crime - were deceased. Investigators believe the paintings moved through mob circles to Connecticut and Philadelphia, where the trail went cold. FBI agents first searched Gentile's home in 2012, discovering police hats, badges, $20,000 in cash hidden inside a grandfather clock, and a 'veritable arsenal' of weapons, according to the Hartford Courant. 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee' (pictured), Rembrandt's only known seascape, remains missing today Vermeer's 'The Concert,' one of fewer than 40 known paintings by the 17th-century Dutch painter, was also stolen They also found a list of pieces that had been stolen from the Gardner, along with their estimated worth on the black market. Gentile claimed at the time that the list was likely from an associate and that he had planned to trick two people who were attempting to buy art stolen from the museum. But another gangster's widow then claimed that she had seen her husband give Gentile two paintings from the Gardner. A polygraph test also found that there was a 99.9 percent probability that Gentile was lying when he denied he had ever possessed a painting from the museum or knew where the stolen paintings were hidden. Federal agents searched Gentile's home three times, including with ground-penetrating radar. A. Ryan McGuigan, Gentile's lawyer, believes the searches were all actually efforts to find the paintings and other evidence of the heist. FBI agents first searched Gentile's home (pictured) in 2012, discovering police hats, badges, $20,000 in cash hidden inside a grandfather clock, and a 'veritable arsenal' of weapons Federal agents searched Gentile's home three times, including with ground-penetrating radar The weapons charges were filed after authorities found several firearms at Gentile's home, which he was prohibited from possessing as a previously convicted felon. Gentile pleaded guilty in 2015 to possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. He was sentenced last year to four years and was credited with time served. The mobster has claimed his sentence was part of a long-running strategy by the FBI to threaten him with prison time so that he would offer information about the heist. But authorities said that Gentile talked about the stolen paintings with fellow prisoners and once told an undercover FBI agent he had access to two of the paintings and could negotiate the sale of each for $500,000. The first six months of Gentile's supervised release must be spent under electronically monitored house arrest. A $10million reward offered by the museum for all 13 paintings' safe return remains unclaimed. NYT says Bin Salman created secret team against Khashoggi Says some members took part in journalist's murder (ANSAmed) - WASHINGTON, MARCH 18 - The New York Times reported on Sunday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman authorised a secret campaign to silence dissenters more than a year before the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Riyadh consulate in Istanbul in October. Citing American officials who have read classified intelligence reports on the campaign, the NYT Times said the campaign used techniques such as surveillance, kidnapping, detention and the torture of Saudi citizens. It said at least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the same team that killed and dismembered Mr. Khashoggi. It said that suggests his killing was "a particularly egregious part of a wider campaign to silence Saudi dissidents". Members of the team that killed Mr. Khashoggi, which American officials called the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017, the New York Times said. According to New York Times sources, some of the operations involved forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing prisoners in palaces belonging to the crown prince and his father, King Salman. It said one of the Saudis detained, a university lecturer in linguistics who wrote a blog about women in Saudi Arabia, tried to kill herself last year after being subjected to psychological torture, according to American intelligence reports and others briefed on her situation. The rapid intervention team had been so busy that last June it asked a top adviser to Bin Salman whether the crown prince would give the team bonuses for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the NYT said. Details about the operations were supplied by American officials who read classified intelligence assessments about the Saudi campaign against the dissidents, as well as Saudis with direct knowledge of some of the "missions", the NYT said. It said a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said Riyadh "takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously." The NYT's revelations once again put US President Donald Trump and his administration in a bad light, as the president has thus far supported Bin Salman's claim that the crown prince had nothing to do with Khashoggi's killing.(ANSAmed). Coley McCraney, 45, who was arrested over the weekend in connection to the cold case murders of two teenagers is an 'outstanding' individual, according to his lawyer A 45-year-old man who was arrested over the weekend in connection to the cold case murders of two teens, is an 'outstanding' individual, according to his lawyer. Coley McCraney, 45, was arrested on Saturday and has been accused of killing 17-year-olds Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley in 1999. His attorney David Harrison says his client is an 'outstanding member' of the community and is cooperating with law enforcement. Harrison said it's going to be difficult to find a jury that's not already aware of the case and that he might have to ask for another venue to get a fair trial. Harrison is known for several high profile cases including representing Ronnie Gilley during Gilleys Alabama bingo trial. Meanwhile, District Attorney Kirke Adams has said he plans to seek the death penalty against McCraney. Adams says McCraney can be prosecuted for capital murder in the killings. He told a news conference on Monday that one of the multiple capital counts against the man includes a charge that one of the victims was sexually assaulted during her killing in 1999. The prosecutor said he decided years ago to pursue the slayings as a death-penalty case. A DNA breakthrough led to McCraney's arrest on Saturday in connection to the cold case murders. Tracie Hawlett (left) and J.B. Beasley (right), both 17, were found dead in J.B.'s car in 1999. Their bodies had been put in the trunk and they had both been shot in the head The two 17-year-old girls were found dead in the trunk of J.B.'s car in 1999, a day after being reported missing by their families. They vanished on their way home from a party in Ozark, Alabama. The girls' families believe they had got lost on their way home and stopped at a gas station when they were attacked. Both girls had been shot once in the head and one of them had been raped. Police collected DNA from the scene but for years they had been unable to find a match to a potential suspect. However, a recent search found a match to one of McCraney's relatives who had voluntarily submitted their DNA to find out more about their ancestry. Investigators traced it back to the man, who now lives in a different city but who once lived where the girls' bodies were found. McCraney was taken into custody at around 6.30pm on Saturday. No additional details about his arrest or his life were immediately available. The girls' bodies were found in the trunk of J.B.'s vehicle. Above is the crime scene in 1999 The girls' families, who have been desperately looking for answers for years, have not yet commented on his arrest. It is not yet known which of McCraney's relatives' DNA led police to him. But McCraney reportedly has at least one child whose mother filed a paternity petition against him in 1998. She claimed McCraney was the father of her child who was born in September of that same year. The order for the DNA submission was made in July 1999, but McCraney never responded to it, according to the Dothan Eagle. McCraney has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of rape. He is being held at the Dale County Jail with no bond. A different suspect was cleared after his DNA didn't match that from semen found on Beasley. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson met with the founder of My Pillow an an author of Chicken Soup for the Soul in 12017, but held just one regular weekly staff meeting, calendars obtained from HUD reveal. In addition to meeting with My Pillow founder Michael Lindell who met with President Trump during the campaign and helped boost him on the campaign trail Carson met with an author of the popular Chicken Soup franchise, NBC News reported. According to the schedules, which were obtained by watchdog group American Oversight, Carson held just one weekly staff meeting during the period. However, he did sometimes manage to sneak out of Washington for visits to his West Palm Beach home. On one Friday, May 5, 2017, Carson managed to make it out of the office at 1:30 pm. HUD Secretary Dr. Benjamin Carson's official schedules reveal he made multiple trips to Florida in 2017, and met with people including My Pillow founder Mike Lindell On a July 7 Friday, he was able to catch a 2 pm flight to West Palm. The records show a dozen weekend trips to Florida during a period between April and November of 2017. HUD defended the secretary's schedule in a response to the story. 'Almost every day the Secretary arrives at HUD by 7:30 a.m. to read over briefing material and prepare for meetings and travel,' an agency spokes,' according to the story. 'In 2017, the Secretary traveled to over 27 communities and met with more than 40 elected officials in their communities to discuss HUD business. In 2018, his travel and meetings increased and he visited more than 45 communities and met with over 60 elected officials in their communities." Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson Donald Trump tours tornado ravaged communities, Alabama - 08 Mar 2019. His official schedules reveal he made multiple trips to Florida in 2017 My Pillow founder Michael Lindell speaks at a campaign rally held by President Donald Trump on October 4, 2018 at Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, Minnesota before the Midterms. Lindell dined with Carson in 2017 The group American Oversight obtained the schedules Carson met with author Mark Victor Hansen and was jointed by Energy Secretary Rick Perry Among those trips were those focused on hurricane victims. Carson met with 'My Pillow' founder Mike Lindell, who met with Trump when he was a candidate, in May of 2017 in Carson's office. The purpose was to discuss 'any synergies between HUD and the Lindell Foundation.' Lindell is also a Trump family friend and entrepreneur who is tied in with key evangelical figures including Jerry Falwell, Jr. It also wasn't immediately clear why he met with Mark Viktor Hansen, one of the authors of the popular book series. Carson himself wrote books including 1990s 'Gifted Hands,' although Trump ridiculed him for it during the primary. The meeting with Hansen also included Energy Secretary Rick Perry, though no further description was given of the event. The documents were obtained after American Oversight filed a lawsuit to procure them. The three calendars that emerged were not in sequence, so NBC put them together to produce an analysis. A man nearly died after he was the victim of a random Reservoir Dogs-style attack in which a gang tried to slice off his ear as a trophy. Andrew Taylor, 37, was out with his friend Rhys Pepper, 27, when the pair were confronted by a group of around 20 people in Cornwall. They attacked Mr Taylor with a knife, leaving him covered in blood with a wound just millimetres away from a major artery. Andrew Taylor, 37, was out in a pub in Cornwall when he was attacked by a group who tried to slice off his ear The wound was millimetres away from a major artery and was left needing stitches following the attack Mr Taylor, who runs a martial arts equipment business, says he doesn't know why he and his friend were attacked but believes they wanted his ear as some kind of memento. He was left with multiple cuts needing stitches following the attack outside The Red Lion in St Columb Major in Cornwall, and he fears going back to the town where his family has lived for 15 years. Mr Pepper, a heavy plant operator from Plymouth, Devon, broke his nose and required surgery to rebuild his face. Mr Taylor said: 'We just sat in the Red Lion pub and got a few drinks. Then it was time for the pub to close. 'As we walked to the entrance, everyone else had vacated. 'Then, someone rugby tackled Rhys from inside the pub, out into the car park, and then they all descended on him. 'We reckon there were 15 to 20 people, it wasn't just men, there were females there as well. I didn't see any of this because I went to pick up my shopping. 'Then as I walked out the door, bang, someone tried to cut my ear off. 'It just felt like a punch, it didn't feel like a knife. He tried to chop my ear off. Mr Taylor, who runs a martial arts equipment business, says he doesn't know why he and his friend were attacked but believes they wanted his ear as some kind of memento A staff member of the Red Lion pub has been accused of turning a blind eye to the attack and the pub has refused to comment on the attack 'I turned to the member of staff holding the door open and said, 'what the f*ck have we done to deserve this'?' Mr Taylor believes they may have been attacked because the gang thought they weren't local. He claims that after the first blow, a staff member closed the side door and locked it, instead of trying to help. He added: 'I then knocked one guy out, and he's dropped. More then descended to me away from Rhys. 'I've managed to keep them all in front of me, but Rhys had them all around him. In the lane, I took a second knife strike. Then it started to really bleed out. 'Rhys was still scrapping, trying to fend for himself. All we were thinking about was trying to get out of there. 'Rhys managed to join me, and then they stopped. We think it's because of the CCTV camera.' Mr Taylor sustained a swollen face, and a large 2.5cm cut on his ear and neck. He added: 'One wound was about 2cm away from the main artery, I was that close to dying. I think they wanted to cut my ear off as a trophy. Mr Taylor sustained a swollen face, and a large 2.5cm cut on his ear and neck Devon and Cornwall Police are appealing for witnesses for the incident which happened on February 23 'They confirmed it was a knife at the hospital. Rhys had to have his face completely rebuilt and fixed, and he had a gash over one of his eyes.' The pair recognised some of the attackers and have given names to the police. Mr Taylor, who isn't confident of getting justice, said: 'If nothing gets done, am I safe to go to the Co-op? 'After it happened I walked around St Columb, and I was looking at every person, wondering if I might be attacked. 'You just don't know. They all know me, but I don't know all of them. There were just too many.' Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident, which happened on Saturday, February 23 between 11.30pm and 11.50pm. Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed that investigations are continuing and that no arrests have been made at this time. The Red Lion did not comment on the incident because of the ongoing police investigation. Theresa Mays Brexit headache has been made worse by a senior Brussels politician who suggested the EU should not consider agreeing to delay Brexit without a fresh vote by MPs. After John Bercow staged a major intervention in the UKs attempts to withdraw from the EU Guy Verhofstadt suggested it was time for cross-party talks to end the deadlock. The former prime minister of Belgium and current European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator said on Twitter: Why should the EU27 even consider a #Brexit extension this week, if the UK Parliament vote on the deal is cancelled? 'Where are the cross-party talks? I will keep saying this; it is time for country to come before party! Last week Guy Verhofstadt said he was against an extension to Article 50 of 'one day, one week, even 24 hours, if it's not based on a clear opinion of the House of Commons for something' Today he reiterated his opposition, suggesting it was time for Theresa may to sit down properly with opposition parties. She has previously met with Jeremy Corbyn among others, with no success If the EU was to refuse to extend the Article 50 period it is conceivable that the UK could crash out of the EU on March 29 without a deal. This is despite MPs voting last week to oppose such an outcome, because the votes were not legally binding. While many MPs would like the UK to leave without a deal even senior members of the European Research Group of Tory Brexiteers have accepted that it can't happen on March 29 without massive disruption for businesses. Several, including the ERG's Steve baker, tabled an amendment last week that would have allowed a no-deal Brexit but delayed it until May to give firms time to prepare. The EU leaders are said to generally accept the idea of an extension to Article 50 but remain divided over its length. They are expected to make a decision at the European Council when it meets in Brussels on Thursday. The furore came after one of Theresa May's closest European allies mocked her resilience over Brexit by likening her to a Monty Python character who does not know when to quit. Mark Rutte (pictured yesterday in Amsterdam) made the comment on Dutch television while campaigning in Dutch local elections Monty Python's Black Knight refuses to admit defeat after a duel against Graham Chapman's King Arthur, suggesting they call it a draw despite losing all his limbs Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte likened Mrs May to the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In the classic 1975 comedy film the character loses his arms and legs in a duel with King Arthur but refuses to admit defeat by saying: 'I've had worse.' According to Bloomberg Mr Rutte, who is campaigning in local elections in the Netherlands, told the country's WNL op Zondag television programme: 'I have a lot of respect for Theresa May - she reminds me occasionally of that Monty Python character where all his arms and legs are cut off and then says to his opponent: let's call it a draw.' Theresa may arrived back in Downing Street today knowing she must get the DUP behind her Brexit deal for it to have any chance of being approved by MPs His comments came as it was reported Theresa May could now shelve the third vote on her deal that had been expected on Tuesday, and make her next move asking the EU for a Brexit extension after several rebel Brexiteer MPs including Boris Johnson refused to back her. The Prime Minister is said to prefer calling off a third vote on her deal if she 'has no chance of winning' it before Thursday's EU summit, and if she has not secured backing by then will ask EU leaders to agree a delay of Brexit of up to two years. She could then use that prospect to crank up the pressure on her MPs by holding a vote just days before Britain had been due to leave on March 29. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt with his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney at the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Monday Mr Rutte told WNL op Zondag he respected Theresa May but thought the UK was 'in a very bad position right now'. And he revealed that he was losing patience with Britain over the possible delay to Brexit, adding: 'If the British ask for a delay, interesting, but that was also my irritation this week - what do you want with that delay?' Meanwhile in another snub to Britain France's Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau is reported to have named her cat 'Brexit' because of his antics, Reuters reported. The agency cited her telling Journal du Dimanche: 'He wakes me up miaowing like mad because he wants to be let out. 'As soon as I open the door, he stands in the middle, unsure whether he wants to go out or not. 'When I put him out, he gives me an evil look.' France's Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau is reported to have named her cat 'Brexit' because of his nocturnal antics Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Monday the government still had work to do to secure parliament's backing in a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, and that it would be redoubling its efforts to get there. Mr Hunt, who is in Brussels meeting with foreign ministers including his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney, told the BBC: 'There are some cautious signs of encouragement... but there is a lot more work to do. 'The risk of no deal, at least as far as the UK parliament is concerned, has receded somewhat, but the risk of Brexit paralysis has not ... That's why we will be redoubling our efforts this week.' Asked if the vote would be held on Tuesday he said: 'We hope it will, but we need to be confident we can get the numbers. Former US president George W. Bush on Monday called immigration a 'blessing and a strength,' as lawmakers tussled with Donald Trump over border wall funding. The Republican, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight after leaving office in 2009, did not explicitly criticize Trump or the border wall policy. Speaking at a naturalization ceremony for 51 new American citizens at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas, the nation's 43th president called for reform of 'outdated and ineffective' immigration laws. He also emphasized: 'Borders are not arbitrary and they need to be respected.' 'Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength,' Bush said in prepared remarks. Pledge: George W. Bush led a naturalization ceremony at his presidential library in Dallas, TX, swearing in 51 new Americans and reciting the pledge with his wife Laura at his side Welcome: 'Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength,' Bush said to the 51 Americans being naturalized Who could he mean? George W. Bush said politicians should 'dial down the rhetoric' but never mentioned his successor Donald Trump 'I hope those responsible in Washington can dial down the rhetoric, put politics aside and modernize our immigration laws soon.' Trump last week referred to illegal immigration at the southern border as 'an invasion.' Bush's remarks came as Congress and the White House were gearing up for a court fight over Trump's declarations of an emergency to fund construction of a border wall at the US-Mexico border. Congress had refused to appropriate money for the project -- a central promise of the Republican's 2016 election campaign. In an embarrassing rebuke to Trump, some fellow Republicans joined Democrats in voting to terminate his declaration of an emergency. Trump vetoed the legislation Friday. Opponents, who accuse Trump of executive overreach and hyping the problem on the border, could now fight the emergency measure in court. Advertisement Speaker John Bercow threw a huge new spanner into Theresa May's hopes of passing her deal today by ruling she cannot hold a third vote on her deal. The incendiary intervention means the Prime Minister's slim hopes of passing her deal in time for an EU Council on Thursday have faded even further. Mrs May now faces begging the European Union for a delay to Brexit without a clear plan for what to do with any extension - making a much longer postponement far more likely. The PM had hoped to win backing for her deal on the eve of the summit and be able to ask for a short delay to pass laws for the deal. In practice Mrs May's hopes for winning on her tattered deal had looked faint anyway - though Mr Bercow's move will be seen in Brussels as further evidence of Britain's Brexit chaos. If Mrs May does manage to come with with agreement for delay there will have to be votes in the Commons and Lords next week to agree the new date. MPs will not be allowed to pass amendments to change the date - they will be told to agree or disagree with whatever Mrs May comes home with. John Bercow's incendiary intervention means the Prime Minister's slim hopes of passing her deal in time for an EU Council on Thursday have faded even further What has John Bercow done today? Commons Speaker Mr Bercow ruled the Government cannot bring back the same deal for a third vote if there are no changes to it. The move appears to end Theresa May's hopes of winning support for her deal on the eve of this week's EU Council. Why has the Speaker done this? Mr Bercow was asked last week if Commons rules allowed the Government to repeatedly bring back the deal in the hope of changing minds. In his response today, the Speaker cited rules dating back to 1604 - and last used in 1920 - to say it could not. Is the Speaker correct? There are differing view on the issue. Former Commons clerk David Natzler said last year the rules are not designed to frustrate Government business. A different part of the Commons rulebook suggests that a ruling on whether a motion is the same as one already rejected MPs should be subject to a vote. Even if the Speaker has procedural grounds for his ruling the grandstanding way it was delivered has caused fury inside Government. Does it change anything? Politically possibly not - Mrs May already looked to be fighting a losing battle to get support for her deal and appeared poised to cancel hopes of a new vote on the deal anyway. So there needs to be a delay. Why is Brexit day set on March 29, 2019? There are two reasons. The first because it is the second anniversary of Britain formally telling the EU it wished to leave by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. This triggered a two-year divorce negotiation that will expire on March 29. The second reason is because British laws on leaving specify 11pm on March 29, 2019, as 'exit day'. Writing this into law triggered a political fight in the Commons because it was not actually necessary but the Government insisted on doing it. What needs to happen for the date to be changed? There are again two processes. First, Theresa May will need to go to Brussels and get political agreement for delay and the terms on which it happens. The second is British law will need to be changed to amend the date of Brexit. This will require a vote in both Commons and Lords. What will happen at the EU Council? Whatever the terms of delay, the Prime Minister will ask EU leader for what she wants and then they will make a decision - without her. Brexit issues are decided only by the 27 remaining states, without a British say. A delay to Brexit must be agreed unanimously - all EU states have a full veto. Mrs May has said if MPs have passed her deal, she will ask EU for a short extension of a couple of months to sort out UK law. If MPs have not passed the deal, she will have to ask for a 'much longer' extension. What needs to happen in the UK? Once a new date is agreed, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 has to be amended. This must be done via Statutory Instrument - a form of 'secondary legislation' that changes the law without going through the full parliamentary process. A minister will table the SI in Parliament setting out the new date for Brexit. The law says it must be done via the 'affirmative' procedure - this means there will have to be a straight vote in both the Commons and Lords, with no possibility of amendment. Whatever the terms of delay, the Prime Minister will ask EU leaders for what she wants and then they will make a decision - without her - in the lurid summit room in Brussels (file) Will it happen? At this point, almost certainly. We know from last week there are enough votes in the Commons to block no deal. The EU also does not want no deal and is thought likely to agree both versions of the extension plan at the summit. Can a no deal Brexit still happen on March 29? Yes - if there is no political agreement on changing the date at the EU Council or Parliament rejects the SI, Brexit will still happen as the legal default. Could Brexit happen on March 29 with the deal? No - even if MPs pass the deal this week there is no practical way to get all the necessary laws through in time. Delay could in theory be limited to a couple of weeks, potentially. Mexican authorities have arrested seven members of a human trafficking ring that promised to smuggle migrants into the US but instead held them ransom. A Thursday night raid at a safe house in the state of Baja California led to the rescue of two migrants being held by the gang, Law enforcement agents arrested six men, who have only been identified by their first names: Pablo Ivan, Sergio, Marco Antonio, Juan Carlos, Guillermo Raul and Pedro Antonio. Authorities also apprehended one woman, who was identified as Berenice. Mexican law enforcement agents carried out a raid at a safe house in Mexicali, a city in the state of Baja California, and arrested six men and a woman suspected of leading a human trafficking ring that charged migrants $12,000 for illegally crossing into the United States before they kidnapped them and held them for ransom until their families paid up. A Google map shows the home (bottom right) that two migrants were saved during a raid Thursday in Mexicali, a Mexican city located south of California The suspects operated out of the General Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada International Airport in Mexicali. They would zero in on unsuspecting people and sold them on the idea of illegally transporting them across the southern United States border where they could reach the American dream. The criminal gang charged the victims $12,000 with the promise dropping off everyone at the homes of their families in the U.S. However, once the proposal was accepted, the smugglers would completely flip the plans when it finally came down to smuggling them into California, according to official reports. A February raid in Mexicali resulted in the rescue of nine migrants (pictured) who were also sequestered inside a different stash house. It is unknown if both cases are related The human traffickers would then request phone numbers from the migrants. Upon reaching out to their family members, the victims were threatened and handcuffed until their relatives came up with the ransom request. In February, Mexican officials arrested two men after they kidnapped nine migrants, who had their hopes set on making it into the United States. It is unknown if both cases are related. Meghan McCain slammed President Donald Trump on Monday for having a 'pathetic life' for spending his weekend tweeting criticism of her father, the late Sen. John McCain. 'He spends his weekend obsessing over great men, because he knows it, and I know it, and all of you know it, he will never be a great man,' McCain said on ABC's 'The View.' 'My father was his kryptonite in life. He was his kryptonite in death,' she added. Meghan McCain escalated her response to President Trump's criticism of her late father, saying the president has a 'pathetic life' President Trump attacked the late Sen. John McCain twice this weekend on Twitter McCain, who is a co-host of the ABC program, said when she saw the president's tweets she thought that 'your life is spent on your weekends not with your family, not with your friends, but obsessing, obsessing over great men you could never live up to.' 'That tells you everything you need to know about his pathetic life right now,' she added. 'I genuinely feel bad for his family. I can't imagine having a father that does this on the weekends.' Trump attacked the late senator twice this weekend on Twitter, focusing on McCain's ties to the infamous Steele dossier that contains the unverified allegations the Russians have blackmail material on the president. 'So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) 'last in his class' (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!, the president wrote on Sunday. McCain was actually fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy. On Saturday, Trump said McCain leaking the 'dirty dossier' was 'dark stain' on his legacy. 'Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier 'is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain,'' Trump wrote, attributing the quote to, Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. Trump continued, referring to John McCain's vote on the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare: 'He had far worse 'stains' than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!' McCain's 'no' vote on the GOP effort to take down Obama's signature law stopped the effort in its tracks. The president and McCain had a testy relationship when the senator was alive leading to McCain not inviting Trump to his funeral, where the former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush gave the eulogies. In regards to Trump's allegations, there is no evidence that McCain shared the Steele dossier before the election. Meghan McCain poses with her father, Senator John McCain on The View in October 2017 The late senator did hand-deliver a copy of it to then-FBI Director James Comey in December of 2016, after the election, as McCain wrote in his book 'The Restless Wave.' 'The allegations were disturbing, but I had no idea which if any were true. I could not independently verify any of it, and so I did what any American who cares about our nation's security should have done,' McCain wrote. 'I did what duty demanded I do.' Meghan McCain also slapped back at the president on Saturday, saying he will never be loved. 'No one will ever love you the way they loved my father.... I wish I had been given more Saturday's with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine?' she tweeted on Saturday. On Sunday, Trump retweeted a tweet from a supporter who wrote that 'millions of Americans truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain.' John McCain died at the age of 81 after battling brain cancer. He made explicit his desire that President Trump not attend his funeral, and also dis-invited his 2008 running mate, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. His beef with President Trump dates at least back to the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump criticized him for being taken prisoner in Vietnam. 'He's not a war hero,' Trump said in July 2015, sarcastically quipping: 'He's a war hero because he was captured.' Then, he added, 'I like people that weren't captured.' A former Pennsylvania pediatrician has been sentenced to at least 79 years in prison for sexually assaulting 31 children, most of them patients, in a case that state medical regulators failed to act on nearly two decades ago. Dr. Johnnie Barto was sentenced on Monday on dozens of counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors say he spent decades abusing boys and girls in the exam room at his pediatric practice in western Pennsylvania and at local hospitals, with his victims typically ranging in age from 8 to 12. One of Barto's victims was an infant. Nineteen people gave victim impact statements, both in person and through a prosecutor, describing how Barto caused them to feel hopelessness and despair. It also caused depression and anxiety and instilled a fear of doctors. Barto's wife, Linda Barto, was among them. 'He has been lying to me about everything for all of the 52 years I have known him. ... He spent his whole sinister life lying and sneaking around, so he could carry on his abuse uninterrupted,' she said. Dr. Johnnie Barto, 71, was sentenced to 79 years on Monday for sexually abusing 31 children in his pediatric practice in western Pennsylvania. He is pictured entering court on Monday She said her heart was heavy for the victims. The attorney general's office had asked for 31 to 62 years in prison. Barto declined to make a statement. He pleaded guilty in December to some counts and no contest to others. He has been jailed pending sentencing. Prosecutors say he spent decades abusing boys and girls in the exam room at his pediatric practice in western Pennsylvania and at local hospitals, with his victims typically ranging in age from 8 to 12 His lawyer, David Weaver, has said Barto opted to enter pleas, so 'the healing could begin for his family, his victims and for himself.' Authorities had a chance to stop Barto in 2000 when he appeared before the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine on administrative charges that he molested two young girls in the 1990s. But regulators threw out the case and allowed him to keep practicing medicine, saying the allegations were 'incongruous to his reputation.' At the time, the prominent pediatrician had a lot of support in the community. Barto, now 71, went on to molest at least a dozen more young patients before his arrest in January 2018, according to the state attorney general's office. The medical board's 7-2 decision to let him off the hook in 2000 sparked outrage from victims and at least one former board member. Vivian Lowenstein, who had voted to strip Barto of his license, told The Associated Press last year that she was 'sick about it' and that the case was as an example of how Pennsylvania's physician-regulators typically looked out for their own. The Pennsylvania Department of State, which provides legal and administrative support to the board and prosecutes administrative cases of doctor misconduct, said last year that 'the Board of Medicine takes allegations of sexual misconduct by professional licensees very seriously.' Regulators have not commented on the board's 2000 decision. One of his victims, Lee Ann Berkebile, condemned the board last year following Barto's arrest. Authorities had a chance to stop Barto in 2000 when he appeared before the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine on administrative charges that he molested two young girls in the 1990s. But regulators threw out the case and allowed him to keep practicing medicine One of his victims, Lee Ann Berkebile, said she was four years old when she was abused by Barto in 1994 'It could've stopped with me,' the now 28-year-old told The Associated Press. 'Instead they chose to cover for him and stick up for him, and now look what happened. All you did was let a sicko touch other girls.' Berkebile was just four years old when her mother took her to see the pediatrician in 1994 for a runny nose and cough. At the end of the appointment, Barto offered to walk Lee Ann down the hall to a medicine closet. It was then, Berkebile said, that Barto shoved his hand down her pants and inserted his finger in her vagina. The little girl immediately told her mother, who went to the county child welfare agency and the case was referred to Johnstown police. A sergeant interviewed Lee Ann and her parents but did not file charges, citing her age, according to documents obtained from state archives. Her father, Sam McAdams, believes it was Barto's prominence, the strong support he had in Johnstown and the family's own poverty that helped him avoid criminal prosecution. 'We got treated like we were garbage for even saying something or suggesting something,' McAdams said. Sheriff's officials say a Florida man was killed when the car he was working on fell on top of him. Monroe County Sheriff's spokesman Adam Linhardt said in an email that Amer Izzo Yasin, 38, was found by his roommate on Sunday afternoon outside their home in Big Pine Key. The roommate told deputies he had left home around 10am Sunday and returned after 5pm. He found Yasin under a 2013 Hyundai Genesis that was being lifted by hydraulic jacks. The Big Pine Key, Florida, home of Amer Izzo Yasin, 38, who was found pinned down by the car he was working on outside by his roommate on Sunday Yasin was working on a 2014 Hyundai Genesis, like the one seen here in this file photo, when a jack apparently failed dropping the vehicle on him Deputies said one of the jacks apparently fell, causing the car to crush Yasin. Linhardt said the roommate tried to pull Yasin out from under the car, but was unable to get him free. He then called 911, but paramedics declared him dead at the scene. There were no signs of foul play, according to the sheriff, and an autopsy is currently pending. J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the American economy is divided between those who profit from big corporations and those who are losing out. 'I don't want to be a tone deaf CEO; while the company is doing fine, it is absolutely obvious that a big chunk of (people) have been left behind,' Dimon said during an event at the bank's New York City headquarters. Dimon, who is worth $1.3 billion, was speaking about a new $350 million program the bank designed to help create job opportunities for low-income Americans in under-served communities, according to CNBC News. 'Forty percent of Americans make less than $15 an hour,' he said. 'Forty percent of Americans can't afford a $400 bill, whether it's medical or fixing their car. Fifteen percent of Americans make minimum wages, 70,000 die from opioids (annually).' 'If you travel around to most neighborhoods where companies live, they're doing fine,' he added. 'So we've kind of bifurcated the economy.' Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, said Monday that the American economy is divided between those who profit off of big corporations and those who are losing out. He is shown here in a file phototeh World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2016 Dimon has long been vocal about his concerns about the declining labor force participation rate a measure of how many Americans are available for work (employed and unemployed) as a percentage of the population. In January the labor force participation rate was 63.2 percent. It's been going down in recent years as more workers give up looking for work after extended periods of unemployment. Dimon has also been critical of the education system, saying it's not preparing students to be part of the workforce of the future. Dimon said that tackling the flawed education system will require leadership from companies like J.P. Morgan, in partnership with local organizations, to teach youth new skills outside of the traditional university setting. He also said Monday that the education system is 'broken' and that J.P. Morgan Chase's philanthropic arm intentionally stopped donating to money to American universities in favor of efforts like those announced he had announced. 'Harvard and Princeton are not a philanthropy,' Dimon said. 'Helping these kids is.' It's worth noting that Dimon received a $31 million compensation package in 2018, including a base salary of $1.5 million and a $29.5 million bonus, according to CNN Business. Average compensation for CEOs rose by 17.6 percent to $18.9 million in 2017 more than 58 times the 0.3 percent increase in pay that typical workers in those industries received, according to the 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. The incomes of the richest Americans the top 0.001 percent have grown at a rate much faster than the economy over the past four decades. This chart illustrates the rate of income growth - before taxes - for each class since 1980, based on data compiled by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. It reinforces the notion of two America's - the haves vs. the have-nots - described by J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon The reason CEOs did so well in 2017 is largely because their pay generally corresponds with the overall stock market and last year their rise in compensation was 'driven by stock awards and cashed-in stock options, not to changes in salaries or cash bonuses,' according to the EPI report. This means most CEOs likely didn't get exorbitant salary increases, but other types of compensation drove the overall increase. Still, experts at EPI pointed the finger at company boards who set CEO pay, saying that their efforts to stay competitive with other companies when it comes to retaining their top talent has created a never-ending cycle in which working people lose. 'They don't restrain themselves,' said Lawrence Mishel, a co-author of the report and distinguished fellow at EPI. 'It's exorbitant It's hard to believe that CEOs make that much money to get out of bed in the morning and do a good job. They're not ten times more productive than they were 30 years ago.' And those higher paydays make it harder to compensate the average worker with a living wage. 'Their getting more money means less money for other people,' Mishel told DailyMail.com. 'This is part of the way that the top 1 percent has grabbed more income than everyone else.' Bungling council workers who flew the Welsh flag on St Patrick's Day have been forced to apologise. The red dragon emblem was spotted above Sheffield Town Hall on Sunday instead of Ireland's green, white and orange tricolour flag. The city council then added to the confusion by issuing an initial statement of congratulations to the Welsh rugby union team following its Grand Slam in the Six Nations. The Welsh flag was seen flying above Sheffield Town Hall on Sunday in a mistaken tribute to St Patrick's Day The city council added to the confusion by issuing a statement of congratulations to the Welsh rugby union team following its Grand Slam in the Six Nations Wales beat Ireland 25-7 to life the trophy on Saturday at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. A council spokesperson said a 'basic error' was to blame and apologised for any offence called. They said the issue would be raised with staff and the company responsible. Social media users reacted with humour at the mistake. Sheffield City Council has issued an apology and blamed 'basic error' for mistaking the flags People on social media have mocked the flag mix-up with one joking it was an 'easy mistake to make' One said: 'Easy mistake to make, they are almost identical after all....' Another added: 'I guess many of the councillors have not got to grips with the complexities of the United Kingdom.' Chrissy Meleady, of the Irish People's Forum in Sheffield, told the BBC: 'It's a little bit sad that they couldn't differentiate between the flags.' Democratic socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is catching more blame than any other politician for Amazon's decision to abandon a planned headquarters opening in New York City. In a Siena College poll, 38 per cent of voters from the state of New York picked the 29-year-old lawmaker as the story's biggest 'villain.' Just 12 per cent praised her as a 'hero.' Amazon itself wore the goat horns just 26 per cent of the time. The bad news for the Democratic Party's socialist wunderkind comes at a time when her own poll numbers are sinking in dramatic fashion. Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the Amazon pullout and, with it, 25,000 jobs. She objected to $2.8 billion in tax breaks the online retail giant was to receive. Backers of the jobs plan pointed out that the long-term tax receipts could have reached $27 billion, about 9 times as much as the giveaways to the company Jeff Bezos built. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old freshman congresswoman from New York, is catching more blame than anyone else for Amazon's Big Apple pullout Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had intented to make New York City one of its two east-coast headquarters outposts, a move that would have brought 25,000 jobs to Queens Amazon was to get $2.8 billion in tax breaks as an inducement to bring the jobs to New York City; Ocasio-Cortez bitterly objected despite estimates that the deal would ultimately mean $27 billion in tax revenues for New York City and state 'Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazons corporate greed, its worker exploitation and the power of the richest man in the world,' Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in a February victory lap. New Yorkers see it differently. 'While some may have celebrated Amazons announcement to pull the plug, the vast majority of New Yorkers of every stripe thought it was bad for the Empire State,' Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said Monday. 'By a wide margin, New Yorkers would support the deal coming back together. ... There is an overwhelming feeling that its cancellation was bad for the state,' he added. Ocasio-Cortez's public approval rating nosedived between September and February, according to poll data the Gallup Organization released on Friday. Significantly more Americans recognize the Democratic congresswoman's name since a combination of socialism and shoe leather catapulted her to stardom with a 2018 Democratic primary win over a 10-term incumbent. Just 21 per cent of American adults told Gallup's pollsters last month that they didn't know who Ocasio-Cortez was. That number was 50 per cent in September, before she coasted to victory in the general election. But the more people recognize her, the less they like what they hear: The number of people who have unfavorable views of the 29-year-old lawmaker from New York has grown far faster in Gallup's surveys than her fan base. Ocasio-Cortez has a growing public approval problem, with just 31 per cent of Americans saying they have a favorable view of her Ocasio-Cortez won a favorable rating from 24 per cent of Americans In Gallup's September poll, compared with 26 per cent who disagreed. Those numbers both grew by February, to 31 per cent favorable and 41 per cent unfavorable. That means the proportion her detractors have grown by 15 per cent while her backers grew just 7 per cent. The democratic socialist wunderkind has more admirers than opponents among nonwhites, women, americans age 18-35 and self-identified Democrats. Every other demographic is against her. That may not matter in 2020, since she represents an exceedingly liberal New York City district and won her 2018 primary by organizing those same groups. As her spotlight moments give moderate Democrats more and more to cringe about, however, she could find herself facing her own primary challenger next summer. Of the seven controversial statements Politifact.com's researchers have evaluated, they gave Ocasio-Cortez either 'false' or 'pants on fire' ratings for five. Another was considered 'half-true.' 'AOC' as she's known, is just 29 years old and has earned 'false' and 'pants on fire' ratings from fact-checkers for cringe-worthy public statements Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist, is drowning among adults in general by 10 points in a Gallup poll, and by other margins among Republicans, independents, men, whites, and everyone over age 34 In one case, she claimed the U.S. military had lost or misspent $21 trillion dollars, concluding that the Pentagon has squandered two-thirds of the cost of the socialized medicine plan she favors. That number was dramatically out of scale with an agency whose average budget is 25 times smaller. In another, she claimed U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement was required to keep a minimum of 34,000 people in its detention centers every night. Federal law actually says ICE must maintain 34,000 beds in case it needs that many. She also claimed America's unemployment rate is at a historic low 'because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family.' The average work-week for a full-time U.S. employee is hovering at around 34.5 hours, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And only about 5 per cent of Americans in the workforce hold down more than one job. Last month Ocasio-Cortez raised eyebrows nationwide when she asked whether runaway climate change meant it was not 'okay to still have children' calling concern about perpetuating the human race a 'legitimate question' Online shoppers can be blacklisted by companies for returning too many purchases. Consumer advocates are warning that those who prefer cyber shopping over the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar stores may be subject to blacklisting based on their return history. Since buying and returning items has become a major problem for retailers, the companies are tracking how much merchandise a customer returns and compiling that data in a secret list in a bid to catch 'serial returners'. Depending on that data, those who return items often may be denied future returns with or without a receipt. Consumer advocates are warning that those who prefer cyber shopping over the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar stores may be subject to blacklisting based on their return history. The items above are sitting in a Texas warehouse waiting to be resold or auctioned online Since buying and returning items (TVs seen above) has become a major problem for retailers, the companies are tracking how much merchandise a customer returns and compiling that data in a secret list in a bid to catch 'serial returners' Depending on that data, those who return items (like these iPads) often may be denied future returns with or without a receipt Ed Mierzwinski, of the US Public Interest Research Group told CBS that consumer advocates are concerned that data is increasingly being shared among retailers. 'There should be no secret databases,' Mierzwinslki said. 'Customers should be aware of everybody collecting information.' Mierzwinski also encouraged 'any consumer who's been denied the right to return a product' because of such databases should 'complain to the Federal Trade Commission'. Best Buy is one company that discloses its return tracking policy on the customer's receipt. 'A valid receipt is required for all returns. Except where prohibited, we may request an ID. ID info may be stored in a secure, encrypted database used for tracking returns and exchanges,' a receipt from Best Buy reads. But there are several other stores that don't. Oftentimes, consumers won't know they've been blacklisted until a retailer refuses to process their return. However, one way for consumers to check to see whether they have been blacklisted is to visit The Retail Equation's (TRE) database. Best Buy is one company that discloses its tracking policy on the customer's receipt 'A valid receipt is required for all returns. Except where prohibited, we may request an ID. ID info may be stored in a secure, encrypted database used for tracking returns and exchanges,' a receipt (pictured) from Best Buy reads The database works with retailers to 'warn consumers when their return transactions violate store policies or mimic excessive return behaviors,' according to the website. TRE says it doesn't share a customer's shopping behavior from one brand to the other, so if a customer is banned from making returns at one store, it doesnt mean they are banned at others. Once a consumer has been blacklisted, their returns may be declined for 365 days. More than 34,000 stores, including department stores and footwear, jewelry, and fashion brands, use the service. While the website does not list all of the stores that use the service, some stores include Best Buy, Home Depot, Victorias Secret, J.C. Penney and Sephora. TRE is able to track returns behavior via a consumer's driver's license. And it's possible that any a shopper makes a return and provides their license, that return is being monitored by TRE. Legally, if a customer wants to make a return, they are required to hand over their ID, or they forfeit their right to a return. While the website does not list all of the stores that use the service, some stores include Best Buy, the Home Depot, Victorias Secret, J.C. Penney and Sephora (file image) State law requires that retailers advertise any ID requirement in their return policy, and both Victoria's Secret and The Childrens Place put this policy on receipts and as well as at the counter. Sephora confirmed to Insider that the company does use TRE. 'Returns without a receipt or that cannot otherwise be verified, will require a valid government issued photo ID that will be swiped, scanned or manually recorded at the time of the return,' a statement from the company read. 'Information from your ID will be retained in a third party database of customer return activity that Sephora uses to authorize returns and prevent fraud. Information in this database will not be used for marketing purposes,' the statement continued. According to CNBC, Americans return a whopping $260billion in merchandise each year. Because of that statistic, several stores have cut back on their generous return policies and started cracking down on return behaviors. Some stores like Nordstrom even have an 'internal auditing' log that keeps track of returns. And what happens to all of that merchandise? Well, similar items are boxed together and sold on sites like liquidation.com and secondipity.com. And what happens to all of that merchandise? Well, similar items are boxed together and sold on sites like liquidation.com (pictured) and secondipity.com Brian Johnson, of Liquidity Services, said that 'every box we open, every pallet we open, you never know what's going to be in it' Brian Johnson, of Liquidity Services, told CBS: 'Every box we open, every pallet we open, you never know what's going to be in it.' However, there are those who see the benefit in the TRE surveillance return system. One unidentified store manager said the constant returns are the real reasons 'the prices keep exponentially going up'. 'Businesses are fighting the A-holes that think its ok to buy an air conditioner or gas grill in May/ June and return it in September for full credit,' the manager wrote. 'They are also fighting the thieves that target high priced items and return them for store credit gift cards and re-sell them or use gift card trading websites.' Return fraud abuse is costing retailers and workers between 524,000 and 673,000 jobs, and states are losing a total of $870million to $1.1billion annually in sales tax revenues. Cutting-edge DNA technology has been used to link a Maryland man to a 1989 rape and 1994 murder. Montgomery County Police identified Kenneth Day as the man behind the decades-old cold cases - but the suspect won't ever be brought to justice because he died two years ago aged 52. Day was identified using the emerging forensic technique called DNA genealogy, which authorities famously used to identify 'Golden State Killer' Joseph DeAngelo in California last year. The technique involves comparing DNA profiles from unidentified suspects to public genealogy databases, where users have voluntarily submitted their DNA for profiling by commercial companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com, in hopes of finding potential relatives. Day allegedly followed a 32-year-old woman home from a Rockville train station in 1989 and raped her. Five years later he allegedly did the same to a 42-year-old woman, French-born research biologist Le Bich-Thuy, before beating her with a concrete slab and strangling her. Cutting-edge DNA technology has been used to link now-deceased Maryland man Kenneth Day (above in an undated mugshot) to a 1989 rape and 1994 murder. He died aged 52 Montgomery County Police released several of Day's undated mugshots after he was identified last week (above). It is unclear what crimes each photo was connected to Detectives submitted DNA recovered from the scene where Bich-Thuy's body was found to Parabon NanoLabs, which cross-referenced it with DNA samples housed on the genealogy website GEDmatch. A search identified individuals in the database who shared a significant amount of DNA with the suspect, leading investigators to Day. According to an obituary, Day died in West Virginia in 2017, though the cause of death is unclear. He was survived by a daughter and two grandchildren, the obituary said. Authorities released several of Day's previous mugshots, but his criminal history is unknown. Officials say Day could be a suspect in other unsolved cases in Montgomery County as well. 'I dont think he did this just two or three times,' Sgt Chris Homrock, head of the cold case squad in Montgomery County, told the Washington Post last year, before Day was even identified. 'This guy was targeting women in that area for at least five years.' Retired detective Bob Phillips, who tirelessly worked to solve the Bich-Thuy' murder in the 1990s, described the brutal murder in an interview with NBC 4 in 2010. Detectives used DNA technology to create composite sketches of what Bich-Thuy's killer may have looked like in 2017. However, those sketches did not lead to the identification of a suspect 'She was not covered up but she just naturally sunk into this English Ivy and was hard to see,' Philips said of the victim's body. The case went cold for decades until 2017, when detectives used DNA from the crime scene to create a composite sketch of the killer in hopes that someone would identify him. Still, though, police were unable to produce a suspect until the lab employed the genetic genealogy technique last year. A once respectable teacher who got drawn into helping a County Lines gang after becoming addicted to crack cocaine and heroin was jailed for 27 months today. Angela Davey, 38, made headlines in January when it was revealed she had gone on the run for three months before she could be sentenced for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Norfolk Police released a custody photograph of her while she was a fugitive showing her drug-ravaged features in stark contrast to how she appeared before becoming an addict Angela Davey went from a history teacher to an on-the-run cocaine dealer. She was today sentenced to 27 months in prison for drugs offences Davey appeared shaking in the dock and suffering withdrawal symptoms after she was arrested in London on February 1 as a result of a tip off from a member of the public who recognised her from a news report. But she looked far healthier today when she returned to Norwich Crown Court for her sentencing. The court heard how Davey had fallen into drug addiction after losing her job, her partner and access to her two children. The prosecution claimed that she hired three cars which were used to transport drugs for the gang called Jacob Line between April and June 2017. She also allowed her home to be used as a base for the dealers in Norwich, Norfolk, in exchange for being given eight 'bits' of drugs a day as rent. Her descent into addiction eventually led to her selling her house and living in a camper van Davey is said to have turned to hard drugs after beginning a relationship with a man she met on dating app Tinder. She is seen left on a night out in 2017 and right in February 2018 after being arrested for dealing cocaine It was revealed after Davey had gone on the run that she had won a scholarship to the 14,562-a-year Norwich High School for Girls. She graduated from the University of East Anglia with a history degree in 2003 and became a teacher for children with special educational needs. Davey told the court yesterday that the first car she hired had not been used by the dealers, although she and her boyfriend had driven it to a drug dealing area to buy drugs. She claimed that did not consent to the second car she hired being taken to London on what the prosecution described as a run to buy drugs. The car was involved in a crash in Walthasmstow, east London, but she failed to report it as stolen for several days, saying she had 'panicked'. Davey claimed she had been coerced into hiring the third car after threats from the dealers. She wept as she told the court: 'They kept cajoling me and trying to persuade me to do it and I kept saying, 'No'. 'I was threatened that they could easily make it known to my family and others that I was using drugs. They knew I had been a teacher and the problems I had with my ex partner and the loss of my children. 'They pointed out that they had lots of text messages from me and it would be very easy to expose my drug use. The second threat was that they would cut up my boyfriend. I knew they had knives. Happier times: Talented history teacher and mother-of-two Angela Davey is pictured before her drug addiction took hold and drastically altered her appearance 'I was so scared that people would find out what I was doing as I was so ashamed and I was worried that I would not see my children again.' She denied being a 'significant' player in the gang. Davey who admitted conspiracy to supply drugs and failing to answer bail was described as 'intelligent and articulate' by Judge Katharine Moore. The judge told her before jailing her for 27 months: 'It remains unclear why you failed to access help from health care providers. No doubt it was a combination of shame and embarrassment. 'You must have known that help was there for the taking, but instead you permitted yourself to be drawn into the shadowy world of drug supply.' Judge Moore added that text messages showed Davey had a 'ready willingness' to assist the dealers. She said: 'I have no doubt that you were encouraged to get involved against your better judgement and I have no doubt that you were at a very low ebb, but I reject your evidence that you got involved because of a threat to your boyfriend.' Davey was arrested during a 90 day undercover Norfolk Police operation codenamed Cultivate which targeted county lines dealers between March and June 2017. David Teixeira, 19, from London; (left) and Jack Parrish, 26, have already been jailed for their parts in the operation Judge Moore said she accepted that Davey had been drawn into taking drugs because of her declining mental health and was vulnerable to being exploited Prosecutor Simon Potts said there was a 'clear inference' that she allowed her semi-detached house in Norwich to be used by the gang. He said that it was not a case of so-called cuckooing where dealers forcibly took over the home of a vulnerable person as she retained 'a degree of control over the premises'. Police recovered phone messages in which she made reference to rent and ordered one of the dealers to leave her home. Mr Potts said it was likely the county lines operation 'would have been hampered or unable to succeed' without her involvement. Mr Potts added: 'Effectively she had a vital role, the Crown suggests, in the operation. She was someone who could and did hire vehicles to facilitate the operation and allowed her premises to be used.' Andrew Oliver, defending, said Davey had never been in trouble with the police before 2017 when she stated racking up convictions for theft and dishonesty to feed her drug habit. He added: 'She was leading up to 2016 a relatively normal lifestyle, but tragic circumstances ultimately led to her use of crack cocaine and heroin.' Mr Oliver said she had been through 'significant strains and traumas' with her ex-partner and was in 'extreme distress' due to not having contact with her children. He added: 'By Spring 2017 she was already at a very low ebb and very vulnerable and very low in terms of her mood and her ability to deal with things which hit her in her personal life. 'It would seem her decision to turn to drug use was a desire to forget all the trauma she had suffered. In doing so she got to know others who used drugs and those who supplied them. 'She effectively felt that she had lost everything. The pain she suffered from not having contact with her children, the isolation from her family, the loss of her job and the stress of her dealing with her ex-partner all led to her mental health severely deteriorating to the extent she turned to drug use. 'She is not suggesting anyone has encouraged her to use drugs. These are all decisions she has made. She was a highly vulnerable individual who was either intentionally or unintentionally exploited.' 'She has not supplied drugs or bagged up drugs. She has not delivered drugs and there is no evidence of her taking phone calls for the delivery of drugs.' Mr Oliver said Davey had gone on the run to London after appearing in court last August because she 'felt isolated from everybody she had been close to'. He added: 'She went down into a very dark and deep spiral and was leading an itinerant lifestyle on the streets until she was arrested.' Mr Oliver said Davey's physical appearance had improved since her court appearance last month showed he ravaged by drug use and the effects of withdrawal. He said she had reacted well to being in custody and was already taking a reduced level of methadone in a bid to beat her habit. Davey had also been made a learning skills champion in Peterborough prison, giving access to all areas of the prison, he said. Mr Oliver added: 'She is clearly a lady who has much to offer having reached the lows she had. She is determined to beat her addiction to drugs and become once again a positive member of society which she clearly once was not that long ago. The Home Secretary today praised Muslim worshippers for their 'bravery and compassion' during the terrorist attack in New Zealand. Sajid Javid was speaking at an interfaith event in Regent's Park Central Mosque, alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The gathering took place three days after fifty people were killed by a gunman who opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch and live-streamed one of the attacks. In an address to the meeting, Mr Javid began with the phrase 'Hello brother', the words spoken by one of the first victims slaughtered at Friday Prayers in Christchurch. Home Secretary Sajid Javid addresses the interfaith gathering at Regent's Park Central Mosque today in a show of solidarity with victims of the terror attack in New Zealand on Friday From left: Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Mr Javid 'Gunned down as he welcomed the terrorist who marched towards the Al Noor Mosque,' said the Home Secretary. 'Words of love, not hate, that show the kindness and the compassion of Islam. 'This gunman sought to divide us, but he was embraced. 'Met with the spirit of Islamic welcome that has seen us all join together today. Mr Javid was also joined by Communities Secretary James Brokenshire, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis in a show of solidarity with the victims of the shootings. 'Here at London Central Mosque, leaders of all faiths and backgrounds stand together against hate,' said Mayor Sadiq Khan at the event The Grade II listed mosque was completed in 1977 and is adjoined to the Islamic Cultural Centre, which was opened by King George VI in 1944 Names of those killed in the attack were read out before holding a minute of silence. 'The events that unite us are beyond tragic, but together we represent what is truly great about Britain,' continued Mr Javid. 'An open and welcoming country, that finds strength in its diversity. 'Where the Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of Canterbury stand side by side in a mosque full of Imams from across the UK. 'Where we refuse to let terrorists triumph. Left to right: Communities Secretary James Brokenshire, academic Arzoo Ahmed, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Archbishop Justin Welby, Dr. Ahmad Al Dubayan, and Home Secretary Sajid Javid 'And where we - like that brave grandfather at the door of Al Noor Mosque - will never, ever, let the forces of hate divide us.' Mayor Sadiq Khan, who also attended the meeting, said: 'Here at London Central Mosque, leaders of all faiths and backgrounds stand together against hate. 'Let us show that hope, unity and love always trump fear, division and hatred. And let our friends in feel the ripples of solidarity and compassion from our city. Our Diversity is our strength. We dont tolerate it we celebrate and respect it. Let us be a beacon for the world. Self-professed terrorist Brenton Tarrant grimaces as he's arrested. The self-confessed Australian terrorist Brenton Tarrant appeared smirking in court charged with murder on Saturday morning After travelling to a second mosque to kill more innocent worshippers, police captured white extremist gunman Brenton Tarrant by pushing his car off the road. It is presumed he may have been travelling to another target at the time. Mulitple public buildings and places of worship went into lockdown just over an hour after the first reports of a shooting. Home Secretary has been urged to increase spending for protecting mosques in the wake of the attack during the meeting. Sunni-Muslim academic Arzoo Ahmed said words of sympathy following the attack were appreciated, but action was now needed. People in New Zealand brought flowers to the outside of the Masjid Al Noor mosque after officers removed a police line According to the Evening Standard, she address Mr Javid directly saying 'I ask the Home Secretary, who has kindly joined us today, to respond to calls for increased spending on the protection of all religious institutions that are at risk, and urgently for mosques.' Her comments came after police reports on Friday of hammer-wielding thugs attacking worshippers outside a mosque in East London hours. The incident happened just hours after the New Zealand atrocity. Eyewitnesses said a car with three people in it drove past a Whitechapel mosque, with passengers shouting abuse at the worshippers and calling them terrorists. A group followed the car which then stopped, with an assailant getting out brandishing a hammer. A 27-year-old man suffered head injuries, which are not thought to be serious. PICTURED: VICTIMS OF THE NEW ZEALAND MOSQUE MASSACRE National-level futsal player Atta Elayyan (right) was reportedly killed on Friday. He is being remembered as an 'inspiration' Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim (left) was also named among the dead after he passed away in the arms of his father and brother, who only survived because he played dead. Cardiologist Amjad Hamid (right) was gunned down after moving to New Zealand 23 years ago because he wanted a better future for himself and his wife Also believed to be among the dead is Husna Ara Parvin (left), who was reportedly gunned down as she tried to save her quadriplegic husband from the shooter. Haji Daoud Nabi (right), 71, a father-of-five and retired engineer, moved to New Zealand from Afghanistan in 1977 and set up a new life as one of the 'first Muslims in New Zealand'. He is thought to be among the dead in the Christchurch shooting Cashmere High School student Sayyad Milne (pictured), 14, who was at Friday prayers when the shooting started, is believed to be dead. Although it's not been officially confirmed, his father has spoken of his loss Khaled Mustafa (pictured) 44, was at the mosque with his sons and was later shot dead Advertisement Prime Minister Scott Morrison is preparing to slash Australia's immigration intake. A cap of 160,000 people per year is expected to be introduced, setting an official limit for the first time and dropping the average annual intake from 190,000. The government's Expenditure Review Committee has approved the Coalition's broader population policies, The Australian reported. Mr Morrison has also defended reviving the population debate so soon after the Christchurch terror attacks, where the alleged gunman is accused of harbouring hate against Muslim immigrants. The prime minister said discussions about population should not be 'hijacked' by other debates on race or tolerance. Scroll down for video Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) is preparing to slash Australia's immigration intake Australia's population growth 1881: 2.3 million 1918: 5 million 1959: 10 million 1981: 15 million 1991: 17.4 million 2004: 20 million 2013: 23 million 2016: 24 million 2018: 25 million Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics; House of Representatives Standing Committee for Long-Term Strategies, December 1994 Advertisement Mr Morrison said he did not agree with people calling for less migration because of fears about immigrants causing terrorist attacks. 'This debate about population growth and migration has nothing to do with those other issues that have been the subject of recent focus.' The prime minister said discussions about population should not be 'hijacked' by other debates on race or tolerance. 'We've seen what happens when these important practical debates are hijacked by these other extremist views, which occur from both the right and from the left,' he said. 'I'm determined to not see the serious population growth management issues taken off course, to be hijacked by those who want to push other agendas. 'I have no purchase in those agendas, I have no truck with those agendas, and I denounce them absolutely.' 'The worst example being the despicable appropriation of concerns about immigration as a justification for a terrorist atrocity,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald. However, he also said calling for limits on immigration levels did not make someone a racist. 'Such views have rightly been denounced. But equally, so too must the imputation that the motivation for supporting moderated immigration levels is racial hatred,' he said. Mr Morrison said debate about the number of migrants moving to Australia each year was not related to the value of immigration to the country. 'Just because Australians are frustrated about traffic jams and population pressures encroaching on their quality of life, especially in this city, does not mean they are anti-migrant or racist,' he said. A regional settlement policy - which will require people in the general skilled migrant scheme to live in cities other than Sydney and Melbourne for at least five years - has also been approved by cabinet. Labor frontbencher Mark Butler said the policy appeared to be the status quo. 'If Scott Morrison has some detail he wants to show to us or the Australian community, obviously we'd be willing to look at it,' he told ABC Radio National. The government has also been hinting at spreading migrants across the states and territories to ease pressure on infrastructure, without outlining any concrete details about how this would work. Its policies are expected to centre on forcing skilled migrants to live for at least five years in cities other than Sydney or Melbourne, and enticing university students into regional towns. Greens leader Richard Di Natale questioned the timing of the debate, which has re-emerged shortly after 50 people were murdered in New Zealand mosques last week. 'Three days after a massacre the prime minister decides to land this into the national conversation,' he told ABC News Breakfast. Mr Morrison said there was a 'tribalism' distorting the discussion of issues such as immigration. Pictured: Office workers walk to work in the Sydney CBD Alex Underwood spent thousands on first class travel which he said he needed because he is a 'very large man' South Carolian sheriffs have been flying first class, bullying their staff and lining their pockets with taxpayers' money for decades, according to a scathing new report. According to an investigation by the The Post and Courier, the sheriffs have been taking advantage of not being bound by the same restrictions which state and federal employees come under when it comes to luxurious travel and eating out. Some have been indicted for their misconduct but others, including Chester County Sheriff Alex Underwood, insist their actions are above board. Underwood has charged thousands of dollars of first class travel to the job. Underwood and his deputy took their wives to a conference in Reno in 2017. They flew first class and Underwood upgraded their room for $600. He also hired a chauffeur for $350 to take them to and from the airport. He claims that he and Sprouse paid for their wives' flights themselves and that he upgraded his room because he needed a big enough bed for his feet not to hang off the end of it. His first class travel, he said, was because is a 'very large man with prior knee surgeries and on-going medical issues. 'First class was the best option,' he wrote in an email to the newspaper. Underwood upgraded his room during a conference in Reno at the Atlantis hotel (shown) for an additional $600. He said it was because he needed a bed big enough for his feet not to dangle off the edge Sheriff Al Cannon opted for a $3,000 leather office chair that was twice as expensive as the same model in other materials because he said he had a bad back Sheriff Al Cannon from Charleston County, spent $3,110 on a Mont Blanc leather office chair Others include Sheriff Larry Dalton Williams who spent $72,000 on a motor home. No one found out about it until after he died. Jason Boothe, the former sheriff of Saluda County, used an inmate to build a 'party shed' for him. In exchange, the prisoner was allowed to spend nights outside the jail, visit his girlfriend and eat in restaurants. He was told to pay a $900 fine for misconduct and was given a probation sentence as well as losing his job. Another, Sheriff Al Cannon from Charleston County, spent $3,110 on a Mont Blanc leather office chair. The leather option he went for was twice as expensive as other materials. He claimed it was to help his back problems. Marion County Sheriff Brian Wallace let deputies use his charge card during trips to Hooters. Former Saluda County Sheriff Jason Booth had an inmate build him a party shed in exchange for favors. The shed is pictured. He lost his job over misconduct and went on trial in 2012 Boothe also had the inmate build him a fence on his property (shown) After being questioned about it by the newspaper, the department's chief deputy sent an email told them not put those outings on the department's cards any more. Jason Boothe had a prison inmate build him a 'party shed'. He lost his job, was given a probation prison sentence himself and was told to pay a $900 fine Some became irate when challenged over their expenses. Kenny Boone, the Florence County Sheriff, scolded Kevin Yokim, the finance director, for questioning his charging three hotel rooms from a conference to the county. One was for a retired sheriff and Boone said he needed two for himself. 'Kevin, I dont have to get permission from you for anything that I do... This is the last time that I will give you any explanation on anything that I do. 'Dont question me again,' he said in an email to the director. The sheriffs are in a unique position because they are in charge of their departments. There are now calls for them to have to adhere to county government laws when it comes to spending. Marion County Sheriff Brian Wallace allowed deputies to use his charge card at Hooters The man charged with killing the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family has appeared in court with 'MAGA forever' scrawled on his hands. Anthony Comello, 24, was arrested on Saturday in New Jersey in the shooting death of Francesco Cali last week in front of his Staten Island home. While waiting for a hearing to begin in Toms River, New Jersey, on Monday in which he agreed to be extradited to New York, Comello held up his left hand. He had the pro-Donald Trump slogans scribbled across his palms around a large circle. In addition to the 'Make America Great Again' slogan, Comello also had 'United We Stand MAGA' written in blue ink and 'Patriots In Charge.' Scroll down for video Anthony Comello, 24, faced a New Jersey court on Monday with 'MAGA forever' scrawled on his hands. He agreed to be extradited to New York to faces charges in the shooting death of Gambino boss Francesco Cali While waiting for a hearing to begin in Toms River, New Jersey, on Monday in which he agreed to be extradited to New York, Comello held up his left hand to show the pro- Donald Trump slogans scribbled across his palms Comello's lawyer, Brian Neary, would not discuss the writing on his client's hand. He also wouldn't say whether Comello maintains his innocence. When asked by reporters after the hearing what was on Comello's hand, Neary replied: 'Handcuffs.' Comello sat with a slight smile in the jury box of the courtroom on Monday afternoon as dozens of reporters and photographers filed into the room. When they were in place, Comello held up his left hand to display the writings as the click and whirr of camera lenses filled the room with sound. During the hearing, a bored-looking Comello did not speak other than to say, 'Yes, sir' to the judge as he answered several procedural questions. Comello, who works odd construction jobs, will now be extradited from New Jersey to New York to face charges in the shooting death of the 53-year-old mob boss. Cali, a native of Sicily, was shot 10 times outside his home last Wednesday. Police believe the gunman crashed his truck into Cali's home to lure him outside. Police wouldn't confirm the motive but sources have said Comello's dispute with Cali was because the mob boss refused to let him date his niece. Comello has been described as 'a complete nut' and as a 'conspiracy theory type', various sources say. In addition to the 'Make America Great Again' slogan, Comello also had 'United We Stand MAGA' written in blue ink and 'Patriots In Charge' Comello, who yawned and smiled during the court appearance, will now be extradited from New Jersey to New York to face charges in the shooting death of the 53-year-old mob boss Cali, pictured left and right, was shot 10 times outside his home at the weekend. Police believe the gunman crashed his truck into Cali's home to lure him outside Comello was taken into custody after police found a finger print on the license plate of Cali's silver Escalade, which had fallen from the vehicle when the gunman crashed into his car. Comello was arrested on Saturday in New Jersey in connection with the murder of Gambino crime boss Francesco 'Franky Boy' Cali Surveillance video that captured the murder showed Cali heading outside his home on March 13 after a blue pickup truck reversed forcefully in his parked car. The footage - which had to be obtained by a warrant - shows Cali and the man engaging in a conversation, before shaking hands. The man then passes Cali a licence plate that had fallen off his Escalade. But as the crime boss turned his back to place the plate in the trunk of his car, the gunman - now allegedly believed to be Comello - took out a 9mm pistol and opened fire. Cali tried to hide from the gunfire underneath his car, which initially led investigators to believe he'd been run over in the hit. Investigators with the NYPD were forced to obtain a warrant to review the surveillance video after the victim's relatives' were allegedly unwillling to comply with the probe. Investigators are seen with forensic equipment outside the Cali's home on Thursday after he was shot dead Police were led to the suspect after finding a finger print on the license plate of Cali's silver Escalade (above), which had fallen from the vehicle after the killer crashed into his car Federal prosecutors referred to Cali in court filings in recent years as the underboss of the Mafia's Gambino family, once one of the most powerful crime organizations in the country. News accounts since 2015 said he had ascended to the top spot. Cali's only mob-related criminal conviction came a decade ago, when he pleaded guilty in an extortion scheme involving a failed attempt to build a NASCAR track on Staten Island. He was sentenced to 16 months behind bars and was released in 2009. The last Mafia boss to be rubbed out in New York City was Gambino don 'Big Paul' Castellano, who was assassinated while getting out of a black limousine outside a high-end Manhattan steakhouse in 1985. John 'Dapper Don' Gotti arranged Castellano's assassination. Police were previously thought to be considering Gene Gotti, John's younger brother, as a suspect in Cali's murder. Gene was released from prison after 29 years just six-months ago. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro "Teddy Boy" Locsin Jr. stood by the government's decision to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC), which officially took effect Sunday. Locsin on Monday said the decision to pullout of the ICC was not an easy one-but it had to be done as the tribunal has been allegedly defending the drug trade. "When the ICC weaponized human rights to defend the drug trade, we got out pronto," Locsin said during an event at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Monday. "When we do these decisions, it's not easy and it's not simple." President Rodrigo Duterte in March 2018 announced the country's pullout from the ICC-- following supposed attacks against him and his administration as well as the international court's attempt to put him under jurisdiction. The case was filed by lawyer Jude Sabio, who also represents self-confessed 'Davao Death Squad' hitmen Edgar Matobato and Arturo Lascanas. Matobato and Lascanas had previously admitted to killing people in Davao City under Duterte's orders, when he was still city mayor. Sabio in 2017 submitted to the ICC a 77-page document on the killings, formally called by the tribunal as a "communication." The lawyer likewise earlier said the ICC may launch an investigation into the government's drug war before the withdrawal. Malacanang Spokesperson Salvador Panelo, in his own press briefing, downplayed the country's exit from the court. He said even local courts can get the job done in holding public officials accountable. Panelo added ICC officials who will visit the country in an attempt to commence a probe may face deportation. "They can come here as guests, visitors. Pero (But) any move that will be deemed as a violation of our laws, may problema sila doon (they'll have a problem with that)," the spokesman said Monday. Locsin added the country only joined the ICC-despite the United States opposition-- so the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago could be elected as a judge. "We got into ICC to accommodate our beloved colleague, Miriam Defensor Santiago, who tragically never assumed her seat," the DFA chief bared. PH withdrawal from ICC 'not a loss' For his part, Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III said he does not see any negative effect regarding the country's pullout from the said tribunal. "Meron na bang magandang nangyari na involved ang ICC? Meron na bang pangyayari na nakinabang ang Pinas? Wala," Sotto said. [Translation: Was there anything good that happened involving the ICC? Was the country able to benefit from it? Nothing.] Members of the opposition and some civil society groups on Sunday lambasted President Rodrigo Duterte for his decision to withdraw from the ICC. The ICC, an intergovernmental organization that investigates cases of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression, was established by the Rome Statute, which was enforced in 2002. Panelo earlier said the government will not assist the ICC in any probe as it has no jurisdiction over the country. Malacanang insists that the Philippines was never under the ICC's jurisdiction to begin with. While the country ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC, the administration said the government never published that in a newspaper or the official gazette, as required by law. Donald Cline, an Indiana fertility doctor who used his own sperm to artificially inseminate dozens of patients without their consent, has been confirmed to be the father to at least 48 children born in the 1970s and 1980s An Indiana fertility doctor who used his own sperm to artificially inseminate his patients without their consent has been confirmed to be the father of at least 48 children, many of whom only recently discovered their true identities. One of those children, 33-year-old Heather Woock, spoke out about how she learned who her father is in a report published this week by The Atlantic. Woock, of Indianapolis, said when a stranger reached out to her in August 2017 claiming to be her half sibling, she didn't believe it. However, she was disturbed that the mystery person mentioned the name of Dr Donald Cline, the fertility specialist her mother had seen before she was born. Woock's mother told her not to worry about it, so she didn't. Until the stranger kept messaging her, followed by several others claiming to be her half siblings. They tracked her down on Facebook through her username on the Ancestry.com account she created when her husband gave her a DNA test for Christmas. Her parents, who went to Cline for donor insemination, say they had no idea that he was the person who provided the sperm sample. DNA tests from services including 23andMe and Ancestry.com confirmed at least 48 children that were fathered by Cline. The number could likely be much higher considering the number of people who haven't ever done DNA tests. Many of Cline's children have built a community since learning the news, keeping in touch through a Facebook group. Every holiday season they brace for the reveal of even more siblings through DNA tests given as gifts. One of Cline's children, 33-year-old Heather Woock (above), spoke out about how she learned who her father is in a report published this week by the Atlantic A group of half-siblings fathered by Cline, including Jacoba Ballard, Julie Harmon and Matt White, are pictured during a reunion on April 1, 2018, months after the doctor was convicted One of the first people to discover that Cline is their father was Jacoba Ballard. She'd known from a young age that she was conceived via sperm donor, and in 2014 at the age of 33 she began looking for half-siblings who shared that donor. Ballard signed up for an online forum for adoptees and donor conceived children and quickly located another woman who had been treated by Cline. She told The Atlantic that as soon as she saw the woman's Facebook photos, she knew without a doubt that they were related. 'I was like, Oh my goodness, I think that is my sister,' Ballard said. That woman connected her with another woman whose mother had also gone to Cline, and that woman had a sister. The four women decided to take tests from 23andMe to confirm that they were related. Those tests revealed that not only were they related to each other, they also had four more half-siblings, bringing the total number to eight. As the four women continued their search for the biological father that connected them by cross-matching their DNA with public databases to find relatives, a technique that investigators have begun using to identify crime suspects, one name kept cropping up: Cline's. The doctor had told his patients that the donors he'd used to inseminate them were medical residents, and that he only used each donor for three successful pregnancies. However, 23andMe tests contradicted that account by showing that he'd used one donor at least eight times between 1979 and 1986, a much longer period than the average medical residency. Ultimately, Ballard and her half-siblings tracked down a woman who shared their DNA and said she had a cousin named Donald Cline who practiced medicine in Indianapolis. It was through that woman that the half-siblings tracked down Cline's immediate family, who helped them set up a meeting with the doctor in 2016. During that first family reunion between Cline and six newly discovered half-siblings, the father allegedly admitted to using his own sperm to inseminate some 50 unwitting patients in the 70s and 80s. He said that their medical records had been destroyed years earlier. The admission ultimately led to a criminal investigation resulting in Cline being charged with lying to investigators about having inseminated the woman. The now-80-year-old received a one-year suspended sentence in December 2017. Cline admitted to using his own sperm to inseminate some 50 patients in the 1970s and 1980s when confronted by several of his children in 2016 No other charges were filed against Cline because Indiana law doesn't specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm. Cline's conviction has done little to placate his children, who have been left wondering why he did what he did to their mothers. Fueled by their anguish, Ballard and Cline's other offspring have been pushing legislation that would make it a crime for doctors to treat patients for infertility by using their own sperm or egg without consent. 'I feel like our mothers were violated,' Ballard said of her father in an interview with The Associated Press last year. 'He has torn all of our lives apart. 'He cheated himself out of knowing his children. That's what we are.' She said of her half-siblings: 'We also feel cheated that we didn't get to know each other growing up.' Ballard said the only silver lining she's found is in the camaraderie that's developed between her and a few of her siblings. She added that as the popularity of DNA tests grows, they expect to uncover even more half siblings. Liz White embraces her son Matt, who has been revealed to be one of Cline's offspring. The mother and her husband had gone to Cline for fertility treatments in 1981 One of the women who was inseminated by Cline more than a dozen times over a five-month period also spoke to the Atlantic in the report this week, saying: 'I feel like I was raped 15 times.' White, now 66, had gone to Cline's office with her husband in 1981, and found him to be a kind, gentle man. She noted how Cline's office was decorated with photos of babies he'd helped conceive, a detail that didn't strike her at the time but is highly unsettling in retrospect. Cline had opened his practice in 1979, when fertility medicine was quite new and sperm banks didn't exist and doctors typically hunted down donors themselves. According to the birth dates of Cline's youngest-known offspring, the doctor stopped using his own sperm in the late 1980s when sperm banks became more common. In White's case, Cline offered to find a medical trainee who resembled her husband so that no one would know that it wasn't his biological child. She said he also instructed the couple not to tell anyone that they'd sought help from a fertility specialist. In 2018, White's son Matt told AP that he remembers the specific day in September 2016 when the mystery of his sperm donor began to unravel. It started when Matt read a news report that Cline was facing charges for lying about inseminating his patients. He found Cline's address online and recognized it as the location of his mother's former doctor. Then he Googled the doctor's name. When a photo popped up, he was stunned: He looked like Cline. 'It was just too similar to be coincidental,' he said. White had long known he was a donor baby, but that day, he had an eerie feeling he was staring at the man who was likely his biological father. Matt White, who now has children of his own, said he immediately knew Cline was his father when he saw a photo of the doctor in 2016 Around the same time, Julie Harmon saw a TV news story about Cline. She had discovered years earlier that her blood type indicated she was not the child of both her parents. She didn't follow up to find out why, but the report about Cline, her mother's fertility doctor, was unnerving. 'In the pit of my stomach,' she says, 'I knew something was wrong.' The TV story featured Ballard, whom Harmon contacted on Facebook. 'I looked at pictures of her, and I knew,' Harmon said. 'We even part our hair the same.' These two women and Matt White were in attendance on the day Cline received a one-year suspended sentence for lying to investigators when he denied wrongdoing. Cline apologized 'for the pain my actions have caused' but didn't specify how often he used his own sperm in procedures. Cline's sentencing, though, was not the end of this story. Instead, in an extraordinary epilogue, three one-time strangers - White, Harmon and Ballard - have forged a kinship as brother and sisters, even as they wrestle with the revelation about their identities. They've also reached out to 21 other men and women, all in their 30s, who've been identified through DNA tests as half-siblings - evidence, they say, that Cline is likely their father, as well. About a half-dozen of them live in central Indiana. Many stay in touch through a private Facebook page, and several gathered last fall for a cookout with their spouses, children and three mothers who had been Cline patients. Others have gone on social outings, shared childhood photos, taken note of similarities and, at times, confided in one another private details of their lives. 'It's a very surreal experience,' White said. 'I've shared personal stories that I haven't shared with anyone but my wife. 'You have almost this instant bond with people who are not only part of this horrible situation, but you can relate to them on an intimate level in a way you can't with anyone else.' Donald Trump made a rare appearance Sunday at a church that has traditionally served as a house of worship for sitting presidents and sat through a sermon on they type of 'hateful rhetoric' that inspired the New Zealand mosque attacks. Trump attended a service at St. John's for the first time since his inauguration. First lady Melania Trump accompanied him to the 11 am service at the Greek Revival Episcopal church that's separated from the White House by a park. Rev. W. Bruce McPherson identified the Friday attack on worshipers in New Zealand as 'one more gratuitous attack on innocent people at worship' in a 15-minute sermon, CNN reported. 'What can we do? Well perhaps we're called whenever we overhear or oversee hateful slurs against other people, perhaps we need the holy courage to call them out, because that's just not us,' he said. Donald Trump made a rare appearance Sunday at a church that has traditionally served as a house of worship for sitting presidents and sat through a sermon on they type of 'hateful rhetoric' that inspired the New Zealand mosque attacks President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump leave St. Johns Episcopal church Rev. W. Bruce McPherson identified the Friday attack on worshipers in New Zealand as 'one more gratuitous attack on innocent people at worship' in the 15-minute sermon they attended McPherson welcomed Trump to the church in plain view on St. Patrick's Day on Sunday. The president put his hand on the small of the minister's back as he followed him in. On the way out of the church, McPherson again walked the Trumps to their motorcade, which the couple opted to take to and from the White House. The couple has attended church on several occasions since their move to Washington, usually in Florida, on Christian holidays. McPherson preached on Sunday against hateful language as a 'sin against the Gospel' with the president and his wife sitting in the center aisle that's traditionally reserved for the president. He said 'it's not easy to confront someone' and so he is often 'the first one to just let it pass.' 'Maybe we shouldn't be so ready to do that,' he said. 'We don't want to stop, to put an end to hateful rhetoric, because it's a nice thing to do or because it offends our sensibilities or because it's not in accordance with the First Amendment. Perhaps he said, according to CNN, 'We need to stop that stuff because it's a sin against the Gospel. It takes courage I know. But it's up to us. Courage is contagious. And acting courageously especially in light of some kind of speech like that catches on and spreads.' Trump claimed Monday, as he came under pressure to denounce white nationalism, that the media was unfairly connecting him to the mass murder who targeted two mosques in New Zealand and was subject of the Sunday sermon he attended. The accused gunman, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, mentioned Trump in a 70-page manifesto, putting new pressure on the U.S. president to address charges that he has enabled or inspired violence with his fiery rhetoric. 'The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!' he said in his first comments since Friday on the attack. Donald Trump claimed Monday, as he came under pressure to denounce white nationalism, that the media was unfairly connecting him to a mass murder who targeted two mosques in New Zealand The U.S. president had previously said that he does not believe white nationalism is a growing global threat The U.S. president had previously said that he does not believe white nationalism is a growing global threat. His assertion Friday that the terrorist attack was the work of 'a small group' of people with 'very serious problems' came under scrutiny on Sunday from a number of Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of three Muslims in Congress. 'We need to be speaking up against this, and it has to start with him reiterating the importance of real information and data that says it's on the rise,' she said on CNN's 'State of the Union' program. 'You can't just say it isn't, when the facts say the complete opposite. He needs to do better by us and the country. He needs to speak up and condemn this very loud and very clearly.' Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a presidential candidate gunning for Trump's job, said on the same show that Trump is 'dividing' people, although she wouldn't go so far as to say he shares responsibility for the shooting. 'I don't think you can actually take each of the murderous acts and say what role Donald Trump played, but I can tell you this. His rhetoric doesn't help. And many of these people, whether it was the person who tried to bomb Barack Obama or this murderer in New Zealand, have cited Donald Trump along the way,' she said. Trump should as a result 'be giving strong statements, public speeches defending Muslims in this world' who are under attack based on their religion. 'And one of our jobs, as a leader, is to stand up, whether people are Jewish, whether they're Muslim, no matter how they worship, no matter what they look like. We have to remember that they are all part of a country of shared dreams. And that's the United States of America,' she said. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney argued on Trump's behalf on 'Fox News Sunday' that it is 'absurd' to link Trump to the gunman. 'The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that,' he said on Fox News. He said it's not fair to tie any of the incidents at home or abroad to the president. 'And to simply ask the question, every time something like this happens overseas, or even domestically, to say, oh, my goodness, it must somehow be the president's fault speaks to a politicization of everything that I think is undermining sort of the institutions that we have in the country today,' he added. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney snapped back at any attempt to link President Donald Trump to the accused shooter This image was taken from the alleged shooter's video Mulvaney said it was no more fair to call the alleged shooter a Trump supporter than to call an eco-terrorist a support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 'I don't think it's fair to cast this person as a supporter of Donald Trump any more than it is to look at his - sort of his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto that align him with Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Ocasio-Cortez,' he said. 'This was a disturbed individual, an evil person, and to try and tie him to an American politician from either party probably ignores some of the deeper, difficulties that this sort of activity exposes,' Mulvaney said. The alleged shooter had called himself a Trump supporter, terming the president a symbol of 'white identity' while venting about an immigrant 'invasion' that he claimed was replacing white people. Trump has himself talked about an 'invasion' of illegal immigration repeatedly. And while he has condemned the horrific shooting in New Zealand, the president has not distanced himself from white nationalism by denouncing the movement. He claimed last year that he didn't know that the term nationalism has racial connotations and encouraged his supporters to use and embrace it. The White House issued a bristling response to journalists on Friday morning when the first questions were raised about the sick manifesto mentioning Trump that was released by the New Zealand attacker before he began his rampage. 'It's outrageous to even make that connection between this deranged individual that committed this evil crime to the president, who had repeatedly condemned bigotry, racism, and has made it very clear that this is a terrorist attack,' fumed White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp. 'We are there to support and stand with the people of New Zealand,' Schlapp told reporters at the White House as officials continued to monitor developments from the horrific attack. Trump had tweeted out his sympathy Friday morning for those who died 'senselessly' during the massacre at two mosques in New Zealand. President Trump has tweeted out his sympathy for those who died 'senselessly' during the massacre at two mosques in New Zealand However, the president made no mention of the dark sentiments that had already been unearthed about the shooter, nor did he put forth any generalized statement that acknowledged the faith of the Muslim followers who were slaughtered. The alleged perpetrators writings state his desire to cause a 'civil war' in the U.S. 'My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques,' Trump wrote. Trump continued: '49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do.' God bless all!' he added, ending his missive with an exclamation point and a nod to religion, after the latest terror attack to rip through a house of worship. White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp The manifesto calls Trump a 'symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.' It didn't take long for critics of the president call out his rhetoric in the wake of the attack. 'Of course our prayers go out to the people of New Zealand, particularly the loved ones and survivors and victims,' Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told CNN. Blumenthal added: 'But words do have consequences, and we know that at the very pinnacle of power in our own country, people are talking about 'good people on both sides,'' he added, in reference to Trump's widely criticized response to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia. New Zealand's shaken prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, made a point of including statements inclusive of refugees in her own statement during what she called a dark time for her country. 'They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us,' she said. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. They have no place in New Zealand.' Trump referenced early reports that at least 49 were killed in the attack Trump spoke to Adern Friday afternoon, Washington time, tweeting about it afterward in a pair of messages. 'Just spoke with Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, regarding the horrific events that have taken place over the past 24 hours. I informed the Prime Minister...that we stand in solidarity with New Zealand and that any assistance the U.S.A. can give, we stand by ready to help. We love you New Zealand! Pelosi, who attended a St. Patrick's Day luncheon with Trump on Thursday, tweeted: 'We mourn the loss of 49 lives cut short in the horrific act of violence in Christchurch, New Zealand. Islamophobia and such acts of pure hatred have no place in a civilized world.' Trump has made it a policy to quickly sent out sentiments on Twitter following terror attacks that have jolted nations around the world. His National Security Advisor John Bolton told reporters at the White House on Friday morning, 'We're obviously greatly disturbed by this what seems to be a terror attack this hate crime in New Zealand.' Trump spoke to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Friday He said the State Department was following up on the incident. 'We're very concerned. We're going to cooperate with the New Zealand authorities to the extent we can,' Bolton continued. 'If there's any role that we can play. We are obviously following the events there very closely. That's really all I can say on that at the moment.' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders also issued a statement Friday expressing solidarity following the massacre. 'The United States strongly condemns the attack in Christchurch. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with the people of New Zealand and their government against this vicious act of hate,' she said. Trump's tweet responding to the massacre in Christchurch steered clear of any policy pronouncements on security, guns, immigration, and religious extremists or domestic politics. That hasn't always been the case. Following a stabbing attack on London Bridge in 2017, Trump responded by tweeting: 'We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!' The gunman, who identified himself as Brenton Tarrant from Grafton, NSW, Australia, stormed the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the country's South Island about 1.30pm, opening fire with a semi-automatic shotgun and a rifle on about 100 defenseless worshippers attending Friday prayers. A sickening 17-minute video of the unfolding horror shows the self-confessed white supremacist dressed in army fatigues firing mercilessly at people scrambling to flee, and calmly reloading when he runs out of bullets. At about the same time, there was a second shooting at Masjid mosque in Linwood, where seven more were killed. In the aftermath of the bloody attacks, three men and one woman were arrested, with police charging 'one man in his late 20s' with murder. He is expected to face court on Saturday. Two of the others remain in police custody, with a fourth person arrested deemed not to have been involved in the attacks. Of the 49 fatalities, 41 were killed at the Al Noor Mosque and seven at the Linwood Avenue mosque. Three were outside the mosque itself. A 49th died in hospital. A further 48 people were rushed to Christchurch Hospital with gunshot wounds, 20 in a critical condition. A dozen operating theatres were opened, with many victims requiring multiple life-saving surgeries. New Zealand Police have evacuated homes in Dunedin as they investigate a home 'of interest' to the shootings. The address is believed to be the home the gunman's car is registered to. In New Zealand's worst ever terror attack and one of the worst mass-shootings ever: Tarrant (pictured as a child in his late father's arms) live-streamed the shooting spree to his social media account Police arrested and charged one man aged 'in his late 20s' with murder. He is expected to face court Saturday. Pictured is Tarrant during a holiday in Pakistan Witnesses reported hearing 50 shots and police are responding to the incident at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the country's South Island. Pictured is a still from a live-stream of the shooting A man wearing military fatigues (pictured) was arrested outside Papanui High School At least one gunman has opened fire at a mosque in New Zealand , shooting at children and killing dozens of people Witnesses reported hearing 50 shots and police are responding to the incident at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the country's South Island At least 40 people were reported dead as a result of the twin massacres on Friday, with the total rising to 49 within an hour Soledad O'Brien announced on Monday that her mother had passed away, 40 days after her father's death. The TV journalist made the announcement on Twitter and gave a lengthy tribute to her mother, Estela, afterwards. She described her as 'wise' and 'remarkable' in a series of posts where she shared details about her life. Soledad, who is the host of the syndicated TV show Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien said: 'My mom died today. Joining my dad who passed away 40 days ago. She was a pretty remarkable lady. An immigrant from Cuba, she lived with the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore during college.' She went on to share some of her mother's advice, including 'people are basically full of s**t, stop taking their stupidity to heart' and 'always keep $10 in your bra so you can leave.' The former CNN anchor in a recent photograph with her parents, Estela and Edward Soledad O'Brien announced on Monday that her mother Estela had died at the age of 88 Soledad O'Brien's mother Estela is shown with her late father Edward who died last month The 52-year-old TV anchor also revealed how her parents put all six of her and her siblings through college. 'She was pretty awesome. But mostly I wish lots of young, working women had access to her wisdom. Everyone gets the same 24 hours. Decide how youll spend yours. 'Take 24 hours to sit in bed and cry.. then stop complaining and make a list and plan your comeback"' she said. Estela was 88. She and Soledad's father, Edward, married in 195. At the time, interracial marriages were not yet legal across the country. Soledad's mother is shown, left, in the classroom. She was a teacher and taught at her daughter's school Edward died in February at the age of 85. In her Twitter thread, Soledad also shared a photograph of a newspaper ad her mother posted fighting for racial equality in their hometown. 'She put this ad in our local paper when I was a kidto protest discriminatory housing in our town. 'We were the only black family in our neighborhood, so it didnt win her a lot of friends,' she wrote. Estela was a teacher at her daughter's school.Her husband worked as an engineer and served in the military. A Christchurch 'copycat' has made a chilling post on social media threatening to kill worshippers at a mosque in regional Victoria. Victoria Police has confirmed they are investigating a report of 'concerning' social media posts detailing plans to carry out a mass shooting at the Islamic Society of Geelong mosque. The threats were made on Sunday, just hours after hundreds of worshippers and community members flocked to the mosque to pay their respects to the 50 people killed in New Zealand's Christchurch terrorist attack on Friday. Imam Shaykh Mohammad Ramzan (second right) welcomed thousands at the Geelong mosque on Sunday, including federal Labor frontbencher Richard Marles (second left) and Labor federal member Libby Coker (right) The anonymous post was directed at Geelong. 'Yes I am a copy cat I will be visiting the mosque and kill as many invaders as I can in the time I get I will then shoot myself in front of police,' the post stated. Police attended the mosque on Sunday night and conducted checks. The area was deemed safe before before the mosque was closed for the evening shortly after 6.30pm. An anonymous post directed at the mosque threatened to 'kill as many invaders as I can' 'Local police have reached out to leaders from within the mosque community and will also ensure an increased police presence in and around the area,' a Victoria Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia. 'It is concerning that at times we see members of the community think they are entitled to use intimidation and or violence to express their views and are intolerant of communities.' 'As the investigation is ongoing it wouldn't be appropriate to comment further at this stage.' The mosque represents more than 8,000 Muslim families in Geelong, according to its website. 'Our vision is to build a better community for all Australians through the empowerment of Muslim,' it states. Victoria Police are investigating social media threats towards the Geelong mosque (pictured) Imam Shaykh Mohammad Ramzan told the Geelong Advertiser he had been alerted to the threats by police. He added the Islamic community has vowed to not give in to messages of fear and hatred and that the overwhelming community support has made them stronger than ever, despite the threats. 'Our main message to the community is that everything is normal,' he told the publication. 'The support from the community has given us so much strength it has made us feel many years younger.' The Islamic Society of Geelong mosque (pictured inside) represents more than 8,000 Muslim families in the region Deakin Universitys Professor of Global Islamic Politics Greg Barton urged leaders, the media and commentators to act responsibly and reject violence. He also urged the community to not live in fear and instead unite together in solidarity. Earlier on Sunday, the mosque attracted a massive turnout for the Islamic Council of Victoria's annual mosque open day, including local MPs Richard Marles, Sarah Henderson and Christine Couzens. 'I have no doubt the many hundreds of people who attended came in solidarity and to express their horror of the shocking events in New Zealand. It made me feel proud of the Geelong community to see so many visit the mosque to show they care,' Ms Couzens posted on Facebook. This is the frightening moment a biker collided head on with a car in the opposite lane on a busy road in Honduras in a fatal crash. A surveillance camera in the capital city of Tegucigalpa captured the horrifying crash Saturday at 7pm local time. Authorities identified Josue Francisco Canales, 29, as the person who crashed his motorcycle onto a car while he was traveling on the opposite lane. WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES A white car appears on the security surveillance camera traveling at a moderate speed on Centroamericana Boulevard when a motorcycle suddenly crashed right into its front bumpers. The video shows the moment Canales was ejected from his moped and is sent flying in the air. He then disappears from the camera's view before he crashed down. A CCTV camera in the Honduran capital city of Tegucigalpa registered the horrible moment motorized bike rider Josue Francisco Canales, 29 (pictured left and right), collided head on with a car on a busy road before he died later at a hospital. Authorities identified Canales, as the person who crashed his motorcycle onto a car while he was traveling on the opposite lane Josue Francisco Canales is operating his bike on the opposite lane moments before he crashed into a white car (both pictured left). He was pronounced dead at a local hospital Canales' hits the front bumper before he is frighteningly ejected from his motorcycle (pictured left) on a road in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Saturday night A Honduran man's (left) body is sent flying in the air moments after he crashed directly into a car on the incoming lane of a road Paramedics rushed the biker to Escuela Hospital where he was pronounced dead moments after arriving. According to Honduran news outlet Tiempo, Canales's body was found lying several feet from the site where he crashed. Witnesses said Canales had been traveling at a high velocity before the fatal accident. Witnesses said Josue Francisco Canales was riding his bike (pictured) at a high speed Fyre Media Inc CEO Billy MacFarland, now 27, ended up being sentenced to six years in prison, accused of scamming people and businesses out of $26million Official merchandise from the disastrous Fyre Festival will be auctioned off to help pay back ticket buyers who lost money. The event scheduled for April 2830 and May 57, 2017 was billed as one of the most luxurious gatherings and supermodels such as Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber appeared in promotional images and video in the lead-up. But Fyre Media Inc CEO Billy MacFarland, now 27, ended up being sentenced to six years in prison last October, accused of scamming people and businesses out of $26million for the festival on the Caribbean island that ended up failing. While t-shirts and caps have been put up for sale since the iconic flop, it hasn't been easy for potential buyers to tell the difference between what was truly intended to be sold by MacFarland's company two years ago and what was created since catastrophe went viral. However the government has resorted to selling off items seized from the company in an attempt to get some of the funds back to those who lost out. 'We have an assortment of the 'real thing' Fyre Festival-branded tee-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, hats, wristbands and medallions,' a spokesman for the United States Marshals Service's Manhattan Office told Vulture. Those who followed updates from festival attendees at the time and who have been locked into the Netflix and Hulu documentary coverage have shown interest in securing clothing and accessories connected to the fraudster's business. The United States Marshals Service's Manhattan Office has an assortment of 'real thing' Fyre Festival-branded 'tee-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, hats, wristbands and medallions' In an ironic way, Fyre memorabilia has become a style statement. Last May, people flocked to a New York City sale for items said to be connected to the event. 'We know that there is tremendous interest in these items in the NY metro area in particular,' the spokesperson continued. It's not clear how much merchandise is available at this stage but a court filing against MacFarland said 'two large boxes containing Fyre-branded T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts and other clothing items that were intended for sale at the Fyre Festival' were seized. MacFarland's legal representative turned over merchandise after he was sentenced and the items were inventoried 'to protect the government in case the items are fakes or counterfeit'. 'The USMS will dispose (or sell) the Fyre merchandise in the most efficient, cost-effective way in the best interests of the U.S. Government,' USMS said. 'We utilize our contracted partners to handle the marketing and sale and it will be an online auction.' However the items alone won't be enough to repay Fyre victims. Those who have come forward will be given a percentage of the proceeds. 'Our objective always is to get the funds back to the victims as fast as we can in cases where there are victims,' the representative added to Vulture. Burnin' up: Netflix (left) and Hulu (right) both released much-talked about documentaries centered around the disastrous Fyre Festival where customers and workers lost money Feds found $240,000 connected to MacFarland in one bank account and an undisclosed amount in another. Music fans spent thousands of dollars each on tickets to see popular acts, load up electronic wristbands in advance and pay for accommodation. But when they arrived they found they'd be staying in large tents instead of villas and a photo of an unappetizing cheese sandwich went viral despite festival-goers being promised fine catering. The Fyre Festival used celebrity influencers from around the world to push the luxury getaway in the Bahamas to wealthy millennials as a once in a lifetime experience. In reality guests arrived on the island to find the site half-finished and their luggage missing. The first tantalizing glimpse of 'the cultural event of the decade' came in December 2016 when 400 in-demand influencers paid by McFarland simultaneously posted orange squares on their Instagram accounts. Big dreams: Famous models were infamously part of the promotion of the Bahamas festival which failed in April 2017 and now Fyre Festival has become an ironic style statement In reality, McFarland had no experience of organizing such an event and vastly underestimated the cost and the logistics involved. The first disaster was the location itself. The original site chosen for the event was Norman's Cay, a private island with historic connections to drug smuggling. McFarland spent a cool $1 million on a lease from the current owners on the promise that he made no mention of its criminal past. When he bragged on social media that the island once belonged to drug lord Pablo Escobar, the lease was cancelled just 45 days before the event was due to take place in April 2017. McFarland subsequently got a permit from the Bahamian government to use a site at Roker Point on Great Exuma, just above the Sandals holiday resort, but continued to peddle the 'private island' lie. Maps of the site were altered before being posted online to make it appear as if Roker Point was a deserted island in itself. On top of all that, the date of the festival clashed with a popular annual regatta weekend on Great Exuma, which meant that all the accommodation on the island was already booked out. Two 2019 documentaries on the sham show how MacFarland expertly secured funding time and time again as the festival organization spiraled out of control instead of opting to cancel the event. By the time McFarland agreed to cancel the festival, thousands were stranded on the island and unable to get home. The Manhattan US Attorney's Office estimated investors lost out on $24million and MacFarland got $2million from a ticket vendor. Even after Fyre Festival nosedived, the serial scammer set up a separate operation, selling pricey difficult-to-obtain tickets to events despite not having them at the time. Prosecutors said he made $150,000 while waiting to be sentenced for Fyre Festival. Australians have been warned to prepare for a deadly flu season, with double the amount of cases recorded compared to this time last year. Seven people in Sydney have already died - the worst number of flu deaths in eight years for late summer and early autumn. New figures from New South Wales Health reveals a spike in cases of influenza A, after a low number of cases of flu last year. The sudden spike is being partly caused by travellers returning back to Australia from the northern hemisphere. Seven people in Sydney have already died, as new figures from New South Wales health reveals a spike in most cases, mostly influenza A (file picture) Eight outbreaks have already occurred at nursing homes in February, with another four breaking out in hospitals. Families are being warned by healthcare professionals to hold off from visiting elderly relatives in nursing homes if they have a runny nose or a cough. So far 144 people from aged care institutions have been hit by the virus, while 14 people have been taken to hospital across the city. 'There were also seven deaths in residents linked to these outbreaks, all of whom were noted to have significant comorbidities,' the latest NSW Health Influenza Surveillance Report stated. A total 2244 cases have been confirmed by influenza labs in the four weeks to March 3, which is almost double the number of February 2018. What you need to know about flu -Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body -aches, headache, chills, fatigue - People with flu are most contagious in the first 3-4 days after their illness begins - Flu viruses spread mainly by coughing, sneezing or talking - People 65 older, people with asthma, diabetes, or heart disease, pregnant women, and children younger than 5 are at a higher risk of developing complications - There are influenza antiviral drugs that can be used to treat flu illness Advertisement The hardest hit areas for outbreaks are Sydney's south and east, where more than 118 cases were recorded in a week. 'Some of the increase follows a late influenza season across tropical parts of Australia, which affected northern NSW, and now its likely that travellers returning from the northern hemisphere are bringing flu home with them,' said Dr Vicky Sheppeard from NSW Healths Communicable Diseases branch. 'Unusually high levels of influenza activity are being seen in most states and territories, with the national reporting rate more than three times the average for this time of year,' she added. Australias flu season doesnt usually get underway until May or June. It comes after last years winter flu season was the mildest in five years, after 2017's deadly flu season. Brazil's new right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro began his tour of Washington, D.C. by dining with former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, then visited the CIA on Monday. Bolsonaro, whose conservative rise, attacks on the media, and freewheeling style have drawn comparisons to Trump, dined Sunday night along with the exiled former Trump confidant and other conservative commentators. Also present were American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp, whose wife is White House official Mercedes Schlapp, plus conservative commentator Roger Kimball and Wall Street Journal editorial writer Anastasia O'Grady. A handout picture released by the Brazilian Presidency shows Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro sitting next to President Donald Trump's former strategist Stephen Bannon. Bolsonaro is to meet Trump on Tuesday According to an image, Bolsonaro hosted a dinner for a large group seated at a candle-lit table, where generous portions of red caviar was served. On Monday, Brazilian president visited CIA headquarters Monday, in another unusual PR move. The CIA backed a 1964 coup against President Joao Goulart, who had been democratically elected. 'Some of the Bolsonaro team on the right see themselves as disciples of the Bannon movement and representatives of Bannon for Brazil and Latin America, Fernando Cutz, a former Trump National Security Council official told McClatchy. He is also getting a show of appreciation from President Trump, staying at Blair House across from the White House and joining in an expected press conference Tuesday. QUITE A COUP: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonarolater visited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, after earlier making a trip to the CIA that his son Eduardo, a Brazilian legislator, revealed online President Trump and Bolsonaro were expected to use their Tuesday meeting to forge ties in their growing conservative populist alliance Bolsonaro began his trip to Washington by hosting a dinner with conservatives at the Brazilian embassy Trump fired Bannon after he was quoted extensively in Michael Wolff's tell-all 'Fire and Fury.' Also pictured at the dinner was Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead. Bolsonaro's unusual move to visit the CIA on his trip reflects the country's shift in leadership to a more pro-American stance. President Bolsonaro planned to discuss 'international themes in the region' at the visit to headquarters in Langley, Virginia, according to his son, Eduardo, a Brazilian lawmaker accompanying him. Eduardo Bolsonaro described the CIA as 'one of the most respected intelligence agencies in the world,' in a tweet that was likely to raise eyebrows back home in Brazil, where the U.S. and its spy services have been regarded with suspicion in recent years. In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations of then-President Dilma Rousseff, leading to a years of frosty relations between the U.S. and Brazil. 'No Brazilian president had ever paid a visit to the CIA,' said Celso Amorim, who served as foreign minister under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and is a Bolsonaro critic. 'This is an explicitly submissive position. Nothing compares to this.' Bolsonaro has echoed President Trump's call for law and order, and in the past has compared homosexuality to pedophilia The CIA had no comment on the visit. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro attends a ceremony marking the 211th anniversary of Brazilian Marine Corps in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, March 7, 2019. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Bolsonaro visited the agency with his justice minister, Sergio Moro, leading daily O Globo reported. The paper noted that the visit was not published in the president's agenda and press were not allowed to accompany him inside. The far-right Bolsonaro was elected last year and is an admirer of President Donald Trump. He sought to underscore his pro-America stance with a tweet upon his arrival Sunday. 'For the first time in a while, a pro-America Brazilian president arrives in DC,' he said in the tweet. 'It's the beginning of a partnership focused on liberty and prosperity, something that all of us Brazilians have long wished for.' Bolsonaro was scheduled to speak to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce later Monday. He is to meet with Trump on Tuesday, when he is expected to discuss trade and cooperation on the international campaign to press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to give up power to the opposition. Accused Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant could avoid terror charges amid fears the trial will allow him to 'espouse' his ideological views. The suspected gunman was charged with one count of murder over the weekend, but authorities are now weighing up all options including charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act. Legal experts, however, have warned that a trial on terrorism charges will pose more of a challenge for prosecutors, while also having unintended consequences for the families of the victims. They would have to prove Tarrant intended to kill and terrorise a community based on political and ideological reason - as opposed to just murder. Tarrant could now face multiple murder charges, according to experts. Brenton Tarrant (pictured) has been charged with one initial count of murder over the mass shootings that killed 50 people in the southern city of Christchurch and faces life in prison Tarrant was arrested on the sidewalk by two training police officers on Friday after he allegedly shot and killed 50 Muslim worshipers 'In my view, the elements are all made out, but to minimise the impact on victims, straight murder is easier to prove,' former Crown prosecutor Ross Burns told Stuff. 'And there's less scope [for the accused] to use a platform to espouse his ideological reasons.' 'You've got 50 people killed and probably ten times that number directly affected so it will be a long trial and will be unduly traumatic for everyone,' he added. Burns previously led New Zealand's Operation 8 case, the only known case to use the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 during the 2007 police raids trial. The charges were later abandoned after it was ruled that evidence under that legislation could not be used and four people were convicted on firearm charges. If tried under terror charges, Burns said Tarrant could use the trial as platform to tout his extremist views. In his 74-page manifesto, Tarrant allegedly revealed his Neo-Nazi ideology and hatred for Muslims. 'If he's denied a platform, he's failed in his objective,' Burns said. Alexander Gillespie, a law professor at Waikato University in New Zealand, said it's possible Tarrant will face multiple murder charges, 9news reported. 'There's a lot of debate on whether he should be charged under terrorism legislation or whether he should be charged under the Crimes Act for the simple act of murder - in many ways it's academic debate,' he said. In New Zealand, being found guilty of murder usually comes with a minimum of ten years in jail before possible parole. Legal experts have said the 28-year-old Australian's alleged crimes were so extreme they could warrant the heaviest sentence imposed by a judge in the South Pacific nation since the abolition of the death penalty in 1961. A Muslim man kneels facing the Masjid Al Noor mosque surrounded by flowers and tributes to the victims Young women weep as they hold each other for comfort during a students vigil near Al Noor mosque on Monday Nearly three days since the horrific terror attack in Christchurch which left 50 worshippers dead, new details about the innocent victims are emerging 'He may be sentenced to imprisonment without parole. There is a very significant possibility,' criminal lawyer Simon Cullen told AFP, adding that such a sentence would be 'unprecedented'. 'This would seem to be... the type of situation that may well attract consideration of that type of sentence.' The longest-ever murder sentence imposed in New Zealand was in 2001, when a judge sentenced William Bell to life imprisonment with a 30-year minimum term for a triple murder. University of Auckland criminal procedure expert Bill Hodge said despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labelling the massacre an act of terrorism, prosecutors may shy away from terror charges. The Terrorism Suppression Act was only introduced in 2002, after the US 9/11 attacks and is untested in the courts. 'We haven't used our terrorism laws previously and the laws are designed to inhibit or prosecute those involved with groups and financing and publications and the like,' Hodge told AFP. A woman is seen paying her respects to victims by floral tributes laid outside the mosque 'I'll kill as many invaders as I can': Christchurch 'copycat' threatens to murder Muslim worshippers at an Australian mosque Kylie Stevens for Daily Mail Australia A Christchurch 'copycat' has made a chilling post on social media threatening to kill worshippers at a mosque in regional Victoria. Victoria Police has confirmed they are investigating a report of 'concerning' social media posts detailing plans to carry out a mass shooting at the Islamic Society of Geelong mosque. The threats were made on Sunday, just hours after hundreds of worshippers and community members flocked to the mosque to pay their respects to the 50 people killed in New Zealand's Christchurch terrorist attack on Friday. Imam Shaykh Mohammad Ramzan (second right) welcomed thousands at the Geelong mosque on Sunday, including federal Labor frontbencher Richard Marles (second left) and Labor federal member Libby Coker (right) The anonymous post was directed at Geelong. 'Yes I am a copy cat I will be visiting the mosque and kill as many invaders as I can in the time I get I will then shoot myself in front of police,' the post stated. Police attended the mosque on Sunday night and conducted checks. The area was deemed safe before before the mosque was closed for the evening shortly after 6.30pm. An anonymous post directed at the mosque threatened to 'kill as many invaders as I can' 'Local police have reached out to leaders from within the mosque community and will also ensure an increased police presence in and around the area,' a Victoria Police spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia. 'It is concerning that at times we see members of the community think they are entitled to use intimidation and or violence to express their views and are intolerant of communities.' 'As the investigation is ongoing it wouldn't be appropriate to comment further at this stage.' The mosque represents more than 8,000 Muslim families in Geelong, according to its website. 'Our vision is to build a better community for all Australians through the empowerment of Muslim,' it states. President Vladimir Putin has signed into law tough new fines for Russians who spread what the authorities regard as fake news or who show 'blatant disrespect' for the state online, an official portal for legal information showed on Monday. Critics have warned that the legislation could create a mechanism for state censorship, but lawmakers say the new measures are needed to combat false news reports and abusive online comments. The legislation grants authorities the power to block websites if they fail to comply with requests to remove information that the state deems to be factually inaccurate. New censorship laws came on the same day that President Vladimir Putin visited Crimea The president was joined on stage by a number of Russian and Crimean officials to celebrate the anniversary of the peninsula's annexation Under the new law, individuals can be fined up to 400,000 roubles ($6,100) for circulating false information online that leads to a 'mass violation of public order.' People who show 'blatant disrespect' online for the state, the authorities, the public, the Russian flag or the constitution can be fined up to 100,000 roubles under the new legislation. Repeat offenders can be jailed for up to 15 days. (Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn) The new laws came on the same day as Mr Putin visited Crimea to mark the fifth anniversary of the peninsula's annexation from Ukraine. Mr Putin was joined on stage by Crimean prime minister Sergei Aksyonov (pictured left) at the event The president led thousands to chant 'Russia' at the event, as Nato and the European Union again strongly condemned the land grab by Russia. Speaking at an outdoor concert in Crimea's regional capital of Simferopol, the Russian president hailed Crimea's residents, likening them to the Red Army soldiers of the Second World War. 'Russia has taken you into its fold with delight and joy,' he told the crowd. 'We will fulfil all of our goals ... because we are together now.' He began his trip by attending the launch of new power plants in Crimea, part of Moscow's efforts to upgrade the region's infrastructure. Thousands of people waited in the cold to get a glimpse of Mr Putin on Monday. They chanted 'Russia' along with him Ukraine has cut off energy supplies to the peninsula and blocked shipments of Crimea-bound cargo via its territory after Moscow annexed the region in 2014. 'The situation has changed radically,' Mr Putin said, adding that the new power facilities will fully cover Crimea's energy needs. Russia's modernisation effort for Crimea has included building an 11.8-mile bridge that opened last year across the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The Russian president also visited the Malakhov Kurgan military memorial complex in Sevastopol, Crimea on Monday Mr Putin meets military veterans at the the Malakhov Kurgan military memorial complex in Crimea The 3.6 billion dollar (2.7 billion) project gave Crimea a land link to Russia. Previously, a ferry crossing that was often interrupted by gales served as the only connection. Mr Putin claims Russia 're-integrated' Crimea after the removal of Ukraine's former pro-Russian president in 2014 to protect ethnic Russians who made up the majority of Crimea's population from Ukrainian nationalists. The Kremlin was also worried that a new Ukrainian government could annul Russia's lease on its key Black Sea navy base in Crimea and welcome Nato there instead. The Kerch Strait bridge connects the Sea of Asov and the Black Sea. It was opened in 2018 The Russian leader has said he put Russia's nuclear forces on combat readiness during the 2014 developments in Crimea and warned his Western counterparts that Moscow was ready to defend what it considered its land. The annexation gave Russia hundreds of miles of coastline along the Black Sea, a near-stranglehold on commerce in the Sea of Azov and access to vast potential energy riches on the Black Sea shelf. Sydneysiders with Opal cards will pay no more than $50 a week for trips on trains, buses, ferries and light rail under an election promise. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said is re-elected the Liberal party would slash the weekly travel cap on Opal cards by about 20 per cent. New South Wales goes to the polls on Saturday with the election shaping up as a cliffhanger. 'Public transport is a significant cost for regular commuters and we want to make it more affordable,' Ms Berejiklian said in a statement on Monday. Minister for Transport Andrew Constance (left) and Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres (right) as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the new cap on transport costs Labor leader Michael Daley said voters will have to choose between the $50 cap and his election promise for a toll free M4 'We expect around 55,000 commuters will benefit from the lower cap, with thousands to save up to $686 a year.' Current benefits on the Opal services such as the Weekly Travel Reward will not be affected by the change. The cap, currently $63.20, will be reduced from July 1 if the Liberals are re-elected. Labor has promised to give school children free travel year round, while the Greens have pledged to give all travellers $1 fares on most modes of transport. Opposition leader Michael Daley said he will not match Ms Berejiklian's move to cap Opal card costs. Transport will be major issue when voters head to the booths. Latest polling from Newspoll shows a 50-50 tie, while a ReachTEL poll gave Labor a 51-49 lead. Mr Daley said the current member for Penrith, Stuart Ayres, who led the hugely controversial stadium demolition case, was fighting to keep his job. Penrith has become a key battleground for the election as the Liberals only hold the seat by a slim 6.2 per cent margin. The announcement was made four days before the election that is predicted to be close between the major parties Mr Daley said voters will have to choose between a toll-free M4 as promised by his party or the Opal card cap put forward by the Liberals. 'That's a pitch for the people of Penrith and she can give the Opal card a haircut and shave, but she's still stinging the people of Penrith with $2200 a year, 43 years of toll on the M4,' he said. There can be few tourist exhibits as grimly fascinating as that which greets visitors to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Housed in a wooden cabinet labelled Treatment of Dead Enemies it consists of seven shrunken human heads, each no bigger than a fist. Some are suspended eerily from the top of the case, others rest glumly on shelves but all have their mouths and eyes sewn shut and are thought to have fallen victim to the indigenous Shuar people who inhabit the Upper Amazon region between Ecuador and Peru. They were unashamedly savage in their treatment of trespassers. When the Spanish Conquistadors attempted to invade their gold-rich territory in the 17th century, the Shuars inventive methods of execution included pouring molten gold down the throat of a Spanish official who attempted to impose high taxes on them. The shrunken heads in the Pitt Rivers Museum have been labelled a 'freak show' despite claims from staff that their most frequently asked question is: 'Where are the shrunken heads?' Now, however, they are far better-known for the cruel practice highlighted at the Pitt Rivers. According to the staff there, the question they are most often asked is Where are the shrunken heads? And unfortunately for the curious, the answer may soon be back in the Amazonian rainforest. Unhappy visitors this month labelled the exhibit a freak show and such concerns have led the museum, which was founded in 1884 by wealthy archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers, to review whether it should continue to exhibit the heads. Its not the first time the Pitt Rivers has come under criticism. Last year, two human scalps from North America were removed from the same cabinet after Native Americans claimed that such displays were disrespectful to the deceased. And while there has been no complaint from the modern-day Shuar people, or any request to repatriate the heads, the museum now hopes to include the Shuar in discussions over the artefacts future. Seven head are housed in wooden cabinet called 'Treatment of Dead Enemies'. They date back to the 17th century. Their mouths and eyes are sewn shut and they are believed to have fallen victim to the indigenous Shuar people who inhabit the Upper Amazon region between Ecuador and Peru If the tsantsas, as the Shuar call them, do disappear from the display there will undoubtedly be protests. Indeed in 2003, rumours about their removal led one museum-goer to decry it as an unforgivable act of censorship. But wherever you stand on the debate, one strong argument for keeping them at the Pitt Rivers is that they remind us of the role played by the unscrupulous European collectors who encouraged their gruesome trade. Sanctioning the murder of women and children, not to mention the theft and mutilation of corpses, they profited from what was originally an important religious ritual for the Shuar. To make the heads, the Shuar organised special raids on neighbouring communities, with war parties generally attacking one house and setting fire to the roof to flush out the inhabitants before killing them and decapitating any males of fighting age. When the Spanish Conquistadors attempted to invade their gold-rich territory in the 17th century, the Shuars inventive methods of execution included pouring molten gold down the throat of a Spanish official who attempted to impose high taxes on them By doing so, they believed they could harness the power of the warrior soul which resided in every man. The Shuar also believed that humans contained a second soul that turned into a demon called an iwianch at the point of death. Fearful that the iwianch would try to avenge its owners murder, the Shuar shrank the head in the belief that this would somehow imprison it. The method was particularly gruesome. First, they peeled back the face, scalp and hair from the skull before discarding the latter along with the eyes to end up with what must have resembled a rubbery skin mask. With the eyes and mouth sewn shut to protect the iwianch from escaping, the skin was boiled in a pot to shrink it. It was then dried on a spear before being filled repeatedly with hot sand to dry out and reduce the flesh further. Once it was a quarter of its original size, the mask would be stuffed with rainforest vegetation to maintain its shape. Only then would it finally be ready to become the centrepiece of an elaborate ceremony which involved much singing, dancing and chanting as the warrior soul passed to the man whod taken the head as his prize. When the ceremony was completed, the heads were discarded. The Shuar were not interested in the head itself once the power of the soul had been transferred, writes anthropologist Frances Larson in Severed, A History Of Heads Lost And Heads Found. They were insignificant, like an envelope which once contained an important letter. This may explain the readiness with which the Shuar sold these relics to the Europeans who settled in Ecuador in the 1880s to make money from rubber plantations and the bark of the cinchona tree, a source of the quinine used to treat malaria. Valuing the heads as curios, they exchanged them for weapons the going rate being a gun for a head and soon booming international demand from museums and collectors meant the Shuar began running out of tsantsas. In an attempt to keep business steady, they tried to pass off shrunken monkey and sloth heads as the real thing. But there were telling detailed differences. Collectors soon began to weed out fakes, forcing suppliers to resort to more disturbing methods. Of the seven heads at the Pitt Rivers Museum, for example, only three bear the signs of having been part of authentic tsantsas rituals: their lips are sewn with cotton string and their earlobes have distinctive holes. These are lacking in the other four heads, one of which was found to have been stuffed not with the leaves of Amazonian trees but with a copy of the Quito Times, an Ecuadorean newspaper. But if they were not acquired through Shuar headhunting raids, where did they come from? One explanation may lie in the greed of taxidermists who tried to cash in on the trade in towns and cities across South America. They bribed local hospitals and morgues to give them corpses of the poor. And there is also evidence that the Shuar started to view headshrinking as a way to get guns rather than as a ritual affair, using up to 500 men at a time in large-scale raids on their neighbours. Some Shuar simply murdered people in order to sell their heads and, as demand grew, so the Shuar headhunters became less discriminatory, writes Frances Larson. Historically, only mens heads had been taken but now the Shuar began to take the heads of women and children for trade, even though they had no ritual significance. By 1910, one traveller to Peru said shrunken heads were selling for the equivalent of 110 today. As he explained in a letter to The Times, the curio shop in which he had seen them hanging up by their long hair was charging five times more for the head of a white man because it was such a rarity. That European settlers sometimes fell victim to the trade is suggested in the journal of Robert Ripley, the American cartoonist and amateur anthropologist famed for his Ripleys Believe It Or Not odditoriums across the world. He claimed one German scientist who had entered the Amazonian rainforest in search of headhunters in the Thirties had returned as nothing more than a shrunken head with a red beard. Whether or not thats true, the Peruvian and Ecuadorean governments were sufficiently disturbed by the trade to outlaw the sale of shrunken heads in the Thirties. By the Sixties, the practice of making tsantsas stopped altogether. The last of the Pitt Rivers heads was acquired in 1936. And while there is no suggestion that those who donated them had anything to do with the guns for heads trade, very little is known about how they were acquired. The museum hopes to carry out a study into the heads provenance. But unless and until all this is settled, the tiny human heads will continue to exert a deeply macabre fascination for visitors to the Pitt Rivers Museum. A fifth indigenous teenager has killed himself in the space of a a week, as community leaders fear suicide has become normalised in isolated communities. The Townsville teen travelled to Brisbane to visit family at the weekend before committing suicide on Sunday. His death comes on the back of four other indigenous youths aged between 15 and 23 who took their own lives across a two-day period last week. Indigenous advocate Gracelyn Smallwood told The Australian the tragedy is that 'suicides among our young people have become normalised behaviour'. The soaring rates of Aboriginal youth suicide described as a humanitarian crisis (stock image) Ms Smallwood, a nursing and midwifery professor, also said Australia had the highest rates of youth suicide among indigenous populations in the world, and believes the Government isn't doing enough to put an end to it. The current trends have seen the worst affected areas shift from the Kimberley region in West Australia to north Queensland, where the latest spate of suicides have taken place. There have been at least 32 Aboriginal suicides in Australia so far this year. Five young Indigenous girls took their own lives across Australia in January (pictured Rochelle Pryor, from Perth, took her own life after a cry for help on social media) A 15-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman took their own lives in Townsville last week. A 19-year-old male and 20-year-old man died in separate incidents in Mount Isa in the state's north-west just a day earlier. Wollongong University's public health expert, Peter Malouf described the outbreak as a 'potential epidemic', while other researchers say it is a humanitarian crisis. 'Factors that contribute to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth suicide are complex and multilayered,' he said. 'These include drug and alcohol use, personal relationships, bullying, isolation both cultural and community, trauma and systemic racism. Four Queensland Aboriginals aged 15- 23 took their own lives within two days last week, including two young men in Mount Isa (pictured) 'There is increasing evidence the internet and social media can influence suicide-related behaviour. 'The growth of social media has presented a new set of challenges for suicide prevention.' About a third of the current 2019 death toll of indigenous Australian's have been children, including two 12-year-old girls who took their lives earlier this year. They were among five teenagers aged from 12 to 15 who committed suicide in a nine day period in January. Indigenous children aged between five and 17 die from suicide at five times the rate of non-indigenous children, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics. Figures show one in four people who took their own lives before turning 18 were Aboriginal. Strikes by French customs staff delayed Eurostar trains by up to seven hours Furious Eurostar passengers have complained of seven-hour delays after strikes by French customs officials. The rail operator urged people to travel from Paris to London only if absolutely necessary as the industrial action over pay and working conditions triggered delays to all its services. Four trains from Paris to London were cancelled on Sunday and another three were axed yesterday. Travellers queue at the Eurostar terminal this morning as militant French trade unionists use Brexit as an excuse for industrial action And Eurostar warned the disruption will last until Wednesday, with two services cancelled today and another three tomorrow. In a statement on its website it said there were severe delays and lengthy queues with passengers facing an average wait of two hours. Customs officials want better pay and conditions and say more staff will be needed after Brexit, when British citizens will no longer have EU passports. Last week, unions rejected a pay rise worth 12million. But the protests have infuriated passengers who have faced tortuous journeys home from Paris. Catherine Hope tweeted on Sunday that it had taken her four-and-a-half hours to get through all the queues, while passenger Brian Wetjen said he had been forced to wait for seven hours. They already come for the chance to see locations filmed in the TV series Bergerac. Now visitors could be flocking to Jersey for a different reason to sample its cannabis. A tourism boss has suggested legalising the drug for recreational use to boost tourism. Keith Beecham, the head of Visit Jersey, said a tax on the Class B drug would also increase revenues. Keith Beecham, the head of Visit Jersey, has said legalising cannabis could help increase tourism to the Channel Island (stock photo) He said the Channel Island should follow Canada and ten US states including Colorado that have relaxed laws relating to the drug. Although there were ethical and legal obstacles, he suggested holding a public consultation, adding: I think it would be short-sighted not to look into it. Colorado last year announced it had made about 200million in taxes from 1.17billion in cannabis sales. Mr Beecham added: That money circulates ... and benefits the broader economy and the services that we all rely on. I am not advocating it as a lifestyle but for people who have cannabis as part of their lifestyle such as those in Colorado and California they can enjoy that part of their lifestyle in a different place. Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, says we need to train more professionals It is the first time foreign doctors have outnumbered UK trainees since 2006 More than half of new doctors working in the UK have been recruited from abroad for the first time in more than a decade, figures show. The NHS is importing more foreign doctors than it is training as it struggles to balance its workforce with ever-increasing demand. In 2018, there were 7,186 UK medical graduates compared with 8,116 doctors who joined the General Medical Council (GMC) register from overseas. Foreign doctors represented 53 per cent of the total. The NHS is in the midst of a recruitment crisis with more than 100,000 posts unfilled out of a workforce of 1.2million. Unions say staff are cracking as a result of heavy workloads, long hours, rising demand for care and widespread understaffing, causing record numbers to quit [File photo] This was up from the 6,258 registered overseas doctors in 2017 and is the first time they have outnumbered UK trainees since 2006. Overall, UK qualified doctors still made up 66 per cent of the doctors on the GMC register last year up from 64 per cent in 2009. The head of NHS England said it was inevitable that the reliance on foreign doctors would continue for the next ten years. Simon Stevens said moves to boost numbers should not be at the expense of the countries where they were trained. Speaking at The Spectator Health Summit in central London, he said: We need to train more health professionals in this country and that includes doctors. The NHS is importing more foreign doctors than it is training as it struggles to balance its workforce with ever-increasing demand. In 2018, there were 7,186 UK medical graduates compared with 8,116 doctors who joined the General Medical Council (GMC) register from overseas [File photo] Weve got five new medical schools coming online as we speak, which will be a 25 per cent increase in undergraduate medical places. Arguably, that needs to be more. In the meantime, we have always in the NHS benefited from some targeted international health professionals and I think over the next five or ten years, its inevitable that thats going to continue to be the case. But as we do that, we need to make sure thats not a substitute for facing the need to plan training pipelines in this country and we need to do so in a way that is ethical so we are not denuding low-income countries of health professionals they clearly need. The NHS is in the midst of a recruitment crisis with more than 100,000 posts unfilled out of a workforce of 1.2million. Unions say staff are cracking as a result of heavy workloads, long hours, rising demand for care and widespread understaffing, causing record numbers to quit. Yesterday, NHS England launched a scheme to bring UK-qualified GPs back to the workforce by paying up to 18,500 in relocation support. But cancer surgeon Meirion Thomas criticised the NHS. We are poaching doctors from abroad, he said. They are coming from countries where they have been trained at public expense and where they are sorely needed. He said the combination of falling numbers of UK doctors choosing to specialise and increasing reliance on foreign doctors was a recipe for absolute disaster. John Bercow was accused of trying to sabotage Brexit last night after he blocked another vote on Theresa Mays deal. In a dramatic intervention, the Commons Speaker ruled that the EU withdrawal agreement could not be put to a vote again without substantial changes. He gave Downing Street no notice of his announcement, which came just 24 hours before the Prime Minister was expected to ask the Commons to decide on the issue for a third time following two crushing defeats. As well as sparking a constitutional crisis, Mr Bercows move all but killed any prospect of a vote before Mrs May heads to an EU summit on Thursday. Commons Speaker John Bercows move all but killed any prospect of a vote before Mrs May heads to an EU summit on Thursday It also means she may have to ask Brussels for a delay of up to 20 months. A senior Government source said the Speaker, who is an outspoken critic of Brexit, wanted to wreck Mrs Mays plan of limiting the delay to three months. It seems clear that the Speakers motive here is to rule out a meaningful vote this week, the source added. It leads you to believe what he really wants is a longer extension, where Parliament will take over the process and force a softer form of Brexit. Anyone who thinks that this makes No Deal more likely is mistaken the Speaker wouldnt have done it if it did. With just ten days to go until Britain is scheduled to leave the EU, the Prime Minister was last night locked in crisis talks with her closest advisers to try to come up with a new strategy. Ministers proposed a string of radical options including asking the Queen to open a new session of Parliament in the hope of getting round Mr Bercows ruling. It seems clear that the Speakers motive here is to rule out a meaningful vote this week, a source said In a bleak assessment, solicitor general Robert Buckland said: Were in a major constitutional crisis here, a political crisis we want to try and solve for the country. The Prime Ministers doing everything she can to try to break that impasse. There are ways around this a prorogation of Parliament and a new session. We are talking about hours to March 29. We could have done without this. Now we have this ruling to deal with, it is clearly going to require a lot of very fast but very deep thought in the hours ahead. In a private message to Tory MPs, Brexit minister Chris Heaton-Harris suggested the EU would exploit the chaos to demand a five-year delay to the UKs departure, giving the Commons all the time in the world to steal Brexit. He added: Game over. As Mr Bercow sparked further controversy by suggesting he might allow MPs to vote on soft Brexit options: Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng told MPs that Mrs May would this week ask Brussels for a long delay to Brexit; Sources said the PM would seek a break clause to allow Britain to leave before the European Parliament elections this summer if her deal is approved; Mr Bercow, who acts as judge and jury on Commons rules, suggested a new political agreement with the EU or the promise of a referendum would be needed for him to allow another vote; Hopes that the DUP would swing behind the deal in the next 24 hours faded, with sources suggesting there would now be no breakthrough this week; Leading Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg, however, hinted he could back the PM, saying: Mrs Mays deal, however bad it is, takes us out of the European Union; Government sources suggested a final attempt to get her plan through could still be made next week if the DUP and leading Eurosceptics come on board; EU sources suggested Brussels could delay a decision on extending Article 50 until March 29 the day the UK is due to leave; Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom clashed angrily with Mr Bercow, accusing him of failing to treat MPs with courtesy and respect; Boris Johnson faced a backlash after savaging the PMs deal again. Mr Bercows decision was welcomed by some Brexiteers, who believe it could bring No Deal closer, and by supporters of a second referendum, who think it could result in Brexit being blocked altogether. Hardline Brexiteer Owen Paterson said: If the withdrawal agreement cannot be put to the Commons again, we must leave the EU on March 29, as the law demands. Labour MP Angela Eagle welcomed the ruling, saying it was wrong to allow MPs to be either strong-armed, bullied or bribed by the Government into backing Mrs Mays plan. But Mr Bercow enraged some mainstream Tories. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at Downing Street in London yesterday Neil OBrien MP accused the Speaker of double standards, pointing out that he had allowed multiple votes on plans hatched by Remainers trying to block Mrs Mays strategy. And he warned that voters would not understand why MPs were being banned from voting on a deal negotiated with 27 EU countries. Mr OBrien said: If the Speaker were to block a solution, which many of my constituents favour, from even being discussed, on the basis of no principle other than his preferences, then my constituents will be furious with him. It is for Parliament to decide what it wants to do in order to respect the will of the British people, not for one man to decide what should or shouldnt be on the table. A 'Boll**** to Brexit' sticker can be clearly seen in photographs of Mr Bercow's black 4x4, which has a personalised numberplate Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament yesterday James Gray MP said: Thanks to this announcement Brexit will not now occur. The people of Britain, the people who voted for Brexit, but also the Remainers who want to see democracy done, will be absolutely furious that their views will not be allowed to be heard in the House of Commons. Mr Bercows ruling centred on the longstanding principle that MPs should not be asked to vote twice on the same issue in a single session of Parliament. He said he had allowed a second vote on the deal because it had changed after Mrs May secured fresh concessions from Brussels. A tourist takes a selfie next to placards placed by anti-Brexit supporters stand opposite the Houses of Parliament in London yesterday But he added: What the Government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes. Ministers pointed out that Mr Bercow had torn up Commons rules in January to allow Dominic Grieve, a Tory remainer, to throw another spanner in the Governments Brexit plans. Mr Bercow last night suggested he might let MPs use an emergency debate possibly as soon as this week to stage votes on soft Brexit options, such as staying in the customs union and single market. Votes on emergency debates are normally restricted to neutral motions. So what DOES Speaker Bercow's shock move mean for Brexit? Q&A by Ian Drury What happened yesterday? Commons Speaker John Bercow announced, without warning, that MPs could not vote on the Prime Ministers withdrawal agreement for a third time unless it was substantially different from before. Downing Street was stunned, insisting it had no notice that the statement was coming. Mr Bercow might argue he is behaving honourably. But at a time of national crisis, when the Government is trying to pick a way through the impasse, his intervention will be seen by ministers as profoundly unhelpful. The EU has already said it will not re-open the deal to provide the kind of changes that would satisfy the Speaker. What had been the Prime Ministers plan? After two humiliating Commons defeats for her Brexit deal one by a record 230 votes in January, the second by 149 last week Theresa May wanted to bring her agreement back for approval by MPs for a third time before March 29. Ministers had pencilled in today or tomorrow to hold the vote ahead of the next meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday. Westminster watchers dubbed this Meaningful Vote Three (MV3). Mrs May had hoped enough hardline Tory Brexiteers would hold their noses and support her deal, fearing the alternatives: a long delay to leaving the EU, a soft Brexit or, worst, no Brexit at all. How can the Speaker justify his move? Having been asked by Labour MPs Angela Eagle and Chris Bryant whether the Government was allowed to vote on the same motion repeatedly in a short space of time, the Speaker said he had consulted Erskine May, the Parliamentary procedural handbook. He cited a 415-year-old precedent not used for nearly 100 years to rule the PM could not bring back broadly the same deal during that same [Parliamentary] session. But didnt he flout parliamentary convention himself? He did indeed. In January, Mr Bercow tore up centuries of Commons procedure and helped frustrate Mrs Mays attempts to win a better deal from the EU. He allowed an amendment by the former attorney general and Remain campaigner Dominic Grieve that forced the PM to come back within three sitting days if her withdrawal agreement was voted down. This ruling by the Speaker was made against the advice of Commons Clerk Sir David Natzler and meant the Government lost an element of control over Parliamentary business. Is Mr Bercow right to make it harder to hold a third vote? Legal experts and MPs were divided yesterday over his interpretation of procedure. But last October Sir David told MPs: If it was exactly the same document and they came back three months later for another bite, I do not think the procedures of the House are designed to obstruct the necessary business of government in that way in such a crucial thing. So is Mrs Mays deal dead or is it still on life support? If it becomes clear that there is a majority for the deal, the Government can probably put it to a vote. The PM still has to travel to Brussels on Thursday to ask the EU for an extension and MPs will have to vote on that, plus alternative outcomes. While leaving the bloc on March 29 is still the default legal position with or without a deal there is zero chance that Parliament, which is overwhelmingly Remain-supporting, will allow that. But the Speaker has certainly inserted yet another unwanted obstacle for the Government to overcome. What happens next? There will not be a third vote this week, meaning MPs could be voting on Brexit next week, days before the March 29 exit day. Mrs May will now have to find something substantially different to allow her to even put a vote before the Commons. Solicitor general Robert Buckland stated succinctly yesterday: We are going to have to put all our thinking caps on and come up with some quick answers. A nuclear option would be ejecting Mr Bercow from the Speakers chair using a no-confidence motion. However, Remainers especially Labour MPs turn a blind eye to his antics because they see an ally in thwarting Brexit. A second option is proroguing Parliament ending the session. Public Bills can be carried over from one session to the next. But this would require a new Queens Speech and take time, yet the Brexit clock has only ten days to tick. Advertisement As Bercow sinks Mays hopes of sealing EU deal this week, will Britain be in limbo for 20 months? By John Stevens Deputy Political Editor Theresa May will be forced to ask the EU for a long delay to Brexit after John Bercow yesterday wrecked her chances of getting her deal passed this week. MPs voted overwhelmingly last week to instruct the PM to ask Brussels for an extension to the two-year Article 50 process. Mrs May had said a short technical delay until June 30, giving enough time to pass necessary legislation, would be possible if her deal is passed before March 29. But if MPs do not back it, there would have to be a much longer extension delaying Brexit for up to 20 months requiring the UK to take part in European Parliament elections in May. After Commons Speaker Mr Bercow yesterday ruled the PM could not bring her deal back to the Commons unchanged, Downing Street sources last night said it was very unlikely a vote on it would be held this week. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, arrives at the Chancellery to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel today Instead they said Mrs May will write to EU leaders ahead of a Brussels summit on Thursday requesting a lengthy delay. Some Brexiteers yesterday rejoiced at Mr Bercows decision, believing it has actually increased the chances of a No Deal Brexit because MPs will not stomach a prolonged extension. In a sign of their optimism, one group of Eurosceptics was even heard whistling the Great Escape theme in the Commons tea room. But if the EU agrees to offer the Prime Minister an extension, it is unlikely to be turned down by a Commons that voted against a No Deal departure. European Council President Donald Tusk (L) waves to German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) at his departure in front of the chancellery in Berlin MPs voted overwhelmingly last week to instruct Theresa May to ask Brussels for an extension to the two-year Article 50 process. Merkel and Tusk pictured in Berlin today It means MPs now face a showdown next week the last before March 29 when they are likely to be asked to vote on Mrs Mays deal again if she wins the Speakers permission, and if that fails, on the offer of a delay. It means that although the referendum was almost 1,000 days ago, Britains future will go right down to the wire. Last night, sources suggested Mrs May could try to seek a break clause in any delay she negotiates at the European Council this week. That could potentially allow the UK to leave early before the European Parliament elections if MPs have a change of heart and approve her deal. If that attempt is unsuccessful, Britain faces up to 20 months in the EU while a new plan is negotiated. However, some Brexiteers are convinced that when presented with this prospect next week, the Commons may yet decline to formally approve a delay and that Britain will leave on time with no agreement. Mark Francois, deputy chairman of the European Research Group of hard-Brexit MPs, told BBC Radio 4s PM programme: The legal position is that unless something changes, under the EU Withdrawal Act that Parliament passed last summer, we leave on March 29 at 11pm. That has not changed. Mr Francois suggested No Deal could happen if the EU refuses to give an extension to Article 50. He added: All 27 nations must agree unanimously. I am not saying for definite that they wont, but it is not axiomatic that they will. So it is a moot point and we will have to wait and see. Mark Francois said: The legal position is that unless something changes, under the EU Withdrawal Act that Parliament passed last summer, we leave on March 29 at 11pm' Former Tory Cabinet minister Owen Paterson said Mr Bercows decision was a huge opportunity for those who want the country to leave with No Deal. He told BBC Radio 5 Live: If the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be put to the Commons again, we must leave the EU on March 29 as the law demands. That has huge support across the country, that would satisfy the 17.4million people who voted to Leave, it would satisfy all those Conservative voters who were promised that we would leave the single market, the customs, the remit of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and it would put real pressure on the EU to come to discussions on a free trade deal. He added: I think there is a lot of Project Fear nonsense about a so-called No Deal. We have already got lots of side agreements on aviation, airplanes, trucks. I think what would happen is that it would trigger a really positive, constructive discussion. If an extension is agreed by the EU, Mrs May will have to bring it back before MPs just days before the country is due to leave the EU on Friday. Downing Street sources said they wanted it to include an exit clause the country can leave early if the Brexit deal is somehow passed by Parliament. Mrs May had planned to hold a third vote on her Brexit deal this week and had been hopeful she could win around the DUP, which are seen as pivotal because of their influence on Tory Brexiteers. Leading Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg yesterday said he would wait to see what the DUP decided before finally making up his mind which way to vote if the deal returns to the Commons. However, last night sources said there was no chance of a breakthrough this week in talks with the DUP. MPs last Thursday backed the Prime Ministers reluctant call to delay Brexit by 413 votes to 202. It came a day after they backed taking No Deal off the table by 321 votes to 278. One expert's damning legal verdict By Sir Stephen Laws QC, former First Parliamentary Counsel who advised the Cabinet Office on constitutional affairs The Speaker is right to raise the question of whether a third vote on the Governments Brexit deal should take place. The same-question rule under which a defeated motion cannot be brought back in the same form during the course of a parliamentary session is well precedented. But it would be quite wrong to apply it to disallow a third meaningful vote. Since the deal was last put before the House of Commons, there have been two significant votes: one on preventing a No Deal Brexit and another on extending Article 50. The deal may look broadly the same but those two votes have produced fundamentally different circumstances, and mean MPs are no longer facing the same question. In addition, there has been time for a more considered look at the effects and implications of the legally-binding documents concerning the Withdrawal Agreement brought back by the Prime Minister from Strasbourg last week. The vote for a delay of the Article 50 deadline resulted in a resolution that specifically provided for a third vote, and so implicitly gave the Houses permission to have one. The Speaker should respect that. If there is a majority for the deal, preventing the vote would be to frustrate the will of the House. It would be deeply concerning to see a Speaker act in such a way. Those who are opposed to the deal should want to win with a majority on the substance, not by procedural manoeuvring or on a technicality, and the Speaker should allow that. The Speakers reputation for impartiality has already become questionable. It is difficult to see how it could survive the application of the same-question rule to a third vote on the deal when that same-question rule was not applied to prevent MP Dominic Grieves Remain-supporting amendments to motions to reopen questions that had been finally resolved in a more effective way during the passage of the Bill for the Withdrawal Act. Parliamentary procedure exists to facilitate not thwart the wishes of the majority. The best test of what the majority wants is a vote, not a ruling from the Chair. Sir Stephen is Senior Research Fellow at the Policy Exchange think-tank and was talking to Andrew Wilson. Advertisement Me, me, me the twitchy windbag was at his despotic worst: HENRY DEEDES sees Speaker Bercow deliver Exocet to Mrs Mays Brexit strategy When John Bercow rose to his feet shortly after 3.30 yesterday afternoon you could tell by his body language this was a moment he had been itching for all day. As he surveyed the chamber with that sense of propriety which has become his staple in the Speakers chair, his face twitching with bristly anticipation, it was obvious this was to be no mundane procedural announcement. What spewed forth from his mouth for the next twenty minutes of rhetorical windbaggery was met with incredulity on all sides of the House. No forewarning had been given to any party what he was going to say. Speaker John Bercow addressing MPs in the House of Commons in London yesterday The Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition they were all hearing it, like us, in real time. Labour couldnt believe their luck. The Government simply couldnt believe what it was hearing. If Mrs Mays deal is to be put before the House for a third time, the Speaker ruled citing a Commons precedent from 1604, then it would have to be substantially different to the one MPs voted on last week. She could not simply ask members to vote on exactly the same deal. Bang! An Exocet rocket straight to the core of what remained the Prime Ministers Brexit strategy. No wonder Bercow was smirking. Chief whip Julian Smith was so stunned his lower jaw was hanging open. Someone on the front bench really needed to lean over and pop it back up again. Once again the Government had been done over by the chair. Frustrating ministers and torpedoeing Brexit. These are what get John Bercow out of bed in the morning. Rules? Procedure? The chap just seems to make em up as he goes along. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is seen at Downing Street in London yesterday The Speaker had been on unusually boisterous form for a Monday moments before making his statement during Pensions Questions. He bantered with backbenchers. He joshed with his clerks. Plonked in the Speakers throne, his stumpy legs hammered up and down his footstool excitedly like a naughty toddler in a highchair. When news emerged he would be making a statement once the session had finished it was swiftly obvious from his giddy behaviour the little goblin planned to drop a howitzer on the Government. The House quickly filled as MPs rushed to hear what he had to say. How he seemed to enjoy that. He then rose to feet, clutching a stack of paper half an inch thick. Oh heck, we werent getting out of here in a hurry. Here was the Speaker at his despotic worst. Putting himself at the centre of events and turning it into the John Bercow show, painting himself as Parliaments fearless defender. Part of the responsibility of the Speaker is to speak truth to power and I have always done that... I have never been pushed around and I am not going to start now... I am not a stickler for tradition but I, I, I. Me, me, me. His oration became so florid and absurd at one point, works and pensions secretary Amber Rudd had to stifle her matronly giggles. The arch-Brexiteers were delighted. Sir William Cash (Con, Stone in Staffordshire) congratulated the Speaker on his judgment, saying his decision made an awful lot of sense. Bercow returned the compliment, praising Mr Cash for always trying to act in the national interest. Priti Patel gave a beaming Cash a well done pat on the back. Pass the sickbag stuff. Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con, Somerset North) commended the Speaker for following protocol, quoting from the Bible: There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. Bercow grinned and nodded his head enthusiastically. Im not sure he realised this was a dig. Once again the Government had been done over by the chair. Frustrating ministers and torpedoeing Brexit Sir Hugo Swire (Con, East Devon) asked not unreasonably why the Speaker had made this call now, and not last week when it was clear Mrs May was going to try again. Tsk. And give the PM the weekend to adjust her preparations? Where would the fun have been in that? Leader of the House and Bercow nemesis Andrea Leadsom briefly punctured his balloon when she coolly implied he couldnt be trusted to treat colleagues with courtesy and respect. Cue collective sucking of wind around the chamber. I treat the House with respect, I treat members with respect! The Speaker boomed, jabbing his forefinger at his accuser. Background: Bercow once called feisty Leadsom a stupid woman. Funnily enough, a caller to Rees-Moggs phone-in show on LBC earlier that morning had pre-empted Bercows ruling. Samina from Tooting she was called. She had phoned to enquire why Mrs May was being allowed a third crack at her vote, asking: Isnt this tactic specifically barred to stop the Government from bullying the legislature. Shouldnt this be ruled out of order? A brilliant question, purred the Moggster, referring her to page 397 of the Parliamentary rule book, Erksine May. Samina certainly seemed to know her way around Parliamentary procedure rather better than your average LBC punter, traditionally a forum for London cab drivers and the over-opinionated. Could it have been Jacobs nanny in disguise? A mystery glowing ball was spotted streaking across the Russian night sky close to the site of the largest meteor explosion in modern history. A dashcam captured a dazzling flash changing colour from green to yellow to orange in a remote area of Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia. It was spotted near the impact site of the Tunguska meteor that struck the region with the force of 185 Hiroshima bombs in 1908. A dashcam captured a dazzling flash changing colour from green to yellow to orange in a remote area of Krasnoyarsk region in Russia. One theory is that the spectacular luminous UFO streaking over the Siberian hills was caused by a meteor yet so far there is no evidence for it Pyotr Bondarev, from Tura village where the flash was seen, said: 'The night got bright and warm, as if a giant light bulb was switched on in the sky'. Experts believe the object seen streaking over the Siberian hills was also a meteor but no conclusive evidence has been found so far. The shining body was also seen as far as 250miles (402km) away, but appeared less, bright. Witnesses say it appeared to be heading for a crash landing. No debris from a meteorite has been found so far and experts are keeping an open mind as to what caused the stunning spectacle. The latest sighting lies several hundred miles from the site of the monumental Tunguska Event 111 years ago which caused devastation in the region Mr Bondarev added: 'It was about 7.30pm, it was dark. I was outside having a walk with my wife and children, when the sky flashed green and yellow. 'Many people saw it and got very excited.' Another local source said: 'It's impossible to tell what the shining object was. It might have been a meteor or something else.' Krasnoyarsk Kirensky Physics University researcher Sergey Karpov said it was likely a small meteorite. 'Most likely it was something up to 10 centimetres [4inches] in diameter',' he said. But this has not been confirmed by the Russian emergencies ministry. There has been no suggestion that a stray missile or debris from a space launch was behind the 'UFO' sighting. One theory is that the spectacular luminous UFO streaking over the Siberian hills was caused by a meteor yet so far there is no conclusive evidence that anything has landed nearby The Tunguska explosion is thought to have been produced by a comet or asteroid hurtling through Earth's atmosphere at over 33,500 miles per hour (50, 000km/h), resulting in an explosion equal to 185 Hiroshima bombs as pressure and heat rapidly increased Some have claimed it was a 'second Tunguska', as the site of the explosion 111 years ago which caused devastation across the region is within a few hundred miles. More than 770 square miles (2,000 sq km) of forest was wiped out after a fireball - believed to be some 330ft (100m) wide - tore through the atmosphere and exploded in 1908, according to scientists. An estimated 80million trees were destroyed and thousands of charred reindeer carcasses were left behind. It is believed to have exploded three to seven miles (5 to 12km) above the earth's surface yet despite the carnage there was no impact crater. There were no reports of casualties in the sparsely populated area, despite the power of the impact. However, some experts have disputed the cause of 1908 Tunguska explosion. The remote Tura village where the bright light was observed streaking over the Siberian hills in Russia. Tura is a mere few hundred miles from an infamous explosion caused by a meteorite landing over a century ago in the remote forests of Russia that caused devastation No debris from a meteorite - a meteor that strikes the ground - has been found so far and experts are keeping an open mind as to what caused the stunning spectacle The US military wants to create space lasers capable of destroying enemy weapons from orbit as it strives to be the first nation to weaponise space. President Donald Trump previously outlined plans for a Space Force and said he wants to develop space weapons before superpower rivals China and Russia. Plans include missile-killing lasers and 'neutral beams' that bombard enemy projectiles with subatomic particles until they are rendered useless. The project has been earmarked for a 2023 launch, if the US government grants funding for the project. Officials laid out the ambitious plans in a $304million (228million) request for funding from the government. Scroll down for video The US military wants to build a space-based weapons as it strives to be the first nation to weaponise space. Donald Trump (pictured) has previously stated his hope for a US Space Force as part of the military's future Defence One reports that the Pentagon is undertaking two studies which it hopes will establish its war-faring dominance. One six-month study will explore the possibility of lasers in space that will be able to disable enemy missiles on the launchpad. Another piece of research will investigate the feasibility of space-based neutral particle beams. They disrupt missiles with streams of subatomic particles travelling at immense speed but are marginally slower than the photon particles emitted by lasers, which travel at the speed of light. Previously revealed US space weapons include the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This image shows The Air Force working on the reusable spacecraft after it landed at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2017 WHAT IS THE X-37B SPACE PLANE? The U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane looks similar to Nasa's space shuttle but is much smaller. The space plane is 29 feet (8.8 metres) long, 9.6 feet (2.9 metres) tall and weighs around 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms). It is orbiting at around 200 miles (320 kilometres) high. The U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane looks similar to Nasa's space shuttle but is much smaller. The space plane is 29 feet (8.8 metres) long, 9.6 feet (2.9 metres) tall and weighs around 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms) Officials have revealed few details about the OTV-5 mission (the aircraft's fifth) but according to the Air Force, one on board OTV-5 payload is US thermal spreader which will test the longevity of electronics and heat pipes in the space environment. The craft is powered by solar cells with lithium-ion batteries. Four previous X-37B missions have been launched by United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets. Each time the unmanned space plane has carried a mystery payload on long-duration flights in Earth orbit. Advertisement This in not the first time the superpower has looked into the possibilities of these types of weapons. A project completed in 1989, dubbed BEAR (Beam Accelerator Aboard a Rocket), saw a neutral particle beam emitter launched into orbit. Advancements since that time have seen the technology become cheaper and smaller. A senior defence official said: 'We've come a long way in terms of the technology we use today. 'We now believe we can get it down to a package that we can put on as part of a payload to be placed on orbit. 'Power generation, beam formation, the accelerometer that's required to get there and what it takes to neutralise that beam, that capability has been matured and there are technologies that we can use today to miniaturise.' Officials reiterated that the studies do not mean a weapon will be deployed. An official said at a press conference: 'I can't say that it is going to be at a space and weight requirement that's going to actually be feasible, but we're pushing forward with the prototyping and demo. 'The exploration means we need to understand as a department, the costs and what it would take to go do that. 'There's a lot of folklore that says it's either crazy expensive or that it's free. It needs to be a definitive study.' An Anglo-Saxon pendant worth 145,000 has been declared treasure by the coroner's office. The gold piece has a central cross motif and probably belonged to a woman of 'high social status', according to experts. It features gold bead work and measures 0.67in by 0.5in (17mm by 13mm), and is believed to date from the late-Sixth Century to the mid-Seventh. Norfolk's coroner declared that is treasure, which means that ownership now lies with the Crown. It will be valued by the Portable Antiquities Scheme run by the British Museum. A similar item, The Winfarthing Pendant, was uncovered on nearby farmland by a student in 2014. Scroll down for video An Anglo-Saxon gold pendant unearthed in 2017 near where a similar item worth 145,000 was dug up has been declared treasure by the coroner. WHAT IS TREASURE? Under the Treasure Act 1996, finders of potential treasure in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are legally obliged to notify their local coroner An inquest then determines whether the finds constitute treasure. If the find is declared treasure, the finder must offer it for sale to a museum at a price set by the British Museum's Treasure Valuation Committee. A reward is then offered to the finders and other relevant parties. Advertisement Julie Shoemark, Norfolk's finds liaison officer, said it made a 'valuable contribution to our understanding of Saxon society'. Ms Shoemark, from Norfolk County Council's archaeology department, said: 'Like the Winfarthing assemblage, this piece most likely belonged to a high-status lady. 'It dates to an important turning point in Saxon history during the first flowering of Christianity [in England] and is of similar date to the jewellery assemblage from the now famous and nearby Winfarthing burial, according to the Times. 'Male graves of this period appear to be entirely lacking in elaborate jewellery.' The Winfarthing Pendant, discovered in 2014, was on show at the British Library in London until last month along with the Alfred Jewel and the Domesday Book. It was found by Tom Lucking, a student who was metal detecting on farmland along with other items near Diss The Winfarthing Pendant was on show at the British Library in London until last month along with the Alfred Jewel and the Domesday Book. It was found by Tom Lucking, a student who was metal detecting on farmland along with other items near Diss. He unearthed the grave of an aristocratic woman dating from AD630 to 650 after finding a bronze bowl, including a 7cm (2.8in) pendant. In November 2016, an inquest in Norwich declared the haul, which included coins and a copper bowl, to be treasure. Mr Lucking, who was 23 when he found the items, said at the time: 'We knew there was something large, but couldn't predict it would be like that.' The former student, who's now an archaeologist, said any money he receives will be used for a deposit on a house. 'It's going to make things a lot easier,' he said. Apple's next gadget could save your life, if a patent applied for by the firm is anything to go by. The next watch or iPhone from the company may come equipped with a sensor that can warn you of high levels of pollution, toxic gas and alcohol in your breath. Apple has been granted a new batch of patents for its products, including one for a material that senses bad smelling odours. It could be used in a watch strap and incorporated into future iPhone and laptops. The material will have multiple sensors detect everything from dangerous carbon monoxide levels, to pollution, to 'vaporous gas' which could detect how much alcohol is in someone's breath. Scroll down for video One of the patents granted to Apple is a material that senses gases. The diagram shows the sensors placed next to the mic jack as one of the options for embedding in an iPhone. It could be used in Apple watch as a watch strap, according to the blog Patently Apple Apple was granted a submission for an 'electronic devices with environmental sensors', accordin to the approvals list from the US Patent & Trademark Office, It is the fifth of such patents under the same heading applied for by Apple since 2015, according to the blog Patently Apple. The document describing the patent submission described it as: 'a gas sensor attached to the printed circuit that is configured to measure a concentration of a gas, wherein the gas comprises a gas selected from the group consisting of: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, alcohol vapour, propane, ozone, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, benzene, methane, hydrogen, and oxygen'. The blog also listed devices that it could be used in as: 'Cellular telephones, media players, other handheld portable devices, somewhat smaller portable devices such as wrist-watch devices, pendant devices, or other wearable or miniature devices, gaming equipment, tablet computers, notebook computers, desktop computers, televisions, computer monitors, computers integrated into computer displays, or other electronic equipment.' One of patent notes showed, via in a diagram, that the sensor could be place in the microphone or the speaker. The feature is part of Apple's drive into data driven healthcare, that may see an Apple watch launched next year that can tell you how to get a better night's sleep. Apple is reportedly developing a sleep-tracking feature that could land in the Apple Watch as soon as next year. Pictured is the Apple Watch Series 4, which was released in 2018 The iPhone maker has been testing a sleep-tracking feature at its Cupertino, California headquarters that could arrive in the fifth-generation Apple Watch in 2020, Bloomberg reported, citing sources close to the situation. It comes as Apple has increasingly signaled that it hopes to position the Watch as a health and fitness device. In another study by the health insurer Vitality, it was found that Apple watches could add two years to your life. Volunteers were more physically active when they used an Apple Watch paired with a reward scheme, compared to those without. Researchers found participants had 4.8 extra days of activity per month, which they said translates into two extra years of life. The largest improvements were seen among those who were overweight and those who were the least active to begin with, the study on 400,000 people showed. The UK's upcoming porn ban might provide hackers with the perfect opportunity to blackmail people, privacy advocates have warned. They have raised concerns about the age verification procedure and said it provides ample ammunition for criminals. A potential data leak could reveal names, emails and even ID documents such as drivers licences and passports used for age verification. Scroll down for video Privacy advocates have raised concerns about the implementation of the age verification procedure and said it provides ample opportunity for criminals to manipulate porn viewers (file photo) The age block has been delayed by technical difficulties and will force providers of pornographic imagery to provide a comprehensive and safe way of provide proof of age. This can be done by uploading imagery of a passport or drivers licence. It can also be done by purchasing a 'porn pass' from a newsagent for 4.99 per device. These will only be available to adults and age is verified by the vendor. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which classifies movies in the UK, will be the age verification regulator. Any sites found to be failing in this safeguarding measure, designed to protect children from explicit content online, will be blocked by all British internet service providers. It is expected to be announced in April but could well be many months before it is fully implemented. Mr Jim Killock told The Guardian: 'It might lead to people being outed. It could also be you're a teacher with an unusual sexual preference and your pupils get to know that as a result of a leak. 'It won't get you sacked for viewing something legal but it could destroy your reputation.' An online pornographic giant, MindGeek, owns many of the largest porn sites in the world, including PornHub. It founded its own site which offered the facility of verifying identity and age, called AgeID. Should there be a breach of this site when it is live, it could expose the browsing history and sexual preferences of up to 25 million people. 'The problem is youre giving all your data to the pornographic equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg: "This is what I like, this is who I am, and these are all of the sites Ive visited".' The firm claims the infrastructure and process is designed to ensure no personal details are actually stored. The age block has been delayed by technical difficulties and will force providers of pornographic imagery to provide a comprehensive and safe way of provide proof of age. A potential data leak could reveal names, emails and even ID documents such as drivers licenses and passports used for age verification (file photo) James Clark, director of communications at AgeID, said: 'AgeID does not store any personal data input by users during the age verification process, such as name, address, phone number, date of birth. 'As we do not collect such data, it cannot be leaked, marketed to, or used in any way.' The process of age checking all porn watchers is imminent but, despite this, more than three-quarters of Britons are not aware new online age-verification rules are set to be introduced in the UK. It is hoped the long-delayed checks for commercial pornography websites, which are expected to come into force in April, will protect minors from accessing the material. In a YouGov poll of 1,769 Britons - which included more than half who admitted to being regular pornography users - 76 per cent said they were unaware of the incoming restrictions. Two-thirds (67 per cent) revealed they approve of the measures but only a third (34 per cent) believe the so-called porn block will be effective. Under the rules, adults will have to prove they are of age to view the content, a move critics argue could have implications for the privacy. To access pornographic sites, people will have to use one of a number of options to prove they are 18 or over, such as an over the counter card they can buy from a shop or uploading ID documents online. 'Adult content is currently too easy to access online so introducing age verification is a world-leading step forward to give parents greater peace of mind and ensure commercial pornographic websites act responsibly,' Digital Minister Margot James MP has previously said on the matter. The Government is preparing to release a white paper on a range of online harms, which is expected to include legislative measures to make social networks more responsible for the content hosted on their platforms. Semen which has been stored in a lab since 1968 has successfully impregnated 34 sheep, a study claims. Samples were taken from four rams, including one called Sir Freddie, in 1968 and were frozen for fifty years. Australian researchers describe it as the world's oldest sample of frozen semen successfully used to produce offspring. Scroll down for video Semen which has been stored in a lab since 1968 has successfully impregnated 34 sheep, a study claims. Samples were taken from four rams including one called Sir Freddie, pictured here, in 1968 and were frozen for fifty years The defrosted samples, taken by scientists from the University of Sydney, inseminated 56 Merino ewes - and 34 became pregnant. The 61 per cent success rate was higher than that of sperm frozen for only a year - which impregnated 59 per cent of inseminated ewes. The team said that their research shows that there is 'no difference between sperm frozen for 50 years and sperm frozen for a year'. 'This demonstrates the clear viability of long-term frozen storage of semen,' said Associate Professor Simon de Graaf from the Sydney Institute of Agriculture and School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. 'The results show that fertility is maintained despite 50 years of frozen storage in liquid nitrogen.' The lambs appear to display the body wrinkle that was common in Merinos in the middle of last century, a feature originally selected to maximise skin surface area and wool yields. 'That style of Merino has since largely fallen from favour as the folds led to difficulties in shearing and increased risk of fly strike,' Associate Professor de Graaf said. 'We can now look at the genetic progress made by the wool industry over past 50 years of selective breeding. In that time, we've been trying to make better, more productive sheep,' he said. 'This gives us a resource to benchmark and compare.' The University said that the samples were kept as small pellets in large vats of liquid nitrogen at 196 degrees. Sheep semen thawed after 50 years under a microscope. The team said that their research shows that there is 'no difference between sperm frozen for 50 years and sperm frozen for a year' Researchers who thawed 50 year old sheep semen and successfully impregnated 34 ewes Associate Professor Simon de Graaf and Dr. Jessica Rickard. Pictured here with the healthy progeny from the semen They were then defrosted and tested for its velocity, viability and DNA integrity. The success will bolster hopes that plunging eggs and sperm into the deep freeze is a credible long-term means of providing endangered species with a lifeline. The original semen samples were donated in the 1960s from sires owned by the Walker family. Those samples, frozen in 1968 by Dr Steven Salamon, came from four rams, including 'Sir Freddie' born in 1963, owned by the Walkers on their then property at Ledgworth. The Walkers now run 8000 sheep at 'Woolaroo', at Yass Plains, and maintain a close and proud relationship with the animal breeding program at the University of Sydney. SpaceX could soon kick off early tests of its next-generation spacecraft pegged to send humans to Mars. In a series of tweets, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk said his rocket company will 'hopefully' conduct the first test 'hops' of SpaceX's Starship prototype, called the Starhopper, as soon as this week. Plans for the tests were first spotted in a SpaceX flyer posted on Reddit. Scroll down for video SpaceX could soon begin tests of its Starship spacecraft (pictured). Elon Musk said the firm will 'hopefully' conduct the first test hops of SpaceX's Starship prototype, called Starhopper When asked whether the tests would begin this week, Musk replied in a tweet: 'Hopefully. Always many issues integrating engine & stage. First hops will lift off, but only barely.' Musk's tweet seemed to suggest that the firm is currently working to integrate the Starhopper and its redesigned Raptor engine, which SpaceX unveiled for the first time in February. The Starhopper test vehicle will feature one Raptor engine vs. the final Starship version, which is set to be packed with three powerful Raptor engines. As part of its first test 'hops,' SpaceX will ensure that the Starship prototype and its Raptor engine can takeoff and land without any issues. Plans for the tests were first spotted in a SpaceX flyer posted on Reddit (pictured). The flyer says the firm could begin tests of its Starhopper prototype rocket as soon as this week Musk added in a later tweet that the firm won't build a new nosecone for Starhopper, after the device was damaged by a series of strong wind gusts at its Texas test site in January. 'Don't need it,' Musk wrote. 'What you see being built is the orbital Starship vehicle.' Meanwhile, residents near SpaceX's test site in Brownsville, Texas have been seeing flyers posted by the company alerting them to upcoming tests. The flyer states that Starhopper tests could begin as soon as this week. 'During those tests, SpaceX will establish a safety zone perimeter in coordination with local law enforcement,' the flyer notes. 'Signage will be in place prior to testing to alert the community of any temporary closures of Highway 4 and Boca Chica Beach.' Additionally, Musk showed off what will be a crucial element of the Starship rocket. The SpaceX CEO posted a video demonstrating tests of the rocket's heat shield, which will prevent it from burning up upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. In doing so, the rocket is better equipped for immediate re-use. 'Starship needs to be ready to fly again immediately after landing,' Musk said in a tweet. 'Zero refurbishment.' The heat shield is made up of hexagonal-shaped tiles that are designed to keep out hot gas as the rocket returns to Earth's surface. Musk said the 'white-hot' sections reached a maximum temperature of 1650 Kelvin or 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. In January, the company revealed images of its fully-assembled Starship hopper test rocket. The model Musk shared is expected to be used for testing short launches and landings The tiles will be installed on the rocket's 'windward side' and there's 'no shield needed on the leeward side,' Musk added. In January, the company revealed images of its fully-assembled Starship hopper test rocket. 'This is for suborbital VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) tests,' Musk said in a tweet last month. 'Orbital version is taller, has thicker skins (won't wrinkle) & a smoothly curving nose section.' The model he shared is expected to be used for testing short launches and landings. Musk hopes to conduct a manned mission with tourists to the moon by 2024. Completing a successful mission to the moon would mark an incremental step in Musk's other vision of traveling to Mars. An online security expert has warned users not to be duped by 'sextortionists' claiming they have sexual footage of you which they intend to share widely. A live streamed video blog from the cybersecurity company Sophos about sex-related online scams told internet users to 'relax', delete the email and move on. There is nothing to be afraid of as it is almost certainly nothing more than a bluff, they said. An online security expert has warned users not to be duped by 'sextortionists' claiming they have footage of you which they intend to share widely. A live streamed from the cybersecurity company Sophos told internet users to 'relax', delete the email and move on. Stock image Paul Ducklin, computer security expert at Sophos explained in his own blog what the phenomenon involved: 'Sextortion is where crooks, say they have sex-related pictures or webcam footage of you, and demand you to pay them thousands of dollars, or else. He warned internet users on a video blog called Naked Security Live that If you receive a message telling you to pay up or have a sex footage released, ignore it. Mr Ducklin said: 'sex combined with extortion makes sextortion'. On the blog, Mr Ducklin read out a text message of what you might receive from a sextortionist. Mr Ducklin said: 'You get an email 'final warning' 'you have the last chance to save your social life, I am not kidding, I give you 72 hours to make the payment before I send the video to all your friends and associates'. 'Do not try to cheat me. 'As soon as you open this email I will know you have opened it'. They will say they have installed malware on your computer and that they have the video without you realising it's been taken. In almost all cases, this is a lie, says Mr Ducklin, who explained that extortionists will convince you they have hacked your computer and gained access to cameras by feeding you some private information about yourself. This can be passwords they have simply gathered from a data breach and leak. Paul Ducklin, computer security expert at Sophos sad: 'Sextortion is where crooks, say they have sex-related pictures or webcam footage of you, and demand you to pay them thousands of dollars, or else'. He warned internet users that If you receive such a message, ignore it Such information can include your address and date of birth, or a guess at the number of contacts in your address book. While it is possible for a 'RAT' or Remote Access Trojan to control your computer wirelessly, it requires the hacker to implant spyware onto your computer first. In most cases, this is harder to do than extortionists claim, but there has been cases of it which ended in court, said Mr Ducklin. He cited the Miss Teen America scandal of 2014 where an IT student was sentenced to 18 months for hacking the beauty pageant winner's computer. But Mr Ducklin warned viewers not to fall sextortionist scams. He added: 'Surely if they actually had a video, if they actually had a picture, they'd send you a still from the video or they'd send you a link that'd let you watch it - that would be very convincing'. The scam has also been laid out in a report released by California based security company Barracuda. Scammers then threaten that they have your contact list from your email and social networking accounts, before demanding a ransom is paid (stock image Otherwise, they probably don't have anything on you', he said. Similarly, even if you have opened an email from the supposed hacker, all they would know if that you had opened the email, and would not be able to gain further information such as your location. They can not track you in the sense of stalking or following your activities online, he added. For those still worried about privacy and hacking, Mr Ducklin reassures users to 'relax' - ignore the email and delete it. 'a pack of lies, so don't reply, don't engage with the crooks, just delete the email and move on'. 'if they did get the malware on your computer... your best defence is to get a good anti-virus on there'. A study last year by California based security company Barracuda also warned of a rise in the scam. Fraudsters send emails to computer users with a password they have used in the past that has been made public during a data leak. In the same way as described by Mr Ducklin, victims are then told that they have been recorded watching explicit videos on their computer and that the footage will be made public if they don't comply. The scammers then threaten that they have your contact list from your email and social networking accounts, before demanding a ransom is paid. One woman who spoke to Barracuda, under the condition of anonymity, told them that the scammers had sent her three emails over the month of October. She said they contained her passwords that were 'all very old, but in an exchange with her the scam artists said it 'didn't matter because they had been controlling her computer for years.' It may explain why some of us have a brilliant sense of direction, while others get lost all the time. Many animals have the ability to sense magnetic fields: homing pigeons, turtles and even warthogs can sense which way is north. But now scientists have discovered evidence for the first time that some humans may have a magnetic sixth sense too - an built-in compass in that can pick up changes in magnetic fields. The findings suggest that some of us may have an ability to navigate - and find the direction north. Scientists have discovered evidence for the first time that some humans may have a magnetic sixth sense too - an built-in compass in that can pick up changes in magnetic fields. This image shows scans that revealed the ability In the latest study, published in the journal eNeuro, researchers exposed subjects to magnetic fields. They then scanned their brains using electroencephalography (EEG). In some individuals, the scientists at Caltech and the University of Tokyo found a change in brain waves that showed the brain was actively processing the information. The researchers found a marked decrease in alpha waves in the brain when they exposed certain individuals to a magnetic field indicating north. Alpha waves are given off when the mind is at rest. A dropping off occurs when the brain receives input from the senses. The researchers write: Our results indicate that human brains are indeed collecting and selectively processing directional input from magnetic field receptors. These data argue strongly for the presence of geomagnetic transduction in humans, similar to those in numerous migratory and homing animals. The authors say that evidence from the field of linguistics has indicated that humans may be able to pick up north by their senses alone. For instance in many human languages - particularly among nomadic hunter gatherers - people use the cardinal points to locate things - north, south east and west - rather than in front, back, left and right Many animals have the ability to sense magnetic fields: homing pigeons, turtles and even warthogs can sense which way is north. Experts scanned participants' brains using electroencephalography (stock image) Some scientists have speculated a human magnetic compass might be involved. In conclusion the authors write: Given the known presence of highly-evolved geomagnetic navigation systems in species across the animal kingdom, it is perhaps not surprising that we might retain at least some functioning neural components, especially given the nomadic hunter/gatherer lifestyle of our not-too-distant ancestors. The full extent of this inheritance remains to be discovered. But the authors warn that even if an individual can pick up magnetic fields, for most of us a lack of use has probably meant it is not very developed. In addition, modern life is likely to play havoc with them. For example, there are strong permanent magnets in headphones, most of which produce magnetic fields several times stronger than that produced by magnetic north. The magnetic sense might work best in situations where other cues are not available such as at sea or in the air where disorientation is frequent, the authors suggest. Pewdiepie is in a desperate battle to stay afloat as YouTube's most popular channel. Earlier today he was forced of his pedestal and into second spot behind T-Series, a Bollywood production company. This marked the first time in six years the Swedish phenom had not been atop the YouTube mountain and was swiftly rectified following a push from his dedicated fans to regain top spot. Both channels boast approximately 90 million subscribers, but T-Series gained a narrow lead before again being leapfrogged. Scroll down for video PewDiePie (pictured) has the most subscribed to channel on YouTube. Earlier today he was forced of his pedestal and into second spot behind T-Series, a Bollywood production company. His army of loyal fans then flocked to his aid and helped him regain top spot At the time of writing, the Swedish native who lives in Brighton, has 89,981,955 subscribers, and T-series has 89,981,402 subscribers. Kjellberg, who has nearly 90 million subscribers, shot to fame recording video game playthroughs with hilarious commentary. The usurping of Pewdiepie, real name Felix Kjellbergone, was expected for October last year but his devoted fans continued to keep him in the number one spot. Pewdiepie, as with many influencers on the video platform, has not been without controversy during his reign. In January hackers seized control of more than 70,000 ChromeCast devices and beamed a one minute long video of PewDiePie to the screens of their unsuspecting victims. The attack exploited a weakness in internet router settings which makes connected devices, such as Chromecasts, publicly viewable on the internet. The two hackers, who call themselves HackerGiraffe and j3ws3r, displayed a message on affected TV screens telling users their device had been taken over. He was also referenced in a video of a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand. The Australian terrorist who livestreamed a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand told his viewers to 'subscribe to PewDiePie' before launching his attack. A video shot by the gunman, who identified himself as Brenton Tarrant from Grafton, New South Wales, Australia, shows him mentioning the Swedish YouTube star moments before the massacre at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch. The Swedish Youtuber took to Twitter today to say that he was 'absolutely sickened' that the white supremacist had mentioned his name in the video Tarrant told viewers 'remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie' as he sat in his car outside the mosque before the attack. The shooter, 28, killed 41 people inside the mosque during Friday prayers. 49 people were killed in total during the terror attack, with a further 48 injured. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, took to Twitter to say he was 'sickened' that the terrorist had said his name. Kjellberg, who is the highest paid Youtuber in the world, said: 'Just heard news of the devastating reports from New Zealand Christchurch. 'I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person. 'My heart and thoughts go out to the victims, families and everyone affected by this tragedy.' A U.S. government-led group is working with chipmaker Intel Corp and Cray Inc to develop and build the nation's fastest computer by 2021 for conducting nuclear weapons and other research, officials said on Monday. The Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago said they are working on a supercomputer dubbed Aurora with Intel, the world's biggest supplier of data center chips, and Cray, which specializes in the ultra-fast machines. The $500 million contract for the project calls on the companies to deliver a computer with so-called exaflop performance - that is, being able to perform 1 quintillion - or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 - calculations per second. A U.S. government-led group is working with chipmaker Intel Corp and Cray Inc to develop and build the nation's fastest computer by 2021 for conducting nuclear weapons and other research, officials said on Monday If the project succeeds, Aurora would represent nearly an order of magnitude leap over existing machines that feature so-called petaflop performance, capable of doing 1 quadrillion, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 - calculations a second. It also heightens the stakes in a race in which the United States, China, the European Union, and Japan have all announced plans to build exaflop-capable supercomputers. One of Aurora's primary functions would be simulating nuclear blasts, a pillar of weapons development since the ban of live detonation testings. Aurora will be built with artificial intelligence capabilities for projects such as developing better battery materials and helping the Veterans Administration prevent suicides, Rick Stevens, an associate lab director with Argonne overseeing the exascale computing project, said during a news briefing. The project is a win for Intel, which will supply its Xeon CPU chips and Optane memory chips for Aurora. Intel has been fending off rival U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp's rise in the chip content of supercomputers as the machines take on more artificial intelligence work. Nvidia's chips are found in five of the world's current top-10 supercomputers, though the Nvidia chips are found alongside chips from its rivals, according to TOP500, which ranks the machines. The supercomputer will allow for large-scale simulations, such as a prohect led by University of Cambridge researcher Jacqueline Cole that uses machine learning and data mining to identify new light-absorbing dye molecules for solar-powered windows The world's current most powerful machine, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, contains chips from International Business Machines Corp and Nvidia. The source of chips for supercomputers has become a factor in trade tensions between the United States and China. The world's third-fastest supercomputer - the Sunway TaihuLight in China - has chips developed domestically in China. Chirag Dekate, an analyst with Gartner who studies the supercomputing market, said that despite the small contract size relative to Intel's overall revenue, the work done on Aurora will eventually filter down to the company's commercial customers. 'It's not just a jingoistic race between the U.S. and China,' Dekate said. 'The innovations that Intel is developing here will percolate down to other parts of its business.' They married in an idyllic beach ceremony on the Maldives earlier this month. And Billie Faiers and her new husband Greg Shepherd spoke to OK! magazine about their idyllic honeymoon on the island of Medhufaru and how they feel about baby number three. The reality star, 29, revealed that she and Greg, 33, made memories to 'last a lifetime' on the idyllic island off the Maldives, shortly before giving a candid insight into how she nailed her bridal body with the help of a personal trainer. Love: Billie Faiers and her new husband Greg Shepherd spoke to OK! magazine about their idyllic honeymoon on the island of Medhufaru and how they feel about baby number three Enamoured Billie added: 'We are privileged to have visited some amazing places over the years but nowhere quite compares.' And she revealed that the couple's first plans as a married couple are to go house hunting but despite saying baby number three isn't a 'priority the blonde beauty added: 'never say never'. The pair married after a five-year engagement and are parents to Nelly, four, and Arthur, two, but admitted that it was 'nice to take some time' on their honeymoon without their children. Billie added: 'We obviously missed the kids so much but we had such a whirlwind of a week, it was nice to take some time for Greg and I to reflect on everything.' Quality time: The reality star, 29, revealed that she and Greg, 33, made memories to 'last a lifetime' on the idyllic island off the Maldives Alone: The pair married are parents to Nelly, four, and Arthur, two, but admitted that it was 'nice to take some time' on their honeymoon without their children Out now: The full chat can be read in the current edition of OK! Magazine The Mummy Diaries star who looked sensational in not one, but two gowns, on her big day revealed she enlisted the help of a personal trainer before the wedding to help her look her best. She explained: 'I have never been a gym-goer but I hired a personal trainer called Ellie Hopley a few months before my wedding so that I felt confident. However, their nuptials haven't been without controversy after they were accused of ruining a host of fellow holidaymakers' trips due to their guests' raucous behaviour. And while the pair remained defiant about the antics, the couple skirted their woes to enjoy their honeymoon. Wow: Billie added: 'We obviously missed the kids so much but we had such a whirlwind of a week, it was nice to take some time for Greg and I to reflect on everything' Having heavily documented the events online Greg filmed Billie as she sizzled in a black gown with racy slashes at the leg. After streams of reports about the big day, the couple set the record straight as they revealed hilarious details, including the fact that Greg's three best men performed a spoof of their show The Mummy Diaries and Billie's annoyance at Greg's 'epic fail'. One of the highlights was undoubtedly when Greg's three best men created a Mummy Diaries spoof as Greg revealed: 'They had some help from The Mummy Diaries crew so they created a spoof episode... Fit: The Mummy Diaries star who looked sensational in not one but two gowns on her big day revealed she enlisted the help of a personal trainer before the wedding 'They were taking the mick out of how long it took to get my Instagram verification.' While Billie treated Greg to a Cartier belt and cufflinks, the groom did not realise wedding gifts were 'a thing' to which she responded: 'Epic fail, Greg!' Clearly disheartened, she pushed: 'Every time the door went on my wedding day I was thinking that will be my present but it never arrived!' Hollyoaks actress Ali Bastian married her actor boyfriend David O'Mahoney in London three weeks ago in an idyllic reception at Old Marylebone Town Hall. The Doctors star, 37, looked beautiful in in the crisp white number, which featured a lace detailing at the bust and sleeves and a satin trailing skirt. Her veil was delicately attached to a tiara, placed atop her blonde mane, which she wore swept back and trailing around her bare shoulders. Here comes the bride! Hollyoaks actress Ali Bastian married her actor boyfriend David O'Mahoney in London three weeks ago in a chic floor-length off-the-shoulder gown complete with a trailing veil Ali wore a natural palette of make-up for the big day and brandished a large bouquet of blue, cream and peach flowers. West End actor David looked dapper in a midnight blue suit, a crisp white shirt and a pink tie. Posing for OK! Magazine, they were joined by Weslifes Kian Egan and his wife Jodi Albert, who also starred in Hollyoaks. The latter wore a velvet peach wraparound number while her husband went open-collar in a charcoal grey blazer. Speaking to the publication, Ali said: 'The whole day just felt magical. It was everything I dreamed of and more. It really was the happiest day of my life.' Hitched! Speaking to the publication, Ali said - 'The whole day just felt magical. It was everything I dreamed of and more. It really was the happiest day of my life' The ceremony was held at Old Marylebone Town Hall and included a choir that Alis former Hollyoaks co-star Carley Stenson sang in as she walked down the isle. Carley's husband Danny Mac was also in attendance. Ali took my breath away. She looked absolutely stunning, so incredibly gorgeous. I felt so proud proud of how beautiful she looked, and proud that she was on time!,' David quipped of his new wife. Im very grateful to Ali for being my perfect partner. 'So the last person I thanked was Ali Im so proud, grateful and in love with her, it was very emotional to declare that in front of a room full of people.' 'We held each others hands so tightly all the way through the ceremony. We were both on the edge of tears,' Ali recalled. Congratulations: The couple announced their engagement last April On meeting David, she said: 'The moment David walked in I remember thinking, Im in so much trouble! We kissed like teenagers in a corner all night and ended up having eggs Benedict at 5am in a Soho cafe.' Asked whether they will have children, David replied: 'Absolutely, we hope we are blessed with children we both come from brilliantly large families and would love to add to them at some point in the future.' The couple announced their engagement last April, and had their reception at the Star & Garter in Richmond. Jodie, as well as her and Ali's Hollyoaks co-star Sarah-Jayne Dunn, posted Instagram images at the time, as they got ready for the big day, which Ali and David counted down to on Instagram earlier this year. To you! Ali's Hollyoaks co-stars Sarah-Jayne Dunn and Jodi Albert both posted Instagram images over the weekend as they got ready for the big day Jodi was excited as she shared a shot of her glam look before leaving her London hotel. 'Ready for a very special day with all my favourite people!' she captioned her outfit snap. Sarah-Jayne added her own selfies on her pretty floral dress, before raising a glass of bubbly in one Insta shot. The Star & Garter boasts a Victorian ballroom with views over the Thames. Stunning: Sarah-Jayne, who got married last year, looked gorgeous in a floral dress, showing off her long legs for her close friend's big day The stunning venue hosts civil weddings as well as wedding breakfasts and evening celebrations. On January 2 actor David posted on his social media that he would be marrying Ali in 60 days writing alongside a photo of his gorgeous fiancee. '60 Days until #AliAndDavidGetHitched and this beautiful, Strong, fearless and amazing woman makes me the happiest man in the World... heres to more long walks in beautiful #sunsets and a lifetime of #adventure.' The couple revealed to OK! Magazine last April that they were engaged after an 18-month romance, teasing that they were planning three celebrations, including a blessing in Bali. Close friend: Jodi was excited as she shared a shot of her glam look on Sunday before leaving her London hotel. 'Ready for a very special day with all my favourite people!' she gushed David was planning on proposing to Ali, who used to play Becca Dean on the Channel 4 soap, during a romantic holiday to Bali, but instead he spontaneously decided to pop the question when he returned from a musical. Talking to the publication, the stage actor revealed: 'I was 99.99 per cent sure that shed say yes, but there was still a scary but exciting feeling. 'Moments after I proposed to Ali I felt this huge amount of relief that I didnt have to keep the secret any more!' Pals: Ali celebrated Sarah-Jayne's hen do last April, with the three actresses remaining close since their Hollyoaks days While Ali added: 'Even though wed discussed marriage, it took me completely by surprise. I still think, has this really happened?' 'Were planning three celebrations. We want to get married in London followed by a cocktail party and then a blessing in Bali,' she continued. 'I love Davids kindness he is so kind and thoughtful, to a point where sometimes Im like, how could I ever be so thoughtful? He makes me want to hold up my side of the deal every day.' Meanwhile, David revealed that his love for Ali has gone back years as he revealed to the publication: 'I had Alis poster on my wall at uni! I wish I could go back to my 19-year-old self and say: "Itll be great, dont worry!"' He announced in October that he was set to become a father for the first time. And now Coronation Street star James Burrows has revealed that his girlfriend Sophie Coates is pregnant with a baby girl. The actor, 27, who plays Dr Ali Neeson in the ITV soap excitedly admitted that he 'couldn't wait' to meet his new arrival in an interview with OK! Magazine. Big news: Coronation Street star James Burrows, 27, has revealed that his girlfriend Sophie Coates is pregnant with a baby girl Speaking to the publication, in which he and his other half posed for a stunning photo shoot, the star revealed that Sophie called him at 7.30am while he was filming scenes for the soap to tell him the good news. And James certainly took the news well, telling the magazine that he was 'over the moon'. He added: 'I'm so excited to be having a daughter; I can't wait to meet her now.' Sophie's pregnancy came as a bit of a surprise for the loved up couple, seeing as the pair only started trying for a baby weeks before. Oh baby! In October, James shared an image of his girlfriend's babyscan, writing: 'Me and my beautiful girlfriend @sophie_coates are over the moon to announce that we're having a baby' Sophie explained: 'We'd only recently said we'd properly start trying. And a month later we fell pregnant.' But one thing's for sure, the couple won't be stumped when it comes to naming their bundle of joy, as the blonde beauty revealed: 'We discussed baby names on our first date! James, who's alter-ego returned to the soap recently after a short hiatus, revealed that the first person he told his baby news to was his on-screen mum Kym Marsh, who plays Michelle Connor. Parents-to-be: Excited James told the publication: ''I'm so excited to be having a daughter; I can't wait to meet her now' He said: 'She got really excited and gave me a massive hug and said I'd be a great dad.' Out now: Read the full interview in this week's OK! Magazine In October, James shared an image of his girlfriend's babyscan, writing: 'Me and my beautiful girlfriend @sophie_coates are over the moon to announce that we're having a baby. 'We can not contain our excitement we are so so happy x' The couple, who have been together since 2016, also opened up on the possibility of marriage, with the actor revealing he had come close to popping the question. He told the publication: 'I'd liked to have got engaged before now. 'I was going to ask Sophie in Australia when we were visiting my family last November but then we found out we were expecting.' Read the full interview in this week's OK! Magazine. He was previously feared dead after been sent on a dodgy job to Spain by boss Phil Mitchell. But Keanu Mitchell is set to make an explosive return to EastEnders and is joined by hard man newcomer Danny Hardcastle. In scenes yet to air on the BBC soap, Keanu will be thanked by villainous Danny for a job well done, with the young mechanic being kissed on the head as Phil nervously watches on. Dangerous liaison: EastEnders spoiler pictures show Keanu Taylor's return to the soap as he's thanked by villainous newcomer Danny Hardcastle as a nervous Phil Mitchell watches on Another image from the soap shows Danny shaking hands with Keanu, with both him and Phil clearly uneasy with the situation. Keanu, played by Danny Walters, has been absent from Walford for several weeks, after Phil (Steve McFadden) sent him to do work in Spain at the request of Sharon Mitchell. But while Sharon wanted some distance from her former toyboy lover, she was left devastated after Phil was sent a picture of Keanu badly beaten. With Sharon, Keanu's ex Louise and his mum Karen Taylor all worried for his safety, Phil was dispatched to Spain to bring him home. Dodgy dealings: Another snap shows Danny shaking hands with Keanu, with both him and Phil clearly uneasy with the situation However, Phil recently returned without Keanu, ensuring that he was fine and planned to stay in the country. But with the teen set to return to screens soon, fans will have to wait and find out just what he was up to in Spain and what his link with Danny is. Meanwhile Danny, played by former Brookside star Paul Usher, is set to cause trouble with his arrival to Albert Square, with the character apparently having unfinished business with Phil. The hard man's business in Walford is as yet unknown, but it had earlier been revealed that he's in the Square demanding help in finding something important - with Phil and Keanu likely to be involved. The dangerous situation will also tie in with the return of Phil's son Ben Mitchell, with the character having been recast with new actor Max Bowden. Previous teaser pics showed the characters together at a secret meeting at a cafe, with Ben looking particularly shifty. But what are they up to? And what is their connection to newcomer Danny? EastEnders continues Mondays, Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays on BBC One. She has been scolded before for being rude to potential suitors on the looking for love show. And Chelsee Healey, 30, once again came under fire by fans for her dating etiquette on Sunday night's episode of E4's Celebs Go Dating. The Hollyoaks actress, who previously received the worst feedback score ever received at the agency, seemed to be back to her old ways when she went out on a date with Vincent, 26. Teasing: Chelsee Healey, 30, once again came under fire by fans for her dating etiquette on Sunday night's episode of E4's Celebs Go Dating Upon being shown a snap of her dishy date, the beauty seemed excited as she thanked dating guru's Anna Williamson and Paul Brunson for selecting him as she dashed out of the agency headquarters to go on her date. However, when she first laid eyes on her company for the evening Chelsee did not seem to impressed with his height which she repeatedly commented on. Upon Vincent entering the bar, where the duo played prosecco pong, the stylish stunner said: 'You are smaller than I thought.' Seeming shocked by her comment, after just meeting her, he replied: 'Huh?' Pucker-up: The Hollyoaks actress kissed her date, Vincent, 26, twice on their date She continued: 'You are a small, little ickle man.' In an interview to the camera, as she reflected on Vincent, Chelsee shared: 'He may be a ickle man but I fancy him.' Proving she had the hots for her date, despite her comments, the star decided to plant a kiss on his lips across the table and once again outside the venue. Sizing up: Upon Vincent entering the bar, where the duo played prosecco pong, the stylish stunner said: 'You are smaller than I thought' Hotting up: Chelsee shared: 'He may be a ickle man but I fancy him' Fans took to social media to blast the mother-of-one for not being well-behaved. A viewer asked: 'Why is Chelsee giving this guy such a hard time? #CelebsGoDating.' 'F*** Chelsea is hard work #CelebsGoDating,' offered another. One jibbed: 'Poor lad who got Chelsea trying so hard...' Others called her 'awkward' and 'utterly embarrassing.' Unimpressed: Fans did not appreciate Chelsee's behavior during her date Elsewhere on the episode, Megan McKenna reflected on her taste in men after her blind date quizzed her on the type of men she used to date. The outspoken TV star said: 'I always go for the wrong person the wrong type of guy I go for an Essex prick, I go for a pr**k, I'm being deadly serious.' Her date pursued: 'What an a**hole?' To which she responded: 'Cocky, love themselves.' Megan swiftly exited from her dinner after her date rubbed her up the wrong way by assuming she had Botox. Speaking to the camera after the encounter, she said: 'Is he joking, thats so rude, hes not the boy for me, I actually found it a bit awkward.' Sam Thompson enjoyed a second date with Lady Julie, where he decided to emulate Channing Tatum's character of a stripped in the movie Magic Mike as he gyrated and twerked in front of his date as he sang Ginuwine's raunchy hit Pony. The cheeky chap wiggled his bottom and squatted down in the bar, which was much to Lady Julie's delight. Sam left the drinks a little frustrated as he didn't secure a kiss with his blonde bombshell which left him questioning if they would make it to date three. Put off: Megan was put off her date after he asked her if having Botox was painful Celebs Go Dating also left viewers in tears at the end of the programme with a tribute to Mike Thalassitis a day after the 26-year-olds death was announced. The E4 dating show paid tribute to the Love Island star, who appeared on the show in February 2018, by dedicating the episode to the reality TV star. After the show concluded and the credit rolled, a photo of the star appeared on the screen alongside the words : 'In memory of Mike Thalassitis 1993-2019.' Mike was found dead Saturday morning in Edmonton, North London, the Metropolitan Police has confirmed. Mike, who found fame on Love Island, starred on Celebs Go Dating alongside other household names such as Talia Storm, Gemma Collins, Ollie Locke and Sam Thompson. Celebs Go Dating continues on weeknights and Sundays at 9pm on E4. She famously confessed she 'used to be a lesbian' on Married At First Sight. And following her disastrous 'marriage' to ex-virgin Matthew Bennett, Sydney makeup artist Lauren Huntriss is reportedly now into women again. In this week's New Idea magazine, Lauren, 31, is seen kissing marketing consultant Ria Gan, 36, during a recent night out in Sydney. 'Her time with Matthew made her hate men again': MAFS' Lauren Huntriss (R) passionately kissed girlfriend Ria Gan (L) during a recent night out in Sydney 'It's been more than 10 years since Lauren was with another woman and she feels like this might be The One,' a source tells New Idea. In the pictures, Lauren also embraced Ria by affectionately wrapping her arms around her head. The publication claims that Lauren's 'time with Matthew made her hate men again'. Lauren and Ria are said to have been friends for four years, before getting intimate. Loved up! In this week's New Idea magazine, Lauren, 31, is seen kissing marketing consultant Ria Gan, 36, while walking down the street Moving on! Lauren and Ria are said to have been friends for four years, before getting intimate Casting doubt on Lauren's relationship with Ria, NW magazine has also linked the beauty to co-star Billy Vincent this week. The magazine claims that it was 'love at first sight' for the pair as they laid eyes on each other on set. However, at present there are no pictures or evidence to support this claim. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Lauren, Ria and Billy for comment. 'It was love at first sights': Casting doubt on Lauren's relationship with Ria, NW magazine has also linked the beauty to co-star Billy Vincent this week She is Australia's highest-profile escort who enjoyed a brief romance with Channel Seven reporter, Ryan Phelan over a year ago. Now blonde bombshell Samantha X has now revealed she is dating former Rebels bikie associate-turned-jewellery salesman, Mark Judge. Samantha, 45, told Daily Mail Australia she had been on a few dates with Mark - who she said has the 'image of a bad boy, but it's just talk'. High class escort Samantha X (pictured) has revealed she is dating former Rebels bikie associate-turned-jewellery salesman Mark Judge Samantha, 45, told Daily Mail Australia she had been on a few dates with Mark (pictured) - who she said has the 'image of a bad boy, but it's just talk' Mark made headlines in 2009 after a bizarre episode with former Home & Away actress Jodi Anasta where they sparked an emergency police operation. The pair met at a bar in Kings Cross and were found by police huddled in the bedroom of his Bellevue Hill home when they sparked an emergency operation after claiming to see armed men on CCTV cameras trying to break in. But Samantha said he was 'more genuine and authentic' than previous men she had dated. 'Underneath his hard exterior he is a massive softie and a great lover - he is sexy as hell,' she revealed. 'He loves his dogs, he is a homebody and we spent the other night watching Married At First Sight.' Former journalist Samantha left the escort business in 2017 to date Channel Seven reporter Ryan - but she confirmed they had separated early last year. After their split she returned to escorting. Former journalist Samantha (pictured) left the escort business in 2017 to date Channel Seven reporter Ryan Phelan - but she confirmed they had separated early last year Judge, who grew up near Penrith in western Sydney, started out as a doorman for a Rebels clubhouse. He never joined the club and instead chose to remain an associate. Two years after the incident with Jodi, the 'ladies' man' was found bleeding to death on an upmarket Sydney street after he was violently stabbed nine times. He was found collapsed on the footpath outside his apartment by two friends who were driving past after the attack. He was spared a full time jail sentence in 2005 after pleading guilty to bashing a furniture store owner and using a brick to crush the man's finger when he tried to reclaim some of the $70,000 he had lent him. Judge admitted in court in 2011 to amphetamine and steroid use in the past but his lawyer said he had been clean for several years. Judge was among the first to be banned from Kings Cross' notorious nightclub strip for alleged bad behaviour alongside former NRL player John Hopoate in 2013. The bans were subsequently overturned on appeal. He was acquitted in late 2013 of four assault charges relating to a bloody brawl involving four people near Kings Cross police station on July 21 that year. Sam Thompson left fans in tears with a heartbreaking tribute to his friend and Celebs Go Dating co-star Mike Thalassitis. The Made In Chelsea star, 26, took to Instagram on Sunday to share a poignant post after Mike was found found dead 26 on Saturday morning in Edmonton, North London. Sam and Mike met whilst starring on E4 show, Celebs Go Dating last year, with Sam confessing that he initially 'judged' Mike, and assumed he was a 'cocksure Lothario'. Good friends: Sam Thompson left fans in tears with a heartbreaking tribute to his friend and Celebs Go Dating co-star Mike Thalassitis after the Love Island star was found dead Revealing that he felt the need to post so that people who know the 'kind of guy' Mike was, he explained: 'A person just died. A friend just died. Someone that i know in my heart of hearts i could have done more for. 'I met Mike on celebs go dating. I was told he was joining the show with me and my heart sank. I had heard all of the things said about this so called lothario. This cock sure arrogant guy, who was fresh out of love island and ready to steam roll this dating show that i was so terrified to join. [sic]' Explaining that Mike's presence initially left him feeling 'insecure', Sam added that he was later 'ashamed' at how he had prejudged the Love Island star. 'He came over to me, handed me a drink, apologised for not saying hello earlier, told me he was terrified and said he couldn't wait to hang out more' Sam recalled. 'I stood there rather ashamed at how badly i had just judged a book by its cover. Over the next few months, the shame only grew. This guy was one of the most polite gentlemen i had ever met. [sic]' Paid tribute: The Made In Chelsea star, 26, took to Instagram on Sunday to share a poignant post after Mike was found found dead 26 on Saturday morning in Edmonton, North London Revealing that Mike had himself and Celebs Go Dating receptionist Tom Read Wilson in hysterics, Sam continued: 'He had us in stitches of laughter when he would recount his love island stories. Not once was he crass about anything that happened, or bitter about how it all ended. 'What i did see that i believe he was trying to hide when he was telling stories of how muggy mike was born, was sadness. From what i heard, he went into this show he knew practically nothing about, late, and into a pack of Alpha males who wanted nothing more than to win, and gain all the bonuses that that entailed. 'It wasnt easy for Mike in that villa. From what i heard he got ostracised as soon as he went in, and apart from a select few people, was treated like an outsider. [sic]' Firm friends: Sam and Mike met whilst starring on E4 show, Celebs Go Dating last year, with Sam confessing that he initially 'judged' Mike, and assumed he was a 'cocksure Lothario' Reflecting on their friendship, he continued: 'I have been incredibly lucky over the past year to have met a man like Mike. 'A friend who, much like the guy Im currently on tv with has never had trouble being the cool guy or dating women, but who was also so kind, and would pick an insecure wimp like me off the floor time and time again, and make me feel confident, and part of the gang. [sic]' Sam concluded: 'You are a far better man than i mate, and i will always remember you.' Reflection: Revealing that Mike had himself and Celebs Go Dating receptionist Tom Read Wilson in hysterics, Sam reflected on their happier times Sam's heartfelt post was praised by his followers, who admitted the star's kind words had left them in tears. Tom Read Wilson also commented, confessing: 'Im completely undone. I love you so. I shall treasure our Scottish memories especially. What youve done here is very special: youve painted and intimate portrait of the man we adored. Xxx' Mike was found hanged on Saturday morning in a park in Edmonton, North London. It has been suggested that Mike was at the time struggling to come to terms with the death of his grandmother and had recently been dealing with debt. The reality TV star had moved in with the 94-year-old after her deteriorating health meant she needed a full time carer. Tragic loss: Mike was found hanged on Saturday morning in a park in Edmonton, North London A spokesman for Metropolitan Police said: 'Officers and the London Ambulance Service attended and found a man, aged in his 20s, deceased. Police are in the process of informing the man's next of kin.' It was reported on Sunday that Mike had been dealing with huge debts in the months leading up to his tragic death after overextending himself with a party lifestyle. A source told The Mirror: 'His party lifestyle came at a price and he wasn't earning a lot of cash after Love Island, especially as he became his nan's carer.' For confidential help and support please contact Samaritans for free on 116 123 It's set to premiere on Australian television in the coming months. And Channel Nine unveiled the first trailer for its latest family-friendly offering, Lego Masters, over the weekend. Described as 'a global phenomenon', the Aussie version of show will be hosted by Hamish Blake and feature an array of incredible Lego sculptures. First look! Channel Nine has released a long-awaited trailer for the Australian version of the 'global TV phenomenon', Lego Masters A voiceover boomed in the trailer: 'This show is about imagination and creativity... turn nothing into something.' Glimpses of the creations are shown, including colourful buildings, a woman playing the violin and even a unicorn riding a bike - all made of Lego bricks. Based on the UK format, Lego Masters will feature a series of high-pressure challenges involving the children's building blocks. 'This show is about imagination and creativity': The Aussie version of Lego Masters will be hosted by Hamish Blake (left) and feature an array of incredible Lego sculptures Wow! Glimpses of the Lego creations were shown in the trailer, including colourful buildings, a woman playing the violin and even a unicorn riding a bike (above) The winner of the competition gets a prize of AU$100,000. Channel Nine summed up the show last year, tweeting: 'Australia's best LEGO builders compete against each other to create huge-scale LEGO models of just about anything and everything you can image.' While the program may not appeal to everyone, it has proved a hit with international audiences. Winning formula! Lego Masters is produced by Endemol Shine Australia, the team behind Married At First Sight, MasterChef and Survivor. Pictured: Hamish Blake Lego Masters is produced by Endemol Shine Australia, the team behind Married At First Sight, MasterChef and Survivor. Meanwhile, 2019 is set to be a busy year for Hamish Blake, who has several Channel Nine projects in the pipeline. In addition to hosting Lego Masters, he will return for a new series of True Story with Hamish & Andy alongside his comedy partner Andy Lee. She's made headlines lately with the ongoing fallout from her divorce from Johnny Depp and as a star of the superhero movie Aquaman. But Amber Heard was focused on her humanitarian work as she attended a special event in Chicago on Saturday night. The actress, 32, was the keynote speaker at the 2019 SAMS Midwest Chapter Annual Gala where she spoke about two medical missions she has undertaken to Jordan and Lebanon. Keynote speaker: Amber Heard was focused on her humanitarian work as she attended a special event in Chicago on Saturday night honoring Syrian medical relief work by SAMS Heard chose a full-length floral-themed black dress for the occasion. The elegant gown was cinched at the waist and featured three-quarter sleeves and a collar. She wore her blonde hair styled into a sophisticated updo. For a cause: The Aquaman star has undertaken missions to Jordan and Lebanon with the voluntary relief workers from The Syrian American Medical Society Met with volunteers: The actress told the gala audience that she could use her celebrity as a platform to inspire others to get involved The Rum Diary star traveled to the Middle East with The Syrian American Medical Society. 'Empathy is a remarkably selfless emotion,' she explained. 'It requires a person to leave the comfort of their own perceived place in the world and inhabit the experience of someone else.' 'It is an inherently frightening and disorienting state of being, one that can be extremely rewarding but also unbelievably draining.' While she acknowledged that she herself has no medical training, she said she did have something to offer thanks to her celebrity. 'What I can do is use my platform and my skill as a storyteller to inspire others to take small incremental actions in support of a common cause,' Heard said. Spoke out: 'Empathy is a remarkably selfless emotion. It requires a person to leave the comfort of their own perceived place in the world and inhabit the experience of someone else' Inspirational: The California native shared the stories of some of the inspiring SAMS volunteers she spoke with while at a camp for displaced Syrians The actress, who has been a strong advocate for the importance of charity work and helping those in need, has been devoted to helping displaced and injured Syrians get proper medical attention during her partnership with SAMS. The global medical relief organization is working on the front lines of the crisis in Syria, in neighboring countries and beyond, to save lives and alleviate suffering. Last year, Heard spent a week at a camp that had about 660,000 displaced Syrians. It also doubles as a rehabilitation center for those who have been injured. Committed: The actress has been devoted to helping Syria refugees get proper medical attention during her partnership with SAMS 'My biggest takeaway from this trip is the indelible mark left on my soul after spending a week on the ground here' she confessed, as reported by The Borgen Project. SAMS primarily operates in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey where it has provided support to 110 medical facilities and over 3,000 personnel. More recently, its programs have begun to expand to other countries that are facing extreme poverty. In recent years, Heard has also devoted her off-screen time to organizations like Amnesty International, Art of Elysium and has helped raise awareness about domestic and sexual violence. Scarlett Moffatt has reportedly found the man of her dreams in police constable Scott Dobinson. The former Queen of the Jungle, 28, is said to be dating Scott after the pair met through a mutual friend four months ago. The notoriously unlucky-in-love Gogglebox star uploaded a snap with her new man to social media, cosying up to him, looking blissfully happy. Cute couple: She's been unlucky-in-love since she won the heart of the country on Gogglebox. But Scarlett Moffatt may have found the man of her dreams in police constable Scott Dobinson A source told the Sun: 'Scott seems like a really stand-up guy. He could be good for her. 'The pair met through a mutual friend and hit it off straight away. 'And he's got a decent job being a police officer in Durham near where she lives.' MailOnline has contacted a representative for Scarlett for comment. Smitten: The former Queen of the Jungle, 28, reportedly began dating Scott after the pair met through a mutual friend four months ago A source told the Sun : 'Scott seems like a really stand-up guy. He could be good for her' Ex-Gogglebox star Scarlett split from personal trainer Lee Wilkinson in April 2018 after a whirlwind romance. She took to social media to hit out at the 'cheating pathological liar' and posted a cryptic message referencing Henry VIII - who had six wives. She said: 'Just always seem to choose cheating pathological liars... I just choose lying cheats it's a skill.' 'For anyone that needs this right now, I just want to say if somebody feels you're not enough for them then that isn't a reflection on you, that's a reflection on them... Unless you're Henry VIII, then one girl's normally enough.' Old flame: Ex-Gogglebox star Scarlett split from personal trainer Lee Wilkinson in April after a whirlwind romance Heartbreak: Her romance with Lee followed her long-term relationship with hairdresser Luke Crodden, who left her heartbroken when he broke up with her on her birthday Yet after parting ways for the first time in April, Scarlett sparked claims of a reconciliation the next month when she hid her Facebook relationship status, after changing it to 'single' following her split from Lee. However, the two soon split again after she reportedly dumped Lee when his ex-girlfriend of two years, Sam Irving, claimed he had sent her messages while he was still with Scarlett. According to the Mirror, Lee's ex alleged that she was still seeing him in January, a month after he went public with his romance with Scarlett. A representative for Scarlett declined to comment when approached by MailOnline at the time. Her romance with Lee followed a long-term relationship with hairdresser Luke Crodden, who left her heartbroken when he broke up with her on her birthday. Off with his head: She took to social media to hit out at 'cheating pathological liar' Lee and posted a cryptic message referencing Henry VIII - who had six wives She wrote on Facebook at the time: 'I'm gonna have to write it because I feel a bit awkward as I've done some interviews about him being in my book that aren't out for a while due to timings of the magazines ... but me and Luke have finished due to a number of different things. 'It was Luke's choice in the end but it's because we both just see each other in more of a friendly way than a romantic way. 'We both respect and love each other enough to know we need to call it a day and not be one of those couples that's off and on.' Scarlett's love life was put under the microscope when she branched out from Gogglebox to enter the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! jungle in 2016. Spotlight: Scarlett's love life was put under the microscope when she branched out from Gogglebox to enter the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! jungle in 2016 She ended up winning the show - moving in with Luke in early 2017. After the relationship came to an end that October, Scarlett appeared to bounce back, soon finding romance with Lee, but this turned out to be short-lived. She was also at one point linked to Ant McPartlin, having landed a role on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, after impressing ITV bosses on I'm A Celeb. These reports were never validated, however, and Ant has since found love with Anne Marie Corbett, following his divorce from make-up artist Lisa Armstrong. Meanwhile, Scarlett now fronts I'm A Celebrity... Extra Camp, alongside her former-camp-mate Joel Dommett and long-standing spin-off presenter Joe Swash. In recent seasons, Married At First Sight has incorporated scripted elements and hired professional actors to generate 'drama' on screen. But the show's trio of relationship experts insist that their role on the show remains sacred and they are not told what to say by producers. Speaking to TV Tonight, clinical neuropsychotherapist Trisha Stafford denied claims by former contestants that the panel is 'fed lines' during commitment ceremonies. Setting the record straight: Married At First Sight experts insist they 'aren't told what to say by producers' - despite former contestants claiming they are 'fed lines through an earpiece'. Pictured (left to right): Mel Schilling, John Aiken and Trisha Stratford 'It's an unscripted television show - that's where it's an experiment, and like any experiment you throw in different variables,' she said. 'We don't do anything [to advance storylines], we observe them and talk to them.' It comes after Dean Wells, a contestant from last year's season of MAFS, alleged in January that the experts were instructed what to say via an earpiece. 'These experts are supposed to give you information and guide you through stuff and whatnot,' he said in a YouTube video. Denial: Speaking to TV Tonight, clinical neuropsychotherapist Trisha Stafford (above) denied claims by former contestants that the panel is 'fed lines' during commitment ceremonies 'But when you actually sit down and talk to them, you ask them a question, they don't answer you straight away,' Dean added. 'They stop, pause and go to their little headset, wait for the producers to tell them what to say, and then they talk to you. 'It's not actually [them] really talking to you. It's all coming from a headset. They just sit there and get told what to say by the producers.' 'They stop, pause and go to their little headset': It comes after Dean Wells, a contestant from last year's MAFS, said in January that the experts were instructed what to say via an earpiece The MAFS experts have been criticised in the past for their on-screen conduct. An ex-contestant made a formal complaint against John Aiken to the Psychology Council of NSW in April 2017, claiming people were 'put in dangerous situations'. But fellow expert Mel Schilling told TV Tonight that duty of care is still a work in progress. Mel said that she, John and Trisha were working together with the Australian Psychological Society to establish guidelines. 'What does it mean for a psychologist to be in the media? What is our responsibility and our duty of care?' she said. Her on and off again relationship with Dan Edgar was an ongoing story line on TOWIE before she fell victim to the cast cull. Yet Amber Turner appeared to be putting the past behind her as she shared a snap of herself on Nasimi Beach in Dubai on Sunday. The 25-year-old reality star caught the eye as she seductively posed on her knees by the surf in a bright red bikini that would not be out of place in an episode of Baywatch. Beach babe: caught the eye as she seductively posed on her knees by the surf in a bright red bikini that would not be out of place in an episode of Baywatch The blonde stared off away from the camera lens as she held a pineapple and slurped on two straws that poked out of the fruity beverage. Keeping her beach babe look simple, Amber wore no jewelry and shaded her eyes with a pair of yellow tinted aviator style sunglasses. Amber's long hair extension's cascaded down to her waist in straight style for her day under the UAE sunshine. Hinting that she was looking ahead at the next chapter of her life, she captioned the snap: 'Happiest in the sun & a bikini Back to Dubai I go! Lifes to short to live with regrets, So love the people who treat you right & forget about the ones who dont! Time to put me first.' Former flame: Her on and off again relationship with Dan Edgar was an ongoing story line on the ITVBe reality show Axed: It was confirmed that Amber was the latest victim of the huge cast cull hitting the ITVBe series in February The blonde bombshell's post came only hours prior to the first episode of the newest series of TOWIE airing, where a host of new characters were introduced to viewers in a special edition filmed in Thailand. Some old faces still continue to appear on the Essex based show including Chloe Sims, Pete Wicks, Liam Gatsby, Chloe Green and Lauren Pope. It was confirmed that Amber was the latest victim of the huge cast cull hitting the ITVBe series in February. Lost love: She was in a relationship with live-in beau Jamie Reed (pictured) for four years before her arrival in TOWIE in which she was accused of cheating on the hunk with co-star Dan Insiders revealed exclusively to MailOnline that show bosses had been sympathetic to her plight, while TOWIE representatives confirmed she was told her contract for the coming series had been terminated so would not be returning. Amber was a divisive addition to the show when she made her entrance as Megan McKenna's best friend during the cast trip to Tenerife in 2017's series 20. She was in a relationship with live-in beau Jamie Reed for four years before her arrival in TOWIE in which she was accused of cheating on the hunk with co-star Dan. After breaking up with Jamie, she began an on-off and often-casual fling with Dan before making things official last year - however things ended bitterly at Christmas. Insiders revealed she will not be brought back despite the fact bosses and producers have been extremely sympathetic to the star. Speaking to MailOnline, a source said: 'Producers have been sympathetic to her heartache with Dan but any return will be on their terms Shes had a really difficult time and they've been really kind.' A spokesperson for Towie confirmed: 'Executive producers have informed Amber that she won't be starting the series. However, Amber is in dialogue with producers to see if there is an opportunity for her to return.' Representatives for the star told MailOnline: 'Amber has had a very traumatic time over the last few months and she is grateful to be able to have some time away from filming. Amber is in dialogue with the producers and will hopefully be back soon.' Returning: Among the cast members returning are Bobby Norris, Lauren Pope, Pete Wicks, Chloe Green, Dan Edgar, Chloe Meadows, Georgia Kousoulou, Tommy Mallett, Chloe Sims and Diags (pictured L-R) The newest members of the TOWIE family haven't gone down well with fans, with several begging show bosses to bring back the original cast. Taking to Twitter, viewers have hit out at the changes, with several deeming the newcomers 'too young'. WTF is with all these kids on #TOWIE @ITVBe,' ranted one person. While another moaned: 'Noooooo I dont like these new people on #Towie just keep the originals!' 'What the f**k has happened to #towie ?.. bring back the ogs or just stop filming', ranted a third watcher. Not sure: TOWIE fans took to Twitter to share their thought's on the show's newcomers, with many wanting former cast mates to return With another adding: 'hmmmmm dont know how I feel about this series already bring the old cast back!! #TOWIE.' However, the new stars did impress some viewers at home, with many praising the decision to bring in some fresh faces. 'Unpopular opinion but I really like the newbies, feel like everyones getting to old and I cant relate #TOWIE,' declared one fan. While another commented: 'I dont usually like new #TOWIE cast members straight away but i LOVE the newbies already, i also dont see the fascination with sam mucklow? How are these beautiful women so gutted over him, @Shelby_Tribble is STUNNING i dont even get why she entertained him in the 1st place.' His new film tells the story of the heroes and survivors of the brutal Taj Hotel terror attack in Mumbai, India, in 2008. And on Sunday, Armie Hammer joined other castmembers for a special screening of the movie in New York. The actor, 32, arrived with wife Elizabeth Chambers on his arm for the event held at the city's Museum of Modern Art. In the spotlight: Armie Hammer arrived with wife Elizabeth Chambers on his arm for a special screening of the film Hotel Mumbai in New York on Sunday Hammer chose a mulberry-colored jacket for the occasion along with coordinated shirt and trousers with patterned tie. Chambers, who has been married to Hammer since 2010, opted for the Saloni 'Lily' dress from Shopbop. Hotel Mumbai had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Natty: Hammer chose a mulberry-colored jacket for the occasion along with coordinated shirt and trousers with patterned tie for the event held at the museum of Modern Art Eye-catching: Chambers, who has been married to Hammer since 2010, opted for a brightly colored patterned dress by Saloni from Shopbop Also at the screening was the film's stars Dev Patel, Nazanin Bondiadi and Jason Isaacs. The attack on the Taj Hotel lasted for four days and involved numerous shooting and bombing attacks. By the end, 174 people had lost their lives with more than 300 injured. Nine out of the 10 terrorists were killed. The movie focuses on how the Indian hotel staff worked to try and save as many of the guests as possible during the ordeal. Big night: Also at the screening was the film's stars Dev Patel, left, and Nazanin Bondiadi, right Reunion: Hammer posed for photos with co-star Jason Isaacs, left, and producer Mike Gabrawy, right Based on true story: The movie focuses on how the Indian hotel staff worked to try and save as many of the guests as possible during the 2008 terror attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai Movie night: Billions star Damian Lewis showed up to support the film Hammer has another new film dubbed Wounds set for release in 2019, which he stars in alongside Zazie Beetz and Dakota Johnson. He is currently filming Dreamland alongside Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Rodriguez and Gary Oldman. He is also has Death on the Nile, a follow-up to 2017's Murder on the Orient Express, and Rebecca in pre-production. All smiles: Lauren Ridloff was on the guest list for the screening Kourtney Kardashian met up with ex-Scott Disick at an Italian restaurant in Malibu over the weekend to hand off their son Reign. The idea was that the four-year old could spend some quality time with his dad. Not long after Reign said his goodbyes to his mom, father and son were spotted grabbing some frozen yogurt not far from the restaurant. Daddy-son day: Scott Disick took four-year old son Reign out for frozen yogurt in Malibu The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star looked casual cool dressed in olive-colored cargo pants as he walked to the shop, hand-in hand with his boy. He matched it with a dark grey long-sleeve shirt and white sneakers. On this warm and sunny Southern California day, the 35-year old wore a pair of dark sunglasses. Little Reign kept things comfy wearing a pair of green sweat pants with a white t-shirt and white sneakers. Quiet time: Disick spent one-on-one time with Reign after his mother, Kourtney Kardashian dropped him off with his father in Malibu over the weekend Attentive dad: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star walked hand=-in-hand with Reign the entire way to the frozen yogurt shop The reality star kept a hold of Reign the entire way. Once inside, dad and son each got their own cup of frozen yogurt. After a few bites, they then headed back to their car and drove off. In addition to Reign, Disick and Kardashian also share nine-year-old son, Mason, and six-year old daughter, Penelope. The former couple met at a house party held by film producer Joe Francis in 2006. After a number of breakups and makeups, they finally called it quits in 2015. From the looks of things, the former couple appear to be co-parenting their children without any major problems. On a mission: Both father and son looked casual cool in their ensembles as they hand-in hand to the frozen yogurt shop Skeletons of the Mary Rose Rating: Baptiste Rating: History on telly is no longer the preserve of fusty archivists spouting dates and Latin mottoes. A regiment of lady historians has arrived to sex it up. Hes quite a fellow, murmured genealogist Megan Owens, examining a depiction of a Tudor gent in Skeletons Of The Mary Rose (C4). Quite cute, lovely tights. Dr Alex Hildred, head of research at the Mary Rose Trust, was even more appreciative of a bowman whose remains were found on the royal warship that sank almost 500 years ago. Hes quite tall, she declared approvingly. Hes pretty rough and tussled in a good-looking sort of way, with that Ive just got out of bed type of look. Do all female historians fancy the past? Its certainly more difficult to imagine the old male guard, the likes of Simon Schama or Lord Clark, panting over a painting of Anne Boleyn and muttering, Phwoar, I would, Your Majesty. The archer was one of eight people whose ancient remains were tested to reveal their racial background, using DNA and isotope analysis. This meant grinding bits off their molars and their bones, which seems a bit undignified for men who gave their lives fighting for England, even if it was five centuries ago. The isotope findings were particularly interesting, though: by measuring the presence of certain chemicals such as oxygen in the bone, scientists could identify where the subject grew up whether in Britain or, as in the hunky archers case, North Africa. The researchers all seemed staggered that four of the Mary Rose crew came from Mediterranean countries. This is mind-blowing, gasped historian Dr Onyeka Nubia. People will think England at the time of Henry VIII has to be all white. I dont see why. Every ships crew is bound to be a mixed bunch. Still, the show wouldnt have been as dramatic if the presenters had squinted through a microscope and shrugged: Well, thats pretty much as we expected. More intriguing was the digital replica of the Mary Rose, created by taking two billion scans of the wreck and building a 3D computer image of the ship on the seabed. The team could explore it from every angle: Its like swimming through it in clear water, said one. The technology cant be far away that will let us recreate figures from history using virtual reality. Don the digi-goggles and a rugged, tousled Tudor will be standing right in front of you, tights and all. Im concerned that some of the lady historians might get slightly over-excited. A dose of over-excitement was welcome in Baptiste (BBC1). This crime serial starring Tcheky Karyo as a retired detective hunting people traffickers in Amsterdam has always been slow-moving, and occasionally static. Last weeks episode, which pointlessly bumped off the most interesting character, reformed gangster Kim (Talisa Garcia), was going nowhere till the last minutes, when sweaty Ed (Tom Hollander) scarpered with a bagful of banknotes. Now the story is gathering speed as the scattered storylines tie together. The moment when Julien Baptiste in town to hand back the money to psychopath Constantin (menacing Alec Secareanu) casually admitted hed spent it all was priceless. How do you burn through a million Euros in a morning? Thats like a poser for a party game. Juliens solution was to buy a worthless second-hand yacht from a sharkish dealer. Constantins face lost its usual sadistic leer. He looked like he might cry. It was a smart moment of comedy in a dark drama. Kate Langbroek relocated to Bologna, Italy, with her family in January for a taste of the good life. But it seems the radio host, 53, is missing the comforts of home. On Sunday, Kate revealed that her hairdresser Olga Sutcliffe had flown to Europe to visit her and her family, giving her son Lewis, 15, a mullet haircut during the visit. Comforts from home! Radio host Kate Langbroek's hairdresser recently flew to Italy from Australia to give the radio host's son Lewis, 15, a mullet Posting a picture of the pair on Instagram, she wrote: 'When your beloved hairdresser visits from Australia and gives ya boi a mullet.' Just hours before, Olga posted a selfie with Kate as they headed out for pizza. '#Bologna #piazzamaggiore with #katelangbroek enjoying the people of #Italy,' she commented. 'Enjoying the people of Italy!' Just hours before, Olga posted a selfie with Kate as they headed out for pizza Kate's co-host Dave Hughes told Channel Nine's Today Extra last month that she was 'having the time of her life' in Italy. The 48-year-old comedian, who continues to host the Hughsey and Kate show with the brunette, despite currently living in separate countries, then joked that Kate was 'spending all afternoon on the pasta and wine'. Kate was planning on resigning from her job before leaving for Italy, but her on-air partner encouraged her to keep working. Bologna bound! The Langbroek family made their big international move at the end of January And ever since relocating with husband Peter Lewis and their four kids earlier this year, the star has taken full advantage of social media, capturing all her delectable meals for her fans to drool over. Images of rich, creamy pastas sitting alongside towering glasses of red and white wine have replaced images of her hovering over the microphone in the 2DayFM studio as she continues to immerse herself on her working 'gap year'. In earlier February, Kate took to Instagram to post a photo of table full of gnocchi, breads and wine, cheekily captioning: 'Alexa, call my personal trainer. Tell her I'm running late.' Tammy Hembrow is rapidly becoming household name in the U.S. The Australian Instagram sensation, 24, attended yet another red carpet event in Los Angeles over the weekend. She looked suitably glamorous arriving at The Daily Front Row Fashion Awards at the world-famous Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunday. Going global: Instagram sensation Tammy Hembrow attended yet another red carpet event in Los Angeles over the weekend. Pictured at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunday Tammy wore a black corseted slip dress with a high split up one side, and accessorised with strappy black stilettos. But as she posed for photographs before the awards ceremony, Tammy's face looked noticeably puffy compared to just a few months ago. Her appearance may be the result of excessive fillers, according to leading plastic surgeon Dr Randal Haworth. Going overboard? Tammy's 'puffy' appearance may be the result of excessive fillers, according to leading plastic surgeon Dr Randal Haworth. Pictured left: Tammy on Friday, March 8 Dr Haworth has 'praised and defended' Tammy's aesthetic in the past, but believes that recent changes to her looks are 'counterproductive'. 'People flock to emulate their favourite celebrities and sport the latest styles, even if they look ridiculous in the process,' he said. 'They can lose sight of their end goals when reaching for "aesthetic perfection".' According to the cosmetic specialist, Tammy's 'face is fuller' than perhaps it should be and her features seem 'exaggerated'. Glamour: Tammy wore a black corseted slip dress with a high split up one side on Sunday night Double trouble: The blonde beauty flashed a pout as she posed on the front row with American actor Quincy 'Her cheeks are exaggerated, and her chin longer and more pointy,' he explained. 'Off-the-shelf fillers such as Juvederm, Voluma, Radiesse and the like, or simply fat transfer could all be culprits.' Dr Haworth added that the end result is too much for her naturally 'delicate features'. 'If faces become too filled, delicate features, including their eyes, get lost in the crowd, so to speak,' he said. 'When I feel patients of mine are at an inflection point where "too much of a good thing goes bad", I instruct them to take a "filler holiday". I would advise Tammy to do the same thing.' Advertisement Blonde bombshells Kate Hudson, Candice Swanepoel, and Stella Maxwell dazzled the Daily Front Row's 5th Annual Fashion LA Awards inside the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunday. The Oscar nominee - turning 40 next month - looked ravishing in a long-sleeved, ruby-sequinned gown and matching clutch selected by stylist Sophie Lopez. Hairstylist Gregory Russell gave the Fabletics co-founder's growing bob a big boost with wavy extensions. Blonde bombshell! Candice Swanepoel dazzled the Daily Front Row's 5th Annual Fashion LA Awards inside the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunday Kate also coordinated her lip color with her red sparkly embellished dress. Hudson brought along her jewelry designer gal pal Jennifer Meyer as her date for the fashion festivities, and the pair share make-up artist Monika Blunder. Earlier on St. Patrick's Day, the Pretty Fun author posted an adorable Instagram snap of her five-month-old daughter Rani Rose, who's 'not gonna get pinched today.' The Marshall actress also took a family stroll with her babydaddy Danny Fujikawa as well as her two sons - Bingham, 7; and Ryder, 15 - with ex-fiance Matt Bellamy and ex-husband Chris Robinson. Turning 40 next month! The Oscar nominee looked ravishing in a long-sleeved, ruby-sequinned gown and matching clutch selected by stylist Sophie Lopez 'I got hair!' Hairstylist Gregory Russell gave the Fabletics co-founder's growing bob a big boost with wavy extensions Red pout: Kate also coordinated her lip color with her red sparkly embellished dress Gal pals: Hudson brought along jewelry designer Jennifer Meyer as her date for the fashion festivities, and the pair share make-up artist Monika Blunder Kate is rumored to be engaged to the 32-year-old Lightwave Records founder, whom she originally met in 2002 through his stepsisters Erin & Sara Foster. Career-wise, Hudson shaved her head to play a sober drug dealer taking care of her autistic sister (Maddie Ziegler) in Sia Furler's directorial debut, Music, which is due out later this year. 'I think it might be good,' the Australian 43-year-old told Rolling Stone last August. 'It's not exceptional yet...I'm a little bit ashamed I couldn't make it exceptional. That was my dream, to make the first movie an exceptional work. But what are you gonna do? I'm only human.' '#DontForgetYourGreens': Earlier on St. Patrick's Day, the Pretty Fun author posted a snap of her five-month-old daughter Rani Rose, who's 'not gonna get pinched today' Sunday stroll: The Marshall actress also took a walk with her babydaddy Danny Fujikawa (L) as well as her two sons - Bingham (2-L), 7; and Ryder (2-R), 15 - with ex-fiance Matt Bellamy and ex-husband Chris Robinson Coming soon! Career-wise, Kate shaved her head to play a sober drug dealer taking care of her autistic sister (Maddie Ziegler, L) in Sia Furler's directorial debut, Music (pictured in 2017) The Australian 43-year-old - who presented Sunday - told Rolling Stone last August: 'I think it might be good. It's not exceptional yet...I'm a little bit ashamed I couldn't make it exceptional. That was my dream, to make the first movie an exceptional work' The nine-time Grammy nominee's big-screen musical co-written by Dallas Clayton also features Leslie Odom, Jr., Hector Elizondo, and Tig Notaro. Meanwhile, 30-year-old Candice glittered in a plunging silver cocktail dress and matching strappy stilettos selected by stylist Inge Fonteyne. The 5ft10in IMG Model's backless frock featured long sleeves and a sexy slit baring her toned legs. The Tropic of C co-founder wore her flaxen locks middle-parted and in waves and she sported a fully-contoured complexion. Disco doll: 30-year-old Candice glittered in a plunging silver cocktail dress and matching strappy stilettos selected by stylist Inge Fonteyne Sequin sista: The 5ft10in IMG Model's backless frock featured long sleeves and a sexy slit baring her toned legs Mascara alert! The Tropic of C co-founder wore her flaxen locks middle-parted and in waves and she sported a fully-contoured complexion 'Good day LA!' Earlier that same day, Swanepoel - who boasts 14.5M Instagram/Twitter followers - Insta-storied her buttery waffle breakfast Earlier that same day, Swanepoel - who boasts 14.5M Instagram/Twitter followers - Insta-storied a sultry mirror selfie as well as her buttery waffle breakfast. Missing from the South African stunner's side on Sunday were her two sons - two-year-old Anaca and eight-month-old Ariel - with ex-fiance Hermann Nicoli. The Brazilian 36-year-old seemingly announced the end of their decade-long romance in November by unfollowing Candice and deleting his Instagram account shortly after posting 'protect yo heart.' The 6ft1in male model had proposed to Swanepoel in August 2015 after originally meeting her in Paris when she was 17 and he was 23. 'Good morning!' Missing from the South African stunner's side were her two sons - two-year-old Anaca and eight-month-old Ariel - with ex-fiance Hermann Nicoli (pictured Saturday) 'Protect yo heart': The Brazilian 36-year-old seemingly announced the end of their decade-long romance in November by unfollowing Candice and deleting his Instagram account It's over: The 6ft1in male model had proposed to Swanepoel in August 2015 after originally meeting her in Paris when she was 17 and he was 23 (pictured in 2017) Once inside the Beverly Hills awards ceremony, Candice reunited with fellow Victoria's Secret Angel, Stella. There was not an inch to pinch on the 28-year-old Lions Model, who flaunted her 5ft10in figure and skinny legs in a plunging brown-patterned dress. Maxwell even made sure there was some green in her spaghetti-strapped frock for St. Patrick's Day, which she paired with gold jewelry and stilettos. The Belgian-born Kiwi brought out her big blue eyes with brown shadow and she wore her middle-parted blonde locks down for the star-studded event. Hey girl! Once inside the Beverly Hills awards ceremony, Candice reunited with fellow Victoria's Secret Angel, Stella (R) Skinny Minnie! There was not an inch to pinch on the 28-year-old Lions Model, who flaunted her 5ft10in figure and skinny legs in a plunging brown-patterned dress Scantily clad: Maxwell even made sure there was some green in her spaghetti-strapped frock for St. Patrick's Day, which she paired with gold jewelry and stilettos Doe eyes: The Belgian-born Kiwi brought out her big blue eyes with brown shadow and she wore her middle-parted blonde locks down for the star-studded event The University of Otago grad had just spent Friday in Anaheim at the 'happiest place on Earth' aka Disneyland Park with rocker Jesse Jo Stark. Stella is clearly close with the 27-year-old daughter of Chrome Hearts founders Richard & Laurie Lynn Stark as she included three heart emojis in her post. Before Maxwell ended her two-year romance with ex-girlfriend Kristen Stewart in the fall, they co-starred in Universal Pictures' critically-acclaimed hoax drama JT LeRoy hitting US theaters April 26. Pop diva Lady Gaga slipped her famously 5ft2in figure in a b&w leather Rodarte dress and pumps selected by stylist duo Tom Eerebout + Sandra Amador. 'Happiest place on earth!' The University of Otago grad had just spent Friday in Anaheim at Disneyland Park with rocker Jesse Jo Stark (L) New girlfriend? Stella is clearly close with the 27-year-old daughter of Chrome Hearts founders Richard & Laurie Lynn Stark as she included three heart emojis in her post Hitting US theaters April 26! Before Maxwell ended her two-year romance with ex-girlfriend Kristen Stewart (L) in the fall, they co-starred in Universal Pictures' critically-acclaimed hoax drama JT LeRoy The Oscar-winning songwriter - turning 33 this month - got dramatically dipped on the red carpet by her 'best friend and hair/wigstylist for a decade,' Frederic Aspiras. The A Star is Born actress (born Stefani Germanotta) was on hand to present the Daily Front Row's best hair stylist of the year to the Emmy-nominated coiffer. IMG Model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley opted for a black skinny pant to go with her red floral train top selected by stylist Emma Jade Morrison. The British 31-year-old - who has a year-old son Jack with fiance Jason Statham - paired her asymmetric top with simple black stilettos. Frilly frock: Pop diva Lady Gaga slipped her famously 5ft2in figure in a b&w leather Rodarte dress and pumps selected by stylist duo Tom Eerebout + Sandra Amador Turning 33 this month! The Oscar-winning songwriter got dramatically dipped on the red carpet by her 'best friend and hair/wigstylist for a decade,' Frederic Aspiras Onstage: The A Star is Born actress (born Stefani Germanotta) was on hand to present the Daily Front Row's best hair stylist of the year to the Emmy-nominated coiffer VIP audience: Courtney Love was among the stars seated in the front row Musical chairs: The 54-year-old grunge goddess then took to the stage to present Hole frontwoman: The Golden Globe nominee rocked a thirties-retro, short-sleeved red silk dress and matching peep-toe pumps Former Fyre Festival spokesmodel Chanel Iman made a dramatic entrance in a yellow gown featuring a train selected by stylist Monica Rose. The 28-year-old IMG Model flashed her taut waistline and long legs in the sunny, single-strapped frock and gold stilettos. Brazilian beauty Adriana Lima and Puerto Rican stunner Joan Smalls both opted for the same plunging, halter, leggy silhouette with their gowns. The 37-year-old Society Management Model later took her seat beside British stylist Katie Grand and Oscar-nominated actress Juliette Lewis. In bloom: IMG Model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley opted for a black skinny pant to go with her red floral train top selected by stylist Emma Jade Morrison Single strapped: The British 31-year-old - who has a year-old son Jack with fiance Jason Statham - paired her asymmetric top with simple black stilettos. Leggy lady: Former Fyre Festival spokesmodel Chanel Iman made a dramatic entrance in a yellow gown featuring a train selected by stylist Monica Rose Hello sunshine! The 28-year-old IMG Model flashed her taut waistline and long legs in the sunny, single-strapped frock and gold stilettos Project Runway champ-turned-mentor Christian Siriano dressed his celebrity supporters Busy Philipps, Alicia Silverstone, and Janet Mock. Thanks to her strict vegan diet, the 42-year-old Golden Globe nominee has barely aged since her Clueless nineties heyday. Speaking of evergreen ladies, Elon Musk's 70-year-old mother Maye killed it in a trendy leopard-print pantsuit. Escape Plan 2: Hades actress Jaime King also opted for a fierce pantsuit with a green velvet belt at the bash. Double take! Brazilian beauty Adriana Lima (L) and Puerto Rican stunner Joan Smalls (R) both opted for the same plunging, halter, leggy silhouette with their gowns Hey girls! The 37-year-old Society Management Model later took her seat beside British stylist Katie Grand (M) and Oscar-nominated actress Juliette Lewis (R) Designer dames: Project Runway champ-turned-mentor Christian Siriano (2-R) dressed his celebrity supporters (from L-R) Busy Philipps, Alicia Silverstone, and Janet Mock Strapless number: Thanks to her strict vegan diet, the 42-year-old Golden Globe nominee has barely aged since her Clueless nineties heyday Westworld heartthrob James Marsden - who relies on groomer/hairstylist David Stanwell - stood out in a metallic oxblood suit. Queer Eye fashion expert Tan France - whose third season is streaming now on Netflix - looked dashing in an eccentric b&w Monse ensemble. Designer August Getty and Next Model Shaun Ross both rocked bulky boots with their not-so-basic black outfits. The Lions Model Slick Woods flashed her gap-toothed grin and substantial cleavage in a strapless white creation featuring a train and hot-pink heels. Green with envy: Draya Michele looked absolutely stunning in a clinging midi dress featuring a black top and neon skirt Dark side: Nicole Williams looked fashionable as always Gorgeous: The 33-year-old reality star donned a black leather robe jacket featuring matching cropped trousers and completed the look with white heels Silver fox! Speaking of evergreen ladies, Elon Musk's 70-year-old mother Maye killed it in a trendy leopard-print pantsuit Menswear inspired: Escape Plan 2: Hades actress Jaime King also opted for a fierce pantsuit with a green velvet belt at the bash Handsome: Westworld heartthrob James Marsden - who relies on groomer/hairstylist David Stanwell - stood out in a metallic oxblood suit Third season is streaming now on Netflix! Queer Eye fashion expert Tan France looked dashing in an eccentric b&w Monse ensemble Black clad: Designer August Getty (L) and Next Model Shaun Ross (R) both rocked bulky boots with their not-so-basic black outfits Fitness trainer to the stars Tracy Anderson wore a belted midi-sleeve maxi-dress with a severe middle-parted updo. LA Model Salem Mitchell rocked an orange Preen 'Velma' SS/19 ruched dress while Who's Stalking Me actress Cara Santana looked regal in a pink kimono gown selected by stylist Maeve Reilly, which was accessorized with Alexis Bittar earrings. Keeping Up with the Kardashians friends Malika Haqq and Larsa Pippen teamed up and glammed up for the Daily Front Row festivities. RuPaul's Drag Race 7 champ Violet Chachki flaunted her ultra-cinched waist in a pink, red, and silver embellished jumpsuit and cream pumps. Yasss! The Lions Model Slick Woods flashed her gap-toothed grin and substantial cleavage in a strapless white creation featuring a train and hot-pink heels Fitness trainer to the stars! Tracy Anderson wore a belted midi-sleeve maxi-dress with a severe middle-parted updo Bold colors: LA Model Salem Mitchell (L) rocked an orange Preen 'Velma' SS/19 ruched dress while Who's Stalking Me actress Cara Santana (R) looked regal in a pink kimono gown picked by stylist Maeve Reilly Fame by association: Keeping Up with the Kardashians friends Malika Haqq (L) and Larsa Pippen (R) teamed up and glammed up for the Daily Front Row festivities Bring it to the runway! RuPaul's Drag Race 7 champ Violet Chachki flaunted her ultra-cinched waist in a pink, red, and silver embellished jumpsuit and cream pumps SAG actor Sam Evans suited up beside IMG Model Jillian Mercado, who looked fab in a frilly Ana Estela frock. IMG Model Tom Bull sported Ray-Ban sunglasses with his teal Zegna tuxedo as Japanese vlogger Kemio Kurosawa donned a Tiffany-blue suit and cloven-toe boots. Fashion blogger Hallie Swanson 'had a blast' in her pink-floral plunging Silvia Tcherassi outfit fastened with a bow and white Aquazzura pumps. Jewelry designer Markus Molinari chose comfort over style in his garish sequinned caftan and furry Gucci slides. Twosome: SAG actor Sam Evans (L) suited up beside IMG Model Jillian Mercado, who looked fab in a frilly Ana Estela frock Dapper dudes: IMG Model Tom Bull (L) sported Ray-Ban sunglasses with his teal Zegna tuxedo as Japanese vlogger Kemio Kurosawa (R) donned a Tiffany-blue suit and cloven-toe boots Pretty as a petal: Fashion blogger Hallie Swanson 'had a blast' in her pink-floral plunging Silvia Tcherassi outfit fastened with a bow and white Aquazzura pumps She had an eyebrow-raising tattoo of her ex-boyfriend's name lasered off on Married at First Sight last week. But Martha Kalifatidis' controversial ink was still visible as she hit the beach in Vaucluse last month. The Kim Kardashian-wannabe flashed a red heart on her bottom while frolicking in the sand at Nielsen Park, with her 'husband' Michael Brunelli, 27. A change of heart? MAFS' Martha Kalifatidis still has a tattoo of her ex-boyfriend's name on her bottom despite getting it 'lasered off' on the show Sporting black bikini bottoms with a cropped white singlet, the makeup artist paraded her curves while basking in the Sydney sun. Primary school teacher, Michael, 30, showcased his lean physique in a pair of black board shorts while walking alongside his ladylove. Martha began the process of laser tattoo removal on the show last week, while visiting a Melbourne clinic with Michael, however, it can take up to two years to achieve results. Procedure: Last week, Martha and Michael visited a local clinic where she underwent tattoo removal Removal: Martha said, 'Michael has brought it up a couple of times and I know that he doesn't like it - so I am going to get it removed' 'I have a tattoo on my butt of my ex-boyfriend's name,' she said on the show last week. 'Michael has brought it up a couple of times and I know that he doesn't like it - so I am going to get it removed.' The aspiring Instagram model has her ex-boyfriend Marcos's name tattooed on her bottom, and it matches a tattoo that he has of Martha's name on his right bicep. The ex files! Martha and Marcos dated back in 2012 and she still has intimate photos of their time together on Instagram 'She's been hesitant to have the tattoo removed because of how much the relationship meant to her,' an insider told Woman's Day last week. 'Martha got the tattoo on a whim while holidaying with her ex, Marcos, on the Greek island of Mykonos back in 2012. They were on their way to dinner one night and she just decided to do it.' The source added that Michael has 'resorted to placing duct tape on the tattoo' whenever they're intimate. Not happy: Michael has reportedly 'resorted to placing duct tape on the tattoo' whenever they're intimate Photos of Martha and Marcos on holiday in Greece in 2012 show them kissing, soaking up the sun at the beach and enjoying romantic dinners. One of the pictures from the trip features a shirtless Marcos flaunting his bicep tattoo: a love heart with 'Martha' written inside. It's been 25 years since her husband, Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain died. Since then Courtney Love has continued to make music, forged an acting career in Hollywood and launched a clothing line. And on Sunday night, the 54-year-old was among the celebrities who attended The Daily Front Row Fashion Awards in Beverly Hills. Fashion standout: Courtney Love matched the red carpet as she arrived at The Daily Front Row Fashion Awards in Beverly Hills on Sunday night Courtney opted to match the red carpet in a red dress with a mandarin collar and buttons down the front of the bodice. The number had short sleeves and an ankle-length skirt. She added red sandal heels with bows on the toe and carried a red purse. The Hole frontwoman left her shoulder-length blonde hair loose and wore it in a tousled style. Celebrity: The 54-year-old musician and actress left her shoulder-length blonde hair loose and wore it in a tousled style Coordinated look: Courtney wore a red dress with a mandarin collar and buttons down the front of the bodice. The number had short sleeves and an ankle-length skirt Looking good: She added red sandal heels with bows on the toe and carried a red purse Also on the VIP guest list for the event was Kate Hudson, who starred with Courtney in the 1999 comedy movie 200 Cigarettes. Not only did the two enjoy a reunion; they also mirrored each other in style. Kate, 39, had opted for a figure-hugging long-sleeved red gown and also left her blonde hair loose. The actress daughter of Goldie Hawn was honored at the event by the fashion publication as Kate Hudson as Fashion Entrepreneur. Snap: Courtney had a reunion at the event with Kate Hudson, with whom she starred in the 1999 comedy 200 Cigarettes. Kate, 39, also opted for red, choosing a long-sleeved gown During the show, Courtney took to the stage to make some remarks as guests including Lady Gaga looked on After failing to find love on The Bachelor, Hannah Brown is getting ready to 'unleash the beast' on The Bachelorette. The 24 year old Alabama-born beauty queen appears on the Monday, March 18 episode of Ellen, where she also talked about her journey on The Bachelor. 'My journey on The Bachelor was interesting,' Brown began. 'I definitely grew, but I had ups and downs.' New Bachelorette: Hannah Brown reveals she can't wait to 'unleash the beast' on the new season of The Bachelorette 'There were moments where I did not think this would happen, but I think the reason I'm here is because I was real. I was myself and I showed every part myself,' Brown added. She also spoke about her relationship with The Bachelor, Colton Underwood, while even addressing the now-iconic 'fence jump.' 'My heart broke for him, even though he broke my heart too, he's a good human and has a good heart,' Brown added. Being real: 'There were moments where I did not think this would happen, but I think the reason I'm here is because I was real. I was myself and I showed every part myself,' Brown added 'Even the fence jump, that was teased as this dramatic thing, it was real, and it was raw,' she added. 'I ultimately just want his happiness, at the end of this.' While Underwood didn't get engaged, he is dating Cassie Randolph, with Brown revealing that when she was on the show, she knew 'they had a connection.' 'But I really tried to stay in my own lane, it didn't always work out,' Brown added, before addressing her 'alter-ego,' dubbed The Beast. Beast mode: 'But I really tried to stay in my own lane, it didn't always work out,' Brown added, before addressing her 'alter-ego,' dubbed The Beast 'I can't wait, actually, to unleash the beast on some jabroni,' Brown said, before addressing what she's looking for in a husband. 'I know I'm young, but I would not have gone on this show if I hadn't really thought about what was at the end of this,' Brown said. She added that her ideal man has 'got to be good looking,' and has to also be a 'good human. But ultimately, I want at the end of this for them to know me,' she added. Who'd you rather: The Bachelorette also played a game of 'Who Would You Rather' with Ellen, where she revealed which of two famous bachelors she'd rather be with The Bachelorette also played a game of 'Who Would You Rather' with Ellen, where she revealed which of two famous bachelors she'd rather be with. The first pairing was Zac Efron and Michael B. Jordan, which she picked Efron, but she chose Bradley Cooper over Efron in the next round, before admitting she has a 'problem.' 'I think I like people who look like they haven't bathed, but smell like they have,' Brown added. She also picked Cooper over country music star Luke Bryan, Ryan Gosling, Chris Pine, Idris Elba and Channing Tatum. The Bachelorette with Hannah Brown debuts Monday, May 15 on ABC. Who would you rather: The Bachelorette also played a game of 'Who Would You Rather' with Ellen, where she revealed which of two famous bachelors she'd rather be with They star in Fox's high octane TV series 9-1-1. And on Sunday, Angela Bassett and Jennifer love Hewitt joined their fellow castmembers for a special event at Paley Center For Media's 2019 PaleyFest in Los Angeles. The event included a sneak peek at what's in store on the second half of season 2, that debuts Monday night, and a Q&A with the cast. Promotion: They star in Fox's TV series 9-1-1. And on Sunday, Angela Bassett and Jennifer love Hewitt attended a special event at Paley Center For Media's 2019 PaleyFest in LA Bassett, 60, has been on the show since it started while Hewitt, 40, joined the cast for the second season. Bassett looked fabulous in a pale floral-themed trouser suit paired with a black bustier top that showcased her cleavage. Hewitt, meanwhile, opted for a black pantsuit with silver piping around the lapels of the jacket and down the sides of the trousers and she added a v-neck red top. Wow factor: Bassett looked fabulous in a pale floral-themed trouser suit paired with a black bustier top that showcased her cleavage Star power: The actress, 60, has been on 9-1-1 since it started Pals: Bassett posed for pics with her co-star Peter Krause Joined for season 2: Hewitt, 40, opted for a black pantsuit with silver piping around the lapels of the jacket and down the sides of the trousers. She added a v-neck red top and black heels Bassett, who accessorized her look with an Alexis Bittar ring, posed for photos with her co-star Peter Krause. Also at the event were castmembers Ryan Guzman, KennethChoi, Rockmond Dunbar and Aisha Hinds. Showrunner Tim Minear was on hand, too, to tease some of the plots lined up for the next set of episodes. Natty dresser: Ryan Guzman, 31, arrived wearing a linen jacket and gray trousers with brown shoes Cast: Actors Rockmond Dunbar, 46, Kenneth Choi, 47, and Oliver Stark, 27, all took part in the screening and Q&A Eye-catching: Aisha Hinds, 43, made an entrance in a black and white striped shirt and matching jacket with black leather hotpants and black tight and boots A slew of Married At First Sight stars have reportedly been approached to star in the new spin-off, MAFS: Honeymoon Island. This year's 'villain' Sam Ball as well as last year's Carly Bowyer, Tracey Jewel and Ryan Gallagher have all allegedly being contacted by producers to appear on the show. Bosses are said to be keen to 'shake up' the franchise and believe the spin-off will be a 'ratings hit' due to the success of the American version. Rumour has it! MAFS' Carly Bowyer (pictured), Tracey Jewel and Sam Ball have reportedly been approached to star in the spin-off series Honeymoon Island 'It's done so well overseas, they're convinced it will be a ratings hit. It's time the franchise had a shake-up,' a source told NW magazine. Carly failed to discuss the spin-off series rumours directly, but admitted she is ready to 'find someone again'. 'I didn't want MAFS to change my life - I just wanted it to help me find someone to add to it. Now I feel like I'm back at that point again,' she told the publication. Claims: Bosses are said to be keen to 'shake up' the franchise and believe the spin-off will be a 'ratings hit' due to the success of the American version. Pictured, Ryan Gallagher Tracey denied being approached by producers, but told Daily Mail Australia she thinks Ryan might go for it. 'Ive heard about it on the grapevine and wouldnt surprise me seeing Ryan on there but I wont be participating,' she said. Daily Mail Australia has contacted a MAFS spokesman and Carly for comment. It comes after Ryan confirmed rumours that a spin-off is in the works. New cast members? This year's 'villain' Sam Ball (L) and last year's Tracey Jewel (R) have reportedly been contacted by bosses to star in the show Calling in to The Kyle and Jackie O Show earlier this week, the MAFS reject said that he'd been contacted about the Island-based series, which appears to be inspired by Bachelor In Paradise. 'Yeah, I got sent a thing last night,' the 30-year-old said, before clarifying: 'I haven't been actually formally asked.' However, the aspiring comedian added that he didn't expect the spin-off to go ahead because the Married At First Sight cast aren't good looking enough. Spin-off? Earlier this week, Daily Mail Australia reported Channel Nine is cashing in on the incredible ratings success of Married At First Sight with MAFS: Honeymoon Island 'I think it's a load of crap to be honest with you,' he said. 'I don't think it's going to happen. No one wants to see us with our shirts off. We're not Love Island people.' Earlier this week, Daily Mail Australia reported that Channel Nine plans to cash in on the ratings success of Married At First Sight with a spin-off show called Honeymoon Island. Former MAFS participants will have a second chance at love on the upcoming series, which will be set on a tropical island. According to sources with knowledge of the project, 'early discussions have started' and fame-starved former stars are 'eager to get the call-up'. The spin-off is expected to follow the format of the U.S. version. The American version of MAFS: Honeymoon Island premiered last year, and followed 'fan favourites and some new faces' as they searched for love in Saint Lucia. Will they return? Former MAFS participants will have a second chance at love on the upcoming series, which will be set on a tropical island. (Pictured: Troy Delmege and Ashley Irvin) At the end of their stay, the Honeymoon Island couples were made to decide whether they wanted to get married or leave the island alone. The idea is similar to that of Bachelor in Paradise, which brings together former stars of the Bachelor franchise in a tropical resort in Fiji. Although the project has yet to be confirmed by Channel Nine, contestants from all six seasons of Married At First Sight are reportedly 'getting excited'. 'Everyone's messaging everyone to try and see if they've heard anything or know anyone that's been formally approached by Nine,' a source told Daily Mail Australia. 'Other people have even joked about hiding their current relationships if it means they'll get back on television.' He's the 'hot brother' of Married At First Sight contestant, Jessika Power, who wooed the nation with his striking good looks during his sister's 'wedding day.' And on Monday, NW reported Rhyce Power is 'shacking up with media personality, Mel Greig and radio star, Heather Maltman in a share house in Bondi Beach.' The 29-year-old former stripper, who recently relocated from Perth to Sydney, is said to have been offered a space in Mel's 'garage' after he asked his legion of followers for a 'place to live in the Harbour City' on social media. Three's a crowd! Married At First Sight's 'hot brother' Rhyce Power (pictured) is 'shacking up with Mel Greig and Heather Maltman in a share house in Sydney' 'I'm moving to Sydney, does anyone have somewhere for me to live?' Rhyce recently posted on Instagram, according to the magazine. Soon after, Mel supposedly responded to Rhyce's post on the photo-sharing app via a direct message and offered him a space to live in her car port. Last month, the trio added more fuel to the fire as they were seen enjoying a dinner together in Bondi, while watching an explosive episode of MAFS. Offer: Mel Greig (pictured) supposedly responded to Rhyce's post on the photo-sharing app via a direct message and offered him a space to live in her garage New roomie? However it's unlikely former Bachelor star, Heather (pictured) is permanently bunking in with Mel and Rhyce in Sydney as she currently co-hosts a breakfast radio show with Dan Anstey and Ben Hannant, five days a week on the Gold Coast in Queensland Mel shared a video of the viewing party, panning from the television across to her guests. However it's unlikely former Bachelor star, Heather is permanently bunking in with Mel and Rhyce in Sydney as she currently co-hosts a breakfast radio show with Dan Anstey and Ben Hannant, five days a week on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Daily Mail Australia contacted both Rhyce Power and Mel Greig for comment. 'Welcome to the neighbourhood!' Mel was joined by her good friend, former Bachelor star Heather (pictured) and Rhyce, who recently moved from Perth to Sydney 'Off to Thailand': Earlier on Monday, Rhyce (left) revealed he will be temporarily residing in Thailand for the next three months with his rumored girlfriend, Vanessa (right) to train alongside fitness camp, 'Unit 27 Total conditioning.' Earlier on Monday, Rhyce took to Instagram to reveal he will be temporarily residing in Thailand for the next three months with his rumored girlfriend, Vanessa to train alongside fitness camp, 'Unit 27 Total conditioning.' 'Me and @vanessasierra are Off to Thailand to train along side one of the best fitness camps @unit27thailand for the next few months gotta try get this body into peak condition,' he captioned an image of him cuddling the busty brunette. The heavily-inked reality TV personality, who is set to return to MAFS on Monday, sparked speculation he might have broken his contract with Nine after he shared a preview of tonight's episode on social media. In the clip, Rhyce is seen having an intense conversation with the show's relationship expert, John Aiken. 'Who's watching?' MAFS' Rhyce (pictured), 29, shared a preview of Monday night's 'heated' family dinner to Instagram just hours before the show is set to air In the video, shared to Instagram Stories, and captioned in part 'Who's watching?', Rhyce views a segment from Monday night's episode on his laptop. It shows Rhyce joined at the dinner table by sister Jessika, 26, their father Troy and the show's relationship expert John. He says to John: 'First impressions, first impressions... that's why it's so important to have all these family dinners.' Family dinner: In the video shared to Instagram Stories, Rhyce is joined at the dinner table by sister Jessika, 26, their father Troy and John Aiken Heated: The former stripper reveals that the family dinner is set to get heated: 'Me and my dad are very hot-tempered. It's a lot for us to sit down and take it as it is' Rhyce reveals that Monday night's family dinner is set to get heated. 'Me and my dad are very hot-tempered. It's a lot for us to sit down and take it as it is, but I'm glad for everyone's sake at the table, we did,' he explains. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to the Nine Network as to whether Rhyce has broken his contract with Nine. Married At First Sight continues Monday at 7:30pm on Channel Nine She excitedly announced last month that she's pregnant with her second child through IVF and an anonymous donor. And Fifi Box looked every inch the glowing mother-to-be on Sunday, as she picked up her daughter Beatrix 'Trixie' Belle, five, from Carrie Bickmore's child Evie's birthday party. The Fox FM star, 41, flaunted her baby bump in a skintight yellow vest top and black midi skirt as she soaked up the sun with Trixie in Melbourne. Yummy mummy! Pregnant Fifi Box, 41, looked radiant as she stepped out with her five-year-old daughter Beatrix 'Trixie' Belle in Melbourne on Sunday The radio personality complemented her maternity wardrobe with a funky printed silk shirt and gold thong sandals. Sweeping her hair back into a simple updo, Fifi shielded her eyes behind a statement pair of blue cat-eye sunglasses. Fifi, who shares Trixie with her ex-partner Grant Kenny, announced the happy news of her pregnancy in February. The radio personality declared that she's filled with 'pure joy' over the 'miracle' as she posted a video of her breaking the news to Trixie while they sat on the couch. Looking good: The Fox FM star flaunted her baby bump in a skintight yellow vest top and black midi skirt as she soaked up the sun She began: 'Can I tell you something? You know how Mummys been really really sick lately... Did you know that its good sick Do you know whats in my tummy?' After a pause, Trixie said: 'A baby?' Fifi squealed with delight: 'Yes, were having a baby! A doctor told me. Sweetheart, theres a for real baby in my tummy!' She added: 'Youre going to have a little brother or sister can you believe that?' before letting Trixie feel her baby bump. The radio personality captioned the clip: 'Were having a baby! Yes Trixie and I are over the moon/jumping out of our skin/cant stop smiling/floating on air/dancing in the streets/walking on sunshine and every other metaphor that conveys absolute pure joy.' Who knew they were friends? Fifi picked Trixie up from Carrie Bickmore's child Evie's (pictured) birthday party She went on: 'How did this happen you might ask? Well, a few years ago I made an appointment to see an IVF specialist, the amazing Dr Sameer Jatkar at Monash IVF, and I began an IVF journey to extend our little family. 'After a series of egg retrievals and freezing, last year I started the process to become pregnant via an anonymous donor.' Fifi continued: 'I am still pinching myself that I have been this blessed and that this little miracle is growing within me, a much wanted and longed for sibling for a very excited big sister! 'I know the value of this miracle because I have seen first hand the heartbreak, tears and sacrifices so many women and couples suffer on their IVF journeys and my heart goes out to those who are facing that pain and struggle. It is not lost on me that I am one of the lucky ones.' Congratulations: She excitedly announced last month that she's pregnant with her second child through IVF and an anonymous donor Fifi and Grant, 55, split in 2012 after a brief romance. A few months later, the radio star gave birth to Trixie. She did not publicly confirm that Grant was Trixie's father until the child was three years old. Fifi and Grant have remained close despite going their separate ways, with Grant regularly visiting his daughter in Melbourne. Fifi was thought to be dating Neighbours star Damien Richardson, 49, although the actor was not mentioned in Fifi's pregnancy news and the pair have not been seen together since last year. They first met on the set of Neighbours in 2016 when she was cast as his love interest, Brooke Butler. The actor was separated from his wife and mother of his three children, Nicole, at the time. He's marking the 10th anniversary of wife Jade Goody's death, who tragically passed away from cervical cancer in March 2009 aged just 27. And Jack Tweed has revealed he is back in touch with the Big Brother star's sons Bobby, 15, and Freddy, 14, who had been 'asking about him'. The boys' father, Jade's ex Jeff Brazier, had banned Jack from seeing them following their mother's death when the widower spiralled out of control and ended up in jail. Delighted: Jack Tweed has revealed he is finally back in touch with his late wife Jade Goody's sons Bobby, 15, and Freddy, 14, who had been 'asking about him' But now that he has 'sorted himself out' and got a decent job working as a builder, Jeff has allowed supervised visits. Jack revealed: Jeff stopped me from seeing the boys. At that time, I was getting into trouble and I was off the rails - so Jeff was probably right to do that. 'Now hes seen Ive sorted myself out, so he got in touch and said the boys had been asking about me. 'They came around to mine for tea and Jeff was there so it felt like an awkward first date! Supportive dad: The boys' father, Jade's ex Jeff Brazier, had banned Jack from seeing them following their mother's death when the widower spiralled out of control and ended up in jail. Freddie and Bobby are pictured here with Jeff and his wife Kate Dwyer Jack tied the knot with Jade Goody in 2009 following a three year romance, just one month before her tragic death from cervical cancer aged just 27. She has split from the father of her sons Jeff while she was pregnant with their youngest child in 2004, after two years together. Jack previously claimed he had only been allowed to see the boys once since Jade's death. Tragic: Jack tied the knot with Jade Goody in 2009 following a three year romance, just one month before her tragic death from cervical cancer aged just 27 (pictured with the boys and Jade in February 2008) TV presenter Jeff has sole custody of the teenagers, who he raises with wife Kate Dwyer, and banned Jack from visitations when he ended up in prison. Full interview: Jack's interview appears in the latest edition of OK! magazine Just one month after Jade lost her battle with cancer, Jack was sentenced to a 12-week jail term in April 2009 after being convicted of assaulting a taxi driver. He was accused of rape later that year, but was later cleared of the charges. In a recent interview, the emotional widower insisted he 'loved them like they was my own'. 'I brought them up for four years. Jeff used to only be around once a month for the weekend', he recently told The Sun. While Jack acknowledged that Jeff has been a great dad to the kids, he was adamant Jade wanted him to adopt them at the time and that he was the real 'father figure' in their lives at the time. However, it seems he has had a change of heart and is willing to accept the boys in his life on Jeff's terms. Read the full story in this week's OK! Magazine - out today. Married At First Sight has featured a string of editing fails and continuity errors this season - and Monday night's episode seemingly hit a new low. Nine accidentally promoted its rival Ten during a scene in which Heidi Latcham and Mike Gunner were seen travelling over the Anzac bridge in a car to have dinner with their families Channel Ten's flagship station in the inner city suburb of Pyrmont scored some serious airtime as the camera panned across the landscape. The well-known Channel Ten broadcast facilities, which has housed the network's head office and studios since 1997, regrettably became the focal point of the scene at one point. While a drone captured overlay footage of cars driving along the bridge, it also featured a sweeping shot of the Channel Ten television transmission tower, with the sizable '10' logo emblazoned across it. Sunday's episode of MAFS saw yet another glaring blunder, when Jessika Power applied her makeup ahead of the commitment ceremony. That's embarrassing! Ten's broadcast facilities in Sydney were seen during Monday's episode of MAFS The busty blonde, 27, was seen applying concealer before the product awkwardly disappeared in the following shot. At the start of the scene, Jessika used a sponge to apply liquid foundation all over her face. The beauty was then seen setting her entire face with powder before the scene cuts to her applying liquid concealer on her chin and upper lip. Oops! Channel 10's flagship station in the inner city suburb of Pyrmont scored some serious airtime on the experiment, while couple, Heidi Latcham (left) and Mike Gunner (right) travelled over the Anzac bridge in a car to have dinner with their families The next shot then showed her covered in powder again with no trace of the concealer she used moments earlier. The editing failed to show Jessika applying her liquid concealer before adding powder to her visage. Meanwhile earlier this month, eagle-eyed viewers spotted another editing fail on MAFS. Did you spot this MAFS editing fail? Jessika Power applies concealer to her face before it awkwardly disappeared in the next shot during Sunday night's episode Fans noticed Mick Gould sitting in the background at the dinner party moments before he supposedly 'arrived' with his 'wife' Jessika. As the party got underway, Mick could clearly be seen standing holding a beer while chatting with Mark Scrivens, before sitting down next to him on a couch. Moments later, Mick was shown again sitting next to Dan Webb on the lounge, with his white jacket, blue shirt and blue jeans clearly visible. But in a bizarre twist, seconds later Mick 'arrived' at the dinner party with Jessika via a sliding door on the other side of the room. The continuity error did not go unnoticed on Twitter, with one fan writing: 'MAFS editors really dropped the ball tonight. Married At First Sight continues Monday at 7:30pm on Channel Nine. They're marking the 10th anniversary of Jade Goody's death, who tragically passed away from cervical cancer in March 2009 aged just 27. And, the Big Brother star's bridesmaids have recalled the harrowing moment that she revealed that she was going to die to her two young sons Bobby, now 15, and Freddie, now 14. Jade's best friends, Charlene Steel, Jennifer Smith, Kelly Wyatt, Caroline Roberts and Kate Webb also opened up about the heartbreaking lead up to her death, which saw them plan both her funeral and wedding to Jack Tweed simultaneously. Harrowing: Jade Goody's bridesmaids have recalled the harrowing moment that she revealed that she was going to die to her two young sons Bobby, now 15, and Freddie, now 14 Recounting the distressing scene between Jade and her two sons, Kate said: 'The moment she told her boys she was dying was the only time I saw her lose it. 'After they left the hospital room she was screaming and crying,' she told OK! Magazine. In their interview with the publication, the five-strong group of women who served as her bridesmaids also discussed how, while she lay in her hospital bed, they planned her wedding and funeral simultaneously. Jennifer explained: 'Only the five of us understand what it was like to go through that situation. Heartbreaking: Jade's best friends, Charlene Steel, Jennifer Smith, Kelly Wyatt, Caroline Roberts and Kate Webb also opened up about the heartbreaking lead up to her death, which saw them plan both her funeral and wedding to Jack Tweed simultaneously Distressing: Recounting the distressing scene between Jade and her two sons, Kate said: 'The moment she told her boys she was dying was the only time I saw her lose it. 'After they left the hospital room she was screaming and crying,' she told OK! Magazine 'We planned our best friend's wedding at the same time we were planning her funeral. It bonded us forever.' Charlene fondly recalled: 'She was a real Bridezilla, she was ringing us constantly and bossing us around!' Jade tied the knot with Jack Tweed in 2009 following a three year romance, just one month before her tragic death from cervical cancer aged just 27. Supportive: The five-strong group of women who served as her bridesmaids also discussed how, while she lay in her hospital bed, they planned her wedding and funeral simultaneously She had split from the father of her sons Jeff Brazier, while she was pregnant with their youngest child in 2004, after two years together. Full interview: Jade's bridesmaids' interview appears in the latest edition of OK! magazine Kate revealed how they all geared up for her wedding in denial that she would soon no longer be with them. She said: 'It was so heartbreaking but none of us actually believed she was going to die.' Charlene added: 'We thought Jade was invincible. I don't think she ever really believed she was going to die either.' Jade died from cervical cancer just six months after receiving the tragic diagnosis. She passed away on March 22, 2009. Ten years after her death, Caroline explained how reminders of her offer bitter sweet moments. She said: 'The other day I opened a newspaper and there was a picture of her the pain and surprise of seeing her just took my breath away.' Read the full story in this week's OK! Magazine - out today. Model Ellie O'Donnell has paid a sweet tribute to her 'close friend' Mike Thalassitis after he was found dead on Saturday morning in Edmonton, North London. The 22-year-old emotionally revealed that Mike had been texting her the day before he died to ask her opinion of some tables for the restaurant he was planning to open. Ellie described Mike as the 'kindest soul', who was also 'funny' with 'so much to live for' during her tribute, which was accompanied by a selection of images of herself and the Love Island star. Heartbreaking: Model Ellie O'Donnell has paid a sweet tribute to her 'close friend' Mike Thalassitis after he was found dead on Saturday morning in Edmonton, North London Ellie shared a couple of photographs of the two of them during a recent night out, which she says were from just last week where they enjoyed cocktails and ate pizza. Although she admitted she didn't get to spend much time with Mike, she said she loved hearing about his passion for his new restaurant venture and his travelling plans. She said: 'I cannot believe I am writing this. I feel sick. I wish to god this was a nightmare and I could wake up. I cant believe you are gone. It doesnt feel real. You were literally texting me yesterday pictures of the samples for the colour of the tables in your new restaurant. Tribute: The 22-year-old emotionally revealed that Mike had been texting her the day before he died to ask her opinion of some tables for the restaurant he was planning to open 'That was your last text to me. I had no idea it would be the last time Id ever hear from you. You were the kindest soul, you were so funny, you had so much to live for. I'll never forget the last few days I spent with you. Im glad I got to hear you laugh and see you smile before you left this world. 'These pics & this video were literally taken last week, I cant believe we were laughing and joking then eating pizza and now you are not even here. It doesn't feel real, I am numb and feel sickened. 'Mike, I'll never forget you. I'll never forget how passionate you were about your new restaurant, and I'll never forget you telling me about your trip to Thailand telling me how it was the best experience of your life just going out there with no plans, travelling around just living your best life. 'Kindest soul': Ellie described Mike as the 'kindest soul', who was also 'funny' with 'so much to live for' during her tribute, which was accompanied by a selection of images of herself and the Love Island star She said: 'I cannot believe I am writing this. I feel sick. I wish to god this was a nightmare and I could wake up. I cant believe you are gone. It doesnt feel real. You were literally texting me yesterday pictures of the samples for the colour of the tables in your new restaurant' Addressing reports, she said: 'RIP Mike. My heart goes out to your family & friends. (as for the media articles- Mike was not my boyfriend. He was a dear friend of mine and helped me massively through a difficult time in my life & I will be forever thankful to him for making me smile again' 'You told me one day, once the restaurant is up and running your gonna book a one way ticket again and go live your best life. 'I know I didnt get to spend much time with you but I cannot believe this has happened and I wish I could have helped save you. This will haunt me for the rest of my life. I dont think I will ever come to terms with it. 'RIP Mike. My heart goes out to your family & friends. (as for the media articles- Mike was not my boyfriend. He was a dear friend of mine and helped me massively through a difficult time in my life & I will be forever thankful to him for making me smile again.' Amid her post on her Instagram page, Ellie also shared a cryptic post to her Story which read: 'The girl who seemed unbreakable, broke. She dropped a fake smile and whispered to herself, 'I can't do this anymore'. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that Mike Thalassitis was found hanged in a park in Edmonton, North London on Saturday. Mike's manager confirmed the shock news of his passing on Saturday evening. If you have been affected by this story, call Samaritans at any time, from any phone for free on 116 123 It has been revealed that Strictly Come Dancing bosses are keen on signing up billionaire heiress Tamara Ecclestone for this year's installment. According to The Sun, the 34-year-old socialite has been approached by show bosses to join the BBC ballroom stalwart for years but has turned down the offer. However, Tamara, who is married to businessman Jay Rutland, 38, is said to have told producers that she would 'love' to come on board now that her daughter Sophia, five, is older. Signing up? Strictly Come Dancing bosses are keen on signing up billionaire heiress Tamara Ecclestone for this year's installment A source told the publication: 'Tamara has been on producers' lists before, but she wasn't in a position to do it. Now her daughter is older she feels its something she would love to do. 'She looks great and is from a fascinating background. She would undoubtedly be the richest person theyve ever had on the show by a country mile.' MailOnline have contacted Strictly Come Dancing and Tamara Ecclestone's rep for comment. The reality star isn't the first name associated with this year's show after Chris Evans has already confirmed he's said yes to this year's Strictly while Alan Carr has revealed he's been approached by the BBC who hope to secure big names for the 17th series. Strictly: 2018 winner Stacey Dooley with Strictly pro Kevin Clifton Twinkle toes: Tamara, who is married to businessman Jay Rutland, 38, is said to have told producers that she would 'love' to come on board now that her daughter Sophia, five, is older The reports come after Tamara went to great lengths to ensure her daughter Sophia was over the moon as she threw her an extravagant party in celebration of her fifth birthday on Sunday. In a slew of Instagram snaps, the F1 heiress treated fans to an inside look at circus-themed bash, complete with glitzy decorations which drew inspiration from musical film The Greatest Showman. Earlier this month, she revealed she does not understand the hysteria surrounding her decision to breastfeed her daughter until she was four. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Tamara divulged details of life in the Ecclestone-Rutland household as she re-launched her charity Tamara Gives Back, in which she auctions her clothes to benefit Great Ormond Street Hospital. All about her: The reports come after Tamara went to great lengths to ensure her daughter Sophia was over the moon as she threw her an extravagant party in celebration of her fifth birthday on Sunday Wow-factor! The F1 heiress, 34, and her husband Jay, 38, treated fans to an inside look at circus-themed bash, complete with glitzy decorations which drew inspiration from The Greatest Showman The star, who has spent years raising money to help children with life-threatening and life-limiting diseases, gushed about her beloved daughter and her decision to breastfeed her until recently - which has long caused controversy. Tamara has always been candid about breastfeeding the tot until she was ready to stop and frequently shared shots while feeding her beloved daughter. Speaking to MailOnline during an intimate chat at Mayfair's Claridge's Hotel, the star discussed the end of her breastfeeding journey. The Milan-born beauty said: 'Fifi stopped in summer time and she'd already started to cut down and I knew it was coming. Decisions: Earlier this month, she revealed she does not understand the hysteria surrounding her decision to breastfeed her daughter until she was four 'I didn't want it to be a thing and it happened so naturally. We didn't talk about it and it happened on her timetable and that's how I like to parent... She added: 'I don't believe in training, like sleeping or potty training and that's always worked for us. 'I knew when she was ready and because it was so gradual it was such an amazing journey. I really didn't expect the hysteria around it...' Cutting down: The Milan-born beauty said: 'Fifi stopped in summer time and she'd already started to cut down and I knew it was coming' Continuing: 'The first time it happened we were breastfeeding on the beach with no one around and I said to Jay take a picture and there was this huge uproar and people fighting and getting aggressive about a picture!... 'When that happened I knew every time I did this it would happen but I was not going to let that stop me so I continued... 'There was such a circus around it so I thought... let me use this platform. People messaged me saying I gave them confidence to stand up to people asking them to stop and people came up to me and told me their stories.' She is currently enjoying her fourth sponsored getaway of the year. And true to form, Millie Mackintosh ensured to document her most recent trip with a sensational bikini snap on her Instagram page on Monday morning. The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, has been holidaying at the Arctic TreeHouse Hotel in Rovaniemi, Finland which costs a minimum of around 600 per night to stay. She's no wallflower! Millie Mackintosh ensured to document her most recent trip with a sensational bikini snap on her Instagram page on Monday morning She regularly treats fans to a glimpse of her lavish getaways, and Millie was keen to flaunt her jaunt to Finland with her followers by posing in the cabin against a snowy background. The confident stunner slipped her slender frame into a light blue, two-piece bikini, which revealed her perky cleavage and teased at her toned abs. Millie accessorised her look with a pair of stylish heart-shaped shades and a baker boy style cap, along with a pair of grey snow boots. Impressive: The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, has been holidaying at the Arctic TreeHouse Hotel in Rovaniemi, Finland which costs a minimum of around 600 per night to stay In another snap she had shared to the page, Millie looked tanned, toned and glowing as she posed for an idyllic snap in front of a scenic hot tub. Commanding attention, Millie's costume accentuated her physique and gave her 1.3million Instagram followers a glimpse of her perky derriere. In another shot, the reality star posed in the same bikini while lying on a bed, with the caption: 'Missing my love @hugotaylorlondon (her husband Hugo Taylor)'. Wow! In one Instagram story, the former Made In Chelsea star looked tanned, toned and glowing as she posed for an idyllic snap in front of a hot tub Home sick: In another shot, the reality star posed in the same bikini while lying on a bed, with the caption: 'Missing my love @hugotaylorlondon (her husband Hugo Taylor)' Flexible: Millie often treats fans to a glimpse of her lavish getaways on social media In now expired Instagram stories, the blogger revealed she was at the stunning destination as part of a press trip. But previous exotic getaways of Millie's have been thanks to companies gifting her the glamorous holidays. In January, for instance, Millie jetted on the second leg of her honeymoon with husband Hugo Taylor during which she thanked The Westin Maldives Miriandhoo Resort for 'hosting her'. At the start of this year Millie was among 16 stars and influencers who had breached Advertising Standards Authority rules surrounding paid posts on Instagram. Relaxing: In recent days, Millie has been tagging herself in snaps from her 'Press trip' to the luxurious resort. However, the star is still keeping up with what's going on at home as she FaceTimed her friend Vogue Williams Lucky Millie's jet-set gifts 2019 January: The Westin Maldives Miriandhoo Resort Millie jetted on the second leg of her honeymoon with husband Hugo Taylor during which she thanked the resort for 'hosting her'. January: Soho Farmhouse The lucky star was invited on a weekend away to the exclusive location where she was hosted by bargain designer site The Outnet. January: Chenot Palace Health Wellness Hotel in Azerbaijan Ahead of the BAFTAs in February, Millie was welcomed for a detox holiday, during which she wrote on a snap: 'They have kindly invited me to experience the #chenotmethod in preparation for the bafta awards'. March: Arctic TreeHouse Hotel in Finland In recent days, Millie has been tagging herself in snaps from her 'Press trip' to the luxurious resort. Although it is unknown what press publication she is working in conjunction with, she has stuck to Instagram guidelines for influencers to clearly mark when they have not paid for a trip themselves. Advertisement The reality star is far from alone in having flouted advertising guidelines in this way as Instagram is often flooded with famous faces who promote products, arguably without making it clear they are being paid for the sponsorship. That is why the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) conducted an investigation into concerns that social media stars are not properly declaring when they have been paid, or otherwise rewarded, to endorse goods or services. All the stars identified in the investigation, which began last August, agreed to change their ways. Under consumer protection law, influencers are required to clearly state if they have received payment for products they endorse - either in gifts, money, or by loan of the products. Loved up: In January, Millie jetted on the second leg of her honeymoon with husband Hugo Taylor during which she thanked the resort for 'hosting her' Baring all: Millie shared a topless snap of herself following a mud treatment at the Chenot Palace Health Wellness Hotel in Azerbaijan in January Idris Elba's beauty queen fiancee Sabrina Dhowre enjoyed her hen do with nine close friends on a Utah ranch over the weekend. Documenting the festivities on social media, the 29-year-old stunner opted for an unconventional bachelorette bash as they headed to the five star Amangiri hotel for a raucous weekend of fine dining, horse riding and boozing. While they have not specified the wedding date, fans are growing excited for the nuptials thanks to Sabrina's flurry of Instagram posts. Wild! Idris Elba's beauty queen fiancee Sabrina Dhowre enjoyed her hen do with nine close friends on a Utah ranch over the weekend In February last year, Idris was seen getting down on bended knee to pop the question to Sabrina ahead of a screening of his film Yardie at Rio cinema, Dalston. The Luther star, who claimed marriage was off the cards just six months before the proposal due to his two divorces, couldn't contain his joy for the special moment as his emotional other half said 'yes'. The hen do comes weeks after Sabrina was forced to deny that the pair had wed in secret after the star posted a video to Instagram calling the model 'his wife'. The actor made the comments when he shared the video with his 3.3million fans to explain his clean-shaven face: 'I'm making a movie at the moment where they insisted based on the special effects that you had to shave it.' Woohoo! Documenting the festivities on social media, the 29-year-old stunner opted for an unconventional Bachelorette bash as they headed to the five star Amangiri hotel for a raucous weekend of fine dining, horse riding and boozing Sexy: Between meals, the group posed in coordinating nightwear - with the hens in peach pyjamas and Sabrina clad in a saucy white silk dressing gown Aw! Below a sign reading 'Pop the Champagne, she's changing her name', was a delicious looking cake which read: 'The future Mrs Elba' He added: 'Some people like it and a lot don't, like my wife.' Despite this, the former Miss Vancouver spoke to The Metro to confirm the pair hadn't secretly wed: Our wedding is coming up soon and Im really looking forward to it'. Confirming the looming date was her bachelorette bash, which was shown all over social media and displayed the stunning efforts her pals had gone to. Inside details of the lavish trip proved the do was all singing and all dancing as the ladies enjoyed luxury dining, fine wine and delicious sweets. Cheeky! Between meals, the group posed in coordinating nightwear - with the hens in peach pyjamas and Sabrina clad in a saucy white silk dressing gown Neigh! Sabrina was enjoying some horseriding in the midst of the hen do Between meals, the group posed in coordinating nightwear - with the hens in peach pyjamas and Sabrina clad in a saucy white silk dressing gown. Later on, the group enjoyed a horse ride which was also shared on social media - showing they had shunned typical hen do activities. Below a sign reading 'Pop the Champagne, she's changing her name', was a delicious looking cake which read: 'The future Mrs Elba'. Details of the lavish hotel read: 'Set on 600 acres in Canyon Point and built into the landscape, this all-suite luxury resort with views over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is 16.8 miles from Page Municipal Airport... Lucky girl! Idris met Sabrina in her home country of Canada in 2017, and became acquainted on the set of the drama film The Mountain Between Us 'Amenities include a floatation therapy pavilion, a sauna, steam room, cold plunge and step pool, a fitness centre and yoga pavilion... 'Airport transfers, yoga and guided hikes are all included. There's also a communal living room, library, art gallery and a dining room, as well as a wine cellar... 'Chic, serene suites feature sitting areas, fireplaces and private courtyards, plus free Wi-Fi. Some add private pools and terraces with panoramic views.' Fans swarmed the comments section, writing: 'Congratulations... Congratulations as u prepare for your big day... Congrats Beautiful... Congratulations darling... Congrats to the bride her nuptials... Congrats!!! You are brilliant!! Idris is Lucky... Happy days: Speaking about the early days of their relationship, Idris told People Magazine: 'Falling in love while making a movie about falling in love is pretty special' 'Amazing pictures Congratulation sweetheart... I guess that's a bride-to-be!!!!!... So I guess it's this month wedding happening... 'Girl u did that, so classy n graceful. Many blessings!!... Very beautiful @sabrinadhowre !! Have fun! XO, Morgan.' Idris met Sabrina in her home country of Canada in 2017, and became acquainted on the set of the drama film The Mountain Between Us. Speaking about the early days of their relationship, Idris told People Magazine: 'Falling in love while making a movie about falling in love is pretty special.' They walked the red carpet together for the first time at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival for the screening of the film Molly's Game which Idris starred in. She looked the picture of elegance as she attended The Daily Front Row Fashion Awards on Sunday. And Jaime King displayed her quirky sense of fashion as she headed out for dinner in Beverly Hills, California, later that evening. The Star Wars actress, 39, commanded attention as she slipped into a bold metallic gold co-ord for her stylish outing. Catching the eye: Jaime King displayed her quirky sense of fashion as she headed out for dinner in Beverly Hills, California, on Sunday evening Ensuring all eyes were on her, the screen star's ensemble featured a trendy longline jacket and elaborate flowy trousers. The Hart of Dixie actress maintained her stylish display with her sparkly gold clutch, and boosted her frame in a pair of black platform heels. With her cropped 'do slicked back, Jaime's stunning features were on full display, which were enhanced with dewy foundation, glossy red lipstick and lashings of mascara. Looking good: The Star Wars actress, 39, commanded attention as she slipped into a bold metallic gold co-ord for her stylish outing Standing out: Ensuring all eyes were on her, the screen star's ensemble featured a trendy longline jacket and elaborate flowy trousers Jaime's stylish outing came after her car was the target of a terrifying attack last year. The mother-of-two's vehicle was set upon by a homeless man with a skateboard while out and about in the Beverly Hills area in April. The man, who has been identified as 47-year-old Paul Francis Floyd, jumped in front of the actress' parked Mercedes-Benz and crawled onto her hood. Red carpet ready: Jamie looked the picture of elegance as she attended The Daily Front Row Fashion Awards earlier that evening Happy family: The Bulletproof Monk star shares sons James, five, and Leo, three, with husband and filmmaker Kyle Newman, 43 Jaime's friend got out of the car and confronted the suspect 'in an effort to protect' the screen star's five-year-old son James, but Floyd then allegedly threw a can at her, striking her in the arm. He ran off but was captured after smashing the vehicle's front window and jumping onto the rear windshield, according to the Beverly Hills Police Department. Jaime's eldest child was inside the car at the time of the incident when he was struck by glass from the window. The Bulletproof Monk star shares sons James and Leo, three, with husband and filmmaker Kyle Newman, 43. She had her first taste of fame after starring as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in E4 comedy series The Inbetweeners. And on Saturday, Emily Atack, took to Instagram to announce she that she will be playing the role of Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry in the Grace Jones episode as part of the new series of Urban Myths on Sky Arts. The I'm a Celeb star, 29, who reached the final of the most recent series of the show, transformed into the Blondie frontwoman, 73, for a promotional snap for the upcoming television series. Lookalike! Emily Atack, 29, took to Instagram to announce she that she will be playing the role of Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry in the new series of Urban Myths on Sky Arts With the background resembling that of the new wave band's Parallel Lines black-and-white striped album cover, Emily donned a short, dishevelled blonde wig and chunky gold chain to become Debbie Harry. Her strikingly similar appearance to the iconic pop star was further cemented with a light blue smokey eye, a smudge of black eyeliner, dark eyebrows and a deep red lipstick. Alongside the image, Emily wrote: 'Wahhh! Beyond thrilled to be playing DEBBIE HARRY alongside an epic cast for Sky Arts next season of Urban Myths.' Urban Myths puts a comedic spin on a host of scandalous, surprising and surreal involving the arts world's most iconic figures. Next gig! The I'm a Celeb star, who reached the final of the most recent series, transformed into the Blondie frontwoman, 73, for a promotional snap for the upcoming television series Inspired: The promotional shot of Emily drew on the background of Blondie's Parallel Lines black-and-white striped album cover Iconic: Emily (left) donned a short, dishevelled blonde wig and chunky gold chain to become Debbie (right, pictured in 1980) Beauty: Emily eschewed her usual no-make-up look in favour of a light blue smokey eye, a smudge of black eyeliner, dark eyebrows and a deep red lipstick to become Debbie Harry The Grace Jones episode in which Emily appears as Debbie Harry follows the story of a burglar who inadvertently chose to break into Grace and Jean-Pauls New York apartment, armed with a very small gun. With a little interruption from Debbie Harry and Andy Warhol, he ended up with more than he bargained, having to deal with these two flamboyant, volatile lovers. The full season will be released as a box set at 10pm on 10th April on Sky Arts and streaming service NOW TV. All eight episodes available on-demand on Sky. This is Emily's second acting role since leaving the Australian jungle. After winning over hoards of fans during her time on I'm A Celebrity, Emily marked her return to acting with a guest appearance was in CBBCs Almost Never. Back to it: This is Emily's second acting role since leaving the Australian jungle. Emily marked her return to acting with a guest appearance was in CBBCs Almost Never Fan favourite: Emily won over hoards of fans during her time on I'm A Celebrity While she transformed into Debbie Harry using hair and make-up, Emily vowed to stop editing her Instagram images during an appearance on Loose Women last year. The actress explained that her stripped-back appearance in the jungle has prompted her to change her approach to life and she is going to start by vowing not to edit her social media uploads anymore. She said: 'I'm deleting all my editing apps. You can edit your pictures until you're blue in the face. I used to slim them down, I used to airbrush them... 'It was so bad to the point that, you slim it down, but you get completely rumbled because the wall behind you is bent. I'm not doing that anymore.' She announced her engagement to fiance Gareth Gates four months after their split. And Faye Brookes has now detailed her 'perfect' proposal from her husband-to-be as she revealed he pulled it out of the bag when he got down on one knee. The 31-year-old actress also admitted during an appearance on Lorraine that their brief separation last year has only made her value their relationship more. Gushing: Faye Brookes has now detailed her 'perfect' proposal from her husband-to-be as she revealed he pulled it out of the bag when he got down on one knee Gareth popped the question to the Coronation Street star in January after asking permission from her family, which Faye confessed she was glad about. She told Lorraine: 'He's always been a gentleman, always has been from the moment I met him. He's actually had the whole thing planned by back - which I'm thrilled about because I love surprises.' Speaking of how he had her whole family involved, Faye said: 'My brother actually went down to London to collect the ring. Everything was planned to a tee. The boy is a perfectionist and it didn't go unmissed. He really did pull it out of the bag.' However Faye and Gareth haven't had the smoothest ride to finding love, after splitting briefly last tear due to work commitments and not spending enough time together. Loved-up! The 31-year-old actress also admitted during an appearance on Lorraine that their brief separation last year has only made her value their relationship more Traditional: Gareth popped the question to the Coronation Street star in January after asking permission from her family, which Faye confessed she was glad about Faye, who first began dating Gareth six years ago, said: 'It was for the right reasons for sure, I'll feel like we'll never take each other for granted again. Work took over and we ended up missing each other so much that we were just missing life together.' But she admitted that things are now better than ever, adding: 'We're enjoying the engagement, we are. But obviously I've been dreaming of this day since I was a little girl and I can't wait. I'm already kind of getting ideas and inspired, but enjoying it.' During her interview on the show, Faye looked sensational in a turquoise leopard print wrap dress, which she teamed with a pair of chunky tan heels. What a gent! She told Lorraine: 'He's always been a gentleman, always has been from the moment I met him. He's actually had the whole thing planned by back - which I'm thrilled about because I love surprises' Speaking of how he had her whole family involved, Faye said: 'My brother actually went down to London to collect the ring. Everything was planned to a tee. The boy is a perfectionist and it didn't go unmissed. He really did pull it out of the bag' Brief split: However Faye and Gareth haven't had the smoothest ride to finding love, after splitting briefly last tear due to work commitments and not spending enough time together (pictured in December 2018) Faye went on to joke that her current story line in Corrie was 'life imitating art', as her on-screen character Kate Connor is set to wed her fiancee Rana Nazir, played by Bhavna Limbachia. It was revealed last week that Kate and Rana's big day is set to be rife with drama, as Rana gets cold feet just hours before they are set to say 'I do'. In first look snaps the much loved couple can be seem sharing an emotional phone call, after Rana begins to doubt whether she is ready to tie the knot. Glam: Faye arrived at ITV studios wearing a baggy hoodie with a pair of sheer panel leggings Pout it out: Faye opted for a soft make-up look while wearing her dark locks in loose curls Tough time: Coronation Street's Kate Connor's wedding day will be rife with yet more drama next week, as wife-to-be Rana Habeeb gets cold feet just hours before the big day Fans have already been fearing whether the big day will go ahead of it was reported that Rana will die in Kate's arms on their wedding day, though this has not been confirmed. But as the big day looms, Rana is given food for thought, after being given a beautiful wedding gift by her mother. Due to her religious upbringing, most of Rana's family - apart from her brother Imran - have disowned her for coming out as gay, and so it soon hits her that almost none of her family will be at the wedding. Kate is immediately understanding of her fiancee's dilemma and offers to postpone the big day, but Rana refuses. Doubts: After receiving a beautiful wedding gift from her mum, it dawns on Rana that none of her family - except her brother Imran - will be attending the big day Emotional: As she explains her dilemma to Kate, the couple debate whether the postpone the big day, but Rana refuses Discussing the current story line, Faye said: 'I feel like I'm right in the heart of this story line. It has been so crazy at work, watching the two different story lines going on. 'Imagine us all in the canteen - there's me and Bhavna sat in our frocks, all of the guests as well glammed up, ready to go to this fantastic wedding and then you've got this zombie apocalypse on the other side with everyone covered in dust and cuts and blood. However referencing the stark difference between the two sides of the cast, she said: 'It's been amazing. I'm so excited for Corrie viewers to see what they've put together this week!' Discussing her character development, Faye said: 'I feel ever since she's been with Rana Kate's gone slightly soft she's fallen in love. 'I like that, she's a Connor, she comes from a strong line of independent chicks people say I'm a mini Carla Connor and I love that.' He left TOWIE viewers disgusted for calling co-star Shelby Tribble a 's**g' on Sunday night in a row about his dalliance with Demi Sims. But Sam Mucklow didn't help his case when he was pictured all over new love interested Demi in the sun. The reality star appeared to turn a blind eye to the drama in Thailand, and fixate on the new lady in his life instead. Romantic break: Sam Mucklow and Demi Sims seemed to have taken off for Thailand this week, as the new series of TOWIE returns Sam threw his arms around swimsuit-clad Demi as they hit the beach in the wake of the series return. The shirtless Lothario cuddled Chloe Sims' younger sister shared a flirtatious exchange with Demi, after seemingly betraying Shelby. Demi looked thrilled with the attention, laughing as she went arm-in-arm with Sam down the sand. Furious: Sam caused outrage for a showdown with Shelby Tribble on the programme Shocking: The Only Way Is Essex returned with an explosive new opener on Sunday night which saw Sam Mucklow brand Shelby Tribble a s***g after she threw a drink over him She looked glamorous in an orange one-piece and black heels, covering her curves in an ankle-grazing kaftan. Sam seems to have firmly turned his attention to Demi after blowing his chances with Shelby for good. In a showdown with Shelby on Sunday, Sam ended up having a drink thrown in his face for calling the beauty a 's**g'. He had initially faced Shelby's wrath for trying to crack on with Demi, just one day after he'd slept with her. On the beach: Sam and Demi went arm-in-arm on the sands after his explosive showdown Hanging out: Sam seemed to be getting closer to Demi after ruining his chances with Shelby Showing his cards: Sam seemed to have switched allegiances firmly to Demi's side But viewers did not find in his favour when he threw a 'disgusting and disrespectful' insult at her. Pete Wicks' ex had been crushed to overhear Sam telling Chloe Sims how he planned to make moves on Demi, despite him being all over Shelby hours earlier. Shelby decided to give Sam a piece of her mind at the beach party in Thailand. She told him: 'You made me feel like a cheap f***ing s**g after hearing you say you are cracking on with Demi and going to treat her like a lady, what does that make me?' Everything's rosy: The duo were looking a little red after catching the sun Taking a walk: Sam left viewers disgusted with his behaviour on Sunday night Looking chic: Demi dressed up for the beach in a black kaftan and heels Quality time: Sam seemed to be putting some time into his relationship with Demi With that, the furious brunette beauty threw a drink in Sam's face which prompted him to shout: 'You are a s**g', while she stormed off. TOWIE viewers at home were quick to condemn Sam for his actions, with many calling him 'out of order' for speaking to a woman the way he did. Following the incident, a spokesperson for Sam told Mail Online: 'Sam deeply regrets his actions, words which were said when in a brief state of shock after having had a drink thrown at him. 'Sam is extremely close to his mum and sisters and respect for women is something which is important to him.' TOWIE continues Sundays at 9pm on ITVBe. Outraged: Did Sam really just call Shelby a s**g? Like seriously where is the respect these days? Angry or not thats bang out of order' Cuddles: Sam didn't look like he had a care in the world, despite viewers at home turning against him Cracking on: Sam was overheard telling friends that he was going to treat Demi like a lady Getting closer: It didn't go down too well with Shelby, who slept with Sam not long ago Nikki Phillips, 36, has been keeping fans updated on her pregnancy journey every step of the way. And the model revealed what could be a final look at her burgeoning belly on Monday as she celebrated her 40th week of pregnancy. Taking to Instagram, Nikki shared a Boomerang video of herself in black underwear showing off her bump in the mirror. 'Dont think this tummy can grow anymore!' Nikki Phillips, 36, looked ready to pop as she flaunted her huge baby bump at 40 weeks on Monday 'About ready to POP dont think this tummy can grow anymore! #40weekspregnant #comeonbub #babynumbertwo #imready', the expectant mother wrote in the caption. Nikki looked every inch the yummy mummy, sporting a bronzed complexion and a full face of makeup. Late last year, Nikki spoke to her fans about the importance of self care during pregnancy. Any time now! 'About ready to POP dont think this tummy can grow anymore! #40weekspregnant #comeonbub #babynumbertwo #imready', the expectant mother wrote in the caption 'I vowed to get a massage every second week starting at 20 weeks!' Late last year, Nikki spoke to her fans about the importance of self care during pregnancy Sharing a snap of herself posing in a slinky dressing-gown, the brunette wrote: 'Lesson learnt with my first pregnancy to give back to my body every now and again. Some days I'm fine, moving like a gazelle in the wild and the next a sloth struggling to get off the floor.' She continued: 'I vowed to get a massage every second week starting at 20 weeks, this time round to help blood flow, circulation and most importantly give back to this body that's growing another little human! 'Still in awe of it and what it can do! Thank you Bump Day Spa for putting a bounce back in my step. (Insert image of gazelle frolicking into Friday)' she joked. First child: The Kiwi model and her partner Dane Rumble (left) welcomed their first child Jett (centre) in 2017 The Kiwi model and her partner Dane Rumble welcomed their first child Jett in 2017. Her journey to motherhood hasn't been easy, with the blonde suffering three miscarriages before welcoming Jett. Nikki and Dane, who are both from New Zealand, first met at a Jamiroquai concert where Dane was the opening act. They tied the knot in Bali in 2014, with Nikki sporting two custom wedding dresses for the occasion. Nikki is best known for appearing on New Zealand's Next Top Model in 2009. On Monday, NW reported Mel Greig offered Reece Power, who is the 'hot brother' of MAFS star Jessika, a place to stay in the 'garage' of her Bondi apartment in Sydney. Now, the former Hot 30 Countdown host has shut down the claims, confirming that the 29-year-old male stripper is not her housemate, but instead an occasional house guest. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Monday evening, the 36-year-old media identity said: 'I can confirm that I don't have a garage that I store a stash of men in.' 'I don't have a garage that I store a stash of men in!' Mel Greig (pictured) has shut down claims she is 'shacking up with MAFS star Jessika Power's 'hot brother' Rhyce and Heather Maltman in a share house in Sydney' 'I love hosting group dinners, Rhyce has been around a few times as have many other friends. Rhyce is currently doing a health retreat in Thailand and is doing just fine,' she added. The carpenter, who recently moved from Perth to Bondi Beach also threw cold water on the rumours and said: 'Not true at all I have been to Mel's house twice for dinner.' Mel also addressed the whispers she is currently living with her close friend and former Bachelor star, Heather Maltman. 'Whenever Heather is in Sydney doing her Podcast she obviously stays with her bestie (me).' 'Not true at all': The carpenter, (pictured) who recently moved from Perth to Bondi Beach also threw cold water on the rumours and said: ' Not true at all I have been to Mel's house twice for dinner' Shut down: Mel (left) also addressed the whispers she is currently living with her close friend and former Bachelor star, Heather Maltman (right) Heather, who currently co-hosts a breakfast radio show on Queensland's Glitter Strip five days a week echoed similar sentiments, telling Daily Mail Australia: 'I live on the Gold Coast. I stay with Mel when I have my podcast recordings.' Meanwhile on Monday, NW reported Rhyce is 'shacking up with the media personality and radio star, Heather in a share house in Bondi Beach.' The heavily-inked reality TV personality, who returned to MAFS on Monday night, was reportedly offered a space in Mel's 'garage' after he asked his legion of followers for a 'place to live in the Harbour City' on social media. 'Welcome to the neighbourhood!' Mel was joined by her good friend, former Bachelor star Heather (pictured) and Rhyce, who recently moved from Perth to Sydney 'I'm moving to Sydney, does anyone have somewhere for me to live?' Rhyce recently posted on Instagram, according to the magazine. Soon after, Mel supposedly responded to Rhyce's post on the photo-sharing app via a direct message and offered him a space to live in her car port. Last month, the trio added more fuel to the fire as they were seen enjoying a dinner together in Bondi, while watching an explosive episode of MAFS. Mel shared a video of the viewing party, panning from the television across to her guests. Earlier on Monday, Rhyce took to Instagram to reveal he will be temporarily residing in Thailand for the next three months with his rumored girlfriend, Vanessa to train alongside fitness camp, 'Unit 27 Total conditioning.' 'Me and @vanessasierra are Off to Thailand to train along side one of the best fitness camps @unit27thailand for the next few months gotta try get this body into peak condition,' he captioned an image of him cuddling the busty brunette. 'Off to Thailand': Earlier on Monday, Rhyce (left) revealed he will be temporarily residing in Thailand for the next three months with his rumored girlfriend, Vanessa (right) to train alongside fitness camp, 'Unit 27 Total conditioning.' TV return: Meanwhile Rhyce, (pictured) who wooed the nation with his striking good looks at his sister's 'wedding,' returned to the social experiment on Monday night Meanwhile Rhyce, who wooed the nation with his striking good looks at his sister's 'wedding,' returned to the social experiment on Monday night. The Perth model's 'husband' Mick Gould clashed with Jessika's father Troy and brother Rhyce during the episode. During a family gathering, Mick, 31, admitted that he had previously judged his in-laws for their drunken behaviour at the their TV 'nuptials.' Married At First Sight continues Tuesday at 7:30pm on Channel Nine Ben Fogle has candidly admitted he suffered a breakdown after finding fame on Castaway 19 years ago as he describes the instant stardom as a 'drug'. The TV personality, 45, spoke out about how reality television affects people's mental health following the news that Love Island star Mike Thalassitis was found dead. Mike, who died aged 26, was apparently having 'really rough time' due to a 'lack of work and a big tax bill', his friend and co-star Montana Brown revealed on Monday's episode of This Morning. Opening up: Ben Fogle has candidly admitted he suffered a breakdown after finding fame on Castaway 19 years ago as he describes the instant stardom as a 'drug' Many other reality TV alum including Ben have since taken to social media to discuss how hard it can be to deal with the reality of life after being on television. Ben wrote on Twitter: 'I think television needs to take a long hard look at their after show care for reality show contestants. As a one time reality show alumni myself I had a breakdown after Castaway. Instant reality show fame is like a drug. A short term high with a terrible come down.' Shock: Mike Thalassitis, 26, who rose to fame on the ITV2 show in 2017, was discovered in woodland near his Essex home on Saturday, his manager confirmed (pictured in 2017) Candid: Many other reality TV alum including Ben have since taken to social media to discuss how hard it can be to deal with the reality of life after being on television Castaway launched Ben's career as he became the breakaway star of the series, which saw 36 men, women and children build a community in a remote part of Scotland. Although following his appearance on the show he has forged a successful TV career, Ben said that he struggled with the affect of 'instant fame'. Other reality stars have echoed his sentiment, also suggesting that the aftercare they receive from these shows isn't enough. Start of his career: Castaway launched Ben's career as he became the breakaway star of the series, which saw 36 men, women and children build a community in a remote part of Scotland (pictured on the show in 2000) Struggling: Although following his appearance on the show he has forged a successful TV career, Ben said that he struggled with the affect of 'instant fame' (pictured on the show in 2000) Love Island series two contestant Malin Anderson hit out at Love Island for their apparent lack of support from the show. In a series of tweets, Malin said she was only sent flowers by the ITV2 team when her four-week-old daughter Consy passed away in January. She said: 'WAKE UP @LoveIsland !!!! I got flowers from the producers when my daughter died. No f**king phone call. No support, or help. Enough is enough. 'Nothing when my mum died. Nothing when Sophie died. Change needs to happen.' Hitting out: Love Island series two contestant Malin Anderson hit out at Love Island for their apparent lack of support from the show 'If I didn't have a strong head on me that my mum passed down to me, I wouldn't have been able to cope with this all. But not everyone is like this.' 'PLEASE IF YOU FEEL ALONE, OR SAD, OR STUCK REACH OUT TO SOMEBODY!' Dom Lever, who appeared in the Love Island villa alongside Mike, joined Malin's call for change. He said: 'I'm shocked at the news!! me and @MikeThalassitis may not have seen eye to eye but he was a top guy. Speaking out: In a series of tweets, season two 2016 star Malin, 26, admitted she was only sent flowers by the ITV2 team when her four-week-old daughter Consy passed away in January 'You get a psychological evaluation before and after you go on the show but hands down once you are done on the show you don't get any support unless you're number one.' His wife Jess Shears, who also starred on the show, added: 'In complete shock, was lucky enough to get to know Mike, he was the loveliest guy. My heart breaks for his family. 'Shows offer you 'support' but realistically it's only while you are in their care. Minute you get home & are no longer making them money it's out of sight out of mind. The star continued: 'If I didn't have a strong head on me that my mum passed down to me, I wouldn't have been able to cope with this all. But not everyone is like this' 'There should be ongoing support & also financial advice. Life after these shows isn't all it's cracked up to be.' Big Brother star Mark Byron, who has not appeared on Love Island, also said the 'amount of aftercare should reflect the amount of time after the shows air that the people remain in the spotlight.' The news of Mike's death comes after fellow season two Love Island star Sophie Gradon, 32, was found dead at her parents house in Medburn, Ponteland in June. Joining forces: Dom Lever and his wife Jessica Shears, who both appeared in the Love Island villa alongside Mike, joined Malin's call for change Her co-star Zara Holland later revealed she was on antidepressants two years after appearing on the show - and claimed contestants didn't receive enough aftercare. Zara, 22, told The Sun she 'changed as a person' when her Miss GB title was stripped off of her after she had sex on the show and is still 'haunted' by the repercussions. She said: 'I changed as a person, I didn't want to go out or socialise, I came out of Love Island and they didn't contact me. 'Love Island called me for the first time in two years on Thursday [after the death of Sophie] to ask if I was OK, funny they call me now when something terrible has happened. Tragic: The news of Mike's death, of which the circumstances are still unknown, comes after fellow Love Island star Sophie Gradon was found dead at her parents house in Medburn, Ponteland in June (Mike and co-star Sam Gowland pictured) 'People applying need to know how serious things can be, they see a claim to fame, they don't see that in ten years' time, when you're married with babies, you'll still be haunted for the rest of your life.' A spokesperson for Love Island said at the time: 'All of our islanders are offered psychological support before, during and after their time in the villa. We take our duty of care very seriously and this is always our top priority.' In a statement released to MailOnline ITV bosses claimed that care for Islanders is 'taken very seriously and is a continuous process' after they also paid tribute to Mike. The statement read: 'Care for our Islanders is a process the show takes very seriously and is a continuous process for all those taking part in the show. 'We ensure that all of our Contributors are able to access psychological support before, during and after appearing on the show. The programme will always provide ongoing support when needed and where appropriate. 'We also discuss at length with all of our Islanders, before and after the show, how their lives might change and they have access to support and advice to help with this.' They also paid their condolences to Mike, sharing: 'Everyone at ITV2 and Love Island are shocked and saddened by the terrible news about Mike. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family and friends.' If you have been affected by this story, call Samaritans at any time, from any phone for free on 116 123 He will be returning to Broadway in 2020 for the first time in a decade in the revival of Meredith Wilson's iconic 1957 show The Music Man. And Hugh Jackman gave fans a little sneak peek into his upcoming performance with a dazzling rendition of the musical's opening scene Rock Island in an Instagram video on Monday. Holding the show's songbook open with one hand, the 50-year-old Greatest Showman star effortlessly reeled off the famously staccato lines in incredibly rapid succession. Taking centre-stage: Hugh Jackman performed the opening scene of his upcoming Broadway show The Music Man in a candid Instagram video on Monday. In the scene, Hugh single-handedly played the parts of eight salesmen talking about the scam artist Harold Hill to the beat of the train they're on. The Wolverine star gave a word-perfect performance, complete with flourishes to the camera, before concluding the scene with a dramatic clap of his hands. He captioned the behind-the-scenes clip: 'From grammar school to the Great White Way ... #themusicman.' It's not the first time Hugh has performed the unforgettable opening number for fans, as he previously gave a rendition of it on the Jay Leno show in 2011. Tough work: In the scene, Hugh single-handedly played the parts of eight salesmen talking about the scam artist Harold Hill to the beat of the train they're on Impressive: Holding the show's songbook open with one hand, the 50-year-old Greatest Showman star effortlessly reeled off the famously staccato lines in incredibly rapid succession The Australian actor admitted that it was the first musical he ever auditioned for in 1983, so that - as a teenage all boys' school pupil - he could perform with the nearby all girls' school. Hugh, who first appeared on Broadway 16 years ago, will be back on the New York stage next October. He will be choreographed by Warren Carlyle and directed by Jerry Zaks, a duo who did the same jobs on the smash 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler. Star: The Wolverine star gave a word-perfect performance, complete with flourishes to the camera, before concluding the scene with a dramatic clap of his hands Warren was also the choreographer and director of Hugh Jackman, Back On Broadway, the X-Men hunk's concert residency at the Broadhurst Theatre in 2011. Hugh's musical theater bona fides go back a long way - back in the late 1990s, he led the cast of a production of Oklahoma! at the National Theatre in London. Directed by Trevor Nunn of Cats and Royal Shakespeare Company fame, the revival also featured UK theater legend Maureen Lipman. Hugh first came to Broadway in title role of the 2003 original Broadway production of The Boy From Oz, a jukebox musical about the late Peter Allen. Back at it: In The Music Man, he will be choreographed by Warren Carlyle and directed by Jerry Zaks, a duo who did the same jobs on the smash 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler Throwback: Hugh first came to Broadway in title role of the 2003 original Broadway production of The Boy From Oz, a jukebox musical about the late Peter Allen He won a Tony Award for best performance by a leading actor in a musical at the 2004 ceremony, which incidentally he also hosted. The Sydney-born thespian then played a cop in the 2009 original Broadway production of Keith Huff's cannibal serial killer drama A Steady Rain. In 2014 he headlined the premiere New York run of British playwright Jez Butterworth's The River, in a role Dominic West had played in London two years prior. Between stage work, he earned a best actor Oscar nod for playing Jean Valjean in the 2012 movie adaptation of the 1980s West End juggernaut Les Miserables. So close: He earned a best actor Oscar nod for the movie of the West End juggernaut Les Miserables; he is pictured with Anne Hathaway, who won best supporting actress Meredith and Franklin Lacey worked together to devise the plot of The Music Man, the story of a con man whose schemes end up in jeopardy when he falls in love. The musical comedy opened at the Majestic Theatre in 1957 with Robert Preston in the leading role of scam artist Harold Hill, the part Hugh will play in the new revival. Robert starred in the 1962 film with Oscar winner Shirley Jones as the object of his affection, Marian, a role Barbara Cook originated on the stage. The Music Man ran in the West End only once - opening at the Adelphi Theatre in 1961 with MGM staple Van Johnson in the lead - and had a Broadway revival in 2000. Legendary: The musical comedy opened at the Majestic Theatre in 1957 with Robert Preston in the leading role of scam artist Harold Hill, the part Hugh will play in the new revival Stage to screen: Robert starred in the 1962 film with Oscar winner Shirley Jones as the object of his affection, Marian - a role Barbara Cook originated on the stage Scott Rudin, principally known for his work in movies, is producing Hugh's revival after having done the same on the latest Hello, Dolly! revival. The 2017 production of Hello, Dolly! ran at the Shubert Theatre, and one of the Shubert family's Broadway houses will play host to The Music Man next year. Before that, the new Harold Hill will be traveling to multiple countries with a concert called Hugh Jackman: The Man. The Music. The Show. She was spotted touching down in Melbourne last week for a fashion shoot. And it appears Lexi Wood is in high demand in the fashion world as she arrived in Los Angeles for the Daily Front Row Fashion Awards on Monday afternoon. The Playboy model, 20, showcased her sensational physique in a very sheer floral dress which was adorned with bold red roses all over. Wow: Lexi Wood arrived in Los Angeles for the Daily Front Row Fashion Awards on Monday afternoon Underneath her transparent dress, Lexi wore a nude bodysuit as she left little to the imagination while working her angles on the red carpet. She teamed her sexy look with a pair of barely-there perspex heels, which only accentuated her sizzling shapely pins. Lexi opted for neutral pallet of make-up, accentuating her striking features with soft touches of blusher and and a matte nude lip. Incredible: The Playboy model, 20, showcased her sensational physique in a very sheer floral dress which was adorned with bold red roses all over Beauty: Lexi opted for neutral pallet of make-up, accentuating her striking features with soft touches of blusher and and a matte nude lip She styled her dark locks in a sleek straight style, as she flashed a beaming smile for the cameras at the fifth annual fashion event. Lexi was catapulted into the limelight when she was spotted kissing David and Victoria Beckham's son Brooklyn in Los Angeles in April 2018. Brooklyn was seen going to Doctor Woo's, a tattoo-artist-to-the-stars, shop to get some touch-ups on his fresh ink, before being photographed kissing the model. Legs 11! She teamed her sexy look with a pair of barely-there perspex heels, which only accentuated her sizzling shapely pins She hails from Toronto, Canada, but began her career when she moved to Paris at the age of 16 and, as she told GQ, she has been 'travelling ever since'. Lexi is perhaps most famous for her Playboy and Vogue Japan shoots, but has also appeared in the likes of Cosmopolitan Russia and Galore. Her passionate clinch with Brooklyn came several months after the aspiring photographer's on-off romance with actress Chloe Moretz ended for good. Brooklyn went public with new girlfriend, model Hana Cross, in January 2019 and they have been inseparable ever since. Sleek: She styled her dark locks in a sleek straight style, as she flashed a beaming smile for the cameras at the fifth annual fashion event Love Island star Georgia Harrison has been attacked on social media for using a bikini post to help promote mental health awareness. The 24-year-old reality personality, who also appeared on TOWIE, shared a heartfelt post in the wake of her co-star Mike Thalassitis' passing, after he was found dead in a north London woodland near his home on Saturday. Shortly before paying tribute to the tragic star, she posted an image while wearing a bikini with an impassioned message about mental health - however she was cruelly branded 'disturbing' for the bizarre choice of picture to accompany the shot. Tough times: Love Island star Georgia Harrison has been attacked on social media for using a bikini post to help promote mental health awareness Mike's death stunned fans, co-stars and friends over the weekend, when he was found dead on Saturday evening following suspected debts and depression. While tributes to the star have flooded in - particularly from fellow reality stars - Georgia, who has 849,000 Instagram followers used her platform to promote mental health and The Mix charity - which is the UKs leading digital support service. Alongside a bikini-clad image taken on the beach, she added the caption: 'Everyone sees the darkness in the world sometimes, even when they seem to be the brightest spark in the room... 'Take a deep breathe count to 10 and ask yourself am I happy? If the answer is no, speak to a friend, professional, colleague, even a stranger. For underage sufferers The Mix is always there if you need anyone to speak today was bitter sweet.' Shocking: Georgia later shared a shot of a recent night out with Mike and Montana Brown to Sexy Fish in January Despite her sweet message, some cruel trolls hit out at the choice to post the shot, with users penning: 'Theres a special place in hell for people who use a mental health and suicide prevention speech to caption a bikini photo on social media the day after a personal friend is found hanged in a park... 'Was the bikini pic necessary for this speech??? everyone else is posting genuine messages about recent events yet you use this as a reason to post a picture of yourself in a bikini??!! 'This photo has nothing to do with the message you are trying to send. Shallow. And unfollow!' MailOnline as contacted representatives for Georgia for comment. Tough times: News of Mikes death broke on Saturday after he was found hanged in a park near his childhood home in Edmonton Georgia has previously been criticised for inappropriate Instagram posts, as just last week, she was labelled 'irresponsible' and 'ignorant' for plugging a plethora of weight loss products. News of Mikes death broke on Saturday after he was found hanged in a park near his childhood home in Edmonton. The star was believed to have been struggling with spiralling debts as well as the death of his friend and grandmother. If you have been affected by this story, call The Samaritans at any time, from any phone for FREE, on 116 123 She's a world-class actress with a host of stellar roles on her resume. But Lupita Nyong'o appeared to be intent on staying comfortable as she touched down at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on Monday morning. The 36-year-old Black Panther star wore an over-sized sweatshirt and cozy sweatpants as she pushed an overflowing cart of luggage through the terminal. Just landed! Lupita Nyong'o appeared to be intent on staying comfortable as she touched down at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on Monday morning Lupita went incognito as she trekked through the concourse wearing a massive sweatshirt with a pocket stitched across her stomach. She kept with her comfortable theme wearing black sweatpants with tiny white stars embroidered across each leg. Making sure her feet were just as cozy as her ensemble, the Star Wars phenom rocked a pair of plush Mou shearling boots. Travel time: The 36-year-old Black Panther star wore an over-sized sweatshirt and cozy sweatpants as she pushed an overflowing cart of luggage through the terminal Comfort is key: Making sure her feet were just as cozy as her ensemble, the Star Wars phenom rocked a pair of plush Mou shearling boots Lupita appeared to be makeup-free underneath the hood of her sweater, and kept her eyes covered with a pair of circular frames. She's back stateside after a dazzling display at the UK premiere of her latest film Us, a follow-up to Jordan Peele's Get Out. Nyong'o was an absolute vision on the red carpet for the new thriller, wearing a sparkling red gown with a plunging neckline and thigh-grazing slit. Her gorgeous glam was complete with chic curly tendrils and vibrant red contact lenses to match her exquisite dress. Star power: Nyong'o was an absolute vision on the red carpet for the new thriller, wearing a sparkling red gown with a plunging neckline and thigh-grazing slit Stunning: Her gorgeous glam was complete with chic curly tendrils and vibrant red contact lenses to match her exquisite dress Us, which also stars Winston Duke and Elizabeth Moss, follows a family enjoying a vacation at the beach, but their serenity quickly turns to chaos when a group of horrifying doppelgangers begin to terrorize them. Director Jordan Peele, who's married to actress Chelsea Peretti, 41, became the first ever African-American screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay last year for Get Out. During a chat with AnOther in February, the Kenyan-Mexican actress opened up about being a big fan of filmmaker Jordan Peele, even before his Get Out days. 'I'd walk off a cliff for Jordan Peele,' she said. 'I was madly in love with the mind of Jordan from the Key & Peele days, and I remember putting him on my "one day I'll work with" list.' She's had an inspiring television and writing career after being the unfortunate victim of an acid attack in 2008. And Katie Piper spoke about her latest podcast project, Extraordinary People, as she took to the stage for Advertising Week in London on Monday. The Strictly star, 35, dazzled as she clad her slender frame into a horse-print red Topshop dress complete with a quirky neck tie. Venture: Katie Piper spoke about her latest podcast project, Extraordinary People, as she took to the stage for Advertising Week in London on Monday The fashion forward star paired her midi dress with nude boots to add height to her pint-sized frame. With her hair styled into a textured chignon, Katie looked every-inch the stunning starlet. The campaigner and former model joined Somethin' Else's Steve Ackerman for the session where they discussed her number one podcast and the success behind it. Fashion: The Strictly star, 35, dazzled as she clad her slender frame into a horse-print red Topshop dress complete with a quirky neck tie Style: The fashion forward star paired her midi dress with nude boots to add height to her pint-sized frame. The outing comes as Katie underwent more treatment for burns in Pakistan last month following the acid attack which took place 11 years ago. A spokesperson for the star told MailOnline last month: 'Katie is feeling much better after travelling home from Pakistan last week. The operation went really well but she has been in a lot of pain. 'Katie is very much still in recovery mode and taking it easy. She is bandaged on one side of her neck and has bad bruising but after nearly 300 operations is keeping her spirits up. Glamorous: With her hair styled into a textured chignon, Katie looked every-inch the stunning starlet Going strong: The campaigner and former model joined Somethin' Else's Steve Ackerman for the session where they discussed her number one podcast and the success behind it 'She is so excited to have her new book out for Mothers Day in a few weeks' time.' Katie's surgeon was Dr Mohammad Jawad, who was also in charge of the star's reconstruction surgery after she was attacked with sulphuric acid in 2008. The acid, some of which Piper had swallowed, blinded her in her left eye, and caused partial thickness and full thickness burns. Dr Jawad and his team of surgeons completely removed the skin of Katie's face, and replaced it with a skin substitute, Matriderm, to build the foundations for a skin graft. Fan favourite: Since starting the podcast last October, Katie has gone on to record 18 sessions Friendly: She's interviewed the likes of Zoe Sugg and George Shelley to speak about their positive mentality Dazzle: The beauty posted a picture on Instagram later in the day as she cut a radiant figure while posing outside the venue Katie, who shares Belle, four, and Penelope, 14 months, with husband Richard Sutton, said she 'prides' herself on not confirming to 'unrealistic' beauty standards. The Instagram sensation strives to be 'relatable' when she shares a string of pictures and posts with her 857,000 Instagram followers. She said: 'I'm not afraid to show the real me. I pride myself in not conforming to unrealistic beauty standards it can be so damaging to young girls' and womens' self-esteem. 'Social media is a highlights feed and we should all remember that. I like to be someone my followers feel they can relate to. Social media is a powerful thing that can have a negative effect on users.' She's an advocate for body confidence and has been open about her battle with body dysmorphia in the past. And Ashley James hit back at an internet troll who criticised her for showcasing her 'cellulite' in a bikini-clad Instagram snap from her trip to the Maldives on Monday. Branding the cruel social media user a 'c***', the CBB star, 31, vowed to embrace her 'sexy, God given dimples' before penning a passionate message about self-confidence. She's confident! Ashley James hit back at an internet troll who criticised her for showcasing her 'cellulite' in a bikini-clad Instagram snap from her trip to the Maldives on Monday The former Made In Chelsea star was left angered when a troll slammed her for displaying her stunning figure in a blue bikini, commenting: 'Whattttt... What happened your ass... you have cellulite.' Responding to the cruel remark, Ashley said: 'What begins with C and ends with ***? In case you don't know, Nearly every single woman has cellulite. It's totally normal. It's sexy. 'And tbh when I'm on my death bed I won't think "s***, I wish I spent more time depriving myself of food and drink and stressing about my God given dimples...If you don't like it you can kiss it', the blonde cheekily added. The TV personality later treated herself to refreshing drinks with her pal and model Charlotte de Carle during their tropical getaway, and captioned the image: 'Cheers to living your life anyway you please... Be that through exercise, food, drink, travel, work, etc... There's no right or wrong way to focus on your priorities. Bold: Branding the cruel social media user a 'c***', the CBB star, 31, vowed to embrace her 'sexy, God given dimples' before penning a passionate message about self-confidence But you are a bad person if you point out what you perceive to be other people's flaws', she went on. Hours later, Ashley wrote a lengthy message, where she insisted she's the 'happiest I've ever been living my life' after finally embracing her 'real' self. She penned: 'Bottoms up to paradise. Let me say this hopefully only once. What you perceive as someone's flaws is a reflection of you and your own insecurities. 'Beauty is subjective - some of us strive to be bigger, smaller, be more toned, etc. It's really down to us as individuals. What's important is our own confidence and happiness and this is a journey for each and everyone of us.' Not nice: The former Made In Chelsea star was left angered when a troll slammed her for displaying her stunning figure in a blue bikini, commenting: 'Whattttt... What happened your ass... you have cellulite' Content: Hours later, Ashley wrote a lengthy message, where she insisted she's the 'happiest I've ever been living my life' after finally embracing her 'real' self 'I am the happiest I've ever been living my life. I'm not depriving myself of food and drink, and I accept my ever-changing body as it gets older and wiser. I also don't see exercise as a chore, or food and drink as indulging. But, I've been injured recently so haven't been able to love an active lifestyle (although my cellulite doesn't disappear with exercise).' The reality TV star, who previously revealed she's stopped retouching her images, went on: 'I have always tried to be "real" online, but I used to point out my insecurities. I realised in doing so, it not only meant I was focussing on my flaws and weaknesses, but it was potentially making others feel worse about themselves. 'For example, if I point out my tiny spot and say I feel hideous, how would it make someone feel with worse skin than me? Plus, why focus on the negatives about ourselves? 'So, when I post this photo on my stories and get INNUNDATED with trolls, it annoys me. Firstly, nearly every woman has cellulite, regardless of our size or exercise regime. It's sexy. It's not to be shamed. 'And secondly, there are a lot of people (men and women) who are dealing with eating problems, and words are VERY powerful. My ex's mum once said to me: "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will break my heart", and it's stuck with me.' Encouraging the trolls to 'think twice' about their output, Ashley ended her post: 'If you feel a certain type of way about my a**e, screenshot it and send it to your friends, prick it on your voodoo doll, but just know that it's your own negative vision, and i don't want to see it on my comments or DM's. 'I'm not posting this for likes or attention, I'm posting this because I want to encourage the trolls who chose to follow me to think twice about their output online. You might just sat this to the wrong person. And in the words of Alan Partridge: "Frankly my dear, I don't riverdance".' They were first spotted together in October 2017. And Ewan McGregor, 47, made a rare public appearance with his girlfriend Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 34, as they dined out together at the Sunset Marquis hotel in LA on Sunday evening. The actor cut a casual figure for their romantic dinner, opting to wear a leather biker jacket and a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants with military boots. Romantic: Ewan McGregor made a rare public appearance with his girlfriend Mary Elizabeth Winstead as they dined out together at the Sunset Marquis hotel in LA on Sunday evening Meanwhile, Mary wore a striking yellow jacket with a black collar which she teamed with a blue and white polka dot blouse and a maroon turtle neck. She added a pair of form-fitting blue jeans to her ensemble a long with a pair of platform trainers, while going accessory free. The pair were first spotted together in 2017 while he was still married to ex wife Eve Mavrakis, and their relationship made headlines again after his daughter Clara lashed out at Mary on social media in July 2018. Casual: The 47-year-old actor cut a casual figure for their romantic dinner, opting to wear a leather biker jacket and a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants with military boots From her verified Instagram account, the model took to the comments section of an image from a fan page for the Fargo star, who was first spotted with Ewan in October, to lash out at the page administrators for calling Mary beautiful. A seemingly enraged Clara hit out in the comments section, as she penned: 'Most beautiful and talented woman on earth? (laughing faces) Oh man y'all are delusional. The girl is a piece of trash (smiley face) x'. Ewan controversially filed for divorce from Eve in March six months after being spotted kissing Mary. It was claimed Ewan has been dumped by Mary because she was unhappy with being dubbed a 'homewrecker' however they have since reunited. Look of love: Meanwhile, Mary wore a striking yellow jacket with a black collar which she teamed with a blue and white polka dot blouse and a maroon turtle neck The Trainspotting and Star Wars actor blamed irreconcilable differences for the split from his wife, the mother of his four daughters. Eve was reportedly left devastated after pictures were published of Ewan kissing his co-star in a London cafe. Clara also hit out at her father earlier this year, during a sun-soaked trip with her mother and sister Esther, 17, Clara posted a beach snap of Eve looking sensational in a two-piece. Shock: The pair were first spotted together in 2017 while he was still married to ex wife Eve Mavrakis, and their relationship made headlines again after his daughter Clara (pictured) lashed out at Mary on social media in July 2018 She captioned the image: My mother, ladies & gentlemen, she wrote, adding pointedly: 50 is the new 30 apparently. However she became more hostile when a follower commented saying: 'Good to know you have the genes . . . keep her away from your boyfriends. Clara replied: I keep her away from a*****e men who leave my goddess of a mother, followed by a smiling face emoji.' She's fresh off the industry's hottest runways following her appearances at Fashion Week. And Winnie Harlow proved there's no rest for the wicked as she jetted into London's Heathrow Airport for more work commitments on Monday afternoon. The catwalk queen, 24, showed off her quirky style sense as she strolled through the terminal in a tiny cream crop top, teamed with a pair of comfy baggy joggers. Stylish arrival: Winnie Harlow proved there's no rest for the wicked as she jetted into London's Heathrow Airport for more work commitments on Monday afternoon Wrapping up against the chilly climes of the English capital, the model complemented her outfit with a grey hooded cardigan and a fluffy black coat. Winnie nailed sporty chic with her choice of footwear and accessories as she donned a pair of box-fresh platform trainers by Fila and wore a 795 Gucci belt bag around her waist. Finishing off her look with Aviator-style sunglasses, the brunette beauty displayed her naturally glowing complexion with minimal make-up and styled her tresses into loose waves. Chic: The catwalk queen, 24, showed off her quirky style sense as she strolled through the terminal in a tiny cream crop top, teamed with a pair of comfy baggy joggers Fashion savvy: Wrapping up against the chilly climes of the English capital, the model complemented her outfit with a grey hooded cardigan and a fluffy black coat Winnie, real name Chantelle Brown-Young, was discovered by America's Next Top Model host Tyra Banks on Instagram and competed on cycle 21 of the show in 2014. She went on to finish in sixth place on the show and has since walked on fashion's leading runways. The Canadian star recently defended herself over comments she made about her time as a contestant on the show and perceived criticism of host Tyra, 45. Off she goes: Winnie, who was pictured engaging in a phone conversation, nailed sporty chic as she donned a pair of box-fresh platform trainers by Fila and wore a 795 Gucci belt bag around her waist Look at her glow! The brunette beauty displayed her naturally glowing complexion with minimal make-up and styled her tresses into loose waves Busy bee: She's fresh off the industry's hottest runways following her appearances at Fashion Week After being on the show no one would book me and no agency would sign me because of the reality TV stigma,' she wrote on Instagram. 'It has nothing to do with being ungrateful, and more over nothing to do with "shade" to Tyra. 'She was the first person of higher status to make me feel like I could be a model and not only am I grateful for that, it's something I'll never forget.' She was left shaken this time last year when three armed robbers burst into her flat, demanding she hand over her jewellery, designer bags and cash. And now Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace, 40, has revealed she suffered a PTSD attack on Sunday night after fearing her home was being burgled, which left her scrambling for a knife. The former Big Brother star took to Instagram to share a selfie of herself sitting on the ground holding a kitchen knife, which covered her face, as her dog stood between her legs. Fear: Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace, 40, has revealed she suffered a PTSD attack on Sunday night after fearing her home was being burgled, which left her scrambling for a knife The reality star got candid about the moment she'd believed she was being robbed again and said fearing for her life every evening is 'no way to live', urging anyone suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to not 'suffer in silence'. Shaken from the experience, she wrote: 'Last night my dogs went absolutely nuts just like the night the gun men came through our door... 'I was scared all over again, but wasnt going to go down without a fight... robbers/ burglars really dont know the damage they can cause... its the long term effects... She added: 'I can handle it I been through a lot, but the weaker minded, the elderly, they cant, shit even I cant.... not really.... u think I want to hold a knife with the thought of this being the only way to protect myself? In my own home??? PTSD: The former Big Brother star took to Instagram to share a selfie of herself sitting on the ground holding a kitchen knife, which covered her face, as her dog stood between her legs 'This is no way to live and I cant wait to move... to my attackers F*** Y** I will not be your victim any longer. Come through my door again and its fight or flight. 'But then I would be in trouble with the law but I will take that risk. This is what PTSD looks like. You feel pathetic and sad and horrible and scared.... THINK BEFORE YOU ACT. She concluded: 'I wanna share this to show even the strongest of characters can feel PTSD and its NOTHING to be ashamed of. To anyone out there suffering, dont suffer in silence.' After her armed robbery in March, Aisleyne spoke about the ordeal to The Sun, revealing: 'I started screaming and three men barged into my corridor and crowded around me. They were asking for money and my watches. Break the cycle: The reality star got candid about the moment she'd believed she was being robbed again and said fearing for her life every evening is 'no way to live', urging anyone suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to not 'suffer in silence' 'I was terrified and only wearing thin pyjamas so I thought they were going to rape me.' Aisleyne revealed the thieves eventually got spooked by her incessant screaming and fled the scene of the crime, leaving her shaken. The star believes she was personally targeted by the robbers after boasting about her wealth on her social media account. One image shared with her 152,000 Instagram followers showed a sizable wad of cash, accompanied by the caption,'I take so much offence when 'men' on Instagram say I'm a gold digger. It's ALL MY OWN!' 'Never a gold digger': One image shared with her 152,000 Instagram followers showed a sizable wad of cash, accompanied by the caption,'I take so much offence when 'men' on Instagram say I'm a gold digger. It's ALL MY OWN!' She then posed in diamond encrusted sunglasses with the money stuffed behind the lenses, adding the message, 'Sorry honey... can't see the haters!' Aisleyne regularly shares snaps of herself near her property - including one of herself posing on the bonnet of her Range Rover - images she now regrets putting into the public domain. Likening her ordeal to that of Kim Kardashian who was robbed at gunpoint in October 2015, she revealed: 'It must have been how Kim Kardashian felt when she was held at gun point in Paris two years ago at her hotel.' Aisleyne revealed she was going to be 'more careful' about what she posts online in future. 'Can't see the haters': She then posed in diamond encrusted sunglasses with the money stuffed behind the lenses, adding the message, 'Sorry honey... can't see the haters!' Flaunt it: Aisleyne regularly shares snaps of herself near her property - including one of herself posing on the bonnet of her Range Rover - images she now regrets putting on social media A police spokesman confirmed: 'Police in Enfield are investigating an allegation of aggravated burglary after a group of men forced entry to a residential property. 'One of the men involved is suspected of being armed with a firearm. The incident took place at 23:25hrs on Monday, 5 March. The victim was shaken but unharmed. No arrests have been made. Enquiries continue.' Eight months later, Aisleyne was targeted again by thieves who stole her underwear, a pillowcase, old iPhone and an iPad. In November, the devastated star shared the news on her social media channels, she said: 'Burgled. Violated. Again. Similar experiences: Aisleyne likened her experience to Kim Kardashian's - when masked men broke into a private Paris residence in October 2015, leaving her bound and gagged as they escaped with $10million worth of jewellery Candid: Aisleyne went on to reveal that she had an 'awful panic attack' after discovering the burglary and thinks that it could be a stalker, after being trolled online 'Sometimes I wish I could heal the world and sometimes I wish I could just beat the world up quite frankly,' followed by a collection of distressed emojis. Aisleyne went on to reveal that she had an 'awful panic attack' after discovering the burglary and thinks that it could be a stalker, after being trolled online. Updating her fans about the burglary, she added on her Instagram: 'Im dealing with police & forensics and trying to clean up the mess and care for my fur babies who are stuck to me like glue... (sic) 'Theres been one eye witness ALREADY & in my mind 2 suspects.... if ANYONE SAW ANYTHING please come forward I will make it worth your while.... I'M COMING FOR YOU.... YOU'RE TIME IS UP....' (sic) Amy Schumer's husband has autism spectrum disorder, which used to be labeled Asperger's Syndrome. The 37-year-old comic realized not long after she started dating Chris Fischer - whom she married in February 2018 and is expecting her first child with - that his 'brain was a little different.' The condition is a form of developmental disorder autism and can cause difficulties with communication and social interaction. Sharing: Amy Schumer's husband has Asperger's Syndrome. The 37-year-old comic realized not long after she started dating Chris Fischer that his 'brain was a little different.' Seen in January In her upcoming Netflix special Amy Schumer: Growing she told a crowd in Chicago: 'I knew from the beginning that my husband's brain was a little different than mine.' She then added, 'I have to start this over because I really want to get this right because I love him very much. 'My husband was diagnosed with what used to be called Asperger's. He has autism spectrum disorder. He's on the spectrum. And there were some signs early on.' A fairytale beginning: The comedienne and the chef married in February 2018 following a whirlwind three-month romance So much love: The two live in New York and are expecting their first child together this year The Snatched star went on to admit she has shared a lot of 'Huh' moments' with her husband, starting from when she fell over on one of their first dates. She continued: 'Nine out of 10 people would go, "Oh my god, are you OK?!" Maybe more like 10 out of 10 people...Instead, my husband went-- He kind of froze and became a lighthouse, opening and closing his mouth. 'I remember lying on the ground looking up at him and I wasn't mad, I just thought, "Huh." Lotta "Huh" moments, you know?' The story: 'My husband was diagnosed with what used to be called Asperger's,' said Amy. 'He has autism spectrum disorder. He's on the spectrum. And there were some signs early on.' Seen in April 2018 But the Trainwreck actress is unfazed by his condition and admitted one of the reasons why she fell in love with him was because 'he keeps it so real' and always tells the truth. She said: 'Once he was diagnosed, it dawned on me how funny it was, because all of the characteristics that make it clear that he's on the spectrum are all of the reasons that I fell madly in love with him. 'That's the truth. He says whatever is on his mind. He keeps it so real. He doesn't care about social norms or what you expect him to say or do.' Well documented: Schumer has been active on social media sharing her stories about being pregnant According to the Mayo Clinic, Autism spectrum disorder is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others, causing problems in social interaction and communication. The disorder also includes limited and repetitive patterns of behavior. The term spectrum in autism spectrum disorder refers to the wide range of symptoms and severity. The symptoms include resisting cuddling and holding, poor eye contact, lack of facial expression, delayed speech, speaking with an abnormal tone or rhythm, repeating words or phrases verbatim, trouble expressing emotions or feelings and appears unaware of others' feelings. They fit well together: The actress and the food expert seen arm in arm in June 2018 In April she told the Howard Stern Show that she and Fischer slept together on their first date. 'We had sex. You know me. Sex!' Schumer said. 'There was no nonsense. It was just, "Lets go." And, it was sweet. It was really nice. We had a great night.' She continued, 'I have a habit of not letting people sleep in my bed, and so I wanted him to sleep there, then in the morning, I was happy he was there. I said in the morning, "I dont want you to go," and he said, "I dont want to go either." And, then we just worked really hard to keep seeing each other.' The star also told ET in April she was happy to be done dating. 'Yeah. I do feel different. I'm done. I don't ever have to zip my knee boots up and leave a dude's place at 4 a.m. that has, like a Rottweiler,' she joked. 'I just knew I didn't want to settle. I'll be fine on my own. Maybe I'll fall in love a couple more times but I don't need that partner. And then I met the person I wanted to partner up with. I didn't know right away. I knew him for seven months before it became romantic, but once I knew, I knew quick. I was like "Oh, I'm done. I can't believe I messed with those other suckers."' Mama June and her boyfriend Geno were arrested on Wednesday for felony drug possession at a gas station in Alabama. He was also booked for domestic violence. And on Monday new details were shared by TMZ about what happened just before the incident. A source told the site that the fight was worse than first reported. Geno allegedly 'threatened to kill' Mama, whose real name is June Shannon. It has also been claimed that June told police that the SUV they were in was hers and that she would take the blame for what was inside, which included a needle, a white powdery substance (which she told police was crack) and a pipe. She also had $1,340 in her bra. Drama: Mama June was arrested on Wednesday for felony drug possession at a gas station in Alabama; pictured on her show From Not to Hot's Friday episode It was also learned this week that Geno was 'ordered by the court to stay away from June after the incident.' But the two were seen together at a casino on Saturday. Earlier the same site reported her family thinks her boyfriend of three years Geno, 42, is to blame for her arrest. The website's source says the family believes she will put herself in danger as well as her daughter Alana, age 13, as long as she is with him. The insider added that they believe Alana is in an unsafe environment. Insiders: Her boyfriend of three years Geno Doak was arrested too that day for felony possession of a controlled substance, drug paraphernalia and domestic violence/harassment; pictured July 31, 2018 in LA with Honey Boo Boo and Geno The police reports detailing the incident on Wednesday say that the drugs and accompanying paraphernalia was found after they search their vehicle. While Geno was being searched, he warned authorities not to reach into his pocket as they might 'get sticked.' The police found a needle on his person. Drama: Her arrest came after a domestic altercation with Geno, 42 In addition, they found another needle and a green pill bottle container containing a white substance. June identified it as a crack cocaine. There was also a glass pipe with white residue on it in the pocked of her track suit. Boyfriend Doak was arrested for domestic violence/harassment, felony possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia, while Mama June was arrested for felony possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. Police were called by concerned citizens after they witnessed a 'confrontation' between the two. Happier times: In addition, they found another needle and a green pill bottle container containing a white substance; pictured on July 31, 2018 in LA with Honey Boo Boo and Geno After her arrest, the reality star was speaking to a tow truck service, according to TMZ, and it seems to depict her in a manic state as she tried to explain her situation and get her car out of impound. Geno was previously arrested for theft, criminal damage to property and burglary and has done jail time, TMZ reported. In Alabama, a felony drug possession can be one to 10 years of jail time with a fine up as high as $15,000. June has four children: Anna, 24, Jessica, 22, Lauryn also known as Pumpkin, 19, and Alana, known as Honey Boo Boo, 13. She recently said yes to her sixth engagement. And Jennifer Lopez appeared to be focused on getting fit for a wedding as she pounded the pavement to the gym with her sister in New York on Monday morning. The 49-year-old bundled up in a heavy coat with bright green fur detailing as she headed to workout just days after accepting a sunset proposal from her beau of two years, Alex Rodriguez. Sweat session: Jennifer Lopez appeared to be focused on getting fit for a wedding as she pounded the pavement to the gym in New York on Monday morning Lopez kept her fit figure hidden underneath a heavy black coat which featured leather and a massive fur neck. She trekked through city streets wearing black trainers to match her leggings, with peeks of a thick turtleneck peering out from her jacket. Jennifer tied up her caramel colored hair in a messy top knot with chunky tendrils framing her face. Family time: The 49-year-old bundled up in a heavy coat with bright green fur detailing as she headed to workout with her sister Lynda Staying warm: Lopez kept her fit figure hidden underneath a heavy black coat which featured leather and a massive fur neck Walk it out: She trekked through city streets wearing black trainers to match her leggings, with peeks of a thick turtleneck peering out from her jacket She appeared to be makeup-free for the training session, but opted for a touch of glam with thick hoop earrings and rose-tinted sunglasses. Lynda sported black leggings with sheer panels, a grey T-shirt and a long puffy jacket as she walked side-by-side with her older sister. Last week, Alex shared some big news with his two million followers in a caption that read 'she said yes' alongside a close up image of her new incredible diamond engagement ring. Gym time: Jennifer tied up her caramel colored hair in a messy top knot with chunky tendrils framing her face Fashion: She appeared to be makeup-free for the training session, but opted for a touch of glam with thick hoop earrings and rose-tinted sunglasses Workout ready: Lynda sported black leggings with sheer panels, a grey T-shirt and a long puffy jacket as she walked side-by-side with her older sister Stunning: Last week, Alex shared some big news with his two million followers in a caption that read 'she said yes' alongside a close up image of her new incredible diamond engagement ring He got down on one knee with a 16-carat emerald-cut diamond ring estimated to be worth $4.5 million during their holiday in the Bahamas last weekend. 'Our team of gemologists and diamond PhD's estimate the emerald-cut diamond is 20 carats and worth around $4.5 million,' CEO Ajay Anand of Rare Carat told DailyMail.com. 'This estimate is if the stone is D-Flawless. Since it's A-Rod, it very well could be!' Jennifer's engagement to Alex is her sixth proposal; three from ex husbands Ojani Noa, Cris Judd and Marc Anthony, one request from ex-fiance Ben Affleck and another secret engagement. Months before she began dating Rodriguez, Lopez told James Corden during a 2016 episode of Carpool Karaoke that she has 'been married three times, I've been proposed to five times.' Brian Austin Green turned to his 90210 cast mates for support in the wake actor Luke Perry's passing. Green, 45, spoke out about Perry's unexpected death in a recent episode of his podcast and revealed that his former co-stars gathered together at the home of Gabrielle Carteris to mourn their friend. The actor had caught flack from people on social media for not posting a public tribute to Perry after he died. Grief: Brian Austin Green revealed on his podcast that he gathered with his former 90210 cast at the home of Gabrielle Carteris to mourn the death of Luke Perry Luke Perry died at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California just days after he suffered a massive stroke. He was 52. Green said he is still 'kind of shocked' that his co-star passed away earlier this month but he's convinced his late pal is still 'looking down' on him. Speaking on his '... with Brian Austin Green' podcast, he said: 'Luke was a special guy. 'I'm still mourning over it so there's a part of me that's kind of shocked that I'm speaking about Luke this way. Tragic: Luke Perry died unexpectedly at the age of 52 after suffering a massive stroke 'We all knew that at some point we'd have to deal with losing cast members and friends but not this soon. Not at 52. Not in such an abrupt way. Despite being trolled on social media for not putting up a public tribute to the late star, Green revealed that he was greiving in his own way. 'I texted him after he passed,' he revealed, 'knowing obviously that he can't text me back but on some level, hoping, that he would text me back, or that he was out there somewhere. 'We all knew that at some point we'd have to deal with losing cast members and friends but not this soon. Not at 52. Not in such an abrupt way,' Green said on his podcast 'You were happy to see everybody and you felt like it's been too long and it was great. But what a horrible reason to have to see everybody.' Adding finally: 'And I know he is. I know he's looking down and I know he's smiling.' After Luke's death, his 90210 co-stars gathered at Gabrielle Carteris' house and Brian admitted they all felt 'mixed emotions' about being in the same room without their friend. He said: 'You were happy to see everybody and you felt like it's been too long and it was great. But what a horrible reason to have to see everybody.' Backlash: The actor caught flack on social media for being one of the few members of the 90s drama that didn't post a public tribute to Perry The Anger Management actor went on to remember the Riverdale star as a 'great guy'. He said: 'Luke was one of those people nobody had a bad story about. 'He was just a great guy. And he was Luke no matter where you saw him, no matter when you saw him, no matter what he was going through. He was a rock.' Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent has revealed she is an alcoholic. The 29-year-old has been open about her struggle with booze in the past and documented her efforts to be sober on the show. In a social media post she shared on Monday, Lala revealed she has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for five months, before breaking down in tears as she remembered her late father. Candid: Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent has revealed in an Instagram story that she is an alcoholic and attends meetings Candid: Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent has revealed she is an alcoholic 'Five months ago, I came to the realization that I am an alcoholic, and I am now a friend of Bill W.,' Kent said. 'You will never know how much this program means to me. It has given me new life.' Bill Wilson is the co-founder of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step program. 'I always say, if you don't have to be sober, I wouldn't recommend it. But ... as someone who does need to be sober, being in my right frame of mind every single day is truly incredible,' she added. Staying sober: In a social media post she shared on Monday, Lala revealed she has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for five months Tough: She broke down in tears as she remembered her late father Lala credited the program with helping her work through emotions surrounding the death of her father. 'I'm thinking a lot about my dad today, not different than any other day,' she said while choking back tears. 'The program has allowed me to sit down and remember my dad in a clear frame of mind and remember what he brought to my life ... what he meant to me, what he taught me.' She regularly discusses her father and his impact on her life on episodes of the Bravo show, saying during the season 7 premiere that he 'had a stroke and got into an accident' in April. 'I'm really grateful that I had him as my dad,' she said. 'You couldn't pick a better human being. And the day that he passed, the world truly lost an epic human being.' Good job: Lala is staying strong in her sobriety, and even celebrated her birthday on a private plane with virgin mimosas 'I'm thinking a lot about my dad today, not different than any other day,' she said while choking back tears Lala is staying strong in her sobriety, and even celebrated her birthday on a private plane with virgin mimosas. She's likely also finding the support she needs from her new fiance, producer Randall Emmett. 'It was definitely the most romantic moment of my life. Every detail of the surprise was stunning and Im still in shock,' Kent told People in September after his proposal in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. She only recently returned from her sister Billie Faiers' wedding to Greg Shepherd in the Maldives. And Sam Faiers couldn't resist sharing a cheeky throwback from the beach break as she uploaded a snap of her sand-covered derriere. Taking to Instagram on Monday, the Mummy Diaries star, 28, shared the saucy shot after revealing that Billie's nuptials had inspired her to make wedding plans of her own with partner Paul Knightley, 30. Beach babe: Sam Faiers couldn't resist sharing a cheeky throwback on Monday from her holiday in the earlier this month Maldives when sister Billie married Greg Shepherd Revealing she was already pining for a return, she captioned the shot: 'Took major inspiration from a blogger here #sandycheeks #takemeback #maldives'. The post came as Sam Faiers revealed that she wants a 'chilled' wedding following Billie's 'raucous' big day. Despite not actually being engaged Sam opened up about her plans and revealed she wants to get married in Europe. Big plans: Sam, 28, is now making marriage plans of her own, revealing that she wants a 'chilled' wedding to partner Paul Knightley, 30 Speaking to The Sun at the Peppa Pig Festival of Fun premiere, Sam said: 'Billie's wedding was amazing, we all had such a good time. 'It really got us thinking about our wedding too and we definitely want to go abroad - but not the Maldives though. It's a bit too far.' The star, who attended the event with boyfriend Paul and children Paul, three, and one-year-old Rosie,continued: 'We're thinking it will be somewhere lovely in Europe. Something low-key and chilled with the family.' Sam's wedding plans come in contrast to her big sister Billie's, 29, big day, with the exotic nuptials hosting 95 guests. Following in her footsteps: Sam's plans comes just days after her sister Billie Faiers' wedding to Greg Shepherd in the Maldives Wedding dream: Despite not actually being engaged, The Mummy Diaries star opened up about her big day and revealed she wants to have the nuptials in Europe The luxurious ceremony was not without controversy however, with the day attracting numerous complaints from holidaymakers staying at the stunning resort on the island of Kuramathi. One traveller told MailOnline: 'There were 90 plus members of the wedding party and it was carnage. 'It was like the Essex circus had rolled into town. They were raucous and our trip was totally spoiled. Our trip of a lifetime ended so poorly.' Meanwhile, Sam previously discussed her wedding wishes with The Sun Online, telling them: 'I want it to be abroad. I don't want to get married here in the UK. Family time: 'We're thinking it will be somewhere lovely in Europe. Something low-key and chilled with the family' Loved up: Former TOWIE favourite Sam has been dating her property developer beau since 2014 after meeting him in Sheesh restaurant in Chigwell 'I want like a nice beach setting and I want it really small and intimate. I don't want a big wedding. She added: 'I really wouldn't want him to propose on camera. I definitely don't want it filmed - some things you can keep for yourself.' Former TOWIE favourite Sam has been dating her property developer beau since 2014 after meeting him in Sheesh restaurant in Chigwell. A New Zealand model has defended herself after fans criticised her for failing to acknowledge Friday's terrorist attack that saw 50 worshippers murdered at two Christchurch mosques. Georgia Fowler, 26, who hails from Auckland but has lived in New York since 2008, has been sharing bikini-clad photos from her Cayman Islands getaway on Instagram over the past four days. Some of her social media followers have expressed the opinion that, as her country's most high-profile model, she should have issued a statement about the massacre. Scroll down for video 'I am devastated by what has happened': New Zealand model Georgia Fowler has defended herself after fans criticised her for failing to acknowledge Friday's terror attack in Christchurch One person wrote: '50 people dead in New Zealand and for the past four days all you've done is post pictures and videos of what a fantastic time you are having in Cayman Islands. 'You are famous and look how you are representing [your] country in a time of grief. 'Do you really think it's appropriate to be posting pictures of you in a bikini at a time like this? You are supposed to be a role model but instead you are an absolute embarrassment to New Zealand. You should be ashamed of yourself.' Vacation: Georgia, who hails from Auckland but has lived in NYC since 2008, has been sharing bikini-clad photos from her Cayman Islands getaway on Instagram over the past four days 'You should be ashamed of yourself': Some of Georgia's social media followers have expressed the opinion that, as her country's most high-profile model, she should have issued a statement about the massacre rather than share bikini-clad holiday photos Critics: One person commented, 'Really surprised as a fellow Kiwi you've made no mention of the attack back home. You have the power to influence - use it' 'How sad and vapid!' Some of the responses to Georgia's bikini-clad photos were damning Another Instagram user commented: 'Really surprised as a fellow Kiwi you've made no mention of the attack back home. You have the power to influence - use it.' A similar comment read: 'And as she's creating yet another "I'm having a great time" post, do you think she pauses at any point to think it may just be insensitive? Nope. NZ is grieving but she actually is having a great time and wants you to know it.' Georgia, who has walked the runway for Victoria's Secret three times and previously dated Harry Styles, responded to the criticism by saying she was 'devastated' by the shooting. Statement: Georgia, who has walked the runway for Victoria's Secret three times, responded to the criticism by saying she was 'devastated' by the shooting. Pictured on holiday Response: Addressing the criticism, Georgia wrote: 'I am devastated by what has happened in my country. Everyone is meant to be safe in our beautiful home. I just don't have the right words at this time and don't want to ever make it about me' She wrote: 'I am devastated by what has happened in my country. Everyone is meant to be safe in our beautiful home. I just don't have the right words at this time and don't want to ever make it about me.' Plenty of fans also defended Georgia, claiming that it is unfair to criticise her for not initially making a public statement about the terror attack. One of her supporters wrote: 'What has happened is absolutely tragic, but it's so wrong to shame someone in a public forum like this. You don't know what anyone else is thinking or feeling.' Luxury getaway: Georgia (pictured on her vacation) has been staying at the Grand Cayman Beach Suites hotel and sharing regular updates on Instagram Idyllic holiday: In this photo, Georgia relaxes on a boat after going on a snorkelling expedition Moment of reflection: In this photo, shared over the weekend, Georgia enjoys the sunset at the beach while reading a paperback novel 'She may have mourned in private': Meanwhile, plenty of fans defended Georgia against her critics. This person said it was unfair to criticise her for not initially making a public statement about the attack 'It's so wrong to shame someone in a public forum like this': Another supporter said, 'You don't know what anyone else is thinking or feeling' Another suggested: '[Georgia] deserves to post about her trip because she works so hard all year round and never complains... She may have mourned in private, not everything needs to be on social media.' Australian-born Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with murder over the mass shootings that killed 50 people in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday. He faces an 'unprecedented' life sentence, as the death penalty was abolished in New Zealand in 1961. What we know so far: Australian-born Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with murder over the mass shootings that killed 50 people in Christchurch on Friday Rami Malektook a hard fall on Monday. The actor hit a sidewalk after bumping into a homeless man's cart - which was actually a baby carriage - filled with empty aluminum cans. This comes almost a month after the star was feted in style for his Best Actor win at the Academy Awards for his performance in Bohemian Rhapsody. On set: Rami Malek was spotted literally running into a homeless man in Uptown Manhattan while filming scenes for the final season of his hit USA Network series Mr. Robot. Malek was decked out in all black, wearing one of the black hoodies his character Elliot Alderson is usually seen in. Rami also was wearing black pants and black shoes on the Uptown Manhattan set. He was seen running down the sidewalk when he runs into a homeless man pushing a stroller full of cans, which dumps onto the sidewalk. On the go: Malek was decked out in all black, wearing one of the black hoodies his character Elliot Alderson is usually wearing The USA Network announced in late August that it had renewed Mr Robot for a fourth and final season. Production got under way this winter, with the final season slated to debut sometime in 2019, but no premiere date has been set at this time. Malek returns alongside Christian Slater, Carly Chaikin, Portia Doubleday, Martin Wallstrom, Grace Gummer, Michael Cristofer and BD Wong. Final season: The USA Network announced in late August that it had renewed Mr. Robot for a fourth and final season After Malek wraps on the final season of Mr Robot he may be heading back to the big screen, in a big way, joining the James Bond franchise. The actor has entered final negotiations to play the villain in the currently-untitled James Bond movie, known as Bond 25 since it is the 25th movie in the franchise. There had been scheduling conflicts, but Collider reported at the end of February that his agents managed to come up with a shooting schedule that could accommodate Bond 25 and Mr Robot. New movie: Malek has also been set to voice the character Chee-Chee in the live-action/CGI hybrid The Voyage of Dr. Dolittle, set for release on January 17, 2020 Bond villain: After Malek wraps on the final season of Mr. Robot, he will be heading back to the big screen, in a big way, joining the James Bond franchise Coming soon: The actor has entered final negotiations to play the villain in the currently-untitled James Bond movie, known as Bond 25 since it is the 25th movie in the franchise Malek has also been set to voice the character Chee-Chee in the live-action/CGI hybrid The Voyage of Dr Dolittle, set for release on January 17, 2020. Robert Downey Jr is playing Dr John Dolittle, one of the live-action roles, with Michael Sheen and Antonio Banderas. Also lending their voices to the animal characters in the film are Tom Holland,Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes, Marion Cotillard, Selena Gomez and John Cena. The first episode of the latest series filmed in Thailand aired on Sunday night. And TOWIE's Clelia Theodorou appears to be reminiscing about being under the Asian sun again, as she shared a stunning throwback photo from her time in Koh Samui on Monday. The 23 year-old looked every inch the reality TV star as she gracefully posed in a khaki halter neck crochet bikini top and matching bottoms in her latest Instagram offering. Holiday blues: Clelia Theodorou appears to be reminiscing about being under the Asian sun again as she shared a stunning throwback photo from her time in Koh Samui on Monday Flaunting her gym honed physique, the brunette's toned midriff took centre stage in her skimpy two-piece. Rocking the holiday vibes, the model let her hair blow freely in the breeze as it was styled in loose waves that cascaded down her shoulders. Working the camera, the blue-eyed beauty smoldered as she pouted her plump lips in the stunning capture. Clelia recently opened up to MailOnline about the struggles of being in the public eye. Tough: Clelia - who filmed the opening episode of TOWIE in Thailand earlier this month - recently opened up to MailOnline about the struggles of being in the public eye She revealed she was even going to be changing her hairstyle due to the negative reaction her new cut had been met with on Instagram. Everyone hates my fringe. Im growing it out, she confessed. I thought Id do something really different with my hair, but everyone on my Instagram hated it.' There will be those who claim they can simply ignore the comments, or not read them, but Clelia explained its not always that simple. She said: Ive had it really bad where this person kept making more and more accounts, messaging me constantly. I was blocking them, but how can I get away? Sunday's night episode of TOWIE set off the new series with an explosive start when Clelia's best friend Shelby Tribble threw a drink over flirt Sam Mucklow. The spat comes as it was reported that Shelby and Sam who is the younger brother of former cast member Billi Mucklow had enjoyed a night of passion in Thailand, and the brunette admitted he had snogged her 'so passionately' that he 'ripped off her lip'. It seems there was trouble in paradise since the Miss England finalist has now revealed their friendship has been left in tatters by the hook up. Discussing how things had changed in an exclusive chat with Mailonline, she said: Its very awkward. Its just sad because I counted him as one of my very close friends. I feel a bit disrespected and disappointed in him as a friend. Forget the romantic side of it or whatever that was, I never saw it as that. Explosive: Sunday's night episode of TOWIE set off the new series with an explosive start when Clelia's best friend Shelby Tribble threw a drink over flirt Sam Mucklow Obviously I fancy him, of course I do, I was always scared that we would ruin the friendship. Things have happened and I just felt very disrespected by him. It isnt nice, you wouldnt expect that from a friend. Were not speaking at the minute. Shelby admitted his reluctance to make amends had hurt her due to the years of friendship they have shared. Shock: Sam was seen in the episode looking shocked when he was showered with Shelby's beverage Its so weird because, especially me and Clelia [Theodorou], we spent so much time outside of filming as friends. Weve had so many good times, Ive been to his sisters wedding, she said. Weve done so many fun things together. Its just sad. Hes always the one to give good advice and support, hes gone and ruined that. I dont think we can get back to the place we were before. I dont really trust him anymore, you should be able to trust your friends. They have been together for more than twenty-five years. And Pierce Brosnan and his wife Keely Shaye Smith looked every inch the happy couple as they went for a romantic bike ride around Malibu, California on Monday. The Irish actor, 65, was dressed casually for the day out, donning a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up, dark trousers and a pair of shades. Out and about: Pierce Brosnan and his wife Keely Shaye Smith looked every inch the happy couple as they went for a romantic bike ride around Malibu, California on Monday His other half Keely, 55, sported a pink mini-dress with a printed, multi-coloured pattern and box fresh white trainers. The couple first met in 1994 in Mexico and married in 2001 at Ballintubber Abbey in County Mayo, Ireland. Known for playing James Bond, Pierce starred in films GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Style: The Irish actor, 65, was dressed casually for the day out, donning a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up, dark trousers and a pair of shades With Daniel Craig set to commence filming on the as-yet unnamed Bond 25 film, Pierce recently spoke about the latest generation of the franchise. The actor said Daniel's brooding portrayal had to be more serious because the franchise was forced to reinvent the character as 'more muscular' and solemn. However, in the process, Pierce claimed the series has lost its sense of humour while he spoke about the developments of the franchise over the years. Relationship: The couple first met in 1994 in Mexico and married in 2001 at Ballintubber Abbey in County Mayo, Ireland (pictured in July 2018) He told The Rake magazine: 'There had to be humour, I felt. It is different now. They had strong competition and they haven't reinvented it but given it a much more muscular, dynamic twist. 'When I played him you have to let the audience in that this is a fantastic joke this man, jumping off a motorcycle and catching up a plane, is completely preposterous. But for me you had to let them in. 'That's what I was brought up with. Sean (Connery) did it, Roger (Moore) did it par excellence.' Nicollette Sheridan has spoken out for the first time about her Desperate Housewives co-star Felicity Huffman's part in the college admissions scandal. The 55-year-old actress appeared on Access Live on Monday morning where she said she didn't want to rush to judgment too soon, but did admit she's 'extremely disturbed.' 'I mean We dont know the facts,' Sheridan began. 'But we can be extremely disturbed by the entitlement, the power and money that can take away from less privileged. And that to me is disgraceful.' Disgraceful: Nicollette Sheridan is 'extremely disturbed' by her Desperate Housewives co-star Felicity Huffman's involvement in the college admissions scandal 'Sowell see where it really stands,' she continued. 'I think there are ways to remedy a system that isnt working and I think has been broken for a long time.' 'So, I dont want to get into how to fix itits troublesome,' Sheridan added. 'It can change the life path of a child who is deserving.' When asked if any of the other Desperate Housewives cast members were talking about the scandal, Sheridan added, 'I think everybody should be talking about it. Its a huge problem.' Huge problem: When asked if any of the other Desperate Housewives cast members were talking about the scandal, Sheridan added, 'I think everybody should be talking about it. Its a huge problem' Huffman was one of 50 people arrested last week for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. She was released on $250,000 bail, with federal agents seizing her passport, and she is scheduled to appear in a Boston court on March 29. Law enforcement officials allege that her $15,000 payment to Key Worldwide Foundation was not a charitable donation as she claimed, but instead to a woman who pretended to be Huffman's daughter to take the ACT test for her. Back on TV: Sheridan played Edie Britt on ABC's Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2009, making her return to the small screen last year on The CW's Dynasty Sheridan played Edie Britt on ABC's Desperate Housewives from 2004 to 2009, making her return to the small screen last year on The CW's Dynasty. The actress said that Mark Pedowitz, who was the former head of ABC Studios and Touchstone when Desperate Housewives was on the air, and is now The CW president, helped get her back on the air. 'Mark Pedowitz, who was over on the Desperate Housewives team, became the president of The CW, and when they put Dynasty back on the air, he came to me and ask if I would play Alexis,' Sheridan said. Alexis: The actress said that Mark Pedowitz, who was the former head of ABC Studios and Touchstone when Desperate Housewives was on the air, and is now The CW president, helped get her back on the air 'It was sort of nice coming full circle, from Desperate to Dynasty and working with Mr. Pedowitz again,' Sheridan said. It was reported in February by TV Line that Sheridan is leaving Dynasty to spend more time with her terminally ill mother. 'She's my hero,' Sheridan said on Access Live, when asked how she was holding up. 'It's a struggle, and I think anybody who has a parent or a love one who is going through this, finds a new consciousness and appreciation.' 'I feel blessed that I am able to be here in Los Angeles with her and be by her side at this part of her journey,' she said, adding that her mother has Stage 4 cancer. Emmerdale finally confirmed the news that avid soap fans have been waiting for - Joe Tate is still alive. The character, played by Ned Porteous, was presumed dead last autumn after being attacked by Cain Dingle in a fit of rage. However, in a shock twist during Monday's episode, Kim Tate revealed the startling truth after she hired a private investigator to find out about missing money from her offshore account. He's alive! Emmerdale finally confirmed the news in Monday's episode that avid soap fans have been waiting for - Joe Tate is still alive After suspecting her employee Graham Foster was hiding something, she later confronted him with CCTV pictures of Joe withdrawing money from her account from Monte Carlo. And it was little surprise that she was livid with Graham, seeing as she had ordered him to murder Joe months before. The news was met with a mixed reaction from viewers, with many elated to hear the character was alive and well. Taking to Twitter, many shared their thoughts on the news, with one writing: 'Joe Tate still being alive is probably one of the most exciting things going on in my life right now #Emmerdale.' Spotted: However, in a shock twist, Kim Tate revealed the startling truth after she hired a private investigator to find out about missing money from her offshore account Proof: After suspecting Graham Foster was hiding something, she later confronted him with CCTV pictures of Joe withdrawing money from her account from Monte Carlo Elated: Emmerdale fans were overjoyed to learn that Joe was alive and well, after being presumed dead for five months While another tweeted: 'Yes!!! Joe is not dead!! #Emmerdale @NedPorteous Ive missed you!', with a third adding: 'Joe Tate is 100% alive still and I am VERY excited about this #emmerdale.' However, it was recently revealed that actor Ned will not be permanently reprising his role as Joe, with the star instead pursuing a Hollywood career. A source told The Sun Online: 'Ned just filmed a few scenes, its not like hell be back in the soap full-time. 'Joe wont be returning to the village. Ned is still determined to crack the US and has been auditioning for roles in Hollywood.' Attack: The character, played by Ned Porteous, was presumed dead last autumn after being attacked by Cain Dingle in a fit of rage Baffled: With Ned not reprising his role as Joe, some viewers questioned why the soap decided to declare the character still alive, seeing as he won't be returning to the village anytime soon With this in mind, some viewers questioned why the soap decided to declare the character still alive, seeing as he won't be returning to the village anytime soon. One fan questioned: 'Im happy joe is alive but if his not returning any time soon whats the point in this. #emmerdale.' 'Seems like people are excited about Joe being alive...but only because they think he's returning. If there are no plans to bring him back then: WHAT IS THE POINT?! #Emmerdale,' said another watcher. With another declaring: 'Joe Tate fans are just going to get their hopes up about his permanent return now - seems a bit unfair of them to tease it if he's not going to #Emmerdale.' Gone for good? It was recently revealed that actor Ned will not be permanently reprising his role as Joe, with the star instead pursuing a Hollywood career Whether or not Joe makes a return to the village, one thing's for sure, there's set to be fireworks when Cain finds out. The mechanic has been living with the guilt of thinking he's killed an innocent man, with his daughter Debbie hating him for bumping off her fiance. So just what will Cain do to Graham when he inevitably learns the truth? Emmerdale continues weekdays at 7pm on ITV. Netflix has released the first trailer for its new zombie apocalypse series Black Summer, a prequel to the Syfy series Z Nation. The original show Z Nation ran for five seasons on Syfy before it was canceled last December. While the original show began three years after the zombie outbreak that decimated the nation, Black Summer is set in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. New trailer: Netflix has released the first trailer for its new zombie apocalypse series Black Summer, a prequel to the Syfy series Z Nation The trailer begins with the continuous honking of a horn, caused by a man collapsed on a steering wheel. He is woken up by a younger Asian man as they quickly go on the run and take shelter in a diner, closing the door just before zombies catch up to them. They gather whatever weapons they can find, including a butterknife and a meat tenderizer as more zombies gather outside. On the run: He is woken up by a younger Asian man as they quickly go on the run and take shelter in a diner, closing the door just before zombies catch up to them The trailer then cuts to a scene with the lead character, Rose (Jaime King), seen running with, presumably, her family. It is revealed that they are running towards a military convoy, when the military turns on them, taking Rose's young daughter. Rose is seen frantically chasing after them, yelling at her daughter, 'I promise I will be there! You wait for us!' Fleeing: The trailer then cuts to a scene with the lead character, Rose (Jaime King), seen running with, presumably, her family Daughter: Rose is also seen hugging another character, telling him, 'My daughter. I need to go to the stadium' Rose is also seen hugging another character, Spears (Justin Chu Cary), telling him, 'My daughter. I need to go to the stadium.' She's also seen carrying a weapon and traveling by foot with a group of survivors, with another character heard saying, 'To get out of here, we've gotta make our decisions.' There are also brief shots of Spears holding her back, another of a man falling off a roof and another where a young character tries to reason with an armed group. Quick shots: There are also brief shots of the character Rose was hugging holding her back, another of a man falling off a roof and another where a young character tries to reason with an armed group Safety in numbers: She's also seen carrying a weapon and traveling by foot with a group of survivors, with another character heard saying, 'To get out of here, we've gotta make our decisions' The trailer ends with a number of action-packed shots, and a shot where Rose asks Spears, 'Is there anywhere that's safe?' While Spears doesn't answer, another young character is seen hiding in an air vent, when he sees a terrifying zombie crawling after him as the trailer ends. The eight-episode first season of Black Summer debuts Thursday, April 11 on the Netflix streaming service. Safe: The trailer ends with a number of action-packed shots, and a shot where Rose asks Spears, 'Is there anywhere that's safe?' Married At First Sight's Tamara Joy recently said that Jessika Power's relationship with her husband Dan Webb 'won't last'. But the 27-year-old 'cheating bride' is determined to prove her arch nemesis wrong. After Dan, 35, shared a heartwarming post about Jessika to Instagram on Monday, the blonde responded with a sweet message of her own. Scroll down for video 'I'm blessed to have you, sweetheart': MAFS' Jessika Power (left) appears to have taken a swipe at Tamara Joy for saying her romance with Dan Webb (right) 'won't last' 'I didn't choose you. I took one look at you, and then there was just no turning back,' Dan captioned a photo of him and Jessika from their date on Monday's episode. Seemingly taking a swipe at Tamara over her recent comments, Jessika replied: 'Blessed to have you, sweetheart xx'. It comes after Tamara told TV Week that Jessika and Dan 'won't last' after they hooked up behind their partners' backs on MAFS. She's smitten! Seemingly taking a swipe at Tamara over her recent comments, Jessika wrote on Instagram on Monday: 'Blessed to have you, sweetheart xx'. Having her say: It comes after Tamara (pictured) told TV Week that Jessika and Dan 'won't last' after they hooked up behind their partners' backs on MAFS 'It won't last, mark my words,' she said, adding that their behaviour was 'disgusting, disrespectful' and made her 'sick to the stomach'. 'Its really hard to watch it all unfold. Their behaviour speaks for itself and they should be really embarrassed,' Tamara continued. 'Dan would tell me how beautiful I was, but behind my back he said he wasn't able to talk to me. It was a complete and utter lie.' Case of the ex: Dan is cheating on Tamara with Jessika on Married At First Sight. Pictured: Dan and Tamara on their wedding day It comes after Jessika and Dan were pictured together at a Brisbane bar on Saturday night, seemingly confirming they are still together months after filming the show. Meanwhile, Tamara is rumoured to now be dating Jessika's on-screen husband Mick Gould, after they were spotted cuddling up in Melbourne over the weekend. Married At First Sight continues Tuesday at 7:30pm on Channel Nine She's often the ambassador of a sunny disposition on her Instagram account. But Emily Ratajkowski looked a bit forlorn as she was spotted out and about in New York City on Monday. The 27-year-old supermodel/actress kept her head down as she bundled up in a fuzzy jacket and maroon leggings. Why the long face? Emily Ratajkowski, 27, looked a bit forlorn as she was spotted out and about in New York City on Monday Meanwhile, Emily has been heavily promoting her new swimwear line Inamorata. The word 'inamorata' is borrowed from Italian language and means 'a woman someone is in love with.' In late 2017, Harper's Bazaar UK published a story about Ratajkowski's impending release of her own swimwear brand after Emrata Holdings LLC acquired the trademark to Inamorata in 2017. The website for the bathing suit line, inamorataswim.com, went live on November 16, 2017 with three bikini separates and three one-pieces. Bundled up: The supermodel/actress kept her head down as she bundled up in a fuzzy jacket and maroon leggings This week Emily was attacked on Instagram for what some considered an unfair comparison to her fuller-figured friend. In the comments section, the Gone Girl actress reportedly countered: 'All these haters are crazy. Just because youre used to seeing one body type on the internet doesnt mean that thats the only kind that should be considered "beautiful." Why would she subject her friend to this humiliation and online bullying by posting this?' one user asked of the model in the photo's comments section. Another person wrote, 'You specifically posted a photo so that it was clear your body is better than the body of your friend.' Sun's out buns out: Emily has been copping grief ever since posting this picture on Monday, with the model attacked on Instagram for what some considered an unfair comparison to her fuller-figured friend Yet another added: 'Being fat is not beautiful nor healthy: let's not be hypocrite please.' Referring to her friend Caitlin King, with whom she appeared in the picture, Ratajkowski wrote, 'I love my girl's body and her and I both think she looks great here and that this is a very cute pic of us getting severe sunburns.' Next up, the London-born star will appear in the TV movie, Bright Futures, alongside Lisa Kudrow. She'll also star in the crime drama, Lying and Stealing, with Theo James. Natasha Richardson passed away 10 years ago today, with one of her co-stars fondly remembering the actress. Dennis Quaid, who played Richardson's on-screen husband in the 1998 classic The Parent Trap, spoke to Fox News about working with her. 'She was such a beautiful person, such a beautiful, beautiful person,' the 64 year old actor began. 'Just none of that actor stuff, prima donna stuff.' Dennis and Natasha: Dennis Quaid fondly remembers his co-star of The Parent Trap, Natasha Richardson, 10 years after she tragically passed away Fond memories: Dennis Quaid, who played Richardson's on-screen husband in the 1998 classic The Parent Trap, spoke to Fox News about working with her 'Someone easy to work with and such a great sense of humor,' Quaid added. 'When they see The Parent Trap she's a beautiful person, and it comes through in that story,' he said. 'Remember her as, she was a great mom to her two kids, and a beautiful person to her friends and her husband,' Quaid said. Premiere time: 'When they see The Parent Trap she's a beautiful person, and it comes through in that story,' the actor added Richardson, who had been married to Liam Neeson since 1994, suffered a head injury after falling during a beginners ski lesson at Mont Tremblant Resort in Canada. While she appeared to be fine after the accident, she did complain of a headache. She was later rushed to a hospital in New York City, where she passed away at the age of 45 from an epidural hematoma. Husband and wife: Richardson, who had been married to Liam Neeson since 1994, suffered a head injury after falling during a beginners ski lesson at Mont Tremblant Resort in Canada 'When that accident happened, it just devastated me and so many other people,' Quaid previously told US Weekly in 2018. 'She had such a beautiful love, married life with Liam, and two beautiful boys,' he added about her family. 'She always had a smile on her face when she came to work. That really affected everyone around her,' Quaid said. Tragic accident: Natasha with Quaid and Lindsay Lohan, who played their onscreen daughter Richardson and Neeson had two sons, Michael, now 23, and Daniel, now 22, the eldest of which paid tribute to his late mother last year. Michael started going by Michael Richardson, instead of Michael Neeson, to honor his late mother, who passed away when he was just 13. 'Hes taken, officially, the name of his mother. Hes Michael Richardson, not Michael Neeson,' revealed his grandmother, actress Vanessa Redgrave. New Zealand's cabinet will meet for the first time since the twin Christchurch terrorist attacks to begin work on changing the country's gun laws. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Saturday declared that she would push ahead with tightening the laws around gun control in the country where there are an estimated 1.5 million firearms, about one gun for every three people. It's alleged that the mosque accused - Australian white supremicist Brenton Tarrant - had a firearms licence and was in possession of five guns. Changes to the laws have previously been rejected, but Ms Ardern is determined to make it happen. "We cannot be deterred from the work we need to do on our gun laws in New Zealand," she said on Sunday. "They need to change, regardless of what activity may or may not have happened with gun retailers." Cabinet will also receive briefings on Monday from security agencies on the Christchurch massacre and national security. Tarrant was not on any watch list in New Zealand, where he lived in Dunedin, or Australia. Members of parliament will pay tribute in the house on Tuesday. "Once appropriate statements have been given we will adjourn for the day." Ms Ardern said options and timing for national commemorative services were being considered. Condolence books will be open at parliament on Monday as well is at the national library. Victorian Muslims will hold a vigil in Melbourne to remember the victims of terrorist attacks at two mosques in New Zealand. The Islamic Council of Victoria will host the vigil in honour of the victims and their families at the Victorian state library from 6.30pm on Monday. "We are shocked and greatly saddened by the murderous attack on Muslim worshippers in New Zealand," ICV spokesperson Adel Salman said. "It is clear is that this cowardly massacre was motivated by hatred for Muslims, by an extremist Islamophobic ideology. This attack was meant to create fear and panic and to send a message that Muslims are not welcome. This is terrorism." Despite the outpour of political condemnation in Australia and in New Zealand, Mr Salman said "it is time for real political leadership" as words weren't enough. It comes after Premier Daniel Andrews attended a mosque during a pre-scheduled statewide open day and said Victorians would not be cowed by an "evil" act of violence. "On Friday we saw terrible acts of terrorism, of hate, of evil," he said on Sunday. "The crowd assembled ... and in so many places across our city and state says to me that hope and harmony is always more powerful than hate and division." The NSW coalition has increased its criticism of Labor's preference deal with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers following the deadly Christchurch terror attacks. Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Sunday called for Opposition Leader Michael Daley to cut ties with the Shooters, a party she said wanted to put guns in the hands of 10-year-olds. "It concerns me because it legitimises a party, being the Shooters, who support the reduction or dilution of our gun laws," Ms Berejiklian told reporters. Mr Daley was forced to rule out weakening NSW gun laws if he were to become premier while on the hustings in western Sydney, where Labor announced $100 million for six ice rehabilitation clinics across the state. "I will not be a part of parliament that weakens the gun laws in NSW. It will not happen if I am premier," Mr Daley told reporters. "There's a big leap between what's on a how-to-vote card and legislation." Former Australian prime minister John Howard criticised the preference decision in an advertisement published on the NSW Liberals Facebook page on Sunday night. The Shooters have argued for a repeal of the 1996 National Gun Control Agreement and, if Labor were to win the state election it would put "enormous pressure" on the party water down the laws, Mr Howard said. "And that would be at a great cost to community safety. What that preference deal demonstrates, is that Labor will do anything to buy a vote, and it's a reason not to reward that kind of attitude," he said. Both Mr Daley and Ms Berejiklian attended an interfaith service at Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral on Sunday afternoon, paying tribute to the victims of Friday's terror attack in Christchurch. NSW heads to a state election on Saturday, with polls suggesting the two major parties are deadlocked at 50-50. Many across Christchurch are set to return to schools and jobs as the city's Muslim community prepares to bury those killed in a terror attack on mosques. Police say heavily armed officers and helicopters that have patrolled the city for days will remain deployed as residents return for their first work day after a massacre at two mosques left 50 dead and another 50 hurt. "The public wants to go back to school, work, their recreational activities," Police Commissioner Mike Bush said. "It's the role of New Zealand police to enable people to do that." Meanwhile, with authorities planning to begin releasing bodies back to their families who were on Sunday night being called in to see the dead, burials are expected to begin shortly. Bush told media that police were highly aware of concerns among some in the Muslim community that the time taken to examine the bodies has prevented the swift burials called for under Islamic tradition. "So we are doing that as quickly and as sensitively as possible," he said. Javed Dadabhai, whose cousin was killed in the attack and travelled from Auckland to help organise the funerals, said the need for a thorough investigation was clear. "Those family members who require the grieving, their grieving process isn't beginning," he said. "But we need to give [authorities] all the time they need for investigations ... We wouldn't want to think that because of some pressure or haste from our community that we're going to put the police in a situation they'll regret later." In New Zealand's capital, politicians will be turning their attention to both condolence and analysis. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has declared she will push ahead with tightening the laws around gun control in the country where there are an estimated 1.5 million firearms, about one gun for every three people, and discuss the matter with her cabinet. She'll also be asking questions about why Australian-born white supremacist Brenton Tarrant - currently charged as the sole perpetrator behind the twin attacks - was not on security watchlists in either her country or Australia. Authorities have confirmed the 28-year-old, who is from Grafton in NSW and had been living in Dunedin, is so far the only person charged over the attack, others arrested now thought to be not involved. "He will certainly face the justice system of New Zealand for the terrorist attack that he has committed here," Ardern told reporters. His family on Sunday apologised. "It's just so much of everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this," Tarrant's 81-year-old grandmother, Marie Fitzgerald, said, adding that he was "obviously not of sound mind". New stories of heroism have emerged after the attack. Abdul Aziz, 48, has been applauded after he scared the shooter away from the Linwood mosque to protect dozens inside, including his four sons. An outpouring of grief across the nation continued on Sunday as an estimated 11,000 people turned out for a vigil in Wellington, while Ardern attended a wreath-laying at a mosque in the capital. Flowers continued to pile up around mosques, which remain heavily guarded. In Christchurch, hundreds in the afternoon continued to flow past memorials, leaving flowers, praying and crying. At a centre near Hagley Park, just minutes from where gunfire first broke out, members of the Muslim community gathered again on Sunday, describing their lost friends and family, while others sought information about those still missing. The Greens will consider pushing for law changes to expel independent senator Fraser Anning who has been branded a disgrace for blaming the Islamic community for the Christchurch mosque massacre. The federal government and Labor will move a censure motion condemning the Queensland senator's comments when parliament resumes next month, but Greens leader Richard Di Natale wants the parliament to do more. "We are exploring all options, including amending section 8 of the Privileges Act to allow members of parliament to be expelled by their fellow MPs," Senator Di Natale told The Australian on Monday. Senator Anning will hold a press conference in Brisbane on Monday. Counter-terrorism expert and Labor MP Anne Aly has called for a substantial change in the way far-right extremists are targeted by authorities after the devastating Christchurch mosque massacre. An Australian man, Brenton Tarrant from Grafton in NSW, has been charged with murder over the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 50 people. The 28-year-old posted a 74-page "manifesto" online before the attack, and a 17-minute live streamed video was uploaded of him arming himself and entering the mosque where he started shooting. Dr Aly said while more could be done to target threats online, she was aware companies were acting to stamp out extremist activity. "What we don't want is a situation where we're playing a game of whack-a-mole where we take down one and 10 more show up in its place," she told ABC radio on Monday. "What we want is some kind of substantial change." "It's one thing to have the powers, it's another thing to direct them towards white supremacist movements and to recognise the seriousness of that threat." Prime Minister Scott Morrison has taken aim at social media companies for not doing enough to ensure Friday's live stream the attack, which was originally uploaded to Facebook, was not republished. "We will be seeking to get assurances from the social media companies about their capabilities to ensure that this tool cannot be used by terrorists," he said. Former crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm, who is running for a seat in the NSW upper house, believes authorities should be using increased powers to stop terrorism. "The responsibility is on them to use those powers to make sure that they identify the individuals who are in danger of doing these sorts of atrocities," he told the ABC. ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin are expected to address a special meeting of federal cabinet's national security committee on Monday. Counter-terrorism police have raided two homes on the NSW mid-north coast as part of investigations into the Christchurch terrorist attack. Officers from the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team searched a property in Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, about 8.30am on Monday, before storming a second house at Lawrence, near Maclean. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation," the Australian Federal Police and NSW Police said in a joint statement. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) The government warned Monday that officials and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) may face deportation if they visit the country to conduct a probe into President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo, in his press briefing Monday, said ICC prosecutors and officials can visit the Philippines as tourists and "guests." However, if they are found making moves to start a probe into the administration's controversial drug war, the officials may face deportation. "Just smile at them and tell them nicely, 'you can't do it here.' But if you persist, you will be deported," Panelo said when asked if the ICC will insist on pursuing an investigation. "They can come here as guests, visitors. Pero (But) any move that will be deemed as a violation of our laws, may problema sila doon (they'll have a problem with that)," the spokesman added. The country's withdrawal from the ICC became official on Sunday, though Malacanang insists that the Philippines was never under the ICC's jurisdiction to begin with. While the Philippines ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC, the administration said the government never published that in a newspaper or the official gazette, as required by law. President Rodrigo Duterte in March 2018 announced the country's pullout from the ICC -following supposed attacks against him and his administration as well as the international court's attempt to put him under jurisdiction. The case was filed by lawyer Jude Sabio, who also represents self-confessed 'Davao Death Squad' hitmen Edgar Matobato and Arturo Lascanas. Matobato and Lascanas had previously admitted to killing people in Davao City under Duterte's orders, when he was still city mayor. Sabio in 2017 submitted to the ICC a 77-page document on the killings, formally called by the tribunal as a "communication." The lawyer likewise earlier said the ICC may launch an investigation into the government's drug war before the withdrawal. Duterte had slammed what he said were efforts to use the ICC as a "as a political tool against the Philippines"-- a sentiment echoed by Panelo himself. "The ICC has become a political tool of using its power to politically persecute heads of state, thereby intruding into the sovereignty of this country," Panelo told reporters. "Certainly, we will not allow any attempt at interfering with the sovereignty of this country. That includes everything that will stop them from committing any acts that will (violate) our laws." The ICC, an intergovernmental organization that investigates cases of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression, was established by the Rome Statute, which was enforced in 2002. Panelo earlier said the government will not assist the ICC in any probe as it has no jurisdiction over the country. He told the briefing Monday that prosecutor Fatou Bensouda -- who last year launched a preliminary examination into the government's drug war -- can come freely to the country without fear of being stopped-- or slapped, as Duterte had previously threatened to do so. "Si Presidente talaga mahilig talaga mag-hyperbole. Walang sampalang mangyayari," the spokesman said. [Translation: The President is fond of making hyperbole. There will be no slapping.] "I don't think that lady will be coming here," Panelo, however, noted. Bensouda, in a statement last year, said a preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process of examining information available to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation. She said as prosecutor, she must consider issues of jurisdiction, admissibility and the interests of justice to make that determination. CNN Philippines' Ina Andolong and Alyssa Rola contributed to this report. A national report on youth homelessness shows Australia's governments are still failing young people living on the street. The National Report Card on Youth Homelessness, to be delivered at the National Youth Homelessness Conference in Melbourne on Monday, says the crisis-focused systems aren't working, with government action over the past 10 years earning "a C-minus at best if it was a student's report card". Organisers say little progress has been made despite two landmark studies in 1989 and 2008, and the first national homelessness conference focusing solely on youth in 20 years aims to develop a reform agenda to address the issue. KEY INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHRISTCHURCH TERROR ATTACK * A massacre at two mosques on Friday has left 50 dead and another 50 hurt. * Authorities expect to be able to release all the bodies to their families by Wednesday. * Immigration New Zealand will fast-track visa applications for the families of people killed or injured. * Australian man Brenton Tarrant has so far been charged with one count of murder over the attack. * The 28-year-old was not on any security watchlist in Australia or New Zealand. * Tarrant travelled extensively overseas since 2010 and only spent 45 days in Australia in the past three years. * He published a manifesto online ahead of the massacre, which he also to emailed to 30 people including NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. * Ardern has vowed to strengthen the country's gun laws and is meeting with her cabinet on Monday. * Counter-terrorism police have raided two homes on the NSW mid-north coast, including one that's believed to belong to the sister of the suspected gunman. * Pressure is on social media companies to stop their platforms being used to spread terrorist material after the gunman live-streamed the attack on Facebook. * Labor MP Anne Aly has called for a substantial change in the way far-right extremists are targeted by authorities. * Australia's national security committee of cabinet will receive an urgent briefing from ASIO and police on the risk posed by right-wing extremists. * Queensland independent senator Fraser Anning has been branded a disgrace for blaming the massacre on Muslim immigration. * The government and Labor will move a censure motion condemning Anning when parliament returns next month. * A-list celebrities including Madonna and Ben Stiller have donated thousands to a fundraiser for the victims' families and communities. Federal Senator Fraser Anning has labelled Prime Minister Scott Morrison a hypocrite, and says he wants citizens to have a say on migration. HIS RESPONSE TO BEING HIT WITH AN EGG -- The senator says he was acting in self defence when he struck a boy who cracked him on the back of the head with an egg. -- "He got a slap across the face, which is what his mother should have given him long ago, because he's been misbehaving badly." -- "When somebody cracks you in the back of your head, you react and defend yourself." -- "That for years is what Australians have been doing, luckily they did that in the trenches otherwise we'd be all speaking German now probably." THE CHRISTCHURCH TERROR ATTACK -- "There's no place for that sort of violence in any civilised society. Unfortunately that sort of violence is already here; usually its being perpetrated by the Muslims attacking the infidels, or Christians. -- "I totally condemned it, and I will continue." -- "There's not place for that sort of violence in any civilised society." -- "I don't think they deserve to be shot." REFORMS TO MIGRATION IN AUSTRALIA -- Senator Anning has again called for reforms that would allow citizens to determine who can migrate to Australia and how many people should be allowed to stay. ON ATTENDING A GUN SHOW IN IPSWICH ON SUNDAY -- The Queensland senator went to a gun show on Sunday, two days after 50 people were killed and dozens injured when a man opened fire on two mosques. -- "I'm a shooter. I'd already accepted an invitation to go to that. People can be inflamed if they like, its entirely up to them. I don't usually back away from the things I like to do." BEING CENSURED IN PARLIAMENT -- Labor and the Coalition have agreed to censure Senator Anning when parliament resumes. -- "I hope it's not too painful. What's Mr Morrison going to give me a flogging with his lace hanky or something like that, is it?" -- Senator Anning claims Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government is "funding those terrorist countries", in reference to Palestine and Pakistan. -- "Mr Morrison himself is a bit hypocritical." An international traveller will be extradited from Melbourne to South Australia, accused of swindling an elderly woman for more than $100,000 in unnecessary home repairs. SA fraud detectives travelled to Melbourne on Monday to extradite the 61-year-old man, who was arrested on Sunday by Victoria Police. Police will allege the man carried out unnecessary repairs on an elderly woman's house, for which she paid over $100,000, during August and September last year. The man is expected to appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court on Tuesday, charged with deception. His arrest follows an investigation by police and consumer affairs into a group of international itinerants who have been traversing Australia, targeting the elderly and vulnerable into paying for non-existent home repairs or doing substandard work without valid work visas or building qualifications. People in Christchurch lay flowers in tribute to those killed in Friday's attack New Zealanders flocked to pay tribute Sunday to the 50 worshippers slain in two mosque attacks, as families clamoured for the return of their dead. Coroners said they hoped to let grieving relatives fulfil Islamic burial customs soon, but insisted they had to move carefully through their investigation into the horrific multiple murder. As New Zealand grappled to come to terms with the slaughter -- the worst attack on Muslims in a Western country -- tales of heroism, suffering and incredible grace began to emerge. Residents pay their respects by placing flowers for the victims of the mosques attacks in Christchurch at the Masjid Umar mosque in Auckland on March 17, 2019 Farid Ahmad, whose 44-year-old wife Husna was killed as she rushed back into a mosque to rescue him, refused to harbour hatred toward the alleged gunman, Australian-born, self-avowed white nationalist, Brenton Tarrant. "I would say to him 'I love him as a person'," Ahmad, who uses a wheelchair, told AFP. Asked if he forgave the 28-year-old suspect, he said: "Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity." Husna Ahmad was among four women believed to have been killed by Tarrant, who documented his radicalisation and two years of preparations in a lengthy, meandering and conspiracy-filled far-right "manifesto". Police forensic officers are carrying out painstaking work at the Dean Avenue mosque Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her office and some 30 other officials had received the document by email about nine minutes before the attack. "It did not include a location, it did not include specific details," she said, adding that it was sent to security services within two minutes of receipt. Earlier Sunday the prime minister, wearing a black headscarf, appeared visibly moved as she greeted and hugged members of the Muslim community in Wellington, and laid a floral tribute to the victims of Friday's atrocity. Around Christchurch, New Zealand and the world there have been vigils, prayers, memorials and messages of solidarity. "We stand together with our Muslim brothers & sisters" were the words on a large red banner, above a sea of flowers at one of the sites in what one resident dubbed the "city of sorrow". An emotion-filled haka -- the Maori war dance -- was performed by a New Zealand biker gang to honour the Christchurch dead. The country remained on high alert Sunday, with police closing an airport in the southern city of Dunedin -- where Tarrant had lived -- after an unidentified package was spotted on the airfield. - Generations - There has been an outpouring of grief in the wake of the attack The dead from Friday's attack span generations, aged between three and 77, according to a sombre list circulated among relatives. Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt or Fiji. At least two of the dead came from the same family -- a father and son. Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed in the attack, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead. "It's a massacre, what else do they need to know?," said school principal Sheikh Amjad Ali, expressing frustration over the wait for loved ones' remains. Islamic custom dictates that the dead should be buried within 24 hours, but strained authorities, desperate to make sure no mistakes are made or the complex investigation harmed, said a quick process was difficult. Gestures of sympathy have been made all around the world since Friday's horrifying attack "All of the deceased have had a CT scan, their fingerprints are taken, the property they were wearing or had with them is removed," said Chief Coroner Deborah Marshall, adding that dental impressions were taken and post-mortems performed. Ardern said she expected all the dead would have been returned to their families by Wednesday. - Four-year-old - Authorities said 34 people remained in hospital. Among those fighting for their lives is four-year-old Alin Alsati. The pre-schooler was praying alongside her father Wasseim at the Al Noor mosque when she was shot at least three times. Afghan refugee and local resident Abdul Aziz chased the gunman with the only weapon he could find -- ahand-held credit card machine Her father, who was also shot, recently emigrated to New Zealand from Jordan. "Please pray for me and my daughter," he pleaded in a Facebook video message from his hospital bed before undergoing surgery. The number of dead and injured could have been higher, were it not for people like Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz. Aziz was at the Linwood mosque with his four sons when he rushed the attacker armed with the only weapon he could find -- a hand-held credit card machine. There is a heavy security presence all over Christchurch When Aziz heard one of his four sons cry "Daddy, please come back inside!" he picked up an empty shotgun discarded by the gunman and shouted "come on here" repeatedly in an effort to draw him away from his sons and the other worshippers. "I just wanted to save as much lives as I could, even if I lose my life," he told AFP. - Gun policy on agenda - The mosque attacks have shaken this usually peaceful country, which prides itself on welcoming refugees fleeing violence or persecution. On Monday Ardern will gather her cabinet to discuss changing the country's gun laws. Kiwis say they will not be beaten by the horror that was visited on them by a lone gunman That could include a ban on semi-automatic weapons of the type used by Tarrant. A series of reform attempts in recent years have failed. Ardern also wants answers from social media giants over the livestreaming of the carnage. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack around the world in the first 24 hours. The video has been classed as "objectionable" under New Zealand law, meaning that anyone who shares it could face prosecution and jail. Meanwhile after days of lockdowns, security warnings and fear, police have urged Kiwis to go back to their normal business. When they return to work, school and hobbies on Monday however, they will find a high police presence, said commissioner Mike Bush. "This is for everyone's safety, to reassure the public." Critics say the drug war crackdown amounts to a war on the Philippines' poor The Philippines was officially out of the International Criminal Court on Sunday, though the beleaguered tribunal has pledged to pursue its examination of alleged illegal killings in the government's drug war. Under court rules, Manila's withdrawal took force a year after it told the United Nations that it was quitting the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, the second nation to do so. "The Secretary-General... informed all concerned states that the withdrawal will take effect for the Philippines on 17 March," UN spokesperson Eri Kaneko told AFP on Friday. The departure of the Philippines follows the court being hit in recent years by high-profile acquittals and moves by several nations to drop out. Manila moved to quit after the body launched a preliminary examination in 2018 into President Rodrigo Duterte's drug crackdown that has killed thousands and drawn international censure. However, the president's spokesman said Sunday the nation never legally joined the treaty that underpins the court, a reference to an argument that the Philippines did not complete all the steps to formalise its adoption. "Our position on the matter remains clear, unequivocal and inflexible: The Philippines never became a state party to the Rome Statute which created the ICC," spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement. "As far as we are concerned, this tribunal is non-existent and its actions a futile exercise," he added. Duterte's drug war is his signature policy initiative and he defends it fiercely, especially from international critics like Western leaders and institutions which he says do not care about his country. However, court officials have said the preliminary probe launched by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in February 2018 into possible crimes against humanity in the drug war would continue. Under the court's rules, any matter under consideration before a nation leaves the court is still under its jurisdiction. - String of setbacks - Duterte has made it clear his government will not cooperate with the ICC in any way. The court "can never acquire jurisdiction over my person, not in a million years," he said in a speech on Wednesday. Rights group Amnesty International said on Sunday the withdrawal should prompt the UN Human Rights Council to probe the killings. "Filipinos bravely challenging the 'war on drugs' or seeking justice for their loved ones need international support to help them end this climate of fear, violence and impunity," said Amnesty International regional director Nicholas Bequelin. The ICC examination, which is one step before a full-blown probe, zeroes in on allegations the government has been involved in illegal killings as part of the crackdown Duterte launched in mid-2016. Police say they have killed 5,176 users or pushers who resisted arrest, but rights groups say the actual number of dead is at least triple that number. Critics have alleged the crackdown amounts to a war on the poor that feeds an undercurrent of impunity and lawlessness in the nation of 106 million. The Philippines' move to exit follows a string of setbacks for the ICC, including the January acquittal of former Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo and the June 2018 not guilty verdict for former DR Congo vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba. Burundi in 2017 became the first ever nation to leave the court, which was founded in 2002. In a wave of unprecedented defections, other African nations -- Zambia, South Africa, Kenya and Gambia -- have also made moves to quit or expressed interest in withdrawing as they accused the court of being biased against Africans. However, the court this month got a boost when Malaysia officially joined, making it one of just a handful of Asian members. burs/jm/amz People queue up to cast their ballot during early voting in Bangkok on Sunday Hundreds of thousands of voters crowded into schools, parking lots and temples across Thailand on Sunday, eager to cast an early ballot a week before the country's first election in eight years. Advanced voting is usually a tepid affair, but on Sunday excitement was high as voters turned up in droves to polling stations. More than 2.3 million Thais are expected to vote before the official March 24 poll date. Since a 2014 coup ousted then-premier Yingluck Shinawatra, the junta has repeatedly postponed democratic elections -- much to the chagrin of the Thai public. "I finally have a chance to cast my vote as I've waited for so long," said 48-year-old Paka Kaengkhiew as she stood in line in front of Bangkok's Phra Khanong district office. In Dusit district -- home to military offices and government buildings -- voters piled into a school yard before a polling station there opened. People dressed in their work clothes -- military uniforms, hospital scrubs and more casual attire -- waited patiently to cast their ballot, aided by student helpers. A woman casts her ballot during early voting in Bangkok At 9.00 am Prem Tinsulanonda, the head of the Privy Council -- the advisory board to Thai King Maha Vajialongkon -- arrived at the school. Watched by Thai and international media, the 98-year-old carrying an oxygen tank was pushed in a wheelchair into a classroom boasting a portrait of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who he advised, before walking the final steps to a polling booth. The former general was briefly installed as the temporary regent for Thailand's revered monarchy following the death of the late king before King Vajiralongkorn took over, cementing Prem's role as one of the most powerful -- and enduring -- players in the Machiavellian game of Thai politics. More than 51 million Thais are eligible to vote in the official March 24 election, which will be held under a new military-scripted constitution. There are "high expectations" for this year's election, said Sudarat Keyuraphan, a prime ministerial candidate for Pheu Thai -- the party which garnered the most parliamentary seats in 2011's election, and is loathed by the military. "The (junta) says the country is under peace and order but... the people have no hope," she told reporters at the Pheu Thai headquarters. "We are confident... we will be the party that voters go for the most." Former Thai prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda arrives to cast his ballot during early voting in Bangkok Analysts say the new electoral system favours the army-aligned party fronted by junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who is running to be civilian prime minister after a government is formed. But voters on Sunday still held on to hopes for change. "I vote today in the hope for better change," said Mart Bupa, 53. A small aircraft was damaged at Jayapura airport in the flooding Flash floods in Indonesia's eastern Papua province have killed at least 58 people, an official said Sunday, as rescuers battled mud, rocks and fallen trees in the hunt for survivors. The death toll was expected to rise as emergency services struggled to reach people in hard-hit areas, with more than 70 people injured and 4,150 evacuated. The floods -- triggered by torrential rain and landslides on Saturday -- damaged numerous homes in the northeastern town of Sentani, said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. "The number of casualties and impact of the disaster will likely increase as search and rescue teams are still trying to reach other affected areas," he said. The waters had receded but officials were still trying to evacuate people from areas obstructed by "fallen trees, rocks, mud and other material", Nugroho added. In Doyo, one of the most affected areas, a housing complex was littered with huge rocks believed to have rolled down from a nearby mountain, an AFP reporter at the scene said. Sediment and waste swept by the floods piled up on the pavement. The non-stop wail of ambulance sirens could be heard, as heavy equipment was used to clear the roads. The government has announced a 14-day state of emergency, said Jayapura police chief Victor Dean Mackbon. Video footage showed rescuers administering oxygen to a victim who appeared to be trapped beneath a fallen tree. Officers rescued a five-month-old baby who was trapped for hours under the rubble, Papua military spokesman Muhammad Aidi said. The whereabouts of the parents are unknown. A propeller plane lay partly crushed on a runway at the airport of nearby provincial capital Jayapura. "The rain started last night and went on until around 1:00 am this morning," said Lilis Puji Hastuti, a 29-year-old mother of two young children in Sentani. "Our house was flooded with thick mud ... we immediately grabbed our valuables and ran to a neighbour's (two-storey) house to seek refuge. "It's hard to get out of the area because many roads are blocked... I'm worried, sad and scared all at once," she told AFP. Displaced residents gather at a temporary shelter in Sentani, near the Papuan provincial capital of Jayapura, as floodwaters triggered by torrential rain swamped the area In Sentani, tents have been set up to take in flood victims and treat the wounded. Papua shares a border with independent Papua New Guinea on an island just north of Australia. Flooding is common in Indonesia, especially during the rainy season which runs from October to April. In January, floods and landslides killed at least 70 people on Sulawesi island, while earlier this month hundreds in West Java province were forced to evacuate when torrential rains triggered severe flooding. The Southeast Asian archipelago of some 17,000 islands is one of the most disaster-prone nations on Earth, straddling the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common. A Pakistani victim of the Christchurch attack who was killed trying to wrestle a gun from the shooter will be awarded posthumously in his home country for his courage. Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that the bravery award would be given to the man, who is believed to be Naeem Rashid, on Sunday. The news comes after Mr Rashid was immortalised in an enormous mural on display in Auckland, on New Zealand's north island. The Pakistani foreign office has confirmed that nine of its citizens had been killed in the mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city which claimed the lives of 50 people on Friday. Video of the massacre shows one man gunned down as he approaches the shooter, while others flee. The man is believed to be Rashid, but his face is blurred in the footage and he has yet to be formally identified. Naeem Rashid, pictured, will be given a bravery award from his home country of Pakistan after he died trying to wrestle the gun from the Christchurch shooter on Friday Prime Minister Imran Khan announced the posthumous award on Twitter on Sunday. Video of the massacre shows one man, believed to be Mr Rashid, gunned down as he approaches the shooter, while others flee The news comes after Mr Rashid was immortalised in an enormous mural on display in Auckland, on New Zealand's north island 'Pakistan is proud of Mian Naeem Rashid who was martyred trying to tackle the White Supremacist terrorist & his courage will be recognised with a national award,' Khan tweeted on Sunday. Pakistan has several awards to recognise civilian bravery, and Khan did not specify which one would be awarded to Rashid, whose son also died in the massacre. Rashid's elder brother Khurshid Alam said that the award 'means a lot' to his family in the northwestern Pakistani city of Abbottabad. 'I feel very proud,' he said, calling the loss of his brother and nephew a 'big, big shock'. Naeem, he said, had visited the family last year, staying for two months. 'We had a lovely time. He was a man who would be like a kid with children, and like an adult with grown-ups,' Alam said. Kiwi artist Paul Walsh commemorated Mr Rashid in the mural which features a green and black background to represent his background. 'It represents both Pakistan and New Zealand, united in mourning,' he wrote alongside a picture of the mural he shared to his Facebook page. 'I wish I didn't know who Naeem was,' he wrote. 'I wish he was back at his job as a teacher today, and I wish I was painting something else. 'But some coward changed everything, and I have had to respond in the only way I know how; by honouring the lives of my fellow New Zealanders who didn't make it home on Friday. 'We will not forget you.' 'Pakistan is proud of Mian Naeem Rashid who was martyred trying to tackle the White Supremacist terrorist & his courage will be recognised with a national award,' Khan tweeted on Sunday Pictured: a relative looks at a snap of Mr Rashid and his son Talha Naeem, who were killed in the attacks Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the award would be given on March 23, Pakistan Day. He confirmed that nine Pakistani citizens had been killed in the attack while one was in critical condition. One 'is still not out of danger but he is being treated', he told reporters in Islamabad without identifying the victim. Qureshi said families of six of the victims have decided to bury them in Christchurch, while the other three want to bring the remains to Pakistan. 'Whatever the families will decide, we will respect it and fulfil their wishes,' he said, adding that flags will be flown at half-mast in Pakistan on Monday in honour of the victims. Officials in Pakistan's picturesque northern areas also confirmed that the main suspect, 28-year-old white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, had visited the region as a tourist in October, staying for more than a week. Syed Israr Hussain, owner of Osho Thang Hotel in Minapin Nagar, said: '(Tarrant) ... stayed for two days before leaving for Khunjerab (Pass, on the border with China). 'He was a decent and quiet guy.' He said he remembered Tarrant among the many tourists who visit the region 'because he was so impressed by the area, and said he had heard so many negative things about Pakistan but he found it the opposite'. Tarrant's alleged involvement in the massacre left him 'surprised and shocked', he said. Tarrant is also believed to have visited Gilgit and Skardu in the mountainous north. The gunman's weapons bore the names of several historical Serb nationalist figures As the gunman drove to the two New Zealand mosques where he carried out his mass killings, a Serb nationalist song was heard playing in the background of the haunting video he broadcast live on Facebook. The mass shooter's weapons also bore the names of several historical Serb nationalist figures, revealing an unexpected interest in Balkan conflicts that stirred bad blood in a region fractured by war. Hours after 50 people were gunned down in two mosques by the Australian right-wing extremist in Christchurch, Bosnia's ambassador went on local television to express concern about the song heard in the suspected killer's video that went on to show him murder victim after victim. It was a "Serbian nationalist song in which the name of Radovan Karadzic is mentioned and called on to lead Serbs", he said, referring the convicted war criminal who led Bosnia's Serbs during the 1992-95 war. Karadzic will go before a UN court this week to hear the final verdict on his 40-year sentence for the genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica and other atrocities during the inter-ethnic conflict in Bosnia that left 100,000 dead. According to the Bosnian diplomat, the song's lyrics also say "Turks must be killed", a term hardline Serb nationalists still routinely use to refer to Bosnian Muslims. Though linked the 1990s war, the song played by the 28-year-old suspect Brenton Tarrant appears to have more recently been revived as an internet meme in the extreme-right circles he circulated in online. But Tarrant also connected his savage act to figures deep into Balkan history, alongside a roster of other right-wing extremists from across the globe he paid homage to in his hate-filled manifesto. - Ottoman obsession - Among the historical military figures whose names were scrawled on Tarrant's weapons were several Serb nationalist icons. They were men who fought in famous battles against the the Ottoman Empire's armies, such as Milos Obilic, a knight in Serb folklore, and Stefan Lazar, a 14th-century Serbian prince. During the Ottoman empire the Balkans was a site of frequent contact and conflict between the Muslim and Christian worlds The names of two other 19th century Balkan military leaders against the Ottomans, including Montenegrin general Marko Miljenov, were also written on the guns. During the Ottoman empire the Balkans was a site of frequent contact and conflict between the Muslim and Christian worlds. That history remains a key reference point for Serb ultra-nationalists today. According to local authorities, Tarrant travelled to the region himself in 2016 and early 2017, passing through Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, and then Bulgaria in November 2018. He also visited Turkey. - 'Inspired by Serb nationalism' - In Sarajevo, the Islamic Community of Bosnia said it was alarmed that the "assassin started his bloody escapade to the sound of a song glorifying war crimes in Bosnia". He "was clearly inspired by this same extremist ideology and hatred" of the 1990s, the group added. The shooter's Balkan references also aroused bad memories in Kosovo, a mostly Muslim and ethnic-Albanian former Serbian province that broke away in a 1998-99 guerilla war. Some 13,000, mostly Albanians, were killed in the conflict. Writing on Twitter, Kosovo's former foreign minister Petrit Selimi said the Australian gunman was "inspired by a particular brand of white supremacist nationalism rooted in #Serbia". He added: "Wars and genocide perpetrated by Serbian ideologues, in Kosovo and Bosnia, seem to have become a point of inspiration for far right across the globe." - 'Anti-Serb hysteria' - Officials in Serbia and Bosnia, whose Serb community is semi-autonomous, have been quick to denounce the finger-pointing. Bosnia's ethnic Serb Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak condemned the "anti-Serb hysteria" he felt seized the region after the Christchurch massacres. "It is dangerous and irresponsible to establish a link between the crazy actions of a disturbed and sick person and an entire people," he said in a statement. The country's Serb co-president Milorad Dodik, who shares the post with a Croat and Muslim counterparts, also criticised the "vile campaign" against his community. Meanwhile in Belgrade, foreign minister Ivica Dacic insisted "Serbia had nothing to do with" the massacre. And the ultra-nationalist Serbian politician Vojislav Seselj, who was convicted of crimes against humanity but still serves in parliament, appeared to see himself as the victim of the story. "The demonisation of the Serbs will continue until our country has surrendered," he told the local channel Happy TV. The repeated failure to comply and Ambani's personal guarantee landed him in trouble last month, Mumbai: Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani has around a day to piece together USD 80 million of USD 55 billion to settle long-pending levy with a vendor or go to jail. Anil Ambanis debt- ridden telecom business had promised to pay the nearby unit of Ericsson AB around Rs 5.5 billion for past maintenance services. The repeated failure to comply and Ambani's personal guarantee landed him in trouble last month, with the Supreme Court holding him in contempt. His companies endured a misfortune last week after a lower court denied to free up tax refunds withheld by lenders. In case the installment isn't settled by Tuesday, Anil Ambani, may face three-month imprisonment. Ambani's net worth has contracted to around USD 300 million from USD 55 billion in 2008, according to Bloomberg, as his telecom to power and infrastructure businesses battle to bargain with debt by selling assets and fending off lenders. A representative for the Anil Ambani didn't react to an e-mail asking for comments on ways to pay the Ericsson dues. The Supreme Court on January 7 issued notice to Reliance Communication Ltd (RCom) Chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani and others on a contempt petition filed by Ericsson India over non-payment of its dues. A bench headed by Justice R F Nariman had sought a response from Ambani and others in four weeks. Appearing for R Com, senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi had asked the court to accept Rs 118 crore towards outstanding dues to Ericsson India to establish its bonafide. The counsel appearing for Ericsson had refused to accept the amount and said the entire outstanding sum of Rs 550 crore should be deposited. The bench had directed R Com to deposit a demand draft of Rs 118 crore in the registry. (With PTI input) Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz is being hailed as a hero after he distracted and chased the Christchurch gunman When Afghan refugee Abdul Aziz saw a man brandishing a gun outside his mosque in Christchurch, he ran towards the attacker armed with the only weapon he could find -- a hand-held credit card machine. Seven people were killed when a white supremacist stormed Linwood Masjid -- the second mosque he attacked on Friday -- as worshippers knelt to pray. But the death toll could have been much higher if not for the heroic actions of Aziz, an Australian citizen, whose efforts to distract and chase the gunman away have attracted widespread praise. "You don't have much time to think, whatever you think of, you just do it, you know," Aziz told AFP, brushing off the "hero" tag as local Muslims gathered to thank him for saving relatives and friends. "I just wanted to save as much lives as I could, even if I lose my life." Aziz and his four sons were worshipping at the mosque when they heard the loud cracks of gunfire outside the building. Initially thinking someone was setting off firecrackers, Aziz became suspicious and ran out of the mosque, grabbing a small credit card processing device. Outside, he was stunned to find an armed man wearing military-style fatigues. "At first, I didn't know if he was the good guy or the bad guy. But when he started swearing, I knew he was not the good guy," he said. Aziz hurled the machine at Tarrant and then ducked between cars as the self-confessed fascist unleashed a barrage of shots at him. Aziz then heard one of his sons call out, "Daddy, please come back inside!" Unhurt, he picked up an empty shotgun the gunman had discarded and shouted "come on here" repeatedly in an effort to draw him away from his sons and the other worshippers. "When he see the gun in my hands, I don't know what happened, he dropped the gun and I chased him with my own gun... I managed to throw the gun on his car and smash the car window, and I could see he was a bit frightened." Abdul Aziz tried to draw the gunman away from one of the mosques attacked The 48-year-old kept chasing the attacker as he sped off in his car. The gunman was apprehended by two armed police officers soon afterwards. Aziz returned to the mosque where he was met by scenes of carnage. Dead bodies were strewn around the mosque, among them his close friends. "When I close my eyes, I still see bodies everywhere," he said. "We are all still in shock, but what can you do. You cannot bring them back." Then came another shock. Aziz said police who arrived after the shooting blocked him from re-entering the mosque, thinking he might have been the gunman as he was seen earlier with the weapon. "For a long time, I didn't know if my kids were alive or dead or injured because I couldn't go inside the mosque," Aziz said. He later found out all his sons had survived. Aziz arrived in Australia as a child refugee. He lived in Sydney for almost three decades before moving to Christchurch two-and-a-half years ago. He says he has nothing but contempt for the attacker. "A lot of people tell him he is a gunman. But... a man never hurts anybody. He is not a man -- he is a coward," Aziz said. He said he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from his neighbours after the attacks. "There's very nice people around here. When I went home last night, my wife told me all the neighbours, they sent flowers... cards, foods, cakes. They showed all their love. "That's why I love New Zealand -- you won't get that sort of love and that sort of respect anywhere." The Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is a frequent scene of tension in Jerusalem An Israeli court on Sunday ordered the temporary closure of a side building at a highly sensitive Jerusalem holy site that has been the source of tensions in recent weeks. The Jerusalem magistrates court said the building known as the Golden Gate at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, should be closed while the case continues. The site's administrator, the Waqf religious organisation, was given 60 days to respond to the court case involving the building. Israeli police have called for the building to be closed. Waqf spokesman Firas Dibs said it did not intend to abide by the court's decision, adding that the building remained open on Sunday. Jordan, the custodian of the holy site, condemned the court ruling, with its foreign ministry adding that Israel would bear "full responsibility for the dangerous consequences" of the decision. There are believed to be discussions ongoing between Israel and Jordan over the status of the building. There have in recent weeks been scuffles between Palestinian worshippers and Israeli police at the site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem over the use of the side building. Palestinian worshippers have been entering the site and praying there despite an Israeli order that it should stay closed. Israel shut access to the Golden Gate in 2003 during the second Palestinian intifada over alleged militant activity there. Palestinian officials argue that the organisation that prompted the ban no longer exists and there is no reason for it to remain closed. The larger compound is the third-holiest site in Islam and a focus of Palestinian aspirations for statehood. It is also the location of Judaism's most sacred spot, revered as the site of the two biblical-era Jewish temples. Jews are allowed to visit but cannot pray there and it is a frequent scene of tension. Israeli officials are concerned tensions at the site could boil over and set off wider clashes ahead of April 9 Israeli elections. The site has served as a rallying cry for Palestinians. Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, said "we are seeing a hardening of the negotiating positions of both sides" concerning access to the side building. However, the court order gives the Israeli authorities some leeway in enforcement, he said. "The court did not give the police a deadline for implementing its order," said Zalzberg. "It introduces clarity, and now it's at the discretion of the government in terms of the timing and manner of the enforcement." The Waqf said in a statement on Saturday that it wants to carry out renovations at the building, but keep it open during that time for Palestinians who wish to pray there. It alleged that far-right Israelis were seeking to take over the side building, but Israeli authorities say they are committed to enforcing the current rules in place at the site that prevent such moves. jjm-cmr-ha-mjs/dv The incident began when a suspected Palestinian assailant attacked an Israeli soldier with a knife at the Ariel junction in the occupied West Bank, snatching his weapon and then firing at three vehicles An Israeli was killed Sunday and two others wounded in stabbing and shooting attacks believed to have been carried out by a Palestinian assailant in the occupied West Bank, the army said. "One Israeli is dead," Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said of the attacks near the Ariel junction southwest of Nablus, carried out by a "terrorist" who "appears to be Palestinian". The incident began with the perpetrator attacking a soldier with a knife at the Ariel junction, near an Israeli settlement by the same name, and snatching his weapon, Conricus said. "That same assailant fired with that weapon toward three vehicles," he said, with the third car targeted stopping. "The terrorist took the vehicle and used it to drive" to the nearby Gitai Avishar junction, where he opened fire and wounded another soldier, Conricus said. The assailant then continued to the nearby Palestinian village of Bruqin. "A manhunt is ongoing," Conricus said. Medics said they evacuated two Israeli men, aged 16 and 20, to hospital with both suffering bullet wounds and in serious condition. Conricus did not provide details on the identity of the person killed, nor say if he had been stabbed or shot. The army also did not say whether the suspected Palestinian assailant was affiliated with a militant group or had acted alone. Palestinian attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers occur sporadically in the West Bank. In an election cycle where Democratic candidates are tilting heavily to the left, Kirsten Gillibrand touted her vote against the Wall Street bailouts supported by both major parties, pledged to work for universal health care, and pass a Green New Deal New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Sunday officially announced she would seek the Democratic party's nomination for the 2020 presidential election, taking aim at Donald Trump as she formally joined the crowded field of challengers. In a video released Sunday morning, she said the national anthem posed the question: "Will brave win?" "Well, it hasn't always, and it isn't right now," she said. "Brave doesn't pit people against each other. Brave doesnt put money over lives. Brave doesn't spread hate. Cloud truth. Build a wall. That's what fear does." The announcement was widely expected after the 52-year-old champion of women's rights told TV host Stephen Colbert in January she would be forming an exploratory committee. In an election cycle where Democratic candidates are tilting heavily to the left, Gillibrand touted her vote against the Wall Street bailouts supported by both major parties, pledged to work for universal health care, and pass the so-called Green New Deal, an economic stimulus program aimed at tackling climate change. Gillibrand joins more than a dozen Democrats already in the race, including Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker in addition to independent Bernie Sanders who ran against Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016. But she has distinguished herself in key ways, raising her national profile by sponsoring -- and mounting a three-year campaign for -- a bill that would revamp how sexual assaults in the military are prosecuted by removing them from the chain of command. The bill fell short in the Senate, but Gillibrand has been relentless about highlighting sexual assault in the military, on college campuses and in the workplace. She is also one of the top Trump naysayers in the Senate, voting against the president's nominees for major posts more than almost any other senator. Belhassen Trabelsi, the brother-in-law of deposed Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, seen in this 2010 is sought by Tunisian authorities for abuse of power and fraud Tunisia said Sunday it is seeking the extradition of deposed president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's brother-in-law, who has been arrested in France and is wanted at home for alleged fraud. The justice ministry, in a statement received by AFP, said it had learned from the Interpol office in Tunis that Belhassen Trabelsi was arrested on Thursday in France. It said he was facing 17 arrest warrants in Tunisia and 43 international warrants. There was no official confirmation in France of Trabelsi's arrest. But a source close to the investigation said he had been detained in the south of the country earlier this week in connection with alleged financial wrongdoing. There were no further details. The millionaire businessman and brother of Ben Ali's wife Leila Trabelsi left Tunisia in January 2011 when the Arab Spring uprising forced the veteran leader to flee to Saudi Arabia. Trabelsi and his family flew in a private jet to Montreal where he requested political asylum but Canada turned down his appeal in 2015, and a year later as it prepared to deport him he vanished. He is wanted in Tunisia where he is thought to have headed a clan that embezzled government funds. A leaked June 2008 US diplomatic cable concluded that Trabelsi was "the most notorious (Ben Ali) family member and is rumored to have been involved in a wide-range of corrupt schemes". Trabelsi -- whose holdings included an airline and hotels -- has denied the allegations against him, saying he accumulated his wealth from being a successful entrepreneur. UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov accused Hamas of a "campaign of arrests and violence" to break up demonstrations in Gaza A United Nations envoy condemned Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas on Sunday, accusing the group of violently suppressing peaceful protests. Since Thursday hundreds of Palestinians have taken to the streets in multiple locations throughout the Gaza Strip, protesting the rising cost of living in the Palestinian enclave. Dozens have been arrested, including journalists and human rights workers, with security forces using violence to break up the demonstrations, according to rights groups. "I strongly condemn the campaign of arrests and violence used by Hamas security forces against protesters, including women and children, in Gaza over the past three days," UN envoy to Israel and the Palestinian territories Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement. "I am particularly alarmed by the brutal beating of journalists and staff from the Independent Commission for Human Rights and the raiding of homes." "The long-suffering people of Gaza were protesting the dire economic situation and demanded an improvement in the quality of life in the Gaza Strip. It is their right to protest without fear of reprisal." Hamas, which has not yet commented on Mladenov's accusations, has controlled Gaza since pushing out rivals Fatah in 2007. Since then the group has fought three wars with Israel, with the Jewish state maintaining a crippling blockade of the enclave. Boeing was criticized for failing for react more decisively following the second deadly crash in less than five months involving its 737 MAX aircraft After a second air disaster involving the 737 MAX 8, aviation giant Boeing swung into crisis mode, losing $25 billion of market capitalization and suffering a severe hit to its reputation. That was made worse by the company's response, according to industry experts, who described their efforts variously as "terrible," and "rough." The tragedy of the Ethiopian Airlines flight on Sunday, in which all 157 people on board perished, renewed fears about the safety of the plane, and led to it being grounded worldwide -- although the US decision was not made for three days. "It's been a rough week for them," said Matt Yemma, a crisis communication specialist at Peaks Strategies, based in Connecticut. Boeing -- which in the first days after the accident said the MAX was reliable and safe -- could have announced it was voluntarily grounding the planes on Sunday to restore confidence and ensure the flying public they were on top of the problem, he said. "Instead they just kind of let things dragged on and they end up losing a lot of market cap and a lot of business." It was not until Wednesday after many governments and airlines worldwide had already banned the plane, that Boeing followed suit "out of an abundance of caution." The ban on Boeing 737 MAX aircraft spread worldwide after the US joined other countries in grounding the plane This was the second tragic accident in less than five months involving this model, which has been in service since May 2017, after the crash of a Lion Air flight in October which killed 189 people. A malfunction of the new MCAS stall prevention system on the MAX was implicated in the Lion Air accident in Indonesia. And the Federal Aviation Administration said evidence at the crash site in Ethiopia and new satellite data showed similarities and warranted "further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents." And despite the growing use of the MAX worldwide, in China and Europe in particular, Boeing only issued brief statements, and meanwhile appeared to be attempting to prevent the US authorities from grounding the plane. Two days after the accident, the company's CEO Dennis Muilenburg spoke on the phone with President Donald Trump, who had complained on Twitter that modern airplanes were becoming too complex for pilots to handle. - 'American arrogance' - And it didn't help that the FAA announced it had ordered Boeing to make a software fix to the MCAS flaw, which some American pilots also encountered, raising questions about whether the manufacturer was diligent about getting the word out. "It's the American arrogance," a source close to the aircraft manufacturer told AFP, which is "dangerous because it shows that the work was not done properly" due to overconfidence. Others said the company should have moved more quickly to get out in front of the problem. Chart showing changes to Boeing shares over five days following the Ethiopian Airlines crash "Typically in a situation like this, you want to give as much information as you possibly can," especially given how quickly news whips around the globe, Yemma said. "You want to make your clients, passengers and the public feel at ease about wanting to fly your planes. And the market and investors need to know there is nothing wrong and if there is something wrong that it's going to be fixed." Michael Priem of communications firm Modern Impact in Minneapolis, agreed Boeing should have moved faster to reassure the general public. The public expects "very quick responses and I think Boeing didn't engage in the conversation soon enough," he told AFP. Two industry sources told AFP on Friday that the company will be rolling out a software upgrade for the MCAS in the next 10 days, which helped boost its share price, but the lag since the October crash in Indonesia is troubling. And Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger -- noted for his safe landing of a damaged plane on the Hudson River in New York without loss of life -- questioned Boeing's response as well. "It has been obvious since the Lion Air crash that a redesign of the 737 MAX 8 has been urgently needed ... and the announced proposed fixes do not go far enough," he said on social media. The issue has drawn the scrutiny of Congress, with key oversight committees planning hearings to look into the aircraft and flaws. The Ethiopian Airlines crash was the second tragic accident in less than five months involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8 "I continue to have serious concerns about key decisions made in the FAA's certification of the 737 MAX, and what was, and was not, disclosed to pilots," said Representative Peter DeFazio, head of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "I will be conducting a rigorous investigation to make sure that FAA is carrying out its critical safety mission." Boeing may have to roll out a public relations campaign to try to restore confidence in its aircraft. The company will have to provide a sincere "mea culpa" because "the damage is done," a source close to the aircraft manufacturer told AFP. Explosions on March 17, 2019 in the remains of an Islamic State (IS) group jihadists' camp near the village of Baghouz in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor US-backed forces said Sunday thousands of people were believed to still be inside the last Islamic State group enclave in eastern Syria, as they sought to flush out die-hard fighters with airstrikes and shelling. Tens of thousands of dishevelled women, children and men have streamed out of a small pocket in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent weeks -- and they still keep coming. The huge numbers have flummoxed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and slowed down their offensive aimed at dealing a knock-out blow to the jihadists' once-sprawling proto-state. "Fighting continues as the #SDF advancing into Daesh encampment," SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said in a tweet late Sunday. "Several positions captured and an ammunition storage has been blown up by our forces. SDF is now holding positions inside the camp in #Baghouz." At an SDF outpost inside Baghouz on Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw white smoke rising above the IS enclave as the sound of airstrikes and shelling rang out. A large blaze ravaged the makeshift encampment where holdout IS fighters are making a last stand. The Kurdish-led force, backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has rained fire on the jihadists for a week, blitzing thousands of fighters and family members into surrender. But SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told a news conference Sunday that according to the latest group that quit the pocket, "an estimated 5,000 people" are still holed up inside. The last pocket of IS territory in eastern Syria He cautioned, however, that the SDF has not been able to verify that figure. Those fleeing the pocket have previously reported widely inconsistent figures on the number of people still inside, ranging from thousands to a few hundred. - Surrenders and evacuations - The SDF spokesman said there was no clear timeline for the end of the operation, estimating that it may take several more days at least before IS is driven from its last bastion. "I hope it won't take more than a week but this is a personal estimate," he said in the village of Sousa in eastern Syria. Gabriel said that nearly 30,000 IS members and their relatives have surrendered to US-backed forces since January 9, including more than 5,000 fighters. An additional 34,000 civilians have been evacuated from the IS redoubt over the same period, he said. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is backed by US-led coalition warplanes in its fight against the Islamic State group The exodus has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Kurdish-run camps for the displaced further north, where civilians have been transported. More than 1,300 jihadists have been killed and around 520 have been captured in special operations by the SDF since the battle for Baghouz started, Gabriel said. The SDF said on Saturday that dozens of jihadists and their relatives had handed themselves over. They include Europeans, Turks, Chinese, Iraqis and Syrians, it said in a statement. Die-hard jihadists who stayed behind to defend their last bastion have launched a series of suicide bombings in recent days to hamper the SDF advance. On Friday, IS launched three suicide attacks outside Baghouz, killing six people as they fled the village. - 'There is still resistance' - Ali Khalaf Ibrahim, an SDF fighter, told AFP on Sunday that the jihadists were putting up a strong defence. "Several times they tried to infiltrate (SDF positions) with explosive belts but they were intercepted" by SDF fighters, he said. At the height of its brutal rule, IS controlled territory in Syria and Iraq the size of the United Kingdom, with a population of millions. The total capture of Baghouz by the SDF would mark the end of the cross-border "caliphate" it proclaimed more than four years ago. But IS still retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and has sleeper cells in the northeast. Baghouz is the latest front in the Syrian war that has killed 370,000 people since it started in 2011. Elsewhere in Syria, landmines left behind by IS have killed at least 17 people in a 24-hour period at the weekend, a war monitor said on Sunday. The UN envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen (L), met Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who stressed the need for a Syrian-led political solution to the eight-year war An ordnance left behind by jihadists exploded in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Saturday, killing 16 people and wounding 32 others, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A separate landmine explosion in the northern province of Aleppo on Sunday killed one person, the Britain-based Observatory said. Another two SDF fighters were killed Sunday in a mine blast at Hajin, a town near Baghouz, that was claimed by IS in a statement on Telegram. At least 44 people have been killed in landmine explosions across Syria in the past three weeks, it added. In Damascus, the UN envoy for Syria held talks on Sunday with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who stressed the need for a Syrian-led political solution to the eight-year war. Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen discussed efforts to find a political settlement to the conflict, including moves to form a committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution, state media said. Pedersen arrived in Damascus on Sunday in the second such visit since he took up his post in January. Benny Gantz, seen as the main challenger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April elections, confirmed his phone was hacked without saying who was behind it The main challenger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April elections wants an investigation into leaks that led to stories about his phone being hacked, suggesting the premier's allies were behind the leak. Israel's Channel 12 television reported last week that Benny Gantz's telephone had been hacked by Iranian intelligence. Gantz, a former military chief of staff, later confirmed the hack without saying who was behind it, but added there was nothing on the phone that could be used to blackmail him. A Gantz ally has since said Iran was not behind the hack. In a letter sent to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Saturday, Gantz's lawyers called for a urgent investigation into the leak of the information. "There is no denying that there is a series of indications... that the leak would have come from a certain office located in Jerusalem," the letter said, adding however that there should be an investigation and not speculation over the leak's source. Israeli media reported that domestic security agency Shin Bet informed him of the hack of his phone five weeks ago. Yair Lapid, a former finance minister who joined forces with Gantz to form their Blue and White electoral alliance, said that Netanyahu's "use of sensitive security materials to try and besmirch Benny Gantz proves he's afraid of him". Netanyahu's office has said that the premier was not updated by the head of the Shin Bet on the affair. Opinion polls show Gantz's centrist alliance could win the most seats in April 9 elections, but it is unclear whether it would be able to assemble enough parties for a coalition. US President Donald Trump tweeted his latest attack on the late senator John McCain shortly before heading to church with First Lady Melania Trump President Donald Trump lashed out at the late war hero John McCain for a second straight day on Sunday, amid reports an aide to the US senator had shared a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia back in 2016. A day earlier, the president drew a stern rebuke from McCain's daughter Meghan after he attacked McCain -- a fellow Republican who remained one of Trump's toughest critics right up until his death of brain cancer last August. In a tweet, Trump quoted the independent counsel Ken Starr as saying it was a "very dark stain" against McCain that he apparently helped spread the dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele and financed in part by Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign. Many of the allegations in the contentious "Steele dossier" on the Trump campaign's alleged Russian ties have since been proven at least partially accurate, but its most salacious claims remain unverified. Trump's outburst came as Fox News reported that newly-unsealed court filings showed a McCain associate shared the dossier with the FBI and several media. On Sunday, the president doubled down. "So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) 'last in his class' (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election," Trump tweeted. "He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!" McCain's daughter Meghan fired back at the president on Twitter. "No one will ever love you the way they loved my father," she wrote. "I wish I had been given more Saturday's with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine?" John McCain, who died aged 81, was one of Trump's sharpest critics, and made clear in his final wishes that he did not want the president at his funeral. Trump, who bypassed military service himself, had only words of contempt for the senator who he famously dismissed as "not a war hero" on the grounds he was taken prisoner in Vietnam. JeM's Pulwama attack led to rapid redeployment of ships, submarines and aircraft for operations in North Arabian sea, Capt Sharma said. They said the naval assets were part of a mega exercise but they transited from the area of the drill for operational deployment soon after the February 14 Pulwama terror attack that increased tensions between Pakistan and India. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, nuclear submarine Chakra, 60 ships and nearly 80 aircraft were put on operational deployment by the Indian Navy in the North Arabian sea in the wake of escalating tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack, officials said on Sunday. They said the naval assets were part of a mega exercise but they transited from the area of the drill for operational deployment soon after the February 14 Pulwama terror attack that increased tensions between Pakistan and India. At a tri-services press conference on February 28, the Indian Navy said it was in a high state of readiness to "deter, prevent and defeat" any "misadventure" by Pakistan in the maritime domain, reflecting a sense of its preparedness as well as seriousness of the situation. "The major combat units of the Indian Navy including the Carrier Battle Group with INS Vikramaditya, nuclear submarines and scores of other ships, submarines and aircraft swiftly transited from exercise to operational deployment mode as tensions between India and Pakistan escalated," Navy Spokesperson Capt DK Sharma said. The naval assets comprising 60 ships of the Indian Navy, 12 ships of the Indian Coast Guard, and 60 aircraft were part of the theatre level operational readiness exercise (TROPEX 19), which commenced on January 19 in Andaman and Nicobar islands, and was to be concluded on March 10. However, the Jaish-e-Mohammed sponsored Pulwama attack on February 14 led to the rapid redeployment of ships, submarines and aircraft for operations in North Arabian sea, Capt Sharma said. "The overwhelming superiority of Indian Navy in all three dimensions -- on surface, under-sea and in air -- forced the Pakistan Navy to remain deployed close to the Makran coast and not venture out in the open ocean," he said. Twelve days after the Pulwama attack, Indian fighter jets bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations next day. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba will assess outcome of the TROPEX in the Kochi naval base on Monday. The day-long review by Admiral Lanba with all operational commanders is intended to examine the conduct of the exercise and to assess the operational preparedness of the Indian Navy, said the Navy spokesperson. Exercise Tropex was followed by the largest coastal defence drill -- 'Sea Vigil' on January 22 and 23 with participation of 13 coastal states and union territories along with all maritime stakeholders. US President Donald Trump, speaking after a massacre at two mosques in New Zealand, said he doesn't think white nationalism presents a growing danger Democrats led by an Arab-American lawmaker attacked President Donald Trump's "silence" on the rise of white supremacy Sunday as reaction to the New Zealand mosque massacre spilled into a heated US debate over religious and racial bigotry. With controversy swirling over Trump's tepid response to the massacre, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was forced to deny any affinity between the president's anti-immigration rhetoric and the accused Christchurch shooter's extremist views. "The president is not a white supremacist," Mulvaney said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. But on a separate Sunday talk show, Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Detroit and one of the first two Muslim women ever elected to the US Congress, charged that the president's failure to speak out forcefully against white supremacy was making the country less safe. "Trump is the most powerful man in the world right now," she said on CNN's "State of the Union." "He, from the Oval Office, from that power position, can be able to send a signal very loud and clear." Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim member of the US Congress, has slammed US President Donald Trump's "silence" on the threat posed by white nationalism "We've done this in the past against foreign terrorism. We need to do it on domestic terrorism, against white supremacy that's growing every single day that we stay silent." After the attack on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, which left 50 dead, Trump expressed sympathy and solidarity with the victims and people of New Zealand. But in comments to reporters in the Oval Office, he dismissed concerns that white nationalism represented a growing danger around the world. "I don't really. I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess," Trump said. - Trump 'a symbol' - The alleged gunman -- identified as an Australian white nationalist -- livestreamed the assault on social media and published a manifesto filled with racist conspiracy theories. He also referred to Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose." At the grassroots level, the New Zealand attacks triggered a surge of solidarity from America's Jewish and Christian communities, with hundreds of people taking part in interfaith vigils from Cincinnati to Philadelphia, Pasadena to New York. Members of the public hand flowers to a police officer in Christchurch, New Zealand where an attack on two mosques left 50 dead But it also resounded in a US political scene already supercharged by controversy over remarks by Ilhan Omar -- the only other Muslim woman in Congress along with Tlaib -- that supporters of Israel and many fellow Democrats perceived as anti-Semitic. The debate over bigotry quickly shifted to Trump after the atrocity in New Zealand. "Time and time again, this president has embraced and emboldened white supremacists -- and instead of condemning racist terrorists, he covers for them. This isn't normal or acceptable," tweeted Kirsten Gillibrand, who formally entered the Democratic race for the White House Sunday. Mulvaney scoffed at the idea that Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies had anything to do with the New Zealand attack. "Let's take what happened in New Zealand yesterday for what it is -- a terrible evil, tragic act and figure out why those things are becoming more prevalent in the world. Is it Donald Trump? Absolutely not. - Charlottesville - At key moments of his presidency, however, Trump has soft-pedalled the danger of white nationalism, most famously when he found blame "on both sides" after a "Unite the Right" rally turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. In that case, a Neo-Nazi sympathizer drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a young woman and injuring 19. People gather in front of floral tributes at a makeshift memorial for victims of the March 15 mosque attacks, in Christchurch on March 17, 2019 Former vice president Joe Biden, a possible Trump challenger in 2020, evoked Trump's response to Charlottesville in a campaign-style speech in Delaware Saturday. "Our children were listening. Our silence is complicity. With these words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it," he said. "And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had seen in my lifetime." Trump has avoided the subject of white nationalism on Twitter, where he instead fired off a string of messages in support of Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host reprimanded by the network for remarks widely criticized as Islamophobic. A former federal judge, Pirro had questioned whether the Muslim faith of Ilhan Omar, the Democrat accused of anti-Semitism, prevented her from supporting the US Constitution. Pirro's show, "Justice with Judge Jeanine" has been off the air since then. "Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country," Trump tweeted. jm/ec Mourners attend the funeral at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 17 Ethiopians including the eight-person flight crew killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 Black box data recovered from an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last week show "clear similarities" with a recent crash in Indonesia of the same type of aircraft, Ethiopia's transport minister said on Sunday. While declining to give details, Dagmawit Moges told journalists the parallels would be the "subject of further study during the investigation," with a preliminary report issued in "30 days". The announcement came a week after Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 plummeted into a field southeast of Addis Ababa minutes into its flight to Nairobi, killing all 157 people onboard. The disaster caused the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft involved after aviation regulators noticed similarities with the October crash of an Indonesian Lion Air 737 MAX 8 that killed all 189 passengers and crew. Both planes reportedly experienced erratic steep climbs and descents as well as fluctuating airspeeds before crashing shortly after takeoff. Questions have honed in on an automated anti-stalling system introduced on the 737 MAX 8, designed to automatically point the nose of the plane downward if it is in danger of stalling. The pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 struggled to control the aircraft as the automated MCAS system repeatedly pushed the plane's nose down following takeoff, according to the flight data recorder. In the case of the Ethiopian flight, the black boxes have been handed to France's BEA air safety agency, which is working with American and Ethiopian investigators to determine what went wrong. While the cause remains to be determined, Boeing's CEO Dennis Muilenburg on Sunday said the manufacturer is "finalizing its development of a previously-announced software update and pilot training revision" to address behaviour of the MCAS "in response to erroneous sensor inputs." Experts have questioned the US aviation safety certification process after learning that American pilots had lodged serious complaints about MCAS. On Sunday the regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, said it followed "standard" procedures, which "have consistently produced safe aircraft designs," in certifying the 737 MAX. - Nothing to bury - The disaster in Ethiopia left families in 35 nations bereaved. On Sunday, Ethiopians gathered at Holy Trinity Cathedral in the capital Addis Ababa to bury 17 of their citizens killed in the crash, including the eight-person flight crew. Hundreds gathered for the funerals at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, weeping and holding up pictures of those who died Relatives of the deceased sobbed and held portraits of their loved ones as an Ethiopian Orthodox priest said the last rites. Wearing a t-shirt bearing a photo of Amma Tesfamariam in her flight attendant uniform, Meselech Petros said her 28-year-old sister was not supposed to work last Sunday, but came in to cover for a friend. "What I can't forget is that she left an eight-month-old child and didn't come back," Meselech said. "We are broken and hurting very much. It's very difficult," added Amma's brother Selamsew Mathias, 26. The funeral ceremony began when caskets draped in the Ethiopian flag were brought to the cathedral in a convoy of black hearses accompanied by hundreds of mourners. It was unclear what the coffins contained. Witnesses said the plane had nose-dived into the field, with the force of the impact leaving few bodies intact. On Thursday, as grieving families and friends visited the area where the plane went down, an AFP correspondent saw them being handed plastic water bottles filled with earth from the site. Ethiopia's government has said it may take up to six months to identify the remains. "What makes us very sad is we didn't find any of her remains," said Teshome Legesse, whose 24-year-old niece Ayantu Girma was a flight attendant on the plane. - 'Grief belongs to everyone' - Ethiopian Airlines is Africa's largest carrier and in many ways the international face of the nation. The deaths have shocked Africa's second-most populous country, and the funeral attracted a wide range of mourners. "We all are children of Adam and Eve, even though our skin colours are different," said Seyoum Kidanu, a retired police officer wearing full dress uniform and a sash in the colours of the Ethiopian flag. "When one person dies in this world, the grief belongs to everybody." Michael Ben-Ari, from the Jewish Power party, has been banned from standing in elections Israel's supreme court on Sunday disqualified the controversial leader of the extreme-right Jewish Power party, Michael Ben-Ari, from running in next month's elections. Ben-Ari has come under fire for comments he made about Israeli Arabs, which Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said earlier this month amount to "incitement to racism". The elections committee had approved Ben-Ari to run in the April polls, but the opposition left-wing Meretz party successfully appealed the decision to the supreme court. "The place of people who believe in the superiority of race is behind bars not in parliament," said Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg in a statement. The attorney general previously accused Ben-Ari of "inciting on an ethnic-nationalistic basis against the Arab population" and "calling for a violent renunciation of the Arab population's rights." According to Jewish Power, his disqualification marks the first time a candidate approved by the committee has been banned from standing in elections. In a press conference following the ruling, Ben Ari said "a judicial junta is trying to impose its laws... it's not democracy." Jewish Power are followers of late racist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement was labelled a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seen as leading the most right-wing government in Israel's history, brokered a deal to see Jewish Power join with two far-right parties to create a single electoral list. The supreme court on Sunday approved Jewish Power's second candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to stand in polls. It also backed a candidate from the extreme-left Hadash party, Ofer Kassif, and approved the two main Arab alliances -- Hadash-Taal and Raam-Balad. The latter had initially be barred by the elections committee over its alleged support for violent resistance. A Raam-Balad spokeswoman welcomed the move, describing the committee's earlier ban as "a political decision". "A decision that once more did not get beyond the supreme court, a decision based purely on the public's fear of the party's ideological platform," she said. Raam-Balad is fiercely critical of Israeli policies, particularly the occupation of Palestinian territory. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, a far-right politician and ardent supporter of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, slammed the supreme court rulings. "Disqualifying Ben-Ari and approving the parties which support terrorism is a flagrant intervention against the heart of Israeli democracy," she said. Former Texas lawmaker Beto O'Rourke, seen here in a recent appearance in Iowa, has shaken up the already crowded Democratic field of presidential aspirants Former Texas lawmaker Beto O'Rourke and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand have formally launched their bids for the Democratic presidential nomination, joining a crowded field vying to challenge Republican Donald Trump in 2020. The pool of Democratic candidates for the White House is among the largest and most diverse ever. It includes female US senators, a current and a former governor, African-Americans, a Hispanic and a young gay mayor, and is likely to grow before the US primary season gets underway next year. The Democratic nominating convention opens on July 13, 2020, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Here are the party's main contenders vying to be on the 2020 ballot. - Beto O'Rourke - During a frenetic, if failed, campaign for the US Senate last year in Texas, the 46-year-old O'Rourke used his youth, energy and camera-friendly good looks to become a media darling while setting fundraising records and drawing support from a range of celebrities. Despite a reputation forged in his three terms in Congress as a pragmatic centrist, O'Rourke launched his campaign in Iowa on a decidedly left-leaning platform, calling for health and immigration reform, a higher minimum wage and an all-out battle to curb climate change. His resolutely positive message, with calls for "kindness (and) decency" -- along with his criticisms of an "unfair, unjust and racist capitalist economy" -- have drawn large and often youthful crowds wherever he appears. - Kirsten Gillibrand - New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, seen here in a file photo, has formally announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination The New York senator, who this week formally joined the Democratic race, had made a name campaigning against sexual abuse, especially in the military, even before the #MeToo movement gained national prominence. The 52-year-old, a fierce Trump critic, is making gender and women's issues a hallmark of her campaign. She has called for a more egalitarian society and wants to improve the nation's health and education systems. - Bernie Sanders - Senator Bernie Sanders is promising to take on powerful special interests as he launches a second presidential run The 77-year-old Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, was an outsider when the 2016 Democratic primaries began. But he gave favorite Hillary Clinton a run for her money with his calls for a "political revolution" and battled her down to the wire. Sanders won passionate support among young liberals with his calls for universal health care, a $15 minimum wage and free public university education. - Amy Klobuchar - Senator Amy Klobuchar announced her candidacy for president on a snowy day in Minnesota, joining an ever-growing field of contenders hoping to unseat President Donald Trump The 58-year-old granddaughter of an iron miner, Klobuchar is a former prosecutor with an unpretentious demeanor. She has quietly gained attention in Washington as a centrist. Klobuchar is known for putting partisanship aside to pass legislation, something that has earned her a devoted following in Minnesota. Klobuchar has promised more stringent gun laws and set a target of universal health care. - Elizabeth Warren - Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren has officially launched her White House bid At 69, the US Senate's consumer protection champion from Massachusetts is on the party's left flank. She built her reputation by holding Wall Street accountable for its missteps. Warren is considered to have one of the best campaign organizations of any Democrat. Her campaign has been dogged, however, by her past claims of Native American heritage, and Trump mockingly refers to her as "Pocahontas." - Cory Booker - US Senator Cory Booker cut his teeth as a community organizer and mayor of Newark, New Jersey, often drawing comparisons to former president Barack Obama The 49-year-old US senator from New Jersey announced his candidacy February 1, evoking the civil rights movement as he promised to work to unite a divided America. Often compared to former president Barack Obama, Booker began his career as a community activist and rose to prominence as mayor of Newark, New Jersey. A talented orator, Booker was elected to the US Senate in 2013, the first African-American senator from the eastern state. - Kamala Harris - Senator Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign with a rally in Oakland, California The barrier-breaking senator from California who aspires to be the nation's first black female president announced her candidacy on a day honoring slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. The daughter of an Indian immigrant medical researcher mother and a Jamaican economist father, Harris, 54, began her career as a district attorney in San Francisco before serving as California's attorney general. - Julian Castro - Julian Castro is a former Obama cabinet member and was a mayor of San Antonio, Texas A cabinet member under Obama and grandson of a Mexican immigrant, Castro announced his candidacy in English and Spanish on January 12 in the heat of the debate on immigration and border security. At 44, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas hopes to become the nation's first Hispanic president. - Tulsi Gabbard - Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii would be America's first Hindu president At just 37, Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii, would be the first Hindu president. A supporter of Sanders in the 2016 race, military veteran Gabbard was criticized for meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad during that country's civil war, and for anti-gay positions that she has since retracted and apologized for. - Pete Buttigieg - Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana is an Afghanistan veteran and would be the first openly gay nominee of either major party The 37-year-old South Bend, Indiana, mayor joined the race with a resolutely future-looking and optimistic message to counter Trump's darker vision. A Rhodes Scholar, Buttigieg would be the first openly gay presidential nominee of either major party. A US Navy reserve officer, he put his mayoral duties aside to serve in Afghanistan in 2014. - Jay Inslee - Washington state Governor Jay Inslee is making climate change the central theme of his US presidential bid Inslee, the governor of Washington state, said he would make climate change the central theme of his campaign, calling it the "most urgent challenge of our time." The 68-year-old Inslee served in the US House of Representatives before becoming governor of the northwest state in 2013. - John Hickenlooper - Hickenlooper, 67, is a former governor of Colorado and mayor of Denver. Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination A former geologist and self-described "nerd" who became wealthy after opening a string of brew pubs, Hickenlooper is a political moderate. He is expected to tout his role in strengthening Colorado's economy as he seeks to build national recognition. - Other candidates - Also in the race are former Maryland congressman John Delaney, 55, technology executive Andrew Yang, 44, and self-help author Marianne Williamson, 66. - Waiting in the wings - Former vice president Joe Biden is one of several Democratic big guns yet to join the race Among the big Democratic guns who have yet to commit is former vice president Joe Biden, who leads most surveys of Democratic voters. Biden, who combines experience and widespread popularity, would be expected to poll well in some of the blue-collar upper Midwestern states that propelled Trump to the presidency in 2016. Other possible Democratic candidates are Montana Governor Steve Bullock and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe. New York billionaire and ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg had contemplated a run but has ruled it out, even while vowing to spend heavily to support the Democratic cause. burs-cl/jm/bbk/mdl Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro said he is the first leader from his country in a long time to visit Washington and not be "anti-American" Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro arrived in Washington on Sunday to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump and cement a budding conservative-populist alliance that, in part, aims to ramp up pressure on Venezuela. The far-right leader flew out of Brasilia early Sunday with six ministers, among them Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and Justice Minister Sergio Moro, Brazilian media reported. They touched down at Joint Base Andrews, on the outskirts of Washington, at 3:40 pm (1940 GMT). "It's the first time in a long time that a Brazilian president who is not anti-American, comes to Washington," Bolsonaro said on Twitter after he arrived. It is Bolsonaro's first trip abroad for a bilateral meeting since taking office on January 1. He attended the Davos summit in Switzerland in January. Bolsonaro, who will also meet in Washington with the head of the Organization of American States (OAS), is scheduled to return to Brazil on Tuesday. Outside the White House Sunday afternoon, dozens of demonstrators gathered to protest the visit -- holding signs including one that accused Bolsonaro of being a "murderer" over apparent links to suspects in the killing of rights activist Marielle Franco. Police have said those ties are coincidental. - Admirer of Trump - A Trump-Bolsonaro bond could see the leaders of the Americas' two most populous democracies working in concert on a range of regional issues. Most pressing is the crisis in Venezuela, where the United States and Brazil -- and dozens of other countries -- have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president with the goal of pushing President Nicolas Maduro from power. The tough-talking Bolsonaro has long expressed his admiration for Trump. He echoes the US leader in spurning multilateral organizations and leftist politics, while promoting businesses over environmental concerns at home. Activists protest Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's trip to Washington on Lafayette Square, outside the White House Their shared nationalist sentiment can be seen in another relationship: that of Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, who is a federal lawmaker, with Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon. Eduardo Bolsonaro announced in early February that he was part of the Brussels-based group known as The Movement, which Bannon set up to promote far-right nationalistic values and tactics. The older Bolsonaro announced on Saturday that one main result of his trip would be the signing of an agreement under which the United States might gain access to a satellite-launching base in Brazil near the equator. - Eyes on Venezuela - But most eyes will be on developments surrounding Venezuela, which shares a border with Brazil. "Brazil and the United States together throw fear into defenders of backwardness and tyranny around the world," Bolsonaro said on Twitter, which he is a prolific user of, like Trump. "Those who fear ties with a free and wealthy nation? That's what we've come looking for," Bolsonaro added. Previous Brazilian administrations took a friends-to-all approach to neighboring countries. But not Bolsonaro. The 63-year-old former paratrooper shares Trump's hostility to the "dictator" Maduro, who took over after the death of socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2013. Trump has repeatedly insisted that "all options are on the table" with regards to Venezuela, a phrase understood to include military action. But Bolsonaro, like other members of the mostly Latin American Lima Group, has ruled out military action in favor of a policy of tightening the economic and diplomatic pressure against Maduro. As well as a "private meeting" with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Bolsonaro will sit down with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, and participate in various forums to promote economic opportunities in Brazil. The country's economy is the largest in Latin America, and the US is Brazil's second biggest trade partner after China. On Sunday night, Bolsonaro dined at the residence of Brazilian ambassador Sergio Amaral with "opinion makers" including, according to press reports, Bannon and US-based Brazilian writer Olavo de Carvalho, considered Bolsonaro's ideological guru. Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead, American Conservative Union president Matt Schlapp and Chris Buskirk, who edits the blog "American Greatness" were among others expected at the event. Bolsonaro is staying in Blair House, the official US state residence opposite the White House used for visiting dignitaries. After his return to Brazil, Bolsonaro is planning a trip to Chile and then, in late March, to Israel. Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged mosque shooter, grew up Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes early Monday linked to the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques last week, police said. The homes were in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged shooter, grew up. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation," a police statement said. They said Tarrant's family "continues to assist police with their inquiries" but that there is no information to suggest "a current or impending threat" to the community. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has been charged with murder in the country after the mass shooting on Friday which left 50 dead and 50 injured in two mosques in the city of Christchurch on. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. He rejected as "disgraceful" criticism that Australia's counter-terror agencies had neglected the threat of right-wing extremists like Tarrant due to their focus on combatting Islamist radicals. He said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country's main counter-terror agency, closely tracked the activities of far-right groups. "These extremist groups -- neo-nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groups -- whatever term you want to apply to them, theyve been squarely on their radar," he said in a televised interview. "They are well and truly looking at this threat, they are dealing with the threat and to think that they've just discovered it or they are coming late to the party is complete rubbish," he said. ASIO officials were due to brief the cabinet of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the New Zealand attacks and the threat of right-wing extremism in Australia later on Monday. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) will meet this week in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seen here at a Middle East peace conference in Warsaw on February 14, 2019 Locked in a tough re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week will host a visit from the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before flying to Washington for a possible meeting with President Donald Trump. But Pompeo's Jerusalem visit -- sandwiched by additional stops in Kuwait and Beirut -- reflects a larger agenda than simply lending US support to an important regional friend at a key time. "The common thing in each of those places is helping those countries bolster their efforts to push back against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Pompeo recently told Fox News. The Trump administration has made its struggle against Iran's "destabilizing influence" a key plank in its regional policy. On a lengthy Middle Eastern trip in January, Pompeo urged "unity" against Iran. The administration then organized a conference in Poland to attempt -- with scant success -- to enlarge its anti-Iran "coalition." On his upcoming Beirut visit, Pompeo will focus on the Hezbollah movement, which the US considers a pro-Iranian "terrorist" group even though it is represented in the coalition government of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, himself a US ally. And with Israel as one of the most outspoken members of the anti-Iranian grouping assembled by the US, Iran is sure to be a central focus of Pompeo's talks this week in Jerusalem. The US diplomatic chief "will reaffirm both privately and publicly during that visit our unwavering commitment to Israel's security and its right to self-defense," a senior State Department official said. - 'Tough, smart and strong' - US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2018; the two may meet when the Israeli travels to Washington in late March 2019 Netanyahu is struggling to keep his grip on power as he faces allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, with legislative elections fast approaching on April 9. He undoubtedly is looking forward to the show of US support. But Washington insists it is not interfering in Israeli politics. Pompeo will be meeting Netanyahu "as the head of government in Israel," the senior official explained. "We have major US interests with Israel. Those interests don't go away. They don't go into suspension because of the electoral cycle." For that reason, the official added, Pompeo has no plans to meet with Netanyahu's rivals, including former military chief of staff Benny Gantz and ex-finance minister Yair Lapid, who together formed a centrist alliance to challenge the prime minister. Yet Trump has made clear that Netanyahu's legal problems have not lowered his opinion of the man, saying last month that the prime minister was doing "a great job" and was "tough, smart and strong." So while the Republican president has alienated many of America's traditionally close allies, his relationship with Israel seems unshakable. - A shift on Golan Heights - The Trump administration has the closest ties to Israel in years. The president has confirmed that relationship in ways both symbolic and concrete: breaking with most of the world to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and cutting off essential aid to Palestinians. Washington has taken a series of small steps deemed so "hostile" by the Palestinian Authority that it now refuses any contact with the US administration. The last step was a shift in terminology from referring to Syria's Golan Heights not as "Israeli-occupied" but as "controlled" by the Hebrew state -- a semantic shift seen by some as a prelude to US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. To capitalize on Trump's popularity among Israelis, Netanyahu will travel to Washington in the last week of March for the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an event sponsored by the influential lobbying group that draws thousands each year. While a meeting has not been officially confirmed, Netanyahu hopes to use the opportunity of his Washington visit to meet with Trump in what would be a distinctly high-profile photo op coming just weeks before the Israeli legislative elections. That April 9 vote will also start the countdown for the presentation, expected before summer, of the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that a small White House team -- strongly pro-Israeli, analysts say -- has been quietly preparing under the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Police Forensic officers work at the Dean Avenue mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand New Zealand will tighten gun laws in the wake of its worst modern-day massacre, the government said Monday, as it emerged that the white supremacist accused of carrying out the killings at two mosques will represent himself in court. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her coalition was unified on the need to reduce the availability of the kind of weapons used by Brenton Tarrant as he went room to room shooting Muslims gathered for Friday prayers. "We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified," she said, flanked by her coalition partner and deputy prime minister, Winston Peters. Updated graphic on the Christchurch shooting attack Peters, whose New Zealand First party has previously opposed changes, said he backed the prime minister fully. "The reality is that after one pm on Friday our world changed forever, and so will our laws," he said. Ardern, the youthful premier who has become the face of the nation's tragedy, said there would be an inquiry into the horrifying attack, as questions swirl over whether intelligence agencies should have spotted warning signs. The role of social media has also come under the spotlight, after the gunman livestreamed his rampage on Facebook. A teenager, whose name cannot be published, appeared in court Monday charged with distributing that footage. Meanwhile, police launched a probe into a bomb hoax that forced an hours-long closure of the airport in Dunedin on Sunday, where Tarrant lived. Grief continued to wash across the nation, with New Zealanders of all stripes gathering to express revulsion over the killings, and unity in the face of racial hatred Grief continued to wash across the nation Monday, with New Zealanders of all stripes gathering to express revulsion over the killings -- and a unified front against racial hatred. Family and friends outside Al Noor mosque -- the scene of the largest massacre -- held a sunset prayer session, with their mournful cries echoing through a park as locals looked on. "It just happened to be the time of our evening prayer. Anywhere you are, you can just pray anywhere," Saiyad Raza, who had travelled from Auckland to bury his cousin who died in the shootings, told AFP. Earlier, a Maori cleansing ceremony was performed at the mosque, bringing together indigenous Kiwis, Muslim leaders and local officials. Dozens of students then paid their respects, with many coming together for a haka -- a traditional Maori ceremonial dance that has been performed by groups across New Zealand in the wake of killings. And in Auckland, students at Orewa College gathered to form a heart and the message "Kia Kaha" -- "stay strong" in Maori. - 'Nothing extraordinary' - The organisers of New Zealand's largest gun show -- the Kumeu Militaria Show, near Auckland -- announced Monday they had cancelled the event in the wake of the massacre and because of "elevated security risks". New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there would be an inquiry into the horrifying attack, as questions swirl over whether intelligence agencies should have spotted warning signs. Despite having tightened the rules in the 1990s after the last mass shooting, New Zealand has relatively permissive gun laws, with licences granted to nearly every applicant. David Tipple, the managing director of Gun City, whose online store sold Tarrant four weapons, said he felt no responsibility for the killings. "We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder," he told reporters. Tarrant, who appeared in court on Saturday charged with murder, on Monday sacked his state-appointed lawyer. Members of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand Rehanna Ali (front), Mustafa Farouk (L), Anwar Ghani (R) and police deputy commissioner Wally Haumaha hold a press conference in Christchurch Richard Peters, who represented the alleged killer during the hearing, told AFP the 28-year-old "wants to be self-represented in this case". "The way he presented was rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. He seemed to understand what was going on," Peters said. Under New Zealand law, if Tarrant pleads not guilty his case would normally go to trial, raising the possibility that he could face survivors and victims' families in court. Students attend a vigil in Christchurch, New Zealand, as ripples from the two mosque attacks continued to spread Mustafa Farouk, president of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, told reporters he had faith in the system. "As a community, we would like that person to go through the process, the due process, and to be given all his rights," he said. "We believe in the justice system here and we know it will do what is right." But, he cautioned, the attitudes that gave rise to the killing -- documented in a rambling, racist screed released online minutes before the attacks began -- must be tackled. "This rise in hatred... by people who call themselves right-wing, whether smaller groups or through reckless politicians, should not be allowed to continue." - Digging graves - Frustrated families of the 50 victims were still waiting Monday for the release of the bodies of their loved ones, as officials worked their way through a painstaking investigation. Despite having tightened the rules in the 1990s after the last mass shooting, New Zealand has relatively permissive gun laws, with nearly all those who apply granted licences Dozens of graves were being dug in readiness for that release, which Police Deputy Commissioner Wally Haumaha said would hopefully happen soon. "The process has been highly emotional and stressful for all... as in accordance with Islamic faith the families have wanted the bodies to be returned as soon as possible," he said. "We have burial expert teams in place ready to receive the bodies at a point in time." The dead span generations, aged between three and 77, according to a list circulated among relatives. Some victims came from the neighbourhood, others from as far afield as Egypt. At least two of the dead came from the same family -- a father and son. Delhi said Sunday that five of its nationals were killed, while Pakistan said nine of its citizens were among the dead, including one man who died trying to rush Tarrant. Authorities said 31 people remained in hospital, nine in critical condition. Reigning Super Rugby champions Canterbury Crusaders, who play in Christchurch, said Monday they would consider changing their name after criticism that it was historically insensitive. Distinctive writing on the mosque attacker's weaponry included the names of figures from the Crusades, the religious wars waged by European Christians against Muslims for control of the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Anger has focussed on Gun City's billboard on a busy highway showing a man teaching two children how to shoot New Zealand's gun laws are under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Christchurch mosque massacres, with the arms dealer who supplied guns to the killer saying he feels no responsibility for the tragedy. The slaughter by an avowed white supremacist of 50 Muslims last Friday stunned the usually peaceful, isolated country, casting a spotlight on the ease with which the accused killer, Australian Brenton Tarrant, legally purchased the semi-automatic weapons he used. "We can't ignore the galling fact he came to New Zealand to buy firearms he couldn't get in Australia," Police Association president Chris Cahill said. As the bodies were being readied for return to the families on Monday for burial, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her cabinet had decided unanimously to tighten gun laws, with details to be announced within a week. She has said the measures could include a ban on some semi-automatic rifles and a weapons buy-back scheme. Prime Minister Jacinda New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern said her cabinet had decided unanimously to tighten gun laws, with details to be announced within a week At present, anyone over the age of 16 and considered to be "fit and proper to possess firearms" can get a general A-category licence in New Zealand. This allows them to buy firearms including the AR-15 which was reportedly used by the Christchurch gunman and is frequently the weapon of choice in mass killings in the United States. According to New Zealand police data from 2017, the year Tarrant obtained his licence, there were 43,509 applications for a firearms licence with a 99.6 percent approval rate. Cahill called for a ban on easily-modified semi-automatic weapons and the creation of a national gun registry. "As it stands now, we have no idea who's buying weapons and where they're keeping them or how many they have in New Zealand," he said. - 'An ordinary sale' - David Tipple, whose Gun City company sold four weapons online to Tarrant, said there was nothing illegal about the sale. Tarrant was "a brand new purchaser with a brand new licence. It was an ordinary sale", he said. Asked if he felt any sense of responsibility for Friday's tragedy, Tipple said: "No, I do not." He added he would continue to sell weapons to anyone with the same credentials as the gunman. The last time New Zealand carried out serious gun reforms was after a mass shooting at Aramoana near Dunedin in 1990. Advocates for semi-automatic weapons argue against a total ban, saying the arms are needed for mass culls in areas overrun with pests such as deer and wild goats Gunman David Gray, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, killed 13 people including children following an argument with a neighbour. Laws on gun ownership were tightened in the wake of that attack but attempts to push through further reform in 2005, 2012 and 2017 were unsuccessful. Now even the advertising of weapons is in question, with anger focussed on Gun City's billboard on a busy highway showing a man teaching two children how to shoot. "It absolutely staggers me that a sign like that is allowed to be put out, advertising guns with a couple of kids," said Richard Griffiths, whose medical practice is near the Linwood Mosque where seven were killed. Advocates for semi-automatic weapons argue against a total ban, saying the arms are needed for mass culls in areas overrun with pests such as deer and wild goats. - Gun owners fearful - Andrew Taylor, owner of Shooters Supplies on the western outskirts of Christchurch, closed his store for the weekend after the shootings and has removed large-capacity magazines as well as AR-15s and similar weapons from the shelves. The semi-automatic weapons he sold were usually bought by "helicopter guys shooting pests, deer and out of control goats from choppers", he said. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters speak to the media after the cabinet agreed measures to tighten gun control laws About 250,000 people possess firearms licences in the country of under five million people, with conservative estimates suggesting a total of 1.5 million weapons. This equates to three guns for every 10 people, well below the US ratio of more than one weapon per person but higher than neighbouring Australia, where gun ownership was slashed in reforms following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which 35 people died. Following Friday's shooting, the Kiwi Gun Blog Facebook page was flooded with messages fearing responsible gun owners would be unfairly punished. In an open letter to Ardern, an organisation calling itself Shooterslottery demanded a public inquiry to determine whether the massacre was a failure of police, security services, the arms legislation or "the unpredictable actions of a monster". "It concerns us greatly that you are rushing to institute changes to the Arms Act. More so that this is being done in back rooms, by unknown people and without public consultation. That is not democracy," the letter said. Other gun owners argued for their rights to be unfettered, but agreed there was no need for military-style semi-automatic weapons in New Zealand. Sirisena said Interpol had issued a red notice, but Singapore was not acting on the request Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena accused Singapore Monday of sheltering one of his country's former central bank chiefs wanted in connection with a high-profile $74 million insider trading scam. Sirisena said he appealed to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in January to return Arjuna Mahendran, who is believed to be in Singapore, but nothing had been done. "He assured me that whether the person is a Singapore citizen or not, they will take action," Sirisena said Monday as he launched an anti-corruption drive in Colombo. "Sadly, up to now, Singapore has not responded to my call." Mahendran, a Singapore national of Sri Lankan origin, was accused in 2015 of passing sensitive information to his bond-dealer son-in-law to make millions in undue profits. The pair are accused of manipulating bond auctions in 2015 and 2016, causing losses of over $11 million to the state. He said Interpol had issued a red notice for the arrest of Mahendran, but Singapore was not acting on the request. In February last year, Mahendran was named a key suspect in a multi-million dollar bond scam. He fled abroad, failing to appear in court to respond to charges. A damning presidential report into the scandal accused Mahendran of insider trading and recommended the state recover its losses from Mahendran and his son-in-law. The country's central bank also launched a forensic audit to ascertain the extent of insider trading during Mahendran's tenure at the bank. The fallout deepened acrimony between Sirisena and his coalition partner Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who handpicked Mahendran to head the central bank in 2015. The pair's strained relationship collapsed entirely in late 2018, when Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe, plunging the country into political chaos as both men competed for power. Wickremesinghe was reappointed after months of limbo, when the Supreme Court intervened and ruled that Sirisena had acted outside the constitution by dismissing the prime minister and parliament. While SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav will contest from Mainpuri, Akhilesh Yadavs wife Dimple Yadav is likely to be fielded from Kannauj. New Delhi/Lucknow: AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will enter into the Uttar Pradesh battle zone on Monday with a two-day boat ride from Prayagraj to Varanasi, before which she will visit the citys historic Anand Bhavan, considered to be the political birthplace of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Top sources told this newspaper that Ms Vadras boat ride on the Ganga from Prayagraj (Allahabad) to Varanasi was aimed at showcasing the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of the eastern Uttar Pradesh region, of which she was made the general secretary in-charge. To woo allies in the politically crucial state, meanwhile, the Congress announced on Sunday in Lucknow that it would leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven seats for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in the state. Besides this, it also announced it will leave two seats for the Apna Dal Gonda and Pilibhit. The party also announced an electoral pact with the Jan Adhikar Party founded by Babu Singh Kushwaha, a former BSP minister and close aide of Mayawati. Mr Kushwaha was one of Ms Mayawatis most trusted backroom boys, and a senior member of the UP Cabinet, but was forced to resign in April 2011 after being implicated in the murder of two chief medical officers. The Congress is leaving seven Lok Sabha seats in the state for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance. These include Mainpuri, Kannauj and Firozabad. Apart from this, the party will not field any candidate on seats from where BSP chief Mayawati, RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary are likely to contest or may contest, UP Congress chief Raj Babbar told reporters in Lucknow. However, he did not reveal the name of the seventh Lok Sabha seat which the Congress will be leaving for the alliance. The alliance has left the seats of Rae Bareli (held by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi) and Amethi (held by Congress president Rahul Gandhi). In a reciprocating gesture, we are leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for them, Mr Babbar said. When asked whether it is Badaun, he replied in the negative. While SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav will contest from Mainpuri, Akhilesh Yadavs wife Dimple Yadav is likely to be fielded from Kannauj. The Firozabad seat is represented Mulayam Singh Yadavs nephew and Ram Gopal Yadavs son Akshay Yadav. The SP has decided to field MPs Dharmendra Yadav from Badaun, and incidentally the Congress had earlier announced Saleem Iqbal Shervani as its candidate from Badaun. The Congress also entered into an electoral agreement of seven seats with the Jan Adkhikar Party. Under this agreement, the Jan Adkhikar Party will contest from five seats, including Jhansi, Chandauli, Etah and Basti. In two seats, the candidates of the Jan Adkhikar Party will contest on the Congress symbol. One of the two seats is Ghazipur, Mr Babbar said. The BJP termed the Congress gesture as laughable. with UP deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma saying all parties are afraid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and are thus forging a mahamilavat (highly adulterated) alliance. The reciprocating gesture by the Congress goes on to prove that the dal (parties) may be different, but their dil (heart) is the same. The Congress move can be termed as laughable, and it seems the Opposition is afraid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his growing popularity across the country. Meanwhile, Ms Priyanka Gandhi Vadras boat ride is also intended to send a strong political message that the party means business as Allahabad, where the boat ride begins, was for long considered a Congress bastion, especially of the Nehru-Gandhis, and Varanasi, where it ends, is the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, the biggest challenger so far to the Nehruvian ideology. Sources said she would also interact en route with all the communities settled along the river like Mallahs, which the Congress considers politically crucial to its revival in the state. Ms Vadra, who is likely to be the Congress star campaigner, reached Lucknow on Sunday evening and will begin her boat ride from Manaiya in Allahabad on Monday. She is expected to have a chat with students on the steamer and take a break to visit a village en route. She will end her trip in Varanasi on Tuesday and play Holi in the ancient city on March 20, a day before the actual festival. In a message to the people of Uttar Pradesh, she said: I have a spiritual attachment to this land. I will reach you through the Ganga. ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) - The Latest on flooding in the Midwest (all times local): 5:15 p.m. As rivers and creeks in flooded eastern Nebraska and western Iowa crest Saturday, officials have begun looking downstream at likely flooding further south along the Missouri River. The Jefferson City News-Tribune reports Missouri Gov. Mike Parson met with emergency management team members Friday to review and update flood-response plans. The Missouri Highway Patrol is preparing additional equipment, and swift water rescue personnel are on standby. The Missouri National Guard also has temporarily relocated the 139th Airlift Wing's C-130s from Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph as a precaution. Some flooding of low-lying areas around the river in northwest Missouri had already been reported Saturday. The National Weather Service says the Missouri River at St. Joseph reached nearly 26 feet on Saturday, about a foot below what's considered major flooding at the northwest Missouri city. But it's expected to crest Wednesday or Thursday at 29.3 feet - more than two feet above major flooding level. RETRANSMISSION TO CORRECT SURNAME - Tom Wilke, left, his son Chad, center, and Nick Kenny, launch a boat into the swollen waters of the North Fork of the Elkhorn River, to check on Witke's flooded property, in Norfolk, Neb., Friday, March 15, 2019. Heavy rain falling atop deeply frozen ground has prompted evacuations along swollen rivers in Wisconsin, Nebraska and other Midwestern states. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) ___ 4:45 p.m. Officials in the Omaha, Nebraska, area have had enough of rubberneckers maneuvering around road barricades to get a closer look at flooding. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office has announced it will ticket anyone seen driving around barricades on closed roads in flooded areas of Valley and Waterloo, just west of Omaha. Sheriff's Capt. Wayne Hudson says a person who drove around a barricade Saturday morning trying to get a closer look found himself in trouble when his truck stalled in high water. Hudson says rescuers then had to divert efforts from others to help him. ___ 4:30 p.m. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and U.S. Sen. John Thune have surveyed flood damage in Sioux Falls. Mayor Paul TenHaken and other city leaders took Noem and Thune on a tour of Sioux Falls on Saturday. The city was drenched in heavy rains earlier in the week as a powerful storm battered the central U.S. Thune praised neighbors for helping others "get back up on their feet" and says that "speaks volumes to the caliber of people we have in South Dakota." TenHaken says cleanup continues and a few roads remain closed. The Argus Leader reports the mayor expects Sioux Falls' bike trail to be "closed for a while." On Friday, Noem signed an emergency declaration, allowing counties access to state funds to recover from the winter storms and flooding. ___ 4 p.m. A man rescued from his stalled and flooded vehicle in western Iowa has been flown to a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha television station KETV reports the man called for help shortly before 7 a.m. Saturday and told emergency dispatchers he was stranded in a truck that was taking on water in Pacific Junction. Officials say it was almost an hour before rescue crews could reach him. He was flown to Nebraska Medicine around 8 a.m. His name and medical condition have not been released. Authorities urged people to stay off the roads near rivers and creeks and warned motorists not to drive onto water-covered roads. ___ 2:25 p.m. Some homes are flooding in northern Illinois as waters rise on the Pecatonica and Rock rivers. The National Weather Service on Saturday said record crests are possible along both rivers. Many rivers and creeks in the Midwest are at record levels after days of snow and rain. In Nebraska and Iowa, people are being told to evacuate some areas after floodwaters broke through or overtopped levees. Some roads have also been closed, including a section of Interstate 29 in Iowa. In Illinois, the (Freeport) Journal-Standard reports that the American Red Cross opened a shelter Friday night for those displaced by flooding in Rockford. Freeport resident Mary Martin says that within an hour of going to the store she couldn't get back in her driveway. She says "that's how fast the water was coming up" from the Pecatonica River. ___ 2 p.m. Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued in rural areas of Mills County in southwestern Iowa as the Missouri River overtopped levees there. Mills County Emergency Management officials issued the order Saturday, noting the river wasn't done rising. Residents in the evacuation area are required to leave as soon as possible but no later than 4 p.m. Saturday. An emergency shelter has been established north of the area at Salem United Methodist Church in Council Bluffs. ___ 1:30 p.m. Travel in western Iowa is still hampered by flooding, and officials there and in eastern Nebraska are urging people not to drive if they don't need to. The Iowa Department of Transportation's website says northbound Interstate 29 from the Missouri state line to about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north near the Pacific Junction exit remains closed due to flooding. Drivers on I-29 are being rerouted onto Interstate 35 in Kansas City, Missouri, north to Des Moines, Iowa, then over I-80 back to I-29 at Council Bluffs. The detour takes drivers almost 140 miles (225 kilometers) out of the way. ___ 12:30 p.m. Nebraska authorities are issuing a mandatory evacuation for some neighborhoods after a levee along the Platte River in the city of Fremont. Officials ordered residents in certain areas to leave their homes as floodwater rushed in. Trinity Lutheran and Salem Lutheran churches in Fremont have been opened as shelters. Crews in parts of Nebraska are using boats to rescue people in floodwaters. The flooding happened after a deluge of recent rainwater and snowmelt was sent pouring over frozen ground, overwhelming creeks and rivers. Rescue efforts have been hampered by reports of levee breaches and washouts of bridges and roads, including part of Nebraska Highway 92 leading in and out of southwest Omaha. Authorities also confirmed that a bridge on that highway that crosses the Elkhorn River had been washed. ___ 11:35 a.m. Rescue and evacuation efforts have been continuing in many areas of eastern Nebraska, where a deluge of recent rainwater and snowmelt was sent pouring over frozen ground, overwhelming creeks and rivers. Efforts overnight and into Saturday were hampered by reports of levee breaches and washouts of bridges and roads, including part of Highway 92 leading in and out of southwest Omaha. Authorities also confirmed Saturday that a bridge on that highway that crosses the Elkhorn River had been washed out Saturday. The towns of North Bend and a large portion of Columbus were submerged Friday. Emergency workers used boats to evacuate residents. ___ 10:45 a.m. The National Weather Service says recent heavy rains paired with rising temperatures melting snow are causing flooding in the Midwest. Weather service meteorologist Brian Pierce in Davenport, Iowa, says moderate flooding Saturday along the Mississippi River is just the beginning. Pierce calls it the "dress rehearsal for the main event that's going to happen in early April." He says there's snow in Minnesota and Wisconsin that's yet to melt. Pierce says when it does there will be another round of flooding in those states that will then move south along the Mississippi River into Illinois and Iowa. The Mississippi River recorded moderate flooding Saturday from Rock Island, Illinois, south to Burlington, Iowa. Flooding is also occurring along other rivers and creeks in the Midwest. In eastern Nebraska, at least one person is dead and two others are missing. ___ 10:15 a.m. At least one person has died and at least two others are missing in floodwaters that have swamped towns and farmland, washed out roads and bridges and drowned livestock in Nebraska in the wake of a late-winter storm that overwhelmed rivers and creeks with rain and snowmelt. The family of 50-year-old James Wilke, of Columbus, Nebraska, says he was driving his tractor to rescue stranded motorists on a county road cut off by flooding Thursday when a bridge he was crossing collapsed. His cousin, Paul Wilke, told the Columbus Telegram that James Wilke's body was found downstream. Gass Haney Funeral Home confirmed James Wilke's death. Officials in other parts of Nebraska say a Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away in the water and another man is missing after being swept away by waters when a dam collapsed on the Niobrara River. RETRANSMISSION TO CORRECT SURNAME - Tom Wilke, center, his son Chad, right, and Nick Kenny, load a boat out of the swollen waters of the North Fork of the Elkhorn River after checking on the Witke's flooded property, in Norfolk, Neb., Friday, March 15, 2019. Heavy rain falling atop deeply frozen ground has prompted evacuations along swollen rivers in Wisconsin, Nebraska and other Midwestern states. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) The approach to a bridge over the Elkhorn River, seen Friday afternoon, March 15, 2019, leading south out of Stanton, Neb., collapsed because of the flooding on Thursday. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm system has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest. (Darin Epperly/The Norfolk Daily News via AP) In this Thursday, March 14, 2019 photo, a Bald Eagle takes off from its perch near Eagle Lake, Miss., in Warren County. Backwater flooding continues in the Eagle Lake area, which was at a level of 96.35 feet Friday morning. Levels are expected to rise to as much as 97.5 feet before cresting. (Courtland Wells/The Vicksburg Post via AP) In this March 14, 2019 photo an abandoned car sits on Industrial Highway in flood waters north of Norfolk, Neb. According to a trooper on scene, the occupant had to be rescued. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest. (Darin Epperly/Norfolk Daily News via AP) In this March 14, 2019 photo, Madison County Sheriff Todd Volk replaces cones on an area of Kaneb Road north of Norfolk, Neb., that had washed out while making rounds checking on the flooding situation in the county. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest. (Darin Epperly/The Norfolk Daily News via AP) In this March 14, 2019 photo, Highway 81 near the Industrial Highway intersection north of Norfolk, Neb., is covered for a long stretch with strong flowing flood waters. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest.(Darin Epperly/The Norfolk Daily News via AP) In this March 14, 2019 photo, Highway 81 north of Norfolk, Neb., is covered in flood waters. Thousands of people have been urged to evacuate along eastern Nebraska rivers as a massive late-winter storm has pushed streams and rivers out of their banks throughout the Midwest. (Darin Epperly/The Norfolk Daily News via AP) First responders bring out a truckload of residents from the King Lake area near Valley, Neb. because of flooding on Friday, March 15, 2019. Flooding in the central U.S. on Friday caused by rain and snowmelt from a massive late-winter storm forced hundreds of people to evacuate, threatened a nuclear power plant and shut down traffic on part of the Missouri River, foreshadowing a difficult spring flooding season. (Kent Sievers/Omaha World-Herald via AP) CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) - The Latest on shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand (all times local): 10 a.m. The organizers of New Zealand's largest gun show say they have canceled the event to show respect for victims of the Christchurch massacre and because of "elevated security risks." New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern vowed to tighten gun laws after the attack. She says banning private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, which were used to devastating effect in the attack Friday on two Christchurch mosques, is an option. The Kumeu Militaria Show, near Auckland, has been held for about five years. In a statement announcing cancellation of the March 23 event, organizers say the show aims to support servicemen and women and promote interest in New Zealand's military history. In this image made from a video, a woman who Australia's Nine Network television says is a grandmother of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian man accused of carrying out the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques, is interviewed in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia Sunday, March 17, 2019. The woman, identified as Marie Fitzgerald, says, "It's just so much for everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this." (CHANNEL 9 via AP) On the show's Facebook page, most commenters said they supported the decision. ___ 9:35 a.m. Facebook says it removed 1.5 million videos of the New Zealand shootings that killed 50 people during the first 24 hours after the massacre. The revelation in a late Saturday tweet provides a chilling snapshot of how quickly provocative - and often disturbing - images circulate on the internet and the challenges facing social media companies such as Facebook as they try to stamp them out. Facebook says it prevented 1.2 million of the videos from being uploaded to its social network, which has more than 2.2 billion users. But that implies 300,000 versions of the video were available to watch for at least short periods of time before Facebook excised them. The graphic video was taken by the shooter. ___ 7:20 a.m. Greek police say Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the New Zealand mosque shooting suspect, had stayed on the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini and traveled through the country twice, all in 2016. Authorities in Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia and Hungary have also confirmed visits by Tarrant between 2016 and 2018 as he apparently studied battles between Christians and the Ottoman Empire. In a statement Sunday, Greek police said Tarrant entered the country twice in 2016 on transit flights on Nov. 29 and Dec. 10. In March 2016, he entered the country on a flight from Istanbul and stayed for a few days in Heraklion, Crete and Santorini. Authorities are investigating any phone calls or purchases Tarrant made in Greece. On Tarrant's rifle was written a Greek word meaning "Turk-eater," or metaphorically, "Turk-slayer." ___ 12:30 a.m. Monday Pope Francis has offered prayers for "our Muslim brothers" killed in the attack against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Francis in his traditional Sunday prayer said that the mosque attack victims were added "to the pain wars and conflicts that don't cease to afflict humanity." Francis led the faithful in a silent prayer "for our Muslim brothers who were killed" and renewed "an invitation to unite in prayer and gestures of peace to oppose hatred and violence." The public prayers follow a telegram of condolences sent after the Friday attacks that claimed 50 victims in which the pontiff denounced "the senseless acts of violence." A 28-year-old white supremacist from Australia is suspected in carrying out the worst terror attack in New Zealand's modern history. ___ 11:50 p.m. Sunday Australia's Nine Network television has broadcast an interview with a woman and a man who it says are a grandmother and an uncle of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian man accused of carrying out the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques. The woman, identified as Marie Fitzgerald, says, "It's just so much for everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this." She adds, "It's only since he traveled overseas, I think, that the boy has changed completely ..." The uncle, Terry Fitzgerald, says, "We say sorry, for the families over there, for the dead and the injured, yeah we just, can't think nothing else, just want to go home and hide." The interview was conducted Sunday in the Australian city of Grafton in New South Wales state. At least 50 people were killed in Friday's attack. ___ 11:25 p.m. Pakistan will observe a day of mourning Monday for victims of the New Zealand mosque attacks and honor a man who died after trying to tackle the gunman. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Sunday that flags would fly at half-staff. He praised Naeem Rashid, saying he showed courage in trying to take down the attacker and would be honored at a Pakistan Day function on March 23. Nine Pakistanis were among the 50 people killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch during Friday prayers. Qureshi said foreign ministers from members of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation would meet in Istanbul next week to discuss ways of addressing anti-Islam sentiment. ___ 9:40 p.m. A fund send up to help the families of victims killed in the mosque attacks along with those who suffered injuries has raised over 4.3 million New Zealand dollars ($3 million). The page on the site givealittle was created by a council of victim support groups. The council said it had been overwhelmed with the number of donations, which were more than it thought possible, and it would need to create a formal process to distribute the money. The group said all the money would go directly to victims and their families, and that some would need it for bills, while others might need it for support services. ___ 5:35 p.m. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman says three more Pakistanis have been identified among those killed in the attacks on two mosques in New Zealand. That brings the number of Pakistanis killed to nine. Spokesman Mohammad Faisal? in his latest tweet Sunday said Zeeshan Raza, his father Ghulam Hussain and mother Karam Bibi are now confirmed to have killed in the terrorist attack in Christchurch. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Saturday that six Pakistanis were confirmed dead. They were identified as Sohail Shahid, Syed Jahandad Ali, Syed Areeb Ahmed, Mahboob Haroon, Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem. Rashid and Naeem gave their lives attempting to snatch the attacker's gun. ___ 5:25 p.m. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the bodies of the 50 people killed in Friday's mosque attacks will start being released to family members beginning Sunday evening. Ardern says only a small number of bodies will be released initially, and that authorities hope to release all the bodies by Wednesday. Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Anguished relatives have been anxiously waiting for authorities to release the remains. Police Commissioner Mike Bush says they are working as quickly as they can, but authorities have to be absolutely clear on the causes of death and confirm identities before they can release bodies. ___ 5:05 p.m. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has reiterated her promise that there will be changes to the country's gun laws in the wake of a terrorist attack on two mosques and said her Cabinet will discuss the policy details on Monday. At a Sunday news conference, Arden used some of her strongest language yet about gun control, saying that laws need to change and "they will change." New Zealand has fewer restrictions on rifles or shotguns than many countries, while handguns are more tightly controlled. Unlike the U.S., the right to own a firearm is not enshrined in New Zealand's constitution. Ardern declined to discuss more details until she'd talked to her Cabinet, the group of top lawmakers that guides policies. Friday's mass shootings in Christchurch killed 50 people. ___ 10:05 a.m. New Zealand police say they have found another body at one of the mosques that was attacked, raising the death toll in the shootings to 50. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush announced the latest death in a news conference Sunday. He says 36 victims remain hospitalized, with two of them in critical condition. Bush also said that two people arrested around the time suspect Brenton Harrison Tarrant was apprehended are not believed to have been involved in the attacks on two mosques Friday. He says one of those people has been released and the other has been charged with firearms offenses. Tarrant is 28 and was arraigned Saturday on the first of many expected murder charges. In this image made from a video, a woman and a man who Australia's Nine Network television says are a grandmother and an uncle of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian man accused of carrying out the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques, are interviewed in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia Sunday, March 17, 2019. The woman, identified as Marie Fitzgerald, says, "It's just so much for everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this." The uncle, identified as Terry Fitzgerald, says, "We say sorry, for the families over there, for the dead and the injured, yeah we just, can't think nothing else, just want to go home and hide." (CHANNEL 9 via AP) In this image made from a video, a man who Australia's Nine Network television says is an uncle of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian man accused of carrying out the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques, is interviewed in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia Sunday, March 17, 2019. The uncle, identified as Terry Fitzgerald, says, "We say sorry, for the families over there, for the dead and the injured, yeah we just, can't think nothing else, just want to go home and hide." (CHANNEL 9 via AP) In this image made from a video, a woman who Australia's Nine Network television says is a grandmother of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian man accused of carrying out the mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques, is interviewed in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia Sunday, March 17, 2019. The woman, identified as Marie Fitzgerald, says, "It's just so much for everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this." (CHANNEL 9 via AP) Pakistani Christians attend a special prayer service for the victims of Christchurch mosques shooting, at a church in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman says three more Pakistanis have been identified among the dead increasing the number of Pakistanis to nine killed in the mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. (AP Photo/Pervez Masih) A relative shows the picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting, on his cell phone outside his home in Karachi, Pakistan, Saturday, March 16, 2019. Pakistan's foreign minister says at least six Pakistanis were killed in the New Zealand mosque shootings. Shah Mahmood Qureshi says authorities in Christchurch, where the shootings took place, are trying to determine whether three other Pakistanis who have been missing since Friday's attack were among the fatalities. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) Pakistani traders shout slogans during a demonstration to condemn the Christchurch mosques shooting, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman says three more Pakistanis have been identified among the dead increasing the number of Pakistanis to nine killed in the mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad) Friends of a missing man Zakaria Bhuiyan hold up photos of him outside a refuge center in Christchurch, Sunday, March 17, 2019. The live-streamed attack by an immigrant-hating white nationalist killed dozens of people as they gathered for weekly prayers in Christchurch. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP) Friends of a missing man grieve outside a refuge center in Christchurch, Sunday, March 17, 2019. The live-streamed attack by an immigrant-hating white nationalist killed dozens of people as they gathered for weekly prayers in Christchurch. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP) In this photo provided by Azrul Mahathir Aziz, Phee Boon Poh, left, chairman of the state caring society and welfare committee, Zurina Mohi, second from left, wife of Malaysian victim Mohamad Tarmizi Shui, third from left, and Azrul Mahathir Aziz, right, representative of the Penang state government visit Tarmizi who receives medical treatment at Christchurch Hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand, Sunday, March 17, 2019. (Azrul Mahathir Aziz via AP) Relatives offer condolence to nephew, center, of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings, at his family home in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman says three more Pakistanis have been identified among the dead increasing the number of Pakistanis to nine killed in the mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed) JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) - Flash floods and mudslides triggered by days of torrential downpours tore through mountainside villages in Indonesia's easternmost province, killing at least 58 people and leaving thousands homeless, disaster officials said Sunday. Rescuers recovered more bodies as floodwaters and landslides destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua province's Jayapura district, hampering rescue efforts, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman. The dead included three children who drowned after the floods began just after midnight Saturday. Nugroho said 58 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes by Sunday. Another 74 people were hospitalized, many with broken bones and head wounds. Nugroho said the number of dead and injured will likely increase since many affected areas have not been reached. "We are overwhelmed by too many injuries," said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding that some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. "We can't handle it alone." In this photo provided by National Search and Rescue Agency, or BASARNAS, the agency's personnel and police carry the body of flood victim at Sentani, Papua Province, Indonesia, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Flash flood and mudslides triggered by days of torrential downpours tore through mountainside villages in Indonesia's easternmost province, killing dozens of people, disaster officials said Sunday. (BASARNAS via AP) Papua's provincial administration has declared a two-week emergency in order to get assistance from the central government. Papua military spokesman Col. Muhammad Aidi said rescuers managed to save two injured infants who had been trapped for more than six hours. The parents of one of the babies were washed away and died. Worst hit was Sentani subdistrict, where a landslide early Sunday was followed minutes later by a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents in a fast-moving deluge of water, heavy logs and debris, said the local disaster mitigation agency head, Martono. Martono, who goes by a single name, said rescuers have been evacuating more than 4,000 to temporary shelters as more than 300 houses damaged. He said that rising flood water forced Sentani airport to temporarily close Sunday after a runway was flooded and water damaged the power system and two small planes parked at the airport. Television footage showed hundreds of rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals. Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains. ___ Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report. CORRECTS YEAR - In this photo provided by National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS), the agency's personnel and police carry the body of flood victim at Sentani, Papua Province, Indonesia, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Flash flood and mudslides triggered by days of torrential downpours tore through mountainside villages in Indonesia's easternmost province, killing dozens of people, disaster officials said Sunday. (BASARNAS via AP) KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An overnight Taliban assault on checkpoints in northern Afghanistan killed 22 troops, after some 100 Afghan forces fled heavy fighting in the country's west last week and tried to cross into neighboring Turkmenistan, officials said Sunday. The two battles mark the latest setbacks for the country's battered security forces, who come under daily attack and have suffered staggering casualties in recent years. The attacks have continued even as the Taliban have been holding direct negotiations with the United States aimed at ending the 17-year war. Mohammad Tahir Rahmani, head of provincial council in the northern Faryab province, said the insurgents launched the attack late Saturday against checkpoints manned by police and pro-government militias in Qaisar district, setting off a fierce gunbattle that lasted into Sunday morning. The army sent in reinforcements, who were among those killed. He said another 20 Afghan forces were wounded in the attack. "The Taliban have gained control of more areas in the district" after stepping up attacks in recent weeks, Rahmani said, adding that troops reinforcements have arrived from the capital Provincial police spokesman Karim Yuresh confirmed that a large number of Taliban launched attacks in Faryab, but he could not immediately provide more details. FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2018, photo, Afghan National Army soldiers carry out an exercise during a live firing at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan officials say around 100 soldiers fled their posts and tried to cross into neighboring Turkmenistan during a weeklong battle with the Taliban, in the latest setback for the country's battered security forces. Mohammad Naser Nazari, a provincial council member in the western Badghis province, said Sunday, March 17, 2019, that the soldiers were not allowed to cross the border and their fate remains unknown. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File) Last week, around 100 Afghan soldiers in the western Badghis province fled their posts and tried to cross the border during a weeklong battle with the Taliban, officials said Sunday. Mohammad Naser Nazari, a provincial council member in Badghis, said the soldiers weren't allowed to cross the border and their fate remains unknown. The Taliban have posted pictures of captured soldiers on social media. Jamshid Shahabi, the provincial governor's spokesman, said 16 soldiers have been killed and 20 wounded during the ongoing battle in the Bala Murghab district, in which the military carried out airstrikes and dispatched reinforcements. He said a number of soldiers tried to flee, without providing an exact figure. Shahabi said more than 40 insurgents were killed in the fighting. He said the provincial police chief and army commander are in the district and instructing the forces to root out insurgents and rescue soldiers. Officials said the fighting had largely subsided by Sunday, with sporadic clashes breaking out in remote areas. Nazari provided a higher toll, saying 50 soldiers were killed and around 100 others were missing. He said hundreds of local residents have gathered in front of the Badghis governor's office to express their concerns about security in the province. He said Bala Murghab is almost completely controlled by the Taliban, with Afghan forces confined to the district headquarters. In a separate development on Sunday, an Islamic State affiliate claimed the killing of a local TV journalist in the eastern Khost province. The group did not say why it targeted Sultan Mahmoud Khirkhowa, a reporter with the local Zhman TV and radio, who was killed Friday when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on his vehicle. Another Afghan reporter was wounded in a targeted bombing last week in the southern Helmand province. Afghanistan is among the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters. The Afghan Journalist Safety Committee reported 121 cases of violence against journalists and media workers in 2018, with 17 killed. JERUSALEM (AP) - A Palestinian killed an Israeli and seriously wounded two others in a West Bank shooting and stabbing spree Sunday before fleeing, setting off a massive manhunt, the Israeli military said. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the attacker stabbed an Israeli soldier at the entrance to the Ariel settlement, southwest of the Palestinian city of Nablus, and then took his assault rifle. He then opened fire toward several passing vehicles, striking civilians. Another car slowed to a stop and the attacker then boarded it and sped away, firing toward soldiers along the way before escaping into a nearly Palestinian village. The army identified the Israeli killed in the stabbing attack as 19-year-old soldier Gal Keidan. Conricus said Israeli troops have gathered at the entrance to the village to assist in the manhunt. He said it was unclear if the assailant acted alone or with the assistance of others, and whether he belonged to any Palestinian militant group. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the chase was ongoing and he was confident Israeli forces would apprehend those behind the attack and "bring them to justice as we have in all previous cases." Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said the wounded were a 35-year-old man and a 20-year-old who were treated on the scene in serious condition before being evacuated to a hospital. The attack comes after two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire last week in separate West Bank incidents, which followed a period of relative calm. On Thursday, Hamas fired a pair of missiles from Gaza toward the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in a rare attack into the heart of Israel that looked to set the sides into another round of escalation. But the launch was apparently a technical malfunction and after a brief Israeli reprisal calm was restored. Israel is currently in the midst of an election campaign, and Egypt is trying to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers. Since 2015, Palestinians have killed over 50 Israelis in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks in the West Bank. Israeli forces have killed more than 260 Palestinians in that same period. Israel has described most of the Palestinians killed as attackers, but clashes between protesters and soldiers have also turned deadly. CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) - The attributes that helped Jacinda Ardern rise to become New Zealand's leader at age 37 include her optimistic outlook and bright personality. And she became an inspiration to working women around the world last year when she gave birth to a daughter, Neve. But the prime minister is now displaying other qualities to an anxious nation after a gunman on Friday slaughtered 50 people at two Christchurch mosques. She's shown a determination to change gun laws and a deep empathy with the families of the victims and the Muslim community. On Friday afternoon at a simple table laid in a hotel conference room in New Plymouth, a city on New Zealand's North Island, Ardern told the nation about the shootings. Details were sparse, but her shaken demeanor, a tremor in her voice, made it clear the situation was grave. Mass shootings were almost unheard of in New Zealand. People wanted reassurance and information. When she next spoke from Parliament in Wellington she was calmer, more resolute. She gave details of a mounting death toll and of an offender in custody, an Australian man who had chosen New Zealand for his crime. "You may have chosen us," she said. "We utterly reject and condemn you." In this image made from video, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, center, hugs and consoles a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque to lay flowers among tributes to Christchurch attack victims, in Wellington, Sunday, March 17, 2019. (TVNZ via AP) When President Donald Trump called Ardern to offer his sympathies and ask what assistance the U.S. might provide, Ardern said she would welcome sympathy and love toward Muslim communities. It was a rebuke, of sorts, toward the perception of Trump as being anti-Islamic. On Friday, Ardern flew to Christchurch. She donned a simple hijab and met with families of those killed and wounded. At a refugee center, she told Muslim leaders that the country was united in its grief. "This is not New Zealand," she said. "The only part of the incident and actions that we have seen over the past 24, 36 hours that is New Zealand is the support that you are seeing now." Ardern did not avoid the thorny political issues arising from the shooting, the question of how the gunman obtained five firearms, including two military-style weapons. New Zealand's liberal gun laws allow easier access to those weapons than in Australia. "I can tell you right now our gun laws will change," she said. She demanded her intelligence agencies explain why they knew nothing about the gunman, who emailed a manifesto outlining his plans to Ardern's office minutes before the shooting. She promised immediate financial assistance to survivors, including families who had lost their only breadwinner or who faced the cost of funerals. Friday's events where the first major test Ardern has faced since she became prime minister in a contentious general election in 2017. She had only become leader of the liberal Labour Party a few weeks earlier when the party had slumped to its lowest-ever poll rating. She immediately boosted its popularity, attracting a new constituency to Labour through her youth and optimism. It disguised a tough and experienced political operative. When Ardern was elected prime minister she had already been a lawmaker for nine years, starting as New Zealand's youngest sitting member of Parliament. She had previously been a researcher for New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and a policy adviser to Tony Blair, the British prime minister at the time. She is progressive but pragmatic, willing to woo big business and shelve difficult liberal issues that might alienate a larger constituency. Until Friday, her toughest task had been to hold together the brittle and disparate political coalition between her Labour Party and two other parties, the Greens and New Zealand First. Since taking office, Ardern has become an international celebrity and a counterpoint to the rise of populist leaders. But her popularity abroad has masked domestic difficulties. There were political missteps, minor scandals, dissent with coalition partners. In the week before the Christchurch shooting, Ardern's major political challenges had been dealing with the fallout from a proposal to introduce a capital gains tax and complaints of a conflict-of-interest affecting one of her ministers. On the day of the shooting she was to address schoolchildren participating in a global classroom strike and protest against inaction on climate change. Ardern is a fierce advocate for combating global warming and it was an event at which she'd usually be in her element. But on Friday, the trajectory of her leadership irrevocably changed. ___ McMorran reported from Wellington, New Zealand. YAMBIO, South Sudan (AP) - South Sudanese people are hoping President Salva Kiir's meeting with Pope Francis will bring greater stability to their country amid rising concerns that its fragile peace deal could collapse. South Sudan is slowly emerging from five years of civil war, which killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions. A peace deal signed in September has stalled and international observers warn that the agreement could break down "over any number of outstanding disputes," according to a report last week by the International Crisis Group. "We are hoping that this exchange of visits between (Kiir and the pope) will create a change of attitudes," Edmund Yakani executive director for Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a local advocacy group, told The Associated Press on Sunday, the day after the visit. With less than two months left in the pre-transitional period of the agreement, key issues have yet to be resolved. Those include shared security control of the capital Juba, when opposition leader Riek Machar returns to resume his role as First Vice President, and disagreements over local boundaries, said the report. Last month the Catholic Bishops of South Sudan released a statement, which was shared with the pope, saying they were extremely concerned about the state of the peace deal. The statement said "there is a sense of hopelessness that this agreement, like so many before it, will not succeed," and that all parties were either still involved in active fighting or preparations for war. While the pope didn't say when he might visit South Sudan, he told Kiir that he still hopes to come "as a sign of closeness to the population and of encouragement for the peace process." Pope Francis was supposed to visit South Sudan in 2017 but called it off due to the dangerous security situation. Instead in 2017 the pope donated 460,000 euros ($522,000) in aid to South Sudan to help finance two hospitals, a school and farm equipment to show "the church's presence and closeness with the suffering people," said Cardinal Peter Turkson at the time. But not everyone saw Saturday's visit as a sign of reassurance with at least one South Sudan analyst calling the trip little more than a publicity stunt. "A mere visit without a change of heart cannot help restore peace in South Sudan," said Jacob Chol, senior political analyst and professor at the University of Juba. "The leader should genuinely change his heart in order to usher in sustainable peace for the downtrodden South Sudanese." OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Authorities were using boats and large vehicles on Saturday to rescue and evacuate residents in parts of the Midwest where a recent deluge of rainwater and snowmelt was sent pouring over frozen ground, overwhelming creeks and rivers, and killing at least one person. The scramble to move people out of harm's way was expected to subside going into the new week, as rivers and creeks in flooded eastern Nebraska and western Iowa were expected to crest Saturday and Sunday. That left officials downstream looking to prepare for likely flooding. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson had already met with emergency management team members Friday to review and update flood-response plans, and the Missouri Highway Patrol was preparing additional equipment and putting swift water rescue personnel on standby. The Missouri National Guard also temporarily relocated the 139th Airlift Wing's C-130s from Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph as a precaution. The National Weather Service said the Missouri River at St. Joseph reached nearly 26 feet on Saturday, about a foot below what's considered major flooding at the northwest Missouri city. But it's expected to crest Wednesday or Thursday at 29.3 feet - more than two feet above major flooding level. Evacuation efforts in eastern Nebraska and some spots in western Iowa on Saturday were hampered by reports of levee breaches and washouts of bridges and roads, including part of Nebraska Highway 92, leading in and out of southwest Omaha. Authorities confirmed that a bridge on that highway that crosses the Elkhorn River had been washed out Saturday. In Fremont, west of Omaha, the Dodge County Sheriff's Office issued a mandatory evacuation for some residents after floodwaters broke through a levee along the Platte River. And in Mills County, Iowa, authorities ordered people in some rural areas to evacuate after the Missouri River overtopped levees. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest. The deluge pushed some waterways, including the Missouri River, to record levels in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. The flooding was the worst in nearly a decade in places. Water seeps into the west side of town with sandbags lining the intersection of Ridge Road and Military Avenue in Fremont, Neb., on Saturday, March 16, 2019. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest. (Kent Sievers/Omaha World-Herald via AP) The family of farmer James Wilke, 50, of Columbus, Nebraska, said he was killed Thursday when a bridge collapsed as he was using his tractor to try to reach stranded motorists on Thursday. His body was found downstream, his cousin Paul Wilke told the Columbus Telegram. Gass Haney Funeral Home confirmed James Wilke's death. At least two other people were missing in floodwaters in Nebraska. Officials said a Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away in the water and another man was swept away by waters when a dam collapsed on the Niobrara River. Officials in Sarpy County, south of Omaha, said Saturday that power may be shut off to communities along the Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn rivers for safety reasons. They warned those who choose to ignore calls to evacuate that rescues would be attempted only during daylight hours. Some cities and towns, such as North Bend on the banks of the Platte River, were submerged. Others, such as Waterloo and Fremont, were surrounded by floodwaters, stranding residents in virtual islands with no access in or out. "There is no way out of here unless you've got a helicopter - or a boat," the Rev. Mike Bitter, pastor of Christian Church of Waterloo, told the Omaha World-Herald. Officials in western Iowa and eastern Nebraska were urging people not to drive unless necessary. In Iowa, a section of northbound Interstate 29 that runs parallel to the Missouri River was closed due to flooding. Authorities were rerouting motorists at Kansas City, Missouri, using a detour that took people almost 140 miles (225 kilometers) out of the way. Farther east, the Mississippi River saw moderate flooding in Illinois from Rock Island south to Gladstone. Meteorologist Brian Pierce with the National Weather Service's Quad Cities office in Davenport, Iowa, said flooding on the Mississippi could get worse a few weeks as more snow melts in Minnesota and Wisconsin. "What we're having now is the dress rehearsal for the main event that's going to happen in early April," he said of the flooding on the Mississippi. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers flooded some homes in the northern Illinois cities of Freeport, Rockford and Machesney Park. The National Weather Service said record crests were possible along the rivers, with water levels forecast to continue to rise over the next several days and remain above flood stage through most of the weekend. Freeport resident Mary Martin told the (Freeport) Journal-Standard that she went to the store to get milk and bread when she saw floodwaters were rising Friday. "Within an hour of going to the store, I could not get back in. That's how fast the water was coming up," Martin said. ___ Associated Press reporter Caryn Rousseau contributed from Chicago. ___ This story has been corrected to change the spelling to Fremont, Nebraska, not 'Freemont.' Looking southwest towards Waterloo Neb., high waters from the Elkhorn river cover Maple street in the distance Saturday March 16, 2019. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest. (Jeff Bundy/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Dodge street is closed from flood waters on Saturday March 16, 2019 in Omaha Neb. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest The elkhorn river bridge is the first bridge. (Jeff Bundy/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Horses that were being boarded in Inglewood, Neb., are moved through floodwaters to higher ground in Fremont Neb., Friday, March 15, 2019. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest. (Kent Sievers/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Floodwaters lap close to the front yards of homes on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) Flood waters reach the door of Second Baptist Church on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) Water pumps are used to clear a home during flooding on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) Floodwaters lap close to the front yards of homes on South Sherman Avenue on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) James Snider drives a mini front-end loader to carry sand while building a berm with friends around his Ventura Boulevard home on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) Dillon Thompson, left, Ryan Taylor, , Nicholas Trilk, , and Casey Malady help homeowner James Snider, not pictured, construct a sand berm around his home during flooding on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) Allyson Hartman walks down flooded Louis Lane from her home on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Freeport, Ill. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers have flooded homes in northern Illinois. (Scott P Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) CAIRO (AP) - Hundreds of Sudanese took part in anti-government protests in the capital and other cities on Sunday as the government announced it had secured $300 million in loans to address the economic crisis that triggered the unrest. The demonstrations began in December over price hikes and food shortages, and quickly escalated into calls for President Omar al-Bashir to step down, posing one of the biggest challenges yet to his nearly 30-year rule. Security forces have responded with a fierce crackdown that has killed dozens of people. The rallies are being led by the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella group of independent professional unions. Footage posted online showed dozens of people marching in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman, chanting: "Freedom, dignity and justice." The also canted "the people want the fall of the regime," echoing the popular slogan of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that briefly defied despotism in the region, but never made it to Sudan. In some videos, security forces are seen using tear gas to disperse demonstrators. Also Sunday, dozens of families demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the National Intelligence and Security Service in Khartoum, calling for the release of detained relatives, according to activists who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety. A leading Sudanese geneticist was among those arrested. Muntasir Ibrahim, who heads the University of Khartoum's Institute of Endemic Diseases, was arrested on Feb. 21 from a mosque in the capital, said his son, Gassim Ibrahim. FILE - This June 14, 2015 file photo, shows Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a visit to Johannesburg, South Africa. On Sunday, March 17, 2019, hundreds of Sudanese took part in anti-government protests in the capital and other cities, as the government says it has secured $300 million in loans from Emirate-based sources to address the economic crisis that triggered the unrest. (AP Photo/Shiraaz Mohamed, File) Gassim said his father and other university professors had drafted an initiative for a peaceful transition of power. Police had previously arrested his father on two occasions in January. University lecturer Hadia Hasalaah also attended the demonstration in front of the security facility, calling for the release of her husband, Hisham el-Nour, also a university lecturer. "He was detained for around three months without charges," she said. "This time, they (security forces) allowed us to protest, because of the American delegation" currently visiting the country. There was no immediate comment from authorities on Sunday's protests and a government spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Sunday's demonstrations took place as a U.S. congress delegation is visiting Sudan to meet with government officials and opposition leaders, ahead of the start of a second phase of dialogue between the two countries. Sudanese lawmaker Mutwakil Ahmed said in a statement the U.S. delegation, led by Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis, a Republican from Florida, met with Salah Gosh, the head of Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services and other officials on Saturday. A report by the state-run SUNA news service said Gosh told the delegation about "the positive results of the President Al-Bashir recent decisions to maintain the country's national security and cohesion." The report also quoted him as saying that the recent protests "were legitimate, but their purposes changed and became illegal." It did not elaborate. Al-Bashir disbanded the government last month and declared a state of emergency. He also has banned unauthorized public gatherings and granted sweeping powers to the police since imposing a state of emergency last month, and security forces have used tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition and batons against demonstrators. Mutwakil, the lawmaker, said the U.S. delegation has discussed religious freedoms in Sudan, as well the country's counterterrorism efforts. In 2017, the U.S. lifted decades-long sanctions, arguing that Sudan is making progress in areas of concern, including improving humanitarian access. The State Department last year agreed to a second phase of rapprochement with Sudan, laying out priorities to reconcile the two nations which have been at odds for nearly three decades. At the time, no specific timeline was placed for the removal of the terrorism designation which was first placed on Sudan by the Clinton administration in 1993. Meanwhile Sunday, the state-run SUNA news service reported that the Finance Ministry secured a $230 million loan from the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Monetary Fund to support the country's balance of payments. It said the ministry signed another deal worth $70 million with the Arab Trade Financing Program, which is also based in the Emirati capital. Al-Bashir, who seized power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, has responded to the protests by suspending plans for constitutional amendments that would allow him to seek a new term in next year's elections. He has also stepped down as leader of the ruling party, appointing a loyalist in his place. Critics say he is trying to buy time and remain in power. Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for charges of genocide linked to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. Activists say at least 57 people have been killed in the recent protests. The government's latest tally stands at 31 killed, including policemen. Neither figure has been updated in weeks. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The boy is only 12 years old and looks even younger and smaller kneeling next to the wreckage of a helicopter, flanked by masked jihadis carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles with bandoliers strapped across their chests. Hamza bin Laden, with a traditional Arab coffee pot to his right and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to his left leaning against the debris, made his worldwide television debut reciting a poem in a propaganda video just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks planned by his father Osama. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, it is now Hamza bin Laden who finds himself squarely in the crosshairs of world powers. In rapid succession in recent weeks, the U.S. put a bounty of up to a $1 million for him; the U.N. Security Council named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest; and his home country of Saudi Arabia revealed it had revoked his citizenship. Those measures suggest that international officials believe the now 30-year-old militant is an increasingly serious threat. He is not the head of al-Qaida but he has risen in prominence within the terror network his father founded, and the group may be grooming him to stand as a leader for a young generation of militants. "Hamza was destined to be in his father's footsteps," said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent focused on counterterrorism who investigated al-Qaida's attack on the USS Cole. "He is poised to have a senior leadership role in al-Qaida." Much remains unknown about him - particularly, the key question of where he is - but his life has mirrored al-Qaida's path, moving quietly and steadily forward, outlasting its offshoot and rival, the Islamic State group. FILE - In this Nov. 5, 2001 image made from video broadcast by the Qatari-based television station Al-Jazeera, a young boy, center, identified as Hamza bin Laden, reads a poem about Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, it is now Hamza bin Laden who finds himself squarely in the crosshairs of world powers. In rapid succession in recent weeks, the U.S. put a bounty of up to a $1 million for him; the U.N. Security Council named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest; and his home country of Saudi Arabia revealed it had revoked his citizenship. (AP Photo/Al-Jazeera via APTN, File) "LIVING, BREATHING" AL-QAIDA Hamza bin Laden's exact date of birth remains disputed, but most put it in 1989. That was a year of transition for his father, who had gained attention for his role in supplying money and arms to the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden himself was one of over 50 children of a wealthy, royally connected construction magnate in the kingdom. As the war wound down, bin Laden emerged as the leader of a new group that sought to leverage that global network brought together in Afghanistan for a new jihad. They named it al-Qaida, or "the base" in Arabic. Already, bin Laden had met and married Khairiah Saber, a child psychologist from Saudi Arabia's port city of Jiddah who reportedly had treated bin Laden's son by another wife, Saad, for autism. She gave birth to Hamza, their only child together, as al-Qaida itself took its first, tentative steps toward the Sept. 11 attacks. "This boy has been living, breathing and experiencing the al-Qaida life since age zero," said Elisabeth Kendall, a senior research fellow at Pembroke College at Oxford University who studies Hamza bin Laden. Hamza, whose name means "lion" or "strength" in Arabic, was a toddler when the bin Ladens' life in exile began. They moved to Sudan after bin Laden's criticism of the kingdom hosting American forces during the 1991 Gulf War alienated the Al Saud royal family. Under growing international pressure after bin Laden declared holy war on the U.S., Sudan pushed him out and the family moved again to Afghanistan in 1996. Hamza bin Laden was 7. Al-Qaida's attacks against the U.S. began in earnest in 1998 with the dual bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Its 2000 suicide attack against the USS Cole off Yemen killed at least 17 sailors. Hamza bin Laden appeared in photographs alongside his father or in propaganda videos in this time, hanging from monkey bars in military-style training or reciting a poem in classical Arabic, garbed in a camouflage vest. Then came Sept. 11, 2001. The coordinated al-Qaida hijacking sent two U.S. commercial airliners slamming into the World Trade Center in New York, one striking the Pentagon and another crashing in rural Pennsylvania, all together killing nearly 3,000 people. So at age 12, Hamza bin Laden appeared in the video above the wreckage of a helicopter, likely a remnant of the Soviet occupation, not a U.S. warplane as al-Qaida claimed at the time. He recited a poem praising his father's ally, Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, as the "lion of Kabul," ran in a field with other boys and held a pistol above his head as if fearless of American airstrikes. It marked the last moments before the U.S.-led invasion would topple the Taliban and send Osama bin Laden fleeing into the mountains of Tora Bora and, from there, Pakistan. Hamza later remembered receiving prayer beads from his father with his brother Khalid before leaving him. "It was as if we pulled out our livers and left them there," he wrote. And then, like his father, Hamza bin Laden disappeared. ___ THE IRAN YEARS Hamza bin Laden and his mother followed other al-Qaida members into Pakistan amid the U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign on Afghanistan. From there, they crossed into Iran, where other al-Qaida leaders hid them in a series of safe houses, according to experts and analysis of documents seized after the U.S. Navy SEAL team raid that killed the elder bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. The connection between al-Qaida and Iran has been a murky one, firmly disputed by Tehran. Iran, the Mideast's predominant Shiite power, on its face seems a strange home for the Sunni Arab militants. Sunni extremists views Shiites as heretics and target them for violence. But al-Qaida under Osama bin Laden made inroads with Iran during his days in Sudan, according to the U.S. government's 9/11 Commission. The commission said al-Qaida militants later received training in Lebanon from the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which Iran backs to this day. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, Iran allowed al-Qaida militants to pass through its borders without receiving stamps in their passports or with visas obtained at its consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, according to a 19-page, unsigned report found among Osama bin Laden's personnel effects in the Abbottabad raid. That helped the organization's Saudi members avoid suspicion. They also had contact with Iranian intelligence agents, according to the report. Iran offered al-Qaida fighters "money and arms and everything they need, and offered them training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in return for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia," the report said. This matches up with the 9/11 Commission's report, which found that eight of the Sept. 11 hijackers passed through Iran before arriving in the United States. However, the commission "found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack." It's unclear why Iran allowed the al-Qaida members, including bin Laden's children and wives, to enter the country immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Iran's president at the time, the reformist politician Mohamed Khatami, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the attack, and Iran helped the ensuing U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. However, by January 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush declared Iran as part of an "Axis of Evil" alongside Iraq and North Korea. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. By April 2003, just weeks into the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iranian intelligence officials had had enough of al-Qaida being beyond their control. It rounded up all the al-Qaida members it could find and detained them, apparently at a series of military bases or other closed-off compounds, according to contemporaneous accounts by several al-Qaida militants. ___ CAPITVITY In Iran, Hamza's mother Khairiah Saber urged the al-Qaida lieutenants there to take her son - now a teenager - under their wing. Hamza wrote to his father recounting the Islamic theology books he studied in detention, while expressing frustration that he was not among the jihadis in battle. "The mujahedeen have impressed greatly in the field of long victories, and I am still standing in my place, prohibited by the steel shackles," Hamza wrote in one of his letters found at Abbottabad. "I dread spending the rest of my young adulthood behind iron bars." But those shackles ended up keeping him and the other al-Qaida members safe as the U.S. under Bush and later President Barack Obama targeted militants across the Mideast in a campaign of drone strikes. Hamza's half brother Saad escaped Iranian custody and made it to Pakistan, only to be immediately killed by an American strike in 2009. "That probably saved (Hamza) that he was in Iran during that period where everyone else was being knocked off, detained," said Tricia Bacon, an assistant professor at American University who focuses on al-Qaida and once worked in counterterrorism at the State Department. "It probably was one of the better places to be able to re-emerge at a later time." Hamza during this time even married into al-Qaida, picking a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian who the U.S. says helped plan the November 1998 embassy attacks. The two had two children, Osama and Khairiah, named after his parents. "I ask God to place their image in your eye," Hamza wrote his father. "He created them to serve you." By this time, rumors of al-Qaida members being in Iran had reached a fever pitch. A teenage daughter of Osama bin Laden, Eman, somehow escaped imprisonment in late 2009 and made her way to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. Iran's then-Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said at the time: "We don't know how this person went to the embassy or how she entered the country." Khalid bin Laden, another son of the wanted terrorist, later would write a letter that was posted online and addressed to Iran's supreme leader saying his siblings were "beaten and repressed." After years of imprisonment, an opportunity emerged for the al-Qaida members held in Iran. Gunmen in late 2008 kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in northwestern Pakistan. He would be freed in March 2010 as Hamza and others also left custody. Osama bin Laden thought of sending Hamza to Qatar for religious scholarship, but his son instead went to Pakistan's Waziristan province, where he asked for weapons training, according to a letter to the elder bin Laden. His mother left for Abbottabad immediately, where her husband was in hiding, with Hamza hoping to come as well. But on May 2, 2011, the Navy SEAL team raided Abbottabad, killing Osama bin Laden and Khalid, as well as others. Saber and other wives living in the house were imprisoned. Hamza again disappeared. ___ REEMERGENCE In August 2015, a video emerged on jihadi websites of Ayman al-Zawahri, the current leader of al-Qaida, introducing "a lion from the den of al-Qaida" - Hamza bin Laden. The younger bin Laden was not shown in the video, speaking only in an audio recording. With a voice deepened from the tinny recitals he offered as a child, he praised al-Qaida's franchises and other militants. "What America and its allies fear the most is that we take the battlefield from Kabul, Baghdad, and Gaza to Washington, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, and to take it to all the American, Jewish, and Western interests in the world," he said. Since then, he has been featured in around a dozen al-Qaida messages, delivering speeches on everything from the war in Syria to Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip as U.S. president. His style resembles his father's, with references to religious studies and snippets of poetry, a contrast to the gory beheading videos of the Islamic State group, which had risen up from al-Qaida in Iraq to seize territory across Iraq and Syria. "He's not blood and guts," said Kendall, the senior research fellow at Pembroke College at Oxford University. "His speeches are more literary and educated." While al-Zawahri still controls al-Qaida, the multiple messages have raised speculation that the terror group may be trying to plan for the future by putting forward a fresh face - albeit one they have so far only showed in old photographs of Hamza bin Laden as a child. Meanwhile, the Islamic State group has seen its territory slip away as it was pounded by a U.S.-led coalition, Russian airstrikes and Iranian-backed forces. That has left al-Qaida as the prominent jihadi group standing. "I think as ISIS' strength continues to deteriorate, the international community has perhaps realized that there are other terrorist groups - including the ones that never went away, such as al-Qaida," said Sajjan Gohel, the international security director of the United Kingdom-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, using another acronym for the Islamic State group. "In fact, al-Qaida has been quietly growing, regaining strength, letting ISIS take all the hits while they quietly reconstitute themselves," he added. The State Department named Hamza bin Laden as a "global terrorist" in 2017, then followed up in February with the bounty on his head as the U.N. blacklisted him. The designations show officials consider him a threat. "There is probably other intelligence that indicates something's happening and that's what put this thing on the front burner," said Soufan, the former FBI agent. But what's happening within al-Qaida remains a mystery. Hamza bin Laden hasn't been heard from since a message in March 2018, in which he threatened the rulers of Saudi Arabia. Why remains in question. Rumors have circulated he himself was targeted in an attack. The CIA also published video of him in November 2017 at his wedding in Iranian detention, showing the first publicly known photographs of him since childhood. An image from that video now graces his U.S. wanted poster. "Will he be successful? We don't know. Will he live long to do what his father was able to do? We have no idea. We might drone him tomorrow," Soufan said. "But this is the plan. This is what they wanted to do. This is what he is destined, I believe, to do from the beginning." ___ Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report. ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap. FILE - In this image from video released by the CIA on Nov. 1, 2017, Hamza bin Laden is shown at his wedding. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden finds himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (CIA via AP, File) This wanted poster released by the U.S. Department of State Rewards for Justice program shows Hamza bin Laden. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (U.S. Department of State Rewards for Justice via AP, File) FILE - In this April 1998 file photograph, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is shown in Afghanistan. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (AP Photo, File) FILE - In this Aug. 15, 1998 file photo, a United States Marine talks with an FBI investigator in front of the damaged U.S. Embassy in the capital Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, after an attack conducted by al-Qaida. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File) FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2000 file photo, experts in a speed boat examine the damaged hull of the USS Cole at the Yemeni port of Aden after an al-Qaida attack that killed 17 sailors. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis, File) FILE - In this Dec. 24, 1998, file photo, al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden speaks to a selected group of reporters in mountains of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (AP Photo/Rahimullah Yousafzai, File) This Friday, May 26, 2017 photo, shows a general view of Tehran, Iran. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. For years, Hamza bin Laden was held in Iran, for some of that time in Tehran. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, the twin towers of the World Trade Center burn after hijacked planes crashed into them in New York as part of a plot by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Years after the death of his father at the hands of a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan, Hamza bin Laden himself clearly in the crosshairs of world powers. The U.S. has put up to a $1 million bounty for him. The U.N. Security Council has named him to a global sanctions list, sparking a new Interpol notice for his arrest. His home country of Saudi Arabia has revoked his citizenship. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff, File) Sources said his name was understood to have been in active consideration by the Lokpal selection panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. New Delhi: Former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose is likely to be appointed as Indias first Lokpal, an anti-corruption ombudsman. Justice Ghose, 66, retired as a Supreme Court judge in May 2017. He is a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) since June 29, 2017. Sources said his name was understood to have been in active consideration by the Lokpal selection panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There was no official announcement of his appointment by the government. His appointment, if made, may trigger a political storm as Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had boycotted the panels meet on Friday. The law envisaging the appointment of a Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in states to look into cases of corruption against some categories of public servants was passed on 2013. The development comes a week after the Supreme Court asked attorney-general K.K. Venugopal to inform it within 10 days of a possible date for the meeting of the selection panel. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S.A. Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna was on March 7 told by Mr Venugopal that the Lokpal search committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai had recommended three panels of names to the selection committee for appointment of the chairperson, judicial and non-judicial members in the anti-graft body. The attorney-general had told the bench that he would ask the secretary of the department of personnel and training to ensure that the meeting of the selection committee was convened as early as possible. The top court refused to pass directions to disclose the names in the three panels. Following the court proceedings, a meeting of the selection panel was held on Friday. The Supreme Court on January 17 set up a February-end deadline for the Lokpal search committee to send a panel of names who could be considered for the appointment as chairman and members. A person who is or has been Chief Justice of India or a judge of the Supreme Court is eligible for appointment as Lokpal. According to the rules, there is a provision for a chairperson and a maximum of eight members in the Lokpal body. Of these, four need to be judicial members. Not less than 50 per cent of members of the Lokpal panel shall be from among persons from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minorities and women, the rules say. Upon selection, the chairperson and members shall hold office for five years or till they attain the age of 70. The salary and allowances of the chairman will be the same as that of the Chief Justice of India. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Preliminary information from the flight data recorder of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed a week ago and killed 157 people shows "clear similarities" with an earlier disaster involving the same kind of Boeing aircraft in Indonesia, Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday. The disclosure came as thousands marched in the capital of Addis Ababa, accompanying 17 empty caskets at a funeral for the Ethiopian victims of Flight 302. The caskets were empty because authorities have said that recovering and identifying the remains will take months. The crash of Ethiopian Flight 302 on March 10 and that of a Lion Air plane in Indonesia in October - both of them Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliners - have prompted the United States and other countries to ground the aircraft. The flight recorders from Flight 302 that went down shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa for Nairobi were recovered "in a good condition that enabled us to extract almost all the data inside," Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges told reporters. Information collected so far from the flight data recorder has indicated "clear similarities" between both crashes, she said. Both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder were sent to Paris for analysis by the French air accident investigation agency BEA. Moges did not elaborate on what the similarities were. A priest cries at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration already has said satellite-based tracking data showed that the movements of Flight 302 were similar to those of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed off Indonesia, killing 189 people. Both planes flew with erratic altitude changes that could indicate the pilots struggled to control the aircraft. Shortly after their takeoffs, both crews tried to return to the airports but crashed. Suspicions emerged that faulty sensors and software may have contributed to the crashes. Moges said the Ethiopian government intends to release detailed findings within a month. At the memorial service earlier in the day, some of the relatives who marched behind the flag-draped coffins were overcome with grief and fainted. The service came one day after officials began delivering bags of scorched earth from the crash site to family members of the victims because of the problems with identifying the remains. Family members said they were given a 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) sack of dirt from the crash site. Many relatives already have gone to the dusty field outside Addis Ababa where the plane went down to pay their respects. Mourner Elias Bilew said he had worked with one of the victims, Sintayehu Shafi, for the past eight years. "He was such a good person," Bilew said. "He doesn't deserve this. He was the pillar for his whole family." ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed. Priests swing incense over empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) A crucifix is held by a priest at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) A relative blows a kiss towards empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives hold photographs of the victims at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Church leaders pray next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) WASHINGTON (AP) - New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand formally joined the 2020 White House race on Sunday and previewed the hard line she will take against President Donald Trump by announcing a rally outside one of his signature Manhattan properties. She had spent more than a month traveling around the country to gauge support for a run. Her announcement that she was joining the dozen-plus candidates who want to challenge Trump came in a nearly three-minute video produced by her campaign and released early in the morning. She says the national anthem poses this question: "Will brave win?" "Well, it hasn't always, and it isn't right now," she says. "Brave doesn't pit people against each other. Brave doesn't put money over lives. Brave doesn't spread hate. Cloud truth. Build a wall. That's what fear does." In the video, Gillibrand says that the country needs a leader who "makes bold, brave choices" and "someone who isn't afraid of progress. That's why I'm running for president." She said her debut speech as a candidate will come next Sunday in front of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., speaks during a campaign meet-and-greet, Friday, March 15, 2019, at To Share Brewing in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) Gillibrand has been one of the most forceful critics of the Trump administration. Using the backdrop of one of Trump's marquee properties is a clear challenge to the president. She announced her exploratory committee in January in an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." Since then, she has visited a number of states to assess political support for a White House bid. This coming week she plans to campaign in Michigan, Iowa and Nevada, leading up to her New York kickoff. Gillibrand has been a vocal advocate for electing more women to office, as well as combating sexual assault and violence in politics and the military. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Latest on the war in Afghanistan (all times local): 3:30 p.m. Afghan officials say the Taliban have attacked checkpoints in the northern Faryab province, killing at least 22 Afghan forces. Mohammad Tahir Rahmani, head of provincial council, says the insurgents launched the attack late Saturday against checkpoints manned by police and pro-government militias, setting off a fierce gunbattle that lasted into Sunday morning. The army sent in reinforcements, who were among those killed. He says another 20 Afghan forces were wounded in the attack. The Taliban effectively control nearly half the country and launch near-daily attacks on Afghan security forces. ___ 11 a.m. Afghan officials say around 100 soldiers fled their posts and tried to cross into neighboring Turkmenistan during a weeklong battle with the Taliban, in the latest setback for the country's battered security forces. Mohammad Naser Nazari, a provincial council member in the western Badghis province, said Sunday the soldiers were not allowed to cross the border and their fate remains unknown. The Taliban have posted pictures of captured soldiers on social media. Jamshid Shahabi, the provincial governor's spokesman, says 16 soldiers have been killed during the ongoing battle, in which the military carried out several airstrikes and dispatched reinforcements. He says a number of soldiers tried to flee, without providing an exact number. The Taliban effectively control nearly half the country and attack Afghan security forces on a daily basis. BERLIN (AP) - An Austrian town has burned what organizers says is the world's tallest bonfire, clocking in at 60.646 meters (198.97 feet). The local bonfire group in Lustenau, near the Swiss border, took three months to build the structure. It burned down in less than half an hour Saturday evening. The previous record structure was a 47-meter (154.2-foot) bonfire in Alesund, Norway in 2016. Western Austria has a tradition of bonfires called "Funken," or sparks. It's believed to go back to pagan times when people lit fires to banish winter and welcome the arrival of spring. The big bonfire drew criticism from members of the Green party and the Austrian Association for the Protection of the Alps, which said it was "the wrong signal" at a time of concern about climate change. In this image made from video on Saturday, March 16, 2019, a bonfire burns in Lustenau, Austria. An Austrian town has burned what organizers says is the world's tallest bonfire, clocking in at 60.646 meters (198.97 feet). The local bonfire group in Lustenau, near the Swiss border, took three months to build the structure. The previous record structure was a 47-meter (154.2-foot) bonfire in Alesund, Norway in 2016. (AP Photo) WASHINGTON (AP) - Before Bernie Sanders took the stage to formally launch his 2020 presidential campaign this month, the candidate's most influential adviser took the mic. To cheers, Jane Sanders introduced herself to the Brooklyn crowd as "Bernie's wife," then conceded that wasn't the most politically correct label. To be sure, identifying Jane Sanders as "the wife" hardly captures the scope of her influence on her husband's political career. Across 30 years and a dozen campaigns for federal office, she has served variously as her husband's media consultant, surrogate, fundraiser, chief of staff, campaign spokeswoman and top strategist. His political revolution has become her career. And her political and business activities have, at times, become his headache. As the Vermont senator undertakes his second presidential run and scrambles his inner circle, Jane Sanders remains his closest adviser, making her perhaps the most influential woman in the 2020 campaign who isn't a candidate. "Bernie's top adviser always has been and will continue to be Jane," said Jeff Weaver, a Sanders adviser. She has a voice in almost every major political decision her husband makes, travels with him for major events and is deeply involved in formulating policies, issues and campaign infrastructure. "At every level," Weaver said, "Jane is intimately involved." That involvement has drawn questions sometimes about her political judgment, family opportunism and flawed ethics - from political foes, good government advocates and longtime Sanders-watchers in Vermont and in the progressive movement. Most recently, critics questioned the role played by the Sanders Institute , a nonprofit co-founded by Jane Sanders and her son, for blending elements of fundraising, family and campaign policy development. Her dual roles at the institute and in her husband's campaign carried echoes of the Clinton Foundation, which Bernie Sanders criticized in 2016 as a possible ethics conflict and back door for foreign donors seeking to influence his then-rival Hillary Clinton. FILE - In this March 3, 2019, file photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, and his wife, Jane Sanders, greet supporters as they leave after his 2020 presidential campaign stop at Navy Pier in Chicago. Bernie Sanders' revolution is Jane Sanders' career. And her political and business activities have at times been his headache. His closest adviser, she is perhaps the most influential woman in the 2020 campaign who isn't a candidate. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File) "Bernie Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016 criticizing her for the vast sums of money she raised and he seems to be following in some of her footsteps," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. "Now he's raising vast sums of money and it's being controlled and shaped by his family." Jane Sanders acted this past week to remove the think tank as a possible campaign ethics target, telling The Associated Press that the institute's operations and fundraising would be suspended for the balance of her husband's 2020 presidential campaign. Since its creation in 2017, the group raised more than $700,000, but has not disclosed most of its donors. She said the decision to put the Sanders Institute on hiatus was "a forward-looking way to deal with potential concerns." Sanders may prove an important surrogate for her husband, particularly in a race crowded with female candidates and potentially hinging on how women vote. She publicly defended her husband when he faced criticism for the way his 2016 campaign handled accusations of sexual harassment. She's become an essential liaison to the progressive activists at the heart of the Sanders' base, using the institute to host meetings of policymakers and activists. An affable, if low-key public speaker, she was the star of the December "Gathering" in Burlington, Vermont, a three-day policy gathering that featured progressive speakers including environmentalist Bill McKibben, actor Danny Glover and her husband. Steeped in years of involvement in progressive causes, Sanders comfortably slipped into the role as the event's emcee. Before a crowd of more than 250 progressive activists, she stoked applause lines for favored organizations and lavished compliments on institute fellows. Similarly, in videos posted on the institute's website, she has led numerous policy conversations with experts in a Brooklyn accent fainter than her husband's. Jane Sanders is not compensated for her role at the institute. Her son, David Driscoll, has been paid $100,000 a year as a co-founder and executive director, she confirmed. Driscoll had been an executive for Nike and the Vermont snowboarding company Burton, but had no previous nonprofit experience, according to his LinkedIn profile. Like her husband, Jane Sanders "has learned not to trust a lot of people. Family is a lot more dependable than outsiders," said University of Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson, an acquaintance and veteran Sanders-watcher. Jane Sanders expressed frustration about concerns that she and some of her children have at times benefited from their activities affiliated with Sanders' expanding political apparatus. "How can we say nepotism here? It just doesn't fit," she said. She added that the Sanders Institute has "developed policy and the content that we get completely separate" from her husband's campaign. Politics has long been a family project for the couple. Jane Sanders first worked with her future husband as director of the mayor's youth Office in Burlington. They were both displaced New Yorkers, Jane noted at the launch rally, stamped by childhood days on Brooklyn's city streets. "We had very similar experiences," she said. "We spent a lot of time playing stickball, running races and just hanging out on the streets with the kids in our neighborhoods." They wed in 1988 - a second marriage for both - two years before Sanders won his first election to Congress. Jane Sanders went to Capitol Hill as his volunteer deputy - gaining experience in policy, legislation and as chief of staff. In the early 2000s, she took on a new role along with her daughter, Carina. Two women set up a consulting firm, paid more than $90,000 in consulting fees by Bernie Sanders' House campaigns. In 2004, the year before Bernie Sanders' launched his winning Senate campaign, his wife was named president of Burlington College, a local small liberal arts college. In 2010, she worked out a $10 million deal for the college to buy 32 acres of waterfront land on Lake Champlain and a 77,000-square-foot former orphanage and administrative offices of Vermont's Roman Catholic Church, which needed the money to settle a series of priest sex abuse cases. She promised at the time the deal would be paid for with increases in enrollment and about $2.7 million in donations. But her plans never took wing and under fire, she resigned from the college in 2011. The school closed in 2016, citing debt from the land deal as a major reason for its failure. Prompted by complaints filed by a Republican lawyer about her involvement in the land deal, federal investigators looked into Jane Sanders' stewardship but informed her last November that she would not be charged. "We've learned we're going to be attacked," she said during an interview, adding "that's the fact of today's politics." But she said she was confident that the decision to put the think tank on hiatus was "best for the institute to not have the possibility of misinterpretation." The move, she said, will allow her to expand her campaign work freely for the Sanders campaign, including more solo stops on her husband's behalf. "I will be more active throughout," she said. ___ Ring reported from Montpelier, Vermont, and Peoples from New York. FILE - In this March 3, 2019, file photo, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, and his wife Jane Sanders, greet supporters as they arrive arrive for a campaign event at Navy Pier in Chicago. Bernie Sanders' revolution is Jane Sanders' career. And her political and business activities have at times been his headache. His closest adviser, she is perhaps the most influential woman in the 2020 campaign who isn't a candidate. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File) WASHINGTON (AP) - It's a tale with everything you'd need for a soap opera: star-crossed lovers, a stable relationship threatened by younger suitors, pregnancy and loss, and a hungry raccoon. Washingtonians, along with a global community of eagle-watchers, have been transfixed this winter by Liberty and Justice, bald eagles who've nested and raised eaglets together for 14 years on the grounds of the city's police academy. Their annual mating ritual, egg-laying and hatching process normally draws thousands of viewers to a special eagle cam. But this year has been unusually dramatic, with twists and turns that became headline news outside the eagle-watcher community. "It's been a roller-coaster ride," said Tommy Lawrence, managing director of the Earth Conservation Corps, which runs the eagle cam and has been instrumental in repopulating the local bald eagle community. "People kind of take ownership of the eagles and really become invested in their well-being." The saga of Justice and Liberty isn't the capital's only eagle drama. Last Wednesday, the Blue Line of Washington's Metro was delayed to rescue an injured bald eagle from the tracks . The bird later had to be euthanized. Another eagle cam , at the National Arboretum, also has chronicled relationship tensions this year. Two eagles, known as Mr. President and The First Lady, experienced a comparatively mild relationship drama when another female showed up and tried to woo Mr. President. The interloper was chased off by The First Lady. This March 4, 2019, image from video provided by Earth Conservation Corps Eagle Cam, shows Bald Eagles Liberty and Justice on their nest in Washington. It's a tale containing seemingly everything you'd need for a proper soap opera: star-crossed lovers, a stable relationship threatened by younger suitors, pregnancy and loss, and a hungry raccoon. Washingtonians, along with a global community of eagle-watchers, have been transfixed this winter by the tale of Liberty and Justice, a pair of bald eagles who have nested and raised eaglets together for 14 years on the grounds of Washington's police academy (Earth Conservation Corps via AP) But the bigger drama involved Liberty, the female, and Justice. Their mating season started normally. Together they prepared the nest they've shared for 14 years. They mated on Feb. 9. Normally at that point, Liberty would lay eggs - usually two - and spend most of her time sitting on them while they incubated and the male sought food for the family. But this year, Justice disappeared almost immediately after mating, leaving Liberty with no way to gather food while keeping the eggs warm. During his absence a younger male eagle began appearing at the nest and courting Liberty. Researchers named him "Aaron Burrd" and speculated that he had fought Justice and driven him from the territory. A second young male rival also made some appearances. After about 10 days, Liberty began making short flights away from the nest, meaning the temperature of the eggs dropped too low to hatch. On Feb. 23, Liberty flew away with one of her new suitors for two days, essentially abandoning her nonviable eggs. The next day, Justice reappeared after a more than two-week absence to reclaim his place. When Liberty returned, she didn't accept him back at first but gradually they reconciled. Then came a final Darwinian twist. While the reunited pair was away from the nest, a raccoon climbed up and ate both eggs live on camera . Nothing was actually lost. The eggs were never going to hatch. But Lawrence said some newer eagle-cam devotees didn't fully understand what had happened. "The reaction was intense," Lawrence said. "People would start freaking out on Facebook and asking why we didn't rescue the eggs and then some older members of the community would calm them down." When interviewed Friday by The Associated Press, Lawrence announced breaking news: Justice and Liberty, after slowly rekindling their relationship, had mated the day before. Now the watch is on to see if Liberty is still fertile this late in the mating season and will lay more eggs. Justice, by the way, has continued his mysterious disappearances. On March 7, he vanished for five days before returning. "We don't know where he keeps going," Lawrence said. "Our minds go to 'Does he have a second nest somewhere?' " The twists and turns have been covered by multiple local media outlets with Kardashian-level of detail. Now speculation is running hot as to whether Justice and Liberty have a long-term future together or whether the younger suitors are a glimpse of the future. "It does seem like there's all these young bucks out there looking for some action," Lawrence said. If the aging Justice is going to face regular challenges from younger males going forward, Lawrence said he might discover that his mate is fiercely loyal - to the nest. "The female will give up her mate before she gives up her nest," he said. "Liberty basically has the keys to the house and she decides who she lets in." The cult-like following for the eagles is a testament to the wildly successful mid-1990s campaign to bring them back after they had died out locally in the late 1940s. Starting in 1994, the Earth Conservation Corps brought 16 new eagle hatchlings - four per year - from Wisconsin and raised them locally so they would develop an affinity for the area. Mature eagles leave the nest after four months to six months, and leave their home territory for several years, then frequently return to their home area to mate - "like going to college," Lawrence said. Eagles generally live about 30 years, so that first batch of eaglets would be a middle-aged 25 now, but much of the now-healthy local bald eagle population is presumed to be the children and grandchildren of those first few hatchling batches. Dan Rauch, a wildlife biologist who is responsible for Mr. President and The First Lady, praised the following that has developed around both local eagle cams. "The community is great! Some people are very involved and are watching all day. They really have an emotional investment in these birds," he said. Rauch attributes the popularity to the comeback story, the eagle's status as America's national symbol, and the natural fierce magnetism of the winged predators. "The bald eagle itself is a very charismatic animal," he said. Lawrence said he has learned not to underestimate the power and devotion of the eagle-watcher community. He recalls last year when a special cable malfunctioned and knocked out the eagle cam. Lawrence put out an appeal on Facebook asking if any IT professionals could donate their time and take a look. "Literally a few hours later I get a call from the people who lobby for Verizon saying, 'We've received a bunch of phone calls, including from two congresswomen, asking us to fix this,' " he said. ___ Follow Khalil on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Ashrafkhalil A few months after teen shooters killed 12 classmates and her father at Columbine High School, Coni Sanders was standing in line at a grocery store with her young daughter when they came face to face with the magazine cover. It showed the two gunmen who had carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Sanders realized that few people knew much about her father, who saved countless lives. But virtually everyone knew the names and the tiniest of details about the attackers who carried out the carnage. In the decades since Columbine, a growing movement has urged news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to cease the steady drumbeat of biographical information about them. Critics say giving the assailants notoriety offers little to help understand the attacks and instead fuels celebrity-style coverage that only encourages future attacks. The 1999 Colorado attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who this week stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman who attacked two mosques in New Zealand on Friday, killing at least 49 people, was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters, said it's vitally important to avoid excessive coverage of gunmen. Coni Sanders, whose father was a teacher killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, poses for a photo at her home Saturday, March 16, 2019, in Denver. A growing movement is urging news organizations to avoid naming the gunmen responsible for mass shootings. The idea is to avoid inspiring more shooters who seek infamy and notoriety. "The media was so fascinated, and so was our country and the world, that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it," Sanders said. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) "A lot of these shooters want to be treated like celebrities. They want to be famous. So the key is to not give them that treatment," he said. The notion hit close to home for Sanders. Seemingly everywhere she turned - the grocery store, a restaurant, a newspaper or magazine - she would see the faces of the Columbine attackers and hear or read about them. Even in her own home, she was bombarded with their deeds on TV. Everyone knew their names. "And if you said the two together, they automatically knew it was Columbine," Sanders said. "The media was so fascinated - and so was our country and the world - that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it." Criminologists who study mass shootings say the vast majority of shooters are seeking infamy and soak up the coverage as a guide. Just four days after the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting, which stands as the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Lankford published a paper urging journalists to refrain from using shooters' names or going into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers, he argued, are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls. Media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Late last year, the Trump administration's federal Commission on School Safety called on the media to refrain from reporting the names and photos of mass shooters. It was one of the rare moments when gun-rights advocates and gun-control activists agreed. "To suggest that the media alone is to blame or is primarily at fault for this epidemic of mass shootings would vastly oversimply this issue," said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, which works to curb gun violence. Skaggs said he is "somewhat sympathetic to journalists' impulse to cover clearly important and newsworthy events and to get at the truth. ... But there's a balance that can be struck between ensuring the public has enough information ... and not giving undue attention to perpetrators of heinous acts." Studies show a contagion effect from coverage of both homicides and suicides. The Columbine shooters, in particular, have an almost cult-like status, with some followers seeking to emulate their trench-coat attire and expressing admiration for their crime, which some have attributed to bullying. The gunman in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting kept a detailed journal of decades' worth of mass shootings. James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who has studied mass shootings, said naming shooters is not the problem. Instead, he blamed over-the-top coverage that includes irrelevant details about the killers, such as their writings and their backgrounds, that "unnecessarily humanizes them." "We sometimes come to know more about them - their interests and their disappointments - than we do about our next-door neighbors," Fox said. Law enforcement agencies have taken a lead, most recently with the Aurora, Illinois, police chief, who uttered just once the name of the gunman who killed five co-workers and wounded five officers last month. "I said his name one time for the media, and I will never let it cross my lips again," Chief Kristen Ziman said in a Facebook post. Some media, most notably CNN's Anderson Cooper, have made a point of avoiding using the name of these gunmen. The Associated Press names suspects identified by law enforcement in major crimes. However, in cases in which the crime is carried out seeking publicity, the AP strives to restrict the mention of the name to the minimum needed to inform the public, while avoiding descriptions that might serve a criminal's desire for publicity or self-glorification, said John Daniszewski, the AP's vice president and editor-at-large for standards. For Caren and Tom Teves, the cause is personal. Their son Alex was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. They were both traveling out of state when the shooting happened, and it took 15 hours for them to learn the fate of their son. During those hours, they heard repeatedly about the shooter but virtually nothing about the victims. Not long after, they created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details. They also recommend publishing images of the shooter in places that are not prominent, steering clear of "hero" poses or images showing them holding weapons, and not publishing any manifestos. "We never say don't use the name. What we say is use the name responsibly and don't turn them into anti-heroes," Tom Teves said. "Let's portray them for what they are: They're horrible human beings that are completely skewed in their perception of reality, and their one claim to fortune is sneaking up behind you and shooting you." Coni Sanders, whose father was a teacher killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, poses for a photo at her home Saturday, March 16, 2019, in Denver. A growing movement is urging news organizations to avoid naming the gunmen responsible for mass shootings. The idea is to avoid inspiring more shooters who seek infamy and notoriety. "The media was so fascinated, and so was our country and the world, that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it," Sanders said. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) Coni Sanders, whose father was a teacher killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, poses for a photo at her home Saturday, March 16, 2019, in Denver. A growing movement is urging news organizations to avoid naming the gunmen responsible for mass shootings. The idea is to avoid inspiring more shooters who seek infamy and notoriety. "The media was so fascinated, and so was our country and the world, that they really grasped onto this every detail. Time and time again, we couldn't escape it," Sanders said. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) FILE - In this April 28, 1999, file photo, a woman stands among 15 crosses posted on a hill above Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in remembrance of the 15 people who died during a school shooting on April 20. In the decades since Columbine, there's been a growing call for media to avoid naming the gunmen in mass shootings. The idea is to avoid inspiring future shooters who seek infamy and notoriety. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File) FILE - In this March 13, 2019, file photo, a fleet of funeral vans transport the bodies of the people who were killed in a school shooting at the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, Brazil. The 1999 Colorado attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File) MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke told supporters Sunday that he's never taken LSD and there's "nothing" he hasn't already revealed about his past that could come back to hurt his run for office. The former Texas congressman - who has become known for his propensity for using the "f-word" - also promised again to clean up his language, despite breaking such past vows. O'Rourke grabbed much attention as he wrapped up his first week of campaigning, but his challengers could be found at events from the Upper Midwest to the South. And looming over them all is the shadow of one prominent Democrat not in but not out, former Vice President Joe Biden. He has yet to announce a decision. Speaking in front of a large map of Russia inside a coffee shop in Wisconsin's capital, O'Rourke promised to return often, addressing concerns Democrats raised in 2016 after Hillary Clinton never campaigned in the state after her party's primary and lost the state to Donald Trump by fewer than 23,000 votes. "This state is fundamental to any prospect we have of electing a Democrat to the presidency in 2020," O'Rourke said, adding that he was "really glad" Milwaukee was chosen to host the 2020 Democratic national convention. The city, which O'Rourke was visiting later Sunday, beat out Miami and Houston. O'Rourke, of course, has to secure the Democratic presidential nomination before he can worry about the general election. But then he's also already said he'd prefer to pick a woman as his running mate, should he make it that far. O'Rourke said Sunday that it was presumptuous to commit to that so early, but that doing so would make a "tremendous amount of sense" given the number of qualified women candidates. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks to supporters at a coffee shop on Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Madison, Wisconsin. O'Rourke came in wearing a green cabbage St. Patrick's Day necklace given to him by a supporter during breakfast. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer) Many remember the Texan for declaring "I'm so f--king proud of you guys" on national television during his concession speech in November, after narrowly losing his Senate race to incumbent Republican Ted Cruz. O'Rourke said Sunday that he'll not use profanities any more, after being asked by a voter if he was going to "clean up his act," especially in front of children. "Point taken, and very strongly made," O'Rourke said. "We're going to keep it clean." He made a similar pledge during his race with Cruz, then didn't make good. O'Rourke has previously admitted to a 1998 arrest for drunken driving and said nothing else will come out that could be used against him during the 2020 presidential campaign. Later, he signed the skateboard of a supporter who asked if he had ever taken the drug LSD. The candidate responded that he hadn't. About 400 people came to the coffee shop to hear O'Rourke. Half made it inside and half listened from the sidewalk through the opened door. O'Rourke wore a St. Patrick's Day necklace featuring green cabbage but said he had coffee - not beer - with his breakfast: "Although it can be justified as an O'Rourke on St. Patrick's Day to do that," he joked, in a nod to his Irish heritage. The Republican Party's official Twitter accounted noted his past arrest, tweeting, "On this St. Paddy's Day, a special message from noted Irishman Robert Francis O'Rourke" and including an altered photo of the Democrat's mug shot wearing an oversized, green leprechaun hat over the phrase "Please Drink Responsibly." Other highlights of Sunday's campaigning: ELIZABETH WARREN Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said during a campaign stop in Tennessee that her proposed tax on "ultra-millionaires" is a key step in reducing corruption and privileges for the rich, while making the economy work better for poorer people. An energetic Warren spoke a racially-mixed group of about 400 potential voters while standing on a podium in front of the American and Tennessee flags in a large room at Douglass High School in Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday afternoon. It was her first stop in a three-state tour of the South. Warren is the first of a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates to visit the Deep South in the run-up to the 2020 election. She is scheduled to visit the Mississippi cities of Cleveland and Greenville before a CNN town hall in Jackson on Monday. Selma and Birmingham in Alabama are on the agenda Tuesday. Memphis is a majority black, majority Democrat city that has backed Democrats the past three presidential elections. President Donald Trump won Tennessee. Warren touted her tax on whose households with a net worth of $50 million or more. Warren said the tax revenue, estimated at $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period. could help in reducing the cost of housing, health care and child care. "It is an America that is working great for those at the top and not working for anyone else, and that's why I'm in this fight," Warren said. She reminded the crowd that she is running a grassroots campaign that does not accept corporate donations. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND Kirsten Gillibrand formally joined the 2020 White House race on Sunday and previewed the hard line she will take against President Donald Trump by announcing a rally outside one of his signature Manhattan properties. The New York senator had spent more than a month traveling around the country to gauge support for a run. Gillibrand's announcement that she was joining the dozen-plus Democratic candidates seeking the White House came in a nearly three-minute video released early Sunday, when she says the national anthem poses this question: "Will brave win?" She said her debut speech as a candidate will come this coming Sunday in front of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York. AMY KLOBUCHAR Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar says an exchange with a tearful Vietnam veteran who lost his son to mental illness is "a moment I'm never going to forget, no matter where I go in Iowa." The Minnesota senator spoke to voters Sunday at a Davenport, Iowa restaurant. It was the final stop of a two-day swing through the state. The man, who was sitting toward the front of the room wearing a Vietnam Veterans hat, began crying as Klobuchar spoke about her respect for Sen. John McCain, who died last year. The Republican was a prisoner of war during Vietnam. Klobuchar approached the man after her speech to take a photo. She stood with a hand on his back for several minutes as he recounted losing his son and told her he fears the U.S. may get into more wars. Afterward, Klobuchar told reporters the moment "brings up again the importance of mental health centers." She says mental health care has been one of the biggest concerns she's heard from voters. PETE BUTTIGIEG Democrat Pete Buttigieg says he's met a fundraising threshold to participate in this summer's presidential debates. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor said says he's received contributions from 65,000-plus individual donors. That's key because the Democratic National Committee said last month up to 20 candidates can qualify for debates in June and July by collecting donations from at least 65,000 individuals, with at least 200 unique donors in at least 20 states. In an email to supporters, Buttigieg said "we weren't even close" to 65,000 donors when the DNC originally announced the requirement. The 37-year-old veteran says more than 76,000 people have now donated. He also told "Fox News Sunday" that "all of the signs are pointing in the right direction" to shift from just exploring a 2020 run to becoming an official candidate, as Gillibrand did Sunday. BILL de BLASIO New York Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized former President Barack Obama during a small gathering in New Hampshire as he mulls a run for president, saying that Obama's early days in office were "a lost window." Minutes later, in front of a larger audience, de Blasio praised the Affordable Care Act, Obama's signature legislative achievement, calling it "progress." Obama pursued the health care legislation during his first two years in office and has been criticized at times for focusing on health care instead of the struggling economy. A handful of people were present in a second-floor private room of a Concord restaurant when de Blasio compared Obama to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933 amid the Depression and immediately began a series of actions that came to define the modern presidency's focus on a 100-day agenda. The mayor said Roosevelt was the only person who "had a greater head of steam and political momentum and capital coming into office." "He, to his great credit, did the 100 days and the reckless abandon and understood that you had to achieve for people to build the next stage of capital to use for the next thing," de Blasio said. "Obama, I think, nobly went at health care, but it played out over such a long time and it got treated politically as such a narrow instead of universal item, tragically, that it was a lost window. And I'm not saying anything I don't think a lot of people feel." CORY BOOKER Democratic White House hopeful Cory Booker said Sunday night he would reverse President Donald Trump's ban on transgender individuals serving in the military if elected president. Speaking to a crowd of more than 300 voters in Davenport, Booker answered a question posed by a woman who identified herself as transgender about what he would do to protect LGBTQ rights as president. "When I am president of the United States, right away I will end this ridiculous, insulting, un-American ban on transgender Americans serving in the military," he said to cheers from the crowd. It was one of a handful of Trump Administration policies the New Jersey senator pledged to undo if elected president, including Trump's tax cuts and his revocation of protections from deportation for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children. Booker also weighed in on marijuana legalization, offering a more comprehensive vision for legalization that would include expunging criminal records and promoting access to the legal marijuana industry for women and people of color. ___ Weissert reported from Dubuque, Iowa. Associated Press writers Sara Burnett and Alexandra Jaffe in Davenport, Iowa; Hunter Woodall in Concord, New Hampshire; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to show that Clinton didn't campaign in Wisconsin after 2016 Democratic primary. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., high-fives a foosball opponent as partner Casey Leach of Manchester, N.H., laughs at a campaign meet-and-greet, Friday, March 15, 2019, at To Share Brewing in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar talks with Molly Donahue, right, before walking in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the International Association of Firefighters at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2019, amid growing expectations he'll soon announce he's running for president. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) In this Feb. 16, 2019, photo, Indiana's Sound Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a stop in Raymond, N.H. Democratic presidential hopeful Buttigieg said Sunday, March 10, that he and Vice President Mike Pence have different views of their Christian faith and that he doesn't understand Pence's loyalty to President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar waves as she walks in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) BERLIN (AP) - Germany's foreign ministry says a German freelance journalist freed in Venezuela months after he was jailed as a suspected spy is on his way home. A Caracas court ordered the conditional release of Billy Six on Friday. Six was ordered to report to the court every 15 days and not to speak to media. He wasn't deported, but was allowed to leave Venezuela if he chose. German authorities said Sunday he flew out of the Caracas airport, but didn't give further details. Six had been charged with espionage, accusations his relatives rejected as trumped-up. His release followed the arrest and deportation earlier this month of U.S. freelance journalist Cody Weddle. Univision's Jorge Ramos was also deported with his team in late February after President Nicolas Maduro abruptly ended an interview. WASHINGTON (AP) - A top White House official said Sunday that President Donald Trump "is not a white supremacist" and attempts to tie him to the alleged New Zealand mosque shooter are "absurd." Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, described the New Zealand shooter as a "disturbed individual" and "evil person" and said it was unfair to cast the 28-year-old Australian "as a supporter of Donald Trump any more than it is to look at his, sort of his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto and align him with Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Ocasio-Cortez." Pelosi, a California Democrat, is the House speaker. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is a freshman and major proponent of a plan, named the Green New Deal, for tackling climate change. "This was a disturbed individual, an evil person, and to try and tie him to an American politician from either party probably ignores some of the deeper, difficulties that this sort of activity exposes," Mulvaney said. Still, Mulvaney's defense of Trump failed to quiet calls, chiefly from Democrats, for the president to issue a forceful denunciation of white nationalism. They argue that Trump's rhetoric, including harsh comments about immigrants and Muslims, encourages individuals like the New Zealand shooter. Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the man accused of the deadly shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, left behind a lengthy document stating he was a white nationalist who hates immigrants and was set off by attacks in Europe that were perpetrated by Muslims. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, with Reverend Bruce McPherson, walk to their motorcade after attending service at Saint John's Church in Washington, Sunday, March 17, 2019, en route to the White House. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) "Were/are you a supporter of Donald Trump?" was one of the questions he posed to himself in the document. His answer: "As a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure. As a policy maker and leader? Dear god no." The attacks left 50 people dead and 34 others wounded, a dozen of them critically. Mulvaney said Trump is a defender of religious minorities worldwide, and that his actions speak louder than his words. "Look at what we've done while we've been here," he said. "I don't think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim." Mulvaney added that it frustrates him personally that "every time something goes wrong around the world now, not just in our country, somehow the president of the United States must be responsible. And that's just, that's absurd and it doesn't help contribute to the dialogue that's necessary to fix these problems." Before Mulvaney appeared on the Sunday talk shows, Trump tweeted in defense of Fox News weekend host Jeanine Pirro, whose program did not air in its regular Saturday time slot. Fox offered no explanation, but Pirro's absence from the lineup followed anti-Muslim comments she directed last week toward Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of three Muslims in Congress, who wears a head covering known as a hijab. Trump tweeted "Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro." Mulvaney also addressed a threat by North Korea to reconsider its halt to nuclear and ballistic missile tests, saying such a move would be a "truly disappointing turn of events." The threat followed the collapse of nuclear disarmament talks last month between Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. The chief of staff also expressed confidence that Trump's veto of a measure blocking his declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border -- in order to build a border wall -- will be upheld when the House votes later this month to override the president. "It doesn't have a chance," Mulvaney said of the vote set for March 26. Asked last week whether he saw white nationalism as a rising global threat, Trump said "I don't really." He went on to characterize the movement as made up of a "small group of people that have very, very serious problems" and said "I guess, if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that's a case. I don't know enough about it yet." Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., disagreed, saying white nationalism is on the rise "and the president should call it out, but sadly he's not doing that." As a candidate, Trump proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States. As president, he drew criticism for attempting to institute the travel ban and for being slow to condemn white supremacy and related violence. After a violent 2017 clash between white nationalists and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one demonstrator dead, Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" of the confrontation. Trump also did not immediately reject support from David Duke, a former KKK Grand Wizard, during his presidential campaign. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who is also Muslim, said Trump should call the Justice Department for data on the rise of white supremacy in the U.S. She urged Trump to use his bully pulpit to denounce the movement. "He, from the Oval Office, from that power position, can be able to send a signal very loud and clear," she said. Mulvaney appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Kaine and Tlaib spoke on CNN's "State of the Union." ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap President Donald Trump with first lady Melania Trump, and Reverend Bruce McPherson, waves to media as he arrives to attend service at Saint John's Church in Washington, Sunday, March 17, 2019 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, March 15, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Mahamilawat gathbandhan, being formed with objective of ousting PM, 'is road to disaster. It is a race to bottom,' said minister. The mahamilawat gathbandhan, which has leaders and political parties of different ideologies, can only promise political instability, said Jaitley in his seventh blog on 'Agenda 2019'. (Photo: File) New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday exuded confidence that people will make the right choice in the forthcoming general elections by electing a stable government rather than "mahamilawat gathbandhan", which is being envisaged as a road to disaster. The mahamilawat gathbandhan, which has leaders and political parties of different ideologies, can only promise political instability, said Jaitley in his seventh blog on "Agenda 2019". "At the cusp of history, India and Indians have a choice to make. Are they electing a six month Government or a five year Government? Are they choosing between a tried, tested and a performing leader or a chaotic crowd of non-leaders? "Is India looking at a Government which accelerates growth, development and poverty alleviation or is it looking for a Government made by persons who excel only at self-enrichment? I am confident that aspirational people of an evolving society will make the right choice," said Jaitley who is also the head of the publicity wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mahamilawat gathbandhan, being formed with the objective of ousting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, "is a road to disaster. It is a race to the bottom," said the minister. Jaitley said while in the NDA government, the last word belonged to the Prime Minister, there is a "tug of war" on the issue of leader in the coalition proposed by the opposition parties, including Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, and Telugu Desam Party. "Four people have clearly indicated their desire to be Prime Ministers - Shri Rahul Gandhi, Behan Mayawati, Mamata Didi and Shri Sharad Pawar. Each desires to expand his or her own base and reduce that of the competitor," the minister said in the blog. He further said that the gathbandhan unquestionably promises only political instability. Such non-ideological alliances have only lasted for a few months, he said while citing examples of governments headed by Chaudhary Charan Singh, VP Singh, Chandrasekhar, HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral, which did not last full term. "Who would want to invest in India in an environment of political instability? Would even Indian investors prefer to go outside and look for more stable countries for investment? Where there is instability, there is corruption. "People with brief political opportunities make the best of them. This is the experience of the past," said the senior BJP leader. Jaitley further said federalism in India is inherent both geographically and constitutionally. The Constitution defines "India" that is ''Bharat - a Union of States''. The states must be fiscally strong. This is the essence of Indian federalism. Equally, if not more important, is the fact that for India to be a Union of States, there must be a strong Union, he said, adding if there is no strong Union, both India and India's federalism will stand to suffer. "Let there be absolute clarity. India is a Union of States. It is not a Confederation of States. That is the fundamental difference between NDA and the UPA. This is also the fundamental flaw in this idea of the federal front," he said. He said the framers of the Constitution had a vision and they were men of wisdom. When prominent areas like defence, sovereignty, security of India, foreign policy and eventually the war against terror were maintained as primary responsibility of the Union Government, can India be ever defended without a strong Union? he wondered. "There can be no 'federal front' without a strong Central party," Jaitley said, adding that in the both the NDA governments the nucleus of the coalition was a large party. "There was no completion for leadership. The last word belonged to the Prime Minister. That is how the two Governments functioned. There was clarity in terms of policy and the Government had capacity to take difficult decisions and deliver," he said. The minister further said that today we have reached a situation where India grows faster than others in the world. "The essential pre-requisite for accelerating our movement in this direction is that India must have political stability, a clear policy direction, a strong and decisive leadership. If we falter on any one of these, we will be letting down our own people and future generations. India cannot afford lost opportunities at this stage," he said. About 900 million Indians would start voting from April 11 to elect the next government in a seven-phased elections. The votes are scheduled to be counted on May 23. DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) - The Latest on the Democratic race for president (all times local): 10:50 p.m. Democratic White House hopeful Cory Booker said Sunday night he would reverse President Donald Trump's ban on transgender individuals serving in the military if elected president. Speaking to a crowd of more than 300 voters in Davenport, the New Jersey senator answered a question posed by a woman who identified herself as transgender about what he would do to protect LGBTQ rights as president. "When I am president of the United States, right away I will end this ridiculous, insulting, un-American ban on transgender Americans serving in the military," he said to cheers from the crowd. It was one of a handful of Trump Administration policies he pledged to undo if elected president, including Trump's tax cuts and his revocation of protections from deportation for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at a campaign house party, Friday, March 15, 2019, in Salem, N.H. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) Booker also weighed in on marijuana legalization, offering a more comprehensive vision for legalization that would include expunging criminal records and promoting access to the legal marijuana industry for women and people of color. ___ 8:35 p.m. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized former President Barack Obama during a small gathering in New Hampshire as he mulls a run for president, saying that Obama's early days in office were "a lost window." De Blasio called Obama's pursuit of health care legislation noble but lamented that it played out over a long period and was treated politically as a narrow instead of universal item. Minutes later, in front of a larger audience at a Concord restaurant, de Blasio praised the Affordable Care Act, Obama's signature legislative achievement, calling it "progress." The New York Democrat has not decided whether he will run for president, saying a decision would come "sooner rather than later." ___ 5:41 p.m. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said during a campaign stop in Tennessee that her proposed tax on "ultra-millionaires" is a key step in reducing corruption and privileges for the rich, while making the economy work better for poorer people. An energetic Warren spoke to a racially-mixed group of about 400 potential voters at Douglass High School in Memphis on Sunday. Warren is the first of a crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates to visit the Deep South in the run-up to the 2020 election. She is scheduled to visit Mississippi on Monday and Alabama on Tuesday. She touted her tax on those households with a net worth of $50 million or more. Warren said the tax revenue could help in reducing the cost of housing, health care and child care. ___ 4 p.m. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has told New Hampshire voters he wants to see changes that are "fair to working people," as he emphasized his record on paid sick leave, time off and health care. De Blasio said Sunday that people deserve a more decent life than one of work and struggle to make ends meet. The New York Democrat has not decided whether he will run for president, saying a decision would come "sooner rather than later." The mayor is scheduled to make three stops in New Hampshire on Sunday after meeting with young Democrats in Manchester Saturday night. If he does run for president, de Blasio would join a crowded field that includes more than a dozen candidates, some of who are running on progressive ideals shared by the mayor. ___ 11:55 a.m. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke says he's never taken the illegal drug LSD and there's "nothing" he hasn't already revealed about his past that could hurt his candidacy. O'Rourke also committed Sunday during a stop in Madison, Wisconsin, to stop using the f-word while campaigning, a profanity he used frequently while running for the U.S. Senate in Texas and while exploring his presidential bid. O'Rourke was asked about his past drug use after signing a person's skateboard. Another voter asked O'Rourke if he was going to "clean up his act" and stop using profanities, especially in front of his children. O'Rourke says "great point, and I don't intend to use the f-word going forward. Point taken, and very strongly made. ... We're going to keep it clean." ___ 11 a.m. Democrat Beto O'Rourke is making his first stops in Wisconsin as a presidential candidate, but he says 20 years ago he toured the state with his punk rock band. O'Rourke told hundreds of supporters at a Madison coffee shop on Sunday that he's modeling his campaign off the "punk rock adventure." O'Rourke says to him that means showing up everywhere and meeting people. O'Rourke says as a punk rocker, he traveled through Wisconsin in a Plymouth Satellite station wagon. He's been campaigning for president in a minivan. O'Rourke was also in Wisconsin a month ago, as he explored a presidential bid. Democrats have roundly criticized Hillary Clinton for not campaigning in the state in 2016 after she lost the primary to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. President Donald Trump carried Wisconsin by less than 23,000 votes. ___ 10:30 a.m. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke told hundreds of supporters who gathered Sunday to see him at a Madison, Wisconsin, coffee shop that it would have been justified for a person named O'Rourke to have a pint of beer on St. Patrick's Day. But he says he stuck with coffee for a morning meeting with Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan before the campaign stop. About 200 people packed into the coffee shop to see O'Rourke, his second Wisconsin stop in a month. Another 200 people were on the sidewalk outside. O'Rourke came in wearing a St. Patrick's Day necklace with a green cabbage on it. He handed that off to the college student who introduced him. ___ 10 a.m. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke plans to drive a Dodge Caravan he began using in Iowa through the Midwest and on to New Hampshire. His campaign announced on Sunday that O'Rourke will follow two Sunday stops in Wisconsin with visits to Michigan and Ohio on Monday. He eventually plans to hit Pennsylvania, and then drive to New Hampshire, home of the nation's first presidential primary. A former congressman, O'Rourke visited all 254 Texas counties while nearly upsetting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in November. He frequently drove himself between events, often with livestream cameras rolling. The driving road trip likely can't last forever. Organizers say O'Rourke will visit South Carolina next weekend and he plans to be in his native El Paso, Texas, for an official campaign kickoff on March 30. ___ 9:40 a.m. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (KLOH'-buh-shar) is jabbing at fellow Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke for saying he was "just born to be in" in the White House race. Minnesotan says that "growing up in the '70s, in the middle of the country, I don't think many people thought a girl could be president. I wasn't born to run. But I am running." Klobuchar tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it was "probably more when I got to college" that she thought she might run for president one day. She says "It's something that's happened over time, as I've realized I can do things." Asked whether she feels "born to do this," she says: "Oh, that's the Beto line." He made the comment in a Vanity Fair interview. ___ 8 a.m. Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg (BOO'-tuh-juhj) says he's met a fundraising threshold to participate in this summer's debates. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor said says he's received contributions from more than 65,000 individual donors. The Democratic National Committee said last month up to 20 candidates can qualify for the debates by collecting donations from at least 65,000 individuals, with at least 200 unique donors in at least 20 states. They also can qualify by reaching 1 percent support in at least three national or early primary state polls. In an email to supporters Buttigieg says "we weren't even close" to 65,000 donors when the DNC announced the requirement. The 37-year-old veteran says more than 76,000 people have now donated. The debates will be held in June and July. ___ 6 a.m. Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand (KEER'-sten JIHL'-uh-brand) has spent more than a month traveling around the country to gauge support for a 2020 presidential campaign, and the New York senator says she's now in the race. Gillibrand is joining the dozen-plus contenders, saying in a campaign video that the nation needs "a leader who makes big, bold, brave choices. Someone who isn't afraid of progress. That's why I'm running for president." She says her debut speech as a candidate will come next Sunday in front of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York. Gillibrand has been one of the most forceful critics of the Trump administration. Using the backdrop of one of President Donald Trump's marquee properties is the latest example of that. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, right, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., talk before a briefing from state and federal emergency managers who are gearing up for a flood threat caused by some of the heaviest snow in years, Friday, March 15, 2019 in St. Paul, Minn. The leaders heard that flood problems at the moment are relatively isolated, but chances are high for major flooding on the state's biggest rivers, including the Red, Minnesota, Mississippi and St. Croix. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski) Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke high-fives Mitchell Murphy, 12, while he speaks at an event at the home of Dubuque County Recorder John Murphy in Dubuque, Iowa on Saturday, March 16, 2019. (Eileen Meslar/Telegraph Herald via AP) Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks at an event at the home of Dubuque County Recorder John Murphy in Dubuque, Iowa on Saturday, March 16, 2019. (Eileen Meslar/Telegraph Herald via AP) GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The U.N. Mideast envoy has condemned Gaza's Hamas rulers for violently cracking down on popular protests over the past few days. Nickolay Mladenov said Sunday that he was especially alarmed by the "brutal beating" of journalists and human rights workers. Tahseen Astal, a member of the Gaza Journalists' Syndicate, said Hamas forces had assaulted dozens of local Palestinian journalists and four were hospitalized for their injuries. He said that police raided journalists' homes following their posts on social media and that seven remained in custody. Driven by Hamas tax hikes and the desperation of living under Israeli-Egyptian blockade, hundreds of Palestinians have rallied under the slogan "We want to live" to protest the rising cost of living in the enclave. Videos have circulated online showing Hamas officials forcibly dispersing demonstrations. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - No one disputes John Jonchuck dropped his 5-year-old daughter from a Florida bridge to her death four years ago, but whether he is a murderer or insane will soon be up to a jury to decide. Jonchuck, 29, goes on trial Monday for the Jan. 8, 2015, death of his daughter Phoebe, whom he dropped 62 feet into Tampa Bay as a St. Petersburg police officer watched helplessly. Jonchuck is charged with first-degree murder, but prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted, he will automatically go to prison for life. If his attorneys' insanity defense works, he would be sent to a psychiatric hospital and it's unlikely he would ever be released. To be eligible, he would have to prove he was no longer mentally ill or dangerous. Pinellas County Public Defender Bob Dillinger told the Tampa Bay Times he knows of no Florida case where a killer was found not guilty by reason of insanity of first-degree murder and eventually released. "He'll be in a state prison for the rest of his life, or a state hospital for the rest of his life," Dillinger said. Successful insanity defenses are rare. Under Florida law, Jonchuck's attorneys must convince the jury his mental illness was so severe that he didn't know what he was doing or that it was wrong. Jonchuck did have a long history of mental problems before he and his daughter ever reached the Dick Misener Bridge - his family told the Times he had been involuntarily committed 27 times - and seemed to be having a breakdown. John Jonchuck appears in court for a pretrial motions hearing at the Pinellas County Justice Center in Clearwater, Fla., Thursday, March 14, 2019. Jonchuck is accused of dropping his 5-year-old daughter off a Tampa Bay bridge. (Dirk Shadd/Tampa Bay Times via AP) Twelve hours before Phoebe's death, Jonchuck's divorce lawyer, Genevieve Torres, called a state child protection hotline, fearing for the girl's safety. Torres told the Department of Children and Families operator that Jonchuck had driven to three churches in his pajamas with Phoebe in tow that morning, called Torres "God" and asked her to translate his stepmother's century-old Swedish Bible, which he carried and had become obsessed with. The attorney said Jonchuck was also paranoid that Phoebe wasn't his child. "He's calling the office every five minutes and saying these religious things and saying the child might not be his - it just really concerns me," Torres told an operator. She added, "It's all craziness and it doesn't make any sense and he's out of his mind." Torres also told the operator, who was inexperienced, that the department had an open investigation after an earlier caller accused Jonchuck of violence, substance abuse, and inadequate supervision. But the operator thought the attorney was more worried about Jonchuck's safety than the girl's and did not report the call to authorities. Just after midnight the next day, Jonchuck's PT Cruiser raced past officer William Vickers, who was heading home from his shift in his patrol car. He started following Jonchuck, but never got close enough to read the license plate and didn't know Phoebe was inside. As they reached the bridge's crest, Jonchuck stopped and got out. Vickers, fearing an ambush, stopped behind him, pulled his gun and yelled at Jonchuck to show his hands. He saw no weapon. Jonchuck yelled at the officer, "You have no free will." He grabbed Phoebe from the back seat, held her over the side momentarily and then dropped her. Vickers thinks she screamed. Jonchuck drove off, but was soon arrested. Vickers scrambled down a ladder to a dock below the bridge, but couldn't see Phoebe in the dark water. A marine rescue boat was summoned and her body was found hours later. NEW YORK (AP) - Fox News weekend host Jeanine Pirro's show didn't air a week after her comments questioning U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar over her wearing a Muslim head covering. No explanation was given. Pirro's show, "Justice With Judge Jeanine," was replaced Saturday night by other programming. The Fox News schedule for the upcoming weekend doesn't include the show. Fox said Sunday that it would not comment on internal scheduling matters. President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning about Pirro's absence, saying she should be brought back. "Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don't give it to them," one of his tweets said. Pirro hasn't tweeted herself since March 10, a day after her comments about Omar aired. That's an unusually long absence from the platform for Pirro, who is a frequent tweeter. FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2015, file photo, Jeanine Pirro attends the HBO Documentary Series premiere of "THE JINX: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst," in New York. Fox News weekend host Pirro's show didn't air Saturday night, March 16, 2019, a week after her comments questioning U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar over her wearing a Muslim head covering. No explanation was given. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File) Fox News had "strongly condemned" Pirro's commentary on Omar, the first-term representative from Minnesota. Pirro had questioned whether Omar's wearing of a hijab was "indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is in itself antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?" Fox said Pirro's views didn't reflect the network and it had addressed the issue with her, but didn't specify what that entailed. Omar, in a tweet, thanked Fox for the statement, saying no one should question a person's commitment to the Constitution because of a person's faith or country of origin. Omar is a Somali immigrant. Pirro said her intention had been to start a debate, but that being Muslim didn't mean someone didn't support the Constitution. She invited Omar to her show. Pirro is the former district attorney from New York's Westchester County. ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Latest on flooding in the Midwest (all times local): 4 p.m. Flooding in Nebraska has badly damaged up to 500 houses in one county alone. Greg London of the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office said Sunday that one levee broke Thursday along the Platte River, and another broke Saturday. He estimates that up to 400 houses and cabins in the area known as Hanson's Lake are damaged, including many that are completely submerged. Another 100 or so homes are damaged elsewhere in the county. The area is near where the Platte and Missouri rivers converge. A Missouri River levee nearby also breached on Thursday. London says many of the damaged homes are likely ruined. He says that while the area has had flooding before, this year's disaster is "unprecedented." Looking southwest towards Waterloo Neb., high waters from the Elkhorn river cover Maple street in the distance Saturday March 16, 2019. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest. (Jeff Bundy/Omaha World-Herald via AP) ___ This update has been corrected to show the name of the county in Nebraska is Sarpy, not Sharpy. ___ 3:15 p.m. Flooding has reached record levels at 17 locations across Nebraska. The state's emergency management agency says more record crests are expected in various rivers by Tuesday. Nebraska has had much of the worst of the late-winter flooding that's been seen across the Midwest. Hundreds of homes are damaged and the state says 660 people are staying in shelters. The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency says the Missouri River is expected to crest Sunday at 41 feet (12.5 meters) in Plattsmouth - 4 feet (1.22 meters) above the record set in 2011. Serious flooding there is expected to continue through next weekend. Crest records also were set along the Platte and Elkhorn rivers. The Elkhorn reached 24.6 feet (7.5 meters) Saturday in Waterloo, breaking the 1962 record by 5 1/2 feet (1.68 meters). Nearly 300 people have been rescued from high water across the state. At least one person has died in floodwaters in the state. A second death from flooding was reported in Iowa. ___ 3 p.m. Officials say residents of Green Bay, Wisconsin, who evacuated their homes due to flooding can return. Heavy rainfall and melting snow have led to dangerously high water in creeks and rivers across several Midwestern states. Even as the water receded in Green Bay, other parts of the Midwest are still under water or are bracing for flooding. In far southwestern Iowa, residents were being evacuated Sunday as floodwaters overtopped levees. And in St. Joseph, Missouri, volunteers are filling sandbags to help secure a levee protecting an industrial area. Green Bay Metro Fire Department lifted its emergency evacuation order at 10 a.m. Sunday for an eight- to 10-block area around the East River. The Green Bay Press Gazette reports city inspectors were out placing placards on front doors identifying those not currently inhabitable because they have no heat and those that are safe to re-enter. ___ 1:55 p.m. Flooding along the Missouri River is causing long delays for Amtrak passengers. The passenger rail service said Sunday that its Missouri River Runner service between St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, will have delays up to five hours because of flooding and rail congestion. Amtrak says all Missouri River Runner trains will be canceled Monday. The service typically travels twice daily between Missouri's two metropolitan areas. ___ 12:40 p.m. The flooding Missouri River has damaged dozens of buildings at an Air Force base in Nebraska. The Omaha World-Herald reports that about one-third of the Offutt Air Force Base is under water. A spokeswoman for the base says 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 completely inundated with as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) of water. Among the buildings badly damaged are the headquarters building and a hangar. Offutt's lone runway is expected to remain closed until Tuesday afternoon. Airmen had been filling thousands of sandbags, but the newspaper reports that the sandbagging effort has been halted. ___ 11:40 a.m. Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa are being urged to leave their homes as a torrent of Missouri River water flows over and through levees. Heavy rainfall and snowmelt forced river levels across four Midwestern states to dangerous levels. Two deaths were blamed on the high and forceful water, and two other men have been missing for days. While river levels on Sunday were starting to level off in Nebraska, residents in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri were bracing for the worst still yet to come. Flooding has also been reported in Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The Missouri River reached a record 30.2 feet (9.2 meters) Sunday in Fremont County, Iowa, in the state's far southwestern corner. People in parts of Bartlett and Thurman were being evacuated as water broke through or overtopped levees. County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius says it isn't just the amount of water, it's the swiftness of the current that creates a danger. ___ 11:20 a.m. Flooding caused by heavy rain and snowmelt is blamed for two deaths in the Midwest, and two others are missing. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Nebraska and Iowa as levees succumbed to the rush of water. Flooding has also been reported in Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Authorities say 52-year-old Aleido Rojas Galan of Norfolk, Nebraska, died Friday night in southwestern Iowa. Officials say Galan and two others were in a vehicle that drove around a barricade and was swept away. The other two men survived. On Thursday, 50-year-old James Wilke of Columbus, Nebraska, died when a bridge collapsed as he used a tractor to try and reach stranded motorists. A Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away. Water also swept away a man after a dam collapse. Both men are still missing. The Rock River crested its banks and floods Shore Drive, seen here on Saturday, March 16, 2019, from the Bauer Parkway bridge in Machesney Park, Ill. Many rivers and creeks in the Midwest are at record levels after days of snow and rain. (Scott P. Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - The Latest on Ethiopian plane crash: 7:35 p.m. (all times local): Ethiopia's transport minister says the black box from the plane crash one week ago is in good condition. Dagmawit Moges told reporters on Sunday evening that data so far shows there is a "clear similarity" between the Ethiopian Airlines crash and an earlier one in Indonesia that involved the same type of plane. Officials say 157 people from 35 different countries were killed when the Nairobi-bound plane crashed shortly after takeoff. The crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and an earlier Lion Air crash have prompted the United States and other countries to ground Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. A priest cries at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) The U.S.-based Boeing faces the challenge of proving the jets are safe to fly amid suspicions that faulty sensors and software contributed to the two crashes in less than six months. ___ Thousands mourned the Ethiopian plane crash victims on Sunday, accompanying 17 empty caskets draped in the national flag through the streets of the capital as some victims' relatives fainted and fell to the ground. The service came one day after officials began delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is expected to take such a long time. Family members confirmed they were given a 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) sack of scorched earth taken from the crash site. Many relatives already have gathered at the rural, dusty crash site outside Ethiopia's capital. The victims Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 came from 35 countries and included many humanitarian workers headed to Nairobi. Elias Bilew said he had worked with one of the victims, Sintayehu Shafi, for the past eight years. "He was such a good person," Bilew said. "He doesn't deserve this. He was the pillar for his whole family." French investigators said Saturday night that they had successfully downloaded the cockpit recorder data and had transferred it to the Ethiopian investigation team without listening to the audio files. Work on the flight data recorder resumed Sunday but no additional details were given. Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the plane's manufacturer Boeing are among those involved in the investigation. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has said satellite-based tracking data shows that the movements of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 were similar to those of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed off Indonesia in October, killing 189 people. Both involved Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. The planes in both crashes flew with erratic altitude changes that could indicate the pilots struggled to control the aircraft. Shortly after their takeoffs, both crews tried to return to the airports but crashed. The United States and many other countries have now grounded the Max 8s as the U.S.-based company faces the challenge of proving the jets are safe to fly amid suspicions that faulty sensors and software contributed to the two crashes that killed 346 people in less than six months. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Priests swing incense over empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) A crucifix is held by a priest at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) A relative blows a kiss towards empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives hold photographs of the victims at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Relatives grieve next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) Church leaders pray next to empty caskets draped with the national flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Sunday, March 17, 2019. Thousands of Ethiopians have turned out to a mass funeral ceremony in the capital one week after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is going to take such a long time. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene) MILWAUKEE (AP) - Cash bond is set at $1 million for a 34-year-old man accused of killing a missing girl's mother in Milwaukee. Dariaz Higgins appeared in court Sunday on charges including first-degree intentional homicide. Higgins is accused of fatally shooting 24-year-old Sierra Robinson and wounding another woman last week. Higgins is the father of 2-year-old Noelani Robinson. Authorities say a child's body found wrapped in a blanket along a southern Minnesota highway on Friday night is believed to be Noelani's. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says the child died from blunt force trauma to the head. That death remains under investigation. Authorities have not disclosed a motive in the death of Sierra Robinson. Police said Higgins was Robinson's pimp and they had been romantically involved but were no longer together. This photo provided by the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office shows Dariaz Higgins on Saturday, March 16, 2019. A child's body found wrapped in a blanket along a Minnesota highway is believed to be that of a missing 2-year-old girl whose mom police have said was fatally shot by Higgins, her former pimp, authorities announced Saturday. (Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office via AP) BOSTON (AP) - Thousands of revelers crowded the streets of Boston for the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, many wearing green and waving Irish flags as they watched Revolutionary War re-enactors and bagpipe brigades march by. Politicians figured heavily in Sunday's parade, including Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and Democratic Boston Mayor Martin Walsh. Before the parade, the state's political leaders gathered for the St. Patrick's Day Breakfast in the city's South Boston neighborhood for Irish songs, Irish dancing and groan-worthy political jokes. The Boston area has a significant Irish-American population, and South Boston is its historical stomping ground. The breakfast itself dates back more than a century - and is a regular stop for politicians courting those of Irish descent. Baker was one of the event's headliners. U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Walsh were among the top Democrats who attended. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, was campaigning in Tennessee and wasn't at the breakfast. Baker, who has distanced himself from more conservative Republican stances and refused to vote for President Donald Trump during the 2016 election, joked that he has decided to take a DNA test. Lexington Minutemen Revolutionary War re-enactors hold their rifles as confetti falls at the start of the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) "The official results of that DNA test? I am one-one thousandth Republican," Baker quipped. In past years, the festivities have drawn phone calls from national political figures, and this year was no different. Former Vice President Joe Biden offered video-taped greetings. "We Irish as you know - we're dreamers, yet we're realists. We're spiritual, yet we are doubters. We are compassionate, yet we're demanding. Everything in us runs deep: sadness and joy, heartache and hope, fortitude and faith," Biden said. "We are the only people on earth who are always nostalgic for the future." Spectators hold flags and cheer during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Spectators cheer during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Members of the Berkeley Preparatory School Pipe and Drum Corps, from Tampa, Fla., march during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Members of the Boston Police Gaelic Column of Pipes and Drums march during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, left, displays his green tie to a spectator at the start of the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Revolutionary War reenactors in British uniforms march in the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Spectators wear Irish-themed hats and glasses during the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) Spectators partially fill a street during a portion of the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Boston's South Boston neighborhood. The city celebrated the holiday with crowds lining the route of the 118th edition of the parade. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Latest on an explosion in Los Angeles (all times local): 10 a.m. Authorities say a 9,000-gallon (34,000-liter) tanker leaking gasoline caught fire and caused an explosion that injured two people in South Los Angeles. The fire department says the blast Sunday morning reverberated through storm drains and sent manhole covers into the air. Dozens of firefighters took about an hour to douse the fire, which sent up a huge plume of smoke visible across the city. Officials say two people were hospitalized with unknown injuries. At least two nearby structures were exposed to flames. The extent of the damage isn't immediately known. An investigation is underway in the neighborhood about 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of downtown Los Angeles. ___ 8:55 a.m. Authorities say multiple people have been hurt in an explosion following reports of an underground gas leak in South Los Angeles. The fire department says crews found flames coming from storm drains early Sunday. Officials say the blast displaced several manholes in a neighborhood about 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of downtown Los Angeles. The department says multiple people are hurt. The extent of their injuries isn't immediately known. It isn't clear if the fire spread to any structures. ST. LOUIS (AP) - Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a situation similar to hundreds of people in neighboring Nebraska who have been displaced by the late-winter flood. Heavy rainfall and snowmelt have led to dangerously high water in creeks and rivers across several Midwestern states, with the Missouri River hitting record-high levels in many areas. At least two deaths were blamed on flooding, and two other men have been missing for days. While river depths were starting to level off in parts of Nebraska on Sunday, the water is so high in many places that serious flooding is expected to remain for several days. And downstream communities in Kansas and Missouri were bracing for likely flooding. In Iowa, the Missouri River reached 30.2 feet (9.2 meters) Sunday in Fremont County in the state's far southwestern corner, 2 feet (0.6 meter) above the record set in 2011. People in the towns of Bartlett and Thurman were being evacuated as levees were breached and overtopped. County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius said it wasn't just the amount of the water, it was the swiftness of the current that created a danger. "This wasn't a gradual rise," Crecelius said. "It's flowing fast and it's open country - there's nothing there to slow it down." CORRECTS MONTH TO MARCH NOT MAY - The Elkhorn River consumes a section of western Douglas County Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Omaha, Neb. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Nebraska and Iowa as levees succumbed to the rush of water. (Jeff Bundy/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Thurman has about 200 residents. About 50 people live in Bartlett. Lucinda Parker of Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management said nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated at eight Iowa locations since flooding began late last week. Most were staying with friends or family. Seven shelters set up for flood victims held just a couple dozen people Saturday night. In Nebraska, the Missouri River flooded Offutt Air Force Base, with about one-third of it under water on Sunday. Spokeswoman Tech. Sgt. Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 completely inundated with as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) of water. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, where floodwaters reached record levels at 17 locations. The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency highlighted some remarkably high crests. The Missouri River was expected to reach 41 feet (12.5 meters) in Plattsmouth on Sunday - 4 feet (1.22 meters) above the record set in 2011. The Elkhorn River got to 24.6 feet (7.5 meters) Saturday in Waterloo, breaking the 1962 record by 5 1/2 feet (1.68 meters). In hard-hit Sarpy County, Nebraska, up to 500 homes have been damaged, including some cabins along a lake, said Greg London of the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office. The damage followed breaches of levees along the Platte River on Thursday and Saturday, and a Missouri River levee break on Thursday. The two rivers converge there. London said many of the damaged homes are wet up to the roof line and likely ruined. "This area's had flooding before but not of this magnitude," London said. "This is unprecedented." Nearly 300 people have been rescued from high water across the state. At least two people have died in the floodwaters. Aleido Rojas Galan, 52, of Norfolk, Nebraska, was swept away Friday night in southwestern Iowa, when the vehicle he was in went around a barricade. Two others in the vehicle survived - one by clinging to a tree. On Thursday, Columbus, Nebraska, farmer James Wilke, 50, died when a bridge collapsed as he used a tractor to try and reach stranded motorists. Two men remain missing. A Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away. Water also swept away a man after a dam collapse. Downstream in St. Joseph, Missouri, home to 76,000 people, volunteers were helping to fill sandbags to help secure a levee protecting an industrial area. Calls were out for even more volunteers in hopes of filling 150,000 sandbags by Tuesday, when the Missouri River is expected to climb to 27 feet (8.2 meters) - 10 feet (3 meters) above technical flood stage. Flooding was causing problems for passenger train service between Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis. Amtrak said Sunday that its Missouri River Runner service between the state's two largest cities was experiencing delays up to five hours because of flooding and rail congestion. All Missouri River Runner trains will be canceled Monday. The service typically travels twice daily between the two metropolitan areas. The rising Mississippi River also was creating concern. The Mississippi was already at major flood level along the Iowa-Illinois border, closing roads and highways and swamping thousands of acres of farmland. Moderate Mississippi River flooding was expected at several Missouri cities, including St. Louis. Flooding has also been reported in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, officials said residents who evacuated their homes could return now that floodwaters have receded there. ___ AP reporter Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report. People view the rising waters from the Platte and Missouri rivers which flooded areas of Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Floodwaters are shown on the southwest side of Hamburg, Iowa, Sunday, May 17, 2019. Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a situation similar to hundreds of people in neighboring Nebraska who have been displaced by the late-winter flood.(Ryan Soderlin/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Lana Brandt checks out the rising water on the south side of the Hamburg, Iowa, Sunday, May 17, 2019, Residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a situation similar to hundreds of people in neighboring Nebraska who have been displaced by the late-winter flood. (Ryan Soderlin/Omaha World-Herald via AP) CORRECTS MONTH TO MARCH NOT MAY - Residents fill sandbags and build a water retaining wall as they defend the town from floodwaters Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Hamburg, Iowa. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Nebraska and Iowa as levees succumbed to the rush of water. (Ryan Soderlin/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Gabe Schmidt, owner of Liquid Trucking, back right, travels by air boat with Glenn Wyles, top left, Mitch Snyder, bottom right, and Juan Jacobo, bottom left, as they survey damage from the flood waters of the Platte River, in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) A hangar at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Neb., is flooded by waters from the Missouri River, Sunday, March 17, 2019. About a third of the base is flooded, including about 3,000 feet of the base's 11,700-foot runway. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) CORRECTS TO 2019 - Luke Thomas and Air Force Tech Sgt. Vanessa Vidaurre look at a flooded portion of Offutt Air Force Base, Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Bellevue, Neb. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Nebraska and Iowa as levees succumbed to the rush of water. Flooding has also been reported in Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. (Z Long/Omaha World-Herald via AP) CORRECTS TO 2019 - Nearly 3,000 feet of Offutt Air Force Base's runway is covered by the flooding Missouri River Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Bellevue, Neb. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Nebraska and Iowa as levees succumbed to the rush of water. Flooding has also been reported in Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. (Z Long/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Cars sit in flood waters from the Platte River alongside a BNSF train, in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) A BNSF train sits in flood waters from the Platte River, in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) A railroad crossing is flooded with water from the Platte River, in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Flooded RV's, washed away by the flood waters of the Platte River, are seen in Merritt's RV Park in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) Horses that were being boarded in Inglewood, Neb., are moved through floodwaters to higher ground in Fremont Neb., Friday, March 15, 2019. The flooding followed days of snow and rain - record-setting, in some places - that swept through the West and Midwest. (Kent Sievers/Omaha World-Herald via AP) CORRECTS MONTH TO MARCH NOT MAY - A crowd gathers to watch residents make their way in and out of a flooded neighborhood Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Omaha, Neb. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Nebraska and Iowa as levees succumbed to the rush of water. (Kent Sievers/Omaha World-Herald via AP) Gabe Schmidt, owner of Liquid Trucking, right, talks to Glenn Wyles, second right, as they survey by air boat flood damage from the flood waters of the Platte River, in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sunday, March 17, 2019. Hundreds of people remained out of their homes in Nebraska, but rivers there were starting to recede. The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) The Rock River crested its banks and floods Shore Drive, seen here on Saturday, March 16, 2019, from the Bauer Parkway bridge in Machesney Park, Ill. Many rivers and creeks in the Midwest are at record levels after days of snow and rain. (Scott P. Yates/Rockford Register Star via AP) Parrikar entered electoral politics in 1994 when he won on a BJP ticket from Panaji constituency. Panaji: Manohar Parrikar, who rose from a Pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to become the countrys defence minister and also chief minister of Goa, enjoyed a man-next-door image in the politically-volatile coastal state. Parrikar, 63, served the state four times as chief minister and had a three-year-long stint as Defence Minister in the Narendra Modi-led Cabinet. He was a leader who enjoyed acceptance from all sections of the BJP and beyond. He played a key role in making the BJP a force to reckon with in Goa, which remained for long a Congress bastion, with regional outfits having pockets of influence. Born on December 13, 1955 into a middle class family, his political career began as an RSS pracharak and he continued working for the Sangh even after graduating from IIT-Bombay as a metallurgical engineer. Parrikar never shied away from displaying his affiliation to the Sangh and was even photographed participating in the annual Sanchalan organised by the RSS in the uniform and wielding lathi. He even credited the surgical strikes conducted by Indian Army in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir during his tenure as defence minister to the teachings of the RSS. His plunge into BJP politics is considered as an attempt by the party to curb the growth of the state's oldest regional political party Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP). Parrikar entered electoral politics in 1994 when he won on a BJP ticket from Panaji constituency. He was leader of the Opposition from June to November 1999 and was known for his speeches against the then Congress-led government. He became chief minister of Goa for the first time on October 24, 2000, but his tenure lasted only until February 27, 2002. On June 5, 2002, he was re-elected and served another term as chief minister. On January 29, 2005, his government was reduced to a minority in the Assembly after four BJP MLAs resigned from the House. Pratapsinh Rane of the Congress subsequently replaced Parrikar as chief minister. In 2007, the Parrikar-led BJP was defeated by the Congress led by Digambar Kamat. But the year 2012 saw Parrikar riding a popularity wave in the state when he took his party to the historic number of 21 out of 40 seats in the Assembly. He went on to become the chief minister again. BJP continued its victory mark in the year 2014 when the party won both the Lok Sabha seats. After the Modi-led Cabinet was sworn at the Centre, Parrikar was offered a ministerial berth in November 2014. He remained in the Union Cabinet till 2017 when his party failed to garner a majority in the Goa legislative Assembly polls. He returned to the state in March 2017 when he managed to woo alliance partners such as Goa Forward Party and MGP to support him to form the government. His health started deteriorating in February 2018 and he was first admitted at Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital for pancreatic ailment. He was flown to the US in the first week of March last year where he remained admitted at hospital till June. Parrikar attended the monsoon session of Assembly from July 19 to August 3, and left for the USA on August 10 for the second round of checkup. He returned to Goa on August 22, 2018. After being treated at a makeshift medical facility at his residence, Parrikar was shifted to the AIIMS New Delhi on September 15 last year. After almost a month-long treatment, he returned to Goa on October 14. Parrikar stunned everyone when he reached the CM's office on January 2 this year after a gap of almost two-and-a-half months. On January 27, he attended the inauguration of the third bridge on Mandovi river along with Union minister Nitin Gadkari. He also attended the budget session on January 29 and presented the state Budget the next day. On the last day of the session on January 31, he was taken for treatment to AIIMS, New Delhi and returned to Goa on February 5. DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) - Back when he was still just teasing a presidential run, Beto O'Rourke told Vanity Fair he was "born to be in" the race. Now that he's campaigning to far greater media attention and much larger crowds than many Democrats who've been competing longer, they are taking offense at the former Texas congressman's sense of entitlement. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar drew the sharpest such contrast on Sunday, saying "I wasn't born to run. But I am running" while acknowledging, "Oh, that's the Beto line." "No, I wasn't born to run for office, just because growing up in the '70s, in the middle of the country, I don't think many people thought a girl could be president," Klobuchar said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Asked about the same O'Rourke quote, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, was gentler, saying "I think I was born to make myself useful." "I'm not combating anybody," he told "Fox News Sunday." ''They are going to be competitors more than opponents, I think, among the Democrats." Still, other Democrats have taken more veiled swipes. Former Obama administration housing chief Julian Castro, who hails from San Antonio, has pointed to references that he's the "other Texan" in the White House race and says that though he's not the front-runner now, he will eventually overtake better known candidates like O'Rourke. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks to supporters at a coffee shop on Sunday, March 17, 2019, in Madison, Wisconsin. O'Rourke came in wearing a green cabbage St. Patrick's Day necklace given to him by a supporter during breakfast. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer) When asked about the Vanity Fair quote, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said that he's dedicated his professional life to working with "communities that are really being left out and left behind." New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she'd be more willing to fight hard for Democratic values then promote the kind of feelgood, bipartisan optimism that O'Rourke favors. Such intraparty fighting is uncommon with the election still about 18 months away and marks a contrast to how nice - or at least not openly antagonistic - the crowded field of Democrats running was to one another before O'Rourke's announcement. Speaking to reporters in Milwaukee on Sunday, O'Rourke tried to clarify the Vanity Fair quote, saying when he saw the story, he thought, "'Man, I hope I didn't say that.'" "I think the context of that, which makes sense and is the way that I feel, is that I'm born to serve. I'm born to try to help bring people together," he said, later adding: "I don't know that anyone is born for an office or a position and I certainly am not. But I do think that I find my purpose and function in life in doing this kind of work." O'Rourke spent months hinting that he was running for president before finally announcing last week. He immediately drew overflow crowds at stops across Iowa, which kicks off presidential primary voting, but then was driving a Dodge Caravan to the battleground midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio - hoping to indicate that, beyond the primary, he can be a strong Democrat and win places where Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016. On Saturday, O'Rourke acknowledged benefiting from years of inherent white-male privilege. But those comments came when he was asked about whether his party would nominate another white guy for president in a year when a record number of women and minorities are running. He also said it would be his preference to pick a female running mate - but noted that he has to win the primary first. O'Rourke vows not to attack his fellow Democrats, telling a packed, weekend house party in Dubuque that "the diversity, experience and skills and expertise and perspective that" so many candidates running bring to the presidential race "is to the benefit of all of us." "You will not see us demeaning any of the other candidates, ever uttering a personal word about anyone else," he said. But O'Rourke has made similar promises to keep things positive in the past - only to renege. For more than a year, he refused to go negative against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz during his star-making, near-upset in November's Texas Senate race - only to reverse himself and refer to President Donald Trump's 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign nickname for Cruz, "Lyin' Ted," during a debate mere weeks before the election. O'Rourke subsequently sharpened criticism of Cruz to narrow gaps in the polls and wound up losing by 215,000 votes out of nearly 8.4 million cast. As a presidential candidate, O'Rourke has also repeatedly praised a prospective White House hopeful who still hasn't entered the race, Vice President Joe Biden, saying "I think he has a lot of perspective and experience to bring to bear." That could be an effort to defuse coming criticism of O'Rourke himself because he didn't accomplish much during his six years in the House. But not all would-be voters see that as a bad thing. "He doesn't have any votes to renounce or flip flops," said Nick Fisch, a 25-year-old teacher who attended the Dubuque house party. Then, recalling another relatively inexperienced Democratic presidential candidate who did well in Iowa, Fisch added: "It's the same thing (Barack) Obama had." Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, right, speaks at an event at the home of Dubuque County Recorder John Murphy in Dubuque, Iowa on Saturday, March 16, 2019. (Eileen Meslar/Telegraph Herald via AP) U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., takes part in a "Conversations About America's Future" program at ACL Live during the South by Southwest Interactive Festival on Saturday, March 9, 2019, in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP) In this Feb. 16, 2019, photo, Indiana's Sound Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a stop in Raymond, N.H. Democratic presidential hopeful Buttigieg said Sunday, March 10, that he and Vice President Mike Pence have different views of their Christian faith and that he doesn't understand Pence's loyalty to President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker talks with an audience member during a meeting with local residents, Saturday, March 16, 2019, in Ottumwa, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2019 file photo, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro visits with people at a taco truck in North Las Vegas, Nev. Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro says the Latino community's bilingual, ambitious youth are one of America's best assets to remain competitive in the world. Castro made the comments at a luncheon Friday, March 15, 2019, before Latino business leaders in Las Vegas as he made his third visit to Nevada as a 2020 hopeful. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A person with knowledge of negotiations says the Jacksonville Jaguars and free-agent linebacker Jake Ryan have agreed to terms on a contract. The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity Sunday because the deal had not been finalized. The person says the deal is contingent on Ryan passing a physical. The 27-year-old Ryan missed all of last season after tearing the ACL in his right knee during training camp. A fourth-round draft pick by Green Bay in 2015, Ryan started 27 games for the Packers during his first three seasons. The former Michigan standout recorded 213 tackles, three pass breakups, one forced fumble and a sack in 43 games with Green Bay. He also was a core special teams player. The Jaguars have little experienced depth behind starting linebackers Myles Jack and Telvin Smith, and Ryan could end up being an upgrade over backups Donald Payne and/or Blair Brown. His pending arrival also could allow Jack the flexibility to move back outside. Jack replaced retired Paul Posluszny in the middle last year, but made more plays as an outside linebacker in 2017. ___ More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL HOUSTON (AP) - Some Houston-area residents have been urged to remain indoors as a fire burns at a petrochemicals terminal. The fire started Sunday morning at Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Houston, and continued to burn Sunday night. Deer Park officials issued a shelter-in-place directive after the fire was reported. Efforts to extinguish the fire with foam continue. Harris County officials say the fire started at the terminal that stores petrochemical liquids and gases, including fuel oil and bunker oil. The company's website says the terminal has a storage capacity of 13.1 million barrels. The fire is the second in as many days at a Houston-area petrochemical facility. A fire at an ExxonMobil plant in nearby Baytown that broke out Saturday has been contained. Smoke rises from a fire burning at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, east of Houston, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Some residents in the area are being urged to find a safe location indoors after the fire broke out at the petrochemicals terminal. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP) Smoke rises from a fire burning at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, east of Houston, Sunday, March 17, 2019. Some residents in the area are being urged to find a safe location indoors after the fire broke out at the petrochemicals terminal. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump spent St. Patrick's Day morning worshipping at the "Church of the Presidents" near the White House in between tweeting about everything from "Saturday Night Live" parodies of him to the late Sen. John McCain to the recent closure of a General Motors factory in Ohio. Trump and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, joined parishioners for Sunday's 11 a.m. service at St. John's Church, a historic yellow church across from the White House and Lafayette Park. Every president since James Madison, who served in the 1800s, has attended a service at St. John's, according to the church. The Rev. W. Bruce McPherson greeted the Trumps after the short drive from the White House. Before leaving the White House, Trump tweeted about NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and threw out the idea of federal investigations into what he said is the show's failure to mention "the other side." He also tweeted negatively about McCain, the late Arizona senator who was a sharp Trump critic. The Trumps returned to the White House after the hour-long service, and Trump again took to Twitter, this time to say GM had "let our Country down" by closing its Lordstown plant in politically important Ohio. The closure left 1,700 hourly workers jobless. United Auto Workers officials say they remain hopeful GM will bring a new vehicle line to the massive plant outside Youngstown. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, with Reverend Bruce McPherson, walk to their motorcade after attending service at Saint John's Church in Washington, Sunday, March 17, 2019, en route to the White House. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Trump tweeted Sunday that the UAW's local president "ought to get his act together and produce." The president, who previously has called on GM to reopen the plant, added: "I want action on Lordstown fast." The Trumps last attended religious services in December at Washington National Cathedral. Trump had skipped spending the holiday at his Florida estate and stayed in Washington during the government shutdown. President Donald Trump, with first lady Melania Trump and Reverend Bruce McPherson, waves to media as they arrive to attend service at Saint John's Church in Washington, Sunday, March 17, 2019 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President Donald Trump with first lady Melania Trump, and Reverend Bruce McPherson, waves to media as he arrives to attend service at Saint John's Church in Washington, Sunday, March 17, 2019 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk to their motorcade after attending service at Saint John's Church in Washington, Sunday, March 17, 2019, en route to the White House. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) FONTANA, Calif. (AP) - Kyle Busch was dominating yet another race when a speeding penalty on pit road dropped him to the middle of the pack at Auto Club Speedway. Busch had to pass 17 cars in 73 laps on sizzling old asphalt to get his landmark 200th victory across NASCAR's three major series. Busch didn't even need 50 laps. He capped a series of brilliant passes by drafting off Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski to seize the lead again, and with this superb driver behind the wheel of a standout Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, absolutely nothing was stopping Busch's drive into history. Busch tied Richard Petty's NASCAR record with his 200th win Sunday, making an impressive late surge to claim the Cup Series race on the same weathered Fontana track where he got his first Cup win. "It certainly is a monumental moment for all of us," Busch said. "I knew we had a great race car and we were fast. I just wasn't sure how we were going to able to come back through traffic and get through the field. Maybe the stars aligned a little bit more perfectly today." Busch dominated the first two stages before that speeding penalty added a degree of difficulty to this win. After he carved through the field he was aided by a timely late caution that helped Busch take the lead for good with 26 laps remaining. Kyle Busch celebrates after winning the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., Sunday, March 17, 2019. (James Quigg/The Daily Press via AP) The win was the fourth Cup victory overall and the third in seven years at Fontana for Busch. He has earned 53 of his 200 wins in the Cup Series, along with 53 in the Truck Series and 94 in Xfinity. Busch previously expressed ambivalence about the achievement, saying 200 is just a number that doesn't compare neatly with Petty's achievements. All 200 of Petty's victories were in NASCAR's top Cup Series. Busch's excitement was still obvious after crossing the line. "All I do is win, win, win, no matter what," he said over the radio. His team handed him a white flag with a logo emblazoned with "200 WINS" to display from his window during his celebratory drive across the track where he earned his first Cup victory way back in September 2005. He then stood atop his car and waved it toward his large Southern California fan base before taking his customary bow. "Feels just like No. 1," he said. "Feels just like yesterday. That was such an awesome race car. Dang. I'm glad we put on a heck of a show for these fans. To win 200, whatever it means, it means a lot to me." "I just wish that we could keep it going, running strong, running well, and winning races." Logano was 2.534 seconds in back of Busch, while Keselowski finished third, unable to catch the winningest driver of their era while Busch became the first repeat winner this NASCAR season. Busch equaled Petty's victories mark in the 998th race of his 17-year career. Petty competed in 1,184 NASCAR races over 35 years. In the barstool debate, detractors point to Busch's many advantages in the Xfinity and Trucks series while observing that Petty's 200 wins all came in NASCAR's top series, compared to just 53 for Busch. Busch's defenders note his impressive win percentages and the fundamentally different nature of NASCAR competition these days, when a larger field of elite drivers competes in every race all around the country as opposed to the fields of varying depth and quality faced by Petty largely in the Southeast. Anybody watching Busch's electrifying move through the field at Fontana couldn't doubt his sublime talent. "He made a couple of moves where I felt like, 'Holy mackerel," said Gibbs, his boss for the last 12 seasons. "Really with a passion, the way he drives the car, we appreciate it so much. I think he's an unusual athlete. If there's anything in front of him, he's driving a race car, he's going to try to get it. That showed up today." More things to know about Fontana: CLOSE CALLS Busch reached the brink of the record by sweeping last weekend's two races at Phoenix, but he missed his first chance to tie Petty in the Fontana Xfinity Series race Saturday because of a disastrous late pit stop. He also could have hit the mark sooner if he hadn't been nabbed for speeding on pit road two weeks earlier at his hometown track in Las Vegas. Busch had barely crossed the line Sunday when his mind went to those disappointments - no surprise to those who know his singular mindset. "Can you imagine if I could have got Vegas and Xfinity yesterday?" Busch said over the radio. "How many in a row? How many?" BIG BRO Kurt Busch also had an outstanding race, finishing sixth after starting 21st. He promptly jumped out of his car to join his younger brother's celebration of a landmark win. "He was the lazy one on the couch not doing much when we were kids," Kurt Busch said. "But a number is a number, and it is significant and I am really proud of him. When you are running Trucks, Xfinity (or) Cup, you are wearing your body out every day going after it. And anytime I've run Xfinity and then have to go back it up with a Cup race, it puts a toll on your body. He just keeps going and going. I am proud of him." WHO'S HOT Busch has back-to-back wins, but he only has a 15-point overall lead on Logano, who posted his third top-four finish of the young season. The Team Penske star also posted the best Fontana finish of his 11-year career. Team Penske had all three of its drivers in the top-five as Blaney was fifth to join Keselowski and Logano. WHO'S NOT While Busch excels, another great is struggling. Jimmie Johnson finished 17th after starting 11th, leaving him 14th in the current points race. The seven-time Fontana champ hasn't won in 64 races since June 2017. UP NEXT Martinsville Speedway next Sunday, March 24. Clint Bowyer is the defending race winner. ___ More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/apf-AutoRacing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Kyle Busch drives during the early laps of the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Auto Club Speedway, in Fontana, Calif., Sunday, March 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Rachel Luna) Crew members push Jimmie Johnson's car to the track during the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Auto Club Speedway, in Fontana, Calif., Sunday, March 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Rachel Luna) NASCAR Cup Series drivers line their cars up five wide in a salute to fans during pace laps for the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Auto Club Speedway, in Fontana, Calif., Sunday, March 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Rachel Luna) NASCAR Cup Series cars line up five wide in a salute to fans during pace laps for the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Auto Club Speedway, in Fontana, Calif., Sunday, March 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Rachel Luna) Martin Truex Jr. (19) and Daniel Suarez (41) head through Turn 1 during the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., Sunday, March 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Rachel Luna) ARCADIA, Calif. (AP) - Santa Anita plans to resume racing on March 29, pending approval of new safety and medication rules by the California Horse Racing Board. Racing has been suspended since March 5 at the track, where 22 horses have suffered fatal injuries since Dec. 26. Limited training is being allowed on the main dirt track while testing of the surface and new rules involving safety and medication are being worked out. The track, along with Golden Gate Fields in Northern California, and the Thoroughbred Owners of California reached agreement late Saturday to enact the most stringent medication rules in North America. All horses born in or after 2018 will race at Santa Anita and Golden Gate with no race-day medication, including the anti-bleeding medication Lasix. That means all 2-year-old horses starting in 2020 and after will race medication-free. All horses born before 2018 will race at the two tracks owned by The Stronach Group under the same guidelines, but Lasix will still be permitted only at 50 percent of current levels. Dionne Benson, executive director of the Racing Medication & Testing Consortium, says extra time to adjust is necessary since the Lasix change will require many trainers to manage their horses without the medication for the first time. Heavy clouds are seen over the San Gabriel Mountains at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., Thursday, March 7, 2019. Extensive testing of the dirt track is under way at eerily quiet Santa Anita, where the deaths of 21 thoroughbreds in two months has forced the indefinite cancellation of horse racing and thrown the workaday world of trainers, jockeys and horses into disarray. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Nearly every country outside the U.S. bans the use of Lasix on race days. Only 3.6 percent of the nearly 300,000 starts last year in the U.S. were made without Lasix, according to The Jockey Club. CHRB chairman Chuck Winner says he will move the previously scheduled March 21 board meeting to March 28 in order for the full board to consider and vote on items that need its approval. The later date complies with the legally required 10-day public notice for meetings. Santa Anita, Golden Gate and the TOC have agreed on the following: - transparency on all veterinary records; - strict limits on the use of any pain or anti-inflammatory medication and treatment, including legal therapeutic anti-inflammatory drugs, joint injections, shockwave therapy, and anabolic steroids; - trainers must apply for permission to have their horses participate in timed workouts at least 48 hours in advance; - no therapeutic medications or treatments will be allowed without a qualified veterinary diagnosis from a state-licensed vet; - strict out-of-competition testing; - increasing the time required for horses to be on-site before a race; - investment by TSG in diagnostic equipment to help in the early detection of pre-existing conditions in horses. "TSG is committed to the principles of safe horse racing for both equine and human athletes and to making California racing the best in the world," said Belinda Stronach, TSG chairwoman and president. "It is my hope the other tracks in California will follow suit." TSG negotiated with TOC and the California Thoroughbred Trainers to reach the agreement. "I am confident we all share the same goal of making California racing safer and doing everything we can to provide additional safety and protection for our horses," said Greg Avioli, TOC president and CEO. The new rules could result in trainers and owners moving their horses to other states with less restrictive medication rules. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said Friday it would with the CHRB to investigate what caused the horses' deaths. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has also urged an investigation into trainers and vets. BEND, Ore. (AP) - A Blockbuster Video in Oregon is the last one on the planet after the only other Blockbuster video rental shop, in Australia, announced it is closing on March 31. Employees of the dated franchise in Bend say running the store has its challenges. The computers must be rebooted using floppy disks. Workers write membership cards by hand because the dot-matrix printer broke. And business transactions are backed up on a reel-to-reel tape that can't be replaced because Radio Shack went out of business. But the store is now booming with business from longtime locals as well as tourists from as far away as Taiwan who come to snap selfies and buy souvenirs. General manager Sandi Harding ordered T-shirts and other souvenirs that say "The Last Blockbuster on the Planet," and orders are already streaming in. Harding says the location has several years left on its lease and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. In this Monday, March 11, 2019, photo, Sandi Harding, general manager of the last Blockbuster on the planet in Bend, Ore., poses for a photo outside the store. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend will be the only one left on Earth. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Local documentary filmmakers Taylor Morden, left, and Zeke Kamm, pose at the last Blockbuster on the planet in Bend, Ore., on Monday, March 11, 2019, with a promotional VHS tape of their upcoming documentary about the store titled The Last Blockbuster. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Returned movies wait to be shelved at the last Blockbuster on the planet in Bend, Ore., on Monday, March 11, 2019 as a customer checks out movies in the background. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Sandi Harding, general manager of the last Blockbuster on the planet in Bend, Ore., poses for a photo inside the store on Monday, March 11, 2019. Harding is holding up the floppy disc she uses to reboot her computer and the reel-to-reel tape used to back up transactions. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Elizabeth Gilless, of Memphis, Tenn., shows her children John, 3, and Ellen, 5, a movie from the children's section at the last Blockbuster on the planet in Bend, Ore., on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. The family was vacationing in Oregon and stopped by the store to buy souvenirs on their way to Portland, Ore., after hearing it was the last Blockbuster on the planet. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Floppy disks containing the original software that is still used for rebooting the computer system at the last Blockbuster store on the planet sit on a counter in the Bend, Ore., store on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Employee Ryan Larrew alphabetizes returned movies before re-shelving them at the last Blockbuster store on the planet in Bend, Ore., on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) A sign advertising locally made souvenirs from the last Blockbuster store on the planet sits in the store in Bend, Ore., in this Tuesday, March 12, 2019 photo. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Tia Thiel and her son, Micah Knox, 7, browse a selection of movies at the last Blockbuster on the planet in Bend, Ore., on Monday, March 11, 2019. Thiel is a regular at the store and says she goes to the store for the older movies she can't find on streaming services like Netflix. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) Debby Saltzman, of Bend, Ore., poses for a photo on Monday, March 11, 2019, in front of the last Blockbuster store on the planet with her twin brother, Michael Trovato. Trovato was visiting from Melbourne, Australia, where he lives. Taking the photo is Saltzman's husband, Jeremy Saltzman. When a Blockbuster in Perth, Australia, shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the store in Bend, Ore., will be the only one left on Earth, and most likely in the universe. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus) HONG KONG (AP) - Service has been suspended on part of one of Hong Kong's main subway lines after an overnight crash during equipment testing. Hong Kong media reports say the driver of one train injured his leg in the early Monday morning accident, and the other had smoke inhalation. Both were taken to a hospital. Subway operator MTR Corp. said that service on the Tsuen Wan Line between Admiralty and Central stations has been suspended. The crash happened near Central. Photos released by the MTR showed one of the trains tilted part way off the tracks and the doors knocked off one subway car entrance. MTR Operations Director Lau Tin-shing said that the nighttime trials of a new signal system would be halted until the cause of the accident is determined. In this photo released by MTR Corporation, two MTR trains sit after collision on the Tsuen Wan Line during testing of the rail company's new signal system in Hong Kong Monday, March, 18, 2019. Two Hong Kong subway trains collided in early hours on Monday, leaving one train driver suffered leg injury and the other felt unwell after inhaling smoke. It cause service suspensions between affected stations. (MTR Corporation via AP) UTRECHT, Netherlands (AP) - A gunman killed three people and wounded five during a mid-morning tram ride Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht, raising the specter of another extremist attack only days after the murderous rampage in New Zealand. Authorities seized a Turkish-born suspect after a manhunt that convulsed the historic city of nearly 350,000 people for most of the day. As night set in, three victims lay in critical condition, and the motive for the bloodshed remained under investigation. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said authorities were trying to determine whether the attack had "terror motives." Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the suspect, identified as Gokmen Tanis, 37, was known to justice authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. Police said they also detained another man on suspicion of involvement but released no details. The shooting came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. The Utrecht attack took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. The gunman was alleged to have had an automatic weapon, Grapperhaus said. Rescue workers install a screen on the spot where a body was covered with a white blanket following a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) "We assume a terror motive," Mayor Jan van Zanen said as police searched for the killer, though he added that other motives could not be ruled out. In the aftermath of the shooting, Dutch authorities put the Netherlands' fourth-largest city on lockdown, raised the threat level in the area to the maximum of 5 and tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. Police issued a photo of a bearded Tanis aboard a tram in a blue hooded top. "If it is a terror attack," the prime minister declared, "then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence." Heavily armed officers with dogs searched for the killer, gathering at one point in front of an apartment building close to the scene. However, the suspect was later arrested at another location in the city. The threat level soon returned to 4. Police said a red Renault compact car was carjacked shortly before the shooting and later found across town. Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over the past years with offenses ranging from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of woman in 2017, news reports said. The identities of the shooting victims were not immediately released, and Grapperhaus would not say if any were known to the gunman. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of Parliament's upper house. A televised debate also was canceled. It was not clear if campaigning would resume Tuesday. ___ Mike Corder reported from The Hague. Raf Casert in Brussels and Geir Moulson and David Rising in Berlin contributed. Dutch counter terrorism police use a robot as they prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. A gunman killed three people and wounded nine others on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, sparking a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with sniffer dogs zero in on an apartment building close to the shooting. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) CAPTION CORRECTS THE NAME - This image made available on Monday March 18, 2019 from the Twitter page of Police Utrecht shows an image of 37 year old Gokmen Tanis, who police are looking for in connection with a shooting incident on a tram. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. (Police Utrecht via AP) Dutch counter terrorism police install a camera on a sniffer dog as they prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, left, and Justice and Security Minister Ferd Grapperhaus speak to the media at a press conference in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Dutch police are hunting down a suspect after a shooting on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht that left several dead and more wounded. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level. "Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. He said that "a terror motive is not excluded." (AP Photo/Michael Corder) A body is covered with a white sheet after a shooting in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) In this image taken from video, a body lays next to a tram as emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo) Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (Martijn van der Zande via AP) Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (Martijn van der Zande via AP) A body is covered with a white sheet after a shooting in a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Rescue workers install a screen on the spot where a human shape was seen under a white blanket following a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Ambulances are seen next to a tram after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) In this image taken from video, a body lays next to a tram as emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo) ISTANBUL (AP) - Turkey has announced a military operation against Kurdish militants along its eastern border with Iran. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu says the operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, began Monday. He described it as a joint operation with Iran, but Iran's official IRNA news service quoted an unnamed military official as saying Iranian forces were not involved. The PKK has been waging an insurgency for more than three decades, and is considered a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies. Turkey regularly conducts airstrikes in northern Iraq against PKK camps and has cracked down on the group and alleged supporters since a peace process collapsed in 2015. The PKK-affiliated Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK, was formed in 2004 to fight for Kurdish autonomy in Iran. Defence spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand said Indian Army retaliated effectively and the firing stopped at 0715 hours. The 24-year-old deceased rifleman belonged to Janer village, under Dharam Kot Tehsil in Moga district of Punjab and he is survived by his parents, he said. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Jammu: A soldier was killed; four others were injured in Pakistani shelling along Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district on Monday. A soldier was martyred and three others were injured in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Keri Battal area of Akhnoor this morning, said an Army source. Earlier, Defence spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand had said that at around 5.30 am, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by shelling with mortars and firing of small arms along LoC in Sunderbani Sector. He said Indian Army retaliated effectively and the firing stopped at 0715 hours. "In the incident, rifleman Karamjeet Singh was critically injured and later succumbed to injuries," the spokesman said, adding four other soldiers were injured and condition of two of them was critical. The 24-year-old deceased rifleman belonged to Janer village, under Dharam Kot Tehsil in Moga district of Punjab and he is survived by his parents, he said. On Sunday too, the sector was targeted by the Pakistan Army in unprovoked ceasefire violation. The border skirmishes witnessed a spurt after India's air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot on February 26 in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. A steady stream of mourners paid tribute on Sunday at a makeshift memorial to the 50 people killed by a gunman at two mosques in Christchurch. Dozens of Muslims stood by to bury the dead when authorities finally release the victims bodies. Hundreds of flowers were piled up amid candles, balloons and notes of grief and love outside the Al Noor mosque. As a light rain fell, people clutched each other and wept quietly. We wish we knew your name to write upon your heart. We wish we knew your favourite song, what makes you smile, what makes you cry, read one of the tributes, which contained cut-out paper hearts under a nearby tree. We made a heart for you. 50 hearts for 50 lives. Two days after Fridays attack, New Zealands deadliest shooting in modern history, relatives were still waiting for authorities to release the bodies. Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. As soon as people die, we must bury them as soon as possible, Mr Hakim said. We are all here to help them in washing the body, putting them in the grave. Javed Dadabhai, who flew from Auckland after learning about the death of his 35-year-old cousin, Junaid Mortara, said the Muslim community was being patient. The family understands that its a crime scene. Its going to be a criminal charge against the guy whos done this, so they need to be pretty thorough, he said. People across the country were still trying to come to terms with the massacre that Ms Ardern described as one of New Zealands darkest days. At the Vatican, Pope Francis offered prayers for our Muslim brothers killed in the attack. At his traditional Sunday prayer, Francis renewed an invitation to unite in prayer and gestures of peace to oppose hatred and violence. The gunman apparently livestreamed the rampage at the Al Noor mosque, where worshippers were sprayed with bullets. The second attack took place at the Linwood mosque about three miles away. Greek police said Tarrant had stayed on the Greek islands of Crete and Santorini and travelled through the country twice, all in 2016. Authorities in Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia and Hungary have also confirmed visits by Tarrant between 2016 and 2018 as he apparently studied battles between Christians and the Ottoman Empire. At a news conference, the prime minister reiterated her promise that there will be changes to the countrys gun laws. She said her Cabinet would discuss the policy details Monday. Fifty people are now known to have been killed in the New Zealand mosque shootings as the bodies of victims begin to be returned to their families. An Australian man remains the only person to have been charged in connection with the attacks at two mosques in the city of Christchurch on Friday. Brenton Tarrant, 28, appeared in court on Saturday charged with murder and was remanded until April 5. Police said further charges would follow. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said he would not be ruling out the possibility of further suspects until we are absolutely convinced as to how many people were involved. Sadly, Police can confirm this morning that during the scene examination of the Deans Avenue Mosque yesterday, the body of a further victim was found. The death toll now stands at 50. New Zealand Police (@nzpolice) March 16, 2019 Two people arrested after the attacks were not believed to have been involved, police said, with one released and another charged with a separate offence. Another person was taken into custody due to evidence collected during the investigation but there was no information to suggest they were linked to the attacks, police added. A car thought to be used by the suspect in the Christchurch mosque shootings is lifted onto a tow truck (Claire Chambers/Mediary via AP) On Sunday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the process of returning the bodies of those killed to their families would begin that evening. According to Islamic law, bodies should be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death. Its likely to be a small number to begin with, said Ms Ardern. Its the expectation that all bodies will be returned to families by Wednesday. New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs and consoles a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque to lay flowers (TVNZ via AP) A 50th body was discovered at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Sunday morning, with victims believed to range in age from children to the elderly. Thirty-four people remain in hospital with injuries, 12 of them in intensive care. A four-year-old girl taken to Starship Hospital in Auckland remains in a critical condition. Tarrant appeared to have live-streamed the terror attack and outlined his anti-immigrant motives in a manifesto posted online. Ms Ardern said her office was one of more than 30 recipients of an emailed copy of the manifesto just nine minutes before guns were fired. It did not include location. It did not include specific details, she said. Within two minutes of receipt it was conveyed directly to parliamentary security. Had it provided details that could have been acted on immediately it would have been, but unfortunately there were no such details in the email. Social media giants were criticised in the wake of the attack for not doing more to stop such content being posted on their platforms. On Sunday, Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack worldwide in the 24 hours after the shootings, 1.2 million of which were blocked at upload. Out of respect for the people affected by this tragedy and the concerns of local authorities, we're also removing all edited versions of the video that do not show graphic content." Mia Garlick, Facebook New Zealand Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) March 17, 2019 Mia Garlick, of Facebook New Zealand, said: We continue to work around the clock to remove violating content using a combination of technology and people. Out of respect for the people affected by this tragedy and the concerns of local authorities, were also removing all edited versions of the video that do not show graphic content. Mr Bush said the gunman had obtained a legitimate firearms licence in 2017 in New Zealand, adding that it was quite obvious he had modified a category A firearm. Australias Nine Network television on Sunday broadcast an interview with a woman and a man who it says are a grandmother and an uncle of Tarrant. The woman, identified as Marie Fitzgerald, said: Its just so much for everything to take in that somebody in our family would do anything like this. Terry and Marie Fitzgerald (Channel 9 via AP) She added: Its only since he travelled overseas, I think, that the boy has changed completely The uncle, Terry Fitzgerald, said: We say sorry, for the families over there, for the dead and the injured, yeah we just, cant think nothing else, just want to go home and hide. Ms Arden has vowed to change the countrys gun laws in the wake of the shooting spree. Of those killed in the massacre, 42 died at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue in central Christchurch, seven were killed at the suburban Linwood Masjid Mosque, and one person died at Christchurch Hospital. People were killed at two mosques in Christchurch (PA Graphics) In the video live-streamed by Tarrant, a man inside a mosque appears to say: Welcome brother, as a gunman approaches. A number of improvised explosive devices found on a vehicle after the shootings were defused by police. Officers will stand guard outside all mosques across the New Zealand that choose to open their doors, while police have promised an increased presence across the country as people return to work and school on Monday. A fund set up to help victims families and those who suffered injuries has raised over 4.3 million New Zealand dollars (2.2 million). The page on the site givealittle was created by a council of victim support groups. The council said it had been overwhelmed with the number of donations, adding it would need to create a formal process to distribute the money. British security sources said there were no apparent UK links to the attack. A 24-year-old man from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was arrested on Saturday after posting comments online supporting the slaughter, Greater Manchester Police said. A 10-year-old schoolboy has recited the number pi to a massive 220 decimal places. Charley Thomas achieved his feat during a school assembly which celebrated pi. Pi is the number you get when you divide a circles circumference by its diameter. The first digits of pi, 3.14, are well known but the number is infinitely long. Extending the known sequence of digits in pi is very difficult because the number follows no set pattern. Charley, who attends Wycliffe Preparatory School in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire said he had been rehearsing for a week, memorising all 220 decimal places. Charley Thomas who has recited the number pi to a massive 220 decimal places (Wycliffe Preparatory School/PA) Im not very good at standing up and doing something in front of people so I was a bit nervous at assembly, he said. I had rehearsed at home and knew I could get to 220 places. I really like maths. Pi is used in engineering, physics, supercomputing and space exploration because its value can be used in calculations for waves, circles and cylinders. This is an incredible achievement and one that no Wycliffe pupil has done before, said headmaster Adrian Palmer. It is fitting that on the same day Emma Haruka Iwao, a Google employee from Japan, calculated the value of the number pi to a new world record length of 31 trillion digits, far past the previous record of 22 trillion. Charley received a standing ovation for his efforts in assembly and it was so richly deserved. A range of pi activities and challenges were organised for pupils to mark Pi Day of March 14 3.14 in American date notation. These included creating pi art, writing nonsense verse in PiLish and finding evidence of circular buildings. An MSP has told how she fears for her safety after a string of online threats and abuse. Glasgow Tory MSP Annie Wells said she has contacted Police Scotland over the social media posts. She told the Scottish Mail on Sunday she has been advised to increase her security by varying her way to work. Ms Wells, who has previously spoken of coming to terms with coming out as gay as a young teenager, said the majority of the abuse on Twitter was aimed at her simply for a being a woman. She told the paper that in the three years since she was elected as a list MSP for the Glasgow region, she has been forced to mute more than 1,100 abusive Twitter accounts due to the violent and foul-mouthed nature of the posts. She said: There was one tweet in particular which threatened violence. He was tweeting that he knew exactly where I was. I told Police Scotland and they put a mark on my house and surgery. Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells has received online abuse (Jane Barlow/PA) I also told security at Holyrood and they told me to use a different route to work and not to go out by myself. After I received that particular tweet, I was due to hold a surgery in a room in Govan Library. I used to have a room in the back, but now I have it in the public part of the library. When we were in the library, I feared we could be violently attacked. That is the impact these tweets have had. A spokesman for the Scottish Parliament told the paper: Regrettably, elected representatives face increasing threats and abuse, both online and in person. Over the past two years, the parliaments Corporate Body has provided numerous security enhancements to local offices based on Police Scotland advice and it has made lone worker devices available to MSPs and their staff. We continue to work closely with Police Scotland in offering MSPs personal safety advice and support. Police Scotland said it was committed to ensuring the safety and security of all of our communities, including MPs, MSPs and elected officials. Jeremy Corbyn said it is right that members of the Armed Forces are held to account for incidents during the Troubles after a British soldier was charged with murder over Bloody Sunday. The Labour leader said the law must apply to everyone, and denied that there was a discrepancy between the investigations into soldiers after Republican suspects were sent comfort letters offering effective immunity from prosecution. It came after the Public Prosecution Service said there was enough evidence to prosecute a man, known as Soldier F, for the murders of James Wray and William McKinney at the civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972. John Wray holding a photo of his brother James Wray (Niall Carson/PA) Speaking on Sky News Sophy Ridge on Sunday he said: The law must apply to everyone, and I dont think we should have statutory limitations on this. Mr Corbyn said we should have a fair and proper judicial process and said what happened on Bloody Sunday was awful and appalling. He added: I do think its important to have the independence of a legal process, and there has to be an insurance that everyone has to abide by the law. He was pressed on whether it was fair given how those members of the IRA suspected of crimes were offered an amnesty in the Northern Irish peace process. The Labour leader replied: The Good Friday Agreement was important, seminal and complicated, but it does not provide complete immunity for everyone, it was never intended to. Labours shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti criticised the comments of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson in support of Soldier F, when he said the Government would pay his full legal costs and added: Our serving and former personnel cannot live in constant fear of prosecution. She told BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show she approves of anyone accused of serious crimes getting full, complete five-star legal aid. But she added: Its not about wannabe prime ministers who are currently Defence Secretary giving coded messages of support to one defendant or another, its about saying anybody whos been charged with murder, which is the most serious offence in our law, should get the best possible defence and it should be paid for by the state. Asked about Mr Williamsons suggestion to change the law end prevent soldiers being charged, she said: I dont think we can do that if we believe in the rule of law. Baroness Chakrabarti said it would start a very dangerous precedent if we started granted blanket immunities to anybody in a particular role or profession. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge led a minutes silence to pay respects to the New Zealand terror attack victims, at a St Patricks Day parade. William, who is Colonel of the Irish Guards, and Kate were visiting 1st Battalion at their base in Hounslow, west London. The parade began with the Last Post, before a minute of silence was observed by the royals, the Irish Guards and their families who stood in memory of the 50 victims. The sun shone as Kate, wearing a dark green Alexander McQueen coat and hat from Lock and Co, then handed out baskets of shamrock. On #StPatricksDay The Duke of Cambridge, Colonel of the @Irish_Guards, accompanied by The Duchess, are visiting 1st Battalion Irish Guards at the St Patricks Day Parade. pic.twitter.com/CnfWeJlome The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) March 17, 2019 Watching close behind was her husband in his Irish Guards Frock Coat in the rank of Colonel. After Kate presented the shamrock to officers and warrant officers, three cheers were raised to the royal duo before a march past where William took the salute. The Duchess of Cambridge handed out shamrocks at Cavalry Barracks (Gareth Fuller/PA) Some 350 soldiers marched on the Parade Square at Cavalry Barracks on Sunday morning. Their families proudly watched on wrapped up warm with blankets to protect from the cold March wind. Leading the procession was Irish wolfhound and mascot Domhnall, whom Kate patted and stroked several times while presenting him with a shamrock. Drummer David Murray, his regimental handler, said the St Patricks Day parade was number one in his calendar and like a second birthday. Meeting Domhnall, the Irish Guards mascot (Gareth Fuller/PA) The mascot, wearing a red coat, was presented with his first shamrock in 2013 and today led the regimental band and parade. Drummer Murray said: Weve had a week-long preparation as a battalion, weve had a couple of rehearsals, couple of little bits that weve had to obviously fine tune. Domhnall hes been in the battalion since 2012, hes pretty good at his job doesnt really need to fine tune much so in regards to me and him its been quite a smooth week. He added: He helps me through the parade to be honest, he knows what hes doing. Flowers for the duchess (Gareth Fuller/PA) Kate was then presented with posies of flowers by six-year-old Jemima and her sister Athene, three. Crouching down to speak to them, she waved goodbye to the siblings before Kate cooed over their 12-week-old baby brother, Rory. The Duchess of Cambridge presents shamrock to 1st Battalion the Irish Guards on St Patricks Day. pic.twitter.com/8X667QEHFb Jemma Crew (@jemmacrew) March 17, 2019 Is he a good sleeper?, she asked his father, Major Ben Irwin-Clark, company commander of number two company. Oh well enjoy, it just gets better and better, she added, imparting some maternal wisdom as she waved goodbye. Ryan Orr, who has been with the Irish guards since 2004, brought his six-year-old son Kallum to the parade. It is Kallums second parade, having met William and Kate in 2016. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge enjoy a Guinness (Gareth Fuller/PA) The recruitment warrant officer, who lives in Aldershot, joked: He put his hand in Prince Williams pint three years ago, didnt you sausage? Asked if he was proud of his dad, Kallum said Yeah, extremely, adding that he was looking forward to meeting the duchess again. The family later shared a laugh with Kate and William as they recounted the episode. Mr Orr said: It means a lot because every (St Patricks) day we get together have a good drink and a catch up at the same time. The battalions due to deploy to South Sudan and Iraq this year so its extra special to get together as one before they deploy. Kate and William later sipped Guinness as they were toasted by hundreds of guardsmen. Irish President Michael D Higgins has attended a memorial service for the victims of the New Zealand mosque shootings. A service of silence and reflection was held at Dublins Pro Cathedral on St Patricks Day morning by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to remember those who died in the mass shootings and to renew the rejection of all forms of religious and racial intolerance by Christian believers. The death toll stands at 50 after the shootings at two Christchurch mosques during midday prayers on Friday, with dozens more were wounded. Mr Higgins signs a book of condolence before the memorial service (Niall Carson/PA) Archbishop Martin welcomed Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina to the service, where he expressed solidarity with the people of New Zealand, and Muslims both in Ireland and abroad. New Zealand ambassador to Ireland Brad Burgess was among the large crowd that attended. Archbishop Martin said: I felt that it would somehow be incongruous to hold our regular joyful celebration of the Feast of Saint Patrick here in the Pro-Cathedral, without first finding a moment to pause and reflect on a horrific event which took place on the other side of the world but which involves us all. We express our solidarity with the people of New Zealand. We express our solidarity with our Islamic brothers and sisters here in Ireland and worldwide Archbishop Martin pic.twitter.com/j2FWq5R6md Archdiocese Dublin (@DublinDiocese) March 17, 2019 He said that the brutal murder of 50 innocent people anywhere would in itself alone be a deplorable event of world dimensions. The inspiration of the event in Christchurch to attack people of prayer just because they were of a different faith is something that offends Christian culture; it offends our own Irish culture, just as it offends the culture of New Zealand, a country known for its tolerance and welcome, the archbishop said. He added that racism and religious intolerance can never be allowed to assume even a token tone of respectability or reasonableness. There is no such thing as half-racism. There is no way any society can think that racist or religious tolerance should have any place within it, he said. The Church of Jesus Christ and Christian believers must constantly be alert not to fall prey to the temptation of intolerance. History shows that when racism and religious intolerance are not addressed they contain within themselves a frightening power for fostering hatred and social destruction. Queues to sign the book of condolence for the victims of #Christchurch in Pro Cathedral this morning pic.twitter.com/H3r5U8f2y9 Archdiocese Dublin (@DublinDiocese) March 17, 2019 The service was followed by mass, celebrating the Feast of St Patrick and blessing of the shamrock at 11am. Long queues of people formed to sign books of condolence after the memorial and mass. The books were opened to the public on Saturday, and will also be available for signing on Monday from 10am. Theresa May could duck a third Commons showdown on her Withdrawal Agreement, resulting in a long delay to Brexit unless Tory rebels fall in line. Cabinet ministers said another vote on the deal would not be held unless the Prime Minister was confident of overturning last weeks overwhelming defeat. Unless the 149-vote humiliation can be reversed, Mrs May would be forced to seek a lengthy extension to the Article 50 process, with the UK required to elect MEPs in May, Chancellor Philip Hammond said. Will there definitely be a third "meaningful vote" on #Brexit next week? #Marr asks Chancellor Philip Hammond https://t.co/lJpkUkMdDC pic.twitter.com/H1mgUluItC BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) March 17, 2019 The Prime Minister herself has warned of what Westminster insiders have dubbed a Hotel California Brexit where the UK can never leave. She said that if MPs did not back her deal before Thursdays European Council summit we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever. It would be a potent symbol of Parliaments collective political failure if a delay to Brexit meant the UK was forced to elect MEPs in May almost three years after voting to leave, Mrs May said in a Sunday Telegraph article. As part of the effort to put pressure on Tory hardliners and the DUP to shift position and support the deal, Mr Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox made clear that the Prime Minister might not even risk a third defeat on her deal after the 230-vote loss in January and last weeks 149-vote reverse. Mr Hammond told BBC Ones Andrew Marr Show: We will only bring the deal back if we are confident that enough of our colleagues and the DUP are prepared to support it so that we can get it through Parliament. We are not just going to keep presenting it if we havent moved the dial. He said a significant number of MPs had changed their minds because the alternatives to Mrs Mays deal were so unpalatable to them, but he acknowledged it remained a work in progress to secure enough votes. But in a warning of what was at stake Mr Hammond added: Clearly if we dont get this deal through we are almost certainly going to have to fight a European parliamentary election, almost certainly going to have a longer extension, almost certainly not going to be able to gain access to the fiscal headroom I talked about in the Spring Statement. The Chancellor insisted it was not economic blackmail, its common sense to say that he would not be able to release the almost 27 billion of fiscal headroom unless the deal was done, as he needed to keep it in reserve to cope with a no-deal departure. Theresa May and husband Philip attend church ahead of another potentially difficult week for the Prime Minister (Steve Parsons/PA) Dr Fox told Sky News Sophy Ridge On Sunday: I would say to my colleagues: all actions have consequences, and if you really want to deliver the Brexit we all promised then we need to back the Prime Ministers deal because there is no other deal on offer. 'There would be no point having the vote if we'd no chance of winning that' - International Trade Secretary @LiamFox says the third meaningful vote, speculated to take place this week, might not go ahead.#Ridge For more, head here: https://t.co/JAa7I2R2yW pic.twitter.com/wyZXt4a1yG Trevor Phillips on Sunday (@RidgeOnSunday) March 17, 2019 He added: If we had an extension with no agreement and this was just kicking into the long grass with the chance that Brexit might not happen at all, that would be very, very hard for most people to swallow. The possibility of Brexit being delayed or overturned in a second referendum is swinging some Eurosceptics reluctantly behind the deal ahead of a third vote on the package. Former Cabinet minister Esther McVey told Sky News that, although it remained a bad deal, the choice before us is this deal or no Brexit whatsoever. Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski has also acknowledged that the Prime Ministers deal was now the only game in town. Former Brexit secretary David Davis said the PMs deal was capable of rescue if the negotiating strategy was changed and experienced trade negotiators were brought in to work with the EU. Writing in The Sunday Times, he added: Judging by last week the alternative would be a cascade of chaos, eventually ending in a remainer attempt, first to delay Brexit by a long time and then reverse it. Former Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott, writing in the same paper, called Mrs Mays deal far from perfect, but added: I would rather opt for the risk of a customs union later a risk that has diminished in recent weeks than the very real risk of a permanent customs union now. The choice isnt enviable, but the safer option is clear. But so far the number of Tories publicly switching positions has amounted to a trickle rather than the flood the Prime Minister needs as she seeks 75 more votes for her deal. Constituents fed up with infighting in both Parties.Parliament voted this week to take no deal from table (mistake in my view)) No other deal can get through Commons so Mrs Mays Deal is only game in town. Do we continue to obstruct & risk no Brexit? I doubt I can take that risk Daniel Kawczynski (@DKShrewsbury) March 16, 2019 Meanwhile, talks continued with the DUP, but the party stressed that the presence of Mr Hammond at a meeting on Friday did not mean that money was being demanded. Scotlands needs are being totally ignored by Westminster while the case for Scotland governing itself has never been stronger, the First Minister has said. Nicola Sturgeon, writing for The Sunday Mail, warned again that Brexit would be bad for Scotland. She said: The UK Parliament has not worked in Scotlands national interest for a very long time, if indeed it ever did. But this was the week in which that was utterly exposed and plain for all to see. We learned that the Scottish Tories are happy to actively vote against our national interests, all but one of them refusing to back plans to definitely rule out the no-deal Brexit which would be ruinous for our economy and society. In 2016 Scotland voted in favour of the UK staying in the EU by 62% to 38%, with all of the 32 council areas backing Remain. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warns against Brexit deal (Jane Barlow/PA) Last week Ms Sturgeon argued that the failure of the Commons to agree on a deal meant the issue should now be put back to the public in a new referendum. In the article she went on to criticise Jeremy Corbyn, who she said still isnt capable of fulfilling the role of an opposition leader and described Theresa May as obstinate and stubborn. Ms Sturgeon warned against the Prime Ministers Brexit deal, adding: In these most uncertain of times, no one should assume anything, and it remains a possibility that through a combination of arm-twisting, bullying, bribery and brinkmanship, the Brexit deal could yet pass. She said the case for Scotland governing itself has never been stronger. The people of Scotland deserve the chance to choose a better future than this, she added. Maurice Golden, Scottish Conservative chief whip, said: Nicola Sturgeons only goal is independence even though a majority of Scots voted against it. The Scottish people just want politicians to get on with Brexit and get the best deal for Scotland. Yet again Nicola Sturgeon is prioritising her own political goals above the needs of the Scottish people. Meanwhile, Scottish Conservative MP Ross Thomson said if Mrs Mays deal comes back to the Commons he may not necessarily support it. The Aberdeen South MP said he had similar concerns as the Democratic Unionists but that he will make up his own mind on the Prime Ministers deal. Persuading the 10 DUP MPs to back the deal is viewed as crucial by ministers as they believe allaying the unionists concerns about the Irish backstop will help swing Tory Eurosceptics behind the Prime Minister. Mr Thomson told the BBCs Sunday Politics Scotland programme: I simply wont vote for something because the DUP back it but if those similar concerns are addressed round about the place of Northern Ireland, the issues round about the backstop, and I feel that enough protection is there to ensure that we leave the EU as one United Kingdom and do not treat another part of it differently, then of course I will be happy to suck up a lot of the other stuff I dont like within the withdrawal agreement to see it through. The Liberal Democrats can move forward in leaps and bounds by taking advantage of the divisions with the Tories and Labour, Sir Vince Cable said. The formation of The Independent Group (TIG) of breakaway MPs from the two main parties has created a potential rival to the Lib Dems, but Sir Vince said they offered nothing yet beyond Westminster. The Lib Dem leader said the local elections in May, after which he will stand down, would offer the opportunity to shake off the legacy of the coalition era. The former cabinet minister told the partys spring conference in York: This years local elections must be the place where we finally shake off the set-back of two damaging general elections, and regain confidence, building on the advances of the last year. We can and will. The environment in which we do so has now changed. We are seeing early signs of some realignment. The breakaway group of independent MPs is a sign of that. I have been very clear that we must welcome a realignment of British politics and the opportunities it presents. Sir Vince Cable said The Independent Group offered nothing yet beyond Westminster (Gareth Fuller/PA) I have also been clear that we should offer the hand of friendship to those who want to work with us rather than against us. Now, more than ever, we must stand up for our liberal values. pic.twitter.com/EUE2zVtN1L Vince Cable (@vincecable) March 17, 2019 The creation of TIG, which is holding talks about becoming a fully-fledged party, poses a headache for the Lib Dems by competing for similar voters. Sir Vince acknowledged that many of their policies and views could have been cut and pasted from the Lib Dems. The new group has a following wind from people who are curious about something new, and who admire their decision to break with their parties. But there is nothing yet beyond Westminster, he said. No local infrastructure. No local base. They are very exposed to a wipe-out in an early election. We arent. Referring to former leader Tim Farrons description of the party as cockroaches which would survive a nuclear war, Sir Vince said: I think we can do more than survive. He added: If, as I sense, the two old, tired and increasingly discredited major parties are to fracture, we shall move forward not in small steps, but in leaps and bounds. On Brexit, where the Lib Dems have strongly backed a second referendum to overturn the Leave vote, Sir Vince said: I remain astounded that some people claim a new referendum would be undemocratic. What is democracy if it is not the right for a country to change its mind? Sahu also said an elaborate security plan was being drawn up and around 33 companies of Central paramilitary forces had arrived in the state. Assam has a total electorate of 2,17,60,604. It will see a three-phased Lok Sabha poll, to be held on April 11, April 18 and April 23, covering the states 14 Lok Sabha constituencies (Photo: File) Guwahati: Assams chief electoral officer Mukesh Sahu said on Monday that there were nearly 1.2 lakh doubtful voters in Assam who would not be able to exercise their franchise in the state. Doubtful voters is a category of voters in Assam who are disenfranchised for lack of citizenship credentials and are barred from contesting elections and casting votes. Noting that the numbers in this category has come down, Mr Sahu said if the names of such voters are cleared by the foreigners tribunal or a court, they could get enrolled in the electoral roll. The electoral rolls are revised till the last date of nominations. But the date of nomination differs as per the phases, he added. When asked if those whose names are not in the final NRC draft will be able to exercise their franchise, the CEO said: Those whose names are on the electoral rolls will be able to cast their votes. Mr Sahu also said an elaborate security plan was being drawn up and around 33 companies of Central paramilitary forces had arrived in the state. Assam has a total electorate of 2,17,60,604. It will see a three-phased Lok Sabha poll, to be held on April 11, April 18 and April 23, covering the states 14 Lok Sabha constituencies. Of the 28,143 polling stations in the state, 3,663 are identified as hyper-sensitive and 1,913 are identified as critical polling stations. To make the coming general elections more inclusive and participatory, the Assam election department has also launched the i-help initiative. The Common Service Centres (CSCs) are Internet-enabled access points spread across the country delivering various government and non-government digital services (e-services) to citizens. We are experiencing a transition to the digital world. To make the transition smoother for the general public, the CSCs can play a vital role to educate people on the use of IT-enabled services related to elections. This will fill the digital divide and fulfill the objective of making the general election more inclusive and participatory, he added. The CSCs have a presence in the states 2,528 gaon panchayats. There are 4,587 functional CSCs in Assam. Barracks across Northern Ireland reverberated to the sound of the skirl of pipes and drums as soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment spent the weekend celebrating St Patricks Day. On Sunday a large crowd assembled to watch the proceedings as Lord Lieutenant of Belfast Mrs Fionnuala Jay-OBoyle CBE inspected soldiers and presented shamrocks during a parade in Belfast to mark the patron saints day. On Saturday Lord Lieutenant of Antrim, Mrs Joan Christie OBE inspected soldiers and conducted the annual presentation of shamrock in Newtownabbey, while the mayor of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council, Councillor Uel Mackin carried out the duties at Lisburns Thiepval Barracks. Regimental mascot Brian Boru X (MoD/Crown Copyright/PA) In Enniskillen Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Fermanagh, Major (Retd) Charles Plunkett MBE inspected the troops. Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Paul Walkley said: St Patricks Day is a fantastic opportunity for us to come together to celebrate our regimental heritage and Irishness. Its a special day where we get to thank our families, local communities and our veteran community for their enduring support throughout the year. We will not let the rain dampen our spirits. Shamrock is presented (MoD Crown Copyright/PA) The band of the Royal Irish Regiment and the bugles, pipes and drums of the 2nd Battalion provided music over the weekend. Also present at the events was the Royal Irish Regiments mascot, Irish wolfhound Brian Boru X who wore an official green parade uniform. He was accompanied by his handler, Wolfhound Major Moore. The Prince of Wales has arrived in St Lucia for the start of a 12-day tour of the Caribbean featuring an historic visit to Cuba. Charles was warmly greeted by St Lucias Prime Minister Allen Chastanet when he arrived and also waiting at the steps of RAF Voyager, the British minister jet, was British High Commissioner Steve McCready. The trip to the island paradise is a brief stop of a few hours for the heir to the throne before he flies on to Barbados where the Duchess of Cornwall is waiting, having flown out ahead of the tours start. The Prince of Wales has arrived in St. Lucia to join celebrations marking 40 years of the countrys independence. To begin the visit, The Prince is meeting with Prime Minister Allen Chastanet and Governor-General Sir Emmanuel Neville Cenac. #RoyalVisitStLucia pic.twitter.com/2DQYagG2eV The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall (@ClarenceHouse) March 17, 2019 Charles and Camilla will also visit St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and the Cayman Islands, with the highlight the four-day tour of Cuba beginning on March 24 the first by members of the monarchy. The princes flying visit has given the St Lucians an excuse to extend celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the countrys independence, and an official ceremonial welcome and parade will be staged in the open air later for Charles. Charles was greeted at Hewanorra International Airport (Jane Barlow/PA) With its tropical forests, famous Pitons towering volcanic plugs that are a World Heritage site and picturesque towns the island is the archetypal Caribbean destination. It was fought over many times during the 17th and 18th century before Britain took control of the strategically important island from the French and today its culture still reflects these influences especially in the French creole widely spoken. The former crown colony of Britain, whose economy has moved from sugar production to tourism and banana growing, is one of the Queens realms meaning Charles is not a foreign royal but a prince of St Lucia. New Zealands Cabinet has backed changes to gun laws in the country just three days after 50 people were killed in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch. Police have also confirmed they believe absolutely that only one perpetrator was responsible for the attacks during Friday prayers. Mourners light candles outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand (Vincent Thian/AP) Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, has been charged with murder and appeared at court on Saturday. He was remanded until April 5. On Monday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the Cabinet had made in principle decisions about gun law reform, with further details to be announced by next Monday. This ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our communities safer, she said. Ms Ardern said the Cabinet was absolutely unified, and said the shootings had exposed a range of weaknesses in New Zealands gun laws. She added that there would be an inquiry into the events leading up to the attacks. It also emerged that the alleged perpetrator bought four weapons online from a gun store in Christchurch. David Tipple, owner of Gun City, said the alleged gunman bought four A category firearms and ammunition through a police-verified online mail order process. Mr Tipple told reporters: I returned from Europe on Saturday and immediately searched all our purchase records and found the alleged gunmans purchases. I provided the police with full details of the sales. We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder. Gun City owner David Tipple during a press conference on Monday (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) He added: The MSSA (military-style semi-automatic) reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Mr Tipple said he and his staff were devastated by the shootings, adding: We cant comprehend how such despicable actions could be carried out on those in prayer in their place of worship. Meanwhile, New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police were confident a lone attacker was responsible for the shootings. We believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this, he said. That doesnt mean there werent possibly people in support and that is to form an important part of our investigation. Students raise candles as they gather for a vigil to commemorate victims of Fridays shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) On Monday morning, two homes in New South Wales, Australia, were raided by police in connection with the mosque attacks. Officers from the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team executed a search warrant at a home in the town of Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, 330 miles north of Sydney, at 8.30am (9.30pm Sunday GMT). A short time later, a second warrant was executed at a home further north in Lawrence, near MacLean. New South Wales Police said: The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation. The family of the Australian man arrested in Christchurch continues to assist police with their inquiries. Thirty-one people remain in Christchurch Hospital after the mass shootings, nine of them in intensive care. A four-year-old girl is in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland, while her father is in the same hospital in a serious but stable condition. The shootings took place at two mosques in Christchurch (PA Graphics) Tarrant appeared to have live-streamed the terror attack and outlined his anti-immigrant motives in a manifesto posted online. On Sunday, Ms Ardern said her office was one of more than 30 recipients of an emailed copy of the manifesto just nine minutes before guns were fired. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack worldwide in the 24 hours after the shootings, 1.2 million of which were blocked at upload. A mourner paying her respects outside the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand (Vincent Yu/AP) Of those killed in the massacre, 42 died at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue in central Christchurch, seven were killed at the suburban Linwood Masjid Mosque, and one person died at Christchurch Hospital. In the video live-streamed by Tarrant, a man inside a mosque appears to say: Welcome brother, as a gunman approaches. A number of improvised explosive devices found on a vehicle after the shootings were defused by police. British security sources said there were no apparent UK links to the attack. Chowkidar chor hai. Following Indias air strike on the Jaish-e-Mohammeds terror camp in Balakot, Congress president Rahul Gandhi received some wise advice from party elders please avoid saying Chowkidar chor hai for a few days. It will rebound on us. Let public anger cool. Then attack the chowkidar again. Rahul followed the advice faithfully. But within a week, at every rally, he began to repeat his favourite epithet directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Chowkidar chor hai. Who gets the last laugh? Rahul's 'Chowkidar chor hai' has backfired with the PM launching a fiery counter #MainBhiChowkidar. (Photo: Reuters) Cheerfully doubling down on his taunt, Rahul repeated his other favourite charge: Modi has stolen Rs. 30,000 crore from the Indian Air Force (IAF) and given it to Anil Ambani. Meanwhile, Anil Ambani was apparently trying to rustle up a little over Rs 400 crore last week to stay out of jail. The Supreme Court had given him four weeks to come up with the money to pay Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms network vendor, or go to prison. Some of that Rs 30,000 crore Rahul claims Modi gave Anil Ambani would come in handy today. In one deft move, Modi has turned Rahuls #ChowkidarChorHai taunt into what could prove a blockbuster campaign slogan "Main Bhi Chowkidar". Rahuls attacks on Modi underscore how poorly he has read the national mood. The 2019 Lok Sabha election will be won on two broad issues: national security and the economy. After the Jaishs Pulwama terror attack and Indias air strike deep within Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, national security has dominated the electoral narrative, pushing economic issues such as jobs and farmers distress into the background. Deafening silence: Instead of choosing weak spots, the Opposition has been shrill in personally targetting Modi. (Photo: Reuters) Any strategic political thinker would try to drag public attention back to the economy. Despite a recent course-correction, Rahul has renewed his charge of corruption against the Prime Minister on the Rafale fighter jet deal. Modis strong point is his reputation for incorruptibility and yet, Rahul continues to attack him on his strength rather than on his weaknesses. If Rahul looked carefully, hed find many. The economy slowed in the third quarter of 2018-19 to 6.6 per cent. GDP growth for the entire year will now struggle to hit 7 per cent. Governance is another Modi weakness Rahul could attack but hasnt. The Lokpal may finally be appointed only at the end of the prime ministers tenure. The RTI Act has been diluted. Central Information Commissioner (CIC) vacancies have mounted. The leadership of institutions like the RBI and CBI has reportedly been compromised. But does Rahul focus on these issues? Not enough. The rest of the Opposition is worse. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has questioned whether the IAF hit the right target in Balakot. That doubt was demolished by India Todays world exclusive investigation broadcast on March 11. When a country is in a war-like situation and a General Election is less than a month away, the Opposition has to reinvent its campaign. The post-Balakot strategy of pinning the Rafale deal on the prime minister in the absence of a money trail (as there was for Bofors and AgustaWestland) is counter-productive. Corruption is the Oppositions weakness and Modis strength. By playing up unsubstantiated corruption allegations and questioning the efficacy of the Balakot air strike, the Opposition, which has several corruption allegations against it (including Saradha, Rose Valley and Coalgate), has walked into a trap. Can it wrench the narrative back to the economy, jobs and farmers? Time is short. With the first phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 11 and the mood strongly nationalistic, the Oppositions cynical comments on national security (including Rahul referring to the Jaish chief as Masood Azhar ji) are political hara kiri. The Opposition and sections of the establishment media, giving short shrift to key economic issues, have even begun a debate on the definition of nationalism. The attempt is to paint nationalism as a Left-liberal construct. It isnt. Nowhere to go Just why is the Opposition not talking about unemployment? (Photo: Reuters) Nationalism has a European context and an Indian context. I differentiated between the two in an op-ed on January 4, 2018: German nationalism in the 1930s sought to invade and conquer. Indian nationalism under Mahatma Gandhi in sharp contrast was non-violent and sought to free India from British colonial occupation which, like German nationalism, was invasive, violent and expansionary. German and British nationalism was not nationalism but jingoism. Employing a deliberate sleight of hand, the Left attempts to discredit Indian nationalism today by conflating it with European nationalism. Real nationalism is fair, open and embraces diversity. It seeks to guard India from terror, promotes the countrys economic interests by globalising the Indian economy, and protects the rights of minorities by empowering them. The attempt to appropriate nationalism to Left-liberalism is equally disingenuous. But of that more another day. Suffice for the moment to restate my definition of true liberalism: Liberalism in the classical sense is tolerant of opposing points of view. The Left in India regards itself as liberal. It is not. The Congress likes to think of itself as a liberal party. But it violates an important commandment of liberalism: tolerance to dissent. The Congress dynasty does not brook dissent. No senior Congress leader dared challenge Rahul Gandhis election as party president last December. The RSS is not an exemplar of liberalism either. It is socially illiberal. It does not allow women membership of the main organisation. It has a separate womens wing. But that is not liberalism. It is tokenism. The RSS will not be truly liberal till its sarsangchalak can be a woman. * * * The BJP would be wise to now do three things in the final lap of the General Election. First, let the national security theme play out naturally without sounding jingoistic the issue needs nuanced handling. Second, dont bother to polarise the electorate. There has been so much polarisation through the past five years that any more will rebound on the BJP. Third, focus on key development outcomes over the past five years infrastructure, sanitation, digitisation, health insurance, financial inclusion and direct transfer of subsidies. Overall, its a good report card but one that the Opposition can pick holes in if it gets over its obsession of calling Modi a chor. The prime minister is many things, good and bad but a chor he isnt. Also Read: Why I think #MainBhiChowkidar is not a political campaign. 'I am Congress' was It's a well-known fact that journalists in Pakistan speak overwhelmingly in support of their army. Some go out of their way to impress the army and sound comical instead. Let me reveal it to you that not all of them do it because they love the Pakistani army. Some of them might be doing it because they are scared of their own army. Sounds unbelievable? Sitting here in India, it is very difficult to imagine the kind of stress that Pakistani journalists go through on a daily basis if they dare criticise their own army (or the deep state, for that matter). The Pakistan army has its eyes on journalists who don't pander to it. (Photo: Reuters) Over the decades, some of the worst crimes have reportedly been committed by the Pakistani army on its own journalists, just to silence them. The kinds of crimes that are committed on reputed journalists in Pakistan by the Pakistani army will horrify you. Consider the case of Taha Siddiqui, former Pakistan Bureau Chief of Wion News, an Indian news television channel. On January 10, 2018, Taha was on his way to his office in Rawalpindi when he was waylaid by a truck and a van. About 12 men, armed with AK-47 rifles, emerged from the van and asked the taxi to stop. As soon as the taxi stopped, they dragged Taha out and started hitting him. While he was thrown to the ground and chaos ensued, Taha saw an opportunity he got up and ran towards the other side of the highway, where he hailed another cab. The moment the cab driver realised that Taha was being chased by armed men, he stopped the car after a hundred yards and asked him to leave his vehicle. Desperate to save his life, Taha jumped into a ditch, crawled through mud and thorny mangrove bushes to reach another highway on the other side of the large ditch. He stayed low until a compassionate man agreed to drive him to Islamabad. Here's Taha's abduction getting reported on his channel. The incident became a worldwide sensation and all fingers were immediately pointed at the Pakistani army. Do you know why the Pakistani army was after Taha Siddiqui? Well, he specialised in beats that were a nightmare for the army forced disappearances, the state of minorities and human rights violations. His searing news reports reportedly made the Pakistani army feel uncomfortable about him. Taha along with his five-year-old son and wife have now exiled themselves in Paris, where he still lives in fear of the Pakistani deep state catching up with him. Taha was lucky though. Gul Bukhari wasn't. Gul was a known critic of the Pakistani army and allegedly on the radar of the deep state for a long time for her critical views about the Pakistani army. On June 6, 2018, in an identical kidnapping and criminal action plan, Gul's car was waylaid on a highway in Lahore and she was forcibly bundled into another car. She was freed several hours later. We don't even know what happened to Gul in those nightmarish hours. Taha and Gul are in august company every year, there are reports of prominent journalists getting kidnapped and tortured. Some of them have returned home, some are in exile and no one knows the whereabouts of some others. The names of the journalists who have been attacked apparently by the Pakistani army are many; in 2017, Ahmad Noorani was gravely wounded, Hamid Mir survived an attempt on his life in 2014, in the same year, Raza Rumi narrowly escaped bullets from automatic rifles which pierced his driver's heart. In 2011, investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad was found dead under mysterious circumstances. These are just the big cases which made headlines in Pakistan. There are hundreds of other cases each year where relatively unknown local journalists are hurt, kidnapped, threatened and attacked because they dare to criticise the army. Apart from the journalists, cases of activists getting kidnapped and not returning home for as many as seven months have also been reported. There are hundreds of such cases, some have been reported and some remain unacknowledged by the police. Things have come to such a point that the people of Pakistan are no more surprised at such news of the extra-judicial outreach of the Pakistani army. The profiles of all the journalists and activists who had murder attempts made on them, or were kidnapped, were the same they were all staunch critics of the Pakistani army, they were under threat for a long time and above all, they were fearless. The way the Pakistan army reportedly organises these attacks is eerily similar. First, the journalists will be politely told to restrain themselves then a few threatening calls and abduction threats are made and finally, murder. It is apparently also the case that the Pakistan army maintains a big unit of criminals who kidnap, kill, threaten and browbeat journalists and activists. This criminal unit of the Pakistani army operates openly without any fear, without any challenge and with complete impunity. This continued and unabated spate of crimes is showing results. According to Taha, close to 90% of journalists self-censor themselves when they are writing about the Pak deep state out of pure and unbridled fear. Here is a documentary film by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which documented how these journalists live in fear if they dare to criticise the military. The 15-minute docu-film about the criminal acts of the Pakistani army is sure to send a chill down your spine. Apart from committing crimes on journalists, the Pakistani army has also heavily weighed down on media houses which were not toeing their dictated line of action. They have earlier restricted the circulation of Pakistani newspaper Dawn and blacked out TV news channel Geo after they were apparently too critical of the army and its reported human rights violations. While talking about the professionalism of the Pakistani army, we must remember this sinister side of their armed forces, which operates with the professionalism of an entrenched crime syndicate. The only difference between a crime syndicate and the Pak army is that in Pakistan, their army is the law. Not only they have hijacked the popular mandate from the civilian government many times, the Pakistani army bosses the civilian government about like a patriarch in a conservative society. This criminal role of the Pakistani army is never discussed in the mainstream media, but ask any Pakistani journalist and they will tell you that they can foretell which journalists will be kidnapped this year. Any journalist who will persistently criticise the army will be silenced in this way. Now that you have seen another face of the Pakistan army, what would you call them? Are they an army which has sworn to protect the people of Pakistan? Or, are they an agency which has unleashed a reign of terror on its own citizens? It's important to know the real face of the Pakistani army. Before we believe the Pakistani army's claim that they are a professional force, we should see the above evidence. Tell me, is it really a matter of surprise to you that these same uniformed men are also harbouring terrorists in their own backyards? Also Read: Making War: We must save the children imprisoned in Pakistan's jihadi-run madrassas In the backdrop of India and Pakistans simmering tension, Indias decision to deploy a buildup comprising aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and nuclear submarine INS Chakra in the northern Arabian sea off the Pakistan coast conveys significant messages. These are as follows. The naval assets were part of a major defence exercise held in the Indian Ocean region recently. The exercise was to end on March 10. But, before its formal conclusion, these assets were redeployed reportedly as per certain exigencies. This announcement and the message of war-preparedness came on Sunday. India's pride INS Vikramaditya can carry 30 aircraft and helicopters. (Photo: India Today) Following the release of IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman earlier this month, the tension between the two nuclear-powered countries seemingly de-escalated. The focus shifted to China obstinately vetoing Indias bid to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror chief Masood Azhar in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Alongside, a Reuters report claimed that the situation between India and Pakistan during Pulwama/Balakot actually spiraled out of control requiring immediate intervention by US officials. The report claims, at one stage, India threatened to fire at least six missiles at Pakistan, and Islamabad said it would respond with its own missile strikes three times over. India has denied these claims. In-between all of this comes the announcement of this naval mobilisation. Hemmed In The Pak Navy has not been able to venture beyond Makran Coast, due to the 'overwhelming superiority' of the Indian Navy. (Photo: Google Map) According to a Hindustan Times report, such a huge mobilisation has not taken place since Operation Parakram, which followed the December 2001 attack on India's Parliament. Now, Operation Parakram was the first full-fledged mobilisation since the 1971 war. It began on December 15, 2001, and ended on October 16, 2002. There was no conflict during these 10 months but there were near-conflict situations twice. If this naval deployment reminds defence experts of Operation Parakram, we cant actually sit back and relax. The government has already admitted knowledge of Samundari jihad, where sea-routes might be used to attack India. Meanwhile, Pakistan Day (March 23) which marks the 1940 signing of the Pakistan Resolution, seeking a separate homeland for Muslims, by the Muslim League is close. Chinese fighters have already reached Islamabad to take part in the Pakistan Day Parade. Though the situation may resemble a lull, incidents of ceasefire violations at the Line of Control (Loc) are also going on. Since February 15, there have been 230 ceasefire violations at the Line of Control. Clearly, the Indian naval forces are not going to take any chances. Also Read: Where is Masood Azhar? American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. 6 hours ago EXPLAINER: Why US inflation is so high, and when it may ease WASHINGTON (AP) Inflation is starting to look like that unexpected and unwanted houseguest who just wont leave. For months, many economists had sounded a reassuring message that a spike in consumer prices, something that had been missing in action in the U.S. Read Article Taubman Centers, Inc. (NYSE:TCO) posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November, 9th. The real estate investment trust reported ($0.49) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate of $0.58 by $1.07. The real estate investment trust had revenue of $130.99 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $125.10 million. Taubman Centers had a net margin of 30.09% and a negative trailing twelve-month return on equity of 94.88%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 19.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.86 EPS. View Taubman Centers' earnings history. The political crisis had erupted in the state after chief minister Manohar Parrikar passed away on Sunday evening. New Delhi/Panaji: The struggle for power in Goa seemed to be heading towards a dramatic climax as the Bharatiya Janata Party had by Monday evening managed to hang on to power by announcing that its MLA and Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant would be the next chief minister of the state. However, after initial reports that Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLA Sudin Dhavalikar and Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai were likely to be deputy chief ministers in the new government, by Monday evening it was learnt two MGP MLAs (the party has three MLAs in the 36-member Goa Assembly) joined the BJP, thus taking its strength in the Assembly to 14. The political crisis had erupted in the state after chief minister Manohar Parrikar passed away on Sunday evening. While BJP leaders were yet to meet governor Mridula Sinha to stake claim to forming the government, there was speculation that with more than two-thirds of its total members having joined the BJP, the MGP may now not get the deputy chief ministers post. There is speculation that the new BJP chief minister could be sworn in soon. Both the MGP and the GFP, with three MLAs each in the Goa Assembly, are allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and three Independents are also said to be backing the BJP, that takes the strength of the BJP and its allies to 21 in the 36-member House. Even if two MGP members have joined the BJP, the numbers remain in favour of the BJP and its allies. The Congress, meanwhile, has 13 MLAs and the NCP one, taking its tally to 14 in the House. The actual strength of the Goa Assembly is 40, but it has now come down to 36, with 18 MLAs being the magic number for forming the government. The Congress had on Saturday, a day before Parrikars death, staked claim to form the government after BJP MLA Francis DSouzas death last week. The party had said the BJP on its own was reduced to 13 MLAs in the House and thus was in a minority. After Parrikars death on Sunday, the Congress had once again staked its claim, but with senior BJP leader and Union minister Nitin Gadkar reaching the state and holding hectic parleys with the MGP and GFP soon after the chief ministers death, the ruling party seems to have managed to hold on to power in the state. Earlier on Monday, Manohar Parrikar was cremated with full state honours as thousands lined the streets to mourn the late chief minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Goa in the afternoon to pay tribute to the departed leader. Parrikar, a four-time chief minister, died at his private residence on Sunday evening after battling pancreatic cancer since February last year. 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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.. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) A delegation of international lawyers called on President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration to refrain from publicly attacking lawyers, amid a spike in human rights violations against legal practitioners in the country. Representatives of groups including the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the International Association of Lawyers, and the Day of the Endangered Lawyer Foundation -- reviewed 13 incidents of reported attacks against lawyers in the Philippines. They interviewed government officials, civil society organizations, victims and their families. They were unsucessful in their attempt to meet with the police and military. In its preliminary findings, the international lawyers' delegation concluded there were "severe human rights violations" comitted against legal professionals which increased during the Duterte administration. The report also cited Duterte's statement on August 2016: "If they [lawyers] are obstructing justice, you shoot them." "Duterte's declarations and almost complete impunity of offenders give police, military, and effectively anyone a license to harrass and kill," it read. It added the government should end the practice of "red-tagging" legal practitioners and publicly disclosing drug lists. Malacanang said the lawyer's deaths could not be attributed to the President, and insisted that the administration has not attacked any lawyer "in any way." The Integrated Bar of the Philippines raised the number of lawyer's killings to 38, after lawyer Rex Jasper Lopoz was shot dead in Tagum City, Davao del Norte on March 13. READ: IBP: 38 lawyers killed since August 2016 Suzanne Adely of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers said, "President Duterte and his administration should refrain from publicly attacking lawyers and instead publicly condemn all attacks against lawyers, prosecutors, and judges at all levels and in strong terms." CNN Philippines' Correspondent Anjo Alimario contributed to this report. Ms Vadra said that she has come to listen to the people and learn about their problems rather than giving speeches. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra comes out after offering prayer at Bade Hanuman temple in Prayagraj on Monday. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh battlefront formally opened on Monday with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra beginning her two-day boat-ride from Prayagraj to Varanasi even as BSP chief Mayawati rebuffed the Congress Partys offer of not contesting against the BSP-SP-RLD alliance in seven seats, saying no confusion should be created by the Grand Old Party, and that the alliance was capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Ms Vadra, who was recently made general secretary in-charge of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, played the Hindutva card to the hilt as she began her boat ride after praying at the Letee Hanuman temple at Sangam. Clad in a green sari, she interacted with students on the steamer and spoke with voters standing on the river bank, asking them to help bring a government that works for them and said that her brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says. Addressing the people at Sirsa Ghat and other places where she halted during the boat-ride, Ms Vadra took a swipe at Mr Modis main bhi chowkidar campaign, saying chowkidars are for the rich, not for farmers, and alleged that the issues of religion and caste are being raised as the government has failed on the development front. Unki (Prime Minister) marzi apne naam ke aage kya lagaen. Mujhe ek kisan bhai ne kaha ki Dekhiye chowkidaar toh ameeron ke hotey hain, hum kisan toh apney khud chowkidaar hotey hain (It is up to him what prefix he uses in his name. Yesterday I met a group of farmers. One of them told me, chowkidars are for the rich. We farmers are our own chowkidars), she said. Ms Vadras boat-ride began from Manaiya Ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj district. The Congress family scion will cover a distance of 100 km by boat from Allahabad, considered the political birthplace of the Nehru-Gandhis, to Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is considered the biggest challenger to the Nehruvian legacy so far. Ms Vadra was accompanied by party leaders, including Savitri Bai Phule, the MLA from Rampur Khas (Pratapgarh) who recently quit the BJP and joined the Congress. In a brief address at Dumduma where the steamer halted, Ms Vadra said that she has come to listen to the people and learn about their problems rather than giving speeches. My brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says... In MP, in 10 days of the Congress coming to power, farmers loans were waived... Same in Rajasthan. I want to urge you, my brothers and sisters, to vote wisely in these elections and form a Congress government so that your problems could be looked into... This area has specific problems, she said. She also touched on sand mining rights for boatmen and, at the Sirsa Ghat halt, she said that the electorate has witnessed Congress governments during which schemes like MNREGS were launched and regretted that jobs have become scarce under the current dispensation. Meanwhile, BSP supremo Mayawati asked the Congress not to spread confusion and said that the BSP-SP-RLD alliance was capable of defeating the BJP on its own. She asked the Congress to go ahead and field candidates in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The Congress is free to field its candidates on all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh alone. In other words, our alliance (of SP-BSP-RLD) is capable enough of defeating the BJP. The Congress should refrain from spreading confusion about leaving seven seats for the (SP-BSP-RLD) alliance, Ms Mayawati tweeted. The BSP would like to make it clear once again that there is no alliance or understanding with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and anywhere in the country. Our party wrokers should not succumb to confusion being spread almost everyday by the Congress, she said. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said, In Uttar Pradesh, the SP, BSP and RLD alliance is capable of defeating the BJP. The Congress Party need not spread any kind of confusion. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. The Congress on Sunday said it would leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, two seats for Apna Dal. While the SP and BSP had forged an alliance on 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the Congress has entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party. As per the SP-BSP-RLD deal, the SP will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the BSP 38, leaving three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). The seats offered by the Congress include Mainpuri, Kannauj and Firozabad, all held by the SP, and those likely to be contested by the BSP chief and RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary, UP Congress chief Raj Babbar told reporters on Sunday. He said that the Congress was reciprocating the gesture of the alliance which has left Rae Bareli (held by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi) and Amethi (held by Congress president Rahul Gandhi) for it. The following companies are subsidiares of Iron Mountain: AB Archyvu Centras, AB Archyvu Sistemos, AB Archyvu Sistemos Estonia Branch, AS Archivu Serviss, Accutrac Software Inc, ArchivesOne, Archyvu sistemos, Arhiv-Trezor d.o.o., Ausdoc Group Pty Limited, Ausdoc Holdings Pty Limited, Bonded Services (International) B.V., Bonded Services Acquisition Ltd., Bonded Services Group, Bonded Services Group Limited, Bonded Services International Limited, Bonded Services Limited, Box Butler, Britannia Data Management Limited, Capital Vision Holdings SAS, Capital Vision SAS, Connected Corporation, Cornerstone Records Management, Crozier Fine Arts, Crozier Schweiz Ag, Custodia S.O.S. SA, DBJ Limited, DMS Storage s.r.o., DigiGuard, Disaster Recovery Services Limited, Docscan Cape Town Proprietary Limited, Docscan Proprietary Limited, Docu-File JHB Proprietary Limited, DocuTar Iratrendezo es Tarolo Szolgaltato Kft., DocuVault, Docufile (Pty) Ltd, EAC Invest, Eurospags Investments ApS, EvoSwitch, F.T.S. (Freight Forwarders) Limited, F.T.S. (Great Britain) Limited, F.T.S. (Road Transport) Limited, FTS Bonded Limited, Fairfield Fine Art, File Express Limited, Film Media Services Limited, First International Records Management AG, First International Records Management LLC, Fleet Freight Limited, Fontis International GmbH, Fortrust, G4S Secure Data Solutions Colombia, Glenbeign Records Mangement (GRM) DWC-LLC, Global Logistics Worldwide Limited, Haworth Group Holdings (UK) Limited, Haworth Group Limited, Hays IMS, Helcom Limited, IG2 Data Security, IM Mortgage Solutions LLC, IMI Investments Two Ltd, IMSA Peru SRL, IO.com, Information Storage Consolidation Co, Iron Mountain (Deutschland) Service GmbH, Iron Mountain (Espana) Services S.L, Iron Mountain (Gibraltar) Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain (Ireland) Services Limited, Iron Mountain (Nederland) Data Centre B.V., Iron Mountain (Nederland) Data Centre Holdings B.V., Iron Mountain (Nederland) Data Centre Services B.V., Iron Mountain (Nederland) Services BV, Iron Mountain (Schweiz) AG, Iron Mountain (UK) Data Centre Limited, Iron Mountain (UK) EES Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain (UK) PLC, Iron Mountain (UK) Services Limited, Iron Mountain A/S, Iron Mountain Acquisition Holdings Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Argentina S.A., Iron Mountain Arsivleme Hizmetleri A.S., Iron Mountain Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd, Iron Mountain Asia Pte Limited, Iron Mountain Australia Group Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Australia Group Services Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd, Iron Mountain Austria Archivierung Gmbh, Iron Mountain BPM SPRL, Iron Mountain Belgium NV, Iron Mountain Bulgaria, Iron Mountain Canada Operations ULC, Iron Mountain Ceska Republika S.R.O., Iron Mountain Chile S.A., Iron Mountain Chile Servicios S.A., Iron Mountain Cloud LLC, Iron Mountain Colombia S.A.S., Iron Mountain Cyprus Limited, Iron Mountain DIMS Limited, Iron Mountain Data Centers LLC, Iron Mountain Data Centers Services LLC, Iron Mountain Data Centre Pte. Limited, Iron Mountain Data Management (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain Data Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain Deutschland GmbH, Iron Mountain Do Brasil Ltda, Iron Mountain Document Holdings Sweden AB, Iron Mountain Document Storage Services LLC, Iron Mountain EES Holdings Ltd., Iron Mountain Enterprises Sdn. Bhd., Iron Mountain Espana SA, Iron Mountain Eswatini (Pty) Ltd, Iron Mountain Europe (Group) Limited, Iron Mountain Europe Ltd., Iron Mountain FZ-LLC, Iron Mountain Finland OY, Iron Mountain France S.A.S., Iron Mountain Fulfillment Services Inc., Iron Mountain Global Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Global LLC, Iron Mountain Group (Europe) Limited, Iron Mountain Hellas SA, Iron Mountain Holdings (Europe) Limited, Iron Mountain Holdings (France) SNC, Iron Mountain Holdings Sweden AB, Iron Mountain Hong Kong Ltd., Iron Mountain Incorporated, Iron Mountain India Private Ltd, Iron Mountain Information Management LLC, Iron Mountain Information Management Services Canada Inc., Iron Mountain Information Management Services Inc., Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management Inc., Iron Mountain International (Holdings) Ltd, Iron Mountain International Holdings BV, Iron Mountain Ireland Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain Ireland Limited, Iron Mountain Korea Limited, Iron Mountain Latin America Holdings Sociedad Limitada, Iron Mountain Lesotho (Proprietry) Limited, Iron Mountain Luxembourg Sarl, Iron Mountain Luxembourg Services S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain MDM Limited, Iron Mountain Macau Limited, Iron Mountain Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi es Szolgaltato Kft., Iron Mountain Management Services GmbH, Iron Mountain Mayflower Limited, Iron Mountain Mexico Holding S. de RL de CV, Iron Mountain Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Iron Mountain Mexico Servicios S. de RL de CV, Iron Mountain Mortgage Finance Holdings LLC, Iron Mountain Mortgage Finance I LLC, Iron Mountain Nederland B.V., Iron Mountain Nederland Holdings B.V., Iron Mountain New Zealand Limited, Iron Mountain Norge AS, Iron Mountain Participations SA, Iron Mountain Peru S.A., Iron Mountain Philippines Inc., Iron Mountain Poland Holdings Ltd, Iron Mountain Polska Services Sp z.o.o., Iron Mountain Polska Sp. z.o.o., Iron Mountain Receivables QRS LLC, Iron Mountain Receivables TRS LLC, Iron Mountain Records Management (Puerto Rico) Inc, Iron Mountain Records Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain SRL, Iron Mountain Sdn. Bhd., Iron Mountain Secure Shredding (Pty) Ltd, Iron Mountain Secure Shredding Canada Inc., Iron Mountain Secure Shredding Inc., Iron Mountain Services Private Ltd, Iron Mountain Services S.A.S., Iron Mountain Shanghai Co Ltd, Iron Mountain Singapore Pte. Ltd., Iron Mountain Slovakia s.r.o., Iron Mountain South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Iron Mountain South Africa Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Iron Mountain South Africa Information Management (Pty) Ltd, Iron Mountain South Africa Records Management (Pty) Ltd, Iron Mountain South America Sarl, Iron Mountain Southeast Asia Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain Sweden AB, Iron Mountain Taiwan Ltd., Iron Mountain UK Services (Holdings) Ltd, Iron Mountain US Holdings Inc, Iron Mountain Vietnam Company Limited, Iron Mountain d.o.o. Novi Banovci, Jigsaw Freight Limited, Jigsaw Pieces Limited, Jin Shan Limited, KDM Spectrumdata Pty Ltd, KH Data Capital Development Land LLC, Lane Archives Technologies Corporation, Livevault, Marshgate Morangis Sarl, Mimosa Systems, Nettlebed Acquisition Corp., Novo Group Limited, Novo Holdings Limited, Novo Overseas Limited, NxtGen Data Center & Cloud Services, OEC Records Management Company Private Limited, OSG Records Management (Europe) Limited, OSG Records Management Center LLC, OSG Records Management Centre LLC, OSG Records Management Crypto LLC, OSG Records Management Foreign LLC, OSG Records Management LLC, OSG Records Management LLC (Ukraine), OSG Records Management LLP, OSG Services sp. zoo, Oda International Management Corporation NV, Osrecki d.o.o., PT Iron Mountain Indonesia, Preferred Media Ltd, Prism Integrated Sdn Bhd, Recall, Recall (London) Limited, Recall (Shanghai) Ltd., Recall Europe Finance Ltd., Recall Europe Limited, Recall GQ Ltd, Recall Holdings, Recall Holdings Limited, Recall India Information Management Pvt. Ltd., Recall International Pty Limited, Recall Italy SRL, Recall Limited, Recall Overseas Holdings Pty Limited, Recall Shredding Limited, Recall Technology Pty. Ltd., Recall Total Information Management India Pvt. Ltd., Record Data Limited, Royal Seal S.R.O., SIA RIATech, Saracen Datastore Limited, Shanghai Iron Mountain Data Storage Co. Ltd., Shuttle SRL, Startify, Superior Storage Limited, UAB Confidento, and Xepa Digital. The following companies are subsidiares of Arrow Electronics: A.E. Petsche Belgium BVBA, A.E. Petsche Canada Inc., A.E. Petsche Company, A.E. Petsche Company Inc., A.E. Petsche Company S De RL, A.E. Petsche SAS, A.E. Petsche UK Limited, ACI Technology, AKS Group Nordic AB, ARROWECS Portugal Sociedade Unipessoal, ARROWECS Sociedade Unipessoal LDA, ARW Electronics Ltd., ARW Enterprise Computing Solutions S.A., ARW Portugal Unipessoal LDA, ASI Dedicated Services LLC, ASI Electrical Services LLC, ASI Managed Services LLC, ATM Electronic, ATM Electronic Corp., ATM Electronic Corporation (HK) Limited, ATM Electronics Hong Kong Limited, ATM Electronics Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd, Addex Distribution AS, Adilam Pty. Ltd, Aiqi Xinxing (Beijing) Information Technology Co. Ltd., Altimate Belgium BVBA, Altimate Group, Altimate ND Belgium BVBA, Altimate Netherlands B.V., Annuity Systems Pty Ltd, Arrow (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Arrow Altech Distribution (Pty) Ltd., Arrow Altech Holdings (Pty) Ltd., Arrow Argentina S.A., Arrow Asia Distribution Limited, Arrow Asia Pac Ltd., Arrow Brasil S.A., Arrow Capital Solution BVBA, Arrow Capital Solutions Inc., Arrow Capital Solutions Nederlands BV, Arrow Capital Solutions SAS, Arrow Capital Solutions UK Ltd, Arrow Central Europe GmbH, Arrow Central Europe Holding Munich GmbH, Arrow Chip One Stop Holdings GK, Arrow Componentes ACCR S.R.L., Arrow Components (M) Sdn Bhd, Arrow Components (NZ), Arrow Components Mexico S.A. de C.V., Arrow Components Sweden AB, Arrow Denmark ApS, Arrow Denmark ApS, Arrow ECS (Ireland) Limited, Arrow ECS (NI) Limited, Arrow ECS AG, Arrow ECS ANZ Limited, Arrow ECS ANZ Pty Ltd, Arrow ECS Asia PTE. Ltd, Arrow ECS Australia, Arrow ECS B.V., Arrow ECS Baltic OU, Arrow ECS Brasil Distribuidora Ltda., Arrow ECS Canada Ltd., Arrow ECS Central GmbH, Arrow ECS Denmark A/S, Arrow ECS FZCO, Arrow ECS Finland OY, Arrow ECS GmbH, Arrow ECS Internet Security AG, Arrow ECS Internet Security S.L., Arrow ECS Kft., Arrow ECS Ltd., Arrow ECS New Zealand Limited, Arrow ECS Nordic A/S, Arrow ECS Norway AS, Arrow ECS Pty Ltd., Arrow ECS SA/NV, Arrow ECS SAS, Arrow ECS SPA, Arrow ECS Sarl, Arrow ECS Services Sp.z.o.o., Arrow ECS Singapore Pte. Limited, Arrow ECS Sp.z.o.o., Arrow ECS Support Center Ltd., Arrow ECS Support Center Morocco S.A.R.L.A.U, Arrow ECS Sweden AB, Arrow ECS a.s., Arrow ECS d.o.o., Arrow Eastern Europe GmbH, Arrow Electronice S.R.L., Arrow Electronics (CI) Ltd., Arrow Electronics (China) Trading Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics (Jersey) Limited, Arrow Electronics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics (Sweden) KB, Arrow Electronics (Thailand) Limited, Arrow Electronics (U.K.) Inc., Arrow Electronics (UK) Ltd., Arrow Electronics ANZ Holdings Pty Ltd., Arrow Electronics Asia (S) Pte Ltd., Arrow Electronics Asia Limited, Arrow Electronics Australia Pty Ltd., Arrow Electronics B.V., Arrow Electronics Canada Ltd., Arrow Electronics China Ltd., Arrow Electronics Components (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Arrow Electronics Czech Republic s.r.o., Arrow Electronics D.O.O., Arrow Electronics Danish Holdings ApS, Arrow Electronics EMEA Group GmbH, Arrow Electronics EMEASA S.r.l., Arrow Electronics Estonia OU, Arrow Electronics FC B.V., Arrow Electronics Funding Corporation, Arrow Electronics GmbH & Co. KG, Arrow Electronics Hellas S.A., Arrow Electronics Holdings Vagyonkezelo Kft, Arrow Electronics Hungary Kereskedelmi Bt, Arrow Electronics India Ltd., Arrow Electronics India Private Limited, Arrow Electronics International Holdings LLC, Arrow Electronics International Inc., Arrow Electronics Italia S.r.l, Arrow Electronics Japan GK, Arrow Electronics Korea Limited, Arrow Electronics Labuan Pte Ltd., Arrow Electronics Ltd., Arrow Electronics Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Arrow Electronics Norwegian Holdings AS, Arrow Electronics Poland Sp.z.o.o., Arrow Electronics Russ OOO, Arrow Electronics Services S.r.l., Arrow Electronics Slovakia s.r.o., Arrow Electronics South Africa LLP, Arrow Electronics Taiwan Ltd., Arrow Electronics UK Holding Ltd., Arrow Electronics Ukraine LLC, Arrow Elektronik Ticaret A.S., Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions Inc., Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions India Private Limited, Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions Ltd., Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions S.A., Arrow Finland OY, Arrow France S.A., Arrow Global Asset Disposition Inc., Arrow Global Supply Chain Services Inc., Arrow Holdings (Delaware) LLC, Arrow Iberia Electronica Lda., Arrow Iberia Electronica S.L.U., Arrow International Holdings L.P., Arrow International Holdings Limited, Arrow Nordic Components AB, Arrow Norway A/S, Arrow S-Tech Norway AS, Arrow SEED (Hong Kong) Limited, Arrow Systems Integration Inc., Arrow UEC Japan KK, Arrow United Holdings LLC, Arrow United International Holdings LP, Arrow Value Recovery ApS (fka Greentech Denmark ApS), Arrow Value Recovery Belgium BVBA, Arrow Value Recovery Czech Republic sro, Arrow Value Recovery Denmark ApS, Arrow Value Recovery EMEA BV, Arrow Value Recovery Finland Oy (fka Greentech Finland OY), Arrow Value Recovery France SAS, Arrow Value Recovery Germany GmbH, Arrow Value Recovery Netherlands BV, Arrow Value Recovery Norway AS (fka Greentech AS), Arrow Value Recovery Sweden AB (fka Greentech Sweden AB), Arrow Value Recovery UK LTD, Arrow eCommerce B.V., Arrow/Artlink Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, Arrow/Components (Agent) Ltd., Arrow/Rapac Ltd., Artlink Technology Co. Ltd., Aspen Labs LLC, Aspencore China Investment LLC, Aspencore LLC, Aspencore Media GmbH, Aspencore/IDG China Investment LLC, Asplenium SA, Asset Recovery Corporation, B.V. Arrow Electronics DLC, Beijing AIQI Technology, Beijing Arrow SEED Technology Co. Ltd, Beijing Canon Advertising Co. Ltd., Broomco (4184) Limited, COMPUTERLINKS, COMPUTERLINKS (UK) Ltd., COMPUTERLINKS Belgium BVBA, COMPUTERLINKS Denmark A/S, COMPUTERLINKS Nederland B.V., COMPUTERLINKS S.A., CSS Computer Security Solutions Erwerbs GmbH, CSS Computer Security Solutions Holding GmbH, CSS Computer Security Solutions Ltd., CT3 Europe Limited, Centia Group Ltd, Centia Ltd., Channel Support Pty Ltd, ChiWan Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Chip One Stop, Chip One Stop (Hong Kong) Ltd., Chip One Stop (Shenzhen) Ltd., Chip One Stop Inc., Commtech Solutions (UK) Limited, Components Agent (Cayman) Limited, Components Agent Asia Holdings Ltd., Components Distribution Business - Achieva, Conrac Asia Display Products Pte. Ltd., Conrac MENA FZE, Converge, Converge (Shanghai) International Trading Co. Ltd., Converge Asia Pte Ltd., Converge Electronics Trading (India) Private Ltd., Converge France SAS, Converge Netherlands BV, Converge Scandinavia AB, Cross Telecom, Data Modul, Data Modul AG, Data Modul Electronics Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Data Modul FZE, Data Modul France S.a r.l, Data Modul Hong Kong Ltd., Data Modul Iberia S.L., Data Modul Inc., Data Modul Italia S.r.l., Data Modul Ltd., Data Modul Shanghai Ltd., Data Modul Suisse GmbH, Data Modul Weikersheim GmbH, Diasa Informatica, Dicopel Inc., Distribution Business - Seed International, Distribution Central (MY) Sdn. Bhd., Distribution Central HK Pty Limited, Distribution Central Limited (NZ), Distribution Central Pte Limited (SG), Distribution Central Pty Limited, E-InfoChips KK, EC America, EDN Asia Advertising Pte Ltd., ETEQ Components Pte Ltd., Electronics Products Technology Co. Ltd., Embedded Developer LLC, Erf 211 Hughes (Pty) Limited, Eshel Technology Group Inc., Eurocomponentes S.A., Excel Tech, Excel Tech Inc., Firewall Systems Pty Limited, Fusion Distribution FZCO, Gates - Arrow Distributing, Gates - FA Distributing, Global Link Technology, Greentech Holding AS, Gross Telecom, ICC Global Media GmbH, IP Vista A/S, IPVista A/S, ITM USA Enterprises Inc., Intechra Holdings, Intex-semi Ltd., KeyLink Systems Group, LED Franchise LLC, LED Source Holdco LLC, LED Source LLC, LOGIX S.A., License Central Pty Ltd, Lite-On Korea Ltd., Marubun Arrow (HK) Limited, Marubun Arrow (S) Pte Ltd., Marubun Arrow (Thailand) Co Limited, Marubun Arrow Asia Ltd., Marubun Arrow Europe Kft., Marubun Corporation, Marubun USA Corporation, Marubun-Arrow Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Marubun/Arrow (HK) Limited, Marubun/Arrow (M) Sdn. Bhd (Malaysia), Marubun/Arrow (Philippines) Inc., Marubun/Arrow (S) Pte Ltd., Marubun/Arrow (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Marubun/Arrow (Shenzhen) Electronic Product Consulting Company Limited, Marubun/Arrow (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Marubun/Arrow Asia Ltd., Marubun/Arrow USA II LLC, Marubun/Arrow USA LLC, NIC Components Asia PTE Ltd., NIC Components Corp., NIC Components Europe Limited, NIC Eurotech Limited, NUH Electronics India Private Limted, Networld Systems Pty Ltd, Nextworth Solutions Inc., Nu Horizons Electronics, Nu Horizons Electronics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Nu Horizons Electronics Asia PTE Ltd., Nu Horizons Electronics Hong Kong Ltd., Nu Horizons Electronics Malaysia SDN BHD, NuHo Singapore Holdings LLC, Observatory Crest, Openway Group SA, Openway SAS, PCG Parent Corp., PCG Trading LLC, PT Marubun Arrow Indonesia, Pansystem S.r.l., Pax8 Inc., Power and Signal Group GmbH, R.D. Trading Limited, RDC, RF Wireless & Power - Richardson Electronics, Rack Systems Pty Ltd, Red Education Pty Ltd, Redemtech, Renewal Systems Pty Ltd, Richardson RFPD (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Richardson RFPD (Thailand) Limited, Richardson RFPD Australia Pty. Ltd., Richardson RFPD Canada Inc., Richardson RFPD Electronics Trading (China) Co. Ltd., Richardson RFPD France SAS, Richardson RFPD Germany GmbH, Richardson RFPD Hong Kong, Richardson RFPD Inc., Richardson RFPD Israel Ltd., Richardson RFPD Italy Srl, Richardson RFPD Japan KK, Richardson RFPD Korea Ltd., Richardson RFPD Netherlands BV, Richardson RFPD Singapore, Richardson RFPD Spain SL, Richardson RFPD Sweden AB, Richardson RFPD Taiwan, Richardson RFPD UK Ltd., Richey Electronics, San Systems Pty Ltd, Schuylkill Metals of Plant City Inc., Seneca Data, Seneca Data Distributors Inc., Shared Technologies, Silicon Frameworks LLC, SiliconEgypt Technologies LLC, SiliconExpert Holdings LLC, SiliconExpert Technologies, SiliconExpert Technologies Inc., Sphinx CST Limited, Sphinx CST Networks Limited, Sphinx Group, Sphinx Group Limited, Sphinx Professional Services Limited, Spoerle Hungary Kereskedelmi Kft, Sun Chain Technology Corp., TLW Electronics Ltd., TechTurn, Titan Supply Chain Services Limited, Titan Supply Chain Services Pte Ltd., Trafomo AB, Trafomo ApS, Transim Technology, Transim Technology Corporation, U.S. Micro Operating Company LLC, UBM Tech Electronics Network, Ultra Source Electronics (SZ) Co LTD, Ultra Source Technology Corp., Ultra Source Trading Hong Kong Limited, United Technical Publishing Division - Hearst Business Media, Universe Electron Corporation, Verical, Verwaltungsgesellschaft Arrow Electronics GmbH, Wireless and Infrastructure Business Unit - Waching Company, Yongming Xincheng (Beijing) Technology Co., e-InfoChips, e-Infochips Private Limited, eInfochips, eMedia Asia Limited, immixGovernment Inc., immixGroup, immixGroup Inc., immixSolutions Inc., and immixTechnology. Canuc Resources Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in exploration, evaluation, and development of precious and base metal projects and oil and gas properties in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It primarily holds interest in the San Javier Project that consists of 17 mineral concessions comprising silver, lead, gold, copper, and zinc deposits located in the state of Sonora, Mexico. The company was formerly known as Santa Rosa Silver Mining Corp. and changed its name to Canuc Resources Corporation in February 2017. Canuc Resources Corporation is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More There is not enough analysis data for Centennial Mining. 5.0 Community Rank Outperform Votes Centennial Mining has received 57 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes Centennial Mining has received 17 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment Centennial Mining has received 77.03% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about Centennial Mining and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe CTL will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe CTL will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next Omar has been outspoken against the EC's decision to not hold assembly elections in the state simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls. Soon after the Election Commission announced not to hold assembly elections in the state for the time being, the Omar had said that the Centre has surrendered before Pakistan, militants and separatists. (Photo: PTI) Srinagar: National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah claimed on Monday that bureaucrats, who backed early Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, were being "browbeaten and threatened" using performance appraisals against them. Abdullah has been outspoken against the Election Commission's decision to not hold assembly elections in the state simultaneously with the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. "I'm shocked to hear how officers who have supported early assembly elections are being browbeaten & threatened using their performance appraisals against them to get them to toe the line," Abdullah, a former chief minister, said in a series of tweets. Soon after the Election Commission announced not to hold assembly elections in the state for the time being, the NC leader had said that the Centre has surrendered before Pakistan, militants and separatists as they were the ones who did not want the polls to be held in time. "No honest officer should fear these threats. We must put the greater good ahead of our personal preferences & benefits. Those people making the threats will not remain in the state for very long," the former chief minister said. Abdullah said while some of the officers posted in Jammu and Kashmir had no stake in the state, few others were securing post-retirement postings. "Some have no stakes in the state & some are looking at post retirement postings in cushy appointments. What ever their reasons they have chosen to put their personal interest ahead of the greater good," he said. "One day we will talk about the cabal of officers in J&K who for their own selfish reasons have taken it upon themselves to scuttle democracy in the state," he added. The McClatchy Company publishes newspapers and news Websites in the United States. Its publications include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The (Raleigh) News and Observer, and The (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram. It also provides niche publications and community newspapers, as well as other print and digital direct marketing services. The company distributes content, including video products, through its owned and operated Websites and mobile applications, third-party search and ad exchanges, social media platforms, and electronic editions of its daily newspapers, as well as its printed daily newspapers. The McClatchy Company was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Sacramento, California. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Becton, Dickinson and: (Bard Istanbul Healthcare Limited Company), Accuri Cytometers, Accuri Cytometers Inc., Adaptec Manufacturing Singapore, Alverix, Alverix Inc., Atto Bioscience, BD Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., BD Infection Prevention BV, BD Kiestra BV, BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation, BD Rapid Diagnostic (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., BD San Luis Potosi S.A. de C.V., BD Switzerland Sarl, BD Ventures LLC, BD West Africa Limited, BDX INO LLC, Bard (Thailand) Limited, Bard ASDI Inc., Bard Access Systems Inc., Bard Acquisition Sub Inc., Bard Australia Pty. Limited, Bard Benelux N.V., Bard Brachytherapy Inc., Bard Brasil Industria e Comercio de Produtos Para a Saude Ltda., Bard Canada Inc., Bard Chile S.p.A., Bard Czech Republic s.r.o., Bard Devices Inc., Bard Dublin ITC Limited, Bard EMEA Finance Center Sp.z o.o., Bard European Distribution Center N.V., Bard Finance B.V. & Co. KG., Bard Financial Services Ltd., Bard Finland OY, Bard France S.A.S., Bard Global Holdings I LLC, Bard Global Holdings II LLC, Bard Global Holdings III LLC, Bard Healthcare Inc., Bard Healthcare Science (Shanghai) Limited, Bard Hellas S.A., Bard Holding SAS, Bard Holdings Limited, Bard Holdings Netherlands B.V., Bard Hong Kong Limited, Bard IP Holdings Inc., Bard India Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Bard International Holdings B.V., Bard International Inc., Bard Korea Ltd., Bard Limited, Bard MRL Acquisition Corp., Bard Malaysia Healthcare Sdn. Bhd., Bard Medica SA, Bard Medical Devices (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical SA (Proprietary) Limited, Bard Mexico Realty S. de R.L. de C.V., Bard Norden AB, Bard Norway AS, Bard Pacific Health Care Company Ltd., Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc., Bard Poland Sp. z.o.o., Bard Productos Plasticos e Medicos Ltda., Bard Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Bard S.r.l., Bard Sdn. Bhd., Bard Shannon Limited, Bard Singapore Private Limited, Bard Sourcing Office Singapore Pte. Ltd., Bard Sweden AB, Bard UK Newco Limited, Bard de Espana S.A., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Management Limited, Becton Dickinson (Mauritius) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Pty) Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Thailand) Limited, Becton Dickinson A.G., Becton Dickinson A/S, Becton Dickinson Argentina S.R.L., Becton Dickinson Asia Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Asia Limited, Becton Dickinson Austria GmbH, Becton Dickinson Austria Holdings GmbH, Becton Dickinson B.V., Becton Dickinson B.V. Saudi Limited Company, Becton Dickinson Benelux N.V., Becton Dickinson Biosciences Systems and Reagents Inc., Becton Dickinson Canada Inc., Becton Dickinson Caribe Ltd., Becton Dickinson Croatia d.o.o., Becton Dickinson Czechia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Dispensing Belgium BVBA, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Denmark A/S, Becton Dickinson Dispensing France SAS, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Norway, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Spain S.L.U., Becton Dickinson Dispensing UK Ltd., Becton Dickinson Distribution Center N.V., Becton Dickinson East Africa Ltd., Becton Dickinson Euro Finance Sarl, Becton Dickinson Europe Holdings S.A.S., Becton Dickinson France S.A.S., Becton Dickinson GSA Beteilgungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings I Inc., Becton Dickinson Global Holdings II LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings IV LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings V LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VIII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Services Centre Sdn. Bhd, Becton Dickinson GmbH, Becton Dickinson Guatemala S.A., Becton Dickinson Hellas S.A., Becton Dickinson Holdings Limited, Becton Dickinson Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Hungary Kft., Becton Dickinson India Private Limited, Becton Dickinson Industrias Cirurgicas Ltda., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy AB, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Holdings UK Limited, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc. S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy UK, Becton Dickinson Insulin Syringe Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings II Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings III Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Israel Ltd., Becton Dickinson Italia S.p.A., Becton Dickinson Ithalat Ihracat Limited Sirketi, Becton Dickinson Korea Holding Inc., Becton Dickinson Korea Ltd., Becton Dickinson Ltd., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Global Holdings Sarl, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings II S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings III S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings V S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Malaysia Inc., Becton Dickinson Management GmbH & Co. KG, Becton Dickinson Matrex Holdings Inc., Becton Dickinson Medical (S) Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Products Pte. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Technology (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Global Holdings II C.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings B.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings II B.V., Becton Dickinson Norway AS, Becton Dickinson O.Y., Becton Dickinson Overseas Services Ltd., Becton Dickinson Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd., Becton Dickinson Penel Limited, Becton Dickinson Philippines Inc., Becton Dickinson Polska Sp.z.o.o., Becton Dickinson Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Becton Dickinson Pty. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Research Centre Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Rowa Germany GmbH, Becton Dickinson Rowa Italy Srl, Becton Dickinson S.A., Becton Dickinson Sample Collection GmbH, Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.L.P., Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.P., Becton Dickinson Sdn. Bhd., Becton Dickinson Slovakia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Sweden AB, Becton Dickinson Sweden Holdings AB, Becton Dickinson Switzerland Global Holdings SarL, Becton Dickinson Technology Campus India, Becton Dickinson U.K. Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing I Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing II Limited, Becton Dickinson Venezuela C.A., Becton Dickinson Venture LLC, Becton Dickinson Verwaltungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Vostok LLC, Becton Dickinson Worldwide Investments Sa.r.L., Becton Dickinson Zambia Limited, Becton Dickinson and Company Ltd., Becton Dickinson de Colombia Ltda., Becton Dickinson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson del Uruguay S.A., Benex Ltd., Biometric Imaging, Bridger Biomed Inc., C. R. Bard, C. R. Bard (Portugal) - Produtos e Artigos Medicos e Farmaceuticos, C. R. Bard Do Brasil Productos Medicos Ltda., C. R. Bard GmbH, C. R. Bard Inc., C. R. Bard Netherlands Sales B.V., CME America LLC, CME Ltd., CME Medical (UK) Limited, CME UK (Holdings) Limited, CRISI Medical Systems, CRISI Medical Systems Inc., Caesarea Medical Electronics, Cardal II LLC, Care Fusion Development Private Limited, CareFusion, CareFusion (Barbados) SrL, CareFusion (Shanghai) Commercial and Trading Co. Limited, CareFusion 213 LLC, CareFusion 2200 Inc., CareFusion 2201 Inc., CareFusion 302 LLC, CareFusion 303 Inc., CareFusion Asia (HK) Limited, CareFusion BH 335 d.o.o. Cazin, CareFusion Corporation, CareFusion D.R. 203 Ltd., CareFusion France 309 S.A.S., CareFusion Israel 330 Ltd., CareFusion Italy 312 S.p.A., CareFusion Manufacturing LLC, CareFusion Mexico 215 S.A. de C.V., CareFusion Netherlands 328 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 503 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 504 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands Financing 283 C.V., CareFusion Resources LLC, CareFusion S.A. 319 (Proprietary) Limited, CareFusion Solutions LLC, CareFusion U.K. 244 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 305 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 306 Limited, Carmel Pharma AB, Carmel Pharma Inc, Cato Software Solutions, Cell Analysis Systems Inc, Cellular Research, Cellular Research Inc., Clearstream Technologies Group Limited, Clearstream Technologies Limited, Clontech Laboratories Inc, Corporativo BD de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Cubex, Cytopeia, DLD (Bermuda) Ltd., DVL Acquisition Sub Inc., Davol Inc., Davol International Limited, Davol Surgical Innovations S.A. de C.V., Difco Laboratories Incorporated, Distribuidora BD Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dutch American Manufacturers (D.A.M.) B.V., Dymax Corporation, Embo Medical Limited, Enturia de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Enturican Inc., FJ International Inc., FlowCardia Inc., FlowCardia LLC, FlowJo LLC, Franklin Lakes Enterprises L.L.C., GSL Solutions, Gamer Lasertechnik GmbH, GenCell Biosystems, GenCell Biosystems Ltd., GeneOhm Sciences, GeneOhm Sciences Canada ULC, Gentest Corporation, Gesco International Inc., Gesco International LLC, HandyLab Inc, HandyLab Inc., IBD Holdings LLC, Iontophoretics Corporation, JoHome LLC, Kabushiki Kaisha Medicon (Medicon Inc.), Liberator Health and Education Services Inc., Liberator Health and Wellness Inc., Liberator Medical Holdings Inc., Liberator Medical Supply Inc., LifeBond, Limited Liability Company Bard Rus, Loma Vista Medical Inc., Loma Vista Medical LLC, Lutonix Inc., Med-Design Corporation, Med-Design Investment Holdings Inc., Med-Safe Systems Inc., MedChem Products Inc., Medafor Inc., Medegen LLC, Medinservice.com Inc., Medivance Inc., NAT Diagnostics, NAT Diagnostics Inc., NOW Medical Distribution Inc., NOW Medical Distribution LLC, Navarre Biomedical LLC, Navarre Biomedical Ltd., Neomend Inc., Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd., Omega Biosystems Incorporated, P.R.C. (Isialys) Societe a responsabilitie limitee (Societe a associe unique), PT Becton Dickinson Indonesia, PharMingen, PreAnalytiX GmbH, Pristine Access Technologies Inc., ProSeed Inc., Procesos para Esterilizacion S.A. de C.V., Productos Bard de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Productos Para el Cuidado de la Salud S.A. de C.V., Puls Medical Devices AS LC, PureWick Corporation, Roberts Laboratories Inc., Rochester Medical Corporation, Rochester Medical Ltd., Saf-T-Med, Safety Syringes, Safety Syringes Inc., Sendal S.L.U., SenoRx Inc., SenoRx LLC, Shield Healthcare Centers Inc., Sirigen, Sirigen II Limited, Sirigen Inc., Sistemas Medicos ALARIS S.A. de C.V., Specialized Cooperative Corporation, Specialized Health Products Inc., Specialized Health Products International Inc., Specialized Health Products International LLC, Staged Diabetes Management LLC, Straub Medical, Straub Medical AG, Surgical Site Solutions Inc., TVA Medical, TVA Medical Inc., Tepha, Tepha Inc., Tri-County Medical & Ostomy Supplies Inc., TriPath Imaging, TriPath Imaging Inc., Vas-Cath Incorporated, Vascular Pathways Inc., Velano Vascular, Velano Vascular Inc., Venetec International Inc., Venetec International LLC, Y-Med Inc., Y-Med LLC, and ZebraSci Inc.. Invesco India ETF's stock was trading at $16.40 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, PIN stock has increased by 71.5% and is now trading at $28.12. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The list will be announced by the Actor-turned-politician and president of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan. Kamal Haasan had on February 7 stated that his party was gearing up for contesting all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for the coming Parliamentary polls. (Photo: File) Chennai: Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) party on Monday informed that they will share the list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on March 20. The list of candidates who will contest in 2019 Parliamentary and By-Elections on behalf of Makkal Needhi Maiam will be revealed on 20/03/2019, stated Dr R. Mahendran, Vice President of MNM in a press release. The list will be announced by the Actor-turned-politician and president of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan. Kamal Haasan had on February 7 stated that his party was gearing up for contesting all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for the coming Parliamentary polls. Though the actor didnt disclose from where is he likely to contest the election, he clearly indicated that he would not form an alliance with any 'tainted' group. "Our aim is to not go with any tainted group. We are preparing to contest 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. I cannot say at this moment from where I will contest," said Haasan while talking to media personnel. MNM was launched by Haasan on February 21 last year from his hometown of Rameswaram. As part of the launch of his political faction, Haasan toured Tamil Nadu extensively to interact with locals in different villages of Tamil Nadu. Intu owns and manages some of the best shopping centres, in some of the strongest locations, in the UK and Spain. Our UK portfolio is made up of 17 centres, including eight of the top-20, and in Spain we own three of the country's top-10 centres, with advanced plans to build a fourth. We are passionate about creating compelling experiences, in centre and online, that make our customers smile and help our retailers flourish. We attract around 400 million customer visits and 26 million website visits a year offering a multichannel approach that truly supports retail strategies. Our strategic focus on prime, high-footfall flagship destinations, combined with the strength and popularity of our brand, means that intu offers enhanced footfall, dwell time and loyalty. This helps our tenants flourish, driving occupancy and income growth. We are committed to our local communities, with our centres supporting nearly 130,000 jobs (representing about 3 per cent of the total UK retail workforce), and to operating with environmental responsibility. We have already met or exceeded a significant number of our 2020 environmental targets. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft: 87 Leonard Development LLC, ABFS I Incorporated, ABS MB Ltd., Acacia (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Accounting Solutions Holding Company Inc, Alex. Brown Financial Services Incorporated, Alex. Brown Investments Incorporated, Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft mbH, Amber Investments S.a r.l., Ambidexter GmbH, Ambidexter GmbH i.L., Argent Incorporated, BHW - Gesellschaft fur Wohnungswirtschaft mbH, BHW Bausparkasse Aktiengesellschaft, BHW Holding GmbH, BHW Kreditservice GmbH, BNA Nominees Pty Limited, BT Globenet Nominees Limited, BTAS Cayman GP, BTD Nominees Pty Limited, Baincor Nominees Pty Limited, Bainpro Nominees Pty Ltd, Baldur Mortgages Limited, Bankers Trust Investments Limited, Barkly Investments Ltd., Bayan Delinquent Loan Recovery 1 (SPV-AMC) Inc, Bayan Delinquent Loan Recovery 1 (SPV-AMC) Inc., Berkshire Mortgage Finance, Betriebs-Center fur Banken AG, Biomass Holdings S.a r.l., Birch (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Blue Cork Inc, Blue Cork Inc., Borfield Sociedad Anonima, Breaking Wave DB Limited, Cape Acquisition Corp., CapeSuccess Inc., CapeSuccess LLC, Cardales UK Limited, Cardea Real Estate S.r.l., Career Blazers LLC, Career Blazers Management Company Inc, Career Blazers Management Company Inc., Career Blazers Personnel Services Inc, Career Blazers Personnel Services Inc., Career Blazers Personnel Services of Washington D.C. Inc. Washington D.C., Caribbean Resort Holdings Inc, Caribbean Resort Holdings Inc., Carpathian Investments Designated Activity Company, Cathay Advisory (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cathay Advisory (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cathay Asset Management Company Limited, Cathay Capital Company (No 2) Limited, Cedar (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Centennial River 2 Inc., Centennial River Corporation, Chapel Funding, Charlton (Delaware) Inc, China Recovery Fund LLC, China Recovery Fund LLC, Cinda - DB NPL Securitization Trust 2003-1, City Leasing (Thameside) Limited, City Leasing Limited, Consumo S.p.A., Consumo Srl in Liquidazione, Cyrus J. Lawrence Capital Holdings Inc., Cyrus J. Lawrence Capital Holdings Inc., D B Investments (GB) Limited, D&M Turnaround Partners Godo Kaisha, D.B. International Delaware Inc., D.B. International Delaware Inc., DAHOC (UK) Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DAHOC Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, DB (Barbados) SRL, DB (Malaysia) Nominee (Asing) Sdn. Bhd., DB (Malaysia) Nominee (Tempatan) Sendirian Berhad, DB (Pacific) Limited, DB (Pacific) Limited New York, DB (Pacific) Limited New York, DB Abalone LLC, DB Alex. Brown Holdings Incorporated, DB Alps Corporation, DB Aotearoa Investments Limited, DB Asia Pacific Holdings Limited (in voluntary liquidation), DB Asset Finance I S.a r.l., DB Asset Finance II S.a r.l., DB Aster II LLC, DB Aster III LLC, DB Aster Inc., DB Aster LLC, DB Beteiligungs-Holding GmbH, DB Boracay LLC, DB Capital Investments Sarl, DB Capital Markets (Deutschland) GmbH, DB Capital Partners Inc., DB Capital Partners Inc., DB Cartera de Inmuebles 1 S.A.U., DB Cartera de Inmuebles 1 S.A.U., DB Chestnut Holdings Limited, DB Commodity Services LLC, DB Consorzio S. Cons. a r. l., DB Corporate Advisory (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., DB Covered Bond S.r.l., DB Credit Investments S.a r.l., DB Delaware Holdings (Europe) Limited, DB Direkt GmbH, DB Elara LLC, DB Energy Commodities Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DB Energy Trading LLC, DB Enfield Infrastructure Holdings Limited, DB Equipment Leasing Inc., DB Equipment Leasing Inc., DB Equity Limited, DB Finance (Delaware) LLC, DB Finance (Delaware) LLC, DB Finance International GmbH, DB Ganymede 2006 L.P., DB Global Markets Multi-Strategy Fund I Ltd., DB Global Technology Inc., DB Global Technology Inc., DB Global Technology SRL, DB Group Services (UK) Limited, DB HR Solutions GmbH, DB Holding Fundo de Investimento Multimercado Investimento no Exterior Credito Privado, DB Holdings (New York) Inc., DB Holdings (New York) Inc., DB Holdings (South America) Limited, DB IROC Leasing Corp., DB Immobilienfonds 1 Wieland KG, DB Immobilienfonds 2 KG i.L., DB Immobilienfonds 4 KG i.L., DB Immobilienfonds 5 Wieland KG, DB Impact Investment (GP) Limited, DB Impact Investment Fund I L.P., DB Impact Investment Fund I L.P., DB Industrial Holdings Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, DB Industrial Holdings GmbH, DB Intermezzo LLC, DB International (Asia) Limited, DB International Investments Limited, DB International Trust (Singapore) Limited, DB Investment Managers Inc., DB Investment Managers Inc., DB Investment Partners Inc., DB Investment Partners Inc., DB Investment Resources (US) Corporation, DB Investment Resources Holdings Corp., DB Investment Services GmbH, DB Io LP, DB Litigation Fee LLC, DB London (Investor Services) Nominees Limited, DB Management Support GmbH, DB Managers LLC, DB Municipal Holdings LLC, DB Nexus American Investments (UK) Limited (in members'voluntary liquidation), DB Nexus Investments (UK) Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DB Nominees (Hong Kong) Limited, DB Nominees (Singapore) Pte Ltd, DB Omega BTV S.C.S., DB Omega Holdings LLC, DB Omega Ltd., DB Omega S.C.S., DB Operaciones y Servicios Interactivos Agrupacion de Interes Economico, DB Overseas Finance Delaware Inc., DB Overseas Finance Delaware Inc., DB Overseas Holdings Limited, DB PWM, DB Portfolio Southwest Inc., DB Print GmbH, DB Privat- und Firmenkundenbank AG, DB Private Clients Corp., DB Private Wealth Mortgage Ltd., DB RC Holdings LLC, DB Re S.A., DB Service Centre Limited, DB Service Uruguay S.A., DB Services Americas Inc., DB Services Americas Inc., DB Servizi Amministrativi S.r.l., DB Strategic Advisors Inc., DB Strategic Advisors Inc., DB Structured Derivative Products LLC, DB Structured Derivative Products LLC, DB Structured Finance 1 Designated Activity Company, DB Structured Finance 2 Designated Activity Company, DB Structured Holdings Luxembourg S.a r.l., DB Structured Products Inc., DB Structured Products Inc., DB Trustee Services Limited, DB Trustees (Hong Kong) Limited, DB U.S. Financial Markets Holding Corporation, DB UK Bank Limited, DB UK Holdings Limited, DB UK PCAM Holdings Limited, DB USA Core Corporation, DB USA Corporation, DB Valoren S.a r.l., DB Value S.a r.l., DB VersicherungsManager GmbH, DB Vita S.A., DBAB Wall Street LLC, DBAH Capital LLC, DBAH Capital LLC, DBCIBZ1, DBCIBZ2, DBFIC Inc., DBFIC Inc., DBNZ Overseas Investments (No.1) Limited, DBOI Global Services (UK) Limited, DBOI Global Services Private Limited, DBR Investments Co. Limited, DBRE Global Real Estate Management IA Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management IB Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management IB Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management US IB L.L.C., DBRMS4, DBRMSGP1, DBUK PCAM Limited, DBUKH No. 2 Limited, DBUSBZ1 LLC, DBUSBZ1 LLC, DBUSBZ2 S.a r.l., DBUSBZ2 S.a r.l., DBX Advisors LLC, DBX ETF Trust, DBX Strategic Advisors LLC, DBO Vermogensverwertung GmbH, DEBEKO Immobilien GmbH & Co Grundbesitz OHG, DEE Deutsche Erneuerbare Energien GmbH, DEUFRAN Beteiligungs GmbH, DEUKONA Versicherungs-Vermittlungs-GmbH, DEUTSCHE BANK A.S., DG China Clean Tech Partners, DI Deutsche Immobilien Treuhandgesellschaft mbH, DIB-Consult Deutsche Immobilien- und BeteiligungsBeratungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., DISCA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, DNU Nominees Pty Limited, DSL Portfolio GmbH & Co. KG, DSL Portfolio Verwaltungs GmbH, DTS Nominees Pty Limited, DWS Alternatives France, DWS Alternatives Global Limited, DWS Alternatives GmbH, DWS Asset Management (Korea) Company Limited, DWS Beteiligungs GmbH, DWS CH AG, DWS Distributors Inc., DWS Distributors Inc., DWS Far Eastern Investments Limited, DWS Group GmbH & Co. KGaA, DWS Group Services UK Limited, DWS Grundbesitz GmbH, DWS International GmbH, DWS Investment GmbH, DWS Investment Management Americas Inc., DWS Investment Management Americas Inc., DWS Investment S.A., DWS Investments Australia Limited, DWS Investments Hong Kong Limited, DWS Investments Japan Limited, DWS Investments Shanghai Limited, DWS Investments Singapore Limited, DWS Investments UK Limited, DWS Management GmbH, DWS Real Estate GmbH, DWS Service Company, DWS Trust Company, DWS USA Corporation, De Heng Asset Management Company Limited, De Meng Innovative (Beijing) Consulting Company Limited, DeAM Infrastructure Limited, Deloraine Spain S.L., Delowrezham de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Deposit Solutions, Deutsche (Aotearoa) Capital Holdings New Zealand, Deutsche (Aotearoa) Foreign Investments New Zealand, Deutsche (Mauritius) Limited Port, Deutsche (New Munster) Holdings New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Access Investments Limited, Deutsche Aeolia Power Production Societe Anonyme, Deutsche Alt-A Securities Inc., Deutsche Alt-A Securities Inc., Deutsche Alternative Asset Management (France) SAS, Deutsche Alternative Asset Management (UK) Limited, Deutsche Asia Pacific Holdings Pte Ltd, Deutsche Asset Management (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Asset Management (Japan) Limited, Deutsche Asset Management (Korea) Company Limited, Deutsche Asset Management S.A., Deutsche Asset Management S.G.I.I.C. S.A., Deutsche Australia Limited, Deutsche Bank (Cayman) Limited, Deutsche Bank (Chile), Deutsche Bank (China) Co. Ltd., Deutsche Bank (China) Co. Ltd., Deutsche Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA, Deutsche Bank (Uruguay) Sociedad Anonima Institucion Financiera Externa, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank Americas Holding Corp., Deutsche Bank Bauspar-Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank Capital Finance LLC I, Deutsche Bank Capital Finance Trust I, Deutsche Bank Europe GmbH, Deutsche Bank Financial Company, Deutsche Bank Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank Insurance Agency Incorporated, Deutsche Bank Insurance Agency of Delaware, Deutsche Bank International Limited, Deutsche Bank Investments (Guernsey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A., Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. - Fiduciary Deposits, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. - Fiduciary Note Programme, Deutsche Bank Mutui S.p.A., Deutsche Bank Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple, Deutsche Bank Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company Los, Deutsche Bank Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Nominees (Jersey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Polska Spolka Akcyjna, Deutsche Bank Representative Office Nigeria Limited, Deutsche Bank S.A. - Banco Alemao, Deutsche Bank S.A. - Banco Alemao Sao, Deutsche Bank SPEARs/LIFERs Series DBE-8011 Trust, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Limited, Deutsche Bank Services (Jersey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Sociedad Anonima Espanola, Deutsche Bank Sociedad Anonima Espanola, Deutsche Bank Societa per Azioni, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Delaware, Deutsche Bank Trust Company National Association, Deutsche Bank Trust Company National Association, Deutsche Bank Trust Corporation, Deutsche CIB Centre Private Limited, Deutsche Capital Finance (2000) Limited, Deutsche Capital Hong Kong Limited, Deutsche Capital Management Limited, Deutsche Capital Markets Australia Limited, Deutsche Capital Partners China Limited, Deutsche Cayman Ltd., Deutsche Colombia S.A.S., Deutsche Custody N.V., Deutsche Domus New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Equities India Private Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 1 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 2 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 3 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 4 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance No. 2 Limited, Deutsche Foras New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilien-Leasing mit beschrankter Haftung, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilien-Leasing mit beschrankterHaftung, Deutsche Global Markets Limited, Deutsche Group Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Deutsche Group Services Pty Limited, Deutsche Grundbesitz Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Deutsche Grundbesitz Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., Deutsche Grundbesitz-Anlagegesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Deutsche Holdings (BTI) Limited, Deutsche Holdings (Grand Duchy), Deutsche Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Deutsche Holdings (Malta) Ltd., Deutsche Holdings Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 2 Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 3 Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 4 Limited, Deutsche Immobilien Leasing GmbH, Deutsche India Holdings Private Limited, Deutsche International Corporate Services (Ireland) Limited, Deutsche International Corporate Services Limited, Deutsche International Custodial Services Limited, Deutsche Inversiones Dos S.A., Deutsche Inversiones Limitada, Deutsche Investments (Netherlands) N.V., Deutsche Investments India Private Limited, Deutsche Investor Services Private Limited, Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd., Deutsche Leasing New York Corp., Deutsche Mandatos S.A., Deutsche Master Funding Corporation, Deutsche Mexico Holdings S.a r.l., Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Limited, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Public Limited Company, Deutsche Mortgage & Asset Receiving Corporation, Deutsche Mortgage Securities Inc., Deutsche Mortgage Securities Inc., Deutsche Nederland N.V., Deutsche New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Nominees Limited, Deutsche Oppenheim Family Office AG, Deutsche Overseas Issuance New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Postbank, Deutsche Postbank Finance Center Objekt GmbH, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC I, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC II, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC III, Deutsche Private Asset Management Limited, Deutsche Securities (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Securities (Proprietary) Limited, Deutsche Securities (SA) (Proprietary) Limited, Deutsche Securities Asia Limited, Deutsche Securities Australia Limited, Deutsche Securities Inc., Deutsche Securities Israel Ltd., Deutsche Securities Korea Co., Deutsche Securities Mauritius Limited, Deutsche Securities Menkul Degerler A.S., Deutsche Securities S.A., Deutsche Securities S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Deutsche Securities S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Deutsche Securities Saudi Arabia, Deutsche Securities SpA, Deutsche Securities Venezuela S.A., Deutsche Securitisation Australia Pty Limited, Deutsche Services Polska Sp. z o.o., Deutsche StiftungsTrust GmbH, Deutsche Strategic Investment Holdings Yugen Kaisha, Deutsche Trust Company Limited Japan, Deutsche Trustee Company Limited, Deutsche Trustee Services (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Trustees Malaysia Berhad, Deutsche Wealth Management S.G.I.I.C. S.A., Deutsches Institut fur Altersvorsorge GmbH, Durian (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., EC EUROPA IMMOBILIEN FONDS NR. 3 GmbH & CO. KG i.I., Elba Finance GmbH, Elizabethan Holdings Limited, Elizabethan Management Limited, Emerald Asset Repackaging Designated Activity Company, Erste Frankfurter Hoist GmbH, European Value Added I (Alternate G.P.) LLP, Exinor SA, FARAMIR Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs GmbH, FRANKFURT CONSULT GmbH, Fiduciaria Sant' Andrea S.r.L., Finanzberatungsgesellschaft mbH der Deutschen Bank, Franz Urbig- und Oscar Schlitter-Stiftung Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-037, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-039, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-040, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-041, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-043, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-044, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-047, Funfte SAB Treuhand und Verwaltung GmbH & Co. Suhl "Rimbachzentrum" KG, G Finance Holding Corp., G.O. IB-US Management L.L.C., G918 Corp., GAC-HEL Inc., GWC-GAC Corp., Galene S.a r.l., Gemini Technology Services Inc., German American Capital, German American Capital Corporation, Gladyr Spain S.L., Global Markets Fundo de Investimento Multimercado, Global Markets III Fundo de Investimento Multimercado - Credito, Greenwood Properties Corp., Grundstucksgesellschaft Frankfurt Bockenheimer Landstrae GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Kerpen-Sindorf Vogelrutherfeld GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Leipzig Petersstrae GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Wiesbaden Luisenstrae/Kirchgasse GbR, HTB Spezial GmbH & Co. KG, Hollandsche Bank-Unie, IOS Finance EFC S.A., ISTRON Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs-GmbH, IVAF I Manager S.a r.l., IVAF I Manager S.a r.l., Immobilienfonds Buro-Center Erfurt am Flughafen Bindersleben I GbR, Immobilienfonds Buro-Center Erfurt am Flughafen Bindersleben II GbR, Immobilienfonds Mietwohnhauser Quadrath-Ichendorf GbR, Immobilienfonds Wohn- und Geschaftshaus Koln-Blumenberg V GbR, J R Nominees (Pty) Ltd, Joint Stock Company Deutsche Bank DBU, Jyogashima Godo Kaisha, KEBA Gesellschaft fur interne Services mbH, Kidson Pte Ltd, Konsul Inkasso GmbH, Kradavimd UK Lease Holdings Limited, LA Water Holdings Limited, LAWL Pte. Ltd., Latitude Australia Secured Personal Loans Trust, Leasing Verwaltungsgesellschaft Waltersdorf mbH, Leonardo III Initial GP Limited, Lindsell Finance Limited, London Industrial Leasing Limited, MEF I Manager S. a r.l., MEF I Manager S. a r.l., MHL Reinsurance Ltd., MIT Holdings Inc., MIT Holdings Inc., MPP Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Maher Terminals Holdings (Toronto) Limited, Morgan Grenfell & Company, MortgageIT, MortgageIT Inc., MortgageIT Inc., MortgageIT Securities Corp., Motion Picture Productions One GmbH & Co. KG, NCW Holding Inc., Navegator - SGFTC S.A., Navegator - SGFTC S.A., New 87 Leonard LLC, Nordwestdeutscher Wohnungsbautrager Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, OOO "Deutsche Bank TechCentre", OOO "Deutsche Bank", OPB Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungs-GmbH, OPB Verwaltungs- und Treuhand GmbH, OPB-Holding GmbH, OPB-Nona GmbH, OPB-Oktava GmbH, OPB-Quarta GmbH, OPB-Quinta GmbH, OPB-Septima GmbH, OPPENHEIM Capital Advisory GmbH, OPPENHEIM Flottenfonds V GmbH & Co. KG, OPPENHEIM PRIVATE EQUITY Manager GmbH, OPPENHEIM PRIVATE EQUITY Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, OPS Nominees Pty Limited, OVT Trust 1 GmbH, OVV Beteiligungs GmbH, Opal Funds (Ireland) Public Limited Company, PADUS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, PARTS Funding LLC., PB Factoring GmbH, PB Firmenkunden AG, PB International S.A., PB Spezial-Investmentaktiengesellschaft mit Teilgesellschaftsvermogen, PBC Banking Services GmbH, PCC Services GmbH der Deutschen Bank, PT Deutsche Sekuritas Indonesia, PT. Deutsche Verdhana Sekuritas Indonesia, Pan Australian Nominees Pty Ltd, Peruda Leasing Limited, Plantation Bay Inc., Plantation Bay Inc., Postbank Akademie und Service GmbH, Postbank Beteiligungen GmbH, Postbank Direkt GmbH, Postbank Filialvertrieb AG, Postbank Finanzberatung AG, Postbank Immobilien GmbH, Postbank Immobilien und Baumanagement GmbH, Postbank Immobilien und Baumanagement GmbH & Co. Objekt Leipzig KG, Postbank Leasing GmbH, Postbank Service GmbH, Postbank Systems AG, QR Tower 2 LLC, Quantiguous, R.B.M. Nominees Pty Ltd, REO Properties Corporation, RREEF, RREEF America L.L.C., RREEF China REIT Management Limited, RREEF European Value Added I (G.P.) Limited, RREEF Fund Holding Co., RREEF India Advisors Private Limited, RREEF Management L.L.C., RTS Nominees Pty Limited, Reference Capital Investments Limited, RoPro U.S. Holding Inc., RoPro U.S. Holding Inc., Route 28 Receivables LLC, Route 28 Receivables LLC, SAB Real Estate Verwaltungs GmbH, SAGITA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SAPIO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SCUDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SEDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SENA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Kamenz KG, SIFA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SOLIDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SP Mortgage Trust, SPINO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SPV I Sociedad Anonima Cerrada, SPV II Sociedad Anonima Cerrada, STATOR Heizkraftwerk Frankfurt (Oder) Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Sal. Oppenheim, Sal. Oppenheim Alternative Investments GmbH, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. AG & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Beteiligungs GmbH, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Komplementar AG, Sechste Salomon Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Sechste Salomon Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., Service Company Four Limited, Sharps SP I LLC, Singer Island Tower Suite LLC, Somkid Immobiliare S.r.l., Stelvio Immobiliare S.r.l., Structured Finance Americas LLC, Structured Finance Americas LLC, Swabia 1. Vermogensbesitz-GmbH, Suddeutsche Vermogensverwaltung Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, TAKIR Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TELO Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, TEMATIS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., TERRUS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., TESATUR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Halle I KG i.L., TESATUR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Nordhausen I KG i.L., TOSSA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TRIPLA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TRS Aria LLC, TRS Leda LLC, TRS Maple II LTD, TRS Oak II LTD, TRS SVCO LLC, TRS Scorpio LLC, TRS Tupelo II LTD, TRS Venor LLC, TRS Walnut II LTD, Tagus - Sociedade de Titularizacao de Creditos S.A., Tasfiye Halinde Deutsche Securities Menkul Degerler A.S., Tempurrite Leasing Limited, Thai Asset Enforcement and Recovery Asset Management Company Limited, Tianjin Deutsche AM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Treuinvest Service GmbH, Triplereason Limited, UKE Beteiligungs-GmbH, UKE Grundstucksgesellschaft mbH, UKE s.r.o., Ullmann - Esch Grundstucksgesellschaft Kirchnerstrae GbR, Ullmann - Esch Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Disternich GbR, Ullmann Ullmann Krockow Krockow Esch GbR, VCJ Lease S.a r.l., Vesta Real Estate S.r.l., VOB-ZVD Processing GmbH, WEPLA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, WEPLABeteiligungsgesellschaftmbH, Wealthspur Investment Ltd., Whale Holdings S.a r.l., World Trading (Delaware) Inc., World Trading(Delaware)Inc., Zumirez Drive LLC, db PBC, and norisbank GmbH. 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. Read More Bridgepoint Education, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides postsecondary education services in the United States. Its academic institutions, Ashford University and University of the Rockies, offer associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in the disciplines of business, education, psychology, social sciences, and health sciences. The company offers its programs primarily through online; and at its campuses. As of December 31, 2017, its institutions offered approximately 1,200 courses and 80 degree programs; and had 45,730 students enrolled. The company was formerly known as TeleUniversity, Inc. and changed its name to Bridgepoint Education, Inc. in February 2004. Bridgepoint Education, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. Read More The countrys youth yearn for employment, but Modi has denied them their due refusing to give the Rafale contract to HAL. KALABURAGI: Taking strong exception to the Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday expressed his resentment at Mr Modi describing people in the whole of the country, chowkidars after his theft was exposed following the Rafale deal. The BJP has started its Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign with Prime Minister Modi and other BJP leaders prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their twitter profiles as they sought peoples support in the Lok Sabha election while urging people from different walks of life to turn chowkidars and do their bit for the country. Earlier when Mr Modi was chosen prime minister, he called himself chowkidar. But after his theft came to light in the Rafale deal, he started calling all people of the country chowkidars. He is not the chowkidar of the common people, but the chowkidar of big industrialists such as Anil Ambani, Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, Mr Gandhi commented while addressing the Parivartana Rally here. Describing the Rafale fighter jet deal as the biggest defence deal, Mr Gandhi alleged that Mr Modi had directly put Rs 30,000 crore into the account of industrialist Mr Anil Ambani via the deal. The countrys youth yearn for employment, but Mr Modi has denied them their due refusing to give the Rafale contract to HAL. A prominent newspaper through its articles has proved that the chowkidar is indeed a thief as he allowed parallel negotiations to be held with the French company manufacturing Rafale, Mr Gandhi remarked. The Congress chief made a scathing attack on the PM for trying to bring in one man rule in the country through various steps including winding up the Constitution. Barnes & Noble, Inc. primarily operates as a bookseller in the United States. The company operates through two segments, B&N Retail and NOOK. It sells trade books, including hardcover and paperback titles; mass market paperbacks, such as mystery, romance, science fiction, and other fiction; and children's books, eBooks and other digital content, NOOK and related accessories, bargain books, magazines, gifts, cafe products and services, educational toys and games, and music and movies. The company also offers a suite of new, used, and digital textbooks, as well as textbooks rentals. As of April 28, 2018, it operated 630 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and a NOOK, a digital bookstore, as well as BN.com and barnesandnoble.com Websites. The company was founded in 1986 and is based in New York, New York. Read More UBS Group AG is a holding company, which engages in the provision of financial management solutions. It operates through the following segments: Global Wealth Management;; Personal and Corporate Banking; Asset Management; Investment Bank, and Corporate Center. The Global Wealth Management segment advises and offers financial services to wealthy private clients except those served by Wealth Management Americas which include banking and lending, wealth planning, and investment management. The Personal and Corporate segment offers financial products and services to private, corporate, and institutional clients in Switzerland. The Asset Management segment consists of investment management products and services; platform solutions and advisory support to institutions; wholesale intermediaries, and wealth management clients. The Investment Bank segment comprises investment advice, financial solutions, and capital markets access among corporate, institutional, and wealth management clients. The Corporate Center segment is involved in the services, group asset and liability management and non-core and legacy portfolio. The company was founded on June 29, 1998 and is headquartered in Zurich Read More Delhi minister and AAP leader Gopal Rai said the party has waited long enough for an alliance with the Congress. New Delhi: The AAP on Sunday declared its last candidate in Delhi for the Lok Sabha polls, with a senior leader saying the announcement was made seeing the Congresss irresponsible and indecisive attitude towards an alliance in the national capital. The AAP announced the name of Balbir Singh Jakhar as its candidate for the West Delhi parliamentary seat. Mr Jakhar has been associated with the AAP since its Jan Lokpal Movement. The other six AAP candidates are Atishi from East Delhi, Guggan Singh from North-West Delhi, Raghav Chadha from South, Dilip Pandey from North-East, Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk and Brijesh Goyal will contest from New Delhi seats. The AAPs decision to announce the name of its seventh candidate has assumed political significance as the party has been reportedly in talks with the Congress for stitching together an alliance to contest the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. Sources said that both the parties have agreed to follow 3+3+1 formula to contest the Parliamentary elections to take on the Narendra Modi and Amit Shah duo. But the two parties are yet to take a final call on the seats over which they would be fielding their respective candidates. For one of the Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, both the AAP and the Congress are likely to support the candidature of either former Union minister Yashwant Sinha or his BJP colleague and veteran Bollywood star Shatrughan Sinha, who has reportedly being denied party ticket from the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat in Bihar. The Congress is yet to take a final decision on the alliance as three-time chief minister and the partys state unit head Sheila Dikshit has been vociferously opposing any such move saying this would harm the party in the long run. Only a section of the leaders within the Congress want an alliance with the AAP as they fear that any split in the votes would help the BJP to sweep all the seven seats in Delhi. Delhi minister and AAP leader Gopal Rai said the party has waited long enough for an alliance with the Congress. Seeing the irresponsible and indecisive attitude of the grand old party, he said his party has decided to declare the name of its seventh candidate. Congress general secretary Sawant said that people should verify the character of watchmen with the police before hiring them. Mumbai: The Congress on Sunday said that thieves and culprits are prefixing the word chowkidar (watchman) before their names, hence there is a question of unprecedented insecurity in the atmosphere of the country, which may create a law and order situation in the state. Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant said that genuine security guards, who are working honestly, are being looked at suspiciously. The minds of the security guards are dazed owing to this, he said. In order to amplify the BJPs campaign in the Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday renamed his Twitter handle as Chowkidar Narendra Modi. After the alteration, the BJP leader and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis followed suit. Similarly, other party workers and office-bearers have also added the word chowkidar. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi by stating chowkidar chor hai (The watchman is a thief). Mr Sawant said that the people should verify the character of ones watchman with the police before hiring them. Apparently referring to BJP leaders, the Congress spokesperson said that it is easy to add chowkidar before ones name, rather than working as a chowkidar in the country. There is a big threat in the country from these chowkidars. Most of the gangs of thieves are indulging in such practices in order to earn the trust of the people. If they are given a job, there is a possibility that they may steal or commit a crime. Therefore, caution must be taken before hiring watchmen for housing societies, business complexes, houses and shops. An honest watchman would definitely be eager to be verified by the police department, whereas fraudsters would run away, Mr Sawant added. Housing experts have also said it is nothing but an election gimmick to woo voters. Mumbai: The state government has issued an ordinance that all residential and commercial structures up to 500 square feet in Mumbai will be exempt from paying property tax. The ordinance was issued last week to amend the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act towards the new decision however Opposition parties have slammed the government for the timing of the ordinance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Housing experts have also said it is nothing but an election gimmick to woo voters. The ordinance is through governor Ch. Vidyasagar Raos orders for immediate amendment in the Act as none of the parliament sessions are going on. The BMC had already passed its resolution in 2017 but the same was pending with the state government for final approval. The governors order was passed on March 10, the day election dates were announced. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in its general body in July 2017 had passed the resolution on exemption of property tax for properties up to 500 square feet. BMCs ruling party Shiv Sena, with full support from the BJP and Congress, passed the proposal. But, by giving final approval ahead of elections, the BJP-Shiv Sena will get credit for it, according to the Congress and experts. Opposition leader in the BMC, Ravi Raja from the Congress, said, The proposal was purposefully not tabled in the Assembly session. The Congress party also supported the decision in the BMC house. But passing the ordinance at this time is only to take the entire credit. Housing expert and advocate, Vinod Sampat said, The step is nothing but an election gimmick to woo voters. The BJP and Shiv Sena benefit with this decision. Howe-ver, this ordinance passed by the governor has to be cleared by assembly within six months. Many of the experts hate the Congress and its domineering and cynical ways as much as they hate the Hindutva ideology of the BJP. The Congress Partys regional and ideological partners are fed up with the Grand Old Partys big brother attitude. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) were more than irritated by the Congress attitude towards them in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh after the Assembly election victories in those states last December. The Left Front parties in West Bengal are puzzled by the Congress evasive stance over their seat-sharing in West Bengal. And the partys arch-rival in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was open to an alliance but it has gone on its own because the Congress was unable to decide whether to ally with the AAP or not. It is not that the Congress does not understand the compulsion for alliances in the 2019 Lok Sabha election as it did in 2004. Then party president Sonia Gandhi walked the extra mile to tie up with even a small party like the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan. In 2004, the Congress was agreeable to alliances, and the Left parties could consider the option of going with the Congress on their own terms. This time around, the Congress is on the periphery because it does not command a respectable number of seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha. The other parties too are not in a commanding position either. All of them recognise that they need to close ranks to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the redoubtable leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Modi factor is a key issue in their poll calculations. There are numerous political experts and observers who are angry with the Congress for not forging a viable anti-Modi, anti-BJP alliance even if it means that the party has to eat humble pie. Many of the experts hate the Congress and its domineering and cynical ways as much as they hate the Hindutva ideology of the BJP. But forced to make a choice between the Congress and the BJP, they grudgingly concede that the Congress is a key player in Opposition unity. But at the same time, they demand that the Congress get off its high horse and sit along with other parties on terms of equality. They would even prefer that the Congress should play second fiddle to the other anti-BJP parties. Most of these experts experience a perverse glee when they see the Congress Party is shown its place. Inside the Congress Party, there are those who oppose alliances, and those who favour it. Those who favour alliances are those who feel that Indian politics has changed from the days when the it was the single dominant party, and that the Congress must learn to adjust to the new situation when caste and social groups which were once part of the broader coalition in the party have now walked out and created their own base and space. This is so in the case of dalits and the BSP. The upper caste brahmins, especially in Uttar Pradesh, have found an alternative in the BJP, while the Muslims are looking to the SP and the BSP. There is also the feeling in this group that the Congress cannot address the issues of regional identity and influence. But there is a group within the Congress, who may be called old-fashioned and even antiquated, who think that if the Congress were to give too much space to the others, then the party will cease to exist. It has happened in Tamil Nadu, where the party yielded space to the two major regional parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). There is a minority in Tamil Nadu which argues that the party should go it alone and rebuild itself in the state. A similar group exists in Uttar Pradesh, which holds the view that the party should protect its own base and expand it, and not look for short-term gains. During the 2007 UP Assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi, then a party general secretary, believed that the Congress should go it alone and shun alliances. He seems to be drawn in the opposite direction when he has to take a call as party president in 2019. The war within the party is not due to any extraneous pressures. It is about core beliefs about what the party should be. It will be argued that the BJP too is in a similar position to that of the Congress, in its need of allies, and that it is going about it in a positive way. But then the BJP is in a stronger position as it has remained the single largest party. The Congress will attain to that position if it wins more than 150 seats. It fell below the 150 mark in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004. It was only in 2009 that it won 206 seats. And it 2014, it hit a new low of falling below the 50 mark. The Congress therefore cannot set its sights too high when it is bargaining on seat-sharing with potential allies. The party should fight on its own and win as many seats as it can, whether it is in Uttar Pradesh, in West Bengal or in any other state. It should also position itself as a party on its own in all the states and in all state Assembly elections. It cannot stumble from election to election and seek to be in power with the help of allies. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan have passed through difficult times and survived. The Congress too can. There is some irony in the fact that even in Afghanistan the Constitution guarantees 25 per cent reserved seats for women in Parliament. Even before the Lok Sabha poll season kicked off Sunday with the Election Commission announcing the poll dates, the state of political rhetoric in the country was turning dismal, with most senior leaders of key parties using expressions for one another that would not pass muster in a polite middle-class drawing room. In such an atmosphere, banality was not going to be far behind. The first off-the-block were genuinely pseudo-secular elements from political parties as well as keyboard warriors, who have sought to weaponise the social media. These are folks who rush to take up so-called minority issues with witless alacrity. A West Bengal leader was quickly off the mark, seeing communal malice in that some poll dates coincided with the Muslim holy month of fasting. Others followed suit, but fortunately no one of substance from the political spectrum or outside it took the bait. In fact, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi was quick to debunk the notion of unfairness done to Muslim voters merely because they were required to go and vote at a time of fasting. Lyricist Javed Akhtar also voiced his displeasure, saying the EC shouldnt consider the absurd notion even for a second. Fortunately, there has been some extremely positive news as well. Just before poll dates were announced, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik declared his party would nominate 33 per cent women candidates for Parliament. This isnt just novel, but revolutionary. The womens reservation bill has languished in Parliament for a quarter century. Away from legislative wrangles, political parties could have fixed the problem by nominating women candidates for elections in a big way, but they are afraid of upsetting politically active menfolk eyeing nominations. Mr Patnaik has broken that barrier. Its true that the BJD leader has guaranteed one-third of all nominations to women only for the Lok Sabha poll, not the Assembly elections, that are being held alongside Parliament in Odisha. A BJP spokesman was quick to pounce on this instead of giving credit where its due. It should be recognised that even taking the first step calls for daring as the battle for votes is a totally uncertain field. Hopefully, as time goes by, the BJD will look beyond the parliamentary arena. It will be a much-needed political reform if other parties can follow the BJDs example, at least in some measure. There is some irony in the fact that even in war-torn and desperately poor Afghanistan where dangerous warlords make the wind bend to their dictates the Constitution guarantees 25 per cent reserved seats for women in Parliament, but not in India where democracy has been practised for 70 years. Democratic practice will have a much more agreeable face if women took the field in larger numbers and male gladiators were reined in. Ditch that DJF&D's W40 speaker pulses to its own strobe lights. F&D's W40 is a sturdy 1.8kg rectangle some 30cm long, that you can carry to beach or pool and trust to its belting out enough volume for the outdoors with its 40-watt (twin 20 watt) speakers. F&D ("Fenda" to its fans) has established itself as a sound (pun intended!) audio brand. It has recently brought a sturdy portable Bluetooth speaker W40 to India. Portable should not be confused with personal. This is a sturdy 1.8 kg rectangle some 30cm long, that you can carry to beach or pool and trust to its belting out enough volume for the outdoors with its 40-watt (twin 20 watt) speakers. You can activate DJ lights that sync with the sound. The rechargeable 1800 mAh battery is good for some 3-5 hours. In addition to Bluetooth pairing with other music sources, it can also take a microSD card or an AUX audio cable. Bass boost is optional there is an X-Bass button. And if you download the Fenda app on your phone you can control all functions, switch to FM radio or couple two W40 units for better effect. The F&D W40 costs Rs 12,990, a sound proposition for regular party organisers. IndiaTechOnline This story was updated to include the side of the government. Lede: The Department of Finance refutes the Japanese company's data that the China-funded project will cost $800 million, saying the dam's construction will cost around $300 million including interest and fees. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) A Japan-based company on Monday asked the government to revisit a safer and cheaper option to increase water supply to Metro Manila that will tap the same resources under a Chinese-funded dam project. Osaka-based infrastructure firm Global Utility Development Corporation (GUDC) asked President Rodrigo Duterte to push through with its proposed construction of a low-level dam in Kaliwa River. This comes after the Duterte administration awarded the New Centennial Water Source Project (NCWSP) Kaliwa dam to a Chinese construction company. GUDC said compared to the dam project, the weir or low-level water intake will address safety concerns and will be more economical for the government. What is the Kaliwa Weir Intake Project? Under GUDC's proposal, a seven-meter wall will be constructed in the middle of Kaliwa River in Tanay Rizal near the Infanta, Quezon border. It will work like a barrier to raise the water level. Unlike bigger dams, water would spill over the wall and flow to an aqueduct that will divert water to a treatment plant in Tanay, Rizal. where water concessionaires may tap up to 550 million liters of water daily. At seven meters high, the Japanese project is much smaller than the 73-meter high dam awarded to the Chinese firm. Its capacity is 50 million liters lower than the NWSCP Kaliwa Dam. "We cannot understand why MWSS wants such high dam, we need only 600 MLD (million liters per day). It does not make common sense," GUDC chief operating officer Toshikazu Nomura said. Putting up a lower dam which would allow river to flow also ensures the safety of nearby communities, GUDC vice president for business George Campos explained. Campos said their project does not pose environmental threats as this will be constructed far from the fault line. No one will be displaced or inundated since the water level would only increase by seven meters, below the residential area. GUDC will also pay for the whole of construction. All it needs is a go signal from the Philippine government What happened to the Japanese's proposal? GUDC has signed an agreement with MWSS in 2009. Construction would only supposedly take less than a year. But Campos said the changes in national leadership as well as the MWSS administration have pushed back its implementation. If the construction began then, Campos said Metro Manila would not have a water supply problem. Meanwhile, Nomura said they submitted a proposal to the government in 2017, but the project did not move forward because someone "pressured" the MWSS. "We submitted our proposal in September 2017, and then they found this is accepted but somebody in your government gave pressure and that's why MWSS could not move at all. On the other hand, the new centennial project started one and a half years ago," Nomura said. Presidential spokesperson Sal Panelo said concerned government agencies are looking into the proposal. "I think every proposal should be considered. The objective should always be the welfare of the people. The most beneficial, the most advantageous to the govt and to the people should be the primordial consideration," he said in a media briefing on Monday. On the other hand, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Administrator Reynaldo Velasco said the government's arrangement with China on Kaliwa dam has been sealed. "Ito ay na-bid na, gagawin na. Hindi na yan pupuwede, lalong made-delay. Naka-commit na ang gobyerno. Nagkapirmahan na tayo. This is a done deal," he said. [Translation: This has been bid. It cannot be further delayed. The government has committed and signed. This is a done deal.] Velasco also said they could not entertain GUDC's proposal in 2017 because the Kaliwa Dam project is already underway. He also denied being pressured into the decision. "I don't think the board would ever be pressured. There's no such pressure," he said. An official of the MWSS also said the two projects cannot be compared. GUDC's weir cannot hold as much water as the dam, and it would be a problem when the dry season comes. While the government asserts Kaliwa Dam construction only cost $248 million, GUDC is adamant, the project would eventually cost the government $800 million. Campos says the cost of NCWSP-Kaliwa Dam, now pegged at P12.2 billion, is only for building the dam and tunnels. The budget does not include the construction of water treatment plants which could cost an additional $560 million. Based on engineering estimates for two distinct and separate water treatment plants with capacity of 1,200 MLD (million liters per day) each (MWSS design) = $560M, Campos explained. Campos added There must be a WTP (water treatment plant) to be able to supple treated water to the consumers. Campos also noted that Kaliwa Dam could supply 600MLD, while Laiban Dam would provide 1800 MLD. But MWSS has announced on March 18, the second phase of the New Centennial Water Source project, which includes the Laiban Dam construction is under review because of concerns this might affect 4,800 families. The MWSS is over designed because no Laiban Dam will be constructed, said Campos. Cost of the unused capacity of the dam and tunnel and WTP will be shouldered by the consuming public through higher water rates. "Based on engineering estimates for two distinct and separate water treatment plants with capacity of 1,200 MLD (million liters per day) each (MWSS design) = $560M," Campos explained. Campos added "There must be a WTP (water treatment plant) to be able to supply treated water to the consumers". Campos also noted that Kaliwa Dam could supply 600MLD, while Laiban Dam would provide 1800 MLD. But MWSS announced on March 18, that the second phase of the New Centennial Water Source project which includes the Laiban Dam construction is under review because of concerns it might affect 4,800 families. "The MWSS is over designed because no Laiban Dam will be constructed," said Campos. "Cost of the unused capacity of the dam and tunnel and WTP will be shouldered by the consuming public through higher water rates." Gov't denies GUDC claims The Duterte administration defended its decision to pick the China-funded project, saying it will be more beneficial to the public in terms of cost and subsequent fees charged to customers. Finance Assistant Secretary Tony Lambino also refuted the claim of GUDC that the Chinese-funded project will cost $800. He said said it would have cost P18.7 billion under a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement, but the ODA has reduced the amount to P12.2 billion. The final tab could reach P14.5 billion with the 2 percent interest per year, but it will still be a better deal, he added. In dollar terms, with fees and interest payments included, Lambino said the total price would fall between $280 million to $300 million, depending on the peso-dollar exchange rate. The Japanese firm said the NCWSP dam and tunnel will cost $240 million plus $560 million to construct two water treatment plants. Lambino said cost of constructing the water treatment plants will not be shouldered by the government, instead, the water concessionaires will pay for it. He also told CNN Philippines that the $410 million pegged by GUDC to be its project cost is incomplete as the project will only construct a 16 kilometer conveyance tunnel and will need an additional 11.7 kilometers to connect the water source to distribution. He said the China-funded Kaliwa Dam will build a 27-kilometer tunnel that will connect the water source from General Nakar-Infanta in Quezon to a water treatment plant in Antipolo-Teresa in Rizal to supply 600 million liters of water per day to Metro Manila and nearby areas. The Finance official also countered other claims on funding. While the government wouldn't spend under the PPP, consumers will ultimately bear the burden, Lambino said. Facebooks chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has sent condolences over the shootings at two mosques that killed 50 people. This is an issue that I will look to be discussing directly with Facebook, Ardern said. (Photo: AP) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Facebooks chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has sent condolences over the shootings at two mosques that killed 50 people, some of which were live-streamed over the social media platform. Certainly, I have had contact from Sheryl Sandberg. I havent spoken to her directly but she has reached out, an acknowledgment of what has occurred here in New Zealand, Ardern said a media conference when asked if Facebook should stop live-streaming. This is an issue that I will look to be discussing directly with Facebook, Ardern said, adding Sandberg has shared condolences over the shootings in Christchurch on Friday. The votes are in and once again Arlington takes the top spot when it comes to the Best City to Live in America. The honor comes from Niche, an online review website that annually ranks cities in regards to everything from public schools to crime, diversity and nightlife. Not only did Arlington rank as the number one city in the Niche listing, but it received an overall grade of an A+. The quality of the citys public schools helped, as did doing well in the category of cities that are good for families. In both cases Arlington received an A+. Arlington also received an A+ in nightlife and for the category of health and fitness. The city earned an A for diversity, the commute and outdoor activities. The rankings slipped slightly to a B+ for jobs, a B for weather and a bit lower for housing and cost of living. In particular, Niche praised Arlington for its urban feel, filled with restaurants, coffee shops, bars and parks. Its a city also filled with young professionals and some highly rated public schools. This past summer Arlington Public Schools also received an A+ grade in a similar ranking by Niche. Its by far not the only time Arlington has ranked at or near the top of the list. Niche also put Arlington in the top spot for 2016 and in the seventh spot for the best suburb. For the first year Niche came out with its list of the best neighborhoods, and Arlington neighborhoods did extremely well this time around. In terms of the 2019 Best Places to Live in Virginia, the top five spots all went to neighborhoods in Arlington. The Bluemont, Colonial Village and Radnor/Fort Myer Heights neighborhoods took the top three spots for 2019, followed up by North Rosslyn and Waycroft/Woodlawn. Though Goyal sought more time to clinch the deal, he did not offer a time-line for the same. Mumbai: Jet Airways on Monday defaulted on payment to its debenture-holdersthe third default since Januaryeven as airline Chairman Naresh Goyal assured the employee of a resolution in the immediate possible time, but said more time is needed to clinch bailout. The cash-strapped airline has grounded four more planes, taking the number of aircraft that are non-operational due to non-payment of lease rentals to 41. Goyal, in a letter to the 16,000 staff, which comes ahead of the domestic pilots body National Aviator's Guild annual meeting here, said talks with the airline's strategic partner Etihad Airways and SBI-led lenders are going on. Though Goyal sought more time to clinch the deal, he did not offer a time-line for the same. The UAE flag carrier owns 24 per cent in Jet and its board is considering a draft agreement as part of a debt- recast plan being mooted by the airline's lenders led by SBI. Earlier, Jet informed the exchanges that "the payment of interest due on March 19 to the debenture-holders will be delayed owing to temporary liquidity constraints." This is the third time the airline is defaulting in this year as earlier it failed to meet its payment obligations towards the domestic banks' loans (in January) as well as on part-repayment of its external commercial borrowings due to liquidity crunch earlier this month. The airline, which has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore, did not specify what is the quantum of interest due Tuesday nor quantum of the debt on this particular account. On February 14, its board had approved a bank-led- resolution plan, whereby the SBI-consortium of lenders will become the largest shareholders in the airline and Goyal would exit the management as the Chairman and board member. If the resolution plans goes through, banks would convert a part of their debt into 11.4 crore shares for a consideration of Re 1 as per the RBI norms. Last week, SBI sounded hopeful of reaching an early solution by this week. In his letter to the employees, Goyal said, "the situation, though complex, has my personal attention towards an early resolution...The complexity of the process though has led to some delays and will require further time to conclude." "Once again I assure you that I am personally committed to have the resolution process completed as soon as possible and restore the much-needed stability to our operations at the earliest," he said. Since a larger number of planes from its over 100- fleet are grounded leading to drastically curtailed operations, the airline is struggling to prevent a nose-dive somehow. Of this as many as 41 aircraft are grounded for non- payment of lease rentals to lessors. Following this, the airline has indefinitely suspended its operations from Abu Dhabi, one of its two global gateways the other being one in Amsterdam. Jet Airways has been struggling to mop up cash to carry out operations. Mumbai: Malayalam actor Tony Luke says the fact that his performance in his Hindi debut "Badla" was well-received reflects there is no divide between talent from north and south. Tony made his acting debut in 2016 with the Malayalam movie "Oozham" and has since featured in three more films in south film industry. "Today an actor has a future in the film industry because content rules. The North and South have come together. Now it's about Indian content versus the global, not North and South," Tony told PTI. "There are people like Karan Johar and Rajamouli coming together, to make truly Indian cinema and the times are only going to change for the better," he added. Tony said when the project came his way, he was initially reluctant to audition as he felt there was "no chance" he would make it. "I thought my Hindi is bad, because I'm from the South so I didn't even believe I could be a part of it, until Sujoy met me and said 'you're the boy.' Sujoy decided to place me as an actor and I'm grateful for that. There's no heavy pressure on me to be a star," he said. The actor said he feels "blessed" that he bagged the thriller, where his biggest takeaway was learning from megastar Amitabh Bachchan. "If someone told me last year that I would be a part of a big film such as this, I would've laughed it off. To be on the set and watch Mr Bachchan perform is surreal. As an actor, you take away so much just by observing him and imbibing his energy." Going forward, Tony said, if everything falls in place, he will be soon seen in an international web series. A gunman broadcast live footage on Facebook of an attack that killed 50 Muslims in two mosques. The social media platforms which were actually playing a video made by this person who is accused of murder... all over the world, that surely has got to stop, Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News on Sunday. Social media platforms must be able to react more quickly and stop the broadcast of live events, the leader of Britains opposition Labour Party said on Sunday, after a gunman in New Zealand broadcast a shooting rampage last week. A gunman broadcast live footage on Facebook of an attack that killed 50 Muslims in two mosques. The footage quickly spread across the internet and was still available on platforms including Twitter several hours later. The social media platforms which were actually playing a video made by this person who is accused of murder... all over the world, that surely has got to stop, Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News on Sunday. Those that control and own social media platforms should deal with it straight away and stop these things being broadcast. But that brings into the whole issue of the question of regulation of social media. Close to a month after coming to Meghan Makles defense in an interview, Oscar winner actor George Clooney reiterated his support for the mom-to-be again. While appearing on Good Morning Britain, George expressed his belief that the media treatment on Meghan has been a bit unjust, reports Just-Jared.com. I think its a little unfair at times when the press can turn on you for sort of ridiculous reasons and for almost nothing. And it seemed to me to be a little unjust since (Meghan) hadnt done anything except just happen to live her life, he said, adding, Shes a really kind, smart and intelligent young women. And theyre (Meghan and Prince Harry) a really wonderful, loving couple. Most of it you can just shrug off and not pay attention to, but sometimes its unkind. The otherwise benign Staphy-lococcus epidermidis bacteria was found to have developed resistance to disinfectants that are used in high concentrations in intensive care units where the immune system of patients is compromised. (Representational Image) Hyderabad: Use of disinfectants in hospitals need to be regulated, a recent study published in Nature Microbiology has stated. An otherwise safe disinfectant is found to cause resistance in bacteria, just as antibiotics do. The otherwise benign Staphy-lococcus epidermidis bacteria was found to have developed resistance to disinfectants that are used in high concentrations in intensive care units where the immune system of patients is compromised. The bacteria could not be removed despite the use of antibiotics. Staphylococcus epidermidis is a type of bacteria found on the skin of healthy people and is considered harmless. But research has shown that it can also transfer genes to a major disease-causing bacteria called Staphyl-ococcus aureus which in turn would lead to the super bug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which is resistant to several common antibiotics. Dr A.V. Ratnam, senior hospital administrator, explained, The problem arises because of the disinfection programme not being effectively carried out. If there is blood, mucus, or pus, which has been improperly disposed of, then the circulation of bacteria is quick and within a short time it can create resistant bacteria. The protocol of collecting samples every week, testing them and effectively reviewing the procedure of disinfection is a must and lapse in these leads to the development of resistant bacteria. The guidelines for use of disinfectants show that there are 99 clinical isolates to which bacteria can develop resistance. For this reason, seven major disinfectants have been shortlisted and their concentrations prescribed for use in hospitals to avoid bacteria developing resistance. A senior microbiologist at Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences explained, Several studies carried out by hospitals have shown that conventional disinfectants like povidone iodine are an effective choice but novel quaternary ammonium compounds are the most applicable choice for disinfection in hospital surfaces and instruments. The bacteria develop resistance when the cleaning protocol is missed or the bio-medical waste disposal is not carried out within the stipulated time. These lapses allow for the growth and spread of bacteria in closed units and that is where the problem arises. The study of disinfectants becoming resistant to bacteria is an important aspect of hospital management as the antibiotic resistance alone is not an issue and it requires curtailing human activity, proper disposal of blood, mucus and pus from the sensitive environment in the hospital to prevent the growth of bacteria. The state, which famously hosted a 620 km-long womens wall from Kasaragod to Thiruvanantha puram as part ofa government-sponsored initiative to uphold gender equality,interestingly, has dismaying figures of womens representation in the Lok Sabha. It's yet another election season. With awaken political consciousness, exciting social media campaigns and discourses happening in every nook and corner, people are prepping up for the electoral battle, to choose their 20 leaders who would represent them at the Lok Sabha. However, in the state known for its high standard of living, educational, healthcare facilities, social consciousness, literacy rate and huge progressive movements, dismaying figures of gender representation take the sheen out of the whole process. In its over six decades of existence, Kerala, the Indian state where has the rare distinction of women outnumbering men, have seen just 12 women making it to the Lok Sabha. They include Annie Mascarene (1st LS), Suseela Gopalan (4th , 7th, 10th LS), Bhargavi Thankappan (5th LS), Savithri Lakshmanan (9th, 10th LS), A.K. Premajam (12th, 13th LS), P. Satheedevi (14th LS), C.S. Sujatha (14th LS) and P.K. Sreemathy (16th LS). Nor has the state seen a woman Chief Minister so far. Why are women under-represented in Kerala politics, especially when it comes to elections? Though the state has seen the rise of several women's movements and the revolutionary Kudumbashree Mission activities, which offer the women financial independence, gender disparity in elections sticks out like a sore thumb. "This is not something new. Gender disparity exists in politics, as in almost every spheres of our society," observes Dr T.N. Seema, former Rajya Sabha MP. "When we look into our political history, we cannot see a steady growth in women's participation. It is definitely a flaw. Now, women are seen in local self governing bodies just because of the mandatory reservation. If that is not there, it would still be a male-dominated domain," she says. The grossly skewed ratio of representation is a national trend, says Shaarika Menon, an activist. "India, which beats its chest about worshiping women, relegate them to the background when it comes to core decisions. It has been for long a male dominated society and its manifestations have spilled over to every area of social life. The most blaring and jarring of them all is visible in the political representations," she feels. According to a study at the United Nation University, evidence showed that assembly constituencies with women representatives significantly showed higher economic growth than their male counterparts. The trend of discrimination also seems to reflect on political decision while allotting seats. "Even in a purportedly progressive state like Kerala we do not see much participation of women. Unless there is no other choice, a seat is always considered for a male candidate. In the wake of proclamations of 'new Kerala', equality seem sidelined and made an issue only when a political point has to be scored. Building a woman wall somehow does not represent the she population. Her inclusiveness will be of value only when she is allowed and given a chance at making changes. Otherwise uplifting and creating representations for women will just remain as party howling over microphones and nothing more," Shaarika adds. Seema opines that women should be allowed to contest in seats that guarantee victory. And, she does not feel that women would be unwilling to come forward. "You cannot learn administration from theories; you have to learn it by doing it. Give women a chance, they will prove their mettle. Kerala is a place where a scope for change still exists. We have to create possibilities for that change. Also, women should demand for their rights," she stresses. Unless and until women participate in policy changes, including their well-being as part of political and social agenda, will always remain a sham. It's time, changes happen for good. Hyderabad: Scenario 1: YSR Congress leader Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy, who was murdered in Friday, was to get his partys ticket to contest from Pulivendula constituency. Could someone else benefit (by getting the ticket) and possibly win if he was no more? As the SIT probing the Vivekananda Reddy murder case struggles to achieve a breakthrough, all that the investigators seem to have concluded so far is that the hired assassin knew the topography of the house very well, which means the murder was pre-planned. Sources associated with the investigation told this newspaper that they are faced with a number of motives for the murder political, business/financial, or factional, with the slugfest between the TD and the YSRC at an all-time high as the state goes to the polls on April 11 but no credible information has yet come their way. While TD supremo and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is said to be taking a personal interest in the case and monitoring the probe on an hourly basis, his implacable foe, YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, has blamed Mr Naidu for the murder and wants the case to be handed over to the CBI. The SIT, sources said, had come across certain inputs which hint at the possibility of Vivekananda Reddy joining the TD. But the TD is projecting the murder as a family affair (indicating that someone from the Reddy family is behind it). At the same time there is no information or lead forthcoming from the YSRC camp to indicate who in the YSRC could have benefitted from Vivekananda Reddys death. Interestingly, the analysis of the investigators to a question on whether it could be a factional murder is that the history of factional murders suggests that most killings are carried out in the open, with sickles or axes, and the killers are usually known. That does not appear to be the case as it was done quietly where there is not the slightest clue about the killer, the sources said, adding that there are many distractions. The sleuths also believe that the bloodied letter, purportedly written by Vivekananda Reddy, was done so under duress. The initial assessment is that it is his handwriting but it appears that the killer forced him to write it before finally killing him, the source said. It is learnt that over the last few days, Vivekananda Reddy had been tasked with pacifying disgruntled leaders in the YSRC who appeared to be in touch with the TD and were planning to quit the party. Scenario 2: There were murmurs in political circles that Mr Reddy could jump over to the TD camp just before the elections, as he was disenchanted with his party, and therefore he was eliminated. His WhatsApp chats appear routine, while his call logs, which are still being analysed minutely have not thrown up any concrete clue so far, except to suggest that Vivekananda Reddy was part of some financial dealings that could be related to property or business. The investigators seem to have concluded so far is that the hired assassin knew the topography of the house very well. New Delhi: Manohar Parrikar, four-time Goa Chief Minister and former defence minister passed away on Sunday evening after battling pancreatic cancer for over a year. The Centre announced a national mourning on Monday, declaring that the National Flag would fly half-mast across the country. Hours after the Goa Chief Ministers office tweeted confirming Parrikars death, a program plan for his final journey was tweeted. Goa had announced a seven-day mourning after the chief minister's death. All schools and educational institutions in the state will be shut on Monday and all examinations have been postponed. Program plan of Shri Manohar Parrikar's final journey. pic.twitter.com/F48awpxoMW CMO Goa (@goacm) March 17, 2019 According to the Goa CMO, Parrikar's body will be kept at the Panjim BJP head office from 9.30 am to 10.30 am after which his body will be taken to Kala Academy in Panaji for public to pay their final respects to the chief minister. Goa: Mortal remains of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar being taken to BJP office from his residence, in Panaji. pic.twitter.com/Ksr8afYDNa ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 Goa: Mortal remains of Goa CM #ManoharParrikar brought to BJP office in Panaji. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari arrives to pay last respects to him. pic.twitter.com/nvg5j1Of4c ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 His body will be kept for public viewing until 4 pm after which the funeral procession to Miramar area in the capital will be held. The last rites will be performed at around 5 pm at SAG grounds in Campal, approximately 4km from Panaji. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman paid their last respects to Parrikar and interacted with his family. Chief Ministers of various BJP-ruled states are also expected to reach the state. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) (Photo: ANI | Twitter) The 63-year-old was seen in public outings over the past few months with a nasal tube and a frail form, which provoked opposition attacks on the ruling BJP. But in January this year, he had famously said that he "will serve Goa till my last breath." Congress General Secretary and Eastern Uttar Pradesh incharge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra waves at her supporters during 'Boat pe Charcha' as she starts her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in UP, in Prayagraj (Allahabad). (Photo: PTI) Allahabad: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam. During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her Ganga cruise is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade long wilderness in the state. The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh offered prayers on the banks of Sangam -- a confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. In a tweet, Priyanka recalled her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While putting me to sleep at night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," the Congress leader said in a tweet in Hindi. - pic.twitter.com/q8Ecdb2RsL Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) March 17, 2019 Soon after her arrival here on Sunday, Priyanka said political stagnation in Uttar Pradesh had left the state's youth, women, farmers and labourers distressed and it was her responsibility to change the politics here. "Due to stagnation in the politics of the state, youngsters, women, farmers and labourers are worried. They want to share their pain and agony, but in the noise of political arithmetic, their voice is completely absent from the policies of the state," she said in an open letter. Gandhi said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a 'sacha samwaad' (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in politics. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. The Congress leader said she would reach out to people through various means of transportation, including waterways, buses, train and 'padayatra' (on foot). "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our 'Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb' (cross culture). It does not differentiate among people. Gangaji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," Priyanka said letter read. As part of her campaign tour, Priyanka will also visit Bhadohi and Mirzapur districts. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. The 24-year-old deceased rifleman belonged to Janer village, under Dharam Kot Tehsil in Moga district of Punjab and he is survived by his parents, he said. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Jammu: A soldier was killed; four others were injured in Pakistani shelling along Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district on Monday. A soldier was martyred and three others were injured in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Keri Battal area of Akhnoor this morning, said an Army source. Earlier, Defence spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand had said that at around 5.30 am, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by shelling with mortars and firing of small arms along LoC in Sunderbani Sector. He said Indian Army retaliated effectively and the firing stopped at 0715 hours. "In the incident, rifleman Karamjeet Singh was critically injured and later succumbed to injuries," the spokesman said, adding four other soldiers were injured and condition of two of them was critical. The 24-year-old deceased rifleman belonged to Janer village, under Dharam Kot Tehsil in Moga district of Punjab and he is survived by his parents, he said. On Sunday too, the sector was targeted by the Pakistan Army in unprovoked ceasefire violation. The border skirmishes witnessed a spurt after India's air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot on February 26 in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. Ahmedabad: While it is almost certain now that BJP patriarch L.K. Advani will not contest from Gandhinagar, suspense over his replacement is heightening by the day. There is a strong buzz that party president Amit Shah will replace him, but the situation is not clear yet. The BJP had sent a team of three observers to each constituency to collect the opinions of leaders and workers. We have taken the sense of MLAs and party workers from this constituency. No particular name was suggested, but all workers were of opinion that someone from the national leadership should contest from here, Dr Nima Acharya, one of the observers and BJP MLA, said. Though the observers are not saying it, most party workers have reportedly sought Mr Shah as the candidate. He has represented the Sarkhej Assembly segment, which is part of the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, and had successfully managed Mr Advanis poll campaigns. But, according to party insiders, political rivalry between Mr Shah and Ms Anandiben Patel, former chief minister and Governor of Madhya Pradesh, was the real reason behind the proposal to get the BJP president to contest from Gandhinagar. Ms Patel is believed to be keen on her daughter Anar or a close aide getting a nomination for the seat. Her presence in the state in these days is being seen in this context. She had represented the Ghatlodia Assembly segment, which is also part of the Gandhinagar constituency. An MLA had reportedly suggested Ms Patels name for this seat, though there is no chance of her being nominated for the Lok Sabha election. In this scenario, it is possible that Mr Shahs supporters might have demanded a national leadership candidate just to silence the Anandiben Patel camp. Party leaders feel Mr Shah contesting from Gandhinagar it will give a huge momentum in favour of the party. The state parliamentary board is meeting at Gandhinagar to finalise the candidates. Congress general secretary and Eastern Uttar Pradesh incharge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra waves at her supporters during Boat pe Charcha as she starts her partys campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in UP in Prayagraj on Monday. (PTI) Allahabad: Seeking to navigate the Congress towards regaining its lost political moorings in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday began her Ganga Yatra on boat to reach out to voters urging them to bring a government that works for them and asserting that my brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says. The 47-year-old Congress general secretary, clad in a green cotton saree and pink blouse, interacted with a cross section of people, including students, and invited some of them to join her on the motorboat as she undertook her much anticipated ride from the Manaiya Ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj district. Kicking off the Lok Sabha election campaign with her three-day visit to eastern Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and will also visit several temples while literally testing the political waters of UP where the Congress has been in wilderness for nearly three decades. She started her river journey with a visit to the Sangam and performing puja along with party leaders at the Bade Hanuman Mandir, popular as Letee Hanuman Ji near Prayagraj Sangam. Priyanka was accompanied by party leaders including BJP turncoat Savitri Bai Phule and Congress MLA from Rampur Khas (Pratapgarh). Sitting cross-legged on the motorboat, the Congress leader, who has been assigned the task of leading the campaign in the region where political opponents like the BJP and the BSP-SP have a strong footing, was all ears as the locals residing on the river bank apprised her of their issues. Taking a halt at the Dumduma Ghat under the watchful eyes of SPG personnel escorting her, Priyanka in her brief address said that she had come here to listen to the people and learn about their problems rather than giving speeches. She asked the people to bring a government which works for you...My brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says... In MP, in ten days of Congress coming to power, farmers loans were waived...Same in Rajasthan. Bengaluru: In a move that is aimed at winning brownie points in India's tech capital which has seen start-ups begun by enthusiastic millennials run aground in the face of stepped up IT investigation into the angel tax the 30.9 % tax levied on investments made by external investors in startups or companies Congress President Rahul Gandhi Monday said that the dreaded angel tax goes counter to the philosophy of startups and his party would get rid of it on coming to power. Striking at the heart of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's much touted 'Make in India' which has been stymied by IT scrutiny on investment, the Congress chief, speaking to a gathering of entrepreneurs at Manyata tech park here said, "I have been informed about the angel tax and angel tax goes counter to the philosophy of startups...we are going to get rid of this tax. When we come to power, we will scrap it...you can call me on that one." To a question on GST by a participant, Mr. Gandhi was equally scathing, calling it a "disaster", saying the Congress, on coming to power, will work to give "one GST", which is simple and lowest tax possible. Stating that the Congress had come up with the idea of the Goods and Services Tax with an aim to simplify things, he said the current government launched it in a hurry. Frankly it is a disaster. The definition of GST is one tax, so even though this government calls it a GST, it is not. It is five different layers of taxes and it is counter productive," he said. "We are pretty clear we are going to get rid of this GST, we are going to reform it and we are going to work to give one GST, which is simple and lowest tax possible, he said. Also noting that the existing GST leaves out huge chunks of the Indian economy, he said some of those things are going to be brought into it. It is perfectly doable... he said, adding that GST was a "self inflicted" wound by the current government and it has had a devastating effect, very much like demonetisation. To a question on the eCommerce policy, Mr. Gandhi conceded that he had not gone into the details of the policy, but promised to look into it on coming to power. I have been given a little bit of a briefing on it. I think there are issues with warehousing in the policy, that I have been told about. There is a balance that has to be created between the large and small players...I don't know how the policy creates the balance, but I think we would think about in terms of being fair to all the stakeholders, he added. Mr Gandhi said, "Skill exists all over the country. We just need fine tune this as there is no limitation to skill. But what we lack is its accessibility. We do not hone these skills into something productive. What we need is fine tuning of policies that we need to make accessible to every youth in the country. He pointed out that the Congress had never ignored informal sector, where many jobs can be created. The 'white' revolution that was launched couple of decades ago in Gujarat is a case in a point, that how the Congress created opportunities even in informal sector by harnessing skills and making skills accessible to everyone in that region, he said. He said Bengaluru is another example where skill is made available to everyone. Bengaluru has become a start-up hub as well as a job hub in the country. Authorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 'terrorists' in Xinjiang since 2014 China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres. (Photo:AP) Beijing: Authorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 "terrorists" in Xinjiang since 2014, the government said on Monday, in a policy paper defending its controversial de-radicalisation measures for Muslims in the restive far western region. China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres holding more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims. Beijing says it needs the measures to stem the threat of Islamist militancy, and calls them vocational training centres. Legal authorities have adopted a policy that "strikes the right balance between compassion and severity", the government said in its white paper. Since 2014, Xinjiang has "destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials", it added. Only a small minority of people face strict punishment, such as ringleaders of terror groups, while those influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training to teach them the error of their ways, the paper said. It also gave a breakdown of 30 attacks since 1990, with the last one recorded in December 2016, saying 458 people had died and at least 2,540 were wounded as a consequence of attacks and other unrest. The main exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, swiftly denounced the white paper. "China is deliberately distorting the truth," spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement. "Counter-terrorism is a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs. The real aim of the so-called de-radicalisation is to eliminate faith and thoroughly carry out Sinification." The white paper said Xinjiang has faced a particular challenge since the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States, as East Turkestan extremists ramped up activities in China, using China's term for extremists and separatists it says operates in Xinjiang. "They screamed the evil words of 'getting into heaven by martyrdom with jihad', turning some people into extremists and terrorists who have been completely mind-controlled, and even turned into murderous devils." Religious extremism under the banner of Islam runs counter to Islamic doctrines, and is not Islam, it added. Xinjiang has long been an inseparable part of Chinese territory, and the Uighur ethnic group evolved from a long process of migration and ethnic integration, the paper said. "They are not descendants of the Turks." Turkey is the only Islamic country that has regularly expressed concern about the situation in Xinjiang, due to cultural links with the Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language. China has denounced Turkish concern as unwarranted and interference in its internal affairs. "Undoubtedly, China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation struggle in Xinjiang is an important part of the international fight against terrorism and has made important contributions in this regard," the white paper said in its concluding remarks. Tirupati: YSR Congress MLA R.K. Roja on Sunday accused the TD national president and AP CM N. Chandrababu Naidu of masterminding the murder of former MP and YSRC chief Y.S. Jagans uncle, Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy. Addressing mediapersons after having a darshan of Lord Venkateswara at Tirumala on Sunday, Ms Roja alleged, When Y.S. Raja Reddy was murdered, TD was in power. When there was a murder attempt on Y.S. Jagan, TD was in power and when this murder happened, TD was again in power. With this people can understand about conspiracies being hatched by the Telugu Desam. She also blamed TD minister Adinarayana for the alleged murder of Vivekananda Reddy. Its not new for Telugu Desam opting for murder politics. Adinarayana Reddys hand is behind the murder of Vivekananda Reddy, he executed the plan hatched by the TD as they were afraid of losing at Jammalamadugu constituency, she alleged. Demanding a CBI probe into the murder, Ms. Roja said When Paritala Ravindra was murdered in Anantapur the same Chandrababu Naidu demanded a CBI probe while Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy was the AP Chief Minister. The then CM immediately ordered a CBI probe and the investigation was carried out in a transparent manner. Why has Chandrababu not ordered for a CBI probe now? Mr. Naidu is scared of a CBI probe, as it will reveal the truth behind the murder. Kamal Haasan had on February 7 stated that his party was gearing up for contesting all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for the coming Parliamentary polls. (Photo: File) Chennai: Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) party on Monday informed that they will share the list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on March 20. The list of candidates who will contest in 2019 Parliamentary and By-Elections on behalf of Makkal Needhi Maiam will be revealed on 20/03/2019, stated Dr R. Mahendran, Vice President of MNM in a press release. The list will be announced by the Actor-turned-politician and president of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan. Kamal Haasan had on February 7 stated that his party was gearing up for contesting all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry for the coming Parliamentary polls. Though the actor didnt disclose from where is he likely to contest the election, he clearly indicated that he would not form an alliance with any 'tainted' group. "Our aim is to not go with any tainted group. We are preparing to contest 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. I cannot say at this moment from where I will contest," said Haasan while talking to media personnel. MNM was launched by Haasan on February 21 last year from his hometown of Rameswaram. As part of the launch of his political faction, Haasan toured Tamil Nadu extensively to interact with locals in different villages of Tamil Nadu. The former chief minister also clarified that including Uttar Pradesh, the BSP is not in alliance with the Congress in any other state. (Photo: File) Lucknow: In a clear message to the Congress party, BSP supremo Mayawati on Monday said that the BSP-SP alliance can alone defeat the BJP in the forthcoming general elections. In a series of tweets, Mayawati asserted that the Congress should feel free to contest in all 80 seats in UP. The Congress party on Sunday announced to leave seven Lok Sabha seats for Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh, where 80 seats are at stake. "Congress is fully free in Uttar Pradesh and should field its own candidate for contesting on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats. Our alliance (SP-BSP) alone is capable of defeating the BJP. Congress should not forcibly spread rumours by leaving 7 seats in UP for the SP-BSP alliance," tweeted Mayawati. The former chief minister also clarified that including Uttar Pradesh, the BSP is not in alliance with the Congress in any other state. "BSP once again wants to make it very clear that in Uttar Pradesh and in the country as a whole we are not in any form of alliance or agreement with Congress. Our people should not pay heed to the rumours spread by the Congress" It is worth mentioning that SP, BSP, and RLD have forged an alliance to take on the BJP in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in the state. SP president Akhilesh Yadav had, however, claimed that the Congress party is with the SP-BSP alliance in UP. SP-BSP has left Rae Bareli and Amethi seats for the Congress. As per the seat-sharing agreement, SP is contesting 37 seats and BSP 38. Three seats have been given to the RLD--Mathura, Muzaffarpur, and Baghpat. Warangal: Following the AICCs decision to field former Union minister Porika Balram Naik from the Mahbubabad Lok Sabha constituency, the Adivasi and Lambada leaders from within the party have announced that they will be contesting as rebels. One candidate each from the Adivasi and Lambada leaders have declared that they will be contesting the election. The Lambada Hakkula Porata Samiti (LHPS) has come down hard on the Congresss decision regarding its selection of candidates. The leaders questioned why the party had chosen someone who was defeated in three consecutive elections. After being elected in 2009, Mr Naik contested once again in 2014 but lost to the TRS Ajmeera Seetharam Naik. In 2018, he was nominated for the Rajya Sabha but lost the election. In the same year, he contested the Assembly elections from the Mahbubabad constituency but was defeated once again. Not only the Adivasis but also the Lambadas said that Mr Naik does not deserve another chance. Several Congress workers from the constituency joined the TRS after the AICC announced Mr Naik as the candidate. LHPS state president Kotya Naik announced that AICC tribal cell co-chairman Bellaiah Naik Tejavath will contest the seat as a rebel candidate. Meanwhile, TPCC member and Adivasi leader Chimala Venkateshwarlu called it unfortunate that the Adivasis continue to be ignored despite having more representation than the Lambadas. He pointed out that Congress has declared the Lambadas from both, Mahabubabad and Adilabad, which are reserved for STs. He threatened to contest the elections if the party fails to rethink. Hyderabad: Congress Malkajgiri candidate A. Revanth Reddy, the TPCC working president, is meeting Opposition leaders to get their support for the April 11 elections. He secured the backing of CPI Telangana state secretary Chada Venkata Reddy and Telangana Jana Samiti president Prof. M. Kodandaram. Addressing party workers on Monday, Mr Revanth Reddy said that the Congress would form government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections. He asked what Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would do if the TRS won 16 Lok Sabha seats. He said that the TRS has 16 MPs in the previous Lok Sabha term including the defector MPs, but they could not get the Centre to implement promises contained in the bifurcation Act. He said Mr Rao had no role in the Lok Sabha elections which belonged to the national parties. Mr Revanth Reddy said that nothing would happen to the Congress if some leaders left the party. He asked the people of Malkajgiri to elect a strong leader as their MP. Meanwhile, former minister Ravindra Naik alleged that the Congress had nominated defeated leaders and parachute leaders in the first list and injustice was done to eligible leaders. Mr Naik said he would file his nomination papers on March 22 for the Lok Sabha elections. He said the party had denied him the Mahbubabad seat, and while he was willing to settle for the Nalgonda some leaders are against his candidature. Hyderabad: BJP and Telangana Congress leaders ridiculed the statement of TRS President and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao over the formation of a national party. They asked what the CM would do by floating a national party after the Lok Sabha elections. Telangana BJP President K. Laxman accused the CM of changing his colours often inviting ridicule. He should explain about how he will develop the country like Telangana, he added. Mr Laxman pointed out that Mr Chandrasekhar Rao demanded that all powers be given to states. Then what would be do in Delhi, he asked. He also pointed out that Mr Chandrasekhar Rao had not come to the secretariat for six years and was confined to Pragathi Bhavan. He said that the CM stood first in running up a debt to the tune of Rs 2 lakh crore and in encouraging defections. Meanwhile, TPCC Working President A. Revanth Reddy questioned of what use would it be if the CM formed a national party after the Lok Sabha elections. His colleague, MLC Shabbier Ali wanted to know that if Mr Chandrasekhar Rao was forming a national party what had become of the Federal front. He is misleading the people with his statements, he said. Hyderabad: TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao defended the defection of Congress MLAs into the ruling party, and said legislators changing their party was not a new thing. He was addressing several leaders from Vikarabad, Bhupalpally and Secunderabad Cantonment areas who joined the TRS on Monday. Mr Rao said legislators of all parties were attracted towards the TRS. Changing of parties is nothing new, he said. He said if the TRS won 16 Lok Sabha seats, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would change the direction of the nation. In reply to the criticism of some parties regarding what the TRS, a regional party, could do on the national stage, Mr Rama Rao said some national parties were confined to some states. Lucknow: A day after the Congress said it was leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for the SP-BSP-RLD combine in Uttar Pradesh, BSP supremo Mayawati Monday asked the national party not to spread confusion and said the alliance was capable of defeating the BJP on its own. At the same time, she dared the Congress to go ahead and field candidates in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In the wake of her comments, the Samajwadi Party (SP) also asked the grand old party not to spread any kind of confusion while maintaining that the BSP-SP-RLD alliance is capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The parliamentary elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases. Hours later, the BSPs poll ally SP also asked the Congress not to spread any kind of confusion and maintained that the BSP-SP-RLD alliance was capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP chief in a series of tweets made it clear that the party will not enter into any alliance with the Congress. On Sunday, the Congress announced that it was leaving seven Lok Sabha seats in the state for the SP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance. The Congress is free to field its candidates on all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh alone. In other words, our alliance (of SP-BSP-RLD) is capable enough of defeating the BJP. The Congress should refrain from spreading confusion about leaving seven seats for the (SP-BSP-RLD)alliance, Ms Mayawati said in a tweet. In a tweet, SP president Akhilesh Yadav said, In Uttar Pradesh, the SP, BSP and RLD alliance is capable of defeating the BJP. The Congress party need not spread any kind of confusion. Ms Mayawati also said, The BSP would like to m-ake it clear once again there is no alliance or un-derstanding with the Co-ngress in UP and anywhere in the country. Our party workers should not succumb to confusion being spread almost everyday by the Congress, she said. Hyderabad: The TRS has scored a century in the Assembly, a desire often expressed by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao before the elections. Now, thanks to a series of defections, the TRS has reached the 100-mark. Before the Assembly elections, Mr Rao used to repeatedly say that the TRS would get more than 100 seats out of the 119 in the Assembly. The TRS ended up with 88 seats. The accrual of seats began almost immediately afterwards when legislators L. Ramulu Naik from Wyra (independent) and K. Chandar Patel from Ramagundam (Forward Bloc) joined the TRS, taking its strength to 90. The government renominated Mr Elvis Stephenson as the nominated MLA from the Anglo-Indian community, giving it the support of 91 legislators. After this eight Congress legislators and Telugu Desam MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah announced that they would join the TRS, some of them after meeting Mr Chandrasekhar Rao and the others after meeting party working president K.T. Rama Rao. The TRS can now count on 100 votes. The TD is now left with one legislator and the Congress 11. There are speculations that some more Congress MLAs may jump ship, among them are Mulugu MLA Dasari Anasuya (Seethakka) and Bhadrachalam MLA Podem Veeraiah. Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi regime, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 last year, where he had gone to obtain paperwork certifying his divorce with his former wife Alaa Nassif in order to be able to re-marry his Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz. (Photo: AFP | File) New York: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorised a "secret campaign" to silence dissenters more than a year before the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The campaign included surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudi citizens, according to American officials with knowledge of classified reports. Officials said that the members of the group, who were a part of what they called the "Saudi Rapid Intervention Group", were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017, according to New York Times. The group carried out missions including forcibly repatriating Saudi Arabian dissidents from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing them. The American officials did not reveal their identities for fear of repercussions from disclosing classified information or infuriating the Saudi government. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said that Riyadh takes any allegations of ill-treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously, the report said. Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi regime, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 last year, where he had gone to obtain paperwork certifying his divorce with his former wife Alaa Nassif in order to be able to re-marry his Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz. After presenting several contradictory theories, Saudi Arabia acknowledged that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate premises in what the country's then Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had described as a "rogue operation". According to the US intelligence agencies, the murder of Khashoggi was enacted upon orders by the Saudi Crown Prince. However, Saudi Arabia repeatedly rejected all the allegations against its Crown Prince, adding that it is committed to bringing the perpetrators to justice. The BJP politician studied in the Catholic state schools. Card. Gracias: "We can sincerely say that Goa and India have lost a great leader and that the Christian community has lost a sincere and honest friend". His death reopens political dispute with the Congress. New Delhi (AsiaNews) - Thousands of Indian citizens are paying tribute to Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa who died yesterday at the age of 63, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was loved by the population and highly esteemed by the authorities of the Church. His sudden death leaves a profound void in the politics of the Indian state, which in the coming weeks will vote in general elections. A reserved character and reluctant to bitter political contests, he managed to bridge the gap between his Hindu nationalist party Bjp (Bharatiya Janata Party) and the local Catholic Church, from which he gained great respect in 2012 when he opposed the decision to eliminate the Good Friday celebrations. For this, Card. Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai and president of the Indian Bishops' Conference (CBCI), and Msgr. Filipe Neri Ferrao, Archbishop of Goa and Daman, entrust their condolences to two official communiques. Card Gracias, who calls himself a "sincere friend" of Parrikar, says: "We pay tribute to his courage and determination". "We are proud - he adds - that as a child he studied at a Catholic school, Loyola High School in Margaro. We are happy that the Catholic Church has been instrumental in the formation of such an illustrious, committed and devoted leader." The president of the Indian Catholic bishops expresses his gratitude on behalf of the whole Church "for the collaboration and support that the Hon. Parrikar has always offered to the Church and for his sensitivity to the needs of the Christian community. In 2012 he was honest in admitting that the decision to cancel the Good Friday festivity in Goa was an error, respected the sentiments of the Christian Community, restored the holiday and never looked back." Likewise, in 2014, the former chief minister, then the defense minister of the Indian Union, opposed the government's decision to celebrate Good Governance Day on December 25, the day when Christians celebrate Christmas. "We can sincerely say - says Card. Gracias - that Goa and India have lost a great leader and that the Christian community has lost a sincere and honest friend. The archbishop of Goa also states that " Shri Parrikars passing away is a great loss to the people of Goa. As the Chief Minister of Goa, he showed great acumen in the political administration of the State and was always considerate towards the developmental needs of the people of this land. His sense of secularism and communal harmony and respect for the various religions, cultures and traditions of the people have been generally appreciated by the population of the State, as was his judiciousness in settling issues and finding lasting solutions for the welfare of the masses. His far sight led him to plan for the near and distant future. Elected in the administrative round of 2016 among the BJP, his death opens a new political clash with the Congress. In fact, in those elections the Gandhi family party had won in terms of seats gained (17 out of 40). But then the BJP had succeeded in building an alliance with the regional parties, thus obtaining the administration of the State. Parrikar's death caused the dispute to resurface, with Rahul Gandhi who, along with his condolences, recalled that the Congress is still the first party in Goa and should have the lead. (Nirmala Carvalho collaborated) Islamabad: Pakistans former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has been admitted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease that has weakened his nervous system, his party said. Musharraf, 75, who has been living in Dubai since March 2016, is facing treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offence for which he was indicted in 2014. A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. The former army chief left for Dubai for medical treatment and has not returned since, citing security and health reasons. Musharraf was rushed to the hospital as an emergency on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said on Sunday. APML Overseas president Afzaal Siddiqui said Musharraf suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president has been receiving medical care. According to the party, the former president has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. Siddiqui informed about Musharraf's illness in October last year, saying the former president's disease has weakened his nervous system. At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. Due to amyloidosis, broken protein starts getting deposited in various organs, Siddiqui said. [As a result] Pervez Musharraf has difficulty in standing and walking. Jeddah: Speculations are rife that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has lost his financial and economic authority as his father wanted to rein in after the international outrage over his alleged actions. He has not attended a series of high-profile ministerial and diplomatic meetings over the last fortnight. The move to restrict his responsibilities temporarily is understood to have been revealed to a group of senior ministers earlier last week by his father, King Salman. The king is said to have asked Bin Salman to be at this cabinet meeting, but he failed to attend, the Guardian reports. While the move has not been declared publicly, one of the kings trusted advisers, Harvard-educated Musaed al-Aiban, recently named as national security adviser, will informally oversee investment decisions on the kings behalf. The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly ordered by Prince Mohammed, had provoked international condemnation, though the Saudis denied any role. Meanwhile, more than a year before the killing of Khashoggi, Prince Mohammed approved a secret campaign to silence dissenters, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The campaign included surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudis, said the report which cited US officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the effort. American officials referred to it as the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, the Times said. At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, suggesting his murder was part of a wider campaign against dissidents, the report said, citing the US officials and associates of some Saudi victims. Among its activities, the Rapid Intervention Group appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of prominent women's rights activists arrested last year, the Times said. Utrecht: A gunman killed three people and wounded nine others on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, sparking a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with sniffer dogs zero in on an apartment building close to the shooting. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level, and the city's mayor said a "terror motive" was the most likely theory. Dutch military police went on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey who they said was "associated with the incident." The photo showed a bearded man on board a tram, dressed in a dark blue hooded top. Police warned citizens not to approach the man, whom they identified as Gokmen Tanis, but call authorities instead. The Utrecht attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. They later erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Utrecht police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Heavily armed anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A sniffer dogs wearing a tactical vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed three deaths and said that nine people were wounded, three of them seriously. "We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more," van Zanen said. "Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. He said that "a terror motive is not excluded." Rutte said that, throughout the country, "there is a mix of disbelief and disgust." "If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence," he added. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one possibility "is that the person fled by car." He did not rule out the possibility that more than one shooter was involved. The Netherlands' anti-terror coordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000 people. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the "threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province." Dutch political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of the Dutch parliament's upper house. In neighboring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for federal police in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said additional officers had been detailed to watch not only major highways, but also minor crossings and railway routes. German authorities were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact sedan, but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht, Onstein said. The Hague: A gunman opened fire on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday, killing at least three people and wounding several in what officials said was a possible terrorist incident. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said people may have died in a shooting in the city of Utrecht being treated as a possible terror attack, adding that the Netherlands would "never give way to intolerance". Rutte told a brief press conference in The Hague with the country's justice minister that there were "several wounded and possible deaths" in the incident. A body covered in a sheet was reportedly seen on the tracks as armed police and emergency services swarmed around the scene in one of the largest cities in the Netherlands. Police said the attacker was still on the run after the incident. "A shooting occurred on the 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht... Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off and we are investigating the matter," Utrecht police said on Twitter. "It is a shooting incident in a tram. Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help." Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte cancelled a meeting with his ruling coalition and was being briefed on the situation, officials said. Police later said that "a possible terrorist motive is part of the investigation". The head of the Dutch national counter-terrorism service, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, said on Twitter that he was having "crisis consultations" over the incident. "NCTV is monitoring the situation in #Utrecht. In close contact with local authorities. We cannot rule out terrorist motive. Crisis team is activated," he said. A shooting occurred on the #24oktoberplein in #Utrecht. The incident has been reported at 10.45 hour. Multiple people have been injured. The surrounding area has been cordoned off and we are investigating the matter. Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019 "Offender still fugitive," Aalbersberg said, adding that the terror threat level had been raised to the maximum of five in Utrecht for the next 18 hours. Local media showed photographs of masked, armed police and emergency vehicles surrounding a tram that had stopped near a road bridge. Tram traffic in the area was halted, operator Qbuzz was quoted as saying by the ANP news agency. The Netherlands has been largely spared the kind of attacks which have rocked its closest European neighbours in the past few years, but there has been a series of recent scares. In August, a 19-year-old Afghan with a German residence permit stabbed and injured two American tourists at Amsterdam's busy Central Station before being shot and wounded. In September, Dutch investigators said they had arrested seven people and foiled a "major attack" on civilians at a major event in the Netherlands. They said they had found a large quantity of bomb-making materials including fertiliser likely to be used in a car bomb. The men were arrested in the cities of Arnhem and Weert. In June, two terror suspects were arrested while close to carrying out attacks including at an iconic bridge in Rotterdam and in France, prosecutors said. The men aged 22 and 28, who were of Moroccan origin, made a film at the Erasmus bridge in which they sang a martyrdom song, they said. Rouhani urged Iranians to 'put all your curses on those who created the current situation.' (File Photo) Tehran: Iran's president is urging Iranians to put a curse on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia blaming the US and its allies for his country's ailing economy. Monday's televised remarks by Hassan Rouhani were meant to deflect criticism of his administration's performance amid a spiralling economy after the Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran last year, targeting Iran's vital oil sector. Rouhani urged Iranians to "put all your curses on those who created the current situation" and added that "the United States, the Zionists" and Saudi Arabia were to blame. He didn't say what kind of curses the Iranians should invoke. The crisis that s gripping Iran has hurt ordinary Iranians and emboldened Rouhani's critics to openly call for his ouster. China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres. (Photo:AP) Beijing: Authorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 "terrorists" in Xinjiang since 2014, the government said on Monday, in a policy paper defending its controversial de-radicalisation measures for Muslims in the restive far western region. China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres holding more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims. Beijing says it needs the measures to stem the threat of Islamist militancy, and calls them vocational training centres. Legal authorities have adopted a policy that "strikes the right balance between compassion and severity", the government said in its white paper. Since 2014, Xinjiang has "destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials", it added. Only a small minority of people face strict punishment, such as ringleaders of terror groups, while those influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training to teach them the error of their ways, the paper said. It also gave a breakdown of 30 attacks since 1990, with the last one recorded in December 2016, saying 458 people had died and at least 2,540 were wounded as a consequence of attacks and other unrest. The main exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, swiftly denounced the white paper. "China is deliberately distorting the truth," spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement. "Counter-terrorism is a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs. The real aim of the so-called de-radicalisation is to eliminate faith and thoroughly carry out Sinification." The white paper said Xinjiang has faced a particular challenge since the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States, as East Turkestan extremists ramped up activities in China, using China's term for extremists and separatists it says operates in Xinjiang. "They screamed the evil words of 'getting into heaven by martyrdom with jihad', turning some people into extremists and terrorists who have been completely mind-controlled, and even turned into murderous devils." Religious extremism under the banner of Islam runs counter to Islamic doctrines, and is not Islam, it added. Xinjiang has long been an inseparable part of Chinese territory, and the Uighur ethnic group evolved from a long process of migration and ethnic integration, the paper said. "They are not descendants of the Turks." Turkey is the only Islamic country that has regularly expressed concern about the situation in Xinjiang, due to cultural links with the Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language. China has denounced Turkish concern as unwarranted and interference in its internal affairs. "Undoubtedly, China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation struggle in Xinjiang is an important part of the international fight against terrorism and has made important contributions in this regard," the white paper said in its concluding remarks. Bangalore University (BU) is all set to offer disaster management, film media and animation graphics courses from the next academic year, 2019-20. The framework for the same is already set, where the film media, animation and graphics courses will be functioning under the electronic media department and the disaster management course under the department of geography. A team from BUs geography department had visited flood-hit Kodagu last year, where the design of the course was planned. Though the course was in the pipeline much before that. So, the curriculum has been finalised, where the admission for the same will happen from the next academic year. This would be one of the professional courses in geography, a senior official from BU told DH. BU will be offering MSc in Disaster Management, MA in Film Studies and MA in Animation and Graphics from next academic year. As the most number of seats remained vacant the previous year, the BU syndicate decided to give importance for professional courses. Since film media and animation and graphics have greater scope, they have finalised the curriculum. We have the infrastructure to start the above courses. For animation and graphics, all we need is computer systems, which will be set up at a reasonable cost. And for film media, we are planning to tie up with film institutes, which will be more than happy to help us in practicals. A few years down the line, we will be having our own film institute on the campus, Venugopal K R, vice-chancellor, BU, told DH. Talking about disaster management, Venugopal added: Its not necessary to approach disaster management from a negative perspective. It could also be about avoiding the adverse effects of a natural calamity or the management after a disaster. Due to climate change, the world is open to the risk of many natural calamities. The course is designed in such a way that the students will be exposed to all the aspects, like medical emergencies and others. Dutch police on Monday arrested a Turkish-born suspect over a possible terror attack on a tram in the city of Utrecht that left three people dead and five wounded. Police had earlier launched a huge manhunt for Gokmen Tanis, 37, issuing a picture of him on the tram and warning the public not to approach him. Heavily armed officers later surrounded a building following the bloodshed in the Netherlands' fourth largest city and his arrest was dramatically announced at the end of a news conference. Dutch authorities said they were still investigating a likely terrorist motive for the attack but said they "cannot exclude" other motives, including a family dispute. "We have just heard that the suspect we are looking for has been arrested," Utrecht police chief Rob van Bree told a news conference after being handed a piece of paper with news of the arrest. The head of the Dutch national counter-terrorism service, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, confirmed "the arrest of the main suspect for the shooting". He said authorities had lowered the threat level in Utrecht from the maximum level five as a result of the arrest. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the theory that it was a terror attack "could not be excluded", vowing that the Netherlands would "never give way to intolerance". Security forces were on high alert at airports and mosques following the shooting, after which a body covered in a white sheet could be seen lying on the tram tracks. Mosques in Utrecht had shut for the day following the attack, the ANP news agency said, which comes just days after 50 people were killed at mosques in New Zealand in a rampage by an alleged white supremacist. The city's mayor Jan van Zanen said it was a "black day for Utrecht". Prosecution officer Rutger Jeuken said that "it looks like what we are dealing with is a terrorist motive". But officials added that they "could not exclude" reports that the gunman had targeted a woman known to him and others who tried to help her. Suspect Tanis was reportedly in court in a rape case two weeks ago, broadcaster NOS said. One witness told NOS they had seen an injured person running out of the tram with blood on her hands and clothes who then fell to the ground. "I brought her into my car and helped her. When the police arrived, she was unconscious," the witness, who was not named, told the broadcaster. The father of the suspect, Mehmet Tanis, said his son should be punished if found responsible, a Turkish news agency reported. "If he did it he must be punished," the DHA agency quoted the father as saying. He said he had lost contact with his son having returned to his homeland in 2008 after divorcing his wife, DHA reported. She remained in the Netherlands with Gokmen. "He did not have an aggressive attitude -- but 11 years have gone by. What happened, what has he experienced? I know nothing whatsoever," Mehmet Tanis said. All major political parties including Rutte's VVD announced that they were suspending campaigning ahead of local elections on Wednesday which will determine the make-up of the Dutch senate. "An act of terror is an attack on our civilisation, on our tolerant and open society. If this continues, only one answer is appropriate. And that is that our rule of law and our democracy are stronger than fanaticism and violence," Rutte told a brief press conference in The Hague. "We will not give way to intolerance. Never." The Dutch military police said they were on "high alert" and were boosting security at airports and at other vital buildings including parliament and Rutte's office. Mosques in Utrecht shut for the day following the attack, the ANP news agency said, which comes just days after 50 people were killed at two mosques in New Zealand in a rampage allegedly carried out by a white supremacist. European allies expressed support for the Dutch government. "The EU stands side by side with the Netherlands and its people during these difficult times," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was "hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day... The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands." The Netherlands has been largely spared the kind of attacks which have rocked its closest European neighbours in the past few years, but there has been a series of recent scares. In August, a 19-year-old Afghan with a German residence permit stabbed and injured two American tourists at Amsterdam's Central Station before being shot and wounded. In September, Dutch investigators said they had arrested seven people and foiled a "major attack" on civilians at a big event in the Netherlands. In June, two terror suspects were arrested while close to carrying out attacks including at an iconic bridge in Rotterdam and in France, prosecutors said. An Army soldier was killed while three others were injured when Pakistan troops resorted to ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. Sources said that Pakistani troops resorted to ceasefire violation and fired with sniper upon the Indian Army posts in Keri Battal of Sunderbani sector along the LoC at around 5:30 am. Four Indian soldiers suffered serious injuries in the attack, and they were immediately evacuated to military hospital, where one of the succumbed to his injuries, they said. Indian Army retaliated effectively, and firing stopped at 7.15 am, an army official said. Border skirmishes witnessed a spurt after India's pre-emptive air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camp in Pakistan's Balakot on February 26 following the February 14 Pulwama terror attack. Four civilians, including three members of a family, were killed and several others injured as Pakistan targeted dozens of villages in over 100 incidents of ceasefire violations along the LoC in the state, especially in the twin districts of Poonch and Rajouri, since then. In November last year, three Indian soldiers were killed due to sniper attack along the LoC south of Pir Panjal range. The ceasefire violations and sniper attacks by Pakistani troops are on rise with dozens of civilians and security personnel, getting killed and hundreds, others injured in last year. Sources said Pakistani troops have positioned snipers at odd locations close to the forward posts to target Indian troopers proceeding on long patrols and forward locations. "Pak Army relies on their team of snipers to target Indian positions and in the last two years, several Indian troopers have lost their lives in sniper shots," they revealed. There is 198 km IB and over 510 km of LoC with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. A newly-wed who died in the Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines plane crash had texted her husband she would call him on landing, media reported on Tuesday. Shikha Garg, who was travelling to attend the annual assembly of the UN Environment Programme, had got married less than three months ago to Soumya Bhattacharya after dating for three years. Bhattacharya was also supposed to fly with her to Nairobi but a last-minute change in plans meant he stayed back in New Delhi, the mass-circulation Times of India reported. "I have boarded the flight and will call you once I land," Garg texted. But before the husband could type a reply, his phone buzzed and a caller informed him about the plane crash, the newspaper said. Bhattacharya had also bought a flight ticket for Nairobi but cancelled it because of an urgent meeting. The couple, who lived in New Delhi, had instead planned a vacation after Garg's return from Nairobi. On Monday, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said she was unable to get in touch with Garg's family and appealed for help on Twitter. Later she said she had managed to speak to Garg's bereaved family members as well as those of other three Indians who died in the crash. Garg was a consultant with the Indian environment ministry and had taken part in the negotiations leading to the 2015 Paris climate accord. The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed just minutes after an early-morning takeoff Sunday from Addis Ababa. People holding passports from 35 countries were on board including some two dozen UN staff. The aircraft was the same type as the Indonesian Lion Air plane that crashed in October, killing 189 passengers and crew. The latest crash has prompted airlines across the world to begin withdrawing the model from schedules. Airlines regulators Monday ordered additional maintenance checks on Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes but ruled out any immediate grounding of the fleet. Spicejet and Jet Airways together operate 17 of the planes. Jet, which has had to ground parts of its fleet in recent weeks due to its financial woes, said none of its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft was operational at present. A New York Times investigation cites senior US officials. The Saudi Rapid Intervention Group has ostensibly carried out several clandestine operations since 2017. Saudi leaders have not responded to the allegations. Weve never seen it on a scale like this, an expert says. Washington (AsiaNews) Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) authorised the creation of a special (secret) squad to suppress dissent in the country through surveillance, abductions and torture of individuals deemed "hostile" by Saudi leaders, this according to a New York Times investigation citing senior US officials with access to classified intelligence reports. The campaign against dissent began a year before the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed on 2 October 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. US officials refer to the squad as the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group. The squad that killed and dismembered Khashoggi also carried out other clandestine missions. As recently indicated by United Nations sources, the murder of the Saudi journalist, a critic of the Saudi regime and the crown prince, was part of a broader campaign to suppress dissent. The accusations made by senior US officials, anonymous for security reasons, are backed by relatives and friends of the victims. The Khashoggi murder has provoked global outrage and condemnations. US senators have called on US President Donald Trump to identify and punish those responsible. Although suspicions have fallen on MbS and his close circle of loyalists, Trump has done nothing so far, clearing MbS of any involvement to protect the alliance with the Saudis. For its part, Riyadh has consistently denied any responsibility of MBS, blaming unspecified rogue elements. So far, 11 people are facing charges in Saudi Arabia in connection with Khashoggis death, but little is known of their trial. The intervention group has been accused, among other things, of detaining, abducting and abusing leading activists currently on trial. According to sources, the squad was so busy that its leader asked MbS for bonuses during Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival that marks the end of Ramadan (the holy month of fasting and prayer). Saudi officials declined to confirm or deny that such a team existed, nor comment the New York Times investigation. For the US newspaper, MbS approved the creation of the special intervention group overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, an MbS loyalist. Since its creation, the squad has arrested dozens of religious leaders, intellectuals and activists perceived as a "threat" to the Saudi leadership. Weve never seen it on a scale like this, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution. A dissident like Jamal Khashoggi in the past wouldnt have been considered worth the effort. Since December, there have been reports that Irans nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi had announced that Iran was designing a modern process to enrich uranium up to 20% for an ageing research reactor. Salehi had reportedly said Iran was ready to enrich uranium to 20% at its Fordow nuclear facility. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal, Iran is eligible to enrich uranium only up to 3.7% for 15 years. Salehi has raised concerns by stating that Iran would do enrichment at any volume and level. The United States had called off the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and demanded a fresh deal. However, in September 2018, Salehi clearly stated, if we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly do not go back to where we were before. We will be standing on a much, much higher position. Iran, he said, was capable of designing nuclear reactors to suit its own needs and the new fuel would enhance their efficiency. That same month, Ayatollah Khamenei had reportedly ordered the setting up of an advanced hall of modern centrifuges. A year earlier, in August 2017, Salehi had declared that Iran could start enriching uranium to 20% within five days of a decision to do so. In June 2018, Iran was reported to have launched the UF-6 (uranium hexafluoride) production facility, a step towards increasing uranium enrichment capability. Possessing the ability to enrich uranium to 20% would also open ways for Iran to enrich uranium to even higher levels, to weapons grade. One of the pressing issues post the Iran nuclear deal has been Tehrans continued missile development programmeme. Iran already possesses sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles of long ranges that are capable of delivering nuclear warheads as well as chemical and biological warheads and sub-munitions. Allowing Tehran to enrich uranium to 20% would result in the country furthering the capability to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has in fact warned that it will develop a nuclear arsenal if the deal with the P5+1 powers fell apart. If it did, it would set of a nuclear arms race in West Asia and North Africa region. Strategic repercussions Saudi Arabia desires to possess nuclear technology, ostensibly for civilian purposes, but refuses to accept the US gold standard of restricting enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing. Hence, a nuclear deal with the US has not come through. In addition, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Egypt, too, could become high-risk nuclear power states. The UAE accepts the US gold standard the 123 Agreement and refrains from enriching uranium but it has always been sceptical of the nuclear deal that allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.7%. The UAEs Ambassador to Washington had once even stated that the Emirates no longer felt bound by the 123 Agreement which was a bilateral agreement between the United States and UAE. Enriching uranium to 20% will be against the nuclear deal and in the future, the United States might find it difficult to persuade other states in the region to enter into similar nuclear deals should states in West Asia go nuclear. These include states like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others. Though Iran has stated that it has no desire to withdraw from the deal, any attempt to increase enrichment capacity will automatically lead to the nuclear deal becoming null and void. Also, Iran in June 2018 had warned that should European countries fail to abide by the nuclear deal, Iran would resort to the 20% enrichment process. Hence, these declarations about the enrichment programmeme could be a way for Iran to coerce Europe to stick to the nuclear deal. The uranium enrichment programme will only make Irans nuclear energy programme more complicated as there may not be any future scope to discuss improving the nuclear deal. In addition, Iran will be supported in its nuclear energy programme by countries like China and Russia, which makes Iran bother less about the US moving away from the nuclear deal since despite these actions by US President Donald Trump, Iran would most likely go ahead with the uranium enrichment programme. Though Iran is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has the right to pursue a nuclear energy programme, its ability to enrich uranium to 20% may in future lead to a stage where it enriches uranium that is weapons grade. Not only this, Iran also has close ties with Hezbollah- an asymmetric warfare organisation. Iran already transfers weapons and missile systems to Hezbollah and hence, it is feared, in the future, it could also transfer nuclear weapons or technological know-how to Hezbollah. Irans nuclear programme, if not checked, will only move ahead to become a full-fledged nuclear weapons programme. (The writer is a Defence and Strategic Analyst) The horrific violence unleashed on worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand on Friday underscores the grave and growing threat posed by White nationalist terrorism. Fifty people, including five Indians, have died in the attack so far, many are still reported missing, and several others injured. Many of the victims had fled violence in their countries to make safe and serene New Zealand their new home. That perception of New Zealand as a peaceful haven was shattered on Friday. The violence was aimed at having maximum impact. The killer struck at noon on Friday when mosques are full of worshippers. He also streamed the massacre live online to amplify the terror. An Australian man identified as Brenton Tarrant is said to have carried out the attack. Hours before the attack, he posted a link to an 87-page manifesto filled with hate and rage directed at immigrants and Muslims, who he saw as invading colonisers. This put them in his crosshairs. A right-wing, White-nationalist extremist and terrorist, Tarrant is a product of the hate and bigotry around us. Islamophobics, radicalised White supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-Semitics have been unleashing large-scale violence for years now. In July 2011, for instance, Anders Behring Breivik shot dead 77 youngsters in Norway and in 2017, a shooting incident at a mosque in Quebec in Canada left six Muslims dead. The US has witnessed countless such killings. Post 9/11, the world focused on Islamist jihadist terrorism and ignored terrorism unleashed by White supremacists and majoritarian extremists. Terror attacks by nationalist supremacists were rarely viewed as a global phenomenon. Instead, governments and the media viewed them through the lens of mental health. They were seen as victims and portrayed as derailed individuals and sad loners. The role of Islamophobia and bigotry in their radicalisation was conveniently ignored. The problem is not a minor one. Over the past eight years, Europe and the US have recorded 124 fatalities in attacks by White supremacists targeting immigrants, non-Protestants and non-Whites. The mass killings at Christchurch underscore the need for the international community to act robustly not only against White supremacists and right-wing bigots but also, their core ideology which is sweeping the internet. Importantly, all countries and governments must act against those who preach and spread hatred. They may not be actually carrying out the attack but are no less dangerous, as they incite others with their incendiary speeches and rabble rousing. They include influential politicians. Right-wing politicians in Europe and elsewhere give such supremacist ideologies acceptability. New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern provided ideal leadership, comforting the affected community, acknowledging White terror, vowing to tighten gun laws and even advising US President Donald Trump to send love and sympathy to all Muslim communities. by Kamel Abderrahmani The attacks reflect a malaise, reinforced by extreme right-wing and hate-filled intellectuals. The murderer was obsessed with the end of Europe and the idea of "a great replacement" of its peoples. Islamic terrorism is a direct cause of the emergence of nationalism and Islamophobia. Paris (AsiaNews) There can be no justification nor case for the killing of peaceful innocent people praying in their place of worship. Every human life is sacred and no one has the right to take it away or strike at its wholeness. Apparently though, not everyone agrees. What just happened in New Zealand is inadmissible, it is barbarism. Forty-nine Muslims were slaughtered in cold blood because for the simple fact that they were Muslims. The killer was equipped with a camera and broadcast part of his terrorist act live on social media after publishing a "manifesto" of about 60 pages on a discussion forum in which he denounced immigrants, whom he calls "invaders". The manifesto was clear. It accurately details the author's obsession with the end of Europe and the idea of the "great replacement" of its population by immigrants. It should be known that this theory is also popularised by a certain Renaud Camus,[1] a right-wing writer whose work gave the "manifesto" its title. He brings together most extreme right-wing fantasies and shamelessly and unscrupulously calls on Europeans to attack anyone with an immigrant background. That is why I say that what has just happened in New Zealand reflects a certain malaise reinforced by a dangerous discourse by extreme right-wing circles in Europe and some hate-filled Islamophobic intellectuals invited to speak on TV platforms who think that all Muslims alike. This is a monumental mistake that could eventually lead to other Islamophobic acts. That is to say, innocent people will pay for what a guilty and sick few do. For this reason, I believe that this terrorist act is also connected to Islamist terrorism. Indeed, hatred only breads hatred and one kind of terrorism also causes another kind. In France, for example, Islamophobic acts against mosques have multiplied in recent years, especially after the attacks against Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and those of 13November 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis. In other words, Islamist terrorist acts have contributed directly to the emergence of extremist nationalism and to Islamophobic acts. There is a certain relationship between events! What I mean is that we believe in a human community that builds bridges that connect different cultures and religions for a better world, a world where Jews are not killed for what they are, and the same goes for Christians, Muslims, atheists, deists. This mission may not appear easy but it is possible. It is possible to see that the man who killed 49 Muslims does not represent the 2 billion Christians on earth. It is possible not to confuse the Islamic State group and other terrorist groups with one billion Muslims. Ultimately, terrorist deeds must be attributed to those who carry them out. [1] Martin, Clementine et al., La theorie du grand remplacement de Renaud Camus (The Theory of the Great Replacement by Renaud Camus). A lighthearted look at news of the day: The most reassuring sign of spring? Its when you say something at the Utah State Capitol and your voice echoes through an empty building. --- State lawmakers ended their annual 45-day session last week. I love the traditions this time of year. I get goosebumps when the final gavel is struck and the mayor of Salt Lake City files her first lawsuit of the spring against the Legislature. --- Mayor Jackie Biskupski has sued over the Legislatures creation of an inland port within city limits, saying, We want to go to battle and get our rights back. Supporters of Medicaid expansion and a host of other issues responded by saying, Take a number and get in line. --- Actually, Utah lawmakers had a fairly quiet session. They did respond to three recently successful voter initiatives by passing a few new commonsense rules. From now on, you have to prove an initiative can pay for itself, the initiative cant take effect until 60 days after the next legislative session and supporters have to conduct public hearings entirely in iambic pentameter. --- If people had celebrated Pi Day with real pies when I was a kid, I might have pursued a career in math. --- This is that great time of year when we go from the Super Bowl to Pi Day to St. Patricks Day to Star Wars Day on May 4 to Cinco de Mayo and straight on to National Obesity Awareness Week. --- Actually, Obesity Week comes early in January, under the mistaken premise that Americans overeat only during the holidays. --- If Americans only could think of a way to associate Memorial Day with food, the calendar would be perfected. --- Its a bit confusing to have the final days of the Utah Legislature and March Madness selection Sunday so close together. I filled out my bracket and accidentally picked tax reform to be in the Final Four. DENVER New Mexico officials have told some municipal drinking water systems to stop using water from two rivers after the weather-related failure of a mine wastewater treatment plant upstream in Colorado. The New Mexico Environment Department said Friday anyone who uses the San Juan and Animas rivers for drinking water or irrigation should take appropriate precautions, but it did not say what those precautions might be. Meanwhile, employees from Utahs Department of Environmental Quality, along with teams from U.S. Geological Study field offices in Moab and New Mexico, are headed to the Four Corners and Mexican Hat regions to take water samples, the DEQ said in a news release Saturday. The San Juan River flows through extreme southeast Utah. The winter storm that blasted through the West last week knocked out the wastewater treatment plant for Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado on Thursday night, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said. New Mexico officials announced Saturday afternoon that it received word from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the facility was back up and running. The mine was discharging approximately 300 gpm of acid mine waste into Cement Creek. It is expected that teams will not be able to restore operations to normal until the snow is cleared away enough to reach the treatment plant. Because of the shutdown, Utah DEQ teams will be on site next week to monitor the release and help test water and sediment from the rivers. The EPA, which oversees the wastewater plant, said it doesn't believe drinking water will be harmed. The EPA said a long-term shutdown could affect fish and other aquatic life. Operators have not been able to reach the plant because the access road is blocked by at least one avalanche, and it could take several days to clear the route, EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Peterson said. The plant can be operated remotely and no one was at the site when the avalanche occurred. The plant was installed after the EPA inadvertently triggered a wastewater spill from the Gold King in 2015, contaminating rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. SALT LAKE CITY The bitter divisions that exist in America aren't caused by anger, but by contempt and they can't be solved by civility and tolerance, says Arthur C. Brooks, president of an influential Washington, D.C., think tank. To escape the vitriol online and in the public square, he says, Americans must embrace a radical command given by Jesus that is also the title of his new book: "Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt." In the book, released March 12, Brooks explains how the most difficult of commandments is also the simplest, and how love, "clear and bracing," can disarm the angriest of critics and forge lasting relationships. Brooks, 54, is a Catholic and father of three who has headed up the American Enterprise Institute in Washington for a decade. Using prescriptions from social science and economics, as well as the wisdom of philosophers and religious leaders, he tackles hard questions such as "How can I engage with, let alone love, someone whom I believe to be immoral?" Brooks advocates love that flows from actions, not a fleeting sentimental feeling, and he believes that Americans should develop deep and loving relationships with people who are much different from them. To do that, we need to "use our values as a gift, not a weapon," he writes. This doesn't mean that we should ignore our differences or stop disagreeing with each other. In fact, Brooks, who will receive an honorary doctorate at Brigham Young University April 25, believes that disagreement and competition are important. Done right, disagreement in the public square or in a marriage can strengthen both individuals and institutions. In an interview with the Deseret News, Brooks explained how love can conquer contempt, why fear is at the root of the college admissions scandal and what happened to the BYU briefcase that he says made him a better person. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Deseret News: Tell us how you chose the title of the book, "Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt." Arthur Brooks: Well, the title of the book, of course, comes from Matthew 5:44, and also from the Gospel of Luke. I chose it precisely because were talking about our enemies all the time in America; were not talking about people with whom we disagree. So I said, OK, fine, if you want to talk about enemies in America, then lets subvert that in the most radical way we possibly could, according to a tradition that not everybody follows but everybody understands. Lets go to the most radical thinker we know. And by the way, the Lord Buddha said the same thing. Fight the miser with generosity, fight the evil man with goodness basically, love your enemy. It's not your enemy you're trying to destroy; you're trying to destroy the illusion that someone was your enemy in the first place. And at the very least, you change your own heart. DN: What are the origins of what you call the culture of contempt? How did we get here? AB: Theres always a tendency in the American discourse, and in any discourse between people, to be tribal. But when you have a financial crisis, which happens about two times a century its very different from an ordinary recession the macroeconomic effect is that about 80 percent of the income distribution is denied the fruits of economic growth for a decade or more. And that is the breeding ground for political populism. Theres very interesting research on this by economists at the University of Berlin, who have data on 800 elections in 20 democracies over 100 years. They show that financial crises are the causal factor in a 30 percent increase in the popularity of populist politicians and parties. It shows what we have today in the Democratic and Republican parties, by the numbers. A lot of people really like President Trump and a lot of things he does, so Im not casting aspersions. But the problem with populism is that the rhetoric of populism is always, Somebodys got your stuff, and Im going to get it back. Whos that somebody? Its an immigrant, its a foreigner, its a banker, its a rich person. And what that does is it foments envy. DN: You write that disagreement is healthy, even in marriage; in fact, disagreement can strengthen a marriage that is founded on the perfect friendship that Aristotle described as having a shared sense of what is virtuous and true. How have you and your wife made your marriage work for 28 years? AB: You do it by expressing the love that your marriage needs, no matter what you feel, every day. Stephen Covey (author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) was helpful to me when I read his famous book. One of the things I found was, you are the master of yourself. Theres time that you can put between a stimulus and response. If you decide to show love, you will feel love. The greatest secret to being married, staying married and enjoying being married which should be the greatest pleasure of your life has to be what you choose to say and what you choose to do and what you choose to show, in every moment, including the moments when you're least likely to show love. DN: You make a number of recommendations in the book about how to deal with social media. One is to shun anonymity. Whats wrong with being anonymous online? AB: Anonymity is, in my view, inconsistent with fully human behavior. We have basically chosen to dehumanize ourselves, to say I am not an individual. Psychologists call it deindividuation. If you dehumanize yourself on purpose, you tend to dehumanize other people. And most people are anonymous so they can do things they shouldnt do. Nobody wears a name tag while walking into an adult bookstore. One of the things I recommend is that each of us make a commitment never to be anonymous. If youre going to say something, take responsibility for it. And never interact with anyone who is anonymous. Love is reserved for humans, and somebody who has taken away their own humanity cannot be in a loving relationship. DN: Do the themes of your book help to explain the roots of the recent college admissions scandal? AB: St. John the Apostle said that love drives out fear. What he's saying is the same thing that philosophers and psychologists and all major religions have taught: that fear is the ultimate negative emotion. It is the true opposite of love. As such, fear drives us to do all of the things that love can cure. Whenever you see a scandal like this, its always fear-based. Pride comes from fear, and fear comes from pride. Pride is the greatest of the deadly sins, and its because its a fear-based sin. The reason pride is at the bottom of Mount Purgatory is because it cant co-exist with love. The answer is not brow-beating ourselves, but one thing St. Augustine said: If you dont have time to read anything in the gospels, if you dont have time to read the Bible at all, Love, and then do what you want. Its phenomenal, right? DN: Two years ago, author Rod Dreher argued in The Benedict Option that Christians should, in a way, sequester themselves away from an increasingly hostile world. You seem to make a case for something much different, for people to forge relationships with people much different from them. AB: When I talk to young people, I recommend that they marry people who share their faith. That just makes family life easier. But you cant witness to other people when youre behind the barrier. The Latter-day Saints have a two-year mission the ultimate non-Benedict option. And in so doing, they shore up their own faith and they do good and they love. But you have to get out of the box for that; you have to get out in the world for that. I really believe that we should share our love far and wide. To me, thats the gospel of Jesus Christ. DN: In the book, you tell the story of how Brigham Young University gave you a nice briefcase with BYU emblazoned on it. When you carried it, you realized that you started behaving like you thought a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would; in effect, it made you more friendly and more helpful, and you even stopped drinking coffee when you had it with you. Do you still carry that briefcase? AB: No, I wore it out. But ever since I told that story the first time, which was at a forum at BYU, about once every 18 months, somebody sends me a new BYU briefcase. DN: One thing that you recommend is that people share their stories, and you recommend condensing your life's story and purpose into 12 words. Yours is A lucky man, dedicated to lifting others up and bringing them together. Why is this so important? AB: That was one of my greatest epiphanies. I was a professional musician for many years, and my favorite composer is (Johann Sebastian) Bach, the greatest composer who ever lived. He also had 20 kids. He was a pretty prolific composer in many ways. Bach was asked why he wrote music, and he said, "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God." And I thought, thats more than 12 words, but not by much. My 12-word answer is my version of Bach today. Its really super empowering to do it. DN: For people who havent yet read your book, what do you most want them to know, and what do you most want them to do? AB: I want them to know something that virtually every (member of The Church of Latter-day Saints of Jesus Christ) knows. Which is that where you find hatred, therein lies your opportunity for greater happiness and love. When you see contempt, what you really find is an opportunity for you to answer the way you want, the way God tells you to answer, and the way your heart tells you to answer. Youll become happier, youll have a fighting chance of persuading someone, and youll be helping to save America. SALT LAKE CITY A Montana Highway Patrol trooper flown to University Hospital after he was shot early Friday morning during a manhunt for a shooting suspect remained hospitalized Sunday. No condition update was released Sunday by the Montana Department of Justice. "Trooper (Wade) Palmers family and the entire MHP are beyond grateful for all of the support people are showing, in Montana, Utah and across the country," said John Barnes of the Montana Attorney Generals Office on Sunday. Law enforcement officers from Montana and Utah have kept a constant vigil at the hospital. Barnes said Palmer's family had asked for privacy regarding his condition and the attorney general's office is respecting that. "He continues to receive the best possible treatment. We ask everyone to continue keeping him and his family in their thoughts and prayers," Barnes said. Palmer has been with the Montana Highway Patrol since 2012 and is stationed in Missoula. In 2015, he was awarded the agency's highest honor, the Medal of Valor, for his heroic lifesaving efforts at the scene of a multiple-vehicle crash involving a mother and her young children in December 2014. He has a wife and two young children. According to Montana authorities, another trooper found Palmer shot while still seat-belted in his patrol car. He was transported to St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula then later flown to University Hospital. After an extensive manhunt, the Missoula County Sheriffs Office took the shooting suspect, Jonathan Bertsch, into custody about 6:15 a.m. Friday, according to a press release. Palmer was one of four people shot in separate but related incidents in the Missoula area late Thursday and early Friday. Two others were wounded and one person was killed. Bertsch, 28, faces possible charges of deliberate homicide and three of attempted deliberate homicide. Hes being held without bail in the Missoula County Detention Center. Another of the shooting victims was also flown to University Hospital for treatment. by Bernardo Cervellera Fears of a "debt trap" as has been the case for some countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Pakistan. The EU countries of Eastern Europe that already collaborate with Beijing are in debt. Poland's trade deficit with China rose from 10.3 billion dollars in 2012 to 28.4 billion. The new law on foreign investments, the result of US and EU pressure. Rome (AsiaNews) - The Chinese foreign ministry today confirmed that from March 21 to 26 next President Xi Jinping will visit Italy, Monaco and France. In Italy, in particular, he should sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with which the Italian government offers itself as a partner to support the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the "New Silk Road" that Beijing supports with funds of up to 1000 billion dollars, which involves the construction of railways, roads and sea lines that should facilitate world trade. In Italy there are those totally in favor of the signature, especially Michele Gerace, undersecretary for the economy, and expert sinologist. But there are also doubts and criticism because the MoU could become a boomerang that would not help Italian exports to China. Beijing has already funded similar projects in Asia, Africa and (Eastern) Europe and there are critical voices that say that this has only benefited Chinese industries, enveloping countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan in a "debt trap". Additionally there is the fear that the Mou would facilitate the penetration of Chinese investments in Europe to the point of their hegemony. Various experts cite what is happening with the "16 + 1" group, which since 2012 guarantees collaboration between China and several European Union member countries - such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania , Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia - together with five other countries not yet in the EU: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Northern Macedonia. So far, China's promises to offer special loans have not been fulfilled. Instead, the trade deficit of these countries towards Beijing is growing. The Polish one, for example, which in 2012 was 10.3 billion dollars, is now 28.4 billion. Some economists point out that the adhesion of Italy alone to the BRI, without consultation with the other EU countries, weakens European Union dialogue with China. In a meeting next month the EU, which defines China as an "economic competitor", would like to gain more freedom in European investments, hitherto held back by many trade barriers. "Dialogue with China alone, which Italy is seeking - said an economist who wishes to remain anonymous - means not having enough strength to correct mistakes or injustices that could arise in the future". And he gives the example of the new law on foreign investments, voted by the National People's Congress last March 15 in Beijing. It guarantees greater equality of treatment between foreign companies and local companies, and bans the forced transfer of technologies, one of the points that the US and the EU have pushed for in recent years. In all probability, without the bargaining power of these two western economies, perhaps a similar law would never have been voted. SALT LAKE CITY NASA says an iceberg about twice the size of New York City will break off of an ice shelf in Antarctica, USA Today reports. Researchers noticed a giant crack in the middle of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. How it'll happen: Two cracks in the shelf will lead to massive break-off. The Halloween crack, which first appeared in October 2016, will move eastward. The second crack, which breaks off northward, has been fine for 35 years according to CNN. But that second crack started accelerating at about 2.5 miles per year. Once the cracks meet, the iceberg will be born. When the crack widens enough, it will create an iceberg measuring about 660 square miles, according to USA Today. New York City measures 302 square miles. Cracking across Antarcticas Brunt Ice Shelf is set to release an iceberg w/ an area about 2x the size of NYC. The splitting could result in an uncertain future for the shelfs scientific research & human presence. See what @NASAEarth satellites captured: https://t.co/Atppp05I5j pic.twitter.com/WrI1p3bqVC NASA (@NASA) February 24, 2019 "We dont have a clear picture of what drives the shelfs periods of advance and retreat through calving," said Chris Shuman, a glaciologist with NASA and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, in a statement. "The likely future loss of the ice on the other side of the Halloween Crack suggests that more instability is possible." NASA did not confirm when it will happen. The agency said it is poised to happen, CNN reports. The Brunt Ice Shelf currently leans out of the Weddell Sea just south of South America, according to CNN. MIDVALE Two men were recovering from gunshot wounds Monday as police searched for a gunman who may have been stabbed by the victims prior to shooting them. Two men were shot about 9:45 p.m. Sunday at the Chelsea Park Apartments, 7351 S. Catalpa St. (440 West). The victims were with two other men outside the apartments in a grassy area when a disagreement turned into a fight, said Unified Police Sgt. Melody Gray. One man pulled out a gun during the altercation and shot two 18-year-old men, she said. The injuries were not considered to be life-threatening. One man was shot once and the other was hit multiple times, Gray said. They were shot in the arms and legs. The disagreement between the two parties, however, started the day before, she said. Two men who live at the apartment complex the men who were shot on Sunday agreed to sell drugs to the other two on Saturday, she said. But when they met, the drug buyers pulled guns on the drug dealers, Gray said. No shots were fired and no one was injured in that incident. On Sunday, the would-be robbers used different identities to contact the two drug dealers again and asked to buy drugs, according to Gray. This time, when the two dealers walked out of their apartment, the two other men attempted to rob them, she said. A fight ensued, and a gunman was stabbed by the two 18-year-olds before he shot them, according to Gray. After the shooting, the two suspects knocked on several apartment doors apparently hoping someone would let them in, Gray said. No one did and they ran off. The University Hospital emergency room was temporarily placed on lockdown as a precaution Monday after one of the men who had been shot arrived there on his own, Gray confirmed. Police announced Monday that they had arrested Randon Louis Cummings, 18, for investigation of aggravated assault and aggravated robbery. Gray said Cummings' friend, who has not been identified and is also believed to have been stabbed, was still at large. SALT LAKE CITY Video of a Melbourne teenager went viral last weekend after he smashed an egg on the head of Queensland Sen. Fraser Anning during a live press conference. In footage of the incident, Will Connolly, 17, can be seen filming himself egging the back of Annings head. Anning then turns and strikes Connolly in the face twice before he and Connolly are restrained by bystanders. Anning drew outrage this weekend after blaming the Christchurch mosque shooting that left 50 dead on the island countrys immigration policies, according to The New York Times. In a statement released March 15, Anning condemned the actions of the gunman, then said, The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place. Let us be clear, while Muslims may have been the victims today, usually they are the perpetrators. Social media reacted to the incident. Kid got what he deserved, actually kid deserved more, but they stopped the senator- Robert Rohl (@battman1956) March 17, 2019 The egg guy asked for it. Looking for a reaction and got it. Mark Jones (@MarkOliverJones) March 16, 2019 Hold on to your hat, but I actually agree w/you, here. The kid had an egg in one hand and a phone in the other. He was TOTALLY going to go viral, and all his friends would think he was SO cool! He asked for that beat down. It should be a lesson for him. Donald Trump is NOT a conservative (but I am) (@SweetieWalker) March 16, 2019 #EggBoyHero Dear egg boy, We thank you greatly for your bravery because youve done more than what the Australian government has done about racist senator Anning, bless your soul. Yours Sincerely, Twitter users pic.twitter.com/dMNacUVgfS guzel gunler (@yenihayat61) March 17, 2019 In a world of terrorists , be an Egg boy.#EggBoyHero pic.twitter.com/zuaNw55ocS Ahsan Baig (@iAhsanBaig) March 17, 2019 The teens egging incident has since been memorialized by Melbourne artists. The actions of Eggboy have been honoured in true Melbourne fashion.. Overnight, a street artist has painted a mural of the teenager egging @fraser_anning @10NewsFirstMelb @10Daily #eggboy pic.twitter.com/x6f5uhH7PP Candice Wyatt (@CandiceWyatt10) March 18, 2019 A GoFundMe was also created for the teens legal fees and has since earned over $52,000. According to the platform, EggBoi (Will) plans to send a majority of the money to the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack. KEARNS A 16-year-old boy playing with a shotgun accidentally shot and killed himself inside his home Monday, police say. The incident occurred about 8:15 a.m. at 5007 W. 5400 South. A 16-year-old boy and his 17-year-old brother had a shotgun in a bedroom, said Unified Police Sgt. Melody Gray. "(The brother) said they were just looking at it, swinging it around," Gray said. "At some point, this young man had this shotgun and it went off." The shooting was determined to be self-inflicted and investigators said it was accidental, she said. A woman named Jessi, who identified herself as the boy's stepmother, said Monday, "What happened here today has us all extremely shocked. We have a gun-free home. Our son was an amazing boxer, he was an amazing kid, and he had lots of great things that he was doing. This is a shock. And if could tell anybody out there, teach your kids gun safety and how in the blink of an eye you could lose everything. It hurts everybody around them. It was just a freak accident." Police were investigating Monday where the shotgun came from. The incident, Gray said, is another reminder for the public that guns are not toys. "All guns should be treated as if they're loaded, and don't point them at anything you're not willing to destroy or kill," she said. "We hear this all the time: 'We didn't think it was loaded.' So if every gun is treated as if it is loaded if you come across one, treat it as if it's loaded." The name of the boy was not immediately released pending notification of family members. This is the second accidental fatal shooting of a teenager in Salt Lake County in a little over a month. On Feb. 5, Marquez Grajeda, 15, was shot and killed while inside a bedroom at a house at 1347 W. 2320 South during a lunch break from school. A 14-year-old boy, who said the shooting was an accident, is charged in 3rd District Juvenile Court with manslaughter, a second-degree felony, and obstruction of justice, a third-degree felony. Contributing: Paul Nelson SALT LAKE CITY Utah GOP Chairman Rob Anderson was reaching outMonday to the state's Republicans after he said party officials changed the rules to make it easier to oust him. In a long post to the Utah Republican Party Facebook page, Anderson said the ramifications of the party's State Central Committee action last Saturday "will cause immeasurable detriment to the party going forward." What he said was a vote to lower the threshold for the party's governing committee to remove a chairman from 60 percent of all 187 members to just 27 of them followed findings from an investigation into how Anderson handled a controversy. It stemmed from an attempt last year by opponents of SB54, the 2014 law allowing candidates to bypass the party's traditional caucus and convention system, to bar some Republicans from gathering voter signatures to get on a primary ballot. Anderson did not submit that bylaw to Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, who oversees state elections, saying it violated the party's constitution, Utah state law and potentially the U.S. Constitution. In his Facebook post, Anderson said the effort "would have stripped the party membership of some (but not all) GOP candidates" and "was ostensibly designed to create a new legal standoff with the hope of launching another lawsuit." The faction of the state party behind the legal battle over SB54 were handed a blow recently when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their challenge to losses in federal district court in Utah and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Anderson said when he served as a U.S. Air Force pilot, "I never followed, nor would have followed, an illegal order. I would not, and will not, do so now," saying that the party's "governing documents provide for the nullification of illegal language." He asks in his post that Republicans "unite and elect leadership that will uphold the Rule of Law. The same Rule of Law that our party espouses. The choice is clear: unity and order versus anarchy and division." A copy obtained by the Deseret News of a 40-page confidential report by a five-member investigative committee that apparently was discussed at Saturday's meeting, said the group found "ample justification to remove" the party chairman. The justifications cited in the report are misrepresentation by altering a signed document, "abuse of authority and neglect of duty." However, the report recommended instead that Anderson be censured. Among the reasons given for not removing him include that doing so could have a negative impact on the state and county delegate elections, and "could be viewed as an underhanded political move" this close to the party convention. "The crux of the current situation appears to be that the chair has one political agenda, and the SCC members were elected with a different one," the report states, noting the public statements made about the friction weaken trust in the party. The committee, according to the report, "needs to exercise its voice to better communicate its policies," and provides a statement about the lawsuit apparently written before the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The issue is "the right of our party, through our elected delegates, to determine who can claim to be a 'Republican' on the ballot," warning under current law, Democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders "could come to Utah and gather enough careless signatures to get on the ballot as a Republican candidate." Anderson said he now may seek a second term as party chairman. "I was leaning not to do it," the party chairman told the Deseret News. "But (because of) this personal attack and the need to properly represent our Republican majority, I'm fired up." Candidates for party chairman have until April 5 to declare if they're running to lead the Utah GOP over the next two years. The decision will be made at the party's annual convention in May. SALT LAKE CITY Utah Gov. Gary Herbert told GOP leadership Monday he allowed a new law on depleted uranium to go into effect without his signature because he believes it makes it tougher for the low-level, but highly controversial radioactive waste to come to Utah. "Public safety is my immediate concern with the issue of radioactive waste," he wrote."With the modifications that have been made to this bill, I believe public safety has been protected and it will be more difficult for depleted uranium to come into Utah than under current law." Herbert addressed the letter to House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, and Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton. He said he has had reservations about how the bill came forward, but he recognized the need for clarity when it came to regulatory challenges before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the unique waste stream. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has been in the midst of site specific performance assessment to determine if EnergySolutions' Clive facility in Tooele County is a suitable disposal facility for the radioactive waste, which grows hotter over time. Depleted uranium is the byproduct of the uranium enrichment process and is used in military and medical applications because of its extremely dense nature. Critics do not believe it should be buried in Utah. Herbert said he believes the bill's requirement that the "robust" analysis be completed plus the added requirement that the U.S. Department of Energy guarantee it will step in and assume responsibility for the site in "perpetuity" satisfies his concerns over disposal of the material. You could say that the home of Diana Marsh and Matt Finney has almost always been a constant in their relationship, or something thats treaded on pace with the progression of their union over time. When Diana returned home to Ann Arbor, MI after teaching elementary school in Brooklyn for 11 years, she cemented this new phase of her life by buying her first home after years of renting. The beginnings of Diana and Matts relationship took root soon after, as they clinked their margaritas together in a cheers to Dianas offer on the house being accepted this was on their third date. Now two years later, Matt, who previously lived 45 minutes away in Detroit, has moved in with Diana, and the couple recently got engaged. Incorporating Matts belongings into the 1912 homes 1,000-square-foot space was a bit of a challenge, considering Diana and Matt are both collectors of various items, and their visions for functionality in specific rooms differed like Matts desire to put a toaster oven on the kitchen counter (spoiler alert: he won). Once we worked out logistics like closet space and toaster ovens, we got to focus on the more fun design elements of the house, Diana shares. Each of us prioritized the things that were the most important to us, or our must-have items. We then worked together to create a space that made us both happy. The resulting melange is a pleasing display of Matts more modern style (hes a graphic artist with a passion for modern art) and Dianas leanings toward vintage and antique fixtures. One of the best parts of the couples Water Hill neighborhood is its walkability to downtown bars, restaurants and Dianas jewelry and lifestyle boutique, Thistle & Bess. Living and working in the same community is so wonderful, as you really form deep connections with your neighbors and feel fully invested in seeing the community thrive and succeed, Diana says. Perhaps the most eye-catching aspect of the couples now-shared home is the stunning mural they commissioned in their entryway by close friend Kimmy Scafuro. The bright and welcoming display of flowers was painted well into their relationship yet before Matt moved into the home, perhaps foreshadowing the buildings new status as a place that represented them both. All told, this mutual accommodation of each others unique styles brought forth a design epiphany of sorts for the both of them. When decorating your home, focus on items that you have a connection to and actually love instead of trying to find things that go together,' Diana advises. Displaying things that actually mean something to you allows your personality to shine through and gives a real sense of life to a space. A solid piece of design philosophy seen throughout this eclectic and warm home. Kelli Photography by Cat Carty Buswell / @catcartybuswell Image above: Walking through the front door and seeing our floral mural by Kimmy Scafuro brings us pure happiness and cheer, Diana begins. Michigan has very long, grey winters, so although most of the walls in the house are white, we wanted to make sure that we brought in bright pops of color wherever we could. After looking at hundreds of wallpapers for the entryway, we instead decided to have Kimmy, who is one of our closest friends, paint the mural. She researched all of my favorite flowers and helped us settle on a color palette. She then came from Philadelphia for a week to paint. We could not be [happier] with how it turned out. 1/27 The entryway, and another peek of Kimmys floral mural. Of combining her and Matts styles, Diana says, When Matt moved in to the house that I renovated and designed on my own, it was important that we redecorated it in a way that felt like both of us. We really wanted to make sure that both of our styles were represented. Art was our main way of doing this. Matt has a rather large collection of modern art. He chose the pieces that he loved the most and then we worked together to find which of those pieces would fit best in our spaces. We also decided to purchase some art together, that spoke to both of our tastes and melded our collections. 2/27 It took artist Kimmy Scafuro a week of painting to finish this custom mural. She repeated the floral pattern to mimic the repeat of a wallpaper, adding fun details, like ladybugs, throughout, Diana notes. 3/27 When Matt and I moved in together, our goal was to combine our own distinct styles into one cohesive space. One challenge was lack of physical space in our relatively small home, especially when it came to closet space and Matts huge sneaker collection. 4/27 Of all the spaces in our home, we find that people like to congregate the most at our dining room table, Diana shares. When I renovated the house, we removed the wall between the dining room and kitchen and it has created a wonderful open space, perfect for entertaining. The dining room table also provides a great view of the first piece of art that we purchased together as a couple, a modern piece by Detroit artist Ellen Rutt. 5/27 The living room is a perfect example of our design compromise as a couple. The vintage portraits of the ladies were one of my must-have items and the new record shelf for Matts turntable and vinyl collection was on his list of must-haves. Now we actually spend way more time in this room than we did before, listening to records and actually enjoying the portraits on the wall. 6/27 Matt, selecting a record to take for a spin on his turntable. 7/27 Communication and compromise were key to creating a space where both of our styles are represented, Diana shares. We are so happy with how our little cozy, eclectic space turned out. The couple plans to get married in Detroit this summer. 8/27 The combined dining and kitchen space. Instead of trying to stay in one style or theme, we just try to think of our house as an eclectic collection of items that bring us joy and tell our story. 9/27 Diana shares, It was a fun challenge to combine Matts modern pieces with my antique collection. Somehow pairing a KAWS Companion figure and a Staffordshire dog ended up working to create our own version of a cabinet of curiosities. Showcasing the items that we love together, even though they may not go together, has made our home feel unique. 10/27 For some reason I was pretty adamant about having a mint green refrigerator, Diana says. I researched high and low to find the perfect color and size for our kitchen. In the end, I ended up going with the Retropolitan model by Big Chill. It was a bit of a gamble, because I only saw a sample of the color before purchasing the fridge. We couldnt love it more. It adds the perfect pop of color in an otherwise classic, white kitchen. 11/27 Matt is a big fan of the artists Faile, from Brooklyn, NY. This original collage of theirs, which is made on a found book cover, has the perfect soft, pastel color palette that ended up being a great complement to the fridge. The open storage over the fridge was another design decision to allow us to show off some of our favorite items. The gold trophy was a housewarming gift from a dear friend and the little lady planter is made by Two Hold Studios and purchased at a local shop, Found. 12/27 Diana shares, I had originally purchased this antique pink light fixture to be hung in the entryway, but it ended up being too long for the space. It had been sitting in the basement, as I just hadnt found the right spot for it. One night during a dinner party, we started discussing the light fixture and my guests decided that we should have an impromptu light installation over the sink. It ended up being the absolute perfect place to showcase this beautiful piece (and a fun dinner party as well). Also pictured is the toaster oven that sparked a big debate between Matt and I. In the end, I compromised and now we have great toasty bread at dinner! 13/27 While renovating the home we found out some interesting things about its history, Diana says. While restoring the stone work on the front porch, the stone mason discovered that the materials and techniques used to originally build the house seemed older than the 1912 date written on the paperwork. Upon further research, we found that there was a fire at City Hall in 1912 that destroyed a ton of records, so the house could indeed be older. We also found a strange and rather old safe in the basement floor and a ring hidden in one of the walls. 14/27 Another example of the couples blending of styles here in the back room of the main floor. Diana explains, Originally there were antique prints hanging over the sofa in this space, but they were removed to make room for one of Matts favorite pieces, which is an original painting, Spill, by artists Faile. Although the style is much more modern than a lot of other pieces in the room, the pastel color palette ties in well with the rest of the decor. 15/27 The gold art print, Balance of Power, by Cleon Peterson is another piece from Matts art collection that ended up fitting really well in this space. The mantel was purchased at the Detroit Antique Mall and was originally covered in paint. Stripping it revealed the most gorgeous quarter sawn oak. We ended up mounting our TV inside the mantel, since city code does not allow us to have a working fireplace, which made more room to display art. 16/27 This shelf in the living room continues the merging of two distinct styles, where books on Victorian jewelry mingles with a Companion figure by artist KAWS. 17/27 Our favorite thing about our home is how we have combined our own distinct styles into one cozy eclectic space. Diana and Matt 18/27 The back portion of the first floor, including the powder room, was a small addition put on the house during the renovation. The black and white cement tile is by Cement Tile Shop and makes a bold, graphic statement. The powder room is also home to a retired OBEY Monogram stencil collage by artist Shepard Fairey, Diana says. 19/27 Upstairs, the main bedroom now houses a king bed an upgrade from the queen size Diana had before Matt moved in. Its not uncommon to catch Pippa the Brussels Griffon, and cats Dilla and Vector snoozing here. 20/27 The graphic prints above our bed are by artist Steve Powers, Diana says. Matt used the line from this piece, Your everafter is all Im after, when he proposed to me this past December. 21/27 Diana shares, The wallpaper in our bathroom is Brooklyn Toile by Flavor Paper. It looks like a traditional toile from afar, but when you look closer it depicts a modern scene of Brooklyn, NY, including Coney Island and the Notorious B.I.G. 22/27 Because we went wild with pattern on the walls and floor in the bathroom, we kept everything else pretty simple with a black vanity and gold fixtures. 23/27 A peek at the guest bedroom, also located upstairs. This grey chair was originally in the living room, but we moved it to make room for the record shelf. We love how it works in this room and so do our cats, who are frequently found napping on it. 24/27 Matt moved in with two cats, Dilla and Vector. They have quickly taken to their new home, although they are still slowly warming up to their dog sister, Pippa. Dilla acts as king of the castle, keeping watch over the neighborhood from various windows around the house, Diana says. 25/27 Back downstairs, another look at the beautiful wall mural in the homes entryway. The floral mural keeps our house feeling bright and cheery, even during the cold, grey winter months in Michigan. 26/27 Diana recalls, When planning for the mural, artist Kimmy Scafuro asked me to provide images of my favorite flowers. I created a list of my favorite blooms, including nasturtium, anemones, poppies, peonies and chamomile. Kimmy added the insects as a quirky little surprise. 27/27 The homes exterior. Our home in the Water Hill neighborhood of Ann Arbor was built around 1912. When the house was renovated we replaced the deteriorating siding with cement siding in this color that is technically grey, but can read as blue and green in different light. We were going to originally paint the Cedar Shake white, but I ended up loving the contrast of the natural wood. Shilpa Shetty believes rejections made her stronger and played a huge part in her success. The actor-reality show judge said she faced a tough time in making her footing in the film industry, but that never stopped her from working hard. I always felt I am doing the right work. I am hard working. I hide under sofa when I see my old films. Back then in films I had blonde hair, used to wear blue lenses and red lipstick. I wonder how I got opportunities. I think it was all destiny. There is no successful person who hasnt faced failure. The more you get rejected you rise and give your best, Shilpa said during a session at the 20th FICCI Frames. Shilpa, who started her Bollywood journey with Baazigar, said the success of the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer did not help her much in getting good roles. I did not feel people were accepting me as an actor. Maybe I wasnt that good actor. Even after doing films like Phir Milenge and Dhadkan, I never got an award. I felt rejected and bad. But I kept working hard. There was hunger in my belly... I feel if not for those rejections I wouldnt have lasted so long, she added. Shilpa said her winning stint in international reality show Big Brother played an important role in her career. Big Brother was a beautiful moment...When I was offered Big Brother I had no clue about the show. There was certain sense of rejection that I felt to cut away from here and do something away from the country. They were paying me well and I was like lets try. I was prepared to be rejected there also. But every week I got stronger. First time I won something and I was shocked. I feel there is poetic justice and I believe in it, she said. Shilpa said she now feels content with whatever she has achieved in her life. Also read: Alia Bhatt on marrying boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor: It hasnt even crossed my mind I have completed 25 years and I feel the kind of love I am getting today is more as compared to then when I was actively working in films. I dont remember how I became an actress I have forgotten that journey. I feel we are born for a purpose. After taking a sabbatical from films, Shilpa shifted her focus towards imparting knowledge on health and wellness. I am focusing on it. I am aware that maybe 40 per cent people cuss me and I am okay as there are some who wait for me to share things about health and wellness. The 43-year-old actor, however, is willing to make a comeback to movies. I love acting. If I hadnt done TV then maybe I would have done films. After I had my son I consciously decided to be with him and so I did not do films. If I had to do a film then I had to be away for a longer period of time from my son so I did not want to do that. TV is gratifying. With TV I am able to connect and entertain. Due to TV, I like the fact that people like me as Shilpa Shetty and not some character of a film. The power of small screen is big as biggest of stars come to TV to promote their film, she said. Tanaiste attends meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels Press release The Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney T.D., is in Brussels today to attend a meeting of EU Foreign Affairs Ministers. Ministers will discuss Moldova, China and Yemen: My EU colleagues and I will discuss the situation in Moldova, following the recent parliamentary elections there, and the political perspectives for EU engagement with Moldova. Ministers will also examine the EUs relations with China, ahead of the upcoming EU-China Summit. This is a very important relationship, given Chinas increasingly prominent role in global forums and the turbulent global environment. We will also have the opportunity to discuss this relationship with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi. Finally, we will have an exchange of views on what the EU can do to support the UN-led peace process in Yemen and facilitate the delivery of vital humanitarian aid." ENDS Press Office 17 March 2019 Previous Item | Next Item The social network will deploy machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect near nude images and videos that have been shared without the owners permission, and delete them. Facebook claims it will be able to find the content even before anyone Highlights: Facebook to use machine learning and AI to detect intimate photos of people shared without their consent. The technology will be used in addition to human intervention who will review the images found by the AI. When found offensive, the image will be taken down and the account responsible for spreading it will be disabled. Facebook announced on Friday that it will be using Artificial Intelligence to curb revenge porn on its social network. The obscene practice that involves sharing intimate photos of someone without their consent on social media has plagued Facebook for a long time. The new technology will be in addition to the pilot program Facebook is running with trained representatives who review offending images to keep them under check. The social network will deploy machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect near nude images and videos that have been shared without the owners permission, and delete them. Facebook claims it will be able to find the content even before anyone reports it. Once the AI finds offending content, a member of Facebooks community operations team will review the finding and if found offensive, will remove it and even disable the account responsible for posting and spreading it. Revenge porn is a practice that disproportionately affects women who are targeted by former partners by spreading sexually explicit, intimate photos of them on social media in order to humiliate or extort them. Presently, Facebook works with at least five outsourcing companies in eight countries to review content posted on its social networks. In total, Facebook has about 15,000 people and a mix contractors and employees working on content review, according to Reuters. Facebook also wrote in a blog that it will open a hub called Not Without My Consent on its Safety Center page to help people whose intimate photos have been made public on the social media without their consent. Related Read: New Zealand shootings: Facebook removed 1.2 million videos at point of upload, 300K videos bypassed filtration systemsNew Zealand shootings: Facebook removed 1.2 million videos at point of upload, 300K videos bypassed filtration systems 70% of 10000+ consumers polled want to stop buying Chinese smartphones in the wake of China's UNSC stand In January, Digit partnered with Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka OnLeaks) to publish the first renders of the 2019 Apple iPhone XI. Famous tipster, Ice Universe had also corroborated the leak back then. This third confirmation comes from Japanese site Macotakara Highlights: Forbes confirms rear triple camera setup on the so-called iPhone XI. Earlier this Digit partnered with OnLeaks to publish images of the iPhone with triple camera setup on the back. The latest images shows a more symmetrical alignment of camera lenses. In January, Digit partnered with industry insider Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka OnLeaks) to publish the first ever renders of the 2019 Apple iPhone XI. We not only published the high-quality images and video, but also said that the Cupertino-based giant would continue with the current three-iPhone trend this year as well. Forbes (via Macotakara) has now confirmed that Apple will indeed come with a three-camera system housed within a protruding square enclosure on the back, corroborating our initial leak. However, the tech news website has reported a different lens setup, and does not say anything about the three-phone lineup. Citing Japanese site Macotakara, Forbes says that Apples Chinese supply chain have confirmed the so-called iPhone XI will feature a triple camera array which is housed in a large protruding square on the back of the phone. The difference between our leak and the latest image is the alignment of the lenses. Macotakara shows that the lenses are more aligned in a symmetrical fashion. We have already seen a triple camera setup in a square housing on Huaweis Mate 20 Pro and the latest image shows an iPhone sporting a similar camera module design. Apple has been struggling with a declining market share due to the high price of the iPhones and the US-China trade war. In fact, the iPhone-maker can be dubbed as the worst-hit casualty of the trade war as it was slapped with a ban on iPhone sales in China (one of the biggest markets for the company) and in Germany. When it comes to India, Apple's 2018 performance in the country was called disastrous by several analysts. While Counterpoint Research pegged Apple's India shipments at 1.6-1.7 million in 2018, CyberMedia Research predicted them at nearly 2 million - both lower than 3.2 million in 2017. According to analysts, highly priced iPhones were unable to compete with rivals, including OnePlus, which offer better features at half or even a third of the cost of iPhones. Famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted a rocky start of 2019 for the Cupertino-based company on a global level, claiming that iPhone sales will continue to be weak in the first half of 2019. Further, Taiwan-based firm Trendforce said that with its P series and Mate series, Huawei expanded its share in the premium segment of the Chinese smartphone market, where Apple used to dominate. It said that Huawei, currently at loggerheads with the US government, could overtake Apples spot in the near future. Related Read: Apple foldable display patent filing reveals intriguing designs The listing shows the Xiaomi Poco F2 with 4GB RAM scoring 1776 points in single-core and 6097 points in multi-core tests. Highlights: Xiaomi Poco F2 spotted with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 and Android Q on Geekbench. The phone scores 1776 points in single-core and 6097 points in multi-core tests. The scores are considerably less than the scores of other Snapdragon 855-powered phones. Xiaomi launched the Poco F1 as the cheapest phone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. There has been a lot of talk about the successor of the phone and it seems that the Chinese company has started to test the Poco F2 internally. The Xiaomi Poco F2 has been spotted on Geekbench powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform and running the yet-to-be-released Android Q OS. The most interesting thing about the listing is the RAM of the phone. It shows that the phone has 4GB RAM, and the impact of low RAM can be seen on the scores. According to the Geekbench listing, the Xiaomi Poco F2 with 4GB RAM achieves a scores of 1776 points in single-core and 6097 points in multi-core tests. As compared to other phones powered by Snapdragon 855 SoC, which scored over 3000 points in single core and over 10000 points in multicore tests respectively, these scores are quite less. Readers should note that these are initial test numbers and the company is likely to do a little tweaking to optimise performance in sync with the available hardware. Previously the Poco F2 was spotted with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC, 6GB RAM and Android 9 Pie OS. The older Geekbench listing with last year's flagship SoC showed the phone scoring 2321 points in single-core and 7564 points in multi-core tests. Recently, an alleged concept render of the Poco F2 device surfaced on the internet. The render, published by tipster Ben Geskin on Twitter, showed a black/dark grey colour device with a waterdrop notch. The position of the dual-camera has changed and unlike the previous model where the cameras were in the centre, the setup is now located on the top left corner. The renders also show that the Poco F2 branding is on the same spot as it was seen in the Poco F1. The latest sighting of the upcoming Poco flagship comes a few days after an alleged Xiaomi Poco F1 Lite smartphone was also spotted on the Geekbench Browser. The device was seen powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset with 4GB of RAM. The listing on Geekbenchs website also stated that the smartphone runs Android 9 Pie out of the box. It revealed that the phone scored 1341 on the single-core and 4830 on the multi-core tests. Since the Xiaomi Poco F1 was the cheapest Snapdragon 845 phone, consumers would be expecting the successor in a similar price bracket. To recall, Xiaomi launched the Poco F1 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC at a starting price of Rs 20,999. It comes with a Liquid Cooling technology to keep the temperature of the device under check during intense usage sessions like playing high-graphics games. There is also an special Armoured Edition of the Poco F1 available in the market. Related Read: Poco F1 Review Subscriber content preview By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press WASHINGTON The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday banned consumer use of a popular but deadly paint stripper but stopped short of also banning commercial use of the product by tradespeople. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed the rule, which will bar manufacture and import of the stripper methylene chloride for consumer use, in a private meeting Friday with relatives of a man who died while using the paint stripper. . . . Subscriber content preview NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) The University of Tennessee will begin providing free tuition to Tennessee residents starting in the fall of 2020. Interim university President Randy Boyd announced Thursday that tuition and fees will be covered for students with household incomes of less than $50,000 a year. . . . Subscriber content preview FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) American Airlines is stopping flights to Venezuela because of safety concerns after the pilots' union told its members to refuse to work the flights. American was the last major U.S. carrier to fly to the troubled country. It flew daily to Caracas and Maracaibo from Miami. . . . Subscriber content preview SEATTLE The Fifth Avenue Apartments, at 1401 Fifth Ave. N., have sold for a little over $10.1 million, according to King County records. The seller was a family group that had owned the property for decades. . . . BSNL to move NCLT to recover Rs700-cr dues from RCom State-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) plans to approach National Company Law Tribunal to recover dues of about Rs700 crore from defunct Reliance Communications, say reports. In fact, BSNL has invoked Rs100 bank guarantee provided by RCom and has started legal proceedings by appointing a law firm to handle the case, says a PTI report. "BSNL has already invoked bank guarantee of around Rs100 crore submitted by RCom for default on payments. The decision was taken on January 4 by BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava to start legal proceedings against RCom for recovery of dues of around Rs 700 crore," the PTI report quoted official sources as saying. BSNL has roped Singh and Kohli law firm for the suit. The case filing got delayed due to the collection of invoices from all circle offices. The move comes in the wake of extreme financial crunch at BSNL that forced the state-owned telecom firm to delay payment of salaries to its employees. A strike by BSNL staff has also threatened to hit internet services to banks. Meanwhile, reports said the Department of telecommunications (DoT) is weighing a Rs13,000-crore bailout package for debt-ridden BSNL BSNL also plans to soon offer Aadhaar facilities in 3,000 service centres across India. Debt-ridden RCom had in its plea before the NCLAT said that it wanted to voluntarily go back into the insolvency process, as it will help selling its assets in a time-bound manner. It had moved the appellate tribunal, seeking directions to the 37 lenders led by SBI to release Rs260 crore directly to Ericsson. However, lenders of RCom have opposed the plea, saying that it will lead to the outgo of public money for settling payment of a private party. The NCLAT also on Friday declined to issue any direction to SBI and has asked for an update on development with regard to payment of Ericsson due on March 19. The tribunal will hear the case of April 8. RCom has been struggling to pay Rs453 crore out of Rs550 crore to Ericsson under a settlement reached between the two firms before NCLAT. The Supreme Court has given time till 19 March to RCom Group to make payment to Ericsson, failing which its chairman Anil Ambani will have to serve a three-month jail term. Rinfra to sell Delhi-Agra toll way to Singapore firm for Rs3,600 cr Reliance Infrastructure Ltd said on Thursday it would sell a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that runs the Delhi-Agra Toll way for an enterprise value of Rs3,609 crore, which will help the company reduce its debt by 25 per cent. Rinfra also announced the signing of definitive binding agreement with Cube Highways and Infrastructure III Pte Ltd for the sale of its 100 per cent stake in Delhi-Agra (DA) Toll Road Private Limited. Cube Highways and Infrastructure III Pte Ltd is a Singapore-based company formed by global infrastructure fund I Squared Capital and a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The total deal enterprise value is over Rs3,600 crore. In addition, NHAI claims of Rs1,200 crore to be filed by DA Toll Road Pvt Ltd will flow directly to Reliance Infrastructure. Reliance Infrastructure will utilise the proceeds of this transaction entirely to reduce its debt. After the completion of the transaction for Delhi-Agra Toll Road, the debt of Reliance Infrastructure will reduce by 25 per cent to only less than Rs5,000 crore. The transaction is in line with Reliance Infrastructures strategic plan of monetising non-core business and focus on major growth areas like engineering and construction (E&C) business. The transaction is subject to all requisite permissions and approvals. Reliance Infrastructures special purpose vehicle (SPV) DA Toll Road Private Limited operates the showpiece 180-km long six-lane road that connects the national capital Delhi with Agra on National Highway (NH) 2. The profitable project has witnessed impressive revenue growth of 25 per cent in FY18. The tolling operation for the heavily-trafficked project started in October 2012 and has a concession period till 2038. Reliance Infrastructure Ltd is one of the largest infrastructure companies, developing projects through various Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) in several high growth sectors such as power, roads and metro rail in the infrastructure space and the defence sector. Reliance Infrastructure Ltd is a major player in providing engineering and construction (E&C) services for developing power, infrastructure, metro and road projects. Reliance Infrastructure Ltd through its SPVs has executed a portfolio of infrastructure projects such as a metro rail project in Mumbai on build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) basis; and eleven road projects with total length of about 1,000 kms on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. Reliance Infrastructure Ltd is also a leading utility company having presence across the value chain of power businesses i.e. generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. RCom pays Rs462 cr to Sweden's Ericsson ahead of SC deadline Reliance Communications has paid Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson Rs462 crore ahead of the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court thereby averting certain imprisonment of its chairman Anil Ambani. Ericsson's lawyer and the companys spokesperson are reported to have confirmed receipt of the payment. The Supreme Court had held Ambani and three Reliance companies guilty of contempt of court for not complying with the undertaking to settle the Rs550 crore dues of Ericsson. The bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran had ordered Anil Ambanis RCom and two of its directors to pay Ericsson Rs450 crore within four weeks or face a three-month jail term for contempt of court. RCom had already deposited Rs118 crore in the court as advance payment against its dues to Ericsson. RCom owed a total Rs571 crore to Ericsson in contract payment, which included a one-time settlement of Rs550 crore and interest payment of Rs21 crore. The Swedish gear-maker had initiated insolvency process against RCom as an operational creditor. On 30 May 2018, the NCLAT directed Reliance to pay Rs550 crore to Ericsson on the basis of a settlement between both the companies. This was defaulted and the matter reached the Supreme Court, where RCom undertook to pay the amount. But the undertaking was not honoured, forcing Ericsson file a contempt petition, alleging that Reliance group "wilfully and consciously" defied the order dated 3 August of the top court and the undertaking given before it to pay up by September-end. The apex court had on 23 October given one last opportunity to RCom for clearing the settlement amount, by setting 15 December. When this deadline was also missed, the SC issued contempt notice to Ambani on 6 January. The bench was not prepared to accept the offer of part-settlement made by RCom for Rs118 crores. Last week, Reliance had approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal seeking a direction to State Bank of India to release the amount of Rs.260 crores of income tax refund held by it in trust on behalf of all creditors of Reliance Communications(RCom) to enable the telecom company to pay Rs.450 crores to Ericsson India Private Ltd. In the judgment pronounced on Friday, the NCLAT noted that that the payment of dues of Rs550 crore to Ericsson by three Reliance Companies is not linked with the assets of the SBI or any other bank, who are third parties to the settlement between the three Reliance companies and Ericsson. Former Supreme Court judge PC Ghose to be India's first Lokpal Former Supreme Court judge Pinaki Chandra Ghose is likely to be the first Lokpal of the country, after a selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved his name, reports citing official sources said. Besides Prime Minister Modi, the selection committee had Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, and senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi as other members. Leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress member, Mallikarjun Kharge, who is part of the committee, did not attend the meeting. Justice Ghoses name was among the top 10 names that was shortlisted by the Lokpal Search Committee. After retiring in May 2017 from the Supreme Court, Justice Ghose joined the National Human Rights Commission. Justice Ghose is a former judge of Calcutta high court and has also served as the former chief justice of Andhra Pradesh high court. The Supreme Court, while hearing a PIL filed by advocate Prashant Bhushan for NGO Common Cause, on 4 January, had impressed upon the need to appoint a Lokpal at the earliest, saying much time has elapsed, something needs to be done. The central government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that much progress had been made in the process of appointing of a Lokpal and urged the court to dismiss a PIL demanding court intervention to ensure that the anti-corruption ombudsman be appointed. Attorney General KK Venugopal said the lists of candidates to be considered for appointment as chairperson of Lokpal and for appointment of other judicial and non-judicial members were ready. These will now be considered by a high-power panel. He urged the bench, led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi, to dismiss the petition seeking court intervention to hasten the Lokpal appointment. The Lokpal Act, which envisages the establishment of a Lokpal at the centre and Lokayuktas in states to look into cases of corruption against certain categories of public servants, was passed in 2013 and notified on 16 January 2014. The selection of the first Lokpal comes nearly five years after the Lokpal Act was notified. The search committee was constituted on 27 September 2018, after the Supreme Courts intervention and former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai was nominated to head it. Also, since there was no designated leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, the government decided to invite Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress in the House, to meetings of the selection panel but as a special invitee. Kharge, however, refused to attend the Lokpal selection panels meeting as a special invitee. He insisted that he would attend the meeting only if changes are made in his status and even wrote a letter to the PM seeking amendments in the Lokpal Act to facilitate the participation of the opposition in the Lokpals selection process. Traders to boycott Chinese goods over its support to JeM terrorist Azar The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has decided to boycott those cheap Chinese goods that swamp Indian markets after that country thwarted international moves to got Pakistani terrorist Mazod Aszhar for a fourth time, to bail out its close ally, Pakistan. China, Pakistans most reliable friend, has repeatedly thwarted efforts to implement UN sanctions against Masood Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the group that claimed responsibility for the attack that killed 40 paramilitary police in Kashmir. In fact, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which represents 70 million traders, said it would burn Chinese goods on March 19 to teach a lesson to China. The time has come when China should suffer due to its proximity with Pakistan, CAIT said in a statement. The CAIT has launched a national campaign to boycott Chinese goods to boycott, calling the traders not to sell or buy Chinese goods. The United States, Britain and France asked the Security Councils Islamic State and al Qaeda sanctions committee to subject the Jaish leader to an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze. But China placed a technical hold on the proposal, saying it needed more time to consider, using the same stalling tactic it has used in the past. China is Indias second biggest trading partner. Chinese products, supplying anything from mobile phones to cheap toys, and leaving India with a nearly $90 billion trade deficit in the year ending March 2018. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, also called for a boycott of Chinese goods. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) The government body in charge of water privatization in Metro Manila said Monday it has no power to impose penalties now on concessionaire Manila Water despite its violation of its contract when it failed to continuously supply water to customers. "Based on the terms of the concession agreement, Manila Water has violated their mandate to provide 24/7 water," Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Chief Regulator Patrick Ty said Monday during a House panel hearing on the water crisis. Article 5, Section 5.1.2 of the agreement reads: "The Concessionaire shall ensure the availability of an uninterrupted 24 hour supply of water to all connected Customers in the Service Area, subject to interruptions resulting from the temporary failure of items of the Facilities (where the Concessionaire acts promptly to remedy such failure) or required for the repair or construction of the Facilities where such repairs or construction cannot be performed without interruption to the supply of water." Ty said MWSS sent multiple notices of violation to Manila Water for the service interruptions, but said that the agency cannot hold the east Metro Manila water concessionaire immediately accountable. "The MWSS Regulatory Office (RO) has no authority to impose fines and penalties (at) this time," he explained. The MWSS Regulator said the agreement it signed with Manila Water in 1997 states that should the concessionaire commit violations, the MWSS could apply penalties in the next rate rebasing. The next rate rebasing is scheduled in 2022. "That is why the MWSS has been repeatedly requesting Congress to petition for a Department of Water and a water regulatory commission to allow the imposing of these fines and penalties," Ty said. When asked by Negros Occidental 3rd District Rep.Alfredo Benitez if that is a "defect" in the agreement, Ty agreed. ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said he was shocked that the MWSS is saying it does not have authority to impose fines and penalties when the contract clearly stipulates it does. Article 10, Section 10.4 of the concessionaire contract states: "A failure by the Concessionaire to meet any Service Obligation which continues for more than 60 days (or 15 days in cases where the failure could adverely affect public health or welfare) after written notice thereof from the Regulatory Office to the Concessionaire shall constitute a basis for the Regulatory Office to assesss financial penalties against the Concessionaire." In a separate interview, House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said a penalty provision must be added in the law. "Perhaps in the law, we have to add a penalty provision for those who failed to comply with some parts of the concession agreement," she said. Manila Water President and COO Ferdinand dela Cruz said their customers will continue to experience water service interruptions until end of May, in order for La Mesa Dam to replenish its water supply. CNN Philippines' Correspondent Rex Remitio contributed to this report. Drought of knowledge threatens water supplies Published On Mon 18 Mar 2019 by Jonathan Watson The people of Scotland need to re-evaluate their relationship with water as part of a global effort to make supplies sustainable. Dr Emmanuel Akpabio, a research fellow at the University of Dundee, says that education is crucial in ensuring that safe, sustainable water supplies are available to every person, regardless of their location. A lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Uyo in Nigeria, Dr Akpabio is currently spending two years in Dundee researching water policy and its implementation around the world. To mark United Nations World Water Day on Friday 22 March, he will be hosting a talk, Everyday Geographies of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Leaving No One Behind in sub-Saharan Africa, at the Universitys Dalhousie Building from 4.30 6.30pm. Keen to ensure that his message trickles in to the public consciousness, he said, Water use is a global issue. The 2014 Ebola outbreak highlighted how cultural habits in Africa could impact on populations around the world and that is why everybody must take an interest in how we treat this most precious of resources. Education is central to this issue, not only in sub-Saharan Africa, but in Scotland as well. Just because we are surrounded by water here there is still a responsibility to use it properly. I want my talk to open peoples eyes as to how valuable water is and how little things, like turning taps off when brushing our teeth, can help manage this. A specialist in environmental and resource management, Dr Akpabio is examining how world governments can improve and coordinate water policy to increase accessibility to safe water supplies. In December, he brought together politicians, academics and water industry figures in the Nigerian capital Abuja to discuss the need to improve water policy and public sanitation advice within the country, and is planning a similar event in the Malawian capital, Lilongwe, next month. As well as highlighting the widespread threat to life posed by unsafe drinking supplies, Dr Akpabio said that he is keen to make members of the public aware of the social disparities surrounding water in parts of Africa. There are issues of inequality around water in sub-Saharan Africa which need to be addressed, he added. For example, water collection and management is often left to women, and that one person is responsible for that limited amount of water and how it is used for multiple purposes, such as washing, bathing and drinking, possibly exposing a family to disease. Children are also compromised as they too are often involved in the water gathering process, which can affect their school studies. The disabled are also at an extreme disadvantage, as the facilities we see here in Scotland to help people with restricted mobility are not always found in Africa. These are factors that are often overlooked, yet are crucial to address if we want access to water to be equal to everybody. Organised by the Dundee Africa Research Network, Dr Akpabios talk, 'Everyday Geographies of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Leaving No One Behind in sub-Saharan Africa', takes place in the University of Dundees Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill, from 4.30 - 6.30pm on Friday 22 March. Entry is free and all are welcome to attend. Further information is available by emailing DARN@dundee.ac.uk. For media enquiries contact: Jonathan Watson Media Relations Officer University of Dundee Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN Tel: +44 (0)1382 381489 Email: j.s.watson@dundee.ac.uk Blog Archive June 2021 (1) May 2021 (77) April 2021 (77) March 2021 (82) February 2021 (68) January 2021 (64) December 2020 (67) November 2020 (66) October 2020 (66) September 2020 (67) August 2020 (74) July 2020 (83) June 2020 (92) May 2020 (86) April 2020 (104) March 2020 (105) February 2020 (74) January 2020 (75) December 2019 (75) November 2019 (70) October 2019 (89) September 2019 (69) August 2019 (81) July 2019 (77) June 2019 (73) May 2019 (110) April 2019 (110) March 2019 (102) February 2019 (85) January 2019 (123) December 2018 (116) November 2018 (112) October 2018 (121) September 2018 (107) August 2018 (150) July 2018 (163) June 2018 (190) May 2018 (145) April 2018 (112) March 2018 (124) February 2018 (113) January 2018 (164) December 2017 (150) November 2017 (144) October 2017 (169) September 2017 (171) August 2017 (135) July 2017 (131) June 2017 (147) May 2017 (160) April 2017 (138) March 2017 (156) February 2017 (143) January 2017 (203) December 2016 (208) November 2016 (185) October 2016 (173) September 2016 (194) August 2016 (232) July 2016 (225) June 2016 (238) May 2016 (231) April 2016 (215) March 2016 (246) February 2016 (226) January 2016 (252) December 2015 (230) November 2015 (250) October 2015 (234) September 2015 (222) August 2015 (253) July 2015 (275) June 2015 (279) May 2015 (223) April 2015 (226) March 2015 (243) February 2015 (258) January 2015 (281) December 2014 (292) November 2014 (296) October 2014 (413) September 2014 (472) August 2014 (506) July 2014 (483) June 2014 (488) May 2014 (512) April 2014 (497) March 2014 (531) February 2014 (482) January 2014 (535) December 2013 (482) November 2013 (441) October 2013 (416) September 2013 (491) August 2013 (521) July 2013 (491) June 2013 (470) May 2013 (457) April 2013 (426) March 2013 (420) February 2013 (414) January 2013 (489) December 2012 (433) November 2012 (504) October 2012 (469) September 2012 (430) August 2012 (427) July 2012 (360) June 2012 (336) May 2012 (362) April 2012 (322) March 2012 (263) February 2012 (224) January 2012 (291) December 2011 (295) November 2011 (325) October 2011 (330) September 2011 (319) August 2011 (333) July 2011 (318) June 2011 (387) May 2011 (373) April 2011 (389) March 2011 (375) February 2011 (335) January 2011 (400) December 2010 (445) November 2010 (395) October 2010 (312) September 2010 (262) August 2010 (277) July 2010 (323) June 2010 (386) May 2010 (360) April 2010 (333) March 2010 (351) February 2010 (336) January 2010 (384) December 2009 (353) November 2009 (300) October 2009 (308) September 2009 (350) August 2009 (298) July 2009 (255) June 2009 (203) May 2009 (193) April 2009 (186) March 2009 (197) February 2009 (173) January 2009 (148) December 2008 (181) November 2008 (197) October 2008 (236) September 2008 (304) August 2008 (314) July 2008 (273) June 2008 (27) May 2008 (1) April 2008 (6) October 2007 (1) May 2007 (1) April 2007 (6) March 2007 (2) February 2007 (1) October 2006 (1) September 2006 (1) August 2006 (4) July 2006 (4) June 2006 (1) July 2005 (1) May 2005 (2) March 2005 (1) June 2004 (2) May 2004 (1) April 2004 (4) March 2004 (2) February 2004 (2) July 2003 (2) June 2003 (5) By Jeff Turrentine "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." This is something that everybody has to learn at some point. Lately, the lesson has hit home for a group of American automakers. Over the last several weeks, officials from the Trump administration have been meeting with representatives from big carmakers like GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler, in hopes of getting them to publicly support the president's proposed freeze on Obama-era fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. But even though some of these companies might want those standards to be relaxed to some degree, they've been forced to watch and wince as the administration speeds headlong into a legal brick wall. And honestly, what sort of automaker would ever endorse that kind of driving? The brick wall is the state of California, which was given the power by Congress to set its own tailpipe emissions and fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks almost 50 years ago, as long as those standards were stricter than the ones set by the federal government. California has consistently strengthened these rules in the ensuing years, with the result being far cleaner air for its residents and far lower gas costs for its drivers. In fact, the state's clean-car standards have been so effective that 13 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted them as their own, thanks to a federal rule that allows for such adoption every time California requests and is granted a renewal of its waiver by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Automakers have kept pace by upping their technology game to meet the stricter rules a decision that's proved to be of immense benefit to all Americans, as our new cars and pickup trucks become cleaner and more fuel efficient year after year. From a production standpoint, that decision was pretty much a no-brainer: If carmakers wanted to sell vehicles in the "clean car states," including the most populous one in the country, they simply had to adapt. And so adapt they did. By 2012, when President Obama announced the new federal standards, the idea of continuously and dramatically improving fuel efficiency was already baked in to the business model of the American automobile industry. Which isn't to say car companies were thrilled with the way this all played out. While they may have talked a great zero-emissions game in public, many of them privately bristled at the pressure they felt as government agencies enforced new rules in the service of a decidedly ambitious goal: an American fleet that averages 54.5 miles to the gallon by 2025. That's why they wasted almost no time (literally just 48 hours!) before asking the newly elected President Trump to reevaluate the Obama standards, citing the billions of dollars in extra costs associated with compliance. They wanted things to go at a slower, less costly pace. And they had reason to believe the new administration would be on their sidenot to mention that of a fossil fuel industry hungry to sell more gas, not less. Trump, never one to shy away from a chance to undo the legacy of his White House predecessor, heard the car companies' request. "I'll go you one better" was the gist of his response. First he proposed freezing fuel efficiency targets at 2020 levels, which would lower the national average to just 37 miles per gallon. And then, to top that, he vowed to strip California of its 50-year-old EPA waiver. Last month, the administration signaled its desire to go forward with this reckless plan when it abruptly broke off talks with the California Air Resources Board, negotiations that many people believe the White House conducted in bad faith. This wasn't what automakers had in mind. Unlike the president's legal advisers, apparently, car companies know that the White House can't just swoop in and prevent California from creating and enforcing its own emissions policies. The EPA has granted the state's request for a waiver more than 100 times since 1967; the one request that the agency did deny was later approved. Any attempt by this president or any president to deny California its right to control its own air quality is very likely to fail. But here's the thing: It wouldn't fail overnight. It would be defeated only after many years and many lawsuits. And that prospect is what's making carmakers worry. Because the only thing car companies might hate more than billions of dollars in added costs is an atmosphere of prolonged regulatory uncertainty, which could end up costing them even more. That's why they felt compelled to clarify their original request in a plaintive letter to President Trump last May the same month that 18 states filed suit against the administration once it became clear that the president was brazenly stepping into a protracted legal battle that he almost certainly wouldn't win. And that's why most of them are now urging the White House to resume negotiations with California and find some sort of compromise. Will the White House listen to America's suddenly cold-footed carmakers and head back to the negotiating table? Or will it engage in a needless fight with more than a dozen states? We'll all find out soon enough. Reposted with permission from our media associate onEarth. By Joe Sandler Clarke "Don't expect us to continue buying European products," Malaysia's former plantations minister Mah Siew Keong told reporters in January last year. His comments came just after he had accused the EU of "practising a form of crop apartheid." A few months later Luhut Pandjaitan, an Indonesian government minister close to President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo, warned his country would retaliate if it was "cornered" by the EU. In the past two years the European Commission and several European countries have weighed up plans to restrict imports of palm oil amid growing concern about the environmental impact of the crop. But the world's biggest producers launched an aggressive diplomatic pushback, threatening to cancel deals worth billions for everything from salmon to fighter jets. Groups backed by the Malaysian government launched social media campaigns against European government officials and a well-known supermarket, at the same time. Unearthed has pieced together the story of the diplomatic spat through conversations with stakeholders, politicians and official emails. Future Demand Diplomatic pressure from Malaysia and Indonesia intensified at the start of last year, when MEPs voted to phase-out palm oil in biofuels from counting towards the EU's new renewable energy guidelines, which will take effect in 2020. These rules pose a particular problem to palm oil companies, because a decade or so ago analysts predicted a glowing future for biofuels. In 2010 the EU drafted its first renewable energy directive, setting clean energy rules and targets for member states, and providing an incentive for member states to switch to palm oil-based biodiesel for cars. In anticipation, palm oil producers stepped up production and created new plantations. These plantations have now reached maturity, but with scientists and legislators increasingly aware of the environmental impact of crops like palm oil, the expected biofuels boom has not materialized, leaving producers with a mounting oversupply problem. Chris Malins, a consultant on alternative fuels explains: "The biggest potential growth area for palm oil is fuels. This is a growing industry in the medium and long term, and nothing Europe does will change that, but if we stop layering on additional demand for palm oil in biofuels that will limit those more aggressive demand scenarios." The vote in the European Parliament set off a major lobbying effort by the Indonesian and Malaysian governments and palm oil interests both in Brussels and in European capitals, as the European Commission deliberated over the final shape of the new green energy rules. In the UK Indonesian and Malaysian officials appeared to dangle a post-Brexit trade deal in an effort to get the UK to oppose the EU move on palm oil in biofuels, according to government emails from early February 2018. Foreign Office officials said a few days later that "every minister engaging with Malaysia" should expect to be lobbied on palm oil, including Theresa May, who was due to meet then Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in April 2018. In the end, Razak was unable to attend the event. British diplomats also feared that the EU fight could torpedo a multi-billion pound deal for Malaysia to replace its aging fighter jet fleet with Eurofighter Typhoon jets manufactured by BAE Systems. And Foreign Office staff complained about both countries putting pressure on diplomats to hit back on a move by Iceland supermarket to remove palm oil from its own-brand goods. With a number of European countries considering their own moves to limit palm oil imports on environmental reasons, the push-back on the continent was similarly intense. This January, Malaysia's new-elected premier, Mahathir Bin Mohamed, sent a personal letter to Emmanuel Macron threatening the suspension of free trade talks and "regrettable economic and trade consequences" for 6 billion of French exports, because of the French "de facto ban" on palm oil. In early summer 2018, French politicians moved to cap and progressively phase-out imports of the commodity. The move came two-and-a-half-years after French politicians scrapped plans for a tax on unsustainable palm oil in 2016 after being warned that passing the law could lead to the execution of a French citizen convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia, as reported here. When the Norwegian parliament asked the government to develop measures to exclude biofuels with a high risk of deforestation, both Indonesia and Malaysia tried to hit back. Mahathir wrote to the Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg in January warning that the country's plan to phase out palm oil from biofuels in 2020 could have "regrettable economic and trade consequences" both for Malaysia's smallholder farmers and for Norway. Malaysia's new primary industries minister, Teresa Kok, warned that free trade negotiations with European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states (which includes Norway, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) could be "adversely affected." Art direction: Georgie Johnson. Illustration: Freya Morgan Speaking to reporters after the signing of the Indonesia-EFTA trade deal in December last year, Indonesian trade minister Enggartiasto Lukita said palm oil had been a major sticking point in negotiations. Lukita added that he had threatened to leave Norwegian salmon out of the deal if EFTA states restricted access for palm oil. "I said, we've gone a long way. You will benefit from this and I too. So if you don't open up for our palm, let's just forget about this." The Norwegian government declined to comment when approached by Unearthed. 'Don't Be Like Richard' These high-level diplomatic spats have been matched by an online campaign established by Malaysia's smallholder associations and Malaysian government agencies targeting the EU, key member states and private companies. Last spring, after Iceland supermarket announced its high-profile palm oil move, a group called Human Faces of Palm Oil began spreading messages on social media about the company's Executive Director Richard Walker. One video posted on Twitter and YouTube ran with the line: "Richard only wants to attack poor palm oil small farmers in Africa and Asia. Don't be like Richard." As the Times reported, while Human Faces of Palm Oil describes itself as a platform to tell the stories of Malaysia palm oil smallholders, it was set up by several Malaysian groups, including two government agencies: Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) and the Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (SALCRA). The Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), an official trade body, is also listed online as one of the groups behind the Human Faces of Palm Oil. MPOC operates from the same physical address as the economic and industry division of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), a government agency. MPOC made its presence felt during free trade agreement negotiations in Europe last autumn, when CEO Kalyana Sundram dominated discussions that were supposed to be led by plantations minister Teresa Kok, according to one senior European political figure at the table, who asked to remain anonymous. "It was weird because this lobbyist was interfering a lot in the discussions," the official explained. "He would say stuff like 'the minister wants to tell you ' or [he would] translate what she had tried to say. I found it peculiar because normally the minister is the boss of the lobbyist but it seemed as if the lobbyist was in charge of the minister." Neither Kok nor Sundram responded to a request for comment from Unearthed. Farmers Unite, another online campaign publicly backed by MPOC, launched with three full-page ads in the run-up to Christmas in the London free newspaper City AM, calling on Iceland boss Walker to end his "colonial crusade" against palm oil. The group's founder Thompson Ayodele wrote a series of op-eds in Asia and west Africa, at the same time, decrying moves in Europe to restrict palm oil imports. Ayodele is the founder of the Nigerian thinktank the Initiative for Public Policy Analysis (IPPA) and in 2015 authored research for Malaysia's Sime Darby Plantation. Sime Darby describes itself as "the world's largest palm oil plantation company by planted area" and last year posted pre-tax profits of more than 440m. The National Association of Smallholders (NASH) is another Malaysian group publicly backing both the Human Faces of Palm Oil and Farmers Unite campaigns. Over the last 12 months, NASH has placed several ads in Politico Europe, a magazine that reaches power brokers in Brussels, denouncing the EU's palm oil policy as "crop apartheid." Unearthed approached NASH, Thompson Ayodele and MPOC for a comment on this story, but received no response. Farmers Unite did, however, issue the following tweet. Last Wednesday, after all the diplomatic wrangling, the European Commission recommended that palm oil should be phased-out from transport fuel on environmental grounds. The EU measure places limits on what types of palm oil biofuels can count towards member states' renewable energy targets. The Malaysian government called the move a "calculated political act" and threatened to bring a World Trade Organization challenge if it goes ahead. A statement from the country's foreign ministry read: "Such an aggressive trade barrier targeted at Malaysia's national interests, and our 650,000 small farmers, cannot pass without a strong response." Reposted with permission from our media associate Unearthed. By Luis Torres For some people who live along the U.S.-Mexico border, President Trump's attempt to declare a national emergency and extend the border wall is worse than a wasteful, unconstitutional stunt. It's an attack on their way of life that threatens to desecrate their loved ones' graves. That's why Earthjustice is helping them take the Trump administration to court and put a halt to this abuse of power. On March 14, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of border residents including the Ramirez family of San Juan, Texas, who own the property where the 154-year-old Eli Jackson Cemetery is located. If construction on the border wall proceeds, it may require the exhumation and desecration of remains within the cemetery. "President Trump's so-called border 'emergency' would make it harder for our family, our children, and our children's children to visit our loved ones' final resting places," says Dr. Ramiro Ramirez. "For months now, we've lived with the uncertainty of what might happen to our home, our cemetery, and the land we've lived on for generations. Enough is enough." Our clients in this lawsuit also include the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, whose ancestors inhabited the Rio Grande Valley for centuries and whose sacred sites would be disturbed by wall construction; Elsa Hall, a landowner on the border; the Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC); and a number of local and national leaders representing affected communities. Earthjustice senior legislative representative Luis Torres understands firsthand how additional miles of wall will rip apart communities. He grew up on the Texas side of the Rio Grande River, in a family that straddled the border. Here, he describes the border he knows and why we must fight Trump's wall. Descendants of Eli Jackson stand in a 145-year-old Texan church that bears his name. Construction on Trump's border wall may desecrate a cemetery next to the church. Sylvia Ramirez The following are remarks Torres originally prepared for "Voices from the Border: the Social and Environmental Impacts of the Border Wall," a congressional briefing hosted by GreenLatinos, Earthjustice, and United We Dream Action. I was born and raised on the border, in the city of Laredo, Texas, which sits on the Rio Grande River across from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. If members of Congress knew the border I know, they wouldn't be negotiating over funding for a massive, hateful, unnecessary border wall. Like many border residents, my family lived on the U.S. side but also had family, friends, and business on the Mexican side el otro lado, we called it. Living on the border means celebrating American and Mexican holidays; it means having a barbecue on the Fourth of July and also sitting by the Rio Grande to watch the carnival lights of the annual feria expomex, the annual fair to kick off Mexican independence day festivities; it means celebrating George Washington's birthday and also Dia De Los Muertos. Torres and his parents walk along the Rio Grande. Luis Torres / Earthjustice This is the border to me. This is what I call home. I lived in Laredo for 18 years before I left for Washington, D.C., to study and work on Capitol Hill to make a difference for the people of my beloved border community. I quickly learned that many on the Hill don't know the border like we do. They don't see the border like we see it. They don't see Mexican people, and Mexican-Americans, tribes, and other communities the way we see them. Politicians talk about an unsafe border: rampant with drugs, gangs, violence, and lawlessness. They talk about rapists, drug dealers, and criminals, midnight crossings, invasions, cartel shootouts, and anarchy. This is the insecurity narrative that radical right-wing politicians use to push their border agendas. But it isn't the border I know. It's not the border that raised me; where my family and friends live today. Soon Congress will vote on whether or not to fund President Trump's border wall, and if so, how much money to give to it. But the fight over wall funding is about more than just the wall: It's about the fight to define the border, the people who live in border communities, and the lives of those who will come after them. Members of Congress need to visit the border. They need to be vocal against the wall when they speak on the floors of the House and Senate. They need to fight every way they can against giving even a dime to the construction of this monument to division and hate. There are real human consequences to so-called "compromise" here this isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. This is a fight for human lives. This fight won't be easy. We certainly won't win if we talk about the border wall through a single-issue lens. If we talk about it comprehensively, we may have a chance. We need border residents; immigration and Latino advocates; environmental, wildlife, and conservation advocates; faith, indigenous, and community leaders all of us on the same page. Every one of us needs to remind Congress that: Walls are lethal to humans and wildlife. Walls cause flooding. They destroy nature, habitats, and resources. Walls require the confiscation of private property. Walls cost billions to construct and billions to maintain. Walls interfere with native sovereignty. Walls betray our values. And walls have been totally, completely, and unequivocally rejected by the American public. The author as a child at a party in Laredo. Luis Torres / Earthjustice The louder we speak up, the harder it is for our communities to be divided, pitted against each other, or used as bargaining chips in negotiations. And even if we fall short now, a new Congress is coming. Latinos have always struggled and fought to get Washington to take us seriously and stop treating us as second-class citizens but we'll have a fighting chance in the new year. But we need to make Washington hear us. We'll fight this wall now, we'll fight it next year, we'll fight it as long as Trump is in office, and we won't stop fighting, no matter what. We won't quit until this wall is what and where it belongs debris in the junkyard of history's worst ideas. This post was originally published on Dec. 14, 2018. It has been updated to reflect the news of Earthjustice's lawsuit. Luis A. Torres, MA.T. is a Senior Legislative Representative in the Policy & Legislation department at Earthjustice. Yet another whale has died after ingesting plastic bags. A young male Cuvier's beaked whale was found washed up in Mabini, Compostela Valley in the Philippines Friday, CNN reported. When scientists from the D' Bone Collector Museum in Davao investigated the dead whale, they found it had died of "dehydration and starvation" after swallowing plastic bags40 kilograms (approximately 88 pounds) worth of them! "This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. It's disgusting," the natural history museum said in a Facebook post Sunday. "Action must be taken by the government against those who continue to treat the waterways and ocean as dumpsters." Museum staff said they found 16 rice sacks, for "banana plantation style bags" and several shopping bags in the whale's stomach. "I was not prepared for the amount of plastic," D' Bone Collector Museum President and Founder and marine scientist Darrell Blatchley told CNN. This is only the most recent incident in which a whale has died after ingesting massive amounts of plastic. In November of last year, a sperm whale washed up in Indonesia with 13 pounds of plastic in its stomach. Another, a pilot whale, died in Thailand in June of 2018 after ingesting 17 pounds of plastic, including 80 plastic bags. Blatchley explained to CNN one reason why plastic is such a big problem for cetaceans, including dolphins and whales. The marine mammals get all of their water from the food that they eat, so when plastic blocks their ability to eat large amounts of food, they die of thirst as well as hunger. Blatchley told The Guardian he had examined 57 whales and dolphins who had died because of consuming plastic in 10 years. "Hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, seals and turtles are killed by ocean plastic pollution every year, including single-use plastics and abandoned plastic gear from the fishing industry," World Animal Protection campaigner Peter Kemple Hardy told CNN. The G7 in Biarritz, from 24 to 26 August 2019 The G7 ("Group of 7") brings together France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada, and the Heads of State and Government of which meet at an annual summit. In addition to addressing the economic issues it is initially founded on, the G7 has become a forum for consultation where common responses are found for major global challenges including peace and security, counter-terrorism, development, education, health, the environment and climate change. Eight years on from the Deauville G8 Summit, it is France's turn once again to hold the Presidency of the group in 2019, and organise the Leaders' Summit which will be held in Biarritz from 24 to 26 August 2019. G7 France: a G7 fighting inequality France to hold the G7 presidency in 2019. It will be a year focusing on fighting inequality with a renewed format, the highlight of which being the Biarritz summit in August. Visit the website for more information. g7france.com French G7 presidency : editorial by Jean-Michel Blanquer In 2019, France has the honour of holding the G7 presidency committed to fighting inequality. As a fundamental lever for social development, education will be the main theme of the discussions. In preparation for the summit for Heads of State and Government which will be held in Biarritz on 26 August 2019, the government will meet with all G7 Ministers for Education, on 4 and 5 July, in close collaboration with international organisations, in particular UNESCO and the OECD. Fighting inequality in education starts with the very young. That is why, the challenges of early schooling, an issue faced by all countries, will be at the heart of our discussions. Improving teacher training will be another key focus since it is an essential requirement for improving education standards and condition of social justice. Fighting inequality will be approached from the perspective of openness and cooperation with developing countries. As such, girls' education and vocational training are areas requiring our collective commitment to ensure progress. "Openness" will be the guiding principal of these high-level meetings; we seek to demonstrate openness to invited countries, strengthen links with developing countries and mobilise civil society and education authorities. This openness will also enable us to develop the necessary collective intelligence to identify ways to make progress in the crucial projects aimed at benefiting our societies. Through the transfer of knowledge and shared values we can build a fairer world in which individuals can have control of their own future. I would thus like to wish all G7 2019 participants a fruitful collaboration, to quote Montaigne, "we should travel to rub and polish our brains against other people's brains". Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister for Education and Youth Education issues at the heart of discussions held by the French G7 presidency in 2019 France has decided to make education issues a focus of the discussions of the French G7 presidency in 2019, prioritising the fight against inequality. Education is the foundation of our societies and one of our greatest resources. Education in previous G7 and G20 meetings The last G7 Education Ministers' meeting took place in May 2016 in Japan. It led to the adoption of the Kurashiki Declaration and recognised the crucial role of education in a rapidly-changing world. In 2018, the G7 presided by Canada brought about the Charlevoix Declaration on Quality Education for Girls, Adolescent Girls and Women in Developing Countries. The Mendoza Declaration, adopted at the G20 in Argentina in 2018, tackled issues regarding skills, education, employability and early childhood. 4 and 5 July 2019 : two ministerial meetings on education The 2019 edition of the G7 reinforces the importance of education in our societies, by holding two high-level meetings and an international conference ahead of the summit for the Heads of State. 4 July : Education Ministers' Meeting The meeting scheduled for 4 July at the International Centre for Educational Studies (Sevres) will bring together Ministers for Education. This "Education" ministerial meeting will focus specifically on two themes : the challenges of early schooling, as a vehicle for fighting inequalities in early years education, a major challenge faced by all Member States. In this context, the fundamental challenge is to respond to the needs of emotional security, personal development and speech development of children in early years education, to foster learning and lay the foundations for acquiring key knowledge: reading, writing, numeracy and mutual respect the quality of teacher training, which is an essential requirement for improving standards in education and fighting inequality. In this regard, the challenge is to provide quality initial and ongoing training which responds to the new challenges facing our society: training well-informed citizens, training students in new technologies, providing for pupils with specific needs, etc. 5 July : Development and Education Ministers' Meeting The meeting for Development and Education Ministers will take place on 5 July at UNESCO (Paris). It will address : girls' education vocational education and training in developing countries An "international conference on the empowerment of women and girls in developing countries through education" will take place on the afternoon of 5 July at UNESCO. Working groups to prepare for the ministerial meetings In order to prepare for the beginning of July and to establish innovative approaches, thematic working groups, bringing together countries and international partner organisations on a permanent basis, are meeting throughout the presidency. Ministry for Education and Youth working groups Working groups on early schooling and teacher training will take place on : 22 February, at the Maison de l'Amerique Latine (Paris 7th arrondissement) 17 April , at the National Institute for Education Management, Higher Education and Research (Poitiers) , at the National Institute for Education Management, Higher Education and Research (Poitiers) 2 July, in Sorbonne (Paris 5th arrondissement) The joint working groups of the Ministry for Education and Youth and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs The working groups focusing on the theme of girls' education and vocational training will meet on : 31 January 1 February 15 April 16 April 3 July National mobilisation On a national level, education authorities are closely involved with the actions of the government department. Under the authority of rectors, academic delegates for European and International Relations and Cooperation are involved in relaying information and supporting the institutional initiatives in conjunction with the G7. This involves initiating dynamic exchanges between pupils on the themes of the "Education" ministerial meeting. Completing the work and preparing the hand over Specific proposals likely to have a direct impact on the lives of French people will make completing the work possible. As well as the adoption of common principals, measures to reinforce the sharing of teaching resources and best practice may also be envisaged. Lastly, the French presidency of the G7 on the theme of education is determined to monitor its actions in the long term and to prepare a harmonious hand over with the United States, who will hold the G7 presidency in 2020. Manx students take on Jersey in skills test Over 70 students from University College Isle of Man (UCM) and Highlands College Jersey, competed in the inter-island Skills Test last Friday. Students from the Construction Department competed against each other to demonstrate excellence in their skills in a range of trades: painting and decorating, plumbing, bricklaying, carpentry and joinery, electrical installation, and horticulture. A new addition to the competition this year is the Engineering Departments participation, where the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre (AMTC) students are competing and testing their skills in milling, turning and their ability to operate a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. Jo Pretty, Principal of UCM explained that Skills Test is no ordinary competition, It is a challenge that not only requires students to put their vocational skills and expertise to the test, but also their creativity and planning skills. It is a true test of their abilities and competencies. This year UCM raised both the profile and the stakes of the competition by welcoming competitors from the Construction Department at the Highlands College in Jersey. Jo added, We are very pleased to have the opportunity to welcome competitors from Highlands College and hope that we will get many more off-island competitors next year. UCM has very close links with the Islands construction and engineering industries, which is clearly demonstrated by the support the Skills Test has received from numerous local businesses. All the prizes and materials for the Construction Skills Test are funded and donated by local construction businesses, with the Isle of Man (IOM) Construction Federation and Haven Homes being the main sponsors. Alan Clague, President of IOM Construction Federation commented, The IOM Construction Federation are delighted to support the Skills Test which brings out the very best in construction apprentices. Every year the competition gets better and you can feel a real buzz around the corridors of UCM. The quality of work produced over such a short period of time is quite remarkable and it proves not only that these students have pride in their work but also that they can deliver under strict time constraints. Put simply, this event is brilliant! Haven Homes are very proud to once again be sponsoring the UCM skills test and helping to invest in our islands future tradesmen to provide sustainability in the local construction industry, said David Lewis, Managing Director of Haven Homes. Prizes for the Engineering Skills Test are donated by the Awareness of Careers in Engineering (ACE) Group, which is part of the STEM Committee at the Isle of Man Chamber of Commerce (IOMCC). David Hester, Chair of the ACE Committee and the Engineering & Manufacturing Committee in the IOMCC said, The biggest issue facing engineering companies is a shortage of skilled people. Over the past 10 years the Chamber Committees have worked closely with local companies and Government departments to run an Awareness of Careers in Engineering Programme within the education system on the Isle of Man. We are delighted to be supporting the first UCM Engineering Skills Test and look forward to seeing the Year 2 UCM Engineering students in action in the AMTC using the purpose built facility to demonstrate all what they have learnt over the past two years on the course. We wish all participants good luck! Some of the items produced by the students during the competition will be auctioned and proceed will be donated to six charities: the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), Monitors for Kids, Craigs Heart Strong Foundation, Autism Initiative, Heroes on the Water and Dan Kneen. UCM is very proud of this initiative and of its students, Jo Pretty said, We at UCM strive to empower and challenge our students to be the best they can be. This competition is a great example of one of the opportunities we give our students to shine and we would like to extend a special thank you to each of the local businesses, organisations and charities for supporting us to make this years Skills Test an even bigger and better competition,. Winners for Construction Skills Test: Brickwork First place: Corey Kirkland Second place: Adam Fick Third place: Jakob Glover Carpentry & joinery First place: Kane Stott Second place: Chris Egan Third place: Ryan Neale Plumbing First place: Paul Hays Second place: James Smith Electrical installation First place: Ben Le Cornu (from Highlands College, Jersey) Second place: Cameron Mcvey Horticulture First place: Veselin Petrov Second place: Frankie Thomas Painting & decorating First place: Kiera Quayle Second place: Kealan Beattie Winners for the Engineering Skills Test: CNC milling First place: Joe Macaleer Second place: Pledger CNC turning First place: Owen Lyons Second place: Callum Brookes The first, second and third winners for each of the categories in the Construction Skills Test received approximately 350, 200 and 100 in prizes and vouchers, respectively. First place winners of the turning and milling category in the Engineering Skills Test received 100 cash prize each. Runners up each received 50. Israeli settler dies of wounds in West Bank attack Two Israelis were killed in a shooting attack in West Bank on Sunday. An Israeli settler died Monday of wounds he sustained in a shooting attack in the northern West Bank one day earlier, according to Israeli media. The death toll brings to two settlers killed when a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier near the Ariel settlement before opening fire from his rifle on Israelis at a nearby bus station. The Israeli army has launched a manhunt for the attacker. On Monday, Israeli forces raided several homes and shops in the West Bank city of Salfit in the hunt for the shooter. New gun laws to make New Zealand safer Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. "WE WILL HAVE ANNOUNCED REFORMS" Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer, Ardern told a news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealands worst ever mass shooting. The owner of the gun shop Gun City, David Tipple, said the suspected gunman had legally bought four weapons and ammunition online from it between December 2017 and March 2018, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the massacre. The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms, Tipple told a news conference in Christchurch. Under New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. A live-streamed video of a gunman in one of the mosques showed a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine. Tipple said he supported Arderns decision to reform gun laws as the Christchurch shootings had raised legitimate concerns. Ardern did not give details on new laws but has said she supports a ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Christchurch shootings. Australia introduced some of the worlds toughest gun laws after its worst mass killing, the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which a lone gunman killed 35 people using a semi-automatic AR-15 - the same weapon used in the Christchurch massacre. Australia banned semi-automatic weapons, launched a national gun amnesty in which tens of thousands of guns were handed in, and made it much tougher to own firearms. NZ government to pay funeral costs of terror victims Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pledges support for victims of the Christchurch terror attack. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Sunday that the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) program of the New Zealand government will assist in covering the funeral costs of all Christchurch terror attack victims. 34 PEOPLE REMAIN IN HOSPITAL In a statement released on the government website, Ardern said that ACC is putting more staff on the ground in Christchurch, working in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Development. The prime minister also said that 34 people remain in Christchurch Hospital,12 of them in the intensive care unit in critical condition. Also, a four-year-old girl transferred to the Starship Hospital in Auckland remains in a critical condition, Ardern added. Ardern also said that they expect to return all bodies to bereaved families by Wednesday. "For ACC as Ive said before immigration status is not a factor it is based on the event happening here in New Zealand. In an event such as this murder or manslaughter the family is eligible for a funeral grant of around $10.000, the statement read. Ardern added that Members of Parliament will pay tribute in the House on Tuesday and will be adjourned for the day after the statements. At least 50 people were killed as a terrorist named Brenton Harrison Tarrant opened fire on worshippers during Friday's prayers at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch, the third-largest city of New Zealand. The massacre was streamed live on social media. Three Turks are among the wounded in the terror attacks, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday. Turkey urges the world to stop using provocative language Vice President Fuat Oktay says terror and terrorists have 'no religion, no race, no geography'. Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay on Monday has called on the world to stop promoting "provocative language" after Friday's terrorist attacks at two mosques in New Zealand. "NO RELIGION, NO RACE AND NO GEOGRAPHY" "We have to start using different languages. The entire world has to stop promoting some type of provocative language," Oktay told reporters along with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Oktay and Cavusoglu are paying a visit to Christchurch to emphasize Turkey's common resolve against Islamophobia and xenophobia and to highlight the country's solidarity with New Zealand amid terror attacks. At least 50 people were killed when a terrorist opened fire on worshippers during Friday prayers at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch. Oktay said terror and terrorists have "no religion, no race, and no geography". Cavusoglu, for his part, said an emergency meeting of the Council of the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will convene on Friday in wake of terror attacks in New Zealand. "Here [during the meeting], we will form a commission to follow the decisions that we have taken now. We will take this issue to all platforms, including the UN. We will not let it go," he said. Cavusogu added Muslims both in New Zealand and in the world are "extremely uncomfortable" with growing Islamophobia and racism. Oktay and Cavusoglu visited the injured people, including three Turks, at the hospital. Turkish Aerospace to attend Latin American Expo TAI to display T129 ATAK helicopter at Latin American Aero & Defence expo in Brazil on April 2-5. Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) will attend a leading international defense industry expo in Brazil, the firm said on Monday. IT WILL BE ON DISPLAY AT THE EXPO AI's T129 ATAK Multirole Combat Helicopter will be on display at the Latin American Aero & Defence (LAAD) expo on April 2-5 in Rio de Janeiro, it said in a statement. Ahead of the expo, the ATAK chopper will demonstrate its capabilities and performance on March 26 and March 28 in two different Brazilian cities, Taubate and Brasilia. The T129 ATAK is a next-generation, tandem and two-seat, twin-engine helicopter, specifically designed for attack and reconnaissance. "Our very first presence in Latin America through our T129 ATAK Helicopter as well as other products shows just how ambitious we are," said Temel Kotil, the head of TAI. Study published in the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology shows that together, AI and physicians can improve eye care SAN FRANCISCO - March 18, 2019 - As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, diagnosing disease faster and potentially with greater accuracy than physicians, some have suggested that technology may soon replace tasks that physicians currently perform. But a new study from the Google AI research group shows that physicians and algorithms working together are more effective than either alone. It's one of the first studies to examine how AI can improve physicians' diagnostic accuracy. The new research will be published in the April edition of Ophthalmology, the ournal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. This study expands on previous work from Google AI showing that its algorithm works roughly as well as human experts in screening patients for a common diabetic eye disease called diabetic retinopathy. For their latest study, the researchers wanted to see if their algorithm could do more than simply diagnose disease. They wanted to create a new computer-assisted system that could "explain" the algorithm's diagnosis. They found that this system not only improved the ophthalmologists' diagnostic accuracy, but it also improved algorithm's accuracy. More than 29 million Americans have diabetes, and are at risk for diabetic retinopathy, a potentially blinding eye disease. People typically don't notice changes in their vision in the disease's early stages. But as it progresses, diabetic retinopathy usually causes vision loss that in many cases cannot be reversed. That's why it's so important that people with diabetes have yearly screenings. Unfortunately, the accuracy of screenings can vary significantly. One study found a 49 percent error rate among internists, diabetologists, and medical residents. Recent advances in AI promise to improve access to diabetic retinopathy screening and to improve its accuracy. But it's less clear how AI will work in the physician's office or other clinical settings. Previous attempts to use computer-assisted diagnosis shows that some screeners rely on the machine too much, which leads to repeating the machine's errors, or under-rely on it and ignore accurate predictions. Researchers at Google AI believe some of these pitfalls may be avoided if the computer can "explain" its predictions. To test this theory, the researchers developed two types of assistance to help physicians read the algorithm's predictions. Grades: A set of five scores that represent the strength of evidence for the algorithm's prediction. Grades + heatmap: Enhance the grading system with a heatmap that measures the contribution of each pixel in the image to the algorithm's prediction. Ten ophthalmologists (four general ophthalmologists, one trained outside the US, four retina specialists, and one retina specialist in training) were asked to read each image once under one of three conditions: unassisted, grades only, and grades + heatmap. Both types of assistance improved physicians' diagnostic accuracy. It also improved their confidence in the diagnosis. But the degree of improvement depended on the physician's level of expertise. Without assistance, general ophthalmologists are significantly less accurate than the algorithm, while retina specialists are not significantly more accurate than the algorithm. With assistance, general ophthalmologists match but do not exceed the model's accuracy, while retina specialists start to exceed the model's performance. "What we found is that AI can do more than simply automate eye screening, it can assist physicians in more accurately diagnosing diabetic retinopathy," said lead researcher, Rory Sayres, PhD.. "AI and physicians working together can be more accurate than either alone." Like medical technologies that preceded it, Sayres said that AI is another tool that will make the knowledge, skill, and judgment of physicians even more central to quality care. "There's an analogy in driving," Sayres explained. "There are self-driving vehicles, and there are tools to help drivers, like Android Auto. The first is automation, the second is augmentation. The findings of our study indicate that there may be space for augmentation in classifying medical images like retinal fundus images. When the combination of clinician and assistant outperforms either alone, this provides an argument for up-leveling clinicians with intelligent tools." ### About the American Academy of Ophthalmology The American Academy of Ophthalmology is the world's largest association of eye physicians and surgeons. A global community of 32,000 medical doctors, we protect sight and empower lives by setting the standards for ophthalmic education and advocating for our patients and the public. We innovate to advance our profession and to ensure the delivery of the highest-quality eye care. Our EyeSmart program provides the public with the most trusted information about eye health. For more information, visit aao.org. About Ophthalmology Ophthalmology, the official journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, publishes original, peer-reviewed, clinically-applicable research. Topics include the results of clinical trials, new diagnostic and surgical techniques, treatment methods, technology assessments, translational science reviews and editorials. For more information, visit http://www.aaojournal.org. NEW ORLEANS (March 17, 2019) -- Among patients with severe, symptomatic aortic stenosis who were at low surgical risk, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) using the SAPIEN 3 valve compared with conventional surgery significantly reduced the primary endpoint of death, stroke and re-hospitalizations by 46 percent at one year, according to data from the latest PARTNER trial presented at the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Session. In addition, the rates of death from any cause, stroke and repeat hospitalizations independently favored TAVR at 30 days and at one year, researchers said. Unlike open surgery, TAVR involves threading a replacement valve through a catheter in the groin. TAVR is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of severe aortic valve stenosis in patients at intermediate and high risk for complications associated with surgery. PARTNER 3 is the fifth randomized trial of the PARTNER series of studies, which collectively includes over 9,000 patients with severe aortic stenosis, a problem that occurs when the valve in the heart's main artery doesn't open fully, forcing the heart to work harder to pump blood. The earliest trials evaluated TAVR in the "sickest" patients--many of whom cannot be treated with surgery--with subsequent research moving down the spectrum of risk. This study was performed in patients at low surgical risk, which comprise the majority of patients who are candidates for surgery to have their aortic valve replaced. "This is a landmark study because it involves 80 percent of the people who are currently being treated with surgery for aortic stenosis. Our hope was that TAVR would be non-inferior or comparable to surgery, and we were surprised to find an almost 50 percent reduction in the primary endpoint, from 15.1 percent in the surgical group to 8.5 percent with TAVR," said Martin B. Leon, MD, director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and lead author of the study. "This is beyond anything we could have expected, mostly because surgery is so good in treating aortic stenosis in these low risk patients." PARTNER 3 included 1,000 patients with severe aortic stenosis at 71 centers in the U.S. and several other countries with over 95 percent of patients enrolled at U.S. sites. Participants were carefully screened to be low risk for either TAVR or surgery and were randomly assigned to receive the SAPIEN 3 TAVR valve, the newest generation technology, or surgical valve replacement. Compared with the earlier PARTNER trials with intermediate- and high-risk surgical patients, this low-risk group was younger (73 years on average), had fewer co-morbid conditions and had fewer symptoms. There were also more men than women enrolled (67.5 percent vs. 32.5 percent, respectively). The primary endpoint was the combined rate of all-cause death, any stroke and re-hospitalizations (those related to the valve, the procedure or heart failure) at one year after the procedure. "Taken by themselves, each component of the primary endpoint also favored TAVR, which is confirmatory evidence of the outcome," Leon said. A total of 16 patients died during follow up. Of these, 11 were in the surgery group and five were in the TAVR group, so the one-year mortality rate was 1 percent for TAVR and 2.5 percent for surgery. Twenty patients suffered a stroke, 14 of which occurred in the surgery group (3.1 percent) and six in TAVR (1.2 percent). Patients in the surgical group were also more likely to go back to the hospital compared with those in the TAVR group (11 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively). Several secondary endpoints were also analyzed. The length of hospital stay was reduced from seven to three days with TAVR. Patients in the TAVR group also had more rapid 30-day functional recovery based on six-minute walk tests and other self-reported quality of life measures. "Surgery eventually catches up to TAVR in terms of functional recovery and quality of life, but it takes several months," Leon said. "TAVR is a less invasive procedure, so we expect an earlier return to normal daily activities compared with surgery. There has also been an evolution of TAVR technology, increased operator experience and enhanced procedural techniques, all of which combine to lower complications after TAVR especially in the lowest risk patients." Post-operative or new onset atrial fibrillation was found in almost 40 percent of the surgical patients compared with only 5 percent of those receiving TAVR. Major vascular complications were similar between the groups, as was the need for new permanent pacemakers (4 percent after surgery vs 6.5 percent after TAVR). However, Leon said that the incidence of new left bundle block was higher with TAVR, which may be a predictor of needing a new pacemaker in future. Moderate or severe paravalvular leaks, leaks around the valve, were similar in the two groups. "The results of this trial in low risk patients indicates that the choice of TAVR versus surgery for severe aortic stenosis should be independent of surgical risk profile assessments," Leon said. "The combined rate of death and disabling stroke at one year was only 1 percent with TAVR, which was an unexpectedly favorable outcome. Based on these findings, the choice of TAVR versus surgery should be a shared decision-making process that respects patient preferences and considers some of the knowledge gaps, especially in treating young patients." There are two major limitations to the PARTNER 3 trial. First, the data are limited to one-year follow-up and longer-term follow-up is needed to be certain that the transcatheter valves are as durable as surgical valves. The patients in this trial will be followed for 10 years. Second, certain patients were excluded in this study, such as patients with bicuspid aortic valve disease and those with poor anatomy such that the valve couldn't be threaded through the femoral artery in the groin. The study was funded by Edwards Lifesciences. This study was simultaneously published online in the New England Journal of Medicine at the time of presentation. ### The ACC's Annual Scientific Session will take place March 16-18, 2019, in New Orleans, bringing together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists from around the world to share the newest discoveries in treatment and prevention. Follow @ACCinTouch, @ACCMediaCenter and #ACC19 for the latest news from the meeting. The American College of Cardiology envisions a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. As the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team, the mission of the College and its more than 52,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular professionals who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College also provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research through its world-renowned JACC Journals, operates national registries to measure and improve care, and offers cardiovascular accreditation to hospitals and institutions. For more, visit acc.org. Baltimore, MD - March 18, 2018 - The nation's first African-American Neuroscience Research Initiative, aimed at ensuring that genomic research and neuroscience studies are representative of individuals across all populations including African ancestry, launched today. This new enterprise partners the African-American Clergy Medical Research Initiative, comprised of prominent clergy leaders of the Minister's Conference of Baltimore, with the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, an independent, not-for-profit medical research institute working to develop new treatments for brain disorders. The African-American Neuroscience Research Initiative aims to establish a road map to help close the gap in health disparities and accelerate research efforts that will lead to new treatments for brain disorders. Research has long been hampered by a lack of diversity in basic science and in clinical trials, particularly in the field of neuroscience. For example, 81% of large-scale genomic datasets are of European descent, even though this group makes up less than 16% of the world population. What science has now shown us is there are genetic differences among races and ethnicity. Genomic research has the potential to provide some of the most personalized and effective medical treatments for many medical disorders, including: heart disease, stroke, asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer's Disease, and schizophrenia. However, minority groups are inadequately represented in these large-scale genomic studies. Rev. Dr. Alvin C. Hathaway, Sr., Principal of the African-American Clergy Medical Research Initiative, said "My clergy colleagues and I have been studying the emerging science behind precision medicine and believe that this technology has potential for finding cures and treatments for diseases that uniquely affect African Americans. This revolution in medicine has largely left behind ethnic minority groups like African Americans, and it is time to change this." In neuroscience research studies of brain disorders, underrepresented minority groups, including African Americans, make up less than 5% of research cohorts. "So far, personalized medicine has not really been for everyone," said Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D., Director and CEO of the Lieber Institute. "Through this initiative we hope to build data sets about the brain that can be used by researchers globally, with the ultimate goal to develop new treatments for people of African ancestry." Lieber has built the largest, most carefully curated collection of human brains anywhere in the world devoted to understanding brain development and mental illness. Research shows that African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population and twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's Disease. Suicide rates for African-American children under the age of 13 are twice as high as children of European ancestry. African-American infant death rates and premature birth rates also are twice that of European ancestry Americans. The African-American Neuroscience Research Initiative is working to partner with the state of Maryland to catalyze a national effort ensuring that African Americans are not left behind. "The potential knowledge gained through this research will help not just individuals of African ancestry, but will also help all people," says Weinberger. "It's by studying the most complex representatives of genetic diversity in the context of the human brain that we will ultimately understand how to customize therapy and maximize the effectiveness of treatments." ### About the African-American Clergy Medical Research Initiative The African-American Clergy Medical Research Initiative (AACMRI) is focused on ensuring that persons of African descent are equitably represented in medical research. It advocates for equity in public policy, funding, education, training, and awareness that produces improvements in protocols, treatments, medicines and health outcomes. About the Lieber Institute for Brain Development The mission of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and the Maltz Research Laboratories is to translate the understanding of basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. LIBD is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization and a Maryland tax-exempt medical research institute affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Further insights from the REDUCE-IT trial show that high-dose, pure and stable EPA omega 3 drug not only reduces the burden of first cardiovascular events but also subsequent and total heart attacks, strokes, and other measures Boston, MA -- At a Late Breaking Clinical Trial at the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Session, Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, presented results that extend and expand the scope of the projected protective effects of icosapent ethyl -- a pure and stable prescription form of the omega-3 acid known as EPA. Bhatt and colleagues looked beyond a patient's first cardiovascular event, including heart attack, stroke, revascularization or hospitalization for chest pain, and evaluated all subsequent cardiovascular events, including death from cardiovascular causes. The team reports that compared to placebo, icosapent ethyl provided a 30 percent relative risk reduction in total (first and subsequent) cardiovascular events. The team's findings are published simultaneously in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "This is an impressive degree of risk reduction," said Bhatt. "From a patient's perspective -- and from my perspective as a person's clinician -- we care about repeat events and the risk of surviving a first stroke or heart attack only to go on to have a subsequent, potentially fatal event. The degree of benefit that this analysis reveals is quite large, especially considering that this is an additional layer of benefit on top of what statins and other therapies have already provided." The Reduction of Cardiovascular Events with Icosapent Ethyl-Intervention Trial (REDUCE-IT), sponsored by Amarin, included more than 8,000 patients with well-controlled LDL-cholesterol who were taking statins to prevent a first or subsequent cardiovascular event. Patients in the study had triglyceride levels that were at least borderline high (135 mg/dL) and other cardiovascular risk factors. Approximately 70 percent of patients in the study had established atherosclerosis and the rest had diabetes plus at least one other cardiovascular risk factor. Patients were randomized to receive either 2 grams of icosapent ethyl (Vascepa capsules, manufactured by Amarin) twice daily (4 grams per day of this prescription therapy), or a placebo, and were followed for an average of approximately five years. For the current analysis, the primary outcome was total cardiovascular events, consisting of the composite of cardiovascular death, nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke, coronary revascularization, or hospitalization for unstable angina. Last fall, Bhatt presented results showing that icosapent ethyl reduced first cardiovascular events by 25 percent. The team now reports that second events were reduced by 32 percent, third events by 31 percent and fourth or more events by 48 percent. For every 1,000 patients treated for five years with icosapent ethyl, approximately 159 total cardiovascular events could be prevented within that timeframe: 12 deaths due to cardiovascular causes, 42 heart attacks, 14 strokes, 76 coronary revascularization procedures, and 16 hospitalizations for severe chest pain. Icosapent ethyl was well tolerated with no significant differences in rates of serious adverse events versus placebo. The team detected a trend toward increased serious bleeding for icosapent ethyl and a statistically significant increase in hospitalization for atrial fibrillation or flutter endpoints, although rates were low. "Overall, the drug shows a very favorable risk-benefit profile -- the small increase in hospitalizations for atrial fibrillation or flutter and in bleeding events must be weighed against the large number of serious cardiovascular events averted with the drug," said Bhatt. Those events included significant reductions in fatal and nonfatal stroke (28 percent), fatal and nonfatal heart attack (31 percent), cardiac arrest (48 percent), sudden cardiac death (31 percent), and death from cardiovascular causes (20 percent). ### REDUCE-IT was sponsored by Amarin. Brigham and Women's Hospital receives research funding from Amarin for the work Bhatt did as the trial chair and as the international principal investigator. Brigham Health, a global leader in creating a healthier world, consists of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital, the Brigham and Women's Physicians Organization and many related facilities and programs. With more than 1,000 inpatient beds, approximately 60,000 inpatient stays and 1.7 million outpatient encounters annually, Brigham Health's 1,200 physicians provide expert care in virtually every medical and surgical specialty to patients locally, regionally and around the world. An international leader in basic, clinical and translational research, Brigham Health has nearly 5,000 scientists, including physician-investigators, renowned biomedical researchers and faculty supported by over $700 million in funding. The Brigham's medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and now, with 19,000 employees, that rich history is the foundation for its commitment to research, innovation, and community. Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and dedicated to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. For more information, resources, and to follow us on social media, please visit brighamandwomens.org. Grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will fund project to help improve clinical practice for childhood victims of abuse and trauma WACO, Texas (March 18, 2019) Sara L. Dolan, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor Universitys College of Arts & Sciences, has been awarded a five-year grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for a project aimed at improving clinical practice for children who have been victims of abuse and trauma. The grant, which totals nearly $3 million, allows Dolan and her collaborators, including Stacy Ryan-Pettes, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, to develop and implement new training methods in assessment and diagnosis for counselors and social workers, ultimately leading to improved outcomes for their patients. Grant awards of the magnitude awarded to Sara Dolan, Ph.D., and her colleagues are rare and attests to skillful leadership provided by these faculty that will have a huge impact on our R1 aspirations here at Baylor, said Lee Nordt, Ph.D., dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Therapists and counselors commonly use evidence-based treatment (EBT) methods, which are interventions that have been validated through scientific studies to be effective for treating a particular disorder. The problem, Dolan said, is that therapists often deploy these treatments without first using evidence-based assessments (EBA), diagnostic methods that are grounded in the most current scientific knowledge. Clinicians are pretty good about learning new treatments, but formal assessment is not a huge part of what they do in practice so theyre not following the literature in that area as closely, Dolan said. They are doing very informal assessments that let them start treatment right away. These informal evaluation techniques, while faster and more cost-effective than formal, instrument-based assessments, can cause clinicians working with abused and traumatized children to overlook certain disorders in favor of other more obvious problems. Oftentimes clinicians are leaping to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Dolan said, and they might miss other things like depression or other kinds of anxiety or suicidal behaviors. If theyre jumping right to PTSD, they are going to give PTSD treatments, which is fantastic, but that might not be the correct treatment. Dr. Dolan is a highly respected colleague, said Charles Weaver, Ph.D., professor and chair of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor. As graduate program director of our Clinical Psychology program, she has provided strong and steady leadership. Her commitment to research is equally strong, and this grant will allow Dr. Dolan and her colleagues to do critically important work, while also raising the departments research profile. We look forward to her many years of continuing contributions to Baylor University. Jeff Wherry, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, is the co-investigator on the grant. Wherry is the subject matter expert on the project, Dolan said, owing to his extensive background in evaluation and assessment of evidence-based practices. All of my research is assessment-focused and I have a strong interest in PTSD. [Wherry] has developed a lot of these assessments, and hes been using these assessments and doing trainings in this area for a long time, Dolan said. It was a really natural fit to work with him on this project. The support for training afforded by this SAMHSA grant is exciting, Wherry said. We are now part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) a group of 100 agencies and universities training clinicians and serving traumatized children. We will make training available to 66 community-based agencies serving children in the NCTSN and also will offer training to more than 850 childrens advocacy centers across the nation. Over the course of five years, Wherry said they hope to train more than 800 clinicians and doctoral students in evidence-based assessment of abused and traumatized children. When you consider the number of children served by these clinicians, the impact is exponential. Additionally, we will be training additional trainers, so that the impact continues beyond the funding of the grant, Wherry said While the immediate goal of the grant-funded project is to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods of training providers, Dolan said the work represents one piece of a larger part of Baylors mission to impact lives positively through research. This is a way that Baylor can influence scientifically based practice in our community. It is giving us an opportunity to have a really big impact and to have Baylors name on that impact, Dolan said. The project is a great example of the goals articulated in the Universitys academic strategic plan, Illuminate, said Kevin Chambliss, Ph.D., interim vice provost for research at Baylor. Research like Dr. Dolans helps us meet our aspiration of reaching R1 status and becoming one the nations top research institutions while strengthening and deepening our Christian commitment, Chambliss said. ### 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 16,000 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 THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor Universitys oldest and largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments and seven academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. Faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit www.baylor.edu/artsandsciences. ABOUT THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY The Office of the Vice Provost for Research (OVPR) supports faculty members from all academic units in their research and scholarship. The office provides pre- and post-award services for grants and contracts, facilitates Industry partnerships and collaborative agreements with external entities, manages compliance oversight, provides assistance with intellectual property and technology transfer, and offers marketing and communication support for Baylor research. The OVPR also manages and operates the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC), a three-story, 330,000-square-foot facility focused on interdisciplinary/international research, industry/university collaborations, business incubation/acceleration/commercialization, advanced workforce training, and STEM educational research and outreach. For more information, please visit www.baylor.edu/research or www.baylor.edu/bric. BINGHAMTON, NY - Fostering an inclusive work environment can lead to higher satisfaction, innovation, trust and retention among employees, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. Kim Brimhall, assistant professor of social work at Binghamton University's College of Community and Public Affairs, noticed how the nonprofit sector generally suffers from high employee-turnover rates, low work performance and deficits among the leadership, and wanted to find out what could be done to break this cycle. She partnered with a large nonprofit hospital in Los Angeles, surveying employees on topics such as leader engagement, inclusion, innovation, job satisfaction and perceived quality of care. The full study also included one-on-one qualitative interviews, as well as several organizational observations. Analyzing the data, Brimhall found that leaders who seek the input of organizational members from all job positions and encourage everyone, regardless of educational background or job responsibilities, to take initiative and participate in work-related processes are more likely to increase feelings of inclusion. This then leads to increased innovation, employee job satisfaction and quality of services in nonprofit organizations. "When nonprofit organization members believe that they are valued for their unique personal characteristics and are recognized as important members of the organization, employee engagement, trust, satisfaction, commitment and retention improve," wrote Brimhall. "Leader engagement, that is, a leader's ability to actively engage all organizational members in critical decision making, may foster a climate for inclusion and positive organizational outcomes, such as a climate for innovation, job satisfaction and perceived quality of care." The implications of these findings have applicability across national settings and for effective management of nonprofit organizations internationally, wrote Brimhall. She hopes to develop economically practical, evidence-based tools that leaders can utilize to create inclusive work environments. She is partnering with another large nonprofit hospital to conduct an experimental study testing workplace interventions. These tools could help employees feel included and possibly lead to more innovation in the workplace and overall improvement in their feelings toward their job, which would then translate to improved quality of care given to clients. The paper, "Inclusion is Important...But How Do I Include? Examining the Effects of Leader Engagement on Inclusion, Innovation, Job Satisfaction, and Perceived Quality of Care in a Diverse Nonprofit Health Care Organization," was published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. ### Species often experience a genetic bottleneck that diminishes genetic variation after speciation or introduction into a new area. Though bottlenecks in population size always reduce fitness and evolutionary potential, introduced species often become invasive. This is known as the genetic paradox of invasion. Now, a research group led by Prof. GUO Yalong from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS), together with SONG Ge, and Sureshkumar Balasubramanian from the School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Australia, has revealed that transposable element (TE) insertions could potentially help species with limited genetic variation adapt to novel environments. To evaluate how TE insertions drive rapid phenotypic variation and help plants adapt to new environments, the researchers compared an annual and inbreeding forb (Brassicaceae), Capsella rubella, to its outcrossing sister species Capsella grandiflora. They found that transposable elements (TEs) are highly enriched in the gene promoter regions of C. rubella compared with its outcrossing sister species C. grandiflora. Interestingly, they found that a number of polymorphic TEs in C. rubella are associated with changes in gene expression, including TEs inserted into the FLOWERING LOCUS C gene, which is one of the key determinant genes of flowering time. Intriguingly, the accessions with TE insertion are early flowering and distributed in the southernmost habitat of this species, around the Mediterranean region. This region has a Mediterranean climate and is characterized by high precipitation, warm winters, and dry, hot summers. These results indicate that the genetic variation caused by the expansion of TEs can help species quickly adapt to new habitats. Its influence on adaptive traits could account for the genetic paradox of biological invasion to some extent. This study was published in PNAS on March 15 and was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Innovative Academy of Seed Design, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's International Fellowship for Visiting Scientists, and the Monash University Larkins Fellowship. ### EDMONTON, ALBERTA (March 18, 2019) - The Canadian Glycomics Network (GlycoNet) awarded $1.45 million in grants to support eight research projects, to be carried out at seven universities or research centers across Canada. Funding was allocated in the last quarter of 2018. Whether at the data gathering stage, in clinical trial or ready for market, these innovative projects share a common goal: improving the health of people from coast to coast, while generating positive economic outcomes. "As a Network of Centres of Excellence, GlycoNet focuses resources from the federal government and partner organizations to address critical medical, social and economic challenges," says Dr. Elizabeth Nanak, Executive Director, GlycoNet. "Projects are reviewed externally to assess their scientific excellence and commercial potential. These grants are a key part of our knowledge translation strategy which aims to move research out of the lab and into the market and public spaces so that cutting-edge treatments and new medical technologies can benefit Canadians." Chains of sugars called glycans have been found to play a role in every major disease, and as a result, there has been a surge of interest in exploring the therapeutic promise of glycomics. Glycans coat the surface of every cell in our bodies, and their attachment to enzymes significantly alters the enzyme's function. Researchers vested in these projects are working to better understand diseases and conditions that impact the lives of thousands of Canadians. With a focus on glycomics, they are trying to uncover concrete solutions to pressing health needs by: Project Summaries Ice Recrystallization Inhibitors for Improved Cryopreservation Dr. Robert Ben, University of Ottawa - available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $232,942 The process of ice recrystallization figures prominently into the cryoinjury that cells and tissues sustain during preservation at subzero temperatures and conventional cryoprotectants fail to protect cells from this injury. As a result, the ice recrystallization inhibitors (IRIs) developed by the Ben laboratory are uniquely positioned to improve cryopreservation outcomes and enable emerging regenerative and cellular therapies by permitting the safe and effective short and long-term storage of these cellular products. The goal of this proposal is to facilitate the necessary steps toward commercialization and translation of the IRI technology through four specific aims. These are; 1) scale-up manufacturing, 2) pharmacokinetic (toxicity) profiles, 3) stability and formulation studies and 4) optimization of IRIs in specific cellular applications using collaborators who are end users of this technology in both research and clinical markets. De Novo Synthesis of Nucleoside Analogues for Medicinal and Process Chemistry Purposes Dr. Robert Britton, Simon Fraser University GlycoNet contribution - up to $93,000 Nucleoside analogues are highly sought as leads for the treatment of cancer and viral diseases. However, nucleoside synthesis is complicated and continues to limit drug discovery efforts and complicate drug development in this area. To address these issues, Dr. Britton and his collaborators developed a simple and flexible synthesis of nucleoside analogues that is readily adaptable for medicinal chemistry purposes. Neuraminidase 3 as a Trigger of Atherosclerosis Dr. Chris Cairo, University of Alberta - available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $198,000 Atherosclerosis is a disease of the arteries characterized by endothelial dysfunction, vascular inflammation, and accumulation in the intima of the vessel wall of lipids, cholesterol, calcium, and cellular debris. This accumulation ultimately leads to blockage of arteries and is a key risk factor for coronary artery disease, the leading current cause of death and loss of productive life years worldwide. The most commonly used drugs used to treat atherosclerosis block the production of cholesterol. However, statins have limited effectiveness and additional clinical therapies could improve outcomes for more patients. Work going on in GlycoNet is working to establish the role of specific enzymes in the accumulation of atherosclerotic plaques and is testing compounds that block these enzymes as potential therapeutics. Development of Immuno-oncology Therapeutics using a Bicyclic Genetically Encoded Libraries based on 2- fold symmetric linkers (BiGEL2) Discovery Pipeline Dr. Ratmir Derda, University of Alberta and Dr. Matthew Macauley, University of Alberta - Dr. Derda is available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $200,000 per year for two years This collaborative project pulls from chemistry and biology to develop a new class of stable and potentially membrane permeable and orally bioavailable therapeutic peptides. The project could be a starting point for drug discovery for diseases for which oral therapeutics are not currently available. Even if therapeutic antibody injections are available, developing an equivalent oral treatment could mean less invasive procedures and protocols for patients. A particular area of interest is the development of therapeutics that can work in and remain stable in the gastrointestinal tract. This research is timely due to an increased interest in Siglecs - cell surface proteins that bind sialic acid - because of the role they play in an immunooncogenic response. This could lead to the development of next-generation immune checkpoint inhibitors - a type of drug that blocks certain proteins made by some immune system cells. This could revolutionize the way certain cancers are treated. Development of PslG as an Anti-biofilm Therapeutic for Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infections Dr. Lynne Howell, The Hospital for Sick Children and Dr. Don Sheppard, McGill University - both available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $210,503 The bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common cause of pulmonary disease in patients suffering from cystic fibrosis (CF) and other chronic pulmonary diseases. Ninety-nine percent of patients with CF will develop P. aeruginosa infections in their lifetime. These infections lead to declining lung function and increased rates of hospitalization. The current standard of care using antibiotics is not effective in eradicating P. aeruginosa pulmonary infections, underscoring the urgent need for effective new therapies to treat these infections. Results from our studies will provide us with preclinical data to evaluate PslG as a novel therapeutic agent for the treatment of P. aeruginosa infections. Evaluation of PET Radiotracers for Imaging Glucocerebrosidase in Parkinson's Disease Dr. Christopher Phenix, University of Saskatchewan - available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $25,000 Positron emission tomography (PET) is a clinically established, non-invasive technique commonly used for creating medical images that represent the activity of enzymes and receptors in the living human brain. PET has a rich history in brain research by evaluating biological processes that contribute to various disorders, mental health and addiction. To acquire a PET image, the patient is injected with a tiny amount of a radiotracer that has high affinity for a specific protein that is found in a diseased state. Due to the unrivaled sensitivity of a PET camera able to detect microdoses of the radiotracer, images can be obtained that reveal enzyme activity without worrying about the possibility of side effects due to chemical toxicity of the radiopharmaceutical. PET radiotracers are most often labeled with radioactive fluoride (F-18), a short-lived isotope that must be produced locally in a nearby cyclotron facility. Fortunately, the University of Saskatchewan has recently established a state-of-the-art radiopharmacy, called the Saskatchewan Centre for Cyclotron Sciences, that produces clinically used F-18 on a daily basis.The purpose of this project is to build upon our previous research funded by GlycoNet and work towards developing 18F-labeled radiotracers for imaging - glucocerebrosidase (GCase), an enzyme that has been declared a high priority biomarker and therapeutic target in Parkinson's disease. Given the unique challenges of PET radiotracer chemistry, we have developed efficient, flexible and adaptable chemical routes for synthesizing new compounds. A PET tracer capable of imaging GCase will be a critical research tool to investigate the role of GCase in Parkinson's disease, to guide the development of novel Parkinson's therapies that target GCase, and potentially to lead to a diagnostic aid for confirming the disease earlier. Commercialization of a Novel Hyaluronan-Based Delivery System Dr. Molly Shoichet, University of Toronto - available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $152,140 Since 1995, the Shoichet laboratory has advanced strategies in drug delivery, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine through the design of innovative biomaterials to overcome a diversity of chronic diseases. Our most promising biomaterial comprises two polysaccharides: hyaluronan, an anionic, non-sulfated glycosaminoglycan, and methylcellulose. While these polymers have both been separately used clinically, they have never been combined as we have done in our product, HAMC. HAMC has been shown to enhance survival of stem cell progeny after transplantation into either the retina (for applications in blindness) or the brain (for applications in stroke). In pre-clinical models of blindness and stroke, we achieved functional repair with cells delivered in HAMC (but not in saline controls), underscoring the critical role of HAMC in tissue repair. Moreover, HAMC has been shown to achieve sustained release of many therapeutics. This is particularly applicable for local, sustained release of anesthetics for the treatment of post-operative pain, where there is a clinical need and no good solutions either on the market or in clinical trials. We propose to develop a single-dose product that will be infiltrated into the surgical site to produce post-operative analgesia. This product will also de-risk future use of our technology in cell delivery strategies for blindness and/or stroke. Clinical assessment of a novel small molecule for the treatment and prevention of calcium oxalate kidney stones Dr. Paul Spagnuolo, University of Guelph - available for interviews GlycoNet contribution - up to $126,310 Nephrolithiasis is a common urological disorder affecting more than 10 percent of the Canadian population. Globally, the incidence and prevalence of nephrolithiasis demonstrates a similar trend and contributes significantly to the development of chronic kidney disease. The economic burden of nephrolithiasis is substantial with annual spending reported at $5.3 billion in the United States alone. Moreover, the working-age population are most commonly afflicted further increasing the overall economic burden of this condition. Despite sizeable nephrolithiasis related costs and morbidity, and a 5-year recurrence rates approaching 50 percent in affected individuals, the treatment regimens have remained relatively unchanged in the last 30 years. In fact, the current and primary strategy of expectant management results in significant morbidity (requiring a patient to stay at home, using narcotics for pain management, and in many cases re-present to the emergency room with further pain crises or complications). This is clearly not ideal and highlights the need for more advanced therapeutic options. Our group has identified and patented a novel small molecule that we are calling Kidnease, which is capable of preventing and treating calcium oxalate kidney stones in vitro and in vivo. The purpose of this project is to test this molecule in a Phase I human clinical trial. ### About GlycoNet GlycoNet is a pan-Canadian, multidisciplinary research network aiming to deliver solutions to important health issues and improve the quality of life of Canadians through the study of glycomics. GlycoNet is funded by the Networks of Centres of Excellence, a Government of Canada program that supports large-scale, academic-led research networks to build research capacity and accelerate the creation of new knowledge in a specific research area. GlycoNet welcomes opportunities to collaborate with industry, not-for-profit and government partners to advance glycomics translational research. For more information, visit http://www.glyconet.ca. For media inquiries please contact: Ali Chou Communications Associate - Canadian Glycomics Network ychou@glyconet.ca (780) 231-5181 Clinical practice guidelines issued by specialty societies in North America often recommend health care services linked to their specialties, in contrast with European guidelines and those from independent organizations, argues a commentary published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.181496. "Regardless of country of origin, physicians often recommend procedures and treatments that they are trained to provide, a phenomenon known as 'specialty bias,'" write Drs. Ismail Jatoi, University of Texas Health, San Antonio, Texas, and Sunita Sah, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. "This may explain why medical specialty societies frequently issue guidelines calling for greater use of health care services linked to their specialties ..., thereby exacerbating overdiagnosis, overtreatment and increasing health care costs." For example, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network in the US included 25 urologists on its 32-member guideline panel for prostate cancer and recommends prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for healthy men aged 45 and older. By contrast, the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, with no urologists on its 9-member panel, and the European Society for Medical Oncology, with one urologist on its 4-member panel, both recommend against PSA screening for men of all ages. The type of health care system, such as fee-for-service, can also affect the type of recommendations, with specialists in such a system recommending more intensive diagnostic and treatment guidelines. "Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines can improve health care delivery," write the authors. "Yet specialty bias and fee-for-service conflicts of interest threaten their validity and may lead to unnecessary overuse of health care services. More is not necessarily better in medicine; if anything, patient outcomes may be worse the more "care" they receive. Every medical test, procedure and treatment adds risk against potential benefit, and some may lead to more harm than good." ### "Clinical practice guidelines and the overuse of health care services: need for reform" is published March 18, 2019. The U.S. Department of Energy announced March 15 that Princeton University will continue to manage and operate the DOE's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, located on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, New Jersey. The extended contract, which runs through March 31, 2022, also highlights collaborations among the University, the lab and the DOE. "We are delighted to have this contract extension and continue the critical work at PPPL," said David McComas, vice president of PPPL and professor of astrophysical sciences. "The University is committed to advancing research and science in the service of society, which includes revitalizing its long-term collaboration with DOE." PPPL is devoted to creating new knowledge about the physics of plasmas -- charged gases -- and to developing practical solutions for the creation of fusion energy. Results of PPPL research have ranged from a portable nuclear materials detector for homeland security applications to universally employed computer codes for analyzing and predicting the outcome of fusion experiments. PPPL research is dedicated to enabling the scientific breakthroughs required to develop fusion as a safe, clean and abundant energy source. Princeton has had the honor of being the PPPL contractor since its inception in 1951, when it was called Project Matterhorn and under the leadership of Lyman Spitzer. PPPL is one of 10 national science laboratories overseen by DOE's Office of Science. As part of the agreement, the University extended the lease on the land PPPL occupies for another 30 years with a one-time payment of $1 for as long as Princeton remains the laboratory's management and operations contractor. The three-year contract extension also emphasizes collaboration: Princeton will continue to co-sponsor the Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments (FLARE), a powerful new device for advancing research into magnetic reconnection that was assembled at the University and will be housed at PPPL. The agreement specified that the University will fund upgrades to the machine and the DOE will fund project management, infrastructure and commissioning. PPPL researchers will have priority access to a new suite of computing clusters that are run by the University and housed within the Princeton High-Performance Computing Research Center (HPCRC) and will be compatible with DOE Leadership Class Facilities. Princeton will continue supporting recently piloted initiatives for graduate students at PPPL, including first-year fellowships, tuition rebates for fourth- and fifth-year graduate students, and a cross-over stipend benefit for graduate students from across the University who perform research at the lab. In the past, some of these benefits were only available to students within the plasma physics program of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences; now, they support students from across the University who engage in research at PPPL. "We look forward to increasing close collaborations between the University and the DOE," said McComas. "By integrating our unique capabilities, the University, the lab and the DOE can best serve the nation's and world's needs." ### A study of almost 500,000 women indicates that taking paracetamol or other painkillers during pregnancy is not responsible for increasing the risk of asthma in children. The research, which uses prescription data on painkillers, does support earlier findings that women taking paracetamol during pregnancy are more likely to have children who develop asthma. However, it also suggests that the painkillers are not the cause of this increase. Researchers say their results, published in the European Respiratory Journal [1], should give women reassurance to take painkillers during pregnancy when they are prescribed by a doctor. The research was led by Seif Shaheen, Professor of Respiratory Epidemiology, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK, in collaboration with Professor Catarina Almqvist and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Professor Shaheen was the first scientist to discover a link between paracetamol use during pregnancy and an increase in the risk of asthma in children. He said: "This link has now been seen in a number of studies in different countries, but until now there has been very little research on use of other painkillers during pregnancy and the subsequent risk of asthma in children. "We also do not know whether the link between paracetamol and asthma is causal, in other words we don't know whether paracetamol use in pregnancy per se is leading to more asthma, or whether some other factor is at play. The only way to be sure would be to carry out a trial where pregnant women are randomly assigned to either take paracetamol or not, but there are obvious ethical problems with this approach." To get around this problem, Professor Shaheen and his colleagues studied 492,999 Swedish mothers and their children. They looked at data on prescriptions for different types of painkillers during pregnancy and compared this with rates of asthma diagnosis in the children. They also looked at other data on the mothers, fathers, and any sisters and brothers. They found that children born to mothers who had been prescribed paracetamol during pregnancy did have an increased risk of asthma, but the risk was similar when women had been prescribed opioids (such as codeine and tramadol) or migraine medication. For example, the increase in risk for asthma at five years of age was 50% for paracetamol, 42% for codeine and 48% for migraine medication. Professor Shaheen explained: "These different types of painkillers work in different ways, but our results suggest that when women are prescribed them during pregnancy, the associated increases in children's asthma rates are fairly similar for all types. "Our interpretation of this is that it's less likely that the drugs are responsible for the asthma. Instead, it seems more likely that another factor that we haven't measured is linked to use of these drugs and to asthma risk. For example, women who are taking prescribed painkillers are likely to be suffering from chronic pain. "Severe pain, and the stress that it causes, have profound effects on the body, including on levels of some hormones, and there is evidence for a link between high levels of mothers' stress in pregnancy and increased risk of asthma in the offspring. "If that's the case then it's important to manage chronic pain during pregnancy and we should not avoid prescribing painkillers to pregnant women when they are needed. Similarly, women should feel reassured that infrequent use of paracetamol in pregnancy, which is commonly obtained over the counter and is the recommended painkiller to take in pregnancy, is unlikely to cause asthma in their offspring. "Our study also suggests that a clinical trial of paracetamol during pregnancy, which poses many challenges, is probably not worthwhile." Professor Tobias Welte, from Hannover University, Germany, is President of the European Respiratory Society and was not involved in the study. He said: "Paracetamol is the most commonly used painkiller in pregnancy, so it is important to know whether it might be a cause of childhood asthma. Previous research suggested these two were linked in some way, but this large study suggests that this may not be a simple cause and effect relationship, and this means that paracetamol should be prescribed to pregnant women who need it. However, we also need to continue studying the complex reasons why so many children develop asthma." ### Lisbon, Portugal - 18 March 2019: Tilt training effectively prevents fainting, according to research presented today at EHRA 2019, a European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress.1 The programme also improved quality of life, reduced the worry and fear about future fainting and enabled patients to return to work. "Our study included teachers who fainted in the classroom and had to quit work," said study author Dr Sergio Laranjo, of the Hospital Santa Marta, Lisbon, Portugal. "None of the conventional treatments had helped, but after tilt training they stopped fainting and were able to resume their jobs." Syncope affects one in two people during their lifetime and is one of the leading emergency care conditions. For some with recurrent episodes it is life-limiting - they end up in emergency or admitted to hospital, and fear stops them working and socialising. Fainting is caused by either a fall in blood pressure and/or number of heart beats. The most common triggers are standing in a hot, crowded space or sitting up too quickly. Some patients have no warning signs, and medications or devices do not help. A tilt training programme was designed to retrain the autonomic nervous system (which controls heart rate and blood pressure) to respond correctly to moving to an upright position. The response of both the autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular system improved - for example, blood pressure did not drop when moving upright and cardiac output (the volume of blood pumped with each beat) normalised. But, more importantly, an average of 5.5 years after the programme, 86% of patients had not fainted again. In the rest (14%), average numbers of yearly faints (syncope) and presyncopal episodes (feeling faint) fell significantly by more than half - from five faints to less than two, and from more than 11 presyncopal episodes to less than five. Twenty-five patients completed the "Impact of Syncope on Quality of Life" questionnaire before tilt training and six months afterwards. It showed that tilt training was significantly associated with less worry, fear, and frustration related to fainting. "Patients were able to lead full, normal lives after the tilt training programme," said Dr Laranjo. "Most participants were of working age - the average age was 46 - and could return to work." The study enrolled 102 patients who had fainted at least twice in the previous six months or fainted once and had three presyncopal episodes in the previous year. The protocol had two parts. In the hospital part, patients lay down on a table that moved up to 60 for six sessions and 70 for three sessions - each time staying raised for 20-30 minutes while electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood pressure measurements were taken. The nine sessions were spread across three weeks, there was a month break, and the nine sessions were repeated across three weeks. The home-based part consisted of sitting up in bed at 60-70 for 30 minutes daily, sleeping with extra pillows so the head was at 10, avoiding quick upright movements, drinking around 2.5 litres of water daily, and doing aerobic exercise for 30 minutes a day. Aerobic exercise was included to retrain the muscles and cardiovascular system, noted Dr Laranjo. "Despite their young age, the fear of fainting caused these patients to become very inactive," he said. Dr Laranjo said that many patients with syncope are passed between doctors in different specialties with no effective treatment. "These results show that tilt training is a safe and effective treatment option for selected patients with recurrent syncopal episodes," he said. ESC guidelines recommend that patients are referred to a syncope unit for one-stop multidisciplinary assessment, diagnosis, therapy, and follow-up.2 ### Authors: ESC Press Office Tel: +33 (0)4 8987 2499 Email: press@escardio.org Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews T he hashtag for the meeting is #ehra2019. Sources of funding: None. Disclosures: None. References and notes 1The abstract 'Long-term efficacy of tilt training in the treatment of reflex syncope' will be presented during Poster session 2: Syncope and Bradycardia on Monday 18 March at 08:30 to 18:00 WET (GMT) in the Poster Area. 2Brignole M, Moya A, de Lange FJ, et al. 2018 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and management of syncope. Eur Heart J. 2018;39:1883-1948. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehy037. About the European Heart Rhythm Association The European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) is a branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Its aim is improving the quality of life and reducing sudden cardiac death by limiting the impact of heart rhythm disturbances. EHRA ensures the dissemination of knowledge and standard setting; provides continuous education, training and certification to physicians and allied professionals involved in the field of cardiac arrhythmias with a special focus on Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and Electrophysiology (EP). EHRA releases international consensus documents and position papers, it is a source of high quality, unbiased, evidence based, scientific information that promotes the quality of care for patients with AF, and for, has also dedicated a website for patients "afibmatters.org". About the EHRA Congress EHRA 2019 is the annual congress of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). About the European Society of Cardiology The European Society of Cardiology brings together health care professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people lead longer, healthier lives. Information for journalists attending EHRA 2019 EHRA 2019 will be held 17 to 19 March at the Lisbon Congress Centre (CCL) in Lisbon, Portugal. Explore the scientific programme. Bats fly, whales swim, gibbons swing from tree to tree, horses gallop, and humans swipe on their phones--the different habitats and lifestyles of mammals rely on our unique forelimbs. No other group of vertebrate animals has evolved so many different kinds of arms: in contrast, all birds have wings, and pretty much all lizards walk on all fours. Our forelimbs are a big part of what makes mammals special, and in a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have discovered that our early relatives started evolving diverse forelimbs 270 million years ago--a good 30 million years before the earliest dinosaurs existed. "Aside from fur, diverse forelimb shape is one of the most iconic characteristics of mammals," says the paper's lead author Jacqueline Lungmus, a research assistant at Chicago's Field Museum and a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. "We were trying to understand where that comes from, if it's a recent trait or if this has been something special about the group of animals that we belong to from the beginning." To determine the origins of mammals' arms today, Lungmus and her co-author, Field Museum curator Ken Angielczyk, examined the fossils of mammals' ancient relatives. About 312 million years ago, land-dwelling vertebrates split into two groups--the sauropsids, which went on to include dinosaurs, birds, crocodiles, and lizards, and the synapsids, the group that mammals are part of. A key difference between sauropsids and synapsids is the pattern of openings in the skull where jaw muscles attach. While the earliest synapsids, called pelycosaurs, were more closely related to humans than to dinosaurs, they looked like hulking reptiles. Angielczyk notes, "If you saw a pelycosaur walking down the street, you wouldn't think it looked like a mammal--you'd say, 'That's a weird-looking crocodile.'" About 270 million years ago, though, a more diverse (and sometimes furry) line of our family tree emerged: the therapsids. "Modern mammals are the only surviving therapsids--this is the group that we're part of today," explains Lungmus. Therapsids were the first members of our family to really branch out--instead of just croc-like pelycosaurs, the therapsids included lithe carnivores, burly-armed burrowers, and tree-dwelling plant-eaters. Lungmus and Angielczyk set out to see if this explosion of diversity came with a corresponding explosion in different forelimb shapes. "This is the first study to quantify forelimb shape across a big sample of these animals," says Lungmus. The team examined the upper arm bones of hundreds of fossil specimens representing 73 kinds of pelycosaurs and therapsids, taking measurements near where the bones joined the shoulder and the elbow. They then analyzed the shapes of the bones using a technique called geometric morphometrics. When they compared the shapes of arm bones, the researchers found a lot more variation in the bones of the therapsids than the pelycosaurs. They also noted that the upper part of the arm, near the shoulder, was especially varied in therapsids--a feature that might have let them move more freely than the pelycosaurs, whose bulky and tightly-fitting shoulder bones likely gave them a more limited range of motion. Lungmus and Angielczyk found that a wide variety of different forelimb shapes evolved within the therapsids 270 million years ago. "The therapsids are the first synapsids to increase the variability of their forelimbs-- this study dramatically pushes that trait back in time," says Lungmus. Prior to this study, the earliest that paleontologists had been able to definitively trace back mammals' diverse forelimbs was 160 million years ago. With Lungmus and Angielczyk's work, that's been pushed back by more than a hundred million years. The researchers note that the study helps explain how mammals evolved traits that have made us what we are today. "So much of what we do every day is related to the way our forelimbs evolved--even simple things like holding a phone," says Angielczyk. "This is something that's so cool about our evolutionary lineage," says Lungmus. "These animals are in the same group as us--part of what makes this research compelling is that these are our relatives." ### FRANKFURT. Heavy elements are produced during stellar explosion or on the surfaces of neutron stars through the capture of hydrogen nuclei (protons). This occurs at extremely high temperatures, but at relatively low energies. An international research team headed by Goethe University has now succeeded in investigating the capture of protons at the storage ring of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung. As the scientists report in the current issue of Physical Review Letters, their goal was to determine more precisely the probability for a proton capture in astrophysical scenarios. As Dr. Jan Glorius from the GSI atomic physics research department explains, they were faced with two challenges in this endeavour: "The reactions are most probable under astrophysical circumstances in an energy range called the Gamow window. In this range, nuclei tend to be somewhat slow, making them difficult to obtain in the required intensity. In addition, the cross section - the probability of proton capture - decreases rapidly with energy. Until now, it has been almost impossible to create the right conditions in a laboratory for these kinds of reactions." Rene Reifarth, Professor for experimental astrophysics at Goethe University suggested a solution as early as ten years ago: The low energies within the Gamow window range can be reached more precisely when the heavy reaction partner circulates in an accelerator in which it interact with an stationary proton gas. He achieved first successes in September 2015 with a group of Heimholtz early career researchers. Since then, his team has gained excellent support from Professor Yuri Litvinov, who leads the EU-funded research project ASTRUm at GSI. In the experiment, the international team first produced xenon ions. They were decelerated in the experimental storage ring ESR and caused to interact with protons. This resulted in reactions in which the xenon nuclei captured a proton and were transformed into heavier caesium - a process like that which occurs in astrophysical scenarios. "The experiment makes a decisive contribution to advancing our understanding of nucleosynthesis in the cosmos," says Rene Reifarth. "Thanks to the high-performance accelerator facility at GSI, we were able to improve the experimental technique for decelerating the heavy reaction partner. We now have more exact knowledge of the area in which the reaction rates occur, which until now had only been theoretically predicted. This allows us to more precisely model the production of elements in the universe." ### The experiment took place as part of the research collaboration SPARC (Stored Particles Atomic Physics Research Collaboration), which is part of the FAIR research programme. Equipment funded by the Verbundforschung (collaborative research) of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research was used in this experiment. A picture can be downloaded here: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/76756294 Caption: For the first time, the fusion of hydrogen and xenon was able to be investigated at the same temperatures as occur in stellar explosions using an ion storage ring. Credit: Mario Weigand, Goethe-Universitat Publication: J. Glorius et al: Approaching the Gamow window with stored ions: Direct measurement of 124Xe(p,) in the ESR storage ring, in PRL, DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.092701 Further information: Professor Rene Reifarth, Institute for Applied Physics at Goethe University, Riedberg Campus, Tel.: +49 69 798-47442, Reifarth@physik.uni-frankfurt.de. Current news about science, teaching, and society can be found on GOETHE-UNI online Goethe University is a research-oriented university in the European financial centre Frankfurt am Main. The university was founded in 1914 through private funding, primarily from Jewish sponsors, and has since produced pioneering achievements in the areas of social sciences, sociology and economics, medicine, quantum physics, brain research, and labour law. It gained a unique level of autonomy on 1 January 2008 by returning to its historic roots as a "foundation university". Today, it is one of the three largest universities in Germany. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Mainz, it is a partner in the inter-state strategic Rhine-Main University Alliance. Internet: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de Publisher: The President of Goethe University Editor: Dr. Anne Hardy, Science Editor, PR & Communication Department, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: +49 69 798-13035, Fax: +49 69 798-763 12531, , hardy@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de. On 6 March 2019 at the National Library of Technology in Prague, the 4th annual international BioSpot conference was held. During the event, representatives of both domestic and foreign investors listen to presentations by researchers highlighting the most advanced and interesting technologies in the field of life sciences with potential for implementation. This year, researchers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany presented 22 technologies in a number of fields, such as new precision prostate cancer diagnostics capable of preventing 90 % of unnecessary biopsies, new inhibitors for the treatment of leukemias, antimicrobial agents to combat resistant infections, or a novel technology for in vitro diagnostics at the point of care based on electronic microchips with carbon nanotubes. "We founded the BioSpot platform three years ago to help the most promising projects bridge the gap between laboratories and production lines, get them on the market, and allow them to dramatically enhance our lives. And I'm very pleased when I see the increasingly strong trend among researchers in life sciences to realize the potential of these technologies," says one of the founders of the BioSpot platform, Martin Fusek of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences. "An excellent example is the DIANA Biotechnologies startup that was established last year to develop technology presented at our conference." "BioSpot celebrated its fourth birthday this year and is constantly growing. It attracted far more participants than in previous years. There were some very interesting technologies on the program, and their quality is increasing markedly. Foreign researchers and investors are more aware of us, and BioSpot is becoming an acclaimed international tech-transfer enterprise," explains another of the platform's founders, Marian Hajduch of the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc. Numerous investors sent representatives to the conference to learn about the new technologies, such RSJ Investments, bpd partners, Bohemia Venture Capital, and Beckman Coulter. "For me, BioSpot is a unique opportunity to meet with experienced scientists and young talents alike. Everyone strives to earn recognition and be cited by experts, but what they mainly want is to get their discoveries from the laboratory to the market. That gives rise to products that can provide society with some real value and have a positive effect on the lives of many people. Among other things, we work to support precisely these types of projects, so I'm pleased to see so many of them again at this year's BioSpot," says P?emysl Rubes, founder and managing partner of Bohemia Venture Capital. The next BioSpot conference is scheduled for 5 March 2020 in Prague. ### About BioSpot The BioSpot international platform and conference was established in the Czech Republic in 2016. Its goal is to evaluate the development and commercial potential of the most interesting discoveries and technologies in the field of life sciences and help connect them with private investors from around the world. The platform was founded by the cluster MedChemBio, the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacky University Olomouc, and the renowned Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, one of the most successful institutes in the world in the commercialization of scientific results. EVANSTON, Ill. --- Women who shared their mother's womb with a male twin are less likely to graduate from high school or college, have earned less by their early 30s, and have lower fertility and marriage rates when compared with twins who are both female, according to new Northwestern University research. In the largest and most rigorous study of its kind, Northwestern University and Norwegian School of Economics researchers examined data on all twin births in Norway over a 12-year period to find that females exposed in utero to a male twin experienced adverse educational and labor outcomes along with altered patterns of marriage and fertility as adults. "Nobody has been able to study how male twins impact their twin sisters at such a large scale," said study corresponding author Krzysztof Karbownik, an economist and research associate at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research (IPR). "This is the first study to track people for more than 30 years, from birth through schooling and adulthood, to show that being exposed in utero to a male twin influences important outcomes in their twin sister, including school graduation, wages and fertility rates." The study, "Evidence that prenatal testosterone transfer from male twins reduces the fertility and socioeconomic success of their female co-twins," will be published the week of March 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The researchers used data on 13,800 twin births between 1967 and 1978 to show that females exposed in utero to a male twin are less likely to graduate from high school (-15.2 percent), to complete college (-3.9 percent) or to get married (-11.7 percent). They also have lower fertility rates (-5.8 percent) and life-cycle earnings (-8.6 percent.) The study supports the "twin testosterone-transfer hypothesis," which posits that females in male-female twin pairs are exposed to more testosterone in utero via the amniotic fluid or through the mother's bloodstream that they share with their twin brother. One explanation for the long-term effects the researchers discovered is changes in behavior, which have previously been demonstrated in girls with male twins. Unlike the females, the researchers found that male twins do not experience long-term consequences of being exposed to a female twin in utero. "This is a story about the biology of sex differences," said co-author David Figlio, Dean of Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy and IPR fellow. "We are not showing that exposed females are necessarily more 'male-like,' but our findings are consistent with the idea that passive exposure to prenatal testosterone changes women's education, labor market, and fertility outcomes." During sensitive developmental periods in utero, steroids produced by the ovaries and testes, including testosterone, help establish biological differences between males and females. Previous, smaller studies have suggested that such exposure to opposite-sex hormones can lead to lasting changes in behavior and other traits. On the other hand, it has also been noted that socialization effects - or being a female raised alongside a twin brother - could likewise explain the different behaviors and outcomes shown by past studies. To separate the effects of fetal testosterone from postnatal socialization, the research team repeated their analyses focusing only on female twins whose twin sibling -- either twin sister or twin brother -- died shortly after birth, and thus they were raised as singletons. The results were unchanged in this sample, providing strong evidence that the long-term effects that the study documents are due to prenatal exposure, rather than postnatal socialization. The near-doubling of twinning rates in many countries since 1980 -- a result of women conceiving later in life and increased reliance on in vitro fertilization (IVF) -- means that an increasing number of females worldwide are exposed to prenatal testosterone from their male twin. The researchers caution that they lack information on all possible outcomes, and it is possible that some positive effects from testosterone exposure also exist. Moreover, the long-term impacts of prenatal testosterone exposure, which likely involve behavioral changes, may shift as societal norms surrounding gender change. "It is important to emphasize that our findings apply to Norwegian society during the timeframe of the study, but may not apply equally across other societies or cultural settings. For instance, if gender norms change within a society, acceptance of a wider array of behaviors could minimize later effects on outcomes like school completion or entering a marriage" said study co-author Christopher Kuzawa, professor of anthropology and an IPR fellow, whose research focuses on the roles that the intrauterine and early postnatal environments have on development and long-term health. "Basically we find that there are some very interesting long-term biological effects of being a sister to a twin brother," Kuzawa said. "But whether we view those effects as 'positive' or 'negative' may be culturally dependent." "While we found moderate effects at the national level, these results reflect mean differences," Karbownik said. "Not everyone will be affected in the same way, and some female twins may not be affected at all. And, these effects are highly unlikely to result from any individual fertility decision made by a woman or couple, given that twins are a small subset of births and male-female twin pairs even rarer yet." "We certainly do not advocate against delayed reproduction or the use of IVF, which are complex decisions made by individuals balancing a range of personal factors," Karbownik said. Caveats aside, "our results suggest that in utero testosterone transfer could present a hidden impact of practices that increase multiple zygote implantation, and provide long-term perspectives concerning the risks and returns of these fertility decisions," the researchers wrote. ### "Frustration" plus a pulse of laser light resulted in a stable "supercrystal" created by a team of researchers led by Penn State and Argonne National Laboratory, together with University of California, Berkeley, and two other national laboratories. This is one of the first examples of a new state of matter with long-term stability transfigured by the energy from a sub-pico-second laser pulse. The team's goal, supported by the Department of Energy, is to discover interesting states of matter with unusual properties that do not exist in equilibrium in nature. "We are looking for hidden states of matter by taking the matter out of its comfortable state, which we call the ground state," says the Penn State team leader Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science. "We do this by exciting the electrons into a higher state using a photon, and then watching as the material falls back to its normal state. The idea is that in the excited state, or in a state it passes through for the blink of an eye on the way to the ground state, we will find properties that we would desire to have, such as new forms of polar, magnetic and electronic states." Finding these states is done by a pump-probe technique when a laser fires a photon at the sample for 100 femtoseconds at a wavelength of 400 nanometers -- blue light. The pump light excites the electrons into a higher energy state and is quickly followed by a probe light, which is a gentler pulse of light that reads the state of the material. The challenge for the team was to find a way to maintain the intermediate state of matter, because the state may exist for only some tiny fraction of a second and then disappear. However, the researchers discovered that, at room temperature, the supercrystal is stuck in that state essentially forever. Gopalan compares this challenge to sending a ball rolling down a mountain side. It will not come to rest until it reaches the bottom of the mountain, unless something gets in its way, say a ledge. The team accomplished this by "frustrating the system" -- not allowing the material to do what it wants to do, which is to allow it to minimize its energy fully without constraints. The researchers did this by using single atomic layers of two materials, lead titanate and strontium titanate, stacked in alternating layers on top of each other to build up a three-dimensional structure. Lead titanate is a ferroelectric, a polar material that has electrical polarization leading to positive and negative electric poles in the material. Strontium titanate is not a ferroelectric material. This mismatch forced the electric polarization vectors to take an unnatural path, curving back on themselves to make vortices, like water swirling down a drain. The Berkeley team grew these layers on top of a crystal substrate whose crystals were intermediate in size between the two layered materials. This provided a second level of "frustration," as the strontium titanate layer tried to stretch to conform with the crystal structure of the substrate, and the lead titanate had to compress to conform to it. This put the whole system into a delicate but "frustrated" state with multiple phases randomly distributed in the volume. At this point, the researchers zapped the material with a laser pulse, which dumps free charges in the material, adding extra electrical energy to the system, driving it into a new state of matter, a supercrystal. These supercrystals have a unit cell -- the simplest repeating unit in a crystal -- much larger than any ordinary inorganic crystal, with a volume one million times larger than the unit cells of the original two materials. The material finds this state on its own. Unlike transient states, this supercrystal state stays around potentially forever at room temperature -- at least a year in this study -- unless it is heated to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit where it is erased. The process can be repeated by hitting the material with a light pulse and erased using heat. This state can only be created by ultrashort laser pulses with a certain minimum amount of threshold energy, and not by spreading out that energy over long pulses. Vlad Stoica, a post-doctoral scholar shared jointly between Penn State and Argonne National Laboratory, and the lead author, used high energy x-ray diffraction to examine the supercrystal before and after it forms, clearly showing the transformation from disordered matter into a supercrystal. The results were reported today (Mar. 18) online in Nature Materials. "By virtue of its short pulse duration, an ultrafast laser imprints excitations in materials faster than their intrinsic response time," Stoica said. "While such dynamical transformations were already explored for decades to stimulate the ordering of materials, a strategy for their steady state stabilization seemed out of reach until now." High-resolution X-ray diffraction combined with imaging at the nanoscale level was used by the Argonne researchers to observe the evolution of irreversible structural reordering. "For the first time, we observed that a single ultrafast laser pulse irradiation of artificially layered polar material can induce long-range structural perfection when starting from relative disorder," they said. "This experimental demonstration has already stimulated theoretical developments and has important implications toward future realization of artificial nanomaterials that are not achievable by traditional fabrication." "The combination of X-rays and ultrafast optical sources at the Advanced Photon Source gave us the best opportunity to explore the supercrystal's nanoscale structure, along with the ability to understand why the material could be repeatedly changed from ordered to disordered states," said John Freeland, corresponding author on "Optical Creation of a Supercrystal with Three-Dimensional Nanoscale Periodicity" and staff scientist at Argonne National Lab. "This information, together with the modeling, gave us very deep insight into the physics behind the creation of this new phase." Long-Qing Chen's theory group at Penn State performed computer calculations using a phase-field software package mu-PRO that closely simulated the experimental results. "It's quite remarkable that our phase-field simulations were able to predict the three-dimensional real-space images of a supercrystal whose diffraction patterns generally match the experimental patterns, and to identify a range of thermodynamic conditions for the stability of the supercrystal. Such integrated experimental and computational studies are extremely useful and productive," Chen said. Other team members from Oak Ridge National Lab and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab contributed to the work. ### HOUSTON - (March 18, 2019) - The jawbone is not typically connected to the rib bone, but it might be in an emergency. Rice University bioengineers and their colleagues have developed a technique to grow live bone to repair craniofacial injuries by attaching a 3D-printed bioreactor -- basically, a mold -- to a rib. Stem cells and blood vessels from the rib infiltrate scaffold material in the mold and replace it with natural bone custom-fit to the patient. Researchers at Rice, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine led the study, and the results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Led by bioengineer Antonios Mikos, a pioneer in the field of tissue engineering, the researchers combined technologies they have developed during a decade-long program funded by the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The goal is to advance craniofacial reconstruction by taking advantage of the body's natural healing powers. The technique is being developed to replace current reconstruction techniques that use bone graft tissues harvested from different areas in a patient, such as the lower leg, hip and shoulder. "A major innovation of this work is leveraging a 3D-printed bioreactor to form bone grown in another part of the body while we prime the defect to accept the newly generated tissue," said Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine. "Earlier studies established a technique for creating bone grafts with or without their own blood supply from real bone implanted into the chest cavity," said co-author Mark Wong, a professor, chair and program director of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery with the School of Dentistry at UTHealth. "This study demonstrated that we could create viable bone grafts from artificial bone substitute materials. "The significant advantage of this approach is that you do not need to harvest a patient's own bone to make a bone graft, but that other non-autogenous sources can be used," he said. To prove their concept, the researchers made a rectangular defect in the mandibles of sheep. They created a template for 3D printing and printed an implantable mold and a spacer, both made of PMMA, also known as bone cement. The goal of the spacer is to promote healing and prevent scar tissue from filling the defect site. They removed enough bone from the animal model's rib to expose the periosteum, which served as a source of stem cells and vasculature to seed scaffold material inside the mold. Test groups included crushed rib bone or synthetic calcium phosphate materials to make the biocompatible scaffold. The mold, with the rib side open to create a tight interface, stayed in place for nine weeks before removal and transfer to the site of the defect, replacing the spacer. In the animal models, the new bone knitted to the old and soft tissue grew around and covered the site. "We chose to use ribs because they're easily accessed and a rich source of stem cells and vessels, which infiltrate the scaffold and grow into new bone tissue that matches the patient," Mikos said. "There's no need for exogenous growth factors or cells that would complicate the regulatory approval process and translation to clinical applications." Ribs offer another advantage. "We can potentially grow new bone on multiple ribs at the same time," said co-author Gerry Koons, an M.D./Ph.D. student at Rice and Baylor currently working in Mikos' lab. Using PMMA for the mold and spacer was a simple decision, Mikos said, as it has been regulated as a medical device for biological applications for decades. In World War II, when PMMA was used as a windshield for fighter planes, doctors noticed that shards embedded in injured pilots did not cause inflammation and thus considered it benign. While the study's initial goal is to improve the treatment of battlefield injuries, the big picture includes civilian surgeries as well. "We're delighted to bring together this diversely talented team and deliver promising outcomes to the future healing of the wounded warrior and other patients in need of advanced treatments for the jaw and face," Mikos said. ### Alexander Tatara, a Rice alumnus and also part of the Rice-Baylor M.D./Ph.D. program, is lead author of the paper. Co-authors include former and current Baylor/Rice M.D./Ph.D. students Emma Watson, Sarita Shah and Brandon Smith; Rice graduate student Trenton Piepergerdes; Associate Professors Jonathan Shum and Issa Hanna, division director and Professor Nagi Demian, and Assistant Professor James Melville, all from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery; UTHealth otorhinolaryngologist Associate Professor Tang Ho; Anthony Ratcliffe of Synthasome, Inc., San Diego; and Associate Professor Jeroen van den Beucken and Professor John Janson of Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands. Wong also holds the Dr. Bernard and Gloria P. Katz Chair in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at UTHealth. Additional support for the research came from the National Institutes of Health, the Osteo Science Foundation, the Barrow Scholars Program, and the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation. Read the abstract at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1819246116. This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu. Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews. Related materials: Mikos Research Group: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~mikosgrp/ Mark Wong bio: https://dentistry.uth.edu/directory/profile.htm?id=d6d0f42f-e4d1-4a47-a5e3-ea705237b52e Rice Department of Bioengineering: https://bioengineering.rice.edu George R. Brown School of Engineering: https://engineering.rice.edu Images for download: https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2019/03/0318_-JAW-1-web-2847vvl.jpg Researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston develop a technique to grow custom-fit bone implants to repair jawbone injuries from a patient's own rib. (Credit: Illustration courtesy of the Mikos Research Group/Rice University) https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2019/03/0318_-JAW-2-web-2o2oova.jpg 3D-printed bioreactors filled with autologous bone (top) or a synthetic graft (bottom) are key components of a new technique to grow custom-fit bone implants to repair jawbone injuries from a patient's own rib. The technique was created at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. (Credit: Mikos Research Group/Rice University) https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2019/03/0318_-JAW-3-web-2it665o.jpg Gerry Koons, an M.D./Ph.D. student at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, holds a 3D-printed bioreactor used to grow new bone for an implant inside the patient's own body. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University) https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2019/03/0318_-JAW-4-web-1t8wxo7.jpg Gerry Koons, an M.D./Ph.D. student at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, prepares a 3D-printed bioreactor for tests. The lab developed a method to use bioreactors to grow new custom-fit bone from a patient's rib for implant to the jaw. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University) https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2019/03/0318_-JAW-5-web-1wd3gai.jpg Rice University bioengineer Antonios Mikos and graduate student Gerry Koons helped develop a project to grow custom bone implants as part of a decadelong program funded by the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The goal is to advance craniofacial reconstruction by taking advantage of the body's natural healing powers. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University) 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 3,962 undergraduates and 3,027 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. Editor's note: Links to high-resolution images for download appear at the end of this release. David Ruth 713-348-6327 david@rice.edu Mike Williams 713-348-6728 mikewilliams@rice.edu BERKELEY, CA (Wednesday, March 13, 2019) - Senator Elizabeth Warren declared her 2020 presidential bid on a platform based on policies to rebuild the American middle-class. A key part of her campaign will be a progressive wealth tax on the net worth of American households, including a 2% tax on net worth above $50 million, and an additional 1% tax on net worth above $1 billion. UC Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman--the researchers whose analysis forms the basis of the plan--estimate that "75,000 American households (less than 0.1%) would be liable for the wealth tax and that the tax would raise around $2.75 trillion" in the first ten years of its implementation. Such sweeping policy ideas are regularly the subject of contentious debates, such as those around raising the minimum wage, taxing carbon, or instituting universal healthcare. Arguments in such debates are often split along ideological lines, with opposing sides citing diverging estimates, assumptions, and data. Further, some arguments are too general to be useful, like the critique by the Economist that described Saez and Zucman's analysis as based on assumptions that are "probably too rosy." Disclosing in full the assumptions, data, and methods behind each analysis can reduce the risk of conflating ideology with facts, and allow others to critically assess the merits of the alternative. That is why Saez and Zucman teamed up with the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) to "open up" their analysis, publicly sharing all their data and methods to make it possible for anyone to assess its validity and credibility. Having worked with researchers in academia to tackle the credibility crisis in the social sciences by improving the transparency and reproducibility of research, BITSS is now looking to apply relevant lessons to policy analysis. The approach is called Open Policy Analysis (OPA), where data, code, materials, and clear accounts of methodological decisions are made freely available to facilitate collaboration, discussion, and reuse. BITSS Project Scientist Fernando Hoces de la Guardia, who leads the OPA initiative, argues that it can help policy debates transcend ideological differences, and instead focus on the technical merit of the proposed policy. Applying OPA to Saez and Zucman's analysis, the team developed an interactive plot to simulate the results of the analysis for different parameters (developed with the help of Sara Stoudt, a Berkeley Statistics PhD student and BIDS Fellow); an "open policy report"" that details all data, code, and assumptions behind the analysis; and an open online repository that stores all materials necessary to reproduce the analysis from scratch. Using the interactive plot, readers can alter the number of tax brackets, apply different rates to each, and even adjust the estimated tax evasion rate, observing how each alteration affects the tax burden, tax base and projected revenue. The open policy report then goes a step further, and details how Saez and Zucman constructed each parameter, spelling out each assumption behind the proposal, including their estimated tax evasion rate, one of the proposal's most contentious elements. Finally, readers can download all materials from the online repository, and recreate the analysis in full with minimal effort. This approach is a radical departure from the way traditional policy reports are written. In such reports, it is often difficult to understand what decisions were made when models were constructed, why certain inputs were used rather than others, or even which data were used. "Our analysis is fully transparent and reproducible, and we would love to see opposing arguments laid out in a similar way," say Saez and Zucman. "To truly achieve the ideals of evidence-based policy, both policymakers and policy analysts need to be clear about what evidence they include in their reasoning, and how." Analysts representing different policy areas and political inclinations have already endorsed the OPA approach. The 2018 BITSS Annual Meeting, which gathered leaders in the research transparency movement, hosted a panel of policy analysts including Hilary Hoynes of UC Berkeley, Matt Jensen of the American Enterprise Institute, Kevin Perese of the US Congressional Budget Office, and Josh Rosenberg of GiveWell. Moderated by Hoces de la Guardia, the panel discussed various challenges to the rigor and credibility of policy analysis, and agreed that greater transparency and reproducibility may indeed transform the discipline. ### To enable the use of OPA, BITSS has provided details on tools and best practices for improved transparency and reproducibility in policy analysis through a set of guidelines. And like any other good evidence-based organization, we are taking lessons to heart; a more detailed draft will be available in the coming weeks. BITSS invites feedback from anyone in the policy analysis community (questions and suggestions may be sent to Fernando Hoces de la Guardia at fhoces@berkeley.edu). About BITSS: The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) works to strengthen the integrity of research and evidence used for policy-making by promoting transparency, reproducibility, and openness across the social sciences. BITSS is an initiative of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), a development research network headquartered at UC Berkeley. Studies have shown women are more risk-averse than men, more likely to opt for the smaller sure thing than gamble on an all-or-nothing proposition, a trait experts say could help to explain the persistent wage gap between men and women. New research suggests those gender differences in risk aversion are shaped by culture and the social environment and that those differences can shift, at least in children. "Environment is extremely important in shaping risk aversion," said Elaine Liu, associate professor of economics and author of a paper on the subject published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "If we can teach girls that they should be more risk loving, perhaps that will shape their future decision-making." Liu and co-author Sharon Xuejing Zuo of Fudan University looked at the behavior of children from two distinct cultures - the matrilineal Mosuo and the traditionally patriarchal Han - who attended the same school in Yunnan, China. When the children first began elementary school, Mosuo girls took more risks than Mosuo boys, while Han girls were less likely to take risks than Han boys, in keeping with their parents' cultural norms. But that began to change as the children were exposed to the other culture. It worked both ways, Liu said. Mosuo girls became more risk-averse, while Han girls became more risk-loving. "There was a convergence," Liu said. "The Mosuo girls took more risks than Han girls at the beginning, but their attitudes toward taking risks become more similar as they spent more time together." The researchers studied children in elementary and middle school; Liu said it's not clear whether the changes will be sustained as the children return to their home villages. She and Zuo hope to launch a long-term study to determine if the shift in attitudes toward risk-taking is permanent. They measured students' attitudes toward risk-taking through a lottery-style game, offering the students six choices ranging from a guaranteed three-yuan payout to a 50/50 percent chance of winning 10 yuan or nothing. Ten yuan would allow the children to buy five notebooks or about five popsicles at a local store; the amount of the reward was chosen after consulting with school principals. Liu and Zuo conducted their research in Yunnan, a province in southwestern China, because it is one of the few places where children from cultures with distinctly different gender norms come together in one place. But Liu said the basic discovery - that risk aversion is quite malleable at a young age - should be applicable across cultures. "Gender norms are slow to change, but there are social influences that could play a role in how we shape that behavior," Liu said. And that could have long-term economic consequences, she said, even potentially shrinking the gender pay gap if it led to women choosing riskier but higher-reward career paths. ### Most techniques to prevent frost and ice formation on surfaces rely heavily on heating or liquid chemicals that need to be repeatedly reapplied because they easily wash away. Even advanced anti-icing materials have problems functioning under conditions of high humidity and subzero conditions, when frost and ice formation go into overdrive. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering describe for the first time several unique properties of materials known as phase-switching liquids, or PSLs, that hold promise as next-generation anti-icing materials. PSLs can delay ice and frost formation up to 300 times longer than state-of-the-art coatings being developed in laboratories. Their findings are published in the journal Advanced Materials. "Ice and frost pose hazards to people and can damage machines and reduce functionality of some technologies, especially those related to energy and transportation, so we have been interested in finding possible ways to overcome their harmful effects, and phase-switching liquids are very promising candidates," said Sushant Anand, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and corresponding author of the paper. PSLs are a subset of phase change materials that have melting points higher than the freezing point of water, which is 0 degrees Celsius, meaning that they would be solids at a range of temperatures close to that at which water freezes. Examples of such materials include cyclohexane, cyclooctane, dimethyl sulfoxide, glycerol, and more. "At sub-zero temperatures, all PSLs turn solid. So, on a winter day, you could coat a surface where you don't want icing with a PSL material and it would remain there much longer than most deicing liquids, which demand frequent reapplication," said Rukmava Chatterjee, a doctoral student in the UIC College of Engineering and the first author of the paper. While researchers have known about phase change materials for a long time, their unique anti-icing and anti-frosting properties have not been investigated before, Chatterjee explained. Decades ago, Daniel Beysens, research director of the physics and mechanics of heterogeneous media laboratory at Universite de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres and a co-author on the paper, had observed that when materials like cyclohexane were cooled just below their melting points, water droplets condensing on the surface would move around erratically. "We had looked into this erratic motion before, and we had shown that it originated from the melting of the cyclohexane induced by the heat released into these materials during water droplet condensation," Anand said. In their current research, Anand and Chatterjee cooled a range of PSLs to -15 degrees Celsius, rendering them all solid. Under high humidity conditions, they noticed that the solidified PSLs melted directly underneath and in the immediate vicinity of water droplets condensing on the PSLs. "We were expecting that the erratic droplet motion would stop upon cooling the surface to -15C. But to our surprise, we found that the droplets kept on showing the same hopping motion even at very low temperatures," Anand said. "It turns out that PSLs are extremely adept at trapping this released heat. "This quality, combined with the fact that condensed water droplets become extremely mobile on these cooled PSLs means that the formation of frost is significantly delayed. Yes, at a certain point, ice does eventually form and that is inevitable, but some of the PSLs we tested are water soluble, and this contributes to their anti-freezing properties and can help delay ice formation much longer than even the advanced anti-icing coatings." Anand and Chatterjee saw the same frost delaying effect with the PSLs even when they were applied as extremely thin layers to objects. "In our first set of experiments, the PSL coating we used was about 3 millimeters thick. But we also tested them as very thin coatings, like a film, and still saw the same freezing delay effect," Anand said. "This means that we can potentially use PSLs to coat objects like car windshields or turbine blades without compromising the object's functionality." In further experiments, the researchers found that PSLs have a wide range of optical transparencies, can self-repair after being scratched and can purge liquid-borne contaminants. "The unique properties of PSLs, which we describe for the first time in this paper, make them excellent candidates for next-generation materials to prevent frost and ice development on surfaces," Anand said. Because PSLs are solids at low temperatures, he anticipates that they wouldn't need to be applied as often as liquid anti-icing agents because they would have better staying power. "But, of course, we need to conduct additional experiments to determine their limits and figure out if there are ways we can further maximize their ice/frost-repelling abilities," he said. ### This work was funded by the Branco Weiss Fellowship, UIC College of Engineering and National Science Foundation grant CBET-1644815. A study into the effectiveness of disinfecting birds' nests, carried out by the University of Kent, has led to a breakthrough in the understanding of biosecurity measures for the endangered echo parakeet in Mauritius The research team found that annual disinfection of parakeet nest sites prior to the breeding season, intended to reduce the spread of infectious disease in endangered parrot species, didn't have the impact conservationists expected or indeed, had hoped for, leading to recommendation for a different approach. Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD), is a globally emerging infectious disease affecting parrot species, and researchers were looking at methods to reduce infection rates in the endangered birds. The research team found 83% of the fledglings in untreated nests survived compared to 79% in the treated nests. The long-term study of echo parakeets in Mauritius assessed how effective the disinfection measures were in reducing the probability of a nest becoming infected with PBFD. Project lead Deborah Fogell, a PhD student from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) in Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation (SAC) and ZSL's (Zoological Society of London) Institute of Zoology said: "The desperate need of conservationists to respond to infectious disease outbreaks in wildlife populations, especially those that are small or recovering, often means field protocols need to be implemented before critical evaluation. Our research findings will help us improve biosecurity measures implemented in Mauritius in order to better support fledging success". Conservationists have battled against Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs), which are drivers of global extinction of threatened species. The research team at DICE, a leading research institute which provides training in wildlife conservation, assessed the efficiency of biosecurity protocols in managing PBFD. Psittaciformes (parrots) are one of the most vulnerable avian orders, with over a quarter of all extant species recognised as in need of conservation action and 75% of species in population decline. Deborah Fogell and her colleagues recommend that it is essential to continue to evaluate population management techniques to ensure they are achieving the desired outcomes. The research illustrates that conservation activities should be carefully considered through targeted monitoring via further research and development, with conclusions prioritising conservation objectives. ### Hygiene and biosecurity protocols reduce infection prevalence but do not improve fledging success in an endangered parrot by Deborah Fogell, Jim Groombridge, and Simon Tollington, DICE, University of Kent, Stefano Canessa, Ghent University, Sion Henshaw, Nicolas Zuel and Carl G Jones, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Andrew Greenwood, International Zoo Veterinary Group and John G Ewen, Institute of Zoology, is published in Scientific Reports. For further information and interview or image requests contact Sandy Fleming at the University of Kent Press Office. Tel: +44 (0)1227 823581 Email: S.Fleming@kent.ac.uk News releases can also be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/news University of Kent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UniKent The research team recommends that conservationists working with wild populations in need of recovery or assistance don't take a dogmatic approach to their management techniques and use methods that are assumed to have a positive outcome, simply because it is thought that they should, or because in a clinical/non-field based setting they have shown to work in a specific way. Critical evaluation is the best approach to ensure that conservation is actually achieving what it set out to achieve within the guidelines of conservation objectives. Established in 1965, the University of Kent - the UK's European university - now has almost 20,000 students across campuses or study centres at Canterbury, Medway, Tonbridge, Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome. It was ranked 22nd in the Guardian University Guide 2018 and in June 2017 was awarded a gold rating, the highest, in the UK Government's Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). In 2018 it was also ranked in the top 500 of Shanghai Ranking's Academic Ranking of World Universities and 47th in the Times Higher Education's (THE) new European Teaching Rankings. Kent is ranked 17th in the UK for research intensity (REF 2014). It has world-leading research in all subjects and 97% of its research is deemed by the REF to be of international quality. Along with the universities of East Anglia and Essex, Kent is a member of the Eastern Arc Research Consortium. The University is worth 0.7 billion to the economy of the south east and supports more than 7,800 jobs in the region. Student off-campus spend contributes 293.3m and 2,532 full-time-equivalent jobs to those totals. Kent has received two Queen's Anniversary prizes for Higher and Further Education. Offshoring services providers (OSPs) operating in unstable countries can secure overseas projects and deliver on their promises if they understand the issues overseas clients may have when doing business with OSPs and work to address these a priority within the business relationship. Researchers from Kent Business School, Alliance Manchester Business School, and Temple University set out to examine how OSPs in Pakistan fared when trying to secure overseas business amid political upheaval and security concerns caused by terrorist incidents since 2007. Although foreign direct investment (FDI) into Pakistan fell after these incidents, Pakistan's software exports quickly recovered, suggesting OSPs in Pakistan were able to overcome the negative impact of political instability and security concerns. To understand how this was achieved the researchers conducted in-depth evaluations and interviews with CEOs and senior managers at 12 software development OSPs in Pakistan. Within these firms one group provided business software tools and the other developed mobile applications for Android and iOS smartphones. They found two strategies at play that were helping firms secure and retain business, which the researchers dubbed 'step-up' and 'break-out. The business software firms adopted the first strategy and the mobile application firms the latter. The 'step-up' process involved firms understanding the issues overseas clients may have when considering doing business with a Pakistan-based firm (from security of staff to IP theft, among others) and working to mitigate these concerns. This included: adapting their working practices to align with the expectations of the overseas clients improving client engagement to understand and respond quickly to their requirements to build trust quickly using technology to host web conference calls to negate the need for staff to travel to the country or sort visas. Within this strategy firms understand they are a 'junior partner' with overseas clients generally dictating the terms and requirements. OSPs hope to build long-term relationships that enable them to establish confidence among their supply chain partners and connect with new potential clients. Firms involved in a 'break-out' strategy are more focused on shorter term gains due to the quick turnaround usually required within mobile app development. The hope for the 'break-out' firm is that they quickly prove themselves as a vital partner and use existing client's references to secure new clients and grow their business. Dr Umair Choksy, Lecturer in Strategy and International Business at Kent Business School said: 'OSPs in unstable countries are already at a disadvantage when trying to secure international business partnerships. As such it is vital they go above and beyond to understand how they fit in the supply chain they are entering, remove or mitigate security-based risks customers might have and focus on building trust with customers as quickly as possible to secure and retain their business.' ### The findings have been published in the Management International Review in a paper as given below: Sinkovics, Noemi, Choksy, Umair. S., Sinkovics, Rudolf. R., & Mudambi, Ram. (2019). Knowledge connectivity in an adverse context - global value chains and Pakistani offshore service providers. Management International Review, 59, 131-170. Australian researchers have used current hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome sequences to deduce ancient human population movements into Australia, adding weight to the theory that the mainland Aboriginal population separated from other early humans at least 59 thousand years ago and possibly entered the country near the Tiwi Islands. The discovery was made as an offshoot of the Characterising Hepatitis B in Indigenous Australians thRough Molecular epidemiology (CHARM) study, commenced in 2010 by the Menzies School of Health Research (Menzies). Chronic HBV infection is endemic in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is an important cause of morbidity and mortality due to liver disease and liver cancer. As part of caring for patients with hepatitis B infections in the CHARM study, the research team collected HBV samples from people living in over 30 communities across the NT and found HBV isolated from Aboriginal Australians is a unique strain not found anywhere else in the world, known as HBV/C4. In the same way that human genome sequences are used to trace ancient human migration, the researchers predicted they could use modern day viral genomes to infer the movement of the people that have carried these viruses over many generations. Published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, the study used cutting-edge evolutionary analyses of the HBV DNA sequences together with archaeological fossil and human genome data. The researchers found that the precursor of the modern HBV/C4 virus entered Australia over 51 thousand years ago, and then separated into two groups; one centred in the northwest region, and a second in the central/eastern region of the NT. Strikingly, the two groups share a similar geographical distribution to the two main divisions of Aboriginal Australian languages spoken in Australia today. Co-author on the paper, the Royal Melbourne Hospital's Dr Margaret Littlejohn, who holds an honorary position with the University of Melbourne and is a Senior Medical Scientist in the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory at the Doherty Institute, said that the entry point and timing of ancient human migration into continental Sahul - the combined landmass of Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania - are subject to debate. "As we were analysing the sequences of HBV isolated as part of this study, we noted that the virus sequences had very strong geographical connections to the communities we visited," said Dr Littlejohn. "This led us to postulate that we might be able to use this geographical relationship to find out the origin of HBV and how long it might have been in Australia. This is the first time viral genomes have been used in this way in Australia." Another co-author on the paper, Professor Josh Davis, Senior Principal Research Fellow at Menzies, said the discovery had generated great interest with Aboriginal research partners and patients. "Most pleasingly, it has raised the profile of hepatitis B in communities. Community members have asked to find out more about hepatitis B and how they can be tested and treated," said Professor Davis. "It's really exciting to take a novel approach, and use viral genetics to help tell the story of Australia's first people". The study was endorsed by an Indigenous Reference Group comprised of members representing six different remote communities from across the NT and established by the Menzies Hepatitis B Research Program. The researchers also ensured that results were fed back to the main communities where samples came from. Senior Aboriginal Health Practitioner, Sarah Bukulatjpi, who is also a co-author on the paper, said: "I am really pleased that we are finding out more details about HBV found in Aboriginal people. This can only help to eliminate hep B for the future. "It is good for us to learn about this and for us not to be silent or feel shame; the fact the virus is so old helps to add to the evidence that Aboriginal people have been in Australia for a long long time," she concluded. ### The study was a collaboration between researchers from the Doherty Institute in Melbourne; Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University and Royal Darwin Hospital in Darwin; and Ngalkanbuy Clinic in Galiwin'ku. About the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity Finding solutions to prevent, treat and cure infectious diseases and understanding the complexities of the immune system requires innovative approaches and concentrated effort. This is why The University of Melbourne - a world leader in education, teaching and research excellence - and The Royal Melbourne Hospital - an internationally renowned institution providing outstanding care, treatment and medical research - have partnered to create the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute); a centre of excellence where leading scientists and clinicians collaborate to improve human health globally. doherty.edu.au /DohertyInstitute @TheDohertyInst #DohertyInstitute Menzies School of Health Research Menzies School of Health Research is one of Australia's leading medical research institutes dedicated to improving Indigenous, global and tropical health. Menzies has a history of over 30 years of scientific discovery and public health achievement. Menzies works at the frontline, joining with partners across the Asia-Pacific as well as Indigenous communities across northern and central Australia. Menzies collaborates to create new knowledge, grow local skills and find enduring solutions to problems that matter. The first evaluation of pharmacists based in accident and emergency departments has concluded that with additional clinical skills, they are able to take on overall clinical responsibility for patients. Daniel Greenwood a PhD student from The University of Manchester studied the work of people they termed Emergency Department Pharmacist Practitioners (EDPPs) from 15 NHS Trusts across the UK over 10 days. The research, published in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, observed the care they provided to 682 patients, and their contribution to the wider department, using an iPad-based questionnaire. Because A&E doctors and nurses are in short supply, hospitals have started to employ pharmacists who have additional clinical skills to help deliver services since 2015. Eleven EDPPs took on the role of designated care provider for at least some of their patients. All 20 EDPPs carried out both 'traditional' and 'practitioner' activity; 9 of them sometimes provided more 'practitioner' than 'traditional' care to individual patients. Of all 682 patients, EDPPs examined 264 (38.7%) and diagnosed 238 (34.9%). Daniel Greenwood said: "This study shows that Emergency Department Pharmacist Practitioners can combine traditional clinical pharmacy with more hands-on medical practice including being designated care provider. "No other A&E professional has the same medicines expertise. "EDPPs who work as a designated care provider can fill gaps in doctor and nurse practitioner rotas, something that can only be welcomed given ongoing staff shortages. "But they can also provide pharmaceutical care that is lacking in some departments, such as checking prescriptions. He added: "The EDPPs we studied performed a wide range of rolls including performing or reviewing clinical examinations, diagnosis, prescribing, treatment and discharge. "They worked as members of multidisciplinary teams, supporting and being supported by others. And they often took on overall responsibility as the patient's designated care provider. "There is no doubt that pharmacists with additional clinical skills training have a role to play in A&E departments." Victoria Bray has been Advanced Pharmacist Practitioner Emergency Medicine at Kings College Hospital for 4 years. She cares for patients with minor illness and injury as well as more acutely unwell adults, seeing, she says, between 15 and 25 patients per shift. She said: "I have been able to experience first-hand the value that pharmacists can bring to patient care in the ED both as a practitioner and a clinical pharmacist. "Pharmacists have the knowledge and skills to personalise a patient's pharmaceutical care plan or to become the patients designated care provider, both supporting the multi-disciplinary teams and to act in an advanced capacity to relieve pressure secondary to staff shortages. "I find my strength is in managing acute and urgent medical illnesses such as infections, pain, exacerbations of asthma and COPD and electrolyte disturbance, all of which require strong pharmaceutical knowledge as well as the application of assessment and diagnostic skills and interventions. "And I also value the difference I make to a patients journey and the direct impact I am able to have to their healthcare." ### NOTES FOR EDITORS A video of Daniel Greenwood talking about the research is available at https://youtu.be/5MHh8Ej9MOk The study was funded by Pharmacy Research UK, the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association, the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education and Health Education North West. The author would like to thank the pharmacists who offered large amount of support and also all the NHS Trusts who participated in the study Daniel Greenwood is available for comment For media enquiries contact: Mike Addelman Media Relations Officer Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health University of Manchester 0161 275 2111 07717 881567 MUNICH, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- -- ELIMINATE-AF is the first set of data presented in 2019 from the Edoxaban Clinical Research Programme, which will deliver new evidence to support the use of edoxaban in clinical practice -- Late-breaking data presented at EHRA 2019, the annual congress of the European Heart Rhythm Association, shows ELIMINATE-AF met primary efficacy and safety objectives, demonstrating low thromboembolic and bleeding event rates(1) -- ELIMINATE-AF provides evidence that uninterrupted LIXIANA()? (edoxaban) treatment represents an alternative to continuous anticoagulation with VKA in patients undergoing catheter ablation of AF Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited (hereafter, "Daiichi Sankyo") today announced results from ELIMINATE-AF, a prospective, randomised, open label, blinded endpoint evaluation (PROBE) design study assessing the safety and efficacy of uninterrupted oral, once-daily edoxaban (known by the brand name LIXIANA()?) 60 mg versus uninterrupted vitamin K antagonists (VKA) in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients undergoing catheter ablation. The study showed the uninterrupted anticoagulation regimen with edoxaban in patients undergoing catheter ablation resulted in low event rates for both thromboembolic and bleeding events.(1) The data were presented today during a late-breaker session at EHRA 2019, the annual congress of the European Heart Rhythm Association, in Lisbon, Portugal. The primary efficacy objective of ELIMINATE-AF was to compare descriptively the time to first all-cause death, stroke, or International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH)-defined major bleeding, assessed in the per-protocol population from the end of ablation procedure to the end of treatment. The incidence of the primary endpoint was 0.3% (1/316) in the edoxaban group and 2.0% (2/101) in the VKA group (HR 0.16; 95% CI 0.02, 1.73). The event rate was low and similar in both treatment arms; most events were procedure -related. All three events were major bleedings, and there were no deaths in the study. Edoxaban adherence was excellent (>97%) and VKA treatment was well managed.(1) The primary safety objective was to compare descriptively the incidence of ISTH-defined major bleeding in the edoxaban group against the VKA group in the period from date of first intake of study medication to end of treatment/Day 90. The primary safety endpoint in the mITT (modified Intent to Treat) population occurred in 2.5% (10/405) in the edoxaban group and 1.5% (3/197) in the VKA group (HR 1.68; 95 CI 0.46, 6.07). "Catheter ablation is a common and effective procedure for rhythm control in patients with symptomatic AF. However, the procedure is associated with a significant thromboembolic risk during and shortly after the procedure, requiring systemic anticoagulation before, during, and after ablation," said Stefan Hohnloser, MD, Professor of Medicine and Cardiology, Head, Department of Electrophysiology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and principal study investigator. "These results provide evidence that uninterrupted edoxaban treatment represents an alternative to continuous anticoagulation with VKA in patients undergoing catheter ablation of AF. This is significant for this complex patient population and physicians because the management of anticoagulation around ablation is much easier with once-daily edoxaban, with low potential of interaction with concomitant drugs." Until recently, there has been a lack of data to support the uninterrupted peri-procedural use of non-VKA, oral anticoagulants (NOACs) during AF ablation. ELIMINATE-AF was the first randomised controlled trial on the use of edoxaban for catheter ablation of AF. "We are encouraged by these results, which represent an important potential advancement in the way we manage thromboembolic risk surrounding catheter ablation," said Hans Lanz, MD, Vice President, Head, Global Medical Affairs Edoxaban, Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH. "ELIMINATE-AF will help define the role of uninterrupted therapy with edoxaban in the clinical setting of catheter ablation of AF. These results are the first of a broad set of data to be presented in 2019 supporting the use of edoxaban in specific clinical situations and the real-world setting." ELIMINATE-AF is one of more than 10 randomised, controlled trials (RCTs), registries and non-interventional studies that comprise the Edoxaban Clinical Research Programme. More than 100,000 patients worldwide are expected to participate in the Edoxaban Clinical Research Programme studies, the goal of which is to generate new clinical and real-world data regarding its use in AF and venous thromboembolism (VTE) populations, providing physicians and patients worldwide with greater treatment confidence. About ELIMINATE-AF EvaLuatIon of Edoxaban coMpared with VKA INsubjects undergoing cAThEter ablation of non-valvular Atrial Fibrillation (ELIMINATE-AF) was a prospective, randomised, open-label, blinded endpoint evaluation, parallel-group phase 3b study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of once-daily edoxaban against a vitamin K antagonist in AF patients undergoing catheter ablation of AF. The primary objective was to descriptively compare the incidence of the composite of all-cause death, stroke (ischemic, hemorrhagic, or undetermined) and major bleeding (ISTH definition) in the edoxaban group against the vitamin K antagonist group in the period from the end of the catheter ablation procedure to Day 90/end-of-treatment (EOT). The primary safety objective was to descriptively compare the incidence of major bleeding (ISTH definition) in the edoxaban group against the VKA group in the period from date of first intake of study medication to Day 90/EOT. Approximately 600 patients were enrolled in ELIMINATE-AF from more than 70 clinical sites across Europe, Canada and Asia. Patients were randomised (2:1) to receive edoxaban or VKA for 21 to 28 days pre- and 90 days post-ablation period.(2 ) About Atrial Fibrillation AF is a condition where the heart beats irregularly and rapidly. When this happens, blood can pool and thicken in the chambers of the heart causing an increased risk of blood clots. These blood clots can break off and travel through the blood stream to the brain (or sometimes to another part of the body), where they have the potential to cause a stroke.(3) AF is the most common type of heart rhythm disorder and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality.(4) More than six million Europeans are diagnosed with AF, and this figure is expected to at least double over the next 50 years.(5,6 )Compared to those without AF, people with the arrhythmia have a 3-5 times higher risk of stroke.(7) One in five of all strokes are a result of AF.(8) About Edoxaban Edoxaban is an oral, once-daily, direct factor Xa (pronounced "Ten A") inhibitor. Factor Xa is one of the key components responsible for blood clotting, so inhibiting this makes the blood thin and less prone to clotting. Edoxaban is currently marketed by Daiichi Sankyo and its partners in more than 20 countries around the world. About the Edoxaban Clinical Research Programme More than 10 studies, more than 100,000 patients worldwide (CONTINUA) UPDATE: The British Pound (GBP) traded marginally higher against both the Euro (EUR) and US Dollar (USD) into Tuesday's session as markets digested the latest Brexit developments ahead of the all-important EU summit which could determine the fate of Brexit. The Pound-to-Euro (GBPEUR) exchange rate was last seen trading at 1.1690, up a meagre 0.05% from the session open. The to $ exchange rate was last seen trading up 0.13% at $1.327. Monday's session saw Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, drop a bombshell into the midst of the already chaotic Brexit proceedings, stating he would block the government from resubmitting the EU withdrawal agreement for a third meaningful vote given HoC precedent of blocking repeated votes on the same motion. Commenting on the implications for the road ahead, ING's global head of EMEA research, Chris Turner wrote "The parliamentary speakers intervention in the Brexit process probably means that Prime Minister Theresa May will head to the EU council meeting in Brussels (Thurs/Frid) looking for a substantial change in the political declaration - such that she can then resubmit her Withdrawal Deal for a third vote." Turner added "We may not get to see the series of indicative votes (long delay, softer Brexit, referendum) until next week now. We suspect that sterling stays supported, given that neither side wants a no deal and we look to be on the tortuous path to a long delay. Cable supported at 1.32." On the domestic data front, the Sterling was supported by the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) labour market data releases which suggested that wage growth maintained its fastest pace in over a decade while unemployment fell to it's lowest level since 1975 (3.9%) while inactivity reached a record low. UPDATE: Pound Sterling volatility picked up over Monday's trading session as UK lawmakers convened to continue their verbal sparring over Brexit in a heated House of Commons session. Against the Euro, the Sterling dipped to a session low of 1.1634 before rebounding, with the Pound-to-Euro exchange rate last seen trading at 1.1673, down 0.55% from the session open. The Pound-to-Dollar exchange rates also trended downwards with the cross posting a session low of $1.31845 before retracing to the current level of $1.32204. While speculation over the weekend and into Monday had all been about whether or not the Prime Minister would table her EU withdrawal agreement for a third meaningful vote (MV3) and the outcome thereof, Monday's session saw Speaker of the House John Bercow potentially lay waste to the government's plans. Addressing a heated House of Commons session, Bercow said he may block MV3 in lieu of any substantive changes to the document. Bercow said "If the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on March 12, this would be entirely in order," before adding "What the government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition - or substantially the same proposition - as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes." Bercow did, however, go on to say that this was not to be considered his final ruling on the matter and that - given the House of Commons is custodian of its own standing orders - MPs could theoretically vote to change the HoC rule which prevents repeated votes on the same motion. The market reaction saw the Sterling post its session lows thus far, however the near-term direction is less clear. Summarising the disparate views on the matter, institutional analysts were mixed on potential impact of the development. Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Forex, expects the impact of blocking MV3 to be negative for the GBP. Aslam wrote "Now the government will have to come back with substantial changes (which is literally impossible) in relation to the deal otherwise it means a prolonged Brexit delay, adding "The chances of the UK crashing out of the EU have increased once again because the EU needs a clear plan and a strategy before they grant an extension." Alternatively, Commerzbank currency strategist Ulrich Leuchtmann suggested the move could in theory increase the likelihood of a second EU referendum which could be positive for the Sterling. Leuchtmann wrote "This move by parliament could simply increase the chances of a substantial delay to Brexit and if that happens the risks of a second referendum or general election go up substantially." Mondays session saw the British Pound (GBP) subdued against a basket of peer currencies as investors stayed on the side-lines at the start of what could prove to be a pivotal week for the Brexit process. Following last weeks stellar rally for the GBP, market pricing remained suggestive of optimism with regards to an anticipated benign Brexit outcome. At the time of writing, the Pound-to-Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate was last seen trading at 1.1673, down a shade over half-a-percent from the weekly open. The to $ exchange rate was last seen trading at $1.32320 with price action overall muted ahead of further Brexit clarity and the latest FOMC policy meeting and associated Fed releases in the US. Last week saw a trio of votes take place in the House of Common sin which MPs rejected the Prime Ministers EU withdrawal agreement, voted against the prospect of a no-deal Brexit and backed a push to formally request a Brexit extension beyond March 29th. Despite the seeming progress, which saw the Sterling appreciate substantially against a basket of peers before trimming gains towards the weekend, the UK is now just 11 days away from a no-deal by default outcome, notwithstanding an delay. Commenting on the GBP, head of FX strategy at ING, Chris Turner, wrote With sterling one-week implied volatility suggesting the currency is coiled like a spring, there is a path for a substantial upside break-out - were a benign path of Brexit events to unfold. According to options markets, Sterling volatility is currently the highest of the G10 currencies as well as being higher than many EMs. Looking at the week ahead, its unclear as to whether Prime Minister May will opt for a last-ditch attempt to get her deal through the Commons ahead of the European Unions Council summit later in the week, at which EU leaders will give their verdict on a Brexit extension. News-flow over the weekend had suggested a number of rebel Conservative Party MPs had been swayed by the threat of a long delay and the potential, by way of a second EU referendum, for the UK to abandon Brexit altogether. Outspoken chair of the European Research Group (ERG) and no-deal advocate, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said that a bad deal would be better than a long delay. Speaking on LBC radio, Rees-Mogg said No deal is better than a bad deal but a bad deal is better than remaining in the European Union in the hierarchy of deals, adding A two-year extension is basically remaining in the European Union. Reports on Monday suggested whether or not the Prime Minister holds a third meaningful vote on the EU withdrawal bill comes down to whether the perceived level of support would be adequate to push the deal through Parliament. Speaking to the BBC, Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said that There are some cautious signs of encouragement... but there is a lot more work to do. Given the Prime Ministers reluctance to table the deal for a third time in lieu of evidence to suggest it will pass, should this week see a third meaningful vote, analysts expect the market reaction to be positive for the Sterling. Commerzbank currency strategist, Ulrich Leuchtmann, wrote Should May hold another vote tomorrow that would constitute a signal that she considers it possible that her deal will be accepted, adding It should no doubt have a moderately positive effect on the British currency. Events over the coming days look set to determine the Brexit route for the foreseeable. Ahead of the EU summit, whether or not the PM holds a third meaningful vote and subsequently whether or not the deal passes is expected to determine the length of extension sought with a longer delay (2 years) anticipated if no-deal appears to be in the offing. Lloyds Commercial Banking senior economist, Hann-Ju Ho, laid out the banks expectations for the Sterling in the week ahead. He wrote The pound could endure another volatile week as the government tries to garner sufficient support for the EU Withdrawal Agreement deal in a third meaningful vote. Adding, Sterling firmed last week, as markets assessed a reduced likelihood of a no deal Brexit scenario. However, uncertainty would be expected to remain should the deal be rejected again. Its worth noting that despite persistent Brexit uncertainty, the British Pound has outperformed all major peers in the year thus far, relative to the US Dollar. Nevertheless, despite desperate efforts to avoid a no-deal outcome and given current (optimistic) pricing, asymmetric downside risks remain. The next few days will be crucial in determining the near-term direction for the Sterling with the market reaction to whatever outcome manifests likely to be rapid and substantial. Above: British Pound Outperforms Despite Brexit Uncertainty FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE It all started nine years ago, when Paul Brakke, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, first wrote about his wife's nightmare encounter with a criminal justice system two years before. She was threatened with 16 years in jail due to the false claims of some neighborhood kids that she tried to run them down because they didn't like her. This incident led to his first book American Justice? which was published in 2016 featuring her story and a look at injustices in the criminal justice system. These included out of control prosecutors, judges behaving badly, and a prison system unfairly skewed against minority group members. Now eight books later, Brakke has become a criminal justice expert and American social critic from a critical perspective, and he has written extensively on what's wrong with the criminal justice system and the divisive split in American society. In the past year, he has been taking his message to a growing number of media outlets, as well as the social media. A YouTube channel with over 70 videos features highlights from his book. Additionally, he has been taking his message to hundreds of members of the House and Senate and state governments. As a result, a growing number of media outlets have been paying attention. On TV, Brakke has been a guest on several talk and news shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates in the South, including CBS in Tupelo, Mississippi; NBC in Monroe, Louisiana; and ABC in Meridian, Mississippi; Lubbock, Texas; and San Angelo, Texas. His growing radio appearances have included The Schilling Show, the Frank Truatt Morning Show, and Libertywatch Radio. While his initial appearances have been largely on Southern broadcast outlets, now he is building on these appearances to line up even more media outlets in 2019 with his message of fixing the criminal justice system and the divisiveness in American from a conservative perspective. At the same time, Brakke's weekly blasts to the media have gained 19,000 engagements in the past six months, which include approximately 2000 newspapers, 2000 magazines, 2000 radio programs, 4000 TV programs and stations, and 3000 radio programs. The major areas of interest at the media have included politics, general assignment news, law, and public affairs. So clearly, his message has been gaining growing support in the traditional media. In addition, Brakke has engaged in a social media campaign for nearly 40 weeks, with posts five times a week each week on the big four of social media platforms -- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. He has also been spreading his message through over seventy 30-60 second videos which highlight a particular problem with the criminal justice system or an issue that has divided America and how to best make changes for the better. These videos feature highlights from his books Crime in America, Fractured America, and his forthcoming Uncertain Justice The latest videos include "Dealing with Geographical Divides" https://youtu.be/vOXaruk7idY , "A Way to Stop Illegal Immigration" https://youtu.be/L_P4hvoye4Q, and "An Idea to Promote immigration," https://youtu.be/3VYTPPHLRFc. All 70 videos are available on the American Leadership Books YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfHgXXiW3jgODnaypgcYZFw. Among some of Brakke's suggestions are using the military's success in creating racially desegregated teams as a model to follow, reducing illegal immigration by providing incentives to stay in Mexico, or creating a pathway to legal, non-voting status for current illegal immigrants. Another series of videos feature the claims and concerns of white Americans and illustrate how they feel disrespected and mistreated by the left and media, since they are losing power and status in America today. Now Brakke is bringing his campaign for criminal justice and social reform to key government officials in Congress and in state government. To this end, he has been sending officials, including Senators Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell, copies of his recently published book Crime in America, which summarize his research and findings in the key arenas of criminal justice -- the police, courts, and prisons. Also, the book examines what to do about the opioid crisis, illegal immigration, and the divisions in America. In his latest book: Fractured America, he considers how to deal with the major divisions in America based on race, ethnicity, gender, social class, and the North-South, Urban-Rural, and Middle-America/Coasts divides. A forthcoming book Uncertain Justice provides his perspective on the latest controversies in America, including over prisons, police killings, and the debate about building of a wall on the American Southern border. In contacting these officials, Brakke has written that he feels obligated to play his part as an American citizen to reach out to those in power to effect change. Or as he put it in his letter to members of Congress and state officials: "I would feel somewhat remiss in my duties as an American citizen if I didn't at least try to impart my suggestions to the people with the power to change how things are." Though Brakke is just one individual, he has set as his mission a determination to draw attention to the discrimination that exists in the American justice system so it can be improved. To learn more, you can get a copy of Fractured America which deals with these divisions in more depth. The books are available through Amazon, Kindle, and major bookstores. Also, free copies are available for government officials who are seeking ways to reduce crime and fix the criminal justice system and for members of the media at www.fracturedamerica.com Additionally, copies are available for Crime in America, with a chapter on the divisions in American society, along with suggestions on fixing some of the major problems with the police, courts, prisons, immigration, and the opioid crisis. For a Crime in America copy, go to www.crimeinamericathebook.com. For media copies of the book, more information on American Leadership Books and Paul Brakke, or to set up interviews, please contact: Jana Collins Jones & O'Malley Toluca Lake, California jana@jonesomalley.com (818) 762-8353 Marina Alderete Gavito is in the middle of the changes buffeting San Antonio and its economy. At 37, she fits between the millennials who are moving in and shaking up the city and the older business and political leaders who are running the place. Gavito is steeped in San Antonios small but growing IT community. She put in five and a half years at Rackspace Hosting, beginning in 2010, served as advocacy group Tech Blocs first executive director, and works with startups as an executive with insurance and financial services giant USAA. And she spends a lot of time explaining the industrys needs and potential to politicians, more traditional business people and everyday San Antonians. Which is a natural role for Gavito. Shes the daughter of a political family on the West Side her father is Joe Alderete, a one-time City Council ally of Mayor Henry Cisneros in the 1980s, and her mother is Chris Alderete, chairwoman of Port San Antonios board of directors. Shes one of four siblings. We talked with Gavito last week at Cafe Martinez at the South Texas Medical Center. Shed just gotten off the phone with her identical twin, Karina, who works in advertising in Austin. They talk three or four times a day, including when theyre getting their kids ready in the morning and leaving work at night. Gavito had squeezed the interview between another appointment and a meeting at VIA Metropolitan Transit, where shes a board trustee. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length. Q: What do you remember as a kid about your dads life in politics? A: Whenever wed go to H-E-B or a restaurant or wherever, I remember people coming up to him and saying, Hey, thanks for X, Y, Z fixing the street or taking care of this or that. I was little, so I didnt necessarily know the dynamics of what they were talking about, but I could definitely see how they were talking to him, and I could see the feelings that they had the gratitude. Obviously, when youre in politics, youre loved or hated. And there were the people who didnt like him. When I was younger, I was hurt by it, but then you grow a thick skin, and youre just like, Cool. He cant be everything to everybody, and thats fine. Q: How does your view of San Antonios challenges differ from your dads? A: Im very close to my dad. We talk all the time, including about some of San Antonios challenges. You definitely see a generational divide. Im often saying, If were innovative, we can solve challenge X, Y, Z or whatever. One of the things Ive always admired about my dad is hes stayed open-minded. When some people age, they say, Oh, that would never work. They become curmudgeonly. Thats not him. Hes always like, You should explore that. At the same time, too, you see how some of the problems that they were trying the solve (when he served on the council), we still havent solved like connecting San Antonio to Austin. He says, We were arguing for that in my day. And my response is, And we havent moved a bit forward? Dont we want to pull out our hair about this? Its infuriating just think about the economic development that can happen between San Antonio and Austin. How about playing to each others strengths? Obviously, Austins tech ecosystem is 10 times better than San Antonios right now, and thats OK. But our medical infrastructure is a lot better than Austins. Theyve opened the Dell Medical School, so those (physicians educated in Austin) can be coming here for jobs. We can be going there for tech jobs. If we were more connected, that would be an easy thing to do. Right now, its not. Q: What do politicians have a hard time understanding about the IT industry? A: Ive been able to give some of our elected officials insight into the tech world. With Rackspace, they want to know, What do yall do just in general? Rackspace is a big company in San Antonio, but they dont understand it. They also want insight into (tech companies) agile framework how we make decisions, how we work faster, how we work smarter, not harder. A lot of those principles could, and should, be taken into politics. I know that if I were ever to run for office, I would always lead with, Heres how were going to move the needle. It goes back to who do you serve. Younger generations are going to be demanding more and more accountability What are you doing here? Why are we electing you to this office? and more transparency in the political system. Q: Before we started recording, you said you studied management information systems at St. Marys University and that there werent many other females in the program. What was that like for you? A: My best memory was being in a coding class, and you had to program (the computer) to say, Hello, world. I called out, I did it! Then I looked around, and I was the only female in there. It didnt bother me at the time, but I just remember thinking, Uh, theres nobody to get excited with here. But I also think that prepped me for always being a female in a male-dominated culture, whether it was in school or at Rackspace. I was always on the product team at Rackspace, which was extremely male-dominated. I was always envious of my friends in marketing or HR because there were so many females there, and they had fun. You have to learn how to have presence in the kind of situation I was in. If someone repeats an idea youd already put on the table during a meeting, you have to learn how to say, No, that was my idea. And that takes a lot of growing and confidence. Q: How did you establish your presence at Rackspace? A: It was hard. I remember when I first got to Rackspace, I looked around at the leadership and thought, Well, thats the end of my career. You just didnt see any females at the top, or hardly any. That was a blow. And there were a lot of times when it was right in your face. For instance, one time I was a senior technical program manager, and a gentleman joined my team. Sometimes in the technical world, if youre a crazy good developer, you might be getting paid more than your manager. That happens because of your skill set. But this gentleman was getting paid significantly more than I was. And I was like, What the ? I went into the restroom, and I cried. And Im not an emotional person. I didnt even cry at my wedding. But I was just like, How is that fair? His responsibility was a fraction of mine, and he was getting paid that much more than I was. So my boss said, Hey, do you want to talk about it? And I just said, Not today, but we will tomorrow. So I set up an 8 a.m. meeting with him, and I told him, This is unfair because of this, this, this, this and this. I dont want to be that woman who files a lawsuit. I could have, very easily. I didnt want that. I just wanted what was right to happen. He said, OK, before I go to HR, I just need to know would you leave Rackspace over this? And I said, Yeah. Ill walk out today. If yall dont make this right, Im out. I didnt know what I would do or where I would go, but it was the principle. This was not right by any account. By the end of the day, I had a $20,000 raise. That taught me a lot. When I mentor women and they say, Yeah, I got the promotion by title and by responsibility, but not by pay, I tell them, Go back and ask for pay. Dont let them give you the excuse that budgets are tight. No, the budgets are not tight. How come the budgets arent tight for him, him or him? That experience helped me grow a backbone. Q: Describe when you went to work there. A: I think my second week on the job there was a team outing to South Padre. We definitely had our fun, but it was very much work hard, play hard. It was all hands on deck. If there was a service outage, you saw people just working days and nights nonstop to solve customer problems, and you appreciated that. Once, there was a bug on one of the servers, and we had to migrate a bunch of customer servers over, so we set up war rooms to figure this out. And you would see (then-Chairman) Graham Weston and (then-CEO) Lanham Napier there. Id walk into the room, and they were sitting on the floor. They were team members solving this problem with us and Im sitting in a chair. In any other company, thats awkward. Q: How did you wind up leading Tech Bloc? A: I was pregnant after Sheryl Sandbergs book Lean In came out (in 2013), and I said, Im not stopping my career. I wanted to show my daughter a good example. I had applied for a spot in Leadership San Antonio and told myself Id slow down when I wanted to slow down. For some women, its like, Hey, let me step back. And that is completely fine, but its also fine to keep moving forward if thats what you want to do. When I was on maternity leave, I had lunch with Lorenzo Gomez (head of Geekdom). We were at Cure, and he says, Yo, were starting this thing called Tech Bloc. He showed me the first logos, and I said, What? What are yall doing? This is kind of crazy. But I was also pissed about rideshare at the time. (Editors note: In early 2015, when the lunch meeting took place, Uber and Lyft had suspended operations in San Antonio because of city regulations that they considered too onerous. Tech Bloc became one of the staunchest advocates for bringing rideshare back to the city.) I meet with Graham Weston, whos a mentor of mine, every once in a while, and we talk. He knew that I was passionate about this stuff, and he and Taylor Rhodes (who replaced Napier as CEO at Rackspace) realized it would be beneficial for Rackspace to have one of their leaders lead the charge at Tech Bloc, to give them branding and get them press. Q: Youd decided to stay a year at Tech Bloc and then return to Rackspace. But the company had just been acquired when your year was up. What was the scene like on returning to Rackspace? A: It was hard. In my mind, I was ready to go back into the business and solve Rackspace challenges. They had just given me this amazing opportunity with Tech Bloc. But a friend from HR said to me, If I were you, Id use your Tech Bloc platform and experience and go find an amazing role outside of Rackspace. And she said, Its going to be bad. Theyre talking about 30 percent cuts, and its not going to be the Rackspace we know. Since I hadnt been at Rackspace, I didnt have the pulse of what was going on. I had to trust these little birds who were telling me things. I asked them, Is it really going to be that (expletive)? And they said, Its people in New York making decisions about us, not because they know us or what we do or what we can do its spreadsheets. I saw why that would be a very dangerous situation for a lot of Rackers. Q: What effect do you think the sale of Rackspace and the subsequent layoffs there have had on the broader tech community in San Antonio? A: A lot of us are just watching this entity that we all knew and loved morph into something different. Not good, bad or ugly, but its definitely different. And theres a sadness at the loss of the Rackspace we worked hard to create. I cant tell you what its like at Rackspace right now. I dont know any of the leaders. But the Racker community is very strong. We all want to help each other out. When you see good people get let go, thats hard. But its been good for other companies like USAA because weve gotten a lot of that great talent. Q: People probably dont think IT innovation and then think USAA. A: Right. When Im out in the community, people say, USAA has what? How many people are on the innovation team? Theyre shocked because you just dont think a banking and financial services institution can be that innovative, but we are at USAA. You know how organizations take on their own personalities? USAA definitely tends to be more modest and humble, which you can appreciate. It has a lot of the military culture in it hey, we just keep our heads down and do good work, which is awesome. But for me, I just feel so proud to work there and wonder why we dont boast about all these amazing things we do. Q: So what exactly do you do as USAAs innovation business development director? A: I build relationships with startups, startup accelerators and co-working spaces in the academic world. We want to see what startups are up to in the blockchain space and cybersecurity space. We need to have our finger on the pulse of whats going on. Secondly, I try to match our corporate folks with startups because then what I call creative collisions happen. When I get our leaders on the innovation team to mentor startups, the entrepreneurs say, Im trying to solve problem X, Y, Z. And our corporate people say, Oh, have you tried this, this or this? Its really hard to quantify success its nebulous. But when we are meeting with startup founders, we get that energy, that scrappiness, and we take that mentality back to the workplace. It helps us to move forward faster. Q: USAA is a Fortune 500 company, and it does insurance, investment management and banking all regulated. Its a complicated company. Do you ever get frustrated with the bureaucracy at USAA? A: At Rackspace, we operated like a big startup. And so sometimes I may not know a (USAA) department exists, and a person Im dealing with will say, You didnt run this by so-and-so? I didnt know there was so-and-so department. Im very much a collaborator I didnt mean to exclude so-and-so. I just didnt know we had a whole department, for example, thats in charge of enterprise events and planning. We have a lot of approval layers. But I definitely understand why. I would say USAA is crazy secure in all aspects. But you understand hey, if its protecting our members, this is what you have to do. And so I respect it. Its hard to navigate, but I respect it. Q: Youve served on the board at VIA Metropolitan Transit for about a year now. How did your interest in transportation in San Antonio develop? A: It was my experience in Chicago. I had to learn how to ride the bus in Chicago. A lot of people dont know how to ride the bus in San Antonio. We need to be more customer-friendly in San Antonio. We need to put on our website what to do if youre a first-time user, for example. Its not intuitive. Im focusing on some of those changes, but were all fighting for more funding because we know were not gonna get reliable bus service without more funding. Public transportation is a smart choice for a lot of people. For professional people, its not something to look down on. In San Antonio, we have to have a mindset shift. Also, we cant just say VIA sucks and not fund it. If you want something good, you have to fork over the money. Theres just no other way. gjefferson@express-news.net Halliburton Co. threatened to move its Eagle Ford Shale operation from the San Antonio area because the company said it was being taxed unfairly. But a new agreement between the city and company officials could keep the operation here. On ExpressNews.com: State records show Toyota planning $17 million expansion at San Antonio facility Under a complex deal struck in 2016, the Houston-based oil-field services giant avoided city annexation on its 150-acre property in southeastern Bexar County but agreed to pay the city for fire services. But Halliburton wound up paying twice for fire protection when an overlapping jurisdiction that oversees emergency services in unincorporated Bexar County passed its own sales tax. City Council members will vote on a proposal Thursday to annex the Halliburton property and rebate a portion of its property taxes to keep the companys Eagle Ford operation here. Halliburton wont be required to add jobs under the proposal, said Rene Dominguez, the citys economic development director. Dominguez said the deal was necessary to keep Halliburtons $270 million in assets including land and mobile equipment referred to as rolling stock in San Antonio. The idea of them actually moving those was a legitimate threat, Dominguez said. They certainly had the ability and still have the ability to move that rolling stock to another part of Texas. The company, however, downplayed the possibility of moving the operation. Halliburton has a long-term presence in San Antonio and is heavily invested in the area in both our operations and our employees who live and work in the region, company spokeswoman Emily Mir said in an email. Our goal is to ensure that we operate in the most economically viable way which includes working with the city of San Antonio on local tax requirements. On ExpressNews.com: AT&T selling land, building near University of the Incarnate Word its most valuable San Antonio property Halliburton opened the center in 2013 on Loop 1604 just west of Interstate 37 on the South Side. In January 2014, the Houston companys site became part of a limited-purpose annexation area that encompasses 4 square miles of southeastern Bexar County. Limited-purpose annexation gives cities three years to decide whether they want to annex an area. Meanwhile, residents of the area may vote in City Council elections but dont pay city taxes. Developers also must abide by certain city land-use regulations. City officials warned that annexing Halliburton could spur the company to relocate its Eagle Ford operations, according to a 2016 agenda memo. Amid the oil crash beginning in 2014, the city agreed in 2016 to remove Halliburtons property from the annexation area and not to annex the site for 10 years in order to keep the companys Eagle Ford Shale operations here. In exchange, Halliburton promised to: Keep 500 full-time jobs assigned to the San Antonio site. Pay all employees at the site at least $24,876.80 annually, the areas living wage in 2016 and 70 percent of those employees at least $47,400. Pay $1.5 million annually to the city it would have paid in sales and use and property taxes. Pay $2 million toward community workforce development efforts. Pay the city $40,000 annually for fire service protection. On ExpressNews.com: Eight-story apartment building proposed near La Villita in downtown San Antonio Shortly after that agreement was struck, Bexar County Emergency Service District 6 commissioners passed a 1.5 percent sales and use tax that went into effect in October 2017 which, coupled with its annual $1.5 million payment to the city, Halliburton considered double taxation. Halliburton told city officials last year it would consider moving its Eagle Ford Shale operations from the San Antonio area unless the issue was resolved, Dominguez said. Halliburton also has offices in Alice and Corpus Christi. They were definitely looking at the viability of staying where they are currently located, Dominguez said. Under the proposed arrangement, the city would annex Halliburtons property in a process initiated and paid for by the Houston company. The city would rebate 62 percent of the companys property taxes for eight years valued at $7.4 million. The city would receive about $5 million annually in property and sales and use tax revenue in that period, Dominguez said. Halliburton would not have to increase the number of workers based at the operations center, but would have to pay all workers at least $25,750, the citys current living wage. Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering real estate, economic development and philanthropy. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports At a time when a single broken part can relegate even the most expensive home appliance a clothes washer, refrigerator or lawnmower to the dust bin, Ralph Bryan is fighting the good fight against such planned obsolescence. And hes doing it with that oldest of old school strategies: the house call. Bryan is the self-proclaimed Lawnmower Doctor, driving his battered 1994 Chevy van to homes across the city to tune up and repair not only mowers, but other gas-powered tools such as chainsaws, generators, string trimmers and more. Its almost a lost art, this fixing broken things as many times as possible, crafting parts on the fly, taking pride in a job well done. But its an art that Bryan feels called to, in part because of a series of medical emergencies he survived years ago, the memory of which still help guide his path. These include a near-death experience during which he believes he met and received directions from his maker. Now 64, Bryan began his love affair with engines early on. He was only 14 when he left his dysfunctional home in Devine, but not before taking over a bay at his fathers shop where he first started repairing small engines. 5 tips for keeping your lawnmower running (almost) forever Always use clean gas. Gasoline begins to go bad if it sits longer than 30 days, so don't keep much more than you can use in that time on hand. Don't let it sit unused. If you're not going to mow for 30 days or longer, start the mower and let it run for a few minutes. Clean the air filter. Used canned air or bang it on a hard surface to remove dust and dirt. If it's really nasty, buy a new air filter. Don't store it outside. If you can't keep it in a garage or shed, don't cover it with a tarp or plastic sheet. This traps water and leads to rust. Change the oil regularly, at least after every 30 hours of use or as recommended by the manufacturer. Source: Ralph "The Lawnmower Doctor" Bryan See More Collapse I just seemed to have a natural gift for it, he said. No matter how big they are or how small, they all work on the same principle. I can usually look at one and figure out pretty fast whats wrong. At 17, he enlisted in the Army and spent 13 years in uniform, during which the high school dropout worked with nuclear missiles and was assigned to the DMZ between North and South Korea. After leaving the military, he held a variety of jobs, including working in a warehouse, running a construction business and being an automotive service adviser for Sears. But he was always attuned to small engines. Back in the late 80s, for example, a friend complained about a repair shop that charged almost $100 to pick up and deliver her mower, and then kept it for several weeks while they fixed it. I told her Id fix it at her house, which I did, he said. On ExpressNews.com: Weeds, weeds everywhere. Heres what you should do Happy with the result, she told some friends and they told some friends. Soon, he was fixing small motors nights and weekends while working a variety of other full-time jobs and collecting military disability. Id be really busy in the spring, getting mowers and other tools ready for summer, he said. But sometimes, if I got too busy, Id change my phone number and disappear for a few years. And then Id start up again. It was never a full-time thing. Several years ago, during one of those working periods, he grew tired of having to load and unload his truck with tools every day and worrying about someone stealing them. So he took what had been his fishing van and outfitted it with what he calls an insert, a welded steel cage with shelving thats mounted on wheels so he can roll it into and out of the van. I designed and built it all myself, he said proudly, as he pulls the cage from the vans interior after arriving at a hilltop home near Boerne. I have almost everything youll find in a retail fix-it shop here, and I can do just about any repair they can do. While there are at least four other companies listed online that say they do mobile lawnmower repair, calls to all four went unreturned. About five years ago, he got so busy that he hired the first of several employees to help him manage what had developed into a full-time job. Things didnt go as hed hoped. We were making a a lot of money, but I hated grinding out mower after mower, he said. It stopped being fun. Instead of disappearing again, he decided instead to pull things back a bit. His decision was made easier by a series of health scares hed had back in 1999. While driving a concrete mixer, he was hit in the face by a stray stone, severely injuring his eye. On ExpressNews.com: Calvin Finch: Alternatives to lawn grass During surgery to repair the eye, he was told he went into cardiac arrest for about nine minutes, during which, I met a being Id call my creator. While clinically dead, he claims he asked for a gift: that God bring only people into his life who could either teach him or whom he could teach. After surviving that near-death experience, he said, came out the other side a changed man. I used to be unforgiving and angry all the time, he said. And that was no longer true. From then on, bad things all seemed to fall away. Not all bad things, apparently. During a scan of his injured eye, doctors discovered a tumor deep within his brain. He chose not to have surgery after they told him there was a high risk that, if he didnt die on the operating table, hed be left blind. Instead, he decided on a course of cancer-suppressing drugs and a reliance on a higher power. I figured God put the tumor there and that if he wanted, hed take it away, he said. Credit God or the drugs, but a year later, the tumor was gone. Years later, in about 2016, the memory of those medical scares gave him the confidence to think hard about what he really enjoyed about the lawnmower repair business. It wasnt so much working with his hands as it was talking with and getting to know his customers. In fact, Bryan is so naturally gregarious, his employees often complained that he spent too much time chatting up those clients instead of moving on to the next house and making more money. Theyd say every time I left a house, Id made a new friend, he said. Rather than stop making friends, he got rid of the employees and today the Lawnmower Doctor is a one-man operation. And hes able to chat with clients as much, or for as long, as he wants. I love my job, he said. I love fixing things, but I also love being able to meet people and talk with them about a lot of things, from marriage to how to maintain a lawnmower. Its not like I never get angry or have a bad day, but I no longer dread getting up to go to work in the morning. When Bryan pulls his van up to a house, its like Inspector Gadget meets the Beverly-Hillbillies with a little Zen and the Art of Lawnmower Maintenance thrown in for good measure. At one end of the cage inset, for example, a heavy metal screen that secures small hand tools when the van is moving folds down to become a handy work table when its not. Theres a generator that runs an air compressor, a hand pump to siphon spent oil and a propane generator that powers his welding machine and, in summer, the air-conditioning unit he installed on the roof to cool the vans interior. On ExpressNews.com: From traditional to Bollywood, Indian dance vibrant in San Antonio The van is also equipped with a roll-on, roll-off roof that extends 6 or 7 feet off the back to provide much needed shade during summer. Its even got lights so I can work after the sun goes down, he said. Bryan charges $95 to service a basic push mower, pressure washer and small generators, $150 for riding mowers, compressors and large generators and $175 for zero-turn mowers and larger equipment. Basic service includes changing the oil, sharpening blades, fixing minor problems and cleaning the machine. Parts cost extra. Bryan recently worked on Jeff Heinkes John Deere push mower, giving it a full spring tune-up and making several minor repairs. Heinke was blown away by the set-up. He had everything he needed right there in his van, said Heinke, who runs his own graphic design firm. If I tried to do it myself, Id have had to make at least a couple of trips to Lowes. And if I took it to a repair shop, it would be at least a week before Id get it back. In addition to the tune up, Bryan used metal from an old license plate to craft a new bracket to replace one that keeps the pull cord from snagging on the side grass catcher. Bryan also serviced Heinkes power washer, fixing a gas leak and putting several carburetor parts in the ultrasonic cleaner he also carries with him. They came out clean as a whistle, Heinke said. Paul Sheetz recently had Bryan service his mower and said hes glad he did. I have a small car, and I dont want to have to stick my mower in the trunk, said Sheetz, a certified public accountant. If someone is willing to come to my home to tune it up and clean it up, Im all for it. Sheetz also took full advantage of Bryans willingness to chat. Lets say he gently educated me about caring for my lawnmower, which I admit I hadnt been doing such a good job on, he said. I needed every bit of advice he gave me. Thats one of the many benefits of a house call. Richard A. Marini is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini Before it was engulfed in flames, a Deer Park chemical facility had a long history of violating state and federal environmental rules. Intercontinental Terminals Company's Deer Park facility violated clean air and clean water rules multiple times since 2009 and was cited for not following federal risk management regulations, records show. Federal, state and county regulators issued more than $65,000 in civil penalties to ITC during that time. The company, which stores petrochemicals for companies including Chevron, Phillips 66 and Exxon Chemical Company, says it strives to comply with the law. "We believe that our environment is what we're handing down to our children," ITC spokesperson Alice Richardson said Monday. "We make every effort to make sure we're compliant, that we're above the regulations." DEER PARK FIRE: What you need to know about the chemicals But ITC has had repeated air and water violations: The company violated the federal Clean Water Act nine of the last 12 quarters, according to Environmental Protection Agency online data. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fined ITC $18,300 in July 2017 for releasing cyanide into the San Jacinto River basin. The amount released was more than 10 times the permitted levels. EPA documents and data show the company released more than three times the monthly limit for sulfide in 2016 and was over the limit for chlorine discharges in 2015. Map of the Deer Park ITC fire The tank with the fire symbol over it is believed to be the one where the fire started. The areas highlighted in red are where the fire is believed to have spread. The purple markers are tanks containing Pygas, which is the source of benzene. The blue X markers were empty tanks. The black marker shows where the containment dike breached on Friday afternoon. Created by: Ken Ellis Cyanide is a toxic chemical used in fumigants, welding and to make a large number of products. Sulfide is used to make other chemicals and can react with other substances to make more potentially dangerous chemicals such as sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide. Chlorine is used as a cleaning agent or to make other chemicals. It was used in the first world war as chemical warfare agent. RELEVANT: A 2016 HoustonChronicle.com investigation found dangerous chemicals create hidden dangers The company was also fined more than $14,000 for air pollution violations since 2009. In 2016, ITC was fined $4,251 by TCEQ; in 2009, state regulators fined the company $10,000 for releasing more than 6,000 pounds of 1,3 butadiene because it hadn't relieved pressure from a tank storing the chemical, causing a relief valve to lift. Butadiene is a carcinogen to humans and is frequently used to make rubber and plastics. In 2015, the EPA fined the company $3,300 for violations found during a Risk Management Plan inspection. ITC also did not file monitoring reports on its chemical discharges since July 2017, as required by federal regulations. Harris County sued ITC in 2007 for multiple violations of the Texas Clean Air Act, Texas Clean Water Act and the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act. The company settled with the county, paying $51,750 in penalties and attorney's fees, but did not admit to any of the violations. The county sued ITC again in 2009 for releasing more than 8,000 pounds of toluene into the ground, water and air. Harris County cited the 2007 settlement saying ITC had not upheld its end of the agreement. The company ended up paying the county $32,500 in civil penalties in the case. Toluene is a chemical used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner. It's highly flammable and causes lightheadedness when inhaled. ITC has also spilled chemicals in La Porte and Pasadena during rail transport on four separate occasions since 2009, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The spills which were as large as 1,124 gallons resulted in one injury from hazardous materials. ITC was sued by the Hartford Insurance Company in 2004 for the death of an ITC employee exposed to butadiene, but the case was later dismissed. Richardson said when the company does have an issue it reports it immediately to the appropriate authorities. Environmental activists say what's unusual is that ITC got fined at all. A 2017 report from Environment Texas found that over the last seven years, only about 2 percent of emissions over permitted levels result in a penalty from the state. "If TCEQ lets it slide for the smaller events or ones that might be big but didn't make the front page, companies will just fail to take the necessary steps to prevent bigger events from happening," said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas. A Houston Chronicle report from 2016 found that there's a major chemical incident once every six weeks in the greater Houston area. The day before the ITC tanks caught fire, a separate fire erupted and was contained at an ExxonMobil Baytown facility. The 2016 Chronicle report, researched in coordination with Texas A&M, evaluated facilities based on the potential dangers posed by chemicals on site and the number of people who lived nearby. That report found that the ITC facility posed a medium potential for harm, a 6.48 out of a 14-point scale. Emergency crews have fought the ITC blaze since Sunday morning. The burning tanks contain chemicals used in gasoline such as naphtha and xylene. The only chemical involved in both the fire and ITC's environmental violation history was toulene. ITC has not yet disclosed to the public what other chemicals are stored nearby the fire or the facility's chemical inventories in general. It's not the first big fire at ITC's Deer Park facility. In October of 1986, a major explosion killed one, injured seven and engulfed two fire trucks. Workers had been loading barrels of methyl tertiary butyl ether or MTBE onto a barge when something ignited, causing the explosion. MTBE is used to raise the octane levels of unleaded gasoline. Officials at the time said about 13,000 barrels of the chemical were on board at the time of the explosion. The fire raged for five days. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Reporters Sarah Smith and R.A. Schuetz contributed to this report. matt.dempsey@chron.com twitter.com/mizzousundevil Using golden shovels for the ceremonial turning of soil, members of the areas congressional delegation, Texas two U.S. senators and several judges broke ground Monday on a new federal courthouse downtown. The long-awaited work on the site is expected to begin next month, with construction to begin in earnest in the fall, officials said. A soft opening is forecast for December 2021, with final completion by April 2022. If it were up to me, Id get on a backhoe and start digging myself, joked U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez at the end of Mondays ceremony. Rodriguez has led the judiciarys efforts for a new courthouse for more than 15 years. The planned 235,000-square-foot building will be constructed at the southeast corner of Nueva and Santa Rosa on 6.3 acres of land where the citys former police headquarters once stood. It will rise three stories next to San Pedro Creek and add to a burgeoning area on the western edge of downtown, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration, was among those who addressed the crowd of federal, county and city dignitaries and dozens of court employees bused to the site from the current courthouse at Hemisfair Park. The new building wont have room for a judicial training center, which is part of the current complex at Hemisfair. But U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who helped secure bipartisan funding for the new courthouse, said a place will be found for the revenue-generating center. Were not going to lose it, Cuellar said. Weve been working with the GSA, and well find some rental space for it. It will stay in San Antonio. On ExpressNews.com: Proposed new U.S. courthouse smaller, but back on track The quest for a new courthouse began when George W. Bush was president, when Phil Hardberger was mayor and Sheryl Sculley was a rookie and required a team effort, Nirenberg said. Sculley recently retired after a long stint as city manager. The plan calls for a courthouse with inside parking spaces, eight courtrooms and 13 judges chambers. It also will house offices for the federal public defender, U.S. marshals, court clerks, federal probation and pretrial services, and the U.S. attorneys office. The current John H. Wood U.S. Courthouse is a midcentury landmark and was originally the Confluence Theatre for HemisFair 68. It has been plagued by problems in recent years, including flea infestations from wildlife getting into the building, contaminated drinking water, mold, foundation issues, and faulty heating and air conditioning. For years, Congress didnt allocate funds to pay for a new courthouse. But a series of San Antonio Express-News stories in 2015 on conditions in the courthouse led to efforts by U.S. Reps. Cuellar, Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, and others in San Antonios congressional delegation as well as Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn to secure $144 million in a 2016 spending bill. Cornyn recalled how a delegation from San Antonio that included judges and county and city officials traveled to Washington, D.C., in 2015 to press for funding. They had raised their expectations so high, it worried me, Cornyn said. He noted San Antonio was not first on a list of cities with priority for a federal courthouse. It was No. 8 and appeared to be a long shot to get funding. We didnt have to move just one mountain, we had to move a whole mountain range, he said. Cornyn was able to convince colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee to include $10.2 billion for the GSAs Federal Buildings Fund $1.07 billion above fiscal year 2015s level. The increase provided for the construction of an additional eight federal courthouses, including in San Antonio. Since that funding was secured, however, progress on the San Antonio courthouse had been stymied and the size of the planned new building shrunk during the contracting process. Austin-based White Construction, the original construction manager, determined that the planned 305,000-square-foot courthouse would cost close to $180 million to build or about $60 million more than what was budgeted. Of the total $144 million, about $117.5 million is for construction, officials have said. The rest is for site acquisition and design. The federal government and White have since parted ways, and after another call for bids, the new builder is Brasfield & Gorrie, based in Birmingham, Ala. The GSA said the design architect is Munoz & Co. with Lake | Flato Architects, both of San Antonio. On ExpressNews.com: City Council approves land swap for new federal courthouse The site for the new building was secured years ago through a land swap with the city. Across the street from the new courthouse site is a jail that houses federal pretrial inmates, but the prisoners will be moved to Bexar County jail facilities in the coming year as part of an agreement with the county, Wolff said. The county judge said the ugly old (federal) jail building will be torn down to make way for an expansion of the University of Texas at San Antonios College of Business. Guillermo Contreras covers federal courts in San Antonio and international legal issues. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | gcontreras@express-news.net | Twitter: @gmaninfedland The negotiating teams for San Antonio and its firefighters union called in their health care experts Monday to dive into the statistical weeds of their opposing contract plans. They only found more contention and confusion. In a conference room at the downtown Weston Centre, the two sides quibbled over esoteric health care issues such as COBRA rates, third-party administrators and cancer claim levels. They didnt even agree on what they were supposed to do. City officials said they expected each side to dig deeper into their proposals with experts on hand. After listening to the city do that, union officials said they didnt have enough information to reciprocate. My understanding of today was that we were bringing our health care experts in, which is what we did, and that we were going to have a robust conversation about health care, said union negotiator Ricky Poole. He added that the day was frustrating. Jeff Londa, the citys chief negotiator, said he was confounded. I dont know what was happening today, he said. We fully expected a proposal from them. We got nothing. During the meeting, Poole chastised the city for providing what he said are opposing figures and answers. The primary issue has been determining the total cost of health care for firefighters. The city provided that figure, but Poole said he wants the underlying data because he doesnt trust the city. Were looking for the support information that goes to the numbers the city has given us for health care, Poole said. We simply havent gotten that information. The city said it responded to dozens of requests for information from the union with thousands of pages of data. If they dont understand what theyve asked for, thats really not our issue, he said. On ExpressNews.com: Initial contract proposals for fire union are very far apart The two sides also argued about cancer claims. The union has long pushed for the city to recognize the growing body of scientific evidence that suggests firefighters work puts them at greater risk of cancer. In past meetings, union officials have accused the city of denying workers compensation cancer claims, which they say forces workers to use regular health insurance instead, thus artificially inflating the cost of health care. The city says its doesnt dispute that link, but it has presented figures that show cancer claims make up a smaller proportion of health care costs for San Antonio firefighters than for police and civilian employees. City negotiators said that was meant to rebut the unions suggestion that the city was denying compensation claims to drive up health care costs. Poole said he interprets that argument as an effort to dispute the fact that firefighters are at increased risk of cancer, even if the city says thats not the case. Mondays bargaining session was the seventh since the union announced it would come back to the negotiating table in February. The last contract expired in 2014, but most of its provisions remain in place under a so-called evergreen clause. The two sides relationship deteriorated in that time, as the union refused to negotiate and the city launched an essentially fruitless and bitterly contested lawsuit to try to force the union to come back to the table. Health care is arguably the most important issue in the contract discussions, and the two sides ability to reconcile their differences will likely decide whether they are ultimately able to strike a deal. They introduced their initial proposals in broad strokes on March 1. If theres one thing they agree on, its that theyre far apart. The San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association representatives have forcefully asked to control their own trust fund to pay for health care, removing it from the citys purview, and to use 27.5 percent increases in compensation to help pay for it. That would cost the city roughly $156 million more than it already pays. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio firefighters union, city negotiators tangle over health care trusts Buddy Morris, the citys health care adviser, argued the firefighters current plan before any suggested increases is unsustainable because firefighters dont pay monthly premiums and have low deductibles, meaning city taxpayers pick up more than 90 percent of the tab. The generosity of that plan, Morris said, means firefighters have more dependents on average than police or civilians, who do pay premiums, furthering the strain on city coffers. The city has asked firefighters to agree to a package similar but less generous to the one police are currently using. The package has two plans: a so-called consumer-driven plan that would continue premium-free coverage with higher deductibles and a city-funded health savings account; and a value plan that would require firefighters to pay monthly premiums for their dependents for the first time. The model has proven a success in the police department, according to Morris and city officials. They say it has led to a 20 percent drop in costs in the two years since it was enacted. The union has mostly balked at the idea. It remains intent on getting a fund it can manage itself. The two sides will reach a 60-day impasse under state law on April 7. At that point, they could agree to extend the time period for negotiations. The union also has the authority to declare an impasse at any time under a charter amendment passed by voters in November. When asked about that prospect Monday, both sides they remain focused on negotiations. Lets get through one meeting at a time, Londa said. Dylan McGuiness covers City Hall and local politics in San Antonio. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness Virginia-based Pentagon Federal Credit Union has bought nearly 30 acres on the Northeast Side to house more than 500 employees for its San Antonio regional center, the company said Monday. On ExpressNews.com: City strikes deal to keep Halliburton from leaving San Antonio again PenFed, the nations third largest credit union, bought two lots totaling 28 acres and a two-story, 146,000-square-foot office building Friday at 19500 Bulverde Road, the current site of convenience store chain Circle Ks Texas division and regional distribution center. The Virginia company has promised to create 571 jobs within five years and invest $8.9 million in capital improvements at the site in exchange for more than $3 million in city, county and state incentives. PenFed could also add up to 140,000 square feet of office space at the site, company officials said. Having the capability to have the additional acreage in order to grow in the future was very important to us, PenFed CEO James Schenck said. On ExpressNews.com: State records show Toyota planning $17 million expansion at San Antonio facility The regional center will house PenFed employees in research, mortgage and loan operations, financial service center operations, collections, information technology and human resources positions that the company is currently looking to fill, Schenck said. Dave Silvey, PenFed senior vice president over the companys regional financial service center in Eugene, Ore., will head the San Antonio center. Sixteen employees began working at the site Monday, Schenck said. San Antonio-based CST Brands Inc., which owned the Corner Store brand of convenience stores, operated its headquarters on the property before Circle Ks Canadian parent company, Alimentation Couche-Tard, bought CST for $4.4 billion in 2017. The Bexar Appraisal District valued the companys 78.3-acre lot and its more than 567,000 square feet of office and warehouse space at $46.5 million last year. A sale price for the 28 acres to be bought by PenFed was not disclosed. A Circle K spokeswoman said the company will remain at the property. Schenck said PenFed will lease a small portion of the office building to Circle K but expects that PenFed will be the buildings only tenant within a few years. City and county officials have already recovered some of the $2 million in economic development incentives promised to CST under a 2014 agreement to keep the company in San Antonio. The City Council awarded CST a 10-year, 80 percent tax abatement and a $500,000 grant to prevent the convenience store operator from moving to Live Oak or Schertz. The city recovered more than $587,000, which includes the abated taxes, after city and company officials mutually agreed to terminate the incentive package in August, said Rene Dominguez, the citys economic development director. Couche-Tard had asked Bexar County officials to terminate a separate 10-year, 75 percent property tax abatement awarded to the company, but the request fell through the cracks, said David Marquez, the countys executive director of economic and community development. CST was awarded $122,000 under the agreement, Marquez said. County commissioners are expected to vote to terminate the incentive next month. On ExpressNews.com: AT&T selling land, building near University of the Incarnate Word its most valuable San Antonio property For PenFed, Gov. Greg Abbott promised the company more than $2.5 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, known as the states deal-closing fund for landing new businesses, to finance the regional center. City Council members gave PenFed an incentive package worth more than $700,000 in January. And Bexar County economic development officials are expected to award the company $380,000 in tax incentives. Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering real estate, economic development and philanthropy. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports Low cost airline Air Arabia Maroc is considering introducing flights to the Serbian capital, the Moroccan Embassy in Belgrade has confirmed. It comes after the national carrier Royal Air Maroc, which showed initial interest in flying from Casablanca, decided against the move. The Moroccan Embassy is now hopeful the budget airline will introduce flights from one of its secondary bases, which include Agadir, Fez, Nador and Tangier. Air Arabia Maroc's parent company, Air Arabia, will launch flights from Sharjah to Belgrade this June. Its Moroccan offshoot boasts a fleet of seven Airbus A320 aircraft and maintains flights to a number of cities in western and central Europe. The Moroccan Embassy is also exploring the possibility of charter flights with Serbian tour operators. "There is demand from both sides", Ambassador Mohammed Amine Belhaj said. Last week, Serbia and Morocco signed a memorandum of understanding that seeks to strengthen and promote cooperation in the field of tourism on the basis of reciprocity and mutual benefit. It follows on from the revision of the Air Service Agreement between the countries after more than forty years. Both sides have called on the private sector and tourism professionals to explore all opportunities for cooperation and have agreed for the development of an expanded cooperation programme in the tourism sector. There have never been nonstop services between Belgrade and any point in Morocco. Belgrade Airport is currently served only by two African carriers on a year-round basis, with Tunis Air maintaining services from Tunis and Air Cairo from Hurghada. The airport recently said it had begun talks with a number of carriers over the introduction of new routes, as well as upgrades in frequencies and capacity on existing services. The President of operator VINCI Airports, Nicolas Notebaert, noted, "We are already working on bringing new airlines to Belgrade. Even before we took part in the concession tender we held talks with airlines that could launch new routes to the city. We never make announcements before the carrier itself, but preparations for the summer season are well under way. We have nonstop flights to Europe, and we are looking to considerably increase frequencies on those services. We need some more time to work on flights lasting for over seven hours. However, we are working on all fronts, on both short and long hauls. There will certainly be new routes from Belgrade this summer". Air France, Air Serbia, Air Arabia, Air Cairo, ASL Airlines France and Wizz Air have all announced the introduction of new routes from the Serbian capital this summer season, while a number of airlines will boost frequencies on existing lines. Marie Bostwick has written a new novel called Hope on the Inside. The New York Times best-selling author will sign copies at The Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot on Saturday, March 30. She will also discuss it and sign copies at Fairfield Woods Branch Library on Tuesday, April 2. This compelling book is about a mother of four, Hope Carpenter, who finds new purpose in a new phase of her life in a place she never expected to be. Heartfelt and thought-provoking, its filled with unexpected twists and characters youll think about long after reading the final page. The story shares what happens when Hopes husband, a hardworking engineer, is suddenly forced to retire and her own job is lost to budget cuts putting a strain on their savings and marriage. Seeking a paycheck and insurance, Hope winds up in a Starbucks where an unexpected conversation leads her to a new job teaching crafts to inmates at a prison for women. At first shes not sure how to relate to them. But shes determined to make a difference, even though certain people think she has no business being there. As Hope gets to know the women and the concern they have for their children and families, she realizes they are not so different. She and her students begin to bond while embarking on an ambitious quilting project. However, they face a variety of obstacles and must learn to believe in themselves, and have a certain amount of trust in the future, in order to move forward. The Washington Depot and Fairfield events are a homecoming of sorts, as Bostwick lived in Connecticut for many years before returning to her home state of Oregon, where she resides with her husband. Bostwick is also known for her Cobbled Court Quilts series, among other books. When not writing, she enjoys quilting, reading, cooking, spending time with family and playing with her grandchildren. Bostwick recently-launched a lifestyle blog called FierceBeyond50. She describes it as a community for women to seize and celebrate their maturity, leading lives of significance, empowerment, and joy. Fans may pre-order Hope on the Inside (Kensington, $15.95) through The Hickory Stick Bookshop to receive an autographed copy and a free party favor from Bostwick. Books will be available for purchase and signing courtesy of Fairfield University Bookstore at the Fairfield Woods Branch Library event. The Hickory Stick Bookshop, 2 Green Hill Road, Washington Depot. Saturday, March 30, 2 p.m. Book $15.95, event free. 860-868-0525 Fairfield Woods Branch Library, 1147 Fairfield Woods Road, Fairfield. Tuesday, April 2, 7 p.m. 203-255-7307 DERBY A lawyer who is an owner of downtown building that the city claims is in danger of collapsing has until noon Wednesday to submit a structural engineering report. Michael Hillis, who is a principal in Derby Shores, LLC, told Hearst Connecticut Media he will have a structural engineer inspect the site and report back to the city. However, Hillis said, he does not expect to find any structural issues since Derby Shores spent about $250,000 several years ago on repairs the city ordered. Meanwhile, the city has closed the sidewalk around the four-story, 195 Main Street building, on the corner of Minera and Main streets. They also stationed a fire watch around the site until a decision is made on its safety. The property owner has advised us they hired a structural engineer to inspect the interior, said Andrew Baklik, chief of staff to Derby Mayor Richard Dziekan. They have said they will have that report to us by noon Wednesday. Hillis blamed falling debris on a damaged roof. He said Derby Shores has a pending lawsuit against MESA Underwriters Specialty Insurance Company of New Jersey. The suit, filed Feb. 9, 2015, and pending in Milford Superior Court, alleges the insurer failed to pay for damage to the roof sustained during the blizzard that began Feb. 9, 2013. The suit claims heavy snow and ice along with strong winds caused damage to the roof. MESA has hired a lawyer and denies the claim. No court dates have been scheduled. More for you Derby officials concerned Main Street building may collapse Baklik said Vincent Marino, the citys corporation counsel, has been in contact with Hillis and urged him to take the necessary steps to prevent anything else falling from the building The citys Water Pollution Control Authority has also filed a foreclosure suit against Derby Shores, LLC for failing to pay sewer use taxes totaling $4,868.52 for the fiscal years ending July 1, 2015, 2016 and 2017 as well as the accruing interests on those charges. That suit also claims Derby Shores took out a $600,000 mortgage on the building in 2006 that has been assigned to Hayden Asset VIII in East Hartford. It further claims New England Yankee Construction of Wallingford has a $12,861.58 judgment lien against Derby Shores. No court dates have been set on the lawsuit, which also is pending in Milford Superior Court. Hillis said Derby Shores hired a lawyer who is in the process of wrapping (it) up. Meanwhile, three of the four remaining buildings on the south side of Main Street have been demolished. The only one still standing rests at the intersection of Main and Factory Street. A major development is planned for the former Housatonic Lumber site on Factory Street. Site plans are expected to be accepted by the Planning and Zoning Commission during their March 26 meeting. The demolition is part of the states plan to widen Main Street, also known as Route 34, into a four lane highway beginning next year. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is confident that the fresh list of 46 politicians who are allegedly involved in illegal drugs is accurate. "Sinala na po ng iba't-ibang intelligence agencies. Very far fetched na magkamali pa rito," PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon told CNN Philippines' The Source on Monday. [Translation: This has gone through different intelligence agencies. It's very far fetched that this is wrong.] Carreon said the list has been validated and revalidated for 14 months by a task force composed of the PDEA, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, the Philippine National Police, the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Department of the Interior and Local Government before it was released. Despite insisting on the accuracy of the list which President Rodrigo Duterte called "somewhat validated," Carreon admitted that intelligence information would not be enough to file criminal charges against those in the list. This is why the government opted to file administrative raps instead, he said. "Kasi may mga kapabayaan on the ground. For instance 'yung functionality ng anti-drug abuse councils nila, concrete steps they have taken in the anti-drug campaign in their respective localities," Carreon said. [Translation: There was neglect on the ground. For instance, the functionality of their anti-drug abuse councils, the concrete steps they have taken in the anti-drug campaign in their respective localities.] He said authorities could further pin down alleged narco-politicians if they gather more evidence, particularly information on the bank transactions of these individuals from the Anti-Money Laundering Council. However, Carreon said the AMLC has yet to provide the PDEA with this. The list of 46 names Duterte revealed last week is part of a larger list which Carreon said has now grown to 6,000 names. He said the list covers government officials, uniformed personnel and private citizens who are supposedly linked to the drug trade. Like the two previous drug lists released by the government, Carreon said it is up to Duterte if he would like to have more portions of the list unveiled. Before the narco list was released, PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino maintained his stance against the publication of the list. Carreon also said that he does not want the list to be released. "Siyempre [Of course,] we yield to a higher authority," Carreon said. "Hearing the public clamor on it, wala po, nandiyan na. Kami po'y susunod sa kautusan [it's there. We're just following orders.]" A few people on the list have denied involvement in illegal drugs, including Leyte 3rd District Rep. Vicente Veloso who is mulling to file charges against those who had his name included in the list. Rights groups have denounced the release of the list ahead of the May polls, calling it an attempt to influence the elections and a "hit list." Contributed / Connecticut State Police GREENWICH Connecticut State Police warned motorists to slow down by posting photos of a Sunday afternoon accident to the agencys Twitter page. The post read Today Troopers were dispatched to a one car rollover as a vehicle was traveling into the Southbound Greenwich Rest Area on Route 15. Fortunately only minor injuries. Todays lesson: SLOW DOWN driving into the rest area. FAIRFIELD The Fairfield Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Town of Fairfield, held its fifth annual Fairfield Health & Fitness Expo, promoting community wellness. Held in the RecPlex at Fairfield University on March 16 and sponsored by Collins Medical Equipment, this free, annual event provided health, fitness and fun for the entire family. More than 85 participating exhibitors and hundreds of community members participated. The event was organized by a committee of local business leaders along with the chamber President Beverly Balaz and event sponsor Bryan Collins. Exhibitors demonstrated information on programs, services, and products, provided free health screenings and fitness demos (by DOJO Fairfield, Fairfield YMCA, Elliptical Studios, Fairfield Strength, Club Pilates Fairfield, Row House Westport), followed by question-and-answer sessions. This year we had over 85 exhibitors, a variety of free screenings, AED and hands-only CPR training, plus we held all day activities for children including the Shamrock Fun Run, said Balaz. Both the Chamber and Town are proud to host an event that promotes a healthy lifestyle experience for young and old, to have fun, watch fitness demos, listen to informative guest speakers, eat something healthy, and get answers from our local business owners about available services and learn about what is needed to stay healthy and fit. This is a tremendous display of our local businesses addressing an essential part of our population, said state Sen. Tony Hwang. To share what resources are available for the aging population and health care is such an important thing. Access to helpful information is critical and we need to do a better job of sharing these resources especially for our senior citizens so they can be active and engaged and healthy in the future. This event provides a unique combination of community service, small businesses and caring for our senior population. I want to compliment the Chamber of Commerce in Fairfield for putting it all together in one spot for the community to be able to participate and learn from. This is a wonderful display of community engagement. State Rep. Crisitin McCarthy-Vahey also attended the event. I think this is an excellent partnership, health and wellness is such a critical part of everyday life, she said. For me, seeing the Fairfield Cares crew here who I work with and seeing the ways we have volunteers partner with businesses and town officials, the police, its an excellent showcase of all the ways people can keep themselves healthy. I'll particularly note the partnership with Fairfield Cares and the police with the prescription drug take back and remind residents that its available in the police department lobby 24/7. We want to help people be healthy every day. This is a great event for we exhibitors, members of the chamber who can expose their businesses and also for the population to get out here and get information and resources from, said Paul Doyle, owner of Oasis Senior Advisors. Sam Jen, chamber treasurer, agreed. This event is terrific, it gets the community out and it makes them aware of healthier living options. There is plenty for the kids to do too so theres no excuse. Collins, director of sales and marketing at Collins Medical Equipment, said, We are thrilled to be here today as the events sponsor, its an absolute blast. Jay Kiley, owner of Synergy Home Care of Fairfield, added, We are thrilled to be here, we have a great crowd here today and an amazing number of booths. A Shamrock Fun Run and Popsicle Stick Challenge by SoundRUNNER, Touch-A-Truck, Kids Crafts, Hands-Only CPR & AED Training, a Prescription Drug Take Back operated by the Fairfield police and Fairfield Health Department, local Girl Scout Troops selling cookies and Food Vendors added to the event. FAIRFIELD The many facets of one childrens book were brought to life Friday afternoon when the Fairfield University Bookstore hosted a mini-dance class and story time. Members of the Fairfield-based Connecticut Dance School not only read the book Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet by Jane OConnor to an engaged roomful of kids and parents, but shared details on dance. FAIRFIELD They work so hard, but they love it, said parent Leslie Ford, of Fairfield, whose daughter performed with the Lenihan Irish Dance academy on Saturday morning at Pequot Library. Good that they would love it, as according to owner Meghan Lenihan, they will have done 35 separate shows over the St. Patricks Day weekend. HAMDEN Van Jones, the nationally known TV commentator, met with former inmates and Connecticut justice-reform leaders on Monday to push for better housing, job-training and employment opportunities to help those leaving prison to avoid returning. When people are trying to turn their lives around, we should throw them a lifeline and not an anvil, said Jones, who in January was named chief executive of the REFORM Alliance, an organization backed by celebrities including Shawn Jay-Z Carter, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and rapper Meek Mill, who want to change the probation and parole systems. Too often when people come home from prison, if theyve done well on the inside, theyve taken classes, theyve gotten certificates, they think theyre going to come home and do well, and they find doors closed in their faces, Jones said. And the only door that opens is the door back to prison. And thats wrong. And we can do something about that. This is supposed to be a country that loves the underdog, loves the second chance, loves a comeback story. He said minor offenses committed by former offenders on parole or probation can get blown out of proportion, landing people back in prison for six months or more after merely being late for a meeting. The result is lost jobs and apartments, while children are set adrift, returning to state supervision. During a symposium on possible advancements to the Second Chance Society initiatives of his predecessor, Dannel P. Malloy, Gov. Ned Lamont said a recent visit to a state prison in Cheshire brought home the need to support offenders resettle into their communities. It was his first prison visit, which brought home the stark difference that incarceration means in peoples lives, he said after a noontime event on the campus of Quinnipiac University. The gate closes behind you, the gate in front of you doesnt open up and you go in there and you just see a lot of young people, Lamont said. I saw young men about the same age as my son Teddy. Im looking forward to the day where they can prove everybody wrong by doing right. The event brought several ex-offenders to this university campus to discuss the issues with state and local officials and Jones. Meek Mill was scheduled to attend the meeting, but canceled due to a conflict. Louis L. Reed of Bridgeport, a former federal inmate and now the national organizer for #Cut50, a reform organization founded by Jones, said he was called on a violation of the terms of his release, for falling behind on child support payments. An ID card given at the time of release would go a long way to helping inmates, he said. Its simplistic things like that, Reed said. It will take both political parties to get us out of this and into a better system, Jones said during a lunch session with 25 people gathered around a table in the faculty dining room. The people who dont quit, who come home job-ready and transformed, we should support them. Jones praised the strides Connecticut has made in recent years, including record low prison populations and sharp decreases in violent crime. He supported pending legislation aimed at helping those inmates out on probation stay out of prison for minor infractions, such as being late for a meeting with a probation officer. During the roundtable lunch discussion on the barriers facing former inmates, state Department of Correction Commissioner Rollin Cook said for those who earn certificates, such as hair-cutting, the documents should not refer to the DOC, he said. The next step is really in our communities, Cook said, stressing the need for offenders to have more mentors in their communities upon their return. Ill tell you, from our agencys standpoint, were ready for those next steps. Pending bills include anti-discrimination legislation and more transparency in prosecuting cases. Lamont recalled looking into the eyes of the Cheshire inmates, and he realized they didnt have the advantages growing up that his children had. I walked in there and they said Governor, welcome to our gated community. I thought that was ironic, Lamont said to chuckles around the table. In addition to Jones, whose full name is Anthony Kapel Jones, Lamont meet with ex-offenders from the state, as well as Project Longevity state director Brent Peterkin and State Rep. Brandon L. McGee Jr., D-Hartford. I think we can all agree were not satisfied with progress, Peterkin said after a morning session with former inmates. We want to push the envelope forward. We think theres a lot more work that Connecticut can do. But we also recognize the tremendous progress that Connecticut has made, and I would argue as one of the leaders in our nation as far as criminal justice reform efforts, and also re-entry. kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT Genesee & Wyoming Inc. owns and leases freight railroads. It operates through three segments: North American Operations, Australian Operations, and U.K./European Operations. The company transports various commodities, including agricultural products, autos and auto parts, chemicals and plastics, coal and coke, food and kindred products, lumber and forest products, metallic ores, metals, minerals and stone, petroleum products, pulp and paper, waste, and other commodities. It owns or leases 122 freight railroads, including 105 short line railroads and 2 regional freight railroads located in the United States, 8 short line railroads located in Canada, 3 railroads located in Australia, 1 railroad located in the United Kingdom, 1 railroad in Poland and Germany, and 2 railroads in the Netherlands with a total of approximately 16,200 miles of track. The company also operates 6,200 additional miles of track that is owned or leased by others. In addition, it operates deep sea maritime containers and provides bulk haulage, including coal, aggregates, cement, and infrastructure services. Further, the company provides rail service at approximately 40 ports; rail-ferry service in North America, Australia, and Europe; and contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Darien, Connecticut. Read More BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More iShares Latin America 40 ETF's stock was trading at $22.49 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, ILF shares have increased by 11.8% and is now trading at $25.15. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. 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. Read More Fortis Inc. operates as an electric and gas utility company in Canada, the United States, and the Caribbean countries. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity to approximately 433,000 retail customers in southeastern Arizona; and 98,000 retail customers in Arizona's Mohave and Santa Cruz counties with an aggregate capacity of 3,233 megawatts (MW), including 59 MW of solar capacity. The company also sells wholesale electricity to other entities in the western United States; owns gas-fired and hydroelectric generating capacity totaling 65 MW; and distributes natural gas to approximately 1,048,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in British Columbia, Canada. In addition, it owns and operates the electricity distribution system that serves approximately 572,000 customers in southern and central Alberta; owns 4 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 225 MW; and provides operation, maintenance, and management services to five hydroelectric generating facilities. Further, the company distributes electricity in the island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador with an installed generating capacity of 143 MW; and on Prince Edward Island with a generating capacity of 130 MW. Additionally, it provides integrated electric utility service to approximately 67,000 customers in Ontario; approximately 270,000 customers in Newfoundland and Labrador; approximately 31,000 customers on Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and approximately 15,000 customers on certain islands in Turks and Caicos. The company also holds long-term contracted generation assets in Belize consisting of 3 hydroelectric generating facilities with a combined capacity of 51 MW; and the Aitken Creek natural gas storage facility. It also owns and operates approximately 91,000 circuit Kilometers (km) of distribution lines; and approximately 49,500 km of natural gas pipelines. Fortis Inc. was founded in 1885 and is headquartered in St. John's, Canada. Read More iShares MSCI Switzerland ETF's stock was trading at $35.66 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWL shares have increased by 43.7% and is now trading at $51.24. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. by Elliott Baas | Sun, Mar 17th 11:17pm EDT Yasiel Puig went 2-for-3 with a pair of homers and six RBI in the Reds' 9-9 spring tie with the Indians on Sunday. Fantasy Impact: It may just be spring training, but Puig took Corey Kluber and Brad Hand deep, meaning he feasted on quality major league pitching. Puig put two balls over the left-center fence, a grand slam off Kluber and a two-run shot off Hand. He now has a .375 AVG and 1.273 OPS this spring, and Puig should be a solid OF2-3 during his first year in Cincinnati. (Show results will be posted at a later date. Check back for updates.) COLUMBUS A large crowd of beef cattle enthusiasts once again packed the halls at the Ohio Beef Expo March 14-17, gathering for the 32nd edition of the states premier industry event. The event offers a wide variety of opportunities for youth and adults, including breed and market shows, a breed auction and a trade show that features a little of everything related to beef cattle production and rural living. Melissa Rupp, an Extension educator from Fulton County, made her first visit to the Expo with her husband, Doug. The couple raises Angus cows and they feed out Holstein steers in Williams County. Melissa, whose daughter shows locally in 4-H, said her first Expo experience was eye-opening and gave her some new ideas that could help her own operation. Its (the Expo) really about the beef industry, she said. Other shows its more of a party this is about work this is about getting a job done. Learning from others While exhibitors take the shows and sales seriously, the Expo is also a place to meet other producers and enjoy the camaraderie of the cattle industry. Jim Starr, 84, and his son, Rick, 63, attend about every year to watch the Hereford sale and meet friends from the past. The two Ross County men brought cattle to the Expo regularly until about 2011, but have continued to come back each year. Were out of the business now, but we come up to visit our Hereford friends and see good cattle and visit with the people and see what all is new in the trade show, Rick Starr said. Rick said one of the things that impresses him most is the size of the Expo and its growth over the years. He said when he travels the highway, it seems like there are fewer and fewer cattle producers along the countryside, but when he arrives up at the Expo, there are as many cattle and producers as ever. Recognizing friends The growth and success of the Expo is made possible by many contributors, including the staff at the Ohio Cattlemens Association. Keeping with tradition, the OCA recognized two outstanding Expo leaders this year, known as the Friends of the Expo. This years honor went to Joe Foster, of Plain City, a sales manager for Quality Liquid Feeds; and C.J. Brown, a painter and artist from Lindewood, Illinois, and owner of C.J. Brown studios. Foster helps youth and other cattle producers understand nutrition, offering solutions to improve feed rations and digestibility. His sales area covers Ohio, southern Indiana, Virginia and W. Virginia, where he helps livestock producers determine the right ration for their animals, and the right liquid supplements, including molasses. Foster said he enjoys the Expo because its an opportunity to get re-acquainted with friends and make new friends. He has an extensive history with beef cattle, which includes his own showing experience, and he said its good to be re-united with the same group of people. Foster also serves on the Expo trade show committee, and hes involved with the Allied Industry Council, where he helps promote and grow the states beef industry. Artful expressions Brown brings a wide variety of cattle- and farm-related paintings to the Expo each year, inspired by her lifetime involvement with cattle, and her desire to share the rural experience through her artwork. Brown also creates unique artwork for each Expo, including the 30th anniversary celebration in 2017. She uses her artwork as a way to connect with consumers and communicate an accurate image of farm life. I look at my work as a way to historically document what the rural lifestyle is really like in our rural country, she said. Northern Irish sheep farmers have said the creation of a new tariff regime at the border with the Republic of Ireland would 'crush' the sector. The possibility remains of Irish products entering Northern Ireland tariff free, but products moving in the other direction facing tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The government said it recognises that Northern Ireland's farmers will have concerns about the impact its approach will have on farm businesses' competitiveness. It said: These are the only steps the UK government can unilaterally take to deliver on our absolute commitment to avoid a hard border in the event of no deal. However, the government added that there would be no controls on goods moving from RoI to Northern Ireland. But the Northern Irish sheep sector has sounded alarm at the prospect of allowing imported sheepmeat from the RoI continued access to Northern Ireland tariff free, while applying tariffs to sheepmeat going in the other direction. 'Fragile situation' The National Sheep Association (NSA) said the situation is 'fragile' for sheep farmers in Northern Ireland. NSA's Northern Ireland Regional Development Officer, Edward Adamson said: Our industry is reliant on policy makers in Westminster and in Belfast working hard to ensure protections for us are in place. We are already facing issues with shortages of labour in the abattoirs thanks to Brexit, and with many abattoirs being in the South and the movement of some 400,000 lambs a year going that way, we are likely to find sheep farmers in Northern Ireland will have no choice but to pay the tariffs when there is nowhere else to send the sheep. He added: This would crush our industry and force many farmers out of business, an outcome which would be totally unacceptable. The Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) said the governments import tariff plans for a no-deal Brexit would 'devastate' Northern Irelands farming industry. UFU president, Ivor Ferguson, said the plans are 'further proof' that a no-deal would have 'catastrophic consequences' for Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, the Republic of Ireland's Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the tariff plan for Northern Ireland amounts to 'supreme irony' as it would be treated differently to the rest of Britain. A new 'Use your mart' campaign has been launched urging farmers to 'take back control' and demand transparency in pricing by selling through livestock marts. The call comes as major buyers, often those supplying UK supermarket chains, increasingly demand direct contracts with primary producers. In the case of cattle, buyers often make further stipulations on maximum movements over the entire production cycle, according to the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraisers in Scotland (IAAS). The institute, which has launched the campaign, alleges that these stipulations often amount to nothing more than a deliberate attempt to avoid price scrutiny in the ring. The campaign comes after a series of complaints from farmers who have found themselves short-changed by direct contracts, particularly at times when short-term market fluctuations have been avoided by the major buyers. Whilst there has been a gradual rise in direct contracts over the past decade, the movement has become even more acute over the last twelve months, with the growing and noticeable absence of buyers representing supermarket suppliers from prime sheep auction rings across the country. 'Use your mart' IAAS is now launching its Use your mart campaign, urging farmers to 'take back control' and demand transparency in pricing by selling through the ring. Scott Donaldson, IAAS President said: Supermarkets are demanding more and more direct contracts at the very time when farmers need to ensure that they are genuinely receiving a fair price for their produce. This is a practise which puts the efficiency of the rural economy at risk and might even be deemed by the authorities to be anti-competitive. Access to a fair pricing regime, as delivered by the network of livestock markets that we represent, is the very cornerstone of fair farming practice. We want to work with supermarkets as important and valued stakeholders, but now is the time for this evasion on price to end. Mr Donaldson added: You would almost think that the UKs major retailers were seeking to deliberately avoid fair and transparent pricing in our food chain. The insidious growth in the use of closed-door deals puts at risk the transparency and honesty that can only be guaranteed in the livestock auction ring. Traditional and efficient Livestock markets have been the backbone of British livestock production for over 100 years and are the traditional and most efficient means of moving livestock through the different stages of production. They ensure that at each stage the buyer and seller receive the best price possible in the most transparent of environments, a public auction. Instead, supermarket buyers are placing increasing demands on their specifications, limiting or excluding cattle that have been deemed to have had too many movements. This move is despite livestock markets across the country, who have invested in premises and practices to incorporate new technology to provide traceability and confidence. A new survey has found that 94 percent of the beef available across Scottish supermarkets visited was labelled either as British or Scottish. The survey, by NFU Scotland, showed that 61 percent of packs were labelled explicitly as Scottish or Scotch Beef PGI. Secret shoppers studied supermarket shelves across the country to identify the strongest supporters of domestic beef over imported. Almost 96 per cent of packs counted in Aldi stores were explicitly Scottish while 88 per cent of packs in Lidl stores were labelled as Scottish or Scotch. In Tesco stores, 90 percent of beef counted was labelled as Scotch, demonstrating strong support from the countrys largest food retailer. However, volumes of non-UK beef in both Sainsburys and Asda were significant, with almost one in every 10 packs counted coming from outside the UK. Secret shoppers also reported co-mingling of home-produced and imported beef in these retailers, making it harder for the public to identify and buy home-produced beef. NFU Scotland Livestock Committee Chairman, Jimmy Ireland the results are 'encouraging' for farmers and crofters. In Scotland we are gifted with heavy rainfall and great grass growth, allowing us to sustainably produce top quality beef while supporting a healthy environment, he said. Shoppers should be confident that the majority of their local retailers stock Scottish beef in good quantities, meaning that they can rest assured that they are supporting their local farmers when they are making their home-made steak pies, beef curries and burgers. It is National Butchers Week this week so shoppers are reminded they can also find Scottish beef readily available at their local butchers and farm shops, which are always strong supporters of domestic food production, he said. The survey shows that Morrisons, Co-op, Aldi, Marks & Spencer, Lidl and Waitrose stocked 100 per cent home-produced beef, while Tesco stocks 99 per cent home-produced beef, with 90 per cent labelled as Scotch. We do however need to see ASDA and Sainsburys improve their performance by increasing domestic sourcing, Mr Ireland said. Scotlands farmers and crofters are very proud of their high standards of production and our ability to feed the nation despite the challenges of the tumultuous Scottish weather and political uncertainty. Aldi has been recognised as the strongest supporter of Scottish beef after a shelf watch survey revealed almost 96 percent of beef stocked on its shelves was Scotch Beef PGI. All of the retailer's beef offerings on its shelves is Scottish or British, the two-week long NFU Scotland survey found. The union surveyed a total of 31 supermarket stores across Scotland looking at fresh beef offerings. Results demonstrated a 94 per cent commitment to beef produced in the UK. Overall 8,197 packs of fresh beef were counted. Aldi, which is Scotland's sixth largest retailer, won praise for its domestic sourcing after the survey revealed the retailer does not sell any imported beef. Graham Nicolson, Group Buying Director, Aldi Scotland, said: We are absolutely committed to supporting Scottish farmers and Im very proud that Aldi has been recognised as the strongest supporter of Scotch Beef ahead of every other supermarket. This means consumers can be confident that when they buy beef from Aldi, they are directly supporting Scottish farmers and are enjoying only the highest quality produce. The survey follows the Scottish beef industry encouraging consumers to buy Scotch beef this spring as farmers continue to face challenging trading conditions. Scottish farmers and crofters producing beef are facing adverse conditions, with beef prices down by as much as 22 per cent compered to where they were last summer. In response to this, Quality Meat Scotlands Know your Beef annual marketing campaign is currently underway to promote Scotch Beef PGI. Farmers in Fife, Scotland have been told to be vigilant when securing farm machinery following the theft of three tractors in March alone. There has been a spike in rural crime in the Fife area. The beginning of March has seen three tractors stolen, which is on top of the significant increase seen in the area over the last three months. Local farmers are now being encouraged to be 'extremely vigilant and cautious' when locking up their farm machinery and property, and are reminded to secure their property and spread the word of any suspicious vehicles or activities NFU Scotland said the spike in rural crime in Fife is 'extremely worrying'. The union is working with the police to find a solution. Kate Maitland, NFU Scotland East Central Regional Manager, said: Whether its the theft of machinery or livestock, or the deeply frustrating scourge of fly tipping, rural crime has a huge impact on its victims with the inconvenience and emotional costs almost impossible to fully quantify or cover. We are advising members in the area to be extra precautious when securing any vehicles, machinery and property when left unattended. This would include locking all appropriate doors and entrances, making sure all keys to vehicles are locked away and keeping all vehicles and machinery out of obvious sight. She added: Prevention is the best tool we have. The installation of even a basic security system, such as a motion-activated camera directed towards the fuel tank, can be enough to send the opportunistic criminal along the track. Social media also plays a huge part. The ability to share images and details of potentially suspicious activity has been utilised by many countryside dwellers, Ms Maitland said. Rural crime cost the countryside an estimated 44.5m in 2017, leading farmers to combine medieval security with high-tech solutions to protect their farms. In its 2018 Rural Crime Report, NFU Mutual looked at the impact that crime is having on rural communities up and down the UK. With an increase of 13.4% on the previous year, rural crime is rising at its fastest rate since 2010. Tractor crime Thieves are increasingly cloning the identity of tractors to make detection more difficult The cost of agricultural vehicle theft claims to NFU Mutual rose to 5.9m in 2017, an increase of 500,000 from 2016 Thieves are stealing small, older tractors to export to third world countries as well as expensive large models The Farmers' Union of Wales has called on MPs to revoke Article 50 and set a 'realistic and safe' timetable for the UK to withdraw from the European Union. Following another day of political theatrics in parliament on Thursday (14 March), MPs voted to delay Brexit by at least three months. Parliament overwhelmingly backed the extension of Article 50, which means Brexit won't take place before 30 June. The original date of withdrawal was set for 29 March. The vote gives Prime Minister Theresa May an opportunity to resuscitate her twice-defeated Brexit plan. Amid growing political uncertainty, the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) has now called for Article 50 to be cancelled outright in order to reflect parliaments rejection of a no-deal Brexit. The union calls for the 2018 European Union (Withdrawal) Act to be amended to reflect this view and cater for 'all possible eventualities'. 'Cliff edge date' FUW Head of Policy, Nick Fenwick said that replacing March 29 with another cliff edge date in a few months time would be 'short sighted' and wouldn't 'reflect the dangers'. So long as the Withdrawal Act stands we are set to leave the European Union, so claims that this would go against the vote to leave the EU are false, he said. Those who have persuaded the general public that the Brexit process that can be gone through in a couple of years without major risks to jobs, businesses and the economy have been unrealistic and misled Brexiteers about the reality of a safe timetable. We now need the Act to be amended to restore us to a realistic and safe timetable, he added. 'No knowledge' The farming union also said that the vote to leave the European Union didn't equate to a vote to leaving the customs union and single market. Leaving the customs union and the single market were not on the ballot paper - in fact, the overwhelming majority of those who voted, whether in favour or against Brexit, had no knowledge of the customs union, Dr Fenwick said. Those who voted to leave the EU did so on a variety of grounds; yes, for many that included free movement, but for many others it was to do with other issues, including being a protest vote. The FUW is now pleading with MPs to amend the Withdrawal Act to allow agreements to be reached and for Brexit to take place over a 'safe and realistic' timetable. Four farming unions, NFU, NFU Cymru, NFU Scotland and Ulster Farmers Union (UFU), have also called on the government not to delay the prospect of no-deal. As 2018 saw a turbulent and challenging year in the farmland market, rural agency Fisher German looks ahead on what to expect during the rest of 2019. Whilst awaiting further clarity around the Agriculture Bill, and specifically the proposed Environmental Land Management Schemes, the rural property agency expects the farmland market to remain calm. Progressive farmers and diversified farming businesses will continue to invest, as will those looking at land from a sporting, amenity or tax-driven perspective. With the phasing out of direct payments from 2021, many landowners will consider their medium-term business objectives. The ability to delink these payments from the requirement to farm will see some invest in new technology, some diversify into non-agricultural ventures and some look to capitalise the payments up front and retire from farming. Fisher German expects further discussions through 2019 with farmers and landowners regarding the various options as they plan ahead. As soil health, productivity, environmental enhancement and greater animal welfare take priority under new farming policy, and buyers will demand more in-depth evidence of farming practices when looking to acquire new holdings in 2019. Natural capital has been the key phrase in this area and those with a clear understanding of where environmental value can be enhanced through better soil and water management should certainly find adaption to new policy more streamlined. The key drivers in the marketplace will continue to dictate supply and demand levels. Any increase in borrowing costs, with a future reduction in direct payments from 2021, will require farm businesses to really stress-test their operations for long-term stability. Fisher German expects the volume of farmland on the open market to increase again in 2019, based predominantly on further retirement sales and a move away from bare agricultural investments for long-term and institutional investors. Some receipts will be circulated back into farmland where strategic opportunities can be forecast. The rural agency's initial forecast places a five to 10 per cent increase in supply of land to the open market in 2019, against 2018 levels. Generally, it expect swell-located, diversified and productive holdings will retain value on the back of increasing demand. A slight softening in values across poorer livestock holdings or holdings in less favourable locations will be expected. Fisher German forecasts a continued and strengthening interest in smaller residential farms that provide amenity value and non-agricultural development opportunities. Strategic holdings including those with long-term residential and commercial development prospects will continue to attract great interest, as will land with mineral opportunities and mixed-use holdings with opportunities to add value. Rollover buyers will continue to drive farmland values in certain areas. Where such funds have been created, those monies are generally directed towards local opportunities, often within 20 or 30 miles where possible. Fisher German does not expect the current buyer/seller profile in the marketplace to alter drastically in 2019. Farmers will continue to represent the greatest proportion in both camps. It does expect increased demand from the lifestyle/amenity and some overseas buyers, closing the buyer profile in their favour. Farmers and institutional investors will likely represent the majority of vendors through 2019. A Lancashire agricultural company is helping farmers around the world to increase their crop yields after it sees record demand for its products. Levity Crop Science currently exports to 15 markets worldwide and is targeting 25 by the end of the year. The company, based in Bilsborrow, is experiencing record demand for its crop enhancement products which increase yields for fruit and vegetable farmers. It spent five years researching their product before taking it to market, and has grown its product range to cover fruits, potatoes, root vegetables and leafy vegetables. From their site at Myerscough Agricultural College, Levitys scientists are looking at new ways of enhancing natural growth and ripening processes. Managing Director David Marks says sales overseas now account for around 95% of their business. He said: Were looking at an additional 2.5 billion mouths to feed globally by 2050, so its essential that we find new ways to increase crop yields and make the agricultural sector as efficient as possible. The feedback we have received from our customers has been brilliant and has really opened our eyes to the high regard in which British businesses are held overseas. Due to an expanding international client base, the firm has been able to deploy its techniques in a range of growing environments, testing the next generation of agricultural products. Last month the company signed a new distributor agreement to take its product range to market in South Africa, having done the same for the Philippines in June last year. As a result of its successful export strategy, Levity has been doubling its turnover annually for the past five years. The United States stands as the companys biggest market, and sales in this country are continuing to grow rapidly. However new opportunities for expansion into the Middle East and China are priorities for the business. Minister of State for Trade and Export Promotion, Baroness Fairhead, said there is a 'substantial demand' for UK expertise in the agricultural sector around the world. The Northern Powerhouse is a vitally important economic region for the United Kingdom, and it is companies such as Levity Crop Science that are really putting it on the map, she said. Farm machinery dealers in the sales, service and parts network for Landini and McCormick tractors in Wales and the west of England are being supported by a newly-appointed area sales manager. Chris Hughes has joined the Argo Tractors operation with several years of technical and sales experience gained at leading dealerships and says he relishes the fresh challenges that come with representing a manufacturer. Ive been a workshop technician and service manager, and worked as a dealer salesman, so Ive a good understanding of the trade from a dealers point of view, he says. That will help me in my new role, representing Argo Tractors in support of the management and sales staff at our franchised dealers. Having been brought up on a mixed livestock farm, Chris also has practical experience of day-to-day farming and a clear understanding of tractors and machinery, and the key features and benefits that best suit different farms and other rural enterprises. That will be invaluable in his role helping dealers identify the best products in the Argo Tractors range for individual customers, in terms of size, power, features and specification, and liaising with the Argo Finance team in structuring the best financing options for buyers. His home in Knighton, Powys on the Herefordshire and Shropshire border places Chris at the heart of a territory that extends throughout Wales, across to the M6 motorway, and as far north as Carlisle in Cumbria. Adrian Winnett, managing director for Argo Tractors in the UK and Ireland said: Were delighted to welcome Chris as our Wales and west of England area sales manager. He joins our expanding team with valuable experience of practical farming, as well as technical issues and sales, as we make significant investment in resources to help develop our share of the tractor market. Chris Hughes adds: Working for a manufacturer has always appealed to me and as Ive learned more about Argo Tractors and its Landini and McCormick products Ive been very impressed. Its a very strong product range with a good mix of models from compacts for yard scraping and groundscare applications to stock and arable farm tractors up to 310hp, specialist orchard machines and even steel-track crawlers, he points out. Its a fantastic range to be selling. In his spare time, Chris enjoys restoring old tractors and is a member of the local bowling team; and this summer he has his wedding to enjoy, when he plans to arrive for the event on a shiny new tractor. Exporters have been flying the flag for British meat and dairy products at a trade event in Singapore in a bid to grow post-Brexit trade in Asia. Eleven meat and dairy producers attended the Meat and Dairy Showcase to exhibit high-quality British produce to the Singaporean market. Singapore is the UKs largest trading partner in Southeast Asia, with two thirds of UK exports to this region flowing into Singapore. There is also more than 30,000 British nationals and some 700 British companies in Singapore. Last year, the UK exported 2,700 tonnes of dairy products to Singapore, up 55 per cent on 2017 worth 7.8 million. This growth was particularly driven by an increase in exports of skim milk powder and cheese. And in 2018, red meat exports were worth 2.7 million, according to HMRC data. Organised jointly by AHDB and the Department for International Trade, the event was hosted under the banner Food is GREAT. AHDB Senior Export Manager Susan Stewart said the event offered the 'perfect platform' for exporters to meet with potential buyers and build on new and existing relationships in Singapore. This event was incredibly important for our meat and dairy exporters as it allowed them to network with potential buyers from the hotel and high-end restaurant sector, she added. As well as developing new opportunities in this important market, guests were given the chance to sample some of our high quality products, including sausages and cheese. The event hosted a butchery display to highlight the wide variety of meat cuts as well as a Cheese Sommelier Tasting pairing artisan British cheeses with wines. Singapore has a large number of expats with high disposal incomes. Research shows that people in Singapore eat out at least once a week, so targeting the food service sector could prove beneficial in growing British exports post-Brexit. The event follows news of China opening its vast market to British beef imports for the first time in twenty years. British beef is now exported to China for the first time since the BSE, or 'mad cow', crisis in 1996. SFI scheme may lead to 'postcode lottery' over soil carbon Soils are not equal when it comes to sequestration 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. Fethiye Times pick of the news from the local area and around Turkey. News Arkadaslik Yachting: minimizing single use plastics If youre phasing single-use plastic bottles out of your life and love Gulet holidays, youll be very happy to learn that Fethiye based, Arkadaslik Yachting are minimizing their reliance on single use plastics onboard Arkadaslik this year. By giving each guest a water bottle at the beginning of their cruise, theyll reduce their waste by more than 100 plastic bottles a day, a massive 12,000 bottles per season. Arkadaslik Yachting would like to thank Bayeks Promosyon for printing the bottles. Sue Fockner-Ask, owner of Arkadaslik Yachting said We love them and think our guests will too! www.arkadaslik-yachting.com We will clean up Fethiye Bay There was great news for the people of Fethiye when Environment and Urban Planning Minister, Murat Kurum, visited Fethiye on Wednesday. The Minister visited Fethiye for the opening of the Presidency of the Central Election Coordination Center in Fethiye, Mugla. During his speech the Kurum said: Unfortunately, Fethiye Bay is in a very bad condition, and we have made our findings here. We will launch a 250 million pound project to clean the Gulf of Fethiye. Kurum likened it to the Golden Horn, a major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul. He said The Golden Horn was in a worse condition that the Gulf of Fethiye. The government has cleaned the the Golden Horn and today it has become a place where fish can see and breathe. We will do the same in Fethiye On the morning of April 1, both Fethiye and Metropolitan Municipality and the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization will start the cleaning of Fethiye. 519km bike route between Izmir and Antalya Kurum also talked about the 519 km cycle route project from Izmir to Antalya. He said: We also continue our work for the 519-kilometer-cycle route project from Izmir to Antalya. There will be bicycle paths between Bodrum, Datca Peninsula, Koycegiz, Dalyan, Fethiye and Kas. Cyclists will be able to use the cycle path for a healthy lifestyle and to protect nature and the environment. 68 km of cycle path in Fethiye are within the scope of the project. Source: SonDakika/Haber Turk Ferry service to start between Turkeys Izmir and Greeces Athens this summer A ferry service will be provided from Cesme in Izmir province to the castle town of Lavrion near Athens in Greece this summer. The service will run from June 2nd, connecting the Turkish and Greek mainland for the first time. Cesme-Lavrion was chosen as it is the closest distance between the Turkish and Greek mainland with the trip taking some seven hours. Bulent Ipek, board chairman of the Istanbul-based company, said The line will not only boost the regions economy but it will also provide significant convenience for expatriates as well as tourists. Source: Daily Sabah Bogus holiday injury and illness claims fall after laws are introduced to ban cold calling and curb the amount that can be demanded to cover legal costs The number of compensation claims for holiday sickness and car accident whiplash has fallen dramatically after the introduction of legal curbs. Personal injury claims brought before civil courts fell 19 per cent from 35,000 at the beginning of last year to 28,400 in December, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice. It follows laws introduced last summer to stop profiteering by claims companies and lawyers, including limits on the amount they can demand in legal costs over holiday illness claims. And last spring, claims companies were banned from making cold calls to people who had been involved in car crashes. Sickness claims by holidaymakers rose from 5,000 in 2013 to more than 35,000 by 2016. A number of bogus claims have been exposed, including that of Martin and Lindsey Brown, of Chorley, Lancashire, who tried to claim 20,000 after saying their holiday in Turkey was ruined by illness. The couple were found guilty of fraud after, instead of being bedridden, Mr Brown had been going to the pool and drinking until daft oclock. Source: Mail Online Sport Thank you to Brian Lloyd for the sport updates. Fethiyespor Fethiyespor won their home match against Sivas Belediyespor yesterday. The final score was 2-1. Fethiyespor move back up to 14th position on the league table. The next league matches are: Sunday 24th March away against Zonguldak Komurspor. Kick off is at 15:00. Wednesday 3rd April at home to Kirklarelispor. Kick off is at 15:00. For more information about Fethiyespor please visit Fethiyespor Yabancilar on Facebook. Lokman Hekim Fethiye Belediyespor Basketbol Lokman Hekim Fethiye Belediyespor won their away match against ITU Istanbul on Saturday. The final score was 73-75. For more information about Lokman Hekim Fethiye Belediyespor please visit them on Facebook. Turkish Lira (TL) exchange rates The British Pound bought 7.25 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 7.08 TL. The US Dollar bought 5.44 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 5.44 TL. The Euro bought 6.17 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 6.11 TL. ISource: FxexchangeRate.com Weather Forecast Heres your weather forecast for the week ahead. Source: Living Earth The Gallipoli Campaign (known in Turkey as Canakkale Savas), was a campaign in the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Today (18 March), Turkey commemorates the 106th anniversary of the Ottoman Empires World War One victory over Allied fleets that were attempting to break through the Strait of Dardanelles in the northwestern province of Canakkale. Britain and France, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire by taking control of the straits that provided a supply route to Russia. In February 1915, the invaders launched a naval attack followed by an amphibious landing on the peninsula, to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). 106 years ago hundreds of thousands of troops were killed and wounded as they fought for a tiny patch of land. The landing and the succeeding months-long stalemate ended in early 1916 when the allied army gave up and withdrew. The victory proved a massive morale boost for the Ottoman Turks and cemented the reputation of Mustafa Kemal Pasa. Years later he would lead the Turks to an even bigger victory in their War of Independence and establish the Turkish Republic. Canakkale Crowds would normally flock to the historical peninsula of Gallipoli to attend the ceremony and remember the legacy of the Gallipoli battle. The Canakkale Martyrs Memorial commemorating hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed during the World War I Battle of Gallipoli. (AA Photo) A ceremony was held in Fethiye to mark the occasion. The ceremony was attended by the Fethiye District Governorship, Fethiye Municipality and Fethiye Combatant Veterans and Martyr Families Aid and Solidarity Association. Wreaths were laid at the Martyrs Monument followed by a one minutes silence and Turkish National Anthem. Martyrs Monument in Fethiye Garrison Commander Military Branch Head Major Sedat Karabay made a speech, indicating the meaning and importance of the day. Following the reading of poems, District Governor Eyup Frat signed the honour book. After the ceremony, members of the protocol visited Fethiye War Veterans and Martyr Families Cooperation and Solidarity Association. Sources: Wikipedia/Anadolu Agency/Gercek Fethiye Featured image courtesy of Wikipedia I Quit In Advance Before Marriage Talking about her affair with Akshay, she had said, "It was a voluntary decision. I was engaged to somebody I knew. This is what I wanted, to lead a very normal life. I quit in advance before marriage because we did think that when there will be last day of my shoot, we will go ahead and get married.'' I Told Him I Will Not Choose Him Over My Career ''Once I re-started my career, he again said that leave it and we will go ahead with the wedding. But, then I told him that once I chose you over my career, but now I will choose my career over you." When She Talked About Her Secret Engagement To Akshay 'No, there was a very elaborate engagement ceremony. With the pandit doing pooja and everything. His family had flown down from Delhi, my family came from Delhi.'' That Was Mistaken To Be A Wedding ''One of his elders had put a red dupatta on my head, and I think that was mistaken to be a wedding." I Did Not Mean So Much To Him "We started off as friends. We got to know each other only when we went together for a few shows in America and Canada. I think loyalty meant a lot to me, but I did not mean so much to him.'' He Expected Me To Take Him Back ''He expected me to forgive and take him back every time. I did that for three years, until it was the last round." Akshay Proposes To Every Girl Post the break-up, Raveena gave many explosive interviews. In a sensational interview to a film magazine, Raveena had said, 'Akshay proposes to every girl, and the speed at which he is going, he will soon have to address the parents of three-fourth of girls in Mumbai as 'Mom and Dad'. A few days ago, actress Sai Pallavi refused to star opposite Tollywood actor Mahesh Babu in Mahesh 26 as she was upset with the star's fans for trolling her. Shortly after the Fidaa girl's exit, the makers approached Rashmika Mandanna who indicated that she wanted to accept the role. Now, in an unexpected development, the Geetha Govindam star has said 'No' to Mahesh 26. According to a leading website, she has quite a packed schedule and was finding it hard to give dates to Mahesh Babu's movie. Interestingly, the makers of Mahesh 26 are finding it quite hard to finalise the cast. Recently, Kannada actor Upendra too turned down the film. As per a leading website, the 'Real Star' was not happy with the script and felt that the character offered to him lacked depth. It will be interesting to see whether lady luck smiles on the makers in the near future. Meanwhile, Rashmika is currently awaiting the release of Dear Comrade. The film, touted to be a political-drama, has her paired opposite actor Vijay Deverakonda again after the stupendous success of Geeta Govindam. It has already created a buzz amongst fans owing to its raw and intense trailer. The Kodava beauty also has a Tamil movie with Karthi and Dhruva Sarja's Pogaru in her kitty. She sure is going places. So, do you feel that Rashmika did the right thing by saying no to Mahesh 26? Tell us in the space below. Top 10 Most Trolled Movies In Telugu Of All Time: Ram Charan, Mahesh & Pawan Top The List "There are huge challenges in automatically enrolling individuals into a scheme with such complex design features." CDC schemes, which are already popular in Denmark and the Netherlands, pay out a regular income from a collective fund rather than producing an individual 'pension pot'. Last year, Royal Mail reached a deal with the Communication Workers Union which sought to launch CDC pensions in the UK. The government has today confirmed that it will "introduce CDC provisions slowly", starting with the Royal Mail scheme and building on this. Several studies have shown that CDC schemes could offer more generous and predictable benefits than individual DC provisions by pooling risks, such as around life expectancy. However some industry experts, including Aegon's Steven Cameron, warned that there are "huge challenges in automatically enrolling individuals into a scheme with such complex design features". The government agreed that communicating the variable nature of the pension income in a CDC scheme will be a "huge challenge for schemes", adding that "misunderstanding around the nature of CDC benefits will be the single biggest risk a scheme will face". However the government stressed that it is "very alive to this issue, and fully recognise the challenges it poses". Pensions minister, Guy Opperman, said: "The UK has a world-class occupational pension system. But there is always opportunity for further innovation and improvement. I believe CDCs can be part of that improvement. "CDC schemes will provide employers with new options for managing their pension obligations, with benefits for workers and employers alike. As I said in the forward to the original consultation, CDC schemes are not a catch-all solution to concerns around retirement outcomes. But I am confident that well designed and run CDC schemes can offer advantages for some employers and employees in the UK. Looking at the consultation responses, it has been heartening to see how many respondents including employers, trade unions and pensions commentators - agree with this Governments proposals." Steven Cameron, pension director at Aegon, commented: Royal Mail clearly has the best intentions and we hope the scheme will deliver good outcomes for its members. However, the industry is divided on the relative merits of CDC, which originated in the Netherlands. Supporters point to them offering greater certainty to individuals compared to Defined Contribution with the potential to pool investments and reduce charges. Critics point to the complexity of explaining the schemes benefits to members and their incompatibility with pension freedoms. Individuals are told what their target benefit is but this is not guaranteed and it is likely that actual benefits will be different from the initial target, making planning difficult. Most worryingly, there is a very significant risk that monthly pension income once in payment could fall. There is also the potential for one generation of members to subsidise another. At Aegon, we are open to new pension scheme designs being explored, but despite our parent company being based in the Netherlands, we are not convinced going Dutch with pensions will be right more broadly within the UK. There are huge challenges in automatically enrolling individuals into a scheme with such complex design features. CDC wont offer members a choice of investment funds and importantly may not provide access to the pension freedoms which have proved highly popular in allowing people to draw down from their pension flexibly. While we believe individuals may be allowed to transfer out to access freedoms, the terms for doing so are far from clear. We wish the Royal Mail every success with their scheme, but it is imperative that before enabling other employers or master trusts to go down this path, full consideration is given to how to address the many challenges CDC present, including to member understanding and security. Pete Glancy, head of policy, pensions & investments at Scottish Widows, added: CDC has the potential to be the Marmite of the pension world. The smoothing and pooling of risks will be attractive to some employees, but potential restrictions in terms of pension freedoms will be unpopular with others. To succeed, it may be necessary to allow people to select their own pension scheme, like in Australia. Employees could select from a range of schemes including CDC and traditional DC. Employees who select a CDC arrangement could retain that arrangement as they move from job to job. Within the current Auto Enrolment framework, the most immediate opportunity for CDC could be in decumulation, where employees become individuals at retirement and pooling of risk could be attractive to some scheme members. The government has not yet laid out advice rules for CDC schemes, however Steve Webb, former pensions minister and director of policy at Royal London, said it is likely to be several years before a scheme is up and running. He added: "If others employers want to use a different model, this could need new primary legislation and we would probably be talking about the mid 2020s before further schemes could be in place." Paris, Amsterdam, March 18, 2019 Press release Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield forms partnership with PSP Investments and QuadReal for a 750 Mn (670 Mn) Private Rented Sector scheme in London Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield announces today that it has signed a conditional agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian public pension fund the "Public Sector Pension Investment Board" (PSP Investments) and global real estate company QuadReal Property Group (QuadReal), to form the "Cherry Park Partnership". The Partnership will deliver the development and management of a 750 Mn (670 Mn) Private Rented Sector (PRS) residential scheme, adjacent to Westfield Stratford City in London. It will be one of London's largest single-site PRS schemes. PSP Investments and QuadReal will each take a 37.5% share in the Cherry Park Partnership, while Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield will retain a 25% share and be appointed as the development and asset manager. Olivier Bossard, Group Chief Development Officer, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said: "This new residential quarter in the heart of Stratford City is an example of the Group's strategy to significantly increase the densification of exceptional and highly connected retail destinations by adding offices, residential, hotels and other uses, where relevant. With the Cherry Park Partnership, we are leveraging our unique know-how and joining with strategic capital partners to reinvent city districts." Stephane Jalbert, Managing Director Europe and Asia Pacific, Real Estate, PSP Investments, added: "London's residential sector is chronically undersupplied and Cherry Park supports PSP's broader long-term sectorial strategy to develop professionally managed residential assets alongside best-in-class investment partners. Once completed, this will be one of central London's largest residential rental schemes and will offer future residents an incredible level of connectivity in an exciting and unique mixed-use location." Jay Kwan, Head of Europe, International Real Estate, QuadReal, said: "This Partnership fits squarely into our investment strategy to densify successful retail destinations alongside world-class development and operating partners. We are excited to launch this new relationship with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield whilst extending our long-standing and successful relationship with PSP." Construction work is set to start in Q2 2019, with a phased completion and a delivery expected post 2023. The Cherry Park Development will feature approximately 1,200 new homes benefitting from a suite of amenities including a residents' gym, swimming pool, workspace and high-quality public areas. Completion of the formation of the Cherry Park Partnership is subject to customary conditions precedent. For further information, please contact: Investor Relations Samuel Warwood Maarten Otte +33 1 76 77 58 02 Maarten.Otte@urw.com (mailto:Maarten.Otte@urw.com) Media Relations Tiphaine Bannelier-Suderie +33 1 76 77 57 94 Tiphaine.Bannelier-Suderie@urw.com (mailto:Tiphaine.Bannelier-Suderie@urw.com) Verena Garofalo, PSP Investments Canada: 514-218-3795 Toll-free: 1-844-525-3795 media@investpsp.ca (mailto:media@investpsp.ca) Susan L MacLaurin, QuadReal Property Group T 604-975-9563 M 604-317-4718 susan.maclaurin@quadreal.com (mailto:susan.maclaurin@quadreal.com) About Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is the premier global developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations, with a portfolio valued at 65.2 Bn as at December 31, 2018, of which 87% in retail, 6% in offices, 5% in convention & exhibition venues and 2% in services. Currently, the Group owns and operates 92 shopping centres, including 55 flagships in the most dynamic cities in Europe and the United States. Its centres welcome 1.2 billion visits per year. Present on 2 continents and in 12 countries, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield provides a unique platform for retailers and brand events, and offers an exceptional and constantly renewed experience for customers. With the support of its 3,700 professionals and an unparalleled track-record and know-how, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is ideally positioned to generate superior value and develop world-class projects. The Group has a development pipeline of 11.9 Bn. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield distinguishes itself by its Better Places 2030 agenda, that sets its ambition to create better places that respect the highest environmental standards and contribute to better cities. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield stapled shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Paris (Euronext ticker: URW), with a secondary listing in Australia through Chess Depositary Interests. The Group benefits from an A rating from Standard & Poor's and from an A2 rating from Moody's. For more information, please visit www.urw.com (http://www.urw.com/)Visit our Media Library at https://mediacentre.urw.com (https://mediacentre.urw.com/)Follow the Group updates on Twitter @urw_group (https://twitter.com/urw_group), Linkedin @Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (https://www.linkedin.com/company/unibail-rodamco-westfield/) and Instagram @urw_group (https://www.instagram.com/urw_group/) About PSP Investments The Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) is one of Canada's largest pension investment managers with C$158.9 billion of net assets as of September 30, 2018. It manages a diversified global portfolio composed of investments in public financial markets, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, natural resources and private debt. Established in 1999, PSP Investments manages net contributions to the pension funds of the federal Public Service, the Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Reserve Force. Headquartered in Ottawa, PSP Investments has its principal business office in Montreal and offices in New York and London. For more information, visit investpsp.com (https://www.investpsp.com/en/) or follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/investpsp) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/psp-investments/). About QuadReal Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, QuadReal Property Group is a global real estate investment, operating and development company. The company's C$27.4 billion portfolio spans 23 Global Cities across 17 countries. QuadReal was established to manage the real estate program of British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), one of Canada's largest asset managers with a C$145.6 billion portfolio. QuadReal aims to deliver prudent growth and strong investment returns, and to create and sustain environments that bring value to the people and communities it serves. Now and for generations to come. For more information, please visit www.quadreal.com (http://www.quadreal.com/). 20190318 Cherry Park (http://hugin.info/136618/R/2238807/882322.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: UNIBAIL-RODAMCO SE via Globenewswire Istanbul, one of the top 10 most visited cities in the world, has broken records by hosting 13.4 million tourists in 2018, an increase of 24%. To introduce the city more effectively on an international scale, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has started a new project called "Visit Istanbul". 'Visit Istanbul' has already hosted fashion and travel stars from different countries, and will now focus its campaign on Russia. ISTANBUL, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In the 2018 tourism report published by the European Travel Commission, Turkey had the biggest tourist count increase among 33 European countries. According to the report, the number of tourists visiting Turkey has increased by 22% to reach 46.1 million, while 1 out of 3 of these tourists preferred Istanbul. The number of Russian tourists, the top visitors of Turkey and Istanbul, has increased by 28% and reached 5.9 million. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has started a new digital tourism project called "Visit Istanbul" to tell about the historical and cultural values of Istanbul on an international scale. Russia, United Kingdom, Middle East Countries, USA, Germany, France, India, and China have been determined as target countries. Throughout one year, a different tourism-oriented project will be carried out with target countries particularly via digital platforms. First introductory movie is launched. The first 'History' themed introductory movie of Visit Istanbul project 'Meet With History Of Your Dream City' has been published on project's social media pages. In the movie, including original pieces of music, extremely colorful and magnificent scenes about the monumental history of Istanbul are shown. The next movie will be 'Gastronomy Istanbul' introducing the cuisine of Istanbul. Fashion phenomenons meet in Istanbul. For the project, four fashion phenomenons of social media have met in Istanbul at the start of the campaign. Laura Comolli from Italy, Barbora Ondrackova from the Czech Republic, Michele Krusi from Switzerland and Simla Canpolat from Turkey took a full city tour over 3 days and shared images with their followers. The big meeting is at the end of March! Within the scope of 'Visit Istanbul' which is also known as Turkey's first official city marketing project, world-famous travel stars, notably Jeniffer Tuffen from England, Dotz Soh from Singapore and Umit Yoruk from Turkey, will meet in Istanbul over 5 days between 17-21 March. Check 'Visit Istanbul" social media accounts: https://visit.istanbul/ https://twitter.com/visitist https://www.instagram.com/visitist/ https://facebook.com/visitistofficial Tulay Genc info@b2press.com +90(850)885-12-55 https://b2press.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/836525/Visit_Istanbul.jpg Next Green Wave's Vision to be Number 1 in Cannabis Consumer Product Goods in California Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 18, 2019) - Next Green Wave Holdings Inc. (CSE: NGW) (OTCQB: NXGWF) ("Next Green Wave", "NGW" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce an update to its consumer products good strategy since announcing its 100% acquisition of California-based SD Ventures, LLC ("SDC") on March 12, 2019. Next Green Wave's acquisition of SDC and recent investment in Organic Medical Growth ("OMG") now accelerates its path to revenues and the execution of its distribution and product development strategy throughout California. Vision to be Number 1 in Cannabis Consumer Product Goods in California Next Green Wave is now focused on integrating SDC's 8 brands, 45 THC and CBD products, extraction and manufacturing team while calibrating its recently completed 35,000 sqft Facility A. With Pacific Gas & Electric now only weeks away from completion, Next Green Wave will bring its newly appointed Head of Extraction and Head of Manufaturing into its Facility A to integrate the appropriate standard operating procedures necessary to immediately fulfill the product demand from its distribution channels once Facility A has been granted final occupancy approval. Next Green Wave's 8 Brand Partners To view an enhanced version of this image, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6127/43467_6a86d9e9c4e5da63_002full.jpg In the coming months, our Brand Partners product lines will be introduced into the California and online direct-to-consumer market in the United States. With a combined social media reach of over 25 million across the globe, these Brand Partners include; Carey Hart (https://www.instagram.com/hartluck/) (https://www.instagram.com/hartluck/) Loki the Wolf Dog (https://instagram.com/loki) (https://instagram.com/loki) King Louie (https://www.instagram.com/___king__louie___/) (https://www.instagram.com/___king__louie___/) Sketchy Tank (https://www.instagram.com/sketchy_tank/) (https://www.instagram.com/sketchy_tank/) Junkyard LA (https://www.instagram.com/junkyardla ) (https://www.instagram.com/junkyardla ) Toy Machine Skateboard Co ( https://www.instagram.com/toymachine/) https://www.instagram.com/toymachine/) SD Cannabis ( http://instagram.com/weare.sdc) (https://instagram.com/sdcannabis) http://instagram.com/weare.sdc) (https://instagram.com/sdcannabis) OSS ( https://www.instagram.com/onsomeshit/) https://www.instagram.com/onsomeshit/) Thorn St. Beer (https://www.instagram.com/thornbeer/) "This is a very exciting but important time for Next Green Wave as we now enter the execution phase of our wider strategy of being a premium producer of high quality downstream products into the California market," stated Leigh Hughes, CEO of Next Green Wave. "Our recent acquisition of SDC fast tracks our vision to be a powerhouse in consumer products goods in cannabis, and the whole combined team is focused on activating operations, generating revenue through sale of our first products, and establishing our distribution network.." Geographic Expansion Through Brand Licensing Opportunities As the global cannabis landscape continues to expand in 2019, Next Green Wave will take advantage of specific international markets that will allow our brands and products to be licensed through other respectable international partners. The closing of our investment and strategic partnership with Organic Medical Growth will see our distribution channel expand by over 7,000 pharmacies in Colombia through a brand licensing agreement with OMG. To ensure that OMG enters the market with premium products, Next Green Wave will provide our expertise and services to ensure that OMG's nursery, cultivation and extraction techniques are of the highest standard. NGW has begun providing advisory services to work in parallel with the OMG team in preparation for the development of OMG's integrated operations. In 2019, NGW will provide a range of products to be sold through the OMG distribution channels. Next Green Wave's Colombian Partnership To view an enhanced version of this image, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6127/43467_6a86d9e9c4e5da63_003full.jpg On behalf of the Board, Leigh Hughes CEO and Executive Chairman, Next Green Wave Holdings Inc. About Next Green Wave Next Green Wave is a vertically integrated seed-to-consumer premium medicinal and recreational cannabis company operating in California. Construction of the company's first state of the art indoor facility (35,000sf) is complete and nearing production with future plans for expansion on its remaining 15 acres of cannabis zoned land. NGW has acquired a seed library of over 120 strains which includes several award winning genetics. Recently acquired SDC Ventures and its 8 brands and 45 products which will accelerate NGW to revenue in 2019 and compliment NGW's branded products. The partnership with OMG will provide NGW access to distribution through the licensing of our brands through Colombia. To find out more visit us at www.nextgreenwave.comor follow us on Twitter at @nextgreenwave, on Instagram, and LinkedIn. Next Green Wave Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, are "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, events or developments to be materially different from any future results, events or developments expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the risk factors included in the preliminary prospectus, including without limitation dependence on obtaining and maintaining regulatory approvals, including acquiring and renewing state, local or other licenses and any inability to obtain all necessary governmental approvals licenses and permits to complete construction of its proposed facilities in a timely manner; engaging in activities which currently are illegal under US federal law and the uncertainty of existing protection from U.S. federal or other prosecution; regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, including U.S. state-law legalization, particularly in California, due to inconsistent public opinion, perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry, bureaucratic delays or inefficiencies or any other reasons; any other factors or developments which may hinder market growth; NGW's limited operating history and lack of historical profits; reliance on management; NGW's requirements for additional financing, and the effect of capital market conditions and other factors on capital availability; competition, including from more established or better financed competitors; and the need to secure and maintain corporate alliances and partnerships, including with customers and suppliers. Readers are encouraged to the review the section titled "Risk Factors" in NGW's preliminary prospectus. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Although NGW has attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other risk factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. NGW no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, even if new information becomes available as a result of future events, new information or for any other reason except as required by law. ### For more information regarding Next Green Wave, contact: Caroline Klukowski VP Corp. Development Tel: +1 (778) 589-2848 IR@nextgreenwave.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/43467 Bicycle Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering a new class of therapeutics based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide (Bicycle) product platform, announced today the appointment of Pierre Legault, MBA, CPA, as a Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Legault brings to Bicycle more than 35 years of executive leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He replaces Stephen J. Hoffman, M.D., Ph.D., as Chairman. "I am excited to have Pierre join the Bicycle team. His broad experience in biopharma leadership will be tremendously valuable for us as our clinical pipeline matures," said Kevin Lee, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics. "As we welcome Pierre, we also thank Steve for his guidance and leadership through a period of rapid growth at Bicycle over the last three years, helping us to successfully evolve the company into a clinical stage organization, complete two financings, establish a strong U.S. presence and develop a broad, differentiated product pipeline of Bicycle-based therapeutics." "I'm honored to accept this Chairman role," said Mr. Legault. "Bicycle's technology is truly unique, and I look forward to working closely with the team and the rest of the Board to advance our work in oncology and other diseases." Mr. Legault also currently serves as the Chairman of Poxel, a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative drugs for metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. He is Chairman of Artios, a DNA damage repair company. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Clementia Pharmaceuticals, Urovant Sciences and Syndax Pharmaceuticals. In the past, he was a member of the Board of Directors at Forest Laboratories, Tobira Therapeutics, NPS Pharmaceuticals, Regado Biosciences, Armo Biosciences, Iroko Pharmaceuticals, Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, Eckerd Pharmacy and Nephrogenex, where he also served as the Chairman and CEO from 2012 to 2016. From 2010 to 2012, he served as the CEO of Prosidion. From 2009 to 2010, he served as the CFO and Treasurer of OSI Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Legault also served as the CEO of Eckerd Pharmacy and Senior Executive Vice President and CAO of the Rite Aid Corporation. Between 1989 and 2005, he held various global roles such as President, CEO and CFO of global group at Sanofi and legacy companies. Mr. Legault studied at McGill University, HEC Montreal and Harvard Business School. About Bicycle Therapeutics Bicycle Therapeutics is developing a unique class of chemically synthesized medicines based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide (Bicycle) product platform to address therapeutic needs unreachable with existing treatment modalities. Bicycle's internal focus is in oncology, where the company is developing targeted cytotoxics (Bicycle Toxin Conjugates), targeted innate immune activators and T-cell modulators for cancers of high unmet medical need. Bicycles' small size and highly selective targeting deliver rapid tumor penetration and retention while clearance rates and routes of elimination can be tuned to minimize exposure of healthy tissue and bystander toxicities. The company's lead program, BT1718, is being evaluated in a Phase I/IIa trial in collaboration with Cancer Research UK. The company's unique intellectual property is based on the work initiated at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K., by the scientific founders of the company, Sir Greg Winter, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering work in phage display of peptides and antibodies, and Professor Christian Heinis. Bicycle has its headquarters in Cambridge, U.K., with many key functions and members of its leadership team located in the biotech hub of Boston, Mass. For more information, visit www.bicycletherapeutics.com or follow us on Twitter at @Bicycle_tx. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005134/en/ Contacts: Media: Ten Bridge Communications Sara Green sgreen@tenbridgecommunications.com +1-617-233-1714 Investors: Argot Partners Maeve Conneighton maeve@argotpartners.com +1-212-600-1902 The awards recognise TradeStation Global's advanced trading tools and technology for professional and active traders LONDON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- TradeStation International Ltd (TradeStation International) has been awarded the Best Multi-Asset-Class Trading Platform and Best Forex Trading Tools for its innovative TradeStation Global platform at the London Forex Show Awards on the 22nd of February. Launched in January 2018, TradeStation Global empowers professional and active traders to take advantage of opportunities across global markets with its advanced trading technology. Created in collaboration with Interactive Brokers (U.K.) Limited (Interactive Brokers (U.K.)), the TradeStation Global platform enables direct market access and execution in FX, Equity, Futures and Options markets. Users are able to fund in multiple currencies and seamlessly trade, monitor and manage positions from a single comprehensive account offered by Interactive Brokers, in over 120 markets, across 26 countries and 22 currencies. The award-winning platform includes a wide range of TradeStation trading tools, including RadarScreen for real-time market scanning and trade signal alerts, the Matrix that enables efficient order tracking and one-click entry, and fully customisable charting and technical indicators. Rustam Lam, CEO of TradeStation International, said: "We are delighted to have won two awards for TradeStation Global just one year after launching the platform. The awards validate our belief that active traders can work more effectively and efficiently by harnessing the latest trading technology." He added: "TradeStation Global's highly developed suite of tools have been combined with a single account and direct market access to optimise trading in global markets. It puts the trader's needs first for ease of control, position monitoring and risk management." The London Forex Show Awards recognise trading, technology and education firms that are actively involved in supporting traders to achieve their investment ambitions across global markets. TradeStation International is the London-based, United Kingdom subsidiary of TradeStation Group, Inc. Interactive Brokers (U.K.) is an affiliate of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. Notes to the Editor: About TradeStation Group, Inc. For more than 30 years, the TradeStation Group companies have been pioneering leaders in the online trading industry, committed to delivering the best trading technology, brokerage services, trading education and support to individual and institutional traders. TradeStation's award-winning trading and analysis platforms offer access to equities, options and futures trading at the major U.S. equities and options exchanges and market centres, as well as the major futures exchanges. TradeStation's clients have access to the powerful tools needed to design, test, optimize, monitor and automate custom trading strategies, and its mobile and web trading apps allow clients to take the power of the TradeStation trading experience on the go. TradeStation also provides a vast array of educational offerings to help beginning and advanced clients learn online trading and investing skills to help them meet their trading and investment objectives. TradeStation International Ltd, authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") in the United Kingdom, acts as an Introducing Broker to Affiliated and Non-Affiliated Brokers and has passport rights in the EEA countries. The firm does not provide investment advice or trading recommendations. Investments and trading involve risks, including possible loss of principal. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/769381/TradeStation_Logo.jpg FinancialBuzz.com News Commentary NEW YORK, March 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --U.S. markets experienced a strong week, despite the fatal accident of Boeing's (NYSE: BA) 737 MAX flight on Sunday. A 737-flight operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed, coming just months after another 737 accident in Indonesia. While markets opened weaker on Monday morning following the incident, stocks rebounded quickly, primarily led by a major tech stock rally. The Dow Jones rallied by 368.7 points or 1.4% throughout Monday. However, markets dragged lower on Tuesday following Boeing's slump. Boeing shares continued to fall throughout the week, as the stock price had shed 11.4% leading into Thursday morning. Concerns over Boeing's aircraft safety and infrastructure afflicted many, which caused a string of countries to ground and temporarily ban 737 flights. Countries such as Australia, Canada, China, France, the U.K., and the U.S. have already taken action against the aircraft. Overall, the mixed market reaction can be attributed to the U.S.-China trade deal being stalled, weaker industrial output data in China, the grounding of Boeing 737s, and the Brexit votes in the U.K. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 482.41 points or 1.9% from Monday's opening bell into midday Thursday. The S&P 500 gained 89.7 points or 3.2% in the same period, while the Nasdaq Composite rose by 304.1 points or 4.1%. Stitch Fix, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFIX), Cloudera, Inc. (NYSE: CLDR), MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDB), Domo, Inc. (NASDAQ: DOMO), Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) "After a few quiet days outside of Boeing and Brexit to kick off the week, the flow of news is a bit more active this morning [Thursday]," wrote Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group, in a Thursday note to clients, via MarketWatch. "Positive sentiment in equity futures has quickly worn off this morning as headlines indicate that the U.S. and China have put off a planned meeting between President Trump and President Xi later this month," he added. "The meeting now won't occur until April at least. Sticking points like the treatment of intellectual property remain unresolved. The delay shouldn't be entirely surprising given the president's comments just yesterday that he was in no rush to sign a deal." For our latest "Buzz on the Street" Show featuring "Earnings Recap" please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P1RPW86jM Stitch Fix, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFIX) reported its second quarter financial results after market close on Monday and beat earnings estimates, sending shares surging as high as 30% on Tuesday morning. For the quarter, Stitch Fix reported earnings of USD 12 cents per share on revenue of USD 370 Million while analysts expected earnings of USD 5 cents per share on revenue of USD 365 Million. Stitch Fix also provided a higher-than-expected third-quarter and full-year guidance. The Company expects revenues between USD 388 Million and USD 398 Million, while analysts projected USD 384 Million for the third quarter. As for the full-year, Stitch Fix reported a full-year revenue guidance between USD 1.53 Billion and USD 1.56 Billion, higher than estimates of USD 1.51 Billion. For our latest "Buzz on the Street" Show featuring "Earnings Recap" please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P1RPW86jM Cloudera, Inc. (NYSE: CLDR) shares plunged by 15% on Thursday morning after providing a disappointing forecast in its fourth quarter financial results release. Cloudera reported its fourth-quarter results during Wednesday's extended trading hours. Cloudera, which closed its acquisition of its rival Hortonworks in January, reported fourth-quarter earnings loss of USD 45 cents per share on revenue of USD 144.5 Million. Analysts had expected an adjusted loss of 11 cents per share on revenue of USD 121 Million. Cloudera also forecast that the earnings loss will continue to be a problem going into the next quarter, as the Company forecasts a loss of USD 32 cents to USD 36 cents per share, on revenue in the range of USD 835 Million to USD 855 Million. Analysts are, meanwhile, expecting an earnings loss of USD 26 cents per share. For our latest "Buzz on the Street" Show featuring "Earnings Recap" please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P1RPW86jM MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ: MDB) stock price soared by over 25% on Thursday after crushing its fourth-quarter earnings result. For the quarter, MongoDB reported an earnings loss of USD 17 cents per share on revenue of USD 85.5 Million, whereas analysts had expected earnings loss of USD 38 cents per share on revenue of USD 74 Million. MongoDB's stronger quarter was driven by the number of companies adopting its database platform to drive their business performances. The Company reported that its subscription revenue increased by 73% to USD 80.6 Million for the quarter while services revenue grew by 37% year-over-year to USD 4.9 Million. For our latest "Buzz on the Street" Show featuring "Earnings Recap" please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P1RPW86jM Domo, Inc. (NASDAQ: DOMO) reported its fourth quarter financial results after market close on Wednesday and surpassed its estimates, sending shares 26.8% higher at the opening on Thursday. For the quarter, Domo reported an earnings loss of USD 94 cents per share on revenue of USD 39.4 Million. Analysts' forecast had pointed to an earnings loss of USD 1.24 per share on revenue of USD 37.76 Million. For the next quarter, Domo forecast its net loss per share to be in the range of USD 1.26 to USD 1.30, on revenue expectations between USD 40.0 Million to USD 41.0 Million. For our latest "Buzz on the Street" Show featuring "Earnings Recap" please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P1RPW86jM Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) reported its first quarter financial results after market close on Thursday. Adobe beat both earnings and revenue estimates for the quarter. For the fourth quarter, Adobe reported earnings of USD 1.71 per share on record quarterly revenue of USD 2.6 Billion. Analysts had only expected earnings of USD 1.62 per share on revenues of USD 2.59 Billion. For the second quarter, Adobe expects earnings of USD 1.77 per share on revenue of USD 2.7 Billion, primarily led by the growth in its digital media and digital experience segments. Subscribe Now! Watch us report LIVE https://www.youtube.com/FinancialBuzzMedia Follow us on Twitter for real time Financial News Updates: https://twitter.com/financialbuzz Follow and talk to us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financialbuzz Facebook Like Us to receive live feeds: https://www.facebook.com/Financialbuzz/ About FinancialBuzz.com FinancialBuzz.com, a leading financial news informational web portal designed to provide the latest trends in Market News, Investing News, Personal Finance, Politics, Entertainment, in-depth broadcasts on Stock News, Market Analysis and Company Interviews. A pioneer in the financially driven digital space, video production and integration of social media, FinancialBuzz.com creates 100% unique original content. 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FinancialBuzz.com, members and affiliates are not responsible for any gains or losses that result from the opinions expressed on this editorial or Site, company profiles, quotations or in other materials or presentations that it publishes electronically or in print. Investors accept full responsibility for any and all of their investment decisions based on their own independent research and evaluation of their own investment goals, risk tolerance, and financial condition. FinancialBuzz.com. By accessing this editorial and website and any pages thereof, you agree to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, as may be amended from time to time. None of the content issued by FinancialBuzz.com constitutes a recommendation for any investor to purchase, hold or sell any particular security, pursue a particular investment strategy or that any security is suitable for any investor. This publication is provided by FinancialBuzz.com. Each investor is solely responsible for determining whether a particular security or investment strategy is suitable based on their objectives, other securities holdings, financial situation needs, and tax status. You agree to consult with your investment advisor, tax and legal consultant before making any investment decisions. We make no representations as to the completeness, accuracy or timeless of the material provided. All materials are subject to change without notice. Information is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed. For our full disclaimer, disclosure and Terms of Use, please visit: http://www.FinancialBuzz.com. For further information: Media Contact: info@financialbuzz.com +1-877-601-1879 Url: http://www.FinancialBuzz.com STOCKHOLM, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Itiviti, a leading technology and service provider to financial institutions worldwide, today announced the appointment of Robert N. Mackay as the company's new Chief Executive Officer, starting April 1. The Itiviti Board of Directors has carried out a thorough search process to find a new CEO. Rob Mackay was selected for the position by virtue of his experience as a successful industry executive with a strong track record and customer focus. Rob joins Itiviti from Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), the world's largest provider of banking technology solutions. He brings decades of experience and most recently was Chief Operating Officer for the FIS Cross-Asset Trading & Risk business unit. His previous management experience includes positions as Chief Operating Officer of Hedge Funds & Risk and Managing Director of Alternative Investments. "We are very pleased to welcome Rob Mackay as the new CEO of Itiviti. Rob has a strong track record in creating value and driving growth in finance and trading industry businesses. We are confident that his excellent sales background and solid understanding of customer needs makes him the right leader to take Itiviti to the next level, as an innovative and supportive partner to our customers," said Per E. Larsson, Chairman of the Board, Itiviti. "Itiviti is a very impressive company with a strong offering and great, dedicated people. I'm looking forward to be part of the team, contributing to its continued development and delivering the service, solutions and innovation that customers require to support their business and strategic ambitions," said Rob Mackay, incoming CEO of Itiviti. Following the merger with Ullink in 2018 and after a year of integration, Itiviti recently announced updated solutions and services portfolios spanning asset classes and trading applications, in parallel with the launch of a new, re-energized Itiviti brand. Guided by the vision to evolve trading for the augmented age, Itiviti is a true business partner that can change the way customers connect and trade, enabling firms to stay one step ahead and move quickly to seize opportunities in global markets and capture tomorrow. About Itiviti Itiviti enables financial institutions worldwide to evolve their trading and capture tomorrow. With innovative technology, deep expertise and a dedication to service, we help customers seize market opportunities and guide them through regulatory change. Top-tier banks, brokers, trading firms and institutional investors rely on Itiviti's solutions to service their clients, connect to markets, and trade smarter in all asset classes by consolidating trading platforms and leveraging automation to move faster. A global technology and service provider, we offer the most innovative, consistent and reliable connectivity and trading solutions available. With presence in all major financial centers and serving around 2,000 customers in over 50 countries, Itiviti delivers on a global scale. For more information, please visit www.itiviti.com Itiviti is owned by Nordic Capital. For further information, please contact: Per E. Larsson, Chairman of the Board, Itiviti, Tel: +46-8-506-477-79 Christine Blinke, Chief Marketing Officer, Itiviti, Tel. +46-739-01-02-01, Email: christine.blinke@itiviti.com This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/itiviti-group-ab/r/rob-mackay-appointed-new-ceo-of-itiviti,c2765035 The following files are available for download: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 18, 2019 / Prophecy Development Corp. ("Prophecy" or the "Company") (TSX:PCY, OTCQX:PRPCF, Frankfurt:1P2N) announces Mongolian Ulaan Ovoo Mine start up in March and approximately 21,000 tonnes of coal production and sales. Multiple local and international consumers have expressed interest to buy Ulaan Ovoo coal; Prophecy is pleased with the rate of progress and plans to report quarterly sales and operational update. Pictures and video are available at www.prophecydev.com. With nameplate production capacity of 2 million tonnes per year, Ulaan Ovoo is a fully-permitted large coal field featuring a single, massive coal seam of 40 to 80 metre thickness outcropping at surface with a low strip ratio carrying minimal technical risk. As reported in the Company news release dated October 16, 2018, that the Company executed a lease agreement (the "Lease") with an arms-length private Mongolian company (the "Lessee") whereby the Lessee performs mining operations at Prophecy's Ulaan Ovoo coal mine, and will pay Prophecy $2 (the "Production Royalty") for every tonne of coal shipped from the Ulaan Ovoo site premises. The Lessee is responsible for all capital and operating expenses, government taxes and royalties related to Ulaan Ovoo operation. Since the signing of the Lease, the Lessee has spent approximately $700,000 on supplies, housing and crew and restarted Ulaan Ovoo with its own equipment. Lessee plans to start double shifts is April to meet demand. About Ulaan Ovoo: Ulaan Ovoo is located in northern Mongolia, 17km from the Zeltura border to Russia by dirt road, and 120km by road from Mongolia's Sukhbaatar railway station (which connects to the Trans-Siberian railway network). Ulaan Ovoo produced over 500,000 tonnes of coal from 2012 to 2014 which was sold to 28 separate Russian and Mongolian customers such as Erdenet Copper Mining Corporation, UB Railway, and Khutul Cement before it was put on standby in 2014. The benchmark Newcastle thermal coal price has rebounded from a 2014 low of $61 per tonne to a current price of $98 per tonne, which are levels not seen since 2011. Ulaan Ovoo features an average strip ratio of 1.8 BCM waste/tonne of coal. The coal mined yielded 5,000 kcal/kg GCV, less than 1% sulphur and low ash (8 to 11%) which is well-suited for power plants, cement plants and heat boiler applications. Wardrop Engineering (Tetra Tech) estimated 174 Mt of measured and 34 Mt of indicated coal resources in an NI 43-101 prefeasibility study in 2010. All prices are in USD Qualified Person The technical contents of this news release have been prepared under the supervision of Danniel Oosterman, VP, Exploration. Mr. Oosterman is not independent of the Company in that he is employed as a consultant to the Company and most of his income is derived from the Company. Mr. Oosterman is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101. About Prophecy Prophecy is developing the Gibellini project - the only large-scale, open-pit, heap-leach vanadium project of its kind in North America. Located in Nevada, Gibellini is currently undergoing EPCM and Permit preparation. Prophecy also has mining projects in Mongolia and Bolivia. Further information on Prophecy can be found at www.prophecydev.com. PROPHECY DEVELOPMENT CORP. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "John Lee" Executive Chairman For more information about Prophecy, please contact Investor Relations: +1.888.513.6286 ir@prophecydev.com www.prophecydev.com Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this news release, including statements which may contain words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", or similar expressions, and statements related to matters which are not historical facts, are forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations regarding Prophecy's future growth, results of operations, performance, business prospects and opportunities, are based on certain factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These estimates and assumptions are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and other uncertainties and contingencies, many of which, with respect to future events, are subject to change and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made by Prophecy. In making forward-looking statements as may be included in this news release, Prophecy has made several assumptions that it believes are appropriate, including, but not limited to assumptions that: all required third party contractual, regulatory and governmental approvals will be obtained for the development, construction and production of Prophecy's properties and the Chandgana power plant; there being no significant disruptions affecting operations, whether due to labour disruptions or other causes; currency exchange rates being approximately consistent with current levels; certain price assumptions for vanadium, silver, coal and other metals, prices for and availability of fuel, parts and equipment and other key supplies remain consistent with current levels; production forecasts meeting expectations; the accuracy of Prophecy's current mineral resource estimates; labour and materials costs increasing on a basis consistent with Prophecy's current expectations; any additional required financing will be available on reasonable terms; and market developments and trends in global supply and demand for vanadium, energy, silver, coal and other metals meeting expectations. Prophecy cannot assure you that any of these assumptions will prove to be correct. Numerous factors could cause Prophecy's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, including the following risks and uncertainties, which are discussed in greater detail under the heading "Risk Factors" in Prophecy's most recent Management Discussion and Analysis and Annual Information Form as filed on SEDAR and posted on Prophecy's website: Prophecy's history of net losses and lack of foreseeable positive cash flow; exploration, development and production risks, including risks related to the development of Prophecy's mineral properties; Prophecy not having a history of profitable mineral production; commencing mine development without a feasibility study; the uncertainty of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates; the capital and operating costs required to bring Prophecy's projects into production and the resulting economic returns from its projects; foreign operations and political conditions, including the legal and political risks of operating in Bolivia and Mongolia, which are developing countries and being subject to their local laws; the availability and timeliness of various government approvals, permits and licenses; the feasibility, funding and development of Prophecy's projects; protecting title to Prophecy's mineral properties; environmental risks; the competitive nature of the mining business; lack of infrastructure; Prophecy's reliance on key personnel; uninsured risks; commodity price fluctuations; reliance on contractors; Prophecy's need for substantial additional funding and the risk of not securing such funding on reasonable terms or at all; foreign exchange risk; anti-corruption legislation; recent global financial conditions; the payment of dividends; the inability of insurance to cover all potential risks associated with mining operations; conflicts of interest; and cyber-security risks related to the Company's reliance on information technology systems. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on Prophecy's forward-looking statements. Prophecy believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release and the documents incorporated by reference herein are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. In addition, although Prophecy has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Prophecy undertakes no obligation to release publicly any future revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as expressly required by law. SOURCE: Prophecy Development Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/539222/Prophecy-Announces-Ulaan-Ovoo-Mine-Start-and-Coal-Sales-in-Mongolia Artprice and Artron are adapting their 2019 strategy to the Art Market dimension of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that will be presented by President Xi Jinping this week in France. As part of China's Presidential visit to Europe this week, Mr Xi Jinping will be in France to promote China's New Sild Road over-arching development strategy known officially as "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) or the "Belt and Road Initiative" (the BRI). The Belt and Road Initiative covers approximately 65 countries in Asia and Europe, for a total estimated cost of 55% of global GDP. It involves 70% of the global population - 4.4 billion people - and 75% of the world's energy reserves, with the total estimated investment period spanning 30 to 35 years for all the projects to be completed. [https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2019/03/one-belt-one-road-obor-bri.jpg] Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Artprice - Artron - Art Market The estimated cost of the first projects stands around 900 billion dollars, for which China is said to consider loans that could amount to 8 trillion dollars, for the future infrastructures in the different countries along the new Silk Road. In his editorial for the 21th Global Art Market Annual Report co-published by Artprice and Artron last week, Mr Wan Jie, Chairman of Artron Group, Artprice's Chinese Institutional partner, stated: "This growth (of the art market) over time, like that of Artron's partnership with Artprice, will continue to accelerate as we integrate our resources, optimize our data, upgrade our Internet technology and diversify our business cooperation models. The result will be a New Silk Road connecting the different art worlds and the markets of the East and the West." In his speech during celebrations marking China's 40 years of reform and economic opening, President Xi Jinping, announced new measures to strengthen China's domestic market, measures that Artprice and Artron have immediately incorporated. In order to best meet the requirements of China's huge domestic market and take full advantage of its economic potential, Artprice has agreed with Artron to further deepen its role in China via the creation and implementation, by the Artron group, of a payment platform as well as various Chinese infrastructures in order to adapt to the new measures announced in February 2019. In this context, Artprice, with Artron, will launch its official campaign with a new Chinese brand name and a new baseline in Chinese that will be communicated to the market before the end of March. This originally unplanned initiative - in compliance with the 2019 Chinese measures announced last month and effectively leading to a "new strategy' - has slightly postponed Artprice's initial targets, which otherwise remain unchanged. thierry Ehrmann: "By becoming a Chinese brand for China - taking into account the specific tastes of Chinese art lovers, collectors and professionals - Artprice is blending into the history and daily life of China's thousand-year-old culture, thereby boosting its notoriety and its sales turnover more quickly". More than ever, one of Artprice's primary objectives is to meet the needs of China's administration and its 34 provinces. This notably includes the requirements of China's customs services in setting up an operational tax base for artworks (where applicable). Besides these initiatives concerning China's domestic market, Artprice has become a member of the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons (launched in 1921). Created at the initiative of the City of Lyons, the Lyons Chamber of Commerce and the ADERLY, the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons has already brought together many institutional and private partners like Groupe SEB, EDF and the Bank Of China and it defines itself, among other things, as a networking facilitator for contacts at the highest levels in France and China. The mission of this Institute is the international promotion of France and the economic attractiveness of the Lyons region by promoting the economic advantages of Lyons in China and encouraging Chinese investment in the Rhone-Alpes region. It is perfectly logical that Artprice should join the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons because Lyons is historically one of the historical final destinations of Silk Roads since the Renaissance. Lyons is also the most visited French city by Chinese leaders. Moreover, after launching the project for an "Economic corridor traversing countries crossed by the old Silk Road" in 2013, President Xi Jinping made an official visit to Lyons in 2014. Indeed, the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons is born precisely in this context and it intends - with its historical connections (since 1921) - to give new impetus to the future of relations between Lyons and China, an impetus that Artprice fully endorses. Copyright 2019 thierry Ehrmann - www.artprice.com Try our services (free demo): https://www.artprice.com/artist/23640/baishi-qi Subscribe to our services: https://www.artprice.com/subscription About Artprice: Artprice is listed on the Eurolist by Euronext Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC - Reuters: ARTF. Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who certified Biography ) (c) https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2019/03/2019-bio-whoswho-thierry-ehrmann.pdf ). Dicover Artprice in video: https://www.artprice.com/video Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians. Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label) Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2018 published last March 2019: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2018 Artprice is associated with Artron Group the Chinese leader in the Art Market, its solid institutional partner. About the Artron Group: "Artron Art Group (Artron), a comprehensive cultural industrial group founded in 1993 by Wan jie, is committed to inheriting, enhancing and spreading art value. Based on abundant art data, Artron provides art industry and art fans with professional service and experience of quality products by integrated application of IT, advanced digital science and innovative crafts and materials. Having produced more than 60,000 books and auction catalogues, Artron is the world's largest art book printer with a total print volume of 300 million a year. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website." Artron's Web: www.Artron.net Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report for 2017 - free access at: Artprice's press releases: http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseen.htm https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom Artmarket News: https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom & https://twitter.com/artmarketdotcom https://www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom 3.8 million subscribers http://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/ Discover the Alchemy and the universe of Artprice http://web.artprice.com/video, which headquarters are the famous Museum of Contemporary Art, the Abode of Chaos: https://issuu.com/demeureduchaos/docs/demeureduchaos-abodeofchaos-opus-ix-1999-2013 https://vimeo.com/124643720 The Contemporary Art Museum The Abode of Chaos https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 3.6 million subscribers Contact: ir@artprice.com ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Recevez gratuitement par email les prochains communiques de la societe en vous inscrivant sur www.actusnews.com Communique integral et original au format PDF:Telecharger le PDF CHENGDU, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / March 18, 2019 / Since Justin Sun announced that VenaPi wallet fully dedicated to Tron public chain, VenaPi has soon won favor of users and spread across the world. VenaPi has users in more than 30 countries and regions, and has become the most international wallet in Tron. Many Dapp ranking agencies, including DAppRadar, give high praise to VenaPi and till now, active users of VenaPi have exceeded 3000 and is still growing exponentially. In January 2019, Ching Zhu, VenaPi CEO was invited to San Francisco to participate in niTROn Summit. In the summit, Ching talked with Justin Sun about roadmap of VenaPi and has won great recognition. Quality Services and Rich DApp Resources At present, VenaPi has partnered with more than 80 DApps, including 60 games, 5 exchanges, 15 tools. VenaPi team has been working hard to provide quality services to users as well as DApp projects. For example, the star Dapp - HashDice, once hit the top three in Tron Dapp rankings, chose to firstly launch in VenaPi and support VENA Token rolling. VenaPi team has helped Dapps quickly won a lot of attention from Dapp players. Vminer, a mining Dapp also chose to firstly introduce in VenaPi wallet. As a global Wallet + Dapp Browser, VenaPi supports 14 languages including Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, etc. Users from all over the world can easily use VenaPi in mobile phone anytime and anywhere. VenaPi provides rich DApp resources. The T-Bank Dapp, which is a co-development project by VenaPi team, allowing users to obtain energy resources and save users a lot of cost compared to paying TRX directly. For users, if they do not want to sacrifice liquidity by freezing large amount of TRX for energy, T-Bank offers them a new option and help save money. VenaPi also helps a lot of Dapps gain attention from users, for example, VenaPi provides airdrops tool which has issued airdrops for more than a dozen projects, attracting more than 10,000 users. Web version of VenaPi is also on the way. You can find VenaPi in Google Play and you can also download it directly through the official website https://venapi.net/#/en. Dedicated to Tron Ecosystem VenaPi is working product of Vena Network, which won investment from famous investment fund including LD capital, Consensus Lab, DigiFinex, Transference fund and so on. VENA Token is now listed in Lbank, ABCC and Ddex, and will soon list its TRX trading pair in ABCC on 18th March together with BTT, SEED, IGG, TERC. VenaBao is another working product of Vena Network, which is a popular investment management product. The VENA team has won a lot of prizes with excellent products. On August 10th, 2018, at the 2018 Finwise Summit (Hong Kong), Vena Network won the 'New Blockchain Technology Award' at the awards ceremony of the summit. Ching Zhu, CEO of Vena Network, was invited to the summit and received the award. That day, the winners also included Binance, Canaan, Gate.io, etc. In East Asia, VenaPi has built communities of more than 10,000 people, and held offline meetings in Vietnam, Thailand, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Singapore. lCO Analytics has picked Vena as the highlights of crypto exchanges investments in 2018. In this month, Ching, CEO of VenaPi, was again invited to a live stream in the community of famous Taiwan blockchain media, Blockchaintimes, and talked about the VenaPi and why chose to be dedicated to TRON ecosystem. VenaPi has explored cooperation opportunities with many TRON SRs like CryptoDiva, Sesameseed, and perfectly supported BTT airdrop. Acquiring Tron101, Expanding user coverage VenaPi has acquired Tron101, one of the largest TRON information platform in China, and has extended strategic cooperation with DAPPX community, keeping the advantage in content. VenaPi has communities in Russia, USA, Canada, China, Singapore, Vietnam and a lot of countries and regions,which will keep VenaPi as one of the most popular wallet + Dapp Browser in Tron. Contact us Website: https://venapi.net/#/en Community website: tron.venapi.net Twitter: https://twitter.com/VenaProtocol Contact Email: zhouhaiqin@outlook.com SOURCE: VenaPi View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/539385/VenaPi--One-of-The-Most-Popular-Wallet-in-TRON The European Investment Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares The European Investment Trust plc ("the Company") The Company announces that on 18 March 2019 it purchased the following number of its ordinary shares of 25 pence each on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Ordinary Shares: Date of purchase: 18 March 2019 Number of ordinary shares purchased: 20,000 Lowest price per share 807p Highest price per share 807p The Company intends to cancel the purchased shares. Following the above transaction, the Company has 40,491,769 ordinary shares in issue. Each of the Company's shares carries one vote. Accordingly, the total number of voting rights of the Company is 40,491,769. 18 March 2019 LEI: 213800QNN9EHZ4SC1R12 Enquiries: Kenneth J Greig Edinburgh Partners AIFM Limited Tel: 0131 270 3800 The Company's registered office address is: Beaufort House 51 New North Road Exeter EX4 4EP 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. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 18, 2019 / Unity Metals Corp. (the "Company") (TSXV: UTY) is pleased to announce that the company has engaged Condor Consulting Inc. of Lakewood, Colorado to complete a detailed interpretation of geophysical datasets at the Margurete and Hewitt Point gold projects, collectively the Phillips Arm Gold Camp. Condor Consulting is a preeminent geophysical interpretation company with four full time geophysicists, a principal geologist, two consultants and two technical support staff. All of Condor's professionals have had extensive industry experience as long-term employees of either mining companies or major service groups. Collectively the group has been awarded three PhDs and two MSc. degrees in geophysics and geology. The interpretation will be performed on VTEM (Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic) datasets, collected by Geotech Ltd. of Ontario, Canada, a leader in airborne geophysical data acquisition. The VTEM survey produced information about subsurface magnetics and conductivity, both of which are essential in understanding how alteration events have produced the gold mineralization in the Phillips Arm Gold Camp. The survey covered an area of 53 square kilometres, 506-line kilometres with 100m spacing, and effectively collected data on all of the primary targets identified at Margurete and Hewitt Point. The interpretation will be combined with other historical datasets to help refine targets and advance exploration. The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Peter Born, PGeo, a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101. About the Company Burlington, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 18, 2019) - Evertz Microsystems Ltd. (TSX: ET) ("Evertz"), a global leader in video infrastructure solutions for the broadcast and media industries, announced today that it has filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Lawo AG, a German entity, Lawo Inc., a US entity and Lawo North America Corp, a Canadian entity ("Lawo") in the United States Federal District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuit asserts that Lawo infringes seven patents relating to Evertz' Internet protocol (IP) based video routing and switching technology and multi-image multi-display video processing technology. Evertz was an early pioneer in the development of IP based video broadcast systems. "Evertz prides itself on leading the industry with cutting edge products. We spent many years and tens of millions to develop our industry leading IP based broadcast solutions." stated CEO Romolo Magarelli, "We are taking this legal action to protect our investment and our intellectual property." The Delaware lawsuit will proceed in parallel with a prior litigation filed by Evertz in the Superior Court of Ontario against Lawo and several former Evertz employees for breach of contract, breach of confidence and other torts. A copy of the US District Court claim can be downloaded here or by accessing the following link: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/1808/43485_65016_evertz-first-amended-complaint.pdf About Evertz Evertz Microsystems Ltd. designs, manufactures and markets video and audio infrastructure solutions for the television, telecommunications and new-media industries. Evertz provides complete end-to-end solutions to content creators, broadcasters, specialty channels and television service providers to support their increasingly complex multi-channel digital, ultra high definition (UHD) and next generation high bandwidth low-latency IP network environments. Evertz' solutions enable its customers to generate additional revenue while reducing costs through the more efficient signal routing, distribution, monitoring and management of content as well as the automation of previously manual processes. For additional information, visit www.evertz.com. Contact Information Evertz Technologies Limited Anthony Gridley Chief Financial Officer 905-335-7580 ir@evertz.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/43485 As Tibetans across the world mark the 60th anniversary of the uprising, the stories of those who returned offer an insight into the journey that is home. The Tibetans who followed the Dalai Lama after he fled to India in 1959 chose to live in makeshift houses, in the hope that the arrangement was temporary and they would go back home soon. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans have since followed the Dalai Lama in exile. While the majority still lives in India, Nepal and Bhutan, many have moved to a third country and quite a few have made the journey home. The returnees, as they are called, are a less-talked-about dimension of the Sino-Tibetan conundrum. As Tibetans across the world mark the 60th anniversary of the uprising, the stories of those who returned collected over years of travel to China offer an insight into the journey that is home. For many who left Tibet at a young age to study in Tibetan schools in India and also get the blessings of the Dalai Lama, the return journey is to the longed-for homeland and also to take care of ageing parents who were left behind. At least these were the reasons that brought Akam, who I befriended in Chengdu, back to Tibet. It is not difficult to spot a returnee in a crowd of local Tibetans, or insiders as they are called. Like most, Akam, too, is fluent in English and Hindi and doesnt have the demeanour of a local. Akam is the youngest of six siblings and all of them but one left for India when they were young. Akam was 16 and returned home after some seven years. All the siblings, but one, are back, he says. Most returnees have set up small businesses-restaurants, hotels and travel agencies. One of the people I met was taking online classes in English. Like India, people in China, too, are keen to learn the language and returnees have an edge. Another person dabbles in web development, coming from India that seemed the logical thing to do. They are enterprising but face several challenges. The biggest of all-- adapting to a new environment, for the second time in their life. Some lack Chinese language skills, which add to the problem. Certificates from exile schools are nothing but pieces of paper, which are of little help in continuing education. When I brought this up, Akams answer was a Tibetan proverb: if one wants to learn swimming, there is no need to read a book about it; one can just be thrown or jump into the water and learning would happen naturally. Akam has partnered with three friends to set up a restaurant and is doing well for himself. He doesnt regret leaving India, where, according to him, opportunities for Tibetans are limited. The reverse is also true. Many young people head to India in hope of a better life, but are bitterly disappointed like a 20- something man -- we will call him Gyantse I met in Dharamsala in 2015. Gyantse was a receptionist at a hotel and also an assistant to a travel agent. Money was poor but there was little he could do. He had dropped out of the Tibetan Transit School (TTS) in Dharamsala, set up to help the young make the transition and pick up livelihood skills. Returning home to parents was not an option; he faced uncertainty on both social and economic fronts. Two more young men, both waiters in Dharamsala restaurants, found themselves in a similar situation, helpless and dejected. Akam, too, went to TTS, now called Sherab Gatsel Lobling School, where he was taught Tibetan, English, computer and vocational skills such as tailoring and painting. After finishing school and after trying his hand at dishwashing and some computer skills, Akam decided to go back to Tibet. If he hadnt, he would have ended up as another language teacher or something like that, he says. Though money is limited, he and around 30 returnee friends have pooled in funds to help educate children in his native area. He complains that the local Tibetans, often referred to as insiders, tend to boast and seek acclaim for the smallest act of charity, which is unacceptable. Perhaps this is where the complexity of being both an insider and an outsider play out. People like Akam, who were born in Tibet and grew up there, have a stronger sense of belonging unlike those born in exile. Yet, Akam and likes of him cant identify with those who never went to India. It is understandable why they -- or at least the ones I met are a tightly knit group who look out for each other. They are partners in business and each others support system as well. These days, fewer people are leaving Tibet. There, however, still be a sizeable number of potential escapees and potential returnees, the ones who will continue to traverse this universe of uncertainty and precarity. And, then there are people from nomadic and pastoral families who cannot afford to return and will continue to live away from parents and siblings for the greater part of their lives. There are still others who are India-born, have never been to Tibet but dream of going there one day. Many of them have chosen to live as stateless citizens, so cant take up government jobs for lack of documentation. They are waiting in hope -- of acquiring scholarships to universities in the West or migrate. But, there is no telling how long the wait will be. CAIT, in a statement, also claimed that 'such hawala money might be transferred to Pakistan for conducting terrorist activities'. New Delhi: Traders' body Confederation of All India Traders Sunday urged the government to probe Chinese goods imported through hawala channels, which is resulting in huge revenue loss to the exchequer. CAIT, in a statement, also claimed that "such hawala money might be transferred to Pakistan for conducting terrorist activities". Calling it a serious matter, the traders' body urged the government to start a high-level enquiry at Indian ports to bring an end to the crony nexus. "Who are these hawala operators who facilitate the transfer of money from our country to China. Are exports to China being under invoiced and difference settled through hawala transactions or there is some other mode through which this money is going. This needs to be checked at the highest level in the interest of the security of our country," it added. Stating that India is facing a big fight against terrorism, CAIT said, "There is no doubt that someone is funding this terrorist activity. It is necessary to understand whether this funding can be linked to under invoicing of import from China. In this way, China is helping fund terrorist". This aspect also needs to be investigated in view of the fact that China is not standing with India in its fight against terrorism, it added. CAIT National President BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that in order to attract lower custom duty and lower IGST (Integrated Goods and Service Tax), the declaration in many cases do not match the material that is actually being imported. This needs verification of documents along with the material that is imported from China, they said. They also suspected that "it could be collusion or hand in glove offer with certain mysterious officers". When such materials, which are grossly undervalued come to the port, custom duty is paid at a very low price. The IGST is also paid at a very lower price and then the material goes into grey market where it is sold at very competitive prices as compared to Indian goods where GST is paid at full amount, they said. According to CAIT, it could be easily substantiated if verification of IGST paid at customs port is linked to the credit for IGST taken by importers. "Surprisingly, it will be seen that in most of the cases, where Chinese goods have been imported, nobody has claimed IGST. This proves the point that the importer has sold the material in grey market for which nobody has claimed IGST paid at the time of imports," it said. If the government takes up this matter and is very vigilant that custom duty and IGST is recovered at the real value of imported material, Chinese goods will become costly automatically as compared to Indian goods which bear full amount of GST, the CAIT added. With the clouds of uncertainty darkening over the survival of his 25-year-old airline, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal on Monday sought to reassure the 16,000-strong staff of the efforts to restore the 'much-needed stability' in its operations at the earliest Mumbai: With the clouds of uncertainty darkening over the survival of his 25-year-old airline, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal on Monday sought to reassure the 16,000-strong staff of the efforts to restore the "much-needed stability" in its operations at the earliest. Since a larger number of its over 100-fleet are grounded leading to drastically curtailed operations, the airline is struggling to prevent a nose-dive somehow. Goyal, in a communication to employees on Monday evening also said talks with the airline's strategic partner Etihad Airways and SBI-led lenders are going on. The UAE carrier owns 24 percent in the airline. "Once again I assure you that I am personally committed to have the resolution process completed as soon as possible and restore the much-needed stability to our operations at the earliest," Goyal said in a letter to the staff who are apprehensive of their future with the airline. The airline is sitting on a debt pile of over Rs 8,200 crore and has defaulted thrice since January, including on some forex debt. On 14 February, its board had approved a bank-led-resolution plan, whereby the SBI-consortium of lenders will become the largest shareholders in the airline and Goyal would exit the management as the chairman and board member. If the resolution plans goes through, banks would convert a part of their debt into 11.4 crore shares for a consideration of Re 1 as per the RBI norms. Last week, SBI sounded hopeful of reaching an early solution by this week. "I personally want you to know that the situation, though complex, has my personal non-stop attention towards an early resolution...the complexity of the process though has led to some delays and will require further time to conclude," he said without offering a time-line. While discussions with the lessors continue, Goyal said as a responsible airline, Jet has "consciously" and "proactively" decided to curtail its schedule according to the number of aircraft it is currently operating. "This will ensure the sanctity of our schedule, while keeping the regulatory authorities briefed," he said. For the past few weeks, its passengers have been venting their ire on social media as its flight cancellations have increased gradually due to rising number of planes getting grounded. On the non-payment of salaries to pilots along with senior management and engineers, Goyal said he is fully committed to ensure that their dues are cleared on priority once all parties sign on the resolution plan. The pilots with other senior staff are to get their full salaries of January and February besides 87.5 percent of the December pay. By Andreas Framke and Tom Sims FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirmed on Sunday they were in talks about a merger, prompting labour union concerns about possible job losses and questions from analysts about the merits of a combination. Germany's two largest banks issued short statements following separate meetings of their management boards, a person with knowledge of the matter said, indicating a quickening of pace in the merger process, although both also warned that a deal was far from certain. 'In light of arising opportunities, the management board of Deutsche Bank has decided to review strategic options,' Deutsche said in its statement By Andreas Framke and Tom Sims FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirmed on Sunday they were in talks about a merger, prompting labour union concerns about possible job losses and questions from analysts about the merits of a combination. Germany's two largest banks issued short statements following separate meetings of their management boards, a person with knowledge of the matter said, indicating a quickening of pace in the merger process, although both also warned that a deal was far from certain. "In light of arising opportunities, the management board of Deutsche Bank has decided to review strategic options," Deutsche said in its statement. Christian Sewing, Deutsche Bank's chief executive, told employees that Deutsche still aimed "to remain a global bank with a strong capital markets business... with a global network". Sewing said many factors could still prevent a merger and a Deutsche spokesman said the talks were expected to last some time. Commerzbank described the outcome as open. However, formal disclosure of talks appeared to boost the chances of concluding a deal first floated in 2016 before the banks opted to focus on restructuring. The German government has pushed for a combination given concerns about the health of Deutsche, which has struggled to generate sustainable profits since the 2008 financial crisis. The government, which holds a stake of more than 15 percent in Commerzbank following a bailout, wants a national banking champion to support its export-led economy, best known for cars and machine tools. Berlin also wants to keep Commerzbank's speciality - the funding of medium-sized companies, the backbone of the economy - in German hands. "SHAKY ZOMBIE BANK" A merged bank would likely be the third largest in Europe after HSBC and BNP Paribas , with roughly 1.8 trillion euros ($2.04 trillion) in assets, such as loans and investments, and a market value of about 25 billion euros. However, sceptics questioned the wisdom of a merger. "We do not see a national champion here, but a shaky zombie bank that could lead to another billion-euro grave for the German state. Why should we take this risk?" said Gerhard Schick, finance activist and ex-member of the German parliament. While the banks had not publicly commented on merger talks until Sunday, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz last Monday confirmed that there were negotiations. On Sunday, the ministry acknowledged the announcement and said it remained in regular contact with all parties. However, there were signs of political opposition. Hans Michelbach, a lawmaker from the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union (CDU), urged the government to sell its 15 percent stake in Commerzbank before a deal. "There may not be an ownership by the federal government in a merged big bank indirectly through an old stake. We do not need a German State Bank AG," he told Reuters. The supervisory boards of both banks are scheduled to hold long-planned meetings on Thursday, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The status of merger negotiations is expected to be discussed. A merged bank would have one fifth of the German retail banking market. Together the two banks currently employ 140,000 people worldwide - 91,700 in Deutsche and 49,000 in Commerzbank. Germany's Verdi labour union on Sunday renewed its objections to a merger, saying that tens of thousands of jobs were at risk and that a tie-up added no value. Jan Duscheck, head of the union's banking division and a member of Deutsche's supervisory board, said the union would raise its concerns on both banks' oversight bodies. RISKS Deutsche emerged unscathed from the financial crash but later lost its footing. German officials fear a recession or big fine could derail the bank's fragile recovery. Other than Deutsche, Commerzbank is Germany's only remaining big publicly-traded bank, after a series of mergers. Commerzbank has also struggled to rebound, and German officials say it is vulnerable to a foreign takeover. If an international rival snapped it up, that would increase competition for Deutsche on its home turf. Initial reaction among analysts to a deal was sceptical. There will only be limited benefits of adding Commerzbank's clientele of retail and small and medium businesses to Deutsche, said David Hendler, an independent analyst at New York-based Viola Risk Advisors, which specializes in risk management. "It doesn't change the fact that Germany is not getting a flagship bank that can compete on the world stage. It's still a stunted bank with a lot of problems," Hendler said. One of the biggest risks is how to fill what one German official has told Reuters will be a multi-billion-euro financial hole because a merger could trigger an adjustment to the valuation of some bank investments. Commerzbank, for example, has about 30.8 billion euros of debt securities such as Italian bonds that now have a value of 27.7 billion euros. A tie-up could crystallise this loss. Deutsche has such securities at market value in its accounts.($1 = 0.8829 euros) ($1 = 0.8829 euros) (Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber in Berlin; Editing by Ed Taylor, Ludwig Burger, Keith Weir and Gareth Jones) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. According to the official, after the DGCA grounded all 12 of SpiceJet's 737 Max aircraft on 13 March following the Ethiopian Airlines crash, the problem of rising airfares in Indian market has 'aggravated' New Delhi: Aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has called a meeting on Tuesday noon to discuss with airlines the upward spiral in airfares as Jet Airways continues to ground its aircraft and cancel a significant number of flights, a government official said. According to the official, after the DGCA grounded all 12 of SpiceJet's 737 Max aircraft on 13 March following the Ethiopian Airlines crash, that killed 157 people, the problem of rising airfares in Indian market has "aggravated". "DGCA has called a meeting at Tuesday noon to discuss the airfare rise because of significant number of cancellations done by Jet Airways in the last few weeks," the government official told PTI. Cash-strapped Jet Airways on Monday said it has grounded four more planes, taking the number of aircraft that are non-operational due to non-payment of lease rentals to 41. Etihad Airport services, in a notification to its passengers on Sunday, said, "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from March 18 due to operational reasons". According to its website, the airline has a fleet of 119 planes. For last few weeks, passengers have been venting their ire on social media as Jet Airways' flight cancellations have increased gradually due to rising number of grounded aircraft. Grappling with financial woes, the carrier has been looking at ways to raise fresh funds. In a filing to the stock exchanges on Monday, the airline said, "An additional four aircraft have been grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under their respective lease agreements." The company had earlier said that it is actively engaged with all its aircraft lessors and are regularly providing them with updates on the efforts taken to improve the liquidity. On 8 March, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas seeking an urgent funding of Rs 750 crore and also warned that any delay in fund infusion might result in its grounding of the carrier, He had said that more than 50 of the aircraft are grounded amid increasing arrears of vendors and salaries to a section of employees. Jet Airways has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore and needs to make repayments of up to Rs 1,700 crore by the end of March. On 10 March, a 737 MAX aircraft operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed near Addis Ababa killing 157 people, including four Indians. This was second such crash involving the 737 MAX aircraft in less than five months. In October last year, an aircraft operated by Lion Air crashed killing over 180 people in Indonesia. Therefore, the DGCA on 13 March grounded all 12 of SpiceJet's 737 Max aircraft. By Tom Sims and John O'Donnell FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirmed on Sunday they were in talks about a merger, prompting labour union concerns about possible job losses and questions from analysts about the merits of a combination. By Tom Sims and John O'Donnell FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirmed on Sunday they were in talks about a merger, prompting labour union concerns about possible job losses and questions from analysts about the merits of a combination. Germany's two largest banks issued short statements after separate meetings of their management boards, a person with knowledge of the matter said, indicating a quickening of pace in the merger process, although both also warned that a deal was far from certain. WHY IS THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT WORRIED ABOUT DEUTSCHE BANK? Deutsche, the largest bank in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, emerged unscathed from the financial crash but later lost its footing. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund called the bank the world's biggest potential risk among peers to the financial system because of its links to other banks. German officials fear that a recession or big fine, for example, could derail the bank's fragile recovery. Berlin wants a reliable national banking champion to support its export-led economy, known for cars and machine tools. Deutsche and other European banks have taken longer to recover from the financial crisis, losing ground to stronger rivals from the United States. WHY COMMERZBANK? Other than Deutsche, Commerzbank is Germany's only remaining big bank, after a series of mergers. The government holds a 15 percent stake after bailing it out during the crisis, giving it an important voice. Commerzbank, like Deutsche, has struggled to rebound, and German officials say it is vulnerable to a foreign takeover. If an international rival snapped it up, that would increase competition for Deutsche on its home turf. Berlin also wants to keep Commerzbank's speciality - the funding of medium-sized companies, the backbone of the economy - in German hands. WHAT WOULD A COMBINED DEUTSCHE AND COMMERZBANK LOOK LIKE? The merged bank would have roughly 1.8 trillion euros in assets, such as loans and investments, and a market value of about 25 billion euros ($28 billion). It would have one fifth of the German retail banking market. Together, Deutsche and Commerzbank employ 140,000 people worldwide. A merger would put tens of thousands of jobs at risk, according to unions. WHO IS FOR AND WHO IS AGAINST A MERGER? Proponents of a merger include the German government and U.S. investor Cerberus, which is a shareholder in both banks. Opponents include some other shareholders in Deutsche Bank and labour unions. Deutsche's chief executive officer Christian Sewing would prefer to have more time to stabilise the bank before taking on a merger, people familiar with the matter have said. WHAT IS THE STATUS OF TALKS? On March 17, both banks held management board meetings and confirmed they were in talks about a merger, though both warned that a deal was far from certain. In February, Deutsche's management board gave Sewing the go-ahead for exploratory talks with Commerzbank, a person with knowledge of the matter said. There had been contacts among a small circle of executives. With the talks now out in the open, and Berlin still pushing for a deal, the companies are under pressure to figure out the mechanics of a fusion and decide whether or not it is workable. That decision is seen within weeks. WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF A MERGER? One of the biggest risks is how to fill what one German official has told Reuters will be a multi-billion-euro financial hole because a merger could trigger an adjustment to the valuation of some bank investments. Commerzbank, for example, has about 30.8 billion euros of debt securities such as Italian bonds that now have a value of 27.7 billion euros - a drop of 3.1 billion euros. A tie-up could crystallise this loss. Deutsche has such securities at market value in its accounts. The deal would make the German government a shareholder in the country's largest bank and executives would want to curb its influence. The two banks could also get bogged down with restructuring, such as integrating different technology systems, losing ground to rivals. DOES DEUTSCHE HAVE OTHER OPTIONS APART FROM A MERGER? German officials have held exploratory talks about merging Deutsche and UBS but there was little interest in Switzerland, people familiar with the matter have said. These officials believe that sticking with Deutsche's current course of cutting back costs and scaling back high-risk banking offers scant hope of a turnaround. The continued pressure from Berlin makes it harder for Deutsche to go it alone. Merging with a state-owned lender, in the officials' view, offers a safe harbour. If talks do unravel, however, Deutsche could respond to pressure from some investors to make further cuts to the investment bank, especially in the United States. WHY HAS DEUTSCHE HAD A LOT OF BAD PRESS? Deutsche has long been unpopular with ordinary Germans because it was seen by many as a symbol of capitalist excess. Its image has been tarnished by numerous lawsuits and billions of dollars in fines. These included an alleged "conspiracy" to rig the price of financial market bets and sham trades between Moscow and London that moved money from Russia abroad. In its latest financial report, Deutsche has set aside 1.2 billion euros for litigation. That is a fraction of earlier years but nonetheless more than three times its 2018 profit. WHAT IS DEUTSCHE DOING RIGHT? The bank has dealt with the bulk of legal action going back to the economic crash and has improved its finances. Announcing the first profit since 2014 last year, CEO Sewing said the group was "on the right track". But German officials are not convinced and have continued to push for talks with Commerzbank. Sewing has now bowed to that pressure. ($1 = 0.8850 euros) (Reporting by Tom Sims and John O'Donnell Editing by Jane Merriman and Gareth Jones) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The government has constituted an inter-ministerial panel for monitoring, sanctioning and implementation of projects under the Rs 10,000-crore FAME-II programme, aimed at incentivising clean mobility New Delhi: The government has constituted an inter-ministerial panel for monitoring, sanctioning and implementation of projects under the Rs 10,000-crore FAME-II programme, aimed at incentivising clean mobility. The Project Implementation and Sanctioning Committee will be chaired by the secretary in the Department of Heavy Industries and will have other members including NITI Aayog CEO, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade secretary, Department of Economic Affairs secretary and secretaries in the power and new and renewable energy ministry, among others. The Department of Heavy Industries, in an order, said the committee is constituted "for the purpose of overall monitoring, sanctioning and implementation of the scheme, with immediate effect and until further orders". The panel's terms of reference includes modifying coverage parameters for various components and sub-components of the scheme, reviewing demand incentives annually or earlier based on price and technology trends, modifying limits of fund allocations among different segments and types of vehicles, reviewing the cap for maximum incentive per vehicle, and deciding other scheme parameters for its smooth roll out. The Rs 10,000-crore programme under the second phase of the FAME India scheme will be implemented over a period of three years with effect from 1 April, 2019. Under phase-II of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India (FAME-II) scheme, 10 lakh registered electric two-wheelers with a maximum ex-factory price will be eligible to avail incentive of Rs 20,000 each. It will also support 5 lakh e-rickshaws having ex-factory price of up to Rs 5 lakh with an incentive of Rs 50,000 each. FAME-II will offer an incentive of Rs 1.5 lakh each to 35,000 electric four-wheelers with an ex-factory price of up to Rs 15 lakh, and incentive of Rs 13,000 each to 20,000 strong hybrid four-wheelers with ex-factory price of upto Rs 15 lakh. It will support 7,090 e-buses with an incentive of up to Rs 50 lakh each having ex-factory price of upto Rs 2 crore. The scheme will have a Rs 1,500-crore outlay in 2019-20; Rs 5,000 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 3,500 crore in 2021-22. It will cover buses with EV technology; electric, plug-in hybrid and strong hybrid four wheelers; electric three-wheelers including e-rickshaws and electric two-wheelers. FAME-II also proposes support for setting up of charging infrastructure whereby about 2,700 charging stations will be set up in metropolitan cities, other million-plus cities, smart cities and cities of hilly states across India. Jet Airways has been saddled with debt of over Rs 8,000 crore due to tight competition and rising fuel costs, forcing the carrier to ground several of its aircraft. Cash-crunched Indian carrier Jet Airways said on Monday it will delay paying interest to its debenture holder, due 19 March, owing to financial constraints, said a Reuters report. Jet Airways has been saddled with debt of over Rs 8,000 crore due to tight competition and rising fuel costs, forcing the carrier to ground several of its aircraft. Jet Airways did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment on payment-related details. The resolution plan for Jet Airways seems to have hit yet another hurdle as lenders reportedly told the crisis-hit airline's strategic partner Etihad Airways that it should exit if it cannot accept the terms to revive the troubled airline, according to a report in The Economic Times. The lenders reportedly told Etihad that it should exit so that a new investor could be brought in, said the report. Jet Airways has been looking at various ways to raise funds amid acute liquidity crunch that has forced it to ground aircraft, cancel flights in large numbers, shut down stations and delay salary payments to its pilots and engineers along with other senior staff. On 11 March, Jet Airways had defaulted on foreign loan repayment due to liquidity crunch, reported PTI. "... the part repayment of the external commercial borrowing availed by the company, for working capital purposes, falling due on 11 March, 2019, has been delayed owing to temporary liquidity constraints," the airline said in a filing to stock exchanges. On 8 March, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas seeking urgent funding of Rs 750 crore. State-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) had said last week that any decision to provide emergency funds to cash-strapped Jet would be taken collectively by the lenders and not on a standalone basis. The assertion came in the backdrop of media reports that PNB had approved Rs 2,050 crore of emergency funding to Jet Airways, for which lenders were considering a resolution plan under Project Sashakt. In a filing to exchanges, Jet Airways had earlier clarified it has not received any fresh loan from PNB. On Friday, the pilots' union of crisis-hit Jet Airways approached the government flagging concerns about salary arrears, saying that the situation is leading to extreme tension and frustration, according to a letter. The cash-strapped full service airline has been making delayed salary payment for the last few months. Against this backdrop, the National Aviator's Guild (NAG) a grouping of over 1,000 pilots of Jet Airways has written to Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar. In the letter, dated 6 March, the grouping has raised concerns about persistent delay in salary payment of member pilots. "This situation is leading to extreme tension and frustration amongst our members, hardly an ideal situation for pilots in the cockpit... All pleas to the management in this regard have fallen on deaf ears," the letter said. A Jet Airways spokesperson said it has not received any such communication. "The company remains committed to meet its salary obligations towards its employees and clearing all pending dues," the spokesperson said. With inputs from agencies Jet Airways has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore and needs to make repayments of up to Rs 1,700 crore by the end of March Mumbai: Jet Airways has grounded its operations at Abu Dhabi Airport from Monday for an indefinite period, citing operational reasons. Abu Dhabi is one of the two international hubs of Jet Airways. Dutch capital Amsterdam is the European gateway for the airline for its operations to Europe and beyond. "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from 18 March due to operational reasons," Etihad Airport services said in a notification to its passengers on Sunday. Etihad Airport Services is the ground handling arm of Jet Airways investment partner Etihad Airways. Abu Dhabi airport also serves as the main hub of the UAE's national carrier. "Further to the short notice of flight cancellation, (Abu Dhabi) hub may face minor disruption)," the company said in the statement. Responding to PTI queries on the cancellation of its operations from Abu Dhabi, the airline in a statement said, "Jet Airways has proactively taken certain adjustments to its flight schedule keeping in mind the likely yet interim non-availability of some aircraft in its fleet in the foreseeable future." Jet Airways has also informed the regulator directorate general of civil aviation and the passengers about these changes, it added. Jet Airways has been looking at various ways to raise funds amid acute liquidity crunch that has forced it to ground aircraft, cancel flights in large numbers, shutdown stations and delay salary payments to its pilots and engineers along with other senior staff. On 8 March, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas seeking an urgent funding of Rs 750 crore and also warned that any delay in fund infusion might result in its grounding of the carrier, saying more than 50 of the aircraft are grounded amid increasing arrears of vendors and salaries to a section of employees. Jet Airways has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore and needs to make repayments of up to Rs 1,700 crore by the end of March. It has already defaulted on an ECB payment earlier this week but is servicing its domestic debt. The Jet Airways board had on 14 February approved a bailout plan whereby the lenders led by the State Bank of India (SBI) would become the largest shareholders in the airline by converting the airline's debt into equity at a nominal price of Re 1. The Jet Airways bailout plan was approved by the shareholders on 21 February. The meeting assumes significance as it comes in the backdrop of drastically reduced operations and non-payment of salaries to pilots along with engineers and other senior staff for more than three months now. Mumbai: Jet Airways' domestic pilots body National Aviator's Guild (NAG) is set to hold its annual general meeting in the city on Tuesday, a source said on Monday. The meeting assumes significance as it comes in the backdrop of drastically reduced operations and non-payment of salaries to pilots along with engineers and other senior staff for more than three months now. The guild, which came into being almost a decade ago, represents around 1,000 domestic pilots at the airline. "We are holding our annual general meeting in Mumbai tomorrow. During the meeting, besides discussing our general issues, we will also be deliberating on the present scenario (non-payment of salaries)," the source told PTI. The pilots with other group of people have not received salary payments almost since December. Having failed to get any assurance from the management on payment of overdue salaries, the pilots body last week wrote to Union labour minister Santosh Gangwar, seeking his intervention in recovering their dues along with the accumulated interest. The Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways, which is partially owned by UAE flag carrier Etihad, is in financial distress for almost a year now with four consecutive quarters of losses. The severe liquidity crunch has forced it to ground aircraft, cancelling flights in huge numbers, shut down stations and delay salary payments to a group of staff. The airline has, so far, grounded 41 of its planes only on account of non-payment of lease rentals. These don't include other planes which have been taken out of operations owning to non-availability of funds for maintenance. The airline has, however, till date not shared the number of flights it has been cancelling for over a month now and neither the aviation regulator DGCA has shown any transparency on the issue. J&K Bank holds 5 percent stake in the insurance venture. New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Bank on Sunday said it proposes to sell its stake in PNB Metlife India to private equity player Oman India Joint Investment Fund II for Rs 185 crore. The bank has executed share purchase agreement with Oman India Joint Investment Fund II for sale of 4.1 crore shares of PNB MetLife India Insurance Company Ltd, Jammu and Kashmir Bank said in a regulatory filing. This would be subject to fulfilment of certain conditions precedent, which include requisite prior approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, it said. Jammu and Kashmir Bank holds 5 percent stake in the insurance venture. PNB MetLife India Insurance is a joint venture between MetLife International Holdings Inc, Punjab National Bank, Jammu and Kashmir Bank, M Pallonji and Company Pvt Ltd and other private investors. The state-run Punjab National Bank holds 26 percent stake in the venture, while the US-based MetLife has a 26 percent stake. India is facing an employment crisis. The unemployment rate in 2017-18 was 6.1 percent, the highest in 45 years, according to a suppressed survey of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) made public by Business Standard. Rather than address the situation, the government is engaged in a cover-up exercise. According to the Indian Express, the Labour Bureaus survey of jobs created under the Mudra loan scheme for micro and small enterprises has also been frozen, perhaps because it is not flattering. Despite tall talk, the governments indifference to jobs is evident at the Jajmau tannery cluster in Kanpur. Here, all but 26 of 266 operational units, most of them small (annual turnover of less than Rs 20 crore) have been closed since 26 December last year. They were shut down on the orders of the Uttar Pradesh government so that devotees could have a cleaner dip during the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad (or Prayagraj, to give it its official name). The order for closure was released by principal secretary environment Renuka Kumar in June, 2018 wherein she had issued directives to authorities concerned, including UP Pollution Control Board, Urban Development department and Jal Nigam to initiate closure of Unnao and Kanpur tanneries from 15 December 2018 to 15 March, 2019, a report in the Indian Express said. The Kumbh Mela got over on 4 March. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had reportedly stated that the tanneries would be reopened on 15 March. Last Friday, Feroz Alam, Executive Member of the Small Tanners Association of Jajmau was in Lucknow keeping track of the file for lifting the closure as it moved, according to him, from the Chief Secretary to the Environment Minister to the Chief Minister. But there was no relief. Jajmau is a British-era cluster. The first unit, according to Alam, came up here in 1905. Since then the invisible hand of the market has created a 12 square kilometre dusty network of narrow roads and exposed brick sheds, most of them nameless. Here, behind heavy sheet-metal gates, raw buffalo hide is converted into semi-finished leather or wet blue. The process takes three to seven days, and involves a host of chemicals: Ammonium sulphate, bate powder, common salt, sulphuric acid, sodium formate, basic chromium sulphate and sodium bicarbonate. The process is highly polluting. The effluent is treated in two stages: At the tannery premises, and then at a common effluent treatment plant (CETP). The CETP has a capacity of 36 million litres per day (MLD), of which 9 MLD is for tannery effluent and the rest 27 MLD for the citys sewage. The plant became operational in 1992five years after the Supreme Court ordered its construction. The Dutch government gave technical and financial assistance. The tanneries contributed 17.5 percent or Rs 3.7 cr of the project cost of Rs 21 crore. In 2000, the Uttar Pradesh government gave licenses for 180 more tanning units at the cluster taking the total to 400. At full capacity they would discharge 12 MLD of waste water. But only 266 were operational, according to Alam, when the first order to close down from 15 November was issued. The units opened on 8 December but have been shut since 26 December. The CETP discharge meets environmental norms, says Javed Iqbal, Chairman of the Council for Leather Exports, central region. Ironically, the treated water from the CETP does not flow into the Ganga. It is taken through an irrigation channel to fields. Farmers prefer the water because it is rich in plant nutrients, says Ashraf Rizwan, co-founder and Director of Homera Tanning Industries Limited, which has been operating in Jajmau since 1987. Rizwan has been representing the tanneries at the National Green Tribunal. According to Rizwan, the tanneries have been repeatedly urging the government to upgrade the CETP. In 2006, they had got a detailed project report done by IL&FS, the infrastructure financing and execution company that collapsed spectacularly last year. The tanneries have been closed for no fault of theirs, says Rizwan. To comply with the Chief Ministers order that no sewage should flow into the Ganga, the Kanpur administration diverted the citys sewage to the CETP, he says. The tanneries had to close down to make space. Kanpur District Magistrate Vijay Vishwas Pant says the tanneries were told to self-regulate and operate at half capacity for the duration of the Kumbh Mela. But their discharge was very high, he said, much more than the installed capacity. When this correspondent visited Jajmau in the second week of March, the heavy hand of the government was palpable. The tanning hub should have been buzzing because thousands of raw hides generated at the export-oriented buffalo meat exporting units in Unnao and Aligarh need to be processed. But there were only a few workers. Most of them are like migratory birdsthey come from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Unable to cope with the enforced holiday, they have returned home. Wali Mohammed of Wali Sweets House said his business has been severely hit. Gulzar Ahmed, who buys and sells tannery waste, said there will still be takers for Walis gujiyas but he has been knocked out flat. The 2016 Economic Survey said India must focus on boosting exports of garments and leather goods because every Rs 1 lakh invested in these industries creates 23.9 and 7.1 jobs respectively. Of these, 8.2 and 3.4 respectively are jobs for women, which have social spin-offs. The Survey pointed to the East Asian economiesThailand, Malaysia, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Chinabooming annual growth of 7-10 percent post-economic take-off was fuelled by exceptional export performance in garments and footwear. In footwear exports, the Tigers averaged 25 percent growth for 20 years; Koreas was a phenomenal 70 percent. Indias annual average was just 5.4 percent despite the largest cattle population in the world, an abundance of leather, and a large pool of skilled artisans. Indias leather and footwear exports rose from $5 billion in 2012-13 to 6.5 billion in 2014-15. They declined by 10 percent and 3.5 percent over the next two years. In 2017-18, exports rose by a weak 1.6 percent, but were still below the 2013-14 level and far below Indias potential. Uttar Pradesh contributes about 30 percent of leather and leather goods exports by value. The Jajmau closure has shaken foreign buyers, says Taj Alam of Kings International, an exporter based in Unnao. They have turned to suppliers in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam. At the Hong Kong leather show (12-15 March), a star industry event, foreign buyers were reluctant to do business with tanneries in Jajmau, says Rizwan. Some of the large tanners are hedging their bets. About 30 of them have got allotment letters for setting up units at the Calcutta Leather Complex in Bantala, says Iqbal. Some are planning to shift. He is not. I will set up a secondary unit, he says. But shifting is not a viable option, at least not for the small units. Rizwan says the central government has approved a second CETP only for use of the tanneries at a cost of more than Rs 500 cr. It will have a capacity for treating 18 MLD of tannery waste and 2 MLD of sewage that is generated in them. The CETP will be operated by the Jajmau Tannery Effluent Treatment Association as a non-profit company. The current CETP will be entirely used for treating municipal sewage. It was renovated last year. Kanpur District Magistrate Pant, says the Kanpur administration has recommended the lifting of closure of the tanneries to the state government. He says the closure should not be seen as a partisan decision. However, the community of tanners are not at all assured by that statement. (The author is a senior journalist) L&T will buyout Mindtree's largest shareholder VG Siddhartha and companies in which he is a promoter, following which an open offer will be sent to the public shareholders of Mindtree Construction firm Larsen & Toubro Ltd would spend up to Rs 7,000 crore ($1.02 billion) in a hostile bid to buy IT services company Mindtree Ltd, a media report said citing sources directly involved with the matter. L&T will buyout Mindtrees largest shareholder VG Siddhartha and companies in which he is a promoter, following which an open offer will be sent to the public shareholders of Mindtree, according to The Times of India report published on Monday. The AM Naik-helmed L&T is buying Siddharthas nearly 21 percent stake for over Rs 3000 crore, at Rs 981 rupees a share, which will make it Mindtrees largest shareholder. Following this, L&T will trigger an open offer for another 26 percent from public shareholders, the report said. Siddhartha, who is a promoter of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd and Coffee Day Trading Ltd, holds a 3.33 percent stake in Mindtree as of December-end, BSE data showed. Coffee Day Enterprises and Coffee Day Trading carry a combined 17.08 percent stake in Mindtree. Mindtree's co-founder and ex-CEO Subroto Bagchi on Sunday resigned from a government post "to save the company." An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me to resign from the Government to be able to go, save the company. I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers & saw chains to cut it down so that in its place, they can build a shopping mall. Subroto Bagchi (@skilledinodisha) March 17, 2019 Mindtree has not been designed as an asset to be bought & sold. It is a national resource. It has a unique culture that humanizes the idea of business. It sets the standards of corporate governance. I need to be there in its time of difficulty. Hence the hard decision to return Subroto Bagchi (@skilledinodisha) March 17, 2019 L&T will buy the 20.4 percent stake and will announce an open offer to buy up to 51 percent in Mindtree on Monday evening," an executive was quoted as saying by Mint. The four founders of Mindtree -- Subroto Bagchi, NS Parthasarathy, Krishnakumar Natarajan and Rostov Ravanan--together own 13 percent in the firm. Serial entrepreneur and veteran IT professional Ashok Soota, along with nine other industry professionals, had set up MindTree in August 1999. Mindtree posted 35.1 percent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 191.20 crore for the December 2018 quarter as against the year-ago period. Soota said he would 'see if L&T can pull this acquisition', to CNBC-TV18. Ashok Soota, co-founder of @Mindtree_Ltd in a #CNBCTV18Exclusive says will need to see if L&T can pull this acquisition. Don't think Mindtree's stakeholders will lose irrespective of the outcome pic.twitter.com/rGXFncmCHW CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) March 18, 2019 L&T was down 0.9 percent, while Mindtree rose 1.2 percent as of 12.30 pm. With inputs from agencies Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, in connivance with certain bank officials, allegedly cheated PNB to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore United Kingdom's Westminster Court has issued an arrest warrant against fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, accused in the $2 billion PNB fraud case, in response to an ED request for his extradition in a money laundering case, according to media reports. Arrest warrant issued against Nirav Modi by London Court and he is to be produced in court on 25 March, said CNN-News18 in a tweet. According to a UK media report last week, Nirav Modi is currently living in a three-bedroom flat occupying half of a floor of the landmark Centre Point tower block in London, where rent is estimated to cost 17,000 pounds a month. Sources To CNN-News18 | Arrest warrant issued against Nirav Modi by London Court; he is to be produced in court on March 25 pic.twitter.com/HeVqpy1ZrW CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) March 18, 2019 According to investigating agencies, Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, in connivance with certain bank officials, allegedly cheated PNB to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore through issuance of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs). These LoUs were allegedly issued in a fraudulent manner by a Mumbai branch of the PNB to the group of companies belonging to Nirav Modi since March 2011 till the fraud came to light in January 2018, the agencies have said. Modi, Choksi and other accused are facing charges under the PMLA Act and the Indian Penal Code in the fraud case which is being probed by multiple agencies, including the ED. Lookout notice against Modi's wife, Ami A special court in Mumbai on Friday issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Modi's wife, Ami. The warrant against Ami Modi was issued by Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Judge M S Azmi after he took cognisance of the supplementary chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Nirav Modi (48) and other accused a few days ago. The financial crime probe agency has alleged that Ami Modi used an international bank account to move $30 million, suspected to be proceeds of the scam. The funds were used to buy property located in New York's Central Park, the ED has said. In its supplementary chargesheet, the agency has recorded additional evidences gathered in the case and attachments made. (With PTI inputs) Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani has paid Rs 550 crore of dues and interest thereon to Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson with timely help from elder brother Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani has paid Rs 550 crore of dues and interest thereon to Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson with timely help from elder brother Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries. The Supreme Court had set a deadline of 19 March for Anil to pay the dues or face jail time. In a statement issued on Monday evening, RCom chief Anil thanked his brother Mukesh and Nita Ambani, saying he was deeply touched by their gesture. He also thanked them for standing by him in these trying times. Late last month, the apex court found Anil Ambani, chairman of the debt-laden firm, guilty of contempt of court for 'wilfully' failing to pay the Swedish telecom equipment maker. The court had ordered Ambani and two RCom directors to pay Ericsson the due amount within four weeks or face a three-month jail term for contempt of court. An RCom spokesperson stated: The requisite payment of Rs 550 crore and interest thereon to Ericsson has been completed today in compliance of the judgment of the Supreme Court. Anil D Ambani, chairman, RCOM, said, My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support. I and my family are grateful we have moved beyond the past, and are deeply touched with this gesture. In 2005, Mukesh and Anil fell out three years after the death of Dhirubhai Ambani, their father and founder of Reliance Industries and split up the business with Mukesh retaining all legacy businesses and Anil taking telecom. Anil's Reliance Telecommunications encountered problems after a few years and ran aground about three years ago. Meanwhile, Mukesh Ambani launched his digital business through Jio in 2016 and quickly climbed the charts to corner 70 percent of the mobile data market share. Although the acrimony of the first decade of the millennium eased up quite a bit during the last few years when both brothers were seen together at important family functions, this gesture of Mukesh stepping in to help his younger brother can be seen, as Anil has pointed out, as the burying of an unpleasant past. With inputs from agencies Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd which publishes Firstpost Change of name requires clearance from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, shareholders, stock exchanges, among others New Delhi: The IDBI Bank's proposal for changing its name has not found any favour from the Reserve Bank of India, sources said. The board of IDBI Bank last month proposed a change in the name of the lender to either LIC IDBI Bank or LIC Bank, following its takeover by Life Insurance Corporation. According to sources, the RBI is not in favour of changing the name of IDBI Bank. The board had proposed LIC IDBI Bank Ltd as the first preference followed by LIC Bank Ltd. Besides the RBI, change of name requires clearance from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, shareholders, stock exchanges, among others. In January, the insurance behemoth LIC completed the acquisition of 51 percent controlling stake in IDBI Bank, marking the entry of more than 60 years old state-owned insurer into the banking space. In August last year, the Cabinet approved the acquisition of controlling stake by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) as a promoter in the bank through a combination of preferential allotment and open offer of equity. LIC had been looking to enter the banking space by acquiring a majority stake in IDBI Bank, as the deal is expected to provide business synergies despite the lender's stressed balance sheet. For the third quarter ended December, 2018, IDBI Bank posted widening of loss by nearly threefold to Rs 4,185.48 crore as bad loans surged. The bank had reported a net loss of Rs 1,524.31 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Total income decreased to Rs 6,190.94 crore for the quarter, compared to Rs 7,125.20 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. There has been a spurt in ceasefire violations by Pakistan after India's preemptive air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camp in Balakot on 26 February following the 14 February Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed An army jawan was killed and four others critically injured during fresh ceasefire violation by Pakistani forces at the Line of Control (LoC) on Monday morning in Keri Battal area of Sunderbani sector in Rajouri district, reports News18. The firing began at 5.30 am and stopped at 7.15 am. While the initial reports mentioned the number of injured as three, another soldier was reported hurt later in the day. An Army soldier is killed and three others injured after Pakistani forces restored to firing in Keri Battal area of Sunderbani in Rajouri district along the LoC.@CNNnews18 Mufti Islah (@islahmufti) March 18, 2019 There has been a spurt in ceasefire violations by Pakistan after India's preemptive air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camp in Balakot following the 14 February Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. The latest firing comes only hours after Pakistan violated ceasefire at Rajouri around 6.30 pm on Sunday. Last Wednesday, another ceasefire violation was attempted by the neighbouring country in the Poonch sector of the state. Pakistani troops had earlier violated ceasefire along the LoC in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri again on 9 March during which it initiated unprovoked violation by shelling with mortars and firing of small arms. Earlier, Pakistani Rangers had also initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation in Chakkan da Bagh crossing point where the LoC trade centre is located. #JammuAndKashmir: Pakistan violated ceasefire in Rajouri district at about 0530 hours today by resorting to shelling with mortars and firing of small arms along LoC in Sunderbani sector. Indian Army retaliated effectively; firing stopped at 0715 hours. ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 Four civilians, including three of a family, were killed and several others injured as Pakistan targeted over 80 villages in over 100 incidents of ceasefire violations along the LoC in the state since 14 February. Behind Pawar's decision to not contest is the emergence of two third-generation leaders in his clan, which has fuelled speculation of a schism in the family Will he? Wont he? Looks like he will. No, he wont. After keeping political friends and rivals as well as the media guessing for days, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has decided not to contest the parliamentary elections. The 78-year-old has been Maharashtra chief minister thrice, fought elections 14 times and never tasted defeat. In 1978, he had engineered a split in the Congress and formed a front with other parties to become the chief minister at 38. He returned to the Congress in 1987 only to leave in 1999 while raising the issue of Sonia Gandhis foreign origin and formed the NCP. The outcome in subsequent polls in Maharashtra and national elections, however, have forced him to repeatedly ally with the Congress. Nonetheless, Pawar has succeeded in keeping himself at the centre of Maharashtra politics and relevant on the national stage even when his party has been out of power. This has helped him keep his flock of local leaders together. The question that is often asked is whether his party will retain its present significance after he hangs up his boots. Pawar has indicated a green signal for the entry of his grandnephew Parth Pawar into elections. Parth, who seems set to contest from Maval, Pune district, will be a third-generation leader from the family. While the NCP chief is a Rajya Sabha member, his daughter Supriya Sule has inherited his Baramati Lok Sabha seat. The areas Assembly constituency from where the Maratha strongman was elected a number of times since 1967 was entrusted to his nephew Ajit Pawar when the patriarch moved to national politics. Sharad Pawars other nephew Rajendra Pawars son Rohit is a member of Pune zilla parishad. He has indicated that he will contest the state polls due in six months. Sharad Pawar had been effective in warding off any signs of a succession war between Supriya and Ajit, a former deputy chief minister. The emergence of two third-generation leaders in the Pawar clan and the patriarchs U-turn on his contesting the elections has now fuelled speculation of a schism in the family. Pawars party has been a one-man show. During the 2004 Maharashtra polls, he was diagnosed with a serious illness. He miraculously recovered though age has imposed limitations on his activities. This has also fuelled speculation on who would inherit his political legacy and also the fate of his party after him. It is now almost certain that the NCPs mantle will fall on either Ajit or Supriya. Ajit, who is aggressive and has developed his own brand of loyalists, seems to have an edge. He has imbibed many of his uncles qualitieshe is studious, hard-working, punctual and an able administrator. Supriya, on the other hand, is yet to come out of the shadow of her father. It is significant that a majority of the Congress leaders in Maharashtra who had deserted the party along with Pawar to form the NCP in 1999 have remained loyal to him. Of the other two party founders, PA Sangma strayed away while Tariq Anwar rejoined the Congress last year. Pawars genius lies in maintaining close personal relations even with political arch-rivals, including Bal Thackeray, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A key question is whether Pawars successor would be able to achieve this feat, retain the voters trust and loyalty of other NCP leaders. Otherwise, the party will disintegrate soon as local leaders will gravitate towards those in power. The Lok Sabha elections and subsequent state polls are crucial for both Pawar and the NCP. When that is over, the rumblings for staking a claim to his political legacy will only grow louder. (Camil Parkhe is a senior journalist based in Pune) Today's top stories: Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar passes away after prolonged illness, BJP-led alliance to decide on next chief minister, Priyanka Gandhi campaigns in Uttar Pradesh along the Ganga, and more Manohar Parrikar passes away at 63 Former defence minister and Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who was battling pancreatic cancer for over a year, died at his private residence in Panaji on Sunday. He was 63. A technocrat-turned-politician and a BJP stalwart, Parrikar's health took a turn for the worse in the past two days after his medical condition had fluctuated for over a year. The four-term chief minister was flown to the US for treatment in March last year. According to reports, Parrikar was put on life support system late Saturday night. The central government announced a national mourning on Monday. The Union Cabinet will meet on Monday at 10 am to condole his demise. Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the death of Parrikar, hailing him as an "unparalleled leader". The last rites will be performed at Miramar on Monday evening, PTI quoted a BJP spokesperson as saying. Parrikar's remains will be kept at the Goa BJP head office from 9:30 am to 10:30 am on Monday before shifting them to Kala Academy. People will be allowed to pay their last respects to the chief minister at the academy between 11 am and 4 pm. Parrikar's final journey will begin after 4 pm when his remains will be taken to Miramar area in a procession, the spokesperson said, adding that the final rites will be performed at 5 pm. Consensus on next Goa chief minister in BJP-led alliance likely today Manohar Parrikar's death has necessitated the BJP-led alliance in Goa to reach a consensus on who will take over as the chief minister. However, reportedly, no consensus was reached until Monday morning. Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, who arrived here in the early hours of the day, could not secure a consensus between the saffron party and its alliance partners in the state, party MLA Michael Lobo said. While Gadkari was not available for comments, Lobo said Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLA Sudin Dhavalikar wanted to be the chief minister due to which the discussions came to a halt. "Sudin Dhavalikar wants himself to be the chief minister while the BJP wants that the leader of the alliance should be from their camp. We could not reach any decision," Lobo told reporters outside a hotel after a night-long meeting. He said a solution to the crisis is expected to be found later in the day. Lobo said BJP MLAs have suggested the names of Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant for the post. Justice PC Ghose to be India's first Lokpal, announcement expected today Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose is said to be in active consideration for appointment as the country's first Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman. Justice Ghose, 66, retired as Supreme Court judge in May 2017. He is a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) since 29 June, 2017. The Lokpal selection panel is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His appointment, if made, may trigger a political storm as Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had boycotted the selection panel's meet on Friday. The law, which envisages appointment of a Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in states to look into cases of corruption against certain categories of public servants, was passed on 2013. Rahul Gandhi campaigns in Karnataka, Priyanka Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh Sounding the poll bugle from the banks of river Ganga, Congress' in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi on Sunday said political stagnancy had left the youths, women, farmers and labourers distressed in Uttar Pradesh and it was her responsibility to change the politics in the region. Priyanka is expected to begin her campaign from Prayagraj to Varanasi by the Ganga river route on Monday. She is likely to make stopovers on the way and interact with locals and party workers. "It would be the first time that any leader of this stature will be reaching out to the electorate using the river route in a motorboat, getting a first-hand account of the people residing in these remote riverine areas," Congress spokesman Dwijendra Tripathi told PTI on Sunday. This will provide her with an opportunity to interact the locals and know their problems, the biggest of which is caused by recurring floods in these areas as well as the reality of Ganga cleaning, which was first launched by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Tripathi said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi is also scheduled to address a public meeting in Karnataka's Kalaburagi on Monday. This will be his first rally in the state after the Lok Sabha polling dates were announced, reports said. BSNL to approach NCLT to recover dues worth Rs 700 crore from Reliance Communications State-owned telecom firm BSNL will approach National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) this week to recover dues of about Rs 700 crore from Reliance Communications, according to official sources. Earlier, debt-ridden RCom in its plea before the NCLAT said that it wants to voluntarily go back into the insolvency process as it will help to sell its assets in a time-bound manner. It had moved the appellate tribunal, seeking directions to the 37 lenders led by SBI to release Rs 260 crore directly to Ericsson. However, lenders of RCom have opposed the plea, saying that it will lead to the outgo of public money for settling payment of a private party. SBI mulls reducing rights issue listing time After reducing time to list shares on the stock exchanges post-closure of initial public offerings (IPOs), markets regulator SEBI is aiming to cut down the time for listing of rights issue shares, an official said. In September last year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) decided on reducing the time to list shares on the bourses after IPO to three days from the present 6. The SEBI directive is likely to come into effect from July this year. Golden Globes sets 2020 date ceremony HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) has set its date for the next year's Golden Globes for 5 January. Unlike the Oscars, Golden Globes recognises both television and film in its nominations. Green Book was named best musical or comedy motion picture this year, while Bohemian Rhapsody picked up the award for Best Drama. Top television honours went to The Americans and The Kominsky Method. Retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose is likely to be named as India's first Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman. Retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose is likely to be named as India's first Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman. The Lokpal Bill, which envisages appointment of a Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in states to look into cases of corruption against certain categories of public servants, was passed on 2013. An ombudsman is an official, usually appointed by government, who investigates complaints (usually lodged by private citizens) against businesses, financial institutions or government departments or other public entities, and attempts to resolve the conflicts or concerns raised. While the official announcement regarding Ghose's appointment is likely on Monday, reports said that the selection committee tasked with instituting a Lokpal cleared Ghose's name in a meeting on Friday without Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge's involvement in the process. The Centre's action over the Lokpal comes days after the Supreme Court's demand for information regarding the process. Earlier in March, the apex court had asked Attorney General KK Venugopal to inform it within 10 days about a possible date for the meeting of the selection committee comprising of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and lawyer Mukul Rohatgi. Who is Justice PC Ghose? PC Ghose, 66, retired as Supreme Court judge in May 2017. He is a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) since June 2017. Ghose has also been the judge of the Calcutta High Court and the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The son of the former chief justice of the Calcutta High Court, Ghose enrolled at the Bar in 1976. He practised on both, the original and the appellate side at the high court, reports said. "He made the switch to the Bench in 1997, when he was elevated as a judge of the Calcutta High court. He was then transferred to the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad, where he became chief justice in December 2012," a report by Bar and Bench said. In March 2013, Ghose was elevated to the Supreme Court, from where he retired in May 2017. During the retirement ceremony, members of the Bar, as well as the Bench, hailed Ghose for his noteworthy judgments, reports said. Ghose's noteworthy judgments The judgment Ghose is well-known for is his verdict in the Jayalalithaa disproportionate assets case. Even though the judgment was passed after the former Tamil Nadu chief minister's death, the bench comprising of Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy overturned the Karnataka High Court's verdict and restored the earlier trial court verdict in toto which had held Jayalalithaa's aide VS Sasikala and other accused guilty. In February 2017, the bench found Jayalalithaa and Sasikala guilty of misusing office to launder illegal wealth for purchasing properties in the name of masked fronts. The judge is also known for the order of filing charges against BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Kalyan Singh and others involved in the Babri Masjid demolition case. In April 2017, a division bench of Justice RF Nariman and Ghose directed a trial court to frame charges against the politicians. Additionally, Ghose was also a part of the bench that ruled the practices of Jallikattu and bullock cart races in violation of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, and was also involved in laying down the guidelines for publication of government advertisements, reports said. What is the Lokpal? A person who is or has been the Chief Justice of India or a Supreme Court judge is eligible for appointment as Lokpal. According to rules, there is provision for a chairperson and a maximum of eight members in the Lokpal panel. Of these, four need to be judicial members. Not less than 50 percent of the members of the Lokpal panel shall be from amongst the persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minorities and women, the rules say. Upon selection, the chairperson and members shall hold office for a term of five years or till they attain 70 years of age. The salary and allowances of the chairman will be same as that of the Chief Justice of India. The members will be paid salary and allowances same as that of a judge of the Supreme Court. With inputs from agencies Soon after the Model Code of Conduct came into force, Kerala's Chief Electoral Officer ruffled the feathers of politicians by warning them against using names of gods during campaigning, setting norms for a green protocol and asking candidates with criminal cases pending against them to let voters know details of the cases. Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Kerala Teeka Ram Meena is quite unlike any of his peers. He has rattled political parties by stretching the Model Code of Conduct to ensure clean and transparent campaigning for the Lok Sabha election. Soon after the Model Code of Conduct came into force, he ruffled the feathers of seasoned politicians by warning them against the use of names of gods to solicit votes, setting norms for a green protocol and asking candidates with criminal cases pending against them to let voters know details of the cases. His direction against religious propaganda has upset the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), which had drawn up elaborate plans to exploit the popular resentment over the Supreme Court verdict permitting the entry of women of all ages to Sabarimala temple and the haste with which the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, particularly Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, sought to enforce the verdict amid stiff opposition from devotees. As soon as the poll code got notified in Kerala, the CEO held a press briefing and declared that invoking Sabarimala during political campaigning would be considered a violation of the Model Code of Conduct. Prompt came the response from Congress and BJP, saying that Meena had exceeded his brief, and that they had no plans to renege on their Sabarimala agenda. Only the LDF welcomed the move, as it has been fearing an electoral backlash for its unpopular course over the women's entry issue. At an all-party meet, Meena went a step further and declared that the poll panel would show no mercy towards political parties that invoke the name of not only Lord Ayyappa but also any other god for soliciting votes. Signalling that he means business, Meena ordered an inquiry into the alleged circulation of posters by the BJP showing pictures of Lord Ayyappa, the deity at the Sabarimala hill shrine, along with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Acting on a complaint lodged by the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), he has warned stern action if the circular is found violated. Furthermore, the CEO's direction to candidates facing criminal cases has caused huge discomfort to all the three major political formations as many of them are involved in criminal cases, ranging from murder to sexual harassment. The direction has come as a big embarrassment for the CPM since one of its candidates is charged with a murder conspiracy and two others are involved in land scams. The Congress has sought to avoid embarrassment by reconsidering its proposal to field leaders who have been accused of sexual abuse by Sarita Nair, a key suspect in the solar fraud case. While the Crime Branch has filed cases against MLAs Hibi Eden, Adoor Prakash and AP Anil Kumar in the run-up to the election for sexually exploiting the woman in reciprocation for political favours, Sarita has announced her intention to enter the fray if any of the accused, particularly former chief minister Oommen Chandy and All India Congress Committee general secretary KC Venugopal, are fielded to contest the election. Both figure in the list of abusers she has handed over to the police. While both the senior leaders have opted out of the contest, the name of Hibi Eden figures in the first list of candidates Congress announced on 16 March. It is also learnt that the party is considering fielding Adoor Prakash in one of the remaining seats. Another directive of Meena that has been a bitter pill for parties is regarding the use of environmentally polluting materials for the campaign. The ban applies to all campaign material, including posters, flags and festoons made from bio non-degradable substances. Meena has also made his intentions on strictly implementing the Model Code of Conduct clear by asking district collectors to send him daily reports as well as introducing a toll-free number, enabling the public to bring any violations to the notice of the Election Commission. Observers wonder whether Meena is trying to step into the shoes of TN Seshan, the fiercely independent Chief Election Commissioner of the 1990s, who left his indelible stamp of authority on the Indian electoral system by faithfully enforcing the Model Code of Conduct for the first time to clean up the election process. Meena is no ivory tower IAS man. Born as the youngest son of an illiterate farmer at a remote village in Rajasthan, he had a tough childhood when he was called upon to support the family. Meena's main task was to graze the family's cattle in the jungles of the Ranthambore National Park. However, he was lucky to be among two of the six children his father Jairam Meena chose to educate. The education facility available in their village at that time was not enough to fulfil their father's vision, which was influenced by a speech by India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the importance of education. Yet, Meena and his eldest brother Ratan Lal fought all the odds in their lives and made their father proud by entering the country's elite services. While Meena cleared the civil services examination, Ratan Lal went on to become an IPS officer. "My village was cut off from main towns, and there were no roads and schools there. We had to walk 10 kilometres to reach the school in the nearby town. It was an English dictionary that my teacher presented to me that opened a new world for me," Meena said in an interview to a newspaper. After completing the training, Meena was posted in Kerala as there was no vacancy for an IAS officer in his home state. His first assignment was as a sub-collector in Malappuram. Finding language a barrier in discharging his duties, Meena spent time and energy to master Malayalam, and now, he speaks the local language like any Malayali. The 1988 batch IAS officer, who has served Kerala in various capacities for more than a decade and a half, is free of controversies. Meena will need all the tact and wisdom to maintain the record and not get on a confrontation path, at the same time ensuring that the election code is adhered to. A total of 1.2 lakh people in Assam will not be able to exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as they have been marked as 'D' (Doubtful) voters Guwahati: A total of 1.2 lakh people in Assam will not be able to exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as they have been marked as 'D' (Doubtful) voters, a senior Election Commission official said Monday. However, the people who have been left out of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be able to vote if their names figure in the electoral rolls, Assam Chief Electoral Officer Mukesh Chandra Sahu also said. There are 40.08 lakh people whose names have been left out of the complete draft of the citizens' register after including the names of 2.9 crore people out of a total 3.3 crore applicants. The system of 'D' (dubious or doubtful) voters was introduced in 1997 by the Election Commission of India, which prepared a list by incorporating names of those who could not provide evidence in favour of their Indian nationality. It does not exist anywhere else in the country. 'D' voters were not allowed to vote in the 2014 general elections too. "Currently, we have 1.2 lakh 'D' voters in the electoral rolls as per the last revision. The rolls are being updated continuously and the list will be finalised on the last date of nomination. Therefore, it will be separate for all the different phases," Sahu said. The existing draft roll was published on September 15, 2018 and the final roll was released on 6 February. "There has been a slight fall in the current number of 'D' voters from the last revision due to disposing of court cases. The current figure is likely to change at the time of election," Sahu said. On security arrangements, Sahu said that 33 companies of central forces have already reached Assam and have been deployed at various places as a confidence building measure. "More central forces will come to the state during the election. We have made a detailed security arrangement considering the sensibilities of different polling stations. Our state nodal police officer has already held meetings with the Ministry of Home Affairs on this," he added. As per the last summary revision, over 2.17 crore voters, including at least 7.06 lakh first timers, will exercise their franchise in the three-phase elections in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in Assam. The voting in Assam will take place in 28,143 polling stations on 11, 18 and 23 April, EC sources said. In the first phase, voting will be held for Tezpur, Kaliabor, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur constituencies at 9,574 polling stations where 75.16 lakh electorate will exercise their franchise. In the second phase on 18 April, polling will be held in Karimganj (SC), Silchar, Autonomous District (ST), Mangaldoi and Nawgong constituencies where a total 68.36 lakh electorate will vote in 8,992 booths. Dhubri, Kokrajhar (ST), Barpeta and Gauhati seats will see elections in the last phase on 23 April in 9,577 polling stations where 74.08 lakh people will vote. There are also about 60,000 service voters, who are staying outside the state and will vote through postal ballot, the EC sources said. While the country observes a national day of mourning on Monday after the death of 'well-loved' Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, several prominent politicians, journalists, and activists have condoled the demise of the former defence minister. While the country observes a national day of mourning on Monday after the death of "well-loved" Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, several prominent politicians, journalists, and activists have condoled the demise of the former defence minister. President Ram Nath Kovind hailed Parrikar as an "epitome of integrity" while Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Parrikar's "pro-people" policies had brought in "remarkable" progress in Goa. Extremely sorry to hear of the passing of Shri Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa, after an illness borne with fortitude and dignity. An epitome of integrity and dedication in public life, his service to the people of Goa and of India will not be forgotten #PresidentKovind President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) March 17, 2019 Modi also praised Parrikar for his affable personality. Shri Manohar Parrikar was the builder of modern Goa. Thanks to his affable personality and accessible nature, he remained the preferred leader of the state for years. His pro-people policies ensured Goa scales remarkable heights of progress. Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 Congress president Rahul Gandhi offered condolences to Parrikar, who battled a "debilitating illness for over a year". I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Goa CM, Shri Manohar Parrikar Ji, who bravely battled a debilitating illness for over a year. Respected and admired across party lines, he was one of Goas favourite sons. My condolences to his family in this time of grief. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 17, 2019 Paying tribute to former Defence Minister and the chief minister of Goa, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah lauded Parrikar for showing the "entire nation how a BJP Karyakarta, even during his toughest time, is committed to the philosophy of Nation First, Party Next and Self Last." Parrikar ji has shown the entire nation how a BJP Karyakarta, even during his toughest time, is committed to the philosophy of Nation First, Party Next and Self Last. He will always be remembered for his contributions as Indias Defence Minister and as CM of Goa. pic.twitter.com/jiKNGoOZrj Chowkidar Amit Shah (@AmitShah) March 17, 2019 As Rajnath Singh offered his condolences, the home minister said that Manohar Parrikar was known for his "honesty, integrity and simplicity". Deeply saddened and pained by the demise of my dear friend & Chief Minister of Goa, Shri Manohar Parrikar. He was known for his honesty, integrity and simplicity. He served the nation and the state of Goa with great diligence. My heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family. Chowkidar Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) March 17, 2019 Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal offered prayers and said that Parrikar was a "symbol of simplicity". Extremely saddened at the news of passing away of Goa CM Sh Manohar Parrikar ji. A symbol of simplicity in politics who led a humble life is no longer with us. May his family bear the irreparable loss with courage. Prayers with them Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 17, 2019 Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "Mr Parrikar was important for Goa, but he was also important for India. He was a man of impeccable integrity, a dynamic chief minister". Praising Parrikar for providing a vision, BJP spokesperson Shaina NC said: "He was a mentor, guide, friend, a role model every needed." West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee also tweeted, offering condolences to his family. Saddened at the passing away of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar ji. He patiently endured his illness. Condolences to his family and his admirers Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) March 17, 2019 "He (Goa CM Manohar Parrikar) was a good human being. His passing away has left a huge gap in politics; we have lost a good politician. His demise has caused us immense grief. I express my grief and I pay my tributes on behalf of my party and myself," ANI quoted Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge as saying. Praying for his family, National Conference chairman Farooq Abdullah said Parrikar was a simple man who was dedicated to the nation. "The nation should remember him as an honest, kind man. I knew him as the Minister of Defence. I know how he conducted himself in the House. He was very simple, meet everyone with kindness. When he had to go to Goa, he did that. But his health gave away," said Abdullah. Admiring Parrikar's simplicity and straightforwardness, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor also mourned his death. Mourning the loss of Manohar Parrikar, a rare IIT graduate in politics who was widely admired for his simplicity & straightforwardness. Wishing his family strength & peace at this time of grief. Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 17, 2019 Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said: "We have lost an able and industrious administrator." Spiritual leader Sadhguru said that Parrikar was a "visionary" leader who was trusted "across the political spectrum". While the BJP stepped up its 'Main bhi chowkidar' campaign on Sunday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other prominent party leaders prefixing the word 'chowkidar' to their names on Twitter, the weak chink in the social media armour has turned out to be former Union minister and rape accused MJ Akbar While the BJP stepped up its 'Main bhi chowkidar' campaign on Sunday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other prominent party leaders prefixing the word 'chowkidar' to their names on Twitter, the weak chink in the social media armour has turned out to be former Union minister and rape accused MJ Akbar. On Saturday, which is when Modi launched the '#MainBhiChowkidar' campaign, Akbar tweeted in solidarity. It is to be noted that although Akbar resigned under nationwide social and political pressure as the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs after at least 20 women accused him of sexual misconduct, he is still a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Modi has often described himself as a "chowkidar" who would neither allow corruption nor get corrupted himself. Congress president Rahul Gandhi uses the "chowkidar chor hai"(watchman is the thief) jibe at Modi to claim irregularities and favouritism in the Rafale fighter jet deal, a charge the BJP-led government has rejected. In his tweet promoting the campaign, Akbar pledged to help create a "new India". "I am proud to join #MainBhiChowkidar movement. As a citizen who loves India, I shall do my best to defeat corruption, dirt, poverty & terrorism and help create a New India which is strong, secure & prosperous," the tweet read. Several activists and even the general Twitterati were quick to react to Akbar's declaration, with some making puns and others shaming the serial sexual offender. Actor Renuka Shahane said, "If you are also a chowkidar, then women are definitely unsafe." Mjakbar is claiming to be a chowkidar.. Can someone ask him to stop trying to reinstate his space so brazenly. If people are not discussing it doesnt mean they have forgotten. shilpi tewari (@shilpitewari) March 16, 2019 You might as well have said #MeToo Chowkidar https://t.co/zHSz2uPY9x SANJAY HEGDE (@sanjayuvacha) March 16, 2019 MJ Akbar saying he also wants to be a chowkidar is almost as frightening as Amit Shah being one. Sangita Nambiar (@Sanginamby) March 16, 2019 Several Union ministers, including External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, prefixed 'chowkidar' (watchman) to their names. The party leaders also put out short advertisement videos showing that people from different walks of life have turned 'chowkidars' to do their bit for the country like Modi. With inputs from agencies One person is missing and six others rescued after a tug boat capsized Monday morning in the Arabian Sea off the Worli coast in Mumbai, police said Mumbai: One person is missing and six others rescued after a tug boat capsized Monday morning in the Arabian Sea off the Worli coast in Mumbai, police said. The tug boat Revati was carrying seven persons and a Coast Guard helicopter and an inshore patrol vessel, and personnel from the Mumbai police's coastal unit were deployed for the rescue effort, he informed. Revati was on its way to Tarapur from Mumbai with a crew of seven when it capsized in the morning, a Coast Guard spokesperson said. Indian Coast Guard ship Amaratya rescued 6 of 7 crew of the sinking Tug Revti off Mumbai at 1100 hours today. All rescued crew are safe and first aid has been provided to them. 2 coast guard ships and a coast guard helicopter continue search for the one missing crew. pic.twitter.com/IV9Th5Z9QM ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 A distress call was received from the vessel after which Coast Guard Ship Amartya, a fast patrol vessel on surveillance duty, was diverted for the search and rescue operation, he said. ICGS Amartya reached the spot and rescued six occupants from the sinking tug, he said. The search and rescue operation for the seventh occupant of the boat is still underway and two ships and a Chetak helicopter have been deployed, he added. Apart from a surface search by the two ships, two helicopter sorties have been launched as part of a coordinated sea-air search and rescue operation for the seventh person, he said. The rescued tug occupants have been given medical aid and their condition is stable, he said. India and the Maldives on Sunday discussed measures to strengthen bilateral ties and collaborate in the fields of defence, development cooperation, capacity building and health as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with the country's top leadership, including her Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid. Male: India and the Maldives on Sunday discussed measures to strengthen bilateral ties and collaborate in the fields of defence, development cooperation, capacity building and health as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with the country's top leadership, including her Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid. Swaraj arrived in Male on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. Swaraj and Maldivian foreign minister Shahid reviewed progress on important bilateral issues, including implementation of agreed outcomes of President Solih's visit to India last year, External Affairs Ministry (MEA) Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. They agreed on a broad spectrum of issues for further collaboration, including development cooperation and enhancing people-to-people contact. Maldives: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj meets President of Maldives Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in Male. pic.twitter.com/vg5UzlZhzX ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 Solih visited India in December last year during which India announced a $1.4 billion financial assistance to the island nation. The two countries had also agreed to remain mindful of each other's concerns and aspirations for the stability of the Indian Ocean region and not allow their respective territories to be used for any activity inimical to their interests. During a joint ministerial meeting with nine other Maldivian ministers, including Defence Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi and Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer, the two sides discussed ongoing and future cooperation across all spheres, including defence, development cooperation, capacity building, health and consular issues, the MEA spokesperson tweeted. Swaraj also called on the Speaker of the Parliament of Maldives, the People's Majlis, Qasim Ibrahim and reiterated India's commitment to supporting the country in its path of peace, development, prosperity and democracy. She unveiled a plaque dedicating the renovated IGM Hospital to the people of Maldives in the city of Male. IGMH is the first and largest government healthcare facility in the Maldives, built with Indian assistance. In New Delhi, the MEA said on Saturday that her visit is aimed at further strengthening the "close and friendly" relations between the two countries. "India attaches the highest importance to its relationship with the Maldives which is marked by trust, transparency, mutual understanding and sensitivity," it said. "The ministers will review the entire gamut of bilateral relations and discuss future programme of action," the MEA said. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and a number of senior officials are accompanying Swaraj during the trip. Officials said it will be the first full-fledged bilateral visit at the political level from India to the Maldives after the new government assumed office. They said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Maldives in November only to attend Solih's swearing-in ceremony and no substantive discussion had taken place then. Sources said the Maldives was aware of Indian government's limitations due to the election code of conduct and that Swaraj's visit will be to enhance overall ties which came under strain during the presidentship of Abdulla Yameen, who was known to be close to China. Relations between India and the Maldives deteriorated after the then President Abdulla Yameen imposed emergency on 5 February last year. India had criticised his decision and asked his government to restore the credibility of the electoral and political process by releasing political prisoners. The emergency lasted for 45 days. Solih became president in November after he defeated Yameen in presidential elections. Thuvam's 100 percent woven cotton underwear is made by women, for women and is the brainchild of 26-year-old Ponmani Pethurajan. Ponmani Pethurajan first visited Puliyanoor in October 2016, for the opening of a weaving community. A year later, she had set up a tailoring school in the village and launched Thuvam, a brand of fully-cotton underwear for women, by women. Step into any lingerie store today and what you get are panties made of hosiery, lace or satin. These fabrics dont allow the skin to breathe. Moreover, they are not suited to the tropical climes of our country. For a garment that is in constant contact with your skin, using such suffocating material is not just foolish, it also causes health problems. Rashes, vaginal infections and the likes are problems common to most women, and the first step towards treatment is to stay off tight clothing. So why then do women choose such underwear? Two reasons. There is very little awareness about the damage caused by such underwear. And then theres the problem of finding an alternative. There are none. For a country famous for its cotton mills, we dont have a single brand of fully-cotton underwear, says 26-year-old Ponmani. Thuvam makes underwear from 100 percent woven cotton. The cloth is sourced from Erode. The underwear comes with a coloured patch in the centre made of dyed cotton. This patch has a pocket to insert cloth or pantyliners during period emergencies. Available in 6 sizes, the panties come in two versions with nadas or elastic. Ponmani says she had always been interested in art and craft. "As a teenager, I designed my own clothes and learnt to use the sewing machine. Clothing seemed like a natural career choice, she explains. After graduating with a Bachelors degree in Costume Design and Fashion Technology from Hindustan Arts and Science College (Coimbatore), Ponmani returned to her hometown in search of a job. A well-known garment store had just opened a new outlet near the Madurai Railway Junction. They wanted someone to take care of the visual merchandising: Ponmani was hired. Two months into the job, she realised that her role had morphed into that of a glorified salesgirl. One afternoon, after she learnt that her pay had been docked for spending too much time walking between the two floors assigned to her, she took the stairs one final time, went up to her supervisor and told him she was done. Along with her brother Arun, Ponmani started travelling around Tamil Nadu, visiting places that promoted organic living. Over the course of their journey, the siblings realised that even babies have clothing options limited to hosiery and other synthetic material. Most of these clothes were mass manufactured in Tirupur. Very few shops stocked cotton clothes for children. Thats when the idea for Ambaram was born. In December 2016, they launched a line of woven cotton clothing for babies and toddlers. The thin cotton material, simple jabla designs with nada, and the aesthetic colour combinations made the brand an instant hit. On 2 October 2016, Ponmani and Arun visited Cuckoo Forest School in Puliyanoor for the launch of a weaving community. A few months later, she was back at the school. This time, she walked into the village and spoke to the women. Thats when she learnt about the issues of alcoholism and migration. The villagers whose income came from farming and forest products were now looking for greener pastures. They wanted a good education for their children. And if that meant they had to work in the city as carpenters, masons, construction labourers, or as farmhands in nearby Hosur, then so be it. On 29 March 2017, Padma Shri Arvind Gupta opened the Puliyanoor Tailoring School. It started with five sewing machines, donated by friends and well-wishers. After a two-month tailoring course covering seaming, machine operation and understanding fabric, the school had produced four women tailors and had started on their first order stitching clothes for Ambaram. Baby clothes are the easiest to stitch so it worked well for us, says Ponamni. It was at Cuckoo Forest School that Ponmani started thinking of alternate uses for everyday things. All around me, I saw basic material being used in multiple ways bamboo was used to make mugs, knife stands, flower pots, musical instruments and for building huts. I started thinking about the various things I could do with cloth, especially woven cloth. Were there items of my clothing I could use it for? Thats when I stitched sample cotton underwear for myself. It worked. Nestled in the foothills of Javadhu Malai, Puliyanoor is one of 70-odd tribal villages in the area. At the centre of the village is a statue of Dr BR Ambedkar. Apart from an obvious marker of the local caste issues, the statue doubles up as a bus stop. For the 150-200 households that constitute the village, a lone bus makes a trip at 9 am. If you made plans for later, youd have to walk. The nearest town Singarapettai is 7 km away. Turn off SH 18A, take the first left on entering the village, and you spot a cream concrete wall with a tree painted on it. This is where the Puliyanoor Tailoring School stands. However, except during tailoring classes, on most days, the school acts more as a storage unit. The women usually have toddlers and prefer working from home. Mumtaz was from the first batch of the school. Today, she works from 10 am to 3 pm, stitching 15 panties a day. This works perfectly for me because I have a two-year-old daughter at home, she says. One of the reasons the school was set up in the village was because most parents were migrant labourers, leaving their children behind with the grandparents. Alcoholism is another problem the village faces. Thanks to Thuvam, some of these children have their mothers waiting for them at home when they return from school. Women who have used the product love it. The fabric breathes and is easy on my skin. After years of wearing tight underwear, this is a blessing, says Arunima Shankar, who has been using Thuvam since its launch. While an innovative idea, Thuvam is yet to find many takers. However, the rise of the organic movement offers hope that this all-cotton underwear will find its way into the wardrobes of women. Change could well be nigh. This is the fourth in an eight-part series on Urdu fiction by contemporary Indian writers. Rakhshanda Jalil is the curator and translator for this series. Part I: In 'The Crocodile', Gulzar tells a story of smoke and fire Part II: In 'Those Without Graves', Joginder Paul blurs the lines between the living and dead Part III: In 'The Rape of an Abandoned House', Deepak Budki lays bare the hunger of scavengers *** KANHAIYALAL KAPOOR (1910-1981): Kapoor's best-known collection titled Sang-o-Khisht contained essays such as 'Apne Watan Mein Sab Kuch Hai Pyare' ('We Have Everything in our Country, My Friend) and 'Qaumi Libas' (National Dress) the latter was a spoof on the correspondence between Gandhi and Jinnah. Kapoor turned his pen towards his fellow writers, parodying the fare that was being passed off as new poetry in 'Ghalib Jadeed Shoara Ki Ek Majlis Mein' (Ghalib in an Assembly of Modern Poets). Several contemporary literary, social and political issues became the subject of Kapoors satire, including the powerful literary group known as the Progressive Writers Movement (to which he belonged), in a letter-like essay 'Tarraqui Pasand Dost ke Naam' (To a Progressive Friend).With great mastery over wit, humour and satire, he perfected the technique of the anti-climax. One of his finest sketches is Tutor, which seamlessly blends humour and pathos. The post-Partition period in India gave him material to sharpen his tools, as in Shan Shan Shan, Hijrat (Migration), Gunde (Goons), Professor Danish, Urdu Ka Akhri Daur (The Last Phase of Urdu), Film Director Ke Naam (To a Film director), or Sansani (Wildfire/Gossip) . Using both prose and verse, Kapoor could create delightful parody from even the most tense or fraught of situations. *** I Have Done My Bhartiya-karan | Kanhaiyalal Kapoor I said to myself: Why dont I do my own Bhartiya-karan that is, Indianise myself before someone else thinks of doing it? However, the first problem was my name. Perhaps you dont know; my name is Iqbal Chand. It occurred to me that Iqbal is an Arabic word. What kind of nationalism is this, to live in India and have an Arabic name? And so I changed my name to Kangaal Chand. As it happens, this name is far better suited to my financial condition, considering kangaal means poor. And why just me; it suits the rest of my country too. A second problem arose, that of dress. There was no trace of Indianness in the pants, coat and tie I wore. In fact, all three were a reflection of my slave mentality. I was amazed that I had worn them all this while. I decided to wear pajamas instead of pants. But then a certain Persian person told me that the pajama has come to India from Iran. And so I began to wear dhoti and kurta. But not a kameez as the word kameez too is of Arabic origin and it reeks of the stench and stink of an Arab! The third problem was that of hair! After all, what is it if not treachery against the country, a blatant form of anti-nationalism, to keep ones hair fashioned in the English style? I instructed the barber to keep only one lock of long hair at the back of my head and shave off all the rest. He did exactly that. I had seen images from ancient India showing men with long and lush moustaches. Following their example, I began to grow my moustache. When my friends saw this large moustache on my somewhat small face, they assumed that I had put on a fake moustache possibly because I was acting in some play. Forget friends, when I saw myself in this new look, I began to feel that I had been created not by God, but Shankar, the cartoonist. But I did not lose heart. One has to do all manner of things to be Indian. Now we come to my eye-glasses. I asked several pandits: Is there any mention of eye-glasses in the Ramayana or the Mahabharata? They said: In those days, people didnt eat vanaspati ghee and so their eye sight did not weaken while they were still young. I asked: Did Sugreev, Kunbhakaran, Dushasan and all the rest have such good eye sight that they never felt the need to wear eye glasses? The pandits replied, All of them applied kajal in their eyes. I found the solution to my problem. I took off my spectacles and began to apply kajal. As a consequence, when it got dark, I began to mistake a rope for a snake and a goat for a dog. And when I attempted to read a book the words turned into black doodles. In a few days, even during the daytime, I began to mistake one thing for another. I consulted an eye doctor. He advised, If you dont wish to become blind, kindly wear your spectacles. But spectacles are not Indian? How does it matter? This watch that you have strapped on your wrist is not Indian, and this cigarette that you are smoking isnt Indian either. You have rightly reminded me. From tomorrow I shall smoke a huqqah. What have you decided about the watch? I shall take it off. And if you have to know the time? I shall ask someone. Do as you please, but kindly wear your spectacles, or else you will lose your eye sight. Thinking that I would simply add to the number of blind people in India if I were to become blind, I went back to wearing my glasses. The West Bengal unit of the Congress on Sunday called off seat-sharing talks with the CPM-led Left Front for the Lok Sabha polls, after weeks of hectic parleys failed to resolve the impasse over distribution of seats. Kolkata: The West Bengal unit of the Congress on Sunday called off seat-sharing talks with the CPM-led Left Front for the Lok Sabha polls, after weeks of hectic parleys failed to resolve the impasse over distribution of seats. "It has been decided by our party unit that we don't want any adjustment or alliance by compromising our dignity. The Left can't dictate us on who will be a candidate and who won't. We will fight it alone in Bengal," state Congress chief Somen Mitra said after a party meet in Kolkata. The Congress was miffed at the CPM announcing the list of its 25 candidates in the state and had expressed the party's displeasure over the Left Front not respecting the rules of alliance. West Bengal, which sends 42 members to Lok Sabha, will now witness a four-cornered contest between the Trinamool Congress, BJP, Left Front and Congress. BJP has set an ambitious target of winning more than 20 seats out of 25 for the North East Democratic Alliance. Last January, protests swept the North East against the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 which sought to give citizenship to a section of non-Muslim refugees from some neighbouring countries. The ire was against the BJP which had aggressively campaigned and pushed for the passage of the bill in Parliament. The widespread notion was that the BJPs performance would be severely affected in the forthcoming general elections. The future of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) a conglomerate of non-Congress political parties led by the BJP was in doubt with three allies including the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) severing their ties with the alliance. Weeks later, the situation had changed drastically following BJPs decision not to table the bill in Rajya Saba. The agitation was over and the AGP renewed ties with the BJP which it had severed two months ago. The BJP-AGP deal includes a pre-poll alliance which allotted three seats to the regional party out of a total of 14 in Assam. Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma who was in the vanguard of the movement against the bill was quoted by the media as saying that he would reconsider the bill if all the stakeholders in the northeastern states were taken into confidence. All are with us, NEDA convener and senior Assam BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma said in a brief conversation after he was posed with some queries on the alliance. The North East with a total of 25 seats is high on the BJPs agenda for the impending polls along with West Bengal and Odisha. Of the 21 seats, it is contesting across all the eight states in the North East, BJP is expecting to perform well in Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur where the party has its own governments. These states constitute a large share of 20 seats with Assam having the highest share with 14. A post-poll alliance is envisaged with the winners of the other four states who are members of NEDA. BJP has set an ambitious target of winning more than 20 seats for the alliance. Whether that can be fulfilled remains to be seen but the chances are bright that the NEDA will improve upon its tally of 11 in the last General Elections. The lapse of the bill apart, there are other factors which could put the alliance at an advantage over the Congress in the North East. The current situation indicates that the BJP and its allies could have an edge over the Congress in the General Elections. The alliance has remained intact with only two parties United Democratic Front (Meghalaya) and Nagaland Peoples Front deciding to part ways but that is unlikely to have a decisive impact on the outcome of the polls, said political commentator Nani Gopal Mahanta. He added that the shape of things to come was evident in the recently held panchayat polls in Assam where the BJP had secured 42 percent of the seats. Congress on the backfoot For the first time, the forthcoming General Election will be held without a Congress government in any of the states in the North East. This could put the Congress at a disadvantage since the hill states have displayed a tendency in the past to elect candidates belonging to the ruling party. Sensing the danger, the North East Coordination Congress Committee (NECCC) was reconstituted last year with former prime minister Manmohan Singh as its patron and former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma as the chairman. Its goal was to strengthen the party in the region but there has hardly been any impact on the ground. BJPs expansion in the North East and how it has managed to sustain the alliance with regional parties ought to be studied by our (Congress) party. BJP could not fulfill most of the promises made during the previous General Elections and its leaders have also reiterated that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill would be tabled in Parliament again if it wins the elections and still the party seems to be going strong. Finally, NECCC could not match the dynamism of NEDA which was seen to be much more active and accommodative, said a former Congress Member of Parliament said on condition of anonymity. Among the eight states, Congress is the weakest in Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim which have a total of four seats. Observers are of the view that the ruling regional parties in Nagaland and Sikkim which are also members of NEDA have an edge while the BJP stands a chance of winning only in Tripura. A fierce contest between the Congress and the BJP and its allies is expected in both the seats in Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh (West), Outer Manipur and at least four seats in Assam. Situation in Assam In Assam, Congress is expected to regain its base among a large chunk of Bengali speaking Muslim voters in the three constituencies of Dhubri, Barpeta and Karimganj from where the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) had won in 2014. AIUDF is increasingly becoming unpopular among this community and fast losing ground in Assams political arena like the AGP. But Congress is fast losing ground to the BJP in its traditional bastions including the tea tribe that inhabit a large swathe in central and eastern Assam. The BJP has made rapid inroads at the grassroots which was reflected in the panchayat polls. In this regard, the role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which has been silently working for many years through a range of strategies has been no less vital. A large number of BJP and AGP workers had opposed the renewal of the alliance and the pre-poll pact between the two parties. So it is uncertain if the party functionaries would actually cooperate in the three constituencies where an alliance has been struck. But the pact has enhanced BJPs acceptability among large sections of the Assamese speaking voters many of whom had recently hit the streets against the bill. Finally, the chances of the anti-talks faction of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) indulging in violence ahead of the polls to harm the BJPs prospects look bleak in the backdrop of the recent developments in Myanmars Taga where its camps were dismantled. ULFA is in disarray like some smaller Manipuri separatist groups, forced to relocate and quite unlikely to be in a position to execute major operations very soon. Convincing the Myanmar Army to initiate action against the rebel groups has been a tremendous success for New Delhi which was reciprocated with additional deployment of troops in south Mizoram to prevent the entry of Arakanese insurgents. Mayawati also clarified that including Uttar Pradesh, the BSP is not in alliance with the Congress in any other state. Lucknow: In a clear message to the Congress party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Monday said that the BSP-SP alliance can alone defeat the BJP in the forthcoming general elections. In a series of tweets, Mayawati asserted that the Congress should feel free to contest in all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. On Sunday, the grand old party announced to leave seven Lok Sabha seats for Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in Uttar Pradesh, where 80 seats are at stake. "Congress is fully free in Uttar Pradesh and should field its own candidate for contesting on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats. Our alliance (SP-BSP) alone is capable of defeating the BJP. Congress should not forcibly spread rumours by leaving seven seats in Uttar Pradesh for the SP-BSP alliance," tweeted Mayawati. The former chief minister also clarified that including Uttar Pradesh, the BSP is not in alliance with the Congress in any other state. "BSP once again wants to make it very clear that in Uttar Pradesh and in the country as a whole we are not in any form of alliance or agreement with Congress. Our people should not pay heed to the rumours spread by the Congress" It is worth mentioning that SP, BSP, and RLD have forged an alliance to take on the BJP in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in the state. However, SP president Akhilesh Yadav had claimed that the Congress party is with the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh. SP-BSP has left Rae Bareli and Amethi seats for the Congress. As per the seat-sharing agreement, SP is contesting 37 seats and BSP 38. Three seats have been given to the RLD - Mathura, Muzaffarpur, and Baghpat. Hardik Patel Monday prefixed his twitter handle with the word Berojgar (jobless), apparently to mock the BJP's Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign on the social media Ahmedabad: New Congress entrant Hardik Patel Monday prefixed his Twitter handle with the word "Berojgar" (jobless), apparently to mock the BJP's "Main Bhi Chowkidar" campaign on the social media. The twitter handle of the Patidar quota spearhead, who joined the Congress in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi recently, now reads as, "Berojgar Hardik Patel". 'Main Bhi Chowkidar hoon' narrative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to counter Opposition's oft-repeated jibe, "Chowkidar chor hai", aimed at him. In his rallies and addresses, PM Modi terms himself as a 'chowkidar' or watchman of the country. Under "Main Bhi..." campaign, BJP leaders, Union ministers, chief ministers are prefixing the word "chowkidar" (watchman) to their Twitter handles. Rahul Gandhi has been attacking the prime minister with the "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe in the context of the Rafale fighter aircraft deal. The Congress alleges that Modi government has failed to create promised jobs in the country after coming to power in 2014, which has increased unemployment significantly. Gujarat Congress IT cell vice president Hiren Banker said several Congress workers are adding "Berojgar" to their twitter handles. However, he also clarified that the Congress is yet to officially adopt the 'Berojgar' campaign. The 'Berojgar' began trending Sunday when several youths added the new nomenclature to their Twitter handles. "Several workers of Congress have also joined the 'campaign' and the engagement is increasing. However, we have not yet officially adopted this," Banker said, adding that the Congress would adopt the "Berojgar" campaign after consulting party officials. The Congress is countering the BJP's 'MainBhiChowkidar' hashtag, which was trending on the micro-blogging site since this morning, with its 'ChowkidarChorHai' hashtag. BJP leader and union minister Giriraj Singh was apparently left sulking after the Nawada seat, which he represents, went to NDA ally LJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election Patna: Firebrand BJP leader and union minister Giriraj Singh was on Monday apparently left sulking after the Nawada Lok Sabha seat, which he represents, went to NDA ally LJP. "Compulsions of seat-sharing may be there. But I wish to underscore that no other union minister from Bihar may have to give up his sitting seat," the veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told media persons here. "This is despite the fact that I have worked so much to nurture my constituency," Singh added. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had on Sunday announced the list of candidates and their respective seats to be contested by its three constituents - the BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. As per the announcement the BJP and the JD(U) will contest 17 seats each and six seats were allotted to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Asked whether he had expressed his wish to seek re-election from Nawada to state BJP president Nityanand Rai, Singh said, "I must have done so 200 times." "Five years is a long time and I have become attached to Nawada and its people. Rai had assured me that I would get a ticket from wherever I wanted. Why this (denial of ticket) happened is for him to answer," Singh told reporters here. On reports that he might be asked to contest from Begusarai, the seat which he had wanted to fight in 2014, Singh replied with a hint of bitterness, "I was a party worker, am a party worker and shall always remain a party worker." Besides Giriraj Singh, the other union ministers from Bihar are Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Buxar), RK Singh (Ara), Ram Kripal Yadav (Pataliputra) and Radha Mohan Singh (Motihari). All these seats have been retained by the BJP and it is believed that the sitting MPs may be fielded again from their respective seats. Interestingly, in the last general election Giriraj Singh had initially expressed his wish to contest from Begusarai, which is dominated by the Bhumihar caste to which he belongs. But the seat then went to Bhola Singh, a party-hopper who had been previously associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI), Congress and the Janata Dal. Giriraj Singh was then given the ticket from Nawada, a less safe seat given its social profile which he won riding the Modi wave. The Nawada seat has gone to LJP this time in exchange for Munger, which has been given to the JD(U) reportedly at the insistence of Nitish Kumar who wanted it for close aide Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh. Lalan Singh had represented Munger from 2009 to 2014 when he lost it to LJPs Veena Devi, who is the wife of mafia don-turned-politician Suraj Bhan Singh. With Begusarai lying vacant on account of the death of Bhola Singh, speculations are rife that Giriraj Singh may be fielded from there. However, he is said to be wary of the possibility that former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar may make his electoral debut on a CPI ticket from the seat. Belonging to the same caste as Giriraj Singh, Kanhaiya is likely to pose a tough challenge as Begusarai has been a stronghold of the CPI and has earned the epithet - 'Moscow of Bihar'. Moreover, being a Bhumihar himself, Kanhaiya may cut into votes of the dominant caste besides getting support from a cross-section of other social segments since it is being speculated that the Grand Alliance comprising Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and other smaller parties may support him. The leaders of other alliance partner of the coalition government, the Goa Forward Party (GFP) were not called for the meeting. As political uncertainty loomed over Goa following the demise Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday, several media reports said that Goa Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant is likely to be the next chief minister as the BJP managed to reach a consensus with its allies on Monday. Goa is likely to have two deputy chief ministers Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLA Sudin Dhavalikar and GFP chief Vijai Sardesai as part of the deal, CNN-News18 and India Today reported. According to CNN-News18, the swearing-in ceremonies for the next Goa chief minister and deputy chief ministers will take place on Monday night. Earlier today, after several rounds of discussion over the appointment of the next Goa chief minister, two names Pramod Sawant and Vinay Tendulkar had emerged as the top choices, as suggested by several media reports. However, the reports failed to mention whether the allies reached a consensus. The BJP has made no official confirmation on the new Goa chief minister as of yet. Meanwhile, Sawant, who is currently the Speaker at the Goa Assembly, is being dubbed as the frontrunner for the post. The Wikipedia page of Pramod Sawant has already been edited, calling him the Goa chief minister. "The Chief Minister who succeeded ex-CM Manohar Parikkar, Dr Pramod Sawant was born on 24 April, 1973 to Pandurang and Padmini Sawant," the page read. Earlier, Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, who arrived Panaji in the wee hours of Monday, could not secure a consensus between the saffron party and its alliance partners in the state, party MLA Michael Lobo had said. "During a meeting with Nitin Gadkari, Sudin Dhavalikar expressed his willingness to become the Chief Minister of Goa. He said he has sacrificed many times by supporting the BJP, and now, he has put in his demand, but the BJP will not agree to that," Lobo, a BJP MLA and Deputy Speaker of the Goa Assembly, had told reporters. Gadkari had held talks with party leaders and alliance partner Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) to select a new Goa chief minister at a hotel near Panaji in the morning. BJP MLA Vishwajit Rane, MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar, who are aspirants for the chief minister's post, attended the meeting. However, Sawant was not present at the meeting. The leaders of another alliance partner of the coalition government, the Goa Forward Party (GFP) were not called for the meeting. With the Congress-led Opposition staking claim to form a government on Saturday, BJP's decision to reach a consensus assumes great significance. On Sunday, the Goa Congress wrote again to Governor Mridula Sinha, calling for the dismissal of the government. According to Times of India, leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said that the BJP was left with no allies now as coalition partners had tied-up with the saffron party on the condition that Parrikar heads the government. "Congress being the single largest party, it is submitted that the leader of the Congress legislative party is invited to form the next government," Kavlekar said. Currently, Congress is the single largest party in the state with 14 MLAs. The BJP has 12 legislators in the 40-member Goa Assembly. The GFP, MGP and Independents have three MLAs each while the NCP has one legislator. With inputs from PTI Follow LIVE updates here Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said stagnancy in Uttar Pradesh politics had left people distressed, and it was her responsibility to change it. Lucknow: Sounding the poll bugle from the banks of river Ganga, Congress' in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday said political stagnancy had left the youths, women, farmers and labourers distressed in Uttar Pradesh, and it was her responsibility to change the politics in the state. Priyanka arrived in Lucknow for the next leg of her Uttar Pradesh tour, as part of which she is to sail from Prayagraj to Varanasi on river Ganga. In an open letter dated 17 March, Priyanka said: "Due to stagnancy in the politics of the state, youngsters, women, farmers and labourers are worried. They want to share their pain and agony, but in the noise of political arithmetic, their voice is completely absent from the policies of the state." She said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a sachhaa samwaad (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, Congress will transform the politics in Uttar Pradesh. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. The party's newly-appointed general secretary said she would communicate with people using various means of transportation, including waterways, buses, train and on foot (padayatra). "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (culture). It does not differentiate among people. Ganga-ji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh, and with her support, I will reach you," the letter read. Priyanka will be on a three-day tour beginning Monday, vice-president of Uttar Pradesh Congress RP Tripathi said in a communique on Friday, to the district magistrates of Prayagraj, Bhadohi, Mirzapur and Varanasi. Party leaders said Priyanka was likely to use a motorboat (steamer) to cover the distance of around 100 kilometres. She is set to meet family members of slain CRPF jawan Mahesh Raj Yadav in Allahabad, and on Wednesday, she will visit the ancestral home of former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Varanasi, the letter said. Sumalatha Ambareesh, veteran actor and wife of late former Congress lawmaker MH Ambareesh, announced that she would contest from Mandya constituency as an independent candidate in the Lok Sabha election Bengaluru: Sumalatha Ambareesh, veteran actor and wife of late former Congress lawmaker MH Ambareesh, on Monday announced that she would contest from Mandya parliamentary constituency as an independent candidate in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka. In February, Sumalatha made headlines for declaring that she would contest Lok Sabha elections from Mandya - a seat her husband had represented both as Member of Parliament (MP) and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA). "Everybody I have met in Mandya has told me the faith they had in him (MH Ambareesh), they will transfer that to me. That way we can keep the memory of him alive. The decision, I have taken if it hurts anyone, I apologise. I am taking this step to continue his legacy," Sumalatha said at a press conference. After Ambareesh's demise in November 2018, people of the constituency started pressurising Sumalatha to contest polls from Manyda seat. Sumalatha who has been touring the constituency has covered 35 wards in Mandya City Municipal Council area alone. Mandya city almost accounts for 50 per cent of votes in the constituency. Karnataka will vote to elect its members of Parliament during the second and third phases of polling on 18 and 23 April respectively. The counting will take place on 23 May and the results will be out on the same day. While the BSP is set to fight polls in Jalaun and Hamirpur, Samajwadi Party will be contesting from Jhansi and Banda Lok Sabha seats. Spread across seven districts of Uttar Pradesh, Bundelkhand is a historical region, which also includes parts of Madhya Pradesh. Bundelkhand has been in the news for facing drought since the last few years. Parched for water and battling chronic poverty, Bundelkhand remains one of the least developed regions in India. The historical region has four Lok Sabha constituencies and 19 Assembly constituencies. On the back of its development agenda, the BJP was able to win all the four Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 General Elections as well as each of the 19 Assembly seats in this region during the 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections. In this election, the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party are in an alliance for the first time in at least 25 years. While the BSP is set to fight polls in Jalaun and Hamirpur, Samajwadi Party will be contesting from Jhansi and Banda Lok Sabha seats. With 80 seats, the state has the single biggest chunk of Lok Sabha seats in its kitty. The sheer number of seats have determined the political destiny of India. Uttar Pradesh will go through long seven-phase polling starting from 11 April 2019. The voting will end on 19 May, which is the final date of polling. The counting of votes will take place on 23 May. While eight constituencies each go to polls on 11 and 18 April, 10 constituencies will be voting on 23 April. On 29 April, 13 constituencies will go to polls, while 14 constituencies each will be voting on 6 and 12 May. In the final phase, 13 constituencies will go to polls. Here is a brief profile of the four Lok Sabha constituencies in Bundelkhand: 1. Jalaun Lok Sabha Constituency Constituency number: 45 Total electors: 19,03,332 (2014 estimates) Female electors: 8,57,648 Male electors: 10,45,684 Reserved: Yes. For Scheduled Castes Delimited: No Assembly Constituencies: Bhognipur, Madhogarh, Kalpi, Orai (SC), Garautha Results in last four Lok Sabha elections: Brij Lal Khabri won the seat on a BSP ticket in the 1999 elections. Ghanshyam Anuragi of the Samajwadi Party won the seat in 2009. In 2004 as well as 2014 elections, Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma of the BJP was elected by the people. Demographics: Jalaun is one of the 250 least developed districts, as per the Government of India. But according to reports, caste factors also weigh in while voting for the candidate in this district. Thakurs, Brahmins and Dalits have their pockets of influence in at least three constituencies: Orai, Kalpi and Madhogarh. OBCs though scattered across the districts are also significant in terms of vote banks. 2. Hamirpur Lok Sabha Constituency Constituency number: 47 Total electors: 17,37,993 (2014 estimates) Female electors: 7,88,665 Male electors: 9,49,328 Reserved: No Delimited: No Assembly Constituencies: Hamirpur, Rath, Mahoba, Charkhari, Tindwari Results in last four Lok Sabha elections: Ashok Kumar Chandel of the BSP won the seat in the 1999 election. In 2004 elections, Rajnarayan Budholiya of the Samajwadi Party won the seat. In 2009 elections, Vijay Bahadur Singh of the BSP won the seat. In the last elections, Kunwar Pushpendra Kumar Chandel of the BJP won the seat. Demographics: Hamirpur constituency is situated in the economically backward and drought-prone region of Bundelkhand. According to reports, caste plays a major role here in determining the winner. While OBC communities constitute half of the electorate, Muslims and Dalits form a significant chunk of voters too. Lodhs, an OBC sub-sect, are prominent in Hamirpur and nearby areas. 3. Jhansi Lok Sabha Constituency Constituency number: 46 Total electors: 10,34,085(2014 estimates) Female electors: 8,97,930 Male electors: 10,34,085 Reserved: No Delimited: No Assembly Constituencies: Babina, Jhansi Nagar, Mauranipur, Lalitpur, Mehroni Results in last four Lok Sabha elections: The Congress has won the seat twice in last two decades: Sujan Singh Bundela in the 1999 elections and Pradeep Jain Aditya in the 2009 elections. Chandrapal Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party won the seat in 2004. In 2014, Union Minister Uma Bharti won the seat by a margin of 1.9 lakh votes. Demographics: Jhansi is the historical epicentre of Bundelkhand, a region ravaged by drought for many years now. While development issues remain the top agenda, caste is an important factor here. Jhansi and nearby Lalitpur district ( two constituencies) have a sizeable number of Dalit Pasi sub-caste voters, who have traditionally been loyal to BSP. However, a number of non-Yadav OBCs are also influential in this area. 4. Banda Lok Sabha Constituency Constituency number: 48 Total electors: 16,01,917 (2014 estimates) Female electors: 7,17,104 Male electors: 8,84,813 Reserved: No Delimited: No Assembly Constituencies: Baberu, Naraini(SC), Banda, Chitrakoot and Manikpur Results in last four Lok Sabha elections: In the 1999 elections, Ram Sajeevan of the BSP won the seat while Shyama Charan Gupta registered a victory on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 2004 polls. Samajwadi Party held the seat in 2009 elections after RK Singh Patel was elected from the constituency. However, in 2014, Patel lost to Bhairon Prasad Mishra of the BJP. Demographics: Kurmis, Jatavs and Maurya/Khushwahas are the influential communities in the constituency. In fact, even in the Modi wave of 2014, BSP candidates could still get a large chunk of the Jatav votes. The BJP has a clear head start. This might prove critical in the upcoming long-drawn campaign. Here are a few points where it has advantage over the Congress. With just weeks to go for the general elections, the BJP has cranked up its electioneering machinery close to full capacity, while the Congress remains sluggish. The saffron party has tied up loose ends in alliance formation well ahead of the Congress, besides having clearly laid out its primary campaign talking points. The Congress appears to be in a spot on both the fronts. It is neither getting its alliances right in critical states, nor does it have its campaign theme finalised. In the aftermath of the Balakot air strike, the BJP has been adopting a confident posture. This is evident on social media and television debates. It is ready with its homework and is appearing to be on the offensive. At this point, the BJP has a clear head start. This might prove critical in the upcoming long-drawn campaign. Here are a few points where the BJP has advantage over the Congress. Alliance formation The Congress' ultimate goal of a countrywide mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) to unseat the BJP seems to be getting more elusive with every passing day. The prophecy made by critics that the grand alliance would be limited to photos of Opposition leaders holding hands together is likely to be true. The Congress party failed to stitch the much-talked-about alliance with Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The only arrangement that could materialise was on Amethi and Rae Bareli for the Gandhi family. Meanwhile, the Congress agreed not to contest seven seats against the SP-BSP combine. Similarly, the seat-sharing talks in Bihar have run into rough weather and the Congress is expected to agree on only nine seats. The party is at risk of losing support of allies in Bihar. In West Bengal, the Congress has failed to forge an alliance with the CPM-led Left Front, and has decided to contest on its own. After prolonged backstage parlays, attempts to arrive at a seat-sharing arrangement between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) failed in Delhi, as the latter has announced all its seven candidates. On the other hand, the BJP is way ahead in the alliance game. It has successfully tied up with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, JD(U) and Lok Janshakti Party in Bihar, etc, besides convincing Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to join hands with it. This became possible as the BJP machinery worked continuously throughout the year over the past four years, while the Congress showed no urgency. Issues The saffron party is clear on its issues be it national security, Lokpal or the leadership position. The Centre recently announced the formation of the Lokpal (anti-corruption ombudsman), one of the poll promises of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. The Modi government had earlier faced severe criticism for pushing the Lokpal issue under the carpet. Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare went on an indefinite hunger strike from 31 January against the Centre for not appointing an anti-graft ombudsman. After the Pulwama terror attack, the recent Balakot air strike virtually took the wind out of the Congress sails and projected the Modi government as one which takes strong decisions on national security. While the Congress remained vocal on the Rafale deal, this one military action by the NDA government changed the narrative. The BJP is clear about its top leadership position, in contrast to the Opposition's dilemma about the prime minister's post. Social media In response to Modi's references to himself as a "chowkidar", Rahul Gandhi came up with the taunt, chowkidar chor hai (The 'guard' is the thief). Rahul used this taunt often in the poll-bound states in 2018, and it reverberated with the audiences for quite some time. However, a tweet by Modi on 16 March started the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign, which instantly became a success and was a top Twitter trend. This was an instance of the BJPs efficient social media handling, and sent a strong rebuttal to Rahuls comment. The BJP seems to be replicating its 2014 success story by effectively engaging with people on social media and reaping its benefits. In contrast, the Congress has little original content, except Rahuls sporadic sarcastic tweets. The Congress lacks innovative and aggressive posturing on social media. Priyanka Gandhi, newly-appointed Congress general secretary and in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, has been the Congress' only trump card so far, and has hogged the media limelight. However, it remains to be seen to what extent this factor translates into votes. Approach towards media Whether its about prime time discussions on news channels or commenting on issues or controversies, the BJP has a battery of powerful, articulate spokespersons, including ministers like Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, etc, lined up for the job, something the Congress lacks. It may be possible that the media gives less air time to the Congress, but the party lacks the aggression needed to take the BJP head on. Often, journalists remark that getting a senior Congress leader on record is a difficult task. As for adopting an innovative approach towards making headlines or grabbing eyeballs, the saffron party is well ahead of its competitors. Although the Congress showed some ingenuity during the Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan Assembly elections, its strategy was only a remake of what the BJP had been doing. Despite the underhand alliance between Narendra Modi, KCR and Jaganmohan Reddy, Chandrababu Naidu may still coast along to a victory in both the Assembly and Parliamentary elections in Andhra Pradesh if the voters see his strengths overshadowing his weaknesses Andhra Pradesh is politically a weak turf for BJP. The partys electoral presence in the state is almost zero. Yet, as it prepares for simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and the Andhra Pradesh Assembly on 11 April, Andhra Pradesh is also one of the states where you hear Narendra Modis name most often. Thats because YS Jaganmohan Reddy (known as Jagan) of YSR Congress Party, the main rival of Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu, is seen as Modis proxy or a secret supporter. Also, in neighbouring Telangana, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as a separate state five years ago, BJP is zilch, but its Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (known as KCR) is deemed as a Modis secret backer. And what does that make KCR and Jagan? Covert supporters of each other, of course. But this has nothing to do with their respective reasons for backing Modi. The objective of their own underhand alliance is to see that Naidu loses polls. Its not surprising that Naidu calls the triumvirate of Modi, KCR and Jagan three evils he is fighting. But thats a trouble Naidu brought on himself by abandoning the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the unconvincing reason of denial of special status to Andhra Pradesh. And for its part, BJP is forced into the ignominy of fighting proxy battles instead of straight, neat and honest elections only because it let go of Naidu as an ally. In the normal course, Naidu would have returned to power for a fourth term as chief minister and won most of the states 25 Lok Sabha seats with little difficulty. But things are far from normal, though he might still coast along to a victory in both the Assembly and Parliamentary elections if the voters see his strengths overshadowing his weaknesses (listed below). Ten strengths and weakness of Chandrababu Naidu Strengths Weaknesses 1 Fairly good governance Some degree of anti-incumbency 2 Hardworking Alleged favouritism to his Kamma caste 3 Thinks big Unconvincing volte-face on backing BJP 4 Has a clear vision for the state Political opportunism 5 Welfare schemes for all sections Autocratic functioning 6 Enjoys nationwide respect Boosting his son Nara Lokesh 7 Hands-on functioning Distrustful of others 8 Support of Backward Classes Weak political strategy 9 No major scams Rampant grass-root level corruption 10 Tech-savvy Some unfulfilled promises What must worry Naidu was the precariously thin difference between the vote shares of TDP (44.45 percent and 101 seats) and YSRCP (44.12 per cent and 67 seats) in the 2014 Assembly election. And in the simultaneous Lok Sabha poll that year, the TDP polled 40.54 percent votes and won 15 of the 25 seats against YSRCPs 45.38 percent votes and eight seats. In addition, BJP, with which the TDP had formed an alliance in 2014, had polled 2.2 percent votes and won four seats in the Assembly election, and 7.2 percent votes and two seats in the Lok Sabha election. Last time around, the TDP also had support from actor Pawan Kalyans Jana Sena which supplied a good proportion of the votes of his Kapu caste. But, this time around, Naidu neither has an alliance with BJP nor the support of Pawan Kalyan. Both are fighting separately now. Naidu had considered continuing in Andhra Pradesh the alliance he had with Congress in the December Telangana election but dropped the idea. Its a risk he didnt dare to take because the people of Andhra Pradesh hold Congress responsible for what they think was the states needless division. Its against this background that KCRs support for Jagan must be seen. TRS has no organisational presence in Andhra Pradesh, and the backing that Jagan can expect from KCRs Velama caste and the people of Telangana living in Andhra Pradesh may be minimal. And Naidus allegation that KCR has given Jagan Rs 1,000 crore to defeat him can never be proved. But the benefit that YSRCP can get from the Telangana chief ministers resources and strategic cunning can make a difference. KCRs intrusion into Andhra Pradesh politics is a return gift, as he once called it, for Naidus own effort to defeat him in the Telangana election three months ago. At that time, KCR ripped Naidu apart, saying his interference was a blot on Telanganas self-respect. It worked, and he won handsomely. Naidu is now countering KCR with the same slogan of "self-respect" of the Telugus. He hopes it will work. The Andhra Pradesh chief minister has been telling rally after rally that voting for Jagan is no different from voting for KCR, which, he says, means handing over the control of Andhra Pradesh to Telangana, and also that its no different from voting for the BJP. Where votes are caste-based Naidu must also contend with the inscrutable X-factor of caste. What makes an election outcome especially unpredictable in Andhra Pradesh is the overriding importance that caste gets over issues of governance in the minds of many. Despite Naidus sundry schemes for backward classes, the perception that his forward Kamma community rules the roost is all-pervasive. The possibility of some voters venting anger against this by voting against TDP is all too clear for Naidu to ignore. All that he can do to stop them from doing it is to pick candidates of right castes and harp on his governments performance. The author tweets @sprasadindia Similar to the NaMo Again campaign, this initiative shall come up with merchandise. The NaMo Again campaign includes caps, T-shirts, etc., with printed slogans all available online. In the escalating conundrum of the approaching 2019 elections, the war of words seems to have been hijacked by the chowkidar tweet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To cash in on the success of the Chowkidar tweet, a blitzkrieg campaign comprising a town hall to merchandise is expected to be launched as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modis #MainBhiChowkidar electoral campaign on 31 March at 5 pm. This follows the Saturday morning tweet by the prime minister #MainBhiChowkidar in return for the Congress presidents oft-used mocking taunts, Chowkidar Chor Hai, (Chowkidar is thief) that instantly became a success and was soon the top Twitter trend globally. This initiative is likely to take the previous Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot campaign to another level with greater outreach. Immediately after the Balakot airstrike, Modi had interacted with one crore BJP workers and volunteers from 15,000 locations across the country as part of the Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot (My booth is the strongest one) programme. With Main bhi chowkidar (Im a watchman too) campaign, which according to party sources will be way ahead of all previous campaigns in terms of its outreach, the prime minister aims at mobilising support from general public and galvanise party workers, volunteers and supporters for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. This Main bhi chowkidar campaign initiative is going to be much bigger than previous ones and its outreach will surpass past records like the one we had in Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot, in which the prime minister had interacted with more than one crore party workers and volunteers, a BJP source told Firstpost. What is on the cards? The three minute and forty-five-second video touches upon the flagship schemes launched by the NDA government such as Swachh Bharat scheme, Ujjawala Yojana etc., and ends with an appeal to people to join the prime ministers Main Bhi Chowkidar programme at 5 pm on 31 March. According to party sources, a town hall kind of event of Prime Minister Modi is expected on 31 March evening, which can either be from New Delhi or outside the national capital depending on Modis tour schedule. The prime minister is expected to address his party workers and the general public from all walks of life through the NaMo app. Targetting a larger outreach Gaon Gaon, Ghar Ghar (from villages to homes) will be a part of this campaign. The target audience are all those living in villages across India besides metros, tier II and III cities and towns. Similar to the NaMo Again campaign, this initiative shall come up with merchandise. The NaMo Again campaign includes caps, T-shirts, etc., with printed slogans all available online. Going beyond Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, this campaign will use multiple platforms on social media. The first step takena day after the Saturday tweetwas the changed names of Modi, Amit Shah and other ministers and leaders on Twitter accounts adding Chowkidar to the handle. Its now Chowkidar Narendra Modi, Chowkidar Amit Shah, Chowkidar Piyush Goyal, et al. These BJP ministers and leaders have given an individual message from rooting out corruption to Swachhata (cleanliness) from their individual Twitter handles. By adding other ministers and leaders, the scope of the campaign has broadened immensely. Other ministers and leaders from the Centre and states will add to this list. Something more can be expected in days to follow, the source said. The campaign reminds of Anna Hazares nationwide movement against corruption in 2011-12 when Main Bhi Anna (Im Anna too) catchline caught national attention and galvanised masses across India. It spoke about the probity and credibility of Anna those days. Soon after, the nation witnessed the change of governments both at the Centre and in Delhi. While the NDA replaced the UPA, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in Delhi ending 15-year Congress rule. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) The House of Representatives has conceded to the Senate on the proposed 2019 budget, agreeing to recall the spending bill it transmitted to the Senate, Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson said Monday. Lacson told reporters that San Juan Rep. Ronnie Zamora, who has been designated House negotiator on the budget, called him up yesterday to say that the House leadership has agreed to back off on its amended budget bill. Once recalled, Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III said he will sign the budget bill for transmittal to Malacanang for President Rodrigo Duterte's signature. Sotto and Lacson expect that Duterte will veto lump sum items in the budget. Whatever was vetoed may then be revived by Congress as a supplemental budget, which will be itemized by both the House and the Senate. However, Lacson said it has yet to be seen whether the House will push through with recalling the budget bill. "It bears watching if they will really recall or withdraw their version of the enrolled bill today and from there we will move forward," he said. "If they do not, then we don't have an enrolled bill and we won't have any national budget 'til August when the leadership of the House of Representatives changes." But House Appropriations House Appropriations committee chair Camarines Sur 1st District Rep. Rolando Andaya told CNN Philippines' Balitaan that talks of recalling the budget bill are still "premature." "I really don't know what they're talking about. Hindi po ako kasama diyan. Ako po 'yung chairman of Appropriations, siguro kung may magbabalita niyan, ako ang mauuna," Andaya said. [Translation: I really don't know what they're talking about. I'm not included there. I am the chairman of Appropriations, maybe if someone's going to break the news, I'll be the first to do so.] He also echoed House Majority Leader Fredenil Castro, saying that the budget bill could not be recalled without the approval of the plenary. Despite this denial, Lacson stood pat on his earlier statement, saying that this is now a matter that congressmen have to settle among themselves. "I-solve muna nila 'yun kasi kung hindi pala awtorisado si Congressman Zamora, eh bakit siya 'yung inatasan na makipagusap sa atin," Lacson said. [Translation: They should solve that first because if Congressmen Zamora is not authorized, then why was he tasked to talk to us?] Congressmen have been insisting on breaking down the lump sum appropriation in the budget after it was ratified by Congress, but senators pointed out that this could be illegal and unconstitutional. Sotto has vowed not to sign the budget bill transmitted by the House, saying that he may be charged with falsification of legislative documents by certifying the bill which contains provisions which were not ratified by Congress, effectively blocking its transmittal to Malacanang for Duterte's signature. Senators have been calling on the House to recall the budget bill it has transmitted and stick to the spending bill which was approved by the bicameral conference committee and ratified by Congress. This does not contain the assailed itemizations done by congressmen on lump sum funds in the budget. But House leaders remain adamant on the itemization of lump sum funds. "What we can say is that the process that we followed was constitutional. We would never put the President in a position of signing an unconstitutional bill," House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told reporters Monday. Aside from the debate over the legality of what the House has done on the budget, congressmen and senators have also been trading accusations that they realigned billions of funds away from government agencies and into their respective congressional districts and bailiwicks. Duterte met with lawmakers last week in hopes of breaking the impasse, but to no avail. The executive branch has since taken a hands off approach on the 2019 budget, letting solons resolve the issue among themselves. The 2019 budget has been delayed for three months, as Congress has failed to pass it on time over allegations of anomalous insertions. The National Economic and Development Authority has warned that if the budget is only passed in August, the country's economic growth will only be around 4.9 to 5.1 percent, while growth can further stunt to 4.2 to 4.9 percent if the budget is reenacted for the entire year. Economic managers also slashed the country's growth forecast from seven to eight percent to six to seven percent due to the delay of the 2019 budget. CNN Philippines' Joyce Ilas, Xave Gregorio and Rex Remitio contributed to this report. Parrikar is the exemplar of the original aspiration of the BJP's quest to be the party with a difference. He was different and he made a difference In the middle of the night, in the summer of 1991, a band of young fellows would walk the streets of Goa to put the BJP on the political landscape of the state. Every 200 metres they would chalk the outline of the symbol, fill it with lime and paste the posters. One of the poster boys was also the Lok Sabha candidate. His name: Manohar Parrikar. The poster boy of the 1990s, a reluctant politician pushed into the melee by his RSS mentor, in two short decades came to be The Poster Boy of Politics, everybody's idea of the ideal politician. Parrikar is the exemplar of the original aspiration of the BJP's quest to be the party with a difference. He was different and he made a difference. I learned about Parrikar through Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde in the early 1990s. Mahajan, not one to praise anyone easily, said he was what BJP needed more of. In a multi-religious cosmopolitan state, Parrikar defined acceptance in politics that priests, maulvis and pandits prayed for him in his last days is a manifestation of his style of lead-with-the-people politics. Sworn in as chief minister in 2000, Parrikar was the first among 13 in 10 years to complete his term. Venkaiah Naidu had then quipped, "It is his ability that gives stability." And true to the maxim, Parrikar went on to be chief minister four times. Parrikar played a crucial role in the orbital shift of the BJP. In 2002, in Goa, I was discussing with him the state of the BJP rife with dissent, before the start of the national executive. Among those present were Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Mahajan and other senior leaders. I asked him why the BJP had struggled and he said, "Age of decision-makers changes the risk-reward matrix. Ideally leaders are at their best between the ages of 40 and 55." In leadership analysis, it's a classical thesis you know enough to take the decision but not enough to fear taking a call. Later that evening, the BJP endorsed the stand of Narendra Modi. I was walking down the street outside the Marriot to file my copy and he asked me what I was going to write. I told him I would reveal it after I write it. True to form, the next morning he asked, "So what is your analysis?" I said the colour saffron represents two approaches one leads to renouncement or sanyas and the other war or sangram. BJP has moved from sanyas to sangram. By 2009, the BJP parivar was at war and the RSS decided to intervene. Parrikar was among the names doing the rounds for the post of BJP president. I asked him if he was considering the offer. Parrikar was candid. "Arre, I come from a two-MP state. Besides, I don't want to go to Delhi. You know Delhi is like Rome everyone suspects everyone all the time." A year later I was asked by the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodini to do a chat with him. I asked him if there was an expiry date for yatras and yatris. He had a few days earlier remarked about 'rancid' and 'pickled' leaders in the party. He said "the point is not who but what" and didn't shy away from his views. Again in 2013, it was Parrikar who set the ball rolling for change within the party, naming Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. After the BJP came to power it was clear it lacked talent and Parrikar's name was doing the rounds for defence minister. He said, "You know my views about Delhi, but I may shift." As defence minister, Parrikar restored due process, diligence and credibility he also endeared himself to the forces and propelled the interests of state enterprises from ordnance factories to the DRDO et al. That in all the muck flying around on Rafale, none was thrown at him is a testimony of his integrity. But the straightforward, down-to-earth persona of Parrikar was militating with his circumstance. I met him in Delhi in 2017 a little after the Rafale controversy had erupted. He had put on weight and looked ill at ease. I asked him if all was well and he said with a twinkle in his eye: "What do you expect with this kind of food and this place?" His move to Goa was not a bit surprising for me his discomfort with the shenanigans in Delhi was much too apparent. Some of his friends tend to suspect it triggered the illness and I tend to agree. The seriousness of his illness was known to friends. Parrikar typically didn't want to go abroad for treatment. I sent him a barrage of messages through his close friends, Atul Bhatkalkar and Mukund Kulkarni, to go to the US. While visiting Mumbai, Modi prevailed. It was frankly already too late for him. Always a fighter, he soldiered on through the treatment. The IIT-Bombay graduate wore his degree and his achievements lightly, always a quintessential Goankar, a foodie fond of music and always a friend of friends. Much is known and discussed about his simple lifestyle. What most people miss is that while he did not take the perks and privileges of power seriously, travelling economy class, by cab, continuing with his bush-shirt and sandals sartorial style, he was dead serious about politics and the leverage it offered to engineer. That he did this without the accompanying melodrama is what endeared him to people. Parrikar's real legacy is that people aspire for a leader like him. He was and will be The Poster Boy for Politics. The author is a political economy analyst, visiting fellow at IDFC Institute and author of Accidental India and Aadhaar, A Biometric History Follow the updates from Parrikar's State funeral in Goa here The Congress is currently the single-largest party in the Goa Assembly with 14 MLAs in the 40-member House The death of Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar has thrown the carefully-formed state government into disarray over the looming question facing the BJP-led alliance: Who will be the next chief minister? The situation is further complicated by the Congress' claim to form the government a demand that has gotten louder since Parrikar's demise on Sunday evening. The precariously stacked BJP coalition government in Goa faced the third loss after MLA Francis D'souza's death in February. The Congress on Saturday had staked a claim to form the government in Goa claiming that the Manohar Parrikar dispensation had lost its majority in the Assembly following D'Souza's demise. In a letter to Goa governor Mridula Sinha, Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar asked for the party to be able to form the government and demanded the dismissal of the government. As Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari holds talks with allies to come to a consensus on the appointment of a chief minister on Monday, the ruling dispensation also needs to be mindful of the way the numbers are currently stacked in the Goa Assembly: The strength of the Goa Assembly is 40. Before Parrikar's death, three seats were vacant after the death of BJP MLA Francis D'Souza and resignation of two Congress MLAs Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte. Now, the strength is now reduced to 36. However, the Congress is currently the single-largest party in the state with 14 MLAs in the 40-member House. The BJP has 12 legislators and its government is supported by three MLAs each of the Goa Forward Party and Maharashtra Gomantak Party, and three Independents. There is also an NCP MLA in the assembly. All the alliance partners had been clear for long that they would support only a government led by Parrikar. In a boost to Congress, one of the BJP's MLA Pandurang Madkaikar is in the hospital and is unlikely to be able to come to the Assembly for a possible vote. This is the reason the Congress has been saying it has 14 MLAs to the BJPs 11. Another BJP MLA, Speaker Sawant, has only a casting vote. Goa Forward Party chief and state minister Vijai Sardesai on Sunday night said his party had not supported the BJP but only Parrikar. The Election Commission of India, while announcing the schedule for the Lok Sabha election on 10 March, had also announced by-election dates for the three vacant seats in the Goa Assembly. The bypolls in the Shiroda, Mandrem and Mapusa seats will be held on 23 April, along with the Lok Sabha polls, reports said. With inputs from agencies By the end of October 2014, Modi served an ultimatum to Parrikar asking him to pack his bags within a week and join the Union Cabinet as defence minister When Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Goa today to pay homage to the departed chief minister and trusted party colleague Manohar Parrikar, his thoughts could possibly have drifted to two events in April 2002 and June 2013 that decided Modi's fate and as time would tell, the course of the nation. On both these occasions, Parrikar was Goa chief minister and warm host to the BJP conclave. On both these occasions, Modi was Gujarat chief minister, but the two situations were very different. In April 2002, the National Executive meet was to decide whether he would continue as chief minister or be asked to resign with the taint of a failed administrator on him. In June 2013, the conclave was to decide whether to catapult Modi to the national scene as the BJP's foremost leader and prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha election. On both these occasions, Parrikar slightly younger to Modi was by the side of the latter. They had developed an unspoken camaraderie and such was Modi's faith in Parrikar as a capable administrator with great personal integrity, that on becoming prime minister, he kept the defence minister's post vacant for over five months. Arun Jaitley was given temporary charge of defence in addition to the full time finance ministry portfolio. Parrikar was unwilling to move to Delhi, he was repeatedly declining Modi's offer to join the big league. By the end of October 2014, Modi served an ultimatum to Parrikar asking him to pack his bags within a week and join the Union Cabinet as defence minister. The Cabinet expansion and a reshuffle couldn't wait any longer. This time it was an order from the supreme leader of the party and Parrikar as a disciplined leader of the party had to abide by it. This was the only big decision of the Modi government, of which the media caught wind. Firstpost then broke that story after learning about the news from senior BJP leaders whom Parrikar had told about the whole move and his decision to abide by the diktat. Both Modi and Parrikar had their moorings in the RSS, albeit in different areas. The onset of Summer 2002 became a defining moment in their relationship. The BJP National Executive was to be held in Goa in April. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then prime minister, was uneasy over the aftermath of the Godhra riots in Gujarat. A hugely image-conscious Vajpayee was under pressure from allies TDP, LJP and others, a section of party leaders and also from various other groups. The riots had become international news and it was perceived by many that they might take a toll on Vajpayee's image as a statesman. Parrikar was playing host to the BJP conclave in Goa and as such, he was in contact with the top leaders visiting the state. During the meeting, Modi took the microphone and offered to resign. What followed was unprecedented in the BJP's history. Modi's delegates gathered there shouted, "No, No". LK Advani was backing Modi, but seated on the dais, he kept quiet. When someone suggested that a decision on Modi's fate be taken later, the shouts became even stronger. Modi survived in Goa to script history, becoming the first BJP leader to win three consecutive Assembly elections. In June 2013, Parrikar hosted another BJP conclave. The meet was being held to seek National Executive approval to declare Modi as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. This time around, Advani was not inclined to endorse Modi's elevation. Parrikar played the role of a perfect host and strategist to ensure that the announcement to make Modi the BJP's face in the parliamentary election would go through. Once again, Modi went on to script history, winning an absolute majority for the BJP in the Lok Sabha, the first such instance for a non-Congress government, becoming the first leader to have full a majority in three decades. Parrikar and Goa had been lucky for him. Parrikar's death will be a personal loss to Modi. Follow all the updates from Parrikar's State funeral in Goa here Mayawati advised the Congress to refrain from spreading misunderstanding about leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for the SP-BSP-RLD combine Lucknow: After Mayawati's retort to the Congress, the Samajwadi Party on Monday asked the grand old party not to spread any kind of confusion while maintaining that the BSP-SP-RLD alliance is capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress on Sunday said it would leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. Apart from this, the grand old party also said that it will leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party. "In Uttar Pradesh, the SP, BSP and RLD alliance is capable of the defeating the BJP. The Congress party should not spread any kind of confusion," SP president Akhilesh Yadav wrote on Twitter. Earlier in the day, Mayawati advised the Congress to refrain from spreading misunderstanding about leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for the SP-BSP-RLD combine. In a series of tweets, Mayawati also made it amply clear that BSP will not enter into any alliance with the Congress. She said the SP-BSP-RLD alliance is capable enough to defeat the BJP on its own. The SP and the BSP had forged an alliance on 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. As per the deal, the SP will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the BSP 38, leaving three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). With the death of Parrikar, the strength of 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly stands at 36. Earlier, three seats were vacant as BJP MLA Francis D'Souza passed away in February and two Congress MLAs had resigned in 2018. The power tussle in Goa between the BJP-led coalition government and the Congress continued on Monday as Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's meeting with alliance partners to decide on leadership issue couldn't come to a consensus. The senior BJP leader held discussions with the BJP Goa legislature wing on Sunday night. He was also scheduled to meet alliance partners, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Independents on Monday, who had given support to the Parrikar-led government. Speaking to reporters, Gadkari said, "No final decision has been taken on the chief minister yet. I will be leaving after 6 pm. I feel that if the decision is made by then, it will be a good thing." "We are in talks with alliance partners," he said. BJP chief Amit Shah, who is in Goa for Parrikar's last rites, is likely to take the talks further once Gadkari leaves the state. How the numbers stacked up in Goa: With the death of Parrikar, the strength of the Goa Legislative Assembly stands at 36. Earlier, three seats were vacant as BJP MLA Francis D'Souza passed away in February and two Congress MLAs had resigned in 2018. The Congress is the single largest party and currently has 14 MLAs, while the BJP has 12 members. With the support of three MLAs each of MGP and the GFP and three independents, the BJP-led coalition government just about has majority in the House. An NCP MLA is also supporting the coalition. With the strength of the House at 36, a party would require at least the support of 19 MLAs to form a government. Stance of alliance partners: Asked if they would continue to support the BJP, the alliance partners said "no one should not be taken for granted" as their support was to Parrikar when the government was formed in 2017. Parrikar, who was the then Union defence minister, had taken over the reigns of the state after the BJP failed to get a majority in the 2017 Goa Legislative Assembly election. "No one can be taken for granted. But we all want this government to survive. No one can afford the dissolution of the Assembly or keeping the House in suspended animation," GFP chief Vijai Sardesai told reporters in Panaji on Sunday evening after a meeting that was attended by leaders of his party, the MGP and Independents. Sardesai had said the alliance partners will take a stand only after the BJP legislative party decides its leader. The big wait: "With chief minister Parrikar's demise, the ruling coalition will have to make a fresh representation to the governor (Mridula Sinha) after choosing their leader. The representation will have a letter of support," a senior official from State Legislature Department told PTI. "If the governor is not convinced, then she will have to invite the single largest party to form government," he said. What Congress is saying: On Sunday, the Goa Congress wrote again to Governor Mridula Sinha, calling for the dismissal of the government. According to The Times of India, leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said that the BJP was left with no allies now as coalition partners had tied up with the saffron party on the condition that Parrikar heads the government. "Congress being the single largest party, it is submitted that the leader of the Congress legislative party is invited to form the next goverment," Kavlekar said. With inputs from PTI Follow LIVE update here Shortly before the clock struck 2 am Tuesday, Pramod Pandurang Sawant, 45, Goas Speaker until that moment, took over as the states new chief minister succeeding Manohar Parrikar who died less than 48 hours ago. Shortly before the clock struck 2 am Tuesday, Pramod Pandurang Sawant, 45, Goas Speaker until that moment, took over as the states new chief minister succeeding Manohar Parrikar who died less than 48 hours ago. Whatever I am today is all due to Manohar Parrikar. It was he who brought me to politics, I became the Speaker and the chief minister today, due to him," Sawant said in praise of his mentor who battled pancreatic cancer for a year before his end came. Four-time Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar was cremated with full State honours in Panaji on Monday evening. Newly-appointed Goa CM Pramod Sawant: I have to provide a stability and move ahead together with all allies. It'll be my responsibility to complete the incomplete works. I will not be able to work as much as Manohar Parrikar ji but I will definitely try to work as much as possible. pic.twitter.com/BImogFkxp0 ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 The new team sworn in early Tuesday morning has two deputy chief ministers, Goa Forward Party chief Vijai Sardesai and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party MLA Sudin Dhavalikar, from the two parties backing the BJP in the coastal state. Both men had initially demanded the chief minister's post. Union minister Nitin Gadkari, who had arrived in Goa soon after Parrikar's death on Sunday evening, had tried to negotiate with allies but failed to make much headway. Finally, BJP president Amit Shah broke the deadlock, after attending Parrikar's last rites. The Goa Assembly has 36 members now instead of 40 after two deaths Parrikar and BJP legislator Francis D'Souza and the resignation of two others. The Congress claims to be the single-largest party with 14 seats, while the BJP, with 13, has the support of many smaller parties. Eleven ministers took oath to complete the new power structure in Goa. These include Sudin Dhavlikar, Vijai Sardesai, Manohar Azgaonkar, Rohan Khaunte, Govind Gaude, Vinod Palienkar, Jayesh Salgaonkar, Mauvin Godinho, Vishwajit Rane, Milind Naik and Nilesh Cabral. Predictably, Goa Congress stepped up attacks against the BJP amidst hectic overnight action at Raj Bhavan. "We're strongly condemning undemocratic action of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha for not allowing our single largest party to form the govt and allowing BJP to carry on horse trading despite BJP not having sufficient numbers to form the government," Sunil Kawthankar of the Goa Congress told ANI. Goa's new chief minister Sawant earned a Bachelor's degree in Ayurvedic Medicine from the Ganga Aruvedic Medical College in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district and practiced alternative medicine. Sawant also has a Masters in Social Welfare from the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth. This is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's second visit to Uttar Pradesh after being appointed Congress general secretary. She held several meetings with party leaders in in Lucknow on Sunday. Congress general secretary and eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her party's campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with a mega three-day 'Ganga Yatra' from Prayagraj to Varanasi by a steamer on Monday. Both the start and end points of her 140-kilometre-long Ganga ride are of immense political significance Prayagraj is the birthplace of her great grandfather and India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Varanasi is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency. This is Priyanka's second visit to the state after being appointed a Congress general secretary. She arrived in Lucknow on Sunday afternoon and held several meetings with party leaders for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. The Congress leader is expected to spend four days in the state. A day before she began her campaign, Priyanka wrote an open letter to the people of Uttar Pradesh, stating how she would take the help of "Gangaji" to reach their doorsteps to establish a "saccha samvaad" (truthful dialogue) with them and bring forth political change. Priyanka's letter tacitly points at Modi's reference to Ganga as his "mother" to maintain that it was "the call of Ganga Maa that had prompted him to contest from Varanasi". On Monday, her boat ride started at Manaiya ghat in Prayagraj district's Kachnar tehsil and will culminate at Sitamarhi ghat in Bhadohi district along the Ganga. On her way from Manaiya to Sitamarhi, she made her first pitstop at Dumduma Ghat, where she interacted with the villagers. The Congress plans to connect with the Mallah, Kewat and Nishad communities of boatmen, fishermen and agriculturalists who live along the river. Before embarking on her yatra, Priyanka also visited the Bade Hanuman temple in Prayagraj and offered prayers. The 47-year-old younger sibling of Congress president Rahul Gandhi also held a discussion with students onboard the boat, which is being called "Sanchi Baat Priyanka Ke Saath". She will next reach Sirsa Ghat and continue her boat ride to Lakshagrih Ghat. She is expected to reach arrive at Sitamarhi Ghat on Monday evening. Political observers believe that Priyanka's cruise is also an effort to navigate her party out of a three-decade-long wilderness in the state. Not surprising then that she shared a tweet recalling her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. Recalling memories of her grandmother, while she takes a tour of this politically important state, is also significant considering how she has always been likened and fondly compared by people with Indira Gandhi. Priyanka talks about how her grandmother would "put her to sleep with stories of Joan of Arc" an apt allusion to "being fearless" as she takes the fight to Modi's stronghold. - pic.twitter.com/q8Ecdb2RsL Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) March 17, 2019 Making a pit stop to address a rally at Dumduma ghat in Prayagraj, she took a jibe at Modi's 'Main Bhi Chowidar' campaign and said, "It is up to the prime minister what he wants to put before his name. A farmer told me that chowkidars are for rich people and that farmers are their own security personnel." She also added how the country and the Constitution were in "danger". From Sirsa, Priyanka will proceed to Tutihar and Kaundhiyara by road. She is set to meet family members of slain CRPF jawan Mahesh Raj Yadav in Prayagraj and briefly stay at a guest house. On Wednesday, she is likely to visit the ancestral home of former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Varanasi, a Congress communique said. The Congress leader is expected to reach Varanasi on Thursday, where she is likely to highlight the failure of the Modi government's Namami Gange project. The pre-requisite of the educational qualification in Rajasthan brought forth some talented first-timers who were able to trump the old heavyweights, Editor's Note: A network of 60 reporters set off across India to test the idea of development as it is experienced on the ground. Their brief: Use your mobile phone to record the impact of 120 key policy decisions on everyday life; what works, what doesn't and why; what can be done better and what should be done differently. Their findings straight and raw from the ground will be combined in this series, Elections on the Go, over a course of 100 days. Read more articles from the series here *** Tonk: Rajasthan's crumbling panchayati raj system had got a new lease of life during the 2015 elections to rural local bodies in the state. Reason: On 20 December, 2014, the Vasundhara Raje government promulgated an ordinance amending the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, and making education a pre-requisite for contesting panchayat elections. It became mandatory for candidates contesting the zila parishad polls to have passed at least SSC and those contesting panchayat samiti polls to have cleared at least the eighth standard. Social organisations, however, werent pleased and challenged it in the high court. By the time the case came up for hearing, the high court refused to intervene, as the election had been announced. Fast forward to 2018: The newly-elected Congress government, in its first Cabinet meeting on 29 December, did away with the education criterion. On 17 January, 2019, it approved the amendment of two Bills Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2019, and the Rajasthan Municipalities (Amendment) Bill, 2019; these were passed in the Assembly on 14 February. The pre-requisite of the educational qualification brought forth some talented first-timers who were able to trump the old heavyweights, but the jury is out on whether or not the criterion is the way forward. Social activists say the criterion doesnt serve the purpose and shouldnt be foisted on sarpanchs, especially when MLAs and MPs dont have to abide by it. However, villagers in Rajasthan attest to the fact that the educated sarpanchs have performed well. In Tonk district, Rajasthan's first MBA sarpanch Chhavi Rajawat says, "Education is important; that can never be said enough. Ive had to deal with grassroots-level government officials manipulating records, miscalculating expenses, and withholding information; all this could have delayed crucial projects for another decade. Hence, it is important even for panchayat leaders to know and understand the data and guidelines, especially the documents they sign. That said, it doesnt mean people who are illiterate lack wisdom. She adds, It is, however, important that electoral reforms, be it education or weeding out those with a criminal background, be implemented at all levels, including for MPs and MLAs. Rajawat is in her second consecutive term she had first contested and won in 2010, when education wasnt mandatory. Turning the tide, with education Several elected representatives have implemented many state and central government schemes, such as Ujjwala, Rajshree (for girls), ensuring issuance of Bhamashah health cards and ration cards. They have also made efforts to open bank accounts, enhance skill development, and build homes for the poor. Hemlata Bairwa, who became the sarpanch in Tonks Chainpura panchayat in 2015, recalls the initial days of her tenure. There was no building for a panchayat. I got one made during my tenure. Bairwa, who has no political background, ousted the previous sarpanch because the seat was reserved for an educated Dalit woman. Ask her about her most satisfying achievement so far and she says, I know the problems girls face in school. Hence, I made it my priority to get toilets and boundary walls around girls schools built in 2017. I also told the teachers to pay special attention to their studies. All this has been giving good results every year more girls are enrolling in schools. Simla Sharma, up-sarpanch at the same panchayat, says, People expected me to be in a ghoonghat (veil), but my husband told me to do away with it and perform well. From 2015 to 2017, I have got 14 water tanks built across the block. Earlier, hand pumps were used to pump groundwater into tanks and distributed among locals through a paid scheme. That, however, failed as people didnt pay the bills. Sharma and her team, in association with PHED (the government department which takes care of water supply) pushed for a tank in every panchayat. They also got public water collection points made and ensured bills are paid on time. While Bairwa has studied up to Class 12, Sharma has studied up to Class 6. Beena Bairwa, the sarpanch from Lalwadi panchayat in Tonk, got several roads, drains, and water tanks constructed in her constituency. An aspect where she differs from her predecessors is ensuring regular repair and maintenance of the same. She has studied till Class 10. There are several other uplifting stories from other parts of the state. Sapna Sharma, the sarpanch from Lapsya in Rajsamand district, along with other women visits every home where a girl child is born; they all play the dhol and distribute sweets to encourage the new mother and stress the importance of a girl child. Meanwhile, at Raipur panchayat in Sirohi district, sarpanch Geeta Devi Rao ensures that a tree is planted for every girl child born. She herself enrolled for Std X exams to boost the confidence of parents unwilling to send their daughters to school. These women are grateful for criterion of the educational qualification, as it helped them to win and make a difference. When politicians jumped in the playground However, this did not stop the Congress from nipping the initiative in the bud. It had announced that it would reverse the criterion when it came to power. And thats exactly what it did. BJP leaders, to justify the party's stand, say the money from MNREGA and other schemes that the Centre sent to panchayats went directly to the sarpanchs. This, they add, led to thousands of cases of embezzlement against elected representatives, whose standard reply allegedly was, I am illiterate and put my thumb impression on the papers put before me. The BJP maintains that the education criterion will check embezzlement of funds and lead to increased literacy and is a bottom-up approach. The party argues that cultivating educated sarpanchs will, over time, cultivate educated MPs and MLAs. Social activists, however, are not convinced. Virendra Shrimali of the Hunger Project says, Such rules cannot be implemented out of the blue. It is unfair to foist it on the sarpanchs alone. We have been training women elected representatives to perform and deliver for over a decade, and even uneducated elected women representatives have performed. Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan says, People cannot be punished for not being educated. The disadvantaged sections dont go to schools and the education system itself needs to be improved to get them in. Also, the skills needed to be a sarpanch go beyond handling paperwork. It is about leadership and values. Why not implement changes that percolate from the top to bottom? This rule should first be applied to MPs. But BJP stands by its move. Every political change takes time to be accepted and become successful. While one cannot deny that even uneducated people have political and leadership capabilities, we have to begin somewhere, says Jyoti Kiran, BJP leader and former chairperson of Finance Commission, Rajasthan. What the way forward looks like Removing the education pre-requisite wont be an election issue in Tonk-Sawai Madhopur. The seat is vital for both BJP and Congress. The population largely comprises Meenas, Gurjars and Muslims. Jats and SCs, too, are communities which can have a decisive say in the verdict. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched his Lok Sabha poll campaign in Rajasthan from this seat, which gives an indication of its importance for the BJP. History suggests that the seat could go either way in the 16 elections held there since 1952, Congress has won it six times, BJP seven times, and the Swatantra Party thrice. Meanwhile, Tonk has reaped benefits from the new breed of educated grassroots public representatives. While many want to contest again, it remains to be seen if they will be able to do so. The author is a Jaipur-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters A key TRS leader hinted on Monday that two-third of Congress MLAs in Telangana are likely to join the ruling party in the state Hyderabad: A key TRS leader hinted on Monday that two-third of Congress MLAs in Telangana are likely to join the ruling party in the state. Since the beginning of this month, eight of the total of 19 Congress MLAs have announced their decision to join the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. The development, which comes close to the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana, has set in a sense of despondency in the Congress. On accusations that the TRS is engineering defections, Nizamabad Lok Sabha member Kalvakuntla Kavitha, an influential party leader and daughter of the chief minister, said, "The way the state is progressing, many senior Congress party leaders and various people from the TDP, they all want to join the TRS." "And when the number is more than two-third (of total strength), we have been encouraging them (to defect). Otherwise, single MLA... we are not encouraging the defections," Kavitha told PTI. The Congress has accused the TRS of encouraging the defection of its MLAs and said it would meet the governor besides launching a campaign against the ruling party. Congress Legislature Party leader M Bhatti Vikramarka alleged that the chief minister was "conspiring to eliminate the opposition as he lacked courage to answer their questions". In the 7 December, 2018 assembly elections, the TRS won 88 seats in the 119-member House, pushing the Congress to a distant second position. The BJP had won one seat. In the chief minister's first term (2014-2018), 12 of the total 15 TDP MLAs had joined the TRS. Electoral politics is gradually returning to the Kashmir Valley, despite its political landscape being still fraught with danger and the intermittent killings of party workers Electoral politics is gradually returning to the Kashmir Valley, despite its political landscape being still fraught with danger and the intermittent killings of party workers. On Sunday, the Valley witnessed a number of political rallies by the local unionist parties, including an addition to its electoral space with the launch of a new mainstream party by the bureaucrat-turned-politician, Shah Faesal. The former IAS topper launched his party, Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement, at an impressive function attended by hundreds of his workers and supporters, mostly the youth, in Srinagar city. His party mostly draws inspiration from "his political idol" Arvind Kejriwal's AAP, that relies on youth voluntarism. His targets are the disenfranchised youths, who say they are tired of the promises made by previous regimes and want a change in the mainstream electoral politics of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. "Everyone is saying we have seen a lot of politics over the bloodshed of youths. But now we won't allow politics of that sort to take place," Faesal said, "People ask me what would be your stand on the Kashmir issue? We believe the issue of Kashmir should be resolved through peaceful resolution and that should happen with dignity and respect." As a mainstream political party, he said his party wants to act as a bridge between two nations India and Pakistan across the Kashmir issue. "We can emerge as a voice and bridge that distance between these two nations on the Kashmir issue," he said. The former bureaucrat was flanked by ex-JNU student leader, Shehla Rashid, who joined Faesal's party on the occasion. However, on the day when Faesal was addressing a political gathering in Srinagar, the former chief minister and vice-president of Kashmir's Grand Old Party, National Conference, Omar Abdullah had turned up in south Kashmir's Anantnag district to address his party members. After 2016, when south Kashmir became the epicentre of street protests and witnessed a wave of militant recruitments and subsequent series of encounters, it was the National Conference's first major show in the region. While addressing a party function in Dak Banglow Anantnag, the National Conference working president said that his party is open to a pre-poll alliance, if the Congress agrees to its seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. "It is pointless to expect any progress on resolution of Kashmir issue till elections were held both at the Centre and state levels," Omar said, adding that by not holding simultaneous polls in Jammu and Kashmir, people were being denied a chance to elect their representatives. While Omar was exploring means to woo voters in his political rival Mehbooba Mufti's traditional bastion, the Peoples Democratic Party president had ventured into Sajad Lone's northern stronghold of Kupwara. In north Kashmir's frontier town, Mehbooba was once again campaigning against the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and the possible mass detention of teachers, among other issues. "The issue of Jammu and Kashmir is a battle of ideas and it won't be resolved by jailing separatists," Mehbooba said at a rally in Kupwara district. "I have heard now that the Centre is also thinking of jailing teachers. They already jailed Jamaat members, so what did they achieve?" Arresting Jamaat activists does not mean that the ideology of Jamaat-e-Islami will end, she reiterated. "People can be caged, but not the ideas," the PDP president said. On the other hand, Mehbooba's former party minister and now the second-most important face in Lone's Peoples Conference (PC), Imran Reza Ansari was addressing a meeting of workers in Srinagar, keeping the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in view. With the support of people, Ansari said, Peoples Conference is fast emerging as a strong alternative in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir. "The party belongs to everyone, whosoever aspires for changing the political system of corruption and nepotism," he said, "Suffering and misery of our people will end only through truth and reconciliation. This is what we are aspiring for. We want our people to be politically conscious, economically stable and socially empowered," Ansari added. If Sunday's series of political rallies are any pointer, then Kashmir is likely to witness an intense election campaigning in the coming days. But in case the political and electoral activities remain peaceful, it will raise fingers at the Centre's decision not to hold simultaneous elections for the state the move now becoming Omar's new war cry against New Delhi in Kashmir. Nandini Yadav On 17 March 2018, a pink-haired man named Christopher Wylie revealed a secret about Facebook and a firm called Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica harvested data from 87 million people across the world via Facebook to target them with political messages without their consent. While this scandal was revealed to the world in March 2018, recent reports suggests a possibility of Facebook and its top executives being aware of the data harvesting since 2016. Since the last one year, Facebook's rope of scandals is just twisting into deeper knots. And Cambridge Analytica was the catalyst that triggered a lot of Facebook's woes. A lot happened since 17 March 2018, after the massive scoops by The Guardian and Channel 4 News. Here's a timeline of all the major events since that fateful March day last year. 17 March 2018: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie tells The New York Times and The Guardian/Observer about a firm called Cambridge Analytica, which purchased Facebook data on 50 million users without their knowledge to build a psychological warfare tool, which the company unleashed on US voters to show them pro-Trump content. Later, Facebook revealed that the number of compromised accounts stood at 87 million. 20 March 2018: The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reopens an investigation about whether Facebook had violated the agreed terms pertaining to data privacy protection of its users, which were reached at in 2011. Calls for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear to testify before the US Congress intensify. 21 March 2018: Four days later, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologises for the data scandal in a Facebook post, which read, "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again". Zuckerberg also announces that Facebook would no longer let third part app developers access to user data after 90 days of inactivity. Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix is suspended, who also confirms that the campaign did influence the US Elections. Meanwhile, the company's India partner, Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI), lists the Indian political parties BJP, the Congress and the JD(U) as its clients. 23 March 2018: Mark Zuckerberg is summoned to testify before the US House Committee regarding the data breach. 25 March 2018: Facebook releases full-page 'sorry' ads in newspapers around the world to apologise for a "breach of trust". "I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now taking steps to ensure this doesn't happen again," said the advertisements in major publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post in the US, The Observer, The Sunday Times, etc, in the UK 28 March 2018: Indian government sends a notice to Facebook over the misuse of data by Cambridge Analytica. 10 April 2018: Mark Zuckerberg appears in front of the US court. He is grilled for five hours, where he takes responsibility for failing to prevent Cambridge Analytica from gathering personal information of users. Also says that his own data was improperly shared by the firm. May 2018: An official investigation is launched, and Christopher Wylie appears before the US Congress to answer questions about the scandal. Cambridge Analytica declares bankruptcy. It blames "unfairly negative media coverage" and says it has been "vilified" for actions that are both legal and widely accepted as part of online advertising. July 2018: The UK's Information Commissioners Office announces its intention to fine Facebook $663,000 over the data scandal. Days later, Mark Zuckerberg announces that significant number of users are leaving the platform. August 2018: Crime Bureau of Investigation (CBI) begins investigating Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal. September 2018: Facebook's psychology researcher Joseph Chancellor, infamous for helping the Cambridge Analytica harvest Facebook users' profiles, quits. October 2018: The UK's Information Commissioner's Office fines Facebook $646,315 for failing to protect the personal information of its users. December 2018: A study announced Facebook as the least trusted company in the world. January 2019: Cambridge Analytica's sister company fined 15,000 ($19,000) for failing to disclose fully what information it held on an individual who had asked to know. March 2019: A report by The Observer reveals that Facebook was aware of the data harvesting scandal much before March 2018, as far back as 2016, when Cambridge Analytica started work on the Trump campaign. A meeting was hosted at Marc Andreessen's (Facebook board member and confidant of CEO Mark Zuckerberg) office with Christopher Wylie. Though Andreessen denies having ever met Wylie. The Cambridge Analytica saga is far from over. In the last one year, Facebook has been battling one PR disaster after another. Thanks to Cambridge Analytica data scandal, issues such as data privacy and the need to regulate big tech companies are stories that have come to the front pages. Facebook CEO promised a lot of things during his hearing and even as its profits seem to scale new heights, there hangs a big question mark on how far Facebook has come to fulfill its promises on data privacy. More recently, Zuckerberg also announced plans to create a privacy focused social media platform aimed at improving messaging and data privacy. A year on since the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook still has a lot to do and a lot to prove. tech2 News Staff Dell has finally launched its all-new range of gaming laptops in India with price tags starts from Rs starting from Rs 1,57,399. Dell announced its affordable 15-inch gaming offering in the form of the new G7 15 and also introduced its lightest and thinnest 15-inch laptop, the Alienware m15 which starts from Rs 1,78,399. But the PC manufacturer did not stop at that. Dell even announced its monstrous Area-51m, which is basically a proper desktop replacement and is priced at Rs 2,99,590. All three gaming machines will be available at large format retail stores including Reliance, Croma and multi-brand stores across the country from April 1, 2019. Alienware Area-51m The top of the line Alienware Area-51m like the rest of the laptops announced today were first unveiled at CES 2019 back in January this year. The machine is powered by Intels 9th generation Core i7 and Core i9 processors and gets NVIDIAs GeForce RTX cards for graphics. The Alienware Area-51m is a game changer because both its CPU and GPU are upgradeable and are basically the desktop versions of the chipsets instead of the mobile versions used on most other portable gaming machines these days. One can configure the system with up to 64 GB of RAM and it also packs in Alienwares TactX keyboard with 2.2 mm of travel and RGB LED lighting. While it sounds like a beast, and is not the slimmest gaming machine to launch this year it does look quite modern and attractive its Dark Side of the Moon and Lunar Light colour options. Alienware m15 Next up is the Alienware m15 which Dell claims is the thinnest and lightest 15-inch gaming machine ever. While its looks like a slimmer version of its predecessor, it packs in NVIDIAs brand-new GeForce RTX line-up. Configurable options include the GeForce RTX 2060 and the 2070 Max-Q. Powering this slim machine is Intels 8th generation Core i7 processors. The machine will be available in two colour options, Epic Silver and Nebula Red. Dell G7 15 The most affordable laptops announced today come from Dells recently refreshed G Series line up. The Dell G7 15 is powered by the Intels 8th generation Core processors and NVIDIAs GeForce 20 series RTX graphics card. The G7 15 will also pack in a 15-inch IPS 144 Hz FHD anti-glare display. Frank Azor, Vice President & General Manager, Alienware, Gaming and XPS said, This is an exciting time for PC gaming all over the world, as well as in India. Over the last two decades, we have lead the gaming market to what it is today. Alienware has been a pioneer in gaming PCs before there were any other players in this space, and we are proud to see how this segment has grown with innovation in the entire gaming ecosystem. We are delighted to introduce ground-breaking, high-performance gaming machines like Area-51m and m15. After all, gamers across levels love us and we want them to know that, like before, we are here to make the best tech available to them. tech2 News Staff The Earth becoming inhabitable in the near future looks more likely with each passing decade. If there comes a day when humans aren't fit to live on it anymore, a NASA engineer has proposed that settling on Saturns moon Titan could be worth considering. The engineer, Janelle Wellons, has many reasons why Titan would make for a good place to live. The most compelling one is that you might be able to fly by simply flapping your arms! "It has a thick atmosphere that could help protect us from space radiation," Wellons wrote on Reddit. "It is so dense that we could actually attach wings to our arms and fly on this moon. I dont know, it just seems like an awesome place to live." Wellon was one of five NASA engineers, scientists, pilots and project managers that made a Reddit appearance to answer questions from the public in a Women's History Month special. In a space agency filled with trailblazers, women play a vital role shaping how @NASA explores our home planet and the universe. Join #WomenatNASA on @Reddit Friday at 2pm ET to ask us anything about our careers and what its like to work at NASA! https://t.co/sAO55S5kzr pic.twitter.com/zuAtd6JDW6 Women@NASA (@WomenNASA) March 14, 2019 One Redditor asked where in space the team would recommend humans settle if conditions on Earth became untenable. Wellons volunteered a "more interesting answer than the standard Mars or Moon response," as the Redittor pointed out. "How about we consider one of the water worlds in our solar system Titan," she wrote. "Titan is the largest moon of Saturn, larger than the planet Mercury even, so I think we could settle with plenty room." Wellon may have thrown a nice idea into the mix for popular science, but there are definite downsides to Titan that researchers and astronauts ought to consider. Titan gets about one percent of the sunlight that Earth does. According to NASAs research, the temperature on Titan at its warmest is a wintry -292 degrees Fahrenheit. In spite of those drawbacks, Wellon is still a fan of the idea. "Now as for the conditions on the surface not as rough as you may think," she wrote. "Titan is the only place besides Earth known to have liquids in the form of lakes and seas on its surface. These liquids are made of methane but, armed with the right kind of protective gear, one could theoretically be able to swim without harm!" tech2 News Staff A meteor exploded into a massive fireball over Earth in December last year, but it wasn't noticed by anyone till recently. The blast was the second-largest of its kind in a century, and the biggest since the fireball over Chelyabinsk in Russia in 2013, New Scientist reported. It went unnoticed largely because of where it blew up: over open seas off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The explosion was ten times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic bomb, hitting Earth's atmosphere at 5.20 am IST (11.50 pm GMT) on 19 December over the stretch of Pacific Ocean between Russia and Alaska. "A fireball this big is only expected about two or three times every 100 years," Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA, told BBC. The space rock barrelled through the atmosphere at speeds of 32 km/s, exploding around 25 kilometres above the Earth's surface with a little less than half the energy of the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion six years ago. "But (this explosion) was over the Bering Sea, so it didn't have the same type of effect or show up in the news," Kelly Fast, manager of the near-Earth objects observations programme at NASA, said. "That's another thing we have in our defense, there's plenty of water on the planet." Military surveillance satellites picked up on the blast as it happened, and NASA was notified of the event by the US Air Force. Dr Johnson said that the fireball entered the atmosphere over an area close to routes used by commercial planes from North America to Asia and back. Researchers have been verifying with airlines to see if there were any reported sightings of the event from passengers or the pilots. The recent incident has uncovered a loophole that NASA is attempting to fix: large-enough space rocks on a collision course with Earth that can affect entire regions on land. This fix is an ongoing project using a combination of ground and space-based telescopes. In a test of the concept, a telescope called NeoCam will be launched to a gravitational balance point in space. It would then discover and characterise potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 m in its field of view. To get a comprehensive map of all potential threats to Earth, researchers have estimated a couple of more decades through NeoCam and other projects. "It will take us many decades to get there with the existing suite of ground-based surveys. But if you have an IR-based (infrared) telescope, it goes a lot faster," Amy Mainzer, chief scientist on the NeoCam project, said. tech2 News Staff A $3 billion project to map the mysteries of the ocean by mapping the Earth's seafloor its hidden mountains, craters and shipwrecks will soon be underway. Less than 9 percent of the Earth's ocean floor has been mapped in high resolution less than we know about some of the other worlds in our solar system, according to Project Seabed 2030's scientists. "If you go to the deep water, to the deep sea, right up in the centre of the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, you actually could miss entire mountains," Geoffroy Lamarche, a team member of the project, told ABC. There have been past instances of nuclear submarines collided with undetected hills deep underwater at full speed. One such accident of the USS San Francisco in 2005 injured 98 and killed one, according to an ABC report. The submarine barely made a successful ascent to the surface. Much of Earth's surface 71 percent of it is covered in water. However, less than a fifth of the ocean seabed on the planet (18 percent) has been studied at all, of which only half was high-resolution imagery. The United Nations-backed Project Seabed 2030, started in 2017, is urging countries to pool their data maps of the ocean floor to create the map, which they intend to be a freely-accessible online resource for all. "We think it's ambitious, but we don't think it's impossible. (It) obviously needs a lot of cooperation from different parties individuals as well as private companies," Mao Hasebe, project coordinator at the Nippon Foundation a Japanese philanthropic organisation supporting the initiative told ABC. The biggest contributors to the mapping process so far have been Dutch energy prospector Fugro and deep-sea mapping firm Ocean Infinity. Both of them were involved in the hunt for Malaysian airline flgiht MH370 that disappeared mysteriously in 2014. The process of mapping will use high-tech, multibeam echosounders that transmit a fan of acoustic beams from a ship and pick up on pings returning from the ocean floor's various depth and topographies. This process creates data points that need to be processed into a map. "With advanced sonar technology, it really is like seeing. We've come out of the era of being the blind man with the stick," Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, said. "We can survey much more efficiently and, not only that, but in much greater detail." The ocean is a big place, after all, and the work of assimilating the map painstaking. While some regions, the ocean off the coasts of Eastern United States, Japan, New Zealand and Ireland for instance, are well mapped. But the rest of the world is an oyster that the Seabed 2030 project will crack open. The Conversation I dont know why it took so long to dawn on me after 20 years of a scientific career that what we call the "scientific method" really only refers the second half of any scientific story. It describes how we test and refine the ideas and hypotheses we have about nature through the engagement of experiment or observation and theoretical ideas and models. But something must happen before this. All of this process rests upon the vital, essential, precious ability to conceive of those ideas in the first place. And, sadly, we talk very little about this creative core of science: the imagining of what the unseen structures in the world might be like. We need to be more open about it. I have been repeatedly saddened by hearing from school students that they were put off science "because there seemed no room there for my own creativity". What on earth have we done to leave this formulaic impression of how science works? Science and poetry The 20th century biologist Peter Medawar was one of the few recent writers to discuss the role of creativity in science at all. He claimed that we are quietly embarrassed about it, because the imaginative phase of science possesses no "method" at all. In his 1982 book Plutos Republic he points out: The weakness of the hypothetico-deductive system, in so far as it might profess to cover a complete account of the scientific process, lies in its disclaiming any power to explain how hypotheses come into being. Medawar is equally critical of glib comparisons of scientific creativity to the sources of artistic inspiration. Because whereas the sources of artistic inspiration are often communicated they "travel" scientific creativity is very much private. Scientists, he claims, unlike artists, do not share their tentative imaginings or inspired moments, but only the polished results of complete investigations. The romantic poet William Wordsworth, on the other hand, two centuries ago, foresaw a future in which: The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poets art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us. Here is the need for ideas to "travel" again which, if Medawar is correct, they have still failed to do. By and large poets still dont write about science (with some notable exceptions such as R S Thomas). Nor is science "an object of contemplation", as the historian Jacques Barzun put it. Yet the few scientists who have vocalised their experience of formulating new ideas are in no doubt about its contemplative and creative essence. Einstein, in his book with the physicist Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, wrote: I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. You dont need to be a great scientist to know this. In my own experience I have seen mathematical solutions in dreams (one dream of a mathematical solution even coming to me and independently and identically to a collaborator on the same night), and imagined a specific structure of protein dynamics while sitting on a hillside. There is a large literature on "creativity" in science, but I have found nothing that really speaks to the lack of discussion of scientific inspiration today or to the pain of lingering experiences in education that set sciences and the arts and humanities in conflicting and opposed camps. Stories of creativity So I set off to ask scientists I knew to narrate, not just their research findings, but the pathways by which they got there. As a sort of control experiment, I did the same with poets, composers and artists. I read past accounts of creation in mathematics (Poincare is very good), novel-writing (Henry James wrote a book about it), art (from Picasso to my Yorkshire friend, the artist late Graeme Willson), and participated in a two-day workshop in Cambridge on creativity with physicists and cosmologists. Philosophy, from medieval to 20th-century phenomenology, has quite a lot to add. From all these tales emerged a different way to think about what science achieves and where it lies in our long human story as not only a route to knowledge but also as a contemplative practice that meets a human need, in ways complementary to art or music. Above all, I could not deny the extraordinary way that personal stories of creating the new mapped closely onto each other, whether these sprung from an attempt to create a series of mixed-media artworks reflecting the sufferings of war, or the desire to know what astronomical event had unleashed unprecedented X-ray and radio signals. A common narrative contour of a glimpsed and desired end, a struggle to achieve it, the experience of constraint and dead-end, and even the mysterious aha moments that speak of hidden and sub-conscious processes of thought choosing their moments to communicate into our consciousness all this is a story shared among scientists and artists alike. In my resulting book The Poetry and Music of Science I try to make sense of why sciences imaginative and creative core is so hidden, and how to bring it into the light. Its not the book I first imagined it just wouldnt permit a structure of separate accounts of scientific and artistic creativity. Their entanglements run too deep for that. Instead, there emerged three "modes" of imagination that both science and art engage: the visual, the textual and the abstract. We think in pictures, in words, and in the abstract forms that we call mathematics and music. It has become increasingly obvious to me that the two cultures division between the humanities and sciences is an artificial invention of the late 19th century. Perhaps the best way to address this is simply to ignore it, and start talking to one another more. Tom McLeish, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics, University of York This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. By Maggie Fick ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Bouquets of white roses surrounded aviation staff as they gathered at Bole International Airport on Sunday to remember the two pilots and six crew, who perished along with 149 passengers in the Ethiopia Airlines crash a week ago. Weeping women held slender single stems in their shaking hands. By Maggie Fick ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Bouquets of white roses surrounded aviation staff as they gathered at Bole International Airport on Sunday to remember the two pilots and six crew, who perished along with 149 passengers in the Ethiopia Airlines crash a week ago. Weeping women held slender single stems in their shaking hands. Banks of the white flowers, the traditional colour of mourning, were placed in front of a row of empty coffins at the ceremony. A band - some of the musicians in tears - temporarily stopped playing as band members ran to comfort bereaved relatives who lunged forward, wailing in grief over the coffins. "Our deep sorrow cannot bring them back," an Orthodox priest in a traditional black turban and black robes told the crowd gathered outside an airport hangar. "This is the grief of the world," he said, as Ethiopian Airlines staff sobbed in each other's arms. At least the crash had taken place in Ethiopia - the holy land - he said, prompting "amens" from the crowd. In Paris, investigators examined black box recorders to determine why the aircraft plunged into a field shortly after take off from Addis Ababa, searching for similarities to an October Lion Air crash that killed 189 people. Both crashes involved the same model of plane - a Boeing 737 MAX 8 - causing aviation authorities to ground the model around the world after last week's accident. Data from the Ethiopian Airlines flight recorder had been successfully downloaded, France's BEA air accident investigation agency said on Sunday. That information had been transferred to Ethiopian investigators, the agency said, adding that its technical work on the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder was now done. PRAYERS PAUSED In the Ethiopian capital, families and airline staff were focused on honouring their dead. At the airport memorial, a banner offered "deepest condolences and comfort" to the families of the deceased crew. A female flight attendant spoke warmly of the deceased captain, Yared Getachew. "He was a really nice person, a good person, all the words you can find to talk about a good person apply. He was a very kind human being," she said, before dissolving in tears. A service for the families of passengers - more than 30 nationalities were onboard - was also held beneath the pink stone spires of Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Cathedral. Families and relatives of the victims threw themselves on the coffins as they arrived and kissed pictures of loved ones. Incense was waved over the coffins, but there was so much weeping that prayers had to be paused. Afterwards, some said the service meant they could now shift focus from grieving for the dead to caring for the living. "Her husband is now left with an infant, he has to shift his attention to his life and raising his baby," said Getachew Negatu, a friend of one of the stewardesses onboard the flight. "Her father and mother, including her sisters, are devastated by this grief. Everyone has got to come back to life as we ... cannot live like this forever. The families were offered charred earth from the crash site to bury, because most of the bodies were destroyed by the impact and fire. Identifying the small remains that have been collected may take up to six months. (Additional reporting by Tiksa Negeri and Kumerra Gemechu and Leigh Thomas; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. Sydney: Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes early on Monday linked to the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques last week, police said. The homes were in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged shooter, grew up. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation," a police statement said. They said Tarrant's family "continues to assist police with their inquiries" but that there is no information to suggest "a current or impending threat" to the community. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has been charged with murder in the country after the mass shooting on Friday which left 50 dead and 50 injured in two mosques in the city of Christchurch on. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. He rejected as "disgraceful" criticism that Australia's counter-terror agencies had neglected the threat of right-wing extremists like Tarrant due to their focus on combatting Islamist radicals. He said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country's main counter-terror agency, closely tracked the activities of far-right groups. "These extremist groups neo-nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groups whatever term you want to apply to them, they've been squarely on their radar," he said in a televised interview. "They are well and truly looking at this threat, they are dealing with the threat and to think that they've just discovered it or they are coming late to the party is complete rubbish," he said. ASIO officials were due to brief the cabinet of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the New Zealand attacks and the threat of right-wing extremism in Australia later on Monday. Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian-born who killed 50 people during Friday's terror attacks in Christchurch, has dismissed his lawyer and is planning to represent himself in future court hearings. Christchurch, New Zealand: Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian-born suspect accused of gunning down 50 people during Friday's terror attacks in Christchurch, has dismissed his lawyer and is planning to represent himself in future court hearings, raising fears that he could attempt to use the trial to express his extremist views. Richard Peters, the attorney who represented Tarrant in the hearing at the Christchurch District Court on Saturday, confirmed the news and said the accused "appeared to be lucid" and was not "mentally unstable", New Zealand Herald reported. Peters said Tarrant was insisting that he represent himself in court, and his job had come to an end after Saturday's hearing. Tarrant, who appeared before the court on murder charges on Saturday, was remanded in custody without plea until 5 April. Meanwhile, Australian counter-terrorism police on Monday searched two homes in New South Wales state linked to the gunman. The house of Tarrant's sister was raided in Sandy Beach town, near Coffs Harbour around 8.30 am (local time). Police then raided a second home at Lawrence town, near Maclean, north of Coffs Harbour, according to New Zealand Herald. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation," the Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police said in a joint statement. Law enforcement personnel also re-iterated that Tarrant's family will continue to cooperate with the police during questioning. "The community can be assured that there is no information to suggest a current of impending threat related to these search warrant," the police said in the statement. Owing to the raids at two houses, the gunman's mother and sister have been moved to a safe house by the police. New Zealand is currently on a state of high alert after Tarrant, who is believed to have lived in Dunedin, killed 50 people in the Al Noor and the Linwood mosques in Christchurch. Tarrant live-streamed his gruesome act on Facebook for 17 minutes, and police believe that the accused had single-handedly carried out the terror attack at both the mosques in a span of 36 minutes during Friday prayers, for which a large number of worshippers had congregated. Using automatic weapons, the 28-year-old gunman launched a "well-planned" attack on the mosques when devotees had assembled for weekly prayers, after which mosques across the country were advised to shut down. Condemning the terror strikes, Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern had described the attack as "one of New Zealand's darkest days" and said it "appears to have been well planned". She asserted that the country "will not and cannot be shaken" by the attack. Ardern underlined that the country's gun laws will undergo changes and become stricter. WHY DONT YOU READ THESE? Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said details of the measures would be rolled out before a cabinet meeting next Monday, saying 'the time to act is now'. Ardern also announced an inquiry into Friday's twin mosque attack in Christchurch, Wellington: New Zealand's cabinet agreed on measures to tighten gun control laws "in principle" on Monday, just days after a deadly mass shooting killed more than 50 people. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said details of the measures would be rolled out before a cabinet meeting next Monday, saying "the time to act is now". Ardern also announced an inquiry into Friday's twin mosque attack in Christchurch, which raised questions about how the suspected gunman a white supremacist was not picked up by intelligence agencies. Although details have yet to be hashed out, the speed of New Zealand's move has resonated around the world particularly in the United States, where reforms have spluttered for decades, and similar debates are re-run after each new mass shooting. It took us 72 hours, Ardern said. "We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified," she added, flanked by her coalition partner and deputy prime minister, Winston Peters. Peters, whose New Zealand First party has previously opposed changes, said he backed the prime minister fully. "The reality is that after one pm on Friday our world changed forever and so will our laws," he said. Hauntingly beautiful, Pat Campbell's recent cartoon shows Muslims in different stages of prayer. The art also vaguely numbers the number of victims in different stages of prayer, some as they kneeling, at the time of being shot The iconic silver fern that has long been a symbol of beauty and solidarity for New Zealanders was recreated by The Canberra Times artist Pat Campbell to represent the number of lives lost in the barbaric mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques last Friday, in which 50 people died. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has called it assault on the nation's values, with the New Zealand's cabinet on Monday agreeing on measures to tighten gun control laws "in principle". Campbell's cartoon comes days after the Sydney Opera House featured the silver fern as a symbol of unity for the people of New Zealand. Offering his condolences, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had earlier also said how residents of both nations were not "just allies" or partners but a family. One of the main suspects, Brenton Tarrant, is a 28-year-old Australian citizen, who is believed to have single-handedly carried out the terror attack at both the mosques in a span of 36 minutes during Friday prayers, for which a large number of worshippers had gathered. He had also livestreamed his gruesome act on Facebook for 17 minutes. Hauntingly beautiful, Campbell's recent cartoon shows Muslims in different stages of prayer. The art also vaguely numbers the number of victims in different stages of prayer, some as they kneeling, at the time of being shot. An award-winning artist, Campbell was earlier accorded the 2013 Walkley artwork award for his illustration 'Glimmer of Hope', that was a "poignant comment" on on Julia Gillard's prime ministership in Australia. Endemic to New Zealand, the silver fern or Cyathea dealbata, has historical and cultural roots among the Kiwis. It was embraced by the Pakeha (New Zealanders who are of European descent) as a symbol of their new-found home, anchoring new Kiwis to this landscape. It soon became a symbol of 'belongingness' to the country. Native associations sprang up in the 1890s, inspired by similar associations in Australia and Canada. This eventually gave rise to nationalist literature, poetry and songs. By James Oliphant MOUNT VERNON, Iowa (Reuters) - As he had done at several stops in his first campaign trip as a presidential candidate, Beto O'Rourke on Friday climbed atop a counter at a local Iowa business and addressed a small but adoring crowd. People clapped and cheered. By James Oliphant MOUNT VERNON, Iowa (Reuters) - As he had done at several stops in his first campaign trip as a presidential candidate, Beto O'Rourke on Friday climbed atop a counter at a local Iowa business and addressed a small but adoring crowd. People clapped and cheered. Outside, some waited in the cold, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. By that measure, his tour across eastern Iowa last week was largely a success. But by no means was O'Rourke considered a front-runner. And that underscored the challenge he faces as he competes for the 2020 Democratic nomination. O'Rourke, a former three-term U.S. congressman from Texas, became a celebrity last year when his longshot bid to unseat U.S. Senator Ted Cruz drew national attention and a torrent of money. But ultimately, his fame was not enough. That loss led some critics to wonder why someone who couldn't secure a Senate seat would then think he should run for president. That is not his only obstacle. O'Rourke, 46, is a wealthy, white man from a conservative-leaning state who is more moderate on several key issues than many of his competitors. Given the energy among progressives in the early stages of the race and the diversity of the Democratic field, O'Rourke would appear to be everything that many in the party say they do not want. More than a dozen Democrats have declared their candidacy to take on President Donald Trump in next year's election, including six women. U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California would make history as the first black woman to gain the nomination. Julian Castro, a former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, would be the first Hispanic to do so. Another contender, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is openly gay. O'Rourke also must grapple with the enduring popularity of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive who remains a formidable adversary after battling Hillary Clinton in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who is weighing a presidential bid. Even so, none of them are on the cover of the latest issue of Vanity Fair, as O'Rourke is. His interview with the magazine sparked controversy on social media last week when he said he was "born" to run for president. Critics also found fault with his oft-repeated joke on the trail about how he "helps" raise his three children with his wife, Amy. To his detractors, it smacked of white male privilege. O'Rourke grew up affluent, attended the Ivy League's Columbia University, and married the daughter of a real estate baron. His estimated net personal wealth is more than $9 million. His image in his race against Cruz, however, belied that background. He fashioned himself as the scrappy underdog, a former punk rocker who was battling the establishment, visiting every county in Texas in a Dodge minivan and holding numerous town halls where he fielded questions from the public. Reuters reported on Friday that when he was a teenager, O'Rourke was a member of the oldest group of computer hackers in U.S. history, the Cult of the Dead Cow, posing a question whether the United States is ready for a presidential contender who in his youth stole long-distance phone service and engaged in human-rights-driven "hacktivism." He took his outsider strategy to Iowa last week, going so far as to rent another Dodge minivan that he drove himself and shooting a fundraising video on Facebook of him filling its gas tank. O'Rourke differed from many of his liberal competitors by talking frequently about how he worked with Republicans in Congress to improve care for veterans in his home town of El Paso, Texas. Asked whether he was a true "progressive," he referenced President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican. O'Rourke maintained that his campaign would be relentlessly optimistic and he only rarely rebuked Trump. "We will not belittle or demean or vilify other candidates," he said in Mt. Vernon. "We will not define ourselves in contrast to others or say who we are against." His policy positions were largely nonspecific. He championed universal health care, immigration reform and combating climate change, but largely said any reforms would have to be pragmatic and incremental. Occasionally, O'Rourke showed self-awareness of his status as a wealthy, white male, telling crowds that he had been given opportunities denied to minorities and describing the U.S. economic system as imperfect and racist. He also found that despite the media attention he has received, he was not a household name in Iowa. "I didn't even know who he was until two days ago," said Sam Jennison, the owner of the bar in Mount Vernon where O'Rourke held his event. But for the most part, those who attended his events spoke of him glowingly and dismissed concerns about whether he was progressive enough. "Issues are very important," said Cathryn Layer, 65, of New London, Iowa. "Winnability is another thing." "We need a moderate Democrat, and we probably need a white male because that is not threatening to a lot of people," said Holly Manon Moore, 65, of Fairfield, Iowa, who said she is undecided in the race and would want a person of color to be the vice-presidential nominee. "If we go too far left, we're going to lose." At the close of his Iowa trip, it remained unclear how O'Rourke's entrance would reshape the Democratic race. He notably declined to reveal how much money he raised in his first few days as a candidate. But he did have an impact. At the same time O'Rourke was in eastern Iowa, so was one of his competitors, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. And while the size of the crowd that came to see her on Saturday was comparable to those at O'Rourke's events, there were far fewer journalists present. (Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Daniel Wallis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, described the New Zealand shooter as a 'disturbed individual' and 'evil person' and said it was unfair to cast the 28-year-old Australian 'as a supporter of Donald Trump any more than it is to look at his, sort of his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto and align him with Nancy Pelosi or Ms Ocasio-Cortez.' Washington: A top White House official said on Sunday that President Donald Trump "is not a white supremacist" and attempts to tie him to the alleged New Zealand mosque shooter are "absurd." Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, described the New Zealand shooter as a "disturbed individual" and "evil person" and said it was unfair to cast the 28-year-old Australian "as a supporter of Donald Trump any more than it is to look at his, sort of his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto and align him with Nancy Pelosi or Ms Ocasio-Cortez." Pelosi, a California Democrat, is the House speaker. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, is a freshman and major proponent of a plan, named the Green New Deal, for tackling climate change. "This was a disturbed individual, an evil person, and to try and tie him to an American politician from either party probably ignores some of the deeper, difficulties that this sort of activity exposes," Mulvaney said. Still, Mulvaney's defense of Trump failed to quiet calls, chiefly from Democrats, for the president to issue a forceful denunciation of white nationalism. They argue that Trump's rhetoric, including harsh comments about immigrants and Muslims, encourages individuals like the New Zealand shooter. Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the man accused of the deadly shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, left behind a lengthy document that proudly stated he was a white nationalist who hates immigrants and was set off by attacks in Europe that were perpetrated by Muslims. "Were/are you a supporter of Donald Trump?" was one of the questions he posed to himself in the document. His answer: "As a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure. As a policymaker and leader? Dear god no." The attacks left 50 people dead, and 34 others wounded, a dozen of them critically. Mulvaney said Trump is a defender of religious minorities worldwide and that his actions speak louder than his words. "Look at what we've done while we've been here," he said. "I don't think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim." Before Mulvaney appeared on the Sunday talk shows, Trump tweeted in defense of Fox News weekend host Jeanine Pirro, whose program did not air in its regular Saturday time slot. Fox offered no explanation, but Pirro's absence from the lineup followed anti-Muslim comments she directed last week toward Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, one of three Muslims in Congress, who wears a head covering known as a hijab. Trump tweeted "Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro." Mulvaney also addressed a threat by North Korea to reconsider its halt to nuclear and ballistic missile tests, saying such a move would be a "truly disappointing turn of events." The threat followed the collapse of nuclear disarmament talks last month between Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un. The chief of staff also expressed confidence that Trump's veto of a measure blocking his declaration of a national emergency at the US-Mexico border in order to build a border wall will be upheld when the House votes later this month to override the president. "It doesn't have a chance," Mulvaney said of the vote set for 26 March. Asked last week whether he saw white nationalism as a rising global threat, Trump said "I don't really." He went on to characterise the movement as made up of a "small group of people that have very, very serious problems" and said "I guess, if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that's a case. I don't know enough about it yet." Sen Tim Kaine, D-Va., disagreed, saying white nationalism is on the rise "and the president should call it out, but sadly he's not doing that." As a candidate, Trump proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States. As president, he drew criticism for attempting to institute the travel ban and for being slow to condemn white supremacy and related violence. After a violent 2017 clash between white nationalists and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one demonstrator dead, Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" of the confrontation. Trump also did not immediately reject support from David Duke, a former KKK Grand Wizard, during his presidential campaign. Rep Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who is also Muslim, said Trump should call the Justice Department for data on the rise of white supremacy in the US. She urged Trump to use his bully pulpit to denounce the movement. "He, from the Oval Office, from that power position, can be able to send a signal very loud and clear," she said. Mulvaney appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Kaine and Tlaib spoke on CNN's "State of the Union." 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The Redmi AirDots comes in Black color and is priced at 99.9 yuan (US$ 14.8 / Rs. 1,020 approx.) and the Redmi 1A washing machine comes in White color and is priced at 799 yuan (US$ 119 / Rs. 8,160 approx.) . Both these will go on sale in China from April 9th. Source 1, 2 Reliance Communications (RCOM) just announced that the deal between RCOM, RTL, RITL (RCOM Group) and RJIL for sale of certain specified telecom assets have been terminated today by mutual agreement. The company says that this is due to lack of consent from its lenders and permissions from telecom department among other reasons since the agreements nearly 15 months ago. Back in December 2017, Reliance Jio signed an agreement for the acquisition of specified telecom assets of Reliance Communications (RCOM) and its affiliates as a part of RCOMs debt reduction. Later in August 2018, RCOM announced the completion of the sale, worth Rs 2,000 crore, to Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIO). Various factors and developments for the fall of the deal include: Non-receipt of consents / objections from RCOMs over 40 foreign and Indian Lenders in relation to the proposed transactions despite over 45 meetings and the passage of over 15 months Non-receipt of requisite permissions and approvals from DoT The decision taken by the Board of Directors of RCOM at its meeting held on 1 st February 2019 to seek fast track resolution of its overall debt through the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai The applications filed before the Honble NCLAT on 4th February 2019 for withdrawal of appeals against the admission of RCOM, RTL and RITL to the NCLT debt resolution process, and reinstatement of the said process The order passed by the Honble NCLAT on 4th February 2019 restraining the sale, transfer or alienation of any movable or immovable property of RCOM, RTL and RITL The statements of the lenders, as recorded in the order dated 15th March 2019 of the Honble NCLAT, that it is not possible for them to sell the specified assets, and therefore, the NCLT process for debt resolution should be reinstated. RCOM Group is committed to a comprehensive resolution of their overall debt, with transparency, certainty and finality, through the NCLT process. RCOM said that the next date of hearing in this matter is fixed before the NCLAT on 8th April, 2019. Earlier today, Reliance Communications said that it has paid Rs. 550 crore as interest to Ericsson in compliance of the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court. Energy master limited partnerships (MLPs) are well known for offering enticing high-yield distributions. However, those high yields often come with a higher level of risk. That's certainly the case with these five midstream companies. While each one offers mouthwatering payouts and intriguing upside, they also have at least one issue to address before investors should consider buying, which is why these names should only go on a watchlist for now. Not there yet Buckeye Partners (NYSE:BPL) is coming off an abysmal 2018 in which it lost nearly half its value. Buckeye's biggest problem was its overly ambitious expansion efforts, which led it to take on too much debt to fund growth. That pushed its leverage ratio too high, making it difficult to access the capital it needed to continue expanding while also paying its high-yielding dividend. The company had to take drastic action to shore up its finances, including selling assets and slashing its payout 40%, though even with that reduction it still yields an enticing 8.8%. While those moves have helped improve the company's financial profile so that it can fund new expansion projects, it's not yet to the point where it can resume distribution growth. Therefore, investors should keep an eye on Buckeye's progress and wait until it's able to start returning more cash to investors before buying. Still too concentrated Bakken Shale-focused oil producer Oasis Petroleum formed Oasis Midstream Partners (NASDAQ:OMP) a couple of years ago to build out the midstream infrastructure needed to support its growing production in that region. Those expansions should enable Oasis Midstream to increase its distribution to investors -- which currently yields 9% -- at a 20% annual rate through 2021. However, as enticing as that sounds, Oasis Midstream is almost entirely reliant on not only one main customer but also one region to drive growth. That makes it riskier than most other midstream companies with greater diversity. While Oasis Midstream does have a few third-party customers on its systems, it needs more diversification to enhance its appeal to income-focused investors who prefer less risk. It can do that by not only signing up more new customers to its existing assets but also eventually following its parent into the faster-growing Permian Basin. Check out the latest earnings call transcript for Buckeye Partners and other companies we cover. Lots of work to do Summit Midstream Partners (NYSE:SMLP) shares many unfortunate similarities with Buckeye Partners. That's why the company recently had to follow in its footsteps by selling a non-core asset and slashing its distribution in half -- down to a still enticing 11% -- to shore up its financial profile. Summit Midstream will probably need to sell some more non-core assets in the future so that it can pay back its parent for a previous acquisition as well as fund expansion projects, including a potentially major pipeline project to support ExxonMobil. While Summit Midstream has a long road ahead of it, the income potential makes it worth watching. Getting better, but still not where it needs to be NuStar Energy (NYSE:NS) has also slashed its distribution and sold assets in recent years to shore up its financial profile. Those efforts enabled the company to deliver much-improved financial metrics in 2018 as it covered its now 9%-yielding distribution by a comfortable 1.42 times while leverage has come down to a much lower level. However, 2019 will be a heavy investment year for NuStar Energy, which will cause those metrics to weaken a bit until new projects come online and start generating cash. Investors should keep an eye on NuStar until it gets over this hump. An uncertain future TC Pipelines (NYSE:TCP) also had to slash its payout recently, but not entirely for the same reason as the others on this list. In TC Pipelines' case, a regulatory rule change made it unclear how much money the company would continue to collect from its pipelines. That led TC Pipelines to reduce its payout so that it could retain more cash to bolster its financial profile. Another outcome of the rule change is that TC Pipelines isn't likely to buy additional pipelines assets from its parent, Canadian energy infrastructure giant TransCanada. Instead, it plans to invest in organic expansion projects on its existing systems. This business model shift will take time to bear fruit, which is why investors should keep TC Pipelines -- and its 7.2%-yielding payout -- on their watch list for now. Interesting options for income seekers to watch All five of these MLPs offer well above average yields. The problem is that each one has some issues it needs to address to ensure those payouts are on solid ground. That's why investors should wait and watch before buying. The Pentagon is stepping up its investment in an autonomous Navy. That's good news for a handful of contractors not typically associated with shipbuilding, and a potential warning shot at the companies responsible for building the current fleet. The U.S. Navy fiscal 2020 budget request includes $447 million for two large unmanned surface vessels, with plans to continue to buy two per year through at least fiscal 2024. That's a small drop in the overall budget, with the Navy requesting $34.7 billion for shipbuilding, but significant progress toward the long-term goal of building a robot Navy. Inspired by the increasingly sophisticated threat posed by China and Russia, and by a need to expand without breaking the budget, the Navy has been pushing to expand its autonomous capabilities. The service hopes to see the same sort of dramatic expansion of capabilities the Air Force experienced when it first introduced drones over the battlefield in the 1990s. The impact for the Navy could be even more pronounced than what drones did for the Air Force, as in theory crewless ships would be significantly less costly to operate due to the large number of personnel assigned to traditionally vessels. The spigots are beginning to open The Navy did not provide exact specifications for the vessels it is seeking, nor how it intends to use them. But the spending request is potential good news for Leidos Holdings (NYSE:LDOS), the government contractor behind the autonomous Sea Hunter test ship, which recently successfully sailed from San Diego to Hawaii and back with little human intervention. It's likely that the ship the Navy is seeking will be larger than the Sea Hunter, a 132-foot-long trimaran, and it's far from clear who will build it. Leidos is not a shipbuilder today, having sourced construction of both the Sea Hunter and its forthcoming sister ship to third parties. But given the vessel's success, chances are that the Leidos technology that made it work -- which was initially developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency based in part on work done for the Mars Exploration Rover -- will likely be employed on the final design. The Navy also provided an endorsement to an autonomous submarine built by Boeing (NYSE:BA). The contractor in February was awarded a $43 million order for a version of its Echo Voyager large unmanned submarine, and the Navy would like to buy a total of nine of the subs through fiscal 2024. Check out the latest earnings call transcripts for Boeing and other companies we cover. Disrupting the status quo It would be wrong to call shipbuilding a pure duopoly. Lockheed Martin for example builds a variant of the Navy's littoral combat ship in Wisconsin. But General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) and Huntington Ingalls (NYSE:HII) today are certainly the dominant shipbuilders for the U.S. military. It remains to be seen whether that will still be true two decades from now. It's still early days, but autonomous technology is creating a path in for newcomers like Boeing and Leidos, as well as Textron, to get more involved in Navy procurement. For General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls, that means new competition and a risk of moving down the food chain if they are stuck doing the lower-margin construction work on futuristic ships while the more lucrative electronics work is done elsewhere. However, it's premature to hit the panic button. The incumbents are also investing in autonomous tech and in some cases are working with newcomers on their Navy projects. Huntington Ingalls, for example, is building the Boeing submarine. And for now at least, the big-ticket vessels are a priority. At a news briefing following the budget release, Lt. Gen. Anthony Ierardi, director of force structure, resources, and assessments at the Pentagon, said the autonomous buys are part of the Pentagon "looking to the future differently than we've looked at the past," but he said it does not imply that the Navy will stop buying carriers or submarines. "It doesn't mean that what we have today is less important or is not critical in the next decade, two decades, even three decades," Ierardi said. "But it is an acknowledgement that we need to start to consider other ways of operating to enhance our lethality, as our adversaries adapt and change their ways of operating." Remain on guard For investors in Boeing and Leidos, the Navy's plans offer nothing but upside. If things go well, the Navy's growing interest in unmanned surface and undersea systems opens the door to potential new revenue streams. If there's a stumble or the technology doesn't progress as hoped, very little of the companies' core business is at risk. The outlook is more complicated for Huntington Ingalls, which is primarily a shipbuilder, and General Dynamics, which has other businesses but relies on the Navy for a significant portion of its revenue. The total fiscal 2020 shipbuilding budget request is the highest in more than two decades, and the Navy intends to purchase new aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers for the foreseeable future. These businesses are at no risk of seeing their orders dry up. But autonomous vessels could play a key role in the Navy's push to grow its total fleet by 27% to 355 ships, either creating more competition for funds or alleviating the need for all of the large vessels the Navy has on its wishlist. That in turn has the potential to stunt long-term revenue growth for the primary contractors. The outlook won't change overnight. Still, this is a long-term trend that investors need to monitor. #UTRECHT La police d'Utrecht indique en effet sur Twitter que "plusieurs personnes" ont ete blessees par des tirs dans une rame de tramway. Les secours sont sur place. Nous n'avons pas d'informations plus precises pour le moment, ni sur le bilan ni sur le ou les auteurs des tirs et leurs motivations. Mais nous vous tiendrons bien sur informes des que nous en saurons plus. Dine Brands Global Continues Asia Expansion with Deal to Bring IHOP Restaurants to Pakistan Agreement Calls for 19 Locations Throughout the Country Over the Next 9 Years GLENDALE, Calif. & KARACHI, Pakistan - (BUSINESS WIRE) - March 18, 2019 - Dine Brands Global Inc. has announced a deal with several principals of Gerrys Group, a leading Pakistan-based logistics and Food and Beverage group, to bring the IHOP brand to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The deal calls for 19 IHOP locations throughout the country over the next 9 years, 9 of which will be franchised by the principals of Gerrys Group with the other ten sub-franchised. The first location is expected to open in Karachi by the end of 2019 and continues the brands expansion into the Asia Pacific market. IHOP, which was founded in 1958, has been a global brand since 1969. IHOP already has a presence in India, Thailand and Guam as well as 11 other countries and Puerto Rico My commitment as CEO of Dine Brands Global was to return it to a growth company, and our international development is certainly a major component of that growth, said Steve Joyce, Chief Executive Officer, Dine Brands Global, franchisor of IHOP and Applebees Grill + Bar restaurants. Key to our international strategy is identifying and entering new markets, such as Pakistan, that have a rapidly growing economy, are contiguous to existing markets to offer an economy of scale, and above all, have an appetite for IHOPs unique guest experience of warm hospitality with world famous pancakes, breakfast and other menu items. The opportunity to partner with principals from Gerrys Group as franchisees was also a major factor in our decision, Joyce continued. Under their ownership, Gerrys Group is an experienced, established company based in Pakistan with multinational experience across a broad number of industries as well as Food and Beverage, including operating and owning 40 Costa Coffee locations in the United Kingdom. The principals of Gerrys Group bring a strong track record of success with global brands. They bring an infrastructure - and the shared values and commitment to excellence - that will be key to introducing IHOP in this exciting new country for us, said Gary Moore, Regional Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific and the Middle East, Dine Brands Global. We are delighted to be bringing the world famous American IHOP experience to our country and to our portfolio of successful companies, said Akram Wali Muhammad, Managing Director for Gerry's Group. While IHOP will be a new brand in Pakistan, there is already significant awareness of and excitement about IHOP and we look forward to the opening of our first location later this year. Asia Pacific has been targeted as a key area of growth for Dine Brands, along with Latin America, Canada and the Middle East. The company has already signed deals to bring the IHOP brand to South America in 2019 in Peru and Ecuador, and to expand its presence in Canada to Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Dine Brands is also actively exploring opportunities to bring the IHOP brand to the United Kingdom. We have had a lot of interest in Pakistan from potential franchisees and while it fits perfectly with our expansion strategy in the region, we wanted to be sure we found the strongest partner in the country to take that step, said Dan Lecocq, Executive Director, International, Development, Dine Brands Global, Inc. Gerrys Group brings exactly the qualities and qualifications we look for in every franchisee as we look to continue our expansion here and in our other international areas of opportunity. Statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied in such statements. You can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as may, will, should, could, expect, anticipate, believe, estimate, intend, plan, goal and other similar expressions. You should consider our forward-looking statements in light of the risks discussed under the heading Risk Factors, as well as our consolidated financial statements, related notes, and the other financial information appearing elsewhere in our most recent Form 10-K filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and our other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements contained in this report are made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements. About Dine Brands Global, Inc. Based in Glendale, California, Dine Brands Global, Inc. (NYSE: DIN), through its subsidiaries, franchises restaurants under both the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar and IHOP brands. As of December 31, 2018, with approximately 3,700 restaurants combined in 18 countries and approximately 380 franchisees, Dine Brands is one of the largest full-service restaurant companies in the world. For more information on Dine Brands, visit the Company's website located at www.dinebrands.com. About International House Of Pancakes, LLC For 60 years, IHOP has been a leader, innovator and expert in all things breakfast, any time of day. The chain offers 65 different signature, fresh, made-to-order breakfast options, a wide selection of popular lunch and dinner items as well as meals under 600 calories. IHOP restaurants offer guests an affordable, everyday dining experience with warm and friendly service. As of December 31, 2018, there were 1,831 IHOP restaurants around the world, including restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam as well as Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Lebanon, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Thailand and India. IHOP restaurants are franchised by affiliates of Glendale, Calif.-based Dine Brands Global. (NYSE: DIN). Media Contact: Craig Hoffman Craig.Hoffman@dinebrands.com +1 818.637.3603 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005075/en/ Source: Dine Brands Global Inc. ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Golden Corral Leaders Honored at Womens Foodservice Forum Conference CEO Lance Trenary Named Industry Titan; Suzanna Wooten Named Change Maker March 18, 2019 // Franchising.com // RALEIGH, N.C. - Two Golden Corral executives were honored by the Womens Foodservice Forum (WFF) for their contributions to the food industry and advancing career opportunities for women in the field. Golden Corral President and CEO Lance Trenary was named an Industry Titan for his commitment to prioritizing womens advancement within the company and creating change that will increase opportunities for women across the industry. Trenary was one of 35 forward-thinking CEOs from major foodservice brands who were recognized by the WFF. The honorees joined ranks to help implement WFFs call for industry-wide gender equity solutions driven by CEO engagement that will enable the industry to win the war for talent, reap the proven rewards of gender-diversity and drive business growth. Golden Corral is committed to providing opportunities for women at all levels of our organization, said Trenary. Advancing gender equity is a critical success factor for our brand and our industry as a whole. As a new member of their CEO Council, I look forward to increased interaction with WFF. Suzanna Wooten, Golden Corrals Franchise Accountant and CPA, was selected by her organization as its Change Maker. Wooten and a rising group of women stars will participate in ongoing research surveys and focus groups for the WFF, tracking their career goals and trajectories. This will help WFF identify key factors that influence success early in a woman's career and provide participating companies with greater insight into how to most effectively support the development of young women leaders. It is a tremendous honor to be chosen as Golden Corrals Change Maker, said Wooten. To be recognized in this way is personally rewarding and it motivates me to contribute at an even higher level. I am encouraged as we move forward toward a future workplace where all genders are equal and where ones ability to succeed is based on skills, character and a drive for results. Trenary and Wooten were recognized for their contributions at a ceremony as part of WFFs 30th Anniversary Celebration during the 2019 Annual Leadership Development Conference, March 10-13, in Dallas, Texas. About Golden Corral Golden Corral, based in Raleigh, N.C., is the nations largest grill-buffet restaurant chain with 489 restaurants operating in 42 states as of January 1, 2019. Golden Corral is famous for its variety, including USDA steaks cooked to order, smoked meats, awesome pot roast, hot yeast rolls, and desserts like homemade carrot cake and the Chocolate Wonderfall. About Womens Foodservice Forum Womens Foodservice Forum (WFF) is the food industrys thought leader on gender equity. WFF provides the research, insights and best practice solutions that enable food companies to address the pressing need for talent, drive better consumer insights and increase business performance by realizing the full potential of women leaders. Working since 1989 to provide the tools and resources to help women build leadership competencies that enhance career advancement, WFF also partners with the food industry to create work environments where women thrive and organizations reap the rewards of a gender-diverse workforce. Media Contacts: Graham Chapman 919-459-8157 gchapman@919marketing.com Sue Yannello 919-459-8162 syannello@919marketing.com SOURCE Golden Corral ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus New Boutique Macaron Kiosk, Woops! Bringing Indulgent Experience to Providence March 18, 2019 // Franchising.com // NEW YORK - Something is baking in Providence. Woops!, a bakery dreamed up in New York City, specializing in macarons and other international pastries, is coming to town. Firmly anchored as the largest retailer of French macarons in the United States, Woops! is bringing its cultural flair and European indulgence to the Providence area. Located in Providence Place Mall, across from the Apple store, the kiosk is set to open Monday, March 18 and will be owned by Sapana Patel, who also owns the Emerald Square location in North Attleborough, Mass. I am thrilled to introduce Woops! to Providence Place. Woops! is unlike anything in the area - its not just another chain, said Patel. Aside from the unique aesthetic, Woops! serves delicious and typically unattainable items: from macarons to cremebellos and various other desserts in between, Woops! is perfect for a mid-day treat or a gift for a loved one. Originally from India, Patel moved to the United States in 2000, where she has worked in the retail industry for over 20 years. Looking to transition into the food industry, Patel found Woops! and decided franchising with the brand was the next step for her. Two kiosk locations later, Patel is now eyeing a third location, and is hoping to establish it as a store-front bakeshop. The Woops! journey began in 2012 on a whim when four friends opened a macaron pop-up shop at the Holiday Shops in New York Citys Bryant Park. In nine short weeks they sold 100,000 macarons and developed a cult-like following due to the macarons and aesthetic. The group then realized that Woops!, they had a thriving business. Building on the momentum and popularity of Bryant Park, the four friends soon opened boutique mall kiosks in major malls throughout the Northeast. The close-knit group of friends who founded Woops! are from all over the world: Israel, France, India, and the U.S. Their cultural diversity is integrated not only in the ambiance but in the menu. Today, Woops! serves handmade classic French macarons in over 20 flavors, as well as 30 other international desserts. which are produced in the companys bakery in New York City, or imported from Europe. My family and I love sweets, so I want to bring an enhanced dessert experience to Providence. My hope is that through our macarons and delicious treats, people are reminded of a nostalgic time -- a reminder to slow down, appreciate where you are presently and enjoy that moment, said Patel. Our Macarons are not French; they are also not "American" per se. They are American in the sense that they are a reflection of the melting pot that makes us who we are. Between the classic French flavors and the American cookies and cream and the British London Fog, we provide opportunities for every single customer to experience that present moment. To help celebrate every moment, whether its a wedding, baby shower, business meeting, or client gift, Woops! works creatively to produce a dessert that personalizes and enhances each events theme and styling. For any event or celebration, Woops! offers eye-catching macaron pyramids, beautifully designed gift boxes, elegant party favors and customized macarons with company logos, taglines and more. Im thrilled to be a part of all of Providences celebrations! With Woops! we are able to be a part of every occasion, big or small, added Patel. We look forward to the opportunity to celebrate with our customers everything from weddings, birthdays, Mothers Day, Valentines Day, and every holiday in between. We even offer desserts for business meetings to bring celebrating to every aspect of life. We want the community to know that we are here for them through all of lifes moments. Woops! of Providence Place Mall is located at 1 Providence Place in Providence, Rhode Island. The kiosk is open Monday - Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.. For more information, or to place an online order, visit www.bywoops.com. About Woops! Founded in 2012 and franchising since 2015, Woops! is a New York-based bakery chain specializing in macarons and other international pastries. Firmly anchored as the largest retailer of French macarons in the United States, Woops! operates more than 50 kiosk and in-line bakeshop locations throughout 18 states. For more information, visit www.bywoops.com. Media Contact: Cami Fannin Franchise Elevator PR (847) 239-8171 cfannin@franchiseelevator.com SOURCE Woops! ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Metworld DMCC compose eighteenth International Conference on Pathology Metworld DMCC Ltd is happy to welcome every one of the specialists in the field of Pathology to its chief eighteenth International Conference on Pathology 2019), going to be held at Rome, Italy. The Theme of the meeting is; Dedicated to Discovery. Focused on Pathology. View as PDF Print View March 18, 2019 (FPRC) -- Metworld DMCC Pathology 2019 Conference joins with a lot of systems administration chances to associate with eminent speakers and scientists which will upgrade your expert perception. Metworld DMCC Pathology 2019 invites Scientists, Physicians, Students, Researchers, Industries, Professors identified with Pathology, Societies, Lab experts and Associations identified with Pathology, Delegates, Students and Business Professionals to be a piece of the Congress over the world. Metworld DMCC Pathology 2019 is a stage for worldwide specialists, International Professors, Speakers and Delegates to investigate their comprehension in the field of Pathology. This European Pathology Congress involve Plenary talks, Industry Presentations, Panel discourses, Q&A Rounds, Oral introductions, Workshops/Symposiums, Exhibitions, B2B, B2A, and Young Researcher Forums (YRF), Poster Presentations and so on in the field of Pathology. Metworld DMCC Pathology 2019 target group of onlookers are Professors, Doctors, Pathology and Cancer Industries, Pathology and Cancer Laboratories, Directors of Association and Societies, Scientists, Pathology and Cancer Epidemiology Lecturers, Pathologist Key Sessions at Pathology-2019 Breast Pathology Anatomic Pathology, Forensic Pathology and Autopsy Pathology Clinical Pathology and Chemical Pathology Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Gynecological Pathology, Reproductive Pathology and Uropathology Pathology Case Reports Veterinary Pathology Hematopathology Cancer Cytopathology Neuropathology Surgical Pathology Experimental Pathology Digital Pathology, Telepath ology and Diagnostics Pathology Pediatric and Perinatal Pathology Head and Neck Pathology Microbial Pathology and Infectious Disease Pathology Dermatopathology Liver Pathology and Gastrointestinal Pathology Histopathology and Cytopathology Molecular Pathology Psychopathology Renal Pathology and Urinary Tract Pathology Other Allied Fields We are anticipating welcome you at the Metworld DMCC Pathology 2019 Conference in Italy! Send an email to Nitesh Ahuja Metworld dmcc of Metworld DMCC Trading Consultants 971-532361725 Recent Press Releases By The Same User Refuge Animals From A to Z The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conserves land and water on national wildlife refuges for more than 700 species of birds, 220 species of mammals, 250 reptile and amphibian species, and more than 1,000 species of fish. Heres a sampling of them, from A to Z. A is for alligators. Alligators have survived for 200 million years. In the 1950s, American alligator populations reached all-time lows, primarily because of market-hunting and habitat loss. However, by 1987, the alligator was pronounced fully recovered, making it one of the first endangered species success stories. Today, alligators are found throughout the Southeast, from the Carolinas to Texas and north to Arkansas. (Photo: Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Texas, by Norman Welsh) B is for bison. The bison is our national mammal. Once, millions of bison roamed North America, but by the 1800s only a few hundred were left in the United States after settlers pushed bison to near extinction. Since then, bison have recovered and can be seen at Colorados Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahomas Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Iowas Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge and others. 15 facts about bison. C is for cats. National wildlife refuges provide territory for felines of all kinds, including lynx, bobcats, mountain lions and panthers. Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, east of Naples, Florida, was established to protect its endangered namesake. Florida panthers once roamed the Southeast. Today they are limited to a single breeding population of approximately 120 to 230 adults and subadults in south Florida. D is for ducks. Ducks, geese, swans and waterfowl of all kinds are plentiful at national wildlife refuges along North Americas four migratory bird flyways (Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific). Refuges and wetland management districts are vital to the Prairie Pothole Region of the Dakotas, Minnesota and eastern Montana, which has been called the duck factory of America. E is for eagles. Half a century ago, the bald eagle was in danger of extinction from habitat loss, illegal shooting and food source contamination. Conservationists and government helped lead a remarkable recovery, aided by passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. The bald eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species in 2007. This photo essay touches on why the bald eagle inspires the awe and respect it does. (Photo: Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, California-Oregon, by George Gentry/USFWS) F is for fish. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conserves natural areas for more than 1,000 species of fish. Working with tribes, states, landowners and other partners, in 2018 the National Fish Hatchery System released more than 113 million adult and juvenile fish from 56 native species into various waters in 44 states. Your Guide to Fishing on National Wildlife Refuges is chock-full of freshwater and saltwater recreational fishing opportunities and tips. G is for grasshoppers. Grasshoppers, other insects and microorganisms, too play an often-underappreciated role in keeping the world ecologically healthy. They thrive on national wildlife refuges. Fun fact: Grasshoppers can jump more than 20 times their body length. H is for hummingbirds. Hummingbirds and other pollinators, such as bees, butterflies and bats, are vital to people. We owe most of our fruits, crops and flowers to pollinators. They carry pollen from flower to flower, fertilizing them in the process and helping to feed the planet. I is for ibis. Ibis are among the hundreds of thousands of beautiful waterbirds and shorebirds that nest, rest, feed and/or breed in wetlands, marshes and coastal shorelines at national wildlife refuges. J is for jays. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology lists at least nine species of jays in the United States. Blue jays inhabit the nations eastern two-thirds. California scrub jays are found up and down the Pacific Coast, including at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. They are considered particularly intelligent. Stellers jays are common in the mountain west. Florida scrub jays live in isolated populations in that state, including at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Green jays can be seen at Santa Ana, Laguna Atascosa and Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuges in Texas. (Green jay photo: Steve Hillebrand) K is for killdeer. These attractive brown-ish birds are known for a patch of zebra-like black-and-white bands of coloring. Members of the plover family, killdeer are found at wildlife refuges across the nation. They get their name from their sharp call. Have a listen here. Honestly, we dont hear the kill deer thing. Do you? L is for lizards. Rare St. Croix lizards are found at Green Cay National Wildlife Refuge in the Virgin Islands, and similarly uncommon blunt-nosed leopard lizards inhabit Kern National Wildlife Refuge in California. Chuckwallas desert lizards known to be at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada have a pretty cool defense: They protect themselves by inflating their bodies while in rock crevices, making it difficult for predators to grab them. M is for manatees. Manatees, sometimes called sea cows or teddy bears of the sea, are found in warm, shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays and coastal areas. They cannot survive well in water colder than 68 degrees. Manatees gather at Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Florida year-round, but are most plentiful there from November through March. (Photo: Jim Reid/USFWS) N is for nene. Nene, also known as the Hawaiian goose, is the state bird of Hawaii. Several national wildlife refuges are working to help this endangered species recover: Kilauea Point and Hanalei on Kaui, James Campbell on Oahu and Hakalau Forest on the Big Island. O is for ocelots. Ocelots once ranged from south Texas into Arkansas and Louisiana. Today only an estimated 50 ocelots remain in the United States, including a breeding population at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. In Texas, organizations and citizens are working to save endangered ocelots. Theres even a special Save Texas Ocelots car license plate to raise awareness. (Photo: Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, by Donna Martinez) P is for pinnipeds. Thats the scientific term for seals, sea lions, walruses and other meat-eating marine mammals. Pinnipeds haul out of the water to rest at national wildlife refuges along the West Coast, including Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge in California, Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Washington and Togiak National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. (Photo: Seal at Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, by Ian Shive/Tandem) Q is for quail. Six species of quail are native to the United States. The most common is the northern bobwhite quail. The rarest is the endangered masked bobwhite quail, which is being bred in captivity at Arizonas Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and released into restored native grasslands. R is for red-cockaded woodpeckers. These birds once were common across the Southeast. Now the largest population of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker is at Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. Private landowners and nonprofit organizations are working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore longleaf pine forests on which red-cockaded woodpeckers and other iconic species rely. S is for snakes. There are roughly 3,000 species of snake in the world, but only 100 or so in the United States. While snakes get a bad rap, most are harmless. And they do control rodent and tick populations. Snakes to avoid because their venom is poisonous are coral snakes, rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouth. T is for turtles. National wildlife refuges and turtles are made for each other. Just a sampling: Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida is one of the most important nesting places in the world for loggerhead sea turtles. Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge in the Virgin Islands is similarly important to leatherback sea turtles. Alligator snapping turtles are common at Oklahomas Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. Blandings turtles are conserved at Assabet River, Oxbow and Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuges in Massachusetts. (Photo: Western painted turtles at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, Washington. By Jim Leonard) U is for ungulates. Thats the fancy term for deer, caribou, elk, sheep, pronghorn and other hoofed mammals. Deer are common at refuges from coast to coast. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is particularly important to caribou. Bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain elk roam the mountain west. Species of pronghorn can be found at Oregons Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Arizonas Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and many refuges in between. V is for Virginia rails. We could have chosen vireos or vultures here, but went with Virginia rails because we like that they are slightly odd. These rust-colored chicken-like birds with orange-ish bills prefer walking to flying, and they are famously secretive. They tend to hide in freshwater marshes at national wildlife refuges from coast to coast. W is for whooping cranes. All whooping cranes alive today descend from the last 15 remaining cranes found wintering in 1941 at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. The only natural flock now about 500 birds still winters at Aransas Refuge. Each spring the cranes migrate 2,500 miles north to nest at Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. Whooping cranes are big. At about five feet in height, they are considered North Americas tallest bird, and their wingspan is more than seven feet. They are monogamous and mate for life. More about whooping cranes. (Photo: Diane Nunley) X is Xerces blue butterflies. Xerces blue butterflies were last seen in the early 1940s. The species was one of the first American butterflies to become extinct because of human activities. Today, the Xerces Society, an international nonprofit organization, protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats. Invertebrates animals without a backbone include butterflies and other insects, spiders, worms, scorpions and snails. (Photo: Xerces Society/Larry Orsak) Y is for yellowthroats. In spring and summer, common yellowthroats are often found in national wildlife refuge marshes and wetlands everywhere. One hazard these songbirds face is brood parasitism. This occurs when a bird of one species lays its eggs in the nest of a bird of another species and leaves the responsibility of rearing the offspring to the other bird. Brown-headed cowbirds often lay their eggs in the nests of common yellowthroats and sometimes steal the yellowthroats eggs. Z is for zebra mussels. These freshwater mussels are an aquatic invasive species that threatens the health of inland waters and other mussel species. Brought here from Europe in ships ballast water, zebra mussels were first discovered in the Great Lakes region in 1988. Zebra mussels have inflicted tremendous damage to native ecosystems and to facilities that use water, such as power plants and municipal water suppliers. Millions of dollars have been spent to control and eradicate zebra mussels. Compiled by Bill_OBrian@fws.gov | March 6, 2019 Galveston, TX (77553) Today Cloudy skies this evening followed by thunderstorms late. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Cloudy skies this evening followed by thunderstorms late. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Hong Kong: Care fund views sought The Community Care Fund will hold three consultation sessions to gauge public views on the formulation of assistance programmes. The first session will be on March 23 at Aldrich Bay Community Hall, while the second session will be on March 29 at Tai Po Community Centre. The other will be on April 6 at Tin Yiu Community Centre. Interested participants can call 2835 2279 or complete the registration form online to reserve a seat. This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) A Senate panel investigated on Tuesday the water crisis affecting eastern Metro Manila and Rizal province. Senate Committee on Public Services Chairperson Grace Poe said private water concessionaires Manila Water, Maynilad, and concerned government agencies were invited to the hearing to discuss the water crisis and come up with solutions to ease the impact of the supply shortage. Local officials and residents affected by tthe crisis were also invited. She said that aside from looking for short-term solutions, the inquiry also aims to look for accountabilty. "Kung mayroong nagkasala, kailangan matunton kung sino man 'yon na nagpabaya sa trabaho nila. Kung isang pribadong kumpanya naman, siguro ang Manila Water mismo ang magpalit sa kanilang mga namamahala," Poe said in a statement, when asked if she would recommend the sacking or firing of officials proven to be remiss of their duties. [Translation: If anyone is at fault, you need to pinpoint whoever did not do their job well. If it's a private company, maybe Manila Water should change those in charge.] The officials involved in the water supply mess also faced House leaders on Monday. Manila Water said the number of barangays facing a water shortage has gone down to 11 from 61. It said it is working to service the remaining 10 percent without water in parts of Pasig, San Mateo, Taguig, and Tandang Sora in Quezon City. President and CEO Ferdinand dela Cruz said that despite the improving situation, water rations to its 1.2 million customers will remain until the end of summer. Over 260,000 Manila Water consumers were left without water or with low water pressure beginning March 6, with Mandaluyong City residents hit hardest. Beginning March 14, the east zone concessionaire has rationed supply to all its customers. Awesome Screenshot Even though the name of the Chrome extension is "Awesome Screenshot," the extension allows not only to capture screenshot but also allows the users to take records. The extension gives you the option of blurring the unrequired part or capturing only a part of your screen depending upon your requirement. The extension lacks advanced features. The free version of Awesome Screenshot only allows recording a video of 30 seconds. Hippo Video The Hippo Video is the perfect Chrome extension for any enterprise and marketer. The advanced features of Hippo Video make it a unique Chrome extension. You can choose the video resolution from 360p and 1080p. The "Advanced Settings" button will give you plenty of options to customize the videos. The different features which you can see in the advanced features are video resolution, aspect ratio, show or hide markup tool, webcam size. You can also highlight parts of the screen on this extension. Loom With just a click, you can meet all your screen recording requirements. The Loom, has a simple layout which allows the users to switch between desktop mode and tab. It also allows you to choose whether a webcam is required or not. The best part of the Loom extension is that there is no limit on the number of videos that you want to make or the length of the videos. Nimbus Nimbus is described as one of the versatile Chrome extension which is available to the users. The extension also allows users to record videos. You can also shoot a video with a webcam. The Nimbus extension can also be used for taking screenshots. You can also add watermark on your videos using the Nimbus extension, and this will also allow you to build the brand value. Also, you can customize the main menu. Screencastify Screencastify is one of the best Chrome extension which is available for recording screen. After the Screencastify extension is installed on your Chrome, you will have to sign in to your Google account. When you do that, all your recorded videos are saved on your Google Drive account. What makes it different from other screen recording extension is that it also allows the users to record the desktop. You can also use the extension for recording the audio. Wrap Up You can use any of the above mentioned Google Chrome extension for recording videos on your desktop. While all of these Google Chrome extensions are good, we would personally recommend you to try the Screencastify extension. Finally, you can settle for the Google Chrome extensions that best fits your requirement. Merida to Host Tianguis Turistico Mexico in 2020 Mexico City - Mexican officials announced on March 14, 2019 that the 2020 edition of the annual Tianguis Turistico international tourism fair would be hosted in Merida, Yucatan. According to The Yucatan Times, the organizing committee voted 11-1 in favor of Merida as the hosting venue for Tianguis Turistico Mexico 2020, with Mexico City earning the only other vote. Local officials in the Yucatan believe the event will bring influential tourism decision-makers to the region, increasing the economic impact from the fair and the area as a whole after attendees see what the destination can offer to travelers. Acapulco was the official venue for Mexico's most important travel industry event from its inception in 1975 until 2012, when organizers decided to take it to different locations. Since then, several tourist destinations have hosted the annual tourism fair, which brings around 500 million pesos to the host city each year. Last year, the Pacific Coast city of Mazatlan hosted the annual event, and this year it will return to Acapulco in April. 2020 will be the first time the Tianguis Turistico will be held in the Yucatan. Tianguis is the largest tourism showcase in all of Mexico, attracting hundreds of national exhibitors, and thousands of international buyers every year. The event is also open to the public, providing locals and frequent visitors with the knowledge they need to visit other parts of the country. Still, the main objective remains to put Mexico first and foremost in the global marketplace for tourism. OnePlus 7 will be available in three new gradient colors: Leak News oi-Vivek OnePlus 7 is expected to carry a price tag of Rs 40,000 The upcoming flagship smartphone from OnePlus, the OnePlus 7 is expected to come with a pop-up selfie camera similar to the Vivo V15 Pro to offer more screen real-estate without a notch or a cutout on display. One more interesting aspect of the OnePlus 7 is the fact that the smartphone will have a gradient design, similar to the Redmi Note 7 Pro, Huawei P20 Pro, and other smartphones. According to the latest leak, the OnePlus 7 will be available in Black Yellow, Black Purple, Cyan Grey colors. These images also indicate that the OnePlus 7 has a triple camera setup on the back with a pop-up selfie camera. The back of the smartphone does not have a fingerprint sensor, and the OnePlus 7 is most likely to come with an in-display fingerprint sensor, similar to the OnePlus 6T. OnePlus 7 leaked specifications The OnePlus 7 is speculated to feature a 6.5-inch Optic OLED display with FHD+ resolution, protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC will power the OnePlus 7 with at least 6 GB RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. Like every other OnePlus smartphone, the OnePlus 7 will have a dual nano-SIM card slot with support for 4G LTE and VoLTE on both the slots. And the company is most likely to launch the 5G variant of the OnePlus 7 in select markets. Back into the optics, the device is most likely to have triple cameras on the back with a standard RGB sensor, a depth sensor, and a super wide angle lens, similar to the Vivo V15 Pro. The OnePlus 7 is expected to come with a 48 MP Sony IMX 586 sensor, which is a true 48 MP camera, which uses pixel binning technology to reproduce 12 MP images. The OnePlus 7 is expected to be the most expensive OnePlus smartphone (base variant) and is expected to cost Rs 40,000 in India or $600 in the United States of America. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications UK selling spyware technologies to autocrat rulers: Report Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 03:23PM The British government is facing new allegations of supporting dictatorial and autocratic regimes by selling them spyware technologies that they use to crack down on growing dissent. Since 2015, London had authorized the sale of 75 million of spyware and surveillance technology to countries with grim records on human rights and known for their zero tolerance of the dissent, The Guardian newspaper said in a Sunday report on its website. The governments receiving the technologies include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Philippines, all of them repeatedly criticized for the way their security services have spied on opponents. These security services have used UK-manufactured devices to eavesdrop on telephone conversations through international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers and other surveillance software provided by London, said the report, citing an analysis of export licenses for telecommunications interception equipment by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), a major UK-based rights organization. The dubious sale of espionage devices has sparked concerns among rights campaigners and activists. Andrew Smith of the CAAT said the UK has been mostly ignorant of the use of its spyware technologies by the recipients. "It is not just conventional weapons that can be used for oppression and abuse, it is also monitoring and surveillance equipment," said Smith, adding "It is totally reckless and irresponsible to sell this kind of equipment to regimes that can use it against activists and campaigners." Many have criticized the British government for its close military and intelligence cooperation with governments like Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes blacklisted by the Foreign Office for their history of rights abuse, arguing that London has for years prioritized arms exports over human rights. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly been slammed for its zero tolerance for the dissent, especially since the brutal killing of a prominent journalist in a diplomatic mission in Turkey last October. Bahrain has also been involved in a massive crackdown for the past eight years on people seeking reform in the small Persian Gulf country. Philippines' president, Rodrigo Duterte, acknowledged recently that his security services had wiretapped politicians and activists who were subsequently killed. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemenis' attack kills 11 Saudis, 26 Sudanese in Najran, Jizan IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, March 17, IRNA -- Some 11 Saudi forces were killed and 26 Sudanese mercenaries were injured in Yemenis attack on southern Saudi Arabia. According to Yemeni media 'Almasirah', Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said that the Yemeni forces have conducted two separate operations in Najran and Jizan on Sunday. He added that some members of Saudi engineering units were also killed in artillery units' attacks. Erlier, Saree said that Saudi-led coalition has used over 6,000 cluster munitions in Yemen over the last 4 years. He added that the enemy has also used over 500,000 missiles, bombs and mortar shells. Referring to the fact that Israeli regime is also taking part in the bombardment of western coasts, Saree said over 22 countries have participated in Yemeni war and taken advantage of 10,000 domestic and foreign mercenaries. He went on to say that Yemeni army is now capable of firing scores of domestic missiles to its targets. The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2451 to support the Stockholm Agreement on deployment of a team in order to facilitate monitoring and implementing the Agreement and establishing truce in important Yemeni ports. The resolution mainly focuses on sending essential commodities to the Yemeni people, supporting the Stockholm Agreement, assigning the Secretary-General of the United Nations to implement it and observing the ceasefire. The fourth round of Yemen peace talks kicked off in Stockholm, Sweden on December 6 with the attendance of the UN special envoy Martin Griffith and the government representatives. It agreed to establish truce in Yemeni ports of al-Hudaydah, al-Salif and Ayn Issa. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies attacked Yemen in March 2015 to bring back to power the deposed president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Since then, the invaders have committed horrible war crimes against Yemeni civilians. 9376**1424 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi-US coalition uses 6,000 cluster bombs in Yemen IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, March 17, IRNA -- Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman says the Saudi-led coalition has used over 6,000 cluster munitions in Yemen over the last 4 years. According to the Yemeni media 'Al-Masirah', Brigadier General Yahya Saree addressing a press conference in Sanaa said Saturday night that Saudis have conducted over 250,000 airstrikes over the past four years. He added that the enemy has also used over 500,000 missiles, bombs and mortar shells. Referring to the fact that Israeli regime is also taking part in the bombardment of western coasts, Saree said over 22 countries have participated in Yemeni war and taken advantage of 10,000 domestic and foreign mercenaries. He went on to say that Yemeni army is now capable of firing scores of domestic missiles to its targets. Elsewhere in his remarks, Saree referred to Yemeni drones' operational power, saying UAVs have been used since the second year of the war against Yemen. Some 164 combative operations and 1,362 exploration operations have so far been conducted. Underlining the continuation of manufacturing new version of combative fighters, he said Yemeni forces have also targeted Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Elaborating on the Yemeni navy forces' power, he noted that 19 special sea operations have been performed over the mentioned period and eight warships have been targeted. The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2451 to support the Stockholm Agreement on deployment of a team in order to facilitate monitoring and implementing the Agreement and establishing truce in important Yemeni ports. The resolution mainly focuses on sending essential commodities to the Yemeni people, supporting the Stockholm Agreement, assigning the Secretary-General of the United Nations to implement it and observing the ceasefire. The fourth round of Yemen peace talks kicked off in Stockholm, Sweden on December 6 with the attendance of the UN special envoy Martin Griffith and the government representatives. It agreed to establish truce in Yemeni ports of al-Hudaydah, al-Salif and Ayn Issa. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies attacked Yemen in March 2015 to bring back to power the deposed president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Since then, the invaders have committed horrible war crimes against Yemeni civilians. 9376**1424 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Investing in Hotels: The Move from Luxury to Lifestyle Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - The Puerto Vallarta region is a hotspot of interest for investors in the hospitality industry, with remarkably high tourism rates which continue to rise year after year, bolstered by numerous factors including the beauty and security of the destination, excellent airline connectivity, and vacation amenities and activities that appeal to a broad range of traveler - family, LGBT, luxury, moderate, destination wedding, adventure tourism, etc. - and across all age demographics. Hospitality Insights by EHL, an industry leader in hospitality investment and market forecasting, recently published an insightful article entitled "The Better Hotel Investment: Luxury or Lifestyle," examining the current trend in hotel investment and the future for long-term returns and profitability. At a panel discussion hosted at Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, the prestigious hospitality management school in Switzerland, Ramsey Mankarious, founder and CEO of Cedar Capital Partners, discussed how boutique lifestyle hotels, once considered trendy, quirky and largely overlooked by major investors, have made massive gains in market share, showing that this vacation trend is not a fad, but a strong, long-term growth sector. Comparing traditional brands like Hilton and Marriott against boutique hotels, he commented that with traditional brands, consumers understand they will find "good service, but in terms of design, they're nothing special. Whereas if you go to a Schrager Hotel or a YOO Hotel, they still have that great service, but they're much better designed, much more happening, a place you want to be." The concept of luxury in today's market has changed, with vacationers looking for a unique experience beyond the predictable decor and expectations of traditional brands, particularly with younger, more affluent travelers, and reinforced by the evolving, highly visual and engaging way in which vacationers plan travel with a focus on social media platforms, reviews and online booking sites. According to major industry experts, the movement to create this new lifestyle luxury is here to stay and leading hotel brands are adjusting their concepts to keep up with the demand. Marco Nijhof, a consultant with Value Retail who started out as a bellboy and went on to manage the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah in Dubai, commenting on the change, "W Hotels were funky, four-star hotels. Now they're five-star, full-price hotels." Top hospitality investment analysts agree that while the cache of investing in classic luxury hotel properties has appeal as a trophy investment, higher profitability is more readily seen in creative, conceptual properties that appeal to this new approach in vacation lifestyle. Ramsey Mankarious of Cedar Capital Partners, also referenced the brand shift at the W brand, saying, "If you look at the first Ws, they were conversions of Holiday Inn hotels. They just took a pretty boring property, sexed them up, made them cool and charged a lot more money. If you look at a W today, it's very expensive to build, more expensive than a Sheraton. It evolved." Backing that belief, Cedar Capital recently purchased a three-star hotel in Prague which will be converted into "cooler and hipper" unique boutique property, with Mankarious commenting, "in our view, as an investor, it's all about money. It's more efficient and more profitable to invest in these types of hotels than to buy another product." But the lifestyle versus luxury debate comes down to one of the most basic guidelines of real estate and business investment: location, location, location. High-profile luxury brands are most successful in upmarket destinations such as Paris, London and New York, where traditional prestige continues to appeal as a status vacation for travelers. But in other destinations, including the Puerto Vallarta region, today's traveler seeks out an experience that is decidedly different and more adventurous than the all-inclusive chain resort traveler or classic brand consumer of the past. Senior EHL lecturer Jonathan Humphries, who moderated the panel discussion, discussed how luxury and lifestyle are merging. "Luxury used to be defined as specific guest amenities, room sizes, service levels and product quality; now it can be determined by the guest experience and rankings. A 'five-star' hotel is no longer even mentioned as part of a description when guests talk about a luxury or lifestyle hotel experience. Hotel service culture is being questioned what is a luxury experience? The formal greeting at a Four Seasons or the informality at an Edition hotel?" Clearly, for consumers, luxury is being redefined, making boutique lifestyle hotels an attractive product and compelling business strategy for investors, allowing for lower overall investment with higher margins as travelers show ever-increasing willingness to pay a premium for a unique experience, resulting in faster return on investment and greater profitability for savvy investors and hoteliers who can provide those experiences. An excellent example of the type of property gaining interest from both private investors and major corporate brands is Villa Verano, an exclusive private beachfront boutique resort property in Puerto Vallarta, recently come to market for the first time in over 3 decades. Having hosted numerous celebrities over the years, this property includes a flagship villa of guest suites, three recently constructed private oceanfront villas and a full-service pool and beach club nestled on over an acre of lush jungle setting with 200 linear feet of ocean frontage. Expansion potential for this property could easily bring the number of existing guest rooms from 22 to 56, more than doubling its value, with ample space to add additional pools or unique amenities without sacrificing the serenity of the location. For hospitality investors tracking the change in consumer preference from traditional luxury to boutique vacation experiences, properties like Villa Verano present an investment strategy that is both exciting and lucrative, with increased profitability, faster return on investment and the ability to create an exclusive and distinct brand that can leverage a lifestyle appeal with ability to not only compete against traditional luxury brands, but surpass them in today's travel market. Read more on this topic from EHL in their "Editor's Pick" Finance and Real Estate article. Click HERE to learn more about Puerto Vallarta real estate and lifestyles. Yemeni forces kill Saudi, Sudanese troopers in Saudi Arabia Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 07:15PM Yemeni forces have killed nearly 40 Saudi and Sudanese soldiers during two separate operations in Saudi Arabia's southwestern border region, in retaliation for the ongoing Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen. Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, said on Sunday that at least 11 Saudi soldiers and 26 Sudanese troops had been killed in Saudi Arabia's provinces of Jizan and Najran over the past hours, Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah reported. The Yemeni forces targeted military positions across the region following the gathering and analysis of intelligence, he added. Saree also said Saudi-paid militiamen suffered heavy losses when Yemeni army soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees repelled their attacks in some parts of Hudaydah and al-Rabuah provinces. Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 with the goal of bringing a former regime that had been submissive to Riyadh back to power. Sudan has contributed forces to the invading coalition. A number of Western countries the US and Britain in particular supply that coalition with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance. Thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed, while thousands more have been injured. Much of the country's infrastructure has also been destroyed, and a Saudi-led blockade has deprived most of the Yemeni population of clean water, food, and proper healthcare. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Dozens of Afghan border police surrender to Taliban Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 05:24PM Dozens of Afghan security forces have surrendered to the Taliban during intensified fighting by the militants for control of Afghanistan's western province of Badghis, which borders Turkmenistan. Badghis provincial council chairman Abdul Aziz Bik said on Sunday that about 50 Afghan personnel who were part of the Afghan Interior Ministry's border police had laid down their arms in the province's most populous district of Bala Murghab. He explained that some 100 Afghan personnel had attempted to flee their posts into neighboring Turkmenistan on Saturday but had been prevented from entering that country. Fifty of them then abandoned fighting in the troubled district and surrendered to Taliban militants in the area. Bik expressed fear for the forces' lives. "These soldiers have been fighting against the Taliban for years and if they give up, they will be killed by [the] Taliban." Meanwhile, the Taliban claimed that 90 Afghan personnel had surrendered during the fierce clashes. It posted photos on Twitter of a line-up of dozens of men, who the militant group said were captured by border police forces. Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a Twitter post that attacks in Bala Murghab had resulted in heavy casualties. The Red Cross said it had facilitated the handover of the bodies of 20 soldiers to the Afghan National Army Corps. In a tweet, the Afghan Defense Ministry said its forces had killed a dozen militants in Bala Murghab during the previous 24 hours. On Saturday, Badghis provincial council member Abdullah Afzali said that the district was at risk of falling to the Taliban unless Afghan forces received aerial and ground reinforcements. Afghanistan usually sees a marked increase in violence in spring. Fighting in Afghanistan has intensified even as Taliban and US representatives finished a latest round of talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday. The Taliban's five-year rule over at least three quarters of Afghanistan came to an end following a US invasion in 2001; but 18 years on, Washington is still entangled in the war and is now seeking a truce with the militants. The militant group continues to attack government and civilian targets as well as foreign forces still present on Afghan soil. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India, Pakistan threatened to fire 'missiles' at each other: Sources Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 07:31AM As tensions escalated last month between India and Pakistan across their borders in Kashmir, the two nuclear-armed neighbors threatened to fire a barrage of missiles at each other, sources say. Government sources in New Delhi and Islamabad said India at one stage threatened to fire at least six missiles at Pakistan which pledged to respond with its own missile strikes "three times over." The exchanges, however, did not get beyond threats and there was no indication that the missiles involved were anything more than conventional weapons, the sources said. A Pakistani government minister and a Western diplomat in Islamabad confirmed a specific Indian threat to use six missiles on targets inside Pakistan. The minister said Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies "were communicating with each other during the fight, and even now they are communicating with each other." Pakistan said it would counter any Indian missile attacks with many more launches of its own, the minister told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We said if you will fire one missile, we will fire three. Whatever India will do, we will respond three times to that," the Pakistani minister said. The Pakistani minister also hailed the role of China and certain other countries in mediating to ease tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad. India has also said it was in touch with major powers during the conflict, without providing further details. The tensions soared following a car bombing that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir on February 14. India accused the main Pakistani intelligence agency of involvement and vowed retaliation. The tensions then reached a peak after India said it had conducted "preemptive" airstrikes against what it described as a militant training camp in Pakistan's Balakot. Days later, the Pakistani military captured an Indian pilot after shooting down his MiG-21 fighter jet, which Islamabad said had violated its airspace. The flare-up between the two arch-foes appeared to be easing after Pakistan handed back Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, whose return was meant to be a goodwill gesture toward India. Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since partition in 1947. Both countries claim all of Kashmir and have fought three wars over the territory. Indian troops are in constant clashes with armed groups seeking Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan. India regularly accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants and allowing them across the restive frontier in an attempt to launch attacks. Pakistan strongly denies the allegation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemen 'has advanced aircraft, coordinates of targets in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi' Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 06:46AM Yemen's army says it has advanced aircraft as well as the coordinates of legitimate targets in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which can be hit in retaliation for the war being waged against the country by Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates. In comments carried by the al-Masirah TV on Saturday, army spokesman Brigadier Yahya Sare'e said the Yemeni military was ready to retaliate "any major attack" on the port city of Hudaydah, the entry point for most of the country's commercial goods and vital aid. "We have aerial photographs and coordinates of dozens of headquarters, facilities, and military bases of the enemy," he said. "The legitimate targets of our forces extend to the capital of Saudi Arabia and to the emirate of Abu Dhabi." Sare'e also said that the Yemeni armed forces have "manufactured advanced generations of attack aircraft" and would soon make new systems "functional." Saudi Arabia and a number of its allies launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring a former government that had been submissive to Riyadh back to power. Hudaydah, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis, has seen some of the heaviest fighting in the Saudi-led war. The aggressor forces routinely target residential areas inside cities and towns across Yemen, causing massive civilian casualties. Yemeni army soldiers and allied Houthi fighters have on a limited number of occasions fired ballistic missiles at Riyadh and other Saudi cities in retaliation for the Saudi-led attacks on residential areas. Saudi Arabia often claims that it intercepts incoming Yemeni missiles, but a close study of evidence by The New York times in 2017 clearly suggested that in one of the most high-profile of such attacks, the projectile launched deep into Saudi territory had in fact landed unimpeded, bypassing American-made Patriot missiles and potentially other defenses used by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia claimed that it had foiled that attack, which targeted the Riyadh airport. The Saudi-led war has so far taken a heavy toll on Yemen's infrastructure and put 80 percent of its 28.6 million people in critical need of assistance. According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the war has claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint NATO-Georgia Exercises To Kick Off Near Tbilisi By RFE/RL March 17, 2019 Around 350 personnel from 24 NATO member states and partner countries are set to kick off 11 days of joint military exercises in Georgia on March 18. The drills, dubbed NATO-Georgia Exercise 2019, is to run until March 29 at the Krtsanisi National Training Center, near Tbilisi. The exercise is "an important exercise for Georgia and a significant milestone in strengthening NATO-Georgia military-political cooperation," a statement from the Western military alliance said. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is set to visit Georgia during the exercise to meet with the Caucasus republic's leadership and attend the drills. "This is an exercise which we have [held] regularly and it illustrates that NATO and Georgia -- we are close partners," Stoltenberg told journalists in Brussels on March 6. The first NATO-Georgia exercise was held in 2016. At a 2008 summit, NATO agreed that Georgia will eventually become a member of the alliance, but no firm date has been given, although the membership perspective for the country has been reconfirmed at every summit ever since. Moscow has made explicit its opposition to NATO's further expansion, especially as regards to Georgia and Ukraine. Kyiv also seeks to become a member of the security alliance. Georgia, a country of some 3.7 million people, fought a brief war with Russia in August 2008, and Moscow's continued military presence on Georgian territory adds to tensions in the region. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/joint-nato-georgia-exercises- to-kick-ff-near-tbilisi/29826591.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU Welcomes Pardonings In Azerbaijan, Wants More Activists, Political Opponents Released By RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service March 17, 2019 The European Union has welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's decision to pardon jailed rights activists and political opponents as part of a broader amnesty and said it expects similar moves to follow. A statement by a spokesperson for the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said on March 17 that representatives of political parties, nongovernmental organizations, bloggers, and journalists were among more than 400 people pardoned, which it called "a welcome step." The EU "expects that further similar steps will follow in future in line with Azerbaijan's international commitments," the statement said, adding that the bloc "will continue its engagement with Azerbaijan to step up the cooperation, including on human rights, which constitutes an essential element of our relationship." Aliyev has ruled the oil-producing former Soviet republic of nearly 10 million people with an iron fist since shortly before his long-ruling father's death in 2003. Rights groups and Western governments have urged the Azerbaijani authorities to release political prisoners for years and accused the government of fabricating criminal cases to stifle dissent and media freedom. In all, the amnesty covers a total of 431 people, including several members of the opposition considered to be political prisoners by international rights organizations, according to Aliyev's decree signed on March 16 to mark the Norouz new year holiday. Under the mass pardon, 399 people will be released from prison, 11 will have their suspended sentences lifted, and 12 will have fines against them dismissed. Three people serving life sentences will have their terms reduced to 25 years. Aliyev's pardon will also free 14 foreigners from prison. It is common in Azerbaijan for the president to pardon prisoners ahead of Norouz, which is on March 21, or to mark other celebrations. However, it is unusual for political prisoners to be included in the pardon. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-welcomes- pardonings-in-azerbaijan-wants-more-activists-political -opponents-released/29826501.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Feels Good': First Thai Elections Since 2014 Coup See Big Early Voter Turnout Sputnik News 23:03 17.03.2019(updated 23:07 17.03.2019) Hundreds of Thai voters stood in long lines Sunday for early voting, a week before the country's first parliamentary elections since a 2014 military coup. Over 2.3 million Thai voters are expected to take part in the March 24 election, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The nation's former prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted in a military coup in May 2014, three years after being elected Thailand's first female prime minister, the 12th military coup in the southeastern Asian country since 1932. Yingluck's opponents, including many in the middle classes and in Bangkok, claimed that she was a puppet for her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was himself ousted by a 2006 coup. "I finally have a chance to cast my vote as I've waited for so long," 48-year-old voter Paka Kaengkhiew said waiting outside Bangkok's Phra Khanong district office on Sunday, the SCMP reported. Hundreds of others congregated outside schools, parking lots and temples to cast an early ballot. "I don't think this election will take Thailand back to a liberal democracy, because the constitution allows the military to continue to hold power," Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at the University of Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand, told Al Jazeera. "It is a referendum on democracy and whether this country wants to move forward with democracy or not," he added. Prayut Chan-o-cha, the incumbent prime minister and the head of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), a military junta that has been ruling the country since 2014, will run for the office as the Palang Pracharath Party candidate. The pro-Thaksin Puea Thai and Thai Raksa Chart parties are expected to be the main rivals to the pro-junta Palang Pracharath Party. The NCPO took control over the country after the May 2014 coup, forcing out the government that was elected in 2011. Since that time, an interim parliament comprising lawmakers designated by the NCPO has been operating in the country along with an NCPO-controlled cabinet. Political activity of any kind has been banned until government started gradually lifting restrictions in 2017 in a bid to suppress growing opposition and criticism. In December 2018, however, the NCPO lifted restrictions on public gatherings and political activities so that political parties could carry out election campaigns, Sputnik previously reported. According to analysts, the army-aligned, pro-military and conservative Palang Pracharath party is most likely to win the election. The 250-seat upper house of the Senate will automatically be appointed by armed forces, giving Prayut's party an advantage in the election. Sudarat Keyuraphan of the challenging Pheu Thai party urged voters "not to be tricked" by the military regime, noting that Palang Pracharath's rule has failed to limit corruption, improve the standard of living or lift the country's economy. However, although most Thais are not supportive of military rule, Prayut is well respected by civilians, who attribute the end of what many consider to have been a corrupt Thaksin dynasty to him. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India, Pakistan Planned Missile Strikes on Each Other During Standoff Report Sputnik News 11:14 17.03.2019 Tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad culminated on 27 February, when the two sides' warplanes engaged in an air battle over Kashmir just a day after India's airstrike on an alleged jihadist camp on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control. The dogfight led to the downing of an Indian Air Force MiG-21 and a Pakistani F-16. During bilateral sparring in February, India and Pakistan threatened to launch missiles at each other and only US officials' interference helped defuse a bigger conflict, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources. According to sources in New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington, the threat emerged after Pakistan downed an Indian plane and captured its pilot following a dogfight between Pakistani and Indian warplanes over Kashmir. The 27 February air battle came after a raid by Indian jet fighters on what New Delhi said was a terrorist camp in Pakistan. Islamabad denied the existence of any such camp in the area and claimed that the Indian bombs had exploded on an empty hillside. The sources confirmed a specific Indian threat to use six missiles on targets inside Pakistan after the dogfight to support New Delhi's new campaign of "counter terrorism". Pakistan reportedly responded by stating that it would counter any Indian missile attacks with "many more launches of its own". "We said if you will fire one missile, we will fire three. Whatever India will do, we will respond three times to that," Reuters cited an unnamed Pakistani minister as saying at the time. Another source claimed that US security advisor John Bolton was on the phone with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on the night of 27 February and into the early hours of 28 February, in an attempt to defuse the situation. Washington reportedly focused on securing the quick release of the Indian pilot and winning New Delhi's assurance that it would scrap its threat to fire missiles. The pilot was handed over to India on 1 March, in what Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said was a "peace gesture". "We made a lot of effort to get the international community involved in encouraging the two sides to de-escalate the situation because we fully realised how dangerous it was", a senior Trump administration official was cited by Reuters as saying on condition of anonymity. On February 28, US President Donald Trump, who was in Hanoi at the time trying to clinch an agreement with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un over its nuclear program, told reporters that the India-Pakistan crisis is expected to end soon. "They have been going at it and we have been involved in trying to have them stop. Hopefully that is going to be coming to an end", he said. The statement came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signalled Moscow's readiness to mediate between India and Pakistan to try to calm tensions between the two nuclear powers. He expressed hope that tensions could be de-escalated and that both countries would show restraint. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Middle East Coordinator strongly condemns 'arrests and violence' by Hamas security forces during Gaza protests 17 March 2019 - The UN's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process has strongly condemned the violent response by security forces in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip during the past three days, towards Palestinian protests over the deteriorating economic situation there. Palestinians took to the streets on Thursday and Friday, according to news reports, after months of disputes and deadlock both between the extremist Hamas faction, and the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, together with Israeli authorities, which control all access into Gaza under a years-long blockade policy. Electricity supplies have been sporadic for months, with Israel also withholding fuel deliveries in retaliation for rocket attacks, and lately, Israel decided to withhold around $140 million in tax revenue transfers to Palestinians. Hamas has imposed extra taxes on basic products across Gaza, one of the issues which also fuelled this week's protests against the economic crisis there, where mainly youth-led marches reportedly displayed banners citing "down with price hikes", and "the revolt of the hungry". "I strongly condemn the campaign of arrests and violence used by Hamas security forces against protesters, including women and children, in Gaza over the past three days" said UN Coordinator, Nickolay Mladenov, in a statement issued on Sunday. Alarm over 'brutal beating' of journalists With news reports suggesting that the violent suppression of demonstrations by Hamas security forces included efforts to confiscate reporters' phones and evidence of the heavy-handed response, Mr. Mladenov said that he was "particularly alarmed by the brutal beating of journalists and staff from the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) and the raiding of homes." News reports said that hundreds of those who took part in the demonstrations, were begin held in detention over the weekend. "The long-suffering people of Gaza were protesting the dire economic situation and demanded an improvement in the quality of life in the Gaza Strip", said the UN Special Coordinator, adding that it was "their right to protest without fear of reprisal." Mr. Mladenov urged "Palestinian factions to engage in earnest with Egypt in order to implement the Cairo Agreement in full", referring to the stalled deal in October 2017, between Hamas and Fatah, that it was hoped would end more than a decade of disagreement, beginning with Hamas's victory at the polls in Gaza, in 2006. "The United Nations will continue its efforts to avoid escalation, relieve the suffering of people in Gaza, lift the closures, and support reconciliation," said Mr. Mladenov. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US, Japan to Develop New Aegis Radar to Counter Chinese, Russian Missiles Sputnik News 23:34 17.03.2019 The new radar is reported to provide 360-degree coverage for US missile defense systems, with no blind spots. Washington and Tokyo are working toward developing a new radar system for Aegis-equipped US Navy ships, as a "part of efforts to improve defense capabilities," diplomatic sources told Kyodo news agency Sunday. The new system aims at countering new weapons, including hypersonic cruise missiles being developed by China and Russia, sources disclosed, adding that coordination on the project had entered the final phase. Japan according to reports is using the joint venture as a means to strengthen its defense against a possible attack from North Korea, which Tokyo considers a viable threat to national security. In the meantime, Japan's decision to join the project has raised concerns that it could be seen as encouraging a new arms race between world superpowers, Kyodo reports. Currently, US Navy Aegis-equipped ships rely on the AN/SPQ-9B radar system, reportedly capable of detecting low-flying threats. However, this system uses traditional rotating radar, inherently prone to blind spots. According to Kyodo, one AN/SPQ-9B costs approximately $4.1 million, while the new system is likely to cost much more. The new system will be a non-rotating radar providing a constant 360-degree coverage, and will be used in conjunction with another system, AN/SPY-6, which specializes in high-altitude targets and is scheduled to be delivered starting in 2020, the report reads. The Aegis is a primarily maritime missile defense system originally developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA Corporation and currently produced by Lockheed Martin. In 2016, the US launched the first stationary land-based version, called Aegis Ashore, in Romania. Russia has repeatedly condemned the deployment of Aegis Ashore in countries close to Russian borders, saying the missile defense system can easily be repurposed for offensive missile launches. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Riverfest 8 Raises $522,532 Pesos for Pasitos de Luz Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - The 8th Annual Riverfest fundraiser for Pasitos de Luz, held March 2 and 3, 2019 at El Rio BBQ Bar was an overwhelming success! This two-day charity event garnered a record-breaking $522,532 pesos for the 130 special needs children who receive care at the Pasitos de Luz @ Casa Connor in Puerto Vallarta. We are speechless. This year's Riverfest exceeded more than we had dreamed! Thanks go to so many who helped make the event such a success - the musicians, the businesses and individuals who donated auction items, and the approximately 70 volunteers and more than 1000 attendees who helped us bring the house down! The food, presented by El Rio BBQ Bar, Barcelona Tapas, and Portobello, was outstanding! Each of these restaurants donated time and food at cost or donated a percentage of net revenues. Artisan vendors donated some of their proceeds, and individual attendees added contributions throughout the event. Add all of this together and the kids of Pasitos de Luz and their families came out the real winners! Event proceeds will help Pasitos support the 130 special needs children and their families, most of whom live below the poverty line, who receive much-needed care through the services provided by Pasitos de Luz @ Casa Connor. These 100% FREE services include: basic care and hygiene, therapies (physical, speech, massage and more), medicine, nutrition (including two meals a day), special education classes, exercise and recreational therapy programs, and access to specialists, doctors and psychologists. And it's life changing for the Pasitos kids - and their families. To everyone who was involved in the event, in any way, please know that your generosity really does help make dreams of a better life come true! Google Denies Trump Accusations of Working With Chinese Military Sputnik News 16:41 17.03.2019(updated 22:26 17.03.2019) The US president and top defence officials have alleged that the Chinese military benefits from the work that Google is doing in China. Last year, Trump unleashed a large-scale trade war against Beijing, partly due to the alleged theft of US intellectual property. Google has pushed back accusations of helping Chinese military brought forward by Donald Trump. "We are not working with the Chinese military. We are working with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defence, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare," a spokesperson for the company said as quoted by the Wall Street Journal reporter Vivian Salama. This comment came after Donald Trump accused the tech giant of benefiting China instead of the United States. "Google is helping China and their military, but not the US," he tweeted on Saturday. "Terrible! The good news is that they helped Crooked Hillary Clinton, and not Trump." In testimony to Congress on Wednesday, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford stated that Google's operations in China are "indirectly helping advance the Chinese military". "We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China, knowing that there is that indirect benefit and frankly indirect may be not a full characterisation of the way it really is, it's more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military," he added. Another top military official, Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan, claimed that the alleged theft of US technology by Chinese entities is boosting Beijing's technological advancements in the military sector. The United States has repeatedly claimed that Chinese companies steal American intellectual property and conduct economic espionage, and that what they collect is being transferred to the defence sector. Last year, Donald Trump cited China's presumed intellectual property theft as being among the reasons for imposing import tariffs worth hundreds of billions of US dollars. Chinese authorities, who retaliated with their own trade tariffs, have repeatedly denied that they order their companies to spy in the US and elsewhere. Washington has also launched a crusade against Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE, claiming that their technology poses a security risk to the emerging 5G infrastructure. Trump has banned their products from use by US government agencies; several allies, including Australia, Japan, Israel, the Czech Republic, and New Zealand have followed suit. US envoy to Germany Richard Grenell has threatened to scale down intelligence-sharing cooperation with Germany if it allowed Huawei to participate in the country's 5G build-up. Berlin, however, opted not to bow down to the pressure. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Trump Accuses Google of Helping Chinese Military Sputnik News 07:42 17.03.2019 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump has accused the US-based tech giant Google of helping the Chinese military by conducting business in the Asian country. "Google is helping China and their military, but not the U.S. Terrible! The good news is that they helped Crooked Hillary Clinton, and not Trump." Trump said on Twitter Saturday. On 14 March, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford told Congress that Pentagon is concerned that Google is indirectly helping advance the Chinese military by working in the country. US Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan explained that there is a direct link between commercial business and military development. He also claimed that the systematic theft of US technology by Chinese entities is accelerating Beijing's technological advancements in the defence sector. In recent years, China has reportedly come under increasing criticism over its alleged wide-spread theft of intellectual property and economic espionage, with Chinese businesses being accused of stealing trade secrets from foreign companies to incorporate technologies into their own devices and passing counterfeit goods as products of famous brands, among other things. The violation of intellectual property rights has, in particular, soured Beijing's relations with Washington, with the issue being among those that prompted Trump to unleash a trade war on Beijing. The disputes escalated last June when the Trump administration announced that the United States would subject $50 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent tariffs in a bid to fix the US-Chinese trade deficit. Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of tit-for-tat trade tariffs. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Macron's trip to Africa seen as attempts to counter China's influence Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:17AM President Emmanuel Macron embarked on a four-day trip to the Horn of Africa nations last week, with the visit largely seen as part of attempts by France to cement new ties in a region where China's influence has been growing fast. Macron's trip to Africa was meant to boost trade with Ethiopia and Kenya, two countries that were never a French colony. Djibouti, the third country he visited, was formerly under colonial rule and hosts foreign military bases for both Paris and Beijing. In the first visit by a French president to Kenya since its independence in 1963, Macron concluded his trip with the announcement of an estimated $3.4 billion worth of deals with the East African powerhouse. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta confirmed in a statement on Thursday that an agreement with a "French consortium" had been reached on a series of major works to boost the African country's transport network. Macron described his country as a "credible economic partner," and hailed the agreement with Kenya as a "new partnership in economy." The visit, however, was denounced by some Kenyans as "real stumbling blocks to the development in Africa." At a meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the French president announced a military agreement in which Paris would lend $96 million to Addis Ababa to support the establishment of a navy for the landlocked country. Ethiopia has access to the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea ports as a result of deals with neighbors Djibouti and Sudan. Upon his arrival in Djibouti, Macron also vowed "a respectful partnershipone which will not bring on excessive, unsustainable debts and favors the development of local jobs." Djibouti is strategically located in the entrance from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and lies at the gateway to the busy Suez Canal. Macron is wooing African counterparts beyond traditional allies in non-Francophone Africa, such as Ethiopia and Kenya, to assert his country's competitive edge in a region where China's influence runs deep. This comes as Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti have all taken the lead as some of the most important partners in China's "Belt and Road" reach for global influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping "Belt and Road" initiative, unveiled in 2013, aims to build an infrastructure network connecting China by land and sea to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. The project particularly allows China to reach Africa and Europe via the Indian Ocean. China has already provided many countries in Asia and Africa with billions of dollars in aid and loans for roads, railways, ports and other major infrastructure projects. President Xi pledged last September to provide $60 billion in financial support to Africa in the form of government assistance as well as investment and financing by financial institutions and companies. Xi also said Beijing would expand its imports from Africa, especially for non-resources products, and would facilitate African financial institutions' bond issuance in China. The Asian country has been Africa's biggest trading partner over the last decade. It has been investing $3 billion a year in Africa over the past few years. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address France Starts New Chapter in National Debate Aimed to End Yellow-Vest Crisis By Lisa Bryant March 17, 2019 After wrapping up thousands of town hall meetings, France starts a new chapter of its "great debate," aimed to address longstanding public grievances and offer solutions to the yellow vest protest movement. But the broader crisis lingers, seen with upsurge of violence in Paris Saturday, where about 10,000 yellow vests marked their 18th straight week of protests. Demonstrators smashed and looted businesses on the iconic Champs Elysees and hurled cobble stones at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. Others participated in a peaceful climate march that brought together tens of thousand of peopleunderscoring the diffuse, unorganized complexity of the leaderless protest movement. Eight weeks of citizen debates, launched in January by an embattled President Emmanuel Macron, have received mixed reviews. Some consider them a groundbreaking experiment in participative democracy. Others dismiss them as a public relations stunt. The bigger question is whether and how Macron's centrist government plans to transform the public feedback into tangible policy change that can address pent-up resentments and find an exit to the unrest. "The problems start now" said analyst Jean Petaux of Sciences-Po Bordeaux University. "To totally finish with the yellow vests, the government has to address at least part of their demands, which are very disparate. And give the sense it is offering credible solutions." For Macron, the immediate takeaways have been largely positive. Up to half-a-million French participated in 10,000 town-hall-style meetings nationwide that tackled pre-set topics, ranging from taxes and pubic services, to democracy and the environment. Organizers also received more than 1.4 million online comments outlining other issues of public concern, including jobs and immigration. "People are learning that politics and how to change a system is a very difficult process," said Bernard Reber, an expert on participative citizenship at the Paris-based National Center for Scientific Research, citing one early achievement. A mixed review The debates have also given the president and his government some breathing room time that will last through the current "phase two," which ends in April. Citizens are being randomly selected to participate in regional meetings aimed to prioritize the myriad demands. Surveys show the majority of French have broadly given the national debates a thumbs up. More than eight in 10 respondents said the meetings gave citizens an opportunity to express themselves, while smaller majorities said they addressed their personal problems and those aired by the yellow vests, according to a Harris Interactive-Agence Epoka poll published this week, echoing others. But many appear skeptical that all the talking will amount to much. Another survey found roughly two-thirds doubt the government will ultimately take the public feedback into account. France's leading Le Monde newspaper, however, gave the effort a careful, initial thumbs up. Critics who dismissed the debates as a diversion "were misguided," it wrote in an editorial, while the yellow vests "were eclipsed and marginalize by this exercise in democracy." "Macron has not yet won," it added, "he needs to show he hasn't just listened but heard the country." Government members insist that will happen. "The idea we have to do things differently is obvious," Territorial Collectives Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who helped to organizing the debates, told the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche. "We may beef up certain themes, accelerate or correct others." But Prime Minister Edouard Philippe offered a more cautionary note, those expecting a flurry of government measures emerging from the debates were misguided. The months of yellow vest protests have slowed Macron's reformist agenda. The protest movement, named after the fluorescent jackets French keep in their cars, has morphed well beyond its initial opposition to a planned fuel tax hike, to embrace a hodgepodge of grievances of a largely rural and working class France left behind. The French president took an initial step back by repealing the fuel tax increase. Then in December, he went further, announcing billions of dollars of aid for the most vulnerable and laying out plans the debates. Yellow vests dismissed the announcements as insufficient, the most extreme calling for Macron's resignation. "Emmanuel Macron now has to show that his statements that there is a before and and after the yellow vests are translated into acts," says analyst Petaux. "Otherwise, it's just talk." The next step? So far, there are at least stylistic changes. Often dismissed as arrogant and aloof, Macron has rolled up his sleeves literally and participated in roughly a dozen public debates, in a style reminiscent of his presidential campaign. Political opponents grumble the French leader has hogged media coverage ahead of May European Parliament elections. And indeed, polls show Macron's approval rating jumped eight points by early March, to reach 28 percent, and his Republic on the March party inching up to overtake the far-right opposition National Rally. Still, some observers note the debates ultimately involved only a small slice of the population including many elderly, with time on their hands. "The great majority of French stayed home," said analyst Petaux. "It's not that they were sidelined. It's that they don't care. They have other things to do." But analyst Reber, who attended roughly 30 of the town hall meetings, believes the debates should not be underestimated. "They've been unprecedented in every sense," he said. A few months ago, he said, many would have dismissed the idea that French would show up and hash out often deeply divisive issues. "But that's not been the case," Reber added. "People mobilized and stayed for a long time. I don't know many countries in the world that allow citizens to participate in hours-long debates." Macron is expected to announce the after-debate roadmap next month. So far, the French president has given little indication of his long-term exit strategy. Some believe he doesn't yet have one. "I'm not sure the government has a clear idea of what it's going to do with this mass of information" Reber said. "But it has all kinds of options. A referendum may be the most obvious path, many analysts say. But it carries risks not only in terms timing, notably whether to schedule such a vote during May European Parliament elections but also the chance French may vote against it. The next steps for the yellow vests are also unclear. A number of analysts believe the movement will slowly die out. Some diehards will likely continue and harden the protests, Petaux believes, while another group will be absorbed into existing politics parties mostly on the far right and far left. A third "will relive the nostalgia of the Republic of roundabouts," he said, remembering the solidarity and friendships struck during the protests. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Two destroyers to join Iran's Navy: Cmdr IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Abadan, March 17, IRNA -- Commander of the Iranian Navy announced that two destroyers Damavand and Dena will soon join the country's naval fleet. Speaking on the sidelines of an inaugural ceremony of "Exhibition on Navy's Achievements" held in Khorramshahr base on Sunday, Rear Admiral Hussein Khanzadi said that construction operation for structure and surface structure of Damavand destroyer has been completed by the Northern Fleet and that the destroyer was in the stage of being equipped for operation. He said that immediately after that, Dena destroyer will join the South Naval Fleet, and the first generation of the Mirshekar destroyer in Saba-class will also join the navy's fleet in Bandar Abbas. The military top official also pointed to the high capacity created in the country in the field of the construction of indigenous military equipment in the Navy, saying that a wide range of indigenous military equipment constructed by the Islamic Republic of Iran will join the Navy next Iranian year (will start on March 21). The cost of manufacturing military equipment in the country, including manufacture of battleships, is much lower than the money paid for purchasing a foreign flotilla, the military official said. Admiral Khanzadi said that in addition to producing indigenous military equipment in the country, in order to maintain the readiness of the forces, naval exercises are slated to be carried out, including joint exercises and performing hybrid exercises with some friendly countries in the region, especially in the Indian Ocean and in the Caspian Sea. Referring to the security of the seas, he said, 'The Iranian Navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its roundabout presence on the seas under the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the adjacent seas, has created a very stable security in these areas.' 9455**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defying US sanctions, Iran inaugurates new South Pars gas field phases Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 02:38PM Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has inaugurated four new phases of the huge offshore South Pars gas field in a move, which has been seen as a clear sign of the failure of US sanctions against the country. During an inaugural ceremony in the southern coastal city of Kangan on Sunday, Iran's president officially launched phases 13, 22, 23, and 24 of South Pars gas field, noting that despite all the US pressures on the Iranian nation, especially through the imposition of unilateral economic sanctions, Iranians remain steadfast and resistant and continue to progress. "Americans did not want us to inaugurate any important projects during the current year, but we made all projects operational on schedule," Rouhani said. "Today is a very auspicious day for the Iranian nation, which has dealt strong blows to enemies, because they thought that by imposing sanctions, they would be able to stop all our plans and advances," Rouhani added. The inauguration of the new phases of Iran's South Pars gas field has been seen by experts as a clear sign of the failure of US sanctions against the country's energy sector, which were mainly meant to curtail Iran's production of oil and gas as its main revenue sources. US President Donald Trump withdrew Washington in May last year from the landmark Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 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. Trump's administration announced re-imposition of the "toughest" sanctions ever against Iran's banking and energy sectors with the aim of cutting off the country's oil sales and crucial exports. Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani said, "Enemies thought that they would mount such economic pressure on [the Iranian] people that our people would bend the knee in front of superpowers. However, this great and history making nation has demonstrated its steadfastness and resistance at all junctures of its history, especially during the current year, which is nearly finished." Noting that "the sanctions imposed by the United States against Iran are sanctions against humanity," Iran's chief executive emphasized that what Americans are doing against Iran is a crime against humanity, but "America will never achieve its goals." "Before being an economic war, sanctions are psychological war through which America is trying to make the Iranians pessimistic about their future and make them think that as time goes by, their conditions will deteriorate," Rouhani said. Saying that production of gasoline in Iran has been doubled since the inauguration of his administration, Rouhani said, "During recent rounds of sanctions, we saw that the United States did not even think about imposing gasoline sanctions on Iran, because it knew that Iran has become self-sufficient in gasoline production. Today, we are also self-sufficient in producing diesel fuel and gas." In a TV interview back in February, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said the country has become self-sufficient in gasoline production despite US sanctions on its energy sector. His remarks came after President Rouhani inaugurated the third phase of a gas condensate plant, known as the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, in the southern city of Bandar Abbas. The gas condensate plant supplies various petroleum products, including diesel fuel, gasoline, hydrogen, sulfur and jet fuel. "Fortunately, we do not need to import gasoline anymore. We have reached self-sufficiency. We can export our produced gasoline, but have no export plans," Zangeneh was quoted as saying by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. According to a report by IRNA, Phase 13 of South Pars gas field has four offshore platforms, 38 wells and four 90-kilometer pipelines, and has been completely designed and made operational by Iranian experts. The phase is to produce 56 million cubic meters of gas, 75,000 barrels of gas condensate, and 400 tonnes of sulfur on a daily basis in addition to annual production of 1.5 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and one million tonnes of ethane. Total value of the phase 13's products has been estimated at five million dollars per day. South Pars Phases 22, 23 and 24 consist of four offshore platforms, 38 wells and three pipelines, which have been completely designed and made operational using Iranian equipment. They will transfer two billion cubic feet of gas to onshore facilities. On the whole, the four phases are to produce 56 million cubic meters of gas, 77,000 barrels of condensate and 400 tonnes of sulfur per day in addition to annual production of 1.5 million tonnes of liquefied gas and one million tonnes of ethane. The daily value of their products has been estimated at 30 billion dollars. The inauguration of the new South Pars phases will also increase Iran's current production capacity by 113 million cubic meters of enriched gas, 100 million cubic meters of methane, 150,000 barrels of condensate and 800 tonnes of sulfur granules per day. On an annual basis, the country will be producing 2.1 million tonnes of liquefied gas and two million tonnes of ethane as the main feed for petrochemical plants. The four new phases of South Pars gas field have been made operational at a cost of more than 11 billion dollars, enabling Iran to outdo the neighboring Qatar in gas production from the joint field for the first time. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran sends naval group to Bab el-Mandeb Strait Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:10AM Iran's Navy has dispatched its 61st naval group, comprising a destroyer and a logistical vessel, on a mission to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to ensure the security of the shipping routes used by Iranian vessels. Rear Admiral Afshin Tashak, the commander of the Navy's Southern Fleet, told IRNA on Sunday that the fleet was comprised of the Navy's Sabalan destroyer and the Bandar Abbas logistical vessel and had set sail from the country's southern port city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday. "The naval group is on a mission to provide security for the routes used by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) in the area of the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait," he said. The strait, which lies at the mouth of the Red Sea, connects it to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The vessels sailing through the strait and the body of water can next enter the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. Also on Saturday, the Navy's 60th naval group consisting of two logistical vessels docked at the country's southern port of Bushehr after completing a 5,600-nautical-mile mission. '6,000 tankers escorted' Over the past decade, the Navy's naval groups have escorted 6,000 oil tankers in international waters, the commander said. The missions, he added, were undertaken in line with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei's remarks considering the Navy to be a strategic force and advising it to expand its operating range and to confront piracy. The 61st such mission began less than two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in vague remarks that the regime's navy could take action against Iranian oil shipments. Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami reacted to Netanyahu's remarks by saying that Iran viewed any Israeli naval action against the country's oil shipments as "piracy," vowing a "firm" response to such an assault. Last November, Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, had also warned global shipping and insurance industries that insuring Iranian tankers would incur penalties under Washington's unilateral sanctions against Tehran. In late October last year, a few days before the US was about to bring Iran's energy sector under sanctions, President Hassan Rouhani assured the Iranian nation of the government's resolve to stand up to US threats. He emphasized that his team would do all in its power to resolve the economic problems caused by American pressure. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran Dispatches Flotilla to Major Shipping Corridor Off Yemeni Coast Sputnik News 20:24 17.03.2019(updated 20:27 17.03.2019) Last week, Iranian Navy ships successfully fended off an attack against an oil tanker carrying some 150,000 metric tonnes of oil after it was ambushed by nearly a dozen pirate speedboats in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. The Iranian Navy has dispatched its 61st naval group, consisting of the Sabalan frigate and the Bandar Abbas logistical support ship, to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djibouti connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, South Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Afshin Tashak has said. "The naval group is on a mission to provide security for the routes used by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) in the area of the Gulf of Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait," Tashak said, speaking to Iranian media on Sunday. According to the admiral, the naval group set sail for the strategic shipping strait on Saturday, departing from Iran's southern port city of Bandar Abbas. Also Saturday, the 60th flotilla, consisting of two logistical ships, which fended off a pirate attack on an oil tanker last week, safely returned home to the southern Iranian port of Bushehr after completing a 5,600 nautical-mile journey. The Sabalan frigate is equipped with a 114 mm main gun, along with anti-ship missiles, mortar, machine gun, torpedo tubes and anti-air defence weaponry. The Bandar Abbas is a lightly armed replenishment ship with a helicopter deck and hanger capable of carrying a lone light helicopter. Since 2008, the Iranian Navy has contributed substantial resources to international anti-piracy missions off the eastern coast of Africa. According to Tashak, Iranian naval groups have escorted some 6,000 oil tankers through international waters over the past decade. The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the adjacent Gulf of Aden linking the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal is a major global shipping route, with the equivalent of about 4.7 million barrels of oil shipped through the strait each day. The deployment of the 61st naval group to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait comes a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to deploy Israeli warships to help tackle Iranian oil smuggling if Tehran attempted to skirt US sanctions. On Wednesday, Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami blasted Israel over the threat, saying that Tehran would "firmly respond" if Tel Aviv made any attempt to hamper Iran's oil exports, and adding that such behaviour would be considered "piracy" by the Iranian side. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US stance against Hashd Sha'abi forces violates Iraqi sovereignty: Lawmaker Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 04:07PM An Iraqi legislator has condemned recent remarks by US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino against pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), describing them as "prejudicial" and "in violation of the sovereignty of Iraq." Abbas al-Ismaili, a member of the Security and Defense Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, said the voluntary forces better known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi are an important part of the country's security system that defeated terrorism and achieved victory over the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. Ismaili further noted that "any attack on Hashd Sha'abi forces amounts to violation of the sovereignty of Iraq, and a flagrant interference in the security and internal affairs of the country." "Washington is trying to dissolve the PMU by means of blacklisting some of its factions. Such measures have failed since Hashd al-Sha'abi forces do not care about these pressures at all, and will not allow the United States to be a guarantor of the country," the lawmaker pointed out. Ismaili then called on the Baghdad government and the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to summon US Ambassador to Iraq, Matthew Tueller, and hand him a note of protest for his country's violation of Iraq's sovereignty. "Palladino's description of Popular Mobilization Units as sectarian armed forces is unacceptable and should not be tolerated," Ismaili highlighted. Ali al-Husseini, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Units, also said the Iraqi government is obliged to respond to Palladino's comments, and take deterrent measures to stop US rant about Hashd al-Sha'abi, and put an end to President Donald Trump's intervention in the security and political affairs of Iraq. Mahmoud Rubai'i, a spokesperson for Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq group a main component of the PMU, also said that the results of last parliamentary elections proved US failure in Iraq. "This is a graver failure of US politics than its military failure," Rubai'i said. He stressed that Washington's reports would not distract Hashd al-Sha'abi from its goals. Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters played a major role in the liberation of Daesh-held areas to the south, northeast and north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, ever since the terrorists launched an offensive in the country in June 2014. Iraq has repeatedly condemned allegations of sectarian nature against the voluntary force. The Iraqi parliament on November 26, 2016 approved a law giving full legal status to Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters. It recognized the PMU as part of the national armed forces, placed the volunteer fighters under the command of the prime minister, and granted them the right to receive salaries and pensions like the regular army and police forces. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the end of military operations against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the Arab country on December 9, 2017. On July 10 that year, he had formally declared victory over Daesh in Mosul, which served as the terrorists' main urban stronghold in Iraq. In the run-up to Mosul's liberation, Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters had made sweeping gains against Daesh. Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January 2017 after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19 last year. Daesh began a terror campaign in Iraq in 2014, overrunning vast swathes in lightning attacks. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel's Top Court Bars Far-Right Politician From Next Month's Election By VOA News March 17, 2019 Israel's Supreme Court Sunday disqualified an extreme right-wing politician from next month's parliamentary election for inciting violence and racism against Arabs. The Israeli election committee had given permission for Michael Ben-Ari of the Jewish Power party to run. But the court Sunday backed a legal challenge by the opposition leftist Meretz party, which argued that Ben-Ari called for violence against Arabs, denying them civil rights, and incited racism. "The place for people who believe in the superiority of race is behind bars, not in parliament," a Meretz spokesman said. Ben-Ari condemned the court decision, saying "a judicial junta is trying to impose its laws ... it's not democracy. The court ruled, however, that another Jewish Power candidate can run. It also overturned an election commission decision to bar candidates from two Arab parties Hadash-Taal and Raam-Balad. The commission accused the two parties of calling for violence against the government. Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked blasted the court's ruling Sunday, saying it forbids Ben-Ari from running "while declaring terror-backing parties kosher is a crass and misguided interference in the heart of Israeli democracy." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life after police said last month he should be indicted for corruption. Netanyahu has aligned his Likud party with other right-wing parties, including Jewish Power, to form a single slate in next month's parliamentary election. Many in Israel, left and right, are disturbed by the alliance. A number of Jewish Power members are followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a far-right extremist who called for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Israel, the United States and the European Union declared Kahane a terrorist before he was assassinated in New York in 1990. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Japan Developing Missile to Strike Enemy Outside Air Defences' Reach Report Sputnik News 14:23 17.03.2019(updated 14:27 17.03.2019) The new missile is expected to be an upgraded version of the Japanese supersonic cruise missile ASM3 which was developed in 2017 and has a range of 200 kilometres. Japan is developing a long-range cruise missile capable of attacking enemy targets outside the reach of its air defences, something that will be the first such weaponry in the country's history, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported, citing Japanese Defence Ministry sources. The so-called standoff missile, which will have a range of 400 kilometres and a speed of Mach 3, is expected to be used to attack enemy ships in the event of an immediate threat to Japanese territory. The missile will be created on the basis of the ASM3 supersonic cruise missile which was completed in 2017 but failed to get into the procurement plan for the needs of the Japan Self-Defence Force for 2018 and 2019. The decision was made by the Japanese Defence Ministry, which questioned the ASM3's effectiveness in light of China's growing defence capabilities and ordered the missile's modernisation so that it can be created in the next few years. The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reports that the development of such missiles with offensive capabilities may be out of line with Japan's "peaceful" constitution. "However, the Japanese government adheres to the view that the possession of such offensive weapons does not contradict the provisions of the basic law, in case it is related to self-defence", the newspaper notes. In addition, the new Japanese defence policy plan, which was approved in late 2018, calls for the development of domestically made cruise missiles. In December, the Japanese government announced that its defence budget will rise to a record $47 bln for the next fiscal year (starting from 1 April 2019). The increase came amid Tokyo's efforts to beef up its missile defence and deploy US-made F-35 stealth jets to counter China. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bomb blast kills 4 on railway track in southwest Pakistan Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 01:50PM At least four people have been killed and ten others injured in Pakistan following a bomb blast on train tracks in the country's troubled southwestern province of Balochistan. Local police officials said Sunday that the remote-controlled bomb exploded as a passenger train was passing by in the Dera Murad Jamali area of Nasirabad District, which is located about 300 kilometers southeast of the provincial capital, Quetta. Irfan Bashir, the police chief of Nasirabad district, confirmed the death toll, saying the explosion derailed six carriages of the train, which was traveling from Rawalpindi to Quetta. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Baloch separatist groups and militants have attacked trains, security forces, and government installations in the province in the past. Separatist militants in the province have been engaged in a decades-long campaign against the central government. Pakistan's restive Balochistan Province is rife with violence and has been the scene of many bomb and gun attacks over the past years. Balochistan was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks in late 2016, raising fears about an increasing presence of armed militants in the area, including terrorists linked to Daesh. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US coalition bombardment kills 10 civilians in eastern Syria IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, March 17, IRNA -- Ten civilians were killed in a new aggression launched by US-led coalition on al-Baghouz Camp in the southeast of Deir Ezzor. The warplanes of the US-led coalition on Sunday shelled al-Baghouz Camp and its surroundings, claiming the lives of at least ten civilians, among whom children and women fleeing from Daesh (ISIS) terrorists' crimes in the southeastern countryside of Deir Ezzor alongside the Iraqi border, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted a civil source as saying. The continuous air raids carried out by the coalition have made al-Baghouz area to almost complete wreckage, not to mention the increasing numbers of the killed persons, especially children, he added. Earlier on Saturday, explosion of a land mine in Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria, had claimed the lives of 4 civilians and injured 36 others. Meanwhile earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement called on the international community to join efforts in the urgent task of humanitarian demining operations in Syria. 'We call upon the international community to actively join the Russian-Syrian efforts in this direction and provide the appropriate financial and technical support,' the statement reads. Such 'urgent and expeditious' efforts on a global scale would ultimately contribute to creating conditions for the return of millions of Syrians to their homes and the reconstruction of the country, the statement added. Meanwhile earlier, UN reported that eight years since the war began, 12 million Syrians are either refugees or displaced inside Syria; adding up to around half the pre-war population. "Around 70 percent of Syrian refugees live a razor-edge existence below the poverty line," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi in a joint statement, who recently visited Syria and Lebanon, where refugees make up a quarter of the population. 9376**1424 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Military mine blast kills 4, injures 36 in eastern Syria IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, March 17, IRNA -- Explosion of a land mine in Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria, has claimed the lives of 4 civilians and injured 36 others. According to Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), a bus with 40 workers on board hit military mines remaining from ISIS terrorists in Sholah District, southwest of Deir ez-Zor. Head of Al-Assad Hospital Mamoun Hizeh said that 38 people who were injured in their head, spinal cord and leg were transferred to hospital. He also added that two of them succumbed to injuries. The terrorist group ISIS (Daesh) has occupied wide areas in Syria since 2014 and has planted mines there. Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement called on the international community to join efforts in the urgent task of humanitarian demining operations in Syria. 'We call upon the international community to actively join the Russian-Syrian efforts in this direction and provide the appropriate financial and technical support,' the statement reads. Such 'urgent and expeditious' efforts on a global scale would ultimately contribute to creating conditions for the return of millions of Syrians to their homes and the reconstruction of the country, the statement added. Meanwhile earlier, UN reported that eight years since the war began, 12 million Syrians are either refugees or displaced inside Syria; adding up to around half the pre-war population. "Around 70 percent of Syrian refugees live a razor-edge existence below the poverty line," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi in a joint statement, who recently visited Syria and Lebanon, where refugees make up a quarter of the population. 9376**1424 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria 'will allow no foreign interference in constitution-related matters' Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 07:00PM Syria says its constitution is a "purely sovereign affair" and will allow no foreign interference in that area. Syrian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Walid al-Muallem stressed the matter in a meeting with United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen in the capital, Damascus, on Sunday. "The constitution and all matters related to it are a sovereign issue that should be decided by Syrians themselves without any foreign interference," Muallem said, as quoted by Syria's official news agency SANA. Writing a new constitution for a post-war Syria is part of a potential political solution to end the eight-year crisis in the Arab country. To that end, an agreement was made in the Russian town of Sochi last year for a UN-backed Constitutional Committee to be formed composed of 50 members from the incumbent Damascus government, 50 opposition members, and another 50 independent figures chosen by the world body. Muallem expressed Syria's readiness to cooperate with Pedersen, a Norwegian diplomat who took over from Staffan de Mistura in January, to facilitate inter-Syrian dialog to reach a political solution aimed at serving the Syrians' interests and preserving the Arab country's "sovereignty, independence and unity." He also said any solution had to help eradicate terrorism and terminate the illegal presence of foreign troops in Syria. Pedersen, on his second visit to Damascus since he took up the post, affirmed that he would not spare any effort to reach a political solution in accordance with the principles laid out in the UN Charter and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Last month, Pedersen said in Geneva that he saw a constitutional committee as "the potential door-opener for the political process." The UN envoy also stressed the full commitment of the UN to the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the Arab country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Illegal foreign forces must leave Syria: Iran military chief Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 05:44PM Iran's top military commander says foreign forces, who are illegally present in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib and east of the Euphrates, should leave these areas at the earliest. "[Those foreign] forces who are present in Syria without any authorization from the country's government must leave the Syrian soil as soon as possible," Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri said upon his arrival in Damascus on Sunday. Baqeri added that he plans to take part in a tripartite meeting with senior Syrian and Iraqi commanders to coordinate efforts made by the three countries in their fight against terrorism and also to discuss the withdrawal of foreign forces from Syria. "As Iran has come to Syria at the official invitation of Syria's government, the presence of other countries should also take place through the Syrian government's coordination and authorization," Baqeri said. Saying that Iran, Syria, Russia and Iraq as well as the resistance front have managed to make great achievements during the recent years in the fight against terrorism thanks to their remarkable coordination, the top Iranian commander added that efforts would continue to fully liberate Syria. Baqeri noted that he would hold separate talks with military officials of Syria and Iraq on ways to boost cooperation among the three countries' armed forces. Back in December, the top Iranian military commander said despite its mainly peaceful defense doctrine, the Islamic Republic maintains powerful military presence in the region, warning certain regional countries against inviting the US to the Persian Gulf to hatch plots against Iran. "Regional enemies of Iran must know that in parallel to its peaceful doctrine, the Islamic Republic of Iran maintains powerful and firm military presence, and if need be, it would not only defend its territorial integrity, but also hold the inviting countries responsible for any consequences,"Baqeri said. Over the past years, Iran and Russia have been respectively lending military advisory support and aerial backup to the Syrian military in its battle against Takfiri terrorists. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US-led airstrikes claim 10 more civilian lives in Syria's Dayr al-Zawr Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 05:40PM Nearly a dozen civilians have lost their lives when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group conducted a series of airstrikes in Syria's embattled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr. Civil sources, requesting not to be named, told Syria's official news agency SANA on Sunday that US-led warplanes bombarded a refugee camp on the outskirts of the besieged village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border, killing at least ten people who had fled the last vestiges of Daesh's territorial rule in eastern Syria. The sources added that there are women and children among the fatalities, stressing that intense US-led aerial assaults have transformed Baghouz into a "ghost city." The development came only a day after US-led warplanes carried out a string of airstrikes against the same Syrian region, claiming the lives of many civilians and injuring several others. The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes and operations against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a United Nations mandate. The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh. On February 12, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, in two separate letters addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the former rotating president of the Security Council, Anatolio Ndong Mba, denounced the coalition strikes conducted against Baghouz a day earlier, saying the US-led warplanes had pounded a refugee camp. Local sources told the state-run Ikhbariyah Syria television news network that 16 civilians, including seven children, were killed as a result of the raid. "This new crime is in line with the series of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which the US-led coalition has perpetrated against Syrian people, its continued support for terrorism, and its use of terrorists and separatist militia forces to advance its fiendish plots aimed at Syria's sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity," said the letters. The ministry also called on the UN Security Council to stand up against such attacks and crimes. It also demanded that the UN body assume its responsibilities regarding the establishment of international peace and security, conduct an international probe into these criminal acts, condemn them, and put an immediate halt to such air raids as well as the "aggressive" presence of American and other foreign military forces in Syria. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria lashes out at US, UK, France over statement Iran Press TV Sun Mar 17, 2019 03:56PM Syria has strongly dismissed a joint statement by the United States, France, and Britain that declares they will not be participating in the war-torn Arab country's reconstruction as long as it is led by President Bashar al-Assad. An anonymous source at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates told Syria's official news agency SANA on Sunday that the joint statement was "a historical document of lie, hypocrisy, deception, and falsification." On Friday, the three countries plus Germany stressed that they would only provide support or assistance for the reconstruction of Syria on the condition that a "credible, comprehensive and genuine political process" begins irreversibly in the Arab country. This is while the Syrian government has recaptured the diplomatic attention of many of its former foes following Damascus' success in taking back almost all of the areas in the country that had been overrun by foreign-sponsored militants over the course of an eight-year war. The statement by the three countries also came in spite of the fact that Assad has already ruled out the prospect of allowing hostile Western regimes to help reconstruct Syria. The source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry said the governments in Washington, Paris, and London were "fully responsible" for the bloodshed in Syria. The source called the joint statement "blatant interference" in Syria's internal affairs and said those countries that had "killed and destroyed" were not invited to contribute to the reconstruction of Syria in the first place. Such countries, the source said, should pay compensations for the killing and destruction due to their "heinous crimes." The joint statement also accused Damascus of pretending that the eight-year militancy was over and that conditions in Syria were "appropriate for reconstruction." It called on Damascus to participate seriously in the United Nations (UN)-brokered peace talks, describing them as the only negotiations capable of achieving peace in the Arab country. The Syrian Foreign Ministry source said the crimes and atrocities committed by terrorist groups in the Arab country and those committed by the US-led coalition, particularly in Raqqah and Dayr al-Zawr, which "amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," would forever remain "a stain on the forehead of these false democracies." The US-led military coalition with France and Britain being key members has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate. The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. Meanwhile, Russia, Iran, and Turkey have been mediating peace negotiations between representatives from the Damascus government and opposition groups in a series of rounds held in the Kazakh capital Astana and other places since January 2017. The talks, which are collectively referred to as the Astana peace process, have so far helped significantly reduce the violence gripping the Arab country by establishing four de-escalation zones there. They have also paved the way for the formation of a Constitutional Committee. This is while the parallel UN-backed peace process in Geneva which the three countries referred to in their statement has failed to deliver much. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Big Problem': Bolton Blasts Turkey's Refusal to Abandon S-400 Deal With Russia Sputnik News 19:31 17.03.2019(updated 19:35 17.03.2019) Earlier, Turkey's defence minister set a firm deadline for the delivery of the first of Turkey's Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets despite the Pentagon lobbying to block transfer of the fifth-generation warplanes to Turkey if Ankara goes ahead with its plans to buy Russia's S-400 air defence system. Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton has blasted the S-400 deal as one of several major stumbling blocks in US-Turkish relations. "We're concerned about their purchase of the Russian air defence system called the S-400 that's a big problem," Bolton said, speaking to AM 970 radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday morning. Asked directly by Catsimatidis whether Turkey was a "friend or foe" to the United States, the top Trump foreign policy adviser cited a host of other problems affecting relations. "Well you know they're still a NATO ally; we're trying to work with them, but they've got a very bad relationship with our close friends in Israel. That's something we need to look out on," Bolton said, adding that disagreements "with respect to the conflict in Syria" were another issue. "I think President Trump would like to have a good relationship with Turkey; he'd like to see US trade with Turkey increase, but we need them to help us out in some of these other problems in Syria and elsewhere in the region," he said. Ankara and Moscow penned a $2.5-billion contract on the delivery of four battalion sets of S-400s to Turkey in 2017, with the advanced air defence system expected to start being delivered this year. Washington has pressured Ankara to back away from the deal, and offered the country a $3.5 billion Patriot air defence system contract in place of the S-400s. Turkey has ignored the requests, and insisted that it still expects to receive the first of its US-made F-35 fighter jets by November, despite attempts by the Pentagon to lobby Congress to block the sale of F-35s to Turkey if it went ahead with its S-400 purchase. Last week, Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers warned that "there would be grave consequences" for the US-Turkish military relationship if Ankara didn't cancel the S-400 deal. "They will not get the F-35s if they take the S-400s," the official said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the Pentagon's ultimatum, saying the Turkish-Russian deal was "not connected to the security of NATO, the United States or the F-35 in any way." US officials have repeatedly called on Ankara to scrap the S-400 deal and called the possible deployment of S-400s in areas where F-35s are set to operate a "threat," presumably because the system would allow Turkey to test just how formidable the F-35's stealth systems are when matched up against the Russian air defence system. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mogherini Slams Russia As EU Marks Fifth Anniversary Of Crimea's 'Illegal Annexation' By RFE/RL March 17, 2019 BRUSSELS -- The European Union's foreign policy chief has marked the fifth anniversary of Russia's seizure and "illegal annexation" of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula with scathing criticism of the Kremlin. In a statement issued on March 17, a day before what in Moscow's eyes is the fifth anniversary of the day Crimea became part of Russia, Federica Mogherini said the EU "remains steadfast in its commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." "The European Union reiterates that it does not recognize and continues to condemn this violation of international law," Mogherini said. "It remains a direct challenge to international security, with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the territorial integrity, unity, and sovereignty of all states." Meanwhile, the Kremlin press service announced on March 17 that Russian President Vladimir Putin will mark the anniversary by visiting Crimea and its Black Sea port city of Sevastopol. Mogherini warned that "Russia's violations of international law have led to a dangerous increase in tensions at the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov." She said Russia's "unjustified use of force" on November 25 against the Ukrainian Navy and its seizure of Ukrainian sailors off the coast of Crimea near the Kerch Strait is "a reminder of the negative effects of the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula on regional stability." She repeated the EU's call for Russia "to release the illegally captured Ukrainian crew members, vessels, and equipment unconditionally and without further delay." She also condemned Russia's construction of the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia's Taman Peninsula with Crimea, saying the building of the bridge without Ukraine's consent "constitutes a further violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." "The EU expects Russia to ensure unhindered and free passage of all ships through the Kerch Strait to and from the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law," she said. Mogherini also said the EU "does not and will not recognize the holding of elections" by Russia on Ukraine's occupied Crimean Peninsula. "The increasing militarization of the peninsula continues to impact negatively the security situation in the Black Sea region," she said. Mogherini also blamed Moscow for the deteriorating human rights situation in Crimea "since the illegal annexation by the Russian Federation." "Resident of the peninsula face systematic restrictions of fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression, religion, and association, and the right to peaceful assembly," she said, adding that international human rights monitors and nongovernmental human rights organizations must have "unimpeded access" to Crimea and its Russian-occupied Black Sea port city of Sevastopol. "The rights of the Crimean Tatars have been gravely violated through the shutting down of Crimean Tatar media outlets, the banning of the activities of the Mejlis, their self-governing body, and the persecution of its leaders and members of their community," she said. With reporting by RFE/RL correspondent Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/mogherini-slams-russia-as -eu-marks-fifth-anniversary-of-crimea-s -illegal-annexation-/29826147.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Putin To Visit Crimea To Mark Five Years Since Peninsula 'Rejoined' Russia By RFE/RL March 17, 2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to travel to Crimea on March 18 to mark the fifth anniversary of what Moscow considers the day Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula became part of Russia. The Kremlin on March 17 said that Putin will visit the peninsula and its port city of Sevastopol to attend celebrations marking five years since Crimea "rejoined" Russia. However, Kyiv and the West slammed the move as an "illegal" annexation, leading to sanctions against Russian individuals and entities. On March 18, 2014, Putin signed a treaty that Moscow claims made Ukraine's Crimea region part of Russia, after Russian forces seized control of the peninsula and organized a referendum that was not recognized by the international community. Ahead of this year's anniversary, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, sharply criticized the Kremlin for the "illegal" annexation of Crimea and repeated the bloc's "steadfast" commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The takeover of Crimea "remains a direct challenge to international security, with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the territorial integrity, unity, and sovereignty of all states," Mogherini said in a declaration on March 17. Mogherini blamed Moscow for the deteriorating human rights situation in Crimea, saying that residents of the peninsula "face systematic restrictions of fundamental freedoms," while the rights of the Crimean Tatars have been "gravely violated." On March 15, the United States, together with the European Union and Canada, imposed new sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials and businesses in response to the country's "continued aggression in Ukraine." Ukrainian government forces have been fighting against Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since April 2014 in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people -- a quarter of them civilians. In November 2018, Russia captured three Ukrainian ships and their 24 crew members near the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The 24 Ukrainian sailors are still being held by Moscow. During his trip to Sevastopol on March 18, which Russian officials have proclaimed as the Day of Crimea's Reunification with Russia, Putin is scheduled to take part in a ceremony opening a new power station, the Kremlin said in a statement. He is also due to visit Sevastopol's Malakhov Kurgan Memorial Complex, which is dedicated to the city's defense during the Crimean War and World War II, and participate in the inauguration of a power station in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, via a video linkup. The Sevastopol and Simferopol power stations were at the center of an international scandal after German conglomerate Siemens said its power turbines had been installed there without its knowledge and in violation of EU sanctions banning the supply of energy technology to Crimea. The EU widened sanctions against Russian companies and persons in 2017 in response to the transfer of the turbines to the Russian-occupied region. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the decision an "unfriendly and unjustified" step. Putin's trust and support ratings in opinion polls, which were significantly bolstered by the 2014 annexation of Crimea, have declined in recent months amid Russia's ongoing economic woes. Putin has dominated politics in Russia for two decades, serving as president or prime minister since 1999. In 2018, Putin, 66, was reelected to another six-year term. Critics say he has maintained his near monopoly on power by crushing the political opposition and stifling dissent. With reporting by AFP, Reuters, TASS, and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-to-visit- crimea-to-mark-five-years-since-peninsula -rejoined-russia/29826559.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address English French MONTREAL and BERWYN, Pa., Feb. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Knight Therapeutics Inc. (TSX: GUD) ("Knight"), a Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, in-licensing, selling and marketing innovative prescription pharmaceutical products and Moksha8 Inc. (Moksha8), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on licensing and marketing innovative and established therapeutics in Latin America, today announced the closing of a strategic financing agreement for up to US$125 million. Under the agreement, Knight will initially lend Moksha8 up to US$25 million in working capital funding, of which US$10 million will be issued at closing. Knight may issue up to an additional US$100 million in funding for M&A and the acquisition of new licenses. We are thrilled with this partnership, said Joel Barlan, Chief Executive Officer of Moksha8. Moksha8 is entering a new era of growth, supported by both a talented team and significant product launches. Knights partnership provides the fuel for the expansion of our strategy to the next level. We are excited to partner with the new Moksha8, said Jonathan Ross Goodman, Chief Executive Officer of Knight. Knight and Moksha8 share the common vision of bringing much needed therapeutics to underserved markets such as Canada and Latin America. As a result of the deal, Knight has the right to appoint two observers to Moksha8s Board. We view the Board collaboration as a crucial part of the agreement, said Daniel K. Turner III, founder of Montreux Equity Partners, Moksha8s majority shareholder. Combining Moksha8s deep market and commercial knowledge with Knights exceptional track record as a licensee and acquirer boosts Moksha8s capabilities to new levels. Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated (NYSE: SF) acted as financial advisor and exclusive financing agent to Moksha8 for this transaction. About Knight Therapeutics Inc. Knight Therapeutics Inc., headquartered in Montreal, Canada, is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring or in-licensing innovative pharmaceutical products for the Canadian and select international markets. Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s shares trade on TSX under the symbol GUD. For more information about Knight Therapeutics Inc., please visit the company's web site at www.gudknight.com or www.sedar.com. About Moksha8 Moksha8 is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on licensing, marketing and distributing innovative and established therapeutics in the two largest Latin America markets: Brazil and Mexico. Moksha8 is a Montreux Equity Partners portfolio company. About Montreux Montreux Equity Partners is a private investment firm focused on making growth capital investments in the leading companies of tomorrow. Its portfolio companies address the most compelling trends in global health. The firm is currently investing out of its sixth fund. Knight Forward-Looking Statement This document contains forward-looking statements for Knight Therapeutics Inc. and its subsidiaries. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Knight Therapeutics Inc. considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable at the time they were prepared but cautions the reader that these assumptions regarding future events, many of which are beyond the control of Knight Therapeutics Inc. and its subsidiaries, may ultimately prove to be incorrect. Factors and risks, which could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations are discussed in Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s Annual Report and in Knight Therapeutics Inc.'s Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2017. Knight Therapeutics Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information or future events, except as required by law. For more information please contact: Knight Therapeutics Inc. Samira Sakhia President & Chief Financial Officer T: 514-678-8930 F: 514-481-4116 ssakhia@gudknight.com www.gud-knight.com Moksha8 Joel Barlan Chief Executive Officer T: +52 (55) 4431 2933 us.wm@moksha8.com www.moksha8.com ATLANTA, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CP Kelco, a leading global producer of specialty hydrocolloid solutions, today launched a new global brand strategy and redesigned website as part of the companys continued focus on high-quality, nature-based ingredients, innovation and customer collaboration. The new brand was unveiled today at CP Kelcos exhibit (Booth 51Q50/51R51) at the Food Ingredients China exposition in Shanghai, inspired by the companys brand essence: Unlocking Nature-Powered Success. We have always been proud of our commitment to quality, our focus on ingredients that are derived from nature, and our passion for helping customers create successful products for markets and consumers around the world, said Didier Viala, president of CP Kelco. Our new brand strategy and website capture CP Kelco's purpose, passion and positioning, and will enable us to increase the companys visibility among decision makers and opinion leaders in the key industries and markets we serve. The redesigned CP Kelco website provides updated content about the companys products and applications, as well as information on the companys global heritage and focus on sustainability. In addition, CP Kelco will launch a brand awareness campaign in late March, featuring print and digital advertisements and helpful market insights. The ads, which will be published across a range of food and beverage media outlets worldwide, will highlight new CP Kelco content resources addressing texture trends, protein trends, clean label solutions and the power of sustainability. To view CP Kelcos website, visit www.cpkelco.com. About CP Kelco CP Kelco is a nature-based ingredient solutions company with over 85 years of experience working with food, beverage, consumer and industrial products manufacturers worldwide. We unlock nature-powered success by applying ingredient innovation and problem-solving to develop customized solutions that leverage our regional insights and meet manufacturers goals to address consumer needs and preferences. What sets CP Kelco apart: Unique Portfolio. Produces extensive range of high-quality, plant-based and fermentation-derived ingredients to formulate tailored solutions. Produces extensive range of high-quality, plant-based and fermentation-derived ingredients to formulate tailored solutions. Technical Excellence. Offers strong collaboration with a global team of scientists and applications experts, leveraging our regional state-of-the-art R&D facilities. Offers strong collaboration with a global team of scientists and applications experts, leveraging our regional state-of-the-art R&D facilities. Sustainability . Committed to providing responsibly sourced and produced ingredients. . Committed to providing responsibly sourced and produced ingredients. Market Insights. Understands market and consumer trends to help customers create relevant and innovative products. Our key product lines are Gellan Gum, Pectin, Xanthan Gum, Carrageenan, Diutan Gum, Cellulose Gum/CMC, Refined Locust Bean Gum and Microparticulated Whey Protein Concentrate, as well as other unique biopolymers. Learn more at www.cpkelco.com. CONTACT: Michele Cacdac-Jones Director, Brand & Marketing Communications michele.cacdac-jones@cpkelco.com Mobile: +1 770 743 0564 Norwegian English Hilde Merete Aasheim has been appointed new President and CEO of Norwegian aluminium company Norsk Hydro ASA. Aasheim succeeds Svein Richard Brandtzg, who has decided to step down after 10 years. The appointment will be effective May 8, 2019. I am pleased to announce that Hilde Merete Aasheim has accepted the job as President and CEO of Hydro. Based on her unique combination of broad industrial experience, commercial instinct and strong leadership skills, Aasheim is the perfect fit as Hydros new CEO, says Dag Mejdell, chairperson of Hydros Board of Directors. With more than 30 years of experience from Norwegian and global industry and an impressive track record of industry-leading improvement and change processes, Hilde has what it takes to further strengthen Hydros position as a world-leading aluminium company, says Mejdell. Aasheim is currently executive vice president and head of Hydros Primary Metal business area, a position she has held since 2008. She has worked within industry since the start of her career, including in Elkem, Statoil and Hydro, where she has spent 12 years altogether. She has previously chaired the global industry association International Aluminium Institute and the Federation of Norwegian Industries and been board member of construction and civil engineering company Veidekke and fertilizer group Yara. I am honored, and I very much look forward to leading Hydro into the next chapter, together with 35,000 competent and engaged colleagues around the world, says Aasheim. I am confident that we have what it takes to turn a current challenging situation, for Hydro and for the global aluminium industry, into opportunities that will build the company for the future. Svein Richard Brandtzg, who became the CEO of Hydro in March 2009, has decided to step down after 10 years as CEO. Brandtzg has been working in Hydro for 33 years and will remain with the company until the end of 2019. He will act as an advisor to the new CEO and Hydros technology board. Svein Richard Brandtzg has transformed Hydro into a world-leading aluminium company, with strong positions along the entire value chain of aluminium and 35,000 employees in 40 countries. This includes the key strategic decisions of acquiring bauxite and alumina assets in Brazil in 2011 and global aluminium extrusion champion Sapa in 2017, completing Hydros aluminium value chain. Brandtzg is a true aluminium enthusiast and technology optimist, which is evident in his leadership and legacy in Hydro, Mejdell says. Investor contact Stian Hasle +47 97736022 Stian.Hasle@hydro.com Press contact Halvor Molland +47 92979797 Halvor.Molland@hydro.com This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the market research report published by P&S Intelligence, Asia-Pacific chiller market is anticipated to reach $4.9 billion by 2024 posting a CAGR of 5.4%, during forecast period. The market has been registering substantial growth rate, majorly due to overall growth in the construction industry, increasing infrastructure spending, and surging growth in food and beverage industry. Furthermore, growing number of IT hubs is further fueling the market growth year-over-year (YoY) in the region. Request to get the sample pages of the report: https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/apac-chiller-market/report-sample Based on chiller type, the market is segmented into centrifugal, screw, scroll, absorption, and reciprocating; wherein absorption category is further segmented into steam, hot water and direct fired. Of these categories steam chillers are increasingly being utilized in the manufacturing industries which produces waste heat. Waste heat is utilized to run the noise and vibration free steam chillers. However, hot water chillers are also gaining popularity due to the proliferating use of these chillers in conjunction with renewable energy sources (solar energy). On the basis of end-user type, the market is segmented into commercial, industrial and residential; wherein commercial end-user is further split into commercial offices/buildings, hospitality, supermarkets/hypermarkets, government, transportation, and healthcare. Of these, transportation category recorded highest revenue share in the Asia-Pacific chiller market in 2018, followed by hospitality, and others. China and Japan accounts for large number of transportation facilities (including airports and railways). As of 2018, China had 234 civil airports, while Japan and India recorded 97 and 126 airports, respectively. Moreover, in 2017, China built over 439 mi of metro lines. On the contrary, India added 137 mi of urban railway line in 2018. Moreover, in the forecast period, China is planning to build over 74 airports by the end of 2020, while India is expected to build over 100 new airports in the next 10-15 years. Browse report overview with 39 tables and 32 figures spread through 105 pages and detailed TOC on "Asia-Pacific (APAC) Chiller Market at: https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/apac-chiller-market APAC hotel construction pipeline stood at 4,590 hotels with 915,469 rooms. The rising number of hotels can be attributed to growing tourism in countries such as India, China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, which is further augmenting the demand for chillers in the hospitality sector. Apart from this, the demand for chillers is anticipated to surge in Japan in response to the upcoming Summer Olympics 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. Due to growing population, APAC is one of the fastest growing food and beverage industries worldwide. In APAC, China and Indias consumer markets are constantly evolving in terms of food and beverage industry. For instance, food and beverage industry in India is expected to increase from $369 billion in 2017 to around $1.5 trillion by 2025. Further, from 2000 to 2017, the food processing sector of India received Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) worth around $8 billion. Make enquiry before buying the report: https://www.psmarketresearch.com/send-enquiry?enquiry-url=apac-chiller-market Asia-Pacific chiller market is highly competitive due to the presence of large number of global and regional players. The market is led by companies such as Daikin Industries Ltd., Johnson Controls International PLC, United Technologies Corporation, Midea Group Co. Ltd., and Ingersoll-Rand plc. In APAC region, companies like Daikin Industries Ltd., major sales is estimated to have come from India, Japan, China, Australia, and Thailand. Additionally, in 2017, the company launched FUSION 20, a five-year strategic management plan, that is further aimed at driving the sales of the company. Some of the major players in the Asia-Pacific chiller market includes Johnson Controls International PLC, Ingersoll-Rand plc, United Technologies Corporation, Daikin Industries Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Smardt Chiller Group Inc., Multistack LLC, Thermax Limited, Thermal Care Inc., and Midea Group Co. Ltd. More Reports by P&S Intelligence APAC Compressor Market The industry has been witnessing considerable growth, buoyed by growing automotive industry, predominantly passenger vehicle category, along with overall growth in demand for electric vehicle. APAC compressor market is categorized into positive displacement and dynamic compressors. Out of these, positive displacement compressor category accounted for larger revenue share in 2017, and is also expected to lead throughout the forecast period https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/apac-compressor-market Asia-Pacific HVAC Market Some of the key players operating in the Asia-Pacific HVAC market include Johnson Controls International PLC, Ingersoll-Rand plc, United Technologies Corporation, Daikin Industries Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Toshiba Carrier Corporation, LG Electronics Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Midea Group Co. Ltd., Panasonic Corporation, and Gree Electric Appliances, Inc. of Zhuhai. https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/apac-hvac-market About P&S Intelligence P&S Intelligence is a provider of market research and consulting services catering to the market information needs of burgeoning industries across the world. Providing the plinth of market intelligence, P&S as an enterprising research and consulting company, believes in providing thorough landscape analyses on the ever-changing market scenario, to empower companies to make informed decisions and base their business strategies with astuteness. Contact: P&S Intelligence Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada) International: +1-347-960-6455 Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.com Web: https://www.psmarketresearch.com Paris, Amsterdam, March 18, 2019 Press release Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield forms partnership with PSP Investments and QuadReal for a 750 Mn (670 Mn) Private Rented Sector scheme in London Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield announces today that it has signed a conditional agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian public pension fund the "Public Sector Pension Investment Board" (PSP Investments) and global real estate company QuadReal Property Group (QuadReal), to form the "Cherry Park Partnership". The Partnership will deliver the development and management of a 750 Mn (670 Mn) Private Rented Sector (PRS) residential scheme, adjacent to Westfield Stratford City in London. It will be one of London's largest single-site PRS schemes. PSP Investments and QuadReal will each take a 37.5% share in the Cherry Park Partnership, while Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield will retain a 25% share and be appointed as the development and asset manager. Olivier Bossard, Group Chief Development Officer, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said: "This new residential quarter in the heart of Stratford City is an example of the Group's strategy to significantly increase the densification of exceptional and highly connected retail destinations by adding offices, residential, hotels and other uses, where relevant. With the Cherry Park Partnership, we are leveraging our unique know-how and joining with strategic capital partners to reinvent city districts." Stephane Jalbert, Managing Director Europe and Asia Pacific, Real Estate, PSP Investments, added: "London's residential sector is chronically undersupplied and Cherry Park supports PSP's broader long-term sectorial strategy to develop professionally managed residential assets alongside best-in-class investment partners. Once completed, this will be one of central London's largest residential rental schemes and will offer future residents an incredible level of connectivity in an exciting and unique mixed-use location." Jay Kwan, Head of Europe, International Real Estate, QuadReal, said: "This Partnership fits squarely into our investment strategy to densify successful retail destinations alongside world-class development and operating partners. We are excited to launch this new relationship with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield whilst extending our long-standing and successful relationship with PSP." Construction work is set to start in Q2 2019, with a phased completion and a delivery expected post 2023. The Cherry Park Development will feature approximately 1,200 new homes benefitting from a suite of amenities including a residents' gym, swimming pool, workspace and high-quality public areas. Completion of the formation of the Cherry Park Partnership is subject to customary conditions precedent. For further information, please contact: Investor Relations Samuel Warwood Maarten Otte +33 1 76 77 58 02 Maarten.Otte@urw.com Media Relations Tiphaine Bannelier-Suderie +33 1 76 77 57 94 Tiphaine.Bannelier-Suderie@urw.com Verena Garofalo, PSP Investments Canada: 514-218-3795 Toll-free: 1-844-525-3795 media@investpsp.ca Susan L MacLaurin, QuadReal Property Group T 604-975-9563 M 604-317-4718 susan.maclaurin@quadreal.com About Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is the premier global developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations, with a portfolio valued at 65.2 Bn as at December 31, 2018, of which 87% in retail, 6% in offices, 5% in convention & exhibition venues and 2% in services. Currently, the Group owns and operates 92 shopping centres, including 55 flagships in the most dynamic cities in Europe and the United States. Its centres welcome 1.2 billion visits per year. Present on 2 continents and in 12 countries, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield provides a unique platform for retailers and brand events, and offers an exceptional and constantly renewed experience for customers. With the support of its 3,700 professionals and an unparalleled track-record and know-how, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is ideally positioned to generate superior value and develop world-class projects. The Group has a development pipeline of 11.9 Bn. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield distinguishes itself by its Better Places 2030 agenda, that sets its ambition to create better places that respect the highest environmental standards and contribute to better cities. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield stapled shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Paris (Euronext ticker: URW), with a secondary listing in Australia through Chess Depositary Interests. The Group benefits from an A rating from Standard & Poor's and from an A2 rating from Moody's. For more information, please visit www.urw.com Visit our Media Library at https://mediacentre.urw.com Follow the Group updates on Twitter @urw_group, Linkedin @Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Instagram @urw_group About PSP Investments The Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) is one of Canada's largest pension investment managers with C$158.9 billion of net assets as of September 30, 2018. It manages a diversified global portfolio composed of investments in public financial markets, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, natural resources and private debt. Established in 1999, PSP Investments manages net contributions to the pension funds of the federal Public Service, the Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Reserve Force. Headquartered in Ottawa, PSP Investments has its principal business office in Montreal and offices in New York and London. For more information, visit investpsp.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. About QuadReal Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, QuadReal Property Group is a global real estate investment, operating and development company. The company's C$27.4 billion portfolio spans 23 Global Cities across 17 countries. QuadReal was established to manage the real estate program of British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), one of Canada's largest asset managers with a C$145.6 billion portfolio. QuadReal aims to deliver prudent growth and strong investment returns, and to create and sustain environments that bring value to the people and communities it serves. Now and for generations to come. For more information, please visit www.quadreal.com. Press Release Nicox Poster Presentation at AGS 2019 Annual Meeting Discloses Preclinical Data for NCX 4251, a Novel Blepharitis Therapy ............................................... NCX 4251 is a novel therapy in development for blepharitis, administered via a novel route of delivery directly to eyelid margin, where blepharitis originates Preclinical data supports dose ranging in Phase 2 clinical study up to the highest tested dose ............................................... March 18, 2019 - release at 7:30 am CET Sophia Antipolis, France Nicox SA (Euronext Paris: FR0013018124, COX), an international ophthalmology company, today announced a poster presentation at the American Glaucoma Society (AGS) 2019 Annual Meeting showing preclinical evaluation of a novel blepharitis therapy, Nicox's product candidate NCX 4251, with a novel route of delivery, which is administered directly to the eyelid margin, where blepharitis originates. NCX 4251 is a novel patented ophthalmic suspension of fluticasone propionate nanocrystals, being developed as the first targeted topical treatment of the eyelid margin for patients with acute exacerbations of blepharitis. All doses tested in preclinical evaluations demonstrated excellent safety and tolerability, and no intraocular pressure (IOP) elevations were observed in the course of the preclinical studies. The preclinical data fully supports dose ranging in Phase 2 study up to the highest tested dose. The AGS 2019 Annual Meeting took place on March 14-17, 2019 in San Francisco. About NCX 4251 NCX 4251 is a novel patented ophthalmic suspension of fluticasone propionate nanocrystals which is being developed as the first targeted topical treatment of the eyelid margin for patients with acute exacerbations of blepharitis. Blepharitis is a common eye condition characterized by eyelid inflammation. It is being developed for application via a swab at the eyelid margin, applied directly to the site of inflammation thereby minimizing potential penetration of the drug through the cornea which can lead to the damaging side effects, such as IOP increase, found with current topical steroids. Fluticasone propionate, the active ingredient in NCX 4251, which has not previously been approved in a topical formulation for use in ophthalmology, has an affinity for the glucocorticoid receptor which is approximately ten times greater than dexamethasone, a corticosteroid commonly used in ophthalmology. Fluticasone is a glucocorticoid with potent anti-inflammatory properties that has been approved in numerous drug products over the past 20 years for the treatment of various indications including dermatology, rhinitis and asthma. Poster details Title: Nonclinical Evaluation of NCX 4251, a Novel Steroid Therapy for Blepharitis, Targeted Directly to the Eyelid Margin to Improve Efficacy and Reduce the Potential for IOP Elevations Presentation date: March 15, 2019 Presenters: Robert Fechtner, MD; Tomas Navratil, PhD; Jean-Michel Bukowski, PhD; Frederic Pilotaz, PharmD; Amanda Graves; Akshay Nadkarni; Brigitte Duquesroix, MD; Angela Kothe, PhD, OD; Michael Bergamini, PhD; Harvey DuBiner, MD; Thomas Walters, MD; Donald Budenz, MD. About Nicox Nicox S.A. is an international ophthalmology company developing innovative solutions to help maintain vision and improve ocular health. By leveraging our proprietary expertise in nitric oxide (NO) donation and other technologies, we are developing an extensive portfolio of novel product candidates that target multiple ophthalmic conditions, including glaucoma. Our portfolio includes three programs in development based on our proprietary NO-donating research platform and on novel and proprietary formulations of well-established molecules that have previously been used in other indications and therapeutic areas as well as future generation stand-alone NO donors in formulation development and testing and other exploratory novel NO-donating compounds targeting ophthalmic conditions including glaucoma and ocular hypertension. In addition, we have two ophthalmology assets that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); VYZULTA(TM) (latanoprostene bunod ophthalmic solution), 0.024%, exclusively licensed worldwide to Bausch + Lomb, a Bausch Health Companies Inc. company, and commercialized in the U.S. by Bausch + Lomb since December 2017 as well as ZERVIATE(TM) (cetirizine ophthalmic solution), 0.24%, exclusively licensed in the U.S. to Eyevance Pharmaceuticals. Nicox is headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, France, is listed on Euronext Paris (Compartment B: Mid Caps; Ticker symbol: COX) and is part of the CAC Healthcare, CAC Pharma & Bio and Next 150 indexes. For more information on Nicox, its products or pipeline, please visit: www.nicox.com Analyst coverage Bryan, Garnier & Co Hugo Solvet Paris, France H.C Wainwright &Co. Yi Chen New York, U.S. The views expressed by analysts in their coverage of Nicox are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Nicox. Additionally, the information contained in their reports may not be correct or current. Nicox disavows any obligation to correct or to update the information contained in analyst reports. Contacts Nicox Gavin Spencer, Executive Vice President, Chief Business Officer & Head of Corporate Development T +33 (0)4 97 24 53 00 communications@nicox.com Investors & media United States & Europe LifeSci Advisors, LLC Hans Herklots T +41 79 598 71 49 hans@lifesciadvisors.com Media France LifeSci Advisors, LLC Sophie Baumont T +33 (0)6 27 74 74 49 sophie@lifesciadvisors.com Disclaimer The information contained in this document may be modified without prior notice. This information includes forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are based on current expectations or beliefs of the management of Nicox S.A. and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Nicox S.A. and its affiliates, directors, officers, employees, advisers or agents, do not undertake, nor do they have any obligation, to provide updates or to revise any forward-looking statements. Risks factors which are likely to have a material effect on Nicox's business are presented in the 4th chapter of the 'Document de reference, rapport financier annuel et rapport de gestion 2018' filed with the French Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) on March 6, 2019, which are available on Nicox's website (www.nicox.com). Nicox S.A. Drakkar 2 Bat D, 2405 route des Dolines CS 10313, Sophia Antipolis 06560 Valbonne, France T +33 (0)4 97 24 53 00 F +33 (0)4 97 24 53 99 Attachment English Estonian At 14 March 2019, Supervisory Board of AS Baltika approved the 2019 and 2020 operational plan. The main parts of the plan are optimizing the brand portfolio and sales channels, digitalisation and changing the procurement base. In the Mainstream segment, Monton, Mosaic and Bastion will be united under one brand from spring 2020. The leading brand in the mainstream segment will be Monton, whose value proposition will be matched to the expanded target segment and customer expectations. In the market view, the focus will be on retail and e-channel in the Baltics, which allows to make the product development process more efficient. The store network is organized according to the new brand portfolio and focus goes on the best locations in the best centers. In the business customers` sales channel, cooperation with partners whose purchase process is in accordance with Baltika Group's product development schedule will be continued. In connection with the above, in 2019 the agreement will be terminated with the Russian franchise partner OU Ellipse Group. The goal is to make business processes easier, faster and more efficient through digitalisation. Step by step, the latest digital tools are being deployed - 3D model in product development, physical sample free sales process, artificial intelligence in inventory management, and digital solutions in customer service. Focus also goes on evolving the international design and product development and on increasing sales and marketing capabilities. Today's Baltika Group's business model is expensive and the share of fixed costs is high, which makes it difficult to respond to external factors and demand. The need to find a solution to high fixed costs and significantly reduce the operating costs is critical. Production input prices in Estonia are rising faster than consumers' willingness to pay for those products. At the same time, own production does not allow to specialize at today's sales volumes. For the reasons mentioned above, production will be dissolved in Baltika Group's Estonian production units during 2019. The sewing service will be purchased in mainly from partners in the European region. Product development, design and quality control are still carried out by Baltika Group. With the transition to an optimized brand portfolio, significant simplification of business processes and closure of Estonian production units, Baltika Group's operating costs will be reduced by two million euros over the next 12 months. Due to the above, Baltika will write-off assets related to production and trademarks (intangible and tangible assets) and creates allowance for impairment for the claims against Russian franchise partners in amount of 1,978 thousand euros which will be recognised in the annual report for 2018. For implementing the above mentioned 20192020 operational plan, Mae Hansen will be the third member of the Management Board of AS Baltika as of 22 March 2019. Hansen has nearly 20 years of strategic management experience from three continents and seven countries - Estonia, United States, Denmark, Austria, China, India and Russia. With her help, changes have been implemented in Daimler Financial Services (Germany), Match-Maker Ventures (Austria) and WeXelrate (Austria). Hansen has worked for a long time in the finance sector - Merrill Lynch (United States), Byrne Investment Research (United States), Danske Bank (Denmark and Estonia) and FinanceEstonia (Estonia). She has been a supervisory board member of several companies. As of last year, she is a vice president of the International Advisory Board of the University of Vienna. Hansen has a university degree from both the United States and Europe, most recently the Global Executive MBA from Vienna University (Austria) and Carlson School of Management (USA). Over the past 3 years, Mae Hansen has been an entrepreneur assisting small and large companies across Europe on diverse strategic matter. In addition, she has been a supervisory board member of different companies and institutions (e.g. Vienna University of Economics and Business, Estonian Co-Operative Bank). Mae Hansen is a partner in New Seven OU and she holds 37.48% of shares in the company. Mae Hansen does not hold any shares of AS Baltika. Maigi Parnik-Pernik Member of the Management Board March 18, 2019 Philips recognized for design excellence at the iF Design Awards 2019 Awards include prestigious iF Design Gold Award for endoscopy department transformation plan for Good Samaritan Hospital Philips receives 22 awards in total, spanning innovations in personal and professional healthcare Amsterdam, the Netherlands Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced that the company has received 22 prestigious awards at the iF Design Awards 2019 , including an iF Design Gold Award in the category service and user experience design for its consulting project to plan the transformation of the endoscopy department at Good Samaritan Hospital , based in Suffern, New York (U.S.). With over 6,400 entries from 50 countries, the iF Design Awards are one of the world's most celebrated and valued design competitions. Im proud of this recognition for our global design team, said Sean Carney, Chief Design Officer and Business Leader Healthcare Transformation Services, Philips. The examples highlighted by these awards from design consulting projects spanning hospital departments, to medical imaging systems, to personal health propositions demonstrate Philips leadership in health technology. In particular, our work with Good Samaritan Hospital shows the important role design can play in supporting healthcare providers to achieve the quadruple aim: improved outcomes, enhanced patient experience, increased staff satisfaction and lowered cost of care delivery. Philips received awards across categories including communication design, professional concept development, service and user experience design, and product design. Winning projects included an initiative to improve primary healthcare provision in Kenya, the development of a concept for a people-centric community hospital in the Middle East, and the design of new systems including the recently-introduced Incisive CT platform and the DigitalDiagnost C90 digital radiography system . Improving the entire end-to-end endoscopy experience Philips worked closely with Good Samaritan Hospital, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth), developing and validating a new design that will transform the hospitals endoscopy department. By designing an optimal flow, the team developed a department layout that supports an ideal patient experience, future growth, and improved productivity. The iF Design Award jury cited the projects highly professional service design process, which bridged organizational silos to benefit both the patient and staff experience, as well as improving efficiency. For further information, please contact: Mark Groves Philips Group Press Office Tel: +31 631 639 916 Email: mark.groves@philips.com Twitter: mark_groves About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2018 sales of EUR 18.1 billion and employs approximately 77,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter. Attachments KITCHENER, Ontario, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Highlights: Complements Waterloos core craft portfolio with an easy drinking, popular beer style. Aligns with the U.S. craft beer market trend toward more sessionable flavor profiles. Giving Ontario beer drinkers craft beer quality at a more reasonable price. Waterloo Brewing, the trade name of Brick Brewing Co. Limited (Brick or the Company) (TSX: BRB), today announces the arrival of new Waterloo Craft Lager, complementing its craft portfolio of Waterloo Dark, IPA and Amber with an easy drinking, popular beer style. For many beer drinkers, the preferred style of beer is a lager; yet many craft brewers including us have historically avoided that style of beer, said Jim Manz, Director, Commercial, Waterloo Brewing. So, we felt the time was right to bring our peerless quality standards and ingredient quality to that crowd-pleasing favourite: the classic lager. The Canadian craft beer market has generally followed the U.S. craft market, continued Manz, and one of the hottest trends in the U.S. today is craft lagers. Consumers appear to be becoming somewhat less interested in extreme craft beer flavours and we wanted to hop on this trend. We already have a portfolio of full-flavoured craft beers and wanted to add something more sessionable. Waterloo Craft Lager is a great way to celebrate our 35th anniversary with its rich, golden colour and exceptionally smooth flavour. We believe time with friends and family is special, so the beer should be too. Waterloo Craft lager is a craft beer with quality you can taste, at a fair and reasonable price. We invite beer drinkers across Ontario to enjoy this timeless beer classic, added Manz. Waterloo Craft Lager is available at The Beer Store, LCBO and select grocery stores across Ontario for $2.50 per 473ml can. About Brick Brewing Brick is Ontario's largest Canadian-owned brewery. The Company is a regional brewer of award-winning premium quality and value beers and is officially certified under the Global Food Safety Standard, one of the highest and most internationally recognized standards for safe food production. Founded in 1984, Brick Brewing Co. was the first craft brewery to start up in Ontario and is credited with pioneering the present-day craft brewing renaissance in Canada. Brick has complemented its Waterloo premium craft beers with the popular Laker brand. In 2011, Brick purchased the Canadian rights to Seagram Coolers and in 2015, secured the exclusive Canadian rights to both LandShark and Margaritaville. In addition, Brick utilizes its leading-edge brewing, blending and packaging capabilities to provide an extensive array of contract manufacturing services in beer, coolers and ciders. Brick trades on the TSX under the symbol BRB. Visit us at www.brickbeer.com. Forward-Looking Statements All statements in this press release that do not directly and exclusively relate to historical facts constitute forward-looking statements as of the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "anticipate", "seek", "plan", "believe" or "continue" or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Although the Corporation believes that the expectations and assumptions reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements, which are not guarantees and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which may cause actual performance and financial results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only at the date of this press release and, except as required by applicable securities laws, the Corporation does not undertake to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events or otherwise. Contact Information For further information: Jim Manz Director Commercial 519-742-2732 x163 jimm@waterloobrewing.com Photos accompanying this announcement are available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ec11d7d8-2048-4e44-beb7-47b2ad4d602e http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/61ece4c2-f366-45aa-b4f2-c1e6d5ecd4ab http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/878ef430-9752-4150-8eb2-c7dcb43eba23 LONDON, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ForgeRock, the leading platform provider of digital identity management solutions, today announced the availability of a new Sandbox-as-a-Service, designed to help banks achieve compliance with Open Banking and the Revised Payment Service Directive (PSD2). The sandbox is already in production for several European banks that provide apps and services to more than 35 million consumers. Ensuring Trust and Consent in the API Economy The primary goal of PSD2 and Open Banking is to encourage greater innovation and competition within financial services. To facilitate this, account providers are required to provide open APIs that enable Third Party Providers (TPPs) to enter the banking and payment ecosystem. At the same time, account providers must also meet a series of technical requirements to ensure customer data is secure and only accessible with the appropriate authorization and consent. To comply with these technical requirements, account providers must provide a facility for TPPs to test new services and applications before the next enforcement date of September 14 for Regulatory Technical Standards. ForgeRocks Sandbox-as-a-Service offers a solution to satisfy these requirements and can made available in a matter of hours. Accelerating Compliance The ForgeRock Sandbox is fully compliant with Open Banking and PSD2, and meets the agreed standard for testing the functionality of Account Information Service Providers (AISPs) and Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs). The cloud-based solution can be deployed rapidly, empowering organizations in the ecosystem to achieve full compliance in line with required deadlines while also accelerating the development of web and mobile applications for payment service users. Developers and architects can gain immediate access to test the public version of the ForgeRock Open Banking Sandbox, which supports the key components that application developers require when testing consent, onboarding and access, including: Account and Transaction API: The endpoint requests and responses for account requests. Payment Initiation API: The endpoint requests and responses for payment requests. Security Profile: The security standards that underpin the APIs. Nick Caley, Vice President Financial Services & Regulatory at ForgeRock, said, Opening up APIs will completely change the financial services landscape by driving new competition, collaboration and innovation. However, with tight timescales to meet the upcoming PSD2 deadlines, financial institutions are facing significant challenges to ensure success with this wide-ranging set of regulations. The ForgeRock Open Banking Sandbox can provide financial institutions with a compliance-ready, managed service that can prevent significant technical headaches, and save time and money, both now and in the future. More information on ForgeRocks Open Banking and PSD2 offerings is available here . Identity Live Conferences coming to Nashville, Berlin, Sydney and London ForgeRock is pleased to announce the return of its wildly successful Identity Live Summits. The first summit will be April 30 & May 1 in Nashville, TN with events also taking place in Germany, Australia and the UK later in the year. These events enable customers, prospects and partners to interact with the most influential, innovative identity professionals and IT executives - all focused on accelerating their digital transformation journey. To register or learn more information, visit the Identity Live website . About ForgeRock ForgeRock is the Digital Identity Management company transforming the way organizations build trust and interact securely with customers, employees, devices, and things. Organizations adopt the ForgeRock Identity Platform as their digital identity system of record to monetize customer relationships, address stringent regulations for privacy and consent (GDPR, HIPAA, FCC privacy, etc.), and leverage the Internet-of-Things. ForgeRock serves hundreds of brands, including Morningstar, Vodafone, GEICO, TomTom, and Pearson, as well as governments such as Norway, New Zealand, and Belgium, among many others. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, ForgeRock has offices in Austin, London, Bristol, Grenoble, Munich, Paris, Oslo, Singapore, Sydney and Vancouver, Washington. ForgeRock is privately held, backed by leading global venture capital firms Accel Partners, Foundation Capital, Meritech Capital and KKR. For more information and free downloads, visit www.forgerock.com or follow ForgeRock on social media: Facebook ForgeRock |Twitter @ForgeRock | LinkedIn ForgeRock | Copyright 2019. ForgeRock is a registered trademark of ForgeRock, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: Dave De Jear ForgeRock Communications dave.dejear@forgerock.com BERKELEY, Calif., and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BriaCell Therapeutics Corp. ("BriaCell" or the "Company") (TSX-V:BCT) (OTCQB:BCTXF), a clinical-stage biotechnology company specializing in targeted immunotherapy for advanced breast cancer, today announces changes to its Board of Directors. BriaCell is pleased to welcome the appointment of Dr. Rebecca Taub, M.D., and Mr. Vaughn C. Embro-Pantalony to its Board of Directors. Dr. Saeid Babaei, Mr. Rahoul Sharan, and Mr. Martin Schmieg, members of BriaCells Board of Directors, have resigned from the Board of Directors effective immediately. The following members of the Board of Directors will be included in BriaCells Management Information Circular for its Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders to be held on April 10, 2019: Dr. William V. Williams, Director and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jamieson Bondarenko, Director and Acting Chairman of the Board; Dr. Charles Wiseman, Director; Dr. Rebecca Taub, Director; Mr. Vaughn C. Embro-Pantalony, Director. Rebecca Taub, M.D., has served as chief medical officer and executive vice president, R&D, and director of the board for Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pursuing novel therapeutics, since 2016. She acted as chief executive officer and director of the board of privately-held Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc., since inception through its merger with Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. Previously, Dr. Taub served as senior vice president, R&D, of VIA Pharmaceuticals, and as vice president, research, metabolic diseases, at Hoffmann-La Roche where she oversaw clinical development and drug discovery programs for a number of indications including the conduct of a series of Phase I and II proof of concept clinical trials. She led drug discovery including target identification, lead optimization and advancement of preclinical candidates into clinical development. She previously worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company in a variety of positions. Prior to becoming a pharmaceutical executive, Dr. Taub was professor of genetics and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She has authored over 120 research articles, served as an assistant professor at the Joslin Diabetes Center of Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, and was associate investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Yale University School of Medicine and bachelors degree from Yale College. I am impressed with the technology, and the progress BriaCell has made so far, Dr. Taub said. I have been able to help companies grow and develop therapies during my career. I look forward to sharing my experience with BriaCell's Board and management team to help BriaCell with its mission of developing novel therapeutics for advanced breast cancer patients who have a very grim expectation for life. Mr. Embro-Pantalony is chairman of the board of Soricimed Biopharma Inc., a private clinical-stage biopharma company developing targeted cancer therapies. He is also a director of Microbix Biosystems Inc., a leading manufacturer of viral and bacterial antigens and reagents for the global diagnostics industry, where he also served as president and chief executive officer from 2012 to 2017. He has held other executive positions in life sciences with responsibility for finance, business development, strategic planning and information technology including vice president, finance, and chief financial officer of Novopharm Limited; vice president, information technology, and chief information officer of Bayer Inc.; vice president, finance, and administration of Bayer Healthcare; and general manager, nitrogen products, for Terra International (Canada) Ltd. He received his bachelors degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and his master of business administration degree from University of Windsor. He is a Fellow Chartered Professional Accountant and a Chartered Director (C. Dir.) and is Audit Committee Certified (A.C.C.) through the Directors College, McMaster University. "I am very excited to be joining BriaCells Board. This is a unique opportunity to help BriaCell become a leading immuno-oncology company by addressing a global unmet need. stated Mr. Embro-Pantalony. Both Dr. Taub and Mr. Embro-Pantalony are widely-regarded forces in the biopharma industry, bringing expert prowess in clinical oncology, corporate partnership strategy and board governance, BriaCells Director and Acting Chairman of the Board Jamieson Bondarenko said. On behalf of BriaCells Board of Directors, management team, and shareholders, I would like to thank Dr. Babaei, Mr. Sharan and Mr. Schmieg for their significant contributions to BriaCell and wish them the very best in their future ventures. "It has been a great privilege to serve as chairman of BriaCell's Board of Directors and be a part of the team that transformed BriaCell into a leading developer of personalized off-the-shelf immunotherapy since its inception in 2014, Dr. Babaei said. Under Dr. Williams leadership, I am proud to report that BriaCell has accomplished a number of important drug development milestones despite numerous roadblocks in the course of the last few years. I strongly believe that the new Board members, with their experience, will provide the Company with the corporate strategy and scientific expertise to further advance the Companys goals and add shareholder value. As entrepreneurs and trusted leaders, both Dr. Taub and Mr. Embro-Pantalony have proven track records of success and deep experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Their experience and insights will be instrumental in guiding BriaCell through its next chapter of clinical development, particularly as the Company advances Bria-IMT, and Bria-OTS, BriaCells novel off-the-shelf personalized immunotherapy for advanced breast cancer, into later stages of development. I wish BriaCells team the very best and look forward to watching them achieve great things in coming years. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow departing Board members, Mr. Sharan and Mr. Schmieg, for their service and dedication to the Company. On behalf of the team, we wish them the best in their future endeavors. About BriaCell BriaCell is an immuno-oncology focused biotechnology company developing targeted and safe approaches for the management of cancer. BriaCell is currently conducting a Phase I/IIa clinical trial of Bria-IMT, its lead candidate, in a combination study with pembrolizumab [KEYTRUDA; manufactured by Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK)]. The combination study is listed in ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT03328026. BriaCell is developing Bria-OTS, an off-the-shelf personalized immunotherapy, for advanced breast cancer. Bria-OTS immunotherapy treatments are personalized to match the patient without the need for personalized manufacturing. Bria-OTS, which is expected to cover over 90% of the patient population, is designed to produce a potent and selective immune response against the cancer of each patient while eliminating the time, expense and complex manufacturing logistics associated with other personalized immunotherapies. For additional information on BriaCell, please visit: http://www.BriaCell.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation which involves known and unknown risks relevant to the Company in particular and to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in general, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual events to differ materially from current expectation. These risks are more fully described in the Company's public filings available at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 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. Contact Information CARMIEL, Israel, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE American:PLX) (TASE:PLX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of recombinant therapeutic proteins expressed through its proprietary plant cell-based expression system, ProCellEx, today announced its financial results for the full-year ended December 31, 2018 and provided a corporate update. Throughout 2018 and into early 2019, we significantly advanced our clinical development program for PRX-102 and, as of today, have enrolled 127 Fabry disease patients across all of our PRX-102 clinical trials. Most recently, we had a very productive meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss the potential filing of an application for accelerated approval and, at the FDAs request, we intend to hold a follow up meeting by the end of the second quarter of 2019 to discuss the data and content of the potential filing for accelerated approval. We are very pleased with the collaborative manner our engagement with the FDA has been to date and cautiously optimistic about the prospects of our discussions with the agency, said Mr. Moshe Manor, Protalixs President and Chief Executive Officer. We are very excited as we move forward into 2019 which could be a transformational year for us, including the read outs from our Fabry trials and the potential for establishing the path for accelerated approval for PRX-102 with the FDA. 2018 Clinical and Corporate Highlights Pegunigalsidase alfa (PRX-102) for the treatment of Fabry Disease Recently the Company held a very productive meeting with the FDA regarding the potential path for accelerated BLA approval for PRX-102. The FDA confirmed that the Companys PRX-102 program could rely on surrogate endpoints as part of the basis for a potential accelerated BLA approval. The FDA urged the Company to apply for a follow up Type C meeting as soon as possible to review with the agency the data and content of such potential accelerated filing application. The discussion with the FDA revolved around the data the Company has generated from all of its PRX-102 clinical trials to date, primarily the kidney biopsy results and the eGFR data, that could be included in the potential application for accelerated approval. In January 2018, the Company received fast track designation from the FDA for PRX-102. In May 2018, the Company reported on the baseline characteristics for its BALANCE phase III clinical trial for the treatment of Fabry disease highlighting that PRX-102 is less inhibited by preexisting neutralizing antibodies compared to Fabrazyme , and, therefore, has the potential to attenuate renal decline and/or stabilize renal function in patients who have not had an optimal clinical response to Fabrazyme. , and, therefore, has the potential to attenuate renal decline and/or stabilize renal function in patients who have not had an optimal clinical response to Fabrazyme. In July 2018, the Company expanded its partnership with Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A., or Chiesi, to include exclusive U.S. rights for the development and commercialization of PRX-102. The terms of the agreement include an up-front payment of $25 million, up to $20 million in development costs, up to $760 million, in the aggregate, in regulatory and commercial milestone payments and tiered royalties ranging from 15 to 40%. In October 2018, the Company presented positive preliminary data from its BRIDGE phase III clinical trial for the treatment of Fabry disease indicating a significant improvement in kidney function in patients switched from agalsidase alfa (Replagal ) to PRX-102 at the 1 st Canadian Symposium on Lysosomal Diseases. ) to PRX-102 at the 1 Canadian Symposium on Lysosomal Diseases. In December 2018, the enrollment for the BRIDGE phase III clinical trial for the treatment of Fabry disease was completed. As of today, the BALANCE trial is over 80% enrolled and the BRIGHT trial is over 90% enrolled. Based on the FDA discussion during our recent meeting we believe that the potential filing for accelerated approval might be based on data the Company has already generated in its clinical trials of PRX-102. Currently, substantially all patients treated in the BRIGHT trial have remained on the once-monthly 2mg/kg dosing regimen. All of the 13 patients that have completed the 12-month study have opted, together with their treating physicians advice, to continue with once-monthly dosing in an extension study rather than switching back to the 1mg/kg every two weeks regimen. Oral antiTNF (OPRX-106) for Ulcerative Colitis Throughout 2018, the Company reported positive results from its phase II clinical trial of OPRX-106 for the treatment of ulcerative colitis. Final results demonstrated as follows: clinical response in 67% of patients and clinical remission in 28% of patients; mucosal improvement in 61% of patients, with 33% achieving mucosal healing; and 89% of the patients experienced a reduction in Mayo Score, and 61% of the patients experienced a reduction in endoscopic sub score. clinical response in 67% of patients and clinical remission in 28% of patients; mucosal improvement in 61% of patients, with 33% achieving mucosal healing; and 89% of the patients experienced a reduction in Mayo Score, and 61% of the patients experienced a reduction in endoscopic sub score. The Company is evaluating the best path forward which could include initiating next-stage development internally or collaborate with potential parties. Alidornase alfa (PRX-110) for the treatment of Cystic Fibrosis In 2018, the Company received valuable feedback on PRX-110 from potential partners. While the data generated to date is very encouraging, further analysis will likely be required to maximize the potential value of this asset. Given the Companys focused cash utilization, it does not plan to conduct further development of PRX-110 at this time. Full-Year 2018 Financial Results During the preparation of the 2018 annual report, the Company reevaluated its revenue recognition policies and determined that certain revenues generated under the Companys license agreements should be recognized for accounting purposes. Previously, the Company did not recognize those revenues. The Company recognized revenues from license and R&D services equal to $2.2 million, $2.8 million and $11.7 million over the first, second and third quarters of 2018, respectively. The restatement is expected to decrease the Companys loss for each of those periods. The Company recorded total revenues of $34.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2018, which was comprised of $9.0 million from selling goods and $25.2 million from license revenues, compared to $19.2 million from selling goods, and $1.8 million from license and R&D services for the same period of 2017. Research and development expenses for the year ended December 31, 2018, were $33.3 million, compared to $28.8 million for the same period of 2017. Selling, general and administrative expenses for the year ended December 31, 2018 were $10.9 million, compared to $11.5 million incurred during the same period of 2017. Operating loss for the year ended December 31, 2018 was $19.3 million compared to $34.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2017. For the year ended December 31, 2018, the Company reported a net loss of $26.5 million, or $0.18 per share, basic and diluted, compared to $45.4 million, excluding a one-time, non-cash net charge of $38.1 million in connection with the remeasurement of a derivative, or $0.35 per share, basic and diluted, for the same period of 2017. On December 31, 2018, the Company had $37.8 million of cash and cash equivalents, compared to $51.2 million on December 31, 2017, which is currently projected to fund operations into mid-2020. As of December 31, 2018, a total of $57.9 million aggregate principal amount of the Companys 7.5% convertible notes due November 2021 was outstanding. Conference Call and Webcast Information The Company will host a conference call on Monday, March 18, 2019, at 8:30 am ET to review the clinical, corporate and financial highlights. To participate in the conference call, please dial the following numbers prior to the start of the call: United States: +1-844-358-6760; International: +1-478-219-0004. Conference ID number 9583103. The conference call will also be broadcast live and available for replay for two weeks on the Company's website, www.protalix.com, in the Events Calendar of the Investors section. Please access the Company's website at least 15 minutes ahead of the conference to register, download, and install any necessary audio software. About Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. Protalix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of recombinant therapeutic proteins expressed through its proprietary plant cell-based expression system, ProCellEx. Protalixs unique expression system presents a proprietary method for developing recombinant proteins in a cost-effective, industrial-scale manner. Protalixs first product manufactured by ProCellEx, taliglucerase alfa, was approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2012 and, subsequently, by the regulatory authorities of other countries. Protalix has licensed to Pfizer Inc. the worldwide development and commercialization rights for taliglucerase alfa, excluding Brazil, where Protalix retains full rights. Protalixs development pipeline includes the following product candidates: pegunigalsidase alfa, a modified version of the recombinant human alpha-GAL-A protein for the treatment of Fabry disease; OPRX-106, an orally-delivered anti-inflammatory treatment; alidornase alfa for the treatment of Cystic Fibrosis; and others. Protalix has partnered with Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A., both in the United States and outside the United States, for the development and commercialization of pegunigalsidase alfa. Forward-Looking Statements To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, all such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The terms expect, anticipate, believe, estimate, project, plan, should and intend and other words or phrases of similar import are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future experience and results to differ materially from the statements made. These statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations as to such future outcomes. Drug discovery and development involve a high degree of risk and the final results of a clinical trial may be different than the preliminary findings for the clinical trial. Factors that might cause material differences include, among others: failure or delay in the commencement or completion of our preclinical and clinical trials which may be caused by several factors, including: risks that the FDA will not accept an application for accelerated approval of PRX-102 with the data generated to date or will request additional data or other conditions of our submission of any application for accelerated approval of PRX-102; slower than expected rates of patient recruitment; unforeseen safety issues; determination of dosing issues; lack of effectiveness during clinical trials; inability to monitor patients adequately during or after treatment; inability or unwillingness of medical investigators and institutional review boards to follow our clinical protocols; and lack of sufficient funding to finance clinical trials; the risk that the results of the clinical trials of our product candidates will not support our claims of superiority, safety or efficacy, that our product candidates will not have the desired effects or will be associated with undesirable side effects or other unexpected characteristics; risks related to our ability to maintain and manage our relationship with Chiesi Farmaceutici and any other collaborator, distributor or partner; risks related to the amount and sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents; risks related to the ultimate purchase by Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz of alfataliglicerase pursuant to the stated purchase intentions of the Brazilian Ministry of Health of the stated amounts, if at all; risks related to the successful conclusion of our negotiations with the Brazilian Ministry of Health regarding the purchase of alfataliglicerase generally; risks related to our commercialization efforts for alfataliglicerase in Brazil; risks relating to the compliance by Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz with its purchase obligations and related milestones under our supply and technology transfer agreement; risks related to the amount and sufficiency of our cash and cash equivalents; risks related to the amount of our future revenues, operations and expenditures; the risk that despite the FDAs grant of fast track designation for pegunigalsidase alfa for the treatment of Fabry disease, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to applications considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures; risks related to the FDAs ability to withdraw the fast track designation at any time; risks relating to our ability to make scheduled payments of the principal of, to pay interest on or to refinance our outstanding notes or any other indebtedness; our dependence on performance by third party providers of services and supplies, including without limitation, clinical trial services; delays in our preparation and filing of applications for regulatory approval; delays in the approval or potential rejection of any applications we file with the FDA or other health regulatory authorities, and other risks relating to the review process; our ability to identify suitable product candidates and to complete preclinical studies of such product candidates; the inherent risks and uncertainties in developing drug platforms and products of the type we are developing; the impact of development of competing therapies and/or technologies by other companies and institutions; potential product liability risks, and risks of securing adequate levels of product liability and other necessary insurance coverage; and other factors described in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The statements in this press release are valid only as of the date hereof and we disclaim any obligation to update this information, except as may be required by law. Investor Contact Marcy Nanus, Managing Director Solebury Trout 646-378-2927 mnanus@soleburytrout.com PROTALIX BIOTHERAPEUTICS, INC. CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (U.S. dollars in thousands, except share and per share amounts) December 31, 2017 2018 ASSETS CURRENT ASSETS: Cash and cash equivalents $ 51,163 $ 37,808 Accounts receivable Trade 1,721 4,729 Other assets 1,934 1,877 Inventories 7,833 8,569 Total current assets 62,651 52,983 NON-CURRENT ASSETS: Funds in respect of employee right upon retirement 1,887 1,758 Property and equipment, net 7,676 6,390 Total assets $ 72,214 $ 61,131 LIABILITIES NET OF CAPITAL DEFICIENCY CURRENT LIABILITIES: Accounts payable and accruals: Trade $ 7,521 $ 5,211 Other 9,310 10,274 Contracts liability 9,868 Convertible notes 5,921 Total current liabilities 22,752 25,353 LONG TERM LIABILITIES: Convertible notes 46,267 47,966 Contracts liability 25,015 33,027 Liability for employee rights upon retirement 2,586 2,374 Other long term liabilities 5,051 5,292 Total long term liabilities 78,919 88,659 Total liabilities 101,671 114,012 COMMITMENTS CAPITAL DEFICIENCY: Common Stock, $0.001 par value: Authorized - as of December 31, 2017 and 2018, 250,000,000 shares; issued and outstanding, respectively - as of December 31, 2017 and 2018, 143,728,797 shares and 148,382,299 shares, respectively 144 148 Additional paid-in capital 266,495 269,524 Accumulated deficit (296,096 ) (322,553 ) Total capital deficiency (29,457 ) (52,881 ) Total liabilities net of capital deficiency $ 72,214 $ 61,131 PROTALIX BIOTHERAPEUTICS, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (U.S. dollars in thousands, except share and per share amounts) Year ended December 31, 2016 2017 2018 REVENUES FROM SELLING GOODS $ 9,199 $ 19,242 $ 8,978 REVENUES FROM LICENSE AND R&D SERVICES 1,836 25,262 COST OF GOODS SOLD (8,398 ) (15,231 ) (9,302 ) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENSES (30,412 ) (32,170 ) (35,534 ) Less grants 5,804 3,336 2,204 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENSES, NET (24,608 ) (28,834 ) (33,330 ) SELLING, GENERAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES (9,356 ) (11,530 ) (10,916 ) OPERATING LOSS (33,163 ) (34,517 ) (19,308 ) FINANCIAL EXPENSES (4,192 ) (9,725 ) (7,685 ) FINANCIAL INCOME 589 188 536 LOSS FROM CHANGE IN FAIR VALUE OF CONVERTIBLE NOTES EMBEDDED DERIVATIVE (6,473 ) (38,061 ) (LOSS) GAIN ON EXTINGUISHMENT OF CONVERTIBLE NOTES 14,063 (1,325 ) FINANCIAL (EXPENSES) INCOME NET 3,987 (48,923 ) (7,149 ) LOSS FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS (29,176 ) (83,440 ) (26,457 ) LOSS FROM DISCONTINUED OPERATIONS (189 ) NET LOSS FOR THE YEAR $ (29,365 ) $ (83,440 ) $ (26,457 ) NET LOSS PER SHARE OF COMMON STOCK BASIC AND DILUTED Loss from continuing operations $ (0.29 ) $ (0.64 ) $ (0.18 ) Loss from discontinued operations (0.00 ) Net loss per share of common stock $ (0.29 ) $ (0.64 ) $ (0.18 ) WEIGHTED AVERAGE NUMBER OF SHARES OF COMMON STOCK USED IN COMPUTING LOSS PER SHARE OF COMMON STOCK, BASIC AND DILUTED 101,387,704 131,085,958 147,135,182 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Graphite One Inc. (GPH: TSX-V; GPHOF: OTCQB) (Graphite One or the Company) Graphite One Inc. is now trading under the new name and is pleased to announce results from its 2018 Field Program at its Graphite Creek Project, a large-flake graphite deposit located in the Kigluaik Mountains on the Seward Peninsula approximately 60 km north of the City of Nome, Alaska. Highlights: Drilling Results Include High-Grade Zones Averaging Greater than 10% Cg Deposit Remains Open to East, West and North Results Will Allow for Updated Resource Estimate The drilling results conform to our past exploration programs, and will allow us to update our resource estimates, said Anthony Huston, Graphite One President and CEO. The fact that our deposit remains open and relatively unexplored to the East and West of our identified resources, and that the down dip extent to the north has not yet been defined, underscores for us that were only beginning to realize the full potential of our project. The Drill Program comprised 801 metres in six core holes, the results of which will be used to in-fill and expand the indicated and inferred resources previously identified in the Companys current Preliminary Economic Analysis (see Table 1). Table 1: Graphite Creek Mineral Resources, Preliminary Economic Analysis, June 30, 2017 11 MINERAL RESOURCE CLASSIFICATION CUT-OFF GRADE (% Cg) TONNAGE (MILLION TONNES) GRAPHITE GRADE (% Cg) CONTAINED GRAPHITE (TONNES) INDICATED 6.0 10.32 7.2 % 744,000 INFERRED 6.0 71.24 7.0 % 4,969,000 Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no guarantee that all or any part of the indicated or inferred mineral resource will be converted into a mineral reserve. The collective work to date from the Graphite Creek Property indicate that while the project is in early stages of exploration/resource work that indications of the size and grade of the graphite give suggestions that they are of high enough concentration to be of economic interest. Table 2: Highlights of 2018 Drill Results Include Average Grades for Composites using a 3% Cutoff Hole ID Section From (m) To (m) Length (m) Cg (%) 18GC022 4350 19 27.7 8.7 8.05 43 44.3 1.3 14.24 104.6 113.4 8.5 10.81 18GC023 4450 53.8 79 25.3 7.76 85 96.2 11.2 7.13 158 159.5 1.5 10.4 18GC024 4400 28.9 33.5 4.6 12.27 39 59.5 20.5 7.71 66.7 72 5.3 9.32 79 82 3 7.73 131.1 133.5 2.4 11.14 18GC025 4500 52 68.8 16.7 7.8 85.9 87.6 1.7 25.14 18GC026 4550 27.8 33.6 5.8 8.06 44 60.3 16.3 11.93 58.6 60.3 1.7 21.54 All 2018 drill holes were angled to perpendicularly intercept the projected graphite mineralized zones with the objective of determining their true thicknesses. Results from all 2018 holes were consistent with previous drilling in the graphite mineralized zones, including significant high-grade intercepts with Cg values greater than 10 percent. The Graphite Creek Property consists of 176 160-acre State mining claims with the resource area 100 percent on state of Alaska land. Baseline Studies Advanced The 2018 field program also included preliminary field surveying and an aerial LiDAR survey along possible access routes connecting to the existing State-maintained road system on the Seward Peninsula. Surface water sampling and anadromous fish surveys were also completed in 2018 adding to environmental baseline studies from previous years. Mr. William Ellis, P. Geo, with Alaska Earth Sciences (AES) provided oversite to the 2018 drilling and sampling program. Mr. Ellis is a Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content of this release. Strict protocols for quality assurance and quality control were maintained through the sampling process and included the insertion of standards and blanks in the sample stream. Results from the standards and blanks are all within acceptable limits. About Graphite One Inc. GRAPHITE ONE INC. (GPH: TSX-V; GPHOF: OTCQB) continues to develop its Graphite One Project (the Project), whereby the Company could potentially become an American producer of high grade Coated Spherical Graphite (CSG) that is integrated with a domestic graphite resource. The Project is proposed as a vertically integrated enterprise to mine, process and manufacture high grade CSG primarily for the lithium-ion electric vehicle battery market. As set forth in the Companys Preliminary Economic Assessment, potential graphite mineralization mined from the Companys Graphite Creek Property, is expected to be processed into concentrate at a graphite processing plant. The proposed processing plant would be located on the Graphite Creek Property situated on the Seward Peninsula about 60 kilometers north of Nome, Alaska. CSG and other value-added graphite products, would likely be manufactured from the concentrate at the Companys proposed graphite product manufacturing facility, the location of which is the subject of further study and analysis. The Company intends to make a production decision on the Project once a feasibility study is completed. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "Anthony Huston (signed) For more information on Graphite One Inc. please visit the Companys website, www.GraphiteOne Inc .com or contact: Anthony Huston CEO, President & Director Tel: (604) 697-2862 Email: AHuston@GraphiteOneInc.com Investor Relations Contact 1-604-684-6730 GPH@kincommunications.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. 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, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as proposes, expects, or is expected, scheduled, estimates, projects, intends, assumes, believes, indicates or variations of such words and phrases that state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. 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 timing of receipt of regulatory approvals, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking information in this news release includes statements about inferred resource estimate for the Graphite Creek Project, the potential existence and size of mineralization within the Graphite Creek Project; estimated timing and amount of future expenditures, recommendations for future work on the Graphite Creek Project, geological interpretations and statements about Graphite Ones strategy, future operations and prospects. Information concerning inferred mineral resource estimates also may be deemed to be forward-looking information in that it reflects a prediction of the mineralization that would be encountered if a mineral deposit were developed and mined. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continuity of mineralization, uncertainties related to the ability to obtain necessary permits, licenses and title and delays due to third party opposition, changes in government policies regarding mining and natural resource exploration and exploitation, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date that is expressed in this news release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws. For more information on the Company, investors should review the Company's continuous disclosure filings that are available at www.sedar.com. The mineral resource estimates reported in this news release were prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101), as required by Canadian securities regulatory authorities. For United States reporting purposes, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) applies different standards in the classification of mineralization. In particular, while the terms measured, indicated and inferred mineral resources are required pursuant to NI 43-101, the SEC does not recognize such terms. Canadian standards differ significantly from the requirements of the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral deposits in these categories constitute or will ever be converted into reserves. In addition, inferred mineral resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. United States investors are advised that current mineral resources are not current reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. All figures are rounded to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate and in keeping with best practise principles. 1 Page 1-4; NI 43-101 Preliminary Economic Analysis on the Graphite One Project; June 30, 2017; Prepared by TRU Group BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BIOXYTRAN, INC. (OTC: BIXT), a developmental stage biotechnology company, with a pipeline of anti-necrosis drugs designed to treat hypoxia by delivering a small molecule carrying oxygen to the brain of stroke victims, announced today that the Company has retained Resources Unlimited NW, LLC., a strategic investor relations agency, with a wealth of experience in biotech to manage the companys investor relations program. We are excited to be partnering with Resources Unlimited (RU) in our investor relations effort, said BIXT CEO, Dr. David Platt. This group truly understands the sector we are in and the opportunities and challenges of bringing a potentially game changing development stage drug to market. We believe their insight will help us tell our story to the millions of patients that can benefit from our intellectual property. We have seen their success on social media and their ability to attract key influencers to follow the story and believe they will be able to help us achieve our corporate goals. If our drug works as we have theorized, not only could it save lives but also the quality of life by improving patient outcomes and potentially reducing the amount of restorative care needed after a stroke. Bioxytrans objective is to develop and license our platform technology using a rapid, cost-effective, and validated development plan. Our goal is to create a pipeline of safe new drugs using our first in class molecules to address unmet medical needs in disease indications resulting from hypoxia. At the moment, there are no drugs that can permeate blood clots in stroke victims, and deliver that lifesaving oxygen to the brain in a rapid fashion. Quickly restoring the flow of oxygen to the brain during a stroke, is vital for a good prognosis and recovery. Providing oxygenation to the brain delays the onset of cell death, giving doctors the critical time they need to treat stroke victims. Management believes that Bioxytrans BXT-25 will be the first drug to successfully carry oxygen through blood clots. BXT-25 was designed to support the oxygenation of the brain until the clot is dissolved or surgically removed. RU Investor Relations Partner Michael Sheikh stated: The delivery of oxygen to critical organs has been a challenge for decades. The recent death of 90s icon Luke Perry, 52, celebrity actor from Beverly Hills 90210 and more recently Riverdale, has brought heightened awareness for those suffering from strokes and the urgency for finding a solution for people stricken with this condition. The key to battling as stroke is to restoring oxygenation to the brain as quickly as possible. Dr. Platt has assembled an all-star team of directors with medical experience in drug development who understand the challenges of finding the right long term strategic investors. This team has the experience and wherewithal to develop Bioxytrans intellectual property on a global scale. We are pleased to be working with such a talented team and hope to showcase their plan to bring much needed solutions to the medical community. About Bioxytran, Inc. Bioxytran Inc. is a developmental stage biotechnology company. The company is working towards a first-in-class oxygen treatment platform for victims of brain stroke trauma. The first product to proceed to testing is BXT-25, which will be evaluated as a resuscitative agent to treat strokes, especially during the all-critical first hour following a stroke. The product will also be evaluated for its efficacy in treating other brain trauma issues. BXT-25 is based on a new molecule designed to reverse hypoxia in the brain. Hypoxic brain injuries such as ischemic strokes, could be treated with BXT-25 via an intravenous injection that quickly allows the drug molecule to travel to the lungs and bind with the oxygen molecules. From the lungs the molecule mimics a red blood cell traveling to the brain. Since the molecule is 5000 times smaller than red blood cells it can penetrate the clot and deliver the oxygen to the critical areas in the brain blocked by the clot. To learn more, visit our website: http://www.Bioxytraninc.com About Resources Unlimited NW LLC Resources Unlimited is a full-service investor relations firm for small cap companies. Resources Unlimiteds mission is to assist entrepreneurs, corporate executives and investors in the public market realize their visions and achieve their goals by delivering effective communications and investor relations services. Our goal is to be that bridge between the company and the investment community, assisting in all aspects from social media, company awareness, press, media content, strategy and more. For additional service info on our Investor Relations, please visit www.ResourcesUnlimitedLLC.com . SEATTLE, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE CFN Media Group (CFN Media), the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the North American cannabis industry, announces publication of an article discussing The Supreme Cannabis Company (TSX-V: FIRE) (OTCQX: SPRWF) (FRA: 53S1). The cannabis industry may have been dominated by microcaps a couple years ago, but multi-billion dollar valuations, blue chip investments, cannabis-focused ETFs, and growing analyst coverage is helping it reach a new level of maturity. The wider market is finally starting to realize the cannabis industrys significant potential in both medicinal markets, as a pharmaceutical alternative, and recreational markets, as an alcohol or tobacco alternative. BMO Capital Markets analysts Tamy Chen, CFA, and Peter Sklar, CPA, CA, recently initiated coverage of The Supreme Cannabis Company at Market Perform with a C$2.50 per share price target, representing a 15 percent premium to the then-current market price. The analyst sees the potential for a C$3.00 share price with brand traction, accelerating sales, ramping production, and strategic international acquisitions. Focus on Discerning Customers Supreme Cannabis has always focused on discerning heavy cannabis users as its core market with premium dried flower that contains a favorable level of terpenes. Management estimates that these users account for just 20 percent of all cannabis consumers, but in terms of revenue, they account for upwards of 80 percent of purchases. Terpene (auroma) profiles play a big role in attracting discerning customers to cannabis flower products. The companys 440,000 sq. ft. hybrid greenhouse in Ontario is licensed for 17,500 kilograms per year of dried cannabis production. Management hopes to bring the facility up to full production of 50,000 kilograms per year by mid-2019. With smaller grow rooms and a whole plant dry approach, the companys cannabis products are superior to many competitors using more industrial-scale approaches to mass production. Currently, the company has been taking advantage of wholesale demand at attractive prices. As the market matures, the company plans to transition itself to become a premium recreational brand, providing sustainable margins over the long term. These efforts are supported by partnerships such as its agreement with Khalifa Kush Enterprises and its lineup of KKE-branded products, and the launch of full spectrum cannabis oils and concentrates. International Expansion Efforts Supreme Cannabis made a $10 million strategic equity investment to acquire ten percent of Medigrow, a licensed producer based in Lesotho thats developing a 520,000 sq. ft. greenhouse, in March 2018. These efforts could provide the company with early inroads into Africas cannabis market after Lesotho became the first country on the continent to legalize cannabisand Medigrow is the first cannabis producer to receive a license in the country. In March 2019, the company also announced a letter of intent with Malta Enterprises that would enable it to produce and process medical cannabis in the country and potentially export to European markets. Most Canadian licensed producers have directly exported cannabis to Europe with EU-GMP certified facilities, but the LOI could pave the way for the import of non-GMP certified cannabis into Malta for distribution across Europe. Looking Ahead The Supreme Cannabis Company (TSX-V: FIRE) has made significant progress over the past few quarters. With BMO Capital Markets initiating coverage, the company joins Aurora Cannabis Inc., Canopy Growth Corp., OrganiGram Holdings Inc. and other industry giants covered by the mainstream analyst firm. Investors may want to take a closer look at the company given this coverage and its progress. For more information, visit the companys website at www.supreme.ca . Please follow the link to read the full interview: https://www.cannabisfn.com/bmo-analysts-initiate-supreme-cannabis/ About CFN Media CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed. Learn how to become a CFN Media client company, brand or entrepreneur: http://www.cannabisfn.com/featuredcompany Download the CFN Media iOS mobile app to access the world of cannabis from the palm of your hand: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cannabisfn/id988009247?ls=1&mt=8 Or visit our homepage and enter your mobile number under the Apple App Store logo to receive a download link text on your iPhone: http://www.cannabisfn.com Disclaimer CannabisFN.com is not an independent financial investment advisor or broker-dealer. You should always consult with your own independent legal, tax, and/or investment professionals before making any investment decisions. The information provided on http://www.cannabisfn.com (the Site) is either original financial news or paid advertisements drafted by our in-house team or provided by an affiliate. CannabisFN.com, a financial news media and marketing firm enters into media buys or service agreements with the companies that are the subject of the articles posted on the Site or other editorials for advertising such companies. We are not an independent news media provider. We make no warranty or representation about the information including its completeness, accuracy, truthfulness or reliability and we disclaim, expressly and implicitly, all warranties of any kind, including whether the Information is complete, accurate, truthful, or reliable. As such, your use of the information is at your own risk. Nor do we undertake any obligation to update the items posted. CannabisFN.com received compensation for producing and presenting high quality and sophisticated content on CannabisFN.com along with financial and corporate news. The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/ Frank Lane 206-369-7050 Flane@cannabisfn.com PLAYA VISTA, Calif., March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- American Premium Water Corporation (OTC: HIPH) (APWC) announces that it has an agreement with Hanlons Brewery in England to produce beer infused with CBD using the Companys proprietary formulation. Testing will begin immediately on the combination of the Companys proprietary hydro-nano CBD formulation with Hanlonss beer, with commercial sale to be determined at a later date. CEO American Premium Water Corporation, Ryan Fishoff commented, I am excited to announce that the Company has entered into an agreement with Hanlons brewery in the UK. This is a very exciting partnership that provides numerous possibilities for monetization, and brand recognition on the European continent. The liquor and beer industry has been very fascinated with the introduction of CBD into the market, and this partnership affords us the opportunity to step into the discussion with the larger players in the market. Were going to begin experimenting with the process of combining beer and the CBD formulations immediately. The goal will be to have a product available for commercial sale as soon as possible. I will keep shareholders abreast when there are developments on bringing the product to market. Hanlons Brewery ( https://www.hanlonsbrewery.com ) is based in Exeter on Devon, England and is an award winning producer of Yellow Hammer, Port Stout, Stormstay and Firefly ales. The family run brewery has a rich history of brewing with a legacy of producing world class craft beers. With its storied history, Hanlons has looked towards the future in establishing an environmentally sustainable business, including a custom made solar-PV system that powers all the brewerys equipment. According to Mordor Intelligence, the European beer market is estimated to be around $185 Billion in size, which presents a huge opportunity for the Company to enter into such a large market. Industry giants Constellation Brands and Heineken have announced plans to manufacture CBD and THC beers. Tanya Gullick, UK and Europe Managing Director for Business Development commented, This is great partnership for the Company. We are excited to work with Hanlons on bringing CBD infused beer to market. This will be the first of many partnerships for the Company in the UK and Europe. We are looking to establish a foothold in the CBD market over here, and partnerships like this will help us get there. I am looking forward to getting CBD beer to market to see what the publics appetite is for this product. Lots of other things are brewing, and I look forward to providing updates in the near future." Ms. Gullick and her team were instrumental in establishing this partnership. She is doing a tremendous job establishing a robust pipeline of sales and partnership opportunities. It was great spending some time with her and the team in London a few weeks ago. Aside from the Hanlons partnership, the Company is working on different partnerships and joint ventures, including some others in the liquor and beer space. I look forward to seeing these other opportunities materialize in the coming weeks and months. I am very bullish on the potential over the Europe and the UK. With the relaxed regulatory environment, I think the region has as much potential for growth as the US and Canada. There is certainly a demand for CBD infused products, and not just beverages. Cosmetics is also in high demand and the team is working on establishing relationships for our non-beverage products over there as well. I look forward to updating shareholders on the Companys progress in the UK and Europe in the coming weeks and months. Concluded Mr. Fishoff About American Premium Water Corp. American Premium Water (OTC: HIPH) is a diversified luxury consumer products company focused on businesses in the health and beauty and biotech sectors. The company is focused on harnessing the powers of hydrogen and Nano technologies paired with cannabidiol (CBD) to treat health disorders and enhance quality of life. This business model aims to market emerging fashion brands by leveraging classic retail partners and incorporating disruptive blockchain technologies to expand the retail footprint. The companys portfolio includes the LALPINA Hydro and LALPINA Hydro CBD brands ( www.LalpinaInc.com ), LALPINA Productions, LALPINA Records, Gents ( www.gentsco.com ), Worthy, and blockchain platform FashionCoinX ( www.FashionCoinX.com ). Safe Harbor Notice Certain statements contained herein are forward-looking statements (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). American Premium Water Corporation cautions that statements made in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and makes no guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the time statements are made. These statements may address issues that involve significant risks, uncertainties, estimates and assumptions made by management. Actual results could differ materially from current projections or implied results. American Premium Water Corporation undertakes no obligation to revise these statements following the date of this news release. Additional details of the Company's business can be found in its public disclosures as a reporting issuer under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC") EDGAR database. This press release is issued on behalf of the Board of Directors of American Premium Water Corporation RICHMOND HILL, Ontario, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Helix BioPharma Corp. (TSX: HBP) (FRANKFURT: HBP) (Helix or the Company), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing innovative drug candidates for the prevention and treatment of cancer, announces its financial results for its fiscal second quarter ended January 31, 2019. FINANCIAL REVIEW The Company recorded a net loss and total comprehensive loss of $1,908,000 ($0.02 loss per common share) and $2,564,000 ($0.03 loss per common share) for the three-month periods ended January 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively. For the six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively, the Company recorded a net loss and total comprehensive loss of $3,287,000 ($0.03 loss per common share) and $4,868,000 ($0.05 loss per common share). Research and development Research and development costs for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 totalled $1,330,000 and $2,344,000, respectively ($1,895,000 and $3,660,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2018). The following table outlines research and development costs expensed and investment tax credits for the Companys significant research and development projects for the following periods: For the three-month For the six-month periods ended January 31 periods ended January 31 2019 2018 2019 2018 L-DOS47 $ 788,000 $ 1,472,000 $ 1,649,000 $ 3,010,000 V-DOS47 102,000 94,000 232,000 177,000 CAR-T 333,000 125,000 333,000 125,000 Corporate research and development expenses 125,000 125,000 225,000 224,000 Trademark and patent related expenses 43,000 139,000 68,000 238,000 Stock-based compensation expense 2,000 6,000 Depreciation expense 26,000 25,000 59,000 80,000 Polish grant government funding (87,000 ) (87,000 ) (222,000 ) (200,000 ) $ 1,330,000 $ 1,895,000 $ 2,344,000 $ 3,660,000 L-DOS47 research and development expenses for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 totalled $788,000 and $1,649,000, respectively ($1,472,000 and $3,010,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2018). L-DOS47 research and development expenditures relate primarily to the Companys LDOS001 Phase I clinical study in the U.S., and preliminary expenditures related to the Companys LDOS003 Phase II clinical study in Poland, Ukraine and Hungary. The Companys LDOS001 clinical study continues to face patient enrolment challenges. An accelerated dosing protocol has been approved to help accelerate the LDOS001 clinical study. The Company continues to be committed to the LDOS001 study and has re-allocated limited resources to improve patient enrollment. Enrolment in the Companys LDOS002 clinical study was previously halted at the end of stage 1 of a two-stage phase II study as the intensified schedule did not result in improving patient benefits compared to that observed in the Phase I portion of the study. The Company recently advanced some funds to the CRO overseeing the LDOS003 study and most recently announced the dosing of the first patient. The Company is in the late stages of protocol development for a Phase I/II study with L-DOS47 given in combination with doxorubicin, for the treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer. The Company expects to file an investigational new drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a study protocol targeting advanced pancreatic cancer patients sometime in April/May 2019. The Companys Polish subsidiary continues to focus its activities on the V-DOS47 pre-clinical program. V-DOS47 research and development expenses for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 totalled $102,000 and $232,000, respectively ($94,000 and $177,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2018). For the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 the Companys Polish subsidiary received grant funding of $87,000 and $222,000, respectively ($87,000 and $200,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2018). Grant funding for the V-DOS4 program is the result of an agreement entered into with the Polish National Centre for Research and Development. CAR-T research and development expenses for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 totalled $333,000 and $333,000 respectively ($125,000 and $125,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2018). The Company commenced development of novel CAR-T therapeutics and new antibody-based technologies for cell-based therapies. The Companys CAR-T expenditures relate primarily to collaborative research activities with ProMab Biotechnologies Inc. Trademark and patent related expenses for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 totalled $43,000 and $68,000, respectively ($139,000 and $238,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019). The Company continues to ensure it adequately protects its intellectual property. Operating, general and administration Operating, general and administration expenses for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 and 2018 totalled $533,000 and $906,000, respectively ($644,000 and $1,170,000 respectively for the three and six-month periods ended January 31, 2018). The decrease in operating, general and administration expenses mainly reflects companywide cost cutting initiatives. The following table outlines operating, general and administration costs expensed for the following periods: For the three-month For the six-month periods ended April 30 periods ended April 30 2019 2018 2019 2018 Wages and benefits $ 179,000 $ 151,000 $ 334,000 $ 278,000 Director fees 41,000 55,000 80,000 135,000 Third-party advisors 210,000 309,000 314,000 459,000 Other general and administrative 100,000 124,000 172,000 287,000 Stock-based compensation expense 1,000 Depreciation expense 3,000 5,000 5,000 11,000 $ 533,000 $ 644,000 $ 906,000 $ 1,170,000 LIQUIDITY AND CAPITAL RESOURCES The Company recorded a net loss and total comprehensive loss of $1,908,000 ($0.02 loss per common share) and $2,564,000 ($0.03 loss per common share) for the three-month periods ended January 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively. For the six-month periods ended January 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively, the Company recorded a net loss and total comprehensive loss of $3,287,000 ($0.03 loss per common share) and $4,868,000 ($0.05 loss per common share), respectively. As at January 31, 2019 the Company had a working capital deficiency of $1,998,000, shareholders deficiency of $1,686,000 and a deficit of $167,292,000. As at July 31, 2018 the Company had a working capital deficiency of $1,901,000, shareholders deficiency of $1,527,000 and a deficit of $164,005,000. The Company continues to work with vendors to manage its cash position while ensuring vendors continue providing services while being paid, albeit over a longer period of time than previously agreed terms. Some vendors have placed the Company on hold (cash in advance) and is impacting the Companys clinical development program. The Company has raised gross proceeds of approximately $8,518,000 from private placement financings during fiscal 2018 and an additional $3,878,400 during the six-month period ended January 31, 2019. In addition, the Company subsequent to the January 31, 2019 quarter end, announced the closing of a private placement on March 15, 2019 for gross proceeds of $609,450. Nevertheless, the Companys cash reserves of $306,000 as at January 31, 2019 continue to be insufficient to meet anticipated cash needs for working capital and capital expenditures through the next twelve months, nor are they sufficient to see the current or any planned research and development initiatives through to completion. Though the funds raised have somewhat assisted the Company in dealing with its working capital deficiency and attempts to make vendors current, additional funds are required to advance the various clinical and preclinical programs, pay for the Companys overhead costs and its past due vendors. To the extent that the Company does not believe it has sufficient liquidity to meet its current obligations, management considers securing additional funds, primarily through the issuance of equity securities of the Company, to be critical for its development needs. Additional information can be found about the Companys liquidity and capital resources in the Companys Management Discussion and Analysis. The Companys condensed unaudited interim consolidated statement of net loss and comprehensive loss for the three and six-month periods ending January 31, 2019 and 2018 and the condensed unaudited interim consolidated statement of cash flows for the six-month periods ending January 31, 2019 and 2018 are summarized below: Consolidated Statements of Net Loss and Comprehensive Loss Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (thousand $, except for per share data) (thousand $) For the three-month periods ended For the six-month periods ended For the six-month periods ended Jan 31 Jan 31 Jan 31 Jan 31 Jan 31 Jan 31 2019 2018 2019 2018 2019 2018 Expenses: Cash provided by (used in): Research and development 1,330 1,895 2,344 3,660 Net loss and total comprehensive loss (3,287 ) (4,868 ) Operating, general, administration 533 644 906 1,170 Results from operating activities Items not involving cash: before finance items (1,863 ) (2,539 ) (3,250 ) (4,830 ) Depreciation 64 91 Stock-based compensation 2 6 Finance items (45 ) (25 ) (37 ) (38 ) Foreign exchange loss 13 35 Loss and total comprehensive loss (1,908 ) (2,564 ) (3,287 ) (4,868 ) Changes in non-cash working capital 37 503 Loss per share $ (0.02 ) $ (0.03 ) $ (0.03 ) $ (0.05 ) Operating activities (3,171 ) (4,233 ) * Figures are for both basic and fully diluted Financing activities 3,126 5,040 Investing activities (2 ) (28 ) Exchange rate changes on cash (13 ) (35 ) Net decrease in cash (60 ) 744 Cash beginning of the period 366 897 Cash end of the period 306 1,641 The Companys Consolidated Statement of Financial Position as at January 31, 2019 and July 31, 2018 are summarized below. Consolidated Statement of Financial Position (thousand $) 31-Jan-19 31-Jul-18 Non current assets 312 374 Current assets: Prepaids 331 92 Accounts receivable 246 315 Cash 306 366 883 773 Total assets 1,195 1,147 Shareholders' deficiency (1,686 ) (1,527 ) Current liabilities: Deferred government grant 57 38 Accrued liabilities 446 644 Accounts payable 2,378 1,992 2,881 2,674 Total liabilities & shareholders equity 1,195 1,147 The Companys condensed unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and managements discussion and analysis will be filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com , as well as on the Companys website. About Helix BioPharma Corp. Helix BioPharma Corp. is an immuno-oncology company specializing in the field of cancer therapy. The company is actively developing innovative products for the prevention and treatment of cancer based on its proprietary technologies. Helixs product development initiatives include its novel L-DOS47 new drug candidate and Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) based cell therapies. Helix is currently listed on the TSX and FSE under the symbol HBP. INVESTOR RELATIONS Helix BioPharma Corp. 9120 Leslie Street, Suite 205 Richmond Hill, Ontario, L4B 3J9 Tel: (905) 841-2300 Email: ir@helixbiopharma.com Forward-Looking Statements and Risks and Uncertainties This news release contains forward-looking statements and information (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements and information that are not historical facts but instead include financial projections and estimates, statements regarding plans, goals, objectives, intentions and expectations with respect to the Companys future business, operations, research and development, including the Companys activities relating to DOS47, and other information in future periods. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements concerning (i) the Companys ability to operate on a going concern being dependent mainly on obtaining additional financing; (ii) the Companys priority continuing to be L-DOS47; (iii) the Companys development programs for DOS47, L-DOS47, V-DOS47 and CAR-T; (iv) future expenditures, the insufficiency of the Companys current cash resources and the need for financing; and (v) future financing requirements and the seeking of additional funding. Forward-looking statements can further be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as ongoing, estimates, expects, or the negative thereof or any other variations thereon or comparable terminology referring to future events or results, or that events or conditions will, may, could, or should occur or be achieved, or comparable terminology referring to future events or results. Forward-looking statements are statements about the future and are inherently uncertain, and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that are also uncertain. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Forward-looking statements, including financial outlooks, are intended to provide information about managements current plans and expectations regarding future operations, including without limitation, future financing requirements, and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Certain material factors, estimates or assumptions have been applied in making forward-looking statements in this news release, including, but not limited to, the safety and efficacy of L-DOS47; that sufficient financing will be obtained in a timely manner to allow the Company to continue operations and implement its clinical trials in the manner and on the timelines anticipated; the timely provision of services and supplies or other performance of contracts by third parties; future costs; the absence of any material changes in business strategy or plans; and the timely receipt of required regulatory approvals and strategic partner support. The Companys actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release as a result of numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the risk that the Companys assumptions may prove to be incorrect; the risk that additional financing may not be obtainable in a timely manner, or at all, and that clinical trials may not commence or complete within anticipated timelines or the anticipated budget or may fail; third party suppliers of necessary services or of drug product and other materials may fail to perform or be unwilling or unable to supply the Company, which could cause delay or cancellation of the Companys research and development activities; necessary regulatory approvals may not be granted or may be withdrawn; the Company may not be able to secure necessary strategic partner support; general economic conditions, intellectual property and insurance risks; changes in business strategy or plans; and other risks and uncertainties referred to elsewhere in this news release, any of which could cause actual results to vary materially from current results or the Companys anticipated future results. Certain of these risks and uncertainties, and others affecting the Company, are more fully described in the Companys annual managements discussion and analysis for the year ended July 31, 2017 under the heading Risks and Uncertainty and Helixs Annual Information Form, in particular under the headings Forward-looking Statements and Risk Factors, and other reports filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com from time to time. Forward-looking statements and information are based on the beliefs, assumptions, opinions and expectations of Helixs management on the date of this new release, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement or information should those beliefs, assumptions, opinions or expectations, or other circumstances change, except as required by law. Not for distribution in the U.S. or to U.S. Newswires VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blissco Cannabis Corp. ( CSE: BLIS ) ( OTCQB: HSTRF ) ( FRA: GQ4B ), (Blissco) or the (Company) is a Canadian cannabis brand based in British Columbia, a licensed processor and producer of premium dried cannabis and cannabis oil, and a licensed distributor of dried cannabis products. The Company is pleased to announce that it has signed a supply agreement with AGLC that includes renewal options. Blissco will enter the Alberta recreational cannabis market, supplying the province initially with three strains from their whole flower collection. Blissco products will be available at Alberta retail locations and on albertacannabis.org . Alberta has the highest cannabis retail sales in Canada, and we are excited for the opportunity to supply this growing market with our premium dried cannabis and offer cannabis extract products later in 2019, said Damian Kettlewell, Blissco CEO. Blisscos list of supply agreements continues to expand as the company now has agreements to supply the British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta markets domestically and the German market internationally. We look forward to continuing to add to our customer list as we meet with more provinces as well as international partners, adds Kettlewell. CTV reported that in the first months following Canadas legalization of cannabis the nation has recorded more than $150 million in retail sales with Alberta posting the highest retail sales numbers. About Blissco Cannabis Corp. Blissco Cannabis Corp. (CSE: BLIS) (OTCQB: HSTRF) (FRA: GQ4B) is a Canadian wellness cannabis brand based in British Columbia and a multi-licensed processor, cultivator, and distributor of premium cannabis. Blissco owns and operates an 18,000 square foot, state-of-the-art GPP facility located in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia with extraction, cultivation and processing rooms. Blissco is supplying premium cannabis and small-batch Reserve whole flower and dried flower pre-rolls to the Canadian and global marketplace with a growing list of provincial cannabis boards and international distribution partners. With a licence to process cannabis oil acquired in August 2018, Blisscos extraction lab is also in operation preparing a line of full spectrum oils for distribution in 2019. HOUSTON, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Harvest Oil & Gas Corp. (OTCQX: HRST) (Harvest or the Company) today announced that Colby Dunn has resigned from his positions as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company (the Board) and member of the Board. Prior to his resignation, Mr. Dunn served on the Compensation Committee of the Board. Mr. Dunns decision to resign is for personal reasons and not the result of a disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Companys operations, policies or practices. The Board has appointed Tim Caflisch to serve as a member of the Board and as a member of the Compensation Committee. Mr. Caflisch is a member of the investment team of Finepoint Capital LP, a Boston-based investment firm. Mr. Caflisch joined Finepoint in November 2015, and is focused on value and event driven opportunities across industries and geographies. Prior to joining Finepoint, Mr. Caflisch was a member of KKRs Special Situations team, based in London, where he concentrated on publicly traded distressed credit and privately originated rescue financings. He graduated from Stanford University with a bachelors degree in Economics. The Board also appointed Steven J. Pully, a current member of the Board, to serve as Chairman of the Board. About Harvest Oil & Gas Corp. Harvest is an independent oil and gas company engaged in the 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, the Mid-Continent areas in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Louisiana, the Permian Basin and the Monroe Field in Northern Louisiana. More information about Harvest is available on the internet at https://www.hvstog.com . Harvest Oil & Gas Corp., Houston, TX Ryan Stash 713-651-1144 hvstog.com SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UEX Corporation (UEX:TSX) (UEX or the Company) is pleased to announce the second tranche of assay results from the winter drilling program on the Companys 100% owned West Bear Property, located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. In January, UEX commenced a $4.25 million 110-160 drill hole program at West Bear with the objective of expanding the size of the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit (the Deposit) by extending cobalt mineralization along strike to the west. To date, the Company has completed 110 holes of this winters exploration program and drilled 9,780 metres. Assay results have been received for thirty-six drill holes. UEX announced assay results from the first five holes in the Companys news release dated February 7, 2019, available at www.sedar.com or UEXs website at www.uex-corporation . Thirty of the 31 holes from the second batch of assays returned composite grades that exceed the cobalt equivalent (CoEq) grade of 0.023% CoEq, the same cut-off grade used in UEXs maiden resource estimate for the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel deposit announced on July 10, 2018 available at www.sedar.com or UEXs website at www.uex-corporation . While the Company has been expanding the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit along strike to the west and in the area below the existing West Bear Uranium Deposit (the Uranium Deposit), UEX has also reviewed results from the sonic drill holes that defined the Uranium Deposit during the 2005 and 2007 exploration campaigns. Of the 214 sonic holes drilled, 99 holes encountered cobalt and nickel mineralization exceeding 0.023% CoEq within rock located below the Uranium Deposit and specifically excluded from the volume of rock comprising the Uranium Deposit. Twenty-six of these holes returned composite assay results exceeding 0.25% CoEq of which 10 holes exceeded 0.5% CoEq. Assay results specific to cobalt and nickel mineralization occurring below the Uranium Deposit have never been announced by the Company, as these results were recently compiled for the first time. Highlights from the current drill program include hole WBC-047 which encountered widespread cobalt and nickel averaging 0.05% Co and 0.16% Ni over 27.50 m from 27.50 m to 55.00 m, and hole WBC-070 which intersected 0.06% Co and 0.16% Ni over 11.00 m from 25.50 m to 36.50 m (see Tables 1 and 3). Highlights from the review of the historic sonic drilling programs included holes UEX-043 which intersected 0.815% Co and 1.357% Ni over 8.4 m from 23.60 m to 32.00 m (including a subinterval of 1.512% Co and 1.963% Ni over 3.0 m from 29.00 m to 32.00 m), UEX-051 that averaged 0.416% Co and 2.197% Ni over 1.2 m from 23.30 m to 24.50 m, UEX-056 which assayed 0.425% Co and 1.362% Ni over 3.0 m from 24.80 m to 27.80 m and UEX-057 which intersected 0.449% Co and 2.085% Ni over 3.1 m from 22.90 m to 26.00 m (see Tables 2 and 4). With the available results from the current drilling program and a review of the historic sonic holes, the strike length of the West Bear Deposit has been increased from 400 m to 550 m (see Figure 1) with the majority of assays from the 2019 program yet to be received. UEX is encouraged by the results of the current drilling program and by the surprising results from the sonic drill program review. The reader is cautioned that the results from the sonic drill program can be difficult to interpret. Technical limitations on the depth of penetration of sonic drill rigs meant that in most cases drill holes were terminated prior to being able to fully penetrate into and/or through the fault structure that hosts the cobalt-nickel mineralization below the Uranium Deposit. As a result, sonic holes were often terminated in cobalt-nickel mineralization. In 2007, the Company was focussed exclusively on defining the Uranium Deposit and in many cases did not completely sample the rocks and fault structures that host the cobalt and nickel mineralization encountered below the Uranium Deposit. As a result, UEX geologists will be reviewing the existing sonic drill holes and extending sampling coverage to ensure that all possible extensions to the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit are defined. With the demand for electric vehicles increasing, we see the need for ethically-sourced cobalt from safe mining and geopolitical jurisdictions to power those cars. Our winter drill results continue to grow our West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit, one of the few known North American cobalt deposits. The Company is eagerly awaiting the assay results of the final holes of the winter program. - Roger Lemaitre, President & CEO Sample Collection and Compositing Samples are selected using a portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometer to aid in the identification of mineralized intervals. Selected drill core is then split in half sections on site and one half is collected for analysis with the other half core remaining on site for reference. Where possible, samples are collected at a standardized 0.5 m interval through zones of mineralization but respect geological units and intervals. Samples collected by UEX in 2005 and 2007 during the sonic drilling programs did not use an XRF Spectrometer to aid in identification of mineralization. The samples were shipped to the Geoanalytical Laboratory at the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Analysis at the SRC laboratory for Cobalt and Nickel was completed using the ICP-OES method with an Aqua Regia digestion. The SRC Geoanalytical Laboratory is an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited facility (#537) by the Standards Council of Canada. Assay intervals were composited using a cut-off grade of 0.023% Cobalt equivalent (CoEq) using the equation CoEq = Co + (Ni x 0.2). All depth measurements and sample intervals reported are down-hole measurements from drill core. About the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit The West Bear Property is an advanced exploration project located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, Canada that contains both the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit and the West Bear Uranium Deposit. The Property is approximately 740 kilometres north of Saskatoon, west of Wollaston Lake and measures approximately 7,983 hectares comprising of 24 contiguous areas to which UEX has 100% ownership, with the exception of Mineral Lease 5424 in which UEX owns a 77.575% interest. The Deposit is located within an area of the Athabasca Basin that has excellent infrastructure and is situated within 10 km of an existing all-weather road and power lines that service Cameco Corporations nearby Cigar Lake Mine and Rabbit Lake Operation, as well as Oranos McClean Lake Operation. The West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit currently has a strike length of over 550 m and a dip length of over 100 m. On July 10, 2018, the Company announced a maiden inferred resource estimate for the Deposit of 390,000 tonnes grading 0.37% cobalt and 0.22% nickel, which equates to 3,172,000 pounds of cobalt and 1,928,000 pounds of nickel. The West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit mineral resources were determined using a cut-off grade of 0.023 percent cobalt equivalent (CoEq), using the equation CoEq = Co + (Ni x 0.2). Only mineralization located within a conceptual open pit was included in the final resource estimate. Qualified Persons and Data Acquisition The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Roger Lemaitre, P.Eng., P.Geo., UEXs President and CEO and Trevor Perkins, P.Geo., UEXs Exploration Manager, who are each considered to be a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About UEX UEX (TSX:UEX, OTC:UEXCF.PK, UXO.F) is a Canadian uranium exploration and development company involved in nineteen uranium projects, including eight that are 100% owned and operated by UEX, one joint venture with Orano Canada Inc. (Orano) and ALX Uranium Corp. (ALX) that is 50.1% owned by UEX and is under option to and operated by ALX, as well as eight joint ventures with Orano, one joint venture with Orano and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited, which are operated by Orano, and one project (Christie Lake), that is 60% owned by UEX with JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited which is operated by UEX. The company is also involved in one cobalt-nickel exploration project located in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan. The West Bear Project was formerly part of UEXs Hidden Bay Project and contains the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit and the West Bear Uranium Deposit. The nineteen projects are located in the eastern, western and northern perimeters of the Athabasca Basin, the world's richest uranium belt, which in 2017 accounted for approximately 22% of the global primary uranium production. UEX is currently advancing several uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin which include the Christie Lake deposits, the Kianna, Anne, Colette and 58B deposits at its currently 49.1%-owned Shea Creek Project (located 50 km north of Fissions Triple R Deposit and Patterson Lake South Project, and NexGens Arrow Deposit) the Horseshoe and Raven deposits located on its 100%-owned Horseshoe-Raven Development Project and the West Bear Uranium Deposit located at its 100%-owned West Bear Project. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT Roger Lemaitre President & CEO (306) 713-1401 Forward-Looking Information This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking information" for the purposes of Canadian securities laws. Such statements are based on UEX's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. Such forward-looking information includes statements regarding the West Bear Co-Ni Deposit drill program, UEX's drill hole results, uranium, cobalt and nickel prices, outlook for our future operations, plans and timing for exploration activities, and other expectations, intentions and plans that are not historical fact. Such forward-looking information is based on certain factors and assumptions and is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from UEX's expectations include uncertainties relating to the, interpretation of drill results and geology, assay confirmation, additional drilling results, continuity and grade of deposits, fluctuations in uranium, cobalt and nickel prices and currency exchange rates, changes in environmental and other laws affecting uranium, cobalt and nickel exploration and mining, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in UEX's Annual Information Form and other filings with the applicable Canadian securities commissions on SEDAR. Many of these factors are beyond the control of UEX. Consequently, all forward-looking information contained in this news release is qualified by this cautionary statement and there can be no assurance that actual results or developments anticipated by UEX will be realized. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. Except as required by applicable law, UEX disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/44c77f8d-6d0a-4ba5-90ef-4d95b56dad8e http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f029bf25-186a-4002-a57e-7f1b50a08b0d http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8d7ab5fc-a28f-48e7-bc42-1d57285bab2f http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/31ff2dd3-2064-4ab2-8adc-fd540042a1ce http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c8a37ea6-4c52-431a-a2b1-6ed3a7afd3d1 Reis & Irvys Offers Corporate Location Managers an Additional, Passive Profit Center in Just 15 Square Feet of Space SAN DIEGO, CA, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE Generation Next Franchise Brands (OTCQB: VEND) announced today that its flagship subsidiary and premium, robotic soft serve franchise, Reis & Irvys, has launched a new informational website for potential location partners. The portal, located on the web at FroyoRobots.com , is designed to provide introductory information to food service managers and facility decision makers who have taken interest in the unique opportunity offered by Reis & Irvys. Airports to major hotel chains, colleges and universities to corporate campuses, major national retailers and many others are asking how Reis & Irvys can add additional profit and service to their existing space, said Nick Yates, CEO of Generation Next. The new website serves as an entry point where companies and location management teams can obtain some initial information and express their interest in hosting a Reis & Irvys kiosk or kiosks. From there, Yates said, a dedicated team will work with potential locations and their management teams to analyze their potential. Yates detailed benefits to sites hosting a Reis & Irvys kiosk including: 24/7 operation, no people required, which is great for facilities with demand for food before or after the main food service or cafeteria closes Wide range of Dannon YoCream flavors and blends Remodeling not required the kiosk is self-contained and only needs a 220V outlet Hands-off for the local site because maintenance and support is provided by Reis & Irvys national network of operators and distributors Ongoing marketing and flavor promotions Improves the overall experience of employees and customers Drives additional traffic to the business itself Jay Rader is the Director of Food and Nutrition at Johnson City Medical Center, where food service is managed Morrison Healthcare (a division of the Compass Group). Rader chose to install a Reis & Irvys kiosk and had this to say about his experience, Reis and Irvys brings swirls of smiles to staff and visitors here. Beginning in April, 2019, Generation Next intends to select an additional 75 to 100 locations per month to receive Reis & Irvy's kiosks. This new information portal will help Generation Next identify the best locations for the frozen yogurt robots. Key traits of top locations include: 6-7 day per week access 10+ operating hours per day Foot traffic of 2,000+ people per day (on average) The new website is intended to address the growing interest from potential location partners as well as to support the companys selection of the right locations. With production and delivery increasing, we can turn our attention to location procurement, Yates said, adding that the company has hired a new National Sales Director whose eyes are on some of the countrys largest retailers. Testing with some of the largest regional and national companies and retailers is already underway. There are some 200 Reis & Irvys kiosks currently installed nationwide, with some 300 premium locations currently secured and pending installation. Were making sure that location procurement keeps up with the level of kiosk production and delivery expected later this year, and that we have premium locations available for all of our franchisees and our 19 Degrees corporate run units, Yates said. About Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc. Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc., based in San Diego, California, is a publicly traded company on the OTC Markets trading under the symbol OTCBB:VEND. Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc. is parent company to Reis and Irvy's, Inc. and Generation NEXT Vending Robots. About Reis & Irvys, Inc. Reis & Irvys, Inc. is a subsidiary franchise concept of Generation NEXT Franchise Brands, Inc. (VEND). Launched in early 2016, the revolutionary Reis & Irvys Vending Robot serves frozen yogurt, ice cream, sorbets and gelatos, a choice of up to six custom toppings and to customers within 60 seconds or less at the point of sale. The unique franchise opportunity has since established itself as a high-demand product and currently showcases a franchise network both domestically as well as internationally. This information is not an earnings statement and is not intended as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. It is for information purposes only. No Reis & Irvy's franchises will be sold to any resident of any state until the offering has been exempted from the requirements of, or duly registered in and declared effective by, such state and the required FDD (if any) has been delivered to the prospective franchisee before the sale in compliance with applicable law. Currently, the following states in the United States regulate the offer and sale of franchises: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. If you reside in one of these states, or even if you reside elsewhere, you may have certain rights under applicable franchise laws or regulations. This press 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. Forward-looking statements include, among others, statements concerning our future financial performance, including statements regarding: our ability to generate revenue and recognize deferred revenue; our ability to timely launch delivery and installation of our frozen yogurt robots; and our ability to grow our franchising and licensing divisions and launch our corporate-owned and direct sales platforms. The Company bases these forward-looking statements on its current expectations, estimates and projections about future events and the industry in which it operates using information currently available to it. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as "believe," "anticipate," "propose," "expect," "intend," "plan," "will," "may," "estimates," variations of such words and other similar expressions. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2018, our Quarterly Reports, and our Current Reports on Form 8-K. Be advised that developments subsequent to this press release are likely to cause these statements to become outdated and the Company is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. CALGARY, Alberta, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eguana Technologies (TSX.V: EGT) (OTCQB: EGTYF) and CED Greentech Northeast are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the Eguana Evolve residential energy storage system and the Elevate commercial energy storage system through CED Greentech branches located in Wallingford and Danbury Connecticut, Auburn Massachusetts and Long Island New York. The energy and storage space is constantly evolving and that is why it makes sense to work with Eguana Technologies, a proven company that is committed to quickly adapting to the ever changing demands of the industry, said Arthur W. Perri Jr. Director of Sales, Long Island. Product Certification Training sessions are scheduled as follows: Date City Time Location April 16th, 2019 Wallingford, CT 9AM EDT 2 Toelles Rd, Wallingford, CT April 17th 2019 Auburn, MA 9AM EDT 3 Center St, Auburn, MA April 17th 2019 Auburn, MA 1PM EDT 3 Center St, Auburn, MA April 19th 2019 Long Island, NY 10AM EDT 33 Comac Loop, Ronkonkoma, NY Interested parties may RVSP now: Livio Filice Director of Sales, North America Eguana Technologies Livio.Filice@EguanaTech.com +1.905.929.7522 Who Should Attend: Installers and Electricians interested in learning about cost competitive, fully integrated AC Coupled energy storage solutions. After completing this course, you will be authorized to purchase and install the Evolve by Eguana. Training Overview: A product introduction followed by a technical deep dive including the installation of the Evolve hardware including both the PCS (power control system) and battery modules, system commissioning, comprehensive overview of the user interface and installation best practices. Training sessions typically last 3 hours and are best suited for installers looking to offer their customers energy savings from solar and peak shifting with the security of backup power. Learn about the cost competitive, scalable and immediately available Eguana Evolve and Elevate AC Coupled, LG Chem based, battery storage systems by Eguana. Evolve Home Energy Storage Systems Evolve is a fully-integrated residential energy storage system that includes the companys proprietary power electronics system, LG Chem low-voltage battery modules, and a comprehensive user interface. The system is rated at 5KW AC output with a modular battery design based on a 6.5 kWh battery, which is scalable from 13 to 39kWh in storage capacity. The NEMA 3R wall-mounted package is suitable for indoor and outdoor installations. The package is backed by a 10-year standard warranty. The Evolve supports grid-connected solar self-consumption, time of use, and backup power. It is now available in the United States and in Caribbean markets, with certification standards matching UL1741, Californias Rule 21, and Hawaiis Rule 14H. About CED Greentech CED Greentech is a division of Consolidated Electrical Distributors Inc., one of the largest electrical product wholesale distributors in the country. As a full-service wholesale distributor of Solar, Electrical and Renewable energy products, they are committed to providing superior service and support. CED Greentech have an extensive on-site inventory featuring products from the solar and electrical industry's top manufacturers. About Eguana Technologies Inc. Based in Calgary, Alberta Canada, Eguana Technologies (EGT: TSX.V) (OTCQB: EGTYF) designs and manufactures high performance residential and commercial energy storage systems. Eguana has two decades of experience delivering grid edge power electronics for fuel cell, photovoltaic and battery applications, and delivers proven, durable, high quality solutions from its high capacity manufacturing facilities in Europe and North America. With thousands of its proprietary energy storage inverters deployed in the European and North American markets, Eguana is one of the leading suppliers of power controls for solar self-consumption, grid services and demand charge applications at the grid edge. To learn more, visit www.EguanaTech.com or follow us on Twitter @EguanaTech Company Inquiries Justin Holland CEO, Eguana Technologies Inc. +1.416.728.7635 Justin.Holland@EguanaTech.com Forward Looking Information The reader is advised that some of the information herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning assigned by National Instruments 51-102 and other relevant securities legislation. In particular, we include: statements pertaining to the value of our power controls to the energy storage market and statements concerning the use of proceeds and the Company's ability to obtain necessary approvals from the TSX Venture Exchange. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and involves a number of risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or future events or developments, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date hereof. Readers are also directed to the Risk Factors section of the Companys most recent audited Financial Statements which may be found on its website or at sedar.com. The Company does not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained herein to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required under 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. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0061826c-57eb-4220-89be-13445417f5d5 McLean, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- March 18, 2019 Alion Science and Technology (Alion), headquartered in McLean, VA, announced today that Sid Fuchs has been named Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company, reporting to Alion Chairman and CEO, Steve Schorer. In this role, he will be responsible for leading all lines of business and program operations. Alion is a leading national security engineering solutions company, with more than 4,000 employees worldwide delivering innovative engineering, cybersecurity, and technology solutions to the Department of Defense and Intelligence community. Mr. Fuchs, previously the president and CEO of MacAulay-Brown, Inc. (MacB), joined Alions senior leadership team when MacB was acquired by Alion, a Veritas Capital portfolio company, in August 2018. With Sids track record and years of experience as an accomplished leader, business executive, and as MacB President and CEO, Im thrilled to welcome him as COO for the entire Alion organization, said Chairman and CEO Steve Schorer. Following the acquisition of MacB last year, Sid has played a key role in our ongoing integration, reorganization, and infrastructure planning so that Alion emerges even stronger in the GovCon space with a focus on emerging technologies in ISR, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data analytics, and cloud solutions. The transformation of the combined companies into one outstanding enterprise will more than strengthen our ability to provide mission critical services and solutions that our customers have come to expect, said Mr. Fuchs. In my new role as COO, I look forward to working alongside talented and experienced senior leaders at Alion, MacB, and Veritas Capital to take Alion into 2019 and beyond. Mr. Fuchs is an accomplished thought leader, business executive, published author, and National Security authority with more than 30 years of experience transforming engineering and technology companies and organizations. As President, CEO, and a Director of MacB, he led the transformation of the company from a predominantly U.S. Air Force SETA contractor to a high-end engineering, product, and solutions company that resulted in a highly successful exit in 2018. Prior to MacB, Fuchs was the president and CEO of OAO Technology Solutions (acquired in 2010), the CEO and a director of ATS Corporation (acquired in 2012) and the President and CEO of TASC, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary which he led to over $1.2B in revenue. He is a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, having served at domestic and foreign posts in a variety of operations, technical, and management positions. Mr. Fuchs is a graduate of the CIA Special Operations and Training School, as well as the CIA Intelligence Analysis School. He earned his bachelors degree and masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana State University (LSU), and completed executive programs at the University of Virginia Darden School, the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was inducted into the 50th Anniversary Class of the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction in 2016, and the LSU College of Engineering Hall of Distinction in 2012. ABOUT ALION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION At Alion, we combine large company resources with small business responsiveness to design and deliver engineering solutions across six core capability areas. With an 80-year technical heritage and an employee-base comprised of more than 30% veterans, we bridge invention and action to support military readiness from the lab to the battle space. Our engineers, technologists, and program managers bring together an agile engineering methodology and the best tools on the market to deliver mission success faster and at lower costs. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards; as such, Alion is ISO 9001:2015 certified and maintains CMMI Level 3-appraised development facilities. Based just outside of Washington, D.C., we help our clients achieve practical innovations by turning big ideas into real solutions. To learn more, visit www.alionscience.com. ABOUT VERITAS CAPITAL Veritas Capital is a leading private equity firm that invests in companies that provide critical products and services, primarily technology and technology-enabled solutions, to government and commercial customers worldwide, including those operating in the aerospace & defense, healthcare, technology, national security, communications, energy, government services and education industries. Veritas seeks to create value by strategically transforming the companies in which it invests through organic and inorganic means. For more information on Veritas Capital and its current and past investments, visit www.veritascapital.com. ### Attachment DALLAS, TX, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- NaturalShrimp, Inc. (OTCQB: SHMP), which has developed the first commercially viable system for growing shrimp in a Recirculating Aquatic System (RAS), announced today that Gerald Easterling, the Companys president, will be attending the Seafood Expo North America Conference in Boston, Massachusetts starting today. Bill Williams, NaturalShrimps CEO, commented: We are looking to build on the momentum developed at Aquaculture 2019 in New Orleans. We have had a number of inquiries about our system since the Aquaculture conference. We are always looking for opportunities to discuss our patented process to industry professionals and suppliers. Gerald Easterling, President, added: The amount of information that we were able to glean from the New Orleans conference was truly remarkable. I really believe that the deployment of our systems throughout North America and elsewhere will be a total collaboration between ourselves, suppliers, and customers. About NaturalShrimp, Inc. NaturalShrimp, Inc. is a publicly traded AquaTech Company, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with production facilities located near San Antonio, Texas. The Company has developed the first commercially viable system for growing shrimp in enclosed, salt water systems, using patented technology to produce fresh, never frozen, naturally grown shrimp without the use of antibiotics or toxic chemicals. NaturalShrimp systems can be located anywhere in the world to produce gourmet-grade Pacific white shrimp. About F and T Water Solutions, LLC Specialists in waste water treatment providing Electrocoagulation, Solids Management, Desalination and Heavy Metals, Absorbent solutions for use in Aquaculture, Food Processing, O&G Operations, MSW and Landfill Leachate. About Seafood Expo North America 2019 Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America is North Americas largest seafood trade exposition. If you are a professional seafood buyer, you do not want to miss this event. The exposition features over 1,340 exhibiting companies from more than 50 countries. Exhibitors supply nearly every type of fish, seafood, and seafood-related product or service Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements. The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements give the Companys current expectations or forecasts of future events. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that are often difficult to predict and beyond the Companys control, and could cause the Companys results to differ materially from those described. In some cases forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as may, should, potential, continue, expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, estimates, and similar expressions. These statements include statements regarding moving forward with executing the Companys global growth strategy. The statements are based upon current beliefs, expectations and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict. The Company is providing this information as of the date of this press release and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting the financial condition of our business. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved. Important factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to the Risk Factors and other information set forth in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed on February 14, 2019, and in our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. TUCSON, Ariz., March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Connecticut is considering legislation to end the religious exemption for mandated vaccines and to mandate human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines for pre-teens, reports the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). There is a nationwide push to require this vaccine . Rhode Island, Virginia, and District of Columbia currently require it for school attendance. The vaccine is touted as an anti-cancer vaccine because it covers most strains of wart viruses that are implicated in causing cancer of the cervixor cancers of the vulva, throat, or anus. Cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted disease, states AAPS executive director, Jane M. Orient, M.D. HPV is not transmitted by coughing or sneezing or being in class with infected persons. The HPV vaccine does not protect against other, more serious consequences of sexual promiscuity, such as herpes, syphilis, AIDS, gonorrhea, hepatitis, and chlamydia. The last may cause an asymptomatic infection that scars the tubes and destroys fertility. HPV causes unsightly warts that usually clear up on their own. And women still have to get Pap smears or other methods of screening for cervical cancer, even if vaccinated, Dr. Orient stated. Vaccinated women are showing reduced rates of HPV infection and of cervical dysplasia (abnormal, precancerous cells), but in some areas, invasive cervical cancer has actually increased , according to oncologist Gerard Delepine, M.D. Serious events that have followed HPV vaccination include crippling, likely permanent neurological damage and nearly 500 deaths internationally. Mercks Gardasil vaccine costs $570 or more for three doses if paid out of pocket. Many insurers and government health programs pay for it. Legislators need to investigate promoters for conflicts of interest, Dr. Orient suggests. The oft-cited legal precedent for the constitutionality of state vaccine mandates is the 1905 case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. This law was passed during an epidemic of smallpox, an extremely contagious disease with a mortality of about 30 percent. The opinion contained robust cautionary language, calling attention to the potential for arbitrary and oppressive abuse of police power and warning against going far beyond what was reasonably required for the safety of the public . States have disregarded these cautions in vastly expanding mandates, writes Mary Holland of NYU School of Law. AAPS supports the right of patients to make an informed choice about their medical treatment, including vaccines. English French TORONTO, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Students across Ontario are planning campus walk outs to protest the Ford government's plan to defund students' unions and cut $600 million in funding for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). WHO: College and university student students across Ontario. WHEN: Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 12:00PM. WHERE: College and university campuses across Ontario, including: Algoma University Carleton University Fanshawe College George Brown College Ontario College of Art and Design Ryerson University Trent University University of Toronto Mississauga University of Toronto St. George Western University Wilfrid Laurier University York University University of Windsor (Other walk outs may be organized in between now and March 20. For an updated list, see the Facebook event page Walk out - Debrayage des etudiantes et etudiants at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1934474343318023/?ti=cl) WHAT: Students are encouraged to walk out of their classrooms to engage in sit-ins, rallies and other demonstrations to protest the provincial government's plan to defund students unions through the Student Choice Initiative (SCI) and cut over $600 million in OSAP funding. A walk out is a form of protest used by students, workers and communities to send a powerful message. The purpose of a walk out is to demonstrate widespread disapproval or dissatisfaction with decision-makers and disrupt business as usual. This walk out is an escalation of actions undertaken by students across the province since the Ford government announced sweeping reforms to the post-secondary sector on January 17. Student demands Provide more grants not loans Eliminate tuition fees for all students Increase public funding for public education Protect students independent voices Defend the right to organize Quick facts: On January 17, the Ford government announced a ten per cent tuition fee reduction, alongside major cuts to OSAP and the creation of a new ancillary fee framework that will make many student fees optional, including students union membership. In 2018-2019 under the previous OSAP grants program, over 234,000 students accessed grants that covered the full cost of tuition. At a rally hosted by the CFS-Ontario on February 19 at Queens Park, 34 MPPs from the NDP, Liberal and Green parties signed a petition calling for the reversal of Fords plan for post-secondary education and the elimination of tuition fees. Student representatives from the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario met with MPPs as part of the organization's annual Lobby Week from Monday, February 25 to Thursday, February 28, 2019. Despite multiple invitations, neither Premier Doug Ford nor Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Merrilee Fullerton were willing to meet with students. The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario unites over 350,000 college and university students in all regions of the province. For more information: Nour Alideeb, Chairperson, at 416-925-3825 Ian McRae, Government Relations and Policy Coordinator, at 416-925-3825 or 306-852-0128 English French 2018 results Consolidated revenue up 12.4% to 444.1 million EBITA(1): 26.6 million (6.0% of revenue) Free cash flow(2): 43.8 million (9.9% of revenue) Dividend(3): 1.0 per share Paris, 18 March 2019, 5.35 p.m. (CET) At its meeting on 13 March 2019, the Board of Directors of Assystem S.A. (ISIN: FR0000074148 - ASY), a leading player in engineering, reviewed the Groups financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2018. Dominique Louis, Assystems Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated: 2018 was a mixed year for growth and earnings, with a disappointing first half followed by a second half that was satisfactory on both fronts, forming a solid basis for 2019. Aside from this one-off factor, the figures clearly show that weve got our strategic roadmap right for the nuclear business, with robust sales momentum both in France and our international markets. Underpinning this roadmap are our strong technical, execution and innovation capabilities that are widely acknowledged by the markets main participants. Nuclear energy is one of the indisputable solutions to the worlds growing need for carbon-free electricity. Nuclear engineering in which our Group is a benchmark player helps to meet this need, and I am confident in Assystem's performance ability over the short and medium term. Our prospects in the transport engineering sector are also promising, especially in view of the current heavy capital spending to modernise and densify public transport networks. Key figures In millions of euros (m) Audited figures 2017 2018 Year-on-year change Revenue 395.2 444.1 +12.4 % Operating profit before non-recurring items EBITA(1) 26.0 26.6 +2.3 % % of revenue 6.6 % 6.0 % -0.6 pt Consolidated profit for the period 404.6 19.9 - Free cash flow(2) 20.8 43.8 - % of revenue 5.3 % 9.9 % - Net debt/(cash)(4) (23.9 ) 31.1 - Dividend per share (in )(3) 1.00 1.00 - ANALYSIS OF THE 2018 INCOME STATEMENT Revenue Assystems consolidated revenue rose by 12.4% in 2018, breaking down as 6.8% in like-for-like growth, a 7.1% increase due to changes in scope of consolidation and a 1.5% negative currency effect. Like-for-like revenue growth was very robust in the second half of the year compared with second-half 2017, coming in at 12.9%. Revenue generated by the Energy & Infrastructure division advanced 14.7% (7.5% like for like) to 391.3 million. Momentum for Nuclear activities was buoyant over the year as a whole, with revenue jumping 22.1% to 251.0 million (including 17.2% like-for-like growth), led by business in France, the Middle East and Turkey. Revenue for Energy Transition & Infrastructures (ET&I) climbed 3.3% to 140.3 million (but decreased 7.5% like for like). In the second half of 2018, ET&I's revenue rose 4.2% against second-half 2017 on a like-for-like basis, marking a clear upswing compared with the first half of 2018. This period-on-period improvement notably stemmed from Radicons Building Infrastructure activities. At 44.2 million, revenue for the Staffing division was stable year on year as reported and increased 2.4% at constant exchange rates. Industry activities contributed almost half of the division's 2018 revenue figure, posting a 5.6 million rise which largely offset the 6.5 million revenue contraction for Oil & Gas activities. Operating profit before non-recurring items (EBITA) Consolidated EBITA rose 2.3% to 26.6 million in 2018 from 26.0 million in 2017. Overall, 2018 was a very mixed year for EBITA, with a 2.8 million decrease in the first half followed by a 3.4 million increase in the second half versus the same periods of 2017. EBITA margin represented 6.0% of revenue in 2018 (4.3% in the first half and 7.6% in the second half), down by 60 basis points for the full year but up by 30 basis points in the second half. EBITA for the Energy & Infrastructure division amounted to 27.3 million (7.0% of revenue), down 2.1% for the full year (but up 21.4%% in the second half), reflecting: the impact felt in the first six months of the measures undertaken to reorganise Assystem Care, as well as one-off communication costs related to changes in the Groups scope of consolidation; the costs of dissynergies arising due to changes in the scope of consolidation, which shaved an estimated 1.5 million off the division's full-year EBITA figure; management- and innovation-related investments made during the year to support the division's growth, both in France and internationally. Staffing EBITA was more or less unchanged year on year, totalling 1.8 million versus 1.9 million in 2017. At 4.0% of revenue, this divisions EBITA margin remained satisfactory compared with the sector as a whole. The Groups Holding company expenses, net of the EBITA of the activities classified in the Other category, had a 2.5 million negative impact on consolidated EBITA in 2018 versus a 3.8 million negative impact in 2017. Operating profit and other income statement items After taking into account 0.9 million in net non-recurring expense (11.8 million net expense in 2017), consolidated operating profit came to 25.7 million in 2018 compared with 14.2 million in 2017. The contribution to Assystems consolidated profit by Expleo Group (Expleo, formerly Assystem Technologies Groupe) in which Assystem holds a 38.2% interest was 16.8 million before the impact of the non-recurring expenses recorded by Expleo for 2018. This contribution breaks down as 8.5 million for Assystems share of Expleos profit before non-recurring expenses and 8.3 million in coupons on convertible bonds. Assystems share of Expleos non-recurring expenses amounted to 14.7 million, including 4.4 million in acquisition costs (primarily related to SQS) and 10.3 million in costs incurred for adapting and restructuring Expleos operations. Consequently, after the impact of Assystems share of Expleos non-recurring expenses, Expleos contribution to Assystems consolidated profit for the period was 2.1 million (including a 6.2 million loss accounted for by the equity method). Net financial expense and income tax expense came to 1.4 million and 6.2 million respectively. After deducting a 0.3 million loss from discontinued operations (corresponding to the residual costs incurred for the transfer of control of GPS), consolidated profit for the period amounted to 19.9 million, with 0.5 million attributable to non-controlling interests. Information on the revenue and EBITDA(5) generated in 2018 by Expleo Revenue generated by Expleo totalled 1,042.7 million in 2018 compared with 673.6 million in 2017. The 54.8% increase breaks down as 7.7% in like-for-like growth, a 47.5% positive impact from changes in scope of consolidation (chiefly due to the consolidation of SQS since February 2018) and a 0.5% negative currency effect. Expleos EBITDA stood at 99.0 million, representing 9.5% of its consolidated revenue, versus 59.3 million(6) and 8.8% respectively in 2017. FREE CASH FLOW AND NET DEBT For the twelve months ended 31 December 2018, free cash flow for Assystems full scope of consolidation amounted to 43.8 million, corresponding to 9.9% of revenue. This exceptionally high level was achieved thanks to: a significant improvement in DSO in France; the receipt of 3.5 million on overdue invoices in Turkey; the receipt of a 7.5 million down payment on the K.A.CARE contract (although this positive cash impact will reverse in 2019). Assystem had net debt of 31.1 million at 31 December 2018 versus net cash of 23.9 million at 31 December 2017. This 55.0 million swing reflects the following: a 43.8 million positive effect from the free cash flow figure for the year; 60.7 million related to the Groups additional investment in Expleo Group to participate in financing the acquisition of SQS; 4.8 million related to acquisitions of shares and purchased goodwill; a 15.1 million dividend payment to Assystem's shareholders; 6.5 million for share buybacks and other movements in equity; 11.7 million in other movements, including 7.2 million in tax paid on the capital gain generated on the transfer of control of GPS and 3.4 million in costs paid for financial transactions carried out in 2017 (disposal of GPS, share buyback offer and acquisition of Framatome shares). RECOMMENDED DIVIDEND FOR 2018 At the Annual General Meeting to be held on 16 May 2019, Assystem will recommend the payment of a dividend of 1.00 per share for 2018. If this dividend is approved by the shareholders it would represent a total pay-out of 15.0 million(7). OUTLOOK FOR 2019 In 2019, the Group expects to see further very solid like-for-like growth for Nuclear activities, which will be led, as in 2018, by operations in France, as well as by a faster pace of international business thanks to the contracts with K.A.CARE and Rosatom and the ramp-up of activities with the UAE-based operator, ENEC. In view of its strong second-half performance in 2018 and a favourable basis of comparison in the first six months of 2019, ET&I is also expected to deliver robust like-for-like growth in 2019. On a consolidated basis, the Groups targets are as follows for 2019: Approximately 10% growth in consolidated revenue, based on the scope of consolidation at 31 December 2018, with a much higher increase in the first half than the second in view of the bases of comparison with 2018. EBITA margin at least equal to the 2017 figure (which was 6.6% of 2017 consolidated revenue), with a marked rise in EBITA in both absolute value and percentage terms in first-half 2019 compared with first-half 2018. Free cash flow representing more than 6% of revenue for the 24-month period covering fiscal 2018 and 2019 (excluding the impact of the first-time application of IFRS 16 as from 1 January 2019). 2019 FINANCIAL CALENDAR 29 April: First-quarter 2019 revenue release 16 May: Annual General Meeting 30 July: First-half 2019 revenue release 9 September: First-half 2019 results release Presentation meeting on 10 September at 8.30 a.m. (CET) 30 October: Third-quarter 2019 revenue release Assystem is an international engineering group. As a key participant in the industry for over 50 years, the Group supports its clients in managing their capital expenditure throughout their asset life cycles. Assystem S.A. Is listed on Euronext Paris. For more information please visit www.assystem.com / Follow Assystem on Twitter: @Assystem Philippe Chevallier CFO & Deputy CEO Tel.: +33 (0)1 41 25 28 07 Anne-Charlotte Dagorn Communications Director acdagorn@assystem.com Tel.: +33 (0)6 83 03 70 29 Agnes Villeret Investor relations - Komodo agnes.villeret@agence-komodo.com Tel.: +33 (0)6 83 28 04 15 CONTACTS APPENDICES 1/ Revenue and EBITA by division Revenue In millions of euros 2017 2018 Total year-on-year change Like-for-like change* Group 395.2 444.1 +12.4 % +6.8 % Energy & Infrastructure 341.3 391.3 +14.7 % +7.5 % Staffing 45.1 44.2 -2.1 % +2.4 % Other 8.8 8.6 - - * Based on a comparable scope of consolidation and constant exchange rates. EBITA(1) In millions of euros 2017 % of revenue 2018 % of revenue Group 26.0 6.6 % 26.6 6.0 % Energy & Infrastructure 27.9 8.2 % 27.3 7.0 % Staffing 1.9 4.2 % 1.8 4.0 % Holding company and Other (3.8 ) - (2.5 ) - Operating profit before non-recurring items (EBITA) including share of profit of equity-accounted investees (0.9 million in 2017 and 0.8 million in 2018). 2/ Consolidated Financial Statements Consolidated statement of financial position In millions of euros ASSETS 31 Dec. 2017 31 Dec. 2018 Goodwill 81.5 82.8 Intangible assets 1.6 4.7 Property, plant and equipment 6.7 7.6 Investment property 1.4 1.4 Equity-accounted investees 0.7 0.7 Expleo Group shares 64.7 88.1 Expleo Group convertible bonds 63.6 102.2 Expleo Group shares and convertible bonds 128.3 190.3 Other non-current financial assets(1) 128.6 129.1 Deferred tax assets 4.5 4.7 Non-current assets 353.3 421.3 Trade receivables 160.0 150.8 Other receivables 47.5 40.6 Income tax receivables 0.5 1.1 Other current assets 0.5 0.5 Cash and cash equivalents(2) 28.2 32.4 Current assets 236.7 225.4 Total assets 590.0 646.7 EQUITY AND LIABILITIES 31 Dec. 2017 31 Dec. 2018 Share capital 15.7 15.7 Consolidated reserves (28.4 ) 351.6 Profit for the period attributable to owners of the parent 404.1 19.4 Equity attributable to owners of the parent 391.4 386.7 Non-controlling interests 0.3 0.1 Total equity 391.7 386.8 Long-term debt and non-current financial liabilities(2) 3.6 63.1 Pension and other employee benefit obligations 13.7 14.7 Liabilities related to share acquisitions 9.1 4.6 Long-term provisions 16.4 16.6 Other non-current liabilities 1.8 1.3 Non-current liabilities 44.6 100.3 Short-term debt and current financial liabilities(2) 1.0 0.4 Trade payables 32.8 31.0 Due to suppliers of non-current assets 0.2 0.8 Accrued taxes and payroll costs 85.9 89.1 Income tax liabilities 7.2 2.2 Liabilities related to share acquisitions - 1.1 Short-term provisions 8.2 3.7 Other current liabilities 18.4 31.3 Current liabilities 153.7 159.6 TOTAL EQUITY AND LIABILITIES 590.0 646.7 Including Framatome shares amounting to 124.3 million at 31 December 2018 as well as at 31 December 2017. Net debt totalled 31.1 million at 31 December 2018, breaking down as: Short and long-term debt and current and non-current financial liabilities: 63.5 million Cash and cash equivalents: 32.4 million Consolidated income statement In millions of euros 2017 2018 Revenue 395.2 444.1 Payroll costs (277.7 ) (322.0 ) Other operating income and expenses (88.6 ) (91.0 ) Taxes other than on income (0.8 ) (0.9 ) Depreciation, amortisation and provisions for recurring operating items, net (3.0 ) (4.4 ) Operating profit before non-recurring items (EBITA) 25.1 25.8 Share of profit of equity-accounted investees 0.9 0.8 EBITA including share of profit of equity-accounted investees 26.0 26.6 Non-recurring income and expenses (11.8 ) (0.9 ) Operating profit 14.2 25.7 Share of profit/(loss) of Expleo Group(1) 2.3 (6.2 ) Income from Expleo Group convertible bonds 1.5 8.3 Net financial income/(expense) on cash and debt (2.7 ) (1.4 ) Other financial income and expenses 2.8 - Profit from continuing operations before tax 18.1 26.4 Income tax expense (4.8 ) (6.2 ) Profit from continuing operations 13.3 20.2 Profit/(loss) from discontinued operations 391.3 (0.3)(2) Consolidated profit for the period 404.6 19.9 Attributable to: Owners of the parent 404.1 19.4 Non-controlling interests 0.5 0.5 (1) Including, for 2018, (4.4) million for the Groups share of acquisition costs (primarily related to SQS) and (10.3) million in costs incurred for adapting and restructuring Expleos operations, making a total of (14.7) million. (2) Residual costs incurred for the transfer of control of GPS. Consolidated statement of cash flows In millions of euros 2017 2018 EBITA including share of profit of equity-accounted investees 62.6 26.6 Depreciation, amortisation and provisions for recurring operating items, net 7.1 4.4 EBITDA 69.7 31.0 Change in operating working capital requirement (33.2 ) 31.5 Income tax paid (14.0 ) (4.8 ) Other cash flows (4.6 ) (7.4 ) Net cash generated from operating activities 17.9 50.3 O/w related to continuing operations 23.2 51.7 O/w related to discontinued operations (5.3 ) (1.4 ) CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES Acquisitions of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets, net of disposals, o/w: (10.3 ) (7.9 ) Acquisitions of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets (11.0 ) (8.1 ) Proceeds from disposals of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets 0.7 0.2 Free cash flow 7.6 42.4 O/w related to continuing operations 20.8 43.8 O/w related to discontinued operations (13.2 ) (1.4 ) Acquisitions of shares and purchased goodwill (161.7 ) (4.8 ) Sales of shares, net of the reinvestment in Expleo Group in 2017 444.7 - Investment in Expleo Group in 2018 - (60.7 ) Other movements, net(1) - (7.9 ) Net cash generated from (used in) investing activities 272.7 (81.3 ) O/w related to continuing operations (141.8 ) (81.3 ) O/w related to discontinued operations 414.5 - CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES Net financial income received (expenses paid) (3.6 ) (1.1 ) Proceeds from new borrowings 102.9 59.7 Repayments of borrowings and movements in other financial liabilities (200.2 ) (0.1 ) Dividends paid (22.9 ) (15.7 ) Other movements in equity of the parent company (225.1 ) (5.9 ) Net cash generated from (used in) financing activities (348.9 ) 36.9 Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents (58.3 ) 5.9 Net cash and cash equivalents at beginning of year 84.4 27.3 Effect of non-monetary items and changes in exchange rates 1.2 (1.1 ) Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents (58.3 ) 5.9 Net cash and cash equivalents at year-end 27.3 32.1 (1) Other movements, net primarily correspond to a portion of the income tax due on the capital gain recognised in 2017 on the transfer of control of GPS, amounting to 7.2 million. 3/ Changes in net debt/(cash) In millions of euros Net (cash) at 31 Dec. 2017 (23.9 ) Free cash flow from continuing operations (43.8 ) Additional investment in Expleo Group 60.7 Acquisitions of shares and purchased goodwill 4.8 Dividends paid to shareholders of Assystem 15.1 Share buybacks and other movements in equity 6.5 Other movements 11.7 Including 7.2 million in tax on the capital gain generated on the transfer of control of GPS and 3.4 million paid out in expenses on financial transactions carried out in 2017 (disposal of GPS, share buyback offer and acquisition of Framatome shares) Net debt at 31 December 2018 31.1 4/ Information about the Company's capital Number of shares At 31 Dec. 2017 At 31 Dec. 2018 Ordinary shares outstanding 15,668,216 15,668,216 Treasury shares 509,153 667,336 Free shares and performance shares outstanding 253,190 256,380 Weighted average number of shares outstanding 20,910,097 15,089,319 Weighted average number of diluted shares 21,163,287 15,345,699 Ownership structure at 28 February 2019 In % Shares Exercisable voting rights HDL Development(1) 61.34 % 77.40 % Free float(2) 34.40 % 22.60 % Treasury shares 4.26 % - HDL Development is a holding company controlled by Dominique Louis (Assystem's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer), notably through HDL, which itself holds 0.35% of Assystem's capital. Including 0.35% held by HDL. ([1]) Operating profit before non-recurring items (EBITA) including share of profit of equity-accounted investees (0.9 million in 2017 and 0.8 million in 2018). ([2]) Free cash flow from continuing operations. Corresponding to net cash generated from operating activities less capital expenditure, net of disposals. ([3]) For 2018, the figure corresponds to the dividend that will be recommended at the Annual General Meeting. ([4]) Debt less cash and cash equivalents and after taking into account the fair value of hedging instruments. ([5]) EBITA before the net depreciation expense and net additions to provisions for recurring operating items. ([6]) Pro forma data, taking into account the full-year cost of the corporate structure put in place by Expleo to manage a stand-alone group. ([7]) Corresponding to 1.00 multiplied by the 15,000,880 outstanding shares carrying dividend rights at 31 December 2018. Attachment NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is investigating potential claims against NiSource Inc. (NYSE: NI). Our investigation concerns whether NiSource has violated the federal securities laws and/or engaged in other unlawful business practices. Click here to participate in the action. On September 13, 2018, dozens of gas explosions destroyed multiple homes in Andover, North Andover, and Lawrence, Massachusetts, killing one person and injuring more than one dozen. Andovers Fire Chief subsequently announced that investigators suspected over-pressurization of a gas main belonging to Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, a unit of NiSource. On this news, NiSources share price fell over 12%, closing at $24.79 on September 14, 2018. If you purchased or otherwise acquired NiSource shares, have information, would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Brandon Walker or Melissa Fortunato by email at investigations@bespc.com , or telephone at (212) 355-4648, or by filling out this contact form . There is no cost or obligation to you. Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a New York-based law firm concentrating in commercial and securities litigation. For additional information concerning our investigation into NiSource Inc., please go to http://www.bespc.com/ni/. For additional information about Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., please go to www.bespc.com . Contacts Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. Brandon Walker, Esq. Melissa Fortunato, Esq. (212) 355-4648 investigations@bespc.com www.bespc.com 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. We're all too familiar with the stories of rural areas that didn't rebound from the last recession, where families are struggling to make ends meet and prospects for future growth look bleak. But there's a different story emerging across America that offers solutions and hope. It's a story of rural vibrancy, economic opportunity and community resilience catalyzed by a uniquely potent asset: the creative sector.In the Appalachian coalfields of eastern Kentucky, for example, Appalshop fuses technology and art to tell the story of an often overlooked and misunderstood region. The nonprofit's media-production facilities, 150-seat community theater and art gallery pump $1.5 million a year into the economy of a region beset by some of the nation's highest poverty rates.Hundreds of miles away, the Clay Trail, the Fiber Arts Trail and other arts trails crisscrossing New Mexico function not only as living museums of traditions that predate the founding of the United States but also as key economic drivers in a state that, like Kentucky, can seem worlds away from the booming coastal metropolises where arts and culture are taken for granted. Across New Mexico, arts and culture account for $5.6 billion in annual economic activity and one in every 10 jobs.These benefits are replicated across wide swaths of rural America. Governments have partnered with nonprofits, entrepreneurs and artists on projects that enhance local identity and pride, celebrate uniquely American traditions, counteract stereotypes, and strengthen local and regional economies in areas that sometimes are left out of the national conversation.In a new study and action guide , the National Governors Association, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies report that of the $763 billion that the arts and cultural sectors contributed to the nation's gross domestic product in 2015, some $67.5 billion came from states in which 30 percent or more of the population lives in rural areas. Arts and cultural production in rural states employed nearly 628,500 workers that year.The uneven recovery from the Great Recession has spurred a much-needed national conversation about the future of rural areas. Automation, globalization, the opioid epidemic, and inequities in educational systems and infrastructure have left many rural communities in increasingly perilous conditions as many urban and suburban centers have thrived. While the arts are not the answer to all of rural America's woes, our research shows they can be an important component of building regional economies along with pride of place.For instance, Walterboro, S.C.'s Colleton Museum, Farmers Market and Commercial Kitchen is a thriving hub of social, creative and economic opportunities that attracts about 20,000 visitors a year to a community of 5,500 residents. The kitchen alone employs 50 people. They are among about 115,000 South Carolinians who work in arts-related occupations, and the economic output generated by this sector in the state has been estimated at more than $9.7 billion a year.While artists and entrepreneurs bring tremendous creative and marketing assets to the table, our research shows that federal, state and local governments also have important roles to play. Georgia is among states that have invested in efforts to quantify the overall economic impact of the arts, which can inform decisions on grants, tax incentives and other policies to stimulate the creative sector. Ohio budgeted $30 million in 2016 on projects to build and renovate spaces for arts and culture, with the dual benefit of spurring growth in the creative sector and giving new life to abandoned warehouses and other properties. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's administration awards state tax credits to donors to nonprofit organizations, including museums and theaters, that yield economic benefits in rural enterprise zones.The National Governors Association and our partners evaluated and recommended strategies for nurturing the growth of creative economies in rural areas as part of our commitment to working across state and party lines to provide information-sharing and policy guidance that makes a positive difference to states and their residents. Our new guide spotlights and celebrates the efforts of individual states and communities while providing a broader policy framework for replicating their successes.Just as Alaska's Native communities differ from the towns that dot the Mississippi River Delta, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for leveraging the unique creative assets of rural communities to reinforce regional identity and enhance economic opportunities. Distant from the urban centers that define highbrow and popular culture to many, the towns and hamlets that make up most of the country's landmass are defying stereotypes, putting people to work and contributing in myriad ways to our uniquely American story. SPEED READ: The CDC has confirmed 228 cases of measles, a preventable and once-eradicated disease, across 12 states. Legislators have so far filed more than 130 vaccine-related bills in over 30 states this year -- a number so high that the current record of 184 could be broken . The bills include pro-vaccine legislation that would make it harder to get exemptions from vaccine requirements and anti-vaccine legislation that would make it easier. Anti-Vaccine Bills Neither Expand nonmedical exemptions Require doctors to disclose risks Both types of legislation Pro-Vaccine Bills With measles outbreaks spreading across the country, 2019 is on track to be the busiest year yet for vaccine legislation in the states.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed 228 measles cases across 12 states this month. Clark County, Wash., has had 71 cases alone -- more than half of them children under the age of 10.State lawmakers historically shy away from legislating immunizations, but with the return of once-eradicated diseases, bills making it harder, and easier, for parents to not vaccinate their kids have made a comeback of their own.According to the pro-exemption National Vaccine Information Center, legislators have filed more than 130 vaccine-related bills in over 30 states this year -- a number so high that the current record of 184 could be broken in the coming months, the group told Politico From 2011 to 2017, the number of bills to change vaccine exemptions steadily rose, according to the American Journal of Public Health . In 2011, only 15 vaccine exemption bills were introduced -- that number jumped to 40 in 2017. A little more than half -- 53 percent -- were anti-vaccination bills proposing to expand access to exemptions.Only three states -- California, Mississippi and West Virginia -- dont allow any vaccine exemptions. Eighteen states allow people to be exempt from immunization requirements for both personal and religious reasons. The rest only allow one of those reasons.Neal Goldstein, assistant research professor at Drexel University and co-author of thestudy, attributes the uptick in legislation to the increase in outbreaks. As a result, he says, "constituents are becoming more aware that its something that is legislated."Furthermore, anti-vaccine lobbying groups are "very aggressive and very well-funded," says Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. They include Texans for Vaccine Choice, Colorado Health Choice Alliance and Informed Choice Washington.But despite their lobbying, no state has passed a bill loosening exemptions since 2003. Experts say it's too soon to know whether that could change this year.There is no debate in the scientific community about the efficacy of vaccines and their vital role in disease prevention. So why are anti-vaccination bills still getting introduced?The overwhelming majority of Americans get vaccinated and support vaccinations. But those that choose not to are more vocal and tend to catch the ear of their legislators, says Goldstein.The majority of anti-vaccine bills filed in statehouses are to make exemptions easier to obtain. This year, seven states are currently weighing such legislation -- up from four states in 2018, according to information provided toby the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.Nine states are considering "informed consent"bills that would require doctors to disclose the possible risks of vaccines -- up from six in 2018. The CDC insists that vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Potential side effects are minor, last only a few days and range from fever to joint stiffness.Arizona has been a hotbed of anti-vaccination legislation this year.The state currently has a personal belief exemption but is considering bills that would add a religious exemption. Also on the table is an informed consent proposal and legislation that would require doctors to offer an "antibody titer" test to show parents whether their child is already immune from a disease. Those tests, however, are not always accurate, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, however, said he would veto any anti-vaccine legislation.This comes on the heels of last year when the state cancelled a voluntary educational program on vaccines after outcry from the anti-vaccination community. The program offered parents who submitted a nonmedical exemption an online tutorial on the scientific benefits of vaccines.Nearby Texas is currently weighing a bill, H.B. 1490, that would remove the state's authority to track the number of vaccine exemptions. Goldstein says this is a fairly new tactic being pushed by anti-vaccine groups and lawmakers.Though anti-vaccination groups are vocal, there is also a flurry of activity in states to tighten vaccine requirements.Six states are weighing bills to remove nonmedical exemptions.In Vermont, lawmakers could make theirs the fourth state with no exemptions. They're considering a bill that would remove the religious exemption after the state outlawed personal belief exemptions several years ago.Washington state is poised to pass a bill that would remove personal (but not religious) exemptions for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. It was introduced by the lawmaker who represents Clark County -- the epicenter of the measles outbreak. It passed the House and is on its way to the Senate. John Wiesman, the state's health secretary is cautiously optimistic it will get sent to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee's desk, and the governor -- a 2020 candidate for president -- has voiced support for the policy.In New York, lawmakers are considering bills to remove nonmedical exemptions and to let teenagers who are 14 years or older get vaccinated without their parents' permission. The impetus for the latter bill was likely the Congressional testimony from 18-year-old Ethan Lindenberger, an Ohio teen who made headlines across the country when he talked about getting vaccinated against the wishes of his mother, who believed false information she read on the internet about vaccines.Washington Health Secretary Wiesman testified alongside Lindenberger, calling for a national campaign to debunk anti-vaccine rhetoric on social media. In the meantime, he says he hopes state and local health officials can pick up the slack on misinformation in their community.There are a small number of people who will always refuse vaccines, and we have to counter their information," he told. "Theres also a generation of kids who grew up with the idea that vaccines could cause autism who havent been vaccinated, like Ethan. There are a lot of Ethans out there; how can we reach them? We havent done a great job about that, and thats on us. Jennifer Millar keeps trash bags and hand sanitizer near her tent, and she regularly pours water mixed with hydrogen peroxide on the sidewalk nearby. Keeping herself and the patch of concrete she calls home clean is a top priority.But this homeless encampment off a Hollywood freeway ramp is often littered with needles and trash, and soaked in urine. Rats occasionally scamper through, and Millar fears the consequences.I worry about all those diseases, said Millar, 43, who said she has been homeless most of her life.Infectious diseases some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals in downtown streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that rodents had invaded the building.People in Washington state have been infected with Shigella bacteria, which is spread through feces and causes the diarrheal disease shigellosis, as well as Bartonella quintana, which spreads through body lice and causes trench fever.Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio and Kentucky, primarily among people who are homeless or use drugs.Public health officials and politicians are using terms like disaster and public health crisis to describe the outbreaks, and they warn that these diseases can easily jump beyond the homeless population.Our homeless crisis is increasingly becoming a public health crisis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech in February, citing outbreaks of hepatitis A in San Diego County, syphilis in Sonoma County and typhus in Los Angeles County.Typhus, he said. A medieval disease. In California. In 2019.The diseases have flared as the nations homeless population has grown in the past two years: About 553,000 people were homeless at the end of 2018, and nearly one-quarter of homeless people live in California.The diseases spread quickly and widely among people living outside or in shelters, fueled by sidewalks contaminated with human feces, crowded living conditions, weakened immune systems and limited access to health care.The hygiene situation is just horrendous for people living on the streets, said Dr. Glenn Lopez, a physician with St. Johns Well Child & Family Center, who treats homeless patients in Los Angeles County. It becomes just like a Third World environment where their human feces contaminate the areas where they are eating and sleeping.Those infectious diseases are not limited to homeless populations, Lopez warned. Even someone who believes they are protected from these infections are not.At least one Los Angeles city staffer said she contracted typhus in City Hall last fall. And San Diego County officials warned in 2017 that diners at a well-known restaurant were at risk of hepatitis A.There were 167 cases of typhus from Jan. 1, 2018, through Feb. 1 of this year, up from 125 in 2013 and 13 in 2008, according to the California Public Health Department.Typhus is a bacterial infection that can cause a high fever, stomach pain and chills but can be treated with antibiotics. Outbreaks are more common in overcrowded and trash-filled areas that attract rats.The recent typhus outbreak began last fall, when health officials reported clusters of the flea-borne disease in downtown Los Angeles and Compton. They also have occurred in Pasadena, where the problems are likely due to people feeding stray cats carrying fleas.Last month, the county announced another outbreak in downtown Los Angeles that infected nine people, six of whom were homeless. After city workers said they saw rodent droppings in City Hall, Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson briefly shut down his office to rip up the rugs, and he also called for an investigation and more cleaning.Hepatitis A is caused by a virus usually transmitted when people come in contact with feces of infected people. Most people recover on their own, but the disease can be very serious for those with underlying liver conditions. There were 948 cases of hepatitis A in 2017 and 178 in 2018 and 2019, the state public health department said. Twenty-one people have died as a result of the 2017-18 outbreak.The infections around the country are not a surprise, given the lack of attention to housing and health care for the homeless and the dearth of bathrooms and places to wash hands, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the health officer for Seattle and King County, Wash.Its a public health disaster, he said.In his area, Duchin said, he has seen shigellosis, trench fever and skin infections among homeless populations.In New York City, where more of the homeless population lives in shelters rather than on the streets, there have not been the same outbreaks of hepatitis A and typhus, said Dr. Kelly Doran, an emergency medicine physician and assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine. But Doran said different infections occur in shelters, including tuberculosis, a disease that spreads through the air and typically infects the lungs.The diseases sometimes get the medieval moniker because people in that era lived in squalid conditions without clean water or sewage treatment, said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA.People living on the streets or in homeless shelters are vulnerable to such outbreaks because their weakened immune systems are worsened by stress, malnutrition and sleep deprivation. Many also have mental illness and substance abuse disorders, which can make it harder for them to stay healthy or get health care.One recent February afternoon, Saban Community Clinic physician assistant Negeen Farmand walked through homeless encampments in Hollywood carrying a backpack with medical supplies. She stopped to talk to a man sweeping the sidewalks. He said he sees everything and anything in the gutters and hopes he doesnt get sick.She introduced herself to a few others and asked if they had any health issues that needed checking. When she saw Millar, Farmand checked her blood pressure, asked about her asthma and urged her to come see a doctor for treatment of her hepatitis C, a viral infection spread through contaminated blood that can lead to serious liver damage.To get these people to come into a clinic is a big thing, she said. A lot of them are distrustful of the health care system.On another day, 53-year-old Karen Mitchell waited to get treated for a persistent cough by St. Johns Well Child & Family Centers mobile health clinic. She also needed a tuberculosis test, as required by the shelter where she was living in Bellflower, Calif.Mitchell, who said she developed alcoholism after a career in pharmaceutical sales, said she has contracted pneumonia from germs from other shelter residents. Everyone is always sick, no matter what precautions they take.During the hepatitis A outbreak, public health officials administered widespread vaccinations, cleaned the streets with bleach and water and installed hand-washing stations and portable toilets near high concentrations of homeless people.But health officials and homeless advocates said more needs to be done, including helping people access medical and behavioral health care and affordable housing.It really is unconscionable, said Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, a policy and advocacy organization. These are all preventable diseases. Mayor Bill de Blasio surprised many in the citys political class two years ago when he broadened his push to address income inequality by promising to create 100,000 jobs in 10 years that would pay $50,000 or more per year.We have to drive up incomes, Mr. de Blasio said during his State of the City address that year at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. That means actually helping people to get the kind of jobs that allow you to afford to live in New York City good-paying jobs.More than two years later, its unclear exactly how many of those good-paying jobs have been created because the city has not been keeping track.Officials from the Economic Development Corporation, the agency charged with delivering upon the mayors plan, called New York Works, say it is impractical for the city to track specific jobs created, in documents reviewed by The New York Times.We know why those jobs get created and what the specific relationship is to our investment, Mr. de Blasio said on Sunday after speaking to a group in Concord, New Hampshire where he is considering a run for president.Its something we have to do by projection but we believe the projections are clear and effective, the mayor added. Qualifying Conditions A Racial Lens? A Diverse Industry Natalie Jones Bonner, a 58-year-old entrepreneur in Biloxi, Mississippi, who has used cannabis to reduce inflammation in her knees and wrists, wanted her fellow Mississippians to experience the drugs medical and economic benefits. So she volunteered to collect signatures for a ballot initiative to legalize its medical use.But the Navy veteran, who is black, was disheartened to discover that the campaign included few African-Americans. Mississippi is 38 percent black the highest percentage in the nation but four white people were leading the campaign. And people of color made up less than a third of the 70 people on the steering committee.Minorities have been largely absent from the push for medical cannabis across the South. Following the lead of Arkansas and Florida, white male conservative lawmakers are spearheading legalization drives in Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee.Black legalization advocates such as Jones Bonner fear the lack of minority involvement could have far-reaching consequences.We have to work together, Jones Bonner said. I would love to see a browning of the [ballot] initiative.Medical cannabis laws typically lay out the conditions for which the drug may be prescribed. But the laws in Arkansas and Florida the only Southern states that have legalized medical cannabis dont cover sickle cell disease, which causes acute pain and disproportionately affects African-Americans. The bills advancing in Tennessee and Kentucky also exclude that condition.Three states that have legalized medical but not recreational cannabis Connecticut, Ohio and Pennsylvania allow sickle cell disease patients to use it.In other regions of the United States, state lawmakers and advocates pushing to legalize cannabis are starting to focus on racial equity and discrimination in the criminal justice system.In blue states such as California and Massachusetts, lawmakers view legalization as an opportunity to reinvest in minority communities disproportionately harmed by decades of the set of policies known as the war on drugs.Not so in the South, where efforts to lessen punishments for cannabis possession current or past havent gained much traction in Republican-dominated statehouses.Black legalization advocates also fear that even if medical cannabis becomes legal, white politicians wont regulate licensing and permitting in a way that ensures equitable opportunities for people of color.Without that, itll be more of the same, said Dr. Felecia Dawson, a board-certified physician who closed her Georgia-based OB-GYN practice to focus on advocating for medical cannabis. Legislators will keep people of color ... from the benefits of cannabis.Nationally, research suggests that medical marijuana use is more common among whites with high incomes, perhaps in part because of the long history of racial disparity in drug enforcement.That discrimination persists: In New York City, for example, a recent New York Times investigation found that black people were arrested on low-level marijuana charges at eight times the rate of non-Hispanic whites.Despite their role in popularizing cannabis use, minorities are the founders or leaders of only a fraction of businesses in the legal cannabis industry.Cannabis is medicine it should be available to all, Jones Bonner said. Because theres going to be economic benefit to states, that benefit should be spread to all constituents of a state regardless of color. There will be bars and boundaries to exclude people of color.Marijuana possession for any reason was illegal in the South often with stiff consequences until the early 2010s. Then came the 2013 Cole Memorandum, a U.S. Department of Justice document that advised prosecutors to back off enforcing federal anti-marijuana laws in states that had legalized the drug.Recognizing the drugs potential to help patients with conditions that are difficult to treat, Southern advocates started lobbying their elected officials for products such as cannabidiol oil that are low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and dont make users high.The drug offered hope for parents whose children had severe seizures, and for soldiers seeking a reprieve from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Conservative lawmakers once opposed to cannabis consumption on moral grounds began to reconsider their beliefs.Everyones got a grandmother or cousin or friend whos benefited from medical [marijuana], said former Georgia state Rep. Allen Peake, the Macon Republican who led the fight to legalize possession of CBD oil, a cannabis extract that doesnt make users high. People now see its not the huge earthquake they anticipated. The sky didnt fall.Every Southern state by 2016 had legalized the treatment of a limited number of conditions using CBD oil. As public support increased, so did lawmakers willingness to expand the list of eligible conditions.But some conditions that affect minority populations at higher rates than white ones such as sickle cell disease, which affects 73 in 1,000 African-Americans at birth compared with 3 whites, according to federal estimates are not included in proposals currently making their way through several Southern statehouses.In a 2017 hearing co-hosted by the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission, following a ballot initiative that had legalized medical cannabis, advocates wore Diversity for All T-shirts to emphasize the drugs importance to minority residents.We know that such diseases as hypertension, sickle cell, neuropathy and so on are more predominant in blacks, Casey Caldwell, a black cannabis advocate, said at the hearing.It is safe to say that African-American communities would benefit the most, she added. In the past, pharmaceutical drugs have been priced so high that [we] have to make a decision whether or not they should eat or whether they should purchase medication.Those concerns echoed what Dee Dawkins-Haigler, a former Democratic Georgia representative who headed the states Black Caucus, said in 2015 about the initial absence of black people among the states 17 appointees to the Commission on Medical Cannabis. The Black Caucus eventually fought to get sickle cell disease added to the list of conditions eligible for CBD oil.Had the caucus not fought for sickle cell, Dawkins-Haigler told reporters, it would not have been included.Peake, who is white, dismisses the idea that race was an issue in determining the covered conditions. Cancer doesnt discriminate if youre black [or] white, he said. I dont have a concern about that at all.From Georgia to Tennessee, Southerners of all backgrounds have faced criminal charges after possessing pot used to treat pain. Jaime Montalvo, a Louisville, Kentucky, resident with multiple sclerosis, said cannabis worked so well for his pain that he could ride bikes with his son without taking opioids. He started growing it for his personal use.Then one day in 2011, a bank robbery occurred in his community, leading authorities past his house. A drug-sniffing dog caught the scent of his cannabis. After getting arrested and temporarily losing custody of his son, Montalvo went on to found Kentuckians for Medicinal Marijuana, and has since lobbied for legislative changes.The racial [equity] aspect of it talking about getting people [convicted for drug-related crimes] out of jail has not come up at this time, said Montalvo, who identifies as Hispanic. To tell you the truth, it might hurt the medical legislation.Kentucky is one of at least six Southern states where lawmakers are pushing measures to decriminalize small amounts of cannabis. But Montalvo doesnt believe that Republican lawmakers are interested in advancing a Kentucky bill that would make possession of up to an ounce a fineable offense instead of a misdemeanor.Similar measures in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee have yet to receive a hearing.Theres a reticence to move on this issue in a lot of Southern states, said Georgia state Sen. Harold Jones, an Augusta Democrat and a member of the Black Caucus. Can it be from a racial lens? Its a possibility.The demonization of drug use and the response through criminal punishment thats harder to back off of, he adds. That hasnt just been a Republican issue that goes back to Democrats and a drug war going on for 40 years.As Southern states inch toward legalization, minority cannabis advocates hope that states will also adopt licensing and permitting programs that promote equity within their states emerging industries.In 2017, a Marijuana Business Daily poll of nearly 600 cannabis industry professionals found that 81 percent were white. To diversify the growing industry, California cities such as Oakland have created what are known as cannabis equity programs to provide business development, loan assistance and mentorships for minority and low-income entrepreneurs. Some of those cities, including Oakland, have a set number of permits for people of color.Those kinds of policies have yet to arrive in the South.In Arkansas, minority license applicant Mildred Barnes Griggs filed a complaint over the lack of racial diversity among the states permitted medical cannabis growers.In Florida, black farmers initially cried foul at being shut out of the states multibillion-dollar cannabis trade over policies that required license holders to have operated for 30 straight years.According to Roz McCarthy, founder of the Florida-based advocacy group Minorities for Medical Marijuana, the states law lacked the teeth needed to ensure that medical cannabis license holders adhered to requirements to ensure diversity in hiring.A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health said that state law does not require medical marijuana treatment centers to report the race or ethnicity of its owners.McCarthy said, Were trying to push lawmakers to understand that they have the ability and the power to ensure exclusionary practices dont happen. Barriers are there. But the opportunity to reduce barriers is also there.After black U.S. Navy veteran Kiah Tolliver returned stateside, following deployment in Afghanistan in 2012 and 2013, she was plagued by PTSD-related anxiety. Only cannabis helped, and the Charlotte, North Carolina, resident used it despite the Department of Veterans Affairs drug-testing policy, which put her medical benefits at risk.Following that choice, Tolliver and her husband not only started a cannabis-tracking software business, but also launched a local chapter of Minorities for Medical Marijuana.If you legalize medical marijuana, and continue to criminalize nonmedical marijuana, thats the highest form of injustice, Tolliver said. Everybody knows somebody whos been affected by the war on drugs, she said, referring to communities of color. I think, a lot of times, [that] is why thats not on the agenda.For the agenda to shift, Tolliver and her husband, Sean, have slowly pushed their way toward the front lines of North Carolinas medical cannabis fight.Hoping to avoid the mistakes made by Florida and Arkansas, theyve recruited other minority supporters of a cannabis caucus recently launched by state Rep. Kelly Alexander, a Charlotte Democrat who hopes to file a legalization bill this session.Im hoping we wont face that same exclusion, Tolliver said. Its easy to forget people who arent at the table, so were pushing for a seat. The Connecticut Supreme Court Thursday narrowly reversed a ruling by a lower court judge dismissing a lawsuit by the families of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting against Remington Arms Company, allowing the case to proceed.In a 4-3 decision the court remanded the landmark gun case back to Bridgeport Superior Court and possibly created a path that other mass shooting victims can follow to get around the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, known as PLCAA, which has protected the manufacturers of the AR-15 assault rifle from lawsuits.The ruling paves the way for the families to subpoena internal documents on how the gun companies have marketed the AR-15, which has become the weapon of choice for mass shooters. The gun manufacturers have closely guarded information on how they market the assault weapons."There is a reason why this particular consumer product is the one that is used by people who want to inflict the most damage and we have seen it time and time again since my son and his classmates were killed," said David Wheeler, whose son Ben was killed in the Sandy Hook attack. "That reason very likely potentially resides in the documents that we have been unable to look at until now."Family members spoke during an afternoon press conference at their lawyer's office in Bridgeport."This is another step in trying to figure out what went on inside Remington. Let's see the internal documents and emails of what they told their salesmen," said William Sherlach, whose wife Mary was a school psychologist at Sandy Hook Elementary School before she died in the attack. "They thought they were sheltered from everything but not here in Connecticut."Josh Koskoff, lawyer for the families, said the court rejected the gun industry's "bid for complete immunity, not only from the consequences of their reckless conduct but also from the truth-seeking discovery process." All along, he said Remington's goal has been to expand the AR-15 market by courting "high-risk users.""What this decision says is no one is above the law even a gun company that is powerful or a gun industry that is politically connected and even in face of statutory protection the gun industry isn't above the law," Koskoff said Thursday afternoon. "This is a day of reckoning in board rooms of gun companies across the country."In the 4-3 decision, justices Richard N. Palmer, Andrew J. McDonald, Raheem L. Mullins and Maria Araujo Kahn sided with the majority. Justices Richard A. Robinson, Christine S. Vertefeuille and Nina F. Elgo dissented. Elgo is an appellate court judge who participated in the case.The court ruled that the Sandy Hook families should have the opportunity to prove that Remington violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) by marketing what it knew was a weapon designed for military use to civilians such as Nancy and Adam Lanza.Adam Lanza used the AR-15 to kill 26 people, including 20 first graders, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012."We further conclude that PLCAA does not bar the plaintiffs from proceeding on the single, limited theory that the defendants violated CUTPA by marketing the XM15- E2S to civilians for criminal purposes, and that those wrongful marketing tactics caused or contributed to the Sandy Hook massacre," Justice Palmer wrote in the majority decision. "Accordingly, on the basis of that limited theory, we conclude that the plaintiffs have pleaded allegations sufficient to survive a motion to strike and are entitled to have the opportunity to prove their wrongful marketing allegations,'A Superior Court judge in Bridgeport dismissed the lawsuit in 2016 agreeing with attorneys for Remington that the lawsuit "falls squarely within the broad immunity" provided to gun manufacturers and dealers by the arms act. The lawsuit originally filed in 2015 by nine families of victims, as well as a teacher who was injured in the shooting, also named Camfour Holding LLP, the gun's distributor, and Riverview Gun Sales Inc., the East Windsor gun shop where Nancy Lanza purchased the AR-15 right around her son's 18th birthday.The justices ruled while Judge Barbara Bellis was correct in dismissing the lawsuit based on PLCAA, she was incorrect not to let the case proceed on the CUTPA allegations."Following a scrupulous review of the text and legislative history of [the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act] we also conclude that Congress has not clearly manifested an intent to extinguish the traditional authority of our legislature and our courts to protect the people of Connecticut from the pernicious practices alleged in the present case. The regulation of advertising that threatens the public's health, safety, and morals has long been considered a core exercise of the states' police powers." Palmer wrote.Adam Lanza was 20 years old on Dec. 14, 2012, when he killed his mother in their Newtown home, shot his way into the elementary school he had attended and went on a killing spree inside two classrooms with a Bushmaster AR-15, before killing himself with a handgun.U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the decision "a 'wow' moment in American legal history.""It breaks open the seemingly impenetrable shield -- unjust and unfair -- enjoyed uniquely by the arms manufacturers. It holds them responsible, as every other industry is, for injury and death that they cause."Blumenthal predicted the Sandy Hook case could have a similar outcome to the 46-state lawsuit he helped lead as Connecticut attorney general against the tobacco industry. Damaging revelations about cigarette companies learned during the discovery phase of the case helped drive a $246 billion settlement"Once we were in court and could pursue discovery, so many secrets were revealed that were so embarrassing and critical to the industry it was compelled to settle the case," he said. "There are a lot of secrets in this industry's file that now potentially could come to the fore."Remington officials have not commented on the ruling. But legal experts said it would be surprising if the company didn't appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court."The Sandy Hook families have blown a very big hole in the federal immunity law that protects gun manufacturers because every state in the country has their own consumer protection laws," Georgia State Law Professor Timothy Lytton said. Lytton has written a book on the difficulty of suing gun companies."The U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to decide what the phrase 'applicable to the sale of an item' means in the federal statutes," Lytton said. "The Connecticut Supreme Court has crafted a fairly narrow and strategic way for this to go forward by determining that a general state consumer law counts as applicable under PLCAA and the high court must decide whether to close that loophole or let it remain open."Legal experts said the case will come down to how the state Supreme Court will interpret two possible exceptions allowed under the arms act -- whether Remington can be held liable for so-called "negligent entrustment" or whether it violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. Negligent entrustment is defined as "supplying of a qualified product by a seller for use by another person when the seller knows, or reasonably should know, the person to whom the product is supplied is likely to, and does, use the product in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical injury to the person or others."When the lawsuit reached the Connecticut Supreme Court, gun control advocates, school officials and emergency doctors who treated victims of assault rifle fire submitted amicus briefs in favor of the lawsuit. Gun-rights organizations also weighed in, including the National Rifle Association, which argued that the case stood to "eviscerate" the gun companies' legal protections.Koskoff appealed the lower court's dismissal and sought to have the high court return the case to Superior Court in Bridgeport so "the discovery phase of this case can begin and we can start uncovering documents on how this military weapon ended up in civilian hands."There were five justices seated for the Supreme Court hearing, which took place in November 2017. Justice Kahn and Justice Robinson, both newly appointed, weren't present for the hearing but were involved in the court's decision. State Supreme Court hearings normally last an hour but justices had so many questions for Koskoff that Justice Palmer extended the hearing to allow equal time for Remington's attorney James B. Vogts and for a rebuttal by Koskoff.Vogts and attorney Christopher Renzulli, who represents Camfour, stuck to the argument that they have used since the lawsuit was filed -- PLCAA protects them from this type of lawsuit. Vogts argued the law is clear -- the manufacturer of the gun used at Sandy Hook is not liable for the damage "the criminal" caused."There is no need for a legal re-examination of the law," Vogts said. "Under the law, the manufacturer of the gun used by the criminal that day isn't responsible legally for his actions." AUSTIN, TEXAS Technology companies, while financially powerful and influential in the way society progresses, do not, of course, operate in a vacuum.In fact, given their size and influence on local companies, whether they intend to or not, large tech companies have significant social impact. Earlier this week at South by Southwest, a panel consisting of participants from varied backgrounds discussed tech and social impact, touching on everything from the way their decisions influence communities to how they can be more inclusive in the years to come.The panel was dubbed The Future of Tech and Social Impact, and it was part of a days worth of programming called "The Future Of ___," in which the various participants filled in that blank. It was held in downtown Austin at the offices of the tech education and entrepreneurship entity Galvanize, with the panelists seated in front of a wide window that gave the audience a view of Austins viscerally modern downtown, in which the vast majority of major buildings are less than two decades old.Perhaps the most notable line of conversation had to do with Amazon and the recent saga in which the company invited communities across the country to apply to be the home for its second headquarters, before accepting the New York City borough of Queens and then ultimately pulling out in the wake of community backlash.Panelist Lindsay Clinton, a senior vice president with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, said that her colleagues worked in tandem with Empire State Development, a group that operates at the state level. Clinton said New York City had been working to attract a major tech company since the economic recession in 2008, hoping to diversity the major pillars of its economy past just finances and real estate.Ultimately, the community reaction to the social impact a second headquarters may have had is what undid bringing Amazon to Queens.We saw it as a really big opportunity to diversify our tech workforce, Clinton said. In many ways, it was a lost opportunity, and I do think Amazon could have done a lot more in terms of the process, in terms of engaging the community. The challenge was that it was a completely secretive process.Clinton said that shes found it fascinating that the vast majority of conversations during the interactive weekend of SXSW seemed focused on how to best sell more stuff to more people, with nary a mention of making sure these companies are rooted in ethics, morality or purpose.But there are a number of other campaigns, programs and initiatives in New York City, Clinton said, designed to foster tech presence there with a healthy social impact. These include growing the cybersecurity ecosystem to encourage related companies to start up there. To do that, stakeholders are working with universities to train the workforce in cybersecurity, teaching them not just to code but how to be advocates for themselves and what they do.There was a sense of agreement at the panel that better skills training could ensure that the social impact of tech in communities was not lost jobs, but rather an increase in jobs for folks who already live in a given area.Nate Robinson, the assistant vice president of the University of Texas at El Paso and formerly an engineer with Motorola and NASA, said that in his capacity, hes involved with local K-12 education programs that focus on teaching storytelling, on helping kids to sell themselves as they fight to remain adaptable.Ashley Phillips, the managing director for the co-working entity Impact Hub Austin, stressed the importance of communication, noting that young people needed to grow up envisioning careers in technology.People know what it looks like to be a nurse, she said, ... but kids dont play data engineer. We dont know how to play that, we dont know how to dream it. Stanford Computational Policy Lab Released Data on Millions of U.S. Traffic Stops Three Takeaways from Open Data Day 2019 San Antonio, Texas, Passes New Cross-Agency Data-Sharing Agreement U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has introduced legislation called the Digital Service Act, which would state and local government agencies federal support for investing in tech and modernization efforts.Another facet of the legislation is that it would also boost the United States Digital Service (USDS), a federal agency that helps improve how government uses technology. If it comes to pass, the Digital Service Act would direct $50 million of funding to the USDS, plus $15 million to seed grants for state and local government digital services. Those grants would require that 50 percent of the money be spent on hiring talent rather than procuring technology. Grantees would also have to report their results at the end of the two-year period, and the USDS would be required to report to Congress on the grants bi-annually.In a press release announcing the legislation , Harris received support from Code for America a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that supports the government's use of tech to better serve citizens and the Center for Democracy and Technology, another nonprofit that promotes democracy and associated values by shaping policy with a focus on individuals.Americans deserve a government that works for them and that just plain works, Harris said in the press release. We must do more to empower our state and local governments to tap into the power of technology to provide seamless, cost-effective services for the 21st century. The Digital Service Act will help harness top talent for the government, save taxpayer dollars, and put the power of technology to work on behalf of the American people.Earlier this year, Harris declared that she would seek the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In that context, it should be noted that this is perhaps the most high-profile move of any candidate in the race as it pertains to state and local governments using technology. While government technology has not traditionally been an issue that has interested national voters, its potential for efficiency and tangible change may catch the attention of an electorate this year among demographics that have shown increased interest in government.The Stanford Computational Policy Lab, which uses tech to tackle issues related to criminal justice among other things, has released the results of a five-year effort to collect data on hundreds of millions of traffic stops in the United States.These datasets are now available for interested parties such as the media, elected officials and, of course, civic technologists. In addition to the actual data sets, the researchers have also released an analysis of racial disparities within the stops. The project, dubbed the Stanford Open Policing Project , looked at nearly 100 million traffic stops that took place between 2011 and 2017 among 21 state agencies, including those in some of the most populous states in the country states like California, Illinois, New York and Texas. The study also looked at data from 29 police departments at the municipal level, including major jurisdictions such as San Francisco, Philadelphia and New Orleans.On a typical day in the United States, police officers make more than 50,000 traffic stops, researchers wrote on the projects website. Our team is gathering, analyzing, and releasing records from millions of traffic stops by law enforcement agencies across the country. Our goal is to help researchers, journalists and policymakers investigate and improve interactions between police and the public.As the site also notes, before this research effort there was no comprehensive national repository of data that detailed interactions between law enforcement officers and the public. The site enables relatively easy exploration of the results, aided by tutorials. The analysis code also used by researchers can be found on the site.Finally, the developers noted that this is more of a beginning than an end. Well be regularly updating the repository, they wrote, and were collecting more information every day.Open Data Day 2019 has come and gone, and now some of those at the forefront of the nations civic tech efforts have shared lessons from this years event.In a medium post appropriately titled Three Takeaways from Open Data Day 2019 , Code for America Developer Tom Dooner laid out some of the key lessons he noticed in the context of this years events.Open Data Day is essentially a time in which civic tech groups, government innovation outfits and others in the space host community events aimed at promoting open data. Dooners piece starts out by noting there are now 73 Code for America brigades which are localized civic tech groups spread throughout the country working together to solve shared community challenges.By learning about events in Tampa, San Francisco, Charlotte and other locales, Dooner noted that the three clearest lessons that emerged were: everyone can learn from big cities, open data is thriving and community is key.The first point is one often bandied about in government tech spaces, as many note that the size of cities make them into nigh perfect use cases for agile tech work. That work, if successful, can then be replicated elsewhere, be it in other jurisdictions or at the state and federal levels.If NYC has the resources to try many different prototypes, Dooner wrote, keeping up with what they most successfully accomplish might help you advocate for your smaller jurisdiction to do the same.As far as the point about open data thriving, Dooner noted that the brigades are by and large, shifting to focus on delivery-driven government, but that at the same time open data remains a cornerstone of their efforts. Finally, Dooner wrote about the importance of strong civic tech communities that can pull people with new skill sets into the fold.While all of these points cited concrete examples of things Dooner noticed in 2019, at this point in civic techs lifespan those three things could also be looked at as pillars for the work moving forward.San Antonio has passed a new enterprise agreement to streamline and share data across city departments.Craig Hopkins, the citys chief information officer, announced the agreement at the recent 20-20 Cities meeting in San Antonio, which was organized by Cities Today. The departments involved are housing, transportation, water, electricity, the river authority and Bexar County. The individual groups wont give up rights to their data, but they will have simpler channels to store it in places where it can be accessed by participants.The agreement contains processes for handling and sharing the data that allows privacy protections and other security measures to remain in place. Hopkins also noted that this model could potentially be used in other cities, even those that dont have direct oversight of all agencies and utilities. (TNS) Saugus High School is celebrating girl power.The school earned the first College Board Advanced Placement Computer Science Female Diversity Award for achieving high female representation in Computer Science courses.Schools receiving the award have either 50 percent or higher female representation in one of the two AP computer science courses, or a percentage of the female computer science examinees meeting or exceeding that of the school's female population."We are honored to be recognized by the College Board for this achievement and extremely proud of our female students for their achievements in the study of computer science," said Saugus High School Principal Michael Hashem. "At Saugus High we are committed to encouraging our female students to pursue their interests in the (Science Technology Engineering and Math) STEM fields and in such courses as AP Computer Science."The school is 685 out of more than 18,000 secondary schools worldwide that offer AP courses to accomplish this. Only 490 schools earned the AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award for the AP Computer Science Principles course.The AP Computer Science Principles course launched in 2016 was the largest in program history and the course has promoted the growth of AP computer science in high schools, according to a statement from the College Board.AP computer science course participation increased 135 percent since 2016, broadening STEM career opportunities for more students. The number of female, rural, and underrepresented minority students taking AP computer science exams has more than doubled in that time."By inviting many more young women to advanced computer science classrooms, Saugus High School has taken a significant step toward preparing all students for the widest range of 21st-century opportunities," said Trevor Packer, College Board senior vice president of the AP Program. "We hope this inspires many other high schools to engage more female students in AP Computer Science and prepare them to drive innovation."Providing female students with access to computer science courses contributes to gender parity in the industry's high-paying jobs and drives innovation, creativity, and competition, said Packer.Less than 30 percent of the world's researchers are women, according to UNESCO's Institute of Statistics data. In North America and Western Europe, it's just 32 percent. Research shows women are more likely to pursue computer science if they're given the opportunity to explore it in high school. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) A beaked whale was found dead on the shores of Compostela Valley. The cause of death: dehydration and starvation due to plastic ingestion. Marine biologist and environmentalist Darrell Blatchley said the male Cuvier's Beaked Whale was vomiting blood before it died in Mabini, Compostela Valley on March 15. The president and founder of D' Bone Collector Museum, a natural history museum in Davao, said they performed a necropsy on the whale where they made a "disgusting" discovery. "I was not prepared for the amount of plastic. 40 kilos roughly of rice sacks, grocery bags, banana plantation bags, and general plastic bags. Sixteen rice sacks total. It was so big, the plastic was beginning calcification," he told CNN Philippines on Saturday. He said whales do not drink water from the ocean and they get fresh water from the food they eat, causing the whale to die of dehydration and starvation. "This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. It's disgusting," he said in a Facebook post. He called on the Philippine government and Filipinos to take action against the widespread use of single-use plastics. "The Philippine people are a proud people, sadly it's not in being clean or taking care of the environment. In the last 10 years we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins, of which 57 have died due to fishing nets, dynamite fishing, and plastic garbage. Four were pregnant. This cannot continue. The Philippines needs to change from the children up or nothing will be left," Blatchley said. (TNS) Whitefish philanthropists Michael and Jamie Goguen have given Code Girls United a boost with a $50,000 donation.The donation will support Code Girls United, a free program through which fourth- through eighth-grade girls learn coding and programming. Members meet weekly after school, learning the basics of computer science and designing, coding and testing apps in conjunction with developing business plans as part of a service project. The girls also participate in competitions from the local to international level.The generous donation from Michael and Jamie Goguen helps us all to build community connections that empower us, said Code Girls United leader Marianne Smith.Code Girls United has evolved from its start in 2016 and has changed its name a couple of times, landing on one that establishes that all girls are welcome, whether they live in the Flathead Valley or not. Smith said members have come as far as Big Arm and with an increase in membership, the group also changed its location from Russell Elementary to a computer lab at Flathead Valley Community College.The vision of the nonprofit is to motivate girls to explore and create through coding at an early age. The hope is that they will continue pursuing technology and business throughout their education and consider it as a career, according to Smith.Code Girls United puts the power of business and computing in the hands of these young girls. You might say we help young girls code their own future, Smith said.Code Girls United will host the first Northwest Regional App Challenge May 11-12 at Flathead Valley Community College. Participants will present and demonstrate their final product to judges in a science fair-style format. Registration for the free two-day event is open to fourth- through eighth-graders from Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming and Canada. Scholarships will be awarded to first-, second- and third-place teams $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000, respectively.An upcoming fundraiser is scheduled March 19 at Flathead Lake Brewing Co., 116 Holt Drive in Bigfork, with a portion of drink sale proceeds going to Code Girls United.For more information on Code Girls United, or to register for the Northwest Regional App Challenge, visit www.codegirlsunited.org or contact Smith via email at Marianne.Smith.CGU@gmail.com. Mohammed Al Rawi, the award-winning chief information officer for the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation District, is moving to a new role.Al Rawi will become the first CIO of the county Public Defenders Office on March 25, overseeing the strategic planning, development, modernization and ongoing analysis of IT, IT governance, data management and the Client Case Management System (CCMS), according to Rebecca Friedman, Media Services director for Information Technology Services in the countys Internal Services Department.Al Rawi will lead the development and the implementation of technology infrastructure supporting the departments 1,100-employee workforce, which includes more than 700 attorneys and numerous paralegals, investigators, psychiatric social workers and administrative and support staff.In a statement issued through Friedman, Al Rawi said: The Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office is the first Public Defender agency in the nation. Innovation, therefore, is a part of its DNA. I am looking forward to bringing innovative technologies to support its 700 mission-driven attorneys with providing legal representation to those who cannot afford their own lawyers. Al Rawi was named one ofs 2018 Top 25 Doers, Dreamers, & Drivers , honoring his work in bringing innovative solutions to digitize and automate business processes and solve complex, life-saving business challenges, Friedman noted.In his two years as Parks and Rec CIO, Al Rawi worked to update and upgrade the IT infrastructure of Los Angeles Countys parks, trails, forests and other facilities. Among other things, he brought in technology that helps lifeguards detect and prevent drownings in the countys swimming pools ; and other tech that uses Wi-Fi in county parks and forests to attract and safeguard hikers and adventure-seekers.Before joining Parks and Rec in 2016, Al Rawi led establishment of the countys first consolidated, robust and cost-efficient data center while serving as deputy for technology and innovation for County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.Before joining the county, Al Rawi was technical director for thenews bureau in Baghdad, overseeing IT operations for dozens of journalists covering the Iraq war and its aftermath. In 2006, Al Rawi was awarded the Best Staff Editorial Awards.Al Rawi earned his bachelors degree in computer science summa cum laude from California State University, Los Angeles. (TNS) The Erie County Prison in Pennsylvania could soon have a new way to keep contraband from getting behind bars.County officials are looking to purchase a $95,000 full-body scanner to more effectively search inmates entering the prison.The walk-through scanner would allow prison staff to detect contraband, such as drugs, that may be hidden on a person's body or in a body cavity. Erie County Prison Warden Kevin Sutter said inmates regularly try to bring heroin, marijuana, pills, needles and other drugs into the prison."Some of these items have been detected in body cavities and weren't able to be detected during a physical strip search," Sutter said in an email. "The utilization of the scanner detects these items even if hidden in the body cavity."Erie County Council's finance committee will review the request Thursday in advance of County Council's Tuesday meeting.The county put out a request for proposals and received responses from two vendors, according to documents included with the finance committee's agenda.Nuctech US Inc. submitted the lowest bid, at $95,000, and offered a machine that fit the county's needs, said Gary Lee, Erie County's director of administration."We thought it would be best to invest in the latest technology that can help us reduce contraband coming into the prison," Lee said. "We're viewing this as a positive investment to really improve the security at the prison for staff and inmates."Lee said using body scanners to search inmates is a growing trend in correctional facilities. One reason the county gave for the purchase is that the Erie County Prison is the only facility of its size in Pennsylvania without a body scanner.Like an airport body scanner, the device quickly provides a head-to-toe inspection of an individual without touching his or her body. The scanner can identify contraband such as weapons, cell phones and narcotics that might have been hidden under clothing, ingested or hidden in body cavities, according to Nuctech specifications.Inmates will go through the scanner during intake and whenever they return from a transport outside the prison, Sutter said. He said there are no plans to use the scanner on visitors to the prison at this time.The device will reduce the need to send inmates to the hospital for an X-ray to detect hidden contraband, Sutter said."I will never say that there will never be another overdose or death at this prison due to the obvious environment as a whole," Sutter said. "However this capability of early detection will lower that probability by allowing us to detect any contraband, drugs, weapons, etc., that an inmate may be trying to bring into the jail and allow us to resolve the issue before the inmate reaches general population." LORD Corporation plans to expand operations at its Huckelhoven, Germany facility with an investment of 14 million. This expansion project will position LORD to provide optimal support to the fast-growing electric vehicle (EV) market, especially in Germany and all over Europe. We have a strong focus on the electric vehicle market and the trend toward electrification. Currently LORD solutions are on nearly every vehicle in the world. This strategic investment in our Huckelhoven facility will further grow our presence in the EV market while supporting OEMs and enabling them to meet launch timelines. Ed Auslander, President and CEO, LORD Corporation Seventy employees currently work at LORDs Huckelhoven facility, which has been in operation since 1987. More than 20 additional jobs are anticipated as a result of this expansion. Construction began in March 2019. The new adjacent facility, which will add about 3,200 square meters of production and office space to the existing Huckelhoven facility, is expected to be complete and operating by mid-2020. Gap fillers, potting and encapsulants, and thermal adhesives sold under LORDs CoolTherm brand name will be produced in Huckelhovenall in support of the companys Thermal Management business and formulated to help reduce heat build-up in electronic components. GREENWICH With a loud booming voice, Greenwich Police Officer Tom Huestis posed an invitation to the world on Tuesday morning: got a question for a cop? Several dozen curious people took him up on his offer, and chatted with numerous police officers and supervisors who made themselves available for casual conversation. They also availed themselves of a free cup of coffee. As part of its community outreach program, Greenwich police met with the public at the Starbucks Coffee shop at the Riverside Commons, its fifth such event. People asked about parking tickets, seat belts, marksmanship and learned what its like to be a police officer from the men and women in uniform themselves. Anytime we have an honest and open dialogue with people, its a success, said Officer Justin Rivera. Officer Alex Testani said it was good for the public to meet police officers in person, and it also helped police make a connection to the residents they serve. A number of residents said it was a valuable experience. Theres tension with law enforcement these days, and this puts a friendly face on the people who are just doing their jobs, said James J. Muskus. Ann Murray, who is taking part in the Citizens Police Academy, a program that takes local residents behind the scenes of police work, said the effort to get outside patrol cars and into the public realm was a great idea. Community outreach is important, and this is a great way to interact with the community, she said. Inocencio Palacios of Stamford said he was appreciative of the work that police put in and welcomed the opportunity to talk with local cops. It can be dangerous, and they work hard, he said. Palacios said there was some fear in the Hispanic community about law enforcement. It doesnt have to be that way, he said. We need better communications. Officers who are bilingual in Spanish and English were also on hand to talk to anyone who wanted to communicate in Spanish. While the Greenwich police officers put in an unusually busy spell recently, with three armed robberies and other significant law-enforcement matters clustered in a one-week time-frame, officers said the coffee-shop crowd didnt ask much about the latest incidents. There was more discussion about regular police work. Starbucks is partnering with the Coffee with a Cop meetings at future events. A Starbucks manager, Nikkie Coetzee, said 100 similar meet-ups are being planned around the country at Starbucks locations. Coetzee said the recent event in Riverside looked like a good example of how the program can work. Great turn-out, great participation with the police, she said. rmarchant@greenwichtime.com Top Democrats are asking the FBI to unseal documents regarding a donor to President Donald Trump who is the founder and onetime owner of a spa that has been implicated in a human trafficking ring. In a letter to the FBI, Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence panels wrote that reports about Li Yang raise serious counterintelligence concerns. According to reports, the Democrats say Yang created a business that may be selling access to President Donald Trump and members of his family to clients from China. Last month, Yang posted a photo of herself with a smiling Trump on her Facebook page. The photo was taken at a Super Bowl watch party inside Trump's country club in West Palm Beach. Nineteen days later, New England Patriots owner and Trump friend Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution. Kraft was charged in late February and has pleaded not guilty. Jupiter police said Kraft visited the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter twice. Yang founded the spa more than a decade ago and her family sold it around 2013. The Miami Herald last week published a photo of Yang with Trump at the Super Bowl party and reported on the link between Yang and the spa where Kraft was charged. Yang has not been charged or even named in the investigation. An FBI spokesperson said the agency has no comment on the letter. Yang, a former owner of the spa, wasn't charged in a multiagency anti-human-trafficking operation that resulted in 25 arrests, including Kraft's, and shut down 10 Asian day spas in South Florida last month. None of the spas is registered to Yang or her family. DERBY Should Connecticut bring back tolls? That question and more will be discussed during a public informational forum scheduled for 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the aldermanic chambers at City Hall, 1 Elizabeth St. Parking is available at both City Hall and the municipal parking garage. State Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, and state Rep, Laura Devlin, R-Fairfield, ranking members of the state Legislatures Transportation committee, are inviting the public to attend the forum, which will be hosted by local lawmakers, Republican House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, state Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-Seymour, and state Sen. George Logan, R-Ansonia. and state Rep, Laura Devlin, ranking members of the state Legislatures Transportation committee, are inviting the public to attend the forum, which will be hosted by local lawmakers, Republican House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, state Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria and state Sen. George Logan. The forum is geared to give the public a chance to voice any concerns, have their questions answered about proposals on the table to potentially bring tolls back to Connecticut and to hear possible alternatives to tolls. Klarides encouraged the public to attend. Come and listen to the real story on tolls, she said. They are not the only option for the state of Connecticut. There are other ways to fund transportation. The state continues to take money out of your pocket any way they can: tolls, payroll taxes, raising of sales tax on your prescription and non prescription drugs.... the list goes on. Gov. Ned Lamont has proposed putting an electronic tolling system on all of the states major highways: Interstates 84, 91 and 95 and Route 15 to bring in needed revenue to fix the states roads. A proposal calls for installing about 53 overhead tolling gantries on some 330 miles of roadway. According to a recent story by the Associated Press https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Hundreds-turn-out-to-speak-out-on-highway-tolls-13667447.php Lamont said toll revenue is necessary to fix the states transportation system. He campaigned on establishing tolls for only big trucks. But in his budget proposal, Lamont offered two options, calling for imposing tolls on trucks only or on all vehicles. Lamont estimates a toll on all vehicles could generate $800 million annually, as opposed to truck-only tolls generating about $200 million a year. Start-up costs to install the tolling system would cost about $213 million. If approved by the Legislature, tolling could begin in 2023, but the proposal would also require federal approval. jean.sos@snet.net Today Oppo formally introduced the latest version of its smartphone platform - Color OS 6. It is already shipping with the Realme 3, Oppo F11, and Oppo F11 Pro, but finally the company gathered up partners and media representatives to celebrate the user interface. It is based on a lighter color scheme, brings some performance enhancement features and an app drawer. The new design brings simplistic white background with subtle gradients for a clean and practical visual experience, according to the official website. There are less lines, refreshed icons, new gestures and improved animations, which would be great, if you are into this type of OS customization. Boosting performance is wrapped under the total slogan of Hyper Boost. It consists System Boost, App Boost, and Game Boost. There is also Game Assistant that prevents calls and notifications from bothering you during your game sessions, and screen recording for all your Twitch fans. Color OS 6 features Game Space is another feature that allows you to personalize the gaming experience. It brings Smart Dual Channel Network that uses Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity simultaneously so the connection does not drop when its switching due to unreliable connection. Color OS 6 screenshots Riding Mode is just like any other Auto Mode, but is marketed at countries which use mostly mopeds for transportation. It will be available only in South-East Asian markets and will mute notifications, text back to decline calls and avoid any type of distractions. Color OS 6 is already running on Realme 3 Since Color OS 6 is based on Android Pie, there are new navigation gestures, improved notification bar and redesigned Smart Assistant, accessible with a left swipe from the home screen. Since now everything is about AI, the System Smart Management monitors processes and intelligently stops background apps that arent frequently used to preserve the battery. Source | Via Haiti - New York : The Consul Gandy Thomas asks the help of the Jewish Orthodox Chamber of Commerce On March 14, in order to help solve the economic crisis in Haiti, the Consul General of Haiti in New York, Gandy Thomas, went to 44 Wall Street, to ask Duvi Honig, Founder and CEO of the Jewish Orthodox Chamber of Commerce, to help him create international awareness to stimulate the economy in Haiti. At the meeting Gandy Thomas said "Haiti has always been a friend of Israel and that Haiti helped to form the state of Israel for the Jewish people and now, he is asking the Jewish state to be there for Haiti in its moment of crisis [...] Now is the time that Haiti must be empowered, and we need the help of the Jewish community and the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of commerce to create awareness and be there for us." Recalling that the Government and people of Haiti have supported the Orthodox Chamber of Commerce since its inception and continue to rely on it to bring value. "Haiti is not asking for a hand-out [...] Humanitarian help will not solve the problems of Haiti. Haiti is asking for philanthropy and for the establishment of structures that can create jobs." Duvi Honig, said "It is the business of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce to show that 70 years later, the Jewish community can show interest to a country that stood for us, President Honig said, and we will continue to demonstrate the benefits of effective partnerships in empowering and building relations with countries like Haiti." President Duvi Honig also discussed trade alliances with the Haitian community of the Diaspora and Haiti. SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Bocchit Edmond in Qatar discusses investment Sunday Bocchit Edmond was in Doha, Qatar to respond to an invitation from his colleague, HE Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs to evaluate bilateral cooperation and discuss investment issues, bilateral relations ways to support and develop them, as well as issues of common interest. Winair will extend flights to Haiti Starting April 15, the airline Winair will extend its service from Curacao to destinations in the Dominican Republic (3 flights per week) and Haiti (2 flights per week), with the possibility to connect from Aruba and Bonaire. Winair will serve Aruba every day and will operate Bonaire five times. The new service will offer passengers from Aruba and Bonaire the opportunity to travel to Curacao in the morning and return to the island in the afternoon. Canada : 2 million for food insecurity Canada has $2.2 million to help Haiti deal with the problem of food insecurity, says accredited Ambassador Andre Frenette in Haiti. Signing of a MoU The Haitian-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIHC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNDP-Haiti. This protocol aims to support the private sector in its approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to support it in its contribution to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Haiti's apparel sector on the rise Haiti's garment sector continues to grow, with exports totaling $ 926 million in 2018, up 7.69% from 2017, reports the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) Free screening of the movie Pieds nus dans laube Tuesday, March 19 at 7:00 pm, as part of the Fortnight of La Francophonie, the Canadian Embassy, in partnership with the Institut Francais in Haiti, invites you to attend the screening of the movie "Pieds nus dans laube" free of charge. from Quebec director Francis Leclerc. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - FLASH : Haiti has no more Government ! This Monday morning the Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant decided to go to the Senate of the Republic for his interpellation session, around 11:30 am at the Senate level there were only 13 senators present... While in the lower house everything was organized, 104 Deputies were present at 1:00 pm for the interpellation session of the Prime Minister. The agenda of the session was adopted by 88 deputies, 12 against and 4 abstentions. Without the presence of Prime Minister Ceant, the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies announced the continuation of the interpellation of the government. "The results of the session will be communicated to him," said Deputy Gary Bodeau. Prime Minister Jean Henry Ceant and his government have just been dismissed by the Chamber of Deputies. Result of the vote : 93 votes for, 6 against and 3 abstentions. A letter will be sent to the President of the Republic for the appointment of another Prime Minister. "The Government of Jean Henry Ceant received a motion of censure from the Chamber of Deputies with 93 votes in favor, 6 against and 3 abstentions," announced the Chamber of Deputies at 1:10 pm. In the absence of a quorum in the Senate on Monday morning, Jean-Henry Ceant could not benefit from 6 months of stay, by a vote of confidence. Now a Presidential decree must appoint an interim Prime Minister, because Jean Henry Ceant can not even liquidate current affairs. HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2019/03/17 | Source The unseen cuts of the short-form drama "Farming Academy" were released. Advertisement "Farming Academy" is a short-form drama about Han Byeol (Yoon Bo-mi), a sweet potato plantation farm girl who joins the Korea National College of Agriculture and Fisheries, and feels the love for farming and meeting new friends. The poster of "Farming Academy" was taken in a greenhouse, which is also the main setting of the drama. The four characters in the drama show brightness and youth. The filming of the drama required long trips back and forth rural areas, and the cast bonded through teamwork. The unseen cuts show them taking selfies when not filming, and joking around with each other. On the other hand, when the 'action' sign is given, they are sincere about their work. Meanwhile, the first and second episodes of "Farming Academy" will be released on the 30th, while the third and the fourth will be released on the 6th of April on SBS Moby Dick. Published on 2019/03/17 | Source Seungri of boy band Big Bang arrives at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency for questioning on Thursday. Renegades across Korea are frantically deleting their chat histories after misogynistic comments and surreptitiously filmed sex tapes in a celebrity group chat came to light when one K-pop star took his phone in for repairs. Advertisement But just deleting text and video files from a smartphone does not mean the data cannot in theory be retrieved by savvy technicians. Experts say the easiest way to clean up embarrassing or incriminating material is to reset the phone to factory settings, though that of course also erases everything else except the apps the phone came with in the first place. The same goes for USB devices. The National Intelligence Service and other government agencies recommend complete formatting at least three times for devices containing confidential information. Another method is to use a special app that deletes data by storing irregular data on top of another. Major conglomerates make senior executives replace their mobile phones once a year due to security concerns. Some businesses change the smartphones of key executives every few months if they handle sensitive information. One HR manager at a major conglomerate said, "Company smartphones used by executives are retrieved and reset to factory settings and then donated to the needy". Those who are afraid of exposing private information should make sure not to sync their smartphone with other devices and keep their saved data out of the cloud. Data will be shared through accounts like as Google or Naver even if they are deleted on the phone itself. One executive at a conglomerate said, "Executives who handle sensitive information do not sync their smartphones with Google or other services and use only the bare minimum of functions like you might find on a 2G mobile phone". Experts also recommend contingency plans in case the phone is lost. Complex passwords can help, as can fingerprint or iris recognition programs, though smart technicians have been known to hack through them. Remote-control functions are also available to delete data if you lose your smartphone. One of the oldest traditions on the Hi-Line returned to Harlem this weekend as agriculture, art and more took center stage at the Montana Seed Show Thursday through Saturday at Harlem High School. For 70 years, the event has drawn participants and attendees from the far corners of Montana to share in the culture of rural living. Seed Show chairman Paul Rasmussen said the event has evolved dramatically since 1949 when it was a humble congregation of local potato growers, and that the show features a more diverse array of events than ever before. From old standards like wool, quilt and seed competitions to newer additions such as guest speakers and a health fair, the Montana Seed Show offered a bit of everything and drew a steady crowd all weekend. Check back later this week for a full story and video about the 70th Annual Montana Seed Show. INDIANAPOLISA cutting-edge blood test discovered by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers could help more accurately diagnose military veterans and other people experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, and potentially provide more precise treatments and prevention. A study led by psychiatry professor Alexander Niculescu, MD, PhD, and published this week in the high-impact SpringerNature journal Molecular Psychiatry, tracked more than 250 veterans in over 600 visits at the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis to identify molecules in the blood that can help track stress intensity. The researchers used a careful four-step approach of discovery, prioritization, validation and testing. According to Niculescus findings, the blood test can accurately identify people who are at risk of stress disorders or are experiencing them severely. PTSD is a disorder that affects a lot of veterans, especially those involved in combat. They deserve our gratitude and the very best care, and we are making every effort to deliver that. Its also an underappreciated and underdiagnosed disorder among the civilian population, whether it be the result of abuse, rape, violence or accidents said Niculescu, who worked with other Department of Psychiatry and VA researchers on the study, as well as collaborators at The Scripps Research Institute and University of California Irvine. Countless people are underdiagnosed with stress disorders, which may manifest themselves by drinking more, other addictions, suicide or violence. Our research has broader relevance for not just veterans but the general public. The decade-long study looked at the expression of genes in the blood, starting with the entire genome, which has over 20,000 genes. Over the course of multiple visits, researchers tested participants in both low- and high-stress statestheir blood analyzed for detectable changes in expression of genes between those two different states that could serve as biological markers (biomarkers) for stress. Researchers were able to narrow the studys focus down to 285 individual biomarkers (related to 269 genes) that can objectively help diagnose patients with PTSD, as well as determine the severity of their stress and predict future hospitalizations. They also compared these biomarkers with other well-known markers of stress and aging, such as telomer length. The biomarker signature helped identify new potential medications and natural substances to treat stress disorders that could be paired in a personalized way with individuals. There are similar tests like this in other fields, like cancer, where a physician can biopsy the affected part of the body to determine the stage of disease. But when it comes to mental health, biopsying the brain isnt an option, Niculescu said Our research is applying similar concepts from other areas of medicine, but were engineering new ways that will allow us to track mental symptoms objectively, including stress, using blood, or so-called liquid biopsies. Much like with his recent breakthrough in developing a blood test to measure pain, and his past work on suicide, Niculescu said this research could be life-changing for individuals who have been exposed to or are about to enter high-stress environments. Such biomarkers will allow doctors to classify people in terms of their current severity or risk for future stress disorders, which can guide career choices as well as treatment options. Additionally, the biomarkers could measure response to treatment in an objective, quantifiable manner. Untreated pain and stress can lead to suicide, thats how we became interested in these disorders, and decided to move upstream and see if we can better understand, treat and prevent them, Niculescu said. We think that one of the key uses of our research would be to test people before they have symptoms of an illness to see whos at risk and possibly treat them early. Its much better to prevent things for the person, and for the health care system, than to treat somebody who is in an acute crisis. With this study, Niculescu said the ultimate goal is preventionpairing the ability to better predict those predisposed to PTSD with a more targeted approach to medicating those suffering from its affects. Its preventive medicine done in a precise way, which aligns with the IU Precision Health Initiative launched in 2016. We want to prevent the needless tragedy and suffering in peoples lives. By understanding in a biological way a patients illnesses and their mental health challenges, we could treat what they have better, preventing future episodes, Niculescu said. I have an excellent team and group of collaborators, and we are excited to partner with other groups of experts and people who can carry this forward. There is a lot of good work being done in the field right now. The study was supported by an NIH Directors New Innovator Award and a VA Merit Award. Moving forward, Niculescus group looks to secure more funding through grants and private donations, as well collaborate with other institutions and organizations to advance these studieswith the hope that ultimately the cutting-edge tests developed at IU School of Medicine be implemented in clinical settings. If you treat a medical disorder in general, you improve someones quality of life; sometimes you save lives. But if you treat a mental health disorder, you can change somebodys destiny, said Niculescu, who is also a practicing psychiatrist at the VA and Indiana University Health. You can help change someone from being a person who suffers, is unhappy, is unemployedmaybe goes down the route of addiction, violence or suicideto somebody who can become a happy, well adjusted, productive member of society. Thats the challenge and the privilegewe can really change peoples destinies if we do our job. Other investigators involved in the study were Helen Le-Niculescu, PhD, Kyle Roseberry, Daniel Levey, Jordan Rogers, Kaitlyn Kosary, Shashi Prabha, Tammy Jones, Seth Judd, Morgan McCormick, MD, Ann Wessel, Andrea Williams, Peter Phalen, Firoza Mamdani, Adolfo Sequeira and Sunil Kurian. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Number IDP20D007363 and VA Merit Award 2I01CX000139. The content is solely the responsibility of Indiana University School of Medicine and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the VA. IU School of Medicine Cooper to visit Asheville to honor craft beer Gov. Roy Cooper will visit Highland Brewing Co. in Asheville on Thursday to proclaim April as NC Beer Month, marking the 7th anniversary of the N.C. Beer Month celebration. Co-sponsored by the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild and Visit North Carolina, NC Beer Month encourages residents and travelers alike to explore a wide range of special craft beer oriented events, showcasing the industrys world-class products and hospitality. Visit NCBeerMonth.com between now and the end of April to tap into celebrations from the mountains to the coast. Cooper will join Highland Brewing president Leah Wong Ashburn and Rich Greene, executive director of the NC Craft Brewers Guild, to make the proclamation at 3 p.m. at the brewery, 12 Old Charlotte Highway in Asheville. The proclamation honors of North Carolinas 300-plus craft breweries and their positive impact on the states economy, A SECOND World War Spitfire built in Henley and flown by a pilot who took part in the Great Escape is to be restored. The plane, which was assembled at RAF Henley, was discovered on a mountainside in Norway in November, more than 70 years after it was shot down. It was largely intact. The find was made by Spitfire historian and restorer Tony Hoskins near the city of Trondheim after months of research. Mr Hoskins, an engineer who runs Spitfire AA810 Restoration, now plans to rebuild the aircraft so that it could be back in the air by early 2023. Mr Hoskins, from Sussex, grew up in Didcot and used to visit the airfield at RAF Benson as a child. This early love of aviation led him into a career of plane restoration and when he heard that Spitfire AA810 was missing he set out to recover it. The aircraft was one of more than 500 which were assembled near Henley during the conflict. They were built at Vincents Garage in Reading before being moved to the top-secret Vickers hangar at RAF Henley, off Culham Lane, between Remenham and Wargrave. The Spitfires were used for reconnaissance missions to photograph enemy troops, ships and bases and they were stripped of weapons and armour to accommodate extra fuel tanks. As other factories were destroyed or put out of action, parts began to be transported to Henley at night. These were assembled and the plane test flown there before moving on to airfields like Benson. Mr Hoskins said: Henley was a very important site in aviation heritage. Its still there but there is only one pillbox on the field to recognise what it was. The planes built in Henley had an expected lifespan of just 14 weeks as many were shot down by the Germans. They were usually destroyed upon hitting the ground. Spitfire AA810 had taken off from Wick in Scotland shortly after 8am on March 5, 1942. After it crashed the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Alastair Gunn, was captured. Mr Hoskins, who began his search in 2017, found there were no internet records of any Spitfire being found in Norway. Then he came across a mention of parts having been discovered by members of a microlight club near the town of Surnadal in 2002. He said: The club went bust in 2015 and it was a bit of a struggle to talk to people in the area, which has very small, localised communities. I fired off an email to a nearby gun club, who forwarded it to a local councillor whose relative had been in the microlight club. He was a really helpful guy who said he found bits on a hill and the rest was still up there. The community was fantastic. They knew about the crash and that the pilot had come down into the town. There were people in their eighties and nineties who remembered the crash and we managed to piece it together. More parts of the plane were found in June and then the crash site was discovered. Mr Hoskins flew out with a team of 10 people who excavated dozens of parts, which they had to carry for miles into Surnadal. He said: It took us about four days in total. We had people from the town, army guys and historians. We were having to take service roads up into the mountains, walk three or four miles and carry the whole aeroplane off the hill. The parts were gathered in the town hall with locals adding their own pieces that they had discovered over the years. One piece had been used to repair a motorbike. Mr Hoskins said: We had a lot of interest from the locals and when we laid the aeroplane out in the town hall about 70 people turned up. It was a good community project. There is now a memorial plaque on the wall and they are making the crash site a point of interest on their walking network. The remains of the Spitfire were returned to the UK to be reassembled along with parts from other Spitfires to make a working model. Mr Hoskins said: A reasonable amount of it will go again. Although the plane crashed from a height and was on fire, going through snow slowed it down. The peat bog below preserved it really well. Its going to be a laborious task but as much as possible will go back into the aeroplane. The work officially started on March 4 and the first flight should be in 2023. Fl Lt Gunn, a 24-year-old Scotsman nicknamed Sandy, had flown the Spitfire 580 miles across the North Sea to Faettenfjord on the Norwegian coast. His mission was to photograph the German battleship the Tirpitz, which was sheltering in the fjord. He was intercepted by the Luftwaffe and shot down by two Messerschmitt 109 fighters. The Germans were convinced that Britain had a secret airfield in Norway or Sweden as they didnt believe that our planes were capable of completing the 1,200-mile round trip without refuelling. They believed that if they captured the pilot they could uncover the location of the airfield. Examination of the Spitfire has shown it was hit by about 200 machine gun bullets and 20 rounds of cannon fire but because it landed in deep snow on the mountain it remained in mostly one piece. Flt Lt Gunn, who suffered burns including some on his face, managed to bail out. He was found by locals who suggested he could escape over the mountains to Sweden but as he did not know how to ski and would have had to trek more than 100 miles across difficult terrain he decided to surrender. Flt Lt Gunn was flown to Oslo and then to Frankfurt, where he was interrogated by German military intelligence for four weeks. He was eventually sent to the Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp in what is now Poland, where he took part in the wars most famous breakout in March 1944. The Great Escape, which inspired the 1963 film, involved 76 prisoners tunnelling more than 100m under the camp and fleeing through a forest. All but three were recaptured by the Germans. The incident infuriated Adolf Hitler to the point that he ordered the execution of the majority of escapees. Flt Lt Gunn, 24, was one of 50 RAF pilots, including 11 Spitfire fliers, to be shot by the Gestapo the following month. A national commemoration of the Great Escape will be held at the Apollo Theatre in London on March 24 to mark the 75th anniversary. It will be presented by historian Dan Snow and feature testimony from veterans of the escape and performances by the Britains Got Talent choir The D-Day Darlings. There will also be a discussion which will be broadcast live to 400 cinemas around the country, followed by a screening of the film. Mr Hoskins will be publishing a book about the plane and its history called Sandys Spitfire later this month. His research revealed that Spitfire AA810 had a 22-week operational life and at least seven pilots, including Mervyn Anthony Jones, a jockey who won the 1940 Grand National, and motor racing driver Alfred Fane Peers Agabeg, both of whom were killed while on reconnaissance missions. The excavation also revealed that the German army searched the aircraft for information, removing cameras containing film. Mr Hoskins tracked down Flt Lt Gunns only remaining relative, a nephew also called Alastair Gunn, who revealed a box of letters between the pilot and his parents as well as photographs, diaries and details of his execution. Mr Hoskins also read part of a report of the assault on the plane by Heinz Knoke, part of the Luftwaffe crew which shot down the Spitfire and later wrote a book called I Flew for the Fuhrer. Some other information came from the Frazer Nash Archives in Henley. Mr Hoskins is now running a scheme for 14- to 18-year-olds to learn aircraft restoration named after Flt Lt Gunn. He said: Because he related his story to people in the camp, those people visited his parents after the war. The family have been really supportive of what we want to do and in return we have started a youth scheme for aviationists. That will hopefully be his legacy and get young people into the industry that he wanted to get in to. PUPILS, parents and teachers at Stoke Row Primary School took part in the annual Shrove Tuesday pancake races in the village. Dozens of youngsters took turns to run the length of the course on the village green, flipping their pancakes mid-way before dashing to the finish line. There were races for all the year groups as well as for toddlers, mums, dads and grandparents and teachers. The races were set off by Judy Fox, who organises the event with her friend Tilly Smith. Many of the competitors dropped their pancakes while attempting a flip and the course was left strewn with bits of pancake by the end of the event. Dozens of villagers crowded round to cheer on the runners and, when not racing, children cheered on and chanted the names of their fellow pupils. The event was organised by Stoke Row Independent Chapel and schools parents association whose members served pancakes to the runners after their races. There was a small display on the green with facts about the tradition of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. Rachel Doe, acting headteacher at the school, said: Its a long-standing event now and we all enjoy it. Its a great chance for the community to come together and we have great support from the chapel and the parents association. We benefited from the sunny weather and the children absolutely loved it. Mrs Fox added: This has been going for 30 years now. Its a great community happening and the school is very supportive. We used to do it after school but found it was much better if the children came along. Theyve been involved for the last 10 years and now its a tradition. TRIBUTES have been paid to a man from Wargrave who was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. Humanitarian worker Oliver Vick, 45, was travelling to his posting with the United Nations in Somalia when the flight crashed outside Addis Ababa on Sunday. Mr Vick, a father of two, is the seventh Briton to be confirmed as a victim of the crash, which killed 157 people on board. The Foreign Office says that at least nine Britons were killed. Mr Vicks parents still live in Victoria Road but he moved away from the village more than 20 years ago. In the last year he had had been working for the UN assistance mission in Somalia and reporting to senior leaders in New York. In a statement, his family said: Olly was well-loved and had an energy and zest for life which lifted and inspired all that met him. His colleagues at the UN Assistance Mission in Somali said it was deeply saddened by his death. It said: We express our heartfelt sympathies to his family and loved ones and mourn the loss of a passionate and talented friend who worked tirelessly for peace in Somalia. We will miss Olly every day. Former colleague Timur Nusratty said he had met Mr Vick when he worked on the Afghan elections in 2005. He said Mr Vick took his work very seriously, adding: He was very sociable. I liked him from the first time I met him. Prime Minister Theresa May said she was deeply saddened to hear of the devastating loss of life following the crash. Mr Vick, who helped to bring parliamentary elections to Afghanistan, reportedly died with his girlfriend, Jessica Hyba. He had been travelling with Ms Hyba, 43, a Canadian mother-of-two who worked for the UN refugee agency in Somalia. Mr Vick has two daughters with his former wife in Calabria, Italy. The planes black boxes have been recovered from the scene and sent to Europe to establish to cause of the crash. Ethiopian Airlines chief Tewolde Gebremariam has called for the grounding of all Boeing's 737 Max 8 aircraft until it is established they are safe to fly. Many other countries had already suspended the planes. A MAN says he is gutted after a classic car he restored to working condition was stolen from outside his house. The red BMW 325i belonging to William Skewes was parked a short distance from his home in Hardwick Road, Whitchurch, when it was broken into and driven off at about 11.15pm on Wednesday last week. The thief drove off at high speed towards High Street before turning right up the hill towards Crays Pond. Mr Skewes, 42, whp had been entertaining guests, said he heard an engine starting and quickly realised that it belonged to his car. But by the time he had got outside to investigate, the car had already gone. He has reported the theft to the police, who have added it to their database of stolen vehicles, but says he is resigned to never seeing it again. Mr Skewes had insured the vehicle but says he cannot face buying and restoring another because he had put so much effort into this one. The car was built in 1988 and has an E registration number plate. Mr Skewes bought it for 4,000 in August. The vendor had kept it on a driveway for 10 years and it couldnt be driven due to numerous mechanical faults. Mr Skewes spent several hours every week replacing engine components in a garage behind his house. He also tracked down original finishings and dials to replace those which had been swapped for cheaper alternatives over the years. He believes his work roughly doubled its value. Mr Skewes had only recently got the car working again and was looking forward to taking it on a driving holiday to Cornwall with fellow enthusiasts in the summer. He said: Id had a fairly sociable evening and was just standing in the front bedroom when I heard a distinctive engine noise and thought, Oh, that sounds just like mine. I then heard it getting into gear and thought Oh dear, that actually is mine. I felt awful as it dawned on me but luckily nobody was hurt, which is the most important thing. Ive gone through all the emotions from grief to anger at how they could have the cheek to steal something that didnt belong to them but theres no point getting too wound up about it. Mr Skewes, who runs the Camper Cafe mobile coffee van with his partner Beth Baxter, said: I used to have similar cars in my younger days so I thought Id get myself a nice classic and do it up for a hobby. I put a lot of time into it and it really was my pride and joy the only upside is that Ill be talking to Beth a lot more in the evenings now! Im very sad that I hadnt really had the chance to drive it very much. I drove it a little over the winter and was really looking forward to doing more when the weather improves. Ive just had to cancel an order for some new tyres and tell my friends that I wont be joining them in Cornwall. The police have been very helpful and have made a great effort to get the word out but there is only so much they can do and its easier for me to accept that I probably wont get it back. I cant see myself going and buying another because, to be honest, this has hurt me. I was totally gutted at first, although Im feeling better now. I dont want to give anyone another opportunity. The incident was captured by a neighbours CCTV cameras but the image was poor because it was dark. The suspect is believed to be a man who was fairly short in height. Anyone with information should call Thames Valley Police on 101. 'The accused was now eight months pregnant with her first child, barrister Alan Grace said.' (stock photo) A pregnant woman has been jailed for repeatedly driving off from garages without paying. Nikita Folan (25) had become homeless and was "desperate" to keep her car running at the time, a court heard. Jailing Folan for five months, Judge Dermot Dempsey said it was "not his problem" that she was now expecting. He also banned her from driving for eight years. Folan, of Carton Court, Balbutcher Lane, Ballymun, admitted failing to pay for petrol three times at north Dublin garages in 2016 and 2017 as well as having no insurance. The accused was now eight months pregnant with her first child, barrister Alan Grace said. She had no history of alcohol or drug abuse. Issues Folan had become homeless following issues at the family home, Mr Grace said, and had been "clinging on to" her vehicle. Although she was "quite desperate to keep the car running", she could not afford fuel or insurance. She is now back living in the family home. Mr Grace asked the judge not to impose a custodial sentence, repeating that Folan was expecting a child. "That is not my problem," the judge said, adding that those who were running the garages must be considered. Mr Grace said the defendant would pay compensation, but the judge said that should have been "well sorted by now." He noted that Folan had her licence suspended before. Bail terms were set in the event of an appeal. Guido Nasi, the Italian man left paralysed after an unprovoked attack in Dublin 20 years ago, will be given a hero's welcome on his return to Ireland next week when he visits Aras an Uachtarain. He will be received by President Michael D Higgins at a special reception during his long-awaited return visit to the capital. Excitement Guido (36), who will be accompanied by his mother Simonetta and his full-time carer, has also been lined up to appear on The Late Late Show. Bernadette Kelly, a former victim support worker and long-time friend of the Nasi family, said Guido was "full of excitement" ahead of his return. "We're trying to pull out all the stops for him while he's over because he's been looking forward to it for so long," she said. "He loves being in the spotlight and enjoys people making a fuss over him, so it will mean a lot to him to be on The Late Late Show and then to be meeting the President a few days later. "I'm also organising a special party for him at my house while he's over. "I've invited former Lord Mayor Mary Freehill, as she was in office at the time he was attacked. I've also invited the current Lord Mayor, Nial Ring." Turin native Guido had been a fun-loving and able-bodied teenager when he suffered irreversible injuries in 1999 after being hit over the head with a bottle in Fairview Park. Despite the life-changing incident, Guido - who had been on his first-ever trip abroad when he was attacked - has never lost any of his affection for Ireland, and even longed to move here permanently. Ms Kelly, who is a fluent Italian speaker, said: "Moving over here permanently is just not a realistic option for Guido because he needs specialist care, but this is the next best thing for him. "He's coming over with his carer for a week in total, while Simonetta will be over for two days. "It's a big deal for her because she's been very ill and has been having chemotherapy. "She's desperate to get back to thank the Irish public for all the support they continue to give her since Guido was attacked." Despite his extensive injuries, Guido has managed to write a memoir, which is expected to be released in October. The book - entitled Una Vita Spezzata, which translates as A Shattered Life - is expected to revisit in detail the horrific day when Guido was left paralysed. In 2001, James Osbourne, then aged 31, from East Wall, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for the attack. He was released in May 2008. Gardai and forensic investigators at the scene of the fatal accident on the M6 near Kilbeggan yesterday One man died and 11 people were injured in a St Patrick's Day crash in the midlands. One of the injured was said to be fighting for his life last night in Dublin's Beaumont Hospital after being airlifted from the scene. The man who died was in his 60s, gardai said as they continued to investigate the circumstances. He was pronounced dead at the scene, while the female passenger in his vehicle, who is also in her 60s, was taken to Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar. Nine other people were being treated for various injuries following the five-car pile up on the M6 motorway near Kilbeggan in Co Westmeath. Gardai said four drivers and five passengers of the other vehicles involved were taken to the Midland Regional Hospitals in Mullingar and Tullamore, where they were being treated last night for various injuries. The pile-up happened just beyond junction 5 eastbound near Kilbeggan. Forensic Members of the Garda Technical Bureau carried out a forensic examination of the scene yesterday afternoon, while forensic collision investigators carried out their own enquiries. A garda spokesman said a file will be prepared for the local coroner and that anyone who may have witnessed or has information relating to the crash should contact local officers. "Gardai in Athlone, Co Westmeath, are appealing for witnesses following a fatal road traffic collision today, March 17, 2019," the spokesman said. "A report has been sent to the local coroner and the scene is preserved for examination by garda forensic collision investigators. The stretch of road remains closed "Anyone with information is asked to contact Athlone Garda Station (090-6498550) or the Garda Confidential Line (1800 666 111)." The crash brings to 36 the number of people who have died on Irish roads so far this year. Earlier this month, gardai and the Road Safety Authority (RSA) raised concerns about the increase in traffic fatalities compared with last year, which was Ireland's safest 12 months. "Road deaths have increased by nearly 30pc in 2019. This upward trend must be addressed immediately," gardai said in a statement. In a separate incident over the weekend, a man in his 60s died following a collision near Swinford, Co Mayo. The collision, which happened on Friday afternoon, involved a truck and two cars and resulted in the death of the 64-year-old driver of one of the cars. He was taken from the scene to Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar for a post-mortem to be carried out. The male driver of the second car suffered minor injuries. The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send Sol Prendido or HEARST an email! Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter forBorderland Beat?We love to have you in our team, sendoran email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. (CNN) Facebook and other social media companies fought to stop videos of the New Zealand mosque attacks from spreading on their sites. Facebook said Sunday that it removed 1.5 million videos of the New Zealand attacks around the globe. It blocked 1.2 million of the videos at upload, meaning they would not have been seen by users. Facebook did not say how many people had seen the remaining 300,000 videos. But Facebook initially missed the video of the attacks. For at least 17 minutes on Friday, a suspected terrorist streamed live video of a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand. New Zealand police alerted Facebook to the livestream, and Facebook said it quickly removed the shooter's Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video. Facebook also said it was "removing all edited versions of the video that do not show graphic content," as well as praise or support for the shooting. Facebook's failure to catch the video before being alerted by police comes amid repeated pledges from the company about moderating content on its platform. Facebook, Twitter and other tech giants are under intense scrutiny for how they are used to spread misinformation, hate speech and graphic content. In response, Facebook says it has hired tens of thousands of human moderators and is investing in artificial intelligence to help police their sites. "We continue to work around the clock to remove violating content using a combination of technology and people," said Mia Garlnick, spokesperson for Facebook New Zealand. U.S. Senator Mark Warner, who sits on a committee that has questioned the social media companies, said on Friday that it wasn't just Facebook that needed to be held accountable. "The rapid and wide-scale dissemination of this hateful content - live-streamed on Facebook, uploaded on YouTube and amplified on Reddit - shows how easily the largest platforms can still be misused. It is ever clearer that YouTube, in particular, has yet to grapple with the role it has played in facilitating radicalization and recruitment," Warner said in a statement provided to CNN. Other companies made pledges to closely monitor their platforms in the wake of the attacks. YouTube did not say how many videos of the attacks it has removed, but said on Twitter Thursday that it was "working vigilantly to remove any violent footage." Twitter also posted a statement online Friday: "We are continuously monitoring and removing any content that depicts the tragedy, and will continue to do so in line with the Twitter Rules," the company said. This story was first published on CNN.com "Facebook already removed 1.5 million copies of New Zealand attack video" 'So much we want the public to know': Meritus COVID cases surge again This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. Learn more here Grand Prize Winner: Donna Rickey Blog Winners: A Song for her Enemies by Sherri Stewart: Mary Ann Hake Spies & Sweethearts by Linda Shenton Matchett: Connie Ruggles Sword of Trust by DebbieLynn Costello: Brenda Walters Justice for Julia by Donna Schlachter: Natalya Lakhno Party Prize winners: Sherri Stewarts Winners A Song for her Enemies: Angie Pool Bottle of Dutch Syrup: Carol Koch Alscheff Corrie ten Boom book: Deb Gramie Burgess Linda Shenton Matchetts winners: $5.00 gift card to online retailer or choice (Kobo, B&N, AppleBooks, Amazon): Karen Hadley A Bride for Seamus: Carol Osterhouse Wotring DebbieLynn Costellos winners: Sword of the Matchmaker: Melissa Planas Sword of Forgiveness: Paty Hinojosa Gomez Shattered Memories: Charlene Zall Capodice Sword of the Perfect Bride: Licha Haney Donna Schlachters winner: Leather Journal: Lisa Turley GIVEAWAY RULES Winners must leave their email address and will be notified by email and the winners name will be announced in the days comments. No one under 18 can enter our giveaways. No purchase is necessary. All winners have one week to claim their prize. USA shipping only. Offer void where prohibited. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. As Indians gear up for elections in April, approximately 60 million men and women, crisscrossing the country as migrant workers, will be unable to cast their vote because their voting rights are restricted to their villages, where they have to be present to be able to vote. Given their need to earn, migrant workers are not always able to return to their homes during election time to cast their votes. In 2015, the Election Commission of India recommended the use of electronic ballots to enable non-resident Indians (NRIs) to vote on the day of the election, thereby dispensing with the need for them to be physically present. Thus, not only has the franchise been extended to the diaspora communities, but provisions for their casting their vote electronically have also been specified. Tragically, despite their being indispensable to Indias economic growth, internal migrants continue to be excluded from these rights. This problem has been reported for general elections as well as the Assembly elections in states such as Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. A study I conducted in rural Bihar during 2016 found that almost half of the 6,000-odd respondents reported being unable to return home to cast their vote during the Lok Sabha elections of 2014. An earlier study conducted by the NGO Ajeevika and their partners (Ajeevika Bureau, 2012) revealed that over 60% of migrant workers were unable to cast their vote in at least one election held during their adult life for the simple reason that they were away from home. Their electoral exclusion exacerbates the social exclusion of Indias migrant workers. Researchers concur that vulnerability and insecurity mark their lives during their stay in the host destinations. For instance, a study conducted by Professor Ravi Srivastava of Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) shows as many as 94% of such migrants have no formal labour contracts, indicating the precarious nature of their lives. The majority of migrant workers live in fenced-in and guarded worksites, with conditions similar to those of labour camps. Many of them live under tarpaulin roofs with poor amenities. They work through day and by night, with little by way of overtime payments. Let us take the example of Dinesh Rai, whose family cultivates a tiny plot of land in Bihars Sitamarhi district, while he ferries passengers on a cycle rickshaw in Delhi. He has been working in Delhi since 2004, beginning as a construction worker, before taking up a job as a headloader, and finally driving cycle rickshaw he rents from an agency. Rai travels between Bihar and Delhi twice each year, since his family live in the village. In his interview for our project, Rai compared his circumstances in Delhi with that in Bihar. He praised the subsidised foodgrains provisioned to low-income households under the Public Distribution System as saving the lives of millions in villages such as his. Consequently, he laments the absence of such provisions for individuals such as himself while they are on the move in search of dignified employment. Because the BPL card is issued to his household and is valid only during their stay in their village, Rai has no option but to rely on the market to purchase food supplies while he is in Delhi. Clearly, migrant workers inability to vote either in their villages of origin or the towns of their destination place them in a peculiarly vulnerable position. The state in India is not unaware of the social exclusion to which the countrys internal migrants are subjected (Report of the Working Group on Migration RWGM 2017). Indeed, the RWGM, commissioned by the Indian government, recognises these exclusions as well and makes recommendations for the social inclusion of migrant workers. While comprehensive and well-intentioned, these recommendations refrain from addressing the electoral exclusion that underpin the social exclusion to which migrants are subjected. Indians today are more mobile than ever before in our history. Our ideas about citizenship must follow. After all, migrant workers do not only construct buildings, fire bricks, sweep floors, clean trucks, sew clothes and deliver goods. Their movement across the country makes the idea of India a concrete reality for the majority of her poor and impoverished populations. They build India from below. Politicians, the legislatures and institutions such as the Election Commission of India need to take cognisance of their electoral exclusion and ensure that migrant workers can exercise their franchise as citizens, irrespective of their physical location on election day. Their electoral exclusion ill behoves the worlds largest democracy. Indrajit Roy is lecturer, department of politics, University of York The views expressed are personal In the monsoon of 2015, defence minister Manohar Parrikar made a classified five-slide presentation on the Future of Air Power before Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Backed by facts and figures, Parrikar projected the strength and requirements of the Indian Air Force (IAF), taking into account its current fighter squadron status, attrition rates, requirements of single engine or twin engine fighters and how the force should look from now through the years of 2030-40. The presentation was attended by the National Security adviser, Ajit Doval, the then Air Chief, Arup Raha, the then defence secretary, G Mohan Kumar, and all the top officials of the Prime Minister's Office. At the end of the presentation, where complex technological details were simplified, Modi remarked that he had never seen such a good presentation. Modi told all the officials present that the country should be very proud to have Parrikar as the defence minister. In his 28 months at South Block, Parrikar was defined by his trademark sleeveless linen shirt, magnetic reading glasses and strap free sandals. A half sleeved sweater was added to this attire during winter in Delhi. He lived alone in a bungalow in Lutyens Delhi. He disliked the city, its aggressive ethos and culture. And that is the reason why he refused to meet anyone outside his ministry. Parrikar was a typical, carefree Goan who would not let go of any opportunity to go back to his beloved state. All the Akbar Road house had was standard issue white polyurethane PWD furniture and a Maharashtrian cook to cater to the workaholic occupant who had converted the master bedroom into a study. So when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asked him to go back to Goa as chief minister in March 2017, he was able to wrap up everything in a jiffy and leave for Panjim. Parrikar lost his battle with cancer but he has left behind a huge legacy in the defence ministry and in the hearts of the armed forces. His single biggest contribution was the implementation of long standing one rank one pension (OROP) demand for the armed forces. He fought off all opposition within the defence and finance ministries and pushed for the implementation of OROP by personally preparing detailed briefs on the financial implication. In spite of the Raisina Hill mandarins reservations on the substantial impact on the fiscal deficit, Parrikar stood his ground against his other Cabinet colleagues. His logic was simple. He was committed to delivering on OROP as had been promised by Modi in the 2014 election manifesto. In his short tenure at South Block, he initiated major military reforms with the objective of having better teeth-to-tail ratio by setting up an expert committee under Lt General (retd) DB Shekatkar for enhancing combat capability and rebalancing defence expenditure. This report was cleared by his successor, Arun Jaitley, with the restructuring of the Army to be completed by December 31, 2019. When Parrikar took over as defence minister, the civilian bureaucracy dominated South Block and its negativity was focused on the armed forces. He changed all that by rebalancing the equation as he listened to the professional advice of the armed forces while allowing the bureaucracy to express itself on the files. Defence ministry files of his tenure are witness to long handwritten notes by Parrikar in support or against received proposals. Given his engineering background, Parrikar was comfortable in dealing with complex technical issues and could hold his own with experts. An example of this tussle was on the ammunition inventory required for India to wage war. This was critical as it had huge financial as well as strategic implications since no country can hope to be able to provide ammunition indefinitely if hostilities ever broke out. The flip side was that the country could not spend thousands of crores of rupees while waiting for war to break out and then end up with expired ammunition. A huge debate raged within the military establishment with the armed forces advocating ammunition for a 40-day intensive war. While Parrikar argued that the global community would not allow any subcontinental war to stretch beyond a week, South Block mandarins said that no country in the world produced or kept inventory for a 40-day intensive war. Parrikar is no more, but the debate has been resolved with India equipped with a reserve inventory for a 10-day conflict. He tamed the Delhi bureaucracy by dealing with it in various instances in a quiet-yet-firm manner. With detailed logic and military consultation, he chose to either agree or overrule them. Parrikar left the centrestage to the military generals during the 2016 Uri surgical strikes despite being involved in the strike right down to the micro-detail along with Modi and Doval. He ensured that India purchased the Rafale fighters at a better price and conditions as compared to the previous UPA regime. A true soldier of the party, Parrikar did not flinch when Modi and party president Amit Shah asked him to form a government in Goa. But in the Delhi interregnum, Parrikar ensured to stick to his work, and did not make any efforts to seek advice from or appease his neighbour, the all-powerful Amit Shah. shishir.gupta@hindustantimes.com Earlier this month, the Supreme Court indicated that it would hear the long-pending constitutional challenge to the electoral bonds scheme. The electoral bonds scheme, which was introduced by the government in early 2018, provides new channels for private funding of political parties, and has been subjected to severe criticism, including by a former Chief Election Commissioner. The Supreme Courts announcement that it would finally hear the constitutional challenge comes too late to have any impact on the impending general election. Nonetheless, how the Court decides this case will have a vital impact upon the future of our electoral democracy. How do electoral bonds work? In short, they are issued by the State Bank of India (SBI), for specific amounts, ranging from 1000 to 1 crore, for a certain number of days in the year. The donor purchases the bonds, and then transfers them to the account of the political party in question, where they are converted into donations. There are a number of features of the electoral bond scheme that merit constitutional scrutiny. The first and most important is that of anonymity. Neither the donor (who could be an individual or a corporate) nor the political party is obligated to reveal whom the donation comes from. This undercuts a fundamental constitutional principle: the freedom of political information, which is an integral element of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution (the free expression clause). In other words, the freedom to vote in a free and fair election, with access to all relevant information, is a fundamental right; in pursuance of this right, to take two examples, the Supreme Court has mandated the disclosure of candidates past criminal records, and the addition of the none of the above (NOTA) button. If the voter cannot know who funds a political party and is therefore in a position to exercise influence over it then the process of voting is degraded into a farce. In this context, it is also important to note that not only is the electoral bond scheme opaque, but it is asymmetrically opaque: because the bonds are purchased through the SBI, the government is always in a position to know who the donor is. This asymmetry of information threatens to skew the process in favour of whichever political party is ruling at the time, something that was in evidence when figures revealed that the Bharatiya Janata Party has been the largest recipient, by some distance, of electoral bond funding. The electoral bonds scheme must be understood in conjunction with other, recent changes to election law. These include the elimination of a former cap of 7.5% (that is, of average profits over three years) when it comes to corporate donations, the elimination of the requirement that corporations must reveal political contributions in profit and loss statements, and the elimination of the requirement that a corporation must be three years in existence. In other words, therefore, the result is that troubled companies, dying companies, shell companies can now donate to an unlimited amount, and do so anonymously. A more blatant perversion of the democratic process is difficult to imagine. The stated justification of the electoral bond scheme is the removal of black money from elections, especially in the form of under-the-table cash payments. However, the provision of donor anonymity, and the elimination of regulations designed to ensure some kind of level playing field (however inadequate), far from reforming election funding, takes us several steps backwards. From a constitutional point of view, not only does it impact the freedom to vote in a free and fair election, as well as the constitutional right to vote per se, but by accomplishing the exact opposite of what the government claims it wants to achieve it fails the tests of rationality and non-arbitrariness. For these reasons, it is imperative that the case have an urgent hearing before the court, and the scheme be struck down as unconstitutional. Gautam Bhatia is an advocate in the Supreme Court The views expressed are personal Actor Tamannaah Bhatia has worked in four Bollywood films so far, two of which were directed by Sajid Khan who was accused by at least three women of sexual harassment during Indias #MeToo movement. The Baahubali actor had featured alongside Ajay Devgn in Himmatwala and had worked with Saif Ali Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Bipasha Basu in comedy multi-starrer Humshakals. In a recent interview, the actor denied having any bad experience working with the director. Talking to Deccan Chronicle, Tamannaah said, For me, it has always been about the script and whats the kind of film that I am working on. When I worked with Sajid, unfortunately, none of our films did well. Sajid was accused by at least three women of sexual harassment. Dia Mirza had called him obnoxious, sexist and ridiculous whereas Vidya Balan had said she would never like to work him and said, I think he doesnt get women. On being told about Vidyas statement, she added, He never treated me in any bad way and I was completely comfortable working with him. Everyone has a different experience and everybody is entitled to their own opinion and experience. If Vidya has had a bad experience, its normal for her to react like that. Calling the glamour industry professional, Tamannaah said that the film industry is not an alien place where one needs to be protected. The #MeToo movement is not just about the film industry. We got to keep creating the awareness and fear and thats all we can do, she added. The actor also claimed that an actor is never forced to kiss on screen and always have a choice. Nobody forces you and in my case, I was very specific when I started my career. I had that clarity. It is my perspective and I stick to that and nobody can force you in the film industry or the worldwide. When people say I was forced to do it, I dont understand that because you are a mature individual and you can make a choice. For the record, the actor has a no-kissing clause in her contract. While she is yet to return to Bollywood, she is actively working in Tamil and Telugu films and has Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy and Devi 2 lined up for release this year. Her last Hindi film was Tutak Tutak Tutiya with Prabhu Deva in 2016. Follow @htshowbiz for more A 23-year-old man of Jalandhar district, who wanted to go to Germany, has been stuck in Ukraine for a year after a travel agent took away his passport. The victim, Gagandeep Singh of Mirpur village of Nakodar subdivision, left home for Germany on March 13, 2018 after paying 10 lakh to two travel agents, Palwinder Singh and Manjeet Singh of Mirpur. However, the duo sent him to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and later to Ukraine. Victims father Amrik Singh, 63, said the agents initially told him that due to some technical problem in his visa he had to stay in Ukraine for a week, after which he would be sent to Germany by road. The agents made Gagandeep stay in a city of Ukraine at the house of a local agent. After a months stay in Ukraine, the local agent took away his passport. After around six months in September 2018, the agent threw him out of the house, Amrik said. After that he has been living at the house of a man of Punjab origin, where a man hailing from Kapurthala is also living, he added. I have been sending him 10,000 every month for his expenses. I am already under debt of 10 lakh. Now the Ukraine agent is demanding 7 lakh to return the passport of my son, he said. He added that his son is living a pitiable life there and he may have to facelegal action due to the fraud committed by the agents. Sub-inspector (SI) of Bhogapur police station Kulwant Singh said that on the basis of inquiry conducted by the anti-human trafficking cell, a case has been registered against the two agents under Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 342 (wrongful confinement), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the relevant sections of the Punjab Travel Professionals Regulation Act. He said efforts are on to nab the accused. The SI said that as per the complaint, Gagandeep was not allowed to even move around until he was being thrown out from the house by the agent. Notably, as many as 1,257 first information reports (FIRs) were registered against 3,000 travel agents in Doaba region between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2018. At least, 10 people from the region have lost their lives while attempting to reach foreign countries illegally. Most travel agents that have been booked are yet to be arrested and authorities seem to be dilly-dallying on declaring them as proclaimed offenders. Wisdom in tranquillity, like courage under pressure, is admirable. But not unknown. But wisdom and courage, both, being displayed in a situation of unprecedented tension, are exceptional. If a Nobel Prize for Peace could be given to a spontaneous statement for wisdom and courage, rather to a person, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern deserves it. The words spoken by her after the terror attack in Christchurch were few. They are unforgettable. One single, three word sentence, the most so. Referring to the 49 or more killed, she said: They are us. Not they are one of us, or they could have been you or me. None of that cautious, self-insulating, self-indemnifying vagueness. Simply, they are us. Those learned in Sanskrit scripture would call this pure Advaita, captured in Ramana Maharshis way of looking at things in the term I am Thou, captured by the Indian philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi for the eponymous title-theme of his extraordinary book. If at one level Ardern gave us a metaphysical statement, at another level she also gave us, spontaneously, a highly practical political philosophy that is critical to human survival today. Reversing the us and them binary, throwing old concepts of otherness out of the window, giving no space to either cliche or platitude, she then said the person who perpetuated this violence is not. The significance of both statements is mutual, colossal. Almost all the targeted victims were Muslim, the attacker or attackers, white and Christian just like Ardern is. In saying that the terrorist or terrorists behind the attack may have been from New Zealands majority community but they do not represent it, cannot represent it, for they have done something inhuman, something that goes against civilisation, she said something that each New Zealander needs to know. She could have said she was grieved, agonised, appalled. She could have said ,as the head of government, as one who has to maintain order and uphold law, that she was horrified, angry, in righteous fury. And that would have been considered right, termed appropriate. But no, Ardern spoke from a thinking heart and feeling mind to say something that was totally different, totally timely and timeless. The perpetrators of terror are the aberration, she conveyed, the anomaly, the deviation, divergence from civility, from humanity that places them in a universal not one of us-ness. She made a difference, drew a line, that was not about ethnicity but human decency. And then, in an amazingly topical observation for a world that is closing its eyes and shutting its doors to immigrants and refugees, she said, and I quote her exact words, Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand, they may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home and it is their home. They are us. And in so doing, she said something that philosophers in positions of statesmanship have, like the emperor Asoka did, for their times and for all time. Being the other, being migrants, refugees, immigration or asylum seekers, being in a minority, being different, being isolated, bereft, in other words, being orphaned, is a condition that can be ours, yours or mine, at any time anywhere. On the subcontinent of India, in South Asia, the condition is endemic. Each one of us is, in the next mohalla, a potential other. A Christchurch-like mosque or temple exists in every city, town and village in India and can be the scene of terror attacks, exactly like the mosques in Christchurch. And since Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs now inhabit places outside India in large numbers, Christchurch repeats can happen anywhere, across the globe. What will be the effect? Perpetual revenge, retribution, vengeance. Perpetual , mutually sustaining hatred. If extremists practising their macabre method under the name of Islam now wreak vengeance on churches and chapels with Christian congregations at prayer, the world will not have a day of peace, its religions no freedom from tension, fear, hate. No immigrant anywhere outside South Asia , whether Hindu or Muslim or Sikh will then feel secure. Nor Christians, of an ethnicity same or similar to that of Christchurchs mass murderer. Indias leaders have to draw from Prime Minister Ardern a lesson in spontaneously courageous wisdom or wise courage to say that victims of violence are us, and no perpetrator of violence is us. More specifically, that migrants and refugees seeking shelter in India from ethnic prosecution are in their own home. Non-refoulement could not have been defined better than in Jacinda Arderns words. The darkness of that massacre has met the only light that can dispel it. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is distinguished professor of history and politics, Ashoka University The views expressed are personal India has seen 16 general elections in 72 years of independence. Despite this, the question still remains as to whether our democracy is moving in the right direction? When the first general election after independence took place in 1951-52, India was very different. Although Jawaharlal Nehru considered himself the head of Indian democracy, the reality is that minor kings, riyasats and feudal landlords were still quite influential. In that election, only 17.3 crore voters had been registered. Of them, 44.87% voted. At that time, 53 political parties were in the electoral fray for 489 seats and a total of 1,874 candidates contested the elections. Those days, India was poor and its annual per capita income was 7,651 and literacy rate was just 18.33%. In those elections, the Congress won 364 out of 489 seats, formed the government and Jawaharlal Nehru abolished the zamindari system that year itself. It felt at that time that Indian democracy would, sooner or later achieve its proper form and structure because the future governments would be elected by the people and for the people, in real sense of the word. At that time, our political leaders may not have realised that we are getting rid of the royalty who would soon be replaced by a new set of demagogues who would take over our politics. Today, there is no part of this country which is untouched by the influence of political families. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. With the increase in population, Indias income has also grown. If we recall the 2014 general elections, there were 83.4 crore registered voters, out of them 66.44% voted. A total of 464 parties and 8,251 candidates contested elections for 543 seats. The literacy rate in the country too touched 74.04%. The annual per capita income was more than one lakh rupees. The current elections will definitely break this record and this is the stage that worries me. We can break the records of the elections but we seem unable to find solutions to peoples problems. I also have something to say to people who are lamenting the seven-phase elections -- the first elections took place in 68 phases and it took four months to complete. The Congress at that time had won 364 seats while in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP succeeded in getting a majority by winning 282 seats. If you look at the elections since 1957 till today, whether they were majority governments or coalition ones or whether they were affected by the influence of a particular personality, all these elections were fought on slogans rather than on facts. Nehru gave the slogan of aaraam haraam hai. His successor whose tenure was all too short, Lal Bahadur Shastri, gave an impassioned and high-spirited slogan during the Indo-Pak war of 1965- jai jawan jai kisan. In 1971 Indira Gandhi contested the elections with the slogan garibi hatao And in 1977, we heard the echo of Indira hatao, desh bachao (remove Indira, save the country) On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated and during the elections after her death, the Congress coined a moving slogan jab tak suraj-chaand rahega, Indira tera naam rahega. And Rajiv Gandhi won a massive majority with 404 seats and became head of the country. Later in 1996, the BJP played up the disappointment prevalent among the people and used the slogan sabko dekha baari-baari, abki baari Atal Bihari. The last elections were fought and won by Modi on the slogan- achchhe din aane waale hain. This time around, Modi and his supporters are chanting Modi hai to mumkin hai (If Modi is there, then its possible.) Here, a question arises, how much good did these election-winning slogans do for the country? If we start discussing these depressing situations then it would take a lot more than this column to do so. But it is true that these populist slogans may have benefited leaders and coalitions but unfortunately did little for the county which is still swinging between hope and despair. Now, when we are about to vote for the 17th Lok Sabha, we should definitely pay attention to this -- should a country which has about 80% literacy be content with a whole lot of seemingly attractive slogans or should it not insist on substantial progress on the ground? Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan The views expressed are personal Indian tourists may soon be able to load a caravan and travel all the way to Thailand. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is in conversation with the central government to allow Indian tourists to travel via caravans to the Land of Smiles. We get a large number of tourists from India every year. We are in talks with the Indian government to allow road travel, especially in caravans from Manipur to Thailand. We want to give a boost to caravan tourism between the two countries, Isra Stapanaseth, director of TAT, said at an event in Dehradun. The travel route will be the under-construction Trilateral Highway, which will connect Moreh in Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand. The 1,360 km highway is expected to be completed by 2020. Stapanaseth said there has been a continuous rise in the number of Indian tourists visiting Thailand. In the past few years, we have seen an increase of 23% in the number of Indian tourists coming to Thailand. In 2018, 1.6 lakh Indians visited the country, he said. Stapanaseth said Indian tourists were also important to Thailand as they spend a lot of money shopping. Almost 25% of the revenue that we get from Indian tourists is from the shopping they do when they visit Thailand, Stapanaseth said. TAT is now trying to target a new age group of Indian tourists to Thailand. Most of the Indian tourists that visit us are from the working age, that is, 25-50 years. We are now trying to target the senior citizens to come and visit out country as they not only have more time, but also more spending capacity, Stapanaseth said. He said TAT has observed that senior travellers were more interested in exploring the culture and cuisine of the country, in contrast to the younger generation which comes there with a purpose of partying. The senior travellers want to have a local and community-based experience of the country and this is also the present area of focus for TAT, Stapanaseth said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a first, school students in the city would be deployed as volunteers at polling stations to guide voters during the Lok Sabha elections on May 12. The poll panel in Delhi has already sent a request to the directorate of education to send names of two students of class 12 (session 2019 20) from each government-run school. These students would be deployed on the polling day along with college and university students, and National Cadet Corps (NCC) cadets. Earlier, only college and university students along with NCC recruits were deployed as volunteers. For the first time ever, school students would be deployed as volunteers this year. Who would know the school premises the best the location of rooms, drinking water, toilets other than a student of that school? Hence, the plan to utilise this huge resource, said a senior official with the Chief Electoral Officers office in Delhi. Spread over 2,696 locations, Delhi have 13,816 polling stations, of which most are in schools, colleges and other educational institutions. While at least 6,000 cadets from NCCs junior wing would be deployed at the polling stations, the administration of Delhi University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University have been directed to send a list of at least 1,200 students each. At least 50% of the volunteers should be female, the officer said. The directorate of education and department of social welfare have also been asked to procure wheelchairs for use in the institutions as well as the elections. We will receive around 3,000 wheelchairs from Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO) free-of-cost. But this is a one-time affair and we would start paying for the wheelchairs from next elections, the senior poll panel official said. Students and NCC cadets who are going to be deployed as volunteers would be also sensitised on how to handle wheelchairs and facilitate persons with disabilities in casting their votes. The Delhi Police on Friday arrested a man for allegedly posing as an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and duping a woman by promising her a job with the Delhi Police. Raj Malhotra, 29, a resident of Kirari, was arrested on the womans complaint, the police said. The complainant said that the accused had taken 1 lakh from her on the pretext of getting her a job, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), SD Mishra, said. The police added that Malhotra had met the woman at a gym, where he introduced himself as an IPS officer. Malhotra also reportedly told the woman that he was suffering from cancer. He told the woman that he would have married her had he not been a cancer patient. He said he would secure her future by getting her a government job, Mishra said. He also concocted a false story around his family saying that his mother was a teacher; father a government officer and brother a sub-inspector, Mishra said. According to the police, Malhotra also visited a showroom where the woman worked, wearing a police uniform and threatened to get her showroom sealed when she started avoiding him. She later filed a complaint in the Aman Vihar police station after getting suspicious about him. Malhotra had also been arrested in 2013 in another cheating case, wherein he had posed as a sub-inspector. The police said they had also recovered a fake identity card of a sub-inspector from him at that time. A 33-year-old fashion designer suffered a fractured hand and was nearly run over by moving vehicles after she fell off a running auto-rickshaw while fighting off motorcycle-borne snatchers in east Delhis Geeta Colony, the police said on Sunday. The woman was able to hold on to her handbag, but her fall from the auto-rickshaw during the Friday incident caused a mini pile-up involving three cars that braked suddenly to avoid hitting her. Deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) Meghna Yadav said one of the two suspects in the crime had been identified but was yet to be apprehended. We have registered a case of attempt to robbery, the officer added. Asha Mehra said this was the second time she fell prey to a street crime in the Capital. In August 2017, Mehra said, she lost her handbag and a mobile phone after hailing an auto-rickshaw. I was found unconscious along the ITO Flyover. I dont know what happened. The police had suspected the auto driver, but he was never caught, said Mehra. Mehra lives in central Delhis Gole Market and works as a designer at a private firm in east Delhis Gandhi Nagar. She said she usually takes an auto-rickshaw to work. I hired the auto-rickshaw from ITO around noon and it drove down the Geeta Colony Flyover when the two snatchers struck. They were riding a white TVS Apache motorcycle and did not wear helmets, she said. In her first information report (FIR), the woman said the motorcycle ran parallel and close to the auto-rickshaw for a while before the pillion rider suddenly reached for her handbag. My handbags strap was entangled in my hand and a tug-of-war ensued between us. When the snatcher realised that I wasnt going to let go, he pulled the bag with a sudden jerk. I tumbled out of the auto, said Mehra. The 33-year-old said she was lucky to not be mowed down by other vehicles despite landing in the middle of the road. Three cars right behind me crashed into each other as they tried to avoid running over me, she said. While the cars were damaged, no driver was injured. Mehras right arm, however, suffered a fracture and she also sustained bruises on her limbs and abdomen. This is not the first case of a passenger falling out of a running auto-rickshaw while trying to stave off snatchers. In the past three years, at least one woman has died, one was left in a coma and several others injured in similar crimes. Last week, CCTV footage showed a woman being dragged on a street by bikers in a west Delhi market after she held on to her bag. Police officers say snatching is a crime that goes largely undetected and unsolved in Delhi. Experts say that the problem with solving such cases is that many of the suspects are first-time criminals and it is difficult tracking them in the absence of criminal records. A number of CBSE Class 12 maths students, who appeared in the examination on Monday, said that the paper was of average difficulty level and a bit lengthy. However, many other students, especially those preparing for JEE advanced, found the paper easy. Lucknow The CBSE class 12 students in Lucknow said that mathematics paper was not complicated, but of average in difficulty level and a bit lengthy too, especially set-1. Avinash Nair, a student of science stream at GD Goenka Public School, Lucknow, said Mathematics paper was average in difficulty level and a bit lengthy too, especially set-1. Umang Sharma, another student of GD Goenka Public School, Lucknow was happy with his attempt as he could finish in time due to rigorous practice which he did prior to the exams. Gaurav Vishnani, Sutikshan and Tushar all from the Commerce stream came out of the examination hall with smiles. Tushar said, Some long questions were the same which we solved in our pre-board exam. A humanities student, Swaraj Tiwari, found that some questions were tricky as they involved the application of concepts. Mathematics faculty of GD Goenka Public School, Lucknow Daud said, Over all question paper was average but in every set one odd question was tricky. Length of the paper was good as it required time management skills to finish on time. Suhas Paul from Lucknow Public School, South City branch said, Medium difficulty level and moderately lengthy. Another student of same school, Ashish Kumar said, Very easy paper and all questions were from previous years paper. Senior teacher Santosh Kumar Singh of Lucknow Public School, South City said, Due weightage is given to NCERT questions. One more senior teacher of Lucknow Public School, South City, Salamatullah, said, The question paper was simple and easy. Overall I think its a scoring paper for average examinee. He said, The paper is like the last two years paper. Bhopal A student of Sagar Public School in Bhopal Prachi Billore said, I found a question from Maximum and Minimum a bit tricky but overall paper was so easy. Another student of the school, Yash Agnihotri said, I have completed my paper before designated time. It was a very easy paper for the students who are preparing for ITT JEE Advanced. Campion School student Akshat Saxena said, Being a commerce student, I found the paper a bit lengthy and questions number 1 and 2 a bit tricky. However, maximum questions were asked directly from NCERT Another student of the school Saiyyam Dhori said, The overall paper was easy but one of the questions of 6 marks was not asked from the allotted chapters so it was a bit out of syllabus for me. A Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher Arun Singh said, The paper was a scoring and easy one. There is not much change in the pattern. Even a below average students can expect good marks. Zosia Buse '20 wants to make an impact Zosia Buse's passion lies with her work with 'deis Impact, the annual festival for social justice at Brandeis Photo/Mike Lovett Zosia Buse But her heart and soul lies with one particular activity: Her work with ' deis Impact , the annual festival for social justice at Brandeis. Each year the festival features dozens of events and projects centered around social justice, all brought together by a team of students. "Im from Shenandoah, Virginia, its this small rural area and these types of opportunities weren't available for me, Buse said. The festival has allowed me to engage with so many topics related to social justice. Being able to not only learn about these topics, but to organize initiatives around them has been so meaningful. She learned about 'deis Impact during her first semester at Brandeis during the whirlwind that is the involvement fair, a twice-annual event that helps students find clubs and organizations to get involved with. "It was this cliche first-year moment when I stumbled into it. Once I started to get into it, I just fell head over heels, she said. impacter the name for the core student organizers of the festival -- and then served as Vice Chair her sophomore year. She served as the Chair of the committee this year. Her favorite festival moment so far was the keynote speech in 2018 by Nadia Alawa founder of the humanitarian relief organization Buse started off as an the name for the core student organizers of the festival -- and then served as Vice Chair her sophomore year. She served as the Chair of the committee this year. Her favorite festival moment so far was the keynote speech in 2018 by Nadia Alawa founder of the humanitarian relief organization NuDay Syria It was so incredible. It wasnt some super-famous person, she is someone in our community doing really incredible work, she said. Students got engaged with it, and when that happens, it becomes real. That was pretty beautiful. For this years festival, she coordinated and hosted one of the keynote programs, "From Protest to Politics: The Ferguson Uprising as Challenging Longstanding Injustices, with Cori Bush." The event focused on issues of race, and specifically the struggles that black and brown individuals face in America. Cori sparked an interest in these types of conversations and set a precedence that we can have these conversations at Brandeis, Buse said. Being able to coordinate this programming was so meaningful to me because it brought this important, timely, and very necessary topic to campus. Her work with the festival has had a big influence on her work in the classroom, too Buse is focusing her studies on social policy by majoring in international global studies with a minor in peace, conflict and coexistence Buse doesnt know what direction 'deis Impact will take in coming years, but she is looking forward to finding out. Im going to keep being involved with 'deis Impact. I cant wait to see how it grows, she said. Students in Lucknow found ICSE Physical Education Examination of Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) very easy and direct. Students said pinpointed specific questions were asked. Ishaan Pandey and Rahul Harjani, students of City Montessori School, Aliganj 1 said the paper was not very lengthy and they could complete it within the time limit, with enough time left to revise. The paper was of balanced nature, catering to both good and weak students. We have done well because our teacher had taught all the topics very well as per the Board pattern, said Archana Yadav and Shiva Mishra. The children could not have asked for a better question paper. Their teacher, Nakshatra Pandey heaved a sigh of relief and said that the questions were easy so cent per cent result would be achieved. Principal, Jyoti Kashyap could be seen rejoicing in the glory of the children. She was very happy to see the beaming faces and blessed the students for their well accomplished task. Physical Education teacher at St Teresas College, Aashiana, TK Chattree found that the ICSE Examination 2019, Physical Education paper quite easy and as expected. When I saw the paper I was sure students will be able to solve the question paper easily as it covered the whole syllabus, he said. The paper was more or less what the students had expected. Most of the questions were similar as we had practice during revision, he said. Vatsal, a student at St Teresas College said that question paper was quite straight forward and nothing tricky was asked. Sumedha Walia said the paper was easy. I was able to complete the paper on time, she said. Nancy said the paper was pretty easy and she is expecting high score. It was the best paper till now. Barkha Yadav said that paper was easy and scoring. The ISC (Class 12) students of Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) who appeared for the commerce paper examination in Lucknow on Monday looked happy and satisfied while coming out of the examination hall. Many students at Hoerner College said it was the easiest paper among all the examinations. Nitish Sharma and Shrishti Chauhan said question paper looked like a repeat of Pre-Board examination. The ten years papers and law of probability thereof came into play and how! Khushi Sharma and Sidhartha Tiwari beamed and said they had maxed the Paper. Their teacher, Abhay Sharma voiced the same opinion. He said the paper was very easy and that the children had given him very positive reports. I am absolutely sure 90 percentile was an easy deal for those who studied extensively and solved the 10 years question paper series, the teacher said. The principal Mala Mehra shared smiles with the students as they animatedly expressed their positive views! She said it was sure heartening and like all Principals asked them to start applying at the top Universities! Students from City Montessori Inter College, Aliganj, Lucknow were happy and satisfied after writing the examination. It was a clear indication that they had performed well. They even reported that the paper this year was comparatively easy. Most of the students said that the paper was easy, though time taking but they managed to complete it on time and were hoping to get good marks. Riya and Ronish, two students said, They felt satisfied while writing the paper, as the paper had direct questions and are sure to get good marks. Rimjhim and Astha said the objective section (A) was very good and scoring. According to the subject teacher, Divya Saxena, the paper was more or less what the students had expected. They were all prepared as most of the questions came from what was practiced during revision. Principal Jyoti Kashyap said that from the students feedback we can be sure of a good result. As it was their last paper, she wished them a bright future. CMS Gomti Nagar branch students also said it was an easier paper than expected. Ananya Kalra said the questions were the ones that they have been practising. Kavan Arora said the paper was lengthy but went well. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A 53-year-old man is missing, while six others were rescued after a tugboat carrying them capsized around 12 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast, on Monday. The tugboat, called Revti, and its crew, were hired on a contract basis to work on a sewage pipeline installation in Tarapur, Palghar. The owner of the tugboat, Ravi Kiran Iyer, 47, identified the missing person as Abdul Azeez. He is a resident of West Bengal and has been working on the vessel for the past eight months. At the time of going to press, a search for Azeez was still on. It is still unclear what caused the accident. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) said they received an emergency call at 10:50am. We reached the tugboat around 11am. We were able to rescue six of the crew members from the sinking vessel, but one person is missing, said Vineesh Krishnan, the spokesperson and deputy commandant, ICG. The vessel was recently repaired, according to Iyer. I spent 70 lakh to repair the tugboat a few months ago. It seems something major happened and it capsized, he said. An ICG ship Amartya, a fast patrol vessel on a surveillance mission, was the first to respond to the emergency call. It was diverted to undertake the search and rescue operation. One more ICG ship conducted a surface search for the missing crew member, while a Chetak helicopter did a sea-air coordinated search, Krishnan said. The condition of the rescued members is stable. They will be investigated by the Yellow Gate police station, the ICG official said. Those rescued are Rashid Qasim Sorathiya, 38; Toni Chalak, 22; Ramesh Keni, 55; Dilip yadav, 29; Shanu Kumar, 19; and Saleem Siddique. Those close to former defence minister and Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar remember him as a simple man, who didnt hesitate to stand in queues at airports or weddings, and strived hard for the people and party. Parrikar, 63, passed away at his son Utpals residence at Dona Paula in Goa on Sunday. Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde lauded Parrikars commitment to his work and said he had lost a friend in politics. It is a personal loss for me. He was the epitome of simplicity. We all have seen his photographs inspecting development work in Goa recently. I asked him why he was working and not resting; he replied he didnt want to die in bed; he wanted to work till his last breath. Parrikar, who was born into a Goud Saraswat Brahmin family , was a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) supporter. He had been a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-affiliated students wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Union minister Shripad Y Naik, who hails from Goa, recalls their years as RSS workers and then as BJP members in Goa. I remember meeting him around 1973-74; we were in the RSS. He was curious and extremely hard working. He brought a lot of changes in Goa with his decisive leadership. Also Read | Manohar Parrikar, a technocrat CM with national stature, cross-cultural appeal Although Parrikars journey into electoral politics started with a loss in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, he then shifted his focus to the Goa Assembly, where he was elected in 1994. Maharashtra BJP chief spokesperson Madhav Bhandari, who worked closely with Parrikar, said he was Indias first IIT-ian to become an MLA and a chief minister. Bhandari, who recalls meeting Parrikar for the first time while campaigning for him in the early 1990s, said he shared a strong bond with the people of Goa. Goans considered only two people as their leaders Dayanand Bandodkar and Parrikar ji. Watch: Political leaders condole demise of Goa CM Manohar Parrikar Parrikar was known to shun the perks of the job, said Mukund Kulkarni, BJP secretary in Maharashtra. Kulkarni, who met Parrikar while campaigning in Goa, said, Our families were close to each other. He used to frequently visit my house in Worli while he was the Goa CM. Around three years ago, while he was still the defence minister, he came to my house in a taxi. It was his way of knowing the city. While he was the Goa CM, he would often ride on his two-wheeler and stand in queues at airports and in weddings. Ravindra Sathe, a close friend of Parrikar, who heads Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a charitable trust, said, when he met Parrikar in February, his mind was as sharp as ever, although his health was in a poor state. Over the years that I have come to know him, he was a transparent man, without any pretence, Sathe said. Also Read | Goa BJP, allies meet after Manohar Parrikars death, no decision on next CM yet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Sawant was sworn in as the chief minister of Goa past midnight on Monday in a move that capped frenzied political developments in the state following Manohar Parrikars cremation, which witnessed thousands turning out to pay their last respects to one of the tallest leaders of the party from the region. Two deputy chief ministers one each from alliance partners Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP) were also picked in the crucial political transition that was necessitated by the death of 63-year-old Parrikar, who was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in February last year. Also Read | Pramod Sawant was Parrikars choice to replace him: BJP leader Sawants swearing-in ceremony was initially scheduled to be held at 11pm on Monday but it was pushed back, as the BJP deliberated with allies late into the night to secure his position as the consensus candidate for the chief ministers post. The ceremony was finally held at 1.50 am. The 45-year-old had been elected the legislature party leader in the state by the BJP earlier in the day. The party has trusted me with a big responsibility. Whatever I am today is because of Manohar Parrikar, Sawant said as he headed to the Raj Bhawan to take oath of office after staking claim to the government in a letter to governor Mridula Sinha. Parrikar died on Sunday evening, prompting the Congress to stake its claim to the government with 14 party MLAs. After Parrikars death, the number of BJP MLAs in the assembly stood at 12, with a current House strength of 36. The BJP needed the support of at least seven other legislators to remain in power. The BJP formed the government in the state in 2017 with the support of the MGP and GFP both with three MLAs each and three independent legislators. WATCH : Remembering Manohar Parrikar and the void he leaves behind in Goa and India Political uncertainty arose in Goa during the day after a decision by the BJP top brass to elevate Sawant, the Speaker in the state assembly, was not fully accepted by the MGP and GFP initially, a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity. All MLAs of the Congress, which is the single largest party in Goa, also met the governor in the coastal state. The strength of the assembly came down to 36 after the death of BJP MLA Francis DSouza, and Parrikar on Sunday, and resignations of two Congress MLAs last year. Thousands of supporters and BJP workers joined the funeral procession of Parrikar from the Kala Academy Arts and Cultural Centre, where the remains had been kept throughout the day for the public to pay last respects, to the nearby Miramar beach. The former defence ministers mortal remains, wrapped in the national tri-colour, were placed on a pyre amid a 21 gun salute at the beach and his elder son Utpal Parrikar consigned it to flames. The 63-year-old leader is survived by two sons, Utpal and Abhijat. His wife died in 2001 after being diagnosed with cancer. Top BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Suresh Prabhu and Ramdas Athawale paid tributes to Parrikar before he was cremated. After attending the funeral, Shah led talks to finalise the contours of the leadership in the new government. The formula he worked was to allot deputy chief minister positions to the two key alliance partners Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party. Like the Parrikar government, the new BJP government will serve the people of Goa, Shah said. Gadkari, who was in Goa since late on Sunday night, said earlier that his party had finalised its CM candidate and was in talks with allies and independent legislators to cap the leadership transition. An ayurveda doctor by training, Sawant was a leader of the BJPs youth wing and retained his seat from the Sanquelim assembly constituency in 2017. He first entered the assembly in 2012. He came into prominence in the state when he led a protest in 2011 as the president of the Goa wing of BJPs youth wing against Digambar Kamat-led Congress government over alleged irregularities in the mining sector. Manohar Parrikar, who was then the leader of opposition in Goa assembly, spotted him and mentored him. According to a BJP leader, Sawant had the backing of Parrikar, who first played an important role in giving him a ticket for Goa assembly polls in 2012. He won from Sanquelim in 2012 and 2017. (With inputs from agencies) India has approved a customs station in Punjabs Dera Baba Nanak as part of its efforts to expeditiously operationalise the proposed corridor for Sikh pilgrims to visit the final resting place of Sikhisms founder Guru Nanak Dev in Pakistans Kartarpur, according to officials aware the development. The Union finance ministrys approval on Friday came a day after Indian and Pakistani officials met at Wagah and agreed to go forward with the border crossing for the pilgrims despite tensions between the two countries. The tensions escalated after a car bomb attack in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama district left 40 CRPF men dead on February 14. India responded with an air strike on a terror camp across the border on February 26 after Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the attack. Pakistan retaliated a day later and triggered air combat between the two nations over the skies of Kashmir. The officials cited above said India is keen to complete the project before Guru Nanaks 550th birth anniversary in November. The Union home ministry earlier designated an immigration checkpoint at Dera Baba Nanak last month. The developments show Indias earnestness to finish the project expeditiously and be prepared for the next meeting of Indian and Pakistani technical experts over the issue on Tuesday, the officials added. The next official-level talks over the corridor between the two countries are scheduled on April 2 at Wagah near the India-Pakistan border. Islamabads attempt to shift the goalposts at the first such meeting on Thursday irked New Delhi. Read more| At cordial Kartarpur talks, India seeks visa-free entry for pilgrims to Pakistan HT reported on Saturday that Pakistan seeks to put a cap on the number of pilgrims using the corridor and wants a paid permit system, which is contrary to Prime Minister Imran Khans initial announcement of visa-free travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to the holy shrine. The Indian officials cited above said the approval for the customs station shows Indias commitment to operationalise the corridor despite Pakistans dithering approach over the easy access to Indian pilgrims. The Union cabinet last year gave its nod for the corridor for Sikh pilgrims from India to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib a few kilometers from the Indian border in Kartarpur. Guru Nanak spent 18 years of his life at the gurdwara. The government had said the corridor would be implemented as an integrated development project with central funding to provide smooth and easy passage to the pilgrims with all the modern amenities.India and Pakistan on November 15 announced that they would build the corridor on their respective sides for visa-free access. The four-lane corridor will have a service road and other amenities like state-of-the-art passenger terminal building. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu laid the foundation stone for the corridor in Gurdaspur on November 26 and called it the beginning of a new chapter in the India-Pakistan ties. Two days later, Khan followed suit on the Pakistan side. Read more| Kartarpur corridor: Visa-free access sought for 5,000 Indians a day The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said on Monday it was possible that once he dies his incarnation could be found in India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years, and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected. Sat in an office next to a temple ringed by green hills and snow-capped mountains, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke to Reuters a day after Tibetans in the the town of Dharamshala marked the anniversary of his escape from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, disguised as a soldier. He fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and has since worked to draw global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote and mountainous homeland. China, which took control of Tibet in 1950, brands the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate a dangerous separatist. Pondering what might happen after his death, the Dalai Lama anticipated some attempt by Beijing to foist a successor on Tibetan Buddhists. China considers Dalai Lamas reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me, said the Dalai Lama, swathed in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf. In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So thats an additional problem for the Chinese! Its possible, it can happen, he added, laughing. China has said its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lamas successor, as a legacy inherited from Chinas emperors. But many Tibetans - whose tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death - suspect any Chinese role as a ploy to exert influence on the community. Born in 1935, the current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old. Many of Chinas more than 6 million Tibetans still venerate the Dalai Lama despite government prohibitions on displays of his picture or any public display of devotion. Up for discussion The Dalai Lama said contact between Tibetans living in their homeland and in exile was increasing, but that no formal meetings have happened between Chinese and his officials since 2010. Informally, however, some retired Chinese officials and businessman with connections to Beijing do visit him from time to time, he added. He said the role of the Dalai Lama after his death, including whether to keep it, could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year. He, however, added that though there was no reincarnation of Buddha, his teachings have remained. If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain, he said. Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama. If there is one, he would still have no political responsibility, said the Dalai Lama, who gave up his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India. Seminar in China? During the interview, the Dalai Lama spoke passionately about his love for cosmology, neurobiology, quantum physics and psychology. If he was ever allowed to visit his homeland, he said hed like to speak about those subjects in a Chinese university. But he wasnt expecting to go while China remained under Communist rule. China - great nation, ancient nation - but its political system is totalitarian system, no freedom. So therefore I prefer to remain here, in this country. The Dalai Lama was born to a family of farmers in Taktser, a village on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, in Chinas Qinghai province. During a recent Reuters visit to Taktser, police armed with automatic weapons blocked the road. Police and more than a dozen plain-clothed officials said the village was not open to non-locals. Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun, the Dalai Lama said. So for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) The ruling BJP in Goa that has been struggling to arrive at a consensus over Manohar Parrikars successor on Monday said it was close to reaching a decision on the next Goa chief minister. Parrikar, 63, died last evening at his Panaji house and will be accorded a state funeral with full military honours at 5 pm. The decision on chief ministerial candidate is yet to be taken but the picture will be clear by 2 pm, Goa BJP chief Vijay Tendulkar announced shortly after his meeting with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. At this meeting, Tendulkar was accompanied by Pramod Sawant, the mild-mannered Goa Assembly Speaker who has the support of the majority of BJP lawmakers. Tendulkar said the swearing-in would be held sometime after 3 pm. Also Read | He showed us another side of campus life, say Manohar Parrikars IIT-B friends The BJP leader had earlier insisted that the partys first priority was going to be giving Manohar Parrikar a fitting farewell. But as the Congress, which is the largest party in the assembly with 14 legislators, rushed to Raj Bhavan to stake claim, the BJP leader had cleared adjusted his stand. WATCH: State funeral with full military honours for Manohar Parrikar It is not clear if the BJPs allies are on board. Leadership has been a sensitive issue in the BJP-led coalition where Parrikar was the glue holding the BJP-led coalition together. Two of the BJPs allies including Sudin Dhavalikars MGP had made their joining the alliance in 2017 conditional to Manohar Parrikar leading the government. After Parrikars death, Sudin Dhavalikar had demanded that he should be upgraded as Chief Minister and had spoken about the many sacrifices that he had made for the BJP-led coalition government. MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar told reporters that he could not confirm anything at this stage. We will have a meeting of the executive committee of the MGP now to see how to go forward, he said. Also read | PM Modi to pay homage to Manohar Parrikar in Goa, state funeral with military honours at 5 pm The Congress has already rushed its 14 lawmakers to Raj Bhavan and staked claim to form the government at their meeting with Governor Mridula Sinha. For now, Goa Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant, 45, has emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Parrikar after BJP MLAs demanded that the next chief minister should be from among them and not from the alliance partners. With the BJP senior leadership including then Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Minister Rajendra Arlekar losing the 2017 assembly polls, Speaker Pramod Sawant is the only remaining full-blooded BJP leader in the Assembly. The others, including those who were made ministers have only recently joined the BJP from the Congress prior to the 2017 elections which puts them out of contention. Also Read | The indefatigable Manohar Parrikar: From IIT-grad to 4-time Goa chief minister An ayurvedic doctor by training, Sawant was a leader of the BJPs youth wing and retained his seat from the Sanquelim Assembly constituency in 2017. He had first entered the assembly in 2012. At 45, Sawant has the support from many within the BJP. Another group of MLAs led by the Goa Forward and some BJP MLAs have pitched for Vishwajit Rane to be made Goas Chief Minister. Legal experts underline that Goa Governor Mridula Sinha needs to immediately call whoever she thinks can from the government and if there is no one, then she should recommend Presidents rule. The Governor has to find out who can possibly form the new government. If the Governor feels that immediately no government is possible, she must recommend Presidents rule and keep the assembly in suspended animation, Cleofato Almeida Coutinho a lawyer and constitutional commentator said. This has to be done fast because the Governor cannot function without the local government. And with the death of the chief minister, there is no government in place. The ministers cannot continue in office. They are not even ministers because the government is not there. They are MLAs now, he said. Also read | Goa Congress MLAs meet governor, stake claim to form govt India has formally complained to Pakistan about more than 15 instances of harassment of its diplomats and officers in Islamabad, including aggressive tailing and a visit by security personnel to an ill official admitted to hospital, over the past two weeks. The complaint comes against the backdrop of tensions between the two countries in the aftermath of the February 14 suicide bombing at Pulwama, which killed 40 troops and was claimed by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed. Indian conducted an air strike in response to the attack and this was followed by an aerial engagement over the Line of Control. The Indian high commission in Islamabad detailed the harassment in a note verbale an unsigned diplomatic correspondence submitted to Pakistans foreign ministry on March 13, people familiar with developments said. The document said two Pakistani personnel had been following high commissioner Ajay Bisaria every day. A first secretary and the naval adviser were both aggressively tailed by Pakistani personnel in cars while travelling for work on March 8. The following day, Indias deputy high commissioner was aggressively tailed by Pakistani personnel on a motorcycle while going from his residence to a market and again while travelling from the mission to his residence and then to the home of the Indian envoy. Also read: Envoy chased, power supply cut, says India in fresh spat with Pakistan The deputy high commissioner was again aggressively followed by personnel on a motorcycle while going from residence to a market on March 10. The naval adviser was aggressively followed by a car while going from his residence to the Islamabad Club and another officers residence on March 9 and 10. On March 11, the naval and military advisers were aggressively tailed by a car while going from their residences to the mission and back. Pakistani personnel approached the personal security officer of the high commissioner, while he was admitted in hospital, in an intimidatory manner, according to the note verbale. The note also complained about an uptick in Pakistani security personnel being deployed outside homes of officers and diplomats in recent weeks. These personnel have been pressuring local security guards outside the homes to provide details of the movements of Indian officials, the note added. On March 9 and 10, Pakistani personnel were spotted keeping static surveillance outside the home of the deputy high commissioner and they also met the local security guard regularly and sought details regarding the official. The note also cited instances of two Indian officers receiving several hoax calls from the same number over the past few days. The Indian side asked Pakistani authorities to investigate these incidents urgently and instruct the relevant agencies to ensure that similar incidents do not recur. It noted that such incidents of harassment violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and that the safety and security of Indian high commission officers, staff members and their families is the responsibility of the Pakistan government. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday vowed to unveil reforms to the countrys existing gun laws in the wake of the March 15 Christchurch mosques shootings that claimed the lives of 50 people. At a news conference here, Ardern said her cabinet has agreed in principle on proposals to change the countrys gun laws in response to the terror attack, but she stopped short of revealing what those changes might be, CNN reported. Ardern said more details will be released once her cabinet has worked through the in-principle decision taken on Monday. As a Cabinet we were absolutely clear, the terror attack on Friday (March 15) was the worst act of terrorism on our shores, she said. Echoing the Prime Ministers remark, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who also appeared beside Ardern, said: This was a cabinet decision... The reality is after March 15, our world changed forever, and so will our laws, Peters said. New Zealand First is part of the ruling coalition along with Arderns Labour Party. Its the third-largest political party in the country and leans to the right on many issues, including immigration. Ardern also confirmed there would be a review of security agencies actions following the shootings at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Masjid that also left over 40 others injured, The New Zealand Herald reported. Also read | 5 Indians among those killed in New Zealand mosque shootings The review will look at what the agencies knew, or should have known, and whether there were any blocks to information-sharing. It will also probe accused gunman, the 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrants travel and use of social media. Regarding the injured persons, health authorities said on Monday that nine people were still in a critical condition. David Meates, chief executive of Canterbury District Health Board, said in a statement that two others would be released from hospital on Monday. There is still a four-year-old girl in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland, Meates said. Her father has been transferred to Auckland and remains in a serious but stable condition. Meanwhile, TradeMe, one of New Zealands biggest internet auction websites, said in a statement that it will pull all semi-automatic weapons from its platform, following their use in the attacks. The site said that it would halt the sale of semi-automatic weapons while it waited for more clarity from the government. Also read | New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern received Christchurch mosque shooters manifesto 9 minutes before attack BRISTOL BOROUGH >> The Bristol Riverside Theatre (120 Radcliffe Street) brings back a holiday favorite and welcomes audiences home this holiday season. "An American Christmas Songbook," the theatres first concert in the theatre since 2019, gathers audiences December 9-19 for a heartwarming evening of favorite carols and songs performed by a cast of BRT favorites. Former BRT Artistic Director Keith... The news of Goa chief minister (CM) Manohar Parrikars death was met with sadness at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B), where he studied from 1973 to 1980. While many shared fond memories of Parrikar as a student, others recalled the humble man who attended alumni meets regularly. His friends at the institute always knew he was meant to be a leader. Bakul Desai, Parrikars junior, hostel mate and close friend, recalled, Our hostel mess fee was Rs 180 per month. In order to reduce the price, he went to Byculla market to buy vegetables himself. The idea was adopted by our mess contractor and the fees were reduced to Rs 160. Desai said, At every alumni meet, members were handed a coupon for lunch. Despite his status as the defence minister [from 2014-2017], he would hold the coupon and stand in the queue year after year. He always asked his security to step away when he was with friends. WATCH: Mukund Deshpande, a Pune-based civil engineer and another hostel mate of Parrikar, remembered a time in 1978 when the hostel mess staff went on an indefinite strike. He was on good terms with the mess workers as he always participated in the committee. After the strike was called, he spoke to the workers. When they refused to serve us, he convinced 40 of us to cook ourselves. That was the best meal we ever had, said Deshpande, who graduated with a civil engineering degree from IIT-B in 1980. At a time when all of us only focused on books, we always saw Manu on his Yezdi, involved in things beyond just studies. He showed us a different side to campus life. Also Read | A simple man, a leader who worked till last breath: Friends, colleagues remember Goa CM Manohar Parrikar Several IIT-B alumnus and students took to social media to pay their respects. Ganesh Natarajan, who graduated from the mechanical engineering department in 2005, said little changed after Parrikar became CM. Have seen him take an auto rickshaw to the airport even after becoming Goa CM. He will be missed across all walks of life, he shared on Twitter. A spokesperson for IIT-B said, Goa Chief Minister Mr Manohar Parrikars demise comes as a shock to all of us at IIT-Bombay. He was the institutes Distinguished Alumnus and was keenly involved with many initiatives at IIT-Bombay. He was also deeply involved with the launch of IIT-Goa. The Institute condoles his demise. India on Monday started construction work on the integrated check post (ICP) at Dera Baba Nanak as part of the proposed corridor which will give access to Sikh pilgrims from the country to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur in neighbouring Pakistan. A team of the Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) led by Attari integrated check post manager Sukhdev Singh and Dera Baba Nanak sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Gursimran Singh Dhillon, who is also the competent authority to acquire farmland for the corridor, visited the site on Monday. Sukhdev Singh said, On Tuesday, technical teams from India and Pakistan will visit the zero line at the border to draft the modalities for the construction of the corridor. The ICP will have adequate immigration and customs clearance facilities to process the smooth movement of nearly 5,000 pilgrims per day. LPAI officials said the corridor ICP will have a unique design in line with other check posts in the country. Earlier, the SDM held a meeting with local farmers whose land is to be acquired for the corridor and claimed they agreed in-principle for starting the work. The ICP will be constructed on 50 acres and the work will be completed before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the first Sikh master, he said. The SDM said, Though their land has not been acquired yet, the farmers have voluntarily given the possession of their land to LPAI. I informed them about the land acquisition rates fixed by the government, to which they agreed. He said the government will give 25 lakh per acre compensation. This comes three days after delegations from the two countries met at Attari in Amritsar to discuss the draft agreement for the corridor. As per some media reports, Pakistan has completed more than 40 per cent work on the corridor on its side. Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar was cremated with full military honours and a gun salute on Miramar beach in Panaji on Monday. Parrikar died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday. A host of BJP leaders like Amit Shah, Union minister Suresh Prabhu, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis attended the funeral of Parrikar, who was draped in the national flag. Shah remembered Parrikar as a principled leader. we have lost a nationalist, who led a simple life, he said. He called Parrikar a disciplined and a good administrator. He said the vacuum Parrikar has left in Indian public life will take a long time to fill. Parrikars elder son, Utpal, lit his funeral pyre in presence of the deceased leaders brother, Avdhoot, and his younger son, Abhijat. Parrikars funeral procession passed through Panajis main Dayanand Bandodkar Marg as people lined the two-kilometre route to pay their last respects. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his last respects to Parrikar and met his family. Throughout the day, people thronged Panjims Kala Academy, where Parrikars body was kept since morning. The Union Cabinet condoled Parrikars demise and observed a two-minute silence in his memory. It also approved the government of Indias one-day mourning and said the national flag will fly at half-mast on Monday in all the state capitals, Delhi and throughout Goa. In his passing away, the country has lost a veteran and distinguished leader, affectionately called as the Chief Minister of commoners, a cabinet resolution said. Parrikar was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in February last year and was repeatedly admitted to hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New Delhi and New York. Rising military tensions between Indian and Pakistan after the February 14 Pulwama suicide car bombing led the Indian Navy to cut short a major exercise in the Indian Ocean region and swiftly redeploy its frontline assets to the north Arabian Sea for operations, the navy said in a rare announcement. It said on Sunday that the buildup consisting of an aircraft carrier, nuclear-powered attack submarines and scores of frontline warships and maritime aircraft put the Pakistan Navy on the back foot. Experts and senior navy officials said the naval mobilisation was the biggest since Operation Parakram following the December 2001 terror attack on Parliament that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war. In a strongly worded statement, the navy said its overwhelming superiority forced the Pakistan Navy to remain deployed near the Makran coast and not venture out in the open ocean. It is interesting to see the scale reflected in the navys statement. But one imagines that what may not and cannot be said is what worries our enemies more. That serves to deter which is not bad at all, said military affairs expert Rear Admiral Sudarshan Shrikhande (retd). Watch: Explained: Three possible reasons why China blocked UN move on Masood Azhar India had enough warships at sea for the redeployment on very short notice. As many as 72 Indian warships and 60 aircraft were involved in the Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (Tropex 19) that began on January 7 and was to go on till March 10, had the Pulwama terror strike not led to a change of plan. India responded to the Pulwama attack by sending its fighter jets to bomb a terror base in Balakot on February 26. Army elements were also a part of Tropex 19, a biennial exercise, for carrying out amphibious assaults. Apart from a carrier battle group consisting of INS Vikramaditya and its escort ships, the assets redeployed to the north Arabian Sea included the indigenous nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant, Akula-II nuclear-powered attack boat INS Chakra, the Scorpene-class submarine INS Kalvari, Boeing P-8I submarine hunter planes and several destroyers and frigates, two navy officials said on condition of anonymity. They added that the combat units are still deployed in the region and the navy was in the highest state of preparedness. The last time something like this happened was during Operation Parakram, said former navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash (retd). The message of this posturing is that of deterrence. Theres no guarantee that the air strikes will deter them. So a further message has been sent to Pakistan to stop supporting terror, Prakash said. During the exercise, warships were deployed from Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca and northern Bay of Bengal to the southeast coast of Africa. The major combat units swiftly transited from the exercise to operational deployment mode as tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, said navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma. Sharma said a clear and resolute message about the navys operational posture to defeat any misadventure was conveyed during a tri-services press briefing on February 28, a day after India and Pakistan lost a fighter jet each in a dogfight over the Line of Control. Availability of such a large number of combat-ready assets in the theatre of operations for Tropex 19 allowed the navy to expeditiously respond to the developing situation, added Sharma. Shrikhande said he was not in the least surprised by the navys change of orientation from a major exercise to deploying in strength for any eventuality. Being combat-ready is a near-constant state for core assets, with capacity to surge further at very short notice, Shrikhande added. Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba will travel to Kochi on Monday to review the outcomes of Tropex 19, the navys biggest exercise, and assess the operational preparedness of the navy. The navy said a realistic audit of its deployment philosophy and fighting capability would also be undertaken during Lanbas visit. The lessons learnt from the exercise will provide the planners accurate assessments to fine-tune force structuring requirements, operational logistics, as also material and training imperatives, the navy statement added. One of seven Indian engineers abducted by Taliban gunmen in Afghanistans Baghlan province in May last year returned safely to India on Monday, the external affairs ministry said. The Indians were travelling in a largely Taliban-controlled area when they were abducted from their vehicle last year. We are grateful to the government of Afghanistan for their support in securing the release and repatriation of the Indian national. We continue to work closely with the government of Afghanistan for safe and early return of the remaining six Indian nationals, the MEA said in a statement. The Indian engineers of KEC International, an RPG group company, were working on a project for construction of a power sub-station in Afghanistan. Kidnapping of locals and foreigners is common in the country, where large parts are controlled by militants. A government official with knowledge of the matter said in May last year that more than 1,700 Indian engineers and technical experts were working across Afghanistan on large infrastructure projects. India has been carrying reconstruction activities in the war-torn country. It has already provided at least $2 billion aid to Afghanistan. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had earlier asked the Afghan government to provide all possible help in freeing the seven Indian engineers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered last respects to former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar in Panaji on Monday. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman was also present. After paying their last tributes, Modi, Sitharaman and Goa Governor Mridula Sinha met the family members of Parrikar. Parrikar, who died at his residence in Panaji on Sunday, would be accorded state funeral with full military honours today. The Centre had announced a national mourning after his death. The 63-year-old BJP leader was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in February last year and was repeatedly admitted to hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New Delhi and New York. Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar belonged to a business family in Parra village (from which his family derives its name). He not only dominated Goa politics for two decades but was also a rare national leader from the state. Thousands gathered on the steets of Panaji on Monday to catch a final glimpse of Manohar Parrikar as his mortal remains were brought to the BJP office for party workers to pay their last respect. His remains would be taken to Kala Academy, around three km from the BJP office, later on Monday, to allow the public pay their tribute to him. (Follow updates) The final rites of Parrikar will be performed at 5 pm on Monday at the Miramar beach next to the memorial of Goas first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar, PTI reported. MHA Joint Secretary S K Shahi, in an order issued on Sunday, said the defence ministry is requested to make arrangements for state funeral with full military honours. It has been decided by the government that state funeral will be accorded to the departed dignitary, Shahi has said in the circular. Watch: RIP Manohar Parrikar: From an IIT engineer to BJPs tallest leader in Goa An IIT graduate, Parrikar made a mark as chief minister when Goa politics was hit by defections and unstable governments. He became the CM for the first time in October 2000 after a split in the ruling Congress. Parrikar projected himself as a leader who reached out to people across religious boundaries, attempting to woo the 26% Catholic community in the state. Parrikar was appointed the countrys defence minister between November 2014 and February 2017. However, he returned to Goa politics after the BJP failed to win a majority in 2017. The Congress emerged as the largest party with 17 MLAs, while BJP stood second with 13 in the 40-member assembly. However, regional parties Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Forward Party (GFP) both with three MLAs each and three independent legislators decided to support the BJP on the condition that Parrikar would head the coalition government. Hours after Parrikars death, the BJP and its allies held extensive discussions that continued late into Sunday night but didnt arrive on a consensus for the next Goa chief minister. The BJPs central leadership dispatched a team comprising Union minister Nitin Gadkari and partys national joint organisation secretary B L Santosh who held discussions with BJP MLAs as well as leaders of alliance partners the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Forward Party and independents. While initial indications were that the party was keen to arrive at a decision by Sunday night itself, leaders emerging from the meeting said their views were taken but no decision was arrived at. Police in Andhra Pradesh have said the driver of YS Vivekananda Reddy, former minister and uncle of YSRC president YS Jaganmohan Reddy, killed the leader after a blood-stained letter was found from the crime spot in Kadapa district. Vivekananda Reddy was found dead in his house by one of his domestic helps. He died after returning home from an election campaign for the YSRC candidate S Raghurami Reddy in Mydukuru assembly constituency. This fellow (driver Prasada Reddy) is killing me for asking him to come early in the morning for the election campaign, the letter believed to have been written by the Vivekananda Reddy allegedly says. Also read: Jagan Reddys uncle Vivekananda Reddy found dead, case of unnatural death filed Kadapas superintendent of police Rahul Dev Sharma said while speaking to reporters on Sunday that Vivekananda Reddys daughter Sunitha and his personal assistant Krishna Reddy confirmed that the handwriting in the letter was that of the murdered leader. His handwriting samples have been sent for an expert opinion. Krishna Reddy collected the letter from the crime scene in the morning and submitted it to the police only in the evening, the senior official said. Sharma said, quoting Krishna Reddy, that he submitted the letter to the police late as Vivekananda Reddys daughter had asked him to withhold it. Sunitha told Krishna Reddy to keep the letter with him till she arrived at Pulivendula from the US since she apprehended a threat to the drivers life, he said. Sharma said the YSRCs MP candidate YS Avinash Reddy called the local circle inspector from Krishna Reddys mobile phone and informed him of the murder. By the time the inspector reached the scene, Avinash Reddy and YS Manohar Reddy (Jagans cousins), Krishna Reddy and others were already present there. The inspector saw that the blood-soaked blanket had been changed from the victims bed and deep wounds on his body were stuffed with cloth pieces, Sharma said. He said that the post-mortem examination of Vivekanandas body shows that he was murdered at 11:30pm on March 14 in his house. Vivekananda Reddys servants found his body lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom in the morning the next day, he said. Police are examining the reasons behind the different versions given by his family members, who initially said Vivekananda Reddy died of a cardiac arrest even after they found him with injuries on his body. They later said he was murdered. They are also probing the motive behind the murder and also the reason behind the familys delayed complaint to police, Sharma said. The murder has triggered a huge row between the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the opposition YSRC less than a month before the assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the state. Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party president Jaganmohan Reddy has alleged that the story of the letter was fabricated by police to save the real culprits involved in the crime. He has accused Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu of trying to eliminate his family in a meticulous manner. When the chief minister is behind the political killings involving our family, how can we get justice if our uncles murder case is investigated by the state police? he asked. Jagan Reddy also suspects TDPs MP candidate in Kadapa C Adinarayana Reddy was involved in the murder of his uncle. He met Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governor ESL Narasimhan in Hyderabad on Saturday and sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the killing of Vivekananda Reddy. Naidu has rubbished Jagan Reddys allegations and said he was trying to get off the hook by seeking a CBI probe. The Andhra Pradesh government has also constituted a special investigation team (SIT) headed by additional director general of police Amit Garg to probe the case. A six-year-old boy from Kerala, who died on Monday after contracting the West Nile Virus (WNV), could be the first casualty of the disease reported from the country, say experts in the Union ministry of health and family welfare. The ministry said it will be tracking each case that tests positive for WNV disease to document the disease outcome. This could be the first death that we know of. There may have been deaths earlier but we dont seem to have any documented evidence whether any of those [people] tested positive for the disease or not, said an expert from the ministry, asking not to be identified. Three cases of the WNV disease have been reported from the country so far this year, all from Kerala, and all in the past three months. The boy was one of them. Six laboratories of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have been routinely testing samples for WNV across the country. There have been sporadic outbreaks in different parts of the country, including the north-east. The six labs are in Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Patna, Dibrugarh and Agartala. Read more| What is West Nile Virus and how does it spread? Read here ICMRs viral research diagnostic labs have been testing samples and maintaining record of cases since 2016. Deaths, however, are usually not recorded at the laboratory level but in the hospitals where patients get treated, said Dr RR Gangakhedkar, head, epidemiology and communicable diseases division, ICMR. Since 2016, 124 cases of the disease have been reported from across the country, but no deaths. Experts in virology say there is usually no single reason that leads to death in cases of WNV disease. There are many factors responsible, including some underlying medical condition that may aggravate the virulence of the virus, certain mutations that change the behaviour or exaggerated immune response of a person. There always is a balance of viral factors and the host factors, where host is the patient, which decides the disease outcome, said Dr Ekta Gupta, senior virologist, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. The cause needs to be investigated further, she added. According to previous research, WNV is not a new disease to India. In India, the existence of antibodies (protein produced by the human body to fight bacteria and viruses) against WNV in humans was recorded for the first time in 1952, according to a 2006 research paper titled West Nile Virus isolates from India: evidence for a distinct genetic lineage. The research was conducted by experts at the National Institute of Virology in Pune, and published in the Journal of General Virology. Since WNV is a vector-borne disease, the health ministry has been monitoring the situation closely. A team of experts from health ministrys National Centre for Disease Control has been assisting state authorities in managing the disease. Resident doctors may get a hardship allowance of 5,000- 7000 for risking infections from needle-prick wounds or cuts suffered while treating patients, officials familiar with the matter said. The Union health ministry approved the allowance last year and sent the proposal to the governments economic affairs department for review. we may also seek comments of Integrated Finance Division [IFD] in this matter, reads the health ministry proposal forwarded to the finance department. The health ministry in-principle approved adding the risk hardship allowance for resident doctors, but this would require changes in the residency clause as it would apply to all resident doctors across India, said a health ministry official on condition of anonymity. According to the 7th Central Pay Commission recommendations on allowance resolution, risk hardship allowance is applicable only to doctors working in high-active field areas such as border areas or where there is an epidemic or counter-insurgency operations in field areas. Since the move would require the salary structure of the residents to be altered, we had to forward the proposal to the finance department. The file is with them and the ultimate decision will also be theirs, the official added. The Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA) is demanding the implementation of the risk hardship allowance for resident doctors from the coming academic session in May. Our profession is full of risks as, at the first point of contact with a patient, there is no way we can know about their HIV, viral hepatitis or swine flu etc status. And when you are working in such a high-pressure environment, accidents do occur. Besides, residents do not have fixed work hours and do not get compensated for long hours. This demand is just, said Dr Sumedh Sandanshiv, president, FORDA. In the cath lab where I work, a needle-prick injury is very common, as is catching seasonal flu. In the ophthalmology department, contracting conjunctivitis is common, says Dr Amarendra Singh, president, resident doctors association, AIIMS, New Delhi. Resident doctors, especially those working in the emergency department, have also been demanding risk allowance because of the steadily growing instances of being manhandled by patients attendants. It is part of the hardship we face. Patients attendants sometimes get really violent and doctors tend to bear the brunt of their anger, Dr Sandanshiv said. However, the ministry official quoted above clarified that the hardship allowance proposal was only for risk of infections and injuries. Manhandling is an administrative lapse, not a risk that can be compensated under this head, said another health ministry official who did not want to be named. A seven-year-old boy in Keralas Malappuram district who had tested positive for West Nile Virus died in Kozhikode medical college on Monday morning, hospital sources said. . West Nile Virus is a disease which spreads from birds to humans with the bite of an infected Culex mosquito. The symptoms include cold, fever, bodyache, fatigue and nausea, with complications leading to meningitis and death. The authorities have issued a high alert in Keralas north Malabar region after seven-year-old Mohamad Shans death. No other case has been reported yet. No need to panic. The boy was in isolation ward for last 10 days. We are on high alert and going by the protocol of the World Health Organisation, Kerala health minister K K Shylaja said, adding that the state was in constant touch with the union health ministry. Another senior health officer said all who were in contact with the child, including parents and medical professionals, are under observation. Also read: What is West Nile Virus and how does it spread? Read here The state health director has convened a high-level meet. All hospitals have been alerted, private have also been told to make arrangements for isolation wards and safety kits. Last week, a two-member team of experts from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in Delhi went to Malappuram to support state health authorities to manage the disease. Seven months ago, a woman from Kozhikode district was admitted to the Government Medical College and Hospital with West Nile Virus-like symptoms. But she did not test positive. An Army soldier was killed in cease violation by Pakistani forces along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district on Monday. Pakistani forces resorted to firing from small arms and shelling mortars in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district. A soldier was martyred and three others were injured in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Keri Battal area of Akhnoor this morning, said an Army source. Earlier, Defence spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand had said that at around 5.30 am, Pakistan initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by shelling with mortars and firing of small arms along LoC in Sunderbani Sector. He said Indian Army retaliated effectively and the firing stopped at 0715 hours. Earlier, on 6:30 pm on Sunday Pakistani troops violated ceasefire triggering a strong response from the Indian Army. This came after Pakistan on Wednesday violated ceasefire in Poonch sector of the state. Earlier, Pakistani Rangers also initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation in Chakkan da Bagh crossing point where the Line of Control trade centre is located. (With ANI inputs) What is Lokpal? A national anti-corruption ombudsman to look into complaints against public servants as defined under the Lokpal Act, 2013. The office of Lokpal comprises a chairperson and up to eight members. The chairperson can be current or former judges of the SC or chief justices of HCs. Members should have least 25 years of experience in matters related to anti-corruption policy, vigilance, public administration, finance, law and management. Powers of Lokpal The Lokpal can initiate a preliminary investigation after it receives a complaint under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. If the complaint is found to be true, the Lokpal can ask the government to take disciplinary action against the public servant and also file a case in a special court to be set up by the Centre. Who all can Lokpal investigate? According to the Lokpal Act, 2013, the ombudsman can investigate persons in seven categories a prime minister after s/he demits office; current and former ministers; current and former MPs; all Group A officers of the central government; all Group A-equivalent officers of PSUs and other government bodies; directors and officers of NGOs which receive government funds; directors and officers of NGOs which receive funds from the public and have an annual income above 10 lakh from a foreign contributor and 1 crore from the government. The investigation and trial process? A preliminary inquiry should be completed within 30 days of receiving a complaint. The period can be extended to further three months. A full inquiry has to be completed within six months, extendable by another six months. Trial should be completed within a year of filing the case; the time period can be extended to a maximum of two years. Lokpal does not need prior sanction from the government to investigate a complaint Who selects Lokpal? A five-member selection panel comprising the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker, the Leader of Opposition, Chief Justice of India, and an eminent jurist nominated by the President. How can Lokpal be removed? The President can make a reference to the Supreme Court either on his own or if 100 MPs sign a petition seeking the removal of the chairperson or any of the members. If the SC, after an inquiry, finds the charges to be true, s/he should be removed by President. How was Lokpal law enacted? In January 2011, the government formed a Group of Ministers to suggest measures to tackle corruption, including the examination of the proposal of a Lokpal Bill following a protest in Delhi by Anna Hazare. In July 2011, the Union cabinet approved the bill, and both Houses passed it in December 2013. Anti-corruption offices similar to Lokpal in other countries According to PRS Legislative Research, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Spain, New Zealand, Burkina Faso and the United Kingdom are some of the countries which have the office of an ombudsman. What next? Once the Lokpal takes charge, the process to search and select eight members will start. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday said she had seen her family make several sacrifices for the country, including the assassination of her father former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and that neither she nor brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi were interested in power. Neither my brother Rahul Gandhi nor I have any interest in satta (political power), she said while speaking at Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district during a halt in her 140 km long three-day Prayagraj-Varanasi Ganga Yatra on a steamer. She said the upcoming polls were not just a plain chunav (election) but chunauti (challenge) for the electorate to get rid of a government which was not interested in addressing public woes. Also read: Lok Sabha Elections 2019: On boat yatra, Priyanka Gandhi jabs PM Modis Main bhi Chowkidaar campaign The purpose of my three-day journey is not to attain power nor form a Congress government, but to save the country and the constitution, as both are in danger. Priyanka said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had failed to address problems of farmers, the unemployed and womens safety among a host of other issues. Although the present prime minister claimed he was very powerful and had a 56-inch chest, he could not address woes of farmers, the unemployed, womens safety, development of the country and other issues successfully, the Congress general secretary said. Bhadohi was the carpet manufacturing belt of India but the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) had caused 60% weavers to close their businesses, she claimed. Priiyanka also said that under the BJP government there is a danger to freedom of expression. The Allahabad University students who I met on a steamer (during the yatra) said that they were deprived of freedom of expression under this government as their voice was suppressed whenever they raised their problems, she said. Also read: Priyanka Gandhi starts Ganga Yatra with prayers and boat ride The Congress general secretary said the PM coined the slogan Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas, but the it was the welfare of only a handful that was ensured. Earlier, Bahraich MP Savitri Bai Phule, who joined the Congress, said she had left the BJP because the PM only knew how to tell lies. During the function, carpet traders presented a carpet to the Congress leader. Local office bearers of the party gifted a copy of Valmiki Ramayan to her. From a bastion for decades to a mere two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and losing the Assembly elections the Congress saw it all in Maharashtra. Are they set to regain their lost glory this election? While top leaders aim to reduce the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) tally in the state, which has 48 seats, experts feel there is not much hope. Heres why: Within days of the election dates being announced, Sujay, the son of the partys Opposition leader in the Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, joined the BJP. The big question for workers now is how to convince voters to support the party, if their own top leader couldnt get his son to stay. The Vikhe Patil episode, which came soon after Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkars refusal to join the Congress-NCP coalition in the state, has demoralised the party cadre, bringing the differences among leaders to the fore. Mumbai leaders are openly criticising their unit chief Sanjay Nirupam, while a senior leader, Balasaheb Thorat, publicly asked Vikhe Patil to come clean on hobnobbing with the BJP. Vikhe Patil has in turn replied saying he is answerable to the party bosses and not Thorat. Wasted opportunities Sujays entry into the BJP is being linked to his cordial relations with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, which is also seen as the reason why the party failed to corner the state government on the floor of the Assembly. Observers feel that as the prime Opposition party in the state, the Congresss performance should have been more impressive. When at least a dozen of ministers from the Fadnavis government were facing corruption charges, the Opposition failed to take the cases to their logical end or put the government in beleaguered position. Be it the corruption charges against cooperation minister Subash Deshmukh for amassing Centres grant for milk powder plants or his illegal bungalow in Solapur, the Congress should have aggressively raised the issues. The party also failed to corner the CM over the transfer of Cidco land to builders. This has affected the credibility of the party, admits a senior Congress leader. The Congress has always enjoyed support from farmers, Dalits and minorities. Political observers feel they failed to strengthen their lost base in the past five years. It was surprising to see the party didnt learn anything from the humiliating defeat in 2014. The leaders are still indulging in factionalism and safeguarding their own interests. The party lacks in organisation, leadership and focus. It could not come up with any programme to galvanise the support of their traditional voters or give them due representation in the party. Neither do they have a strategy to convince voters that they are an alternative, nor are they using modern means of social media and technology to do so, said Suhas Palshikar, a noted analyst and election researcher. In the past five years, the Maratha community held 58 mass silent rallies, while various groups of farmers held aggressive agitations. But instead of using these developments to challenge the Fadnavis government, the Congress opted to take no active stand, making them blessings in disguise for the BJP. The government controlled the damage by announcing farm loan waiver and giving 16% reservation to the Marathas. The Maratha community was fragmented over the past 15-20 years, mainly owing to disillusionment against the Congress-NCP rule. Although the young Marathas turned to the BJP as an alternative, they may not have been inclined towards the ruling party. But the Congress and its allies did nothing to stop Marathas from choosing a different path, Palshikar said. Besides the ruling combine, smaller parties representing Dalits and minorities, so far guaranteed vote banks for the party, too, will pose a serious challenge to the Congress. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkars grandson Prakash floated a front, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, along with All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) to target smaller groups of backward classes and minorities. Despite several attempts, Prakash Ambedkar did not accept the Congress-NCPs offer to join hands with them. The Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which have influence over the Dalits and Muslims in certain parts of the state, too, have stayed away from the Congress. This could act in favour of the ruling party and dent the Congress-NCPs support base. Although smaller parties representing Dalit voters have deviated from the Congress, it still has an opportunity to regain a larger vote share that didnt support it in the last election, said Hemant Desai, another political commentator. Erosion in urban base In the past five years, the Congress has rapidly lost support in urban areas too. It lost elections to major civic bodies, including in Mumbai. The BJP has replaced the Congress as the main beneficiary of urban voters, leaving the Congress under-confident of winning the Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai and other cities. The infrastructure projects launched by the BJP-led government in Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nagpur may make it difficult for the Opposition to garner support from urban voters. Besides Vidarbha, the Congress has always banked on Mumbai, where the party was formed 133 years ago. North Indian voters, the second largest group after Marathis in the financial city of the country, was an assured vote bank for the party, until recently. It would be interesting to watch if this vote base switches back to the Congress in this election. The fate of the Congress candidates in at least two Mumbai constituencies North West and North Central largely depends on these voters. The party is expecting a better response in rural areas owing to the unhappiness among farmers. Balasaheb Thorat, senior Congress leader, said, Farmers in Maharashtra are going through unprecedented hardship and have been blaming the government for it. It all depends on how we convince the voters to convert the discontent into votes for us. Over the last two years, we organised rallies across the state to highlight the plight of farmers, which got good response. We lack in use of social media, which was seen in the Gujarat Assembly elections in December 2017, but we will overcome it. Ajit Nawale, farmer leader and general secretary, Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sabha, said, It is true that voter sentiments in rural parts of the state and among farmers is against the ruling party, but it does not mean that it is in favour of the Congress. The Congress and other Opposition parties have equally failed in generating confidence in rural areas with alternative policies and assurances. Warring leaders Another major challenge the party faces is factionalism. Across the state, leaders have been fighting against each other, even at the cost of the partys prospects. In Mumbai, the feud within the party has come out in the open, with senior leaders targeting city unit head Sanjay Nirupam. The party has five former chief ministers and several former Union ministers and dozens of former state ministers. However, the ego battles and turf wars have weakened them even in areas where it enjoys good support. According to a senior functionary, none of the leaders who enjoyed the perks that came with power for years is willing to contribute at a time when the party is short of resources. Very few leaders have bothered to connect with the masses in the past few years. Thorat, however, claimed the leaders were united. We have decided to fight together and have chalked out a strategy to win maximum number of seats, Thorat said. Ground reality The central leadership hopes the Congress-NCP led coalition in Maharashtra wins at least 20-25 seats in its bid to stop the BJP from getting another term. In 2014, the saffron combine won 42 seats that formed a sizeable chunk of the NDAs 300-plus tally. Under the current circumstances, it seems like a tough task in Maharashtra. The BJP and Shiv Sena have put their act together to avoid losses over bickering. In contrast, the Opposition coalition doesnt appear to be a cohesive unit. The Congress and NCP dont trust each other. They have failed to get smaller Opposition parties on board. None of the prominent Dalit leaders is part of their coalition. On ground, the party has not done much to counter the BJPs campaign yet. The Congress, however, has traditionally been known as a mass-based party that gets the support of people even if it doesnt have strong leaders or a network of disciplined workers. In the current situation, only a stroke a good luck can ensure a good show against an aggressive BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning to rebut allegations levelled against it by the Congress on issues ranging from farm distress to unemployment to the alleged politicisation of the Pulwama terror attacks. This includes bringing out a black paper on how the Congress deceived farmers , says Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar. In an interaction with Amandeep Shukla and Rakesh Goswami, Javadekar, the BJPs campaign incharge for Rajasthan, spoke about the partys political vision in the state and nationally, apart from key movements in the education sector. Edited excerpts: It has been five years of the Modi government which came at the back of huge expectations. The countdown has begun for next Lok Sabha elections. Why do you think people will again vote for you? People vote differently in different elections. They consider, what is the main issue? This time, the issue is who should lead India. And the answer is very obvious. After all, people will think in terms of what is available. And the leadership that is available people are definitely voting for [Narendra] Modi to be the leader because they believe he has the capacity to take India to the next level. The second most important question is, who will make India secure? Because security is always a very important consideration. As we have seen in 2008, after the Mumbai attack, the security forces asked permission from the then PM Manmohan Singh ji that they will give a befitting reply to Pakistan. But that was not allowed. And here is a Prime Minister who takes risks for the country and is decisive. There is no policy paralysis. Therefore when the air force suggested we are ready to strike, he allowed them to do so. This is the decisive leadership people want. You spoke of decisive action. So, Nationalism, terrorism, security etc. are they going to be your major poll planks? Is it bad? Every country defends itself and security has always been a major concern. But Modi ji also brings in the major issue of progress. And he has ensured what India can achieve. India was 11th biggest economy of the world when he took over. Today, it is the sixth. And if we want to move to fourth, the direction taken by the Modi government is the correct direction and therefore that is what people want. Because, unless you create prosperity, you cannot remove poverty. What is the Communist ideology and why do we differ? They want to distribute poverty. We want to distribute prosperity to remove poverty. And we have seen how fast poverty has come down. It is not only the reduction of number of those living below the poverty line, but more importantly the poor have been empowered. What is the difference between Congress politics and BJP politics? Congress always thought of entitlements small help on the eve of elections, slogans but not empowerment. Through a slew of measures Modi ji has empowered the poor people. Like, he is giving homes, jobs, unsecured loans, toilets, gas, Ayushman Bharat and now 12 crore farmers will get Rs 6,000 a year help, instant direct cash transfer, to help them to bring in good agriculture inputs. So Modi represents not only surety of security but also surety of progress and prosperity. Development, development, development is our basic agenda, security of course is also part of development. The Opposition has accused you of politicising the Pulwama attacks and aftermath? It is not politicisation. Talking about security is not politicisation. Actually, raising doubts on action taken by our forces in the national interest is a disservice to the country. Therefore, that goes against the very basic ethos of the countrys security. The Opposition has created doubts on this and they are asking proofs. Now proofs have also emerged. Now, everybody knows how the missiles struck, what are the losses, and people there have already described how they have seen bodies being taken away, and many other things. So, when the whole country is congratulating the security forces, and here is the unfortunate Opposition who are raising doubts. The Opposition, especially the Congress, has accused your government of not doing enough for farmers. Actually Modi ji has given complete sapt sutriye-sapt kranti (seven-point revolution) for farmers. Soil health cards for 16 crore farmers so that they understand what is the health of the soil, what fertilizer we should use. So everything you can treat and save your money. For 40 years farmers struggled for remunerative prices. Atal ji formed the Swaminathan Commission which gave the formula that it will be cost of production plus 50 %. The report came in 2006. From 2008 to 2014, all six years I raised questions in Rajya Sabha why government has not accepted this recommendation. And every time the answer from United Progressive Alliance-Congress was we have not accepted this recommendation. And here is a Prime Minister who has accepted and given the MSP formula cost plus 50 % to the whole of peasantry which was the demand for 40 years of farmers agitation. The farmers were demanding this only. They dont want lollipops like loan waivers or something. And loan waivers remind me that every state has a different characteristics. Our state governments like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra have done really good while on the other hand Congress has actually cheated the farmers. They promised loan waiver in Punjab, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and they did nothing. We are bringing out a black paper on how Congress has deceived farmers. Thirdly, we have added Pradhan Mantri Sinchai Yojana. So more irrigation to the farmers, more new technology so that the water can be saved. At the same time, we have also given Fasal Bima Yojana, a first-time comprehensive insurance for farmers, right from farm to market. So it is all-weather protection. You spoke about a black paper. Can you elaborate? The Congress cheated farmers in Punjab, in Karnataka, in Madhya Pradesh, in Chhattisgarh, in Rajasthan. In these last three states, they used to count like the Tezaab song, ek, do, teen, to dus.that on the 10th day the loans would be waived off. For instance in Rajasthan, the total loans of farmers are of ?90,000 crore. What they have declared is only Rs 18,000 crore waivers and what they have provided for is just ?3,000 crore. This is how they are cheating farmers Actually, the Vasundhara Raje government waived the loans from which 28 lakh farmers already benefitted. How do you respond to reports that unemployment has been the worst in 45 years? That is not true. There are certain organisations which are hell bent on showing a negative picture. Let us understand that employment potential and providing employmentSee, it is not about government employment. It is about providing employment opportunities. Self-employment is also part of employment. Just see what has happened in five years. If there are 42 lakh trucks and more than 20 lakh passenger vehicles have been produced and sold in last five years. What does this mean? Just an example. This means half may be replacement but half is new. So it provides millions of jobs. They are not tracked by many other types of surveys. It is a limited survey of organised labour. These are employment opportunities. If we were bringing roads which was just 11km per day and now it is 30km per dayso , employment grows. If we are bringing irrigation faster, employment grows. If we are producing more in agricultureso jobs are created in each sector. If there are IT-enabled new services on the rise, it creates job opportunities. You brought the old roster system and also the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) for general category. Many say these steps were taken with an eye on the elections. No. Basically the 200-point roster was the governments stand always. We were practising it for so many years. Suddenly the Allahabad High Court gave a decision quashing the 200-point roster and making department and not the college or university as the unit. We fought against it in the Supreme Court. When Supreme Court also upheld department-wise, we went for a special leave petition. When we lost the special leave petition we went for a review petition. After review petition option was over, then only we have come out with an ordinance. That ordinance was welcomed by everyone. And we have already started recruitment. So how many vacancies will be filled? More than 5,000 assistant professors, associate professors, professors in centrally funded universities. There are many state universities. I think there will be vacancies throughout the country to the tune of 15,000 to 20,000, which we stopped because of demand from all political parties that till the old system is brought back, you should not recruit. So during the last one year, there was practically no recruitment. But now it is open. Even on the EWS quota there is criticism that it was brought after the setback in three state polls. No, EWS is always a cause of concern. The only issue was that many times, many states have taken that direction and passed a resolution which did not stand the test of legal scrutiny. We have done it with utmost care. Therefore, I am very sure that economically weaker sections quota is the best perfect constitutional answer to address the problems of reservation for the classes who are poor but not getting reservation. So all general section students and people will get reservation in admissions and employment based on their economic condition. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for putting the blame on the Congress for his failures. Addressing a joint public rally of left parties in Haryanas Jind, Yechury questioned Modi about why farmers were forced to commit suicide in large numbers in his tenure as Prime Minister. It has become the PMs habit to put all the blame for the lamentable state of the country at the doorsteps of the Congress. But the people had amply punished the Congress for its non-performance by voting it out in last parliamentary elections. Five years into his term, Modi cant get away by hiding behind his predecessors now, he said. The CPI(M) leader alleged that all the national assets in the country were being privatised and handed over to Modis corporate friends. It is because of this that 73% of national wealth today is controlled by 1% of people while large sections of the population are languishing in abject poverty despite no dearth of resources in the country, he said. He alleged that 30,000 crore were embezzled by the PM in the purchase of Rafale French fighter jets to help his friend Anil Ambani fight bankruptcy. Yechury also slammed the BJP for trying to draw political mileage out of airstrikes in Balakot after the terror strike in Pulwama. He asked Modi and his party not to consider themselves synonymous with the nation. He also described Modis Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign as fake. The people are the real masters of the chowkidar and are duty bound to replace him if he does not deliver, he said. CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy and CPI (M) leader Nilotpal Basu also spoke on the occasion. For complete coverage of Lok Sabha Elections 2019, click here In the past two years since taking charge, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has been repeatedly commending his government for its good show on development front. So, will its performance really help the ruling BJP retain all the five Lok Sabha seats in the hill state in the coming general election? Analysts seem to have mixed opinion on the state governments performance in key areas like farm, health and education. They, however, agree that its role in executing various projects and the pro-poor schemes envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi may help the BJP retain the five Lok Sabha seats. The party may also stand to gain by the patriotic fervour sweeping through the country after he permitted air strikes on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, say analysts. Some of them feel the euphoria wouldnt last much and the people will vote on the issue of delivery. Thanks to his (Modi) daring decision to allow air strikes on terrorist training camps in Pakistan and have the latter isolated globally has sent a positive message among the people across the country, which will help the BJP sweep all the five Lok Sabha seats in the general election, said Prof MM Semwal of HNB Garhwal (central) University. MC Joshi, a professor at Kumaon Universitys Nainital campus, said the BJPs move to build its campaign narrative around the nationalistic sentiment might pay it electoral dividends. SK Kulshreshtha, a Dehradun-based retired professor, though begs to differ. The euphoria over airstrikes being witnessed these days will subside soon. People will vote on issues like development and employment generation but the ruling BJP has nothing to show on those aspects, said the academic whose opinion, however, drew mixed reactions from political observers. Prof MC Sati of HNB Garhwal (central) University, for instance, felt that barring a few exceptions the Rawat government played its role reasonably well in implementing the centrally funded pro-poor schemes such as Skill India, Start-up India, apart from those pertaining to agriculture, horticulture and organic farming etc. All such steps will help check forced migration from the hills, said the academic. His colleague, Prof YP Sundriyal, though begged to differ saying the hills have been emptying out fast because of the Rawat governments failure to give boost to key sectors such as agriculture, horticulture health, and education etc. Sundriyal though admitted that no graft charge having been reported against Rawat and his ministers would benefit the BJP in the coming general election. Incidentally, he appeared to walk the talk on his policy of zero tolerance for corruption when his government suspended several officials apart from two IAS officers after their names figured in the 300 crore NH-74 scam. Chief minister Rawat has often commended his government for its growth initiatives. Sharing his first report card with reporters recently he said the investments worth rupees one lakh twenty four thousand crore were expected to pour in following the last years Investors Summit held in Dehradun. Already, investments worth 40,000 crore are being made in the hills, he said claiming that the government made all-round progress in key sectors such as health, education and farm. Semwal, however, described as unprecedented the massive funds the Modi government splurged on a small state like Uttarakhand, be it the Chardham all-weather road project, the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag rail project or the Kedarpuri reconstruction project. That would certainly benefit the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls because the Congress never cared for infrastructure building in the hill state despite having ruled the country for decades, he said. The Rawat government though faces flaks for leaving the long pending issue of the hill states permanent capital unresolved. The people feel cheated because both parties that have been alternately ruling the state since its formation have avoided commissioning Gairsain as a permanent capital, said Kamla Pant, a statehood activist referring to the BJP and the Congress. Statehood activist Shekhar Pathak attributed their indecision on the issue to the baseless fear they harbour that declaring the centrally located hill town (Gairsain) as a permanent capital might trigger a backlash from the plain districts. BJP state unit chief Ajay Bhatt, however, said civic amenities and health and education facilities were being developed at Gairsain in keeping with the partys promise to declare it as the states summer capital. The opposition Congress, however, described the state governments performance in the past two years as highly disappointing. Not only has this (Rawat) regimes performance been highly disappointing but it also failed to deliver on all key sectors, be it farm, health or education despite one party (BJP) ruling both in the state and at the Centre, state Congress president Pritam Singh alleged adding the same was the case with the centrally funded schemes. He also hit out at the Rawat government for failing to appoint the Lokayukta (anti-graft ombudsman) despite the BJPs promise ahead of the last assembly polls that the related law would be enacted within 100 days of coming to power. Eastern Uttar Pradesh sets the course for national politics. Or, this is what the locals of Purvanchal believe. Bablu Yadav, a Varanasi resident, is among the votaries of this theory. Quietly sipping tea at a tea stall in Kashi, the heart of the region, he says, Eastern UP always played a decisive role in every general election since the first one held in 1951-52 after independence. In almost every general election in the past, the party which eastern UP supported, came to power or played a crucial role in forming the government at the centre. Till the time the Congress enjoyed the support of eastern UP, the party remained in power at the Centre, he adds. The region has 32 parliamentary seats, including the politically crucial Allahabad, Phulpur, Varanasi, Ballia and Gorakhpur, among others. In the first general election, the Congress won 364 out of 469 parliamentary seats. The party almost made a clean sweep in undivided UP, losing only Kanpur Central to Praja Socialist Party (PJP), Gonda West (now Kaisarganj) to Hindu Mahasabha, Deoria East and Ghazipur East (Ghazipur) to the Socialist Party and Ballia to an independent. The partys winning streak in the region continued in subsequent Lok Sabha elections till 1971. But in 1977, UP, including Purvanchal, turned its back on the Congress and the grand old party bit the dust. The party won only six seats in undivided UP. Nationally, the Congress shrank to 153 seats and its allies won 36 seats. Together, the tally reached 189 seats. Prof Kaushal Kishore Mishra, who teaches political science at BHU, says, The election results of the sixth general elections (1977) show that eastern UP has always been very crucial politically. Incidentally, the party, which enjoyed the support of Eastern UP voters, remained in power, excluding two occasions. In 1977, the region supported the Janata Party and everyone knows the result. In the previous five general elections, eastern UP supported the Congress and the party continued to form governments at the centre, Mishra says. Also Read | Priyanka Gandhi to begin Congress UP campaign with river journey from Prayagraj today In the seventh general election in 1980, eastern UPs faith in Congress was restored and the party won all crucial seats, including Varanasi, Mirzapur, Ghazipur, Robertsganj, Allahabad and Gorakhpur. The Congress stormed back to power at the Centre. The Congress won 404 seats nationally in the 1984 Lok Sabha election, and eastern UP too supported the party in a big way, delivering Varanasi, Ballia, Ghazipur, Machhalishahar, Jaunpur, Gorakhapur and many other seats to it. There was a change in fortunes in the ninth general election in 1989 when the Janata Dal led by VP Singh won over 36 seats in UP and the Congress could bag just 11. Over a dozen seats in the region, including Varanasi, Allahabad and Chandauli, were part of the Janata Dals tally. In 1991, the BJP made its presence felt in eastern UP, winning Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Chandauli, Bhadohi, Padrauna and other seats. The Congress won only five seats in the region but could still form the government at the Centre due to the seats it won in other states and the support it received from some other parties. The lotus bloomed in 1996 when the BJP won many seats in the region, including Varanasi, Robertsganj, Jaunpur, Ghosi, Padrauna, Gorakhpur, Chandauli, Bhadohi, Ghazipur, Faizabad and a few others. The victory added to the BJPs tally and Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed the government which lasted 13 days. Later, the United Front (a conglomeration of regional parties) formed the government at centre and HD Deve Gowda became prime minister. He was succeeded by IK Gujral. Once again, the BJP did well in the region in the 12th general election in 1998 but its UP tally dipped somewhat in 1999. In 2004, the Samajwadi Party won 36 seats in the state, including over a dozen in eastern UP. The BSP won 19 seats, including Basti, Akbarpur, Faizabad, Dumariaganj, Robertsganj, Azamgarh, Chandauli, Machhlishahar and Mirzapur. Both the parties promised support to the United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress, which formed the government. In 2009, the Congress retained power, winning eastern UP seats like Kushinagar, Gonda, Bahraich, Shravasti and Faizabad. In 2014, the BJP swept the region, excluding Azamgarh which Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav won. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won from Varanasi. All adjoining seats were won by BJP and its allies. Mishra said caste equations did not come into play in 2014 as there was a wave. Also Read | Lok Sabha election 2019: Here is all you need to know about Uttar Pradesh In the last five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the region several times. He has been to his parliamentary constituency Varanasi 19 times during this period. Apparently, he understands that eastern UP is crucial, Mishra adds. The upper castes and OBC voters play a decisive role in 26 seats of eastern UP. However, in Azamgarh and Mau, Dalits and Muslims outnumber the OBC and upper caste voters. In the last election, the BSP was runner-up in 17 seats and the SP in the 12. As both the parties are in alliance, the region will witness a close race this time. Mishra adds the elections will be more interesting this time and eastern UP holds key to formation of the next government at the Centre. PMs choice Six out of the nine prime ministers associated with Uttar Pradesh were elected from the states eastern region. Only three of these nine PMs were elected from elsewhere: Indira Gandhi (Rae Bareli), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Lucknow in Awadh region), and Chaudhary Charan Singh (Baghpat in west UP). Indias first Prime Minister Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru won the Phulpur seat by a huge margin in the first general election in 1951-52 and was re-elected in 1957 and 1962. After his death in 1964, Gulzari Lal Nanda succeeded him as acting prime minister. Later, Lal Bahadur Shastri became PM. He was elected from Allahabad Lok Sabha constituency twice in 1957 and 1962. Other prime ministers with an east UP connection included Vishwanath Pratap Singh (belonging to Allahabad but elected from Fatehpur), Chandra Shekhar (Ballia), Rajiv Gandhi (Amethi which is now considered part of east UP) and Narendra Modi (Varanasi). Fight for prestige in Gorakhpur The BJP is pulling out all stops to win back Gorakhpur, which it lost to the SP in the by-election held in March 2018. Prior to that, current chief minister Yogi Adityanath was elected from Gorakhpur on BJP ticket five times in a row from 1998 onwards. Indeed, the party is trying to retain all nine Lok Sabha seats of the Gorakhpur-Basti division. Apart from Gorakhpur, these seats are: Bansgaon, Deoria Salempur, Kushinagar, Basti, Dumariyaganj , Maharajganj and Sant Kabirnagar. Political analyst Manoj Singh says, The Gorakhpur seat was held by the Gorakhnath Mutt for over 60 years and its hardcore Hindu leaders had influence over adjoining seats of the region. The party was considered invincible but the 2018 by-poll defeat left the BJP red-faced. I think these elections are going to be tough test for Yogi, who would be desperate not only to win back his seat but also to retain all nine seats of his region for his party. The united opposition is also in a position to give a tough fight to the ruling party. In 2009, the BJP won only the Gorakhpur and Bansgaon (reserved) seats in the division. The BSP won Basti, Salempur Deoria and Sant Kabirnagar seats. The Congress bagged Kushinagar Maharajganj and Dumiryaganj . Having lost Gorakhpur in the 2018 by-poll, which brought together archrivals the SP and the BSP, the BJP is carefully picking its candidates for nine seats keeping in mind the winning caste equation of Nishads, Brahmins, Thakurs, Dalits and backwards. Four lakh Nishad voters will play a decisive role in Gorakhpur. Hence, the BJP is considering to put up a Nishad candidate against Praveen Nishad, who won the by poll as an SP candidate and is expected to retain the party ticket. Recently, Amrendra Nishad and his mother Rajmati Nishad , who fought unsuccessfully against Yogi in 2014, joined the BJP, giving rise to speculation about Amrendras candidature from Gorakhpur. For complete coverage of Lok Sabha Elections 2019, click here Asserting that Priyanka Gandhi Vadras entry into politics will make "no difference" to the BJP's prospects in the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday dubbed it an "internal matter" of that party. He also dismissed as "false alarm" the SP-BSP alliance and claimed that it was already embroiled in dispute. "The Congress has made her (Priyanka) the party general secretary (in-charge of eastern UP) this time. It is an internal matter of that party as to how it will utilise her services. "Earlier too, she had campaigned for the Congress. And this time too she is the party's campaigner and it will make no difference (to the BJP)," he told PTI in his first interview after announcement of the Lok Sabha poll schedule on Sunday. Asked as to what extent the SP-BSP alliance could dent the BJP's prospects at the hustings, Adityanath said, "The fledgling SP-BSP alliance is already embroiled in dispute." He was referring to reports of hard bargaining between the two parties over certain seats. "It (alliance) is nothing but a 'hauaa' (false alarm)," the chief minister said in his exclusive interview during which he touched upon various key issues, including the IAF strikes on terror camps in Pakistan, and the Ram temple. Adityanath said state-level local issues hardly mattered in general elections. "People will vote for that person and party in whose hands the country is safe, secure and prosperous," he said, adding the voters know this very well. "An effort is being made to whip up an unnecessary confusion and 'hauaa'," the BJP hardliner said, adding the current polls will present a "golden opportunity" for his party, which will come out with flying colours. Referring to the IAF strikes on terror camps inside Pakistan on February 26, Adityanath said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken "bold steps" as and when needed in the interest of the country. After the Pulwama terror attack which claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel, all accused were eliminated by India, catapulting the nation to an elite club of countries that were capable of giving a befitting reply to its enemies, he said. "This is the sign of an efficient and competent leadership.Modiji began with smashing insurgent hideouts in the northeast (Myanmar border) and followed up such strong measures in the aftermath of the Uri terror attack demolishing terror bases across the LoC in one go," Adityanath said. He said by carrying out the pre-dawn anti-terror airstrikes on February 26, India had isolated Pakistan in the international arena and also made New Delhi's strategic prowess felt all over the world. "We can say that India has emerged as a global superpower under the strong leadership of PM Modi," Adityanath said. Asked whether these national security issues will be relevant among people in rural areas, who form a bulk of the electorate, he said every section of the society was aware of issues such as "development, good governance and nationalism". On whether the anti-terror airstrikes in Pakistan's Balakot had overshadowed the Ram temple issue in Ayodhya, he said, "Every child knows the importance of Lord Ram and considers him a role model." "Everybody needs prosperity as well as security." People have realised that things which were impossible for parties such as the Congress, SP, BSP, RJD and the TMC, have become possible for the BJP under Modi's leadership, the chief minister said. "What was impossible earlier, is possible now," he said, adding "Modi hai to mumkin hai" (Modi makes it possible). Exuding confidence that the BJP will come out with flying colours in the Lok Sabha elections across the country on the basis of Prime Minister Modi's 'naam' (name) and 'kaam' (work), Adityanath said, "In 2014 Lok Sabha polls it was Modi's 'naam', and in 2019 it is both 'naam' and 'kaam'." He expressed confidence that the BJP will improve its tally in Uttar Pradesh and win over 74 out of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. On why voters did not favour the BJP in the recent assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Adityanath said in states where a particular party was in power for a considerable amount of time, as long as 15 years, certain anti-incumbency factors crop up. "Our vote share has gone up in Madhya Pradesh and we fared well in Rajasthan despite odds. We will do well in the Lok Sabha polls in these states as the assembly elections were fought on local issues, whereas this is an election for the nation," he added. The nominations for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections began on Monday, after the election commission issued a notification inviting nominations for the first phase of the polls, thereby officially starting process. As many as 91 Lok Sabha constituencies in 20 states across the country are set to vote on April 11, according to an earlier announcement by the election commission. The commission said nominations for the first phase could be done till March 25, and it would be scrutinised by March 26. Thereafter, those whose names have been cleared, would get two more days to withdraw their nominations. AIMIM leader Asadudddin Owaisi was one of the first leaders to file his nominations when he submitted his papers to the returning officer for Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency, which he has been holding since 2004. All the constituencies in both the Telugu speaking states Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will go to polls on April 11 in the first phase. The others states and union territories going to the polls in this round are: Arunachal Pradesh (2), Assam (5), Bihar (4), Chattishgarh (1), Jammu and Kashmir (2), Maharashtra (7), Manpur (1), Meghalaya (2), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Odisha (4), Sikkim (1), Tripura (1), Uttar Pradesh (8), Uttarakhand (5), West Bengal (2), Andaman and Nicobar (1) and Lakshadweep (1). Simultaneously, notification would be issued for Aassembly elections for four states - Andhara Pradesh (all 175 constituencies), Odisha (28 of total 147 constituencies), Sikkim (all 32 constiuencies) and Arunachal Pradesh (all 60 constituencies). The counting of votes would be held on May 23, along with those of six other phases which are to be held on April 18 (97 Lok Sabha constituencies), April 23 (115), April 29 (71), May 6 (51), May 12 (59) and May 19 (59). Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) to be used in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will carry a candidates photograph along with his/her partys symbol, chief election commissioner Sunil Arora said at a press conference while announcing the schedule on March 10 for this summers general elections. This will help avoid any confusion, which may arise when candidates with same or similar names contest from the same constituency, he said. Political parties and candidates are concerned that these namesake candidates may cut into their vote share by confusing the voters. How big is the problem in India? An HT analysis suggests that while it may not be widespread, it is not insignificant either. HT has looked at Lok Sabha and state assembly constituencies where at least two candidates had the same name. Only the elections held since 2014 have been analysed here. Several computerised algorithms such as N-Gram Fingerprint have been used to identify candidates with the same name but different spellings. There were at least 23 constituencies in 2014 Lok Sabha elections where at least two candidates shared the same full name. In the state assembly elections held since 2014, there were at least 108 such constituencies across 19 states. Among them, there were two Lok Sabha and eight assembly constituencies with more than one group of candidates with the same name. To be sure, these may be underestimated figures considering a small margin of error in identifying multiple candidates with same name but different spellings. Tamil Nadu had the highest number of constituencies with multiple namesake candidates contesting the same seat, both in Lok Sabha and assembly polls. It was followed by Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The concern among the front-running candidates that their namesakes may cut into their vote share may be genuine. Also Read | Lok Sabha election dates announced: Know when your state goes to polls The data shows that in 74 Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies, at least one of the top three contestants in terms of the vote share had to contest against at least one candidate of the same name. However, none of these frontrunners lost because of their namesakes cutting into their votes. They either won the seat or lost with a margin greater than the combined vote share of their namesake candidates. This means that even if the voters would have voted for them instead of their namesake candidates, they would still have lost. To be sure, this doesnt mean the namesake candidates cannot play a significant role. For instance, the Bharatiya Janata Partys Chandu Lal Sahu contested Chhattisgarhs Mahasamund Lok Sabha seat in 2014 against Congresss Ajit Jogi. But there were seven other independent candidates named Chandu Lal Sahu in fray. Even as Sahu won the seat with a margin of 0.1% votes, the seat could easily have gone to the Congress had Sahus namesakes polled some more votes. The namesake Sahus together received 62,934 votes, or 5.6% of the total votes. In other places too, top contestants faced more than one candidate with the same name. For instance, there were five candidates named Lakhan Lal Sahu in Chhattisgarhs Bilaspur Lok Sabha seat and three candidates named Jarnail Singh in West Delhi Lok Sabha seat. In Punjabs Zira assembly seat, Kulbir Singh of the Congress and Gurpreet Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party were among the top three contestants. Each of them had three more namesake candidates in the fray for the same seat. The impact of the namesake candidates on top contestants may be much larger if candidates with similar but not the exactly same name are taken into account. For instance, names of two candidates in Chennai South Lok Sabha seat sound similar: S.V.Ramani and S.Veeramani. Even in the Mahasamund seat, where Sahu faced seven other candidates with the same name, there were five more candidates with names similar to his: Three Chandu Ram Sahus and two Moti Lal Sahus. Multiple candidates with same name contesting for a single seat may or may not be a mere coincidence. In a country with about 1.3 billion population, many people are likely to have a common name. For instance, an electoral roll search on the Election Commission of Indias) website shows that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has at least 53 namesakes among registered voters across India. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has at least 390 namesakes. This means, given that a large number of people may have the same name, it is possible that two genuine candidates of the same name are in fray. At the same time, it also means that if someone wants to field a dummy candidate, it may not be difficult to find one. But in any case, the ECIs decision to print photograph of a candidate along with his name and election symbol on the voting unit can make it easier for the voters to identify the candidate they want to vote for. For complete coverage of Lok Sabha Elections 2019, click here A day after the Congress said it would not field candidates in seven seats that were likely to be allotted to top leaders of Uttar Pradeshs Opposition alliance from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), the firsts chief Mayawati accused the party of creating confusion and repeated that her party has no alliance with it anywhere in the country. The Congress is free to field candidates in all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, Mayawati said on Twitter, exuding confidence that the coalition of the BSP, SP and the RLD would be able to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2014, in the coming Lok Sabha polls Read: For full coverage of Lok Sabha elections 2019 Retweeting a post by Mayawati, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav too snubbed the Congress by echoing similar sentiments. In Uttar Pradesh, the alliance of the SP, BSP and the RLD is capable of defeating the BJP. The Congress party should not create any kind of confusion, he added. Watch: Congress leaves 7 seats for SP, BSP and RLD in UP for Lok Sabha polls The Congresss move was a response to the BSP-SP-RLD alliances decision to not contest the Amethi and Rae Bareilly constituencies, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. After Mayawatis tweets on Monday, the Congress said it left seven seats for the coalition as a show of political courtesy. We have done this in past too. Now, there is no reason for Mayawatiji to be upset about our goodwill gesture. She is, however, free to decide her strategy, Congress spokesperson Hilal Naqvi said. In politically crucial UP, the BSP will contest 38 seats, SP 37 seats and the RLD three seats, leaving out the two Congress pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli. The Congress, left out of the UP alliance, said on Sunday it was thankful to the coalition for not fielding candidates in these two seats, and would leave seven seats from where top leaders of the alliance are likely to contest. The exchange left the BJP amused. Can there be a bigger embarrassment for the countrys grand old party? The BSPs snub to the Congress... is a reminder of its dwindling credibility, UP BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai said. Earlier this month, Akhilesh, in what appeared to be a conciliatory message, said the Congress was part of the coalition. But about a week ago, Mayawati said the BSP wont ally with the Congress anywhere in the country, dashing hopes of forging a united Opposition front against the BJP. A BSP leader said on condition of anonymity that Mayawati was working on a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance across the country by joining hands with local parties. Last week, Mayawati announced an alliance with the Jana Sena Party (JSP) of actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. On Saturday, Danish Ali, a leader of Congress ally Janata Dal (Secular), joined the BSP in Lucknow. In Haryana, the BSP will ally with the Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) launched by rebel BJP leader Rajkumar Saini. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday said announced that his son, Omar Abdullah, will be the partys chief ministerial candidate in Jammu and Kashmir. Kick-starting the partys campaign for the Lok Sabha polls in Jammu, the party chief said he will represent Jammu and Kashmir in Parliament. I will not become the chief minister. Omar will fight for chief ministership.The chief minister will be Omar Abdullah as he is young. I am old and I cannot match the energy of young people, but he can. I will go to Parliament and I have full faith that I will be there, Abdullah said addressing public rally in support of BR Kundal who is party candidate from Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency, at Bahu Fort here. Accusing BJP of dividing people and spreading hatred in the country, he said, Desh khatre mein nehi, Modi ji khatre mein hai. It is unfortunate that the BJP is diving people on cast and religious lines. The former chief minister asked people to support those candidates who could run the country based on the principle of equality. He also countered allegations that the National Conference discriminated against Jammu and Ladakh. Slamming the BJP and the RSS for accusing him of being a Pakistani, he said recently his party worker was killed because he was holding the tricolour. I want to tell BJP and RSS that few days back the terrorists killed a poor worker of National Conference. His(poor) only fault was that he was holding the tri colour, he said. In 1996, I contested elections at the height of the militancy in the state, when no one was ready to join the democratic process, the NC leader added. Continuing his tirade against the BJP-led NDA, he claimed that when CRPF personnel were killed in Chhattisgarh, no one from the BJP visited them to offer floral tributes. After a two-year slump, the citys engineering colleges are seeing a rise in offers and pay packages from information technology (IT) companies, with some even touching 40 lakh. While IT firms such as Accenture, Larsen and Toubro (L&T) Infotech, Capgemini and Infosys are hiring students in bulk, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro opted for a pan-India centralised recruitment process. We are witnessing a surge in demand for IT and computer science graduates compared to last year. There has been an unusual growth in packages, which wasnt seen in the past decade, said Gopakumaran Thampi, principal, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College (TSEC), Bandra. Heres an example: Accenture made 178 offers at the KJ Somaiya College of Engineering this year, up from 130 and 140 offers in 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively. The recruitment figure for the company was much higher 301 in 2015-16. At Thakur College of Engineering and Technology (TCET), Kandivli, Accenture offered 150 jobs. Last year, the company didnt visit the college, as it didnt want to share the sought-after first day of placements with Infosys. MH Saboo Siddik College of Engineering (MHSSCOE), Byculla, saw L&T Infotech and Wipro, both of whom were absent last year, making offers to their students this year. Several students received attractive international packages, especially from Japanese firms. Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing company, recruited students for software profile from at least three colleges MHSSCOE, Vidyalankar Institute of Technology (VIT), Wadala, and Sardar Patel Institute of Technology (Andheri) offering between 37.5 lakh to 39 lakh an annum. Works Applications, a Japanese enterprise resource management (ERP) firm, made three offers of 37 lakh each at TSEC. The packages, too, have gotten better. At TSEC, the number of students receiving at least 5 lakh an annum doubled to around 100. At TCET, TCS and Infosys offered salaries between 8-10 lakh, up from the highest 7 lakh offered last year. In addition to their regular job profile, which pays around 3.5 lakh to freshers, some of the mass-recruiting IT firms such as Infosys and Cognizant offered another job profile of 6.5 lakh package at Sardar Patel Institute of Technology. One of the students at the college was offered 40 lakh per annum, including stock options and other perks, by software giant Microsoft. According to experts, the growth in new technologies and bagging of lucrative contracts and investments by IT services firms has contributed to the renewed boom in hiring. The improvement in the IT recruitment is mainly owing to development in new areas, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud and data, collectively known by the acronym ABCD, said Braj Mishra, principal, TCET. Kamal Karanth, founder, Xpheno, a Bengaluru-based specialist staffing firm, said, For the past two to three years, IT companies were running on a thin batch, filling only 70% of their workforce requirement. The recruitment has gone up in the past four-five months. The arrival of guaranteed investment certificates (GICs) in the country and large contracts bagged by some of the companies in the past six years are the other factors. Peter Mukerjea, one of the accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, will undergo an angiography at Sir JJ Hospital on Monday. Mukerjea was rushed to the hospital on Saturday evening after he complained of chest pain. Doctors from the hospital said Mukerjea was experiencing chest pain for the past two-three days. He underwent a battery of tests, including electrocardiogram (ECG), 2-D Echo and blood investigations to diagnose the cause of his chest pain. We are awaiting results of some tests, but his condition is stable now. We have decided to perform an angiography on Monday, as it can diagnose the cause of his discomfort. We will decide the course of medication based on the reports, said Dr Sanjay Surase, medical superintendent of Sir JJ Hospital. Angiography highlights blocked or malformed arteries or veins of heart, which may affect the heart function. Mukerjea is lodged in the Arthur Road jail for his role in the murder of Sheena Bora in 2012. Mukerjea was arrested in November 2015. The town of Jhajjar is located about an hours drive from Gurugram. Historically, the town had a nearby settlement called Malokan, which was destroyed during Muhammed Ghoris invasion on Delhi. Jhajjar was then reconstructed by a local leader, Chajju Jat. The town remained under local feudal leaders during the Sultanate and Mughal periods and was part of the Delhi subah in Akbars reign. In the 18th century, the town shifted from the hands of nawabs of Farrukhnagar to the Marathas and finally to George Thomas, who built a fort in the area before he moved to the nearby town of Hansi. In the 19th century, Jhajjar was handed over to Nawab Nijamat Ali Khan by the East India Company, which appointed his son Faiz Muhammed Khan as the caretaker in 1813. Jhajar flourished in art and architecture during this period. His grandson Nawab Abdur Rahman, who later built Chuchakwas Palace, is known in Indian history as one of the great martyrs of 1857. Who would associate this sleepy laid-back town with Bollywood shootings? But considering its historic significance in the 1857 War of Independence, it became one of the shooting sites for the film, Mangal Pandey by Aamir Khan. The movie has some interesting shots specifically of the tomb sites, which are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. A group of seven tombs is located on the eastern side of town on the Jhajjar- Delhi road near the Bua ka Talab area. The tombs were built during the Mughal period between 1594 and 1630. Each structure is located on a raised platform and has to be approached by a flight of steps. Kankar limestone blocks have been employed for the construction along with red sandstone for decorative purposes. Mostly planned in symmetrical squares, in rectangular and octagonal shapes, the ceilings of the tombs are domical. Some tombs have a mosque or an idgah attached while others have chattris or cupolas in the courtyard. Almost all the tombs bear inscriptions providing valuable information. Another characteristic feature is the presence of medallions in the spandrels of arches. In addition to the tombs, the complex also houses six other structural remains and a huge water tank, all spread in an area of 500m x 300m. According to an inscription on the earliest tomb, Mian Raib, son of Pyara, built it during Ramzan, 1593-94. In the courtyard, there are two gravestones and a cupola supported on eight pillars. The second tomb, according to an inscription, is that of Hasan Shaheed, who was killed during the reign of Jehangir in 1625 or 1626. The gateway of the mosque in the third tomb enclosure bears an inscription that identifies it as the tomb of Ismail, son of Raib, who founded the mosque in 1611. This enclosure also has an octagonal cupola, just like the first tomb. The fourth tomb is an octagonal building covered with a dome. The interior is adorned with geometrical and floral patterns painted in various colours. In the courtyard, there is an open cupola with octagonal pillars and an idgah located at the rear. The mosque of the fifth tomb bears an inscription on the central arch that states that it was constructed during the reign of Shah Jahan in 1629-30 by Kalal Khan. The sixth and the seventh tombs only constitute of western walls without any mosque or cupola. Another historic structure, the Bua Hasan Talab, is located to the east of town on Jhajjar-Delhi road near the group of 7 tombs. This tank was built in 1625 by Kalal Khan, mace-bearer of Emperor Jehangir. The tank is square in plan with steps from the east, west and south sides and a ramp on the north side. The structure is constructed of bricks and clad with stone at the upper level. Approximate dimensions of the tank are 60m x 70m. A small channel is located on the northeast corner and is believed to be the source of water for the tank. Along with the 7 tombs and Bua Hasan ka Talab, one can also visit other historic monuments in Farrukhnagar and the nearby Chuchkawas Palace, enroute from Gurugram to Jhajjar on a day trip. (Shikha Jain is state convenor, INTACH and member of Heritage Committees under ministries of culture and HRD. She is co-editor of book Haryana: Cultural Heritage Guide; director, preservation and community design, DRONAH) The New Zealand arms dealer who sold weapons to the suspected mosque attacker said Monday he felt no responsibility for the deaths of 50 worshippers who were gunned down. David Tipple, the managing director of Gun City, confirmed he sold alleged gunman Brenton Tarrant four firearms and ammunition. We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder, Tipple told a press conference in Christchurch. Tipple refused to answer direct questions about the use of firearms sold from his shop, indicating this was not the time for a debate about guns. Asked if he held any sense of responsibility, Tipple said: No, I do not. He added he would continue to sell weapons to anyone with the same credentials as the gunman. It was the responsibility of the police to vet firearms licence applications, he said. Latest available statistics show police approved 99.6 percent of nearly 45,000 applications in 2017 when Tarrant received his licence. Tipple said the military-style semi-automatic (MSSA) the gunman was seen using did not come from his store. We didnt sell him a rifle used in the incident. I watched the video, I saw the rifle, and I know for sure where it came from -- if it has the serial number that I expect -- and it was not from any Gun City affiliated store, he said. Tarrant obtained his standard A-category firearms licence in November 2017 and bought four weapons over four months using an online service, Tipple said, adding Gun City had records of the purchases and had provided full details to the police. Also read | New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern received Christchurch mosque shooters manifesto 9 minutes before attack Amid a public outcry across New Zealand, including the banning of semi-automatic weapons, Tipple said he would not be proactive and withdraw AR15s from sale but would do so if required by law. Tipple rejected reports of panic buying of weapons after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said gun laws would be tightened in the wake of the massacre. Its a lie. Theres been a number of people wanting to sell their semi-automatic firearms as a result of the incident. Also read | New Zealands Christchurch mosque shooter who killed 50 may have acted alone The simmering tension between India and Pakistan will figure in the first Sino-Pakistani strategic dialogue between the two foreign ministers to be held in Beijing on Tuesday. Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi reached Beijing on Monday to attend the first dialogues under the new mechanism in the backdrop of the tension with India following the Pulwama terror attack in Kashmir in February and subsequent engagement between the two air forces over the Line of Control (LoC). The visit comes days after Beijing for the fourth time blocking an international bid at the UN Security Council to designate Pakistan-based Jaish-e Mohammed (JeM) chief, Masood Azhar as a global terrorist after the JeM had claimed responsibility for the Pulwama attack. I believe the issues causing regional tensions will be discussed, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Geng Shuang said at the regular ministry briefing on Monday. As neighbour, China would like to see easing of tensions between the two. We would like to see the two countries continue to engage in dialogue for the peace and stability of the region, Geng added. To a query whether Azhars listing will figure in the talks in the context of Chinese envoy to India Luo Zhaohui saying it would be resolved, Geng said that he could not prejudge the topics of the talks. But they will discuss issues of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern, he said. On Azhars listing, he said: China will continue to deal with the issue with a responsible and constructive manner and will maintain close communication with all parties, including India and Pakistan. Qureshi will discuss the whole gamut of bilateral relations with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, with focus on the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of President Xi Jinpings massive connectivity mission, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to an official statement issued in Islamabad, Qureshis visit will add momentum to close and broad-based bilateral ties and reinforce efforts to deepen economic engagement under the CPEC. Qureshi will address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. The status of India-Pakistan ties is expected to figure prominently in the talks. In fact, Qureshi and Wang had at least two telephonic conversations at the end of February when the Indian and Pakistani air forces had engaged with each other and there was fear of the situation escalating. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected, Chinese foreign minister, Wang had told Qureshi during the phone call. Wang had stressed that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected, Chinas foreign ministry said in a statement. The statement quoted Wang, who is also a state councillor, as saying China is unwilling to see acts that violate the norms of international relations. The conversation took place against the backdrop of Pakistan violating Indian airspace on February 27. New Delhi had then described the violation as an unsuccessful attempt to target military installations. A combat air patrol team of the Indian Air Force had foiled the attempt and shot down a Pakistani F-16. One IAF fighter, a MiG 21 Bison, was also shot down. Earlier this month, China had sent vice-foreign minister, Kong Xuanyou, to Islamabad to discuss the tension in India-Pakistan ties. His visit is designed for communication with Pakistan regarding the situation concerning both India and Pakistan. China has been promoting peace and stability in this region. We hope that Pakistan and India will maintain friendly relations, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Lu Kang had said. During Qureshis meetings here, the CPEC too will be under sharp focus. The Pakistani military and the new government in Islamabad had last year assured China of the security and development of the CPEC. During a visit to Beijing last year, army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had told the Vice-Chairman of Chinas powerful Central Military Commission (CMC) General Zhang Youxia, Bajwa that Pakistan will continue to cooperate with China in the areas of counter-terrorism, equipment technology, and personnel training to ensure the safe and smooth development of the CPEC. Bajwa had also held talks with Chinese counterpart General Han Weiguo on Tuesday on the security of the $ multi-billion CPEC, defence cooperation as well as regional and bilateral issues. The Pakistani military and its new government are consistent in their policy towards China, Bajwa was quoted as telling Zhang, adding: the friendship between Pakistan and China is higher than mountains and deeper than oceans. China arrested nearly 13,000 terrorists and dismantled over 1,500 terror gangs in the northwestern Xinjiang province since 2014, the government said in a new policy paper on Monday, continuing to defend the controversial security measures implemented in the region. Beijing faces international criticism for setting up what the UN has called detention camps holding more than a million members from the Uyghur Muslim community in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). China, however, says the sites are actually vocational training centres and campuses for livelihood training and de-radicalisation of those influenced by extremism. The new white paper titled The Fight against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang is Beijings latest effort to defend its, what many say, hardline policies in the remote region. Released by the State Council Information Office, the paper says: For some time Chinas Xinjiang, under the combined influence of separatists, religious extremists and terrorists, has seen frequent incidents of terrorist attacks, which have been detrimental to the life and property of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and have trampled on peoples dignity. As a result of its counter-terror efforts, local authorities in XUAR, since 2014, Xinjiang has destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials, it added. It has adopted a policy that strikes the right balance between compassion and severity, the white paper said. The policy paper added that only a minority of people face strict punishment, such as ringleaders of terror groups, while those influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training to teach them the error of their ways. Only by strengthening our community of shared future, abandoning double standards, enhancing political mutual trust, reaching strategic consensus, and promoting exchanges and cooperation, can we effectively curb and combat terrorism and extremism in the interests of world peace and stability, the white paper said. The main exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, swiftly denounced the white paper in a statement quoted by the Reuters news agency. China is deliberately distorting the truth. Counter-terrorism is a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs. The real aim of the so-called de-radicalisation is to eliminate faith and thoroughly carry out Sinification, WUC spokesperson Dilxat Raxit said to the news agency. The white paper said Xinjiang has faced a particular challenge since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US, as East Turkestan extremists ramped up activities in China. They screamed the evil words of getting into heaven by martyrdom with jihad, turning some people into extremists and terrorists who have been completely mind-controlled, and even turned into murderous devils. A country under the rule of law, China respects and protects human rights in accordance with the principles of its Constitution, the document said. Chinas fight against terrorism and extremism is an important part of the same battle being waged by the international community, the white paper said, adding that it is in keeping with the purposes and principles of the United Nations to combat terrorism and safeguard basic human rights. In todays world, faced with the severe challenges of terrorism and extremism, no country can shy away from them, it said. A gunman killed three people and wounded nine others on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, sparking a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with sniffer dogs zero in on an apartment building close to the shooting. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level, and the citys mayor said a terror motive was the most likely theory. Dutch military police went on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey who they said was associated with the incident. The photo showed a bearded man on board a tram, dressed in a dark blue hooded top. Police warned citizens not to approach the man, whom they identified as Gokmen Tanis, but call authorities instead. The Utrecht attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. They later erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Utrecht police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Heavily armed anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A sniffer dogs wearing a tactical vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed three deaths and said that nine people were wounded, three of them seriously. We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, van Zanen said. Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. He said that a terror motive is not excluded. Rutte said that, throughout the country, there is a mix of disbelief and disgust. If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence, he added. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one possibility is that the person fled by car. He did not rule out the possibility that more than one shooter was involved. The Netherlands anti-terror coordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000 people. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province. Dutch political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of the Dutch parliaments upper house. In neighboring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for federal police in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said additional officers had been detailed to watch not only major highways, but also minor crossings and railway routes. German authorities were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact sedan, but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht, Onstein said. (CNN) Abdul Nazer and his wife, Ansi Alibava, had their life planned out. They'd borrowed money to move to New Zealand from India last year, so she could do a master's degree there in agribusiness management. He'd taken a job stacking shelves at the local supermarket to help pay the bills. When Alibava graduated, they hoped she'd get a high-paying job and they would live and work in New Zealand, before returning home to the southern Indian state of Kerala to settle down. Friday's mass shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch changed everything. Nazer recounts his story in slow, halting words. He's barely slept since Friday. His friend, Renju George, sits beside him, filling in the gaps when Nazer struggles to speak. Nazer, 34, and Alibava, 25, were both inside Al Noor mosque -- men sat on the left, women on the right -- when the first shots were fired in one of New Zealand's worst mass shootings. "Right before the main prayer, I heard a single shot firing and I thought that some kids outside might have popped a balloon," says Nazer, in his native language Malayalam. Seconds later a series of staccato shots from a high-powered weapon sent 300 or so people in the mosque scrambling for the exit. Nazer says he was close to an emergency door and escaped after someone smashed the glass. Others were not so lucky. "People started falling over me, I saw people with blood on their shirts," he says. He ran to a neighboring house and phoned the police for help before returning to the mosque to find his wife, who he hadn't seen since they'd taken their seats. The scene that confronted him was horrifying. Bodies were scattered on the street beside pools of blood. Many people were injured. Then he saw the motionless figure of his wife, lying face down in the street. "I ran towards her and then a police guy stopped me and told me to move somewhere else," he says. It wasn't until Saturday night, more than 24 hours after he had fled the mosque, that police confirmed that Alibava was one of the 50 people killed in Friday's attacks. Nazer's friend, George, was with him when police handed them, and other families, a list of the people confirmed dead. Until then, he says, like many other relatives, they had clung on to the futile hope that perhaps there had been a mistake. That perhaps Alibava was in hospital. "We thought it might be one of those miracles that could happen," George says. Nazer and Alibava had an arranged married two years ago, but friends say they have no doubt that the couple soon fell deeply in love. "She really loves her husband and her husband really loves her," says Tali Ao, a friend from Lincoln University, who says he became good friends with "best friend" with Alibava during their studies together. "I can see when they came to New Zealand ... I could see them discovering each other. And really liking each other," he adds. Alibava finished her master's degree three weeks ago, after doing extra study last summer to finish earlier than her classmates. Ao says Alibava was the brightest student on her course. "Her professors, everyone loved her," Ao says. "She was so smart. Though she didn't like doing assignments, she was very good at it." On Monday, the university's students and staff bowed their heads on the lawn for one minute's silence in remembrance of the dead. "For some of our family's victims to be attacked because of their religion is inconceivable," said Acting Chancellor Bruce Mckenzie. The Kerala community in Christchurch has tightened around Nazer to help him through the coming days and months. They've started a Givealittle page to help him pay back the $70,000 New Zealand dollar- ($48,000) loan they took out in India to pay for Alibava's studies. Nazer wants to send his wife's body back to Kerala to be home with her mother and brother. Her father died several years ago. Nazer is unsure what the future holds, but he says he knows he wants to stay in Christchurch, where he and his wife spent most of their married life together. "She had so many dreams," he says. "No one would expect something like this would happen. There are a lot of good people here ... This shouldn't happen to any family." This story was first published on CNN.com, "CNN Exclusive: Indian newlyweds came to Christchurch with a dream. On Friday, that dream died." Dutch police arrested a Turkish man suspected of shooting dead three people and wounding five on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday. Police said the suspect, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, had been taken into custody after an hours-long manhunt and had earlier run-ins with authorities in the Netherlands. The city was put into lockdown after the shooting, shortly after the morning rush hour, which authorities initially said was an apparent terrorist attack. Police conducted raids in several locations after issuing an image of Tanis and warning the public not to approach him. But hours after the shooting, the gunmans motive remained unclear. A prosecutor said it could be for family reasons and Turkeys state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting relatives of the gunman, said he had fired at a relative on the tram and had then shot at others who tried to help her. The Turkish intelligence agency said it is investigating whether the attack was personally motivated or an act of terrorism, President Tayyip Erdogan said. Earlier on Wednesday, Dutch authorities had raised the terrorism threat in Utrecht province to its highest level, schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports, other vital infrastructure and at mosques. The threat level was reduced by one notch to where it had been after the suspect was arrested, the National Counter-Terrorism Agency said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks immediately after the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. Our country has today been shocked by an attack in Utrecht... A terrorist motive cannot be excluded, Rutte said. The first reports have led to disbelief and disgust. Innocent people have been struck by violence. The mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, said three people had been killed and five injured, three of them critically. CRIMINAL RECORD The suspect had previously been arrested, regional prosecutor Rutger Jeuken told reporters, without giving further details. The shooting took place in Kanaleneiland, a quiet residential district on the outskirts of Utrecht with a large immigrant population. Its frightening that something like this can happen so close to home, said Omar Rahhou, who said his parents lived on a street cordoned off by police. These things normally happen far away but this brings it very close, awful. Witness Daan Molenaar, who said he had been sitting at the front of the tram when the shooting started, told national broadcaster NOS he did not believe it was a terrorist attack. The first thing I thought was, this is some kind of revenge or something, or somebody whos really mad and grabbed a pistol, he said. Utrecht, the Netherlands fourth largest city with a population of around 340,000, is known for its picturesque canals and large student population. Gun killings are rare in Utrecht, as elsewhere in the Netherlands. Also Watch: Shooting in Netherlands days after New Zealand, possible terror motive A top court in the UK issued a warrant to arrest fugitive Indian diamantaire Nirav Modi, days after British home secretary Sajid Javid certified Indias request to extradite him to face charges of financial irregularities in the 13,500-crore PNB fraud case. Modi is likely to be arrested by Scotland Yard on the basis of the warrant and produced in the court, triggering the first stage of the legal process for extradition. Javids certification was sent to the Westminster Magistrates Court last week. Issuing of the arrest warrant implies that the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the conduct described in the request is an extradition offence, which includes the requirement for dual criminality. Modis arrest can take place any moment after the warrant is issued. In the case of businessman Vijay Mallya, whose extradition case is now in the appeals court, India sent the request towards the end 2016. It was certified by the home secretary on February 21, 2017. Mallya was arrested and bailed two months later on April 18, 2017, when his extradition hearings began. A Scotland Yard spokesperson said on the fugitive diamantaires potential arrest, We do not discuss extradition requests until and if a person has been arrested/presented before the court. Modi, whose presence in the UK was confirmed by British authorities in mid-2018, recently figured in a video released by The Daily Telegraph, walking on London streets and responding to queries by its reporters with No comment. He was tracked down to a three-bedroom flat occupying half of a floor in an upscale tower block of luxury apartments, where rent is estimated to be around 17,000 a month, the newspaper reported. Describing him as a billionaire diamond tycoon who is Indias most wanted, the report quoted unnamed government sources saying that he has been given a national insurance number, which is required to work legally in the UK. Modi, who is wanted in India in connection with a financial scam at PNB, along with his uncle Mehul Choksi, continues to figure in Interpols wanted list on its website. Brexit dominated the agenda as Snows Timber hosted Ashfield MP Gloria De Piero at its Huthwaite distribution centre this week. Snows Managing Director, Ian Church, and General Manager of the Huthwaite DC, Richard Holland, discussed with the Labour MP the problems that could be caused by leaving Europe without a deal. Snows imports 90% of the wood it sells, with the vast majority coming from Scandinavia. Church told Gloria that he has concerns about delays at the ports due to customs checks if we leave the Customs Union without a decent deal, as well as extra costs that could be levied. He said: If tariffs were imposed at the point of entry, that would negatively affect our cashflow and the delays worry me because we dont know what they will look like. As part of the Customs Union, timber entering the UK from the EU clears ports immediately, allowing for Just in Time deliveries, keeping costs low throughout the supply chain. A no deal exit is the worst thing that could happen. My real fear is that businesses like ours would not be able to survive. We cant afford any more delays, and we need a deal to be agreed now. De Piero said: What Ian has told me about his fears for a no deal Brexit echoes those I have heard from many other businesses in the constituency. It is vital that we secure a deal that works for them and which avoids customs checks at borders, time delays and costly tariffs. That is why I have been pressing the Government for a deal that includes being part of the Customs Union and Single Market. Only with this access will British companies be able to remain competitive and jobs saved. Pictured: Ian Church, Gloria De Piero and Richard Holland. Pipeline 18 March 2019 Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) announced today that a Hyatt affiliate has entered into a management agreement with an affiliate of Ben Thanh Holdings to develop a Hyatt Place hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. The new 200-key Hyatt Place Saigon Phu Nhuan will be the first Hyatt Place hotel in Vietnam. The Hyatt Place brand is rooted in extensive consumer insights indicating that guests seek stylish, comfortable, seamless experiences that accommodate their lifestyles and familiar routines. To embody this, the brand offers casual hospitality and purposeful service in a smartly designed, high-tech and contemporary environment. The hotel will reside in the Phu Nhuan district, which is considered the geographical center of Ho Chi Minh City due to its central location and accessibility from all the surrounding areas. Conveniently located within two kilometers from the Tan Son Nhat International Airport and less than five kilometers from the city's Central Business District, Hyatt Place Saigon Phu Nhuan will provide guests with convenient access to financial hubs and local attractions. Hyatt Place Saigon Phu Nhuan will feature 200 guestrooms, a cafe, grab-and-go food market, bar, lobby lounge, outdoor pool, fitness center as well as two meeting rooms totaling more than 255 square meters. Now Open 18 March 2019 Radisson Hospitality AB, part of Radisson Hotel Group, is proud to announce the signing of the Radisson Residences, Vadistanbul Istanbul in Turkey. The 169-apartment residence is expected to open in the coming weeks, next to the newly opened Radisson Blu Hotel, Vadistanbul. Elie Younes, Executive Vice President & Chief Development Officer, Radisson Hotel Group, commented: "We see a positive growth within the travel industry in Turkey. We're delighted to bring another stunning property - as well as the first hotel apartments project under the Radisson brand - to the upcoming business hub of Vadistanbul, located in the heart of Istanbul. Again, we thank our partners for their continued trust and for this strategic addition. With this property, Radisson Hotel Group cements its position as the leading upper upscale operator in Istanbul, with 15 properties in the city." The newly built property will consist of 169 modern apartments, split equally between one- and two-bedroom apartments - as well two unique four-bedroom apartments. The hotel will also have a well-equipped gym and a SPA, including a swimming pool to accommodate both short- and long-term stays. The hotel is located in Vadistanbul, a new residential district in the north of the European side of Istanbul. With its proximity to Maslak, one of Istanbul's main business districts, the residence is expected to attract both business travelers and leisure guests seeking stylish accommodation in a central location. Vadistanbul is a modern and dynamic residential project that includes a specially developed monorail system with a direct connection to the metro network. The Radisson Residences, Vadistanbul property will be situated on the boulevard of Vadistanbul that will also be home to a fourth-generation shopping mall, 270 retail outlets and offices for 20,000 people. The hotel will be approximately 20 minutes' drive from the new Istanbul Airport, and only 400m from the nearest exit of the Trans-European Motorway (E80), linking the hotel to both the existing and the upcoming airport. Groundbreaking 18 March 2019 Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the world's leading luxury hospitality company; Congress Group, a Boston-based real estate investment and development firm; and AECOM Capital, the investment arm of AECOM, today announce that a Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences will be coming to downtown Nashville. A groundbreaking for the development, which will be the first Four Seasons in Tennessee, is expected in April 2019. The development continues the momentum and growth of the SoBro area of Nashville, affirming its emergence as one of the most dynamic urban areas in the city. Sparked by the arrival of major businesses and corporate headquarters, the new Hotel and Private Residences will be located along the Cumberland River, within a block of fresh and exciting culinary and nightlife experiences on Broadway, West Riverfront Park, Nissan Stadium, and the award-winning Ascend Amphitheater. This prime location will make the project the ideal spot for visitors and residents to experience the best of Nashville. Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences Nashville will include a five-star, full service luxury hotel with 236 keys, a world-class spa and an array of fitness amenities. In addition, the building will offer for sale luxury residences to be managed by Four Seasons. Compass has been engaged by the developer exclusively to handle the sales and marketing of the private residences. To register interest in the Four Seasons Private Residences, sign up at nashvilleprivateresidences.com for real-time updates on the project, including exclusive first access to the launch of residential sales. Construction on the building is expected to begin April 2019 and will be led by AECOM Hunt. Groundbreaking is expected to take place in the second quarter of 2019. Appointment 18 March 2019 Laura Dinu, Director, Groups & Meetings, Global Sales Americas, IHG, will be honored as the recipient of HSMAI's Above-property Hotel Sales Professional of the Year Award. Dinu leads the Corporate Group and Intermediary Sales, USA for IHG, based in San Francisco, CA. In this role, she and her team are responsible for delivering groups and meetings business to all IHG hotels globally. An experienced leader with more than 15 years working in the Domestic, International Group, and Luxury Segments, Dinu helps guide her team to find strategic ways to build IHG's customers business, and IHG's partnerships. Prior to joining IHG, Dinu worked for Omni Hotels & Resorts in a global capacity in New York City and San Francisco, overseeing their regional offices. Dinu's experience also includes various roles in New York City, primarily focusing on luxury brands such as Peninsula and St. Regis. Dinu was especially cited for demonstrated sales and business acumen, going beyond the hotel business to the business of hotels to drive results. She leveraged her more than 15 years' experience in the industry to drive significant growth from the corporate and association sectors, increase IHG's support of and engagement with the events industry at the national level (and in key markets), and increase profitability for her hotels. She also showed innovative leadership, successfully implementing new ideas that created a new dimension of performance. External Article 18 March 2019 Award-winning service doesn't just happen. It starts with great stories shared each and every day. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, the only hotel brand to win the Malcolm Baldridge national quality award (twice), is a brand built on storytelling. Advertisements In his new book, Excellence Wins, Ritz-Carlton co-founder, Horst Schulze, explains how he implemented a policy empowering every employee to spend up $2,000 to make guests happy. As you can imagine, the customer service stories that were created as a result of that policy became the stuff of legend. For example, a housekeeper named Mary flew from Atlanta to Hawaii after a guest had forgotten a laptop in his room. He had an important presentation loaded on the computer and Mary didn't trust a courier to get it to Honolulu on time. She delivered it herself and, rather than spending a few extra days on the island, caught the next plane back to Atlanta. Yes, empowering employees and giving them the resources to keep guests happy often results in superior service. But the next step is also critical sharing the stories as a form of education. And that's where Schulze's 10-minute meeting comes into play. Schulze implemented a short meeting that took place before each and every shift. Every meeting focused on one of the service standards employees are expected to meet. For example, employees are empowered to create unique and memorable experiences for the guests is one such service standard. According to Schulze, "The leader reads the standard, makes comments about what it means, and tells a story or reads a relevant customer comment to show the standard in action." Press Release 18 March 2019 Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the world's leading luxury hospitality company, is excited to announce that Four Seasons Pop Down Hong Kong, the fourth in a global series of immersive events, will arrive in Hong Kong on March 30. The excitement will kick-off with an invitation-only event, followed by a two-day consumer activation in the heart of the city's Central district. Advertisements Since the launch of the concept in 2017, #FourSeasonsPopDown has transformed unexpected venues in Toronto, Philadelphia and Miami, celebrating world class cuisine, masterful mixology and immersive Four Seasons experiences. The fourth installment in Hong Kong will combine Four Seasons talent, creativity and passion to create a unique experience that captures the excitement of one of Asia's most dynamic cities. "Four Seasons Pop Down is inspired by the talent and creativity of our people, serving as a testament to the artistry and craftsmanship that defines Four Seasons the world over," says Peter Nowlan, Chief Marketing Officer, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. "Whether you are experiencing the event firsthand or engaging with our content online, each Four Seasons Pop Down is an opportunity to stretch our imagination, creating unexpected ways for guests and consumers to connect with our brand, and Pop Down Hong Kong will be no exception." One Night Only: Four Seasons Pop Down Hong Kong Beginning with a one-night, invitation-only experience on Saturday, March 30, Four Seasons Pop Down Hong Kong will transform a vacant street-level storefront in Pacific House in the heart of the Central district. Playing with perception and illusion and the notion that "nothing is as it seems" to dazzle the senses, Four Seasons Pop Down Hong Kong will bring together a world-class collection of artisans from hotels and resorts around the globe to curate the evening's interactive food and beverage experience. The award-winning Four Seasons chefs joining forces for this unforgettable collaboration include Chefs Chan Yan Tak of Lung King Heen at Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, Guillaume Galliot of Caprice at Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, Simone Zanoni of Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris, Marshall Allen Roth of Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island, and Anchalee Luadkham of Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai. Serving up handcrafted cocktails to complement the culinary offering are master mixologists Lorenzo Antinori of Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, and Keith Motsi of Four Seasons Hotel Seoul. Joining them behind the bar will be star mixologist Philip Bischoff, most recently of the globally renowned Manhattan Bar in Singapore, who is leading the bar program at the new Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River opening later this year. To round out the menu, expertly plated desserts will surprise and delight at the hands of Pastry Chefs Yusuke Aoki of Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay, Chris Ford of Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and Lorenzo Sollecito of Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta. A Four Seasons First: Four Seasons Pop Down Bakery Hong Kong As part of the Four Seasons Pop Down Hong Kong experience, everyone is invited to join Four Seasons at Pacific House on April 1 and 2, 2019 for a unique lunch hour indulgence. For two days only, Four Seasons Pop Down Bakery will open its doors starting at 11:30 am where Chef Chan Yan Tak will serve his famous pineapple pork buns and baked cream custard puffs among floral creations by Tokyo-based and internationally acclaimed celebrity floral artist Nicolai Bergmann. This will mark the first time that Chef Tak has made his delicacies available outside of Lung King Heen, the world's first Chinese restaurant to be granted a Michelin three-star rating. While supplies last, visitors to the bakery will receive the complimentary treats in a custom-designed takeaway box adorned with artwork by local illustrator Don Mak, and are encouraged to share the exclusive experience on social media with #FourSeasonsPopDown. About the Four Seasons Pop Down Series Four Seasons Pop Down Hong Kong is the fourth in an innovative series of immersive global events in unexpected locations, each with unique themes brought to life by a selected team of Four Seasons artists and visionaries from around the world. Four Seasons Pop Down was launched in Toronto in 2017, followed by Philadelphia in September 2018 and Miami in December 2018. Following the Hong Kong event in March and April 2019, the series will continue with the next Pop Down in London in late 2019. For the latest news on Four Seasons Pop Down events, themes and locations, follow @FourSeasonsPR #FourSeasonsPopDown and visit press.fourseasons.com. Supplier News 18 March 2019 PITTSBURGH - Aptech Computer Systems announced New Castle Hotels & Resorts upgraded its back office system to PVNG Enterprise Financial Accounting to centralize processes for 21 properties. New Castle Hotels & Resorts (NCH) is a prominent operator of Marriott, Hilton, Choice and independent properties. Aptech Computer Systems is the leading provider of business intelligence, budgeting and forecasting, and enterprise hotel accounting software systems in the hospitality industry. Click here for more on Aptech's products and services. "NCH used Aptech's Profitvue multi-property accounting system for 30 years. We evaluated many systems and selected Aptech's PVNG for future operations," said Nina Selvaggi, New Castle Hotels & Resorts director of hotel accounting. "Aptech has more experience with hotel accounting software than any other provider and we value that expertise. We easily converted our 21 companies to Aptech's new PVNG enterprise accounting platform. This was the smoothest system conversion I have ever been involved in. PVNG is an excellent financial accounting system for a reasonable price. The system is very user-friendly. There was very little I needed to do for the conversion, Aptech handled everything." Aptech's browser-based PVNG Enterprise Accounting System simplifies accounting operations and safeguards data in the cloud. Its easy to navigate architecture, and robust functionality expands on Aptech's Profitvue application used by thousands of hotel accounting professionals. PVNG supports one property or a large multi-brand, multi-property portfolio. "Aptech is the industry standard for a reason; that reason is experience," said Jill Wilder, Aptech vice president. "We worked closely with New Castle Hotels' team during their installation. They are a great group of hospitality professionals that thoroughly understand multi-property, multi-company financial processes. Nina and her group put PVNG to work for NCH's Marriott, Hilton and other flags easily." "PVNG gives us the flexibility to add users and restrict their roles within the program. This is important in multi-company operations," Selvaggi said. "We now have all properties entering their own accounts payable invoices directly into PVNG. The properties have access to see the payment status of their vendors and this has streamlined our AP process. Financial Reports are simple to run and can be quickly converted into an Excel format. Aptech's support and training are excellent. After conversion, Aptech assigned one person to guide us through the new system. She handled all our concerns quickly. We are very pleased with PVNG and the support we receive from Aptech." PVNG is the next generation of enterprise accounting. It is uniquely engineered to accommodate a variety of deployment options and can easily handle both single and multi-property accounting. PVNG uses the most current technology platform and incorporates AP, GL, AR, Statistics, Financials, and a Bank Reconciliation, all with familiar browser navigation. "PVNG makes it simple for operators to become 11th Edition-compliant by implementing its packaged chart of accounts and financial statements. Plus, PVNG's cloud platform lets Aptech monitor and support all aspects of users' system processes for hands-on support if needed," Wilder said. About Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the only provider of a fully integrated enterprise accounting, business intelligence and planning ecosystem to the hospitality industry. All of its clients are companies like yours, which own or manage hotels. Its solutions help customers at both the corporate and property levels understand their financial and operational data for faster goal achievement. The company is renowned for introducing business intelligence into the hotel industry, and offers a solid resource of hospitality professionals. Aptech is an IBM Software Value Plus partner and Premier Solution Provider, as well as a Prophix Premier Business Partner. Incorporated in 1970, Aptech's state-of-the-art back office, true business intelligence and enterprise planning solutions are 100% hotel specific. Solutions include PVNG, Execuvue and Targetvue. Clients comprise over 3,500 properties - including large chains, multiple-property management companies and single-site hotels. Execuvue is registered to Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective holders. For more information please visit www.aptech-inc.com. New Castle Hotels & Resorts is an award-winning independent third-party hotel manager, owner and developer with 21 hotels and resorts and nearly 4,000 rooms under contract or in development. New Castles growing portfolio of hotels spans nine states and three Canadian provinces and includes several of Canadas historic landmark resorts. The privately-held company was established by David Buffam in 1980 and consistently ranks among the top hotel management and development companies in North America. New Castle is a preferred or approved operator for diverse brands within the Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Choice families. Learn more about New Castle on Facebook. Located in the heart of downtown Hartford at 440 Asylum Street, the recently renovated Capitol Hotel offers unobstructed views of Connecticut's State Capitol building - after which the hotel is named - and convenient access to several nearby attractions. Located in the heart of downtown Hartford at 440 Asylum Street, the recently renovated Capitol Hotel offers unobstructed views of Connecticut's State Capitol building after which the hotel is named and convenient access to several nearby attractions, including the Connecticut Science Center, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Mark Twain House & Museum, and the Bushnell Performing Arts Center, as well as local colleges: Trinity College and St. Joseph College. The Capitol Hotel is well positioned for business travelers visiting Hartford, which has been nicknamed the "Insurance Capital of the World." The hotel is convenient to several corporate headquarters, such as Aetna, The Hartford Financial Services Group, and The Phoenix Companies, as well as the city's Amtrak station and Bradley International Airport. Other amenities of The Capitol Hotel include: A state-of-the-art fitness center Meeting and event spaces Onsite parking Complimentary breakfast "As one of the nation's oldest cities, and today one of the area's leading economies, the city of Hartford marries modernity with rich traditionwhich the Capitol Hotel captures perfectly," said Janis Cannon, senior vice president, upscale brands, Choice Hotels. "We're pleased to expand the Ascend Hotel Collection's offerings in high barrier-to-entry markets like Hartford and look forward to advancing the brand's growth in even more popular destinations around the globe." The Ascend Hotel Collection currently has more than 250 properties open and nearly 60 hotels in the pipeline worldwide. This year, the brand expects to open several hotels in major U.S. markets, including Brooklyn, N.Y.; Philadelphia; Long Island City, N.Y.; and Napa, Calif. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource The HBI Board, comprised of eleven officers/directors, was elected from the general membership during the Annual Meeting of the organization held at the Tropicana Las Vegas last month. During the Meeting, the Hotel Brokers International celebrated the associations 60 years of service to the hospitality industry. Hotel Brokers International, the real estate industrys oldest, most experienced network of hotel broker specialists, announced the election of their 2019-20 Board of Directors. The HBI Board, comprised of eleven officers/directors, was elected from the general membership during the Annual Meeting of the organization held at the Tropicana Las Vegas last month. During the Meeting, the Hotel Brokers International celebrated the associations 60 years of service to the hospitality industry. The Hotel Brokers International is the first, and for many years the only, organization to focus on hotel real estate brokerage, said HBI President Jennifer Church. Since the associations founding in 1959, weve established an extraordinary network of dedicated and highly experienced professionals seasoned and well-positioned to provide expert real estate advisory services to the hotel investment community. The 2019-20 HBI Board of Directors, who began their Board term on March 11, consists of the following members: Jennifer B. Church, CHB Milmark Hotel/Motel Investments, LLC, West Bend, Wisconsin Michelle Kennedy Crystal Investment Property, LLC, Portland, Oregon Alan D. Brock, CHB Brock Hotel Group, Colleyville, Texas Edward P. Walsh, CHB Alpine Realty Capital, LLC, Ann Arbor, Michigan Errol DSouza, CHB Laurel Real Estate Company, Galena, Ohio Ford C. Barton Lodging Partners, LLC, Charlotte, North Carolina Brett Morganti Red 4 Realty Group, LLC, Castle Rock, Colorado Diana Alt Scoggin Blue LLC, Prosper, Texas Dan Emert Red 4 Realty Group, LLC, Castle Rock, Colorado H. Brandt Niehaus, CHB Huff, Niehaus & Associates, Inc., Louisville, Kentucky Tony DeGeorge, CHB Greene, Canfield, DeGeorge, LLC, Clearwater, Florida The HBI Boards primary objectives for 2019 are strengthening and expanding the benefits offered to members including launching a new website later in the year, building upon the association's 60-year reputation and market share, increasing membership and promoting the value of professional investment advisory services in the hospitality real estate investment community. Founded in 1959, Hotel Brokers International members lead the industry in hotel real estate sales. HBI hotel brokerage specialists have successfully negotiated more than 10,000 hotel real estate transactions and consistently account for the largest share of all select-service and economy hotel sales in the United States. The organizations database currently comprises more than 100 property listings and the HBI website attracts site visitors from around the world. Founder and host of the popular Hotel Investors Marketplace Webcast, HBI also developed the Certified Hotel Broker professional designation program. In addition to hospitality real estate advisory services, HBI offers affiliate membership to professionals in allied fields, including franchising, lending, appraisals and investment services. For more information about HBIs hotel listings or to become a broker or affiliate member, visit www.hbihotels.com. Contact: Glenda J. Webb Managing Director Hotel Brokers International +1.816.505.4315 gwebb@hbihotels.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Search engine marketing (SEM), or buying traffic through paid search listings, is a relatively easy way to drive qualified traffic and more direct bookings to your hotel website. It is used to improve the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEM is a key advertising initiative, so were diving into the basics of everything you need to know. Search engine marketing (SEM), or buying traffic through paid search listings, is a relatively easy way to drive qualified traffic and more direct bookings to your hotel website. It is used to improve the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEM is a key advertising initiative, so were diving into the basics of everything you need to know. What is it? Search engine marketing (SEM) is the process of increasing your websites visibility on search engine results pages. SEM refers specifically to the paid promotion of your website via pay per click (PPC) listings. Appearing above organic content, the goal of SEM campaigns is to drive traffic and bookings. Google Ads is the most popular paid search platform used by hotel digital marketers. Why is it important? Google processes more than 40,000 search queries every second on average, or 3.5 billion searches per day. Effective SEM campaigns can help your website listing stand out on a SERP by leveraging search trends data to uncover insights into which keywords users are searching for on the path to booking with your hotel. You can then bid on keyword phrases that are likely to be of interest to your target audience, creating effective listings that generate quality traffic. Accounting for 10-15% of a hotels overall website revenue, SEM is also one of the most effective digital marketing initiatives. The simple text ads appear at the top of SERPs and place your hotel front and center with travelers who are searching for your brand and related destination terms. Ad extensions appear directly below with additional information presented differently to each user based on the search algorithm. How can I get started? While launching an SEM campaign is fairly straightforward, its important to have a strategy based solidly in keyword research to ensure standout ads that generate traffic to your website. Selecting the right keywords and phrases is the core of any SEM campaign and determine where and when an ad will appear. While you can launch ads on your own, working with an experienced hotel marketing agency will ensure your SEM and SEO initiatives are aligned with a comprehensive strategy to achieve a higher ROAS. How do I measure success? You should be running campaigns that effectively target people in different phases of the travel planning journey. This will determine how to measure success. For awareness and consideration campaigns, which generally focus on upper-funnel destination keywords and niche destination keywords, you should be looking at impressions and clicks. Measuring impressions and click-through rates can show whether or not your ads are relevant to users searching for the keyword phrases youre bidding on. If these numbers are low, you will need to make adjustments accordingly to ensure your ads are being shown and that users are clicking them. For direct response campaigns, which focus on branded keywords to drive bookings, you should look at bookings, leads completed, and click-to-calls. These KPIs have a monetary value associated, which will determine exactly how well the campaigns performed. ABOUT HEBS DIGITAL Founded in 2001, the firm is headquartered in New York City and has global offices in Las Vegas, Tallinn, Munich, and Asia-Pacific. Through its Smart Guest Acquisition Suite, including the smartCMS, Smart Personalization Engine, Smart Data Marketing, and full-service digital consulting and marketing solutions, HEBS Digital helps hoteliers drastically boost direct bookings, lower distribution costs, and increase the lifetime value of guests. Its diverse client portfolio consists of top-tier luxury and boutique hotel chains, independent hotels, resorts and casinos, franchised properties and hotel management companies, convention centers, spas, restaurants, DMO and tourist offices. Part of NextGuest Technologies, HEBS Digital and Serenata CRM, the most comprehensive Hotel CRM Suite today, are the creators of the hospitality industrys first Fully-Integrated Guest Engagement & Acquisition Platform. Contact HEBS Digitals consultants at 1 (800) 649-5076 (North America), +64 (0) 9 889 8489 (Asia Pacific) or success@hebsdigital.com. Website Facebook Twitter LinkedIn EDITORIAL CONTACT Kerryn Gower Associate Brand Content Manager, HEBS Digital Phone: (212) 782-3779 Email: kerryn@hebsdigital.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Francis Fai Yengo Archives Some Anglophone women under the South West/North West Women Task Force (SNWOT) have demanded government and private institutions charged with the creation of a dialogue platform towards solving the Anglophone crisis, to give women a chance to negotiate peace deals. A delegation of SNWOT members met with the president of the National Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration committee on March 16, led by their national coordinator, Esther Omam. The women shared their perspectives and made observations with regards to the limitations of the structure, while proposing solutions. They regretted the scarcity of women's voices, the absence of the grassroots communities and institutions. The called on the president to use his discretion and prerogatives to render the implementation of the committee comprehensive. A member and communication officer of the task force, Akwo Eileen says it was about time government starts involving these women is such deals. "Omission of women from strategic structures set up to manage the crisis is indicative of government feud that war is an issue of men and not for women. So women are not perceived as combatants, and that seems to be the only way at which government is looking at this crisis....Even when we talk about combatants, though they are few, we cannot change the fact that women still make up the combatants. When women are left out of these structures, how do we manage the issues that these women face at the war front? How do we now manage issues of demobilisation, reintegration,issues of de-radicalisation?. By this omission, womens perspectives are not allowed, says Akwo Eileen. Recently, many girls/women, joined the separatist fighters. Some were spotted on the streets of Bamenda last week, holding guns. The SNWOT believes women can easily appeal to the consciences of both camps, and can take decisions that will impact the lives of many, especially vulnerable persons affected by the crisis. This is the second time they are raising this concern. Barely few weeks after the disarmament commission was created, these women met with a top government official in Douala, who told them, women dont fight wars. Disgusted with his response, they didnt stop. They have continued to cry out for misrepresentation of women in such commissions. The Bilingualism and Multiculturalism commission created by Paul Biya, had just a woman, out of over 10 members. The Anglophone General Conference of Cardinal Emeritus, Christian Tumi, has no women in its circle. The newly created Anglophone Peace Conference, as well, is all men inclusive. SNWOT has been calling on government and Separatists to reach a truce, so that peace can return to the country, following a series of blood shed in both English- speaking regions. They organised a march for peace in the headquarters of both regions last year, which went viral on social media. . . Hotelogix Marketplace lists 75+ integrations across hospitality technology categories, including Channel Manager, Reputation Management Systems, Booking Engine, Revenue Management Systems, Accounting Systems, Loyalty Program, Point of Sale, Business Analytics, EPBX, Email and Keycards. Hotelogix, a leading cloud-based Hotel Property Management System provider has announced the launch of Hotelogix Marketplace. This unified marketplace will serve as a one-stop shop for Hotelogix users to choose the right technology solutions for efficient hotel management. The Marketplace will empower hoteliers of every size, with the choice of right technology solutions that integrate with Hotelogix, says Aditya Sanghi, Co-founder & CEO of Hotelogix. Hotelogix Marketplace lists 75+ integrations across hospitality technology categories, including Channel Manager, Reputation Management Systems, Booking Engine, Revenue Management Systems, Accounting Systems, Loyalty Program, Point of Sale, Business Analytics, EPBX, Email and Keycards. This first-of-its-kind platform by a PMS provider in the industry will connect hotels of all sizes, to the right technology solution of their choice. Along with a hotel property management system, hoteliers across the globe are increasingly looking at several other hospitality technology solutions to sell more rooms, set the right room rates and to leverage the power of data. As an all-in-one Cloud PMS, Hotelogix is extending best-in-class integrations that provide flexibility and much better value to hoteliers," elaborates Aditya. The Hotelogix team will demonstrate the Marketplace and its key integrations at ITB Berlin, Hall 6.1, Stand 164 from 6th to 10th March, 2019. For more information on Hotelogix Marketplace, visit www.hotelogix.com/marketplace About Hotelogix Hotelogix provides a robust cloud-based Hotel PMS that helps hotels to automate and manage their end-to-end operations with ease. It also assists hotels to drive growth, increase revenue and to enhance their online reputation. The PMS is hosted on Amazon Web Services, and thus offers the much-needed stability and security to hoteliers. The company has rich experience in serving global markets with customers in 100 plus countries including North America and Europe. Media Contact Debi Prasad Sarangi Corporate Communications Ph: +91 9986496849 Mail: debiprasad.sarangi@hotelogix.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Jordan Peele's sophomore film Us is easily one of the most anticipated films set to drop right now and while the premiere is just a few days away (March, 22nd), the famed director has let his fans know the genre he categorizes his work. Taking to Twitter, Jordan tweeted a plain and simple statement: "Us is a horror movie." https://twitter.com/_/status/1107355349177257984 Back in 2017, Jordan's previous beloved film Get Out was submitted to the Golden Globes as a comedy, something one of the supporting actors LilRel Howery found odd. "But if I can be honest this is weird to me... Their is nothing funny about racism... Was it that unrealistic lol," LilRel tweeted at the time. Jordan, however, categorized his film as a documentary. https://twitter.com/_/status/930796561302540288 Jordan previously discussed his latest film, explain how the script was crafted when he began to follow the thread of we are our own enemy. The movie itself is answering that question. I cant say its not specifically about race, but I dont want to go too deep into its meaning because its there for everybody to discover on their own," he said. He added: There hasnt been a horror film about a black family, that I can remember. I think thats an important thing to note. We have a lot of films in this genre where a family meets a monster, but the fact weve never seen a black family in that situation is a problem to me. Theres a presumption in the industry that if black people are the leads in a film it has to be in some way about race. I wanted to show that we can push past that. Soulja Boy has been capitalizing off of his viral moment earlier this year when he screeched Tyga's name with appall. Since then, Tyga's laughed off the disses while Soulja Boy's been looking like the only active participant in the beef. However, it's working out for Soulja Boy who's getting ready to release his forthcoming project, How Can You Blame Me this summer. Today, he unleashes a new single off of the project titled, "Piguet Puddle." "Piguet Puddle" is the latest offering from Soulja Boy which follows the release of this weekend's back-to-back releases of "Tha Block Is Hot" and "Warned" with Killah Dre. On his latest track, Soulja Boy flexes his stacks, his drip, paying his lawyer $150K for a case, and of course, a few shots at Tyga including one involving King Cairo. Peep the new track below. Quotable Lyrics I fucked his baby mama yesterday His son asking me what's my favorite game I ain't got time for the Fortnite I'm runnin' up some M&M's Whippin' up dope, tryna bring back a 10 Who's Tyga? I ain't never heard of him Houston has been adding jobs at a frenetic pace over the last few years, but payrolls of the citys supermarkets are steadily shrinking. Every major industry in Houston gained jobs in 2018 more than 73,000 in total except retail, which lost nearly 6,000 jobs, making it the worst-performing sector in the Houston economy last year. Supermarkets accounted for a third of the job losses, the only time the city encountered negative retail job growth in a non-recession year, according to the data from the Texas Workforce Commission. The job losses at supermarkets continued a downward trend that began in December 2016, when the regions grocers employed more than 58,000 people in Greater Houston. That number is now down 5 percent to 55,000 workers, according to the most recent figures from the Workforce Commission. Supermarkets in particular were the worst performing part of retail and one of the worst performing parts of the job market in general throughout 2018, said Parker Harvey, senior economist at Workforce Solutions, which tracks labor trends in Houston. Labor Department data show that the number of workers at grocery stores nationally has remained flat for about three years, showing near zero employment growth. While the bulk of the job losses were tied to grocery stores, the rest of the lost retail jobs were scattered among clothing, hobby, furniture, sporting goods and other retail types. A big contributor to retail job losses in Houston was the closing of outlets of several national retailers last year, including Brookstone, Mattress Firm, Payless, Sears, Teavana and Toys R Us. ECONOMICS: Houstons economy growing, but not as fast as once thought Although economists and industry analysts cant agree on a direct cause of the declines, they point to an intensely competitive environment fueled by the expansion of European discounters, heavy investments in technology and continued encroachment by online delivery stalwarts Amazon.com and Walmart. Many grocers are having to shutter underperforming stores or rely on self-checkout counters to cut payroll and costs. Jesse Thompson, a Houston-based senior business economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said likely culprits behind the decline in grocery jobs were efficiencies resulting from technological advances and competitive pressures from online competitors. Some of the jobs also may be recategorizing, so the job may still technically exist, but it could be in a mixed-merchandise establishment such as Walmart, which sells groceries but its a categorized as a big box store, Thompson said. Building capacity Bill Gilmer, an economist at the University of Houston, noted that grocery stores have been the fastest-growing segment of the Houston retail market in terms of new construction. Those stores, however, have often replaced older outlets and, because they are more efficient, tend to employ fewer people. Local retail generally has been dominated by the expansion of grocery-anchored shopping centers in the far suburbs, especially around the Grand Parkway. There is likely an employment tug-of-war underway between greater productivity in groceries versus moderate suburban expansion, Gilmer said. German discount grocer Aldi is among those adding to the pressure locally. The grocer, which operates more than 1,800 stores in 35 states, has opened three dozen stores in the last few years and employs nearly 600 people in the Houston market. It plans to increase its national footprint to 2,500 stores over the next four years. At the same time, other chains are retrenching. Terrie Ellerbee, a grocery market analyst with the Shelby Report in north Georgia, said she was surprised by the loss of Houston grocery store jobs, which she has not seen elsewhere, and said closures could have contributed to the job declines. SURVEY: Key survey data show Houston's economy continues to grow For example, Houston-based grocer Randalls, a subsidiary of national supermarket company Albertsons, closed seven area stores in 2018 as it faced fierce regional and national competitors that offered lower prices and wider selections. Connie Yates, a spokesperson for Randalls, declined to provide how many jobs were lost due to the closures. I can tell you that anytime we have closed stores, we have done so with a goal of placing as many of those employees as possible in surrounding locations into both open and new positions, Yates said. As a result, weve actually increased the number of associates per store over time. Randalls in 2017 also closed a distribution center in Houston that employed 205 people. At the same time, Ellerbee said, HEB is going gangbusters. She noted that the Texas grocer opened seven stores in the Houston region last year and sought to hire 1,000 workers for in-store positions. Ellerbee said that most stores the size of a typical Randalls, which are about 50,000 square feet, employ fewer than 150 employees. By comparison, many of HEBs stores are 100,000 square feet and employ 300 workers. Ed Wulfe, whose company Wulfe & Co., owns and manages shopping centers throughout the Houston area, believes an increase in self-checkout lines by several grocers, which eliminate the need for cashiers, are big contributors to job reductions. Kroger, for example, has invested in cashier-less technology at hundreds of its stores nationwide. But he forecasts the drop in numbers will be remedied, as HEB is adding six stores in Houston this year that will employ about 1,500 people. This is going to be quickly offset, and next years numbers will be better, Wulfe said. Online shopping And then there is the immense pressure from out-of-state online sellers. Gross out-of-state sales in Texas grew 50.7 percent between the second quarter of 2017 and the same period in 2018, according to the Texas Comptrollers office. Although the Comptroller doesnt track online sales trends by metropolitan region, theres no reason to think they are much different from the state, said Gilmer, the University of Houston economist. The Food Marketing Institute, working with data analytics company Nielsen, recently estimated that by 2022 annual online grocery spending could reach $850 per household in the U.S. $100 billion nationwide. Profit margins for grocery stores are notoriously razor thin, averaging around 1 percent to 2 percent, so it takes little pressure for grocers to be forced to react, whether by cutting services, staff or some combination. EMPLOYMENT: Shortfall of U.S. skilled workers expected to hit 8 million by 2027 Ann-Marie Tcholakian, owner and manager of Phoenicia Foods, which operates two independent upscale specialty grocery stores in Houston that employ a combined 300 workers, said she has been able to maintain her staff size despite thin profit margins and pressures from online sellers. Were definitely trying to work more efficiently, Tcholakian said. Instead of cutting back, were trying to hold the reins. We couldnt operate well if we cut back any more. She believes large grocers are quietly reducing staff to squeak out some profit. Weve seen that competitors, the big giants, are reducing their counter service and streamlining as much as possible to pass along cost savings to their customers, Tcholakian said. The tight labor market is also creating higher turnover rates for employees, as workers have the luxury in a strong economy to hop jobs in search of higher salaries. The younger workforce wants to look for other opportunities, especially in our downtown Houston location, where we see a lot of positioning for jobs and people asking for more competitive wages, Tcholakian said. Its not even three months into 2019, and 10 retailers have filed for bankruptcy, including clothing companies Gymboree and Charlotte Russe in San Francisco. The effect is visible on the streets, with hundreds of stores shuttered and thousands of workers laid off. The sector is on pace to surpass the closures and restructurings it experienced during the recession. But these failures come as retail spending hit a record $6 trillion in 2018, according to U.S. census figures, not an economic downturn. Is it the Amazon effect? Companies often cite a tough retail environment, despite the increase in overall spending, with shifts to online shopping and declining foot traffic, particularly at the malls many retailers made their homes over past decades. But another culprit shows up prominently in their filings: debt laden on in past private-equity buyouts. Gymborees January filing was its second use of Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code, having filed in 2016 to reduce debt from a $1.8 billion acquisition by private-equity firm Bain Capital in 2010. Gymboree cut $900 million in debt and emerged from bankruptcy. It wasnt enough. Payless ShoeSource, which had more than 30 Bay Area stores and plans to close all of them nationwide, also went through two rounds of bankruptcy. Charlotte Russe, which filed for bankruptcy in February, said it planned to reduce debt from a $380 million acquisition by private-equity firm Advent International in 2009. Drew Angerer / Getty Images Retailers are an attractive target for private-equity firms. The threat of Amazon and other online outlets discourages public-market investors from betting on their futures, which drives down their stock price and makes them cheap to buy. Retailers typically have real estate and other hard assets which are easy to borrow against, as well as cash flows from their current businesses that private equity firms can harvest. In leveraged buyouts, private equity firms take control of a company and prompt it to borrow money against those assets, taking little risk themselves. They sometimes pay themselves dividends from the borrowed money which means they may make a profit on an investment even if the company goes bankrupt. Once you do that, youve loaded debt on the retailers balance sheet and when interest payments on the financing are due, retailers have to pay, said Kirthi Kalyanam, director of the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University. Competing in e-commerce adds costs, while the decline of customers shopping at malls leaves private-equity-backed retailers struggling. It handcuffs retailers who are trying to respond to competition because they have to pay down the debt, said Robert Marticello, a bankruptcy attorney in Costa Mesa (Orange County). Trade publication Retail Dive estimates that 15 percent of retailers that have filed for bankruptcy since 2002 are wholly owned or have a majority stake held by one or more private-equity firms. In the last three years, almost 40 percent of retailers filing for bankruptcies are in that category, according to Debtwire, a financial news service in New York. Gymboree will shut down its namesake childrens clothing stores, as well as its Crazy 8 stores. Its high-end Janie and Jack line was bought by Gap this month for $35 million. The company is laying off 425 people, 69 of them at company headquarters in San Francisco. Charlotte Russe is laying of 333 employees, including 161 at its corporate headquarters. In court documents, Brian Cashman, managing director of Berkeley Research Group and Charlotte Russes chief restructuring officer, said the company failed to trim store expenses to better balance brick-and-mortar operations with necessary e-commerce investments. For loyal customers and would-be workers, the shuttered stores bring a wave of sadness. Swaran Williams, a Vacaville resident whos been shopping at various Gymboree locations around the Bay Area for years, said she was dismayed about the bankruptcy. I shopped at Gymboree for my daughters clothes, she said. Shes tall for her age, so I liked going into the stores. Its hard to shop for her online, Williams added. Hiba Younus, 20, said her plan for work this summer was to do exactly what she did last summer take a part-time job at the Charlotte Russe store at the NewPark Mall in Newark. It feels so sudden. I wasnt expecting the company to go bankrupt, she said. Shoppers and employees should expect more failures. A recent report by Moodys Investors Service, the credit ratings firm, named 17 retailers including Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney and Davids Bridal that may file for bankruptcy this year. In their place may be some online businesses, who arent as weighed down by debt and see stores as a way to reach new customers. Bonobos, an online menswear company owned by Walmart, plans to increase its number of stores from 60 to 100 by 2020. New York eyeglass company Warby Parker, which opened its first San Francisco store in 2014 and a Union Square location in 2017, plans to open more stores, as does Los Angeles activewear retailer Fabletics. Retail isnt going anywhere, Kalyanam said. What is changing is how retail is done. Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika Q: Years ago, my husband and I set up a trust and transferred all of our assets to it. We now own no real property, and all of our investments are in our names with each other as beneficiaries. Do we need to revoke the trust? A: No, you dont need to revoke the trust. However, you might want to revoke it to make your estate plan a bit simpler. Also, you may want to keep the trust in force and fund it with your investments that are presently held in your names. Keep in mind that probate might be avoided when one of you passes away since all of your investments should pass to the surviving spouse automatically, but when the surviving spouse dies, there will be a need for probate. If you want to avoid this expense and hassle on behalf of your children (or other beneficiaries of your estate), then you can fund the trust and take advantage of its probate avoidance feature. Q: My father passed away and left a will leaving everything to my mother. The entire estate is basically just their home. Does the will have to be probated? Its my understanding that because Texas is a community property state, the house belongs to my mother anyway. Is this correct? A: No, your understanding is not correct. The house is presently owned half by your fathers estate and half by your mother. In order to have title changed to your mothers name, some sort of probate will be required. There are several kinds of probate that might be utilized, but without more information, it is impossible to tell you which one would be required or most cost-effective. It is possible that a regular probate would be needed, but it is also possible that your mother could proceed with a much simpler kind of probate. Your mother should meet with an estate planning attorney to explore her options. Q: My wife is deceased, and my sole heir is my daughter, who is my only child. She is the beneficiary of all of my insurance policies and is the pay on death beneficiary of all of my financial assets. I have no debts. My only other assets are an old car and household goods of nominal value. Will she need to have my will probated? A: No, it sounds like she will be able to claim your entire estate without the need for probate. However, you are assuming your daughter will be living when you die. If you outlive her, then you may no longer have a beneficiary named on all of your investments. In that case, your will would need to be probated. The information in this column is intended to provide a general understanding of the law, not legal advice. Readers with legal problems, including those whose questions are addressed here, should consult attorneys for advice on their particular circumstances. Ronald Lipman of the Houston law firm Lipman & Associates is board-certified in estate planning and probate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Email questions to stateyourcase@lipmanpc.com. Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News Channel host and former prosecutor, was absent from her usual slot in the network's Saturday night prime-time lineup - and her most powerful viewer was not happy about it. Fox News bumped the show a week after it publicly condemned Pirro's on-air suggestion that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., did not support the U.S. Constitution because she is Muslim and wears a hijab. "Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro," President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning. Trump accused Pirro's critics of waging "all out campaigns" against Pirro and fellow Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was widely rebuked after decade-old racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments resurfaced last week. Both of their comments prompted some advertisers to boycott the shows. "Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down," Trump said in another tweet, before issuing a curiously dire warning to "Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!" In yet another post, Trump urged his 59 million followers to "Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine." Carlson is still on his regular, weeknight schedule, but the network declined to say whether it had suspended Pirro, and a spokeswoman did not respond to a question about when her show would return. "We're not commenting on internal scheduling matters," the spokeswoman said Sunday. Last week, network executives said Pirro's comments "do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly." Trump mounted his defense hours after he threatened "Saturday Night Live" and other late-night comedy shows that have made the president a frequent punchline. On Twitter, he asked whether the Federal Communications Commission and, for some reason, the Federal Election Commission should "look into" the programs for "knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of 'the other side.'" For the president's critics, Trump's latest flurry of morning tweets again lays bare a truism of his administration's view of the media: for those who question or mock him, a flexing of executive muscle and vague, ad hoc threats; but for his supporters, an outpouring of praise and exclusive interviews. Pirro is one of Fox News' highest-rated hosts and has been a zealous booster of Trump - and she has a history of rhetoric denounced as anti-Muslim. She began her last show by pointing out that Omar, who was accused of using anti-Semitic tropes, wears a hijab and asked her audience to "Think about it ... " "Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?" Pirro said, invoking a right-wing conspiracy about a purported attempt by Muslims to take over the U.S. government and install sharia law. (In reality, sharia is a framework of Islam and describes guidelines for living an ethical Muslim life.) Pirro later defended her statements, maintaining that she didn't call Omar "un-American" and that her intention was to "ask a question and start a debate." "Of course because one is Muslim does not mean you don't support the Constitution," Pirro said. But the backlash was swift and bipartisan. Hufsa Kamal, an associate producer at Fox News, accused her co-worker of "spreading this false narrative that somehow Muslims hate America." Some of Pirro's advertisers also have revolted, refusing to buy time on her show going forward. That list includes the Botox manufacturer Allergan; the health technology company GreatCall; Letgo, a website for buying and selling used goods; and NerdWallet. Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company, is also "re-evaluating" its ads on Pirro's show. Carlson is also losing advertising - including the pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca - but the network has continued its tacit support for him and his show, which also has high viewership. After Media Matters, a left-wing advocacy group, published audio from Carlson's old interviews on the shock-jock radio program the "Bubba the Love Sponge Show," Carlson thanked Fox News for supporting him. "Fox News is behind us, as they have been since the very first day," he said last week. "Toughness is a rare quality in a TV network, and we're grateful for that." No stranger to unleashing controversy, Carlson dug in. After all, he has seen advertisers flee before, and it hasn't made much of a difference to his bottom line. "We will never bow to the mob, ever," Carlson said on his show. For good measure, he then added a Trumpian punctuation: "No matter what." --- The Washington Post's Abby Ohlheiser, Kayla Epstein and Lindsey Bever contributed to this report. The art of being George Strait is deceptively simple. He really doesn't do much onstage. He mostly sounds the same. He always looks the same. He doesn't move around. PERK UP: Brad Paisley surprises Woodlands coffee shop customers with concert But that dependability and a steadfast adherence to tradition is what's made him a Texas icon, a living legend among country music greats. You always know what you're getting with King George. And he delivers it like only he can. Now Playing: George Strait closed out RodeoHouston with record-breaking NRG Stadium attendance. Video: RodeoHouston, Joey Guerra It's as reliable as traffic and tacos in Houston. (And just as good as the latter.) Strait, 66, closed out the RodeoHouston season with Sunday's concert-only performance for 80,108 people. That beats his 2013 show by 88 people and sets a new NRG Stadium attendance record. It's his 30th show overall. He's stopped formally touring but continues to perform in Las Vegas and does one-off dates around the country. The Poteet native is one of five entertainers to have performed in front of more than 1 million RodeoHouston fans. The George Strait Scholarship was also established in 2013 in partnership with RodeoHouston. He walked out through the crowd and to the stage amid waves of cheers, applause and whistles as his band played "Deep in the Heart of Texas." He got right into it, leading his Ace in the Hole Band through "Write This Down" and "I Can Still Make Cheyenne." "Never say never, right?" he said, referencing the claim that his 2013 appearance would be his last. "Y'all didn't, and I won't." George Strait RodeoHouston setlist "Write This Down" "I Can Still make Cheyenne" "Take Me to Texas" "I Saw God Today" "Here for a Good Time" "She'll Leave You With a Smile" "Wrapped" "Cold Beer Conversation" "Check Yes or No" "Arkansas Dave" "Give it Away" "Baby Blue" "Every Little Honky Tonk Bar" "Kicked Outta Country" "Ocean Front Property" "The Old Violin" "The Weight of the Badge" "Codigo" "God and Country Music" "Amarillo by Morning" "The Chair" "The Fireman" "Run" "I'll Always Remember You" "Troubadour" "Unwound" "All My Ex's Live in Texas" "I Cross My Heart" "You Wreck Me" "The Cowboy Rides Away" See More Collapse COJO: Cody Johnson talks new album and returning to RodeoHouston The setlist spanned three dozen songs and more than three decades. There was energy and enthusiasm in every verse and lyric. He sounded better than he has in years, a rich and commanding baritone that reverberated off the walls. The cameras frequently panned to shots of giddy folks in the crowd. Several couples danced in the aisles and across the floor. Roughly 6,000 seats were installed where there's been a dirt floor for the past 20 days. He paid tribute to Merle Haggard with "You Take Me for Granted" and "Are the Good Times Really Over." He presented an army veteran with a new home onstage. And he recounted his first rodeo as a last-minute replacement in 1983 for an ailing Eddie Rabbitt. "I was out looking for my dog when I got the call. I'm still looking for him," Strait quipped. "I thought it was a joke (when they asked me to perform)." That performance helped transform Strait into a superstar. His 30th album, "Honky Tonk Time Machine," is out March 29, and he showcased several songs that hit all the touchstones: drinking ("Every Little Honky Tonk Bar," "Codigo"), police pride ("The Weight of the Badge") and "God and Country Music," which featured a cameo by his grandson. I LIKE IT: Los Tigres del Norte break Cardi B's RodeoHouston attendance record The crowd responded loudly and fiercely to every moment. But it crested during a trio of classics "Amarillo by Morning," The Chair," "The Fireman" that had folks alternately crying and dancing. Strait wrapped up with triumphant runs through "I'll Always Remember You" and "Troubadour," a surprisingly solid run through Tom Petty's "You Wreck Me" and, of course, "The Cowboy Rides Away." It was a fitting sentiment but he probably won't be gone for very long. Texas natives Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen had a tough job performing for a crowd who was clearly waiting for Strait. And both acts are better suited to more intimate venues. But they won the crowd over with a series of spirited tunes, from "Cute as a Bug" and "That's Right You're Not from Texas" to "Gringo Honeymoon" and "The Road Goes on Forever." By the time they closed with "The Front Porch Song/This Old Porch," the crowd seemed ready for more. PREVIEW: Get experts picks for concerts, kids stuff, fine arts, movies and more delivered to your inbox weekly. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday that information from the flight data recorder on the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed last week shows "clear similarities" with the crash of the same type of plane in Indonesia in October. Dagmawit Moges told journalists that the condition of the "black boxes" - the data and voice record was good and that enough data had been recovered that her ministry's Accident Investigation Bureau would release a preliminary report on what happened to Flight 302 in just 30 days. "During the investigation of the FDR (flight data recorder) clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be subject of further investigation," Dagmawit said. Initial data from the doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight as well as subsequent satellite information recovered showed an erratic flight path during the six minutes that the plane was in the air before it crashed into farmer's field outside the capital, Addis Ababa, on March 10, killing all 157 aboard. SEE ALSO: Jet recorders examined as families grieve crash victims The plane ascended and descended and then ascended again, all the while flying at speeds well in excess of normal takeoff procedure. The pilot, Yared Getachew, was considered very experienced, with more than 8,000 hours of flying time. There were enough similarities to the crash of the Lion Air jet in Indonesia in October, which also involved a Boeing 737 Max 8, that authorities around the world agreed to ground the plane. Ethiopian investigators on Thursday traveled to France with the voice and data recorders, and they are being analyzed there by the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety. READ MORE: These are the Bay Area flights that use a Boeing 737 MAX 8 Dagmawit said the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was involved in the analysis, as well. A preliminary report about the causes of the Lion Air crash pointed to erroneous data from a sensor causing the aircraft's new automated stabilizer system to push the jet's nose down. The pilots then struggled to pull the plane up, and it finally crashed into the Java Sea. The minister's comments Sunday suggested that a similar series of events may have caused the Ethiopian Airlines crash. In November, Boeing issued a bulletin for how to reset the stabilizer if it started to push the plane's nose down. Siege du GICAM a Douala Archives The 10th edition of Cameroon Business Forum opened in Douala this Monday, March 18, with economic operators mentioning the ongoing Anglophone crisis, along with an unexpected growth in currency which has reduced shortage, as some of the major setbacks witnessed by business persons and investors in the past two years. They were expressing their worries to government representative, Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, who is expected to channel them to the Head of State. While some banks have completely shut down in Anglophone regions, the sale of Brasseries products have been banned by separatists, while distributors have been attacked severally. The President of GICAM ( Cameroon Employer' Union), Celestin Tawamba, urged government, to create a favourable environment for private investment in the country, which will help boost the countrys economy. Contrary to earlier statements from economic operators ,about governments failure to implement past recommendations of previous editions of the Cameroon Business forum, PM Dion Ngute said more than 150 of them have been implemented, within the past 10 years. "Over these 10 years, the Cameroon Business Forum has led to the adoption of close to 200 recommendations. 150 of them have been effectively implemented and about 90 have resulted in key reforms, the PM said. The one day event that had as theme for this year, Emergence and Development of Private Investment in Cameroon, was a forum to discuss ways of improving business climate in the country and attract investors. The business forum is a follow up to the January and February cabinet meetings at the Prime Ministers offices that all dwelt on boosting local production, financing reforms to revamp the economy and plan on fast tract industrialisation. Two days after Harris County deputies announced a crackdown on illegal street racing, a pedestrian was hit by a red Camaro. "Racing is suspected to be a contributing factor in the crash," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a tweet. The 19-year-old pedestrian is in serious, but stable condition and is expected to survive. No charges have been filed and the incident remains under investigation. BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: Get your Houston breaking news alerts delivered to you The collision took place at Houston Oaks Drive at Sam Houston Parkway. On Friday, deputies arrested four people accused of racing down the Katy Freeway over the last few days. RELATED: Street racers busted on Katy Freeway; cops warn drag racers in town for competition "Precinct 5 deputies will arrest and charge those who are racing on public roadways and endangering their own lives and the lives of other innocent drivers and passengers," the constable's office stated in a press release. Those who want to race are encouraged to enter legal events, such as TX2K19. Includes reporting by Jay R. Jordan NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. There were a few leads in the days after police found two adult sisters brutally slain in their Heights-area home 31 years ago: The house had been shot up a few weeks before, and neighbors had seen a man carrying a bundle and claiming to have broken up with one of the women. But there was no weapon, no indication of forced entry, no signs of a burglary, and for Houston police detectives trying to solve the deaths of Yleen Faye Kennedy, 33, and Lillie Dale Kennedy, 23, precious little else to go on. The case lay dormant for decades, interrupted by sporadic pleas for information from authorities and the occasional news report bringing the slayings back into the public eye. But on Wednesday, police arrested the man they believe killed the two women: 57-year-old Edmond Beauregard Degan, of Locke Lane in west Houston. He has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bail. The killings of the two women took place as Houston, like many other cities around the nation, was wrestling with a spike in homicides and set against the backdrop of a series of serial killings, said Jack Douglas, then the police beat reporter for the Houston Post. "The neighbors were terrified," said Douglas, who now works as senior investigative producer for CBS News in Dallas. "And you could tell detectives on the case were frustrated - every hour, day, week goes by, makes it harder to solve them." The savagery of the slayings also stood out from others he reported during that time, he said. According to police, Lillie Kennedy had been shot in the back of the head, "execution-style." The killer had spent more time with Yleen, sexually assaulting and torturing her, detectives said at the time. The killer stuffed a rag down her throat and stabbed her neck at least four times, according to news reports from the time. The women's father, Jack Kennedy, found them both lying on the floor in the living room, Lillie in a blue blouse and slacks and her sister in a nightshirt. According to the Post, Yleen, a beautiful 33-year-old with a pageboy haircut and a wide smile, had worked as an interior decorator, specializing in stained-glass decor. Friends and neighbors also told police she had dabbled in narcotics trafficking, and police found a small amount of drugs, including marijuana, pills, and cocaine paraphernalia, in the home after the killings. Man shot at home Her sister was unemployed at the time but had worked as a key-punch operator, a kind of data processor. Lillie had moved into the home her sister rented on 606 E. 12th Street, just days before the she and her sister were killed, after a man in a pickup had shot at the home several times. But police were most fixated on someone neighbors reported seeing on the street the day of the slayings, a man walking along carrying a strange bundle; he'd said he had just broken up with his girlfriend. A year after her daughters' deaths, Rose C. Kennedy told reporters she hoped their killer would one day slip up and talk about the slaying. "I don't see how anybody can do that and keep living," she said at the time. On Friday, meanwhile, police answered some of the questions about what led them to suspect Degan. Cold case investigators reviewed the case in 2009, running DNA they collected at the scene through a national database with DNA profiles from other crime scenes and from convicted offenders and people arrested. Those efforts didn't find any matches, but late last year, a tipster told them Degan could have been involved in the slaying. Investigators found him living in River Oaks, in the small single-story brick dwelling he grew up in and where his mother still lives. Police said Degan told investigators he had worked in a wholesale used-clothing business at the time of the slaying, and he knew Yleen Kennedy through a used-clothing retail business she operated. He told them he had seen her about a week before the killings. Investigators requested a DNA sample, which he provided voluntarily, police said. When they ran the sample this time around, the DNA had a high probability of a match with evidence taken from the crime scene. Around the country, police have been using decades-old DNA to solve cases long believed cold. "What is critical in solving many of these cases is police preserved all of the evidence that allowed DNA to be used," said Larry Karson, a professor of criminology at the University of Houston-Downtown. Court records show Degan has been convicted on aggravated robbery charges as well as making a terroristic threat and for assaulting a family member, as well as for drug possession. Prosecutors said a suspect in an unrelated case in Indiana tipped police to Degan in the sisters' deaths. 'Hope he didn't do it' News of the arrest perturbed residents of the quiet block off Westheimer where Degan lived, a block that once had been a vegetable farm but now holds a mix of old ranch homes and towering new mansions. Reached at home, Degan's relatives declined to comment. Anthony Osso, his attorney, could not be reached Friday evening. Police said they weren't sure how Degan had earned his living over the last three decades but that he'd told them he'd most recently worked as a construction worker. Neighbors said he'd sometimes done odd jobs for them. "I hope he didn't do it - for his mom's sake," one resident said. A minimally invasive procedure to replace a failing heart valve, pioneered in Houston, proved better than open surgery in young, healthy patients, according to two new international studies whose findings are expected to extend the therapy to tens of thousands more patients annually. The surgery, which entails threading the new valve to the heart through a blood vessel in the patients groin, was approved first for patients too sick and frail for open-heart surgery, then for patients at intermediate risk. Now low-risk patients should follow. The takeaway is that this procedure looks like the preferred way to go in these patients, said Dr. Michael Reardon, a Houston Methodist Hospital heart surgeon and principal investigator of one of the studies. At one year, patients were more likely to be alive, without debilitating stroke, heart failure and hospitalization, all things patients tell me they hope to avoid with their treatment. Reardon said he thinks the Food and Drug Administration will approve the procedure for low-risk patients by early summer, perhaps June. He said he thinks the number of the procedures done annually in the U.S. could go from 60,000 now to 100,000 within a few years. Data from the studies, which tested the procedure with the two biological valves on the market, were presented Sunday in New Orleans at the American College of Cardiologys annual meeting. The studies also are being published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Methodist was a high-volume enroller of trial participants with a valve made by Medtronic, and Memorial Hermann was a high-volume enroller of participants with one made by Edwards Lifesciences. Both hospitals have used the minimally invasive procedure since its inception early in the decade. Dr. Richard Smalling of Memorial Hermann in 2017 used the procedure to replace the valve of a pregnant patient whod been told to abort the baby then have open-heart surgery to fix the problem. It was one of only two times a doctor had used the alternative approach in a patient carrying a baby. Smalling on Sunday called the results from the two studies eye-opening and said they will substantially change practice. He said it should give lower-risk patients comfort that they can have better outcomes while being spared open-heart surgery. The minimally invasive procedure, known as transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, treats patients with aortic stenosis, a condition that prevents the aortas from fully opening and returning blood to the heart. Former first lady Barbara Bush drew attention to the condition a decade ago when she was treated for it at Methodist. The condition, fatal if not treated, historically required open-heart surgery, which involves cracking the ribs apart and stopping the heart to insert a new mechanical valve. With TAVR, the only incision is a small hole in the groin where a catheter is inserted. When the catheter reaches the base of the aorta, the doctor unleashes a folded-up valve, which clamps at the site, induces tissue to form, grows into the heart and takes over the regulation of blood flow. Patients, awake throughout the procedure, barely feel a thing. Recovery takes days, not the months that typically follows open-heart surgery. TAVRs development was considered one of the most significant advances in cardiology since the 1960s, saving lives of elderly patients not healthy enough for open-heart surgery. Since clinical testing began on such patients in 2010, medical experts envisioned the day when it would replace big surgery in younger, healthier patients. The two new studies, both of which enrolled more than 1,000 patients, suggest that day is here. With the Medtronic valve, the rate of death or disabling stroke through two years was better than surgery in both the short term and the longer term. At 30 days, the TAVR rate was 0.8 percent to surgerys 2.6 percent and at two years, 5.3 percent to surgerys 6.7 percent. With the Edwards valve, rates were compared at 30 days and one year. At 30 days, the TAVR rate of stroke was 0.6 percent to surgerys 2.4 percent and at one year, TAVRs composite rate of stroke, death and rehospitalization was 8.5 percent to surgerys 15 percent. Not all younger patients in need of a valve replacement, such as those with certain anatomical abnormalities, will be candidates for TAVR. But most will. Smalling, an interventional cardiologist at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, noted that the question going forward will be how long the biological valves last and whether younger patients would want to have to undergo follow-up procedures if the duration isnt that long. Mechanical devices last decades but require the lifelong use of blood thinners. Biological valves dont. Reardon said he thinks most people will take the safest, easiest option, which also will cost less to society as well as patient because it will mean no time in intensive care and significantly less hospitalization time. With TAVR, most patients are home within 24 hours and back to normal within a week, said Reardon, who previously led TAVR studies with high-risk and intermediate risk patients. The evening after I do a morning procedure, Ill find the patients sitting in a chair in their room having dinner, chatting with family and wanting to know when they can go home. todd.ackerman@chron.com twitter.com/chronmed Tibor Nagy a son arrivee a Douala Facebook The US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy has finally arrived Cameroon, where he is expected at the Unity palace this Monday, to discuss ties and raise human rights concerns, in the Central African state. His announced visit to the country, has been of great concern to many, following his recent media outings on the degrading situation of the ongoing Anglophone crisis, and governments slow pace, at finding common grounds in resolving the problems. He arrived Cameroon on Sunday March 17,where he quickly held talks with some members of the American Chamber of Commerce, doing business in Cameroon. They were exploiting the possible business opportunities existing in Cameroon and revisiting bilateral ties. He is expected today at the Unity palace, where he will be meeting President Paul Biya. Before this, he is expected to discuss ties between the USA and Cameroon, with the Minister of External relations, Lejeune Mbella Mbella.. Tibor Nagy, for some few weeks has been the making top revelations and proposals on the current Anglophone crisis in, to the dismay of Cameroonian government officials. Nagy in previous interviews had said, the charges against the leader of the CRM party, Maurice Kamto, along with other members of his party, was politically motivated and called on government to immediately release them. He further accused the government of turning a blind eye to the bloodshed in the North West and South West regions. This resulted to an immediate communique from government spokesperson, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, who blamed the diplomat, for being ignorant. In an another interview conducted earlier during his African tour, Tibor Peter Nagy Jr remarked that he might be forced to take the situation of Cameroon to an international forum, if Yaounde fails to listen to his calls. "I know that the Cameroon government has taken some steps, but you would not believe the number of messages I receive every day about Cameroon, and also in Washington. From the very, very high level of political interest in all branches of the United States government, including Congress, that are always getting in touch with me about Cameroon. I know the areas very well; I know some of the people involved, and I just don't understand why this crisis goes on and on and on when there really needs to be absolute open, unlimited national dialogue to come to resolution. Because those poor people in northwest and southwestwe can call them that, we can call them the people in the Anglophone regionare just suffering so, so much. So we need to be focused on that and maybe take it further to an international fora to look at." Nagy said. Some Cameroonian politicians, belonging to the ruling CPDM party, have been calling on the US and other countries to stop interfering into the countrys political affairs. Tibor's visit, ends tomorrow. When Texas health officials broke ties with the Heidi Group late last year, it seemed to be the end of a failed effort to turn the anti-abortion group into one of the states leading family planning providers. But the Heidi Group is not finished. The Round Rock nonprofit, led by longtime anti-abortion activist Carol Everett, has quietly applied alongside two other Texas health providers for tens of millions of dollars in federal family planning funding, according to a copy of the groups grant application obtained by the Chronicle. The collaboration would be overseen by a Catholic organization called the Obria Group, which is based in Southern California and is aggressively vying to become a national alternative to Planned Parenthood. Obria has been denied federal funding in the past, but its prospects have improved since the program, known as Title X, came under leadership last year by the former head of a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion pregnancy centers. Last month, the Trump administration cut Title X funding to abortion affiliates in an effort to further starve out Planned Parenthood, which has already lost funding from several Republican-led states, including Texas. Planned Parenthood provides most of the non-abortion family planning services to low-income women nationally, including birth control, cancer screenings and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. If approved, the federal funding would open a major expansion for Obria into the state with the nations highest rate of uninsured people, and with an estimated 1.8 million women in need of publicly-funded family planning services. It would be a surprise re-emergence of the Heidi Group, which was cut off from millions in state funding last October after two years of underwhelming results and more than $1 million in questioned expenses. For subscribers: Texas gave anti-abortion group millions for womens health, despite warnings Several state officials have distanced themselves from Everett since, and an investigation into the groups financial records by the Health and Human Services Commissions inspector general is ongoing. Grant decisions soon Under the new proposal, Obria would manage the grant money, with medical duties split among the Heidi Group, Midland Community Healthcare Services, and Community Wellness Clinic in Conroe. The group is asking for nearly $8 million annually for three years, with a goal to serve just over 15,000 patients each year. We believe our involvement will significantly improve the availability and access to these important services, Everett wrote in a letter submitted with the application. She declined to comment further. Currently, Texas receives only about $13 million a year from Title X. The Womens Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, which has administered the funds for the past five fiscal years, served 195,000 patients in 2018 13 times as many as Obria is proposing according to its annual report. It is competing with Obria and the state Health and Human Services Commission, which has requested $16 million annually to serve 53,000 patients. Grant decisions are expected any day. The programs next fiscal year begins April 1. Obria has been turned down for Title X in the past because it does not support the use of condoms and other kinds of birth control beyond so-called natural family planning methods, in which women track their menstrual cycle and refrain from sex when most fertile. This years application for Texas says all forms of contraception would be offered, as is required, though its not clear whether that would be on-site or through referrals only. Critics say referrals reduce the likelihood that a woman will actually receive and use her preferred form of birth control. Error in application The Heidi Group was created as an activist group and only recently entered the direct care business. When it first received money from the state, in 2016, it operated much like Obria has proposed to do, subcontracting with established family planning clinics throughout the state. To stay in the program, however, Medicaid officials last year required the Heidi Group to open its own clinic, which it now runs in a small shopping center off Interstate 35 in Round Rock. The clinic says it serves slightly more than 100 patients per week, on average. It would continue serving that many under Title X, according to the application. Leslie Willkom, a former employee who left the Heidi Group earlier this month, said during her tenure the clinic served about 8 patients per day, on a good day. Willkom is one of several employees to leave in the past year, some of whom have complained about a difficult work environment under Everett. One of them has filed complaints with the Texas Workforce Commission. Another former employee, a nurse named Ronda Schultz, appears repeatedly in the Title X application as a top quality assurance officer. But Schultz says she left the Heidi Group last April, nearly a year before the proposal was submitted. She now works as an investigator for the state health commission. I did not know any of this, Schultz said when notified that her name and resume were included. This really upsets me, she said. My integrity is everything. The Heidi Group says it is looking into the error. A spokeswoman for Obria said officials there were traveling and unavailable to comment. In a letter submitted with the grant application, Everett made no mention of the groups terminated state contracts, or the ongoing audit. She wrote that the group began moving into womens health services in 2005. It ran a pregnancy center in Dallas until about 2009. Pregnancy centers typically offer services such as pregnancy testing, ultrasounds and basic prenatal care. Under her state contracts, Everett had agreed to serve 67,000 patients, but only ended up serving a few thousand in 2017, according to data from the Health and Human Services Commission. The Heidi Group believes it served thousands more patients than the state has reported, though it has yet to prove it. It is working to put forth its own numbers in coming days. Two state legislators are aiming to restore a provision of the Texas Open Meetings Act that was struck down last week by the states highest criminal court. Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, and Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, filed identical bills to reverse the court ruling that the walking quorum provision of the act is unconstitutionally vague. The provision made it a crime for government officials to secretly discuss the publics business in small groups. Senate Bill 1640 and House Bill 3402 will reword the passage to make it more precise and remove confusion, Watson and Phelan say. We simply couldn't let this ruling go unanswered, Watson said Wednesday. Without some kind of walking quorum prohibition, there's nothing to stop government actors from meeting in smaller groups to avoid the spirit and intent of the Open Meetings Act. As written, the act makes it illegal for members of a government body to knowingly conspire to circumvent this chapter by meeting in numbers less than a quorum for the purpose of secret deliberations. The Texas Attorney Generals Office describes the practice as a walking quorum, with governing bodies essentially conducting business in secret through successive meetings. Last weeks ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals makes such violations no longer punishable as crimes in Texas so long as the meetings do not involve a majority of a governing board such as a city council, county commission or school district board of trustees. In its ruling, the court left it up to the Legislature to to decide whether to revise the provision so it would pass constitutional muster. We do not doubt the Legislatures power to prevent government officials from using clever tactics to circumvent the purpose and effect of the Texas Open Meetings Act, wrote Presiding Judge Sharon Keller. The bills already appear to have strong support, as Phelan is the chairman of the House of Representatives State Affairs Committee, which is likely the first stop for the bills before a hearing on the House floor. Texans want their elected officials to be transparent and allow honest participation in the process, Phelan said in the press release. If we do not act this session to address this ruling, we deny them the open government they deserve. Watson and Phelans legislation come two days before the bill filing period ends for the session, leaving Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas President Kelley Shannon thankful that the courts ruling left enough time for legislators to address the issue. Were really glad that several lawmakers are interested in fixing this situation, and were fortunate that we still have the bill filing period so they can address it this session, Shannon said. It just goes to show how important the Texas Open Meetings Act is for this state and how widely recognized that is. The courts ruling stems from the indictment of Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal, who met privately with a county commissioner and a political consultant about a road bond when he was a member of the county commissioners court in 2015. A misdemeanor criminal charge against Doyal was thrown out by the ruling. Doyal argued the law is too vague and violates his free speech rights. Impacts of the courts ruling are already being seen in the Houston area, where prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss all charges against six current and former members of the Pasadena Second Century Corp., who were indicted last year for violating the Open Meetings Act. Board members Ernesto Paredes and Emilio Carmona, former board President Roy Mease and ex-board members Brad Hance, Jackie Welch and Jim Harris allegedly met twice on Nov. 28, 2016, with engineering firm Civil Concepts to discuss potential designs for a new civic center. There can be no prosecution of anyone under that statute, so they have to decide how they want to proceed, said Houston attorney Stanley Schneider, who is representing Mease. All judges are bound to follow the ruling of the Court of Criminal Appeals, so we know what the results will be on any similar review of the issue. It also vindicates the conduct of Mr. Mease and the other people charged that they did nothing illegal. Staff writer Mike Morris contributed to this report. Common Law Lawyers Demanding Justice Wilson MUSA Common Law lawyers belonging to the Cameroon Bar Association have raised an alarm against the government of Cameroon, for attempting to infiltrate the Common Law system again, thereby destroying its Anglo Saxon heritage. Addressing President Paul Biya in a petition signed on March 13, by over 100 Common Law lawyers, they objected to the application of a civil and commercial code within the common law jurisdiction of Cameroon, paying allusion to the constitution which emphasises and highlights the linguistic and cultural diversity of the country. "The promulgation of such a Code will lead to civil, social perturbations and destruction of the Anglophone body fabric and heritage. We do reiterate that the laws in France are not harmonised. The applicable laws in Monaco are not the same as the laws applied to mainland France. The laws in the United Kingdom are not harmonised. The Landlord/Tenant law for example in Scotland is not the same as in England and Wales or Northern Ireland. The laws in the United States of America are not harmonised. There is the death penalty for capital murder in some states and abolished in others. Similarly in Canada the laws are not harmonised and we can go on and on, stated the lawyers. The Common Law lawyers also drew the attention of the Head of State, to the legal and cultural diversity of the country, which was recently emphasisied by the creation of a Common Law section in the Supreme Court of Cameroon, and a Common Law Division in the School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM. This came as one of the decisions taken by government, to solve the Anglophone problem that saw lawyers marching on the street in protest to the destruction of the Anglo Saxon law system. The current crisis in the North West and South regions, which has spiraled into an armed conflict, took root in October 2016, when these Common Law Lawyers in the North West and South West regions went on strike. In line with their legal submissions, the Common Law lawyers emphasised that the Cameroonian legal system can there- fore be described as per provisions of the Constitution as bi-jural in which French laws are applicable in eight French-speaking regions and the English laws are applicable in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon. They further warned government to desist from causing the proposed Civil and Commercial Code, to be applicable, in the two English a speaking regions. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. CBS '60 Minutes' reports on unexplained brain trauma suffered by U.S. diplomats in Cuba and China. According to the segment, 25 Americans in Cuba suffered serious brain injuries in 2016 and 2017 and at least 15 American officials in China also experienced unexplained brain trauma soon after. The FBI is currently investigating if this was caused by a hostile foreign government attack with a mysterious weapon. Correspondent Scott Pelley interviews multiple sources who have been suffering from symptoms including Mark Lenzi, a State Department security officer, who worked in China. Teena Shetty, MD, neurologist at HSS, recalls that while Lenzi did not have any history of trauma, he reported a number of neurologic symptoms characteristic of mild traumatic brain injury. "The presumption is that something happened which caused a functional brain injury of widespread brain networks because he has symptoms to reflect a multitude of brain networks," explains Dr. Shetty. Watch the full segment at CBSNews.com. This also aired on March 17, 2019. Startups characterized as being concerned with AI attract 15% to 50% more funding than other technology firms. However, some 40% of firms classified AI startups in Europe lacked evidence of using AI. This disturbing finding comes from The State of AI 2019: Divergence, a report from UK investment company MMC Ventures, which looks at the reality of AI today, what is to come and how to take advantage for entrepreneurs, corporate executives, investors and policy-makers. The report combines information from existing research with new data and along the way it has some interesting findings regarding startups for developers. The starting point for the report is that: AI may be the fastest paradigm shift in technology history. Noting that in the course of three years, the proportion of enterprises with AI initiatives will have grown from one in 25 to one in three and argues that this rate of adoption has been enabled by the prior paradigm shift to cloud computing together with the availability of plug-and-play AI services and a thriving ecosystem of AI-led software suppliers. The finding that is hitting the headlines, including ours comes in the section on Europe's AI Startups where author David Kelnar writes: We individually reviewed the activities, focus and funding of 2,830 purported AI startups in the 13 EU countries most active in AI Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In approximately 60% of the cases 1,580 companies there was evidence of AI material to a companys value proposition. In other words, in 40% of cases there was no evidence of AI. In a Forbes article titled, Nearly Half Of All AI Startups Are Cashing In On Hype Kelnar explained that the AI classification came not from companies themselves, but from third-party analytics websites. However, he added: I think in most cases [startups] will be aware of how theyre being classified, and disclosed that startups that are labelled as being in the field of artificial intelligence attract 15% to 50% more in their funding rounds than other technology startups so there is little incentive to correct a listing, since it spells potentially less investment down the line. In other words, it can pay to brand yourself as being an AI company. One of the main barriers to becoming an AI company is lack of talent. According to the report: Demand for AI talent has doubled in 24 months. There is a gulf between demand and supply, with two roles available for every AI professional. The upside of this is that talent shortages are sustaining high salaries. AI professionals are among the best paid developers and their salaries continue to increase; half enjoyed salary growth of 20% or more in the last three years. Not only are job postings up, AI developers are probably not looking for new jobs. Three quarters of AI developers are content with their current roles, rating their job satisfaction 6 out of 10 or better: Another interesting finding, attributed to Kaggle, is that AI developers are seven times more likely to have a Doctoral degree than other developers, and twice as likely to have a Master's. Nearly 90% have a university background, almost 60% with a postgraduate degree: Normally universities would expect to retain a high proportion of new PhDs, but due to the high salaries on offer, and the opportunities for building on their research there is currently a noticeable brain drain from academia to industry. As Kelnar puts it, this: will have mixed implications, catalysing AIs immediate impact while inhibiting teaching and moving value from the public domain to private companies. While the sitiation might have mixed implications for AI, from the developer's point of view now is a good time to get into AI and a master's degree is a good passport. More Information The State of AI 2019: Divergence Report Summary Related Articles Carnegie Mellon Offers Bachelor's Degree In AI How Will AI Transform Life By 2030? Initial Report Bootcamp Or College - Which Should You Choose? What's Hot In Software Engineering in 2019 To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. Comments Make a Comment or View Existing Comments Using Disqus or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info Joseph Beti Assomo Archives During an installation ceremony of newly appointed commanders of the Ministry of Defense, Minister Joseph Beti Assomo, commanded soldiers, to show respect to civilians and stop terrorising them. The installation ceremony of Colonel Eyenga Severing as commander of the 21st Motorised Infantry Brigade, Major Eyengue Amougou Allain Wilfred, as Commander of the 21st Motorised Infantry Battalion, and Colonel Ateba Leonard Josue, as Regional Delegate of Ex-Service Men, all took place this afternoon, March 18 in Buea. Appointed by a presidential decree of March 15, 2019, Joseph Beti Assomo congratulated his scribes, calling on them to protect all state investments such as the Cameroon Development Corporation, amongst others in the South West. The Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Defense, used the installation ceremony to urge soldiers deployed in the South West region, to remain professional and collaborate with the population as crimes against humanity, intensify in the region. To the defense boss, a cordial relationship between the military and population, will help reduce the increasing crime waves, and bring the region to normalcy. He extended a friendly hand to separatist fighters, also known as Amba boys, to drop their weapons and get integrated into the society, for the good of the nation. His call for military restrain, comes at a time ,when several reports allegedly accused the Cameroonian military of unlawful executions of civilians and burning of their homes. This act, has caused many to flee into the bushes, trusting Amba boys over the military. Cameroon's Ministry of Defense has for a while, been concerned with degrading insecurity threats in the Anglophone regions, East, Adamawa and Far North regions. A National security meeting took place in Yaounde on March 11, to map out strategies on how to tackle insecurity challenges, in the days ahead. UAE distributes 25 fishing boats to families in Aden by Mohammed Ali March 11,2019 | Source: UrduPoint The UAE, represented by the Emirates Red Crescent, ERC, distributed 25 fishing boats to the families of martyrs and disabled people in Al Buraiqa District, Aden Governorate, continuing its support for Yemeni fishermen. Mohammed Al Kaabi, ERC Representative, said that the boats were distributed in Qaewa, Ras Omran, Fiqm and Al Haswa while stressing that in April, another 25 fishing boats will be delivered in Al Kheessa, Aden. Nasser Al Nassi, Chairman of the General Authority for Fisheries in Aden, Abyan and Lahej, praised the UAE's ongoing support for fishermen. Ayoub Abu Bakr, Director of the Social Affairs and Labour Office, stated that the boats will ease the suffering of local fishermen. 1997-2019, UrduPoint Network Theme(s): Others. Monday, March 18, 2019 at 11:11AM We know that Google's beleaguered social network Google+ is finally shutting down on April 2nd. But all its content isn't necessarily going away. The Internet Archive and the ArchiveTeam are working on preserving public posts before these vanish into the void. What this archive won't include are deleted or private posts, as well as full-resolution media or all comments made on posts. But if you do have public content you wouldn't want the Internet Archive to preserve, there is a process to remove specific content, which you can check out here. Source: Engadget Forty-two journalists have been targeted by Hamas forces in the past five days while covering street protests against falling living standards in the Gaza strip. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) in demanding the de facto government in Gaza controlled by Hamas end the violence against and arrest of journalists. In a statement published on 18th March, the PJS called on journalists to join a protest in Ramallah to condemn the attacks. According to PJS, in just the past 5 days 20 arrests, 10 physical assaults, 6 summons, 4 threats, 2 cases of home arrest and equipment seized have been recorded. IFJ General secretary Anthony Bellanger said: "We demand Hamas stop their attacks and intimidations against the press immediately. Our colleagues working in the Gaza strip must be able to report freely on the current situation. We demand that all our colleagues are set free immediately. Journalism is not a crime." Protesters, who wanted to voice their opposition to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, had to be evacuated from the RTS building after about 50 riot police were deployed to the premises. It was the first time in 20 years that protesters invade the Serbian public TV headquarters. According to the UNS, some journalists were pushed and threatened by protesters. However, and despite of the tension, no one was hurt in the incident. Protestors asked me to make a special show where they could talk about their demands and they asked me to call my superiors. I called them and they said the same thing I already explained: this was not possible. We asked them to leave voluntarily but they refused. Police had to push them out and some of the resisted so the police used some force. There was no heavy beating. , said to the IFJ Zoran Stanojevic, member of the UNS board and RTS editor who witnessed the incident. Watch the full video on related content . We could not work while the building was under siege, with editors and journalists locked in a room() there were some damages, like broken doors or windows, but it was clear that destroying the building was not the aim of protesters, and any of our staff was hurt. After they left, we could come back to work, he added. IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: The invasion of the premises of any media is unacceptable in democratic societies. We call on all parties, including the government, to protect the editorial independence of RTS. Serbian society deserves an independent public broadcaster. The UNS said in a statement that the incident is an inadmissible pressure on journalists, media workers and the independence of the RTS editorial policy. The much needed dialogue in the Serbian society cannot be conducted in an atmosphere of violence and illegitimate occupation of the RTS building in the presence of people with balaclavas and police. The NUNS said in its statement: Government bears most of the responsibility of these incidents. This is the result of years long spread of hate speech, hindering of media freedom, and the creation of an atmosphere of lynch and the abolition of public dialogue () We call upon all state institutions to take this alarming event most seriously and to finally establish the rule of law in Serbia. During a visit to Indonesia, the Timor Leste Press Council signed several agreements with local organisations to promote press freedom in Timor Leste and Indonesia. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes the collaborative work to improve press freedom in the region. On March 14, the Timor Leste Press Council met with the Legal Aid Institute and the Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) and signed cooperation agreements to work together to enhance efforts to protect journalists and press freedom in Indonesia and Timor Leste. IFJ affiliate, Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI) Jakarta chapter supported the establishment of LBH Pers. The Timor Leste Press Council chairperson, Virgilio da Silva Guterres, said the organisation needs to increase the skills of handling lawsuit or trials of journalists or the media. Since the establishment of the Timor-Leste Press Council in 2016, the organization has received complaints from sources, plagiarism case, and labour dispute. The number of press complaints, including the breach of code of ethics, as well as the threats to journalists is predicted to increase in the coming years. Therefore, it is essential for the Timor Leste-Press Council to increase its capacity, including the role of the organisation as expert witnesses in cases involving press. Based on the law system in Timor Leste, the recommendation from the Press Council will be take into account in any legal process or in the court trial. The collaborative agreements are a starting point for the Timor Leste Press Council to better understand how to advocate for press freedom and appropriate stakeholders to support freedom of expression. Under the first programme, the Timor Leste Press Council will send six activists to Indonesia for two weeks to learn about different press cases. They will also intern with LBH Pers. Ade Wahyudi, the Executive Director of LBH Pers, said the agreement will strengthen the network. The organisation will collaborate more with different agencies in the near future to improve its capacity. Chairman of AJI Jakarta Asnil Bambani said: We will support this partnership and will encourage all attempts to protect the press freedom. Aside of that we will always show our solidarity to our colleagues in Timor Leste and take a part in maintaining the press freedom in our neighbouring country. The IFJ said: Building and strengthening the network is one of the key in the efforts to safeguard freedom of the press. This partnership will improve the capacity development for the Timor Leste Press Council which will play a crucial role to support good journalism and press freedom. (CNN) New Zealand's government has agreed to reform the country's gun laws in the wake of last Friday's massacre at two mosques, in which 50 people were killed, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed. Ardern said that the "worst act of terrorism on our shores" had exposed a range of weaknesses in New Zealand's gun laws. Speaking after her weekly cabinet meeting Monday evening local time, Ardern told reporters that ministers had agreed "in principle" to reform gun laws. "Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer," she said. While acknowledging that "for a short period" the planned amendments might create uncertainty for some gun owners, Ardern said: "I strongly believe that the vast majority of gun owners in New Zealand will agree with the sentiment that change needs to occur." Earlier Monday, popular New Zealand e-commerce website TradeMe ended the sale of semi-automatic guns on its online marketplace. "We have listened to public sentiment following Friday's terrorist attack in Christchurch and decided to remove all semi-automatic firearms sales and parts associated," TradeMe wrote in a statement. Inquiry to be launched into attack The Prime Minister also announced that there would be an inquiry into the specific circumstances leading up to Friday's attack. The inquiry will look into what agencies knew -- or should have known -- about the gunman's access to weapons or any impediments into the sharing of information, she said. It will also look at the individual's travel movements, activities in New Zealand, use of social media and contact with others. The key agencies the inquiry would look at include the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, Government Communications Security Bureau, Police, Customs and Immigration, she said. Ardern said that her government had also had preliminary discussions around ensuring that New Zealanders had an opportunity to commemorate the victims as one but that any national memorial service would not take place this week. Ardern, accompanied by the governor-general, Patsy Reddy, and Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard, on Monday opened a national condolence book for victims. People can go to the National Library in the capital of Wellington to sign the book. "While it is a small action, the condolence book offers an opportunity for New Zealanders to unite and express our opposition to hate and state our commitment to the values of love and compassion," Ardern said. First body of victim released New Zealand Police earlier said that the first body belonging to a victim of Friday's massacre had been released to their family. Authorities have been racing to identify the 50 people killed, with Islamic tradition calling for a person to be buried as soon as possible after death -- ideally within 24 hours. A Syrian refugee, a Pakistani academic and their sons were among the 50 people killed, family members and non-profit organizations confirmed. "We had our first release of a deceased person, official release last evening," Police Deputy Commissioner Wally Haumaha said during a news conference in Christchurch Monday afternoon local time. However, Haumaha told reporters the family had declined to take possession of the body, choosing to wait instead for the release of a second family member who was also killed in the attack. "The process has been very emotional and highly stressful for all and you can imagine the emotions are running high, as in accordance with the Islamic faith, the families have wanted their bodies to be returned as soon as possible. We are ensuring that we do that," he said. Ardern said Sunday that authorities had started returning identified bodies to families, and all bodies would be returned by Wednesday. Six disaster victim identification experts have traveled from Australia to help hasten the process, she said. Injured still critical In addition to the people killed, 50 others were wounded in the attack, authorities said. Of the injured, 31 people remain in Christchurch Hospital, including nine in critical condition in intensive care, health officials said Monday. A 4-year-old girl also remains in a critical condition at a hospital in Auckland after being transferred there on Saturday. Her father is also being treated in Auckland and officials said he was in serious but stable condition. New Zealand police described efforts to identify the victims as "detailed and complex work" that must be completed thoroughly. The victims' names were not made public but a preliminary list has been shared with families, police said Sunday. New Zealand's largest criminal investigation New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush told reporters Monday that the investigation into the attacks was the largest criminal probe ever undertaken by the country's police. He said 250 detectives and specialists were conducting the investigation, with jurisdictions all around the world assisting. The FBI, Australian Federal Police and the New Zealand Police Force's own partner agencies were also working on the ground in New Zealand, Bush said. Three days after the shootings, Australian Brenton Harris Tarrant, 28, appears to be the only person in custody who has been linked to the attack. "We believe that there is only one attacker responsible for this horrendous event," the commissioner said, adding that it was possible the suspect still could have received support from others. Tarrant had been living in the southern city of Dunedin, around 225 miles from Christchurch and had traveled around the world, including Turkey and Pakistan. Officials said he had no criminal history in New Zealand or Australia and had not drawn the attention of the intelligence community for extremist views. Bush said the threat level in New Zealand remained high and there would be increased visibility from police and emergency service partners "for weeks to come." Graphic video raises questions over offensive content The attack was broadcast live on Facebook and the graphic video was copied and shared by users of the platform. Facebook removed 1.5 million videos of the mosque attack in the first 24 hours, the social media company tweeted Sunday. Of these, Facebook said more than 1.2 million were blocked at the point of upload. Additionally, all edited versions of the video that don't show the graphic content were also removed "out of respect for the people affected by this tragedy and the concerns of local authorities," Mia Garlick of Facebook New Zealand, said on Twitter. Friday's video has reignited questions about how social media platforms handle offensive content, with many questioning if companies are doing enough to try to catch this type of hate-filled content. Tarrant also sent an 87-page manifesto to Ardern minutes before the attack. The document, also posted on social media before the shooting, was filled with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim screeds. Authorities have declined to discuss potential motives for the attack. Tarrant, who is facing one murder charge, made a hand gesture associated with white supremacists when he appeared in court on Saturday. He was remanded in custody and will reappear in court April 5. The duty lawyer temporarily assigned to the suspect told CNN Monday that Tarrant had made it clear that he did not want legal representation. Richard Peters, assigned by Christchurch District Court to assist Tarrant in preliminary court appearances, said that the defendant hopes to represent himself. Imperial Valley News Center USDA Celebrates National Ag Day with New Youth Website Washington, DC - Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture joined the nation in celebrating National Ag Day, which highlights agricultures crucial role in everyday life, and honors the farmers, foresters, scientists, producers and many others who contribute to Americas bountiful harvest. As part of this effort, USDA is launching a new Youth and Agriculture website to connect young people and youth-serving organizations with Department-wide resources that engage, empower, and educate the next generation of agricultural leaders. The future of agriculture in America depends on the investment and involvement of Americas young people, said Deputy Secretary Stephen Censky. Connecting with Americas youth on National Ag Day is a tremendous opportunity to show that careers in farming, the agricultural sciences, and veterinary medicine are rewarding, essential, and profitable. The USDA Youth and Agriculture website features three key components of agriculture-focused youth engagement classroom studies, experiential learning, and leadership training. Educators can find ways to include agriculture in the classroom and beyond. Young people can learn about USDA summer outreach programs, youth loans for business projects, and outdoor volunteering. Community leaders can get tips on starting leadership development clubs and education programs. The site also highlights USDA partners, such as 4-H, the National FFA Organization, Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS), Agriculture Future of America (AFA), and many others working with the Department to connect young people with opportunities in agriculture. For the career curious, the website provides information on internships and scholarships, USDA employment, and information on agriculture career fields, such as forestry, robotics engineering, biochemistry, and food sciences. Storytelling will help young people learn from peers about youth-led innovations and success stories in agriculture. This has been a very difficult several months for Boeing chairman, president and CEO Dennis Muilenburg. First, Lion Air Flight 610 -- a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft -- crashed on October 29, 2018 shortly after takeoff from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta. All 189 passengers and crew died in the disaster. Then, on March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 -- another Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft -- crashed soon after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All 157 passengers and crew died in this latest disaster involving Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. For the most part, CEO Muilenburg -- who the Seattle Times recently reported took home $30 million in compensation in 2018 -- has kept a low profile after this most recent crash. That is, until yesterday. On Sunday, Boeing's Dennis Muilenburg issued a statement on the accident investigation of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. The statement began with a note to the families and loved ones of the victims: First and foremost, our deepest sympathies are with the families and loved ones of those onboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. The statement then went on to detail what Boeing is doing to address the problems with its 737 MAX aircraft: Boeing continues to support the investigation, and is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available. Safety is our highest priority as we design, build and support our airplanes. As part of our standard practice following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate, institute product updates to further improve safety. While investigators continue to work to establish definitive conclusions, Boeing is finalizing its development of a previously-announced software update and pilot training revision that will address the MCAS flight control law's behavior in response to erroneous sensor inputs. We also continue to provide technical assistance at the request of and under the direction of the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Accredited Representative working with Ethiopian investigators. Earlier Sunday, Ethiopia's transport minister Dagmawit Moges said: During the investigation of the FDR [flight data recorder], clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further investigation. While it's still too early to definitively determine what caused the two 737 MAX airplanes to crash, initial indications point to problems with angle-of-attack sensors mounted on the aircraft. According to a report in The Washington Post, "There are concerns it may have sent the wrong signals to new software on the flight that automatically dips the plane's nose to prevent a stall." While it may be some time before Boeing 737 MAX airplanes are once again allowed to fly -- putting the grounded Southwest, American, and United planes back in the air -- it's clear that Dennis Muilenburg faces his biggest test as CEO of Boeing. Jim Carrey has slammed Donald Trump in new artwork, saying innocent people are now being slaughtered in his name, a day after expressing his grief for the New Zealand terror attacks in a different piece. The actor, who frequently shares his reflections on the news cycle through his art, shared a new piece over the weekend, in which Mr Trump is represented as an asteroid rapidly approaching the Earth. with a swastika on his forehead. Innocent people are now being slaughtered, families ruined and childrens lives destroyed. All in his name, Carrey wrote. If the Craven Republican Senate allows this vile miscreant to continue encouraging divisiveness, the Trump Presidency will become an EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT. On the previous day, Carrey posted another artwork on Twitter, this time expressing his sorrow following Fridays attacks, which targeted two mosques and left 50 dead. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty He drew a partial self-portrait that shows him shedding tears, with an aerial view of New Zealand drawn where the pupil and iris would usually be. My heart is with you New Zealand. My tears are for all of us, the actor wrote vertically next to the illustration. Mr Trump tweeted on Monday that he was being unfairly blamed for the New Zealand terror attacks. The alleged gunman in last weeks attacks left a document in which he called himself a white nationalist and referred to Mr Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Trump had expressed sympathy for the victims, but played down the threat of white nationalism across the world, saying he didnt consider it a rising threat despite data suggesting its growing. Additional reporting by agencies. The Irish accent is consistently voted one of the most attractive in the world, yet even some of the worlds finest actors have trouble with it. Leonardo DiCaprio tried, as did Julia Roberts (twice), and dare we even mention Brad Pitt? As today (17 March) marks St Patricks Day and pubs are shut and sharing beers in the park with friends is out of the question, weve thought of the next best thing: reminiscing about the wonkiest Irish accents in film instead. One movie that isnt included, however, is Wild Mountain Thyme, a treacly romantic drama that broke the internet last year upon the release of its trailer. The film, starring Emily Blunt and Jamie Dornan, is still awaiting a UK release thanks to the pandemic, but it promises to be a veritable feast of poorly-accented horror. Set on a mystical-looking Irish farm in an indiscernible year (is it 2019 or 1953? Who knows!), the film features a cast of A-listers mercilessly bludgeoning the Irish accent beyond all recognition. Christopher Walken is straining for Mullingar but sounds more like Pirate Christopher Walken; Blunt is somehow quieter in this than she is in the trailer for A Quiet Place 2 suggesting that her accent is so dismal that theyre desperately trying to keep it under wraps. Then theres Jamie Dornan, who is actually Irish but sounds like someone whos never set foot in the country. Such is the power of the fake Irish accent in film, a mystical force so all-encompassing and destructive that few can survive it. To celebrate this most Irish of days, weve ranked 10 notorious times Hollywood has treated the country and its people with absolutely no respect. 10 worst Irish accents in film 10. Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York (2002) Quintessential California beach babe Cameron Diazs decision to star in Gangs of New York lies somewhere between gutsy and foolish. Playing an Irish sex worker and pickpocket, Diaz tries her best but is inarguably out of her depth. In fairness, Leonardo DiCaprio is just as wonky here in the accent stakes, but, with his messy goatee and slight paunch, he at least looks the part. 9. Justin Theroux in Charlies Angels: Full Throttle (2003) Diaz handed the bad Irish accent baton over to her Charlies Angels co-star Justin Theroux, just one year after the release of Gangs of New York. Youd think that playing a flamboyant Irish mobster named Seamus OGrady would help make Therouxs performance a camp delight, as opposed to aggressively shrill. Reader, it did not. 8. Pierce Brosnan in Taffin (1988) If you havent seen Brosnans pre-Bond action film Taffin (and you absolutely have not), you still may have seen a specific 14 seconds of it, with the actor commanding his love interest to leave his home using a delivery that can only be described as Tommy Wiseau-esque. But Irish viewers have even more reason to be confused, namely that Brosnan is from the Republic of Ireland but speaks in an incomprehensible Northern Irish accent throughout. His line Then maybe you shouldnt be living heeeerrrre is entrenched in cinematic lore. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Tommy Lee Jones in Blown Away' (Rex Features) 7. Tommy Lee Jones in Blown Away (1994) Tommy Lee Jones stars as an IRA terrorist who makes bombs while playing U2 on his stereo inadvertently summing up the grim taste level of this forgotten thriller. Its not quite as offensive as Joness accent, though. 6. Julia Roberts in Mary Reilly (1996) and Michael Collins (1996) What did Ireland do in 1996 to deserve not one, but two horrid Julia Roberts performances in which she butchers the Irish accent? She slightly gets away with it in Mary Reilly, a psychological horror movie so uber-serious that it veers into pure camp, but she sticks out like a sore thumb in the historical biopic Michael Collins. Few other actors have ever been so poorly miscast. 5. Sean Connery in The Untouchables (1987) May he rest in peace, but Connery was never very good when asked to play anything other than roguish Scotsman. That he won an Oscar for The Untouchables is a tribute to his rare magnetism because it sure as hell wasnt anything to do with that accent. 4. Gerard Butler in PS I Love You (2007) The Scottish actor publicly apologised to Ireland for his work in this terrible romantic drama, which says it all, really. At least we can rest assured that its unlikely hell attempt it again anytime soon. 3. Chris ODonnell in Circle of Friends (1995) A Hollywood-ified circus of Irish woe built on the premise that Minnie Driver is too repulsive to find love Circle of Friends features a cavalcade of accent horrors. Its most egregious, though, is Chris ODonnell, who essentially speaks in his normal American accent but throws a few ahh-roit thens in for good measure. Chris ODonnell in Circle of Friends' (Rex Features) 2. Tom Hanks in Cloud Atlas (2012) It might be incorrect to place Hankss performance in Cloud Atlas on this list, because its difficult to discern whether hes actually playing an Irish person. Sure, the character is described in the script as Irish gangster turned-novelist Dermot Hoggins, but Hanks seems to be playing him with what sounds like a Cockney accent. Whatever the truth, it is quite breathtaking to behold. 1. Tom Cruise in Far and Away (1992) Tom Cruise is actively terrible in Far and Away, a bizarre Ron Howard adventure film that marked the second of three wildly divergent collaborations with Cruises then-wife, Nicole Kidman. His Irish accent is fluttery noise, there one minute and gone the next. But it speaks to how we ended up here: non-native speakers have been fed so many stereotypes about Ireland over the decades that few can spot the real thing anymore. When the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak struck, it changed the landscape of British farming forever. Across the nation, people saw images on their TV screens of mass graves and enormous bonfires full of scorched animal carcasses. By the end, 6 million animals had been slaughtered, and the outbreak had cost the nation more than 8bn. In the aftermath, authorities immediately leapt into action to ensure the virus would not reach British shores again. A ban on feeding animals kitchen scraps and catering waste was brought in, and the government intensified efforts to monitor disease outbreaks around the world. If you rely on supermarket deliveries for your weekly shop, listen up. American supermarket chain Kroger and robotics company Nuro have teamed up to announce the launch of an autonomous grocery delivery service in Texas this spring. The service will deliver to customers across four local ZIP codes from two Kroger stores in Houston. Customers will be able to access the service seven days a week and shop via Kroger.com or the Kroger app. Deliveries will be based on availability with same-day and next-day options available. The 20 best food scenes in film Show all 20 1 /20 The 20 best food scenes in film The 20 best food scenes in film Lady & the Tramp Who would have guessed one of the most romantic scenes in cinema would involve two dogs eating scraps in an alleyway? And, yet, the iconic spaghetti kiss from Disneys 1955 animated film has been oft imitated but never surpassed, as the two pups indulge in an Italian delicacy, all soundtracked to Sonny Burke and Peggy Lees Bella Notte. And, as Tramp proves, theres no greater act of chivalry than offering your date the last meatball Moviestore/Rex The 20 best food scenes in film Babette's Feast Gabriel Axels Oscar-winning 1987 Danish film is a visual treat for any self-confessed gourmand. The story sees two pious Protestant sisters offer refuge to a French woman fleeing the political tumult in Paris after the collapse of the Second Empire in 1871. They agree to hire her as a housekeeper, discovering later that shes the former chef of one of Pariss best restaurants. When she wins the lottery, she uses the funds to whip a meal to remember for her kindly hosts. The 20 best food scenes in film Hook All the very best chefs know that a dash of pure imagination is key to creating a true culinary wonder. Its a lesson well-taught in Steven Spielbergs 1991 classic, Hook, as a grown-up Peter Pan (Robin Williams) looks on in disbelief as the Lost Boys tuck into what appears to be nothing at all. Its only when he truly believes that he can see the brightly colour feast laid out before him. And what childish feast would be complete without an old fashioned food fight? Sony The 20 best food scenes in film Breakfast at Tiffany's Sure, the 1961 films title may be a little misleading. Its protagonist, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), in reality only has breakfast outside of Tiffanys, popping out of a cab in the early morning light to peer into the jewelry shop window, all while enjoying a pastry and some coffee in a paper. The moment has still remained the peak of glamour, decades later, so who cares if its all a little white lie? Keystone Features/Getty Images The 20 best food scenes in film The Godfather Its a classic scene that proves to be surprisingly instructional. Francis Ford Coppolas 1972 film has a full-blown recipe tucked within its elegant drama, as Vito Corleones close associate, Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano), offers his version of the perfect pasta sauce. As he explains: You start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. And a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugarthat's my trick." Rex Features The 20 best food scenes in film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Although the 1971 musical is, as a whole, a sugary delight, its hardest to resist the temptation of Willy Wonkas Fizzy Lifting Drinks, a soda described as so bubbly that it lifts anyone who drinks it right off the ground. Its no wonder that it was the one stop on the tour that ended up tempting the pure-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) and his grandfather (Jack Albertson). Now, the real question is: does it come in different flavours? Getty The 20 best food scenes in film Eat Pray Love For anyone who considers pizza to be the true love of their life, Ryan Murphys 2010 romcom is a perfect cinematic match. Its hard not to relate to the moment Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) bites into a piece of authentic Italian pizza, during the Naples stop on her global adventure of self-discovery, and declares: Im in love. Im in a relationship with my pizza. Rex Features The 20 best food scenes in film Beauty & the Beast Although we might not fully be convinced that the grey stuff is delicious, the dinner and show approach to Lumiere (Jerry Orbach)s hospitality is something we could certainly get used to. In Disneys 1991 animation, Belle (Paige O'Hara) is presented with a whole cavalcade of sumptuous dishes: including beef ragout, cheese souffle, pie and pudding "en flambe". And theres a sage piece of advice to go with it all, too: If you're stressed, it's fine dining we suggest! Indeed. Disney The 20 best food scenes in film Steel Magnolias While theres been a growing fad of ambitious, unusually themed cakes you need only look at the success of the TLC reality series Cake Boss there are few cinematic cakes that quite stick in the memory like Jackson (Dylan McDermott)s armadillo-shaped groom cake from 1989 comedy-drama Steel Magnolias, a spin on the tradition from the American South of having another cake separate to the main wedding cake. And did we mention that its red velvet on the inside? REX FEATURES The 20 best food scenes in film Marie Antoinette When it came to director Sofia Coppola conjuring the ultimate image of decadence for her 2006 biopic on the French queen, there was no more perfect treat than Ladurees famous macarons. Delicate and pastel-toned, the meringue-based confection has long been the speciality of the French bakery, first established in 1862. A new flavour was even created in honour of the film, with the Marie Antoinette offering a combination of rose and anise flavours. Columbia Pictures The 20 best food scenes in film The Hundred Foot Journey Food is often regarded as one of the best ways to understand a culture, and The Hundred-Foot Journey is wonderful for showing the efforts the talented, self-taught novice Hassan (Manish Dayal) goes to in order to comprehend that. During a picnic he reveals he has mastered the five mother sauces of French cuisine, and the delicate tasting process that follows demonstrates just how important food is to France. The 20 best food scenes in film Goodfellas In prison, dinner was always a big thing. So much so that the Wise Guys ate better than most people on the outside. Beyond the Sea plays in the background as the gangsters prepare their meal: Garlic sliced so thin with a razor blade that it would liquefy in the pan with just a little oil, meatballs in a tomato sauce thats a little too oniony, steak cooked medium rare, iced lobsters, prosciutto, salami, cheese, red wine and good Scotch. Maybe crime does pay after all. The 20 best food scenes in film Chocolat There are few pleasures in life more fulfilling than that of cooking for others. In Chocolat based on the book by Joanne Harris a slow-motion scene where dinner party guests tuck into the feast created by expert chocolatier Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) is full of warmth and laughter. AP The 20 best food scenes in film Pulp Fiction In a world where people seem more than happy to fork out 15 for some mushy avocado on toast, $5 for a milkshake doesnt seem too unreasonable. Vincent Vega (John Travolta) takes his boss wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out to Jack Rabbit Slims for a burger, where she decides she wants the $5 dollar shake. You dont put bourbon in it or nothing? a bewildered Vincent asks the waiter. When it arrives, Mia takes a long sip: Yummy. I gotta know what a $5 shake tastes like, Vincent says. He takes a sip. Then another. Goddamn, thats a pretty f***ing good milkshake. Miramax/YouTube The 20 best food scenes in film Julie & Julia Nora Ephrons feature film based on the intertwining stories of chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, the blogger who rose to fame after documenting her pledge to cook all 524 recipes in Childs cookbook, is all about the joy one can find in food. It is some of the earlier scenes that capture this best, like when Julia (Meryl Streep) and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) arrive in Paris and stop at a French restaurant, where Julia is served a sizzling platter of sole. It looked so mouth-watering in the final edit that Ephron wanted to call up Martin Scorcese and say, youve never shot a fish like that before. Rex The 20 best food scenes in film Ratatouille Fearsome critic Anton Ego takes a bite of ratatouille and is transported back to his childhood, where it was a favourite comfort food, in the best scene from Pixars wonderful animated film. The detail is superb, from the process of Remy the rat preparing the dish to the moment Egos pen falls to the ground as he remembers the power of a favourite meal in evoking memories we thought were lost. YouTube screengrab / Jeugos para ninos / Disney Pixar The 20 best food scenes in film Spinal Tap I dont want this, I want large bread but I can rise above it, Im a professional. The miniature bread catastrophe is a beautiful parody on every self-absorbed rock star to have kicked off over something as ludicrous as the food theyre served backstage. Guitarist Nigel Tufnell sits next to a tray of sandwiches looking baffled as his manager walks over. "Look," he says, picking up a sandwich. "This, this miniature bread. It's like... I've been working with this now for about half an hour. I can't figure it out. Let's say I want a bite, right, you've got this..." "Why do you keep folding it?" Ian asks. Nigel looks down at the broken bits of bread, then tries again: "This. I don't want this." He throws the sandwich to the ground, disgusted. "I want large bread!" Embassy Pictures The 20 best food scenes in film The Help After all the trauma she has been through at the hands of her abusive husband and a racist ex-employer Minny (Octavia Spencer) arrives at her employer Celia Foote to find a beautiful dinner cooked for her as a thank you for everything she has done for Celia and her husband. You see the care that has gone into it as Celia lays everything out on the table, from a mile high meringue to the fried chicken Minny taught her how to make. That table of food gave Minny the strength she needed, the narration explains. She took her babies out from under Leroy and never went back. AP Photo/Disney DreamWorks II, Dale Robinette The 20 best food scenes in film Five Easy Pieces Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) just wants some toast to go with his omelette, but the waitress is stubbornly sticking to the diners no substitutions rule. Ill make it as easy for you as I can, goes the famous order. Id like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast. No mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce and hold the chicken. Columbia Pictures The 20 best food scenes in film Big Night It was a scene that helped propel a revolution in American dining. Il Timpano, a dish inspired by the notoriously tricky-to-make Italian meal, is the star of a moment in Big Night where chef brothers Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci) prepares it as the centrepiece for a feast attended by their rival, Pascal. Goddamit, I should kill you, he screams, throwing his fork down after tasting Il Timpano. This is so f***ing good, I should kill you. According to Nuro, customers will receive notifications via text message when their order has departed the store and its final destination. Shoppers will also be able to track their delivery live on the app. As for the safety of the public, the company states that its custom vehicle has a remote operator monitoring at all times, "capable of taking over in the event of a potential unmanaged risk". The service follows a trial run in Scottsdale, Arizona last year and has expanded to include Nuro's custom vehicle, R1, making it the US first fully-unmanned delivery service available to the general public. Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson says of the Texas service: Weve seen first-hand in Arizona how enthusiastic customers are about getting their Kroger groceries delivered by a Nuro self-driving vehicle. Kroger x Nuro 2019 (Kroger x Nuro 2019 ) (Kroger x Nuro 2019) Texas has been a leader in encouraging self-driving innovation, and were excited to help deliver that future for Houston a dynamic, diverse and welcoming metropolitan city that were excited to soon explore and serve with this autonomous delivery service. The service comes two years after English online supermarket Ocado tested grocery delivery by electric vehicles as part of a bid to cut its carbon footprint, reduce congestion and keep noise levels to a minimum, especially in residential areas. In November 2018, the Scottish government announced Scotlands first self-driving bus trial which will see five autonomous single decker buses travelling across the Forth Road Bridge between Fife and Edinburgh this year. Recommended Junk food ads could be banned before 9pm under new government plans The driverless grocery deliveries will be offered at the Texas stores on South Post Oak Road and Buffalo Speedway and cover zip codes including 77401, 77096, 77005 or 77025. Deliveries include a 4.49 ($5.95) flat fee; no minimum order. Nuro plans to introduce the next generation of the custom driver-less vehicles later this year. Customers in Scotsdale will continue to have access to delivery through Kroger's established service available through frysfood.com. One of the most important festivals in the Christian faith, Easter celebrates the period during which Christians believe Jesus Christ was resurrected following the crucifixion. For people who are not Christian, it is also a time to come together as a family. Unlike Christmas, the date of Easter is subject to change, as its date is determined by a lunisolar calendar. So when is Easter, why does its date vary and how is it celebrated? Heres everything you need to know: When is it? Easter marks the end of the 40-day period of Lent, during which those who observe the festival abstain from everyday luxuries such as rich foods. The week before Easter is widely referred to by Christians as Holy Week, as it recalls the events surrounding the passion, crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Show all 20 1 /20 2016 Easter celebrations around the world 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Willy Salvador, 59, hangs from a cross as part of his penitence during a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for Good Friday celebrations ahead of Easter in the village of San Juan, Pampanga Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines articipants lie on the ground after whipping their bloodied backs with bamboo as part of their penitence during a ceremony reenacting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for Good Friday celebrations ahead of Easter in the village of San Juan. Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines articipants whip their bloodied backs with bamboo as part of their penitence during the re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for Good Friday celebrations ahead of Easter in the village of San Juan. Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Hungary Dancers of 'Matyo Folklor Art Association' in traditional clothes, react as boys throw water in Mezokovesd, some 130 km east of Budapest. Getty images 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines A resident carries a statue of Jesus Christ to the church in preparation for the Good Friday procession during Holy Week celebration in Gasan, Marinduque. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Ruben Enaje, who is portraying Jesus Christ for the 30th time, screams while a resident acting as a Roman soldier pulls up a nail on his palm Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Penitent Ruben Enaje, who is portraying Jesus Christ for the 30th time, is carried on a stretcher by rescuers after he was nailed on a wooden cross during a Good Friday crucifixion reenactment in Cutud town, Philippines Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Mexico A man holding a rabbit looks at men dressed as ancient Romans as they take part in a procession, during Holy Week celebrations, in Taxco. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world South Africa Nuns carry a cross during a silent march celebrating Good Friday in Durban. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Mexico Masked penitents prepare before the start of a procession, a part of Holy Week celebrations, in Taxco. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Penitents locally called "Morions" wear masks and centurion garbs as they take part in a Good Friday procession as part of Holy Week celebration in Gasan, Marinduque. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world El Salvador Members of the El Jesus Nazareno brotherhood participate in the Los Cristos Procession as part of Holy Week celebrations in the town of Izalco. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Paraguay Actors take part in a re-enactment during a Holy Week procession to prepare for Good Friday celebration in Luque city. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Paraguay Actors take part in a re-enactment during a Holy Week procession to prepare for Good Friday celebration in Luque city. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Peru Local and foreign inmates participate in a performance of the play Jesus Christ Superstar to celebrate Holy Week at Sarita Colonia prison in Callao. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Penitents wearing masks, known locally as "Morions" take a selfie during the start of Holy Week celebrations in Mogpog, Marinduque. Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Hungary Hungary Reuters 2016 Easter celebrations around the world Philippines Resident portraying Roman soldier pulls up a nail on a foot of penitent Ruben Enaje in Pampanga, Philippines. Reuters This year, Easter Sunday is taking place on Sunday 4 April. Some sectors of Christianity celebrate Easter on a different date in accordance with the Julian Calendar, a Roman calendar first proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Orthodox Christianity will celebrate Easter on Sunday 2 May this year, almost a month after Western Christianity. Why does the date change every year? Much like other religious events such as the Hindu celebration of Diwali and the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah, Easter is a moveable feast. This means its date on the Gregorian calendar can vary every year. The date of Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox in March. By taking into account the date of the vernal equinox (which this year fell on Saturday 20 March) and the next following full moon (Sunday 28 March), it was therefore calculated that Easter Sunday would take place on Sunday 4 April in 2021. What does Easter commemorate? Those who observe the Christian festival of Easter celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after he was crucified, as outlined in the New Testament. Easter has strong links with the Jewish festival of Passover, another moveable feast which is taking place this year between Saturday 27 March and Sunday 4 April. How is it celebrated? The first church service that some Christians attend in celebration of Easter is held on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday and the last day of Holy Week. However, church services will not be able to talk place this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, with places of worship being closed as a safeguarding measure. In addition to church services, its tradition for Christians to commemorate Easter with music, candles, flowers and the ringing of church bells. While Easter is a religious festival, it is also celebrated by a variety of communities of different faiths across the globe. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Many mark the occasion by exchanging chocolate eggs, which are traditionally symbolic of rebirth and new life. Lots of children also take part in the festivities by participating in Easter egg hunts. Cryptocurrency markets are showing the first signs of recovery after months of stagnation, with the price of bitcoin breaking above $4,000 (3,000) on Monday. Bitcoin has been trading between $3,000 and $4,000 since November 2018, having fallen from a peak of around $20,000 in late 2017. The latest price of $4,050 is just $100 shy of bitcoin's highest value this year, which it hit in February. The mini-surge comes as cryptocurrency luminaries predict bitcoin will see significant gains in the coming months. They include the Winklevoss twins, who used their settlement with Facebook to found the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange. At the South by Southwest conference in Texas, the twins once again reiterated their conviction that cryptocurrency will one day be bigger than Facebook and even replace gold as a store of value. "The only thing that's truly precious, in my mind, is bitcoin," Cameron Winklevoss told the audience. "[If] you talk to someone who's playing Fortnite and say, okay, two options, bar of gold or the equivalent in bitcoin, they are 10 times out of 10, 100 times out of 100, going to take the bitcoin. They want software, they don't want hardware." Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Satoshi Nakamoto creates the first bitcoin block in 2009 On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin is used as a currency for the first time On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices Lazlo Hanyecz Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Silk Road opens for business Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin Screenshot Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The first bitcoin ATM appears On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The fall of MtGox The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Would the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's big split On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's price sky rockets Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures What goes up... Bitcoin price crashes spectacularly, losing half of its value in a matter of days Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin plunges The cryptocurrency eventually bottoms out below $4,000 in 2019 before slowly rebuilding momentum to outperform more traditional assets Getty Images Brendan Blumer, who co-founded the blockchain firm Block.One, also took to Twitter over the weekend to predict that bitcoin will replace gold by 2040. "Over the next two decades, #bitcoin will replace #gold as the leading commodity to store value," he tweeted. Other notable tech figures who have recently endorsed bitcoin include Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who revealed he is stockpiling $10,000 of the cryptocurrency every week. The price of bitcoin peaked at close to $20,000 in 2017 (Getty Images) Cryptocurrency analysts said the latest price breakthrough is encouraging but warned investors to be cautious. "The bitcoin bulls have finally managed to break through the psychological $4,000 mark but let's not get too carried away, as it's what happens next that matters," Simon Peters, a market analyst at the online trading platform eToro, told The Independent. "For me, the question is whether bitcoin can keep the momentum from here and overcome its recent struggle for direction." According to Mr Peters, the real test for bitcoin will be at the $4,200 price point, which bitcoin is yet to break through this year. "If we see bitcoin going above $4,200 and convincingly staying above that level, that's when we can talk about a more significant bearish-to-bullish trend," he said. PewDiePies six-year reign as the worlds most popular YouTube channel has finally come to an end, after Indian music label T-Series passed the controversial YouTuber. The takeover was originally predicted to take place in October but a sustained campaign from PewDiePie fans helped maintain his position as the most-subscribed-to channel. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, even called on Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in recent weeks to host a popular segment on his channel called Meme Review. The rise of T-Series has proved controversial in some corners of the YouTube community, who see it as a reflection of YouTubes increasing commercialisation in recent years. Critics claim the video-sharing platform is turning its back on independent creators in favour of large corporations that hold greater potential for generating revenue. Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing Show all 18 1 /18 Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: A young Chinese internet addict receives an electroencephalogram check at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing A young Chinese internet addict sits on his bed near artificial flowers at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing A new student (front) practices sits-up while other students take part in a close-order drill at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 26, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing Wang (L), who was addicted to internet gaming, helps clean a bathroom in his dormitory at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Picture taken February 19, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing An ex-military instructor (front) and students do push-ups during a military-style close-order drill class at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: A young Chinese internet addict receives an electroencephalogram check at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: A young Chinese internet addict receives an electroencephalogram check at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: A young Chinese internet addict receives electric shock treatment in his room at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: A young Chinese internet addict watches television as he receives an intravenous drip in his room at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: A young Chinese internet addict watches television as he receives an intravenous drip in his room at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing A young Chinese internet addict opens the door of her room at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. Cancan Chu/Getty Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing A Chinese 'internet addict' reads a book inside his room at a military hospital in Beijing June 22, 2005. A growing number of youth are getting addicted to the Internet as it continues to proliferate in China. China represents the world's second-largest Internet market with 94 million users at the end of 2004, a number expected to rise to 134 million by the end of this year, according to official data. Reuters/Claro Cortes Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing A student stands in front of a gate at his dormitory at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing A teacher talks to an instructor who is an ex-soldier through a window in a door while pupils take part in military-style close-order drill class at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Picture taken February 19, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing An ex-military instructor teaches students during their military-style close-order drill class at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Picture taken February 19, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing Students laugh as they receive a group punishment during a military-style close-order drill class at the Qide Education Center in Beijing February 19, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Picture taken February 19, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing An instructor who is an ex-soldier talks to female students in their dormitory at the Qide Education Center in Beijing June 10, 2014. The Qide Education Center is a military-style boot camp which offers treatment for internet addiction. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon Internet addicts receive treatment in Beijing BEIJING - JULY 6: Young Chinese internet addicts learn how to play a billiards game at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China. The clinic, the country's first government-approved facility geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. A dozen nurses and 11 doctors care for the patients, mostly youths aged 14 to 24 who have lost sleep, weight and friends after countless hours in front of the computer, often playing video games with others online. Doctors use a combination of therapy sessions, medication, acupuncture and sports like swimming and basketball to ease patients back into normal lives. The patients usually stay 10 to 15 days, at $48 a day - a high price in China, where the average city dweller's weekly income is just $20. According to government figures, China has the world's second-largest online population - 94 million - after the United States. Cancan Chu/Getty Its incredible to see how media companies like T-Series are flourishing in this space. Whilst YouTube continues to be a pivotal platform for influencers like PewDiePie, media companies have really doubled down on the platform this year, Denis Crushell from social video analytics firm Tubular Labs recently told The Independent. T-Series and its sister channels now see well over 4 billion views per month, making it YouTubes most viewed media company globally. The growth of T-Series can be attributed to Indias online growth, which now counts close to half a billion internet users in the country. Despite encouraging his fans to help him in his bid to remain the number one channel, Mr Kjellberg claimed he is not bothered by the Indian channel. I dont really care about T-Series, I genuinely dont, but I think if YouTube does shift in a way where it does feel more corporate, [then] something else will take its place, he said. I think people enjoy this connection so much, I think something else will just show up, if it feels too corporate. Both channels now have more than 89 million subscribers at the time of writing. Projections from statistics website Social Blade suggest T-Series will pass 100 million subscribers by June. The takeover comes just three days after a terrorist in New Zealand urged people to subscribe to PewDiePie, just minutes before entering a mosque in Christchurch and opening fire on people inside. Mr Kjellberg said he was absolutely sickened by the mention of his name by the gunman and did not post a video to his channel on Friday out of respect for the many families in New Zealand affected by the tragedy. At least 50 people died in what is the deadliest terror attack in New Zealands history. Love Island stars have urged the show to provide better mental health support for its contestants following the news of Mike Thalassitis's death. On Saturday, it was reported Thalassitis had been found dead at the age of 26. Police have confirmed his death isn't being treated as suspicious. The reality television personality, who starred on Love Island in 2017 and Celebs Go Dating in 2018, had recently been caring full-time for his grandmother before her death at the age of 94. Following Thalassitis's passing, several former Love Island participants have been coming forward to criticise the lack of mental health care they received after exiting the show. Dom Lever, who took part in Love Island in the same year as Thalassitis, claimed that the wellbeing of some contestants is prioritised above others once the series has ended. Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Show all 18 1 /18 Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health "You get a psychological evaluation before and after you go on the show but hands down once you are done on the show you dont get any support unless youre number one," he tweeted. Malin Andersson, who participated in the show in 2016, condemned the inadequate support she received from Love Island producers when her one-month-old daughter, Consy, passed away in January. "I got flowers from the producers when my daughter died. No f****** phone call. No support, or help," she tweeted. "If I didn't have a strong head on me that my mum passed down to me, I wouldn't have been able to cope with this all." Andersson continued, imploring others to "reach out to somebody" if they feel "alone" or "sad". One of Andersson's Love Island co-stars, Kady McDermott, explained the detrimental impact instant fame can have when participants leave the villa. "Hopefully going forward reality shows will help more with the aftermath of being on one, because I can say it definitely didn't happen after my series when lots of us needed it," she tweeted. "People's lives change overnight and no one can mentally be prepared for it. The good and the bad." Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events On Sunday, Thalassitis's Love Island co-star and friend Montana Brown penned a tribute to him on Instagram. Brown said she was "heartbroken" that she couldn't provide Thalassitis with the help he needed, adding that she'd known he'd been in a "dark place" for a few months. Im so so sorry I couldnt do more to help you. I have so much love for you Mike and I will never forget you. Sleep tight darling and I miss you so much already," she wrote. For confidential support on mental health call Samaritans free from any phone, at any time, on 116 123 (UK & ROI) or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US call 1-800-273-TALK or chat online. Former Love Island contestant Montana Brown regrets not responding to a text message from friend Mike Thalassitis days before his death. On Saturday, it was reported that Thalassitis, who appeared on the 2017 series of the ITV programme, had been found dead at the age of 26. Police have confirmed his death isn't being treated as suspicious. Speaking on ITVs This Morning on Monday, 23-year-old Brown admitted she received a message from Thalassitis before his death but failed to reply. [I last heard from him] Two days before, Brown revealed. I'm actually kicking myself. He text me, and I didn't actually reply just because I'm really bad on my phone. And I think you just overthink everything, like what you do. I just wish I had replied. He just said, 'How's it going, how are you?' And I didn't reply. During the programme, Brown said she was aware Thalassitis was going through a really rough time amid a lack of work and a big tax bill, prior to his death. Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Show all 18 1 /18 Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health Sow Ay illustrations on mental health He had a big tax bill to pay, and he thought this celebrity life isn't what its cracked up to be, Brown told the shows co-hosts Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield. [But] he had this cafe that he was going to open, and it was like why now.' Brown added that her fellow Love Island contestant was visiting a therapist before his death and that she recently gave him Rhonda Byrnes self-help and spirituality book The Magic. I was kind of at my wits end, she noted. And I thought, 'Something really terrible is going to happen if I don't do something. The contestant admitted she was shocked to hear about Thalassitis passing. Montana Brown discusses Mike Thalassitis' death on 'This Morning' Brown said: He didn't really know what to do for work and he wanted to be his own boss and he didn't know how to do that and I know he had a massive tax bill to be paid and I think the stress really got to him, and he kind of thought this fame wasn't what it was cracked up to be, where do I go now? Reflecting on Thalassitis mental health in recent months, Brown said she could have seen his death coming. She added: I don't know if it was a spur of the moment reason. I don't know if he had these demons he had to deal with. On Sunday, Brown took to Instagram to post a tribute addressing the late reality stars death. Recommended CPS updates guidelines on defendants with mental health issues I am absolutely heartbroken that I couldnt help you, she wrote in a post which captioned a series of photographs of the pair. Brown went on to explain her frustrations that Thalassitis was so misunderstood in the public eye. In the hours following Thalassitis death, several Love Island contestants have urged the ITV programme to provide better mental health support for its contestants. Dom Lever, who took part in Love Island in the same year as Thalassitis, claimed that the wellbeing of some contestants is prioritised above others once the series has ended. "You get a psychological evaluation before and after you go on the show but hands down once you are done on the show you dont get any support unless youre number one," he tweeted. Malin Andersson, who participated in the show in 2016, criticised the support she received from Love Island producers when her one-month-old daughter, Consy, passed away in January. "I got flowers from the producers when my daughter died. No f****** phone call. No support, or help," she tweeted. For confidential support on mental health call Samaritans free from any phone, at any time, on 116 123 (UK & ROI) or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US call 1-800-273-TALK or chat online. American YouTube star Shane Dawson is one of the most famous names on the Internet. The 30-year-old social media influencer, born Shane Lee Yaw, boasts over 21m subscribers to his YouTube channel and 7.94m Twitter followers. Since launching his online career on YouTube in 2008, Dawson has gone on to become an entrepreneur in the field of literature, comedy, and acting. However, despite his popularity, Dawson has been at the centre of several controversies over the years. He most recently came under fire after a resurfaced podcast appeared on Twitter in which he makes a crude joke relating to his cat. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Show all 11 1 /11 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Play in the background One of the YouTube apps most frustrating shortcomings is the inability to play music videos in the background or when youre phones locked. There is a way around this, but only on iOS. Open the YouTube website in Safari, play a video and then press your iPhones home button. After that, launch the Control Centre by sliding up from the bottom of the screen and tap play. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Loop videos YouTubes looping option on desktop is really useful, but nowhere near as easy to find as it should be. To loop a video, right-click it while its playing and select Loop. Even if you have Autoplay enabled, your video will replay itself as soon as it finishes. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Enable Dark Theme YouTube recently introduced a black-and-red Dark Theme on the desktop, which is much easier on your eyes than the regular version of the site. Enable it by clicking the account symbol, selecting Dark Theme and turning Activate Dark Theme on. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Simplify YouTube Another alternative YouTube user interface is available to access at youtube.com/tv. Its a really simple, no-frills UI thats incredibly easy to navigate. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Try out new features You can test upcoming and experimental features early by signing up to YouTube TestTube. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Read When you want to watch a YouTube video but dont have your headphones and dont want to disturb anyone around you, turn on Captions. Theyre also really handy if youre trying to watch a video in a foreign language. Transcriptions, meanwhile, break down exactly when certain things take place, so you can skip to the part you want to watch accurately and easily. In the More tab under the video title, launch the dropdown menu and select Transcript. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Use shortcuts You can lean back in your seat and control YouTube videos with your keyboard if you want to. J and L let you rewind and fast-forward 10 seconds, K is pause/play, M is mute/unmute and the 0-9 keys let you jump through various stages of the video, from 0 per cent to 90 per cent. On the app, you can fast forward or rewind 10 seconds by double-tapping the right or left side of a video. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Limit data use If youre on a limited mobile data plan, there are easy ways to save yourself some money. In Settings on the YouTube app, hit General and enable Limit Mobile Data Usage and disable Autoplay. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Keep things private Unless you make them private, other people can see your Liked videos, your saved playlists and subscriptions. If you want to hide them, go to Settings and Privacy. You can also clear or pause your History. On either desktop or the mobile app, go to History and select Clear All Watch History or Pause Watch History. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Make sharing clearer Sometimes you want to share a video with a friend, but want them to watch a specific part, rather than the whole thing. Instead of sending the timestamp through as a separate message, make the video automatically play from the right place. Just pause it at the right moment, click the Share button, tick the Start At box and copy the URL. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Get nerdy Stats for Nerds shows you technical data for YouTube videos, including video format, audio format and bandwidth. On desktop, you can find the info simply by right-clicking the video player and selecting Stats for Nerds. On mobile, you have to enable it first in General Settings. Once thats done, open a video, hit the menu button in the top-right corner and tap the Stats for Nerds option. Heres everything you need to know about Shane Dawson: What did he say about his cat? During a broadcast of his podcast in 2015, Dawson claimed he had done terrible things to his pets before describing in details his crude acts. One time, I laid my cat down on her back, the YouTuber began before suggested he had performed a sex act on his pet, adding that he came all over her. Directors Shane Dawson and Anna Martemucci speak onstage at the 'The Chair' panel during the Starz portion of the 2014 Summer Television Critics Association (Getty Images) Shane continued to say that he was 19 years old when the act took place, much to the shock of his co-hosts. After the clip resurfaced again on Sunday, Dawson took to Twitter with a series of comments to admit that the comments were a dumb joke for which he was sorry. I didnt f**k my cat. I didnt c*m on my cat. I didnt put my d**k anywhere near my cat. Ive never done anything weird with my cats, he told his followers. I promised myself I wasnt going to make apology videos after last years thing so Im just trying to be as short and honest with this as possible. Dawson continued to explain that the story was part of a sketch idea, adding: That story was fake and was based on a dumb awful sketch idea I had years ago that I never made (THANK GOD) and when the opportunity came up for a funny moment in the podcast I told it as if it was a real story which was DISGUSTING and VERY VERY DUMB. My goal with the podcast and with my videos years ago was to tell shocking stories that would make people laugh and scream OMG NO U DIDNT!! and think I was soooo crazy. Its embarrassing and I f**king hate myself for it. What other controversy has he been involved in? Dawsons original comments about his cat came a year after he was embroiled in controversy for a statement he made concerning paedophilia. In a clip from the stars Shane and Friends podcast from 2014, Dawson described an encounter with a six-year-old fan who had over 125,000 followers. She shows me her Instagram, and - first of all, I dont know if Im allowed to say this, but she was kind of sexy, Dawson said of her social media platform. Dawsons co-host went on to say that Dawsons comment was disgusting and that he had a disturbing justification for paedophilia. In response, Dawson stated: Having sex with children or touching children is terrible and you should not do it. But, heres my thing - people have foot fetishes. People have fetishes about everything. In 2018, Dawson confirmed that the comments were made by him but said in a video that during that time he was intentionally making inflammatory statements, in the hope of making people laugh with shock. The apology video has garnered more than 7m views. "I grew up," he also wrote on Twitter about his comments. "I changed my content. I apologised countless times for my sh*tty offensive jokes. instead of dragging me down people should use me as an example of a creator who can CHANGE and better themselves and their content. Im so proud of who I am today." On Sunday, Dawsons comment resurfaced again on Twitter in a post that has received over 20,000 likes. WHAT THE F**K - PEOPLE LIKE HEARD THIS AND STILL SUPPORT HIM WHAT THE HELL, HE TRIED TO DEFEND PEDOPHILIA 3 TIMES IN 1 BREATH, Twitter user @jovanforever wrote of the podcast. Watched it and still think hes repulsive. Now what? one user commented on the post. This made me so uncomfortable wtf, wrote another. Recommended YouTube star says sorry for suggesting he had searched for paedophilia Following the post, fellow YouTube star Garret Watts came to Dawsons defence. In a screenshot about Dawson, Watts describes his friend as one of the most thoughtful, king hearted and empathetic guys he knows. Why is he famous? Dawson began making videos on YouTube in 2008, aged 19, and launched his podcast Shane and Friends in 2012. The podcast, which involved discussions about popular culture and the lives of guests, ran for five seasons until it came to an end in 2017. Following comparison that the podcast was similar to that of fellow controversial broadcaster Howard Sterns Dawson previously told Forbes: Ive been watching Howard since I was a kid. Yeah, when they were designing the studio, I told them to just do it like Howards. Since 2015, the influencer has been presenting his own YouTube series on conspiracies which explores conspiracy theories ranging from those about the Californian wildfires at the end of 2018 and restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese re-serving leftover pizzas to other customers. The company denies this claim. Dawson is also the author of best-selling books such as I Hate Myself and It Gets Worse. Amal Clooney has teamed up with the Prince of Wales to celebrate young inspirational women. Over the weekend, the princes charity, the Princes Trust International, announced it had launched a new global award with the human rights lawyer to shine a light on women who have made a significant impact on their communities. The Amal Cooney Award will highlight the work of young women who have succeeded against the odds to make a lasting difference in their communities, according to the Trusts website. Speaking of her invitation to support the new award, Clooney says: I am honoured to have been invited by Princes Trust International to participate in this global initiative celebrating young women who are change-makers in their communities. It is a privilege to be able to play a part in a project that will draw attention to incredible young women who are the future leaders of our world. Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Show all 12 1 /12 Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Rex Features Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Most beautiful 'bread and roses' costumes at the Women's March 2019 Angela Christofilou/The Independent Clooney will select one young winner, aged between 11 and 30, to be presented with the award next year. Applications will be accepted from women working in anything from sustainable farming schemes to community projects in refugee camps, to work rebuilding war zones. Amal Clooney participates in the Press Behind Bars: Undermining Justice and Democracy event during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on 28 September 28, 2018 (Getty Images) Group chief executive of The Princes Trust, Dame Martina Milburn DCVO CBE, adds: Through the work of the Princes Trust Group around the world, we see every day the struggles and the triumphs of women everywhere. We are delighted to be working with Amal to shine a light on their passion and celebrate unsung female heroes everywhere. There is so much we can achieve together to help young people, and their communities, all over the world. The announcement comes days after Clooney, who was recently appointed to the UKs Attorney Generals expert panel on public international law, joined Prince Charles for a dinner celebrating The Princes Trust at Buckingham Palace with her husband, actor George Clooney. (L-R) Chiwetel Ejiofor, Luke Evans, Tamsin Egerton, Josh Hartnett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Amal Clooney and George Clooney attend a dinner to celebrate The Prince's Trust, hosted by Prince Charles, Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace on 12 March 2019 in London, (Getty Images) The Princes Trust International was founded by Prince Charles in 2015 to champion successful programmes of youth charity and help young people aged 11-30 into work, education or training. Applications for the Amal Clooney Award are open to until 31 December 2019. More information about the Amal Clooney Award can be found at www.princestrustinternational.org Employees of the US aviation regulator warned seven years ago that Boeing had too much sway over safety approvals of new aircraft, prompting an investigation by US Department of Transportation auditors who confirmed the agency hadnt done enough to hold Boeing accountable. The 2012 investigation also found that discord over Boeings treatment had created a negative work environment among Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees who approve new and modified aircraft designs, with many of them saying theyd faced retaliation for speaking up. Their concerns pre-dated the 737 Max development. On Sunday night, a person familiar with the 737 Max said the Transportation Departments inspector general was examining the planes design certification before the second of two deadly crashes of the almost brand-new aircraft. Earlier on Sunday, Ethiopias transport minister said flight-data recorders show clear similarities between the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on 10 March and Lion Air Flight 610 last October. Shares of the Chicago-based planemaker fell early Monday after Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg and FAA officials were forced to defend the quality of testing of the new aircraft, and the Wall Street Journal reported on a grand jury probe. The stock was trading at $371.99 in pre-market U.S. trading down 1.8 percent from Friday, and below any closing price since the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. A Seattle Times investigation found that the US regulator delegated much of the safety assessment to Boeing and that the company in turn delivered an analysis with crucial flaws. Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Show all 9 1 /9 Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures This picture taken on March 11, 2019, shows debris of the crashed airplane of Ethiopia Airlines, near Bishoftu, a town some 60 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. - An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 crashed on March 10 morning en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi with 149 passengers and eight crew believed to be on board, Ethiopian Airlines said. (Photo by Michael TEWELDE / AFP)MICHAEL TEWELDE/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Family members mourn the victims at the crash site of the Ethiopian Airlines operated Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, at Hama Quntushele village in the Oromia region, on March 13, 2019. - A Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019, killing all eight crew and 149 passengers on board, including tourists, business travellers, and "at least a dozen" UN staff. Families of the victims were taken to the remote site on March 13, 2019, where the plane smashed into a field with 157 passengers and crew from 35 countries, leaving a deep black crater and tiny scraps of debris. (Photo by TONY KARUMBA / AFP)TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A page of a Boeing flight crew operations manual is seen at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town of Bishoftu, near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner REUTERS Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures epa07434278 Rescue workers search the site for pieces of the wreckage of an Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, 13 March 2019. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed on 10 March 2019 by yet undetermined reason. All passengers and crew aboard died in the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has come under scrutiny after similar deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within a few months. Several countries have banned the plane type from their airspace and many airlines have grounded their 737 Max 8 planes for safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after take-off on 10 March. EPA/STRINGER EPA Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A grounded Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger plane of the Norwegian low-cost airline Norwegian is parked at the tarmac at Vantaa airport in Vantaa near Helsinki, Finland on March 13, 2019. - A number of countries have banned Boeing's 737 MAX 8 medium-haul workhorse jet from their airspace in response to the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board. (Photo by Heikki Saukkomaa / Lehtikuva / AFP) / Finland OUTHEIKKI SAUKKOMAA/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures Rescue workers search the site for pieces of the wreckage of an Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, 13 March 2019. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed on 10 March 2019 by yet undetermined reason. All passengers and crew aboard died in the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has come under scrutiny after similar deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within a few months. Several countries have banned the plane type from their airspace and many airlines have grounded their 737 Max 8 planes for safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after take-off on 10 March. EPA/STRINGER EPA Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A heap of debris from the wreckage of an Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are piled at the crash site near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, 13 March 2019. Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 302 carrying 149 passengers and 8 crew was en route to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed on 10 March 2019 by yet undetermined reason. All passengers and crew aboard died in the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has come under scrutiny after similar deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia within a few months. Several countries have banned the plane type from their airspace and many airlines have grounded their 737 Max 8 planes for safety concerns after the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after take-off on 10 March. EPA/STR EPA Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures A crew working with an investigative team to clear the site after the Sunday crash of the Ethiopian Airlines operated Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, carry debris at Hama Quntushele village in the Oromia region, on March 13, 2019. - A Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, killing all eight crew and 149 passengers on board, including tourists, business travellers, and "at least a dozen" UN staff. Families of the victims were taken to the remote site on March 13, 2019, where the plane smashed into a field with 157 passengers and crew from 35 countries, leaving a deep black crater and tiny scraps of debris. (Photo by TONY KARUMBA / AFP)TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Boeing 737 MAX grounding: Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 in pictures FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8, on a flight from Miami to New York City, comes in for landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York, U.S., March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo REUTERS Separately, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., issued a broad subpoena dated 11 March to at least one person involved in the development process of the 737 Max jets, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Sunday. In recent years, the FAA has shifted more authority over the approval of new aircraft to the manufacturer itself, even allowing Boeing to choose many of the personnel who oversee tests and vouch for safety. Just in the past few months, Congress expanded the outsourcing arrangement even further. It raises for me the question of whether the agency is properly funded, properly staffed and whether there has been enough independent oversight, said Jim Hall, who was chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001 and is now an aviation-safety consultant. Outsourcing Safety At least a portion of the flight-control software suspected in the 737 Max crashes was certified by one or more Boeing employees who worked in the outsourcing arrangement, according to one person familiar with the work who wasnt authorised to speak about the matter. The Wall Street Journal first reported the inspector generals latest inquiry. The watchdog is trying to assess whether the FAA used appropriate design standards and engineering analysis in approving the 737 Maxs anti-stall system, the newspaper said. Both Boeing and the Transportation Department declined to comment about that inquiry. In a statement on Sunday, the agency said its aircraft certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs, adding that the 737 Max certification program followed the FAAs standard certification process. The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after it took off from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board. The accident prompted most of the world to ground Boeings 737 Max 8 aircraft on safety concerns, coming on the heels of the October crash of a Max 8 operated by Indonesias Lion Air that killed 189 people. Much of the attention focused on a flight-control system that can automatically push a plane into a catastrophic nose dive if it malfunctions and pilots dont react properly. In one of the most detailed descriptions yet of the relationship between Boeing and the FAA during the 737 Maxs certification, the Seattle Times quoted unnamed engineers who said the planemaker had understated the power of the flight-control software in a System Safety Analysis submitted to the FAA. The newspaper said the analysis also failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded in essence, gradually ratcheting the horizontal stabiliser into a dive position. Software Fix Boeing told the newspaper in a statement that the FAA had reviewed the companys data and concluded the aircraft met all certification and regulatory requirements. The company, which is based in Chicago but designs and builds commercial jets in the Seattle area, said there are some significant mischaracterisations in the engineers comments. In a separate statement Sunday, Muilenburg reiterated the companys sympathies for the affected families and support for the investigation into the flight-control system, known as the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System. While investigators continue to work to establish definitive conclusions, Boeing is finalising its development of a previously announced software update and pilot training revision that will address the MCAS flight-control laws behaviour in response to erroneous sensor inputs, Muilenburg said. (AFP/Getty Images (AFP/Getty Images) The newspaper also quoted unnamed FAA technical experts who said managers prodded them to speed up the certification process as development of the Max was nine months behind that of rival Airbus SEs A320neo. The FAA has let technical experts at aircraft makers act as its representatives to perform certain tests and approve some parts for decades. The FAA expanded the scope of that program in 2005 to address concerns about adequately keeping pace with its workload. Known as Organisation Designation Authorization, or ODA, it let Boeing and other manufacturers choose the employees who approve design work on the agencys behalf. Previously, the FAA approved each appointment. Under the new approach, which was fully implemented in 2009, the ODA representatives are still under US legal requirements and the FAA has the authority to oversee them and request that their management be changed. Anonymous Faxes In 2012, a special investigator of the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Transportation sent a memo to the FAAs audit chief warning him of concerns voiced by agency employees about the new process. Some allegations were made in anonymous faxes sent to the inspector generals office, and the office followed up by interviewing employees in the FAAs Transport Airplane Directorate. Our investigation substantiated employee allegations that TAD and FAA headquarters managers have not always supported TAD employee efforts to hold Boeing accountable and this has created a negative atmosphere within the TAD, according to the 22 June, 2012, report sent to the FAA. (The memo was made available later in a public records request and appears now on a website operated by governmentattic.org, which warehouses government documents. A spokesman for the inspector generals office confirmed its authenticity.) Recovery workers inspect an engine after it was recovered from the scene of a crash near Addis Ababa (Getty) The employees told the investigators that managers had overturned a recommendation by staff to remove the administrator Boeing had chosen for the program and had not adequately addressed employees concerns about potential conflicts of interest, the memo said. The employees, it said, viewed this as evidence of management having too close a relationship with Boeing officials. Despite those concerns, as well as others raised in a subsequent report by the inspector general, Congress has embraced the program as a way to improve the FAAs efficiency. President Donald Trump signed into law a change on 5 October It allows manufacturers to request that the FAA eliminate limitations on how company representatives certify low and medium risk items, giving them even more authority over their own products. The agency doesnt have the budget to do every test, and the use of designees is absolutely necessary, said Steve Wallace, the former head of accident investigations at the FAA. For the most part, it works extremely well. There is a very high degree of integrity in the system. Dreamliner Fires But the programme was also at issue in the FAAs 2013 grounding of Boeings 787 Dreamliner after two fires of battery packs. Boeings designated engineering representatives oversaw tests of the battery packs. A 2015 report by the Department of Transportations inspector general, requested by US Representative Peter DeFazio, found the FAA lacked an effective staffing model and risk-based oversight process over the ODA program. How to tell if you're on a Boeing 737 Max DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, now heads the House transportation and infrastructure committee, and has said he will conduct a rigorous investigation to make sure the FAA is protecting safety. Hall, the former NTSB chairman, said the agencys move to shift power to the manufacturers contributed to the unusual situation in which two of Boeings newly introduced aircraft were grounded in a period of six years. Before the Dreamliner, the FAA hadnt grounded a model since 1979. When I was chairman of the NTSB, my single most important job was who we hired, Hall said. Do we have in the federal government the level of funding and expertise we need? Are we attracting the kind of young, smart minds that continue to uphold our reputation in the aviation area? As the investigation continues, mourners marched in the hundreds past the Library of Parliament in Addis Ababa to Selassie Cathedral for a funeral service Sunday, wearing black or the sea-green uniforms of Ethiopian Airlines and carrying photos of the dead. After a priest read the victims names aloud, people carried empty coffins from the cathedral to a graveyard. All that was heard was sobbing, wailing and chanting. Bloomberg UK technology business Worldpay, which used to be part of taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland, has been sold to a US rival for $43bn (35bn). The British firm, which provides the tech behind billions of online transactions, was bought by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), they announced on Monday. Previously owned by NatWest, Worldpay became part of RBS and was then offloaded in 2010 as part of the terms of the bank's government bailout during the financial crisis. The company has grown rapidly as internet shopping has increased in popularity. Worldpay is a major player in card payments, particularly in the UK, while FIS focuses on banking clients and payments. Worldpay makes money by charging commissions on transactions. It also advises customers on how to lower costs to credit issuers, card networks and other intermediaries as well as by settling these transactions in a currency of their choice. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The deal is the largest yet in the fast-growing financial technology (fintech) sector. It comes as part of a wave of consolidation as firms seek to bolster the payment systems that are increasingly used for online and high street sales. Scale matters in our rapidly changing industry, said FIS chief executive Gary Norcross, who will lead the combined company. "The need to invest, to continue to modernise both the technology and application layers, and continue to innovate so our customers can continue to be disrupters, will be important for us," Mr Norcross told investors. As people switch from cash to digital payments, the sector is expected to generate $3 trillion in revenue for companies such as Worldpay by 2023, according to consulting firm McKinsey. The new company will become a giant among fintech firms with revenues of $12bn and earnings of over $5bn. People do not become proper adults until they have entered their thirties, according to brain researchers who say hard definitions of adulthood are looking increasingly absurd. While the UK judicial system currently recognises a person of 18 as a mature adult, scientists say people are undergoing significant changes to their brains for many years. The latest research suggests these changes can have significant effects on young peoples behaviour, as well as making them more susceptible to mental health disorders. These new insights have major implications for society, the scientists claim. They were speaking ahead of a meeting of the Academy of Medical Sciences in Oxford, which focuses specifically on brain development. 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 Processes that involve boosting the conductivity of nerves, building neural networks and pruning away unwanted connections begin in the womb and continue for decades. A burst of upheaval in the brain is thought to account for the notoriously difficult behaviour of adolescents, but does not necessarily end once people leave their teens. What were really saying is that to have a definition of when you move from childhood to adulthood looks increasingly absurd, Professor Peter Jones, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, told journalists at an event in London. Its a much more nuanced transition that takes place over three decades. Systems like the education system, the health system and the legal system make it convenient for themselves by having definitions. However, he said these systems were adapting and despite the legal definition of adulthood, experienced judges recognised the difference between a 19-year-old defendant and a hardened criminal in his late thirties. There isnt a childhood and then an adulthood. People are on a pathway, theyre on a trajectory, Professor Jones said. Professor Daniel Geschwind, from the University of California at Los Angeles, stressed the degree of individual variability in brain development. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events He pointed out that for practical reasons, education systems mistakenly tended to focus on groups, rather than individuals. The scientists also discussed the impact environment could have on psychotic conditions like schizophrenia, which arise from a complex interplay of genetic and outside influences. Schizophrenia diagnosis is most common in teenagers and people in their early twenties, as once the brain has sorted out its circuits and finally matured, the risk of psychosis greatly diminishes. Professor Jones said people living in cities, particularly poor and migrant populations, faced an increased risk of mental disorders thanks to a potent cocktail of environmental influences affecting developing brains. Studies have shown that minority populations can be up to three times more likely to experience schizophrenia. Being a migrant isnt specifically about one particular group, its about being a minority within a majority, said Professor Jones. Its probably to do with having to live constantly on the alert I mean a low level of vigilance that minorities experience when theyre living in host communities. Additional reporting by PA Humans have a hidden sixth sense similar to that of many animals which can detect magnetic fields, allowing them to find their way around, scientists say. A natural compass in the brain may have helped our nomadic ancestors to navigate without getting lost, and it still operates at a subconscious level, the researchers believe. The study offers some of the best evidence to date that humans can sense Earths magnetic field, just as migrating birds, sea turtles, butterflies and fish do. It was led by Dr Joe Kirschvink at the California Institute of Technology, who has been searching for this magnetic sixth sense in humans for some years. His team conducted experiments in which more than 30 volunteers were exposed to moving Earth-strength magnetic fields. 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 They sat in a cage that blocked out interfering electromagnetic fields, and electric current was run through coils to mimic the Earths magnetic field. The direction of the field was then rotated. Electrical brain recordings showed a subtle response even though none of the participants could tell when they were subjected to the changing magnetic fields. Our results indicate that human brains are indeed collecting and selectively processing directional input from magnetic field receptors, the scientists wrote in the journal eNeuro. These give rise to a brain response that is selective for field direction and rotation with a pattern of neural activity that is measurable at a group level and repeatable in strongly responding individuals. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The researchers concluded: Given the known presence of highly evolved geomagnetic navigation systems across the animal kingdom, it is perhaps not surprising that we might retain at least some functioning components, especially given the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle of our not-too-distant ancestors. The full extent of this inheritance remains to be discovered. Sheep semen stored in a lab for over 50 years has been successfully used to impregnate dozens of ewes in a breakthrough project. The team behind the work believe this is the oldest sample of frozen semen successfully used to produce offspring. Sperm samples belonging to four Merino rams alive in the 1960s, including one known as Sir Freddie, were unfrozen so the animals could father lambs despite being dead for years. Out of 56 ewes inseminated with the decades-old semen, 34 were successfully impregnated, making the frozen sperm as effective as samples taken just a year previously. This demonstrates the clear viability of long-term frozen storage of semen, said Dr Simon de Graaf, one of the scientists behind the project at the University of Sydney. 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 The results show that fertility is maintained despite 50 years of frozen storage in liquid nitrogen. The scientists found that the lambs born through this process had the distinctive body wrinkle that characterised Merino sheep in the middle of last century. This feature was specifically bred for in an effort to maximise skin surface area and therefore wool yields, but it fell out of favour due to difficulties with shearing and increased risk of disease. Recommended Man repeatedly injects himself with semen in bid to cure bad back Besides demonstrating the health of long-frozen sperm, the scientists said their experiments gave them a window into the history of animal breeding. We can now look at the genetic progress made by the wool industry over past 50 years of selective breeding. In that time, weve been trying to make better, more productive sheep, said Dr de Graaf. Dr Jessica Rickard undertook initial tests to assess whether the semen, stored as pellets in liquid nitrogen, still showed the activity and healthy DNA required for insemination. We believe this is the oldest viable stored semen of any species in the world and definitely the oldest sperm used to produce offspring, she said. Could the EU veto an Article 50 extension? Theresa May will go to Brussels on Thursday to ask EU leaders for an Article 50 extension. This would have happened irrespective of John Bercow's dramatic intervention in parliament to start the week. There has been some speculation that the EU could decide not to permit an extension, either collectively or because some members are not keen. A convicted terrorist who left his wife and young family to fight in the Philippines has blamed Brexit for his behaviour. Ryan Counsell, 28, said he wished to escape the UK political climate and seek an idyllic life under Sharia law. He was in the final stages of planning his trip to fight with terrorist group Abu Sayyaf when he was arrested last July, and later sentenced to eight years in prison. Recommended Isis defeat in northern Syria opens deadly new phase in civil war Speaking to Woolwich Crown Court, Counsell, who worked at an Asda supermarket in Nottingham, claimed there had been increased tension within the local Muslim community after the Brexit vote, sparking his decision to leave. He was convicted last month on three counts of possessing documents with terrorist material, and one count of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts. During his four-week trial, a jury head how Counsell spent almost 900 on military-style boots, camouflage clothing, Kevlar boxer shorts and a cheek pag to be attached to the stock of a rifle to engage in combat. Counsell had also booked a return ticket from London to Manila an a connecting flight to Zamboanga, 20 miles from Basilan where Isis allegiance groups are situated. Abu Sayyaf wounded 14 Philippine soldiers on Friday and a German hostage was beheaded on Sunday. The father-of-two, who worked as a floor assistant at his local supermarket, was arrested at Stansted Airport on 11 July while waiting for a flight to Eindhoven. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty He had booked a week off work and was not expecting to return. His barrister John Kearney said Counsell was a bit odd but not violent or an extremist. Mr Kearney said: He wanted to leave the UK to live a humble, simple life, in a Muslim community. He discussed going to Somalia. He considered going to Bosnia, and he considered the Philippines. He wanted to live in a community under Sharia law with what he saw as an idyllic way of life. After Brexit there were divisions in his community in Nottingham, he was concerned about the way ordinary people were reacting to ordinary Muslims. So with that background he was looking for a different way of life. He was convicted on the basis that was what he intended to do but its not something he would have been able to do. I repeat that for him to join that group, the idea is quite frankly absurd. Conducting a search of Counsells home last year, police found military and camping equipment and a wealth of Islamic extremist material, including copies of the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire, Isis magazine Dabiq, and lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, an influential extremist preacher. Riz Ahmed addresses Parliament: 'In the mind of the Isis recruit, he's the next James Bond' Bomb-making instructions were also discovered at the property, along with a document of practical advice for travelling to join Isis and videos showing hostage decapitations. The defendant had a profound and enduring interest in extremist Islam, jihad and the propaganda of Islamic State and other terrorist organisations, said Prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds. Counsell claimed his interest in moving to the Philippines was prompted by watching television presenter Ben Fogles Lives in the Wild series about the islands. He described his interests as religion, conspiracy theories, history, and military equipment, along with wanting to live off-the-grid, so to speak living without connection to electricity or gas in a caravan or a tent. The court heard Counsells pregnant wife, Fatima, had been sceptical about his activities. Judge Andrew Lees told Counsell: In those circumstances together with your ongoing interest in Islamic extremism and researches into Abu Sayyaf and Basilan, and the fact that you had reserved a hotel in Zamboanga City, I am sure you would have gone. I am prepared to accept that it may have been difficult and personally dangerous for you to join Abu Sayyaf, but, in my judgement there is no doubt that you were intending to seek out and join Abu Sayyaf and participate in their activities. How far you would have got or whether you would have come back without fulfilling your intention is difficult for me to assess. Counsell, of Russell Road, Hyson Green, Nottingham, was sentenced to eight years in jail for preparing acts of terrorism, and 18 months served concurrently for possessing a document containing terrorist information. The security minister has rightly warned that an attack targeting mosques, similar to the massacre seen in Christchurch last week, could absolutely happen here in the UK. Britain has suffered several recent terrorist atrocities, including the deadly targeting of Muslim worshippers in Finsbury Park in 2017, but none of the previous perpetrators has been able to obtain a gun. Speaking to MPs on Monday, Ben Wallace said the government would consider new controls if necessary but that the gun laws in this country make it much harder for people to acquire weapons that could wreak mass murder in a very quick time. Two people in Rochdale have been charged after a taxi driver allegedly suffered racist abuse from passengers, who referenced the terrorist attack on a Christchurch mosque. Sean Allen, 33, and Natalie Rudman, 34, were charged with a public order offence after an incident in in the early hours of Sunday morning, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said. Officers had attended the scene in Queensway, a residential road on the outskirts of the town, just before 12.20am. GMP said it had been responding to a report that passengers had referenced the New Zealand terror attacks while abusing and threatening a taxi driver. Mr Allen, from Collyhurst, and Ms Rudman, from Heywood, were bailed to appear at Manchester Magistrates Court on 9 April. Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' Show all 16 1 /16 Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 562600.bin REUTERS Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 562599.bin REUTERS Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 562598.bin AP Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 562597.bin GETTY IMAGES Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561983.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 562261.bin AP Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561923.bin REUTERS Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561921.bin GETTY IMAGES Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561882.bin GETTY IMAGES Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561982.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561985.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561986.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561987.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561988.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561984.bin Getty Christchurch left devastated on New Zealand's 'darkest day' 561981.bin Getty Police in Manchester said they had been informed of several incidents over the weekend connected to the New Zealand shootings, in which a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques on Friday. The force also arrested a 24-year-old Oldham man on Saturday over comments allegedly made on social media following the attack. He was later bailed pending further enquiries. It is absolutely clear that compassion and support is how the overwhelming majority of people feel and, as always, Greater Manchester stands together, GMP assistant chief constable Russ Jackson said on Sunday. Over the weekend we have had, however, a small number of incidents where people have either posted or made remarks referencing the horrible events in New Zealand, particularly online where people often think it is acceptable to abuse others. Some of these comments are frankly disgusting. I am amazed how some people think it is acceptable to make such careless and disrespectful remarks. People are entitled to free speech and this is always respected, however, where this crosses the boundary into criminal offences, let me be really clear, we will make arrests and if the evidence is there we will seek the prosecution of those involved. New Zealand police have charged Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian national, with carrying out the mass shootings at Christchurchs Al Noor and Linwood mosques. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Law enforcement agencies in Australia have since searched two homes linked to the alleged gunman in New South Wales. His family are said to be assisting with the investigation. A third teenager has died following a St Patrick's Day party at a hotel in Cookstown, Northern Ireland on Sunday night. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said two 17-year-olds and one 16-year-old were killed in what appears to have been a crush at the Greenvale Hotel after a large crowd of revellers tried to get into the venue. Our preliminary investigations show there was a crush towards the front door of this hotel, and in that crush people seem to have fallen, said the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief. There seemed to be a little bit of struggling going on to get people up off the ground and that might explain also why there was a report of some fighting. He made a direct appeal for people with footage of the incident to hand it to police, rather than post it on social media. UK news in pictures Show all 51 1 /51 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week PA UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana Getty UK news in pictures 28 November 2021 Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow Manchester City/Getty UK news in pictures 27 November 2021 Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 An aerial picture shows a worker using a quad bike and trailer to transport freshly harvested trees at Pimms Christmas Tree farm in Matfield, southeast England AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 26 November 2021 A shopper browses Christmas trees for sale at Pines and Needles in Dulwich, London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 November 2021 A murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings fly over a field at dusk in Cumbria, close to the Scottish border PA UK news in pictures 24 November 2021 Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel. AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 23 November 2021 The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London PA UK news in pictures 22 November 2021 The scene in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset where police have launched a murder probe after two people were found dead Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 21 November 2021 London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a 'March with Midwives' in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services PA UK news in pictures 20 November 2021 Police officers monitor as climate change activists sit down and block traffic during a protest action in solidarity with activists from the Insulate Britain group who received prison terms for blocking roads, on Lambeth Bridge in central London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 19 November 2021 A giant installation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson made from recycled clothing goes on display at Manchester Central, as part of Manchester Art Fair, in a 'wake-up call for the Prime Minister to tackle textile waste' PA UK news in pictures 18 November 2021 The scene at a recycling centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire after a large blaze was brought under control. The fire broke out on Wednesday night the fire service has said and local residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut due to large amounts of smoke PA UK news in pictures 17 November 2021 The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2021 ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 15 November 2021 Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool Reuters UK news in pictures 14 November 2021 Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London PA UK news in pictures 13 November 2021 Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was caught in a dispute between two states PA UK news in pictures 12 November 2021 Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow. PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2021 Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 10 November 2021 Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series Squid Game protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 9 November 2021 A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 8 November 2021 Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2021 Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2021 Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2021 Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham PA UK news in pictures 4 November 2021 A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District PA UK news in pictures 3 November 2021 Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 2 November 2021 A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 1 November 2021 Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 31 October 2021 Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2021 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2021 Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow EPA UK news in pictures 28 October 2021 A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street PA UK news in pictures 27 October 2021 Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2021 Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 October 2021 Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2021 Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran Getty UK news in pictures 23 October 2021 Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 22 October 2021 Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace. PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2021 Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2021 A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 19 October 2021 Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk' PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2021 A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change Getty UK news in pictures 17 October 2021 Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea Reuters UK news in pictures 16 October 2021 Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death EPA A 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition in hospital, while a further two teenagers were treated for injuries they suffered during the incident, which happened around 9.30pm. Mr Hamilton added: We are of an open mind ... it looks like a crowd of young people, a large crowd, pushing up against the front of the hotel to get in to this event. People then seem to have fallen and then got crushed. I would urge you to use that with some caution. Certainly it appears to be at the minute a crush, people have fallen and then been fatally injured. Dr Nigel Ruddell, medical director of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, described the events as a tragic accident. At this stage everything points toward it being a tragic accident and our hearts absolutely go out to the families of those involved and everybody who was caught up in this incident last night, he said. Asked about reports of fighting, Mr Ruddell told the BBC there were no injuries to suggest violent altercations. We did not see anything consistent with any fight or any violent injuries at all, he said. Police outside Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown (PA) Emma Heatherington, whose two sons, aged 17 and 18, had been at the event, said she felt sick when she saw the police appeal. My two boys were there so I rang them, shaking, and thankfully got them both, she said. They were on their way home at that stage. They say there was a huge crowd waiting to get into the venue and then a lot of commotion up near the front of the queue, then they said the emergency services arrived and they were all asked to leave. They came home very, very shaken with rumours that some people had died. Hotel entrance cordoned off (PA) Brendan Marshall, a local photographer, said the Greenvale Hotel was well known for teenage discos. (They have them) on special occasions such as St Patricks Day or around Christmas time, he added. The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) said it had received several calls from about 9.30pm on Sunday and sent two rapid-response paramedics, two doctors and five emergency crews to the scene. Colin Neill, chief executive of Hospitality Ulster, said: We are devastated to hear of the confirmed PSNI report of at least two deaths this evening at the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown. This is shocking and tragic news and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster tweeted that her thoughts and prayers were with everyone impacted by this tonight. And Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O'Neill called it a parents worst nightmare ... My thoughts and prayers are with the families. Anyone who witnessed what happened can contact police on 101 ext 52014. Additional reporting by Press Association Facebook has allowed far-right group Britain First to set up new pages and pay for adverts, despite vowing to crack down on extremists. Days after the social media giant was used to livestream the New Zealand terror attack, The Independent can reveal Facebook anti-Muslim leader Paul Golding set up two new platforms. One was functioning as Britain Firsts official page and had more than 7,300 followers, with Golding posting pictures from a Britain First defenders training day and telling people to pray for churches in response to the Christchurch mosque shooting. He shared a link to a conspiracy theory claiming the alleged culprit Brenton Tarrant, a white supremacist who deliberately targeted Muslims, was linked to left-wing groups. The second page, called "authentic Paul Golding", was a personal profile but also named him as the leader of Britain First and linked users to the group's website. Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Britain First: the far-right group in pictures A demonstrator with 'Bring back the rope!' sign during a Britain First Rotherham demonstration in 2015 Rex Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen lead a Britain First demonstration in Rochdale on 22 July, 2017 Rex Britain First: the far-right group in pictures In 2016 they staged a small counter demo at Eros. UN Anti Racism, Refugees Welcome march and rally through central London. Rex Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Here a supporter kisses a badge reading " Speak English or Fuck off " on the jacket of a man at a Britain First demonstration in Telford on 25 February, 2017 Rex Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Britain First lead a demonstration in Dudley with a sign reading 'Britain First. No more Mosques!' in 2015 Alamy Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, the leader and deputy leader of far-right group Britain First were charged with causing religiously aggravated harassment in 2016 PA Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Following the Westminster terror attack on parliament in March 2017, Britain First and EDL protesters marched through central London. AFP/Getty Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Many of the protesters reacted along the route during the Britain First and EDL demonstration held on 1 April, 2017 PA Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Members of the Britain First group and the English Defence League rallied in central London in on seperate marches entitled a "March Against Terrorism" and "We Are Not Afriad" following the terror attack on Westminster Bridge and the British Parliament AFP/Getty Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Paul Golding reacts whilst he leads the protest PA Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Britain First and EDL protesters both marched on the same day PA Britain First: the far-right group in pictures One protester during the march held a sign reading 'Political correctness + migration = chaos' on 1 April, 2017 PA Britain First: the far-right group in pictures Protesters held placards during the protest calling for Britain First leader, Paul Golding, to be mayor Getty Britain First: the far-right group in pictures At a Birmingham Britain First protest in June 2017, supporters had to be contained by police, where an estimated 250 supporters of the party were escorted. PA Britain First: the far-right group in pictures 'Britain First' held a rally in November in support of their leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, who had to sign in at Bromley Police Station as part of their bail conditions. Rex Fiyaz Mughal OBE, founder of Islamophobia monitoring group Tell Mama, said Goldings pages showed Facebook was failing to stop extremists opening new accounts. It makes an absolute sham of claims that social media platforms are getting grips with extremism, he told The Independent. For far too long the far-right have been given the benefit of the doubt for free speech. Weve been speaking about it for seven years. Mr Mughal accused social media firms of taking a racialised approach to extremism and letting the far-right slip through the net. Were dealing with lives here and these guys are dealing with profits, he added. This is appalling. Golding also paid for two adverts that ran on Facebook in recent days. Seen by up to 100,000 people, one advert urged viewers to follow Goldings official Facebook page, and the other linked to a Britain First petition. Goldings two new pages, including one that had been online for more than four months, were deleted after The Independent requested comment from Facebook. Both of Paul Golding's Facebook pages listed him as the leader of Britain First and linked to the group's official website (Facebook) The internet giant has said it works to remove extremist content of all kinds using human moderators and artificial intelligence. But it has faced renewed calls to increase its efforts following the New Zealand attack. Ben Wallace, the security minister, told MPs the government would shortly be publishing draft laws against online harm that will set out clear expectations for internet firms. Social media platforms should be ashamed that they have enabled a terrorist to livestream this evil massacre and spread this mantra of hate to the whole world, he added, in response to an urgent question over the New Zealand attack. Recommended Britain First supporter who drove van at curry house jailed Enough is enough. Weve been clear that tech companies need to act more quickly to remove terrorist content and ultimately prevent new content being made available to users in the first place. This must be a wake-up call for them to do more. Britain Firsts adverts were permitted despite its official Facebook page and those of Golding and co-leader Jayda Fransen being deleted in March last year. The pair had just been jailed for religiously aggravated harassment, and pressure to remove Britain First pages mounted after its posts were linked to the Finsbury Park terror attack, the murder of Jo Cox and a car ramming that targeted Muslims. At the time, a spokesperson for Facebook said the official Britain First page and those of Golding and Fransen had repeatedly broken its community standards. There are times though when legitimate political speech crosses the line and becomes hate speech designed to stir up hatred against groups in our society, a statement said. Britain First leaders jailed for anti-Muslim hate crime They have repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups, which disqualifies the pages from our service. Britain First styles itself as a patriotic political party and is applying to register with the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland, while candidates campaign for English council seats. Founded in Swanley as a splinter group of the British National Party, members became known for launching so-called Christian patrols and mosque invasions, while campaigning against immigration and Islam. Britain First forged links with extreme nationalist movements across Europe, with Fransen attending a march in Poland where she called Islam a cancer moving through Europe, adding: Our children are being bombed, our children are being groomed and our government does nothing. The Finsbury Park terror attacker, Darren Osborne, read Britain First posts while planning his attempted massacre of Muslim worshippers, while neo-Nazi Thomas Mair repeatedly shouted Britain first while murdering Labour MP Ms Cox. The group gained international notoriety after videos posted from Fransens Twitter account were retweeted by Donald Trump in 2017, sparking a diplomatic row between Downing Street and the White House. After being released from prison last year, Golding and Fransen focused their activity on Northern Ireland and have been charged with several other offences relating to protests. Fransen announced she had left Britain First to start an exciting new chapter in January, and retains a personal Facebook page. A Facebook spokesperson said: Hate speech of any kind is not allowed on Facebook and Paul Goldings pages have been removed for violating our policies. We invest heavily in specialist teams and new technology to identify, review and take down hate speech and in Q3 2018, took action on 2.9 million pieces of hate speech content 51.6% of which we found before users reported it to us. "However, there is always more we can do to disrupt people wanting to spread hate online which is why we also collaborate with policymakers, civil society, and others in the tech industry, to help us improve the effectiveness of our approach. Theresa Mays hopes of forcing MPs to back her Brexit deal by staging repeat votes are in tatters, after speaker John Bercow dramatically blocked the tactic, citing rules dating back to before the Gunpowder Plot. The prime minister was left stunned by the shock announcement which torpedoed her hopes of a third meaningful vote while threatening MPs with a long delay to leaving the EU if they refused to give way. The dramatic twist, outlawing fresh votes without substantial changes, left ministers scrabbling for solutions including an extraordinary proposal to suspend parliament and start a new session. It also achieved the remarkable feat of uniting supporters of a no-deal Brexit and a second referendum, who both believed it made their favoured option more likely. The solicitor general, who warned of a constitutional crisis, put forward the escape route of ending the current parliamentary session early to get around the 1604 convention invoked by the speaker, which lapses after a fresh Queens Speech. There are ways around this a prorogation of parliament and a new session, said Robert Buckland. Papers react to the Brexit vote Show all 10 1 /10 Papers react to the Brexit vote Papers react to the Brexit vote The Guardian The Guardian highlights just how soon the Prime Minister's defeat has come Britain's scheduled date of departure Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Mail The Daily Mail takes aim at MPs who political editor Jason Groves claims have "plunged Britain into chaos" by rejecting the Prime Minister's deal Papers react to the Brexit vote The Independent Daily Edition The Independent calls for a second referendum as a way forward Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Express The Daily Express leads with exasperation, with political editor Macer Hall writing that "Brexit was hanging in the balance last night" Papers react to the Brexit vote The Sun The Sun take the Prime Minister's "croaky" voice into account as it reports on last night's "Brexit shambles" Papers react to the Brexit vote Financial Times The Financial Times claims that the Prime Minister's authority is "in shreds" and reports on the fall in the pound in the wake of the vote Papers react to the Brexit vote The Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph calls the Prime Minister's defeat "humiliating" and claims that a delay to Brexit is likely Papers react to the Brexit vote The i The i claims that parliament is "out of control" Papers react to the Brexit vote The Times The Times claims that Britain is in crisis and that the Prime Minister "may face resignation calls" Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Mirror The Daily Mirror says that the Prime Minister "surrenders" in reference to the likelihood of Brexit being delayed after the vote Experts pointed to a possible precedent from 1948, when Attlees Labour government prorogued parliament for a new 12-day session to pass legislation to reduce the power of the House of Lords. No 10 is also mulling a possible vote to overturn the speakers ruling but this seemed only likely to succeed if there are enough supporters of the deal in the first place. There was no immediate official response from Downing Street, other than to express its fury that Mr Bercow gave no warning of his bombshell announcement, made in the Commons chamber. The speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same under a 1604 convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected. Ms May has already admitted that the negotiations with the EU are over, making it hard for her to argue that a further meaningful vote will be on a different question. Crucially, the speaker suggested something would have to be renegotiated with the EU to constitute a change, rather than, for example, a clarification of legal advice by the attorney general. Mr Bercow told MPs: What the government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the house the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes. The Independent revealed in January that pro-EU MPs believed that Ms Mays tactic to bludgeon her deal through, despite heavy defeats, was barred by parliamentary rules. Senior Tories were livid, believing the speaker had once again laid bare his anti-Brexit bias while twisting constitutional rules to suit his purpose. Rory Stewart, the prisons minister, taunted Mr Bercow by tweeting: When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean. He added: In the normal course of events, as the speaker says, parliament says no, and the issue is dropped. But in this case, this is not an option, because these votes respond to an instruction in a referendum, endorsed by parliament, which rules out dropping back to the status quo. Supporters of a Final Say referendum were delighted, with former Tory MP Anna Soubry telling The Independent: It puts a second referendum very firmly at the top of the agenda it must do. We need a way out of this and this is the only way out. Guto Bebb, a former Tory minister and Peoples Vote supporter, said: It is inconceivable now for ministers to carry on trying to force this broken Brexit deal on the people of the United Kingdom. The Independent Daily Edition, 7 January And David Lammy, a Labour supporter of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain group, said: If the prime minister wants us to vote on her deal again, she should add an amendment allowing for her deal to be put to the people. In the short term, the speakers intervention killed off any prospect of a third meaningful vote this week already in doubt as the Democratic Unionist Party failed to switch sides. It appears certain that Ms May will have to ask EU leaders for a long extension anything between nine and 21 months to the Article 50 process at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. The new departure date will then be put to a take-it-or-leave-it vote in the Commons and Lords next week, just days before the 29 March Brexit day. For that reason, it increases the chances of a crash-out Brexit, which the Treasury has predicted could trigger a near 10 per cent GDP decline. However, a long extension could also open up the space for a further referendum, which some believe the prime minister might yet embrace if it is the only hope of passing her agreement. Speaking to a silent Commons, Mr Bercow said repeat votes had been blocked on 12 occasions up until 1920 a situation only not repeated since because of general compliance. This convention is very strong and longstanding, dating back to 2 April 1604, the speaker said. Its a necessary rule to ensure the sensible use of house time and the proper respect for the decision which it takes. Close Theresa May banned from vote on same Brexit deal in major blow issued by John Bercow John Bercow has dramatically ruled that Theresa May cannot hold another vote on her Brexit deal unless the proposed agreement has changed "substantially". In a major blow to the prime minister, the Commons speaker invoked a centuries-old rule that says the same motion cannot be voted on more than once in the same parliamentary sitting. Ms May was reported to be planning a third "meaningful vote" on her deal this week, although Downing Street said it would only happen if there was a "realistic prospect" of success. If no vote happens in the coming days, she is now expected to ask European leaders for a lengthy extension to the two-year negotiation process, delaying Brexit for months or even years beyond March 29. To follow events as they unfolded, see our live coverage below With just 11 days to go until Brexit was supposed to take place and still will, according to the legal position what will be the key events this week? * Will there be a third meaningful vote in the Commons on the Brexit deal? At the weekend, it seemed certain that Theresa May would make another attempt to ram through her agreement but No 10 now says there must be a realistic prospect of success. The chances of a vote on Tuesday are fading. There is then a deadline of 7pm on Tuesday for tabling a motion for it to take place on Wednesday or there will be no vote until next week, after an EU summit. * What has changed? The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has yet to swing behind the deal, which also bolsters the resistance from hardline Tory MPs in the European Research Group. Unless the DUP changes its mind, the government would be heading for the disaster of another huge defeat, having lost by 149 votes last week? * Will the DUP and rebel Tories cave in? Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Show all 60 1 /60 Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Anu Shukla Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Phil Watson Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Dogs rallied in Brexit protest Hundreds of protesters gathered with their dogs for the 'Brexit is a Dog's Dinner' rally near Parliament in Westminster on Sunday 10 March 2019. Campaigners said they were concerned about the impact of leaving the EU on animal welfare. They said Brexit will make it difficult to take pets abroad, lead to a deficit in vets in the UK and increase the cost of animal healthcare. From bulldogs to whippets, dogs gathered to feast on treats and snacks at specially prepared dinner tables where they were served by their very own butler. The event was organised by the Wooferendum group, which also staged an event in August last year to demand a stop to Brexit. Ben Starr Talks between ministers and the Unionist party are ongoing, but it is sticking to its red line that Northern Ireland cannot be treated differently from the rest of the UK in the exit deal. After the official legal advice accepted the UK could still be trapped in the Irish backstop potentially introducing border checks in the Irish Sea the prime minister has an uphill task. Meanwhile, 23 anti-EU Conservatives have signed a letter insisting they will never vote for the deal. A further seven pro-EU Tories opposed it last week. * What else can Ms May do to win the vote? Well, theres always throwing hard cash at Northern Ireland which the chancellor has declined to rule out. There is even talk of cutting air passenger duty as a carrot. Meanwhile, some Tories have suggested they could back the deal if the prime minister agreed to quit immediately afterwards, so a different leader can embark on the trade talks. She was said to be surprised by the suggestion. * What happens if there is no meaningful vote or it is lost? The prime minister says she will be forced to seek a long extension of Article 50 at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, which MPs would then vote on next week. It is unclear what long means, but it could be nine months or as long as 21 months allowing the UK to carry out future trade talks with the EU as a member, rather than in a transition period outside the bloc. * What about the European Parliament elections in May? Downing Street insists the UK would have to take part, if Article 50 is extended beyond the end of June. And MPs would have to vote to reinstate the unpopular elections. This is still a powerful card to play so expect a meaningful vote 3 (or 4), just days before the 29 March deadline if necessary, and a final arm-twist on MPs. John Bercow has sensationally told Theresa May he will stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected. The decision is a major blow to the prime minister, who planned to pile pressure on MPs to change their minds with a third vote this week and, potentially, a fourth in the run-up to 29 March Brexit deadline. Ms May has already admitted that the negotiations with the EU are over, making it hard for her to argue that a further meaningful vote will be on a different question. Crucially, the Speaker suggested something would have to be renegotiated with the EU to constitute a change, rather than, for example, a clarification of legal advice by the attorney general. Mr Bercow said he had allowed last weeks second vote which suffered a crushing 149-vote defeat because it contained legal changes the government considered to be binding. But he told MPs: If the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on 12 March, this would be entirely in order. Papers react to the Brexit vote Show all 10 1 /10 Papers react to the Brexit vote Papers react to the Brexit vote The Guardian The Guardian highlights just how soon the Prime Minister's defeat has come Britain's scheduled date of departure Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Mail The Daily Mail takes aim at MPs who political editor Jason Groves claims have "plunged Britain into chaos" by rejecting the Prime Minister's deal Papers react to the Brexit vote The Independent Daily Edition The Independent calls for a second referendum as a way forward Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Express The Daily Express leads with exasperation, with political editor Macer Hall writing that "Brexit was hanging in the balance last night" Papers react to the Brexit vote The Sun The Sun take the Prime Minister's "croaky" voice into account as it reports on last night's "Brexit shambles" Papers react to the Brexit vote Financial Times The Financial Times claims that the Prime Minister's authority is "in shreds" and reports on the fall in the pound in the wake of the vote Papers react to the Brexit vote The Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph calls the Prime Minister's defeat "humiliating" and claims that a delay to Brexit is likely Papers react to the Brexit vote The i The i claims that parliament is "out of control" Papers react to the Brexit vote The Times The Times claims that Britain is in crisis and that the Prime Minister "may face resignation calls" Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Mirror The Daily Mirror says that the Prime Minister "surrenders" in reference to the likelihood of Brexit being delayed after the vote "What the government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes. He added: This ruling should not be regarded as my last word on the subject. It is simply meant to indicate the test which the government must meet in order for me to rule that a third meaningful vote can legitimately be held in this parliamentary session. Erskine May, the parliamentary bible, says motions should not be repeated during the same session of parliament which means not until after a Queens Speech, or a general election. The Independent revealed in January that pro-EU MPs believed that Ms Mays tactic to bludgeon her deal through, despite heavy defeats, was barred by parliamentary rules. Erskine May, the parliamentary bible, states a motion should be ruled out of order if it is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided. Andrea Leadsom, the Commons leader, then admitted repeat votes could break the rules, saying: There is something called the same question issue, which is where you cant put exactly the same wording to the House in the same session multiple times. Speaking to a silent Commons, Mr Bercow said MPs on both sides of the Brexit argument had expressed concerns to him about repeat votes on Ms Mays deal. He said the Speaker of the day had ruled out repeat votes on issues on 12 occasions up until 1920 and had only not happened since because of general compliance. This convention is very strong and longstanding, dating back to 2 April 1604, Mr Bercow said. Its a necessary rule to ensure the sensible use of House time and the proper respect for the decision which it takes. Moves to topple Theresa May are gaining momentum with a string of Tories signalling her resignation could be the only way to move the dial and ensure her Brexit deal is passed. Several backbenchers openly said it was time for the prime minister to quit after recent votes exposed irreconcilable divisions in the Conservative Party from the cabinet down. Others reported that the PMs lieutenants have engaged with the idea, sounding out MPs over whether they would vote for Ms Mays Brexit plan if she gave a clearer schedule for her departure. Downing Street made no comment. The Independent reported on Saturday that such an offer from the PM could mean some of the most hardcore Brexiteers would agree to vote for the withdrawal agreement struck with Brussels. It comes as talks continue in a bid to win the support of both Labour and DUP MPs, with the latter expected to extract extensive extra funding for Northern Ireland in return. Papers react to the Brexit vote Show all 10 1 /10 Papers react to the Brexit vote Papers react to the Brexit vote The Guardian The Guardian highlights just how soon the Prime Minister's defeat has come Britain's scheduled date of departure Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Mail The Daily Mail takes aim at MPs who political editor Jason Groves claims have "plunged Britain into chaos" by rejecting the Prime Minister's deal Papers react to the Brexit vote The Independent Daily Edition The Independent calls for a second referendum as a way forward Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Express The Daily Express leads with exasperation, with political editor Macer Hall writing that "Brexit was hanging in the balance last night" Papers react to the Brexit vote The Sun The Sun take the Prime Minister's "croaky" voice into account as it reports on last night's "Brexit shambles" Papers react to the Brexit vote Financial Times The Financial Times claims that the Prime Minister's authority is "in shreds" and reports on the fall in the pound in the wake of the vote Papers react to the Brexit vote The Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph calls the Prime Minister's defeat "humiliating" and claims that a delay to Brexit is likely Papers react to the Brexit vote The i The i claims that parliament is "out of control" Papers react to the Brexit vote The Times The Times claims that Britain is in crisis and that the Prime Minister "may face resignation calls" Papers react to the Brexit vote Daily Mirror The Daily Mirror says that the Prime Minister "surrenders" in reference to the likelihood of Brexit being delayed after the vote As speculation around Ms Mays position mounted on Sunday, one source close to a senior Brexiteer told The Independent: It will move the dial. Whether it will be enough I dont know, but itll move it. Dover MP Charlie Elphicke was among those to publicly say there needs to be a change of leadership for him to support the deal. Mr Elphicke told the BBCs Sunday Politics South East: What I am clear on is that if we are going to support it, there needs to be a change of negotiating team. So I think we need to have a change of leadership, and a new face and a new team to take us forward to the future relationship. Asked if his vote was up for grabs, Mr Elphicke added: Weve got to get the right future relationship sorted, and that also means having the right team to do it. Former cabinet minister Esther McVey has said she is now minded to back the deal, but she also suggested the prime minister should consider setting out the timetable for her departure to win over other rebels. She said recent cabinet rebellions had made her position very dubious, before later adding that the prime minister needs a dignified departure. We need a change of leadership, and a new face and a new team to take us forward to the future relationship Charlie Elphicke MP Among Brexiteers believed to be wavering in their opposition to the deal are former leader Iain Duncan Smith, Bernard Jenkin and the chair of the European Research Group (ERG), Jacob Rees-Mogg. A Tory linked to the ERG told The Independent on Saturday: For some people, even in that hardcore group of the ERG that No 10 finds difficult to reach, it does change things. She would need to stand at the despatch box and say Ill be gone by X date. Self-interest alone would have some affect. With her quitting on the cards, do you not think Sajid [Javid] and Jeremy [Hunt] will be saying to their mates, thats what you should be calling for to back the deal? Stephen Barclay says no-deal Brexit would be better than long delay Others have echoed the call for change, such as former party co-chair Grant Shapps, who said: The next stage of the negotiations around Britains future partnership with the EU will require a complete change of the negotiating team from bottom to top. Ex-Brexit secretary David Davis, who has already come on board with the deal, did not name Ms May but also indicated a new start is needed. He wrote in The Sunday Times: We need at least 22 negotiating teams to run all the strands of the negotiation in parallel. We should use experienced trade negotiators in the key areas, not civil servants who are learning on the job. Moment MPs vote to delay Brexit until 30 June - if MPs approve the Prime Minister's deal Most of all we should put the whole thing under proper political leadership of the relevant cabinet ministers, not have it run in secret by a Whitehall machine. One of Ms Mays most ardent Tory critics, Andrew Bridgen, said he was informed by party whips that Ms May was willing to announce her resignation to get the deal through the Commons. Others also reported that allies of the PM have been exploring with MPs whether her departure might get the deal over the line. When asked if Ms May might be the sort of person to realise that she was part of the problem, chancellor Philip Hammond said on Sunday: She absolutely is a kind of person who will always do what she thinks is in the best interests of the country. He pointed out that the prime minister has already said she will not lead the party into the next general election in 2022. Donald Trumps suggestion that Britain invented Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election has been branded completely false by the UK government. The US president shared a tweet by William Craddick, the founder of right-wing conspiracy theory news outlet Disobedience Media, on Sunday evening. Russiagate was designed in part to help the UK counter Russian influence by baiting the United States into taking a hard line against them, Mr Craddick wrote. Leaves us all with a more dangerous world as a consequence. Just another episode of the great game. It is not clear what Russian influence in Britain Mr Craddick was referring to, but great game is likely a reference to a long-running political and diplomatic confrontation between Russia and Britain in the 19th century. Mr Trump regularly retweets messages as he did here that he agrees with. Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty A Foreign Office spokesperson told The Independent: This claim is completely false. Mr Trumps endorsement of the explosive claim Britain was involved in a conspiracy to create Russiagate a term commonly understood to refer to Russias meddling in the presidential election risks further undermining relations between the White House and the UK government. Late last week, he launched an extraordinary attack against Theresa May over her Brexit negotiation strategy, claiming she didnt listen to his advice over the issue. Sir Nicholas Soames, Conservative MP and privy councillor, told The Independent that Mr Trumps peddling of the conspiracy theory was foolish and ludicrous. The trouble is he allows himself to be subject to these great flights of fancy, which unfortunately there are too many people who take seriously, said Mr Soames, who is the grandson of Winston Churchill. He added: He pretty much takes up every conspiracy theory there is, its just ludicrous. I dont think anyone who knows anything about it would take it seriously. 'You might have to tell the world what's happening, because nobody knows' President Trump says Brexit is 'tearing a lot of countries apart' Mr Trumps latest insinuation of Russian innocence over the presidential election will likely further exasperate the US intelligence community, which has concluded the Kremlin interfered to help Mr Trump and damage his rival Hillary Clintons candidacy. The assessment led in part to special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russias role in the election and potential links between the Trump campaign and Moscow a wide-ranging probe the president has long castigated as a witch hunt. At least 157 people have been killed by a cyclone that has flooded land and destroyed roads across Zimbabwe and Mozambique, as officials admit the death toll could be significantly higher. Cyclone Idai has caused huge damage to the port city of Beira, Mozambiques second largest port which is home to around 500,000 people. The cyclone made landfall in Mozambique on Thursday evening, with winds of up to 177 km/h and heavy rain. Jamie LeSueur, leader of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies team in Beira, said: The scale of devastation is enormous. It seems that 90 per cent of the area is completely destroyed. Nick Mangwana, the Zimbabwean information ministry official, said the number of confirmed deaths in Zimbabwe is 89, and that number is expected to rise. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mozambiques state news agency said Beiras death toll is 68, and according to television channel TVM 84 people have died across the country. In Zimbabwe the Chimanimani district has been cut off from the rest of the country, with many people forced to sleep in the mountains since Friday because their homes had been flattened by rock falls and mudslides, or washed away from the rain. The intense rainfall has also prevented people from burying the dead. Recommended More than 100 dead as floods and tropical cyclone hit Mozambique Zimbabwe has been suffering from a severe, crop-wilting drought, and a United Nations humanitarian agency has said 5.3 million of the countrys 15 million people will need food aid. According to the World Food Programme, teams are in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, planning to target food assistance to 650,000 in Malawi and 600,000 in Mozambique, and will be able to scale up the response with more food distribution in the coming days. They said at least 1.7 million people were affected and in the cyclones direct path in Mozambique, as well as 920,000 in Malawi. Mozambiques President Filipe Nyusi says more than 1,000 people may have been killed, despite the official death count of 84. The Zimbabwe Red Cross Society has put out a Facebook appeal for help with clothing, shelter, blankets, medical supplies and food. The storm is the worst that Zimbabwe has had since Cyclone Eline in 2000, which destroyed land across eastern and southern Zimbabwe, and affected Mozambique at a time when it had been hit by its worst floods in three decades, killing 350 people and making 650,000 people homeless. The three-ton torso of a massive statue that may be of one of Egypt's most famous pharaohs was lifted from mud and groundwater where it was recently discovered in a Cairo suburb. Thought to represent Ramses the Great, it was pulled up by a crane as dozens of workers supported it. It was then covered with a white fabric. The first part of the colossus a large portion of the head was pulled up last week. The country's Ministry of Antiquities said the statue's parts would be pieced together and restored at the Egyptian museum in central Cairo. It will then be moved to the yet-to-open Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids. Ramses II took the throne in his early 20s and ruled Egypt for 60 years more than 3,000 years ago. He is credited with expanding ancient Egypt's reach as far as modern Syria to the east and modern Sudan to the south. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The expansion earned him the title "Ramses the Great." The statue was discovered last week by a German-Egyptian archaeological team in the working-class Cairo district of Matariya. The sun temple in Heliopolis was founded by Ramses II, lending weight to the likelihood the statue is of him, archaeologists say. Recommended 7 tourist sites that tourism has ruined It was one of the largest temples in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor's Karnak, but was destroyed in Greco-Roman times. Many of its obelisks were moved to Alexandria or to Europe and stones from the site were looted and used for building as Cairo developed. Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani said he had been called last week "to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite." The joint expedition also found the upper part of a life-sized limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II's grandson, that is 80 centimetres long. Officials in the California city of Lake Elisnore have previously had large crowds come and see the wildflowers that burst into a vibrant blaze of gorgeous colour as spring gets underway. It happens when it rains hard. But this spring, the poppies have been so abundant and so strikingly coloured orange peel, marigold and burned copper that the number of people coming to walk among them has simply been too many. As a result, the city was forced to say no to visitors, after what some officials termed a super bloom apocalypse. The city has expended all available resources to address the #SuperBloom, they wrote on the the citys Instagram page. We have brought in all available staff, as many outside traffic controllers that we could, more shuttles, and our small city can not sustain crowds of this magnitude our city is not made for Disneyland-size crowds. It urged residents: Please, we need your help and understanding. This is beyond our control. So please stay out of this area and stay off local roads if possible. 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Show all 17 1 /17 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Satellite imagery shows the super bloom on Walker Canyon near Lake Elsinore in California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A woman sits in a super bloom in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Poppies bloom in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Mother and child among blooming wildflowers near Borrego Springs, California AP 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures People walk among blooming wildflowers near Borrego Springs, California AP 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Satellite imagery shows the super bloom on Walker Canyon near Lake Elsinore in California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Poppies bloom in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A woman poses among blooming wildflowers near Borrego Springs, California AP 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures People sit in a super bloom of poppies in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Poppies bloom in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A man stands among blooming wildflowers near Borrego Springs, California AP 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A group of men take photos near Borrego Springs, California AP 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Poppies bloom in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A man walks among blooming wildflowers near Borrego Springs, California AP 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A couple take a selfie among blooming poppies in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures A woman poses for a photo among blooming poppies in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters 'Super bloom' of poppies visible from space: in pictures Poppies bloom in Lake Elsinore, California Reuters Local media said as many as 50,000 people visited the poppy fields over the weekend a figure that was twice that of the weekend before. Residents have complained about traffic jams, as visitors have arrived as early as 5.30am to visit the wildflowers, whose burst of growth was triggered by recent record-breaking rainfall. One person was reportedly hurt in a traffic accident. For the last few weeks, crowds have swarmed onto the fields, many ignoring instructions that they stay on the designated path. Some have even picked the flowers to take home. Mayor Steve Manos told The Independent he had never known a bloom as spectacular as the one this year. It only happens when it rains hard, he said. The last one was 2017, and before that it was 2010. Darian Williams, 24, of Anaheim, made a spontaneous hour-and-a-half drive with her parents. She grew up in southern California but told the Palm Springs Sun she did not remember ever witnessing a super bloom that came close to this. People were pulled over on the side of the road to see the flowers as we drove here, she said. It was amazing to see the number of flowers grow as we got closer. Mr Manos, mayor of the city located 70 miles to the south east of Los Angeles, posted videos of himself helping direct traffic on Facebook, to try and give an insight into how bad the situation was. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events On Monday morning, amid some criticism over the shutdown, the city said access to Walker Canyon had been reopened, though parking was extremely limited. Mr Manos appeared in another brief video, standing in front of people walking through the footpaths amid the flowers. As you can see, there are a number of people behind me here to experience the bloom. But we are full. If you are able to come back later, I would really appreciate it. He said he was asking people not to touch the flowers, and if they do visit, to bring with them extra patience. He added: Dont pick the flowers. Theyre very sensitive. Landslides have killed at least 154 people in Colombia and injured at least 400 others, police have said. Heavy rains sent mud and debris crashing into houses overnight in the south-western province of Putumayo. Two bridges have been destroyed and neighbourhoods have been erased in the provincial capital of Mocoa. Carlos Ivan, the head of the disaster response unit who have been sent to the area, said they will give the landslide all necessary attention. We have sent a team of 150 people to make our response effective and machinery began work immediately," he said in a statement. Mocoa Mayor Jose Antonio Castro said people had been warned about the avalanche. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Its a big area. A big portion of the many houses were just taken by the avalanche but above all the people were warned with enough time and they were able to get out but houses in 17 neighbourhoods have basically been erased, he said. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said he is on his way to the area and he posted on Twitter to say he was praying for the victims. Close Scene outside home of Frank Cali, the Gambino mob boss who was shot dead in New York A man has been arrested in connection with the murder of reputed Gambino family mob boss Francesco Frank Cali, police in New York said. The 53-year-old was shot 10 times outside his Staten Island home last week. Cali was allegedly the head of the Gambino family, one of the five Italian-American Mafia families that have historically dominated organised crime in New York and New Jersey. Anthony Comello, 24, was detained in New Jersey and appeared at the Ocean County Courthouse in Toms River, New Jersey, at 2.30 pm. Mr Comello wore a green and white jump suit during his appearance, which was a preliminary affair that included a reading of the charges he faces and rights. Before the hearing, Mr Comello's lawyer indicated that his client would sign extradition papers, putting him on the fast track to be returned to New York for trial. Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Show all 30 1 /30 Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Farmer works in a field Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Women soldier walk on the street Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A female soldier guards railway Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of platform of Pyongyang Railway Station Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Students stage a protest against South Korea and the US in Pyongyang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Students rehearsal for celebrating the 70th birthday of Workers' Party of Korea Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone People enjoy the cool at the carriage door Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of countryside Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Korean People's Army soldier rest on the rail 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A little boy begs food on the platform in Hamhung Railway Station in Hamhung 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Children swim in a river in noon Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone People cross a railway crossing 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A boy collects corn cob beside a railway Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A customs officer is seen on the train No.100 from Moscow to Pyongyang at Tumangang railway station in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A customs officer checks a passenger's mobile device on the train to Pyongyang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A railway station in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of the railway station in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Kids pass by Tumanggang railway station in Tumanggang 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of Tumangang - a small town located at North Korea and Russia border Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A train carriage on it's way to Pyongyang is delayed for a day and half due to military transportation in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A customs officers talks to a passenger at Tumanggang railway station in Tumanggang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A little girl walks on the street in Tumanggang 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone An elderly man is seen in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Kids go to school in morning in Tumangang 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone The case, involving a top mob boss, has captured the imaginations of observers of the mob world. But, it may turn out that Mr Comello was not allegedly motivated by suspect business, with multiple reports noting that he was romantically interested in the mobster's niece. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Cali, according to those reports, would not allow Mr Comello to date his niece. Follow the updates below, as they happened Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load Spaceflight is triggering viruses such as herpes, chickenpox and shingles in astronauts, according to a new study from Nasa. To study the impact space travel has on viruses, Nasa researchers analysed blood, urine and saliva samples from astronauts before, during and after space shuttle flights and International Space Station missions. The findings, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, show an increase in the shedding, or reactivation, of these viruses while in space. Lead study author Satish K Mehta from Johnson Space Centre said: To date, 47 out of 89 (53 per cent) astronauts on short space shuttle flights, and 14 out of 23 (61 per cent) on longer ISS missions shed herpes viruses in their saliva or urine samples. These frequencies as well as the quantity of viral shedding are markedly higher than in samples from before or after flight, or from matched healthy controls. NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Show all 21 1 /21 NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Robert McCalls mid-1970s prediction of NASAs space shuttle building a modular space station is close to what finally happened, except that the real shuttles only flew one at a time. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Ed White photographed by Gemini 4 Commander Jim McDivitt. During the first of 66 orbits, they made an unsuccessful attempt to rendezvous with the spent upper stage of their Titan launch vehicle. On McDivitts advice, White waited one more orbit to recover from the effort of the failed rendezvous, and then exited the Gemini for his historic spacewalk on June 3, 1965. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Apollo 9 CM pilot Dave Scott emerges from the hatch, testing some of the spacesuit systems that will be used for lunar operations. The photo was taken from the hatch of the docked LM by Rusty Schweickart in March 1969. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Mothership Balls Three overflies an X-15 in 1961. Three operational X-15s were constructed and flown for 199 test flights between them, as they pushed at the envelopes of speed and altitude, and reached the very edges of space. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives The Mercury Control Center (MCC) at Cape Canaveral supervised seven human spaceflights between May 1961 and March 1965, into the beginning of the Gemini era. Meanwhile the more advanced control complex in Houston was taking shape ahead of Apollo. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Technicians working at the base of Alan Shepards Mercury-Redstone 3 launch vehicle are swathed in vapour from vented excess oxidiser gas on May 5, 1961. Subsequent rockets could not be so closely approached when fueling. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives The Rendezvous Docking Simulator at Langley prepared Gemini astronauts for the strange physics of orbital flight. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Ahead of Gemini 10, Commander John Young explains to the media how copilot Michael Collins will inspect the Agena Target Docking Vehicle during his spacewalk, 1966. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Navy divers prepare to retrieve the Gemini 6A crew on December 16, 1965. Green dye was released by spacecraft on splashdown, making it easier to spot from the air. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives The U.S. geological Surveys map of the area around Tycho Crater, famous as the site of a mysterious alien monolith in the 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In real life, this chaotic and rugged terrain would have been too difficult for an Apollo mission to access. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Michael Collins inspects NASAs Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, where rock samples collected by Apollo were analysed. Nitrogen gas protected the rocks from accidental corrosion in Earths oxygen-rich atmosphere. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives NASA scientists are confident that Buzz Aldrins boot prints from Apollo 11 are still as sharp and distinct today as when they were first stamped down in 1969, because the Moon has no air or rain to erode them. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives NASAs Anechoic Chambers are among the quietest places anywhere on earth. Walls absorb almost all stray echoes, whether sound or radio. This 1972 model of a shuttle, being tested for radio characteristics, has thruster pods on the wingtips. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Lightning strikes the launchpad of Space Shuttle Challenger on August 30, 1983 prior to STS-8, the first pre-dawn launch of the space shuttle program. Launchpads are surrounded by tall lightning towers and other conductive systems.These create a giant Faraday Cage, diverting the electric charge of strike well away from the spacecraft. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2000. Its habitable volume is equivalent to a Boeing 747s. An international crew of six people live and work while traveling at five miles (8 km) per second, orbiting Earth once every 90 minutes. This is the single most complex and ambitious engineering effort in history, even when compared to Apollo. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives The Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) is a hybrid of parachute and balloon technology. A new generation of flexible heat shield materials could enable a huge shield to be deployed from a small storage canister just before a spaceraft hits the atmosphere of its target planet. In July 2012 a HIAD survived a trip through Earths atmosphere at 7,600 mph. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives In April 2016, ocean scientists at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, analysing data from Landsat 8, found mysterious lines crisscrossing the vegetation in the shallow waters of the North Caspian Sea.The cause turned out to be ice gouging at the seafloor in winter, before melting in the spring, and leaving just these clues. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Curiosity made this self-portrait on August 5, 2015, by maneuvering the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the end of a seven-foot-long robotic arm. Multiple overlapping frames were acquired, then digitally stitched together by image analysts at JPL. The arm moved into a new position for each frame but the camera always pointed toward a specific vanishing point to minimize parallax distortions. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Jupiter's moon Io is dwarfed by the planet it orbits, as seen by the Cassini spacecraft en route to Saturn. Cassinis 13-year tour of the ringed planet changed the course of planetary exploration. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives A technician prepares to unlatch a small door built into the guide vanes of the Transonic Wind Tunnel at Langley Research Center in 2010. The vanes prevent turbulent eddies from interfering with the tests. Courtesy of NASA NASA at 60: Amazing photos of space exploration released from archives Courtesy of NASA According to researchers, the reactivation of the dormant viruses was found to be caused by stress the same factor that awakens them on Earth. In addition to being confined to small spaces and separated from family and friends for extended periods of time, astronauts also undergo stress during takeoff and re-entry, at which point they are also exposed to zero gravity and cosmic radiation. Recommended New herpes treatment could help where other drugs fail The study found that four of the eight human herpes viruses were detected, including oral, genital, shingles and chickenpox. However, although the viruses were found to wake up, most of the astronauts did not display symptoms. Only six astronauts developed any symptoms due to viral reaction, Mehta said. All were minor. In addition to the increased possibility of infecting others, the reactivation of the herpes virus raises concerns regarding future long-term missions to Mars. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The magnitude, frequency, and duration of viral shedding all increase with length of spaceflight, Mehta said. The ideal countermeasure is vaccination for astronauts but this is so far available only against chickenpox. Researchers are currently looking for methods of combating the reactivation of the virus which would also benefit those on Earth. Beto ORourke has set a new fundraising record for Democrats hoping to take on Donald Trump in the 2020 elections, raising $6.1m (4.6m) in just 24 hours. The Texas Democrat has bested Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator also vying for the White House, who previously set the record with his $5.9m (4.5m) haul after launching his campaign in February. In a statement sent to The Independent on Monday, Mr ORourke celebrated the fundraising haul and the grassroots nature of his campaign by all of us for all of us. In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president, he said. A campaign by all of us for all of us that answers not to the PACs, corporations and special interests but to the people. When asked about the total individual contributions the campaign received from across the country, spokesperson Rob Friedlander responded to The Independent in an email saying: We have already released the fundraising numbers we will be putting out. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin The contributions were all made online without a dime from corporations or super PACs, according to a tweet posted by Chris Evans, the communications director for Mr ORourkes campaign. Mr ORourkes recordbreaking entrance into the 2020 primaries follows his long-shot attempt to unseat Ted Cruz in the deeply-red Lone Star state, in which he also proved to be a fundraising juggernaut despite ultimately losing to the incumbent Republican. The former congressman broke records for the largest fundraising quarter ever in a US senatorial campaign, totalling more than $38.1m (28.8m) in the final quarter of his race. Mr ORourke kicked off his campaign with a video featuring his wife, Amy, as the two announced his decision to run for the Oval Office in 2020. He then visited several campaign stops on Thursday across Iowa. Mr ORourke and Mr Sanders arent the only Democrats capturing attention from voters this early on in the election cycle. California senator Kamala Harris also enjoyed a large fundraising haul after launching her candidacy in front of a massive crowd in Oakland, raising $1.5m (1.1m). She has also vowed not to take any money from corporations or super PACs (an organisation that can receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and labour unions). Campaign finance experts have noted the prevalent challenges female candidates, particularly minority female candidates, face in fundraising compared to white male candidates. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Pete Buttigieg, an openly gay male mayor from South Bend, Indiana, has announced his 2020 presidential campaign secured over 76,000 donations since launching, which is 10,000 more than the required amount in order to be invited to the first Democratic primary debate. A former neo-Nazi skinhead has attempted to pinpoint exactly how white supremacists are radicalised to commit violent attacks against minorities similar to the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed at least 51 people last week. Christian Picciolini, a former leader of the American white power movement, said more effort needs to be done to protect vulnerable people before they become radicalised." The co-founder of Life After Hate, a nonprofit organisation aimed at helping people leave white supremacist groups, was asked on CNN if stationing armed guards at houses of worships could effectively prevent white supremacists from committing a heinous attack like Christchurch. While Mr Picciolini agreed vulnerable places need to be protected, he said more priority should be placed on the forums and sources where men and women are often radicalised by white supremacist ideology. Ideology is not what leads them there in the end, Mr Picciolini said, referring to what drives white supremacists to massacre innocent people, its the pre-radicalisation. Its the trauma. Its the abandonment. Its the isolation. Its the marginalization. Even the mental illness that leads people to the fringes to accept this narrative.When theyre there, somebody is absolutely waiting to give them this narrative. New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Show all 11 1 /11 New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Zakaria Bhuiyan People gather hoping to find out information about Zakaria Bhuiyan who is still missing after the mosques shootings in Christchurch. David Moir/AFP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Mucad Ibrahim Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, the youngest known victim of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. Abdi Ibrahim via AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Nadeem Rasheed Nadeem Rasheed, brother of Pakistani Naeem Rashid who died alongside his son Talha Naeem, 21, who were killed in shooting at a Mosque in Christchurch, at their home town in Abbottabad, EPA New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Omar Nabi Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud Nabi, 71, in the mosque attack REUTERS New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Ash Mohammed Ash Mohammed, right, talks to a police officer about his father and two brothers who are missing near the Masjid Al Noor mosque AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Akhtar Khokhur Akhtar Khokhur, 58, shows a picture of her missing husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhar, 65. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Wasseim Alsati A note is seen on a window of a door at the family home of Wasseim Alsati in Christchurch on 17 March 2019. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Haroon Mahmood Relatives offer condolences to nephew (centre) of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Farid Ahmed Farid Ahmed (pictured) survived the Al Noor mosque shootings but his wife Husne was killed. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Syed Areeb Ahmed A relative shows a picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Naeem Rashid A relative looks at a picture on a mobile phone of Pakistani nationals Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem (right) who died in the Christchurch shootings. AFP/Getty Images He reiterated that armed security guards wont prevent white men and women from white supremacy indoctrination, adding that resources should focus on online forums and communities vulnerable to radicalisation. What we need to do is protect our most vulnerable communities online, Mr Picciolini added. Depression forums, where theyre targeting people, or autistic and Aspergers communities, where they know vulnerable people might bethat maybe arent making connections in real-life. In an interview with NPR on Saturday, Mr Picciolini argued that white supremacy is not and should not be seen as a fringe movement. Recommended What would have happened if the Christchurch attacker was Muslim [White supremacy] is certainly not a fringe movement, the former skinhead said. It is a large-scale terrorist movement. In addition to calling white supremacy a terrorist movement, Mr Picciolini noted that Donald trump has been championing policy positions building a wall and a ban on Muslim immigrants, to name a few neo-Nazis have been calling for in the last three decades. [Trump] is feeding people the same rhetoric that I used to say 30 years ago build a wall, Muslim ban, you know, remove immigrants from the country all the same things that I used to say, Mr Picciolini added. He argued that President Trumps rhetoric and the Internet have helped white supremacist movement grow exponentially. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Now, because of the Internet, it has spread farther and wider than ever before. And that narrative is landing on people all over the world. So it is not just contained to the United States, he added. And never before in my life have I received emails from mothers of 10-year-old sons who are being recruited. So it is definitely growing. Life After Hate, the organisation Mr Picciolini co-founded to combat white supremacy, was awarded a $400,000 grant in January 2017 from the Department of Homeland Security under the Obama Administrations Countering Violent Extremism Task Force. In June 2017, less than six months since assuming office, Mr Trump discontinued the grant. A wave of puzzlement is rippling across Sweden for the second time in a week, after a prominent Fox News programme featured a Swedish defence and national security advisor who's unknown to the country's military and foreign-affairs officials. Swedes, and some Americans, have been wondering about representations of the Nordic nation in the US since President Donald Trump invoked what's happening last night in Sweden while alluding to past terror attacks in Europe during a rally on 18 February. There had not been any major incident in Sweden the previous night. Then, Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly convened an on-air faceoff Thursday over Swedish immigration and crime between a Swedish newspaper reporter and a man identified on screen and verbally as a Swedish defence and national security advisor, Nils Bildt. Mr Bildt linked immigration to social problems in Sweden, lamented what he described as Swedish liberal close-mindedness about the downsides of welcoming newcomers and said: We are unable in Sweden to socially integrate these people, arguing that politicians lacked a systematic plan to do so. But if viewers might have taken the advisor for a government insider, the Swedish Defense Ministry and Foreign Office told the newspaper Dagens Nyheter they knew nothing of him. Calls to Swedish officials Saturday were not immediately returned. Mr Bildt is a founding member of a corporate geopolitical strategy and security consulting business with offices in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo, according its website. His biography speaks to expertise on defence and national security issues, saying his experience includes serving as a naval officer, working for a Japanese official and writing books on issues ranging from investment and political climates to security issues in working in hostile environments. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty But security experts in Sweden said he was not a familiar figure in their ranks in that country. He is in not in any way a known quantity in Sweden and has never been part of the Swedish debate, Swedish Defence University leadership professor Robert Egnell said by email to The Associated Press on Saturday. He and Mr Bildt also known then as Nils Tolling were in a master's degree program in war studies together at King's College London in 2002-03, and Mr Bildt moved to Japan soon after, he said. The executive producer of The O'Reilly Factor said Mr Bildt was recommended by people the show's booker consulted while making numerous inquiries about potential guests. After pre-interviewing him and reviewing his bio, we agreed that he would make a good guest for the topic that evening, executive producer David Tabacoff said in a statement. The network said Mr O'Reilly was expected to address the subject further on Monday's show. Mr Bildt didn't respond Saturday to email inquiries; a person who answered the phone at his company agreed to relay one. He told Dagens Nyheter on Friday that he was a US-based independent analyst, and Fox News had chosen its description of him. Sorry for any confusion caused, but needless to say I think that is not really the issue. The issue is Swedish refusal to discuss their social problems and issues, he added in a statement to the news website Mediaite, explaining his profession as being an independent political adviser. Mr Trump's initial remark about last night in Sweden stirred a burst of social media mockery, while he explained on Twitter that he was referring to a Fox News piece on immigration and Sweden that he had seen the night before. Mr Trump and his supporters, though, saw vindication when a riot broke out Monday after police arrested a drug suspect in a predominantly immigrant suburb of Stockholm. Cars were set on fire and shops looted, and one policeman was slightly injured. Mr Trump took to Twitter again Monday to declare that large-scale immigration in Sweden was NOT! working out well, upsetting many Swedes. AP lhan Omar has hit back at Donald Trump following a tweet that suggested Minnesota Democrats were organising a challenge to the freshman congresswoman in next year's primaries. Ms Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, took a swipe at the presidents controversial travel ban that has targeted predominantly Muslim countries by limiting travel into the US from those locations. I am sorry Mr [Trump]. I am for real, you cant #MuslimBan us from Congress! Ms Omar tweeted. Mr Trump had retweeted an article that referenced efforts in Ms Omars home district to recruit a Democrat to challenge her in the upcoming primary, and followed weeks of controversy stemming from her attacks on the Israel lobby in Washington. Ms Omar has been attacked for her comments on the issue, which has been interpreted by some as suggesting that politicians in Washington only support Israel because of money. Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Show all 20 1 /20 Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Donald Trump's Cabinet Donald Trump's Cabinet is one the richest in American history, filled with billionaires, conservatives and several career politicians. AFP/Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Mike Pence US Vice President Mike Pence has defended Donald Trump throughout his presidency while walking a fine line to avoid any public involvement in major scandals. AFP/Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Mike Pompeo Secretary of State Mike Pompeo replaced Donald Trump's previous appointment to the post, Rex Tillerson, and has led talks with North Korea in establishing high-profile summits between the president and Kim Jong Un. Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Wilbur Ross Secretary of Commerce Wibur Ross raised controversy when he was accused of falsely claiming to have sold stock in a bank and violated a government ethics agreement. AFP/Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Robert Lighthizer US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been a fixture in Donald Trump's ongoing trade spat with China. AFP/Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet William Barr Attorney General William Barr replaced Jeff Sessions as the nation's top cop in early 2019 and has refused to commit to recusing himself from the Russia probe despite an unsolicited memo he sent to the Justice Department decrying the investigation. EPA Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Rick Perry Energy Secretary Rick Perry has held his post throughout Donald Trump's presidency despite previously undermining the need for the agency he now leads in past public statements. Ken Shipp / United States Department of Energy Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Betsy DeVos Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also held her post throughout the presidency, despite major backlash to her apparent undermining of the nationwide public school system and advocacy for charter programmes. Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Steven Mnuchin Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has faced numerous controversies throughout his tenure as the head of Treasury, including costing taxpayers at least a million dollars in travel expenses. AP Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Robert Wilkie Veterans Affairs secretary Robert Wilkie was appointed after Donald Trump's White House doctor Ronny Jackson withdrew over allegations he provided prescription drugs to patients without prescriptions. AFP/Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet David Bernhardt Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt took office in January 2019 after the resignation of Ryan Zinke after previously serving as Zinke's deputy. Before taking office Bernhardt worked for many years as a solicitor for the Department of the Interior. Tami Heilemann / United States Department of the Interior Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Elaine Chao Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has held her post throughout the presidency and has mostly avoided controversy, despite a report claiming her office has been in frequent coordination with her husband's, Mitch McConnell. AFP/Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Kevin McAleenan Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan took over from Kirstjen Nielsen after she resigned in April 2019. He previously worked as the executive director of the executive director of the Office of Anti Terrorism in the Customs and Border Protection agency United States Customs and Border Protection Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Ben Carson Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson was appointed shortly after Donald Trump took office and raised controversy over an exorbitant furnishing bill for his office. Reuters Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Gina Haspel CIA Director Gina Haspel was appointed in 2018 and faced backlash surrounding her oversight of Guantanamo Bay. Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Dan Coats Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats could be the next person to leave Donald Trump's administration over his refuting the president's claims surrounding ISIS. Reuters Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Sonny Perdue Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has been dogged by ethics questions throughout his tenure and faced controversy when emails showed the agency appeared willing to eagerly work with lobbyists under his leadership. Reuters Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Alex Azar Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is a former pharmaceutical lobbyist and former drug company executive. Getty Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Mick Mulvaney Acting Chief of Staff and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has described himself as one of the most conservative officials in the White House. EPA Trump's inner circle: Meet the members of the US president's cabinet Robert Wilkie Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie has spent his career on Capitol Hill serving in various roles in foreign affairs and defence. He holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force Reserve. Gene Russell / United States Department of Veterans Affairs For her part, Ms Omar has apologised for that interpretation, but has remained critical of the Israel lobby and the influence of money in American politics. She has also pushed back on the notion that being critical of Israel amounts to antisemitism. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Trumps travel ban was first introduced just days into his presidency, but was immediately challenged in the courts. Since then, the president and the White House have introduced a more limited version of the ban. The Supreme Court upheld that ban last year. Congressional Democrats have formally asked the FBI and US intelligence agencies to investigate the relationship between Donald Trump and Li "Cindy" Yang, who founded and subsequently sold massage parlours implicated in a human trafficking raid last month. The requested investigation comes as reports have indicated Ms Yang may have started a business that sold access to the president at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Ms Yang found herself at the centre of press intrigue after photos of her with Mr Trump at a Super Bowl watch party earlier this year surfaced, followed by other photos showing the Chinese national with the president and members of his family. The photos provide a connection between the two, and came out after an investigation in Florida that led to a prostitution sting at massage parlours that Ms Yang helped open, but no longer owns. Among those caught in the prostitution scandal was the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, whose team was playing when one of the photos between Ms Yang and Mr Trump were taken. Mr Kraft is known for his support and friendship with the president. Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty In response to the attention, an attorney representing Ms Yang, Michelle Merson, said that her client is unaware of any wrongdoing. "She is being accused of human trafficking, providing favours to Chinese politicians and businesses by selling access to the president," Ms Merson said in a statement to NBC News. "She's being accused of some very, very serious things that she is totally in the dark for [and] she denies everything." Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Ms Yang sold the Orchids of Asia spa years ago, but maintains ownership of several other spas in southern Florida. Those locations have so far not been implicated in the sting that caught Mr Kraft up in alleged sexual misconduct. Ms Yang came to the United States in 2003 from China, and her accent is reportedly difficult to understand for some first meeting her. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo says he knows his tenure as Americas chief diplomat is only as fleeting as a tweet. Mr Pompeo, during an event in Kansas, that was part of global entrepreneurship summit, responded with a joke and praise for Donald Trump when asked how long he might stay in the presidents cabinet. Im going to be in there until he tweets me out of office, Mr Pompeo said, to laughs. He continued: Which, Im not counting on. At least, [not] today. Mr Pompeo, who has as secretary of state overseen a major push towards denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula, continued to praise the president for his management style. North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits Show all 16 1 /16 North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, portraits of former supreme leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are required by law to be hung in the home, the classroom, the factory and all manner of other private and public places Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the classroom AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the living room AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the maternity ward of the hospital Alamy North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On board the ship Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the ballot box Mannen av bord North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the office AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On the bridegroom Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On the Pyongyang subway Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On a government building Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the teacher training facility AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the home AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the military parade Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the hall Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the Chinese border AFP/Getty It has been an enormous privilege to be part of the Trump administration. He is truly a leader who provides guidance to me. He says. Mike this is the direction we want to go'," he said. It is often times different than what weve done before. I think thats a great thing. It gives us a real opportunity to partner in different ways, and build coalition in different ways. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events But Mr Pompeos future as secretary of state has been called into question recently after remarks from the diplomat indicating he would like to move back to Kansas, where he served as a congressman previously for several terms. Mr Pompeo has reportedly ruled out a potential run to become a senator in the state, but it is believed that he may run to become governor of the state. Close Donald Trump denies white nationalism is a 'rising threat' after Christchurch mosque attack Donald Trump has targeted Joe Biden after the former vice president made a verbal slip about a potential 2020 presidential bid. Mr Trump, who has eagerly followed the 2020 Democratic field, tweeted Monday: Joe Biden got tongue tied over the weekend when he was unable to properly deliver a very simple line about his decision to run for President. He added, Get used to it, another low I.Q. individual! At a dinner over the weekend, Mr Biden said he had the most progressive record of anybody running. But Mr Biden hasnt announced whether he will launch a third run for the White House. He quickly corrected himself, but the comment prompted frenzied speculation. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Show all 23 1 /23 Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Joe Biden The former vice president - poised to be a frontrunner - has announced his run. He recently faced scrutiny for inappropriate touching of women, but was thought to deal with the criticism well AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Bernie Sanders The 2016 runner-up has announced that he will be running again in 2020 Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Hillary Clinton The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State says she is still considering whether she will run again. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Pete Buttigieg The Indiana mayor and war veteran will be running for president. If elected, he would be the first openly LGBT+ president in American history. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kamala Harris The former California attorney general will be running for president in 2020. Introduced to the national stage during Jeff Sessions testimony, she has endorsed Medicare-for-all and proposed a major tax-credit for the middle class. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Elizabeth Warren The Massachusetts Senator has formally launched her bid for president in 2020. A progressive Democrat, she is a major supporter of regulating Wall Street. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Beto ORourke The former Texas congressman told Oprah Winfrey that he has been thinking about running for presidency, but stopped short of formally announcing his bid to run in 2020. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Wayne Messam Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam has announced his bid. He intends to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. He favours gun regulations and was a signatory to a letter from some 400 mayors condemning President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. Vice News Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Kirsten Gillibrand The New York Senator formally announced her presidential bid in January, saying that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Cory Booker The New Jersey Senator has announced that he will be running for the presidency in 2020. If he secures the nomination he said finding a female vice president would be a priority. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Delaney The Maryland congressman was the first to launch his bid for presidency, making the announcement in 2017. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Julian Castro The former San Antonio mayor announced his candidacy in January and said that his running has a special meaning for the Latino community in the US. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Tulsi Gabbard The Hawaii congresswoman announced her candidacy in January, but is likely to face tough questions on her past comments on LGBT+ rights and her stance on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Andrew Yang The entrepreneur has announced his presidential candidacy, and has pledged that he would introduce a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18. AFP/Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Marianne Williamson The author and spiritual advisor has announced her intention to run for president. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? John Kerry The former secretary of state has said he is still thinking about whether to run. Getty Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Michael Bloomberg The entrepreneur and former New York mayor with a net worth of around $50bn has said he will decide by the end of February whether to seek the presidency. AFP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Howard Schultz Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has not yet ruled out running for president in 2020, despite criticism that his bid could help re-elect Mr Trump by dividing the Democrat vote. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Holder The former attorney general has said he will decide in the next month or so whether to run as a 2020 presidential candidate. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Eric Swalwell The California congressman said he is ready to do this and will decide before April whether to run. MSNBC Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Terry McAuliffe The former Virginia governor, who worked to elect Democratic governors during 2018 midterms, said there was a 50 per cent chance he would run. AP Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Sherrod Brown The Ohio senator is still undecided about whether to run for president in 2020. Who could be running against Trump in 2020? Mitch Landrieu The former New Orleans mayor said he doesnt think he will run for president, but never say never. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin The president has previously labelled California Congresswoman Maxine Waters and actor Robert De Niro as being low I.Q. Meanwhile, Mr Trump faced controversy on Monday after denying white nationalism was an increasing threat just days after a suspected gunman launched a terror attack against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The House Judiciary Committee has revealed its intention to conduct hearings into the rise of white nationalism under Mr Trump, in which it will probe the administrations response to FBI findings that the issue has become an increasing threat. Recommended Congress to conduct white nationalism hearing as Trump denies threat Monday also marked the deadline for the White House to respond to the committees request for documents a move the Trump administration has seemingly avoided. It remains unclear whether Democrats will now issue a subpoena against Mr Trump or the White House. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Additional reporting by AP. Check out The Independents live coverage below. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load An intriguing area of focus in Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into the Kremlins role in the 2016 US election is a proposed Moscow real estate deal that Donald Trump pursued while running for president despite denying at the time any links to Russia. The special counsel has revealed in court filings numerous details about the project, which never came to fruition. Further information has come from Michael Cohen, Trumps former personal lawyer who was instrumental in the negotiations, in congressional testimony and in his guilty plea to a charge of lying to Congress about the project. Muellers team said in a December 2018 court filing that the Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. If the project was completed, the Company (the Trump Organisation) could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues. The project is significant because it shows Trump was chasing a lucrative business deal in Russia at the same time that President Vladimir Putins government, according to US intelligence agencies, was conducting a hacking and propaganda campaign to boost his candidacy. The project also coincided with Trumps positive comments as a candidate about Putin and his questioning of US sanctions against Russia. Mueller is preparing to submit to US Attorney General William Barr the report on his investigation into whether Trumps campaign conspired with Russia and whether the Republican president has unlawfully tried to obstruct the probe. Trump has denied collusion and obstruction. Russia has denied election interference. Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty Here is an explanation of the Trump Moscow tower project and what the president has said about it. WHAT IS TRUMPS HISTORY IN MOSCOW? Trump, a wealthy New York real estate developer, had discussed expanding his business empire into Russia for more than three decades. In 2013, after visiting Russia and hosting his Miss Universe pageant there, he wrote on Twitter: TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next. The Trump Organisation's longtime partner in the project was Felix Sater, a Russian-born, Brooklyn-raised real estate developer, according to company emails released to congressional investigators. WHAT WAS THE TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW PROJECT? Trump in October 2015 signed a non-binding letter of intent to move forward with a Moscow tower project with a Russian development firm. The firm, IC Expert Investment Co, agreed to construct the skyscraper, and the Trump Organisation agreed to license its name and manage the buildings operations. The letter of intent described a building in a Moscow business district with 250 luxury residential condominiums, at least 150 hotel rooms and a luxury spa. Sater, who has served prison time in the United States for assault and later became an FBI informant on organised crime, assured Cohen in a November 2015 email he could get the Russian government to support a Trump property in Moscow. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, Sater told Cohen in that email. Trump had announced his presidential candidacy in June 2015. In testimony last month to the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen said Sater came up with a marketing stunt of offering Putin a free penthouse in the tower to drive up unit prices, no different than in any condo where they start listing celebrities that live in the property. Cohens House testimony portrayed Trump as keenly interested in completing the deal even as he campaigned for president. Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project, Cohen testified. In his guilty plea, Cohen admitted he had lied to Congress in a 2017 letter that claimed he had only discussed the negotiations with Trump three times and that the project talks ended in January 2016. Cohen said he lied to Congress to minimise links between Trump and the project and give the false impression that the proposal had ended before key early milestones in the 2016 race to determine the Republican presidential nominee. Cohen in his guilty plea said the project was discussed within the Trump Organisation multiple times and that he spoke with Sater about obtaining Russian governmental approval as late as June 2016, after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination. WHY DID THE NEGOTIATIONS END? Legal filings in Cohens plea deal did not make clear why the negotiations ended. But June 2016 was the month when the Washington Post first reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the Democratic National Committees computers, a cyber operation that was a key part of Moscows interference in the presidential race, as described by U.S. intelligence. One of Trumps lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, indicated in January 2019 that the Moscow tower discussions had continued through the November 2016 election, though he later backtracked. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events WHAT HAS TRUMP SAID? Trumps public statements about business dealings in Russia have evolved over time. In July 2016, Trump told a news conference: I have nothing to do with Russia. Nine days before becoming president, Trump wrote on Twitter, Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! In November 2018, after Cohens guilty plea, Trump told reporters that in 2016 he was in a position to possibly do a deal to build a building of some kind in Moscow. Trump added, There would be nothing wrong if I did do it. I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldnt have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business. And why should I lose lots of opportunities? Cohen told the House panel Trump made clear to him that he should lie about when the negotiations ended. Trump and his allies have called Cohen a liar trying to reduce his prison time after pleading guilty to a series of federal criminal charges. WHAT ROLE DID TRUMPS CHILDREN PLAY? Cohen told the House panel that he briefed the presidents son and daughter, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, about the tower negotiations. Donald Trump Jr., an executive at the Trump Organisation, told Congress in September 2017 he was only peripherally aware of the talks during the campaign. Ivanka Trump, a former Trump Organisation executive, told ABC News last month she knew literally almost nothing about the project, saying there were 40 or 50 deals like that were floating around, that somebody was looking at. Reuters Donald Trump has appeared to claim the UK invented Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election in order to bait the US into opposing Moscow. The American president shared a tweet by William Craddick, founder of Disobedient Media, a right-wing news outlet which peddles in unverified claims and conspiracy theories. Russiagate was designed in part to help the UK counter Russian influence by baiting the United States into taking a hard line against them, Mr Craddick wrote. Leaves us all with a more dangerous world as a consequence. Just another episode of the Great Game. Though Mr Trump did not explicitly endorse the message he shared on Sunday night, he regularly and almost exclusively retweets messages he agrees with. It is not clear what Russian influence in Britain Mr Craddick was referring to, but the "great game" is likely a reference to the political and diplomatic confrontation between Russia and Britain in the 19th century. Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty Mr Craddicks post came in response to a tweet by controversial Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who accused members of her own party of encouraging US aggression towards Russia by suggesting possible ties between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin. Ms Gabbard herself appears to be receiving support from Russia. An analysis by NBC News showed sites linked to Russian influence operations celebrated Ms Gabbards announcement she was running last month. (Twitter (Twitter) Mr Trumps endorsement of the explosive claim Britain was involved in a conspiracy to create Russiagate a term commonly understood to refer to Russias meddling in the presidential election represents another extraordinary swipe by the president at the UK. It came just days after Mr Trump attacked prime minister Theresa May over her Brexit negotiations with the European Union. Mr Trumps latest insinuation of Russian innocence over the US presidential election will also exasperate the country's intelligence community, which has concluded the Kremlin interfered to help Mr Trump and damage Hillary Clintons candidacy. The assessment led in part to special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russias role in the election and potential links between the Trump campaign and Moscow a wide-ranging probe the president has long castigated as a witch hunt. Donald Trump denies white nationalism is a 'rising threat' after Christchurch mosque attack Mr Trumps retweet came amid a flurry of tweets on Sunday, in which he called for an investigation into Saturday Night Lives perceived bias against him, attacked recently deceased Republican senator John McCain, and called on Fox News to reinstate host Jeanine Pirro after she suggested Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar is against the US constitution because she wears a hijab. The White House and the UK Foreign Office have been contacted for comment. The Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee has revealed plans to hold hearings on the rising threat of white nationalism. The planned hearings were first reported by the Daily Beast just days after a suspected shooter targeted two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and released a lengthy manifesto that celebrated Donald Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose. Mr Trump then said during a televised appearance in the Oval Office that he did not believe white nationalism was an increasing threat in the US. He also claimed on Twitter the Fake News Media was working overtime to blame him for the attack, writing, they will have to work very hard to prove that one. The hearings which will reportedly arrive in early April will focus in part on how Mr Trumps administration has responded to the growing threat of white nationalism documented in rising figures on hate crime and hate-based violence. New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Show all 11 1 /11 New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Zakaria Bhuiyan People gather hoping to find out information about Zakaria Bhuiyan who is still missing after the mosques shootings in Christchurch. David Moir/AFP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Mucad Ibrahim Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, the youngest known victim of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. Abdi Ibrahim via AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Nadeem Rasheed Nadeem Rasheed, brother of Pakistani Naeem Rashid who died alongside his son Talha Naeem, 21, who were killed in shooting at a Mosque in Christchurch, at their home town in Abbottabad, EPA New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Omar Nabi Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud Nabi, 71, in the mosque attack REUTERS New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Ash Mohammed Ash Mohammed, right, talks to a police officer about his father and two brothers who are missing near the Masjid Al Noor mosque AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Akhtar Khokhur Akhtar Khokhur, 58, shows a picture of her missing husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhar, 65. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Wasseim Alsati A note is seen on a window of a door at the family home of Wasseim Alsati in Christchurch on 17 March 2019. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Haroon Mahmood Relatives offer condolences to nephew (centre) of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Farid Ahmed Farid Ahmed (pictured) survived the Al Noor mosque shootings but his wife Husne was killed. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Syed Areeb Ahmed A relative shows a picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Naeem Rashid A relative looks at a picture on a mobile phone of Pakistani nationals Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem (right) who died in the Christchurch shootings. AFP/Getty Images The hearings arrive as federal agencies like the FBI meet with religious leaders across the country to discuss threats against places of worship. Those conversations are also being held to train religious institutions in security and to help them secure their facilities, the Daily Beast reported. The FBI regularly assesses intelligence regarding possible threats to the U.S. and will continue to work closely with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners should there be any potential threat to public safety, a spokesperson for the FBI told the outlet in a statement. Recommended Washington State to keep Trump off 2020 ballots without tax returns The attacks in New Zealand serve as a reminder of the need for all of us to be vigilant, they added. The FBI asks members of the public to maintain awareness of their surroundings and to report any suspicious activity to law enforcement. At least 50 people have died after a gunman stormed the mosques in New Zealand, live streaming the massacre and encouraging viewers to subscribe to PewDiePie, a popular YouTube channel that has faced controversy over anti-Semitic content. The manifesto he allegedly released also pointed to far-right figures like conservative analyst Candace Owens, along with Mr Trump. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events A spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee declined to confirm details surrounding the upcoming hearings. Thousands of people are being forced to leave their homes after a so-called bomb cyclone brought flooding to huge swathes of the American midwest. From Nebraska to Kansas, and Missouri to Illinois, residents have been evacuated amid flooding that has killed at least three people. In some parts of the country, the situation is expected to get worse. The governors of Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin have declared states of emergency. "This really is the most devastating flooding we've probably ever had in our state's history, from the standpoint of how widespread it is, Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts tweeted on Monday. In 2011, it took 108 days for water to subside, and this year the water is 4-5 feet higher." By Monday, it appeared water levels in his state were falling. But residents were advised to use extreme caution. Do not enter flood waters or drive around barricades. The structural integrity of roads/bridges must be determined before roads can be opened, said Maj Gen Daryl Bohac, of the Nebraska National Guard. Downstream on the Missouri River, in Missouri and Kansas, people were told to expect the river to reach record levels. In the Kansas city of Atchison, businesses were said to be piling up sandbags as the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted river levels to reach 30 feet there later this week. Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Show all 12 1 /12 Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Spencer Dam bursts in Bristow, Nebraska on March 16 Reuters Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Snow drifts on a house in Yoder, Colorado on March 15 AP Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Flooded flats on the Elkhorn River in Nebraska on March 16 Reuters Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest A road is flooded after the Pecatonica River burst its banks in Freeport, Illinois on March 18 Getty Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Cars sit in floodwater from the Pecatonica River in Freeport, Illinois on March 18 Getty Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest A church is surrounded by floodwater from the Pecatonica River in Freeport, Illinois on March 18 Getty Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest A church is surrounded by floodwater from the Pecatonica River in Freeport, Illinois on March 18 Getty Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Cars sit in floodwater from the Pecatonica River in Freeport, Illinois on March 18 Getty Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Flooding in Valley, Nebraska on March 16 Reuters Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest A damaged highway in Nebraska on March 16 Reuters Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest Abandoned cars on the side of Highway 94 in Yoder, Colorado AP Bomb cyclone brings floods to US midwest A handout picture made available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows winter storm Ulmer becoming a 'bomb cyclone' EPA Its not looking good at all. I think its going to get us this time and I hate to say that, Sara Tull, one resident of the city located on the Kansas/Missouri border and 60 miles north east of Topeka, said. Residents remember flooding there in 2011, when the river reached 31 feet. Theyve got their stuff out of their house, a lot of them have, you know weve gone through this before and it is ugly, Judy Prohaska, another resident, told KCTV News. Historic flooding continues across the plains and midwest this week with many rivers at 'major flood' stage, the NWS said. Many roads are closed due to flooding in the region and theyre closed for good reason. Fifty per cent of all flood deaths are vehicle-related. Turn around, dont drown. The flooding across the US heartland has followed a bomb cyclone winter storm, a hurricane-like weather phenomenon that last week hit the Rocky Mountains and other parts of the country, bringing snow and freezing rains to millions of people. The Associated Press said residents in parts of southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes in Sunday, as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, putting them in a similar situation to those in Nebraska. While river depths were starting to level off in parts of Nebraska, the water is so high in many places that serious flooding is expected to remain for several days. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Lucinda Parker of Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management said nearly 2,000 people had been evacuated at eight Iowa locations since flooding began late last week. Most were staying with friends or family. Seven shelters set up for flood victims held just a couple dozen people Saturday night. In Nebraska, the Missouri River flooded Offutt Air Force Base, with about one-third of it under water. At least three people have died in the floodwaters, the news agency said. Aleido Rojas Galan, 52, of Norfolk, Nebraska was swept away on Friday night in southwestern Iowa, when the vehicle he was in went around a barricade. Two others in the vehicle survived, one of them by clinging to a tree. On Thursday, James Wilke, 50, a farmer from Columbus, Nebraska, died when a bridge collapsed as he used a tractor to try and reach stranded motorists. On Monday the Omaha World-Herald newspaper, reported that an 80-year-old woman had become the latest confirmed fatality. Betty Hamernik died in her home near Columbus, Nebraska, after becoming trapped by rising floodwaters from the Loup River. Two men remain missing. A man from Norfolk, Nebraska, was seen on top of his flooded car late on Thursday before being swept away. Water also swept away a man after a dam collapse. A woman visiting her parents burial plot in the New York City suburb of Long Island was suddenly sucked down into their grave, a lawsuit claims. Joanne Cullen said she was attempting to attach a bow to a wreath at St. Charles Resurrection cemetery when a sinkhole opened up and swallowed her waist-deep into the ground. The 64-year-olds lawyer said the unexpected descent caused her to fall forward and smash her head on her parents tombstone. Ms Cullen has filed a $5m (around 3.8m) lawsuit against the cemeterys administrator in Queens Supreme Court, according to the New York Post. Lawyer Joseph Perrini said: Getting sucked into your parents grave when you go to visit them on a cool December afternoon with the sun going down its terrifying and traumatising. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The lawsuit alleges that the gravediggers who worked on an adjacent grave created an underground void that caused the sinking at the grave site of Ms Cullens parents Evelyn and John in December 2016. I will never go back there again, Ms Cullen said in a statement through her lawyer. The Long Island resident claims she suffers from nightmares and headaches since the incident, and now requires counselling. Ms Cullen also cracked a tooth in the fall, her lawyer said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Its outrageous that this should happen to anybody, said Mr Perrini. We want to make sure the cemetery and employees learn from this. We want to make sure this doesnt happen to anyone else. St. Johns Cemetery Corporation operates the Catholic cemetery in Long Islands Farmingdale area. The government in Indias southern state of Tamil Nadu has come under fire for arresting student protesters calling for a fair investigation into an alleged sex blackmail gang. A wave of student protests flared up after videos showing sexual assaults on college girls were posted on the internet. Fury mounted after police said the footage was part of a plot by an alleged sex blackmail gang. They said the group of men were using the videos to try to befriend college students on social media, meet them to commit sexual assaults, and then use video footage to blackmail them for money. Around 30 college students from the town of Pollachi, who held a protest on Sunday calling for a proper investigation, were detained by the police. A leading figure in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) argued the state government was arresting student protesters rather than taking action against perpetrators in the sexual assault case. The CPM demands that the students be released and the cases against them be dropped, politician G Ramakrishnan told reporters in Pollachi on Sunday. 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Show all 20 1 /20 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Someone celebrates underneath a rainbow-coloured flag as the Supreme Court in India rules that gay sex is longer a crime. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling People celebrate in the street following the ruling. The Chief Justice of India stated that the outlawing of gay sex had been "irrational, arbitrary and indefensible". AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Up until now, gay sex in India had been punishable by up to 10 years in prison under Section 377 of the Indian constitution. AFP/Getty 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling The law was originally imposed during the Victorian era while India was still under the rule of the British Empire. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling "Any consensual sexual relationship between two consenting adults - homosexuals, heterosexuals or lesbians - cannot be said to be unconstitutional," said Dipak Misra, Chief Justice of India. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Members and supporters of the LGBT+ community in India were overjoyed by the decision, with the celebrations awash with rainbow-coloured paraphernalia. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling "They have opened the door to discussing rights," Anjali Gopalan, founder of the Naz Foundation charity that has been fighting against Section 377 told The Independent. "They have apologised to the gay community, and they have said copies of the judgement will be handed to every police station. It is the best judgement we could have hoped for." AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling People were dancing and smiling as the Supreme Court's ruling was announced. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Bismaya, an activist with the Delhi brand of LGBT+ advocacy group Impulse, told The Independent: "I'm so happy, it's overwhelming. I cried when we heard the news. I'm gay and I'm not afraid of that. It's something I used to say, but now for the first time I have the legal backing." AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling The rain did little to dampen people's spirits as they celebrated the historic ruling in New Delhi. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling A woman exclaims with joy as she holds hands with others on the day of the ruling. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Members of the LGBT+ community in India hold a placard reading "Love is genderless" while standing outside the Supreme Court in New Delhi. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling The celebrations in India were bright, colourful and full of happiness. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Bismaya, activist for LGBT+ advocacy group Impulse, said: "It's great for me but it's also a great day for the whole of India. Acceptance in wider society will take time, because we cannot expect change overnight. It has been a battle for two decades for this judgement. If now we get full acceptance in a couple of years, that would be great." AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling Members and supporters of the LGBT+ community in member celebrate the landmark ruling in Siliguri with a cake and confetti. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling People join in the jubilant festivities in Kolkata. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling A woman cries with happiness in Chennai as the ruling made by the Supreme Court in India is announced. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling The celebrations in Kolkata were full of happiness and energy. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling A group of people stand in heavy rainfall in New Delhi as they celebrate the outlawing of the outdated ban on gay sex in India. AFP/Getty Images 20 best pictures of India celebrations following gay sex court ruling The movement to reconsider Section 377 started in 2001 with a legal challenge made to the Delhi High Court from the Naz Foundation. AFP/Getty Images He added: There should be a Central Bureau Investigation probe into the issue and it should be done under the supervision of the Madras high court. Campaigners have warned that victims of the alleged sex blackmail gang may not come forward after the name of a victim was made public by government officials. The womans name was contained in an official document published by the Tamil Nadu government. It is illegal in India to report the name of a sexual assault victim. Mr Ramakrishnan welcomed the high courts decision to come down on police officials for revealing the name of the accuser and order a payment of 2,500,000 rupees (27,600) to the survivor but hit out at the state for failing to respond. Last week, police said they arrested four men in the town of Pollachi after a 19-year-old woman lodged a complaint against them. The woman told police she was sexually assaulted by a group of men inside a car, one of whom she knew. She said the men trapped her, removed her top and filmed her. The accused men allegedly warned her they would release the video if she did not cooperate with them. She said they then stole her 220 gold necklace. Police are now trying to identify other victims based on video footage recovered from the mobile phones of the four accused men. The teen only gathered the courage to tell her family what had happened almost two weeks later, after the men had repeatedly attempted to extort money from her. It has been claimed this attack was just one in a series committed by the gang, with local media suggesting they have been targeting women since 2013. Student protesters and womens rights campaigners called for police to quickly investigate the assaults and provide protection for the victims, many of whom have since been identified through the videos. Watching the video of a girl begging her assailants to let her go was chilling, said Captain Prabhakar, a 21-year-old graduate student, who took part in a protest in the city of Coimbatore. According to government data, the number of crimes against women reported to police in India rose by 83 per cent from 2007 to 2016. Four rape complaints were reported every hour in 2016, the data showed. Violence against women is a widespread problem in India more than 50 per cent of Indian men and women still believe that wife-beating can be justified. Students from Bharathiar University, in the major city of Coimbatore, held a protest in front of the university campus on Sunday evening. They called for the perpetrators in the case to face stern punishment. The Pollachi police used force against students who staged a protest in front of the Pollachi municipality office last Wednesday, according to The Times of India. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia authorised a secret campaign to silence dissenters which included the surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudi citizens more than a year before the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, according to US officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the campaign. At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the same team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi in Istanbul in October, suggesting that his killing was a particularly egregious part of a wider campaign to silence Saudi dissidents, according to the officials and associates of some of the Saudi victims. Members of the team that killed Khashoggi, which US officials called the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017, the officials said. Some of the operations involved forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing prisoners in palaces belonging to the crown prince and his father, King Salman, the officials and associates said. One of the Saudis detained by the group, a university lecturer in linguistics who wrote a blog about women in Saudi Arabia, tried to kill herself last year after being subjected to psychological torture, according to US intelligence reports and others briefed on her situation. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA The rapid intervention team had been so busy that last June its leader asked a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed whether the crown prince would give the team bonuses for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, according to US officials familiar with the intelligence reports. Details about the operations come from US officials who have read classified intelligence assessments about the Saudi campaign, as well as from Saudis with direct knowledge of some of the operations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from disclosing classified information or, in the case of the Saudis, from angering the Saudi government. A spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said the kingdom takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously. Saudi laws prohibit torture and hold accountable those involved in such abuses of power, the spokesperson said, and judges cannot accept confessions obtained under duress. The kingdoms public prosecutor and the Saudi Human Rights Commission are investigating recent allegations, he said. Recommended Saudi Arabia rejects pressure for more transparency in Khashoggi trial The Saudi government insists that the killing of Khashoggi a dissident journalist living in the United States who wrote for The Washington Post was not an assassination ordered from Riyadh. The decision to kill him was made by the team on the spot, government officials say, and those responsible are being prosecuted. Turkey and US intelligence agencies say the killing was premeditated. The kingdom says 11 Saudis are facing criminal charges for the killing and that prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five of them, but officials have not publicly identified the accused. After the killing of Khashoggi, Saudi officials acknowledged that the Saudi intelligence service had a standing order to bring dissidents home. What they did not acknowledge was that a specific team had been built to do it. Saudi officials declined to confirm or deny that such a team existed, or answer questions about its work. Saudi Arabia has a history of going after dissidents and other Saudi citizens abroad, but the crackdown escalated sharply after Mohammed bin Salman was elevated to crown prince in 2017, a period when he was moving quickly to consolidate power. He pushed aside Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who oversaw the security services, giving the young prince sway over the intelligence agencies. Since then, Saudi security forces have detained dozens of clerics, intellectuals and activists who were perceived to pose a threat, as well as people who had posted critical or sarcastic comments about the government on Twitter. Weve never seen it on a scale like this, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution. A dissident like Jamal Khashoggi in the past wouldnt have been considered worth the effort. The Rapid Intervention Group was authorised by Crown Prince Mohammed and overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide whose official job was media czar at the royal court, US officials said. His deputy, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence officer who has travelled abroad with the crown prince, led the team in the field. Another operative on the team was Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, a member of the royal guard who was promoted in 2017 for valour during an attack on a palace of Crown Prince Mohammeds. Mr Mutreb and Mr al-Harbi are on trial in Riyadh for charges connected to Khashoggis death, a Saudi official said, while Mr al-Qahtani is under house arrest, has been banned from travel and is under investigation, making it unclear whether the team is still operating. US intelligence reports did not specify how involved Crown Prince Mohammed was with the groups work, but said that the operatives saw Mr al-Qahtani as a conduit to the prince. Republican senator Lindsey Graham says Saudi Crown Prince complicit in murder of Jamal Khashoggi 'to the highest level possible' When Crown Prince Mohammed locked hundreds of princes, businessmen and former officials in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton in 2017 on accusations of corruption, Mr al-Qahtani and Mr Mutreb worked in the hotel, helping pressure detainees to sign over assets, according to associates of detainees who saw them. Many of those detained at the Ritz were subject to physical abuse, and one died in custody, according to witnesses. It is not known whether members of the rapid intervention team were involved in the abuse. The Saudi government has denied that any physical abuse took place there. But it was only after Khashoggis killing that the extent of the teams work began to emerge. Mr Mutreb and Mr al-Harbi were both in the consulate when Khashoggi was killed, according to Turkish officials. US intelligence about the teams previous operations informed the assessment by the CIA in November that Crown Prince Mohammed had ordered Khashoggis killing, US officials said. The CIA declined to comment. US intelligence agencies do not appear to have conclusive proof that Crown Prince Mohammed ordered the killing, but they have pieced together a pattern of similar operations carried out by Saudi operatives under the princes authority. The agencies continue to gather evidence about Crown Prince Mohammeds role in the operations, and in December the National Security Agency produced a report saying that in 2017, the prince told a top aide that he would use a bullet on Khashoggi if he did not return to the kingdom and end his criticism of the government. Intelligence analysts concluded Crown Prince Mohammed may have not spoken literally that he was not ordering Khashoggi to be shot but he intended to silence the journalist by killing him if the circumstances required it. The Rapid Intervention Group also appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of about a dozen womens rights activists, who were detained last spring and summer. The activists, who had campaigned for lifting the kingdoms ban on driving by women, included several well-known figures: Loujain al-Hathloul, who had been jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates; Aziza al-Yousef, a retired computer science professor; and Eman al-Nafjan, the linguistics lecturer. At first, the women were not held in a prison, but were detained informally in what appeared to be an unused palace in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, according to Ms al-Hathlouls sister, Alia. Each woman was locked in a small room, and the windows were covered. Some of the women were frequently taken downstairs for interrogation, which included beatings, electric shocks, waterboarding and threats of rape and murder. In an op-ed article for The New York Times, Alia al-Hathloul wrote that Mr al-Qahtani was present several times when her sister was tortured, and that he threatened to kill her and throw her body in the sewer. The treatment was so harsh that Ms al-Nafjan tried to commit suicide, according to a US intelligence assessment. The women were later moved to the Dhahban Prison in Jeddah, where the physical abuse stopped and their relatives were allowed to visit, Ms al-Hathloul said. Their trial opened in Riyadh on Wednesday, but journalists and diplomats were not permitted to attend, and the government did not announce the charges against them. The Saudi official said Ms al-Hathloul, Ms al-Yousef and Ms al-Nafjan were being tried in connection with activities that threatened the kingdoms national security. The New York Times An endangered orangutan with a young baby has been blinded after being shot at least 74 times with an air gun on Indonesias Sumatra island. An X-ray showed at least 74 pellets in its body, including four in its left eyes and two in the right, said Yenny Saraswati, a veterinarian with the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. She said the female ape, named Hope by the team of rescuers, was blinded by the shooting and also had several open wounds believed to have been caused by sharp objects. Hope underwent surgery on Sunday to repair a broken collarbone and is now recovering from the ordeal, but her month-old baby died from malnutrition. Conflicts between orangutans and people in the region have risen as the palm oil and paper industries shrink the animals jungle habitat. London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals Show all 5 1 /5 London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals PB the tokay gecko 18,000 animals have been x-rayed as part of routine health checks at London Zoo in Regent's Park PA London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals Nasi the big-headed turtle 18,000 animals have been x-rayed as part of routine health checks at London Zoo in Regent's Park PA London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals Cornelius the corn snake 18,000 animals have been x-rayed as part of routine health checks at London Zoo in Regent's Park PA London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals Marion the large hairy armadillo 18,000 animals have been x-rayed as part of routine health checks at London Zoo in Regent's Park PA London Zoo releases x-ray photos of animals Jill the Gila Monster 18,000 animals have been x-rayed as part of routine health checks at London Zoo in Regent's Park PA Villagers first spotted the severely wounded orangutan in a farm in Aceh provinces Subulussalam district last week with its new baby, which was suffering from critical malnutrition, said Sapto Aji Prabowo, who heads the Aceh provincial conservation agency. Rescuers then took the two animals to an orangutan veterinary clinic in neighbouring North Sumatra provinces Sibolangit district, but could not save the baby. Hopefully Hope can pass this critical period, but she cannot be released to the wild anymore, Ms Saraswati said. Volunteers at Sumatra Orangutan Conservation Programme tend to Hope (AP) She explained that specialists only removed seven of the gun pellets during the operation because they had to prioritise fixing the animals broken collarbone and the risk of infection that it posed. The orangutan conservation programme said the use of readily available air guns to shoot and kill wildlife, including orangutans, is a major problem in Indonesia. It said in the past 10 years, it has treated more than 15 orangutans with a total of nearly 500 air gun pellets in their bodies. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Last year, an orangutan in the Indonesian part of Borneo died after being shot at least 130 times with an air gun, the second known killing of an orangutan that year. A 2018 comprehensive study of Borneos orangutans estimates that their numbers have plummeted by more than 100,000 since 1999, as the palm oil and paper industries shrink their habitat and fatal conflicts with people increase. Only around 13,400 Sumatran orangutans remain in the wild. The species is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Additional reporting by AP Saudi Arabias King Salman bin Abdul-aziz al Saud and his thousand strong entourage have arrived for a four day trade visit in Japan, along with two golden escalators and a demand for a fleet of dozens of limousines. The royal, who took over following his brothers death in January 2015, is touring several Asian countries to boost trade links as part of his plan to diversify Saudi Arabias economy away from oil. It followed a nine-day trip to Indonesia which saw the king arrive with 459 tonnes of luggage and two Mercedes limousines. There, a special toilet was built for him in a mosque. A custom seat was also constructed for him in the countrys House of Representatives. The trip is part of a month long Asian tour which will also see him visit China and the Maldives. Some 1,200 rooms in Tokyos most luxurious hotels were booked by the delegation for three nights following their arrival over the weekend. A fleet of limousines have also reportedly been ordered to ferry him around the city as well as two golden escalators to help him on and off his private jet, The Daily Mail reported. Saudi Arabia is the largest supplier of oil to Japan, which lacks many fossil fuel resources other than coal. But King Salman is hoping to diversify into non-energy sectors such as manufacturing after the drop in the oil price has led to a financial crisis back home. His visit is the first time a Saudi king has visited Japan, although he did travel to the country in 2014 when he was crown prince. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that Tokyo was willing to provide support for Riyadh. "We will discuss growth strategy, including our 'Saudi Vision' project," he said, referring to Japanese collaboration with Vision 2030 - a roadmap adopted by the kingdom last year for its development and economic objectives. King Salman also met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who said the pair had agreed to set up a feasibility study to explore whether they should set up a special economic zone within Saudi Arabia, The Japan Times reported. The zone would mean Riyadh would offer tax incentives and simplified customs rules to encourage Japanese firms to build plants and research and development centres in a certain part of the country. In a related move, local media has suggested car company Toyota are starting to looking at the possibility of building an auto assembly plant in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and Japanese telecoms provider and energy company Softbank have joined forces in setting up a $25 billion (20.4 billion) private fund for technology investments. Trade between the countries fell overall last year as oil prices dropped. Japan's 2.1 trillion yen (14.9 billion) in imports from Saudi Arabia in 2016, mostly oil and gas, dwarfed its exports of 546.3 billion yen (3.9 billion). Additional reporting by AP China is to begin construction work on tiny islands in the South China Sea which are claimed by several other countries in the region. Beijing seized the strategically important islands on the Scarborough Shoal in 2012. The US has warned China against carrying out land reclamation work in the area, which it has already carried out in other parts of the region. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration unanimously ruled in favour of the Philippines and said there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or its petroleum reserves. Despite this Xiao Jie, the mayor of what Beijing calls Sansha City an administrative base for the disputed South China Sea islands and reef it controls said China was planning preparatory work this year to build environmental monitoring stations on a number of islands, including in the Scarborough Shoal area. The monitoring stations, along with docks and other infrastructure, form part of island restoration and erosion prevention efforts planned for 2017, Mr Xiao told the state-owned Hainan Daily. The move comes as two US senators introduced a bill to impose sanctions on Chinese activities in the region. Florida Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio and Maryland Democrat Senator Ben Cardin introduced the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, which would ban visas for Chinese people helping to build South and East China Sea projects. It would also sanction foreign financial bodies that "knowingly conduct or facilitate a significant financial transaction for sanctioned individuals and entities" if China steps up activity at Scarborough Shoal, among other actions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called the bill "extremely grating" and said it showed the "arrogance and ignorance" of the senators. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The dispute is likely to cause a headache for US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who arrived in Beijing on Saturday. Mr Tillerson was expected to raise the issue with his Chinese hosts, having previously called the activity illegal. Last June, the then US Defence Secretary Ash Carter warned China that any move to retake the shoal would "result in actions being taken by the both United States and ... by others in the region which would have the effect of not only increasing tensions, but isolating China". The US is keen for the passageway to remain free for all ships to travel through as an estimated $5 trillion (4 trillion) in trade passes through every year. Manila, which previously fought Chinas claims to the shoal vigorously, has wavered in its opposition to Beijing in recent months with President Rodrigo Duterte flip-flopping on the issue. In October he announced his country, which previously had close ties to US, was now separated from Washington and added that close cooperation with China was the Philippines only hope during a visit to Beijing to meet Xi Jingping. He said the dispute could take a back seat during the countries economic and trade talks and it was not the time to go to war with China. But last week, he declaried to a news conference that a separate disputed waterway, the Benham Rise, was Filipino. He said: You go there and tell them straight that this is ours, but I say it in friendship. Mr Duterte added that Manila had no choice but to resolve the issue diplomatically as they cannot match the might of China. Additional reporting by agencies Scientists have found what they believe is a record amount of plastic in the stomach of a whale that died in the Philippines. The animal was starved and dehydrated, and had been vomiting blood, biologists said. A post-mortem examination revealed 40kg of plastic waste in its stomach, including multiple shopping bags, banana plantation bags and 16 rice sacks. The findings prompted renewed calls for the Philippines government to take action against people dumping plastic into the sea. The Philippines are the third-worst polluter of oceans after China and Indonesia, according to Greenpeace. Tragic photos show beached whales Show all 15 1 /15 Tragic photos show beached whales Tragic photos show beached whales A dead sperm whale lies on Hunstanton beach in Norfolk on 5 February 2016 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Volunteers pour buckets of water over the 80 remaining live pilot whales found stranded on remote Ocean Beach on New Zealand's southern-most Stewart island, 8 January 2003 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Contractors clear away the body of one of the dead 48ft sperm whales that were washed-up on a beach near Gibraltar Point in Skegness, Lincolnshire in 2016 PA Tragic photos show beached whales People pass by a beached whale at the Pointe de la Torche, near Brest in France on 29 November 2011 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A woman touches the tail of a large whale carcass on Wattamola Beach at the Royal National Park in Sydney on 25 September 2018 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Beached humpback whale in California, 2015 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Dead long fin pilot whales at Hamelin Bay on Australia's west coast on 23 March 2009 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A 36ft sperm whale lies dead on the beach at Sutton Bridge, in The Wash, off the Lincolnshire coast, where it became stranded in 2004 PA Tragic photos show beached whales A female fin whale opens its mouth as it lies stranded and alive on the beach at Carlyon Bay, Cornwall on 13 August 2012 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales The lower jaw of a dead sperm whale that stranded itself on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales One of the five sperm whales that were found washed ashore on beaches near Skegness, Lincolnshire over the weekend on 25 January 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Employees at work to skin the remains of a beached 60ft whale on 25 January 2013 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Two long-finned pilot whales are stranded on a beach in the northern French city of Calais on 2 November 2015 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A sperm whale lies dead after becoming stranded on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Crowds gather as a sperm whale lies dead after becoming stranded on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Together with Vietnam and Thailand, the countries account for up to 60 per cent of the plastic waste that ends up in oceans, experts say. The Cuviers beaked whale, which was 4.7m (15.4ft) long, had died of starvation and dehydration, post-mortem tests confirmed. Sheets of plastic were lifted out of its stomach. Experts at the DBone Museum in the Philippines have recovered 61 whales and dolphins in 10 years, but said their latest discovery was the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. Marine biologist Darrell Blatchley said: Upon reaching the stomach I knew this whale had died due to plastic ingestion. I was not prepared for the amount of plastic. Forty kilos roughly of rice sacks, grocery bags, banana plantation bags and general plastic bags. Sixteen rice sacks total. It was so bad the plastic was beginning calcification. The Philippine people are a proud people sadly its not in being clean or taking care of the environment. The Philippines needs to change from the children up or nothing will be left. It was so bad the plastic was beginning calcification Darrell Blatchley The museum posted on social media: Its disgusting. Action must be taken by the government against those who continue to treat the waterways and ocean as dumpsters. Four months ago a dead sperm whale that washed ashore in Indonesia had nearly 6kg of plastic waste in its stomach, including flip-flops and 115 drinking cups. And last summer 80 pieces of plastic rubbish, weighing 8kg, were found in the stomach of a whale that died in Thailand. New Zealands cabinet has given its support to gun law changes in principle in the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said. Further details will be announced by the time cabinet meets again next Monday, she said. Ms Ardern had vowed in the immediate aftermath of Fridays attacks, in which 50 people were killed, that our gun laws will change. Speaking at a news conference on Monday, she said that cabinets backing ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer. Ms Ardern said an inquiry will look into events leading up to the attacks and what might have been done differently. A Christchurch gun shop owner has admitted selling weapons online to 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant, an Australian citizen who has been charged with murder over the attack. New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Show all 11 1 /11 New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Zakaria Bhuiyan People gather hoping to find out information about Zakaria Bhuiyan who is still missing after the mosques shootings in Christchurch. David Moir/AFP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Mucad Ibrahim Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, the youngest known victim of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. Abdi Ibrahim via AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Nadeem Rasheed Nadeem Rasheed, brother of Pakistani Naeem Rashid who died alongside his son Talha Naeem, 21, who were killed in shooting at a Mosque in Christchurch, at their home town in Abbottabad, EPA New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Omar Nabi Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud Nabi, 71, in the mosque attack REUTERS New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Ash Mohammed Ash Mohammed, right, talks to a police officer about his father and two brothers who are missing near the Masjid Al Noor mosque AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Akhtar Khokhur Akhtar Khokhur, 58, shows a picture of her missing husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhar, 65. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Wasseim Alsati A note is seen on a window of a door at the family home of Wasseim Alsati in Christchurch on 17 March 2019. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Haroon Mahmood Relatives offer condolences to nephew (centre) of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Farid Ahmed Farid Ahmed (pictured) survived the Al Noor mosque shootings but his wife Husne was killed. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Syed Areeb Ahmed A relative shows a picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Naeem Rashid A relative looks at a picture on a mobile phone of Pakistani nationals Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem (right) who died in the Christchurch shootings. AFP/Getty Images At a news conference, Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition to Mr Tarrant through a police-verified online mail-order process. The shop detected nothing extraordinary about the buyer, he said. None of the guns sold to Mr Tarrant were military-style, semi-automatic weapons, the store owner added. Calling for gun laws to be tightened, Ms Ardern has said the mosque attacker used five guns, two of them semi-automatic, which were purchased with an ordinary gun licence and modified. It was not clear if any of the firearms Mr Tarrant purchased from Gun City were used in Fridays shootings. My staff and I are dismayed and disgusted by what happened last Friday afternoon, Mr Tipple said. We cannot comprehend how such despicable actions could be carried out on those at prayer in a place of worship. Mr Tipple said he felt no responsibility for the tragedy and refused to say whether he believed gun ownership laws should change in New Zealand, insisting a debate over guns should be held at another time. This man wrote in his manifesto that the purpose of using a firearm was to divide us, Mr Tipple said. If we allow him to make changes in our ideology, in our behaviour, hes won. His store has been criticised, in the wake of the shootings, for leaving out a roadside advertising billboard that shows a parent helping children with rifle target practice. Mr Tarrant, an Australian citizen who lived in New Zealand, appeared in court on Saturday amid strict security. He showed no emotion when the judge read one murder charge and said more charges would probably follow. The New Zealand Herald reported on Monday that he had dismissed his appointed lawyer and he plans to defend himself. Frances minister for European affairs says she has named her cat Brexit on account of its indecisive nature. Nathalie Loiseau told Le Journal du Dimanche that her pet meows loudly to be let out each morning, but then refuses to go outside when she opens the door. The comments from the French governments lead in Brexit talks come ahead of a decision by EU leaders on whether to extend the Brexit negotiating period at the request of the UK. And this week will see a possible third rejection of Theresa Mays Brexit deal by the House of Commons. He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and then glares at me when I put him out, Ms Loiseau said. Ms Loiseau is set to be the top candidate for Emmanuel Macrons party in the upcoming European Parliament elections, where she will go head-to-head with Marine Le Pen, who is hoping to lead a far-right insurgency. The minister has taken a tough and sometimes provocative line in Brexit negotiations so far, proactively shooting down UK proposals and warning of the risks of a no-deal Brexit. In October she controversially suggested that a no-deal Brexit would be better than Theresa Mays Chequers proposals for the EU, taunting the prime minister her own phrase: No deal would be better than a bad deal. Her approach has echoed the tone set by her president Emmanuel Macron, who has warned he could block an Article 50 extension if the UK does not come up with new choices to justify it. The EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier has taken a minister tone, asking: Why would we extend these discussions? The discussion on Article 50, that is done and dusted. We have the withdrawal agreement, it is there. That is the question asked and we are waiting for the answer to that. Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well Show all 18 1 /18 Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well These billboards were plastered by campaign group Led By Donkeys @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well PA Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well @ByDonkeys / Twitter Ms Loiseau has steered emergency legislation through the French national assembly to give the countrys government sweeping executive powers to respond to a no-deal Brexit. On Thursday, EU leaders will meet in Brussels at a European Council summit to decide on a possible extension of Article 50, which MPs backed in a vote last week. The mutilated corpses of hundreds of dolphins have been found piled up on a French beach. They were some of the thousands accidentally killed by the fishing industry each year that wash up on the countrys coast, observers say. The animals had suffered fractures, snapped tails, broken flippers and deep wounds from nets cutting into their flesh. And experts fear the toll of bycatch victims is threatening the survival of French dolphin populations. The grim find was made by volunteers from Sea Shepherd France in Les Sables dOlonne, on Frances Atlantic coast near La Rochelle. Tragic photos show beached whales Show all 15 1 /15 Tragic photos show beached whales Tragic photos show beached whales A dead sperm whale lies on Hunstanton beach in Norfolk on 5 February 2016 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Volunteers pour buckets of water over the 80 remaining live pilot whales found stranded on remote Ocean Beach on New Zealand's southern-most Stewart island, 8 January 2003 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Contractors clear away the body of one of the dead 48ft sperm whales that were washed-up on a beach near Gibraltar Point in Skegness, Lincolnshire in 2016 PA Tragic photos show beached whales People pass by a beached whale at the Pointe de la Torche, near Brest in France on 29 November 2011 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A woman touches the tail of a large whale carcass on Wattamola Beach at the Royal National Park in Sydney on 25 September 2018 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Beached humpback whale in California, 2015 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Dead long fin pilot whales at Hamelin Bay on Australia's west coast on 23 March 2009 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A 36ft sperm whale lies dead on the beach at Sutton Bridge, in The Wash, off the Lincolnshire coast, where it became stranded in 2004 PA Tragic photos show beached whales A female fin whale opens its mouth as it lies stranded and alive on the beach at Carlyon Bay, Cornwall on 13 August 2012 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales The lower jaw of a dead sperm whale that stranded itself on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales One of the five sperm whales that were found washed ashore on beaches near Skegness, Lincolnshire over the weekend on 25 January 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Employees at work to skin the remains of a beached 60ft whale on 25 January 2013 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Two long-finned pilot whales are stranded on a beach in the northern French city of Calais on 2 November 2015 AFP/Getty Tragic photos show beached whales A sperm whale lies dead after becoming stranded on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Tragic photos show beached whales Crowds gather as a sperm whale lies dead after becoming stranded on a beach in Hunstanton, Norfolk on 5 February 2016 Getty Local authorities gather up the corpses of dolphins washed up along stretches of beaches before once a week sending them to a rendering plant. Each year trawlers fishing for sea bass kill up to 10,000 dolphins, according to Sea Shepherd more than those slaughtered in the combined annual catches of the Faroe Islands and Taiji, Japan, which both cause mass public outrage. French authorities pile up the hundreds of bodies and once a week send them away (Sea Shepherd Global) The mammals are caught in fishing nets that capture everything in their path, suffering an agonising death by drowning. Any pulled up alive usually die from wounds inflicted by fishermen on the vessels, monitors say. Trawlermen cut the dolphins open in an attempt to make them sink and disappear. Catches happen every night, all year round along the French coast, peaking between January and March. It is estimated only a fifth of the total killed are found on shore, with 990 dead dolphins washed up since December. In 2016 scientists from the Pelagis Observatory in La Rochelle and university academics warned that death tolls from fishing risked driving populations to extinction. Dolphins are a sensitive species which are slow to reproduce their few offspring. By the time the decline in their population is visible, its usually too late, said a spokesperson for activist group Sea Shepherd. If we still want to see dolphins in France tomorrow, its urgent to take immediate measures to protect them. However, the French state is turning a deaf ear to all the scientists warnings, and the fishermen involved are taking advantage of the general publics ignorance. The organisation wants a ban on fishing in sea bass spawning grounds and on the sale of juvenile fish. French fishermen consider dolphins to be accidental catches even though they are protected by international conservation law, a spokesman for its French arm said. The Loire fisheries committee says trawlers have pingers sound repellents but last month monitors said they observed two trawlers that had caught dolphins and did not have pingers. The Independent has asked the French agriculture ministry to comment. A drunk man smashed his way into the drivers cab of a high-speed train with a fire extinguisher and demanded that the driver slow down, German police have revealed. The Intercity-Express (ICE) train operated by Deutsche Bahn (DB) stopped near Frankfurt after the incident on Sunday morning, according to federal police. Passengers said the man grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall, smashed a glass door separating the cab from the compartment, and told the shocked driver the train was going much too fast. He also claimed he had to save his fellow passengers, police said. The 30-year-old man, who wasnt named, was arrested and faces an investigation into dangerous interference in rail traffic, among other things. Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train Show all 6 1 /6 Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train A dining carriage on the Maharajas' Express in India Simon Pielow Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train The Maharajas' Express was launched in 2010 and claims to be the finest luxury train in India AFP/Getty Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train The trains maiden voyage was Dehli to Kolkata on March 20 2010 AFP/Getty Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train The decor of the suites is modelled after the personal carriages of the Maharaja AFP/Getty Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train The price of a trip on the Express ranges from 3000 to $18,000 AFP/Getty Inside the Maharajas Express - India's luxury train Along with restaurants, the Express has themed bars and even a clubroom AFP/Getty No passengers were hurt but the train, which was supposed to be running from Frankfurt to Paris, was taken out of service. In January a drunk ICE driver was escorted off a train by police after a scheduled stop was missed. The driver of the high speed train travelling from Hamburg to Leipzig was breathalysed by officers and was found to have consumed a staggering amount of alcohol, according to The Local. Additional reporting by AP Emmanuel Macrons government has banned yellow vest protests from being held along Paris Champs-Elysees avenue, following riots on Saturday which left luxury stores burned and ransacked. Edouard Philippe, the French prime minister, announced the ban on Monday. From next Saturday, we will ban yellow vest protests in neighbourhoods that have been the worst hit as soon as we see sign of the presence of radical groups and their intent to cause damage, he said in a televised speech. The ban will apply for an unspecified amount of time parts of Paris and also in areas of Bordeaux and Toulouse. All three cities have been badly affected by the anti-government demonstrations. A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Show all 20 1 /20 A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Come With Us: a woman in support of the gilets jaunes holds a placard in Place de la Bastille square in Paris Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A man stands by Place de la Republique with a photo of a wounded protester around his neck Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests No to Marine No to Macron! Power to the People: graffiti on a side wall on the way to Place de la Republique Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A woman covered in fake blood stands in memory of those wounded by police violence during the gilets jaunes protests Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A volunteer first aid team marches with the gilets jaunes towards Place de la Bastille Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A woman attaches a placard to her jacket with two photos depicting recent violent clashes with the police Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Generation Sacrifice Power to the Yellow Vests family: a gilets jaunes protester holds placards in Place de la Bastille Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A gilets jaunes protester covers his eye with a bandage in support of Jerome Rodrigues, who was hit in the eye by police and severely wounded Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A woman holds a placard in support of the gilets jaunes march and the right to protest freely Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A man in Place de la Bastille holds a placard in memory of those killed during the gilets jaunes demonstrations. The movement launched protests on 17 November 2018 against rising fuel prices and a planned fuel tax Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A man stands in Place de la Republique with a bandage covering his eye calling for an end to the use of LBD flashballs by the police Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Who will protect us from the police?: a banner hangs near Place de la Republique Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A gilets jaunes protester marches with a banner calling for an end to the use of flash balls by the police Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A placard in Place de la Bastille that reads: What makes us angry? Contempt, lies, injustice and violence Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Without a way, without a voice, without a roof, without a law, without him: A gilets jaunes protester holds his placard in Place de la Bastille Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A protester wears a yellow vest with the dates of gilets jaunes marches written on the back Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Stop the weapons that mutilate: a gilets jaunes protester holds a placard denouncing police violence Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests Crowds gather in Place de la Republique for the gilets jaunes ACT XII Great March of the Wounded Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A woman holds a placard in support of the change the gilets jaunes are fighting for Angela Christofilou A first-hand look inside the gilets jaunes protests A man marches towards Place de la Republique holding a placard against the use of grenades by the police at protests Angela Christofilou Mr Philippe announced the new security measures following a meeting with Mr Macron and senior officials. Michel Delpuech, Paris police chief will also be replaced this week, following the recent unrest, the prime minister added. On Saturday around 10,000 people marched through the French capital. Shops and restaurants were set ablaze along the Champs-Elysees and a mother and child were rescued from a burning bank near the area. Protesters and riot police also clashed near the Arc de Triomphe. In his speech, Mr Philippe said around 1,500 of the protesters were troublemakers committed to looting, destroying property and causing injury. These were criminal acts, he said. The governments response must be strong. The French prime minister acknowledged there had been dysfunction in police operations on Saturday. He said police forces on the ground would be given greater initiative when working to disperse crowds and rioters in the future. Officers will also use drones and video surveillance to help prevent violence. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The unrest began in November 2018, over a since-scrapped fuel tax hike, but the protests have since evolved to become an anti-Macron movement. In December Paris was hit by its worst riot in decades, which left hundreds of protesters injured. Some demonstrators wear the high visibility jackets which French drivers are required to have in their cars, a gesture which has given the protests its name. Additional reporting by agencies One of the most closely watched trials in Russia has ended with the jailing of an elderly human rights activist on largely derided drugs possession charges. On Monday, a Chechen court sentenced Oyub Titiyev, 61, to four years in a penal settlement. Mr Titiyev, known for his work researching torture and disappearances inside the largely Muslim Russian republic, was arrested in January 2015 after police claimed to have found 200g of marijuana in his car. In the end, it took judge Madina Zainetdinova a whole day to deliver her sentence. Owing to a quirk of the Russian justice system, entire rulings are read out at such speed they are barely audible. A few hours are not unusual, but todays nine hours of waiting during which time everyone, including the activist, was required to stand throughout was close to a record. When the verdict finally came at around 8pm local time, the length of sentence barely departed from the initial prosecution demands. Surprisingly, however, the judge opted for a less harsh category of incarceration, a penal settlement, than that which was initially requested. In the circumstances, it was almost a show of leniency. In his closing admission to the court a week ago, Oyub Titiyev said he was under no illusions he would be found guilty: There have been no acquittals in Chechnya in recent years it seems Im considered an enemy because I tried to draw the attention of the authorities to rights violations. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Friends and colleagues dismissed the drugs claims he faced as ludicrous. According to Tanya Lokshina, lead Russia researcher for Human Rights Watch, who has known Mr Titiyev since 2003, the charges were deliberately constructed to smear a devout Muslim man. But they failed, she added, because several neighbours dared to testify as character witnesses despite the pervasive climate of fear in the region. Everyone understands Oyub wouldnt touch drugs or alcohol with a barge pole, she told The Independent. Believing the prosecution case is akin to believing in fairy dust. There were many inconsistencies with the case. It was never, for example, made clear how police had accidentally seen suspicious items in Mr Titiyevs car. How the only witness, a twice-convicted drugs criminal, who claimed to see Titiyev smoking marijuana in 2017, failed to point him out in an identity parade. Or why all CCTV cameras in the police department and on the route from the arrest site had failed. On the other hand, Mr Titiyevs professional activities clearly made him a target. Everyone understands Oyub wouldnt touch drugs or alcohol with a barge pole. Believing the prosecution case is akin to believing in fairy dust. Tanya Lokshina, Human Rights Watch As head of the local Chechen branch of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, a respected Russian NGO, he was largely responsible for documenting thousands of difficult cases of torture, disappearances and killings at the hands of local authorities. The work was almost akin to partisan warfare and so sensitive it was generally carried out in secret. His predecessor, Natalya Estemirova, was abducted and murdered on the job in 2009. There was never a proper investigation of her murder. But accusations have been made about the involvement of the regions leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has created a dictatorship as part of a security bargain with Moscow. Mr Kadyrov made little secret of his wishes for the outcome of Mr Titiyevs trial ahead of todays verdict. In an address aired on local Chechen TV, he described the activist as a drug addict and an enemy of the people with no homeland, nation nor religion. Human rights activists, he said, were like terrorists and would be driven out of Chechnya the same way. A woman has been injured by a parcel loaded with explosives that was posted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offices in Paris. It detonated as she opened the package, burning her hands and face in a blast that caused the building to be evacuated and put on a security lockdown. The device was intended for the IMF's European representative, Jeffrey Franks, who has been in his post since March 2015 after 24 years at the institution. A French Army soldier talks to a woman as soldiers arrive at the scene near the Paris offices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Paris, after a letter bomb exploded in the premises (Getty Images) Investigators said it was comprised of a large black cylinder, about 30cm long, with the blast radius so large the room's ceiling was hit by shrapnel. French police described the device as a big firecracker that appeared to be homemade. Recommended Several injured in shooting at French school The attack bore all the hallmarks of a Greek anarchist group known as the Conspiracy of Fire Cells (Synomosia Pyrinon Tis Fotias), which claimed responsibility for another package bomb sent to the German finance ministry on Wednesday. Police in Berlin said the device, which was safely intercepted before it reached Wolfgang Schauble, contained explosive substances commonly used in fireworks manufacturing and was designed to cause severe injuries when opened. Greece's interior ministry said the item had a Greek stamp and was falsely sent under the name of a right-wing New Democracy party politician. An investigation is underway into how the explosives bypassed Greek security checks to leave the country. Conspiracy of Fire Cells militants claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was part of their Nemesis operation in revenge for the imprisonment of activists. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Founded during the 2008 financial crisis, the designated terrorist group has carried out waves of fire bombings and a high-profile parcel bomb plot in 2010, where devices were sent to targets including Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi, European embassies and Europol. Police crackdowns have resulted in a series of arrests and prosecutions but a message posted online on Thursday claimed the groups comrades would continue their violent struggle. For each comrade in prison, new comrades are ready to take his place and continue the path of attack, said a Conspiracy of Fire Cells statement, signed off with the phrase LONG LIVE ANARCHY. We sent parcel bomb to the German finance minister as part of the second act of the Project Nemesis campaign. Watch for more announcements in the future. There was no immediate claim for the attack on the IMF, which followed previous targeting patterns focusing on authorities and countries linked to Greeces controversial bailout programme. Francois Hollande, who was on a visit to the south of France near Toulon, said the package bore "a similarity with another event of the same nature in Berlin. We are trying to establish the causes of what happened as part of an international investigation, the President added, calling the incident a new attack on France and vowing that those responsible would be found. Police outside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offices where an envelope exploded in Paris, France (Reuters) Mr Hollande said: We are again confronted with an attack. There is no other word for it when you are confronted with a package bomb. I want to tell all those who work for this great institution that we are by their side. Michel Cadot, the chief of Paris police, said the injured secretary's hearing was also affected and that she was receiving treatment. Asked if Mr Franks had received threats, he added: There had been some phone calls in recent days but they don't seem necessarily to be linked to this matter. Frances anti-terrorism branch opened an investigation into attempted murder, destruction through explosive means, possession of explosive substance and links with a terrorist initiative. IMF director Christine Lagarde, who is on a trip to Germany, said French authorities would ensure the safety of its staff. I condemn this cowardly act of violence and reaffirm the IMF's resolve to continue our work in line with our mandate, she said. France remains on high alert following a series of Isis-linked terror attacks that have sparked an ongoing state of emergency. Thursday's explosion came just hours before a student opened fire at a school in Grasse, where authorities said there was no immediate link to terror. The first of 800 UK troops have arrived in Estonia as part of a Nato plan to deter Russian aggression in the Baltic. Some 120 soldiers from the 5th Battalion The Rifles landed at the Amari air base, 25 miles south-west of the capital Tallinn. They were welcomed by Estonias defence minister Margus Tsahkna on their arrival from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on Friday. The troops are due to be stationed in the country in one of the biggest deployments to Eastern Europe since the Cold War. The first group will set up a UK headquarters in the country to prepare for the others arrival next month. Along with French and Danish forces they will provide a proportionate, defensive, and combat capable force to defend our Nato ally and deter any form of hostile activity against the Alliance, the Ministry of Defence said. Britain is taking a leading role in the Estonia Battlegroup while other Nato members are deploying forces to Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as part of Natos Enhanced Forward Presence battalion. Around 300 UK vehicles have also left the UK this week by ferry headed for Estonia, including Challenger 2 tanks, Warrior infantry fighting vehicles, and AS90 self-propelled artillery pieces. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The deployment comes as Nato grows increasingly concerned about Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Since the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing conflict on the Donbass region of Ukraine many former Iron Curtain states fear encroachment from their former imperial master. In January, German and Belgian forces arrived in Lithuania near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to help it bolster its defences in case of an invasion. Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed the UK would come to the aid of allies such as Estonia or Lithuania in the event they were invaded by Russia and took the countrys commitment to Nato seriously. Recommended US Special Forces deployed at Russian border to defend Baltic states Under the terms of Article 5 of Nato, if one member state is invaded all the other nations are obliged to come to their aid. There are growing fears about the commitment of Natos largest military power, the US, after Donald Trump suggested he may not come to an allys defence unless they contribute more to the organisations budget. He later vowed strong support for Nato during his first visit to the headquarters of US Central Command in Florida in February. Nato guidelines say member states should spend at least 2 per cent of their GDP on defence but only five of the 28 in the alliance the UK, Greece, Poland, US and Estonia currently meet the target. Additional reporting by PA Dutch police have released a photo of a man wanted in connection with a deadly shooting on a tram in Utrecht that left three people dead. The force appealed for information on the whereabouts of Gokmen Tanis, a 37-year-old man born in Turkey. Members of the public were advised not to approach him but instead to call police. Three died and five were injured on Monday morning after the shooting on a tram in the central Dutch city. A hunt was underway for the gunman and armed officers had surrounded an apartment not far from the tram stop but no arrests had been made. Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Show all 30 1 /30 Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Special Police Forces inspect a tram, after a shooting took place on a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack This image made available from the Twitter page of Police Utrecht shows an image of 37-year-old Gokman Tanis who police are looking for in connection with the tram shooting incident Police Utrecht/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood AFP/Getty/Twitter/michadrost Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Dutch counter terrorism police use a robot as they prepare to enter a house AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Forensic police search the interior of the tram EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack An armed Police officer patrols at a train station in Rotterdam EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Special Police forces inspect a tram AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty/Twitter/michadrost Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police officer with a service dog Reuters Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack According to the the Dutch Police, several people have been injured and the perpetrator is still at large EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Members of the military police stand guard around the Binnenhof, The Hague AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Rescue workers install a screen AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Several people were wounded on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht Sky News Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police forces walk near a tram AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Reuters Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police secure the site Reuters Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof, The Hague EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Local media reported counter-terrorism police at the scene AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack A body lays next to a tram as emergency services attend the scene AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Armed police at the scene EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Martijn van der Zande/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack "Shooting incident... Several injured people reported. Assistance started," the Utrecht police Twitter account said. "It is a shooting incident in a tram. Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help." EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Martijn van der Zande/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Lilian Bruigom/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack EPA The head of Dutch counter-terrorism said shots had been fired at several locations, without elaborating. Amid fears of a terror link. authorities raised the threat level to its highest in Utrecht province, schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at Dutch airports and other vital infrastructure. Security was stepped up at mosques. Utrecht shooting: Armed police hunt for gunman after attack on tram However later reports in Turkish media suggested the shooting may have been a targeted attack against a female relative. As night fell on Utrecht there was still no confirmation of the motive for the killing of three people on a tram in the Dutch city on Monday. With the earlier lockdown and advice to stay inside lifted, people were calm as they went about their business just a short walk from where the slayings happened. The response from locals contrasted with that of the international media which is on a worldwide hair trigger after the mass shooting of 50 people in New Zealand on Friday. I saw reporters and camera crews from France and Belgium packed on to my train to Utrecht, tripods and cameras in tow. But the only clue of what had happened when we arrived at Utrecht central station was the presence of black-clad armed police, decked out in full tactical gear and with sub-machine guns at the ready. They were clearly there for reassurance, rather than on high alert: four were tucking into a well-earned dinner at the stations Burger King. Police elsewhere in the city had already arrested Gokmen Tanis, a 37-year-old Turkish national suspected of carrying out the killings. He had been taken into custody after a city-wide manhunt and early reports that there might be multiple shooters on the loose. Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Show all 30 1 /30 Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Special Police Forces inspect a tram, after a shooting took place on a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack This image made available from the Twitter page of Police Utrecht shows an image of 37-year-old Gokman Tanis who police are looking for in connection with the tram shooting incident Police Utrecht/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood AFP/Getty/Twitter/michadrost Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Dutch counter terrorism police use a robot as they prepare to enter a house AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Dutch counter terrorism police prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Forensic police search the interior of the tram EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack An armed Police officer patrols at a train station in Rotterdam EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Special Police forces inspect a tram AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty/Twitter/michadrost Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police officer with a service dog Reuters Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack According to the the Dutch Police, several people have been injured and the perpetrator is still at large EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Members of the military police stand guard around the Binnenhof, The Hague AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Rescue workers install a screen AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Several people were wounded on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht Sky News Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police forces walk near a tram AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Reuters Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Police secure the site Reuters Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof, The Hague EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Local media reported counter-terrorism police at the scene AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack A body lays next to a tram as emergency services attend the scene AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Armed police at the scene EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Martijn van der Zande/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack "Shooting incident... Several injured people reported. Assistance started," the Utrecht police Twitter account said. "It is a shooting incident in a tram. Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help." EPA Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Martijn van der Zande/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack AFP/Getty Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack Lilian Bruigom/AP Utrecht shooting: Man opens fire on passengers in Dutch tram attack EPA The tram line running past the station on which the attack happened was silent on Monday evening. The reason was clear further up the road, at the 24 Oktoberplein junction, the site of the killings. The tram stop in question is effectively a massive urban motorway junction on the citys inner ring road, isolated from the centre. It is criss-crossed by slip roads and bike paths and has a distinctly out-of-town feel. Well past nightfall police continued a painstaking investigation the tram visible and lit up beyond a very wide security cordon. Save for the occasional TV crew lighting up the night nearby, the area was remarkably quiet and people mostly stayed away. Earlier in the day things had not been so quiet, when a man started shooting wildly on a tram, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to local media. I looked behind me and saw someone lying there behind the tram, one told Dutch broadcaster NOS. People got out of their cars and they started to lift her up. I helped to pull her out and then I saw a gunman run towards us, with his gun raised. I heard people yell Shooter! Shooter! and I started to run. As well as the three people confirmed dead, five were injured, some critically, Dutch authorities say. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said a terror motive is not excluded and went on to say the attack was met throughout the country with a mix of disbelief and disgust. If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence, he added. But authorities are approaching the case with an open mind, with conflicting reports from Turkish media suggesting that the attack may have been been triggered by a family dispute. The Netherlands justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus later confirmed that the suspect arrested had a criminal record, but warned against early speculation about his alleged motives. It is important that now the independent investigation will thoroughly go through the evidence, he said. Israel's military expanded its massive manhunt for a Palestinian assailant on Monday as authorities announced that a second Israeli died of wounds sustained in a West Bank shooting attack the previous day. Beilinson Hospital said Ahiad Ettinger, a 47-year-old father of 12 children, died of his wounds from the shooting and stabbing attack near the settlement of Ariel on Sunday. The attack also killed 19-year-old soldier Gal Keidan and seriously wounded another soldier. Ettinger, an ordained rabbi, lived in a West Bank settlement and headed a religious seminary in Tel Aviv. He managed to get off a few shots from his personal sidearm before he was gunned down. "Rabbi Ettinger's life's work will continue and be among us even after his passing, and the strength he gave his pupils and the community he led will continue to strengthen us through the enormous grief and sorrow," said President Reuven Rivlin. Israeli troops went house to house overnight in search of the assailant, identified as a 19-year-old Palestinian, and closed off a cluster of villages where he is believed to be hiding. Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Show all 10 1 /10 Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters burn tires during a demonstration on the Israel border on February 22 2019 AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters run through smoke from tear gas and burning tires during a demonstration near the fence along the border with Israel on February 22 2019 AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters climb the fence along the border with Israel during a demonstration AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters holding national flags walk past burning tires during a demonstration on the Israel border AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border A Palestinian protester wears a head band as he takes part in a demonstration near the fence along the border with Israel, east of Gaza City on February 22 2019 AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters and a medic run to pick up a child during a demonstration near the fence along the border with Israel on February 22 2019 AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border Palestinian protesters run through smoke from tear gas and burning tires during a demonstration near the fence along the border with Israel on February 22 2019 AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border A man carries the Palestinian flag during a demonstration near the border fence with Israel AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border A Palestinian protester wears a mask painted in the colours of the national flag during a demonstration on the Israel border AFP/Getty Palestinian protesters light fires along the Israel border A Palestinian protester returns a tear gas canister thrown by Israeli troops during a demonstration on the border AFP/Getty "We know the attacker's identity ... and security forces are in a close pursuit after him," prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he visited the site of the shooting attack. "These terrorists will not uproot us from here, the opposite will happen." He added that Ariel would begin constructing some 840 already approved housing units in a new neighbourhood the following day. The military said the attacker fatally stabbed Keidan, the soldier, before stealing his assault rifle and opening fire at passing vehicles. He then car-jacked another vehicle and sped away, firing towards more soldiers before escaping into a nearby Palestinian village. Recommended Israel pounds Gaza with airstrikes after rocket fire targets Tel Aviv The military said it had surveyed his home for future demolition. Israel often demolishes homes of alleged Palestinian assailants or their families as a policy which it says deters future attacks. Sunday's attack came after two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire last week in separate West Bank incidents that followed a period of relative calm, even as the Israeli military has been warning of the potential of a new escalation of violence. Last week, Hamas fired a pair of missiles from Gaza towards the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in a rare attack into the heart of Israel that looked to set the sides into another round of escalation. But the launch was apparently a technical malfunction and after a brief Israeli reprisal, calm was restored. Israel is currently in the midst of an election campaign, and Egypt is trying to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers. Associated Press The deadly terrorist attack in New Zealand has rattled upcoming local elections in Turkey, becoming a campaign issue after Recep Tayyip Erdogans decision to air, at a campaign rally, violent footage taken by the suspected killer during his alleged rampage. My brothers, I want to take you to New Zealand now, President Erdogan said during a weekend rally in Istanbuls Gaziosmanpasa district, before playing footage from Fridays incident that was streamed online. There is a benefit in watching this on the screen, he said. Remnants of the Crusaders cannot prevent Turkeys rise. The terror attack on two mosques in New Zealands Christchurch shook Turkey. At least three people of Turkish ethnicity were killed in the attacks, said Mr Erdogan. The 28-year-old suspect Brenton Tarrant described Mr Erdogan in his rambling 74-page manifesto as leader of one of the oldest enemies of our people, and the leader of the largest Islamic group within Europe, threatening him with death. He said Turks were ethnic soldiers currently occupying Europe. New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Show all 11 1 /11 New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Zakaria Bhuiyan People gather hoping to find out information about Zakaria Bhuiyan who is still missing after the mosques shootings in Christchurch. David Moir/AFP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Mucad Ibrahim Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, the youngest known victim of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. Abdi Ibrahim via AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Nadeem Rasheed Nadeem Rasheed, brother of Pakistani Naeem Rashid who died alongside his son Talha Naeem, 21, who were killed in shooting at a Mosque in Christchurch, at their home town in Abbottabad, EPA New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Omar Nabi Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud Nabi, 71, in the mosque attack REUTERS New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Ash Mohammed Ash Mohammed, right, talks to a police officer about his father and two brothers who are missing near the Masjid Al Noor mosque AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Akhtar Khokhur Akhtar Khokhur, 58, shows a picture of her missing husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhar, 65. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Wasseim Alsati A note is seen on a window of a door at the family home of Wasseim Alsati in Christchurch on 17 March 2019. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Haroon Mahmood Relatives offer condolences to nephew (centre) of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Farid Ahmed Farid Ahmed (pictured) survived the Al Noor mosque shootings but his wife Husne was killed. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Syed Areeb Ahmed A relative shows a picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Naeem Rashid A relative looks at a picture on a mobile phone of Pakistani nationals Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem (right) who died in the Christchurch shootings. AFP/Getty Images Mr Tarrant, an Australian who appears to have been an adherent to far-right, white supremacist ideologies rooted in the Balkans and eastern Europe, urged Turks to move east of the Bosphorus, warning, we are coming for Constantinople and we will destroy every mosque and minaret in the city. Mr Erdogan responded directly to the threat comments on Monday as he marked the 104th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War. We have been here for 1,000 years and God willing we will be until doomsday, he said. You will not be able to make Istanbul Constantinople. Your ancestors came and saw that we were here. Some of them returned on foot and some returned in coffins. If you come with the same intent, we will be waiting for you too. Turkish authorities are also investigating two 2016 trips Mr Tarrant took to Turkey, including one stay that lasted nearly six weeks. Turkish media reported that Mr Tarrant visited early Christian artefacts and sites in the country. The New Zealand attacks have dominated news coverage over the past few days in Turkey, but with an especially virulent twist on pro-government outlets. Turkiye noted that fascism in western countries is spreading wave after wave. Everywhere is full of terrorist Tarrants. Recommended New Zealand in shock but people vow love will shine through Mr Erdogan, with his Justice and Development Party facing tough challenges from several rivals in local elections, has shown the video at several rallies in Izmir and Antalya, blurring the images in some cases. He wondered aloud why western officials dont call the suspect a Christian terrorist. Political observers say Mr Erdogan is seeking to rally his largely traditional, Islamist-leaning electoral base which has been hammered by bad economic news ahead of the elections by invoking the images of peaceful Muslims at prayer being gunned down by an alleged western murderer. In past elections, Mr Erdogan has seized on perceived European slights against Turkey to rile up his supporters. Experts say it might help him to win only a few more percentage points, but enough to push his party to victory in a close election. The idea is to consolidate his electorate by using an external scapegoat, said Emre Erdogan, a political science professor at Istanbul Bilgi University with no relation to the president. Hes using terminology like Crusaders are attacking us. His message is that even though we are an important trading partner and a member of Nato, theyre still attacking us. It plays into a narrative of victimisation. The use of the alleged killers footage and rhetoric as a campaign prop has raised alarm bells in Wellington. New Zealands deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, told reporters that he discussed the videos with Turkish officials, including senior ministers. Anything of that nature that misrepresents this country given that this was a non-New Zealand citizen imperils the future and safety of the New Zealand people and our people abroad and its totally unfair, he said. The much publicised Stockholm agreement, which was supposed to pave the way to end the carnage of the Yemen war, has had such little effect that the number of civilian casualties has actually gone up significantly in some parts of the country since the deal was signed three months ago. In just two areas, Hajjah and Taiz, the figures for those killed, 164 and 184 respectively, have doubled in that time. One attack this month, in the district of Kushar, claimed the lives of 12 children and 10 women, and left 30 others, 14 of them children, wounded. Around 788 died across the country since the meeting in Sweden 318 of them through indiscriminate shelling. More than 1,600 homes, 385 farms, 47 businesses and 13 schools were hit in the same period. The statistics, compiled separately by Oxfam International and the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project, in conjunction with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), illustrate the extent to which the Stockholm agreement is being flouted, say welfare groups. Oxfam pointed out that, on average, one person is being killed every eight hours and that 56 of the dead since the signing of the deal were young girls and boys a number that would fill two classrooms in an English primary school. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Muhsin Siddiquey, the Yemen country director for Oxfam, said: Every day that passes without concrete progress towards peace, more Yemenis lose their lives and the suffering deepens for those struggling to find food and shelter amid the worlds worst humanitarian disaster. The backers of the warring parties are complicit in this manmade crisis; we call on them to stop arming the belligerents. Mohamed Abdi, NRCs country director for Yemen, said that while international focus had been on a ceasefire on the port city of Hodeidah, the war is intensifying in other parts of the country with a devastating and deadly impact on civilians. The details of continuing suffering came as the warring parties, who pledged in Stockholm to push for peace, continued fighting. Houthi forces claimed the coalition of Sunni states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates they are battling is about to launch an offensive in breach of the Hodeidah truce. The Houthis, who have been backed in the conflict by Iran and the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah, threatened retribution, claiming they have a stockpile of missiles ready to be launched against Riyadh and Abu Dhabi if the Sunni states, and the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi they back, carry out the attack. Colonel Yahya Sarea, of the Houthi forces, stated: We have intelligence asserting that the enemy is preparing for an escalation in Hodeidah and we are following their movements closely. Our forces stand ready for any requested and adequate measure. Maged Al-Madhaji, executive director of the Sanaa Centre for Strategic Studies, commented that the stockpile of Yemeni ballistic missiles is quite old. But the Houthis are getting expertise on them and they are being helped in this by the Iranians and Hezbollah. But it is not just missiles, they are also developing drone technology dont forget how close one came to Riyadh, a thousand kilometres from the border. Speaking during a visit to the think tank Chatham House in London on Monday, he continued: The Stockholm agreement is not working, it had no political chance, it is there to save the face of the UN. The people in Yemen blame both sides for this. Video shows damaged buildings and homes in Yemen village hit by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes On one side you have the Saudis killing civilians, bombing schools and hospitals, fighting a war in just the way it shouldnt be fought. But on the other side you have the Houthis, and the world does not really care what they are doing. They have shelled civilian areas and when they leave an area they leave behind mines without any maps: so many people have died from these mines. And one of the most significant players in this war has been al-Qaeda, they have been successful, they have been able to recruit people, get more money, more weapons, become powerful. Aysha Thawab, of the Abs Foundation in Hajjah, a welfare group, pointed out the terrible hardship faced by women. Violence against women has reached an unprecedented level in Yemen. So many men are away fighting or have fled that many women have to provide everything for their families from security to food, to water. They are exposed to real danger and there are many, many victims. And this is going on months after Stockholm. Q Members of my family were delayed on 28 February from Perth to Doha with Qatar Airways by eight hours because of a technical issue. They missed their connection back to the UK and arrived 24 hours late. The airline will not compensate. Should it? Sue B A European air passengers rights rules stipulate compensation for delays of three hours or more, unless the airline can come up with a legitimate excuse (and technical failure does not count as a reason to avoid paying). But the regulations apply to non-EU airlines such as Qatar Airways only when flying from European airports. Even though Perth to Doha was the first stage of a journey to Europe, it doesnt count. Last week began with Brexit chaos and ended with climate action. We are living through a time of climate emergency and democratic crisis and I believe we are more likely to respond to the emergency if we also address the crisis. In little more than a generation, we have gone from the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis Fukuyamas famous assertion that history had ended with the triumph of liberal democracy, to the rise around the world of polarisation, populism and pessimism. Inequality levels are spiralling, social mobility has stalled, public services are crumbling. All around us are signs of social stress, from violent crime to near epidemic rates of mental illness. Whatever happens now with Brexit, there is little evidence that the underlying anger and resentment that fuelled it has subsided. Things are bad, but with the effects of Brexit still to play out, with the underlying causes still untouched, and with right-wing populists ever ready to exploit the situation, they could get even worse. Our ancient political system is proving incapable of addressing 21st century crises. Representative democracy provides an incredibly blunt mandate especially under the first-past-the-post system. Every five years a government is elected, generally with the votes of less than a third of the population, on the basis of a take-it-or-leave-it manifesto containing hundreds of policies. In power, that government will potentially have to respond to a whole new set of issues. There has to be something better. "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change Show all 38 1 /38 "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 Reuters "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Magdeburg, Germany on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cape Town, South Africa on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in New York on March 15 AFP/Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Madrid on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Quezon City, Philippines on March 15 Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Vienna on March 15 AFP/Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Dublin on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Canterbury, Kent on march 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Erfurt, Germany on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Zagreb, Croatia on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lisbon on March 15 Reuters "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Edinburgh on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Florence, Italy on March 15 Sign reads: there is no future without a planet, let's not sell it for money EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Vienna on March 15 Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Brighton on March 15 Reuters "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cambridge on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change Students protest in Bangalore, India on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cape Town, South Africa on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change Students protest in Bangalore, India on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change A student protests in Lucerne, Switzerland on 15 March EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 AFP/Getty Images "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Milan, Italy on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 AFP/Getty "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Lund, Sweden on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change A poster with Greta Thunberg, who began the current children's movement at the protest in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 15 AP "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Cape Town, South Africa on March 15 EPA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Canterbury, Kent on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in London on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest in Canterbury, Kent on March 15 PA "Act now or swim later" - Children worldwide protest climate change School children protest outside Holyrood in Edinburgh Getty That doesnt mean we should abandon democracy altogether. The way to save liberal democracy is to protect its core principles free and fair elections, the rule of law, freedom of speech and association at the same time as fundamentally changing the way it works. Deliberative methods could both help renew our ailing democracy and enable us to tackle our biggest challenges: protecting and restoring the natural world and tackling the accelerating climate crisis. Deliberation involves a group of citizens who broadly reflect the make-up and beliefs of the public spending time hearing and interrogating a full range of opinions and working together to reach shared opinions. This approach can help iron out the problems with direct democracy. Citizens assemblies and conventions have been used around the world to solve difficult problems. In Ireland they helped inform the referendums on abortion rights and gay marriage, and in Texas one increased support for green energy, resulting in the state going from among the worst to among the best in the United States for renewables. If we had had a deliberative process before the 2016 referendum, Im pretty sure it would have identified the need for another public vote at the end of the Brexit negotiations. But there are particular reasons why I think deliberation can help make the case for green measures and Im not alone in this. A national citizens assembly is one of the three core demands of the Extinction Rebellion, a socio-political movement that is trying to avert climate breakdown. A citizens assembly allows people to explore an issue in depth and understand the choices and trade-offs better. Deliberation helps people see that addressing long-term issues requires hard choices, and helps people to find solutions that work for everyone. I believe the actions necessary to tackle climate breakdown also provide ways to improve peoples lives, but that doesnt mean we can always avoid hard choices. The deliberation process delivers ownership, too. People often start by blaming the government, but end up recognising that things are far more complex. Environmentalism is not something that should be done to the people its something that should be done with people, and ultimately give citizens fresh agency and hope. If we are to confront the climate crisis while also holding on to our democratic and social values, parliament must urgently establish a citizens assembly to draw up a plan of action that has the publics consent. British politics is in a state of flux. There is much talk of realignment. But we cannot build a better future through piecemeal change or simply ameliorating the consequences of a broken system. A country that works for the 21st century and works for its citizens will be one that has reimagined its approach to the environment, but also reimagined a fair and cohesive society, reimagined an economy which offers dignity and opportunity, reimagined a powerful and engaging democracy. And reimagined the relationship between all of these too. To respond to the climate emergency and address the democratic crisis, it is not just policy change we need but system change. There was a time before Brexit and Trump came to dominate, well, everything when Greece was rarely out of the headlines. Back when the Tory-Lib Dem coalition was imposing its own version of austerity on the British people, Greek national finances were in turmoil. The country was only saved from bankruptcy by vast bailouts from the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. The price was significant structural reforms of the Greek economy and devastating financial consequences for many individuals. Unemployment spiralled to 25 per cent. Pensioners have seen their income fall by half. Many workers expect to be paid late, if at all. And young people frequently see their future beyond Greeces border. With negotiations under way for the next tranche of likely loans, the country is back in the news. A protest movement which seeks to disrupt court proceedings in home repossession cases has added some colour to recent reports. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Greeces travails are rather less engrossing to many than they once seemed. Sure enough, the prospect of the country falling into political anarchy appears to have become much more distant. Moreover, by some estimates the worst of the economic fallout from the debt-crisis which emerged in 2009 has passed unemployment has fallen to a mere 23 per cent and GDP in 2016 actually rose, albeit by only 0.3 per cent. Likewise, concern about the possibility of economic contagion appears to have diminished. In the early years of the decade anxiety was rife that, if Greece was allowed to go bust, others would follow in short order. Spain, Portugal and Italy all seemed at risk; debt-laden and structurally inefficient. Indeed, Portugal and Spain both required bailouts, as did Ireland, which had suffered a particularly severe economic contraction after the global crash in 2008. For the most part though, those countries have overhauled their economies to the point where confidence among institutional investors and key international agencies is no longer on a knife-edge. Recommended We should be worried that Republicans are making it illegal to protest But in Britain at least, the narrative in respect of the Greek crisis appears to have been affected too by last years EU referendum and the political machinations since then. Debates may continue to rage about whether the UK will be better off outside the EU, but the context of those debates places Britain as the driver of its own destiny, rather than as some sort of unwitting cog subsumed by the machinery of the European Union. Unease at the potential impact here of an economic disaster on the other side of the continent has dissipated, as the government and sections of the right-wing media convince us that we can be masters of a rosy future. At the very least this is illogical. The UK, sitting on the eurozones side lines since the currency union was formed, is no more or less immune to reverberations caused by difficulties within the zone now that it was five years ago. The idea that our withdrawal from the EU makes even a jot of difference is delusional. We didnt pay any share of the EUs loans to Greece and it had been agreed that the UK wouldnt be on the hook for any future eurozone bailouts by Europes big club. By contrast, as major contributors to the International Monetary Fund, Britain is a creditor of Greece by another mechanism. That wont change either. If Brexit was about taking back control in a fairly broad sense, then Donald Trumps victory in the US election sought to rescue protectionism from the dictionary of failed economic policies. Both events are now placed at the heart of a broader push back against globalisation. Popular nationalist movements in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands are all aiming to capitalise. Scepticism towards the eurozone, especially in Italy and France, is acute. The motors of this antipathy are hard to ignore: rising inequality and falling living standards are not good adverts for the global capitalist order. But the idea that a retreat to a protectionist approach towards national economics will somehow return individual states to prosperity or will make countries resistant to financial shocks elsewhere in the world is barmy. The only way for one nation to be invulnerable to economic downturns in others is for it to cut off all trading links to the rest of the planet and become a successful autarky. A few have tried; all have failed. A packed car park in provincial France is a likely setting for the poisonous views of a racist to fester. This is exactly where, less than two years ago, Brenton Tarrant watched dark-skinned Muslim families going about their lives in a manner that enraged him. As I sat there in the parking lot, in my rental car, I watched a stream of the invaders walk through the shopping centres front doors, he wrote. For every French man or woman there was double the number of invaders. I had seen enough, and in anger, drove out of town, refusing to stay any longer in the cursed place and headed on to the next town. The Australians hatred appears to have turned into murderous terrorism. He is suspected of carrying out the Christchurch terror attack which left 50 people dead and dozens more wounded. The bloodbaths at these sacred places of Muslim worship were the first to be livestreamed on social media. New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Show all 11 1 /11 New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Zakaria Bhuiyan People gather hoping to find out information about Zakaria Bhuiyan who is still missing after the mosques shootings in Christchurch. David Moir/AFP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Mucad Ibrahim Three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, the youngest known victim of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. Abdi Ibrahim via AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Nadeem Rasheed Nadeem Rasheed, brother of Pakistani Naeem Rashid who died alongside his son Talha Naeem, 21, who were killed in shooting at a Mosque in Christchurch, at their home town in Abbottabad, EPA New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Omar Nabi Omar Nabi speaks to the media about losing his father Haji Daoud Nabi, 71, in the mosque attack REUTERS New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Ash Mohammed Ash Mohammed, right, talks to a police officer about his father and two brothers who are missing near the Masjid Al Noor mosque AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Akhtar Khokhur Akhtar Khokhur, 58, shows a picture of her missing husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhar, 65. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Wasseim Alsati A note is seen on a window of a door at the family home of Wasseim Alsati in Christchurch on 17 March 2019. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Haroon Mahmood Relatives offer condolences to nephew (centre) of Haroon Mahmood, a Pakistani citizen who was killed in Christchurch mosque shootings. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Farid Ahmed Farid Ahmed (pictured) survived the Al Noor mosque shootings but his wife Husne was killed. AFP/Getty Images New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Syed Areeb Ahmed A relative shows a picture of Syed Areeb Ahmed, a Pakistani citizen who was killed the Christchurch mosque shooting. AP New Zealand shootings: Victims of Christchurch mosque terror attacks Naeem Rashid A relative looks at a picture on a mobile phone of Pakistani nationals Naeem Rashid and his son Talha Naeem (right) who died in the Christchurch shootings. AFP/Getty Images Such an escalation from malevolent observer to suspected white supremacist killer is chilling enough, but another disturbing aspect of Tarrants case is the way he was radicalised in a country where venal racism based on biological theories is deemed entirely acceptable. Not only is indisputably lethal bigotry intellectualised by TV personalities posing as pop philosophers in France, but it is perpetuated by everyone from senior politicians and diplomats to mainstream media commentators. All, like Tarrant, share a common hatred of those from immigrant backgrounds, and particularly ones linked to former French colonies in North Africa. This is the prevailing dynamic in all national debate, and it has spread to neighbouring countries such as Britain, where far-right rabble rousers attempt to normalise racist theorising. It is all part of the discourse of those who say that Islamophobia does not really exist, and that an enemy within is growing in power. The evidence that such venomous propagandists are influencing weak minds is overwhelming, especially as they relate to Tarrant. Before being arrested last Friday, he had posted online a so-called manifesto called The Great Replacement. The very title is that of a conspiracy theory embraced by the French establishment in a country that is home to an estimated six million Muslims the largest community of its kind in Western Europe. Beyond recording his car park experiences, and other revelatory moments, Tarrant used his grievance document to expound on the replacement theory, correctly summarising it as one centered on birth rates, as in: If there is one thing I want you to remember from these writings, its that the birth rates must change. He parroted far-right Frenchman Renaud Camus, the author of a book called The Great Replacement, which argues that white European citizens are rapidly being replaced by immigrants who breed more numerously, and who threaten the very fabric of western civilisation. Camus has predictably issued a trite denial, saying his demonic orthodoxy had nothing to do with triggering men like Tarrant. This is despite earlier versions of the replacement theory fuelling genocides, including the Holocaust itself. Extermination policies carried out by the Nazis were based on biological theories focusing on undesirable races. Camus has been convicted for racial hatred. Similar media personalities include Eric Zemmour. Despite receiving punishments from judges for offences such as inciting racial and religious hatred, particularly against Muslim communities, Zemmour remains a regular on French TV screens and radio programmes, and in newspapers columns. Zemmour has published his own replacement screed titled The French Suicide. Its arguments are not only reflected in the work of French Muslim baiters with a similar profile from Alain Finkielkraut, another pop philosopher, to the novelist Michel Houellebecq but in the diatribes of plenty of British ones too. These include neoconservatives such as Douglas Murray, who has produced a book about the death of Europe being facilitated by immigration, identity and Islam. Like-minded British commentators whose prejudices against ethnic and religious minorities are aired all over the UK include Rod Liddle, Melanie Phillips and Stephen Pollard, who was forced to apologise and pay damages for publishing an article attacking Muslims. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Like the convicted activist Tommy Robinson, their inclination is to ruthlessly portray all Muslims as belonging to an underclass. Others use nominally respectable outlets to call for a range of measures against detested newcomers who happen to share the same faith as murderous criminals, up to and including internment. French politicians are also obsessed by the replacement theory, and make regular references to it in a country where Marine Le Pen, the candidate for a party founded by her convicted racist and antisemite father, came runner up in the 2017 presidential elections. Le Pens defeat by Emmanuel Macron a head of state Tarrant described as a globalist anti-white also infuriated the terrorist, and helped provoke his crimes. Like Le Pen and her Front National party (now called the National Rally), Tarrant believed that globalist organisations, and especially the EU, were actively engaged in replacement. Tarrant particularly wanted German chancellor Angela Merkel killed because she was the mother of all things anti-white and anti-Germanic, while high profile British Muslims, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan were similarly targeted. In such circumstances, liberal French journalist Edwy Plenel has rightly described the great replacement theory as a murderous ideology. It is one that shames France, and all those who use it to advance their evil. There is huge excitement in the world of fashion finally, a beautiful woman who chooses to wear a head scarf for religious reasons has been signed by a top model agency. Halima Aden stars on the cover of a glossy magazine and appeared on the catwalk in Milan last month for Max Mara. Dressing modestly has become big business for the fashion industry, so you could accuse the company of cashing in even Marks and Spencer have bowed to the trend and produced all-concealing swimwear. Dozens of top designers have rushed to make modest versions of their collections for websites like themodist.com, a high-end site aimed at the wealthy Arab market, which is worth billions. Modest fashion has become the politically-correct term increasingly used to describe (generally) female clothing that reflects religious beliefs but any controversy that ensues from deciding to conceal rather than reveal your body seems mostly to apply to Muslims. The modest way that nuns (or indeed monks and priests and archbishops) have dressed for hundreds of years passes without comment, but the partially-concealing hijab (which shows the wearers eyes) and the all-enveloping burka seem to polarise public opinion in a way that the wigs worn by Orthodox Jewish women do not. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Far-right politicians have seized on ultra-modest clothing as symbols of everything thats going wrong with Europe. There has been further controversy since the European Court of Justice ruled this week that employers can refuse to employ staff who insist on wearing headscarves but the implications of the ruling are complex and do not necessarily constitute an attack on one particular faith. Even so, critics, like the Turkish President Erdogan claim this could be the start of a new holy war. This inflammatory talk is as bad as the fear-provoking bilge spouted by the ultra-right. All over Europe, a growing number of national governments, local councils, some towns and cities have already banned the full-face veil, generally citing security concerns. The Netherlands, Austria and Germany all want to bring in legislation to ban the full veil in public places. France banned the burka outright in 2011, claiming it violated the liberty of the individual, and the EU rejected an attempt to overturn the legislation in 2014. Belgium banned the full-face veil in public spaces in 2011. Recent terror attacks have led governments to consider extending the burka ban, but the latest EU ruling about headscarves focuses on the right of an employer to insist on an image-neutral policy in the workspace. That means an employer can decide that any religious symbol could be unacceptable, including the crucifix. The ban cannot apply to those already employed, only new recruits. Half the German States already ban teachers from wearing a veil or a headscarf in the classroom. If women want to wear a headscarf, its fine by me, but in the end, an employer ought to be able to set a clothing policy, providing there are sound practical reasons for doing so although it will be extremely hard to police if they have to apply it across every faith where does a wig worn for religious beliefs fall under this new ruling? And, are head scarf wearers more persecuted than other minorities? After all, it is their choice. Recommended Labour has hopped into bed with the Tories over Brexit Of course, a teacher, judge, fashion model or bus conductor can all do their jobs perfectly well in a headscarf, but the burka and the niqab are another matter. They are highly offensive to a huge majority of people because, those people argue, they seem to reduce the women inside them to faceless chattels, property of their partners, in doing so demean the wearers. I find them utterly repugnant, an offence against an entire sex in the name of religion, and I cannot imagine why the government hasnt got the bottle to ban burkas in public spaces, at least on the grounds of security. The sight of a woman in one makes me feel nauseous and pushes my tolerance to the limit. In my opinion, they do not belong on the streets of a civilised country. But as for the latest EU ruling, I am not sure what kind of employers would feel the need to ban all religious clothing at work, and they are probably not the kind of boss I would feel comfortable working for. It is imperative that all religions are treated equally in our society, but it does seem that some are more likely to moan about victimisation than others. When rocket sirens began sounding in greater Tel Aviv just weeks before a general election, it seemed almost inevitable that war between Israel and Gaza would erupt. Long-range fire at the countrys bustling commercial and party capital some 80km from the Strip is a serious red rag. Israeli incursions into Gaza have been launched ahead of the last three elections here, often winning incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu additional votes on a security ticket. And right now Netanyahus Likud party isnt performing well in the polls (the latest says they would secure just 28 of the 120-seat parliament). This is largely because he is campaigning under the shadow of a possible indictment on corruption charges. With tensions between the two sides already at breaking point, in the past this would have been an obvious trigger for war. But while Israeli aircraft did strike 100 targets in Gaza in retaliation, prompting more cross-border rockets, both sides largely pulled their punches. Clues as to why lie in the details of the Tel Aviv attack which have gradually trickled out. Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, said they had no idea who fired the rockets on Tel Aviv adding they were actually in a meeting about ceasefire arrangements with Egyptian security officials at the time of the attack. Islamic Jihad, an even more hardline militant group in the Strip, also denied its members were responsible. Israeli intelligence was apparently taken completely off guard. It transpired that, unbeknown to Hamas leaders, low-level fighters had taken the matter into their own hands. Israeli intelligence officials, quoted in local media, said the junior operatives had been messing around with a rocket launcher which was prepared to fire towards Tel Aviv, and so the attack was accidental. Israels Channel 13 described it as something out of Monty Python. But it has raised questions over whether Hamas has control of its increasingly frustrated fighters, at a time when it is struggling to handle a rising tide of anger over the dire economic and humanitarian conditions in the besieged enclave. On the same day as the accidental rocket fire, Hamas forces were filmed beating and arresting dozens of people, including local journalists, at a protest in Gaza against new tax hikes that has made an already difficult existence even worse in the blockaded territory. A day later, hundreds more gathered in Gazas central Deir al-Balah district in rallies which were also forcibly removed. The 25-mile-long enclave suffers from some of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, over half the population lives under the poverty line. It is largely due to an 11-year-long Israeli siege, but Hamas mismanagement has been blamed for contributing to widespread misery. Anger among the population is simmering. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is facing mounting calls back home for a military operation ahead of the polls. His firebrand education minister and coalition partner Naftali Bennett criticised his response to the Tel Aviv rockets as pathetic and demanded the uncompromising pursuit and systematic neutralisation of Hamass leaders. Netanyahus main election rival and former army chief Benny Gantz urged a strict, stern and continuous policy against Hamas. Even Labour Party leader Avi Gabbay said the security situation in southern Israel was the worst ever and vowed to do the exact opposite should he become premier. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Hamas leadership and Netanyahu appear loathe to tumble back into war but are facing searing pressure from all sides to do just that. And in two weeks that will be ratcheted up even further with the anniversary of the start of the Great March of Return weekly rallies Gazans have been holding at the border fences with Israel against the blockade. Israeli forces have killed nearly 200 Gazans since the protests started on 30 March 2018, according to the UN that said the killings possibly amount to war crimes. The Israeli army has defended its actions saying Palestinians have hurled incendiary kites and balloons tied with explosives at Israel and tried repeatedly to breach the borders, endangering civilians. The anniversary, both sides have warned me, is expected to be a long and bloody day that might just be the tipping point. Despite caution from the leadership, actions on the ground may overtake them. The spell of Groundhog Day is ultimately broken when Bill Murray learns to stop being an insufferable person, so quite how John Bercow did it remains something of a mystery. But nevertheless, he did. On Monday afternoon, with a short 15 minute speech when a solitary sentence would have done, Bercow liberated the nation from its Sisyphean meaningful vote myth. And in so doing, he made Theresa Mays already impossible job that much harder. In the last week there has been no shortage of confusion over whether Mays apparent strategy of compelling MPs to vote again and again on her withdrawal deal until they at last get it right is an abuse of parliamentary procedure. And, with all his customary pomposity, Bercow granted himself permission to make a statement to the house addressing the matter directly. The house sat in stony silence as he took them on a potted history of the last four months of the Brexit process. The vote delayed in December, defeated in January by a historic margin of 230 votes, delayed again, twice, then repeated last week, and defeated again, this time by a mere 149. Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Show all 15 1 /15 Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Pork There will be tariffs on pork in order to protect British farmers Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Cheese There will be tariffs in place on some cheeses including 22.10/100kg of cheddar, 19.10/100kg of processed cheese and 18.60/100kg on some blue cheeses Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Milk There will be no tariffs in place on milk Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Car Parts There will be no tariffs on car parts imported from Europe PA Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Cars However finished cars will face tariffs of 10.6% Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Alcoholic drinks There will be no tariffs on alcoholic drinks - except on some rums due to ingredients used in their distilling process Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Beef There will be tariffs on beef in order to protect British farmers Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Fish There will be no tariffs on many types of fish including cod, haddock, salmon and sea bass Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Fruit and vegetables There will be no tariffs on almost all fruit and vegetables Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Chocolate There will be no tariffs on chocolate or other cocoa products Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Poultry There will be tariffs on poultry in order to protect British farmers Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Ceramics There will be some tariffs in place on ceramis Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Steel There will be no tariffs on steel Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Coal There will be no tariffs on coal Getty Tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit Lamb/Mutton There will be tariffs on the meat of sheep in order to protect British farmers Getty For much of the day up to this point, discussion in Westminster had been about whether May might have talked the DUP and enough of her own backbenchers into switching sides and voting for her deal to make the idea of scheduling a third meaningful vote this week a possibility. But, almost at the precise moment rumours were emerging that she had failed to do so, and therefore would not be calling a vote, she was told (not in so many words) that she couldnt call one anyway. Referring, painfully slowly and just as surely, to decisions made by previous speakers in the nineteenth century, Bercow eventually delivered his coup de grace. That if May wished to bring a motion on her withdrawal deal for a third time, it would need to be substantially different to the motion that was defeated last week. Perhaps conveniently for her, she had, by this point, already decided she could not do the thing she was now being told she could not do. But quite where Mr Bercows intervention leaves Brexit is anything but clear. The UK cant leave the EU with a deal unless the House of Commons approves it. It has already rejected it. The EU has been clear it will not be renegotiating the aspects of the deal that are causing it to be defeated in Westminster, chiefly the Irish backstop. In other words, there are no substantially different options on offer. And only substantially different options can now be voted upon. As Bercow pontificated, it was hard not to cast ones mind back to October of last year. That was when the speaker faced bullying allegations from members of his staff of the utmost severity, and loud calls for his resignation. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Back then, as well regarded a statesperson as Dame Margaret Beckett was at least honest when she admitted her and a number of her backbench Labour colleagues were prepared to overlook it all because Brexit trumps bad behaviour. Beckett and her colleagues had their eyes on the fights that would be coming down the line, and in Bercow they had an ally. Even so, it is also hard to see who has won with this intervention. The more hardline wing of the European Research Group are not relishing having to go through the motions of voting down the motion yet again, as they would certainly have done so. But the substantially different proposition that might now be put before them is more likely, in Brexit terms, to be substantially softer than substantially harder. What it almost certainly means, for the time being, is that May will, at this weeks European Council Summit, have to apply for a nine-month extension to the Article 50 process, and she is likely to get it. Nine months is a very, very, very long time in politics these days. What is at least certain is that things will be substantially different by then, though quite how, no one can possibly know. The row about Gibraltar and Spains opportunistic grab for more power over the Rock reminds us of one very important thing that there is still such a thing as the British Empire and the UK should honour its obligations to these territories political, moral and military. In the case of Gibraltar, that could be very heavy indeed. OK, the proposed Spanish veto on a Brexit deal if they dont get concessions on Gibraltar could be a grand bluff, but no one should be in any doubt about how much this outcrop of British imperialism is resented by the heirs of Spanish imperialism. Now the Kingdom of Spain is soon to be the fourth largest EU economy and a significant power, with the backing of the entire bloc behind her. The choice, bluntly, may be between a good deal for the UK and Gibraltar but, say, with joint sovereignty with Spain or a crash-out-hard, hostile Brexit with the added punishment of a blockade of Gibraltar. That means closing the frontier between Gibraltar and Spain, refusing permission for flights over Spanish airspace to Gibraltar and European sanctions on financial and tax avoidance activities. Dont rule it out. Maybe not so dramatic a turn of events will take place by 2019, but some of the hard choices between the welfare of 64 million UK British and 30,000 UK Gibraltarians clash. We shouldnt pretend otherwise. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 10 December 2021 Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange PA UK news in pictures 9 December 2021 Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service PA UK news in pictures 8 December 2021 Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine PA UK news in pictures 7 December 2021 Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow PA UK news in pictures 6 December 2021 A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra Getty UK news in pictures 5 December 2021 People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother PA UK news in pictures 4 December 2021 People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square Reuters UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty UK news in pictures 1 December 2021 Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar PA UK news in pictures 30 November 2021 Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week PA UK news in pictures 29 November 2021 Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana Getty UK news in pictures 28 November 2021 Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow Manchester City/Getty UK news in pictures 27 November 2021 Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 An aerial picture shows a worker using a quad bike and trailer to transport freshly harvested trees at Pimms Christmas Tree farm in Matfield, southeast England AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 26 November 2021 A shopper browses Christmas trees for sale at Pines and Needles in Dulwich, London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 November 2021 A murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings fly over a field at dusk in Cumbria, close to the Scottish border PA UK news in pictures 3 December 2021 A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 24 November 2021 Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel. AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 23 November 2021 The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London PA UK news in pictures 22 November 2021 The scene in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset where police have launched a murder probe after two people were found dead Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 21 November 2021 London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a 'March with Midwives' in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services PA UK news in pictures 20 November 2021 Police officers monitor as climate change activists sit down and block traffic during a protest action in solidarity with activists from the Insulate Britain group who received prison terms for blocking roads, on Lambeth Bridge in central London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 19 November 2021 A giant installation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson made from recycled clothing goes on display at Manchester Central, as part of Manchester Art Fair, in a 'wake-up call for the Prime Minister to tackle textile waste' PA UK news in pictures 18 November 2021 The scene at a recycling centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire after a large blaze was brought under control. The fire broke out on Wednesday night the fire service has said and local residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut due to large amounts of smoke PA UK news in pictures 17 November 2021 The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2021 ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 15 November 2021 Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool Reuters UK news in pictures 14 November 2021 Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London PA UK news in pictures 13 November 2021 Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was caught in a dispute between two states PA UK news in pictures 12 November 2021 Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow. PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2021 Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 10 November 2021 Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series Squid Game protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 9 November 2021 A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 8 November 2021 Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2021 Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2021 Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2021 Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham PA UK news in pictures 4 November 2021 A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District PA UK news in pictures 3 November 2021 Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 2 November 2021 A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 1 November 2021 Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 31 October 2021 Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2021 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2021 Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow EPA UK news in pictures 28 October 2021 A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street PA UK news in pictures 27 October 2021 Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2021 Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 October 2021 Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2021 Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran Getty So if were serious about looking after Gibraltar then we should know there is a price that will need to be paid. We can make the very valid point that Spain indefensibly retains two pockets of rightly Moroccan territory in North Africa Ceuta and Melilla across the way from Gibraltar, the last European colonies in Africa. But this wont convince Spain to forget about the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, whence British Gibraltar arose. The UK will also need to be mindful of its other associated territories that, unlike Gibraltar, arent in the EU, but may be affected by Brexit. These include the crown dependencies of the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, plus the remaining possessions from Bermuda to the Falklands to the Pitcairn Islands. Most are too small or poor to be independent, they wish to stay British, and the UK has an historical obligation to protect their welfare. In the case of the Falklands that was rightly absolute. In other places at other times Britain didnt always behave so honourably, including the interests of Caribbean sugar and banana producers after Britain joined the Common Market in 1973. Lord Howard suggests May will seek to protect Gibraltar as Thatcher did the Falklands It is not always easy. On democratising Hong Kong, Chris Patten did what he could, but was always going to have to bow to the vast power of China. Other decolonisation efforts have ended in rebellion or partition, civil war and ethnic cleansing. Today Cyprus is a member of the EU but part-occupied by Turkey, closely linked to Greece and still with UK sovereign military bases, a complex product of a colonial past. Once, by the way, British ministers said that they could never grant independence to the island, as they do now about Gibraltar and Spains claims. There is also some irony in the prime minister of a former British crown colony, Malta, telling the British how the Brexit talks will proceed, in his capacity as host of the EU presidency. So whether youre pro or anti Brexit, an imperialist or a little Englander, left or right, youll need to take a view on what these remnants of the greatest empire the world has ever seen are worth to you. They shouldnt be forgotten. South Africa has reached a crisis point in its political history thats been looming on the horizon for more than a year. In the dark of night literally President Jacob Zuma demonstrated his ruthlessness by firing finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, amid a 20-person reshuffle of his government. The magnitude of what has happened shouldnt be underestimated. The Save South Africa campaign, echoing the sentiments of the countrys progressive-minded constitutionalists, described Gordhans dismissal as an outrage. There are two major concerns. The first is the impact on the economy, the second is a political and democratic one. Its not hyperbolic to suggest that what happens next in the coming hours and days will determine whether South Africas hard-won democracy will survive or whether it will join the club of post-colonial calamities that have scarred the continents past. The stakes couldnt be higher. Threat to the economy In the last few months South Africas economy had begun to show the very first signs of strengthening. Gordhan, in fact, had just embarked on an investor roadshow to further encourage much-needed investment when, on Monday, Zuma ordered him to return. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Zuma has been waging a cold war against his finance minister for over a year, causing uncertainty and undermining attempts to convince markets and rating agencies alike that South Africas government was doing all it could to shake the country out of the economic rut into which it has fallen since the global economic crisis almost ten years ago. Gordhan and his team of public servants at National Treasury stood between Zuma and his cronies most nefarious and venal plans such as a nuclear deal with Russia. As South Africas former Public Protector (ombudsman) described in her seminal report, State of Capture, the Gupta family and other rent-seeking opportunists have been exploiting Zuma and his familys weakness and taking control of important institutions and agencies of the state, such as the tax authority (SARS), the national prosecuting authority (NPA) and state energy utility, Eskom. Gordhan has heroically withstood the intimidation and held the line. The rand has already plunged on news of his removal. Market sentiment will collapse. And theres a high likelihood that perhaps as early as next week, rating agency Moodys will downgrade South Africa to junk status. This will, in turn, increase the cost of government borrowing and set in motion a sequence of economic events that will cause great harm to the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. Political and democratic concerns Gordhans removal is an act of democratic disregard and political as well as economic recklessness. While the two main opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters, both reacted by tabling motions of no confidence in the national assembly, the focus will now be on how the social democratic and left-leaning members of cabinet the constitutionalists will respond to last nights events. They will be under pressure to resign in solidarity with Gordhan, but they will also be anxious about vacating the space to the nationalist populists who now hold a big majority in government. But this is no longer about ideology. Its as several senior ANC insiders have described to me in recent days as being about the corrupt versus the non-corrupt. That there will be a fight back against Zumas reckless decision is beyond doubt. One of the fired ministers wrote to a friend late last night: we will get the bastard. But to get Zuma they will have to show the same ruthlessness and courage, and they will have to act decisively and fast. All eyes will be on deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, one of two contenders to succeed Zuma at the ANCs five-yearly national elective conference in December this year. When Zuma told the ANCs top six leadership of his decision to remove Gordhan earlier this week, Ramaphosa and Secretary General Gwede Mantashe objected. They rejected out of hand the evidence that Zuma put before them a self-evidently fake piece of intelligence that Zuma claimed showed that Gordhan was in London to persuade investment banks to help him topple Zuma. As Gordhan flew through the night on Monday, events intervened: ANC stalwart and liberation hero, Ahmed Kathrada, passed away. Zuma was compelled to press the pause button on his reshuffle plans. At Kathradas funeral on Wednesday, many of the ANCs top leadership gathered to hear former president Kgalema Motlanthe read out the letter from Kathrada that called for Zuma to resign. When Gordhan was acknowledged, the mourners rose as one in support: a powerful, as well as emotional moment. Zuma was conspicuous by his absence: it had been made clear to him by Kathrada family that he was not welcome. Is South Africas democracy under threat? The ANC has never been more painfully divided, to the point where its very future is threatened. It could split. It may not maintain its majority at the next national election in 2019. All bets are off. And, in the long run, this may not be a bad thing. As every hour has passed since Zuma won the ANCs presidency in December 2007, it has declined as a progressive, stabilising force for good amid the turbulent, violent precariousness and social incohesion of South Africas noisy democracy. Is that democracy now under threat? This is the biggest question now, which cannot be ignored. Is South Africa sleepwalking towards the door marked dictatorship? Repeatedly, the analyst community has underestimated Zuma. Repeatedly, hes fought back ruthlessly. He doesnt conform to the usual rules or the same political calculations. He cares only about his interests and those of his sponsors and of a band of comprador nationalists. Zuma plunged his knife into Gordhans back with ruthlessness but also cowardice: he didnt even have the decency to look his former comrade in the struggle, in the eye. Democratic leaders dont fire their finance ministers late at night, without even having the grace to contact the person being removed from office or without some kind of press conference. Close to midnight, the presidency published the list of 20 new ministers and deputy ministers, while Zuma slipped away into the dark and onto his presidential jet to Durban. There have been many other notorious nights of the long knives. Now Africas biggest economy has its own contribution to offer the annals of political history. Caused by a crisis in political leadership, Zumas ruthless display of power could prompt an economic crisis that could easily send South Africa into a Brazil-style downward spiral whose consequences are impossible to predict. This article first appeared in The Conversation. Gardai at the scene of the crash in Tallaght Picture credit; Damien Eagers / INM Garda examine Whitestown way road in Tallaght where a motorcycle was involved in a fatal accident. Picture credit; Damien Eagers / INM FOUR people have died on Irish roads in the past 24 hours following three fatal collisions, while another young man is fighting for his life after being struck by a car yesterday evening. Two young men were killed in a single-vehicle crash in Co Louth this morning, while a motorcyclist died in a crash at 7am in Dublin. Expand Close Scene: The fire service and gardai on the M6. Photo: Paddy Cummins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Scene: The fire service and gardai on the M6. Photo: Paddy Cummins Yesterday, one man died and another 11 people were injured following a horrific multi-vehicle crash in the midlands. A 24-year-old man is also in a serious condition after being struck by a car in Co Longford yesterday evening. The fatal single-vehicle crash in Louth happened on the R173 in Carlingford at around 12.30am this morning. Both men - understood to be in their 20s - were pronounced dead at the scene. Nobody else was injured in the incident. A garda spokesman said the incident has been referred to GSOC for further investigation. AA Roadwatch said the Carlingford and Omeath Road is closed until further notice and diversions are being set up. Gardai are appealing for anyone who witnessed the crash to contact Carlingford Garda Station on 042-9373102, the Garda Confidential Telephone Line on 1800 666 111 or any garda station. Fianna Fail councillor Conor Keelan said he offered his condolences to the families involved. Gardai are also appealing for information on the fatal crash involving a motorcyclist in Tallaght A man in his 40s was pronounced dead at the scene in Whitestown Way after the single vehicle crash which happened at around 7am. An investigation is also underway into the collision between a car and pedestrian in Co Longford yesterday. The incident happened on Mary Street in Drumlish at around 8.35pm. The injured 24-year-old man was removed to the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar with serious injuries. The stretch of road is closed to facilitate an examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators. Gardai are also carrying out investigations into the fatal collision on the M6 yesterday, which claimed the life of a man in his 60s and has left another in a serious condition in Dublin's Beaumont Hospital. The man who died is understood to be from Ashbourne, Co Meath. He was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife, who is also aged in her 60s, was injured and brought to the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar where she was in a stable condition last night. A further 10 people are being treated for injuries of various degrees after the five-car incident on the M6 motorway near Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has called on Theresa May to postpone another vote on her Brexit deal, warning it would be "absurd" to bring it back to the Commons without first securing change from Brussels. It was not possible that "anybody who believes in Brexit" could back the Prime Minister's deal in a so-called "meaningful vote 3" unless the proposed backstop arrangements for the Irish border are revised, he said. But Mrs May received a boost from former chancellor Lord Lamont, who urged fellow Brexiteers to focus on the "prize" of leaving the EU and back her deal. Downing Street was scrambling for support for the deal - particularly from the Democratic Unionist Party - in the hope of bringing it back before Parliament ahead of an EU summit on Thursday. But it is thought the Prime Minister could delay the crucial vote for another week unless she is confident of avoiding a third humiliating defeat on the package, which MPs rejected by 230 votes in January and 149 last week. She has warned that if her deal is not approved, the UK will have to seek a lengthy extension to negotiations, potentially losing Brexit altogether. But her hopes of rallying Conservative MPs behind her were dealt a blow by a letter to the Telegraph from 23 Leave-backing backbenchers arguing for a no-deal exit. "'No deal' will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed," wrote the Tory MPs, including former ministers Owen Paterson, Sir John Redwood and David Jones. "Our moral course is clear: it is not our fault that we are confronted by two unacceptable choices, but it will be our fault if we cast a positive vote in favour of either for fear of the other." Read More Mr Johnson said Mrs May's Agreement would leave the UK "in a position of almost unbearable weakness" for subsequent talks on trade, risking transforming the country into "a kind of economic colony of Brussels". The backstop arrangement - under which the UK remains in a customs union until both sides agree a trade deal - gives the EU "an indefinite means of blackmail", said the Brexit figurehead. "Unless we have some change - and at present, in the immortal phrase, nothing has changed - it is hard to ask anyone who believes in Brexit to change their mind," he said. "There is an EU summit this week. It is not too late to get real change to the backstop. It would be absurd to hold the vote before that has even been attempted." But Lord Lamont warned that if the Prime Minister's deal falls, Brexit may never happen. Writing in the Daily Mail, he said that "history will not understand if it is Conservative MPs who prevent us claiming our self-government". Negotiations with the DUP were expected to continue on Monday, although Downing Street said a formal meeting has not been scheduled. The 10 DUP MPs are viewed by Downing Street as pivotal, not just for the votes they provide but the influence of their stance on Conservative Eurosceptics. DUP MLA Jim Wells told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We still have a huge difficulty with the backstop, because we see it as a waiting room for constitutional change. Read More "We could find ourselves locked in there forever in effect, and once you get in you can never get out. We have to have a mechanism where we can escape the backstop." Mr Wells said a proposed "gentlemen's agreement" that any changes to Northern Ireland's relationship with the EU would be mirrored by the rest of the UK might prove "unenforceable". And he denied that the DUP was taking part in a financial "auction" for its support, insisting that "money is not being discussed on the table at the moment". Mr Wells estimated that as many as 30 Tory MPs will never vote for Mrs May's deal, meaning that a third defeat was "inevitable" with or without DUP support. So far the number of Tories publicly switching positions falls far short of the 75 MPs Mrs May needs to change sides. Bolton West MP Chris Green told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: "I want to vote against it because I don't believe when Parliament defeated it by the biggest margin in the history of Parliament that was because it was in any way a good deal, and the substance of the deal hasn't changed." But he added that a shift in the DUP's position would have a "big impact" and the implications of rejecting the deal for a third time weighed heavily on him "because it could lead to a general election, and we don't know how that will pan out". As part of the effort to put pressure on Tory hardliners and the DUP, Chancellor Philip Hammond and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox took to the airwaves on Sunday to make clear that the Prime Minister would not chance a third defeat on her deal. And Security Minister Ben Wallace, a close ally of Mr Johnson who chaired his abortive bid for the leadership in 2016, urged the former foreign secretary and other Tory Brexiteers to back Mrs May's deal. "I know Boris very well and I know he's passionate about leaving the European Union," Mr Wallace told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "If he is passionate about that, he will recognise that voting for this deal is the way to deliver Brexit and the way to deliver leaving the EU ... I strongly urge my colleagues to vote for it." Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was holding a series of meetings with other Westminster leaders including the SNP's Ian Blackford and Liberal Democrat Sir Vince Cable and influential backbenchers in an effort to find a consensus on a rival Brexit strategy. The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has warned that "an infrastructure of suspicion and division" could set back decades of progress between communities on both sides of the Border. In his message for St Patrick's Day to the people of Ireland at home and abroad, Archbishop Eamon Martin expressed concern over the impact of the ongoing political and economic uncertainty over Brexit. "I hope this weekend that the prayers and example of St Patrick will help our politicians, community leaders and all of us to treat each other with respect in these trying times," the Archbishop of Armagh said. He said Ireland's patron saint was a champion for dialogue for the peaceful resolution of problems. The Archdiocese of Armagh will be seriously affected by Brexit as its flock lives on both sides of the Border. Armagh is traditionally associated with St Patrick as the saint founded a church on the Hill of Armagh in 445AD. Armagh is the primary seat of both the Catholic Church in Ireland and the Church of Ireland, and both cathedrals in the town are named after Patrick. Dr Martin said he had been hearing families across the island of Ireland - including those who live and work along the Border and those who make their living from farming, business and haulage - expressing anxiety about what the future might hold. "People are speaking about relationships within these islands - north and south, east and west - becoming more strained and fragile," he said. Quoting from St Patrick's 'Confession', the Archbishop said: "If we are to find a way forward and face our many challenges, we need to recover that spirit of fraternity and 'strive to do bigger and better things'. As St Patrick himself prayed, may God's strength 'pilot us' in the coming days, months and years." Dr Martin recalled former SDLP leader and Nobel Peace laureate John Hume, "one of the great architects of our peace process". Philip Hammond has said he will review cash granted to Northern Ireland in the coming months, amid claims the UK government is trying to buy the support of DUP MPs for Theresa May's Brexit deal. The UK chancellor said that current discussions with the DUP were not about money but "political assurances", but highlighted funding for Northern Ireland would be looked at soon as part of a scheduled spending review. News that Mr Hammond is involved in the talks with the DUP, whose 10 MPs prop up the government's Commons majority, have led to speculation that a financial incentive might be involved. After the chancellor made his comments in an interview yesterday, his Labour opposite number accused him of offering a "bung" to the DUP and branded it "gutter politics". It comes as efforts continue to secure enough support in the House of Commons for the prime minister's Brexit deal in a vote currently set to take place tomorrow, though only if Mrs May believes she can win. Talks with the DUP had not concluded by yesterday evening, but there had been mounting speculation that the government would find more money for Northern Ireland as part of a deal. Speaking on BBC One's 'Andrew Marr Show', the chancellor said current discussions were not about money, but reassuring the DUP there will not be any divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK in any future relationship with the EU. But he then went on: "We are coming up to a spending review and we will have to look at all budgets including devolved block-grant budgets [money going to the four nations of the UK] in that spending review." Asked if there could be money in the review in return for voting for the deal, he added: "We haven't even started to look at it yet, but there will be a spending review. We've got an additional complexity in Northern Ireland as you know, the House of Commons voted a budget through for Northern Ireland last week. Northern Ireland is in very difficult circumstances [with parties there having so far failed to create a power-sharing executive]. "Because the civil service has not been able to take some quite difficult decisions that need taking. We hope that once we've got a Brexit deal we will be able to resume the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland and then of course we will need to look at the spending review in that context." When the DUP agreed to prop up Mrs May's administration in the Commons after the 2017 election, the party negotiated an extra 1bn (1.17bn) in spending for Northern Ireland over 2018 and 2019. Money in the agreement, and potentially the support of the party's 10 MPs for Mrs May, is set to end in June, creating the opportunity for its leader Arlene Foster to negotiate new terms, with the government's main ask likely to be safe passage of her Brexit deal. Up until the end of last week, talks with the DUP had been largely legal discussions with UK Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, but the involvement of Mr Hammond indicated there was a financial element to the meetings. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell hit out at Mr Hammond's comments yesterday, saying: "From his interview with Marr and his wriggling refusal on several occasions to deny the DUP is being offered a bung for voting for May's deal, it is blindingly obvious Hammond is offering a bribe to the DUP in the forthcoming spending review. Gutter politics." Mr Hammond said the vote expected tomorrow on Mrs May's deal would happen only if the prime minister thought she had enough support to pass it, echoing words from Trade Secretary Liam Fox. He said it was not now "physically possible" for the UK to leave the EU on March 29 as previously planned, because no deal has been ruled out by MPs, an approved deal is not in place and, even if MPs back one, a little more time is needed to pass necessary legislation. But in a warning to Brexiteers who are still thinking about opposing the deal tomorrow, he said: "It's absolutely vital that we get it through next week because otherwise this is the final chance to do this deal without having to have a long extension of the Article 50 period. I'm clear about that." Mr Hammond went on to dodge a question about whether he might ever say to the prime minister that it is time for her to resign. "The prime minister is absolutely focused on getting her deal through parliament. She's passionate about it because she passionately believes this deal is the best exit deal for Britain from the European Union," he said. "If she doesn't get it through then I'm sure she'll be equally committed to ensuring a process that allows parliament to find an alternative way forward." Theresa May's hopes of a breakthrough appear to be fading despite crunch talks with the DUP. Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster has no plans at this stage to travel to London where her Northern Irish party are continuing Brexit talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May, a DUP spokesman said today. May is trying to convince the pro-Brexit party's 10 members of parliament, who prop up her minority government, to vote for the withdrawal deal she has agreed with the European Union. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds is leading the process in London, the spokesman told Reuters. The UK government is expected to delay the third 'meaningful vote' and there are reports of a statement from UK parliament laterthis afternoon. If MPs do not agree a Brexit deal this week, it's reported that Theresa May expects to be offered a nine-month article 50 extension by the EU. Expand Close Tanaiste Simon Coveney said Theresa May needs space. Photo: Gareth Chaney, Collins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tanaiste Simon Coveney said Theresa May needs space. Photo: Gareth Chaney, Collins The fate of Brexit may not be decided until hours before the UK is scheduled to leave the European Union under a strategy being considered by the British prime minister. Senior Tory ministers have said Theresa May will not table a third vote on her divorce deal unless she is confident of winning it. Instead, Downing Street is understood to be discussing an alternative strategy of holding a third-time-lucky meaningful vote on the deal next week, cranking up the pressure on MPs to back the deal or accept the blame for a lengthy Brexit delay. If the Withdrawal Agreement is not passed by parliament by Wednesday, Mrs May will be forced to request an extension of up to two years from European leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also indicated his party will bring forward a no-confidence motion if Mrs May's deal falls again. Mrs May's chances of getting her deal through are pinned on winning the endorsement of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which has, to date, voted against it. The support of the DUP - which props up Mrs May's government in a confidence and supply deal - is seen as key to unlocking support in the Tory party for the deal among the European Research Group, which has rejected it. Crunch talks with the DUP continued over the weekend, but last night white smoke had yet to emerge. The party has been promised it will be "deeply involved" in negotiating the future trading relationship with Europe if it backs the deal. A guarantee that the UK will not allow a regulatory barrier to develop in the Irish Sea after Brexit has emerged among the key pledges in the discussions, according to the 'Sunday Telegraph', which also carried an opinion piece by Mrs May in which she conceded she had to do more to convince the DUP and others. Tanaiste Simon Coveney said the EU needs to allow Mrs May space to make a judgment call on whether or not she can get her deal across the line with a final vote. However, he expressed confidence that there would be clarity on the next steps in London by tomorrow evening. A longer delay would give the UK a chance to "essentially re-evaluate where they are and what direction they want to take to try to create consensus around a way forward on Brexit", he said. He declined to comment on the talks with the DUP, saying they were a matter for the British government, but he conceded "the DUP are part of the picture here". The DUP has said that "political statements and pledges are not enough", but that it wants to do a deal. The Irish backstop remains the crux of the current stalemate amid DUP fears that it will lead to a customs barrier in the Irish Sea if it is triggered. Meanwhile, while the threat of a crash-out has receded, the legal position remains that Britain is leaving on March 29 whether a deal is in place or not. The Government is to meet this week to sign off on a package of supports for Irish farmers and businesses that will be needed in the event of a no deal. No-deal legislation was signed into law by President Michael D Higgins yesterday. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the package will be worth hundreds of millions of euro. Early last week, the European Parliament and EU members states reached provisional agreement on new rules that, if formally approved, would guarantee high levels of protection for whistleblowers right across the EU. This is the culmination of considerable work by the European Commission since early 2017. The commission put forward two main reasons for this new legislation. Firstly, the public interest served by whistleblowers, with specific reference to the important part played by whistleblowers in recent high-profile matters such as 'Dieselgate' (Volkswagen), the Panama Papers and Cambridge Analytica. Secondly, the fact that whistleblower protection across the EU is uneven, with many countries protecting only very limited categories of disclosures or workers. Ireland, though, can already hold its head high in this regard. Our legislation, the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 (as amended), has been widely commended for its high level of whistleblower protection. Although an amendment in 2018 to protect the disclosure of trade secrets has reduced protection in certain situations, nevertheless many of the provisions of the proposed EU directive are already in place and/or do not require a mindset change, as will be required in other member states. The draft directive seeks to protect whistleblowers who reveal breaches of EU laws and thus will widen the scope of what is currently protected in Ireland. At present, a whistleblower in Ireland is protected if he/she makes a "protected disclosure", meaning a disclosure relating to certain stated grounds such as the commission of an offence, health and safety, misuse of public money and damage to the environment. The scope of the proposed directive goes much further and would include breaches relating to money laundering, corporate tax laws, food, product and transport safety, environmental protection, public procurement, data protection, consumer protection, nuclear safety and public health. Interestingly, it is reported that Ireland sought for tax issues to be excluded from this list, but this was strongly resisted by other member states, and ultimately tax has been retained as a ground for a protected disclosure. The commission's research estimates that the implementation of the directive could result in huge potential savings, including a potential saving of up to 9.6bn annually under the heading of public procurement alone across the EU. At the moment, Irish legislation only requires public bodies to have whistleblowing procedures. Although it is highly recommended that private sector companies do so also, it is not obligatory. The directive would change this and would require private sector entities to put in place such procedures if they have more than 50 employees, or an annual turnover or balance sheet of more than 10m, or if it is a private entity of any size in the area of financial services. A "tiered reporting system" is proposed: whistleblowers will be encouraged to report any breaches internally first. The test for protection is whether the whistleblower "has reasonable grounds to believe that the information reported was true" and the information falls within the scope of the directive, but this test will not be unfamiliar to Irish employers. Alternatively, whistleblowers may report through a nominated external channel in certain circumstances. Finally, a "public disclosure", such as to the media, is protected if certain tests are met. Again though, Ireland's legislation already provides for a not dissimilar "stepped disclosure" regime, so this concept will not be new to Irish employers. It remains to be seen whether whistleblowers can remain anonymous; the current Irish legislation allows for anonymity but with numerous exceptions. The directive is starker and simply states that whistleblowing procedures in a company must "ensure the confidentiality of the identity of the reporting person", but it does not provide for exceptions. It is doubtful that this is workable in practice. There is also protection for whistleblowers in the directive from "retaliation", including dismissal. Again, the Irish legislation already possesses such a concept and heavy penalties for employers who breach it, but importantly the directive states that the burden of proof should be reversed in such cases. Therefore, it would be for the business to prove that it was not acting in retaliation against the whistleblower, rather than the whistleblower having to prove his/her case. This would differ from the existing Irish whistleblowing legislation, but the concept would be well-known to Irish employers considering the Irish Unfair Dismissals Acts does the same thing in the context of employee dismissals generally. The directive does not set out penalties and enforcement mechanisms but leaves this to member states. Considering the heavy penalties in Ireland already (up to five years' remuneration for an employee dismissed for making a protected disclosure), it would be surprising if the Government changed existing penalties and protections radically. The European Parliament's first reading vote is expected on April 17. If ultimately approved, member states are usually given three years to implement into their national laws. While the directive will massively change whistleblowing protections in many member states, it will not be as ground-breaking in Ireland due to the strength and scope of our existing whistleblower protections. However, there will be additional requirements on many private sector employers, and it is worth employers starting their preparations sooner rather than later. Jeffrey Greene is a partner in the Employment & Benefits Group of William Fry Solicitors Anne OLeary, CEO of Vodafone Ireland high-fiving Max Gasparroni, Interim Technology Director,Vodafone Ireland while on the first Irish international holographic call carried out between Ireland and Vodafones Innovation Centre in Germany. Photo: Naoise Culhane The country's biggest mobile operator, Vodafone, is extending its 5G trial coverage in Dublin's Docklands. This follows the successful launch of the first 5G mobile site in Dublin last November. Vodafone will more than double the 5G footprint currently available as it prepares for increased demand from businesses looking to test 5G technology. The coverage extension allows for more businesses in the capital to trial 5G products prior to their launch in the general market place later this year. The new technology differs from 4G in its ability to connect devices more quickly, with lower levels of 'latency' and promises speeds up to 50 times higher. For the average user, the technology should end "buffering" when watching movies on a handheld device. Expand Close Didier Clavero, Vodafone Ireland technology chief / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Didier Clavero, Vodafone Ireland technology chief It would take connections to a new level, facilitating the adoption of new technologies. For example, using 5G, a self-driving car could respond to a signal instantly rather than waiting a fraction of a second. It is also expected to be crucial in linking millions of new sensors in everyday products and machinery as automation gathers pace. Irish operators are not expected to have 5G networks up and running for normal consumers before the end of this year. Elsewhere, Vodafone and Ericsson also recently partnered with NovaUCD, a hub for new entrepreneurs at UCD, to create a 5G accelerator programme. Launched in November, the combination of this partnership and the testbed provides a unique end-to-end 5G framework in Ireland. Vodafone will continue to work with existing partners and the industry in general to extend the opportunities for collaboration, the telecoms giant said. Separately, Vodafone has announced it has launched 4G Calling (VoLTE) to its customers. This will enable customers with compatible handsets on Vodafone's 4G network to get faster call set-up times and high definition voice quality. Didier Clavero, Vodafone Ireland chief technology officer, said: "Since entering the Irish market 15 years ago, Vodafone has been the single biggest investor in new technology in the Irish telecoms industry, with over 2bn invested to date in building and maintaining the network. "With over 98pc 4G population coverage across Ireland, we continually work hard to maintain our position as the leading voice and data mobile provider in the country." The race to make a 5G-ready device available to customers was kicked off by South Korean technology giant Samsung, which recently introduced the first mainstream 5G smartphone, the Galaxy S10 5G. Mobile World Congress organiser GSMA has forecast there will be 1.1 billion 5G connections globally by 2025. Banners of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are pictured in front of the German share price index, DAX board, at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany. Photo: REUTERS Deutsche Bank AG, Europe's once-dominant financial institution, threw in the towel on years of failed turnaround efforts and agreed to begin German government-backed merger talks with Commerzbank AG. Deutsche Bank's leaders are hardly putting their woes behind them: massive job cuts, political turbulence, a weakening European economy, US probes into its dealings with Donald Trump and a herculean integration - not to mention sceptical clients and investors - lie ahead if they reach a deal. "I have consistently stressed that consolidation in the German and European banking sector is an important topic for us," Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing said in a letter to employees. "We have to assess how we want to play a part in shaping it." The companies confirmed the move to deeper discussions in statements yesterday, capping months of speculation and behind-the-scenes talks with the German finance ministry. (Bloomberg) The "family firm" is a concept that, as far as major corporations are concerned, is pretty dated. Even in the 19th century there was so little faith in the durability of family management continuity they coined the slogan "clogs to clogs in three generations". But there is always an exception to prove the rule and our company today, the UK's WH Smith group, must surely be it. The company still operates in the same sort of business it originally started 230 years ago. In addition, it has been chaired continuously by a Smith family member for 180 of those years - with no "clogs" to be seen. A major retailer of newspapers, magazines and other bits and bobs, it has 1,200 outlets, employs 14,000 people and is valued by the stock exchange at 2.3bn (2.7bn). Over the years it has been involved in many activities including book publishing and greeting cards but these have been offloaded or mothballed to concentrate on high street retail and retail at train stations, motorway services and airports, known in the company as the travel business. The business can be considered as having two separate companies with two separate managements and separate strategies. Even in the era of the internet, Smith's high street business, though trading in a harsh environment, has achieved remarkable performances. The company has ruthlessly maximised profit rather than chase growth and pushed up margins by focusing on higher-margin products like stationery. A bonus is that it got lucky with the short leases on its high street real estate. This has given it greater flexibility to close unprofitable stores. Surprisingly last year the group was voted the worst retailer in the UK by 'Which' magazine, but shareholders who were at the receiving end of an estimated 1bn returned to them in the last decade weren't worried. Smith's has no need to embrace the internet as its customers' small impulse purchases do not lend themselves to digital platforms. The group's travel business was in the 19th century synonymous with railways around the UK until it had a row with the railway authorities and was unceremoniously dumped. Smith's set up shop outside the station. Today its travel business focuses on airport outlets and has delivered 10 consecutive years of earnings growth and now accounts for more than half the group's revenues and two-thirds of its profits. It has 400 stores in airports where they have captive customers with few alternatives; this results in high prices and margins. The travel business was boosted when last autumn it bought the largest US digital accessory retailer In-Motion for 155m (182m). This company has 114 outlets in 43 US airports and impressive sales and profit growth of 20pc per annum. It is also Smith's first significant acquisition since the late 1990s as it preferred returning cash to its investors. The deal was not cheap but it marks a significant step in Smith's international growth. Examination of Smith's financials show the company in a healthy state with a strong balance sheet, low borrowings, a cash generative business and cost control as a core part of its strategy. Its share price trades close to its yearly high at 21 (24.65) per share. For more than a decade it has been returning cash to its shareholders and shown an ability to cope with the intense pressures in its bricks and mortar business. Its discipline has enabled it to outperform its rivals and investors are pleased with the commitment to return cash. Its In-Motion purchase should boost revenues, profits and earnings per share. Negatives could be a slowdown in global growth given its importance to the travel business and Brexit could be a problem too. However, investors will continue to love the company for its shareholder generosity. Nothing in this section should be taken as a recommendation, either explicit or implicit to buy any of the shares mentioned. Kelsey Grammer celebrated the launch of his new legal drama by delivering announcements at a London Tube station. The Frasier actor dropped by Tottenham Court Road Station to surprise commuters by making routine safety announcements as well as plugging his new show Proven Innocent. The legal drama follows an underdog criminal defence firm led by Madeline Scott (Rachelle Lefevre) a fierce lawyer with a hunger for justice, who was once wrongfully convicted in a murder case. Expand Close Kelsey Grammer delivered special tannoy announcements to commuters at Tottenham Court Road Station (Universal TV) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kelsey Grammer delivered special tannoy announcements to commuters at Tottenham Court Road Station (Universal TV) Her bold tactics earn her a number of enemies, including Gore Bellows (Grammer), the prosecutor who initially put her away and still believes she is guilty. The series, which will air on Universal TV, also stars Russell Hornsby, Vincent Kartheiser and Riley Smith. Lee Raftery, NBC Universal Internationals managing director UK and emerging markets and chief marketing and content officer, said: Proven Innocent is an emotional legal drama with justice at the heart. Universal TV viewers will be instantly gripped by the strong characters played by Rachelle Lefevre, cast in the role of hero and victim, standing boldly up against a hard-as-nails attorney played by award-winning Kelsey Grammer. The subject matter is intriguing and will make exciting TV to watch. Proven Innocent, which is comprised of 13 one-hour episodes, starts on Universal TV on Monday night at 9pm. Billie Faiers enjoyed a five day honeymoon in the Maldives (Ian West/PA) Newlywed Billie Faiers has revealed plans to move house and try for a third baby. The former The Only Way Is Essex star married Greg Shepherd on March 5 in a beach ceremony in the Maldives. The pair already have two children, daughter Nelly, four, and son Arthur, two. But following a five-day honeymoon on the island of Medhufaru, Faiers said another child could be on the cards. Expand Close Billie Faiers with her husband Greg Shepherd in the Maldives (OK!/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Billie Faiers with her husband Greg Shepherd in the Maldives (OK!/PA) We are definitely going to start house hunting straight away, she told OK! magazine. As for baby number three, its not a priority at the moment but never say never. On having spent time away from their children during the honeymoon, the 29-year-old said: We obviously missed the kids so much but we had such a whirlwind of a week. It was nice to take some time for Greg and I to reflect on everything. Faiers described the trip as the best time ever, adding: We made memories to last a lifetime. Video of the Day We are privileged to have visited some amazing places over the years but nowhere quite compares. The full story is in this weeks OK! magazine, which is out today. Ruth Maguire (pictured) was one of 32 women on a hen party in Carlingford in Co Louth last night. Ruth's friends are making an appeal for information after the mum of three did not arrive back to the house that they were staying in. Picture Ciara Wilkinson Gardai in Carlingford, county Louth say that a search is continuing of the harbour as they continue to look for a missing mother of three. Ruth Maguire (30), from Newcastle, Co Down, was last seen close to midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning in the county Louth village. She was part of a group of 32 women on a hen. Searches are continuing on land and in the water for her. Expand Close Search resumes in Carlingford for Ruth Maguire who went missing after a hen party PIC: Carlingford Lough Facebook / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Search resumes in Carlingford for Ruth Maguire who went missing after a hen party PIC: Carlingford Lough Facebook A Garda spokesperson said: We cannot confirm that she went into the water but it looks the most likely route. It is understood that CCTV shows her walking towards there and she is not seen coming back. Gardai are keeping an open mind and say they are examining all options including the possibility that she took a lift. A bouncer said he overheard her talking about making her way home after the group began to leave a pub in Carlingford at about 11.30 on Saturday night. An Irish Coast Guard rescue helicopter, the Greenore Coast Guard, the Belfast Coastguard and Kilkeel Lifeboat joined in the search when it emerged that Ms Maguire posted a photograph on social media with Carlingford Lough close by. Her friend Katrina O'Hare said the group was on a hen party and was staying in a rented house in Carlingford. She said the group left Taaffe's bar in the village at around 11.30pm on Saturday night and was "all headed home to the house we are staying in", a walk of around five minutes. However, within minutes they realised that Ms Maguire was not with them and Ms O'Hare said "this is totally out of character" for her. Expand Close Search resumes in Carlingford for Ruth Maguire who went missing after a hen party. PIC: Carlingford Lough Facebook / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Search resumes in Carlingford for Ruth Maguire who went missing after a hen party. PIC: Carlingford Lough Facebook The group, the majority of whom are from Belfast, began searching for her straight away but could not find her. A doorman heard her say she might make her way home to Newcastle, but her partner and children had gone to Belfast for the night. Her partner drove to Newcastle from Belfast yesterday morning but she was not there. Last night, it emerged Ms Maguire took a photograph and posted it to Instagram at around midnight on Saturday. However, her phone appeared to be turned off yesterday. Her coat was found in the bar she was last in with her friends. Ms Maguire is described as being tall and slim with blonde hair. When last seen she was wearing a black t-shirt saying 'Member of Irish Bride drinking team' and black jeans. The hen party arrived in Carlingford on Saturday and was due to leave today. Ms O'Hare said the disappearance of her friend "is awful, just awful". She appealed to Ms Maguire to make contact with her friends straight away or for anyone who knows her whereabouts to contact gardai in Carlingford on 042-9373102. Friend Colette Delaney wrote on Facebook that Ms Maguire had no coat and it was freezing. She said she was worried sick. Please God help her be found safe, she added. The Garda Under Water unit has been requested and is expected later. Local Cllr Antoin Watters said, "the response from the community here offering to search or assist in whatever way they can, has been overwhelming. We all hope she is found safe and well. A simple urine test could save lives from prostate cancer, according to new research supported by the Irish Cancer Society. Cancer researchers at University College Dublin (UCD) have led the development of a new test which uses urine to pick up prostate cancer. Studies have so far shown the test to be 70pc more specific for prostate cancer compared with the blood test currently used by doctors. If the new 'epiCaPture' test is further validated it could help to more accurately identify which men do or do not need invasive tests. This means that many men could be spared harsh treatments that often have long-term side-effects. The test could also help to identify aggressive prostate cancer early, so that more patients can be potentially cured of their cancer. "This major new research highlights the vital work world-class cancer researchers are doing in UCD and across Ireland to identify new ways to improve the diagnosis of cancer. More work is needed before the potential benefits reach cancer patients. But it does show the potential we have to save more lives from this disease," said Dr Robert O'Connor, head of cancer research at the society. In Ireland, 3,500 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer annually. One in three of these cases will be aggressive cancers, and around 500 men die from the disease here every year. This research was part of an international collaboration led by Dr Antoinette Perry, assistant professor of cell biology and genetics at the UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science and the UCD Conway Institute, and her team, including PhD student Eve O'Reilly and Irish Cancer Society-funded researcher Alexandra Tuzova. "Prostate cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in Ireland so early detection is vital to catch the disease before it spreads. "Unfortunately, the tests we have to detect prostate cancer are not entirely accurate," Dr Perry said. She said their research, funded with the support of the Irish Cancer Society and others, is addressing this problem by developing new ways to catch aggressive, potentially lethal prostate cancer from a simple urine test. "Over the last four years our research team at University College Dublin has worked with doctors, nurses, patients and other scientists from around Ireland, the UK, USA and Canada to study urine from almost 500 men. "We showed that almost 90pc of men with aggressive prostate cancer have changes in their DNA that we could find in their urine. These changes were absent in healthy men and men with non-aggressive disease. "If we can replicate these findings, our research could contribute to a new, more accurate test to help catch aggressive prostate cancer and save lives from this disease." The epiCaPture technology developed by Dr Perry is at the advanced stages of a patent application. Funding for this research was supported through donations from the public to the charity. Details about the project were released in advance of Daffodil Day, the society's major annual fundraiser, which takes place this Friday. It will bring out volunteers in force all around the country. When Tom Hope (71), from Dunboyne, Co Meath, was diagnosed with prostate cancer nearly 10 years ago it came as "a total shock". The retired accountant had gone to his GP for a routine annual check in 2009, when he was aged 62. However, a blood test came back with readings that merited his referral to a urologist. An elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) reading was a cause of concern, and he underwent a biopsy to clarify what was behind this. Mr Hope said that after the results of the biopsy came back, he was told he had "low-grade" prostate cancer. It came as a "total shock as I had no symptoms or any difficulty with my urinary function", he said. He was given the option of surgery to remove the prostate, or active surveillance, which involved getting a blood test every six months to monitor his PSA and visiting his urologist every six months for examination. "I talked over the options with my wife Kitty and I decided to follow active surveillance as I did not wish to risk incontinence, unless it was absolutely necessary, and I could always opt for surgery at a later stage if I changed my mind. "I also explained my decision to my three adult children." Mr Hope remains in good health, and has volunteered as a driver for the Irish Cancer Society, bringing patients to hospital for chemotherapy. Speaking about the new research that could see a urine test being used to pick up cases of prostate cancer, he said it was "a big breakthrough". He would welcome a urine test which would be reliable and enable aggressive cancers to be picked up earlier. Warm welcome: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his partner Matt Barrett (far right) with the US Vice President Mike Pence and his sister Anne Pence Poynter. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he hopes he has inspired young LGBT people by bringing his partner to high-profile functions during his St Patrick's Day visit to the US. Cardiologist Matt Barrett accompanied Mr Varadkar to the shamrock ceremony in the White House, with First Lady Melania Trump posting pictures on social media of herself and President Donald Trump welcoming them there. But perhaps the highlight of the trip was the Irish couple's attendance at a breakfast hosted by Christian conservative Vice-President Mike Pence. The Taoiseach delivered a carefully crafted speech advocating for LGBT rights in the presence of Mr Pence, who has been criticised in the past for his views. In his speech, he said as leader of his country he was "judged by my political actions and not by my sexual orientation or my skin tone or my gender or religious beliefs". "And I don't believe my country is the only one in the world where this story is possible," he said. "It is found in every country where freedom and liberty are cherished. We are, after all, all God's children." The visit was hailed on social media by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, one of the most high-profile LGBT figures in the US. Mr Varadkar said he hoped his visit accompanied by his partner would inspire young people in the LGBT community and send a message to countries around the world that still restrict gay rights. He spoke of the warm welcome offered by Mr Pence and his family, and said: "Part of leadership is really speaking to people in a respectful way and setting an example. "I hope that any actions I do around equality for any LGBT members of society, and for women as well, gives encouragement to young gay people and young women to believe that anything in life is possible." He also said: "Certain individual rights and liberties are universal and they belong to each of us as human beings, regardless of where we live or what government we live under or what religion or culture we have, and I would like to see those values spread around the world." Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has insisted Ireland is "as prepared as any country" to counter an attack similar to the horrific New Zealand atrocities that saw 50 people killed. Mr Varadkar said that he expects a new threat assessment chief to be in place by the end of the year. The establishment of a new Strategic Threat Assessment Centre (STAC) led by a national security co-ordinator was one of the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland. The Commission was chaired by former US police chief Kathleen O'Toole and it published its report in September of last year. New Zealand is reeling as the country struggles to come to terms with the atrocity that saw a lone gunman open fire at two mosques in a terrifying slaughter which was broadcast live on social media. Asked about Ireland's ability to cope with an incident of the kind seen in Christchurch, Mr Varadkar said: "I think we are as prepared as any country can be. We have seen horrendous terrorist attacks occur in Britain, France, America and now in New Zealand. "You know, countries can only be so prepared for acts of appalling violence that are carried out by individuals or small groups. "But among the things we are doing in light of the recommendations from the O'Toole Commission is putting together a Strategic Threat Assessment Centre." Mr Varadkar said that this will be a body under the remit of his department and will co-ordinate the work of Garda intelligence, defence intelligence and the cyber security unit. He said he expects that the office will be set up and a co-ordinator appointed "certainly this year". The office was recommended based on the Commission's assessment that changes were needed to ensure that the intelligence capabilities of all of the various bodies involved in protecting the State's security were being drawn together appropriately. Online Meanwhile, in New Zealand and around the world, political focus has turned to the role of Facebook and other social media companies in regulating content after live footage of the horrifying attack was widely shared online. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack from its platform worldwide in the 24 hours after the shootings, 1.2 million of which were blocked at upload. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she would be raising the matter directly with Facebook. She confirmed that the company's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, had contacted her to express her condolences after the massacre. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton (left) of the PSNI, Nigel Ruddell (centre) of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, and Superintendent Mike Baird, District Commander for PSNI Mid-Ulster, at the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, in Northern Ireland where three young people have died at a party that was being hosted at the hotel on St Patrick's Day Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire CCTV will play a crucial role in the investigation into the deaths of three young teenagers following a suspected stampede at a St Patrick's Day disco last night. Three more people were hospitalised with serious injuries following the incident at the Greenvale Hotel on the Drum Road in Cookstown, Co Tyrone. Two fatalities were confirmed last night, and police this morning issued a statement saying a third teenager has now tragically passed away. The three teenagers who died were a 17-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy. "A major investigation is now underway, however preliminary information suggests a crush took place towards the front door," a PSNI spokesperson said. "Our investigation is at an early stage, and while the exact cause of the incident is still unknown, there are reports of a crush at the scene and initial enquiries indicate that a large group of young people were waiting to enter a disco. "We also have reports of some fighting after the incident commenced and at least one person has reported that they were assaulted." Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said from his understanding, the event was not an underage disco so a "full investigation will be carried out as to why the young people were there". Expand Close Police at the entrance of the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown Co. Tyrone in Northern Ireland Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police at the entrance of the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown Co. Tyrone in Northern Ireland Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Independent.ie has learned that the PSNI has footage that recorded the sequence of events and will help identify how the horror unfolded. It is believed a crowd of young people had gathered at the hotel to gain access to a disco to which the doors were due to open at 9.30pm, according to local SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone. But it seems that just before the doors were to open, at around 9.25pm there was a crush at the door and people began to fall, he said. Local sources say the three dead teenagers are from the Dungannon area. Emergency services were called to the hotel about 9.30pm. Five emergency crews, paramedics and doctors were dispatched to the scene. A multi-agency response was launched involving the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS). Earlier today Mr McGlone spoke to the media at the entrance to the hotel, which remained sealed off as the investigation into the tragedy continued. The reaction here last night and in the early hours of this morning is one of shock. People really are at a low ebb this morning. Its a huge loss in the community, he said. Youngsters going out for a disco on St Patrick's night. Everybody, their families, all thinking they are safe and well, and then the news turns differently. Out and about this morning speaking to people their hearts feel for the families of the youngsters who have died here, he added. What went wrong is the subject of a police investigation at the moment, and its best to leave that in the hands of those who are tasked with that to establish. As the police outlined this morning they have some CCTV footage. Anyone who witnessed what happened here last night should please come forward and give that information to the police so that a proper and full investigation can be pursued, Mr McGlone explained. Ive already spoken to the local health trust, the chief executive and one of the directors this morning, and I've liaised with the GAA and the police here to make sure that any counselling g that can be made available is made available for those involved with the incident. But I'm sure there may well be staff and indeed some of the emergency services who will require that support. The health trust have what they call a hub meeting tomorrow morning to decide how best to take that forward, he added. Police are appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident to get in contact. They urged parents to talk to their children and encourage them to come forward to describe what happened. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton also warned for people to avoid posting videos or photos of the incident online. "Please share them with the PSNI," he said. Sinn Feins Michelle ONeill also spoke at the scene this morning. Obviously there's a deep sense of shock in the community here, a deep sense of loss, and our first thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who have lost their children last night, she said. Three young people have lost their lives so tragically and I can't even fathom as a parent how those families are feeling this morning, so I suppose today it's all about the families, and it's all about making sure the supports are there for the young people that were here, she added. Were speaking to the education authority and to other support services to make sure that there are supports on the ground, and for places for young people to go and talk to someone about their feelings and what they witnessed last night, said Ms ONeill. Weve just come from a meeting with the PSNI and there is a major investigation underway and I would take this opportunity to encourage all parents and all young people who were here last night to come forward to try to piece together what happened here in such tragic circumstances, to try and allow for a full investigation and for the police to have all the facts, she explained. Emma Heatherington, whose two sons, aged 17 and 18, had been at the event, said she "felt sick" when she saw the police appeal. "My two boys were there so I rang them, shaking, and thankfully got them both," she said. "They were on their way home at that stage. "They say there was a huge crowd waiting to get into the venue and then a lot of commotion up near the front of the queue, then they said the emergency services arrived and they were all asked to leave. "They came home very, very shaken with rumours that some people had died." It is understood that casualties had to be resuscitated with defibrillators at the hotel after suffering crush injuries. The NIAS said in a statement: "The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service received a number of calls from 21.30 on Sunday March 17 following reports of a number of people having sustained serious injuries at an incident in the Drum Road area of Cookstown. "NIAS despatched two rapid response paramedics, two doctors and five emergency crews to the scene. "Three patients have been taken by ambulance to Antrim Area Hospital for treatment for various injuries and another to Craigavon Area Hospital. "The incident, from a NIAS perspective, is now closed." The Drum Road in Cookstown was closed off in the wake of the incident to facilitate the emergency response. Chief Inspector Graham Dodds said: "The St Patrick's event is now over, I would appeal to parents to contact their children, collect them immediately." Local councillor Trevor Wilson said he had been phoned from the scene by a witness. "There was a St Patrick's night event in the hotel and it was full of young people," he said. "There seems to have been a stampede, and a number of people have been badly injured. I know that the police are treating it as a major incident, and all the emergency services are on the scene . It's terrible news," the UUP councillor said. DUP leader Arlene Foster was among those responding to last night's tragedy. In a social media post, she said her thoughts and prayers were with everyone affected by the incident. Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O'Neill tweeted: "Heartbreaking news coming from Cookstown tonight. A parents worst nightmare. My thoughts and prayers are with the families." Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley said: "I am deeply sorry to hear that three young people tragically lost their lives at a hotel in Cookstown. They were joining others in what should have been an evening for celebration. "My thoughts and prayers are with their families and friends at this extremely difficult time. "I have spoken this morning to ACC Mark Hamilton, of the PSNI, who is leading the investigation alongside the Health and Safety Executive, and I asked to be kept updated. "I want to thank the police, ambulance and fire services for all that they did last night in responding to this incident." With additional reporting from PA Up to two million people attended more than 150 St Patrick's Day parades, big and small, as Ireland basked in spring sunshine. Forecasters had predicted showers and cold winds but parade fans were not deterred and their loyalty was rewarded with blue skies. From Ireland's earliest parade - held in Ballydavid, Co Kerry, at one minute past midnight, to the only event where a rescued horse was the star of the show in Kinsale, Co Cork - the crowds were out in force. Cork again boasted the largest parade outside Dublin where former Olympian and world champion race walker Rob Heffernan took the lead as Grand Marshal. "It's a huge honour - I'm absolutely thrilled," the athlete said. An estimated 100,000 people attended the Cork parade and festival, an event further boosted by the official debut of the city's newly refurbished St Patrick's Bridge. The parade featured US marching bands, including the Mandan Braves from North Dakota, the Arvada West High School Band from Colorado, the Knights of Columbus Pipe Band from New York, and the Columbus East High School Band from Indiana. In Limerick city, many attending the parade were surprised by the absence of the All-Ireland hurling champions from the festivities. Last August, the hurlers paraded through the city's streets in an open-top bus after returning the Liam MacCarthy Cup to the county following a 45-year hiatus. Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Its all monkey business in the steets of Cork city. Photo: Clare Keogh A bugs life: Spraoi theatre group in Waterford city. Photo: Patrick Browne Sarah OGorman as Alice and Emma OGorman as the Cheshire Cat in Slane. Photo: David Conachy Lumen street theatre "One Giant Leap", taking part in Limericks Saint Patrick's day parade. Photo: Sean Curtin True Media. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Its all monkey business in the steets of Cork city. Photo: Clare Keogh In what many in GAA circles have seen as a snub by the local authority, the team was not invited to participate in the event. A council source said the team hadn't applied to take part. "They could have filled in an application form like everybody else, but they didn't do that. "Everyone involved in the parade, bar the grand marshal, had to fill out an application form," they added. A Limerick GAA spokesman said they did not wish to comment. However, sources in GAA circles said they were annoyed the All-Ireland champions were not asked to join the parade given their historic victory at Croke Park. As the senior players were not engaged in competition, they would have been free to appear in the city parade. However, the Liam MacCarthy Cup did make an appearance at the Kilmallock parade in Co Limerick along with young local players. An estimated 40,000 people turned out to see the Limerick city parade and watch it online for the first time. The event was led by Grand Marshal Dr Norah Patten, who is bidding to be the first Irish astronaut. Waterford's parade again honoured the fact that the entire St Patrick's Day celebration was the brainchild of local man Luke Wadding. He came up with the idea in the 17th century that the saint should be honoured with a special Church holiday in Ireland. Local couple Des (84) and Mona (83) Monahan served as the Waterford parade Grand Marshals. The honour was bestowed in recognition of how their remarkable love story - which saw Des learn how to apply Mona's make-up as she was losing her sight - went viral worldwide and garnered them TV appearances across Ireland, the UK and US. However, the popular tourist town of Kinsale threatened to steal Cork's thunder thanks to another viral sensation - Paddy the Horse. Paddy was rescued by Kinsale RNLI just minutes before he seemed certain to drown on February 17 and footage of his rescue made headlines worldwide. He was being washed down by his owner Paul Crowley in the Bandon River when his hoof became wedged in a submerged oyster bed. With the tide rising fast, Paddy faced certain drowning. However, RNLI volunteers Jonathan Connor and Michael O'Sullivan defied the cold and conditions to enter the water and successfully free the horse. "We asked Paddy straight up did he want to take part in the local parade - yay or neigh," Jonathan joked. "He didn't neigh so we took it as a yes." The first parade yesterday was held in Ballydavid in west Kerry at precisely one minute past midnight as it stole a march on Dingle, which kicked off its parade at 6am with a pre-dawn fife and drum show. Leading out the parade was the Dingle Pipe and Drum Band. Glounthaune featured Ireland's shortest St Patrick's Day parade while Fermoy boasted Irish rugby hero Mike Ross as the Grand Marshal. It was a proud homecoming for the rugby star as he attended St Colman's College and started his career with Fermoy RFC. In Killarney, an estimated 10,000 people lined the streets of the town for the colourful parade which, as is traditional, boasted a very strong American participation and this year featured a circus-theme with 'The Greatest Show'. There were lots of red noses and much clowning around - not to mention giant balloons and a high-octane performance from The Scorchers cheerleading club. Killarney's strong links with Germany through the Liebherr factory, which stretch back more than half a century, were reflected in the three German marching groups. Tralee's parade boasted not one but two Grand Marshals - Ryan Kelliher (8) and Rose of Tralee boss Anthony O'Gara. Ryan was specially honoured for his brave battle against muscular dystrophy. In Tipperary, the Clonmel parade featured the unveiling of a special plaque to commemorate the four Premier County participants in the first Dail 100 years ago. Meanwhile in Galway, more than 30,000 people celebrated the St Patrick's Day festival with the city set to act next year as European Capital of Culture. The City of Tribes also launched a world record attempt for the largest crowd singing the 'Fields of Athenry' at one of the liveliest parades in the country. In 2016, Galway production company KamilFilms brought together 15,000 people on the streets to film the world's biggest performance of 'Galway Girl' with Sharon Shannon and Mundy. That video has notched up five million hits since it was first released. The new record bid got under way yesterday with the call out for people around the world to record themselves, family and friends - and anyone who knows the words to 'The Fields of Athenry' on St Patrick's Day. Film director Kamil Krolak, from the company, said: "We want the footage posted on any social media outlet with the hashtag #MyFieldsOfAthenry by March 20, where it will be edited to form the first truly global video of 'The Fields of Athenry'." In Bray, Co Wicklow, 1,500 participants joined the parade which featured a host of multicultural communities. The town will continue its celebrations with events over the coming days, including a showcase of classic cars from Bray Vintage Car Club today. When Paul Forde fell out of bed at three in the morning, knocking over furniture and waking his sleeping parents, he had no idea that it was a red flag for cancer. Recently graduated from NUI Galway, the 22-year-old had just landed his first job as a structural engineer and was living in the family home in Loughrea. Paul was fast asleep when he tumbled, toppling the locker beside him, on September 12, 2007. Woken by the thump, his parents hurried in to see what had happened, and found their son lying on the floor. "They lifted me up and put me back into bed. They told me later that I'd spoken to them, but I don't remember," recalls Paul. The next morning he rose as usual, had his shower and was about to leave for work when his mother, still concerned about his fall, said he should go to see the doctor. Paul replied that he'd no memory of the fall, and was anxious to get to work. "I just said that I had a busy day ahead. I wanted to get to work," he says. However, his mother was insistent, so he eventually agreed and went with her to see the family GP. This, as it later emerged, was the first step in a long and difficult journey back to full health, one which was to last for several years. The doctor's response on hearing their story was to send Paul straight to hospital. "I had an MRI scan and as soon as they saw the result, they knew there was something wrong. I was admitted to hospital immediately," says Paul. He was later transferred to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin for a craniotomy, an operation which involves the removal of part of the skull in order to take out the tumour, on October 20. Doctors explained that Paul had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. A lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system and there are two types: Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The difference depends on the appearance of the lymphoma cells under the microscope. Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are the most common, affecting both men and women - and it's estimated that more than 800 people are diagnosed with it in Ireland each year. "They removed as much of the tumour as they could, and a biopsy was carried out. It transpired that the tumour was malignant," recalls Paul now. The young man returned to Galway to see his consultant and begin a lengthy course of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. The treatments lasted through November 2007 and into the spring of 2008, after which tests showed the lymphoma had disappeared. "I had check-ups every three months for about a year, and then I got the all clear." He returned to work in April 2008, and later went back to college to earn a PhD in engineering. However, about 18 months later, in November 2009, Paul started to experience blinding headaches. "They worsened over the next three or four days," he says. Concerned, he returned to hospital for another MRI scan. Then came the bad news - test results revealed the lymphoma was back. "At that point I was 23 or 24. I'd already gone through this and I'd hoped I was done with it. I was shocked to find that it had come back." Paul was admitted to hospital, but, because of its location in his brain, doctors were unable to operate. "It was decided that the best course of treatment was a stem cell transplant," Paul says. Stem cell transplants are used predominantly for conditions such as lymphomas, leukaemia and multiple myeloma; they are rarely used for other types of cancer apart from germ cell tumours, explains Dr Eibhlin Conneally, a consultant haematologist with an interest in stem cell transplantation, acute leukaemia and myeloproliferative disorders at St James's Hospital, Dublin. Founded in 1984, the Stem Cell Transplantation (SCT) service at St James's has performed more than 1,000 stem cell and bone marrow transplants. The service oversees transplants in about 160 patients each year, and is the third largest SCT unit in Britain and Ireland. Depending on their diagnosis, Dr Conneally adds, patients are considered for a transplant on an individual basis, following a referral from their oncologist. Stem cell transplants are a type of infusion, similar to a blood infusion, explains Professor Seamus O'Reilly, a consultant oncologist at Cork University Hospital. "Patients are referred for this treatment after their initial treatment has not worked," he explains. Sources of stem cells include bone marrow and peripheral blood - that is, blood circulating throughout the body. In stem cell transplantation, healthy stem cells are either transplanted from one individual to another or the individual's own stem cells are used. In Paul's case, the stem cells he received were sourced from donor blood. Although the technology is well-established - it has been in place for more than two decades - Professor O'Reilly says the service is only available in certain Irish hospitals, because the medical, nursing and laboratory expertise required is so highly specialised. As well as St James's, University Hospital Galway and St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, provide the service. "This type of treatment has to be limited to certain specialist centres," says Professor O'Reilly, adding that it is the "established standard of care for these lymphomas." Paul was kept in hospital and given very high doses of chemotherapy over a period of nine weeks. "I received an infusion of stem cells over a four-day period," he recalls, adding that he was later monitored for a number of weeks before being discharged in early 2010. "After regular check-ups, which went on for around a year, I was given the all-clear, but I was warned that if I felt anything was wrong, I was to go back to hospital again." The outcome of this kind of treatment much depends on the patient, and on their previous treatment, says Dr Conneally, who observes, however, that it can be "curative". However, because it requires high doses of chemotherapy, the patient's immune system becomes depressed. "There is a mortality associated with the procedure and the lymphoma can still come back," Professor O'Reilly says. He emphasises the treatment is not carried out unless the patient is deemed otherwise strong and healthy. "There are strict health checks and medical vetting required before patients are treated in this way. Some patients would not be able to receive stem cell therapy because of other medical conditions." Now aged 33 and working as a financial analyst in Dublin, Paul, who has always enjoyed a physically active lifestyle, has had no problems since the transplant. "I'm optimistic it won't recur. It was a very challenging time for my family and I really appreciated their support over all of that time," he says. Emma Manley, expecting her first child, photographed with her mother, Sheila Manley. Sheila, right, wears: tiered shirt-dress, 299; leather floral neckpiece, 169, both Manley, both Kilkenny. Other jewellery, Sheilas own Emma, far right, wears: Dress with leather collar, 299, Manley, Kilkenny. Jewellery, Emmas own Caroline and Nicola Kilkenny (no relation to the Kilkenny Group) photographed with their mother, Delia Kilkenny. Caroline, far left, wears: Ruffle blouse, 156; trousers, 242, both Caroline Kilkenny, both Kilkenny. Boots, 150, Dune. Jewellery, Carolines own Johanna, left, wears: Blouse, 89.95, Oui; pleated skirt, 184.95, fee G; disc necklace, 59, Jo Harpur. All other jewellery; shoes, all Johanna's own. Kerrie Ann, centre, wears: Stripe jumper, 79.95, Oui; cropped trousers, 199, Aideen Bodkin; gold-plated K initial necklace, 59, Jo Harpur, all Kilkenny.Shoes, 39.99, Mango. Earrings; anklet, both Kerrie Ann's own Aoife wears: Jumper, 89.95, InWear; sequin skirt, 160, Caroline Kilkenny; gold-plated star necklace, 48; gold-plated crescent-moon necklace, 40, both Jo Harpur, all Kilkenny. Trainers, 22.99, H&M. Earrings; ring, both Aoife's own As I sat down to write my fashion for you today - a long-planned celebration of Irish mothers - I got word that a young friend of mine's too-young mother had passed away. Last night, the husband of another friend, a mother of three, messaged me to tell me his wife is seriously ill. The black plague of our times, cancer, has a lot to answer for. Too many mothers taken too soon. Which makes it all the more important to write today in celebration of mothers, and to give you the heads-up to get planning for Mother's Day, which is in two weeks. We don't have all the time in the world. Go hug your mum, now! On our pages today are Irish mums and their daughters, working women all. Women for whom either being a mother, or their mother's support in their lives, is central to who they became. All are from the Irish fashion and lifestyle industries, creating in our country and selling nationwide in the wholly Irish-owned Kilkenny shops. Inspired by their mother's strengths, some of our creatives got their first business break in the Kilkenny shops. Others' businesses grew from the relationship with Kilkenny. Indeed, historically, working mothers from the Kelleher family have always been heavily involved in Kilkenny. Doing the shoot was an emotional day for everyone as love, real love, was in the air. As was true appreciation for the values and skills their mothers passed on to them; the support their mums gave them in their darkest hours as they struggled with business or family life. Above all, these brilliant, talented creative women appreciated what their mothers taught them about work and love. This Mother's Day, Kilkenny is rolling out the red carpet, highlighting the perfect gifts, be it fashion, jewellery, books, candles or beauty; as well as offering free gift-wrapping. Kilkenny wants it to be a feel-good day for mothers. If you live in Dublin or are coming up for the day, I recommend its Nassau Street cafe for a tasty nosh-up. So, now, you don't even have to think too hard about what to do for your mum. Just pick! I was blessed to have an enlightened young mother whom, at 20 years old, when people asked her, "How is the baby?" would respond, "She's a joy, as always". Relatives and family would look at her askance, and think her mad to describe any baby as a joy, when every woman in Ireland knew what a chore motherhood was. My young mother didn't need new-age texts to tell her that joy was the word. Thus, I had the greatest gift a child could have in life, a mother who recognised the bounty she had. It took me a lot longer to agree with her! Thank you, Mum. Photography by Sarah Doyle Styling by Kieran Kilgallon Fashion edited by Constance Harris Like the proverbial curate's egg, it's been a week of good and bad. This year's Cheltenham was a far from vintage experience for my wallet, and that was the bright side of the coin. Dominating everything over the past seven days was that relentless grey cloud called Brexit - a dogged and persistent downer it seems we'll never be rid of. It has even captured the minds of young people - an age group whose springtime thoughts should really be on those more pleasant matters of the heart. One such 20-something, taking time out from playing a decent rendition of Jacques Brel's 'The Port of Amsterdam' for the Paddy's Day tourists, said Brexit was "like a porter fart in church, it lingers forever". Another gent, with a west Cork boho air about him, said he was halfway through a book of poetry dedicated to the UK's exit because "it will be seen as one of our generation's defining events". Add to those sentiments the gales of Storm Gareth and you can picture why it wasn't a week that impelled one to engage in cartwheels of joy. That was until I discovered the potential of space, and the role Ireland could play in the impending colonising of that interstellar final frontier. We may be contemplating the unhappy prospect of rancid butter mountains and massive mushroom meltdowns due to the toxic tariffs of our nearest neighbour, but turning our eyes heavenward could be just the economic boost our battered island needs right now. "The technology needed to effectively exploit the resources space offers is becoming more advanced, more accessible and more compact, and in so doing is approaching a sweet spot whereby investment is fast becoming a realistic and affordable opportunity for countries such as Ireland," explained Dr Niall Smith, head of research at Cork Institute of Technology and Blackrock Castle Observatory. The fact the space industry is in the midst of a revolution is good news for our prospects in a market worth 1.2tn by 2040. Even breadcrumbs from that table are surely worth a whole heap of mushrooms and butter. Our lack of experience in the sector is actually to our advantage, it seems. "Space is increasingly reliant on players who have no heritage in this industry, because these are the players with the greatest potential to disrupt the market with new products and services that can be scaled." Dr Smith believes our world-leading workforce is perfectly placed to compete in this new market with a minimal of up-skilling. Pressing challenges in the emerging areas of data security and satellite communications are already well within our grasp, as is the dilemma of rural wifi: "The delivery of rural broadband is a prime example of how satellites can overcome current infra-structural inefficiencies and improve existing services into regions where the technology will serve a humanitarian function," he said. Ireland's emerging generation of interstellar entrepreneurs may be small fry in a global club where billionaire pioneers like Elon Musk's SpaceX hold sway, but our proven abilities in the fields of big data, artificial intelligence and agri-tech ensure we've got plenty of smarts to compete in a market whose future is nothing less than sky high. As a small nation perched on the edge of a continent packed with major economic players, Ireland is no stranger to contests where the odds are stacked against us. So, in a month when Brexit has forced us into a downcast and despairing demeanour, perhaps the time is right to contemplate the endless possibilities available in that vast universe over our heads. And if we need a suitable slogan for this new frontier, why not borrow that beauty of Oscar Wilde's: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Many Irish people love the idea of a second Brexit referendum which would ideally reverse that result of June 23, 2016, and magic all our economic woes away. And now the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is talking more solidly about the idea - but there are a number of serious impediments to such a vote happening, and the result of any such rerun would be very uncertain. Yet another crazy week of Brexit melodrama beckons, 11 days and counting, from that Brexit deadline of March 29. Theresa May's fate is increasingly coming to resemble that of the fabled King Sisyphus in Greek mythology. For his sins of greed and treachery, Sisyphus was condemned forever to roll a huge boulder up a hill. But every time he neared the summit, that rock would roll back down to the bottom. Thus the UK prime minister is expected to bid for third-time lucky, perhaps putting her unloved EU-UK divorce deal before parliament as early as tomorrow, if it looks like she might be able to reverse two recent heavy defeats. Two British government ministers yesterday warned that the vote will not be rerun at all unless it looks like it could finally be won. All eyes are on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 MPs prop up Mrs May's minority government. If the DUP can be swayed, the theory goes, then a large number of Brexiteer Conservatives could be similarly won over. If Mrs May could somehow swing such a miracle, reversing a defeat by 202 votes on January 15, and a loss by 149 votes last Tuesday, then she would fly into Brussels on Thursday for another EU leaders' summit. If her deal was approved, she would merely seek a technical delay to the March 29 deadline, possibly until late May. If, as is more likely, her deal is still unratified, then this week's EU leaders' summit becomes far more complex. We're still probably talking about an extension - but the debate will be on whether it should be short or long. And so far opinion is divided. Last Friday, European Council President Donald Tusk suggested a longer extension, rolling everything into talks about the future EU-UK relationship after Brexit kicks in. It's an idea which might find favour in Ireland and among some other member states. But France and other elements within the EU Commission are very sceptical about the idea of a long extension. In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron has made it clear he will be challenging the UK to explain why there should be any extension at all. If it is for more of the same pointless disputation we have seen over the past two years, then it were better to have a crash-out Brexit sooner rather than later, the French president infers. Other senior figures in Brussels reasonably argue that the only semblance of UK movement we have seen up to now has come on the back of an imminent deadline of March 29. Take away that deadline and we could well be back to sclerosis. It's hard to discern the mood across all 27 capitals, but all will soon be revealed because any extension beyond March 29 requires unanimous approval. Last week the Dutch foreign minister said he would take "a benevolent view" of what Mrs May was seeking. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said there could only be a short extension. German Chancellor Angela Merkel avoided committing to a short or long extension. There was even a mischievous suggestion that arch-Brexiteers in Ukip might use their links with far-right elements in the Italian government to put the kibosh on any extension, allowing a crash-out Brexit to happen. But even by their standards, that seems a bit of a stretch. What has to be pondered here is the fate of the European Parliament elections due to be run in the last week in May. Many EU leaders insist they must take place in the UK, something which would appear a nonsense if the UK is really leaving. Some EU leaders warn that the European Parliament will not be correctly constituted without UK MEPs. That, in turn, would risk the validity of all EU decisions being called into question. Others, including the European Parliament's own lawyers, believe this obstacle can be got around. But it is a very important issue. Meanwhile, back in Britain the prospect of another EU referendum has again, as we have noted, raised its head. The Labour leader has written to MPs trying to end the parliamentary deadlock. It has now emerged that Labour is ready to throw its support behind a bid to hold a referendum on Mrs May's deal later this week. Mr Corbyn told Sky News yesterday the party will probably back an amendment by two Labour backbenchers which would allow Mrs May's deal through parliament in return for putting it to a public vote. But Mr Corbyn would not say how he would vote in any referendum, saying it would "depend" on the deal on offer. The move could play to Mrs May's efforts to scare the Brexiteers in her party into backing her deal or risk a long delay in which Brexit could be lost altogether in the future. It is clear we are still some moves away from a rerun of the Brexit referendum. But just suppose for a moment we did get promptly to that point. How would it fare? Well, the 'Guardian' news service published an opinion poll on Saturday which showed just how divisive the idea of a second vote would be. It showed that exactly the same number of people, 43pc, both favoured or disapproved of the idea of another Brexit referendum. But the poll did also show a convincing 46pc to 36pc in favour of the UK staying in the European Union. A large number of people, 43pc, were against the idea of holding European Parliament elections in the UK in May. But interestingly, despite all the parliamentary chaos over Brexit, the Conservatives, on 38pc, are ahead of Labour, on 34pc. And Mrs May is 11 points ahead of Mr Corbyn in approval ratings. None of those findings suggest a cut and dried way forward out of this Brexit morass. And we face another defining week when things could wind up just about anywhere. The prospect of an early election, or the abrupt departure of Mrs May, cannot be ruled out. The one hope all Irish people will cling to is that a no-deal Brexit in 11 days' time is most unlikely. It is true that we in Ireland successfully reran and reversed the result of two EU referendums, in 2002 and 2009. But the circumstances were rather different and there has been no residual division in Irish society about it. What is very clear is another referendum is most unlikely to resolve the divisions in English society, especially over the country's relationship with the EU. A second referendum, even if did back Remain by a large margin, would lead to calls of "best of three" and the Leavers would immediately go back to campaigning. A soft Brexit would be a better outcome. Leo Varadkar's latest intervention on the local property tax will be welcomed by anxious homeowners - but he could do more to put their minds at ease. The Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader said the review of the controversial tax is done and reiterated plans to ensure the "vast majority" of people pay tax at the same levels. Only a short time ago he told a Fine Gael event that keeping the rates essentially as they are for people was "simple". The next day he said it may not actually be that simple. The much-anticipated review was due to be completed last August but Mr Varadkar has yet to give a date for its publication, other than to say it will have to be "well before" the re-evaluations are due in November. Fianna Fail's local election anxiety means they want to see the review. The party would like to know what it is up against as the parties battle for control on councils nationwide in May's elections. Fine Gael has made no secret of efforts to topple Fianna Fail as the largest party at local level. The elections - which will run the same day as the European elections - are the first electoral test for Mr Varadkar since he became leader of the party. A property tax freeze - and a potential promise that councillors will have more say in rates from now on - would be a nice boon for Fine Gael candidates as they knock on doors. Homeowners - especially in Dublin - will be reassured by the noises coming from Government Buildings, but they deserve to know the shape of the proposals. And they deserve a decision to be made as soon as possible - election timing notwithstanding. Throughout the Western world, there has been a dramatic growth in cohabitation between couples prior to marriage since the 1980s. This was driven, in all probability, by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s. The idea behind cohabitation, or trial marriages as they were then called, seemed intuitively good. These couplings would assist boyfriends and girlfriends in knowing how well they got on together in a marriage-like but informal arrangement as a precursor to marriage. Successful cohabitation followed by marriage should, according to the theory, result in more successful marriages and a reduction in divorce. Over time, cohabiting relationships became normalised and proved for some a substitute for marriage. The slip of paper confirming the legality of marriage was psychologically shredded in favour of a progressive, less institutionalised way of arranging personal lives. Understandably, these couples had children, like their married counterparts. The intuition of the time now seems misguided, as study after study shows marriages where the couple previously lived together are more likely to break down compared with those where pre-marital cohabitation did not happen; a shrinking number nowadays. But a second group exists also - those who have foregone marriage completely but have children with their cohabiting partner. A new study throws light on this group and examines whether these relationships are as stable as marital ones. 'The Global Family and Gender Survey (2018)' examined the quality of relationships and family life among cohabiting and married couples with children. It examined this question in 11 countries including Ireland. This is the first international study of marriage and cohabitation to include Ireland, thus allowing cross- national comparisons. In each country, 2,500 people who were either cohabiting or married, and had children less than 18 years of age, were interviewed. All were asked if they had "serious doubts" about their relationship in the previous year. For Ireland, 18pc of married couples with children have had such doubts, compared with 34pc of cohabiting couples. This is a ratio of almost two-to-one. In the UK, it was 22pc and 39pc respectively. Among all but one of the countries studied, the pattern of higher levels of doubt about the long-term prospects for their relationship among those who were cohabiting, compared to those who were married, was replicated. The second question was about the importance of their relationship to them, and again the patterns of responses were similar. In Ireland, 58pc of cohabitees said their relationship was the most important thing, as against 72pc of married people. In the US, it was 56pc and 75pc. The pattern for each of the questions holds after socioeconomic status and educational level are controlled, meaning differences in economic status, for example, does not explain the instability of cohabitation. In the 2016 Census, Ireland saw a huge jump in the number of people cohabiting. In 1996, there were 31,000, in 2016 there were 152,000. Almost 100,000 children were born into these relationships. While the study discussed here does not present data on how many children were affected by the potential instability in these relationships, others have attempted to quantify this. The 'Fragile Families Study (2015)', from the US, found only one-in-three children born into cohabiting relationships continue living in the two-parent unit, while three-in-four children born to married parents do so. Other data from the 'World Family Map Study', at Georgetown University, report similar levels of cohabitation, marriage and patterns of family breakdown. These figures, if extrapolated to the Irish data, are worrying and suggest large numbers of children every year will experience the collapse of their parents' relationship, particularly if they are not married. Why might cohabiting couples be more vulnerable to splitting up than those that are married? One possibility is that couples who live together have drifted into this as a simple next step after dating for a few months but with no thoughts of permanence at some future point. When problems arise they find extricating themselves just too difficult. Having the wherewithal to change from 'being an item' to being on one's own again, to moving to new accommodation, to even returning to the parental home, may be just too difficult and so the couple drift along in an unsatisfactory relationship. Some researchers describe "sliding, not deciding" into a permanent-type set-up with no formal commitments. To date, discussion about the nature of family life and about which family form is the most stable for children has been out of bounds. Fear of offending those parents in non-traditional units, who are striving to do their best, has halted informed debate about this. Based on the data from a number of studies, all family forms are not the same. This should be acknowledged if we, as a mature society, wish to serve our future generations in the best manner possible. Young couples should also be aware that contrary to fashionable opinion, the wedding certificate is not just a symbol of patriarchal oppression but a document that of itself has power to protect our children. Patricia Casey is consultant psychiatrist in the Mater Hospital, Dublin and Professor Emeritus UCD It is a time of year when the doors of the great and powerful across the world are at least half-open to Ireland and the Irish. It makes perfect sense to push in those doors, enter and tell our stories, and sell our wares. St Patrick's Day celebrations around the world allow many people of Irish extraction, or with kindly feelings towards Ireland and the Irish people, to focus on links with this country. This is true of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other places. Across mainland Europe, Irish exiles renew social contacts with our fellow EU members, inviting them to share in our celebrations, as we use our innate capacity to make friends. Our national feast is an opportunity to shelve our worries and woes, such as the bugbear that is Brexit, and simply enjoy and celebrate in an inclusive way. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar set an example in the US, successfully negotiating a very public visit with the sometimes erratic and unpredictable President Donald Trump. Mr Varadkar was polite and measured as he made his point of view heard. It now appears Mr Trump will visit this country, possibly in June, and he must be welcomed with all dignity as the democratically elected leader of a great nation with strong links to Ireland. Anything less would be a travesty and an insult to our American friends. There will very probably be demonstrations against certain things about Mr Trump's politics which are disliked. But let such protests be measured and dignified, avoiding personal commentary. Let us also recall that presidents come and go, but friendship between two peoples endures and can enhance all our lives. This year's Irish global mission around St Patrick's Day took on a special significance because of Brexit. Ireland's unique exposure to the economic and political fallout from the UK's split with the EU is a complex story which must be patiently and constantly explained to friends who will listen. Across distances, in a busy and noisy world, it is easy to be misunderstood. Any notion that this country is somehow being mean to our closest neighbour and very significant trading partner must be addressed and dispelled. So far we can say that our political leaders and hard-working diplomats have done well in efforts to allow Ireland to stand tall and proud across the globe. It is worth taking a small break from our everyday worries and acknowledging and savouring that fact. No other country of our size gets such access and exposure on its national feast day and it is important to avail of all opportunities. That being said, it is now time to get back to work. With just 11 days to go to Brexit, there will be more important debates and votes in the London parliament. This will lead on to an important EU Council summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. Here, EU leaders will focus on whether or not to extend the Brexit deadline and by how much time. Finally, by early next week, we should know a deal more about how these things will play out. Amy Schumer's husband has Asperger's Syndrome. The 37-year-old comic realised not long after she started dating Chris Fischer - who she married in February 2018 following a whirlwind three-month romance - that his "brain was a little different" and explained it's because he has the condition, which is a form of developmental disorder autism and can cause difficulties with communication and social interaction. In her upcoming Netflix special 'Amy Schumer: Growing' she told a crowd in Chicago: "I knew from the beginning that my husband's brain was a little different than mine. I have to start this over because I really want to get this right because I love him very much. "My husband was diagnosed with what used to be called Asperger's. He has autism spectrum disorder. He's on the spectrum. And there were some signs early on." The 'I Feel Pretty' star - who is expecting her first child with the chef - went on to admit she has shared a lot of "'Huh' moments" with her husband, starting from when she fell over on one of their first dates. She continued: "Nine out of 10 people would go, 'Oh my god, are you OK?!' Maybe more like 10 out of 10 people...Instead, my husband went-- He kind of froze and became a lighthouse, opening and closing his mouth. "I remember lying on the ground looking up at him and I wasn't mad, I just thought, 'Huh'. Lotta 'Huh' moments, you know?" But the 'Trainwreck' actress is unfazed by his condition and admitted one of the reasons why she fell in love with him was because "he keeps it so real" and always tells the truth. She said: "Once he was diagnosed, it dawned on me how funny it was, because all of the characteristics that make it clear that he's on the spectrum are all of the reasons that I fell madly in love with him. "That's the truth. He says whatever is on his mind. He keeps it so real. He doesn't care about social norms or what you expect him to say or do." A woman mourns next to coffins during the funeral of crash victims in Addis Ababa. Photo: Reuters/Tiksa Negeri Preliminary data retrieved from the flight recorder of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed shows "a clear similarity" with an earlier disaster in Indonesia, government officials have revealed. Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said the government intends to release detailed findings within one month. "The black box has been found in a good condition that enabled us to extract almost all the data inside," she said last night. Officials say 157 people from 35 different countries - including Micheal Ryan from Ireland - were killed when the Nairobi-bound plane crashed shortly after take-off. The US and many other countries then grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 as it had also been used in the Lion Air crash in October in Indonesia. Suspicions emerged that faulty sensors and software may have contributed to the two crashes in less than six months. The US Federal Aviation Administration already has said satellite-based tracking data showed that the movements of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 were similar to those of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed off Indonesia in October, killing 189 people. The planes in both crashes flew with erratic altitude changes that could indicate the pilots struggled to control the aircraft. Shortly after their take-offs, both crews tried to return to the airports but crashed. Earlier yesterday, thousands in the capital of Addis Ababa mourned the country's victims in the crash, accompanying 17 empty caskets draped in the national flag through the streets of the capital. Some victims' relatives fainted and fell to the ground. The service came one day after officials began delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is expected to take a long time. Family members confirmed they were given a 1kg sack of scorched earth taken from the crash site. Many relatives already have gathered at the rural, dusty crash site outside Ethiopia's capital. "The soil came as it became impossible to identify bodies and hand over remains to family members," one family member said. "We will not rest until we are given the real body or body parts of our loved ones." Forensic DNA work has begun on identifying the remains but it may take six months to identify the victims. However, authorities say they will issue death certificates within two weeks. Interpol and Blake Emergency Services, hired by Ethiopian Airlines, will work with Ethiopian police and health officials to identify the bodies, In Paris, investigators started studying the cockpit voice recorder of the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet on Saturday. The French air accident investigation agency BEA also said work resumed on the flight's data recorders. The recorders, also known as black boxes, were sent to France because the BEA has extensive expertise in analysing such devices. Dead whale found with 40kg of plastic in stomach (DBone Collector Museum) A dead whale with 40 kilograms of plastic in its stomach has been discovered off the coast of the Philippines. Marine biologist Darrell Blatchley was called to recover the 4.7m (15.4ft) Cuviers beaked whale, which was trapped in the shores of the Mabini Compostela Valley. By the time Mr Blatchley arrived, the whale had died, showing signs of starvation and dehydration, and had been vomiting blood. A necropsy revealed 40 kilograms of plastic waste in the whales stomach, made up of shopping bags, banana plantation bags and 16 rice sacks. It had died of starvation and dehydration, tests confirmed. Images posted on Facebook show the whales corpse being towed to shore, then sheets of plastic being lifted out of its stomach. Mr Blatchley and other marine biologists at the the DBone Museum in Davao City have recovered 61 whales and dolphins in the last 10 years, but said that their latest discovery was the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. The museum called on the Philippines government to take action against people dumping plastic into the sea. Mr Blatchley told the Press Association: Upon reaching the stomach I knew this whale had died due to plastic ingestion. I was not prepared for the amount of plastic. Forty kilos roughly of rice sacks, grocery bags, banana plantation bags and general plastic bags. Sixteen rice sacks total. It was so bad the plastic was beginning calcification. The Philippine people are a proud people, sadly its not in being clean or taking care of the environment. The Philippines needs to change from the children up or nothing will be left. Photo: The Canadian Press Sporting a bright yellow turban, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh entered the House of Commons for the first time as an MP Monday to loud cheers. Singh is the first minority leader in the Commons in Canadian history. The leader of the New Democrats had been left out of the political theatre of question period and he wasn't able to have an office on Parliament Hill. Singh won his new Burnaby South seat in a February byelection sparked by the departure of former NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, who ran for mayor of Vancouver. New Democrats are hoping Singh's presence in the House of Commons will help the party turn the page on a difficult period, marked by challenges with morale and fundraising. Singh's prolonged lack of a seat contributed to internal battles within his own caucus following his leadership win in October 2017. An English council has apologised after flying the Welsh flag on St Patricks Day. Social media users expressed their puzzlement on Sunday when the distinctive red dragon of Wales was spotted fluttering above Sheffields Town Hall. The city council then added to the confusion by issuing an initial statement which included congratulations to the Welsh rugby union team following its Grand Slam in the Six Nations. On Monday, a Sheffield City Council spokeswoman said: We are very sorry that the Welsh flag was raised in error yesterday rather than the St Patricks flag. We are also sorry for any offence caused by our earlier statement. Members of New Zealands Muslim community and officials watch as graves are prepared at a Muslim cemetery (Mark Baker/AP) Abdul Aziz, who is being hailed for distracting and confronting the mosque shooter, speaks in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 17, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su A man pays his respects at a memorial site for victims of the mosque shootings at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 17, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva Solidarity: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman during a visit to the Kilbirnie Mosque in Wellington. Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images An 18-year-old man was denied bail at a court in New Zealand on Monday after he was charged with distributing a live stream of the mass shooting at a mosque last week, the New Zealand Herald reported. The man was arrested on Friday, but police have since said they do not believe he was directly involved in the attacks at two mosques in Christchurch which happened on the same day, in which 50 worshippers were killed. He faces charges of sharing the gunman's live-stream and posting a photograph of one of the mosques attacked with the message "target acquired" along with other chat messages "inciting extreme violence", the Herald reported. His request for bail was refused but the judge granted him name suppression. He is due back in court next month. Expand Close Brenton Tarrant (face obscured) making the 'white power' symbol in Christchurch court. Photo: Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald/Pool via Reuters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brenton Tarrant (face obscured) making the 'white power' symbol in Christchurch court. Photo: Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald/Pool via Reuters Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder for the mosque shootings. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. The teen was initially charged with publishing material insulting other races and ethnicities but that charge was withdrawn and replaced by the two new charges on Monday. Meanwhile, New Zealand's Cabinet has backed changes to gun laws in the country just three days after 50 people were killed in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch. Police have also confirmed they believe "absolutely" that only one perpetrator was responsible for the attacks during Friday prayers. Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, has been charged with murder and appeared at court on Saturday. He was remanded until April 5. On Monday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the Cabinet had made "in principle" decisions about gun law reform, with further details to be announced by next Monday. "This ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our communities safer," she said. Ms Ardern said the Cabinet was "absolutely unified", and said the shootings had "exposed a range of weaknesses" in New Zealand's gun laws. She added that there would be an inquiry into the events leading up to the attacks. It also emerged that the alleged perpetrator bought four weapons online from a gun store in Christchurch. David Tipple, owner of Gun City, said the alleged gunman bought four "A category" firearms and ammunition through a "police-verified online mail order process". Read More Mr Tipple told reporters: "I returned from Europe on Saturday and immediately searched all our purchase records and found the alleged gunman's purchases. I provided the police with full details of the sales. "We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder." He added: "The MSSA (military-style semi-automatic) reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City." Mr Tipple said he and his staff were "devastated" by the shootings, adding: "We can't comprehend how such despicable actions could be carried out on those in prayer in their place of worship." Meanwhile, New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police were confident a lone attacker was responsible for the shootings. "We believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this," he said. "That doesn't mean there weren't possibly people in support and that is to form an important part of our investigation." On Monday morning, two homes in New South Wales, Australia, were raided by police in connection with the mosque attacks. Officers from the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team executed a search warrant at a home in the town of Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, 330 miles north of Sydney, at 8.30am (9.30pm Sunday GMT). A short time later, a second warrant was executed at a home further north in Lawrence, near MacLean. New South Wales Police said: "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation." "The family of the Australian man arrested in Christchurch continues to assist police with their inquiries." Thirty-one people remain in Christchurch Hospital after the mass shootings, nine of them in intensive care. A four-year-old girl is in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland, while her father is in the same hospital in a serious but stable condition. Tarrant appeared to have live-streamed the terror attack and outlined his anti-immigrant motives in a manifesto posted online. On Sunday, Ms Ardern said her office was one of more than 30 recipients of an emailed copy of the manifesto just nine minutes before guns were fired. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack worldwide in the 24 hours after the shootings, 1.2 million of which were blocked at upload. Of those killed in the massacre, 42 died at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue in central Christchurch, seven were killed at the suburban Linwood Masjid Mosque, and one person died at Christchurch Hospital. In the video live-streamed by Tarrant, a man inside a mosque appears to say: "Welcome brother", as a gunman approaches. A number of improvised explosive devices found on a vehicle after the shootings were defused by police. British security sources said there were no apparent UK links to the attack. Solidarity: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a woman during a visit to the Kilbirnie Mosque in Wellington. Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images The terrorist behind a massacre at two mosques in New Zealand was acting alone, police said yesterday, as it emerged the right-wing killer's manifesto had been sent to the prime minister minutes before the tragedy unfolded. Brenton Tarrant sent a rambling, racist manifesto to Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand leader, in which he denied being linked to any organisations and said he was acting on his own. The document, which praised US President Donald Trump and Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik, was emailed to Ms Ardern's office just 30 minutes before the attack began. However, a White House official said it was unfair to cast Tarrant as a supporter of Mr Trump based on one reference in the manifesto. Mick Mulvaney, the president's acting chief of staff, told 'Fox News Sunday' that Tarrant was a "disturbed individual" and an "evil person". Mr Mulvaney said any attempt to tie him to any American politician "probably ignores some of the deeper difficulties that this sort of activity exposes". In Christchurch, a man whose wife was killed in the attack as she rushed back to a mosque to rescue him said he harbours no hatred toward the gunman, insisting forgiveness was the best path forward. "I would say to him I love him as a person," said Farid Ahmad, whose wife Husna Ahmad (44) was killed at the Al Noor mosque - the first of two targeted by the Australian gunman. "I could not accept what he did. What he did was a wrong thing," he added. Asked whether he forgave the white supremacist suspect, he said: "Of course. The best thing is forgiveness, generosity, loving and caring, positivity." Expand Close Tears: Women embrace near Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Photo: Reuters/Jorge Silva / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tears: Women embrace near Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Photo: Reuters/Jorge Silva Ms Ardern has vowed to overhaul the gun-control laws in response to the tragedy. "I can tell you one thing right now: our gun laws will change," the prime minister said in response to the attack, and went on to suggest a ban on semi-automatic rifles. Tarrant (28) had also broadcast the massacre live on social media, using a head-mounted camera, which sparked an outcry across the world as platforms such as Facebook were slow to take down the grisly footage which showed worshippers being sprayed with bullets, with some trying to crawl away as Tarrant moved through the Al Noor mosque. Traditional media outlets were also criticised for broadcasting lengthy segments of the 17-minute video clip. Yesterday, Ms Ardern said the bodies of those who died were beginning to be returned to their families that evening. It was expected that all would be returned by Wednesday, she said. In Dunedin, where Tarrant stayed and planned the massacre, hundreds attended a vigil outside Al Huda mosque yesterday afternoon. A local woman, Jackie Lawton (34), said she was "still just overwhelmed and so sad" thinking about the lives lost. The last time she had attended a vigil was in December, to honour the British backpacker Grace Millane. "When Grace Millane was murdered, the whole country mourned deeply, for weeks. We felt like we knew her, even though she'd been here for such a short time," she said. "This is 50 people, though - each one as loved and needed as Grace. This is Grace times 50 and I don't know if we can even process that." Flowers, candles and messages of solidarity had been placed in front of the mosque and a group sang hymns before performing a haka. Vigils have been held the length of the country over the weekend. James Tawhiti (41), from Christchurch, had driven down to Dunedin on Saturday "because it was too tense and sad and awful". "We've all already been through the earthquakes, that screwed a lot of people up," he said. "But this is somehow worse because it's a man-made tragedy. Natural disasters aren't evil like this and it just feels like we've lost something, maybe our innocence." Three students from Cashmere High School, in Christchurch, were at the Al Noor mosque for Friday prayers when the attacker burst in. Two of the students are presumed dead and the third is in hospital with gunshot wounds. The father of Sayyad Milne (14) told the 'New Zealand Herald' that his son was last seen lying bleeding on the floor of the mosque. "I've lost my little boy. He's just turned 14," he said. "I remember him as my baby who I nearly lost when he was born. Such a struggle he's had throughout all his life. "He's been unfairly treated but he's risen above that and he's very brave. A brave little soldier. It's so hard... to see him just gunned down by someone who didn't care about anyone or anything," Mr Milne said. "I know where he is. I know he's at peace." Outside the school yesterday, students came in a trickle to lean bouquets of flowers up against a construction barricade, evidence of the continuing rebuilding programme after Christchurch's 2011 earthquakes. School principal Mark Wilson said trauma specialists would be on hand when classes resumed at the diverse school of 2,000 pupils. ( Daily Telegraph, London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021] The airline confirmed officers in Tenerife had been called to meet the plane as it landed from Glasgow Prestwick. Photo: Reuters/Ints Kalnins Two men were arrested after a fight broke out on a Ryanair flight from the UK, leaving blood spattered across the cabin. Dramatic footage posted to social media showed two men brawling as a female flight attendant attempted to step in and passengers shouted at them to stop. The airline confirmed officers in Tenerife had been called to meet the plane as it landed from Glasgow Prestwick. A statement from Ryanair said: "After two passengers became disruptive in-flight... police removed and detained two individuals." Ben Wardrop, who filmed the incident, said it stemmed from a discussion which happened while the flight was still under way. He said: "It all started over a woman not wearing her shoes on the flight going to the toilet, and a very drunk man pulled her up about it, saying that someone would stand on her toes, then the woman's boyfriend stepped in and tried to defuse the situation. "Once the plane landed and more alcohol was consumed the man and the woman's boyfriend started arguing, both being very drunk they started to fight, and the man in the video with lots of blood was trying to get the man to calm down and he got hit on the nose." Anger: A yellow vest protester throws an EU flag into a burning shop on the Champs-Elysees in Paris at the weekend. Photo: Getty Images France's prime minister will present plans today to crack down on rioters after a new flare-up of violence linked to the yellow vest protest movement. Rioters ransacked stores and restaurants while lighting fires along Paris's Champs Elysees avenue as they clashed with police. Cutting short a weekend ski trip, President Emmanuel Macron returned to Paris for a crisis meeting with ministers at which he ordered decisions to be taken rapidly "so this doesn't happen again". Prime Minister Edouard Philippe's office said the latest violence showed current security arrangements were "insufficient". Cleaners swept up broken glass, while shop owners boarded up smashed windows yesterday after the worst unrest in central Paris since violence peaked before Christmas in a weekly series of protests. Vandals left hardly a storefront or cafe unscathed on Saturday, breaking windows and looting luxury stores as they clashed with riot police. Rioters also set fire to an upmarket handbag store and badly damaged the famous brasserie Fouquet's. Two newstands were burnt to their metallic frames and in a nearby street a bank branch was set on fire, badly damaging the building and apartments above it. Police estimated that 10,000 people joined the latest yellow vest protest in Paris and Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said a hard-core of about 1,500 was intent on causing trouble. Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (Martijn van der Zande via AP) Police officer with a service dog is seen after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw This image made available on Monday March 18, 2019 from the Twitter page of Police Utrecht shows an image of 37 year old Gokman Tanis who police are looking for in connection with a shooting incident on a tram. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. (Police Utrecht via AP) The suspect in the deadly tram shooting in Utrecht which left three people dead has been detained, Dutch police have said. At the end of a news conference on Monday evening, police chief Rob van Bree told reporters: "I just heard that the suspect we were hunting has been arrested." Five people were also injured in the incident and authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the highest level. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old Turkish-born man they identified as Gokmen Tanis and said he was "associated with the incident". Expand Close The site of a shooting is pictured in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The site of a shooting is pictured in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said three people were killed and police put the number of wounded at five. "We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more," Mr van Zanen said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that "a terror motive is not excluded" and that the attack was met throughout the country with "a mix of disbelief and disgust". "If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger that fanaticism and violence," he added. Expand Close Police secure the site of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Police secure the site of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw The shooting took place at a busy junction in a residential area. Police erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Anti-terror officers gathered in front of a block of flats close to the scene. A dog wearing a vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one person might have fled by car and he did not rule out the possibility that more than one assailant was involved. Authorities later reduced the threat level in Utrecht back to four out of five following the arrest, back in line with the rest of the Netherlands. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the make-up of Parliament's upper house. File photo dated 05/03/19 of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex File photo dated 05/03/19 of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex The Duke of Sussex has been made godfather to Zara Tindall's youngest daughter Lena as he attended her christening with the Duchess of Sussex. Harry and Meghan, who are just weeks away from the arrival of their first child, joined the royals at the baptism of nine-month-old Lena in Gloucestershire. The Queen, who did not attend Prince Louis's christening last July because it came ahead of a busy week of high-profile events, was among the guests at St Nicholas Church in Cherington at the weekend. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were not there, and neither was the Duke of Edinburgh, who is spending much of his retirement at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, the Daily Mail reported. Heavily pregnant Meghan, whose first child is due at the end of next month, wore a navy beret and a vintage 1950s double-breasted silk brown Dior coat for the private occasion. Lena's proud parents, equestrian champion Zara and former England rugby star Mike Tindall, were joined by Zara's parents the Princess Royal and Captain Mark Phillips, who divorced in 1992. Expand Close Zara Tindall during St Patrick's Thursday of the 2019 Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Zara Tindall during St Patrick's Thursday of the 2019 Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse The youngest member of the Tindall family - a sister to five-year-old Mia - was christened Lena Elizabeth, with her second name a tribute to her great-grandmother the Queen. Meghan has carried out her final scheduled public engagement before the birth of her baby, but is still working behind the scenes privately, holding meetings with the charities she supports. Photo: The Canadian Press Alberta Premier Rachel Notley makes her way through the crowd during a rally in Edmonton on Sunday, March 17, 2019. The staffer at the centre of a spreading scandal over Alberta's United Conservative leadership race says party leader Jason Kenney's team did not direct and prop up a bogus candidate to attack Kenney's main rival. In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, Matt Wolf says that when he worked on Kenney's campaign, he shared policy and research ideas with the campaign of Jeff Callaway but Callaway was his own boss. "To be clear, this was not a 'puppet'-type operation," Wolf wrote in an email to the UCP caucus Sunday morning. "Mr. Callaway made his own decisions for his own reasons. And while communicating with the Callaway campaign was hardly my preoccupation during the leadership (race), I did, at times push things like research materials to Mr. Callaway's team." Wolf also said he is not aware of anyone on Kenney's team illicitly funding Callaway's campaign. Such funding would violate Alberta's election finance laws. Alberta's elections commissioner has already fined one UCP member for making such an illegal contribution to the Callaway campaign, and the CBC has reported that the RCMP has now taken over the funding aspect of the investigation. "Our leadership campaign did not in any way funnel donations to the Callaway camp an act that would clearly be in violation of the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act," wrote Wolf, who is currently Kenney's deputy chief of staff for the UCP caucus. "I am very confident that even a suggestion of doing so would firmly be rejected by our campaign's leadership team at the time, and rightly so." Wolf could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday. He wrote the letter just hours after CBC published a story and supporting documents late Saturday night detailing communications between the two campaigns. In those documents, later obtained by The Canadian Press, Wolf is shown in emails and other exchanges giving Callaway's organizers talking points, speech and policy advice on attacking Kenney's main rival in the race, Brian Jean. One piece of correspondence discussed when Callaway should drop out of the race something he eventually did three weeks before voting day on Oct. 28, 2017, throwing his support to Kenney. Callaway was one of three rivals for the UCP leadership. The party was created after Kenney's Progressive Conservatives and Brian Jean's Wildrose party voted to merge. Jean was seen as Kenney's main rival in the race. Kenney defeated Jean and candidate Doug Schweitzer handily, with 61 per cent of the vote. Jean garnered 32 per cent. Callaway, who had worked with Jean in the Wildrose party, repeatedly attacked Jean during the campaign in speeches, events and media scrums, questioning his policy ideas and financial management of the Wildrose. Callaway could not be reached for comment. The UCP did not make Kenney available Sunday, but the party's executive director, Janice Harrington released a statement. It read: "Communication between leadership campaigns is perfectly normal in a preferential ballot election and was within the rules of the 2017 UCP leadership election." Indonesian police and soldiers search for residents who need assistance at a flooded neighbourhood in Sentani (Tumbur Gultom/AP) The number of people killed after torrential downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides in Indonesia has climbed to 79, officials have said. The disaster-prone country was also hit by an earthquake on Sunday, triggering a landslip that hit a popular waterfall on the tourist island of Lombok, killing at least three people and damaging hundreds of homes. The worst-hit area from the flooding was Sentani sub-district, where tons of mud, rocks and trees from a landslip on a mountain early on Sunday rolled down to a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. Expand Close This aerial photo shows the area affected by flash floods in Sentani, Papua province (Barce Rumkabu/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp This aerial photo shows the area affected by flash floods in Sentani, Papua province (Barce Rumkabu/AP) Floodwaters and landslips destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua provinces Jayapura district following days of torrential rains, hampering rescue efforts, Mr Nugroho said. The combination of natural factors and human activities has caused this fatal disaster, he said. Mr Nugroho said 79 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes by Sunday. Another 74 people were taken to hospital, many with broken bones and head wounds. Mr Nugroho said the number of dead and injured would likely increase since affected areas had not been reached and rescuers were still searching for 43 people reportedly still missing. We are overwhelmed by too many injuries, said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. We cant handle it alone. Papua military spokesman Colonel Muhammad Aidi said rescuers saved two injured infants who had been trapped for more than six hours. The parents of one of the babies were washed away and died. Expand Close A plane washed away by flash floods in Sentani (Tumbur Gultom/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A plane washed away by flash floods in Sentani (Tumbur Gultom/AP) Mr Nugroho said rescuers evacuated more than 4,200 people to temporary shelters as more than 600 houses and buildings were damaged and submerged. Television footage showed hundreds of rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals. Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslips and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains. Expand Close Indonesian soldiers and a rescue team search for earthquake victims in Bayan, North Lombok (Bimbo/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Indonesian soldiers and a rescue team search for earthquake victims in Bayan, North Lombok (Bimbo/AP) Meanwhile, a moderately strong earthquake triggered a landslip on Lombok island on Sunday. The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.5 and struck at a depth of 15 miles. The earthquake was felt across the island, located next to Bali, panicking residents still recovering from a major quake last August that killed more than 300 people and left thousands homeless. Sundays quake triggered a landslip from Mount Rinjani and hit dozens of tourists at the Tiu Kelep waterfall located in the foothills of the active volcano, said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman. Two Malaysians and a 14-year-old Indonesian boy were killed in the landslip, Mr Nugroho said. He said rescuers managed to evacuate 22 Malaysians and 14 Indonesians from the waterfall site and 56 others mostly local surveyors from government institutions, the military and the police from the mountainous area. At least 182 people were injured in the quake, including 26 Malaysians, Mr Nugroho said. About 525 homes were damaged, including 32 that were flattened. A gunman has killed three people and wounded five on a tram in what authorities said may have been a terror attack, and a suspect was seized after a manhunt that convulsed the Dutch city of Utrecht. Justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the attacker identified as Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37 was known to authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. If it had terror motives, that is being investigated. But it was very serious. The world shares our grief, prime minister Mark Rutte said. Our thoughts go to the victims relatives, to the families who have lost a beloved member. Our thoughts also go to the wounded, who are now fighting for their lives. The whole of the Netherlands shares your deep pain. Full statement https://t.co/VBOPf232R3 Mark Rutte (@MinPres) March 18, 2019 The attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. Dutch authorities reduced the threat level in the city back to four out of five following the arrest, which came after a manhunt involving heavily armed officers with dogs. During the hunt, police released a photo of a bearded Tanis on a tram in a blue hooded top. Expand Close Dutch counter-terrorism police (Peter Dejong/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dutch counter-terrorism police (Peter Dejong/AP) We cannot exclude even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen said as police searched for the suspect. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Dutch military police tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country, and Mr Rutte said: If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence. The shooting took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighbourhood. Police erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A dog wearing a vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over recent years with offences ranging from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping a woman in 2017, news reports said. The Netherlands anti-terror co-ordinator, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, raised the threat alert to its highest level, five, around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000, until Tanis was captured. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the make-up of parliaments upper house. In neighbouring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border, watching not only major highways but also minor crossings and train routes. German authorities said they were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said she would announce new gun laws within days, after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. "Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer," Ardern told a news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealand's worst ever mass shooting. In addition to the 50 killed, dozens were wounded at two mosques in the South Island city during Friday prayers. The owner of gun shop Gun City, David Tipple, said the suspected gunman had legally bought four weapons and ammunition online from it between December 2017 and March 2018, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the massacre. "The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms," Tipple told a news conference in Christchurch. Under New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. Live-streamed video of a gunman in one of the mosques showed a semi-automatic weapon with a large magazine. Tipple said he supported Ardern's decision to reform gun laws as the Christchurch shootings had raised legitimate concerns. Ardern did not give details on new laws, but has said she supports a ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Christchurch shootings. Australia introduced some of the world's toughest gun laws after its worst mass killing, the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in which a lone gunman killed 35 people using a semi-automatic AR-15 - the same weapon used in the Christchurch massacre. Australia banned semi-automatic weapons, launched a gun amnesty in which tens of thousands of weapons were handed in, and made it much tougher to own them. Ardern encouraged gun owners who were thinking of surrendering their weapons to do so. "The clear lesson from history around the world is that to make our community safer, the time to act is now," she said. "I strongly believe that the vast majority of gun owners in New Zealand will agree with the sentiment that change needs to occur." New Zealand's top online marketplace Trade Me Group said it was halting the sale of semi-automatic weapons in the wake of Friday's attack. New Zealand, a country of only 5 million people, has an estimated 1.5 million firearms. Radio New Zealand said in a report based on police data secured through an Official Information Act request, that more than 99pc of people who applied for a firearms licence in 2017 were successful. A New Zealand standard A-category firearm licence is issued after a police and background check. Only firearm owners are licensed, not weapons, so there is no monitoring of how many weapons a person may possess. Still, violent crime is rare in New Zealand and police do not usually carry guns. Before Friday, New Zealand's worst mass shooting was in 1990 when a man killed 13 men, women and children in a 24-hour rampage in the seaside village of Aramoana. He was killed by police. Ardern said an inquiry will be held into what authorities knew or should have known about Tarrant and the events leading up to the massacre, to see whether the attack could have been prevented. There were 250 detectives and specialists across the country working on the investigation, said police. Ardern was the first person to sign a national condolence book that she opened in the capital, Wellington. "On behalf of all New Zealanders, we grieve together. We are one. They are us," she wrote. The majority of victims were migrants or refugees from countries such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The youngest was a boy of three, born in New Zealand to Somali refugee parents. Six Pakistanis, five Indians and five Bangladeshis were killed, officials said. Frustration was building among the families of victims as under Islam it is custom to conduct burials within 24 hours, but bodies will not be released until post mortems are carried out. About 60 volunteers, some who have flown in from Australia, have gathered to help with the ritual cleansing of the victims before burial. "It is a spiritual process, preparing the body to go into the next life," said Taufan Mawardi, one the volunteers. The two mosques involved in the shootings have been closed since the massacre, but are expected to reopen by Friday prayers after cleansing blessings were carried out. Over the weekend, tens of thousands flocked to memorial vigils around New Zealand and a victim support website raised more than NZ$5.5 million ($3.8 million). Joe Biden, one of the favourites to win the 2020 Democratic nomination, appeared to announce his presidential candidacy over the weekend - before retracting his remarks. Addressing 1,000 Democrats in his home state of Delaware, the 76-year-old former vice-president told his audience his record was the most progressive "of anyone running for the United...". He corrected himself quickly, saying "anybody who would run", but it was too late: his audience burst into applause in response to what they believed was an announcement of a presidential run. A rather embarrassed Mr Biden said, "I didn't mean that", before crossing himself. It may have been a slip of the tongue, but in recent days Mr Biden has been stoking speculation he is ready to take on Donald Trump, having sat out the 2016 campaign after his son's death. He dropped a less than subtle hint when addressing the International Association of Firefighters - many of whom were waving placards saying "Run Joe Run" last week. "I appreciate the energy you have shown here. Save it a little longer - I may need it in a few weeks. Be careful what you wish for," he said. Even though he has yet to declare himself a candidate, Mr Biden is leading a number of polls ahead of Bernie Sanders, the left-wing Vermont senator who ran Hillary Clinton close in 2016, and Senator Kamala Harris of California. Meanwhile, Mr Trump's name will not appear on voting ballots in Washington State if the president fails to release his tax returns ahead of the 2020 elections. Lawmakers in the Washington State senate approved major legislation this week that would legally require all presidential candidates to release the last five years of their personal tax returns. Rescue workers install a screen at the site of the shooting (Peter Dejong/AP/PA) One person has died and there are multiple people injured after a shooting on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, according to police. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level and said they are considering the possibility of a terrorist motive in the attack. Dutch military police went on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. Police, including heavily-armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting on Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential area. Anti-terror officers gathered in front of a block of flats close to the scene. Authorities say that a suspect is still on the run following the shooting. Utrecht police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the situation very worrying and the countrys counter-terror co-ordinator said in a tweet that a crisis team was meeting to discuss the situation. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said no-one had been detained yet in the shooting and one possible explanation is that the person fled by car. He did not rule out the possibility that more than one person was involved in the attack. Expand Close Rescue workers at the scene of the shooting (Peter Dejong/AP/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rescue workers at the scene of the shooting (Peter Dejong/AP/PA) We want to try to catch the person responsible as soon as possible, Mr Jens said. The countrys anti-terror co-ordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province. Hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day. We are in contact with Dutch authorities, urgently seeking further information. The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) March 18, 2019 Police in Germany say they have upped surveillance on the countrys border and are on the lookout for the gunman. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for the federal police in the border state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said additional police had been added to watch not only major roads, but also minor crossings as well as railway routes. Gokman Tanis, 37, who is wanted in connection with a shooting in Utrecht (Utrecht Police/PA) Police have named the suspect in a shooting attack on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht which has left three people dead and five others injured. Officers identified Turkish-born Gokman Tanis, 37, in connection with the incident. The public have been urged not to approach him. Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed the number of people killed and injured in the incident, saying the authorities were likely to assume a terror motive. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level while Dutch military police went on extra alert at airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. Police, including heavily-armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting on Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential area. Officers said a Red Renault Clio had been hijacked shortly before the shooting, and was later found further south in the city. They asked for anyone with information about the car to get in touch. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht. It is clear there were shots on tram passengers in Utrecht, that there are wounded. He said that a terror motive is not excluded. Mr Rutte said that throughout the nation there is a mix of disbelief and disgust. He added: If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said no-one had been detained yet in the shooting and one possible explanation is that the person fled by car. He did not rule out the possibility that more than one person was involved in the attack. Expand Close Rescue workers at the scene of the shooting (Peter Dejong/AP/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rescue workers at the scene of the shooting (Peter Dejong/AP/PA) We want to try to catch the person responsible as soon as possible, Mr Jens said. The countrys anti-terror co-ordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province. Hugely concerning news of a gunman opening fire on a tram in Utrecht, no doubt with innocent people just getting on with their day. We are in contact with Dutch authorities, urgently seeking further information. The UK stands with the people of the Netherlands Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) March 18, 2019 Police in Germany say they have upped surveillance on the countrys border and are on the lookout for the gunman. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for the federal police in the border state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said additional police had been added to watch not only major roads, but also minor crossings as well as railway routes. A snowboarder lost in a blizzard survived by cuddling his dog for warmth as they waited to be rescued. The man dialled 999 after becoming disorientated in bad weather around 3,500ft (1,067m) up on Cairngorm in the Highlands at 5.45pm on Saturday evening. Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team (CMRT) went to the scene and found him huddling in a bivvy bag with his dog when they reached him at around 8pm. They walked the man and his pet back down the mountain to safety, with neither needing medical treatment. Willie Anderson, CMRT team leader, said: "The man was well equipped but the weather was poor and he was a bit overwhelmed. "It was really bad weather but we got to him. He was very cold, probably in the early stages of hypothermia. Expand Close An athlete soars during Gorilla Winter Jungle snowboarding and freestyle skiing festival at Shymbulak ski resort outside Almaty, Kazakhstan March 16, 2019. REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An athlete soars during Gorilla Winter Jungle snowboarding and freestyle skiing festival at Shymbulak ski resort outside Almaty, Kazakhstan March 16, 2019. REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev "The dog helped keep him warm, the dog was absolutely fine. "It was good that we got to him because he would have been in very poor condition by morning, there was a wind child of around minus 20C and it was a blizzard." The man, who was from the Edinburgh area, was said to be well equipped and had checked information about avalanche risks. Last week a dog was rescued after spending 48 hours lost in the Cairngorms. The Inverness Coastguard helicopter spotted Ben on a narrow ledge with a 200ft (61m) drop below and winched him to safety. The helicopter crew spotted the dog by chance while they were out on a training exercise in the area on Wednesday. Last week three people were killed and one seriously injured following an avalanche on Ben Nevis mountain in Scotland. One of the climbers died pretty instantaneously, the other had CPR for half an hour but sadly did not respond and the other died while being taken down the mountain. Donald Paterson, deputy team leader of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, said the four men - believed to be Swiss nationals - had been hit by a "massive" avalanche that fell 1500ft on top of them. He said: "One of the climbers died pretty instantaneously, the other had CPR for half an hour but sadly did not respond and the other died while being taken down the mountain. Expand Close A view of the North Face of Ben Nevis mountain in Scotland. A young climber is being treated for serious injuries after an avalanche on the UK's highest mountain "wiped out" a climbing party, killing three of them. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A view of the North Face of Ben Nevis mountain in Scotland. A young climber is being treated for serious injuries after an avalanche on the UK's highest mountain "wiped out" a climbing party, killing three of them. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. "The fourth - they were all young men - was in a serious condition and stretchered half way down the mountain to a helicopter that took him to hospital in Glasgow." A gunman killed three people and injured five on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday morning in what the mayor said appeared to be a terror attack. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the highest level and Dutch military police tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old Turkish-born man they identified as Gokmen Tanis and said he was associated with the incident. Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said three people were killed and police put the number of wounded at five. Expand Close An image of Gokmen Tanis, who police are looking for in connection with the shooting (Police Utrecht via AP/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An image of Gokmen Tanis, who police are looking for in connection with the shooting (Police Utrecht via AP/PA) We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, Mr van Zanen said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that a terror motive is not excluded and that the attack was met throughout the country with a mix of disbelief and disgust. If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger that fanaticism and violence, he added. The shooting took place at a busy junction in a residential area. Police erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Anti-terror officers gathered in front of a block of flats close to the scene. A dog wearing a vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one person might have fled by car and he did not rule out the possibility that more than one assailant was involved. Expand Close Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht (Martijn van der Zande/AP/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht (Martijn van der Zande/AP/PA) The countrys anti-terror co-ordinator Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg raised the threat alert to its highest level, five, around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the make-up of Parliaments upper house. In neighbouring Germany, police said they stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border, watching not only major roads but also minor crossings and train routes. German authorities said they were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact car but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht. Travelodge has reported rising annual sales and profits, with the budget hotels chain set to create 3,000 new jobs over the coming years as it continues to expand. The group saw revenue climb 8.8% to 693.3 million in the year to December 31, while adjusted earnings grew 9.6 million to 122 million. Boss Peter Gowers said the results were helped by investment in price and quality. Our strategic focus on location, price and quality has enabled Travelodge to deliver a set of excellent results. We extended our network of hotels, remained focused on delivering attractive prices and took another step forward on quality, he said. Travelodge has also benefited from more consumers and businesses opting for budget hotels amid the UKs economic slowdown. The firm warned that the economic situation remains uncertain, with Brexit storm clouds refusing to dissipate, causing alarm for businesses. These are uncertain times and we are not immune from the short-term challenges, but beyond, we remain confident that there are more opportunities ahead, Mr Gowers added. Travelodge also bemoaned the impact of significant cost increases, citing the National Living Wage and business rates, although it added that it has successfully navigated these challenges. The group will also open around 100 new hotels over the next five years, creating 3,000 jobs. Over 2018, Travelodge ended the practice of outsourcing housekeeping, bringing staff into direct employment, and abolished the use of zero-hour contracts. It also took action on gender diversity and the majority of hotel managers are now women. Like-for-like revenue per available room was up 3.2% last year as Travelodge opened 17 hotels, with a further three in the current quarter. The firm now boasts a network of 575 in total. The results mark a continued turnaround from when Travelodge went through a painful restructuring in 2012. It saw GoldenTree Asset Management, Avenue Capital and Goldman Sachs take control of the company via a debt-for-equity swap from Dubai International Capital. Since 2013, sales have risen more than 250 million and earnings more than trebled under a five-year transformation plan, spearheaded by Mr Gowers. Photo: Facebook Okanagan residents put on the green and had themselves a green pint or two to celebrate St Patrick's Day. Many were feeling the luck of the Irish at pubs and bars across the Okanagan Sunday as they celebrated St. Patrick's Day. Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a cultural and religious celebration held on March, 17th which is the traditional death date of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland. St. Patricks Day is a favourite holiday for many who enjoy a party. Kelly O' Bryan's got into the spirit serving green beers and spreading the luck of the Irish all day Sunday. of course, it doesn't matter if you're Irish or not but for this one day of the year, many choose to feel and act like they are. Its a great vibe, said one party goer. Its a great feeling and the majority of people, when they leave, feel that theyve really, really enjoyed themselves and they go, Wow, I got to come back next year.' The Ho-Chunk Nation and its supporters in Wisconsin remain optimistic as they wait for movement on the tribe's proposed off-reservation casino in Wisconsin. The Bureau of Indian Affairs released the draft environmental impact statement for the project in November. Supporters believe the final document will be released sometime in May, The Beloit Daily News reported. "There aren't any current obstacles to meeting that date short of another government shutdown," Beloit City Manager Lori Curtis Luther told the paper. The tribe is pursuing the $400 million casino in Beloit under the two-part determination provisions of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act . The law requires approval from the state governor in addition to the BIA. "We're patient and persistent so whenever the approval process wraps up, we will be ready," Collin Price, the tribe's public relations officer, told the paper. The only two-part determination casino in Wisconsin is operated by the Forest County Potawatomi Community . The tribe in fact was the first to complete both steps of the process back in 2000. The BIA approved a two-part determination for the Menominee Nation only for the tribe to be rejected by the governor four years ago. The Ho-Chunk Nation and the Forest County Potawatomi Community opposed the project. Nationally, fewer than 10 tribes have completed both steps of the process, which typically takes several years to complete. Read More on the Story An Opinion Federal Register Notices Join the Conversation Related Stories The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians continues to see opposition to a proposed off-reservation casino in Michigan. The Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi , the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe and the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians , also known as the Gun Lake Tribe, all operate existing casinos. They say the Little River Band shouldn't get to open another one. "We're trying to educate our employees that due to this proposed casino, there would be a substantial loss in our ability to provide jobs," James Nye, a spokesperson fro the opponents, told WWMT. The Little River Band began pursuing the casino more than three years ago. The effort took a big step forward when the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced the release of a long-awaited draft environmental impact statement for the project in Fruitport Township in November. But then came the government shutdown, which limited the ability of the BIA to accept and process comments. So public comments are now being accepted through April 17, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on Monday.. The tribe is pursuing the casino under the two-part determination provisions of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act . If the BIA approves, the state governor will have the final say on the project. The only two-part determination casino in Michigan was approved for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community back in 2000. Nationally, fewer than 10 tribes have completed both steps of the process, which typically takes several years to complete. The March 18 notice announcing the reopening of the comment period was signed by Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney. Read More on the Story Federal Register Notice Join the Conversation Related Stories A war is erupting between the Catawba Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in connection with a new bill in the U.S. Congress. S.790 , introduced on March 13, clarifies that the Catawba Nation can restore its homelands in the state of North Carolina. The bill would essentially pave the way for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to approve the tribe's land-into-trust application for a casino. "When approved, this resort will be a huge economic driver for the Nation," the tribe said in a March 13 post on social media. But the Eastern Band isn't happy. The tribe, which already operates two gaming facilities in North Carolina, is calling S.790 a "modern day land-grab by the federal government of Cherokee aboriginal lands." "This action circumvents the existing process for the Catawba Indian Nation to acquire lands in South Carolina, is unprecedented in US history, and a federal government bully-tactic that should not be part of modern governing," Chief Richard Sneed said in a March 14 statement Not to start some shit but this is BULLSHIT. Catawbas have been a part of the landscape occupied by NC since before the colony existed. That was reaffirmed in our 1993 Settlement Act with the United States. EBCIs leaderships greed is blinding them to our sovereign land rights. https://t.co/9Icg6vdOYK Roo (@DeLesslin) March 15, 2019 The Catawba Nation fired back later that day. The tribe pointed out that its service area -- as defined by Congress -- includes six counties in North Carolina, in addition to areas in neighboring South Carolina. "It is sad that the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is trying to enforce a state border on another tribe when, like us, they were here long before state borders existed," the statement read The Catawba Nation asked the BIA more than five years ago to acquire the land for the gaming project . But no decision has been made, for reasons that have never been made public by either the Trump administration, or the prior Obama administration. The Catawba Nation has been treated unfairly by the federal government, and our legislation rights that wrong, Sen. Lindsey Graham R-South Carolina), the sponsor of S.790, said in a press release . I hope this legislation will be quickly passed through the Congress and signed into law so we can once and for all bring resolution to this issue. After being terminated in 1959, the tribe was restored to federal recognition by Congress in 1993. The Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina Land Claims Settlement Act includes Cleveland County in North Carolina in the tribe's service area. Cleveland County is where the casino would be located, in a city called King's Mountain, which is about 30 miles west of Charlotte, the most populous city in the state. The Eastern Cherokees operate the Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort , about 130 miles west of King's Mountain, and the newer Harrah's Cherokee Valley River Casino and Hotel , about 190 miles. Both are in the far western part of North Carolina. Generally, land acquired in trust after 1988 can't be used for a casino. But Section 20 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act contains an exception that applies for tribes with land claim settlements. The exception has only been utilized twice since 1988. The Wyandotte Nation and the Tohono O'odham Nation opened casinos on lands acquired in connection with their settlements but only after lengthy legal and political battles. The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians cited its land claim settlement in applications for two casinos in Michigan. The Trump administration rejected the proposals in July 2017, claiming the acquisitions did not comply with the law, especially since the sites are so far from tribal headquarters. The Catawba Nation is based in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The gaming site in North Carolina is located off a major interstate near King's Mountain, about 47 miles away from tribal headquarters. The Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina Land Claims Settlement Act does not appear to require the BIA to take distance into account when examining the tribe's land-into-trust applications. The law, however, bars the tribe from following IGRA on its homelands in South Carolina. The state prohibition does not seem to apply to any lands in North Carolina. "As a sovereign nation and industrious people, we are committed to achieving economic self-sufficiency," Chief Bill Harris said in testimony to Congress earlier this month. "For the Catawba Nation, this goal is immeasurably complicated by the terms of our 1993 settlement act with the state that inhibit meaningful tribal economic development." "It is our hope to come back to the Congress and ask for amendments to our settlement act that would restore some of our lost sovereignty and free-up our economic potential," Harris told members of the House Committee on Appropriations who write Indian Country's funding bill on March 7 . "In the interim, we continue to explore innovative avenues for economic growth. We urge Congress to invest in economic development programs for non-gaming tribes to further the federal governments policy of promoting tribal self-determination and economic self-sufficiency." S.790 was referred to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Read More on the Story Join the Conversation Related Stories Haaland, who hails from the Pueblo of Laguna , and Wapichana, who is Wapixana, co-authored an opinion that was published in The Washington Post on Monday. The two leaders say Trump and Bolsonaro represent a threat to indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Brazil: On Tuesday, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will meet with President Trump at the White House. Both administrations are pushing a host of policies that are detrimental to the rights of indigenous people. As two of the first female indigenous members of Congress in the United States and Brazil, respectively, we are concerned about these policies and the mounting threats facing our communities. We must stand up against toxic rhetoric and brutal attacks on the rights of indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities from Standing Rock to the Amazon are leading the way on protecting our Earth. Recent research has found that indigenous peoples in control of their lands are the most effective stewards of climate-regulating tropical forests. In the United States, Standing Rock was a culmination of indigenous people organizing to protect their resources. More recently, indigenous groups in New Mexico helped prevent the lease sale of Chaco Canyon for oil and gas development, defending sacred lands and heritage from harmful extraction. Yet indigenous environmental defenders face tremendous risks, encountering pushback and even criminalization for simply protecting critical family resources. We saw it in Standing Rock, when police had confrontations with peaceful protesters. We see it now in Brazil, which is the deadliest country for environmental defenders in the world, with intimidation and lethal violence falling heavily on indigenous peoples and land rights activists. Among the many parallels between their administrations, Bolsonaro and Trump are both taking extreme action to strip the hard-earned rights of indigenous peoples to the benefit of extractive industries and commercial farming. These policies present threats to our communities, the integrity of ecosystems on our lands and the stability of our climate. Perhaps nowhere is this more concerning than in Raposa Serra do Sol and Bears Ears National Monument, our ancestral homes. Read More on the Story Join the Conversation Photo: Contributed Joyce Murray arrives for a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Monday, March 18, 2019. UPDATE 6:15 a.m. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has filled a cabinet vacancy with British Columbia MP Joyce Murray, who is becoming president of the Treasury Board. The move to promote Murray comes after Ontario MP Jane Philpott quit the cabinet over the SNC-Lavalin controversy. Murray, 64, was elected in 2008 and served previously as a minister in B.C.'s provincial government. She was also one of a handful of MPs to make a run for the Liberal party leadership in 2012. In January, Trudeau moved Jody Wilson-Raybould to Veterans Affairs from the justice portfolio, which went to David Lametti, in a medium-sized shuffle sparked by minister Scott Brison's retirement from politics. Then the prime minister made changes to fill the void left by Wilson-Raybould after she quit cabinet and said she had been pressured to stop the trial of SNC-Lavalin on bribery and fraud charges related to contracts in Libya. A few days after that mini-shuffle, Philpott resigned as Treasury Board president, saying she had lost confidence in Trudeau's handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair. Murray was first elected in Vancouver Quadra in 2008. Her appointment to cabinet is a promotion from her role as parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board. It also allows Trudeau to maintain a gender balance around the cabinet table. Treasury Board is a less visible ministry concerned with the nuts and bolts of government operations, but it has the potential for scandal if it falters in its stewardship of federal spending. Last month, Murray and her family dealt with a personal ordeal when her son had to be medically evacuated from Mexico to Vancouver after suffering severe injuries during his honeymoon in Cancun. ORIGINAL 5:19 a.m. Justin Trudeau will shuffle the federal cabinet today for the third time in recent months. This latest adjustment comes after the prime minister moved Jody Wilson-Raybould to veterans affairs from the justice portfolio in January. In that move, David Lametti became the new minister of justice. Trudeau made a few more changes earlier this month to fill the void left by Wilson-Raybould after she resigned from cabinet amid the ongoing SNC Lavalin controversy. Jane Philpott also quit the cabinet, saying she'd lost confidence in the government over its handling of the SNC Lavalin affair. Philpott had served as president of the Treasury Board. By Keerthi VedantamCronkite News WASHINGTON Navajo Nation Missing Persons founder Meskee Yatsayte wakes up every morning, scours social media for missing indigenous people and begins contacting families. And the first thing she tells them to do is to report their missing relative to police. We want to encourage the families to make sure that these missing relatives are officially put in the database, she said. Because too often, that is not the case, said advocates at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday on the problem of missing and murdered indigenous women. The lack of solid data is compounded by a shortage of funding and a legal maze that Native victims and families often face. We have to fund, we have to deal with the crisis of domestic violence and sexual assault, said Mary Kathryn Nagle, counsel for the National Indigenous Womens Resource Center. Oftentimes, those crimes escalate to murder and homicide so we need funding for our victim services and our tribal law enforcement. Cronkite News Video by Micah Bledsoe: Arizona is third in number of missing indigenous women The U.S. does not have a uniform system for tracking reports of missing Native women on reservations. And what information is available is wildly inconsistent, depending on whether it is in a federal or private database, or reported by individuals or agencies. A < ahref=http://www.uihi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Missing-and-Murdered-Indigenous-Women-and-Girls-Report.pdf>2018 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute found the Justice Department recorded 116 missing indigenous women in 2016, compared to 5,712 listed by the FBIs National Crime Information Center. And Yatsayte, who was not at the hearing, said authorities may mischaracterize the race of a murder victim, contributing to the confusion. Ive seen several that were mischaracterized, they were labeled as Asian or as Hispanic, she said in a telephone interview from Gallup, New Mexico. I knew some of them were Navajo and I knew some of them were from Native American from other tribes because of their last names. Even when cases are reported correctly, following up can be difficult because of the levels of tribal, local and federal law enforcement that deal with crimes on the reservation. Thats one reason its important for tribes to be at the heart of any solution, said Sarah Deer, a professor at the University of Kansas and a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. I believe it is critical Native people are at the forefront of this effort, said Deer, the chief justice of the Prairie Island Indian Community Court of Appeals. Even if we were to see federal funding the tribe members and families and survivors should drive the data collection. Deer told the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indigenous Peoples of the United States that the federal government should supply funds for tribes to gather information and build their own culturally competent databases. We cannot run functional court systems and functional law enforcement agencies without the support of the federal government, she said. And they have treaty obligations and trust obligations to make sure that our criminal justice systems function in a way that will allow us to protect our own people. When subcommittee members asked how to help, North Dakota state Rep. Ruth Buffalo and other panelists advocated for federal support to local efforts. The federal government needs to focus on building trust within our tribal communities, Buffalo said. The federal government needs to look at a comprehensive long-term plan and also look at ways to enhance and support local governments. For now, Yatsaytes organization is still encouraging Native families to report missing relatives to law enforcement and to NamUs, a federal database that lets people submit information about missing people. Yatsayte said she still faces resistance. Some are reluctant to report because of mistrust of the government and fear of not being believed, especially if the missing relative had a prior conviction or a substance abuse problem. A lot of the time, nothing happens. The families dont want to report them because they kind of feel as if theyre gonna be rejected, Yatsayte said. There are so many unsolved cases, and they dont want to bring it back up and they dont want to deal with law enforcement. As far as progress goes, Deer says a lot has to be done to rectify and minimize violence against native women. I tell my law students, it took centuries to make it as bad as it is and its not going to be resolved in one single legislative session, she said. House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States Notice This story originally appeared on Cronkite News and is published via a Creative Commons license . Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University Join the Conversation By Acee Agoyo A bill to renew the Violence Against Women Act is moving forward in a more partisan era after Democrats defeated a Republican effort to remove the landmark tribal jurisdiction provisions from the law. Indeed, Republicans got behind an amendment that would have turned back the clock on efforts to protect American Indian and Alaska Native women, who suffer from the highest rates of violence in the nation. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) tried to strip all of the tribal jurisdiction provisions from the 2013 version of VAWA "In effect, the 2013 reauthorization ended up taking away the constitutional rights of someone who happens to have crossed a reservation line and ends up being accused of domestic violence," said Sensenbrenner in remarks that appeared to characterize crimes committed by non-Indians as accidents rather than intentional acts. "I have been on this committee for forty years," added Sensenbrenner, who formerly served as chairman of the panel. "We have never had a hearing on whether we should take away the constitutional rights of non-Indians who end up being charged in tribal court." Although VAWA requires tribes to protect the rights of defendants -- even non-Indians -- Republicans on the committee agreed with Sensenbrenner's complaint. Nine in total voted for his amendment , drawing a rebuke from a prominent tribal leader I was disheartened, and frankly appalled, to see an amendment offered that would have stripped tribal governments of their inherent authority to hold non-Indians accountable for domestic violence crimes on tribal lands," said Juana Majel-Dixon, the Secretary of the National Congress of American Indians and the co-chair of a national task force to prevent violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women. "With more than 4 in 5 Native women experiencing domestic violence in their lifetimes, now is not the time to go back to a system that allows non-Indians to prey on Native women with impunity," said Majel-Dixon, who is a leader from the Pauma Band of Luiseno Indians Democrats, who hold a majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives , overcame the Republican support for Sensenbrenner's amendment with 16 votes. But even though the proposal was defeated, that wasn't the end of the partisan sniping on VAWA. Before the session was over, Republicans offered four more amendments that Democrats said would undermine efforts to protect all women from violence. All four were rejected by party-line votes. And in the end, no GOP members voted in support of H.R.1585. The bill cleared the markup with 22 yes votes from Democrats and 11 no votes from Republicans. A day later, the attempt to strip tribal jurisdiction from existing law was decried at a hearing of the House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States that was called to address the crisis of missing and murdered Native women . One prominent advocate said the 2013 version of VAWA has saved lives. "We know that tribal jurisdiction -- giving the government closest to the ground to Native women to prosecute these crimes and protect them and their children -- is the best form of security a Native woman can have," said Mary Kathryn Nagle , a citizen of Cherokee Nation who serves as legal counsel for the National Indigenous Womens Resource Center For any Congressional leader to attempt to take away protections for not only women but indigenous women, at a time when we are just beginning to understand how deep-rooted and serious of an issue the severe lack of protections are for Native women, is an abomination, said Haaland, who is a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna and is the first Native person to serve as vice chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources Haaland is a co-sponsor of H.R.1585 , which includes new language in Title IX that recognizes the inherent rights of tribes to exercise jurisdiction, for example, over non-Indians who engage in dating violence, sex trafficking and who commit crimes against tribal law enforcement. The bill also includes provisions to address the #MMIW crisis. Another critical improvement over current law is the expansion of jurisdiction of some tribal authorities over non-Indians who commit certain crimes, such as assaulting a law enforcement or corrections officer, obstruction of justice, sex trafficking, sexual violence, and stalking on tribal lands," Nadler said at the markup last week. But even though Nadler later described H.R.1585 as "bipartisan" it is barely even that. Of the 91 co-sponsors, only one -- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) -- is Republican. " I am the co-lead on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and I will work day and night to see that this critical legislation gets across the finish line," Fitzpatrick wrote in a post on social media after the markup. The lack of bipartisan support for the bill, as well as lingering doubts about tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians, are seen as troublesome signs to tribes and their advocates. In the days before the text of H.R.1585 was made public, leaders of the United South and Eastern Tribes were worried whether a new version of VAWA would even make it through the divided Congress, where Democrats control the House while the Senate remains in the hands of Republicans. "As much as we believe we should get it all, we probably wont get it, Chief Lynn Malerba of the Mohegan Tribe said during a discussion on the issue on March 5, two days before the bill was introduced. "It seems like everywhere we go, we are being questioned." But USET members are seeing some progress because H.R.1585 recognizes that tribes in Maine can exercise jurisdiction over non-Indians in certain circumstances. In the 2013 version of VAWA, Maine was not specifically mentioned in the law, an omission left Native women there without protections due to restrictive language in the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act Additionally, H.R.1585 ensures that tribes in Alaska can take additional steps to protect their women. The 2013 version hadn't included Alaska either but up to 5 tribes in the state will be included in a VAWA "pilot project" that could eventually be expanded to all 220-plus tribes. House Committee on the Judiciary: Markup on H.R. 1585, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019 Roll Call The following nine Republicans voted in favor of an amendment to remove the tribal jurisdiction provisions from the Violence Against Women Act of 2013: Rep. Doug Collins (R-Colorado) Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado) Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) (Note: Sponsor of Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act Rep. Tom McClintock (R-California) Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia) Rep. Greg Steube (R-Florida) Eight additional Republicans who serve on the House Committee on the Judiciary were not present for the vote on the anti-tribal amendment. The following 11 Republicans voted against H.R.1585, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, at a markup session of the House Committee on the Judiciary on March 13, 2019: Rep. Doug Collins (R-Colorado) Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Colorado) Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) Rep. Tom McClintock (R-California) Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Arizona) Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pennsylvania) Rep. Ben Cline (R-Virginia) Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota) Rep. Greg Steube (R-Florida) Six additional Republicans who serve on the House Committee on the Judiciary did not participate in the final vote on the bill. Join the Conversation Related Stories The Conversation When Americans study their 19th-century history, they tend to look at its great conflicts, especially the epic clash over slavery. They are less likely to recall its broad areas of agreement. But what if those agreements are still shaping the present? What if Americans are still coping with their effects? The steep inequalities between white and Black wealth in America, for example, has a lot to do with a 19th-century consensus over public lands. Land grants from British officials to colonial families date back to the 1600s in North America, but the general idea took on new life with the 1801 presidential election of Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia slave-owner and radical who saw all white men as equally superior to everyone else. To provide them with farms, he purchased Louisiana from Napoleon. Rights of soil Jeffersons Democratic party organized the sale of public land in small units on easy credit. When settlers fell behind on payments, Congress gave them more time in repeated Relief Acts during the 1810s and 1820s. President Andrew Jackson followed in the 1830s by expelling some 70,000 Choctaws, Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Seminoles from their farms and villages. White families poured into the stolen ground with their slaves, creating a Cotton Kingdom that quickly spread from Florida to Texas. A statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C. Photo: Ron Cogswell By the time the Senate debated the General Pre-Emption Act of 1841, which gave settlers first claim to buy frontier plots at regulated prices, the United States had tens of millions of acres at its disposal. With so much room for everyone but the Indigenous inhabitants, pre-emption had wide support. The senators did argue over the pre-emption rights of immigrants from Britain or Germany. By a vote of 30-12, however, they decided that European-born settlers had the same claim to the continent as native-born citizens. As Democratic Sen. Thomas Benton put it, all men were equal when it came to the rights of property. During this same discussion, a member of the rival Whig Party moved to put the word white into the bill so that no Black settlers could make pre-emptions. This passed 37-1. In sum, a bipartisan goal of early U.S. foreign and domestic policy was to insure that white families could easily acquire real estate then, as now, the major asset for most households. This was never the case for Black Americans, who were seen as a separate and hostile nation within the country. "The Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889" by John Steuart Curry, depicts a land rush in Oklahoma, made possible by the opening of Indian Territory to non-Indians. Image: National Archives and Records Administration Landless in America Hunted in the South and despised in the North, Black Americans could only buy western land from speculators, who easily cheated people with little access to courts and no standing at the polls. And so most scraped by as labourers rather than landowners. The pattern continued after the Civil War, when plans to give former slaves some of the lands on which they had toiled went nowhere even as Congress made western homesteads free for everyone else. By the end of the century, railroads and other corporations had become the big recipients of federal largesse. Nonetheless, millions of ordinary white families began the modern age on their little patches of America. Their real estate offered both an early form of social security and a base of family capital, an economic foundation from which to enter a more urban and industrial society. It also made them feel like the only real Americans, the ones who literally owned the place. By contrast, Black families faced a vicious cycle of landless marginality: as agricultural or domestic workers, they were excluded from the first Social Security Act of 1935, making it even harder for them to protect family fortunes. As second-class citizens and servicemen, they rarely benefited from the so-called GI Bill of Rights of 1944, which made home ownership much easier for nearly eight million veterans. No wonder that even low-income whites were far more likely to own homes or businesses than Black families when the Great Recession struck 10 years ago. Since then, wealth disparities have grown again: the Federal Reserve of the United States now estimates that the average white household has 10 times the total assets of its Black counterpart. History and mythology These grim facts do not stop the blood and soil nationalists of Donald Trumps America from feeling victimized. Nothing ever will. The bigger problem is that a much wider part of the U.S. population subscribes to frontier mythologies, in which hardy white folk built the country without anyones help or permission. And why shouldnt they believe so, if we dont offer more honest accounts of the frontier? For all its faults, history is better than mythology. In this case, it can illuminate how European blood gave exclusive access to American soil, enriching debates about todays inequalities. Perhaps it can even help Americans build a truly multi-racial nation, a society in which everyone feels equally American. J.M. Opal is an Associate Professor of History and Chair, History and Classical Studies at McGill University. He receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Join the Conversation Jerico Cummings named national Newman Civic Fellow for work supporting students in dialogues about identity By Carol SchmidtMSU News Service Jerico Cummings, a fourth year Montana State University sociology major, has won a prestigious national award for his work engaging his fellow students in dialogue and inspiring social change. Cummings was named a Newman Civic Award fellow Wednesday for his work with gender and racial identity following a nomination from MSU President Waded Cruzado. Through building new partnerships with MSU departments, offering trainings and delivering innovative opportunities for students to engage in challenging conversations about identity, Jerico has taken action to address pressing social issues of inequality and polarization, Cruzado said in her nomination. Cummings said there is validation in receiving the distinction because it shows how far he has come since his first year of college. He said he struggled to find his place at MSU his freshman year and was within days of dropping out and returning home to Rapid City, South Dakota, because he felt he didnt fit in when he was invited to a workshop that changed his life. My freshman year I spent really a lot of time in my dorm room, said Cummings, who is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. I didnt feel a close connection to anyone. That changed when Richard White, then the director of MSUs American Indian/Alaskan Native Student Success, invited Cummings to a weekend retreat about identity and dialogue, hosted by Sustained Dialogue and the Diversity and Inclusion Student Commons (DISC). Nearly overnight, Cummings recalls, he seemed to find his purpose, and has become a mentor since to others with questions about racial and gender identity. I met some of the most amazing people and I found a home, Cummings recalls now. Because I got so much out of it, I felt called to that type of work. Not only did Cummings decide to stay at MSU, he changed his major from chemistry and biology, which he initially chose because he thought it would lead him to a good paying job, to sociology with an eventual career in social work. He connected with people across campus who were also interested in probing issues of identity. He also became involved in several organizations, serving as an officer in MSUs Queer Straight Alliance. He has been active in MSUs Sustained Dialogue program that provides cross-cultural dialogue about the influence of identity factors on student experiences and campus community relations. And, he became involved with American Indian Council and is a TRIO scholar. Eventually, Cummings was hired to coordinate the Sustained Dialogue program and run the same Common Ground retreat that influenced him so profoundly his freshman year. The retreat shaped my college experience in ways I could have never imagined, he said. When I learned Id won the Newman fellowship it reinforced my knowing that I am supported here at MSU. Ariel Donohue, MSU senior diversity and inclusion officer who worked with Cummings at the universitys Diversity and Inclusion Student Commons, calls him a caring, humble, open-minded and driven student. Jerico is driven to create long-term social change around breaking down barriers of difference, bringing people into conversation about power and privilege and developing effective strategies to address root causes of social issues, Donohue said. He draws much of his strength and passion for social activism from his understanding of the ways in which his own identities intersect. Cummings said he plans to attend graduate school with long range goals of becoming an activist working in indigenous and gender variance issues. The Newman Civic Award recognizes and supports community-committed students who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country. The fellowship, named for Campus Compact founder Frank Newman, provides training and resources that nurture students assets and passions to help them develop strategies to achieve social change. MSU News Service shares stories about Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, and the accomplishments of its students, faculty, alumni and staff. Follow on Facebook and Twitter Join the Conversation Riot boosters will pay with passage of Noems law Freedom of speech is main issueBy Talli NaumanNative Sun News Today Health & Environment Editor PIERRE Despite poignant opposition from tribal leaders, Gov. Kristi Noems next-generation bills to shield the South Dakota treasury from costs of anticipated conflicts over the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline construction sailed through the state Legislature on March 7. These bills are pro-economic development, pro-free speech, and take a proactive approach to spreading the risk and costs associated with building a pipeline, she said when the voting was done. I believe this approach will be part of the next generation of major energy infrastructure development. Her SB 189 means anyone convicted for felony riot or encouraging it will now be faced with civil penalties in addition to criminal prosecution. Those who encourage rioting are dubbed with the unprecedented label of riot boosters. Her SB 190 requires pipeline builders to post a bond to be used for law enforcement in the event of a conflict. The money from the divergent sides of a conflict will go into a state war chest called a peace fund. GOSD dropped the bills on legislative committees March 4, in an 11th-hour move that obliged lawmakers to suspend the usual rules of review. The office said this was necessitated by the fact that Noem is only recently elected and needed every last minute to elaborate the proposals. New from Chairman Lester Thompson Jr. of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe: "The Flag of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe will not be displayed in the South Dakota State Capitol until Governor Kristi Noem and the legislature respect our people, shared history, and traditions." #NoKXL indianz.com (@indianz) March 11, 2019 However, their introduction coincided with a tribal chairs trip to the U.S. Capitol to testify at the Appropriations Committee hearings there, timing that angered constituents. Of the nine tribes South Dakota state jurisdiction overlaps, only one chair could attend. The scope of who could be sued for riot boosting and a clear definition of what constitutes a riot booster is unclear, said Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Chair Lester Thompson Jr. The vague, broad language opens the door to infringe upon the right to freedom of speech across any and all issues, not just the Keystone pipeline but for any group that assembles in protest on any issue, he complained. Furthermore, if a peaceful protester is provoked by the opposition with intent to create a riot, what resource does one have under this bill to address that issue? he asked at a committee hearing. Faith Spotted Eagle, representing the Ihanktonwan Nation, chimed in, saying she had personal experience at the 2016-2017 conflict between the Oceti Sakowin and police over the Dakota Access Pipeline construction near Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. A lot of the riot boosters were the law enforcement people themselves, she said. It was really dangerous to be around those police, she said. Spotted Eagle objected that descendants of the original inhabitants of modern-day South Dakota are exponentially more vulnerable to penalization with the new measure. Theres still a law in the books of South Dakota that says if there are five or more Native Americans on your property, they can be considered to constitute a raiding party and you are permitted to shoot them, she said. It is still unlawful for Indians to walk down the street if they are in groups of three or more because they would be considered a war party and may be fired upon, she said. So, you see a lot of things have not changed in the philosophy. She said her tribe considers the bills to be an attempt to legislate by ambush. The state offered the tribes no opportunity to cooperate, she lamented. The legislation is clearly a means of revenue generation called predator economics, she continued. You call us rioters; we call you predators. Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com Copyright permission Native Sun News Today Join the Conversation A Rushed and Partisan Product By Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) Earlier this month, House Democrats brought to the floor an enormously misguided piece of legislation that would limit free speech, weaken election security and redirect hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund political campaigns. While the Democrats mistakenly called their hallmark H.R. 1 bill the For the People Act, a closer review and analysis of its content reveals that the legislation would be more aptly named For the Politicians Act or the Welfare for Politicians Act. When H.R. 1 was first introduced, Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed it would restore faith in government. Unfortunately, the legislations agenda is clearly one-sidedseeking to preserve and expand the power of the Democratic party and irresponsibly using taxpayer dollars to achieve that partisan goal. Filled with mandates that disrupt the constitutional role of states and egregious provisions that limit free speech, H.R. 1 is a rushed and sloppy attempt to rewrite voting laws, election laws and campaign finance laws to get more Democrats elected. Despite claims to the contrary, it is not a bill to ensure more American citizens exercise their right to vote or participate in making their views heard. The House is preparing to vote on #HR1. Earlier this week, I made remarks about why this is such an enormously misguided piece of legislation from Democrats. pic.twitter.com/ZjPa5cXNAg Rep. Tom Cole (@TomColeOK04) March 8, 2019 While some states are clearly more successful in conducting their own elections, it is alarming that Democrats think its a good idea to force the 50 separate and unique states to operate under the same guidelines. As a former Secretary of State for Oklahoma, I cant imagine that any Secretary of State or Director of Elections would support such federalization. In fact, while the legislation was under consideration in the House Rules Committee before floor debate, I received a letter of concern from Paul Ziriax, Secretary of Oklahomas State Election Board. In the letter, he described in detail how the mandates proposed in H.R. 1 would negatively impact Oklahomas highly successful and widely recognized election system. For Oklahoma, where the system already works well, implementing and complying with the proposed mandates would unnecessarily increase the cost of elections statewide and countywide. Not to mention, adapting to the standards would undoubtedly damage the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of our states existing system. Apart from its imposition on the role of states in elections, H.R. 1 represents the largest and most damaging threat to free speech seen in recent years. First, it calls for a taxpayer-financed piggy bank that would operate like an ATM for campaigns participating in a to-be-created program that would match small-dollar campaign contributions six to one. Taxpayers would have no say in who gets those dollars, meaning their hard-earned money could go to fund candidates and politicians with whom they disagree. Also undermining the First Amendment, H.R. 1 would criminalize actions that are currently viewed appropriate as advocacy for candidates. Even the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) voiced concern with the legislation. In a 13-page letter sent to the House Rules Committee, the ACLU cautioned, There are also provisions that unconstitutionally impinge on the free speech rights of American citizens and public interest organizations. They will have the effect of harming our public discourse by silencing necessary voices that would otherwise speak out about the public issues of the day. When the massive bill was introduced, it was referred to 10 separate House committees holding jurisdiction. But instead of doing the necessary work in each of those committees to come up with a sound product, only the Committee on House Administration held a markup on the bill before Democratic leadership scheduled it for floor consideration. Its no wonder the bill is so full of errors and unconstitutional issues. To be clear, I strongly support encouraging American citizens to exercise their right to vote and ensuring access is not denied to lawful voters. But the Democrats overhaul would negatively alter the political landscape of the greatest republic and democracy in the history of the world. Instead of fixing actual problems, H.R. 1 reveals a brazen attempt by Democrats to rig the system on the taxpayer dime. Tom Cole, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, is serving his eighth term in Congress as the elected representative of Oklahoma's 4th Congressional District. He is recognized as an advocate for taxpayers and small business, a proponent for a strong national defense and a leader in promoting biomedical research. He is considered the foremost expert in the House on issues dealing with Native Americans and tribal governments. He and his wife, Ellen, have one son, Mason, and reside in Moore, Oklahoma. Join the Conversation The demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has left a void which is unlikely to get filled in years to come and not only the leaders of the BJP, but the whole political class has unanimously attested to this fact that Manohar Parrikar was a man notch above than others. Not only his tenure as the CM but his term as a defence minister was full of achievements. From the famous Surgical Strikes to avenge the killing of our 19 soldiers in Uri in September 2016 to laying emphasis on the indigenisation of the defence sector including the manufacturing of fighter jets- Parrikar had moved the things swiftly in a system which is notorious for bottlenecks that mar the proceedings. The IITian who breathed his last on Sunday after battling with pancreatic illness for over a year and it was PM Modi who insisted to bring him to South Block as defence minister in 2014. bccl Parrikar also ensured the Tejas- the indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was inducted into the IAF fleet after a series of delays. But the Rafale deal did cast a shadow on his tenure and the Rs 58,000 crore deal for 36 Jets is still a centre of controversy in which the general election is likely to get contested by the opposition. The report cited a November 24, 2015 note of the Defence Ministry which said that parallel discussions by the PMO "weakened the negotiating position of the MoD and Indian negotiating team". bccl Congress chief Rahul Gandhi who has been galvanizing the Rafale deal controversy to corner the government also said that Parrikar had said he had nothing to do with the Rafale deal. Defence Minister Nirmala Sithataraman said Parrikar, who was her predecessor, was a sincere, honest and sensitive political activist, and she learnt a lot from him. "Shri Manohar Parrikar is no more. A sincere, honest and sensitive political activist. Was simple and down to earth, I learnt a lot from Shri Parrikar. As Raksha Mantri his contribution to making the armed forces a modernised, lean and mean fighting machine will remain unparalleled," she tweeted. reuters Parrikar had moved back to Goa in 2017 as the CM and Defence ministry also paid its tributes to the gentleman politician. "@DefenceMinIndia conveys deep condolences on the demise of former RM, Mr @manoharparrikar. With hallmarks of strong & decisive leadership, Mr Manohar Parrikar will be missed by the whole of the def establishment. Mr Parrikar was at the helm in defence of the Nation from 2014 to 2017," the ministry tweeted. (With PTI inputs) The demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has left a void which is unlikely to get filled in years to come and not only the leaders of the BJP, but the whole political class has unanimously attested to this fact that Manohar Parrikar was a man notch above than others. bccl Not only his tenure as the CM but his term as a defence minister was full of achievements. Read More 2. Navy Deployed Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya, Nuclear Submarine Chakra After Pulwama Attack bccl We all know about the air skirmish India had with Pakistan post Pulwama terror attack and the IAFs strike at Balakot in Pakistan, what most of us dont know is that INS Vikramaditya, nuclear submarine Chakra, nearly 80 aircrafts and 60 ships were put on operation mode in North Arabian amid the high tension between India and Pakistan, the official told PTI on Sunday. Read More 3. An Embodiment Of Simplicity, Manohar Parrikar Gets Immortalised In People's Memory A man known for his simplicity and good governance. Yesterday we lost one of the great sons of the motherland. He worked until his last breathe. His whole life will inspire future generations. Read More 4. Beyond Religion: Hindu, Muslim Women Donate Kidneys To Each Other's Husbands For Transplant Representational Image- BCCL There is no dearth of hate messages and propaganda in the name of religion, but humanity reigns supreme above everything else. In Mumbai, a Hindu family from Bihar and a Muslim family from Thane came together to save the lives of their loved ones. Read More 5. Dont Have Any Grudge, Says Husband Of Victim As He Forgives New Zealand Mosque Gunman afp We all know about the air skirmish India had with Pakistan post Pulwama terror attack and the IAFs strike at Balakot in Pakistan, what most of us dont know is that INS Vikramaditya, nuclear submarine Chakra, nearly 80 aircrafts and 60 ships were put on operation mode in North Arabian amid the high tension between India and Pakistan, the official told PTI on Sunday. Also read: Navy Officers Won't Remain Cashless Anymore As Warship INS Vikramaditya Gets Its Own ATM Onboard bccl The official said that the naval assets were parts of an exercise, but all these were shifted from the drill to operational mode soon after the Pulwama attack on February 14 in which 44 CRPF soldiers lost their lives. In the tri-service press conference held on February 28, the Indian Navy had said that high state of readiness is exercise to "deter, prevent and defeat" any "misadventure" by Pakistan in the seas. "The major combat units of the Indian Navy including the Carrier Battle Group with INS Vikramaditya, nuclear submarines and scores of other ships, submarines and aircraft swiftly transited from exercise to operational deployment mode as tensions between India and Pakistan escalated," Navy Spokesperson Capt D K Sharma said. bccl Initially the theatre level operational readiness exercise TROPEX 19 which comprised 60 ships of the Indian Navy, 12 ships of the Indian Coast Guard and 60 aircraft. The exercise commenced on January 19 in Andaman and Nicobar islands and was to remain operational till March 10. But after Pulwama attack, exercise was taken to operational mode. "The overwhelming superiority of Indian Navy in all three dimensions -- on the surface, under-sea and in air -- forced the Pakistan Navy to remain deployed close to the Makran coast and not venture out in the open ocean," he said. (With PTI inputs) A 25-year-old student from Telangana was among those killed in the terror attack in New Zealand s Christchurch, taking the number of Indians and persons of Indian origin who died in the massacre to eight. Ozair Khadir, 25, who belonged to Hyderabad, is the third person from Telangana to have been killed in the attack. The Indian high commissioners office in New Zealand confirmed his death on Sunday. He was killed in Masjid Al Noor, one of the two mosques that were attacked by Australian gunman Brenton Tarrant. Khadir wanted to follow in his brothers footsteps and was studying aeronautical engineering in New Zealand. Khadirs parents have left for the island country. afp His father was in Saudi Arabia when he heard the news. Ozair Khadirs relative Aamir Ali had tweeted that the family had lost contact with him since the New Zealand shootout on Friday. The high commissioners office had responded saying that it was aware and was following it up with the New Zealand police. Once we get confirmed information, we will share, the high commissioners office had said on Saturday. afp Apart from Khadir, Mohammed Imran Khan of Karimnagar and Farhaj Ahsan of Hyderabad were also killed in the terror attacks. Another person from the state, Ahmed Iqbal Jahangir, was injured in the attack and is recovering in a hospital. Photo: Contributed Avalanche Canada has issued a Special Public Avalanche Warning effective immediately. The warning comes after a vehicle was swept from Highway 1 near Revelstoke on Sunday and as temperatures across the province soar. The warning is aimed at recreational backcountry users and applies to all the forecast regions in western Canada. A dramatic temperature increase also ups the likelihood of avalanches throughout the mountains that, combined with BCs spring break means more people are likely to be heading into the mountains. This is the first big warming to hit our snowpack, which is still fairly complex and winter-like, explains Senior Avalanche Forecaster Grant Helgeson. Any time the snowpack is hit with a big change, it tends to de-stabilize. The temperatures are forecast to increase substantially this week, with no nighttime cooling. This will weaken the snowpack on all aspects, increasing the possibility of large natural avalanches as well making it easier for the weight of a person to trigger deeper weak layers. Avalanche Canada, Parks Canada, and Kananaskis Country warns all backcountry users, including those going outside ski area boundaries, to keep careful track of their regional avalanche forecasts. Don't forget your essential safety gear including a transceiver, probe and shoveland the knowledge to use it. The Chinese authorities have arrested almost 13,000 "terrorists" in Xinjiang province since 2014. The government said it on Monday defending the de-radicalisation measures for Muslims which have been in controversy ever since their inception in the far western region. China has faced criticism from the international community for setting up de-radicalisation facilities, the UN experts describe as "detention centre" with over one million Uighurs-the ethnic people of the region who follow Islam. China, on the contrary, calls them vocational training centres. reuters/representational image The legal authorities of China work on a policy which, strikes the right balance between compassion and severity, the government said in its white paper. Since 2014, Xinjiang has destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials, it added. The paper also said that a small minority of people face tough punishment such as ringleaders of the terror groups. Those who are influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training which would help them get over their errors. reuters/representational image The paper also has a breakdown of 30 attacks since 1990 with the last one occurring in December 2016. The paper also says that a total of 458 people had died in these attacks while at least 2, 540 were injured in attacks and the unrest. The World Uyghur Congress, the main group in exile accused China of distorting the truth through this white paper. China is deliberately distorting the truth, spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement. Counter-terrorism is a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs. The real aim of the so-called de-radicalisation is to eliminate faith and thoroughly carry out Sinification. reuters/representational image The white paper also says that since September 11, 2001 attack on Twins Towers in the US by al Qaeda, the East Turkestan extremists increased their activities in China. They screamed the evil words of getting into heaven by martyrdom with jihad, turning some people into extremists and terrorists who have been completely mind-controlled, and even turned into murderous devils. The paper also added that religious extremism under the banner of Islam is contrary to the teachings of Islam. Xinjiang has been an inseparable part of the Chinese territory and the Uighur ethnic group evolved after a long process of migration and ethnic integration. reuters/representational image They are not descendants of the Turks. Turkey is the only Islamic country which has express concerns over the alleged Chinese oppression in the region as it draws cultural links with Uighurs who speak the Turkic language. China has time and again denounced Turkish concerns of oppression of the Uighurs and called it meddling in its internal matters. Undoubtedly, Chinas counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation struggle in Xinjiang is an important part of the international fight against terrorism and has made important contributions in this regard, the white paper said in its concluding remarks. (With Reuters inputs) Pigeons don't get a lot of love in general. Considered to be the rats of the sky, they're blamed for disease, annoyances, and a whole lot of poop on your parked cards. However, one group of researchers in the UK are putting the birds to good use in gathering climate data. Images courtesy: Rick Thomas/University of Birmingham Researchers at the University of Birmingham in have built tiny backpacks they intend to strap onto pigeons before letting them loose. It's not just a weird way of dressing up the birds for photos or anything though. The backpacks are actually tiny bundles of sensors that can help gather data on climate factors in urban environments. Specifically, research leader Rick Thomas says, the pigeons will help them gather block-by-block variations in temperature, humidity, wind conditions, and pollution, across major cities in the UK. Of course, he says a lot of naysayers ask him why he just doesn't use drones, but Thomas has a good reason. "You can't fly drones up there. But birds-they fly everywhere," he says. They would need more money for autonomous drones, or pilots for manually flown ones, not to mention a tonne of replaceable batteries to get data over any reasonable amount of time. Then there's also the fact they would probably also need special permissions from local law enforcement. The best part is, the scientists don't even need to hunt for their own pigeons. Instead, they're working with local volunteers that raise their own homing pigeons, which are bred and trained learn how to fly home by themselves. But by using pigeons, they can just attach the backpacks and then forget about them. Thanks to that detail, the sensors don't even need to be wireless-capable in order to transfer data to the team. All they need to do is download the data whenever the pigeons return home, and then reattach the backpacks when they're done. The research team have also ensured that the work they're making the pigeons do is humane and not harmful to them. The backpacks weigh less than three percent of each pigeon's body weight, which doesn't inconvenience them at all. Additionally, Thomas says his wife has stitched harnesses for the birds, in order to attach the sensors without pricking the birds themselves in any way. "If [the pigeon owners] are not happy with any aspect of putting the sensors on their back, then they don't have to fly their birds," said Thomas. "The welfare of the birds is utterly paramount." So far, the study has already logged 41 flights between the five participating pigeons, covering a total of close to 1,000 kilometres. They're in fact looking to expand the study to other cities, but are having trouble locating more trained pigeons. According to the team, the study could help them understand how pollution spreads in an urban environment. They believe this could help local governments make decisions about pollution control, as well as where certain facilities like hospitals should not be built. Well, if they're going to poop on everything from up in the sky, they may as well work for the privilege. The news of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar passing away left people disturbed and sad. At the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay - where he studied from 1973 to 1980 - the sorrow was even more profound. Many people shared memories of the late CM and recalled what a humble man he was. Mukesh Deshpande, one of Parrikars friends from the IIT-B hostel recalled a time in 1978 when there was a strike in their hostel by the mess staff and how Parrikar cooked food for the whole hostel. He was on good terms with the mess workers as he always participated in the committee. After the strike was called, he spoke to the workers. When they refused to serve us, he got into the kitchen and convinced 40 of us to cook with him. That was the best meal we have ever had, said Deshpande as quoted by Hindustan Times, who graduated with a civil engineering degree from IIT-B in 1980. Twitter At a time when all of us only focused on books, we always saw Manu on his Yezdi, involved in things beyond just studies. He showed us a different side to campus life, he added. Another junior of his, Bakul Desai, also recalled how Parrikar bought vegetables for the hostel mess so that they had to pay less hostel fee. Our hostel mess fee was Rs 180 per month. In order to reduce the price, he went to the Byculla market to buy vegetables himself. The idea was adopted by our mess contractor and the fees were reduced to Rs 160. Desai also said, At every alumni meet, members were handed a coupon for lunch. Despite his status as the Defence Minister, he would hold the coupon and stand in the queue year after year. He always asked his security to step away when he was with friends. Twitter He once narrated an incident to me about how he was stopped at the airport in 2002 as he did not carry his ticket. His ticket was with the protocol officer who was waiting at the ticket counter, but the airport security guard refused to believe that he was a CM. The guard told his superiors that Parrikar got off a rickshaw and carried his own luggage, Desai told the Times of India, who runs his own firm in Hyderabad. Ganesh Natarajan, another batchmate of Parrikar said that he didnt change even after becoming the Chief Minister. 'Have seen him take an auto rickshaw to the airport even after becoming Goa CM. He will be missed across all walks of life,' he shared on Twitter. Very sad to hear about the demise of our IIT Bombay alum Shri Manohar Parrikar. Have seen him take an auto rickshaw at Mumbai airport even after becoming Goa CM. He will be missed across all walks of life ! Ganesh Natarajan (@GaneshNatarajan) March 17, 2019 According to the Hindustan Times, a spokesperson for IIT-B said, Goa Chief Minister Mr Manohar Parrikars demise comes as a shock to all of us at IIT-Bombay. He was the institutes Distinguished Alumnus and was keenly involved with many initiatives at IIT-Bombay. He was also deeply involved with the launch of IIT-Goa. The Institute condoles his demise. Several groups of people in New Zealand performed a ceremonial dance called Haka, as a tribute to people who lost their lives in the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch. The dance is a part of Maori culture which involves stamping of the feet rhymically shouted accompaniments. The dance form was popularised by the New Zealand rugby team - they perform it before every international match. The dancers performed an emotional Haka at Al Noor Mosque to honour the victims. Another group of New Zealanders living in Australia joined the movement and performed a ceremonial dance at Surfers Paradise in Gold Coast, the Daily Mail reported. The video of the dance went viral on social media: Incredibly emotional display of the famous #NewZealand Haka performed to honor the victims of the #NewZealandMosqueAttack pic.twitter.com/v66ACLq7Fx Safwan Choudhry (@SafwanChoudhry) March 17, 2019 Powerful. Paying his respects to the victims, a man performs an emotional Haka outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch on Saturday. Mourners stood silently nearby at a floral tribute. Humanity lives. pic.twitter.com/DuZ5XQoWNb Heshmat Alavi (@HeshmatAlavi) March 17, 2019 The performance moved people across the world: 1. That Haka was the strongest I've ever seen. Tears. PurpleSwampHen (@PurpleSwamphen) March 17, 2019 2. There's only like 30 of them performing but they sound like a couple hundred. It's crazy how powerful a Haka can sound. Sorry for the repost, autocorrect changed Haka in the first one. Pheenix775 (@Darmstrong64) March 17, 2019 3. We, the Catholic community in #Senegal, have decidec to pray every Friday with our Muslim brothers and sisters. We will wear our traditional outfits and wrap our hair, like our tradition requests it. We are *One People *One Goal *One Faith pic.twitter.com/5xA1wv5oBo #Linguere #NdateYallah #QueenOfNdeer and #Wakanda (@AdouBD) March 17, 2019 4. Beautiful to show honour to the victims of such a tragic situation ClimateEarth (@climate_earth) March 17, 2019 5. Powerful energy. Literal tears. Thank you for posting and to these people for performing such a powerful tribute. #Christchurch Andrea Robin (@AndreaRobin1) March 17, 2019 6. Wonderful, powerful, moving & cathartic and that was just watching it. The whole world needs the haka. Anna Dickie #FBPE #Indy #BrexitIsBonkers (@wilfulblindness) March 17, 2019 7. Beautiful. The Haka is truly one of the wonders of the world. o'malley (@boolacoola) March 17, 2019 On March 15, an Australian native, Brenton Tarrant, opened fire during prayers in Christchurch. The terror attack claimed 50 lives and left almost 50 people injured. In a bid to make his classes creative, this Mathematics professor chose to teach his students love rather than math formulas. Charan Singh, an assistant professor at a government college for women in Karnal, Haryana, tried to explain love, friendship, closeness and attraction to first-year B.Com students. A video of the incident is going viral on social media. He wrote three formulas on the board, one of which read, Closeness- Attraction = Friendship. He went on to speak about the relationship between a husband and a wife which according to him falls apart with growing age. Husband and wife become friends in old age after the physical attraction dies down. The feeling of love comes when both the partners get attracted to each other. Both will quarrel with each other if the closeness is missing." "In foreign countries, people change vehicle, house and even spouse if any of the ingredients are missing. Whereas in India, people continue with the relationship even if closeness and attraction are missing but this is good for the children. Unfortunately, this did not end well for the professor. He was suspended after one of the students in his class shot a video of one of his lectures. He got a suspension letter through email according to which he can no longer teach math and has instead been allotted another subject. A Karnal-based social activist has also demanded the arrest of Singh by writing a complaint letter to the police which hasnt been registered yet. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Joseph Lewis Betrayed Click to Read an Excerpt "Action and adventure are the words of the day in this thrilling, well-written, page-turner from Joseph Lewis." Caught In A Web Click to Read an Excerpt "This important, nail-biting crime thriller about MS-13 sets the bar very high. One of the years best thrillers." Spiral Into Darkness Click to Read an Excerpt "[] The authors descriptions are amazing and paint a gripping picture that keeps you hooked in." Author of the Week: Joseph Lewis After having been in education for forty-four years as a teacher, coach, counselor and administrator,has retired. He uses his psychology and counseling background in crafting psychological thriller/mysteries. The developers will demonstrate their hybrid inks at stand C54 in hall 5 at this year's Hannover Messe, which takes place from April 1 to 5. Conductive inks are widely used in to print electronics. The inks presented by INM are applicable to flexible photovoltaics, lighting, touch screen electronics, wearable devices, large-area heaters, sensors, and 3D conformal antennas, among others. The inks are based on gold nanoparticles with good biocompatibility and low toxicity (FDA generally regarded as safe), suitable for health and biomedical applications. Immediate conductivity upon drying, mechanical flexibility, and good biocompatibility are important properties of our ink, explains the INM materials scientist Tobias Kraus. The hybrid inks contain a small organic polymer fraction that helps to maintain its electrical conductivity, even if the substrate material is bent, Kraus continues. This enables printing on almost any substrate, like foil, paper, or textiles, since the final annealing steps at relatively high temperatures are avoided. INM scientists have scaled the production of these hybrid inks to a level that is sufficient for small-scale production. The scaling of nanostructured products requires optimized processes in order to maintain quality while lower prices, says Kraus. Samples of the material are available for testing upon request. Your expert at INM: Prof. Dr. Tobias Kraus Head Structure Formation Phone: +49681-9300-389 tobias.kraus@leibniz-inm.de http://www.leibniz-inm.de/en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK5b2IdvCLA Photo: The Canadian Press Michael Wernick the country's top bureaucrat is leaving his job, telling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an open letter that recent events show him there is no path for a "relationship of mutual trust" with the opposition parties. Wernick has been clerk of the Privy Council since 2016, shortly after the Liberals assumed office. But he has come under fire in the past few weeks after being accused by former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould of being among a number of officials, including Trudeau and his senior staff, who pressured her to head off criminal charges for SNC-Lavalin. Wernick has maintained everything he did was within the boundaries of acceptable behaviour for his job of aiding the prime minister and cabinet as a non-partisan public servant. In his letter, Wernick says he plans to leave his post before this fall's federal election campaign kicks off, partly because the clerk needs to be viewed as "an impartial arbiter of whether serious foreign interference has occurred" as part of a new federal watchdog panel. Trudeau thanks Wernick in a statement for his nearly 38 years in the federal public service, and says Ian Shugart, currently the deputy minister of foreign affairs, will replace Wernick. Hogs Bounce into Weekend Barchart - 1 hour ago Front month lean hog futures extended their recovery through Friday with another triple digit up day. February led the complex with a $3.20 gain. USDAs National Average Base hog price for Friday was... HEZ21 : 73.050s (+0.86%) HEJ22 : 85.975s (+3.52%) KMZ21 : 86.575s (+0.93%) Cotton Weakens into Weekend Barchart - 1 hour ago Front month cotton futures were 30 to 36 points lower on Friday. For March that ended the week with a 1.93 cent gain, though all of it was on Monday. The new crop futures closed 9 to 15 points red, while... CTH22 : 106.23s (-0.34%) CTK22 : 104.93s (-0.29%) CTZ21 : 111.55s (+0.25%) Nat-Gas Rallies on Expectations for Continued Tight Supplies Barchart - Fri Dec 10, 2:20PM CST January Nymex natural gas (NGF22 ) on Friday closed up +0.111 (+2.91%). Nat-gas prices on Friday moved higher on the outlook for enough cold U.S. weather to support heating demand for nat-gas. Maxar on... NGF22 : 3.925s (+2.91%) Crude Gains on Dollar Weakness and Energy-Demand Optimism Barchart - Fri Dec 10, 2:16PM CST January WTI crude oil (CLF22 ) on Friday closed up +0.73 (+1.038%), and January RBOB gasoline (RBF22 ) closed up +0.88 (+0.41%). WTI crude oil and RBOB gasoline prices on Friday settled moderately higher.... CLF22 : 71.67s (+1.03%) RBF22 : 2.1372s (+0.41%) Political risk exposures The annual Political Risk Survey undertaken by Willis Towers Watson and Oxford Analytica recently found that 55% of global organisations with revenues exceeding US$1 billion have experienced at least one political risk loss worth over US$100 million. The most common political risk-related loss was exchange transfer, which affected almost 60% of organisations that incurred losses. This was followed by political violence (48%) and import/export embargos (40%). The key geopolitical threats highlighted by survey respondents were US sanctions policy, emerging market crises in areas like Turkey and Argentina, protectionism/trade wars, and populism/nationalism. Its clear from our findings that political risk has increased significantly, now becoming a reoccurring and material cost of doing business, said Paul Davidson, chairman and CEO of Willis Towers Watson Financial Solutions. If these levels remain elevated, companies will fall under increasing pressure from shareholders for greater levels of transparency around the losses actually incurred. Companies will need the ability to monitor, quantify and manage these risks as well as develop strategies to mitigate them. Emerging markets Emerging markets present great opportunities for multinational corporations to grow and gain dominant market share. However, they also present greater risks than developed markets. Political turbulence, foreign government actions and socioeconomic events can cause asset value to decline or, in worst case scenarios, assets can be destroyed or confiscated. Without political risk insurance, businesses might be reluctant to take advantage of developing markets. As Starr Insurance explains: Foreign government actions and socioeconomic events can create a business environment that is unfavourable for foreign investors, exporters, and lenders, preventing them from taking advantage of commercial opportunities in emerging markets. Political risk insurance is designed to mitigate against the loss of assets, income, or property suffered by investors, lenders, and corporations in emerging markets due to political risk events. Who buys political risk insurance? Political risk insurance is typically purchased by multinational corporations, importers and exporters, project lenders, financial institutions and capital markets, foreign investors, and contractors in industries like construction and engineering. Investors in financial services are the highest users of PRI, according to a World Bank survey. What motivates companies to buy political risk insurance? Investors and their partners are the driving force behind the majority of political risk submissions, according to the International Risk Management Institution (IRMI). Its often purchased to satisfy the banks, who themselves have a desire to satisfy internal credit committee lending requirements. In an IRMI blog post about political risk insurance purchasing in Asia, Daniel Wagner, founder and CEO of Country Risk Solutions, commented: There can be little doubt that investor/trader/lender reaction to individual political events in host countries is a prime motivating factor in the purchase of PRI for transactions in Asia. I have seen rises in submission levels following political events in the region, and indeed, globally. Its quite common for political risk insurance purchasers to pursue political risk insurance only after a political or economic event has occurred. Political risk insurance is ultimately a commodity that is sensitive to supply and demand. It would therefore be wise for purchasers of political risk insurance to pursue coverage either well in advance or well after such events occur because, not only is it less likely that coverage will then be available, but the cost of coverage will undoubtedly be higher during the storm. The structure of the political risk insurance market? According to Global Risk Insights, there are two types of political risk insurance providers with two different agendas. The first is the private market, dominated primarily by the London-based Lloyds market. Other large insurers that offer political risk insurance services include AIG, XL Catlin, Euler Hermes, Starr Insurance, and Atradius. Then there are public, state-backed investment-guarantee firms that are motivated by that governments foreign policy and international development goals. Global Risk Insights explains: These include national export credit agencies (ECAs) like the USs Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), as well as multilaterals like the World Banks Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the Asian Development Bank, and the African Trade Insurance Agency. As state-backed entities, national and multilateral PRI providers are able to offer longer, larger, and riskier insurance policies compared with the private market. How does political risk insurance differ to political violence insurance and terrorism insurance? Theres often a grey area between what is considered terrorism and what is considered political violence. Depending on how insurers and governments distinguish between the two should inform whether companies opt for political risk insurance, political violence insurance, terrorism insurance, or some form of combo. Evan Freely, managing director and global practice leader for Marshs Political Risk and Trade Credit Group, explained in a Marsh blog post: Because rates for political violence and standalone property terrorism insurance are typically lower than those for political risk insurance, some multinational companies manage the risk of political instability and violence through a combination of the two, rather than through political risk insurance. But its important to remember that standalone terrorism insurance policies do not cover all forms of political risk. Expropriation, forced abandonment or divesture, currency inconvertibility, non-payment, and contract frustration will only be covered by a political risk insurance policy. And there may be some interpretation about whether a politically motivated act of violence would be covered by political risk, political violence insurance, or standalone terrorism insurance. Last week, the Kalamalka Rotary Club was helping to save lives by promoting blood donations. Now, they received a lesson how to use Naloxone, which counteracts opioids in a person's bloodstream. Holly Vanjoff, with Interior Health, attended a Rotary meeting to show members how to use Naloxone, a drug which has saved hundreds of lives in Vernon alone over the past few years. Many of us have been touched by the opioid crisis which has hit our community, Rotary posted on its Facebook page. The club welcomed a presentation by Holly at Interior Health on the effective, yet simple to use, Naloxone kit which has been reported to have been used and reversed an opioid overdose in 769 cases in Vernon in 2017. This training, together with the kits, is free through Interior Health. Known for the internationalisation of the industrial lines division, Hinsch has had a successful 35-year stint at the HDI Group. He is described by his successor as having transformed HDI from an insurer rooted in Lower Saxony to a global player in industrial lines. Herbert K. Haas, chairman of the supervisory board of Talanx AG, has nothing but warm words for the departing leader. The supervisory board is deeply indebted to Dr Hinsch for his outstanding work in the Talanx Group and in the area of industrial lines, commented Haas. The growth, increasing internationalization, and very good reputation of the HDI Group including in the industrial sector are closely linked to Dr Hinschs name. Also expressing his gratitude was Talanx AG chief executive Torsten Leue, who stated: We have benefited enormously from his exceptional expertise in industrial insurance and from his loyalty. He has made a decisive contribution to the success of Talanx. Meanwhile Puls, whose career with HDI began in 2001 at the Essen branch, has been in charge of the areas of property, engineering, marine, and multi-risk since 2018. He also oversaw the management of the European entities. Replacing him is David Hullin, who supervised the launch of HDI Global Specialty. I feel that now is a good time to make the generational shift in industrial lines, said Hinsch. With that in mind, one of my major goals last year was to play an active part in the search for a suitable successor and, ideally, to find an internal candidate. I am very happy that with Edgar Puls such an outstanding successor has been chosen from among our own ranks. The generational renewal can now be completed on the group board of management of Talanx AG. Mr Haas has been succeeded by Mr Leue; Mr Wallin is passing the reins to Mr Henchoz; and I am now handing over to Edgar Puls. Haas who was Talanx AG chief executive until last year and Hannover Re CEO Ulrich Wallin are both 64. As reported by Insurance Business in August 2018, the latter is retiring this year and will be replaced by Swiss Re recruit Jean-Jacques Henchoz. Puls, for his part, holds his predecessors magnificent lifes work in the highest regard. He commented: Building seamlessly on this success story is a challenge that I am now taking on with great respect. At the same time, I am very much looking forward to this task. Speaking to Insurance Business, joint managing director Simon Gosnell said the firm had been trying to boost its corporate social responsibility commitments for some time but had struggled to decide on the best method or recipient. We have talked about supporting various charity initiatives for a long time but get caught up in choosing the right cause and event, he said. So, we decided to take the Just Do It approach and set a target for the team giving them the choice as to what activity and cause they wish to support. According to Gosnell, members of the AlphaXO team are choosing charities close to their hearts and planning a series of activities across the year ideas proposed so far range from sponsored bike rides to shaving heads. The team is looking to undertake each fundraising activity with at least one other person from AlphaXO or our broader business partners to build collaboration and have fun, added Gosnell. Joint managing director Andrew Glover and head of reinsurance Rupert Morton are the first to take the plunge, joining Can Too in the 1km Balmoral open water swimming race in early April. It is definitely important that senior leaders help set the example for an initiative like this, said Gosnell. Wed like to see everyone in the team having done something to help achieve our goal of giving $50k to charity this year. Of course, with the insurance industrys reputation taking a battering of late, a growing number of firms are taking proactive steps to prove their brokers are real people, who genuinely care about clients and communities AlphaXO included. We are fortunate to have some great people with considerable specialist insurance experience, but we know that is only part of the value we can add as brokers and individuals, says Gosnell. These initiatives, including our team profiles, do help clients know more about the people behind the suits or in Andrew and Ruperts case, behind the Speedos! Macquarie Pacific Funding was profitable not extremely, but it is, Robert Kelly, Steadfast chief executive, told AFR. It washes its own washing quite handsomely. We dont disclose individually, but it returns a profit margin in line with our other investments. Launched as a joint venture with Steadfast, Macquarie Pacific Funding pays insurance companies the full annual premium for business clients upfront, while clients pay back in monthly installments with interest. Some 55% of those customers were through Steadfast brokers. Last year, Macquarie Pacific Funding forked out $1.5 billion worth of premiums to more than 60,000 customers. Kelly said Raj Nanra, Macquarie Pacific Funding CEO, will continue to head the newly acquired business, which will remain as an open-product, selling to brokers outside the Steadfast network, AFR reported. In Oct. 2017, Kingsgate filed a legal case in the New South Wales Supreme Court against its insurers for refusing to pay out a US$200 million ($282.5 million) political risk insurance policy for the mines closure. But before the case could be heard in early June, Kingsgate reported that it has now settled proceedings by forging HoAs with Zurich Insurance Australia and other insurers worth more than $82 million, Stockhead reported. The deal will see Kingsgate receive a US$55 million cash payment by mid-April, plus a US$3.5 million assistance from the insurers to help fund its legal battle against the Thai government and other related costs. I realise that it has been a long recovery process for our loyal shareholders, but this settlement transaction provides material upside for our company, Ross Smyth-Kirk, Kingsgate chairman, told Stockhead. While there continues to be challenges in the advancement of diverse leaders, women are now in a position where they can rise up and face hurdles head on, added Schroeder, in part because of the ongoing conversations happening today about the promotion of women into leadership roles. Insurance professionals can, meanwhile, change their companies from the inside out to help turn that conversation into action. When youre looking around your company, what is the succession plan of this company and who is the future leadership? Bring women into that conversation, and get their perspective and insight into it, said Schroeder, adding that women have a lot to add to the dialogue, so its important to make sure they have a chance to speak up, while giving them the platform to do so. For their part, women in the insurance workforce can build a network of people who can advocate for them. Schroeder has seen the benefits of mentorship in her own career trajectory. I have had a lot of support within ITC from people who believe in me and in my capabilities, she told Insurance Business, pointing to ITCs CEO Laird Rixford as an important mentor. If you can find allies and mentors who see that potential, and will help you move along and be an advocate for you, that absolutely can make a difference. When Schroeder started networking outside of the company, she developed more relationships with other professionals who provided that same support, and saw that the more people she talked to, the more insight she was able to gain into the industry, which helped her shape her career. Women in Insurance Miami provides a venue for insurance professionals to do the same thing. It will be a great opportunity for us to come together to talk about what the challenges are as women in the industry, but also what are the opportunities, said Schroeder. What do we have to overcome, but what do we gain by overcoming that, and how can we do that together? How can we support and raise each other up so that we are taking advantage of these opportunities that are out there? Take a deeper dive into this issue at Women in Insurance Miami. Nebeker was indicted last year after being accused of stealing information from members of his church and using it to create dozens of phony life insurance policies in order to collect commission, according to the Coloradoan. Investigators said that of 87 life insurance policies Nebeker wrote between July 23, 2015, and September 15, 2016, 83 were phony. Sixty-nine (69) people came forward to tell authorities that they did not buy policies from Nebeker or authorize the use of their information, the Coloradoan reported. Nebeker has also been charged with a slew of similar crimes in Utah. In that state, he has been accused of fraudulently purchasing life insurance policies under 22 fake identities between July and December of 2017. The AI-generated art trend is creating a lot of interesting questions around the future of art and art insurance. Uncertainties around how artwork should be valued, authenticated, and protected are just some of the challenges that art insurers will have to deal with moving forwards, but these arent necessarily new challenges, according to Claire Marmion, CEO of Haven Art Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PURE Insurance . Artists have been challenging us for years with different, difficult and creative ideas, she said. Just think about Yves Kleins International Klein Blue, a concept he came up with in the late 1950s and brought to market in the 1960s, in which he created a pure pigment using ultramarine that cannot be touched by human hands. Thats just one example of a weird and wonderful way that an artist has challenged the art insurance space in the second half of the 20th century. Moving forward, Im not sure the challenges presented by AI-generated art are so different to some of the other things weve had to deal with in the last 20 or 30-years. With AI-generated art, the valuation part for the insurance industry is relatively simple, according to Marmion. The insurer calculates the premium based on the sale value of the piece. However, questions can start to arise around liability, risk mitigation, and also how quickly the value of the AI-artwork will accelerate or decelerate in the future compared to other categories of art. One of the interesting things about Klingemanns Memories of Passersby I is the physicality of the piece, Marmion told Insurance Business. Its essentially an opportunity to see an artificial brain in action. The artist has created a feedback loop between two screens one that creates the image and the other that responds and viewers get to interact with the thought process. What becomes the risk management for an artwork like that? If its on a video screen, youre going to be thinking about the risk management in the same way as you might with a Bill Viola exhibit or another video piece. With Klingemanns AI-brain, there might be additional risks with the algorithm itself. How do you know if the algorithm or the artificial brain is somehow malfunctioning? If that happens, does that constitute a damage to the work of art, or is it simply an extension to the performance and how the artwork is presenting itself? Art insurers and risk managers also have to consider the physical piece of the AI-generated artwork and how the algorithm and machine becomes part of that artwork. This needs to be treated differently to the digital works of art created in the last 20-years or so, which have essentially frozen in time. Marmion explained: If a museum has some digital artwork from the 1980s, the challenge theyve got is making sure they still have the technology the cords, wires and plugs to be able to still play it on a machine that might be defunct 20-years from now. With this artificial brain piece, you have the structure that supports the piece, but then you also have the brain, which keeps on thinking by itself. Thats an interesting thing to get your head around as an art insurer. Art insurers and risk managers have been in the front-line trenches with regards to emerging risks for many years, according to Marmion. Art, by its very nature, is the expression or application of human creativity and imagination. Insuring art requires equal amounts of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. An indictment alleges that the two men conspired to forge documents indicating that Tollivers all-terrain vehicle had been stolen so that he would not have to repay a bank loan. The document also said that Tolliver submitted a claim to his insurer, Mississippi Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance. The insurer paid him $12,800. Jamess attorney issued a statement last week outlining that he had not read the indictment, The Associated Press reported. Court records did not indicate whether Tolliver had an attorney. On top of his duties as a deputy, James also works as a guard at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. The insurance industry is frustrated that a deal has not been reached, but insurers are generally well-prepared regardless of when or under what terms the UK leaves the EU, AM Best said. When Britain withdraws from the EU, UK-domiciled insurers will no longer be able to issue insurance contracts in the European Economic Area (EEA). If the UK and the EU dont reach a trade deal encompassing financial services, its possible that UK insurers wont be able to settle and pay claims on existing insurance contracts in the EEA, according to AM Best. However, some EU countries have moved to mitigate these effects, AM Best said. In further support of the orderly run-off of existing EU business by UK insurers, AM Best notes the announcements made this year by a number of European countries, including France and Germany, that new rules will be put in place to allow claims to be paid by UK insurers post-Brexit, said Catherine Thomas, AM Best senior director of analytics. AM Best will continue to monitor closely political developments in the UK and the EU, and the ability of rated insurers to fulfill their contractual commitments, irrespective of the terms on which the UK leaves the EU. Both established in 2006, IPOA and RAA are together a hospitality-focused insurance distribution platform serving the Orlando, FL area. A release said that the newly acquired team will help launch SPGs own hospitality platform, and IPOA and RAAs current leadership will continue to run operations following the transactions close. IPOA and RAA have a long tradition of success in the hospitality industry and after meeting many potential partners, we immediately saw the opportunity SPG brings to our brokers and clients, said IPOA and RAA CEO Stefan Burkey. SPG will provide the support and resources needed to better serve our brokers and clients with more options. Burkey added that with the IPOA/RAA platform, SPG is uniquely positioned to become a leading insurance broker for hotel and restaurant solutions. Since our inception, one of our goals has been to partner with an industry leader in the hospitality field. Together, IPOA and RAA is that best in class firm, commented SPG president and CEO Chris Treanor. So the events of recent weeks and the preceding six months of Liberal business as usual do not strike MP Fuhr as inappropriate. What part of ethical, rule of law, independent prosecutors, honesty, truthful testimony and forthright answers from the prime minister and his office and staff does he not understand? We have had a different reason from the PM almost daily since the story of political interference in the SNC-Lavalin story broke. Nothing happened, never spoke to her, just helping her to find a solution, I did not direct her, there was no pressure, she was difficult to work with smear campaign, she could not stand the pressure of the job, SNC-Lavalin will move head office, there are 9,000 jobs at stake, and on and on. His chief of staff resigned and in testimony confirmed Jody Wilson-Rayboulds testimony on dates and times of political pressure for a plea deal for a major corporation, which just happens to have been recently convicted in Canada for illegal political donation schemes, and bribing a civic official with over $2,000,000 on a Quebec bridge contract. But all the insiders of the PMs office and a key civil servant want them to escape prosecution. SNC-Lavalin have a long and sordid history of corrupting officials around the world and in Canada. The Clerk of the Privy Council, the senior (supposedly) non-partisan official takes calls from his old pal the CEO of SNC-Lavalin on his private line at night to discuss how they can work out a deal. That same Clerk also calls the minster of justice at home at night to tell her the PM is in a mood and will get his way. What part of unethical and possibly illegal do you not see here? As for the testimony of Michael Wernick, it included a lot of non-answers and ...I do not recall the conversation that way" or "I do not remember. Canadians have lost confidence in a deceitful PM who broke most of his election platform promises and now is disgracing the country at home and abroad. Shame on you, Mr. Fuhr, you served Canada with honour as an officer in the air force, retain your honour by resigning from the Liberal caucus. Doug Waines California, a bellwether state in many ways, rang in 2019 with a regulation banning the use of gender in auto insurance underwriting and rating. Prior to this regulation, insurers used gender in California for more than 30 years because it is predictive of future loss and insurance claims. Young male drivers typically drive faster than young female drivers, causing more losses, and insurers showed regulators the data to demonstrate this risk. Nevertheless, as Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones left office, he issued the ban on gender, and since January, 12 other states have introduced or considered legislation that would restrict or ban a range of rating factors. So far this year, legislation to ban the use of gender has been considered in Connecticut, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia. Bans on the use of credit have been introduced in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and West Virginia. Despite having studied the use of education and occupation, Maryland and New Jersey are again considering legislative bans on these factors. The use of ZIP codes and geographic territories are under attack in Illinois and Maryland. Marital status as a rating factor is also being debated in Maryland, and nearly all non-driving factors are being scrutinized as part of the discussion around no-fault reform in Michigan. Matching Risk Insurance is about matching risk with price so safer drivers do not subsidize riskier drivers. However, these bills would eliminate many tools used to price insurance accurately and ensure consumers get the best rates. They would have the unintended consequence of making it difficult for insurers to develop a more complete picture of a drivers risk or accurately price policies. The insurance industry has studied the data for years, and it shows many factors commonly used are more reflective of driver safety than ones driving record. That is because driving records can be wiped of injurious car accidents and safety violations through the completion of easy driver safety courses. Drivers with the financial resources can hire an attorney and have items removed from their record. Rather than forcing insurers to solely rely on state motor vehicle records, which are plagued by omissions and unreported events, insurers should be able to continue using the variety of factors that accurately predict the likelihood of an accident or a claim. When insurers use these tools to underwrite risks, consumers benefit with lower rates, more choices and greater market stability. This is why nearly all state insurance departments across the country have approved the use of the factors these bills would eliminate or restrict. Limiting Choice This is not the right time for regulators to limit choice and competition. Instead, the industry wants to work with lawmakers and commissioners to increase consumer options and lower costs. The way to make the insurance marketplace affordable and work better for all drivers is to encourage consumers to shop around for the policy that fits their specific needs and price range. We should work together to combat distracted driving and other safety hazards contributing to rising collision and fatality rates. When purchasing insurance coverage, consumers simply want a fair price that relates to the likelihood they will have an accident or file a claim. The restrictions on risk-based insurance pricing being advanced across the country would unfairly create lower rates for some riskier drivers while increasing the rates for those with a record of safety. This is the wrong direction for consumers and the insurance marketplace. Topics Legislation Underwriting Maryland Todays Insurance Consumer Advocates Are Tackling Some New and Old Issues Years ago, insurance consumer advocates in the states were most often focused on getting consumers access to insurance at fair prices. They still advocate on those issues, of course, but today some are looking beyond these traditional concerns. Property/casualty insurance consumer advocates in some states are tackling data and technology, improved consumer education and even energy projects as they relate to insurance. In some cases, todays challenges are the consequences of past success in creating more options for consumers and now wanting to make sure that they understand their choices. In others, they reflect efforts to protect consumers in an age of costly catastrophes and ubiquitous data use. The use by property/casualty insurers of big data and the complex algorithms to set pricing, resolve claims, market their products and even combat fraud is an economic justice concern for longtime consumer advocate Birny Birnbaum. Its one that insurance regulators have not yet successfully addressed, he says. Birnbaum, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based Center for Economic Justice, a non-profit dedicated to advocating for low-income and minority consumers, says that to compound the problem, insurance regulators have not addressed the challenges that big data and complex algorithms pose in terms of consumer protection. In the absence of meaningful data on who is writing what products in what locations at what prices, there is no meaningful way to evaluate insurance availability and affordability. However, we know that the growth of climate-change driven weather-related events will tax public and private insurance mechanism, Birnbaum says. Birnbaum has praise for Texas Insurance Commissioner Ken Sullivans commitment and actions to improving consumer information and disclosure. However, overall, he says, there is still a lot of work for states to do. There is tremendous opportunity to improve consumer information about insurance products and insurer market performance to promote more competitive markets, he said. Policy Customization One area of opportunity is improving consumers understanding of the insurance coverages they need and the coverages their policies provide, according to Melissa Hamilton, who is immersed in insurance consumer issues in Texas as public counsel with the Texas Office of Public Insurance Counsel (OPIC), a state agency tasked with representing consumers in insurance matters. Over the years, the P/C insurance industry in Texas and other states has been granted more flexibility in writing policies, which in turn has led to more policy customization. Hamilton says this is presenting a challenge to consumers. Consumers will most likely have to customize their policy through endorsements to best fit their insurance needs. They will also have to understand the many different coverages offered for one line of insurance, Hamilton told Insurance Journal. As a result of the expanding variety of policy options available to consumers, OPIC has made consumer education as a primary focus. The Texas insurance market is generally competitive at most price points for most lines of insurance, Hamilton says. But with competition comes diversity of choices, and her concern is that some consumers may not be adept at shopping for the kinds of insurance most suitable to their needs at the price they can afford. Many consumers shop based solely on price. Insurance ads and other marketing tools also tend to focus on price. While price is certainly an important consideration, price is not the only, and potentially not the most important, consideration when shopping for insurance, she says. To help consumers determine and select the kinds of insurance for their needs, Hamiltons agency has developed resources such as shopping guides and insurance checklists for consumers to use when shopping for home and auto coverages. When consumers have the right information and know what questions to ask, they can navigate the insurance marketplace more easily and hopefully make the market work for them, she says. Insurers, too, can help potential policyholders by using plain language in insurance policies, Hamilton says. Thats an area of opportunity for insurance companies to not only enhance the consumer experience but also improve carrier efficiency and accuracy in policy writing. Reducing technical and legal jargon, and long policy contracts with multiple endorsements, would significantly improve property and casualty insurance products, Hamilton says. The Florida Association for Insurance Reform (FAIR) has a lot on its plate, including curbing costly abuse in the property insurance claims process and reducing inefficiencies in workers compensation, but this same issue of consumers awareness of their insurance needs is also a concern. FAIR President Jay Neal says there is an inverse relationship between the availability and affordability of insurance in Florida. Broad coverage can be found in most lines of insurance but at higher actuarial indicated rates. Consequently, price sensitive insureds may opt for diminished coverages in exchange for reduced premiums. Greater education is needed to highlight the consumer risk exposures and the value of narrowing their insurance protection gaps, according to the Florida leader. At the same time, Neal believes the Florida insurance market in particular ranks high when it comes to competition and for its innovative product offerings including private flood coverage. In the area of data privacy, California consumer advocates are watching attempts to amend what is already the nations most far-reaching data privacy law that was passed in 2018 and is set to go into effect in 2020. The law currently enables a limited private right of action. But new proposals would give consumers even more power to sue corporations, including insurers, for mishandling personal data. Companies that collect personal information should be paying close attention, according to Anne Kelley, a partner with Newmeyer & Dillion, who practices in insurance coverage matters. It would really open the doors for litigation under the CCPA, Kelley told Insurance Journal. Pipelines Some advocates are trying to look ahead to the effects certain energy and climate-related developments might have on insurance. In Virginia, advocates are raising concerns about two interstate gas pipelines, one that is under construction and one that has yet to start construction. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is aimed at strengthening the energy security of the Mid-Atlantic region, according to the projects website. The Mountain Valley Pipeline will be a natural gas pipeline spanning approximately more than 300 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. Since the high-pressure pipelines may go into service in 2019, the property insurance challenges will start to appear, maintains Irene Leech, president of the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council. Specifically, Leechs group is worried that after the pipelines are installed near homes in Virginia, they could impact the cost of homeowners insurance in those areas. However, a spokesperson for the Virginia State Corporation Commissions Bureau of Insurance told Insurance Journal the pipelines themselves should not change Virginias risk assessment by insurance underwriters. The department noted that other natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines already cross Virginia and are subject to strict federal regulations regarding pipeline safety. Leech said her group is also watching what is happening to the cost of homeowners insurance for Virginians on the coast. The state says the introduction of hurricane and wind deductibles has improved availability of insurance for coastal homes, although premiums reman priced based on the risk of being near the water. Wildfires For consumer advocates in California, one issue has clearly emerged as a priority. Increasingly severe California wildfires are a threat to the state as a whole. Back-to-back historic wildfire seasons have caused billions of dollars in insured losses. Consumer advocates note that homeowners insurance is now difficult to obtain in wildfire prone areas, and theres an imminent threat of rate hikes. For Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, this is his top priority for the year: Making sure that insurance industry honors claims of victims of wildfires and that the Department of Insurance takes a long-term view in rate setting, instead of allowing the industry to raise homeowners rates unreasonably. The fires could also cripple the states utility giants, whose practices and faulty equipment have been pointed to as potential causes of some of the massive blazes. Pacific Gas & Electric went into bankruptcy in the face of billions of dollars in potential labilities from those seeking compensation for the disasters. Holober wants to make sure PG&E doesnt avoid its liabilities, adding that his other priority as a consumer advocate is guarding against utility industry efforts to evade liability and shift costs, if held responsible for causing fires. TradItional Issue There are, of course, state advocates still focusing on the age-old consumer issues, such as auto insurance pricing and availability. Liz Coyle, executive director of consumer group Georgia Watch, sees rising auto insurance rates as a concern and has called on the state legislature to repeal the 2008 file-and-use law and restore the commissioners authority to rein in excessive rate increases. We support that idea, Coyle said. We also will call on Commissioner [Jim] Beck as we did his predecessor to address pricing disparities that cause lower income Georgians to pay more for their policies. In 2019, wed like to see a lot more transparency in how auto insurance rates are set. Helping consumers understand their insurance options and insurers use of big data. Auto insurance is also a concern in Delaware, where both the Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council (DCRAC) and the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) hope to see some changes in how auto insurance rates are determined. Driving records, accidents, zip code, history, credit, make even the least expensive insurance too expensive, DCRAC has complained. You should not have to get a new job, get a masters degree and buy a house, just to get a fair price for auto insurance, CFA Director of Insurance Robert Hunter has said in arguing for changes. A 2017 law restricted the use of some rating criteria, but advocates are pushing or more. In Florida, FAIR wants to see the states personal injury protection (PIP) law replaced with mandatory bodily injury coverage. But first, Florida must legislate contractor controls and consumer protections to address assignment of benefits (AOB) abuses that are leading to higher property insurance rates for Florida residents, according to consumer and industry groups there. Topics Carriers California Catastrophe Texas Auto Florida Wildfire Property Property Casualty Market Training Development Homeowners Virginia Uber Technologies Inc. is not criminally liable in a March 2018 crash in Tempe, Ariz., in which one of the companys self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors said earlier this month. The Yavapai County Attorney said in a letter made public that there was no basis for criminal liability for Uber, but that the conduct of the back-up driver, Rafael Vasquez, should be referred to the police for additional investigation. Police said last year that Vasquez was streaming a television show on a phone until about the time of the crash and called the incident entirely avoidable. An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment. Vasquez, who could face charges of vehicular manslaughter, has not commented. Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Sullivan Polk said its investigation concluded that the collision video, as it displays, likely does not accurately depict the events that occurred. She said expert analysis is needed to match what the person sitting in the drivers seat of the vehicle would or should have seen that night given the vehicles speed, conditions and other relevant factors. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are still investigating the fatal crash. The Uber car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash, but the company requires a back-up driver inside to intervene when the system fails or a tricky situation occurs. The Tempe police report said Vasquez repeatedly looked down and not at the road, glancing up a half second before the car hit Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the street at night. Police obtained records from online steaming service Hulu showing Vasquezs account was playing the TV talent show The Voice for about 42 minutes on the night of the crash, which coincides with the approximate time of the collision. Topics Auto Fraud Personal Auto Arizona Sharing Economy Autonomous Vehicles Ridesharing Between 2016 and 2018, the percentage of private sector employers participating in the workers compensation system in Texas fell from 78 percent to 72 percent, according to a report released in February by the state insurance department. However, according to the report, Employer Participation in the Texas Workers Compensation System: 2018 Estimates, subscription rates in those two years still were at the highest levels since 1993. Since 1913 in Texas, private sector employers have been able to opt out of, or non-subscribe to, the requirement to obtain workers compensation insurance coverage for the protection of their injured employees. The report, published by the Texas Department of Insurance Workers Compensation Research and Evaluation Group, points out that while some states allow exceptions to private sector employers, Texas is the only one that allows any private sector employer to non-subscribe. The non-subscriber report is based on 2,377 completed interviews with year-round private sector employers in Texas, 1,711 of which subscribed to the workers comp system and 666 of which were non-subscribers. The interviews were conducted by the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M University from June through September 2018. Researchers found that subscribers primarily buy workers comp coverage in order to provide medical care to injured employees through networks and at lower premium rates. Between 67 and 72 percent of subscribers reported that their workers comp premiums had decreased or stayed the same in 2018. For the most part, non-subscribers say they dont participate because they have few employees and/or few workplace injuries. Occupational Injury Benefits While they might not purchase workers compensation insurance, some non-subscribers do provide occupational injury benefits for their employees. Among non-subscribers in 2018, 30 percent said they provide occupational injury benefits and 80 percent said they pay medical benefits if they are medically necessary. Of those non-subscribers providing medical benefits in 2018, 20 percent said they cap them based on the duration of the treatment, treatment costs or both. In 2016, 30 percent of non-subscribers said they had such caps. In addition to medical benefits, some non-subscribers pay wage replacement benefits to injured employees. Among 2018 non-subscribers, 16 percent said they pay wage benefits. Of those, 79 percent said such benefits are based on the duration of lost time. In 2018, 36 percent of non-subscribing employers paid permanent impairment income benefits to injured employees in lump sum payments, compared to 29 percent in 2016 and 34 percent in 2014. Arbitration Among non-subscribers in 2018, an overall 15 percent use arbitration as a method of resolving injury benefit disputes. Among large employer non-subscribers, 49 percent use arbitration agreements. About 35 percent of non-subscribers that use arbitration agreements said they require the employee to pay all or a portion of the arbitration costs. Reporting Employers without workers compensation insurance must notify the DWC of their coverage status; those employers without workers comp coverage that have at least five employees must report to the DWC all work related deaths, occupational diseases and injuries resulting in at least one day of lost time. However, in 2018 only around half of non-subscribers were knowledgeable about the requirement for filing such information with the DWC. The insurance departments report on employer participation in the workers comp system is available online at: https://www.tdi.texas.gov/reports/wcreg/documents/nonsub2019.pdf. Topics Texas Workers' Compensation Pricing Trends The number of tornadoes confirmed to have touched down in a deadly outbreak across the Southeast in early March was at least 36. Survey teams for the National Weather Service found evidence of the twisters in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. The most powerful was an E4 tornado blamed for killing 23 people March 3 in rural Lee County, Alabama. Its destructive winds reached 170 mph (274 kph) as it carved a path of destruction nearly a mile wide. The tornado trekked nearly 70 miles (113 kilometers) from western Alabama into Georgia after crossing the Chattahoochee River at the state line. The weather service said 90 people were injured. All of the tornado deaths were in Alabama, though several people in Georgia were injured. The twister was part of a powerful storm system that slashed its way across the Deep South, spawning numerous tornado warnings. Government teams surveying storm damage said at least 18 tornadoes struck on March 3 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina alone. Surveyors found that the twisters intensity peaked in Beauregard, a rural Lee County community, where it demolished multiple manufactured homes, emptying their contents into the woods. The tornado swept up and scattered the debris so widely that the metal frames of two of those homes could not be located. Mobile homes tucked among tall pine trees were swept from their bases and smashed into unrecognizable piles of rubble. Toys, clothes, insulation, water heaters and pieces of metal were scattered across the hillsides where once towering pines were snapped in half. An unincorporated community of roughly 10,000 people near the Georgia state line, Beauregard is in the same county as Auburn University. The community has a few small stores, two schools and a volunteer fire department. The weather service found evidence that two tornadoes struck the area. Meteorologist Chris Darden said the one that did most of the destruction was the EF4 monster tornado. He said it was the deadliest to hit the U.S. since May 2013, when an EF5 killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma. It looks like someone almost just took a giant knife and scraped the ground, Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said. Tornado outbreaks in early March arent unusual in the Alabama-Mississippi area, tornado experts said in fact, the weather services Storm Prediction Center had warned people three days before the disaster to be on the lookout for higher tornado activity in the region. University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd said government forecasters were all over it. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Georgia Alabama Workers compensation brokers frequently overlook a risk-free method to nearly double their commissions while improving their clients overall financial position. The use of a captive insurance company to finance a large deductible program is one of the most underutilized tools in the brokers arsenal, and an understanding of this technique will bring an edge to the market. Large deductible policies differ from guaranteed cost in that they let employers retain a portion of their risk while lowering their overall cost of risk. Insurance carriers operating above the attachments point frequently offer excess coverage (state laws require variations on this approach, such as in monopolistic states requiring buybacks, but the general strategy is valid in all 50 states). Large deductibles are deductibles or self-insured retentions of $100,000 or more. For most insureds, 80 percent of the workers comp losses occur within the deductible layer. Losses are paid as they are incurred. Companies deduct these losses as they flow through the company. Most companies do not reserve anything for these losses, which sometimes creates cash flow crunches. Using a captive to finance the large deductible allows the carrier to pay monthly premiums into a wholly-owned captive. These premiums are deducted from gross operating income in advance of claims. This creates a tax swing in favor of the insured. Claims within the deductible are paid out of the captive. Assume a clients standard premium is $800,000. If the client elects to take a $250,000 self-insured retention or large deductible, then the client is likely to experience a 45 percent credit. This reduces the $800,000 premium by 45 percent to $440,000. The clients self-insured retention covers the majority of losses with the $440,000 financing an excess layer with an A-rated workers comp carrier. Standard Premium: $800,000 Deductible: $250,000 Large Deductible Credit: 45% Excess Premium: $440,000 8% Commission: $35,200 The estimated premium savings to the insured with a large deductible program are significant. If we assume losses of $200,000 for the policy period, the insured may deduct $200,000 of claims against gross operating income to pay for losses as they arise. This results in a total expenditure of the large deductible program of $640,000. Assuming an 8 percent broker commission, the broker should enjoy an annual fee of about $35,000 for placing this risk with a carrier. Unfortunately, most brokers stop their analysis at this point. The reality is that most clients that are a good fit for a large deductible workers comp program are also a great fit for a captive to finance the self-insured layer. This strategy has significant financial advantages to the insured and increases the brokers commission. The following example illustrates how the financials work: Estimated Premium: $360,000 Incurred Losses: $200,000 Dividend: $160,000 8% Commission: $28,800 In this situation, the insured established a protected cell company to finance the workers comp large deductible and pays $360,000 of premium into its own captive insurance company to finance the deductible. The $360,000 is deductible before losses are incurred. This minimizes the potential for cash crunches when large losses occur. If the insureds actual losses amount to $200,000 over the policy period, then the captive will have an additional $160,000 of potential dividend to distribute to the captive owners. Because the captive writes less than $2.3 million in gross written premium, it qualifies for the 831(b) election, which excludes the $160,000 as taxable underwriting profit to the captive. The captive does not pay any taxes on the dividend. With the use of the captive, the insured created a $360,000 tax deduction with tax-free profits remaining in the captive. The owners can choose to distribute these dividends back to the owners or invest the profits. The total spent under the captive program is $440,000 for excess coverage plus $360,000 for deductible layer premium minus $160,000 in the return of premium minus gross income taxes avoided. Assuming a 21 percent tax rate, the captive saved $25,200 in income taxes. This results in total costs of $614,800. Losses in the workers compensation line are generally paid out over a five-year period. This means that the balance of the $614,800 of assets will be invested in low-risk investments and accumulating interest until the losses are paid in settlements. Over 60 months, the captive removes hundreds of thousands of taxable income from the insured, invests it conservatively and distributes the dividends at a later date. This creates cash flow flexibility. Meanwhile, the insured wrote an additional $360,000 of premium. Assuming an 8 percent commission fee to the workers comp broker, this results in a $28,000 commission. This is a net commission increase of approximately 81 percent to the broker. The captive-financed large deductible program provides a savings of $185,200 from the initial guaranteed cost program, which is about a 23 percent premium reduction to the insured. With the captive insurance company in place, the underwriting profit of $160,000 can be reinvested into the captive to expand reserves, invested into private equity opportunities or distributed to high-performing employees of the insured. Queen serves as general counsel for Venture Captive Management. Topics Carriers Agencies Workers' Compensation Profit Loss A Maine marketing firm has settled a lawsuit with a former employee who claimed she was drugged at a company party and fired after requesting accommodations to recover. The Portland Press Herald reports an attorney for Trueline Publishing told the court both parties reached a settlement. Both the company attorney and the attorney for the former employee declined to comment on the terms of the settlement. Diana Salas sued the firm last year saying she feared she was drugged at a company party in 2016. She says she was diagnosed with stress disorders as a result, and she was fired after asking for permission to work from home. The firm denies her firing was retaliatory, and it says police found there was no evidence anyone tampered with Salas drinks. Information from: Portland Press Herald Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Maine Allianz SE is exploring the possibility of a combination of its asset management arm with Deutsche Bank AGs DWS Group to create a national champion in active money management, according to people familiar with the matter. The Munich-based insurer is looking at the feasibility of a deal with Germanys largest lender to create a business with 1.17 trillion euros ($1.33 trillion) under management, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the private matter. Allianzs deliberations are at an early stage and may not lead to any formal talks or agreement, the people said. DWS is one of Deutsche Banks crown jewels and the lender is reluctant to sell its holding in the stock-listed unit, one of the people said. Still, such a transaction could help Deutsche Bank finance a merger with Commerzbank AG. The lender would have to come up with about 8 billion euros for restructuring expenses and revaluation of certain assets should it decide to combine with its cross-town rival, according to Christian Koch, a DZ Bank analyst. DWS has a market cap of 5.6 billion euros, valuing Deutsche Banks 78 percent stake at about 4.3 billion euros. DWS shares rose as much as 9.3 percent in Frankfurt the most on record on the Allianz interest in early trading on Monday. Deutsche Bank has already tapped shareholders for about 30 billion euros this decade, making the sale of an asset like DWS potentially more palatable. Representatives for Deutsche Bank, Allianz and DWS declined to comment. Any sale of DWS could also attract interest from other firms looking to bolster their asset management business, including Amundi SA, Europes largest asset manager, UBS Group AG and Morgan Stanley. Amundi, majority owned by Credit Agricole SA, would take a look at DWS if it became available, according to people briefed on the matter. An Amundi representative declined to comment. Deutsche Bank may need to sell its DWS stock for at least 32 euros per share to avoid a writedown on the value booked on the lenders balance sheet, according to people familiar with the information. The stock closed on Friday at 27.95 euros. A combination of DWS, which oversees 662 billion euros, and German active money manager Allianz Global Investors, with 505 billion euros, would create a German champion in asset management. If Deutsche Bank were to acquire Commerzbank, theyll look at how to finance it, and one of the options is to dispose of their stake in DWS, said Neil Smith, an analyst at Bankhaus Lampe. For asset managers seeking scale and there are a lot these days a sale of DWS would present a rare opportunity for a large deal. The firm has one of Europes biggest offerings of exchange traded funds, as well as a sizable real estate business. Deutsche Bank tried to sell much of the asset management business in 2012, but stopped when it couldnt get the price it wanted. It raised about $2 billion last year when it sold a minority stake in an initial public offering of the firm. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics Allianz Germany Authorities used boats and large vehicles on Saturday to rescue and evacuate residents in parts of the Midwest where a recent deluge of rainwater and snowmelt was sent pouring over frozen ground, overwhelming creeks and rivers, and killing at least one person. The scramble to move people out of harms way was expected to subside going into the new week, as rivers and creeks in flooded eastern Nebraska and western Iowa were expected to crest Saturday and Sunday. That left officials downstream looking to prepare for likely flooding. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson had already met with emergency management team members Friday to review and update flood-response plans, and the Missouri Highway Patrol was preparing additional equipment and putting swift water rescue personnel on standby. The Missouri National Guard also temporarily relocated the 139th Airlift Wings C-130s from Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph as a precaution. The National Weather Service said the Missouri River at St. Joseph reached nearly 26 feet on Saturday, about a foot below whats considered major flooding at the northwest Missouri city. But its expected to crest Wednesday or Thursday at 29.3 feet more than two feet above major flooding level. Evacuation efforts in eastern Nebraska and some spots in western Iowa on Saturday were hampered by reports of levee breaches and washouts of bridges and roads, including part of Nebraska Highway 92, leading in and out of southwest Omaha. Authorities confirmed that a bridge on that highway that crosses the Elkhorn River had been washed out Saturday. In Fremont, west of Omaha, the Dodge County Sheriffs Office issued a mandatory evacuation for some residents after floodwaters broke through a levee along the Platte River. And in Mills County, Iowa, authorities ordered people in some rural areas to evacuate after the Missouri River overtopped levees. The flooding followed days of snow and rain record-setting, in some places that swept through the West and Midwest. The deluge pushed some waterways, including the Missouri River, to record levels in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. The flooding was the worst in nearly a decade in places. The family of farmer James Wilke, 50, of Columbus, Nebraska, said he was killed Thursday when a bridge collapsed as he was using his tractor to try to reach stranded motorists on Thursday. His body was found downstream, his cousin Paul Wilke told the Columbus Telegram. Gass Haney Funeral Home confirmed James Wilkes death. At least two other people were missing in floodwaters in Nebraska. Officials said a Norfolk man was seen on top of his flooded car late Thursday before being swept away in the water and another man was swept away by waters when a dam collapsed on the Niobrara River. Officials in Sarpy County, south of Omaha, said Saturday that power may be shut off to communities along the Missouri, Platte and Elkhorn rivers for safety reasons. They warned those who choose to ignore calls to evacuate that rescues would be attempted only during daylight hours. Some cities and towns, such as North Bend on the banks of the Platte River, were submerged. Others, such as Waterloo and Fremont, were surrounded by floodwaters, stranding residents in virtual islands with no access in or out. There is no way out of here unless youve got a helicopter or a boat, the Rev. Mike Bitter, pastor of Christian Church of Waterloo, told the Omaha World-Herald. Officials in western Iowa and eastern Nebraska were urging people not to drive unless necessary. In Iowa, a section of northbound Interstate 29 that runs parallel to the Missouri River was closed due to flooding. Authorities were rerouting motorists at Kansas City, Missouri, using a detour that took people almost 140 miles (225 kilometers) out of the way. Farther east, the Mississippi River saw moderate flooding in Illinois from Rock Island south to Gladstone. Meteorologist Brian Pierce with the National Weather Services Quad Cities office in Davenport, Iowa, said flooding on the Mississippi could get worse a few weeks as more snow melts in Minnesota and Wisconsin. What were having now is the dress rehearsal for the main event thats going to happen in early April, he said of the flooding on the Mississippi. Rising waters along the Pecatonica and Rock rivers flooded some homes in the northern Illinois cities of Freeport, Rockford and Machesney Park. The National Weather Service said record crests were possible along the rivers, with water levels forecast to continue to rise over the next several days and remain above flood stage through most of the weekend. Freeport resident Mary Martin told the (Freeport) Journal-Standard that she went to the store to get milk and bread when she saw floodwaters were rising Friday. Within an hour of going to the store, I could not get back in. Thats how fast the water was coming up, Martin said. Associated Press reporter Caryn Rousseau contributed from Chicago. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Flood Missouri Mississippi Iowa Nebraska Authorities say a tornado swept through mid-Michigan, damaging homes and knocking out power to thousands. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down at 7:03 p.m. Thursday around the Shiawassee County community of Vernon, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) southwest of Flint. Officials say the same tornado touched down in nearby Durand about 7:05 p.m. State police say roughly 70 homes and businesses were damaged, but no injuries were immediately reported. Severe weather also moved through nearby Genesee County, where a mobile home park was damaged. Park resident Eric Wichert told MLive.com the winds got really bad, really strong. Weather service officials say an unconfirmed tornado reportedly touched down nearby in the Flushing area at 7:12 p.m. Lower Michigan also saw severe thunderstorm warnings, watches, flooding, high winds and hail as a late-winter storm system trekked across the Midwest. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Michigan Homeowners Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has been shifted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease that has weakened his nervous system, his party has said. General (retd) Musharraf, 75, who has been living in Dubai since March 2016, is facing the treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offence for which he was indicted in 2014 A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. The former army chief left for Dubai for medical treatment and has not returned since, citing security and health reasons. Musharraf was rushed to the hospital as an "emergency" on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said Sunday. APML Overseas President Afzaal Siddiqui told DawnNewsTV that Musharraf had suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president has been receiving medical care. According to the party, the former president has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. Siddiqui informed about Musharraf's illness in October last year, saying the former president's disease has "weakened his nervous system". At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. "Due to amyloidosis, broken protein starts getting deposited in various organs," Siddiqui had said. "[As a result] Pervez Musharraf has difficulty in standing and walking." Amyloidosis is a rare disease that occurs when a substance called amyloid builds up in your organs. Amyloid is an abnormal protein that is produced in your bone marrow and can be deposited in any tissue or organ. Amyloidosis can affect different organs in different people. Amyloidosis frequently affects the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, nervous system and digestive tract. Severe amyloidosis can lead to life-threatening organ failure. The APML official had then said that Musharraf's treatment could continue for up to five or six months. Upon his full recovery, Siddiqui had said, Musharraf intends to return to Pakistan. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, has been declared a fugitive in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case and the Red Mosque cleric killing case. -PTI When cyber thieves attacked Empire Industries computer network, technology manager Rich Shemanskis could see files in the process of being infected by malicious software. We were looking at the network, and I noticed it, and another guy noticed it. Were looking at the files and watching them change, Shemanskis recalls about the attack three years ago. Shemanskis told staffers to quickly shut down their PCs, which helped limit the malwares spread, but the company did lose about a days worth of work. The saving grace for the Manchester, Connecticut, manufacturer of building materials was it had backed up most of its files. A cyber attack that leads to down time and lost data can be more costly for smaller companies than for larger businesses an average of $763 per affected computer or other device versus $470, according to a 2018 study by the Poneman Institute, which researches data protection. Many small businesses dont have sophisticated systems to protect themselves from hackers, viruses, malware and whats called ransomware, which renders files inaccessible unless a computer user pays thieves to release them. And many owners arent tech-savvy enough to anticipate potential problems or dont make use of technology staffers or outside help to strengthen their defenses. After the attack, Empire reassessed its security. We already had antivirus protection, but we upgraded everything we added more layers of security, Shmanskis says. Empires experience shows why its critical for small businesses to keep strong defenses against cyber criminals. The nature of the threat continues to evolve, says Diana Burley, a professor at George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Education and Human Development whose expertise includes cyber security. Cyber thieves use increasingly advanced technology and develop attack methods that are harder to detect and foil, she says. A companys computers can be invaded indirectly a supplier or customer could be attacked and the virus or malware is passed along if computer systems are linked. Thats how cyber thieves hacked into the computers of discount retailer Target in 2013 they broke in after first invading the system of one of Targets vendors. Target had to settle legal claims for having not protected customers information that was stolen. Smaller businesses are likely to be even more vulnerable, Burley says, adding that it is the responsibility of the business to be aware that those things can happen. Sometimes the invasion is more low-tech. Jay Marose, who has a Los Angeles-based publicity business, allowed a longtime friend who was also a client to use his password to access his website-building account. The friend logged into the account after their work relationship ended, took files that didnt belong to him and reversed his payment to Marose. The incident cost the publicist $10,000 and two clients. Marose realizes that giving the password to someone else was a mistake. But the theft was made easier by the website companys weak security it didnt use two-factor authentication, which requires a temporary passcode in addition to a password. Moreover, the theft happened during a hurricane and the company was shut down for 10 days; Marose couldnt get any help. Marose now guards his information closely. It changed the way I do business going forward, Marose says. The attack on Amanda Naors website showed her why its critical to back up content and data. Naor, who has a photography business in Los Angeles, tried to log into her site early last year but her password was rejected. Technicians at the company that hosted her site found that someone had hacked in and changed the password. Naor created a new password, but a week later was again locked out and her website was completely disorganized picture and text were jumbled haphazardly. She had no backup. A website security company Naor hired found malware on her site and was able to restore her content. Technicians said she was targeted because cyber thieves develop their skills by practicing on small websites. Essentially, I was a playground for a hacker, says Naor. She now has a backup and an ongoing relationship with the security company. When hackers get hold of a small business owners personal information, the company can suffer. Josh Lamonts Social Security number was stolen five years ago when he became a joint depositor on his mothers account; unbeknownst to the family, her identity had been stolen and the thieves had access to all the information on her accounts. Lamont discovered his accounts had been hacked when a $13,000 charge to an adult website appeared on his credit card. His bank froze his accounts, including those used in his consulting business, while it investigated what had happened. I didnt have access to a single account for a good three or more weeks, says Lamont, whose business, JRL Strategies, is based in Menlo Park, California. Moreover, he had to help with the investigation; that cut into his work time. Lamont has been taking steps to make his business more secure, among them obtaining an Employer Identification Number from the IRS to be used on business accounts instead of his Social Security numbers. As can often happen when an identity is stolen, thieves struck again 15 months later. This time Lamont got a provisional line of credit. Last month, Lamont got an email warning that his files would be attacked by ransomware; it turned out to be a hoax. But, even as a hoax, it caused missed meetings and a rescheduled pitch to a new client, Lamont says. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Cyber Tech The nuclear power industry is pushing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to cut back on inspections at nuclear power plants and throttle back what it tells the public about plant problems. The agency, whose board is dominated by Trump appointees, is listening. Commission staffers are weighing some of the industrys requests as part of a sweeping review of how the agency enforces regulations governing the countrys 98 commercially operating nuclear plants. Recommendations are due to the five-member NRC board in June. Annie Caputo, a former nuclear-energy lobbyist now serving as one of four board members appointed or reappointed by President Donald Trump, told an industry meeting this week that she was open to self-assessments by nuclear plant operators, who are proposing that self-reporting by operators take the place of some NRC inspections. The Trump NRC appointees and industry representatives say changes in oversight are warranted to reflect the industrys overall improved safety records and its financial difficulties, as the operating costs of the countrys aging nuclear plants increase and affordable natural gas and solar and wind power gain in the energy market. But the prospect of the Trump administrations regulation-cutting mission reaching the NRC alarms some independent industry watchdogs, who say the words nuclear safety and deregulation dont go together. For example, the deregulatory agenda at SEC is a significant concern as well, but its not a nuclear power plant, said Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney for nuclear issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council, referring to the federal governments Securities Exchange Commission. For an industry that is increasingly under financial decline to take regulatory authority away from the NRC puts us on a collision course, said Paul Gunter, of the anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear. With what? With a nuclear accident, Gunter said. The industry made its requests for change in a letter delivered by the Nuclear Energy Institute group. A high-priority ask is to eliminate press releases about lower-level safety issues at plants meaning the kind of problems that could trigger more inspections and oversight at a plant but not constitute an emergency. The industry group also asked that the NRC reduce the burden of radiation-protection and emergency-preparedness inspections. Nuclear plant operators amplified their requests at an annual meeting in the Washington, D.C, area this week. Scaling back disclosure of lower-level problems at plants is more responsible than to put out a headline on the webpage to the world, said Greg Halnon, vice president of regulatory affairs for Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp., which says its fleet of nuclear and other power plants supplies 6 million customers in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. When the NRC makes public the problems found at a plant, utilities get pretty rapid calls from the press, SEC filings get impacted because of potential financial impact, Halnon said. Requests by utilities for rate increases also can be affected, Halnon said. Trump has said he wants to help both the coal and nuclear power industries. So far, its the more politically influential coal industry thats gotten significant action on the regulatory rollbacks that it sought from the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. In January, Trump appointees to the NRC disappointed environmental groups by voting down a staff proposal that nuclear plants be required to substantially and expensively harden themselves against major floods and other natural disasters. The proposal was meant to be a main NRC response to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster after Japans 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Caputo, who previously worked for nuclear plant operator Exelon Corp, told operators this week her aim was risk-informed decision-making, concentrating regulatory oversight on high-risk problems. We shouldnt regulate to zero risk, said David Wright, a former South Carolina public-utility commissioner appointed to the NRC board last year. The NRC mission is reasonable assurance of adequate protection no more, no less, Wright said. Tony Vegel, a Texas-based reactor safety official for the NRC, pushed back when industry executives publicly made their case for fewer NRC inspections. Its difficult to come across as an independent regulator and rely on self-assessment from plants, Vegel said. The current review, commissioned by the new NRC panel, was looking at the inspections issues and related ones, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. Commissioners will decide after receiving the staff recommendations whether to adopt any of them, Burnell said. Related: Nuclear Defense Facility Safety Board Raises Concerns Over Change in Policy Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Legislation Pollution USG Insurance Services Inc., a national wholesaler and managing general agent (MGA), has promoted Jodi Berger to regional manager, based in Arlington, Texas. Berger joined USG in 2002 as a senior underwriter and was promoted to branch manager of the Arlington branch in 2007. Since joining USG, Berger has been instrumental in gaining carrier partners, developing her team and branch office, and building her agency relationships. In her new role as regional manager, Berger will oversee USG Arlington and USG Houston, work to expand USGs Texas footprint, and assist in corporate team development projects. This move is the most recent change that USG has implemented in its plan to continue expanding its operations nationally as a leading wholesaler brokerage firm. Source: USG Insurance Services Inc. Topics Texas Officials knew a Forth Worth hospital elevator was in need of upgrades two years before a nurse was crushed and seriously injured when the elevator continued to rise as she tried to step inside, a maintenance audit shows. A report produced by Lerch Bates, an elevator consulting firm, examined the maintenance and upkeep of the elevators at John Peter Smith Hospital in April 2017, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Lerch Bates recommended the hospital make a full upgrade to elevator No. 29 by 2018, which included replacing door equipment, the machine that moves the elevator up and down and other electronic maintenance work. Instead of the elevators estimated $690,000 upgrade, the hospital requested bids for work on two other elevators. Elevator No. 29 malfunctioned on Jan. 20, crushing Carren Stratford and causing her brain damage and internal injuries. Hospital spokeswoman J.R. Labbe said officials chose not to immediately upgrade elevator No. 29 because it was used less frequently compared to the other two. Jacob Erwin, a regional manager for Lerch Bates, didnt directly state that the elevator would have been safer with the recommended upgrades. Erwin said the company recommended the upgrade because the elevators equipment was so out of date that the elevator would be out of service for a significant amount of time, should it fail. The hospital has had chronic problems with its elevators, and administrators say they intend to hold the facilitys elevator contractor, Thyssenkrupp Elevator Corp., accountable for the January accident. A spokesman for Thyssenkrupp told the Star-Telegram on Friday that the hospital has terminated its contract with the company, effective May 14. At least 80 work orders were issued after people complained of being trapped in the hospitals elevators from January 2018 to January of this year, according to a review of hospital and other records by the newspaper. Elevators were shut down more than 150 times over the same period, and elevator No. 29 was out of service at least eight times, the records show. Thyssenkrupp has argued the hospital made problems worse by having hospital workers conduct repairs rather than the contractor. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Texas Severe storms in Texas last week caused an estimated $30 million in damage and generated some 6,000 wind-related insurance claims, according to the Insurance Council of Texas, which joins State Farm Insurance in conducting a storm tour of North and West Texas starting today. Some of the most severe weather events in the form of hailstorms, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms occur during the period of March through May in parts of Texas. Although 2018 was mild in terms of typical Texas weather but our weather is notoriously unpredictable and catastrophic spring storms can strike with little or no warning. Beginning Monday, March 18, representatives of the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) and State Farm Insurance, in order to help prepare Texans for potential damaging weather and associated insurance coverage and claim issues, will be in parts of north and west Texas meeting with local media and officials to inform homeowners about storm preparation and insurance. This will be the third year that ICT and State Farm have been in the area helping to prepare local residents for potentially violent weather. One of the easiest ways to be prepared is to conduct a home inventory. Conducting a home inventory can save a homeowner, who may have lost everything, or simply suffered significant damage, weeks or months of trying to determine ones personal property loss, said Mark Hanna, a spokesperson for ICT. In addition, documenting your homes storm damage and making notes of every contact with insurance adjusters and building contractors can prove to be valuable in the claims process. ICTs Hanna and State Farm representatives and agents will conduct a media tour of 10 Texas cities and participate in more than 20 radio, newspaper, television and Facebook Live interviews in Amarillo, Pampa, Lubbock, Midland, Odessa, Abilene, Dallas, Fort Worth, Sherman, and Denison. Source: ICT Topics Carriers Texas Windstorm Former coal baron Don Blankenship is suing several news outlets and media personalities, claiming he was defamed during his failed bid for a U.S. senate seat in West Virginia. Blankenships suit was filed Thursday in Mingo County, West Virginia. It names The Associated Press among other large media companies. Blankenship says news organizations waged a concerted plot to destroy him by erroneously labeling him as a convicted felon or saying he was imprisoned for manslaughter. Blankenship is the former CEO of Massey Energy, which owned a mine where a 2010 explosion killed 29 workers. He spent a year in federal prison after being convicted of conspiring to break mine safety laws, a misdemeanor. Blankenship is seeking $12 billion in damages. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Virginia Politics A well-known abortion rights activist from Utah has filed a lawsuit against three conservative media publications for defamation, says that online stories spread misinformation that she cut the throats of fetuses during abortions. Dr. Leah Torres, a former Salt Lake City obstetrician-gynecologist, says in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that stories written by three conservative outlets in March 2018 painted her as a doctor who conducted unlawful abortions, leading to scourging harassment online and job loss. She says her personal information and the address and phone number of her clinic were released online. Torres said she was fired by her employer for violating a provision in her contract requiring her to uphold her professional reputation. She is not suing the company and didnt name it in the lawsuit. She said she had to move away from Utah after not finding another job for nine months. Torres is seeking at least $75,000 for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress by The Daily Caller, The Western Journal and Liftable Media. The internet has been weaponized by anti-abortion extremists to amplify and distort information, as a result causing online and offline harassment, stalking and violence against abortion providers and advocates, Torres lawyers wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Utah. Shaun Hair, executive editor of The Western Journal, said in a statement that the news outlet is aware of the lawsuit and will refer it to the companys attorneys and defend our position in court. Phone calls and emails The Daily Caller and Liftable Media were not immediately returned on Friday. Her attorney Carrie Goldberg said Friday that Torres was harassed mercilessly by the trolls who were incited by the fake information. The lawsuit claims the harassment started when Torres, who maintains a blog and active Twitter feed, replied to a comment on Twitter referring to her work as infanticide and asking her whether she hears screams at night. Torres noted that fetuses dont have the ability to scream and that she cuts the cord to perform the abortion. Torres later clarified that she was referring to the umbilical cord, not the vocal cord. The Daily Caller, the defendant with the largest reach at 5.3 million followers on Facebook, was the first publication to post an article online stating that an abortion doctor recently sent a disgusting tweet about cutting the throats of fetuses so they cant scream, identifying Torres by name. The story was picked up by other media outlets, including Western Journal and Liftable Media. Torres said that led to an onslaught of harassment and personal attacks against Torres on social media While living in Utah, Torres was an ardent defender of abortion rights, challenging legislators and lawmakers to explain policy decisions that affected the fetus and mother. She didnt say in the lawsuit where she is living now. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits March 18, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Max Sali, CEO of Defense Metals, speaks with Peter Epstein of Epstein Research about the latest developments at his company's REE project in British Columbia. Defense Metals Corp. (DEFN:TSX.V; DFMTF:OTCQB) is a great name. The company is defending against Chinese dominance of Rare Earth Elements (REEs), and Defense Departments require select REEs to defend their countries! Several REEs are very difficult or impossible to replace in critical applications, yet enable products essential to modern civilization. Any company outside of China that can reliably produce a few key REEs will have a license to print money. This week, SGS Canada provided select head assay results from a 30-tonne bulk sample. Four REE assays were reported in this press release. (See chart below.) Using the price/kg of each metal, the in-situ value is ~US$ 535/t. That's equivalent to ~ 0.41 troy ounces gold or ~12.8 g/t gold. In the following interview of CEO Max Sali, readers will learn more about REEs and about Light Rare Earth Elements (LREEs), which REEs are in highest demand, and for which applications. Spoiler alert, neodymium and praseodymium are in the top four or five. I asked Max why his team believes that its deposit of LREEs might be economically viable given the odds stacked against any deposit becoming a mine. To finish off, we discussed some early-stage uranium assets the company picked up in the famous Athabasca basin. (See corporate presentation.) --Peter Epstein Please give readers the latest snapshot of Defense Metals. Sure. Defense Metals (TSV-V: DEFN) / (OTCQB: DFMTF) is focused on sourcing, exploring and developing rare earth and uranium properties in Canada. Our flagship project is the Wicheeda rare earth deposit. (NOTE: here's a good article on Defense Metals.) The Wicheeda deposit (6 claims, 1,780 hectares) is 80 km northeast of Prince George, in British Columbia, (BC) Canada, and contains potentially exploitable concentrations of Rare Earth Elements (Pell, 1994; Lane, 2009, 2010). The deposit was explored in the 1970s and 1980s, but received little further attention until 2008 when it was drilled by Spectrum Mining Corp. That company reported an Inferred resource of 11.3 million tonnes. More recently, SGS Canada provided us with an important update on the deposit. Four REE assays from a 30-tonne bulk sample we sent them earlier this year showed significant concentrations of both neodymium and praseodymium. The Wicheeda deposit is a very exciting project because we can potentially get it into production fairly quickly, especially given nearby infrastructure (roads, rail, water, power, labor, mining equipment and services). A favorable mineralogy and Light Rare Earth Element (LREE) distribution make the Wicheeda deposit highly attractive. Some impurities can be removed through electromagnetic separation done on site. The press release we put out this week was important because it gave us a new understanding of the deposit (see graph below). Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) was 4.81%, which we feel is attractive. Wicheeda is ideally suited for open-pit mining and conventional flotation to produce a REE-enriched oxide concentrate. In addition to lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, we also have praseodymium. Importantly, the deposit is open in most directions and outcrops at surface, meaning a low strip ratio and the potential for expansion. Encouraging bench-scale tests have been done, giving our team the goal of a 60%+ concentrate. Although the main focus is our rare earth deposit, we also have two prospective uranium properties (five claims blocks), in the heart of the eastern Athabasca basin near Denison Mines and IsoEnergy. Both of those companies are spending millions on drilling this year. IsoEnergy has made a new high-grade discovery 5-10 km from one of our properties. Which rare earths are in the deposit? Which rare earths in your deposit are most valuable? The following REEs can be found: lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, yttrium and dysprosium. There are also trace amounts of a few others. Neodymium and praseodymium are the most valuable in the suite. How have the prices of your most important rare earth metals trended over the past few years? Neodymium and praseodymium are the most important rare earth metals we have identified at the Wicheeda deposit. Neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) are the two rare earth elements that form the majority of rare earth permanent magnets. Below are five-year price charts from Kitco. The most recent prices of US$62.0 per kg for neodymium oxide and US$78.4 per kg for praseodymium oxide are down from recent highs, but up 35%40% from mid-2016 lows. Does management have any indicative information on metallurgy, the potential recoveries of individual metals? Bench-scale flotation and hydrometallurgical testwork was done on Wicheeda deposit drill cores at a SGS Lakefield lab during 2010/2011. SGS successfully developed a flotation flow sheet that recovered 83% of the rare earth oxide (REO) and produced a concentrate grading 42% REO. Subsequent hydrometallurgical testing in 2012 on a 2-kg sample of the concentrate grading 39.7% TREO (total REO) produced an upgraded and purified precipitate containing 71% TREO through a process of pre-leaching and roasting. SGS Canada is well into the planned work program which includes chemical and mineralogical characterization, grindability and laboratory flotation testing on a 200-kg subsample (of the 30-tonne surface bulk sample). The objectives are to validate the process and confirm that conditions of the previously established 2010/2011 bench-scale drill core flotation testwork can be upscaled to the current bulk sample, in addition to further optimization of the process flowsheet. What will management learn from SGS Canada's work? As mentioned, Defense Metals delivered a 30-tonne surface bulk sample from the Wicheeda deposit to SGS Canada. SGS is conducting a multi-phase program of bench-scale metallurgical test work preparatory to commissioning larger scale flotation pilot plant testing. Larger scale pilot plant production is expected to validate bench-scale metallurgy and produce LREE product samples for potential off-take partners. The ultimate goal of the test work is to finalize the process flowsheet prior to the commissioning of larger-scale pilot plant testing. SGS has agreed to give us regular updates on its progress. In addition, Defense Metals plans to re-assay the "pulps" used to produce a new 43-101 Inferred resource estimate. A Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) will follow. Defense Metals also has uranium assets in the eastern Athabasca basin, please describe those properties. Yes, these properties are early stage, and total nearly 10,000 hectares. We have people reviewing the historical work done on the properties, which actually comprise five claim blocks. We will likely do some airborne electromagnetic survey work, but to be honest, the eastern Athabasca basin is a hotbed of activity, so we may just allow our neighbors to drill around us and see what they find. Our holding costs on the properties are extremely low. We are very pleased to have Dale Wallster join our technical advisory board. Dale is a geologist and prospector with 35 years of experience in North American mineral deposit exploration, with a focus on the targeting and discovery of unconformity-related uranium deposits. He was president and founder of Roughrider Uranium Corp., a company acquired by Hathor Exploration in 2006 for its strategically located uranium properties in the Athabasca Basin. Dale and his team are widely credited for the discovery of Hathor's Roughrider deposit. In January 2012, Hathor became a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto as part of a C$650 million acquisition. Why should readers consider buying shares of Defense Metals? Defense Metals (TSV-V: DEFN) / (OTCQB: DFMTF) offers an attractive, early-stage way to play the REE market. Our LREE deposit appears to be sizable and is open in multiple directions. It contains potentially economic amounts of select rare earth metals. At least two of the REEs, neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) are quite valuable and in high demand for use in permanent magnets. There are indications that the metallurgy of the Wicheeda deposit is favorable and considerable testing is being done on metallurgy. If the company receives additional positive reports from SGS Canada, that could be a catalyst for our share price, as it would provide support for the thesis that we can put the project into initial production fairly quickly. While still early stage, the Wicheeda deposit has had ample historical work done on it dating back decades, and is undergoing significant, wide-ranging testing right now. If we can advance this project in 2019 the way that we think we can, our current market cap of C$5.1 million = US$3.8 million (23.75 million shares outstanding) could prove to be an attractive entry point. Thank you Max, that was very interesting. Congratulations on the new assay results. Corporate presentation. Note: Here's a good recent article on Defense Metals. Peter Epstein is the founder of Epstein Research. His background is in company and financial analysis. He holds an MBA degree in financial analysis from New York University's Stern School of Business. Disclosures: The content of this interview is for information only. Readers fully understand and agree that nothing contained herein, written by Peter Epstein of Epstein Research [ER], (together, [ER]) about Defense Metals, including but not limited to, commentary, opinions, views, assumptions, reported facts, calculations, etc. is not to be considered implicit or explicit investment advice. Nothing contained herein is a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security. [ER] is not responsible under any circumstances for investment actions taken by the reader. [ER] has never been, and is not currently, a registered or licensed financial advisor or broker/dealer, investment advisor, stockbroker, trader, money manager, compliance or legal officer, and does not perform market making activities. [ER] is not directly employed by any company, group, organization, party or person. The shares of Defense Metals are highly speculative, not suitable for all investors. Readers understand and agree that investments in small cap stocks can result in a 100% loss of invested funds. It is assumed and agreed upon by readers that they will consult with their own licensed or registered financial advisors before making any investment decisions. At the time this interview was posted, Peter Epstein owned shares in Defense Metals and it was an advertiser on [ER]. Readers understand and agree that they must conduct their own due diligence above and beyond reading this article. While the author believes he's diligent in screening out companies that, for any reasons whatsoever, are unattractive investment opportunities, he cannot guarantee that his efforts will (or have been) successful. [ER] is not responsible for any perceived, or actual, errors including, but not limited to, commentary, opinions, views, assumptions, reported facts & financial calculations, or for the completeness of this article or future content. [ER] is not expected or required to subsequently follow or cover events & news, or write about any particular company or topic. [ER] is not an expert in any company, industry sector or investment topic. [ER] may buy or sell shares in Defense Metals and other advertising companies at any time. Streetwise Reports Disclosure: 1) Peter Epstein's disclosures are listed above. 2) The following companies mentioned in the article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: Defense Metals. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. As of the date of this interview, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Defense Metals, a company mentioned in this article. Graphics provided by author. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp March 18, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) A CIBC report discussed the pros and cons of the transaction. In a March 12 research note, CIBC analyst Oscar Cabrera reported that Imperial Metals Corp. (III:TSX) agreed to sell 70% of its flagship Red Chris mine in British Columbia to Newcrest Mining Ltd. (NCM:ASX) for US$806.5 million. On that news, CIBC upgraded its rating to Neutral from Underperformer and more than quadrupled its target price to CA$3.50 per share from CA$0.60 on Imperial. The asset stake sale is due to close in Q3/19. Cabrera highlighted that with this transaction, Imperial avoids a liquidity problem. The company has $718 million in debt maturities coming due in Q1/19, but with the Red Chris deal closing in Q3/19, will not have to pay them until then. In addition, cash flow over the next two years from Imperial's other mines will likely be limited. They are Mount Polley, which is going on care and maintenance in Q3/19 until Q1/22, and Huckleberry, which is planned for a restart in 2020. Also, longer term, Imperial's shareholders should benefit from Newcrest applying its expertise with the Cadia gold-copper mine in Australia to turning around Red Chris' current operations and developing its underground resource, Cabrera indicated. "We estimate Red Chris' current open-pit mine plan (i.e.), reserves, accounts for about 27% of total Measured and Indicated resources of 5,521 thousand tons of copper equivalent, with about 30% from an underground resource that remains open in various directions, according to Imperial Metals," he added. The one downside of the deal, noted Cabrera, is that with it, most of Red Chris' resource upside potential gets transferred to Newcrest's shareholders. Disclosure: 1) Doresa Banning compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an independent contractor. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. 2) The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: None. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees. 3) Comments and opinions expressed are those of the specific experts and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article until three business days after the publication of the interview or article. The foregoing prohibition does not apply to articles that in substance only restate previously published company releases. Disclosures from CIBC, Imperial Metals Corp., March 12, 2019 Analyst Certification: Each CIBC World Markets Corp./Inc. research analyst named on the front page of this research report, or at the beginning of any subsection hereof, hereby certifies that (i) the recommendations and opinions expressed herein accurately reflect such research analyst's personal views about the company and securities that are the subject of this report and all other companies and securities mentioned in this report that are covered by such research analyst and (ii) no part of the research analyst's compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific recommendations or views expressed by such research analyst in this report. Analysts employed outside the U.S. are not registered as research analysts with FINRA. These analysts may not be associated persons of CIBC World Markets Corp. and therefore may not be subject to FINRA Rule 2241 restrictions on communications with a subject company, public appearances and trading securities held by a research analyst account. Potential Conflicts of Interest: Equity research analysts employed by CIBC World Markets Corp./Inc. are compensated from revenues generated by various CIBC World Markets Corp./Inc. businesses, including the CIBC World Markets Investment Banking Department. Research analysts do not receive compensation based upon revenues from specific investment banking transactions. CIBC World Markets Corp./Inc. generally prohibits any research analyst and any member of his or her household from executing trades in the securities of a company that such research analyst covers. Additionally, CIBC World Markets Corp./Inc. generally prohibits any research analyst from serving as an officer, director or advisory board member of a company that such analyst covers. In addition to 1% ownership positions in covered companies that are required to be specifically disclosed in this report, CIBC World Markets Corp./Inc. may have a long position of less than 1% or a short position or deal as principal in the securities discussed herein, related securities or in options, futures or other derivative instruments based thereon. Recipients of this report are advised that any or all of the foregoing arrangements, as well as more specific disclosures set forth below, may at times give rise to potential conflicts of interest. Important Disclosure Footnotes for Imperial Metals Corporation (III) CIBC World Markets Inc. expects to receive or intends to seek compensation for investment banking services from Imperial Metals Corporation in the next 3 months. Newcrest Mining Ltd. (NCM-AUS): CIBC World Markets Inc. expects to receive or intends to seek compensation for investment banking services from this company in the next 3 months. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp March 18, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The Critical Investor discusses insights management has gleaned from recent drilling and why they have the potential to cause a share re-rating. It took Avrupa Minerals Ltd. (AVU:TSX.V; AVPMF:OTC; 8AM:FSE) a few weeks longer than anticipated to release the first drill results of the Q4 2018 program on the Sesmarias project, part of its Alvalade license located in Portugal, as bringing good news right before PDAC usually generates healthy attention, but the numbers came out pretty interesting anyway in my view. The self-funded 2018 drill program appears to be a real eye-opener for management, as the recently completed 2,498 meters of drilling (6 holes) not only changed their insights on the position of the mineralized lenses discovered so far, but also showed other potentially mineralized structures by intercepting stockwork besides lenses. Step-out drilling of the known 10 Lens is also going according to plan, adding decent tonnage rapidly. Here is an overview of the identified mineralized envelopes/zones at Sesmarias: The 10 Horizon as defined on this map from the February 11, 2019, news release has been promoted to the 10 Lens now, as sufficient drill results have been obtained so far. Management also provided investors with a schematic long section in the same news release, which is a conceptual drawing of geology and mineralized bodies: Highlights from the program include the following results according to the latest March 11, 2019, news release: SES026 intercepted 28.95 meters of 0.48% copper, 0.77 g/t gold, 15.7 ppm silver, 0.52% lead and 1.31% zinc, and extended the 10 Lens by 300 meters to the north from previous drilling. The full table of results of hole SES026 looks like this: This generates a copper equivalent grade of 1.86% CuEq, which is consistent with the other holes drilled into the 10 Lens, as can be seen here as a reminder: It is also in line with the average grade of 1.51.7% CuEq management is looking for when building tonnage for an eventual deposit at Sesmarias. The 10 Lens is now at 600 meters x 300 meters x 25 meters. Mise-a-la-masse (MALM) geophysical anomalism extends another 150 meters past SES026 location. These dimensions generate 4.5 million cubic meters, which in turn result into 18 million tonnes (Mt), when using a conservative gravity of 4t/cubic meter (m3). Average gravity is estimated by management to be ranging from 4 to 4.4t/m3. Using a midpoint would render 18.9Mt. It is interesting to see that the follow-up downhole survey (MALM) detected a further 150m extension, which hypothetically could bring in another 4Mt if continuous. The minimum economic tonnage target of management is 25Mt, so things are progressing quite nicely so far. Discovered a possible new mineralized horizon in SES026, located above the 10 Lens, and intersected it again in SES027 and SES029. No economic mineralization has been hit there yet, but according to management the drill bit did hit sulfides, so there could be a mineralized envelope very close by. Holes SES026, SES027 and SES029 intersected more specifically a horizon of stockwork quartz-sulfide veining located 20-40 meters above the 10 Lens. While mostly iron sulfides, the location of the horizon suggests potential for another possible mineral layer in the Sesmarias massive sulfide system. SES028 intercepted the edge of a significant feeder zone stockwork beneath the 8 Lens. Assays indicated anomalous gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc throughout the entire length of the stockwork from 373.40 meters to 460.80 meters in depth, beneath the 8 Lens. These assays looked like this, and management interprets them as strong indicators for more mineralization in the direct vicinity, and might be the possible edge of a feeder zone for the previously discovered 8 Lens: The location of holes SES026, SES027 and SES028 can be found here: Long section view (looking to the east) of the "2" Lens, "26" Horizon and "10" Lens (in red). Note the large, unexplored area to the left of the 26 Horizon and the 10 Lens. The "8" Lens Area and "9" Horizon are marked with dashed red lines. The Eastern Bounding Fault is the darker blue background. Confirmed that the high-grade 2 Lens is a fault-bounded fragment of massive sulfide mineralization with origin yet to be determined. Hole SES003, drilled previously on this target, is now also being assayed and will be reported shortly. Hole SES003 is located very close to SES002, which showed 10.85 meters @ 1.81% Cu; 75.27 ppm Ag; 2.57% Pb; 4.38% Zn; 0.13% Sn, which is not bad as the average copper equivalent grade is 4.97% CuEq, however the volume of the 2 Lens is still too small to be economic as an underground orebody at some distance of the 10 Lens and 26 Horizon. Continued re-logging of historical drill holes has upgraded targets in the northern portions of the Sesmarias Prospect. Each hole drilled in this exploration phase of the project has enhanced the revamping of the exploration model. Combined with strong assay results in SES026, in particular, the information will be used in the next drill targeting exercise for this large area. I will elaborate more on this in a second. First, according to management, the mineralization is open to the east boundary fault (see 3D model below in blue) and to the west intersection of the Devonian host rocks and the Tertiary gravels. The 10 Lens appears to be cut by post-mineral dikes to the north, but remains open to the south, though faulting may truncate (=limit) the lens about 100 meters south of SES021. Plan view of the "10" Lens, "2" Lens, and "8-9" Lens/Horizon (red) and East Bounding Fault zone (transparent blue). By revamping the exploration model, management means to describe that the current drill results had a profound impact on the understanding of the structural geology of Sesmarias. It appeared that the stratigraphy (complex of layers), especially the orientation of the various layers and mineralized zones, was different from previously understood. As Sesmarias has a pretty complex geology, with lots of faults, folds and potentially folded folds, it was hard to determine the structural controls of any mineralized zone perpendicular on the strike directions. According to the geologists, this area has been deformed several times in the past 360 million years, so this makes determining the linears (directions in different dimensions) very difficult at times. By simplifying everything to layers (rock material of the same character, which is much easier to visualize than anything else) and then trying to connect the same layer between drill holes, they found it easier to construct a pretty good subsurface geological map. As it turned out, the orientation of the discovered lenses changed from predominantly sub-vertical to relatively horizontal because of new insights. I wondered how this process actually materialized for the geologists, and had a few follow-up questions as well. Fortunately management went out of their way to provide me with pretty extensive answers and explanations, to make sure yours truly, but also the audience, would understand what the exploration program at Sesmarias is all about. Here we go: "The change in 'attitude' (orientation!) came about because we stepped away from the details of rock layers and re-grouped layers into packages of layers with similar characteristics. We were able to follow packages of layers from drill hole to drill hole, over 100s of meters of distance, and we began to see uniformity of the layers around the area between the bounding fault on the east side of the main Sesmarias target area and the area towards the west where the layer packages are in contact with the tertiary gravels and sediments. When we first saw the rocks, we were quite sure that the thin, well-folded units we observed were really and truly folded layers of rocks. However, now we realize that those folds may not actually be folded layers, but folded structural attributes (meaning more abstract comprehensions like axis or intersections). Basically we probably could not see the forest for the trees. "So, by following these packages from hole to hole, we (mostly meaning our geo Josh Coder) began to build a geological model using a 3D modeling program called GeoReka. By building the model, we began to see more regularity in the rocks, allowing more predictability in our mineralization. The layers generally dip to the east at 30-45 degrees, and plunge to the north. This means our target appears to dip to the northeast until it is stopped by a high-angle fault, which in-house we call the Joana Fault. The Joana Fault does not run in a straight line, so this is a bit of a complication, but we do know now why some of our holes drilled with both Antofagasta and Colt (previous JV partners) did not hit mineralization. "For now, this fault is limiting mineralization on its west side. This will hopefully change when we do more drilling east of this particular fault. Right now, we think the rock units/layers have been down-dropped on the east side of the fault, but this is only based on limited information from 2-3 holes drilled further away to the east. One of those holes was our own SES014, which we now think may have been stopped short (we actually thought the same when we drilled it, but we had a lot less knowledge back then). In any case, there is an off-hole geophysical conductor in SES014, which we have described as our eastern basin target." As hole SES014 is located quite a bit to the east and away from the big fault, I was wondering why management thought there could be mineralization present, also considering the different rock types over there which usually don't contain mineralization based on earlier results, despite all potential vertical and lateral displacements. They had this to say: "When talking about having more chance to the east, we meant just across the fault. There is a chance over there because of the potential downdrop (vertical movement), compared to the west side of the fault. That means the target rocks/layers are deeper, though certainly possibility of horizontal movement exists, as well." Again as a reminder, Sesmarias contains a large amount of faults and off-setting structures, constructing an interesting puzzle from a geological standpoint: Management elaborates further on their exploration plan: "The re-interpretation of the orientation of layers gives us a lot of license to re-orient the mineralization, as it is basically just another bed/layer. SES026 targeted the "extension" of the layer, successfully intersecting massive sulfide mineralization. SES027 was less successful, as it intersected weak mineralization and mafic intrusive rocks, which may represent the source of the mineralization. We are thinking that the mafic rocks represent part of an intrusional dome, right now with known mineralization to the south of it. We do not know yet if there is further mineralization on the north side of the dome, as portrayed in the long section further below. "So we estimate a potential strike length of somewhere between 600 and 900 meters of massive sulfide mineralization, which stops somewhere between holes 26 and 27. The new, more horizontal positioning of the massive sulfide allows for a much bigger target at shallower depth, where the more vertical positioning gives a target of the same shape, but gets very deep, very quickly." Therefore I view this adjusted orientation as a positive, as it saves drilling budget. On my question if cross sections could be provided anytime soon, management answered they needed some more drilling in order to get sufficient understanding of continuity. They added: "Right now, 2, 8, and 26 are more horizons than actual masses, and presumably smaller than the 10 Lens. Horizon 2 appears to be small, though high grade (SES002), and it is open to the south. We have seen traces of Horizon 26 in 3-4 holes now, and it is presently manifested by strong stockwork to semi-massive sulfide material. We think that there is a possibility that Horizon 8 could be an extension of the 10 Lens, because it is roughly at same depth, and horizontal displacement of surrounding packages through faults checks out with this concept. Horizon 8 could have its own feeder source as it is on the other side of this basalt dome, as both Horizon 8 and the 10 Lens are roughly parallel to each other and to stratigraphy. More drilling is necessary to figure this all out." Looking at the schematic long section again, I noticed that 025 and 027 missed the massive sulphide lenses. It made me wonder if by more vertical faulting/displacements there could be (off set) extensions of the lenses/horizons, or these basalt domes could be structurally consistent and not broken up/displaced by faults, limiting mineralized potential in these areas except for stockwork (027)? To what extent could this stockwork be useful/economic? Management had this to say: "SES025 'hit' the 2 Lens at predicted depth, but it was very thin (<10 cm). This probably has something to do with vagaries in location of the Joana Fault. "There is still plenty of opportunity for faulting to displace/move/disrupt/extend the mineral potential. We do need more drilling to be able to ascertain that. Sometimes, the stockwork mineralization is even better than the massive sulfide mineralization. While we have encountered a long intercept of stockwork mineralization, it is probably the edge of the feeder zone. Sometimes, if there is gold in the system, the stockwork can actually carry economic gold grades. "For a number of years, back in the 1990s I believe, a large stockwork zone at the Rio Tinto Mine in Spain was mined for its gold. Now, of course, Rio Tinto is back in business as a copper mine. I believe it mines both massive ore and stockwork ore at RT. Same at Neves Corvo. Stockwork mineralization can be economic for base metals and precious metals, depending on what metals are in the system. Using Neves Corvo as an example, I understand that some of the stockwork zones can be much higher grade in base metals, but perhaps there is more waste rock." For now it the stockwork mineralization doesn't generate economic results, but it is still early days, of course. On a different note, to me the targets between Lousal and Caveira have always been very interesting as well, as the historical resource of Lousal seems an easy target. I initially thought of the Lousal historical resource as a relatively advanced project, which might be relatively easy to prove up by 1530% verification drilling (depending on quality of historical drill data of course) to get it to 43-101. Management had this to say about this topic: "Lousal is an interesting target for sure. Unfortunately, its hard to find potential partners who wish to do greenfields exploration or 'light' brownfields work, as most companies are after high cost, low quality, 'advanced' projects out on the market. Exploration is not always viewed as an inexpensive way to get into a valuable project. It always comes down to available funds. If you are on a really good exploration project, and you keep getting good results, you can move quickly. For now we had to prioritize, and picked Sesmarias first." After this little Q&A on geology, I wanted to know a bit more about its exploration plans. Therefore I wanted to know how many meters it is going to drill at Sesmarias in how many holes at what drilling cost per meter all-in, when this will start and if it has schematic sections of the old Lousal resource and the other targets based on historical drilling. Besides this, I was also curious about its drilling strategy if it could or would like to share. Here is the answer: "Ideally, we would like to see minimum 10,000 meters per year for the next 2-3 years once our next level of license is approved. This was the idea with the potential partner, as we reported back in March 2018. Before we are able to drill at Lousal, we have to go over all the old work and construct a 3D model. That would be a full-time job for a computer-savvy geologist for a couple of months. In the near future, we would like to see Sesmarias, Lousal and Monte da Bela Vista drilled to ascertain the resource potential. "Then there is the Caveira Mine area, and at least a half dozen other mineral targets that we know about already on the trend from Caveira to Aldeia dos Elvas at the southwest corner of the license. The whole idea of having a 10 million euro investment into Alvalade was to do all this, that would be 30-40 thousand meters. We estimate that US$1 million can get us 3,000+ meters of drilling, so 1 million euros can get us 3,500+ meters, all in. Thus 10 million euros is 35,000 meters or more. So, 300 euros per meter. We did this with Antofagasta in the past." This wraps up my little interview with management as part of this update. According to its estimates, the company ideally would like to spend about US$3-4 million annually on Alvalade, but as I view it, Avrupa is already on its way to its minimum economic threshold of 25Mt @1.5-1.7% CuEq just based on the results for the 10 Lens. This means with a few more good stepout results the company could already have a 100%-owned, economic project on its hands without even tapping into JV partners, and as soon as the markets become (more) aware of this, there might very well be a share price re-rating around the corner, and further capital raises could be done at lower dilution levels in that case. With copper and zinc prices picking up again and both with good fundamentals, the Avrupa Minerals story should be able to attract more attention this year. I hope you will find this article interesting and useful, and will have further interest in my upcoming articles on mining. To never miss a thing, please subscribe to my free newsletter on my website http://www.criticalinvestor.eu to get an email notice of my new articles soon after they are published. The Critical Investor is a newsletter and comprehensive junior mining platform, providing analysis, blog and newsfeed and all sorts of information about junior mining. The editor is an avid and critical junior mining stock investor from The Netherlands, with an MSc background in construction/project management. Number cruncher at project economics, looking for high quality companies, mostly growth/turnaround/catalyst-driven to avoid too much dependence/influence of long-term commodity pricing/market sentiments, and often looking for long-term deep value. Getting burned in the past himself at junior mining investments by following overly positive sources that more often than not avoided to mention (hidden) risks or critical flaws, The Critical Investor learned his lesson well, and goes a few steps further ever since, providing a fresh, more in-depth, and critical vision on things, hence the name. Disclaimer: The author is not a registered investment advisor, and currently has a long position in this stock. Avrupa Minerals is a sponsoring company. All facts are to be checked by the reader. For more information go to www.avrupaminerals.com and read the company's profile and official documents on www.sedar.com, also for important risk disclosures. This article is provided for information purposes only, and is not intended to be investment advice of any kind, and all readers are encouraged to do their own due diligence, and talk to their own licensed investment advisors prior to making any investment decisions. 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Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp Brexit and Frances yellow vest protest movement together reduced the number of bottles of French champagne sold in 2016 to its lowest in a year since 2004, according to business group figures. The Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) said the number of bottles sold fell 1.8%, to 302m, in 2018. However, total revenue edged up 0.3%, to a record 4.9bn, as prices rose. The fall in volume is becoming a bit worrying, with the slowdown in France and Britain not compensated by higher sales outside the European Union, CIVC co-president, Jean-Marie Barillere, said. French and UK sales together account for about 60% of total sales by volume. French sales fell 4.2%, to 147m bottles, with more bottles sold abroad than in France for the first time in 100 years. That was because a slow French economy, and the yellow vest anti-government protest movement, weighed on sales. Mr Barillere said the protests had hit Paris tourist arrivals and French household confidence, hurting demand. Total export sales edged up 0.6%, to nearly 155m bottles, but total export revenue rose 1.8%, to 2.9bn, as the focus on value of big houses, such as LVMHs Moet & Chandon and Pernod Ricards Mumm, the worlds best-selling champagne, paid off. In Britain, sales fell for the third year in a row, due in part to uncertainty sparked by the countrys planned departure from the EU. UK volumes dropped 3.6%, to 26.8m bottles, for total revenue of 406m. Volumes had already fallen 11% in 2017 and 9% in 2016. CIVC said champagne was feeling strong competition from Italian prosecco, which is three to four times cheaper. Sales to the US increased 2.7%, to 23.7m bottles, for revenue of 577m. Sales to Japan were up 5.5%, to 13.6m bottles, while sales to Hong Kong and China each accounting for more than two million bottles were up 12% and 10.1%, respectively. The biggest sales increase was seen in South Africa, where volume was up more than 38%, to 1.1m bottles. - Reuters Retailers are going through a turbulent period but having risen to the challenge in the toughest of times historically, Adrienne Rodgers is fully convinced they can do so once more. The head of enterprise at Cork Citys local enterprise office (LEO) said that since the recession, retail has been hit by a tsunami of factors. Many are in survival mode, she said, with some despairing about how to turn things around for the better. However, it has been like this before and retailers rose to the challenge. I grew up in Cork and I came out of school in the 1980s. People talk about it being tough today but Cork back then was grey, it was dull, our streets were dirty, you couldnt get a bus at the best of times, there were only a few big shops and everyone else was just about hanging in there. When you look around our city today, our retailers have made such a difference to our society. They have proved their resilience in the past, and I feel they can do it now once they start to move in the right direction, but they need to have winds to do so. Once they get those short-term winds, they will get stronger, she said. Traditionally, the LEOs would have supported manufacturing and international trading services. But they have found ways to support the retail industry and have impressed upon the Government of the need to intervene, she said. I cant emphasise enough that engagement with us in the LEO is key we are here to help, to listen, to help you plan and make your business stronger. You lose absolutely nothing by coming into us and engaging. When people are hit time and time again, they are in a survival mode and it is is very difficult for businesses to say, this is the corrective action and this is what we need to do. A lot of what we try to do now is work with the individual business because that is the only way to help them. The key is getting in with individual business owners and help think about ways to change what they are doing. Because they cant continue the same way, she said. In the last two years, the Cork City LEO held 12 trading online voucher seminars to help support retailers who want to develop their e-commerce platforms and improve digital marketing. It held seven more events aimed specifically at retail, mostly about engaging customers and identifying changing habits online being the most glaring change in recent years. Almost half of the 597 business people who attended the LEO Cork City business support programmes were from the retail industry. The Cork Flower Studio, on Douglas St, is a poster child for what we are trying to do, says Adrienne Rodgers. If your business is in existence for 12 months and you are using your website for digital marketing purposes or free commerce, you can avail of the trading online voucher. We are not getting enough of the take-up of it. Its a maximum of 2,500 or 50% of what you are going to spend on your website, its an online application process that is quite straightforward. We do a briefing session with someone who knows how to build them, so you can go to your web designer with a plan in hand. Many who open their shops every morning think online is a separate thing its not. It is all in one. You must present yourself online as you do in the shop, and vice versa. Were very much focused on the online piece this year. We need to make sure that retailers can survive what they are going through now so they can morph into something sustainable longterm, said Ms Rodgers. While online has become a huge part of retail, Cork City LEO also provides more traditional supports which Ms Rodgers said can be key to long-term success. Weve developed programmes different to 15 years ago. There are workshops and site audits to the shop, one-to-one mentoring, and more. At the end of it, you are hoping the shops have a roadmap for changes to make for the business. We look at how to put resources in place for the shop to get there. Mentoring for half days is free. Then for 50, they can get another three. The training programmes we charge about 25% of the cost and the Government subsidises 75%. I always hold Cork Flower Studio up as a poster child for what we are trying to do. They went on the first retail programme at the end of Douglas St. They worked with retail expert James Burke and within three months, you cant help but miss the good stuff out the front. Dont expect people to walk in and feel the experience, but draw them in by feeling it outside. It takes a different way of thinking its not about turning on the lights in the morning, its about moving stock to the front, and practical issues retailers have to contend with. Maybe what people are concerned about is confidentiality there is nothing that leaves the four walls. It is totally between us. Its a safe environment to come and talk about their issues. But engagement is key, people have to come to us, she said. 435 people have been arrested as part of a Europol-coordinated operation which seized medicines worth 168m. The crackdown by police, customs and health regulatory authorities took place across 16 countries, including Ireland. The items seized were worth in the region of 168m, and included 13 million units and 1.8 tonnes of medicines. 24 organised crime groups were disrupted, and criminal assets worth 3.2m were recovered. A garda spokesperson said they were looking into the extent of these arrests had occurred in Ireland. The operation targeting the illegal trafficking of misused medicines took place over seven months from April to October last year. The details of the actions were not released until today due to operational reasons. An initial nine participating EU Member States (Ireland, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain and the UK) were joined by seven new countries this year (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania, Portugal, Serbia and Ukraine). The MISMED 2 was led by the French Gendarmerie Nationale (National Gendarmerie) and the Finnish Tulli (Customs), with support from Europols Intellectual Property Crime Coalition (IPC3). Europol's investigations show that the type of medicines trafficked across Europe includes opioids but also products used for treating major illnesses such as cancer and heart conditions. Performance and image enhancing drugs were also found. The number of falsified or counterfeit products being trafficked is also increasing, with these accounting for over half of the 13 million units seized in the MISMED 2 operation. The Cabinet should get details soon on the powers for directly-elected mayors proposed for Cork, Limerick, and Waterford. Tanaiste Simon Coveney said he expects a briefing within two to three weeks. It comes in the wake of concerns raised in Cork about the lack of clarity on the issue just months before people are asked to vote on the city having a directly-elected mayor. Mr Coveney said he supports the concept of a directly-elected mayor and the plebiscite, due to happen on the same day as the local and European elections on May 24. Im a big supporter of this plebiscite, he said. I would have been the minister that brought forward the concept for Cork of a directly elected mayor so Im a big advocate for it and will be a big part of the campaign hopefully, in terms of explaining to people why we are doing this. However, with just over 12 weeks before the vote, concerns about mounting about the lack of information about the proposals. While Dublin will have a citizens assembly on the question of establishing a directly-elected mayor, people in Cork are being asked to vote on it in May. A public workshop in Cork earlier this month, organised by the Cork Mayor Campaign, a cross-party movement campaigning for a directly-elected mayor in the city, raised fears that the plebiscite has been designed to fail given the lack of clarity on the new office and the lack of information which has been given to citizens. Mr Coveney said he has spoken to the minister of state for local government and electoral reform, John Paul Phelan, on the issue in recent days and expects Cabinet to be briefed on proposals within the next two to three weeks. In the next two weeks, I hope, Minister John Paul Phelan will bring forward proposals to sign off in Cabinet for the powers that will go with that directly elected mayors position, he said. We are not simply electing a lord mayor that has the same powers as today. We are changing the role of the Lord Mayor as well as hopefully allowing the people to choose the person that they want. Those new powers will be brought to government, I think in the next two weeks, certainly in the next two to three weeks. The sooner we get that out there, the sooner I will be able to answer the detailed questions people will have. He said the new position will have some powers in terms of certain policy areas and said while some have described the new post as almost like a halfway house between the current roles of Lord Mayor and council chief executive, he stressed that the new directly elected lord mayor will be answerable to a city council. But the [directly-elected] lord mayor will certainly have increased policy powers on what the lord mayors office has today, said Mr Coveney. This is about the vision for Cork lets be very clear about that a larger city, the fastest growing city in the country. The Government will publish a key report on burial practices at Irelands main mother and baby homes as quickly as possible. The report the fifth interim report by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission was submitted to childrens minister Katherine Zappone on Friday. It is likely to be the most important report published by the Commission outside of its final report which has been delayed until next year. It will focus on burial arrangements made for women and children who died while resident in the institutions. It includes technical reports prepared on the burial site associated with the former Tuam mother and baby home and the commissions assessment of burial arrangements at the other institutions within its remit. It comes a month after the commission ordered a test excavation of burial grounds located on the site of Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary following information received by a member of the public. The commission has said it has no plans at present to carry out any geophysical survey of the grounds of the former Bessborough mother and baby home. The Irish Examiner revealed in 2015 death registers containing almost 800 names for both Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey were handed to the HSE by the Order in 2011 three years before the Tuam scandal erupted. The list is not the full number of children known to have died at the institutions. In the case of Bessborough, the register shows 470 infants and 10 women died there between 1934 and 1953. A total of 273 deaths took place in a six-year period between 1939 and 1944. However, the Order reported 353 deaths to State inspectors in this period. The principal cause of death in some 20% of the deaths is marasmus (severe malnutrition). It is unclear where all the children are buried. Last year, an Irish Examiner investigation revealed children from the Bessborough mother and baby home and the former St Annes Adoption Society, who died as late as 1990, are buried in unmarked graves in a Cork city cemetery. Ms Zappone said she will seek Government approval to publish the Commissions report on burial arrangements as quickly as possible after she considers its findings and consults the attorney general. She said she is sensitive to the expectations of their families for an early publication date. Ms Zappone said the report will inform the legislative work being advanced to support the proposed excavation and exhumation process at the Tuam site and said she would not address speculation on the report in advance of it being public. A report examining if it is possible to start taking DNA samples from survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home will be completed next month. Special Rapporteur on child protection Geoffrey Shannon has been asked to examine whether it is possible to meet this request within the current legislative framework. Retired State pathologist Marie Cassidy has said the future of the office can only be secured when the specialism is recognised, which would allow forensic pathologists to be trained in Ireland. In the 2017 Annual Report of the Office of the State Pathologist, Dr Cassidy wrote: The next challenge for the Office of the State Pathologist will be to secure recognition of the speciality of forensic pathology in Ireland. Forensic pathology is recognised in the UK, USA, and most of Europe. Without recognition, we cannot offer a training scheme for forensic pathology in Ireland, he said. Only once it is recognised, can we secure the future of the Office of the State Pathologist by providing home-trained forensic pathologists. It was announced last September that Dr Cassidy would be stepping down from the role she had occupied for 14 years and she retired in December. She came to Ireland in 1998 and is originally from Glasgow. Responding to Dr Cassidys comments, a spokesman for the Department of Justice said Ireland does not as yet recognise the medical speciality of forensic pathology. In order to ensure long-term succession planning in the Office of the State Pathologist, the Department of Justice and Equalitys intention is to develop a local pool of suitably qualified forensic pathologists, said the spokesman. However, before such arrangements can be put in place, the Irish Medical Council, which is the body responsible for the recognition of medical specialities in Ireland, would have to recognise forensic pathology as a speciality, before a training scheme can be approved. The Irish Medical Councils procedures for speciality recognition have been closed for over a year, while it was reviewing its processes. The Irish Medical Council has recently re-opened the process and the Office of the State Pathologist and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland are currently working closely together on an application for speciality recognition to be submitted to the Irish Medical Council. The 2017 annual report showed that 261 cases were dealt with by the office; there were 255 cases in 2016. Highlighting the 24/7 nature of the job, it said: In 2017, 34% of cases occurred on the same day as another case. This required the services of either two forensic pathologists in different parts of the country or for one pathologist to carry out two postmortem examinations in the same mortuary or to travel between mortuaries to conduct the postmortems. The majority of the cases in 2017 were State forensic cases, which amounted to 64% of the total workload [167 cases]. The State cases can also involve a visit to the scene of death, as well as a postmortem examination. Attendance at the scene of death was recorded in 17.5% of such cases. It said 58 adult coronial/non-forensic autopsies were carried out under the jurisdiction of the Dublin Coroner and that there were 19 cases of skeletonised remains, 14 of which were identified as animal bones and five identified as human. Those five cases were ancient and referred to the National Museum of Ireland. In all, 17 cases were referred to the office for expert opinion in 2017, which, in some instances, led to a court appearance. Autopsies were most likely to take place on a Monday. Update March 18: Megan Cooney was found safe and well this morning. Earlier: Gardai are seeking help in tracing the whereabouts of a 15-year-old girl missing from Dublin. Megan Cooney has been missing from the Coolock area since Friday, March 15. Megan Cooney. Megan is described as being 5'4" and of slim build. She has long brown hair and blue eyes. Gardai are concerned for Megan and asking anyone who has seen her or who can assist in locating her to contact Coolock Garda Station on 01 - 6664200, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station. One of Irelands leading wildlife photographers is celebrating after being shortlisted for a major international award. Sheena Jolley, based in West Cork, was in Austria on Saturday for the Federation of European Professional Photographers awards which celebrates the worlds top photographers in a range of categories. Ms Jolley was nominated in the wildlife category. She ran a gallery in Kinsale before relocating to the Mizen peninsula to run a gallery from her home, the Old Mill on Schull Harbour. Interested in natural history from her childhood in Wicklow, Ms Jolley studied photography full time at North Oxfordshire College of Art between 1999 and 2001 and found she could combine her creative talents with her love of nature. One of her passions is capturing images of Irelands indigenous wildlife, specialising in the dynamics of animal behaviour. When photographing wildlife I focus on freezing the briefest of moments, she said. I like to capture motion, the momentary eye contact with an animal or bird, the light in an eye, the transient light at dawn and dusk, and moments that are too fast to be easily seen by the naked eye. The more I photograph and observe wildlife the more I am convinced both birds and animals have emotions and feelings similar to our own. I strive to capture these moments by taking people closer to see better the detail, colour and spirit of a wild creature. All these aspects help to illustrate the beauty and might of nature and provide a lasting impression that I hope enthuses and excites the onlooker. Ms Jolley won the IPPA Best Wildlife Portfolio in 2013 and she was a finalist in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition in 2009 and 2015. She has had many solo exhibitions of her work but now concentrates on exhibiting in her own gallery at Coosheen, Schull as well as through her website. Her work has also been published in the Irish Examiner . A number of improvised weapons seized by the Irish Prison Service have gone on display at a tourist attraction which was itself once the largest jail in the world. A new exhibition, Shivs and Shanks has opened up on Spike Island, in Cork harbour. It features weapons fashioned from everyday items and shows the daily dangers faced by prison officers and prisoners themselves. Hundreds of similar items are confiscated by the Irish Prison Service annually. One of the artefacts on display. Pictures: David Keane In the mid-1800s, Spike Island was the largest prisons in the world and many of its inmates were loaded onto convict ships bound for Australia. Between 1985 and 2004 the former fort on the island was used to hold young offenders mainly joyriders convicted of stealing and driving cars recklessly. A riot in August 1985 received international media coverage and led to the reorganisation of the prison and the conversion of the north-east and north-west casemates into secure cells that can still be seen today. The exhibition features a number of weapons seized in the prison when it housed joyriders. These include razor blades melted into toothbrush heads, butter knives sharpened and even double blade weapons that caused wounds that could not be stitched and required glue to bind them. It also includes makeshift tattoo guns which prisoners used to create body art, often associated with gang membership. The confiscation of the weapons shows it was far from a safe environment with violence between Cork and Limerick gangs always a threat. Speaking at the exhibition launch, Ger Manley, chief officer of Cork prison said the dangers are all too apparent for prison officers. People sometimes forget that prison officers are unarmed and they face a daily danger where the outcome of confrontation can be uncertain," Mr Manley said. There are almost daily assaults in Irish prisons as the problem of gang violence has risen in frequency in recent years, increasing the risks for both prisoners and prison officers. The issue was highlighted in a 2018 report that showed more than half of the prisoner population in Mountjoy were in protective regimes to keep them safe from escalating gang violence. Spike Island manager John Crotty said it was a prison in the 1850s, the 1920s and again from 1985 to 2004. "In each of these eras we see records that show that violence was a daily threat for the men and women charged with housing the offenders," Mr Crotty said. Amhran na bhFiann should be taught in schools and pupils should learn the words of the national anthem, says Taoiseach Leo Vardakar. Asked in Chicago, while visiting the US for St Patricks Day celebrations, Mr Varadkar said he favoured formal teaching of Amhran na bhFiann. I think it would be a good idea for the national anthem to be taught in schools, he said. It was actually taught to me when I was in primary school. Whether it was mandatory or not, I dont know. Thats where I learnt the anthem, so I think that would be good. Fine Gael senator Neale Richmond has previously called for the national anthem to be compulsory in schools. He said many Irish people did not know the words or the tune. He said he was never taught the anthem in school, but learned it in Irish college in Donegal. He has suggested a phonetic approach, as well as teaching the historical and cultural context in which the song was written. The Seanad Public Consultation Committee on the anthem also previously suggested schools should improve the learning of it in Irish, English, and sign language. Opinion polls show only half of people know the anthems words. A security threat assessment centre led by military and police chiefs to prevent and respond to a terrorist attack in Ireland is to be set up this year. The body will gather intelligence and report to government, ensuring there will be political and civilian roles feeding into State security for the first time. In the wake of the New Zealand mosque attacks, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed the Strategic Threat Analysis Centre (Stac) is to be established within months. Speaking in Chicago during his visit to the US for St Patricks Day, he said Ireland was prepared for any possible attack. I think we are as prepared as any country can be, he said. We have seen horrendous terrorist attacks occur across the water in Britain, France, America, and now in New Zealand. You know, countries can only be so prepared for acts of appalling violence that are carried out by individuals or small groups. But among the things we are doing, for example, in light of the recommendations from the OToole Commission, is putting together a Strategic Threat Assessment Centre, essentially a co-ordinating body, which will be under the aegis of my department and that will co-ordinate the work of the gardai intelligence, of defence intelligence, and also the cyber security unit; so doing a few things really to bring together and co-ordinate what we do already when it comes to intelligence and national security. The OToole Commission examined the future of policing in Ireland. It was headed by former Garda Inspectorate chief Kathleen OToole. One of its 50 recommendations was a new approach to co-ordinating national security. This will be led by Stac and have a small permanent staff. Separately, the commission proposed there should be an independent examiner of terrorist and serious crime legislation, who would oversee how security legislation is enacted. Pressed by reporters about when Stac would be set up, Mr Varadkar indicated appointments would be made in the coming months. We should have the national security co-ordinator appointed and the office set up I say, certainly this year, he said. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday as the death toll from the New Zealand attacks reached 50. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5, when police said he was likely to face more charges. Fridays attack in Christchurch, which New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern labelled terrorism, was the worst ever peacetime mass killing in the country. Ms Ardern confirmed a manifesto was emailed to more than 30 recipients, including her office, nine minutes before the attack, but gave no location or specific details. She said her office sent it to parliamentary security two minutes later. In the manifesto, which was also posted online, Tarrant described himself as Just a ordinary White man, 28 years old who used profits from cryptocurrency trading to finance travel in Europe. Meanwhile, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said racism and religious intolerance or attempts to demonise the faith of another cannot be allowed to assume even a token tone of respectability. He said it would be incongruous to hold the joyful celebration of the feast of St Patrick in St Marys Pro-Cathedral without first finding a moment to pause and reflect on those who died in Christchurch. To attack innocent people of prayer in two mosques just because they were of a different faith was something that offended Christian culture, said Dr Martin. It is something that offends our own Irish culture just as it offends the culture of New Zealand, a country known for its tolerance and welcome. Update 18/03/2019, 15:03pm: A body has been recovered by teams searching for 30-year-old Ruth Maguire, who has been missing in County Louth since Earlier: 'Totally out of character': Appeal to find mother of three missing from hen party An appeal has been made for information after a mother of three went missing from a hen party in Carlingford, county Louth. Ruth Maguire (30) was one of 32 women on the hen and according to her friend Katrina OHare, the group all headed home to the house we are staying in at 11:30pm last night. The house is less than five minutes from Taaffes bar, where the group was before it headed home. Within minutes they realised that Ruth was not with them and Katrina said, this is totally out of character. The group, the majority of which are from Belfast, began searching for her straight away but could not find her. A doorman heard her say she might make her way home to Newcastle, county Down. However, her partner and children had gone to Belfast. This morning he drove back down to Newcastle and realised she had not returned home. Her phone is turned off and her coat was found in the bar today. Ruth is tall, slim, has blonde hair, and was wearing a black t-shirt saying Member of Irish Bride drinking team and black jeans. The hen party arrived in Carlingford yesterday and are due to leave tomorrow. Katrina said, this is awful, just awful, and has appealed to Ruth to make contact straight away or for anyone who knows her whereabouts to contact the gardai in Carlingford on 042-9373102. A urine sample may be able to detect prostate cancer and save lives, research supported by the Irish Cancer Society has shown. Researchers at University College Dublin have led the development of the simple urine test, which is 70% more specific for prostate cancer than the blood test currently used by doctors. If the new epiCaPture test is further validated, it could more accurately identify the men who do not need invasive tests, so they are spared the long-term side-effects of harsh treatments. The test could also help to identify aggressive prostate cancer early, so more patients can be potentially cured. In Ireland, 3,500 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer annually. One in three of these cases will be aggressive cancers, and around 500 men die from the disease every year. The development of a new indicator for prostate cancer is part of an international collaboration, led by Antoinette Perry, assistant professor of cell biology and genetics at the UCD Schoool of Biology and Environmental Science and the UCD Conway Insititute. Over the last four years, the research team at UCD has worked with doctors, nurses, patients, and other scientists from around Ireland, Britain, the US, and Canada to study urine from 500 men. We showed that almost 90% of men with aggressive prostate cancer have changes in their DNA that we could find in their urine, said Dr Perry. If we can replicate these findings, our research could contribute to a new, more accurate test to help catch aggressive prostate cancer and save lives from this disease. Dr Perry is currently working with UCDs technology transfer team at NovaUCD to bring the test to market. She has recently been awarded Enterprise Ireland funding to validate the epiCaPture technology, in the hope that it will be ready for use by doctors to test men for prostate cancer in the coming years. Head of cancer research at the Irish Cancer Society, Robert OConnor, said more work was needed before the benefits of the test reached patients. But it does show the potential we have to save more lives from this disease, said Dr OConnor. The charity is calling on the public to support Daffodil Day, this Friday, to fund more life-saving cancer research. We currently fund more than 100 researchers across Ireland and are on track to invest 30m in life-saving cancer research in the decade up to 2020, said Dr OConnor. 40 Years after the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland, Pat Fitzpatrick looks back at that era and asks men who share the Popes name what they think of the big changes during their lifetime IRELAND, 1979. Women looked like Joanna Lumley in the New Avengers; men looked like they had slept in a hedge. Around 40,000 married couples had six or more children. Drink-driving ads were telling us just two will do, or 22, if you know someone in the guards. Brendan Shines, Do You Want Your Oul Lobby Washed Down, spent five weeks at number one. A month before Pope John Paul IIs visit, 18 British soldiers were killed in Warrenpoint, on the same day Lord Louis Mountbatten was one of three killed by an IRA bomb in Sligo. The Popes public appearances attracted an audience of 2.5m (out of a population of 3.3m). There was a baby-boom exactly nine months after his visit. (Dont think about that too much; its completely disgusting.) The Popes support acts included Fr Michael Cleary and Bishop Eamonn Casey (throw in a Golden Cleric award, and you could have been looking at an episode of Father Ted). One in 10 baby boys born in 1980 were named John Paul. Its fair to say theyve seen a lot of changes. John Paul Feeley, born in 1981, is a solicitor and Fianna Fail councillor on Cavan County Council. His home, in Blacklion, is on the border with Northern Ireland, and because of that he has been him invited on Al Jazeera and Sky News to talk about Brexit. So it isnt a surprise when I ask him about the biggest change in his area since 1979. John Paul Feeley Its the peace process. The big change was north of the border, where the security forces were particularly intimidating. That going was the biggest change, and something our community took for granted, were it not for the fact that our neighbours north of the border are causing us trouble again. What does he think about recent referenda? I opposed the introduction of abortion. I think we should be fair: a third of the people who voted, voted against it. There was well-organised conditioning, leading up to them [the referenda] and a lot of people didnt think too deeply about them and followed the popular position. John Paul OShea, from Lombardstown, near Kanturk, is a Fine Gael councillor on Cork County Council. A practising Catholic, this John Paul doesnt hesitate when I ask what has changed most since he was born in 1983. The biggest change is peoples involvement in the Church; 35 years after I was born, there are a lot more ethnic groups and religions in Ireland, and the Church doesnt have as significant a role as it had in 1979. While rural broadband remains an issue for his community, OShea acknowledges the advances in technology. I remember when the neighbour across the road got a phone and we used to use it: someone would ring at half-six and wed have to be over outside the gate when the phone rang, and the neighbour would answer, but she had a cross dog, so she had to come out and leave us in. John Paul OShea Technology has reduced the need to go out, to call to the local church, shop, or the pub, says OShea. A lot of people stay at home and watch the Sunday Mass on RTE. Our local church doesnt have a Sunday morning mass any more, because it doesnt have the priests, so the Mass now is on a Saturday night. You might be surprised to hear there were John Pauls in Ireland before the papal visit. John Paul Calnan, from Cork, tells me hes over 40, when I contact him on Facebook, and adds: Im not named after the pope, Im glad to say. But unlike some other John Pauls, he can remember Ireland in 1979. I was 16. I didnt go to see the Pope. I knew I was gay, at that stage, but couldnt talk to anyone at the time, I didnt come out until I was 21. Did he find that his sexuality held him back, in 1980s Ireland? Not really. Once I came out, my life was transformed. I went from thinking I was the only gay in the village, and then realising that I wasnt and found a sense of community around me. From then on, it was all fine. John Paul Calnan When does he feel that Ireland started to change its attitudes? I came out in 1985. David Norris had already started down the road of getting the laws changed around homosexuality. It took the government until 1993 to decriminalise, but I felt that things were about to change. I never thought Id get married, but did so in 2008. Does he think life in the 1980s Ireland was all bad? I knew a lot of people, not just gay people, who left because they didnt fit in, that Ireland didnt accept them for what they were. But I also know quite a lot of people who have come back, not because of prosperity and the Celtic Tiger, but because they were ready to come back and recognised that Ireland is a much more accepting place. Ireland in 2019 is more colourful in every sense. Thats got to be a good thing, as long as people dont use it as an excuse to bring back two-tone anoraks. (What were we thinking?) After working with some of the top companies in the US, Kerry animator John Rice was happy to set up a festival in his native county, writes Esther McCarthy. IT was the kind of bad luck that might have seen a less passionate young animator come unstuck. On the first day of his first job with a top animation studio, a young John Rice arrived to work only to find the company was closing. It was the mid 1990s and Sullivan Bluth, the Irish-based studio behind An American Tale and The Land Before Time and the lead driving force in the Irish animation industry was closing its doors for the last time. I was just there for a day. The day I started or was to start was the day that they went into liquidation. There was just everybody in tears running out the door. I didnt have a clue. I think it came as a shock, actually, to everybody. I wasnt feeling sorry for myself, I was feeling sorry for the people who had been in there for a long time. I wouldnt let things like that get to me too much and I had some other pots on the go, other entrepreneurial pursuits that were doing all right for me. Like many Irish animators, he would go on to hone his craft in some of the most exciting creative hubs in America. GREEN CARD Rice, from Abbeydorney in Co Kerry, got a Green Card and sought his fortunes in LA, initially staying with his Ballyfermot College animation classmate Richard Baneham, who went on to win an Oscar for his work on Avatar. He was the first one over and it was almost like a processing centre in his place because many people followed from the class. Richie kind of paved the way for all of us, says Rice. Then I got a job in 20th Century Fox in Arizona. Don Bluth (co-founder of Sullivan Bluth) had been asked by Fox to set up a feature studio. He said he wanted to bring over his Irish crew. It was great. It was brilliant and it was working with some of the best artists in the world. I learned so much. I learnt my trade. Working his way up to animator by the time he left four years later, Rice fancied spending some time in New York and took up a job with MTV, who were at that time developing some cutting-edge animation of their own. I worked on a show called Downtown which was conveniently located in downtown New York. I would take the subway down there every day and draw people. I was a character designer. It was really a dream job. He was honing his skills in highly creative positions yet Rice felt that the industry, leaning increasingly towards digitisation, could get away from him in the future, so returned to Ireland to upskill. I started thinking it was time to go digital because I was still pencil and papering, he says now. The world was all changing around me and I wasnt changing with it. So I came back and went to Trinity. On returning to Dublin with his Irish wife Sarah, the couple started a family and decided to settle in the city. At this time, he established JAM Media with fellow animators and friends Alan Shannon and Mark Cumberton. DRAWING INSPIRATION JAM is also the driving force, along with the Dingle International Film Festival, behind the hugely successful Animation Dingle. Now in its seventh year, it takes place in the Co Kerry town next weekend. Geared towards animation students and the public, it has become a leading draw for the international industry, with guests last year from Pixar, Disney, Aardman and the BBC. This year, speakers include Co Cork native and Oscar nominee Nora Twomey, Pixar writer/director Bob Peterson, and Rices old college friend, Richard Baneham. Rice first considered setting up an animation festival after being invited to Dingle. A friend of mine, Maurice Foley, runs the Dingle International Film Festival. And he asked myself and Alan and Mark to come down. He got us this lovely room in the convent with the Harry Clarke windows. We thought that there could be something you know, if you were to do it properly and focus on animation. We didnt know what the colleges are doing and they didnt know what the industry was doing. Thats kind of where it started. It started off with maybe 25 people. Now theres 700 people. Student tickets go overnight, pretty much. A student described it on Twitter the other day as a Glastonbury for animation. There are bigger and more easily accessible places in the country to establish such a festival, but Rice feels hosting it in his home county is what makes it special. I think you have to be kind of niche these days when youre in a festival. We borrow a bit from Sundance in that the harder it is to get to, the harder it is to leave. Its small and perfectly formed and we just take over Dingle. There isnt a hotel room to be had and we cant grow it any bigger than it is. And I think that youthful exuberance that the students give off is something that they (guests) really react to. A big part of the festival is encouraging the students to pitch their ideas. CHILDHOOD AMBITION As a child, Rice was drawing as early as he can remember, and always dreamed of working in animation, an ambition that was fostered and encouraged by his parents. Every copy book I ever had was covered around the borders with little drawings. I was always encouraged from an early age to embrace whatever creativity I had. I got incredible encouragement from my folks. I was lucky that way. JAM has become one of Irish animations many great success stories, now employing 105 in Dublin and Belfast, a number likely to swell to 140 by the end of the year. They have created several successful shows and characters geared primarily towards children and pre-schoolers, and one of their more recent creations, Beccas Bunch (named after his daughter) could be one of the most successful of them all. The series, about a little bird who has a big heart, has been a massive ratings success on Nick Jr and another series is in the works.They have also struck a deal with a major toy company to produce a wide range of products set around the series. "Weve never gotten a toy deal off of a show before, says Rice. Theyre like hens teeth so thats really exciting. Its killing it in ratings on Nick Jr all around the world. Theyre delighted with it. Were scripting a second series. Animation Dingle takes place on Friday and Saturday. 2019.animationdingle.com Pope Francis recently ordered the unsealing of the Vaticans WWII archives on Pius XII. TP OMahony looks at the controversies surrounding the pontiff, Hitler, and the Nazis. Eighty years after his election as Pope Pius XII in March 1939, the reputation of Eugenio Pacelli remains mired in controversy. The source of that controversy is succinctly captured in the title of John Cornwells 1999 book Hitlers Pope. But it was a much earlier piece of writing that really focused international attention on what Pius XII did or didnt do during the Second World War. This was Rolf Hochhuths play The Deputy (the tile is sometimes translated as The Representative), first staged in Berlin in February 1963. The Deputy has stirred up more controversy and caused greater repercussions than any other post-war work. Its treatment of Pius XII and the Church during the Nazi persecution of the Jews has been the object of impassioned praise and violent denunciation. It is a powerful, shocking play, the Los Angeles Times said at the time. The play depicted Pius XII as a detached, aloof, cold-hearted, ruthless cynic more interested in the Vaticans stockholdings than in the fate of the Jews. It created an image of Pius XII as a moral coward, a Pope whose silence about the Holocaust was a shameful betrayal of his responsibilities. Serious students of the papacy found this portrait unconvincing, and of course it was dismissed out of hand by the Holy See, but The Deputy did start a new controversy about the culpability of Pius XII in the Final Solution and it continues to blight his pontificate. In a confidential memorandum at the time, the Irish Ambassador to the Holy See wrote that the whole thing has been a matter of great distress and mindsearching in the Vatican. The ambassador went on to say that the play was far from being a serious exercise in the historical presentation of the late Pius XII. He also acknowledged a fact that before the end of the war and during the actual period when persecution of the Jews by Hitler was rampant, Pius XII did not for his own good reasons issue an Encyclical in condemnation of national-socialism. What were these good reasons? This failure or omission on the part of Pius XII was in marked contrast to his predecessor, Achille Ratti, who as Pius XI in March 1937 ordered his encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety), condemning National Socialism and branding Nazism as fundamentally anti-Christian, to be read from all pulpits in Germany, even though copies had to be smuggled in. In his 2014 book The Pope & Mussolini, David Kertzer of Brown University in the US said that Pope was planning to release a second anti-fascist encyclical but died on February 10, 1939, before the draft was finalised. According to Kertzer, a file containing a draft and notes was left on Pius XIs desk after his death but this was removed by Cardinal Pacelli who within a matter of weeks would be elected in succession to Pius XI and nothing more was ever heard of it at the time. The working title of the encyclical was Humani Generis Unitas (On the Unity of the Human Race). Rejecting the idea that a good Christian could embrace racism, it demanded an end to the persecution of the Jews, wrote Kertzer. It was Pius XIs fervent hope that such a statement be issued, but among those who survived him, many were eager to see it buried along with the Pope. In October 1997, a book entitled The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI by Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky was published. Passelecq was a Belgian monk and Suchecky an historian, and the book contained a draft of the encyclical prepared by John LaFarge, a Jesuit from Fordham University in New York. He had been instructed in 1938 by Pius XI to prepare an encyclical and to write as if you were the Pope. Long before that book, however, attention had been drawn to the encyclical that never was. In December 1972 and January 1973, a series of articles in the National Catholic Reporter (published from Kansas City) by Jim Castelli, raised for the first time the issue of an unpublished encyclical of Pius XI attacking anti-Semitism. Castelli, the papers associate editor, had unearthed most of the information relating to the encyclical. Why was Humani Generis Unitas suppressed? There is no precedent for posthumously publishing a papal encyclical. But Pacelli, after his election in March (the Second World War would start in September), could have made the encyclical his own and published in his own name while giving due credit to his predecessor. But this presupposes he was of one mind with Pius XI on the matters. New light may now be thrown on this issue, and many others, after Pope Francis ordered the unsealing of the Vaticans Second World War archives on Pius XII. They will be available to scholars from next year. The Vatican usually waits 75 years after the end of a pontificate before it makes the archives of that Pope available. That would mean scholars waiting until 2033 for access in the case of Pius XII. Now, because of the news from the Vatican, all of the documents in the Vatican Secret Archives from the election of Eugenio Pacelli in 1939 to his death in 1958 will be made available to researchers starting March 2, 2020. According to the Catholic News Service, staff in the Secret Archives, which holds the bulk of the documents relating to the wartime Pope, have been working for the past 13 years to get the material organised and catalogued. Bishop Sergio Pagano, prefect of the archives, said years of work were necessary to catalogue material previously held in a variety of Vatican offices. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI authorised the archives to make available to researchers documents from the pre-Second World War pontificate of Pope Pius XI up until 1939. Writing in The Tablet, the English Catholic weekly, in the aftermath of the decision from Rome, John Cornwell, whose book Hitlers Pope contained sensational revelations, expressed doubt the decision to open the sealed archives will settle the 60-year-old controversy about Pius XIIs silence on the Holocaust. Cornwell, a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and also the author of Thief in the Night: The Death of Pope John Paul I, claimed Cardinal Pacelli, as Vatican Secretary of State, had by negotiating in 1933 a concordat with Hitler (the so-called Reich Concordat), assisted Hitler to power and destroyed a viable Catholic resistance in Germany. The concordat was a church-state treaty for the whole of the Third Reich. The treaty provided that the Nazi regime would protect Catholic rights to worship and education, provided the Church promised to withdraw from all social and political action, Cornwell wrote. He quoted German church historian Klaus Scholder, who argued the treaty demoralised Catholic opposition to the Nazis, scandalised the young and gave Hitler credit around the world. It was also evident, says Cornwell, that Cardinal Pacelli had encouraged the Catholic Centre Party in Germany to vote in 1933 for the Enabling Act that gave Hitler his dictatorship, and insisted that the party should disband itself voluntarily. Cornwells most damning conclusion about Pius XII is contained in the final paragraph of his Tablet article: One thing is certain: when the pressures were lifted at the end of the war, he never attempted to explain, still less apologise, for what he had done, or left undone. Eugenio Pacelli has his defenders. One of the staunchest was Kenneth Woodward, for years religion editor of Newsweek magazine. In March 1998, he wrote a trenchant one-page article in that publication. That Golda Meir, later a prime minister of Israel, and leaders of Jewish communities in Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Romania and the United States thanked the Pope for saving hundreds of thousands of Jews is now considered irrelevant. That he never specifically condemned the Shoah is all that seems to matter. No one person, Hitler excepted, was responsible for the Holocaust. And no one person, Pius XII included, could have prevented it. Given whats to emerge from the Secret Vatican Archives in 2020, the last word on one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century has by no means been spoken or written. The long-running quarrel was Pius XII a saint or a sinner? is far from being settled. It may be that the material from the archives will back up the observation made by Pope Francis when announcing the unsealing, that some of the criticisms of Pius XII were biased or exaggerated. That story awaits. The next Cold War against China will not be won by force of weaponry as was the case against the USSR, but rather through expensive economic strategies, writes Minxin Pei. IT is convenient to call the escalating geopolitical contest between the US and China a new cold war. But that description should not be allowed to obscure the obvious, though not yet sufficiently understood, reality that this new competition will differ radically from the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. The Cold War of the 20th century pitted two rival military alliances against each other. By contrast, the Sino-American rivalry involves two economies that are closely integrated both with each other and with the rest of the world. A cargo ship is seen at a port in Qingdao in Chinas eastern Shandong province. Picture: Getty Images The most decisive battles in todays cold war will thus be fought on the economic front (trade, technology, and investment), rather than in, say, the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait. Some American strategic thinkers have recognised this, and now argue that, if the US is to win this cold war, it must sever its commercial ties with China and persuade its allies to do the same. But, as the ongoing bilateral trade war demonstrates, this is easier said than done. Contrary to US President Donald Trumps claim that it would be easy to win, that war has imposed such high costs, even as the US trade deficit continues to widen, that Trump now seems to be having second thoughts about further escalation. If the US, with its strong geopolitical incentive, is struggling to bear the costs of an economic decoupling, its allies, most of which face no immediate Chinese security threat, will resist doing the same. Their reticence is obvious in their response to Americas aggressive campaign against the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. So far, that campaign has included the arrest (in Canada) of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou and legal action against the company for violating sanctions against Iran and for stealing US technology. The Trump administration has also called on allies to keep Huawei the global leader in next-generation 5G mobile technology out of their wireless communication networks. The case against entrusting Huawei to build 5G networks in Western countries is strong. Given the Chinese governments unfettered power over the countrys companies, including Huawei technology in 5G networks could give rise to serious security risks. For countries that cannot afford the expensive equipment (and view Chinese domination as only a distant concern), those risks may be worth taking. But that is not the case for Americas wealthy allies. Yet, so far, only Australia and New Zealand have complied with the US demand to ban Huawei. While Canada is considering joining them, European countries have defied the Trump administration, with the UK and Germany indicating that they would allow Huawei to participate in the construction of their 5G networks. South Korea and India have similarly resisted US pressure to exclude Huawei. Despite the national security implications, the fact remains that banning Huawei would result in higher costs and significant delays. Yet the US has offered no rewards or compensation to its wavering allies. This underscores a key challenge that the US will likely confront in the new cold war. Though America is likely ultimately to come out on top, victory will not come cheap. Isolating China economically which is crucial to gaining the upper hand will require the US not only to shoulder its own costs, but also to compensate its allies for the losses they incur. Victory will not come fast, either, especially if the US remains so eager to secure short-term wins such as Chinese promises to purchase large quantities of American soybeans and energy products that it fails to encourage the systematic changes that would benefit it and its allies in the long run. Such opportunism makes US allies doubt Americas resolve in an economic confrontation with China, fuelling fear that they will shoulder high short-term costs for nothing. The Trump administration has already displayed an utter lack of concern for its allies economic interests. It is chiefly US allies that have been hurt by the Trump administrations tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, and now the administration is threatening to go further, imposing a tariff specifically on European and Japanese automobiles. Trump has reportedly even been considering demanding that Americas allies pay the full cost, plus 50%, of stationing US troops on their territory. Trumps approach reflects not just a lack of loyalty, but also a lack of vision for sustaining, let alone strengthening, Americas own economic leverage. Recall that, almost immediately upon entering the White House, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement that sought specifically to prevent Chinese economic domination in the Asia-Pacific region. The new cold war against China will be won not through ideology or even weaponry, but through the deployment of economic incentives to wage a geopolitical struggle. The winning strategy will not be one that weaponises only Americas greed. By nickel-and-diming its allies, the US is effectively disarming itself. Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the author of Chinas Crony Capitalism, is the inaugural Library of Congress Chair in US-China Relations. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019. Interview We Dont Expect a Single Amendment Will Be Made SNLD General Secretary Sai Nyunt Lwin / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy Ethnic groups expect to see changes to the military-drafted 2008 Constitution, now that the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) has led the way in forming a parliamentary committee to draft amendments to the charter. While the Tatmadaws four-month unilateral ceasefire is not due to end until next month, there have been increasingly frequent clashes between ethnic groups themselves, especially between the Shan and the Palaung. Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) General Secretary Sai Nyunt Lwin recently talked to The Irrawaddy about the importance of charter amendment in ensuring sustainable peace and federalism in Myanmar, as well as the SNLDs view on Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Shan State borders China. What is the SNLD doing regarding constitutional amendment? To what degree does the party expect the Constitution to be amended? We are participating in discussions on constitutional amendment according to party policy. To answer your second question, we dont expect that even a single amendment will be made. We are just participating in discussions as we think we should. Does the party agree that Article 261 should be changed to allow local legislatures to elect their own chief ministers? What provisions need to be changed to achieve federal status? To achieve federal status, all the provisions need to be changed including the basic principles. In principle, we agree that Article 261 should be changed for chief ministers to be elected by the concerned local parliaments. Some think that all the ethnicities would support amending that article. But, due to their past experiences, they have learned lessons. If chief ministers are to be elected by concerned parliaments, 25 percent of military-appointed lawmakers, who [currently do not] have any say in appointing chief ministers, will have that right, as they will be involved in electing chief ministers. So, though we agree to amending Article 261 in principle, other restrictions need to be considered. Three years after ethnic groups signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), clashes erupted again, and internally displaced persons still cant return to their homes. Do you think the NCA can solve the armed conflict? So far the NCA hasnt been able to settle the armed conflict. And there is still no sign of peace being brought about by the NCA. Fresh clashes have happened. There have been only setbacks, and no progress, over the past three years. The entire process should be reviewed thoroughly. The Tatmadaws four-month ceasefire will end in less than two months. But there has still been no significant negotiation, and armed conflict has not ceased at all in northern Shan State. How long will people have to wait to lead a peaceful life in northern Shan State? Two months after the Tatmadaw declared its ceasefire, some negotiations are going on, but most of them are informal talks. Far from achieving significant momentum, there have been renewed clashes in the NCA signatories, especially in northern Shan State, where the Tatmadaw has declared a four-month ceasefire. It seems that people in northern Shan will have to wait a long time for the clashes to end. There have been increased clashes between Shan armed groups. How is the Shan community mediating between the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP) and the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS)? Yes, there are increased clashes between ethnic armed groups, which is not a good thing. Everyone thinks there shouldnt be fighting between them, and I share this view. The SSPP has signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement with the government, and the RCSS has signed both the NCA and a bilateral agreement. They have already been removed from the list of unlawful associations. Their problem is they are experiencing territorial disputes. And we have mediated for quite a long time. Perhaps the mediation is not effective; we have not been able to stop them from fighting. But we are still trying to mediate. Are the territorial disputes between the Shan and Palaung armed groups stoking ethnic tensions between local Shan and Palaung people? What can be done to provide security for civilians? I cant understand how this happened. Previously, the Shan and Palaung were brothers and comrades. But not long ago allegations of torture emerged. It is so sad. But there are no serious tensions between the two peoples on the ground. It is important that military leaders be far-sighted in their vision. Id like to urge all military leaders to be aware that hatred and military operations cant solve the problem. Some say the Arakanese have taken up armed struggle because they no longer believe that the government, Parliament and judicial system that emerged under the 2008 Constitution can bring about change. Do you agree with this argument? It is difficult to say. Government figures say the overwhelming majority of the people supported the 2008 Constitution in the national referendum, but most people do not like it in reality. If there is doubt about this, another independent referendum can be held, as suggested by [political analyst] Saya Yan Myo Thein. Then it will become clear. My personal view is that the fighting in Rakhine State may be concerned with the 2008 Constitution, though not 100 percent. China is increasingly involved in Myanmars peace process, and the BRI will go through Myanmar. Do you think special economic zones and road and rail links have the potential to spur development in Shan State? It is a project done by the other side and Myanmar has no choice and cant avoid it. We are too weak to reject it. And whats worse, there is no reconciliation between us. At best we can only try not to be swept away by the tide. To quote some of my friends, we can only try to strive for as many benefits as we can from a bad situation. That would be better than just taking what were given. Asia China Says 13,000 'Terrorists' Arrested in Xinjiang Since 2014 People mingle in the old town of Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China on March 22, 2017. / Reuters BEIJINGAuthorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 terrorists in the restive far western region of Xinjiang since 2014, the government said on Monday, in a lengthy policy paper again defending its controversial Islamic de-radicalization measures. China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centers holding more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims. Beijing says it needs the measures to stem the threat of Islamist militancy, and calls them vocational training centers. Legal authorities have adopted a policy that strikes the right balance between compassion and severity, the government said in its white paper. Since 2014, Xinjiang has destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials, it added. Only a small minority of people face strict punishment, such as ringleaders of terror groups, while those influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training to teach them the error of their ways, the paper said. The main exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, swiftly denounced the white paper. China is deliberately distorting the truth, spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement. Counter-terrorism is a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs. The real aim of the so-called de-radicalization is to eliminate faith and thoroughly carry out sinification. The white paper said Xinjiang has faced a particular challenge since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, as East Turkestan extremists ramped up activities in China, referring to Chinas term for extremists and separatists it says operates in Xinjiang. They screamed the evil words of getting into heaven by martyrdom with jihad, turning some people into extremists and terrorists who have been completely mind-controlled, and even turned into murderous devils. Religious extremism under the banner of Islam runs counter to Islamic doctrines, and is not Islam, it added. Xinjiang has long been an inseparable part of Chinese territory, and the Uighur ethnic group evolved from a long process of migration and ethnic integration, the paper said. They are not descendants of the Turks. Turkey is the only Islamic country that has regularly expressed concern about the situation in Xinjiang, due to close cultural links with the Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language. China has denounced Turkish concern as unwarranted and interference in its internal affairs. Asia From Hardship to Hope, Singapore's Migrant Poets Find Their Voices Migrant workers relax on a grass patch during their day off in Singapore on April 2, 2017. / Reuters SINGAPORE In dorms on Singapores fringes or employers backrooms, a growing number of migrant workers are using poetry to shed light on their hidden struggles and reconnect with their roots. The tiny Southeast Asian nation of 5.6 million counts on about 1 million migrant workers from countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and Myanmar to fuel its powerhouse economy, working in sectors from construction to services and home help. Although horrific labor abuse cases are rare in the rich city-state, campaigners say migrants grapple with unpaid salaries, having their travel documents withheld and massive debts racked up in fees they pay agents to get work. Often tucked away in dormitories for foreign workers and only seen in public on Sundays, their day off, scores of migrants are writing poetry and short stories offering a rare insight into their little-known worlds. When I write, I am happy. When people read our work and accept us as human beings, we are happy, Indonesian domestic worker Deni Apriyani told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Hailing from a sleepy village in Indonesia, 29-year-old Apriyani moved to Singapore in 2013 to become a domestic worker as she wanted to buy land for her father, a farmer, back home. Working from dawn to dusk looking after an expatriate family, she started writing poetry on her mobile phone at the end of her 14-hour work day as an outlet for her frustration as she struggled to adjust to life in the new city. Softly-spoken Apriyani won a poetry writing competition for migrants in 2017 and one of her poems was published in a book last year that brought together more than 60 works by Singaporean writers and migrant workers. You call them sluts, you call them useless, you call them shameful, but did you know the stories behind them? she asked in the poem Murderers, which highlighted the stigma facing migrant workers who try to find love in the city. Award-winning The growing focus on writing by migrant workers began about five years ago with poetry contests organized by advocates that aimed to use literature to break down barriers between foreign workers and Singaporean society. These competitions have now branched out to other parts of Asia that also rely heavily on migrant workers, including Malaysia and Taiwan. In Singapore, their poems are found in bookshops and public libraries, with Bangladeshi construction worker Md Sharif Uddins Stranger to Myself winning the award for best non-fiction title at the prestigious Singapore Books Awards last year. Stories of migrant workers are also gaining attention in other artistic formats. A Land Imagined, an award-winning film about low-paid migrants in Singapore, was released domestically last month, with local critics hailing it as a historic milestone in Singapore cinema. Singaporean author and poet Jamal Ismail said migrants unique experiences and work have enriched the islands literary scene. They might not write beautifully but there is an abundance of humanism in them, he said, during a workshop where he offered guidance to a group of migrant poets. He recounted how he was struck by a poem by a migrant domestic worker who likened her life in the city to that of a cockroach, and another who told him she had not been paid for six months. They are marginalized and they feel lonely. When youre lonely, that is when you reflect on what is the meaning of life? That is something they have that is so powerful, he said. Singapores government maintains migrant workers are well protected, and the country remains a popular destination for foreign laborers as they generally enjoy higher wages than in other parts of the region. Sales of migrant workers books are low compared to more mainstream writers, but local publishers said their potential is enormous. They really struck a chord and there was empathy, said Ng Kah Gay from Singapores Ethos Books, which in 2016 published Me Migrant, the city-states first book by a migrant laborer, Bangladeshs Md Mukul Hossine, with 3,000 copies sold to date. Migrant workers are someone whom were so familiar with but sometimes we dont see them, they are invisible. These books flesh out their lives for us to experience their emotions. Its so important for them to be seen not just as an economic machine but they have their own voice, Ng said. Goh Eck Kheng from Landmark Books, which has sold 700 copies of Uddins award-winning Stranger to Myself in two print runs so far, said literature gave migrant and local writers a platform to embrace each others work. In that way, literature is a social leveler, Goh said. Freedom of thought Translation is the main hurdle for the work of migrant poets to flourish according to Shivaji Das, an Indian-born writer who works in Singapore and has been organizing the annual migrant poetry writing competitions since 2014. Scribbling on cement bags or tapping on their mobile phones after nightfall, workers usually write in native languages like Bengali, Indonesian or Chinese before their work is translated. Publishers said migrant workers also have to compete for attention with a pool of emerging local and foreign writers. But for many of the workers, writing merely is a way to ease their homesickness and document their lives in a different city as well as a form of empowerment. Fazley Elahi, a Bangladeshi worker who writes poems and set up Migrant Library Singapore a year ago, said reading and writing in his native language reconnects him to his roots after living away from home for a decade. Manned by volunteers, the library has a collection of about 800 books in different languages that are common among migrant workers such as Bengali, Indonesian, Tagalog and Chinese. It also holds writing workshops for aspiring writers and runs a mobile library project that goes to workers dorms. In poetry, says Elahi, there are no limits to what he can say, which gives him a sense of liberation. It is the freedom of thought that we treasure, said the 30-year-old. Asia India, Pakistan Threatened to Unleash Missiles at Each OtherSources Supporters of Jamiat Talaba Islam (JTI), student wing of religious and political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), chant slogans as they celebrate, after Pakistan shot down two Indian military aircrafts, in Lahore, Pakistan on February 27, 2019. / Reuters NEW DELHI/ISLAMABADThe sparring between India and Pakistan last month threatened to spiral out of control and only interventions by U.S. officials, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, headed off a bigger conflict, five sources familiar with the events said. At one stage, India threatened to fire at least six missiles at Pakistan, and Islamabad said it would respond with its own missile strikes three times over, according to Western diplomats and government sources in New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington. The way in which tensions suddenly worsened and threatened to trigger a war between the nuclear-armed nations shows how the Kashmir region, which both claim and is at the core of their enmity, remains one of the worlds most dangerous flashpoints. The exchanges did not get beyond threats, and there was no suggestion that the missiles involved were anything more than conventional weapons, but they created consternation in official circles in Washington, Beijing and London. Reuters has pieced together the events that led to the most serious military crisis in South Asia since 2008, as well as the concerted diplomatic efforts to get both sides to back down. The simmering dispute erupted into conflict late last month when Indian and Pakistani warplanes engaged in a dogfight over Kashmir on Feb. 27, a day after a raid by Indian jet fighters on what it said was a militant camp in Pakistan. Islamabad denied any militant camp exists in the area and said the Indian bombs exploded on an empty hillside. In their first such clash since the last war between the two nations in 1971, Pakistan downed an Indian plane and captured its pilot after he ejected in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Hours later, videos of the bloodied Indian pilot, handcuffed and blindfolded, appeared on social media, identifying himself to Pakistani interrogators, deepening anger in New Delhi. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi facing a general election in April-May, the government was under pressure to respond. No going back That evening, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval spoke over a secure line to the head of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Asim Munir, to tell him India was not going to back off its new campaign of counter terrorism even after the pilots capture, an Indian government source and a Western diplomat with knowledge of the conversations told Reuters in New Delhi. Doval told Munir that Indias fight was with the militant groups that freely operated from Pakistani soil and it was prepared to escalate, said the government source. A Pakistani government minister and a Western diplomat in Islamabad separately confirmed a specific Indian threat to use six missiles on targets inside Pakistan. They did not specify who delivered the threat or who received it, but the minister said Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies were communicating with each other during the fight, and even now they are communicating with each other. Pakistan said it would counter any Indian missile attacks with many more launches of its own, the minister told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. We said if you will fire one missile, we will fire three. Whatever India will do, we will respond three times to that, the Pakistani minister said. Dovals office did not respond to a request for comment. India was not aware of any missile threat issued to Pakistan, a government official said in reply to a Reuters request for comment. Pakistans military declined to comment and Munir could not be reached for comment. Pakistans foreign ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Trump-Kim talks The crisis unfolded as U.S. President Donald Trump was trying to hammer out an agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi over its nuclear program. U.S. security advisor Bolton was on the phone with Doval on the night of Feb. 27 itself, and into the early hours of Feb. 28, the second day of the Trump-Kim talks, in an attempt to defuse the situation, the Western diplomat in New Delhi and the Indian official said. Later, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was also in Hanoi, also called both sides to seek a way out of the crisis. Secretary Pompeo led diplomatic engagement directly, and that played an essential role in de-escalating the tensions between the two sides, State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino said in a briefing in Washington on March 5. A State Department official declined comment when asked if they knew of the threats to use missiles. Pompeo spoke to Doval, the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, respectively, Palladino said. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Phil Davidson told reporters in Singapore last week that he had separately been in touch with the Indian navy chief, Sunil Lanba, throughout the crisis. There was no immediate response from Lanbas office to a question on the nature of the conversations. U.S. efforts were focused on securing the quick release of the Indian pilot by Pakistan and winning an assurance from India it would pull back from the threat to fire rockets, the Western diplomat in New Delhi and officials in Washington said. We made a lot of effort to get the international community involved in encouraging the two sides to de-escalate the situation because we fully realized how dangerous it was, said a senior Trump administration official. The Pakistani minister said China and the United Arab Emirates also intervened. Chinas foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The government of the UAE said Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan held talks with both Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. India has not given details, but has said it was in touch with major powers during the conflict. On the morning of Feb. 28, Trump told reporters in Hanoi that he expected the crisis to end soon. They have been going at it and we have been involved in trying to have them stop. Hopefully that is going to be coming to an end. Later that afternoon, Khan announced in Pakistans parliament that the Indian pilot would be released, and he was sent back the next day. I know last night there was a threat there could be a missile attack on Pakistan, which got defused, Khan said. I know, our army stood prepared for retaliation of that attack. The two countries have gone to war three times since both gained independence in 1947, the last time in 1971. The two armies are trading fire along the line of control that separates them in Kashmir, but the tensions appear contained for now. Diplomatic experts said that the latest crisis underlined the chances of misread signals and unpredictability in the ties between the nuclear-armed rivals, and the huge dangers. It still was not clear whether India had targeted a militant camp in Pakistan and whether there were any casualties, they said. Indian and Pakistani leaders have long evinced confidence that they can understand each others deterrence signals and can de-escalate at will, said Joshua White, a former White House official who is now at Johns Hopkins University. The fact that some of the most basic facts, intentions and attempted strategic signals of this crisis are still shrouded in mystery should be a sobering reminder that neither country is in a position to easily control a crisis once it begins Burma Private Investments Worth $54M for Chin State Vice President U Myint Swe and Union Minister for Investment and Foreign Economic Relations U Thaung Tun, Chin State Chief Minister Salai Lian Luai attend the opening ceremony of Chin Investment Fair at the Myanmar Convention Centre in Yangon on March 16, 2019. / MOI Webportal Myanmar / Facebook YANGONThe Chin State government signed four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with private companies for projects totaling more than $54 million at an investment fair held at the weekend in Yangon, which aimed to stir up foreign investment interest in one of the poorest states of Myanmar. Among the four companies, the biggest project signed for was with Norway Power Co. Ltd. for a power project worth $50 million which will be the first foreign investment in the Chin State. According the director of the States Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA) U Min Zaw Oo, the government also signed MoUs with local companies for an agricultural goods production project worth $1 million with Chin Taung Yadanar Co., an urban housing project worth 3 billion kyats (nearly $2 million) with the Khumi Institute and a hotel project worth 2.4 billion kyats (nearly $1.6 million) with KL Amazing Co. Ltd. These projects are listed among the priority projects [and will] enjoy income tax exemptions for seven years, U Min Zaw Oo told The Irrawaddy. The two-day fair was backed by the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations who partnered with UK Aid and private businesses as part of the governments efforts to counteract a significant decline in foreign direct investment in Myanmar. Situated in western Myanmar along the border with Bangladesh and India, Chin State has a mountainous terrain that has hindered infrastructure development. Major parts of the state lack basic infrastructure and electricity. Chin States Chief Minister Salai Lian Luai said the government priority sectors are hotels and tourism, agriculture, mining, infrastructure and hydropower and energy. Vice President U Myint Swe and Union Minister for Investment and Foreign Economic Relations U Thaung Tun attended the fairs opening ceremony on Saturday. Vice President U Myint Swe said that as Chin State lies on a strategic economic corridor between India and Myanmar, and as bilateral trade increases, more firm opportunities would arise. Opportunities to investment in transport, communication and basic infrastructure projects were also promoted at the fair. The fair highlighted infrastructure and urban development projects in Hakha, Falam, Tedim, Paletwa and Mindat townships; agriculture, organic farming and traditional weaving projects in Falam, Hakha, Kanpetlet, Mindat and Paletwa townships; tourism projects at Khonumsum National Park, Rih Lake, Kimo Wildlife Sanctuary, Seinmu National Park and the Khuado Festival; and hydro and wind power projects in Manipur, on the Lay Myo River and in Bawinu in Tedim Township. According to State-run newspapers, the government plans to open Chin States first major airport, Surbung Airport in 2020 in Falam Township which is a major town near Myanmars western border with the Indian state of Mizoram, with the view to improving the tourism sector in the state. According to DICA, 800 investors attended the fair and among them were 130 foreigners from the US, Canada, China, India, Australia, France, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Israel and ASEAN countries including Brunei and Vietnam. Among the countries which currently have investment projects in Myanmar, China and Thailand attendees were the highest. Chin State was also feature in the first Invest Myanmar Summit in Naypyitaw in January, which showcased 38 tax-exempt projects around Myanmar, including 10 in the tourism industry and 28 in the energy sector. The Chin State Investment Fair is part of the governments Myanmar Investment Promotion Plan (MIPP) launched last year. Foreign investment has tumbled over the past two years and the government hopes that through MIPP, more than $200 billion in can be drummed up over the next 20 years through responsible and quality foreign business investments. In February, the government hosted the Rakhine State Investment Fair in the beach resort town of Ngapali, which showcased six priority projects. At the fair, 28 expressions of interest (EOIs) for projects worth $4.9 billion were signed by both local and foreign investors for hotel and tourism projects. Burma Shelling in Northern Rakhine Injures Woman, Scars Historic Pagoda Tukkathein Pagoda. / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy SITTWE, Rakhine State A woman was injured and a historic pagoda was raked by artillery fire Friday during fighting between the Myanmar military and rebel Arakan Army, according to a local official and a community elder. U Oo Tun Hlaing, a community elder in Mrauk-U Township, told The Irrawaddy that a 40-year-old woman from Kyauk-Risk-Kay Ward was hit by shell fragments and sent a local hospital for treatment. I heard that about 30 [military] soldiers came near the town [on Friday evening]. Shell pieces fell near Tukkathein and Shikthaung pagodas, and parts of the shells fell on the roofs of monasteries and houses. Locals are frightened and they dare not sleep in their homes at night, he said. U Than Htike, director of the Mrauk-U branch of the National Museum and Library Ministrys archaeology department, said the shelling also damaged the historic Mye Hte Pagoda and the security gate of a cultural conservation zone near Tukkathein Pagoda. He warned that the ongoing fighting risked destroying the heritage of the ancient capital of the Arakanese kingdom and hindered the governments plans to get Mrauk-U on the UNESCO World Heritage Lite. Daw Khin Than, who chairs a government-backed heritage group in Mrauk-U, said it was disappointing to see the people of Myanmar damaging their own heritage. It was lucky that the artillery shells flew over Tukkathein Pagoda, otherwise Shitthaung and Tukkathein would have been hit by the artillery shells. The security gate was riddled with holes. It would be sad if such shelling continued. Heritage cannot be replaced, she said. U Than Htike said it was hard to tell who fired the shells. As there are two armed groups, we dont know which side is responsible for this. We reported the case to senior authorities, he said. Brig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the militarys True News Information Team, could not be reached for comment. Mrauk-U lies along the Kaladan River in northern Rakhine about 60 km inland from the state capital, Sittwe. From the 15th century to the late 1800s, it was the seat of Arakanese kings, who at the height of their power controlled an area covering much of eastern Bengal, modern-day Rakhine State and the western part of lower Myanmar. Many of the citys remains are well-preserved and some 380 historic temples are scattered between the lush hills. Since 2014 the Culture Ministry has been mapping the area digitally and conducting preservation work of the temples and palace grounds. Communal violence between the Arakanese Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim populations in the region in mid-2012 has driven down tourist numbers. Following the violence, authorities closed the old city to tourists from abroad. Although the ban was lifted after several months, the area has seen only a trickle of visitors since. in 2017 three ancient Pyu cities became the first sites in Myanmar to be recognized by UNESCO. The government has also nominated Bagan for the same status. Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko. Burma Union-Level Officials to Meet Karenni Anti-Statue Activists This Week Hundreds of people join a protest against the placement of a statue of Gen. Aung San in Loikaw, Kayah State, on Feb. 12. / Progressive Karenni People's Force / Facebook Rights activists in Karenni State will meet Union government officials on Wednesday to negotiate their demand that a statue of General Aung San be removed from a park in Loikaw, the Kayah State capital, local sources said. Union Presidents Office director U Zaw Htay requested a meeting with the right activists during a phone call on March 15, according to Khun Thomas, a spokesperson for the activists. He [U Zaw Htay] told me that we will try to find a solution as soon as possible. So he requested that we not hold any protests on March 17, Khun Thomas said. The Presidents Office and rights activists both said they would confirm on Tuesday the number and identities of those who will attend the talks, according to the activists. The meeting is likely to be held in either Naypyitaw or Yangon, they said. The rights activists said they had accepted U Zaw Htays invitation and agreed to suspend their protest activities. They said they would ask the Union government to remove the statue, and intend to maintain their current stand. We will try our best to make the negotiations succeed. If we do not get what we want, we will use people power to remove the statue by ourselves, Khun Thomas said. In a letter sent to the state government on March 12, Karenni activists gave the Kayah State government until March 17 to remove the statue, which was put up over the objections of many local residents. They warned that if the state government failed to remove it by that date, they would do it themselves with the help of local residents. The state government has not replied to the letter. Following a major anti-statue protest in Loikaw on Feb. 12, the state government agreed to activists request to meet with a committee of state government supporters responsible for implementing the construction of the statue. The meeting was held the same day, but ended without any agreement. Guest Column Can the NLD Overcome the Military's Last Line of Defense? Military lawmakers register at the Parliament in Naypyitaw. / Reuters Political analyst Igor Blazevic, a keen Myanmar observer, once outlined the three major defense lines of the Tatmadaw, or Myanmar military, for maintaining its power. The Tatmadaws first, or front, defense line consists of political parties, nationalists, militias and border guard forces (BGFs). The second, or middle, defense line comprises the militarys business conglomerates and cronies. The last defense line is the Constitution, which the military drafted itself. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept to power in the 2015 general election. Amending the Constitution was one of her campaign promises and remains a party priority. At a forum in Singapore in August, the state counselor said amendment of the Constitution was one of the goals of our government, reaffirming her commitment to the cause. At the NLDs initiative, the Union Parliament in February formed the Constitution Amendment Committee to draft changes to the charter. Thousands of people, including the chief minister of Irrawaddy Region, have rallied around the country in support of the effort But there is a critical question possibly even a life-or-death question facing Daw Aung San Suu Ky, the NLD and their allies: To what extent do they want to shake the Tatmadaws defense lines? The fact is that the Tatmadaw designed the Constitution to be the last one. The front defense line The front defense line comprises political parties, nationalists, militias and BGFs. There might be many political parties in the front line, but the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is the most visible. A group of ex-military generals led by Maj. Gen. Soe Maung recently formed the National Politics Democratic Party. There may be some other proxy and co-opted ethnic parties affiliated with the USDP as well. The extreme nationalists comprise ex-military service personnel, some Buddhist monks, military families and some ethnic Bamar. They normally organize demonstrations in support of the Tatmadaw to condemn the United Nations for accusing the military of human rights violations and to support the Tatmadaws offensives against ethnic armed groups. The prominent Buddhist monk U Wirathu led thousands of nationalists in a demonstration against amending the Constitution in February. The militias and BGFs are a regular tool of the Tatmadaw. For example, the Tatmadaw and the Karen BGF cleared the New Mon State Partys outpost near Ka Na Lo Village in Mon States Kyaikmaraw Township in June 2018. The militias and BGFs will stand with the Tatmadaw so long as they have the Tatmadaws protection. All these groups, from the USDP to the militias, play a big role in Myanmars transition to democracy, meaning they can block reforms if those reforms hinder their interests. The USDP, for example called for dissolving the Constitution Amendment Committee on Wednesday. The middle defense line The middle defense line comprises the business conglomerates owned by the Tatmadaw or by its officers and cronies. The Tatmadaw launched Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) now the Myanma Economic Holdings Public Company Limited (MEHPCL) and the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) to serve its interests. Since the MEHPCL went public in 2016, it appears that Type A shares are still owned by the Ministry of Defense and the Directorate of Defense Procurement. The Type B shareholders might include some civilian businessmen along with military personnel, former servicemen, regiments and units. The MEC is owned by the Defense Ministry and operates in strategic sectors ranging from ports to telecommunications. It has dominated several private domestic firms and signed joint venture agreements with foreign companies. Business cronies are also part of the Tatmadaws defense line. They have close personal and business connections with military officers and political elites. Some have forged close connections with top generals by arranging marriages between their sons and daughters. The last defense line The Tatmadaws last defense line is its Constitution. It was well designed by the military to prolong its power. The Constitution gives the military political influence and veto power via a number of legal safeguards. It also grants the military a role in the national leadership of the state and makes it the principal defender of the Constitution. The Constitution also grants the military up to 25 percent of the seats in the national and regional legislatures. The National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), meanwhile, is the most powerful body and has the final say on any major issue. It is comprised of 11 people from the military (the commander-in-chief, deputy commander-in-chief, first vice president, defense minister, home affairs minister and border affairs minister) and the civilian government (the president, second vice president, the speakers of both houses and foreign minister). The military holds the majority of votes with six to five. Whats more, three powerful ministries namely Defense, Home Affairs and Border Affairs are all controlled by the military. The ministers are directly appointed by the commander-in-chief of the military. The Defense Ministry controls the armed forces and the Border Affairs Ministry oversees the borders, including border trade. The Home Affairs Ministry controls the police force. Touching a taboo Amending the Constitution touches a Tatmadaw taboo. The NLD is believed to want to amend more than 160 articles of the Constitution, but the Tatmadaw has already warned that it will not tolerate any amendments that harm the charters essence. Article 20 (f) assigns the Tatmadaw primary responsibility for safeguarding the Constitution. As the principal protector of the Constitution, the Tatmadaw presumably has the final say on what that means. Thus, the Tatmadaw appears to have designed the Constitution as a defense line to maintain its power. The Tatmadaws first and second defense lines may be touchable, but only time will tell if Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD can shake the last one. Joe Kumbun is the pseudonym of an analyst based in Kachin State. Specials The Parliamentary Battle over Amending the Constitution -- / -- / -- YANGONOn Jan. 29, Myanmars ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) initiated an attempt to democratize the military-drafted Constitution by proposing in Parliament the formation of a joint committee on charter amendment. Over the past few months, as the joint committee reviewed the entire Constitution chapter by chapter, its work has been the subject of heated debate and an increase in political tensions between the NLD and military lawmakers, who see safeguarding the Constitution as their main role. Joining the military appointees in their opposition to reform has been the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), formed by ex-generals. With the Union Parliaments Charter Amendment Committee ready to submit its report on possible amendments to the Constitution on the third week of July, we take this opportunity to round up a collection of our recent stories, including opinions and interviews, about the parliamentary conflict between the NLD, the military and the USDP; opponents warnings against charter reform; views on how much reform is possible and the progress being made; and a breakdown of articles the NLD will likely target for amendment. Editorials & Commentaries The NLDs Path to Constitutional Liberalism Will the military abide by U Than Shwes pledge to allow reform after a few years of the partys rule? Making Myanmars Constitution Democratic A look at those articles of the Constitution the NLD is most likely to target for amendment firstand why. With Only One Side Listening, Dialogue on Charter Was Never an Option The NLD had no choice but to force the military to engage with constitutional reform in Parliament Acknowledging the Elephant in the Room The NLDs move to amend the Constitution is a first small step in what will surely be a difficult journey. Infographic: Infographic: Making Myanmars Constitution Democratic A detailed breakdown of the chapters and articles most likely to be targeted for reform by the government Infographic: NLDs First Big Step Toward Constitutional Reform The Irrawaddy breaks down the constitutional reform committees path to approval in graphics and numbers. Interviews & Dateline Constitutional Reforms Its Time to Take a Step Forward The Irrawaddy interviews U Aung Kyi Nyunt, the NLD lawmaker who proposed in Parliament this week for a committee to be formed to work on changing the troublesome 2008 Constitution. Politicians and Analysts on Militarys Rebuffing of Charter Reform The Irrawaddy recently spoke with a number of ethnic politicians and political analysts for their views on the militarys resistance to the NLDs attempts at constitutional changes. Minority Groups Weigh in on Having Chief Ministers Elected, Not Appointed While ethnic minority parties want chief ministers elected by local lawmakers, they are concerned that it could end up giving even more power to the military. In Their Own Words: Warnings against Constitutional Reform Opposition lawmakers, the military and officials of the former government have had plenty to say about the NLDs move to begin charter change. We Dont Expect a Single Amendment Will Be Made SNLD chief skeptical that NLDs charter reform can succeed; he adds that Myanmar is too weak to reject Chinas BRI plans Will Sound and Fury Over Constitution Reform Committee Signify Something? The Irrawaddy discusses the NLDs proposal to form a committee to draft amendments to Myanmars undemocratic Constitution and the prospects for genuine reform. Military Not Pulling Its Punches on Charter Change This week, The Irrawaddy discusses the Tatmadaws strongly negative initial reactions to the NLDs constitutional reform bid. Unity Needed for Effective Constitutional Reform This week, The Irrawaddy discusses the likelihood and potential scope of constitutional amendments among a divided government. Needed Tensions Are Rising in Myanmars Parliament This week, we talk about Parliament, the NLDs relationship with ethnic parties and the chances for constitutional change before and after the 2020 election. News NLD Makes First Official Move to Amend Constitution Ruling party lawmaker set to ask Parliament to form joint committee to consider changes to military-drafted charter Parliament OKs Debate on Charter-Amendment Panel over Militarys Strong Objection Tense scenes inside Parliament as military lawmakers challenge Speaker over legality of move Military Never Said it Opposes Amending Constitution: Commander-in-Chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said the Constitution, which gives the military veto power over any changes, should be amended when it is necessary. Military a Possible No Show For Parliament Debate on Amending Constitution If we participate in the debate, it would be interpreted that we approve the proposal, one military lawmaker said. Committee to Amend Constitution Gets Strong Show of Support in Parliament Of the 30 lawmakers who joined Tuesdays debate on whether to form the committee, only five all from the military-backed USDP objected. Parliament to Debate Proposal to Form Charter-Amendment Panel 36 lawmakers scheduled to take part, but not a single military appointee is among them Parliament Approves Committee to Draft Amendments to Constitution Nearly 67 percent of lawmakers voted to form the committee, which will be chaired by Parliament Deputy Speaker U Tun Tun Hein. NLD Urges Military to Cooperate on Charter Amendment Ruling party proposed forming a committee so that no side would lose face, NLD lawmaker says. Formation of Constitution Amendment Committee Stalled Tatmadaw appointees and USDP lawmakers have opposed the proposed committee structure which suggests representation according to Parliament proportion. Military, USDP, ANP Withhold Nominees For Constitution Amendment Committee If those parties and that institution do not submit name lists, we can exclude them. But we wont do that, NLD lawmaker U Myat Nyana Soe said. Green Light for Charter Amendment Committee Despite Objections USDP and military representatives in Parliament have opposed the proportional breakdown of the proposed committee for amending Myanmars disputed Constitution. USDP Proposes Single Amendment to Constitution The military-backed USDP wants just one change to the charter, and it has nothing to do with curbing the special privileges it grants the armed forces. Militarys Parliamentary Quota Necessary as Country Not Yet Stable: Army Chief Tatmadaws political role safeguards transition to democracy, Sen-Gen. Min Aung Hlaing tells Asahi Shimbun Military Warns of Battleground if Constitutional Amendments Mishandled Because our country is in a strategic position, it could become a battleground if a wrong position is taken. It is necessary to be aware of this, Brig. Gen. Maung Maung said. Amendments Should Not Harm Essence of Constitution, Military Warns Senior military leaders said any report by the charter amendment committee would be incomplete and warned there would be consequences if constitutional rules were breached. NLD Urges Public Not to Worry Amid Military Warnings over Charter Reform Party seeks to reassure public as military steps up opposition to changes to essence of Constitution Parliament Committee Favors Inclusive Constitutional Amendment Military lawmakers have stood in disagreement with the suggestion that the USDPs lesser charter amendment proposal be discussed by the NLD-formed Charter-Amendment Panel. Charter Amendment Committee Starts Work Committee members reviewed the first 14 articles of the Constitution, including a clause guaranteeing the military a role in politics, but declined to discuss what was said. USDP Accuses Ruling Party of Pushing Charter Amendments to Spur Protests The ruling NLD denied the claim, in turn accusing the military-backed USDP of using religion and nationalism for its own political ends. USDP Lawmaker Proposes Abolishing Charter Amendment Committee U Thaung Aye told Parliament that a committee now discussing potential amendments to the Constitution should be abolished because it was in violation of the law. NLD Proposes Lifting Ban Barring Daw Aung San Suu Kyi From Presidency The ruling party proposed the constitutional amendment during a meeting of the joint committee now reviewing the military-drafted charter for possible changes. Lawmakers Debate Report on Charter Amendment Proposal Military and ANP lawmakers said plans to let a special committee vet a proposal to have regional chief ministers elected violates the law or would unnecessarily delay reform. USDP and Military Propose 4 New Charter Amendments This is the second move by USDP and military lawmakers to have their own amendment bill considered by Parliament in parallel with the NLDs constitutional amendment efforts. Parliaments Constitution Amendment Panel Completes Review of Charter Proposals to be submitted to Parliament next month; report recommends articles be repealed, amended, expanded or retained. USDP-Proposed Charter Amendment to be Examined by Panel, Not Parliament Military MP stood in protest to the legislatures vote for a proposed amendment to Article 261 to be discussed by the Charter-Amendment Panel. Click here to learn more about previous controversies surrounding the charter, dating back to its promulgation in 2008. Monday, March 18th, 2019 (12:01 am) - Score 2,715 The UK Government has officially backed a bid to extend 18.7m of public funding so that it can be used to further extend superfast broadband (30Mbps+) in Devon and Somerset up to March 2023, which follows various historic and recent delays to the projects roll-out plan. Sadly theyve yet to resolve the Gigaclear situation. Over the years the Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) project has sadly become somewhat better known for its delays than its successes. First there was the c.2 year delay that followed the 2015 collapse of their attempts to secure a Phase 2 fibre broadband (FTTC/P) contract with Openreach (here) and more recently a similar delay has afflicted their new Phase 2 contract partner, Gigaclear, which signed the follow-on contract in 2017 (here). The original contract required Gigaclear to build an entirely new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which would cover 41,000 rural homes and businesses across various parts of the two counties by the end of December 2019 (excluding the ISPs separate commercial build). This was later extended to June 2020 following Government approval to expand the network to a further 6,810 premises (total of 47,810). All appeared to be going well until October 2018, when it was revealed that Gigaclear had fallen significantly behind schedule (in some areas by as much as 2 years) due to fundamental issues, not least including a lack of operational capacity, poor decision making within the ISP, slow deployment by contractors, a lack of detailed planning and a failure to redesign the build methodology (here). In response the local authorities put Gigaclear on notice of a possible default and withheld further payments, while the ISPs new owner, Infracapital, made significant changes in order to correct for the mistakes and proposed a revised roll-out plan that would delay completion until June 2022 (the revised roll-out plan still hasnt gained approval from CDS). However such a long extension required funding approval from the Government and this has now been secured, albeit seemingly with an even more delayed completion window to March 2023. Councillor David Hall, CDS Board Member, said: The decision by DCMS to back the bid to extend the broadband funding spend-by deadline is a huge boost to our economy and rural communities, and a vote of confidence in the CDS programme. In recognition of representations made by DCMS and CDS, I am delighted there has been a positive response from HM Treasury which is finalising an agreement for the funding extension with DCMS subject to the Spending Review process. The effect of such an extension will be to provide CDS with the flexibility to either agree an acceptable revised timetable with Gigaclear to complete a new ultrafast full-fibre network or for CDS to pursue alternative full-fibre solutions for our residents and businesses. CDS is agreeing similar support from other funders. Whilst every effort to resolve the situation with Gigaclear is being made, CDS is also working with DCMS and the Heart of the South West LEP to consider alternative options and develop a Digital Strategy for the area. We are grateful to Digital Minister Margot James and her team at DCMS with whom weve been working closely, to Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and to Rebecca Pow, MP for Taunton Deane who has played an important role in co-ordinating the support of Members of Parliament. CDS has also benefited from the strong support of local authorities and LEPs. So far CDS has provided access to superfast broadband to more than 300,000 additional premises, often in sparsely populated rural areas and over challenging terrain. A further 38,000 homes and businesses have also benefited from improved broadband speed (i.e. not included in the 300K above because they dont quite achieve superfast speeds but have been upgraded). This is mostly due to Openreachs Phase 1 contract work. When the above is combined with commercially-funded networks in the two countries there are, together, over 950,000 homes and businesses across Devon and Somerset now with access to superfast broadband out of a total of 1,083,000 premises currently. You of course have to order such a package from an ISP in order to benefit. Just for some context, Gigaclear has so far committed to investing 60.5m in the public programme, which covers their 47,810 premises FTTP roll-out and is supported by 31m of public sector subsidy. The ISP is also investing a further 67.3m to connect an additional 43,000 premises under their separate commercial roll-out in the two regions. Despite todays news its clear that the company remains on notice of default and pending a satisfactory outcome CDS is still withholding public subsidy. Gigaclear is thus continuing to build the network in the CDS area at its own risk and expense. Both the Government and CDS are continuing to demand that the ISP provide key reassurances, particularly regarding capacity and acceleration of deployment. On top of that theyre seeking acceptable plans for each contract area backed by fully costed analysis of the network delivery options and await further information from the company. Meanwhile the take-up rate for all CDS-funded services currently stands at 54% and is said to be generating significant resources for reinvestment thanks to the gainshare (clawback) agreement with BT (Phase 1 contract). The latest information states that 6m of public investment will soon be returned in order to help Openreach (BT) boost superfast broadband coverage to a further 2,000 premises in the hardest to reach areas. Apparently CDS will provide full details once the final gainshare plans have been agreed with BT and DCMS later this year. Further funding could be returned like this in the future up until 2024. We should add that CDS also has a contract with wireless ISP Airband, which is working to bring superfast broadband to around 21,000 premises across the two counties. One final point to make is that CDS will finally be joining the Governments Better Broadband Subsidy Scheme, which is being launched next month (April 2019). Any home or business with less than 2Mbps and not part of planned deployment from another provider should be able to request a voucher worth up to 350 to help cover the installation costs for a faster connection. UPDATE 19th March 2019 Gigaclear has also issued an apology for the delays in the delivery of the full fibre network across its contracted areas in Devon and Somerset (here). Monday, March 18th, 2019 (9:53 am) - Score 1,117 British space company OneWeb has secured a further $1.25 billion (940m) in new funding to support their plans for launching a massive constellation of compact low-latency ultrafast broadband satellites into circular Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which takes their total investment pot to $3.4bn (2.57bn). The first six (OneWeb F6) of their spacecraft were launched last month (here), while todays funding announcement means they can finally start mass production on the rest and get the full commercial network live by the end of 2021. OneWeb will now embark on the largest satellite launch campaign in history. Starting in Q4 2019, they will begin monthly launches of more than 30 satellites at a time, creating an initial constellation of 650 satellites to enable full global coverage (adding more in the future as demand requires). Each satellite, built by joint venture partner Airbus, weighs around 150kg+ and is roughly waist high (with solar panels folded-in). In theory these could deliver latency times of around 25-35ms (similar to an ADSL based fixed line connection) and ultrafast broadband speeds of 100Mbps+ (peak speeds of 500Mbps have been mentioned) to consumers, but it remains to be seen how this pans out in reality. The satellites communicate with Earth via the Ka band (20-30GHz) and Ku band (11-14GHz) spectrum. The Ka-band will be used for communication between the Ground Network (connects the OneWeb system to the internet) and the satellites, while the Ku band will be used for communication between the satellites and the end-user terminals that deliver internet connectivity to consumers. Adrian Steckel, CEO of OneWeb, said: This latest funding round, our largest to date, makes OneWebs service inevitable and is a vote of confidence from our core investor base in our business model and the OneWeb value proposition. With the recent successful launch of our first six satellites, near-completion of our innovative satellite manufacturing facility with our partner Airbus, progress towards fully securing our ITU priority spectrum position, and the signing of our first customer contracts, OneWeb is moving from the planning and development stage to deployment of our full constellation. Our success is made possible thanks to the backing of our investors and the cooperation of our world class commercial partners including Arianespace, Airbus, Qualcomm Technologies Inc., Virgin, and Hughes. OneWeb claims their new network will provide services to billions of people across the globe and support the emerging digital economy, as well as advanced mobile application needs. To support the deployment of this system theyve also setup high-tech satellite operation centres in both Virginia and in London, and have installed ground stations in Italy, Norway, and Canada, with more on the way. The company believes that they now have a clear first mover advantage over rivals that are attempting to launch similar constellations, such as SpaceX, although well reserve our own judgement until we see the first package details and prices. Much will depend upon how those first services perform and how competitive they are with the huge GEO Stationary Orbit (GSO) comms satellites, which adopt are much more distant orbit around the earth but suffer from slow latency, poor speeds at peak times, high prices and limited data allowances. The latest funding round was led by SoftBank Group Corp., Grupo Salinas, Qualcomm Technologies and the Government of Rwanda. IBM today unveiled Blockchain World Wire, a near real-time global payments network based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) for regulated financial firms. The blockchain-based network will offer a new way for cross-border payment exchange and international settlement. (The settlements can be done in five to 10 seconds.) The network is currently able to transfer funds to more than 50 countries using 47 digital coins backed by fiat currencies. IBM claims its World Wire is the first blockchain network of its kind to integrate payment messaging and clearing and settlement on a single unified network while allowing participants to dynamically choose from a variety of digital assets for settlement. The first live transaction on the network took place March 8, according to Stanley Yong, CTO of IBM Blockchain for Finance. In 2017, IBM partnered with KlickEx Group, a United Nations-funded, Pacific-region financial services company, to launch its first Stellar-based blockchain financial network. That network was initially able to transfer electronic funds in 12 currencies across Pacific Islands as well as Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. IBM Blockchain World Wire is basically the same project, an IBM spokesperson acknowledged. "As we evaluated our approach to building out the technology, we realized we wanted to focus on other types of [money transfer organizations] and decided not to move forward with KlickEx," the spokesperson said. Initially, the primary electronic currency used on the blockchain ledger will be stable coin, which is backed one-for-one by U.S. dollars and other national currencies. But network participants will also have the option of using cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin. "Clearing and settlement would be near-real time, so businesses would be able to access funds paid through the system immediately," James Wester, research director for IDC's Worldwide Blockchain Strategies, said via email. The distributed ledger technology on which World Wire is based enables verified participants to transact openly, reducing risks and the costs associated with mitigating fraud, "and would presumably be offered at a competitive rate to be viable," Wester said. The majority of the transaction volume on the network will be retail remittance related to e-commerce, either foreign workers transmitting money back to their home countries or payments by consumers who've made purchases using electronic networks, such as credit card or PayPal-type online services, according to Yong. Retail remittance networks using IBM's Blockchain World Wire are the equivalent of Moneygram or Western Union. "I'd say the predominant volume of transactions on the network will be those that take place on behalf of end users people like you and I who are making payments," Yong said. "But you and I won't take part directly in Blockchain World Wire but rather through a remittance entity what we call a money-transfer operator." The blockchain network will also allow wholesale players such as banks and market makers to perform foreign exchange settlement of batch financial transactions; that offers far higher value, but lower volume traffic compared with retail remittance, Yong said. The advantage for the peer-to-peer (P2P) World Wire network over traditional payment networks such as VisaNet or SWIFT will be the removal of banking intermediaries; money transfers will go directly from one financial services firm to another. By removing central banks from the process, the Blockchain World Wire reduces fees and the time to process the transactions. "So instead of having to go through a correspondent bank and a whole set of multi-hops across different nations in order for settlement to take place, what we do is allow a point-to-point transfer of value immediately, along with the exchange of that financial information, which tells you to whom they're going to deliver the money...," Yong said. "We do expect to see from 10% and 20% savings in operational liquidity management and potentially more than a 50% reduction in overall transaction cost," Yong added. "But that's speculative because of the nascent nature of this network; it could be more or a bit less." At first, the network will enable cross-border payment and settlements based on the Stellar protocol, a decentralized payment network that uses its own cryptocurrency, Stellar Lumens (XLM). While the IBM network will support Lumen cryptocurrency, it will primarily use stable coin such as the U.S. dollar as well as 46 other national currencies. "Today, we support Lumens. As we grow and liquidity grows, we intend to support additional cryptocurrencies as it's approved by the regulators that our entities can use to participate in the network," Yong said. Last year, IBM partnered with stable coin network Stronghold to experiment with their cryptocurrency Stronghold USB and its Stellar-based trading platform. Stronghold USB is backed by FDIC-insured U.S. dollars that are held in reserves by Nevada-based FinTech company Prime Trust. Other blockchain industry stablecoins include Tether and TrueUSD. IDC's Wester said what's most intriguing about IBM's Blockchain World Wire is its purported ability to perform clearing and settlement of transactions sans U.S. dollars by using a "host of smaller currencies, and thus allow for access to cross-border... money transmitters in developing markets. "It means swapping into and out of U.S. dollars or Euros or some other major currency is no longer necessary, which affects [foreign exchange] fees, settlement times and liquidity," Wester said. "There are a lot of potential moving pieces, but using blockchain to do it removes a lot of those pieces by simply giving everyone access to the ledger." The IBM network is essentially a set of APIs that allows for the simultaneous transfer of financial information that is then tied to a digital asset transfer within a few seconds once an acknowledgement of the transfer is made. The messaging portion runs on the same network, but is asynchronous. Pending regulatory approvals and other reviews, six international banks have signed letters of intent to issue their own stable coins on World Wire, adding Euro, Indonesian Rupiah, Philippine Peso and Brazilian Real stable coins to the network. IBM said it will continue to expand the ecosystem of settlement assets based on client demand. The Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), one of the Philippines' top 10 banks by assets, will be among the first of four using Blockchain World Wire for remittance payments services. "RCBC is pleased to be an early innovator with plans to issue our own Peso stable coin on World Wire, pending final approval from our regulators," Emmanuel Narciso, RCBC's group head for Global Transaction Banking, said in a statement. "We're focused on innovation that adds value for our customers, and World Wire presents a tremendous opportunity to transform and enhance our payment infrastructure." Financial services firms that want to connect into IBM's Blockchain World Wire would be using a set of RESTful APIs to integrate with legacy processing systems, Yong said. "Integration would take from a few days to a few weeks based on the complexity of what they want to do with the system," Yong said. All traffic going across the network is encrypted. IBM is also providing safeguards for encryption keys, which are what represent stable coin and cryptocurrency on a blockchain network, by including online storage on its own servers. "The keys are stored in a way inaccessible to us directly, but it's on hardware and we have backups of the hardware," Yong said. IBM is not the first firm to create a blockchain payments network. In October, J.P. Morgan announced what is arguably one of the largest blockchain payments networks to date. J.P. Morgan created the Interbank Information Network (IIN), which it said will significantly reduce the number of participants needed to respond to compliance and other data-related inquiries that delay payments. The Royal Bank of Canada and Australia and the New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. were the first two banks to join the blockchain network, "representing significant cross-border payment volumes." Then, in February, J.P. Morgan announced its own stable coin JPM Coin enabling the instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional accounts. It was the first stable coin announced by a major bank. Even if only used for its wholesale business, JPM Coin amounts to a public endorsement of blockchain and its practical functionality for business, something enterprises have sought from blockchain-based solutions for years, according to Kevin McMahon, executive director of emerging technologies at digital technology consultancy SPR. Regulatory oversight of blockchain-based financial networks is still a bit of a wild west in that most governments have not settled on how to classify cryptocurrencies or guard against fraud, but many developed nations, including the U.S. and the those in the European Union, are increasing "know your customer" (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) oversight. But because both J.P. Morgan and IBM's Blockchain World Wire are starting out with registered money transmitters as participants, there should be fewer concerns over running afoul of regulators, Wester said. "Those are organizations that will already be familiar with requirements for KYC and AML," Wester said. "Still, regulatory issues are a bit of a wild card as we begin to see blockchain used not just for money movement but also supply chain or trade finance or identity. Regulation lags technology, so its always possible for a regulator to look on something like World Wire and bucket it with cryptocurrency." Reverse proxy and DDoS protection provider Cloudflare says it will not stop providing services to the website 8chan, despite clear indications that the site hosts child pornography, pointing out that it does not have the ability to take content offline and has a process in place to tackle issues of this nature. iTWire raised a query with the company after well-known British security researcher Kevin Beaumont pointed out in a tweet that there were clear indications of child pornography being hosted by 8chan. He asked: "If your business used Cloudflare and got contacted by somebody highlighting 8chan is also a customer, along with examples of posts (toddler, rape fantasy etc) 8chan hosts, and Cloudflares denial to remove service to them, would you raise concerns with CF?" Cloudflare are explicitly hosting a child sex, toddler sex, and rape forum at the moment and the answer their PR person gave today is theyre Fedex. They just deliver. Hope they enjoy those dirty dollars. ? Kevin Beaumont ? (@GossiTheDog) March 15, 2019 Beaumont also pointed out that while Cloudflare did remove material related to malware and phishing, the company was "unwilling to look at their relationship with a paedophile website". iTWire spoke to two Cloudflare executives this morning, to ask why the company could not suspend its services to 8chan, but was told that there was a process to be gone through in cases like this. "As a reverse proxy that does not host websites but instead passes bits across the Internet and provides security to 13 million websites, Cloudflare itself does not have the ability to take content offline," a spokesperson said. Re Cloudflare & 8chan: If your business used Cloudflare and got contacted by somebody highlighting 8chan is also a cust, along with examples of posts (toddler rape fantasy etc) 8chan hosts, and Cloudflares denial to remove service to them, would you raise concerns with CF? ? Kevin Beaumont ? (@GossiTheDog) March 16, 2019 "Despite this, Cloudflare refers to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children every report we receive that references alleged child sexual abuse material to help facilitate the investigation and enforcement by the appropriate authorities. "Cloudflare is a law-abiding company and as such has a very clear process in place to allow for users, law enforcement, and members of the public to alert Cloudflare to abuse on its network and have illegal content addressed in the proper way." When it was suggested to the two company representatives, that Cloudflare did not do its reputation any good by continuing to provide services to a site like 8chan, the response was that this was content uploaded by users, not content placed there by 8chan itself. A suggestion that Cloudflare could not harm its reputation by acting immediately, given that the terms of any contract would preclude dealing with a site that allowed the storage of material which was objectionable in every jurisdiction worldwide, did not shake the argument that a process was in place and it achieved the objective of taking the content offline. The Australian Communications and Media Authority says it is investigating whether broadcasters breached the rules by some of the material they put to air about the massacre of Muslims in New Zealand on Friday. The regulator said in a statement that it would look at any content from the streaming video that the killer had put online that was broadcast by Australian TV stations. Fifty-one worshippers were gunned down in cold blood as they attended the main prayer session of the week at two mosques in Christchurch. A single man, Australian Brenton Tarrant, is charged with the murders. Another area of concern was the content made available on the websites of TV stations. The ACMA said though this was beyond its remit, it was talking to the Australian Press Council about coverage of the attack. The ACMA said its chair, Nerida Loughlin, would write to the heads of TV stations seeking information on what was broadcast, particularly on the day the attack occurred. It said it would also meet peak industry organisations Free TV Australia and the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association to discuss if current rules provided adequate protection for Australian audiences. Regional Australian lobby group the Rural Regional and Remote Communications Coalition has welcomed the announcement from the Australian Government which will see regional Australians benefit from 180 new mobile base stations as part of Round 4 of the mobile black spot program. The coalition says that for Australians living in rural, regional and remote communities, having access to reliable communications is vital. The Mobile Black Spot Program has been instrumental in making real change to these communities, with more than 1000 mobile base stations designated to be built, expanding mobile coverage across the regions, the coalition says. Australian Communications Consumer Action Network chief executive Teresa Corbin said that since forming in 2016, the RRRCC had championed the need for greater mobile reliability outside of cities and suburbs. Our members have stressed to us the daily importance of being able access a reliable mobile service wherever they are in the country," she said. We are pleased to see that [Regional Services Minister] Senator [Bridget] McKenzie has continued to support our push for greater mobile connectivity in regional, rural and remote Australia in the latest round of the Mobile Black Spot Program. As part of the Federal Governments $25 million commitment to Round 4 of the Mobile Black Spot Program, McKenzie also unveiled the NSW locations that would benefit from the program. NSW Farmers Association president James Jackson welcomed the announcement and said that, no matter where you live in 2019, everyone should have mobile coverage. Jackson said NSW Farmers had advocated since 2015 for many of the 54 locations for farmers and regional communities in NSW. This new mobile coverage will bring unheralded economic and social opportunities to the agricultural sector as well as ensure safety for all in the community, he said. Register with JOC.com and receive 5 free pieces of content for the first thirty days. After thirty days, you will receive 3 pieces of content and after sixty days you will receive 1 piece of content. To receive full access, Subscribe Today . You can also subscribe to our daily newsletter. Register For a better experience on our website and avoid any trouble, we strongly recommand to activate Javascript ( click here ). Hello and welcome to Journal des Palaces You are a communication or the PR manager? Click here You are an applicant? Check out our questions and answers here ! Summerville, SC (29483) Today Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 21C Metals Inc. (21C or the Company) (CSE: BULL) (FRA: DCR1) (OTCQB: DCNNF) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a letter of engagement with Eight Capital, under which Eight Capital, acting as agent for the Company, has agreed to offer for sale units of the Company (the Units) on a best efforts private placement basis, subject to all required regulatory approvals, at a price per Unit of $0.18 (the Issue Price) for total gross proceeds of up $2,000,016. Each Unit shall consist of one common share of the Company (a Share) and one common share purchase warrant (a Warrant). Each Warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to acquire one Share at a price of $0.30 for a period of 24 months following the Closing Date. If, following the closing of the Offering, the volume weighted average price of the Common Shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange is equal to or greater than $0.40 for any 10 consecutive trading days, the Company may, upon providing written notice to the holders of Warrants, accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants to the date that is 30 days following the date of such written notice. The Company has granted Eight Capital an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 11,111,200 Units at the Offering Price, exercisable in whole or in part, at any time on or prior to 48 hours prior to the closing of the Offering. If this option is exercised in full, an additional $2,000,016 will be raised pursuant to the Offering and the aggregate proceeds of the Offering will be up to approximately $4,000,032. The Company intends to use the proceeds from the offering to commence exploration work on the company's East Bull palladium and Tisova cobalt properties and for general working capital. The closing date of the Offering is scheduled to be on or about April 12, 2019 and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals, including the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange and the applicable securities regulatory authorities. As consideration for its services, Eight Capital will receive a cash commission equal to 7% of the gross proceeds of the Offering. The Company will also issue to Eight Capital compensation warrants in an amount equal to 7% of the number of Units sold pursuant to the Offering. Each compensation warrant will exercisable to purchase one Unit at the Issue Price, for a period of 24 months. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities being offered 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 in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and applicable state securities laws. On behalf of the Board of Directors Wayne Tisdale, President & Director The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release. The securities being offered have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States, or to, or for the account or benefit of, a "U.S. person" (as defined in Regulation S of the U.S. Securities Act) unless pursuant to an exemption therefrom. This press release is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company in any jurisdiction. FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations, including the completion of the Offering. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, 21C assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to several factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The CSE has neither reviewed nor approved the contents of this press release. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: 21C Metals Inc. Wayne Tisdale, President and CEO T: (604) 639-4455 ROUYN-NORANDA, QC, March 18, 2019 /CNW/ - Granada Gold Mine (TSXV: GGM) ("Granada Gold" "GGM" or the "Company") is pleased to report on the results of a preliminary gravity separation study that demonstrates the positive impact of pre-concentrating lower-grade, gold-bearing rock from its Granada Gold project in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. The higher grades attained during the tests may have implications for the grade of future mill feed, the size of the gold deposit, and the costs associated with future mine production. Mr. Frank Basa, Chairman and CEO of Granada Gold, stated, "These metallurgical results can further de-risk the project and provide additional processing options for the company, and they potentially expand the existing resource by lowering the average gold grade that could be mined and processed using pre-concentration by gravity separation." The preliminary gravity test work, part of a suite of tests on rock samples from the Current Resources at the Granada Gold Mine project, was conducted by industry leader Gekko Systems of Ballarat, Australia. Their innovative pre-concentration system increases recovery values, reduces ore mass and waste, reduces water use, lowers power requirements, and improves feed rates, all potentially meaning lower capital and operating costs for Granada along with higher recovery rates. To summarize results, a 260-kilogram sample of low-grade drill core assaying 0.6 grams of gold per tonne was upgraded to 6.0 grams per tonne with a 60 percent overall recovery. The Gekko laboratory processed the sample by crushing through different size fractions, homogenized, and split according to standard lab practices. Gravity tests were conducted on coarse and fine fractions, approximately +600 m and -150 m, respectively. A grade of 21 grams per tonne gold was achieved from the coarse size fraction, with a recovery of 40%, resulting in an upgrade ratio (conc./feed) of 35. The test result which recovered the most gold has a gravity concentrate grade of 6.0 grams per tonne gold with a gold recovery of 60 percent (see Table 1 below). Management of Granada Gold understand that conventional mining and processing leave behind significant amounts of gold and other metals which could have potential economic value. "As a result of this preliminary work, we believe that employing disruptive technologies on lower grade ore to pre-concentrate the mineralized material for process plant feed can be advantageous," said Basa. "This approach can be used to evaluate the potential to increase the gold resource and other recoverable metals which, in turn, will lower project capital and operating costs." TABLE 1. Gekko Study Gravity Test Results Sample Conc. Mass Yield (%) Au Recovery (%) Ni Recovery (%) S Recovery (%) Cu Recovery (%) Conc. Au Grade (ppm) Upgrade Ratio (Conc/Feed) Coarse Gravity Test, P100 1.18mm and P100 0.6m Coarse 1.1 39.1 6.6 41.9 5.1 21.3 35.5 Coarse 3.3 54.5 10.6 60.7 16.4 9.8 16.3 Coarse 5.9 59.7 13.3 65.8 18.9 6.0 10.0 Fine Gravity Test, P100 850, 425 and 150m Fine 1.3 33.0 3.3 34.4 5.1 14.6 24.3 Fine 3.1 47.0 6.8 54.4 10.7 8.8 14.7 Fine 4.9 51.0 8.4 58.7 13.7 6.0 10.0 In a related matter, the company has also begun a test program using the pilot plant of its sister company, Canada Cobalt Works (TSXV: CCW). In this first round of tests, a 120-kilogram sample of low-grade mineralized rock from the Granada Gold Mine waste dump was processed by screening the material into three screen sizes followed by gravity separation. These concentrates were then analyzed for gold, silver, cobalt, nickel, and copper (see Table 2 below). TABLE 2. GGM Waste Rock Head Assay Sample Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Co (ppm) Ni (ppm) Cu (ppm) Coarse Head Assays, P100, 0.84mm, 0.84mm - 3.2mm, 3.2mm - 19mm Coarse 1.01 0.6 34 84 134 Coarse 0.34 0.2 23 74 88 Coarse 1.54 1.8 42 0 86 The results are head assays of each screen class. Gravity assay test results are pending, with a particular focus on recoverable base metals. The current feasibility study for the onsite gold mine and plant at Granada has been put on hold pending results of the metallurgical studies. The environmental studies to install a 600-tonne-per-day gravity leach plant are ongoing at the Canada Cobalt Works Castle mine. The flowsheet has been completed and equipment has been sourced. Qualified Person The technical information in this news release was prepared under the supervision of Frank J. Basa, P.Eng., Granada Gold Mine's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, who is a member of Professional Engineers Ontario and a qualified person in accordance with National Instrument 43-101. About Granada Gold Mine Inc. Granada Gold Mine Inc. continues to develop the Granada Gold Property near Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. Approximately 120,000 meters of drilling has been completed to date on the property, focused mainly on the extended LONG Bars zone which trends 2 kilometers east-west over a potential 5.5 kilometers of mineralized structure. The highly prolific Cadillac Break, the source of more than 75 million plus ounces of gold production in the past century, cuts through the north part of the Granada property. The Company is in possession of all permits required to commence the initial mining phase, known as the "Rolling Start", which allows the company to mine up to 550 tonnes per day, capable of producing up to 675,000 tonnes of ore over a 3-year period. Additional information is available at www.granadagoldmine.com. "Frank J. Basa" Frank J. Basa P. Eng. Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 18, 2019 / Unity Metals Corp. (the "Company") (TSXV: UTY) is pleased to announce that the company has engaged Condor Consulting Inc. of Lakewood, Colorado to complete a detailed interpretation of geophysical datasets at the Margurete and Hewitt Point gold projects, collectively the Phillips Arm Gold Camp. Condor Consulting is a preeminent geophysical interpretation company with four full time geophysicists, a principal geologist, two consultants and two technical support staff. All of Condor's professionals have had extensive industry experience as long-term employees of either mining companies or major service groups. Collectively the group has been awarded three PhDs and two MSc. degrees in geophysics and geology. The interpretation will be performed on VTEM (Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic) datasets, collected by Geotech Ltd. of Ontario, Canada, a leader in airborne geophysical data acquisition. The VTEM survey produced information about subsurface magnetics and conductivity, both of which are essential in understanding how alteration events have produced the gold mineralization in the Phillips Arm Gold Camp. The survey covered an area of 53 square kilometres, 506-line kilometres with 100m spacing, and effectively collected data on all of the primary targets identified at Margurete and Hewitt Point. The interpretation will be combined with other historical datasets to help refine targets and advance exploration. The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Peter Born, PGeo, a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101. About the Company Unity Metals Corp. is a Vancouver-based gold exploration company. The Company controls a 100% interest in the Margurete Gold Project, which covers 678ha of mineral claims, located in the Phillips Arm gold camp, approximately 200 kilometers northwest of Vancouver in southwest British Columbia, Vancouver Mining Division. The project is on trend with the historic Doratha Morton and Alexandria gold mines, which were active in the late 1800s. The Margurete project was last explored in 2015 with property-wide prospecting, mapping and rock chip sampling run in parallel with a targeted diamond drilling program. The primary target at the Margurete Gold Project is the FB Zone, where Falconbridge drilled multiple gold bearing intervals at shallow depths. For more information, please visit www.unitymetalscorp.com. On behalf of the Company, Peter Born Peter Born, President Phone: (604) 681-0004 Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable laws. Barrick reaffirms commitment to resolving environmental issues All amounts expressed in U.S. dollars SANTIAGO, Chile, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Thursday, March 14, the Supreme Court of Chile annulled the October 2018 administrative decision of the Antofagasta Environmental Court, which had rejected four of the five closure orders issued by Chiles environmental regulator (the Superintendencia del Medio Ambiente, or SMA) in January 2018 against the Chilean subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:GOLD)(TSX:ABX) (Barrick) that holds the Chilean portion of the Pascua-Lama Project. Barrick was not a party to this process. The Supreme Court overturned the Antofagasta Environmental Courts decision on procedural grounds and remanded the case back to the Environmental Court for review by a different panel of judges, a process that could last several months. The Supreme Court did not review the merits of the SMAs January 2018 closure orders which remain in effect and are subject to an appeal by Barrick. Barricks President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Bristow, said that although the Supreme Courts decision was not helpful in that it delayed a decision on the future of the Pascua-Lama project, the company remains focused on resolving the legal and environmental issues around the project and, in addition to the ongoing remediation work, it had embarked on a technical review of the project parameters and potential. As part of this work, it has conducted extensive geochemical and geohydrological studies for a water management plan which it was confident would be acceptable to the environmental authority. Bristow, who last month met with Chiles Minister of Mining Baldo Prokurica, said Barricks Chilean assets were an important part of its global portfolio. These include the jointly owned Zaldivar copper mine and the Norte Abierto and Alturas gold projects. Over the past 10 years, the company has spent some $8 billion in the country on exploration and development as well as royalties and taxes, wages and payments to local suppliers. Chile is an investor-friendly country, with a significant mineral endowment, and which encourages the development of mining projects. We believe that despite the legacy challenges relating to the Pascua-Lama project there are exciting opportunities here, especially in the El Indio Belt, and we will be pursuing this in line with our strategy of creating value for all our stakeholders, including the governments, and people, of our host countries, Bristow said. Enquiries: President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow +1 647 205 7694 +44 788 071 1386 Senior Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer Graham Shuttleworth +44 1534 735 333 +44 779 771 1338 Investor and Media Relations Kathy du Plessis +44 20 7557 7738 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information Certain information contained in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. The words embark, potential, believe, opportunity, will and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking statements including, without limitation, with respect to technical reviews and studies at Pascua-Lama and the resolution of legal and environmental issues at the project. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company as at the date of this press release in light of managements experience and perception of current conditions and expected developments, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Known and unknown factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements and information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: fluctuations in the spot and forward price of gold, copper or certain other commodities (such as silver, diesel fuel, natural gas and electricity); the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development; changes in mineral production performance, exploitation and exploration successes; diminishing quantities or grades of reserves; increased costs, delays, suspensions and technical challenges associated with the construction of capital projects; operating or technical difficulties in connection with mining or development activities, including geotechnical challenges and disruptions in the maintenance or provision of required infrastructure and information technology systems; failure to comply with environmental and health and safety laws and regulations; timing of receipt of, or failure to comply with, necessary permits and approvals; uncertainty whether the Pascua-Lama project will meet the Companys capital allocation objectives and internal hurdle rate; changes in national and local government legislation, taxation, controls or regulations and/or changes in the administration of laws, policies and practices, expropriation or nationalization of property and political or economic developments in Chile, Argentina and other jurisdictions in which the Company or its affiliates do or may carry on business in the future; lack of certainty with respect to foreign legal systems, corruption and other factors that are inconsistent with the rule of law; the outcome of the appeal of the decision of Chiles Superintendencia del Medio Ambiente and any future decision of the Environmental Court; damage to the Companys reputation due to the actual or perceived occurrence of any number of events, including negative publicity with respect to the Company's handling of environmental matters or dealings with community groups, whether true or not; the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Companys expectations; risks that exploration data may be incomplete and considerable additional work may be required to complete further evaluation, including but not limited to drilling, engineering and socioeconomic studies and investment; risk of loss due to acts of war, terrorism, sabotage and civil disturbances; litigation; contests over title to properties, particularly title to undeveloped properties, or over access to water, power and other required infrastructure; business opportunities that may be presented to, or pursued by, the Company; and risks associated with the fact that certain of the initiatives described in this press release are still in the early stages and may not materialize. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining, including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding and gold bullion, copper cathode or gold or copper concentrate losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance, or inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks). Many of these uncertainties and contingencies can affect our actual results and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, us. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. Specific reference is made to the most recent Form 40-F/Annual Information Form on file with the SEC and Canadian provincial securities regulatory authorities for a more detailed discussion of some of the factors underlying forward-looking statements and the risks that may affect Barrick's ability to achieve the expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. We disclaim 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 required by applicable law. RIMOUSKI, Quebec, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Puma Exploration Inc. (the Company or Puma) announces today that it has been mutually agreed with Trevali Mining Corporation (Trevali) to terminate, effective as of March 15, 2019, the Option Agreement for the Murray Brook property dated April 27, 2018, as amended November 30, 2018. From June 2018 to December 2018, the parnertship invested a total of $1,614,705 in exploration and development work at the Murray Brook deposit and within the Strategic Alliance partnership. From the programs, the Surface Copper Zone drilling results and metallurgical tests are still pending. Trevali also proceeded with two cash payments for a total of $3.5M in regards to the underlying agreements with El Nino Ventures ($1.5M) and Votorantim Metals Canada ($2M). Following the termination of the Option Agreement, Trevali retains no interest in the Murray Brook property. The Purchase Agreement between Puma and Votorantim Metals Canada Inc. is still in good standing until March 31, 2019 (67.86%) and the Purchase Agreement between Puma and El Nino Ventures Inc. is still in good standing until May 10, 2019 (32.14%). The Strategic Alliance Agreement dated April 27, 2018 between Puma and Trevali is also terminated effective as of March 15, 2019 by mutual agreement of the parties. We remain fully confident in the technical merits of the Murray Brook deposit, as well as the exploration potential surrounding the Deposit and along strike with the Caribou horizon, stated Marcel Robillard, Chief Executive Officer and President of Puma. The Company is currently looking and evaluating alternative partnerships and/or strategies and expects to provide further guidance in the coming weeks. About Murray Brook deposit The Murray Brook deposit has a measured mineral resource of 3.68 million tonnes grading 5.57% Zn, 1.87% Pb, 0.36% Cu, 70.5 g/t Ag and 0.56 g/t Au, plus indicated mineral resources of 1.60 million tonnes grading 4.48% Zn, 1.63% Pb, 0.70% Cu, 65.3 g/t Ag and 0.88 g/t Au, for a combined measured and indicated resource of 5.28 million tonnes averaging 5.24% Zn, 1.80% Pb, 0.46% Cu, 68.9 g/t Ag and 0.65 g/t Au containing approximately 610 million pounds of Zinc, 209 million pounds of Lead and 11.7 million ounces of Silver, as of effective date, December 21, 2016. About Puma Exploration Puma is a canadian mineral exploration company with advanced precious and base metals projects in Canada. The Company's major assets consist of an option to acquire 100% beneficial interest in the Murray Brook property, the Turgeon Zinc-Copper project and the Nicholas-Denys project, as well as the newly acquired Chester project, all located in the Bathurst Mining Camp of New Brunswick. Also, Puma owns an equity interest in BWR Resources which explores in Manitoba. Pumas objective is to focus its exploration efforts in New Brunswick. Qualified Persons Technical information provided in this news release was prepared and reviewed by Marcel Robillard, P.Geo., President of Puma, qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. 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. Mr. Robillard is not independent of the Company, as he is an officer and shareholder thereof. Learn more by consulting www.pumaexploration.com for further information on Puma. Visit us on Facebook and Twitter. Marcel Robillard, President Tel.: (418) 724-0901 | email : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Forward-Looking Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Puma Inc. to be materially different from actual future results and achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date the statements were made, except as required by law. Puma undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are described in the quarterly and annual reports and in the documents submitted to the securities administration. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSX-V:WHN) is pleased to report drill results from its ongoing drill campaign at its 15,542 hectare Shovelnose gold property, located within the prospective Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB), which borders the Coquihalla Highway 30 kilometres south of Merritt, British Columbia. Highlights: SN19-01: (154.34 167.00m) 12.66 metres (m) of 39.31 g/t gold (Au) and 133.11 g/t silver (Ag). (89.00 92.00m) 3.00m of 4.65 g/t Au and 10.86 g/t Ag. (95.20 154.34m) 59.14m of 0.43 g/t Au and 2.79 g/t Ag. (167.00 177.00m) 10.00m of 2.26 g/t Au and 15.13 g/t Ag. of and (89.00 92.00m) 3.00m of 4.65 g/t Au and 10.86 g/t Ag. (95.20 154.34m) 59.14m of 0.43 g/t Au and 2.79 g/t Ag. (167.00 177.00m) 10.00m of 2.26 g/t Au and 15.13 g/t Ag. SN19-02 (assays pending): Approximately 137.00m to 177.00m, intercept of rhyolite breccia with sections of banded quartz, ginguro, pyrite and visible gold in veins. The program is ongoing and currently drilling SN19-03, which is a step out ~70m to the northeast of SN18-18, targeting the 2nd vein zone as previously reported. *Drilling to date is limited so true widths cannot be definitively determined. However, based on the geology of the vein zone with a steep dip to the west, true widths are estimated to be about 80-90% of reported interval lengths. Please see the plan map and cross section below. For a table of assays from SN19-01 please visit: http://westhavenventures.com/projects/shovelnose-gold/details/ Gareth Thomas, President & CEO of Westhaven stated, SN19-01 contains the highest gram-metres (497.66 g-m) intercept to date on Shovelnose. It was drilled at 50-metre strike spacing between hole SN18-14 (435.36 g-m) and hole SN 18-15 (413.49 g-m). South Zone drilling continues to define the extent and demonstrate the continuity of this gold mineralized vein system. Drill intercepts of this grade and thickness strengthen management's belief that we're dealing with a large, high-grade gold system. The drill program is ongoing and all additional assays will be released regularly as the program progresses." Peter Fischl, Exploration Manager, goes on to add, "Hole SN19-01 successfully tested the continuity of higher grade gold mineralization hosted in quartz-adularia veins first drilled last year at Shovelnose in the South Zone. In addition, lower grade gold mineralization has been identified in the hanging wall (0.61 g/t Au and 3.07 g/t Ag over 65.34m) and footwall (2.26 g/t Au and 15.14 g/t Ag over 10.0m) to Zone 1 veining. This broader envelope of gold mineralization is hosted in the silica-pyrite healed rhyolite breccia unit, which pre-dates the quartz-adularia veins, and is now considered a secondary target of interest at Shovelnose." Qualified Person Statement Peter Fischl, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person within the context of National Instrument 43-101 has read and takes responsibility for this release. QA/QC Core samples were prepared using the PREP-31 package in ALSs Kamloops facility each core sample is crushed to better than 70 % passing a 2 mm (Tyler 9 mesh, US Std. No.10) screen. A split of 250 g is taken and pulverized to better than 85 % passing a 75 micron (Tyler 200 mesh, US Std. No. 200) screen. 0.5g of this pulverized split is digested in aqua regia and analyzed via ICP-MS and ICP-AES (method code ME-MS41L), which reports a 53-element suite of elements. All results greater than 100 ppb gold were reanalyzed by ALS using their Fire Assay with an AAS finish, method code Au-AA23 (30g sample size). Additional Au screening is performed using ALSs Au-SCR24 method, select samples are dry screened to 100 micron. A duplicate 50g fire assay is conducted on the undersized fraction as well as an assay on the entire oversize fraction. Total Au content, individual assays and weight fractions are reported. All analytical and assay procedures are conducted in ALSs North Vancouver facility. A QA/QC program included laboratory and field standards inserted every 25 samples. 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. Shovelnose Gold Property Overview There is strong evidence for a significant mineralized vein system within the property where float samples grading up to 119 g/t Au and 273 g/t Ag, veins exposed by trenching grading 66 g/t Au, and wide low-grade alteration zones typical of epithermal gold deposits have been located. Recent drilling intersected 17.77 metres of 24.50 g/t Au, including 6.78 metres of 50.76 g/t Au. For further information on the Shovelnose Gold Property, please visit: http://westhavenventures.com/projects/shovelnose-gold/details/ The Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB) Westhaven owns a 100%-interest in 4 properties covering over 35,000 hectares within the prospective SBGB, which is situated within a geological setting like those which host other significant epithermal gold-silver systems. It is close to major transportation routes and infrastructure allowing for cost-effective exploration. The SBGB is a 110-kilometre northwest-trending belt of intermediate to felsic volcanic rocks dominated by the Cretaceous Spences Bridge Group. Sable Resources and Westhaven have a combined control of 86% of the SBGB (225,000ha). Any ground staked by Sable within 5-kilometre of Westhaven's existing projects will be subject to a 2.5% NSR. In addition, Westhaven has a 30 day Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for a three-year period for any properties within this 5-kilometre radius. On behalf of the Board of Directors WESTHAVEN VENTURES INC. "Gareth Thomas" Gareth Thomas, President, CEO & Director Westhaven Ventures Inc. is a Canadian based exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of prospective resource properties. Westhaven is focused on advancing its Shovelnose, Prospect Valley, Skoonka and Skoonka North gold projects in British Columbia. Westhaven trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol WHN. For further information, please call 604-681-5521 or visit Westhavens website at www.westhavenventures.com. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 18, 2019 / Prophecy Development Corp. ("Prophecy" or the "Company") (TSX:PCY, OTCQX:PRPCF, Frankfurt:1P2N) announces Mongolian Ulaan Ovoo Mine start up in March and approximately 21,000 tonnes of coal production and sales. Multiple local and international consumers have expressed interest to buy Ulaan Ovoo coal; Prophecy is pleased with the rate of progress and plans to report quarterly sales and operational update. Pictures and video are available at www.prophecydev.com. With nameplate production capacity of 2 million tonnes per year, Ulaan Ovoo is a fully-permitted large coal field featuring a single, massive coal seam of 40 to 80 metre thickness outcropping at surface with a low strip ratio carrying minimal technical risk. As reported in the Company news release dated October 16, 2018, that the Company executed a lease agreement (the "Lease") with an arms-length private Mongolian company (the "Lessee") whereby the Lessee performs mining operations at Prophecy's Ulaan Ovoo coal mine, and will pay Prophecy $2 (the "Production Royalty") for every tonne of coal shipped from the Ulaan Ovoo site premises. The Lessee is responsible for all capital and operating expenses, government taxes and royalties related to Ulaan Ovoo operation. Since the signing of the Lease, the Lessee has spent approximately $700,000 on supplies, housing and crew and restarted Ulaan Ovoo with its own equipment. Lessee plans to start double shifts is April to meet demand. About Ulaan Ovoo: Ulaan Ovoo is located in northern Mongolia, 17km from the Zeltura border to Russia by dirt road, and 120km by road from Mongolia's Sukhbaatar railway station (which connects to the Trans-Siberian railway network). Ulaan Ovoo produced over 500,000 tonnes of coal from 2012 to 2014 which was sold to 28 separate Russian and Mongolian customers such as Erdenet Copper Mining Corporation, UB Railway, and Khutul Cement before it was put on standby in 2014. The benchmark Newcastle thermal coal price has rebounded from a 2014 low of $61 per tonne to a current price of $98 per tonne, which are levels not seen since 2011. Ulaan Ovoo features an average strip ratio of 1.8 BCM waste/tonne of coal. The coal mined yielded 5,000 kcal/kg GCV, less than 1% sulphur and low ash (8 to 11%) which is well-suited for power plants, cement plants and heat boiler applications. Wardrop Engineering (Tetra Tech) estimated 174 Mt of measured and 34 Mt of indicated coal resources in an NI 43-101 prefeasibility study in 2010. All prices are in USD Qualified Person The technical contents of this news release have been prepared under the supervision of Danniel Oosterman, VP, Exploration. Mr. Oosterman is not independent of the Company in that he is employed as a consultant to the Company and most of his income is derived from the Company. Mr. Oosterman is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101. About Prophecy Prophecy is developing the Gibellini project the only large-scale, open-pit, heap-leach vanadium project of its kind in North America. Located in Nevada, Gibellini is currently undergoing EPCM and Permit preparation. Prophecy also has mining projects in Mongolia and Bolivia. Further information on Prophecy can be found at www.prophecydev.com. PROPHECY DEVELOPMENT CORP. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "John Lee" Executive Chairman For more information about Prophecy, please contact Investor Relations: +1.888.513.6286 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.prophecydev.com Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this news release, including statements which may contain words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", or similar expressions, and statements related to matters which are not historical facts, are forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations regarding Prophecy's future growth, results of operations, performance, business prospects and opportunities, are based on certain factors and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These estimates and assumptions are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and other uncertainties and contingencies, many of which, with respect to future events, are subject to change and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made by Prophecy. In making forward-looking statements as may be included in this news release, Prophecy has made several assumptions that it believes are appropriate, including, but not limited to assumptions that: all required third party contractual, regulatory and governmental approvals will be obtained for the development, construction and production of Prophecy's properties and the Chandgana power plant; there being no significant disruptions affecting operations, whether due to labour disruptions or other causes; currency exchange rates being approximately consistent with current levels; certain price assumptions for vanadium, silver, coal and other metals, prices for and availability of fuel, parts and equipment and other key supplies remain consistent with current levels; production forecasts meeting expectations; the accuracy of Prophecy's current mineral resource estimates; labour and materials costs increasing on a basis consistent with Prophecy's current expectations; any additional required financing will be available on reasonable terms; and market developments and trends in global supply and demand for vanadium, energy, silver, coal and other metals meeting expectations. Prophecy cannot assure you that any of these assumptions will prove to be correct. Numerous factors could cause Prophecy's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, including the following risks and uncertainties, which are discussed in greater detail under the heading "Risk Factors" in Prophecy's most recent Management Discussion and Analysis and Annual Information Form as filed on SEDAR and posted on Prophecy's website: Prophecy's history of net losses and lack of foreseeable positive cash flow; exploration, development and production risks, including risks related to the development of Prophecy's mineral properties; Prophecy not having a history of profitable mineral production; commencing mine development without a feasibility study; the uncertainty of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates; the capital and operating costs required to bring Prophecy's projects into production and the resulting economic returns from its projects; foreign operations and political conditions, including the legal and political risks of operating in Bolivia and Mongolia, which are developing countries and being subject to their local laws; the availability and timeliness of various government approvals, permits and licenses; the feasibility, funding and development of Prophecy's projects; protecting title to Prophecy's mineral properties; environmental risks; the competitive nature of the mining business; lack of infrastructure; Prophecy's reliance on key personnel; uninsured risks; commodity price fluctuations; reliance on contractors; Prophecy's need for substantial additional funding and the risk of not securing such funding on reasonable terms or at all; foreign exchange risk; anti-corruption legislation; recent global financial conditions; the payment of dividends; the inability of insurance to cover all potential risks associated with mining operations; conflicts of interest; and cyber-security risks related to the Company's reliance on information technology systems. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on Prophecy's forward-looking statements. Prophecy believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release and the documents incorporated by reference herein are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. In addition, although Prophecy has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Prophecy undertakes no obligation to release publicly any future revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as expressly required by law. March 18, 2019 / TheNewswire / Vancouver, BC - Apex Resources Inc. ("Apex") (TSXV: APX) is pleased to announce that its data compilation for the Ore Hill Property has confirmed the reported 1,500 metres long by up to 150 metres wide gold soil anomaly reported from previous exploration work. Numerous grab samples returned high-grade gold assays, including 119.0 g/t and 105.0 g/t, demonstrating widespread mineralization on the property. The Ore Hill property is located 15 km east of the community of Salmo in southeastern British Columbia. Apex has now reviewed historic assessment reports and compiled the recent database and laboratory assay sheets for the Ore Hill project. The database indicates that in total 90 rock samples were taken for assay during the three-year period from 2016 to 2018. The previous operator, Margaux Resources Inc., obtained assays for 88 rock samples in their 2017-2018 exploration programs. Assays were also obtained for two rock samples taken by the property vendor in 2016. The rock sampling database indicates that 35 of the 90 rock samples returned gold values of 1.0 gram per tonne (g/t) or better. Samples also contained significant silver values, along with some samples containing significant lead and zinc concentrations. The following table and figure summarize the 35 samples that assayed greater than 1.0 g/t Au. Table of Ore Hill Rock Sample Results Thirty-three samples reported in this release were obtained by Margaux Resources Ltd and were primarily grab samples collected from outcrop or from the dumps of historic workings. Grab samples are designed to show the presence or absence of mineralization and to characterize mineralization. They are not intended to provide a representative indication of average grade of mineralization. Map showing Ore Hill rock sample locations, with gold values posted The results show that many of the high-grade samples occur along a gold-bearing crackle zone, up to 10 m wide, associated with a north-northeast-trending fault zone. The fault marks the contact between a quartzite formation and a limestone formation both of Lower Cambrian age. Near the north end of the sample area several parallel trends are observed suggesting there may be multiple shear zones on the property. This style of mineralization is distinctly different from the narrow high-grade gold veins that were worked historically. Historical production from the Ore Hill property is as follows: Summit: 1,205 tons averaging 0.72 oz/t Au, 1.01 oz/t Ag, 1.25% Pb, 1.18% Zn and Ore Hill: 2,470 tons averaging 1.15 oz/t Au, 2.19 oz/t Ag, 3.58% Pb, 3.37% Zn (BC Minfile 82FSW054 & 082FSW053). The Ore Hill property overlies the south end of the Sheep Creek Gold District ("SCGD"). The district has historical gold production of 785,000 ounces at an average grade of 14.4 g/t gold from multiple high-grade orogenic gold veins. The SCGD is the third largest past-producing orogenic gold district in British Columbia. There are seven major historic gold districts within the Cordillera Region. They include the Motherlode District in California, the Bralorne, Cariboo, and SCGD in British Columbia, the Klondike/White Gold District of the Yukon, and the Juneau and Nome Districts in Alaska. Gold mineralization related to the Cordilleran orogeny has potential for both high-grade veins and bulk tonnage deposition. In the historic SCGD, mining was directed at high-grade gold-bearing veins. The bulk tonnage potential was not previously investigated. Apex has applied for a 5-year area-based exploration permit including trenching and diamond drilling on the Ore Hill property. The contents of this news release have been reviewed and approved by Apex's consulting geologist, Perry Grunenberg, P.Geo. Perry Grunenberg is a "Qualified Person" for the purpose of NI 43-101. For further information on the Company's projects, visit www.apxresources.com. Arthur G. Troup, P.Eng., Geological President and CEO For further information please contact: Marc Lee, Investor and Corporate Communications Tel: (604) 628-0519 Fax: (604) 628-0446 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This release was prepared by Apex's management. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements." All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that Apex expects are forward-looking statements. Although Apex 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. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and those actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on Apex, investors should review Apex's filings that are available at www.sedar.com or Apex's website at www.apxresources.com. The US ambassador to Germany led protests outside the UN Monday over what he termed the bigotry faced by Israel at the Human Rights Council, as nations weighed condemnations of the Jewish state. Several hundred people joined the protests which were largely focused on the councils so-called Agenda Item 7, a fixture on the councils schedule exclusively devoted to resolutions condemning Israels treatment of the Palestinians. Israel is the only country with a dedicated agenda item, which is one of the main factors that prompted the United States to leave the rights council last year. This is not just a form of bigotry. It is a sign of intellectual and moral decay, US envoy Richard Grenell told the crowd. Like a drug-addiction, anti-Semitism is both a disease and a source of comfort for states that habitually condemn Israel at the UN, said Grenell, who stirred controversy in Germany last year over his stated ambition to promote conservatives throughout Europe. The protests were organised by the Geneva-based NGO UN Watch, which seeks to flag alleged anti-Israel bias within the UN, among other issues. As the protest took place, council members attending the Item 7 session were debating the results of a probe which found that Israeli troops may have committed crimes against humanity in their response to the Gaza protests last year. Israeli officials have rejected the probes findings and accused investigators of bias. Santiago Canton, who headed the commission of inquiry, told reporters he also does not personally agree with Agenda Item 7. But even though the probe was initiated by the arguably flawed Human Rights Council, that doesnt mean the work of the independent commission cannot be objective, he said. If (critics) want to discredit our report they should discredit (it) on the facts and the law. Israeli officials have said the commission ignored the violent threat posed by Gaza protesters and downplayed the role of Hamas in orchestrating the unrest. In the aftermath of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis of Rwanda, between April and July 1994, the Rwandan State was destitute. In the midst of their razed homes, gutted towns, hills full of mass graves, deserted land and devastated infrastructure, were thousands of survivors, including orphaned children and babies, sick people who were hungry and homeless. The State had been emptied of its resources, looted to the last cent by members of the former government who had fled to neighbouring Zaire (todays Democratic Republic of Congo). Those who took power and stopped the genocide were faced with a seemingly impossible conundrum: how to help these survivors rise from the depths and provide for their basic needs to enable rehabilitation? A first step was taken under the August 1996 Organic Law on the Punishment of Genocide as the first trials of genocide suspects established the responsibility of the Rwandan State. The courts ordered the State to pay colossal sums for the genocide committed in its name. The authorities recognized the principle of State continuity, and since the crime was committed in its name, the government agreed to pay each year not damages but a percentage of its annual budget to the Genocide Survivors Assistance Fund (FARG) for the most destitute. According to the law that created the FARG, it is funded mainly by the payment of 6% of the annual national budget, or more precisely by internal revenues. Before the amendment of this law, in 2008, every employee in the public or private sector had to make a contribution equivalent to 1% of their gross salary. But the fund may also receive contributions from local and international partners, local or international organizations and associations, individuals and entities. Imararungu, the cow that breaks solitude Dancilla Mukankusi survived the massacre in Kabarondo, a church in eastern Rwanda in which more than 2,000 Tutsi refugees, including her entire family, were killed within half a day on April 13, 1994. Today, at 63 years of age, she suffers from all kinds of illness including hepatitis, kidney failure, cardiovascular disorders and other chronic diseases. Even for her neighbours, she is the one who spends more time in a hospital bed and lives on medication. Dancilla acknowledges this, saying she believes that without the help of the FARG, I would already be dead. In addition to medical care, she receives a small, direct money allowance that helps her to survive as best she can. In the neighbouring district of Rwamagana, Odette, 67, another widow of the genocide, lives in similar conditions to Dancilla. When asked how she deals with loneliness, she answers that she has a companion. Who is it? people ask her. Laughing, she goes to a small stable and whispers in the ear of a big cow munching on grass whose name is Imararungu, meaning the one who breaks solitude in the Rwandan language. Odette describes her day. Caring for Imararungu takes almost all her time from morning to night, like a beloved child, a good companion that AVEGA gave me. AVEGA is the Association of Genocide Widows, a partner of the FARG in the rehabilitation of genocide victims. For her neighbours, Odette, 67, is the old woman with the FARG cow . But for Odette, it is a companion she calls Imararungu the one who breaks the loneliness, in Kinyarwanda and who takes the place of all the cows looted and slaughtered during the genocide. For the neighbours, her real name doesnt matter, shes the old lady with the FARG cow. But for Odette, Imararungu takes the place of all the cows looted and slaughtered during the genocide. And she is a great comfort. The cow, traditionally perceived as a sign of privilege of the Tutsi herder, was targeted during the genocide with a rallying song called Lets eat the Tutsi cows. Odette is one of 7,510 widows who have received a cow since the Fund was set up. Satisfying results FARGs commitment to ensure the socio-economic rehabilitation of genocide survivors, against the backdrop of already existing programmes, operated along five main lines: providing medical care to the sick, direct assistance to the most vulnerable, facilitating education for thousands of children including several orphan heads of household, housing for all homeless people, and assistance in creating income-generating activities. According to a report drawn up in June 2018, i.e. after 20 years of operation, the fund has paid for medical care on over 2 million occasions, including for 428 patients treated abroad, at a total cost of nearly 19.5 billion Rwandan francs (19.3 million euros). Nearly 110,000 children and orphans have benefited from the education programme, at all levels and up to university. It is a great pleasure to be able to help the lives of people who have been put at risk and made vulnerable by the genocide. We are satisfied with the results, says Theophile Ruberangeyo, Executive Director of FARG, who believes that some of the Funds beneficiaries have completed all stages of the programme, namely rehabilitation, reintegration and graduation. From yesterdays orphans, we have made men and women who are responsible family members and citizens, he says. The Fund has also enabled construction of some 45,000 housing units, some of which are in reconciliation villages where victims and former perpetrators live together, and has supported some 54,000 beneficiaries of income-generating activities. With the help of the One dollar campaign, a project launched by the Rwandan diaspora, a large building in Kigali houses some 192 students orphaned by the genocide, formerly homeless and forced to spend the holidays in their schools. In almost 20 years of operation, the approximately 272 billion Rwandan francs (270 million euros) spent by the Fund in all its areas of intervention are only a drop in an ocean of problems, according to Theophile Ruberangeyo. Because, he says, this amount remains derisory in relation to the needs and the number of victims. Many criticisms The Fund has also faced many criticisms: embezzlement, houses built in a shoddy way to last only 5 to 10 years, corruption in the selection of beneficiaries, even allowing former militiamen to benefit. In 2010, following an assessment, more than 17,000 cases of malpractice were detected and 47 dishonest entrepreneurs identified and brought to justice. But the challenges are not limited to the Funds operations. Already in 2009, the genocide survivors organization Ibuka [meaning remember in the Rwandan language], denounced the fact that, instead of compensating victims, the State opted for the creation of the FARG for which even the victims are condemned to pay for their own reparation, according to Denis Bikesha, law professor at the University of Rwanda. Reparation for victims must be understood as a right and not a favour, he says. During a meeting of genocide survivors in December 2018 in Rusizi, southwestern Rwanda, participants were no more lenient. Genocide or not, they say in essence, does the State not have an obligation to provide for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged? We want our rights, not favours, said Laurent Ndayambaje, local president of Ibuka. Although the FARG does good things for our widows, orphans and all the vulnerable, he says, its services are perceived as a favour to ask for and a favour to grant. With the organization of the trials hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were tried for their participation in the genocide, notably through community courts called gacaca we got the truth and the guilty parties punished, Ndayambaje admits. But for justice to be rendered in full, he says what is necessary is just a small step towards reparation, even symbolic. As a retired former parliamentarian concludes, for a State it is easier to organize than to stop a genocide and/or to repair its consequences. Using the results of extensive ocean CO2 measurements, we can now estimate how much man-made CO2 the ocean has taken up in the last few decades. An international research project led by scientists from ETH Zurich has determined the amount of man-made CO 2 emissions taken up by the ocean between 1994 and 2007. Not all of the CO 2 generated during the combustion of fossil fuels remains in the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. The ocean and the ecosystems on land take up considerable quantities of these man-made CO emissions from the atmosphere. The ocean takes up CO 2 in two steps: first, the CO 2 dissolves in the surface water. Afterwards, the oceans overturning circulation distributes it: ocean currents and mixing processes transport the dissolved CO 2 from the surface deep into the oceans interior, where it accumulates over time. Carbon sink in the ocean This overturning circulation is the driving force behind the oceanic sink for CO 2 . The size of this sink is very important for the atmospheric CO 2 levels: without this sink, the concentration of CO 2 in our atmosphere and the extent of anthropogenic climate change would be considerably higher. Determining what share of the man-made CO 2 the oceans absorb has long been a priority for climate researchers. An international team of scientists led by Nicolas Gruber, Professor for Environmental Physics at ETH Zurich, has now determined this oceanic sink over a period of 13 years. As reported in the latest issue of Science, the researchers have found that the ocean has taken up from the atmosphere as much as 34 gigatonnes (billions of metric tonnes) of man-made carbon between 1994 and 2007. This figure corresponds to 31 per cent of all anthropogenic CO 2 emitted during that time. The marine sink is intact This percentage of CO 2 taken up by the oceans has remained relatively stable compared to the preceding 200 years, but the absolute quantity has increased substantially. This is because as long as the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 rises, the oceanic sink strengthens more or less proportionally: the more CO 2 is in the atmosphere, the more is absorbed by the oceans until it becomes eventually saturated. So far, that point has not been reached. Over the examined period, the global ocean continued to take up anthropogenic CO 2 at a rate that is congruent with the increase of atmospheric CO 2 , Gruber explains. These data-based research findings also confirm various earlier, model-based estimates of the ocean sink for man-made CO 2 . This is an important insight, giving us confidence that our approaches have been correct, Gruber adds. The results further allow the researchers to draw conclusions about the CO 2 sink of the ecosystems on land, which are more difficult to determine. Regional differences in the absorption rate While the overall results suggest an intact ocean sink for man-made CO 2 , the researchers also discovered in the different ocean basins considerable deviations from the uptake expected from the rise in atmospheric CO 2 . The North Atlantic Ocean, for instance, absorbed 20 per cent less CO 2 than expected between 1994 and 2007. This is probably due to the slowdown of the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in the late 1990s, which itself is most likely a consequence of climate variability, Gruber explains. But this lower sink in the North Atlantic was offset by a considerably greater uptake in the South Atlantic, such that the uptake by the entire Atlantic developed as expected. The researchers documented similar fluctuations in the Southern Ocean, in the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean. Gruber emphasises: We learned that the marine sink does not just respond to the increase in atmospheric CO 2 . Its substantial sensitivity to climate variations suggests a significant potential for feedbacks with the ongoing change in climate. Results of two surveys The results are based on a global survey of CO 2 and other chemical and physical properties in the various oceans, measured from the surface down to depths of up to 6 kilometres. Scientists from 7 countries participated in the internationally coordinated programme that started in 2003. Globally they carried out more than 50 research cruises up to 2013, which were then synthesized into a global data product. For their analyses, the researchers used a new statistical method developed by Gruber and his former Ph.D. student, Dominic Clement. This method allowed them to distinguish between the changes in the man-made and the natural CO 2 components that make up the changes in the total concentration of dissolved CO 2 in the water. Natural CO 2 refers to the amount of CO 2 that existed in the oceans prior to industrialisation. Gruber had already participated in a similar study around the turn of the millennium. Using observations obtained from the very first global CO 2 survey conducted between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s, that study estimated that the ocean had taken up around 118 gigatonnes of carbon from the beginning of industrialisation around 1800 until 1994. His current team of researchers extended this analysis up to 2007, permitting them not only to establish the budget for man-made CO 2 for the 1994 through 2007 period, but also to assess the intactness of the ocean carbon sink. Increasing CO 2 content acidifies marine habitats By moderating the rate of global warming, the oceanic sink for man-made CO 2 provides an important service for humanity, but it has its price: the CO 2 dissolved in the ocean acidifies the water. Our data has shown that this acidification reaches deep into the oceans interior, extending in part to depths of more than 3000 m, Gruber says. This can have serious consequences for many marine organisms. Calcium carbonate spontaneously dissolves in acidified environments, which poses a hazard to mussels and corals whose shells and skeletons are made of calcium carbonate. The changing chemical composition of the ocean can also impact physiological processes such as the breathing of fish. Gruber is convinced: Documenting the chemical changes imparted on the ocean as a result of human activity is crucial, not least to understand the impact of these changes on marine life. Editor's Note: Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news stories and expert opinions that moved the precious metals and financial markets. Sign up here! (Kitco News) - Although King Dollar isnt about to lose its crown anytime soon, its influence is waning, which should provide some support for gold, according to the latest research from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML). Analysts said Monday that although U.S. dollar remains the dominant reserve currency, it is slowing using its status in the world. Even though USD still accounts for 39.9% of international payments according to SWIFT, its market share has declined, as the global economy has become less U.S. and USD-centric, the analysts said. We believe that de-dollarization is an important factor behind the addition of gold to central bank gold reserves. Although Russia and China appear to be leading the de-dollarization trend, the analysts note that Europe is also jumping on to the diversification bandwagon. Adjusting to new economic realities, and rising importance of China, the ECB recently swapped 500 million U.S. dollar reserves into CNY-denominated securities, the analysts said. Looking at the gold market, BoAML said that gold is becoming an attractive reserve alternative as the U.S. dollars influence weakens. Quoting a recent World Gold Council central bank survey, BoAML analysts said that one-fifth of central banks globally are looking to increase their gold holdings this year. At the same time, two-thirds of central banks value gold as a safe-haven asset. The survey also revealed that 59% of central banks acknowledged gold as an effective portfolio diversifier. Beyond those motivations, we believe that de-dollarization could also lead to rising share of gold holdings in gold portfolios, the analysts said. Although central banks have been net buyers of gold for the last nine years, their role in the gold market has come into sharper focus after a total of 651.5 tonnes of the yellow metal was bought in 2018, the most significant increase in roughly half a century. Although reserve diversification has become an important topic for the gold market, BoAML also warned that investors shouldnt expect to see a complete paradigm shift away from the U.S. dollar anytime soon. We believe the current de-dollarization trend is not necessarily unusual and could ultimately bring about more balanced global currency reserve portfolios, the bank said. That said, and considering the various advantages of U.S. financial markets, central banks need to find alternative assets to invest in, so the process will in all likelihood be evolving slowly. The comments come as the gold prices continue to hold above the critical psychological level at $1,300 an ounce. April gold futures last traded at $1,305.20 an ounce, up 0.18% on the day. Many analysts are optimistic on gold as the U.S. dollar looks to weaken in 2019 as the nation deals with growing government deficits and looser monetary policy. Editor's Note: Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news stories and expert opinions that moved the precious metals and financial markets. Sign up here! (Kitco News) - Gold and silver prices are slightly higher in lackluster early U.S. trading Monday. A weaker U.S. dollar index on this day is working in favor of the precious metals market bulls. April gold futures were last up $1.40 an ounce at $1,304.30. May Comex silver was last up $0.011 at $15.335 an ounce. Asian and European stocks were mostly higher overnight. There were no major geopolitical developments during the weekend to move the markets, and trading is subdued to start the week. U.S. stock indexes are pointed toward mixed openings when the New York day session begins. Trader and investor focus is turning to this weeks FOMC meeting of the Federal Reserve, which begins Tuesday and ends Wednesday afternoon with a statement. The FOMC is not expected to change its monetary policy at this meeting. The Fed has become more dovish the past few months. The Brexit matter continues to play out but its on the back burner of the world marketplace. The U.K. has no soft Brexit deal in place ahead of the March 29 hard exit (no deal) for the U.K. to leave the European Union. Look for Prime Minister Theresa May to soon propose another plan for a soft Brexit to the Parliament. The key outside markets today see the U.S. dollar index weaker. Nymex crude oil prices are modestly lower and trading just above $58.00 a barrel. Oil prices hit a four-month high last Friday. U.S. economic reports due for release Monday are light and include the NAHB housing market index. Technically, the gold bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Bulls next upside price objective is to produce a close in April futures above solid resistance at $1,320.00. Bears' next near-term downside price breakout objective is pushing prices below solid technical support at the March low of $1,280.80. First resistance is seen at last weeks high of $1,311.60 and then at $1,317.00. First support is seen at the overnight low of $1,298.00 and then at last weeks low of $1,290.60. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5 May silver futures bulls have the slight overall near-term technical advantage. Silver bulls' next upside price breakout objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $15.75 an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at the March low of $14.985. First resistance is seen at $15.47 and then at last weeks high of $15.55. Next support is seen at the overnight low of $15.22 and then at last weeks low of $15.135. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0. Editor's Note: Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news stories and expert opinions that moved the precious metals and financial markets. Sign up here! (Kitco News) - The gold industry is facing a looming production crisis after years of capital starvation has shrunk gold miner reserves, says Ken Hoffman, materials expert at McKinsey & Company. In early March, Kitco interviewed Hoffman at PDAC in Toronto, where his firm released its study looking at the gold mining reserve crisis. "After the downturn a few years back, mining companies have abandoned exploration," says Hoffman. "You have seen capital starvation all along the value chain from people discovering mines all the way up to the majors." The authors of the McKinsey study say that gold companies were on a merger and acquisition "frenzy" at the start of the decade. Annual acquisitions peaked at US$38 billion in 2011, and the average price paid per ounce reserve was 300% higher than a decade earlier. Falling commodity prices and the consequent impairments and write-downs have left the industry where it is today: starved for growth. Hoffman says investors are now looking for miners with long-life assets that can get them to the future. "And those are becoming harder and harder to come by," says Hoffman. Svein Richard Brandtzaeg, CEO of Hydro for a decade, will be replaced by Hilde Merete Aasheim, who has been head of the company's key Primary Metal unit since 2008. The Norwegian metals producer has seen its share price dive by about 40 percent in the last 13 months following a court-ordered shutdown of parts of its Brazilian operation that was triggered by a spill from one of its plants. "I am confident that we have what it takes to turn a current challenging situation, for Hydro and for the global aluminium industry, into opportunities that will build the company for the future," Aasheim said. Trine Skei Grande, head of Norway's Liberal Party and a member of the centre-right coalition government, applauded the appointment of a woman to lead Hydro. "Norsk Hydro gets a female chief executive. That was about time," Skei Grande tweeted. The Norwegian government is Hydro's largest shareholder with a stake of 34 percent. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips) In a notice ahead of its annual general meeting in May, Rio said shareholders should vote against the proposed rule change that would have it set transition plans that adhere to the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). Those plans would include short-, medium- and long-term targets to reduce scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and detailed strategies to meet the targets in each annual report starting from 2020, according to the proposed resolution. Scope 1 emissions refer to direct emissions from company's activities, scope 2 emissions are indirect such as from purchased power. Scope 3 emissions are those created by customers of a company's product. "Rio Tinto is currently undertaking detailed engineering, economic and policy analysis on an asset-by-asset basis to inform new Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction targets to replace our existing targets, which expire in 2020," Chairman Simon Thompson said in a filing to the Australian bourse. Rio Tinto, which released its own climate change report last month, advised voting against the plan because it was not in control of its customers emissions, and because an analysis it was currently undergoing was based on a different framework. "Scope 3 emissions are primarily the emissions of our customers, mainly steel makers in China, over which we have very limited control." The emissions resolution was submitted by Melbourne-based non-profit Market Forces, acting as agent for 109 shareholders who hold approximately 0.02 percent of the Australian listing. "By recommending shareholders vote against this resolution, Rio Tinto has failed to take the opportunity to assure shareholders that its new emission reduction targets will be entirely consistent with the climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement," Will van de Pol at Market Forces told Reuters. Rio said its current analysis was based on "less than 2 degrees", reflecting a scenario for sustainable development from the International Energy Agency, and that it would release targets and strategies on how to meet them in 2020. Rio is among Australia's top five carbon emitters, according to combined data from the Clean Energy Regulator. The miner said it produced 28.6 million tonnes of scope 1 and 2 emissions last year, and 536.0 million tonnes of Scope 3 emissions, but that it was on track to beat a target of reducing its emissions intensity by 24 percent from 2008 levels by 2020. (Reporting by Melanie Burton) Now, after two harrowing crashes that killed a total of 246 people, Muilenburg faces one of the toughest tests of his 34-year career at the Chicago-based behemoth. Last week, Boeing's stock dropped after one of its 737 Max 8 airplanes crashed in Ethiopia, the second time in five months one of the planes was involved in a deadly crash. In October, one of the planes went down in Indonesia, killing everyone on board. Our plans to alleviate the substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern may not be successful and we may be forced to limit our business activities or be unable to continue as a going concern, which would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition, the company said in the filing. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low around 45F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low around 45F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%. The new model is a touch darker but far more muscular elements of roast, char and even light smoke replace the caramel sweetness. Compared with its genteel predecessor, this is a hearty beer with sharp elbows. The new version, like the old one, clocks in at a lean 4.7 percent alcohol. The old clear bottle, however bad for beer because it allows in light has been replaced with the more customary brown glass. Music became my nation, Nagi declares early on, adding And this drum, the tabla, derbeke, dumbek, whatever people want to call it, it took the heavy-metal kinks out of my hair, and got sand underneath my fingernails. Its clear that his musical passport bears stamps from an astounding array of influences, all of which come together near the end in a virtuoso display of his skills on the tabla. Nagi shows us the differences in tempo and rhythm that drummers in different nations across the Arab world use in their traditional music. Still, the series does better the less it makes you think of Simpson which is to say, your own opinion of that case. On the one hand, its difficult to imagine that Clark is involved in a series that might suggest, even through altered proxies, the innocence of the man she fought so hard to convict. At the same time, for the purposes of serial drama, for the interactive guessing game of the mystery, there needs to be some uncertainty as to whether Johnson is guilty at least of the crime at hand, even if we learn he was guilty of the crimes for which he was earlier found innocent. I have a love-hate relationship with EC 261. On the one hand, it's a necessary rule that provides real compensation when something goes wrong. We desperately need a regulation like it in the United States. On the other hand, the way in which it's written leaves so much open to creative interpretation by airlines that it's often ineffective. An Abrams presidency likely would be an insurmountable long shot. Biden would have to be at the top of the ticket. As broad-minded as Americans like to think we are, we have yet to prove that we can elect a woman as president. So it isnt really a stretch to think that the next U.S. president probably will not be an African-American female. I really can't get all that sweaty and hysterical about President Donald Trump adding to the wall on the Southern border and declaring a national emergency to fund that wall. As a conservative, I should tell you that Trump is wrong. And the 12 Senate Republicans who joined Democrats in opposing his declaration for a national emergency are correct. Sen. Lindsey Graham , the South Carolina Republican who is supporting Trump, is wrong, although he was kind to his Republican colleagues who dissed the president. "The president will prevail," insisted Graham. "I don't think for a moment they're not sincere, I just disagree with their analysis. We're gonna keep building the wall." You keep on building, Senator, and you'll probably make the border stronger. But you'll likely make the republic weaker. Because who knows what kinds of other national emergencies future presidents might declare? That's the worry. And if it weakens the republic, it threatens our liberty. Because the republic is what keeps us free. The republic guarantees individual liberty and the Electoral College, and without that, we might as well decide everything by immediate popular vote and the rule of the mob and have the left coasts run the show. That's when the Hunger Games begin in the Midwest, I suppose. The republic needs Congress to do its job. And Congress hasn't done its job. The federal bureaucracy, like the bureaucratic eunuchs of the old, decrepit Ottoman Empire, has primacy. And the people don't know it. Congress must stand up for itself and take responsibility and write laws again, not just provide license for regulators to make law. As the son of immigrants, I understand the need for strong borders. A nation without strong borders isn't a nation, it's just ripe territory. Democrats understood this too, once, before they played politics with immigration. There's been too much cynical immigration politics on both sides of the political divide -- Republicans seeking cheap labor, Democrats seeking new votes. Still, a president going around Congress to get what he wants is not the right way to do things. That's being a political boss. That's not the American Way. That's the Chicago Way. Democrats and their media pals didn't complain all that much when the Chicago Way president himself, Barack Obama , announced, "I've got a pen and a phone." Obama played the boss of bosses. He didn't need Congress. He had that federal administrative state, his regulators, his pen, his phone and that million-dollar smile. So please, Democrats, spare us the hysteria. This is politics at a most shaky time for the republic, and it's not all Trump's doing. But politics is what worries me. Politics is unpredictable. You never know what will happen. Who besides me said publicly -- eight months out -- that Hillary Clinton would lose the 2016 election? The next president might not be Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky or Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. The next president might not even be a creaky old liberal like Joe Biden, who stayed around in politics for so long that he's now considered something of a centrist. The next president may be someone of the hard-Democratic Socialist left, people once referred to by Chicago Democrats as "those commies." Now they're legit and running on that Green New Deal. And weird as it may seem, the next president may be of the left. Perhaps of the soft dilettante left, like the houseplant Beto O'Rourke, or perhaps of the real thing, in Red Bernie. Bernie would have been the Democratic nominee in 2016 if the Clintons and the Democratic National Committee controlled by Obama hadn't stacked the deck against him with all that corporate money and those superdelegates. What if it is President Bernie? That's why Trump is wrong. And those who support him on this national emergency business may be hoisted with their own petard. (It's "with," not "on." Trust me, my friends.) But the rest of us will be hoisted too. And who wants that? The left isn't religious, religion being the opiate of the people and so on, but the left does have a church. And the high priests and high priestesses of the National Church of Climate Change and their bishops have declared an eternal truth: We only have 12 years to live anyway. If you follow the news, then you know that the dogma speaks loudly within them. And so, with that mindset that we're dead in 12 years, what's to stop Presidente Beto or Bernie from ordering the new Department of Homeland Climate Security from doing something drastic? Like executing all the farting cows threatening our atmosphere? Or will Beto -- he won't want a title like "president" -- decide that we've got to do something about all those carbon footprints, and seize all the lump charcoal I keep in my garage? I need that lump charcoal. I use it for barbecue. And I use it for slow roasting my delicious, lemony, garlicky Greek Easter lamb. Will the government just take it? They'll have to pry the charcoal from my cold, dead hands. And what of firearms that I may or may not possess, which is none of your beeswax? Eventually, we won't have "fake news." We'll have the Ministry of Truth. A long-lasting republic is a fragile thing and rare, becoming endangered by the willful ignorance of its own people, and the laziness of its legislators to act. I don't mind a strong wall. But I don't want it done the Chicago Way. (John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His Twitter handle is @johnkass.) (c) 2019 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC. On the negative side, there are just three trains a week from Chicago to Cincinnati, and you get there after 3 in the morning, if the train is even on time. This is because this route currently only exists as part of a longer trip, the Cardinal to D.C. A homeowner in the 8200 block of West Summerdale Avenue gestured at the big hole in the ground where a crew of sweaty, bare-chested men wielded shovels, stakes and string to mark the boundaries of a concrete foundation and basement walls. ''People around here pretty much have the opinion that whoever is building this house is crazy, what with the ghosts that may be here,'' said a neighbor who asked that his name not be used. Advertisement ''This house'' will be a contemporary ranch on a 60-by-144-foot lot at 8213 W. Summerdale-the onetime location of another house where 33 young men and boys died at the hands of John Wayne Gacy. Investigators razed that earlier dwelling in their search for bodies in April, 1979. Since then, the land has sat vacant, overrun by 24-inch-tall weeds and littered with empty bottles and cans-until an earthmoving machine broke ground on Wednesday, carving out a roughly rectangular hole about 8 feet deep. Advertisement Another neighbor-none would give their names-said that she was ''very satisfied'' with the construction ''just because I want this to be a normal neighborhood again. We still get people driving by here to look at all hours of the day and night.'' ''People were practically running bus tours at one point,'' another homeowner added. The fascination of the sightseers was the location of the worst multiple murder in Chicago history. Police found 29 bodies of Gacy`s victims in the crawl space of his house, and 4 more elsewhere. Gacy was convicted and is on death row at Menard Correctional Center while lawyers appeal his death sentence. His residence was a nondescript ranch dwelling in a quiet section of Norwood Park Township, an unincorporated area surrounded by Harwood Heights and the Far Northwest Side of Chicago. It is an area of unassuming red- and white-bricked homes where many people have lived in the same houses for 30 years, sweeping their stoops and keeping their lawns watered and neatly trimmed. Hoyne Savings & Loan Association, Chicago, acquired the Gacy property at a sheriff`s sale in July, 1984, by paying $30,544, the amount owed on two mortgages and in back taxes by Gacy, his mother and two sisters. The land was purchased about two years ago by Patricia Jendrycki, a Chicago resident, according to Lawrence Gustafson, president of Lawrence Gustafson & Sons Inc., a Park Ridge general contractor. Advertisement Gustafson said that Jendrycki hired him to build a house, presumably for her retired parents, who live on the Northwest Side; and that all three people knew about the site`s past ''and what they were getting into.'' The home will be a contemporary single-story structure with a loft, three bedrooms, an attached 2-car garage, a half-basement and 2,300 square feet, he said. Its address will be changed to 8215 W. Summerdale, and it is to be finished in December. The contractor said that the home would be worth about $250,000 when finished-about double the value of existing homes on the street, according to one neighbor`s estimate. As for the site`s history, Gustafson said, ''I`ve got a job to do, and I`m going to do it.'' Carl Bauer, owner of Bauer Construction Inc., a Wheeling concrete contractor hired by Gustafson, shrugged his shoulders when asked about the property and echoed Gustafson`s remark: ''It`s a job. Somebody`s got to do it.'' A neighbor expressed mixed feelings as he watched the concrete workers smooth down the walls and floor of the excavated pit. Advertisement ''It`s better than a prairie full of weeds, I guess. But they really should have built a monument for the kids who died here.'' Both people were in a car heading northbound on I-94 near 130th Street when the car veered off the right side of the freeway and rolled onto a side street around 10:10 p.m. Sunday, said an officer with the Illinois State Police Chicago Office. Are you a workout enthusiast and often keep looking up to bodybuilders pictures and videos for motivation? Then there is someone from the animal world who will pump you up with the same energy. A muscular monkey from Finland looks like such a great bodybuilder that it can put some of the budding workout members to shame. A photo clicked by a Finnish photographer from Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki of a beefed-up monkey is being appreciated everywhere on the internet. Cat Shares Some Fitness Goals While Doing Sit-Ups Underneath a Car! Watch the Cutest Workout Video. Looks like the monkey has a better workout regime than some of the gym goers today. It is a female monkey, a White-Faced Saki and although it looks big, it won't grow taller than 40 cms. Santeri Oksanen who captured the monkey was quoted to SWNS, "I couldnt believe the huge muscles that the monkey had. The other monkeys were very small in comparison, they all looked a bit scared of her." He said that the picture does look like the monkey looks like it is competing for a contest and we sure agree. In A Hilarious Video From Chinese Zoo Monkey Snatches Tourists Wallet & Throws Away All the Money. Here's a Picture of The Buff Monkey Captured in Finland Zoo Insanely muscular monkey spotted in Finland https://t.co/inoSgruQn9 pic.twitter.com/dBBWXZ6ogc New York Post (@nypost) March 15, 2019 Does this monkey give you fitness goals to hit the gym? And if this doesn't then we don't know what will! It sure has some insane muscles. Although some of the users have made jokes on the monkey's angry expressions. Relating to The Expressions i need you all to understand that going forward this frowning muscular monkey picture is going to serve as my default response to 74% of all questions and statements pic.twitter.com/fhGtcxvrV0 Certified Pre-Owned Lib (@Bmactara) March 15, 2019 He Needs Love! muscular monkey needs our love and support he was brought into this world by the creator just absolutely ripped pic.twitter.com/o0n9Z1DIIM milk provider (@nahsticks) March 16, 2019 Some of them have commented that the monkey doesn't look amused by being photographed. Well, amused or not, this monkey is sure winning appreciation for its good body. We hope its gives you your dose of Monday Motivation to head to the gym. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 18, 2019 11:57 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Fox News, which has been accused by critics of having a cozy relationship with the Trump White House, has hired longtime Democratic strategist Donna Brazile as an on-air contributor. Brazile will appear across all Fox News programs in daytime and prime time, the network announced Monday. She has appeared on the conservative-leaning network in the past as a guest. The strategist, who served as interim head of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and campaign manager for Al Gores 2000 presidential campaign, immediately becomes the highest-profile Democratic talking head on Fox News. Braziles arrival comes a week after Fox News made a case to advertisers that its audience, which is the largest among all cable networks, goes beyond Republican voters and Trump supporters. Advertisement The high profile of Fox News conservative commentators such as Sean Hannity who advises Trump tends to overshadow the networks journalism. Conservative prime-time hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham are having trouble retaining sponsors because of their provocative statements. Fox News recently suspended Saturday host Jeanine Pirro following remarks she made on her program regarding the hijab worn by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Muslim congresswoman under fire for comments she made about U.S. support of Israel. Several sponsors said they have suspended their advertising on Pirros program Justice With Judge Jeanine. Fox News close ties with the Trump administration also have brought tough scrutiny, including a recent piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker that quoted Republican critics and others describing the network as a propaganda tool of the White House. According to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment, Braziles hiring has been in the works for some time. Brazile said in a statement that she is taking on the role at a network that has been demonized by the Democratic Party because she wants to promote more civil discourse in the politically polarized landscape. I know Im going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News, Brazile said. My response is that, if weve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we cant have a country where we dont talk to those who disagree with our political views. Theres an audience on Fox News that doesnt hear enough from Democrats. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our safe spaces where we simply agree with each other. Brazile, 59, has previously been a commentator for CNN. She resigned in October 2016 following a WikiLeaks dump of hacked DNC emails that revealed she shared information with Hillary Clintons campaign about questions CNN used in a Democratic candidates town hall meeting on the network. The program aired in March 2016 when Clinton was still battling Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for the nomination. Braziles action which she said she regretted has been cited by Fox News commentators as an example of corruption within the Clinton campaign during the 2016 race. In her role at Fox News, Brazile will appear strictly as a Democratic commentator and will not be involved in the networks political debate or town hall coverage during the 2020 presidential campaign. stephen.battaglio@latimes.com Twitter: @SteveBattaglio The fatal crashes of two Boeing Co. 737 Max jets and the fleets worldwide grounding have triggered a complicated scramble regarding legal liability involving the manufacturer, airlines and the victims families. Boeings risks might be rising after a report in the Seattle Times that the companys safety analysis for the airliners new flight control system had crucial flaws. Much of the legal liability depends on the findings of investigators, as well as the contracts Boeing has with airlines that purchased the planes. But one thing so far appears clear: The families of passengers who perished in the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 in October will have strong claims for damages. Questions remain, however, about whether some of those legal cases will be heard in the U.S. or abroad. They are in a sense the innocent participants in the whole thing, and its really a function of when and how much the families receive in damages and not if, said Mark A. Dombroff, an attorney with law firm LeClairRyan in Alexandria, Va., who often represents airlines. Advertisement Robert L. Rabin, a Stanford law professor and expert on accident law, said there were a variety of types of legal claims possible against Boeing. They include product liability for defects in the airplane or its flight control system and negligence for not training pilots on the changes to the system and not taking steps to fix any problems after the first crash. If U.S. law is applicable, he said, the case for liability, from what we know now, would be pretty strong. Several lawsuits already have been filed against Boeing by families of victims of the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 passengers and crew on board when it plunged into the Java Sea minutes after takeoff from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. More lawsuits are expected after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed all 157 on board. Both flights involved Boeing 737 Max airliners. Regulators have grounded the jets because of similarities between the crashes, and Boeing is working on a fix to the flight-control software. Families of victims of the second crash could have stronger legal claims because there was already the fatal October crash involving the 737 Max, Rabin said. Boeing declined to comment Monday on its potential liability, with a spokesman saying the Chicago company does not respond to or comment on questions concerning legal matters, whether internal, litigation, or governmental inquiries. Federal prosecutors and the Department of Transportations inspector general reportedly are investigating the design certification process for the 737 Max. The chief executive of Norwegian Air said last week the European airline would send a bill to Boeing for the costs of the lost flights. Boeing 737 Max planes account for 18 of Norwegian Airs 160 aircraft. But Boeing could avoid payments related to the grounding. Aviation insurance covers such losses. Boeing and the airlines may have that coverage, Dombroff said. There also are warranties and other provisions in contracts between Boeing and the airlines that govern claims. Boeing might only be required to fix the problems with the jets, and any other disputes could be required to go to private arbitration, Dombroff said. The first thing everybody undoubtedly is looking at is the contracts, the warranties and limitations of liabilities, he said. Airlines usually are hesitant to file lawsuits against manufacturers, particularly because Boeing is one of only two major jet makers in the world, along with Airbus, Dombroff said. Does the airline want to get into a public dispute with the manufacturer whose airplanes theyre flying? he said. How does that impact the future relationship between the manufacturer and the airline? Southwest Airlines has 34 737 Max jets, the most of any U.S. airline, and said it would not disclose the specifics of its Boeing contracts. As you would expect, we are in constant contact with Boeing following the Ethiopian Air accident and subsequent 737 Max 8 grounding, said Chris Mainz, a Southwest spokesman. We are Boeings largest customer of the 737, and we have a long history of working together with Boeing, and this is no different, he said. But we wont be reporting out on the details of those ongoing conversations. Boeings bigger legal liability worries come from the fatal crashes. Families of the crash victims can seek compensation from the airlines and the manufacturer of the jets. Complex international rules govern where lawsuits against airlines can be filed. Under an international treaty, damages from airlines for the families of victims of crashes of international flights are capped at about $170,000. Airlines often resolve such lawsuits with passengers, then seek compensation from the manufacturer if the crash involves equipment failures and not pilot error, Dombroff said. But there is no cap on damages in lawsuits from passengers against a jet maker. And theres an advantage for foreign passengers to file those lawsuits in the U.S., where courts are more likely to award significant damages, Dombroff said. Lawsuits against Boeing by U.S. victims of the crashes would have to be tried here. But Boeing is likely to push to have lawsuits by victims from other countries adjudicated in the nation where the airline resides, Dombroff said. Several lawsuits already have been filed in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois by families or the estates of crash victims. Boeings corporate headquarters are there, and the court has a reputation for being friendly to plaintiffs, Dombroff said. Boeings lawyers have used a legal right to move some of those cases to the federal U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, court records show. Companies involved in air crashes and other disasters usually are eager to settle wrongful-death lawsuits to get the incident and negative publicity behind them, Rabin said. There would be strong incentives, I think, for Boeing to enter into settlements of the wrongful-death cases, he said. FAA employees warned as early as seven years ago that Boeing Co. had too much sway over safety approvals of new aircraft, prompting an investigation by Department of Transportation auditors who confirmed the agency hadnt done enough to hold Boeing accountable. The 2012 investigation also found that discord over Boeings treatment had created a negative work environment among Federal Aviation Administration employees who approve new and modified aircraft designs, with many of them saying theyd faced retaliation for speaking up. Their concerns predated the 737 Max development. On Sunday night, a person familiar with the 737 Max said the Transportation Departments inspector general was examining the planes design certification before the second of two deadly crashes of the almost brand-new aircraft. Earlier Sunday, Ethiopias transport minister said flight-data recorders show clear similarities between the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 last October. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg and FAA officials on Sunday were forced to defend the quality testing of the new aircraft after a Seattle Times investigation found that the U.S. regulator delegated much of the safety assessment to Boeing and that the planemaker, in turn, delivered an analysis with crucial flaws. Advertisement In recent years, the FAA has shifted more authority over the approval of new aircraft to the manufacturer itself, even allowing Boeing to choose many of the personnel who oversee tests and vouch for safety. Just in the last few months, Congress expanded the outsourcing arrangement even further. It raises for me the question of whether the agency is properly funded, properly staffed and whether there has been enough independent oversight, said Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001 and is now an aviation-safety consultant. Outsourcing safety At least a portion of the flight-control software suspected in the 737 Max crashes was certified by one or more Boeing employees who worked in the outsourcing arrangement, according to one person familiar with the work who wasnt authorized to speak about the matter. The Wall Street Journal first reported the inspector generals latest inquiry Sunday night. Both Boeing and the Transportation Department declined to comment about that inquiry. In a statement Sunday, the agency said its aircraft certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs, adding that the 737 Max certification program followed the FAAs standard certification process. The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed minutes after it took off from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board. The accident prompted most of the world to ground Boeings 737 Max 8 aircraft on safety concerns, coming on the heels of the October crash of a Max 8 operated by Indonesias Lion Air that killed 189 people. Much of the attention focused on a flight-control system that can automatically push a plane into a catastrophic nose dive if it malfunctions and pilots dont react properly. In one of the most detailed descriptions yet of the relationship between Boeing and the FAA during the 737 Maxs certification, the Seattle Times quoted unnamed engineers who said the planemaker had understated the power of the flight-control software in a System Safety Analysis submitted to the FAA. The newspaper said the analysis also failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded -- in essence, gradually ratcheting the horizontal stabilizer into a dive position. Software fix Boeing told the newspaper in a statement that the FAA had reviewed the companys data and concluded the aircraft met all certification and regulatory requirements. The company, which is based in Chicago but designs and builds commercial jets in the Seattle area, said there are some significant mischaracterizations in the engineers comments. In a separate statement Sunday, Muilenburg reiterated the companys sympathies for the affected families and support for the investigation into the flight-control system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. While investigators continue to work to establish definitive conclusions, Boeing is finalizing its development of a previously announced software update and pilot training revision that will address the MCAS flight-control laws behavior in response to erroneous sensor inputs, Muilenburg said. The newspaper also quoted unnamed FAA technical experts who said managers prodded them to speed up the certification process as development of the Max was nine months behind that of rival Airbus SEs A320neo. The FAA has let technical experts at aircraft makers act as its representatives to perform certain tests and approve some parts for decades. The FAA expanded the scope of that program in 2005 to address concerns about adequately keeping pace with its workload. Known as Organization Designation Authorization, or ODA, it let Boeing and other manufacturers choose the employees who approve design work on the agencys behalf. Previously, the FAA approved each appointment. Under the new approach, which was fully implemented in 2009, the ODA representatives are still under U.S. legal requirements and the FAA has the authority to oversee them and request that their management be changed. Anonymous faxes In 2012, a special investigator of the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Transportation sent a memo to the FAAs audit chief warning him of concerns voiced by agency employees about the new process. Some allegations were made in anonymous faxes sent to the inspector generals office, and the office followed up by interviewing employees in the FAAs Transport Airplane Directorate. Our investigation substantiated employee allegations that TAD and FAA headquarters managers have not always supported TAD employee efforts to hold Boeing accountable and this has created a negative atmosphere within the TAD, according to the June 22, 2012, report sent to the FAA. (The memo was made available later in a public records request and appears now on a website operated by governmentattic.org, which warehouses government documents. A spokesman for the inspector generals office confirmed its authenticity.) The employees told the investigators that managers had overturned a recommendation by staff to remove the administrator Boeing had chosen for the program and had not adequately addressed employees concerns about potential conflicts of interest, the memo said. The employees, it said, viewed this as evidence of management having too close a relationship with Boeing officials. Despite those concerns, as well as others raised in a subsequent report by the inspector general, Congress has embraced the program as a way to improve the FAAs efficiency. President Trump signed into law a change on Oct. 5. It allows manufacturers to request that the FAA eliminate limitations on how company representatives certify low- and medium-risk items, giving them even more authority over their own products. The agency doesnt have the budget to do every test, and the use of designees is absolutely necessary, said Steve Wallace, the former head of accident investigations at the FAA. For the most part, it works extremely well. There is a very high degree of integrity in the system. Dreamliner fires But the program was also at issue in the FAAs 2013 grounding of Boeings 787 Dreamliner after two fires of battery packs. Boeings designated engineering representatives oversaw tests of the battery packs. A 2015 report by the Department of Transportations inspector general, requested by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, found the FAA lacked an effective staffing model and risk-based oversight process over the ODA program. DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, now heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and has said he will conduct a rigorous investigation to make sure the FAA is protecting safety. Hall, the former NTSB chairman, said the agencys move to shift power to the manufacturers contributed to the unusual situation in which two of Boeings newly introduced aircraft were grounded in a period of six years. Before the Dreamliner, the FAA hadnt grounded a model since 1979. When I was chairman of the NTSB, my single most important job was who we hired, Hall said. Do we have in the federal government the level of funding and expertise we need? Are we attracting the kind of young, smart minds that continue to uphold our reputation in the aviation area? As the investigation continues, mourners marched in the hundreds past the Library of Parliament in Addis Ababa to Selassie cathedral for a funeral service Sunday, wearing black or the sea-green uniforms of Ethiopian Airlines and carrying photos of the dead. After a priest read the victims names aloud, people carried empty coffins from the cathedral to a graveyard. All that was heard was sobbing, wailing and chanting. Fourteen years ago, Kim Dingle was worried that she had lost her touch. She had good reason to. Having turned her Eagle Rock painting studio into Fattys & Co. restaurant, she spent just about every minute running it with her partner, Aude Charles. Both were novices to the food service industry. Needless to say, Dingle had little time to pick up a paintbrush. So she bought a stack of vellum sheets, each the size of a sketchbook page, and set out to make one little painting at a time, hoping to work her way, like an athlete, back to the top of her game. Within 10 minutes, that plan had gone out the window. Dingle discovered she hadnt lost her touch. Even better, she realized that her break from painting had renewed her love of dipping a bristle-tipped stick in gooey pigment and smearing it across flat surfaces. That love was accompanied by confidence and joy, embodied in whiplash gestures whose verve and nuance were intensified by the keen-eyed compositions into which Dingle wrestled them. She covered hundreds of vellum sheets with her loose-gestured pictures, painting swarms of ferocious little girls wreaking havoc in their Sunday best guzzling wine, playing with their food, tipping over tables and burying their faces in frosting-covered cakes. Damn-the-consequences mayhem never looked better. Nor was more infectious. Advertisement No I.D. by Kim Dingle, 2007. Oil on mylar, 72 by 96 inches (Jeff McLane / Kim Dingle and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) Dingle then shipped half of the vellum sheets to New York, where they were exhibited at Sperone Westwater gallery in Studies for the Last Supper at Fattys. She stashed the rest away in pizza boxes. With a restaurant to run, Dingle forgot about them. Last year, she rediscovered her stash while cleaning out a back room. It wasnt exactly Marie Kondos version of decluttering, but it will spark joy for visitors to I Will Be Your Server: The Lost Supper Paintings at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects in Culver City. Dingles rollicking, four-gallery extravaganza includes 12 multi-panel paintings on vellum and nine large paintings on canvas (made between 2005 and 2007) plus five wine bottles (2013) on which she has painted miniature little girls, all running amok. And Cake by Kim Dingle, 2007. Oil on canvas 73.5 by 61.5 by 1.5 inches (Jeff McLane / Kim Dingle and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) Dingle tells truths about childhood while pulling the rug out from established ideas about femininity, race relations in the United States and arts place at the table. Violence, pleasure and morality figure prominently in Dingles contemporary parable about the power of real innocence and how it gets channeled and corrupted by grown-ups. A 40-panel painting, which measures more than 6 feet tall and 40 feet long, anchors the first gallery. Studies for the Last Supper at Fattys (Wine Bar for Children II) recalls Da Vincis famous painting, except that Dingles depicts 10 plump girls bellied up to a bar, their white-pantied backsides facing viewers. Dingles unsupervised girls get into more mischief in other works on vellum. They behave like frat guys in Forced Riesling, like anonymous fans at sporting events or political rallies in No I.D., like angry adolescents in Table Tipping, like entitled adults in Watermelon Martini and like overworked laborers in The Lost Supper (janitorials). The Lost Supper (janitorials) by Kim Dingle, 2006, 72 by 72 inches (Jeff McLane / Kim Dingle and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) The paint handling in Dingles oils on canvas is less reckless, slower and steadier. It makes for paintings that feel fleshier and less frenetic, as if they took place the morning after the party. Time doesnt stand still in Dingles sensuous paintings so much as it whirlpools into an ever-tightening and ever-expanding vortex. Simultaneously inescapable and irresistible, her exhibition makes room for ambivalence. Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, 6006 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Tuesdays-Saturdays, through April 13. (310) 837-2117, www.vielmetter.com. The Lost Supper (general maintenance) by Kim Dingle, 2006. Oil on mylar, 90 by 72 inches (Jeff McLane / Kim Dingle and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) Support our coverage of local artists and the local arts scene by becoming a digital subscriber. See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts. The debate over a school mural in Koreatown has pitted community members who called the work racist against anti-censorship artists and free-speech advocates. Now a new and surprising voice has entered the fray: a coalition of artists, curators and local museum staffers advocating for the mural to be removed or substantially altered. The mural by Beau Stanton at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex depicts the face of Ava Gardner, who frequented the Cocoanut Grove nightclub that once stood on the Wilshire Boulevard site. But the orange-red and blue rays fanned out around her face, critics said, evoke the World War II-era imperial Japanese battle flag. The imagery is offensive to some Koreans and Korean Americans who live or work nearby, critics have said. The Los Angeles Unified School District agreed in early December to erase the mural. The school district then reversed its position after fierce pushback from artists, arts advocates and others, such as the National Coalition Against Censorship, citing the importance of freedom of speech, particularly on a school campus named for the champion of social justice who was murdered at the site in 1968. LAUSD officials said they would explore potential solutions, but no action has been taken. Now a group of art-world professionals organized under the name Gyopo (loosely meaning Korean diaspora) is resurrecting the issue and calling for the mural to be removed or substantially altered. Gyopo has sent a letter to LAUSD local district superintendent Roberto Martinez and board President Monica Garcia imploring that they take fast action and adding that silence from the school board has been troubling. The artwork, Gyopo said, distresses locals and triggers memories of atrocities committed against Koreans and others by Japanese forces during the war. Advertisement Symbols can hold trauma and imagery can hold trauma, artist and Gyopo member Jennifer Moon said in an interview. Other Gyopo members include Nancy Lee, senior manager of public relations at the Hammer Museum, and Christine Y. Kim, associate curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and co-founder of Gyopo though both Lee and Kim emphasized they were not participating on behalf of their employers. They downplayed any potential contradiction between their roles as art professionals who defend freedom of speech and artistic expression and their personal roles advocating for cultural sensitivity in this particular case. We dont want the conversation to be over just because the news coverage is over, Lee said. Its been really quiet for a while, as if were being swept under the rug, this voiceless or small or less powerful community. We want to make sure the discussion comes back, that its top of mind. The school district said its close to a decision. We appreciate the comments we have received from the community regarding the RFK mural project, a district spokesperson said via email. Over the past few weeks, we have been involved in a number of informative discussions. We hope to make a decision in the near future. In its letter, Gyopo acknowledged that Stanton didnt purposefully evoke the Japanese battle flag or intend to upset the local community. Nonetheless, Gyopo is troubled by the lack of community involvement in the murals selection process, the murals imagery itself and its memorialization of a whites-only club, and the ways in which the media has directed these narratives. The latter how the mural debate has been framed and by whom is of particular importance to Gyopo. Until now, the conversation has been polarized and oversimplified, Kim said, but its actually far more nuanced. Its been framed as censorship versus artistic integrity in the press and, Id imagine, in certain discussions and its a matter of reframing with greater sensitivity, Kim said. Its a framing that may grab headlines or attention, but it dismisses cultural and individual pain and trauma thats very real thats elicited from an artwork thats displayed in a very public manner, in a place where there are thousands of students, young people and community members who see it every day. Beau Stantons mural on the RFK Community Schools campus. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) Gyopo especially takes issue with people who arent of Korean descent who have said the mural doesnt resemble the battle flag or isnt offensive, including artist Shepard Fairey and Times art critic Christopher Knight. They cant fully understand the perspective of those offended by the work, Gyopo members said, although in a column on the subject Knight wrote that he is quite aware of the pain caused by the Imperial Japanese Army: Knights husbands family in the Philippines lost its home and business when the empire attacked Manila, and one family member barely survived the notorious Bataan Death March. The issue, Moon said, is someone comes in whos not from this history and says thats not traumatic and people listen. And to me, that replicates a system where white men, historically, their voices are seen as authority. And historically, I think Asian voices are not heard, theres this silence or invisibility that happens. Whether the mural does or doesnt resemble the Japanese imperial flag is of secondary importance, Kim said. The fact is that its upsetting and hurtful for individuals who see it. The letter to LAUSD officials comes from Gyopos 11-person steering committee and other community members and includes artist and UC Irvine professor emerita Yong Soon Min and Various Small Fires gallery owner Esther Varet Kim, who also say theyre acting as independent Angelenos, not on behalf of their arts organizations. Other petitioners include Korea Arts Foundation of America board member Ellie Lee; Southern California Institute of Architecture faculty member Kavior Moon; artist Gala Porras-Kim; Eric Kim, co-founder of the nonprofit arts space Human Resources Los Angeles; and Kibum Kim, associate director and head of art business at Sothebys Institute of Art Los Angeles. As a contemporary art curator Im completely supportive of diverse artistic voices and practices, Christine Y. Kim said. And I am not demanding that Beau Stantons mural be censored. As a private citizen who happens to be Korean American, however, I understand the cultural trauma and pain that this mural has elicited. Its a very fine line to walk and a complex issue thats important for me to consider on both levels. The Hammers Lee said she didnt feel any tension here between the defense of artistic expression, the call for cultural sensitivity and the suggestion that the mural be removed or altered. I think all artists would want to work with people with integrity and thats how we think were behaving right now with integrity to our community. Stanton said theres no connection between his RFK work and the Japanese battle flag, which features 32 rays around a red circle whereas his RFK work has 44 rays in red-orange and blue. He has used the sun-ray motif in murals in Miami, Nashville and Jersey City, N.J., as well as in Europe. Its a fairly ubiquitous, universal pattern and I dont use it in a way thats meant to reference those painful memories, he said. Shepard Faireys portrait of Robert F. Kennedy, on the exterior of the school library, on the RFK Community School campus. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The mural was part of a larger 2016 project in which LAUSD and the L.A. firm Branded Arts put up 28 outdoor works around the RFK community schools campus. Stanton and the other artists, including Fairey, painted the works for free. In December Fairey came to Stantons defense, threatening to whitewash his portrait of Robert F. Kennedy on the school library if the school district were to remove Stantons work. Allison Torneros, a Filipino artist who goes by the name Hueman, and David Torres, who is of Puerto Rican-Jewish descent and half the art duo Cyrcle, were also part of the RFK mural project. Both came to Stantons defense. As a Filipino American because Filipinos went through a similar thing with the Japanese during World War II its definitely something I can relate to in terms of history and my culture, Torneros said. But I dont think this is about that. Its about censorship. If were just going around making rash decisions about art, because certain people are deciphering it a certain way, I think thats irresponsible. Because anything can be misinterpreted, and then what art will we have left? The call to remove or alter the Stanton mural is not censorship but rather a request to look at these systemic issues of power and for a conversation about, and an acknowledgement of, trauma, Moon said. Its a more intersectional conversation: Whats the race, class, gender or sexuality of the artist, of those affected by the art, of the authoritative voice guiding the discussion? Gyopo suggested that Stanton could paint a new mural, or RFK students and staff could paint a replacement mural in conjunction with the community. If we can figure out a compromise Im happy to hear it, Stanton said. But Id emphasize that it should come from within, rather than being imposed from the outside. It should not be my choice or some outside groups but the school stakeholders the children, teachers, principals, administrators. I created the mural for them. Stanton said hed be willing to change the red-orange stripes to yellow. The act of compromise might even be a learning experience for children, he said. Especially in todays politics, no one wants to compromise because everyones so entrenched in their views, he said. And compromise here, maybe thats a good thing. Compromise is welcome and invited, Kim said. As is discussion. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on the proposal. However, ICE is looking to contract with a detention center and recently posted a request for one within an 80-mile radius of Chicagos immigration court, according to a website with information about federal contracts. The federal agency is seeking a facility that can house 1,000 people in various levels of security and that could facilitate travel to and from cities like Milwaukee and Indianapolis. No matter how much ink has been spilled about the new Tartine, Rye Goods Co., a tiny bakery project in Orange County, is a quintessential 2019 bakery. It operates out of a 400-square-foot converted garage on a quiet Tustin residential street and is run by Sara Lezama, a culinary school grad who wanted to more than just bake cupcakes. Instead she got a Cottage Food Operation permit, installed three convection ovens in the garage behind her house, hired a small team and started her own organic bakery. True to the times, Lezama first brought Rye Goods products to the public in the form of a food truck, parking in front of neighborhood coffee shops, where her menu of whole-grain loaves, cookies and croissants paired well with the morning coffee crowd. But Lezama didnt much like the truck thing everybody just wanted cinnamon rolls and so after a year she closed the truck and instead sold her bread and pastries directly to the coffee shops shed previously parked outside. At Rye Goods bakery, bakers make breads and pastries using an all-rye sourdough starter. (Rye Goods) Advertisement A Long Beach baker has turned his living room into a popular neighborhood bakery Under spinning ceiling fans, Lezama and her crew of seven start baking at 1 a.m. in order to deliver finished baked goods in time for the coffee shops to open. Our neighbors are very supportive, said Lezama on a recent morning at the bakery. At 2 and 3 in the morning, it smells like cinnamon outside. Rye Goods makes croissants, bagels, carrot cakes, hand pies and bread all of that bread is baked in the 16 Lodge cast-iron Dutch ovens that, when not in use, are stacked by the ovens like bowler hats in a haberdashery. Theres a wholesale business, an online shop and a home delivery service. Rye Goods also does a weekly Sunday morning bread pop-up at Daydream Surf Shop in Newport Beach, which often sells out in an hour. Lezama grew up in Orange (Ive been a baker since I was a little kid; I was fascinated by ovens and knobs) and attended the now-closed Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena in the mid-2000s. I hated it, she says of her time in culinary school. After graduating, she quickly found that anybody who was hiring just wanted cupcakes, and that made me angrier. So Lezama honed her skills at hotels and bakeries for a few years until she could open her own bakery. While searching for whole grains to bake with, she met Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms in Tehachapi, and got hooked on his Abruzzi rye so much so that she named her bakery after it. Although she uses other flours than just rye, its rye that goes into her tart dough, the chocolate chip cookies (made with 100% rye flour), banana bread, the loaves of farmhouse rye and the sourdough starter that powers most of the breads and pastries. Its the fussiest of starters, Lezama says of the all-rye mixture that bubbles away in a Cambro on the production table. Rye Goods now has a working relationship with the Tehachapi Heritage Grain Project: Lezama and her crew closed the bakery last year to go help Weiser and his team plant grain, and she recently brought a grain mill to the farm so that they can mill flour on site. (The bakery currently mills much of its own flour, about 25 pounds a day, in a small KoMo grain mill at the bakery.) If all this sounds like a bit much to jigsaw into a space the size of a storage locker, it wont come as a surprise that Lezama is working on moving Rye Goods into a larger space. Shes currently building out a bakery, retail shop and classroom in a Newport Beach location that she hopes to have open by the end of the year. The new bakery will house a classroom where Lezama can teach baking classes (she currently teaches classes at the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano) and a large production kitchen. Until it is ready, Lezama and her bakers have been experimenting with brioche and focaccia recipes, and have been making a lot of sourdough pizzas and grilled cheese sandwiches. We just eat them, Lezama says of the pizza and grilled cheese, the product of extra bread and bread dough. She paused and allowed that with more space at the new bakery, she might put that stuff on the menu too. ryegoods.com; squareup.com/store/ryegoods; Instagram: @ryegoods | Daydream Surf Shop, 1588 Monrovia Ave., Newport Beach; (949) 612-7175; daydreamsurfshop.com. amy.scattergood@latimes.com Instagram: @AScattergood Dr. Dana Corriel wrote on Facebook in September that the flu vaccine had arrived and encouraged patients to come to her office for a shot. Within hours, the post was flooded with thousands of comments from people opposed to vaccines. Corriel initially decided to allow the postings to continue, hoping to use the moment to educate people about the importance of immunizations. But then she began to feel threatened. People she had never treated gave her one-star ratings online. Commenters called her a pharma vaccine whore and a child killer, according to screenshots shared with The Times. Someone looked up her office address in New York City and mailed her an anti-vaccine book. That was a little too close to home, said Corriel, an internal medicine physician. I held out for a few days, but I couldnt take the attention and all the craziness and I deleted the post. Advertisement As measles cases pop up across the United States, public health advocates have blamed social media for allowing misinformation to take root and swiftly spread. But the platforms also facilitate far more antagonistic behavior, with doctors facing online harassment and even coordinated attacks for promoting vaccines. Since late 2017, there have been more than 50 of these online campaigns against health providers who promote vaccines, some of which have led to threats of harm that prompted calls to the police, said Chad Hermann, communications director for Kids Plus Pediatrics, a Pittsburgh practice that faced one of these online attacks in 2017 and then began tracking them. Teaching physicians how to combat tactics that could otherwise scare them into silence is increasingly important as millennials become parents and turn to the internet to make decisions about whether to vaccinate their children, Hermann said. For the first time, the World Health Organization has named vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 global health threats. Hermann and his colleagues have lectured about their experiences weathering these attacks, and have developed a campaign to encourage doctors not to shy away from the internet. When pediatric practices are being terrorized into silence, its going to create a void in the discourse, Hermann said. And we all know whos going to fill that: the anti-vax folks. Corriel took a few weeks off from posting about vaccinations, unsettled by the backlash. But on Halloween, a month after her viral post, she shared a photo on Facebook. In it, she is flexing, with a Band-Aid on her arm, showing off her flu shot. That time, hateful comments did not appear perhaps because the post had not been shared in anti-vaccine Facebook groups, some of which have tens of thousands of members. In August 2017, Hermann posted a video on the Kids Plus Pediatrics Facebook page that touted the benefits of the vaccine that protects against the sexually transmitted disease HPV, which can cause cancer. For three weeks, the comments on the video were all positive, he said. Then the video was shared in a closed Facebook group called Vaccine Choices Fact VS Fiction, which has nearly 42,000 members. Over the next six days, he said, the video drew more than 10,000 anti-vaccine comments. Negative reviews dropped the practices Google rating from 4.6 to less than one star, Hermann said. Were in WW3, said one anti-vaccine commenter, likening the immunization debate to a world war. The militaries around the world need to get together and stop this insanity. Hermann said most of the commenters didnt live in Pennsylvania, and some didnt even live in the United States. The biggest concentrations were from California, the Florida Panhandle, Ohio, Texas and Oregon, Hermann said. Theyre coordinating attacks and sending the troops, Hermann said. People who run these groups say they arent responsible for anti-vaccine campaigns. Larry Cook told The Times that his group, the 159,000-member Stop Mandatory Vaccinations, is a forum for discussion about immunizations. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopathic physician in Ohio who runs Vaccine Choices, said she does not encourage members to engage in social media harassment schemes. Vaccination has become a volatile topic and personal, retaliatory words and actions serve no one on either side, she said in a statement emailed to The Times. Dr. Todd Wolynn does a routine checkup on Millie Rothstein, 11, at his office in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen / For The Times) Since their HPV video was flooded with comments, Hermann and Dr. Todd Wolynn, the pediatrician he works for, have spoken at conferences trying to encourage doctors to not back down. (Wolynn does vaccine research with the Merck and Sanofi pharmaceutical companies.) They are working on a pro bono project to help physicians called Shots Heard Round the World, which includes tips on how to ban commenters, disable Facebook ratings and call in reinforcements people who will post pro-vaccine information. These harmful social media campaigns can be overwhelming for small practices to handle alone, Wolynn said. More than half the doctors he informally surveyed at a recent medical conference run their own social media pages. They just dont have the bandwidth or the resources to deal with it, and its quite frightening, he said. Many practices online ratings have dropped because of spam reviews. Yelp quickly deleted Kids Plus fraudulent reviews, but it took more than a year for Google to do the same, Wolynn said. Still, Wolynn and Hermann are undeterred. Earlier this month was HPV Awareness Day, and on Twitter, Hermann reposted the HPV video, the one that had sparked so much hate. Already, the resistance to vaccines has had significant health effects nationwide. As of last week, 228 people had been diagnosed with measles this year in the U.S, with outbreaks in Washington, Oregon and New York, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2000, the U.S. declared measles eradicated. But it is highly contagious and one of the first diseases to come back when vaccination rates drop, experts say. Elias Kass, a Seattle naturopathic physician, watched his online ratings plummet last month after he spoke at a state Senate committee hearing in favor of vaccinations. Commenters called him a fraud and a Nazi pharma shill, according to screenshots he shared with The Times. His Google rating fell because of fraudulent one-star reviews, not all of which Google has deleted, he said. Google spokeswoman Liz Davidoff said in a statement that the company removes reviews that violate our policies. The online furor on Kass page died down within a week, but he said he feels hesitant to talk about vaccines on Facebook for fear of engendering a similar response. The volume of it was really overwhelming and just emotionally challenging. It just feels torrential, Kass said. Facebook announced earlier this month that it will lower the ranking of posts that promote vaccine misinformation, and reject anti-vaccine advertisements. Pinterest decided to block all search results related to vaccines, whether or not they are medically accurate. But doctors hoping to engage directly with patients face a particular challenge. Highly charged vaccination foes can often drown out physicians in what amounts to an online shouting match, experts say. Dr. Kristen Stuppy, a Kansas pediatrician, blocked anti-vaccine commenters after they swarmed a pro-vaccine post she wrote last year. Now she chooses not to engage with them at all online, she said, believing she cant use logic to overcome their fears. Fear is so much stronger than facts, Stuppy said. Even when all the facts are there, people dont hear the facts, they feel the feelings. Those feelings are often what drive people to harass physicians who speak out about vaccines, said Dr. Paul Offit, a Philadelphia pediatrician who has written books tackling vaccine misinformation. He said he has weathered online and real-life harassment for decades, including the time a man called his clinic and said he knew the names of his children and the elementary school they attended. But he said he feels hopeful that vaccine sentiment is turning in the right direction a notion driven in part by the recent measles outbreaks showing parents how bad the actual disease is. Nothing educates like the virus, Offit said. Nothing educates like outbreaks. soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com Twitter: @skarlamangla If youve ever been to a Cambodian-owned doughnut shop, fried chicken restaurant or jewelry store, theres a good chance it was financed by a tontine. In Cambodia, tontine is the name given to a rotating savings and credit association, or ROSCA, an ancient practice that has different versions all over the world. The general concept is that by contributing to a monthly pool that pays a lump sum to a single member, people can make and receive loans as well as earn interest on savings. The lending circles are especially prevalent in the Cambodian community, where many people dont use banks because of language barriers and a distrust of institutions caused by genocide and economic instability in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. In Los Angeles, diverse neighborhoods probably wouldnt exist today without ROSCAs, which are most often run by women. When banks wouldnt lend to minorities, the kye helped Koreatown business owners cluster in central Los Angeles. The hui helped finance Chinatown, and tanomoshis helped start some of Little Tokyos early businesses. Advertisement There are also Latino tandas or cundinas, Filipino paluwagans and Ethiopian ekubs, and in South Los Angeles, family investment teams were formed after the L.A. riots to help black people buy property. ROSCAs are called tontines in Cambodia, Cameroon and Nigeria because of French colonization, but in Europe the term tontine refers to a different financial instrument created by exiled Italian banker Lorenzo de Tonti, who advised the French crown to use it to finance the Thirty Years War. In Tontis tontine, investors make annual payments to a pool. As members die, their shares are reallocated to the survivors until there is only one investor left. In Cambodian tontines, the verb for leaving the group translates literally as to die, says Occidental College professor Sophal Ear. Tontis tontine is actually illegal in the U.S. The practice was outlawed in the early 1900s after abuses were discovered at insurance companies, prompting a New York judge to call it a death gamble. Tontines were sometimes called dead pools, a term you might know as the title of a Clint Eastwood film or the name of a Marvel superhero played by Ryan Reynolds, depending on when you were born. In Long Beach, where more than 50,000 Cambodian Americans make their home, tontines are especially popular because there is no Cambodian American bank. Even in Cambodia, just 5% of people rely on traditional banks to manage their money, according to a 2015 survey, while 12% exclusively use informal tools like tontines. Tontines help people pay rent, afford homes, start businesses and, for those like Lynn Hong, 25, ease the burden of student debt. Each month the Cal State Long Beach student contributes a few hundred dollars to the pool and receives small interest payments from other tontine members. In 2021, when she graduates, she hopes to have enough to help her pay off her debts and jump-start her career as a social worker. Its like gambling, but it teaches you about saving. Its another way to rebuild relationships within families and friends, Hong said. RELATED: This new California law is supposed to protect immigrant home cooks. It may help tech giants instead In Los Angeles, home to one of the highest unbanked populations of any metropolis, the popularity of ROSCAs is both a product of discrimination and a tool to fight it. Broadway Federal Bank, the largest black bank west of the Mississippi, was founded in 1967 to help black people combat discriminatory lending and housing practices. Chief Executive Wayne-Kent A. Bradshaw says minority deposit institutions and ROSCAs function on a similar principle: investing in the community. Bradshaws mother also participates in a Jamaican ROSCA, known simply as a partner. Its based on the very powerful cement of social relationships, where if you break the circle, youd be giving up your membership in that community, Bradshaw said. Nowadays the banks portfolio has broadened to include all low-income and minority communities, Bradshaw said. About 90% of its loans are focused on creating more low- and moderate-income housing by financing so-called Class C apartment buildings, Bradshaw said. Its a reflection of the fact that explicit housing discrimination has given way to gentrification and a speculative housing market whose negative effects disproportionately fall on minority communities. At Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco nonprofit in the rapidly gentrifying Mission District, Jose Quinonez is trying to turn ROSCAs into a tool to support communities financial health and fight gentrification. His fund ensures and documents ROSCAs so that payments can help build the participants credit scores. Quinonez observed immigrants paying their tanda debts first, even before covering costs such as rent and and groceries. By partnering with ROSCAs and asking participants to sign promissory notes, Mission Asset Fund turned existing healthy financial habits into better credit scores. The average participant raised his or her credit score by 168 points. We have this notion that poor people or immigrants are poor because of their own fault, that theyre not saving or budgeting right, said Quinonez, who was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship grant for his work in 2016. But this proves that poor people pay their loans back. The Mission Asset Fund has provided more than 10,000 no-interest loans to more than 68,000 participants. Despite lending to people who are traditionally seen as high risk, the fund has just 0.7% of its borrowers default. The fund is partnering with nonprofits across the U.S. to expand the program, including six groups in Los Angeles. ROSCAs are more popular among older immigrants; its unusual for younger people like Hong to participate. She has a savings account and a 401(k), so shes no stranger to the mainstream financial system. But she says tontines help Cambodians learn to trust one another, and thats something a community with many former refugees and genocide survivors really needs. Its a risk, but its a risk that we are taking together, Hong said. Its a powerful idea no matter who you are or what is happening in the news. Tontines, ROSCAs and minority banks are gestures of faith and trust in a community, a reminder that sometimes our biggest strength is in one another. ALSO Finding Chinese food, and home, in Nashville, Tennessee Crazy Rich Asians didnt tell all of our stories, but Asian Americans found a way to relate At a storied Chinatown bakery, four generations labor to learn lessons of family These boxes are a billion-dollar industry of homesickness for Filipinos overseas frank.shyong@latimes.com Twitter: @frankshyong For nearly half a century, plans to link trains and buses in Atlanta, the bustling hub of the Deep South, to its sprawling northern suburbs went nowhere. In 1971, and then again in 1990, residents of Gwinnett County, long a majority-white area northeast of Atlanta, voted overwhelmingly against joining the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. In a deeply segregated metro region, many suburbanites expressed fears that public transit would bring inner-city residents and violent crime out to the suburbs. That place has a reputation for murder and rape, one Gwinnett man said at a packed 1990 public meeting, the Atlanta Constitution reported at the time. The wrong people. We dont need em, we dont want em. Gwinnett is no longer a white, rural outpost. Since the referendum nearly three decades ago, its population has ballooned from about 350,000 to 920,000 and the proportion of white residents has plummeted from 89% to 37%. Advertisement But even now that Gwinnett is majority minority, and a new referendum will be held Tuesday on whether to connect with MARTA and fund new heavy rail and rapid bus lines, it is not certain that a new generation of young, black, Latino and Asian residents will vote to connect. Attitudes to public transit have changed but not necessarily as swiftly as the countys population and demographics. While minority residents, in general, lean toward linking up with MARTA and paying an extra 1% in sales taxes for public transit, they are less likely to come out and vote in a special election. And polling shows that a good chunk more than a third of blacks and a majority of Latinos and Asians are opposed or on the fence. I dont want to be paying taxes for something that 10 years from now hasnt taken effect, said Jamell Cottrell, a black, 50-something program manager who lives in Lawrenceville, a city about 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Gwinnett resident Heather Croall asks questions about the proposed public transit plan during an open house in Lawrenceville, Ga. (Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times) Cottrell, who moved to Gwinnett 13 years ago from Long Beach, Calif., understands the Atlanta areas traffic is bad. But she worries the project will take too long for her to benefit from the extra taxes she would pay. She is also not sure she wants her community to be more connected with Atlanta and the rest of the metro region. I love living in the suburbs, away from the bustle of the city, away from the crowds and buses and trains, she said. I prefer not to be in the city. If the referendum is approved, Gwinnett would link up with MARTA and three other Atlanta metro counties, committing residents and visitors to the county to paying an extra 1% on their sales tax until 2057 to cover the cost of adding 4.5 miles of high-speed electric rail, introducing new rapid bus transit routes with dedicated lanes, and tripling the number of local bus routes. A recent survey of 1,000 likely Gwinnett voters conducted by WSB, an ABC-affiliated television station, found that just more than half opposed the plan and 39% were in favor. The remaining 10% were undecided. About 62% of whites and 57% of Latinos and Asians were opposed, while 62% of African Americans supported it. Opposition increased with age, with 45% of 18- to 39-year-olds against compared to 54% of residents 65 and over against. We cannot assume that just because someone is young or a minority, they support public transit, said Fredrick Hicks, campaign manager for the transit referendum campaign of the New Georgia Project Action Fund, an advocacy arm of the nonprofit group formed by 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to register new voters. Initially, the fund set out to knock on 100,000 doors of young and minority voters who had voted for Abrams. But during the first days of canvassing, Hicks said, campaigners were startled to find a substantial portion of their target audience was not on board with public transit. In fact, some minority voters were mouthing the same talking points as older, white Republicans, he said, telling canvassers they were not likely to use public transit or that empty buses would clog up the roads. Minorities who choose to live in Gwinnett often move there for lower taxes and for the same reason that others do: They dont want to be in the city, Hicks said. Still, a significant number of Gwinnett residents particularly those with grueling commutes consider public transit a no-brainer. Roads are already chock-full of cars, and the county is projected to be the regions most populous by 2040, with a population of 1.35 million. Too many people are coming here for us to be so behind on transit, said Chante Gosha, a 49-year-old district sales manager from Lawrenceville, as she exited an early voting polling station recently after voting yes. Gosha, who is black, said her job required her to crisscross the metro region and she was not likely to switch to public transit. But she hoped her commute would be smoother if others did. Over the last 20 years, she said, traffic had gotten steadily worse to the point that afternoon rush-hour traffic can start at 3 p.m and continue past 8 p.m. It can take two hours to get somewhere that should take 30 minutes, she said. If the referendum is approved, it would probably build momentum for public transit across the metro Atlanta region, nudging Cobb County, another traditionally conservative but increasingly diverse northern suburb, to link up with MARTA, too. A yes vote would be a real turning of the page, a clear sign that the older era of suburban secession has come to an end, said Kevin Kruse, a history professor at Princeton University and author of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. Historically, the metro Atlanta transport system was rooted in a stark and strident racism designed to keep people apart, Kruse said. After the white flight of the 1960s, when affluent whites fled urban areas as black neighbors moved in, the refusal of suburban communities to link up with MARTA essentially relegated the city to a bare-bones transportation system predominantly used by poor, working-class blacks. Some suburbanites dubbed it Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta. People moved to the suburbs to get away from the people and the problems of the city, and theyd be damned if they followed them out to the suburbs, Kruse said. They didnt want to be drawn back into the orbit of the city. Nearly three decades after the last referendum, some residents still look down on those who ride public transit. Danny Watson voted no on the referendum. (Jenny Jarvie / Los Angeles Times) We dont want more riffraff, said Danny Watson, 65, the white owner of a pest control company, as he headed to an early-voting polling station recently. Jeanetta Shepherd, 57, a white property manager who lives and works in Duluth, said she opposed the plan because she was unlikely to travel by bus or train and suspected the services would be used mostly by low-income residents and immigrants, who she referred to as illegals. Why should we pay for it? she asked. Why subsidize people who cant manage their money and save up a dime to buy a car? At the same time, a long list of Gwinnetts political and business leaders, including its chamber of commerce, supports expanded public transit largely on the basis that traffic congestion presents a threat to future economic development. All the other areas are looking to Gwinnett to see if were forward-thinking or not, said Ben Ku, a newly elected Democratic county commissioner who defeated a two-term Republican last year to become the commissions first-ever member of Asian descent. Some skeptical of the plan say MARTA has a history of poor management and cant be trusted to operate Gwinnetts transit system. Others point out that public transit ridership is down across metro Atlanta as gas prices have fallen and more people work from home or use Uber and Lyft. A railroad is 1800s technology, said Joe Newton, a retired law clerk who runs one of the few visible resistance campaigns the No MARTA in Gwinnett Facebook page. Its a colossal waste of money. The current plan would extend one existing MARTA rail line five miles at a capital cost of $250 million a mile more than 10 times more than rapid bus transit. Newton insists hes not racist or against public transit. He just doesnt trust MARTA or Gwinnetts leaders, and he thinks the plan should focus less on heavy rail. People think were prejudiced and ignorant, he said. Were not. We just want value for our money. Days before the election, Thao Le, a 20-year-old biology student at Georgia State University, was still weighing her options. Le already boards a MARTA train most days to get from her home in Norcross to downtown Atlanta. Right now, the line stops about five miles southwest of Norcross, but she was not sure about the prospect of it coming closer. While her experience of riding MARTA has been mostly positive, she said, she frequently encountered vagrants and panhandlers. Would they start to encroach on her familys quiet residential neighborhood? Its safe and nice, a typical suburban place, she said. We hope it would stay like that. Atlantas tough commute gets even tougher after the collapse of a freeway bridge The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider Virginias plea to reinstate the life-without-parole sentence of a man who as a teenager participated in sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington region in 2002. The justices said they will take up the states appeal in the case of Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 when he and John Allen Muhammad fatally shot 10 people in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Virginia and in Maryland, and Muhammad was sentenced to death and was executed in 2009. Malvo was sentenced to four life terms for crimes he committed in Virginia. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that while Malvos sentences were legal when they were imposed, Supreme Court decisions that followed altered sentencing requirements for juvenile offenders. The appeals court judges said a resentencing would determine whether Malvo qualifies as one of the rare juvenile offenders who can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole because his crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. They said if his crimes instead reflect the transient immaturity of youth hes entitled to a sentence short of life without parole. Advertisement The Supreme Court will review that decision. As is typical, the justices did not make any comment in agreeing to hear the case, which likely will be heard in the fall. Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, Malvo isnt getting out of prison anytime soon. He isnt getting a new sentencing hearing in Maryland, where he struck a plea deal and was sentenced to six terms of life without parole for shootings that took place in that state. A judge previously ruled that Malvo would not get new sentencing hearings in Maryland. Malvo has appealed. Malvo has been serving his sentences at Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Va. Malvo and his mentor Muhammad, who was 41, shot people as they pumped gas, loaded packages into their cars and went about their everyday business during a three-week period. The first time I heard about Pete Buttigieg the mayor of South Bend, Ind. was on Feb. 2. As I kvetched about the lackluster Democratic landscape, a Hoosier friend told me, Keep an eye on Pete Buttigieg. Pete who? My blind spot may have stemmed from still being zonked after covering the 2016 campaign (yes hi thats true) or having a dim view of mayors as presidential candidates (a sitting mayor hasnt received a major partys presidential nomination since 1812 and that guy lost). Then again, our current emperor-in-chief had never served in public office, so who knows what hits. Either way, as the weeks went on, I struggled to keep Buttigieg on my mental list of contenders. The national conversation was moving full speed: from Biden to Bernie, Booker to Beto, Kamala to Klobuchar, Warren to Schultz, and through the dozens of other potential or confirmed Trump challengers. Buttigieg, whos adopted the moniker Mayor Pete for facility (and because reporters keep bungling his last name), launched a 2020 exploratory committee on Jan. 23. But it took until this weekend for his campaign to fully break into the news cycle, as he qualified to participate in the early Democratic National Committee debates. (Faced with a sprawling field of presidential hopefuls, the DNC set terms for its first two debates this year: Candidates must either reach 1% in three of a particular set of polls or receive donations from 65,000 people in at least 20 states.) Advertisement Itll take some maneuvering for conservatives to write Buttigieg off as just another spendy Bolshevik snowflake. And why exactly does it put an actual spring in my step that a politician Ive barely followed got enough donations to show up to a 10-person debate? Is it because I learned everything there is to know about Mayor Pete in the last six seconds and am ready to lead his rhythmic clapping section? Absolutely not. But hes made a hopeful splash in a largely dull, demented or compromised field. Things were quite a snooze before Saturday, what with my dear Liz Warren fatally wounding herself in the DNA fiasco, Kamala Harris trying to be cool, Joe Biden mounting his third run (as I yowled about here), Amy Klobuchar throwing binders, and Howard Schultz metaphorically walking into walls while blindfolded. Bernie Sanders, whatever else might be said about him, is nearly 80. Beto ORourkes hot nerd charisma is wearing off fast. Water, water, everywhere, and no drops I want to be POTUS. If elected and I fully appreciate that were 20 months away from that if Buttigieg would become both the youngest and the first openly gay president in U.S. history. Buttigieg, now 37, has broken records before; when he took office as mayor of South Bend in 2012, he became the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with at least 100,000 residents. He came out publicly in an essay in the South Bend Tribune during his reelection campaign in 2015, writing that for a conservative resident from a different generation, whose unease with social change is partly rooted in the impression that he doesnt know anyone gay, perhaps a familiar face can be a reminder that were all in this together as a community. His husband Chasten Buttigieg, a teacher, is often by his side. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion What of Buttigiegs politics? At a glance, they look pretty, pretty, pretty good from my progressive vantage point. He raised the minimum wage for South Bend city employees, set to patching the citys potholes and spearheaded its 1,000 houses in 1,000 days initiative, which restored or demolished abandoned homes. On the national level, Buttigieg supports the Green New Deal, single-payer healthcare (with an all-payer rate-setting transition) and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. Whats the current line in Vegas on whether a mayor whom the right will inevitably brand as a gay socialist can win the presidency? That may well depend on whether millennials and Gen Z-ers, who will together comprise 37% of the 2020 electorate, show up to vote. Plus, itll take some maneuvering for conservatives to write Buttigieg off as just another spendy Bolshevik snowflake. For one, Trump won Indiana by nearly 20 points; its not easily caricatured Connecticut or California. In 2014, Buttigieg served as an officer in Afghanistan, and he remains a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve. Buttigieg has worked for corporate-friendly consulting firms such as McKinsey and the Cohen Group, founded by former Secretary of Defense (and moderate Republican) William Cohen. Much of my initial Buttigieg interest is sparked by his willingness to challenge long-established political narratives (long-battled, too, including by Sanders, the subject of a reverent essay Buttigieg wrote in high school). Democrats are not yet comfortable working in a vocabulary of freedom, Buttigieg told the New York Times in 2016. Conservatives talk about freedom. They mean it. But theyre often negligent about the extent to which things other than government make people unfree. Language matters and Buttigieg speaks like someone who realizes its power. Hes both plainspoken and fun to listen to. Hes got a touch of Obama, whose campaign he canvassed for in 2008. (In 2016, the former president included Buttigieg in a short list of Democrats to watch.) Thatll liven up the debates. Between now and those debates, which start in June, youll want to learn Mayor Petes name. For the record, its pronounced BOOT-edge-edge. Melissa Batchelor Warnke is a contributing writer to Opinion. Follow her on Twitter @velvetmelvis. Each morning, I am reminded of a legacy as I walk past larger-than-life portraits of Clara Shortridge Foltz in the courthouse that bears her name in downtown Los Angeles. Foltz broke down a lot of barriers during her lifetime. She was the first woman to practice law on the West Coast. On joining the Los Angeles County district attorneys office in 1910, she became the first female deputy district attorney in the nation. And her idea that all criminal defendants were entitled to legal representation, whether or not they could afford it, inspired the worlds first public defenders office, which opened in Los Angeles in 1914. The country as a whole didnt catch up to Los Angeles until decades later, when the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Gideon vs. Wainwright that any person hauled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. The Gideon decision was handed down 56 years ago today, on March 18, 1963, and across the country, public defenders still commemorate the anniversary of that decision each year. Advertisement As a public defender, I see cases every day that would almost certainly result in injustice if defendants had to go into court alone. Clarence Earl Gideon, the indigent Florida man who fought for the right to be represented by a lawyer, was arrested for allegedly breaking into a pool hall with the intention of committing petty larceny. He maintained his innocence from the start, and asked the court to appoint pro bono counsel. When the court refused, he represented himself at trial and was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. From prison, he wrote a letter to the U.S. Supreme Court declaring that his constitutional rights had been violated and asking the justices to take up the issue. They did, assigning future Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas to represent him before the high court. After his win in Washington, Gideon was returned to Florida and retried on the criminal charges. This time, with a lawyer to represent him, he was acquitted by a jury. As a public defender, I see cases every day that would almost certainly result in injustice if defendants had to go into court alone. One man I defended noticed hypodermic needles strewn over lawns where children played. He began collecting the needles and took them home to dispose of them. After a minor dispute, the vindictive manager in his apartment building called in police to search his room, where they found needles he had removed from neighborhood streets. He was arrested and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. In court, we presented his case, demonstrating the injustice of what had happened to a man trying to protect children in his community. He was acquitted. Ill think about that this year on the anniversary of the Gideon decision, and about my many other clients who have demonstrated that they are so much more than the worst things they are accused of doing. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Ill also think about the potential threats to the precedent set in Gideon vs. Wainwright, including a dissenting opinion from a Supreme Court case last month, in which Justice Clarence Thomas questioned whether the court had been right in guaranteeing counsel to indigent people in the Gideon case. Robert F. Kennedy was attorney general when the Wainwright case was decided in 1963, and he wrote this about it later that year: If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in prison with a pencil and paper to write a letter to the Supreme Court, and if the court had not taken the trouble to look for merit in that one crude petition the vast machinery of American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter, the court did look into his case and the whole course of legal history has been changed. We cant let that change be undone. Ricardo Garcia is the Los Angeles County public defender. Over the past two years, despite tariffs and trade impasses, Brexit and the border wall, American companies have been expanding their global reach by increasing the number of languages they speak. Consider Amazon. Since 2017, the company has added Czech, Hindi and Tamil to one or more of its websites in recent years. Amazon had five country-specific websites outside of the U.S. in 2003: Canada, Germany, France, Japan and the U.K. Today it operates 15 such sites, which together support 18 different languages. Or take Netflix. Last year, the company added two more languages to its global website: Indonesian and French for its Canadian viewers. All told, Netflix has nearly doubled its linguistic reach over the past two years, from 17 to 26 languages. Uber has added seven languages to its apps and websites in the past year alone. It has also launched an Uber Lite app for its customers in India and other emerging markets, where smartphones are less common and mobile networks less predictable. Advertisement The internet may connect devices, but language connects people. Its not just tech companies that have invested in speaking more of the worlds languages. Starbucks, MasterCard and the consulting firm Accenture have all become more multilingual in the past year, allowing them to communicate with hundreds of millions of additional customers around the world. John Deeres website speaks in 32 languages, Ford speaks 42 languages and even Jack Daniels is fluent in 23 languages. American politicians may speak the rhetoric of isolationism, but American companies are speaking a different language quite a lot of them. Through their websites, apps and other products, Americas leading global brands now speak an average of 32 languages. Some companies including Google, Microsoft and Facebook surpassed 32 languages years ago. There are more than 4.1 billion internet users in the world, and fewer than a quarter of them are native English speakers. If you want to communicate with 90% of the worlds internet users, your sites had better speak at least 40 languages. Google and Facebook each support a dozen different languages spoken in India alone. One of the worlds most multilingual businesses is not a company at all but a nonprofit: Wikipedia. It speaks more than 280 languages. This expansion has been going strong for 15 years. I have been tracking global websites for that long, and rare is the year when more than a handful of companies reduce the number of languages they speak. Sometimes companies overestimate the market they will find in a new country. That was the case with WalMarts expansion into Germany, and it withdrew from that country in 2006. Other times, macroeconomic factors are to blame. A number of American companies, such as Ebay and Reebok, dropped their Greece-specific websites during that countrys economic recession. But the larger trend remains one of growing multilingualism. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute In one sense, this is not new. Although some would suggest that isolationism somehow harkens back to the good old days, those days never truly existed. The forces of globalization have been with us since the Silk Road. But we used to be more isolated from one another. Before the internet, one had to leave the country in order to leave the country. We are now only a click away from languages we once had to cross an ocean to encounter. This can be intimidating. But as Americas biggest companies know, its no time to pull back. Globalization may be messy, but its not the enemy. We have far more to fear from ignorance. When global companies add new languages to their products, they can assimilate into ever more regions of the world. Theyve got the right idea. The internet may connect devices, but language connects people. Theyve got the right idea. The internet may connect devices, but language connects people. John Yunker is the author of Think Outside the Country: A Guide to Going Global and Succeeding in the Translation Economy and a co-founder of Byte Level Research. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook Joe Biden is carrying a 20th century voting record into a 21st century political dogfight. During more than 40 years in public life, Biden has taken an array of stances at odds with todays Democratic Party consensus. As he now prepares for his third presidential campaign, that record could hamper him in a big field of mostly younger, more liberal primary rivals. A review of Bidens record which spans 36 years as a U.S. senator and eight as vice president is, in part, a reminder of how much the Democratic Party itself and the U.S. political system have changed over the last half a century. Biden opposed school busing for desegregation in the 1970s. He voted for a measure aimed at outlawing gay marriage in the 1990s. He was an ally of the banking and credit card industries. Advertisement He chaired the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings that gave short shrift to the sexual harassment allegations raised by Anita Hill. He backed crime legislation that many blamed for helping fuel an explosion in prison populations. He eulogized Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), who rose to prominence as a segregationist. He backed the Iraq war. Many of Bidens positions were well within the mainstream of the Democratic Party at the time he took them. But the party is now far more sensitive to discrimination against gays, sexual harassment and racial inequality than when Biden first came to Washington. The capital has changed, too. The Senate Biden entered as a 30-year-old in 1973 was still a bastion of bipartisan backslapping, where compromise was not a dirty word. The Democratic Party was a coalition of Southern conservatives and Northern liberals. Liberal Republicans were still a thriving political faction. Bidens record, even though he has reversed himself on some issues, provides ammunition to skeptics who see him as a politician of another era a beloved figure, but one whose time has come and gone. I worry whether he is ready for the times, said Chris Schwartz, a Black Hawk County supervisor in Iowa who says Biden is not in his top five choices among the candidates but is prepared to support whoever is nominated. He has just gotten too many big issues wrong over the years. But most Democratic voters put their top priority on beating President Trump, and Biden allies say he is the best equipped to win. Polls show Democrats are still fond of Biden and seem more willing to forgive him for his past than they ever were for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats, facing a big candidate field, ask: Who can beat Trump? Ive seen Biden change; all of us have seen our parents, our aunts and uncles change, said Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party who is neutral in the 2020 race but supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. I dont think it says who he is today, Kleeb said of some of the flashpoints in Bidens voting record. If Biden, 76, formally enters the race he has strongly hinted he will do so in a matter of weeks the question will be which of those attitudes will prevail. Speaking at a dinner of the Delaware Democratic Party in Dover on Saturday night, Biden responded to criticism of him from what he called the new left. I have the most progressive record of anybody running, said Biden, who quickly revised his words when the audience reacted as if he were announcing his candidacy. Anybody who would run. I didnt mean it. But his speech sounded like a campaign stump speech, and other Democrats treated his eventual entry into the race as a foregone conclusion. If you ask me he doesnt just look like hes back, Delaware Gov. John Carney said of Biden. He looks like hes ready for a fight. Biden would join a big field of Democratic candidates that spans four generations, from millennials including South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 37, to Silent Generation member Bernie Sanders, 77. The latest entrant to the field, former Rep. Beto ORourke, is a Gen Xer 30 years younger than Biden. Whos running for president and whos not Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said he hoped that scrutiny of Bidens Senate record would not distract from Bidens core 2020 message. I think that getting down in the weeds of things he might have said literally 40 years ago misses the point that Donald Trump literally yesterday said something about white nationalism that is gravely concerning, Coons said in an interview before the Dover dinner. I am happy to defend his record in detail, but as a candidate he should and will focus on how his experience combined with his heart and character make him the right person for leading us. If rivals do criticize his past record, Biden allies say context will be important to understanding it. A majority of Democrats in the Senate voted for the anti-gay-marriage bill, the Iraq war and the 1994 crime bill. The banking and credit card industry is important to the economy of Bidens home state of Delaware. Ed Rendell, a Biden supporter who is former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, says the former vice presidents campaign should address questions about his past positions in a simple stroke. He should say, Look, those were the beliefs that were commonly held, even among progressive people, back 30 years ago, Rendell said. In retrospect they were clearly wrong. My views on those subjects have evolved. Period. That is an easy argument to make on the matter of gay rights. In 1996, Biden was one of 32 Senate Democrats to vote for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In 2012, as vice president, he stepped out in favor of same-sex marriage even before President Obama did. He has taken other steps since then to advance gay and transgender rights that have made him something of a hero to the LGBTQ community. Danny Barefoot, a Democratic political consultant who is not affiliated with any 2020 presidential candidate, recently conducted a focus group with black women in South Carolina and found that negative messaging about Bidens record did not ring true to these loyal Democrats, especially on questions related to his commitment to civil rights. Presented with reports about his opposition to school busing in Delaware in the 1970s, one woman asked if were honestly asking her to believe he is a segregationist, Barefoot wrote. But he found Biden might have more work to do putting to rest questions about his handling of Hills sexual harassment claims against Thomas. The focus group unanimously said Biden needed to personally apologize to Hill. As chairman of the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, he was criticized for not pursuing more aggressively the sexual harassment allegations Hill raised. That is one of several areas where Biden has already taken some steps to make amends. Anita Hill was vilified, when she came forward, by a lot of my colleagues, character assassination, Biden said on the Today show in September 2018, around the time the Senate was grappling with sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. I wish I could have done more to prevent those questions and the way they asked them. But Hill, who declined a request for an interview, said in a December 2018 interview with Elle magazine that Biden had not apologized to her directly. Its become sort of a running joke in the household when someone rings the doorbell, and were not expecting company, she told Elle. Oh, we say, is that Joe Biden coming to apologize? Biden has also revised his thinking on some tough-on-crime and anti-drug measures of the 1980s and 1990s. At a Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast in January, he expressed particular regret for a bill that created different legal standards for powdered cocaine and street crack cocaine. It was a big mistake that was made, Biden said of the disparity, which the Obama administration worked to reduce. We were told by the experts that crack, you never go back, that the two were somehow fundamentally different. Its not different. But its trapped an entire generation. He makes no apologies for his good old-fashioned willingness to work with Republicans a trait that could endear him to many voters impatient with partisan stalemate in Washington. When he was asked to deliver the eulogy for former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond in 2003, Biden joked about their implausible relationship and called the late senators request for him to speak his last laugh. I disagreed deeply with Strom on the issue of civil rights, and on many other issues, but I watched him change, he said in the eulogy. More recently, he drew fire from the left for referring to Vice President Mike Pence as a decent guy. And during the 2018 midterm campaign, he publicly praised a House Republican, Fred Upton, for his work on a cancer research bill dear to Biden, whose son died in 2015 of brain cancer. The praise of Upton troubled some Democrats because they were trying to defeat him, and he cited Bidens words in debate with his Democratic opponent. Biden bridles at criticism of his bipartisan gestures. We dont treat the opposition as the enemy, Biden said in the Dover speech. We might even say a nice word every once in a while about a Republican when they do something good. But paeans to bipartisanship can be like fingernails on a blackboard to the combative Democratic left especially among voters too young to have known a less polarized political environment who are gravitating to the partys more liberal candidates. Kristina Hughes, 30, an Omaha voter who is attracted to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren said, Anybody who says Mike Pence is a decent guy doesnt get my vote in 2020. The latest from Washington Two people who saw the crash helped the mother, 38, and the girl, 10, out of the van. A doctor tried to revive Cameron with CPR at the scene, and an ambulance took both children and their mother to a hospital. The boy was pronounced dead around 8:30 p.m. Iowa, that land of corn and political dreams, is planning big changes to its caucus system, and right about now you may be asking: What is a caucus and why should I care? The answer is simple. The sentiments expressed by roughly a quarter-million or so Iowa Democrats on the first Monday night in February 2020 could go a long way toward shaping the fight for the partys presidential nomination and, thus, who sits in the Oval Office come January 2021. Other states, California being most notable, perennially complain about the inordinate influence Iowa enjoys as the state with the first say in the contest, attracting starry-eyed White House hopefuls the way Hollywood draws would-be movie stars. But that political reality is not going to change anytime soon, even with California and other states moving their balloting up on the political calendar. So it cant hurt to learn about things like viability, realignment, state-level delegate equivalents and the caucus overhaul planned for next winter. Advertisement So what is a caucus? Essentially its a precinct-level gathering of party faithful that serves as the first step in a long, attenuated process that eventually results in the awarding of Iowas presidential delegates. The original purpose was identifying and organizing party supporters at the grass-roots level so they could be deployed in political campaigns. A tally of presidential preferences was added just for fun. But as the first official gauge of voter sentiment after years of polling, speculation and incessant chatter the caucuses have gained enormous import, mainly by culling the field to just a few viable contenders. Whos running for president and whos not How do the caucuses work? Up to now, the meetings were held at a set time. Participants were required to show up at one of 1,000-some locations, where supporters of each candidate broke into separate groups. If a candidate failed to meet a 15% viability threshold, his or her supporters had the choice of realigning that is, backing another candidate or calling it a night. After the voting was completed, the party would report what were called state delegate equivalents, or the estimated number of delegates to the state party convention that a candidate would win based on their performance at the precinct level. The state convention is where Iowas national convention delegates are chosen. My heads starting to hurt. Dont worry. We track these things so you dont have to. Its still all about beating expectations. Whats changed is the means to getting there. Dennis Goldford, Drake University political scientist and Iowa caucus expert So whats changing? Most significantly, Democrats wishing to participate will no longer be required to show up at a caucus. For years, critics have said the requirement was unfair to those unable to attend for any number of reasons: ill health, job requirements, child-care concerns. Hillary Clinton was among those who complained the loudest, suggesting her 2008 loss to Barack Obama stemmed, in part, from the limited caucus window. There are a lot of people who work at night, she said, people who are on their feet, people who are taking care of patients in a hospital, or waiting on a table in a restaurant, or maybe in a patrol car keeping our streets safe. Under the new rules, Democrats may be able to back a preferred candidate by participating in one of six virtual caucuses, submitting a list of as many as five candidates, ranked by preference. Kind of like American Idol? The details remain to be worked out, not least concerns about security and ensuring the integrity of the vote. But, yes, participants may be able to weigh in via their smart phones while sitting on the couch watching cheesy television. Californias presidential primary: Heres what you need to know What are the other changes? The rules governing the realignment process will be altered, limiting the movement between supporters of different candidates, in an effort to speed the caucuses along. (Another complaint is they take too long, dampening turnout.) More important, the party will release the raw vote total each candidate receives, in addition to state delegate equivalents, in an effort to make the caucuses more transparent. In 2016, Clinton just squeaked past Bernie Sanders, 49.8% to 49.6%, in the official results, which outraged supporters of the Vermont senator, who claimed a number of irregularities skewed the outcome. Some claim to this day he actually won the raw vote, but the count remains a mystery. Why the changes now? The national Democratic Party insisted on finding ways to make the caucuses more inclusive and less prone to controversy. Iowans, in turn, wanted to preserve what state party Chairman Troy Price called the spirit of the caucuses, which is to say the neighbor-gathering-with neighbor aspect. (The virtual caucuses will be used to award a fraction, perhaps 10% or 15%, of delegates, to encourage folks to continue showing up.) All of the changes are subject to revision and require the approval of both the state party Central Committee and the national Democratic Party. The goal is to have the new rules in place by fall. So which candidates benefit and who will suffer as a result of the changes? Thats a big unknown. Participation could increase, maybe even topping the record 240,000 Democrats who showed up for the Clinton-Obama caucus-palooza. But its unclear who would gain the most from a higher turnout. A great deal will depend on how the results are reported. Will the media focus on the winner of the raw vote, or the candidate who receives the most state delegate equivalents? Its still all about beating expectations, said Dennis Goldford, a Drake University political scientist and Iowa caucus expert. Whats changed is the means to getting there. Huh? Winning Iowa isnt necessarily about coming in first. Its about perceptions. The best example may be 1984, when former Vice President Walter F. Mondale was preferred by nearly 50% of caucusgoers. The runner-up, Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, received just 16.5% support. But since that was better than expected, Hart was considered the winner and, literally overnight, became a serious contender for the Democratic nomination. 16.5% beats 48.9%? Thats nuts! Thats Iowa. The Supreme Court agreed Monday to resolve two long-standing disputes and decide whether the Constitution includes rights to the insanity defense and a unanimous jury verdict of guilt. Most states, but not all, permit criminal defendants to plead insanity and escape the full punishment of the law on the grounds that they did not know right from wrong at the time of the crime. Kansas, however, says defendants may cite a mental disease or defect as a partial defense, but they may be found guilty nonetheless if they intended to commit a violent crime. Similarly, all but two states Louisiana and Oregon require unanimous jury verdicts in criminal cases. Advertisement The justices said Monday that they would hear appeals from convicted murderers in Kansas and Louisiana who contend their convictions were unconstitutional. Voting to hear claims from convicted criminals may seem somewhat surprising for a more conservative high court. But it may be in keeping with another recent ruling that clarified that other constitutional rights should apply to all states. Last month, the justices resolved a similar dispute by ruling the 8th Amendment protects Americans from excessive fines imposed by states and local governments, including the seizure of a $42,000 Land Rover for a $385 drug crime. In that case, Timbs vs. Indiana, the court prodded by new Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh said the time had passed for states to argue that they did not have to abide by all parts of the Bill of Rights. The 6th Amendment protects the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury. And for most of American history, this has been understood to require a jury verdict of guilt based on an unanimous vote. In 1972, the Supreme Court took up the issue in an Oregon case, but issued a splintered 4-1-4 decision. The result was that juries in federal courts must be unanimous to impose guilt, but states such as Oregon and Louisiana were free to uphold jury verdicts that were less than unanimous. In 2016, Evangelisto Ramos was convicted on 10-2 jury verdict of murdering a suspected prostitute in New Orleans. His appeal argued that Louisianas rule allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts was adopted in 1898 for racist reasons, and it should be overturned. The states attorneys urged the court to deny the appeal and noted that the states voters approved requiring unanimous verdicts beginning this year. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court said it would hear Ramos vs. Louisiana in the fall to decide whether unanimous jury verdicts will be a constitutional rule nationwide. The court will also hear an appeal from James Kahler, who shot and killed two of his daughters, his ex-wife and her grandmother, and sought to plead insanity. He claimed that he had sunk into hopeless depression after his marriage collapsed. But a state expert testified that Kahler planned the murders. He was convicted and sentenced to death, despite his insanity plea. His appeal in Kahler vs. Kansas argues that the insanity defense is a fundamental aspect of American justice and cannot be restricted or abolished by the states. In Kansas, Kahlers attorney argued, it is not a defense to criminal liability that mental illness prevented the defendant from knowing his actions were wrong. So long as he knowingly killed a human being even if he did it because he believed the devil told him to, or because a delusion convinced him that his victim was trying to kill him, or because he lacked the ability to control his actions he is guilty. His attorneys said Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Utah have also limited the use of insanity as a defense to a crime. In a third criminal case, the justices will decide whether Lee Boyd Malvo will serve life in prison for his role in the 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area. John Allen Muhammad was convicted of the shootings and executed in Virginia. Malvo, who was then 17, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. The Supreme Court later put new limits on life prison terms for those who commit murders as a juvenile, and the court in Mathena vs. Malvo will decide whether those rulings apply retroactively to those already serving life terms. If Malvo prevails, he will get a new sentencing hearing. The latest from Washington More stories from David G. Savage The Burbank City Council will soon have a more permanent set of rules outlining the dos and donts of building accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs or granny flats, in the city. Council members unanimously voted on Tuesday to approve the first reading of a proposed zoning amendment that would allow Burbank to regulate how and where ADUs can be built. The City Council will have one more chance to make changes to the rules during the amendments final reading next Tuesday. A crucial component to the proposed regulations deals with the size of granny flats. Burbank has been using guidelines laid out in an interim ordinance approved last April to determine what types of ADUs can be built while city staff worked on a more thought-out set of rules that could work for the city. Under the interim ordinance, granny flats can be built up to 500 square feet if they do not put the property over its floor-area ratio, which is what the City Council decided was a fair size. However, the Planning Board decided during its Feb. 12 meeting to recommend City Council members allow granny flats to be built up to 800 square feet after receiving feedback from residents who said 500 square feet is too small. Council members on Tuesday ultimately decided that up to 500 square feet would be large enough for a housing unit that could be configured to be a studio or a one-bedroom unit, fearing that having an ADU larger than that would defeat the purpose of a granny flat. I am not unsympathetic to the people who feel that they need to have a one-bedroom or two-bedroom unit, Vice Mayor Emily Gabel-Luddy said. To me, that was not the purpose and intent of state law. The state measures Gabel-Luddy referred to were those initially passed last year SB 1069 and AB 2299 that changed the rules regarding ADUs in an attempt to address the housing shortage in California. The pieces of legislation were updated this past January as SB 229 and AB 494. Under the state regulations, property owners could build a granny flat up to 1,200 square feet in all single-family residential zones. However, Burbank was allowed to and decided to pick a square footage standard that was right for the city. If the purpose and intent is to provide units that are considered more affordable, then by definition a smaller unit would not be as expensive and would remain an accessory to the main house, Gabel-Luddy said. The proposed Burbank ordinance would allow homeowners to build a granny flat in different ways. They can choose to construct a new detached unit or a unit built above a garage, as long as it has a 5-foot setback from the rear and side. Residents could also convert an existing garage into a granny flat or convert a portion of the main house as an ADU. The proposed rules are different for single-family homes in the R1-H zone, which is located in the Rancho neighborhood of Burbank, an area that allows the boarding of horses in the backyard. Many Rancho residents have told the City Council and other city officials that having new ADUs built in their neighborhood would negatively affect the unique characteristics found in the R1-H zone. While the interim ordinance did not allow for granny flats to be built in this specific zone, city staff believe they have come up with a solution, which the City Council spoke in favor of, that would keep the Ranchos aesthetics intact. Under the proposed ordinance, homeowners in the R1-H zone cannot build a new ADU, but they can convert an existing city-permitted garage, city-permitted guest house or a portion of the main house as a granny flat. In addition to the physical dimensions of what a permissible ADU in Burbank should look like and can be located, the proposed ordinance will also require the homeowner to live in either the main house or in the granny flat. Some residents and council members had concerns with the live-in covenant, saying that it would not be fair to those that cannot live in either the main house or ADU, whether due to illness, death or military deployment. To address this concern, the City Council agreed to allow residents in those situations to apply for a hardship waiver, which would give the applicant up to two years to find a solution. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio The city of Huntington Beach and the Orange County district attorneys office have taken legal action against what they believe are five illegal in-home businesses in Huntington, marking the first in a planned series of lawsuits. City Attorney Michael Gates and District Attorney Tony Rackauckas are asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to grant an injunction against the five locations and require them to surrender any ill-gotten gains. They also seek civil penalties of $2,500 for each violation on the properties and each day a violation existed. The lawsuits, filed Oct. 12, contend the facilities are a public nuisance, operate without proper licensing violating Californias civil code and Huntingtons municipal code and constitute unfair competition for legal businesses. Coastline Recovery is based at 8301 Yorktown Ave. in Huntington Beach. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) The operations and property owners listed in the lawsuits StepHouse Recovery Inc., Nevaeh Re 1, Coastline Recovery, David and Andrea Lacy and Anthony Roxstrom have locations throughout Huntington Beach and are alleged to be operating as residential alcohol or drug rehabilitation facilities, also known as sober-living homes. Sober-living homes typically house recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who are considered disabled under state and federal laws and must be provided with certain accommodations for housing. The facilities require licenses from the state and a separate permit from Huntington Beach if operating in that city. Anthony Roxstrom owns 21892 Starfire Lane in Huntington Beach. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) A license is required from the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs for treatment facilities that offer non-medical services such as detox, group and personal therapy sessions, educational workshops on addiction-related issues and treatment planning, according to Dual Diagnosis.org. Facilities such as group homes may require licensing from the state Department of Social Services. Last weeks legal filings are part of a new partnership between Gates and Rackuckas to crack down on illegal in-home businesses after receiving the green light from the City Council in September. A broader proposal will be given to the council Nov. 5. Rise Above Recovery is based at 9061 Mediterranean Drive in Huntington Beach. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) Coastline Recovery, at 8301 Yorktown Ave., did not return messages seeking comment. Roxstrom, whose property is at 21892 Starfire Lane, and Nevaeh, at 10321 Christmas Drive, could not be reached. StepHouse Recovery, which is headquartered in Fountain Valley, offers a full spectrum of detox, rehab, care and other services for recovering addicts, according to its website. It offers sober-living residences throughout Orange County, including a Huntington location at 10412 Christmas Drive. George Vilagut, who owns StepHouse, said in an interview that the services are offered only at the headquarters, which he said has a permit from Fountain Valley. StepHouse Recovery owns 10412 Christmas Drive in Huntington Beach. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) The Huntington location, he said, offers independent living for people in need. Gates classification of it as a business is up for debate, Vilagut said. There isnt anything illegal about renting or leasing out a space as long as there arent any services; were not a board and care, Vilagut said. He said StepHouse isnt in the category of short-term rentals which are illegal in Huntington Beach because its program is for a year or longer, not 30 days or less. David Lacy, who owns a property at 9061 Mediterranean Drive, said in an interview that he was under the impression the facility was licensed when he leased it to Rise Above Recovery in 2016. I havent received any complaints about anything, Lacy said. This is the first thing Ive heard about a nuisance. All I know are the people running it. I didnt know it was illegal. Since I found out somethings wrong, were gonna try to rectify it. Nevaeh Re 1 is at 10321 Christmas Drive in Huntington Beach. (Photo by Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot) After learning about the lawsuit, Lacy said the tenant would be gone by the end of this month. Rise Above Recovery did not return a call seeking comment. Residents in some areas have complained that sober-living homes have negative effects on neighborhood noise, parking and safety, but Gates said the issue isnt where the facilities are but whether theyre licensed. Huntington Beach has about 100 sober-living homes, of which 50 to 75 are illegal, Gates said. Gates said illegal businesses are selected for legal action based on the highest number of neighborhood complaints. City code enforcement officers research the businesses in question while Gates works with the district attorneys office to determine which to sue. On Tuesday, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 3-0 to give initial approval to Rackauckas proposed ordinance to require private alcohol and drug abuse programs in the countys unincorporated areas to register each year with the Orange County Health Care Agency. Supervisors Shawn Nelson and Todd Spitzer, who is running against Rackauckas for the district attorney seat in the November election, abstained. The ordinance would require programs to identify their locations, owners and affiliated programs and facilities. By creating a roster, consumers and the public could make informed decisions, protect patients from conflicts related to their care and help prevent billing fraud, according to the proposal. Spitzer said in a statement that the ordinance doesnt go far enough because it duplicates a 2005 state law requiring facilities to register. He also objected that cities werent included and a cost analysis wasnt provided for taxpayers. But the ordinance is only a starting point, according to Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for the district attorneys office. If programs register, she said, it could help weed out insurance fraud because the registration would list all of a programs affiliations. The goal is to encourage cities to pass their own ordinances so they can pick up where the county cannot instead of going through a criminal process, she added. The Board of Supervisors will consider final adoption of the ordinance Oct. 30. Priscella.Vega@latimes.com Twitter: @vegapriscella In a 3-2 vote, the Glendale Unified school board ended the three-year tenure of Winfred B. Roberson Jr., the districts first African American superintendent. The closed-door session took place Tuesday evening during a special meeting. Board president Greg Krikorian and board members Armina Gharpetian and Shant Sahakian voted for dismissal, while board vice president Jennifer Freemon and member Nayiri Nahabedian voted against the move during the superintendents annual performance review. Roberson was released from his existing contract without cause, effective immediately, according to a statement released by the district Wednesday afternoon. A clause in the superintendents contract allows the board to terminate without cause or a hearing. School board members technically are in charge of only one district employee, the superintendent. We did not take this decision lightly, but we are excited about the opportunities well be able to provide to our students, our community and to our district, Krikorian said. We wish [Roberson] well in his future endeavors, but our No. 1 priority is the students, parents, community and our schools. Robersons release comes at a turbulent time, with the district dealing with several issues, including declining enrollment, a property transfer proposal denied by the city of Glendale, a recently filed qualified budget that highlighted dwindling reserves and a territory dispute with a La Canada grassroots organization. Krikorian said Robersons dismissal had nothing to do with a student brawl at Hoover High School on Oct. 3 that led to dozens of suspensions, a Hoover student walkout, cancellation of the Glendale-Hoover football rivalry game that dated back to the 1930s and national negative attention. That had no bearing on this, Krikorian said. A process like this, with so many different aspects, included many things, like looking for new leadership. There are so many different components that went into this decision. The incident 1,000% had no bearing. Kelly King, who has been with the district for 28 years, will now handle two vital roles within Glendale Unified shell assume the title of interim superintendent along with her current role as assistant superintendent for educational services. We have an amazing team in Glendale, and its a strong school district because of the individuals who work here, King said. While everyone might be chipping in and picking up different pieces, weve always worked so close together, and this is a positive era moving forward. King added, We have 80 days left in the school year, and theyre going to be 80 great days for our kids. Board members plan to provide more details about the upcoming job search during their next meeting on Feb. 5. Roberson did not immediately respond to calls for comment. He was hired in February 2016 to steward a district with 32 schools and 26,000 students from transitional kindergarten through 12th grade in the third largest city in Los Angeles County. Roberson arrived in Glendale after serving as superintendent of the Davis Joint Unified School District. Krikorian said he could not comment on how Roberson performed in past evaluations or if Roberson failed to meet certain expectations. He did say he thinks the community will support the boards decision. I know this may be difficult, but the community has had confidence with us in the past, Krikorian said. I know this wasnt [a unanimous] vote, but the three board members voted for this change, and its a board directive. Were confident in the direction were going. andrew.campa@latimes.com Twitter @campadresports To those of you who say you will never take a cruise, consider for a moment what youre missing. Stepping aboard a ship may be the only way to see a place: In Alaskas Inside Passage, for instance, mammoth chunks of ice calve from glaciers and explode as they hit the water in front of your vessel. Or at isolated South Georgia Island in the Atlantic, visitors who arrive by ship can watch hundreds of thousands of penguins waddling along the shoreline. Nature isnt the only thing that looks different when you change your perspective. I rarely visit New York City without jumping aboard a Circle Line tour for a look at the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline from the water. But Im even happier when I can see a city from the deck of a cruise ship. San Francisco is a good example. Ive seen it hundreds of times from land, but sailing up the bay along the citys waterfront adds a spectacular twist that helps the destination take on new life. Advertisement What other places should be seen from the deck of a ship? Here are some contenders. Sydney, Australia, gets a vote from Ilene Weiner, who has sailed 282 times and says Sydneys harbor is spectacular every time. (Princess Cruises recently named Weiner its most-traveled guest, having spent 2,500 days at sea.) This city is popular with cruisers because of Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, which add focal points to the panorama that can be seen when entering the dynamic harbor. Riverside County resident Chris Twinning votes for Curacao, a laid-back Caribbean charmer. Twinning, a Carnival Cruise Line fan, loves the vibe in Willemstad, Curacaos main port city and its capital. The views are great: colorful buildings, boats in the harbor, the floating bridge you couldnt ask for more, he said. Curacaos brightly painted Dutch colonial buildings pinks, yellows and blues are reflected in the waters of Santa Anna Bay. Once you leave the city, Twinning said, the landscape shifts to a more desert-like scene. Alex Morrison of Orange County is another island aficionada. But her favorites are closer to home: the Channel Islands, one of the nations least-visited national parks. Theyre unique, isolated and make a great nature story, she said. And you cant drive there, of course, which means you can only see [them] from the water. The five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park are part of an archipelago off Santa Barbara. The islands are an uninhabited sanctuary, an interesting contrast when bumped up against L.A. Morrison, who visited the islands on a cruise with Lindblad Expeditions/National Geographic, enjoyed the solitude. Its fantastic to see undeveloped vistas so close to Los Angeles, Morrison said, and dive in clear waters teeming with colorful marine creatures. Other islands that cruisers mention when talking about destinations seen best from the deck of a ship include the Galapagos, off Ecuador, known for their plant and animal life; the Greek island of Santorini, in the Aegean, popular because of its whitewashed, cliffside houses; and Tahiti, one of my favorites, where impossibly green mountains and aquamarine waters greet visitors to French Polynesia. I checked in with a cruising expert to get her suggestions too. Colleen McDaniel, senior executive editor of CruiseCritic.com, weighed in with some other choices. Top on her list: Glacier Bay, Alaska, which was named best place to cruise in Cruise Critics 2018 Destination Awards, an honor based on passenger ratings. Visiting Glacier Bay by cruise ship gives you access to vistas youd otherwise never see, McDaniel said. Cruises take you into the heart of the bay, where you can see glaciers and icebergs all around you. Margerie Glacier is one of the most spectacular glaciers you will see, and your best vantage point is from the water. Another place she thinks is best seen from the deck of a cruise ship: the Panama Canal. Its an engineering marvel, whether youre talking about the original or new locks, she said. While you can visit the locks by land, you dont understand the full magnitude of transiting the canal without doing so yourself, she said. Whether on a small ship or large vessel, youll visit the famous artificial Gatun Lake, and transit from one ocean to another via a spectacular series of locks. travel@latimes.com @latimestravel More than 1,000 people were feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the country, submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters, the nations president said. It is a real disaster of great proportions, President Filipe Nyusi said. Cyclone Idai could prove to be the deadliest storm in generations to hit the impoverished southeast African country of 30 million people. It struck Beira, an Indian Ocean port city of half a million people, late Thursday and then moved inland to the nations of Zimbabwe and Malawi with strong winds and heavy rain. But it took days for the scope of the disaster to come into focus in Mozambique, which has a poor communication and transportation network and a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy. Advertisement In Zimbabwe, people sit by the coffins of their relatives outside St. Thomas Catholic Church as they wait for transport to the grave site in Ngangu township on Monday. (Zinyange Auntony / AFP/Getty Images) Speaking on state Radio Mozambique, Nyusi said that although the official death toll stood at 84, it appears that we can register more than 1,000 deaths. Emergency officials cautioned that although they expect the death toll to rise significantly, they have no way of knowing if it will reach the presidents estimate. More than 215 people were killed by the storm in the three countries, including more than 80 in Zimbabwes eastern Chimanimani region, according to official figures. Hundreds more were reported missing and nearly 1,000 homes destroyed in eastern Zimbabwe alone. Children walk through Beira, Mozambique, on Sunday. (Josh Estey / CARE) U.N. agencies and the Red Cross helped with rescue efforts that included delivering food and medicine by helicopter in the impoverished countries. Mount Chiluvo in central Mozambique was badly hit by flooding. One resident said he heard a loud noise, like an explosion, and suddenly saw a river of mud rolling toward his home. I was indoors with my children, but when we looked we saw mud coming down the road towards the houses and we fled, Francisco Carlitos told Lusa, the Portuguese News Agency. The family lost their home and possessions but safely reached higher ground. The countrys president, who cut short a visit to neighboring Swaziland over the weekend because of the disaster, spoke after flying by helicopter over Beira and two rural provinces, where he reported widespread devastation. The waters of the Pungue and Buzi rivers overflowed, making whole villages disappear and isolating communities, and bodies are floating, Nyusi said. The United Nations humanitarian office issued flood warnings and said heavy rains were forecast for the next 24 hours, including in areas already hit hard by Idai. (Los Angeles Times) The destruction in Beira is massive and horrifying, said Jamie LeSueur, who led a Red Cross team that had to assess the damage by helicopter because of the flooded roads. The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous, LeSueur said. Beira has been severely battered. But we are also hearing that the situation outside the city could be even worse. [Sunday], a large dam burst and cut off the last road to the city, LeSuer said. The U.N. also warned of devastation outside Beira, in particular of livestock and crops. As this damage is occurring just before the main harvest season, it could exacerbate food insecurity in the region, the U.N.s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Mozambique is a long, narrow country of 30 million people with a 1,500-mile coastline along the Indian Ocean. It is prone to cyclones and tropical storms this time of year. In 2000, Mozambique was hit by severe flooding caused by weeks of heavy rain, a disaster made much worse when a cyclone hit. About 700 people were killed in what was regarded as the worst flooding in 50 years. The country won independence from Portugal in 1975 and then was plagued by a long-running civil war. Its economy is dominated by agriculture, and its exports include prawns, cotton, cashews, sugar, coconuts and tropical hardwood timber. More recently it has been exporting aluminum and electric power. Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the fifth anniversary of Russias annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by visiting the Black Sea peninsula on Monday, as NATO and the European Union once again strongly condemned the land grab. Putin began his trip by attending the launch of new power plants in Crimea, part of Moscows efforts to upgrade the regions infrastructure. Ukraine has cut off energy supplies to the peninsula and blocked shipments of Crimea-bound cargo via its territory after Moscow annexed the region in 2014. The situation has changed radically, Putin said, adding that the new power facilities will fully cover Crimeas needs. Russias modernization effort has included the construction of an 11.8-mile bridge that opened last year across the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The $3.6-billion project gave Crimea a land link to Russia. Previously, a ferry crossing that was often interrupted by gales served as the only connection. Advertisement Russia has also beefed up its military presence in Crimea with new navy ships, missiles and warplanes. Russias annexation of Crimea drew U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia that hurt its economy. NATO allies said in a statement Monday, We strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. They also criticized Russias military buildup in Crimea and alleged rights abuses including arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture against members of the Crimean Tartar community. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said, We stand in full solidarity with Ukraine, supporting its sovereignty and territorial integrity. NATO and the EU also called for the release of Ukrainian seamen who were seized by Russia in Novembers standoff in the Black Sea. Putin claims that Russia re-integrated Crimea after the ouster of Ukraines former pro-Russian president in 2014 to protect ethnic Russians who made up the majority of Crimeas population from Ukrainian nationalists. The Kremlin was also worried that a new Ukrainian government could annul Russias lease on its key Black Sea navy base in Crimea and welcome NATO there instead. Crimea was first seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. The 10,425-square mile territory, roughly the size of Massachusetts, became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine. The Kremlin has argued that Khrushchevs move violated then-Soviet law, making the transfer illegitimate. Russian troops swept Crimea just days after the February 2014 ouster of Ukraines Russia-friendly president, catching the West by surprise. The Russian forces blocked Ukrainian soldiers at their garrisons, setting the stage for a hastily called referendum in Crimea that the West denounced as illegitimate. Putin said he put Russias nuclear forces on combat readiness during the 2014 developments in Crimea and warned his Western counterparts that Moscow was ready to defend what it considered its land. The annexation gave Russia hundreds of miles of coastline along the Black Sea, a near stranglehold on commerce in the Sea of Azov and access to vast potential energy riches on the Black Sea shelf. The U.S. and the EU have responded to the annexation of Crimea and Moscows support for a separatist insurgency in Ukraines east with waves of sanctions that have limited Russias access to global financial markets and to energy and defense technologies. The Kremlin fired back by cutting imports of most Western food. The annexation of Crimea, a lush peninsula that long has been a favorite vacation destination for Russians, helped bolster Putins popularity at home and strengthened Moscows positions in the Black Sea. Public enthusiasm in Russia about the land grab, however, has worn off over the years amid the countrys economic difficulties and a plunge in living standards. A former Pennsylvania pediatrician was sentenced to at least 79 years in prison on Monday for the sexual assault of 31 children, most of them patients, in a case that state medical regulators failed to act on nearly two decades ago. Dr. Johnnie Barto was sentenced on dozens of counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors said he spent decades abusing boys and girls in the exam room at his pediatric practice in western Pennsylvania and at local hospitals, with his victims typically ranging in age from 8 to 12. One was an infant. Nineteen people gave victim impact statements, both in person and through a prosecutor, describing how Barto caused them to feel hopelessness and despair, caused depression and anxiety and instilled a fear of doctors. Bartos wife, Linda Barto, was among them. Advertisement He has been lying to me about everything for all of the 52 years I have known him, she said. He spent his whole sinister life lying and sneaking around, so he could carry on his abuse uninterrupted. She said her heart was heavy for the victims. The attorney generals office had asked for 31 to 62 years in prison. Barto declined to make a statement. The Johnstown man pleaded guilty in December to some counts and no contest to others. His lawyer, David Weaver, has said Barto opted to enter pleas so the healing could begin for his family, his victims and for himself. Authorities had a chance to stop Barto in 2000, when he appeared before the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine on administrative charges that he molested two young girls in the 1990s. But regulators threw out the case and allowed him to keep practicing medicine, saying the allegations were incongruous to his reputation. At the time, the prominent pediatrician had a lot of support in the community. Barto, now 71, went on to molest at least a dozen more young patients before his arrest in January 2018, according to the state attorney generals office. The medical boards 7-2 decision to let him off the hook in 2000 sparked outrage from victims and at least one former board member. Vivian Lowenstein, who had voted to strip Barto of his license, told the Associated Press last year that she was sick about it and that the case was as an example of how Pennsylvanias physician-regulators typically looked out for their own. The Pennsylvania Department of State, which provides legal and administrative support to the board and prosecutes administrative cases of doctor misconduct, said last year that the Board of Medicine takes allegations of sexual misconduct by professional licensees very seriously. Regulators have not commented on the boards 2000 decision. His mother identified the man as Dante Copeland, and said he had been paralyzed by a gunshot. When the fire broke out, Marion Stull said the family could not get Copeland out of the basement. I was panicked, she said. During the 1980s, as much of Central America became a bloody Cold War battleground, the conflict in Guatemala stood out as exceptionally sinister. The ruling military junta viewed the highland Indians descendants of the Mayas as natural allies of the Marxist guerrillas fighting to overthrow it. Security forces launched a massive counterinsurgency against selected populations, especially the Ixil ethnic enclave here in Quiche province. A report by a United Nations-backed truth commission after the 36-year civil war formally ended in 1996 found that security forces had inflicted multiple acts of savagery and genocide against Maya communities. Advertisement The campaign included: bombing villages and attacking fleeing residents; impaling victims; burning people alive; severing limbs; throwing children into pits filled with bodies and killing them; disemboweling civilians and slashing open the wombs of pregnant women. The massacres, scored-earth operations, forced disappearances and executions of Mayan authorities, leaders and spiritual guides were not only an attempt to destroy the social base of the guerrillas, but above all, to destroy the cultural values that ensured cohesion and collective action in Mayan communities, the Commission for Historical Clarification said. The Guatemalan government was responsible for more than 90% of deaths, disappearances and other human rights violations during the war, the commission said. The state deliberately exaggerated a limited insurgent threat to justify large-scale repression, the commission found. At least 200,000 people died in the civil war, the commission said. In 2013, former dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity for the deaths of at least 1,771 Ixil people during his rule from 1982 to 1983. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison in a case that was widely hailed as a landmark, the first time that a former head of state faced formal genocide charges in his own nation. But less than two weeks later, Guatemalas highest court overturned the conviction on technical grounds. Years before Rios Montt came to power, U.S. President Carter had banned military aid to Guatemala because of the countrys dismal human rights record. It was a controversial measure at a time when left-wing insurgencies threatened U.S.-backed governments in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Guatemala had long been viewed as an anti-communist bastion. Indeed, a CIA-backed coup in 1954 had toppled the government of leftist Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, who championed a signature land reform, redistributing large estates to peasants. Rios Montt, a charismatic evangelical preacher, was the head of a three-man junta that seized power in Guatemala in March 1982. His admirers included President Reagan, who declared after meeting him in 1982 as the military was conducting its brutal onslaught against Maya communities that the junta boss exhibited great personal integrity and had gotten a bum rap. The Reagan administration lifted the embargo on arms sales to Guatemala in 1983, allowing the country to obtain equipment and parts for helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, among other items, for its counterinsurgency efforts. The truth commission found that U.S. military assistance to Guatemala had a significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation. In 1999, President Clinton formally apologized for Washingtons backing of right-wing governments in Guatemala. Support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake, he said. Rios Montt, 91, reportedly suffering from a weak heart and dementia, was being retried for genocide when he died on April 1. patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com Twitter: @PmcdonnellLAT It was after dark Wednesday when three buses pulled out of Mosul and headed southeast on a desolate desert road. The passengers were government-backed paramilitary fighters. The city lights were well behind them when the convoy came under attack. By the time the shooting stopped, six paramilitary members were dead and 31 wounded. Iraqi authorities quickly identified the culprit: Islamic State. The attack, one of the deadliest since Iraq declared military victory over the extremist group in December 2017, was the clearest sign yet that the war isnt over. Advertisement It has merely shifted to a new phase: Islamic State is trying to mount a comeback, and the Iraqi military is trying to root out sympathizers and sleeper cells still embedded in the extensive territory the group once controlled. By many accounts, the government is failing to contain a budding insurgency, the sort of resilient, underground enemy that has outlived governments around the world. Stripped of its territory which once encompassed a third of both Iraq and Syria Islamic State has reverted to its roots, using small, self-contained teams of operatives to conduct small-scale attacks and assassinations and rebuild its smuggling and ransom operations. Were not talking about the networks they used to have. Now its cells of five or six people, said Shamkhi Mansour, a colonel in the intelligence branch of Iraqs Counter-Terrorism Service. Iraqi military officials, security experts and the U.S. government said that Iraq has failed to develop the extensive intelligence network that would offer the best chance of rooting out the militants. We had a victory in that we kicked out Daesh from cities, but weve failed in pursuing them in the rural areas and ferreting them out, said Hisham Hashimi, a counter-terrorism advisor to the government, using a derisive Arabic acronym for Islamic State. The Pentagons inspector general reported last month that Iraq lacked reconnaissance assets, intelligence personnel and surveillance capabilities needed to counteract the group, which advocates an extreme version of Sunni Islam. Instead, Iraqi forces have resorted to rounding up large numbers of Sunnis and holding sham trials of Islamic State suspects, a strategy that costs the Shiite-dominated government vital support and could increase support for the extremists. According to activists and security personnel, tens of thousands of people across the country have been wrongly accused of supporting Islamic State because their names are similar to those of wanted militants. There has also been little allowance made for the many people who supported the extremists less out of ideological conviction than out of fear for their lives. Iraqis caught in the dragnet can languish for months in crowded jails while police visit their neighborhoods to investigate. In many cases, according to three security officers, the police extort bribes to clear people of wrongdoing. Iraq is all too familiar with the dangers of this strategy. Nouri Maliki, a Shiite Muslim who served as Iraqs prime minister from 2006 to 2014, used it against Islamic State. At the time, the group was operating clandestinely, forging links in rural areas with Sunni leaders sympathetic to its cause, attempting to lay the groundwork for a massive takeover. Hoping to stomp out any support, Maliki transformed security services into death squads that oppressed Sunni-dominated areas. His approach backfired. In mid-2014, when Islamic State militants began seizing Iraqi territory and building a caliphate, many Sunnis welcomed them as liberators. Many Iraqis insist that history is unlikely to repeat itself. In former Islamic State strongholds such as Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, its difficult to find anybody who speaks favorably about the group. There is not a single citizen in Mosul who respects Daesh, said Bashir Hussein Fathi, a politician there. I havent seen a single citizen complimenting them. Even those who were considered good people and who joined the group now people speak of them badly, he said. Its become a black spot on someones character. He said residents were cooperating more with security services to pinpoint Islamic State infiltrators, especially after the government reactivated local police groups. Maj. Gen. Saad Allaq, head of Iraqs military intelligence directorate, lauded residents in Islamic State areas who had a primary role in bringing us information against Daesh. But he and others said the government was not spending enough funds to cultivate new sources. In one case described by a security expert who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, the Iraqi government nearly missed the chance to cultivate a high-level defector from Islamic State. The U.S.-led coalition in the region finally stepped in and paid $2 million for his cooperation. Another problem is that with seven different intelligence services operating in the country, all working with no clear jurisdiction, there is a greater chance of important information getting lost. A Mosul-based special forces colonel who spoke on the condition that he not be named blamed the issue on a lack of trust among the different security services. In America they combined databases and increased coordination over two buildings falling, he said, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. We havent done this over whole cities falling. Perhaps most worrisome, Islamic State has started operating more openly in rural areas southwest of Mosul, including Hatra, the Hamrin Mountains and the deserts of Anbar. We should be having military operations in those remote regions, but there arent even reconnaissance flights, said Mansour, the colonel. The problem is set to become worse. With Islamic State losing its final bastions in Syria, Iraq has already taken back tens of thousands of its own citizens who had joined the militants. More are expected to return, including many children steeped in Islamic States murderous ideology and forced to take up arms in its Cubs of the Caliphate program. Preventing the militants from gaining a bigger foothold will also require the government to address more basic concerns. Roughly 1.8 million people are still displaced from their homes and living in camps, and many who have moved back are living in ravaged structures on the verge of collapsing. Beset by budgetary concerns, the government has provided little compensation and neglected responsibilities such as lifting rubble and even removing corpses. People want a good relationship with the government, said Fathi, the politician. But it has offered them no plan for people to be patient or to at least know what will happen to them. The problem is that the government doesnt keep its promises. The county filed a lawsuit against Hot Shots on Feb. 28, saying the company is actually an adult business and, therefore, in violation of the DuPage zoning ordinance, which relegates adult businesses to specific areas zoned for that use. Hot Shots is in violation of county laws regulating adult business because it is within 1,000 feet of Wheaton North High School and residential properties, the countys lawsuit alleges. - The Nigerian army has come under intense criticisms for the conduct of its personnel in the just concluded 2019 elections - The Bayelsa state deputy governor, Rear Admiral John Jonah (rtd) has however, exonerated the army of any wrongdoings - He appealed to Nigerians to continue to support the Nigerian army which he described as a stabilising factor The Bayelsa state deputy governor, has urged Nigerians not to blame the army for its involvement in the 2019 general elections. Jonah said this on Saturday, March 16 at Elebele in Yenogoa, the Bayelsa state capital, during the inauguration of some projects in the 16 Brigade Barracks otherwise known as Tukur Buratai Camp located in the community. The deputy governor said he had investigated the army involvement in the elections and found that what they did was not different from what the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai instructed. Buratai had at different fora said the constitution empowers the army to support civil authority in addressing internal security challenges when called upon, citing Section 217 of the 1999 constitution as amended. READ ALSO: Rerun election: Kano govt. begins massive projects in communities with cancelled votes The army chief said this role also extend to providing security during elections. He, however, warned those deployed for the conduct of the elections to be professional, respect human rights and reain apolitical. Buratai who was represented by Maj.-Gen. A. A. Saliu, the Commander, Training and Doctrine Command TRADOC, charged commanders to always impact positively on their environment. He promised more fund to provide required infrastructure in the Brigade and army formations across the country. Buratai also called on the citizens to cooperate with the military by providing it with useful information to enable it ensure their safety. The building inaugurated included Guard house, a two-storey medical centre, Brigade Garrison, soldiers and warrant officers/sergeant clubs and a block of 30 flats for corporal and below. Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo has called on the military command to investigate the roles played by its personnel before and during the state House of Assembly election in Idanre local government area of the state. The appeal was made in a statement by Mr Alex Kalejaye, the Ondo APC state spokesman, on Wednesday, March 13 in Akure. READ ALSO: Ex-Govs dares APC, move to take over Senate presidency His words: In Idanre for instance, wife of a former Chief of Army Staff, turned the peaceful town to a theatre of war. The entire place was militarised. And as a result of this, members of APC were ma*med, brutalized, harassed, intimidated, and scared away from performing their legitimate assignment. It is, therefore, important for military command to investigate this target on our party members and ensure appropriate sanction to erring personnel. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! 2019 elections: Do you still trust INEC to conduct fair elections? - Nigerians speak| Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The Nigerian Presidency says President Muhammadu Buhari will not use his position to influence results of oncoming rerun elections in some states - Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu knocked APC members who expected Buhari to sway the elections in their favour - Shehu says President Buhari will allow INEC to work without any interference from the federal government The Presidency has assured Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari will not interfere in the rerun elections slated for Saturday, March 23 across the country by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The presidency, in a statement issued by presidential spokesman Garba Shehu on Sunday, March 17 warned against hate speeches and incitement to violence through comments by political leaders. The presidency also knocked members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who are criticizing Buhari's refusal to use federal might to sway results in their favour. READ ALSO: INEC to allow Atiku, PDP inspect material after receiving court order Past presidents of Nigeria were known to interfere in inconclusive elections, and that is why party members appear to be upset that the same thing is not happening now, but President Buhari is a different kind of leader. He swore to defend the constitution and will not veer off from that. The Constitution of Nigeria gives the president no such powers. It is unfair and ridiculous to criticise President Buhari for not going against the constitution. Party members in states where there will be supplementary elections then need to be reminded that they need to work hard to earn their peoples votes, rather than expect President Buhari to manipulate INEC in their favour. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Interestingly, while members of the ruling APC party were criticising the president for not interfering on their behalf, members of the opposition were condemning the president based on their assumptions that he would definitely interfere, as many in the opposition did while in power. Under President Buhari, INEC had been and will be completely independent throughout the elections, free from any interference. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app President Buhari is a man of conviction, and the manipulation of election results goes against everything he stands for; INEC is completely in charge. Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported earlier that the administration of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state is making moves to ensure he wins the rerun election there. It has kicked off various developmental and infrastructural projects in the communities at Gama ward in the Nasarawa local government area of the state. The Kano government reportedly started no fewer than three projects in the last three days. The projects included drilling of several boreholes, reconstruction of bad roads and clearing of wastes from the streets. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Angry Nigerian says he needs Atiku to become president and sell the country - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Former president Goodluck Jonathan has said he has neither resigned from the PDP nor quit politics entirely - Jonathan's media aide Ikechukwu Eze said in a statement on behalf of the ex-Nigeria leader that he has no plans to do either at the moment - He warned peddlers of fake news to desist from the act and help instead to build the Nigerian nation Immediate past Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has denied reports that he has defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Jonathan said on Sunday, March 17 that he has no reason to quit the main opposition PDP or even retire from politics for now. He was said to have made the statement through his media aide Ikechukwu Eze as his reaction to a report by an online publication which claimed that the ex-president had resigned from PDP and quit politics. READ ALSO: Buhari will not interfere in rerun elections - Presidency According to Eze, the news is fake and a calculated attempt to rubbish the elder statesman. The statement read: The PDP gave Jonathan the platform to serve as Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President and eventually President of Nigeria. Jonathan has no reason at this time to resign his membership of the platform. Those who derive pleasure in spreading fake information had better occupy themselves with more productive endeavours that are obviously more relevant to nation building. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Obviously, this is a fabrication borne out of mischief as the publishers of the fake story claimed that the former President made the statement while being interviewed by the Nigeria News Agency. There is absolutely no way the former President could have spoken to a non-existent news agency, as none in the country goes by that name. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng recently reported that the inability of Jonathan to deliver his constituency reportedly led to disquiet in the PDP in Bayelsa state. The senatorial district fell to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Degi Eremienyo Wagara while its candidate for Nembe-Brass Federal Constituency, Isreal Sunny-Igoli, also won. It was the efforts of Governor Seriake Dicksons appointees, who went extra miles to rescue the PDP that stopped Jonathan from entirely losing Ogbia. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better Angry Nigerian says he needs Atiku to become president and sell the country - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng A report by the United States has revealed that there is corruption at all levels of government in Nigeria. The report notes that the president, vice president, governors and deputy governors are given immunity from civil and criminal prosecution. Legit.ng gathers that the report focused on the number of convictions the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) have secured. Below is the report: Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government Although the law provides criminal penalties for conviction of official corruption, the government did not implement the law effectively, and officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. Massive, widespread, and pervasive corruption affected all levels of government and the security services. The constitution provides immunity from civil and criminal prosecution for the president, vice president, governors, and deputy governors while in office. There were numerous reports of government corruption during the year. READ ALSO: APC's House of Representative-elect dies in Kano Corruption: The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) holds broad authorities to prosecute most forms of corruption. The EFCC writ extends only to financial and economic crimes. The ICPC secured 14 convictions during the year. In 2016 the EFCC had 66 corruption cases pending in court, had secured 13 convictions during the year, and had 598 open investigations. Although ICPC and EFCC anti-corruption efforts remained largely focused on low- and mid-level government officials, following the 2015 presidential election both organizations started investigations into and brought indictments against various active and former high-level government officials. Many of these cases were pending in court. According to both ICPC and EFCC, the delays were the result of a lack of judges and the widespread practice of filing for and granting multiple adjournments. EFCC arrests and indictments of politicians continued throughout the year, implicating a significant number of opposition political figures and leading to allegations of partisan motivations on the part of the EFCC. In October the EFCC arrested and indicted former governor of Ekiti State Ayo Fayose on 11 counts including conspiracy and money laundering amounting to 2.2 billion naira ($6 million). After a Federal High Court ruling, Fayose was out on 50 million naira ($137,500) bail. Financial Disclosure: The Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act (CCBTA) requires public officials--including the president, vice president, governors, deputy governors, cabinet ministers, and legislators (at both federal and state levels)--to declare their assets to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) before assuming and after leaving office. The constitution calls for the CCB to make declarations available for inspection by any citizen of the country on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe. The law does not address the publication of asset information. Violators risk prosecution, but cases rarely reached conclusion. In 2015 the CCB brought charges before the Code of Conduct Tribunal--a court created by the CCBTA to try violations of that act--against Senate President Bukola Saraki for false declaration of assets. In June 2017 the tribunal dismissed all 18 charges against Saraki for lack of evidence. The government appealed and, in December 2017 the federal Court of Appeal affirmed the CCTs dismissal with respect to 15 counts, but determined there was sufficient evidence to proceed on three counts. Saraki appealed to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the June 2017 decision of the CCT dismissing all charges. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari said that fight against corruption was of utmost importance to his administration. Buhari said this on Thursday, January 17, when he visited the oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, in his palace in Benin. Buhari said the rehabilitation and construction of roads was well captured in the budget. He said he would pressurise the ministry to expedite action to execute the project. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Buhari is the General Overseer of corruption | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng The main headlines of mainstream Nigerian newspapers of Monday, March 18, are focused on the supplementary gubernatorial elections in six states on Saturday, March 23, the declaration by the presidency that President Muhammadu Buhari will not comprise the electoral process to favour candidates of the APC during the supplementary polls, among others. The Guardian reports that the All Progressives Congress said the supplementary governorship elections in Benue, Sokoto, Kano, Plateau, Adamawa and Rivers states would be won by the party. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also said it would be victorious in the supplementary elections in the six states. READ ALSO: There is corruption at all levels of government - US report The APC said in a statement: Even though the PDP claims a bogus lead of over 81,000 votes, reports strongly establish that this dodgy figure is an aggregate of votes obtained by subterfuge not from the numbers recorded by the card reader. There were cases in Logo, Gwer-West, Vandeikya, Guma, Buruku and Gboko Local Governments where the card reader was not used." The national publicity secretary of the PDP also said: In Benue, it is clear that the people have rejected the APC as clearly demonstrated even in the presidential election. Benue State has always been home to the PDP. It is incontestable that our party has the largest genuine followership in all the units, wards and local government areas of the state and as such does not need any underhand measure to secure victory in any election in the state." The Guardian Newspaper for Monday, March 18 Source: UGC The Punch reports that candidates of the APC where supplementary elections will hold on Saturday, March 23, were warned that President Muhammadu Buhari would not compromise the electoral process to favour them. The warning was given on Sunday, March 17, by the presidency. Political leaders making inflammatory statements were also warned ahead of the polls to desist from such acts immediately. The presidency said in a statement signed by the senior special assistant on media and publicity to the president, Garba Shehu: The Presidency also rejects unfair and ridiculous criticisms of President Muhammadu Buharis apparent disinterest in the upcoming elections in some states by party members who wrongfully assume that the President will abuse power by changing results to favour them. Past presidents of Nigeria were known to interfere in inconclusive elections, and that is why party members appear to be upset that the same thing is not happening now, but President Buhari is a different kind of leader. He swore to defend the constitution and will not veer off from that." The Punch Newspaper for Monday, March 18 Source: UGC Vanguard on its part reports that Port Harcourt activists and former agitators in the Niger Delta are divided in their choice of gubernatorial candidate ahead of the continuation of the election in Rivers state. Agitators on the platform of 21st Century Youths of Niger Delta and Agitators with Conscience urged President Muhammadu Buhari to put the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, under control. A statement by the ex-agitators read: "There may be a full-blown oil war, if our rights, aspiration and determination as a people to use our Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs, to choose or elect our preferred candidate and representatives are further trampled upon." The former agitators are supporting Governor Nyesom Wike's re-election, while the Niger Delta Security Watch Organisation of Nigeria (NDSWON) is supporting Amaechi's anointed candidate, Awara Biokpomabo of Africa Action Congress (AAC). Vanguard Newspaper for Monday, March 18 Source: UGC This Day reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it did not request for the deployment of soldiers in its collation centres ahead of the Saturday, March 23 supplementary elections in six states. INEC national commissioner and chairman of Voter Education and Publicity Committee, Festus Okoye,said: I am not aware that the commission requested for the deployment of soldiers in collation centres." This Day Newspaper for Monday, March 18 Source: UGC According to The Nation, the All Progressives Congress accused the Independent National Electoral Commission of working with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to deny it is victory in some states. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Rejecting the commissions decision on the results from Tafawa Balewa local government area of Bauchi state, APC alleged that its agents were not invited to witness the investigations conducted by the commission. According to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the APC was playing the victim. The Nation Newspaper for Monday, March 18 Source: UGC NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Angry Nigerian says he needs Atiku to become president and sell the country| Legit TV Source: Legit.ng Indeed, at least $34 billion in federal funding goes to programs that directly assist people across the state, and the funding for those programs is tied to census figures, according to an analysis from the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy. Aside from federal funding, Illinois could lose as many as two congressional seats if the count shows a loss of population, according to a report from the Illinois Complete Count Commission. Population figures from the once-a-decade census also factor into redistricting that will take place in 2021. Following the deadly shootings at two mosques masterminded by a 28-year-old white supremacist in the City of Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 49 dead, a Nigerian Twitter user has called for repeat of such terrorist attack on Nigerias national mosque located in Abuja, the countrys capital territory. The Twitter user with the handle, @LegitChidi, said the terrorist is needed in the Abuja central mosque. READ ALSO: New Zealand mosque shooting: Nigerian imam who survived attack speaks On Friday, March 15, a popular Nigerian Twitter user, Dr Joe Abah, made a post concerning the the New Zealand mosque shootings, calling on a condemnation of "all forms of extremism: religious, racial, ideological or political." However, while other Twitter users reacting to the post also joined in condemning the attack, a certain user with the handle, @LegitChidi, said the New Zealand terrorist should 'shift' to Abuja central mosque. "Let them shift to Abuja central mosque abeg..we need them there," he posted. Abah also noticed the comment and promised to report the post to Twitter and the Nigerian security forces. A further check by Legit.ng shows that @LegitChidi may have pulled down his Twitter account. However, a screenshot of his profile earlier shown above indicates his location is Bayelsa state. Nigerians have heavily criticised the poster and demand an immediate investigation and motive behind the threat. The Abuja National Mosque is the national mosque of Nigeria. The mosque was built in 1984 and is open to the non-Muslim public, except during congregational prayers. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, the suspect arrested in connection to the New Zealand attack has since been charged to court. Referred to as a white supremacist and Australian terrorist, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant on Saturday, March 16, appeared in a New Zealand court for being the prime suspect of the Christchurch mosque shootings. According to Agency report, more allegations will be instituted against Tarrant who is to reappear in court on Friday, April 5, alongside two of his accomplices who have been remanded in custody without plea. The mayor of Christchurch, Lianne Dalziel, decried the unthinkable crime and expressed her heartfelt concern for the victims of the attack. Dalziel said: We have welcomed new people into our city. They are our friends, they are our neighbours. We want to come together to support them. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Nigeria News 2018: De-Islamisation - The New Trend In European Countries | Legit TV Source: Legit - Some senior officer of the Nigerian Army have been redeployed - Colonel Sagir Musa announced this new development on Sunday The Nigerian Army has announced the redeployment and appointment of some senior officers Daily Trust reports that this was contained in a statement from the army spokesperson, Colonel Sagir Musa on Sunday, March 18. READ ALSO: Lawan, Gbajabiamila set to get APCs backing for Senate Presidency, House Speaker He said Major General HO Otiki has been posted to 8 Division as General Officer Commanding while Major General SO Olabanji the erstwhile General Officer Commanding 8 Division has been posted to Infantry Corps Centre and appointed as commander Infantry Corps. Brigadier General HI Bature from 34 Brigade to Headquarters Training and Doctrine Command as Director Examinations, while Brigadier General TO Olowomeye from Headquarters 33 Brigade to Army Headquarters Department of Civil-Military Affairs as Director Civil Military Affairs. Brigadier General BA Mohammed from 23 Brigade to Martin Luther Agwai International Peace Keeping Centre and appointed Deputy Commandant, Brigadier General UM Bello from Headquarters Training and Doctrine Command to 63 Brigade and appointed Commander. Brigadier General MT Durowaiye was deployed from Directorate of Army Transformation and Innovation to 33 Brigade and appointed Commander. Brigadier General SB Kumapayi deployed from Army Headquarters Department of Civil-Military Affairs to Headquarters 14 Brigade as Commander and Brigadier General NM Jega from Headquarters 2 Brigade to 9 Brigade and appointed Commander. Brigadier General KO Aligbe redeployed from 16 Brigade to Defence Headquarters as Director Liaison and Brigadier General AK Ibrahim from 14 Brigade to Army Headquarters Department of Administration (Army) and appointed Deputy Director Veteran Affairs Department Retired Officers Cell and Brigadier General GTO Ajetunmobi from Headquarters Command Army Records to 31 Brigade as Commander. Brigadier General OG Onubogu redeployed from Army Headquarters Department of Army Policy and Plans to Headquarters 16 Brigade and appointed Commander. Brigadier General OM Bello from Nigerian Army Resource Center to Headquarters 6 Brigade and appointed Chief of Staff, while Brigadier General ZL Abubakar from National Defence College to 32 Brigade and appointed Commander. Meanwhile, the Bayelsa state deputy governor has urged Nigerians not to blame the army for its involvement in the 2019 general elections. Jonah said this on Saturday, March 16, at Elebele in Yenogoa, the Bayelsa state capital, during the inauguration of some projects in the 16 Brigade Barracks otherwise known as Tukur Buratai Camp located in the community. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! 2019 elections: Do you still trust INEC to conduct fair elections? - Nigerians speak| Legit TV Source: Legit.ng News - The chief press secretary to Oshiomhole says the APC chairman believes in democracy and rule of law - According to Ebegbulem, Oshiomhole is always attacked because he has the strategy of killing the career of political godfathers - Ebegbelum noted that the APC national chairman ended godfatherism in Edo and today Edo is free Comrade Simon Ebegbulem, the chief press secretary to the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has claimed that his boss believes in democracy and rule of law. The CPS who disclosed this in an interview with Vanguard newspapers also claimed that Oshiomhole introduced one man one vote while he was governor of Edo state. Going further, he added that Oshiomhole believes that candidates must earn their votes democratically and not through rigging. READ ALSO: Lawan, Gbajabiamila set to get APCs backing for Senate Presidency, House Speaker "The APC victories so far, starting from the presidential election, the sacking of the PDP and the Bukola Saraki political dynasty in Kwara state and the dominance of the APC in the National Assembly are glaring evidence in the elections. "When Comrade Oshiomhole got this job, many of us who know him very well, know he is the right man for the job and that he will deliver," he said. Ebegbulem described Oshiomhole as a dogged fighter who believes in democracy, the rule of law and that candidates must earn their votes democratically and not through rigging. According to him, the APC national chairman introduced one man one vote while he was governor of Edo state. "With the victories we got in most of the states, you could see that the APC NWC got it right especially in areas where we conducted direct primaries. And looking at the results of the elections, you could see political godfathers in the PDP falling by the wayside. When the comrade chairman was insisting that Saraki will be impeached, people thought the impeachment was only going to be at the floor of the Senate. "You can see he has been impeached finally by the people of Kwara through the ballot. Oshiomhole has the strategy of killing the career of political godfathers and that is why there are attacks against him some times," he added. Ebegbulem said Oshiomhole is one of the political leaders he knows who hates godfatherism in politics. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda "He actually ended it in Edo and today Edo is free. He believes that people and not leaders must lead. And that is why in every election, Oshiomhole campaigns vigorously just like he did in the presidential election. "While the PDP was busy strategizing on how to rig, Oshiomhole and President Muhammadu Buhari, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was busy canvassing for votes from Nigerians. So we are very glad that, with the victory, the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, came second as his name suggests, while Comrade Oshiomhole took first as his name connotes," he said. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the giant broom, a logo of the APC ruling party, erected at the City Gate, Abuja, had been finally removed. The giant broom, which drew several criticisms from residents, some of who described it as an eye sore at the federal capital territory, was removed Friday March 15. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! INEC announces Buhari as 2019 election winner, Nigerians react | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng News Zahra Buhari-Indimi has left many social media users in awe with her amazing new photos and a rather powerful messages that preaches the need for self-love and appreciation of one's heritage. The beautiful mother of one is always a beauty to behold and her elegant, classy and modest style has endeared her to the hearts of many Nigerians. In her recent series of photos, Zahra spoke about her pride as a Nigerian who won't let anything stand in the way of her dreams. She wrote: "I adjust my crown as though its made of gold and diamonds, but what this crown is made of is way more than that. My religion, traditions...everything that makes me who I am today is in the very fabric of this crown. Its my identity. A Nigerian, a Northern Nigerian woman. A mother, a wife, a daughter and a sister.And nothing, and I mean nothing stands in the way of my dreams, In sha Allah. #defyingthenorms #defyingthestereotypes #defyingthenormsnorth" READ ALSO: Personal letter from the Editor-in-Chief of Legit.ng (former NAIJ.com) See photos below: PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News on Legit.ng News App PAY ATTENTION: Get the hottest gist on Africa Love Aid In the last photo shared, she wrote: "At this moment I was saying the Nigerian pledge out loud and felt every single word I was uttering. And in my heart I knew that I do pledge to Nigeria with all my heart and my entirety. Do you?" Stunning! Meanwhile, Zahra Buhari-Indimi isn't the only president's child showing patriotism for Nigeria. Her brother, Yusuf Buhari, recently rounded up his NYSC program and he left many Nigerians impressed after he took to social media to show off his certificate. HELLO! NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better Nigeria Celebrities: How Much Do They Spend On Luxury Life? | Legit TV Source: Legit A parish school in the Diocese of Allentown , which has served the community since 1894, plans to soon shut its doors and move to a new location. According to diocese spokesman Matthew Kerr, Holy Infancy School, located in South Side Bethlehem, plans to move close to seven blocks away to the now-unused school building at Incarnation of Our Lord Parish at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. The new school building is near Thomas and Pierce streets in Bethlehem. A letter was sent home to parents with students this past Friday announcing the plans, Kerr said. He said the move would benefit students in the school, which houses children in grades Pre-K through 8. The diocese spokesman added the newer building is well-maintained and more suited as an elementary school, noting the spacious classrooms and better parking structure. Additionally, the new location is away from traffic along Fourth Street and next door to Incarnation Church, which Kerr said will be used for school liturgical celebrations. Holy Infancy Parish plans to sell the current site and use the proceeds from the sale for future needs at Holy Infancy Parish and the Holy Infancy School. The Rev. Andrew Gehringer, the pastor at Holy Infancy, described the school in a news release as having a long tradition and very proud history. The same goes for the former SS. Cyril and Methodius School at Incarnation Parish, he said. "This move has many positives for our students, and for the future of catholic education on the South Side of Bethlehem, he said. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A series of panel discussions will explore social justice issues in Northampton County with an eye toward reform. The discussions focusing on incarceration were brought about by the Easton branch of the NAACP, although that group quickly picked up organizations willing to help with the three-month program, according to branch member Marvin Boyer. Were excited about the partnerships we have with this and about its potential, Boyer said. All three discussions run from 7 to 9 p.m. at Northampton Community College. The first is April 3 in the David Reed Room on the second floor of the campus center. That talk will focus on bail reform. It includes panelists John Morganelli, the Northampton County district attorney; Gary Asteak, a prominent criminal defense attorney; Nina Reynard, the director of Northampton County Pre-Trial Services; and a local criminologist. The forum includes a short film on bail reform and words from an individual directly affected by bail issues. The second forum will be May 16. It will focus on incarceration and feature a talk from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel. The third forum will be June 13. It focuses on the re-entry of incarcerated individuals into society. Boyer applauded the efforts of Northampton County Judge Craig Dally, who oversees the countys mental health and drug courts, but said the county can do more. Our goal is to see what kind of change we can effect on the county level. That will be our biggest challenge," Boyer said. The forums are part of a partnership that includes the Easton, Bethlehem and Allentown NAACP branches; the Boys and Girls Club of Easton; NCS Industries; Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley; the ACLU of Pennsylvania; the Lehigh Valley Engage Humanities Consortium; and Lafayette College. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. A man was shot in the leg early Saturday morning outside in the 1300 block of Livingston Street in Bethlehem, city police report. The wound was treated at a local hospital and the man was released, Capt. Benjamin Hackett said. The man told police he was in the area to visit a friend but said he didnt have information about how or why he was shot just after 2:30 a.m., Hackett said. Police continue to vet the victims version of events, Hackett added. The police blotter described the shooting as an aggravated assault. As of early Monday morning, there were not witnesses or suspects, Hackett said. The investigation is continuing, Hackett said. If anyone has information on the shooting, they are asked to call police at the citys nonemergency number 610-865-7187 or the criminal investigations number 610-865-7162. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The latest of 10 communications masts for Laois is being installed this Bank Holiday Monday morning March 18. The masts are 15 metres tall and are being installed by Cignal, a new communications company that is installing 300 such masts around Ireland, for use by mobile and broadband companies. The masts need no planning permission or public notification because they are classed as communications infrastructure on a public road. Instead each one is licensed by Laois County Council. The one pictured is being installed in Mountmellick, on Connolly Street. A mast that was installed in Durrow was met with anger by Durrow Development Forum, who said it was "an eyesore". The CEO of Cignal, Colin Cunningham who lives in Killenard in Laois, subesequently met with the forum and talks are underway to relocate that mast from the entrance road to the village. "As a Laois resident myself I have been very keen to help communities suffering from poor mobile coverage or a lack of high-speed broadband to get improved infrastructure. To date we have a number of new towers in the county including Killenard, Errill, Stradbally, Portarlington, Sheffield & Durrow. The response we have received has been overwhelming positive, and we will be working hard to address concerns raised in this case. Mr Cunningham said. Laois County Council has licenced the masts. The doctor who oversees the sexually transmitted infections (STIs) clinic at Portlaoise hospital has urged anyone who believes they have an infection to present to the clinic to get checked. Dr Dominic Rowley did so in the knowledge that the clinic is at capacity with the number of people presenting increased significantly in recent years. The consultant in infectious disease is attached to St James Hospital in Dublin but runs a weekly clinic in the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. The Portlaoise clinic has been operating for a number of years but a link established with St James through the Dublin Midland Hospital Group has seen the service expand. He said the hospital's location is ideal for setting up a clinic outside Dublin that reduced the number of patients that have to travel to the capital for checks or treatment. Dr Rowley said the clinic, which he runs in conjunction with lead nurse Deirdre Gordon and public health doctor, Barbara Hynes, is very busy. The demand is out the door. We could probably be open at least three nights a week. As it stands we are only open one night a week. We have a waiting list. An STI clinic should never have a waiting list. We have reduced it, he said. He said patients are presenting mainly from Kildare and Laois. He said most self refer but some come from GPs who cannot provide the treatment. As for the STI incidence, he said the numbers match the demand for the service. It is huge. Every STI has jumped this year alongside HIV, he said. Dr Rowley said there are many reasons why infections rates are on the increase. There is a complacency there about safe sex. There hasn't been a public health campaign about safe sex. Sexual health education is lacking. We also have online dating which is a contributory factor. After a night out you can go home and under the influence of recreational drugs and alcohol you can have an encounter, he said. He said STI incidence is observed mostly among people aged 30 and under but there is a change. We are seeing a lot of people now who are getting STIs in the 50s and 60s. They are now starting new relationships whereas previously they would have been widowed or divorced and their sex life would have been over. Now people are having what we call sexual debuts at a much later age, he said. He said the NHS in the UK is to start giving out free condoms for the over 65s. At the other end of the scale, Dr Rowley said infections are presenting in the underage group. As to gender, he said women tend to be better than men about having their sexual health checks through their GPs. As to the difference between Dublin and a more rural county like Laois, Dr Rowley said there was very little difference in what is presenting. That is very positive in that we are looking after everything that we should be looking after. People are definitely having sex in the Midlands as they are in Dublin, he said. He said foreign holidays also contribute to the incidence but another factor is the Electric Picnic. There is always a big spike after the picnic, he said. There is also no regional disparity in the types of STIs. Chlamydia is the number one in the Midlands the same as in Dublin. Gonnorea, syphilis, HIV genital warts is the exact same as in Dublin, he said. He said people are presenting to the Portlaoise clinic when their STI is at an advanced stage. Undiagnosed STIs in women can cause infertility, not uncommonly. Even something as innocuous as chlamydia if left for up to 10 years can cause a lot of problems in the pelvic area and can cause infertility. Syphilis, HIV or hepatitis can be life-threatening. Undiagnosed STIs can be fatal and can cause serious consequences, he said. He said people with fertility issues can often present to the wrong service. Another big demand for service is from the LGBT community. We have had a big 'men having sex with men' population in our clinic, he said. He said HIV is present in this population who attend the Laois hospital but their treatment is delivered in Dublin. Part of the expansion of the Portlaoise service is the provision of PrEP (Pre Exposure Prophylaxis). It is taken by people in advance of sex to prevent the contraction of HIV. He urged anybody with a concern to present to the clinic which runs from 5.30 pm to 8 pm every Tuesday night. The message is get checked and come into us. We have heard everything before. You are coming into a non-judgemental environment where there is free condoms, free lube and very friendly open staff. The more we engage with people, the more they get checked is the only way we have of educating people and reducing infection rates, he said. At present nine staff are attached to the unit. Two doctors and four nurses staff each clinic. Dr Rowley praised hospital managment for the full support for the service. He hopes the demand for services can help them to support its expansion. We could easily open four nights. We want to set up an express clinic. We would like to have a clinic where you can come in with no symptoms, he said. Such a clinic would only require nurses to take blood with patients bringing in their own swab samples. Dr Rowley said there has not been a public health campaign ion the cards and is badly needed. A Sallins cultural group, Sult na Sollan, can take credit for much of the work that has gone into the launch of a five year Irish language plan launched last week in Naas. County Kildare is the first county in Ireland to publish an Irish language plan with a clear vision, specific objectives, structure and a list of actions to progress the language in the coming years. Sult hopes that the Sallins/Naas area will be recognised as a lionra (Irish language network) by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht during 2019. Receiving recognition as an official Irish language area by the State would allow Naas/Sallins to get access to significant annual budget for Irish language development. The group also hopes to develop a Culturlann (Irish Cultural Centre) in Sallins in the coming years to act as a hub for Irish language and Irish cultural activities in the area. This is in line with government strategy for official Irish language areas. Separately Kildare County Council has reserved a 33-acre site in Sallins to be used as amenity lands and is due to run a public consultation process in the coming months before a final design is determined for this space. Sult is collaborating with Sallins Community Council and community/sporting organisations in Sallins so that the final design would include a Culturlann that would need meet the needs of the entire community. The Irish language community is very active and vibrant in the Sallins and Naas areas. Two annual festivals are held with family events, singing/poetry sessions and even pilates as Gaeilge. In the Joliet crash, a District 5 trooper turned on his emergency lights while attempting to pull over a 2010 Nissan Altima in the westbound lanes of Interstate 80, state police said. The Nissan stopped in the left lane, so the trooper stopped behind it and directed the driver to pull onto the shoulder. The trooper did not get out of his vehicle. It's 28 years since their last drama production was held there but Aughnasheelin community centre is preparing for three nights of drama and comedy on March 22, 23 and 24. The revival of drama in Aughnasheelin has been a long time coming and the newly formed Aughnasheelin Yellow River Players are delighted to be launching themselves back onto the drama scene once again with the hilarious comedy Wake in the West by Michael J Ginnelly. One of the members of the previous group Seamus Prior will also star in this production. Many of the cast are no strangers to the stage, having taken part in many plays, musicals and drama acts locally. Praying over James McCaffrey are from left: Brendan Sammon, Jerome McWeeney, Angela Fitzpatrick, Alan Banks, Patricia Flynn, Meadhbh McTeigue, Seamus Prior and Stephanie Prior, the cast of the Aughnasheelin Yellow River Players picture: Willie Donnellan In a country house in the west of Ireland, the wake of Tom Healy is underway. Tom (James McCaffrey) was a father, friend and neighbour. He was well known in the area, infamous you might say. He was fond of a drop and not an easy man to get on with. So, when the local doctor (Jerome McWeeney) reveals his last wishes, which, in 1970s Ireland would be considered a little unorthodox, needless to say, things dont go according to plan! Tom's daughter Mary (Stephanie Prior) doesnt know whether shes coming or going and dreads telling the local priest, Fr Cassidy (Seamus Prior) of her fathers last request, as he and her father were always at each others throats. She hopes her brother Martin (Brendan Sammon), on his return from America, will help her through it. Martin's return home is also highly anticipated by the loyal girl next door Joan (Meadhbh McTeigue). She is on tender hooks since she heard Martin was coming and hopes he hasnt forgotten their time spent together. As the neighbours arrive to offer their condolences, news of Tom's last wish is a source of great gossip. First to arrive is Margaret (Angela Fitzpatrick), she enjoys a fag and wee one now and again and she is the long-suffering wife of the village drunk Barney (Alan Banks). The newly formed Aughnasheelin Yellow River Players will perform Wake in the West in Aughnasheelin community centre on March 22, 23 and 24. Pictured are the cast of the comedy that is set to entertain the crowds, 38 years after the last play was performed in the hall. Back row: Angela Fitzpatrick, Alan Banks, Seamus Prior, Jerome McWeeney, Meadhbh McTeigue, Brendan Sammon and Stephanie Prior. Sitting in front: James McCaffrey and Patricia Flynn Picture: Willie Donnellan Barney was a great friend of Tom but is eager to get his hands on some of the good old American Rye that Martin has brought home. When Rose (Patricia Flynn) arrives at the wake, despite her caoineadh like a banshee, she has little care for the dead and is more interested in whats in it for herself and will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Wake in the west, despite its name, is an hilarious three act play. Rest assured, you will never have experienced a wake quite like this one! Produced and directed by Stephanie Prior and Angela Fitzpatrick. Also read: Aughnasheelin win Club of the Year 2019 Leitrim Scor Senior finals Representatives of Leitrim County Council, who are in New York for the St Patricks Day period, met with senior executives from Tourism Ireland last week. They were briefed on Tourism Irelands extensive promotional programme in the United States for 2019, which is in full swing right now. Tourism Ireland has prioritised North America, as a market which offers a strong return on investment, in terms of holiday visitors and expenditure. In 2019, Tourism Ireland aims to surpass the record-breaking performance of 2018 and to grow revenue from North American visitors by +8% i.e. 1.99 billion generated by 2.17 million visitors (+6%). Our important culturally curious and social energiser audiences are being targeted with distinctive vacation experiences, events and special offers tailored to their interests. Tourism Ireland is creating stand out for the island of Ireland in the US, highlighting experiences in Leitrim, along the Wild Atlantic Way and in Irelands Ancient East. Promotions aim to grow travel to the regions of Ireland, during the shoulder and off-peak seasons. We were delighted to meet with the representatives of Leitrim County Council and to have the opportunity to brief them about the extensive promotional programme we are undertaking in the United States this year, said Alison Metcalfe, Tourism Irelands Head of North America and Australia. In 2018, we welcomed a record 2 million North American visitors to the island of Ireland. Looking to the year ahead, we are confident that our strategy combined with more airline seats than ever before from the US, as well as the strength and competitiveness of the vacation experience right around the island of Ireland will deliver further growth. St Patricks Day traditionally marks the real start of the tourism season for us; our aim is to bring a smile to the faces of people everywhere and to convey the message that Ireland offers the warmest of welcomes and great fun, as well as wonderful scenery and heritage. We are using every opportunity to capitalise on Irelands heightened profile this week; the saturation coverage about Ireland at this time of year across the airwaves, in newspapers and digital media is an invaluable boost for our overall tourism marketing drive in 2019. THE main opposition group to Irish Cements 10m proposals to change process in Mungret will hold a public meeting next week. The South Court Hotel will next Thursday, March 21, host a public meeting organised by Limerick Against Pollution (LAP). Kicking off at 7pm, the aim of the meeting is to give an update on the campaign against Irish Cements proposals to phase out the use of fossil fuels in favour of used tyres and recovered waste in the production of cement. The plans have been widely opposed by residents, as well as the local political community who cite fears over damage to the environment. But Irish Cement has always insisted its reforms will not impact on the environment, due to the fact burning is taking place at such a high temperature. It also says that 60 new jobs will be created if the proposals get the go-ahead, and it will also protect the existing positions in the factory in Mungret. Irish Cement is still awaiting a licence to operate from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which has received over 4,000 objections to the firms application. Its the first time in over six months that LAP has organised meeting in opposition to the plans. But their spokesperson Claire Keating said: We are still fighting. We are still campaigning against the EPA issuing the licence. Thats basically where we are at present. Ms Keating said the group will push for an independent inquiery into the EPA licence application. All of Limericks political representatives have been invited to the meeting. Alongside this, representatives of the public sector authorities have been asked to attend as well as Irish Cement bosses to answer questions in an open democratic forum. A YOUTH worker who crashed into an oncoming car after she was blinded by early-morning sunshine was fined 250 for careless driving. Priscilla Sheehan, 32, of Ballyhahill, Limerick was prosecuted under Section 52 of the Road Traffic Act following the head-on collision at Liskennett, Granagh on March 13, 2018. Inspector Andrew Lacey told Newcastle West Court there was a significant impact after the car being driven by Ms Sheehan crossed onto the wrong side of the road at around 8.30am. He confirmed she had a full licence, was fully insured and has no previous convictions. No evidence was given in court in relation to any injuries which arose as a result of the head-on collision. Solicitor Rossa McMahon said his client, who works for a garda intervention programme, was travelling to work when she was blinded by the sun as she came around a bend. He said she suddenly veered across the road and collided with the oncoming car. The solicitor told Judge Mary Larkin that both vehicles were a write-off but that Ms Sheehan had comprehensive insurance and that her insurance company is dealing with matters. He confirmed the driver of the second car was not at a loss and that separate civil proceedings have been initiated. Judge Larkin imposed a 250 fine, giving Ms Sheehan six months to pay. Given the circumstances of the collision and the defendants previous good record, she said she would exercise her discretion and not impose a disqualification. Although not a matter for the court, Ms Sheehan will also receive penalty points on her drivers licence as a consequence of her conviction. SHE taught us to be brave; she taught us to be strong; she taught us that life was for living. With these words, Mairead Cregan paid tribute to her beloved sister, Mary who died last Thursday, following a recurrence of the brain tumour that was first diagnosed in 2016 when she was just 30. Speaking to the huge congregation gathered in Dromcollogher for the funeral this Monday afternoon, Mairead said Mary had a positive impact on everyone with her infectious personality and a truly unforgettable smile that lit up every room. She always challenged wrong-doing, she said and was a born nurse, full of kindness and compassion. Earlier, their brother Tommy, said good-bye to Mary in a poem he wrote himself. He would he said, forever miss his best friend. God picks big fighters to fight the big fights, he said in tribute. And he thanked his parents, Limerick GAA county chairman and former TD and senator, John and Patsy, for the gift of such a wonderful sister. Since Marys death last Thursday, thousands of people from the world of GAA and sport and from the world of politics as well as friends, colleagues and neighbours made their way to the Cregan home in Rowels, Meelin just over the Limerick border. And up to 2000 people gathered at St Bartholomews Church this Monday for the Requiem Mass, concelebrated by Fr Frank ODea and nine other priests. In his homily, Fr ODea said Mary faced her illness with dignity, courage and strength, good humour and a positive attitude. She was a woman of great joy, he said and would be remembered, not in her illness and death, but for her kindness, her joy, her laughter and good humour and for her friendship. In a ceremony shot through with love, grace and dignity, the congregation stood and clapped three times: for Tommy, for Mairead, and for Johns last farewell, a rendition of I did it my way. But the clapping was also for Mary, a woman who graced her world and will be remembered. Mary is mourned by her parents, her brother and sister, sister in law Maura, partner Stephen, by her niece and nephews, her aunts, uncles, cousins, colleagues and friends. Former president Goodluck Jonathan, has denied reports that he has resigned as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In a statement released by his media adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, the former president said that a fake story had claimed that he had dumped the party on whose platform he rose to the post of the President of Nigeria. He stressed that the story was borne out of mischief as the former President never spoke to any news outlet on the subject matter. The statement reads; Elephants are the largest land animals on Earth, and they're one of the most unique-looking animals, too. With their characteristic long noses, or trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs, there is no other animal with a similar physique. Most experts recognize two species of elephant: the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) and the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), who live on separate continents and have many unique features. There are several subspecies that belong to one or the other of these two main species, though experts argue over how many subspecies there are and whether or not they constitute separate species, according to the San Diego Zoo. African and Asian elephants African elephants live in sub-Saharan Africa, the rainforests of Central and West Africa and the Sahel desert in Mali, according to National Geographic. Asian elephants live in Nepal, India and Southeast Asia in scrub forests and rainforests. [Elephant Images: The Biggest Beasts on Land] African elephants are the larger of the two species. They grow to between 8.2 and 13 feet (2.5 and 4 meters) tall at the shoulder and weigh 5,000 to 14,000 lbs. (2,268 to 6,350 kilograms), according to National Geographic. Asian elephants are just a little smaller, growing to between 6.6 and 9.8 feet (2 and 3 m) tall at the shoulder and weighing between 4,500 and 11,000 lbs. (2,041 and 4,990 kg). In the wild, African elephants can live up to 70 years, and Asian elephants up to 60 years. African and Asian elephants also have a few different physical features. The ears of African elephant are larger and resemble the shape of the African continent, while Asian elephants have smaller, rounder ears, according to the San Diego Zoo. Both male and female African elephants have large tusks and two "fingers" on the end of their trunks to help them pick items up. Asian elephants have a single "finger" on the end of their trucks. But typically, only male Asian elephants will grow large tusks, while the females and a few males have much smaller tusks called tushes that don't always grow outside the mouth. Tusks are large, deeply rooted teeth that evolved to assist the elephant in digging, lifting, gathering food, and defense while also protecting the trunk, according to World Wildlife Fund. In the same way that humans tend to be right-handed or left-handed, elephants can be right-tusked or left-tusked. Their dominant tusk is easy to identify, because it will be more worn down than the less dominant tusk, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Both species eat all types of vegetation, including a variety of grasses, fruits, leaves, bark and roots. They spend about about 16 hours eating, consuming anywhere from 165 to 330 lbs. (75 to 150 kg) of food per day, according to the San Diego Zoo. An African elephant with an impressive set of tusks. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Elephant life Groups of elephants, or herds, follow a matriarchal structure with the eldest female in charge. Herds are composed of primarily female family members and young calves, according to the San Diego Zoo, and include 6 to 20 members depending on the food supply. When the family gets too large, herds often split into smaller groups that stay within the same area. The matriarch relies on her experience and memory to recall where the best spots for food, water are, and where to find protection from the elements. The matriarch is also responsible for teaching the younger members of her family how to socialize with other elephants. Elephants are very social and can communicate with one another and identify other elephants from distances of up to 2 miles using rumbling, low-pitched sounds that fall below the audible range of humans, according to the National Zoo. Elephants readily show good manners to members within its herd and other herds, according to the San Diego Zoo. For example, they use their trunks to greet one another, either by holding it out high or by inserting the end of their trunk into another elephant's mouth. Elephants also pay close attention to the well-being of all the members of their herd, and will do what they can to take care of and protect weak or injured members. They're considered an extremely intelligent species, and have been observed showing advanced problem-solving skills and demonstrating empathy, mourning and self-awareness, according to an article in Scientific American. African elephants (Loxodonta africana) at a waterhole in the Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa. (Image credit: Mark Wright/University of Hawaii Manoa) Next generation Male and female elephants become sexually mature between 8 and 13 years of age. Male elephants will leave their herd around this time, as long as they're able to find their own food and protect themselves, according to the Smithsonian National Zoo. Adult males either live on their own or in small bachelor herds. Females may not have their first calf until their middle teen years, while males may not father a calf until they are in their 30s, when they are large and strong enough to compete with other males, according to the National Zoo. Usually, only a single calf is born following a 22-month pregnancy. A newborn calf weighs between 150 and 350 lbs. (68 and 158 kg) stands about 3 feet tall. Calves also tend to be hairy with long tails and very short trunks. Elephant calves grow quickly, gaining 2 to 3 lbs. every day in their first year, according to the San Diego Zoo. By the time they are 2 or 3 years old, calves are ready to be weaned. (Image credit: Chintan Mehta/Shutterstock) Classification/Taxonomy All elephants are mammals belonging to the elephantidae family. There are two subspecies of the African elephant: the savanna (or bush) elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). However, forest elephants may in fact be a distinct species of elephant instead of a subspecies, according to Cornell University. There are three subspecies of Asian elephant: the Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus), the Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus), and the Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus). Another possible subspecies is Elephas maximus borneensis (Borneo pygmy elephant). The World Wildlife Fund has determined that DNA evidence suggests that the Borneo pygmy elephant is genetically different from other Asian elephants. Conservation status The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) classifies the Asian elephant as endangered. Though it is not known exactly how many Asian elephants remain, experts believe that the population is decreasing. The African elephant is considered vulnerable, according to the IUCN, and the species' population is increasing. According to the African Wildlife Foundation, there are around 415,000 African elephants in the wild. Threats against the survival of both African and Asian elephants include poaching and habitat loss, according to World Wildlife Fund. Additional resources: Check out more interesting facts about African elephants on the Elephants for Africa website. Learn more about elephant conservation from the International Elephant Foundation. Meet the adorable baby elephants being cared for at Elephants Without Borders elephant orphanage in Botswana. This article was updated on March 18, 2019, by Live Science Contributor Rachel Ross. Black stone beach (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University ) Anjouan island, off eastern coast of Africa, is mostly made of dark volcanic rocks, like these cobbles on the shoreline of one of the island's beaches. But researchers have now found a motherlode of "impossible" rocks on a ridgeline on the island. These out-of-place rocks are made of quartzite, a metamorphic rock that forms from sandstone, as in a riverbed or delta not a volcano. [Read more about the Anjouan island rocks] Out of place (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) Local boys stand near a hunk of quartzite on Anjouan island. The rock doesn't look like anything that could have formed on volcanic Anjouan, said Cornelia Class, a geochemist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. Geologists have been making scattered reports of quartzite on Anjouan for decades. In September 2018, Class led a field expedition to the island to find out how much quartzite there really is and where it's coming from. Mountain of mystery (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) The motherlode of quartzite turned out to be near this mountain village, called Tsembehou, which is nestled among heavily forested volcanic slopes. A nearby ridge called Habakari Ngani is nearly half quartzite, Class and her colleagues found. This rock somehow ended up in the middle of the ocean basin between Africa and Madagascar, which shouldn't host any quartzite at all. Incredibly, as volcanic Anjouan formed, the quartzite lifted up along with its volcanic rocks some 13,120 feet (4,000 meters) from the seabed. A use for quartzite (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) A local named Ali Saindou demonstrates how Anjouan residents use the cobbles of quartzite they find around the island. "We find these all the time when we're planting manioc," Saindou told Columbia's Kevin Krajick. "People use them to sharpen knives." Because people use the quartzite, much of it has been cleared out of streambeds and rivers where it erodes, Class told Live Science. That made hunting for the source of the small boulders of quartzite even more challenging. On the hunt (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) Cornelia Class of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory uses a rock hammer to break apart a sample on the side of a road in Anjouan. Researchers searched for quartzite in outcrops by the sides of roads, in forest clearings and even in manmade rock walls, where scattered chunks of white sometimes peeked out from boulders of volcanic basalt. Quartzite, found (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) Cornelia Class holds a newly discovered piece of quartzite as Comorian government scientist Bourhane Abderemane looks on. The researchers had old geological maps guiding them toward previously discovered quartzite outcrops, but earlier reports were scattered and fragmentary. Heavy work (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) Comorian government geologist Hamidi Soule prepares to crack into a roadside outcropping in search of quartzite. Anjouan island is a difficult place for a geologist, Class said, because most of the rocks on the island are covered with thick layers of soil and vegetation. Excavated roadbeds are one place where exposed rocks can be found. Uphill march (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) Researchers bushwhack uphill while on the hunt for the source of the quartzite boulders found dotting the hillsides on Anjouan. "It's basically like a big garden," Class said of the island. The researchers combed the area systematically, mapping occurrences of quartzite and asking local residents to point them to where they'd seen the white boulders. Flying fruit bat (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) An enormous fruit bat wings its way over the mountains of Anjouan. Livingstone's fruit bats (Pteropus livingstonii) are found only on Anjouan and a nearby island, Moheli. The bats can have wingspans of up to 4.5 feet (1.4 meters). Clues in a cowfield (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) Hidden beneath the soil below this cow's feet is the motherlode: A large deposit of quartzite, making up nearly half of a mountain. The quartzite unit was much larger than expected, Class said. A couple small chunks of the rock that have weathered away from the main body of quartzite are propped next to the cow's front feet. Ocean and land (Image credit: Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute, Columbia University) A view from Anjouan overlooking the sea. As the island was formed by a volcano, it should be entirely igneous, volcanic rock. The presence of the quartzite a metamorphic rock formed from sandstone originally laid down in a river delta or on a beach is mystifying. The rock likely came from the African continent, Class said, but it's not clear how it got into the middle of an ocean basin or how it became incorporated into Anjouan. An artist's conception of a quasar surrounding a supermassive black hole, which has a mass many times that of Earth's sun. Although nothing that falls into the black hole can escape, its massive gravity accelerates an "accretion disk" of luminous particles and gases around it. Astronomers have discovered 83 supermassive black holes birthed by the universe in its infancy. More precisely, the researchers have detected quasars, or huge, luminous disks of gases and dust that surround supermassive black holes. (The black holes themselves emit no light or energy, of course, though friction from the matter that swirls around and ultimately into a black hole's "mouth" does spit out immense light.) The quasars and their central black holes are 13 billion light-years away from Earth, meaning scientists are seeing the objects now as they appeared only 800 million years after the universe formed. Prior to the new discovery, which was made using Japan's Subaru Telescope, only 17 supermassive black holes were known from the region surveyed. [Stephen Hawking's Most Far-Out Ideas About Black Holes] Quasars are the brightest objects in the universe, and they are found only around black holes that are millions of times the mass of Earth's sun. The most distant quasar ever found was detected by the light it gave off only 690 million years after the Big Bang. Of the 83 newfound quasars, the most distant one is 13.05 billion light-years away from us. That means its light started its journey to the telescope lens within the universe's first billion years. This quasar is tied with an earlier discovery as the second-most distant quasar ever found. Light from one of the three most distant quasars ever found, which surrounds a supermassive black hole 13.05 billion light-years from Earth. (Image credit: NAOJ) The researchers, led by astronomer Yoshiki Matsuoka of Ehime University in Japan, used a special instrument called the Hyper Suprime-Cam mounted on the Subaru Telescope; the observatory sits on the volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii. According to the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the camera has a huge field of view and is surveying the entire sky over five years. The new finds suggest that in every cube of space that's a billion light-years per side, there is about one supermassive black hole and an associated quasar. A hundred quasars found in a survey by the Subaru Telescope: The top seven rows are 83 newfound quasars; the bottom two are 17 quasars that were already discovered. (Image credit: NAOJ) The study's findings are important because they're a window into the earliest days of the universe, after it transitioned from a melange of hot subatomic particles into something a bit cooler and more organized. The early universe spent several hundred million years in darkness before its first stars formed; the oldest sign of the universe visible to astronomers goes back about 13.6 billion years. Soon after the first stars formed, hydrogen gas across the universe went through a period of re-ionization, when something very energetic split the atoms back into individual protons and electrons. Scientists don't know exactly what provided this energy, and quasars were one potential suspect. But the Matsuoka team's work, published Feb. 6 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests that there weren't enough quasars to do the job. Instead, the source of the re-ionization energy may have been newborn galaxies. Originally published on Live Science. Up to 100 people in Brown County, about 60 in Columbus and some in Ozaukee County are among those who remain displaced. Some residents in the Portage County community of Plover are asked to limit water use because a lift station was inundated with water Sunday and could fail. A reconstruction of the tomb of the Egtved Girl, which was discovered in Denmark in 1921. Two Bronze Age women one likely a teenage priestess probably didn't travel far and wide across Europe, as previous research suggested, but instead were real homebodies who likely never left what is now modern-day Denmark, a new study finds. In two previous studies, researchers analyzed isotopes (an element that has a different number of neutrons than normal in its nucleus) in the women's remains, so they could piece together where the women had lived. But now, new research finds that these analyses were likely contaminated by modern agricultural lime. "Using strontium [isotopes] to trace prehistoric people should therefore be done with great care and a good understanding of the land use," said study co-researcher Rasmus Andreasen, an isotope geochemist at the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University in Denmark. "Otherwise, you can end up with wrong conclusions." [In Images: The Bronze Age Burial of a Cultic Priestess] However, the researchers of the original studies are standing by their work. "Overall, there is nothing in the study from Aarhus which changes our interpretation: That the two women from the Bronze Age came from afar," Karin Frei, a professor of archaeometry at the National Museum of Denmark, and Robert Frei, a professor of geology and geochemistry at the University of Copenhagen, told Live Science in an email. "In addition, other recent European studies, based on, among others, ancient DNA and strontium isotope investigations, also point to a high degree of mobility of humans in Bronze Age Europe." Super travelers? Both Bronze Age women are well known by archaeologists; the remains of Egtved Girl (the possible priestess) and Skrydstrup Woman were found in Denmark in 1921 and 1935, respectively. More recently, the Freis and their colleagues found that both women were first-class travelers, results they reported in journals in 2015 and 2017. They found that Egtved Girl spent her early years outside of Denmark, likely in southern Germany, and traveled back and forth between Denmark and another country (likely her birthplace) during the last two years of her life before dying at around age 18 in what is now known as the village of Egtved, Denmark. Meanwhile, Skrydstrup Woman likely came to Denmark around age 13, and was buried at a mound at Skrydstrup when she died four years later. The Vallerbaek valley in Denmark, where the researchers did part of their work. (Image credit: Tine Rasmussen) Digging deeper But something didn't add up, so Andreasen and study co-researcher Erik Thomsen, an associate professor emeritus of geoscience at Aarhus University, decided to dig deeper. "We felt it odd that the maps of strontium distributions on which these conclusions were based show no resemblance to the underlying geology," Andreasen told Live Science. "We set out to test if modern-day farming could be the reason that the natural strontium variations were obscured." [Photos: A Bronze Age Burial with Headless Toads] When a person drinks and eats local water and food, they consume the isotopes in these substances that are unique to each area. These isotopes then become a part of that person's teeth, bones and hair. So, by testing these isotopes, researchers can figure out where ancient people were born and lived. However, researchers need accurate maps of each region's isotopes before they can match it to the isotopes found in ancient people. So, the researchers of the new study looked at strontium isotopes in the environment. They found that strontium-rich, agricultural lime, which farmers use for soil improvement, affects the underlying strontium signature, and "does not reflect the prehistoric levels," Andreasen said. When the researchers applied isotopic values that were unaffected by agricultural lime to the isotopes found in Egtved Girl and Skrydstrup Woman, they got very different results than the prior studies. "It is most plausible that these individuals originated close to their burial sites and not far abroad as previously suggested," the researchers wrote in the study. In fact, these women possibly stayed within 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) of their burial spots, the researchers found. Moreover, they noted that the situation in Denmark is not unique. "In areas with farming, one should be very careful when using strontium isotopes to trace the origin and movement of prehistoric people," Andreasen said. But this argument doesn't sway the Freis. Karin Frei called their interpretation "over-simplistic," and Robert Frei said that soon-to-be published research of 1,200 soil samples from all over Europe show "no statistical difference between the bioavailable strontium isotope composition in soils from agricultural and non-agricultural land." The study was published online March 13 in the journal Science Advances. Originally published on Live Science. A magnetic field surrounds our planet and protects it from solar radiation. Our brains might be able to tune into it. For some creatures, the magnetic field that hugs our planet serves as a compass for navigation or orientation. Migratory birds, sea turtles and certain types of bacteria are counted among the species with this built-in navigation system. But what about humans? According to a new study, humans can also sense Earth's magnetic field. The new study, published today (March 18) in the journal eNeuro, provides the first direct evidence, from brain scans, that humans can do so, likely through magnetic particles scattered around the brain. The ability to detect the magnetic field, called magnetoreception, was first suggested to exist in humans back in the 1980s. But subsequent studies of the brain, from the 1990s, didn't find evidence of the ability. [Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind] But with access to new data analysis techniques, an international group of researchers decided to take another look. Manipulating the magnetic field To study whether humans can sense the magnetic field, 34 adults were asked to sit in a dark test chamber adorned with large, square coils. Electric currents traveled through these coils, changing the magnetic field in the chamber.. The intensity of this magnetic field was about the same as the one that surrounds our planet, said lead study author Connie Wang, a doctoral student at the California Institute of Technology. For comparison, it's about 100,000 times weaker than the ones created by MRI machines, Wang noted. The participants were told to relax and close their eyes while the researchers manipulated the magnetic field around them. During the experiment, electroencephalogram (EEG) machines measured a type of brainwave called an alpha wave. Alpha waves are known to decrease in amplitude when the brain picks up a signal, whether it be sight, sound or something magnetic. The brain responds Of the 34 participants, brain scans from four individuals showed strong reactions to one change in the magnetic field: a shift from northeast to northwest. This shift would be the same as a person outside the chamber shifting their head quickly from left to right, except the head moves through the static magnetic field rather than the field moving around it. [Earth Quiz: Do You Really Know Your Planet?] In the four individuals, alpha brain waves decreased in amplitude by as much as 60 percent. But they responded only when the field shifted from northeast to northwest not in the other direction. "We weren't really expecting an asymmetrical response," Wang told Live Science. Though its unclear why this happened, the researchers think it could be something unique to individuals, just like how some people are right-handed and some left-handed. Several participants also had a strong response to another set of experiments that shifted the incline of the field, which is what would happen if you traveled between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. To ensure the results weren't a fluke, the study responders were re-tested several weeks later and the results held true. Stuart Gilder, a professor of geophysics at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich who was not part of the new study, said that the repeated findings made the study convincing. Gilder said that he didn't view the finding that most people couldn't sense the magnetic field as a count against the study, because the ability could be expressed differently in different brains. "Some people are really good at art and some people are really good at math," Gilder told Live Science. Organs don't "have to behave or react in the same way." Still, the study does raise some additional questions, he noted. For example, how would people perceive the field if they had been lying down, or the magnetic field had been moving slower? Ancient navigation It's unclear why some humans seem to be capable of magnetoreception, but in theory, the skill could help with orientation, or be a remnant of an ability that evolved early on to help creatures even ancient hunter-gatherers navigate. "Many animals use the Earth's magnetic field for navigation," Wang told Live Science. "There's such a wide range of creatures that have this sense that we think humans, at least, have some remnants of this sense, even if we don't use it so much in our daily lives anymore." And many questions remain about magnetoreception in general, like how it works. Indeed, scientists have figured out how magnetoreception works in just one type of creature: a type of bacteria called magnetotactic bacteria. These microbes migrate along the field lines of our planet's magnetic field using magnetic particles called magnetite (Fe3O4). These magnetite particles have been known to exist in the human brain for decades and were first found by Joseph Kirschvink, a professor of geobiology at Caltech, who is the senior author of the new study. Whats more, a study published in August 2018 in the journal Scientific Reports from Gilder's group found that these magnetic particles were scattered throughout the human brain. Their widespread presence in the brain suggested that the particles likely served some kind of biological purpose, the authors of that study concluded. Editor's Note: This article was updated on March 19 to clarify that magnetic particles aren't confined to a "brain" in microbes. Bacteria are typically made up of single cells and so they do not have brains. Originally published on Live Science. WASHINGTON - Kim Jones was back from active duty in Vietnam eight years when, on his 32nd birthday, he turned himself into, as he put it, "a walking sculpture that's 18 miles long." He put on combat boots, pulled a nylon stocking over his face and donned a makeshift crown of foam rubber and aviary wire. He slathered his body in mud and strapped to his back a weird, latticelike construction of sticks tied with rope. He then walked westward along Wilshire Boulevard from downtown Los Angeles toward the Pacific Ocean. Toward Vietnam. Before going to Vietnam, Jones had been an art student. After it ... what? The cruel, unanswerable question of how art should respond to war is at the heart of "Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975," a must-see show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It's an exhibition of miscellaneous work made by a diverse group of artists during the peak years of a war that changed everything - including art. It's the first time the Vietnam War has been addressed on this scale by any museum. Organized by Melissa Ho, it pulsates with anguish from first to last. And it reminds us that though Saigon fell more than 40 years ago, that anguish is still with us. Today's polarized politics - from the culture wars to congressional gridlock - are shot through with the aftershocks of Vietnam (just think of the recent tweets exchanged by President Donald Trump and John McCain's daughter Meghan McCain), as are the memories, family histories and inner lives of millions. "Sweat like pigs work like dogs live like rats red dust covered everything." That's how Kim Jones described his time in Vietnam. For bystanders, "Mudman" - the persona he created for performances that led to "Wilshire Boulevard Walk" - was frightening, dissonant, uncomfortable. But it was still more uncomfortable for him. "Wilshire Boulevard Walk" wasn't intended as a metaphor. It wasn't even explicitly about Vietnam - although, according to Jones, other veterans got it, and several approached Mudman saying, "Yeah, I know what it was like." Instead, the performance expressed Jones's personal struggle and the wider crisis of American society. The shock of Vietnam made conventional art forms such as painting and sculpture look inadequate. Its reverberations inspired a rapid expansion of the possible forms art could take and a search for new audiences. Public performances, video, installations, land art and agitprop all flourished during the war. Vietnam also opened up avant-garde art to previously neglected voices, including women, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans. There has been a long delay in recognizing this, and part of the triumph of "Artists Respond" is that it shows how many artists from marginalized groups gave their unique responses to the war urgent and potent expression. African-American and Latino populations bore a disproportionate load under a draft system that was patently unfair. Black and Latino soldiers returned from Vietnam in the late 1960s and early '70s to a society still riven by discrimination. It's no surprise, then, that some of the most explicitly activist art of the period was made by African-Americans and Latinos, including Faith Ringgold, David Hammons and Malaquias Montoya. These artists didn't have to be told that the war was connected to the fight for civil rights. They felt it intimately, every day. But their responses were artistic, not mere sloganeering. Hammons's "America the Beautiful" shows a black body and face draped in an American flag. He made the figure by pressing his greased body to paper, then sprinkling the paper with pigment. The resulting image haunts, its ghostliness keyed to the ambivalent predicament of young black lives even under a banner of patriotism. The final years of the Vietnam War - the early 1970s - coincided with feminism's second wave. Artists such as Carolee Schneemann (who died this month), Yayoi Kusama, Judy Chicago and Corita Kent rode and shaped that wave, articulating powerful critiques of the patriarchal forces that create and feed off war. A lot of antiwar performance art emphasized the vulnerability of the body. Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece" was staged five times between 1964 and 1966, including at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1965. Ono sat on a floor, a pair of scissors in front of her, and invited audience members to come forward one by one and cut off pieces of her clothing. The performance, at heart, feels feminist. But in a year that saw U.S. troop levels in Vietnam ratcheted up from 23,000 to 184,300, it was also easy to read as a comment on the war. Some commentators erroneously identified Ono (who is Japanese) as representing Vietnam. But "Cut Piece," like Jones's "Wilshire Boulevard Walk," was less a metaphor than a form of art-as-psych-experiment: Given the license, how much will you cut off? And how long will you watch a situation that is getting more and more disturbing before you intervene? The wider situation got more disturbing by the day, as bodies came home, and Americans watched it all on television. They saw monks setting themselves on fire, close-range executions and naked, running children burned by napalm. A constant stream of less notorious but scarcely less horrific images compounded their dismay. The propaganda and these images didn't match up. Martha Rosler, who was trained as an abstract painter, turned to making photomontages that highlighted the contradictions. She jammed horrific images from Vietnam into magazine photos of affluent American interiors, reminding people that, as a brochure accompanying one of her exhibitions put it, "the war is always home." Artist Chris Burden responded to the anguish of seeing, as he said, "a lot of people being shot on TV every night, in Vietnam, guys my age" with a 1971 performance that has become notorious and still hurts the brain to contemplate. He had a marksman aim a rifle at him and shoot him in the arm. If you find it obscene that an artist should do such a thing while "guys his age" were being shot at and killed in chaotic circumstances far from home, so do I. But Burden was picking up on a level of irrationality that no longer felt exceptional. It was ambient. When you think of how much was going on in the world, it can seem obscene that the most critically acclaimed American artists of the 1960s were spray-painting pretty patterns on giant canvases (Kenneth Noland), painting enlarged comic strips (Roy Lichtenstein) and fabricating metal boxes (Donald Judd). Many of them, to be fair, were simply trying not to claim too much for art. The catastrophe of World War II had taught them that art's place in the world was modest alongside the realities of war, genocide and nuclear destruction. They had watched fascists and communists try to convert art into an instrument of political power. They wanted to protect it from the task of mass persuasion. That didn't mean they didn't hate the war or that they failed to oppose it. Ad Reinhardt, for instance, kept on painting his nuanced minimalist abstractions even as he became active in the protest movement. For an antiwar protest group, he made a postcard-style work illustrating his position. Addressed to "War Chief, Washington, D.C.," it says "no war," "no draft" and "no fear" on one side and "no art of war," "no art about war" and "no art as war" on the other. But the pressure they felt to keep art and activism apart became close to unbearable for many of the most acclaimed practitioners of abstraction and minimalism. Some, including Judd, Dan Flavin and Carl Andre, moonlighted as makers of explicitly antiwar art. Others, like Rosler, completely changed the kind of art they made. Philip Guston had become famous for his "abstract impressionist" paintings in quivering pinks and greys. But, he said, "I was feeling schizophrenic. The war, what was happening to America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?" In 1970, he switched from abstraction to a clunky kind of figurative painting, with legible, recurring forms (a lightbulb, Ku Klux Klan hoods, shoes, bricks, cigarettes) and an overall vision that felt mired in crisis. Guston is represented here by his most explicit expression of contempt for corrupt power: a blistering caricature of President Richard Nixon. Some painters went further. "I wanted to make the ugliest paintings I could," said Judith Bernstein. "I wanted them to be as ugly and horrifying as the war was." In paintings such as "A Soldier's Christmas," which drew on the violent and sexual blurtings of bathroom graffiti, she made good on her wish. Elsewhere, painters kicked against the coolness of pop art and the mute elegance of minimalism by making work that was angry, hectic and hot: Jim Nutt and Peter Saul, members of the Chicago-based group the Hairy Who, represented torture and debauchery with paintings that were psychedelically vibrant even as they delivered up what Saul called a "cold shower" of "bad conscience." All kinds of artists were trying to find forms to contain the war, to give it meaning. The source of their anguish was that they couldn't: There was no proportionate response. The disaster was too large; their art - art itself - too small. "Paintings don't change wars," as the passionately political painter Leon Golub said in 1967. "They show feelings about wars." Are feelings enough? If you compare the art in "Artists Respond" to the magnitude of the war, it can seem paltry. That does not mean it wasn't poignant, courageous, estimable. It was just no match for the bigger forces at work. Being no match for bigger, catastrophic forces is the very definition of tragedy. And if tragedy teaches us anything, it is humility. That's why, for me, the abiding image from this show is still the humble wooden lattice Kim Jones wore on his back as Mudman. It leans against a wall, like a prop from a Samuel Beckett play. Next to it are his mud-covered combat boots (they can't help but put you in mind of van Gogh's shoes). "Wilshire Boulevard Walk" was about more than the Vietnam War. It was about homelessness, humility and heartbreak. --- "Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975," through Aug. 18 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and F streets NW, Washington, D.C. americanart.si.edu. San Antonio transformed into "greenery" as the city celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Sunday. The River Walk was dyed green as 14 decorated barges floated across during the parade. Green beer was sold at the Arneson River Theater along with other Irish and ethnic food. Q: I saw a close call with an SUV and a school bus on Central Avenue recently, and it really made me angry. What more can be done to keep people from passing school buses? I think lawmakers have to get serious about increasing penalties before something terrible happens. Jean Skinner, Albany A: It's an option that state lawmakers are considering, Jean. The New York School Bus Contractors Association has been calling on the state Legislature to pass measures to increase penalties on drivers who illegally pass school buses and improve the state's pre-license driver education course. Currently, motorists who pass a stopped school bus can be ticketed and face fines and other penalties. The penalty for a first violation includes a fine of $250 to $400, five points added to a driver's license and even 30 days in jail. After three violations in three years, there's a maximum fine of $1,000, up to 180 days in jail and the suspension of a driver's license for a minimum of six months. To address the perpetual problem, multiple state and local agencies support Operation Safe Stop, a one-day enforcement effort in April, when police officers patrol selected bus routes with a history of illegal passing complaints. During the crackdown last year, more than 850 drivers statewide were ticketed for illegally passing stopped school buses. In addition, 3,044 tickets for other traffic violations were issued and 89 arrests were made. Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced new proposals in the 2019-2020 state budget plan to bolster student safety on school buses. The measures would authorize school districts to install stop-arm cameras on buses, increase the fine for passing a stopped school bus and require students to wear seat belts. More Information Hot spots What to watch for this week: Northway (I-87) near Exit 4 and Albany Shaker Road, Colonie: Watch for single lane closures during off-peak daytime hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday for off-road work. See More Collapse "The safety of New York's schoolchildren is our top priority and reckless drivers who put our kids in danger must be held accountable," the governor said in a statement. "Motorists have a responsibility to pay attention and abide by the law, especially when driving in the vicinity of school buses, and these measures will ensure students make it to and from school safely and help prevent needless tragedies." The governor's proposals have to be approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Do you have a question about transportation? Email gettingthere@timesunion.com. Please include your name, town and telephone number. "La Gordiloca's" border buzz has spread north. The local citizen journalist recently garnered her own headline in the New York Times. The story highlights her unconventional ways of reporting the news, bringing Laredo's night crawler to the national stage. Priscilla "La Gordiloca" Villarreal hinted to her 121,000 followers in February that a Times article could be coming. "Waking up to this puts a smile on my face. I have some stories to tell," she said in a Facebook post. Attached was a photo of what appeared to be a text message from a NYT journalist. Just a few weeks later the story ran online: "La Gordiloca: The Swearing Muckraker Upending Border Journalism." READ ALSO: Laredo's Daniella Rodriguez recounts how she met Astros star fiance Simon Romero, a national correspondent for the Times, touches on Villarreal's turbulent past, her 2017-18 legal battle with the Laredo Police Department, her news reporting tactics and, naturally, her $700 1998 Dodge Ram truck, in which she chases her scoops. There are only two other people who are interviewed in the story besides Villarreal. One of them a fan, the other, a critic. "This is a woman who has no respect for the rule of law, or due process," Abundio Rene Cantu said in the article. Cantu is a lawyer for All Star Kids Daycare and Learning Center that sued Villarreal for defamation in 2016. According to NYT, Villarreal is appealing an initial ruling against her. Villarreal told the NYT that one thing she dislikes about her job is her "haters." In December, the Laredo Morning Times reported on Villarreal's birthday bash, including photos from the cumbia-filled night at the Casablanca Event Center. Shortly after the story was published, Villarreal received a flood of negative comments on Facebook, in which she exposed in return on her Facebook page. "These are your adult Facebook bullies," she said in a post, including screenshots of the most negative comments along with a photo and names of particular commentators. While she may have haters, it's clear by her six-digit following that she has a massive amount of fans as well. Romero recounts a lunch date with Villarreal at the La Posada Hotel. He said Villareal was quickly recognized and bombarded with requests for selfies. One woman, Hilda Pena, 72, told Villarreal she was one her biggest fans. During last year's events that led to the arrest of former Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz, Villarreal reported to her followers on Facebook as four women were killed over the course of two weeks. Pena said that it was Villarreal's reporting during these events that won her over. "With that serial killer on the loose, I wondered if I should get my gun," Pena is quoted in the article. "But 'La Gordiloca' made it clear when the situation was under control." RELATED: Photos: 'La Gordiloca' celebrates her birthday with locals and cumbia Villarreal shared the NYT article on her Facebook page which received a warm, congratulatory response locally and across the nation. "You're a badass," Carol Rutz, from Kentucky said. "I wish her all the best and blessings in the world," Helen Martinez, of Colorado commented. In January 2018, Texas Monthly ran a story on "La Gordiloca." According to the publication, the night crawler had just 80,000 Facebook followers at that time. It looks like this border muckraker isn't going anywhere. Villarreal did not respond for request to comment by the time this story was published. JeriLynn Thorpe is a digital reporter for the Laredo Morning Times. Read more of her stories on LMTonline.com | jerilynn.thorpe@lmtonline.com Three Laredoans were recently crowned with titles at the Miss Celebrations USA Nationals held in Orlando, Florida. Yareli Quiroga was crowned National Petite Miss Celebrations USA. READ MORE: The best, weirdest and wildest style at SXSW 2019 Quiroga is the daughter of Manuela Navaroo. She is a student at Avanti Modeling Agency. Quiroga enjoys attending events were she can assist people with disabilities and donate to people in need. Elizabeth Bausman was crowned National Royal Ambassador Miss Celebrations USA. Bausman is the daughter of David and Mary Bausman. She is a student at Glamour Charm School. Bausman can often be seen donating and modeling for many events throughout Texas that give back to the community. Selena Hernandez was crowned National Junior Miss Celebrations USA. Hernandez is the daughter of Angel and Ariana Hernandez. She is a student at Laredo School of Contemporary Dance. Hernandez loves to donate to her community in any way she can, especially to those in need. Miss Celebrations USA will be in Laredo Texas on May 4. It is currently accepting applications for their Spring Pageant. READ MORE: Former beauty queen Daniella Rodriguez surprised with 'gorgeous' bridal shower in Laredo Contestants are required to bring 10 non-perishable food items, which will be donated to the local food bank. For more information about registration and itinerary, visit http://www.misscelebrationsusa.com or email David@misscelebrationsusa.com. A 29-year-old children's book author and illustrator is bringing to Midland the first book in a series about Down syndrome, hoping his message will teach readers that being different is more than OK. Jordan Burk, of Dallas, will be signing copies of "Kelly & the Great Pinewood Derby" from 1-3 p.m. Thursday -- World Down Syndrome Day -- at the George W. Bush Childhood Home, followed by a reading program at 4:30 p.m. He also will sign books from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Whataburger, 800 Andrews Highway. Whataburger was the favorite restaurant of Burk's late uncle, Kelly Owen Burk, who the main character is based on. Burk also will be visiting students at Bynum School a nonprofit school for students with special needs. He said he was a caretaker for his uncle for 14 years and remembers being asked by children why his uncle Kelly was different. "It really opened my eyes," Burk said in a phone interview. "In schools, they don't really touch on different disabilities. They have places for kids (with special needs), but the typical child does not know about autism, Down syndrome, etc." Want to know more? To read a biography about Kelly Burk visit kellyandkelso.com. "Kelly & the Great Pinewood Derby" is available at kellyandkelso.com and Amazon. See More Collapse He said when he started writing "Kelly & the Great Pinewood Derby," he ordered the top 10 books on Down syndrome awareness from Amazon, but the books focused mainly on preparation for siblings who have a brother or sister with the genetic disorder. "There was nothing to introduce the typical child to Down syndrome," Burk said. A year ago, he began to illustrate what he thought a children's book about Down syndrome should look like. Burk said he wanted Kelly to look different from the other characters so readers would be able to recognize the individuals in real life who may have Down syndrome and reach out to them. The book's other characters include a Dalmatian named Tex, Professor Kelso -- a stuffed animal koala that teaches children about friendship (the real Kelly always carried a stuffed animal) -- and Aaron, Kelly's friend -- someone that Burk said he hopes the reader will want to be. "I want boys and girls to wish they could be more like Aaron," Burk said. The author said he wants children to be able to relate to the character and see what they have in common with individuals like Kelly. For instance, in the story, Kelly loses a shoe while on a walk. When reading the book to children, Burk will ask if any of them have ever lost a shoe. And like most children, Kelly loves recess, and he said the children always get excited when they hear they have that in common with the character. He also loves cheeseburgers and most children also love cheeseburgers, Burk said. The character loved them so much that every time he celebrated, he went to Whataburger. "I want to break the barriers and tear down the walls and show them what they have in common with people like Kelly," Burk said. "But I also want to show them the things that make Kelly, Kelly." Burk said he plans to create a series based on his uncle, who died in 2016 at the age of 64. He will also introduce a new character named Shannon, who is a girl with Down syndrome. "It's hard for kids to embrace what they don't understand," Burk said. Fox News' newest pundit is one CNN rejected after she colluded with Hillary Clinton's campaign before campaign events in 2016. Fox said Monday that it has hired Donna Brazile, the former interim Democratic National Committee chair and a longtime CNN commentator before she became embroiled in controversy in 2016. CNN forced Brazile to resign as an on-air contributor in October 2016 after emails revealed that she had tipped off Clinton's aides about questions likely to be asked by CNN moderators during the debates and town hall meetings carried by CNN. At the time, Brazile was highly supportive of Clinton's candidacy. The network said the leaking of the question was a break of its ethics and undermined the impartiality of its campaign coverage. Fox said Brazile would comment on the upcoming presidential campaign on Fox News and Fox Business Network. In announcing Brazile's hiring, it made no mention of the issues surrounding her in 2016. The DNC, which Brazile led on an interim basis during 2016, decided earlier this month to exclude Fox News from televising any of its candidate events. The organization's chair, Tom Perez, said Fox was too closely aligned with President Donald Trump, leading him to conclude the network could not host "a fair and neutral debate for our candidates." In a statement released Monday, Brazile said: "I know I'm going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News. My response is that, if we've learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we can't have a country where we don't talk to those who disagree with our political views. There's an audience on Fox News that doesn't hear enough from Democrats. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our 'safe spaces' where we simply agree with each other." People at Fox said Brazile would have no role in commenting on any debates or town hall meetings it covers, though Fox will probably have very few of those given the DNC's decision to remove it from consideration in televising Democratic events. Brazile's role in channeling questions to Clinton came to light in emails released by WikiLeaks during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. The emails came from a hack of the DNC's servers by Russian operatives. CNN said at the time that it was "completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about (Brazile's) interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor." Brazile apparently got her information from conversations with TV One host Roland Martin, who was a guest moderator for one of the CNN debates. She said she learned that one of the questions during a televised town hall meeting in March of that year would involve the death penalty. Another question before a debate with Clinton's chief Democratic primary challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in Flint, Michigan, concerned the city's ongoing water crisis, although it seems questionable that such a tip was helpful, given that the issue was bound to come up considering the event's location. Brazile said at the time that she offered her resignation when the WikiLeaks emails surfaced showing her telling a senior Clinton adviser, "From time to time, I get the questions in advance." Brazile was scheduled to make her first appearance on Fox on Monday afternoon. WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Some rushed to their trusted online dealers and stores to stock up on semiautomatic assault rifles. Others unlocked their secure cabinets, picked up their firearms and turned them into police stations, no questions asked. The estimated quarter of a million gun owners across this largely quiet, peaceful South Pacific country, many of them dedicated hunters, are bracing for what are likely to be significant reforms to New Zealand's firearm laws. Leaders have hinted the changes will impact the proliferation and availability of semiautomatic weapons in particular. The changes, agreed to in principle by the country's coalition government Monday - just 72 hours after the deadliest act of gun violence in New Zealand history - put the country in line with others that have taken swift action following tragedy within their borders. Details of the changes will be announced within the week, and must be passed by parliament. A gunman who pledged allegiance to white nationalist causes killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, and has been remanded on one charge of murder with more to follow. He has been identified by police as 28-year old Australian Brenton Tarrant who in one day killed more than all the people murdered across New Zealand in 2017. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labeled the massacre "the worst act of terrorism on our shores" and immediately promised swift action, calling for gun laws to be changed. Her declarations have been celebrated by many in New Zealand, some of whom had no idea that military-style semiautomatic weapons were so prolific in a country famously known for its extremely low murder rate. On Monday, the e-commerce website Trade Me, similar to eBay, halted the sale of semiautomatic weapons on its platform. "We've had a lot of contact from Kiwis over the weekend about this issue, and many felt we should stop the sale of these items in the wake of this attack," Trade Me said in a statement. "We've listened to these sentiments and we've put this ban in place while we await clear direction from the government." John Hart, a gun owner, said on Twitter he had given up his AR-15 rifle and ammunition because his "convenience doesn't outweigh the risk of misuse." Still, some gun dealers have also bristled at the idea that they or the weapons they sell are culpable in Friday's events, and have resented being put on the spot. "We have good laws, we've always had good laws," said Wayne Chapman, owner of The Gunshop in Upper Hutt, a city northeast of Wellington. His store, he said, "has not seen a surge or had any problems." David Tipple, managing director of Gun City, one of the largest firearms retailers in New Zealand, called a news conference Monday to announce that Tarrant had bought four guns from Gun City's online store and had them delivered through mail. Gun City has been the focus of criticism and has seen small protests outside their stores in recent days. Many on social media have said a billboard outside the store's Christchurch outlet, which shows a man teaching two young children how to shoot, is in poor taste considering the country is in a state of mourning over the killings. Tarrant, he said, had obtained his gun license in November 2017 and purchased his first firearm about a month later. He bought his last firearm from Gun City in March 2018, and had also purchased ammunition Tipple has shared this information with authorities. But in a testy exchange with reporters, he pushed back on the charge that the guns he sold Tarrant were the exact ones used in his attacks. Tipple said the guns were "A-category" guns, which can be bought with the most basic weapons license. Assault rifles are A-category guns as long as they have a magazine that holds only seven rounds. The weapons seen in a video of the massacre that Tarrant live-streamed had much larger magazines. "I totally agree there should be a gun debate, but today is not the day," said Tipple. "We are not a country of emotional responses, we are a country with laws [and] what we are doing is legal." New Zealand gun owners point out that it is exactly the loophole Tipple brought up - purchasing larger magazines - that enabled Tarrant's shooting spree. One gun owner who owned several AR-15s, but has since given them up, said they only cost $1,200 in New Zealand, but would cost $25,000 or more in Australia on the black market, because they are effectively banned there. "You can get an AR-15 from anywhere really, and while the [30-round magazine] is not allowed legally, they will fit and they will work," said Pete Breidahl, a gun owner and former competition shooter who recently gave up his firearms license. "How, in 2019, can this still be going on? How has this loophole not been fixed?" New Zealand, like the United States, also has no requirement for gun owners to register their weapons, unlike many countries in the world. The tightened gun laws will put New Zealand in line with several other countries who have changed legislation in the wake of tragedy. The Port Arthur massacre in Australia in 1996 shook the continent, changed gun legislation the Pacific nation, strictly restricting self-loading rifles and other weapons. A buyback program destroyed thousands of guns and high-capacity magazines. A shooting at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, that same year also prompted a campaign for tighter restrictions on firearms, which led to a virtual ban on civilian ownership of handguns. Still, New Zealand has made the decision in almost record time. In Australia, it took 12 days after the mass shooting for the government to finalize changes to legislation. It took almost two years for the ban on handguns to become law in the United Kingdom in 1998. Ardern has promised details of changes within 10 days of the attack. Experts argue that New Zealand has indeed been on the cusp of change in gun legislation for years, but never had political unity around the issue. After the country's last mass shooting in 1990, where 13 people including local police were killed in the seaside town of Aramoana, changes were made to firearm legislation including some restrictions on semiautomatic firearms and the requirement for 10-year licenses. Four inquiries have been undertaken by government in recent years. A 1997 review recommended that all guns should be registered and that the government institute a full buyback of all military-style assault weapons, similar to what was done in Australia. These suggestions, said Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydney and founding director of GunPolicy.org, "are all now back on the table." The government's decision, he said, has been in part motivated by the frequency of mass shootings in the United States, which has among the most lax gun laws in the world. "There is a baseline determination not to go down the American road," he said. - - - The Washington Post's Emanuel Stoakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, contributed to this report. BUDAPEST - For nearly a decade, Viktor Orban has used his perch as Hungarian prime minister to dismantle democratic institutions, incite anti-Semitic prejudice, stoke hatred toward refugees and generally thumb his nose at the values for which Europe claims to stand. And, every step of the way, he has had the support of Europe's most important political family. Alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other mainstream European power players, he has been a member in good standing of the center-right bloc that has dominated the continent's politics. The group has showered him with money and protection, while he supplies badly needed votes in Brussels. But perhaps not for much longer. For the first time, a substantial segment of the bloc has decided to break that Faustian bargain and expel Orban. The issue will be settled in a highly anticipated vote among party-family members this week. The outcome will have significant implications for Hungary, for European parliamentary elections this spring and for the future leadership of the continent. It may, too, be an elemental test of European identity as nationalist strongmen rise within a union that was supposed to be pluralistic and free. "This is not some distant autocrat. This is an autocrat within the heart of Europe," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Is the European Union going to continue to subsidize the principal internal attacker of its core democratic values? It's an existential question." Roth was delivering an address last week at Central European University (CEU), a school that has become a symbol of Orban's oppression. The U.S.-accredited university is being forced out of Budapest, a victim of the prime minister's vendetta against the school's founder, Hungarian American financier George Soros. But as part of the negotiation over whether Orban and his party, Fidesz, can stay within Europe's center-right bloc, known as the European People's Party (EPP), the university's future is back on the line. Keeping the school in Budapest is one of three demands made of Orban by Manfred Weber, a German politician who is leading the EPP in May's elections, and who would like to take one of two top jobs in Brussels after the vote. Whether the prime minister complies could determine whether EPP members decide to eject Orban on Wednesday. The moves to curb his behavior after years of enabling it stems from a personal insult delivered via highway billboards. Many of Orban's critics within Hungary have long pushed for the EPP to hold him to account, reasoning that the loss of support from the bloc would cost the prime minister critical E.U. subsidies and protection from attempts in Brussels to censure Hungary. Faced with that sort of pressure, the argument has gone, the 55-year-old might be more restrained. But as Orban rewrote the constitution, commandeered supposedly independent institutions, leveled dog-whistle attacks on Soros, criminalized help for refugees and turned Hungary into a de facto one-party state, the bloc has stood idly by. It took a billboard campaign targeting one of the EPP's own - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker - to rouse indignation. The campaign, funded by Hungarian taxpayers, has featured unflattering photos of Juncker side-by-side with Soros, along with an insinuation that the two are hatching a secret plan to flood the country with migrants. "It's your right to know what Brussels is cooking up," the caption reads. For many in the EPP, it was a step too far. EPP parties from a dozen countries called for Orban's expulsion. Weber - whose Bavarian Christian Social Union party has been a close ally of the Hungarian leader - swept into Budapest last week seeking an end to the billboard campaign, and an apology. "What we want to guarantee is that Fidesz is committed to EPP values, and Hungary is a clear pro-European country which sticks to European values," Weber said in a news conference at Budapest's historic central synagogue. Weber cited a reason to be hopeful: The posters lining the road to and from the Budapest airport, where he had just landed, were being removed as he spoke. But the government had already announced plans to end the poster campaign by March 15, suggesting that Weber was seeking credit for something that had already been decided. To Orban's critics, it was just one more reason to be skeptical that Weber and his fellow conservatives are serious about getting tough on Orban. "Weber's come far too late. The patient is nearly dead. And here comes the doctor with some new ideas," said Peter Balazs, a former Hungarian foreign minister. Speaking alongside Roth at CEU, Hungarian human rights activist Marta Pardavi called Weber's demands "drapery on the dismantling of democracy." Her organization - the Hungarian Helsinki Committee - has been relentlessly attacked by the government for daring to assist refugees and other vulnerable groups. But those attacks, as well as assaults on the independence of the judiciary and the press, went unmentioned in Weber's demands. Of his three red lines, the only one with a chance to make a substantive impact in Hungary is his insistence that CEU be allowed to stay. Weber came to his two-hour meeting with Orban armed with a proposal to use Bavarian money to endow professorships at the university and create a partnership with the Technical University of Munich. CEU has cautiously welcomed Weber's advocacy, while stressing that its problems are legal, not financial. Under a law targeting the school, CEU's U.S.-accredited program has been barred from admitting new students, forcing it to announce a move to Vienna. "You don't fight a battle for two years for academic freedom to trade it away at the last second for a couple of professorships," said Michael Ignatieff, the university's president. "We have a reputation to defend." Orban has said repeatedly that he wants to stay in the EPP, and he has called Weber "a great man" who has earned his support for the European Commission presidency. But the Hungarian leader has also called fellow EPP members "useful idiots" - a remark for which he has since apologized - while the tightly controlled pro-government press has urged him to preemptively ditch the center-right bloc and set out on his own. That double message - known in Hungary as Orban's "peacock dance" - reflects the fact that the prime minister is negotiating from a strong position. If the EPP keeps him, he will continue to reap the benefits of membership while proving that Europe's most powerful leaders need him too much to set him adrift. And if he's ejected, he can lock arms with far-right parties across Europe that are politically ascendant and that view him as a hero. "He will become more radical. He will feel that there are no more constraints," said Istvan Hegedus, a former Fidesz parliamentarian who broke from the party and now leads the Hungarian Europe Society. "That's certainly a danger." But there's a risk for Orban, too, in leaving the protective confines of the EPP and linking up with a bloc that may be gaining influence but is still not powerful enough to lead in Europe. That's one reason Agoston Mraz expects him to stay within the center-right family. Mraz, leader of the Nezopont Institute, a pro-government think tank, said Orban has deliberately provoked conflict with the EPP because he knows it plays well with his voters to attack Brussels. But he is also careful to avoid crossing true red lines. Orban's ultimate goal, Mraz said, is not to be an insurgent, lobbing stones at the powerful from the outside. It is to commandeer and transform Europe from within. "The dream," Mraz said, "is to take over." - - - The Washington Post's Blanka Zoldi and Gergo Saling contributed to this report. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who touts himself as a model of how to work across the aisle, lashed out Monday at the Democrats who control Maryland's General Assembly, calling their policies financially "reckless." As lawmakers entered the frenzied final three weeks of their annual legislative session, Hogan said bills that would significantly increase spending on education and raise the minimum wage would "devastate" the state's economy. He accused Democrats of "pandering" to special interests on school funding. And he lambasted them for ignoring his proposal to impose mandatory minimum sentences for repeat violent offenders who use guns and rejecting a bill to allow school resources officers in Baltimore City to carry guns. "This seems to be like the most pro-criminal group of legislators I've ever seen," Hogan said of the House of Delegates and state Senate, each of which has a Democratic supermajority. "And it's not what most people in the state want to see happen. They want to see us stop the violent crime." His tirade brought rebukes from lawmakers on social media and puzzlement from Senate President Thomas Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert, who said he socialized with the governor over the weekend and Hogan seemed positive then about the 90-day session. "I'm not sure where he's coming from," Miller said. "To paint us all with a broad brush is very much a mistake." House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel, called Hogan's attacks disingenuous and untrue. "Please," Busch said, shaking his head. "The General Assembly is not pro-criminal. They do everything they can do to prevent crime. . . . Every governor has complained and cried at the end of session that they didn't get what they want." Sen. Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, vice-chair of the Budget and Taxation committee, wrote on Twitter that he "genuinely" wants to work with Hogan on "some of the big issues our state faces. . . . It makes it so much harder when press conferences like this morning's are built on false narrative of 'reckless and irresponsible' legislators." Hogan, who easily won a second term in November, is being courted by Republican critics of President Trump to run for president in 2020. The governor says he won't launch a bid unless Trump is severely weakened. But Hogan has given interviews and speeches on the national stage and next month will visit New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. In his appearances, Hogan often says his experience governing a blue state and working with Democrats is an important example for an increasingly polarized nation. On Monday, however, the divisions in Annapolis were as sharp as anywhere. Hogan called the legislature's embrace of recommendations made by the Kirwan Commission, a landmark panel tasked with reworking the state's public school system, "irresponsible." Democratic leaders committed to $1 billion over the next two years as a down payment on the 10-year plan. Hogan described the spending blueprint as "outrageous pandering" to special-interest groups, and vowed that "no additional state tax dollars will be handed over to local school districts without significant accountability attached." Busch disputed Hogan's criticism that Democrats were being financially "reckless," noting that Hogan campaigned in favor of a "lock box" on casino revenue that effectively forces the state to come up with about $125 million more for education each year. "For him to suggest this all snuck up on him, well, it falls on deaf ears," Busch said. The governor also predicted that legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 for most businesses would lead to a loss of 99,000 jobs and $61 billion over the next decade. Proponents of the measure say it would boost the economy and lessen pay disparities, and they note that the legislature has proposed easing the transition by giving smaller businesses more time to comply. Miller said the country's second-wealthiest state "can afford to pay a decent - not even a living - wage, but just a wage that people can get by on. The benefits far outweigh any negative." Last year, Hogan teamed with Democrats to ban bump stocks and enact laws keeping guns away from domestic abusers and individuals deemed to pose an immediate and present danger to themselves or others. On Monday, he criticized lawmakers for "talking about silly things" such as banning 3-D-printed guns, instead of advancing bills to impose mandatory minimums or allow officers in Baltimore City schools to carry guns. "No one has ever committed a crime in the history of the state with a 3-D-printed gun," Hogan said. "Sure let's do it, let's step away from the copier, but what are we going to do about the people committing crimes with real guns?" The House passed the 3-D-printed gun ban on Monday, along with bills that would regulate private sales of rifles and other long guns, raise the smoking age to 21 and make it easier for people sexually abused as children to sue their attackers. The Senate gave final approval to a bill that essentially overturns Hogan's executive order that requires schools to start after Labor Day and end by June 15. Hogan has indicated that he will veto the measure and would support a petition to put the question of who controls school calendars to the voters. CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - New Zealand's coalition government plans to announce gun law changes within the next week in response to Friday's deadly shooting rampage at two mosques in Christchurch, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday. The measures could include restricting the military-style semiautomatic weapons that were used in the attacks, which killed 50 Muslim worshipers and injured more than 40. Similar weapons have been used in recent mass shootings in the United States. The death toll exceeds New Zealand's annual homicide rate; 35 people were killed in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available. "As a cabinet, we were absolutely unified and very clear. The terrorist attack in Christchurch on Friday was the worst act of terrorism on our shores," Ardern said. "It has exposed a range of weaknesses in New Zealand's gun laws. The clear lesson from history around the world is that, to make our community safe, the time to act is now." The cabinet is dominated by the center-left Labour Party but includes four members of the right-wing New Zealand First party. It is supported by the progressive Green Party, which attended Monday's meeting. It made a decision "in principle" about changing gun laws, Ardern said, adding that she will provide further details before the cabinet meets again next Monday. "Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer," she said. The politicians' broad agreement highlights the consensus in New Zealand that making certain types of guns less accessible could have prevented or limited Friday's massacre. The attacks have sent shock waves through this country of 4.5 million people at the bottom of the South Pacific. New Zealand has long been considered safe from terrorism and from the outside world in general. American tycoons flocked to buy property here in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and other terrorist attacks on the United States. Vigils continued nationwide on Monday, from Auckland in the north to Queenstown in the south. Hundreds of high school students gathered for a candlelight vigil in Hagley Park, directly opposite the Al Noor Mosque where the first and deadliest attack occurred. Students from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds sang songs and performed a ceremonial haka dance of the indigenous Maori culture, joined by crowds of people who had come to the park to pay their respects to the victims. Jitters remain high. One student told her friends she thought a journalist's camera was a gun at first glance. There were bomb alerts in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, but they turned out to be false alarms. Brenton Tarrant, 28, of Australia was arrested after the attacks and has been charged with one count of murder. He is expected to face more charges when he next appears in court on April 5. He did not enter a plea during his initial court appearance Saturday and was remanded in custody. His court-appointed lawyer, Richard Peters, said Tarrant has fired him. He said Tarrant plans to represent himself in court. Tarrant appeared to be "quite clear and lucid" on Saturday and did not show any regret, Peters said. "He didn't appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment, other than holding fairly extreme views," Peters told the New Zealand Herald. The lawyer suggested that Tarrant might want to use his trial to espouse his extremist white nationalist beliefs. The suspect left behind a 74-page hate-filled manifesto in which he said he wanted to"directly reduce immigration rates to European lands." He also praised President Donald Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose." In response to criticism that he has implicitly encouraged white nationalism, Trump tweeted Monday: "The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!" Tarrant sent a copy of the manifesto to government offices, including the prime minister's office, which received it nine minutes before the attack. Ardern said there were no details about the timing or location of the impending attack. Ardern announced an inquiry into what the immigration and intelligence agencies knew about the alleged attacker. Investigators will also look into Tarrant's social media usage. The gunman live-streamed the attack on the Al Noor Mosque, where 42 people were killed, on Facebook. The video was deleted but not before it had been widely shared. Facebook and other social media companies "have to step up" and do more to fight hate speech, the prime minister said. In Wellington, the capital, Ardern was the first person to sign a national condolence book Monday. "On behalf of all New Zealanders, we grieve together,"she wrote. "We are one. They are us." Most of the victims of the attacks were immigrants or visitors from countries with Muslim majorities or large Muslim populations. Among the dead were worshipers from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Somalia and Afghanistan, officials said. The youngest was a 3-year-old boy born in New Zealand to refugee parents from Somalia. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan played clips from the video of the mosque attacks and highlighted excerpts of the manifesto as he sought to rally Islamist supporters ahead of local elections. Referring to threats in the manifesto against Muslims in Istanbul, Erdogan also warned that anyone who tried to reclaim the city for Christianity would be sent home "in caskets." His use of the Christchurch massacre for domestic political purposes drew a stiff rebuke from New Zealand. Tarrant had been living sporadically in Dunedin, at the south of New Zealand's South Island, since the end of 2017 and had practiced at a gun club there. The club closed Monday, and the vice president said it might never open again. Presently, people in New Zealand must obtain licenses to own guns. But they are almost always approved: 99.6 percent of the 43,509 license applications filed in 2017 were successful. Tarrant had a gun license and allegedly used a variant of the AR-15, a semiautomatic weapon that has been used in many mass shootings in the United States, including at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018; and on the Las Vegas strip in 2017. A similar weapon was used at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. Since the shooting, Ardern has talked about requiring licenses for individual guns, rather than for users, and banning semiautomatic weapons. A separate police investigation is continuing. Australian counterterrorism police raided two houses in New South Wales on Monday. One was that of Tarrant's sister in Sandy Beach, halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. The counterterrorism officials then stormed a second house at Lawrence, a bit farther north and close to Grafton, where Tarrant grew up. This house reportedly belongs to the boyfriend of his mother, who is a schoolteacher. Tarrant's father, a garbage collector, died in 2010. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation," Australian police said in a statement. Tarrant's family was helping the police with their investigation, they said. More than 250 police officers are already working on the investigation of the attacks, the largest number ever deployed to a case in New Zealand. FBI officers are also helping police with "a number of specialist areas," Police Commissioner Mike Bush said Monday. That investigation has led to delays in returning victims' bodies to their families. Police said that although they are gathering evidence, they are conscious of the need to return the victims' bodies to their families so they can be buried in line with Muslim customs. Multiple graves have been dug at a cemetery in Christchurch, and mosques are expected to reopen for Friday prayers. With many mosques nationwide closed since the attacks, some churches welcomed Muslims into their buildings over the weekend to allow them to pray in sacred spaces. Thirty-four people wounded in the attacks remain hospitalized, 12 of them in critical condition. - - - Mahtani reported from Wellington, New Zealand. The Washington Post's Brett Cole in Grafton, Australia, and William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report. Record cocaine busts in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde have fueled fears of a resurgence of drug trafficking in West Africa that's likely to benefit Islamist militant groups in the region. Authorities in the two former Portuguese colonies have intercepted as much as 10.4 metric tons of cocaine this year, more than the total amount seized on the entire continent between 2013 and 2016, according to the latest data available from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Analysts say that gangs smuggling drugs into Europe pay Islamist militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State to protect shipments crossing the Sahel and then the Sahara, even though the extent of the trade isn't clear. "There were doubts whether West Africa was still being used as a major transit route, but these seizures seem to suggest that there is a return," said Mark Shaw, director of the Geneva-based Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. "It's a surprise and it's very significant." On March 9, Guinea-Bissau recorded its biggest cocaine bust yet after discovering almost 800 kilograms (1,764 pounds) of the narcotic in a fish truck bound for Mali. Four people were arrested, including an adviser to the speaker of Niger's national assembly who's suspected of working for a businessman with links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known by its acronym AQIM, according to Domingos Correia, deputy national director of the judicial police. "There are strong indications the shipment was connected to AQIM financing," said Correia. "This marks a significant return of traffickers and that is very concerning." Nearby, authorities in the archipelago of Cape Verde found 9.6 tons of cocaine on a Panama-flagged vessel, one of the biggest drug seizures ever outside top producer Colombia. The find has an estimated value of $720 million, or the equivalent of 41 percent of Cape Verde's economy, according to U.N. and World Bank data. Marred by political instability since independence in 1974, Guinea-Bissau became a key transit hub for cocaine in the mid-2000s for Latin American criminal networks seeking to ship the narcotic to Europe. At the peak of trafficking in 2007, almost 70 tons are believed to have passed through West Africa. Trafficking routes changed after the U.N. and international law enforcement stepped in to bolster the judiciary and the police. Since then, the estimated amount of cocaine flowing through the region has dropped to 40 tons per year, with a street value of $2.1 billion, according to an forthcoming paper from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development obtained by Bloomberg. A sharp increase in global cocaine production led by Colombia in recent years could help explain the comeback of the West African route, with traffickers looking to diversify destinations, Shaw said. Unusually large shipments of cocaine seized along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2017 and 2018 appear to indicate that the output surge is emboldening drug gangs to take more risks, according to a 2018 report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "There are high levels of cocaine production in South America and resilient levels of demand for cocaine in the U.K. and Europe, so it is not unexpected to see criminals attempting to exploit these routes," the U.K.'s National Crime Agency said in emailed comments. The NCA provided intelligence for Guinea-Bissau's bust, Correia said. While on its way to Europe, some shipments pass through the Sahel, a sparsely populated semi-arid zone on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert. While most Islamist militant groups are based in northern and central Mali, violence has spilled over into neighboring Ivory Coast and spread to Burkina Faso, with thousands of people killed in attacks since 2012. "There are links, because terrorist networks have changed their sources of funding, moving away from kidnapping for ransom," said Pierre Lapaque, the West and Central Africa head of the U.N. Drugs and Crime Office. "Drug money is easy money. If you open the route for a drug lord, he will give you a lot of money. The connection is there, but how big is it?" Both entities use the same storefront along Britts Main Street as their business address on veterinary inspection certificates, though a sign on the door identifies it only as the J.A.K.S office. The rescue puppies are fed at the same time, examined by the same veterinarians and often transported on the same day as the commercial ones sold to suburban pet shops, state records show. The vast majority come to the Chicago area at 8 weeks old the earliest a puppy can be separated from its mother under Illinois law. It may have been a function of having too many candidates on the February ballot, and just a lot of people, including in those younger age groups, just could not make up their minds, Hernandez said. And I think now that its down to one to one, I think theres a renewed interest. The Enigma has entered the building. In politics, if the media agree with your views and you play nice with them, there springs forth a benevolent narrative that youre a blank slate where people can write whatever story they like (see Barack Obama). But if the Fourth Estate opposes your policies and you pick fights with reporters, the narrative is much less kind. Youre a phony, a charlatan, a con man who will be whatever people want you to be (see Donald Trump). Ready or not, we now have a candidate who appears to be a mixture of both. Just in time for St. Patricks Day, Robert Francis ORourke formally entered the 2020 presidential race. Its been quite a journey so far for the Irish-American son of El Paso County Judge and County Commissioner Pat ORourke, who once told reporters he gave his son the nickname Beto because he thought it might help get votes if he entered politics in a border state like Texas. Pat ORourke was cynical as heck. He was also a genius. He knew the Beto moniker would pay ethnic dividends for his son twice. It would help the younger ORourke fool gullible Mexicans into thinking he was one of them and many do, from what I hear because were already conditioned to the insult of white actors playing them on film (e.g., Starring Marlon Brando as Emiliano Zapata). But this stab at cultural appropriation also allows arrogant white liberals to feel as if theyre progressive enough to vote for a Latino because they know in their heart that its a safe choice, since theyre really just voting for one of their own. Upon hearing of the arrival of our savior, my first thought was: Why not wait until Cinco de Mayo? A fake Mexican holiday created by white people to sell beer is the perfect day to kick off the candidacy of a fake Mexican candidate adored by white liberals who dont mind the hard sell. The marketing is hard-core. The media are pitching Beto like hes the last shot of tequila at one of those offensive frat parties you see around the country where, to get in, you have to don a sombrero, throw on a serape and imitate a Mexican. Beto retired from the House of Representatives after three exhausting two-year terms, where he passed no significant bills, rarely reached out to Latinos and avoided the combustible immigration issue, according to Latino lawmakers who got beat up over it. In 2017, he launched a Senate race against an intensely unpopular incumbent and raised more than $70 million from across the country. Yet by implementing the Hillary Clinton strategy for luring Latino voters i.e., attract them by ignoring them he still managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. ORourke who has disclosed a personal wealth of $5 million to $10 million suffered through unemployment the way most of us do: by spending three months traveling the country to find America and maybe himself. The spectacle was too much for CNNs Nia-Malika Henderson, who noted at the time that a woman or minority candidate would be too busy grappling with self-employment to indulge in much self-introspection. Still, Beto pulled it off. Chalk up one for white male privilege, where often the normal rules dont apply. Meanwhile, the media much of which is run by white liberals who are endlessly fascinated by the adventures of other white liberals, while often refusing to give others the time of day have gone loco for Beto. Last month, ORourke was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in Times Square. Now there are two documentaries and an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot for a cover story in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Expect more fawning to come. You can bet that the other dozen or so Democrats running for president are green with envy. Things are especially ticklish for Julian Castro, the one authentic Latino in this race. ORourke gets to say that we should legalize marijuana nationwide. If Castro did that, reporters would poke around to see if the Mexican-American had a drug trafficker uncle south of the border. Why does ORourke get special treatment? You know why. As the Texas Democrat told Vanity Fair about the 2020 presidential race, Im just born to be in it. Hows that for entitlement? Heres a riddle: How many Betos does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: One. To hold the bulb, while the world revolves around him. ruben@rubennavarrette.com Texans should demand that state lawmakers pass bills restoring the states Open Meetings Act to full strength. A recent court ruling gashed a hole in the law by making it easier for members of government boards and agencies to make decisions prior to meeting by conferring individually or in small groups that dont constitute a quorum. Some Houston ISD trustees were accused of using that tactic in a failed attempt to replace Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan. Five trustees admitted communicating one on one prior to a 5-4 vote in October to fire Lathan, but contended they never met as a group. The decision to replace Lathan was later rescinded while the Texas Education Agency investigated the matter. The open meetings law prohibits so-called walking quorums, where public officials covertly discuss what they plan to do before taking a public vote. That provision, however, was ruled unconstitutionally vague in February by the state Court of Criminal Appeals, which suggested the Legislature fix the problem. Without that fix, some public officials may view the court ruling as giving them license to ignore the spirit of the Open Meetings Act, said Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. Fortunately, bills making it clearer that it is illegal for board members to decide public business when a quorum isnt present have been filed. Shannon said identical bills sponsored by state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, and Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, have a good chance of being enacted. A number of legislators understand the need for open government and did not need to be coerced to support the legislation, she said. Texas had one of the strongest open government laws in the country, Shannon said, but it has been eroded by court rulings. That includes the state Supreme Courts Boeing v. Paxton decision in 2015, which has allowed companies to withhold information concerning government contracts they consider proprietary. Bills to close that loophole filed by Watson and state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, should be passed. Conversely, legislators should not pass a bill sponsored by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, which would weaken the 2011 Texas Citizens Participation Act. The so-called anti-SLAPP law is needed. It allows judges to quickly dismiss strategic lawsuits against public participation filed by lobbyists, politicians and businesses solely to silence whistleblowers or critics. How lawmakers vote on these bills will reveal whether they truly believe in transparency. This isnt a Republican or Democrat issue; its about good government. The publics business should be conducted in public. Period. Hong Kong: Construction sector safety lauded Commissioner for Labour Carlson Chan today attended the 20th Award Presentation Ceremony of the Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme. Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Chan said with the concerted efforts of the Government and the industry over the past 20 years, the accident rate per 1,000 workers in the construction industry significantly dropped more than 80%, from 203.9 in the first three quarters in 1999 to 31.4 in the first three quarters in 2018. "However, the construction industry still has the highest occupational safety and health risk and number of fatalities among all industries. Among the 16 fatal industrial accidents last year, 14 involved the construction industry, with falling from height being the main cause of death. Mr Chan said the department launched in January a special enforcement operation targeting high-risk operations such as scaffolding work to eradicate unsafe practices. Additionally, the department would launch a new online complaint platform shortly and hold a safety seminar on truss-out scaffolds in May. It will keep promoting occupational health and safety messages via animations and other platforms, Mr Chan added. Inaugurated in 1999, the award scheme recognises principal contractors, sub-contractors, site personnel and front-line workers with good occupational safety and health performances. The competition this year attracted 186 construction sites, 116 sub-contractors and 134 safety teams. This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Kansas, backed by the Trump administration and 10 other states, wants to be able to prosecute immigrants for identity theft and other crimes when they use other people's Social Security numbers to work in the United States. Kansas' top court ruled that the state couldn't prosecute the immigrants because the case relied on information that is on a required federal work authorization form, the I-9 information that immigration law says may only be used for enforcement of federal crimes. The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks! Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics. The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc. The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics. The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates. Access to college recruiters and advisors its harder to line up higher education. Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family. Vote View Results A man accused of assaulting another man at a Longford- based pharmacy last year has been remanded on continuing bail. Denis Hannafin, of Curry, Athlone Road, Longford was charged with a Section 3 assault causing harm offence at Lloyds Pharmacy, Longford on December 7 2018. Sgt Paddy McGirl said a file outlining the details of the case had still to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) due to the complex nature of the investigation. Mr Hannafins solicitor said his client was a father of six whose income depended on travelling to the UK with a view to importing vehicles, something his solicitor implied could come under threat from a possible hard Brexit. At that point a woman claiming to be the alleged victim's mother stood up to make a number of allegations against Mr Hannafin. READ MORE: Longford man accused of murder told gardai he would sort out the deceased In attempting to respond to those claims, Mr Hannafin said he had been wrongly accused by the same woman on a previous court date of breaking up an invisible car. Judge Seamus Hughes said the allegations made by the woman in open court were just that allegations with Mr Hannafin being deemed innocent until proven otherwise. The case is due to return before a sitting of Longford District Court on May 7. Hezbollah just did Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his political movement, Al-Mustaqbal, a favor. By implicitly attacking former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in its fight against corruption, Hezbollah seems to have unintentionally helped its rivals. Hariri recently reconciled with former Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi, who he has been in a bitter feud with for the past three years, and travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he received a warm welcome and promises of political and financial support. With strong support inside the Sunni community and from Saudi Arabia, Hariri now has free reign to stand up to his opponents within the government and restore the equilibrium that Hezbollah and the March 8th camp have been working to tilt in their favor. Siniora initiated the reconciliation between Rifi and Hariri, which took place on March 12. The move essentially circled the wagons within the Sunni community, which rallied behind Siniora after he was accused by Hezbollah of mismanaging public funds during his tenure as prime minister. Dar al-Fatwa, the highest Sunni religious authority in Lebanon, issued a firm statement saying that the corruption case against Siniora was a red line that shouldnt be crossed. Al-Mustaqbal and former Prime Minister Tammam Salam both also rallied behind Siniora. With the Sunni community coming together, Rifi also voiced his opposition to the corruption case. He did not defend Siniora on a personal basis, but rather as a political and symbolic stance and backed Hariri for the same reasons. A smart move The consolidation within the Sunni community happened in the context of a by-election in Tripoli that is taking place on April 14 in the wake of a decision by the Constitutional Council to revoke pro-Hariri MP Dima Jamalis membership to Parliament. Rifi, who was planning to take part in the election, finally decided to withdraw from the race, tipping the odds in favor of the pro-Hariri candidate, who is expected to win. Jamali has strong backing from former Prime Minister Najib Mikati and former minister Mohammad Safadi, both major players in the northern capitals political arena. The expectation is that she will have no trouble winning the campaign, especially because the opposing candidate, Taha Naji, a member of the anti-Hariri camp, still hasnt decided to run. Many observers of Tripolis political scene see Rifis decision to join forces with other key players in the northern city to support the Hariri camp as a smart move. Well aware that his battle was a lost one, as shown through the latest legislative elections [and] not having received any financial support from Saudi Arabia, Mr. Rifi chose to position himself in a stance where he would have more to gain than lose, writer and analyst Mohammad Allouche said. By rejoining the Hariri camp, Rifi now has a better chance of advancing his political role in the future and a stronger platform that he can use to pursue his fierce battle against Hezbollah, his preferred political target. The Saudi call to order According to several sources, Rifi did not only reconcile with Hariri purely out of political pragmatism, but also because Saudi Arabia was encouraging him to do so. According to these sources, Saudi Arabia is reasserting itself in the Lebanese political scene. The kingdoms efforts are aimed at sending a clear message to the Sunni community: its time to stop the infighting and instead unify in opposition to the increasing influence of Hezbollah. The decision of the reconciliation between Saad Hariri and Ashraf Rifi would have not happened spontaneously, but followed the advice of Saudi Arabia and went well beyond the Siniora case, political analyst Karim Bitar says. For Kassem Kassir, an analyst close to Hezbollah, Riyadh does not want to surrender to the rise of influence (of the Party of God) within the Lebanese government. For the Saudis, the solution is to thrive in bringing order and stability inside the Sunni community. This message of unity might have been delivered to Hariri during his visit to Riyadh last week, where he also received promises of political backing and support to help get Lebanon out of its economic and financial crises. According to reliable sources, Riyadh is willing to finance development projects in Lebanon and even deposit foreign currency in the Central Bank. Like the West, which is unhappy to see the rise of Hezbollahs influence on the Lebanese internal scene, Riyadh doesnt any false illusions either: by unifying ranks within the Hariri Sunni front, Saudi Arabia is well aware that it can only feebly weaken the Shiite Party within the government. Hence the priority to reinforce Saad Hariris position, says Allouche. One thing is for sure: Hariris rocky relationship with Saudi Arabia, exemplified by his forced resignation in Riyadh in November 2017, is now in the past. Hariri has been reinstated as the leader of the Sunni community and can now depend on stronger and more consistent external backing. Hariri demonstrated his new, stronger position by taking a firm stance on the issue of official representation at the Brussels conference regarding the future of Syria when he removed Minister of State for Refugees Saleh Gharib from the guest list. Saad Hariri has ignored Mr. Gharibs complaints and sent a clear message communicating that only the Prime Minister, and no one else, is allowed to talk about this issue, an analyst close to Sunni circles said. (This article was originally in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 16th of March) A petition to have Australian Senator Fraser Anning booted out of the country's parliament has attracted more than 715,000 signatures. Anning, an independent Senator from Queensland caused outrage when he blamed the Christchurch shootings on "the immigration program that allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place". The only person charged in relation to the attack so far is an Australian man with extreme far-right views, according to a manifesto he posted online before allegedly carrying out the attack. A petition on change.org started by Kate Ahmed says he "has no place in the government of our democratic and multicultural country". "We request that he be expelled from his position as Senator, and investigated by law enforcement agencies for supporting right wing terrorism." On Saturday, while speaking to media in Melbourne, Anning had his head slapped with an egg, before turning around and punching the young man who did it - William Connolly - twice. The boy was then set upon by Anning's supporters. I climb into an Uber on Manhattans Upper West Side and Afro Bs song Drogba (Joanna) thumps out of the speakers. Indeed, turn on mainstream radio and you would be hard pressed not to hear the instantly-recognizable voices of Wizkid or Davido two Nigerian musicians who are such global megastars this explanation is superfluous. At the helm of British Vogue sits a man of Ghanaian lineage named Edward Enninful. Recently commissioned by Apple to shoot an iPhone campaign is Ghanaian photographer Prince Gyasi. Tune in to Top Chef lately? One of the finalists is Ghanaian-American chef Eric Adjepong and he titillates audiences and tongues alike with his fusions and deconstructions of African cuisine. Virgil Abloh (a Ghanaian-American) literally flies the flag of Ghana on the garments in Louis Vuittons Mens FW 2019 show, a moment which just may be the climax of the pop cultural hype Africa and its nations seem to be enjoying. 34 PHOTOS click for more Suffice it to say, in cultural arenas where Africans have often been cited (if even that) as inspiration but denied participation, it appears we are finally being globally welcomed for what we have always known we possessed: a wealth of cultural agency and influence. With this thought in mind, and also with 2019 marking the 400-year anniversary of the Middle Passage (when the first enslaved Africans arrived in the United States in 1619), Ive wondered where African fashion falls in the mix of this recent attention, and what imprint our past has on our current fashion culture. What makes contemporary African fashion uniquely African? What is its defining characteristic after epochs of melange with western stimuli (both forced and chosen, welcome and unwelcome)? European fashion is celebrated for glamour; American sportswear (in the strictly fashion-industry sense of the word) is the stuff of legend: but what is the calling card of the contemporary African sartorial landscape? These are the questions I sought to explore (because I was sure that I could hardly actually answer them) through my own meagre means during a recent visit to my home country, Ghana. What does African fashion have to say about itself? Perhaps any attempt to unravel the double helix and decode the DNA of African fashion is an experiment in futility when operating from such a narrow lens as a visit to only one of the continents 54 countries. Africa is not a monolith and neither is its fashion. Anything that is borne of Africas bounty is as much a function of disparate national identities as it is one continental cohesion. That being said, for all the pride of nations that course through the veins of our borders, I am reminded that our national demarcations were largely not of our choosing and that some ineffable and inextricable oneness of being abides despite the imaginary lines and the very real differences in our cultures, values and identities. So then, it is not strange to surmise that there may be some thread that links the continents fashion, right? Speaking for Ghana specifically, and quite likely the rest of the continent, Ready-to-Wear is a relatively new concept. Growing up, I was accustomed to buying clothes off the rack only when I traveled abroad, and having my clothes in Ghana made by a seamstress. Almost everyone in Ghana has a seamstress, and this is true across not all but a breadth of socioeconomic milieus. In current times however, Ready-to-Wear brands, several of which illustrate this story, have cropped up across the continent, leading to the advent of western-inspired fashion weeks, e-commerce platforms, concept stores like Untamed Empire and Viva Boutique and even influencer marketing: In short, the makings of a fashion industry, though plagued with structural issues as to be expected of any entity thusly nascent, that in many ways resembles that of west. When you ask most people what comes to mind when they consider African fashion, you are likely to hear a reference to brightly-colored wax prints (known in some circles as Ankara) from which seamstresses would sew our parents and grandparents traditional garb. (Surely no exegesis of African clothing would be quite complete without paying homage to the unique way in which we embrace and employ color, but that is a whole other story). The sort of Ghanaian traditional clothing I am referring to is the sort Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey (whose canary-colored upcycled plastic tapestries that themselves tell a story of journey and exchange between the west and Africa and of turning toxicity into triumph are featured in Looks 3 and 4) dons in his performance series My Mothers Wardrobe. Never mind that African print itself is of Dutch origin, a consciousness ossified in my mind through a long-ago exhibition by Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare in which he dressed black mannequins in wax prints sewn in classic Victorian style. His work, an exploration of colonialism at large and specifically how these prints supposedly divined by the Dutch to mimic Indonesian Batik came to be ubiquitous on the West African subcontinent, marked a seminal moment in my understanding of my own culture. While wax prints are, of course, now produced on the African continent (and also still in Europe as well as in China) and are inexorably linked to (West) African fashion, to me they alone cannot be the answer, but do point to a bigger clue in the puzzle of defining African fashion. That clue is textile. Africa boasts a depth and breadth of traditional textiles. Kente, which originates from Ashanti and Ewe cultures; the Aso Oke of the Yoruba; Fugu from northern Ghana (Look 7); the Bogolan (mudcloth) of the Bambara ethnic group (inspiration for the knit headwrap in Look 6); the Kikoi cloth from the horn of Africa (particularly Kenya); the kaleidoscopic woven cloth of the Ndebele people of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe; and no textile aficionado has truly lived until theyve visited a Moroccan tissage. In the land of textiles, particularly those of the hand-woven variety, African is king. I have noticed in my study (the word is used lightly here) of current fashion from the continent a propensity for modern African fashion designers to cull from this cornucopia of history-rich textiles while reaching for modernity in the rendering and silhouettes of clothing. Perhaps it is this very syncretism that may be considered the genome of African fashion, generalization be damned: that a panoply of indigenous references is coiled with foreign allusions to result in a genre of clothing that is sui generis. Whether by African designers or non-Africans who have fallen in love with what the continent has to offer (or by designers who draw from their mixed heritage as the Japanese-Ghanaian designer Alexandra Tomiyama does with her Kanji Kente kimono), there always seems to be an interplay of looking in (at the culture) and looking out (at the foreign) in that which concerns African fashion. Beyond our current en-vogueness and seeming designation as the zeitgeist du jour, our fashion, like our very being, is rooted in a past both painful and pulchritudinous, and in a future we are determined to define for ourselves. Creative and Art Direction, Styling, Model: Natasha Nyanin Photography: Colby Blount Assistants: Untamed Empire Art Installation: Serge Attukwei Clottey Make Up: So Aesthetic Manicure: Paintbox Nails Shot on Location in: Elmina, Sirigu and Accra, Ghana Special Thanks to Turkish Airlines for getting us from New York to Accra and back. Three people are facing drug charges after police in Lawrence say a 13-year-old child was buying marijuana-laced edibles. Police said Ranzel Ramos, 20, Santos Santiago, 47, and Adnellys Ramos, 36, all of Lawrence were arrested last week. They all face charges of drug possession and drug distribution. In February, detectives were told by the parent that her 13-year-old child was buying marijuana-laced edibles from an unknown adult female. This female and the child would set up these deals via social media, police said. This adult female would then meet up and deliver these edibles to the child, either near her school or near to the childs home. The edibles came in the form of candies, fruity-type cereals, rice crispy treats, chocolates and muffins. An undercover officer contacted the seller and bought some of the items, police said. Police dismantled the drug operation March 14 and seized edibles, marijuana and $1,280 in cash. Authorities said the suspects had no regard for public safety and enticed children into buying the drugs by selling the candies and other treats laced with marijuana. I credit the detectives and our narcotics unit for acting swiftly and taking down a dangerous drug organization targeting our children. Police Chief Roy Vasque said. The suspect in a 2017 stabbing that left a disabled person severely injured has pleaded guilty to the incident, which was investigated as a transphobic hate crime, said District Attorney Rachael Rollins. David Delacruz, 31, will spend five to seven years in state prison after pleading guilty to the June 13, 2017, attack outside a pizza shop in Egleston Square, according to a news release from the District Attorneys office. He was convicted of charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a disabled person, assault and battery for the purposes of intimidation and violation of the victims civil rights. On the day of the attack, authorities said, Delacruz made a homophobic slur at the victim, who was not identified, when they were outside a Washington Street pizza shop. A public safety camera shows Delacruz charging at the victim, knocking her off her wheelchair and stabbing her multiple times in the abdomen, according to the news release. The attack ended when a witness pulled Delacruz off the victim. The lengthy prison term imposed in this case reflects the seriousness of the attack, which left the victim fighting for her life, Rollins said in a statement. This outcome sends a clear message that theres no place in our society for hate or the violence it fuels. Regardless of who you are, where youre from, or how you identify yourself, we will fight for your right to be safe and secure in Suffolk County. The victim was taken to Boston Medical Center. She needed three blood transfusions and was in the hospital for seven days, authorities said. Authorities said they investigated this case as a hate crime motivated by transphobia. When interviewed by Boston police officers, she identified the defendant by name and by his nickname, Dangerous. She also identified him in a photo array. Under the plea deal, Delacruz will face jail time, followed by two years of probation. The deal also bars him from having any contact with the victim or going to the area in Egleston Square where the incident occurred. He is required to wear a GPS monitor and undergo an alcohol abuse evaluation, as well as any treatment deemed necessary. Delacruz represented himself in court, according to the District Attorneys office. Attorney Joseph Perullo served as standby counsel. He did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment. Authorities encourage anyone affected by a hate crime targeting members of the LGBTQ community to call the Violence Recovery Program at Fenway Health at 617-927-6250. The program offers counseling services, support groups and other resources. The American Dream and Promise Act of 2019 could benefit more than 30,000 immigrants with temporary protections or no legal status. Immigrants, local activists and politicians plan to make their case on Monday afternoon at Boston City Hall. U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Katherine Clark, as well as Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, will make an appearance. House Democrats introduced the bill on Tuesday proposing extending legal permanent residency to immigrants with Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure, as well as conditional residency to certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, more commonly known as Dreamers. More than 12,000 people in Massachusetts have TPS, a program granted to foreign nationals in the U.S. whose native countries are marred by natural disasters, civil wars or other emergencies. More than half of TPS holders in Massachusetts are from El Salvador and Haiti, according to figures from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An estimated 5,900 Dreamers in the Bay State have protections under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that protected eligible undocumented immigrants from deportation. The legislation would extend protections to these groups as well as thousands more undocumented immigrants who were eligible for TPS and DACA but didnt sign up. The average El Salvadoran has been in Massachusetts for over 20 years, said Marion Davis, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. Theyre super, super established here. TPS holders from El Salvador, Haiti, Nepal and seven other countries have been in limbo as the fate of their program is decided in the courts. The Trump administration has tried to dismantle the program and send these immigrants back to their countries of origin. What the bill covers The legislation would offer legal permanent residency to anyone who had TPS or DED status as of Sept. 25, 2016, as long as they lived in the U.S. for three consecutive years. For Dreamers, the path to legal permanent status is a little more complicated. The bill would offer conditional permanent residency" to these young immigrants if they arrived before age 18 and have lived in the U.S. for at least four years before the bills enactment. They must have a high school diploma or a GED and pass criminal background checks, among other requirements. Applicants with three separate misdemeanors or a felony would be disqualified. To obtain permanent legal status, eligible Dreamers would need to have either a completed college degree, two years of of higher education in good standing, at least two years of military service or three years of legal authorization to work so long as they were employed at least 75 percent of the time. The bill does not include any provisions for the U.S.-Mexico border wall promoted by President Donald Trump. Dreamers and young first-generation Americans have rebuffed previous deals from the White House claiming such a deal makes them bargaining chips for the wall and for enforcement practices that would target their undocumented parents. Davis called the bill a gold standard compared to previous proposals, which had more eligibility requirements. This bill is the gold standard of what you would want, Davis said. Its not comprehensive immigration reform. It doesnt cover everybody, but the people it does cover, it covers very well. Massachusetts voters appear divided on immigration issues. A WBUR poll published in July found that two-thirds of Republican voters view Immigration and Customs Enforcement favorably, while nearly 60 percent of Democrats had a negative view of the agency. The poll, which surveyed about 800 people about family separations at the U.S.-Mexican border, found that the majority of Republican and Democrat respondents disagreed with the Trump administrations zero-tolerance" policy and similar practices that led to family separations. Whether the bill will make it to the presidents desk, however, depends on Senate Republicans. A dozen Senate Republicans joined Democrats in passing the resolution blocking Trumps national emergency declaration, which he swiftly vetoed. Advocates said such support for the immigration bill would be a long shot. It is still very important to keep fighting to keep this going because the lives of thousands of people are up in the air, Davis said. They deserve peace of mind. They deserve to be able to stay and move on with their lives. An elderly reputed Connecticut mobster who federal authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in history has been released from prison and is criticizing federal government officials. Eighty-two-year-old Robert Gentile also maintained Monday that he knows nothing about the still-unsolved theft of $500 million worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. He finished a four-year sentence in an unrelated weapons case and was released Friday. Gentile is blaming federal officials for his worsening health problems and criticizing authorities for seizing his money and damaging his Manchester home during a raid in the weapons case. An FBI official declined to comment on Gentiles statements. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials said they were reviewing Gentiles comments. The Massachusetts State Police have launched an investigation after discovering that the World War II Memorial at Castle Island had been vandalized. Someone splashed or poured what is believed to be some type of oil onto the memorial, which is located at the beginning of the causeway heading out to Castle Island, state police said. Troopers discovered the alleged vandalism around 11:30 a.m. Monday, however, it remains unclear as to what time the vandalism occurred. The states Department of Conservation and Recreation oversees Castle Island and has responded to clean the memorial, state police said. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Massachusetts State Police South Boston barracks at 617-740-7710. Writers Note - This is the first of three stories in a series about wineries visited this year by the author in Chambolle-Musigny in Frances Burgundy region. CHAMBOLLE MUSIGNY, FRANCE - The church bell in the stone tower looming over the narrow, winding streets breaks the afternoon silence in this small, ancient village. The bell chimes four times in LEglise Sainte-Barbe as my wife and I walk past the back of the church built in the early 1500s. We follow the narrow street for less than a block, then turn right through the stone entrance on Rue Sainte Barbe leading into a courtyard surrounded by more stone buildings. There, on the right side, in a small, unpretentious office sits Francois Millet, the head winemaker at Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue, one of the most revered wineries in Chambolle Musigny, the blink-and-youll-miss-it small Burgundy village revered around the world for making sublimely smooth, elegant red wines. Millet has been in charge of wine making at Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue since 1986. That might seem like a long time, until you consider that the 30-acre domaine has been producing wine since the 1400s. That might explain why Millet seems so humble yet so poetic as he talks about the domaines wines several minutes later in the winerys cellar. Like many winemakers in Burgundy, Millet seems to consider himself a temporary steward for a winery that has been around for hundreds of years and which will hopefully be around for hundreds of years in the future. This sense of history seems to influence Millets straightforward approach to making wines at Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue. Asked to describe his winemaking style, Millet says, I prefer to respect the vintage. As Millet talks, were surrounded by the 2017 vintage aging gracefully in wooden barrels neatly arranged in the winerys stone cellar. Burgundys 2017 vintage has been largely overshadowed by the legendary 2015 vintage and the challenging yet wonderful 2016 vintage. But Millet says he appreciates the vitality of the 2017 vintage. What I like about this vintage is the elegance and the ease, he says, adding that the wines simply need patience and time to mature into something memorable. It would be a pity not to age them," he says, suggesting they need at least 15 years to mature. The wines in the barrels are still big, really big, Millet says. They are not closed. And yet even at this young age, the five, red wines we taste with Millet from the 2017 vintage already have a complexity and nuance that most wines can only dream of achieving in their lifetime. No wonder Millet talks about these wines as if they are living, breathing people with distinct personalities. The wines are so clear, so true, Millet says, adding, The wines are independent. Its a freethinking personality. ABOUT CHAMBOLLE-MUSIGNY, FRANCE I first drove through this magical, charming village just south of Dijon in Frances Burgundy region several years ago and I was instantly smitten narrow streets lined with stone buildings, surrounded by some of the greatest vineyards in the world. And what makes these vineyards so special is the wide variety of soils found in such a small, concentrated area. As a result, wines made with grapes grown just a few hundred feet apart taste vastly different from one field to the next. A truly special place where time seems to stand still. Population Approximately 300 people Acres of wine vineyards 376 acres Type of wine produced Mostly Pinot Noir red wine, some Chardonnay white wine. Number of Premier Cru vineyards 25 Number of Grand Cru (highest quality) vineyards 2 (Bonnes Mares and Musigny) ABOUT DOMAINE COMTE GEORGES DE VOGUE Established 1450 Vineyard size 30 acres Owners de Vogue family Head winemaker Francois Millet Wines produced Mostly 100 percent Pinot Noir, some Chardonnay WINES TASTED AT DOMAINE COMTE GEORGES DE VOGUE 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Chambolle Musigny 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Bonnes Mares Grand Cru 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Musigny Grand Cru TASTING NOTES (All five red wines described below are made with Pinot Noir grapes and were tasted with Millet at the winery in Chambolle-Musigny in January 2019.) 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Chambolle Musigny Fresh, bright, ripe fruit flavors burst out of the glass in this subtle, dark-colored wine with a long, soft finish. Fans of Chambolle-Musigny wines will appreciate the wines ultra smooth finish often associated with wines from this village. Like the other wines described this week, this elegant powerhouse needs roughly 15 years to mature into an even more graceful wine. 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Chambolle-Musigny Premier Cru As we taste the wine, Millet describes it as very erect, very spontaneous, like young people. He adds that the wine will age well and is like a river, like a current. The comparison to moving water, focused like a stream, definitely applies to the focused flavors in this delicious wine. Its soft, subtle fruit flavors seem to flow and build in intensity with each sip. The wine tastes luxuriously smooth and warm, like a cashmere sweater on a cold, rainy day. 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses Millet describes this outstanding wine from one of Chambolle-Musignys most revered vineyards, Les Amoureuses, as being like a lake, calm and still that you dive into. Millet adds that the balance is almost perfect for the 2017 vintage. Getting that balance right wasnt easy, though. According to Millet, it was like hiking in the mountains and the path is very narrow and you have to be very careful. Writers Tasting Notes This intricately complex wine has a bright, elegant, long finish. Ripe raspberries and mineral-like flavors abound in this mineral-like wine that should age gracefully over the next 15 to 20 years. Truly magnificent. 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Bonnes Mares Grand Cru As we taste this outstanding wine, Millet points out the wines dark, inky color. The first thing you see is the coloring, he says. Its almost more purple. Millet then talks about the wine as if hes an architect trying to figure out how to solve a difficult design problem involving a new building. Its really a difficult construction, he says. But ultimately, the solution comes down to realizing that the winemaker must respect the soil where the grapes come from, which in this case is the Bonnes Mares vineyard north of village of Chambolle Musigny. Writers Tasting Notes Intense, dark fruit flavors (a mixture of blueberries and cherries) give this gorgeous, rich wine a dense, complex finish. This powerful wine tastes like a combination of blueberry pie and lilac flowers. Very distinct and impressive wine built to age well for the next 15 to 25 years. 2017 Domaine Comte Georges De Vogue Musigny Grand Cru The vines for this intense wine were planted in 1953, according to Millet. The result is the wine has long, deep flavors, which Millet says reminds him of a big, deep lake. Millet adds, What I like about this wine is the elegance. And while the wine is approachable today, Millet strongly urges consumers to wait at least 15 years or more before even considering opening this Grand Cru wine. Writers Tasting Notes Dense, smooth wine with intense, dark fruit flavors. Robust yet smooth, light yet mineral like, this complex wine delivers a dazzling array of flavors and aromas, including fresh-picked blackberries. A big yet smooth, elegant wine built for aging gracefully. Absolutely superb. A great vintage of one of the greatest wines in the world. Cheers ! Wine Press by Ken Ross appears on Masslive.com every Monday and in The Republicans weekend section every Thursday. Follow Ken Ross on Twitter or Instagram. SPRINGFIELD Diem Cannabis, which wants to open a marijuana store at the former Hampden Savings Bank at 1665 Main St., has scheduled a community meeting to detail its plans. The community outreach meeting is scheduled on Wednesday, March 27, at 6 p.m., at Kimball Towers, 140 Chestnut St. The meeting will provide the public with a chance to ask questions, voice opinions, and provide feedback to Diem officials, the company said. Diem Cannabis will use this as an opportunity to present our plans for preventing the diversion of products to minors, our plans for security, and how we plan to positively impact the community, said John DiNovella, the Massachusetts operations manager of Diem Cannabis. Diem Cannabis, based in Oregon, also plans to introduce its local leadership team including Chris Mitchem, co-founder and CEO; Frank Kanekoa, co-founder and chief finance officer; Paul E.Caron, comunity and neighborhood liaison; and DiNovella. The company will be applying for a Host Community Agreement with the city, and special permit from the City Council needed to open a marijuana dispensary at the downtown location. The company will also need a license from the state Cannabis Control Commission. Diem officials have stated publicly that they plan to invest approximately $1 million to completely renovate the historic building, which was built in 1918. Community engagement and impact are core tenets of our culture, and we consider it a privilege to be able to restore a historical landmark of the city," Kanekoa said. "We have the potential to create one of the most beautiful dispensaries in Massachusetts. Diem Cannabis conducted a prior community outreach meeting on Nov. 3, 2018, at the Tower Square Hotel. Authorities in New Hampshire have suspended a search of Mount Washington for a missing Massachusetts man after scouring the mountain over the weekend. Porith Stephon Sou, 21, of Dracut, Massachusetts has been missing since March 10, but investigators had a difficult time finding an area to search until recently. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Law Enforcement Division said Sous vehicle was found parked at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center in Pinkhams Grant on Saturday. Fish & Game Conservation Officers, U.S. Forest Service Snow Rangers, Mountain Rescue Services and Androscoggin Valley Search & Rescue searched Mount Washington for Sou on Sunday. The Mt. Washington Observatory and Mt. Washington Auto Road provided logistical support to get the searchers up above tree line. With very little to go on, searchers received information that Sou might have been seen hiking in the Cutler River drainage on Friday March 8th and most recently on the Mt. Washington Auto Road on Saturday March 9th, authorities said. Searchers combed the trails and woodlands in these general areas searching for any signs of Sou. The search has been suspended due to the size of the possible search area, deep snow and lack of a specific area as to where Sou might have gone, authorities said. Authorities in Brockton discovered nine weapons, including six handguns, ammunition and high-capacity magazines inside a car, all in the possession of three men from out of state, police said. None of the three men from Tennessee had a license to carry the weapons or ammunition and all were arrested and were held without bail at their arraignment Monday, according to WBZ. Police said the three men were sitting in a car in a driveway on Longworth Avenue late Saturday morning, when a concerned citizen called about suspicious activity, reporting that one of the men had a gun, the television station said. In addition to firearms, police also found face masks, two Kevlar gloves, and red handkerchiefs. Last spring, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America released a report that ranked Springfield the most challenging metropolitan area in the United States to live with asthma. This year, the nonprofit ranked the city the fifth most challenging place to live with spring allergies behind McAllen, Texas; Jackson, Mississippi; Providence, Rhode Island; and Memphis, Tennessee. The ranking was bestowed in the AAFAs annual Spring Allergy Capitals report that provides insights into the 100 metropolitan cities where people are most affected by spring allergies. "Spring allergies can cause a lot of misery for millions of people in the U.S., said Kenneth Mendez, AAFA president and chief executive officer, in a prepared statement. Our Spring Allergy Capitals Report highlights the cities that face the most challenges due to high pollen counts, high allergy medicine usage and lower access to specialized care by allergists. Springfields position in a similar ranking of asthma capitals last May is cited in the organizations highlighting of allergy capitals within a special graphic box called Extreme Capitals. The box notes: "Many cities show up repeatedly on the Allergy Capitals each year, but we've noticed a few which made the top 10 of both our 2019 Allergy AND 2018 Asthma Capitals rankings. These cities can be even more problematic for people with allergies and asthma. If pollen is an asthma trigger for you, take extra precautions (shown below) to protect yourself in these cities." Others in the box with Springfield include Louisville, Kentucky, which ranked No. 5 in the 2018 Asthma Capitals listing and No. 6 in the 2019 Spring Allergy Capitals listing, and Richmond, Virginia, No. 2 in the 2018 Asthma Capitals listing, and No. 10 in the 2019 Spring Allergy Capitals Listing. McAllen earned the designation as the top Allergy Capital based on having higher than average pollen, higher than average medicine use and lower availability to board-certified allergists, the three "important factors" reviewed by the report. Cities ranked below Springfield in the listing of Spring Allergy Capitals include Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Richmond, Virginia. The report explains its seasonal spring pollen score as a comprehensive index obtained by AAFA of the" population at risk of being affected by airborne allergenic pollen, derived from actual pollen counts, allergy prevalence for each pollen type, and related factors for the most recent Spring allergy season (Spring 2018)." For medication use, it said the "AAFA obtained the number of allergy medication prescriptions per patient prevalence for the most recent Spring allergy season (Spring 2018)" and that this also "includes over-the-counter and behind-the-counter allergy medication sales at the pharmacy counter." In the third category of allergy specialists it said, AAFA obtained the number of board-certified allergists/immunologists per patient prevalence. For each factor, the report explains that AAFA "used the most recently available 12-month data. Weights are applied to each factor; factors are not weighted equally. Total scores are calculated as a composite of all three factors and cities are ranked from highest total score (city rank #1) to lowest total score (city rank #100)." Springfield, which scored below average for spring pollen score and medication use and average for allergy specialists for a total score of 78.76, ranked behind Providence, Rhode Island, as the second worst city in the Northeast for spring allergies in the report. The city with the lowest score on the report was Denver, Colorado. Only San Jose, California, and Rochester, New York, had better than average scores for number of board-certified allergists per patient in the list of Spring Allergy Capitals. The report states that the ranking is based on analysis of data from the 100 most-populated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the contiguous 48 states. The AAFA is a non-profit founded in 1953 and describes itself as "the leading patient organization for people with asthma and allergies, and the oldest asthma and allergy patient group in the world. It is estimated that 50 million Americans have seasonal nasal allergies, and that 25 million have been diagnosed with asthma. The AAFA recommendations on pollen-reduction exposure steps to take for days that pollen is high for the trees or grass you are allergic to include: Limit outdoor activities Keep windows closed Use central air conditioning with air filtration Wear sunglasses when you are outdoors Wear a hat to cover your hair Take a shower and shampoo your hair before going to bed to remove pollen. Massachusetts State Police troopers working specialized overtime patrols the patrols authorities say were part of the overtime abuse scandal were expected to write at least eight citations per shift, federal prosecutors wrote in a recent filing. A state police spokesman told MassLive in a statement that the department has no policy or operating procedures that establish quotas, and does not endorse a quota system." Under the leadership of Colonel Gilpin, the Department has implemented several reforms, including the elimination of Troop E and AIRE Patrols, and has referred 46 troopers to federal prosecutors for alleged overtime abuse," state police spokesman David Procopio said. In a sentencing memorandum for former Trooper Eric Chin, one of several troopers who were charged in the overtime abuse investigation, federal prosecutors Mark Grady and Dustin Chao said troopers working Accident and Injury Reduction Effort patrols known as AIRE were expected to issue a minimum of 8-10 citations for each AIRE shift. Any failure to issue the required number of citations had to be explained to supervisors and command staff, prosecutors wrote. Repeated failures to meet this quota often resulted in a trooper being blocked from receiving such overtime opportunities. The memorandum does not mention how the prosecutor attained this information. MassLive reached out to the U.S. Attorneys Office for clarification. Eight troopers were charged in federal court on embezzlement charges in connection with the overtime investigation. Chin is one of several troopers who pleaded guilty. Three troopers, including Lt. David Wilson, also face state charges in the overtime scandal. A Charlton woman wrote a support letter for Wilson, who is now retired, in his federal case and she mentions quotas. The woman, Ruth Beringer, is a friend of Wilsons wife. In her letter, she says Wilson was a workaholic who served the state well and fostered more than 50 children, adopting two of them. She claimed that troopers were allowed to leave overtime shifts early if traffic stop quotas were met. If Lt. Wilson finished his quota, he would relieve the desk officer and go in early for his regular shift, she wrote. Chin, who is scheduled for sentencing in a U.S. District Court in Boston next week, was suspended in April 2017. In an interview with WCVB, he said overtime abuse was a common practice in Troop E. He told the television station in the March 2018 interview that, this was an ongoing, accepted practice in that particular troop. Chin further told WCVB that the charges against the troopers showed change was needed within state police. Chin was terminated on Dec. 12, 2018. Union members have not filed grievances about a loss of overtime opportunities based on failure to meet an alleged citation quota. Nearly 50 troopers were flagged in the overtime investigation that involved members of the former Troop E. The troopers were investigated for specialized overtime patrols conducted on the Massachusetts Turnpike and Metropolitan tunnels system. State police began an internal investigation in 2017 and, in early 2018, announced an internal audit revealed potential overtime abuse. All eight troopers charged in federal court have pleaded guilty. Authorities say the troopers skipped some shifts entirely and falsified citation information to make it appear they were conducted the specialized traffic enforcement. FBI investigators said they discovered the troopers charged in the case didnt have their cruiser radios on even though they reported working the overtime shifts. This shows the troopers were not conducting the enforcement, authorities said. The AIRE patrols were 4-hour-long shifts and conducted by members of the former Troop E. The program was created to reduce accidents, crashes and enforce aggressive driving on the Mass. Pike. Depending on seniority, troopers were paid between $60 to $75 an hour with lieutenants making $100 per hour or more. In the sentencing memorandum in the Chin case, prosecutors say troopers assigned to the AIRE shifts and who chose to abuse this overtime benefit would write the minimum number of ticket and then go home. In many instances, these troopers would obtain the minimum number of citations in an hour, or less, the prosecutors said. As stated in many of the federal cases against the troopers, some citations were doctored to give the appearance the troopers were conducting enforcement while working the overtime patrols. In the case against Trooper Heath McAuliffe, he claimed he wrote eight motor vehicle citations during an overtime shift. Investigators reviewed the citations and discovered no driver histories were requested during the Sept. 15, 2015 overtime shift by the trooper. Seven of the citations had never been issued, authorities discovered while reviewing state Registry of Motor Vehicle records. The eighth citation was issued to a driver, but seven hours before McAuliffes overtime shift began. Federal prosecutors also accuse the troopers using bad weather as a way not to issue citations at all during the overtime patrols. In practice, inclement weather meant neither tickets, nor work, was required for troopers abusing the AIRE program, the prosecutors wrote. Reminiscent of a grade school snow day, these troopers treated the AIRE overtime program as if it were a paid holiday. Olivia Cassidy, an 11th-grader at Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, started school interested in veterinary science. But once there, she discovered she liked plumbing so freshman year she entered the schools plumbing program. In addition to her academic classes, she has earned professional certifications and gotten hands-on experience working with a local contractor. Cassidy said her technical education provided me with a good start in a profession at a young age in an industry with a shortage of skilled licensed plumbers. Cassidy joined policymakers and education and business advocates at the Statehouse Monday to push for funding and policy changes that would expand access to career and technical schools. According to Robert LePage, assistant secretary for career education at the Department of Education, the number of students enrolled in career and technical education in Massachusetts has increased from 56,000 to 61,000 over the last three years. It is expected to increase by another 5,000 students in the next three years. Former Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash, who is now president and CEO of Massachusetts Competitive Business Partnership, a business group, said when he talks to business owners, their concerns are not about taxes or regulation. Its about workforce, he said. Employers large and small say the same thing we need more trained employees. Today, Massachusetts vocational schools have an estimated 3,200 students on waiting lists, according to the Alliance for Vocational Technical Education. This includes 500 students on waiting lists in Worcester and 318 in Springfield, according to the group. The bill, HD3279, would require state officials to increase access to vocational and technical schools. It would create a new position of deputy commissioner of career and technical education within state government. It would expand agreements with public colleges and universities that let technical education students earn college credit. The bill would develop state credentials for students who graduate from career and technical schools; set standards for training teachers and testing students at these schools; work with regional workforce boards to determine labor market needs; and expand the requirement for technical education at comprehensive schools, which combine academic and technical courses. It would also require the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to expand programs where students can take academic classes in the morning, then vocational classes in the afternoon. Currently, two such programs are in place in Gloucester and Lawrence. State education officials announced Monday that they were providing $1 million in grants, through federal funding, to expand access to career and technical education, including at programs where students can split their time between academic and vocational courses. The bill does not appropriate funding. It would create a commission to study funding options for career and technical education programs. The bill is one of several proposals to help career and technical schools. The coalition is supporting a $15 million appropriation in Gov. Charlie Bakers budget proposal to develop and implement early college programs. In his budget, Baker also proposed additional per student funding to all students enrolled in early college or career pathway programs. According to Bakers budget, this would cost $1.2 million in fiscal 2020. Former lieutenant governor Tim Murray, now president and CEO of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of the Alliance for Vocational Technical Education, called vocational technical education a way to meet the needs of regional economies. He said the programs provide young people with quality career paths while training the workers that businesses desperately need. Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, said as the trades have become high tech, there is a huge demand for skilled workers in areas like advanced manufacturing and precision machining. Lesser said Massachusetts system for career and technical education is one of the best in the country, but schools have long waiting lists. When you have a good thing, you often need more of it, Lesser said. Students are desperate to get into programs but dont have enough spots. Almost every day, I hear from employers desperate to hire people. Lesser called vocational and technical schools a completely underutilized resource. If the state does not invest in expanding these programs, he said, jobs and opportunity eventually will go elsewhere. Lesser said state officials have recently focused too heavily on college preparation, with a lack of appreciation for how lucrative and how impactful careers in these fields could be. Rep. Alice Peisch, D-Wellesley, chair of the House Education Committee, said she will support policies that ensure vocational programs are available for every single student whod like to take advantage of that opportunity. Despite being divided in their support for Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, most American voters support making the probes findings public, a new poll suggests. A Suffolk University/USA Today national survey released Monday found that half of U.S. voters agree with President Donald Trumps assertion that Muellers probe is a witch hunt, motivated by politics, while 47 percent do not. A similar margin -- 48.5 to 46 percent -- said they believe congressional Democrats are doing the right thing by aggressively pursuing investigations into Trump and his administration. Fewer than a third, however, said they believe the U.S. House should seriously considering impeaching the president. A majority of voters, or 58 percent, further said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosis recent remarks against impeaching Trump had no impact on their opinion. Voters also split over whether they support the presidents denial that no collusion occurred between his 2016 campaign and Russia, with 43 percent saying they had a lot or some trust in Trumps claim, compared to 52 percent who reported little or no trust." But, more than eight in 10 voters -- or 82 percent -- said they believe its very or somewhat important that the Justice Department release all Muellers investigation report to the public, the poll found. U.S. House lawmakers voted 420 to 0 last week to for a resolution calling for the special counsels report to be made available to the public and Congress. David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, said the polls findings suggest that finally, the voting public and Congress agree on something." With the investigation in its third year, people want to know what the investigation uncovered and whether President Trump colluded with the Russians or directed others to collude with the Russians, he said in a statement. Trump jumped on the surveys finding that half of Americans agree with his claim that the Mueller probe is a witch hunt. Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out? he tweeted. Wow! A Suffolk/USA Today Poll, just out, states, 50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Muellers investigation is a Witch Hunt. @MSNBC Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019 The president did not weigh in on any other results contained in the Suffolk/USA Today survey. The poll surveyed more than 1,000 registered voters nationwide via telephone from March 13 to 17. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. SPRINGFIELD Ruben Barrero, the 39-year-old city man accused of stabbing a police officer last week, has been sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for an evaluation of his competency to stand trial. Police said Barrero stabbed Springfield officer Gregory A. Vatrano on March 13 during a violent arrest after Barrero allegedly set fire to a porch at a Vermont Street home where his mother lives. The court clinics initial evaluation found that Barrero is not competent to stand trial, and he was ordered to be sent to Bridgewater for further evaluation. Barrero is being held without right to bail after a not guilty plea was entered for him Thursday in Springfield District Court. A status on the case is scheduled for April 3. Barrero is charged with two counts of assault and battery on a police officer with officers Alan Wine and Jacob Werbicki listed as victims and a count each of arson and resisting arrest. A charge of attempted murder was amended Friday to armed assault with intent to murder, with Vatrano listed as the victim. Acting Police Commissioner Cheryl C. Clapprood said at a press conference Thursday Vatrano suffered a broken hand and cuts and bruises in the struggle. He will be out of work for several weeks until the hand injury heals, she said. She said a ceramic plate in Vatranos bulletproof vest saved him from being seriously injured or killed. According to police officer Michael Placanicos report, officers were dispatched to 74 Vermont St. just after 9:30 p.m. last Wednesday for a fire. A tenant said she believed Barrero set the fire because he was mad at his mother who lived in a third-floor apartment for kicking him out earlier in the day. Barrero was seen walking north on Island Pond Road by K9 officer Scott Stelzer. He pulled beside Barrero and told him to stop. Barrero turned and ran south on Island Pond Road, according to the report. A foot chase ensued, with Barrero suddenly turning and thrusting a knife toward Vatranos chest, striking the plate in the officers vest. Vatrano and Barrero then fought on the ground, with Stelzer joining in to try to bring him under control, the report said. During this time Mr. Barrero had an object in his hand but dropped it during the struggle," the report said. Mr. Barrero continued his violent struggle and several officers arrived to assist in gaining control of Mr. Barrero. The report said Barrero was eventually placed in handcuffs. He had a small cut on his left eyebrow area and was assessed at the scene by emergency medical personnel before being brought to the police station. While officers were attempting to search Mr. Barrero prior to transport he kicked Officer Werbecki in the left knee and Officer Wine in the arm and shoulder area," the report said. Barrero, according to the police report, told two other officers, I stabbed one officer tonight and I will stab another. A black handled kitchen knife was found in the grass where officers struggled with Barrero. An accelerant sweep of Barreros clothing found accelerants on a pair of sweat pants, shorts and his right sneaker. If we want to help our youth, our poor, our homeless, those who struggle with addiction and those who are victims of violence, we need churches. If we want to foster peace and unity across race and religion, throughout neighborhoods and beyond our nation, we need churches. If we want our communities to heal so the next generation can embrace a more promising society, we simply must have churches. As the 2020 primary season kicks into full force, many are questioning why, yet again, Iowa and New Hampshire have the honor of casting the first votes in the presidential nomination process. For decades the states, two of the smallest and least racially diverse in the nation, have put their seal of approval or condemnation on candidates. Some say these states, with their emphasis on retail politics, help candidates with less money and name recognition have a chance. What do you think? FiveThirtyEight recently weighed in on potentially re-ordering the primary calendar, putting more of an emphasis on states with demographics that represent the nation as a whole. Iowa and New Hampshire are very white and lean more evangelical Christian than the rest of the nation, changing who they throw their support behind in these early contests. The early states play a key role in winnowing the candidate field, and a state electorate that looks more like the party as a whole may vote in a way that better reflects the opinion of Democrats across the country. ...Illinois is the state whose population comes closest to being a cross section of Democratic voters.So under this hypothetical where Democrats prioritize states that best reflect their party, Illinois would go first in the nominating process, and Iowa and New Hampshire would move toward the back of the line. Now, if this calendar followed the current setup where four carve-out states vote by themselves at the start of the primary process, the three states after Illinois would be New Jersey, New York and Florida. Just after the first four would be Nevada, which currently goes third, reflecting the fact that there has been some effort to increase diversity at the start of the real presidential primary calendar. We Re-Ordered The Entire Democratic Primary Calendar To Better Represent The Partys Voters Some larger states have already begun pushing back against Iowa and New Hampshires primacy in the presidential race. California and Texas have both opened up early voting in their states, beginning at the same time as Iowans are caucusing for their candidates. Per NBC News: The explosion of early voting and reshuffling of the primary calendar in 2020 could transform the Democratic presidential nominating contest, potentially diminishing the power of the traditional, tiny and homogeneous early states in favor of much larger and more diverse battlegrounds. That would be a boon to the best-known candidates with warchests sizable enough to compete in big states early. And it would empower black and Hispanic voters in large, multiracial states like California, which was a virtual afterthought at the back of the primary calendar in 2016. Criticism has mounted for years about the primacy of New Hampshire and Iowa, which are both around 90 percent white. "Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation," California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said when the state moved its primary last year. 2020 Democratic primary: California and Texas look to become the new Iowa and New Hampshire Residents of Iowa and New Hampshire, however, vehemently argue they deserve their First In The Nation status. They claim their smallness allows voters to get to know candidates in a way they would not be able to in other, larger states. Per NPR: Iowa's smallness is in some ways a feature, not a bug, in that it allows less well funded candidates a fair shot (see: Rick Santorum, 2012, and Mike Huckabee, 2008). The state's caucus "ensures that there is at least one place where a candidate with a compelling message has a shot at winning, regardless of money or national fame," as the Des Moines Register's Kathy O'Bradovich argued in October. ...There's also more to being representative than race and ethnicity. A 2009 paper by the University of Iowa's Michael Lewis-Beck and Missouri's Peverill Squire found that Iowa was the most representative state economically at the time, as well as relatively representative (12th out of 50 states) when a broad range of social, demographic and economic factors were included. No Way To Pick A President? Here Are 6 Other Ways To Do It Voters in these states also argue they are able to better tune out the noise that comes with large political campaigns in this social media-driven era. Their emphasis on retail politics gives them an opportunity to get to know candidates better than in other states. As a result, even in this new, more chaotic political environment, New Hampshire still has the kind of intimate, civically minded electorate, as well as deep grassroots tradition of participation needed to make this state an ideal place to thoroughly test the mettle of our future presidents. And despite the money being spent on the campaigns -- and the changing way we communicate with each other -- New Hampshire voters will this Tuesday once again demonstrate that they have a special role to play in the presidential selection process. The tradition of retail politics in the Granite State isn't going anywhere. Voters here just might have to get more comfortable with the idea that we are increasingly sharing the process with a much bigger audience than our little corner of New England. New Hampshire: Is retail politics dead? (Opinion) The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, wed love to hear what you have to say. The UMass men's lacrosse team scored 13 straight goals en route to a 16-2 win over Utah on Sunday at Garber Field. Sophomores Chris Connolly and Kevin Tobin led the way offensively with career highs of eight and seven points, respectively. Connolly had four goals and four assists while Tobin had five goals and two assists. The Minutemen improved to 5-3 with the win. The state Department of Industrial Accidents the court system for workers compensation cases in Massachusetts has signed a 10-year-lease in Worcesters Mercantile Center. The department will move 13 employees from 340 Main St. into approximately 7,686 square feet on the third floor of 100 Front St., according to a news release. "The Commonwealth received many proposals for the Department of Industrial Accidents office requirement and we are honored and excited that after considering all viable options in the market, they happily settled on Mercantile Center as its new home for the next decade, said Don Mancini, principal at Kelleher & Sadowsky realty, who brokered the deal. The custom-designed space at Mercantile Center will be a substantial upgrade for its employees and visitors in terms of quality, parking, and operating management." Stability Health, LLC, a Worcester-based health care service with a focus on diabetes, also signed a three-year lease with Franklin Realty Advisors for approximately 1,999 square feet on the fourth floor of 120 Front St. Mercantile Center now has more than 90,000 square feet rented. The Class A office tower at 100 Front St. is now 98 percent occupied, according to the release. The three cases, of course, arent identical. Wearing blackface, as both Northam and Herring admit doing, is a far less serious offense than sexually assaulting women, which Fairfax denies doing. The behavior of Northam and Herring suggests that in their younger days they were blind to the ugly history of blackface. But their records in public life dont suggest they are bigoted or indifferent to the concerns of African-Americans. As for Fairfax, Virginians may reasonably want more than the word of accusers before demanding an officeholders head. Global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market Overview The contract research organization (CRO) are organizations that provide support and assistance to biotechnological and biopharmaceutical companies and academic institutes in the shape of outsourced research services for pharmaceuticals. The CROs range from large, international full-service organizations to small niche specialty groups to fulfill the clients requirement. Outsourcing to CROs offers a strategic advantage to the manufacturers, such as saving in the cost and time during the development and approval process of new drug and devices. Global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market Market Dynamics The growing R&D expenditure primarily drives the global market for the Contract Research Organization (CRO) market. The increased outsourcing of R&D activities and the rising number of clinical trials propel the CRO market along with the many advantages of CROs such as reducing the cost of research and its help in successful clinical development program make it favored by biopharmaceutical or biotechnological industries and academic institutes. With the stringent and complex regulatory policies for drug development, more resources to develop new drugs and devices are required, in turn, increase the demand for CROs. The growth in the biosimilars and biologics markets, adoption of new technologies, rising demand for specialized testing services, and the emerging Asian markets further drives the CRO market. However, the high competition in the CRO services market along with the shortage of skilled professionals may hinder the market progress. Global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market Segment Analysis By type, the global CRO market is segmented into drug discovery, pre-clinical, and clinical research services, laboratory services, and consulting services. The clinical research services segment is further divided into Phase I, Phase II, Phase III, and Phase IV. The clinical research services share accounted for the largest of the global CRO services market owing it to the growing biologics and biosimilars markets, increased R&D investments in pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, an increase in clinical trial activities. With growing privatization of clinical trials, there has been a rise in outsourcing of manufacturing processes to developing economies such as Latin American countries, India, and China. Drug discovery share is the fastest growing segment as CROs are crucial in this area with the complex regulatory framework for drug development in various countries. By therapeutic area, the global CRO market is segmented into oncology, infectious diseases, central nervous system disorders, immunological disorders, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory disorders, diabetes, and other therapeutic areas. The oncology share holds the largest share in this market. It is attributed to the growing number of clinical trials and the escalating prevalence of cancer globally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally and is responsible for an estimated 9.6 million deaths in 2018. Globally, about 1 in 6 deaths is due to cancer. According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, there were an estimated 18 million cancer cases around the world. Global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market Geographical Analysis North America market accounted for the largest share in the CRO market. It is attributed to the increasing number of CRO-based companies along with the rising demand for CROs outsourcing services. Furthermore, the growing number of clinical trials in the region are responsible for the growth of the market. For instance, North America ranks first in the name of clinical trials performed worldwide, and a majority of outsourcing of clinical trials are from North America. Other factors such as the high spending of GDP in healthcare stimulant growth of the market. However, long approval timelines due to increasing regulatory requirements in the region influence the market. The Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing share owing it to its vast and diverse patient pool, development in healthcare infrastructure and improving economic conditions. The countries such as China and India, in particular, have had a rise in the number of clinical trials. The entrance of CROs in APAC helps to provide clinical, regulatory infrastructure and practices in this region with the increasing adoption of international standards and patent protection laws. Request Free Sample Report at https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3792024-global-contract-research-organization-cro-market-2019-2026 Global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market Competitive Analysis Key players are adopting strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and regional expansion to stand out as strong competitors in the market. New product launches along with increased focus on R&D are other ways the leading players improve their market presence. February 2019, PPD signed an exclusive agreement with China-based AI Company, Happy Lie Tech, which focuses on site selection, patient recruitment, and real-world evidence generation or customers globally. February 2019, Croatia-based Optimapharm acquired Swiss CRO, Denothex, in efforts to strengthen its presence in the European market, more specifically in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy. April 2018, Frontage Laboratories, Inc. an early-stage CRO located in the U.S. and China acquired Concord Biosciences, a preclinical organization based in Cleveland; the acquisition is aiming to build a global CRO with integrated services. May 2018, Ritter Pharmaceuticals, a developer of novel therapeutic products signed an agreement with the CRO Medpace to conduct the first of two pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials for RP-G28 in patients with lactose intolerance. May 2018, RxCelerate acquired Total Scientific, a CRO focused in bioanalysis, protein assays, and gene-phenotype association. In June 2016, LSK Global Pharma Services Co., Ltd. expanded the use of Medidata Clinical Cloud by Medidata Clinical Solutions, Inc. In October 2015, Quintiles and IMS Health formed a strategic alliance leading to advance the way biopharmaceutical companies generate real-world evidence (RWE) and apply critical insights to drive late-stage clinical research. In November 2015, LabCorp acquired Covance, thus leveraging on its huge clinical trial database. This acquisition provided complementary services to pursue strategic opportunities in drug development. Why Purchase the Report? Visualize the composition of the global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market across each indication, in terms of type and treatment options, highlighting the key commercial assets and players. Identify commercial opportunities in global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market by analyzing trends and co-development deals. Excel data sheet with thousands of data points of the global Contract Research Organization (CRO) Market level 4/5 segmentation. PDF report with the most relevant analysis cogently put together after exhaustive qualitative interviews and in-depth market study. Product mapping in excel for the key products of all major market players Target Audience: Equipment Suppliers/ Buyers Service Providers/ Buyers Industry Investors/Investment Bankers Education & Research Institutes Research Professionals Emerging Companies Manufacturers Table of Content GLOBAL CONTRACT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION (CRO) MARKET -SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY GLOBAL CONTRACT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION (CRO) MARKET -KEY TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS INDUSTRY ANALYSIS GLOBAL CONTRACT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION (CRO) MARKET SEGMENTATION GLOBAL CONTRACT RESEARCH ORGANIZATION (CRO) MARKET -BY GEOGRAPHY COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE COMPANY PROFILES About Us: Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Contact Us: NORAH TRENT sales@wiseguyreports.com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK) Hair Extension Market Overview The steady advancement of cosmetics technology has led to the development of strong and stable hair extension products catering to various hair colors and textures. This is likely to remain a major driver for the global hair extension market over the forecast period. Cosmetic technology has been boosted by the increasing consumer preference for a wide variety of hair care products, including hair extensions. The increasing disposable income of consumers has also driven the adoption of cosmetics products, which is likely to remain the key driver for the global hair extension market over the forecast period. The increasing prevalence of baldness due to alopecia and other conditions such as pollution and stress is likely to remain a major driver for the hair extension market over the forecast period. The demand to maintain a hirsute appearance is high among cancer survivors, fashion enthusiasts, and other demographics due to the boost it provides in terms of self-image and self-confidence. The growing spending capacity of such consumers is likely to be a major driver for the hair extension market over the forecast period. Request Sample Report at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6544 The increasing interest in hair highlights/lowlights is likely to be a major driver for the global hair extension market, as consumers increasingly prefer hair extensions to actually coloring their hair, as the former provides an alternative that is cheaper and much easier to remove or replace. On the other hand, the complex manufacturing process of hair extensions is likely to restrain the global hair extension markets growth over the forecast period. Competitive Dashboard: Leading players in the global hair extension market include Great Lengths, Easihair, Donna Bella, Cinderella, Klix Hair Extension, Racoon, VivaFemina, Hair Addictionz, Godrejcp, Xuchang Penghui, Meishang, Evergreen Products Group, Rebecca, Xuchang Haoyuan, Anhui Jinruixiang, Locks&Bonds, Femme Hair Extension, FN LONGLOCKS, UltraTress, Hairlocs, Hair Dreams, Socap, and Balmain. Segmentation Analysis: The global hair extension market is segmented by type, application, and region. By type, the global hair extension market is segmented into human hair extensions and synthetic hair extensions. By application, the global hair extension market is segmented into female and male. Industry Updates: In March 2019, Chinese ecommerce firm JD.com and Google announced the launch of a new websites that sells a wide variety of products, including hair extensions. JD.com and Google have collaborated for a while now and this is the first tangible step taken by the duo. Regional Analysis: The global hair extension market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world. North America is likely to dominate the global hair extension market over the forecast period due to the widespread popularity of hair extensions for coloring hair. The high disposable income of urban youth consumers in the region is likely to remain a key factor for the hair extension markets growth over the forecast period, as this demographic comprises a majority of the hair extension markets buyers. The growing presence of cosmetics manufacturers in North America is also likely to remain a major driver for the hair extension market, as this has led to easy availability of a wide range of hair extension products in North America. The growing popularity of hair extension products in North America is likely to drive further product innovation in the hair extension market in the region over the forecast period. Browse Complete Premium Research Report at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/hair-extension-market-6544 The growing number of cancer patients and geriatrics in North America and Europe is also likely to be a major driver for the global hair extension market, as these demographics suffer from natural hair loss and are increasingly becoming interested in replacing it with synthetic alternatives. Growing awareness about hair coloring and the ease of applying hair extensions is likely to drive the hair extension market in Asia Pacific over the forecast period. The increasing disposable income of consumers in Asia Pacific is also likely to be a major driver for the hair extension market in the region over the forecast period. The growing presence of local players is likely to drive competition in the hair extension market in Asia Pacific over the forecast period. About US: Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Market Research Future (MRFR) has announced a new release on the Global Molecular Diagnostics Market. The research presents detailed forecasts regarding the markets growth prospects in the 2018-2023 forecast period, on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of the markets present conditions and segmentation. Molecular diagnostics is a branch of diagnostics which utilizes molecular biology to detect and measure the presence of genetic material or proteins related to a specific health condition. Molecular diagnostics is the fastest growing branch in vitro diagnosis as it has been able to achieve highest diagnosis accuracy and enables early diagnosis and prevention of diseases. The global molecular diagnostics market is expected to grow remarkably as it possesses the ability to conduct genetic tests that were previously not possible and it has the potential to replace the present microbiological and clinical methods of diagnosis. Market Research Future (MRFR), asserts that the global molecular diagnostics market is set to capture a CAGR of 9.6 % during the forecast period (2017-2023). PCR-based testing is domineering the market at present; however, other similar technologies are expected to gain traction in the coming years. Developments such as integrated chip devices and proteomic-based testing will improve the future of molecular diagnostics but would also pose challenges for implementing such technologies. The market for molecular diagnostics is anticipated to continue its growth due to the rise in number of cancer patients and the change in the approach of the medical line from treatment to prevention. Get Free Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1171 Key players for Global Molecular Diagnostics Market Leading companies in the global molecular diagnostics market include QIAGEN NV, Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., Grifols, Hologic Inc., Siemens Healthcare GmbH, BD, Abbott, Beckman Coulter Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Cepheid, and bioMerieux SA. Several companies in the molecular diagnostics market are looking to collaborate with research institutes in order to advance their own product development programs. Recently, EZLife announced a collaboration with the UCLA to expand EGFR lung cancer assay into RUO offerings. Such collaborations are likely to be common among key players in the molecular diagnostics market. Molecular Diagnostics Industry Updates 3 JAN 2019 CIRCULOGENE, advancing precision medicine through molecular genetics testing, has forged an international partnership with New Zealand-based CIRCULOGENE Asia Pacific Limited. 13 DEC 2018 In order to help clinical laboratories deliver accurate results during cold and flu season, Microbiologics Inc. has launched two new panels for quality control of Group A Streptococcus (GAS) and respiratory molecular assays and test methods. Recently in 2018, Agilent Technologies Inc. acquired Lasergen Inc., a company devoted towards R&D of technologies for DNA sequencing. Through the collaboration, the company intends to strengthen its hold in the molecular diagnostic market and develop an integrated clinical workflow solution and provide mass access to molecular diagnostics. Agendia, a leading medicine, and molecular cancer diagnostics has entered into a marketing agreement with Angsana Molecular & Diagnostic Laboratory, to market Agendias MammaPrint and BluePrint tests. These tests will aid physicians in treatment management for early breast cancer and Angsana will market these tests in Southeast Asia. Myriad Genetics, Inc., a leading company pioneering molecular diagnostics has announced seven new payer coverage decisions for Prolaris, a standard 46-gene RNA-expression test for detection and measurement of prostate cancer. 25 leading insurer in the U.S. are included in the payers. Segmental Analysis: The Global Molecular Diagnostics Market is segmented on the basis of end use, application, and technique. On the basis of technique, the global molecular diagnostics market is segmented into PCR and real-time PCR, microarray, fluorescence in-situ hybridization, next-generation sequencing, and transcription-mediated amplification. PCR dominates the global molecular diagnostics market and accounted for more than a third of the global market in 2018. The segment is likely to remain the dominant contributor in the global molecular diagnostics market over the forecast period, along with next-generation sequencing and transcription-mediated amplification. On the basis of application, the global molecular diagnostics market is segmented into oncology, infectious diseases, genetic testing, blood screening, pharmacogenomics, coagulation, human leukocyte antigen typing, and others. Oncology and infectious diseases are likely to remain the major contributors to the global molecular diagnostics market over the forecast period thanks to the growing prevalence of diseases such as cancer and TB. On the basis of end use, the global molecular diagnostics market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, and academics and research institutes. Regional Analysis: The Global Molecular Diagnostics Market is segmented into the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East and Africa. Americas is likely to dominate the global molecular diagnostics market over the forecast period due to the presence of a highly sophisticated healthcare sector in North American countries such as the U.S. and Canada. Research in the life sciences sector in these countries is highly advanced and houses some of the worlds leading medical institutions. This has driven the molecular diagnostics market in the region at an impressive rate. The increasing prevalence of bone disorders, increasing government support to research and development, and growing concentration of major healthcare companies in the region are likely to propel the molecular diagnostics market in the Americas over the forecast period. The increasing prevalence of cancer in Asia Pacific is likely to propel the molecular diagnostics market in APAC over the forecast period. According to the American Cancer Society, APAC accounts for nearly 44% of all cancer cases, with China bearing the brunt of the growing prevalence of the disease. South Korea has also witnessed a high incidence rate of cancer in recent years. This is likely to drive the molecular diagnostics market in Asia Pacific at a strong rate over the forecast period. Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/molecular-diagnostics-market-1171 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), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com by Tanya Gazdik , March 17, 2019 In the 11 years since starting its Share the Love charitable donation program, Subaru of America has given more than $145.7 million to over 1,170 national and local partners. The automakers donation for 2018 was nearly $24 million. Select retailers participated in an additional hometown charity donation by offering their own per vehicle sold contributions, which generated an additional $3.5 million nationwide. Held from mid-November to the end of the calendar year, the annual event donates $250 to the purchasers choice of charities for every new Subaru vehicle sold or leased at 631 participating Subaru retailers nationwide. For the third consecutive year, Subaru did not place a cap on total contributions to its "Share the Love" national charity partners: the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Make-A-Wish, Meals on Wheels America and the National Park Foundation. advertisement advertisement In addition, Subaru retailers selected either one or two hometown charities from their local community to support, adding more than 682 local causes to the 2018 Subaru Share the Love Event. As a result of Subaru customers selection, national charity partners received $10.1 million, while hometown charities received $17.4 million. The automaker and its retailers are passionate about positively impacting our local communities and the causes our owners care most about, simply because it is the right thing to do, says Brian Cavallucci, national advertising manager, Subaru of America. The Subaru 'Share the Love' event exemplifies our core values as a company and is just one way that we work to support those in need across the country and fulfill our Subaru Love Promise, Cavallucci tells Marketing Daily. New this year, the automaker hosted a kickoff event on Nov. 15 to celebrate the return of the event at its U.S. headquarters in Camden, NJ. In partnership with the Food Bank of South Jersey, Subaru employees donated and packed a record-breaking 6,600 KidzPacks to supply the food banks weekend meal program for an entire school year. In addition, employees at all regional Subaru of America locations partnered with local food banks. by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, March 18, 2019 Lucky Generals, part of Omnicoms TBWA agency network, has promoted Nik Upton to Group Chief Operating Officer and Tom Howes to UK COO following its recent expansion into the U.S. The creative agency opened the doors to its New York office earlier this month. Upton will focus predominantly on growing the U.S. operation, which already has a sizeable presence here with clients like Amazon and AB InBev. Upton, who joined Lucky Generals in 2015, becoming COO the following year, was previously at Mother for almost a decade before moving to Joint, where he was one of the founding partners. Howes will be tasked with running the LGs UK operation, which has grown to 70-plus people following the recent wins of Celebrity Cruises and Co-Op. The agency was formed in 2013 and TBWA bought a majority stake in 2017. advertisement advertisement Howes, who has been with Lucky Generals from nearly the beginning, previously worked at Mother, W+K and DDB. Prior to his promotion, he was working as client partner, running multiple accounts, including Amazon, for the past four years. Lucky Generals founder Helen Calcraft noted: Tom and Nik have been at the heart of our success story from very early on, which makes them the perfect people to help us write the next chapter as we continue to grow rapidly, at home and abroad. by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, March 18, 2019 Saint Archer Gold, the result of a partnership between San Diego-based craft brewer Saint Archer and MillerCoors, has been rolled out in four test markets, with the benefit of full marketing support from the national beer giant. The new beer looks to capitalize on several characteristics that have helped some brands -- most notably Anheuser-Busch InBev's Michelob Ultra -- buck the overall downward trend in beer sales. Like Michelob Ultra, Saint Archer Gold is in the above-premium price segment, is low calorie and low carb (95 calories and 2.6 grams of carbs per 12-ounce serving), and has low alcohol content (4.2% by volume). The difference? Saint Archer Gold is delivering those attributes plus the full-bodied taste of a craft beer, thereby filling a white space in the craft segment, according to Brad Nadal, president of the Saint Archer brewery. advertisement advertisement The new beer is targeted to health-conscious 25- to 44-year-olds who want a more sessionable (able to be consumed over a longer period, due to lower alcohol and carbs/calories) craft beer experience, Nadal explained in the MillerCoors blog. Saint Archer Gold made its debut starting last week in Austin, Texas; Indianapolis; Charlotte, N.C. and Arizona (where Sain Archers existing portfolio has been sold since late 2016). If it takes off, it will become the craft brewers first nationally distributed beer, possibly as soon as 2020. The creative for the marketing within the four test markets, from Austin-based Preacher, was inspired by the San Diego vibe and the lifestyles of the brewers founders. Called A Light for the Journey, it includes a 90-second anthem video (below) that shows attractive young adults engaging in artistic endeavors and downtime activities including fishing, surfing and skateboarding -- all shot in a golden glow, to the soulful (Van Morrison-reminiscent) sounds of Foy Vances Shed a Little Light. Message: Find your own way to a light but uncompromisingly flavorful brew. The long-version ad is running on Saint Archer and MillerCoors social channels, as well as on paid social, including Instagram and Facebook. A 30-second version called Beacon, along with two other similarly laid-back 30-second ads (Brewery and Guide), are being aired in the test markets, along with radio, out-of-home and in-store merchandising. by Larissa Faw , March 18, 2019 Campbell's is making what the company calls a "sizable" investment to support recently acquired and newly launched snack brands including, Cape Cod Chips, Kettle Brand Potato Chips, Snyders of Hanover, and Goldfish Epic Crunch. The new campaigns come one year after the company's acquisition of Snyder's-Lance's roster of brand's. However, while Campbell's is opening up its pocketbook to advertise and hopefully sell more snacks, the company is also relying on synergies across all brand's in its snack portfolio to both save money and leverage creative and product development. "Over the last six months, the snacks team has put in significant work to position these brands for long term success, including building foundational brand insights, unique product positioning, renovation and innovation, and smart new marketing campaigns," said Campbell's CEO Mark Clouse during a call with analysts. "We have strong plans in place in the back half of fiscal 2019 and I'm looking forward to seeing these brands flourish behind accelerated innovation and increased marketing." advertisement advertisement The creative, developed with VMLY&R, is designed to support each individual brand. A common thread: all rely on humor. Kettle Brand's No small flavors. No small potatoes is the first new creative in 10 years for the brand and uses animation to delve into the company's history as well as take viewers on a "flavor journey" around the world. Sample the work here and here. Cape Cod's first real media campaign in the brand's 40-year history includes a spot that opens with a woman dreamingly escaping from her world after eating a chip before the camera pulls back to reveal the ocean breeze is really just man with a water hose. The campaign's tagline states When your hands in the bag, your heads in the Cape. Snyders of Hanover celebrates its crunch with the Make Some Noise campaign that includes three spots, Hiding, Silent, and Working, by each featuring different settings where people can eat these products. Working from Home features baffled office workers trying to figure out the consistent chomping sound via a teleconference line before a remote worker is shown snacking on the pretzels. Campbell's Pepperidge Farm is launching its new Goldfish brand extension Goldfish Epic Crunch. The product was initially developed by Campbell's Pepperidge Farm R&D unit and then made in a Snyder's-Lance bakery. The launch campaign is anchored by the Goldfish brand's existing "Heroes" storyline that uses goldfish-shaped headed action stars interacting with each other. This new spot, entitled New Guy runs on children-focused advertising platforms, with Goldfish also sponsoring the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. All campaigns are airing across regional and national networks, and have online and social components as well. "The beauty of each of these brands is that they really have target consumers that love and respect the product, and video is still one of the best ways to reach and engage with that audience," says Karen Marks, vice president of Integrated Marketing at Campbell Snacks. "Video provides sound, site and motion, and we really believe that marketing and advertising is critical to brand perception and meaning in the marketplace. We can only hope that more and more consumers of all ages will love multiple products." A preliminary study concludes that a drug that doctors commonly prescribe to treat angina and blood pressure might increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Share on Pinterest A recent study looked at the risk factors behind cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood around the body. If a person does not receive treatment, cardiac arrest can be lethal within minutes. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), in the United States, around 475,000 people die from cardiac arrest each year. It claims more lives than colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, pneumonia, influenza, vehicle accidents, firearms, HIV, and house fires combined. The AHA describe cardiac arrest as one of the most lethal public health problems in the U.S. So, because cardiac arrest is both serious and common, understanding the risk factors involved is essential. To this end, the European Resuscitation Council set up a project that collects data on cardiac arrest, called the European Sudden Cardiac Arrest network (ESCAPE-NET). A new risk factor? A recent study using ESCAPE-NET data investigated whether a common group of drugs might play a role in cardiac arrest. Healthcare providers use dihydropyridines to treat high blood pressure and angina, which is chest pain related to reduced blood flow to the heart. The project focused on two dihydropyridines: nifedipine and amlodipine. The scientists had access to data from the Dutch Amsterdam Resuscitation Studies registry and the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry, both of which form part of ESCAPE-NET. The researchers presented their findings at EHRA 2019, the annual congress of the European Heart Rhythm Association, which is taking place in Lisbon, Portugal. In total, they had access to data from more than 10,000 people who were taking dihydropyridines and 50,000 controls. Their analysis showed that those who took high-dose nifedipine were significantly more likely to have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest than those who were not taking dihydropyridines or who were taking amlodipine. New research finds an accurate way of diagnosing fibromyalgia and differentiating it from other related conditions. Using blood samples and innovative techniques, scientists have detected a molecular fingerprint that is unique to the condition. Share on Pinterest People with fibromyalgia experience pain in many areas of their body. Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that affects 28 percent of the worldwide population and approximately 4 million adults in the United States. Most of the people living with fibromyalgia are women. Chronic pain throughout the body is the main characteristic of fibromyalgia. However, many people with the condition often experience a wider range of symptoms, which often have similarities to other conditions. The fact that the signs and symptoms of fibromyalgia coincide with those of other disorders makes it challenging for doctors to diagnose, and often people living with fibromyalgia are still sometimes made to feel like its all in their head. But, new research may have found a way to rectify this. Scientists have managed to detect fibromyalgia in blood samples and differentiate it from other similar conditions. Kevin Hackshaw, a professor in the College of Medicine at the Ohio State University in Columbus and a rheumatologist at the universitys Wexner Medical Center, led the new research. Prof. Hackshaw and his colleagues published their study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. One of India's leading smartphone brands, Realme has created a Guinness World Record by creating the largest mobile phone sentence - "Proud To Be Young" - with 1024 Realme 3 devices. The event which was called the Realme Holi Party was organised on March 16 in New Delhi, and saw close to about 400 fans of the smartphone brand. Additionally, the smartphone maker also revealed their latest variant which is the dazzling Realme 3 Radiant Blue, powered by the AI master MediaTeK Helio P70 processor and a 4230 mAh battery that gives the longest battery life in the 10k-segment. Realme 3 comes with 3D Unibody Gradient Design in two variants: 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM and 4GB RAM + 64GB ROM. What's more? The brand is also the first in its segment to offer an f1.8 aperture and Nightscape Mode at the same time to get significantly better image quality. The #realme3 camera with Nightscape mode lets you capture more than you can see. #PowerYourStyle pic.twitter.com/WLbDi3UgQW realme (@realmemobiles) March 4, 2019 But that's not all. It has also added the Chroma Boost mode, that uses AI technology to recognise the scenes in photos and optimize accordingly into a larger dynamic range, with more enriched details in highlighted parts and shadows, and more balanced exposure. Realme 3 has upgraded to 13MP front cameras in 5P lenses combination. In fact, The front camera is equipped with AI Beauty 2.0 mode which enables the users to adjust the extent of beautification as per their preferences with precisely restored details of skin quality, eye, and hair through 296 facial identification points. How cool does that sound? And here's the most amazing news for all Realme fans: To celebrate their five million sales milestone, Realme 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM and 4GB RAM + 64GB ROM will be priced at Rs 8,999 and Rs 10,999 respectively for the next one million users. Wait there's more to it. The Realme 3 Dynamic Black variant will be open for sale again on March 19, 12 noon onwards. The Radiant Blue variant of Realme 3 will be open for sale on March 26, 12 noon onwards. So, what are you waiting for? Get your very own Realme 3 and experience the smoothest and the best smartphone technology today. Goa chief minister, Manohar Parrikar, breathed his last on Sunday after a long battle against pancreatic cancer. The former defence minister was 63 and had been getting treatment for the ailment since last year. According to reports, his health deteriorated in the past two days and on Saturday night, he was put on life-support system. Reuters The Central Government even announced national mourning on Monday. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi, other prominent leaders to Bollywood celebrities; everyone is mourning his death. PM Modi called Parrikar "an unparalleled leader, a true patriot and exceptional administrator" and someone who was admired by all. Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters. Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/uahXme3ifp Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters. Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/uahXme3ifp Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 India will be eternally grateful to Shri Manohar Parrikar for his tenure as our Defence Minister. When he was RM, India witnessed a series of decisions that enhanced India's security capacities, boosted indigenous defence production and bettered the lives of ex-servicemen. Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 17, 2019 Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan was one of the first ones among the fraternity to remember Parrikar, and offer his condolence to the late minister's grieving family. He wrote, "Manohar Parrikar CM of Goa passes away .. a gentle, soft-spoken simple minded person .. respected .. fought his illness with dignity and great spirit .. had on a few occasions spent some time with him .. a soft smile always adorned his face .. sad with the news .." T 3122 - Manohar Parrikar CM of Goa, passes away .. a gentle , soft spoken simple minded person .. respected .. fought his illness with dignity and great spirit .. had on a few occasions spent some time with him .. a soft smile always adorned his face .. sad with the news .. pic.twitter.com/vFTCeMMDxf Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) March 17, 2019 Other celebrities too mourned his demise and expressed their grief on social media. Saddened by the news of Manohar Parrikar ji's demise. May his soul rest in peace Vicky Kaushal (@vickykaushal09) March 18, 2019 Extremely sad at hearing about the demise of Sh. Manohar Parrikar Ji. I feel blessed to have had the fortune of meeting and knowing a sincere and good soul as he was. Heartfelt condolences to his family Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) March 17, 2019 Man of few words,simple,epitome of integrity&efficiency,a straight shooter,defence minister,3 time chief minister of Goa,away from the trappings of a person in power,IITian,well mannered,a true servant of the nation, an example to follow for one and all.. Salute #ManoharParrikar pic.twitter.com/geIG1dA0vz Randeep Hooda (@RandeepHooda) March 17, 2019 Had the honour of meeting him when he was the #defenceminister of #india..at the launch of a movie about the #indianarmy under the #BritishRaj he leaned over & said uniforms too nice for #indian soldiers at the timehe said.we will age it suitably sir I said. He nodded good Randeep Hooda (@RandeepHooda) March 17, 2019 Sad to hear about the loss of one of our finest leaders, #ManoharParrikar ji. May he rest in peace. My prayers are with the grieving family & friends. Sanjay Dutt (@duttsanjay) March 17, 2019 Sad to hear about the loss of one of our finest leaders, #ManoharParrikar ji. May he rest in peace. My prayers are with the grieving family & friends. Sanjay Dutt (@duttsanjay) March 17, 2019 So very Saddened to hear about the sudden demise if Shri. MANOHAR Parrikar Ji. A dynamic and Honorable Soul.. Rest now in peace in Heaven sir .@manoharparrikar Ranganathan Madhavan (@ActorMadhavan) March 17, 2019 Deeply deeply saddened to know about the untimely demise of Shri #ManoharParrikar ji. He was one of the most real, dignified, intelligent, warm, down-to-earth & honest person I had met. He had a great quality of inspiring people so effortlessly. Will miss him. Om Shanti. pic.twitter.com/4i4noSWSDZ Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) March 17, 2019 Condolences and strength to the family of Manohar Parrikar ji ! Deeply saddened to hear about his demise ! May his soul rest in peace Yami Gautam (@yamigautam) March 17, 2019 #ManoharParrikar always came accross as one of the more level headed and decent politicians in the country. Rest in Peace sir. Vir Das (@thevirdas) March 17, 2019 Parrikar, a widower, is now survived by his two sons and their families. Yes. And where was everyone else in a position to investigate? Where was Madigan? Where was former Gov. Bruce Rauner, whose revenue department, we wrote years ago, could have put financial pressure on the city? Where was the Cook County states attorney, then and now? Where were state and federal politicians who represent the constituents of Harvey? Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart did step in to protect Harvey residents when he could, using his offices resources. Today, Monday 18 March, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Giorgos Katrougalos, will travel to Nicosia, in the context of his first formal visit to the Republic of Cyprus since assuming his duties as the Head of Greek diplomacy. Tomorrow, Tuesday, 19 March, the Minister for Foreign Affairs will be received by the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Anastasiades, and he will subsequently meet with his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides. Talks will focus on developments with regard to the Cyprus issue, as well as issues of regional cooperation, including the trilateral cooperation schemes that the two countries have jointly developed in the Eastern Mediterranean. Topics of European and bilateral interest will also be discussed. That same day, Mr. Katrougalos will also meet with Demetris Syllouris, President of the Cypriot Parliament, as well as with Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus. Finally, the visits schedule includes laying of a wreath at the Imprisoned Graves as well as a visit to the Makedonitissa Tomb. What Lightfoot has in common with these other politicians is this: Her sexuality, for most, is a non-issue. LGBT people are entering political races and winning them because theyre good candidates period. That doesnt mean America has been cleansed of homophobia or that flyers like the ones aimed at Lightfoot and her wife cant be politically damaging and harmful in other ways. Far from it. When Trump was elected, North Korea was testing nukes frequently and shooting missiles over our ally Japan and toward Guam. In the period before and after Trump was elected, North Korea tested nukes and fired missiles over our ally Japan. After threatening Little Rocket Man, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met, and North Korea has stopped testing nukes, stopped shooting missiles over Japan, released U.S. prisoners held in North Korea and returned the remains of dozens of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War. Instead of congratulating Trump, the liberal media attacked him for giving away too much. In reality, he gave the North Koreans nothing and kept the harsh sanctions in place. When Trump agreed to meet with Kim in Vietnam, the media attacked him for caving. When President Trump walked away because he would not accept Kims demands, they then attacked him for failing to reach a deal. No matter what President Trump does, the biased media attack him. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. I was the first person to graduate from college in my immediate family. My Depression-era parents, struggling middle-class workers, never imagined a college education for themselves or their children. I led my own campaign to test and get admitted to college and received a four-year scholarship to go to Loyola University Chicago. For my three children, they had to figure out how to test and get admitted to their preferred colleges. My son took the SAT several times, hoping for a better result. I finally advised him to stop because of the fees and the fact his scores were not improving. He was admitted to the University of Iowa. When it was time for him to choose his first course load, he asked me to help. I refused. No, this is about you and your experience, I wont be here to help you every semester. The question I have for all the parent cheaters is: Youve gotten your kid admitted to a high-stakes college or university now what? In the last year of his life, Dan Pesin begged for a lethal dose of medication to end the pain that had gripped him since his colon cancer began spreading throughout his body. His daughter, Amy Edwards, suffered along with him as she watched him decline. He was depressed and miserable, Edwards, of Milford, said in an interview Sunday. He knew he was dying and there was no hope. Years later, her mother faced a similar fate: A long, slow death from stage 4 lung cancer. While in hospice care, the 77-year-old wasted away to skin and bones. Thats my last memory of her - turning into a skeleton, Edwards said. Watching her in that bed in a coma with no water, no food and just slowly suffering and dying, it was the most horrific, torturous thing I have ever seen in my life. Edwards is one of dozens of Connecticut residents imploring lawmakers to support a bill that would let terminally ill patients access medication to end their lives. A public hearing on the so-called aid-in-dying legislation is scheduled for Monday at the Legislative Office Building. The measure has been raised many times in Connecticut, including as recently as last year, but has never made it out of committee. Proponents said they see a way forward this year, buoyed by the state medical societys decision to end its opposition and by a legislature that seems more open-minded. The bill would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to patients who have six months or less to live and who are in dire pain. Patients would have to submit two written requests for the medication, and a physician must inform them of the risks and alternatives. If a patient is suffering from a psychiatric condition, such as depression, counseling would be required to determine whether the person is competent to request aid in dying. Days ahead of the hearing, written testimony poured into the Public Health Committee, which is weighing the bill. Children who watched their parents die in agony pleaded with lawmakers to pass the measure. Others, including religious officials and advocates for people with disabilities, expressed sharp opposition. Assisted suicide is a slap in the face to God and to society, one resident, Raymond Dunn, wrote to legislators. Every day we have is a gift. Our seniors and terminally ill need our love, help and respect, not death. No matter how many safeguards are enacted, there will be abuses, Frederick and Joan Dwyer of Newtown wrote in a joint letter. Do not make it legal to turn health care physicians into killers. Peter Wolfgang, head of the Family Institute of Connecticut, warned in another letter that lethal medication does not guarantee dignity. Prescription drugs can cause fearful, messy and undignified moments during a hastened death, he wrote. If proponents of this bill want our legislature to really tackle pain and comfort at the end of life, we suggest their money and efforts would be better spent introducing uncontroversial measures such as increasing access to palliative care. Several others argued in favor of the proposal. A retired doctor described the helplessness he felt while treating terminally ill patients. A breast cancer survivor said she fears her cancer will return and she will suffer. A handful of residents simply want the option. Helen Earnshaw remembered feeling powerless as her mothers Alzheimers worsened. During the 10 years she resided in an assisted living facility, her mother lost her memories and her quality of life plummeted. I want some control over the end of my life, she wrote. Homophobic forces attempting to derail Loris historic candidacy are using the politics of hate and fear to mobilize anti-LGBTQ voters for Toni Preckwinkle, said Parker, who is now president and CEO of the national LGBTQ Victory Fund, which is backing Lightfoot. The attack flyers are infused with mischaracterizations of the LGBTQ community and the laws that protect them including bigoted stereotypes that are too often used against LGBTQ candidates when their opponents get desperate. Chicagoans, regardless of who they support, must speak out forcefully against efforts to mobilize voters through bigotry. EAST HAMPTON The next meeting of the East Hampton Art Association will be held March 27, 7 p.m. at the East Hampton Community Center at 105 Main Street. The guest artist, Susan Pecora from Massachusetts, will give a watercolor demonstration. Pecora has been painting the streets, harbors, factories and farms of New England throughout her life. She is a signature member of The New England Watercolor Society, host of the WGBY, PBS affiliate television show Reflections Through Watercolor and The Copley Society in Boston. Her paintings have been exhibited throughout the country, winning awards at the National Art League in New York, San Diego Art Asso. And Rocky Mountain Art Association among others. Her work has been featured in American Artist Magazine, Splash, the Best in Watercolor North Light Books. In 2007 she was asked to create a painted ornament for the White House Holiday tree by Congressman Richard Neal. Thirteen of her paintings were used to create a calendar for Willie Nelsons Farm Aid. Susan is represented by Bakker Fine Art and Antiques in Provincetown and Michelson Gallery in Northampton. Her work can also be seen at Quaboag Valley Antique Center in Palmer; The Deerfield Museum Store, Cape Art Tiles, Randalls Farm in Ludlow and The Lobster Pot in Provincetown. To see more of Susans work go to www.susanpecora.com . The public is welcome at all East Hampton Art Association meetings. There is a suggested donation of $4 for nonmembers. Local resident joins cast of Long Lost film MIDDLETOWN Long Lost, a new psychological thriller from Mainframe Pictures that filmed entirely in Greenwich, CT, is slated for a 30-city limited theatrical run beginning March 29. Special local screening events are scheduled at Garde Arts Center in New London, Wall Street Theater in Norwalk, Bank Street Theatre in New Milford, Riverview Cinemas in Southbury, and Bijou Theater in Bridgeport. The film stars Adam Weppler (The Cobblestone Corridor) as Seth, a young man invited to spend a weekend at the Connecticut mansion of his long lost millionaire half-brother Richard (Middletown native and Yale alum Nicholas Tucci, Youre Next). With the help of his enigmatic live-in girlfriend Abby (Catherine Corcoran, Terrifier), Richard leads Seth down a psychological rabbit hole wherein luxury and temptation are intermingled with treachery and taboo. Long Lost is writer/director Erik Bloomquists debut feature. Bloomquist is best known for creating the nationally syndicated television series The Cobblestone Corridor (also produced entirely in Connecticut) for which he won two New England Emmy Awards (Outstanding Writer and Outstanding Director). Bloomquist is a Connecticut native and Trinity College graduate. He is a member of Connecticut Magazines 40 Under 40: Class of 2019. Best feature honors for Long Lost include awards from Eastern Oregon Film Festival, Nevermore Film Festival, Laughlin International Film Festival, Queen Palm International Film Festival, jellyFEST, Sherman Oaks Film Festival, and ReadingFilmFEST. Library displaying carnival masks OLD SAYBROOK For the month of March, the Acton Public Library in Old Saybrook will be hosting a display of Sophia and Salvatore Perruccios Venetian Carnival masks in its atrium display case. The Acton Public Library is open from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. until mid-May. Fireside Tastings and Treasures is fundraiser MIDDLEFIELD CVEFs March 30 fundraiser, Fireside Tastings and Treasures, promises to be fun, tasty and educational. The event, being held at Powder Ridge, is a new one for the education foundation, which president Nancy Earls, is quite excited about. Its going to be a wonderful night friends, a roaring fire, a jazz guitar duo, wine and craft beer tastings, a harvest table to enjoy, antiques and collectibles appraisers on hand. All to support a great cause, CVEF, promoting lifelong learning projects in the community, Earls said. To appraise special items will be two experts in their fields. David Perrelli is the owner of Old Beautiful in Clinton, and a host of Antiques Trail on iCRV radio. He will appraise American and continental furniture, glass, ceramics, artwork, silver and metal objects, woodenware, and textiles. Gay Sherman is the owner of online vintage jewelry shops, Vintage Under the Sea, both on Ruby Lane and Etsy. Sherman has several celebrity clients and has provided vintage jewelry for hits like AMCs Mad Men. She will be appraising jewelry, glass, collectibles, clothing, and accessories. Tickets are $45. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.coginchaugvef.org. The ticket price includes four beer or wine tastings; one antique or collectible appraisal; and hors doeuvres. All proceeds support grants in Durham and Middlefield. CVEF has awarded more than 85 grants, totaling more than $100,000. Goff House seeks sponsors for concerts EAST HAMPTON The Joseph N. Goff House seeks individuals, local businesses and organizations to help sponsor the annual Joseph N. Goff House Gazebo Music Series, which takes place five Thursdays during the summer at the Center School Gazebo in the East Hampton Village Center. Sponsors will be listed by donations level, Soprano and Alto, $150 and $75; Tenor, $50; Bass, $25 in promotional materials and posters displayed around town and handed out at concerts. The Joseph N. Goff House is a nonprofit organizations and donations are tax deductible. New members to the board are welcome! 860-205-7376 for information. Donations can be mailed to The Joseph N. Goff House, c/o Deb Rotteck, 163 Hog Hill Road, East Hampton, CT 06424. Go to goffhousehct.blogspot.com for a 2019 band lineup soon. Officials and airmen stationed at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, will not be able to get into roughly 60 structures until water from massive floods over the weekend recedes across the base. Only mission-essential personnel are working at the installation, and operators are hopeful they might be able to start reopening part of Offutt's flightline as early as tomorrow, according to base spokesman Ryan Hansen. Floodwaters started encroaching on facilities Friday after water levels rose and broke levees from the Missouri River and Papillion Creek, known as the "Papio" Creek. The record floods are due to "a record-setting snowfall this winter, in addition to a huge drop in air pressure earlier in the week," Offutt said in a news release. Offutt, home of the 55th Wing, evacuated and relocated nine aircraft as a result -- eight RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft and one of Global Strike Command's E4-B Nightwatch aircraft, more commonly known as the "Doomsday" plane, Hansen said. Half of the Rivet Joint aircraft were flown to Nebraska's Lincoln Air National Guard Base, and the other half to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. Global Strike did not tell Military.com where the E-4B was located, citing operational security reasons. A spokeswoman for the command said the E-4B aircraft was not damaged. Four RC-135s remain parked on the other side of the flightline, which is elevated. Roughly 3,000 feet of the runway remains submerged, Hansen said. Some of the flooded buildings recorded water levels between six and eight feet, Hansen said. The new $1.3 billion Strategic Command headquarters -- where the command is scheduled to move into this summer -- is "nowhere near" the impacted areas, Hansen said. The small amount of housing on the base was unaffected, and the majority of off-base housing was also unharmed, because both communities were built on higher ground, Hansen said. "I am foremost grateful there have been no injuries reported by our Airmen or their families, proud of the effort by our Airmen & the community there to take care of one another & confident in our ability to continue generating combat airpower as @Offutt_AFB recovers," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Goldfein tweeted on Monday. Officials do not yet have an estimate for the damages sustained across the base. Due west, the Nebraska National Guard's Camp Ashland remains completely submerged, according to aerial footage tweeted by Maj Gen. Daryl Bohac, the Adjutant General of the Nebraska National Guard. The training facility is roughly 25 miles from Offutt and sits adjacent to the Platte River. In addition to emergency response, the Guard on Saturday was airborne in UH-60L Blackhawk helicopters dropping 1.5 tons in sandbags to create boundaries for wells that serve the city of Lincoln, Bohac tweeted. The floods to multiple military installations come after a recent 22-page Defense Department climate study, which highlighted how bases around the country are faced with "significant vulnerabilities" due to climate change, and how the military itself must contend with new challenges due to "climate-related events." The climate study said more than two-thirds of operational U.S. military installations are threatened by drought, recurrent coastal flooding, wildfires, extreme heat and extreme cold. Last October, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, sustained severe damage during Hurricane Michael, which reached Category 4 status with 150 mph winds. Much of Tyndall, including all of the base housing, suffered major damage when Michael came ashore on Oct. 10. All 11,000 personnel and family members were safely evacuated before the storm hit, and the vast majority of 5th-generation F-22 Raptors were flown to other bases. Over a dozen, however, were held back for maintenance reasons and got caught in the storm. -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. Airmen Have Five Days to Get Immunized After Vaccine Exemption Is Denied or They Face Punishment, Air Force Says The service required all active-duty troops to become fully vaccinated by Nov. 2 after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in... Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that "it could be a while" before Congress gets a list of military construction projects that would have to be put on hold to fund a proposed wall on the southern border of the United States. "I know of no list" of military projects whose funding might be diverted to pay for new wall construction, Mulvaney said. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had testified earlier this month that there was a list of projects potentially affected by border wall funding plans that he was prepared to give the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mulvaney said on CBS' "Face The Nation" program that he knew in general "of the universe of things that might be delayed," but insisted there was no specific list. He was immediately accused on the same program of playing politics by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, a Senate Armed Services Committee member. "This is the White House wanting to hold the list back because they worry that if senators and House members saw the potential projects that were going to be ransacked to pay for the president's wall they would lose votes," Kaine said. He referred to the upcoming vote in the House to override President Donald Trump's Friday veto of House and Senate votes in favor of a "motion of disapproval" of his declaration of a national emergency at the border. The declaration came Feb. 15 as a means to amass more than $8 billion for wall construction from various federal sources, including $3.6 billion from military construction. On Feb. 26, the House voted 245-182 against the national emergency, and the Senate March 14 voted 59-41 in support of the motion of disapproval, with 12 Republican senators voting against the president's position. Both votes fell well short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override the veto signed by Trump Friday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has tentatively set an override vote for March 26, but Mulvaney expressed confidence that the veto would be upheld. Kaine claimed that the White House would withhold the list until after the House override vote to avoid losing Republican votes from members who would be swayed by the loss or delay of job-producing military projects in their states and districts going into an election year. "I think they're going to try to hide the list until that veto override vote occurs," Kaine said. Last Thursday, in a series of testy exchanges on the list at a SASC hearing, Shanahan confirmed that he had a list of military projects that could be impacted by funding of the border wall. When asked if he would turn it over, Shanahan said "Sure," and promised to do so by the end of the day. However, Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, the ranking SASC member, said that Shanahan telephoned him late Thursday to say that the list was not being forwarded. In a statement, Reed said Shanahan "informed me he is unable to keep his commitment to share the list of what will be cut to pay for the vanity wall." "This unacceptable series of evasions should trouble members of Congress, regardless of political party," Reed added. A spokesman for Shanahan said via email Friday that a list was being worked up and might be forwarded last Friday, but that also did not occur. In the absence of an official list, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and several other Democrats drew up their own list earlier this month of military construction projects that could be diverted to pay for the wall. The list consisted of projects with "unobligated" funds, meaning money had been appropriated and contracts awarded, although the money had not already been spent. The Durbin list ranged from a training facility at Fort Rucker in Alabama to a transient training barracks at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. The list and an accompanying letter to Shanahan can be seen here. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. As Commissary Sales Plummet, Pentagon Seeks 21 Percent Subsidy Cut Defense Department officials have preached three goals for the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) over the last several years of cost-cutting reforms: preserve shopper savings; reduce taxpayer support, and reverse an alarming slide in sales, which have fallen 25 percent since peaking at more than $6 billion in 2012. In what might be seen as a stunning disregard for number three, to reverse the exodus of patrons, the Trump administration's fiscal 2020 defense budget asks Congress to slash funding for commissaries by $271 million, or 21 percent. If lawmakers agree, appropriated dollars on which stores still depend would fall to $995 million next year, a 30 percent cut overall over three years to a benefit still prized as a key element of military compensation grocery discounts. Read more about the proposed cut on Military.com. No matter who you are or how you were injured, the process to heal, retrain and get ready for the next fitness test is a long... How to use the mindat.org media viewer Click/touch this help panel to close it. Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image) Controls - all media types Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device. Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen. < and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys. < and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys. > in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys. ? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key. Other keyboard shortcuts: 1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons Scalebar If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular. Controls - Video Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key. Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation) Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys. The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types. The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control. Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways: - without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method - with stereoscope - with anaglyph glasses. - on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system) For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them. Controls - photo comparison mode If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu. Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder. Summary of all keyboard shortcuts FERNDALE, Mich. -- Texas Democrat and presidential hopeful Beto ORourke championed the need for unions and to rebuild the middle class Monday in Michigan as he visited a union carpenters training center in Ferndale. Visiting Michigan just days into his 2020 presidential campaign was no mistake. The state is now a battleground for Democrats, as Michigan voters chose Republican Donald Trump for president in 2016. I wanted to be here in this state as early as I possibly could, ORourke said to reporters Monday morning, after touring the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights training center for about 45 minutes. ORourke, a former U.S. Representative from El Paso, Texas, rose to the national political spotlight last year during his campaign against Republican Ted Cruz for a U.S. Senate seat. Though ORourke lost, his style, rhetoric and fundraising ability made the campaign a close one. In the first 24 hours of his presidential campaign, he has raised $6.1 million, his campaign said Monday. ORourke started his morning in Michigan having coffee with several hundred people in Center Line. After the tour in Ferndale he headed to Livonia and then to a planned stop in Cleveland later in the day. Michigan's notoriously bad roads made an impression on O'Rourke. "The reality is -- in this state, we need a lot of work done on infrastructure," said Tom Lutz, president of the executive board of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, as he showed O'Rourke the training facility. I can already tell -- just from driving from the airport to our hotel last night, ORourke replied. Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke poses for a photo at the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights training center in Monday, March 18, 2019, in Ferndale, Mich. (Amy Biolchini | MLive.com) Brandy Reid, 33, a carpenter who just helped build the Shinola Hotel in downtown Detroit, said she didnt vote in the last presidential election because she didnt like Democrat Hillary Clinton or now-President Trump. "What do you have to offer, for us, running-wise?" Reid asked O'Rourke, as the tall Texan sat with a group of carpenters. "I see an economy where a lot of people are strugglingI see a real concentration of wealth and power in the hands of others, and I don't see enough opportunity for enough people," O'Rourke said. "One of the reasons I'm here -- one of the reasons I spend a lot of time at high schools, at community colleges, trade schools, with unions and four-year universities -- I think education and training is a big part of getting this right." O'Rourke spent most of his time at the training center asking questions about the programs, the types of wages and job prospects for trainees, and how automation affected their opportunities. Malcolm Kennedy, a carpenter from Detroit, asked ORourke if the government was putting enough investment into infrastructure. Not at all, O'Rourke answered. "When we invest in infrastructure we invest in jobs -- the kinds of jobs we're training for right here," O'Rourke said. "Republicans and Democrats -- this shouldn't divide us. We should be investing in infrastructure." Kennedy, who is politically independent, said he was impressed by O'Rourke. "It seemed like his heart was in it," Kennedy said after meeting with O'Rourke for about 15 minutes Monday. O'Rourke didn't make many campaign promises -- but he did speak to the fears that many of the workers there have about their jobs. "I'm a parent of threewho faces the prospect that their kids may be earning less than they did. And we can't be that country -- we can't allow that to happen," O'Rourke said. He advocated for trade agreements with other countries -- as long as they include requirements that workers be allowed to organize and be paid a fair wage. Lets just make sure that were trading on a level playing field -- that those workers in those other countries also have the right to organize so that theyre paid a higher wage and have better working conditions so it doesnt make us compete at an unfair playing field, ORourke said. I think labor standards have to be conditional in any trade agreement -- whether thats with Mexico, whether thats with China, whether thats with Vietnam. Not only is that good for the workers in those countries -- its great for workers in America. MT. CLEMENS, MI -- A Macomb County man pleaded no contest Monday to charges of killing/torturing an animal in relation to the stabbing death of a 2-year-old dog which was found underneath a picnic table in the freezing cold earlier this year. Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said in a statement that 23-year-old Alexander Gerth entered his plea in 16th circuit court Monday and will be sentenced on April 23 for his crime. Gerth is accused of stabbing the dog -- whose name was Sterling -- several times and leaving it in Grant Park in Utica on January 24, 2019. A trail of blood from a waste receptacle led to the spot where Sterling was found. Sterling was maliciously tortured and left to die in the elements, Smith said in the statement. My office is fully committed to prosecuting every animal abuse case to the fullest extent under the law. Under current state law, Gerth faces up to four years in prison for the charge. A recently-passed law in the state legislature would allow for harsher punishments for future offenders, but that does not take effect until March 28, 2019. Gerth was charged with most severe charge on the books at the time, Smith said. Thankfully, the legislature recently modified the penalty for this charge, making it a 10-year felony. Unfortunately, the change did not go into effect in time for Sterling. As a new law school graduate in the 1980s, Cindy Schipani remembers a job interview where she was questioned her about her plans for childbearing. Was she thinking of getting pregnant soon? And if so, wouldnt that curtail the hours she would work? But if she held off too long, might that be a problem, too? I thought, This is really weird and Im not having this conversation with you, said Schipani, now a business law professor at the University of Michigan. Cheri Bales, who runs a marketing consultant business in Kalamazoo County, says she knows men charging twice as much for the same marketing services that she provides. It speaks to the power of men in suits who dont have gaps in their resume, she said. Kelly Campbell, a young mother who lives in Battle Creek, planned to return to work full time after the birth of her daughter in November. But her older childs day care could only offer part time hours for the new baby, so Campbell pared back her work schedule. Not only is her paycheck reduced, but she also had to give up her benefits. All three stories are examples of why women, on average, earn less than men. The gender wage gap is a real thing, said Campbell, an occupational therapist. I think its something that needs to be addressed, for sure. Overall, Michigan women earn 77 cents for every $1 earned by men, based on the 2013-17 Census data for full-time, year-round workers. In 2017, Michigans median earnings for men who worked full time, year around was $51,749 compared to $40,453 for women, a difference of $11,296. Looking at all workers, including part-time employers, Michigan women earn 66 cents per $1 earned by men. (Below is an interactive map showing the wage gap by county, based on Census data for 2013-17. You can put your cursor over a county to see the underlying data.) Its a complicated issue," said Brad Hershbein, an economist for the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Its more than just looking at simple numbers, and saying that men get paid more than women." Theres very good proof that discrimination is part of the problem, he said. But its not the whole story," adding it "reflects different priorities, different socialization and the fact that women tend to have babies and be the primary caretakers. Among the factors contributing to the wage gap: Men and women tend to gravitate towards different careers. In Michigan State Universitys Class of 2018, 73 percent of undergraduate education degrees and 81 percent of the nursing degrees went to women. Meanwhile, 82 percent of engineering graduates and 63 percent of the business graduates were men. Jobs dominated by women tend to pay less than jobs dominated by men. Average pay for a roofer in Michigan was about $41,000 a year in 2017, compared to about $23,000 for a home health care aide or a day-care worker. Men tend to work more hours than women. Michigan women with jobs worked an average of 35.4 hours per week compared to 41.1 for men, a 14 percent difference, according to Census Bureau data. Women are more likely than men to interrupt their careers to raise children. In 2017, 25 percent of Michigan women with children under 18 were not in the work force compared to 7 percent of Michigan fathers who lived with their children. Women now have more education than men, but its not exactly true that all degree are equal in terms of income generated, Hershbein said. For a variety of reasons, society has decided that working with people doesnt pay as much as working with things or with numbers. Which is sad," he said. Moreover, women tend to choose jobs that have more flexibility vs. those that pay a premium because they require long hours, work on nights and weekends and are less tolerant of interruption. So some of it is the choice that people make, Hershbein said. But some of it is discrimination. When experts correct for all other factors, he said. theres still evidence of a slight difference. The best studies show a residual gap of 3 to 5 percent at the beginning of peoples careers, but that grows over time, especially during the child-bearing years, because women have kids or their employers think they might. Online database Below is an online database that provides a deeper drive into the gender gap by Michigan county, including the gap by educational attainment. The numbers are based on Census Bureau estimates for 2013-17. The motherhood penalty No surprise, a lot of the research links the gender wage gap to motherhood. Campbell, who is 32 and has a 3-year-old and a 4-month-old, is an example of that. I was very career-focused until I had kids, she said. Kids definitely change your perspective. Still, Campbell returned to work full time after the birth of her son, and she planned to work full time after her daughter, only to be thwarted by the lack of full-time day care. Campbell said it wasnt feasible for her husband, a computer software technician, to go part time, so she changed her work schedule. It wasnt my plan, but as its working out really well, Campbell said. I feel like its the best of both worlds. But there is a financial price to be paid, even beyond the reduction in hours. While Campbell is getting about the same hourly pay, she had to give up her benefits, including paid time off and contributions to her retirement plan. So while Campbell relishes being a mother, she says its unfortunate women are more likely to take a financial hit once children are born. There is an element of unfairness to it, she said. In Michigan, about 57 percent of married women with children under 18 had full-time year-around jobs in 2017 compared to 23 percent who worked part time and/or part of the year and 20 percent who were a stay-at-home mother. One factor for part-time workers: Many jobs pay less per hour for part time than full time, even when the job responsibilities are the same, the research shows. And in regards to mothers with full-time jobs, studies indicate many women gravitate to jobs or companies with lower pay but more flexible hours or less demanding schedules. "The transition to parenthood leads to a sharp and persistent increase in the gap between the earning of male and female spouses, driven by a decrease in the earnings of the female spouse, said a 2017 Census Bureau analysis. That decrease is especially sharp for women who have children between the ages of 25 and 35, the analysis said. That suggests from a career standpoint, women should have children "before the career is really started or having it later, when the woman is established in her career, the paper said. Solutions Some say the gender wage gap is, in effect, a made up problem, reflecting the choices that women make. But others, including Bales, find that infuriating. Having children involves both men and women, she says, and yet its women who often take the financial hit. The financial contributions to a family are much more than wages, she said, if one looks the true value of child care and housework. Herschbein says the gender wage gap is a genuine public policy issue, but one thats hard to address. Among his proposals: Steer more women to higher-paying fields, such as engineering and computer science, and ensure those employers are truly welcoming of women. Schipani says there are some relatively easy fixes that could help: Teach women to be better negotiators about pay; promote wage transparency within companies; enact work rules that forbid job interviewers to ask about pay history, and require publicly owned companies to have annual audits that look at the wage gap. While the latter wouldnt require companies to take action based on that information, sometimes a bit of the blame and shame game can have an effect," she said. Schipani and Hershbein said another way to address the issue is encouraging more men to take paternity leave or push for flexible hours in their jobs. The more that men share the child-rearing responsibilities, the less that women get stigmatized for their choices, they said. If men exercised more of those choices, that would help, because then it would become the norm," Schipani said. Campbell has two issues shed like to see addressed. A big thing for women is finding a way to have paid maternity leave, she said. My two leaves were both unpaid, which hasnt good. Another thing is child care. Its not cheap, even part time, especially when you have two kids who need care. Schipani agreed. We should be promoting families, she said. It shouldnt be detrimental to have children. Bales, who has two adult sons and a grandchild on the way, is hopeful that millennials continue to change the dynamic around balancing careers and child-care responsibilities. I dont think the gender wage gap is intentional, she said, but it does reflect a world in which men focus on their careers while women are more likely to juggle home and job responsibilities. I think this next generation isnt going to be tied to the same traditions," she said. I see a move to a more realistic culture. The skee ball tournament Wednesday night seems something like the main event. Not only is it the most competitive evening of the series, but its also the biggest chance to win tickets. The champion takes home two GA tickets with a car camping pass; runner-up gets one GA ticket with a pass; and third place gets one GA ticket. Get your roll on, indeed. OWOSSO, Mich. -- A holiday season tradition is adding an option geared toward adults who want to take a trip to the North Pole without having to worry about children. The Steam Railroading Institute announced Monday thats ever-popular North Pole Express has added a new class of service for 2019, an adults only fleet of cars that will be part of trips this year. In a press release from the SRI, the company says it will offer seating in specific cars that will only allow travelers 18 years and older. The cars will offer a different experience that others as it will include high-end seating, panoramic views, holiday hors doeuvres, sweets and cocktails available at the cash bar, and so much more! The adults only cars were recently purchased by the SRI and have a rich history in the locomotive world. Built in 1954 by the Budd Manufacturing Company, these Hi-Level lounge cars once served the unique El Capitan passenger train of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway from Chicago to Los Angeles, read a portion of the press release. Acquired in early 2019 by the Steam Railroading Institute, the new addition to the passenger fleet will serve a first-class ambiance for an adult only market (Ages 18 or older). The adults only cars will join the other railroad cars that make the trip from Owosso to the Village of Ashleys Country Christmas as part of the North Pole Express. Once there, guests have a chance to visit the town, engage in holiday activities, take a picture in front of the Pere Marquette 1225 train and meet Santa Claus. The Pere Marquette 1225 train is actually the basis for the train in the popular Christmas movie The Polar Exrpess. The design, sounds and details of the 1225 trains were used in the animated movie which features Tom Hanks voicing the lead character. Tickets for the 2019 trips are now on sale according to SRI. The locomotive will make trips on Saturdays and Sundays, departing at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. each day, starting on November 16th through December 21st. The trips typically take four hours total, with train rides last one hour each way. For more information on tickets, visit MichiganSteamTrain.com or call (989) 399-7589. When it comes to spring training stadiums in Florida, it doesnt get better than Joker Marchant. Thats the word from BallparkDigest.com, which named the spring training home of the Detroit Tigers the best Grapefruit League ballpark of 2019 on Monday. Officially Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium, the longtime home of the Tigers in Lakeland won over Clearwaters Spectrum Field, spring home of the Philadelphia Phillies, in the finals of a bracketed online competition. We know Tigers fans love Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium, and so do so many fans of spring training, said Ballpark Digest/Spring Training Online publisher Kevin Reichard in a statement. This ballpark represents all the great traditions and history of spring training, and with recent upgrades fans can also enjoy a modern experience. Its really the best of both worlds. From historic cathedrals to modern gems: Ranking all 30 MLB parks Joker Marchant Stadium opened in 1966, but has undergone multiple renovations since then, most recently in 2017. Part of the historic TigerTown training complex, the stadium now has outfield seating areas, premium group spaces and new administrative and training buildings. The Tigers and Lakeland have the longest active relationship between a club and spring training host city. In 2017 the ballpark, which is also home to the Florida State Leagues Lakeland Flying Tigers, was selected as the fans choice for best High-A MiLB ballpark. This award means a great deal to all of us with the Detroit Tigers, and were honored to be recognized considering the high standard of ballparks throughout the Grapefruit League, said the Detroit Tigers Director of Florida Operations, Ron Myers. Myers also noted the partnership between the Tigers, city of Lakeland, Polk County, the state of Florida and Publix Corporation, among others. LECOM Park in Bradenton, the spring home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, won the honor in 2018. From icons to eyesores: Ranking all 15 American League ballparks ANN ARBOR, MI Ann Arbor officials have called a special meeting to discuss ongoing litigation over the Gelman dioxane plume, though it remains unclear whether a resolution may be on the horizon. The city is suing Gelman Sciences in hopes of getting a better cleanup of the companys toxic chemical pollution and the City Council will meet at 6 p.m. Monday, March 18, to discuss the case ahead of the councils regular meeting at city hall, 301 E. Huron St. The special session agenda indicates council members plan to meet behind closed doors with the citys legal counsel to discuss both the Gelman case and another lawsuit brought against the city by student housing developer Trinitas Development LLC. The meeting comes after the recent detection of trace amounts of dioxane in the citys drinking water from Barton Pond. City Attorney Stephen Postema said he cant comment on where the Gelman case stands at this point. The City Council voted to take legal action in November 2016, intervening in the states longstanding case against the polluter in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, with hopes of revising a consent judgment that governs management of the plume. Washtenaw County, Scio Township and the Huron River Watershed Council also intervened in the case as co-plaintiffs alongside the city and state. The various parties remain in private settlement discussions and there are no scheduled court dates. The state initially sued Gelman in 1988, leading to a consent judgment in 1992 that has been amended multiple times, most recently in 2011. In reopening the case, local officials are hoping for a new court-approved plan that provides for a more aggressive cleanup and more monitoring to track the spread of the miles-long plume. The polluter has pushed back, suggesting at one point that the countys cleanup or bust attitude was unreasonable. Postema said hell have a better sense of where the case may be headed after some additional meetings. If the parties cant reach a mutual agreement, the case could go to trial. It is, of course, ongoing litigation and so our ability to comment on the litigation is limited, Mayor Christopher Taylor said. Were going to be reviewing our attorneys advice with respect to the case and then looking to continue to move forward toward what is our ultimate goal, which is to ensure that Ann Arbors drinking water continues to be safe, Taylor said. The ongoing presence of the plume underneath Ann Arbor its a reality that we need to deal with and we need to work to effect a cleanup. When Circuit Judge Tim Connors granted the local parties requests to intervene in the case more than two years ago, Gelman objected and tried to get Connors overruled so it only would have to deal with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which wasnt sure a better cleanup was warranted. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the polluters request in July 2017, and the state Supreme Court did the same in January 2018. That left the case in Circuit Court in Ann Arbor, and officials have shared little information about the case in over a year. In the meantime, the toxic chemical plume that has plagued Ann Arbor for decades continues to spread, raising more concerns. The first-time detection of dioxane in the citys drinking water from Barton Pond has been a subject of discussion at recent meetings, along with dioxane recently detected at West Park. Gelman used dioxane in its filter-manufacturing processes between the 1960s and 1980s and discharged massive amounts of it on the companys Wagner Road property, on the citys western border with Scio Township. That left the groundwater heavily polluted. Dioxane has spread for miles through the citys groundwater and is now infiltrating the Allen Creek drain pipes at West Park that flush out to the Huron River. With dioxane in shallow groundwater, some worry it could seep into home basements and pose vapor-intrusion risks. Dioxane is classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as likely to be carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure. It also can cause kidney and liver damage, and respiratory problems. Just a few parts per billion in drinking water, with long-term exposure, poses a 1 in 100,000 cancer risk, according to the EPA. Under the current management plan, the plume is allowed to spread through the city at high concentrations to the Huron River, passing through a court-approved groundwater use prohibition zone. Gelman has spent years conducting pump-and-treat remediation under court orders, gradually extracting contaminated water from the ground and treating it to remove dioxane, but those efforts have slowed in recent years with no requirement for the polluter to be more aggressive. City officials have complained state law allows for containment or risk-mitigation strategies, rather than actual cleanup, and they say that approach isnt working in this case. Gelman Sciences was acquired in 1997 by Pall Corp., which was acquired in 2015 by Danaher Corp., a multibillion-dollar corporation that some local officials and residents argue has the financial resources to do a better cleanup. Another concern about the current approach to managing the plume is that the treated water Gelman is actively discharging as part of its cleanup operations still contains some dioxane, and thats being sent to a tributary of Honey Creek, which flows to the Huron River, upstream of Barton Pond, where Ann Arbor gets most of its drinking water. The discharges also contain bromate and hydrogen peroxide. Some City Council members are now considering turning to the EPA for help with getting a better cleanup. ANN ARBOR, MI -- Asked to keynote a summit on workforce shortages in Washtenaw County, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took the opportunity to make her case for raising gas taxes to rebuild Michigan roads and shore up education funding. The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Regional Chamber hosted the first Workforce Pipeline Summit on Monday, March 18 with the goal initiating conversations and creating plans to fill local labor shortage gaps. Organizers said Whitmer was invited to speak because central elements of her budget proposal parallel the discussions of workforce shortages in Washtenaw County. Her focus on improving infrastructure and improving education in Michigan could help strengthen the local workforce, said Washtenaw County Commissioner Andy LaBarre. Governor Whitmer comes before us with many challenges that face our state and she is proposing a number of solutions: ensuring quality, affordable health care, ensuring education and skills training, make sure we have clean drinking water and respecting Michigan working families. LaBarre said. Whitmer began her presentation by drawing a connection between having a strong workforce and strong infrastructure. I call this presentation The Road to Opportunity because of course, I cant stop talking about the damn roads," Whitmer said. I think its really important that we as a state are all operating off of the same set of facts, as we debate the budget and where we are headed in this great state. The governor called for making bold moves, before the price tag on fixing infrastructure goes up. She pointed out that when drivers spend money to fix their cars, the money is not going toward fixing roads. Our goal for Michigan is to have 90 percent of the roads in good to fair condition by 2030," she said. Whitmer hopes to achieve that goal by raising the gas tax 45 cents, in 15 cent increments over 18 months. Her budget proposal also includes doubling income tax credits for the working poor, to help offset the gas tax. Great expectations beget great results, but you have to set goals," Whitmer said. The goal with this budget is to fix the foundational problems in Michigan so we can grow and make this a place where people stay and thrive. She argued that failing to adequately fund infrastructure repairs ultimately takes money away from funding education. When youre filling potholes and not rebuilding roads, its a terrible long-term solution, Whitmer said. According to Whitmer, the national standard for state roads is for 90 percent of them to be in fair or good condition, and in Michigan, only 78 percent of state roads meet the standard. Every state in the nation is looking to close their skills gap and fix infrastructure, and right now we rank 46th," she said. We get a D- on our roads from the American Society of Civil Engineering." ... There are a lot of great things happening in this state, but the foundational things, whether or not weve got the (job) skills ... clean water, an education system and the infrastructure to support a growing state, thats where the problem exists," Whitmer said. She also pointed to Michigans low rankings in literacy levels and education funding. Every other state in the nation is education their kids in reading better than we are. That is an abomination, and I hope everyone of us looks at that and knows we could do everything else right , but if we dont fix this problem, our future is compromised," Whitmer said. OTTAWA COUNTY, MI A man robbed RePetes Party Store in Holland Township late Sunday, March 17, at gunpoint, sheriffs deputies said. The robbery was reported at 11:11 p.m. at 12719 Riley Street near U.S. 31. A man dressed in all black with part of his face covered showed a handgun and demanded money from the cash register. He fled with an undisclosed amount of cash. A sheriffs tracking dog followed the robbers trail for a short distance before losing the track. No injuries occurred. Police asked anyone with information to 911 in Ottawa County or Silent Observer at 877-88- SILENT. WYOMING, MI Police are looking for three suspects after a man was shot multiple times early Monday, March 18, at a home on Roys Avenue SW. The victim underwent surgery for three gunshot wounds. He was in stable condition, Wyoming police said. The shooting happened around 1:35 a.m. in the 2300 block of Roys, just south of Chicago Drive. Police responded to a report of a person being shot and found the victim, who was taken to a local hospital by ambulance. Early investigation shows that an altercation between the injured man and three others led to the victim being shot three times. The three men left the scene in a black Saturn sedan head north toward Chicago Drive, police aid. Police asked anyone with information to call Wyoming Department of Public Safety at 530-7300 or Silent Observer at 774-2345. JACKSON, MI Six months after being convicted and sentenced for slaying two teens on his property, Tracy Lawrence is seeking a new trial. Lawrences appellate attorney Ronald Ambrose submitted a request for a new trial Friday, March 15, to Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain, arguing Lawrence did not have a fair trial and was convicted by jurors who did not have all the facts of the case. At trial, (the victims) were conceded as just trespassers on his property. They were not, Ambrose said during the hearing. Lawrence, 56, was convicted and later sentenced, Sept. 19, to serve 19 to 40 years for the murder of Hunter Lentz and Matthew McMillen, both 18, who were shot and killed on June 8, 2016 on his property off Town Road in Springport Township. Throughout his trial, defense attorneys argued Lawrence was within his rights to defend himself, as the teens were on a crime spree the morning of their deaths. According to documents obtained by the Jackson Citizen Patriot through a Freedom of Information Act request, police suspected McMillen and Lentz were in the middle of a string of break-ins and larcenies, starting in Napoleon Township and ending at Lawrences home. Prior to the trial, McBain granted the defenses request to bring in evidence of the teens actions leading up to the shooting, but that decision was later overruled by the Michigan Court of Appeals. Prosecutors contended the evidence was disallowed justifiably, because there was no way Lawrence could have known the teens had committed a string of break-ins prior to them arriving on his property. Prosecutors reminded the court that evidence showed the two teens were shot and killed while running away. McBain said he will review the request for a new trail and issue a ruling by April 5. Lawrence is imprisoned in the Chippewa Correctional Facility in the upper peninsula. He had no criminal record leading up to the shooting. Read more stories about this incident here. JACKSON, MI -- A downtown seafood and steak restaurant is expected to open this summer, with the help of a tax break approved by the Jackson City Council to help get the eatery off the ground. After a public hearing at its March 12 meeting, city council unanimously passed a motion to approve a 12-year Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Act certificate for Downtown Development, LLC. The group plans to continue developing the former One Five One restaurant, 151 W. Michigan Ave., which closed in 2014. The building was also once home to Daryls Downtown restaurant, which closed in 2013, and Otellos, an Italian restaurant that closed in 1999. Veritas, a modern American restaurant focusing on seafood, steak, sushi and craft cocktails, is now planned for the space. Consultants for the upcoming restaurant are John Burtka and Justin Dalenberg, owner and executive chef, respectively, of Grand River Brewery, 117 W. Louis Glick Highway. Veritas wont necessarily be fine dining, Dalenberg said, but an elevation of the pub food at Grand River Brewery. The rotating menu will feature fresh seafood, dry-aged steaks and seasonal produce, depending on the best produce the chefs can find that week, according to the application. OPRA prevents property taxes from increasing as improvements are made on the building, according to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Its purpose is to encourage the redevelopment of obsolete buildings. OPRAs can be granted for one to 12 years, as determined by the local government. With the certificate, the property taxes of the business will be based on the previous years value, prior to rehabilitation. With the city councils approval, Downtown Development, LLCs OPRA application now goes to the State Tax Commission, which will approve or deny the request, according to MEDC. My whole part of this is to guide it and make sure it works with the cash flow, Dalenberg said. If the OPRA is not granted, the project will not provide the returns necessary for the investors to commit to continuing the project. Its not the first time the city has given a tax break to the space. In 2013, the council forgave an $80,000 Community Development Block Grant loan it gave to Daryls Downtown restaurant in 2006. Daryl Hoskins never repaid any of the loan, as his restaurant closed in 2013 before reopening as One Five One. The building was severely water damaged when purchased, forcing Dalenberg and Burtka to strip it down to bare floors and walls, Dalenberg said. The OPRA application claims rehabilitation costs of $625,000, but Dalenberg said thats just for equipment and building fixes and renovation. The total investment is $1.26 million, he said. The owners also will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire more than 40 full-time workers, Dalenberg said. To have a restaurant with this kind of concept that isnt a national business is special," Dalenberg said. "We want to make an iconic downtown restaurant. Veritas will conserve some of the buildings historic elements, such as its chandeliers. Besides lounge and dining areas, it will feature a sushi bar and have two event spaces, one with seating for 60 people and another for 300 people on the third floor, according to the application. Were just trying to do what we do at the Grand River Brewery -- be around people and have a good time, Dalenberg said. We want to help generate business in downtown. UPDATE: Florida man faces murder charge in 1986 Michigan killing PAW PAW, MI The Michigan State Police arrested a 51-year-old man who is charged in a cold case homicide in Bangor, Michigan. In 1986, Wilda Wilkinson was found deceased in her home. Her daughter found her there more than 30 years ago, the Michigan State Police said in a news release on Monday, March 18. Investigators began working the case and developed several persons of interest, but the case went cold. In 2010, Michigan State Police detectives began working the case and, in 2018, began working the case full-time, the release said. Last week, detectives went to California with an arrest warrant for Michael Leon Curry, police said. Curry lived near Wilkinson during the time of the crime and was initially questioned by investigators. Detectives were not able to rule out Curry and an arrest warrant was issued after police obtained physical evidence and conducted interviews. Curry was arrested in California and waived extradition. He was brought back to Michigan and arraigned on a single count of first-degree murder on Monday, March 18, according to court records. Wilkinson is survived by her two daughters and two sons. Those family members were in continuous contact with investigators throughout the investigation, police said. MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, MI Former Muskegon Heights City Manager Jake Eckholm took a base salary pay cut of nearly $6,000 to work as the new economic development director in the city of Muskegon. But added bonuses put Eckholms compensation close to what he was receiving to lead the city of Muskegon Heights. Eckholm in late February terminated his employment with the city of Muskegon Heights where he earned an annual salary of $83,430 salary plus benefits. He said he was leaving to focus on his family and his work as a professional. A week later, in early March, Eckholm started his new job with the city of Muskegon making a $77,638 base salary, said Muskegon City Manager Frank Peterson. However, Eckholm also receives $3,105 -- 4 percent of his base salary -- for living in the city, which brings his compensation up to $80,743. Thats before his vehicle allowance of $350 per month -- $4,200 annually -- or 58-cents-per-mile in mileage reimbursement . Eckholm received a similar $300 per month vehicle allowance -- $3,600 annually -- and $100 a month to pay for his cell phone while working for Muskegon Heights. He lived in the city of Muskegon with his family while he was city manager of Muskegon Heights. In the weeks leading up to his split with Muskegon Heights, Eckholm was able to negotiate a separation agreement that included a proportional lump sum salary payment. The agreement came with a confidentiality clause prohibiting the documents disclosure without written consent from either party, with few exceptions. However, the document is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which is how MLive/Muskegon Chronicle obtained a copy of it. In a previous interview, Eckholm called his departure a mutual separation. The separation agreement calls it a voluntary resignation. The nine-page document was signed by Eckholm on Feb. 22 and countersigned by Muskegon Heights Mayor Kim Sims on Feb. 25, two days before Eckholm interviewed with the city of Muskegon. According to the agreement, Eckholm received a lump-sum severance payment of $21,019, which was equal to one months salary, his last weekly paycheck dated March 8, accrued vacation time and one-half of his accumulated sick time. While Eckholm and Sims have said Eckholm exited on good terms, the agreement includes a non-disparagement clause, which states that neither party is allowed to demean, make negative comments about or take negative action against one another. The agreement also states that if asked about Eckholms employment history or the separation agreement, the city response will be: Eckholm fulfilled his duties in his capacity as City Manager honorably and effectively. He was never disciplined or reprimanded, and received positive reviews by the Mayor and City Council. The City would recommend hiring Eckholm for any position offered at your organization, as he will prove an asset to any professional team. In a statement issued to MLive on Feb. 25, Eckholm said he deeply appreciated my time serving the community and that he has only positive things to say about the people in Muskegon Heights. Sims similarly lauded Eckholm saying she commended him on the work hes done to set us up to get to the next level. Muskegon Heights is currently seeking Eckholms replacement and plans to hire the Michigan Municipal League to recruit candidates nationwide. The Muskegon Heights City Council voted this month to spend no more than $25,000 on the search. On March 4, the Muskegon Heights City Council met in a work session to discuss the search for Eckholms replacement. At that meeting, City Councilman Andre Williams said he would like the city to offer a residency incentive to whomever accepts the position. Eckholm was hired in 2016 and presided over three budgets that have helped the city turn a corner toward financial sustainability one of Eckholms stated goals during his time as manager. A native of Muskegon, Eckholm was the city manager of Stanton and village manager of Lakeview in Montcalm County before he arrived in Muskegon Heights in October 2016. He is a graduate of Muskegon Community College and Grand Valley State University. 1845 N. Orchard St., Chicago: $5,989,888 | Listed: Nov. 9, 2021 This six-bedroom home has six full bathrooms, two half baths, and a carved limestone and brick exterior. The Christopher Peacock kitchen has Waterworks fixtures, a farmers sink and two Subzero refrigerator/freezers. It also opens to the living room, which leads to an outdoor area with a full kitchen, seating areas, and a wood-burning fireplace. On the second floor, the primary bedroom suite features a dressing room and morning kitchen and an en suite bath with a separate shower and soaking tub. Three additional en suite bedrooms are also on the second floor. Other features include a wine cellar, a library, a media room with a Savant projection and audio system and an attached four-car garage with extra storage. Agent: Carrie McCormick, @properties, 312-961-4612 *Some listing photos are virtually staged, meaning they have been digitally altered to represent different furnishing or decorating options. To feature your luxury listing of $800,000 or more in Chicago Tribunes Dream Homes, send listing information and high-res photos to ctc-realestate@chicagotribune.com. Join our Chicago Dream Homes Facebook group for more luxury listings and real estate news. AUBURN HILLS, MI -- Presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she will restore democracy to Michigan voters who felt left behind by Democrats in 2016. Michiganders deserve to be able to have a voice in our politics, not the moneyed interests that control everything in Washington, not the greed and corruption that decide everything, Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said during a stop in Auburn Hills on Monday. Gillibrand, D-New York, visited Michigan for an MSNBC town hall event one day after officially announcing her campaign for president. The town hall kicks off a busy day of events for Gillibrand, who is scheduled to appear at an evening rally with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Clawson, while Democrat opponent Beto ORourke also made several stops around metro Detroit on March 18. MSNBC will air the town hall forum at 8 p.m. Monday on "All In With Chris Hayes." The host introduced Michigan as a "battleground state" due to its support for President Donald Trump in 2016, and Hayes said the cable network will likely hold other Michigan town halls with presidential candidates. Gillibrand, 52, outlined her pitch for a slate of progressive policies to Michigan voters at the Rochester Mills Beer Co. production facility in Auburn Hills. The New York senator said her thinking has evolved on several issues, particularly becoming tougher on gun regulations, while she learned to recognize how issues impact people outside of her home state. She expressed support for the Green New Deal, saying the package of economic programs would create new jobs and provide tax incentives for industries and auto manufacturers to produce energy efficient products. Gillibrand also supported a modest financial transaction tax on trade to raise money for investment in green infrastructure. When you tell a union member here in Michigan that your industry is going to get enormous tax benefits because your innovation is going to be what solves the problem, theyre going to take the challenge, Gillibrand said. Gillibrand has served in the U.S. Senate since 2009, replacing 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand also worked on Clintons 2000 Senate campaign. While other candidates begin to circle Michigan, Gillibrand said she has the best vision for the country. Gillibrand said Trumps divisiveness is harming our character as a nation." If we were brave enough to send a man to the moon, we should be brave enough to fight for Medicare for all, Gillibrand said. We should be brave enough to fight for a Green New Deal. We should be brave enough to get money out of politics and restore whats been lost in our democracy. Gillibrand pledged to not accept corporate PAC money as a first step to promote publicly-funded elections. She said lobbyists funnel money into campaigns to block reforms to gun laws and health care. While she supported Medicare for all, Gillibrand said she supports a nonprofit public health care option that would eventually transition into single-payer. She said private insurers could still do business, but expects they wouldnt be able to compete with the public option. She said clean water is one of her top issues, and promised to use hold legacy polluters accountable. Noting PFAS contamination across Michigan, she said the Green New Deal could create alternative funding sources for clean up and health monitoring if a responsible party cant be tracked down. Gillibrand also focused on economic issues affecting families. She supports lowering the cost of health care, universal pre-Kindergarten, affordable day care, closing the gender wage gap and a national paid family and medical leave program. She also pitched giving students who perform public service to receive tuition subsidies for public universities and community colleges. Gillibrand says immigration is not a security issue" and called Trumps child separation policy inhumane and intolerable." She held the president responsible for spreading racial hatred and emboldening white nationalism. Trump poured fuel on a fire of growing bigotry, Gillibrand said. Gillibrand pitched herself as a lifelong fighter for women. She has been outspoken for people sexually assaulted while in the military and was among the first Democrats to call for the resignation of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, after he faced allegations of sexual misconduct. We must value women," Gillibrand said. When someone comes forward, we have to believe them and do a full thorough investigation so justice is possible. In 2012, Gillibrand launched Off the Sidelines, a PAC to encourage more women to get involved in politics. Mondays MSNBC event was filmed in Oakland County, one of only eight counties to support Clinton in 2016. Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes, a 0.23 percent margin. Trump has announced he will hold a campaign rally March 28 in Grand Rapids. Algeria chief of staff warns army may tackle political crisis Algeria chief of staff warns army may tackle political crisis Algerias army should take responsibility for finding a quick solution to its political crisis, the chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah said on Monday. The statement is seen as the most overt signal of potential military intervention since mass demonstrations erupted three weeks ago, Reuters said. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika bowed to demonstrators last week by announcing that he had reversed a decision to stand for another term, but he stopped short of stepping down and postponed elections. So far, the powerful army has remained in barracks during the demonstrations, with the security forces mainly monitoring mostly peaceful demonstrations in Algiers and other cities.Source : RT - Daily news Police have confirmed that at least two people died after a stampede allegedly broke out during St. Patricks Day celebrations at a hotel in Cookstown, Northern Ireland. Multiple police cars and ambulances rushed to the scene. Police have been asking parents to collect children from the scene at the Greenvale Hotel, where several people were killed in a tragic incident that unraveled while St. Patricks Day festivities were in full swing on Sunday evening. A small number of people also suffered injuries as a result of the incident, police said. It is unclear what triggered the panic among revelers that reportedly preceded a fatal crush outside the hotel. Police said they have commenced a full investigation into the circumstances. A source cited by Belfast Live said that something wrought chaos at the night party that was taking place at a car park just outside the hotel. A lot of people had congregated outside the Greenvale and there was a lot of carry on but suddenly all hell broke loose and there was a big panic. People were running all over the place, the source said. The outlet reported that some of the people caught in the mayhem, believed to be teenagers and youths, suffered cuts, bruises and crush injuries. They have also been receiving treatment for shock. A huge police presence as well as five ambulances were noted at the scene, which had been cordoned off. CPR was reportedly performed on some of the victims on the ground near the hotel. A nearby hotel confirmed to the BBC that police had borrowed its defibrillator. Also on rt.com St. Patricks Day: From Japan to Africa to US and space, world goes green (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was accused of hypocrisy after he announced $55 million in grants for security upgrades at religious schools and places of worship in the wake of the New Zealand tragedy. The money will be given to the country's mosques, churches, synagogues and religious schools so that worshipers can "practice their faith in safety," Morrison said on Monday at a meeting of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne. The grants range from $50,000 to $1.5 million, and are expected to cover the cost of security upgrades such as CCTV cameras, lighting, fencing and alarms. Morrison said the money will be available through the "acceleration and extension" of a community fund that supports local schools, preschools, community groups and local councils. The prime minister also promised that religious organizations will be given priority access to public funds. "It grieves me that this is necessary, but sadly it is," he said, alluding to the recent terrorist attack on a New Zealand mosque that claimed the lives of 50 worshipers. The prime minister asserted that the measures are necessary to protect religious freedom, which he said is "important to the very cohesion of our society" because it's impossible for many Australians "to separate their faith from their culture." Morrison also said that he wants to unite the country, and urged people to confront the "militant and lazy" group in society that seeks to turn one part of Australians against the other. Also on rt.com Aussie Senator gets EGGED after comments blaming Muslims for NZ mosque shooting (VIDEO) However, angry comments poured in as local TV streamed Morrison's speech on Facebook. Most users were quite skeptical about the prime minister's appeal. One person suggested that Morrison was simply "point scoring" in the wake of the Christchurch tragedy, while another called the prime minister "a puppet" who is unable to make "Australia strong." Tensions also flared on Twitter as many people questioned the need for such generous expenses. Commenters suggested that authorities should put more effort in controlling extreme right-wing groups, reforming gun laws, and enhancing "ground first response capabilities" instead of wasting money on "useless infrastructure." Many social-media users found Morrison's claim that the country needs to unite hypocritical, as the politician is known for his tough stance in relation to immigration policy. In February, he said that "no one who attempts an illegal boat journey to Australia will ever be allowed to settle here." Asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat are sent to detention centers on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus. Last month, Morrison sought albeit unsuccessfully to block a bill that would let sick asylum seekers in offshore centers to receive treatment in Australia. "The actions you have taken regarding asylum seekers is creating the radicals that commit these atrocities," one person wrote. Other users insisted that investment should be made in building stronger communities and "changing the culture" instead of "walls, security and separation." A number of people chose to react sarcastically, with one wondering if there's anyone who had brought an "egg for this guy" in reference to the incident involving Australian senator Fraser Anning on Saturday. Anning, who had earlier said that the shooting in a Christchurch mosque highlighted the "growing fear over an increasing Muslim presence" in both New Zealand and Australia, was attacked by a teenage protester with an egg as he was talking to reporters in Melbourne. A 28-year-old Australian-born man named Brenton Tarrant killed 50 people in a mosque in the city of Christchurch in New Zealand on Friday. The shooter livestreamed the attack on Facebook using a GoPro camera. Shortly before the rampage, he posted a lengthy 'manifesto' in which he called for "revenge" against "Muslim invaders." Like this story? Share it with a friend! Earlier on Monday, it emerged that future protests and demonstrations could be banned in the heart of Paris after French President Emmanuel Macron consulted with his interior and justice ministers during an emergency meeting, according to Reuters. Sections of protesters attached to the movement wreaked havoc on the iconic Champs-Elysees avenue, after police attempted to remove barriers erected by the protesters. The demonstration, the groups 18th consecutive weekend of protests, then turned into a riot with cars set on fire and shops along the avenue smashed up and looted. Riot police responded by firing tear gas and other projectiles, which hospitalized a reporter from RTs Ruptly video agency. Previous clashes with police have resulted in demonstrators and bystanders suffering severe injuries after being hit with gas canisters, rubber bullets and Flash-Balls. Activist group Desarmons-les (Disarm Them) has recorded at least 150 serious injuries. Government figures show that over 2,000 protesters and over 1,000 police officers have been injured since protests broke out in November. The renewed violence bears the hallmarks of the severe rioting that occurred during demonstrations in December. However, recent demonstrations have been fairly calm. Macron has since vowed to take strong measures in order to prevent a repeat of the violence next Saturday. Initially a rejection of proposed fuel tax increases, the Yellow Vest movement has since widened to broadly oppose the government, its pro-business reforms, and Macrons leadership in general. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! France to ban Yellow Vest protests in heavily targeted areas if radicals identified French PM France to ban Yellow Vest protests in heavily targeted areas if radicals identified French PM Source : RT - Daily news The Illinois House of representatives has voted to require the teaching of LGBT history to elementary school students in the state. Republican opponents have called the measure indoctrination. The measure, which passed by 60 votes to 42 on Wednesday, would require history textbooks in the state to include "the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State." Supporters say the addition to the history books will cut down on bullying and show LGBT students that they can contribute fully to society. Opponents, however, are skeptical. Also on rt.com We dont have gay people in our country, claims Malaysian minister Here's what parents in my district said: How or why is a historical figures sexuality or gender self-identification even relevant? Especially. when we're talking about kindergarten and elementary school history,'" Republican Rep. Tom Morrison told NPR. Furthermore, Republican opponents are furious that the measure doesnt allow parents to opt out. Rep. Darren Bailey told the Pontiac Daily Leader that he voted against the bill because it does not provide an opt out option for parents who do not wish their children exposed to this kind of information for religious reasons, or because their child may not be of a mature enough age to fully understand the meaning and implications of what LGBT actually is. Forcing that information on 5 year olds and elementary school children is more of an effort of indoctrination, he added. An earlier iteration of the Illinois measure passed the state Senate last year, and this latest version is expected to do the same. Democrat Governor JB Pritzker - a staunch supporter of LGBT rights - will likely sign it into law as soon as it lands on his desk. New Jersey governor Phil Murphy (D) signed a similar bill into law last month, in spite of complaints from parents, Christians, and Republicans. New Jersey was the second state to introduce such legislation after California paved the way in 2016. Also on rt.com Birmingham school to indefinitely suspend LGBT lessons for kids after parents anger LGBT History is not just a matter of debate in America. In Britain, an outcry from parents forced a school in Birmingham to suspend its LGBT rights curriculum earlier this month. The parents, a majority of whom are Muslim, opposed the program both for religious reasons and due to the young age of the students involved. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Any talks with the US are bound to fail until Washington gives up on its arrogance and trying to do things on own terms only, a top Russian senator said after fresh arms control remarks by US national security adviser John Bolton. Bolton expressed concerns over the growing nuclear potential of Beijing, telling AM 970 radio on Sunday that if were going to have another arms control negotiation, for example, with the Russians, it may make sense to include China that discussion as well. Washington is still planning to talk to China, Russia and North Korea arrogantly and on its own terms, Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Russian Federal Council, responded. It will require a lot of time and many more American mistakes before there is understanding that a collective approach that takes into consideration the interests of all parties is the only alternative. But this time will surely come. Kosachev also pointed out that, by his statement, the national security adviser actually acknowledged that his radical approach from not so distant past, that Americas power and exceptionalism allows it to decide the fate of the world on its own, was wrong. This wont work and the longer Bolton remains in charge of the US national security, the more obvious itll become. A lot of mess had been already created, but theres no improvement in security. Its the other way around, in fact. The deputy head of the Federal Councils International Relations Committee, Vladimir Dzhabarov, said that Russia would welcome the involvement of China into non-proliferation negotiations if they ever take place. Presidential press-secretary Dmitry Peskov specified to the journalists that "so far, we didnt get any concrete proposals from the American side regarding the talks. Washington had repeatedly blamed Russia of violating the deal, but provided no proof to the accusations. Moscow denied the claims and insisted that the US was it itself not complying with the INF. Also on rt.com Pentagon eager to test banned missiles after discarding Cold War-era nuke treaty In February the US announced its unilateral withdrawal from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in early February, leaving Russia no choice but to also suspend its participation in the deal. After Russias attempts to save the INF were brushed aside by Washington, Moscow said that it wont make any new proposals regarding arms control and will only wait for initiatives from the Americans. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Brenton Tarrant, the suspect behind the massacre of 50 people at two New Zealand mosques, has fired his court-appointed lawyer and wants to defend himself amid concerns he might use the high-profile trial to promote his beliefs. Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian charged with murder over the brutal attack, has sacked his lawyer Richard Peters, the attorney told the NZ Herald on Sunday. The alleged shooter parted ways with Peters on Saturday, shortly after his brief appearance before Christchurch District Court that morning. Peters said that that the Australian "seemed quite clear and lucid" as he refused his legal assistance. "He didn't appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment, other than holding fairly extreme views," the lawyer said. Apart from the calm demeanor the attacker displayed during his several minutes before the judge, little is known about his current state of mind since Tarrant had not issued a statement or attempted to address the court. He did not seek bail, neither did he appeal to have his name withheld. Tarrant's now-former lawyer said that the alleged assailant did not appear to show any remorse though they did not specifically discuss that topic. According to Peters, his sacking might be an early indication that Tarrant wants to make the most of his trial by treating it as an opportunity to promote his violent extremist views. In that case, it will be up to the presiding judge to cut short any such PR stunt. "I suspect that he won't shy away from publicity, and that will probably be the way he runs the trial. The job of the trial judge will be to deal with that." The lawyer believes the court will not be "very sympathetic" to Tarrant if he opts to use it as a tool in his propaganda game. Also on rt.com Facebook erased 1.5mn instances of NZ mosque attack video in 24 hours after massacre While the court cannot preclude Tarrant from representing himself, it is likely to appoint a lawyer who would advise the alleged attacker on the rules of judicial procedure, Peters noted. As concerns are mounting that the alleged gunman could subvert the NZ judicial system to serve his own interests, the New Zealand authorities are asking the media and the general public to give Tarrant as little exposure as possible. Judging by his previous actions, publicity is exactly what Tarrant is seeking. He sent a lengthy manifesto to NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's office 10 minutes before going on a shooting rampage inside the Al Noor mosque. He then live-streamed the whole massacre on Facebook. While the original video has long since been removed, Facebook is still struggling to delete copies, having erased 1.5 million instances of the video in the first 24 hours after the attack. In order to prevent the spread of the video, the New Zealand government has cracked down on those who defy the ban on 'objectionable' content. On Sunday, a 22-year-old man was arrested for allegedly distributing the blood-curdling video. The man, who faces jail if found guilty, will appear before court on Monday. The alleged shooter's next appearance before the judge is scheduled for April 5. to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. A 22-year-old New Zealand man has been arrested for distributing chilling footage live-streamed by alleged perpetrator Brenton Tarrant as he gunned down worshippers in a mosque. It comes amid Facebook's own crackdown on the video. In a statement on Sunday, police said they apprehended a local man who is not believed to be directly linked to the attacker. The 22-year-old is facing charges under Films Video and Publications Classifications Act, which prohibits distribution or possession of material determined to be "objectionable." Also on rt.com Imran Khan announces national award for Pakistani martyred trying to stop NZ mosque gunman "The live stream video of the shootings in Christchurch has been classified by the Chief Censor's Office as objectionable," police said. The alleged breach of the 1993 law may land the man, who has not been identified, in prison, police said in a statement. Under the law, the publication is 'objectionable' if it "describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good." The man has been taken into custody and is set to face court on Monday, police said. The news of the man's arrest comes shortly after New Zealand's biggest satellite television provider, Sky Network Television, yanked Sky News Australia off its platform for airing clips from the footage. It said in a tweet, that has since been deleted, that it decided to remove the Sky News Australia off air until they are "confident that the distressing footage" is no longer being shared. Facebook, meanwhile, has launched a wide-ranging crackdown against those spreading the gruesome first-person shooter-like footage, erasing 1.5 million instances of the video in 24 hours, including 1.2 million that were removed while they were still being uploaded. In the wake of the attack that left 50 people dead in two Christchurch mosques on Friday, NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appealed to the public and media organizations not to show the graphic footage. "We should not share, spread, or actively engage in that message of hate," she said. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! A petrochemical storage facility has caught fire in Deer Park, Texas, sending thick plumes of potentially hazardous smoke into the air. Locals have been called to seek shelter inside as firefighters struggle to contain the blaze. The inferno has been ravaging one of the tanks of the Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC), based in Deer Park, a city of some 32,000 in southeast Texas. Videos and photos shared on social media show a thick pillar of black smoke billowing from the facility into the air. The ITC said that the fire broke out at 10:22 am local time, engulfing the tank that contains Naphtha, a highly flammable chemical which is a component of gasoline. The chemical is described as extremely volatile and is classified as carcinogenic. In an update released some five hours after the first reports of fire, the ITC said that the chemical was still burning. It said that the facility was working with local first responders to try to contain the blaze and prevent it from jumping onto adjacent structures. In the meantime, locals have been warned against going outside while the country officials, including those from the county HAZMAT division, assess if the air has been contaminated. As the fire was sweeping through the facility on Sunday afternoon, the city authorities issued a "shelter in place" order for the whole Deer Park, calling on the residents to "seek shelter immediately." The order means that the residents are encouraged to stay in place out of fear of potentially dangerous substances being released into the atmosphere, and are advised to shut down windows, air ventilation and air conditions systems, as well as turn off fans and clothes dryers in precaution. Also on rt.com California wildfire rips through nuclear waste site, fueling airborne toxin risk concerns So far, pollution authorities have yet to discover any contaminants in the air that might pose danger to the residents, Harris County Pollution Control Deputy Director Latrice Babin told Chron, noting that the city was lucky since the wind appeared to be blowing upward. At the time when the fire broke out, some 30 employees were at the facility. All have been brought to safety and no one is believed to have been injured. The Dee Park terminal was built in 1972 and currently stores an array of flammable liquids and gases, as well as several types of oil and distillates in its 242 tanks. It has a capacity of 3.1 million barrels (2.2 million cbm), according to the company's website. It is the second similar incident that has rocked the area in two days. On Saturday, a fire ripped through an ExxonMobil oil refinery in Baytown, just 11 miles from Deer Park. An investigation has been launched into the cause of the fire. No injuries have been reported there. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! In a TIF district, assessed value is frozen for the purposes of taxation at the time of the formation of the district. As redevelopment occurs and assessed value of the property increases, the difference between the frozen value and the increased value goes into a fund, known as the increment. It was obvious in watching Gomez the first one hit by sniper fire as he and other officers rushed into the warehouse the 13-year APD veteran was not at all comfortable receiving so many accolades. We were only doing our job, he would say time and time again, while also admitting to feelings of guilt he and his colleagues still struggle with because we could not save everyone inside that building. We have an opportunity to create a space that veterans and their families will seek out and of which South Barrington residents can be proud. Lets develop a location that conveys the majesty of other military cemeteries, even if on a smaller scale. A 56-year-old employee of a restaurant in the 1100 block of North McHenry Road reported March 8 that she received a phone call from a juvenile male asking for black rice. She told the caller they did not have that type of rice and tried to explain the fried rice options then the caller asked if they put cat in the fried rice and hung up. The employee received three more calls from the subject in 10 minutes, asking for items not on the menu and mocking the accent of the employee. On the last call, the caller said he would come into the restaurant and shoot the employees. Police could not track the callers phone number. Nearby schools were notified of the shooting, but after officers arrived they determined there was no threat to the local community, the sheriffs office said in a statement. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Here's a timeline of the Reliance Communications versus Ericsson case. 2013 - RCom signs MSA with Ericsson Reliance Communications (RCom) signs a multi-year managed services agreement (MSA) with Ericsson in January. Under the deal, Ericsson to manage services of wireline and wireless network for RCom covering more than 100,000 km of fiber and mobile infrastructure in 11 telecom circles, across North and West of India including Delhi and Mumbai. 2016 -- Relations sour on non-paid dues The relationship between the two companies stays smooth for about three years, but 2016 onward things start to sour as RCom struggles to pay Ericsson on time. Ericsson alleges Reliance defaulted on payments, even after several assurances. September 2017 - Ericsson terminates MSA, approaches NCLT Ericsson issues notice for termination of the MSA, stating that RCom breached the agreement by not paying its dues. In the same month, Ericsson approaches the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to recover dues worth over Rs 1,100 crore from RCom. NCLT accepts a petition of Ericsson and initiates insolvency proceedings. This comes at a time when RCom is trying to sell spectrum, towers and fiber assets to Reliance Jio, the company owned by Ambanis older brother Mukesh Ambani for $3.7 billion to reduce the $7 billion debt load on its books. On May 29, RCom offers an upfront payment of Rs 550 crore to Ericsson, as a settlement, on condition that Ericsson withdraws the insolvency application. Anil Ambani gives a personal guarantee for the payment to Ericsson. August 2018 - Matter reaches Supreme Court On August 3, the matter reaches the Supreme Court which orders RCom to pay Rs 550 crore to Ericsson towards the dues by September 30. Sept-Oct 2018 -- RCom fails to comply, Ericcson files a contempt petition RCom misses the September 30 deadline and seeks an extension of the deadline by 60 days from Ericsson. Ericsson refuses and files contempt of court petition in the Supreme Court against Anil Ambani. RCom moves the court for an extension of the deadline, but the plea is dismissed. The Supreme Court holds Anil Ambani and three RCom companies guilty of contempt of court for not complying with the undertaking to settle the Rs 550 crores dues of Ericsson. The Court grants an opportunity to Anil Ambani to overcome contempt by paying Ericsson the balance amount after deducting the Rs 118 crore already deposited in the Court. The Court sets March 19 as the deadline and says a default would result in Ambani facing three months imprisonment. March 2019 - Anil Ambani pays Rs 462 crore, avoids a jail term Mukesh Ambani bails out his younger brother by providing a Rs 462 crore lifeline. Anil Ambani pays the final instalment just a day before the Supreme Court deadline and avoids a potential jail term. Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. Naresh Goyal, Jet Airways (Image: Reuters) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Amid grounding of operations at Abu Dhabi airport, an unhappy partner in Etihad Airways and increasing unease among its pilots, all eyes are on Jet Airways' founder and Chairman Naresh Goyal as his self-imposed deadline to announce an update on the resolution plan gets over on March 18. Patience is running out among the distressed airline's senior pilots, many of whom have been approached by IndiGo and GoAir. Some of them attended 'roadshows' conducted by IndiGo last week in Gurugram and Mumbai and may decide on their future course depending on what Goyal has to tell them. "Tempers have gone up after an aircraft maintenance engineer lost his son for want of funds," said a senior executive. Jet Airways' pilots and engineers have not been paid part of their December salary, and those of January and February. Read: Jet Airways grounds 4 more aircraft; about 60 now taken off service On March 1, Goyal had written to the airline's pilots, appealing for 'continued support' and assured them that the senior management will provide an update on the resolution plan by March 18. "While a few steps remain, some critical steps are behind us and the remaining approval processes are well underway. I assure you that I am personally working this situation as rapidly as possible," Goyal had said. But the 'few steps' seem to be hard in coming, especially after Jet Airways grounded its operations in Abu Dhabi, which is the home base of Etihad Airways. Jet Airways' hub in Abu Dhabi is critical to feed Etihad's flights to Europe. The Middle East airline continues to stick to its demands, including capping of Goyal's stake in Jet Airways and exemption from opting for an open offer in case it decides to invest more money in the Indian airline, thus increasing its stake. While Goyal holds 51 percent stake in the airline, Etihad has 24 percent. Post the resolution plan, banks are expected to take control of the airline, which has a debt of over Rs 8,000 crore. Goyal has to be mindful of the 90-day deadline from the date of his first default on loan repayments on December 31, 2018. Lenders can take a defaulting company to National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) after 90 days of default. On March 11, Jet had defaulted again, this time on an external commercial borrowing. State Bank of India, the lead lender, has till now maintained that it is not considering the NCLT route to recover its loans. A senior SBI official had said that the resolution is likely within a week. "It is by desire that this airline keeps running, that is the fundamental difference between this and other non-performing assets. We are hopeful of arriving at a resolution in one week," the official said. Jet Airways' pilots have been offered 'impressive' salary terms from IndiGo and GoAir. Both airlines have promised these pilots compensation for their salary arrears and a base of their choice. Most pilots have been put on standby as Jet Airways has grounded over 50 of its aircraft after failing to pay its lessors. Also, the airline has shut down stations and curtailed its operations leading to lower flying hours for its pilots. "Many of these pilots now are sitting on offers. But haven't taken a decision as they are waiting to hear from Goyal," a senior executive said. The death of a colleague's son hasn't helped. Moneycontrol had reached out to the aircraft maintenance engineer, who had requested the Jet Airways' management to release his salary, so that he could have his son operated. He replied saying that his son has passed away and he didn't want to discuss the issue. Representative image live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The board of Hotel Leelaventure on March 18 approved the sale of four of five luxury properties owned by the company, prime land holding in Agra, intellectual property rights and management contracts for a sum of Rs 3,950 crore to Canadian firm Brookfield. The four properties sold to the private equity company are based in Delhi, Chennai, Udaipur and Bengaluru. Its oldest hotel, based in Mumbai, has not been sold as per details of the deal. Hotel Leelaventure also said that this transaction will not lead to any change in the shareholding pattern of the company. "The total consideration payable to the company for the transaction is Rs 3,950 crore subject to adjustments on account of net working capital plus the transaction cost. The agreed amount will be paid to the lenders of the company in accordance with the terms of the definitive agreements towards repayment of dues owed by the company to its lenders," Hotel Leelaventure said in a statement. In September. the Nair family-controlled company restructured its debts under the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) mechanism. The hotel company, which is based in Mumbai evaluated various options for a viable restructuring, including sale and of hotels, monetisation of non-core assets, equity infusion and debt refinancing by investors. The transaction however has not come at a favourable valuation for Leela despite months of negotiations. Under the stewardship of the late Capt. CP Krishnan Nair, Hotel Leelaventure spent a staggering Rs 3200 crore on building two hotels Delhi (Rs 2,000 crore) and Chennai (Rs 1,200 crore). Located at the busy Chanakyapuri area, the Leela Delhi was the costliest hotel in India at its time of completion. The Delhi property was formally opened in April 2011 while the Chennai hotel was opened in 2013. A weak real estate market coupled with impractical investments to make them luxurious disallowed valuations to rise any further, according to market experts. The promoters of the company, the Nair family, had put both the properties as a block deal in 2014 itself but due to their high valuations but there were no takers. Chandeliers made of hand blown glass from Murano, Corinthian pillars of Turkish limestone, Rolls Royce cars to ferry guests and large windows overlooking the Bay of Bengal had diffused buyer interests. In 2015 the board of Leela cleared the sale of its Goa property, the second oldest property of the company, for Rs 725 crore to a Malaysian firm. Prior to that, in 2011, the company had sold its Kovalam property for Rs 500 crore to Dubai-based NRI Ravi Pillai. In between, the company has sold an IT Park located at Kochi for Rs 280 crore to Carnival Group. Despite these intermittent transactions, Hotel Leelaventure's debt soared to more than Rs 4,300 crore. JMFARC, which controlled 96 percent of the companys debt, made the two chief promoters Vivek Nair and Dinesh Nair sons of Leela Hotel founder CP Krishnan Nair to forgo salary for two consecutive years. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More If there is one thing the Mindtree founders can bank on in their battle with L&T, it is the unwavering support of employees. As the battle heats up and the founders are looking to thwart the takeover attempt, Mindtree employees have started #MindtreeMatters on Twitter to express their support. An employee with the twitter handle Mocking Jay tweeted: "It is the place of inception of my professionalism. Mr. Bagchi has correctly stated that Mindtree was not built as an asset, and that is reflected in OUR culture - we are all "Mindtree minds" here, not resources that can be bought." Another tweet read: "Trees in Cubbon park & minds in Mindtree are not for sale." As you scroll down the tweet, the sentiment is resonated in so many different words but all of them seem to carry the same opinion that talks about the company culture, nurturing talent and making them a part of a big family. "Mindtree is not a work place for me. It is my Home and home is never for sale," said an employee. Talking about his experience working with Mindtree right from the time he was a fresher, in Twitter, Vignesh Natarajan, an engineer in Mindtree, said: "What really sets apart Mindtree is the opportunity it provides to each and every employee irrespective of gender, age or where they are situated in the organisational hierarchy." According to him, Mindtree is what it is only because the founders has enforced the core values work life balance, professionalism and integrity in day to day running of the organisation. "We have a long way to go and are confident minor distractions won't stop us from achieving better long term goals," Natarajan added. The cultural difference was the key point of contention between the founders and L&T since the time the talks of the takeover began. In the letter that was sent to the L&T board by Mindtree board members Krishnakumar Natarajan and Rostow Ravanan and shared on Twitter by CNBC TV18, states that the reports of hostile takeover by L&T has alarmed various stakeholders of Mindtree including institutional investors, clients, customers and employees. "Many of them have expressed to the management unequivocally that they would not like to be a part of the organisation that is culturally perceptibly different from Mindtree, or where there are minimal revenue and cost synergies," the letter read. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More State Bank of India (SBI) has moved the Karnataka High Court to seek rightsover a 2.8 percent stake in United Breweries Ltd (UBL), according to a report in The Economic Times. SBI's stake, worth Rs 1,025 crore, is currently held by a court-appointed liquidator. The stake was previously owned by United Breweries (Holdings), the holding company for all companies owned by Vijay Mallya. Heineken, UBL's largest shareholder with a 44 percent stake, has reportedly approached SBI to seek first access over the stake. Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report. The Debt Recovery Tribunal last week transferred the stake, about 7.4 million shares, to a court-appointed liquidator. These shares were earlier attached by the Enforcement Directorate, which is investigating allegations of money laundering against Mallya.. "Its been tough on Heineken as a shareholder to keep track of the attachment of Vijay Mallya's shares in UBLtheir focus is to ensure 51 percent in the company," a source told the paper. The Karnataka High Court will hear the mater on March 22. Representative image Facebook and Tesla have taken the biggest brand reputation hits in the US in 2019, according to the Axios and Harris Poll report. Other brands whose reputation took a turn for the worse include McDonald's, Nike, Target and Google. South Korea's Samsung and Japanese conglomerate Sony saw the biggest reputation gains in the US in 2019. The Axios and Harris Poll report ranked the corporate reputations of the 100 most visible companies in the US. (Image source: Statista) Facebook, which ranked 94, saw a sharp drop of 43 places. This was possibly due to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that hit the social network early in 2018. "Facebook has had to answer to legislators around the world this year about how it shares users data with third parties, the role it plays in spreading disinformation, and the vulnerabilities it has to hacks," said Statista's Sarah Feldman. Tesla, which ranked 3rd in 2018, fell 39 spots this year. The electric car maker's reputation was hurt after its CEO Elon Musk was pulled up by market regulator SEC for his tweets, and the company struggled to meet production targets. "The electric car company has dealt with operational and managerial setbacks after CEO Elon Musk derided the SEC, missed a Wall Street delivery goal, tweeted he would take the company private, and smoked marijuana on live TV," said Feldman. Samsung's brand reputation rose nearly points from last year, with the technology giant ranking at 7 in 2019. Sony, at rank 10, gained 21 spots. Other brands that saw massive improvements in reputation this year were 21st Century Fox, Procter and Gamble, JPMorgan Chase and Royal Dutch Shell. Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank is considering setting up an asset reconstruction company (ARC) in India to acquire bad loans, Bloomberg reported. With this move, Deutsche Bank will join foreign investors -- Lone Star Funds, KKR and BlackStone -- that have either set up ARCs in India or bought existing ones. Bank of America (BofA), too, is planning to establish a similar company in India, the news agency reported. Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report. Overseas investors cannot directly buy distressed debt from lenders in India, but can purchase them through tie-ups with local units. This rule made Deutsche Bank feel the need to set-up its own Indian unit, a source told the news agency. New York-based Blackstone Group and Hong Kong-based SSG Capital Management have bought existing ARCs in India, while BofA and SC Lowy have undertaken deals through Indian firms by paying them a fee. India, along with Italy, has one of the worst bad loan ratios among the worlds top 10 economies, as per Bloomberg data. (Image Source: Bloomberg) More than 29 ARCs have been established in India after Parliament passed a law in 2002 to help banks clear their balance sheets. BofA has not taken a final decision yet and might choose to drop the proposal, the report stated. Sai Venkateshwaran In the first week of April 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a press release deferring the implementation of Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) for banks by one year to 1 April 2019. Now, in March 2019, the question is back on the minds of all banks and their stakeholders will Ind AS be deferred yet again? Prior to this deferral, scheduled commercial banks (SCBs), excluding regional rural banks (RRBs), based on RBIs circular of February 2016, were expected to adopt Ind AS from 1 April 2018 with comparatives for the prior year. As per RBIs press release, certain legislative amendments to the Third Schedule to the Banking Regulation Act 1949 were under consideration of the government to make the format of the financial statements prescribed therein compatible with the requirements under Ind AS. The press release also referred to the level of preparedness of banks to make this transition. Further, it was expected that the RBI would issue operational and other guidelines, including those relating to prudential norms to enable implementation of Ind AS by banks. However, almost a year later, it doesnt appear that the needle has moved on any of these issuesthe legislative amendments to the Banking Regulation Act, the guidelines to be issued by RBI or the overall preparedness of banks. Therefore, it almost appears that a further deferral of the implementation date is inevitable. It should also be noted that non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) have already transitioned to Ind AS and are still awaiting clarity on several operational guidelines. What does it entail for the banks and why is this important? Ind AS are converged with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and, therefore, expected to enhance the transparency and comparability of the financial statements of Indian banks with their global counterparts. The adoption of Ind AS is expected to have a pervasive impact on banks, impacting not just accounting and disclosures, but also includes their business practices, systems and processes, regulatory reporting and capital adequacy etc. Ind AS would also require early recognition of a provision for losses on loans and off-balance sheet exposures based on an expected credit loss (ECL) model, which brings in forward-looking information and macroeconomic factors in the estimation of losses. Banks in other parts of the world following IFRS have adopted the ECL model in 2018 and there has been an increase in the loan loss provisions, although not very significant, partly due to the benign economic and business environment prevailing in other parts of the world. However, considering the situation in India, this could potentially increase the extent of loan loss provisions and therefore increase the capital requirements of these banks. The timing of adoption of Ind AS by banks also coincides with the introduction of Ind AS 115 on revenue recognition and Ind AS 116 on leases. These are also expected to impact the timing of revenue recognition by banks and also bring on several off-balance sheet leasing arrangements on to the books. Considering the impact that all of this has on a banks internal systems and processes and taking into account the level of progress made by most banks, there is a lot of ground to be covered by banks before they can adopt Ind AS. Impact on regulatory reporting One of the other reasons that may have a bearing on the deferral of Ind AS is the impact that this transition has on regulatory reporting and capital adequacy of banks. While this is a valid concern, especially in light of the stress in the banking system due to the extent of non-performing assets (NPAs), there may be ways that RBI can adopt to make the accounting transition easier vis-a-vis the corresponding regulatory reporting requirements. In this context, it is worthwhile to note that the Basel Committee, in light of the global adoption of IFRS 9 and the ECL model for provisions, has decided to retain, for an interim period, the current regulatory treatment of provisions and also introduce transitional arrangements to smoothen any potential significant negative impact on regulatory capital arising as a result of ECL accounting. As per these Basel Committee guidelines, regulatory authorities in each jurisdiction can provide guidance on how they intend to categorise ECL provisions as specific or general in calculating regulatory capital requirements. Further, as per the transitional arrangements, which can be applied to all additional provisions arising as a result of the adoption of ECL accounting, the additional impact can be absorbed over a period not exceeding five years on a straight line method. RBI should certainly consider adopting these transitions and interim regulatory treatments as and when banks in India migrate to Ind AS, thereby minimising the impact on regulatory reporting. Way forward Considering the impact of this transition on the banking sector and the time required to get ready, RBI needs to issue the operational and other guidelines for both banks and NBFCs so as to enable them to make the transition to Ind AS. RBI should also take into account the interim regulatory treatment and transition guidelines issued by the Basel Committee to ensure a smooth implementation for this very important sector. Banks on their part should also quicken their efforts to get their technology, systems and processes aligned to the new requirements. Representative Image India's palm oil imports in 2018/19 are likely to jump a tenth from a year earlier to a record high, as a sharp fall in the prices made the tropical oil more attractive for buyers than rival soyoil and sunflower oil, industry officials told Reuters. Higher purchases by the world's biggest edible oil importer could support palm oil prices that are trading near their lowest level in three months. "Palm oil imports are going to rise in the coming months. At current price level, it is very competitive compared to soyoil and sunflower oil," said Govindbhai Patel, managing director of trading firm G.G. Patel & Nikhil Research Company. The country's palm oil imports in the 2018/19 marketing year that started on Nov.1 could jump 10.3 percent from the previous year to 9.6 million tonnes, he said. Palm oil's discount to rival soyoil has widened to over $200 per tonne from $133 in March 2018, according to data compiled by the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA), a Mumbai-based trade body. Malaysian palm oil futures fell to 2,038 ringgit ($499.82) a tonne on Friday, the lowest in three months, due to weak demand and ample supplies. India's sunflower oil imports are likely to remain largely steady around 2.5 million tonnes, but soyoil imports could fall slightly from last year's 3.05 million tonnes as local supplies have increased, Patel said. Soybean production in 2018/19 is estimated to have risen 38 percent from a year ago to 11.5 million tonnes, according to the Soybean Processors Association of India. India primarily imports palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia and soyoil from Argentina and Brazil. It also buys small volumes of sunflower oil from Ukraine and canola oil from Canada. Palm prices are attractive but refiners are not making money due to lower refining margins, said B.V. Mehta, executive director of the SEA. "Refiners are gatekeepers. As they are earning less from palm oil refining, they are not aggressively importing despite lower prices," Mehta said. The import duty difference between crude and refined palm oil halved to 5 percent for supplies from Malaysia after India changed the duty structure. "The lower duty difference is prompting some traders to import refined palm oil instead of crude," said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm, adding the country's imports of refined palm oil could jump a third from a year ago to 2.8 million tonnes in the current marketing year. "The winter is nearly over. As palm is cheaper and temperature is rising, refiners will step up imports," he said. In winter months, household palm oil consumption falls in India as the tropical oil solidifies at lower temperature. Boeing (Representative image: Reuters) The Boeing 737 Max is in trouble, as it has been grounded worldwide following two deadly plane crashes within five months of each other. Boeing maintained that it has full confidence in the safety of the 737 Max and that it was supporting the decision to ground the jets out of precaution. But, this has raised concerns over aircraft automation and its price. In June 2011, Airbus launched A320neo airliner, which was one of many modified versions of its A320 product line. It saw unprecedented success in June 2011 by winning 600 orders within days of launching. Loyal customers of Boeing went to Airbus for this model, making it the fastest-selling plane in civil aviation history. Boeing contemplated whether to go the same path with its 737 or launch a new aircraft. A320neo's success made that decision for Boeing and it came out with its redesigned Boeing 737 Max, instead of a new model. "The program was launched in a panic. What frightened Boeing most of all, was losing their biggest most important customer. American Airlines was the catalyst," Sash Tusa, an analyst at Agency Partners, told Bloomberg. The decision paid off as 737 Max became the company's fastest seller airplane, even if it did not reach the sale levels of Airbus. Airlines were attracted towards Boeing as they wanted to invest in engines that promise 20 percent or more fuel saving. It raked in over 5,000 orders, giving Airbus a good competition. The two crashes In October 2018, one Boeing 737 Max operated by Lion Air crashed minutes after taking off in Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Following that, a 737 Max Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed on March 10, killing 157 passengers and crew members. Airlines and regulators across the world found similarities in the two crashes. The Federal Aviation Administration said that the track of the Ethiopian Airlines flight was "very close and behaved very similar to the Lion Air Flight". The 737 Max has come under scrutiny because the crash of two of its models minutes after takeoff goes against the trend of declining aircraft accidents over the past decades. Even US President Donald Trump criticised the complexities of modern aviation after the crash. "Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, rather computer scientists from MIT," Trump said. Role of automation in 737 Max The Boeing 737 Max still has its analog design and features from 1960s when it was launched, far older than Airbus A320, which came into the market around 1980s. When 737 was updated to create the Max model, there were some issues. The former was much lower to the ground which is why fitting bigger engines under its wings was a structural challenge. Therefore, in the new model, Boeing raised the front landing gear by a few inches, which could change the body's center of gravity and its lift. The software used for the 737 Max models was called Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Some pilots have said that there has not been enough training on the new system. Data retrieved from the Lion Air crash flight indicates a battle between the pilots and the software in the cockpit before a complete loss of control. Now, the data from the Ethiopian Airlines crash is under scrutiny to see if the same problem had been faced this time as well. Human involvement versus automation has been a long drawn debate in the aviation industry. Reportedly, it is Airbus which has operated a more modern cockpit and Boeing usually leaves more control in the hands of the pilots. "The big automation steps came in the 1980s with the entry into service of the A320 and the whole fly-by-wire ethos. I dont think automation per se is a problem, we see it in wide-scale use in the industry, and as long as it is designed to work hand-in-hand with pilots and pilots understand how to use it, it shouldn't be an issue," said John Strickland, an independent aviation analyst. Future plans Both Airbus and Boeing have said they would not be launching any new models in the next decade as they are waiting for further technological advancement to help in their product development. As both their re-engined models succeeded at the time, it bought them time to research and develop new models. The initial public offering of Embassy Office Parks REIT, the first ever by a Real Estate Investment Trust in India (REIT), has opened for subscription on March 18. After the issue, which will close on March 20, the shares will be listed on National Stock Exchange and BSE in the first week of April. The book running lead managers to the issue are Axis Capital, Credit Suisse Securities (India), Deutsche Equities India, Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India), IIFL Holdings, JM Financial and Nomura Financial Advisory & Securities (India). Here are 10 key things to know before subscribing the issue: Company Profile The Embassy REIT was on March 30, 2017 at Bengaluru settled as an irrevocable trust under the provisions of the Indian Trusts Act, and registered with SEBI on August 3, 2017 as a real estate investment trust. As of the date of this offer document, the Embassy Sponsor and the Blackstone Sponsor are the sponsors of the Embassy REIT. Embassy Office Parks Management Services Pvt. Ltd (EOPMSPL) has been appointed as the manager to the Embassy REIT. EOPMSPL is held by the Embassy Sponsor and certain entities forming part of the Blackstone Sponsor Group. Axis Trustee Services Limited has been appointed as the Trustee to the Embassy REIT. Pursuant to the formation transactions, (i) the Portfolio Assets are proposed to be held through the Asset SPVs; and (ii) the Portfolio Investment is proposed to be held through the Holdco, in accordance with the REIT Regulations. The following chart illustrates the relationship between the Embassy REIT, the Trustee, the Manager and the Unitholders (which include the Sponsors) on the listing date. Embassy REIT portfolio comprises seven best-in-class office parks and four prime city-center office buildings totaling 32.7 million square feet (msf) spread across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Noida as of December 31, 2018, with strategic amenities, including two completed and two under-construction hotels totaling 1,096 keys, food courts, employee transportation and childcare facilities. Approximately 80.9 percent of the gross rentals from 160+ marquee tenant base is contracted with leading multinational corporations and approximately 43.4 percent is contracted with Fortune 500 companies such as JP Morgan, IBM, and Microsoft, as of December 31, 2018. The company achieved a committed occupancy of 95 percent as of December 31, 2018, and maintained occupancy at greater than 93.4 percent at the end of the last three fiscal years. The market value of its portfolio as of December 31, 2018, as per the valuer is Rs 31,480 crore. What is REIT REIT is an investment tool that owns and operates rent-yielding real estate assets. It allows individual investors to invest using this platform and earn income. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had notified REIT's regulations in 2014, allowing setting up and listing of such trusts, which are popular in some advanced markets. REITs are listed entities that invest in income-generating properties and distribute at least 90 percent of their income proceeds to unit-holders through dividends. After registration with SEBI, units of REITs will have to be mandatorily listed on exchanges and traded like securities. Properties listed through a REIT are typically commercial assets that can generate steady and lucrative rental income. Even government-run buildings can be placed under REITs. REITs offer investors, with Rs 2 lakh in capital, an opportunity to invest in the commercial real estate market. Like listed shares, small investors can buy units of REITs from both primary and secondary markets. About IPO The price band for Embassy Office Parks REIT IPO is fixed at Rs 299-300 per share. The 12.91 crore unit issue, made through the book-building process, will constitute at least 10 percent of the issued and paid-up units on a post-issue basis. The minimum bid size is 800 units and in multiples of 400 units thereafter. Not more than 75 percent of the issue, excluding the strategic investor portion, will be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to institutional investors, it said. However, the company may choose to allocate up to 60 percent of the institutional investor portion to anchor investors. For non-institutional investors, the same stands at not less than 25 percent. The issue comprises allocation to strategic investors of 2.92 crore units worth Rs 876.26 crore and net issue size of Rs 3,873.73 crore. Strategic investors are American Funds Insurance Series - New World Fund, American Funds Insurance Series - Global Small Capitalisation Fund, Capital Group New World Fund (LUX), New World Fund Inc and Smallcap World Fund Inc. Issue Size Embassy REIT intends to raise Rs 4,750 crore through the issue, of which it already garnered Rs 1,743 crore from anchor investors. Anchor investors include ace investor Radhakishan Damani; foreign investors like Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Funds, DB International, National Westminster Bank, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Japan Trustee Services Bank etc. Issue Objects Proceeds from the same will be used for: i) Partial or full repayment of bank/ financial institution debt (Rs 3,710 crore), ii) Payment for acquisition of the Embassy One Assets currently held by Embassy One Developers Pvt Ltd (Rs 460 crore), and iii) For general purposes. Post the utilisation of the IPO proceeds, its total indebtedness is expected to be less than 15 percent of market value initially. Competitive Strengths The company believes its position as a leading owner and developer of high-quality office properties in India is founded on the following competitive strengths: a> Located in India, a leading services hub for global corporatesb> Best-in-class office properties with high-quality infrastructurec> Highly occupied by a diversified, high quality, sticky multinational tenant based> Simple business with embedded growthe> Strategically located in the top-performing markets with high barriers to entryf> Highly experienced management team g> Renowned Sponsors with global expertise and local knowledge Business and Growth Strategies The company aims to maximise the total return for unitholders by targeting growth in distributions and in NAV per unit. The operating and investment strategies it intends to execute to achieve this goal include: a> Capitalise on portfolio's embedded organic growth and new development opportunitiesb> Disciplined acquisition strategy with a strong balance sheet c> Proactive asset management to drive value Tax Benefits a> The REIT will receive income in the form of dividends and interest from SPVs. Such interest income received or receivable by the REIT from the SPVs should be exempt from tax in the hands of the REIT. b> Dividend (interim or otherwise) declared, distributed or paid by a HoldCo / SPV, to the REIT out of its current Income, should be exempt from Dividend Distribution Tax. Financials Source for above two images: Sharekhan Risks Here are some risks, highlighted by Sharekhan, to consider before investing in issue: Embassy Office Parks REIT is expected to borrow Rs 4,000 crore to refinance a portion of the existing debt of the Asset SPVs through repayment of existing loans, deferred payment obligations and to fund construction of certain projects after the listing of the Units. The terms of this financing may limit the ability to make distributions to the Unitholders. The REIT Regulations impose restrictions on the investments made by it and require it to adhere to certain investment conditions, which may limit its ability to acquire and/or dispose of assets or explore new opportunities. Its business is dependent on the Indian economy and financial stability in Indian markets, and any slowdown in the Indian economy or in Indian financial markets could have a material adverse effect on its business. The gross rentals from top 10 tenants amounted to 42.31 percent while tenants in the technology industry accounted for 49.4 percent as of December 31, 2018. Any conditions that impact these enants, the technology sector or parks may adversely affect its business, revenue from operations and financial condition. Jet Airways owes banks nearly Rs 8,000 crore. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Jet Airways has grounded its operations at Abu Dhabi Airport from Monday for an indefinite period, citing operational reasons. Abu Dhabi is one of the two international hubs of Jet Airways. Dutch capital Amsterdam is the European gateway for the airline for its operations to Europe and beyond. "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from March 18 due to operational reasons," Etihad Airport services said in a notification to its passengers Sunday. Etihad Airport Services is the ground handling arm of Jet Airways investment partner Etihad Airways. Abu Dhabi airport also serves as the main hub of the UAEs national carrier. "Further to the short notice of flight cancellation, (Abu Dhabi) hub may face minor disruption)," the company said in the statement. Responding to PTI queries on the cancellation of its operations from Abu Dhabi, the airline in a statement said, " Jet Airways has pro actively taken certain adjustments to its flight schedule keeping in mind the likely yet interim non-availability of some aircraft in its fleet in the foreseeable future." Jet Airways has also informed the regulator directorate general of civil aviation and the passengers about these changes, it added. Jet Airways has been looking at various ways to raise funds amid acute liquidity crunch that has forced it to ground aircraft, cancel flights in large numbers, shutdown stations and delay salary payments to its pilots and engineers along with other senior staff. On March 8, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas seeking an urgent funding of Rs 750 crore and also warned that any delay in fund infusion might result in its grounding of the carrier, saying more than 50 of the aircraft are grounded amid increasing arrears of vendors and salaries to a section of employees. Jet Airways has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore and needs to make repayments of up to Rs 1,700 crore by the end of March. It has already defaulted on an ECB payment earlier this week but is servicing its domestic debt. The Jet Airways board had on 14 February approved a bailout plan whereby the lenders led by the State Bank of India (SBI) would become the largest shareholders in the airline by converting the airline's debt into equity at a nominal price of Re 1. The Jet Airways bailout plan was approved by the shareholders on 21 February. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Jet Airways' domestic pilots body National Aviator's Guild (NAG) is set to hold its annual general meeting in the city Tuesday, a source said Monday. The meeting assumes significance as it comes in the backdrop of drastically reduced operations and non-payment of salaries to pilots along with engineers and other senior staff for more than three months now. The guild, which came into being almost a decade ago, represents around 1,000 domestic pilots at the airline. "We are holding our annual general meeting in Mumbai tomorrow. During the meeting, besides discussing our general issues, we will also be deliberating on the present scenario (non-payment of salaries)," the source told PTI. The pilots with other group of people have not received salary payments almost since December. Having failed to get any assurance from the management on payment of overdue salaries, the pilots body last week wrote to Union labor minister Santosh Gangwar, seeking his intervention in recovering their dues along with the accumulated interest. The Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways, which is partially owned by UAE flag carrier Etihad, is in financial distress for almost a year now with four consecutive quarters of losses. The severe liquidity crunch has forced it to ground aircraft, cancelling flights in huge numbers, shut down stations and delay salary payments to a group of staff. The airline has, so far, grounded 41 of its planes only on account of non-payment of lease rentals. These don't include other planes which have been taken out of operations owning to non-availability of funds for maintenance. The airline has, however, till date not shared the number of flights it has been cancelling for over a month now and neither the aviation regulator DGCA has shown any transparency on the issue. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More What a week for Indian markets. 1300-point climb for Sensex which took the index above Mount 38K for the first time September 14, 2018. The Nifty50 also reclaimed 11,400 for the first time since September 18, 2018, and is all set to hit a higher target towards 11,500 levels. Strong global cues and aggressive buying from foreign investors are some triggers that led to positive market sentiments. On the macro front, investors would watch out for current account deficit numbers to be released on Tuesday. Globally the key event to watch out for in the coming week would be Federal Open Market Committee meeting scheduled to be held on March 19-20. The overhang on Brexit issues and OPECs supply cut are likely to hit the domestic market in a specific segment. FPIs have poured in over Rs 19000 crore so far in the month of March in Indian markets while DIIs have used the opportunity to sell. They were net sellers in Indian equity markets to the tune of nearly Rs 9000 crore, data showed. Rising for the fifth straight session, the rupee Friday jumped 24 paise to close at 69.10 against the US dollar on sustained foreign fund inflows and heavy buying in domestic equities. On the institutional front, FPIs were net buyers for Rs 4323 crore while DIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 2130 crore, provisional data showed. Technical View: Nifty formed a Bullish candle on a weekly scale while a Shooting Star kind of formation on daily charts The index has to continue to hold above 11333 zones to extend its up move towards 11550-11600 zones Major support exists at 11280 then 11180 zones. Three levels: 11370, 11487, 11500 Max Call OI: 11500, 11400 Max Put OI: 11000, 11200 Stocks in news: Mindtree has called for a board meeting next week to consider share buyback amid the speculations about L&T Infotech taking over the company. Private sector lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank Saturday said it has raised Rs 459.59 crore through qualified institutions placement (QIP). Drug major Lupin on March 16 said it has been cautioned by the US health regulator that its New Jersey facility may be subject to regulatory or administrative action and that it may withhold approval of any pending applications or supplements in which this facility is listed. Technical Recommendations: We spoke to Angel Broking and heres what they have to recommend: Karnataka Bank: Buy| LTP: Rs. 127.75| Target: Rs 138| Stop Loss: Rs 122.40| Upside 8% Sundram Fasteners: Buy| LTP: Rs. 547.35| Target: Rs 615| Stop Loss: Rs 508| Upside 12% : 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 Nifty50 is expected to open higher on Monday following positive trend seen in other Asian markets. The index closed 83 points higher at 11,426 on Friday. Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India, a rise of 18.5 points or 0.16 percent. Nifty futures were trading around 11,492-level on the Singaporean Exchange. US stocks rose on Friday, led by technology companies, as a report on progress in US-China trade talks lifted sentiment, pushing the S&P 500 to its best week since November, said a Reuters report. Asian share markets crept ahead on Monday while bonds were in demand globally on speculation the US Federal Reserve will sound decidedly dovish at its policy meeting this week, it said. Rising for the fifth straight session, the rupee Friday jumped 24 paise to close at 69.10 against the US dollar on sustained foreign fund inflows and heavy buying in domestic equities. Stocks in news: Mindtree has called for a board meeting next week to consider share buyback amid the speculations about L&T Infotech taking over the company. Private sector lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank Saturday said it has raised Rs 459.59 crore through qualified institutions placement (QIP). Drug major Lupin on March 16 said it has been cautioned by the US health regulator that its New Jersey facility may be subject to regulatory or administrative action and that it may withhold approval of any pending applications or supplements in which this facility is listed. Technical Recommendations: We spoke to Angel Broking and heres what they have to recommend: Karnataka Bank: Buy| LTP: Rs. 127.75| Target: Rs 138| Stop Loss: Rs 122.40| Upside 8% Sundram Fasteners: Buy| LTP: Rs. 547.35| Target: Rs 615| Stop Loss: Rs 508| Upside 12% live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More ICICI Securities The sharp rally over the past couple of weeks has taken many by surprise. Investors have been left wondering if the rally has further legs or whether this should be viewed as an exit opportunity, especially in the beaten down midcap and smallcap space? We do not foresee midcap and smallcap indices to challenge February lows as the current rally is at the early stage of a major uptrend. We recommend investors to start accumulating quality midcap stocks to ride the next leg of a major up move (around 30 percent from hereon). We expect bouts of volatility to persist in the run-up to the general election 2019 that should be capitalised as an incremental buying opportunity. We focus on examining the market internals of the ongoing rally in midcap and small-cap stocks, drawing inferences from prevailing time cycles to ascertain the future course for the rest of 2019. Our thesis is corroborated by following findings: Since its inception in 2003, all three major corrections (2008, 2011 and 2015) in Nifty Midcap index, have matured in 14 months, followed by average minimum returns of 40 percent, in the following year. In the previous three instances, Nifty midcap index had rallied 169 percent, 41 percent and 48 percent on completion of the 14-month cycle. Although the Nifty Midcap index has already rallied 12 percent from February 2019 low (16,045), at least another 30 percent rally is ahead of us. Noteworthy simultaneous improvement in twin breadth indicators, confirm maturity of 14-month down cycle, similar to the past three instancesa) percentage of stocks above 200-DMA reversing above 50, after falling below 20 b) advance-decline summation index reversing to positive zone after recording extreme bearish set-up Here are five midcap picks that could return more than 20%: Ipca Laboratories | Target: Rs 1,080 | Stop loss: Rs 758 > Breakout from a five-year consolidation signals a structural turnaround> A faster retracement as 14 quarters decline (Rs 906-400) is completely retraced in just six quarters > We expect the stock to continue its current up move and test levels of Rs 1,090 as it is the 138.6 percent external retracement of the entire previous decline (Rs 907 to Rs 400) Kansai Nerolac Paints | Target: Rs 550 | Stop loss: Rs 405 > At the cusp of a falling channel breakout containing entire decline since high of Dec17 (Rs 614)> A slower retracement as the stock has already taken 14 months to retrace just 80 percent of the previous 12 months' up move from Rs 319 to Rs 614 > The favourable risk-reward set-up offers a fresh entry opportunity for upside toward Rs 560 as it is 80 percent retracement of the entire decline (Rs 614 to Rs 343) NBCC India | Target: Rs 80 | Stop loss: Rs 56 > Double bottom breakout aided stock to resolve out of long-term falling trendline to longest pullback since November 2017 along with a faster retracement as six weeks decline (Rs 63-47) has been completely retraced in four weeks > We expect the stock to resolve higher towards August 2018 high Rs 80 as it is the 61.8 percent retracement of the last decline (Rs 109 to Rs 47) Bank of India | Target: Rs 110 | Stop loss: Rs 83 > The stock has been forming a base at key support zone of Rs 80 as on multiple occasions it respected May 2005 lows (Rs 80)> Monthly RSI recorded a bullish crossover after witnessing a positive divergence > We expect the stock to continue its current up move and test Rs 110 as it the high of January 2019 and 80 percent retirement of the previous major decline (Rs 119 to Rs 73) Lux Industries | Target: Rs 1,560 | Stop loss: Rs 1,152 > Breakout from a major falling channel contains the entire corrective decline> The stock in March rebounded from the major support area of Rs 1,100 as it is the major trendline support joining the lows of CY2016 (Rs 576) and CY2017 (Rs 650) > The current improvement in price structure signals resumption of up move and open upside towards Rs 1,570 as it is 50 percent retracement of the entire decline (Rs 2,094-1,055). : The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. File image Senior officials from the Reserve Bank of India met about two dozen bankers on Monday for feedback on the central bank's new cash infusion tool, according to two bankers who attended the meeting. While the meeting was aimed at ironing out any procedural issues for implementing the central bank's debut move, it also indicated the RBI's willingness to smoothen tight cash conditions in the banking system, the bankers said. The RBI will conduct a forward dollar/rupee buy-sell swap auction worth $5 billion on March 26, its first such move to infuse rupee liquidity into cash-strapped banks. Under this arrangement, the RBI will buy dollars from banks for three years promising a specified premium for selling back the same at maturity. The announcement has already pushed down the one-year forward premium by 30 basis points to 3.60 percent. "They wanted to understand if we had any suggestions or issues with the implementation of the auction because it is a first for them as well," said one of the bankers. "They also didn't say no to suggestions of conducting such auctions going ahead as well. They said 'we will see'," the banker added. The central bank officials also reiterated that the swap auction was "purely to infuse liquidity" and not aimed at the forex market, the bankers said. The RBI did not have an immediate response to an email seeking comments on the meeting. There were some speculations that the RBI had timed the move to also absorb potential bunched-up forex inflows at March-end. Bankers also suggested lowering the tenure of the swap to below three years as well as reducing the minimum bid size, which is $25 million currently. While the central bank officials did not promise anything, they said they would like to assess response to the first auction before making any changes, the bankers said. Some bankers also asked such announcements to be made much more in advance than it was done for the current one, since they needed time to arrange for underlying dollar liabilities from the investors, either in the form of deposits or bonds to offer to the central bank. "They said this time they didn't have time since they had to complete this before the end of current fiscal year (March)," said the second banker. "They said this is an experiment, let's see how it goes." March 18, 2019 / 03:34 PM IST Market close: The last hour buying helped the market to end higher on Monday with Nifty finished above 11,450 level. At the close, the Sensex was up 70.75 points at 38095.07, while Nifty was up 35.30 points at 11462.20. About 1132 shares have advanced, 1545 shares declined, and 173 shares are unchanged. HPCL, IOC, Bajaj Finance, BPCL and JSW Steel were the top gainers on the Nifty, while losers include Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp, Wipro, Bharti Airtel and HCL Tech. Among the sectors, IT and auto index remained under pressure throughout the day as they slipped 1 percent each, while some buying was seen in the metal, energy, FMCG and bank names. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Here are stocks that are in the news today: Lumax Auto Technologies: Company decided for discontinuation of the PCB manufacturing w.e.f. April 1, 2019. In addition, the board has also approved the disposal of plant and machinery to Lumax Industries relating to PCB Business on arms length basis and not below its book value. Jaiprakash Associates: Board approved the re-appointment of Manoj Gaur, Executive Chairman & CEO and Sunil Kumar Sharma, Executive Vice Chairman for a further term of three years. Future Consumer: Company announced redemption of non-convertible debentures. Oil India -Joint Venture Partners of Mozambique Rovuma Offshore Area 1, concludes over 9.5 MMTPAof LNG Sale and Purchase Agreements Mindtree to consider proposal of buyback on March 20 Karnataka Bank: The bank partners with Karvy DigKonnect for contact centre services. Grasim Industries received an order issued by the DCIT raising a demand of Rs. 5,872.13 crore on account of dividend distribution tax Kesoram Industries: The company's rating pertaining to that portion of its long term/short term banking facilities as been assigned to CARE Ratings Limited for rating has been revised to BB+/ A4+ (under credit watch with developing implications). Majesco: Board approved to sell, transfer and dispose of, as a going concern and on a slump sale basis, the company's India Insurance Products & Services Business to Majesco Software and Solutions India Private Limited, a step-down subsidiary of the company, for a lump sum consideration of Rs 24.4 crore. Kotak Mahindra Bank approved re-appointment of Prakash Apte and Uday Shankar as an independent directors of the bank The Bank approves dividend on 100 crore preference shares Mishra Dhatu Nigam: Board declared payment of Rs 1.68 per share as the first interim dividend on equity shares for the financial year 2018-19 and fixed March 26 as the record date for dividend payment. SAIL: CARE has assigned AA- outlook stable to company's long term fund based facility (term loan). Bandhan Bank/Gruh Finance received No Objection from the RBI for the amalgamation of GRUH Finance into and with Bandhan Bank HDFC- RBI has granted in-principle approval to the company for acquisition of 9.9% or less of the paid up voting equity capital of Bandhan upon the effective date of the scheme Indostar Capital approved NCD worth Rs 15 crore on private placement basis Indo Amines: 'No observation' letter has been received from BSE for proposed amalgamation amongst Core Chemical (Mumbai) Private Limited and Key Organics Private Limited with Indo Amines Limited, so as to enable the company to file the scheme with NCLT. DHFL: Special Committee of the board of directors accorded approval to disinvest to Olive Vine Investment Limited an affiliate of the Warburg Pincus Group. Santosh Sharma (currently the CFO) will assume a new role as the Head - Corporate Strategy. India Ratings & Research revised rating on long term bank loans of Religare Enterprises to IND B+/RWN from IND BB/RWN, while on short term bank loan rating revised from IND A4+/RWN to IND A4/RWN J&K Bank executed share purchase agreement with Oman India Joint Investment Fund II for sale by the Bank 4,11,11,111 crore equity shares of PNB MetLife India Insurance Company at a total consideration of Rs 185 crore Lupin: Subsidiary Novel Laboratories Inc. has received a letter from the USFDA classifying the inspection conducted at its Somerset (New Jersey) facility in December 2018 as Official Action Indicated (OAI). The US FDA has stated that this facility may be subject to regulatory or administrative action and that it may withhold approval of any pending applications or supplements in which this facility is listed. NHPC approved raising of fund through External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) in JPY equivalent to USD 100 Million from MUFG Bank REC board meet on March 20, 2019, to consider a proposal relating to market borrowing programme for the financial year 2019-20 Prakash Industries - National Law Company Law Tribunal sanctioned the demerger scheme of company's business of PVC Pipes & Fittings and Flexible Packaging into Prakash Pipes Cadila Healthcare: Zydus receives final approval from the USFDA for Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide tablets. Mirc Electronics: Vishal Barot has resigned as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company due to personal reasons. Punjab & Sind Bank reviewed MCLR w.e.f. March 16, 2019 Zuari Global: Company has acquired around 48.98 percent shares of Forte Furniture Products India Private Limited (FFPL) from Indian Furniture Products Limited (IFPL), subsidiary of the company. HUDCO further raised funds of Rs 5320 crore through Issue of Government of India Fully Serviced, Unsecured, Taxable HUDCO Bonds Series V-2018 Vodafone Idea board meet on March 20 to consider, discuss and decide, various matters in connection with the rights issue India rating & research downgrades rating on NCD to IND A+ with rating watch negative (RWN) Jubilant Foodworks - Dominos Pizza officially launched in Bangladesh Out of F&O Ban: BEML, Reliance Power. Bulk Deals on March 15 (For more bulk deals, click here) Analyst or Board Meet/Briefings EID Parry India: Board meeting will be held on March 22 to consider the second interim dividend on equity shares, if any, for the financial year 2018-19. Finolex Industries: Company's officials will meet investors/analysts on March 18. PSP Projects: Company's officials will meet analyst/institutional investors on March 18 and 25. Emmbi Industries: Company's officials will meet Moneybee Investment Advisors on March 18. Deep Industries: Officials of the company will be meeting investors and analysts on March 19. Jindal Steel & Power: Analysts and Investors visit to Angul plant is scheduled on March 18. : Officials of the bank will be meeting a group of institutional investors organised by SBI Caps Securities on March 19. Mindtree announced on May 20 that it will acquire the NxTDigital Business, the cloud based IoT and AI platform of L&T Group live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The race for owning Mindtree has heated up. Media reports suggest that VG Siddhartha, one of the large non-promoter shareholders who along with his group companies own about 20.4 percent of Mindtree, wants to monetise his investments. The likely buyer is rival IT company L&T Infotech (LTI). Should the deal go through and it results in a change in control, a mandatory open offer, whereby LTI acquires 51 percent stake, remains a possibility. Media reports also suggest interest from private equity firms, a probable white knight at the behest of the promoters or even a buyback to appease shareholders. While it is speculative to comment on who will finally end up buying the stake of Siddhartha, the battle for Mindtree is good news for minority shareholders. Mindtree is obviously a highly sought after company which has carved out a niche for itself in new technology areas with its early adoption of digital tech that is beginning to yield rich dividends now. The world has been closely following the success story and many (including rivals) want to be a part of this journey now. While the contours of the deal are not known, what would be critical would be the approach of the founders -- whether they exit and handover complete control to the LTI management. Mindtrees founders Krishnakumar Natarajan, NS Parthasarathy, Rostow Ravanan and Subroto Bagchi hold 3.72 percent, 1.43 percent, 0.71 percent and 3.1 percent stake, respectively, and were opposed to the idea of ceding control. At the rumoured price of Rs 981 per share, the value of Siddharthas stake amounts to Rs 3,288 crore. However, if there is a change in control and LTI ends up acquiring close to 51 percent of Mindtree, whereby the latter becomes a subsidiary, the cost of this acquisition might rise to Rs 8,205 crore. As on December 2018, LTI had cash and liquid investments of close to Rs 2,032.8 crore. We do not see any reason why a rival like LTI would like to remain a passive investor in Mindtree. Hence, it is not unreasonable to assume that should this deal goes through, LTI is likely to acquire a controlling stake of 51 percent. Given the balance sheet strength of LTI (net worth Rs 4387 crore), the exact nature of financing the acquisition (the vehicle through which the stake is acquired, the nature of the leverage) would largely dictate whether the acquisition is value accretive from the start for LTI shareholders. By controlling 51 percent of Mindtree, without assuming any synergistic benefits, LTI will have access to Rs 460 crore of profit in FY20. If the total interest cost that LTI has to bear is less, then the acquisition stands to be value accretive from inception. Over the medium to long term, synergistic gains will flow through. First and foremost it helps the business of LTI to scale up. On the basis of nine month FY19 financials, the combined revenue of LTI and Mindtree would be close to $1.7 billion, the sixth largest in the industry. Source: Company Their geographical presence is similar with 73.4 percent of revenue accruing from the US and 18.7 percent from Europe for Mindtree, not very different from LTIs which earns close to 67 percent from the US and 17 percent from Europe. In terms of verticals, however, LTI has a lot to gain as Mindtree has a strong presence in technology, media and services (close to 40 percent) where the rate of growth of digital adoption is very high. The other verticals where Mindtree has a strong footprint are retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) and travel and hospitality industries that are at the forefront of digital adoption. In fact, the share of digital in total business for Mindtree is much higher at 49.5 percent compared to 37 percent for LTI. Source: Company Incidentally, Mindtrees revenue per employee (thanks to the higher value added in digital) is a tad higher than LTI. However, LTI has been reporting a much better operating margin of close to 20 percent compared to 15 percent for Mindtree. While for LTI this has come with a record high utilisation rate of 82 percent (compared to 74.6 percent for Mindtree), we feel the synergistic benefits, coupled with the sharper focus of LTI management, can lead to improvement in Mindtrees margin performance. The client concentration matrix of both the companies is similar with close to 33 percent of revenue accruing from the top five clients. Source: Company In the past three months, LTI has underperformed while Mindtree has outperformed, riding on better result and rumours of this stake transfer. Source: Moneycontrol Research Unless the contours of the transaction makes it value accretive for LTI shareholders, we expect LTIs underperformance to continue in the near term. Investors keen on participating in this theme should do it through Mindtree. We are not very upbeat about the probability of buyback thwarting a hostile takeover as the quantum of such buyback would be very limited. Moneycontrol Research analysts do not hold positions in the companies discussed here OPEC and its non-OPEC partners need to reconsider if there is a need for a meeting in April, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said on March 18, adding that there was no pressure from the United States to increase supply. "We are not under pressure except by the market," Khalid al-Falih told reporters ahead of a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. "As long as the levels of inventories are rising and we are far from normal levels, we will stay the course guiding the market towards balance." The JMMC includes major oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia and monitors the oil market and conformity levels with supply cuts. "There is a consensus that has also emerged that no matter what, we should stay the course until the end of June." Asked whether he was updated on whether the United States administration would extend the waivers it granted to buyers of Iranian crude, which are due to end in May, Falih said: "Until we see it hurting consumers, until we see the impact on inventory, we are not going to change course." The oil producers are due to meet next in April in Vienna, but Falih said this may not happen. "The consensus we heard ... is that April will be premature to make any production decision for the second half," Falih said. "We may not have a meeting in April," he said, adding that the JMMC may recommend this later on March 18. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Akash Jain We believe the recent rally is owing to the expectation of a stable government formation at the Centre, likely improved Q4FY19 earnings season, smooth progress of US-China trade talks and US Fed commentary. After the recent buoyancy, some profit booking is expected. The midcaps and smallcaps are still at discount of 40-50% of their 52 week peak even after the recent upsurge. All eyes would be now on Q4FY19 earnings season, global cues (oil prices, currency movement, relations between economic giants) and domestic cues amidst ongoing tussle between India and Pakistan. Globally, improving relationship between US and China will help global sentiment amidst a slowdown in Chinas economic growth. Going ahead, street participants would keenly watch political developments, the outcome of exit polls and actual result of General Elections. We believe domestic bourses would remain volatile till general elections 2019 results are out. We believe the Indian equity markets are in a structural bull due to benefits of implementation of GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy code, digitisation, thrust on Make in India and improving relations with key foreign countries would augur well for the economy in the long run. The strategy at present should be to invest in a phased manner only in companies which are not connected to any political party, have a robust business model, strong earnings and cash flow visibility, low debt and backed by quality management especially on the corporate governance front. Considering the above factors, investors can have a stock-specific approach in mid and smallcaps space. We would suggest investors have a look at consumption stocks, top quality pharma companies, NBFCs that have strong parentage, auto and auto ancillary stocks, gas companies, PSU banks (looking better after the cleanup of NPA mess, progress made under IBC), IT sector and private insurance companies at the current moment. Punjab National Bank (PNB) | CMP: Rs 86 | Target: Rs 100 | Upside: 16 percent in 3-6 months Before talking about Q3FY19 result, we would like to highlight Banks inherent strengths like PAN India presence with 7,000 branches with ~70,000 employees, Total Business around Rs. 11,00,000 crores, High Casa ratio, Low cost of deposits, Resilient business model. The bank continues to attract deposits which show the confidence of the people on the bank. Domestic Deposits of the Bank shown an increase of Rs.42,619 crore from Rs. 5,88,027 crore as on December17 to Rs. 6,30,646 crore as on December18. Savings Bank Deposits grew by 3.3% YoY from Rs. 2,23,832 crore as on December17 to Rs. 2,31,116 crore as on December18. More than 33 lakh new accounts added in Saving Deposits during 9M FY19. Domestic CASA ratio stood at 43.42% as on Dec. 2018. Domestic NIM increased to 2.64% in Dec.2018 up by 22 bps over Mar. 2018. Gross Domestic Advances stood at Rs. 4,58,641 crores, yoy growth of 6.7 percent. C/D ratio stood at 66.79 percent in Q3FY19. It was heartening to see the management honouring its words given to its stakeholders after Nirav Modi mayhem which brought the bank to the walls. The event which was a shocker to the Bank, gave a wake call to the banks management to relook at its processes. In fact, the bank has done well to restructure its processes and make use of technology at its best to avoid people risk in the future. The bank has integrated CBS and has formed centralised back office for trade credit/finance. All the transactions are validated at trade finance centers. The Bank has classified Rs. 50 crores plus accounts shifted to large corporate centres/branches. The Bank has adopted algorithm-based decision making for MSME loans for accounts in the range of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore. Today, the bank is at the 2nd position amongst PSBs for maximum in-principle approval of MSME customers through the portal www.psbloansin59minutes.com. Loan accounts in the range of Rs. 50 lakhs Rs. 50 cores are taken care by centralized loan processing centre with specialized manpower. According to the management, the bank has fully provided for Nirav Modi account. Full provision of Rs. 14,000 crore done till date with around Rs ~2000 crores provision done in Q3FY19. The bank expects to recover atleast Rs 3,000-4,000 crore (after discounting brand value of designer jewellery). With regards to IL&FS, the bank has exposure to 9 accounts but is not huge. The Bank has made provisions towards these 9 assets. Whatever is left over are self-cash generating accounts. The Banks management does not foresee any risk in DHFL account and Essel group account is a standard account and the bank does not have major exposure to it. The Bank has done a robust recovery of Rs. 16,600 crores in 9MFY19. Domestic Credit exposure of the bank increased by Rs 15,308 crore over Dec17, while Domestic credit RWA declined by Rs 51,199 crore. Further, to tackle NPAs, the Bank created SAMV vertical; SARFAESI, OTS & DRT Portals to access real time progress. GNPA declined by Rs. 8,887 crore over March18 to reach at Rs. 77,733 crore in Dec. 2018. NNPA declined by Rs. 13,009 crore over Mar. 2018 to reach Rs. 35,675 crore in December18. Net NPA Reduced by 302 bps over Mar18 to 8.22% Overall stressed assets reduced by 265 bps over March18. According to the management, ageing provisions is a continuous process. As the GNPA figure goes down, provisioning comes down even there is ageing provisioning. Overall stressed assets reduced by 265 bps over Mar18. Slippages too were low at Rs. 3,324 crores as against Rs. 30, 377 crores in March 2018. Provision Coverage Ratio improved by 1043 bps over Mar18 to 68.85%. Provision coverage under NCLT accounts stands at 75.1%. With regards to Capital Adequacy Ratio, overall CAR stood at 10.52% increased by 132 bps over March18. CET 1 stood at 6.93%; Tier 1 at 8.25% In Q3FY19, Domestic Advances registered a growth of 6.7% on yoy basis from Rs. 429,755 crore as on Dec. 2017 to Rs. 4,58,641 crore as on December 18. Retail Advances grew by 15% YoY from Rs. 74,582 crore as on December 17 to Rs. 85,766 crore as on December 18. Share of Small Ticket Advances stood at 54.4% as on December18. Fresh Sanctions with external rating A and above increased by 5.7% on YoY basis to reach 84.0%. Operating profit for 9MFY19 stood at Rs. 10134 crore. Net profit grew by 7.1% from Rs.230 crores in Q3FY18 to Rs. 247 crore in Q3FY19. Net Interest Margin (Domestic) increased from 2.59% as on 9MFY18 to 2.64% as on Q3FY19. Cost to Income Ratio declined from 50.04% in Q2FY19 to 49.26% in Q3FY19. The bank efforts are on to reduce Cost/Income ratio but in absolute terms cost would increase. We would like to see the Banks Q4FY19 performance to further reinforce our confidence on the Bank. The CMD words to media after Nirav Modi debacle, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going has been proved by the Banks management in 9MFY19 performance. According to us it's a good & safe accumulate at current levels from medium to long run. (The author is Vice President - Equity Research at Ajcon Global Services) 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. A coworker told Sundberg about NAMI and she began attending Family-to-Family sessions. She said the facilitators were not only educated about all aspects of the mental disorders, but people really listened to the experiences of those attending. Representative Image live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Share price of Majesco advanced 3 percent intraday on March 18 after company board approved to sell its India Insurance Products and Services Business. The company board in its meeting held on March 16 approved to sell, transfer and dispose of company's India Insurance Products & Services Business to Majesco Software and Solutions India, a step-down subsidiary of the company, for a lump sum consideration of Rs 24.37 crore, company said in regulatory filing. The turnover of India Insurance Products & Services business for the financial year ended March 31, 2018 was Rs 20 crore and formed 51.83 percent of the total income of the company on standalone basis. The sale agreement will be entered into on or after April 1, 2019. The sale/disposal is subject to the approval of the shareholders and other regulatory/ statutory approvals, if any and would be completed on or around May 15, 2019. At 1105 hours Majesco was quoting at Rs 503.25, up Rs 9.80, or 1.99 percent on the BSE. For more market news, click here June 02, 2019 / 09:01 AM IST Welcome to the Lok Sabha election 2019 coverage. This blog tracks the latest developments from the general election. The BJP reacted with jubilation at the exit polls, which forecast a return of the NDA government, saying that they show a huge positive vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but opposition parties rejected the forecast. Narendra Modi is returning to power with a bang, The National Green Tribunal has directed six states to submit by April 30 action plans for bringing air quality standards within the prescribed norms, failing which they would be liable to pay environment compensation of Rs 1 crore each. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel ordered the chief secretaries of Assam, Jharkhand Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Nagaland governments to submit their plan within the stipulated time. "We direct chief secretaries of the states in respect of which action plans have not been filed to forthwith furnish such action plans," the bench, also comprising Justices S P Wangdi and K Ramakrishnan, said. The States, where action plans are found to be deficient and deficiencies are not removed till April 30, 2019, will be liable to pay Rs 25 lakh each and the timeline for execution of the action plans is six months from the date their finalisation, the bench said. It said that budgetary provision must be made for execution of such plans. The tribunal warned that if action plans are not executed within the specified timeline, the defaulting states will be liable to pay environmental compensation and may also be required to furnish performance guarantee for execution of plans in extended timeline as per recommendations received from the Central Pollution Control Board. "The CPCB is directed to update the number of cities. If on parameters applied, there are other cities, not included in list of 102, such cities may be also included," the NGT said. The direction came after the CPCB informed it that out of 102 cities, action plan has been received from 83 cities while 19 have not submitted the plan. The NGT will take up the matter for further consideration on July 19. Concerned over the threat posed to limited natural resources due to their overuse, the tribunal has directed for assessment of carrying capacity of 102 cities, including Delhi, where air quality does not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The concept of "carrying capacity" addresses the question as to how many people can be permitted into any area without the risk of degrading the environment there. The tribunal had said the Ministry of Urban Development in coordination with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Ministry of Transport, authorities such as Planning Commission and states may carry out such study with the assistance of experts in the field. It had said that it is undisputed that air pollution is a matter of serious concern and large number of deaths take place every year in the country on account of air pollution. The NGT had said Delhi is over-polluted and figures quite high in the ranking of most polluted cities and there is no study about the capacity of the city with respect to the extent of population which can be accommodated and number of vehicles which can be handled by its roads. Viju Cherian With election dates announced, political parties are rolling out their campaign raths. On March 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked his supporters to be a part of the #MainBhiChowkidar (I too am a watchman) social media campaign. Modi, who often refers to himself as a watchman of the nation (rather than a leader), said that Everyone who is fighting corruption, dirt, social evils is a Chowkidar. To further promote the campaign, the Prime Minister himself prefixed Chowkidar before his name, and it now reads Chowkidar Narendra Modi. No sooner did Modi do it, than members of his Cabinet and BJP supporters followed suit. Among senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and members of his ministry, the last to change her handle was external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. The Opposition, mainly the Congress, was quick to counter the campaign with hashtags of its own, such as #ChowkidarChorHai (the watchman is the thief), among others. In a way, BJPs campaign gives the Opposition, which has been divided, especially after the Pulwama terror attack, a platform to unite and target the BJP. Chaiwala to Chowkidar The BJPs #MainBhiChowkidar campaign reminds one of how the party used the chaiwala comment in 2014 to its advantage. In January 2014, former Union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, while dismissing the BJP as the main Opposition and Modi as its PM candidate, said that Modi could serve tea (chai) at the AICC meet. The BJP was quick to convert this snobbish remark into a poll plank and use it to its advantage. The rest, as they say, is history. When seen with this precedent, the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign appears to be an attempt to blunt the Congress #ChowkidarChorHai campaign, where the grand old party has accused Modi of corruption in the Rafale deal, among others. In this way, the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign is a bold one. However, a few days after its launch, it seems that the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign has the potential to backfire on the BJP. For us or against us First, by prefixing Chowkidar to the name, BJP leaders in many ways are saying that if you support us, do the same. Many BJP supporters on Twitter have done it as well. However, with almost every allied party leader in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) refraining from doing it, it dents this campaign. This exposes a lack of co-ordination within the alliance and gives the Opposition a stick to beat the ruling party. Further, if this campaign were to get aggressive and this could be the case especially given the usual social media binary of for us or against us users who do not prefix Chowkidar could be labelled as those who support corruption, etc. The choice of Twitter to promote this campaign is a peculiar one, because at about 30-33 million users, Twitter is not the most popular social media platform in India. This is less than 10 per cent of the active Internet users in India given this, what impact can a Twitter campaign bring about? For starters, it can force traditional media, such as broadcast, print and online to take note, and thereby be discussed. That, however, is a roundabout way. It also reduces a larger impact on the intended result of seeing a favourable change among the electorate. With counter trends and hashtags such as #ChowkidarChorHai or #ChowkidarHiGunehgar, BJPs latest campaign does not have the edge. Trends to votes As mentioned earlier, trending hashtags will create a buzz on social media (and to an extent in the mainstream media), but elections are not won on social media. Not long ago, Twiplomacy had come out with an audit which showed that about 60% of Modis twitter followers were fake. Modi was not the only Indian leader; Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had fictitious followers. In a subsequent clean up by Twitter, most of these leaders also lost a lot of followers. The point is, trends on Twitter and the number of retweets or followers are not an accurate reflection of electorate sentiment. Also, accounts of former BJP IT cell workers, such as Shivam Shankar Singh and others, show how trends can be manipulated. Another factor that could work against the campaign is that a majority of Indians might not relate with the Hindi word Chowkidar. This could be a campaign for Hindi-speaking, Internet users who use Twitterbut thats a very fine slice of a segment of the population. For more than five years now the BJP has showed that when it comes to social media presence and campaign techniques, the party is way ahead of other political parties. It was the BJP that was setting the narrative and the Congress was playing catch-up. However, the #MainBhiChowkidar campaign can be seen as the BJP going on the defensive it shows that Gandhis constant attacks on Modi and his government have got the BJP on the defensive and that is what has prompted such a campaign. Election campaigns have just started and along with the heat of dust of the hustings, social media will also see some action. For more Opinion pieces, click here Representative Image Food delivery services Zomato and Swiggy were served notices by the food safety unit of the Uttarakhand Health Department for providing non-vegetarian food at restricted areas of the holy city of Haridwar. The department claimed that both the food delivery aggregators have flouted bylaws of the city that regulate delivery of non-veg food and thereby hurt the sentiments of the locals as well. Hardiwars deputy food safety officer RS Pal told Speaking to The Times of India: "Locals had complained to city magistrate Jagdish Lal recently. Following which, we were asked to investigate the matter. The two companies failed to show Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence to the teams that had gone to inspect their offices. The firms also had not obtained no-objection certificates from the municipal corporation to deliver non-veg products." He said further: "The bylaws of Haridwar municipal corporation prohibit sale of non-vegetarian food, including meat and meat products, within the city limits. This also goes to areas such as Kharkari, Har-ki-Pauri, Kankhal, Jawalpuri, Motichur, and Haripur areas of the city." Both companies reportedly issued apologies for hurting the religious sentiments of the locals and said there wont be a repeat of such an incident. According to the report, Zomato stated: "We respect the religious sentiments of the holy city and will oblige with the directives set by the authorities." A Swiggy spokesperson told the paper that they regret delivering non-vegetarian food in the restricted areas of the city. "We have addressed the issue and would like to reiterate that as of March 16, Swiggy is delivering only vegetarian food in Haridwar. The Congress slammed the BJP's "Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign with Rahul Gandhi claiming that the truth cannot change as everyone is saying "Chowkidar Chor Hai. The BJP's campaign was launched Saturday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi adding "Chowkidar (watchman) to his Twitter handle. Union ministers and BJP leaders also added the word to their respective handles. "You can keep trying Mr Modi, but the truth cannot be extinguished. Every Indian is saying it. #ChowkidarChorHai "P.S: Do force Sushma ji to add Chowkidar to her handle. It's looking very bad, Gandhi said on Twitter. External Affairs Minister Swaraj also changed her handle by adding 'Chowkidar' to it. The Congress countered the BJP's 'MainBhiChowkidar' hashtag, which was trending on Twitter since morning, with its 'ChowkidarChorHai' hashtag. Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram said on Twitter, Main bhi chowkidhar because the chowkidhar I had appointed is missing. I am told he has gone looking for 'achhe din', he said taking a swipe at Modi's promise of good days. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, First theft and then brazenness. For five years, the jobs of youth were stolen, remunerative price of farmers' crop was stolen, the rights of Dalits were stolen, the participation of women was stolen and the business of traders was stolen through noteban and GST. Because, only one chowkidar is a thief, he said on Twitter, adding '#ChowkidarChorHai'. The Congress had coined the phrase 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' and launched the hashtag to attack the prime minister ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had accused him of corruption in the Rafale deal, which the government has vehemently denied. The Congress and the BJP have been indulging in a war on Twitter, with each accusing the other on social media after Gandhi's jibe of 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' at Modi on the Rafale deal. The war of words is likely to intensify this election season that ends on May 23, with the declaration of results. (File pic) From putting an emphasis on indigenisation in the defence sector to ensuring that a home- grown fighter jet joins the air force fleet, from the defence forces carrying out a surgical strike to signing of the Rafale deal, Manohar Parrikar had an eventful tenure as the defence minister. The IITian, who died Sunday after battling a pancreatic illness for over a year, had moved to the South Block at the insistence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2014. His nearly three-year tenure saw the Army conducting the surgical strike in September 2016, after a terror attack claimed lives of 19 soldiers in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. Parrikar also ensured that the long-pending Light Combat Aircraft Tejas is inducted in the Indian Air Force's fleet, besides taking steps to ease the process of indgenisation in the defence sector. The political controversy over the Rafale jet deal, initiated in September 2016, cast a shadow on his tenure. Last month, the back and forth between the Congress and the government over the estimated Rs 58,000 crore deal to buy 36 combat jets from France took a new turn with a report in The Hindu daily. The report cited a November 24, 2015 note of the Defence Ministry which said that parallel discussions by the PMO "weakened the negotiating position of the MoD and Indian negotiating team". Parrikar had termed the note an "overreaction". Congress chief Rahul Gandhi claimed that Parrikar had said he had nothing to do with the Rafale deal. Defence Minister Nirmala Sithataraman said Parrikar, who was her predecessor, was a sincere, honest and sensitive political activist, and she learnt a lot from him. "Shri Manohar Parrikar is no more. A sincere, honest and sensitive political activist. Was simple and down to earth, I learnt a lot from Shri Parrikar. As Raksha Mantri his contribution to making the armed forces a modernised, lean and mean fighting machine will remain unparalleled," she tweeted. Parrikar had moved back to Goa as the chief minister of the coastal state following political compulsion that ensued after the state polls and BJP allies demanded that he head the government. The Defence Ministry also paid rich tributes to Parrikar. "@DefenceMinIndia conveys deep condolences on demise of former RM, Mr @manoharparrikar. With hallmarks of strong & decisive leadership, Mr Manohar Parrikar will be missed by whole of the def establishment. Mr Parrikar was at the helm in defence of the Nation from 2014 to 2017," the ministry tweeted. The West Bengal unit of the Congress on March 17 called off seat-sharing talks with the CPI(M)-led Left Front for Lok Sabha polls, after weeks of hectic parleys failed to resolve the impasse over distribution of seats. West Bengal becomes a new addition to the list of states where the Congress failed to clinch a seat-sharing deal to take on the BJP. CPI(M) state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra said he will not make any comment until and unless he gets to know anything official from the Congress. The Left Front has called a meeting Monday to decide its next course of action. "It has been decided by our party unit that we don't want any adjustment or alliance by compromising our dignity. The Left can't dictate us on who will be candidate and who won't. We will fight alone in Bengal," state Congress chief Somen Mitra announced after closed door party meet on Sunday evening . The decision by the Congress Sunday paved way for four cornered contest in Bengal between the Trinamool Congress, BJP, Left Front and the Congress. "I will be going to New Delhi tonight with names of three probable candidates for every Lok Sabha seats for the first three phases for clearance from our high command," Mitra said. A section of the Congress leadership felt insulted over the Left Front unilaterally announcing its list when the talks were on between both the parties, party sources said. The Left Front in its list announced Congress leader Rezaul Karim's, chairman of the state medical cell of the party, from Birbhum Lok Sabha seat. The Left's candidate list mentions Karim as their candidate from Birbhum, but did not mention which party he represents. "How can they decide who will be our candidate? Our medical cell chairman's name was declared as their Birbhum candidate without taking due permission from our side. This is absurd. So what's the use of negotiations if Left front declares candidates on our behalf?" Mitra asked "We wanted this alliance, but unlike the CPI(M) we didn't want it to be a marriage of convenience. We wanted a credible alliance where both had equal respect, but the CPI(M) was unwilling to do that," senior state Congress leader Subhankar Sarkar said. The Left Front announced its first list of candidates for 25 seats in West Bengal for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls Friday leaving 17 constituencies for the Congress. According to sources, the state Congress is not happy with the seats that were left for the party. Since the beginning of seat-sharing talks between both the parties, there have been several issues which had cropped up time and again. Initially, the impasse over Raiganj and Murshidabad Lok Sabha seats were resolved after intervention of Congress president Rahul Gandhi and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. The Congress later decided to leave those two seats for the CPI(M) as it had won those two seats last time. Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which is struggling to stay relevant in the state politics, would not contest next month's Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra. An MNS leader said party president Raj Thackeray would make his political position clear on March 19 in a public meeting, and guide the party cadres. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), founded in 2006 by Raj Thackeray after he fell out with Shiv Sena patriarch and his uncle Bal Thackeray, reached its zenith in 2009 assembly elections when it won 13 out of total 288 seats. The party was also said to be responsible for defeat of Shiv Sena candidates in Mumbai and its metropolitan region, apparently due to division of Marathi votes. However, the party lost the momentum gradually. Though it never won a Lok Sabha seat, in 2014 elections it was blown away during the Narendra Modi wave. In the assembly elections held that year, the MNS won only one seat in Maharashtra. Recently, that lone MLA from Junnar in Pune district has joined the Shiv Sena. In the Bruhanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections held in 2017, the tally of MNS was reduced to seven seats. In October, 2017, six of its corporators defected to Shiv Sena, thus taking its representation down to one seat. "MNS chief Raj Thackeray will make his political line clear on Tuesday," said the MNS leader. Ahead of Lok Sabha elections next month, the MNS was trying hard to piggyback the Congress-NCP alliance, but was cold shouldered by the Congress, which opposes the violent "Marathi manoos" politics of the Raj Thackeray-led party. The Sharad Pawar-led NCP had also reportedly offered its support to MNS candidate in Kalyan Lok Sabha constituency, but the party decided not to contest the elections. Election to all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra would be held in four phases between April 11 and April 29. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah has announced that his son Omar will be the chief ministerial candidate in Jammu and Kashmir, while he will represent the state in Parliament. I will not become the chief minister. The chief minister will be Omar Abdullah as he is young. I am old and I cannot match the energy of young people, but he can. I will go to Parliament and I have full faith that I will be there, Hindustan Times has quoted Farooq Abdullah as saying. While addressing a rally in support of BR Kundal, who is party candidate from Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency, Farooq accused the BJP of dividing the people on cast and religious lines. The octogenarian also countered BJPs allegations that his party the National Conference discriminated against people of Jammu and Ladakh. Slamming the RSS for accusing him to be a Pakistani, the former chief minister of J&K said, I want to tell BJP and RSS that few days ago, the terrorists killed a poor worker of National Conference. His only fault was that he was holding the tricolor. The announcement came in the wake of Kashmir warming up for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections as major political parties in the valley like the National Conference and the PDP held a series of rallies on March 17, with the new entrant Jammu and Kashmir People's Movement led by former IAS officer Shah Faesal also making its debut. The parties haven't revealed their candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls yet. The state, which has a total of six parliamentary constituencies, goes to polls in five phases on April 11, 18, 23, 29 and May 6, 2019. Yet, perhaps it was the famed Luck of the Irish that caused the morning snowfall, at least, to skip over the Beverly neighborhood and allow some 150,000 spectators to line up along Western Avenue during midday for the 41st version of the South Side Irish St. Patricks Day Parade. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance and the Indian National Congress in Goa got into separate huddle in the past 12 hours after the demise of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. Parrikar (63) passed away on March 17 at his residence after battling pancreatic cancer for over a year. Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari arrived in Panaji in the early hours of March 18. However, he could not secure consensus between the saffron party and its alliance partners in the state. BJP MLA Michael Lobo told PTI that Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLA Sudin Dhavalikar wanted to be Chief Minister due to which discussions came to a halt. MGP is a BJP ally. Lobo said BJP MLAs have suggested the names of Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant for the states top post. Earlier, Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai, emerging from the meeting, had said the parties were yet to reach a conclusion. With the demise of Parrikar, the strength of 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly has been reduced to 36. Earlier, three seats were vacant. BJP MLA Francis D'Souza had died last month, while two Congress MLAs had resigned last year. The Election Commission of India (EC), while announcing the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections on March 10, had also announced by-election dates for the three vacant seats. The bypolls in Shiroda, Mandrem and Mapusa will be held on April 23, along with the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress currently has 14 MLAs. The BJP has 12 members. BJPs allies MGP and the GFP have three MLAs each. There are three independent MLAs who also support the BJP government. There is one Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA too. With the strength of the House at 36, a party would require support of 19 MLAs to form or maintain a government. However, BJPs strength is effectively under 12 as one of its MLAs, Pandurang Madkaikar, is in hospital and is unlikely to be able to cast his vote in the state Assembly if a floor test is to take place. BJPs Pramad Sawant, who is the Speaker, only has a casting vote. Most of BJPs allies have been clear that they would only support a government led by Parrikar. This is why Parrikar had stepped down as Defence Minister and returned to Goa in early 2017 following the Assembly election in Goa. "With chief minister Parrikar's demise, the ruling coalition will have to make a fresh representation to the governor after choosing their leader. The representation will have a letter of support," a senior official from State Legislature Department told PTI. "If the governor (Mridula Sinha) is not convinced, then she will have to invite the single largest party to form government," he said.Political observers suggest that some of the BJP allies could be disgruntled if their demands are not met by the saffron party. Congress would be in a position to form the government even if one of the smaller parties were to switch sides. Sensing an opportunity, the Congress also went into a huddle overnight. On March 16, a day before Parrikars demise, the Congress had written to Governor Mridula Sinha, staking claim to form the government in the state. The Congress had also sought the BJP-led governments dismissal. The leader of the Congress-led opposition in Goa, Chandrakant Kavlekar, said in a letter to the Governor that the people of Goa have lost their trust in the ruling party following the death of MLA Francis DSouza, and that they have also lost strength in the House. File image Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on March 18 by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam. During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her Ganga cruise is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade long wilderness in the state. The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh offered prayers on the banks of Sangam -- a confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. In a tweet, Priyanka recalled her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While putting me to sleep at night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," the Congress leader said in a tweet in Hindi. Soon after her arrival on March 17, Priyanka said political stagnation in Uttar Pradesh had left the state's youth, women, farmers and labourers distressed and it was her responsibility to change the politics here. "Due to stagnation in the politics of the state, youngsters, women, farmers and labourers are worried. They want to share their pain and agony, but in the noise of political arithmetic, their voice is completely absent from the policies of the state," she said in an open letter. Gandhi said political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain. "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a 'sacha samwaad' (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in politics. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. The Congress leader said she would reach out to people through various means of transportation, including waterways, buses, train and 'padayatra' (on foot). "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our 'Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb' (cross culture). It does not differentiate among people. Gangaji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," Priyanka said letter read. As part of her campaign tour, Priyanka will also visit Bhadohi and Mirzapur districts. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman accused the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal of being a "clone" of the previous Left Front regime, and alleged that she was following the same "repressive" measures adopted by her predecessors. Likening her with Goddess Durga, she said Banerjee fought the "demons" of the 34-year-long Left Front government in the state, and also atrocities by her own workers when she was in the Congress "The amount of violence she had to go through during her Youth Congress days and from the Communists, she is making everyone suffer the same," Sitharaman said, while asking her if "is this the politics you want to do? Is this 'parivartan' (change)?" Claiming that the Left Front rule was a "waste" as nothing improved in the state, the minister said the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government has also "failed" to fulfil aspirations of the people of West Bengal, which was once the foremost in the country in every field. "The TMC rule in the state is a clone of the previous Communist regime," she said, questioning whether the people of the state "voted for such poor cloning". Alleging that Banerjee was not "cooperating" with the country's own government, she asked, "Is the central government of our own or of some other country?" Sitharaman said the TMC supremo accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being "suit boot ki sarkar wooing industry bigwigs", while Banerjee herself was asking for investments from them with "folded hands". The defence minister claimed there is misrule and lack of law and order in the state, and "nobody wants to come to Bengal, despite so many global investment meets". Criticising the chief minister over the Balakot air strike, she asked her: "Are you with India, nationalist Indians, or are you helping our enemies?" Observing that the scars of partition and atrocities of the Pakistan Army in erstwhile East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh, is still evident among those who were displaced, she alleged that the TMC is "helping the same Pakistan by questioning India's strike on terror camps at Balakot". Commenting on BJP president Amit Shah's visit to the state, Sitharaman wondered whether the chief minister was "afraid" of it. "You are the CM here, what are you afraid of?" She also claimed that the TMC had not allowed opposition party candidates to file nominations in the 2018 panchayat polls in the state. The TMC won 30 per cent seats in the state uncontested, Sitharaman added. File image Condoling the death of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described him as a unparalleled leader, who was a true patriot and an exceptional administrator, admired by all. Modi said his service to the nation will be remembered by generations. "Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters. Shanti," the prime minister said in a tweet. Modi said when Parrikar was the defence minister, India witnessed a series of decisions that enhanced the country's security capacities, boosted indigenous defence production and bettered the lives of ex-servicemen. "Thanks to his affable personality and accessible nature, he remained the preferred leader of the state for years. His pro-people policies ensured Goa scales remarkable heights of progress," he added. The prime minister also posted a picture of him and Parrikar together on the social media website. Days after Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath asked Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh to choose a tough seat to enter the Lok Sabha election fray, the latter on March 18 said he was ready to contest from wherever party chief Rahul Gandhi wants him to. Singh also said that accepting challenges was his habit. Rumours are around in political circles that Singh might be fielded from either Bhopal or Indore Lok Sabha constituency, which are the traditional strongholds of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Alok Sanjar are sitting MPs from Indore and Bhopal, respectively. Speculations on the likely candidature of Singh, a former chief minister, got strengthened when Kamal Nath told reporters recently that he had requested Singh to contest from one of the toughest seats, if the latter wants to enter the poll ring. "There are 2-3 seats in the state from where we have not won for the last 25-30 years," Nath had said in an apparent reference to Indore and Bhopal seats. The Congress had last won Bhopal constituency in 1984, after assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The seat was the represented by Congress' K N Pradhan. Similarly, the Congress last won Indore in 1984, when Prakash Chandra Sethi defeated his opponents. Responding to Nath's request, Singh in a tweet Monday said: "With the blessings of people of Raghogarh (erstwhile princely state), I have won in 1977 (assembly polls) also during the Janata Party wave. Accepting challenges is my habit. From any place my leader, Rahul Gandhi will ask me, I am ready to contest Lok Sabha polls. Narmade Har". "Thank you Kaman Nath ji for inviting me to contest from weak seats of Congress. He considered me capable for this and I am thankful to him," Singh said in another tweet. Polls for total 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh will be held in four phases during April 29--May 19 period. Madhya Pradesh Congress said it was incumbent upon senior leaders to contest from tough seats since the party wanted to win maximum number of seats in upcoming elections. "As the party wishes to win maximum number of seats in the state in Lok Sabha polls, senior leaders must contest from the tough seats the Congress had not won for long," state Congress media department chairperson Shobha Oza told PTI. She said the entry of senior Congress leaders like Digvijaya Singh into poll fray from difficult terrain, would also boost morale of party workers. In 2014 Parliamentary elections, the BJP won 27 seats in Madhya Pradesh while the Congress' tally was just two. Normally, Singh and his family members have contested Lok Sabha elections from their traditional Rajgarh seat. Singh had represented Rajgarh in 1984 and 1991. His brother Laxman Singh had represented the seat in 1994 (bypoll), 1996, 1998, and 1999 from Congress, and in 2004 from BJP. In 2009, Digvijaya Singh loyalist Narayan Singh Amlabe won from Rajgarh. Singh's choice of seat is hotly debated in the faction-ridden Congress. While a section of leaders want him to contest from Rajgarh, a "safe" seat, the gauntlet to enter the poll fray from either Indore or Bhopal is also thrown at him at the behest of another faction. Singh had completed his schooling and BE from Indore, the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh. Representative Image SUSE announced the creation of the largest independent open source company following the completion of SUSE's acquisition by growth investor EQT from Micro Focus. The newly independent SUSE has expanded its executive team, adding new leadership roles and experience to foster its continued momentum into this next stage of corporate development. Enrica Angelone has been named to the new post of chief financial officer, and Sander Huyts is SUSE's new chief operations officer. Thomas Di Giacomo, formerly chief technology officer for SUSE, is now president of Engineering, Product and Innovation. All three report to SUSE CEO Nils Brauckmann. SUSE has been acquired multiple times before being an independent entity finally. The company was acquired by Novell in 2004, which was acquired by Attachmate in 2010. Micro Focus then acquired Attachmate in 2014, and made SUSE an independent division before selling to EQT. "Current IT trends make it clear that open source has become more important in the enterprise than ever before. We believe that makes our status as a truly independent open source company more important than ever," Brauckmann said. Al Gillen, group vice president, Software Development and Open Source, IDC, said, "SUSE's return to the role of an independent open source software company comes at a pivotal point in the industry. Open source software is the favored way to build new solutions today and is irreplaceable as the foundation for most public cloud services. As one of the industry's largest purely open source software companies, SUSE's independence will benefit customers as the company builds on its heritage of technical excellence, value-driven partnerships and community engagement to deliver timely technology solutions to the market." SUSE's expanded leadership team led by CEO Brauckmann will build on the past growth. The company is currently involved in more than 100 open source projects, supported by employees around the world. CXA Group, the AI-driven health platform, announced that it has raised US$25 million in its latest round of funding. CXA's new group of strategic investors include HSBC, Singtel Innov8, Telkom Indonesia MDI Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, Muang Thai Fuchsia Ventures, Humanica and Heritas Venture Fund. The investment by these leading global financial services institutions, telecommunications providers and payroll companies reflect their belief in CXA's long-term growth opportunity, and the company's unique ability to shift healthcare spend from treatment to prevention, without employers spending more. Rosaline Chow Koo, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CXA Group said: "We are honoured to welcome these top-tier corporations into our roster of strategic investors and partners. CXA is today the leading health ecosystem platform that enables individuals across Asia to make better choices for healthier living, starting from the workplace, thereby empowering a shift in spend from treatment to prevention. We have seen overwhelming interest from global strategic investors who are excited to work with us to advance our business and vision." "CXA is rapidly emerging as a leader in the Health and Insurtech space. It has an innovative platform-led approach to helping companies optimise their health spend through personalised engagement with employees about their physical and financial wellness. We are excited about this investment partnership and the disruptive opportunities it presents," said Bryce Johns, Group Head of Insurance, HSBC. Headquartered in Singapore, CXA achieved revenue growth of 65 percent in 2018 and is expected to double that in 2019. This latest funding round follows US$33 million in total funding from Series A and B in 2015 and 2017 respectively. Other investors in CXA include B Capital Group, Openspace Ventures, Government-linked strategic investor EDBI, BioVeda Capital, FengHe Asia, Philips and RGAx. current-affairs-trends Reporters Take | No end to Facebook's troubles, uphill task for Mark Zuckerberg Even as Facebook has been heavily censoring content and blacklisting users, it has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. Joginder Tuteja Hail the new 'desh bhakt' hero in town who is all set to score a hat-trick of films that have nationalism as an integral part of the plot. John Abraham, who started his career with Jism [2003] more than a decade ago, has found his bearings in an altogether different genre in the current times. After delivering back to back successes in Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran and Satyameva Jayate last year, he is now set to bring on screen Romeo Akbar Walter, which in short is R.A.W. A smart take on Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the foreign intelligence agency of the country, R.A.W. has John Abraham playing an Indian spy and a patriot who penetrates Pakistani territory and makes a living there while also passing on intelligence back to his country. While the promo of this Robby Grewal-directed film has already made a splash, what is particularly exciting is the kind of choices John Abraham is making when it comes to his Bollywood career. Though he has delivered quite a few successful films across genres in his eventful years so far [Housefull 2, Race 2, Welcome Back, Shootout at Wadala, Dostana, Dhoom and more], he is focusing extensively in being the man in the uniform of late. The change started with Force, where he played a cop. The film was a success and that was followed by Force 2, which was decent too. He also did Madras Cafe, which again was a thriller, that showcased John Abraham in a different avatar altogether. As a man on a mission, he came up with the right intensity for the part. However, it was the release of Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran that made many stand up and notice John for the actor that he is. The film was released sans any promotion or marketing and still managed to do good business, courtesy the engaging narrative and good performances. While John's stocks rose with the film, he was up for an even bigger success once Satyameva Jayate hit the screen. Though he played an anti-hero in the film, someone who didn't mind killing those in the business of corruption, the intent was there to 'hail the truth'. This is now expected in his upcoming release Romeo Akbar Walter as well, where he is playing a common man thrust with a huge responsibility. Set in 1971 when India was on the verge of war with Pakistan, the film has Jackie Shroff playing an intelligence officer who recruits the character played by John Abraham to play a major role in this mission. Resultantly, John would be seen in multiple looks during the film as he plays three different parts of Romeo, Akbar and Walter. What also works in favour of the film is its theme, which is pretty topical even though there is a gap of almost half a century between the current times and the era in which the film is set. There is tension prevailing between India and Pakistan and one waits to see how audiences react to Romeo Akbar Walter when it hits the screen. It was recently seen that if presented well on screen, such themes are well accepted and hailed by the audiences. If John had delivered a success in Parmanu - The Pokhran Story last year, then Vicky Kaushal's Uri - The Surgical Strike has turned out to be even bigger by emerging as an all-time blockbuster. Now with the starry presence of John Abraham, Romeo Akbar Walter which is produced by Viacom18 Motion Pictures, Dheeraj Wadhwan, Ajay Kapoor, Vanessa Walia, and Gary Grewal has turned out to be exciting indeed. As for John Abraham, he would soon be moving from one patriotic film to another as Batla House gears up for Independence Day release. While one waits to see what he has to offer in the Nikkhil Advani-directed film, rest assured that he would have quite some aces up his sleeve with Romeo Akbar Walter, set to hit the screens on April 5. Authorities in China have arrested almost 13,000 "terrorists" in the restive far western region of Xinjiang since 2014, the government said on Monday, in a lengthy policy paper again defending its controversial Islamic de-radicalisation measures. China has faced growing international opprobrium for setting up facilities that United Nations experts describe as detention centres holding more than one million Uighurs and other Muslims. Beijing says it needs the measures to stem the threat of Islamist militancy, and calls them vocational training centres. Legal authorities have adopted a policy that "strikes the right balance between compassion and severity", the government said in its white paper. Since 2014, Xinjiang has "destroyed 1,588 violent and terrorist gangs, arrested 12,995 terrorists, seized 2,052 explosive devices, punished 30,645 people for 4,858 illegal religious activities, and confiscated 345,229 copies of illegal religious materials", it added. Only a small minority of people face strict punishment, such as ringleaders of terror groups, while those influenced by extremist thinking receive education and training to teach them the error of their ways, the paper said. The main exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, swiftly denounced the white paper. "China is deliberately distorting the truth," spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement. "Counter-terrorism is a political excuse to suppress the Uighurs. The real aim of the so-called de-radicalisation is to eliminate faith and thoroughly carry out Sinification." The white paper said Xinjiang has faced a particular challenge since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, as East Turkestan extremists ramped up activities in China, referring to China's term for extremists and separatists it says operates in Xinjiang. "They screamed the evil words of 'getting into heaven by martyrdom with jihad', turning some people into extremists and terrorists who have been completely mind-controlled, and even turned into murderous devils." Religious extremism under the banner of Islam runs counter to Islamic doctrines, and is not Islam, it added. Xinjiang has long been an inseparable part of Chinese territory, and the Uighur ethnic group evolved from a long process of migration and ethnic integration, the paper said. "They are not descendants of the Turks." Turkey is the only Islamic country that has regularly expressed concern about the situation in Xinjiang, due to close cultural links with the Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language. China has denounced Turkish concern as unwarranted and interference in its internal affairs. Id like an acknowledgement that this is real and its something thats ongoing and its something that we have to be really careful of, especially in the wake of what happened in New Zealand, Chibe said, referring to last weeks mosque shootings that left 50 dead in Christchurch. I think its really important for us to kind of take charge in a way. Step forward and be like, This is not what we want in our community. Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui Sunday exuded confidence of resolving the sticky issue of designating Masood Azhar as a global terrorist through consultations, days after China blocked a fresh move at the UN to ban the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief. "I am quite sure this matter (listing of Azhar by the UN) will be resolved. This is only a technical hold and the matter can be resolved through continued consultation," Luo said on the sidelines of an event at the Chinese embassy. The envoy said China understands India's concerns on the issue, and was optimistic of resolving it. "We are optimistic that this matter will be resolved." The envoy was replying to questions on China putting a hold on Wednesday to a fresh move to designate Azhar as a global terrorist by the Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. It was the fourth time China blocked listing of Azhar in the past 10 years. The Chinese move was termed as "disappointing" by India. The Chinese envoy also referred to the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in April last year and said the cooperation between the two countries are on the "right" and "fast" track. "We are quite optimistic about the future cooperation between the two countries," Luo said. Government sources Saturday said India would show patience with China for "as long as it takes" on the Azhar issue, but it will not compromise its position on firmly dealing with terrorists. They said India will continue to pursue China to support listing of Azhar whose JeM carried out a number of terror attacks in India including the Pulwama strike. They said India was "cautiously" confident that eventually Azhar will get listed as it has a solid case against the JeM chief. Fourteen out of the 15 members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) supported India on the proposal to list Azhar as global terrorist but China was the only country which did not go with the move. The fresh proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US, in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. The government sources said terrorism was an issue which is not-negotiable for India and if China needed more time, New Delhi was ready to wait. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said on Monday it was possible that once he dies his incarnation could be found in India, where he has lived in exile for 60 years, and warned that any other successor named by China would not be respected. Sat in an office next to a temple ringed by green hills and snow-capped mountains, the 14th Dalai Lama spoke to Reuters a day after Tibetans in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala marked the anniversary of his escape from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, disguised as a soldier. He fled to India in early 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and has since worked to draw global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy in his remote and mountainous homeland. China, which took control of Tibet in 1950, brands the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate a dangerous separatist. Pondering what might happen after his death, the Dalai Lama anticipated some attempt by Beijing to foist a successor on Tibetan Buddhists. "China considers Dalai Lama's reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me," said the Dalai Lama, swathed in his traditional red robes and yellow scarf. "In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So that's an additional problem for the Chinese! It's possible, it can happen," he added, laughing. China has said its leaders have the right to approve the Dalai Lama's successor, as a legacy inherited from China's emperors. But many Tibetans - whose tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death - suspect any Chinese role as a ploy to exert influence on the community. Born in 1935, the current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old. Many of China's more than 6 million Tibetans still venerate the Dalai Lama despite government prohibitions on displays of his picture or any public display of devotion. UP FOR DISCUSSION The Dalai Lama said contact between Tibetans living in their homeland and in exile was increasing, but that no formal meetings have happened between Chinese and his officials since 2010. Informally, however, some retired Chinese officials and businessman with connections to Beijing do visit him from time to time, he added. He said the role of the Dalai Lama after his death, including whether to keep it, could be discussed during a meeting of Tibetan Buddhists in India later this year. He, however, added that though there was no reincarnation of Buddha, his teachings have remained. "If the majority of (Tibetan people) really want to keep this institution, then this institution will remain," he said. "Then comes the question of the reincarnation of the 15th Dalai Lama." If there is one, he would still have "no political responsibility", said the Dalai Lama, who gave up his political duties in 2001, developing a democratic system for the up to 100,000 Tibetans living in India. SEMINAR IN CHINA? During the interview, the Dalai Lama spoke passionately about his love for cosmology, neurobiology, quantum physics and psychology. If he was ever allowed to visit his homeland, he said he'd like to speak about those subjects in a Chinese university. But he wasn't expecting to go while China remained under Communist rule. "China - great nation, ancient nation - but its political system is totalitarian system, no freedom. So therefore I prefer to remain here, in this country." The Dalai Lama was born to a family of farmers in Taktser, a village on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, in China's Qinghai province. During a recent Reuters visit to Taktser, police armed with automatic weapons blocked the road. Police and more than a dozen plain-clothed officials said the village was not open to non-locals. "Our strength, our power is based on truth. Chinese power based on gun," the Dalai Lama said. "So for short term, gun is much more decisive, but long term truth is more powerful." Representative image Analysis of the data from the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed killing all 157 people on board showed 'clear similarities' with October's Lion Air crash, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Transport Ministry said. Both planes were Boeing 737 MAX 8s, and both crashed minutes after take off after pilots reported flight control problems. Concern over the plane's safety caused aviation authorities worldwide to ground the model, wiping billions of dollars off Boeing's market value. "It was the same case with the Indonesian (Lion Air) one. There were clear similarities between the two crashes so far," spokesman Muse Yiheyis told Reuters. "The data was successfully recovered. Both the American team and our (Ethiopian) team validated it. The minister thanked the French government. We will let you know more after three or four days." A preliminary report on the crash is to be released within 30 days, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing the transport minister. March has been a tough month for Facebook. First, US senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren suggested that big companies including Facebook and Amazon should be broken up, as they butcher competition. Then came the worst global outage of Facebook and Instagram. But, the social media company was hit the worst when a massacre in New Zealand on March 15, which killed 50 people, was live-streamed on Facebook. There was a global uproar about the way social media companies censor information on their platforms. Facebook said that it removed 1.2 million uploads of the video from its platform within 24 hours, but that did not repair the damage. "Hedge funds who were previously complacent about the recent negative headlines are raising eyebrows on the news overnight," Jahanara Nissar, an analyst at Lynx Equity Strategies, is quoted by Bloomberg. She added that two senior executives of the company quitting also raises concerns for Facebook. On March 15, Facebook shares fell 2.5 percent to close at $165.98, their worst day in over 2 months. After the horrific incident, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern seeks to get in touch with Facebook about its live-streaming rules. Trends on Twitter suggest that Facebook garnered the most negative sentiment on the day of the attack in nearly eight months. While trends change every day according to a number of tweets, Facebook has not been doing too well in these numbers since July 2018. Mark Zuckerberg has drawn flak over poor management of users' data and violation of privacy over the past year. After Warren's comments about breaking up big companies, Facebook reportedly pulled down her ads from its platform. This was in contrast with Zuckerberg's claim that his website is a place for public debate and diverse opinions. Facebook is undergoing investigations across the world with relation to political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which harvested personal information of Facebook users via third party apps and used it for political purposes. Zuckerberg, in a recent blog post, announced that he would make Facebook into a private and encrypted communication channel like messaging app WhatsApp. The announcement came as a response to the pressure on Facebook to right its wrongs regarding data privacy. It was surprising as the platform always boasted of its public sharing. Vinayak Gupta (name changed) bought a Vu brand television (TV) in May 2016 from Chembur-based Kohinoor Televideo Pvt Ltd, with a one-year warranty from the manufacturer. While buying the TV, the dealer told Mr Gupta that he could get an extended warranty for the television just by paying Rs4,523 as onetime payment. Mr Gupta bought the TV with the extended warranty, but shortly after, he realised that the so-called warranty was, in fact, an insurance cover to pay for any claims during the warranty period. He says, "We were surprised to see the name of Bajaj Allianz on the final invoice received from Kohinoor but we were assured that this was the normal procedure and any problem in the TV would be taken care of during the period of four years or up to May 2020. We paid for a three year extended warranty (EW) for a sum insured of Rs32,990, applicable from 2 May 2017 till 1 May 2020. As it happens, Mr Gupta did need to make a claim, but more about that later. . An extended warranty is coverage for electrical or mechanical breakdown. It may or may not cover peripheral items, wear & tear. The indemnity is to cover the cost of repair and may include replacement if deemed uneconomic to repair. However, it is important for consumers to read and understand the terms & conditions offered at the point of sale. In retail consumer electronics, extended warranties cost 20% to 30% of the price, and give sales associates up to 15% commission at some retailers, says a report from WarrantyWeek.com Talking about its extended warranty policy, Bajaj Allianz says , Any product that you buy comes with a manufacturer's warranty of one or two years, which covers you for any manufacturing defects of that product. Bajaj Allianz's extended warranty insurance policy lets you cover the expenses of repair or replacement of your product even after the expiration of manufacturer's warranty. Coming back to the Guptas, the TV worked fine till January 2019 when its screen went blank. Mr Gupta registered a complaint on the number provided by Bajaj Allianz on the policy document. He was assured that his TV would be repaired within three days and, in case it could not be repaired, then Mr Gupta would get a new TV as replacement. The next day, someone called Sarfaraz visited Mr Gupta's home. "This person claiming to be an technician from Bajaj Allianz did not show any ID. He checked the TV, and took some photos with his mobile. He left our house without giving us any copy of his report or even an acknowledgement. When asked later, Sarfraz told that he had prepared a job sheet and sent it to the insurer," Mr Gupta says. On the very next day, Mr Gupta received three calls from the same mobile number informing him that his complaint was forwarded to Vu. The callers who identified themselves as Nilesh, Sagar and Sonali, told Mr Gupta not to inform the TV company about the EW from Bajaj Allianz else they will not repair the TV. They also told him to pay visiting charges for the Vu technician, if asked that would be reimbursed. The same day, one Vinod from Vu TV visited Mr Gupta's home and checked the TV set. "He told us that he will inform his seniors and Bajaj Allianz and that he will come with some part to be replaced the next day. On 24 January 2019, he came with an electronic board. He opened the TV, replaced the board and switched it on. However the TV still did not work. He told us that he will inform his seniors and Bajaj Allianz by mail. He, however, did not give any concrete line of action or the next steps," Mr Gupta says. When Mr Gupta called, he was told by Sonali that they have spoken with someone in Vu and the TV manufacturer is arranging for some parts to be replaced and would send a quotation. But nothing much was happening either with the insurer or the TV-maker. On 29 January 2019, Mr Gupta managed to speak with one Anil from Bajaj Allianz and Nilesh. He says, "In the afternoon, we were informed that a quotation of Rs38,000 given by Vu for the panel is very high and they can neither get the TV repaired nor they can replace it. He offered to give us Rs22,000 against the EW policy. He was not willing to give any concrete answer as to why Bajaj Allianz was unwilling to reimburse the entire insured amount. Meanwhile, Vu did not take any responsibility to get the TV in working condition." Mr Gupta also received a claim summary-cum-claim form and a consent letter from Bajaj Allianz for settlement of his 'extended warranty' insurance policy. "The claim summary is filled partially and the consent letter is a completely one-sided document asking us to forgo all our rights and cancel the policy from the date of loss. The document offers a meagre amount of Rs22,267 as full and final settlement, which included the value of scrap value of the TV and close the issue forever. This would be the depreciated value of the TV," Mr Gupta says. In a statement Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, says, "As per the policy and the indemnity clause, a 10% depreciation has been considered for each year i.e. depreciation of 30% for three years for providing the compensation of Rs22,267 to the customer. The compensation was made within 48 hours of receipt of documentation and subsequent confirmation from the customer." Mr Gupta wanted to file a case in district consumer forum against Vu TV, the dealer who sold him the extended warranty policy and Bajaj Allianz. He along with his wife visited Moneylife Foundation's daily free guidance clinic for guidance After discussion, Mr Gupta was given two choices: file a case in consumer forum or accept the offer from the insurer. Filing case in a consumer forum has become a time-consuming issue as the first hearing may not take place for about three months and how many days it will take for final judgement. In addition, there is no guarantee that Mr Gupta would have received his entire claim amount of Rs32,990. There is also a cost for filing complaint in consumer forum, like drafting complaint, affidavits, attaching all proof and then making multiple sets of this complaint. Since Mr Gupta had used the TV for about two years, and with prices of new sets falling day by day, it was suggested to him that in this exceptional situation, it may make better sense to use the proceeds received from Bajaj Allianz to buy a new TV from reputed company instead. "We discussed your suggestion among our family members and found it was practical solution that would give us peace of mind. So we agreed to the claim settlement. Bajaj Allianz collected our non-working TV set and within three days paid Rs22,267 as agreed. We will be buying a new TV set and this time would check if the extended warranty is indeed provided by the manufacturer and not an insurance company," Mr Gupta concluded. While Mr Gupta has got away with minimal damage from a bad deal, this may not necessarily be the case with other products, which do not depreciate as rapidly or where technology improvements do not lead to better products being available a lower rates every years. Yet, most consumers who can afford it, happily pay up for an EW, which may often be hard-sold by an insurance company whose way of evaluating a claim is completely different from what should happen in a straight-forward EW purchase. Matters like these ought to be adjudicated upon by court or have clear rules prescribed by the ministry of consumer affairs. But that will be another battle for someone else to take up. At time of writing, the share price of Kingsgate Consolidated Limited [ASX:KCN] is up 51.33%, trading at 22.5 cents. Its been a tough year for the stock: Source: tradingview.com The massive gains for the Kingsgate share price come on the back news out of the company, outlining a settlement with its Political Risk Insurers to the tune of more than $82 million. Free Guide: How to invest in gold for 2019. Download now. Kingsgate share price reacts to settlement The Kingsgate share price jumped as high as 28 cents when it came out of a trading halt with the release of the announcement. The announcement outlined a legally binding Heads of Agreement with its insurers with the following features: Kingsgate to receive a cash payment of US$55 million by mid-April 2019 Insurers are required to contribute up to US$3.5 million of future costs towards the TAFTA Arbitration. Their funding contribution will be paid on a pro-rata basis with Kingsgate. A sharing arrangement to exist between Kingsgate and the Insurers for future distributions of TAFTA Claim proceeds. This sharing agreement operates on the basis of the Insurers being entitled to the amount of their original contribution including interest, with Kingsgate keeping any TAFTA Claim proceeds that are in excess of that contribution. The TAFTA Claim refers to a claim made under The Australia-Thailand Free Trade Agreement based on a May 2016 move by the Government of Thailand to expropriate Kingsgates Chatree Gold Mine. In the years leading up to the move, the mine had been producing around 125,000135,000 ounces of gold and silver. What does the future hold for Kingsgate? Kingsgate has not rested on its laurels since its operations at its Thailand mine ceased. And it looks like they have some exciting improvements in store. Since 2009, they have been developing the Nueva Esperanza Project. In 2016, they released a Pre-Feasibility Study for the project with some attractive metrics. These include an 11.6-year life of mine, US$642/oz AuEq60 (gold equivalent based on a ratio of 60oz silver per 1oz gold) average cash cost, and an all-in cost of US$849/oz. The gold price currently sits at US$1,299/oz. As per the Pre-Feasibility study, the proposed mine would have an Internal Rate of Return of 25% and a payback period of three years. Kingsgates Executive Chairman, Ross Smyth-Kirk, elaborated that the settlements excellent outcome would provide enough funds to pay out in full the companys corporate debt facility and that it will provide the liquidity necessary to maximize the value of the Nueva Esperanza project. Given these factors, Kingsgate shapes as a legitimate investment for the future, even if short-term investors engage in profit-taking over the next few days. If macro-risks continue to escalate, gold stocks as a sector could be poised to benefit. If you are curious about golds potential in the months ahead, Greg Canavan takes an excellent look at the three reasons why you should add gold to your portfolio in a research report which can be downloaded here. Regards, Lachlann Tierney, For Money Morning A Northland 10-year-old has raised $650 for the victims of the Christchurch terror attack by selling cookies. India Ruddell's father Kelly Ruddell told Newshub her family lives in a remote part of the Far North and could not make it to a remembrance event. Kelly said India baked hundreds of cookies for the fundraising efforts because, for them, the best way to support the Muslim community is monetarily. "The news of Friday hit her hard and she was left in panic mode... to help her nerves she started cooking hundreds of cookies to sell." India sold 250 cookies in 45 minutes, raising a total of $650. Need to Talk? - Call or text 1737 Kelly said he's very proud of his daughter's actions. "We are very committed to helping our community stay alive so we do a lot of volunteer work. She has grown up being involved in this. "It's now her go to response when she sees a problem or can see people who need help. Her instinct is to put in the effort. We are so proud of who she is growing into. "Very compassionate and anxious for others but that makes her heart so big and she pours that love into solutions." India told Newshub she felt bad for all the people who lost family members or were injured. "It was scary for me so it must have been awfully scary for them. I want to help them feel better. I want other kids to see we are all a community and we need to be nice to each other." The South Island Wildlife Hospital is caring for a baby pukeko caught up in the response to Friday's terror attack in Christchurch. A car belonging to a police dog unit hit the bird's mother on Saturday while responding to the aftermath of the attack. Fully armed officers are out across New Zealand after the terror attack, which saw 50 people killed in mosques on Deans Ave and Linwood Ave. The Christchurch-based wildlife hospital said on Facebook officers arrived with the baby pukeko wrapped up in a police uniform. In my religion, there is a prayer for healing during which one can announce the names of those who need recovery. Since that day in March 2016, when I can, I speak his name. I am not an expert on miracles, and I think had the direction of either bullet fired into his body been off a millimeter, the result may have been different. No one knows, but for now Jones could serve as a model for what a miracle may seem to be. Phil Gorham: Tobacco valuations have taken a big hit over the last 12 months with large-cap global players Phillip Morris International and British American Tobacco down 30% and 50% respectively. Dividend yields are now at a very attractive range in the high single digits, and although we think dividend growth is likely to slow to the low single digits over the next few years, we do think the the dividends are safe and this represents a buying opportunity for investors. Investors have been concerned about two things. First, the more assertive approach by the FDA to regulating the industry with proposed measures including a potential ban of menthol flavorings and even a reduction in nicotine levels. And the other thing investors are concerned about has been the recent weakness in the performance of the heated tobacco category in Japan. Iquos, PMI's popular heated tobacco device, will be making its way to the U.S. soon--perhaps this year--and investors that were hoping that heated tobacco would pick up the slack of falling cigarette consumption have been disappointed by a sudden slowdown and growth of the product in Japan. New Brunswicks apartments are not ideal for investment at the moment, especially since it is the only province in Canada that has a non-owner occupied tax. The provinces real estate association is one of the leading voices for changes to the tax, arguing that the levy has stymied much of the markets prospects. Weve been lobbying basically since 2010 to create a fair taxation system. One of the things that we are lobbying for mostly this year is the elimination of the double taxation, NBREA government relations committee chair Kari McBride told GlobalNews.ca. When Wells Fargo announced in November that it was cutting 900 home lending jobs across the country, the bank blamed declining workload for the cuts. But an Iowa congresswoman has accused the bank of slashing the jobs just to ship them overseas. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) grilled Wells Fargo CEO Time Sloan about the layoffs during a Sloans testimony before the House Financial Services Committee last week, according to a report by The Des Moines Register. About 400 of the 900 home loan jobs slashed came from Des Moines, Iowa. Axne said that her office was contacted by a laid-off Wells Fargo employee who was told that her job was being moved to India, the Register reported. In an application for assistance through a federal aid program, the former employee also said that Wells Fargo mortgage employees had traveled to India to train their own replacements. The counties analyzed in the report each had a population of at least 100,000 and sufficient rental and home price data. ATTOM gathered the rental data came from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, while home price data was from publicly recorded sales deed data ATTOM collected and licensed. The average annual gross rental yield among 432 counties moved up slightly to 8.8% for 2019 from 8.7% in 2018. However, investing in single-family homes in San Francisco, San Jose, and New York may not yield the highest rental returns. The top three counties with the lowest potential annual gross rental yields for 2019 were in California, including San Mateo County in the San Francisco metro area (3.4%), San Francisco County (3.7%), and Marin County, also in the San Francisco metro area (4%). "Buying single-family homes to rent them out is a better deal for investors so far this year than it was at the same time in 2018, as profit margins are rising in a majority of counties across the United States," said Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM. "Last year, at this time, investors were seeing returns drop in three-quarters of the counties that were analyzed. So far this year, those margins are up in six out of every ten counties analyzed. But despite the generally rosier picture, profits vary widely and investing in the single-family home rental market is not always a great move. The typical bottom-line gain from county to county this year has ranged from as high as 29% to as little as 3%." In addition to the prison term, Martinez must register for life as a sexual offender. He will receive credit for the 631 days served in Kane County jail and must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence, the release said. Texas Tech University is looking to expand hands-on training for its petroleum engineering students by drilling two exploratory test wells at its Oilfield Technology Center Campus. The school has applied with the Railroad Commission to drill the two 1,500-foot wells in the Wildcat field on its Red Raider lease. "To drill past the water zone with any well, you have to have a permit as with any other well," said Marshall Watson, chairman of Tech's Department of Petroleum Engineering, in a phone interview. "We will case and cement the well bores. There will be no perforations, there will be no production." He said plans are to permanently place a functional drilling rig over one of the wells and a functional pulling unit over the second well. Watson said liability issues frequently prohibit the school's undergraduate students from getting significant hands-on training while out on real-world drilling rigs. "They don't get to touch anything or do anything. This way, there will be valves they can touch, equipment they can run and take apart," he said. "That's our credo learn by doing actual work," he said. Students can visualize the work in labs, but the actual hands-on training "gives them a more comprehensive idea of what we're teaching them." It's part of the school's move toward the concept of total visualization "so they just don't memorize theories but actually experience drilling a well, producing a well, recompleting a well," Watson said. The drilling rig, which should arrive from Oklahoma by summer, and the pulling unit, will join the technology center's centerpiece, a 456D pumping unit sitting on top of a 4,000-foot test well the school drilled in 2001. The well was drilled to support research into artificial lift equipment and techniques and the development and testing of other cased-hole tools. The center boasts a fully functional tank battery and processing equipment, a simulated natural gas well and all the facilities associated with a gas well, he said. Coming soon is a 5,000-square-foot facility that will be a combination 50-person classroom and a workshop. The workshop space will include exhibits of cut-away models of larger oilfield equipment, Watson said. He said that aside from the models of the larger equipment, the other equipment from the wellbore and surface equipment, production equipment, casing and subsurface pumps will be full-size if cutaways so students can "see them actually in the ground." Watson said the center, and much of the engineering department's work, wouldn't be possible without the support of the oil and gas industry, especially Midland-based producers. He said that Fasken Oil & Ranch regularly hosts Tech sophomore engineering students over a weekend, taking them to one of the company's drilling sites and the students also tour the Petroleum Museum. He said freshmen engineering students also participate in a Freshman Bootcamp, spending a weekend in Midland being introduced to oil and gas operations. A man brought an AK-47 to his son's middle school in Florida on Monday, according to a Palm Beach County School District report. Christopher Freeman, 28 of West Palm Beach, was arrested at Bear Lakes Middle School around 4 p.m. after an incident at the school involving his son. Freeman told school police he had received a FaceTime phone call from his son during school hours. Freeman told police that when he answered the phone, his son was crying and told him a teacher had "slammed him," according to Freeman. While speaking with his son, Freeman observed his son being grabbed by an adult and stated that he saw "his son's phone flying from his son's hand." According to the report, Freeman stated he was very upset and headed straight to the school to check on his son. When Freeman arrived at the school, he threatened violence to school officials because of what happened to his son, according to a Palm Beach County School District report. School district police immediately arrested Freeman. The school was secured after police placed the school on a Code Red lockdown. Police say the gun was loaded with one round in the chamber. The magazine has a 30-round capacity and appeared to be fully loaded, according to police. Freeman appeared in court Tuesday morning and his bond was set for $75,000. He was ordered to stay off the grounds according to court documents. Freeman was also ordered to wear a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office ankle monitor. His next scheduled court appearance is April 4. A message was sent by phone to parents who have children at the school: Good afternoon Bear Lakes Middle School parents. This is principal Kirk Howell with an important message. This afternoon, our school was placed on lockdown after a parent became hostile in our front office. Once School Police was notified, it was discovered that the angered parent was in possession of a hand gun. School Police immediately confiscated the gun, and the inidividual will face criminal charges. The parent never brandished the gun or threatened the office staff with it at any time. I want to thank the quick action of our own school police, in cooperation with the West Palm Beach Police Department, for their cooperation in removing this individual from our campus. Once the parent was removed, our campus returned to an "All Clear" for a regular dismissal. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the school at 561.615.7700. The Building of the Southwest came crumbling down Saturday morning. The 85,000-square-foot building at 310 W. Texas Ave. was constructed in 1967. The following are details about the Building of the Southwest project: --The Midland Development Corp. bought the property from the city for $50,000. --Cost of the implosion was $1.4 million. The agreement with Midwest Wrecking Co. of Texas included $128,000 in contingencies; --The project included demolition of the internal architecture and basement levels, mechanical removal of an adjacent two-story structure and removal of exterior trim on the lower levels of the building. --The city previously entered into an agreement with Vandergriff Group architect for oversight of abatement, demolition and improvements of the building. The cost of that agreement was $326,000. --The city also had entered into an asbestos-removal agreement with Advanced Environmental Services of Odessa in a deal that totaled as much as $723,414, including alternate bids and contingencies. The city of Midland had created an exclusion zone beginning 11 p.m. Friday until about noon on Saturday. The zone, which impacted traffic in the heart of downtown, was for the safety of the community, city officials said. The nine-block area was bound by Ohio Avenue to the north, Loraine Street to the east, Wall Street to the south and Marienfeld Street to the west. Where the Building of the Southwest once stood could be the site of a future hotel. Mayor Jerry Morales told the Midland County Republican Women in February that a letter of intent existed for a boutique hotel to be built there. After decades of an empty building, we are thrilled to remove this eyesore, Morales previously said. This is a milestone in our efforts to revitalize and renew the heart of downtown. MDC Board Chairman Brent Hilliard said other options for the Building of the Southwest property and the property where the Western United Life Building sits include office space, a child care center, lofts, a multi-story apartment complex or a hotel, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram article. BEARDSTOWN When the little dark bay mustang worked up the courage to hop out of a trailer at a farm outside of Rushville this January, it was into deep snow. He was a long way from the Nevada desert. In September, 303 mustangs were rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management in Eagle, Nevada. Though the agency does roundups to control wild horse populations, these horses were dying in drought conditions. One colt from that herd eventually arrived in Ewing, where 9-year-old Hunter Reich and his family picked him up to bring him to his new home in Schuyler County. Hunter named the horse Martin and has 90 days to gentle him before the 2019 Mustang Challenge in April. In just the two months since they brought Martin home, the horse has gone from refusing to be touched to loving affection from his new human companions. They gave Martin time to get acclimated and Hunter said early on they had to leave halter and lead rope on and reach it with a cane to catch the horse. It took us a long time to get here into this pen, Hunter said of the arena where he works with Martin. Videos on the Facebook page @HAThorses show how Hunter and Martin have progressed. A video of Martin arriving at the snow-blanketed farm shows him nervously jumping off the trailer and trotting awkwardly through the snow. He was scared out of his mind because he didnt know what snow was, Hunter said. Now, Martin can be led calmly over and through obstacles, and is learning to bow and lay down, as part of the routine they will compete with. Hunter will be the youngest competitor in the Mustang Challenge, where he will go up against 40-50 adults and kids who have gentled mustangs this winter. The Mustang Challenge will be part of the Midwest Horse Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. Hunter has only been working with horses for about a year and a half. He is training Martin using natural horsemanship techniques with the help of his father, Adam Reich; his fathers fiancee and her mother, Tiarra and Gwen Paschall; and Cindy Chaffin. With different levels of experience among them, but limited experience gentling a mustang, Tiarra said they found a helpful online community of people who have worked with mustangs before. Gwen said the experience has been an adventure. According to the Bureau of Land Management, 245,000 wild horses and burros have been placed in homes since they received protection from the federal government in 1971. Each year thousands are removed by the agency and in 2018 more than 11,000 were removed a higher number than in the prior six years. Wild horse and burro populations are managed because herds can double in size every four years. Since the 70s, the number of wild horses and burros rose from around 25,000 to 82,000 in 2018. Horses that arent kept by competitors in the challenge are sold and the proceeds go to the Mustang Heritage Foundation, Adam said. The Mustang Heritage Foundation is a nonprofit organization that works with the Bureau of Land Management to keep wild herds healthy and find homes for excess animals. Kids who compete in the challenge can keep their mustangs and Adam said they plan to keep Martin and continue working with him. The family does a lot of trail riding around Illinois and out of state. This summer, Adam said theyll take Martin along so he can get used to the trailer and following along on the trails. When Martin is ready to train under saddle, Hunter hopes to do barrel racing and pole bending in 4-H. Gwen said the experience has been an adventure. Trump the con man: All you followers, all you Trumpies, hes like a caged animal. Cohen was right. Hes a con man to his heart. Look at all the people he cons. Look at the people he parades around, like (the parents of) the young man who was half dead when he returned from China and died shortly after. He paraded the parents around, but you dont see them anymore because they know they were used, just like he was using these families that had some of their family members killed by illegal aliens. At what age should it be legal for a child to be at home alone, or to be caring for younger siblings? In Illinois, its currently 14, the strictest such law in the nation for more than 25 years. One Republican lawmaker wants that changed to 12. This law came into place decades ago in response to a case where a couple left the country with their two children at home, said Rep. Joe Sosnowski of Rockford. As it sometimes happens with these issues in legislatures, lawmakers overreact and set a precedent thats too restrictive. Sosnowski is sponsoring House Bill 2334, which would lower the states legal age limit for leaving children unsupervised to 12. The bill passed unanimously out of the House Judiciary Criminal Committee in early March. The case on which Illinois law is formed involved a St. Charles couple who left their 9- and 4-year-old girls at home to vacation in Mexico in 1992. Two days into the trip, a fire alarm went off, and the children went to a neighbors house for help before later being picked up by child welfare agents. A year later, the state passed the law considering it neglect if a child is left with someone under the age of 14. By changing it to 12, were creating a little more flexibility for parents to be able to decide and be responsible for their own children, based on a childs responsibility level, Sosnowski said. Some states have no legal restrictions, while others, like Kansas (6) and North Carolina (8), set the age much lower. No other state has a legal age of older than 12. Parents leave children home alone for various reasons, said Jimmie Whitelow, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. The question is, how long do you leave a child of any age home alone? Whether a child is 14, 12, 8 or 6, does that child have the capacity to properly care for themselves should an emergency occur? Sosnowski admits many parents dont know of Illinois law, and dont follow it even if they do. He added that negative comments about the bill have been few and far between, and most parents are supportive, readily admitting to having started babysitting when they were younger than 14. So if you have a mature 12-year-old who has a cellphone, is very responsible and CPR-certified, Sosnowski said, there are families that are happy to let that child babysit or be at home for a period of time without any real concern. Its not clear how many Illinois parents are prosecuted for violating the current law. According to Matt Jones, associate director of the Illinois Appellate Prosecutors office, there is no easily accessible repository for such information. But, Jones said, prosecutors are pretty wise in exercising judgment about these cases. If you leave your 12-year-old at home while you run to the store, thats probably not going to end up with having your kids taken away or a criminal charge. If youre gone for a month, then probably youre going to be charged, Jones said. The case of a Wilmette mother who was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services after letting her 8-year-old child walk their dog around the block sparked news coverage in mid-2018, but prosecutors did not pursue the case. But, according to the Chicago Tribune, the mother says she endured weeks of stress while DCFS continued its investigation, questioning her, her children, and other family members to determine whether the child was being neglected. Sosnowski agrees with Jones that such investigations are rare, because even at local levels, police and prosecutors realize that the law is overly restrictive. He added there are many forms of abuse and neglect that local states attorneys will more justifiably prosecute, regardless of age. We just need to bring [the age limit] in line with what is more commonly accepted out there, Sosnowski said. HB 2334 has garnered six co-sponsors from both sides of the political aisle Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, Jonathan Carroll, D-Northbrook, Martin Moylan, D-Des Plaines, Dan Swanson, R-Alpha, Anne Stava-Murray, D-Naperville, and Avery Bourne, R-Raymond. They said they are not against improvements, but we believe that they are too enamored by this potential project. They are looking at it through rose-colored glasses. We took off our rose-colored glasses and what we see in our view, it is not a good fit and is not in the best interests of the community. Mike Albrecht And Randy Hanvelt Recognized By TuCare President Glenn Gottschall View Photos Sonora, CA The Sonora Elks Lodge was packed Saturday evening for the annual Tuolumne County Alliance for Resources and the Environment (TuCARE) annual dinner. The organization is supported by members of the forest products industry and aims to educate young and old about natural resource issues. The night included a silent auction, dinner, live auction, and then a keynote address by local resident Shaun Crook, a VP with the California Farm Bureau Federation. His speech was entitled Ordinary is Extraordinary. It focused around the idea of ordinary people in the natural resources community stepping up to tell their stories and getting involved in the debate over forest management, and the future of ag and forest land. Crook is the first logger to serve to serve as VP on the California Farm Bureau, an organization with 40,000 members. He is also one of only a few to reside in a smaller, rural county. During his speech he noted that the cost to comply with many agriculture related regulations has increased 800-percent over the past decade. On the topic of water, he says, Whether we are having floods, or we need more dams, water, is one way or another, always on the docket. In forest management specifically, we know the benefits of having a healthy forest and the excess water we can create coming off of the landscape, and how we can contribute more to the states water supplies. Special recognition was also given by the organization, the Big Picture Award, to longtime TuCARE member Mike Albrecht, of Sierra Resource Management, and former Tuolumne County Supervisor Randy Hanvelt. They were praised for having a full understanding of natural resource issues and continuously educating state, federal and local leaders. They both also received recognition at the meeting from Assemblyman Frank Bigelow, and representatives for Congressman Tom McClintock and Senator Diane Feinstein. Hanvelt also noted that his next path, after leaving office, will be working with the Associated California Loggers, a group that represents companies and individuals that harvest and transport materials for the forest products industry. Every unit of blood represented somebody who gave of themselves, said Straw, his wife for nearly 27 years. It was the gift of life. If he had not had it, he would not have had the strength to get through chemotherapy. Its the only way to live another day, to get that from some stranger giving part of their body to someone else. CHP San Andreas Unit logo View Photos San Andreas, CA Emergency responders flew two youngsters to UC Davis Childrens Center following a solo snowmobile crash on Sunday, St. Patricks Day. According to the San Andreas CHP, a 16-year-old minor was piloting a 2004 Ski Doo northbound on a section of groomed snow-covered Fremont Road south of Quaking Aspen Road at a high rate of speed around 3:30 p.m. when he lost control. Hitting the east shoulder of the roadway, the snowmobile continued up an embankment and twice went airborne. Striking a tree, it ejected the driver and his two female passengers, ages five and nine, before landing on its left side. The CHP reports none of the children were reportedly wearing safety helmets. The driver, who received minor injuries, refused medical treatment. Both of the younger children were Life-flight flown from the scene to UC Davis for treatment of major injuries. All three were identified as residents of Manteca. Alcohol and/or drugs are not believed to have been factors in the wreck. Due to the age of the parties involved and the severity of the injuries, CHP officials are currently withholding further details. They add that under California law, the use of helmets are required while operating a snowmobile on public lands. Courtesy Photo / Moda Midstream LLC The Gulf Coast - led by Texas - officially became a net exporter of crude oil late last year, even though the nation as a whole still takes in more oil than it ships out. Gulf Coast crude exports surged to a record of 2.3 million barrels a day in December - with nearly 2 million barrels just from Texas - while the Gulf region imported a 32-year low of just less than 2 million barrels daily, the U.S. Energy Department said Monday. Mexican officials have released bidding documents to build an $8 billion Pemex refinery in the coastal state of Tabasco but are restricting participation to four companies. In an early Monday afternoon press conference, President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador and Mexican Secretary of Energy Rocio Nahle released bidding documents for the new Dos Bocas Refinery in Tabasco. With a construction permit already approved, the refinery will be owned and operated by Mexico's national oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Located on nearly 1,400 acres of coastal land owned the federal government, the refinery will process 340,000 barrels of domestically produced heavy crude oil per day to make gasoline and diesel. Specifically the refinery will be configured to process crude oil with a gravity of 22 API, which is found in Mexico's offshore oilfields. "It'll be a heavier crude because that's what we have," Nahle told reporters in Spanish. "Heavy crude oil is in high demand right now because it has the highest content to make diesel." Energy Reforms: Mexico to release bidding documents on new refinery But there was a catch, Mexican officials are restricting participation in the bidding process to four foreign companies. The names of the four companies are expected to be released later today. "We had interviews with companies around the world and chose those with the highest standards of transparency," Nahle said. Pemex owns and operates six refineries with sagging production. In addition to building the Dos Bocas Refinery, Nahle's office reported that the agency also has plans to boost production at the other six facilities by 2020. Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox The refinery announcement was made on the 81st anniversary of Oil Expropriation Day when then-President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized Mexico's oil and natural gas industry on March 18, 1938. Sworn into office in December, Lopez-Obrador campaigned on restoring Pemex's productivity and ending Mexico's dependence on foreign energy sources. Mexico currently imports 80 percent of its gasoline and diesel compared to Colombia and Brazil which import 13 percent, Nahle said. "Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador campaigned on restoring the nation's energy balance and that's what we're doing today," Nahle said. March 9 An officer was dispatched to Fort Bend County Jail facility to pick up a subject who had a warrant out of the City of West University Place Police Department. Upon arrival the officer took care and custody of Michael Uwagboi, who was transported to the West University Place Police Department Jail without incident. March 11 At 11:22 a.m., an officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby in regards to a criminal mischief that already occurred. An officer dispatched to the West U PD Lobby to meet with a Houston Police Department Officer that had an individual in custody with outstanding warrants out of the City of West University Place Municipal Court. Upon taking custody of the individual, he began making suicidal remarks and was later transported to Ben Taub General Hospital and released into the care of the Psychiatric Unit. March 12 An officer was dispatched to the West U PD Lobby for a report of identity theft that had already occurred. At 12:30 p.m., property that was found on, or in, city Parks and Recreation facilities were turned in to the police department. The items were submitted into the property room for safe keeping. At 3 p.m., an officer observed a vehicle traveling northbound in the 5600 block of Wakeforest with an expired motor vehicle registration. A traffic stop was conducted and after further investigation the driver was arrested for having West University Place Warrants. March 13 An officer observed a subject sleeping on a city easement. A welfare check was conducted and after further investigation, it was discovered the individual was intoxicated and had open West University Place Warrants. The subject was arrested for Public Intoxication and warrants. An officer was dispatched to the 5400 block of Kirby in regards to a Burglary of a Motor Vehicle that had already occurred. March 14 An Officer was dispatched to the 2600 block of Pemberton in reference to a theft that had already occurred. March 15 At 11:35 p.m., an officer observed a vehicle traveling southbound in the 6700 block of Buffalo Speedway at a high rate of speed, 42 mph in a posted 30 mph speed limit. A traffic stop was conducted and after further investigation, the driver was arrested for suspicion of Driving While Intoxicated. As for interesting facts, Tafolla told the crowd that Einsteins birthday is March 14, 1879. She said the symbol for pi is the 16th letter in the Greek alphabet. The number for pi goes on forever, Tafolla said, which she noted shocked the kids. As the fire at Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park continues to burn, the thick, black smoke billowing into the Houston sky is reminiscent of similar blazes past. Over the years, there have been quite a few fires, explosions and other incidents at Houston-area facilities, including the Deer Park fire that started Sunday, and an apparently unrelated chemical plant fire in Baytown the day before. An 81-year-old San Antonio man who went missing Sunday was found safely Monday, according to police. George McDill went missing after he was last seen near Loop 410 and Broadway, according to police. He was found soon after police asked for the public's help locating him. An off-duty Bexar County sheriff's deputy was fired after he was arrested in San Antonio on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said Monday in a news release. Ryan Storm Ferrell, 28, was pulled over by police around 10:30 p.m. Sunday night in the 4300 block of Interstate 10 West, according to the news release. He had been with the department for six years and is a corporal in the detention division. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox On Monday afternoon Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar served Ferrell with a termination notice and placed him on unpaid administrative leave, according to the news release. "A DWI in and of itself is bad enough, furthermore taken in totality with a pattern of misbehavior, makes a mockery of public trust," Salazar said in a statement. "This will not be tolerated in the Bexar County Sheriff's Office." Ferrell has been in trouble with Salazar before. He was suspended for one day for his involvement in a brawl that spilled outside of a house party on June 8, 2017. He was also one of the deputies officials said was involved in a hazing incident caught on camera at a different house party less than a month later. Ferrell and other deputies handcuffed a fellow jailer, roughed him up and used a stun gun on him. Salazar suspended Ferell for 30 days in connection to that incident. The sheriff office's Internal Affairs unit will run a separate investigation into Ferrell's arrest, according to the news release. His bail was set at $1,500, jail records showed. Drunken driving has been an issue at the Bexar County Sheriff's Office in recent years. In 2018, 23 deputies were arrested with DWI being the most common charge. "We continue to work proactively to prevent this pervasive issue through education and training," Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a statement. "Nonetheless, as issues occur, we will take decisive action. I personally terminated three employees last week for alcohol-related incidents, and will continue my strong stance on discipline and accountability." FROM OUR SUBSCRIBER SITE: Top San Antonio psychologist to tackle 'pervasive issue' of deputy misconduct at Bexar County Sheriff's Office Those three employees were identified as Vanessa Flores, a Bexar County dispatcher, Deputy Joseph Martinez and Deputy Adrian Parra. All three were fired Friday after they were unsuccessful in appealing their termination notices, according to a sheriff's office spokesperson. In October 2018, Salazar announced stricter hiring requirements for the detention division, where most of the arrested deputies had been assigned, meaning that candidates could have no prior arrests for DWI, drug possession or family violence charges. In January, the sheriff's office hired psychologist Brandi Burque to provide counseling to deputies in an effort to curb misconduct. Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA Police on Monday identified the suspect accused of fatally shooting a man outside a San Antonio church after a wedding celebration. Juan Vicente Flores, 33, is charged with murder in connection with the slaying of Marcos Villegas-Martinez. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox San Antonio police responded to the Holy Spirit Catholic Church, in the 8100 block of Blanco Road, around 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Investigators believe Flores and Villegas-Martinez got into a fight at a wedding reception inside the church. Another person, identified only as a witness in the police report, came to Villegas-Martinez's aid and a physical altercation ensued and spilled into the parking lot, officials said. Flores and a second suspect got into a pickup truck while Villegas-Martinez and the witness "stood outside the vehicle on either side," police said. Flores began firing at the witness, which prompted Villegas-Martinez to reach inside the pickup to grab Flores' weapon, according to the police report. READ MORE: Fight during a wedding overnight ends in fatal shooting on the North Side Police believe that's when Flores turned his gun on Villegas-Martinez, shooting and killing him. The two suspects fled but police located them several miles away. It's unclear if the second suspect has been charged as of Monday. Flores' bail was set at $250,000, jail records showed. Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA A San Antonio man accused of attacking a woman with a flathead screwdriver has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Nicolas G. Blancas III, 43, allegedly stabbed the woman on March 5 after an argument, according to an affidavit from San Antonio Police. Blancas became angry and struck her on the head with his fist or an unknown object, causing a laceration on her head, the affidavit said. He forced the victim onto the floor and proceeded to kick and strike the victim multiple times, SAPD said. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox When the woman went to the bathroom to clean the blood off of her body, Blancas allegedly entered and stabbed her with a flathead screwdriver, according to the affidavit. The woman attempted to block the strikes, but suffered seventeen stab wounds on her hands, arms, chest and stomach, SAPD said. Blancas then stopped attacking the victim and left the bathroom. The woman did not call police or leave the residence, but called a family member for help a few days later and was taken to a hospital for treatment, the affidavit said. Medical staff told police that she had 17 stab wounds, two fractures and indications that she may have been choked severely. Blancas is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second degree felony. If convicted, he faces two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to the state Penal Code. Texas would stomp out smoking for anyone under 21 if lawmakers approve a bill favored by Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who runs the state Senate. Patrick announced his top 30 legislative priorities on March 8, focusing on a mix of hallmark conservative issues, taxpayer protections and legislation aimed at protecting Texas future, such as Senate Bill 21, which would raise the smoking age from 18 to 21. In a news release, Patrick described the bills as not only his priorities but also priorities of the majority of the Texas Senate and the conservative majority of Texas. Senate Bill 21, filed by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, would raise the purchasing age for all tobacco products, including cigarettes and e-cigarettes. State Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, filed identical legislation House Bill 749 in the lower chamber. If the legislation passes, Texas will become the eighth state to adopt so-called Tobacco 21 legislation. In Jan. 2018, San Antonio became the first and only city in Texas to raise its smoking age from 18 to 21. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Proponents say the measure will save lives and dollars, but critics argue the policy is a textbook example of government overreach. This session, with Patricks backing and statewide support and backing from some Democratic Senators Huffman said the legislation stands a solid chance. More than two-thirds of Texas voters support raising the tobacco purchasing age to 21, Huffman said, pointing to a statewide poll conducted by Texas 21, a coalition of organizations backing the effort. I am encouraged by this poll that 2019 will be the year we pass a Tobacco 21 law, Huffman said in a press release. I urge all Texans who agree to take a stand for our children and contact their senator and representative to ask them to support House Bill 749 and Senate Bill 21. The Senate Committee on State Affairs, chaired by Huffman, conducted its first hearing on the bill Monday. At least one major tobacco company is supporting the legislation. Altria, which owns tobacco giant Phillip Morris as well as the makers of Copenhagen and Skoal snuff, said in a written statement that it has advocated for strong minimum age laws in all U.S. jurisdictions. The bill is also supported by e-cigarette maker Juul, which is part-owned by Altria. Tobacco 21 laws have been shown to dramatically reduce youth smoking rates, which is why we strongly support raising the minimum purchase age for all tobacco products, including vaping products like Juul, to 21 in Texas, said Ted Kwong, a Juul spokesman. Juul already requires purchasers to be 21 or over for sales via its website, Kwong said. Opponents of the bill included a small business owner and several parents. One man said if 18 is old enough to join the Armed Forces, then it should be old enough to smoke. Others said pushing the age limit up to 21 would not stop younger people from obtaining tobacco. Staff writer Taylor Goldenstein contributed to this report. House Speaker Nancy Pelosis, D-Calif., announcement that she is not for impeachment has caused resistance on the left. Pelosi is not trying to protect President Donald Trump. She is trying to protect the Democratic Party from its lunatic fringe. Its an increasingly difficult challenge. Pelosi is the first House speaker in six decades to return to the job a second time. But the Democratic majority she now presides over is much different from the one she led in 2007. Since the 2018 midterm elections that gave her back the speakers gavel, her party has gone off the rails. First, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., hijacked Pelosis agenda by announcing her Green New Deal an upward of $90 trillion-plus miasma of government spending that proposes to provide everyone with health care, a government jobs guarantee, free education, medical leave, job training, retirement security and universal basic income to support those who, as she put in her infamous talking points, are unwilling to work. And thats before we even get to the energy and environmental policies. After that troubled rollout, Pelosi tried to dismiss the plan as the green dream or whatever they call it and declared it will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive. Pelosi favors a more modest, realistic agenda of bolstering Obamacare, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, building infrastructure, passing gun restrictions and other conventional Democratic priorities. But many Democrats do not share her lack of enthusiasm for full socialism. Virtually every Democratic presidential candidate has some kind support for the Green New Deal, making a socialist takeover of the American economy the centerpiece of the Democratic Partys agenda. Thats bad enough. But Pelosi has also had to deal with the mess created by another left-wing insurgent, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., whose anti-Semitic remarks have exposed a virulent strain of anti-Jewish hatred that is gripping the left. A resolution condemning Omars anti-Semitism faced such intense internal opposition that Pelosi had to replace it with a watered-down version that condemned not just anti-Semitism but also all forms of hate including anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities rendering it meaningless. Pelosis next move was to try and head off a suicidal impeachment drive gaining strength on her left flank. Anticipating that special counsel Robert Mueller may not find incontrovertible evidence that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to steal the 2016 election, Pelosi announced that unless theres something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I dont think we should go down that path. That wont stop Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who vowed on taking office to impeach the mother(expletive) and has announced she plans to introduce a resolution to start impeachment proceedings. Pelosi knows that such an impeachment effort would divide Democrats and might not even pass the House. And even if it did, there is zero chance that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict Trump for something other than a criminal conspiracy with Russia. A failed impeachment would energize Trumps base, raise Trumps approval ratings and alienate the very suburban voters Democrats just peeled away from the GOP to win the House majority in the 2018 midterms. Most important, she knows it would distract Democrats from the agenda Pelosi wants to pursue. During a private meeting last week, Pelosi reportedly asked House Democrats, Do we want to drag him down or do we want to lift people up? The answer from the Resistance is becoming clear: Drag him down! Pelosi wants to do more than resist; she wants to govern. She wants to enact legislation. To do that, Democrats need to win back the Senate and the White House in 2020. But the Ocasio-Cortez-Omar-Tlaib wing of the party seems determined to undermine that strategy by pursuing a platform of socialism, anti-Semitism and impeachment. If they prevail, not only will Trump not be impeached hell also likely become a two-term president. @marcthiessen American politicians are wasting time debating whether to build the wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Illegal immigration to the U.S. from Central America and Mexico will continue because of the rampant government, judiciary and police corruption in these countries. La mordida (the bribe) is part of the cultural makeup of these countries. A basic traffic ticket, for example, can be avoided by paying a police officer a mordida. While there are innumerable cases of corruption in these countries, there are a few in Mexico that readily come to mind. Corruption in Mexico dates back to Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador who sailed to Veracruz, Mexico, in 1521 with approximately 500 Spaniards. This event initiated the conquest of Mexico and the rest of Latin America by Spain. The Spaniards (peninsulares) came with the sole purpose of stealing gold and land from the Aztecs. They established themselves much like the Mafia did by selling government posts and land among themselves. In 1876, Porfirio Diaz ruled as a ruthless dictator until the Mexican Revolution of 1910-21. The indigenous and mestizo population were second-class citizens then and remain so today. Not much has changed in the 21st century. Enrique Pena Nieto, the ex-president of Mexico (2012-2018), and the first lady built a $7 million mansion with government funds funneled to their personal bank accounts. They named it La casa blanca (the white house). Another former Mexican president, Carlos Salinas de Gotari (1988-1994), fled his country after the devaluation of the peso, the worst economic crisis to date. His brother Raul, who worked for the government, stashed $83.9 million in Swiss bank accounts. It was believed to be acquired from laundering drug-trafficking money. This type of extravagance is common among the elite, which forms 10 percent of the population while 30 percent are middle class and 60 percent live in poverty. Furthermore, it is known that Mexican ex-governors such as Humberto Moreira of Coahuila and Tomas Yarrington of Tamaulipas invested ill-gotten money in the U.S. with impunity. The State Department and Justice Department have not taken a hard stance on corruption and on how the U.S. financial system facilitates it, according to Tony Payan in his article Why the U.S. needs to help Mexico fight corruption in The Hill. Much like the conquistadors who fled back to Spain with galleons full of gold, many modern-day politicians and their families depart their country with stolen goods. Jorge Ramos, a news anchor for Univision, proposes to combat corruption by creating an International Commission against Corruption in Mexico under the auspices of the United Nations. This was done in Guatemala in 2007, and it was successful in removing President Otto Perez Molina and his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, from office. If Mexican presidential candidates would agree to such a commission, it would be a twofold approach for combating corruption from the inside-in and the outside-in. The commission would operate under Mexican law as it conducted criminal investigations and proposed reforms to the judiciary. However, many Mexican politicians would oppose this because the corrupt system preserves their status. The U.S. government should support this type of approach. Proficiency in Spanish and knowledge of Mexican history and politics would aid U.S. diplomats and politicians tremendously. The endless debate about the wall, whether it should be erected, is like placing a Band-Aid over the cancerous corruption. Lane Carnes is the author of The Archs Prism (El prisma del arco) in 2014, Solitary Impressions in 2016 and City of Voices (La ciudad de las voces) in 2018. Tom Luby, a healthcare executive with entrepreneurial and corporate experience, will be the next leader of the Texas Medical Center Innovation Institute. He replaces Erik Halvorsen who stepped down a few months ago. The announcement on Monday comes as TMC Innovation eyes a period of growth and prepares to build the TMC research campus. William McKeon, president and chief executive of the Texas Medical Center, said Luby's hiring could be its most important of the next several years. "There is so much momentum right now, and to misstep on this would be terrible," he said. "I'm 110 percent confident that (Luby) will go well above and take this program to the next level." More on Halvorsen: TMC confirms that leader of its Innovation Institute has stepped down Luby came to Houston in early 2017 to lead the Johnson & Johnson Innovation life science incubator, called JLABS @ TMC. He was previously in Boston helping Johnson & Johnson Innovation close deals with pharmaceutical and consumer companies. His experience spans both the corporate and startup side of health care innovation, with 14 years in research and development and business development positions. Nine of those were at three biotech startups in the Boston area. "I needed someone who could not only operate down at the startup level," McKeon said, "but also could work really well at the strategic corporate level. And Tom has that in spades." Since its debut in October 2014, TMC Innovation has assisted 251 companies that have received or committed to receive more than $900 million in overall funding. This includes 10 investments from the $25 million TMC Venture Fund. Details on a new research campus: TMC takes major step toward collaborative biomed facility "That's from zero to 60 in a very short amount of time," Luby said. "It feels like we're going to be able to add fuel to that fire now and really be able to scale." Luby said his initial priorities would include strengthening the ties between TMC Innovation's various units, which range from Johnson & Johnson to the in-house TMCx accelerator program and the TMCx+ coworking space. He wants startups to understand all the resources available. TMC Innovation is a "rare place for health care startups to find," he said, adding that it provides a business incubator, accelerator, corporate partners, education and funding under one roof. Luby will also work to recruit more corporations to TMC Innovation, and he would focus on selecting other countries for the TMC BioBridge program. That program currently works with Australia and the U.K. to help give their startups a foothold and landing pad in the U.S. At HoustonChronicle.com: TMCx builds bridges to Australia's health tech sector McKeon said he received applications from about 60 people, including those leading innovation spaces around the country. He praised Luby for his humility and passion in helping companies succeed. He also believes Luby will build a great team of employees. "He is so talented," McKeon said. "I was not allowing Houston to lose him." PRESIDENT Mnangagwa returns home today, cutting short his visit of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to make sure he is directly involved with the national response to victims of Cyclone Idai disaster that has struck the country mainly in Manicaland, Mashonaland East and Masvingo. The cyclone has killed 70 people and destroyed infrastructure especially in the eastern and southern parts of the country and the President will provide leadership during one of the darkest moments of disaster. President Mnangagwa landed in Abu Dhabi on Saturday for strategic engagements with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. President Mnangagwas visit was at the invitation of the Crown Prince and part of his vigorous re-engagement agenda aimed at establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relations with other countries. Zimbabwe has endured close to two decades of international isolation and illegal Western sanctions which have harmed the economy. In an interview with The Herald yesterday after touring the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Wahat Al Karawa Memorial Centre in Abu Dhabi, President Mnangagwa said he was rushing back home to be with his people following the cyclone-induced challenges. It is true that we have the Cyclone Idai that has come from the Mozambique Channel. It has caused devastating damage both on human and property, on the Mozambican side extensively, and also affected the eastern and southern parts of Zimbabwe, so I am rushing back home to be with my people as they go through this period of challenge, said President Mnangagwa. Following the cyclone, the President incorporated in his schedule a plea for assistance for cyclone victims that resulted in engagements with representatives of UAE Red Crescent. A list of immediate requirements for the victims of the cyclone was submitted to the UAE Red Crescent. These comprise food, shelter, medicines, sanitation and ablutions, power, logistics and lighting requirements and educational facilities On medium term, it is largely building and roofing material for homes and institutions including schools. Requirements for the medium to long term include earthmoving equipment, road reconstruction, water rehabilitation, borehole drilling and power restoration. Zimbabwe also requires water treatment tablets for at least a million litres. The Herald understands that the UAE Red Crescent is sending a team to Zimbabwe to carry out disaster assessment inventory requirement. The President has declared a State of disaster in respect to areas that were affected by Cyclone Idai. Herald Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News President Emmerson Mnangagwa has arrived back home from the United Arab Emirates where he had to cut short his visit to come home and help assist families and communities affected by the devastating effects of Cyclone Idai. The President said the country is deeply grieved by the loss of lives and the destruction left in the wake of the cyclone and saw it fit to come back home. He added that the countrys special forces are doing all they can to assist in rescue efforts to affected families. Cde Mnangagwa also paid tribute to the authorities for the efforts they made in managing the situation in his absence. ZBC Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News OPPOSITION MDC leader Nelson Chamisa is reportedly planning to visit the Cyclone Idai-ravaged Manicaland province this week for a first-hand assessment of the disaster and appreciate the needs of the affected families. The president is praying for the people in Manicaland and his team is preparing for him to visit affected areas, while through party organs we are also co-ordinating efforts to give a helping hand. We are well aware that this has nothing to do with politics, but the people of Zimbabwe, said an MDC insider. Chamisa, through his spokesperson Nkululeko Sibanda, expressed empathy and called on well-wishers to assist the families. The State has an obligation to support citizens in need. Let us mobilise everything necessary to ensure the safety and comfort of citizens. The latest tragedy is an important reminder of the necessity of the States disaster preparedness Lives have been lost. We empathise with all who have suffered from the natural catastrophe. We appeal to all well-wishers to support our people in need, he said. MDC President Chamisa is a trained pastor with the Apostolic Faith Mission church. MDC spokesperson Jacob Mafume called out President Mnangagwa, saying his trip to the United Arab Emirites (UAE) was irresponsible and showed his lack of care for the ordinary people. Doctors are struggling to assist patients with absolutely no support from government. A cyclone is wreaking havoc in the eastern parts of the country. Old problems such as fuel shortages persist, yet Mnangagwa flies out once more. The MDC condemns this kind of behaviour; such opulence of travelling in luxury on the back of taxpayers in the face of crisis and poverty is a clear sign of showing no respect and care for the citizen, he said in a statement. Mafume joined hundreds of citizens on social media, who said Mnangagwa should not have flown to the UAE, especially given that the country was aware of the cyclone before he left. What kind of person leaves behind dying children, sinking homes, washed away bridges and goes on a dish-sampling mission in the Middle East? But Information ministry secretary Ndabaningi Mangwana disputed the opposition claims, saying Mnangagwas trip was not a vacation, but critical engagement that would bring lots of benefits to the country. The President is not on some working exotic holiday. The purpose of his journey is for the benefit of this country. He has deployed resources to deal with the disaster from the cyclone, unless you wanted him to personally drive the choppers. His presence here would not stop the rains, Mangwana said. Civil Society groups rapped the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) for being ill-prepared for the disaster although it had received prior warnings from the Meteorogical Services Department. Human rights activist Farai Maguwu said the government should have evacuated people living in high risk areas prior to the disaster. There was a warning by the Meteorological Services Department days before this devastating cyclone. There was no single disaster preparedness to save the lives of the people. They did not care and the government could have equipped the Civil Protection Unit, he said. Meanwhile, several organisations, among them Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) and Econet have started mobilising donations for the cyclone victims. AMH are publishers of NewsDay, The Standard, Zimbabwe Independent, Southern Eye and also proprietors of online radio and television station, Heart&Soul. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News A distraught man has approached the Harare Civil Court seeking a protection order against his much younger wife alleging that she was assaulting him for failing to satisfy her in bed. According to H-Metro, Tinotenda Mudevairi whose age was not revealed told the Magistrate that his wife, Moline Moyo was abusing her and telling him that he was too old to satisfy her in bed even though she knew that he was 20 years older than her when she agreed to marry him. Narrating his case to the Magistrate, Mudevairi said, She is my wife, but she assaults me saying that I am advanced in age and can no longer satisfy herWe are no longer sleeping in the same bed, whenever I try to touch her she assaults me saying that I am not her type. I am tired of living like this or else she should leave because I am not enjoying my matrimonial rights. When we got married she that I was 20 older than she and I think that she only wanted my money. An unapologetic Moline did not deny the allegations and instead told the court, I assaulted him because he forces me to have se_x with him yet he cant satisfy me. I tried to engage his relatives over his behaviour but they told me that when I got married to him he was old enough to be my father. I opted out of our bedroom as I have a right to do so. Harare Magistrate Noah Gwatidzo who was presiding over the matter ruled in favour of Mudevairi and granted the protection order against his wife. He ordered Moline not to abuse her elderly husband. HMetro Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News At least 43 people were injured when a CAG bus headed to Harare overturned three times on Saturday, police said. The bus, travelling from Victoria Falls, rolled off the highway at the 134-kilometre peg along Kadoma Road in the early hours of the morning, trapping passengers underneath the vehicle, police and paramedics said. The cause of the accident, after which seven passengers were in a critical condition, is not yet known, police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said. The cause of the accident is still under investigation and we suspect that the driver may have lost control of the bus due to speeding, Nyathi said. He said the injured occupants were treated in Kadoma and seven of them were referred to Harare. Zimbabwe has problems with road safety. Dozens of people are killed in accidents every year, according to the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News I am running for re-election to continue providing effective leadership at City Hall and impactful results for residents and local businesses, Rotering said. I bring the depth and breadth of experience that is necessary to serve as mayor. My background in business, law and government, coupled with significant experience in intergovernmental work, provide me with the necessary tools to address the challenges our residents are facing while also planning for the future. Patient readers, we just this instant switched on the codes for a new advertising vendor. A very much unintended and unexpected side effect is that some of you may be seeing video and other pop-ups. We were very clear in that these types of ads were not allowed. We are working to make them go away as fast as we can, because we know how much you hate them (and we do too)! lambert Update by Yves: The site seems to load faster with the new ads (the ads were what would slow down loading times), so once we get the popups sorted out (which thank God are appearing only on the landing page and so arent interfering with reading articles), this should be a net plus to readers once we get past transition issues. Stonehenge-like monuments were home to giant pig feasts. Now, we know who was on the guest list Science Whats the cost (in fish) between 1.5 and 3 degrees of warming? Anthropocene Home Of Strategic Command And Some Of The USAFs Most Prized Aircraft Is Flooding (Updated) The Drive Radical plan to artificially cool Earths climate could be safe, study finds Grist Fire Breaks Out At a Houston-Area Petrochemicals Terminal Bloomberg. Second in a week. Video: The heat is deforming this metal storage tank. Some of the first responders are worried it will collapse. pic.twitter.com/Y3ZsjJ96zj Respectable Lawyer (@RespectableLaw) March 18, 2019 Leave the oil in the ground, and this doesnt happen The Fed has exacerbated Americas new housing bubble FT Churches are opening their doors to businesses in order to survive CBS Some county treasurers have flouted Iowa gift law for years Bleeding Heartland Corporations Are Co-Opting Right-To-Repair Wired Brexit Macron calls for strong decisions after violent Yellow Jacket protests Politico Among the Gilets Jaunes LRB Syraqistan North Korea New Cold War Trump Transition 737 Max Big Brother Is Watching You Watch More Than a Data Dump Harpers. Why Julian Assange deserves First Amendment protection. Democrats in Disarray Establishment Democrats Are Undermining Medicare for All Truthout. As I kept saying with my midterms worksheets, the liberal Democrat leaderships #1 priority is to prevent #MedicareForAll, and to that end they shifted the center of gravity of the electeds against it. Now we see this strategy born out in falling sponsorship numbers. Even a Vacuous Mueller Report Wont End Russiagate Stephen Cohen, The Nation. [T]he Democrats and their media are now operating on the Liberty Valance principle: When the facts are murky or nonexistent, print the legend. Venture capitalist Steve Case spreading funding to Middle America with Rise of the Rest CBS Class Warfare What the Hell Actually Happens to Money You Put in A Flexible Spending Account? Splinter Super bloom shutdown: Lake Elsinore shuts access after crowds descend on poppy fields Los Angeles Times. Desperate for social media attention, some visitors have trampled through the orange poppy fields, despite official signs warning against doing so. Thanks, influencers! Antidote du jour (via): See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. Nature has manufactured the perfect machines. Only the fastest, toughest, and most cunning creatures have endured. We examine how animals have evolved and how we can benefit from their evolution. Sundays from 8:30pm AEDT. NATOs Open Door policy extends our shared area of peace and stability and enriches our Alliance with new voices, new experiences, and new capabilities, said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He delivered a keynote speech today (18 March) at a German Marshall Fund (GMF) event titled NATO at seventy post-Cold War enlargement and the future of Transatlantic security. This year, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland celebrate 20 years since joining NATO; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia mark 15 years since becoming members, and Albania and Croatia the 10th anniversary of their accession. The Secretary General praised their great commitment to our Alliance. This includes the contribution of brave and professional troops to NATO missions and operations from Afghanistan and Iraq to the Western Balkans, and to NATOs multinational forces in the eastern part of the Alliance. Mr. Stoltenberg also paid tribute to those Allies who lead by example when it comes to burden-sharing by investing 2 percent of their GDP in defence. NATOs Open Door and the enlargement of the European Union have helped spread freedom, democracy and human rights. And we must continue to work hard every day to uphold those values, the Secretary General said. NATO enlargement is not a provocation. We respect the right of every sovereign nation to decide their own destiny, without force and without interference, the Secretary General said, confirming that the Alliances door remains open. We are welcoming one new member, the Republic of North Macedonia, already an invitee at NATOs table, he added. The GMF event saw discussions and speeches by politicians, diplomats and senior analysts, including Radmila Sekerinska, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of North Macedonia. The foreign ministers from the celebrating countries, diplomats, business representatives and academics an also attended the conference. The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will meet the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, H.E. Mr. Zoran Zaev, on Tuesday, 19 March 2019. Media Advisory 16:45 Joint press point by NATO Secretary General and Prime Minister of North Macedonia podium in the Agora (movement from Public Square Press Shop at 16:30) The press point will be web streamed live on the NATO website. Still and video images will be available on the NATO website after the event. Follow us on Twitter (@NATO, @NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg) Professional-quality videos and b-roll will be available for download from www.natomultimedia.tv. Please register for access. Contact: content@natomultimedia.tv Accreditation Media permanently accredited at NATO Media representatives in possession of permanent NATO media pass can access the NATO HQ directly by tapping their badge at the turnstiles at NATO HQ Guard House South GHS, NATO Headquarters, Boulevard Leopold III 1110). Ad-hoc accreditation (day-pass) Media representatives not permanently accredited and wishing to attend the event are invited to request ad-hoc accreditation directly at NATO HQ Guard House South (media entrance) on Tuesday 19 March 2019 starting from 13:00 (Brussels time). They will have to present a proof of ID/passport and a valid press card (provided by a recognised national professional body of a NATO country i.e. Government, Professional association, Union of journalists). Media representatives not in possession of a valid press card are invited to send a signed letter from their editor to the NATO Accreditation Office by email to NatoAccreditations@hq.nato.int no later than Tuesday 19 March 12:00 noon (Brussels time). Please type NOM in the subject line of the message. Security Procedures A security check will take place and all equipment and personal effects carried onto the site will be examined by security personnel. Media representative are therefore encouraged to arrive with sufficient lead time to allow for security proceedings. Overall Coordination Ms Ioana Tudorie Telephone: +32 (0)2 707 50 42 tudorie.ioana@hq.nato.int Accreditation Mr Angelo Pacifico Telephone: +32 (0)2 707 83 46 NatoAccreditations@hq.nato.int TV & Radio arrangements on site and via satellite Mr Henk Dekens Telephone: +32 (0)2 707 50 51 Dekens.Henk@hq.nato.int Mr Serge Bosmans Telephone: +32 (0)2 707 50 03 Bosmans.Serge@hq.nato.int Mr Eric Morel Telephone: +32 (0)2 707 12 87 Morel.Eric@hq.nato.int NATO Video on demand NATOChannel Telephone: +32 (0)2 707 12 27 content@natomultimedia.tv On 15 March 2019, the North Atlantic Council welcomed Colombias International Demining Centre (CIDES) into the network of NATO Partnership Training and Education Centres (PTEC). Since 1999, PTECs have played an essential role in supporting NATO, notably by offering multiple courses and training to Allies and partners. To date, 34 Centres (including CIDES), based in 25 NATO and partner countries, have joined the NATO network. More Centres have expressed their interest in joining the community. As NATO focuses on helping partners to develop viable, efficient and resilient defence institutions, the PTEC community is heavily engaged in adding sustainable and concrete value. In 2018, PTECs trained close to 50,000 personnel and conducted around 1,300 courses - with 715 provided to NATO Allies and partners. In addition, the PTEC community put together around 200 Mobile Training Teams. A substantial number of collaborative research projects were conducted by PTECs, frequently in cooperation with other institutes. As part of the PTEC community, CIDES will contribute to the education and training of personnel from NATO nations and partners in the crucial area of humanitarian and military demining. The decision for CIDES to join the PTEC network was made in the context of the NATO-Colombia Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme. Agreed in May 2017, this Programme paved the way for increased cooperation between NATO and Colombia, identifying humanitarian and operational demining as an area where Colombias unique expertise could support NATO Allies and partners. (As delivered) Dear Ian, ministers, ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen, First of all thank you so much for hosting us today, and I know that you have already addressed the fact that this year is an important year for NATO for many different reasons. 12 Allies are celebrating the fact that they have joined the Alliance. We are also welcoming this year the new member, the Republic of North Macedonia as a member of the Alliance, and North Macedonia already participate in NATO meetings as an invitee. And then, of course, we also celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Alliance. And then I celebrate that also that I became 60 just a few days ago. [applause] Its actually nothing to celebrate, its serious matters. But actually, one more thing, and that is that last year or, no, back in 2017, we marked the fact that in 1947, we marked that it was 70 years since the Marshall Plan created in 1947. And this plan was a bold plan and a bold vision to rebuilt . . . to rebuild Europe and to strengthen the transatlantic partnership. It paved the way for institutions like NATO, which have underpinned the transatlantic security and prosperity ever since. The GMF was also instrumental in driving the debate on enlargement and continues to encourage cooperation and innovation. So this is really an ideal place to mark all these anniversaries. And let me just highlight that the GMF was, and has been, extremely important in driving the enlargement agenda. And many of you will remember that enlargement was not obvious. It was actually quite controversial in the 1990s. Many Allies were a bit reluctant, uncertain, and it was in no way given that NATO would embark on such a huge undertaking and to really open its door and go from 16 members to, today, almost 30 members of the Alliance. And many of you sitting in this audience have played a key role, instrumental part, of making that happen and I thank you for doing exactly that. For most of Europes history, conflict was our constant companion. The last 70 years have been the exception and we should not take peace for granted. In 1949 our founding fathers had the vision not just to create NATO, but also to keep the Alliances door open open to any European nation willing to promote NATOs values and able to contribute to our shared security. NATO enlargement is not a provocation. And I say that because sometimes we hear that the fact that NATO has enlarged is a provocation against others. Its not a provocation, it is a result of independent sovereign decisions by independent sovereign nations. And we should never accept that when independent sovereign nations make independent and sovereign decisions that thats a provocation against anyone else. If we accept that, we actually accept the old idea of spheres of influence, that big countries have the right to decide what other neighbours, smaller nations, can do. And I say that also very much as a Norwegian, because if anyone back in 1949 have asked Joseph Stalin whether he liked or disliked that Norway joined NATO, of course he would have said, I disliked it. Actually he didnt. Only this, as he actually . . . the Soviet Union was of the clear opinion that they didnt like a neighbour, as Norway, to join the Alliance. But it is a fundamental right of every nation to decide its own path and NATO enlargement has been a great demonstration of that sovereign right to decide your own path. Therefore NATO respect the right of every sovereign nation to decide their own destiny without force and without interference, whether they decide to join NATO, or they decide to not join NATO. We believe in a world without spheres of influence. Coming from a small country like Norway, as I just said, this is a fundamental and important principle. In 1989, that was the year when Europe was utterly transformed. It was the most striking change in Euro-Atlantic . . . in the Euro-Atlantic area in our generation: with Communism losing its grip and the ideals of democracy and free market economy taking hold; with nuclear disarmament promising to end a costly and dangerous arms race; and cooperation replacing confrontation. Change came through peaceful protests, through popular movements and through the bravery of countless men and women. But change also involved hard choices and hard work to implement difficult reforms and put aside old disputes with neighbours, to invest in a better future for every citizens, to join a family where these countries felt they have always belonged. NATOs open door and the enlargement of the European Union have helped spread freedom and democracy and human rights. And we must continue to work hard every day to uphold those values. Let us remember that the Alliance do not stand in the way of strong and independent nations. NATO exists precisely to ensure the freedom and prosperity in which sovereign countries and peoples can thrive. Today Im happy to join you in celebrating 20 years since the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO. Fifteen years since Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became members and ten years since Albania and Croatia joined the Alliance. All of your countries, and youre all represented here today, have shown great commitment to our Alliance. You contribute brave and professional troops to our missions and operations, to fight terrorism and to maintain stability beyond our borders, from Afghanistan and Iraq to the Western Balkans. You shore up the eastern part of our Alliance from the Baltic to the Black Sea, hosting and contributing to NATO multinational forces. And many of you lead by example when it comes to burden sharing within our Alliance, already investing 2 percent of your GDP in defence. And let me just remind you of the fact that when we made the defence investment pledge back in 2014, that was after years of cutting defence spending across the Alliance, in Europe and also Canada had reduced defence spending over several years. What we have seen since we made that investment . . . defence investment pledge back in 2014, is that now all Allies have stopped the cuts. All Allies have started to increase defence spending. And more and more allies meet the 2 percent goal. Back in 2014 only three Allies spent 2 percent of GDP on defence. This year, or 2018, seven Allies met the 2 percent target and Romania was extremely close. The majority of NATO Allies have put forward plans, national plans on how to reach the 2 percent target. So we have really started to move, Allies are investing more in defence and just since 2016 European Allies and Canada have added 41 billion extra US dollars and we expect that number to be a 100 billion . . . 41 billion more US dollars since 2016, and we expect that number to be 100 billion extra US dollars for defence by the end of next year. So, and not least, those who have joined the last 20 years, the last two decades, have contributed to the increase in defence spending among European Allies. So we thank you for all your contributions. We thank you for your contributions to our shared security, to our collective defence, and to many NATO missions and operations. NATOs open door policy serves both our values and our interests. It is a positive driver for reform; it extends our shared area of peace and stability; and it enriches our Alliance with new voices, new experiences and new capabilities. Since 1989, NATO has almost doubled in size from 16 members during the Cold War to soon 30 friends and Allies. During my tenure, I was proud to welcome Montenegro in 2017. And I was just as proud when we signed the accession protocol with the Republic of North Macedonia this February. This was possible because of the historic agreement between Athens and Skopje on the name issue, which ended almost three decades of dispute and promises greater stability and prosperity for the whole region. NATOs door remains open. We continue to work with the three aspirant countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine, to bring them closer. This year of anniversaries is cause for celebration. At the same time we cannot be complacent. We cannot squander the hard-won gains of those who have came before us. They knew that history does not just happen, but that it takes courage and conviction to shape our world and defend our values. Today in 2019, just as in 1949 and 1989, NATO is adapting to a more complex and unpredictable world. This is what has made us the most successful alliance in history, faced with the greatest security challenges in a generation, we are increasing the readiness of forces, investing more in our collective defence, and modernising our Alliance. We are doing more together, with more partners, in more places, than ever before. And thats actually a paradox, because what we see now is that questions are raised about the strength of the transatlantic partnership on both sides of the Atlantic. Those questions are asked at the same time as we actually are doing more together, North America and Europe, than we have done for many years. The US is not decreasing its presence in Europe, but the US is actually increasing its presence in Europe, with more troops, more exercises, more funding for US presence, and more investments in infrastructure. We are doing more together with the battlegroups in the Baltic countries, with the increased presence in the Black Sea region, adapting and strengthening the command structure, spending more and exercising more. And European Allies are stepping up. So the reality is that we are actually strengthening the transatlantic bond when it comes to security and defence. We are doing more together and actions speak louder than words. So we see the strength of the Alliance, just in times where we need a strong transatlantic bond to respond to a more unpredictable and uncertain world. So while the world around us has changed dramatically, our commitment to protect and defend one another has not. NATO remains both an anchor of stability and a beacon of hope. Thank you so much. (Natural News) Most people who pay attention to politics wouldnt describe former first daughter Chelsea Clinton as not being woke or liberal enough. But the increasingly radical Leftist faction of the Democrat Party is always looking to attack anyone who isnt sufficiently outraged about what they have deemed outrage-worthy for the day. The recent attack on two mosques in New Zealand by a self-described eco-fascist and supporter of Chinese communism, Brenton Tarrant, drew much anger and resentment from all over the world and throughout the United States from people all over the political spectrum. Thats because most of us dont support mass murder of any ethnic or religious group, regardless of the reason. While conservatives disagree with Clinton on a lot of things politically, theyd be hard pressed to convince each other that she wasnt extremely upset not just about the horrific loss of life in Christchurch, but also the apparent anti-Muslim motivation behind the attack. And yet, students at New York University felt it necessary to berate Clinton on Friday for allegedly putting words out into the world that stoked Islamophobia which, in their sequestered little world are what led Tarrant to kill and wound more than 100 people this week. Specifically, Breitbart News reported, the angry extremists were further triggered by Clintons condemnation of anti-Semitism also a form of religious bigotry that has been offered up and perpetuated by freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), which earned her a rebuke from Congress, sort of, last week. Co-signed as an American, Clinton tweeted in response to a tweet condemning Omar. We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism. A group of students confronted the former first daughter on the NYU campus where they proceeded to accuse her of provoking Islamophobia that, with her words, then helped to facilitate the attack in New Zealand. Never mind that, in Tarrants own manifesto, he notes that his travels to Europe and Asia over the past few years, where he says he witnessed rising anxiety and resentment to mass Muslim migration, are what radicalized him. A pregnant Clinton was verbally confronted as she attempted to attend a prayer vigil for the victims of the attack in what turned out to be a bizarre confrontation as students blamed the mosque shootings on her rhetoric, Breitbart reported. After all that you have done, all the Islamophobia you have stoked, a female student can be heard saying to Clinton at the start of one video that captured the scene. (Related: PROOF that Muslim student groups in universities are actually terrorism recruitment fronts for ISIS.) I am so sorry that you feel that way, said Clinton. Certainly, it was never my intention. I do believe words matter. I believe we have to show solidarity with each other Who thinks like this? People who have been taught The Left-wing outrage mob would have none of that. [Words] do matter, interrupted the student, This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you have put out into the world, she added, as she appeared to gesture toward the vigil. And I want you to know that. I want you to feel that deep inside, that 49 people died because of the rhetoric that you put out there, the student said. Meanwhile, other Leftist bots looking on snapped their fingers, which is a sign of approval among the youth these days. I am so sorry you feel that way, responded a clearly bewildered Clinton. What does, Im sorry you feel that way mean? asked a nearby male student. What does that mean? Here is a pregnant Chelsea Clinton being accosted in public by NYU students blaming her for the New Zealand massacre. You are free to have your opinion, but how you express yourself matters. Note how Clinton never shuts down or stops listening, despite not deserving any of this. pic.twitter.com/V6XcC3lWCB Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) March 16, 2019 Who to blame? Lets start with the Marxist professors who have brainwashed these kids into thinking a) theirs is the only opinion that matters; b) Leftist dogma is a substitute for real-world experiences; and c) that speaking out against anti-Semitism is a dog whistle to go shoot Muslims. Who thinks like this? Answer: People who have been taught to think like this. Read more about how Left-wing activists posing as teachers have destroyed our education at EducationSystem.news. Sources include: TheNationalSentinel.com Breitbart.com (Natural News) Lets get one thing straight: The Democratic Left hates the Constitution. They always have and they always will because it is so effective in preventing authoritarians like them from taking over all the reins of power. Case in point: The National Popular Vote initiative, which if enacted by enough states would negate the founders vision for establishing the Electoral College. The Democratic Left cant change the Electoral College system so theyre trying to find a way to bypass it. The Left looks at sabotaging the Second Amendment in the same way. Because they know they wont ever muster support among enough states to repeal it, they are focusing instead on strategies to simply neuter it. Thats what Operation Choke Point (OCP) was designed to do. As a refresher, OCP was an Obama-era initiative implemented by lawless hacks at his Justice Department to investigate (i.e. harass) banks that did business with gun dealers, as well as payday lenders and other companies thought to be involved in fraud or money-laundering. As Frank Keating wrote in The Hill last year: A little-known program carried out by President Obamas Department of Justice (DOJ) whipsawed small business for years, and to date no one has been held accountable. Federal officials pressured banks to close the accounts of businesses solely because they were ideologically opposed to their existence. This runs counter to the very principles of due process and fairness that form the backbone of our nations laws. The Obamaites knew they couldnt get a GOP Congress to approve legislation that would put gun makers and dealers out of business, so they devised another way to do it: Ruin them economically by cutting off their access to financial services, despite the fact that they were lawful businesses operating on the up-and-up. Thankfully, President Donald Trumps Justice Department ended the program. In a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd referred to the program as a misguided initiative. We reiterate that the Department will not discourage the provision of financial services to lawful industries, including businesses engaged in short-term lending and firearms-related activities, the letter continued, The National Sentinel reported. (Related: Liberals unleash economic warfare to SILENCE conservatives in effort to BAN gun sales.) Best practices is a euphemism for do what authoritarian Leftists demand But of course, the Leftist objective of circumventing the Constitution never dies, it merely dies down, only to be reborn anew at a later date. Last week, Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee browbeat Wells Fargo President and Chief Executive Officer Timothy J. Sloan over a number of issues, including the fact that his company does business with the NRA and other firearms sellers, Ammoland reported. How dare the company do that, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) lectured. How dare Wells Fargo not bow to the browbeating of Leftist Democrats and follow the lead of other banks in ditching gun makers and retailers. Specifically, she blasted Sloan because Wells Fargo hasnt adopted what the anti-gun Left calls best practices for the banking industry when it comes to firearms: Refusing to sell long guns to anyone under 21 (though the military provides them to 18-year-old recruits and federal law sets 18 as the limit), and refusing to recognize the 3-day default transfer option that gun dealers may exercise if the FBI does not complete a background check, Ammoland reported. So really, Maloney couldnt point to anything that Wells Fargo had done wrong, legally; she was just perturbed that is company had elected not to punish gun sellers the way OCP once did. We just dont believe that it is a good idea to encourage banks to enforce legislation that doesnt exist, Sloan said. Democrats dont feel that way, obviously. If a law doesnt exist or if the Constitution recognizes a right the Left doesnt believe in, they will find some other way to impose their authoritarian will. Read more about the Lefts corrupt use of big government at Corruption.news and BigGovernment.news. Sources include: Ammoland.com TheNationalSentinel.com TheHill.com (Natural News) Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $29 million after a California jury determined that its baby powder contributed substantially to a womans mesothelioma. The immensely popular product, which has been widely used on babies and adults alike for decades, is the target of more than 13,000 similar lawsuits that have been filed against the company. Last year, a Los Angeles woman was awarded $25.7 million after a jury agreed the baby powder caused her cancer, while 22 Missouri women were awarded $4.69 billion in a similar suit after claiming using the powder in their genital area caused ovarian cancer. In the latest case, Teresa Leavitt was awarded $24.4 million after developing mesothelioma, a cancer affecting the tissue lining the lungs and other organs, while her husband was awarded $5 million. The award covered pain and suffering, medical costs, and lost wages. The award is only compensatory; the jury decided not to award punitive damages even though they found Johnson & Johnson responsible for 98 percent of the womans damages. Leavitt was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2017, and she had used the product for more than 30 years. Her complaint said that the company has known about the asbestos concerns in talcum powder since the early 1900s and has possessed scientific and medical data illustrating its health hazards. In a regulatory filing last month, J&J said it received subpoenas for more details about the dangerous products from the SEC and the Justice Department. This week, an epidemiologist testified before the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy that talc powder causes a significant increase in the risk of cancer. Many of the people suing the company argue that the talc in the baby powder is contaminated with asbestos something theyve shown Johnson & Johnson has known about for decades and covered up. Internal documents obtained by Reuters showed that three tests carried out at separate labs in the 1970s showed Johnson & Johnsons baby powder contained asbestos, but they failed to report it to the FDA and continued to sell the powder. According to the Reuters report, the companys executives, along with scientists, lawyers, doctors and mine managers, have known for decades that the powder is toxic, yet they did nothing and they even fought against regulators efforts to limit the levels of asbestos in talc products. Nevertheless, the company insists its products dont contain asbestos. The chemical was banned from all consumer talc products in the 1970s, although its important to keep in mind that asbestos has a long latency period, with mesothelioma diagnosis coming 20 years or longer after initial exposure. Even if todays products are safe and theres no guarantee that they are the talc has been sold and used for many years. The company said in a statement that it was disappointed by the verdict and planned to appeal it. Past appeals have had mixed success, and the company claims its legal losses stem from juror confusion, overzealous lawyers, and what it deems junk science. Stay away from talc products Its best to avoid talc products entirely given the questions about their safety. Its important to read labels carefully as its used in more than 2,000 personal care and beauty products. Last year, youth-oriented retailer Claires stopped selling products with talc and destroyed its existing stock after the FDA warned it had found asbestos in some of its products. Using these products simply isnt worth the risk. Scrutinize ingredient labels, and stick to natural products wherever possible especially when it comes to products you use daily and/or on babies. Depending on your intended purpose, some safer alternatives include organic oat powder, organic cornstarch, and baking soda. While its good to see companies being held accountable for deceiving and poisoning the public, its far too late for the many people who have already developed cancer and died from using these products. See Products.news for more breaking news stories about consumer products and their health risks. Sources for this article include: DailyWire.com Reuters.com NYTimes.com Extreme Block Party Family Expo and Taste of the Towns: Check it out from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. March 23 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Libertyville-Mundelein in Mundelein. More than 100 vendors representing home improvement, health and wellness, finance, fitness, educational and more will be on hand. Dave Dinaso's Traveling World of Reptiles will have a free show for kids. There will be food vendors and family fun. Admission is free. At 510 E. Illinois 83. Call 847-680-0750 or go to glmvchamber.org. An international team of scientists and conservationists has announced the finding of what many consider to be the 'holy grail' of bee discoveries - Wallace's giant bee. The bee (Megachile pluto) is the world's largest, with a wingspan more than six centimetres (2.5 inches). Despite its conspicuous size, the bee has been lost to science since 1981. In January, a search team that set out to find and photograph Wallace's giant bee successfully rediscovered the species in the North Moluccas, an island group in Indonesia. The find resurrects hope that more of the region's forests still harbour this very rare species. The discovery was announced today. A member of the team, Honorary Professor Simon Robson from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney, said: "Amid such a well-documented global decline in insect diversity it's wonderful to discover that this iconic species is still hanging on." Dr Robson and Dr Glen Chilton, an honorary professor at Saint Mary's University in Canada, joined with Eli Wyman from Princeton University and Clay Bolt, a conservation photographer from Montana, to successfully rediscover this bee. The team was supported by Global Wildlife Conservation, an Austin, Texas, based organisation that runs a Search for Lost Species program. "It was absolutely breathtaking to see this 'flying bulldog' of an insect that we weren't sure existed anymore," said Clay Bolt, a natural history photographer specialising in bees, who took the first photos and video of the species alive after spending years researching the right habitat with collaborator and team member, Eli Wyman from Princeton University. "To see how beautiful and big the species is in real life, to hear the sound of its giant wings thrumming as it flew past my head, was just incredible. My dream is to now use this rediscovery to elevate this bee to a symbol of conservation in this part of Indonesia." The female giant bee makes her nest in active arboreal termite mounds, using her large mandibles to collect sticky tree resin to line the nest and protect it from invading termites. In hot and humid conditions, and sometimes during torrential downpours, the team observed dozens of termite mounds over the course of the search. It wasn't until the last day of a five-day stop in an area of interest that the team found a single female Wallace's giant bee living in an arboreal termites' nest in a tree about 2.5 metres off the ground. The bee is named after Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer alongside Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution through natural selection. Wallace, a British entomologist, discovered the giant bee exploring the Indonesian island of Bacan. He described the female bee, which is about the length a human thumb, as "a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle". The bee wasn't seen again until 1981, when entomologist Adam Messer rediscovered it on three Indonesian islands and was able to observe some of its behaviour, including how it uses its mandibles to gather resin and wood for its nests. Since then, other teams have looked for the bee, with no luck. "Messer's rediscovery gave us some insight, but we still know next to nothing about this extraordinary insect," said Mr Wyman. "I hope this rediscovery will spark research that will give us a deeper understanding of this unique bee and inform any future efforts to protect it from extinction." Although little is known about the bee, the species depends on primary lowland forest for resin and the nests of tree-dwelling termites, Mr Bolt said. In Indonesia, forest destruction for agriculture, however, threatens the habitat for this species and many others. Between 2001 and 2017, Indonesia lost 15 percent of its tree cover, according to Global Forest Watch. The team has already started conversations with Indonesian collaborators to look for Wallace's giant bee in other locations - with the hope of eventually working together to develop a plan to strengthen conservation measures for the bee. A documentary film, In Search of the Giant Bee is now being produced by Vanessa Dylyn of Matter of Fact Media, in association with Glen Chilton. During the beginning of March 2019, Iran decided to dispatch its 61st naval group (consisting of the Sabalan frigate and the Bandar Abbas logistical support ship) to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden), to counter the piracy and thus secure maritime oil shipping in the area. During the beginning of March 2019, Iran decided to dispatch its 61st naval group (consisting of the Sabalan frigate and the Bandar Abbas logistical support ship) to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden), to counter the piracy and thus secure maritime oil shipping in the area. The Iranian Navy's Sabalan frigate (Picture source : US military) "The naval group is on a mission to provide security for the routes used by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) in the area of the Gulf of Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait," South Fleet Commander Rear Admiral Afshin Tashak said, speaking to Iranian media on March 17. The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the adjacent Gulf of Aden linking the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal are part of a major global shipping route. Actually, about 5 million barrels of oil are shipped through the strait each day. This helps to determine how important it is, particularly for a country such as Iran which is an important oil exporter, to secure this path. Therefore, Iran has deployed the Sabalan frigate, along with a Bandar Abbas vessel in this maritime area. The Sabalan frigate is equipped with a 114 mm main gun, along with anti-ship missiles, mortar, machine gun, torpedo tubes and anti-air defence weaponry. As for the Bandar Abbas, it is a lightly armed replenishment ship with an helicopter deck capable of carrying a lone light helicopter. Also on March 17, the 60th flotilla, consisting of two logistical ships, which fended off a pirate attack on an oil tanker last week, safely returned home to the southern Iranian port of Bushehr after completing a 5,600 nautical-mile journey. Standing beside the family of a 22-year-old black man who was fatally shot by police a year ago Monday, the Rev. Al Sharpton called for California to make it easier to prosecute officers who kill civilians and to require that all cases go before a grand jury. "The legacy is we're going to pass legislation in Stephon's name, the legacy is that we won't stop fighting for justice in Stephon's name," Sharpton said, referring to Stephon Clark. "You might have killed him a year ago, but you can't kill a movement." Sharpton spoke on the steps of the Capitol alongside Clark's brother, mother and grandmother, as well family attorney Ben Crump, who is known for representing the families of young black men killed by police. Two Sacramento officers responding to calls of someone breaking car windows shot Clark a year ago in his grandparents' backyard. Local and state prosecutors announced earlier this month that they would not charge the officers because police thought Clark had a gun and feared for their lives. Clark was holding only a cellphone. His death prompted intense protests in the capital city, with marchers shutting down a highway ramp and blocking fans from entering the downtown arena where the Sacramento Kings play. It also drew the attention of Sharpton and Crump, who represented the family of Trayvon Martin. Now Sharpton, Crump and the family are calling for sweeping changes to California laws dealing with police shootings. They're backing legislation by San Diego Assemblywoman Shirley Weber that would change the standard for when police can use deadly force. The measure says police must have a "reasonable"' need to open fire, instead of a "necessary" one. Weber proposed it last year after Clark's death, but the Democratic-led Senate blocked it from moving forward. Sharpton said such a change likely would have required the officers who shot Clark to show there was no other alternative than shooting him. He also called for lawmakers to require all police shooting investigations to be heard by a grand jury. A 2017 law requires that grand jury transcripts be made public in police shooting cases when the officers aren't indicted, but prosecutors can decide whether to press charges on their own. No such legislation has been introduced, but Sen. Steven Bradford said he's in "discussions" about it. Police unions do not support changing the use-of-force standards and are backing their own measure that would enhance officer training, with an emphasis on trying to calm suspects first. The California Police Chiefs Association did not comment on the grand jury idea. The Sacramento Police Department this month released transcripts of the interviews done with the officers in the hours after the shooting. Both described thinking Clark had a gun. Crump said Clark's death and the failure to charge the officers is an example of police discrimination against young black men. He noted white men have committed far worse crimes than vandalism, such as mass shootings, and come out alive. The announcements that they wouldn't be charged sparked new protests, including one in which police arrested 84 people in a wealthy Sacramento neighborhood. District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who declined to indict the officers, chose not to press charges against anyone arrested. Clark's family has called for peaceful demonstrations. "Let's march peacefully, because they want us to act ugly," said SeQuita Thompson, Clark's grandmother. "Let's stand tall and proud, for we will get justice one day for all our loved ones." Behind those who spoke Monday hung a white banner that said, "I am SAC," using Clark's initials as a play on the capital city's nickname. Hillary Clinton says she won't run for president in 2020, but vows she's "not going anywhere." The former secretary of state, senator and first lady ruled out another campaign during an interview posted Monday by New York TV station News12. Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, says, "I'm going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe." She says, "What's at stake in our country, the kind of things that are happening right now are deeply troubling to me." She says she has spoken with several of the candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, and has told them, "Don't take anything for granted, even though we have a long list of real problems and broken promises" from the Trump administration. When Fredericksburg, Virginia Police Officer Jonathan Piersol and Detective Paul Chewning answered an emergency call from a motel in April 2018, they expected the usual threats. "We're trained to watch the hands, watch for a threat," Chewning said. The two were summoned to help by Courtney Burrows who said her husband, James, was struggling to breathe after an apparent drug overdose. "At the time I didn't even think there was a risk to me. I thought I was there to help somebody," Piersol said. But during that response, the two didn't realize they were being exposed to a dangerous illegal drug the entire time they were helping the Burrows, showcasing the latest concern for police departments handling situations where illegal drugs are present. "We didn't know until at the end of this there was a white powder all over every surface inside that room. We couldn't see it, it was dark inside," Chewning said. While securing the scene and waiting for a search warrant, the two were unknowingly breathing in what was likely the drug Fentanyl. "I don't even know if the word high is the correct term, you felt under the influence of something," Chewning said. Two of the four officers were treated with Narcan, a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. The police department has now issued every patrol officer and detective two Narcans to use when helping a drug user or to use on themselves or another officer. Fredericksburg Police Chief David Nye said the nearly invisible threat presents a new range of dangers for police officers. "This is something that's kind of a new frontier for us, that officers are going to be threatened by something that they don't even see," Nye said. His department is now preparing a training video to assist other law enforcement agencies across the country with the hope of teaching officers how to avoid the hidden danger that illegal drugs can pose. Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke raised $6.1 million in the 24 hours after he declared he was running for president, his campaign announced Monday. NBC News reports that that figure surpasses Sen. Bernie Sanders' first-day fundraising haul of $5.9 million and all other 2020 Democrats who have disclosed that figure. Sanders' haul, then a record, had stunned observers. The next highest one-day total was $1.5 million donated to California Sen. Kamala Harris. O'Rourke's $6,136,763 in online contributions are a strong showing for the Texan, who set a fundraising record last year in his failed bid for Ted Cruz's seat in the U.S. Senate. His presidential campaign didn't provide more detailed information, like the number of donations or the size of the average contribution, which other campaigns have released. Arguably, ending the practice of simultaneously collecting two government salaries could be expanded to include the entire state, not just this northeast corner of the Land of Lincoln. To that end, Didech also is working on House Bill 3475 which would crack down on state lawmakers receiving multiple taxpayer-funded pensions and eliminate pensions for all future lawmakers. Good luck with that. Democrats' gains in state legislatures didn't end with last November's elections. Over the past two months, as lawmakers were sworn in and this year's statehouse sessions got underway, Republicans in California, Kansas and New Jersey switched their party affiliations to become Democrats. They cited various reasons, but the party-switchers have one thing in common: They say the GOP under President Donald Trump has become too extreme. "The Republican Party, for all of its statements of having a big tent, continues to limit the tent," said Kansas state Sen. Barbara Bollier, of Mission Hills, one of the switchers. "Those of us who were moderates are clearly not welcome." Bollier was one of four moderate Republicans from the Kansas City suburbs to switch parties. The latest party-flip came this week in New Jersey. Republican state Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego, who represented a suburban Philadelphia district in southern New Jersey for nearly a decade, left the GOP, the minority party in both houses of the Legislature. She cited the desire to "be a part of the discussion" in the Democratic majority but also hinted that the national Republican Party is no longer recognizable. "My core values that originally drew me to the Republican Party have not changed, but the party which once echoed the vision of Ronald Reagan no longer exists," she said in a statement announcing the change. Her announcement came just days after California Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, who represents San Diego, left the GOP. He said he differs with his former party on immigration, health care, gun control, abortion and gay rights. The defections come after the Democratic Party won control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections and gained seats in 62 of the 99 state legislative chambers, according to data provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures (Nebraska is the only state with a single legislative chamber). They also come at a time when the president's approval ratings are dipping. "This is largely a product of the Trump phenomenon," said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. "President Trump has blown the lid off of this party. It starts to look like a personality cult." In Democratic-leaning states such as California and New Jersey, the defections add to the GOP's challenges. Republicans will have to focus on state issues to regain relevance and votes, said Jack Ciattarelli, a former New Jersey Republican lawmaker who says he is planning to run for governor in 2021. In New Jersey, that means focusing on underfunded public pensions and affordability. "In this era, there will always be those whose intense disdain for Donald Trump will determine their vote," he said. "But I still believe there are a majority of New Jersey independent-unaffiliated voters and even some soft Democratic voters that will vote for the party that's going to solve the various crises." The political landscape in the party-switchers' seats has been changing for some time, which also helps explain the shifts. In New Jersey, Addiego beat her Democratic opponent with 63 percent of the vote in 2013. By 2017, her winning percentage was cut to 52 percent. And last November, Democratic Rep. Andy Kim defeated then-incumbent Republican Tom MacArthur in the 3rd U.S. House district, which includes all the towns Addiego represents in the state Senate. Maienschein's Assembly District has become more Democratic since his first election, when it was considered safe for Republicans. Republicans had 38 percent of registered voters to Democrats' 30 percent in 2012. Registration is now roughly even. Statewide, independents now outnumber Republicans in California. In Kansas, the four defectors were all from a congressional district that Trump narrowly lost in 2016 and that elected Democrat Sharice Davids last year. Unlike the lawmakers in California and New Jersey, they went from the majority to the minority party. Republicans in Kansas pointed to the fact that the lawmakers were moderates who voted mostly with Democrats, anyway. Republicans in New Jersey and California criticized the lawmakers for their switch, characterizing it as a ploy to hold on to power. "People will view Addiego's party change for what is an attempt at political survival," Ciattarelli said. But voters were split on how they viewed her defection from the GOP. Dick Bozarth, a 79-year-old retiree from the construction industry, said at a diner in Medford, New Jersey, in the heart of Addiego's district, that the change sends a bad signal. "She wants to be with the radicals right now?" he asked. "Is that what she wants to do?" Bozarth said he's voted for Addiego before but will not do so again. Dave DeAngelis, a 65-year-old retired auto repair shop owner who recently moved to Berlin, a town just outside of Addiego's district, said he's supported her over the years. He said that because of her long political experience in local and state office, her political party isn't important to him. "If she still holds her opinions, I don't think that would make a big difference," he said. The change could help her get more done: "It's very difficult to be a Republican in this state," he said. "She wouldn't get anything through the state Assembly because she doesn't have the votes." Party switching can go in both directions. In Oklahoma, state Rep. Johnny Tadlock, who represents a rural district in the state's southeast corner, switched to the GOP. Democrats have been losing seats there over the last two decades. Associated Press reporters Geoff Mulvihill, John Hanna, Don Thompson and Sean Murphy contributed to this report. North Korea is pursuing the "rapid rebuilding" of the long-range rocket site at Sohae Launch Facility, according to new commercial imagery and an analysis from the researchers at Beyond Parallel. Sohae Satellite Launching Station, North Korea's only operational space launch facility, has been used in the past for satellite launches, NBC News reported. These launches use similar technology to what is used for intercontinental ballistic missiles. Democratic presidential contender Beto O'Rourke will make his first trip to New Hampshire this week since announcing his campaign. O'Rourke, 46, is scheduled to visit all 10 of New Hampshire's counties between Tuesday and Thursday of this week, according to Politico's David Siders. The campaign announced Monday that the first stop will be a meet and greet at Keene State College at 6:40 p.m. Tuesday. O'Rourke will then continue traveling the state "to visit with and learn from Granite Staters from all walks of life," the campaign said. Details on those stops have not yet been released. The former Texas congressman has had a rough start to his campaign, having to defend himself against criticism of the violent fiction he wrote as a teen and a campaign-trail joke he made about how his wife raised their three kids "sometimes with my help." O'Rourke entered the 2020 presidential race Thursday after months of speculation. He raised an eye-popping $80 million in grassroots donations last year in his failed U.S. Senate race in Texas against Republican Ted Cruz, all while largely avoiding money from political action committees. His campaign announced that it raised $6.1 million in the first 24 hours after he announced his run for president. That topped Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had pulled in $6 million during his first day as a candidate. O'Rourke's reception during his first Iowa swing over the weekend was overwhelmingly positive, even as he launched his campaign by hitting a handful of counties that had shifted from supporting Democrat Barack Obama to backing Republican Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. Most of the towns O'Rourke visited during his first two days in the state were small and rural, manufacturing or farming towns. He kicked off his bid in Keokuk, population 10,300, dropped by a private home in Fairfield, a town about the same size, and jumped atop a coffee shop counter to address the crowd in Mount Pleasant, population 8,500. The strategy set O'Rourke apart from the rest of the field, many of whom have focused their early swings on the state's population centers or on the traditionally blue counties that make up the bulk of the Democratic primary electorate. Dozens of people have Gov. Pat Quinn to thank for their freedom this holiday. The Illinois Democrat on Wednesday pardoned 81 people, including a woman convicted more than 30 years ago of voluntary manslaughter. "This action marks another step in a series of clemency decisions aimed at eliminating a backlog of more than 2,500 cases that built up during the previous administration," read a statement from the governor's office. Quinn denied 88 clemency petitions put before him. The 169 petitions on which the governor took action are from cases ranging from 2005 to 2010, his office said. Among them, the Chicago Sun-Times pointed out, was the case of Felicia Williams, a Chicagoan convicted in 1982 of fatally stabbing her live-in boyfriend. She never served prison time. Her lawyer said she asked for the pardon because it was hindering her ability to get a job. Since taking office, Governor Quinn has acted on 2,237 clemency petitions. Governor Quinn has granted 842 and denied 1,395 petitions. Those actions include granting 825 pardons and authorizing 17 people who had previously received pardons to seek expungement of their convictions. With so many important races happening across Chicago, it can be tough to know which ward you're in - and thus, who's on your ballot. That's why we've created a tool to help you learn who's running for mayor and to represent you on City Council for the next four years. Enter your address below (be sure to include the street direction and street suffix) and it will tell you your ward, as well as which races will be on your ballot. Most wards will have just two citywide races, mayor and treasurer, but in 15 of Chicago's 50 wards, two aldermanic candidates will go head-to-head after no candidate took more than 50 percent of the vote in the previous municipal election on Feb. 26. Election Day is April 2, but you can early vote every day before then to avoid the rush. You can find all the early voting locations in Chicago here. If you vote on Election Day, you will have to go to your specific polling place. If you're not registered in Illinois but still want to vote, it's not too late! You can take advantage of grace period registration through Election Day. You simply have to bring two forms of identification, one with your current address, to your polling place and be prepared to vote at the same time. To see your complete sample ballot, be sure to visit the Chicago Board of Elections' website. Happy voting! Three people have been killed and at least 12 others wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday evening. Friday night saw three people shot, one of them fatally; eight people were shot and one killed Saturday; and four people have been shot on Sunday, one of them fatally. A double shooting Sunday afternoon left a man dead and a boy wounded in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side. They were driving at 1:20 p.m. in the 2600 block of West 55th Street when another vehicle pulled up and someone inside started shooting, Chicago police said. The man, 21, was shot in his head and later died at a hospital, police said. The Cook County medical examiners office has not released details about the death. The boy, 16, was shot in the shoulder and treated at the same hospital, police said. In another fatal shooting, a man was killed and a woman wounded early Saturday in the Avalon Park community on the South Side. Bud Clarke, 34, and a woman were arguing with a man in the 8400 block of South Stony Island Avenue, authorities said. The argument turned physical and the man, 46, fired shots at them, police said. Clarke was struck in the chest and the woman, 51, in the ankle. They were both rushed to University of Chicago Medical Center, where Clarke died and the woman recovered, authorities said. A gun was recovered at the scene and the suspect was arrested, police said. Charges were pending Sunday morning. The first fatal shooting of the weekend claimed the life of a 24-year-old man Friday evening in South Side Englewood. A witness told investigators the man was walking at 7:15 p.m. in the 7400 block of South Harvard Avenue when a dark-colored car drove up and someone inside fired shots, Chicago police said. He was struck in the head and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he died, police said. The medical examiners office has not released his name. No one has been arrested. In nonfatal gun violence, a 62-year-old man was shot Friday night while selling corn in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side. He was outside at 9 p.m. in the 2000 block of West 50th Street when he heard gunfire and realized he was shot in his abdomen, police said. The target of the shooting was believed to be the mans grandson, who was present, according to a law enforcement source. No one is in custody, police said. The mans granddaughter said he was selling corn alone on the street, which hes done for over a decade. She said the shooter targeted him in the drive-by attack for selling his corn to anyone including rivals of the gang that fired the shots. She also said they targeted him to send a message to her brother. They meant to hit him, she said. It was a message. Theyve robbed him before. Were just grateful it wasnt as bad as it could have been He doesnt bother nobody. The weekend started at 5 p.m. Friday and ends 5 a.m. Monday. Last weekend, a person was killed and 14 others wounded in citywide shootings. A suburban high school is set to test students hair as part of a new mandatory drug policy for the upcoming school year. Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein recently announced that hair testing will begin in August 2019 and continue throughout the school year for all students enrolled. The policy aims to give young men and women an extra incentive to say no to drugs and alcohol, the school said in a release Monday. According to the policy, a batch of students will be tested at random twice per month. If a student tests positive, he or she will meet with Principal Jason Huther and be referred to a certified counselor. If that student fails a drug test three times, they could be recommended for dismissal. "This program really is designed to get kids to say no," Huther said. "For those who havent said no it will give them a reason to." Huther said the policy is designed as therapeutic in nature, not punitive, and will help students make health choices when faced with high-pressure situations. Protecting students from substances that negatively impact brain development and decision-making was a prime motivator for the new policy, he said in a statement. School officials said the data will be kept private, but the American Civil Liberties Union is concerned, calling the new policy "counterproductive." "What you've really done is singled a student out in a large school," said Ed Yohnka with the ACLU of Illinois. In addition to the drug-testing policy, the school also plans to add special awareness programs on drug and alcohol abuse, vaping, healthy eating habits, stress and time management and physical care, officials said. Education in leading a healthy lifestyle is important when considering all the pressures our students face," President Brad Bonham said in a statement. "At Carmel Catholic, we dont simply educate in academics. Education in faith, character, and healthy life habits is equally important. A terrifying scam that leaves families unsure over whether their loved ones have just been kidnapped continues to be reported in the U.S., according to the FBI reaching now as close as Indiana. In a recent report from NBC Indianapolis affiliate WTHR, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Doug Kasper said a virtual kidnapping crime, which has previously been reported in New Mexico, California, Minnesota, Idaho and Texas, had been reported for the first time in Indiana. The FBI Indianapolis office also confirmed the report on Twitter. A Noblesville father told WTHR he received a horrifying hoax call appearing to be from his daughters phone. I looked down and it was my daughter, so I answered the phone," Mark Walker said. "The person on the other end identified themselves as having my daughter tied up and demanded I listen to him very carefully. He said Im not playing around,' demanded that I go to Walmart and purchase a MoneyGram and send it to him or that he was going to kill my daughter. Minutes later, Walkers son also reportedly received a call. This one appeared to be from his father, and even had his dads photo in the caller ID. He said he had a gun to [my dads] head, not to text anyone, not to call anyone; if I don't do exactly what he says, he's going to shoot him, Eli Walker told WTHR. Mark Walker said he told his wife to call their daughter, who said she was picking her children up from school. Eli Walker remained silent during his call while texting his mother to confirm his father was safe. WHAT IS THE SCAM? The FBI has been aware of such scams for at least two decades, with the crimes taking on many forms over the years, authorities said. Unlike traditional abductions, virtual kidnappers have not actually kidnapped anyone. Instead, through deceptions and threats, they coerce victims to pay a quick ransom before the scheme falls apart, the FBI said in a recent warning. Between 2013 and 2015, FBI investigators with the Los Angeles Division tracked similar calls to Mexican prisons and said the callers were targeting Spanish speakers in the Los Angeles and Houston areas. In 2015, the calls started coming in English, the FBI said. Around that time, hundreds of hoax kidnapping calls were reported in New York, prompting a warning from the FBI and NYPD. In one version of the scam, the caller tells a victim that their husband or son has gotten into a car accident with a gang member. They tell the victim their relative is seriously injured, but the gang member won't allow the person to go to the hospital until damages to his vehicle are paid. In yet another instance, a caller tells a victim his or her daughter has been kidnapped. A second young woman screams in the background during the call to convince the victim that their daughter is in imminent danger. Other calls include details about drug debts, human trafficking or assaults. In 2017, a federal grand jury in Houston indicted a 34-year-old woman who police say picked up ransom money from victims in Texas and wired some of it to individuals in Mexico. A year later, the FBI issued another warning for virtual kidnapping scams, particularly in the New Mexico area. But this time, they warned the perpetrators of these crimes are becoming more sophisticated. They are using social media and social engineering to dupe people into thinking their loved ones have been kidnapped, the warning stated. In the latest cases, the scammers try to keep victims on the phone so they cant verify their loved ones whereabouts or contact law enforcement, authorities said. The callers demanded a wire payment to Mexico, the warning stated. WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF YOU RECEIVE A CALL? The FBI said in most cases, the best course of action is to hang up the phone. Another option is to do what the Walkers did and try to contact the alleged victim. If you do engage the caller, do not disclose your loved ones name or provide any identifying information, the September 2018 warning from the FBI stated. Try to slow the situation down. The success of any type of virtual kidnapping scheme depends on speed and fear. Criminals know they only have a short time to exact a ransom before the victims unravel the scam or authorities become involved. They also advise that those who receive the call ask to speak with their family member directly by saying How do I know my loved one is OK? Ask questions only the alleged kidnap victim would know, such as the name of a pet. Avoid sharing information about yourself or your family, the warning states. Other tips include: The white supremacist accused of gunning down 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand has dismissed his lawyer and opted to represent himself at trial, prompting the prime minister to declare Tuesday that she would do everything in her power to deny him a platform for his racist views. "I agree that it is absolutely something that we need to acknowledge, and do what we can to prevent the notoriety that this individual seeks," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters. "He obviously had a range of reasons for committing this atrocious terrorist attack. Lifting his profile was one of them. And that's something that we can absolutely deny him." Asked if she would like the trial to occur behind closed doors, Ardern demurred, saying that was not her decision to make. "One thing I can assure you you won't hear me speak his name," she said. The gunman's desire for infamy was made clear by the fact that he left behind a convoluted 74-page manifesto before Friday's massacre and livestreamed footage of his attack on the Al Noor mosque. The video prompted widespread revulsion and condemnation. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million versions of the video during the first 24 hours after the massacre. But on Tuesday, Ardern expressed frustration that the video remained available online, four days after the attack. "We have been in contact with Facebook; they have given us updates on their efforts to have it removed, but as I say, it's our view that it cannot should not be distributed, available, able to be viewed," she said. "It is horrendous and while they've given us those assurances, ultimately the responsibility does sit with them." Arden said she had received "some communication" from Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg on the issue. The prime minister has also spoken with British Prime Minister Theresa May about the importance of a global effort to clamp down on the distribution of such material. Lawyer Richard Peters, who was assigned to represent Brenton Harrison Tarrant at his initial court appearance on Saturday, told the New Zealand Herald that Tarrant dismissed him that day. A judge ordered Tarrant to return to New Zealand's High Court on April 5 for his next hearing on one count of murder, though he is expected to face additional charges. The 28-year-old Australian is being held in isolation in a Christchurch jail. "He seemed quite clear and lucid, whereas this may seem like very irrational behavior," Peters told the newspaper. "He didn't appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment, other than holding fairly extreme views." Peters did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said a judge could order a lawyer to assist Tarrant at a trial, but that Tarrant would likely be unsuccessful in trying to use it as a platform to put forward any extremist views. Under New Zealand law, a trial is "to determine innocence or guilt," Peters said. "The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views." Peters said Tarrant didn't tell him why he wanted to represent himself. Ardern previously has said her Cabinet had agreed in principle on tightening gun restrictions in New Zealand and those reforms would be announced next week. She also had announced an inquiry into the intelligence and security services' failures to detect the risk from the attacker or his plans. There have been concerns intelligence agencies were overly focused on the Muslim community in detecting and preventing security risks. New Zealand's international spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, confirmed it had not received any relevant information or intelligence ahead of the shootings. Meanwhile, Christchurch was beginning to return to a semblance of normalcy Tuesday. Streets near the hospital that had been closed for four days reopened to traffic as relatives and friends of the victims continued to stream in from around the world. Thirty people were still being treated at the Christchurch hospital, nine of them in critical condition, said David Meates, CEO of the Canterbury District Health Board. A 4-year-old girl was transferred to a hospital in Auckland and is in critical condition. Her father is at the same hospital in stable condition. Relatives of the dead are still anxiously awaiting word on when they can bury their loved ones. Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible. Ardern has said authorities hope to release all the bodies by Wednesday and police said authorities are working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they can. The close-knit community has been deeply wounded by the attacks. On Monday evening, more than 1,000 students from rival Christchurch schools and different religions gathered in a park across from the Al Noor mosque, joining voices in a passionate display of unity. The students sat on the grass in the fading daylight, lifting flickering candles to the sky as they sang a traditional Maori song. Hundreds then stood to perform an emotional, defiant haka, the famed ceremonial dance of the indigenous Maori people. For many, joining the vigil for the victims of the mass shooting was a much-needed opportunity to soothe their minds after a wrenching few days. Most of the students spent hours locked down in their schools on Friday as police tried to determine if any other shooters were involved in the attacks. Those at the vigil told harrowing tales of being forced to hide under classroom tables or on a school stage behind a curtain, of being instructed not to speak, and to urinate in a bucket rather than risk leaving the classroom for a bathroom. Sarah Liddell, 17, said many of her peers felt intense anxiety since the attack. There was a sense of safety in coming together on Monday, she said. "I feel like it's just really important to show everyone that one act of violence doesn't define a whole city," she said. "This is one of the best ways to show everyone coming together. Some schools have little funny rivalries, but in times like this we all just come together and that's all forgotten." Associated Press writers Stephen Wright and Nick Perry contributed to this report. Doctors in scrubs, businessmen in suits and construction workers in jeans gathered on the streets of Venezuela's capital Wednesday, waving their nation's flag and demanding Nicolas Maduro step down from power in a walkout organized by the nation's reinvigorated opposition to ratchet up pressure on the embattled president. Protesters said they were heeding the opposition's call for another mass demonstration despite the heavy-handed response by security forces over the last week to quell anti-government protests. "I'm going out now more than ever," said Sobeia Gonzalez, 63. "We have a lot more faith that this government has very little time left." The latest walkout comes one week exactly after opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the nation's rightful president amid a sea of supporters, hurling the nation into a new chapter of political tumult as the anti-Maduro movement tries to establish a transitional government and the socialist leader clings to power. "We are staying in the streets," Guaido told students at a surprise appearance at the Central University of Venezuela. "Not just in protest of the crisis we are living in all of Venezuela, not just because of how bad things are, but also for the future." The 35-year-lawmaker has transformed from a little-known opposition figure into a commanding force in the nation's politics with the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump and two dozen other nations recognizing him as Venezuela's interim president. The turmoil has morphed into a larger geopolitical standoff as Maduro accuses the U.S. of orchestrating a coup by backing Guaido and enacting punishing oil sanctions while powerful Venezuela allies China and Russia continue to stand by the president. On Tuesday, the government-stacked Supreme Court barred Guaido from leaving the country and froze his bank accounts as a probe into his anti-government activities led by Maduro-ally and chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab advances. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton warned that if Guaido is harmed Venezuela will face "serious consequences." Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest and the Supreme Court did not strip him of his legislative immunity, though the new investigation could signal that Maduro's administration is moving to take a more punitive approach in the days ahead. Speaking at the walkout, Guaido said he wasn't losing any sleep over the probe. "We don't want to leave the country," he said. "We want people to return." Maduro huddled Wednesday with military troops, prayed with evangelical supporters and released a video urging the American people to rise up against Trump and support him as Venezuela's rightful leader. He said Trump has his eyes on Venezuela's vast oil reserves and warned against any U.S. military intervention. "We won't allow a Vietnam in Latin America," Maduro said. "If the aim of the United States is to invade, they'll have a Vietnam worse than can be imagined." Maduro has been overseeing military training exercises broadcast on state television on a near-daily basis over the past week in an apparent attempt to show he still has the backing of the armed forces, whose support is key to either man's claim to the presidency. In an interview with Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency, Maduro said he was "willing to sit down for talks with the opposition for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future," an offer he has repeated often but that the opposition is reluctant to accept. He also accused Trump of ordering a hit on him from Colombia but offered no proof. The already distressed nation is likely to face even tougher times soon after the U.S. imposed sanctions Monday on Venezuela's state-owned oil company, potentially depriving the Maduro government of $11 billion in export revenues over the next year. Maduro called the sanctions "criminal" and vowed to challenge the U.S. in court. Violent street demonstrations erupted last week after Guaido declared during a huge opposition rally in Caracas that he had assumed presidential powers under the constitution and planned to hold fresh elections to end Maduro's "dictatorship." Under Venezuela's constitution, the head of the National Assembly is empowered to take on the duties of the chief executive under a range of circumstances in which the presidency is vacated. The opposition contends that Maduro's reelection was a sham because, among other things, top opposition candidates were barred from running and that his new second term is therefore illegitimate. The U.N. human rights office says security forces in Venezuela detained nearly 700 people in just one day of anti-government protests last week the highest such tally in a single day in the country in at least 20 years and that more than 40 people were killed. Maduro's allies blame the opposition for the violence and deny the high death toll as well as reports that minors were among those arrested. Guaido called on Venezuelans to take to the streets Wednesday holding signs stating "your reasons for fighting" and urging the armed forces to join them. "I want a free Venezuela," several protesters in the Chacao district of the capital wrote on their signs as passing cars and trucks honked their horns in support. Others chanted, "Maduro is a delinquent, not a president!" A row of National Guardsmen blocked off one street in Caracas to stop protesters from going through but there weren't any reports of violent confrontations as happened last week. The walkout drew a cross-section of Venezuelan society ranging from professionals to blue-collar workers, though participation appeared to be lower in some of the poorer enclaves that are traditional government strongholds. A few of demonstrators from the Catia neighborhood, where protesters set barricades on fire last week, said they didn't feel safe protesting there and joined the walkout from wealthier districts instead. Among the protesters was Dr. Hugo Rosillo, who stood outside a children's hospital just blocks from Maduro's presidential palace. He said he and others were fed up with not being able to treat their patients facing life-threatening illnesses like cancer because of shortages of medical supplies. The hospital has turned into just "a storeroom for cadavers," he said. Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia. Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez and Manuel Rueda in Caracas contributed to this report. Regarding the Snap program article in the News Sun. I have to disagree on this one. Most people I know of in these government programs such as Snap are totally taking advantage of the system. It has become a crutch. Time to put a time limit on these programs. These people for the most part are drug addicts, alcoholics and thugs. They continue to make bad choices in life. Doing nothing to change their ways. Still drinking, still doing and selling drugs, still smoking cigarettes, still thugging, still going back to jail, and still having more kids they cant afford, and not working. All on our dime. The same goes for those driving up in their fancy cars at St. Anastasias food pantry to get free food. These people continue working the system. These losers are taking away from the elderly, disabled or veterans who truly need our help. If youre young and able to work, get out there and work two or three jobs if you have to, like I did back then. Lean on your family, not the government and the taxpayers. Back when he was still just teasing a presidential run, Beto O'Rourke told "Vanity Fair" he was "born to be in" the race. Now that he's campaigning to far greater media attention and much larger crowds than many Democrats who've been competing longer, they are taking offense at the former Texas congressman's sense of entitlement. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar drew the sharpest such contrast on Sunday, saying "I wasn't born to run. But I am running" while acknowledging, "Oh, that's the Beto line." "No, I wasn't born to run for office, just because growing up in the '70s, in the middle of the country, I don't think many people thought a girl could be president," Klobuchar said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Asked about the same O'Rourke quote, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, was gentler, saying "I think I was born to make myself useful." "I'm not combating anybody," he told "Fox News Sunday." ''They are going to be competitors more than opponents, I think, among the Democrats." After a slew of criticism, O'Rourke aimed to clarify his comment in "Vanity Fair." He told reporters Sunday that, when he saw the cover, he thought, "Man, I hope I didn't say that." "The way that I feel is that Im born to serve, Im born to try to help bring people together," O'Rourke said. "Ive always been at my best as a member of the El Paso City Council, as a member of Congress, as a candidate for the United States Senate, and I feel that right now running to serve this country as president. So I dont know that anyone is born for an office or a position, and I certainly am not. But I do think that I find my purpose and function in life in doing this kind of work. And Im very grateful to be able to do that. Still, other Democrats have taken more veiled swipes. Former Obama administration housing chief Julian Castro, who hails from San Antonio, has pointed to references that he's the "other Texan" in the White House race and says that though he's not the front-runner now, he will eventually overtake better known candidates like O'Rourke. When asked about the Vanity Fair quote, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said that he's dedicated his professional life to working with "communities that are really being left out and left behind." New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she'd be more willing to fight hard for Democratic values then promote the kind of feelgood, bipartisan optimism that O'Rourke favors. Such intraparty fighting is uncommon with the election still about 18 months away and marks a contrast to how nice or at least not openly antagonistic the crowded field of Democrats running was to one another before O'Rourke's announcement. O'Rourke spent months hinting that he was running for president before finally announcing last week. He immediately drew overflow crowds at stops across Iowa, which kicks off presidential primary voting, but then began driving a Dodge Caravan to the battleground midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio hoping to indicate that, beyond the primary, he can be a strong Democrat and win places where Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016. On Saturday, O'Rourke acknowledged benefiting from years of inherent white-male privilege. But those comments came when he was asked about whether his party would nominate another white guy for president in a year when a record number of women and minorities are running. He also said it would be his preference to pick a female running mate but noted that he has to win the primary first. O'Rourke vows not to attack his fellow Democrats, telling a packed, weekend house party in Dubuque that "the diversity, experience and skills and expertise and perspective that" so many candidates running bring to the presidential race "is to the benefit of all of us." "You will not see us demeaning any of the other candidates, ever uttering a personal word about anyone else," he said. But O'Rourke has made similar promises to keep things positive in the past only to renege. For more than a year, he refused to go negative against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz during his star-making, near-upset in November's Texas Senate race only to reverse himself and refer to President Donald Trump's 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign nickname for Cruz, "Lyin' Ted," during a debate mere weeks before the election. O'Rourke subsequently sharpened criticism of Cruz to narrow gaps in the polls and wound up losing by 215,000 votes out of nearly 8.4 million cast. As a presidential candidate, O'Rourke has also repeatedly praised a perspective White House hopeful who still hasn't entered the race, Vice President Joe Biden, saying "I think he has a lot of perspective and experience to bring to bear." That could be an effort to defuse coming criticism of O'Rourke himself because he didn't accomplish much during his six years in the House. But not all would-be voters see that as a bad thing. "He doesn't have any votes to renounce or flip flops," said Nick Fisch, a 25-year-old teacher who attended the Dubuque house party. Then, recalling another relatively inexperienced Democratic presidential candidate who did well in Iowa, Fisch added: "It's the same thing (Barack) Obama had." Paul Manafort's plea deal went up in smoke this week. It didn't even last three months. The former Trump campaign chairman's cooperation agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller unraveled, prosecutors say, after he repeatedly lied to investigators, an allegation Manafort denies. The extraordinary dissolution of the deal means Mueller loses a witness in his Russia probe. But it's a potentially bigger loss for Manafort come sentencing time. And it raises important questions about the state of the Russia investigation. HOW DID WE GET HERE? Manafort cut a deal with prosecutors in September, agreeing to plead guilty to two felonies and cooperate with Mueller's team "fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly." In exchange, prosecutors agreed that if he provided "substantial assistance" they could help him get a lighter sentence. The deal headed off a second trial for Manafort related to his Ukrainian political consulting and unregistered foreign lobbying. He was previously convicted at trial of eight felony counts in a separate case. WHY DOES MANAFORT MATTER TO MUELLER? Manafort knows a lot about Donald Trump's presidential campaign and he is an eyewitness to at least one key meeting under investigation by the special counsel. While leading the Trump campaign in June 2016, he joined Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a Russian attorney at Trump Tower for a meeting, which Trump Jr. had been told was part of a Russian government effort to help his father's campaign. Mueller has interviewed several participants in the meeting. Manafort also can offer his recollections of discussions with Donald Trump during the months he led the campaign. Manafort was at the helm when Trump made some public pronouncements that have caught Mueller's attention, including Trump's famous late July 2016 invitation for Russia to hack Democrat Hillary Clinton to find 30,000 missing emails. Manafort could also offer federal prosecutors in New York help with an investigation into Ukrainian political work he led and whether others were acting as unregistered foreign agents. That probe is examining the conduct of Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig and former Republican congressman and lobbyist Vin Weber. None of the three has been charged. WHAT DID MANAFORT LIE ABOUT, ACCORDING TO PROSECUTORS? We don't know yet but we will soon. Prosecutors were vague in court papers. They only wrote that Manafort lied to the FBI and the special counsel's office on "a variety of subject matters." But they promised U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson that they will lay out "the nature of the defendant's crimes and lies" in a later filing. For his part, Manafort disputes he lied. He said he truthfully answered investigators' questions on numerous occasions. WHAT'S THE IMPACT ON THE INVESTIGATION? It's hard to tell. Mueller's team hasn't revealed the substance of Manafort's interviews and neither have his lawyers. But the fact that Mueller's team believes they've caught Manafort in a lie suggests they already know a lot about the episodes he was questioned about. The value of Manafort's cooperation has also likely gone down since he held out for so long while Mueller's team vacuumed up millions of pages of documents, interviewed scores of people and gained other key cooperators, such as former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. And Mueller still has Manafort's right-hand man, Rick Gates, as a cooperator. Gates spent more time on the campaign and later served on the presidential inaugural committee, potentially giving him more insight than Manafort into the actions of the president and people around him. WHAT DO MUELLER CRITICS SAY? The episode could feed into criticisms that the president and other Trump allies have lobbed at Mueller. The disagreement between Mueller's team and Manafort over whether he lied echoes a criticism the president raised in a tweet earlier this month. In decrying the Mueller probe as a "total mess," he wrote that prosecutors are "screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want." He did not specify where he received the information or whether it involved Manafort. But others involved in the case have similarly complained about the conduct of Mueller's prosecutors. Jerome Corsi, a conservative writer who has pushed numerous conspiracy theories, said earlier this week that he rejected a Mueller plea deal, telling news outlets that prosecutors wanted him to admit to lying when he believes he didn't. Trump associate Roger Stone, whose possible connection to WikiLeaks is being scrutinized by Mueller's team, has also made similar complaints about prosecutors' tactics with other witnesses. IS THIS POSSIBLY A PARDON PLAY? In the wake of Manafort's conviction in August, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told The New York Times that he and the president discussed the political consequences of pardoning Manafort. But there have been few signs since that a pardon is still on the table. For their part, Manafort's attorneys aren't saying. And on Tuesday, Giuliani told The Associated Press that Trump is not considering a pardon at this time. "The president could consider it at an appropriate time as Manafort has the same rights as any American," Giuliani said. Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report. Three years after sealing a landmark global climate deal in Paris, world leaders are gathering again to agree on the fine print. The euphoria of 2015 has given way to sober realization that getting an agreement among almost 200 countries, each with their own political and economic demands, will be challenging as evidenced by President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Paris accord, citing his "America First" mantra. "Looking from the outside perspective, it's an impossible task," Poland's deputy environment minister, Michal Kurtyka, said of the talks he will preside over in Katowice from Dec. 2-14. Top of the agenda will be finalizing the so-called Paris rulebook, which determines how countries have to count their greenhouse gas emissions, transparently report them to the rest of the world and reveal what they are doing to reduce them. Seasoned negotiators are calling the meeting, which is expected to draw 25,000 participants, "Paris 2.0" because of the high stakes at play in Katowice. Forest fires from California to Greece, droughts in Germany and Australia, tropical cyclones Mangkhut in the Pacific and Michael in the Atlantic scientists say this year's extreme weather offers a glimpse of disasters to come if global warming continues unabated. A recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change warned that time is running out if the world wants to achieve the most ambitious target in the Paris agreement keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The planet has already warmed by about 1 degree C since pre-industrial times and it's on course for another 2-3 degrees of warming by the end of the century unless drastic action is taken. The conference will have "quite significant consequences for humanity and for the way in which we take care of our planet," Kurtyka told the Associated Press ahead of the talks. Experts agree that the Paris goals can only be met by cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050. But the Paris agreement let countries set their own emissions targets. Some are on track, others aren't. Overall, the world is heading the wrong way. Last week, the World Meteorological Organization said globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached a new record in 2017, while the level of other heat-trapping gases such methane and nitrous oxide also rose. This year is expected to see another 2 percent increase in human-made emissions, as construction of coal-fired power plants in Asia and Africa continue while carbon-absorbing forests are felled faster than they can regrow. "Everyone recognized that the national plans, when you add everything up, will take us way beyond 3, potentially 4 degrees Celsius warming," said Johan Rockstrom, the incoming director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "We know that we're moving in the wrong direction," said Rockstrom. "We need to bend the global carbon emissions no later than 2020 in two years' time to stand a chance to stay under 2 degrees Celsius." Convincing countries to set new, tougher targets for emissions reduction by 2020 is a key challenge in Katowice. Doing so will entail a transformation of all sectors of their economies, including a complete end to burning fossil fuel. Poor nations want rich countries to pledge the biggest cuts, on the grounds that they're responsible for most of the carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Rich countries say they're willing to lead the way, but only if poor nations play their part as well. "Obviously not all countries are at the same stage of development," said Lidia Wojtal, an associate with Berlin-based consultancy Climatekos and a former Polish climate negotiator. "So we need to also take that into account and differentiate between the responsibilities. And that's a huge task." Among those likely to be pressing hardest for ambitious measures will be small island nations , which are already facing serious challenges from climate change. The U.S., meanwhile, is far from being the driving force it was during the Paris talks under President Barack Obama. Brazil and Australia, previously staunch backers of the accord, appear to be following in Trump's footsteps. Some observers fear nationalist thinking on climate could scupper all hope of meaningful progress in Katowice. Others are more optimistic. "We will soon see a large enough minority of significant economies moving decisively in the right direction," said Rockstrom. "That can have spillover effects which can be positive." Poland could end up playing a crucial role in bringing opposing sides together. The country has already presided over three previous rounds of climate talks, and its heavy reliance on carbon-intensive coal for energy is forcing Warsaw to mull some tough measures in the years ahead. The 24th Conference of the Parties, or COP24 as it's known, is being held on the site of a Katowice mine that was closed in 1999 after 176 years of coal production. Five out of the city's seven collieries have been closed since the 1990s, as Poland phased out communist-era subsidies and moved to a market economy. Yet elsewhere in the city, 1,500 miners still extract thousands of tons of coal daily. Poland also still depends on coal for some 80 percent of its energy needs. Poland intends to send a signal that the miners' futures, and those of millions of others whose jobs are at risk from decarbonization, are not being forgotten. During the first week of talks, leaders are expected to sign a Polish-backed declaration calling for a 'just transition' that will "create quality jobs in regions affected by transition to a low-carbon economy." Then negotiators will get down to the gritty task of trimming a 300-page draft into a workable and meaningful agreement that governments can sign off on at the end of the second week. "(I) hope that parties will be able to reach a compromise and that we will be able to say that Katowice contributed positively to this global effort," Kurtyka said. Florida voters who expected new Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to be politically divisive because of his strong ties to President Donald Trump may be surprised by the quick actions he's taken in his first two weeks in office. DeSantis announced a bold plan to address environmental issues, including an acknowledgment that the state needs to address rising sea levels; posthumously pardoned four black men accused of raping a white teenager nearly 70 years ago; named a Democrat to a top position in his administration; and demanded that the Republican-led Legislature rewrite a restrictive law so medical marijuana can be more accessible to patients. While Trump continues to divide the country, DeSantis is beginning his term with actions that can unite people across political affiliations. "This new governor is a great governor. I'm more encouraged by Ron DeSantis' first two weeks than anything I've seen in years," trial lawyer John Morgan said recently in a Facebook video. Morgan has raised millions of dollars over the years for Democratic candidates, including Trump's 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. Morgan also led the effort to put legal use of medical marijuana in the state constitution and sued when the Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Scott banned smokable use of the plant. DeSantis is now on Morgan's side on the medical marijuana issue, prompting Morgan to declare, "DeSantisclause came to town!" DeSantis campaigned on building off the economic accomplishments of Scott, who was elected to the U.S. Senate after two terms as governor, but he's proving to be neither a Scott clone nor a divisive figure like Trump. Scott had a reputation for being partisan, and DeSantis is starting his term by appealing to a broader political base. In doing so, he's taking action on issues Scott failed to address. In 2017, the Legislature unanimously approved a resolution apologizing to the families of the Groveland Four, the men accused of raping a 17-year-old girl in 1949. One of the four was tracked down by a posse and shot 400 times. The other three were convicted with dubious evidence. The case is now seen as a racially unjust blight on Florida's history. The Legislature asked Scott to pardon the men, but he took no action. DeSantis and the state's Cabinet granted the pardons on his first Friday in office. "I don't know why it took this long to do it. I don't know why Gov. Scott didn't (pardon them). He didn't have the guts," said Wade Greenlee, the brother of one of the Groveland Four. "But I thank God for the governor that we have now. He didn't waste no time." Although Scott was criticized by environmentalists for denying climate sea level rise, DeSantis plans to create a chief science officer position and said on his second day in office that the state needs to protect wildlife and communities from sea level rise. The new governor has also strengthened the commitment to addressing red tide off the state's coast and pollutants in Lake Okeechobee that cause algae blooms downstream by promising to spend a billion more dollars on the issues and create new state offices dedicated to environmental threats. DeSantis is also reaching out to people who opposed him politically most notably by appointing former Democratic state Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of the Legislature's most vocal opponents of the Republican agenda, as the state's emergency management director. Of course, DeSantis's first impression is only two weeks old, and the remaining three years and 50 weeks of his term will be the test of whether he continues to govern for a broad spectrum of Floridians. But for now, he's even caught the attention of some Democrats. "He's taken a pretty proactive Florida stand, and it's a distinct contrast with Scott," Democratic pollster David Beattie said. "It's almost like he's giving the finger to Scott." Beattie was among those who thought DeSantis would have a hard time getting elected because he ran almost entirely on his and Trump's mutual admiration. Trump backed DeSantis in the primary, tweeting his praise and holding a Florida rally. Beattie said at the time that the extreme partisan nature of the campaign would make it difficult for DeSantis to build off his base. But Beattie now admits DeSantis as governor appears to be different than DeSantis the candidate, saying there's no doubt he's appealing to a broad base rather than a narrow ideology. "I'm surprised. It's not what I anticipated," he said, predicting that DeSantis' first approval ratings will be higher than Scott's ever were in his eight years in office. DeSantis said he's not trying to create a distinction between himself and Scott. "We all come in under different circumstances. Gov. Scott came in when the economy was in the tank. He had run based on being a jobs guy and he focused on that," DeSantis said. He said issues like the environment are more of a priority for voters now than they were 10 years ago. "Some of these other things like the Groveland Four, the Legislature led on that ... ," he said. "I was like, 'These guys got railroaded. We've got to do what's right.' So I'm just calling them as I've seen them." The mayor of Maine's second largest city has resigned in the wake of a controversy over his leaked text messages, one of which included a racist remark. Republican Shane Bouchard stepped down as Lewiston's mayor, effective immediately Friday morning. Text messages made public by a woman who said she had an affair with Bouchard when he was a mayoral candidate revealed a remark in which he described elderly black people as "antique farm equipment." Heather Berube Everly said the two had an affair, and that she was the source of emails the Maine GOP used to attack Democratic opponent Ben Chin. Bouchard admitted making mistakes but also decried media reporting on "rumors." Everly said her affiliation with Chin and the Maine People's Alliance helped Bouchard's campaign. "I did work with Ben Chin as a recruiter with MPA," she said during a Lewiston City Council meeting. "I connected with Mayor Bouchard, where I had an affair with him, and he was able to retrieve emails from MPA's and Ben Chin's campaign." During his 2017 campaign against Bouchard, Chin said hundreds of his campaign signs were stolen. In 2015, when he was facing Mayor Robert Macdonald, a landlord posted signs reading "Don't vote for Ho Chi Chin," which Chin criticized as racist. In the intial November election of 2017, Chin's 4,239 votes led Bouchard's 2,979. A month later, Bouchard defeated Chin by a much narrower margin of 145 votes, with the Republican receiving 3,663 votes to the Democrat's 3,518. "The Republican Party has, through Mayor Bouchard, rigged the election," Everly said. "They interfered and affected results, and they were also able to influence the votes of people, especially in the ward that I was in." The attorney general's office confirmed Friday that it's assisting a Lewiston Police Department investigation into the matter. North Carolina officials sought criminal charges after the 2016 election against the man now at the center of absentee ballot fraud allegations, but prosecutors didn't indict him before the now disputed 2018 congressional race, according to documents released Wednesday. The documents detail a two year investigation by the North Carolina State Board of Elections into Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. Authorities informed the 62-year-old convicted felon from rural Bladen County earlier this month that he is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation into irregularities in the Nov. 6 vote in the state's 9th Congressional District. In a January 2018 memo referring Dowless and others for criminal charges, state elections investigators detailed interviews in which people who had worked for Dowless in the 2016 election cycle described collecting absentee ballots from voters. Because of the potential for mischief, it is against North Carolina law for anyone other than a voter or immediate relative to handle someone's absentee ballot before it is sealed and mailed. Investigators also alleged Dowless attempted to interfere with their investigation by calling witnesses and warning them before they could be interviewed. The referral to state and federal prosecutors came well before a May GOP primary and November general election in which Republican Mark Harris eked out narrow victories. Harris now leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in the year's only still unresolved congressional election, according to unofficial results. The state elections board has refused to certify the tally, and leaders in both parties now concede a do-over election might eventually be needed. The state elections board plans to review the evidence at a Jan. 11 public hearing. Investigators are looking into whether Dowless and others working on the GOP candidate's behalf ran an illegal operation to collect large numbers of absentee ballots from voters in at least two counties. Dowless didn't respond Wednesday to a voicemail or text message seeking comment. His lawyer, Cynthia Adams Singletary, said in a statement Tuesday that any speculation regarding her client and the 9th District election is premature and unwarranted. Through his attorney, Dowless has declined to be interviewed by state investigators. Harris, the Republican candidate, said in an interview last week that it was his decision to hire Dowless, though he denied knowledge of any potential wrongdoing. The extent of the state's prior investigation into Dowless' tactics had not previously been publicly known. In their January memo, investigators for the state board said they had uncovered evidence that Dowless employed workers to encourage people to ask for absentee ballots and then collect them, as well as push for certain candidates. The 2016 probe appears to have been triggered when three voters registered formal complaints with county elections officials saying that people subsequently identified as working for Dowless had come to their houses to encourage them to request absentee ballots. One woman, Linda Baldwin, said a man told her he was paid to collect absentee ballot request forms and "that when the ballots arrived by mail at her house, and she completed them, he would return to pick them up to take and show his 'boss' so that he could get paid," according to the document. A second person, Brenda Register, said a young woman came to her house and tried to convince her to request an absentee ballot, but she declined and reported it to elections officials. A third person who complained, Heather Register, said the same man and woman told her they were getting paid to encourage people to request ballots, though she and relatives never received or voted those ballots. Yet when Heather Register attempted to vote in person on Election Day, poll workers told her she had already voted, according to the documents. The man and woman the witnesses described, Matthew Matthis and Caitlyn Croom, later acknowledged to investigators that they had been paid by Dowless, according to the documents. Neither Croom nor Matthis responded to messages Wednesday seeking comment. The documents say state elections investigators decided in December 2016 to present their findings to federal prosecutors in Raleigh. Don Connelly, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, declined to comment Wednesday about why they didn't pursue charges. In January 2018, the case was referred to Jon David, the state prosecutor for the district that includes Bladen County. David, who didn't return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday, determined he had a conflict of interest because Dowless had previously worked for his opponent. He then asked Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman in Raleigh to take over the case. Freeman said Wednesday that her investigation expanded when they became aware of "additional fraudulent activity" during the 2018 primary and general election, requiring investigators to track down more leads. Some of the evidence only surfaced in the last several weeks, she said. Freeman was also mindful that the investigation was going on during heights of the election season and that she didn't want to create public concerns that might make voters fearful. It's general practice to let investigations run until they are complete, she said. "Our standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt," Freeman said. "We had to have a case that would stand up in court." Negotiators for the U.S. and the Taliban insurgents have reached "agreements in principle" on key issues for a peace deal that would end 17 years of war in Afghanistan, the top U.S. envoy said Monday. The statement by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad followed six days of talks last week with the Taliban in Qatar, where he urged the Islamic insurgent group to enter into direct negotiations with the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Ghani on Monday assured Afghans that their rights will not be compromised in the name of peace with the Taliban, who have been staging near-daily attacks against Afghan forces, causing scores of casualties every week. Their offensive has not let up despite the severe Afghan winter and the insurgents now hold sway over nearly half of the country. Khalilzad said in an interview with The New York Times that an agreement in principle was reached with the Taliban on the framework of a peace deal "which still has to be fleshed out" that will see the insurgents commit to guaranteeing that Afghan territory is not used as a "platform for international terrorist groups or individuals." He said the deal could lead to a full pullout of U.S. troops in return for a cease-fire and Taliban talks with the Afghan government. In his statement released by the U.S. Embassy, Khalilzad said, "We made progress on vital issues in our discussions and agreed to agreements in principle on a couple of very important issues. "There is a lot more work to be done before we can say we have succeeded in our efforts but I believe for the first time I can say that we have made significant progress," he said. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he has been briefed on the talks and described them as encouraging, but he also told reporters that the department has not been directed to prepare for a full withdrawal from Afghanistan. Speaking before a meeting at the Pentagon with Shanahan, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said any discussion about the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan would be premature. He said Khalilzad had briefed NATO allies on the talks weeks ago. "We are in Afghanistan to create the conditions for a peaceful negotiated solution," Stoltenberg said. "We will not stay longer than necessary, but we will not leave before we have a situation that enables us to leave or reduce the number of troops without jeopardizing the main goal of our presence and that is to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for international terrorists once again." He added that he believes it's too soon to speculate on withdrawal because "what we have to do now is to support the efforts to try to find a peaceful solution. We strongly support those efforts." Ghani sought to assure Afghans that no deals would be made without Kabul's awareness and full participation. "Our commitment is to provide peace and to prevent any possible disaster," Ghani said in an address to the nation. "There are values that are not disputable, such as national unity, national sovereignty and territorial integrity." Ghani's office said he and Khalilzad met late Sunday in Kabul to discuss details from the talks. Khalilzad's statement emphasized the inclusion of the Afghan government in the talks. "There is a false narrative that Afghans are not included. That is not true. The Afghan voice is there," he said. "We are working together to get to a comprehensive cease-fire. We are working with the Afghan government, with international partners, to find implementing mechanisms to reach these goals." Khalilzad has met with the Taliban on a number of occasions in recent months in the latest bid to end America's longest war. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to topple the Taliban, who were harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The statement from Ghani's office also claimed that the Taliban demanded from Khalilzad the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan, but that there was also no agreement on that issue. The statement added that Khalilzad has no authority to discuss issues such as a future Afghan administration but that his goal is to facilitate an intra-Afghan dialogue, meaning direct talks between the Taliban and Kabul. Khalilzad had tweeted Saturday about progress in the talks in Qatar, where the insurgents have a political office, saying: "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past." "We made significant progress on vital issues," he tweeted, without offering details. Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban official and currently a member of the High Peace Council, an independent body of clerics and respected Afghan figures, said he believes the Qatar talks resulted in a "good understanding between both sides" but that more discussions are needed in the coming weeks or months. "Afghanistan's problem is not so simple that it can be solved in a day, week or month, it needs more time and more discussions," Mujahid told The Associated Press. The Taliban have in the past refused to negotiate directly with Kabul a standing that does not appear to have changed. They have maintained that they are prepared to talk with U.S. officials only and only about the pullout of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Afghan political analyst Waheed Muzhda says he believes that Khalilzad and the Taliban have reached agreement on both the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and a cease-fire deal, but that neither side is prepared to say so at this point. "But peace talks are not possible unless both sides first agree on a cease-fire," Muzhda said. In Monday's address to the nation, Ghani also stressed that U.S. and other foreign forces are in Afghanistan because they are needed here and that if there is to be any downsizing or pullout, the Kabul government will have to play a role in the talks. Ghani also reiterated his call on the Taliban to engage "in direct talks with the Afghan government." What to Know A goat that escaped a slaughterhouse was found on a Bronx street Saturday morning Police officers found the wayward white goat on Locust Avenue It's been a busy week for farm animals going for a stroll on the wild side of New York City streets A goat that escaped a slaughterhouse was found on a Bronx street. Police officers found the wayward white goat on Locust Avenue on Saturday morning. Police brought the goat to Animal Care Centers, which gave it a quick medical check and turned it over to Skylands Animal Sanctuary in New Jersey. It's been a busy week for farm animals going for a stroll on the wild side of New York City streets. On Wednesday, a young lamb was spotted running along the Gowanus Expressway during the morning rush hour. The lamb was rescued by an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer with help from the NYPD and "fellow New Yorkers," according to a tweet from CBP's New York field office's verified account. The lamb was also brought to Skylands where, perhaps, it can swap stories with the goat around the watering hole. Update: The Connecticut Feeding Our Families event that was scheduled for Saturday, April 13th has been postponed. NBC CT and Telemundo CT, along with our community partners and Stop & Shop want the annual food drive to be as successful as possible. We will reschedule the event for a future date. Joining together to help Tri-State food banks replenish non-perishable supplies and sustain essential anti-hunger efforts, NBC Connecticut / WVIT, Telemundo Connecticut / WRDM and Stop & Shop are coming together in support of two local food banks on Saturday, April 13 for the second annual Feeding Our Families (or Alimentando a Nuestras Familias in Spanish) food drive. The food collection drive will take place at all local Stop & Shop locations throughout Connecticut between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. One of the largest, single-day, multi-state food drives in the Northeast, Feeding our Families has generated more than two million meals for local families. NBC Connecticut and Telemundo Connecticut are excited to be a part of the states largest single day food drive, Feeding our Families! We are dedicated to connecting with our community and this event is a perfect example of how our loyal viewers, local food banks and dedicated employees come together to fight hunger and help our neighbors in need" said Susan Tully, NBC CT and Telemundo CT president and general manager. With food banks facing their greatest need between the months of January and August, more than 300 tons of essential non-perishable goods have also been donated to regional food banks throughout the tri-state region in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Non-Perishable Wishlist Canned Fruits (low sugar preferred) Canned Vegetables (low sodium preferred) Canned Soups (low sodium preferred) Canned Fish/Protein Rice (white and/or brown) Cereal (low sugar preferred) Canned/Dried Beans Peanut Butter Pasta (regular and/or whole grain) Hygiene Items (shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.) Diapers (children and/or adults) Non-Food Essentials (household items, paper products) No dairy, no glass, no produce, please. NBC Connecticut and Telemundo Connecticut will be broadcasting live from several Stop & Shop locations on Saturday, April 13. The presenters, reporters and employees of both stations will also visit the Stop & Shop supermarkets that day to support the collection efforts.NBC Connecticut and Telemundo Connecticut will be broadcasting live from several Stop & Shop locations on Saturday, April 13. The presenters, reporters and employees of both stations will also visit the Stop & Shop supermarkets that day to support the collection efforts. Come say hello! An Arkansas university has announced plans for a new scholarship honoring graduate Botham Jean, an unarmed black man who was fatally shot by a white Dallas police officer who'd entered his apartment last year. Jean was a native of St. Lucia who graduated from Harding University in 2016. He was shot in September by officer Amber Guyger, who told police that she entered Jean's apartment believing it was her own. Guyger was indicted on a murder charge in November. On Tuesday, Harding announced plans for the new scholarship in memory of Jean. University President Bruce McLarty says the memorial scholarship "is a perfect example of good coming from something evil and hope emerging from deep loss." Officials say students from the Caribbean will be given preference for the scholarship. We cant remain what we always have been because the world keeps changing so we, as a community, have to move ahead, Desmond said. We dont want to be Blockbuster. We dont want to be Sears. We want to be Lake Forest and thats the place where everybody wants to be. Charges have been dismissed against three Dallas police officers in connection with the death of an unarmed man who died in police custody in 2016. The Dallas County Attorney's Office announced Monday it had dismissed charges of misdemeanor deadly conduct against Dallas Police Sgt. Kevin Mansell as well as officers Danny Vasquez and Dustin Dillard. Anthony Timpa, 32, called 911 for help while at an adult video store on West Mockingbird Lane on Aug. 10, 2016. High on cocaine and panicked, Timpa ran out of the store and into traffic before being put in handcuffs by security guards. Dallas police officers arrived shortly after and placed him into their own handcuffs. Within an hour he was dead. A Dallas County medical examiner ruled Timpa's death a homicide, "due to the toxic effects of cocaine and physiologic stress associated with physical restraint." The officers said they restrained Timpa to keep him from running into the street. In December 2017 a grand jury indicted the trio, concluding the officers engaged in reckless conduct. On Monday, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot's office said he had met with all three medical examiners who testified before the grand jury about their findings. Creuzot's office said all three stated they did not believe the officers acted recklessly and that they cannot, and will not, testify to the elements of the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt. Creuzot met with family members and their attorney last week to inform them of the decision to not move forward with the case. Now that the criminal charges have been dropped, a federal lawsuit for civil rights violations can proceed. The suit, filed by Timpa's family in late 2016, alleges Dallas officers used excessive deadly force against him. An updated version named six people as defendants, plus Criminal Investigative Unit, LLC. As of late Monday, all three DPD officers cleared of criminal wrongdoing were still on administrative leave. NBC 5 media partner The Dallas Morning News obtained a copy of the lawsuit filed by Timpa's family, detailing what the body cam footage showed. Exxon Mobil is boosting its projected growth of oil and gas production in the Permian Basin and says the field can be profitable even at lower crude prices. The company said Tuesday that as soon as 2024 it expects to produce the equivalent of more than 1 million barrels of oil per day in the basin, which straddles western Texas and New Mexico, up from a forecast of 600,000 barrels by 2025. Exxon has 48 drilling rigs in the basin and plans to raise that to 55 by year-end. The oil giant estimates that it is sitting on about 10 billion barrels of oil in the basin. Exxon is updating its forecast before executives hold their annual investor day with analysts Wednesday in New York. Coworking is changing how we work. With start-ups, independents and small businesses, fueling the growth of shared work spaces. Yet, a new trend is emerging in North Texas. Coworking spaces focused on women. We would be one of the first to open and cater to a female demographic, says Cassi Osterling, co-founder and CEO of Her. HQ. Osterling and co-founder Tiffany Zamora opened Her. HQ in a pop up space in an high rise in the Arts District in February. Its the result of attempts to get plugged in after they each moved to Dallas for jobs about five years ago. We realized so many women had side projects or side hustles they were working on but not really talking about it, Osterling said. So for us, we got this idea of meeting new women, but also making connections and putting those plans into action and creating community. The women will announce a permanent location and start accepting member applications in June. But for now, theyve partnered with CENTRL Office, a Portland-based coworking office. Women who pay for daily or monthly passes in the pop up space on North St. Paul Street work around a large table and have access to private conference rooms. They also have access to programming and events focused on health and wellness, creative exploration and career events, the heart of Her. HQ. We wanted this to be a place that is designed for women with their needs in mind, and one of those needs, Osterling says, is a place where only women are the members. Working out of the space, women only. If youre a woman and you want to bring men to close a deal or have a meeting, theyre welcome in the space, Osterling explained. Were not excluding them from the space or the events, but for the membership, its women only. A few miles away in the Design District, The Slate opened in March and is owned by two sisters. We are two people with an idea that we wanted to bring to life; sisters who have faith in each other and are building something special, co-founder Jodie Hastings said. We are female-focused. We built this space with ourselves in mind. So, it lends itself to the fact that we would want to be here ourselves. Hastings points to feminine touches like art, fresh florals and greenery, natural lighting, and even retail where a busy woman can pick up a gift on the go. There are living room and kitchen-like areas along with desks, offices and conference rooms. What makes The Slate stand out, Hastings said, is the ability for members to create content for websites and social media channels. Whats really special is we have a studio. We have a way that you can broadcast your message whether youre a small business or a large business from the podcast room or the studio, Hastings said. The Slates real purpose is to house everything a business would need under one roof. Tamara Payne understands the need to support entrepreneurs and give them tools to succeed. She was on her own for 15 years. Working alone, lack of productivity, lack of drive even because Im working at home by myself, are the downsides that can come with entrepreneurship she explained. She found the solution in Ensemble Coworking and opened it three years, the first woman-owned coworking space in North Texas, she said. I wanted to create a space where these types of people can come together and connect without having the large overhead and have a community to be part of, so they dont feel alone, so they have the mentorship they need, so theyre connected to resources, Payne explained. Paynes coworking space is co-ed, but 75 percent of members, or groupies as she calls them, are women. It happened naturally, I think, because our space is so warm and welcoming, and women want to work together, Payne said. When we started three years ago, we thought about a woman-only space, but the market wasnt ready. But women have such a voice now, and we want to get connected more. Its what drew Megan Brown, owner of MB Marketing in Fort Worth, to coworking. She left a secure job in finance two years ago to live my entrepreneurial dream. She wanted to share office space and found the right spot at Ensemble. There are marketing firms here similar to mine, but we collaborate much more than we compete and having people to bounce ideas off of or having people to talk to; entrepreneurship can be so lonely, Brown said. The sense of community at Her. HQ was also the selling point for the duo behind Dallas-based 1302 Watch Co. Sisters-in-law Asma Heerji and Rozmin Ladha left IT and legal careers, respectively, behind to pursue their passion to start something new. A coworking space fuels their creative drive. We dont need to be in cubicles. We need to talk to each other, have inspiration, Heerji said. There are so many smart women around here and so many to get inspired from. Access to coworking spaces range from a daily pass to annual memberships. Dallas police discovered a man they say was murdered when they responded to a call regarding an unconscious person at an apartment near Lake Cliff Park early Sunday morning. Upon arrival, officers found 62-year-old Frederick Whitley dead of apparent "homicidal violence" in his apartment in the 900 block of North Marsalis Avenue around 5:45 a.m., police said. Police have not identified any suspects. As the number of migrant families crossing the southwest border is again breaking records, officials said Tuesday they were building a new facility to manage them, while warning the crush is overwhelming border agents and straining facilities. More than 76,000 migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally last month, more than double the number from the same period last year. Migrant families are coming in ever-increasingly large groups -- there were 70 groups of more than 100 people in the past few months, and they cross in extremely rural locations with few agents and staff. There were only 13 large groups during the previous budget year, and only two the year before. The system "is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point," U.S. Customs and Border Protection Kevin McAleenan said a press conference Tuesday. After the deaths of two migrant children in Border Patrol custody, the agency stepped up medical screenings. They also announced sweeping changes including more rigorous interviews as migrants come into the system. And McAleenan said a new processing center would be built in El Paso, Texas, that will be better suited to manage families and children and handle medical care concerns. "While our enhanced medical efforts will assist in managing the increased flows, the fact is that these solutions are temporary and this solution is not sustainable," he said. While fewer people overall are being apprehended crossing the border illegally each year -- about 400,000 last budget year compared with more than 1 million in 2000, the increasing numbers are alarming, officials said. Those apprehended used to be mostly single men from Mexico, but are now mostly families from Central America -- since January more than 100,000 families have been apprehended between ports of entry. From October through September 2018, about the same number of families was apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. Tens of thousands of children illegally cross the border alone. While single men used to evade capture, the families are seeking out agents. The announcement came as the agency reported using firearms less and less. There were 15 instances where officers and agents used firearms during the budget year 2018, down from a high of 55 reported during the 2012 budget year, and down from 17 during 2017's budget year and 25 the year before. Despite high-profile instances in recent months where agents used tear gas on groups of migrants that included children, use of less-lethal force like tear gas, batons or stun guns are also down, to 898. That's a decrease from the high in 2013 of 1,168, according to the data. Border officials said the large families groups are creating opportunities for smugglers because attention is diverted to the large groups. Border officials say they worry they're spending too much time on migrant care and not enough on security. During 2018's fiscal year, border agents and officers seized more than 1.7 pounds of narcotics, including 1.1 million pounds of marijuana, 282,570 pounds of cocaine, 6,552 pounds of heroin and 2,463 pounds of fentanyl, mostly through ports of entry, according to the border security report from budget year 2018, released Tuesday. Fentanyl seizures were up nearly 70 percent from the last budget year. Complaints of excessive force prompted the border enforcement agency to commission an audit and investigation by the Police Executive Research Forum, a research and policy group. The 2013 audit highlighted problems that included foot-patrol agents without access to less-lethal options, and it recommended law enforcement not be allowed to use deadly force when people throw rocks -- a suggestion that was rejected. Following those reviews, major training and policy changes were made. Border Patrol agents now undergo scenario-based drills at the academy and learn how to de-escalate tense situations. They get 64 hours of on-the-job training on use of force. Agents and officers are authorized to use deadly force when there is reasonable belief in an imminent danger of serious physical injury or death to the officer or another person. They have discretion on how to deploy less-than-lethal force: It must be both "objectively reasonable and necessary in order to carry out law enforcement duties" -- and used when other "empty hand" techniques are not sufficient to control disorderly or violent subjects. Officials say they deploy the lowest form of force necessary to take control of a situation, but instances a few months ago where tear gas was used on migrants that included children drew strong criticism. A group of bright middle school students and the robots they built are heading to national, and even world, robotics competitions in the coming weeks where they will represent Dallas and their school. There's only one problem, there's not enough money for some added costs, like chaperones. The STEM Robotics Club at Robert T. Hill Junior High School in Old Lake Highlands built their dream from the ground up. "I actually get to drive the robot that I helped build," said seventh-grader Cody Fulenwider. "Yeah, it's pretty cool." The students' 7 a.m. meetings and the weekend competitions appear to have paid off. The seventh and eighth graders have qualified for nationals in Iowa at the end of March, and followed by worlds in Kentucky. "We're really excited that we get this opportunity to go and represent our school," Fulenwider said. But the elite upcoming competitions have left parents and the kids' teacher scrambling to find ways to travel with the teams. In a letter to potential contributors, the teacher wrote, "We do not have enough funds to pay for all aspects" of the upcoming competitions. "I don't want them to be so focused on the concern of getting there and having everything in place," said Cynthia Rosales, mother of seventh-grader Jayden Rucker. "I wanted to do my part as a parent." Although she cannot attend the four-day competition, Rosales said she started a GoFundMe account to help the teacher pay for parent chaperones, their hotel rooms, extra food for the children and protective cases for the robots to travel in. These are costs that are not covered by Dallas ISD, according to Rosales. The students' travel costs, including hotel stay, is covered, she added. "We just really didn't want [their teacher] to feel the burden of and the stress to try and find the extra funds to make sure everyone can get there and have proper supervision, that the robots get there safe and intact," Cody's mother Alecia Fulenwider said. They're hoping for a helping hand so that these bright students keep their eyes on the prize. "I hope that they can help us," Rosales said. "Lift us up so we can have the moment of a lifetime." Donations can be made to the Robert T. Hill Middle School STEM Academy Booster Club. There is also a GoFundMe account set up with the teacher's consent. What to Know California last conducted an execution in 2006 More than 700 inmates are on the nation's largest death row California voters have consistently rejected repeal efforts, voting in 2016 to speed up the appeals process California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that he is taking executive action to halt the use of the death penalty in California. Newsom signed the order Wednesday, granting a reprieve for the state's more than 730 condemned inmates for as long as he is governor. The order doesn't change existing convictions or sentences and no one will be released as a result of the action. At a Wednesday news conference, the first-term governor said his views on capital punishment were shaped 40 years ago by his grandfather and father, who advocated on behalf of wrongly convicted prisoners. 12:45pm: The death chamber at San Quentin. Closed. pic.twitter.com/0zK4UUItBG Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) March 13, 2019 "It's a very emotional place that I stand," Newsom said Wednesday. "This is about who I am as a human being, this is about what I can or cannot do; to me this was the right thing to do. "I was a young man learning that life story. I've gotten a sense over a course of many, many years over the disparities in our criminal justice system." In a statement issued earlier, Newsom said a civilized society can't claim to be a world leader as long as its government "continues to sanction the premediated and discriminatory execution of its people." Newsom had been calling elected officials around the state to share some information, but the official announcement was made Wednesday morning in Sacramento. Two sources familiar with the governor's plans confirmed plans Tuesday to NBC4's I-Team. California, which has 737 condemned inmates and the nation's largest death row, has not executed anyone since 2006. Newsom has been openly advocating for a moratorium on the death penalty and told the LA Times this week that he has asked his legal advisers to research his options as governor. "It doesn't necessarily square with the values... and the hearts and minds of tens of millions of Californians," Newsom said at a Wednesday news conference. Newsom's action is temporary, and a repeal of capital punishment would be up to California voters, who have consistently rejected statewide ballot measures to repeal the death penalty. In 2016, voters narrowly passed a ballot measure to speed up executions in California by fast-tracking appeals, but no condemned inmate was facing imminent execution. Current death row inmates include Scott Peterson, convicted in the death of his wife Laci, and Richard Davis, sentenced for kidnapping and strangling 12-year-old Polly Klaas. The last inmate to be executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen, killed Jan. 17, 2006 at age 76. Allen, sentenced to death on three counts of first-degree murder, was on death row for more than two decades before a lethal injection was administered. California now houses one of every four condemned inmates in the country. Early Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted his disagreement with Newsom. He said "friends and families of the always forgotten VICTIMS are not thrilled, and neither am I!." Newsom "is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty," said Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy (Los Angeles County) District Attorneys. The governor's office sent emails that included the phrase, "...will announce a death penalty moratorium via executive action." An administration source in the governor's office said the order does the following: Puts in place an executive moratorium on the death penalty in the form of a reprieve for all individuals sentenced to death in California. Withdrawals California's lethal injection protocol. Immediately closes the execution chamber at San Quentin. States clearly the directive does not provide for the release of any individual from prison or otherwise alter any current conviction or sentence. Newsom's action is likely to face a court challenge, but aides said he is not changing any convictions or allowing for early release. A governor needs approval from the state Supreme Court to pardon or commute the sentence of anyone twice convicted of a felony. Last year, justices lblocked several clemency requests by former Gov. Jerry Brown that did not involve condemned inmates. Other governors also have enacted moratoriums. Republican Illinois Gov. George Ryan was the first in 2000 and later was followed by Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon. Illinois ultimately outlawed executions, as did Washington. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, applauded Newsom's decision. "As a career law enforcement official, I have opposed the death penalty because it is immoral, discriminatory, ineffective, and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars," she said in a statement. The California Innocence Project, which works to exonerate people on death row in the state, lauded the upcoming announcement. "It has been my dream for many years that we would end the human rights violation known as the death penalty in California," Justin Brooks, Director of the California Innocence Project and a Professor at California Western School of Law, said in a statement. "It is certain that as long as there is the death penalty there is the risk of executing innocent people. I am proud of our new Governor for taking this bold step." The District Attorney's Association also responded to the planned announcement: "The voters of the State of California support the death penalty," Michele Hanisee, President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys said in a statement. "That is powerfully demonstrated by their approval of Proposition 66 in 2016 to ensure the death penalty is implemented, and their rejection of measures to end the death penalty in 2016 and 2006. Governor Newsom, who supported the failed initiative to end the death penalty in 2006, is usurping the express will of California voters and substituting his personal preferences via this hasty and ill-considered moratorium on the death penalty." Equality California, the nation's largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization, also responded to the planned action: "Equality California applauds Governor Newsom for the principled leadership he has demonstrated through this decision," Rick Zbur, executive director of the organization, said in a statement. "Fairness and equality are fundamental California values. But these core values are not reflected in our state's broken death penalty system. We cannot accept a system in which certain communities especially communities of color and the LGBTQ community are disproportionately vulnerable simply because of our race, our sexual orientation or gender identity, how much money we have or where we are from." Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, who has previously worked with Trump on criminal justice reform, tweeted her support for Newsom's moratorium. NBC4's Jonathan Lloyd contributed to this report. Before Bernie Sanders took the stage to formally launch his 2020 presidential campaign this month, the candidate's most influential adviser took the mic. To cheers, Jane Sanders introduced herself to the Brooklyn crowd as "Bernie's wife," then conceded that wasn't the most politically correct label. To be sure, identifying Jane Sanders as "the wife" hardly captures the scope of her influence on her husband's political career. Across 30 years and a dozen campaigns for federal office, she has served variously as her husband's media consultant, surrogate, fundraiser, chief of staff, campaign spokeswoman and top strategist. His political revolution has become her career. And her political and business activities have, at times, become his headache. As the Vermont senator undertakes his second presidential run and scrambles his inner circle, Jane Sanders remains his closest adviser, making her perhaps the most influential woman in the 2020 campaign who isn't a candidate. "Bernie's top adviser always has been and will continue to be Jane," said Jeff Weaver, a Sanders adviser. She has a voice in almost every major political decision her husband makes, travels with him for major events and is deeply involved in formulating policies, issues and campaign infrastructure. "At every level," Weaver said, "Jane is intimately involved." That involvement has drawn questions sometimes about her political judgment, family opportunism and flawed ethics from political foes, good government advocates and longtime Sanders-watchers in Vermont and in the progressive movement. Most recently, critics questioned the role played by the Sanders Institute , a nonprofit co-founded by Jane Sanders and her son, for blending elements of fundraising, family and campaign policy development. Her dual roles at the institute and in her husband's campaign carried echoes of the Clinton Foundation, which Bernie Sanders criticized in 2016 as a possible ethics conflict and back door for foreign donors seeking to influence his then-rival Hillary Clinton. "Bernie Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016 criticizing her for the vast sums of money she raised and he seems to be following in some of her footsteps," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. "Now he's raising vast sums of money and it's being controlled and shaped by his family." Jane Sanders acted this past week to remove the think tank as a possible campaign ethics target, telling The Associated Press that the institute's operations and fundraising would be suspended for the balance of her husband's 2020 presidential campaign. Since its creation in 2017, the group raised more than $700,000, but has not disclosed most of its donors. She said the decision to put the Sanders Institute on hiatus was "a forward-looking way to deal with potential concerns." Sanders may prove an important surrogate for her husband, particularly in a race crowded with female candidates and potentially hinging on how women vote. She publicly defended her husband when he faced criticism for the way his 2016 campaign handled accusations of sexual harassment. She's become an essential liaison to the progressive activists at the heart of the Sanders' base, using the institute to host meetings of policymakers and activists. An affable, if low-key public speaker, she was the star of the December "Gathering" in Burlington, Vermont, a three-day policy gathering that featured progressive speakers including environmentalist Bill McKibben, actor Danny Glover and her husband. Steeped in years of involvement in progressive causes, Sanders comfortably slipped into the role as the event's emcee. Before a crowd of more than 250 progressive activists, she stoked applause lines for favored organizations and lavished compliments on institute fellows. Similarly, in videos posted on the institute's website, she has led numerous policy conversations with experts in a Brooklyn accent fainter than her husband's. Jane Sanders is not compensated for her role at the institute. Her son, David Driscoll, has been paid $100,000 a year as a co-founder and executive director, she confirmed. Driscoll had been an executive for Nike and the Vermont snowboarding company Burton, but had no previous nonprofit experience, according to his LinkedIn profile. Like her husband, Jane Sanders "has learned not to trust a lot of people. Family is a lot more dependable than outsiders," said University of Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson, an acquaintance and veteran Sanders-watcher. Jane Sanders expressed frustration about concerns that she and some of her children have at times benefited from their activities affiliated with Sanders' expanding political apparatus. "How can we say nepotism here? It just doesn't fit," she said. She added that the Sanders Institute has "developed policy and the content that we get completely separate" from her husband's campaign. Politics has long been a family project for the couple. Jane Sanders first worked with her future husband as director of the mayor's youth Office in Burlington. They were both displaced New Yorkers, Jane noted at the launch rally, stamped by childhood days on Brooklyn's city streets. "We had very similar experiences," she said. "We spent a lot of time playing stickball, running races and just hanging out on the streets with the kids in our neighborhoods." They wed in 1988 a second marriage for both two years before Sanders won his first election to Congress. Jane Sanders went to Capitol Hill as his volunteer deputy gaining experience in policy, legislation and as chief of staff. In the early 2000s, she took on a new role along with her daughter, Carina. Two women set up a consulting firm, paid more than $90,000 in consulting fees by Bernie Sanders' House campaigns. In 2004, the year before Bernie Sanders' launched his winning Senate campaign, his wife was named president of Burlington College, a local small liberal arts college. In 2010, she worked out a $10 million deal for the college to buy 32 acres of waterfront land on Lake Champlain and a 77,000-square-foot former orphanage and administrative offices of Vermont's Roman Catholic Church, which needed the money to settle a series of priest sex abuse cases. She promised at the time the deal would be paid for with increases in enrollment and about $2.7 million in donations. But her plans never took wing and under fire, she resigned from the college in 2011. The school closed in 2016, citing debt from the land deal as a major reason for its failure. Prompted by complaints filed by a Republican lawyer about her involvement in the land deal, federal investigators looked into Jane Sanders' stewardship but informed her last November that she would not be charged. "We've learned we're going to be attacked," she said during an interview, adding "that's the fact of today's politics." But she said she was confident that the decision to put the think tank on hiatus was "best for the institute to not have the possibility of misinterpretation." The move, she said, will allow her to expand her campaign work freely for the Sanders campaign, including more solo stops on her husband's behalf. "I will be more active throughout," she said. ___ Ring reported from Montpelier, Vermont, and Peoples from New York. Angry crowds evacuating from the last shred of territory held by Islamic State militants in Syria praised the extremist group Wednesday and chanted "Islamic State will remain," in a menacing show of support, even as defeat loomed. There were no signs of combat as calm prevailed for a third day to allow for evacuations from the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz. Associated Press journalists positioned across from the ISIS's riverside pocket of land saw lines of pickup trucks, motorcycles and people walking on foot, apparently a group of evacuees. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is spearheading the fight against ISIS in Syria, has been surprised by the large number of civilians family members of ISIS fighters in the thousands who have been streaming out of the tiny enclave. In recent weeks, the Kurdish-led SDF has been alternately applying military force to put pressure on militants who refuse to surrender and holding fire long enough to allow for evacuations and surrender. Thousands of people have trickled out of Baghouz in the last few days. The latest wave of evacuations brings ISIS a step closer to defeat by the Kurdish-led SDF. That would be a milestone in the devastating four-year campaign to defeat the group's so-called "caliphate" that once covered a vast territory straddling both Syria and Iraq. The fight against ISIS has taken place amid Syria's nearly 8-year-old civil war. On Wednesday, hundreds of evacuees walked through the dusty desert plateau to get on trucks to carry them to displaced persons camps miles away. Meanwhile, lines of men walked guided by their enemy, the SDF, to another corner of the plateau to be screened and searched by members of the U.S-led coalition. As defeat neared, the anger of defiant supporters among the evacuees was palpable. Women seen at a reception area set up in the desert, where they were screened by SDF officials, were rowdy and aggressive. They angrily denounced journalists, and praised ISIS. Engulfed in conservative black robes with a black face covers, they pointed their fingers at the sky and screamed: "Islamic State will stay, God is great, God is great, Islamic State will stay!" Two women took off their shoes and raised them in the direction of journalists. "Take a picture of the shoe, the shoes are better than you," one said. Children joined, raising their fingers in the air. A man who refused to give his name screamed at journalists filming the evacuees praying, and decried their being depicted as terrorists. "We only implemented God's laws," he shouted, covering half his face. Abu Sham, a member of the ISIS religious police who exited Baghouz on Tuesday, said fighters who remained inside are willing to die for the group. "The Islamic State is not finished," the 39-year old said, using a moniker that means the father of Syria. "I didn't lose hope." A 30-year-old Iraqi woman said her 1-month-old baby, who was sick, died overnight in the reception area from the cold. "I didn't want to leave except to treat her," said the woman who identified herself as Um Fatima. She cursed the SDF and said: "The Islamic state will remain and expand, God willing," and walked away. A group of men were seated on the ground, under the watchful eye of SDF fighters, many of them covering their faces with checkered scarves. Many among those leaving Wednesday appeared to be wives and children of ISIS militants. But among those who emerged were 13 Yazidi children from Iraq, looking dusty and dirty and in a state of shock. At least 75 men also came out, going straight to the interrogation area. After sundown, new trucks carrying more evacuees arrived. The scenes of surrender, humiliation and anger highlighted the desperation of the group as their last bastion teeters on the edge of collapse. The SDF announced a military operation to liberate Baghouz in September, but has held off on a full blown assault after it became apparent that a huge number of civilians were still inside. Over the last three weeks, more than 10,000 people, many of them exhausted and wounded IS followers, have evacuated. The militants many of them foreigners, including Iraqis and Central Asians along with some Syrian fighters are now fighting their final battle, holed up in tunnels and caves inside Baghouz. An SDF commander said Wednesday when the last batch of civilians and evacuees leave, the group will bomb the remaining hardcore militants who have vowed to die in Baghouz. The commander said those fighters are ready to blow themselves up. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Another SDF military commander said at least 400 ISIS fighters were caught trying to leave Tuesday. He said the men were working with a smuggling ring to get away from SDF areas. He also spoke on condition of anonymity. After days without fighting, the SDF and the coalition launched an intense assault Friday that targeted an ammunition warehouse in the ISIS-held area and advanced forces inside, tightening the noose on the militants. Evacuees said the strikes ignited a fire that burned part of the tent encampment where thousands of family members and civilians had been placed. The fire forced many people to run toward the nearby Euphrates River, where some dug holes on the waterfront to seek refuge, said Abu Mariam, an evacuee who lost his wife and two children in the fire. Loubna, a 30-year-old woman from the Syrian town of al-Bab, said there were many bodies on the streets in the ISIS-held area, burned by the fire. The fire was still smoldering days later. Loubna said she opted to leave but her husband, a Syrian, decided to stay. He will fight till the end, she said, adding he is prepared to blow himself up. "They have their planes. We have God's help," she said. Loubna said didn't think she would see her husband again, and will raise her five kids to become jihadists. As several thousand people, including firefighters from across the nation, gathered in Maine to honor the life of one of their own, a fire chief in attendance suffered a medical emergency and later died. Maine Gov. Janet Mills says Oxford Fire Chief Gary Sacco died after attending Sunday's funeral for Berwick Fire Capt. Joel Barnes, who was fatally injured shielding a colleague while battling a four-alarm fire on March 1. "Our hearts, already broken by the loss of Captain Joel Barnes, also mourn the loss of Oxford Fire Chief Gary Sacco. In a testament to his own character, Chief Sacco lost his life while honoring that of his fallen brother, fellow firefighter Captain Barnes," Gov. Mills said on Twitter. "I join with people across Maine in offering my thoughts and prayers to Chief Saccos family and friends, the Oxford Fire Department, and all of Maines first responders. The State of Maine has given two of its best to the Heavens." Maine Medical Center spokesman Matt Wickenheiser confirmed that Sacco was stricken at the funeral, rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead in the emergency room. Sacco served in the Oxford Fire Department starting in 2017 after he retired from New Gloucester where he was fire chief for 12 years, affiliate WCSH reports. He also served in the Auburn Fire Department. The staff of the Oxford Fire Department planned to gather Sunday evening to mourn the loss of Chief Sacco. Sacco was among hundreds of firefighters from across New England who attended the public memorial for Barnes at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Many were disrespected, Schneider said during the ceremony. They were yelled at, shouted down and spat upon instead of welcomed home. The time has come to thank you for all you have done. Extremely cold, record-breaking temperatures are settling across parts of the Midwest after a powerful snowstorm pounded the region overnight Monday, and forecasters are describing the subzero weather on the way as potentially life-threatening. Minneapolis Public Schools have canceled classes through Wednesday, when the region will experience frigidly low temperatures not seen in a quarter century. "You're talking about frostbite and hypothermia issues very quickly, like in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds," said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. The cold also prompted officials to close hundreds of Michigan schools, including in Detroit, and some schools in eastern Iowa, while Chicago Public Schools officials said schools would be closed Wednesday. The Chicago Zoological Society, meanwhile, said it's closing the Brookfield Zoo on Wednesday and Thursday to ensure the safety of employees and animals. It's only the fourth time the zoo has closed during its 85-year history. Subzero temperatures will begin Tuesday but Wednesday is expected to be the worst. Wind chills in northern Illinois could fall to negative 55 degrees (negative 48 degrees Celsius), which the National Weather Service called "possibly life threatening." Minnesota temperatures could hit minus 30 degrees (negative 34 degrees Celsius) with a wind chill of negative 60 (negative 51 degrees Celsius). The potentially record-breaking low temperature forecast in Milwaukee is negative 28 degrees (negative 33 degrees Celsius), with a wind chill as low as negative 50 (negative 45 degrees Celsius). The current record of minus 26 degrees (negative 32 degrees Celsius) was set in 1996. "That's 40 degrees below normal," Hurley said. At O'Hare International Airport, the high temperature Wednesday is expected to be negative 14 degrees (negative 25 degrees Celsius), which would break a record set on Jan. 18, 1994. Homeless shelters were preparing for the onslaught of cold. The Milwaukee Rescue Mission's call volume was "unusually high," but there should still be enough beds for those who need them, said the mission's president, Pat Vanderburgh. Charitable groups that operate warming places and shelters in Minneapolis were expanding hours and capacity "as they do whenever dangerous extreme temperature events occur," said Hennepin County Emergency Management Director Eric Waage. He said ambulance crews were handling all outside response incidents as being potentially life-threatening. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel urged residents to check on their neighbors and take safety precautions. He said city agencies are making sure homeless people are in shelters or offered space in warming buses. "Dangerous cold, check on your neighbors, make sure you have adequate heat," NBC Chicago meteorologist Brant Miller said. Cold weather advisories are in effect across a broad swath of the central U.S., from North Dakota to Missouri and spanning into Ohio. Temperatures will be as many as 20 degrees below average in parts of the Upper Great Lakes region and Upper Mississippi Valley, according to the National Weather Service. The unusually frigid weather is attributed to a sudden warming way above the North Pole. A sudden blast of warm air from misplaced Moroccan heat last month made the normally super chilly air temperatures 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the North Pole rapidly rise about 125 degrees (70 degrees Celsius). That split the polar vortex into pieces, which then started to wander, according to Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research, a commercial firm outside Boston. One of those polar vortex pieces is responsible for the subzero temperatures across the Midwest this week. On Monday, snowplow drivers had trouble keeping up with the snow in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where some areas got as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters). Chicago-area commuters woke up to heavy snowfall, with more than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) already on the ground. In Michigan, nonessential government offices were closed, including the Capitol. A snow plow struck and killed a man in in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville. Libertyville police say the village plow truck hit the man about 9:50 a.m. Monday and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Officials haven't identified the man. An autopsy is planned for Tuesday. Rare snowfall was also forecast for some southern states. Forecasters warned of up to 3 inches (7 centimeters) of snow in central Mississippi and Alabama by Tuesday morning and said temperatures will plummet as arctic cold blasts southward. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a state of emergency ahead of the storm. The Priceville Police Department in Morgan County, Alabama, jokingly announced in a Facebook post Tuesday that "all crime and doing really dumb things" has been cancelled until further notice due to the possibility of snow. Associated Press reporters Caryn Rousseau, Gretchen Ehlke and David Runk contributed to this report. Yemen's warring sides agreed Thursday to an immediate cease-fire in the strategic port city of Hodeida, where fighting has disrupted vital aid deliveries and left the country on the brink of starvation in the 4-year-old civil war. The agreement includes a withdrawal of combatants to outside the city limits within two weeks and was praised by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as "real progress" to alleviate Yemen's suffering and show commitment to a political solution. The truce, along with a mass prisoner exchange agreement reached earlier, were seen as important first steps toward further talks in January aimed at drawing down a stalemated conflict that has killed thousands of people and left millions more in misery in the Arab world's poorest country. The cease-fire and pullback of forces eases fears that the battle for Hodeida could force an outright closure of its port, which would have been disastrous, since it is the main entry point for food and other humanitarian aid for millions of Yemenis. Throughout months of fighting around Hodeida, the port remained open, although movement of aid out of the city to the rest of the country was slowed because it had to avoid the front lines. But the deal might not mean an immediate or significant difference in easing the suffering of Yemenis. Ships bringing supplies into Hodeida must still undergo strict searches by U.N. monitors to ensure no weapons are aboard, a process that has delayed deliveries. Once in the country, it is a struggle to get food to families who need it because of corruption or mismanagement. More than 22 million of Yemen's 29 million need humanitarian aid, and the most desperate over 8 million have no food other than international relief supplies. Guterres announced the truce during peace talks in Sweden, where he thanked the delegations. "It will improve the living conditions for millions of Yemenis," he said. "The fact that we came to an agreement on Hodeida, that many would consider the most difficult of the problems on the table, give us the hope that this process will now be moving step by step and that we'll be able to overcome all the obstacles that we face," Guterres told reporters after a closing ceremony in a castle in the town of Rimbo outside Stockholm. In a sign that the talks appeared to make more progress than previous rounds, Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani and Houthi delegation head Mohamed Abdelsalam shook hands at the closing event. The conflict pits the internationally recognized Yemeni government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, against the Iran-backed rebels known as Houthis. The U.S. is supporting Saudi Arabia's effort in the war. The fighting has produced one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, according to the U.N. The two sides have been locked in a stalemated fight over Hodeida for months. The U.N.-sponsored talks began last week with low expectations but saw some progress with the agreement of a prisoner swap involving about 15,000 captives, scheduled to occur by Jan. 20. Both sides have said they sought to build on the goodwill. U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has said he wants to remove Hodeida from the conflict so that aid can flow freely. Thursday's agreement aims to do just that, with troops retreating to outside the city limits and a province-wide cease-fire. "This will be the first withdrawal of any forces in the history of this conflict. And it will be done in the area of the greatest sensitivity, and difficulty and danger," he said, adding that other areas under discussion will continue in the weeks and months ahead. On Wednesday, he said he gave both sides a draft agreement for consideration that included proposals for reopening the airport in the capital of Sanaa, as well as one for a political framework for a postwar Yemen. It was unclear how far they have come in agreeing on those broader issues, although some progress was announced toward drawing down fighting in the central city of Taiz and creating "humanitarian corridors" localized cease-fire zones to allow in aid shipments. Asked if rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia had been involved behind the scenes, Guterres said they had played a constructive role in the Yemeni-led talks. "Obviously there has been very relevant consultations with (Iran and Saudi Arabia) and all other regional parties, and I must say I am very grateful for the very constructive approach that I have felt in the last few weeks in order to facilitate creating the conditions for this agreement to be possible," he said. The World Food Program welcomed the cease-fire announcement, saying it offers hope for millions of Yemenis. "Any progress toward peace is good progress, as long as it helps the Yemeni people who have suffered so much in this conflict," WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement. Noting that Yemen imports nearly all its food and about 70 percent of that goes through Hodeida's port, Beasley added that "what all of Yemen needs the most, though, is a permanent, lasting and full peace." The mounting humanitarian crisis has galvanized international support for ending the war, which has raged for years with little notice from the rest of the world. Western fatigue with the conflict also is growing, especially after the Oct. 2 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, allegedly by members of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's royal entourage. The U.S. refueling of Saudi warplanes has stopped after months of airstrikes that have killed civilians. In addition, The Associated Press conducted a year-long investigation into the conflict, finding parents who were giving up meals so they could dedicate what little food they had to keeping children alive. It also found pockets of famine in the north that relief agencies had overlooked, where families were boiling leaves to survive. The AP also uncovered abuses by all sides in the conflict, including rampant torture in prisons run by Houthi rebels in the north and the United Arab Emirates, a coalition member, and its allies in the south. An international group tracking the war said this week that the conflict has killed more than 60,000 people, including combatants and civilians, since 2016. The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, said in a report Tuesday that more than 28,000 people both civilians and combatants have been killed in the first 11 months of 2018, an increase of 68 percent from 2017. More than 3,000 were killed in November, the deadliest month since ACLED started collecting data. The group said 37 percent of the civilian deaths in 2018 occurred in Hodeida. ACLED bases its figures on media reports of each incident of violence in the war. ACLED's figures do not include the last few months of 2014, when Houthi rebels captured Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, nor the casualties in 2015, when the coalition joined the war on the side of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government. ___ Rohan reported from Cairo. President Donald Trump keeps changing his story in the swirling investigations into Russia election interference and hush money payments to women who say they had affairs with him. He insists that payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal during the 2016 campaign were "private transactions" and that any crime committed would be the fault of his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, not him. That's a change from what the president said before. Trump previously had denied knowledge of payments and dismissed any hint of a crime. In the special counsel's probe into contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump tried to cast doubt on whether his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had lied to the FBI. Flynn in fact pleaded guilty to doing just that. Over the past week, Trump also made a flurry of false or unsupported statements about immigration. He said, with no evidence, that migrants are plagued with disease. He asserted that Mexico has in effect agreed to pay for his border wall, even as he threatens a partial government shutdown if Congress doesn't approve billions of dollars to build it. He twisted federal statistics to claim the recent arrest of 10 terrorists who don't exist. A look at the claims: COHEN TRUMP: "Remember, Michael Cohen only became a 'Rat' after the FBI did something which was absolutely unthinkable & unheard of until the Witch Hunt was illegally started. They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY'S OFFICE!" tweet Sunday. THE FACTS: It was not a break-in. The FBI executed a search warrant obtained from a judge in conducting the raid and seizing records on a variety of matters, among them a $130,000 payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels by Trump's lawyer, Cohen. The application for the warrant was approved high in the Justice Department. Former FBI director James Comey tweeted in response Sunday that Trump is "lying about the lawful execution of a search warrant issued by a federal judge." TRUMP: "I never directed him to do anything wrong. Whatever he did, he did on his own." interview Thursday with Fox News. TRUMP: "I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law ... many campaign finance lawyers have strongly stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance." tweets Thursday. TRUMP: "So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction, wrongly call it a campaign contribution,...which it was not (but even if it was, it is only a CIVIL CASE, like Obama's - but it was done correctly by a lawyer and there would not even be a fine. Lawyer's liability if he made a mistake, not me). Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced." tweets Dec. 10. THE FACTS: Whatever the truth, his account is evolving. Trump's description of the payments as a "simple private transaction" which he couples with his insistence that "did nothing wrong" with respect to campaign finance laws is not how he explained it just a few months ago. In April, Trump issued a blanket denial that he knew anything about reports of $130,000 in hush-money paid to Daniels, saying reporters would "have to ask Michael Cohen." A month later, he then acknowledged the payments as a "private contract." Trump is now saying if something criminal happened, it would be solely Cohen's fault as his former attorney. Both Cohen and American Media Inc., the company that owns the National Enquirer tabloid, say they made hush-money payments to Daniels and McDougal for the purpose of helping Trump's 2016 White House bid, a campaign finance violation. Both women alleged they had extramarital affairs with Trump, which the White House denies. Federal prosecutors say the payments were made at Trump's direction. For the payments themselves to be a crime rather than a civil infraction, prosecutors would need to show that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong when he directed Cohen to pay the women and that he did so with the goal of benefiting his campaign. It's unclear what federal prosecutors in New York will decide to do if they conclude that there is evidence that Trump himself committed a crime. In the meantime, Trump's changing version of the truth is running head-on into facts agreed to by prosecutors. RUSSIA INVESTIGATION TRUMP: "Wow, 19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI, in charge of the Russia Hoax, were just reported as being wiped clean and gone. Such a big story that will never be covered by the Fake News. Witch Hunt!" tweet Saturday. THE FACTS: The Justice Department's watchdog, in a report released Thursday, found no evidence the FBI intentionally destroyed text messages of former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who were involved in the Hillary Clinton email investigation when they worked for the bureau. The inspector general faulted an FBI-wide software failure that has resulted in large portions of FBI text messages not being archived. The report examined a gap in messages from December 2016 through May 2017 from the phones of Strzok and Page. The FBI ultimately managed to recover thousands of the messages. Some congressional Republicans had suggested the messages were intentionally deleted. The inspector general report said there was no evidence Strzok and Page circumvented protocol. Strzok was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation after anti-Trump texts were discovered. He has since been fired. Page resigned. TRUMP: "Well the FBI said Michael Flynn, a general and a great person, they said he didn't lie. And Mueller said: 'Well, maybe he did.' And now they're all having a big dispute, so I think it's a great thing that the judge is looking into that situation. It's an honor for a lot of terrific people." remarks Thursday. THE FACTS: That's not what the FBI said. And Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, has agreed that he lied to the FBI. He pleaded guilty to it and is to be sentenced this week the first White House official punished as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing Russia investigation. The idea that Flynn didn't lie to the FBI picked up steam after Republicans on the House intelligence committee issued a report this year that said ex-FBI director James Comey, in a private briefing, told lawmakers that agents who interviewed Flynn "discerned no physical indications of deception" and saw "nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them." But Comey called that description "garble" in a private interview with House lawmakers this month. Comey, in essence, said Flynn was a good liar, having a "natural conversation" with agents, "answered fully their questions, didn't avoid. That notwithstanding, they concluded he was lying." As for Trump's comment that the judge is looking into the matter, it's true U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan has asked for documents related to the agents who interviewed Flynn. It's not clear from Sullivan's order whether he considers there to be a dispute to resolve or if he just wants to see the underlying documents as he decides Flynn's sentence. BORDER SECURITY TRUMP: "The Democrats policy of Child Seperation (sic) on the Border during the Obama Administration was far worse than the way we handle it now. Remember the 2014 picture of children in cages - the Obama years." tweet Sunday. THE FACTS: Democratic President Barack Obama did not have a separation policy. The Trump administration didn't, explicitly, either, but that was the effect of his zero tolerance policy, which meant that anyone caught crossing the border illegally was to be criminally prosecuted, even those with few or no previous offences. The policy meant adults were taken to court for criminal proceedings and their children were separated. In most cases, if the charge took longer than 72 hours to process, which is the longest time that children can be held by Customs and Border Protection, children were sent into the care of the Health and Human Services Department. Zero tolerance remains in effect, but Trump signed an executive order June 20 that stopped separations. Trump also misrepresents 2014 photos of children in holding cells. They did not involve family separation. The photos, taken by The Associated Press during the Obama administration, showed children who came to the border without their parents and were being housed at a Customs and Border Protection center in Nogales, Arizona. The photos were identified as such but wrongly described online as illustrating imprisonment under Trump. TRUMP: "People with tremendous medical difficulty and medical problems are pouring in, and in many in many cases it's contagious. They're pouring into our country. We have to have border security." statement in Oval Office meeting Tuesday with Democratic leaders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer. THE FACTS: Trump provided no evidence that people coming into the country, including the caravan at the U.S.-Mexico border, are carrying contagious diseases at a higher rate than the U.S. population. Medical screening is part of the process for vetting people who seek asylum. A study published this month by the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health called scares about contagion one of the most pervasive myths about migrants. The study found no evidence that migrants pose a significant public health risk to countries such as the U.S. that have good health systems. In fact, migrants themselves face health threats from arduous journeys, violence along the way, or overcrowding in shelters or camps, the Lancet commission said. While some may come from regions where certain diseases are common, the report noted that international tourism and movement of animals spread illness, too. As for the caravan and other migrants from the south, World Bank statistics show Mexico and Central America vaccinate most children against measles, sometimes at a bit higher rate than the U.S. Along the border between Mexico and California, public health departments have long had a system in place to watch for signs of outbreaks of a variety of illnesses, whether they're immigration-related or not. TRUMP: "Our Southern Border is now Secure and will remain that way." tweet Tuesday. TRUMP: "We need border security. People are pouring into our country, including terrorists. We have terrorists. But we caught 10 terrorists. These are over the last very short period of time 10. These are very serious people." statement in Oval Office meeting. THE FACTS: Trump contradicted himself, declaring the border secure and insecure on the same day. And Trump is wrong about the government recently catching 10 terrorists. His statement is a mangling of federal statistics showing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped an average of seven to 10 people a day in the 2017 budget year who were denied entry to the U.S. because they were on a watch list. That average applied to all points of entry, and overwhelmingly from airports, and was not specific to the southern border. The standard for placing someone on the list is reasonable suspicion, a lower bar than the probable cause needed to arrest someone for an alleged crime. The statistics do not show how many might have been arrested or charged with anything. In any event, Trump rendered a daily average as 10 recently captured terrorists in the flesh. As for border security, U.S. arrests on the Mexican border jumped 78 percent in November from a year earlier to the highest level in Trump's presidency. Increased arrests indicate that more people are trying to cross the border illegally. JOBS PELOSI: "We came at a place to say, 'How do we meet the needs of American people who have needs?' The economy has people are losing their jobs." Oval Office meeting. TRUMP: "Well, we have the lowest unemployment that we've had in 50 years." Oval Office meeting. THE FACTS: Trump is correct about jobs. There may always be some layoffs even if the economy is strong. General Motors, for instance, said last month it would cut as many as 14,000 workers in North America in a restructuring aimed at generating cash to spend on innovation, even though U.S. auto sales are near historic highs. But the U.S. economy has now added jobs for a record 98 straight months, dating to October 2010, during the Obama administration. The Labor Department reported the unemployment rate in November stayed at 3.7 percent, a five-decade low, for the third straight month. The job gains are pushing down unemployment rates to historically low levels for a variety of groups. The unemployment rate for men aged 20 and above fell last month to 3.3 percent, the lowest in 18 years. The rate for Americans with just high school diplomas dropped to 3.5 percent, the lowest since December 2000. The African-American jobless rate declined to 5.9 percent, matching May's figure as the lowest on record. That's making it more challenging for businesses to find the workers they need. Employers have posted 7 million open jobs, outnumbering the ranks of the unemployed, which fell last month to just under 6 million. THE WALL TRUMP: "I often stated, 'One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.' This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!" tweet Thursday. THE FACTS: This is a face-saving statement to mask the fact that Mexico refused to pay for a U.S. border wall, Trump gave up trying to make it do so and U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for it. In essence, Trump is arguing that new terms of trade with Mexico will increase economic growth in the U.S. and produce more tax revenue. That's what everyone hopes trade agreements will do. As part of that, he hopes for a lower trade deficit with Mexico. Neither outcome is assured. The deal negotiated with Mexico and Canada is an update of the North American Free Trade Agreement he railed against, not a transformative pact. The three countries will continue trading in an environment of mainly low or no tariffs, with improvements here and there for all three partners. There is no credible way for Trump to forecast additional growth covering costs that are being charged to U.S. taxpayers if the wall is built. Trade balances depend on too many factors consumer tastes, exchange rates, overall economic performance, and the choices of thousands of companies among them and some are well outside any government's control. Trump specifically promised in the campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall. That is not the same as trying to reduce the U.S. trade deficit, which is about the exchange of goods and services among private entities rather than payments between governments. Nor is a trade deficit necessarily a penalty on consumers. It is the result of consumers buying things made in another country. He wants some $25 billion from Congress for wall construction over five years and promises a partial government shutdown if he does not get a $5 billion or so portion in the next week. Congress may or may not give him that. If it does, it will not be because lawmakers expect a refund to the treasury in future years from extra growth produced by a trade deal. TRUMP: "Tremendous amounts of wall have already been built." statement in meeting Tuesday with Pelosi and Schumer. TRUMP: "People do not yet realize how much of the Wall, including really effective renovation, has already been built." ''We have already built large new sections & fully renovated others, making them like new." tweets. THE FACTS: Tremendous portions of the wall have not been built. Yes, some barrier renovation has happened, but little wall construction has been completed under Trump. Congress allocated roughly $1.4 billion in the spring a bit more than 5 percent of what Trump wanted for border security and specified that the money was not to be used for construction of the prototype wall sections that stand near San Diego. Instead, the money is to strengthen or replace existing fencing with more secure fencing. Altogether, Trump promised in the campaign that he'd build a 1,000-mile (1,600 kilometer-) wall, as high as 40 feet or 12 meters (and have Mexico pay for it, which isn't happening). If some 650 miles (1,050 km) of existing fencing are considered in the equation, that leaves him with about 350 miles (560 km) of wall to build. Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire, Eric Tucker, Chad Day, Lauran Neergaard, Josh Boak, Matthew Daly, Colleen Long and Elliot Spagat contributed to this report. Social media users in California have posted memorial messages in honor of what is believed to be an albino raccoon. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Oakland residents have been posting messages mourning the passing of the animal on the Next Door social networking app. The newspaper says Oakland resident Pawel Dlugosz posted a photo March 17 of a raccoon that appears to be dead in the Adams Point neighborhood near Lake Merritt with an orange and flowers laid over its body and at its side. Dlugosz says he believed the animal's passing was within the last week. The Chronicle reports that users on networking app Reddit also posted about the raccoon and there were debates on both platforms whether it was Oakland's last albino raccoon. Last July, a Reddit user snapped a photo of what appeared to be a white raccoon hanging out in a tree near Lake Merritt in Oakland before posting the snapshot on the online platform, much to the intrigue of other users. The Redditor said they spotted the apparent raccoon in a tree in front of the Oakland Lawn Bowling Club. Southwest Airlines is officially shuttling travelers from the contiguous United States to Hawaii. The low-cost carrier on Sunday celebrated its first-ever commercial flight from the mainland to the nation's 50th state. Flight 6808 departed Oakland International Airport for Honolulu at 11:26 a.m., according to the airline. Hula dancers, a traditional Hawaiian blessing and a ceremonial water arch were scheduled to help send off the plane on its roughly 2,400 mile journey across the eastern Pacific Ocean. Oakland International Airport is the first mainland airport that Southwest is using to fly passengers nonstop to the islands. Southwest also plans to fly to the islands from three other California cities San Jose, Sacramento and San Diego in the future. A United States Army major who had been serving military duties in Afghanistan for almost a year made a surprise return home to his wife and three young children Friday, Mar. 15, during a Jewish sermon hosted by the Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy in Beverly Hills, and the heart-warming moment was caught on video. U.S. Army Major Moses Scheinfeld swung open the doors of the packed auditorium and was quickly embraced by his children, his wife Rivka Scheinfeld and applause from dozens who sat in the sermon. Scheinfeld's children hung onto their father and wept tears of joy as the soldier shared a kiss with his wife. Rabbi Boruch Sufrin invited Scheinfeld to the front of the crowd and opened the floor for the soldier to speak as applause continued to roar across the room. "Where I was was 8,000 miles away," Sheinfeld said. "It's great to be home now, and I'm glad to be here." Major Sheinfeld served with the 40th Infantry Division of the California Army National Guard in the south of Afghanistan. He was tasked with training and advising Afghan's National Army units. His wife told NBC 4 News that his children missed him dearly ever since he left for Kandahar Airfield and that they used to watch videos of other military fathers and mothers surprising their families with a homecoming. The city of Lake Elsinore was struggling to cope with the influx of visitors coming to see the super bloom over the weekend, and the Lake Elsinore City Hall Facebook page Sunday announced that the crowds had grown beyond the city's available resources. The Facebook page used the hashtag "Poppyshutdown" and said no additional shuttles or visitors would be allowed to go to Walker Canyon, labeling the weekend "unbearable." The Lake Elsinore City Hall Facebook page ended its post with a series of hashtags: "#PoppyNightmare #IsItOver #HanginthereLE." On Monday, early morning visitors walked around a gate across a trail to see the flowers in Walker Canyon. One man arrived from Colorado. "I've had it on my list for many years," said Tom Heywood. "The timing was right. So, last minute, I just loaded up the truck and here I am." The area reopened later Monday morning. An estimated 50,000 people flooded into the Inland Empire over the weekend, creating "Disneyland sized crowds" to view the so-called super bloom, and the rush is proving too much for local officials to handle, the city of Lake Elsinore said in a statement on Saturday. One city employee was struck by a hit-and-run driver, while another visitor was bit by rattlesnake, according to Lake Elsinore Mayor Steve Manos' social media posting. "We have brought in all available staff, as many outside traffic controllers that we could, more shuttles, and our small city cannot sustain crowds of this magnitude," the city's statement said. Substantial and sustained rainfall in the early months of the year led to an explosion of California poppies along the hillsides that line the 15 Freeway. Hordes of people have come through the area in hopes of taking in the gorgeous golden hills. The rush affected the 15 Freeway throughout the weekend, and Newschopper4 Bravo captured a long line of vehicles and roads shut down on Sunday evening. Earlier on Sunday, an estimated 500 vehicles were parked illegally, according to the California highway Patrol. The city had asked visitors come on weekdays whenever possible and to stay out of the area entirely, if possible. "The City is truly trying to do the best and right thing," the statement said. "While the community has expressed many concerns, please understand that many things are beyond our control and we are doing what we can. We wish we could do more." With an election looming, courts earlier this year declared congressional districts in two states to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. One map was redrawn. The other was not. The sharply contrasting outcomes that resulted on Election Day in Pennsylvania and North Carolina illustrate the importance of how political lines are drawn and the stakes for the nation because that process helps determine which party controls Congress. Pennsylvania flipped from a solid Republican congressional delegation to one evenly split under a map redrawn by court order, contributing to the Democratic takeover of the U.S. House. Despite an almost even split in the popular vote, North Carolina's congressional delegation remained overwhelmingly Republican under a map drawn by the GOP. "We did everything we could," Democrat Kathy Manning said. "But we just could not overcome the gerrymandering, and that's the way the district was designed to run." Manning held more than 400 campaign events, contacted tens of thousands of voters and had outspent the Republican incumbent in North Carolina's 13th District but still lost by 6 percentage points in a district Republicans drew to favor their candidates. Partisan gerrymandering has been carried out by both Democrats and Republicans throughout U.S. history. But an Associated Press statistical analysis based on 2016 election data found that more states had Republican-tilted districts than Democratic ones. Some of the largest GOP congressional advantages were in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where Republicans fully controlled redistricting after the 2010 Census. One of the Democrats' biggest edges was in Maryland, where they were in charge of the last redistricting. A follow-up AP analysis using preliminary 2018 election data shows the Republican statistical edge was cut in half under Pennsylvania's new court-ordered congressional map but grew even larger in North Carolina. Though an increasing number of states have adopted independent commissions, many states still rely on lawmakers and governors to draw legislative and congressional districts. Republicans controlled that process in far more states than Democrats because of their electoral success nationwide in 2010. Those maps were in place for the Nov. 6 elections, except in places where courts ordered them redrawn, and will be again in 2020. The results have national implications: Democrats potentially could have won even more seats in the U.S. House and state legislatures had it not been for Republican gerrymandering. North Carolina is a prime example of gerrymandering's consequences. Republicans and Democrats in this month's elections split the total votes cast for major party candidates in the state's 13 congressional districts about evenly, with Republicans getting 51 percent (a figure that is slightly inflated because one GOP incumbent ran unopposed). Yet Republicans won 10 of those races, about three-quarters of the total seats. That equates to a pro-Republican tilt of nearly 26 percent under an "efficiency gap" analysis that provides a statistical way of measuring the partisan advantages that can stem from gerrymandering. That figure was up from about 20 percent in 2016. By comparison, Democrats in Pennsylvania received 54 percent of this year's total two-party vote for congressional candidates, including one race where a Democratic incumbent ran unopposed. Democrats and Republicans each won 9 seats under a map drawn by the Democratic-tilted state Supreme Court with the assistance of an outside expert. That marked a significant shift from the 13-5 Republican majority in the state's congressional delegation during the three previous general elections under a map that had been enacted in 2011 by the Republican-led Legislature and governor. Pennsylvania's pro-Republican "efficiency gap" fell from 16 percent in the AP's 2016 analysis to 7 percent under this year's court-drawn map a level that some political scientists attribute to the high concentrations of Democrats in urban areas that make it more difficult for them to win elsewhere. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court redrew districts after it ruled that partisan gerrymandering in the old map infringed on a state right to "free and equal" elections. One of the Democrats who sued was Bill Marx, a high school civics teacher in Pittsburgh who said he feared that legislative gerrymandering was building apathy and cynicism in the next generation of voters. Marx said he believes the new district boundaries resulted in "a more fair congressional representation of the will of the people in Pennsylvania." But Pennsylvania Republican Party spokesman Jason Gottesman said the new map "put Democrats at an unfair advantage in this election." Republicans contend the court overstepped its powers by adopting new districts, a duty that belongs to the Legislature. "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court robbed us of at least three to four congressional seats that we might not have lost if the redistricting would not have happened the way that it did," Gottesman said. While Republicans are fuming in Pennsylvania, Democrats remain frustrated in North Carolina. There, the GOP-drawn congressional boundaries pack Democratic voters into three highly concentrated districts. Republicans are spread more evenly across the other 10 districts. Republicans "have gerrymandered the heck out of lots of different places," said Democratic voter Melinda Wilkinson, a retired music teacher from Raleigh. She added: "It seems very unfair." Republican state Rep. David Lewis, who helped shepherd the congressional map through North Carolina's GOP-led General Assembly, acknowledged politics played a role in the districts but said there is no evidence that Democratic voters were prevented from "fully participating and exercising their right to choose the candidates of their choice." In August, federal judges ruled that North Carolina's congressional districts violate protections for Democratic voters but determined there wasn't enough time to redraw them before the Nov. 6 elections. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear an appeal in that case. For state legislative districts, the AP's analysis has found some of the largest partisan advantages in Michigan and Wisconsin. Democrats won 52 percent of the total major party vote for the Michigan House this year and flipped several Republican-held districts, yet Republicans still won 53 percent of the seats. Republicans controlled Michigan's last redistricting by holding the governor's office and both legislative chambers. They won't control the next redistricting: A Democrat won the governor's race, but voters made that irrelevant by approving a constitutional amendment shifting redistricting to an independent commission. In Wisconsin, a federal judicial panel invalidated the state Assembly districts as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in 2016. But the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that in June and sent the case back to the lower court to establish whether there was harm to particular voters. A new trial is set for April. Preliminary results from the 2018 elections show Wisconsin Democrats received 54 percent of the total votes cast for major party Assembly candidates a figure inflated by the fact that Democrats ran unopposed in 30 districts compared to just eight for Republicans. Yet Republicans won 63 of the 99 Assembly seats, just one less than their pre-election majority. That marks an increase in the pro-Republican "efficiency gap" from about 10 percent in 2016 to almost 15 percent this year. Democrats also won or are leading in elections for all of Wisconsin's statewide offices, showing voter support for their candidates in races that are not affected by gerrymandering. Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos called it a "faulty premise" to say that Republicans' legislative majority is due to gerrymandering. "We are the ones who have been given a mandate to govern," Vos said. But Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said "Wisconsin's gerrymandered maps worked exactly as Republicans intended." He said non-competitive districts have made it increasingly difficult for Democrats to recruit candidates and raise money. Wisconsin Progress, an organization that recruits and trains liberal candidates, said 30 of the 31 Democratic candidates it backed in Republican-held Assembly districts ended up losing in the Nov. 6 elections. "No matter what happens, no matter who's in the White House or what the national trends are or how much money you have, you just can't beat gerrymandered seats," said Eric Couto, executive director of Wisconsin Progress. "That's the whole point of gerrymandering." Associated Press reporters Gary Robertson, Scott Bauer and Todd Richmond contributed to this report. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday he hopes to extend his high-stakes nuclear summitry with President Donald Trump into 2019, but also warned Washington not to test North Koreans' patience with sanctions and pressure. During his televised New Year's speech, Kim said he's ready to meet with Trump at any time to produce an outcome "welcomed by the international community." However, he said the North will be forced to take a different path if the United States "continues to break its promises and misjudges the patience of our people by unilaterally demanding certain things and pushes ahead with sanctions and pressure." Kim also said the United States should continue to halt its joint military exercises with ally South Korea and not deploy strategic military assets to the South. He also made a nationalistic call urging for stronger inter-Korean cooperation and said the North is ready to resume operations at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and restart South Korean tours to the North's Diamond Mountain resort. Neither of those is possible for South Korea unless sanctions are removed. Some analysts say North Korea has been trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul while putting the larger burden of action on the United States. Pyongyang over the past months has accused Washington of failing to take corresponding measures following the North's unilateral dismantlement of a nuclear testing ground and suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests. Washington and Pyongyang are trying to arrange a second summit between Trump and Kim, who met in Singapore on June 12. "If the United States takes sincere measures and corresponding action to our leading and pre-emptive efforts, then (U.S.-North Korea) relations will advance at a fast and excellent pace through the process of implementing (such) definite and groundbreaking measures," said Kim, who delivered the speech sitting on a leather chair, wearing a black suit and gray-blue tie. "It is the unwavering position of our party and the republic's government and my firm will that the two countries as declared in the June 12 joint statement ... take steps to establish a permanent and stable peace regime and push toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," he said. "Therefore, we have already declared domestically and internationally and took various actions showing our commitment that we will no further create or test nuclear weapons and will not use or spread them." Adam Mount, a senior analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, said Kim appears to be hinting at an agreement that falls short of a full disarmament, but could still represent a major limitation of the North Korean threat a cap that essentially freezes the North's rudimentary nuclear capability from growing or advancing further. In exchange, the United States would have to offer major inducements, including sanctions relief. "U.S. negotiators should move decisively in the new year to find out how far Kim is willing to go toward a verified cap on his arsenal. Discussions on reducing or eliminating that arsenal come later," Mount said in an email. However, Kim's statement could prove problematic if there's ongoing evidence the North's nuclear and missile facilities continue to run. Private analysts have accused North Korea of continuing nuclear and missile development, citing details from commercial satellite imagery. "Over the last year, signs of continued work on the arsenal were alarming but not duplicitous, because there was never a commitment to stop those activities," Mount said. "That may no longer be true, raising the risk that the White House feels cheated rather than just stonewalled." Kim's speech also points toward a difficult year for the U.S.-South Korean alliance with their military cooperation coming under pressure from Pyongyang, Seoul's process for inter-Korean engagement, and Washington's current inability to reach an agreement on cost-sharing for the U.S. military presence in South Korea. It will be critical for the allies to develop a firmer policy as it's clear the issue of joint drills is coming to a head, Mount said. In the speech, Kim hailed the results of the North's diplomatic activities in 2018, including his three meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Kim said an inter-Korean military agreement reached in their last summit in September to reduce conventional military threats was "realistically a non-aggression declaration." Kim also emphasized the development of the North Korean economy and, without elaborating, mentioned nuclear power as part of the country's plans to boost electricity production. South Korea's government in a statement welcomed what it described as Kim's commitment toward peace and said Seoul plans to work closely with the international community for the denuclearization of the peninsula while also advancing inter-Korean relations to an "irreversible level." North Korean leaders traditionally use New Year's statements to issue major policy goals for the year ahead. Kim used his New Year's speech a year ago to start a newfound diplomatic approach with Seoul and Washington, which led to his meetings with Moon and Trump. Kim also met three times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which boosted his leverage by reintroducing Beijing Pyongyang's main ally as a major player in the diplomatic process to resolve the nuclear standoff. But nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled in recent months as they struggle with the sequencing of North Korea's disarmament and the removal of U.S.-led sanctions against the North. The North has also bristled at U.S. demands to provide a detailed account of nuclear and missile facilities that would be inspected and dismantled under a potential deal. The hardening stalemate has fueled doubts on whether Kim will ever voluntarily relinquish the nuclear weapons and missiles he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival. In his meetings with Trump and Moon, Kim signed vague statements calling for the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan. The North used a blunt statement last month to reiterate its traditional stance on denuclearization, saying it will never unilaterally give up its weapons unless Washington removes what Pyongyang describes as a nuclear threat. The statement jarred with Seoul's claim that Kim is genuinely interested in negotiating away his nukes and suggested that the North will potentially demand the United States withdraw or significantly reduce the 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea, a major sticking point in any disarmament deal. Washington and Pyongyang have yet to reschedule a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean officials after the North canceled it at the last minute in November. There are views that North Korea wants a quick second summit because it thinks it can win major concessions from Trump that they probably couldn't from lower-level U.S. officials, who are more adamant about the North committing to inspections and verification. What to Know Climate skeptics have endorsed "both sides" approaches taken in the fight that began decades earlier over teaching evolution The scientific consensus is that global warming is real and man-made A Connecticut lawmaker wants to strike climate change from state science standards. A Virginia legislator worries teachers are indoctrinating students with their personal views on global warming. And an Oklahoma state senator wants educators to be able to introduce alternative ideas without fear of losing their jobs. As climate change becomes a hotter topic in American classrooms, politicians around the country are pushing back against the scientific consensus that global warming is real and man-made. Of the more than a dozen such measures proposed so far this year, some already have failed. But they have emerged this year in growing numbers, many of them inspired or directly encouraged by a pair of advocacy groups, the Discovery Institute and the Heartland Institute. "You have to present two sides of the argument and allow the kids to deliberate," said Republican state Sen. David Bullard of Oklahoma, a former high school geography teacher whose bill, based on model legislation from the Discovery Institute, ran into opposition from science teachers and went nowhere. Science education organizations and climate scientists have blasted such proposals for sowing confusion and doubt on a topic of global urgency. "These efforts are dangerous and require vigilance in the academic community to make sure that they don't succeed," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. He said the proposals reflect bad-faith efforts to undermine scientific findings that "prove inconvenient to vested interests, be they the fossil-fuel lobby or fundamentalist religious groups." Some climate science skeptics have cast the debate as a matter of academic freedom. James Taylor, a senior fellow at Heartland, an Illinois-based group that dismisses climate change, said it is encouraging well-rounded classroom discussions on the topic. The group, which in 2017 sent thousands of science teachers copies of a book titled "Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming," is now taking its message directly to students. A reference book it is planning for publication this year will rebut arguments linking climate change to hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather. "We're very concerned the global warming propaganda efforts have encouraged students to not engage in research and critical thinking," Taylor said, referring to news reports and scientific warnings. Neither Discovery nor Heartland discloses the identities of its donors. Instruction on the topic varies widely from place to place, but climate change and how humans are altering the planet are core topics emphasized in the Next Generation Science Standards, developed by a group of states. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards, and 21 others have embraced some of the material with modifications. Still, a survey released in 2016 found that of public middle- and high-school science teachers who taught something about climate change, about a quarter gave equal time to perspectives that "raise doubt about the scientific consensus." Climate skeptics have endorsed approaches taken in the fight that began decades earlier over teaching evolution, in which opponents led by conservative Christians have long called for teaching both sides of the issue. By early February, the Oakland, California-based nonprofit National Center for Science Education flagged over a dozen bills this year as threats to the integrity of science education, more than the organization typically sees in an entire year. Several of them including proposals in Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota had language echoing model legislation of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which says teachers should not be prohibited from addressing strengths and weaknesses of concepts such as evolution and global warming. Similar measures became law in Louisiana in 2008 and Tennessee in 2012. In states where they may not be feasible politically, Discovery has urged legislators to consider nonbinding resolutions in support of giving teachers latitude to "show support for critical thinking" on controversial topics. Lawmakers in Alabama and Indiana passed such resolutions in 2017. Discovery officials did not respond to requests for comment. Florida state Sen. Dennis Baxley is pressing legislation that would allow schools to teach alternatives to controversial theories. "There is really no established science on most things, you'll find," the GOP legislator said. Elsewhere, lawmakers in Connecticut and Iowa, which both adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, have proposed rolling them back. Connecticut state Rep. John Piscopo, a Republican, said he wants to eliminate the section on climate change. "It's one-sided, totally one-sided. The teachers are not able to teach," said Piscopo, a Heartland Institute member. "I want students to have the freedom to understand it's a scientific debate." Other bills introduced this year in such states as Virginia, Arizona and Maine call for teachers to avoid political or ideological indoctrination of their students. "If they're teaching about a subject, such as climate change, and they present both sides, that's fine. That's as it should be. A teacher who presents a skewed extension of their political beliefs, that's closer to indoctrinating. That's not good to kids," said Virginia state Rep. Dave LaRock, a Republican. South Korea and the U.S. are eliminating their massive springtime military drills and replacing them with smaller exercises in what they call an effort to support diplomacy aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. The decision announced by both countries Sunday came after President Donald Trump complained about the cost of joint drills even as his high-stakes second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un collapsed last week. The drills' cancellation is an olive branch to North Korea, which has viewed them as an invasion rehearsal. But some experts say it will likely weaken the allies' military readiness amid worries that tensions erupt again in the wake of the failed nuclear summit in Vietnam. The Pentagon said in a release that the U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs decided to conclude the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle series of exercises. It said the allies agreed to maintain firm military readiness through newly designed command post exercises and revised field training programs. Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo "made clear that the alliance decision to adapt our training program reflected our desire to reduce tension and support our diplomatic efforts to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a final, fully verified manner," the statement said. Seoul's Defense Ministry released a similar statement. Jeong expressed his regrets at the lack of agreement at the Trump-Kim summit but still hopes that Washington and Pyongyang will continue negotiations, the South Korean statement said. The new training, dubbed "Dong Maeng," which means "alliance" in English, starts Monday and runs through March 12. It will focus on "strategic operational and tactical aspects of general military operations on the Korean Peninsula," South Korea's military and the U.S.-South Korean combined forces command said in a joint statement. According to U.S. officials, the new training will be done in smaller drills, tabletop exercises and simulations, and will involve smaller units such as battalions and companies rather than massive formations involving thousands of troops, as they had in the past. Officials said the Pentagon would focus on smaller exercises and mission essential tasks, which include the ability to integrate airstrikes and the use of other weapons systems, drones, surveillance assets, logistics and communications. In November, a month before he resigned as defense secretary, Jim Mattis disclosed that the U.S. and South Korea would scale back and tone down the spring exercises. He said the aim was to avoid setting back diplomacy over North Korea's nuclear weapons. He described it as a reorganization of the exercises, not an end to maneuvers on the peninsula. Trump has long complained about the cost of military drills with South Korea. After his second summit with Kim ended without any agreement in Hanoi on Thursday, Trump spoke again about the cost of annual military drills. "It's a very, very expensive thing and we do have to think about that, too," Trump told reporters. Following his first summit with Kim in Singapore last June, Trump caught many in the United States and South Korea by surprise by suspending the allies' summertime military drills. He called joint drills "very provocative" and "massively expensive." The United States and South Korea also have since suspended a few other smaller joint drills. Trump has also pushed South Korea to increase its financial contribution for the cost of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country as deterrence against North Korea. He previously threatened to withdraw troops from South Korea and Japan if those countries refused to pay more. The end of the springtime war games will benefit North Korea, which has responded with its own costly military exercises and weapons tests, including firing a new intermediate-range missile over Japan in 2017. North Korea's state media on Sunday didn't immediately comment on the drills' cancellation. After the Hanoi summit, the United States and North Korea blamed each other for the breakdown of the talks. But both sides stopped short of pulling out of negotiations. The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. A teenager pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge for pushing her 16-year-old friend off a 60-foot bridge in southwestern Washington in August, NBC News reported. A state prosecutor recommended that Taylor Smith, 19, receive no jail time for pleading guilty to reckless endangerment. Jordan Holgerson was left with six broken ribs and punctured lungs when Smith pushed her off the Moulton Falls Regional Park bridge on Aug. 7. A short video clip of the incident went viral. Smith pleaded not guilty in December, but was offered a plea deal last month. Holgerson told NBC's TODAY show that she was unsure what the appropriate punishment would be. The inside of a tank was Clarence Smoyer's home, and the crew was his family. In that sense, the 95-year-old veteran returned home Wednesday for the first time since World War II. One of the last surviving WWII tank gunners, Smoyer was surprised with a ride through the streets of Boston in a Sherman tank. Smoyer fought with the U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Division, nicknamed the Spearhead Division. In 1945, he defeated a German Panther tank near the cathedral in Cologne, Germany -- a dramatic duel filmed by an Army cameraman that was seen all over the world. Author Adam Makos tells Smoyer's story in the book "Spearhead," which was released Tuesday. Smoyer would made offhand comments to Makos about how he'd like to get aboard his old Sherman tank one last time. Makos started making calls and Smoyer started doing physical therapy, in case it worked out. Smoyer, who lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania, had expected a taxi to take him from his hotel to the USS Constitution Museum for a book signing Wednesday. Instead, he found a 32-ton Sherman tank from 1944 waiting outside. A huge smile flashed across Smoyer's face when he walked outside and saw the tank, saying it was a shock to see it. "That tank saved my life," he said. The American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Massachusetts, sent the tank and reenactors representing infantrymen to walk alongside for the short trip to the museum. Service members from the USS Constitution and onlookers came outside to salute Smoyer and the tank as it rolled down the street. After Smoyer was drafted in 1943, he served on a Sherman tank, first as the person responsible for loading ammunition and later as a gunner. Smoyer was such a crack shot that his crew was given one of the Army's state-of-the-art Pershing tanks. That meant they would always go first into battle against German tanks that often were better equipped. Pershing tanks were rushed to Europe after the bloody Battle of the Bulge. "My tank commander, Bob Earley, used to smoke a pipe and when he'd go for a briefing in the morning, he'd come back and the pipe was jumping in his mouth," Smoyer recalls. "He was nervous because he knew we'd be leading and up in the front again." Smoyer said he was always scared of rounding a corner and running into the crosshairs of a German tank. He would tell himself to shoot straight and fast before the enemy got his shot in. On March 5, 1945, Smoyer heard the company commander say over the radio, "Gentlemen, I give you Cologne. Let's knock the hell out of it." They charged into the city. Smoyer said he traded fire with a German tank, then shot at a building and toppled it onto the Germans. Eighteen-year-old German tank gunner Gustav Schaefer and his tank commander abandoned their tank and surrendered. Smoyer advanced and encountered the German Panther by the cathedral. The Panther had just knocked out two American Sherman tanks, killing three men. "We pull out into the intersection and the driver saw the tank. We were looking right into the barrel," Smoyer said. "I fired once. Hit them. Sparks were flying. I fired another one, back more toward the engine compartment. I fired the third shot." Smoyer set the tank on fire so the German crew couldn't fire back. American forces advanced to the Rhine River. Smoyer and his crew were photographed victoriously climbing out of their tank. Smoyer returned to Pennsylvania in August 1945, married and had three children. He worked at an industrial plant. Few knew that he took out five German tanks during the war. Makos met Smoyer through a friend in 2012. In 2013, they traveled to Cologne so Smoyer could meet Schaefer, the German tank gunner. The two veterans shook hands in front of the cathedral and put roses on the grave of a German woman who was killed in their crossfire. They kept in touch through Christmas cards, letters and Skype until Schaefer died at age 90 in 2017. "Spearhead" is the story of how their lives collided. Makos organized the surprise tank ride to show his appreciation for Smoyer. "He did great things for this country and took great risks," Makos said. "Now we're giving him a last salute." It was a bit of a struggle to get in and out of the tank at his age, Smoyer said -- "It used to go a lot better when I was younger" -- but it took his breath away to see it. As for the book, he said, he hopes readers "understand what the fellows went through during the war. War is hell." President Donald Trump warned Congress that investigations and legislation don't mix. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi said such threats have no place in the House, as unbowed Democrats charged ahead Wednesday with plans to probe Trump's tax returns, business and ties to Russia. The chairman of the intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, announced a broad new investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump's foreign financial interests. Other committees' actions are well under way. The day after the president essentially laid out the ultimatum to Congress during his State of the Union address, Democrats appeared even more resolved to conduct oversight of his administration and legislate on their priorities. "The president should not bring threats to the floor of the House," Pelosi told reporters, rebuking Trump for saying during his address that the "ridiculous partisan investigations" must end because they could harm the economy. Pelosi said Congress has a responsibility to provide oversight, under the Constitution's system of checks and balances, and would be "delinquent" if it failed to do so. Schiff indicated his committee's investigation will be sweeping. It will include "the scope and scale" of Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, the "extent of any links and/or coordination" between Russians and Trump's associates, whether foreign actors have sought to hold leverage over Trump or his family and associates, and whether anyone has sought to obstruct any of the relevant investigations. "We're going to do our jobs and the president needs to do his," Schiff said, noting the probe will go beyond Russia to include leverage by the Saudis "or anyone else." Schiff said, "Our job involves making sure that the policy of the United States is being driven by the national interest, not by any financial entanglement, financial leverage or other form of compromise." Trump immediately shot back, calling Schiff nothing but a "political hack" who has "no basis to do that." "It's called presidential harassment," Trump said during an event at the White House as he announced his new pick to head the World Bank. After eight years in the minority, House Democrats are releasing their bottled-up legislative energy at a time when Trump's annual joint address to Congress lacked many new initiatives of his own. The Democrats agenda goes beyond oversight of Trump's administration and Russian election interference to the bread-and-butter issues of jobs, health care and the economy that propelled them to the House majority. Pelosi said they still hope to work with the White House on shared priorities, particularly on lowering prescription drug costs and investing in infrastructure. On Wednesday, one House committee held a hearing on gun violence. Two others gaveled in to address climate change. And three more were debating protecting people with pre-existing medical conditions and the Affordable Care Act. The Foreign Affairs Committee was debating the war in Yemen and a war powers resolution to halt U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led coalition. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, said Trump has to understand "that he has to be accountable." "It's not about partisan investigations," said Cummings. "We all have to be accountable. And it's a new day." The flurry of activity brought a turn of events for the new Congress. Democrats had been off to a rough start as the 35-day government shutdown jammed the agenda and stifled the energetic freshmen class that swept the party to power in the midterm election. With the longest government closure over, for now, the new majority is eager to deliver on its promises before the next election shifts attention yet again. Pelosi made a calculation after the election to forego a traditional 100-days agenda or the 100-hours to-do list she rolled out in 2007, the last time Democrats had the majority in favor of a return to the legislative process. It's partly a nod to the diverse Democratic majority, whose members hold different views on some issues. But it's also a part of Democrats' efforts to revive traditional governing, rather than lurching from crisis to crisis, as had become the norm when Republicans were unable to control their often unruly conservative flank. Under new House rules, every bill must pass through committee before coming to a vote on the floor. James Curry, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, said Democrats have a short window to capture the public's attention. "They want to show voters they can legislate, they can run the government, they can do the things they said they're going to do," he said. "Reality," Curry added, "is obviously more complicated than that." Much of the House's legislation will fall flat in the Senate, where Republicans retain majority control. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to ensure his chamber serves as a backstop to prevent Democratic bills from landing on Trump's desk although the Senate's own bipartisan investigation into Russian election interference continues. The more likely result is that the legislative agenda sets the stage for the next election, in 2020, when voters will be assessing not only the performance of the new House majority but also which party they prefer in the White House. This month, Democrats expect to pass H.R. 1, a sweeping reform of campaign finance and voting rights laws, and then turn to legislation to expand background checks for sales and transfers of firearms. At the Natural Resources Committee, overflow crowds of schoolkids, environmental activists and others turned out for the first of what Chairman Raul Grijalva promises will be a month of hearings on the effect of climate change on coastal communities, national parks and other areas under the committee's oversight. "Today we turn the page from climate denial to climate action," said Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, expressed disappointment that Trump did not mention gun violence in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. "It is evident from the energy and the crowd in this room, as well as the millions of people across the country fighting for sensible gun safety laws, that the public is demanding national legislation," Nadler said as he gaveled open the hearing. But Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the judiciary panel, called the background checks measure a "fraud" that promises protection against gun violence without achieving it. The House intelligence committee also voted Wednesday to send the transcripts from the panel's earlier Russia investigation to special counsel Robert Mueller. Republicans ended that probe in March, concluding there was no evidence of conspiracy or collusion between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign. Democrats strongly objected at the time, saying the move was premature. The voluminous cache will include transcripts of interviews with Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; his longtime spokeswoman, Hope Hicks; and his former bodyguard Keith Schiller. There are dozens of other transcripts of interviews with former Obama administration officials and Trump associates. New Hampshire has been good to Bernie Sanders, delivering him a 22-point victory in 2016 that was one of his biggest blowouts that year. But as he launches his second campaign for the presidency, there are early signs that he doesn't have a lock on the nation's first primary. More than a half-dozen Democratic leaders, activists and lawmakers who endorsed the Vermont senator in 2016 said they were hesitant to do so again. Some said they were passing over the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist in search of fresh energy while others said that, 11 months away from the primary, it's simply too early to make a choice. That caution underscores one of the central challenges facing Sanders. His insurgent 2016 campaign took off in part because he was the sole alternative to the more establishment-oriented Hillary Clinton. But in a 2020 field that already spans a dozen candidates and includes several progressives, women and people of color, Sanders isn't the only option for people yearning for political change. "He's right on many of the issues that I care about," said Jackie Cilley, a former state senator who endorsed Sanders in 2016. "But I'm just looking at some new candidates." With his name recognition and residency in neighboring Vermont, Sanders goes into New Hampshire with an early advantage. But his rivals aren't ceding the state to him. On a recent New Hampshire swing, California Sen. Kamala Harris insisted she would compete for the state and took a not-so-subtle dig at Sanders by noting she's not a democratic socialist. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, of neighboring Massachusetts, along with Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, have also visited New Hampshire. Endorsements aren't the only sign of a candidate's strength. And Sanders and his team insist they won't take New Hampshire for granted. His first swing through early-voting states this week as a 2020 presidential candidate includes several stops in New Hampshire. The senator plans to spend "a lot of time" in the state, said Jeff Weaver, Sanders' 2016 campaign manager who is now working as a senior adviser for the new campaign. He acknowledged it would be difficult for Sanders to notch as big of a victory in New Hampshire as he did in 2016. "In a very big field, it will be impossible to get that kind of margin again," Weaver said. Several Democrats said the size of the field has made them think twice about backing Sanders too quickly. "It's massive," liberal activist Dudley Dudley said of the 2020 roster. "Our cup runneth over or something, I don't know. I'm struggling with it myself." Dudley said she's still fond of Sanders but has also been impressed by other senators who have visited New Hampshire, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio. "If I were to endorse (Sanders), it would be because I believe he is the most likely to be able to beat (President Donald) Trump," she said. "And it may come out that way. I don't know. But I want to weigh it. I want to look at all of the candidates." Steve Marchand, the former mayor of Portsmouth, endorsed Sanders in 2016 but described himself as "wide open" when it comes to 2020. "I'm not going to support anybody for a good long time," Marchand said. "I want to kick the tires on everybody." Another hurdle for Sanders is one of his own making. His leftward push against Clinton in 2016 proved so popular among Democrats that it's now become vogue for the younger generation of 2020 candidates. Looking at the crowded 2020 field, former state Sen. Burt Cohen said it seems like Sanders' 2016 agenda is "pretty much everybody's agenda," including "Medicare-for-all" and criticizing income inequality. After endorsing Sanders in 2016 and working as a delegate for him at the Democratic National Convention, Cohen hasn't "fully decided yet" whether he'll support Sanders, saying, "I may end up endorsing Bernie. I'm not sure." The approach is shared by fellow 2016 Sanders delegate Andru Volinsky, who now holds a seat on the state's executive council. "My initial inclination is towards Sen. Sanders," Volinsky said. "But the door is not completely closed to others." Despite the caution from some Democrats, others have already embraced his 2020 run. Sanders has kept the support and help of Kurt Ehrenberg, who was the New Hampshire state director for the unsuccessful effort to get Warren to run during the 2016 cycle. He then became the New Hampshire political director for Sanders during the presidential campaign. Rep. Mark King, a Nashua Democrat, endorsed Sanders in 2016 and said he plans to do so again, in part because Sanders has the same values and the same approach as he did before. "I didn't just blindly follow the senator again," said King, who was a 2016 delegate for Sanders. The Treasury Department appears set to lift sanctions on three companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska despite concerns from lawmakers in both parties who say the Trump administration should be tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies. Treasury's decision to ease the sanctions narrowly survived a Senate vote Wednesday when Democrats failed to win the 60 votes needed to block it. Still, 11 Republicans joined with the Democrats as some voiced concerns that lifting the financial penalties would send the wrong message to Russia. On Thursday in the House, 136 Republicans joined Democrats to disapprove of the Treasury deal. The vote was only symbolic, given the outcome in the Senate, but it sent a strong message to President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who had traveled twice to Capitol Hill to explain his department's decision. Congress had until Friday to vote to block the sanctions relief. The votes are the latest signal that congressional Republicans are willing to split with the White House on national security matters. Lawmakers in both parties have protested Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria, and the Senate passed measures in December to end U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and blame Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As with Mnuchin on the Russia sanctions, visits from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis to Capitol Hill failed to convince many Republicans that they should stick with the administration's position on Yemen. Pompeo and Mattis argued for maintaining the U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia, but several Republicans defected, some angered by what they said was Trump's lackluster response to Khashoggi's killing. The two Saudi measures were never considered by the House, then led by Republicans, and expired at the end of the congressional session. On the Russian sanctions, at issue is a December announcement from the Treasury Department that the U.S. would lift financial penalties on the companies linked to Deripaska Russian aluminum manufacturing giant Rusal, EN+ Group and the Russian power company JSC EuroSibEnergo. EN+ Group is a holding company that owns nearly 50 percent of Rusal. The Treasury Department says the Russian companies have committed to separating from Deripaska, who will remain blacklisted as part of an array of measures announced in early April that target tycoons close to the Kremlin. Treasury has warned that keeping the sanctions in place could upset global aluminum markets or even prompt the Russian government to nationalize the company, thus shutting it out from any outside control. Mnuchin briefed House members on the decision last week and Senate Republicans on Tuesday, all behind closed doors. Speaking after the Senate meeting, he said the sanctions "shouldn't be a political issue." Mnuchin's House briefing came after seven new committee chairmen demanded he hold a briefing in the Capitol, one of the first moves of the new Democratic House to scrutinize Trump's actions related to Russia. Democrats had asked Mnuchin to delay the sanctions decision until the end of February, but he would not agree. Lawmakers in both parties said they had concerns that the Treasury agreement didn't go far enough to sever Deripaska's control. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said before Thursday's vote that Mnuchin's answers in the briefing were inadequate. "With the threat that Russia poses to the United States, to our friends and allies around the world, Congress cannot just look the other way," Engel said. House Financial Services Chairman Maxine Waters said the United States needs to make sure "we don't align ourselves with the people who are undermining this democracy." No Republicans spoke on the House floor in favor of the Trump administration's decision. Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, voted for the Democratic resolution. "Bottom line, Putin's Russia is an adversary, and should be treated as one," McCaul said before the vote. He said he had concerns about how the U.S. could adequately monitor Deripaska's control of the companies. "Because we cannot be sure that we have removed the heavy hand of this Russian oligarch, I cannot support the delisting of these sanctioned entities at this point in time," McCaul said. A South Florida teen was rushed to the hospital after he was shot in Miami Sunday afternoon, officials said. The incident happened at the 1400 block of Northwest 70th Street. Crime scene detectives could be seen collecting evidence like bullet casings and speaking with neighbors. Miami Police said they received a ShotSpotter alert around 1:30 p.m. ShotSpotter is a gunshot detection system that alerts police to the location of gunfire. Once police arrived on the scene, they found a teenager with a gunshot wound. The 15-year-old victim was rushed to Ryder Trauma Center, where they were in stable condition. The teenager's identity has not yet been released. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho tweeted a message, reading in part, "No age group is spared the scourge of gun violence. A 15-year-old shot in the legs is stable, thankfully." Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. Authorities are searching for a driver who ran over a woman who fell out of a car window on a South Florida highway and fled the scene early Sunday. According to Florida Highway Patrol, a car was driving westbound on State Road 112 near State Road 25 when the incident happened just before 4:45 a.m. The passenger, who was identified as 23-year-old Mariah Logan, was hanging out of the window, FHP officials said. Officials said Logan fell out of the window and onto the highway. The driver of a Range Rover that was traveling behind the car ran over Logan. He initially stopped and then fled the scene before authorities arrived. The driver of the car Logan was in and her two other passengers were not injured. FHP officials said Logan and her friends may have been in South Florida for Spring Break and were heading to the airport when the incident happened. Authorities are now searching for the person who ran over Logan. Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. What to Know Since shortly after the state was founded in 1845, politicians have made efforts to move the capital to a more central location. A member of the Florida Senate whose district includes part of Broward County is re-igniting a longtime debate: should the capital of the Sunshine State be moved from Tallahassee to another city? Sen. Kevin Rader wants to Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability to look into the costs and possibly benefits to move the capital from Floridas panhandle to Orlando. Tallahassee is not friendly to participatory democracy its an eight-hour drive from Miami, seven hours from Broward, eight from the Southwest coast it takes so long to get here. Its prohibitive, Rader told the Tallahassee Democrat. Tallahassee was selected as the original capital of Florida as it was the central point between Pensacola and St. Augustine the original capitals of the West and East Florida territories respectively. Rader, a Democrat who told the paper that he knows a move is a possibly longshot, said the reasoning for the capital being in the center of what was once the major population areas is the same reason a move should be looked into as the population of the state, now around 21 million, has moved to the central and southern parts of the state. The proposal, which currently has no companion bill in the Florida House of Representatives, would seek to have the study results completed by the end of 2020. Since shortly after the state was founded in 1845, politicians have made efforts to move the capital to a more central location. The most recent one in the late 1960s from the late Sen. Lee Weissenborn, whose district represented Miami-Dade County at the time, led to the eventual construction of the new capitol building. A memorial plaque was placed inside to acknowledge his role. Chinese tech giant Huawei is challenging a U.S. law that labels the company a security risk and would limit its access to the American market for telecom equipment. Huawei Technologies Ltd.'s lawsuit, announced Thursday, asks a federal court to throw out a portion of this year's U.S. military appropriations act that bars the government and its contractors from using Huawei equipment on the grounds it is unconstitutional. It comes as the biggest global maker of network equipment for phone and internet companies fights U.S. efforts to persuade allies to exclude the company from next-generation telecom systems. The complaint, filed in Plano, Texas, the headquarters of Huawei's U.S. operations, cites the framers of the U.S. Constitution, including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, in arguing that the law in question violates the constitutional separation of powers, denies due process and amounts to a "Bill of Attainder" that singles out a specific entity for adverse treatment. It says the law causes the company "concrete and particularized injury, and imminent future injury" and subjects it to a "burden that is severe, permanent and inescapable" that amounts to the corporate "death penalty." Huawei, China's first global tech brand, is at the center of U.S.-Chinese tensions over technology competition and cyber-spying. The company has spent years trying to put to rest accusations it facilitates Chinese spying or is controlled by the ruling Communist Party. Increasingly, both sides appear to be resorting to courts to try to press their cases. "We are compelled to take this legal action as a proper and last resort," the company's rotating chairman, Guo Ping, said at a news conference. Guo said the ban would limit competition, slowing the rollout of fifth-generation communications and raising consumer prices. Huawei has pleaded not guilty to U.S. trade-theft charges after a federal court in Seattle unsealed a 10-count indictment in January against two of its units, Huawei Device Co. and Huawei Device USA. The charges include conspiracy to steal trade secrets, attempted theft of trade secrets, wire fraud and obstruction of justice. The company's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, is fighting extradition to the U.S. after she was arrested in Vancouver, Canada on Dec. 1. U.S. prosecutors have filed charges accusing Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei's founder, of lying to banks about dealings with Iran. Huawei denies any wrongdoing. The company has about 40 percent of the global market for network gear but its U.S. sales evaporated after a congressional panel in 2012 cited the company and a Chinese competitor, ZTE Corp., as security risks and told phone carriers to avoid dealing with them. U.S. authorities "have hacked our servers and stolen our emails" but have presented no evidence to support their security claims, Guo said. He complained Washington was "sparing no effort to smear" the company. The U.S. campaign to persuade allies to shun Huawei threatens to block access to major markets as phone carriers prepare to invest billions of dollars in 5G systems. Huawei says the new law would shrink its potential U.S. market further by prohibiting the government from buying the Chinese vendor's technology and from buying goods or services from or giving grants or loans to companies or other third parties that do. The United States accounts for 20 to 25 percent of the global market for computer and telecom technology. Huawei says the U.S. law it is protesting improperly has Congress play the role of a court. The ban is "based on numerous false, unproven and untested propositions," said Song Liuping, the company's chief legal officer, at the news conference. "Huawei has an excellent security record and program. No contrary evidence has been offered." The Chinese government says Washington fabricates or exaggerates security concerns to block competition. Huawei, based in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, is a leading developer of 5G along with rivals Nokia Corp. of Finland and Sweden's LM Ericsson. Industry analysts say excluding the Chinese vendor from markets for 5G equipment would reduce competition and might lead to higher prices. Founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2017 as the biggest global supplier of network gear. It says it supplies 45 of the world's top 50 phone companies and has contracts with 30 carriers to test 5G wireless technology. European governments are balking at U.S. pressure to ban Huawei. The company has announced contracts with customers including the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East for network technology. China's government arrested two Canadians, a former diplomat and a businessman, on Dec. 10 in what was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng, the company's CFO. On Monday, Beijing accused the two men of acting together to steal state secrets. That followed the Canadian government's announcement Friday that the extradition proceeding for Meng would be allowed to continue. Huawei executives say American security warnings have yet to affect sales outside the United States. The company's 2018 revenue forecast is $100 billion and its founder, Ren Zhengfei, said last month this year's target is $125 billion. Some European officials and others cite a Chinese security law requiring companies to cooperate with intelligence agencies. They say Huawei and other tech companies might be required to install "backdoors" in equipment to allow eavesdropping. Huawei denies altering its equipment to facilitate spying and has set up testing centers in Britain, Canada and continental Europe to allow governments to examine its technology. "Huawei has not and will never implant 'backdoors,'" said Guo, the chairman. The company also has launched a public relations campaign abroad. Its typically press-shy founder, Ren, gave a two-hour interview to foreign reporters in January in which he said Huawei would reject Chinese government demands to disclose confidential information about its customers. Since then, Ren also has talked at length with foreign TV broadcasters. On the run, we all have very little time in our life to go shopping these days, and shoppings not always the most pleasurable experience. You can order online or mobile app, know exactly when your groceries will be ready, youll drive in, they will place it into your car, Bass said of Walmart Pickup. Johnnie Barto, 71, will be sentenced Monday at Cambria County Courthouse in Pennsylvania to spend whats likely to be the rest of his life in prison for sexually abusing a total of 29 children, including two relatives when they were minors, NBC News reports. Prosecutors say Barto has admitted to sexually assaulting more than two dozen children during the four decades he practiced medicine, and that most were victimized in the examination room of Laurel Pediatric Associates, his practice in the Johnstown suburb of Richland Township. Erika Brosig said she was 12 when she was assaulted by Barto in 1994 and remains haunted by what happened to her. He just stuck his hand down my pants, digitally penetrated me, and he moaned, she said. The sound of that moan will never leave me. As countries around the world are grounding all Boeing 737 Max planes after the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday that killed 157 people, U.S. passengers are growing concerned after the FAA announced airlines can still fly the Boeing jet in the country, NBC News reported. Passengers are taking to social media, expressing their anxieties about flying on one of the Boeing models and asking their airlines how to know if theyll be on a 737 Max 8 or 737 Max 9. Currently, Southwest Airlines has 34 Max 8s, and American has 24. United doesnt fly the Max 8, but it does fly 14 Max 9s. If a passenger is worried, looking up the model of the plane isnt too difficult. When buying tickets, airlines often list the model of plane with the ticket information. On Southwest, click the specific number of the flight and it will list the plane model. When looking for tickets on United, click the details button. On American, it will be listed with the flight information, near the time and price (American denotes the 737 Max 8 with the shorthand 7M8 on their website). If youve already bought your ticket, the plane information should be on your ticket. If you cant find it, call the airline and itll let you know. A quick-thinking man confronted two burglars who entered his Queens home and chased them off before they had a chance to steal anything, police said. Now police are asking for help to find the would-be robbers. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, was at his home on Saunders Street and 66th Avenue in Rego Park on Friday around noon when two people broke into his home, the NYPD said. He said he was using the bathroom when the men broke in through the back. He confronted them, chased them outside and grabbing the hood of one of the suspects and nearly subduing him. However, they got away. Surveillance video shows two men in black clothing making a quick exit. Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). What to Know Authorities in NJ took down an alleged ring trafficking ghost gun assault rifles and dealing cocaine, the states attorney general said The arrests are part of Operation Stone Wall a yearlong investigation led by the Division of Criminal Justice and New Jersey State Police Out of the 12 arrested, four were charged for gun trafficking. They allegedly conspired to sell six ghost gun AR-15- style assault rifles Authorities in New Jersey took down an alleged ring trafficking untraceable "ghost gun" assault rifles and dealing cocaine, the states attorney general and several law enforcement agencies jointly announced Monday. The arrests are part of Operation Stone Wall a yearlong investigation led by the Division of Criminal Justice and the New Jersey State Police. Out of the 12 men arrested, four were charged with gun trafficking. They allegedly conspired to sell six ghost gun AR-15- style assault rifles for prices ranging from $1,100 to $1,300 each twice the price the styles of guns go for on the legal gun market, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said Grewal said. Ghost guns are untraceable guns assembled from kits purchased online. They are not registered. They dont have serial numbers and they are sold without any background check process whatsoever, Grewal said. These are the first ghost gun seizures and arrests under New Jerseys new law making it a crime to build, possess or sell ghost guns in the state. The reason why we sought that law and the reason why the governor and the legislature stepped up to pass it and enact it is because ghost guns are a real and dangerous menace, Grewal said. They offer criminals, convicted felons, terrorists, domestic abusers people who we all agree should not own firearms the ability to access them. According to Grewal, when officials sought to enact the law, they were aware that criminals were searching for these types of guns and that ghost gun manufacturers were allegedly exploiting loop holes within state law to give criminals access to them. Operation Stone Wall began in early 2018 as an investigation into an alleged cocaine distribution ring in Lindenwold, Deputy Director of the Division of Criminal Justice Jill Mayer said. However, the investigation took a turn when it was revealed that certain members of the alleged ring were trafficking ghost guns. Operation Stone Wall eventually led to the arrest of 12 men 10 of whom are charged with distributing drugs, primarily cocaine, and two of those 10 individuals are also charged with trafficking ghost guns, along with two other men who are charged solely in connection with illegal trafficking of ghost gun AR-15 assault rifles, Grewal said. The arrests made from March 8 to March 14. According to prosecutors, the men allegedly shipped the parts to Pennsylvania to get around New Jerseys new law banning ghost guns. Those parts were intercepted by authorities in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, last Wednesday. State, county, local and federal law enforcement agencies collaborated in Operation Stonewall. New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick Callahan said about 12 agencies took part in the investigation. There is simply no mistaken the connection between the drug trade and illegal guns, Grewal said. Mondays announcement underscores the need to continue our efforts to hold manufacturers accountable for helping evade background checks and registration requirements and for putting dangerous, untraceable weapons in the hands of criminals in New Jersey, Grewal said. The four men charged in connection with weapon trafficking each face second- and third-degree charges related to the unlawful possession and sale of assault rifles, Mayer said. They are also charged under the new ghost gun statute with unlawful possession of a covert, undetectable firearm and unlawful manufacture, transport and disposition of a covert, undetectable firearm. Second-degree charges carry a sentence of 5 to 10 years in prison and third-degree charges carry a sentence of three to five years in prison. Additionally, some of the detained are facing narcotics charges including those in the first-degree, which carry a sentence of 10 to 20 years in state prison and a fine of up to $200,000. A mother who is accused of taking her three children during a supervised visit in Waterbury last month, prompting Silver Alerts in Connecticut and Amber Alerts in Texas, was captured in Mexico and the children have been found safe. Police said the children's mother, 29-year-old Crystal McGrath, was allowed supervised visits with her three children, but violated the conditions of the supervised visitation when she left a McDonald's restaurant on Reidville Drive in Waterbury with her children on Feb. 16 and Crystal's boyfriend, 38-year-old Lester Joy, was driving the vehicle at the time. During a news conference Monday, police said Joy is known to police and on the sex-offender registry. Police said they were notified around 12:30 p.m. that day that McGrath had left a visit monitored by the state Department of Children and Families and took her children. A Silver Alert was issued in Connecticut and police said they had information on Feb. 17 that the car might be in Florida and investigators learned that McGraths mother lives there. When they spoke with her, they learned McGrath, Joy and the children were not there. Amber Alerts were issued in Texas for McGraths three children on Feb. 23. Then, three days later, United States Marshals learned that they were likely in Mexico. On March 9, marshals found the couple and the children safe in Mexico, police said during a news conference. On March 12, McGrath and Joy were brought back to the United States. Both Crystal and Joy remain in custody and are being held at the Denton County Sheriff's Office in Denton, Texas. They each face charges of risk of injury and custodial interference. Police believe that McGrath, Joy and the children entered Mexico by car. Before being brought back to Connecticut, the children were housed at an immigration facility that police said was suitable for children and arrangements were made to bring the children back to the U.S. The grandmother who lives in Delaware and has custody of the children flew to Mexico with staff from DCF to get the children and 2-year-old Maryah Matthew, 5-year-old Dylan McGrath and 7-year-old Maddison McGrath were brought back to Connecticut and taken to a hospital to be evaluated. Crystal and Joy are pending extradition back to Connecticut, according to Waterbury Police. DCF Commissioner Vannessa Dorantes released a statement about the incident on Monday. The entire statement is below: "First and foremost, we are extremely grateful for the safe return of the children. This positive conclusion results from the joint collaborative efforts of the Waterbury Police Department, the U.S. Marshals Office and the State Department. This serious incident has led DCF staff to assess the circumstances of our work with families as well as the safety and well-being of children. Our internal review entails multiple divisions within our Department including an active human resources investigation. We again want to thank law enforcement and members of the community for diligently working together to safely bring the children back to Connecticut." What to Know Cardinal George Pell had been Pope Francis' top financial adviser and the Vatican's economy minister A jury convicted Pell of abusing two 13-year-old boys in a rear room of Melbourne's St. Patrick's Cathedral in late 1996 Pell faces a potential maximum 50-year prison term after a sentencing hearing that begins on Wednesday The most senior Catholic cleric ever convicted of child sex abuse was sent to prison on Wednesday and will wait two weeks to learn his sentence for molesting two choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral two decades ago. Victorian state County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd revoked Cardinal George Pell's bail at the end of a sentencing hearing in a packed, standing-room-only courtroom. Kidd said he would deliver his sentence on March 13. The 77-year-old Pell, who could face 50 years in prison, showed no expression as he walked from the dock with a cane escorted by three court security officers and a prison guard. Pell paused at the door, turned to the judge and bowed. He was taken by prison van from the court to the Melbourne Assessment Prison, a maximum security facility where inmates new to the state penal system are assessed. All prisoners are strip-searched on arrival and Pell, like all pedophiles, will be kept in protective custody, where he will remain alone for up to 23 hours a day. A jury unanimously convicted Pell in December of abusing the two 13-year-olds in a rear room of St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1996 weeks after becoming archbishop of Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city. But Pell wasn't taken into custody immediately because he had surgery scheduled to have both knees replaced. Pell faced an abusive crowd Wednesday as he entered court half an hour before his sentencing hearing began. "I hope you burn in hell!" one man shouted while pushing against a cluster of police officers trying to shield the cardinal as he walked into the courthouse. "You're a pedophile! You're a criminal! You're a monster!" Pell's lawyer Robert Richter was heckled by members of the public during the lunch break, prompting Kidd to warn people in the gallery that they could be charged with contempt of court for such behavior. Kidd said such acts directed at Pell and Richter showed that Pell was being blamed for the sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church recently exposed by a government-commissioned investigation into Australian institutions' handling of abuse allegations. "The Catholic Church is not on trial ... I'm imposing sentence on Cardinal Pell for what he did," Kidd said. The court had until Tuesday forbidden publication of any details about the trial because Pell had faced a second trial in April on charges that he indecently assaulted two boys aged 9 or 10 and 11 or 12 as a young priest in the late 1970s in a public pool in his hometown of Ballarat. Those charges have now been dropped. Pope Francis removed Pell as a member of his informal Cabinet in October. He had remained prefect of the Vatican's economy ministry, but his five-year term expired this month, acting Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said. Gisotti tweeted that Pell "is no longer" the Holy See's economy chief. On Wednesday, Gisotti said that the Vatican office that handles sex abuse of minors has taken over the case as well. The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has the power to remove Pell from the priesthood, as it did recently with former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked earlier this month after the Vatican office found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adults. The Vatican spokesman says that the Vatican office that handles sex abuse of minors has taken over the case involving Cardinal George Pell following his conviction for molesting two choir boys. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said Wednesday that the Australian cardinal, the highest Catholic cleric convicted of sex abuse, was being investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which has the power to remove him from the priesthood. The move was expected as the Church must conduct its own canonical investigation whenever there is a credible allegation of sex abuse. Pell was jailed Wednesday pending his sentencing in the decades-old molestation case. Pope Francis removed Pell as a member of his informal Cabinet in October, and the Vatican confirmed he is no longer its economy minister. Pell will be sentenced for five convictions of sexual penetration and indecent acts involving the boys. Each conviction carries a maximum 10-year prison term. The judge said Pell was guilty of a breach of trust with an element of brutality and had had a sense of impunity. "I see this as callus, brazen offending blatant," Kidd said. "At the time, he thought he was going to get away with it. Otherwise he wouldn't have done it," Kidd added. Richter had told the jury during the trial that "only a mad man" would take the risk of sexually abusing two boys in a cathedral room with the door open and people likely to wander in. On Wednesday, Richter described the abuse as a "temporary loss of judgment" in response to an "irresistible impulse." Pell had maintained his innocence throughout, describing the accusations as "vile and disgusting conduct." His lawyers have appealed the convictions and were scheduled to appear in the Court of Appeal on Wednesday afternoon to apply for bail. But the bail application was later withdrawn, and no date has been set for an appeal hearing. Pell lawyer Paul Galbally said the cardinal had decided against applying for bail. "He believes it is appropriate for him to await his sentencing" in prison, Galbally said in a statement. The victim who testified at Pell's trial said in a statement that since the conviction was revealed, he has experienced "shame, loneliness, depression and struggle." The man said it had taken him years to understand the impact the assault had on his life. The other victim died of a heroin overdose that his father attributed to the aftermath of the abuse. Neither victim can be named under state law. The revelations in the Pell case came in the same month that the Vatican announced that Francis approved the expulsion from the priesthood of a former high-ranking American cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, for sexual abuse of minors and adults. The convictions were also confirmed days after Francis concluded his extraordinary summit of Catholic leaders summoned to Rome for a tutorial on preventing clergy sexual abuse and protecting children from predator priests. Cubans were asked Sunday to send an overwhelming message of approval for the country's communist system as its founding generation of geriatric former guerrillas cedes the public spotlight to a new class of middle-aged bureaucrats. Voters were expected to overwhelmingly approve the draft of a new constitution that preserves the single-party socialist system and centrally planned economy while making some updates. The new constitution recognizes private and cooperative businesses alongside state ones, creates the posts of prime minister and provincial governor, and introduces the presumption of innocence and habeas corpus to the justice system. The only open question was how overwhelming the "yes" vote would be. The current constitution was approved by 97.7 percent of voters in a referendum in 1976, the peak of a system dedicated to displays of national unity achieved through a blend of consensus-building and coercion. Forty-three years later, Cuba is one of the world's last communist nations, its economy is faltering, its population shrinking and the percentage of "no" votes is expected to be small but significant when results are released Monday. President Miguel Diaz-Canel's government waged a non-stop campaign promoting a "yes" vote and tarring those voting "no" as counterrevolutionaries and enemies of the state. "I came to vote for the constitution of my country, for the rights we Cubans have to defend, for continuity and our revolutionary process," said one voter, Januarys Molina, 34. Aside from a few independent websites, all Cuban media is state-run and the airwaves were filled with messages urging people to approve the new constitution for the sake of continuity on the island. In recent days, those messages were mixed with words of support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as tensions rise between Cuba's main ally and the Trump administration, along with Latin American allies who support the Venezuelan opposition and its attempt to force aid into the country. "We're living a moment of imperialist menace," Diaz-Canel told reporters after voting Sunday morning. "What they're applying in Venezuela can be applied in any place in the world." Diaz-Canel's predecessor, 87-year-old Communist Party head Raul Castro, was shown voting in footage on state TV that didn't include comments to state media on the scene. The largest block of "no" votes could come from the growing ranks of evangelical Christians in Cuba, who object to language that eliminates a requirement for marriage to be only between a man and woman, paving the way for a future legalization of gay marriage. Cuban dissidents reached out to the growing number of people who have internet access on the island, urging them to vote "no" or boycott the vote altogether. Both Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Vice President Mike Pence attacked the vote as illegitimate in Twitter statements Sunday. In Miami, many Cuban exiles gathered Sunday to protest the referendum. "We're here to protest the mega fraud that the Cuban regime is committing with the constitution," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a Cuban exile. "We've been suffering for six decades from this regime that deprives us of all rights and divides us as a nation." The Cuban community also stood in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and Nicaragua. "We will not stop here in the United States supporting the efforts of Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to try and find liberty in their own countries," said Mayor Francis Suarez. A 17-year-old boy was charged with murder Monday in connection with the disappearance of two teens from northwest Indiana, prosecutors said. Connor Kerner, of Valparaiso, Indiana, was charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of 19-year-old Molley Lanham of St. John and 18-year-old Thomas Grill of Cedar Lake, court records show. Lanham and Grill were last seen at around 12 p.m. on Feb. 25, St. John police said in a statement on Friday. Prosecutors say two anonymous witnesses arrived at the Cedar Lake Police Department on Friday and told officers that Kerner killed Grill and Lanham, with one of the witnesses telling investigators the approximate location of the teens' bodies and vehicle. One of the witnesses returned to the police station at investigators' request on Saturday and gave a statement saying that while the witness - referred to in court documents as a confidential informant - was at Kerner's home the night of Feb. 25, Kerner was "visibly upset" and told the informant that "he had done something 'really bad,'" the prosecutors' charging statement says. When asked to specify, prosecutors said the informant told investigators that Kerner replied, "I killed someone and I killed an innocent girl," identifying them as Grill and Lanham. Prosecutors allege that Kerner told the informant that he had killed Grill and Lanham in his grandparents' garage in Hebron while his grandparents were out of town. Authorities say Kerner told the informant that Grill came to the house, driven by Lanham, "for a drug deal" and that Grill had tried to rob Kerner, at which point prosecutors allege Kerner shot Grill. Prosecutors say Kerner told the informant that he "panicked due to being out of bullets in the gun" and "then beat him with a pipe wrench until he died." Kerner told the informant that he went outside to find Lanham in the car and told her to come into the garage, where he showed her Grill's body and then "informed her he was going to let her go, but if she told, he would kill her," prosecutors allege. Authorities say the informant told them that when Lanham turned to leave, he then shot her in the head. The informant told investigators that Kerner said he then drove Lanham's car into the garage, loaded the bodies into the trunk and drove about two miles away, loading it with flammable substances before setting it on fire and walking back to his grandparents' home, prosecutors allege. Investigators found the burned-out car in a wooded area on March 2, prosecutors said, and discovered "two heavily burnt bodies, skull fractures to one and an apparent gunshot wound to the head of the other" inside, believing the bodies to be those of Grill and Lanham. DNA was sent to the lab for processing, and autopsies were pending Monday, the Porter County sheriff's office said in a statement. Investigators interviewed Kerner's grandparents Gerald and Christy Dye, who confirmed they had been out of town on vacation, prosecutors said. Gerald Dye initially told detectives that nothing was out of place or damaged when they returned home, according to the charging documents filed in court, but about 20 minutes later, he said that statement was "untruthful." Gerald Dye told investigators that he saw a hole in the garage wall and repaired it, saw that the garage floor had been cleaned, and discovered what appeared to be bullet holes in the bumper of his car and the set of his motorcycle that weren't there when he left for vacation, prosecutors say. Prosecutors said Gerald Dye also told detectives that while he continued to check the garage, he found that his gun, two magazines and cleaning supplies were all missing. Dye said he called Kerner to ask if the teen had his gun, and Kerner said yes - at which point Gerald Dye went to retrieve the weapon, which his grandson said he had used for "target shooting," authorities allege. Gerald Dye told investigators that he noticed the gun was lighter and that he believed the magazine, which was full when he left, was missing rounds, court documents say. When he asked Kerner about the missing rounds, Gerald Dye told investigators that his grandson said he had "accidentally fired a shot in the garage," prosecutors say. Kerner was taken into custody at 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, according to the sheriff's office. It was not immediately clear if he had hired an attorney in the case. Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, explained in an interview Sunday with CBS's "Face the Nation" why he thinks his old office might be a bigger threat to President Donald Trump than special counsel Robert Mueller is, NBC News reports. Promoting his new book, "Doing Justice," Bharara said that Manhattan federal prosecutors are unencumbered by the restraints put on Mueller, saying the office "doesn't have the same circumscription on its ambit that the special counsel does." "The special counsel was appointed under a particular regulation and was supposed to look at only things relating to interference in the election and 'collusion' with Russians in connection with the election and anything arising from it, one of which was obstruction," he said. It was investigators in the Southern District of New York who prosecuted Trump's former longtime attorney Michael Cohen for a litany of crimes. The office is currently probing the Trump Organization and Trump's inaugural committee, and Cohen said in public testimony on Capitol Hill last month that he was still providing those prosecutors with assistance in their various investigations. Experts said Wednesday that only 22 vaquitas remain in the Gulf of California, where a grim, increasingly violent battle is playing out between emboldened fishermen and the last line of defense for the smallest and most endangered porpoise in the world. Jorge Urban, a biology professor at the Baja California Sur University, said the 22 vaquitas were heard over a network of acoustic monitors. That was in fact higher than many had expected; some had estimated as little as 15 would remain in the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, the only place in the world where the vaquita marina is found. It may be a sign the vaquita is holding on, and what is keeping it alive is a thin line of defenders: Every night 22 volunteer crew members from ships operated by the environmentalist group Sea Shepherd go out to search the upper Gulf for hidden gill nets that catch prized but protected totoaba fish and drown vaquitas. It is increasingly dangerous work. Over the last month, the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat has suffered two attacks in which dozens of fast fishing boats pounded the ship with rocks and firebombs. "If we stop operations, the vaquita will go extinct," said Sea Shepherd first mate Jack Hutton. "It's just out here removing nets, if we stop removing them then there's no hope for the vaquita." The prime season to catch totoaba, which peaks in May, is causing a frenzy. The big fish's swim bladders are considered a delicacy in China and can bring thousands of dollars apiece at retail. With so few vaquitas left, a mass totoaba fishing effort this spring could wipe out the species. "We know we are going to keep getting attacked," said Hutton, who was operating a drone that fishermen shot out of the sky last year. "We know we are risking our lives, but if we don't the vaquita has no chance." The activists are not alone. Mexican marines and federal police aboard the Farley Mowat fired rubber bullets during the most recent attacks. But officials are clearly not capable of handling the attacks, or preventing fishermen from setting the submerged, hidden nets, which are banned by law from the area. The Mexican Navy and Environment Ministry did not reply to request for comments. But marines have been intimidated by the fishermen, said documentary filmmaker Richard Ladkani, who filmed as they stood by while fishermen set out in their boats or as they battled authorities to free detained fishermen. Ladkani directed "Sea of Shadows," which won the audience award at the Sundance film festival this year for world documentaries. Ladkani said he accompanied the Navy on wild, dangerous nighttime chases at top speed in which fishermen tried and sometimes succeeded in ramming naval patrol boats to disable their engines. "Why is the navy not using force?" Ladkani wondered. "We were on 10 chases, and every time the pangas (boats) got away." Ladkani also has a theory about why the fishermen are getting so violent and desperate: Sea Shepherd is successful enough at pulling out nets which cost about $3,000 apiece that the fishermen are going into debt, borrowing money from the cartel of Chinese and Mexican totoaba traffickers to buy new nets. "This is a vicious circle where people get more indebted," said Ladkani. "This one fisherman wound up owing the cartels $54,000 for 18 nets. He tried to get out, he finally came out and said there is no way I can repay the cartel. He was murdered." Sunshine Rodriguez, a leader of the fishermen in the Baja California town of San Felipe, agreed that the illegal totoaba trade has not brought riches to the town: A total ban on gillnets has paralyzed the fishing fleet, and government payments meant to compensate for lost fishing income haven't been paid in at least three months. "I know people who are dedicated 100 percent to that (totoaba) business, and don't even have $10 to put gas in the tank of their panga," said Rodriguez. "The Chinese are making the profit, that I can tell you." "What did they expect the people to do, starve?" Rodriguez asked, saying the idea that fishermen make thousands of dollars for each totoaba bladder is a myth. He said a half-kilogram bladder from an average-sized fish commands only about $400, and prices are dropping. Rodriguez said the Chinese-Mexican illegal dealers keep cutting the price because the fishermen "are starving. ... They say 'we'll keep on dropping it, we'll keep on making more profit, and these people are going to keep fishing because they have nothing else to do." Investigator Andrea Costa of the group Elephant Action League agreed that prices appear to be falling, calling that "the first good news for the vaquita in a long, long time." He attributed that to his group's work in identifying illegal traders in Baja California's Chinese community, noting that the Chinese government recently arrested 16 traders. Costa, who spent a year and a half working undercover to expose the totoaba trade, agreed with Rodriguez on another point: The Mexican government's strategy of focusing almost exclusively on cracking down on the fishermen is never going to work unless it also cracks down on the middlemen and the traders. "As long as you hammer, put all your efforts only on the fishermen, only on removing the nets, you will fail," Costa said. "You don't address the problem, and the problem is a very sophisticated supply chain As long as you don't hit these people and you do that ... you'll bleed out, not only the vaquita but the whole marine life in the Sea of Cortez." Rodriguez, the fishermen's leader, puts it this way: "Everybody is illegal out there. Regardless if it's a shrimp net or a totoaba net, there is a ban on nets. "So if you're going to catch me and take my boat away for using a shrimp net, what do you think I'm going to do instead? I'm going to do the most profitable illegal thing because I'm still illegal." But in the meantime, the Sea Shepherd goes each night and hauls in nets, sometimes as many as 15 per night. The fishermen go out each night and lay nets because many of them can't stop; they're too in debt to the traders. The Sea of Cortez, which Jacques Cousteau once called "the aquarium of the world," is suffering long-term damage from the nets, which are carefully weighted to float below the surface to avoid detection. "The fact that they hide their nets does mean that we find active nets months later that have not been checked or forgotten about or lost by the poachers," said Hutton. "It means that there's walls of death that are just going to sit out there forever if no one picks them up Ladkani said, "When it's totoaba season at the end of May, they may have killed everything by then." A Virginia woman woke up early Saturday to a stranger in her bed kissing her on the cheek, according to Arlington police. The victim was asleep when the man entered her unlocked apartment in the 3400 block of Columbia Pike before 3:30 a.m., police said. When officers arrived on scene, we determined that the female victim was asleep in a residence when she was awoken to an unknown male suspect, who kissed her on the cheek, said Ashley Savage of Arlington police. The man left when the woman confronted him, police said, but terrified he might still be in the apartment, she quickly texted 911. When we arrived on scene, she was obviously very distraught from the incident, Savage said. Officers located a man matching the description still in the apartment building. They arrested 37-year-old Dominus Dayton and charged him with unlawful entry and assault and battery, police said. He was held without bond. The woman was not injured. Back in Iowa as a full-fledged presidential candidate, Democrat Elizabeth Warren took aim at President Donald Trump on Sunday, saying he "may not even be a free person" by next year's election. The Massachusetts senator also urged fellow candidates to avoid letting Trump define the contours of the election with his personal and provocative attacks. "Every day there is a racist tweet, a hateful tweet something really dark and ugly," Warren said as she opened an event in Cedar Rapids. "What are we as candidates, as activists, as the press, going to do about it? We're going to chase after those every day?" Warren has been a frequent Trump target. Hours after she formally kicked off her campaign on Saturday, the president renewed his criticism of her past claims of Native American heritage. In a tweet, Trump called Warren "Pocahontas" and said he would see her "on the campaign TRAIL." The White House didn't explain what the president was referring to in his tweet, though some Democrats accused him of making light of the Trail of Tears the forced removal of Cherokee and several other Native American tribes from their lands in the 1830s. Warren's campaign wouldn't say what the senator believes Trump was referencing. Warren emerged as one of the Democratic Party's fiercest and most effective Trump critics during the 2016 election, campaigning vigorously for Hillary Clinton. But she's largely avoided talking about Trump since she began testing the waters for a presidential campaign more than a month ago, hewing more closely to the populist economic message that has long made her a favorite of liberals. That shift made her sharp, though brief, shot at Trump on Sunday all the more notable. "By the time we get to 2020, Donald Trump may not even be president. In fact, he may not even be a free person," she said. Warren told reporters her comments were a reference to the multiple investigations that have shadowed Trump's presidency. Asked if she supported impeaching Trump, Warren was noncommittal, saying only that special counsel Robert Mueller needs to be allowed to finish his investigation and make his report public. "If we go down that path, we're going to need to help pull this country together and have as many people as possible understand it was a legitimate process based on facts," she said. Trump has not been charged with any crimes, but several of his former advisers have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges. The president's ability to create controversies and drive debate poses a challenge for Warren and other Democrats. While Democrats are eager for candidates to show they can handle Trump's aggression, they also risk overshadowing their own visions for the country if they respond to every attack or provocation. Warren's campaign launch has been shadowed by the controversy surrounding her past claims to Native American heritage. She's apologized for claiming Native American identity on multiple occasions early in her career. Trump has frequently taken digs at the senator by calling her Pocahontas, a reference to the native woman who lived in present-day Virginia in the 1600s and agreed to marry an English colonist to help ensure peace and protect her people. Voters in Cedar Rapids did not ask Warren about the controversy during a question-and-answer session, focusing instead on her stances on issues including tariffs and student loan debt. Time and money are running short for states to replace aging or inadequate voting machines before the 2020 presidential primaries, according to a report released Tuesday. State and local election officials in 31 states say they want to replace their voting equipment before the elections, but the vast majority said they don't have enough money to do so, according to The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's School of Law. "We basically have this year and then it's too late," said Lawrence Norden, deputy director of the center's Democracy Program and author of the report. It can take months to decide on replacement machines, secure the funding, develop security protocols, train workers and test the equipment. States received $380 million in election security grants from Congress last year, but experts have said that's merely a down payment on what is needed. Pennsylvania received $13.5 million from the federal government, but that's just a quarter of what it would cost to switch to voting machines that use paper ballots, said J. Alex Halderman, director of the Center for Computer Security and Society at the University of Michigan. "Without further federal assistance, we risk that new equipment and other critical improvements won't be in place for many years," Halderman said in congressional testimony last month. "With the 2020 election on the horizon, the next major target for foreign cyberattacks, we need to act before it's too late." In 2016, Russian hackers are believed to have targeted the nation's voting systems, searching for vulnerabilities. The nation's intelligence community has said there is no evidence of votes being changed, but warn of the continuing danger posed by foreign governments interested in undermining U.S. elections. Congressional efforts to send more election security money to the states have yet to gain momentum despite some bipartisan support. The most urgent concern centers on the 12 states that use, either statewide or in certain local jurisdictions, electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper record so voters can verify their choices before they cast their ballot. Experts say these machines are vulnerable and that hackers could manipulate the outcome without detection. Of these states, Delaware has set aside money to buy replacement machines while lawmakers in Georgia and South Carolina are considering proposals to do the same. Louisiana's plan to replace voting machines was delayed amid a dispute over the bidding process. Officials in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kansas and Kentucky have called for new machines, but efforts to secure the money haven't gained much traction, according to the Brennan Center report. Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas do not appear to be taking major steps at this point to replace their paperless machines by 2020, the report said. Cybersecurity experts and officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security say a paper record is essential to securing the nation's elections and that rigorous audits are needed to detect any malfunction or efforts to interfere. There is less a consensus on a return to paper ballots that are filled out by hand, although cybersecurity experts largely prefer them. That debate is playing out in Georgia as state lawmakers consider replacing the state's paperless machines. Democrats and voting advocates say systems that use those types of ballots are the most secure and cost-effective options. Republicans have thrown their support behind a more expensive "ballot-marking" voting machine. It features an electronic touchscreen that prints out a ballot that is then verified by voters before being cast. They say this allows for one system used by all voters, including those with disabilities, while also offering a secure method for post-election audits. Elsewhere, California has already allocated $134.3 million for counties to upgrade or replace old voting systems. It plans to decertify certain machines. Norden, with The Brennan Center, said states can't expect the federal government to cover everything, but the federal government can't leave national security to state and local governments either. "There needs to be an acknowledgement that everyone has a responsibility for this at the federal, state and local level," he said. "There has been an attempt to shift responsibility from one to the other and too often that means nobody is responsible." What to Know A woman was arrested for allegedly using a T-shirt cannon to launch contraband over a prison fence in Oklahoma A local TV station reported the items included cellphones, ear buds, phone charges, digital scales, meth, marijuana and tobacco It wasn't clear what, if any, relationship Kerri Jo Hickman had to any of the inmates at the prison A woman is behind bars after allegedly using a T-shirt cannon to launch drugs, cellphones and other contraband over a prison fence in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections says the bizarre incident prompted a lockdown at the North Fork Correctional Unit in Sayre, about 120 miles west of Oklahoma City. The agency says authorities arrested Kerri Jo Hickman after discovering the T-shirt gun and another package in her vehicle. It wasn't clear what, if any, relationship she had to any of the inmates at the prison. Tulsa television station KOTV reports that the container that was launched Sunday contained cellphones, ear buds, phone chargers, methamphetamine, digital scales, marijuana and tobacco. Hickman remained jailed Friday in Beckham County on complaints of introducing contraband into a penal institution, conspiracy and drug trafficking. Jail records didn't list an attorney for her. The French government on Wednesday unveiled plans to slap a 3 percent tax on the French revenues of internet giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook. The bill is an attempt to get around tax avoidance measures by multinationals, which pay most of their taxes in the EU country they are based in often at very low rates. That effectively means the companies pay next to no tax in countries where they have large operations. The tax will apply to digital companies that have global revenues of over 750 million euros ($848 million), and French revenue over 25 million euros. That will help protect startups, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in a news conference. About 30 companies, mostly based from the U.S, but also from China and Europe, will be affected. France is set to be the first European country to implement such a tax as the bill presented Wednesday in a cabinet meeting is likely to pass in the coming months in parliament, where French President Emmanuel Macron's party has a majority. Le Maire estimated the tax will raise about 500 million euros ($566 million) a year this year but that should increase "quickly." He said the tax will not affect companies directly selling their own products online. It will mostly affect companies that use consumers' data to sell online advertising. It will also apply to online services companies like Airbnb and Uber. "This is about justice," Le Maire said. "These digital giants use our personal data, make huge profits out of these data ... then transfer the money somewhere else without paying their fair amount of taxes." Le Maire quoted figures from the European Commission, the EU executive body, showing that the major digital tech companies pay on average 14 percentage points less tax than other European companies. France decided to implement the digital tax after a similar proposal at the European Union level failed to get unanimous support from member states. Le Maire said he would now push for an international deal by the end of the year among the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based forum made up mostly of developed nations. The Computer and Communications Industry Association criticized the French measure, saying it would ultimately lead to higher costs for French firms and consumers. "So-called digital companies are, contrary to claims, not under-taxed and they should not be arbitrarily targeted," said CCIA Europe's vice president, Christian Borggreen. Juan Carlos Perla says he spent his first night in the U.S. in a cold immigration cell with 21 others at the nation's busiest border crossing. Fluorescent lights were always on in the basement holding area. Space was so tight that he laid his sleeping mat next to a toilet. The 36-year-old from El Salvador soon reunited with his wife and three sons, ages 6, 4 and 10 months, who were in another cell, and the family returned to Tijuana, Mexico, to await asylum hearings in San Diego. They were one of the first families to contend with a radical U.S. policy shift that makes asylum seekers stay in Mexico while their cases wind through immigration courts. Looking rattled hours later, Perla said he would skip his court date and instead settle in Mexico. "Our fear is that we lose our case and get deported" back to El Salvador, Perla said. "That's suicide for me, my wife and my children." Perla told a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer that he and his family abandoned their small bakery in the Salvadoran capital after he missed a monthly extortion payment to the 18th Street gang. They beat him and threatened to kill him and his family if he failed to pay the next installment, according to an interview transcript. If his family's experience is a sign, the policy may be having its intended effect of discouraging asylum claims, which have helped fuel a court backlog of more than 800,000 cases and forced people to wait years for a ruling. Trump administration officials say they want to deter weak claims, freeing up judges to consider more deserving cases. A federal judge in San Francisco has scheduled a March 22 hearing to consider a request by advocacy groups to halt the practice. Change is being introduced slowly 240 people were returned to Tijuana from San Diego in the first six weeks. The administration expanded its "Migrant Protection Protocols" strategy on Monday to a second border crossing, in Calexico, California, and officials say the practice will grow along the entire border. The shift comes as more asylum-seeking families from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador arrive at the U.S. border with Mexico. Border Patrol agents in San Diego have been told to target people who speak Spanish and come from Latin America, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press. The memo says pregnant women and LGBT migrants are to be spared. The administration has said all along that Mexicans are exempt, as are children traveling alone. Waiting in Tijuana is an unanticipated setback for asylum seekers who had hoped to be released in the U.S. while awaiting a judge's ruling. In Mexico, they lack the family connections they have in the U.S, and some say they feel unsafe. Selvin Alvarado, his partner and their children from previous relationships stayed at a Tijuana shelter for about six weeks while waiting to be called on an informal list of asylum seekers seeking to enter the U.S. at the San Diego crossing. To earn money, Alvarado unloaded ceramic tiles from delivery trucks in Tijuana while his partner watched their boys, ages 10 and 7. After claiming asylum, Alvarado was separated from his family and put in an all-male cell with fluorescent lights that were always on and made him lose track of night and day. He told a CBP officer the next day that that he was "afraid of paramilitary groups in Honduras" and that he fled with his family after he discovered the head of his farming collective was stealing money and someone threatened to kill one of his children, according to an interview transcript. Alvarado, 29, who came with a police report and other documents explaining work-related threats, was sent back to Tijuana with his 10-year-old, while his wife and her son were released in the U.S. and settled with Alvarado's cousin in Houston. He says he cannot work in Tijuana because he has no one to care for his son. Many immigrants' struggles are compounded by the scarcity of legal advice. Customs officials offer a list of potential legal aid providers, but Alvarado said his calls to those groups elicited no response. Al Otro Lado, a Los Angeles-based legal group working out of a building in downtown Tijuana, gave him an overview of U.S. asylum procedures but no individual advice. For immigration attorneys, it can be difficult to extend help to people who are on the other side of the border. The American Bar Association's Immigration Justice Project of San Diego cannot afford to go to Tijuana and will not pursue grants without insurance and license to practice in Mexico, said Adela Mason, the group's director. Catholic Charities of the San Diego Diocese had to overcome worries about safety and not having license. "It's a fine line between going down there and providing assistance in a way that is legal but not practicing law in Mexico," said Nadine Toppozada, the group's director of refugee and immigrant services. Initial asylum hearings in downtown San Diego are scheduled within 45 days, and administration officials hope to put them on a fast track. When their day arrives, asylum seekers are told to report to the border crossing for temporary admission to the U.S. for a bus ride to court. Dr. Juan Ramon Molina, a primary care physician in Honduras' Nacaome Valley, told a CBP officer that government forces twice tried to kidnap him for his role in an opposition political party and that he did not seek asylum in Guatemala or Mexico because he has family in the U.S. They are in Los Angeles. Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Miami and West Virginia. Molina, 35, has been looking online for legal help at a Tijuana migrant shelter ahead of his April 8 court date and says he fears that his political adversaries will track him down. Still, he says it is better than being detained in the U.S., where he spent two days in a basement cell at the San Diego crossing that he said was overcrowded and cold. "The treatment was inhumane," he said. Before he gave up and returned to Mexico, Perla had arranged for a pastor in Berkeley, California, to give him a room, find legal advice and arrange schooling for his children. In Tijuana, his family is living in a tent inside a migrant shelter. "My case is a lost cause," he said. A gunman killed three people and wounded five during a mid-morning tram ride Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht, raising the specter of another extremist attack only days after the murderous rampage in New Zealand. Authorities seized a Turkish-born suspect after a manhunt that convulsed the historic city of nearly 350,000 people for most of the day. As night set in, three victims lay in critical condition, and the motive for the bloodshed remained under investigation. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said authorities were trying to determine whether the attack had "terror motives." Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the suspect, identified as Gokmen Tanis, 37, was known to justice authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. Police said they also detained another man on suspicion of involvement but released no details. The shooting came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. The Utrecht attack took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. The gunman was alleged to have had an automatic weapon, Grapperhaus said. "We assume a terror motive," Mayor Jan van Zanen said as police searched for the killer, though he added that other motives could not be ruled out. In the aftermath of the shooting, Dutch authorities put the Netherlands' fourth-largest city on lockdown, raised the threat level in the area to the maximum of 5 and tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. Police issued a photo of a bearded Tanis aboard a tram in a blue hooded top. "If it is a terror attack," the prime minister declared, "then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence." Heavily armed officers with dogs searched for the killer, gathering at one point in front of an apartment building close to the scene. However, the suspect was later arrested at another location in the city. The threat level soon returned to 4. Police said a red Renault compact car was carjacked shortly before the shooting and later found across town. Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over the past years with offenses ranging from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of woman in 2017, news reports said. The identities of the shooting victims were not immediately released, and Grapperhaus would not say if any were known to the gunman. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of Parliament's upper house. A televised debate also was canceled. It was not clear if campaigning would resume Tuesday. This week, we speak with Sunny Lin, 61, head chef at the Chinese Kitchen in Naperville, who said she has been cooking her whole life, first as an understudy of her mother. From there, she worked in various restaurants learning more dishes and ideas and has been at her current job for six years. She was making crab rangoon rolls while she talked to us through an interpreter. Three weeks after a Camp Pendleton Marine went missing, the Inyo County Sheriff's Office announced Saturday the search for him has been drastically scaled back. U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Matthew Kraft, 24, went missing in late February during a solo ski and hike trip near the Kearsarge Pass Trailhead, roughly 110 miles east of Fresno, California. Kraft, who is from Washington, Connecticut, was believed to have started the trek on Feb. 24 with an itinerary to complete the journey by around March 4, according to ICSO. The search began March 4 when Krafts father called law enforcement after not hearing from his son. From there, the search grew, including assistance from the Marine Corps, seven county sheriffs departments, two national parks, the California Highway Patrol and more. On Saturday, the massive multiagency search mission said it changed the search to a limited continuous search. ICSO said it will continue this limited search until Kraft is found. The Marine was reported missing after he didn't return from a backcountry ski trip. NBC 7's anchor Omari Flemming has more. The road near the trailhead where Kraft was believed to be is currently closed for the winter and impassible because of heavy snow and rock fall. Both aerial and ground searches have identified avalanche activity, cornices, and snow bridges throughout the wilderness, ICSO said in a Facebook post. The entire search area was larger than the state of Rhode Island and consists of the 195-mile Sierra High Route. On March 8 at around 9 p.m., Kraft's rental gray 2016 Jeep Wrangler was found near Lower Grays Meadows Campground, above Independence, California, the ICSO said. Though, to date, ICSO said there are no substantiated clues that link Kraft to any particular search area. Search crews have also used technology able to find people buried in avalanches but have not found any signs of Kraft. On Monday, the agencys Incident Information System will become inactive, meaning those following the search will no longer receive updates from the system. Camp Pendleton-based Marine First Lt. Matthew Kraft went missing during a ski trip in the Sierra Nevada region. He was supposed to return on March 4, but has not been heard from. Anyone with information regarding Krafts whereabouts can call the following departments: A Mexican journalist has again been ordered deported from the United States despite his fear that his past stories about corruption make him a target in one of the world's most dangerous countries for reporters. The attorney for Emilio Gutierrez Soto and his son, Oscar, said Thursday that he would appeal an immigration judge's decision denying them asylum. Judge Robert Hough's Feb. 28 order says Emilio Gutierrez Soto's testimony was not credible and that he had not shown that he would be singled out for his reporting on the Mexican military were he to return now. Press freedom advocates have highlighted Gutierrez's articles that alleged military forces were robbing and extorting local people in Chihuahua, which borders New Mexico and part of West Texas. He and Oscar Gutierrez Soto entered the U.S. in 2008. Gutierrez says he was threatened for writing those articles and fears he will be targeted if forced to return to Mexico. Hough said that those fears were "merely speculative" given the decade that's passed since the articles were published. The judge also said Mexico "has laws which protect free speech and the government generally respects these rights." Eight journalists were killed in Mexico last year in connection with their reporting work, according to Reporters Without Borders, more than any other country besides Afghanistan. Two journalists in Mexico have already been killed this year. In many parts of the country, drug cartels and organized crime gangs are largely free to harass and murder reporters with impunity. The asylum request made by Gutierrez and his son was first denied in July 2017, and they were taken into detention that December during a check-in with immigration authorities. The two were released in July, two months after an immigration appeals court ordered a new asylum hearing. Their attorney, Eduardo Beckett, said Thursday that the two were not under immediate threat of deportation after the order, but are under a "dark cloud ... which causes much anxiety and stress not knowing the final result." "It is well documented that persons who have filed complaints or have gone public against government authorities have paid with their lives," Beckett said in an email. The National Press Club said it would mobilize in support of the Gutierrez family. Emilio Gutierrez is currently serving a journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan. What to Know Republican state Rep. Brian Ellis resigned amid allegations that he had sex with an incapacitated woman against her will. The alleged incident occurred three years ago. The woman's lawyer said her client was drugged. Ellis' lawyers have called the allegations "just plain false." A Pennsylvania lawmaker has resigned amid allegations that he had sex with an incapacitated woman against her will. Republican state Rep. Brian Ellis, R-Butler County, has not been charged with any crime. He resigned Monday in a letter to the House speaker, saying it was in the best interests of his family, district residents and his own health to resign effective immediately. The womans lawyer, Christine Wechsler, said her client believes she was drugged while having a drink with a friend and has no memory of the ensuing 12 hours. She went to a hospital the next day. She reported to doctors that she had no memory of the previous evening and she believed she was sexually assaulted, Wechsler said in January. The woman filed a formal complaint against Ellis with House Republicans last week. Ellis' resignation comes nearly two months after the Pennsylvania state House Republicans stripped him of his committee chairmanship and recommended he step down to take care of his family and address the allegations. Wechsler said the woman is a state employee who has never worked for Ellis. The states victim advocate, Jennifer Storm, who has been working with the unidentified woman, called her brave and courageous. Ellis' lawyers have called the allegations "just plain false." President Donald Trump's surprise trip to Iraq may have quieted criticism at home that he had yet to visit troops in a combat zone, but it has infuriated Iraqi politicians who on Thursday demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces. "Arrogant" and an "a violation of national sovereignty" were but a few examples of the criticism emanating from Baghdad following Trump's meeting Wednesday with U.S. servicemen and women at the al-Asad Airbase. Trips by U.S. presidents to conflict zones are typically shrouded in secrecy and subject to strict security measures, and Trump's was no exception. Few in Iraq or elsewhere knew the U.S. president was in the country until minutes before he left again. But this trip came as came curbing foreign influence in Iraqi affairs has become a hot-button political issue, and Trump's perceived presidential faux-pas was failing to meet with the prime minister in a break with diplomatic custom for any visiting head of state. On the ground for only about three hours, the American president told the men and women with the U.S. military that Islamic State forces have been vanquished, and he defended his decision against all advice to withdraw U.S. troops from neighboring Syria, He declared: "We're no longer the suckers, folks." The abruptness of his visit left lawmakers in Baghdad smarting and drawing unfavorable comparisons to the occupation of Iraq after the 2003 invasion. "Trump needs to know his limits. The American occupation of Iraq is over," said Sabah al-Saidi, the head of one of two main blocs in Iraq's parliament. Trump, he said, had slipped into Iraq, "as though Iraq is a state of the United States." While Trump didn't meet with any officials, he spoke with Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi by phone after a "difference in points of view" over arrangements led to a face-to-face encounter between the two leaders getting scrapped, according to the prime minister's office. The visit could have unintended consequences for American policy, with officials from both sides of Iraq's political divide calling for a vote in Parliament to expel U.S. forces from the country. The president, who kept to the U.S. air base approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad, said he had no plans to withdraw the 5,200 troops in the country. He said Ain al-Asad could be used for U.S. air strikes inside Syria. The suggestion ran counter to the current sentiment of Iraqi politics, which favors claiming sovereignty over foreign and domestic policy and staying above the fray in regional conflicts. "Iraq should not be a platform for the Americans to settle their accounts with either the Russians or the Iranians in the region," said Hakim al-Zamili, a senior lawmaker in al-Saidi's Islah bloc in Parliament. U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq as part of the coalition against the Islamic State group. American forces withdrew in 2011 after invading in 2003 but returned in 2014 at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help fight the jihadist group. Trump's visit was the first by a U.S. president since Barack Obama met with then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at a U.S. base outside Baghdad in 2009. Still, after defeating IS militants in their last urban bastions last year, Iraqi politicians and militia leaders are speaking out against the continued presence of U.S. forces on Iraqi soil. Supporters of the populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr won big in national elections in May, campaigning on a platform to curb U.S. and rival Iranian involvement in Iraqi affairs. Al-Sadr's lawmakers now form the core of the Islah bloc, which is headed by al-Saidi in Parliament. The rival Binaa bloc, commanded by politicians and militia leaders close to Iran, also does not favor the U.S. Qais Khazali, the head of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia that fought key battles against IS in northern Iraq, promised on Twitter that Parliament would vote to expel U.S. forces from Iraq, or the militias would force them out by "other means." Khazali was jailed by British and U.S. forces from 2007 to 2010 for managing sections of the Shia insurgency against the occupation during those years. Trump's visit would be a "great moral boost to the political parties, armed factions, and others who oppose the American presence in Iraq," Iraqi political analyst Ziad al-Arar said. Still, the U.S. and Iraq developed considerable military and intelligence ties in the war against IS, and they continue to pay off in operations against militants gone into hiding. Earlier in the month, Iraqi forces called in an airstrike by U.S.-coalition forces to destroy a tunnel used by IS militants in the Atshanah mountains in north Iraq. Four militants were killed, according to the coalition. A hasty departure of U.S. forces would jeopardize such arrangements, said Iraqi analyst Hamza Mustafa. Relations between the U.S. and Iraq also extend beyond military ties. U.S. companies have considerable interests in Iraq's petrochemical industry, and American diplomats are often brokers between Iraq's fractious political elite. Iraq's Sunni politicians have been largely quiet about the presidential visit, reflecting the ties they have cultivated with the U.S. to counterbalance the might of the country's Iran-backed and predominantly-Shiite militias. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Abdul-Mahdi accepted Trump's invitation to the White House during their call, though the Prime Minister's office has so far refused to confirm that. Associated Press reporters Ahmed Sami and Ali Jabar contributed. Just two months before the midterm elections, bipartisan legislation to try to prevent foreign hacking into U.S. election systems is stalled in Congress as the White House and some Republicans worry it could exert too much federal control over the states. Supporters of the bill say the delay could embolden Russia, which targeted election infrastructure in at least 21 states in 2016. A committee vote on the bipartisan bill was abruptly canceled two weeks ago after objections from some Republican senators and the states they represent. And Republicans and Democrats who are supporting the bill say they don't know when or if it will be taken up again in the few remaining weeks Congress is in session before the midterms. The delay has some concerned that Congress could punt on the only piece of legislation that is designed to fix what went wrong in 2016 and to prevent Russia or other countries from trying again. There is no evidence that the Russian targeting of state election systems was successful or changed any votes, but lawmakers, intelligence officials and elections experts say that they believe Russia will return in 2018 and beyond with more sophisticated tools. It also demonstrates Congress' struggle to develop a cohesive response to the Russian interference especially as President Donald Trump has at times questioned whether it even happened. The White House issued a lukewarm statement on the election security bill, neither endorsing nor opposing it but saying that "if Congress should choose to continue to pursue" the legislation they want to ensure that it does not duplicate ongoing federal efforts to help states or violate the principles of federalism. "We cannot support legislation with inappropriate mandates or that moves power or funding from the states to Washington for the planning and operation of elections," said White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters. The bill was negotiated over the last year by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Lankford says the White House did not block the bill, but that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "had concerns" after hearing from states and other interests that suddenly realized the bill was moving forward. Klobuchar similarly said concerns came from "leadership on the Republican side." McConnell's office would not comment on his involvement with the bill, or whether he heard from states or other groups about concerns. Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the House Rules and Administration Committee, the panel that canceled the vote, says Congress is sending the wrong message to Russia by delaying the bill. By passing the legislation, "you send a message that we are beefing up going forward, as opposed to standing down, which is what this looks like," Klobuchar said of the delay. Maine Sen. Angus King said he thought there had been a bipartisan desire to fix what went wrong in 2016. "It is frustrating because, to me, this is low-hanging fruit," said King, an Independent who sits on both the Senate intelligence committee and the Rules Committee. The intelligence panel has been investigating Russia's intervention for almost two years, and improving election security has been one of its top priorities. Some states have objected to the legislation because it would require all states to use paper ballots as a backup to electronic systems if they want to receive federal election money for voting equipment. While many states are already using paper ballots, a small number say it's too expensive or burdensome. The legislation would also require that all 50 states conduct audits after elections and direct the Homeland Security Department to immediately notify any states if the federal government detects that they have been hacked. The last requirement came after Homeland Security took almost a year to notify some states that Russians had targeted them in 2016. The bill has several prominent Republican supporters, including Lankford, Senate Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt of Missouri and Senate intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina. But other Republicans, including some in states that don't have paper ballots, have objected to the cost and what they say would be added paperwork. Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts said he heard from Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach with concerns about the bill and he is not supporting it. He said county officials are already doing a good job and "don't want to be loaded down with paperwork." Mississippi Sen. Richard Shelby said he too has problems with the bill. "This is a big step, the federal government moving in there," Shelby said. Both Mississippi and Kansas only partially use paper ballots currently. And Roberts and Shelby both sit on the Senate Rules Committee, the panel that canceled the vote. Several of the states that don't use paper ballots are now in the process of replacing their machines, including Louisiana, South Carolina and Delaware, among others. But others have said it is too expensive or have objected to the legislation setting a new federal mandate. "Although there has been considerable debate regarding the pros and cons of various voting systems, we believe this is a decision that should be left to state legislatures," Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said in a statement. Tennessee only partially uses paper ballots now. Texas has also objected to the bill, saying they would need more federal money if the federal government required new machines. Lankford says that most states are already using paper ballots, so those who don't do it now should be able to figure it out as well. "We're not trying to federalize elections," Lankford said. "That's the last thing we want to do." Separately, the bill has also lost some support from some election integrity groups who said the final, compromised language did not include strong enough requirements for the state audits. Blunt has not yet said if there will be another vote in the Rules Committee. In a statement, he pinned the bill's hopes on a classified election security briefing that happened Aug. 22, the same day the vote was canceled. "If that changes enough minds to have significant bipartisan support for the bill, we will report it from the committee," Blunt said. Associated Press writers Frank Bajak, Christina A. Cassidy, Hannah Grabenstein, Melinda Deslatte, Meg Kinnard, Jonathan Mattise, Will Weissert and John Hannah contributed to this report. In arguing for border wall funding, President Donald Trump claimed without any evidence that only 2 percent of those apprehended crossing the border and released pending immigration hearings appear in court. Actually, Trump administration officials put the figure at about 50 percent, while immigration experts say it is even higher. The president made his remarks on Day 24 of the partial government shutdown, which began because Congress would not agree on Trumps request for $5.7 billion in funding for a proposed border wall. The president was speaking at the American Farm Bureau Federations annual convention in Louisiana. --Trump, Jan. 14: Somebody comes into our country, they touch one foot on the ground, and we have to catch them. Its called, catch. We then take their names and we bring them to a court can you believe this? and we release them. And they go into our country, and then you announce these are the laws then you say, Come back in three years for your trial. Tell me, what percentage of people come back? Would you say 100 percent? No, youre a little off. Like, how about 2 percent? (Laughter.) And those people, you almost dont want, because they cannot be very smart. (Laughter.) Two percent. Two percent. Two percent come back. Those two percent are not going to make America great again, that I can tell you. (Laughter and applause.) Crazy. It is important to note first that most people apprehended at the border are quickly returned to their home country. In an August 2018 report, the Department of Homeland Security said that 52 percent of the 479,000 people apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol for crossing the border illegally in 2014 were returned to their home countries within three days. Overall, DHS repatriated 65 percent of aliens encountered in 2014, with the majority (80 percent) of these repatriations occurring as expedited removals or reinstatements of previous removal orders, according to the DHS report, which tracked the enforcement outcomes over time for people trying to cross the Southwest border legally and illegally in 2014. Mexican nationals, in particular, are often immediately processed and removed, as are those with criminal records, the report said. Existing enforcement measures are highly efficient at repatriating Mexicans, convicted criminals, and single adults who do not seek humanitarian relief, according to the report, which noted that 97 percent of those with criminal records were repatriated. However, DHS has criticized current laws and court rulings that favor the release of unaccompanied children and families from noncontiguous countries until their immigration status can be resolved in court a process that can take years. The DHS report said that more than half of those from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who were apprehended at the Southwest border in 2014 remained in the U.S. after three years, and about half of all those apprehended from those countries were unaccompanied children and families. But we found no evidence to support Trumps claim that only 2 percent of those released return for court hearings, and no one from the administration provided us with any evidence, either. We contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which referred us to the White House. Hogan Gidley, the White House deputy press secretary, promised to respond in a minute, but never did. However, two administration officials testified about the subject before Congress, and both officials put the figure for no-shows at around 50 percent not 2 percent. At an Aug. 16, 2018, hearing, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, questioned James McHenry, director of the Justice Departments Executive Office for Immigration Review, specifically about unaccompanied children who are released and then fail to show up at immigration hearings. Im trying to figure out how many that we actually know are showing up to hearings or are still engaged in the process, Lankford said. Do you have a number on that at all? The closest estimate we have is the in absentia rate, the number who receive an order of removal for not showing up at the hearing, McHenry replied. (In absentia is Latin for in the absence.) McHenry said a little over 50 percent of cases involving unaccompanied children crossing the Southwest border are decided in absentia. A chart on the website of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which McHenry heads, shows the in absentia rate in fiscal year 2018 for unaccompanied alien children, or UACs, was 50 percent. Similarly, Matthew T. Albence, executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told senators at a Sept. 18, 2018, hearing that 53 percent of cases involving family units encountered at the Southwest border in FY 2014 were decided in absentia. One immigration expert told us Trumps 2 percent figure is highly unlikely. As usual, I have no idea where he is getting his figures from and would suggest it is highly unlikely. This is so because those who are processed through the border are released from detention on an ankle monitor and have to follow a number of different procedures to help track them, all found to be highly effective alternatives to detention, said Ayodele Gansallo, an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who is a senior staff attorney with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of Pennsylvania. Lenni B. Benson, who teaches immigration law at New York University, also questioned the 50 percent figure cited in congressional hearings by Trump administration officials. In a phone interview, Benson said the fact that a deportation order is issued in absentia does not mean that the person will be or should be deported. Too often, she said, noncitizens dont know when to appear in court because they are given inadequate notices to appear. Benson cited the case of Wescley Fonseca Pereira, who was ordered removed in absentia because he missed a removal hearing in 2007. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in June that Pereiras notice to appear was inadequate because it lacked both time and location. In the majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the Department of Homeland Security almost always serves noncitizens with notices that fail to specify the time, place, or date of initial removal hearings, and instead state that the time, place and date are to be determined. The government acknowledged in a court filing that almost 100 percent of notices to appear omit the time and date of the proceeding over the last three years. If given inadequate notice, noncitizens may seek to reopen their immigration proceedings, even though a deportation order was filed against them in absentia. Benson argued that the 50 percent figure cited by the Trump officials is inflated, because it is a snapshot in time. In other words, some who failed to show up and received a deportation order in absentia may nevertheless continue to work through the judicial system. When asked about the best available data on case outcomes, several immigration law experts referred us to a study published last year in the California Law Review that analyzed government data from immigration court cases initiated between 2001 and 2016. The study led by Ingrid Eagly, an immigration law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles found that [f]amily members released from custody attended all of their hearings in 86% of cases during the 15 years covered by the study period. The percentage was slightly lower 81 percent for nonfamilies. One group in particular families seeking asylum had a very high rate of showing up for court hearings. We find that family members seeking asylum who were released from detention attended their hearings in 96% of cases that began in family detention since 2001, the study found. The president frequently complains about what he calls catch and release. Last year, he claimed only 3 percent of those released show up in immigration court, while on other occasions he has said the released immigrants never show up in court or nobody ever shows up. But there is no evidence to support any of these claims. Florida's acrimonious U.S. Senate contest is headed to a legally required hand recount after an initial review by ballot-counting machines showed Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson separated by less than 13,000 votes. But the contest for governor between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum appeared to be over Thursday, with a machine recount showing DeSantis with a large enough advantage over Gillum to avoid a hand recount in that race. Gillum, who conceded on Election Night only to retract his concession later, said in a statement that "it is not over until every legally casted vote is counted." The recount has been fraught with problems. One large Democratic stronghold in South Florida was unable to finish its machine recount by the Thursday deadline due to machines breaking down. A federal judge rejected a request to extend the recount deadline. "We gave a heroic effort," said Palm Beach Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. If the county had three or four more hours, it would have made the deadline to recount ballots in the Senate race, she said. Meanwhile, election officials in another urban county in the Tampa Bay area decided against turning in the results of their machine recount, which came up with 846 fewer votes than originally counted. Media in South Florida reported that Broward County finished its machine recount but missed the deadline by a few minutes. Counties were ordered this past weekend to conduct a machine recount of three statewide races because the margins were so tight. The next stage is a manual review of ballots that were not counted by machines to see if there is a way to figure out voter intent. Scott called on Nelson to end the recount battle. It's time for Nelson "to respect the will of the voters and graciously bring this process to an end rather than proceed with yet another count of the votes which will yield the same result and bring more embarrassment to the state that we both love and have served," the governor's statement said. The recount has triggered multiple lawsuits, many of them filed by Nelson and Democrats. The legal battles drew the ire of U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who slammed the state for repeatedly failing to anticipate election problems. He also said the state law on recounts appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that decided the presidency in 2000. "We have been the laughingstock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this," Walker said at a hearing Thursday. Walker vented his anger at state lawmakers and Palm Beach County officials, saying they should have made sure they had the equipment to handle this kind of a recount. But he said he couldn't extend the recount deadline because he didn't know when Palm Beach County would finish its work. The overarching problem was created by the Florida Legislature, which Walker said passed a recount law that appears to run afoul of the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, by locking in procedures that do not allow for potential problems. Six election-related lawsuits are pending in federal court in Tallahassee, and at least one in state court. Walker also ordered voters be given until 5 p.m. Saturday to show a valid identification and fix their ballots if they haven't been counted due to mismatched signatures. Republicans appealed the ruling, but an appeals court turned down the request. State officials testified that nearly 4,000 mailed-in ballots were set aside because local officials decided the signatures on the envelopes did not match the signatures on file. If those voters can prove their identity, their votes will now be counted and included in final official returns due from each county by noon Sunday. Walker was asked by Democrats to require local officials to provide a list of people whose ballots were rejected. But the judge refused the request as "inappropriate." Under state law, a hand review is required with races that have a margin of 0.25 percentage points or less. A state website put the unofficial results showing Scott ahead of Nelson by 0.15 percentage points. The margin between DeSantis and Gillum was 0.41 percent. The margin between Scott and Nelson had not changed much in the last few days, conceded Marc Elias, an attorney working for Nelson's campaign. But he said that he expected the vote tally to shrink due to the hand recount and the ruling on signatures. Democrats want state officials to do whatever it takes to make sure every eligible vote is counted. Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have argued without evidence that voter fraud threatens to steal races from the GOP. Associated Press writers Tamara Lush and Kelli Kennedy contributed to this report. Saudi Arabia appointed its first female ambassador early Sunday to serve as its top diplomat in the United States, pulling a son of King Salman back to the kingdom to serve as deputy defense minister amid deteriorating ties with America after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, a daughter of the kingdom's longtime ambassador to Washington Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, faces a stark challenge in improving ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. She replaces Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, a son of King Salman and a former fighter pilot who insisted after Khashoggi's disappearance Oct. 2 that the Washington Post columnist simply left the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. Instead, members of the entourage of his brother, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, allegedly assassinated and dismembered Khashoggi inside the diplomatic post. The Post, citing unnamed sources in November, also reported that U.S. intelligence agencies reviewed a phone call that Prince Khalid had with Khashoggi, in which he allegedly told the writer he'd be safe going to the consulate to retrieve the documents he needed to get married. The newspaper said it was not known whether the ambassador knew Khashoggi would be killed, though he made the call at the direction of the crown prince. The Saudi Embassy in Washington has denied the call took place. Princess Reema, who studied in America and is known in the kingdom for her philanthropic work, lived in the U.S. during her father's over 20 years as the Saudi ambassador there. Her father also served as the head of the country's intelligence service. "I will work with God's permission to serve my country, its leaders and all its children and I will spare no effort to that end," Princess Reema wrote on Twitter after her appointment. Her posting comes as Saudi Arabia under King Salman and Prince Mohammed allowed women to drive last year. However, the kingdom meanwhile has arrested women's rights activists as part of a wider crackdown on any perceived dissent in the OPEC-member nation. Prince Khalid returns to Riyadh as a deputy defense minister. Prince Mohammed has held the position of defense minister even after becoming the next in line to the throne of the oil-rich kingdom. In a tweet, Prince Khalid said his posting would allow him to again "be the sword" of the defense minister. "I ask God to help me achieve the vision of our leadership and serve the men I know who are faithful to their religion and homeland," he wrote. Prince Khalid's naming as deputy defense minister comes as Saudi Arabia remains mired in its yearslong war in Yemen, which also have strained American relations to the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has faced growing Western criticism over its airstrikes hitting markets and clinics, killing civilians. U.S. lawmakers increasingly are pushing to withdraw American support for the conflict, which pits the kingdom and its allies against the Houthi rebels that hold the capital of the Arab world's poorest nation. Another royal decree from King Salman overnight granted a month's salary as a bonus to Saudi soldiers defending the kingdom's southern border with Yemen, where the Houthis have launched a series of bloody attacks. What do you enjoy most about working at North? We have a student-centered culture at Naperville North and I love collaborating with my colleagues to reach our common goals (of) student progress and student success. I co-teach my instructional English class twice a week with one of the speech pathologists in our building. The environment we have created in the classroom is one that I am so proud of and it is greatly due to my collaboration with her. Cooped up in the White House after canceling a vacation to his private Florida club, President Donald Trump fired Twitter barbs at Democrats on Saturday as talks to end a weeklong partial government shutdown remained at a stalemate. As the disruption in federal services and public employees' pay appeared set to continue into the new year, there were no signs of any substantive negotiation between the blame-trading parties. Trump held out for billions in federal funds for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, which Democrats have said they were intent on blocking. Trump tweeted Saturday that he was "in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over and make a deal on Border Security." But there has been little direct contact between the sides during the stalemate, and Trump did not ask Republicans, who hold a monopoly on power in Washington for another five days, to keep Congress in session. As he called for Democrats to negotiate on the wall, Trump brushed off criticism that his administration bore any responsibility for the recent deaths of two migrant children in Border Patrol custody. Trump claimed the deaths were "strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally." His comments on Twitter came as his Homeland Security secretary met with medical professionals and ordered policy changes meant to better protect children detained at the border. Trump earlier had upped the brinkmanship by threatening anew to close the border with Mexico to press Congress to cave to his demand for money to pay for a wall. Democrats are vowing to pass legislation restoring the government as soon as they take control of the House on Thursday, but that won't accomplish anything unless Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate go along with it. Talks have been at a stalemate for more than a week, after Democrats said the White House offered to accept $2.5 billion for border security last Saturday. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told Vice President Mike Pence that it wasn't acceptable, nor was it guaranteed that Trump, under intense pressure from his conservative base to fulfill his signature campaign promise, would settle for that amount. Trump has remained out of the public eye since returning to the White House early Thursday from a 29-hour visit to U.S. troops in Iraq, instead taking to Twitter to attack Democrats. He also moved to defend himself from criticism that he couldn't deliver on the wall while the GOP controlled both the House and Senate. "For those that naively ask why didn't the Republicans get approval to build the Wall over the last year, it is because IN THE SENATE WE NEED 10 DEMOCRAT VOTES, and they will gives us "NONE" for Border Security!," he tweeted. "Now we have to do it the hard way, with a Shutdown." Meanwhile, the effects to the public of the impasse grew as the Environmental Protection Agency, which had the money to function a week longer than some agencies, implemented its shutdown plan at midnight Friday night. EPA spokeswoman Molly Block said many of the agency's 14,000 employees were being furloughed, while disaster-response teams and certain other employees deemed essential would stay on the job. That includes workers needed for preventing immediate public health threats at more than 800 Superfund hazardous-waste sites. Also running short on money: the Smithsonian Institution, which said its museums, art galleries and zoo in the capital will close starting midweek if the partial shutdown drags on. But federal flood insurance policies will continue to be issued and renewed, in a reversal prompted by pressure from lawmakers, said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Trump appeared no closer to securing money for his signature border wall, which he vowed during the campaign that he would make Mexico pay for. He's failed to do so. Now Democratic leaders are adamant that they will not authorize money for the project, calling it wasteful and ineffective. They show no signs of bending, either. The shutdown is forcing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and contractors to stay home or work without pay. The White House has not directly engaged in weeks with the House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who has all but locked up the support she needs to win the speaker's gavel after the new Congress convenes on Thursday. Pelosi has vowed to pass legislation to reopen the nine shuttered departments and dozens of agencies now hit by the partial shutdown as soon as she takes the gavel. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill added that Democrats are united against the wall and won't seriously consider any White House offer unless Trump backs it publicly because he "has changed his position so many times." Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Lisa Mascaro and Juliet Linderman contributed to this report. The rainwater collection system is broken at the environmental research station on a remote, rocky Pacific island off the California coast. So is a crane used to hoist small boats in and out of the water. A two-year supply of diesel fuel for the power generators is almost gone. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel ordinarily would help with such problems. But they haven't been around since the partial federal government shutdown began a month ago, forcing researchers with the nonprofit Point Blue Conservation Science to rely on volunteers to haul bottled water and 5-gallon (18-liter) jugs of diesel to the Farallon Islands National Refuge, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from San Francisco. Still, the scientists are pressing on with their long-running study of elephant seals during the crucial winter breeding season. They tag and monitor the lumbering creatures, whose numbers are recovering after being hunted to near-extinction, and study how warming oceans could affect them. "We've found some creative solutions, but things will get more strained the longer the shutdown is continued," said Pete Warzybok, a marine ecologist with Point Blue. The impasse has delayed, disrupted and now threatens to derail environmental research projects across the nation and not just those conducted by government agencies. Scientists with universities, nonprofit organizations and private companies say their inability to collaborate with federal partners, gain access to federal lands and laboratories, and secure federal funding is jeopardizing their work on a vast array of subjects, including invasive and endangered species and air and water quality. Researchers might miss court-ordered deadlines for reports involving endangered plants or animals. Warm-weather field studies that must be planned months in advance could be delayed or canceled. And studies that rely on strict monitoring or testing schedules could be compromised. Depending on how long the shutdown lasts, the damage could range from inconvenient to irreparable. Scientists with a constant presence on the Farallones since 1968 might have to leave if their agreement with the government isn't renewed by the end of March. Besides opening a gap in decades of data collection, their absence would leave the islands and their wildlife vulnerable to trespassers. Nobody from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was available to respond because employees are not allowed to work during the shutdown, according to voicemail messages. Scientist Harvey Bootsma needs to book a National Park Service boat for summer experiments involving quagga mussels in Lake Michigan, where the invasive pests are suspected of causing a decline in perch, whitefish and other prized species. If the government doesn't reopen soon, "it could really mess us up," said Bootsma, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. One increasingly likely casualty is the world's longest continuous study of a predator-prey relationship in one location. For 60 years, biologists have documented population shifts and interactions between gray wolves and moose at Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. Much of the data is collected during winter, when scientists use planes to observe the wolves forming packs, battling over territory and killing moose, but the team is shut out of the park. The seven-week mission isn't dead yet, but prospects fade daily. The loss of a season's worth of data would be "devastating," said Rolf Peterson of Michigan Technological University, the co-leader. "Continuity is what's at the core of a lot of observational science, especially long-term projects. At some point, the loss of continuity degrades the integrity and value of the work itself. And there are things that don't come around a second time." The timing is particularly bad because the park recently began a multiyear effort to replenish its wolf population, which had fallen to two. Four were flown to Isle Royale from the mainland last fall one later died and researchers planned to relocate several others this winter. Peterson's group also wants to dart 20 moose and fit them with radio collars to gauge their reaction to the arriving wolves. "Both of these projects, while partially supported by other funds, require National Park Service personnel and facilities to operate," agency spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet said. "Until there is an approved funding source to support those functions, both operations are suspended." Also at risk are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's aerial surveys of endangered Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico, which usually happen in late January and early February. A California mission to gather data on fish and study how climate change is affecting oceans, which began 70 years ago, also is in limbo. A research ship was reserved for this winter's operation, carried out by a federal, state and university partnership. But because it's owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the San Diego-based vessel is off-limits until the shutdown ends. No suitable replacement is available, said program director Brice Semmens. Data gaps from a lost mission would be harmful because "the ocean is changing so rapidly now," he said. "We need to understand how these changes are going to affect populations we care about, like shellfish or Dungeness crab." The shutdown also is taking a toll on the next generation of environmental researchers. Federal scientists teach and monitor graduate students' projects at universities nationwide. Now, the schools may cancel some courses and students are worrying about graduating on time. Three experts with the U.S. Geological Survey teach in the wildlife and fisheries program at the University of Georgia, where a statistical modeling class was scratched because the government instructor isn't allowed to work, biology professor John Maerz said. "We depend on them being there; we build our curriculum and projects around them," Maerz said. "You can't replace that expertise." Many students are struggling to do research with federal laboratories and other facilities shuttered. Professors are hesitating to accept another class of graduate students because they don't know whether they'll get federal grants to pay the newcomers and fund their work. "I applied for a bunch of grants last year and am waiting to see if I'll get funding so I can determine whether to admit a grad student and if so, how many," said Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M. "The way things are going, I may not take any." ___ Flesher reported from Traverse City, Michigan, and Webber from Chicago. AP reporter Susan Montoya Bryan contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Channeling the ire of constituents and drawing from personal experience, senators chastised drug company executives Tuesday over the high cost of prescription medications, while the CEOs warned that government price controls could stifle breakthroughs on diseases like Alzheimer's. The Senate Finance Committee hearing marked the first time lawmakers have called the industry's top executives to account for rising prices, which are a drain on Medicare and Medicaid and a burden to millions of Americans. The extraordinary public accounting was a sign that Congress and the White House are moving toward legislation this year to curb costs. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who has Parkinson's, said the cost of one of his longtime medications had jumped by $90 when he went to refill it recently. "I can't explain it," said Isakson, who credits prescription drugs for allowing him to keep working. He started making calls and found a whole range of prices for the medication. The second-ranking Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, expressed disbelief that Humira, a blockbuster drug for immune system conditions from AbbVie, is protected by more than 130 patents that cumulatively translate to decades of roadblocks for generic competitors. AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez responded that each new FDA-approved use of the drug represents an investment by the company in research, even if the medication is the same. "At some point that patent has to end so that the patient can get access to that drug at much cheaper cost," Cronyn said. Drug costs are squeezing Americans in a number of ways: New medicines for cancer and other diseases often launch with prices exceeding $100,000 per year even as employers are shifting more pharmacy costs onto workers. Less expensive drugs for common ailments like diabetes and asthma often see price hikes of around 10 percent annually. Meanwhile, some drugmakers have been buying up once-cheap medicines and hiking prices by 1,000 percent or more. The pharmaceutical executives expressed a general desire to lower costs for patients but made no firm commitments. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier warned that "outrageous solutions" could sacrifice industry innovation. He said lung cancer patients in the United Kingdom are still waiting for a drug available here that can cut deaths in half among those newly diagnosed. Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt said using government "price controls" would not be enough to make medicines affordable. Senators seemed to be looking for a balance between protecting innovation and closing off legal and policy loopholes that have enabled savvy companies to game the markets. New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, considered an ally of the industry, delivered what he called a friendly warning: "If you don't undertake meaningful action to reduce pharmaceutical costs, policymakers are going to do it for you." Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Congress intends to respond to the drug price problem in a "measured and effective way" and he is planning to question other industry actors including health insurance companies and middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers. The CEOs said drug development is a risky and costly undertaking and that prices reflect investment in research and development. But under questioning from Grassley, they also acknowledged other factors affecting how they set prices, including public perception and what Medicare and Medicaid pay. In addition to Merck, Sanofi and AbbVie, other companies represented at the hearing included AstraZeneca, which makes the cholesterol drug Crestor, Bristol-Myers Squibb, maker of the blood thinner Eliquis; Johnson & Johnson, maker of Xarelto to prevent blood clots; and Pfizer, maker of Lyrica for nerve pain. "All you who are here are here because the way you've been doing business is unacceptable and unsustainable," ranking Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon told the CEOs. Democrats say it's time for Medicare to leverage its purchasing power and directly negotiate prices with the industry, a step most Republicans oppose. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. Drugmakers' top lobbying arm, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, spent a record $27.9 million last year to sway federal decision-makers, according to records tallied by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. But Tuesday's hearing seemed to mark a change in direction. President Donald Trump's recurring blasts at drugmakers appear to be closer to finding a pathway to legislation. Drugmakers pointed a finger at other industry players. Rebates paid to pharmacy benefit managers help assure favorable treatment for a medication on an insurer's list of covered drugs and help keep premiums lower. But the rebates are not passed on to consumers who use the particular medication, and they can face high copays based on the drug's list price, not the discounted one. The companies offered solutions of their own, some of which echo proposals from the administration or lawmakers. Among them: Allow patients to share in rebates when they buy their medication, proposed by the Trump administration. Place a hard limit on cost-sharing and copays for Medicare beneficiaries in the popular Part D prescription program, supported by Wyden. Make greater use of value-based contracts that tie payments to how well a medication works. Promote the introduction of lower-cost generics and biosimilars, competition that brand manufacturers are often accused of impeding. Following in the footsteps of the U.S., Russia will abandon a centerpiece nuclear arms treaty but will only deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles if Washington does so, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday. President Donald Trump accused Moscow on Friday of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with "impunity" by deploying banned missiles. Trump said in a statement that the U.S. will "move forward" with developing its own military response options to Russia's new land-based cruise missiles that could target Western Europe. Moscow has strongly denied any breaches and accused Washington of making false accusations in order to justify its pullout. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in explaining that Washington on Saturday formally suspended its treaty obligations, said in a statement that Russia's "continued noncompliance has jeopardized the United States' supreme interests." He said the treaty will terminate in six months unless Moscow returns to "full and verifiable compliance." The collapse of the INF Treaty has raised fears of a repeat of a Cold War showdown in the 1980s, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles on the continent. Such weapons were seen as particularly destabilizing as they only take a few minutes to reach their targets, leaving no time for decision-makers and raising the likelihood of a global nuclear conflict over a false launch warning. After the U.S. gave notice of its intention to withdraw, Putin said Russia would do the same. He ordered the development of new land-based intermediate-range weapons, but emphasized that Russia won't deploy them in the European part of the country or elsewhere unless the U.S. does so. "We will respond quid pro quo," Putin said. "Our American partners have announced they were suspending their participation in the treaty, and we will do the same. They have announced they will conduct research and development, and we will act accordingly." The U.S. has accused Russia of developing and deploying a cruise missile that violates provisions of the pact that ban production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles). Trump's move also reflected his administration's view that the pact was an obstacle to efforts needed to counter intermediate-range missiles deployed by China, which isn't part of the treaty. NATO allies have strongly backed Washington and urged Moscow to save the treaty by returning to compliance. Russia has rejected the U.S. claims of violation, charging that the missile, which is part of the Iskander-M missile system, has a maximum range of 480 kilometers (298 miles). Russian officials claimed the U.S. assertions about the alleged breach of the pact by Moscow were intended to shift the blame for the pact's demise to Russia. The Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday released a satellite image of what it described as new production facilities at the U.S. missile maker Raytheon's plant in Tucson, Arizona, noting that their expansion began in 2017 as the Congress authorized spending for the development of intermediate-range missiles. "The character and the timing of the works provide an irrefutable proof that the U.S. administration had decided to pull out of the INF treaty years before making unfounded claims of Russian violations," it said. Putin has argued it makes no sense for Russia to deploy a ground-based cruise missile violating the treaty because it has such weapons on ships and aircraft, which aren't banned by the pact. Speaking Saturday in a televised meeting with his foreign and defense ministers, Putin instructed the military to work on developing new land-based weapons that were previously forbidden by the INF treaty. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that they would include a land-based version of the Kalibr ship-based cruise missile and a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile. Putin emphasized that such new weapons won't be deployed unless the U.S. does so. "Russia will not station intermediate-range weapons in Europe or other regions until similar U.S. weapons appear in those regions," he said. The Russian leader said Moscow remains open to talks with Washington, but added it would be up to the U.S. to take the first step. "Let's wait until our partners are mature enough to conduct an equal and substantive dialogue on those issues," he said. At the same time, Putin told his ministers that he would like to review the progress on building other prospective weapons that don't fall under the INF treaty, including the intercontinental Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and the Poseidon underwater nuclear-powered drone. He noted Shoigu's report that a key stage in testing of the Poseidon was completed several days ago. The drone is designed to carry a heavy nuclear weapon that could cause a devastating tsunami wave. The Russian leader last year unveiled an array of new nuclear weapons, including the Avangard and the Poseidon, saying that they can't be intercepted. Putin also noted during Saturday's meeting that he would like the military to prepare a response to the possible deployment of weapons in space. The Pentagon's new strategy unveiled last month calls for a new array of space-based sensors and other high-tech systems to more quickly detect and shoot down incoming missiles. Putin instructed the military to make sure the research and development works on new weapons don't swell military spending. He said the military must reconfigure the existing defense budget to find money for the new weapons. "We must not and will not be drawn into a costly arms race," he said. Deb Riechmann, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee and Lynn Berry contributed to this report. What to Know Spike Lee said the president had "a chance to say we are about love and not hate" after the deadly Charlottesville white supremacist rally Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" premiered at Cannes to a standing ovation The movie is loosely based on a true story about a black police detective and a Jewish detective who infiltrated a KKK cell in Colorado In a passionate, expletive-ridden monologue at the Cannes Film Festival, director Spike Lee lambasted Donald Trump for the U.S. president's response to last year's violent white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lee told reporters Tuesday that following the violence in Charlottesville, Trump had the opportunity to denounce the Ku Klux Klan and the alt-right. But Trump instead chose to say there was "blame on both sides" in the unrest between the neo-Nazi groups and counter-protesters. The 61-year-old filmmaker said Trump whom he refused to call by name had "a chance to say we are about love and not hate," and sharply criticized him for not denouncing the KKK. "It was a defining moment and he could have said to the United States and the world that we're better than that," said Lee. Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" premiered Monday night at Cannes to a rousing standing ovation. The 1979-set film, loosely based on a true story, is about black police detective Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington, Denzel's son) and a Jewish detective (Adam Driver) who together infiltrated a Ku Klux Klan cell in Colorado. Topher Grace plays former KKK leader David Duke. The film, produced by Jordan Peele ("Get Out"), concludes by connecting the period tale with today. "BlacKkKlansman" ends with actual footage from Charlottesville, as well as Trump's televised response. The final image is an upside-down American flag that fades to black and white. Focus Features will release the film in August, on the year anniversary of Charlottesville. Having already wrapped the film, Lee added the Charlottesville coda after the unrest last summer. "Right away, I knew that this had to be the coda for the film, but I had to do something first," said Lee. Before inserting footage of the car that plowed through crowds in Virginia, killing counter-protester Heather Heyer, Lee said he telephoned Heyer's mother. "I was not going to put that murder scene in the film without her blessing," said Lee. Lee called Charlottesville an "ugly, ugly, ugly blemish on America," but he also repeatedly stressed to the international Cannes media that the racism depicted in "BlacKkKlansman" isn't unique to the United States. "This right -wing (expletive) is not just America. It's all over the world. And we have to wake up," said Lee. "We can't be silent. It's not black, white, or brown. It's everybody. We all live on this planet, and this guy in the White House has the nuclear code. I go to bed thinking about it." At the premiere Monday, Lee was outfitted in a shiny purple-and-orange tuxedo and wore one ring declaring "love" on one hand, and "hate" on the other, paying homage to the jewelry won by the character Radio Raheem in his previous film "Do the Right Thing." He bounced into the premiere at the Palais announcing: "Brooklyn's in the house!" Lee has frequently debuted films at Cannes, including "Do the Right Thing" in 1989. He hopes "BlacKkKlansman" ''shakes people from their slumber." "I know it in my heart," said Lee. "We're on the right side of history with this film." Scuffles broke out between protesters and police in central Paris on Saturday on the sidelines of a largely peaceful demonstration, during the fifth straight weekend of protests by the "yellow vest" movement. Riot police fired small amounts of tear gas to disperse groups of protesters who headed down the side streets off the French capital's famed Champs-Elysees boulevard, some with traffic still flowing. About 8,000 police and 14 armored vehicles were deployed in Paris for the demonstration, after similar protests in recent weekends turned violent, with protesters smashing and looting stores and setting up burning barricades in the streets. Saturday's protest was far calmer in the morning, with riot police blocking off groups of protesters who attempted to disperse in side streets. At least 21 people were detained in Paris before the protests began, police said. Some protesters voiced anger at being restricted to a few blocks by police. "We're surrounded by CRS," said protester Lionel Toussaint, 53, who works in the heritage industry, referring to riot police. "I'm not armed. I only have Kleenex." The "yellow vest" movement, which takes its name from the fluorescent safety vests French motorists must all have in their vehicles, emerged in mid-November as a protest against fuel tax increases. It soon morphed into an expression of rage about the high cost of living in France and a sense that President Emanuel Macron's government is detached from the everyday struggles of workers. Without any clear form or leadership, the movement has attracted a wide range of disgruntled people across the political spectrum, including some violent militants. "Respect my existence or expect my resistance," read one banner held aloft by protesters who converged on the Champs-Elysees. Pierre Lamy, a 27-year-old industrial worker wearing a yellow vest and with a French flag draped over his shoulders, said the protests had long stopped being about the fuel tax and had turned into a movement for economic justice. "We're here to represent all our friends and members of our family who can't come to protest, or because they're scared," he said as he walked to the demonstration with three friends. "Everything's coming up now. We're being bled dry." Max Werle, a 56-year-old father of nine, said the protests were his first-ever demonstrations. "I'm here for my children," he said, adding that his daughter had given birth in a fire truck on Monday because the local hospital in Loiret outside Paris had closed years ago. The office administrator said the protesters were there "to defend our cause. ... It's not a left and right thing." "Yellow vest" protests were also being held in other parts of France, with no violent incidents reported by mid-day. On Friday, Macron called for calm during the demonstrations, and the French government reiterated the call online for demonstrators to remain peaceful. "Protesting is a right. So let's know how to exercise it," the government tweeted from its official account, with a 34-second video which begins with images of historic French protests and recent footage of "yellow vest" protesters rallying peacefully before turning to violence. "Protesting is not smashing. Protesting is not smashing our heritage. Protesting is not smashing our businesses. ... Protesting is not smashing our republic," the video says. Macron acknowledged in a speech earlier this week that he is partially responsible for the anger displayed during the protests, and has announced measures aimed at improving workers' spending power. He has so far refused to reinstate a wealth tax that was lifted to spur investment in France. But on the streets of Paris, some protesters were saying the president still didn't understand them. "I think that Macron isn't in touch with what the yellow vests want. I think the yellow vests need to continue speaking out and the problem is that in the countryside," said Julie Verrier, a protester from Picardie in Normandy in northern France who had been participating in protests there for the past three weeks and had travelled to Paris for Saturday's demonstration. "Local city halls are closed so we can't go there to express and write our complaints and our wishes," she said. "So coming here is the only way we have to say that French people need to be heard." An Arizona prosecutor has determined that Uber is not criminally liable in a crash last year in which one of its self-driving SUVs fatally struck a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix. But it's not known whether prosecutors are considering charges against the driver in the March 18 crash in Tempe that was first fatality in the country involving a self-driving vehicle. Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, whose office in central Arizona was asked to review the investigation, said in a letter released Tuesday that her office was returning the case back to prosecutors in metro Phoenix to determine whether to file criminal charges. Calls left late Tuesday afternoon at the offices of Polk and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery weren't immediately returned. In her letter to Montgomery, Polk said her office concluded that video of the crash likely didn't accurately depict the collision and recommended that Tempe police seek more evidence. Elaine Herzberg, 49, was pushing a bicycle across a street in the darkness when the crash occurred. The driver, Rafaela Vasquez, told investigators that she didn't use her cellphone before the crash. But authorities had previously said records showed Vasquez was streaming the television show "The Voice" on her phone and was looking downward in the moments before the crash. Investigators had concluded the crash could have been avoided had Vasquez not been distracted. Attempts by The Associated Press to contact Vasquez through email and phone numbers on Tuesday were not successful. Uber didn't immediately reply to emails from the AP seeking comment on Polk's letter. Vasquez told police Herzberg "came out of nowhere" and that she didn't see her prior to the collision. But officers had calculated that had Vasquez been paying attention, she could have reacted before impact and stopped the SUV before hitting Herzberg. The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report in May saying the autonomous driving system on Uber's Volvo XC-90 SUV spotted Herzberg before hitting her, but didn't stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled "to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior." Instead of the system, Uber relies on the human backup driver to intervene. The death raised questions about the safety of computer-controlled cars being built by Uber and dozens of other companies, including Google spin-off Waymo. Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona the day before the NTSB report was released, eliminating the jobs of about 300 people who served as backup drivers and performed other jobs connected to the vehicles. The company had suspended testing of its self-driving vehicles in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto while regulators investigated the cause of the crash. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey prohibited Uber from continuing its tests of self-driving cars after Herzberg was killed. The case was given to Polk's office after the prosecutor's office in metro Phoenix passed on the case, citing a potential conflict of interest. The agency in Phoenix had previously participated in a public-safety campaign with Uber. A conservative writer and associate of Trump confidant Roger Stone said he is in plea talks with special counsel Robert Mueller's team. Jerome Corsi told The Associated Press on Friday that he has been negotiating a potential plea but declined to comment further. He said on a YouTube show earlier this month that he expected to be charged with lying to federal investigators, though he said at the time that he was innocent of wrongdoing. Mueller's team questioned Corsi as part of an investigation into Stone's connections with WikiLeaks. American intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia was the source of hacked material released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election that damaged Hillary Clinton's campaign. Mueller's office is trying to determine whether Stone and other associates of President Donald Trump had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks' plans. The confirmation of plea talks first reported by The Washington Post comes as Mueller's team has just received fresh information from Trump personally and as federal prosecutors in Virginia recently inadvertently disclosed the existence of sealed charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It's unclear if the charges against Assange are related to Mueller's investigation, but WikiLeaks was singled out in an indictment last summer against a group of Russian intelligence officers accused of carrying out the wide-ranging hack of Clinton's campaign and other Democratic organizations. It's also not known if any plea by Corsi signals a new raft of charges by the special counsel or just that investigators are aggressively pursuing cases against people they believe made false statements to investigators. Mueller has brought such cases against four others, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In a brief phone call with the AP, Corsi declined to elaborate on the details of any plea deal or say if a court hearing had been set. Corsi, the former Washington bureau chief of the conspiracy theory outlet InfoWars, has said he cooperated with the probe for about two months after he received a subpoena in August. As part of that cooperation, he turned over two computers and a cell phone and provided the FBI access to his email accounts and tweets. But he said earlier this month that talks with investigators recently had "blown up." "I fully anticipate that in the next few days, I will be indicted by Mueller," he said. The spokesman for the special counsel, Peter Carr, declined comment on Friday. Shortly after his YouTube show appearance, Corsi broke off a scheduled interview with NBC News and declined any other media interviews. His comments Friday were the first since then. Stone has denied being a conduit for WikiLeaks, which published thousands of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in the weeks before the election. Stone, who also has said he is prepared to be indicted, said earlier this month that he "had no advanced notice of the source or content or the exact timing of the release of the WikiLeaks disclosures." He told AP in a separate statement Friday: "It is clear from his recent videos and his recent interviews that my friend Dr. Corsi has been under a tremendous amount of pressure and it is beginning to affect him profoundly. He has stated publicly that he is being asked over and over to say things he simply does not believe occurred." What to Know Beto O'Rourke told Oprah Winfrey in an interview Tuesday that he would decide this month whether or not he would run for president. O'Rourke lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R) by less than three percentage points in the November midterms. The Democratic primary field already includes notable names like Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ). Breaking months of near-silence about his political future, Democrat Beto O'Rourke said Tuesday that he would announce his decision about a 2020 presidential run "before the end of the month" and suggested he's leaning toward it. The former Texas congressman, who found political stardom in his unsuccessful Senate bid last fall, opened up about a potential 2020 run in a conversation with a bigger star, Oprah Winfrey, during a taping of her program "Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations from Times Square." "I have been thinking about running for president," O'Rourke told Winfrey as the packed audience cheered. The 46-year-old Democrat cited his desire to help unify the country. "I'm so excited at the prospect of being able to play that role." O'Rourke dazzled Democrats last year by nearly defeating Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the country's largest red state. In recent weeks, however, his presidential prospects have been overshadowed by the generally well-received 2020 campaign launches of Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey. His comments Tuesday offered a powerful reminder that the Democratic field is far from set. Winfrey, who has flirted with a potential run of her own, appeared to encourage O'Rourke to run during the wide-ranging interview that spanned nearly an hour. "What's it going to take for you to say, 'Yes, I'm doing it?'" she asked. The decision, O'Rourke said, would really be up to his family. He has three children under the age of 13. "For the last seven years, my family hasn't seen me," he said. He added, "That's the far more important responsibility." Winfrey herself has been the center of 2020 speculation, though she has said she doesn't plan to run. She remains an influential figure in Democratic politics, however. Her endorsement of Barack Obama was pivotal to his 2008 campaign. She also took the rare step of campaigning for Democrat Stacey Abrams ahead of her near-upset in the Georgia governor's race. Winfrey's show blurs the line between politics and pop culture. The lineup on Tuesday featured actors Bradley Cooper and Michael B. Jordan and philanthropist Melinda Gates, underscoring the sense of celebrity that surrounds O'Rourke. O'Rourke's low profile in recent weeks has taken curious turns. He treated Instagram followers to a glimpse inside his mouth during a teeth cleaning while trying to decry the Trump administration's border wall. He also recently traveled in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado, but his meandering online posts documenting the journey highlighted things like the open-face roast beef sandwich he had for lunch rather than offering hints about how he'd handle the rigors of a presidential campaign. Compare that to his potential 2020 rivals swarming states that kick off presidential voting: New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will be in South Carolina this week, Booker is visiting Iowa and Warren is set to formally announce her presidential bid Saturday, then hit New Hampshire and Iowa. O'Rourke said he needed to spend time traveling alone to help overcome "a profound disappointment in myself that I let so many people down." He said he emerged with the reinforced belief that "people are so good." The Texas Democrat, who represented a border state in Congress for six years, also took aim at President Donald Trump's push to build a border wall, calling it "a racist response to a problem that we don't have." Though the taping was Tuesday, the interview won't air on Winfrey's network until Feb. 16. After that, O'Rourke doesn't have another headline-grabbing event on his schedule at least not yet. California suffered the worst wildfire devastation in the country last year, according to a new federal report. The annual Wildland Fire Summary report released this week by the National Interagency Coordination Center said 1.8 million acres burned in 2018 in the Golden State - more than in any other state. "Thats the worst in recorded history" for California, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokesman Scott McLean. The next most geographically destructive year in California was 2008 when nearly 1.6 million acres burned, he said. Neighboring Nevada, meanwhile, saw 1 million acres burn in 2018, putting it in second place among states for acreage destroyed, according to the federal report. After our walk through town that first morning, we stopped at Circle K and paid $5 for an all-day Sedona parking pass. We decided to start with a hike on the Bell Rock trail, which leads up and around a brilliant red rock mountain shaped roughly like a bell with a handle. Since Bell Rock is the site of one of the more popular vortexes, our goal was to see if we could detect manifestations of physical or spiritual energy. Chaos erupted outside Texas' death chamber when the son of the condemned inmate pounded on the chamber windows, shouted obscenities and threw fists after his father spoke his final words. Billie Wayne Coble, a Vietnam War veteran who killed his estranged wife's parents and brother and threatened to do the same to her in 1989, told five witnesses he selected to attend his Thursday night execution that he loved them. Coble then nodded as they watched from a witness room, saying: "Take care." When he finished speaking, his son, grandson and daughter-in-law became emotional, and the men swung and kicked at others in the death chamber witness area. Officers stepped in but said the men continued to resist and were eventually moved to a courtyard, where both were handcuffed and arrested. "Why are you doing this?" the woman asked. "They just killed his daddy." As the men were being subdued outside, a single dose of pentobarbital was injected into Coble. He gasped several times and began snoring as the lethal dose of drug was being administered inside the death chamber at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later, at 6:24 p.m. His son and grandson, 45-year-old Gordon Wayne Coble and 21-year-old Dalton Coble, were arrested on charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. They each were released Friday on $1,000 bond. The 70-year-old Billie Wayne Coble was the oldest inmate executed by Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. He was convicted nearly three decades ago for the August 1989 shooting deaths of Robert and Zelda Vicha, and their son, Bobby Vicha. The victims were killed at separate homes in Axtell, northeast of Waco. A prosecutor once described Coble as having "a heart full of scorpions." Coble, distraught over his pending divorce, kidnapped his wife, Karen Vicha. He was arrested and later freed on bond. Nine days after the kidnapping, Coble went to her home, where he handcuffed and tied up her three daughters and nephew, J.R. Vicha, according to investigators. Coble then went to the homes of Robert and Zelda Vicha, 64 and 60 respectively, and Bobby Vicha, 39, who lived nearby, and fatally shot them. After Karen Vicha returned home, Coble abducted her. He drove away, assaulted her and threatened to rape and kill her. He was arrested after wrecking the vehicle in neighboring Bosque County following a police chase. Coble was convicted of capital murder in 1990. An appeals court ordered a new trial on punishment in 2007, but a second jury also sentenced him to death. Other appeals were also denied. J.R. Vicha, Bobby Vicha's son, was 11 when he was tied up and threatened by Coble during the killings. Vicha, who eventually became a prosecutor partly because of his father, said that Coble's execution would be a relief. "The way they do it is more humane than what he did to my family. It's not what he deserves, but it will be good to know we got as much justice as allowed by the law," he said ahead of the execution. "This is not a happy night," added McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson. "This is the end of a horror story for the Vicha family." On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Coble's request to delay his execution. His attorneys had argued that Coble's original trial lawyers were negligent for conceding his guilt by failing to present an insanity defense. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also turned down his request for a commutation. Coble's attorney, A. Richard Ellis, told the courts that Coble suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his time as a Marine during the Vietnam War. Ellis argued that Coble was convicted in part because of misleading testimony from two prosecution expert witnesses on whether he would be a future danger. Coble was the third inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the second in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment state. J.R. Vicha, 40, still lives in the Waco area. His father was a police sergeant in Waco when he was killed, while his grandfather was a retired plumber and his grandmother worked for a foot doctor. Vicha is working to get a portion of a highway near his home renamed in honor of his father. "Every time I run into somebody that knew (his father and grandparents), it's a good feeling. And when I hear stories about them, it still makes it feel like they're kinda still here," Vicha said. Actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelensky is a household name in Ukraine. The 41-year-old Zelensky has played many different roles throughout his decades-long career; he even stars as the president in a Ukrainian TV series. Even though playing the president on TV is the extent of his political experience, the actor has rapidly crossed over to become a star in Ukrainian politics: A recent poll suggests Zelensky is the front-runner in the countrys upcoming presidential election, with more support than the incumbent Petro Poroshenko and the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, NBC News reported. Despite his popularity, some fear Zelensky might be biting off more than he can chew. An Illinois congressman has been deployed with his Air National Guard unit to the U.S.-Mexico border. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, of the 16th Congressional District serves as a reconnaissance pilot and holds the rank of lieutenant colonel, his office said. U.S. active-duty troops from dozens of units around the country are flowing to the southern border, as part of the latest plan to send 3,750 new forces to beef up surveillance and install more wire barriers, the Associated Press reported. Wednesday. As of this week, the military had installed about 105 miles of wire barriers along the border, and plans to put in another 140 miles of concertina wire. The bulk of that will be in California and Arizona, in locations between ports of entry that are identified by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as vulnerable. Many of the troops who have been serving on the border mission are going home. As of Monday, there were a bit more than 2,000 active-duty forces there. That number is expected to go up to more than 4,300. Kinzingers office said he was humbled to serve the 16th District both as a congressman and as a pilot in the Air National Guard. In both of these roles, Congressman Kinzinger fights to make our national security stronger, our border more secure, and our communities safer, his communications director, Maura Gillespie, said in a statement. The congressmans D.C. and Illinois offices will stay open in his absence, Gillespie said. A speeding railcar crashed into a barrier at Cairo's main train station, causing its fuel tank to explode and triggering a huge fire that left at least 25 people dead on Wednesday, officials said. Railway officials said the train was speeding and collided head-on with the barrier. At least 47 people were also injured in the accident. Mohammed Said, the head of the Cairo Railroad hospital, said there are concerns the death toll could rise further following the blaze. Other officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media. Photographs from the station showed charred bodies lying on the platforms at the Ramsis station in downtown Cairo. Firefighters struggled to get the flames under control. Heavy black smoke rose into the sky as ambulances rushed to the scene. The Ramsis district is among the busiest and most crowded areas of the Egyptian capital. The state railway agency briefly halted all train traffic and ordered the evacuation of the station. Videos from surveillance cameras inside the station showed flames ravaging the station. A video that surfaced on social media showed men and women carrying bags and personal belonging and walking on the rail platforms as the train car crashed and exploded. Another video showed men and women running, searching for exits after the explosion. A man runs back and forth, his shirt on fire, until another man rushes to pour water on him. Egypt's Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli said authorities must determine "who caused the accident and hold that person accountable." He promised "harsh punishment" for the culprits. Egypt's railway system has a poor safety record, mostly blamed on decades of badly maintained equipment and poor management. Official figures show that 1,793 train accidents took place in 2017 across the country. In March last year, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said the government lacks about 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $14.1 billion, to overhaul the run-down railway system. El-Sissi spoke a day after a passenger train collided with a cargo train, killing at least 12 people, including a child. And in August 2017, two passenger trains collided just outside the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, killing 43 people. In 2016, at least 51 people were killed when two commuter trains collided near Cairo. ISIS fighters facing defeat in Syria are slipping across the border into Iraq, where they are destabilizing the country's fragile security, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Hundreds likely more than 1,000 ISIS fighters have crossed the open, desert border in the past six months, defying a massive operation by U.S., Kurdish, and allied forces to stamp out the remnants of the jihadi group in eastern Syria, according to three Iraqi intelligence officials and a U.S. military official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on intelligence matters. But indications of the extremist group's widening reach in Iraq are clear. Cells operating in four northern provinces are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, and roadside ambushes aimed at intimidating locals and restoring the extortion rackets that financed the group's rise to power six years ago. "IS is trying to assert itself in Iraq, because of the pressure it is under in Syria," said Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, the Iraqi army spokesman, using an alternate abbreviation for ISIS. The militants can count between 5,000 and 7,000 among their ranks in Iraq, where they are hiding out in the rugged terrain of remote areas, according to one intelligence official. In Syria, Kurdish-led forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition have cornered the militants in a pocket less than one square kilometer in Baghouz, a Euphrates River village near the 600-kilometer (370-mile) border. The Iraqi army has deployed more than 20,000 troops to guard the frontier, but militants are slipping across, mostly to the north of the conflict zone, in tunnels or under the cover of night. Others are entering Iraq disguised as cattle herders. They are bringing with them currency and light weapons, according to intelligence reports, and digging up money and arms from caches they stashed away when they controlled a vast swath of northern Iraq. "If we deployed the greatest militaries in the world, they would not be able to control this territory," Rasoul said. "Our operations require intelligence gathering and airstrikes." At its height in 2014 and 2015, the Islamic State group ruled over a self-proclaimed "caliphate" that spanned one-third of Iraqi and Syrian territory. The extremist offshoot of Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened to exterminate religious minorities. Iraqi forces, with U.S., Iranian, and other international help, were able to turn the war around and Baghdad declared victory over the group in December 2017, after the last urban battle had been won. But precursors to ISIS have recovered from major setbacks in the past, and many fear the militants could stage a comeback. The group is already waging a low-level insurgency in rural areas. The Associated Press verified nine ISIS attacks in Iraq in January alone, based on information gathered from intelligence officials, provincial leaders, and social media. ISIS often boasts of its activities through group messaging apps such as Telegram. In one instance, a band of militants broke into the home of a man they accused of being an informant for the army, in the village of Tal al-Asfour in the northern Badush region. They shot him and his two brothers against the wall, and posted photos of the killing on social media. Sheikh Mohamed Nouri, a local tribal leader, said it was meant to intimidate locals in order to keep them from sharing intelligence with security officials. "I have members of our tribal militia receiving threatening messages warning them to abandon their work," said Nouri. In other instances, ISIS cells have killed mukhtars village leaders and municipal officials. They have attacked rural checkpoints with car bombs and mortar fire, and burned down militia members' homes. In the Shurgat area in central Iraq, militants stopped a police vehicle last month and killed all four officers inside. Other activities have aimed at restoring the group's financial footing. On Sunday, militants kidnapped a group of 12 truffle hunters in the western Anbar province, marking a return to a strategy of intimidating and extorting farmers and traders for financial gain. Naim Kaoud, the head of provincial security, urged locals to suspend truffle gathering, which has just one season a year and is an important source of income for rural families. Other truffle hunters have disappeared in the countryside, according to former lawmaker and Anbar tribal figure Jaber al-Jaberi. He said the militants are taking cuts from truffle hunters in exchange for access to the land, and kidnapping or killing those who refuse to cooperate. "This is one of the sources of their funding," said al-Jaberi. Al-Jaberi cautioned against exaggerating the ISIS threat, saying the militants have been less successful at infiltrating communities than they were earlier this decade. "These are different times," he said. Others are not so sure. Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former adviser to the U.N. Security Council on ISIS and other extremist groups, said the same grievances that gave rise to IS in 2013 remain today, including a large Sunni minority that feels politically and economically marginalized by the Shiite-led central government. "I'm very worried that we are just repeating history," said Schindler, who is now at the Counter Extremism Project. He said he has seen ISIS "revert to the old type" of "classical terror attacks" and kidnapping for ransom, tactics that were once widely employed by al-Qaida in Iraq. The militants staged a dramatic resurgence after 2011, when U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq and civil war broke out in neighboring Syria. Today some 5,200 American forces are based in Iraq, after they were invited back to help stem the ISIS rampage in 2014. After President Donald Trump promised in December to pull American forces out of Syria, Iraqi lawmakers began clamoring for the U.S. to leave, arguing that the mission against ISIS was approaching its end. But with no letdown to ISIS militancy, those calls have petered out. As Democrats ratcheted up their attacks on Georgia Republican Brian Kemp, he claimed Wednesday that results certified by county election officials confirm he has an "insurmountable lead" in the governor's race. At a news conference, Georgia Democrats cast doubt on the legitimacy of any election count that ends with the former secretary of state being certified as the winner of a fiercely fought election against Stacey Abrams, who's seeking to become the first black woman elected governor in the U.S. "We believe that Brian Kemp mismanaged this election to sway it in his favor," said Abrams' campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo, surrounded by Democratic lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol. Democrats beyond Georgia have started to echo the notion that a Kemp victory would be illegitimate. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown said Wednesday that if Abrams loses it's because Republicans stole the election. "If Stacey Abrams doesn't win in Georgia, they stole it. I say that publicly, it's clear," Brown, speaking at a briefing for the National Action Network. Kemp's campaign, which has repeatedly called on Abrams to concede, repeated that call Wednesday, saying Abrams and her supporters have used "fake vote totals," ''desperate press conferences" and "dangerous lawsuits" to try to steal the election. "After all of the theatrics, the math remains the same," Kemp campaign spokesman Cody Hall said in an email. "Abrams lost and Brian Kemp won. This election is over." Since he declared himself governor last week and resigned as secretary of state, Kemp's lead has narrowed as counties have tabulated more ballots. And the numbers could change again as federal courts issue new guidance on counting certain provisional and absentee ballots. Groh-Wargo said Tuesday that the Abrams campaign believes she needs a net gain of 17,759 votes to pull Kemp below a majority threshold and force a Dec. 4 runoff. Kemp's campaign said even if every vote that Abrams campaign is arguing for is granted by the courts and counted for her, she cannot overcome his lead or force a runoff. The Associated Press has not called the race. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones on Wednesday ruled that the secretary of state must not certify the state election results without confirming that each county's vote tally includes absentee ballots on which the voter's date of birth is missing or incorrect. The order stems from a request in a lawsuit filed Sunday by the Abrams campaign. But Jones also rejected the campaign's other requests. He declined to extend the period during which evidence could be submitted to prove the eligibility of voters who cast provisional ballots. He also declined to order that provisional ballots cast by voters who went to a precinct in the wrong county be counted. The lawsuit was one of several election-related complaints filed before multiple federal judges. U.S. District Judge Leigh May ordered Gwinnett County election officials Tuesday not to reject absentee ballots just because the voter's birth year is missing or wrong. She also ordered the county to delay certification of its election results until those ballots have been counted. Jones' ruling effectively extended May's order to the other 158 counties in Georgia. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg late Monday ordered state officials not to do their final certification of election results before 5 p.m. Friday. State law sets a Nov. 20 deadline, but secretary of state's office elections director Chris Harvey testified last week that the state had planned to certify the election results Wednesday, a day after the deadline for counties to certify their results. He said that would allow preparations to begin for any runoff contests, including those already projected in the races for secretary of state and a Public Service Commission seat. Totenberg's order left untouched the county certification deadline. Candice Broce, a spokeswoman for secretary of state's office, said Wednesday that all counties but Gwinnett have certified their totals. Totenberg ordered the secretary of state's office to establish and publicize a hotline or website enabling voters to check whether their provisional ballots were counted and, if not, why not. And she ordered the secretary of state's office to review or have county election authorities review the eligibility of voters who had to cast provisional ballots because of registration issues. With state lawmakers gathered at the Georgia Capitol Tuesday for the start of a special legislative session, dozens of protesters gathered in statehouse rotunda, loudly chanting "Count every vote!" and waving signs with the same slogan. Police arrested 15 people, including state Sen. Nikema Williams, an Atlanta Democrat. Police zip-tied Williams' hands behind her back and led her to one of two vans holding other arrested protesters. She gave a tearful speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, saying she was booked and strip-searched at the Fulton County jail and held for five hours. She said her 3-year-old son heard news of her arrest on the radio and told a baby sitter: "That's mommy." "I didn't do anything to obstruct anyone from doing their job or their business on the floor," Williams said. "What I did was I stood with my constituents as they wanted their voices to be heard." The Georgia Constitution says legislators "shall be free from arrest during sessions of the General Assembly ... except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace." Four Democratic lawmakers delivered remarks in the Senate condemning Williams' arrest. No Republican senators stood to address Williams' arrest. GOP Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle asked the Republican chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee to meet with authorities "to look at the facts surrounding this issue and see if we can bring some kind of resolve to the matter at hand." ___ Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Atlanta and Juana Summers in Washington contributed to this report. A South Carolina man who bought more than 120 boxes of Girl Scouts cookies to help the scouts escape the cold has been arrested on drug charges. News outlets report the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says 46-year-old Detric Lee McGowan was arrested Tuesday on charges including conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and cocaine. The agency says McGowan is the same man who appeared in a photo that garnered thousands of views and shares online. Kayla Dillard had shared the photo on Facebook, saying the man paid $540 in cash for all the girls' cookies so they could escape the cold outside a store near Greenville, South Carolina. She said she didn't get the man's name. The post went viral, and was shared more than 6,000 times, according to NBC affiliate WYFF. Dillard later took the post down or made it private. An indictment issued last week says McGowan, also known as "Fat," is one of several suspects in an ongoing drug investigation. It says he and 10 other people conspired to import drugs from Mexico in late 2018. The U.S. Attorney's Office says authorities are still searching for one of the suspects. The vice president of recruitment and marketing for Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands, Karen Kelly, says the organization will cooperate with authorities. She says in a Tuesday statement that the organization had no reason to believe McGowan was "anything other than one of our valuable customers." McGowan was being held at a Spartanburg County detention center. It's unclear if he has a lawyer. Greenville is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta. They were living in holes in the ground, with only dry flatbread to eat at the end. Those injured in an intense military campaign had no access to medical care, and those who were sick had no medicine. Yet, if it were not for the call from their leaders to leave, they would have stayed. Such is the devotion of several hundred men, women and children who were evacuated Friday from the last speck of land controlled by the Islamic State group, a riverside pocket that sits on the edge of Syria and Iraq. Hundreds, if not thousands, more remain holed up in Baghouz the last redoubt of the militants' self-proclaimed caliphate that leaders once said would stretch to Rome. They include militants, of course, but also their family members and other civilians who are among the group's most determined supporters. Many of them traveled to Syria from all over the world. And they stuck around as the militants' control crumbled. At least 36 flatbed trucks used for transporting sheep carried the disheveled, haggard crowd out of the territory to a desert area miles (kilometers) away for screening. They were the latest batch of evacuees from the territory following airstrikes and clashes meant to bring about the militants' complete territorial defeat. For now, the civilians are expected to be sent to a displaced people's camp, while suspected fighters will go to detention facilities. Previous evacuations have already overwhelmed camps in northern Syria, and at least 60 people who left the shrinking territory have died of malnutrition or exhaustion. In a dusty area surrounded by grass, women engulfed in black robes from head to toe and children in dirty jackets many of them crying for food formed one line. Men wearing tattered headscarves formed another. Foreign men were in yet a third. One woman had given birth in one of the trucks. An old man was carried in a blanket by two others to the screening line. A young girl sat under the shade of the wheel of a truck looking dazed, while another moved between the crowd, asking for food. The evacuees included French, Polish, Chinese, Bengali, Egyptians, Tajiks, Moroccans, Iraqis and Syrians. It is impossible to know if all are wholeheartedly behind the militant group or how many expressed support out of fear of reprisals. But many vehemently defended ISIS, arguing the group was down but not out and said they only left because of an order from the remaining religious leader in the area. Some referred to the wali, the provincial leader, while others said the order was from the group's top leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is referred to as the "Caliph." It is not clear if ISIS leaders were in agreement. Amid the military pressure, reports have emerged of disagreements among them. The war monitor group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one ISIS leader was beheaded in recent days for urging civilians to leave. All those interviewed gave nicknames or spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety. "Baghouz maybe is the most difficult moments of all my life," said 21-year-old Um Youssef, a Tunisian-French woman who came to Syria at 17 with her mother. "I didn't make Hijrah (migration) for the food, or for the good life. It is jihad (holy war) for the sake of God." Um Youssef which means mother of Youssef in Arabic sent her two kids and her mother out of the pocket last month and stayed with her husband. She said she had no regrets and was at "peace," describing the last few weeks as "the best" since she moved to Syria because they taught her life lessons. It was hard to see how that could be from the hills overlooking Baghouz. A four-year international campaign has reduced the self-proclaimed caliphate which once sprawled over nearly a third of Syria and Iraq to a tent encampment and a few homes in this village overlooking the Euphrates river. An estimated 300 ISIS militants are besieged there, hemmed in by the river and the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia spearheading the fight against ISIS following an intense push since September. Thousands of civilians have also poured into the area. The presence of so many civilians and possibly senior members of the militant group in Baghouz has surprised the SDF and slowed down the expected announcement of the extremist group's territorial defeat. Recapturing Baghouz would mark an end to the militants' territorial rule, but few believe that will end the threat posed by an organization that still stages and inspires attacks through sleeper cells in both Syria and Iraq and that has active affiliates in Egypt, West Africa and elsewhere. The group also has a presence online, using social media to recruit new members and promote its attacks. In the past few weeks, nearly 20,000 people have left Baghouz on foot through the humanitarian corridor, but the militants then closed the passage and no civilians left for a week until Wednesday, when a large group was evacuated. Among those evacuated Friday was a group of 11 Yazidi children. Thousands from the Yazidi minority were kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq in 2014, and are still missing. In the dusty clearing where the evacuees were being screened Friday, a 16-year-old mother of two from Aleppo said she has not had food for a couple of days, opting to feed her children instead. A child said he has not showered in a month, and a woman from Tajikistan asked for a phone to call her mother. Frantic and in tears, a mother held out her pale and still toddler, screaming for help. Tears of hungry children rang through the open desert as SDF officials searched the evacuees' belongings. But of over a dozen people interviewed by The Associated Press, only four said they didn't want to be in Baghouz. They described living in holes dug in the ground with tents hoisted to protect against airstrikes. Some said they initially got lentil soup, but then only barely-husk bread was available a green-brownish loaf of flatbread. "We weren't going to leave, but the Caliph said women should leave," said Um Abdul-Aziz, a 33-year-old Syrian mother of five whose moniker means mother of Abdul-Aziz in Arabic. She was referring to ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who calls himself the "Caliph of Muslims." ''I wanted to stay. It is an Islamic State. It is land of Islam." Her husband stayed behind to fight. "They thought if they let the women out, God may help them. May God help them," she said. A few were critical. "Order or no order, I wanted to get out," said Aya Ibrahim, an Iraqi mother who said she was unable to secure medicine for her children. "Many families died from airstrikes. Many kids died from hunger." The 16-year old Syrian mother of two from Aleppo said she lost four husbands, her father, sister and two brothers. Um Mohammed mother of Mohammed in Arabic said the last days have been hard, with food prices soaring and intensive bombings keeping them in hiding. About 2 pounds (a kilogram) of sugar went for nearly 30,000 Liras ($70), more than 30 times the price in other parts of Syria, while a quarter-gallon (liter) of cooking oil cost 10,000 Liras ($23). "I have not eaten in four days," she said. Then the order came for them to leave. But, for some, it's not the end. Um Youssef, the French-Tunisian, said she has no plans or desire to return home in Tunisia, saying she would find her way to another Syrian city. "Islamic State is over? Says who?" asked a 14-year-old Syrian girl who refused to give her name. "Wherever you go there is Islamic State." Its a huge deal for me, being 100 percent Irish and knowing the little bit of Gaelic that I do, growing up with all of the traditions and everything, its definitely a huge honor, Kelly said. What to Know Officials said almost three-quarters of Bay County's 68,000 households were affected FEMA officials said the large numbers of renters and the enormous amount of debris needed to be cleared before trailers could be installed. A small village of the forgotten has popped up in Diahnn "Shelly" Summers' backyard outside Panama City. Where there once was empty grass abutting almost 5 acres of woods, 10 tents now encircle a fir tree with Christmas lights. The tents shelter those still homeless more than four months after Hurricane Michael screamed ashore with 155-mph (250-kph) winds, flattening, blowing away or rendering uninhabitable thousands of houses. "There is nowhere for them to go," Summers said. "When you don't have a home, you have no sense of safety, no sense of belonging, no security. You don't even know where you're going to sleep without getting into trouble. It's the worst feeling." Of all the Florida Panhandle areas affected by Michael, Bay County was hardest hit: Officials said almost three-quarters of its 68,000 households were affected. Former Florida House Speaker Allan Bense, who is leading a hurricane recovery initiative, estimated about 20,000 people were homeless in the weeks after the October storm. Some have been able to make their homes livable again with cosmetic repairs. Others left town: The county's student population is down 14 percent. And 7,800 residents are still considered homeless, county officials said. Many unable to move in with relatives or find a coveted hotel room with the help of federal vouchers have turned to living in tents. Several obstacles prevent their return to normalcy. Trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been slow to arrive, and it's hard to find an apartment where the rent hasn't been jacked up in a suddenly tight market. Almost three-quarters of the damaged properties were rental units, which are difficult to replace with temporary shelter, Bay County Manager Robert Majka said. "If you have 100 units in an apartment complex, you can't put 100 FEMA trailers into that apartment complex and accommodate these folks," he said. Sue Laurel Shaw was able to stay in her apartment after the storm and said her landlord even agreed to deduct the cost of repairs she made from the rent. But now she faces eviction for back rent after she says the landlord reneged on their agreement. She is looking for another place to live, but "everything is tripling," said Shaw, who was fighting to stay in her Panama City apartment. Mystie Gregory said she, her fiance and 2-year-old daughter left their apartment for several days to take a break from living without electricity. When they returned, she said, it had been rented to another family. Gregory found refuge with more than a dozen others living in tents behind Summers' ranch-style house. Gregory said she is trying to "make the most" of living in a tent, but "it makes you feel like a failure as a parent, even though it's out of your control." Among the county's homeless are 4,700 students, said Bay District Schools Superintendent Bill Husfelt. Some schools lost more than 40 percent of their students and the school board is closing at least three schools for now. "It's all about housing," Husfelt said. "Everything we're dealing with, it's about housing." In December, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio wrote a letter chastising FEMA for not finding enough sites for trailers or mobile homes. Rubio said families "have not seen an appropriate response to their housing needs and FEMA must immediately act to address this concern." At the time, more than 1,200 Bay County families were waiting for trailers or mobile homes. By the end of February, that number had fallen to more than 200, partially because more than 500 families had found other options on their own, county officials said. "The velocity of FEMA's temporary housing improved after the first of the year, although trailers ... never came in consistently at stated goals," said Joel Schubert, Bay County's assistant manager. FEMA officials said the large numbers of renters and the enormous amount of debris that needed to be cleared before trailers could be installed slowed the process. In addition, 26,000 Florida households received grants for home repairs, 21,000 residents received temporary rental assistance and 2,000 households were approved for hotel rooms or short-term condo rentals, FEMA spokesman Samuel "Carr" McKay said in a statement. Even that help took a while to reach some residents. Dennis Myrick, who has no home insurance, said he lived in a tent in the front yard of his decimated Panama City home until mid-January, when he was finally able to get a FEMA hotel voucher. "It's pure hell, man," Myrick said. "The wind blows, and you get wet. I had to hold the tent down with my hands. It was about to blow away." Before she landed in Summers' backyard, Jacinta Wheeler, whose apartment was damaged by the hurricane, joined other residents in an encampment dubbed "Tent City" in a different part of town. Officials forced them to leave over safety and hygiene concerns. Lori and Gene Hogan had settled in a tent on the beach after Michael destroyed their home, but police officers threatened to arrest them if they didn't move, so they came here as well. Wheeler has been working construction jobs and helping repair neighbors' properties while she stays in her tent. "Everybody wants the American dream," the Trinidad native said. "If this is the dream, I don't want it." Summers and her husband, Sam, want to build more permanent housing on the property for their guests but said they have run into regulatory roadblocks. In the meantime, they try to make them feel at home, inviting them to their dinner table and leaving the Christmas lights on the backyard tree to retain some cheer. Summers said she has always welcomed people in need to her home. "They need help and we were blessed enough that our house was untouched," she said. "We seem to be the outcasts by trying to help people and it shouldn't be that way. This should be a normal thing." A U.S. citizen has been charged with kidnapping and other counts for his alleged role in the abduction of a freelance journalist who was held hostage in Somalia for nearly three years, according to federal charging documents unsealed Thursday in New York. According to a criminal complaint, Abdi Yusuf Hassan was part of a conspiracy to kidnap the journalist in January 2012 in Galkayo, Somalia, and demand $20 million in ransom. The journalist was released Sept. 23, 2014. While the journalist is not named in the complaint or in a superseding indictment, the dates of his capture and release, and several details outlined in the court documents, match the experiences of author Michael Scott Moore, a German-American who was abducted by pirates in Somalia while he was there writing a book about piracy. Moore's publicist said he was unreachable for an interview Thursday. In November, Moore confirmed to the New York Times that another man indicted in the case, Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed, was one of his captors. Mohamed and Hassan are listed as co-defendants. According to court documents, Hassan, 51, was born in Mogadishu and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He faces six counts, including kidnapping conspiracy, hostage-taking conspiracy and unlawful use of firearms. He was arrested in Minneapolis on Friday and will be returned to New York to face charges. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney in New York to comment on his behalf. The charging documents say the journalist was in a vehicle on Jan. 21, 2012, in the vicinity of Galkayo when he was surrounded by a group of heavily armed men carrying what appeared to be AK-47 assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. He was abducted and struck with weapons, injuring his head and wrist. He was taken to different areas in Somalia, and at one point was held in a vessel off the Somali coast. He told investigators that he and another hostage were typically guarded by about 10 men, all armed with assault rifles or belt-fed machine guns. In December 2013, he was moved to a residence near Galkayo, which was frequently visited by Hassan, the complaint says. The complaint says Hassan spoke English and was a translator for the hostage takers; the journalist, who identified Hassan from a lineup, said he also appeared to hold a leadership position over the other guards. Multiple times during the journalist's captivity, Hassan ordered him to call a family member to try to demand more money for ransom. During one call on Jan. 30, 2012, the journalist told a family member that his captors were demanding $20 million "and that if they did not receive the money within 24 hours, they would stop providing food and water to Victim-1," the complaint said. In another call in May 2012, the journalist said things had "gotten very serious" and another hostage had been tortured in front of him. The journalist said there was a real threat that if the ransom didn't come through, he would be sold to al-Shabab. In May 2012, the pirates released a video, showing the journalist in an undisclosed location with a prayer shawl over his head, surrounded by masked kidnappers who pointed a machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade at him. The journalist was released in September 2014. Moore has said his family raised $1.6 million for his release. According to the complaint, Hassan entered the U.S. in New York on Sept. 15, 2015, and was interviewed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He allegedly said he worked as the Minister of the Interior and Security for Galmudug State in Somalia, which includes Galkayo, and his job included arranging for the release of kidnapped people, including the journalist. An Australian state prosecutor has sent letters threatening to charge media organizations and dozens of journalists with breaching a gag order that banned reporting of Cardinal George Pell's convictions on charges of sexually molesting two choirboys, lawyers said Thursday. Reporting in any format accessible from Australia of details of the former Vatican economy chief's convictions in a Melbourne court in December was banned by a judge's suppression order that was only lifted this week. Such suppression orders are commonplace in the Australian and British judicial systems, and breaches can result in jail terms. But the enormous international interest in a criminal trial with global ramifications has highlighted the difficulty in enforcing such orders in the digital world. Victoria state Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd has written more than 100 letters to journalists and media organizations advising that she intends to charge them with offenses relating to reporting on the Pell case, said Jason Bosland, the deputy director of the Center for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne University. Bosland, a leading expert on suppression orders, said he was told the number by media sources. A lawyer involved in several cases, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed more than 100 letters were sent. Some individuals received two or three letters, so the number of media employees facing charges could be fewer than 100, the lawyer said. He and Bosland said the charges were aiding and abetting breaches of the suppression order by international media, breaching the suppression order, scandalizing the court and sub judice contempt. Anthony Loncaric, a spokesman for the Office of Public Prosecutions, declined to comment. Two of Australia's largest media organizations, Nine and Australian Broadcasting Corp., confirmed that they had received letters. News Corp., another major media organization that was criticized by a Pell lawyer for running a headline saying "CENSORED" following the conviction, declined to comment. Nine spokeswoman Miranda Ward said the company had received a letter accusing it of breaching the suppression order. Australian Broadcasting Corp. confirmed the public broadcaster had received a letter from Judd. The ABC declined to provide details of the content of the letter, except to say it was related to ABC's coverage of the Pell trial. "We stand by all of our coverage and our actions in this matter," the broadcaster said in a statement. "We have responded to the DPP strongly contesting any suggestion of wrongdoing on our part." Boland said the number of journalists facing prosecution was unprecedented. "I've never seen a situation where such a huge number of people have been shown show-cause notices," Boland said. "Normally it's sent to one or two media outlets. But this is an extraordinary approach in extraordinary circumstances." Boland said he had never heard of a charge of aiding and abetting being used to enforce a suppression order. He said it was a novel approach to target media outside the court's jurisdiction. "What they're doing is instead of going after the international organizations themselves because obviously they can't they are potentially going after the local people within the jurisdiction that they think have aided and abetted these international breaches," Boland said. The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment would prevent such censorship in the United States, so attempting to extradite an American for breaching an Australian suppression order would be futile. As soon as Pell was convicted on Dec. 11 for oral rape and indecent acts involving two 13-year-old boys while he was archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s, news began to spread around the world on social media. Some overseas-based media outlets and websites also began reporting the verdicts, although the sparsity of detail and factual errors suggested they had little if any help from professional journalists inside the court. Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper ran a black front page under the white headline "CENSORED" as the story was trending on Twitter. Melbourne's The Age newspaper reported a "high-profile figure" had been convicted of a serious crime. Both mastheads have been put on notice by the state's chief prosecutor. The Age, which is owned by Nine, reported that 30 journalists employed by Nine had been told in letters in February to show cause why they should not be charged. Authorities' responses to breaches of the suppression order like the order itself had been banned from publication until the order was lifted on Tuesday. Two days after the verdict, trial judge Peter Kidd convened a court hearing with Judd to set the prosecutions in motion. "A number of very important people in the media are facing, if found guilty, the prospect of imprisonment and indeed substantial imprisonment," Kidd said. "It may well be that many significant members of the media community are in that potential position." Breaching a suppression order carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The suppression order was designed to prevent the December conviction from influencing the jury in a trial that was to be held in April on allegations that he groped two boys in a swimming pool as a young priest in the 1970s. Those charges were dropped on Tuesday, so the suppression order was lifted. But reporters still face the potential of charges for sub judice contempt, which alleges the reporting of the first trial interfered with the administration of justice in the second trial. Scandalizing the court is a form of contempt and aiding and abetting a breach of the suppression order recognizes that helping the commission of a crime is itself a crime. Contempt of court is a common law offense with no prescribed maximum penalty. Associated Press reporter Kristen Gelineau contributed to this report. The unexpected delay in Michael Flynn's sentencing raised a new wrinkle in the Russia probe. The former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying the FBI about his contacts with Russia's ambassador, had expected to face no jail time after prosecutors vouched for him, saying he had provided substantial assistance in their investigation. But when a federal judge lambasted Flynn and raised the prospect of prison, Flynn decided to postpone the hearing and keep cooperating to get as much credit as he can. What we learned at Tuesday's hearing: COOPERATION COUNTS BUT SO DOES THE CRIME There was no argument from either side about the extent and value of Flynn's cooperation. But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan made clear that he was still hung up on the crime itself, repeating multiple times his distress over the fact that Flynn had lied to the FBI on the grounds of the White House. Though Sullivan gave Flynn an opportunity to reset the process and earn additional credit for his cooperation, it's not clear that he'll get past the underlying crime itself. MUELLER WANTS TO REWARD COOPERATORS Even as it became clear the judge was going to call out Flynn for lying to the FBI, the Mueller team signaled it was still OK with seeking little to no prison time. Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack told the judge that he continued to believe Flynn accepted responsibility even though a sentencing memo filed by his lawyers last week raised the prospect that he was less than remorseful. For Mueller, a sentence of probation to reward cooperators is an important incentive for others who are contemplating admitting guilt and working with the government. Van Grack also noted that Flynn had already provided the "vast majority" of the information he could and he has already committed to fulfilling any other cooperation needed. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR TRUMP? Flynn took the legs out of some of President Donald Trump's most recent attacks on the Russia investigation. Trump, who regularly attacks the Mueller probe as a witch hunt, has wrongly stated that the FBI said Flynn "didn't lie." In recent comments at the White House, Trump said Flynn's guilt was now in dispute and "I think it's a great thing that the judge is looking into that situation." Look into it, Sullivan did. And after repeated questioning Tuesday, Flynn never wavered: He lied, he accepted responsibility for doing it and he wasn't withdrawing his plea. Asked specifically if he was entrapped or if any FBI misconduct led to Flynn's false statements, Flynn attorney Robert Kelner said, "No." NO ANSWER YET FOR WHY FLYNN LIED It remains the enduring question about Flynn: Why did he lie about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.? Neither Flynn nor Mueller has said in court papers. And Tuesday, Flynn's hearing was cut short before he was asked or had an opportunity to tell the judge why he had committed the crime. So the wait continues. The mother of a migrant toddler who died shortly after being released from the nation's largest family detention center sued the tiny Arizona city on Thursday that for years was paid by the U.S. government to run the facility in name only. The lawsuit from Yazmin Juarez of Guatemala alleges that her 1-year-old daughter, Mariee, developed a respiratory illness at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, and medical staff provided inadequate treatment before releasing her three weeks later. The lawsuit targets Eloy, Arizona, which collected $438,000 a year from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to officially run the Texas facility for four years even though the city is roughly 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) away. Eloy then paid the private prison operator CoreCivic to operate Dilley, in an arrangement questioned by ICE's own lawyers. Mariee's death in May underscored the complaints advocates have long had about medical care for detained immigrants, as the Trump administration has sought to detain more migrant parents and children for longer times. At least nine infants under one year of age are currently detained at Dilley, according to lawyers who work with migrant families detained there. Legal groups filed a complaint Thursday with the Department of Homeland Security about what it described as an "alarming increase" in detained infants. Democrats in Congress have called for investigations into Mariee's death as well as other recent incidents, including a woman delivering a stillborn baby while in custody last week and the deaths of two children detained by the Border Patrol in December after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with their parents. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on Juarez's lawsuit, but said it takes the welfare of detainees "very seriously." "ICE is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency's custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care," the agency said. The lawsuit alleges that Mariee developed a severe fever a week after entering Dilley on March 5, 2018. As her mother repeatedly tried to seek medical treatment, the lawsuit alleges medical staff at Dilley misdiagnosed Mariee's illness and did not prescribe the correct medication, before releasing both mother and daughter on March 25 and clearing them to travel. Juarez took Mariee to an emergency room almost immediately, the lawsuit alleges. She remained hospitalized for the rest of her life, dying in May. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement opened the facility in 2014, during the administration of former President Barack Obama, so it could detain more parents and children together during a previous surge of migrant families trying to enter the United States. ICE used Eloy to expedite the opening with so many migrants coming into the system. The agency modified an existing detention agreement with Eloy to quickly open the Texas facility. Under the setup, ICE paid the Arizona city several million dollars per year, and it in turn funneled the money to the private prison company that ran the facility. Eloy kept a cut, to the tune of about $400,000 per year. The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general leveled harsh criticism against ICE, Eloy and the private prison operator CoreCivic, formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America. The pass-through arrangement was long criticized by advocates and the DHS inspector general, which said it violated budget guidelines and wasted money. ICE replaced Eloy last year with the city government in Dilley, which now collects the same fees. Stanton Jones, a lawyer for the Juarez family, said Eloy deserved blame for what happened to Mariee "precisely because they did so little." "Eloy never lifted a finger to exercise any sort of oversight or participation in the operation of the facility," Jones said. Eloy city manager Harvey Krauss declined to comment, and it remains to be seen how much legal liability the city of nearly 20,000 people between Tucson and Phoenix will face. CoreCivic agreed as part of the previous arrangement to assume any legal liability on Eloy's behalf. A CoreCivic spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday that it will "defend and indemnify any lawsuits with respect to allegations related to the operations of the facility for which CoreCivic is responsible." But CoreCivic said ICE was responsible for medical care at the Dilley facility. Associated Press journalist Astrid Galvan in Phoenix contributed to this report. As thousands of migrants in a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers converge on the doorstep of the United States, what they won't find are armed American soldiers standing guard. Instead, they will see cranes installing towering panels of metal bars and troops wrapping concertina wire around barriers while military helicopters fly overhead, carrying border patrol agents to and from locations along the U.S.-Mexico border. That's because U.S. military troops are prohibited from carrying out law enforcement duties. What's more, the bulk of the troops are in Texas hundreds of miles away from the caravan that started arriving this week in Tijuana on Mexico's border with California after walking and hitching rides for the past month. Still, for many migrants, the barriers and barbed wire were an imposing show of force. Angel Ulloa stood on Tijuana's beach where a wall of metal bars more than 20 feet high cut across the sand and plunged into the Pacific. He watched as crews on the U.S. side placed coils of barbed wire on top. A border patrol agent wearing camouflage and armed with an assault rifle part of a tactical unit deployed when there is a heightened threat walked in the sand below where the men worked. A small border patrol boat hovered offshore. "It's too much security to confront humble people who just want to work," said Ulloa, a 23-year-old electrician from Choloma, Honduras, who joined the caravan to try to make his first trip to the U.S. Now, he and his two friends were rethinking their plans. They tried to apply for a job at a Wal-Mart in Tijuana but were told they need a Mexican work permit. So they were considering seeking asylum in Mexico but were unsure of giving up their dream of earning dollars. "We're still checking things out," he said. On Friday, people walking through one of the world's busiest border crossings into Mexico passed by a pair of Marines on a 20-foot lift installing razor wire above a turnstile. Nearby Army Sgt. Eric Zeigler stood guard with another soldier. Both were military police officers assigned to protecting the Marines as they work. The 24-year-old soldier from Pittsburgh spent nine months in Afghanistan. ""It's very different over there, obviously. It's a lot more dangerous," Zeigler said. He said he was surprised when got his deployment orders sending him to the U.S.-Mexico border. "But I'm happy to go where I'm needed" he added as a man walked by carrying shopping bags headed to Tijuana. The U.S. military has deployed 5,800 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. So far, more are not expected, despite President Donald Trump's initial assessment that 10,000 to 15,000 were needed to secure the border against what he has called an "invasion" of migrants. Most in the caravan of several thousand are families, including hundreds of children. Another 2,100 National Guard troops are have also been deployed since April as part of a separate mission. Like the military troops, they are not allowed to detain illegal crossers. Instead, they have been monitoring cameras and helping to erect barriers. Of the 5,800 soldiers and Marines, more than 2,800 are in Texas, while about 1,500 are in Arizona and another 1,300 are in California. All U.S. military branches, except the Coast Guard, are barred from performing law enforcement duties. That means there will be no visible show of armed troops, said Army Maj. Scott McCullough, adding that the mission is to provide support to Customs and Border Protection. "Soldiers putting up wire on the border and barriers at the ports of entry will be the most visible," he said. Marines and soldiers share the same duties in California and Arizona. These include erecting tents, setting up showers and arranging meals for troops working on the border, and assigning military police to protect them. There are no tents or camps being set up to house migrants, McCullough said. Medics are on hand to treat troops and border patrol agents not migrants for cuts, bruises and any other problems. Combat engineers whose duties on the battlefield include setting up tactical obstacles to prevent the enemy from moving freely are using their expertise to string wire on border walls and erect temporary fencing, McCullough said. Construction engineers have been assigned to weld together barriers and move shipping containers to act as walls. In Laredo, Texas, about 100 soldiers have been installing three layers of razor wire along the Rio Grande, working on the banks during the day and on the bridges at night to minimize the disruption to cross-border traffic. The current mission is scheduled to end Dec. 15 for now. It's unclear how much it will cost and military leaders have refused to provide an estimate. Critics have questioned the wisdom of using the military on the border where there is no discernible security threat. Since the Nov. 6 elections, Trump has said little about the matter and no border threat has materialized. Some border communities fear the barricades will scare off Mexican shoppers. The city council in Nogales, Arizona, slashed a proposed bonus for all employees in half over concerns about how the military's presence would affect its sales tax revenue after the military closed off two lanes at its border crossing. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis defended the deployment during a visit to the Texas border this week, asserting that in some ways it provides good training for war. Suyapa Reyes, 35, said she was puzzled as to why she would be seen as a threat. Reyes, her mother, 12-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son left Honduras with the caravan on Oct. 13, fleeing violence and poverty in her hometown of Olanchito de Oro. She does not want to return after coming such a long way but if she cannot get asylum and the border looks too dangerous to cross, she said she'll have no other choice. "I'm not going to risk my life or safety nor that of my children," she said. The former chairman of Japan's Nissan Motor Co., Carlos Ghosn, denied any wrongdoing and proclaimed his loyalty to the company at a court hearing in Tokyo on Tuesday. It was Ghosn's first public appearance since he was arrested on Nov. 19 and charged with false financial reporting. "Your honor, I am innocent of the accusations against me," Ghosn told the judge, speaking firmly and calmly as he read from a statement. "I am wrongfully accused." Prosecutors have charged Ghosn, who led a dramatic turnaround at the Japanese automaker over the past two decades, with falsifying financial reports in underreporting his income by about 5 billion yen ($44 million) over five years through 2015. They also say he is suspected of having Nissan temporarily take on his investment losses from the financial crisis. Wearing plastic slippers and a dark suit without a tie, Ghosn rebutted the allegations against him point-by-point and said he had the option to leave Nissan but had decided to stay on. "A captain doesn't jump ship during a storm," said Ghosn, who was visibly thinner than before his arrest. The veteran auto executive, a familiar face at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and other elite gatherings, was handcuffed and led into the courtroom with a rope around his waist as the hearing began. Officers removed his handcuffs and seated him on a bench. Presiding judge Yuichi Tada then read out the charges and said Ghosn, a Brazilian-born Frenchman of Lebanese ancestry, was considered a flight risk he was arrested on his arrival in Tokyo by private jet and might try to hide evidence. In Japan, suspects are routinely held without bail, often due to fears about evidence tampering. During Tuesday's hearing, Go Kondo, one of Ghosn's lawyers, argued he was not a flight risk. "He's widely known so it's difficult for him to escape. There is no risk that the suspect will destroy evidence," he said. Facing the courtroom, Ghosn spoke proudly of the automaker's and his own achievements, such as reviving iconic models like the GT-R and the Z, expanding operations in China, Russia, Brazil and India and pioneering electric cars and autonomous driving. "I have a genuine love and appreciation for Nissan," he said. Ghosn has been held in Spartan conditions at a Tokyo detention facility since he was taken into custody. However, Ghosn's defense lawyer Motonari Ohtsuru told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club late Tuesday that Ghosn was transferred to a bigger room with a bed at his request. In keeping with Japanese regulations, he has been allowed visits only from his lawyers and consular officials. Ghosn said he had "acted honorably, legally and with the knowledge and approval of the appropriate executives inside the company with the sole purpose of supporting and strengthening Nissan," according to a statement released to some media including The Associated Press before the hearing and confirmed by his legal team. It said he had not failed to disclose any of his income from Nissan. Ghosn also defended payments questioned by prosecutors and by Nissan that were made to Khaled Juffali, a Saudi businessman. He said the money was paid to Juffali for real work that he did to sort out problems with a local distributor. Before the hearing, the Khaled Juffali Company issued a statement saying the $14.7 million in payments over four years from Nissan "were for legitimate business purposes." Other Nissan executives approved the payment, Ohtsuru said. Ghosn said his personal investment losses stemmed from being paid in Japanese yen and that he had only asked Nissan to temporarily provide collateral for foreign exchange contracts. The company suffered no losses, he said. Sent to Japan by Nissan's alliance partner Renault SA of France in 1999, Ghosn led a spectacular turnaround at the Yokohama-based automaker over two decades, during which he mostly served as chief executive. Renault owns 43 percent of Nissan, while Nissan owns 15 percent of Renault. The alliance, which in recent years has added smaller Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp., has risen to be one of the most successful in the industry, rivaling Volkswagen AG of Germany and Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. Ghosn remains the head of Renault and is still on Nissan's board of directors. His courtroom appearance drew worldwide attention, with throngs of cameras set up outside the Tokyo Detention Center to capture his departure. No cameras or audio recordings are allowed in Japanese court sessions. Authorities also arrested a fellow Nissan executive and aide to Ghosn, Greg Kelly, charging him with collaborating with Ghosn to underreport his income. Kelly, an American, was released on bail on Dec. 25. He also has maintained his innocence. Tokyo prosecutors have repeatedly extended Ghosn's detention by adding new allegations. The latest is suspicion of breach of trust stemming from the claim he had Nissan temporarily shoulder his personal investment losses. Formal charges on those allegations have not been filed and no trial dates have been set for Ghosn or Kelly. Ghosn's detention now runs through Friday. Ohtsuru said that preparations for a trial on charges of breach of trust could take months. He said he would continue to appeal Ghosn's detention. Ghosn's protege and successor, Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa, has denounced Ghosn, claiming he used company assets and money for personal gain and falsified financial reports. Nissan spokesman Nicholas Maxfield said an investigation by the company that found "substantial and convincing evidence of misconduct" prompted prosecutors to act. Under Japanese law, falsifying financial reporting carries the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a 10 million yen ($89,000) fine, or both. But some experts have questioned the allegations against Kelly and Ghosn since Nissan itself, not individual executives, should be responsible for filing such financial reports. The Mexican government said Tuesday that it will award President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner the highest honor the country gives to foreigners, the Order of the Aztec Eagle. The Foreign Relations Department said Kushner earned the award "for his significant contributions in achieving the renegotiation of the new (trade) agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada." Once known as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the pact was renegotiated this year and is now called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Kushner "played a fundamental role during the whole process, displaying decisive support for the trade talks ... thus achieving satisfactory results," the department said in a statement. Tuesday's announcement was met by criticism in Mexico, where Trump is widely disliked for his comments about Mexican migrants and promises to build a border wall between the countries. Prominent Mexican intellectual Enrique Krauze called the decision to give Kushner the Aztec Eagle an act of "supreme humiliation and cowardice." "Kushner is the son-in-law of the man who called Mexicans 'killers and rapists,'" Krauze tweeted. Outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto was harshly criticized for inviting Trump to Mexico while he was still a U.S. presidential candidate. The decision to give Kushner the award comes days before President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes office on Dec. 1. Mexico has previously given the award to foreign leaders, dignitaries, cultural figures and philanthropists ranging from Walt Disney to Bill Gates. An acrimonious meeting of world leaders in Papua New Guinea failed to agree Sunday on a final communique, highlighting widening divisions between global powers China and the U.S. The 21 nations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Port Moresby struggled to bridge differences on the role of the World Trade Organization, which governs international trade, officials said. A statement was to be issued instead by the meeting's chair, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill. "The entire world is worried" about tensions between China and the U.S., O'Neill told a mob of reporters that surrounded him after he confirmed there was no communique from leaders. It was the first time leaders had failed to agree on a declaration in 29 years of the Pacific Rim summits that involve countries representing 60 percent of the world economy. Draft versions of the communique seen by The Associated Press showed the U.S wanted strong language against unfair trade practices that it accuses China of. China, meanwhile, wanted a reaffirmation of opposition to protectionism and unilateralism that it says the U.S. is engaging in. The U.S. has imposed additional tariffs of $250 billion on Chinese goods this year and Beijing has retaliated with its own tariffs on American exports. "I don't think it will come as a huge surprise that there are differing visions" on trade, said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "Those prevented there from being a full consensus on the communique." The two-day summit was punctuated by acrimony and also underlined a rising rivalry between China and the West for influence in the usually neglected South Pacific, where Beijing has been wooing impoverished island states with aid and loans. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Chinese President Xi Jinping traded barbs in speeches on Saturday. Pence professed respect for Xi and China but also harshly criticized the world's No. 2 economy for intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and unfair trading practices. He accused China of luring developing nations into a debt trap through the loans it offers for infrastructure. The world, according to Xi's speech, is facing a choice between cooperation and confrontation as protectionism and unilateralism grows. He said the rules of global institutions set up after World War II such as the World Trade Organization should not be bent for selfish agendas. Pence told reporters that during the weekend he had two "candid" conversations with Xi, who is expected to meet President Donald Trump at a Group of 20 summit at the end of this month in Argentina. "There are differences today," Pence said. "They begin with trade practices, with tariffs and quotas, forced technology transfers, the theft of intellectual property. It goes beyond that to freedom of navigation in the seas, concerns about human rights." The U.S. is interested in a better relationship "but there has to be change" from China's side, Pence said he told Xi, who responded that dialogue is important. China's foreign ministry rejected the U.S. criticism that it was leading other developing nations into debt bondage. "The assistance provided by China has been warmly welcomed by our partners in this region and beyond," Wang Xiaolong, a foreign ministry official, told a news conference. "No country either in this region or in other regions has fallen into a so called debt trap because of its cooperation with China. Give me one example," he said. China is a relative newcomer to providing aid, and its loan-heavy, no-strings attached approach has unsettled Western nations that have been the mainstay donors to developing nations and often use aid to nudge nations towards reforms. In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea's capital, the impact of China's aid and loans is highly visible. But the U.S. and allies are countering with efforts to finance infrastructure in Papua New Guinea and other island states. The U.S. has also said it will be involved in ally Australia's plan to develop a naval base with Papua New Guinea. On Sunday, the U.S., New Zealand, Japan and Australia said they'd work with Papua New Guinea's government to bring electricity to 70 percent of its people by 2030. Less than 20 percent have a reliable electricity supply. "The commitment of the United States of America to this region of the world has never been stronger," Pence said at a signing ceremony. A separate statement from his office said other countries are welcome to join the electrification initiative provided they support the U.S. vision of a free and open Pacific. China, meanwhile, has promised $4 billion of finance to build the the first national road network in Papua New Guinea, among the least urbanized countries in the world. Pakistan's military said Wednesday it shot down two Indian warplanes in the disputed region of Kashmir and captured a pilot, answering an airstrike a day earlier by Indian fighter jets inside Pakistan and raising tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to a level unseen in two decades. Within hours Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan went on television urging peace talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying both countries needed to step back from the brink and warning that "miscalculations" could drag their two countries into a war that neither side would benefit from. "Let's sit together to talk to find a solution," Khan said. There was no reply from Modi, but India acknowledged one of its air force planes was "lost" in skirmishes with Pakistan and that its pilot was "missing in action." Pakistan's military later circulated a video of a man with a mustache who identified himself as the Indian pilot, sipping tea and responding to questions, mostly by saying, "You know I can't answer that." He appeared in good health as he was questioned about his hometown, his aircraft and his mission. The downing of the Indian aircraft came on a chaotic day that also saw mortar shells fired by Indian troops from across the frontier dividing the two sectors of Kashmir kill six civilians and wound several others. A helicopter crash in the region also killed six Indian air force officials and a civilian on the ground. Pakistan responded by shutting down its civilian airspace. The Indian warplanes went down Wednesday morning in Kashmir, a mountainous region claimed by both India and Pakistan since almost immediately after their creation in 1947. One of the downed planes crashed in Pakistan's part of Kashmir while the other went down in an Indian-controlled section of the Himalayan region, Pakistan's army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor said. He said Pakistani troops on the ground captured the Indian pilot. He had said earlier that two pilots were captured, but did not explain the discrepancy. "We have no intention of escalation, but are fully prepared to do so if forced into that paradigm," Ghafoor said. India's External Affairs Ministry spokesman, Raveesh Kumar, said one of India's MiG-21 fighter aircraft was missing and India was still "ascertaining" whether its pilot was in Pakistan's custody. He said one Pakistani aircraft was shot down, something Pakistan denied. Meanwhile, Indian police said officials recovered seven bodies from the wreckage of the Indian air force chopper that crashed in an Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir, including six Indian airmen and a civilian on the ground. They gave no cause for the crash. Senior police officer Munir Ahmed Khan said the chopper crashed close to an airport in the Budgam area, on the outskirts of the region's main city of Srinagar. The Srinagar airport, which was shut along with two other airports for civilian flights in the region, is also an air force station. Witnesses said soldiers fired in the air to keep residents away from the crash site. Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad said the country's air force was carrying out airstrikes Wednesday from within Pakistani airspace across the disputed Kashmir boundary but that this was not in "retaliation to continued Indian belligerence." Ghafoor, the Pakistani military spokesman, said the strikes were aimed at "avoiding human loss and collateral damage." The shelling earlier Wednesday by India hit the village of Kotli in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, killing six civilians, including children, local police official Mohammad Altaf said. Kashmir is split between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety. Though Pakistani and Indian troops in Kashmir often trade fire, the latest casualties came a day after tensions escalated sharply following a pre-dawn airstrike and incursion by India that New Delhi said targeted a terrorist training camp in northwestern Pakistan. The strike Tuesday was India's first inside Pakistan since the two nations' 1971 war over territory that later became Bangladesh. Pakistan said Indian warplanes dropped bombs near the Pakistani town of Balakot but there were no casualties. The violence Wednesday marked the most serious escalation of the long-simmering conflict since 1999, when Pakistan's military sent a ground force into Indian-controlled Kashmir at Kargil. That year also saw an Indian fighter jet shoot down a Pakistani naval aircraft, killing all 16 on board. Residents on both sides of the de-facto frontier, the so-called Line of Control, said there were exchanges of fire between the two sides through the night into Wednesday morning. Hundreds of villagers fled border towns in both India and Pakistan. In New Delhi, Indian officials said Wednesday at least five of their soldiers were wounded in firing by Pakistani troops along the volatile frontier. Lt. Col. Devender Anand, an Indian army spokesman, said Pakistani soldiers targeted dozens of Indian military positions across the Line of Control throughout the night. An Indian military statement said that "out of anger and frustration," Pakistan initiated an "unprovoked cease-fire violation." The statement said Indian troops "retaliated for effect" and claimed to have destroyed five Pakistani posts. It accused Pakistani soldiers of firing mortars and missiles "from civilian houses, using villagers as human shields." On Wednesday, Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, told state-run Pakistan Television he was in touch with his counterparts across the world about the "Indian aggression," adding that New Delhi had endangered peace in the region by Tuesday's airstrike inside Pakistan. India's external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, said Wednesday her country does not wish to see further escalation of the situation with Pakistan and that it will continue to act with responsibility and restraint. She said the limited objective of India's pre-emptive strike inside Pakistan on a terrorist training camp Tuesday was to prevent another terror attack inside India by the Jaish-e-Mohammad extremist group. The latest wave of tensions between Pakistan and India first erupted after Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for a Feb. 14 suicide bombing on Indian paramilitary forces on the Indian side of Kashmir that killed more than 40 troops. India long has accused Pakistan of cultivating such militant groups to attack it. Pakistan has said it was not involved in that attack and was ready to help New Delhi in the investigations. The last time Tiny stopped the vehicle, he asked Flores if he could have sex with the witness, and Flores said no, the affidavit states. Tiny then "turned around shot Flores one time using a revolver," according to the affidavit. Flores "said nothing and immediately slumped to her right," court records state. Samsung unveiled a highly anticipated smartphone with a foldable screen in an attempt to break the innovation funk that has beset the smartphone market. But it's far from clear that consumers will embrace a device that retails for almost $2,000, or that it will provide the creative catalyst the smartphone market needs. The Galaxy Fold, announced Wednesday in San Francisco, will sell for $1,980 when it is released April 26. Consumers willing to pay that hefty price will get a device that can unfold like a wallet. It can work like a traditional smartphone with a 4.6 inch screen or morph into something more like a mini-tablet with a 7.3 inch screen. When fully unfolded, the device will be able to simultaneously run three different apps on the screen. The Galaxy Fold will also boast six cameras: three in the back, two on the inside and one on the front. After spending nearly five years developing the technology underlying its foldable-screen phone, Samsung is clearly hoping for a big payoff. "Get ready for the dawn of a new era," declared DJ Koh, who oversees Samsung's smartphone division. The new phone, he said, "answers skeptics who said everything has already been done." If Samsung is right, the Galaxy Fold will spur more people to upgrade their phones. Overall smartphones sales peaked in 2017 ; Samsung saw its smartphone sales fall 8 percent last year, based on estimates from the research firm International Data Corp. Worldwide, smartphone sales dropped 4 percent in 2018, according to IDC. But most analysts see a limited market for foldable-screen phones, at least in the early going. Phones like the Galaxy Fold "are likely to sell to a very limited market of technology aficionados who like big screens and have big wallets," said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. Samsung also released new Galaxy S10 phones that boast fancy cameras, sleek screens covering the entire front of the devices and at least 128 gigabytes of storage important features to consumers shopping for phones. The new phones are able take wider-angle shots than previous models and can charge other devices, including wireless headphones and smartwatches. A fourth S10 model, due out this spring, will have faster wireless speeds through the emerging 5G cellular network. But those improvements aren't a big leap from the smartphones released during the past few years by Samsung, Apple and other top manufacturers. "These phones are all variations on a theme we have already seen," Llamas said. "It's the same song with a slightly different verse." With the pace of smartphone innovation seemingly locked in baby steps, consumers are holding on to their existing devices for longer periods than they have in the past. Compounding that reluctance to upgrade is smartphone sticker shock, which the Galaxy Fold seems unlikely to alleviate. Prices for some existing phones models have soared above $1,000 . Samsung is offering a slightly smaller S10 model for $750 in an attempt to make smartphones more affordable, but the higher-end models sell for $900 and $1,000. Two of Samsung's new models, the S10 and the S10 Plus, are largely incremental upgrades of last year's S9 and S9 Plus, although they are designed differently. They are about the same size as last year's models, but will have more display space, as Samsung found additional ways to eliminate waste around the edges. As a byproduct, the top right of the display has a circle or oval cut out for the front-facing cameras. The lowest-priced "essentials" model, the S10e, has most of the same features, but is 5 percent smaller than the S10 in volume. The S10e also lacks curved edges, a signature feature for many Samsung phones. All three S10 models will come out March 8, with pre-orders starting Thursday. Samsung trumpeted its 10th anniversary lineup ahead of a major mobile device conference in Barcelona next week. Huawei, which is threatening to overtake Apple as the world's second biggest seller of smartphones, has promised to use the Spain showcase to preview its own device with a foldable screen and the ability to connect to 5G networks as they become operational during the next few years. What to Know Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad were responsible for a series of shootings that killed 10 people and seriously wounded six others Malvo is challenging two life sentence imposed by Virginia, claiming the sentences were unconstitutional because he was a juvenile He cited a 2012 US Supreme Court ruling that struck down mandatory life sentences for juveniles The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a lower court ruling that requires a new sentencing hearing for Lee Boyd Malvo, one of two snipers who terrorized the Washington, D.C area in 2002. Malvo and a man who was 25 years older, John Allen Muhammad, were responsible for a series of shootings that killed 10 people and seriously wounded six others. Muhammad received the death penalty and was executed in 2009. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison. Malvo is challenging two life sentence imposed by Virginia for the murders of Linda Franklin and Kenneth Bridges and the attempted murder of Caroline Seawell. He claimed that the sentences were unconstitutional because he was a juvenile 17 years old at the time the crimes were committed. He cited a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down mandatory life sentences for juveniles. In 2016, the Supreme Court said its ruling was retroactive, applying to sentences imposed earlier. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond agreed that he should be re-sentenced. New constitutional rules treat juveniles differently for sentencing, the appeals court said. Virginia defends Malvo's punishment. Toby Heytens, the state's solicitor general, argued in court papers that there's a difference between mandatory life sentences for juveniles, which the court struck down in its 2012 ruling, and discretionary life sentences imposed by juries, such as the punishment imposed in Malvo's case. The state also says that when the Supreme Court announces a new rule and makes it retroactive, it should apply only to cases working their way through the legal system at the time, not to sentences that are appealed later, such as Malvo's. Such a rule, the state argues, would promote finality in the courts. But Malvo's lawyers say little about Malvo's sentence was discretionary, because the jury was forced to choose between only two possible sentences death or life without parole. They say the Supreme Court intended life sentences for juveniles to be imposed only for "the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption." The Supreme Court said in its prior rulings that juveniles are less responsible for their acts because they lack maturity and are more susceptible to outside pressures. Such was the case with Malvo, his lawyers say, physically abused during his childhood and later under the control of Muhammad, who became became a surrogate father. Malvo, who is now 34, is also challenging life without parole sentences he received for the sniper shootings in Maryland. Those cases are pending in the lower courts. The Supreme Court will hear the Virginia case during its next term, which begins in October. For now, Malvo remains in prison and has not yet been re-sentenced. The union that represents the press in Venezuela said Telemundo journalist Daniel Garrido, who had been reported missing Tuesday in Caracas, has been released from the custody of security forces. Garrido, a correspondent for the Spanish-language Telemundo network, was last seen outside the hotel where Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and his team were staying before authorities ordered them deported from the South American country after an interview with President Nicolas Maduro, according to the National Union of Press Workers in Venezuela (SNTP). #AlertaSNTP | Daniel Garrido, reportero de @TelemundoNews, aparecio luego de ser ruleteado, incomunicado por 8 horas y robado por funcionarios del Sebin. #26Feb pic.twitter.com/5CxebzyGTj SNTP (@sntpvenezuela) February 26, 2019 The group said Garrido had been photographing the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), the repressive Venezuelan security force that escorted Ramos and the Univision team to the airport, before he disappeared Tuesday morning. In a statement published to its website Tuesday afternoon, Telemundo said Garrido was abducted at 6 a.m. ET in the vicinity of the Hotel Cayena in the La Castellana neighborhood of Caracas. "Daniel was covering the recent detention and deportation of the Univision News team, when a group of armed and unidentified individuals forced him into a vehicle and covered his head with a hood. After questioning him for six hours and seizing his work equipment, the kidnappers freed him without explanation and without returning his equipment." Luis Fernandiz, Telemundo's executive vice president of network news, confirmed Garrido's release on Twitter. Fernandez tweeted around 1:30 p.m. ET that Garrido was freed but authorities had seized his cell phones. Another attack against freedom of the press. Another one, he added. The network condemned the harrassment of journalists in Venezuela by members of the Maduro regime and called on the government to "guarantee our right to inform, as well as the physical integrity of journalists operating in Venezuela, as established in international conventions and the laws of the country." World of Dance returns for its second season on Tuesday, and Access Lives Scott Evans is pulling duties as the competitions new host! Scott takes us on an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the set! Garrido's brief detention comes after a Univision news team led by Jorge Ramos said they had their camera equipment and phones seized and were briefly detained at the presidential palace after Maduro abruptly ended an interview Monday. Ramos, one of the most influential Spanish-speaking journalists in the U.S., said late Monday that Maduro cut short the interview after 17 minutes when he was shown video on an iPad shot a day earlier of young Venezuelans eating food scraps out of the back of a garbage truck. The news crew was ordered deported and reportedly boarded a flight to Miami without their equipment returned. Vice President Mike Pence on Monday announced new sanctions against Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro and his supporters. Ramos, who interviewed Maduro's mentor, Hugo Chavez, three times, said Maduro accused him of siding with the government's opponents in the political fight for power now raging in Venezuela. More than 50 governments around the world have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's rightful leader after Maduro was sworn in for a second term last month following what the critics say was an illegitimate election. As the battle for political power in the country escalates, the Maduro regime has strived to control the news coverage. Privatly owned networks have been taken off air, newsrooms have been raided and closed and reporters detained, according to the Caracas-based free press NGO Espacio Publico. Arbitrary arrests and violence against reporters by the police and intelligence services are common and Foreign journalists are often expelled. Venezuela is ranked 143rd out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2018 World Press Freedom Index, dropping six places from its 2017 standing. "The fact that at least 19 journalists have been detained in 2019 to date demonstrates Nicolas Maduros pattern of contempt for democratic values in Venezuela, where restrictions on journalistic freedom are used as a blackmail tool within the framework of the countrys current crisis," International press freedom organization said in a statement. "The arbitrariness of this act of censorship is aggravated by the fact that it took place during an interview with Nicolas Maduro himself, at the historic headquarters of the Venezuelan government." RSF called on the international community including those countries that still recognize Maduro as president to "pay special attention to guarantees for a free press in Venezuela under the framework of the commitments they have signed before international law, considering that respect for press freedom is an essential requirement for international relations." President Donald Trump's company said on Monday that it donated nearly $200,000 to the U.S. Treasury to make good on its promise two years ago to hand over profits from foreign governments using its properties. The Trump Organization said a check for $191,538 sent to Treasury represents profits from embassy parties, hotel stays and other foreign government spending at its Washington hotel and other properties last year. The voluntary donation is up from $151,470 sent a year ago to cover the president's first calendar year in office. Trump announced the donation plan before his inauguration two years ago in response to criticism that in refusing to sell off his business, people would suspect his decisions in office would be influenced by spending at his properties and not necessarily reflect the public interest. Since then, Kuwait, the Philippines and other foreign governments have thrown parties at his Washington hotel, and Trump has been sued by good-government groups and others alleging he is violating the emoluments clauses of the Constitution by opening his door to such business. Those clauses ban presidents from accepting gifts or payments from foreign or domestic governments without permission from Congress. The president's adult sons running the business have bristled at the charge they are profiting off the presidency. "Unlike any other luxury hospitality company, we do not market to or solicit foreign government business," said Eric Trump, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization. "In fact, we go to great lengths to discourage foreign government patronage at our properties." The company did not respond to requests for detail on how it has discouraged foreign government spending. In addition to Treasury donations, Trump agreed not to strike any foreign deals for his business while in office, and to hire an outside counsel to vet any domestic deals for possible conflicts of interest. The Trump Organization has said that it has made "tremendous sacrifices" by putting brakes on its business expansion. Earlier this month, Eric Trump and his brother, Donald Jr., announced they were scrapping plans to roll out two new hotels chains in the U.S. due to intense media scrutiny and what it called a hostile political environment. Donald Trump Jr. on Monday told Fox News that Manhattan federal prosecutors investigating the president's inaugural committee and family business were engaging in "Stalinist" tactics, where if they "massage things enough," a crime can be found. The Treasury donations have been criticized by watchdog groups and Democrats as insufficient and shrouded in secrecy. They say the money doesn't cover all of Trump's properties, such as resorts, and its unclear how the company is calculating profits. Trump is facing two lawsuits charging that he is violating the Constitution's emoluments provisions. The president's lawyers argue that the framers of the Constitution's ban on foreign gifts and payments did not intend for it to include such ordinary business transactions as hotel stays. Unions for West Virginia teachers ended their two-day strike Wednesday night after lawmakers did not act on a doomed, broad-based education bill. Leaders of three unions representing teachers and school service personnel said at a news conference that classrooms would reopen statewide on Thursday. But the leaders said they reserve the right to call teachers back out on strike before the end of the legislative session in early March to take action as they see fit on other education bills. The House of Delegates made no mention of Tuesday's passage of a motion that effectively killed the bill. According to legislative rules, a lawmaker who voted to table the bill had until Wednesday to ask to have the vote reconsidered. The House adjourned until Thursday without such a move being made. Portions of the complex bill also could still be offered through amendments to other legislation in the final two weeks of the session. Schools in 54 of the state's 55 counties were closed for a second day Wednesday. The lone holdout again was Putnam County. Unions for teachers and school service workers went on strike Tuesday over the legislation that they said lacked their input and was retaliation for a nine-day walkout last year. That strike launched the national "Red4Ed" movement, which included strikes in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona, Washington state, and more recently, Los Angeles and Denver. The unions and teachers opposed provisions in the legislation that, among other things, would have created the state's first charter schools and allow education savings accounts for parents to pay for private school. Proponents said the moves would have given parents more school choices. The unions have trust issues with lawmakers, especially becoming wary of leaders in the Senate after actions during the 2018 strike and again this month when the chamber rushed to act on the bill. Like the House, the Senate, reversing course from its original bill, removed a clause that would invalidate the entire legislation if any part is struck down, and took out language requiring teachers sign off annually on union dues and requiring teacher pay to be withheld during a strike. "We want to be in the classroom," said Charleston elementary school teacher Danielle Loehr. "But we need to be here and paying attention. It's really scary, but that's politics." Earlier Wednesday a House committee endorsed a pay increase for teachers, school service workers and state police. The teacher pay raise was part of the original legislation that the House tabled. The House plans a public hearing on the raises Friday. It would give annual salary increases of $2,120 to teachers, $2,370 to state police and $115 per month for school service workers. Last year state teachers received an average 5 percent raise to end the nine-day strike. More than 150 people were busted for public drinking and nine others were arrested during Sunday's St. Patrick's Day Parade. Boston Police said they issued 128 citations for public drinking, two for marijuana and issued three license premise violations. They made three arrests -- a 17-year-old male from Easton for being a minor in possession of alcohol, a 20-year-old from Taunton for assault and battery and a 22-year-old male from Green Harbor for disorderly conduct. All three men were arraigned in South Boston District Court. No bail information was available. MBTA Transit Police also reported that they intercepted dozens of parade goers who were drinking on the T and made six arrests, three of which involved violent confrontations. Around 11 a.m., transit police officers riding on a Forge Park train to monitor the large crowd heading to the parade observed two people intentionally punching out overhead lights on board, causing over $7,000 in damage. A 17-year-old female juvenile from North Attleboro and 18-year-old Brendan McHugh of Attleboro Falls were taken into custody for malicious destruction of property. Around 3:30 p.m., while transit police were speaking with an intoxicated male at Broadway Station, a 23-year-old male climbed over a barricade, struck the other male in the face with a closed fist and then fled. Transit police chased the suspect and were able to apprehend him. The suspect, identified as George Sawchuck of Cumberland Center, Maine, was taken into custody. At 4:15 p.m., as parade goers were boarding a Providence train at South Station, officers observed two men violently pushing through the crowd so they could cut the line and enter the train. Officers intercepted them, and one of them pushed an officer. The suspects, identified as Othane Chabane, 20, of Bristol, Rhode Island, and Evan Thornton, 20, of Swansea, were placed into custody. Around 5 p.m., transit police at North Station saw a man on top of a 19-year-old male, forcefully shaking the victim's body and causing his head to hit the ground repeatedly. The suspect, Keenean Parlin, 21, of Billerica, was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Vermont State Police have arrested a woman in connection to the death of a 6-month-old infant at a Rutland daycare in January. Stacey L. Vaillancourt, 53, was arrested Monday on manslaughter and cruelty to a child charges stemming from the Jan. 24 death. Vaillancourt ran a state-certified in-home daycare center, according to police. In January, police said rescue crews responded to a 911 call at an in-home day care facility on North Street in Rutland around 3:15 p.m. They arrived to find infant Harper Rose Briar unresponsive. She was taken to Rutland Regional Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. The medical examiner determined that Briar died from a high concentration of sedatives in her body, according to police. Diphenhydramine, the active sedative ingredient in over-the-counter antihistamines, was found in her body. The drug is not intended for use on infants, according to police. Detectives determined that doctors had not prescribed the drug for Briar, and that Vaillancourt was the only person to care for her before her death. The day Briar died was just her third day attending the day care facility. Vaillancourt was taken into custody and arraigned Monday in Rutland. It's unclear if she has an attorney. Vermont State Police, Rutland City Police and the Vermont Department of Children and Families collaborated on the investigation. A body was discovered Monday morning following an overnight shed fire in Ashland, Massachusetts. The blaze was reported around 1 a.m. Monday at a home Oak Street, according to officials. The shed was not attached to the home on the property. Officials said there were no signs of foul play and believe the body was that of an adult's. Investigators are still trying to determine the deceased person's identity. Authorities said there have been past reports of homeless people taking shelter in the shed, and the property owner and residents of the main house on the property were all accounted for after the fire. A man who said he's a friend of the property owner told NBC10 Boston that his friend is "stressed out, nervous," after the gruesome discovery this morning. "I was shocked, I was shocked," the man, who would only give his first name as Harry, said. "It's sad." Ashland's police and fire departments are investigating the fatal fire along with the State Fire Marshal's Office and Middlesex District Attorney's Office. More information has come out about the mother and father who were killed, allegedly at the hands of an 11-year-old boy in Alton, New Hampshire. Lizette and Jim Eckert had three children. Authorities say they were shot at their Dobbins Way home early Friday morning. Monday, three days after the fatal shooting, Dobbins Way was still closed. The New Hampshire Attorney Generals office would only say the investigation is ongoing and wouldn't release many details in this case because a juvenile was involved. Its just awful and then its like, how much worse is it going to get? said Michelle Clarke, a teacher in Alton. Police said Lizette Eckert was found dead of a gunshot wound the head. Jim Eckert, a chiropractor in the area, was rushed to the hospital where he later died. Autopsy results revealed his cause of death was also a single gunshot wound to the head. "We were hoping Jim would make it,"said the Eckerts friend and pastor, Rev. Sam Hollo. "Jim is doing better than we are now, because he knew the Lord, hes in his presence." Police arrested a juvenile and sources say an 11-year-old boy is allegedly the one who pulled the trigger. Authorities wont confirm the boys relationship to the Eckerts, but Pastor Hollo told NBC10 Boston more about the Eckert family. "Two of the boys, one of whom perpetrated that, have been adopted and they have a daughter as well," he explained. "Everybody who knows them, because of love for them, are helping in any way they can." The shooting has rocked the small, rural town and days later, residents are still stunned. "It immediately makes you want to go hug your kids tighter," Clarke said. "I just cant picture an 11-year-old kid doing that, Im just like, 'What is going on,'" said Alton resident Krista Stevens. "My first reaction was wondering how did he get the gun or guns," said another local resident, Bill Bezich. A lot of unanswered questions and only few things that can bring comfort to this grief-stricken community. Were just coming together, were just trying to pray for one another, said Courtney Dewey, who lives in town. If we trust God, God takes evil and turns it for good, and thats what we are hoping for the boys right now and for the daughter as well, Pastor Hollo said. The 11-year-old boy is facing one charge of murder but the attorney generals office says that could change as the investigation continues. There was one where the man of undetermined age had hoisted several pints at the pub one night and was drunk enough coming home that he fell and decided to sleep where he lay, Brooks, the bagpiper for the St. Pat's celebration at Irish House in Chesterton, told the packed pub. He was snoring away when two acquaintances came upon him and decided to let them know they found him by one of them taking a blue ribbon from her hair and leaving it with him. Rhode Island firefighters say they rescued two girls who got stranded in a bay over the weekend. Fire officials say the girls went paddling from a beach club in North Kingstown Saturday afternoon when the wind and tide pulled them out by the Jamestown Bridge. Officials say one of the girls ended up in the water. Firefighters responded and launched a boat to bring the girls back to Wickford Harbor. Paramedics evaluated both of the girls and found neither of them had life-threatening injuries. A New Hampshire man who police say fatally shot a delivery driver and raped a convenience store clerk before robbing the store has been indicted. The Eagle-Tribune reports that 21-year-old Brian Brito, of Manchester, N.H., is charged with several offenses including first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated rape. Police say Brito shot 24-year-old Mohammedreza Sina Zangiband after a road rage incident March 27 in Lynn. Authorities say later that day, Brito robbed a North Andover convenience store after forcing a clerk into a storeroom and sexually assaulting her. State police arrested Brito later that night. A not guilty plea was entered on Brito's behalf after his arrest. An arraignment in Salem Superior Court hasn't been scheduled. Police are looking for an "armed and dangerous" man in connection with an assault early Monday morning in Waltham, Massachusetts. Waltham police said they are attempting to locate 29-year-old Darren Dyette. He is wanted for an assault that happened on Fourth Avenue at the Extended Stay America hotel at 5 a.m. Anyone who sees Dyette is asked to call 911 and not to approach him, as they say he is considered "armed and dangerous." Waltham police said Dyette was seen in the area of Main Street and Bear Hill Road around 5:30 a.m. A foot pursuit ensued, followed by a large-scale search of the surrounding area involving multiple agencies. But Dyette eluded capture. Aerial footage from NBC10 Boston's Sky Ranger helicopter showed police searching the Avalon apartment complex in Waltham. Officers could be seen with guns drawn, apparently looking for the suspect. A Massachusetts State Police helicopter was also spotted flying overhead. Waltham officers rushed back to the apartment complex Monday afternoon after getting a call about the suspect, perhaps in one of the buildings. Some people in the complex werent even aware of what happened, despite reverse 911 call from police. There was a mention of a firearm at the scene of the assault, police said. They said he has a lengthy criminal history. Waltham Schools said they determined there was no "immediate threat" and they will resume normal activities and normal dismissal. No further information was immediately available. Elizabeth Warren has spent much of the last decade as a leader of the Democratic Party's liberal wing. But three and a half months into her presidential campaign, the Massachusetts senator is facing tough questions about fundraising and electability, along with lingering skepticism about her past claim to Native American identity. The longtime liberal superstar is embracing an uncomfortable role in the crowded 2020 contest: the underdog. "This is the race I want to run," Warren insisted in an interview with The Associated Press. With the 69-year-old Democrat in the middle of the pack in early polling, her Boston-based senior advisers are implementing an aggressive - if risky - strategy that calls on Warren to forgo traditional high-dollar fundraising events and devote the saved time to interactions with rank-and-file voters. Advisers say she'll also focus on seizing opportunities to stake bold new policy positions in real time, as she did recently by calling for the breakup of big technology companies like Amazon, which allow her to shape the debate and showcase her policy bona fides. Her success or failure will help determine the direction of the Democratic Party in 2020 and, more specifically, whether Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders can maintain his early place at the head of the presidential primary pack. While Warren has sometimes sought to distinguish herself from Sanders, describing herself as a capitalist while Sanders runs as a democratic socialist, the New England senators appeal to the same progressive, populist wing of their party that is an increasingly dominant force in the age of President Donald Trump. So far, Sanders has bested Warren in the few objective measures that exist: fundraising and polling. And while the first votes won't be cast for another 10 months or so, former Warren allies in her neighboring state of New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary, see cause for concern. "I just don't know if she would go over nationally," said former New Hampshire state Rep. Daniel Hansberry, who was among 27 current and former state lawmakers who signed a 2015 letter urging Warren to seek the presidency. "In the Northeast and on the West Coast I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she got a huge vote. But I don't know if she's too progressive for other parts of the country." Another signatory, former New Hampshire state Rep. Frank Heffron, said he'd be satisfied if Warren ultimately won the election, but said "it's very unlikely" he'll support her in the primary. New Hampshire voter Kerry Query, a 54-year-old administrative assistant who voted for Hillary Clinton over Sanders in the 2016 primary, said she's undecided this year but prefers Sanders over Warren so far. "I don't think she could get enough people behind her," Query said. "If she got elected in the primary, there's no way she could win." No one has an easy path to the Democratic presidential nomination, but few who expected to be in the top tier opened their campaigns with the same kind of stumbles as Warren. Laying the groundwork for her 2020 run, Warren released the results of a DNA test in October that showed "strong evidence" of Native American ancestry, albeit at least six generations back. The move backfired, emboldening her critics - especially Trump, who regularly calls Warren "Pocahontas" - who have long charged that Warren exaggerated her ethnic heritage for personal gain. Warren privately apologized to the head of the Cherokee Nation in early February. But just a few days later, reports surfaced that Warren had claimed Native American heritage on a 1986 Texas State Bar registration form. "A large swath of the American people were introduced to her through what I like to call the DNA debacle," said Democratic strategist Symone Sanders, who worked for Bernie Sanders during part of his 2016 campaign. She lauded Warren's early campaign for having "meat on the bones" that rivals lack but warned that the Native American issue would continue to be a challenge. Warren allies also acknowledge her early fundraising, a strength in her Senate campaigns, has been lackluster as a presidential candidate. A federal filing reveals that she raised at least $300,000 on the day she launched her campaign. While not a complete picture, Sanders raised nearly $6 million the first day he was in the race and California Sen. Kamala Harris raised $1.5 million. In the AP interview, Warren cast her fundraising challenges, including her move to eschew all high-dollar fundraising events, as a positive. "I know that the way I've decided to run my campaign means that I'm leaving millions of dollars on the table," she said. "This is a chance to help repair our democracy. It shouldn't just be about going out and raising a bunch of money and coming back and doing a bunch of TV ads," she continued. "This is about meeting people in person. Talking with them about the things that touch their lives every day, about their hopes to make this country work not just for the rich and the powerful, but to make it work for them." Warren is plowing ahead with an energetic approach designed to win over primary voters one event at a time. She has made a significant time and organizational investment in the first four states on the presidential primary calendar - Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. She has hired 65 campaign staffers for the first four states already, a number expected to grow in the coming weeks. She's also courting voters in other regions, launching a Southern tour on Sunday with stops in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. In all, she held 33 events across 11 states and Puerto Rico since launching on Dec. 31. Twenty-six of those events were in the early voting states, including 11 separate town halls or house parties in Iowa and 10 in New Hampshire, according to her campaign. "There used to be an old adage back in the days when I was managing New Hampshire. It was 'organize, organize, organize' and get hot at the end," said Democratic operative Mark Longabaugh, who previously worked for Sanders. "So I think they're pursuing a version of that strategy with the modern communications techniques that we have now." Warren is hardly the only 2020 contender showering time and attention on key states. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has strong teams on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Others, such as Harris, are in the process of strengthening their early-state presence. And both Sanders and newcomer Beto O'Rourke are expected to aggressively court early-state voters. Warren backers like Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III argue that she has proven doubters wrong since she first challenged Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. "It's a matter, candidly, of the fact that we're almost a year away from the election," Kennedy said, "much like in Sen. Warren's first race where there was a bunch of hand-wringing and bunch of concerns about whether she was going to be up for the task of taking on a very popular Republican incumbent." Kennedy continued: "I kept telling people: 'Just wait. Wait and watch.'" Former Texas Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest-ever member of the U.S. House and a man who claimed to have once sold cigarettes and Coca-Cola to the bank-robbing duo of Bonnie and Clyde, has died at age 95. The Republican and World War II pilot died at his home in Rockwall on Thursday morning, said Ed Valentine, Hall's longtime strategist. Asked about a cause of death, Valentine simply cited Hall's age, saying he hadn't been suffering from any known long term ailments. Former Rep. Ralph Hall, a political survivor whose career mirrored the massive partisan shift that marked the last 50 years of Texas politics and made him the oldest person to ever serve in the U.S. House, died Thursday. He was 95. Hall was 91 when he left the House, after being defeated in a 2014 Republican primary runoff election by John Ratcliffe. The former U.S. attorney was less than half Hall's age and well-schooled in digital and data-heavy campaigning. Hall won the 2012 Republican primary despite a tea party challenge. But he lost in a primary upset in 2014 to John Ratcliffe. On the night he lost, Hall said he'd wasn't quitting. "I am not going to retire and I'm sure not going to quit. I have a job until the 31st day of December. How many other 91-year-old men can say that," Hall said. Ratcliffe, after learning of Hall's death, released the following statement Thursday afternoon. An avid jogger who began his days with 2-mile runs, Hall marked Memorial Day 2012 -- when he was 89 -- by skydiving to honor American service members. That Christmas he became the oldest member of Congress' lower chamber, breaking the record set by North Carolina Rep. Charles Manly Stedman, who died in office when he was 89 years, 7 months and 25 days old. "I'm just an old guy -- lived pretty clean," Hall said just after breaking the record. "I have no ailments. I don't hurt anywhere. I may run again. I'll just wait and see." Getting ousted by his own party in 2014 came a decade after Hall became a Republican as Texas moved farther to the right. Hall served 12 terms in Congress as a Democrat but announced in January 2004 that he'd made the switch, backed by his friend, George W. Bush, who released the following statement early Thursday afternoon: Hall, who flew Hellcat fighters during World War II, was known in Congress for promoting NASA and energy production. Hailing from the town of Rockwall, east of Dallas, he was fond of saying that he voted with his party often but always voted with his district. But he was probably most popular for mailing or personally dolling out pennies fitted with a special silver band bearing his name. Only three U.S. senators were older than Hall while still serving in Congress: South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond, who was 100 when he retired in 2003; Democrat Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island, who left the Senate at age 93; and West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, who died in office in 2010 at age 92. Hall stuck to retail politicking, preferring to greet voters personally rather than organize formal campaign stops, and was ever quick with a joke or a story. That was enough to retain his House seat in 2012, when he bested tea party primary opponent Steve Clark. The telecommunications executive spent around $100,000 of his own money on the failed campaign that was also supported by grassroots groups targeting incumbents. But in 2014, Ratcliffe painted his opponent as a do-little Washington insider. He noted that Hall had represented the district so long that he had an airport, lake and highway named after him. Ratcliffe also used targeted data to bring that message to likely Republican voters. Hall tried to modernize with the times, joining Twitter in 2013 and marking former President Ronald Reagan's 102nd birthday with his first Tweet. But that proved no match for Ratcliffe, who ran unopposed in the deeply red district in November 2014 general election. Ralph Moody Hall was born on May 3, 1923, in Fate, Texas. He attended Texas Christian University and the University of Texas, before earning a law degree at Southern Methodist University in 1951. While working in a pharmacy in his hometown as a boy, Hall said then-fugitives Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker used curb-side service. Hall said they bought "two cartons of Old Golds, two Coca-Colas and all the newspapers we had." "He was a funny looking little guy. She was acceptable looking," Hall said in 2014. "I saw them. But I don't think it's that unusual. They were a lot of places." [NATL] In Memoriam: Influential People We've Lost in 2019 Like his father, Hall worked in the energy sector, helping run bulldozers during the construction of a pipeline before joining the Navy at age 19. He married Mary Ellen Murphy in November 1944, while serving in Pensacola, Florida. The couple had three sons: Hampton, Brett and Blakeley. After World War II, Hall returned to practice law in Rockwall County, where he served as a judge from 1950 to 1962. He was elected the following year to the Texas Senate. He ran unsuccessfully in the 1972 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor and left the chamber the following January. Hall was president and chief executive officer of Texas Aluminum Corp. and general counsel of Texas Extrusion Co. Inc. He was a counsel for the aircraft parts maker Howmet Corporation from 1970 to 1974. Winning a U.S. House seat in 1980, Hall came to Washington just as Ronald Reagan's presidency began. Hall was among the Democratic conservatives who sided with Reagan on key budget issues, favoring efforts to reduce federal spending. He voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement and was an original co-sponsor of bills to repeal the estate tax and the marriage tax penalty. Hall also supported a resolution allowing America's use of force in Iraq, and voted "present" in January 2003 rather than vote for Nancy Pelosi in her bid for minority leader. Two months later, he voted for a budget that included Bush's 10-year, $726 billion tax-cut plan. After becoming a Republican, Hall leaned heavily on Bush, a former Texas governor, and got strong White House backing in 2004's three-way GOP primary, winning 77 percent of the vote. In 2009, he opposed the federal bailout of the financial industry and the economic stimulus package, and was a harsh critic of federal health care reform when it was debated and ultimately approved by Congress in 2010. Two years later, Hall was appointed chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. That October, when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed easing pollution restrictions that had angered several states, Hall said EPA's revision proved its rules were not based on sound science. "As we have seen in Texas and throughout the United States, pursing an EPA-knows-best approach to compliance will unquestionably result in increased unemployment, power plant shutdowns and more expensive, less reliable energy," he said. After the primary defeat to Ratcliffe, Hall injured his hip in car crash, and his recovery kept him away from Washington for much of the remainder of a term that formally ended in 2015. Hall is survived by his three children. His wife died in 2008 at age 83, after 63 years of marriage. They are an incredible natural resource that belongs to many millions of Americans and Canadians, he said. The Asian carp threat is coming from outside the Great Lakes and other invasive species swam in from the Atlantic or come in on international freighters. Many of the water pollution problems came from runoff from air pollution all over the country. Ulmen said some of the city firefighters will assist in interviews of new personnel. Were looking at June to be transitioned over, Ulmen said. The new hires will staff the airport 24 hours a day and be considered AvPORTS employees. Breast cancer survivors like many other cancer survivors live in fear of relapse of their cancer after they have been in remission. Researchers have now developed a tool by which they can predict accurately the time when the cancer is likely to return. The results of this study were published in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Dividing breast cancer cell. Image Credit: Shutterstock The new test is one of the firsts of its kind that can predict the return of the cancer within two decades of remission. The researchers explain that there are 11 types of breast cancer and all of them have a different risk of returning or relapsing. The test would soon determine which of the women need to worry the least about their cancer returning and which women have a high risk of getting a relapse of their cancers. This prediction comes from the genetic make-up of the tumours, the team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and Stanford University explain. The team used genetic make-up from the tumours of nearly 2,000 breast cancer patients and followed them for a period of an average of 14 years. They are at present working on simplifying the test so that doctors can use the test easily on their patients. The simpler and easier-to-use version may be available for use within the next five years say the researchers. According to a statement from Professor Carlos Caldas, lead researcher at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, Treatments for breast cancer have improved dramatically in recent years. But unfortunately for some women, their breast cancer returns and spreads, becoming incurable. For some, this can be many years later - but it's been impossible to accurately predict who is at risk of recurrence and who is all clear. In this study, we've delved deeper into breast cancer molecular subtypes so we can more accurately identify who might be at risk of relapsing and uncover new ways of treating them. Dr Oscar Rueda, lead author of the paper said, Weve shown that the molecular nature of a womans breast cancer determines how their disease could progress, not just for the first five years, but also later. We hope that our research tool can be turned into a test doctors can easily use to guide treatment recommendations. At present tumour size, aggressiveness, age of the patient and tumour type is used to predict its relapse. The researchers explain that using the genetic make-up may be a more precise method. They noted that one of the deadliest types of breast cancer is the triple negative cancer. However if the patient survives the first five years after diagnosis and treatment, their cancer return risk is small. Some cancers on the other hand have a genetic picture that makes their return within 20 years a 50 percent likelihood. There are eight types of the estrogen receptor positive cancer. Of these four have a good chance of not recurring within 20 years while the other four have a high risk of relapsing (40 to 62 percent chance). Triple negative cancer also has a greater chance of spreading to the brain while estrogen receptor positive cancer and HER2-negative cancer has a greater chance of spreading to the bone, the team writes. Professor Karen Vousden, chief scientist for Cancer Research UK, in a statement said, One in seven women will get breast cancer in their lifetime in the UK, and we hope that research like this will mean that if faced with the disease, even more of our daughters and granddaughters will survive. She added, We're still a way off being able to offer this type of detailed molecular testing to all women and we need more research to understand how we can tailor treatments to a patient's individual tumour biology. But this is incredibly encouraging progress. The researchers are planning a larger study with around 12000 women to establish their hypotheses and make the test a reality. Prof Caldas said, I would not recommend it clinically yet, but we really are committed to making this available. We are totally committed to having an NHS test, we haven't patented any of this. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1007-8 Powerful gene editing tools could soon face a global regulations on their use on human embryos, sperms or eggs. There have been instances of outrageous use of these powerful tools on modifying the DNA of sperm, eggs or embryos that would go on to become live human beings by rogue and unethical researchers. This call for stricter regulations comes in the wake of such instances. The leading researchers have said that they wish to put a stop to any such ongoing research and also mandate all nations to register and declare any such experiments being conducted. An international body speculated to be run by the World Health Organisation (WHO) may soon be created to look at all such research activities. They have also said that broad public support would be necessary before any such research could be undertaken. Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a statement said, What we want to see are wise and open decisions. We want to make sure that countries dont do things secretly, that we declare what were thinking, discuss it openly, and be prepared for debate and disagreement. Lander was a co-chairperson of Barack Obamas council of advisors on science and technology. He is joined by 16 other researchers. The team writes in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Two of the researchers on the team were Emmanuelle Charpentier and Feng Zhang who were also part of the team that created the powerful gene editing tool called the CRISPR/cas9. 3D Rendering Crispr DNA Editing. Image Credit: Nathan Devery / Shutterstock A few months back a Chinese researcher He Jiankui had announced the result of his experiment to rewrite the DNA of twin baby girls embryos that made them resistant to HIV. He had disabled the CCR5 gene to provide a natural protection against the virus. The babies Lulu and Nana were born healthy after which the announcement was made. There was a global outrage after the announcement with He being removed from his position at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen. He was criticized for his unethical experiment. There are a substantial number of experts who believe that tools like CRISPR could help in the treatment of genetic medical conditions such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and some forms of genetic blindness etc. It could be used for germline editing of the DNA and also knowledge and screening of the donor eggs, sperms or embryos. However a large number of researchers believe that we know little about the multiple effects of genetic alterations and genetic editing may not be understood as of now as 100 percent safe. The team writes, Although techniques have improved in the past several years, germline editing is not yet safe or effective enough to justify any use in the clinic. There is wide agreement in the scientific community that, for clinical germline editing, the risk of failing to make the desired change or of introducing unintended mutations (off-target effects) is still unacceptably high. US National Institute of Health has backed this effort and said so in a statement. We have to make the clearest possible statement that this is a path we are not ready to go down, not now, and potentially not ever, said NIH director, Francis Collins. In an accompanying letter to Nature, the Royal Society, the US National Academies of Science and the US National Academy of Medicine also said that they had similar concerns regarding gene editing. Collins said, The Royal Society has been particularly reluctant to go down this path because of a concern that it might in some way slow down research that ultimately could be valuable, speaking of their reluctance to call for the moratorium. He added, They risk being seen as self-serving, as scientists who want to do science and dont want to have others say: No, for now, you shouldnt. We have not had the beginnings of a serious discussion about going down this path of modifying our own instruction book. Of all the things that science has made possible in the past several decades that would have massive consequences for humanity, this has to be top of the list. Lander added in explanation, In this case, random bad actors will not ruin the world, the choices that nations make are whats important. Were trying to plan the world were going to leave for our children. Is it a world where were deeply thoughtful about medical applications, and were using it in serious cases, or is it a world where we just have rampant commercial competition? The researchers write, We recognize that a moratorium is not without cost. Although each nation might decide to proceed with any particular application, the obligation to explain to the world why it thinks its decision is appropriate will take time and effort. Certainly, the framework we are calling for will place major speed bumps in front of the most adventurous plans to re-engineer the human species. But the risks of the alternative which include harming patients and eroding public trust are much worse. Severely ill patients with advanced heart failure who received a novel heart pumpthe HeartMate 3 left ventricular assist device (LVAD) suffered significantly fewer strokes, pump-related blood clots and bleeding episodes after two years, compared with similar patients who received an older, more established pump, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Session. Based on these final findings, the HeartMate 3 LVAD should now be considered the standard of care for patients with advanced heart failure who do not respond to guideline-directed medical therapy, said Mandeep R. Mehra, MD, medical director of the Heart and Vascular Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and lead author of the study. "These final results from what is by far the largest LVAD trial ever conducted demonstrate the clinical superiority of the HeartMate 3 compared with its predecessor, the HeartMate II," Mehra said. "We have shown a decrease in adverse events that uniquely occur due to the interface between the patient and the mechanical pump. These include a consistent and reliable reduction in strokes of all kinds and severity with the HeartMate 3 but also a remarkable reduction in the rate of pump-related blood clots and significant reductions in all types of bleeding, especially gastrointestinal bleeding. In addition to having significantly lower rates of adverse events, patients who received the HeartMate 3 had a lower rate of readmission to the hospital and spent fewer days in the hospital when they were readmitted." The HeartMate 3 is the first implantable mechanical heart pump to use fully magnetic levitation technologywhich makes the pump frictionless without mechanical bearingsto push blood through the device and into the aorta, the body's central artery. In advanced heart failure, the heart's main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, is too weak to pump oxygen-rich blood from the lungs throughout the body. An LVAD is designed to supplement the pumping ability of the weakened heart in late-stage heart failure. It is implanted in the left ventricle of the heart and then attached to the aorta, the main artery that sends blood to the rest of the body. The device is anchored to and powered by an external battery pack worn by the patient. The trial, known as MOMENTUM-3, enrolled 1,028 patients at 69 centers in the U.S. Patients' median age was 60 years and 78 percent were men. All had severe heart failure that left them unable to engage in usual physical activity without discomfort. Most had symptoms of fatigue or shortness of breath even when resting. Most (85 percent) were receiving intravenous heart failure medication because pills alone no longer worked or caused intolerable adverse effects. Some patients in the study needed an LVAD to sustain them until they were able to receive a heart transplant. Others, because of age or other health problems, were not candidates for a transplant and relied on an LVAD as lifelong therapy. Patients were randomly assigned to have either a HeartMate 3 or a HeartMate II surgically implanted. All patients received blood-thinning medications following surgery and were also taking 81 to 325 mg of aspirin daily. The trial was designed to include two pre-specified interim analyses and then a final analysis. The first interim analysis reported six-month outcomes in the first 294 patients and the second analyzed two-year outcomes for the first 366 patients enrolled; this data was presented at ACC's 2018 Annual Scientific Session. The primary endpoint for the final analysis was survival at two years free of disabling stroke or reoperation to replace or remove a malfunctioning device. The principal secondary endpoint was the rate of device replacement at two years. At two years, 74.7 percent of patients who received the HeartMate 3 met the primary endpoint, compared with 60.6 percent of those who received the HeartMate II, a 40 percent reduction in risk favoring the HeartMate 3. The rate of pump replacement at two years was 2.3 percent for patients receiving the HeartMate 3 and 11.3 percent for those who received the HeartMate II. Pump clotting occurred in 1.4 percent of HeartMate 3 patients compared with 13.9 percent of HeartMate II patients. Five percent of HeartMate 3 patients experienced a disabling stroke compared with 7.5 percent of HeartMate II patients. Significantly fewer HeartMate 3 patients experienced episodes of any type of bleeding (43.7 percent) or gastrointestinal bleeding (24.5 percent) compared with HeartMate II patients (55 percent for any type of bleeding, 30.9 percent for gastrointestinal bleeding). HeartMate 3 patients spent more days on LVAD support outside of hospital (a median of 48 more days in the Heartmate 3) and spent fewer days in the hospital after being readmitted (a median of 13 days, compared with a median of 18 days for HeartMate II patients). Patients continued to be at increased risk for infections at two years of follow-up, Mehra said. He said that he and his colleagues are engaging with infectious disease experts to try to find ways of reducing susceptibility to infection in patients with advanced heart failure. The research team plans to continue to follow the MOMENTUM-3 patients for at least another three years to monitor their long-term survival. Additionally, they are developing a new trial that will examine how to optimize medical therapy for patients with advanced heart failurefor example, whether bleeding episodes might be further reduced by discontinuing daily aspirin or switching from the traditional blood thinner warfarin to newer blood-thinning medications. The HeartMate 3 received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August 2017 for short-term use in patients awaiting a heart transplant and in October 2018 for long-term use in patients who are not candidates for a heart transplant. Patients with an infection of the inner lining on the left side of the heart (endocarditis) who were switched from intravenous to oral antibiotic therapy had better long-term survival and fewer complications than similar patients who remained on conventional intravenous antibiotic therapy, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Session. While initial six-month data had shown that partial treatment with oral antibiotics was similar in efficacy and safety to conventional intravenous therapy for left-sided infectious endocarditis, longer follow-up (median of 3.5 years) demonstrates this therapeutic approach is better for patients, said Henning Bundgaard, MD, PhD, DMSc, professor of cardiology at the Heart Center at the National University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the study's lead author. "In stabilized patients with left-sided infectious endocarditis, a switch from intravenous to oral antibiotic therapy showed superior efficacy and safety compared with continued intravenous treatment," he said. "These findings clearly support a change in the standard of care for this condition." People with pre-existing heart valve disease, previous endocarditis, prosthetic heart valves or other implanted cardiac devices have an elevated risk for infectious endocarditis. The condition most often occurs on the left side of the heart in the mitral or aortic valve. Men are diagnosed with infectious endocarditis about twice as often as women. The current study, known as POET, is the largest randomized trial of patients with infectious endocarditis, and was designed to test whether oral antibiotic therapy for left-sided infectious endocarditis was at least as effective and safe as intravenous treatment. Clinical guidelines from several professional organizations currently recommend treating left-sided infectious endocarditis with intravenous antibiotics for up to six weeks. During the initial treatment phase, patients often need intensive care and close monitoring. Because intravenous antibiotics are logistically difficult to administer outside of a hospital, most patients remain in the hospital for the duration of their treatment. Studies have suggested that intravenous treatment during long hospital stays may put patients at increased risk for complications. Oral antibiotics would allow patients to leave the hospital sooner and complete their treatment at home. Studies in other conditions have shown that patients with shorter hospital stays generally had better outcomes. A total of 400 patients (average age 67 years; 77 percent male) with left-sided infectious endocarditis were enrolled in the study. Study participants had to be in stable condition and to have had a satisfactory response to at least 10 days of intravenous antibiotic treatment before randomization. They were then randomly assigned to either continue with intravenous antibiotics or switch to oral treatment for an average of 17 days after they were diagnosed. Intravenously-treated patients remained in the hospital until they completed antibiotic therapy. Patients who switched to oral treatment were discharged from the hospital a median of three days after making the switch. The study's primary endpoint was a composite of death from any cause, unplanned cardiac surgery, embolic events (e.g., stroke) and relapse of infection with the same pathogen from the time of randomization until the end of follow-up. After a median of 3.5 years of follow-up, 53 patients (26.4 percent) in the group receiving partial oral treatment had a primary-endpoint event, compared with 76 patients (38.2 percent) in the intravenously treated group, a statistically significant difference. Eighty-seven patients died; of these, 54 (27.1 percent) were treated intravenously and 33 (16.4 percent) were treated with oral medications, a significant difference. No significant differences in outcome were seen for relapse of infection, unplanned cardiac surgery or embolic events. The magnitude of the difference between the two groups is sufficient to conclude that oral treatment is superior to intravenous treatment, Bundgaard said. Only patients with left-sided infectious endocarditis caused by certain bacterial species were enrolled in the trial, Bundgaard said, and the results may not apply to the approximately 25 percent of patients whose conditions are caused by other bacteria. In addition, although patients with antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not excluded from the trial, none were enrolled. Bundgaard and his colleagues plan to conduct additional analyses to compare quality of life and treatment costs in the groups receiving intravenous and partial oral treatment. How does the immune system respond to fungi on our skin? Researchers at the University of Zurich have demonstrated that the same immune cells that protect us against skin fungi also encourage the inflammatory symptoms of atopic dermatitis. An antibody therapy could alleviate this chronic inflammatory skin disease. The skin of humans and animals is densely populated by fungi. It is suspected that a small yeast species called Malassezia, which besides bacteria and viruses is part of the microflora of healthy skin, strengthens the body's defenses and prepares the immune system for dangerous pathogens - much like certain bacteria do. Unlike with the bacteria, however, little has so far been known about the physiological processes that keep the ubiquitous fungus in check. Immunologists at the University of Zurich have now shown that our immune system is responsible for maintaining the balance on our skin. The researchers were able to demonstrate that, in mice as well as in humans, Malassezia fungi stimulate the immune system to produce the cytokine interleukin-17. "If this cytokine isn't released or if the immune cells that produce interleukin-17 are missing, there is nothing to stop the fungus from growing and infesting the skin," explains Salome LeibundGut-Landmann, professor of immunology and head of the immunology section at the Vetsuisse Faculty of UZH. Fungus can encourage skin allergy But what happens when the balance between the fungus and the immune system on the surface of our body is lost? There is some evidence that the usually harmless Malassezia fungus plays a role when it comes to atopic dermatitis. In this chronic inflammatory skin allergy, which affects up to 20 percent of children and 10 percent of adults, the immune system overreacts to antigens from the environment, for example house dust mites. This can lead to eczema, which is characterized by dry, inflamed and itching skin lesions, typically on the neck, forearms and legs. It is also one of the most common skin diseases in dogs. The current study confirms that interleukin-17 production by certain immune cells, which normally provide protection against uncontrolled fungal growth on the skin, also contribute to the development of symptoms characteristic for atopic dermatitis. The fungus becomes an allergen on the skin, so to speak, and triggers an overreaction of the immune system with the respective inflammatory characteristics. This finding is supported by experiments with cells from atopic dermatitis patients carried out in cooperation with the University Hospital Zurich and ETH Zurich. Treatment with therapeutic antibodies "The findings of our study suggest that therapeutic antibodies that neutralize the effect of interleukin-17 could be an effective treatment for atopic dermatitis. These antibodies already exist and are being used to treat psoriasis with great success," says LeibundGut-Landmann. However, it remains to be studied why the immune response against the Malassezia fungus can become pathological and why the normally protective mechanisms break down in atopic dermatitis patients. A University of Texas at Arlington College of Nursing and Health Innovation professor will use a series of grants totaling approximately $6.575 million during the next five years to attack a variety of debilitating musculoskeletal diseases. Marco Brotto--the George W. and Hazel M. Jay Professor in the college, and an internationally renowned scientist and an expert in bone, muscle physiology and sarcopenia--recently obtained renewal for two grants, and funding for three new grants from the National Institutes of Health. These awards will further his work in tackling sarcopenia and osteoporosis, and support his new work on diabetic skeletal muscle disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Sarcopenia, the progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass and muscle strength, is prevalent in the aging population and affects 30 to 45 percent of people over the age of 60. It contributes to debilitating injuries, loss of independence, reduced quality of life in the elderly and more than $40 billion in health care costs in the United States alone, according to Brotto. Musculoskeletal diseases affect more than one in two adults and run up health care expenses of about $1 trillion around the world annually, Brotto said. "Our view of aging is changing as we live longer," said Brotto, who heads the college's Bone-Muscle Research Center. "Who would want to live longer and be sick, full of chronic disorders? Aging affects the human musculoskeletal, or MSK, system, causing an array of problems from premature deaths to serious disabilities," Brotto said. "Our studies over the next five years aim to advance discovery of how aging leads to osteoporosis, sarcopenia, diabetes, etc. This knowledge will translate into new diagnostics and treatments for MSK disorders and aging decline in MSK function." Paul Fadel, the college's associate dean for research, said the outcome of Brotto's work could lead to significant living improvements for the elderly and ultimately for all people. "With 10,000 people turning 65 each day, it is incumbent to seek solutions that further advance health and the quality of life for this population," Fadel said. "These studies will help us take gigantic steps in achieving that. As you age, your risk for falls increases because you're losing strength and balance. And this increases your risk for fractures, which can be very debilitating. Dr. Brotto and his team are tackling these problems from a variety of important angles." Elizabeth Merwin, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, said, "These grants are a boon for the college, for UTA and for health care. These studies are potentially transformative. The outcome of the work of Dr. Brotto and his team of fellow researchers could significantly enhance the quality of life of the elderly." Following are snapshots of the five NIH grants: Bone-Muscle Crosstalk: bone cells regulation of skeletal muscle function--This grant is part of a special NIH mechanism called Program Project Grant, or PPG, involving four principal Investigators, or PIs, at Indiana University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and UTA. Brotto is the PI of Project 2 of this PPG. He will use this $1.89 million grant to determine how bone cells can influence and change the function of muscles by releasing hormone-like molecules. Brotto has discovered that this process is altered with aging. Regulation of store-operated calcium entry during muscle aging:--Brotto will use this $1.97 million grant to examine the mechanisms that contribute to the loss of strength in muscle during aging and determine if regulating certain proteins can improve the function of aged skeletal muscles. He is collaborating with Professor Noah Weisleder at Ohio State University. Loss of a protein in muscle dysfunction in aging--With this $1 million grant, Brotto and his team will work with Christopher Cardozo, a professor at the Icahn School of School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to investigate the role of a protein called "numb" in muscle function and weakness with aging. He believes the knowledge is likely to increase understanding of the causes of muscle weakness. "It could lead to treatments to prevent and mitigate weakness and frailty in the elderly," Brotto said. Protecting the diabetic skeletal muscle by Nampt activation--The major objective of this $965,000 grant is to develop Nampt, or protein gene activators, to protect skeletal muscles from diabetes. "Diabetes is a metabolic disease associated with skeletal muscle injury," Brotto said. "This research project will generate high-impact pharmacological data through the discovery of new agents and develop molecular insights into preventing muscle injury in diabetes." Brotto is collaborating with Srinivas Tipparaju, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida. Alleviating the progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS--Research shows that muscles appear to be primary targets as the ALS gene mutates. This is the primary research topic of Jingsong Zhou, UTA professor of kinesiology and associate director of the Bone-Muscle Research Center. In collaboration with the Zhou team, Brotto and his team plan to use this $750,000 grant to develop alternative therapeutic strategies for combatting ALS. A man eats a part of an Uromastyx lizard, also known as a dabb lizard, in a desert near Tabuk. The lizards, which are considered a delicacy in some parts of the Middle East, are caught in the spring season using hooks and sniffer dogs as well as bare hands. The lizards can be grilled or eaten raw, and according to popular belief, their blood is used to strengthen the body and treat diseases. (Image: Reuters) In the end, I feel positive that the truth will eventually prevail and that the voters of this county will understand what is really going on with these public attacks, he wrote. But until that time I arrives, I do realize I can no longer be effective. I therefore wish you good luck but choose to resign instanter (sic) and request your filing of this document in your official records pursuant to current election law. Now that the real truth has come out about the liberal elites buying their kids way into top spots in universities, once again the writers of Quickly will either shut the conversation down and not talk about it at all, or they will blame it on President Trump like a good coward should. Trump supporters are the backbone of this country, and you liberal snowflakes are what's destroying it cheating on every turn of the road, and trying to erase history with your loose lips. Wonder Woman "Trial of the Amazons" crossover to elevate Themiscyra to Gotham City and Metropolis status Three of the masterminds behind DC's upcoming Woman Woman Trial of the Amazons crossover open up about what to expect Sorry! This content is not available in your region Why are you running for office? I believe that one of the keys to success of the best school districts is the active participation in and support of the local community. It has been an honor to serve my district over the past four years. If re-elected, I will be the second longest serving member of the Board of Education. Thus, I bring continuity of experience to the Board. During my first term, I have demonstrated passion and commitment to the district. I currently serve on the Finance Committee and have also served on the Strategic Plan and Communication Committees. I hope I will have the opportunity to continue working with my fellow Board members to focus on our students and faculty while ensuring the best use of our taxpayers resources. We knew we were doomed right from the start when they were not willing to re-think their plan after hearing comments from those in the cheap seats, said Scott, referring to suggestions business owners like himself shared with officials prior to the approval of the plan last month. New Delhi: The IDBI Bank's proposal for changing its name has not found any favour from the Reserve Bank of India, sources said. The board of IDBI Bank last month proposed change in the name of the lender to either LIC IDBI Bank or LIC Bank, following its takeover by Life Insurance Corporation. According to the sources, the RBI is not in favour of changing the name of IDBI Bank. The board had proposed LIC IDBI Bank Ltd as the first preference followed by LIC Bank Ltd. Besides the RBI, change of name requires clearance from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, shareholders, stock exchanges, among others. In January, the insurance behemoth LIC completed the acquisition of 51 per cent controlling stake in IDBI Bank, marking the entry of more than 60 years old state-owned insurer into the banking space. In August last year, the Cabinet approved the acquisition of controlling stake by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) as a promoter in the bank through a combination of preferential allotment and open offer of equity. LIC had been looking to enter the banking space by acquiring a majority stake in IDBI Bank, as the deal is expected to provide business synergies despite the lender's stressed balance sheet. For the third quarter ended December, 2018, IDBI Bank posted widening of loss by nearly threefold to Rs 4,185.48 crore as bad loans surged. The bank had reported a net loss of Rs 1,524.31 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Total income decreased to Rs 6,190.94 crore for the quarter, compared to Rs 7,125.20 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. The Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau hosted the "Charming Beijing" tourism promotion event in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, on March 11. Through activities such as sand paintings and a photo exhibition, the event helped to display the cultural attractions of China. Travel agencies from both sides also had talks about possible cooperation. The head of the Budapest Festival and Tourism Center said that Hungary has rich tourism resources, and Budapest is a worldwide popular city in particular for tourists and enjoys great reputation in China. Also, Budapest is where China set up its first tourism office in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2017, the number of tourists between the two countries reached 250,000, an increase of 32 percent from 2016. The head said a stronger cooperation between Hungary and China would bring about mutual benefits, adding that more communication will be expected in the future. Moreover, Hungary would continue to provide Chinese tourists with even more convenient services and better experiences. Shi Anping, an official of the Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau, said that with the Belt and Road Initiative, China and Hungary witnessed the greatest bilateral relationship in history, and had achieved a lot in terms of cultural and travel cooperation. This year, the two countries would celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, and the potential for the cooperation on culture was yet to be fully unleashed. He said he hopes that more Hungarians would visit Beijing to experience its attractions. After the event, representatives of the Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau spoke with a number of travel agencies in Budapest that expressed willingness to participate in the international program to promote Beijing. The bureau said it wanted to develop and foster cooperation with foreign partners, which in turn would encourage more outbound tourists from Eastern Europe to visit China. In recent years, the Beijing Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau has actively pursued a regular cooperation mechanism to foster and expand foreign partnership. To realize this, it has studied on the trends of international tourist spending, explored the characteristics and preferences of outbound tourists, and invited foreign partners to design China tours together so as to make them more attractive. In addition, a photo exhibition titled "Charming Beijing" was held in Budapest's Confucius Institute. There were altogether 40 carefully selected photos, showing Beijing as an ancient capital, as well as a modern metropolis. New Delhi: The Goa Board HSSC or Class 12 examinations scheduled for Monday, March 18, has been postponed due to untimely demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. The Goa Board HSSC Exam, which started on February 28 for class 12 students, was scheduled to end on March 26. Going by the Goa Board HSSC Exam time table, the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (GBSHSE) was scheduled to conduct the Banking(601), Logic(552), Computer Science(705), and Co-operation(651) examinations on March 18. The exam will now be rescheduled to March 27. The other examinations of the schedule would continue as per the time table. With the Government of India announcing national mourning on Monday, authorities have decided to postpone all the examinations scheduled for the day. Also, holiday has been announced for all the colleges, schools and government offices in the state today. A Home Ministry spokesperson said the national flag will fly at half-mast in the national capital, the union territories and the state capitals. A meeting of the Union Cabinet will be held on Monday at 10 am and state funeral will be accorded to Parrikar. Parrikar, 63, breathed his last at his private residence at Dona Paula near Panaji, after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer, on Saturday evening. Meanwhile, for more details the candidates are advised to keep a tab on the official website of the GBSHSE that is www.gbshse.org. New Delhi: We have some important news for the candidates who have appeared for UPPSC LT Grade Assistant Teacher 2018-19 written exam, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has announced the results on Monday. The candidates who appeared for the examination can now check their result on UPPSEs official website, uppsc.up.nic.in. Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) examination was held to fill up 10,768 posts of Assistant Teachers, out of which 5,404 posts were reserved for women. However, it is to be noted that the written exam for LT Grade Assistant Teacher was held on July 29, 2018 across 1760 centres in 39 centres of Allahabad. For the convenience of the students, we have mentioned the process through which the candidates can check the results: Step 1: Visit the official website of UPPSE i.e. uppsc.up.nic.in Step 2: On the homepage, click on the Result Link available on official website. Step 3: Fill your credentials and submit Step 4: Your result will appear. Step 5: Take print out of your result for future reference. New Delhi: A day after the Congress announced it will leave seven seats for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh, BSP supremo Mayawati on Monday said that the former was free to contest on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Launching a scathing attack on the Congress, Mayawati said: Congress party is absolutely free to contest on all 80 seats independently in UP. Our alliance formed here (with SP) is strong enough to defeat BJP. Congress must not spread wrong impression by leaving seven seats vacant in UP for SP, BSP and RLD. Soon after, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav backed her remarks, saying that the SP-BSp-RLD alliance is capable of defeating the Congress. "SP-BSP- RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh is capable of defeating BJP. Congress should not create any confusion," he tweeted. To woo allies in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, the Congress on Sunday announced that it will leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven seats for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in the state. Apart from this, the grand old party of India also announced that it will leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party. "The Congress is leaving seven Lok Sabha seats in the state for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance. These include Mainpuri, Kannauj and Firozabad. Apart from this, the party will not field any candidate on seats from where BSP chief Mayawati, RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary are likely to contest or may contest," said Raj Babbar. "The alliance has left the seats of Rae Bareli (held by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi) and Amethi (held by Congress president Rahul Gandhi). In a reciprocating gesture, we are leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for them," he added. In January this year, the BSP and SP had announced their alliance for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, while elbowing out the Congress. Later, the Grand Old Party forged alliances with smaller parties like Mahan Dal and Jan Adhikar Party. New Delhi: With Lok Sabha elections less than a month away, the clamour demanding Rahul Gandhi to contest from Karnataka has started getting louder. However, it is believed that the Congress chief is unlikely to leave his bastion Amethi. In a letter to Rahul Gandhi, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundo Rao invited the former to contest the upcoming general elections from Karnataka. The Karnataka Congress Committee takes pride to invite you to kindly contest from Karnataka in the coming Lok Sabha election. Our state has stood by the Congress party whenever we were in troubled times. The present scenario in India is that out party will emerge stronger in the ensuing elections, the letter read. The letter comes amid reports about pressure within the Congress for Rahul Gandhi to contest from one of the seats in south India. Earlier, Rao had reiterated the demand through a tweet which said: On behalf of @INCKarnataka I urge @RahulGandhi to consider contesting from Karnataka for the forthcoming #LokSabhaElection2019. He should also be our representative from South India & for that he should choose my state.#RaGaFromKarnataka (sic). Mondays letter further emphasised over the fact that the state has in the past sent both his grandmother and mother to the Parliament. Karnataka by winning the Lok Sabha bypolls in 1978, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi had contested and won from Ballari in 1999, trouncing the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Sushma Swaraj. Interestingly, the Congress has ceded the Chikkamagaluru seat to its alliance partner Janata Dal (Secular) this time, while Ballari remains with the grand old party. Last week, former chief minister Siddaramaiah had also said that the Karnataka Congress wants Rahul to contest the coming Lok Sabha polls from the southern state. Calling Gandhi the "next Prime Minister of India", the Congress Legislature Party leader recalled his grandmother Indira Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Karnataka in the past. "Karnataka has always supported & encouraged @INCIndia leaders. It has been proved in case of Smt. Indira ji & Smt. Sonia ji. We also want our next Prime Minister of India Shri. @RahulGandhi to contest from Karnataka & herald new developmental paradigm. #RaGaFromKarnataka," Siddaramaiah said in a tweet. New Delhi: National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah will be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency in Jammu and Kashmir, a party spokesperson said on Monday. The decision was made unanimously by all the party members at the Parliamentary board meet in Srinagar this evening. The party has also decided to field senior leader and former speaker Muhammad Akbar Lone from Baramulla Parliamentary Seat in Jammu and Kashmir. The parliamentary board members were also unanimously of the opinion that the party should contest at all the six parliamentary constituencies. However, the names of the candidates for other Lok Sabha constituencies will be finalised in the next meeting. The crucial board meet, which took place at party head quarters Nawa- e -Subha, Srinagar, was chaired by Abdullah himself. In what could be seen as a possible opportunity for a tie-up, the board has authourised the president to take a call on coalition with secular forces taking into account the "national political" situation. Meanwhile, representatives of various political parties have been reiterating the demand for holding Assembly elections and Lok Sabha polls simultaneously in Jammu and Kashmir. While announcing the Lok Sabha elections schedule on March 10, the poll panel said that the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir cannot be held simultaneously due to security concerns flagged by the Centre. Since the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has been dissolved in December last year, the Election Commision is bound to hold fresh polls there as well within a six-month period, which will end in May. The state has been under President's rule since December 19, 2018, which was necessitated following a spat in the ruling PDP-BJP coalition. The seven-phase Lok Sabha Election is scheduled to take place between April 11 and May 19 while the counting of votes will be held on May 23. New Delhi: Vivek Anand Oberoi's 9 looks from the film PM Narendra Modi is now out! These different looks depict the phases, struggles, and passion of this common man. This film will traverse the journey of Narendra Damodardas Modi from his humble beginnings to becoming the Prime Minister of India. This film is a story of 1.3 billion people. Source says, "Highly dedicated actor Vivek Anand Oberoi gets up 2.30am in the morning each day goes under the process of 7 to 8 hours make up and is on the set by 8 am ready to shoot. Due to prosthetics, the actor can only consume liquids throughout the duration of the shoot (in a day)." "On the sets of the film, Mr. Oberoi's transformation was so complete that he behaved like the character even when the camera was not on. So startling and complete was his physical and emotional transformation that members of the unit were taken aback," the source added. Talking about the actor producer Sandip Singh said, "I wanted a versatile actor to play this role, Vivek made an unconventional debut with Company and also gave Saathiya in the same year. I wanted the actor to give me one year of his life before the shoot begins because the films range from the year 1957 to 2019 in order to understand the journey. Vivek gave 15 look tests that needed 7-8 hours of make up each day. When an actor shows this dedication for the film, the filmmaker and the whole crew is extremely enthusiastic and encouraged to make the film." The much-anticipated film has versatile actor Vivekanand Oberoi in and as PM Narendra Modi. Apart from Vivek Oberoi, critically acclaimed actors like Boman Irani, Suresh Oberoi, Manoj Joshi, Zarina Wahab, along with Darshan Kumar and Barkha Bisht have been roped in for the film. Produced by Suresh Oberoi, Anand Pandit, and Acharya Manish, the film is directed by biopic maestro Omung Kumar. The film will be releasing on 12th April 2019. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In his close to three-decade-long career in Hindi film industry, Akshay Kumar has established himself as an action star, a pro in comedy and the face of patriotic movies, but the actor says he still has a lot to offer as a performer. The 51-year-old actor said he does not want to get pigeonholed and is looking for opportunities to contribute to various genres in cinema. I have a long way to go. I still want to do a lot. I want to keep on working. I dont want to stop at one point and have a particular image. I want to have different kind of images. Im still discovering myself and have a lot time with myself to do so, Akshay said at a press conference here. I have Housefull 4 and then I am doing a horror-comedy and then there is Sooryavanshi. I want to do different kind of films and Im looking for opportunities, he added. Akshay was in the capital along with actor Parineeti Chopra and director Anurag Singh to promote their upcoming release Kesari. The film is based on Battle of Saragarhi, which was fought between the British Indian Armys Sikh Regiment and Afghan tribesmen in 1897. Akshay said working on Kesari was an emotional experience for him as he feels a strong connect with the love warriors and soldiers have for their motherland. Also Read | When Yo Yo Honey Singh remembers his chartbuster One Bottle Down Making this film was an emotional experience. Especially, the last 15 minutes of the film were very emotional. But its been an important journey for me. I am sure it is going to be an emotional experience for the audience as well. Kesari, produced by Dharma Productions, Azure Entertainment and Cape of Good Films, will hit the theatres on Thursday. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Kartik Aaryan and Sara Ali Khan have been grabbing the limelight for quite some time now for all the right reasons. The two will be seen for the first time together in Imtiaz AliasA Love Aaj Kal 2.A Sara and Kartik were spotted in New Delhi over the weekend as they shot for their upcoming film. The two were caught on camera as they rode a bike together. The video going viral on the internet shows Kartik driving the bike while Sara sits behind him. While Sara was dressed up in smart casuals, Kartik looked uber-cool as always. However, it took no time for the netizens to point out that the actress was violating road safety rules and not wearing a helmet. "Always wear your helmet," one fan advised her.A In an interview with India Today last year, Sara had said that she does not take trolls too seriously. A When asked about dealing with criticism, she had said, "I don't know if I'm bad at research or I'm just delusional or if I'm speaking too soon, but I don't think that I have been trolled." "Everybody has their opinion. The social media age has given rise to a platform where people can voice their opinion. I read comments sometimes, and somebody will say, 'Oh my god, she looked so pretty', and then somebody will say, 'Oh my god, she looked like a clown'. I think both should be taken in the same stride because they are both opinions that deserve a listening ear, but no more than that," she had added. Meanwhile, a video of Sara and Kartik sharing a passionate kiss went viral on the internet. It is being speculated that the video was leaked from the sets of Love Aajkal 2. When Kartik was asked about the video, he told Bollywood Life, ''Was that really Sara and me?'' Now, this seems to be enough for the viewers to doubt the credibility of the video.A For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A 25-year-old man was shot dead by suspected terrorists on Monday in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, a police official said. They fired upon Mohsin Ahmed Wani near his residence in Reshipora area of Tral in the south Kashmir district, he said. Wani succumbed to injuries while he was being taken to a hospital, the official said. The police have cordoned off the area and a hunt has been launched to nab the assailants, he said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Days after the collapse of a foot overbridge near the CST Station in Mumbai that claimed the lives of six people, Neeraj Desai of D D Desai Associate Engineering Consultants who audited the bridge was arrested by the police on Monday. He has been booked for negligence. The company has also been issued a show cause notice. In 2016, Professor D D Desai's Associated Engineering Consultant & Analysis Pvt had audited the bridge, and found it in good condition. Recently, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) vigilance department has submitted its preliminary report in the collapse on March 14. The preliminary report has blamed the structural consultants of negligence and recommended police action against them, according to officials. The report said that the structural audit of the foot overbridge at CST was not carried out correctly. It suggested that major lapses occurred when the structural audit of the bridge was carried out on August 13, 2018. "There is a prima facie reason to believe that the structural audit has been conducted in an irresponsible and negligent manner. This tragedy could have been avoided if the structural audit had been done diligently," said the probe report. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Anastasiya Sizikova, a young woman who lives in Germany's western city of Dusseldorf, could have hardly imagined a few years ago that her career and life would be so closely linked to China. Speaking three languages including English and Russian, she is now a director of logistics and business development at DBO Bahnoperator company, a firm established against the backdrop of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to handle container shipments from the European Union (EU) to China using block trains. "I'm a happy person, because I truly love my job and enjoy doing it," Sizikova told Xinhua. "Through the example of China Rail Express, we can see how fast the cooperation between China and Europe is growing, we are proud to be part of this process," Sizikova said. Following the principle of consultation and collaboration for shared benefits, the BRI is increasingly embraced by European countries and people, who have already benefited from the development opportunities the initiative offers. In the meantime, the BRI cooperation has been playing an increasingly important role in deepening China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership, which has come a long way since its establishment in 2003. Markets connected Since it was proposed in 2013, the BRI has been bringing tangible benefits to both Europe and China. Gradually growing into an iconic brand in Europe, China Railway Express, which connects 59 Chinese cities with 49 European cities in 15 countries, made 6,363 trips in 2018, surging 73 percent from 2017, according to the China Railway Corporation. Those freight trains have rumbled along the routes, taking garments, auto parts, chemicals and other Chinese goods to European consumers, while taking back European food, machinery, equipment and timber. For Spain, China Railway Express not only connects Madrid with China's eastern city of Yiwu, but also provides a better opportunity for the two countries to access and explore each others' markets. "Yiwu is a great global bazaar, and for the enterprises in the community of Madrid, it's also a big door to enter the huge Chinese market," Francisco Aranda, vice president and spokesman of Business Confederation of Madrid, told Xinhua. The Foundation for the Exchange between Yiwu and Spain, a non-profit organization founded in 2016, recently announced that it will invite some 70 Spanish entrepreneurs to present their products at the Yiwu Imported Commodities Fair in late May this year, in which Spain will be the guest country. For Poland, one of the largest agricultural countries in Europe, the China Railway Express is a good alternative for sea transportation as it helps Polish companies bring more competitive products to the Chinese market. "That would be a great opportunity to start with fresh, short shelf life products that currently can't be delivered to the Chinese clients. It could also improve the frequency and efficiency of deliveries," said Malgorzata Cebelinska, trade director of Poland's leading dairy company Mlekpol. Seeing robust growth in the Chinese market in 2018, Mlekpol is now one of the leading players in the sector of imported milk to China. She noted that her company is considering expanding business activities and range of products in the Chinese market. "The freight train service between China and Europe is a powerful example of how the Belt and Road cooperation can drive common development and prosperity of China and Europe with enhanced connectivity," Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said at the 55th Munich Security Conference in February. Investments & jobs While guiding European companies' to growing businesses in China, the BRI also directly leads to new investments and jobs in Europe. The Piraeus port, where China's COSCO Shipping has investment, is an exemplary case of win-win partnership between Greece and China within the framework of the BRI. The port started to take a new look and achieved impressive results a few years after the Chinese investment came, in the wake of the debt crisis that hit Greece hard, Vassilis Korkidis, president of Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry told Xinhua. "It was an investment for more than 3.5 billion euros (4 billion U.S. dollars). There are a lot of activities around the port that were activated by the port development. So that means new jobs, better-pay jobs than the rest of the workers' salaries in Greece," he explained. The Peljesac Bridge, one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Croatia's history, is another example of win-win cooperation under the BRI. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said China Road and Bridge Corporation's active participation in the construction of the projects "is a concrete economic contribution." Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also highly valued the presence of Chinese companies in the country, saying that they have contributed to the full employment and the long-term economic growth of Hungary. Positive response As an important global public goods by China, the BRI keeps winning more and more positive feedback throughout Europe. Michel Kempeneers, chief operating officer of overseas export and investment department at Wallonia Export-Investment Agency, told Xinhua that Belgium is very open to Chinese partners in terms of the BRI cooperation. "We can have win-win partnerships together, talking with our Chinese colleagues with the same language of openness," said Kempeneers, adding that Belgium is not an ending point of the BRI, but a new starting point for the rest of Europe and "we welcome these flights and trains from China with a lot of happiness." Thilo Ketterer, a public auditor and partner at the German professional service firm Roedl & Partner, has followed the BRI from the very beginning in 2013 and took part in the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017. The initiative, which brings everybody together, is "really fantastic," said Ketterer. He was deeply impressed and encouraged by the fact that the initiative has turned from vision into reality. In fact, the BRI cooperation is extensively accepted as a major part of bilateral relations between China and the European countries. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that Spain will actively take part in the construction of the Belt and Road, which is of historic significance as China and Spain reached consensus last November to jointly push forward the construction of the Belt and Road to strengthen Asia-Europe connectivity and boost global trade. In addition, Greek Foreign Minister George Katrougalos said Greece will actively participate in the BRI and play a constructive role in promoting the bilateral relations and Europe-China cooperation. From the perspective of the EU as a whole, there is growing synergy between the BRI and the Juncker Plan, a 315-billion-euro (357 billion dollar) investment scheme championed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014 to boost private investment in European infrastructure projects. "I would like to witness the further development of success stories of the Belt and Road Initiative, to see more countries getting involved, to see new infrastructure development along the route, and to see growing cooperation between China and Europe," said Sizikova. New Delhi: Pramod Sawant, Goa Assembly Speaker and BJP leader, was on Tuesday sworn in as the state's new chief minister. Sawant, 45, will succeed Manohar Parrikar, who died on Sunday after battling pancreatic cancer and was cremated with state honours in Panjim Monday evening. He was 63. At a much-delayed swearing-in ceremony, held around 2 am Tuesday, 11 other MLAs, part of the Parrikar-led cabinet, were also sworn in as ministers.o Manohar Ajgaonkar and Sudin Dhawalikar of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Vijai Sardesai of Goa Forward party (GFP) and Govind Gawde and Rohan Khaunte (both independents) took their oaths as cabinet ministers. As per the power-sharing arrangement reached with allies, an MLA each from MGP and GFP, two small parties backing BJP in the coastal state would be made deputy CMs. Sawant said his party BJP has given him a big responsibility. The ceremony, held at a cramped Raj Bhavan, was to take place at 11 pm Monday but was delayed due to inexplicable reasons. "We have managed to convince the alliance partners and finalised the formula of two deputy chief ministers for the state," a senior BJP functionary told news agency PTI. Pramod Sawant has been the Goa Assembly Speaker since March 22, 2017. He also represented Sanquelim seat of North Goa in state Assembly. The BJP with its allies has 20 MLAs in the house where the majority mark is 19. The strength of the Goa legislative assembly is 40. The BJP is backed by the Goa Forward Party, MGP and an independent. Earlier, Goa BJP president Vinay Tendulkar had said there would be clarity on who would be the state's new chief minister by on Monday. Tendulkar said this after meeting Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari at a hotel near here over the issue. Earlier in the day, Gadkari met Dhavalikar and BJP legislator Vishwajit Rane. Dhavalikar and Rane were also aspirants for the chief minister's post, BJP sources said. Sawant's elevation to the top post in the coastal state followed hectic parleys between the BJP and its alliance partners. Sawant's political career began in the BJP as a youth leader. A staunch Parrikar supporter, he had worked closely with the late leader. He won the 2012 and 2017 Assembly elections from North Goa's Sankhalim constituency, which used to be a Congress stronghold. He was among the few BJP MLAs who got re-elected in their constituencies during the state polls two years ago, when the party managed to win only 13 seats as compared to t 21 in the 2012 elections. When Parrikar cobbled up an alliance with the Goa Forward Party, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Independents in 2017 despite the Congress being the single largest party, Sawant was elected the Assembly Speaker. He is a former chairman of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, a special purpose vehicle set up by Parrikar to take up various infrastructure works in the coastal state. Sawant holds a Bachelor's Degree in Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery from Ganga Education Society's Ayurvedic College in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. His wife Sulakshana heads the BJP Mahila Morcha in Goa. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: One CRPF jawan was killed and five other security personnel were injured in an ambush by Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district on Monday, officials said. A team of the 231st battalion of the CRPF, along with a state police unit, was out on road security duty in the district's Aranpur area when an IED exploded and they were fired upon by Maoists, they said. Six personnel of the CRPF were injured in the blast and firing that took place around 4:30 pm near the Kamal post of the paramilitary force in Dantewada district, a senior official said. He said the injured troops are being taken for treatment by helicopter. On March 16, two Maoists were killed in an exchange of fire with the police in Agency area of Visakhapatnam district. According to Visakhapatnam Rural police, 20 maoists were moving around in Buradamamidi village in the Agency area around 1 am and they opened fire at police personnel engaged in combing operations. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Manohar Parrikar, the Goa Chief Minister, lost the long battle to pancreatic cancer on Sunday. He breathed his last at 8:05 pm. The original aam aadmi of Indian politics, who was seen with nasal drip due to his treatment, had vowed to work for Goa till his last breath. In a moving account of his last days, Goa Cabinet Minister Vishwajit Rane has now spoken about the very last file that Parrikar signed from Panaji hospital. "Despite being unwell, despite having tubes and bags attached to his body, he continued working. But I never really understood the extent of his dedication until I went to visit him in the hospital recently," Rane was quoted as saying by NDTV. Talking about the last file Parrikar had signed, Rane said that he visited Parrikar for his signature on a file on hospital care and nutrition. This happened to be very last file that Parrikar had signed. "When a man who's so close to death calls you into his room and says that he wants to carry on working, it becomes evident that he is somebody who thinks of the poor and people in general," the NDTV report quoted Rane as saying. The first-ever IITian who became an MLA, Parrikar was known for his down to earth ways. While speaking to a regional channel, Vasant Vasant Limaye, his fellow student at the IIT-Bombay said, "There used to be separate groups among students at IIT-B, those fluent in Marathi and those strong in English. But Manohar could deal with students from such diversified background perfectly," he said. Parrikar had earlier promised his wife that he would quit politics, but after her death, he decided to continue with his political life, Limaye recalled. "At the time of my book release couple of years ago, I had invited him. Later, I learnt that his son was admitted to a hospital so I assumed that he would not come to my event in Pune. But once he was informed that his son was discharged from hospital, Parrikar attended his Assembly session and reached Pune. I was shocked to see him but was thrilled with his commitment," he said. (With agency inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: An Indian Army jawan was killed and three others were injured in heavy shelling by Pakistan on the Line of Control on Monday. The ceasefire violation took place in Jammu and Kashmirs Sunderbani Sector of Rajouri. According to the army sources, at about 5:30 am, Pakistan initiated an unprovoked shelling with mortars. It was also accompanied by small arms along LoC. Firing stopped two hours later at around 7:15 am. The Valley has witnessed a troubled start of 2019. The situation turned rather grim after Pulwama terror attack. There has been no let-up in the cross border firing from Pakistan. On Saturday, a Special Police Officer was gunned down by suspected terrorists at the Vehil area of south Kashmir's Shopian district. The SPO, identified as Khushboo Jan, was fired upon by unidentified gunmen from close range around 2:40 pm at her Shopian residence. Immediately after the incident, Jan was evacuated to a hospital where she succumbed to her injuries. Meanwhile, a joint team of Army, Special Operation Group of Police and CRPF cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to nab the assailants. The India-Pakistan border skirmishes witnessed a sudden spurt following India's preemptive air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot on February 26 to avenge the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, which left 42 CRPF personnel dead and dozens of others injured. Even as Pakistan continues to deny the February 26 air strike in its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, sensational proofs unmask Islamabads doublespeak. Latest media reports by two news channels have revealed how Islamabad tried to get rid of the terrorists bodies after the Indian Air Force air strike on the terror camp run by Jaish-e-Mohammed. According to Republic TV, an eyewitness have come forward and talked extensively about the way authorities across the border tried to doctor the site. Bodies of some terrorists were thrown in river while others were set on fire. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar was cremated with state honours Monday, with thousands bidding the affable politician a fond farewell. BJP president Amit Shah, some Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states attended the funeral at Miramar. Parrikar's eldest son Utpal lit the funeral pyre. The funeral procession started from the Kala Academy where thousands, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid their last respects to the former defense minister. The mortal remains of the 63-year-old senior BJP leader were kept in a flower-decked hearse which left for the Miramar beach, where the last rites were performed. The affection and popularity Parrikar enjoyed among ordinary Goans was on display as hundreds of common folks, and his party workers lined up to pay tributes to the chief minister, who died on Sunday after prolonged illness. 18:02 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In BJP president Amit Shah, Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Suresh Prabhu at Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikars funeral. 18:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Manohar Parrikar cremated with full State honours at Goa's Miramar beach. 17:43 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Gun salute to BJP leader and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. 17:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In IIT- Bombay to hold condolence meet this evening to pay tributes to their alumnus, Manohar Parrikar. 17:16 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Manohar Parrikars last rights to be held at Goa's Miramar Beach with military honours. 16:56 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Paid tributes to my friend Shri Manohar Parrikar. He personified humility, simplicity and compassion. The good work he has done will be remembered for years to come. pic.twitter.com/AX2o3yJZHe Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 18, 2019 16:55 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis present at the venue. 17:17 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Thousands gather to pay tribute to Manohar Parrikar. 15:01 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Haryana declares one-day state mourning on Monday as a mark of respect to Manohar Parrikar. 14:52 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Union minister for commerce and civil aviation Suresh Prabhu paid respects to mortal remains of Manohar Parrikar. 14:47 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meets family of Manohar Parrikar, offers condolences. 14:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reach Kala Academy shortly to pay last respects to late Goa CM Manohar Parrikar. 14:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches Goa, Smriti Irani also reaches Kala Academy to pay homage to Manohar Parrikar. 14:14 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In A pall of gloom descended on the BJP office and hundreds of Parrikar supporters turned emotional when his mortal remains, wrapped in the tricolour, was brought there. 13:58 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Karnataka: Congress President Rahul Gandhi and party leaders observe two-minute silence at party's public rally in Kalaburagi, to pay last respects to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar pic.twitter.com/QbLS5ls3xn ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 12:44 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Union minister of AYUSH arrives at Kala Academy to pay last respets to Manohar Parrikar. 12:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi left for Goa soon after the Union Cabinet meeting, which was convened to condole the demise of Parrikar. 12:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Narendra Modi leaves for Goa to pay homage to late Goa CM Manohar Parrikar 11:38 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Area near memorial dedicated to Goa's first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar at Miramar being cleared currently to carry out last rites of chief minister Manohar Parrikar. 11:27 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi will shortly leave for Goa to pay last respects to Manohar Parrikar. 11:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi to leave for Goa shortly, to offer last respects to Manohar Parrikar, reports ANI 11:01 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Thousands of people thronged the streets of Panaji to catch a final glimpse of Parrikar. His remains would be taken to Kala Academy, around three km from the BJP office, later on Monday, to allow the public pay their tribute to him. 09:41 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Parrikar would be accorded state funeral with full military honours. MHA Joint Secretary S K Shahi, in an order issued on Sunday, said the Ministry of Defence is requested to make arrangements for state funeral with full military honours. 09:13 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh will go to Goa to pay their respects to Parrikar. Chief ministers of various BJP-ruled states are also expected to reach the state. A meeting of the Union Cabinet has been called to pay condolence to Parrikar. 09:04 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In High Court of Bombay at Goa and District Courts in the state to remain closed today in view of passing away of Manohar Parrikar. 07:41 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Parrikars term saw India not only carry out surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Myanmar but also claim political ownership of the targeted operations. The daring move won accolades from political leaders and civil society alike. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday reserved its order till March 25 on framing of charges in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assault case in which 21 people, includingA main accused Brajesh Thakur have been chargesheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) agency. The court was scheduled to pronounce its order on framing of charges on Monday, March 18. "Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Delhi's Saket POCSO Court reserves framing of charges for 25th March. There are 21 people chargesheeted including main accused Brajesh Thakur," the news agency ANI reported. Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Delhi's Saket POCSO Court reserves framing of charges for 25th March. There are 21 people chargesheeted including main accused Brajesh Thakur. a ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 In early 2018, over 30 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at an NGO-run shelter home in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, and the issue had come to light following a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). An FIR was lodged in the case on May 31, 2018. In its last hearing on March 13, Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha reserved the order on framing of charges after the concluding arguments from both the sides. During the arguments, the counsel appearing for one of the accused, Ashwani Kumar, said there were no direct allegations of sexual assault against him. Kumar, an alleged close aide of prime accused Brajesh Thakur, was associated with Thakur's NGO 'Sewa Sankalp Aur Vikas Samiti' as a doctor and he allegedly used to administer injections laced with sedatives to the girls at shelter home before they were subjected to sexual abuse. All the accused have denied the allegations levelled against them by the CBI and said there was not enough evidence to prosecute them. CBI had earlier claimed in the court that several girls were sexually assaulted in the shelter home and charges for the offences under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including Section 375 (rape) and POCSO Act were made out against the accused. On February 7, the Supreme Court had ordered transfer of case from Bihar to a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Saket District Court complex in Delhi and had said that trial in the case be concluded within six months by preferably holding day-to-day hearing. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : A London court has issued an arrest warrant against jewellery designer Nirav Modi, the main accused in the USD 2 billion PNB scam case, in response to an ED request for his extradition in a money laundering case, officials said on Monday. They said the investigative agency has been informed about the issuance of the warrant by the Westminster Magistrate Court against Modi and he is expected to be put under formal arrest by the local police soon. Nirav Modi will be subsequently brought before the court to secure bail and the legal proceedings for his extradition will begin thereafter, they said. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), early this month, had said that United Kingdom's home secretary Sajid Javid had referred India's request for extraditing Modi to a court for initiating legal proceedings against the diamantaire. A British daily had recently published a report and video showing Modi walking in the streets of London and said the fugitive diamantaire was living in a swanky 8 million pounds apartment in the city's West End and that he was involved in new diamond business. The ED and the CBI are investigating Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others for alleged money laundering and corruption to perpetrate the alleged scam in the Brady House branch of the PNB in Mumbai that was unearthed last year. Nirav Modi, 48, is currently living in a three-bedroom flat occupying half of a floor of the landmark Centre Point tower block in London, where rent is estimated to cost 17,000 pounds a month, The Telegraph newspaper of the UK had reported. Modi has been chargesheeted by both the agencies and the ED has also attached his assets worth Rs 1,873.08 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and has also seized assets linked to him and his family worth Rs 489.75 crore. Earlier, after Nirav Modi getting caught live on camera in London, Enforcement Directorate (ED) had said that the UK government has forwarded their extradition request to the court for further proceeding. "The UK Central Authority of Home Office has confirmed that the extradition request has been sent to the Westminster Magistrate Court for further proceedings," ED had tweeted. A special court on Friday issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against the wife of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, a key accused in the USD 2 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case. The warrant against Ami Modi was issued by Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Judge M S Azmi after he took cognisance of the supplementary chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Nirav Modi (48) and other accused a few days ago. The financial crime probe agency has alleged that Ami Modi used an international bank account to move USD 30 million, suspected to be proceeds of the scam. The funds were used to buy property located in New York's Central Park, the ED has said. In its supplementary chargesheet, the agency has recorded additional evidences gathered in the case and attachments made. It is understood that the ED has underlined the role of Ami Modi and funds routed by her in the supplementary chargesheet. The ED had filed the first chargesheet in this case in May last year. According to investigating agencies, Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, in connivance with certain bank officials, allegedly cheated PNB to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore through issuance of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs). These LoUs were allegedly issued in a fraudulent manner by a Mumbai branch of the PNB to the group of companies belonging to Nirav Modi since March 2011 till the fraud came to light in January 2018, the agencies have said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Every day there are numerous claims and counter claims on the Indian Air Forces Balakot air strike on February 26 last month. Adding new claim to this is none other than BJPs controversial MLA Sangeet Som. Addressing a rally in Uttar Pradeshs Shamli, Som claimed that the Indian Air Force jets were just two minutes away from Lahore. Som claimed that had the IAF planes stayed a little longer, we could have hoisted the Tricolour in the Pakistani city. Balakot jahan tak hum (our forces) pahunche hain, woh Lahore se bahut nazdeek hai, doston, bahut nazdeek. Itna nazdeek hai ki agar two-minute aur ruk jaate toh jhanda (our national flag) Lahore mein hota, Som was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. The MLA from Sardhana is known for his controversial statements. In 2017, Som had called the Taj Mahal a blot on Indian culture and history and warned that the names of Mughal emperors would be removed from history. He is addressing his constituency, a senior leader had reportedly said. Many people were pained to see that the Taj Mahal was removed from the list of [tourist destinations]. What type of history? Is this history that the person who built the Taj Mahal imprisoned his father? Do you call it a history when the one who built the Taj targeted many Hindus in Uttar Pradesh and Hindustan? Som had said. A two time-sitting MLA, the 41-year-old was born to an affluent Thakur family in Alamgir village (Faridpur) in Meerut districts Sardhana. The Indian Air Force carried out pre-dawn airstrikes on February 26 and destroyed major launch pads of the terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was behind the February 14 Pulwama terror attack. The initial reports suggested that the Surgical Strike 2.0 decimated Jaish-e-Mohammeds Alpha 3 Control Rooms located in Balakot, Muzaffarabad and Chakothi in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. More than 10 bombs were dropped by the multi-role fighter jet Mirage 2000 at around 3:30 am on February 26 morning. Understandably, Pakistan has downplayed the airstrike. The aerial attack came day after Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a high-level meeting with all three service chiefs. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, a former defence minister who had been battling pancreatic cancer for over a year, died at his private residence near Panaji on Sunday. He was 63. Since February 2018, Parrikar had been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and New York. Despite his falling health, Parrikar had presented two state budgets in 2018 and 2019 and had attended public functions, including the inauguration of an iconic bridge across River Mandovi. A known fighter, an ailing Parrikar's decision to go for a ride and inspect two upcoming bridges in the state with a feeder tube protruding from one nostril was defining image and sought to suggest he is still in-charge of the state. In January this year, he had famously said that he will serve Goa till my last breath. Expressing grief on his sad demise, former President Pranab Mukherjee said that Parrikar fought bravely against his disease, and despite his deteriorating health, he put nation first and worked for it till his last breath. Born on December 13, 1955 into a middle-class family, his political career began as an RSS pracharak and he continued working for the Sangh even after graduating from IIT-Bombay as a metallurgical engineer. Parrikar entered electoral politics in 1994 when he won on a BJP ticket from Panaji constituency. He was the defence minister from November 2014 to March 2017 during the tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Terror mastermind Masood Azhar had undertaken a month-long sojourn to England to collect funds for militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir and his travel was facilitated by a Muslim cleric of Gujarati origin. During his stay in the UK, he visited a number of mosques and collected Rs 15 lakh in Pakistani currency, though he got a "very poor" response while travelling to Sharjah and Saudi Arabia before arriving in India in 1994. Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, responsible for a series of terror strikes in India including the attack on Parliament in 2001 and a CRPF convoy in Pulwama last month, had procured a Pakistani passport in his real name and original address in 1986 and had extensively toured African and Gulf countries where he realised that the Arab nations were not sympathetic to the "Kashmir cause". According to Azhar's interrogation report available with security agencies in New Delhi, he had visited the UK in October 1992. Mufti Simail, a cleric at a mosque at Southall in London, had facilitated his travel. Originally from Gujarat, Simail had studied at Darul-Ifta-Wal-Irshad in Karachi. "I stayed with Mufti Ismail in the UK for about a month and visited several mosques in Birmingham, Nottingham, Burleigh, Sheffield, Dudsbury and Leicester where I sought financial assistance for Kashmir (militants). I could collect Rs 15 lakh (Pakistani currency)," he told his interrogators. The terror mastermind also met other Muslim leaders in the UK including Maulana Iamail, who was also of Indian origin and was engaged in the construction of mosques and madrasas in Mangolia and Albania. In the early 1990s, Azhar had visited Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Kenya, Zambia and collected funds for the terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Azhar had also visited Saudi Arabia for fund collection and contacted two main agencies in the country handling such aid but without success. One of them is Jamiat-ul-Islah, which is an ally of Jamaat-e-Islami. "Since Hizbul Mujahideen owed allegiance to Jamat, we were politely refused any aid. The Arab nations as such do not want to give aid for the Kashmir cause," he told the interrogators. In Abu Dhabi, Azhar could collect Rs 3 lakh in Pakistani currency, another Rs 3 lakh in Sharjah and Rs 2 lakh in Saudi Arabia on his second visit. Azhar arrived in New Delhi in January 1994 with a fake Portugese passport. The Ashok hotel in Delhi's posh Chanakyapuri area, which houses the diplomatic enclave, was the first stop of Azhar, who dodged immigration officials' queries about his Portugese passport by claiming he was a "Gujarati by birth". The Pakistan-based terrorist, who was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir within the next two weeks, had also stayed in capital's hotel Janpath and visited Lucknow, Shahranpur and Islamic seminary Darul-uloom Deoband, according to his interrogation report. "I spent two days in Dhaka and thereafter travelled to Delhi by Bangladesh Airlines (Biman), reaching the IGI Airport in the early hours of January 29, 1994. The immigration officials at the IGI commented that I did not look like a Portuguese but when I replied that that I was a Gujarati by birth, he did not hesitate to stamp my passport. "I hired a taxi and asked (the driver) for a good hotel. I was taken to the Ashok hotel in Chanakyapuri where I stayed," the interrogation report read. After arriving in the national capital, Azhar went to Darul-uloom Deoband , Gungoh and then Saharanpur before returning to New Delhi two days later. On reaching Delhi, Azhar stayed at hotel Janpath located near Connaught Place. Since his flight to Srinagar was booked for February 9, he decided to visit one Maulana Abu Hassan Nadvi alias Ali Mian at his madrassa in Lucknow. Azhar reached Srinagar on February 9, 1994 where he stayed at the Madrasa Qasmian in Lal Bazar. Later in the evening, a militant, Sajjad Afghani, came to meet him along with his deputy Amjad Bilal of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami. The next morning, on February 10, he was escorted by Afghani to a place called Matigund where all Pakistan/PoK-based terrorists had gathered. "They (the terrorists) were happy about my visit and merger of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami. I had taken their addresses and letters so that I could communicate their welfare to their families after returning to Pakistan," he had told the interrogators. While returning from Matigund, accompanied by Afghani and one Farooq, a militant of Matigund area, who was armed and had a wireless set, the car developed some trouble and stopped. Azhar and his accomplice boarded a three-wheeler and proceeded to Anantnag. After travelling for about 2-3 km, the auto rickshaw was stopped by Army personnel, according to the report. "Farooq started running and opened fire which was returned by the Army men. Farooq managed to escape but I along with Afghani was arrested," he told the interrogators. Azhar was freed from an Indian prison in 1999 along with two other terrorists in exchange for passengers of an Indian Airlines aircraft which was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. You are here: China China channeled more energy into the protection of forests and grassland last year, an official report showed. The National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) cracked down on violations such as illegal logging in 2018 as a special campaign code-named "Hurricane No.1" was launched and fines totaling 1.68 billion yuan (around 250 million U.S. dollars) were imposed in 183,000 forests-related cases. About 207,000 cubic meters of timber and 175,000 wild animals were confiscated in those cases, and 15,000 hectares of forests and 863.4 hectares of national reserves were recovered. The NFGA also investigated damage of 7,646.6 hectares of grassland last year. The hard action came as the country attached greater significance to environmental protection. China planted 7.07 million hectares of new forest in 2018 and plans to increase forest coverage by 6.73 million hectares this year. In 2018, China launched the first public forest monitoring, the ninth national check of forest resources, and the first carbon sink calculation to improve the management of forests and grassland resources. New Delhi: AirAsia boss CEO Tony Fernandes has closed his Facebook account after the social media giant failed to stop the livestreaming of Christchurch carnage for more than 15 minutes. Though the Mark Zuckerberg company has maintained that the video was removed quickly, many have slammed Facebook for its approach. Fernandes is among the latest world leaders, who joined the anti-Facebook chorus on Sunday. He took to Twitter and announced his decision in two tweets. Facebook could have done more to stop some of this. I myself have been a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories. 17 mins of a live stream of killing and hate!!!! Its need to clean up and not just think of financials, he said on Twitter. The AirAsia boss added that, It is a great platform to communicate. Strong engagement and very useful but New Zealand was to much for me to take along with all the other issues. Meanwhile, Facebook has said that it had "quickly" removed a live video from the suspected gunman in twin mosque shootings that killed at least 49 people in New Zealand. The 28-year-old shooter, who has been arrested, published a racist manifesto on Twitter before livestreaming his rampage showing him repeatedly shooting at worshipers from close range. "Police alerted us to a video on Faceook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooter's Facebook and Instragram accounts and the video," the social network said. "We're also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we're aware." The Facebook Live video, taken with a camera that appeared to be mounted on the gunman's body, shows a clean-shaven, Caucasian man with short hair driving to the Masjid al Noor mosque in central Christchurch. YouTube has also said that it is working to remove videos as it becomes aware of them, and urged users to flag videos that may violate the sites guidelines. As with any major tragedy, we will work cooperatively with the authorities, a spokesperson for YouTube parent company Google said. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. London: British Prime Minister Theresa May's government warned Sunday it might not hold a planned Brexit vote this week unless it feels it can secure a win that avoids a lengthy delay to pulling out of the European Union. London has been paralysed by political inaction and chaos as it barrels toward the March 29 end of its 46-year involvement in the bloc without a plan. Parliament has twice resoundingly rejected the separation terms May reached with the other 27 EU leaders last year. She doggedly vowed to bring them back by Wednesday for a third vote that - if it succeeds - would see her ask the EU for a "technical" Brexit delay until June. But May warned on Sunday that another defeat would almost certainly require a delay so long that Britain would have to take part in European Parliament elections in May. This would mean "we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever," May wrote in The Sunday Telegraph. Two of her top ministers then warned that May might not even submit her deal for a third vote unless she secures sufficient support from her own party members who had previously voted against it. "It would be difficult to justify having a vote if you knew you were going to lose it," International Trade Secretary Liam Fox told Sky News. "We will only bring the deal back if we are confident that enough of our colleagues... are prepared to support it so that we can get it through parliament," finance minister Philip Hammond said on the BBC. "I mean we are not just going to keep presenting it if we haven't moved the dial," Hammond said. Some European ministers have suggested postponing Brexit until the end of 2020. A delay that long could give Britain time to decide to either keep much closer EU ties or even have Brexit reversed in a new national poll - two options welcomed by a range of European officials. The 27 EU leaders will discuss their Brexit options at a summit on Brussels on Thursday and Friday. Hammond said the government did "not yet" have the numbers to win. "It's a work in progress and obviously we are talking to a lot of colleagues about what the way forward is," he said. May has encountered political resistance from all sides. The stridently anti-EU wing of her Conservative party hates provisions that threaten to keep Britain indefinitely following the bloc's trade rules. May's Northern Irish coalition partners - a tiny group playing an outsized role in UK politics - fear getting economically cut off from mainland Britain. And the opposition Labour party has followed an ambiguous policy while pushing for new elections that could topple May. "We are not supporting Theresa May's deal at all because we think it is a blindfold Brexit that we think is going to do enormous damage to our economy," Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News. Corbyn added that he might come out in support this week of a Labour proposal to have a new referendum after Brexit is postponed. "It would obviously have to be a credible choice that's real for those that wanted to vote leave, or did vote leave in 2016, as well as those that voted remain," Corbyn said. Polls show the public remains as split about Britain's place in Europe today as they were during the referendum three years ago. Most show the pro-EU camp ahead by a few percentage points. But even some Britons who would prefer to keep their European identities question the democratic merits of having another Brexit referendum. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : The Australian gunman charged with murder for allegedly killing 50 people in mass shootings at two New Zealand mosques has dropped his court-appointed duty lawyer and will represent himself. "He wants to be self-represented in this case," Duty lawyer Richard Peters, who represented him during the preliminary court hearing, said. Wearing handcuffs and a white prison shirt, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant, an Australian right-wing extremist, appeared at Christchurch District Court where the judge read out only a single murder charge against him. Tarrant, the former fitness instructor and self-professed fascist smirked and made white power gesture as media persons present in the courtroom clicked photographs during the brief hearing that was held behind closed doors for security reasons. He did not request bail and was taken into custody until the next hearing on April 5. Peters said that during the hearing in court, he appeared "rational" and aware of the situation. The way he presented was as a rational and someone who was not suffering any mental disability. That's how he appeared. He seemed to understand what was going on," Peters said. As many as 50 people, including five Indian nationals, were killed and 42 others sustained serious injuries after Tarrant rampaged two Christchurch mosques - the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Masjid Mosque. The gunman live streamed the horrific attack as he shot victims at Al Noor Mosque. The gunman had 37-page 'manifesto' to 30 people, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, nine minutes before he stormed two city mosques and killed as many as 50 worshippers. Ardern said that the mail from the attacker didnt include a location or any other specific details and that the police had little time to react. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Authorities in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan province, gave an update on the food safety of a local school canteen on Sunday. A number of parents of students in Chengdu No.7 High School Development School recently questioned the quality of food in the school canteen. Chengdu authorities said that of the 18 samples they collected from the school, the noodles were found to contain mildew and were sub-standard. The remaining did not have any problems. Another three samples are being tested for salmonella. The substandard noodles were produced by a factory in Chengdu's Pidu District. So far, 52.5 kg of the food has been cooked, and the remaining 22.5 kg confiscated. Xie Qiang, with Chengdu's Municipal Health Commission, said that 36 students who claimed to have abdominal pain had gone through examinations, and they have ruled out an outbreak of food-related disease. As of 8 p.m. Saturday, 929 students had gone through examinations in the city's six hospitals, and three were hospitalized, according to the commission. The three students include one suffering from acute appendicitis, and one diagnosed with adenomesenteritis. The other suffered from acute gastroenteritis and has been discharged from hospital. Three people have been detained for forcing their way into the school canteen, tearing off food packages, trampling on food, and taking pictures and videos before putting them online, according to Chengdu police authorities of Wenjiang District, where the school is located. Ma Liehong, head of Wenjiang District, said that eight major measures had been taken to strengthen management of the school. An investment company behind the school and the school's representative have been placed under investigation. The school's board of directors will be reformed, and the schoolmaster has been replaced. Further investigation is under way. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced yesterday the appointment of Khawla Matar of Bahrain as the Deputy Special Envoy for Syria. Ms Matar succeeds Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy of Egypt, to whom the Secretary-General reiterated his gratitude for efforts in the search for peace in Syria. Bringing profound knowledge of the region, the Syria conflict and the United Nations system to her new position, Ms Matars experience includes her earlier assignments as Deputy Head of the United Nations Development System Transition Team in New York, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), in Beirut, and Director of the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria, in Damascus. She also served as Spokesperson for the Office of the Joint United Nations-League of Arab States Special Representative for Syria and Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Cairo. She has written and published extensively on regional politics and related issues. Ms Matar holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa arrived here yesterday on an official state visit to brotherly Turkmenistan, at the invitation of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. The two leaders will hold talks on ways to enhance the distinguished bilateral relations and open up new horizons of joint cooperation in various fields. They will also discuss the latest regional and global developments, and issues of mutual interest. Upon arrival at Ashgabat International Airport, HM the King was welcomed by Turkmenistans Deputy Premier and Foreign Affairs Minister, Rashid Meredov, and Bahrains Ambassador to Turkmenistan Dr Yousif Al Abdulla. A boy and a girl presented HM King Hamad with bread, salt and a bouquet of flowers to welcome his visit, in accordance with the Turkmen traditions. The guard of honour lined up to salute HM the King, who then left to his residence here within an official convoy. In a statement, HM King Hamad expressed deep pleasure at visiting brotherly Turkmenistan, and expressed sincere thanks to Turkmenistan president for his invitation, as well as on the gracious welcome accorded to HM the King. This affirms the strong brotherly relations between our countries and peoples, and reflects the extent of our desire and strong will to continue developing our relations so that they reach wider horizons and strengthen our strategic partnership in various fields, in a way that would serve our common interests, HM the King said. Our visit to this brotherly country, which is witnessing a great renaissance at all levels, embodies the depth of the relations between our brotherly countries and peoples. It is also an opportunity to meet our brother, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, to discuss our bilateral relations, and ways to bolster them. We will also discuss regional and global issues of mutual concern in a way that would serve our common interests, achieve the aspirations of our brotherly peoples and back efforts and endeavours aimed at strengthening security and peace at the regional and international levels, HM King Hamad added. HM the King stressed that brotherly Turkmenistan is a model to be emulated in positive neutrality, which is based on the UN principles of maintaining peace and security, mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. We affirm that this wise policy provides greater opportunities to develop joint cooperation in all fields, especially in the trade, investment and tourism fields, taking advantage of the two countries strategic depth, and huge potentials that entitle them to broaden their co-operation frameworks and achieve mutual benefits. A Bahrain-based private company has accused one of its expat employees of embezzling over BD43,000 to pressure his father, whos also an employee there, to pay off his debts. This has been revealed as the Third High Criminal Court of Appeal yesterday acquitted the defendant, whos an Asian national, as it dismissed the evidence and allegations of the company. The defendants lawyer, Zainab Sabt, explained that her client and his father worked for an electrical appliances company in Muharraq Governorate and that the father had borrowed BD43,800 from the company and signed indebtedness bonds proving the same. Ms Sabt said the company initially lodged a complaint against the father accusing him of refusing to pay the amounts he borrowed. The lawyer also said that when the father attempted to travel abroad, the company filed a case against the son accusing him of embezzling the same amount mentioned in the case it previously filed against the father. Ms Sabt claimed that this was to take revenge against the fathers attempt to leave the country and to pressure him so he would pay the amount he owed. In her defence, Ms Sabt provided the judges with the bond signed by the father showing that he borrowed the same amount her client was accused of embezzling. She demanded that the case is referred to an auditor to prove the allegations of the company. The lawyer also pointed out that the testimonies of the witnesses, who are current employees of the company, wouldnt be against their employer, in addition, that they havent seen the defendant embezzling the said amount. The defendant was previously acquitted by the High Criminal Court before, but the Public Prosecution appealed against the verdict. However, the court studied the case once again and decided yesterday to uphold the defendants acquittal verdict. Renowned businessman, Akram Miknas, has condemned the terror attack on the two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand, which resulted in the death of 50 people to date. The attack was carried out by a 28-year-old Australian man, Brenton Harris Tarrant, who opened fire on the worshippers at the mosque. A great responsibility is placed on all men of thought, religion, culture and even businessmen to immunise our societies from extremist terrorist ideology, which works to exclude others and eliminate diversity instead of celebrating it, said Mr Miknas. The shooter refused to spare any of the mosques visitors including his youngest victim, a three-year old child who was mercilessly killed during the attack. This horrible terrorist act in New Zealand reassures me once again, that we must learn to live with each other and realise that our differences are blessings, he said. Our differences must be viewed in a positive, natural state that we must accept and rejoice, not reject and retaliate against, he stressed. A grand event will be held later this year to mark the 100 years of banking operations in the Kingdom. Organised by the Bahrain Association of Banks (BAB), the Kingdom will hold an event in connection with the 100th anniversary of the banking sector on September 11 under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. The celebration marks the establishment of the first bank in Bahrain, Standard and Chartered (formerly the Oriental Bank Limited), 100 years ago, thus making Bahrains financial and banking sector among the oldest in the region and the world, the BAB stated. BABs Board of Directors chairman, Adnan Ahmed Yousif, extended thanks and appreciation to HRH the Prime Minister for patronising the festivity, which, he said, reflects his constant keenness on supporting the banking sector in the kingdom for many decades. Mr Yousif underlined BABs desire to hold a mega celebration of the event commensurate with the importance of the deep-rooted sector, in co0operation with all partners, including the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) the Economic Development Board (EDB) and Standard Chartered Bank- Bahrain, among many others related to the economic, banking and financial sectors in general. The BAB chief stressed the importance of this event in Bahrain, which now hosts 382 financial institutions with total assets of $192 billion, including 98 banks, 21 of which are Islamic banks. China's first Great Wall Restoration Center will be established in Beijing, dedicated to research, repair, protection and display of the Jiankou section of the Great Wall. Based on a model of protecting historical relics through research, the center will organize archaeological experts, designers, and artisans to examine the Jiankou section and work out plans for restoring the walls. Previously, this research-oriented model was piloted in the protection of the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Palace Museum. Experts say this model could better protect the Great Wall and retain the historical information of the cultural relics to the utmost extent. The Jiankou section of the Great Wall is 7,952 meters in length, taking the shape of a fully drawn bow. The restoration project of this section was initiated in 2016, and so far work has been completed on a 1,003-meter-long stretch. This February, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage officially approved the repair plan for the eastern and southern parts of the Jiankou section of the Great Wall. The Great Wall Restoration Center will be the first research institution of the country dedicated to research, repair, protection, and display of the Great Wall, said Zhang Tong, head of the Huairou District Cultural Relics Institute. "Under the new protection model, archaeologists, designers and artisans will make research while working out plans to do the repairs. In this way will the research, design, construction and development be formed into an organic whole," Zhang said, adding that the center will ensure better protection of the Great Wall and lay a solid foundation for future tourism development. The pilot of the new protection model is owing to the unpredictability of excavation and protection of cultural relics, Zhang said. "As far as the Great Wall is concerned, many walls and riding tracks are covered with thick vegetation and soil layers, making it difficult to see the wall structure." Therefore, it is difficult to make a perfect renovation plan in advance. "Oftentimes when you have removed the soil layers, you will see the structure and find the established scheme not feasible, and therefore an emergency remedy is needed," Zhang said. The restoration center will help to bring experts together to conduct regular examinations and make plans accordingly. As a special Great Wall research agency, the center will have professional archaeological and scientific research personnel to conduct scientific repair and protection of the Great Wall in strict compliance with the historical information collected. The entire repair process will also be recorded to provide detailed information for future protection. In addition, the center will provide long-term examinations for the Great Wall and implement preventive measures. "For the Great Wall, active prevention of damage is much more important than passive rescue," said Zhao Peng, a designer who has long worked in the restoration of cultural relics. Due to a lack of meticulous management and protection on a regular basis, some walls and watchtowers on the Great Wall have collapsed. Zhao said the prevention of damage and keeping historical records should be done before the onset of restoration. President Donald Trump's extraordinary response to the New Zealand massacre provides an occasion to intensify our scrutiny of a critical question: Are Trump's words emboldening white-nationalist and white-supremacist activity at home and abroad? Trump regularly engages in both veiled incitement of violence and anti-Muslim bigotry with a kind of casual regularity that almost seems designed to lull us into desensitization. That this is losing the power to shock is bad enough. But that's producing another terrible result: This desensitization leads us to spend too little time focused on the actual consequences these verbal degradations could be having. This is what the White House wants. That reality comes through clearly in an important appearance that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney made on "Fox News Sunday," which opens a window on these matters in a particularly illuminating way. Fox's Chris Wallace pointed out that before allegedly massacring 50 people at two mosques, the New Zealand shooter declared that he supports Trump "as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose." Wallace asked Mulvaney: "What does the president think of that?" Mulvaney replied that it is not "fair" to cast the shooter as a "supporter of Donald Trump." Wallace pressed Mulvaney on Trump's history of anti-Muslim remarks - which is long and ugly - and noted that just after the shooting, Trump described immigrants as an "invasion," just as the shooter did. He asked why Trump won't state clearly that "there is no place in America for this kind of hatred." Mulvaney repeatedly brushed off Wallace's questions, bridled at the suggestion that the violence was Trump's "fault," and whined: "I'm not sure what more you want the president to do." What's particularly reprehensible about this performance is what's hiding in plain sight: There are no signs that Trump is troubled by the fact that the man who allegedly murdered 50 people because of their Muslim faith sees him as a symbol of the devotion to protecting white identity that drove this act. "What does the president think of that?" Wallace asked Mulvaney, who treated this question as not worthy of a response. Mulvaney cynically cast the core issue as: Is Trump directly responsible for this act? In fact, it's this: Are Trump's words helping produce conditions that are emboldening and encouraging the type of white nationalist and white supremacist group activity that is leading disturbed proponents into violence and murder? There are no signs that either Trump or the administration sees this as a question that should preoccupy them. Why not? Why aren't Trump and his advisers asking themselves this question? - Trump keeps trafficking in rhetoric that inspires hate and murder The man who allegedly gunned down 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue last October did so after ranting that Jews "bring in invaders" -- meaning refugees -- who "kill our people." After that happened, Trump publicly lent support to the conspiracy theory that George Soros was funding the migrant caravans, and he has repeatedly described them as invaders since. After we learned that the alleged New Zealand shooter used that word, Trump insisted that "illegal aliens" constitute an "invasion." After this mosque massacre, Trump tweeted support for a Fox News journalist who is under fire for claiming a Muslim congresswoman's hijab renders her devotion to the Constitution suspect. Robert McKenzie, a former counterterror adviser at the State Department, currently tracks white nationalist and white supremacist group activity online for the New America Foundation. He says he regularly sees clear evidence that Trump's rhetoric energizes this activity. "Trump at times fans the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment, and at other times, he's an arsonist of anti-Muslim sentiment," McKenzie said. "The rhetoric is absolutely resonating and connecting with white supremacist and white nationalist groups, who are over the moon to hear him use such language." - A rise in right wing extremism According to the Anti-Defamation League, 2018 brought a sharp rise in domestic extremist-related murders, almost all of which were committed by right-wing extremists. Meanwhile, terrorism experts believe that nationalist groups around the world are increasingly drawing inspiration from each other. As the ADL puts it, "white supremacy" is becoming an "international terror threat." There are many reasons for such spikes in right wing extremist and terrorist activity (see this documentary for an overview). But the question is, what does Trump's rhetoric in particular contribute to it? Indeed, what do the national security professionals inside Trump's own administration think of that question? According to Joshua Geltzer, the senior counterterror director at the National Security Council from 2015 to 2017, there are likely some on the inside who see this as problematic, because Trump is in effect validating the arguments driving this right wing terrorism. "The idea that you shouldn't validate the rhetoric of terrorists, or vindicate them in the eyes of those who are trying to figure out whether to emulate them, is not really up for debate," Geltzer told me. "Yet the president seems to go in the opposite direction at every opportunity." Geltzer added that "most counterterrorism professionals" surely regard this as exactly the "wrong" response. - A contrast with Barack Obama Former president Barack Obama engaged in complex deliberations over language -- over whether blaming terrorism on "radical Islam" played into terrorists' hands by feeding a narrative of civilizational struggle. Trump tore into Obama over his refusal to name "radical Islam" as the problem. During that debate, Jeffrey Goldberg reported that "no senior-level national security professionals" believe it's in our interests to "risk making Islam itself the enemy," meaning they mainly thought Obama was right. We need to ask why Trump and his advisers are not engaged in any similar debates over his language and what impact it might have on the radical right. Trump, of course, genuinely believes "Islam hates us," and wants us to see Islam as a severe threat. But those beliefs do not require Trump to publicly validate the language of right wing terrorism. Why does he continue doing this? Why isn't Trump concerned about its impact? Is anyone else inside the administration concerned about that? What do his own national security officials think about it? As Jacob Levy notes in an important essay, Trump's language is degrading our politics in multiple concrete ways, yet the political world is puzzlingly reluctant to engage on this point. More scrutiny of these sorts of questions is one place to start. Caltech and Northrop Grumman are continuing to make research progress towards space-based solar power. In 2018, the aerial density of the 1-meter solar tiles in 600 grams. This is an improvement from 1500 grams per square meters in 2017. They are actually targeting an areal density of 160 grams per meter squared. They believe they could stretch current work to consider 100 grams per meter squared. The latest work has space-based solar power generating power and sending it to Earth at a cost of $1-2 per kilowatt-hour. This would be useful for power for some certain remote locations. Space Solar Power Initiative (SSPI) is a multi-year research in the field of Space Solar Power Initiative conducted by Caltech team in collaboration with Northrop Grumman (NG) Aerospace and Mission Systems division. SSPI approach: Enabling technologies developed at Caltech Ultra-light deployable space structures High efficiency ultra-light photovoltaic (PV) Phased Array and Power Transmission Integration of concentrating PV, radiators, MW power conversion and antennas in single cell unit Localized electronics and control for system robustness, electronic beam steering Identical spacecraft flying in formation Target is specific power over 2000 Watts per kilogram. This would cost competitive with ground-based power NASA Studies In 2017, NASA funded five academic efforts to see if space-based solar power could be produced economically. NASA selected five new research proposals to understand the effective drivers of investments in the global space economy, encouraging non-traditional companies, as well as traditional aerospace companies, to look beyond satellites for new opportunities in commercial space development. Planetary Resource Engineering LLC studying asteroid and lunar based resources for lowering the cost MIT developing a Commercial Space Technology Roadmap Vision Foresight Strategy LLC (Honolulu) modeling the impact of space weather Colorado School of Mines (Golden, Colorado) examining 21st Century Trends in Space-Based Solar Power Generation and Storage. University of Illinois, Urbana (Urbana, Illinois) studies An Integrated Framework and Tool for Effective Participation of Commercial Enterprise in Space Development. There is a 56 page report on the various space mission applications for better space based solar power. Current state of the Art Megaflex, Roll-out array and stretched lens MegaFex has 350 kilowatt array The Megaflex array has 350 kilowatt space based solar power arrays. ROSA Roll out solar array In June 2017, there was a week of successful science operations on the experiment for the Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA). They could not retract and latch the array. NASA jettisoned ROSA directly from its current location at the end of the space stations robotic arm, where it was fully deployed in a normal configuration. The original plan called for ROSA to be stored back inside the trunk of SpaceXs Dragon which is detached and burned up in the atmosphere during Dragon reentry. ROSA is an experiment to test a new type of solar panel that rolls open in space and is more compact than current rigid panel designs. Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology. Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels. A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements. SOURCES Caltech, Youtube, NASA, OrbitalATK Written By Brian Wang. Nextbigfuture.com BERLIN - Hundreds of people of all faiths gathered at a local mosque in a show of support for Muslims after the New Zealand shootings that killed 50 at two mosques in that country, according to WTNH. The Islamic Association of Greater Hartford hosted the event at its mosque in Berlin Sunday afternoon. Hundreds gathered to denounce the shootings and the extremist views of the New Zealand shooter, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who is in custody. The following are recent arrests released by the New Haven Police Department on March 18, 2019. March 14 A 38-year-old Ramsdell Street man was charged with strangulation, assault and breach of peace. A 31-year-old Hamden man was charged with assault, interfering with an emergency call, criminal mischief, breach of peace and violating a protective order. A 26-year-old Sheffield Avenue man was charged with assault, reckless endangerment and violation of a protective order. March 15 A 19-year-old Jenings Way woman was charged with assault, risk of injury to a child, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. A 36-year-old Gilbert Avenue man was charged with risk of injury to a child, threatening and breach of peace. A 22-year-old Orchard Street man was charged with larceny, resisting arrest and failure to appear in court. A 27-year-old East Haven woman was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs/alcohol, reckless driving and failure to carry registration/insurance card. March 16 A 53-year-old Ivy Street man was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, assault, threatening, breach of peace and resisting arrest. An 18-year-old Valley Street man was charged with engaging police in pursuit, reckless driving, reckless endangerment and various traffic violations. A 39-year-old West Haven man was charged with driving the wrong way on a divided highway, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs/alcohol and possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana. March 17 A 29-year-old Naugatuck man was charged with home invasion, assault, unlawful restraint, interfering with an emergency call, criminal mischief, breach of peace and risk of injury to a child. A 41-year-old Blake Street man was charged with criminal possession of a pistol/revolver, possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana, sale of a controlled substance and sale of certain illegal drugs. A 38-year-old Wayfarer Street man was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, illegally operating a motor vehicle under suspension and other traffic violations. A 48-year-old Augustine Street man was charged with robbery, assault, larceny, criminal attempt and conspiracy. As of January 2019, Hearst Connecticut Media does not include names in online police blotters. Celebrating Passover doesnt have to mean sitting at a table inside someones home, surrounded by family members. A Passover seder can be held outdoors, under the stars. Just ask Newtown resident Diana Sarna. Sarna has spent the last 10 Passovers very far away from home in Nicaragua. Every spring vacation, she takes approximately 20 students from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, N.Y, where she teaches English, on a service trip to build homes through the international, nonprofit organization Bridges to Community. The first time she went, we were invited to a seder through the Jewish Temple Shaaray Tefila in Bedford, N.Y., that had gone a few months before, said Sarna, who has two daughters Audra, 25 and Lauren, 23 with her husband, Ira. Sarnas group drove 45 minutes from their work site to take part in the seder. We arrived in the flatbed of a pickup truck, she said. They had this small little group that did a Passover and I was asked to participate in it. There is no temple large enough to have a seder over there, so the seder was held outdoors, under the stars. They put out folding tables under some arbors, Sarna said. There were about 35 people from all over the world who had somehow found themselves in Nicaragua for Passover, said Sarna, adding that it also happened to be Easter week. Since there was no rabbi, one of the Jewish men who was a leader down there, did the seder with the local parish priests, Sarna said. It was tropical. We were all in sundresses under the stars, she added. Sarna wore her daughter Audras kippot that Audra had worn at her bat mitzvah. Audras kippot added to the colorful patchwork quilt of cultures and faiths, she said. A number of the children who went with them were Catholic and had never been to a seder before. During the seder, everyone had parts reading in multiple languages. We sang songs in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Ladino, which is a westernized Spanish-speaking Latin American language, she said. On another occasion, while in Nicaragua, Sarnas group was invited to spend Passover with a group of evangelicals at their church. The evangelicals said they loved Israel and they would really love if someone Jewish came at Passover to celebrate with them, according to Sarna. It was an hour drive in the moonlight to this church, Sarna said. When we walked in the doors, they started blowing a giant shofar. Sarna had brought a letter that her rabbi (Stefan Tiwy from the United Jewish Center in Danbury) wrote, wishing them a happy Holy Week, which includes both Passover and Easter. They played the hora and we all got up and danced for 20 minutes straight, Sarna said. Sarna said her seders in Nicaragua has been life-changing experiences. This year, due to civil unrest there, Sarna will head to the Dominican Republic for Passover. The seder in Nicaragua will always be special. We were praying outdoors under the stars an interfaith group from around the world, all praying and sharing a meal together, she said. Exchange student Aside from spending Passover far from home, Sarna has also brought those from afar into her home. For the past 30 years, Sarna has been a volunteer with AFS, an international high school exchange organization. We have hosted many people in our house over the years, she said. Fifteen years ago, she hosted a Muslim exchange student from Malaysia named Natasha, who stayed with Sarnas family for five months. Sarnas father-in-law, who was a Holocaust survivor, came to the familys Passover seder. He was in a Russian work camp and part of the Polish underground during World War II, according to Sarna. They were seated side-by-side, reading the prayers, she said. Its what exchange is all about, the idea of building bridges through intercultural understanding. To host a girl from a culture so different from our own, and to see her sitting beside my father-in-law, who was a Holocaust survivor, was pretty remarkable. Chinese scientists identified seven major clades of critically-endangered wild Chinese giant salamander in China, with three clades inhabiting Hunan's Zhangjiajie, a major origin area of the world's existing largest amphibian. The paper, published online in the journal Ecology and Evolution, depicts a relatively-intact distribution map of Chinese giant salamander's clades in natural species range and suggests that the release of giant salamanders back into the wild should match their genetic differences. A total of 320 wild samples were collected from 33 localities covering the most of its native distribution range of giant salamanders. Seven clades were determined in the study, based on wide geographic sampling as well as sequence alignment of mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA. The paper's first author Liang Zhiqiang, an associate researcher at the Hunan Fisheries Science Institute, said that the study filled the gaps in the genetic diversity of wild giant salamanders in six provinces, including Hunan and Jiangxi, and provides much-needed genetic background information for the conservation of wild giant salamanders in these provinces. "It is rare that there are three clades in one single area and the finding can help improve monitoring programs and develop conservation strategies for the species in Zhangjiajie," Liang said. "Although the release of captive-reared individuals into the wild could have a positive effect on giant salamanders, negative effects are also possible. For instance, the introduction of individuals with non-native genotypes might lead to loss of local adaptations and native genetic variability. "Genetic testing is needed before releasing giant salamanders into the wild to ensure that they are part of the local clades," Liang said. Since 2002, the National Giant Salamander Nature Reserve of Zhangjiajie, of central China's Hunan Province, has released more than 20,000 farm-reared baby salamanders into the wild. Microchips are implanted under the skin of the released salamanders to record information such as gender and breeding time, and to establish their genetic files. "The chips are equivalent to the ID cards of the giant salamanders, which can find matches in the gene storehouse to help guarantee genetic purity of the local wild giant salamander population," said Deng Zhiyong, head of the protection section in the reserve. The biblical God intervenes in the world in ways that can be either subtle or manifest. Its easy to give examples of the latter: the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the revelation at Sinai are just a few. Its less easy to find examples in the Bible where Gods role is inconspicuous. The Joseph narrative in Genesis, where God only appears as Josephs guide in interpreting dreams, is one. The Purim story as described in the Book of Esther is another. With the Jewish holiday of Purim just around the corner (the night of March 20 and March 21 daytime), the Jewish people turns their attention to the Esther tale and its timely theme of Queen Esthers courage and self-sacrifice in the face of anti-Semitism. Sadly, this theme is always relevant. Yet Purim is a happy holiday celebrating the liberation of Persian Jewry many centuries ago and the defeat of their hateful nemesis, Haman, the kings grand vizier. The shadow of hate is eradicated through the brave intervention of Mordecai and his ward, Esther, who has been chosen Queen by King Ahasuerus over all other contestants throughout the Persian realm. Last week, the state Legislatures Public Health Committee hosted a hearing on HB 7199 (An Act Concerning Immunizations Against The Meningococcal Virus and Human Papillomavirus). Hundreds of Connecticut residents shared their written and spoken testimonies in support of this bill. Why is this legislation important? As an internist and pediatrician at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven and at Saint Marys Hospital in Waterbury, I feel strongly that this legislation could save lives and suffering in Connecticut. Specifically, this legislation would make the HPV vaccine an opt-out vaccine in Connecticut, meaning that schools would require the vaccine, but also give parents the agency to opt out of its administration. Human Papillomavirus is a virus well-established in the scientific literature to cause cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile, anal and head/neck cancers. The development of the HPV vaccine has been revolutionary for medicine. The HPV vaccine is the first and only vaccination of its kind to protect women and men from developing cancers associated with HPV. In my practice, I take care of patients of all ages, from children to adults. I have taken care of countless patients with HPV-associated cancer. I also routinely counsel families on vaccines and administer vaccines to both children and adults. This puts me in a unique position to advocate for how I envision that this bill could positively affect our community. As an internist, I have seen men whose faces and necks have been disfigured from head and neck cancer, and who are struggling to cope with their new reality of life after multiple surgeries and chemotherapy. I have seen women with both advanced cervical cancer and vaginal cancer. However, there is one case in particular that will stick with me forever. When I was a newly minted physician on the inpatient oncology service at Smilow Cancer Center, I took care of a patient, who for privacy purposes, Ill call Jane. Jane was in her early 30s and a young mother, with three young children and a doting husband. Jane had metastatic vulvovaginal cancer. If it was not enough that this young, vibrant mother had a lethal cancer, the cancer itself was disfiguring. Jane confided to me that she felt like a monster. Furthermore, the tissue was prone to infections. And it was unimaginably painful for Jane. Despite continuous infusions of strong narcotics, we could not easily control Janes pain. I would often find Jane spending time with her three young children in the afternoon, the room full of their bright smiles and laughter. However, despite Janes strength and best efforts to fully engage with her children, I frequently saw her gritting her teeth and holding back tears. The reality of her suffering and premature demise was too much for her to bear. Jane, a loving and young mother, was slowly being torn away from her childrens lives. This could have been avoided with a simple vaccine administration. As physicians, we have excellent scientific evidence that the HPV vaccine prevents both HPV infections and cancers caused by HPV. The CDC estimates that there are 33,000 cases of cancer attributable to HPV each year. Many of these are in Connecticut. When I counsel families on the HPV vaccine, I often think of Jane. I advocate for all children to be vaccinated. However, I have found that whereas families quickly accept that their child should and must receive other vaccines (which are required for school), the discussion about vaccination for HPV tends to be more challenging. When parents learn that schools do not require it, the importance of this vaccine feels discredited. Despite my best efforts, I have not been able to vaccinate as many children as I would like. CDC data show that I am not alone in this statewide in Connecticut we vaccinate children with the HPV vaccine approximately 20 percent less than other vaccines, such as the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine, which are required for schools. From a public health perspective, states such as Rhode Island have demonstrated that opt-out vaccination increases vaccination for HPV. Other studies have clearly demonstrated that vaccination decreases cases of HPV-associated precancerous and cancerous lesions. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Family Physicians all recommend routine vaccination with HPV for both boys and girls. The vaccine is safe and effective. Connecticut has the opportunity to be a leader in the nation in preventing HPV-associated cancer through opt-out vaccine legislation. We can make a powerful impact on our community in Connecticut with HB 7199. Please consider writing your local senator and representative to help Connecticut enact this change. Ami Belmont is a resident physician in internal medicine and pediatrics at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven. A patient suffering from Parkinson's disease has received China's first 5G-based remote surgery with a deep brain stimulation (DBS) implant, according to local media. Chinese PLA General Hospital (PLAGH), with the help of China Mobile and Huawei 5G technology, carried out the operation on Saturday. Conducted by Ling Zhipei, chief physician of the First Medical Center of the Beijing-based PLAGH and Department of Neurosurgery of PLAGH's Hainan Hospital, the surgery lasted for about three hours. Ling started the operation at 9:00 a.m. in Sanya City, manipulating the surgical instruments 3,000 kilometers away in Beijing with micron precision on a computer through a 5G network, and successfully implanted the DBS at the optimal target site. "I feel good," said the patient after the surgery. "I take turns working in Beijing and Hainan, and the operation took place during my Hainan rotation. A patient with Parkinson's in Beijing needed surgery and couldn't fly to Hainan," said Ling. "The 5G network has solved problems like video lag and remote control delay experienced under the 4G network, ensuring a nearly real-time operation. And you barely feel that the patient is 3,000 kilometers away." In the future, high-quality and high-level experts from superior hospitals will be able to operate remotely and directly on patients in remote areas through remote surgery, completing operations which were previously difficult to finish at the grassroots-level hospitals, Ling added. The success of the remote surgery has realized a major breakthrough in China's telemedicine, from remote observation, consultation and guidance to operation. As one of the most common diseases among the aging population, Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder that leads to impairment of voluntary movements, as well as trembling, slowness and stiffness. There were 6.1 million individuals with Parkinson's disease globally in 2016, compared with 2.5 million in 1990, according to a report published in The Lancet Neurology. Although there is no cure for the disease, DBS can be a life-changing treatment for some people. A successful operation allows people to potentially reduce their medications and improve their quality of life. Actually, this is not the first remote surgery successfully conducted with the support of 5G technology. Last Tuesday, a complicated hepatic operation was done in a hospital in Shenzhen under the real-time instructions of an expert in Beijing, thanks to the high-definition images transmitted through live-streaming enabled by the high-speed 5G Internet. Originally, the Shenzhen People's Hospital, where the operation was conducted, sought on-site surgical planning and guidance from Dong Jiahong, an internationally renowned hepatic surgeon based in Tsinghua Chang Gung Hospital in Beijing, as the surgery was too difficult for local doctors to handle. But thanks to the low latency, large bandwidth and high reliability of the 5G Internet transmission, Dong was able to supervise the real-time situation in the operation room 2,200 kilometers away in Shenzhen and give instructions. Before that, the doctors in the two hospitals had jointly conducted an online assessment of the patient and completed the accurate design of the surgery. "The advent of the 5G era has enabled doctors to carry out remote multi-party preoperative planning and surgical collaboration," Dong said, as restrictions on time and space are broken. The remote surgery powered by 5G technology is one of the latest attempts of people working in different sectors. Its success has paved the way for future relevant research and bridged the gap of medical resource imbalance among different regions. As 5G technology becomes more mature, its applications in the transportation, agriculture and healthcare industries are bound to flourish even more than the 4G era. A former Crips gang member with a lengthy arrest history has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for shooting a Camden police officer in 2017, authorities said Monday. Delronn Mahan, 21, of Lindenwold, was sentenced Friday in the wounding of Officer Patrick OHanlon, who was shot as he chased and tried to arrest Mahan in the area of South 9th Street and Chelton Avenue. The bullet, fired from a handgun, went through OHanlons upper right thigh. Mahan, who had been arrested 10 times in 18 months, pleaded guilty last month to aggravated assault and weapons possession. He had been charged with attempted murder, authorities said. Under the terms of a plea agreement, Judge Frederick J. Schuck sentenced Mahan to seven years on the aggravated assault charge and eight years on the weapons charge. Mahan will have to serve 10 years before hes eligible for parole, according to the Camden County Prosecutors Office. Police body camera footage shows the officer chasing the suspect during which time a gunshot is heard. Mahan apparently tried to blame the officer for the shooting, saying, "He shot himself, bro. The video is too dark and murky to see anyone firing a weapon. After the Nov. 1, 2017 shooting, Camden County police Chief J. Scott Thomson told reporters that Mahan, who was 19 at the time, had previously been arrested on drug charges in the same neighborhood where the shooting occurred. "In that short period of time of being an adult he has three felony convictions, the chief said. The arrest for shooting OHanlon was the 10th time Mahan had been arrested, the chief said. OHanlon was shot after approaching a group of three men, Thomson said. Mahan fled and OHanlon gave chase, at which point Mahan pulled out a gun. They struggled for the weapon and the officer was shot, the chief said. The gun apparently jammed after that shot, which Thomson said was fortunate because Mahan then tried unsuccessfully to shoot OHanlon in the face. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Its might not be perfect, and its not exactly popular, but its the closest thing New Jersey has to an official list of its top schools. The state last week released its new public school grades, scores from 0-100 based on standardized test scores, graduation rates and other academic data (see a full breakdown below). And the results are generally what you would expect: Academies with selective enrollment and schools in wealthier suburbs earned the highest scores. But pump the brakes before celebrating too much, Tenafly. The state has downplayed the importance of the ratings, saying they dont tell the full story of a school. Critics haven been less kind, calling the ratings oversimplified and meaningless. While theres valuable data that goes into the school report cards, no set of numbers or test scores can tell the real story of the learning that takes place in a school, said Steve Bakers, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association. Check out the list below to see which high schools scored the highest. How the ratings were calculated Schools were scored on a several factors, including many required by the federal government. The performance of key groups, such as minority and economically disadvantaged students, was given equal weight to a schools overall performance. Heres what counted: Four-year graduation rate (20 percent), five-year graduation rate (20 percent), progress toward English language proficiency (20 percent) English proficiency (15 percent), math proficiency (15 percent), chronic absenteeism (10 percent) 50. Summit High School Location: Summit Score: 79.21 | Percentile: 86th 49. West Morris Mendham High School Location: Mendham Score: 79.30 | Percentile: 86th 48. River Dell Regional High School Location: Oradell Score: 79.94 | Percentile: 87th 47. Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School Location: Rumson Score: 80 | Percentile: 87th 46. John P. Stevens High School Location: Edison Score: 80.15 | Percentile: 87th 45. Fort Lee High School Location: Fort Lee Score: 80.25 | Percentile: 87th 44. Ramsey High School Location: Ramsey Score: 80.40 | Percentile: 88th 43. Pompton Lakes High School Location: Pompton Lakes Score: 80.80 | Percentile: 88th 42. Moorestown High School Location: Moorestown Score: 81.22 | Percentile: 88th 41. Northern Highland Regional High School Location: Allendale Score: 81.44 | Percentile: 89th (Thinkstock by Getty Images)EJA 40. Newark Tech Location: Newark Score: 81.62 | Percentile: 89th 39. West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South Location: West Windsor Score: 82.15 | Percentile: 89th 38. Montville Township High School Location: Montville Score: 82.18 | Percentile: 89th 37. Westfield Senior High School Location: Westfield Score: 82.59 | Percentile: 90th 36. Kinnelon High School Location: Kinnelon Score: 83.59 | Percentile: 90th 35. Whippany Park High School Location: Whippany Score: 83.94 | Percentile: 90th 34. Madison High School Location: Madison Score: 84.05 | Percentile: 91st 33. Liberty High School Location: Jersey City Score: 84.54 | Percentile: 91st 32. New Providence High School Location: New Providence Score: 85.57 Percentile: 91st 31. Ridgewood High School Location: Ridgewood Score: 85.93 Percentile: 91st 30. Haddonfield Memorial High School Location: Haddonfield Score: 86.24 Percentile: 92nd 29. Passaic County Technical Institute Location: Wayne Score: 86.79 | Percentile: 92nd 28. Biotechnology High School Location: Freehold Score: 86.85 | Percentile: 92nd 27. High Tech High School Location: Seacaucus Score: 86.99 | Percentile: 93rd 26. Gloucester County Institute of Technology Location: Sewell Score: 87.02 | Percentile: 93rd 25. North 13th Street Tech Location: Newark Score: 87.28 Percentile: 93rd 24. Marine Academy of Science and Technology Location: Highlands Score: 88.25 Percentile: 93rd 23. Performing Arts Academy Location: Lakehurst Score: 88.45 Percentile: 94th 22. West Morris Central High School Location: Chester Score: 88.49 | Percentile: 94th 21. County Prep High School Location: Jersey City Score: 88.94 | Percentile: 94th SYR 20. Glen Rock High School Location: Glen Rock Score: 90.49 | Percentile: 95th 19. Morris County School of Technology Location: Denville Score: 91.06 | Percentile: 95th 18. Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics & Engineering Technologies Location: Edison Score: 91.46 | Percentile: 95th 17. Elizabeth High School - Frank J. Cicarell Academy Location: Elizabeth Score: 91.57 | Percentile: 95th 16. Bergen County Academies Location: Hackensack Score: 91.77 | Percentile: 96th 15. Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest Location: Demarest Score: 92.35 | Percentile: 96th 14. Middlesex County Academy for Allied Health & Biomedical Sciences Location: Woodbridge Score: 93.26 | Percentile: 96th 13. Tenafly High School Location: Tenafly Score: 93.55 | Percentile: 97th 12. Union County Tech Location: Scotch Plains Score: 93.69 | Percentile: 97th 11. High Technology High School Location: Lincroft Score: 93.72 | Percentile: 97th 10. Academy of Allied Health and Science Location: Neptune Score: 93.77 | Percentile: 97th 9. Academy for Mathematics, Science and Engineering Location: Rockaway Score: 93.94 | Percentile: 98th 8. Bergen County Technical High School -Teterboro Location: Teterboro Score: 94.41 | Percentile: 98th 7. Union County Magnet High School Location: Scotch Plains Score: 94.76 | Percentile: 98th 6. Academy for Performing Arts Location: Scotch Plains Score: 94.86 | Percentile: 99th 5. Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science Location: Manahawkin Score: 95.75 | Percentile: 99th 4. Academy for Information Technology Location: Scotch Plains Score: 95.84 | Percentile: 99th 3. Dr. Ronald McNair High School (tie) Location: Jersey City Score: 95.84 | Percentile: 99th 2. Academy for Allied Health Sciences Location: Scotch Plains Score: 96.28 | Percentile: 100th 1. Communications High School Location: Wall Score: 96.45 | Percentile: 100th Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. BAYONNE The Peninsula City was full of Irish pride on Sunday during the 38th annual St. Patricks Day parade the largest parade held in the city each year. Broadway was lined with Irish flags and the citys sidewalks were crammed with residents dressed in green, celebrating the heritage and culture of the Irish. Starting at 1 p.m., the parade stepped off from Fifth Street and made its way uptown to Stephen R. Gregg Park. Dozens of groups marched in the parade, including local law enforcement and first responders, nonprofits and businesses and a number of bands and drum lines. The parade was led by Bridget Antczak, this years grand marshal who has helped organize the event for the past 15 years. Aides to the grand marshal from the parade's four sponsoring organizations were also honored, including: Casey Antczak (Cork), Katie O'Donnell (Donegal), Katie Ryan (Shamrock Society) and Aimee Wilson (Irish American League). Check out photos taken from the event in the gallery above. BAYONNE Police arrested a 44-year-old city woman on Friday after an investigation found she spent hundreds of dollars using a credit car she stole from an elderly woman she was caretaker for, police said. Late last month, the daughter of an 81-year-old woman told police that her mother's caretaker, later identified as Alicia Trackewicz, made a number of fraudulent charges totaling $700 using the victim's credit card, authorities said. Police conducted an investigation into the matter and on Friday arrested Trackewicz and charged her with theft, theft of identity and credit card theft, police said. She was also processed on an outstanding warrant issued out of Jersey City. NY Waterway needs the Union Dry Dock land When NY Waterway purchased their property on November 3, 2017 along Hobokens waterfront to make the area beautiful and productive for a ferry operation, they were surprised at the opposition by a select group of people in town who have been wrongly swayed by propaganda against NY Waterway and do not understand the true facts of the ferries situation. The mayor of Hoboken and these people have treated NY Waterway with contempt. The ferry company has caused no harm to the people of Hoboken and only want to be able to serve the region in the most perfectly configured piece of dock property left on the Hudson waterfront that will allow them to continue to function as a commuter option into New York. NY Waterway has been unjustly vilified because of the personal politics of Hobokens mayor and Fund for a Better Waterfronts organization who have been spreading misinformation to the public regarding the feasibility of other sites that they want NY Waterway to move into. There is no other place along the river that they could immediately move into right away. Luckily the Hoboken land was available and the docks and upland are perfect for their needs. The reality is that there is a lack of space and docks along the Hudson for upland repairs, berthing of ferries and for refueling. A couple of sites are located too far away which would result in an interference with maintaining ferry schedules. Plus there would be a waste of fuel traveling back to the Weehawken/Hoboken area for the commuters. NY Waterway survives by efficiently and effectively serving the public without unnecessary expenses that would harm the future of the service they offer to the public. There now is a stalemate between NY Waterway and the city of Hoboken. The city has put a Stop Work order on the property to prevent them from using their land. The mayors attitude is, sure you own the land, but we will never let you use it for your ferries! This has all boiled down to politics and NY Waterway being treated like a pariah because Union Dry Dock chose to sell the property to them instead of the city of Hoboken. NY Waterway has been granted the necessary environmental permits by the DEP and the Army Corp of Engineers for their ferry operation in Hoboken and yet they have been prematurely judged before they can even demonstrate what they can actually accomplish on that property for the city of Hoboken and the regions commuters. They help mitigate over-crowding at the strapped NJ Transit train and PATH systems which are now at capacity because of the over-development all over Hudson County. NY Waterway has been paying taxes on land they are being prevented from using because our mayor and a select few want the land to become a park. Since we have plenty of waterfront parkland already, there is no need to chase the ferry company away. Parks do not pay taxes or move people across the river. NY Waterway has not been aggressive in trying to move onto their land in Hoboken but the future of the ferry company is at stake. Homeland Security came into the picture at the Hoboken March 6th City Council meeting when I questioned why the city put a second resolution forward to have Boswell Engineering redo their analysis of other possible sites for NY Waterway to move to because they already had done an analysis last September of 2018 at the request of our mayor. Apparently Homeland Security has issues with putting a refueling site at Hobokens crowded commuter terminal site. The Lackawanna terminal has no room for berthing ferries, no upland for repairs and no access by a road anymore for any refueling of the ferries. Fund for a Better Waterfront and our mayor and others in our Hoboken city hall keep saying NY Waterway can move there despite the reality that the terminal could not accommodate NY Waterways ferry maintenance and refueling. Hoboken is an urban area. Mass transit is vital for this area to accommodate the New York/New Jersey commuters as well as other nearby states that commute into New York and all the tourists that want a ferry ride. Hoboken is critical for the ferries future. We need a working waterfront and there is nothing wrong with NY Waterway using their land for a necessary purpose. Some people in Hoboken need to get the facts straight and stop being so selfish and elitist. NY Waterway is a critical part of the tri-transportation system that includes NJ Transit and the PATH trains. 32,000 people from various towns in New Jersey are relying on those ferries to take them across the river. Mary Ondrejka, Hoboken Submit letters to the editor and guest columns at jjletters@jjournal.com A Mercer County jury convicted a Trenton man Thursday afternoon of the daylight slaying of a man in the city in 2016. The jury found Jamar McCoy, 35, guilty of murder, aggravated assault, and two firearm crimes for gunning down Jermaine Johnson on Hillcrest Avenue in Trentons West Ward in late April 2016. Johnson was 26 and with his brother at the time. The jury acquitted McCoy on two counts of attempted murder for victims who were present, but not wounded. After the verdict, McCoy pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon, the Mercer County Prosecutors Office said. McCoy had a personal dispute with Johnson. Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Matos prosecuted the case, and Mark Fury is defending McCoy. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Andre D. Wesley is already a convicted rapist spending many decades in prison for the violent sexual attack of a woman behind a vacant Camden building in 2016 in which he slashed her neck and left her for dead. The 22-year-old victim survived. When authorities were searching for Wesley in late 2016, Camden police labeled him a suspected serial rapist" because they believed he was involved in other similar crimes. Authorities in Mercer County hope to officially hang that title on the 32-year-old, whos serving a 70-year prison term for 17 crimes related to the Camden rape. Wesley is scheduled to appear in Mercer County Superior Court Monday in an ongoing case against him that accuses him of raping three women in Trenton during separate incidents in March, September and November 2016. His lawyer, Ronald B. Thompson, of Sicklerville, Winslow Township, did not return a message seeking comment. Hes been indicted on 25 charges in Mercer County, including 11 counts of aggravated sexual assault, plus kidnapping and an assortment of weapons violations. Wesley, court papers allege, attacked women while armed with knives or scissors. In two of the cases, he forcibly took women from the area of Mott Street in Trentons South Ward, and in each case, he repeatedly raped and assaulted the women, authorities said. In the September 2016 attack, Wesley allegedly took the woman to a Chestnut Avenue house where he punched, choked and raped her before locking her in a second-floor bedroom and leaving, prosecutors have said. The woman waited until she heard Wesley leave and then climbed out of a window and escaped, authorities said. In early December 2016, police in Trenton and Camden linked Wesley to crimes, and issued warrants for his arrest. Police arrested him at his residence in Willingboro, where he arrived while detectives were executing a search warrant. He pulled out a knife and struggled with cops. Wesley went to trial in the Camden rape, in July and August of 2018, and a jury convicted him of a staggering 17 crimes, including six counts of aggravated sexual assault. In December, a judge sentenced him to 70 years in the state prison system with a mandatory minimum of over 59 years. His current parole eligibility date is in March of 2072. Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Two firefighters were injured Sunday afternoon while responding to a multiple-alarm fire at an apartment complex in Barnegat. Several local fire teams were called to the Atlantic Heights apartment complex a little before 1 p.m. Residents in the complex were evacuated while water was poured onto the burning building. In the process, two firefighters from the Stafford Fire Department fell after being hit with a stream of water, according to Barnegat Assistant Chief Daniel Rooney. One of the firefighters received a cut to part of his face, Rooney told NJ Advance Media. Both firefighters were checked out at Southern Ocean Medical Center and are expected to make a fully recovery. No other injuries were reported. The fire was contained a little after 1:15 p.m. The Barnegat Police Department and the local fire marshal are investigating the cause of the blaze. Video captured by a passerby named Ashley Aziz showed smoke pouring out of at least one two-story building at the complex, located near 900 Barnegat Blvd. An emergency SUV from nearby Waretown could be seen driving quickly by the camera, and lights appear to flash through the smoke in a nearby parking lot. Apartment Complex Fire On Barnegat Blvd In Barnegat NJ. Video Captured While Driving Through Area. pic.twitter.com/dxUKWPEX0q Ash (@Ash_Pro1) March 17, 2019 NJ Advance Media reached out to the Ocean County Prosecutors Office and the Atlantic Heights main office but the requests for comment were not immediately returned. Blake Nelson can be reached at bnelson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCunninghamN. A chemical frequently used in paint removal has been banned by the federal government due to concerns over health effects. On Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a new rule that bans the manufacture, importation, processing and distribution of methylene chloride in consumer paint removers. After analyzing the health impacts and listening to affected families, EPA is taking action to stop the use of this chemical in paint removers intended for consumers, said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Todays decision reflects EPAs commitment to ensure that chemicals in the retail marketplace are safe for the American public. According to the EPA, exposure to methylene chloride fumes can cause rapid dizziness, loss of consciousness and death due to nervous system depression. The fumes are most dangerous to people that are working with the chemical in enclosed spaces with poor ventilation. In 2012, researchers at Michigan State University announced that an investigation found at least 13 deaths linked to the chemical between 2000 and 2011. Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental group that has actively pushed for methylene chloride to be banned, called the EPAs action a long-overdue protection of consumers. Still, the group said that the ban fell short because it does not ban the use of the chemical for commercial purposes. While it is an important step to bar consumer use of methylene chloride-based paint strippers, EDF is alarmed that EPA has abandoned its earlier proposal to protect those most at risk the many workers, including owners and employees of small businesses, who are exposed to these deadly products on the job, said Lindsay McCormick, the EDFs chemicals and health project manager. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ6,) echoed the environmentalists concerns in a statement on Friday. The EPA is charged with ensuring the safety of all toxic chemicals, not only those available at retail stores, Rep. Pallone said. Workers and others who are exposed through the commercial marketplace deserve equal commitment and protection, and this rule fails them. I am deeply disturbed that @EPA has chosen to water down crucial guidelines protecting American workers from methylene chloride. Anything short of a full ban of methylene chloride is inadequate. https://t.co/K9vatF3DH1 Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) March 18, 2019 An EPA spokesman said that the agency is considering a training, certification and limited access program for commercial users of methylene chloride. The new ban goes into effect on September 11, which is 180 days after the rule was issued, but the EPA expects that many suppliers will phase out the chemical much sooner. According to USA Today, at least 13 major companies have already committed to stop selling products with methylene chloride including Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Household Products Database, consumer products containing methylene chloride include Kwik Liquid No-Wash Paint and Varnish Remover and Klean-Strip Premium Stripper. The EPA estimates that up to 260 million pounds of methylene chloride is used in the U.S. annually. About 10 percent of that is used in paint removers. The chemical is also used for a wide variety of industrial purposes. People that currently own paint removers containing the chemical and want to know how to properly dispose it should reach out to their local solid waste agency, according to the EPA. The EPAs move to ban methylene chloride was taken under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which was named in honor of the late New Jersey senator. Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. When two business patterns began renovating a home they had purchased for a project, the last thing they expected to stumble upon was a piece of Trenton history. Discovering a trolley car in the walls of the home set them up for a bigger project than they thought they had signed up for. Marc Manfredi and Brandon Breza, who purchased the home, helped coordinate the removal of the trolley car with Liberty Historic Railway Inc. and had the train removed from the structure of the home. Now the non-profit and the Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Maine, are working together to raise funds for the first part of the restoration process. The non-profit and museum have launched a GoFundMe campaign to offset the cost of re-creating blueprints and restoring the trolley car, which is currently in Southampton. The museum has commissioned a new set of construction drawings for the trolley. Funds raised through the campaign will go toward offsetting the cost of producing the documents and materials needed to restore the missing ends of the car. Its one of a kind and its the only surviving trolley car from the state capital, said William McKelvey, director of Liberty Historic Railway Inc. So we felt it was imperative to save it for future generations. McKelvey said he estimates the total restoration costs will amount to $500,000. The plan is to use a combination of vintage construction documents preserved in the Seashore Trolley Museums extensive library, actual measurements taken directly from the trolley car, and measurements derived from other preserved trolleys of similar vintage. With the combination of measurements and documents, the restoration team will be able to create the detailed drawings required to restore the body of the trolley car. During its heyday, the trolley would have traveled all around Mercer County from Trenton to neighboring suburbs such as Hamilton and all the way up to Princeton, and would have seated about 50 passengers, according to McKelvey. Olivia Rizzo may be reached at orizzo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LivRizz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips The rapid urbanization of China's rural areas is arousing concerns among a broad spectrum of those who are calling for more protection of traditional villages and their revitalization, including scholars, local government officials and villagers, banyuetan.org reported in February. The article said that traditional villages are a channel for carrying cultural information drawn from different historical periods, regions and nationalities, and form a "living fossil of culture." Hence, urbanization should proceed in a rational and scientific way considering local cultural protection. Hu Binbin, professor and director of the Research Center of Chinese Village Culture (RCCVC) at Central South University, is concerned that the urbanization of China's rural areas is taking place at a stunning rate. "Almost every two days, there's a village disappearing from our lives," he said. A village could change so quickly and drastically as to become unrecognizable or even no longer exist over a short time span of only a few years. "Time waits for no man," he added. Hu attributed the alarming situation to a variety of reasons unplanned housing construction and commercial development in rural areas, the strong outflow of laborers to large cities, and natural disasters as well as unsound laws and regulations, lack of protection standards and shortage of funds. "Traditional villages are facing a real survival crisis," he stressed. The "Blue Book of Chinese Traditional Villages: Investigation Report on the Protection of Chinese Traditional Villages (2017)" shows the number of traditional Chinese villages has declined sharply since the 1980s, and the fabric of many villages has been seriously damaged. Take the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys as an example. There were only 5,709 traditional villages left in the areas in 2010, a decrease of 3,998 in only six years. Thereafter, RCCVC workers paid return visits to 1,033 villages in the two areas, eventually finding nearly half had disappeared; some of the remaining ones were so seriously damaged that it would be hard to guarantee their long-term survival. In August 2012, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the former Ministry of Culture, the National Cultural Heritage Administration, and the Ministry of Finance made the decision to establish an expert committee on the protection and development of traditional villages. In the following years, four batches were recognized for inclusion in the "List of Chinese Traditional Villages" after investigation and evaluation by the committee. On Dec. 10, 2018, the fifth batch was chosen, with 2,646 villages being recommended. Huang Desheng, secretary of the Party committee from the Huxi Village, Lanshan County, Hunan province, said the restoration of his village would be very costly and needed evaluation by professional organizations. An interviewee explained the current situation of his village all the able-bodied laborers had gone to seek jobs in large cities, leaving with only seniors. This has led to their houses falling into disrepair, grass and other vegetation running riot, and living facilities becoming old and increasingly unusable. "To protect traditional villages, the most fundamental way is to develop economy, attracting more young people to come back to reactivate the village," Huang said. Speaking of protection of local culture, Hu believed that one single model or solution might not be applicable for all cases in regard to, say, rural tourism development. He cited an example of architecture houses in certain hilly areas of Hunan province are made of timber or bamboo, which look simple and primitive; while houses in many rural areas of Anhui province are made of carved brick, wood or stone, which look exquisite and refined. Li Pinghua, an official from the housing and urban-rural planning and construction bureau of Qiyang County, suggested giving full play to local resources in traditional village revitalization and highlighting local characteristics in instead of copying other areas' experience blindly. Local authorities in New Jersey now have a new tool to manage stormwaters and flooding. Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday signed into law the Clean Stormwater and Flood Reduction Act, which authorizes municipalities, counties and certain authorities in the state to establish stormwater utilities. The goal of the move is to help local authorities prevent future flooding, and manage sources of runoff pollution. But opponents of the measure have long derided the effort as little more than a rain tax. Stormwater utilities, which already exist in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia, are meant to manage the rain and snow from storms. Even minor rain events can wash trash and contaminants off of roads and paved surfaces and into the surrounding ecosystem. This is known as runoff pollution, and its a major problem for New Jersey. The lack of regulation and management of storm water has caused extensive problems for New Jersey, state Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Essex,, a primary sponsor of the new law, said Monday. Rainwater runoff carries with it debris, bacteria, and chemicals which can lead to pollution of our waters and drinking water sources. Without regulation, we will continue to see a rise in pollution, flooding and property damage. This law enables towns and counties to take the next step in stemming the problems caused by stormwater. If a town decides to create a stormwater utility, that utility would bill property owners based on the amount of impermeable surfaces like roofs and parking lots on their land. The goal of that fee system is to ensure that property owners are being charged proportionally based on their contribution to stormwater runoff. But its because of the potential for new utility fees that opponents of the new law, mostly Republicans, have labeled the measure a rain tax. This law adds yet another tax on our already overburdened residents and businesses, though there is no language to define how much people will be charged, how the funds will be collected or how the funds generated by it will actually address stormwater issues, said Ray Cantor, the vice president of government affairs for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. It is unclear how much these new utilities, if created, would cost for property owners. According to Jersey Water Works, which is a group dedicated to the improvement of the states water systems, New Jerseys existing stormwater management infrastructure is unable to handle the amount of rain brought on by increasingly frequent severe storms. Because of this, the group says, New Jersey is more at risk of flooding than ever before. Stormwater is a particularly big issue in New Jerseys oldest cities, many of which are reliant on outdated infrastructure that that channels stormwater and sewage into the same wastewater system. During heavy rain storms these combined systems can overflow, resulting in a spill of raw or partially treated sewage into rivers and streams. Environmentalists and public infrastructure advocates applauded the new law. Governor Murphys signing of the Flood Defense Act to give municipalities the option to establish stormwater utilities is a monumental step toward cleaner, healthier communities," said Chris Sturm managing director of policy water for New Jersey Future. "Towns and cities across the state struggle to manage flooding from stormwater and maintain clean waterways, but now they will have another tool to combat these issues. Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. UPDATE: Latest twists and updates in Anthony Comello case, the alleged mob boss killer from Staten Island Anthony Comello, the 24-year-old arrested in New Jersey Saturday for allegedly gunning down a mob boss in Staten Island last week, will return to New York to face the murder charge against him. Comello waived his extradition rights Monday during a hearing in Ocean County Superior Court before Judge Wendel Daniels. He is expected to appear in court in Staten Island next Monday, March 25. He willingly, knowingly and voluntarily returns to New York to face these charges, Brian Neary, a New Jersey attorney representing Comello Monday, told reporters after the hearing. He described Comello, who said only yes, sir during the hearing, as resolute. In the courtroom, Comello held his open handcuffed palm up to reporters, showing a symbol and several words scrawled in pen. MAGA forever and united we stand were some of the phrases he had printed, while others were not entirely legible. A court officer approached Comello and said something inaudible to him, leading Comello to put his palm down. Neary referred all other requests for comment on the facts of the case to New York lawyer Robert Gottlieb, Comellos lead counsel. He did not answer questions regarding whether or not Comello has maintained his innocence, and said he had not seen anything written on his clients hand. Anthony Comello displays writing on his hand during his extradition hearing in Toms River, N.J., Monday, March 18, 2019. (Seth Wenig | Associated Press)AP Gottlieb issued a statement Monday afternoon sayin Comello has received threats and is in protective custody. As I previously stated, Mr, Comellos family and friends simply can not believe what they have been told. There is something very wrong here and we will get to the truth here as quickly as possible. Police arrested Comello, who lives in Staten Island, in at a relatives house in Brick. He is charged with murder of 53-year-old Francesco Cali in New York, and was lodged in Ocean County Jail on a charge of being a fugitive from justice in New Jersey prior to Mondays proceedings. Cali, who went by Frank or Franky Boy, was a Gambino family mob boss. He is the first New York City crime boss to be killed in more than 30 years, dying Wednesday after he was shot 10 times with a 9-millimeter handgun outside of his home in the Hilltop Terrace section of Staten Island. No motive for the killing was addressed Monday, but preliminary information suggests it might not be related to organized crime, according to SILive.com. The report, citing sources, said Comello may have been denied after pursuing a relationship with a female member of Calis family. The Gambino family was once among the most powerful criminal organizations in the U.S., but federal prosecutions jailed top leaders during the 1980s and 1990s, shrinking its power. Cali never faced a criminal charge as a mob boss, but authorities have referred to him as the underboss of the Gambino organization. Cali did have one mob-related conviction, doing 16 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to taking part in an extortion conspiracy to build a NASCAR track. The attempt failed. He was released from prison in 2009. Comello has no criminal history, but has had runs in with the New York Police Department, mostly for traffic violations. NJ Advance Media staff writer Jeff Goldman contributed to this report. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. The 24-year-old man arrested in New Jersey Saturday on charges he shot and killed a reputed mob boss in Staten Island last week is expected to waive extradition Monday when he appears in court in Ocean County on Monday, his attorney said. High-powered New York lawyer Robert Gottlieb also told NJ Advance Media that his client, Anthony Comello, has been scheduled to appear in court in Staten Island on March 25. Comello, 24, of Staten Island, was apprehended early Saturday on Cadiz Drive in a bayfront community in Brick. Property records show his relatives own one of the dozen homes on the quiet, secluded street. Comello was held over the weekend at the Ocean County jail after being charged with murder. He faces a charge of being a fugitive from justice in New Jersey, according to court records. On Sunday, law enforcement continued to limit access the neighborhood at the southernmost end of Brick, where most houses have boat docks. Cali, 53, who also went by Frank or "Franky Boy, was shot 10 times with a 9mm handgun Wednesday night outside his home in the Hilltop Terrace section of Staten Island. Police operate a checkpoint restricting access to the neighborhood where Anthony A. Comello, 24, of Staten Island, was arrested on Saturday and charged with killing Francesco Cali, 53, the Gambino family mob boss. The house is in Brick, N.J., Sunday, March, 17, 2019Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for According to The New York Times, at about 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Comello backed his pickup truck into Calis parked Cadillac Escalade, then walked up to the door of his home and rang the doorbell, showing himself on video cameras. The brazen killing was the first slaying in more than 30 years of a New York City crime boss. While the motive for the killing remains unclear, preliminary information suggests it might not be related to organized crime, according to SILive.com. The report, citing sources, said Comello may have pursued a relationship with a female member of Calis family and was denied. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had referred to Cali in court filings in recent years as the underboss of the Gambino organization, related through marriage to the Inzerillo clan in the Sicilian Mafia. Multiple press accounts since 2015 said Cali had ascended to the top spot in the gang, although he never faced a criminal charge saying so. His only mob-related criminal conviction came a decade ago, when Cali pleaded guilty in an extortion conspiracy involving a failed attempt to build a NASCAR track on Staten Island. He was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison and was released in 2009. The last crime family boss to be shot in New York City was Paul Castellano. The Gambino crime boss was assassinated outside Sparks Steakhouse in Manhattan in 1985. The Gambino family was once among the most powerful criminal organizations in the U.S., but federal prosecutions in the 1980s and 1990s sent its top leaders to prison and diminished its reach. 24 Alleged mob boss gunned down on Staten Island Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NJ Advance Media staff writers Spencer Kent and Bill Duhart contributed to this report. The presidents new budget proposal includes $8.6 billion for a border wall, which is rejected by nearly two-thirds the country and routinely dismissed by Congress as a campy, paranoid billionaires version of a do-it-yourself home bomb shelter kit. It also includes $2 billion over five years for Space Force, because preparation for an incursion from a celestial armada is now among Donald Trumps military priorities. But nowhere in his $4.7 trillion spending plan is a single dollar to replace the Hudson rail tubes, the clogged arteries of our national economy, which suggests that he doesnt grasp the need to keep the Northeast Corridor in one functional piece. This may not be a mere lapse on the presidents part, however. The $33 billion Gateway Project is the most urgent infrastructure project in the country, and withholding federal funding seems to be his favorite cudgel against political opponents. Either way, Trumps transition from New York-New Jersey infrastructure cheerleader to petulant warden of elite interests is a precursor for a politically-motivated urban transit catastrophe. And when the 109-year-old rail tunnel fails which will likely happen before a replacement is in place Trump will have to own it, after torpedoing the 50-50 funding agreement President Obama had reached with the two states. He is especially dangerous, however, because he can graft his own attention deficit onto policy-making. For example, he told an assembly of governors on Feb. 25 that on infrastructure, I would like you to call your senators and call your congressmen and women and get it done, because Im ready. I want to sign. I am totally ready." Two weeks later, he proposed slashing the transportation discretionary budget by 22 percent. He also plans to machete 23 percent ($455 million) from Amtraks budget so he can eliminate its long-distance train service and replace it with buses. And he has targeted capital improvement grants funds that provide a federal match for new transit projects for a 40-percent haircut. None of this is surprising. If a budget is a value statement, this one reads like something authored by Paul Ryan during a sociopathic-triple-Red-Bull frenzy: It expands poverty, widens inequality, increases the ranks of uninsured, and defunds core public services and investment. The details are stunning in their cruelty. Remember that campaign promise to protect entitlements? Trumps budget kneecaps all of them. Hed slash $845 billion from Medicare over a decade. Hed also cut $777 billion over the same period from Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies most of it by eliminating Medicaid expansion, and then by turning it into a block grant program that he can slowly strangle. He would even cut food stamps by $220 billion, freeze Pell Grants ceilings, and take $25 billion from Social Security. You know, populism. It even balloons the deficit by $4.8 trillion over the five years. You know the theme: Promises made, promises.did you really think Mexico was going to pay? Our congressional delegation is working to prevent Trump from weaponizing the federal budget, which shouldnt be a heavy lift, because his proposal is a sham and has absolutely no chance at ever becoming a reality, as Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.) put it. And Gateway funding will be a prominent feature in the Congressional version. Meanwhile, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th Dist.) is attempting a bipartisan flanking maneuver on Trumps criminal indifference by forcing the administration to address the doomsday scenario, which requires the Department of Transportation to draft a report to quantify the economic impact of a Hudson tunnel failure and provide a continency plan to compensate for such a disaster. Cosponsoring the bill is Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican. The report would be due in 60 days if enacted - hopefully before a budget is signed, as it will remind Congress to weigh the presidents space cowboy fantasy against one fifth of the American economy and a tunnel used by 200,000 people each day. Tough call there. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. Todd Tersigni was elected to Phillipsburg Town Council as a Democrat. He once before ran for mayor as an independent. And he will again run for mayor, this time as a Republican. In a news release Monday, the former two-term councilman and former council president said that he is launching a 2019 campaign for the mayors job. Incumbent Mayor Stephen Ellis, a Democrat, announced his re-election plans last week. In the latest announcement, Tersigni took shots at Ellis for the slow process of finding a municipal headquarters and for skipping council meetings. I wont duck meetings as Ellis has, even if residents are lined up waiting to hammer me," Tersigni said. He said his No. 1 priority as mayor would be "to obtain legal authority to bulldoze blighted properties to make way for new development" and reduce municipal debt. (MORE ELECTION NEWS AND CANDIDATE ANNOUNCEMENTS) A Republican for decades, Tersigni ran for council in 2009 as a Democrat and was swept into office with Republicans Randy Piazza and Bernie Fey Jr. in a surprise victory against three incumbents. In 2011, he ran for mayor as an independent and lost to incumbent Harry Wyant. Tersigni was re-elected to council in 2013. Local politics can be nasty and Tersignis tenure was no exception, particularly around his last mayoral campaign when tensions ran high. Tersignis presence on council gave Democrats a majority in 2016 when Ellis took office, but Tersigni switched to the GOP following a fight over the new mayors appointments. Tersigni left council at the end of 2017, saying he only intended to serve two terms. He took a maintenance job with the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission -- he said Monday that he has resigned from that job to run for mayor. Tersigni also runs Liberty Construction Co. in Phillipsburg. Candidates for New Jerseys primary must file by April 1. The primary election is June 4 and the general election is Nov. 5. Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Two people charged in a daytime shooting on Canal Street last fall that injured an East Coast tourist pleaded guilty Monday (March 18) to amended charges in Criminal District Court. Byron Wilson, whom prosecutors identified as the gunman, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and to being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to District Attorney Leon Cannizzaros office. Derrion Robinson, Wilsons girlfriend who police and prosecutors said urged him to fire the weapon, also pleaded guilty to aggravated battery, according to Cannizzaros office. Per a plea agreement, Criminal District Judge Karen Herman sentenced Wilson, 20, to five years in prison at hard labor. She gave Robinson, 21, a deferred five-year prison sentence and three years of active probation. According to Cannizzaros office, Herman told Robinson she also must complete a GED program and perform 50 hours of community service. Prosecutors said Wilson and Robinson were among a group of people involved in a dispute in the 600 block of Canal Street around 4:40 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2018. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up NOPD detectives said at the time Robinson allegedly directed Wilson to shoot just as he pulled out a handgun and fired one shot in the direction of someone fleeing. The bullet struck a 34-year-old woman in the thigh. That woman later said in an interview last year that was her first time visiting New Orleans. Police said another person was injured by a projectile, but left the scene before they arrived. Assistant District Attorney Hilary Khoury prosecuted the case. Emily Lane and Hanna Krueger contributed to this report. Relatives of RasDaniel Charles fought through a fog of grief and shock Monday (March 18) as they made plans to travel to Louisiana after receiving word that he had been gunned down in a Metairie neighborhood four days earlier. Theres a hole in my heart that may never mend, said Charles mother, Tondra Gaspard, 46, a chef in Colorado. Man killed in Metairie shooting: JPSO Charles family and friends still arent sure what happened in the moments before Charles was killed. But Gaspard said he did not deserve to die so young. My son was slaughtered in the middle of the street, she said. They took him away from his 2-year-old daughter. What am I supposed to tell my granddaughter? Charles was fatally shot just after 7 p.m. Thursday near the intersection of South Howard Avenue and Warsaw Street in Metairies Bunche Village neighborhood, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office. Detectives arrested LaMarco Brown, 21, of the 200 block of North Laurel Street, Metairie, Friday and booked him with manslaughter, said Capt. Jason Rivarde, spokesman for the department. The investigation is still underway, so the Sheriffs Office declined to comment Monday about any motive for the killing. There are several different stories floating about, Gaspard said. Shes heard that her son was arguing with some men who were inside of a vehicle. The disagreement led to a fistfight, and someone introduced a firearm, she said. This wasnt drug related. This was a fight that turned into a gun show, Gaspard said. Gaspard had never heard of LaMarco Brown and didnt know how he may have known her son. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Though Gaspard and three of Charles siblings now live in Colorado, the family is from the New Orleans area. Charles was born at the former Meadowcrest Hospital in unincorporated Gretna and grew up in Algiers, LaPlace, Post-Katrina in Atlanta and Kenner. Friends called him Ras a word in the Amharic language out of Ethiopia that means prince. But Gaspard always called him Rassie. He was very, very happy. He could make you laugh when you wanted to cry, she said. Since childhood, Charles knew just how to get his way with his mother, with a loving but stubborn persistence. Anytime he wanted something from me he wouldnt stop nagging me until I gave in, Gaspard recalled with a chuckle. Charles lived in the Bunche Village neighborhood where he was killed, according to his mother. He worked offshore. In addition to Gaspard and 2-year-old daughter, Autumn Milan Charles, he leaves behind a large, blended family, including his maternal brothers and sisters, Dariyon Charles, Alize Williams, Righteous Charles, RasDavid Charles and Justice Gaspard. His family includes his stepfather, Kenneth Gaspard Sr., and stepbrothers, Kendrick Gaspard, Kenneth Gaspard Jr. and Kenneth A. Gaspard. Charles also leaves behind his father, Tyrone Scovell; his paternal sisters, Tyyone Scovell and Kyra Scovell; his grandmothers, Joycelyn Hart and Gwendolyn Tollette-Scovell; and his grandfather, Stanley Charles. He was loved by many, Tondra Gaspard said. He will be missed, greatly, and never forgotten. Anyone with information about shooting death of RasDaniel Charles is asked to call the Sheriffs Office investigations bureau at 504.364.5300. The public can also call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Callers do not have to give their names or testify and can earn a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an indictment. The oversight body for all Louisiana public elementary and secondary schools last week submitted a unanimously approved K-12 school funding formula to state lawmakers for approval during the 2019 Legislative session. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has agreed on a Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP, formula that includes a $1,000 pay raise for teachers, a $500 pay raise for school support staff and a $39 million boost in funding for the 2019-2020 school year. BESE also submitted a resolution urging the Legislature to implement a recommendation from the Early Childhood Care and Education Commission to provide $86 million to address the needs of Louisianas early childhood education system. In a statement Friday (March 15), BESE president Gary Jones didnt mince words as he called the state of Louisianas early childhood system a crisis of access. These programs employ instructors to teach children who are too young to attend school in an effort to better prepare them once they can enroll. State education superintendent John White said in February the waitlist for these services stands at 3,300 families, a figure that could rise to 10,000 by years end as the federal dollars used to fund those services disappear. The early childhood commission in January proposed a plan to expand seats in the Child Care Assistance Program, which provides child care access to low-income families when parents are working or attending school, to serve 114,000 children. The commission, which serves as a state advisory panel on early childhood care, wants the Legislature to allocate $86 million in the next fiscal cycle beginning July 1 to serve children 3 and younger. Gov. Edwards asks state education board to support school staff pay raises Virtually everyone agrees Louisiana educators deserve higher pay, but there is debate over the size of the pay raises. Salary data from 1989 to 2016 from the Southern Regional Education Board showed an average Louisiana teachers average salary was as high as $51,381 in 2012-13 but plunged to $49,745 by 2015-16. The average for teachers in the South that year was $50,955, and the national average was $58,363. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The average K-12 Louisiana teacher currently makes anywhere between $40,180 to $49,220 per year, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in May 2017. Two of the three advocacy groups for teachers in Louisiana support BESEs funding proposal, but other groups say the $1,000 figure isnt enough. Recently, the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana proposed $3,000 teacher raises and $1,500 school support worker raises, according to executive director Keith Courville. He stressed in a statement Friday that theres money available to triple the current proposed salary raises; Louisiana is estimated to see as much as $300 million in new general state tax revenue next year. Additionally, a new group called Raise Up Teachers last week stressed it will take more than $1,000 to effectively recruit and retain educators to serve students statewide. Meredith McGovern, a Bossier Parish social studies teacher, stressed on March 11 the $1,000 cant even help teachers take their family to the movies for $45 a month, to which she equated this raise. Thats just not enough and quite disrespectful in my opinion, just because these are the hardest working individuals in our state, said Joni Smith, a Livingston Parish school administrator who spoke on behalf of Raise Up Teachers. New teachers group endorses pay raises, but says $1,000 isnt enough Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. The executive director of the Louisiana Republican Party was arrested around 1:30 a.m. Saturday (March 16) in New Orleans and booked with battery, trespassing and resisting arrest, according to court documents. An affidavit says Andrew Bautsch shoved a police officer, leading to his arrest. Bautsch, 31, had gotten married a few hours before and was at the Pontchartrain Hotel at the time of his arrest, according to two people who attended the wedding. Bautsch was staying at the hotel that night and had been at the Hot Tin bar on its rooftop, according to the sources. Bautsch did not return phone calls or texts Monday. He is on his honeymoon in the Caribbean, according to Louis Gurvich, chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party and Bautschs boss. The officer involved in the incident and the arresting officer are with the Orleans Levee District Police, the New Orleans Police Department said Monday afternoon. The officers description of events said Bautsch refused to enter an elevator when asked by the officer and manager of the establishment, which is not named in arrest records. The officer then escorted Bautsch to the elevator, at which point Bautsch shoved the officer and resisted arrest, according to the officers own account of what happened. One court document the arresting officer filled out lists battery of a police officer as one of the reasons for Bautschs arrest, though a different document lists Bautsch as being booked on simple battery -- which is a different offense. The reason for the discrepancy isnt clear. Gurvich said Bautschs account of the incident differs from the officers description. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up He didnt commit any of these so-called municipal violations, Gurvich said in an interview Monday. Gurvich attended the wedding but said he was long gone by the time Bautsch was arrested. These sorts of things happen. He denies any wrongdoing. The process will play out and we will deal with it, Gurvich said about Bautsch. Anyone is innocent until proven guilty and we shall see. The charges are minor. A representative of the Pontchartrain Hotel declined to comment when reached Monday. Bautsch took over as the state GOPs executive director last spring. The job entails managing day-to-day operations of the party, overseeing the groups budget and handling media requests. He is a New Orleans native. Bautschs bond was set at $1,600, according to court records. An NOPD spokesman confirmed Bautschs court date to answer to the charge was set for May 21. - Laura McKnight contributed to this report. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, the conference announced. DiNardo, who heads the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, was taken to a Houston hospital Friday night (March 15) after experiencing symptoms of what tests confirmed was a mild stroke. The cardinal is resting comfortably and conversing with associates, doctors and nurses, the conference reported in a news release. He is expected to remain hospitalized for several days of testing and observation, followed by a transfer to another facility for rehabilitation. During his recovery, DiNardo, 69, has assigned his bishops' conference duties to Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, vice president of the conference, according to the National Catholic Reporter. DiNardo represented American bishops at last months summit in Rome called by Pope Francis to address clergy abuse. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo weighs in on Vatican summit Few people in the western world seem to be aware or are prepared to admit that China is engaged in a collective undertaking of immense proportions. While it is generally acknowledged that China has performed an economic miracle in the last 40 years, there is little awareness that what it has achieved so far is the launch pad for a greater long-term goal the rejuvenation of China and its driving role in building a global community with a shared future. While the magnitude of such an undertaking is unprecedented in human history, China has been careful to carry this out steadily and progressively, avoiding short-term gains and allowing for adjustments and compromises should the need arise. In China's recent "Two Sessions," new rules were approved to treat all companies equally from a regulatory standpoint, whether they are foreign, private Chinese companies or state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This marks yet another step forward in China becoming more accessible to foreign businesses. The "Two Sessions" are the annual meeting of the National People's Congress where major policies are ratified, and the annual meeting of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the government's main advisory group. The rising of SOEs in China's economy has long been cited by the European Union as a reason for not granting China the status of a market economy. However, these new rules will break down barriers that protect SOEs from domestic and foreign competition and will also help foreign businesses by clearly identifying the few areas that remain subject to government control. These changes were emphatically announced by Premier Li Keqiang in his government report to the National People's Congress during which he set this year's GDP growth at 6 to 6.5 percent the lowest in the last three decades but still among the world's strongest. He also pledged higher spending on the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, electric cars, biotechnology and in the fields of education, social programs and public infrastructure. On the issue of intellectual property rights protection, the National People's Congress approved an amendment to the Patent Law which substantially increases the range of fines for violators. It added that this will also be backed by stringent law enforcement. Hence, amid what Premier Li described as a "graver and more complicated environment" and risks that "are greater in number and size," China is still on the right track. After China rebalanced its economy in the last five years, steering it away from its dependence on manufacturing and moving toward a consumption-and-services-driven growth model, the reforms that emerged from the "Two Sessions" demonstrate China's willingness and determination to create a more comprehensive and equitable form of economic liberalization. The very fact that these reform policies have been passed at a juncture when the U.S. is upholding unilateralism and protectionism, shows that China's multilateral opening-up is not a short-term response to external pressure, but a long-term commitment to high-quality development and will serve as an ever-growing contribution to the world economy. Elenoire Laudieri is a sinologist and a strategic analyst of Asian Affairs. Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. If you would like to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinion@china.org.cn. Roland Quandt has posted a new article in which he claims to set out every detail on the upcoming Huawei P30 and P30 Pro prior to their launch. This includes nearly every major spec and detail of the phones, including their relative RAM capacities, camera counts, new color schemes and battery capacities. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker The release of the Huawei P30 line may be just around the corner. However, there may not be very many surprises at that event. The two flagship phones that are set for launch then have already been leaked copiously in the last few weeks. For example, we know that these phones will be sticking with sub-4K displays this year, as with the P20 and P20 Pro before them. However, according to a new, comprehensive spill perpetrated by Roland Quandt at WinFuture, their sucessors may have some attributes to beat even the newer Mate 20 series. The new article in question illustrates Huawei's early 2019 smartphone camera options in detail. The base model (the P30) will have a main 40MP shooter, with a focal length of 1.8. It will be backed up by an additional wide-angled 16 MP module (which may or may not by f/2.2) an an 8MP zoom f/2.4 lens. The P30 Pro will also have these sensors - but will also pack a 10x hybrid zoom and a time-of-flight (TOF) depth sensor. This sounds like it will have all its image-capture bases covered, but may also make a rear panel design look a little crowded. Both phones will have a water-drop notch on the front containing just one 32MP sensor. They will be set into displays that have been stretched out to 6.1 inches in the P30 and 6.47 inches in the P30 Pro. The P30's new colorways have also been outlined in this new leak. It will come in black (which seems to have a rather anthracite-like shade), Ice White (a markedly pale blue-to-purple fade that may also apparently end up being called Breathing Crystal) and Aurora (an attractive dark blue/green shift). The P30 Pro will also come in these SKUs, and also have a new orange-red option that may be called "Amber Sunrise". Quandt's tips with regard to the new line's power and performance may be less than an eyebrow-raiser for some. The Kirin 980 with its dual NPU and Mali G76 GPU will make a comeback in both new phones. Huawei are again sticking with 6GB of RAM for the P30, which gets just 128GB in storage. The Pro variant also has a single 8GB RAM option, with 128GB, 256GB and 512GB internal memory SKUs. However, this may apply to the European market only. Both phones will be able to use its maker's NanoMemory Card and will have dual-SIM variants. The P30's battery will offer 3650mAh, whereas the Pro will have a more 2019 4200mAh power-pack; both of these will also have Huawei's Super Charge. Quandt also suggests that this new flagship series will start at around 800 (about $906), but could not say how much the best-spec'd SKUs may cost. Finally, he asserts that the P30, at least, will retain a headphone jack for this year. Samsungs latest Galaxy S10 models pack a serious punch and have been getting very positive reviews on the whole. This includes the Galaxy S10+, which picks up dual-front facing cameras to go with its triple-rear facing camera array. But there is one thing missing from Samsungs camera equation that is letting it down when compared with the iPhone. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Weve been putting the Samsung Galaxy S10+ camera through its paces over the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne, Australia. Weve found that it delivers a great overall camera experience producing still photos that are certainly in the same general ballpark as the iPhone Xs and the Pixel 3. The photos the Galaxy S10+ takes are detailed and vibrant, thanks to an imaging process that combines machine learning and camera hardware to deliver flagship-level photo performance. However, one area where it clearly lags the iPhone Xs (and probably even the iPhone X) is with its front facing selfie/groufie cameras, particularly in low light situations. This was most apparent in the groufie (left) embedded below taken in a bar during the evening. It was a particularly testing situation, as chance would have it, with not only low light, but a combination of different lighting colors in the background. Complicating matters for the camera was the variation in skin tones of the three subjects, with yours truly in the center. When attempting to take the shot, it was clear that the Galaxy S10+ was struggling to focus on all three subjects, despite the autofocus marking each face with its detection capabilities. In fact, it was such a struggle, that my brother whipped out his iPhone Xs to take the shot that you see embedded below (right) on the first attempt. The iPhone Xs was able to quickly focus on all three of us and took a pretty decent shot considering the challenging circumstances. Why and how was Apple able to achieve this? The answer is simple. The iPhone Xs (and X) have the distinct advantage of the Time of Flight (ToF) sensor included as part of Apples True Depth camera system. It comprises a very important component of its 3D Face ID facial recognition technology, but also works to deliver much more precise depth mapping for every day selfie/groufie photos that Samsungs more traditional laser-based depth system cant match as is clearly in evidence. ToF tech sends a infra-red light (or a laser) towards its subject and measures how long it takes to bounce back producing a sophisticated depth map of an entire scene. Samsungs approach requires the laser to take a point-by-point approach to depth mapping, which is why it really struggled under the conditions. Conclusion? Even if Samsung didnt want to pursue a Face ID-like authentication system for the Galaxy S10 line, it probably should have included a 3D ToF sensor on the Galaxy S10+ model instead of a wide-angle lens as its secondary camera module. This is most apparent in low-light situations as highlighted here. You are clearly a super-user of NUVO.net. Thats a good thing. It means you depend on independent and local news sources to keep you informed. You are a smart person. Coincidentally, independent and local news sources depend on you too. Youve read 25 articles this month and now, wed like you to be join our mission and become a NUVO Supporter. For as little as $4 a month, you can keep us alive and fighting -- and can have unlimited access to the independent news that cant be found anywhere else. Flash The idea of British people taking part in the European Elections in May hardly bears thinking about, Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday in her latest bid to win support for her Brexit deal. MPs are set to return to Westminster Monday to learn whether they will have the chance on Tuesday or Wednesday to vote for the third time on May's deal. May mapped out the various routes ahead in an article in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper spelling out the consequences of turning down a deal that was rejected by a 230 margin in its first vote and by 149 in its second. After a number of MPs switch sides to back her deal in last week's second vote, May said she knows she will have to do more to convince more Conservative MPs as well as the 10 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MPs if she is to succeed in finally securing a majority for the Brexit deal. May said if the British Parliament can agree the deal before the European Council on March 21, Britain will seek to delay its planned March 29 departure from the EU to enable legislation to be passed. She said: "The alternative if Parliament cannot agree the deal by that time is much worse. EU leaders would require a clear purpose for any extension. If the proposal were to go back to square one and negotiate a new deal, that would mean a much longer extension, almost certainly requiring Britain United Kingdom to participate in the European Parliament elections in May. "The idea of the British people going to the polls to elect MEPs three years after voting to leave the EU hardly bears thinking about. There could be no more potent symbol of Parliament's collective political failure," said May. In a message to MPs May said: "For those who backed remain, I am asking them to remove any chance of the UK staying in the EU. For those who backed leave, I am asking them to vote for a form of Brexit that may not be everything they hoped for." The prime minister warned: "If we fail, the way ahead is one of uncertainty and ongoing, perhaps permanent, division." Although Tuesday has been earmarked as the day when the third vote on the deal will take place, it has yet to be confirmed. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said on a Sunday morning political program on the BBC that it has not yet definitely been decided. "We will only bring the deal back if we are confident that enough of our colleagues and the DUP are prepared to support it so we can get it through Parliament," he said. Hammond added: "Clearly if we don't get this deal through, we are almost certainly going to have to fight a European parliamentary election and we are almost certainly going to have to have a longer extension." Keir Starmer, Shadow Brexit Secretary for the main opposition Labour Party, said Sunday the party leadership plans to back an amendment when May's deal comes before parliament for its third vote. The amendment would call for a second referendum on EU membership, even though a referendum call was overwhelmingly rejected last week by the House of Commons. Britain is currently scheduled by its own parliamentary legislation to leave the EU on March 29 unless it is replaced by an alternative legal measure. Surf music is a heavy machine-gun staccato picking style to represent the power of Mother Nature, of our earth, of our ocean, he told The New York Times in 1994. His almost constant tremolo created friction so intense that it melted his guitar picks and strings as he played. The staccato is so fast it heat-treats the strings, he said. They turn purple and black and they snap. And when I play, youll see a flurry of plastic it just falls down like snow. I used to think it was dandruff. But I grind so hard that the guitar picks just melt down. His quest for a sonic impact to match what he had felt while surfing also led to innovations that would change the technology of electric guitars and amplification. Leo Fender, one of the electric guitars trailblazers, worked with Mr. Dale to create a guitar sturdy enough to withstand his style Mr. Dale called it the Beast and an 85-watt amplifier that could crank up loud enough to fill a dance hall. Leo and I went to Lansing Speaker, Mr. Dale said in 1994, and we said, We need a speaker that will not burn, will not flex, will not twist, will not break. In the fast-changing 1960s, instrumental surf rock reigned briefly on the charts, and the Beach Boys used it as one foundation of their pop songs. Mr. Dales brash playing also found fans in Jimi Hendrix and many other guitarists, and, decades later among a generation of indie-rockers, who prized his untamed sound. SYDNEY, Australia Even when you know little about a countrys internal politics, aspects of it can seem eerily familiar. How to Rule the World, a new play by Nakkiah Lui for Sydney Theater Company, is deeply rooted in Australias cultural landscape: Jokes about the former prime minister, Julia Gillard, or the state of Tasmania may well escape visiting foreigners. Yet much else in this smart comedy resonates across borders. For starters, it reaffirms that in todays interconnected world, the rise of populism and culture wars around diversity are global phenomena. Ms. Lui, a decorated writer and actor of Indigenous Australian descent, riffs on them with confidence in this sharp-witted tale, in which three highly educated millennials from minority backgrounds (Indigenous Australian, Asian and Pacific Islander) attempt to change the political scene from the inside. In order to defeat the imaginary Sovereign Territory Bill, a hard-line law the government is about to pass, they find a stooge to run for the Australian Senate. As a song puts it in the play, they turn their candidate (named Lewis Lewis) into the perfect successful white man one whose entire platform boils down to sound bites about trying hard and getting things done. In order to secure his election, however, the three puppet masters compromise their own values, and the puppet ends up escaping their grasp. How to Rule the World, staged in the Drama Theater at the Sydney Opera House, has appealing vigor. The director, Paige Rattray, relies on a simple set the hallway of the prime ministers offices but there is enough life in the performance to keep the action absorbing. The few songs are cleverly satirical, and Anthony Taufa (as the Tongan millennial, Chris) and Hamish Michael (who brings range and comic timing to the role of Lewis Lewis) stand out among the cast. Then theres the issue of witness tampering. Podrick tells Tyrion he was offered a knighthood if he would testify that Tyrion bought poison. Someone else (Cersei? Tywin?) got to Shae. Its a twisted trail that aligns with Olenna Tyrells and Littlefingers frame-job. Two weeks before the wedding, Olenna claims to be unhappy with the necklace presented for Margaery to wear, and tells a group of Tyrell women to go speak to the jewelers of Kings Landing and find her the best necklace in town. What shes really looking for, of course, is the best poison container, since the Strangler comes in crystallized form. You may recognize it: It was the same stuff Maester Cressen popped in his wine to share with Melisandre in Season 2. But Margaery cant be seen wearing this necklace, so Olenna with Littlefingers help recruits someone else who will be in easy reach at the reception. Perhaps the murderers had hoped to make the murder look as if Joffrey had simply choked to death, but as a fallback, they also set up Sansa and Tyrion as the likely suspects. Why else have Dontos whisk Sansa away as soon as Joffrey starts choking? Why else throw the used necklace onto Dontos dead body, assuring it could be found later, instead of into the water? Though Olenna and Littlefinger made Sansa look very guilty, they also guarantee she would escape punishment. Tyrion, however, not so much. Even though he recognizes hes been framed, Tyrion doesnt connect this latest betrayal to the last time Littlefinger framed him. After all, Littlefinger has an alibi this time. Littlefingers Lessons Littlefinger wants Sansa on multiple levels shes the key to the North, she reminds him of her mother and shes the pupil he never had. Although hes imparted a bit of information to her in past seasons, he really starts confiding in her during the escape boat trip (and by doing so, becomes vulnerable to her). While he doesnt out his partners in Joffreys murder outright, he drops a strong enough hint (grow strong, referring to House Tyrells words growing strong). He admits to killing Joffrey, and he kills Lysa with Sansa as a witness. He teaches her not to trust anyone. He shows her how to be devious, which she does by incorporating the truth, twisting it ever so slightly, displaying real emotions to give the lie some force and proclaiming that she has to tell the truth and shes no good at deception anyway. (As Sansa defends herself with Lysa, he says Im a stupid little girl, Im a stupid little girl who never learns! And Im a terrible liar!) Sansa gets a lot of mileage out of being a terrible liar (as Littlefinger recognizes at the end of Season 2). By lying to the lords and ladies of the Vale and using a little reverse psychology, Sansa lines up some protectors in her corner, especially Lord Royce, who was a friend to her father (and likely grew up with him when Ned Stark was fostered in the Eyrie). More important, Sansa now has leverage over Littlefinger and can always play the you murdered Aunt Lysa card later. When Sansa wore the necklace given to her by Dontos, she was still susceptible to romance and fairy tales. When she switches to a large black buckle on a chain necklace in Dark Sansa mode, shes announcing that shes outgrown such notions and is ready to be a game-player in her own right. Expensive Gifts Nothing like a thoughtful gift to make a new friendship grow strong, Littlefinger says. Of course, hes referring to the gift of murdering Joffrey, a rather pricey present. Gifts are rich in meaning, often signifying much about the giver and the recipient, which is why Lysa becomes so suspicious about the crates of lemons Littlefinger ships to the Eyrie, all so Sansa can snack on her beloved lemon cakes. Daario offers Dany flowers as a way of being romantic and schooling her about strategy. Dany gives the people of Meereen broken chains from the necks of former slaves to encourage them to revolt and, in turn, deliver the city to her. Tywin gives a freshly forged sword of Valyrian steel to Jaime to entice him to forsake his vow to the Kingsguard and to be the Lannister heir. Jaime then gives that to Brienne, along with armor and a squire, to enable her to fulfill a vow that he cannot. Her calling the sword Oathkeeper signifies that she understands this and more. (It is perhaps one of the truest, most selfless gifts, and is acknowledged as such.) THE FIX 10 p.m. on ABC. Some have speculated that this new legal-drama series is based on the 1994 O. J. Simpson murder case. (One of the writers and executive producers of the show is Marcia Clark, who was the lead prosecutor on the Simpson trial.) Clark has said The Fix is not based on her experiences from that time, but it does bear some resemblance: A stone-faced Robin Tunney (The Mentalist) stars as Maya Davis, a district attorney who left Los Angeles for Washington after she lost a high-profile murder case involving an actor, Sevvy Johnson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje of Lost), who may or may not have killed his wife. Eight years later, Sevvy is suspected of murdering his girlfriend, and Maya is lured back to California for another chance to put him behind bars. Whats Streaming THE CHIEF The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts By Joan Biskupic When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts provided the critical fifth vote, enraging conservatives and delighting liberals. Ever since, questions have swirled around his vote. How could a jurist who was so carefully vetted for ideological purity have turned apostate on such a defining issue, saving Obamacare from oblivion? In The Chief, her assiduously reported and briskly written biography, Joan Biskupic, a CNN analyst who has long covered the court, offers new behind-the-scenes details. Roberts was, she says, initially inclined to strike down a key part of the law, the individual mandate, which required people to have insurance or pay a penalty. But during the opinion-drafting process he joined the liberals in affirming it. While Biskupic sheds light on when and how Roberts made that decision, she is less illuminating on why. She ticks off leading theories: He was wary of overturning the elected branches of government on such an important issue, or reluctant to throw the national health care system into chaos, or worried about the courts reputation. It is not clear, however, which of these, if any, explains why he came out as he did. The difficulty of understanding that historic vote is emblematic of something larger: just how hard it is to figure out who Roberts really is. With his square-jawed, no-hair-out-of-place looks and icy smile, he often resembles an animatronic version of a chief justice, with the dial set firmly to the right. Who Roberts is and what he stands for are more important than ever since Anthony Kennedy retired last year and Brett Kavanaugh, who is more conservative, took his seat. Roberts is now both chief justice and the courts swing justice which means that, increasingly, the law is likely to be what he says it is. Details: Britain, Germany, India and the United Arab Emirates are signaling that they probably will not back the American effort to ban Huawei from building its 5G networks. Although some countries share Americas concerns, they say the security risks can be managed by keeping a close eye on the company and its software. Heres what else is happening Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro used Cuban doctors, who were in the country on medical missions, to coerce voters. The doctors went door-to-door, warning ill and elderly people that care would be cut off if they did not vote for the governing party. West Bank: An assailant believed to be Palestinian killed an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank. The attack came amid a heated campaign for an April 9 election. Philippines: The country formally withdrew from the International Criminal Court as it faced a preliminary inquiry into whether President Rodrigo Duterte has engaged in mass murder and crimes against humanity. On Thursday, Mr. Duterte publicly released a new list of people whom he claims are narcopoliticians including many who are his political opponents. France: In Week 18 of the countrys Yellow Vest demonstrations, violence surged as protesters targeted symbols of wealth. They set fires and smashed a high-end restaurant on the Champs-Elysees. Still, the size of the movement has been shrinking. LONDON The financial technology provider Fidelity National Information Services agreed on Monday to buy Worldpay for about $34 billion, in a bid to become a powerhouse in the global payments sector. The deal is among the biggest in the industry, as companies race to capture a share of the booming payments market. Companies like Worldpay are often invisible to consumers, but they process the escalating number of e-commerce transactions and purchases made through contactless payment systems like Apple Pay. That growth has already driven some big deals. In January, Fiserv agreed to buy another big processor, First Data, for about $22 billion. Acquiring Worldpay, a former unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland that itself has grown through acquisitions, would give Fidelity National Information Services known as FIS a formidable presence in the e-commerce market. Worldpay says that it processes about 40 billion transactions a year. Nearly 100 female economists say a peer or a colleague has sexually assaulted them. Nearly 200 say they were the victim of an attempted assault. And hundreds say they were stalked or touched inappropriately, according to a far-reaching survey of the field. The results, compiled by the American Economic Association, also reveal deep evidence of gender and racial discrimination within the field. Half of the women who responded to the survey said they had been treated unfairly because of their sex, compared with 3 percent of men. Nearly half of women said they had avoided speaking at a conference or a seminar to guard against possible harassment or disrespectful treatment. Seven in 10 women said they felt their colleagues work was taken more seriously than their own. More than 9,000 current and past members of the association, both men and women, took part in the survey. And the results have jolted the groups leaders, who announced several measures on Monday to combat harassment and discrimination. The moves include the appointment of an ombudsman empowered to investigate complaints of misbehavior by economists, and the threat of professional sanction including the potential loss of prestigious awards for economists who are found to violate a new anti-harassment code. It was also another step in Ms. Braziles gradual drift away from the Democratic establishment. Ms. Brazile became interim chairwoman of the party in July 2016. Days before Mr. Trumps election in November, emails obtained by WikiLeaks revealed that Ms. Brazile, who worked for CNN at the time, had leaked debate questions in advance to her allies on Hillary Clintons campaign staff. CNN promptly fired her. Within a year, she antagonized Democrats with a provocative memoir that accused the party of taking steps to favor Mrs. Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary campaign. Now, Ms. Brazile will appear on the network that her successor, Tom Perez, the Democratic Party chairman since February 2017, recently barred from sponsoring a party debate because of what he deemed an inappropriate relationship with Mr. Trump. In a statement issued on Monday, Ms. Brazile tried to anticipate any objections. I know Im going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News, she wrote. My response is that, if weve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we cant have a country where we dont talk to those who disagree with our political views. Theres an audience on Fox News that doesnt hear enough from Democrats, Ms. Brazile continued. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our safe spaces where we simply agree with each other. On the air with Ms. Perino on Monday afternoon, Ms. Brazile identified herself as a progressive and a liberal. She noted that she had occasionally appeared on Fox News in the past, including as a guest host of the opinionated talk show The Five. Kevin Tsujihara, the chief executive of AT&Ts recently acquired Warner Bros. studios division, has stepped down after accusations surfaced that he had pushed for a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship to be considered for roles in the companys films and television shows. Mr. Tsujihara, who has worked at the studio for more than two decades, said he made the decision to leave the company after discussing the matter with John Stankey, WarnerMedias chief executive. Over the past week and a half, I have been reflecting on how the attention on my past actions might impact the companys future, Mr. Tsujihara wrote in a memo to employees. After lengthy introspection, and discussions with John Stankey over the past week, we have decided that it is in Warner Bros. best interest that I step down as chairman and C.E.O. The allegations against Mr. Tsujihara emerged in a March 6 article in The Hollywood Reporter, which outlined a sexual relationship between Mr. Tsujihara, 54, and Charlotte Kirk, an actress in her 20s. The Reporter, quoting from private text messages it obtained, portrayed a situation in which Mr. Tsujihara prompted by Ms. Kirks statements that he had promised to help her career during a meeting at a motel contacted his lieutenants on her behalf. Ranch dressing with black truffles, an exercise in low-to-high, is a new product to ponder. Its made by a company that imports black truffles from France and sells them to restaurants. The creamy ivory dressing is dotted with bits of the truffles and nicely delivers their haunting aroma and flavor. You could use it on a salad, but I preferred it spooned on Dover sole, a baked potato or a steak. Black Truffle Ranch by Trufflin, $20 for 6.8 ounces, trufflin-nyc.com. Despite the obstacles, 85 percent of Open Arms patients achieve viral suppression, Dr. Mena said, meaning they take their pills so faithfully that the virus cannot be found in their blood . To reach that goal, the clinic has to offer many extra services: counselors to remind clients to take their pills, transportation for those who don't own cars, and even a food bank offering weekly food packages, since many patients are so poor they skip meals and then will not take pills that may trigger heartburn. Open Arms would like to have an on-site pharmacy too, Dr. Mena said, but has not received a license yet. Mostly, he said, a clinic must offer the right attitude. People dont come back to clinics where the nurse makes you feel guilty for sleeping with men, or keeps saying he when its she, or threatens to stop your meds if you dont take them all, he said. People with H.I.V. are still people. Louisiana, next door to this state, goes further: Patients whose blood tests prove they are taking their pills daily get paid. For some folks, thats controversial, but it works, said Dr. Alexander Billioux, a Louisiana assistant health secretary. And were not sending anyone on luxury vacations. Its about $25 a month. No matter what tactics a state employs, medication has become the simple part of H.I.V., Dr. Mena said. Whats been missing is the political will. 4. Why were officers able to arrive on the scenes of the attacks more quickly on that particular day? The article goes on to say, Still, it was not fast enough. What details develop this point? 5. Who is the suspect? What appears to be his motive? How long did it take police officers to apprehend him? Finally, tell us more about what you think: The related Opinion essay The Roots of the Christchurch Massacre argues that All those who have helped to spread the worldwide myth that Muslims are a threat have blood on their hands. Wajahat Ali writes: Upon learning about the massacre in Christchurch, a Muslim friend messaged me, How will we keep our kids safe? I didnt have a good answer. But I know the threat were facing isnt just individual terrorists. Its the global ideology of white nationalism and white supremacy. We have to take it seriously, and call out politicians, academics and media personalities who give it a platform under the guise of exploring both sides, fostering debate or avoiding political correctness. The cost is too great. Just look to Christchurch and the 49 worshipers who should have returned home to their families and community instead of attending their last prayer. Do you share Mr. Alis stance that attacks like those that took place at two mosques in Christchurch are not caused just by individual terrorists carrying out the attacks but also the global ideology of white nationalism and white supremacy to which they subscribe? Elsewhere in his essay, Mr. Ali incorporates in his argument President Trumps rhetoric about immigration in the United States and in Europe: If the idea that Muslims are a threat sounds familiar, its in part because it was used by President Trump to argue for a wall to protect America from a caravan of Central American migrants seeking asylum. He asserted that Middle Easterners were in the caravan, a claim he admitted he could not back up. During a summer trip to England, Mr. Trump warned that Britain was losing its culture and that immigration had changed the fabric of Europe and unless you act very quickly, its never going to be what it was. Arguing for his travel ban aimed at mostly Muslim countries, Mr. Trump said, I think Islam hates us, lied about seeing Muslims celebrate the Sept. 11 attacks, and retweeted a fringe anti-Muslim groups fake videos of Muslim refugees committing violence. No wonder the Christchurch manifesto praised Mr. Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose. Its clear that the dangers of white nationalism arent limited to the United States. This attack is a reminder that this dangerous ideology also threatens immigrant communities worldwide, and that its fueled by leaders around the world. What is your reaction to these ideas? Do you think world leaders like Mr. Trump can or should be held responsible for the spread of anti-immigrant ideology? Why or why not? How has New Zealands prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, responded to the attacks? Do you think she can use her position and words to help heal her nation? Finally, what role does social media play in fomenting hatred of certain groups? It is known that the shooter in Christchurch streamed part of the attacks on Facebook. Do social media companies have a responsibility to block extremists from using their platforms to spread hate and inspire violence? Explain your stance. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] The 24-year-old man charged with killing a senior leader of the Gambino crime family in Staten Island told detectives that he was high on marijuana and shot the crime figure because he feared for his life, according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter. But the man, Anthony Comello, gave several conflicting accounts about what happened the night the reputed mobster, Francesco Cali, was fatally shot, and investigators have been unable to corroborate many of his statements or to establish a motive for the shooting, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. At an initial court appearance on Monday afternoon in Ocean County, N.J., Mr. Comello held up a palm on which he had scribbled United We Stand, and M.A.G.A. forever, as well as a circle and U.S.A. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] It is not clear exactly how an altercation involving a white womans racist tirade in a Connecticut supermarket began. But a video posted of the incident on Friday night opened with the womans profanity-tinged threat. Over the next minute, the woman, whom police officials identified as Corinne Terrone, hurled a highly offensive racial epithet four times at a black man and a black woman in a ShopRite grocery store in East Haven, Conn., the video shows. She repeatedly swore at the man and woman and twice spat in their direction. All the while, Ms. Terrones two children looked on, seemingly frightened. By the time Ms. Terrones tirade came to the attention of local officials on Saturday morning, videos of the incident had been viewed and reposted by thousands of people on Facebook and Instagram. That same day, Ms. Terrone resigned from her job as a clerk for Hamden Public Schools in Connecticut, school district officials said. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Otis Boone insisted he was innocent from the time he was accused of two robberies in 2011, when he was 19. But the two victims who had their cellphones snatched by a knife-wielding man picked Mr. Boone out of separate police lineups. Though there was no physical evidence, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Mr. Boone, of Brooklyn, took his appeal to New Yorks highest court, where a majority of judges ruled that the jury should have been told that witnesses often struggle to identify strangers of a different race because mistaken identifications are a major factor in wrongful convictions. Mr. Boone is black; the victims were white. The Court of Appeals granted Mr. Boone a retrial and made it mandatory going forward for judges to explain what psychologists call the cross-race effect to jurors whenever a case involves a witness identifying of a suspect of a different race. At his second trial last month, public defenders presented evidence that Mr. Boone was a mile away from one of the robberies five minutes before it occurred. He was acquitted on March 1, after spending seven of the last eight years behind bars. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] It began as an operation targeting a cocaine ring in southern New Jersey. But after investigators listened to a wire tap, the case took on an unexpected focus: do-it-yourself firearms made from parts easily found online. The suspects in New Jersey are accused of trying to sell several homemade AR-15 assault-style rifles that are known as ghost guns because they cannot be tracked. The AR-15 rifle is a powerful weapon similar to the one used to kill 11 people last year at a Pittsburgh synagogue. On Monday, New Jersey law enforcement officials announced the arrests of four men who became the first defendants charged under a law passed last year that makes it illegal to buy, manufacture, possess or sell homemade guns in the state. California is the only other state that restricts such weapons, but New Jerseys version is far more stringent, according to national gun control groups. In fact, one of the suspects is heard on a wiretap specifically citing New Jerseys law and saying they had to move the weapon sales out of state. Its one of the biggest real estate projects in the country in recent years, and one of the biggest in New York since Rockefeller Center was completed 80 years ago. And taxpayers helped pay for this new $25 billion neighborhood. Hudson Yards officially opened on Friday. Want to visit? Heres everything youll need to know: Where is it? Hudson Yards was built above the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rail yards on the West Side of Manhattan. What buildings are there? Theres a shopping mall between two office towers, 10 and 30 Hudson Yards. 50 Hudson Yards is to the north and under construction. Another office building is at 55 Hudson Yards. Then theres 35 Hudson Yards, which is 1,000 feet high and includes shops, offices, a hotel and apartments. And over at 15 Hudson Yards, a residential building, there are separate entrances for the wealthy condo owners and the subsidized renters. The most eye-catching buildings are the Shed, a $500 million city-sponsored arts center, and the Vessel, a 150-foot-high, $200 million structure with 2,500 climbable steps. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] HOMER, N.Y. The fears weigh on Mike McMahon: If one of his undocumented workers gets a traffic ticket, it could prompt an immigration audit of his entire farm. If another gets detained by immigration agents at a roadside checkpoint or in a supermarket parking lot, the rest may flee. And if his undocumented work force disappears overnight, there is no one to replace them. It keeps me up at night, said Mr. McMahon, who owns a dairy farm south of Syracuse. There are people out there who just say, Send them all back and build a wall. But they would be facing empty shelves in the grocery store if that were to happen. It has long been an open secret in upstate New York that the dairy industry has been able to survive only by relying on undocumented immigrants for its work force. Now, this region has become a national focal point in the debate over President Trumps crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their role in agriculture. The tensions have escalated to such a degree over the last year that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo described federal agents as reckless, accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement of violating the rights of farmers in pursuing undocumented immigrants. The truth began to dawn that no one wanted to play poker with a 12-year-old cardsharp, he told The Sunday Telegraph of Sydney, Australia, in 1996. Instead he turned his dexterity with cards toward magic tricks. I was pretty adept at palming, he said in a video interview with Full Circle Magic. Ive always had large hands. He began hanging around comedy shops in Chicago, honing his skills. He worked briefly as a fire eater and sword swallower with a carnival sideshow, then in 1951 made the first of countless appearances in Las Vegas not as a magician, but as bass harmonica player with the Harmonicats, a popular group at the time, filling in for an ill member. He excelled on the harmonica and was knowledgeable about jazz, and he played with other bands besides the Harmonicats and even formed his own. But magic was the work that stuck. Doing a conventional magic act, he was booked into Playboy Clubs with a comedy team, which got him thinking about incorporating humor into his own routine. In 1969 he introduced the Great Tomsoni, the Wizard of Warsaw, a self-important fellow who couldnt get his tricks quite right producing a bowling ball from beneath some scarves, for instance, when he was hoping for a rabbit. He married Ms. Hayes, an actress with strong comedic skills, in 1973, and the act became the Great Tomsoni and Company. A classic routine featured the Great Tomsoni making a series of doves materialize and disappear. Ms. Hayes, in the role of magicians assistant, is also made to disappear, in a sense the Great Tomsoni inadvertently pulls her dress off, causing her to run offstage. Her other duties included informing him, partway through the bit, that his fly was quite noticeably down. Okwui Enwezor, an influential Nigerian curator whose large-scale exhibitions displaced European and American art from its central position as he forged a new approach to art for a global age, died on Friday in Munich. He was 55. The cause was cancer, said his partner, Louise Neri. In ambitious, erudite, carefully argued exhibitions staged in Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, Mr. Enwezor (pronounced en-WEH-zore) presented contemporary art against a backdrop of world history and cultural exchange. His 2002 edition of Documenta, an important exhibition that occurs once every five years in Kassel, Germany, stands as a major achievement in recent art history. Though earlier shows like Magiciens de la Terre (Paris, 1989) had begun to tell a worldwide story of art, the 2002 Documenta was a testament to how widely Mr. Enwezor was enlarging art world horizons and positioning artists of the 20th century avant-garde as just a few actors in a vast ebb and flow of world civilization. Many of his most acclaimed shows were group exhibitions and biennials. In addition to Documenta, he curated the 2008 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, the 2012 Paris Triennale and the 2015 Venice Biennale. Yet Mr. Enwezor also curated numerous solo exhibitions, by such figures as the South African photographer David Goldblatt and the American sculptor and filmmaker Matthew Barney. But if finite funding is the reason these programs are limited in the first place, it seems clear that those limited funds may be better spent reducing the nontuition expenses of lower-income students. Much of this misplaced prioritization has consequences that go beyond bad optics. According to The Hechinger Report, in 2017 alone, nearly a million low-income students who applied for and were found eligible for state financial aid for college never received it, because states ran out of money. The report estimates that the actual numbers are much worse, but that we are largely in the dark because many states dont keep track of the students they have to turn down. We do know, however, that in 10 states including blue ones like Oregon and Illinois as well red ones like Kansas over half of students eligible for state grants didnt receive them because resources ran out. In the sphere of four-year education, things are especially dire. The maximum Pell Grant which provides an invaluable assist for many community college students now covers, on average, less than a third of the cost of attending a four-year public college or university. In a Darwinian twist, the cost of living is typically only offset only by selective merit stipends, available only for those lucky few who manage to attain scores that outperform advantaged students (who usually have accelerated schooling and tutoring) . A 2018 report by the National College Access Network concluded that the average Pell grant recipient in 17 states and Puerto Rico cant afford to attend a four-year public college and live on campus, even with grants, aid, loans and working full-time over the summer. Instead of wrestling with the urgent implications of these realities, debates in policy circles too often skip straight to the supposed silver bullet of establishing a universal set of benefits to all students, with no accounting for financial resources the thin subtext being that low-income people will need the buy-in of powerful upper-middle-class parents before education funding policies can be passed by legislatures and win sustained support among voters. But states which cannot, like the federal government, print money have unique fiscal constraints that limit the possibilities of universal programs. And while Congress could solve everyones woes with sweeping universal legislation, thats unlikely to pass any time in the foreseeable future. Altogether, it means there are real distributional trade-offs that must be made. The Century Foundation explored this dilemma and found that free college programs, including those in states like Oklahoma aimed at low-income students, did not just survive but even grew in the face of a recession, despite other state-level cuts. A separate Ed Trust analysis also showed that college subsidy policies in Maryland, Oklahoma and Indiana , which targeted low-income students, better benefited students of color. To the Editor: Re Extremist Hate Fuels New Zealand Massacre (front page, March 16): Given that the horrific attacks in Christchurch were motivated at least in part by white nationalist message boards, the United States must proceed cautiously on how literally free speech should be understood online. Unmoderated internet echo chambers are a danger that the founding fathers never envisioned when they wrote the First Amendment. Prudent control wouldnt make the United States oppressive. As an example, Germany has banned the public display of Nazi or white nationalist symbols, effectively lowering white nationalist activity. Americans love the First Amendment, but as with the Second Amendment, we have to have a conversation. In this digital era, is unrestricted free speech worth the proliferation of hate, and potentially more tragic events like those in New Zealand? Andrew Ni Princeton, N.J. To the Editor: Words fail us in the face of this latest massacre, but the responses of government leaders around the world guide us. Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, embracing Muslims worldwide, stated with simple eloquence, As New Zealand has stood by us so we stand shoulder to shoulder with them, and with Muslims in New Zealand, here in the U.K. and around the world. The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, calling the massacre one of New Zealands darkest days , vowed to change gun laws. But in all of this detail, there is little discussion of McVeighs ideology. We learn, briefly, how he was angered by the sieges at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Tex., but those arent placed in a larger context of white power activity. We learn that McVeigh read and drew from The Turner Diaries a lurid fantasy of apocalyptic race war by the neo-Nazi author William Pierce but were left in the dark about his ties to larger networks of white power activists. At one point, McVeigh is described as an antigovernment extremist, but even this obscures the depth of his white supremacist, nativist and anti-Semitic ideology and commitment to revolutionary violence against the state. It makes sense that a memorial would not want to focus too closely on the perpetrators. But theres no way to understand McVeigh or his accomplices without looking deeper. As the historian Kathleen Belew notes in Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, McVeigh, trained as a combatant by the state, belonged to the white power movement. He acted without orders from movement leaders, but in concert with movement objectives and supported by resistance cell organizing. That understanding of McVeigh and Nichols as part of a movement with well-defined goals and a theory of action which itself fits into a history of ideologically driven hate networks is important if the mission of the Oklahoma City memorial is education as much as remembrance. And in visiting the site and museum, I was troubled by shallow treatment of that context. Are visitors making the connections between past and present? Do they see the relationship between the violence in Oklahoma City and the shooting of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., in 2015 or the murder of 11 Jewish worshipers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018? Do they see McVeigh as a singular threat or as an important antecedent to our present-day white power killers? In the manifesto he released, the accused Christchurch shooter made frequent references to white genocide, the idea that nonwhite immigration and mixed-race relationships constitute a genocidal threat to white people. He recites the 14 words a white supremacist mantra and elsewhere posted images of a gun with the number 14 written on it. As Jane Coaston noted in Vox, the term white genocide was coined by David Lane, a white supremacist responsible for the murder of a Jewish radio host in 1984. He, like McVeigh, was also inspired by William Pierce. Again, the museum devotes some space to this movement and those ideas copies of Pierces books Hunter and The Turner Diaries are on display but they are overshadowed by exhibits that focus on the experience of the bombing and its aftermath. The two men mix rage with self-pity. They see themselves as victims and use terms like invasion, mass immigration and white genocide to describe what they regard as the destruction of Europe and the white race. Both the Australian and the Norwegian barely mention their own homelands and focus on Europe and the United States. Mr. Tarrant sees the white population of Australia and New Zealand as Europeans. He writes how he decided on his final push after visiting France in 2017, where he saw how the European French had been replaced by nonwhites. Thus the title of his manifesto: The Great Replacement. Like the Norwegian, Mr. Tarrant is obsessed with birthrates and describes Europe as growing weaker and older. The Norwegian terrorist wanted to establish state-run birth clinics where blond, blue-eyed mothers would give birth to a dozen children each. Mr. Tarrant wants to restore what he calls traditional family values. Even though Mr. Tarrants manifesto is tailored to his dark web audience, sometimes with coded language, he tries to create a background of normalcy by quoting poems by Rudyard Kipling and referring to more mainstream right-wing figures. Likewise, Mr. Breivik frequently quoted people like Thomas Jefferson, as if he were the rightful heir to well-established ideas. Their main agenda is the same: to crush Muslim immigration. Mr. Tarrant wants to deport those invaders already living on our soil. Mr. Breivik suggested that every Muslim should be given the opportunity to convert to Christianity and take a Christian name. Those who do not obey should be deported or executed. All examples of Islamic art should be destroyed including all mosques; languages like Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Somali would be banned. One of the mosques targeted in New Zealand is built on the site where a church once stood. While the Christchurch gunman aimed straight at his targets, Mr. Breivik wanted to kill the so-called traitors, the members of the liberal elite and ruling Labour Party who had let Muslims into the country. Both men wrote about sacrificing themselves to a greater cause and envisioned that they would be released from prison by their followers after a conservative revolutionswept through the world. Periods of major political transformation have never been particularly easy for Jews, and the current moment is no exception. Anti-Semitism is ascendant in Europe and many fear that the resurgence of nationalism will exacerbate it. But there is a twist: Anti-Semitisms rise in Europe is being accompanied by a growing fascination among Europes hard right with Israel and, in particular, its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. This captivation is particularly acute among the governing national populist parties in Central Europe, a region where anti-Semitism has historically found fertile ground. Central European leaders view Mr. Netanyahu as a close ally. Last year, the Visegrad Group, an organization for cooperation between Central European countries, announced plans to hold a meeting in Israel its first outside of Europe. That plan was ultimately foiled by a spat between Poland and Israel over the Holocaust, but the symbolism was nonetheless significant and leaders from the three remaining Visegrad Group countries Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia went to Israel. For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has cultivated relationships with Central European populist leaders. He called Viktor Orban a true friend of Israel at the same time that prominent members of the Jewish community in Budapest were criticizing the Hungarian leader for the anti-Semitic tones of his campaign against George Soros. Why are Central European populists attracted to Mr. Netanyahus Israel in the way that Western European leftists of the 1960s and 70s were once mesmerized by Fidel Castros Cuba? Many of us who teach the works of the European Enlightenment live outside Europe, for example, in North America or Australia. We tend to view our societies as extensions of European or Western or Christian civilization. In the United States before the 20th century, universities primarily hired Christian theologians to teach philosophy. Later, when American universities became more secular, philosophy departments were among the last to hire professors of Jewish ancestry. This was not because those who entered the profession were more anti-Semitic than their peers in other fields, but instead because Jews were regarded in the early 20th century as non-Western and therefore unfit to teach Western philosophy. The Harvard philosopher William Hocking is alleged to have said that the Jewish mind could not properly interpret and teach the philosophy and history of Western Christian civilization. After World War II, when European Jews were reimagined as European, and therefore of the West, social barriers to Jews broke down in most areas of American life, including academic philosophy. Although some of the new arrivals attempted to incorporate Jewish thinkers into the American curriculum, those who did were pushed to the margins of the discipline. This is partly because philosophy itself became more secular, and its practitioners focused more on the epistemology and implications of Western science. Philosophers who engaged with Christian thought or the philosophy of religion were similarly marginalized in this period. Research and teaching in the history of philosophy has become sidelined, too. Those who champion the importance and relevance of philosophys history to the field mostly defend the traditional Western canon, although there are some new efforts to incorporate the works and ideas of non-European and also women philosophers, and to teach the works of figures like Kant in ways that expose his social biases. With the resurgence of old hatreds in the 21st century, philosophers are challenged to think about the ways we trace the history of our discipline and teach our major figures, and whether our professional habits and pieties have been shaped by religious intolerance and other forms of bigotry. For example, why not emphasize how philosophy emerged from schools of thought around the world? In the fields of history and literature, introductory courses that focus on European studies are being replaced by courses in world history and comparative literature. There has not been a similar widespread movement to rethink the standard introduction to philosophy in terms of world philosophy. There are philosophers who contend that such projects inappropriately politicize our truth-seeking endeavors, but, as some philosophers of science have shown, objective truth involves the convergence of multiple observations and perspectives. Moreover, the anti-Semitic theories of Hume, Voltaire and Kant show that philosophy has rarely, if ever, been insulated from politics. Laurie Shrage is a professor of philosophy at Florida International University. Now in print: Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments, and The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments, with essays from the series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Things clump together; the periphery cannot hold. As you read this, Democratic presidential hopefuls are crisscrossing Iowa, trying to assure farmers that they share their concerns. Commentators are publishing opinion pieces about how Democrats can win back rural voters. Think tanks are issuing manifestoes about reviving heartland economies. Theres nothing wrong with discussing these issues. Rural lives matter were all Americans, and deserve to share in the nations wealth. Rural votes matter even more; like it or not, our political system gives hugely disproportionate weight to less populous states, which are also generally states with relatively rural populations. But its also important to get real. There are powerful forces behind the relative and in some cases absolute economic decline of rural America and the truth is that nobody knows how to reverse those forces. Put it this way: Many of the problems facing America have easy technical solutions; all we lack is the political will. Every other advanced country provides universal health care. Affordable child care is within easy reach. Rebuilding our fraying infrastructure would be expensive, but we can afford it and it might well pay for itself. Last May the asset-management firm AllianceBernstein announced that it would be moving its headquarters to Nashville and creating more than 1,000 jobs here in part because of $17.5 million in financial incentives provided by the state. Earlier this month, the companys chief operating officer, Jim Gingrich, joined with local LGBTQ advocates in assailing several bills designed to suppress gay rights in Tennessee, pointing out that such bills in other states have proven to be anti-growth, anti-job and against the interests of the citizens of those states. The fetal-heartbeat bill faces similar opposition from within a traditional Republican camp. All three of Tennessees Catholic bishops oppose the bill, and so does Tennessee Right to Life, the primary anti-abortion group in the state. Thats because a losing court battle would force the state to pay costly legal fees its own and its opponents as well as create a legal precedent that would dog future anti-abortion efforts. Nevertheless, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed the bill on a 65-21 vote. It now goes to the State Senate for consideration. It would be easy to dismiss even laugh at politicians so resolutely determined to shoot themselves in the foot. But from time to time they do manage to pass laws, and some of those laws cause immense pain to innocent people. In 2015, members of the Republican supermajority rejected a plan by their own Republican governor, Bill Haslam, to expand TennCare, the states Medicaid program and provide health insurance to hundreds of thousands of low-income Tennesseans not covered by the Affordable Care Act. Governor Haslams plan would have cost the state no additional funds, and it was supported by an overwhelming majority of Tennesseans. Adding insult to injury, the failure to expand Medicaid has caused the widespread closure of hospitals in this state a dozen so far, with many others teetering on the verge of insolvency and there have been many other predictable ramifications of leaving so many people without health insurance. In 2018, the state legislature passed a law that required able-bodied Tennesseans who do qualify for TennCare to hold a job or go to school if they wanted to keep their health insurance. The state is currently seeking permission from the federal government to implement this requirement and will presumably get it. When that happens, 68,000 more Tennesseans will lose their health insurance because they lack transportation, for example, or dont have access to affordable or reliable child care. The requirements will also cost the state an additional $19 million in administrative costs, even taking into account the money saved by reducing TennCare rolls. Even if Republican lawmakers arent concerned about their uninsured fellow citizens, youd think a figure like that might catch their attention. Every morning I read Joel Eberts heroic statehouse reporting for The Tennessean, Nashvilles daily newspaper, and I wonder what in the world is going on. These are not stupid people. What possible explanation lies behind such stupid behavior? And those failures could be a serious concern , if smart people like Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, are to be believed. In a speech before the Economic Club of New York in November, Mr. Powell said he thought that investors in C.L.O.s would bear the brunt of an uptick in corporate bankruptcies, rather than the big Wall Street banks. Those investors include Japanese banks as well as investors in hedge funds, mutual funds and pension funds (in other words, you and me). Janet Yellen, Mr. Powells predecessor, aired the same concern in December, in a conversation with the Times columnist Paul Krugman. Ms. Yellen said she worried that corporate indebtedness was quite high: its now more than $9 trillion, up from $4.9 trillion, in 2006, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. I think a lot of the underwriting of that debt is weak, she said. I think investors hold it in packages like the subprime packages, which became so popular before the 2008 crisis. The same thing has happened. Its called C.L.O.s, or collateralized loan obligations. Randal Quarles, who oversees Wall Street supervision and regulation at the Federal Reserve, also highlighted the looming systemic risk to the financial system, if and when C.L.O.s start getting hit by defaults. On the one hand, he told the Council on Foreign Relations in December, he takes comfort from the fact that Wall Street banks are offloading risky loans to investors when they do, it moves that risk away from the heart of the financial system. But there might be a backdoor risk of exposure for banks, he said. Thats something we need to be vigilant about, he added, and it is something the Fed continues to analyze. One backdoor risk is exacerbated by a tactic of some all-too-clever hedge fund managers. They buy a little of the debt of risky companies at a discount, and then buy a much larger amount of insurance on that debt so-called credit default swaps to theoretically hedge their risk. These wiseguys then do everything they can to force the company into a bankruptcy filing, which contractually triggers the insurance payoff on the debt. Since the insurance payment exceeds by far the overall cost of the discounted debt, the hedge fund profits handsomely. NASA engineers werent sure what to expect when the MarCO mission launched last May. I think its opened up so many doors and kind of shattered expectations, said Anne Marinan, a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The fact that we actually got as far as we did with both satellites working was huge. About a month after dropping InSight onto Mars, NASA lost contact with the MarCOs. The agency may attempt to wake them up someday, but for now Wall-E and EVE are silently roaming the solar system, proof of a new space exploration technology that almost never got to the launchpad. [Sign up to get reminders for space and astronomy events on your calendar.] Uncanceling the cubesat program The MarCO mission was canceled repeatedly. After all, the primary goal of NASAs InSight mission was to land a stationary spacecraft on Mars and listen for marsquakes, giving scientists an improved picture of the red planets internal makeup. And multiple spacecraft orbiting Mars already relay information from its surface back to Earth. The cubesats wouldnt play a direct role in InSights success or failure, so it was a challenge to persuade NASA to support a nonessential program using unproven technology . The MarCO team fought hard, prevailing at last with the argument that at a cost of only $18 million, the idea was worth taking a chance on. If these two tiny satellites worked well, it would not only mean that similar spacecraft could support big planetary missions in the future, but also that cubesats might carry instruments of their own. Organic things can carry coded messages about their home environments. Tree rings can tell scientists what the atmosphere was like when the tree was young. Lichens can reveal local air pollution levels. Now, scientists in Canada report that honey carries a message, too. A survey of urban beehives around Vancouver , which was published last week in Nature Sustainability, showed that the hives honey contained minute levels of lead, especially downtown and near the citys port. The readings suggest that honey can be a sensitive indicator of air quality. And with urban hives growing in number and already more numerous than many people realize, tracking their pollutant levels may offer an inexpensive way to monitor whats in the air all over the world, said Dominique Weis, a professor of geochemistry at University of British Columbia and a co-author of the paper. [Like the Science Times page on Facebook. | Sign up for the Science Times newsletter.] The project began when Hives for Humanity, a nonprofit that manages community beehives around the city, asked Dr. Weis to check the honey for lead and other substances. Bees are known to pick up trace amounts of metals, which settle on leaves and flowers from the air, as they forage for pollen. The results showed very small levels of lead, along with traces of iron, zinc and other substances. A person would have to eat more than a pound of the honey a day to reach the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations provisional tolerable lead intake level for an adult, Dr. Weis said. The Hives for Humanity honey compares favorably with honey elsewhere; its lead levels are below the worldwide average. Though they didnt anticipate being this much a part of the zeitgeist, Dr. Gilligan and Ms. Snider published a book on the topic just before the midterm elections last fall. Why Does Patriarchy Persist? is a gentle dialogue between Dr. Gilligan and Ms. Snider that proposes a psychological reason for patriarchy that its a defense against loss that complements the agreed-upon explanation, which is that people in power dont tend to give it up. Its more forgiving than many conversations about men right now. Image Credit... Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times Reprising midcentury studies of children separated from their caregivers and more recent studies of infants (most notably the Still Face experiment, a gruesome display of what happens when babies efforts to connect with their mothers are thwarted), Dr. Gilligan and Ms. Snider explore the aftermath of trauma and the loss of connection. They suggest that the stages of that rupture, as they put it, which psychologists have described as protest, despair and detachment, mirror what happens when young women and young men mature and begin to display stereotypical male and female behaviors: e.g. the detached, heroic male; the selfless, overly nurturing female. (Detachment derives from two attachment styles that are considered pathologies avoidant-attachment and anxious-attachment and its from those respective affects, Dr. Gilligan and Ms. Snider suggest, that we get our cartoon male and female behaviors, in which intimacy suffers and emotion turns into playacting.) If you want to elevate one group of people over another, Dr. Gilligan said, you have to undercut our relational capacities as human beings. You have to stop the person at the top from feeling empathy for the people at the bottom. We saw this during the government shutdown. Feminist Rock Star This is familiar territory for Dr. Gilligan, who has been examining the developmental differences between boys and girls, and how those differences can both support and subvert their relationships, ever since her first book, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Womens Development, published in 1982, made her an academic celebrity. Its insights and observations were drawn from literature, psychology and conversations with students at Harvard, where Dr. Gilligan was then an assistant professor and researcher, and interviews of women who were considering whether to have an abortion. The book presented a gendered view of moral challenges. Women, Dr. Gilligan wrote, seemed to make ethical choices that took into consideration their relationships and responsibilities to others; the young men tended toward a more abstract and individual ideal of justice. And so an old rallying cry is getting refurbished for a new generation. The way that emotion gets engaged in the right wing today is almost always around questions of fertility, said Paola Bacchetta, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who serves on the board of the Center for Right-Wing Studies. Its about their anxieties about their male others. They fear that they will overproduce them and eliminate them. Though these fears fester in online message boards, they are spreading to more mainstream right-wing conversations. The Fox News host Tucker Carlson, for one, has engaged in some of these conversations. In January, he opened his show with a segment he said was the biggest issue facing this country going forward, bigger than wars and G.D.P.: the collapse of families. The major cause of that collapse, he said, was that some women now out-earn some men. (Mr. Carlsons discussion of the topic attracted fierce criticism, something he addressed on his show the next night. This is why important science is no longer being conducted, he said of the response. Its why art isnt being made and comedy is dying.) The birthrate panic has been bubbling back up for some time. In a 2012 book by the French philosopher Renaud Camus, he argued that all Western countries were reckoning with erasure by birthrate. That has helped fuel nativist campaigns like the one by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. It became the animating philosophy in the Charlottesville, Va., attack. And Representative Steve King, the Iowa Republican, tweeted in 2017, We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. Many of these groups have seized on statistics showing a slowing birthrate in some Western countries. In the United States, the total fertility rate is now about 1,765.5 births per 1,000 women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is below the level necessary to keep the population stable without immigration. Or rather, it has been affirmed again. There are at least two earlier cases in which federal courts made similar decisions. In 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided against qualified immunity for a police officer who had arrested a teenage girl after she raised two middle fingers in front of him; the girls mother had been killed by the police a few years earlier. Also in 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided that an officer should not have been granted qualified immunity after he arrested a man who had raised a middle finger while passing by in a car. The officer had followed the car and a verbal confrontation had ended in the mans arrest. These courtroom decisions do not necessarily mean that people can be rude to police officers with impunity, or that people would feel safe doing so, especially since police officers have used deadly force against unarmed people and avoided facing charges. Joanna C. Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an expert on police misconduct litigation, noted that Ms. Cruise-Gulyas and a few others had their rights recognized only after they went through the trouble of bringing their cases to court. The right is there, but the enforcement of that right is a more complicated matter, she said, noting that many people who experience police misconduct do not report it. There is a gap between what the Constitution allows and requires, and how police behave on the street. And getting from the street to the courthouse is a long and expensive process. But Professor Schwartz added that the visibility of these individual cases might be a good thing. There is research showing that when courts clearly define what the Constitution allows or prohibits, then police departments are more likely to take those rules and incorporate them into their policies and trainings, she said. In the opinion last week, Judge Sutton drew a line between vulgarity and crime. Fits of rudeness or lack of gratitude may violate the Golden Rule, he wrote. But that doesnt make them illegal or for that matter punishable. A lawyer for Ms. Cruise-Gulyas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday, and a lawyer for Officer Minard declined to comment on pending litigation. VERDIGRE, Neb. Ice chunks the size of small cars ripped through barns and farmhouses. Baby calves were swept into freezing floodwaters, washing up dead along the banks of swollen rivers. Farm fields were now lakes. The record floods that have pummeled the Midwest are inflicting a devastating toll on farmers and ranchers at a moment when they can least afford it, raising fears that this natural disaster will become a breaking point for farms weighed down by falling incomes, rising bankruptcies and the fallout from President Trumps trade policies. When youre losing money to start with, how do you take on extra losses? asked Clint Pischel, 23, of Niobrara, Neb., whose lowland fields were flooded by the ice-filled Niobrara River after a dam failed. He spent Monday gathering 30 dead baby calves from his familys ranch in this northern region of the state, finding their bodies under huge chunks of ice. Theres no harder business to be in, Mr. Pischel added. But with death and everything else, youve got to answer to bankers. Its not our choice. WASHINGTON Beto ORourke raised more than $6 million online in the first 24 hours after announcing his presidential campaign last week, according to his campaign, outpacing his rivals for the Democratic nomination and making an emphatic statement about his grass-roots financial strength. Mr. ORourke brought in $6,136,736 after declaring his long-anticipated bid with a web video and trip to Iowa on Thursday morning, raising the sum entirely online and from all 50 states, the campaign said. He narrowly beat the first-day haul of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who raised $5.9 million after announcing his bid last month and who would go on to raise $10 million before his first week was over. [Sign up for our politics newsletter and join our conversation about the 2020 presidential race.] Mr. ORourkes early burst of fund-raising illustrates how much he has captured the imagination of many Democratic activists around the country, who propelled him to break financial records last year in his ultimately losing bid to unseat Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. There were some doubts as to whether those same grass-roots donors would also contribute to him when he was not facing Mr. Cruz a figure detested on the left but rather was one more entrant in a sprawling presidential primary. WASHINGTON The top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees have asked the F.B.I. to open investigations into the activities of a Chinese-American woman suspected of trying to sell access to President Trump and his administration. In a letter to the directors of national intelligence, the F.B.I. and the Secret Service, the Democrats said that recent public reports about the woman, Cindy Yang, raised serious counterintelligence concerns about access by foreigners to Mr. Trumps Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as criminal concerns about possible human trafficking and campaign finance violations. [Read the letter to the intelligence chiefs.] They also asked for access to any information already gathered by the agencies about the extent of Ms. Yangs contacts with Trump administration officials, security procedures around Mar-a-Lago and whether Ms. Yang or her clients had violated any lobbying laws. Although Ms. Yangs activities may only be those of an unscrupulous actor allegedly selling access to politicians for profit, her activities also could permit adversary governments or their agents access to these same politicians to acquire potential material for blackmail or other even more nefarious purposes, the Democrats wrote in the letter, dated March 15. WASHINGTON No issue animated the Democrats 2018 congressional campaigns like health care and the promises to expand access to insurance and to lower costs. But as House Democrats sit down to draft their vision of governance in the coming weeks, lawmakers find themselves badly divided on the issue that delivered their majority. Centrists from swing districts, with the tacit support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, favor incremental moves to shore up the Affordable Care Act and to lower the out-of-pocket costs of prescription drugs and medical care. They are pushing a variety of measures, such as shutting down cheap, short-term insurance plans that do not cover pre-existing medical conditions and allowing people to buy into Medicare at age 50 or 55. We have very practical solutions that we can implement immediately, said Representative Kim Schrier, Democrat of Washington, who is also a pediatrician. We dont have the luxury of time right now to wait for a full overhaul of our health care system. But they are butting up against an aggressive and expanding group of more than 100 outspoken Democrats as well as at least four of the partys presidential candidates who want to do just that, upend the whole system with a single government insurance plan for all Americans the old concept of single payer, now called Medicare for all. WASHINGTON American intelligence spending could rise to nearly $86 billion, a 6 percent increase that reflects the Trump administrations proposed boost in defense and national security spending and a renewed focus on threats from Russia and China. The director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, released the overall proposed budget for American intelligence agencies on Monday, and the Pentagon also released its proposed intelligence spending for the fiscal year starting in October. The budget covers expenses as diverse as spy satellites, cyberweapons and the C.I.A.s network of overseas spies and informants. But neither the administration nor Congress releases details about the so-called black budget, which is classified. The proposed spending increase comes despite President Trumps sometimes tempestuous relationship with his intelligence agencies and his public comments in late January that his spy chiefs should go back to school. Mr. Trump clashed with his intelligence agencies after a Senate hearing in which intelligence chiefs offered assessments of Iran and North Korea that were at odds with the presidents views. WASHINGTON A long-running federal investigation into a former White House counsel in the Obama administration is reaching a critical stage, presenting the Justice Department with a decision about whether to charge a prominent Democrat as part of a more aggressive crackdown on illegal foreign lobbying. The case involving the lawyer, Gregory B. Craig, was transferred in January from federal prosecutors in New York to those in Washington. The previously undisclosed move was driven by Justice Department officials in Washington, and reflects an eagerness within the department to prosecute violations of lobbying laws after the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, focused on foreign influence in his investigations. A decision about whether to prosecute Mr. Craig, who was White House counsel for President Barack Obama during his first year in office, is expected in the coming weeks, people familiar with the case said. The investigation centers on whether Mr. Craig should have disclosed work he did in 2012 while he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom on behalf of the Russia-aligned government of Viktor F. Yanukovych, then the president of Ukraine. The work was steered to Mr. Craig by Paul Manafort, who was then a political consultant collecting millions of dollars from clients in former Soviet states. Mr. Manafort, who went on to become President Trumps campaign chairman in 2016, was sentenced this month to seven and a half years in prison on charges brought by Mr. Muellers team related to obstruction of justice and violations of banking, tax and lobbying laws stemming from his work in Ukraine. WASHINGTON The last Supreme Court term ended with a constitutional cliffhanger. In a pair of cases that had the potential to reshape American democracy, the justices refused to decide whether election maps can be so warped by politics that they violate the Constitution. Instead, the court said, in essence, Come back next term. Next week, a year after the court last heard arguments over whether extreme partisan gerrymandering can cross a constitutional line, the justices will again consider the question. But something fundamental has changed. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote was seen as crucial to any decision putting limits on partisan gerrymandering, retired last summer. In Supreme Court litigation, as in so many things, timing is everything. Had Justice Kennedy stayed on the court, there are good reasons to think he would have been particularly receptive to the plaintiffs arguments in one of next weeks cases. WASHINGTON Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, said on Monday that cyberthreats against the United States were a national security crisis that she described as her top priority not the situation for which President Trump last month declared a national emergency. On top of my list of threats, that many of you can guess, the word cyber is circled, highlighted and underlined, Ms. Nielsen said in a speech outlining her departments focus in the coming year. The cyberdomain is a target, a weapon and a threat vector all at the same time. Mr. Trump has called the increasing flow of immigrants to the southern border one of the most urgent national security issues threatening the United States. Last week, issuing his first veto against legislation that would have blocked him from diverting Defense Department funds to build a border wall, the president described a recent spike in migrants crossing the border as an invasion. The Department of Homeland Security oversees customs officers and immigration agents who are on the front lines of the Trump administrations campaign to close the border to illegal immigration. Virginia officials asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling, noting that the states Supreme Court had come to the opposite conclusion on the legal question in the case. The United States Supreme Court also agreed to decide whether the Constitution allows non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases. The case, Ramos v. Louisiana, No. 18-5924, concerns Evangelisto Ramos, a Louisiana man who was convicted in 2016 for killing a woman in New Orleans. The jurys vote was 10 to 2, which was enough under the states law at the time. Louisiana has since amended its state Constitution to bar non-unanimous verdicts, but the move came too late to help Mr. Ramos. Oregon is the last remaining state that allows non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases. In a pair of decisions in 1972, one each from Oregon and Louisiana, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not require states to insist on unanimity. Critics say the decisions ignored the historical record and made assumptions about jury behavior that have been called into question by more recent research. The court also agreed to decide whether states may abolish the dominant version of the insanity defense. The case concerns James Kahler, who was sentenced to death for killing four family members. His lawyers said he suffered from depression so severe that he experienced extreme emotional disturbance, dissociating him from reality. Although he knew that he was shooting human beings, Mr. Kahlers lawyers said of their client, his mental state was so disturbed at the time that he was unable to control his actions. Kansas is one of five states in which defendants cannot avoid criminal punishment by showing that their mental illness prevented them from knowing their actions were wrong. In their petition seeking review in the case, Kahler v. Kansas, No. 18-6135, lawyers for Mr. Kahler wrote that the states approach defies a fundamental, centuries-old precept of our legal system: People cannot be punished for crimes for which they are not morally culpable. WASHINGTON The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in a voting-rights case with several unusual twists, including disagreements among Virginia officials about who was entitled to represent the state. The case, a race-discrimination challenge to parts of the voting map for Virginias House of Delegates, was making its second appearance at the court. In 2017, the justices instructed a three-judge Federal District Court to take a fresh look at whether racial consideration had played too large a role in drawing the legislative map for the states House of Delegates. The case concerns 11 voting districts drawn after the 2010 census, each with at least a 55 percent population of black residents of voting age. Democratic voters in those districts sued, saying that lawmakers had run afoul of the Constitution by packing too many black voters into the districts, diminishing their voting power. The district court, which had initially upheld the districts, struck them down last year. The Supreme Court has called for very close scrutiny of a states action when race was shown to be the predominant reason in creating legislative districts. (Next week, the court will hear two cases on the separate and open question of whether extreme partisan gerrymandering, in which the political party in power draws maps to give an advantage to its candidates, can ever cross a constitutional line.) The question they ask is, are you going to die? she said. You yourself dont know the answer. With the new papers, she said, comes a charge to doctors and other health care professionals to help parents frame the answer to that difficult question, and not to delegate it to others. Theres no easy way but I think its really important we do it and important that professionals navigate those really difficult waters, and hold our hand through the journey. The guidelines take into account the ways that childrens understanding of death and dying changes as they grow, and give advice for how to shape these conversations. With very young children, Dr. Stein said, discussion early on might emphasize the seriousness of the condition and the importance of treatment, but not necessarily the issue of death, unless they ask. Children around 5 to 7 often feel very responsible when bad things happen, Dr. Stein said. One 7-year-old boy whose mother died became convinced that it was his fault because she had missed a clinic visit one day when he had a bad tantrum. He felt he had caused his mothers death, because she hadnt gone to the clinic and gotten the information she needed, Dr. Stein said. When the children are the patients, they also worry that these conversations will be too painful for their parents, said Dr. Emily Harrop, a consultant in pediatric palliative care at Oxford who is a co-author on the articles. I have seen in practice children becoming quite anxious and distressed, feeling a protectiveness of their parents, not wanting to open the conversation, perhaps not even feeling they have permission to die. She recalled caring for a 4-year-old girl with a brain tumor whose mother believed that her daughter did not know she was going to die. When the mother was out of the room, the child asked the doctor, How will I get through the ceiling when I go up to heaven? In her experience, Dr. Harrop said, Children whove had good information sharing are much calmer, less anxious. That requires having the conversations well and carefully, and keeping them free of jargon. I would always start the conversation by having the child say to me what they understand, so I understand how they have received information, she said. Dr. Kelly described her own medical team as exemplary in how they broke the news to her, but at the moment of diagnosis their focus was entirely on her, while she was more anguished about her children. It would help tremendously if these conversations start with health care providers, she said. JOHANNESBURG A high-ranking politician in South Africas governing African National Congress was arrested in connection with the assassination of a party member who had exposed corruption in a public works project, officials said Monday. Mluleki Ndobe, one of the most influential A.N.C. power brokers in KwaZulu-Natal Province, was arrested early Sunday for suspected involvement in the mafia-style killing of a nationally known party leader, Sindiso Magaqa, according to party and police officials. Mr. Magaqa, who had loudly condemned the theft of public money in the town of Umzimkhulu, was fatally shot inside his Mercedes-Benz in 2017 by two hit men who sprayed the car with gunfire. A man suspected of being one of the killers was arrested in September. The assassination the most high-profile in a wave of political killings that have swept across South Africa since early 2016 came to symbolize the decline of the A.N.C., whose members have increasingly targeted anticorruption whistle-blowers and turned on one another in lethal fights over political posts. Few details have emerged about Mr. Tarrants life. It is unclear whether he had a job. Several neighbors said they did not know many of their neighbors and had not met Mr. Tarrant. Anytime Fitness confirmed in a statement on Monday that Mr. Tarrant was a member of the Dunedin branch of the 24-hour gym. On Sunday, several regulars at the gym said they did not know Mr. Tarrant or recall seeing him there. What is known is that Mr. Tarrant was a licensed gun owner and member of the Bruce Rifle Club. He appeared to already have shooting skills when he joined in February 2018 and he typically went to the range by himself, said Mr. Williams, the clubs vice president. The club has come under criticism from a former member of the New Zealand military named Pete Breidahl, who said he reported it to the police in 2017 after visiting in November that year. He said he had had concerns about the mental stability of the members and the way they handled firearms. They wore camo around the range, like they were living some military base fantasy, Mr. Breidahl said in an interview on Monday. Mr. Breidahl said that he had been in contact with the police after the Christchurch shootings and that he was scheduled to meet with them on Tuesday. BUDAPEST The International Investment Bank, an obscure Russian financial institution with a small-time balance sheet, is an unlikely source of global intrigue. In more normal times, its plans to open a new headquarters in Budapest would pass unnoticed. But the banks chairman has longstanding ties to Russian intelligence agencies. And the Hungarian Parliament has effectively granted the bank diplomatic immunity from any scrutiny by police or financial regulators leaving Western security officials concerned that Russian spies could use it as a base to conduct European intelligence operations. Several European nations have expelled Russian agents and cracked down on Kremlin finances in an effort to present a united front as Moscow is accused of meddling in the American election, poisoning a former spy in Britain and targeting European think tanks with hacking attacks. And if the Europeans are now concerned about the Russian bank, so are the Americans, especially since the Trump administration has cultivated Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, as an ally. Days before Parliament granted immunity to the Russian bank, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Mr. Orban in Budapest and warned against allowing Russia to drive a wedge between friends. ROME It was a demoralizing few days for women in Italian courts. A man who stabbed his wife to death was sentenced to a reduced term of 16 years in prison by a judge who cited the killers anger and desperation, profound disappointment and resentment over the victims relationship with another man. The judges reasoning was made public on Wednesday. The Friday before that, as Italys highest court rejected an appeals courts decision to clear two men of rape charges, it emerged that the judges in the previous appeal had doubted the accusers account in part because they considered her too masculine to have made an attractive victim. The men will now face a retrial. Both cases, which involved female judges, provoked angry comments about entrenched gender stereotypes in Italy. According to the National Institute for Statistics, violence against women is slightly going down in Italy, but the number of women seriously wounded by their partners is rising. The number of reported rapes seems to be holding steady. I prefer to look West instead of East, Mr. Petrucco said of his project, planned for an area near an old ironworks factory that looms above the pier envisioned for use by the Chinese. He added that both projects would take years to build and worried that all the American opposition and controversy surrounding the Belt and Road agreement would poison the waters for his proposal. Its sad, he said, but theres nothing I can do about it. Roberto Dipiazza, the mayor of Trieste, said that the United States could scuttle the deal if it really wanted to. He said that his city had much to gain from closer ties to China, but that the Chinese had even more to gain from his ports deep harbors, customs benefits and rail yards. We will find a point of agreement between China and the U.S., he said, showing off a Make America Great Again cap signed by President Trump that he had received as a gift. Italy, he noted, was caught in the middle. Some of Triestes most entrenched political players think Italy is compromised by such a position. Giulio Camber, a veteran lawmaker considered by many to be the political boss of Trieste, said he no longer had any interests in the port, and that his opposition to the deal was motivated by his distrust of what he called Chinas Communist dictatorship. As light sliced in through the closed curtains of his office, illuminating his cigarette smoke, gilded furniture and oil paintings, Mr. Camber said the Chinese were behind many of the Turkish businesses exporting goods into the port. Beijing, he said, would feast on the Italians just as they did on the Greeks before them. They are the weakest, he said of the Mediterranean countries. Mr. Camber dismissed the local and national assurances about Chinese expansion, saying that Beijing would easily outmaneuver officials in Rome. Its like the world champion in chess playing with a couple of guys who play for fun at the Caffe Degli Specchi, he said, referring to the famous cafe in Triestes main square, the Piazza Unita dItalia. You cant imagine what the worlds best chess player is up to. UTRECHT, Netherlands Gunshots shattered the tram ride in a heavily Muslim neighborhood of this old Dutch city. The prime minister called it possible terrorism. SWAT teams rushed in, residents were ordered indoors, and all mosques closed as the police sought a killer in a country that had been spared large-scale terrorist attacks. Suddenly the mayhem on Monday in the Netherlands seemed as if it might be another planned public slaughter in a seemingly tranquil part of the world, like the mosque massacre that had traumatized the people of Christchurch, New Zealand. The suspect, it turned out, was a Turkish immigrant described by acquaintances as a sometimes-religious man with a criminal record who may have been entangled in a dispute with his ex-wife. It was about 10:30 a.m. when a gunman opened fire on the tram in Utrechts Kanaleneiland neighborhood, heavily populated by Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Someone slammed on the emergency brakes, and other passengers screamed, clamoring to escape, according to witness accounts. At least three people were killed and five injured, some by shattering glass, and the assailant stepped off the tram and fled. PARIS French officials said on Tuesday that they would ban potentially violent protests in key areas like the Champs-Elysees in Paris, following a surge of violence during Yellow Vest demonstrations over the weekend that led to intense criticism of the governments handling of security around tourist neighborhoods and wealthier areas. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a televised statement from Paris that after intolerable events over the weekend, the government had decided to ban any future Yellow Vest demonstrations in the areas that have been most targeted, if authorities became aware of extremist elements that intended to vandalize. Mr. Philippe said one of those areas would be the Champs-Elysees, a major avenue in western Paris with luxury stores and tourist attractions that has become a focal point for the protests. On Saturday, breakers, or casseurs, smashed an upscale restaurant, looted 27 stores and set kiosks and a bank on fire, forcing firefighters to evacuate a mother and her baby who were trapped on the buildings second floor. A North Carolina thrift shop recently sold a $1,000 hand-carved furniture set that came with a warning of haunting activity reported by its previous owners. Weve all heard stories about allegedly haunted furniture or memorabilia before, but its not everyday that we see these claims made on the price tags of stores selling them. However, the staff at Habitat for Humanity, a thrift shop in Salisbury, North Carolina, felt that the haunting activity reported by the previous owners of a queen canopy bed-frame and highboy chest of drawers was something they needed to disclose to potential buyers. Believe it or not, the eerie paranormal activity warning did nothing to dissuade people, if anything, it got more of them interested in the set. Photo: MichaelGaida/Pixabay Actually a lot of people are interested because its haunted supposedly, Elizabeth Brady, Store Operations Director at Habitat for Humanity, told FOX46. Our donations manager asked about these pieces and he was told you dont want those, theyre haunted, and he said well, now I definitely want them!' According to Brady, the previous owners of the furniture set had bought it years ago, but started experiencing creepy nightmares the moment they brought it int their home. Also, the couples dogs wouldnt stop barking at the queen canopy bed and chest of drawers, so they took it out of their bedroom after a week. They recently decided to part with the furniture set, but made sure to warn others about the potential haunting. From the time they brought it in, they had continuous nightmares, the dogs wouldnt quit barking and finally, on the seventh night in there, he had a lot of trouble waking his wife up from sleep, Elizabeth Brady said. We are a Christian ministry, we dont say we believe in ghosts or dont, but I have trouble selling this to someone not disclosing that. I would want to know as a customer. You would think the creepy warning and the eerie accounts of the former owners would put off potential buyers of the furniture set, but that would be wrong. A local couple was glad to pay the $1,000 price to have the 1950s furniture in their home, adding that they dont really care if its haunted. Yeah, I dont really care they think its haunted, the new owner said. We actually live really close to Gravity Hill which they say is haunted here in Rowan County. Maybe it will be a nice ghost. The allegedly haunted furniture set made headlines last week after photos of the warning on the Habitat for Humanity price tags went viral on Facebook. Interestingly, the previous owners of the furniture set said they called the person they had bought it from to ask more details about it, but after recounting their experience with it, the person just hung up. A Chinese university professor has sparked a heated online debate after giving his students an unusual assignment that required them to add 1,667 friend on WeChat, Chinas most popular social network, in order to get an A+. The controversial assignment required students taking the Online and New Media course at the Henan University of Economics and Law to add at least 1,001 new friends on WeChat in order to earn a score of 60 out of 100. The more friends they would add above that threshold would increase their score, with those getting at least 1,667 new friends guaranteeing themselves an A+. Although some of the students especially the most introverted ones complained that the task was too difficult, faculty at the university defended their colleague, explaining that the assignment prepares the youths for real life. Photo: geralt/Pixabay Its a difficult assignment task. I only have about 100 friends on Wechat. Many of us feel frustrated and worried we cant add so many friends, one student told Pear Video. Others complained that the professor didnt offer any alternative assignments and that the score on this one constitutes 30% of their final grade in this course. To make matters worse, the assignment was given on March 10 and students have only two weeks to complete it. This assignment comes from a core module in the course. What were saying is that afterwards, when these students look for work, they will have the basic skills necessary for this type of social media operation, a Henan University of Economics and Law professor said in defense of the assignment. The disputed assignment was posted on Weibo, Chinas version of Twitter, and quickly went viral sparking a heated online debate. Some people supported the professor, saying that the task was reasonable, while others claimed that it would have made sense only if this was a marketing course. I think this course is good and offers many challenges, one person wrote on Weibo. If this is a marketing class, then it makes sense. But some people just dont use their knowledge to observe peoples practices. This is very ignorant, someone else commented. via Nextshark Martin Sorrell WPP has decided not to contest the $2.8M payment that former CEO Martin Sorrell is entitled to under the companys long-term incentive plan. He exited the ad/PR combine in April after WPP launched an investigation into his personal content. Sorrell denied any wrongdoing. The Financial Times noted that WPP had warned Sorrell that it might withhold his bonus payment due to a breach of confidentiality. WPP granted CEO Mark Read 28,126 shares March 11 under its performance share award program. He sold 13,246 of the lot at 8.84 each to cover UK taxes. On March 13, Read became entitled to 27,228 sharers under the executive performance share plan. He sold 12,843 of those shares at 8.56 each to cover taxes. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Are you a current print subscriber? You qualify for online access to the Omak Chronicle. To receive your access, create a website account and then verify your print subscription or e-edition subscription with your subscriber number, which may be found on your bill or mailing label. Curfew in Ahmedabad extended till 6am on May 21; Night curfew to continue in 36 cities for another 3 days Into the deep: Ahmedabads Science City gets a boost! Nature Park, Aquatic, Robotic Galleries and more! Rs 5 lakh in cash, jewellery stolen from Vaghela's bungalow Ahmedabad pti-PTI Ahmedabad, Mar 18: Cash and jewellery altogether worth Rs 5 lakh were stolen from former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankersinh Vaghela's house near here allegedly by a domestic help couple from Nepal, police said Monday. The theft at the residence of Vaghela, a former Congress leader who is now in the NCP, took place in October last year, but a police complaint was lodged only Sunday by Vaghela's employee Suryasinh Chavda, they said. Vaghela's house, a palatial bungalow named Vasant Vagado', is situated near Pethapur village on the outskirts of the Gandhinagar city. As per the complaint lodged with the Pethapur police, the couple - Shambhu Gorkha aka Basudev Nepali and his wife Sharda - had allegedly stolen Rs 3 lakh in cash and gold jewellery worth Rs 2 lakh and fled to their native place in Kailali district of Nepal. The cash and jewellery were kept in Vaghela's wife Gulab Baa's room in the bungalow, the police said, quoting from the complaint. 'Don't need support of Congress to defeat BJP,' says Mayawati According to Chavda's complaint, suspicion fell on the husband-wife duo after they did not return from Nepal as promised when they left for their native place, the police said. "Shambhu was hired around four years back. He along with his wife and kids used to live in the bungalow premises. "In October, the couple left for their native place in Nepal claiming they wanted to admit their children in a school there," said Chavda in the complaint. On February 7, Vaghela's wife noticed that cash and jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh, meant to be used for a marriage function in the family and kept in a cupboard, were missing, said police sub inspector of Pethapur A G Anurkar. "When the family asked other servants about the missing valuables, it came to light the couple was tasked with cleaning of the room where they were kept. "When Chavda contacted Shambhu over the phone, he promised to return soon. "However, when he did not return, it got confirmed that the couple had stolen the valuables from the room and then fled to Nepal," said Anurkar, adding an investigation in the case was underway. PTI Those serving party for long were given tickets, no dynasty politics in DMK: Kanimozhi Chennai pti-PTI Chennai, Mar 18: The DMK on Monday denied dynasty politics in naming its candidates for the April 18 Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu and asserted that only loyal party workers have been rewarded with a ticket. Senior party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi said only those who have been serving the party for long have been given a ticket to fight the elections. Kanimozhi herself is the daughter of late party chief M Karunanidhi and the DMK is now headed by her brother M K Stalin. She will be trying her luck for the first time in the Lok Sabha polls after Stalin announced her candidature from Tuticorin constituency in southern Tamil Nadu. "Those who have been working for the party for long only have been given a seat, not that someone has been brought from outside," Kanimozhi told reporters when asked about dynasty politics dominating the list of DMK candidates. [Lok Sabha elections: DMK releases list of candidates, Kanimozhi to contest from Tuticorin] She said that there was no need to deny ticket to somebody just because the person happened to be a political heir. She was speaking to reporters after calling on DMK ally, MDMK founder Vaiko at his residence here. Besides Kanimozhi from the DMK's first family, the party has fielded Karunanidhi's grandnephew and former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran and senior party leader Durai Murugan's son DM Kathir Anand. Dr Kalanidhi Veerasamy, son of another senior leader Arcot N Veerasamy, has also been nominated by the DMK, from the Chennai North segment. Similarly, Gowtham Sigamani, son of sitting DMK MLA and former Minister K Ponmudy, has also been given a party ticket for the April 18 parliamentary elections. [Lok Sabha elections 2019: CPI, VCK finalise alliance with DMK] Kanimozhi said the police firing on anti-Sterlite protesters on May 22 last year, GST and demonetisation will figure as key issues in her campaign in the southern constituency. Meanwhile, Vaiko exuded confidence that Kanimozhi will secure a grand victory by ensuring a victory margin of about one lakh votes. He said that he would launch his election campaign from Tuticorin on March 22 and DMK chief Stalin will do it from Tiruvarur, the native constituency of late Karunanidhi. Tiruvarur is one of the 18 assembly seats where by-polls are scheduled along with the Lok Sabha polls. PTI PM to inaugurate projects worth Rs. 18,000 cr today: Soon, you can reach Delhi from Dehradun in just 2.5 hrs Uttarakhand: Selfie costs youth his life, drowns in Ganga at Rishikesh Dehradun oi-Vikas SV Rishikesh, Mar 18: A 22-year-old man slipped and fell in river Ganga while taking a selfie near Laxmanjhoola in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh. The local police immediately rushed to rescued him. They pulled the youth out of the river and rushed him to nearby clinic, but the doctors pronounced him dead. The mishap took place on Sunday (March 17). 22-year-old Ashish, from Kotdwar, had gone to visit Laxmanjhoola in Rishikesh along with four of his friends, reported Amar Ujala. At Mastram ghat on the banks of Ganga, they decided to take a dip in the holy river. 3 children drown while taking bath at Ganga barrage While they were taking bath, Ashish took out his mobile phone to take selfies. Ashish is said to slipped while taking selfie and was carried away by a strong current in the river. His friends immediately infomed the Jal Police. Jal Police personnel - Ritesh and Udit - then dived into the river to rescue Ashish, said report. It took them sometime to find him and pull him out of the water as the current was strong. They rushed him to a nearby clinic in Rishikesh, but was pronounced dead by the doctors. Last year in April, a 21-year-old BTech student of Graphic Era Institute, Dehradun, drowned in the Ganga river at Shivpuri in Rishikesh. The victim was a resident of Rudrapryag district and was a fourth year BTech student at the Dehradun-based institute. In May 2017, a 26-year-old engineer employed with a Gurgaon firm drowned in Ganga in Rishikesh. The victim, Neeraj Kumar, who hailed from Ballabhgarh in Faridabad, was in Rishikesh with five of his friends. The group went to Shivpuri to take a dip in Ganga where Kumar swam deeper into the river and drowned. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 12:13 [IST] Aim of Congress, SP-BSP is to defeat BJP: Priyanka Gandhi India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Mar 18: Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi said on Monday said her party's aim was to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and also that of the SP-BSP combine, and added the Congress had no qualms about forging an alliance with "anyone". Asked to comment on the response of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, Priyanka Gandhi said: "We don't want to disturb anybody, we have no problems with anyone. Our goal is to defeat BJP... that is their goal too." This statement comes even after the former U.P CM Mayawati once again dumped the Congress saying that the there are no chances of an alliance of BSP-SP with Congress in any state of the country. No alliance with Congress in any state, says Mayawati "The BSP, once again, wants to make it clear that we don't have any synergies or alliance with Congress in Uttar Pradesh or any other part of the country. Our people must not get confused with the misleading information spread by the Congress party", Mayawati tweeted. In another tweet, Mayawati asserted that the Congress is free to contest in all 80 seats in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming Lok Sabha 2019 elections, adding that the BSP-SP combine has enough potential to defeat the BJP in the state. She then asked the Congress to not to mislead the people of Uttar Pradesh by leaving seven seats for the gathbandhan in the state. The Congress party on Sunday notified that it will not be contesting on Mulayam Singh Yadav's seat Mainpuri, Kannauj, Firozabad, and other crucial seats held by the Mahagatbandhan in Uttar Pradesh. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 23:43 [IST] Bank Holidays 2019 India: Check this list for the month of March India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Mar 18: March is here, and the financial year and academic sessions are coming to an end. It's time to plan holidays. While nothing should come in the way of a good holiday, knowing the bank holiday list for the month will definitely help draft a good plan. March is also the month of Holi, a major festival celebrated in most parts of India, and people eagerly wait for it. This year, Holi will be celebrated on March 20 and 21. Banks are closed on March 20/21, on account of Holi, a festival celebrated across the country where the festival is more relevant. Holiday list 2019 for central government employees Here's the list: 20 March, Wednesday: Holi (Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Uttarakhand) 20 March, Wednesday: Hazrat Ali Jayanti (Uttar Pradesh) 21 March, Thursday: Holi (All states except for West Bengal, UP, Andhra, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand) 22 March, Friday: Bihar Day (Bihar) 23 March, Saturday: Bhagat Singh's Martyrdom Day (Punjab, Haryana) The bank holidays 2019 in India may vary with each bank but the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has set some fixed days when the operations will close. The central government holidays like Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August 15), and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2) for Public sector and private banks will be applicable across the country. Banks also observe some regional holidays like Bihu in Assam, Onam in Some South Indian states. The list of regional holidays differs with states. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 13:45 [IST] Gujarat Cong didn't give me any work in local body polls; even opinion not sought: Hardik Patel Berojgar Hardik Patel: Patidar leader counters PM Modis Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign India pti-PTI Ahmedabad, Mar 18: New Congress entrant Hardik Patel Monday prefixed his twitter handle with the word "Berojgar" (jobless), apparently to mock the BJP's "Main Bhi Chowkidar" campaign on the social media. The twitter handle of the Patidar quota spearhead, who joined the Congress in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi recently, now reads as: "Berojgar Hardik Patel". 'Main Bhi Chowkidar hoon' narrative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to counter Opposition's oft-repeated jibe, "Chowkidar chor hai", aimed at him. In his rallies and addresses, PM Modi terms himself as a 'chowkidar' or watchman of the country. Also Read PM Modi's latest online campaign #MainBhiChowkidar tops Twitter trend Under "Main Bhi..." campaign, BJP leaders, Union ministers, chief ministers are prefixing the word "chowkidar" (watchman) to their twitter handles. Rahul Gandhi has been attacking the prime minister with the "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe in the context of the Rafale fighter aircraft deal. The Congress alleges that Modi government has failed to create promised jobs in the country after coming to power in 2014, which has increased unemployment significantly. Gujarat Congress IT cell vice president Hiren Banker said several Congress workers are adding "Berojgar" to their twitter handles. However, he also clarified that the Congress is yet to officially adopt the 'Berojgar' campaign. The 'Berojgar' began trending Sunday when several youths added the new nomenclature to their twitter handles. "Several workers of Congress have also joined the 'campaign' and the engagement is increasing. However, we have not yet officially adopted this," Banker said, adding that the Congress would adopt the "Berojgar" campaign after consulting party officials. The Congress is countering the BJP's 'MainBhiChowkidar' hashtag, which was trending on the micro-blogging site since this morning, with its 'ChowkidarChorHai' hashtag. PTI BJP set to contest all seats in Jammu and Kashmir India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Srinagar, Mar 18: The BJP would contest all the seats from Jammu and Kashmir in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The BJP leaders have expressed confidence after it did a stint in the government of Jammu and Kashmir. BJP leaders say that sometime back none would have thought that the party would form the government in the state. Further the BJP took this decision in the wake of the number of seats in won in the urban local body elections held recently. Satta bazaar predicts 250 seats for BJP in LS polls In the 2014 elections, the BJP's vote share stood at 23 per cent. The PDP bagged a vote share of 22.7 per cent while the National Conference ended up with 20.8. The Congress on the other hand had a vote share of 18 per cent. However the BJP's vote share in Kashmir was just 2.2 per cent. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 11:06 [IST] Chhattisgarh's horrific accident: Nobody will be spared, justice will be done: CM Baghel Chhattisgarh: 1 CRPF jawan killed, 4 injured in Maoist attack India oi-Deepika S Raipur, Mar 18: One CRPF jawan was killed and four were injured in an IED blast by Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district on Monday, officials said. A team of the 231st battalion of the CRPF, along with a state police unit, was out on road security duty in the district's Aranpur area when an IED exploded and they were fired upon by Maoists, reported news agency PTI. 2 naxals killed in encounter with CRPF troops in Vizag district The jawans were injured in the blast and firing that took place around 4:30 pm near the Kamal post of the paramilitary force in Dantewada district and are being taken for treatment by helicopter, reported PTI quoting officials familiar with the matter. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 20:07 [IST] State vs national issues: Key lessons for the BJP to learn in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana Denied ticket from Nawada,Giriraj goes into a sulk India oi-PTI Patna, Mar 18: Firebrand BJP leader and union minister Giriraj Singh was on Monday apparently left sulking after the Nawada Lok Sabha seat, which he represents, went to NDA ally LJP. "Compulsions of seat-sharing may be there. But I wish to underscore that no other union minister from Bihar may have to give up his sitting seat," the veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told media persons here. "This is despite the fact that I have worked so much to nurture my constituency," Singh added. Satta bazaar predicts 250 seats for BJP in LS polls The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had on Sunday announced the list of candidates and their respective seats to be contested by its three constituents-- the BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. As per the announcement the BJP and the JD(U) will contest 17 seats each and six seats were allotted to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Asked whether he had expressed his wish to seek re-election from Nawada to state BJP president Nityanand Rai, Singh said: "I must have done so 200 times". "Five years is a long time and I have become attached to Nawada and its people. Rai had assured me that I would get a ticket from wherever I wanted. Why this (denial of ticket) happened is for him to answer," Singh told reporters here. On reports that he might be asked to contest from Begusarai, the seat which he had wanted to fight in 2014, Singh replied with a hint of bitterness, "I was a party worker, am a party worker and shall always remain a party worker." BJP releases list for Andhra, Arunachal Pradesh assembly elections Besides Giriraj Singh, the other union ministers from Bihar are Ashwini Kumar Choubey (Buxar), R K Singh (Ara), Ram Kripal Yadav (Pataliputra) and Radha Mohan Singh (Motihari). All these seats have been retained by the BJP and it is believed that the sitting MPs may be fielded again from their respective seats. Interestingly, in the last general election Giriraj Singh had initially expressed his wish to contest from Begusarai, which is dominated by the Bhumihar caste to which he belongs. But the seat then went to Bhola Singh, a party-hopper who had been previously associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI), Congress and the Janata Dal. Giriraj Singh was then given the ticket from Nawada, a less safe seat given its social profile which he won riding the Modi wave. The Nawada seat has gone to LJP this time in exchange for Munger, which has been given to the JD(U) reportedly at the insistence of Nitish Kumar who wanted it for close aide Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh. Lalan Singh had represented Munger from 2009 to 2014 when he lost it to LJPs Veena Devi, who is the wife of mafia don-turned-politician Suraj Bhan Singh. With Begusarai lying vacant on account of the death of Bhola Singh, speculations are rife that Giriraj Singh may be fielded from there. However, he is said to be wary of the possibility that former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar may make his electoral debut on a CPI ticket from the seat. Belonging to the same caste as Giriraj Singh, Kanhaiya is likely to pose a tough challenge as Begusarai has been a stronghold of the CPI and has earned the epithet-- 'Moscow of Bihar'. Moreover, being a Bhumihar himself, Kanhaiya may cut into votes of the dominant caste besides getting support from a cross-section of other social segments since it is being speculated that the Grand Alliance comprising Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and other smaller parties may support him. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 18:44 [IST] India reports 8,895 new Covid infections, 2,796 deaths in last 24 hours as Bihar, Kerala clear 'backlog' List of 28 agreements/MoUs signed during the 21st India-Russia Annual Summit in New Delhi India among most unequal nations; top 1 pc of population holds 22 pc of national income India lodges strong protest with Pak over harassment of its diplomats India pti-PTI New Delhi, Mar 18: India has lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over several incidents of alleged harassment of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad between March 8 and 11, and demanded an immediate investigation into them, official sources said on Monday. The Indian High Commission issued a "note verbale" to Pakistan Foreign Ministry on March 13, giving a detailed account of the incidents including tailing of India's Deputy High Commissioner, Naval Adviser and a first secretary on multiple occasions, they said. The sources said the deputy high commissioner was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security personnel on March 9 and 10 while the first secretary faced similar harassment on March 8. We played important role in reducing Indo-Pak tensions: UAE envoy The Naval Adviser in the mission was subjected to aggressive tailing by Pakistani security personnel on March 8, 9, 10 and 11, they said. One Pakistani agency personnel was observed keeping surveillance outside the residence of the Indian Deputy High Commissioner on March 9 and 10. Sources said two Pakistani security agency personnel have been following the High Commissioner on a daily basis. In the note verbale, which is a diplomatic communication, the Indian High Commission has sought an urgent investigation into the incidents, saying such cases of harassment are violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. India's strong protest over the incidents came in the midst of severe strain in bilateral ties between the two neighbours. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group JeM training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. PTI Is the BJP govt in Goa safe: Here are the numbers India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Panaji, Mar 18: The passing away of Manohar Parrikar has brought down the strength of the BJP in the Goa Legislative Assembly from 13 to 12. The Congress has staked a claim to form the government in Goa and the ball currently is in the court of the Governor. The BJP with its allies has 20 MLAs in the house where the majority mark is 19. The strength of the Goa legislative assembly is 40. The BJP is backed by the Goa Forward Party, MGP and an independent. The BJP plus its allies have 36 MLAs in the house. The Congress on the other hand has 14 lawmakers. The Congress has asked Governor Mrudula Sinha to once again invite them to form the government alleging that the the BJP's number had fallen. The Congress said that they should be invited on the ground that they are the single largest party in Goa. [Next Goa CM: No consensus as yet, Rane, Sawant are front-runners] Meanwhile adding a twist to the drama, reports suggested that Congress leader Digambar Kamat may join the BJP. He however dismissed the reports and said that joining the BJP would amount to political suicide. In a bid to tide over the crisis, the BJP rushed Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari to Goa. He was however unable to secure a consensus between the BJP and its alliance partners in the state. BJP MLA Michael Lobo said that MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar wanted to be the CM as a result of which the discussions came to a halt. Lobo added that a solution would be found today. He also added that the BJP MLAs have suggested the names of Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant for the post. Vijay Sardesai of the Goa Forward Party said that the parties were yet to reach a conclusion. The BJP said that they would get back to us later today, he said. As Mamata Banerjee takes swipe at Rahul Gandhi, Cong says such posturing for personal ambition will help BJP Lok Sabha Elections 2019 updates: Anti-BJP front gains momentum, Naidu meets Sonia Gandhi India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, May 19: Andhra Pradesh Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday met BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow, continuing his efforts to put together a coalition to form the next government at the Centre. He reached Lucknow after meetings in New Delhi with Congress president Rahul Gandhi, CPI leaders G Sudhakar Reddy and D Raja, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and LJD leader Sharad Yadav. The Telugu Desam Party chief has already held several rounds of discussions with various opposition leaders, including TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his two-day visit to Uttarakhand today with a visit to Kedarnath shrine. The prime minister is also expected to offer prayers at Badrinath tomorrow before returning to Delhi in the afternoon. The prime minister's visit to the holy shrine came a day before the last phase of the marathon Lok Sabha elections. Fifty nine parliamentary constituencies, including Varanasi, will go to polls in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections and the results will be announced four days later, on May 23. Stay tuned for the Lok Sabha elections 2019 UPDATES: On National Voter's Day, Voter-ID cards to go digital as EC targets 5 state elections National Voters Day an occasion to appreciate contribution of EC: PM Modi To create awareness among voters, 8-km long 'rangoli' created in Assam LS polls 2019: 1.19 crore new voters will make the difference in Maharashtra India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Mumbai, Mar 18: Over 1.19 crore voters in the age group of 18 to 19 years will exercise their franchise for the first time in the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra, according to Election Commission (EC) data. Lok sabha polls to 48 seats in the state will be held in four phases on April 11, 18, 23 and 29. Out of the total 8,73,29,910 voters in the state, 1,19,95,027 are first-timers in the 18 to 19 years' age group, as per official figures. Of the total voters, 4,57,01,877 are men, 4,16,25,950 women and 2,083 third gender voters. Satta bazaar predicts 250 seats for BJP in LS polls An election official said they received 12,31,027 applications online after publication of the voters' list a few months back. Of these, 7,17,427 names have now been included in the voters' list. Besides, 55.75 lakh applications were received offline, of which 43.51 lakh were accepted for registration, he said. In Maharashtra, the ruling BJP and its ally Shiv Sena have agreed to contest 25 and 23 seats, respectively. The opposition Congress will fight in 26 seats, while its ally NCP will contest 22. The opposition parties have announced names of some of their candidates. India now has 2,293 political parties, 149 registered between Jan & March Former BJP MP Nana Patole, who joined the Congress sometime back, will be pitted against Union minister Nitin Gadkari in Nagpur. Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde will contest from Solapur, while party leaders Milind Deora and Priya Dutt will fight from Mumbai-South and Mumbai-North Central seats, respectively. NCP chief Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule will contest from Baramati. Besides, actor Amol Kolhe will contest on the NCP ticket from Shirur while senior party leader Ajit Pawar's son Parth Pawar has been nominated from Maval. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 9:37 [IST] LS polls 2019: In Maharashtra, Congress has missed one opportunity after another India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Mumbai, Mar 18: Maharashtra has always been a bastion of the Congress. However in the past few years, one has seen the base dwindling and due to the lack of a decisive strategy and lack of leaders, the Congress has been on the back-foot in the state. The party is looking to better its performance in the state in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. There are 48 seats up for grabs and in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress could manage just 2. Lok Sabha elections 2019: AAP, Congress likely to begin tie-up talks soon The state has over the past five years witnessed a series of issues, which had the potential to put the BJP on the back-foot. The Maratha and farmer agitations were at the fore-front over the past five years and observers say that the Congress failed to take advantage of it. The biggest problem for the Congress is that it has not yet managed to convert that discontentment into votes. The party also faced further embarrassment when Sujay, the son of opposition leader in the assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil joined the BJP. This incident has put a big question mark in the minds of the cadres, who are now questioning the ability of the leadership of the party in Maharashtra. Many within the Congress do admit that they had failed to grab the opportunities that came calling. The state has been plagued by several issues, such as the ones that concern the farmers and Dalits. Both the farmers and Dalits have always been the core vote bank of the Congress. However over the past five years, this base has reduced greatly and the Congress missed out on every opportunity to take this vote bank back. Observers point out that the Congress has been plagued by problems such as a lack of a strong leader. Adding to the misery of the party is factionalism. This has led to the lack of a proper strategy to make use of the narrative against the BJP in the state. The lack of strategy has also led to the failure of the Congress to take on the BJP on issues such as corruption as well. Observers say that the Congress ought to have raised more aggressively the corruption charges that were made against minister Subash Deshmukh. Further the Congress also did not raise effectively the issue relating to the transfer of Cidco land to builders. While the Congress did manage to stitch up an alliance with the NCP, it failed to convince Prakash Ambedkar to join its fold. Ambedkar floated the Vanchit Bajujan Aghadi and tied up with the AIMM. This combine poses a threat to the Congress as it could lose on out on the minority and Dalit votes. The BSP on the other hand which has some amount of clout over the Dalit votes in pockets of the state has also stayed away from the Congress. Prakash Chandra Behera joins BJP; Congress loses another MLA in Odisha In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP with its allies ended up with 42 seats. The Congress which has set a target of at least 25-30 seats at the moment seems to be struggling. The BJP and Shiv Sena decided to keep aside their differences and fight the elections together. The Congress and NCP have come together, but trust issues between the persist in the state. The Congress does have a long way to go before it can start making a difference in Maharashtra. The Congress has been a mass based party, but will that be enough to counter the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. Time will tell. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 10:02 [IST] Flashback: When a witty Parrikar attacked opponents at Bengaluru event during 2014 LS election India oi-Shubham Ghosh Bengaluru, March 18: It was in the election season of 2014. The Narendra Modi wave had engulfed the nation and the BJP was predicted to win and come back to power after a gap of a decade. It was on a hot April morning that Manohar Parrikar, the chief minister of Goa, who made a visit to Bengaluru to speak in a programme named 'India at Crossroads - BJP's vision' organised by the Karnataka chapter of the BJP at the New Horizon College of Engineering in the city's eastern part. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and the writer was also there to lend ears to the leader. Parrikar took care of the fact that his speech did not become boring for the listeners to ruin their holiday mood. The leader spoke in English and Hindi and in between expressing his viewpoints on various political issues, he delivered funny anecdotes to attack opponents like Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, among others. Manohar Parrikar, like Narendra Modi, once gave credence to BJP's administrative image Parrikar was particularly ruthless against Kejriwal, also an IITian like him. Mocking the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader who was quite in the headlines then because of his activism, Parrikar had said that simplicity had nothing to do with one's administrative ability. The target was clearly the "common man's leader". He also said on that occasion that in Goa, it is either you or me and not aap.On former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Parrikar, a man with wit, said: "The latest joke about Manmohan Singh doing the rounds is that when one asked him to open his mouth to defend his critics, Singh said Abki Baar Modi Sarkar." Manohar Parrikar passes away: Govt declares national mourning Parrikar had also said at the event that Nandan Nilekani, the Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who had contested on the Congress's ticket in the 2014 election, made a wrong choice at a wrong time. "He may land in the same situation like the Aadhar," Parrikar mocked Nilekani. Parrikar passed away on Sunday, March 17, in Panaji following a prolonged battle against pancreatic cancer. He was two years into his fourth stint as the chief minister of Goa, the state he loved so much, at the time of his death. He was 63. Next Goa CM: No consensus as yet, Rane, Sawant are front-runners India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Panaji, Mar 18: Even as the BJP-led alliance is yet to reach a consensus on who would be the next chief minister of Goa, there are several front-runners for the top post. Following the demise of Manohar Parrikar on Sunday, there have been hectic parleys on to decide on who would succeed him. Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari who arrived here early today was unable to secure a consensus between the BJP and its alliance partners in the state. BJP MLA Michael Lobo said that MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar wanted to be the CM as a result of which the discussions came to a halt. [Manohar Parrikar passes away: Govt declares national mourning] Lobo added that a solution would be found today. He also added that the BJP MLAs have suggested the names of Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant for the post. Vijay Sardesai of the Goa Forward Party said that the parties were yet to reach a conclusion. The BJP said that they would get back to us later today, he said. Opposition's grand alliance turning out to be illusion: Chirag Paswan India oi-PTI Patna, Mar 18: LJP leader Chirag Paswan Monday said all NDA allies in Bihar may name their Lok Sabha poll candidates together and also took a dig at the opposition, saying its "so-called grand alliance has turned out to be an illusion". He told reporters after a meeting of his party's parliamentary board that the Lok Janshakti Party has finalised its candidates for the six seats it will contest in Bihar, but withheld announcing their names due Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's death. LS polls 2019: In Maharashtra, Congress has missed one opportunity after another Asserting that a joint announcement by all the National Democratic Alliance parties - the BJP, Janata Dal (United) and the LJP - on the seats they will fight in alliance have sent out a positive message, Paswan said they may also name their candidates together, but added that a final call on this is yet to be taken. While Paswan is set to contest from Jamui, the seat he represents in the Lok Sabha, Ram Chandra Paswan will be fielded from Samastipur, which he had won in 2014. With the party supremo and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan not contesting the Lok Sabha election this time, his brother Pashupati Kumar Paras may contest from his pocket borough of Hajipur. Party sources said its MP from Munger, Veena Devi, is likely to be fielded from Nawada and Bina Singh, whose husband Dinesh Singh is a JD(U) MLC, may contest from Vaishali. Asked about Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh's "unhappiness" over being denied renomination from the Nawada seat, from where he had won in 2014, Paswan said he will speak to Singh to resolve the matter. Singh is likely to be fielded from Begusarai as Nawada was allocated to the LJP. Satta bazaar predicts 250 seats for BJP in LS polls Chirag Paswan said the ruling alliance has divided seats among its partners amicably, but the grand alliance of opposition parties has not been able to decide on the number of seats each of them will contest. "The so-called grand alliance has turned out to be an illusion," he said, asserting that the NDA under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership will win more than 350 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The Bharatiya Janata Party, JD(U) and the LJP have announced they will fight 17, 17 and six seats respectively in Bihar. They have also divided among themselves the seats each of them will contest. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 20:37 [IST] Priyanka Gandhi embarks on 'Ganga Yatra'; 'Boat pe charcha, temple visits on the cards India oi-Vikas SV Lucknow, Mar 18: As part of her three-day campaign in the politically crucial state, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, who is also the in-charge for eastern Uttar Pradesh, today embarked on a 140-kilometre long 'ganga-yatra' on a boat. Priyanka will start her boat ride from Manaiya shortly during which she will hold a "boat pe charcha" with a delegation of students. The boat ride will start at Manaiya and culminate at Sitamarhi on Monday. At around 11 a.m., she is expected to visit Dumduma where she will hold a meeting with the public. At around 12 noon, Priyanka will visit Sirsa and then to Lakchhagrih at 1 p.m. Reception events have also been planned at the ghats. In the second half of the day, she will visit Manda before ending her day in Sitamarhi. Priyanka Gandhi arrives in Lucknow to discuss poll strategy with Congress party workers For the next two days, Priyanka will be in Mirzapur and at the PM's Constituency Varanasi where she would visit Kashivishwanath temple and celebrate holy with workers, said reports With Uttar Pradesh being the most important state politically, the Congress, which could manage to win just two out of the 80 seats in the state, does not want to leave anything for chance. The grand old party is leaving no stone unturned to better its performance in UP which is key to forming the government. During her three-day campaign, Priyanka Gandhi is likely to take on PM Modi over the Namami Gange project which was one of the poll planks of the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Priyanka is also scheduled to meet the family of martyrs of the Pulwama attack during her three-day campaign. Sounding the poll bugle from the banks of river Ganga, Congress' in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh on Sunday said political stagnancy had left the youths, women, farmers and labourers distressed in Uttar Pradesh and it was her responsibility to change the politics here. Priyanka Gandhi, who used to prefer staying away from the limelight, was in January made Congress' east Uttar Pradesh incharge, and since then she has been frequently visiting the state, meeting the cadres and charting out strategies for the upcoming elections. Don't get misled, your vote is your weapon, says Priyanka Gandhi in maiden poll address Why is Priyanka Gandhi's Varanasi visit significant? Priyanka Gandhi had earlier sought feedback of development works carried out at the Prime Minister's Lok Sabha constituency in the past five years. So, it is clear that she wants to visit Modi's seat with full preparation and may even give directions to the Congress workers as to how campaign there and take on immense popularity of the Prime Minister. It would be interesting to see how Priyanka assesses the ground situation in Varanasi. The most important thing for her would be to find out what people feel about PM Modi's development work in his Lok Sabha and whether it has made a positive impact on their lies. If Priyanka can identify disenchantment among people of Varanasi over development in the region which sent Modi to Parliament then she can really build a strong narrative around it. If she can leverage on it, then it can potentially be a political masterstroke. Reversing trend: Two Karnataka brides tie mangalsutras around husbands necks India oi-Shubham Ghosh Bengaluru, March 18: Marriages and 'mangalsutras' (sacred marital threads) still very much patriarchal in their favour. It's the woman who has to make more adjustments when it comes to the two 'M's. However, the trend was reversed in Karnataka's Vijayapura district recently where two brides tied the mangalsutra around the necks of their respective would-be husbands to convey a message of gender equality, InUth reported. Understandably, the incident made the headlines. One of the newly wed couples - Amit and Priya - belongs to the Lingayat and Kuruba communities, respectively. They got married as per the teachings of 12th century Lingayat social reformer Basavanna who had rejected social discrimination and rituals like wearing sacred thread. Rajasthani man's marriage with Pakistani woman postponed because of India-Pakistan tension Another couple - Prabhuraj and Ankita - also belong to different communities and during their marriage, they decided against including age-old traditions like 'kanyadan' which is a symbolic 'giving away' of the daughter by her parents. They also did not organise their marriage around the idea of 'shubh mahurat' or auspicious time. Recently, two marriages in West Bengal made the headlines for similar reasons. While the bride refused to do the tradition of 'Kanakanjali' whereby she has to throw rice behind her head saying she had to pay off her parents' debts. The girl openly confronted those who favoured it saying it one could never replay parents' debts. In another instance, the father of the bride hired women priests to carry out the programme and also refused to do 'kanyadan' saying his daughter was not a property to be given away. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 9:47 [IST] Sheila Dikshit writes to Rahul Gandhi over alliance with AAP India pti-PTI New Delhi, Mar 18: Uncertainty persisted in the Delhi Congress over a pre-poll tie-up with the AAP after its chief Sheila Dikshit and her three working presidents wrote to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi against the alliance, sources said. In a letter written last week, Dikshit and working presidents Haroon Yusuf, Devender Yadav and Rajesh Lilothia protested a recent phone survey to gauge workers' mood on the alliance. "Dikshit and the working presidents have urged the Congress chief not to have an alliance with the AAP, saying it will harm the party in the long run," said a Delhi Congress leader. Lok Sabha elections 2019: AAP, Congress likely to begin tie-up talks soon The leader said they have also expressed reservation over the phone survey, being carried out through Shakti app of the party, which was undertaken by PC Chacko, the AICC incharge of Delhi Congress. The survey sought views of around 52,000 Delhi Congress workers on whether they supported the party's alliance with the AAP in Delhi or not. Chacko had said earlier that a report of the survey would be submitted to Gandhi who would take a final call on the issue. Dikshit had opposed the survey, saying it was "overriding" Gandhi's decision that the Delhi Congress was against the alliance. Earlier this month, Dikshit, after meeting Gandhi, had claimed that there was unanimity in the party against an alliance with the AAP. However, opinion seems to be divided in the Congress over the issue. Many believe that it is necessary to have an alliance to take on the BJP as the saffron party is upbeat after air strikes by the Modi government following the Pulwama terror attack. "We do not think it will be an easy task for us to fight against the resurgent BJP and the ruling AAP in Delhi in the Lok Sabha polls. Also, things will be tougher for us as both the Congress and the AAP have the same voter base which will be split if there is no alliance,"a senior Delhi Congress leader said. However, the opponents of the alliance in the party believe that the move will be "suicidal" as the Congress has to face the Delhi Assembly polls early next year and its main rival will be the ruling AAP. PTI PIL in SC challenges Centre's ordinances on powers to extend tenure of Directors of CBI, ED Two Indian Forest Service officers arrested by CBI India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Mar 18: The CBI has arrested two senior Indian Forest Service officers for allegedly bribing an environment ministry official, officials said. Tarun Johri and D Gogoi, chief conservators of forest, posted in Arunachal Pradesh and Port Blair, respectively, were arrested in a case of Rs 20,000 bribe to the ministry official for getting a departmental work done. CBI arrests 2 railway officials for demanding Rs 10 lakh bribe from contractor It is alleged that a departmental service matter of Gogoi was pending in the ministry for which he sought help of batchmate Johri, who was on a visit to Delhi. Johri paid Rs 10,000 to the official on behalf of Gogoi to a ministry official, they said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 9:31 [IST] We played important role in reducing Indo-Pak tensions: UAE envoy India pti-PTI New Delhi, Mar 18: The UAE played an important role in reducing the recent tensions between India and Pakistan by giving "words of wisdom" on sorting out differences in a peaceful manner, the Gulf nation's ambassador here said on Monday. Ambassador Ahmed Al Banna, however, clarified that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) did not mediate between the two countries and that the aim of its efforts was to decrease the tensions which had spiralled in the wake of the air strike by Indian jets at a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot, Pakistan, following the Pulwama terror attack. The UAE envoy, while speaking at an interaction at IIT-Delhi, also referred to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and deputy commander of the armed forces Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan's telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan amid escalating tensions. "We played an important role in reducing the (Indo-Pak) tensions that took place. On the day there was a huge escalation, there was a phone call from our Abu Dhabi Crown Prime to Prime Minister Modi and to the Pakistan Prime Minister," he said in response to a question on the role played by the UAE in de-escalating Indo-Pak tensions. "Our role was to give words of wisdom and try to sort out the differences in a peaceful manner just like the UAE has done in its relationship with Iran," he said. On whether the UAE had successfully mediated in reducing Indo-Pak tensions, Al Banna said: "We did not mediate. When you talk about mediation there has to be a request from both parties. We tried to decrease tensions by using our special relationship (with the two countries)." Asked about India's action to strike the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Balakot, Al Banna said what India or any country decides in terms of its policy, the UAE does not interfere. "In general, we are against radicalism, we are against terrorists, we are against terrorism. A lot of people talk about definitions, but for us a terrorist act is a terrorist act. A lot of time we interact with Indian authorities and make suggestions and it is up to the Indian side to take it or not," he said. To another question on India's presence at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers meet in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, he welcomed New Delhi's participation. Asked about Kashmir being raised by the Islamic grouping, the envoy stressed that the declaration made in Abu Dhabi at the OIC meeting made no mention of the "Kashmir problem". The UAE envoy also said that there was strong cooperation between India and his country on counter terrorism. "We would like to enhance counter-terror cooperation. We want to stop this nonsense of killing innocent people...Islam has been hijacked by some of those terrorists and they have hijacked the actual purity of Islam," Al Banna said. Asked if the UAE had given any message to Pakistan on terror sanctuaries, Al Banna said: "Without mentioning any specific person, name or country, the UAE has a long standing (position of) preventing, fighting act of terrorism and those radical organisations, so we work with all partners in the region to make our region a peaceful region." Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. In his address, the envoy said it was the UAE and Saudi Arabia that covered the shortage of oil for India after Iran sanctions. PTI Going slow on Hafiz Saeed, looking up to Azhar, Pak is only worsening its case at FATF Did Pakistan ever act against Azhar? Intel reports show, he remained protected always From plotting a hijack to creating the JeM, why Pakistan guards Masood Azhar so much When Azhar travelled to London in search of funds India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Mar 18: Terror mastermind Masood Azhar had undertaken a month-long sojourn to England to collect funds for militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir and received Rs 15 lakh (Pakistani currency), though he got a "very poor" response while travelling to Sharjah and Saudi Arabia before arriving in India in 1994. Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, responsible for a series of terror strikes in India including the attack on Parliament in 2001 and a CRPF convoy in Pulwama last month, had procured a Pakistani passport in his real name and original address in 1986 and had extensively toured African and Gulf countries where he realised that the Arab nations were not sympathetic to the "Kashmir cause". According to Azhar's interrogation report available with security agencies here, he had visited the UK in October 1992. 'Masood Azhar's issue will be resolved', says Chinese envoy Luo Zhaohui Mufti Ismail, a cleric at a mosque at Southall in London, had facilitated his travel. Originally from Gujarat, Simail had studied at Darul-Ifta-Wal-Irshad in Karachi. "I stayed with Mufti Ismail in the UK for about a month and visited several mosques in Birmingham, Nottingham, Burleigh, Sheffield, Dudsbury and Leicester where I sought financial assistance for Kashmir (militants). I could collect Rs 15 lakh (Pakistani currency)," he told his interrogators. The terror mastermind also met other Muslim leaders in the UK including Maulana Ismail, who was also of Indian origin and had been engaged in the construction of mosques and madrasas in Mangolia and Albania. In the early 1990s, Azhar had visited Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Kenya, Zambia and collected funds for the terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Azhar had also visited Saudi Arabia for fund collection and contacted two main agencies in the country handling such aid but without success. One of them is Jamiat-ul-Islah, which is an ally of Jamaat-e-Islami. "Since Hizbul Mujahideen owed allegiance to Jamat, we were politely refused any aid. The Arab nations as such do not want to give aid for the Kashmir cause," he told the interrogators. In Abu Dhabi, Azhar could collect Rs 3 lakh in Pakistani currency, another Rs 3 lakh in Sharjah and Rs 2 lakh in Saudi Arabia on his second visit. Azhar arrived in New Delhi in January 1994 with a fake Portuguese passport. The Ashok hotel in Delhi's posh Chanakyapuri area, which houses the diplomatic enclave, was the first stop of Azhar, who dodged immigration officials' queries about his Portuguese passport by claiming he was a "Gujarati by birth". The Pakistan-based terrorist, who was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir within the next two weeks, had also stayed in capital's hotel Janpath and visited Lucknow, Shahranpur and Islamic seminary Darul-uloom Deoband, according to his interrogation report. "I spent two days in Dhaka and thereafter travelled to Delhi by Bangladesh Airlines (Biman), reaching the IGI Airport in the early hours of January 29, 1994. The immigration officials at the IGI commented that I did not look like a Portuguese but when I replied that I was a Gujarati by birth, he did not hesitate to stamp my passport. "I hired a taxi and asked (the driver) for a good hotel. I was taken to the Ashok hotel in Chanakyapuri where I stayed," the interrogation report read. After arriving in the national capital, Azhar went to Darul-uloom Deoband , Gungoh and then Saharanpur before returning to New Delhi two days later. On reaching Delhi, Azhar stayed at hotel Janpath located near Connaught Place. Since his flight to Srinagar was booked for February 9, he decided to visit one Maulana Abu Hassan Nadvi alias Ali Mian at his madrassa in Lucknow. Azhar reached Srinagar on February 9, 1994 where he stayed at the Madrasa Qasmian in Lal Bazar. Later in the evening, a militant, Sajjad Afghani, came to meet him along with his deputy Amjad Bilal of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami. Masood Azhar: India needs to produce solid evidence, say Chinese experts The next morning, on February 10, he was escorted by Afghani to a place called Matigund where all Pakistan/PoK-based terrorists had gathered. "They (the terrorists) were happy about my visit and merger of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami. I had taken their addresses and letters so that I could communicate their welfare to their families after returning to Pakistan," he had told the interrogators. While returning from Matigund, accompanied by Afghani and one Farooq, a militant of Matigund area, who was armed and had a wireless set, the car developed some trouble and stopped. Azhar and his accomplice boarded a three-wheeler and proceeded to Anantnag. After travelling for about 2-3 km, the auto rickshaw was stopped by Army personnel, according to the report. "Farooq started running and opened fire which was returned by the Army men. Farooq managed to escape but I along with Afghani was arrested," he told the interrogators. Azhar was freed from an Indian prison in 1999 along with two other terrorists in exchange for passengers of an Indian Airlines aircraft which was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan. (With agency inputs) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 5:51 [IST] Induction of Congress MLAs into BJP is death of Parrikar's legacy, says outgoing Goa deputy CM Swaraj, Parrikar, Ananth Kumar: BJP has lost some of its tallest leaders recently Pramod Sawant takes oath as Goa CM at 2 am ceremony, two allies get deputy CM post India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Panaji, Mar 19: Pramod Sawant took the oath as the new chief minister of Goa at a 2 AM ceremony today. Sawant succeeds Manohar Parrikar who died on Sunday after battling pancreatic cancer for a year. The new government has two deputy chief ministers, Goa Forward Party chief Vijai Sardesai and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party MLA Sudin Dhavalikar, from the two small parties backing BJP in the coastal state. Parrikar was cremated with full state honours in presence of family, top leaders and thousands of followers at Miramar beach on Monday. [Is the BJP govt in Goa safe: Here are the numbers] Goa Government formation: Highlights Why Congress-JDS will help BJP in Karnataka? India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Bengaluru, Mar 18: As the results of the Karnataka Assembly elections poured in 2018 a narrative was built that said Congress and JDS would have registered massive victory had they forged a pre-poll alliance. The subsequent victory in the Bellary, Mandya Lok Sabha by-elections, (though experts do not agree with this reason) strengthened the belief that the alliance can defeat the BJP. However, the scenario had changed a lot since the by-elections. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress got three seats more than 2009; they won nine seats with a voting percentage of 40.80 per cent. After the bypoll in Bellary, Congress tally rose to 10. The Congress will be appreciated for retaining the present seats for following reasons. 1. Discontent with coalition: Holding onto power even after the BJP got 104 seats in the last assembly elections has sent a wrong signal to the people of Karnataka. JDS with 37+ (1 BSP) MLAs forged a post-poll alliance with Congress (80 MLAs). Unfortunately, BJP being single largest party with 104 seats fell short of majority and now in opposition. State BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa till last minute tried to bring a few Congress and JDS MLAs into the saffron party, but failed. Grapavine has that the alliance is likely end after the Lok Sabha elections. Several Congress MLAs are in touch with BJP leaders. 2. Pulwama attack and the IAF strike: The dastardly attack on CRPF jawans in Pulwama shook the conscience of the country. The Modi government was under pressure to respond to the attack. Amid call for war against the IAF strike on Balakot has pacified the resentment among the voters. And the successful release of Wing Commandar Abhinandan Varthaman has won accolades for the PM Modi. Also, the demand for the evidence on casualties by the opposition parties is likely to work in favour of the BJP. Mandya Lok Sabha: Sumalatha Ambareesh to contest as Independent candidate 3. Lack of candidates to take on BJP bastions Congress' plans of winning more than 20 Lok Sabha seats has hit a roadblock due to lack of candidates. Even though, Congress has to contest only on 20 states out of 8 still find it difficult to find suitable candidates to take on BJP. For instance, no Congress leader is interested in fighting from Bengaluru South where late BJP leader Ananath Kumar's wife Tejaswini is contesting from. Voters in Coastal and North Karnataka are rock solid behind the BJP. On the other hand, BJP's ticket distribution in Karnataka is free of confusion. State BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa had declared that no sitting MLAs would get ticket for Lok Sabha elections and all the sitting MPs would continue. 4. Disappointment in Congress Already Tumkuru and Bangalore North MLAs are unhappy with Congress for sharing these two seats with the JDS. Bellary district has changed completely from the last bypoll. All is not well in Bellary Congress, after Congress MLAs JN Ganesh and Anand Singh were involved in an ugly brawl. In North Karnataka, Congress MLA from Umesh Jadahav, has left the party to content as BJP candidate from Gulbarga against senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge. In Belgaum district, Ramesh Jarakiholi, who was about to join BJP, is unhappy with the Congress for denying him a Cabinet berth. 5. This election is about Modi vs Modi Clearly, this election is all about Modi vs Modi. Congress President Rahul Gandhi's attack over Rafale deal, demonetisation and job loss not enough to win perception battle in general and specifically in Karnataka. Rahul Gandhi's posture as leaders of chaotic 'Mahaghatbandhan' may not gone down well with voters though he's matured as a politician over five years. People are convinced that Rahul Gandhi is not a match to PM Modi neither in experience nor in charisma. Ramdas Athawale condemns violence at US Capitol, says he will talk to Trump over phone One by one they will resign: Athawale on Maharashtra ministers Will Athawale gain from Shiv Sena-Somaiya tussle? India oi-Hardeep Singh Bedi New Delhi, March 18: Despite an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena seems to be not in a mood to forgive BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, say sources. Sensing trouble among the alliance partners, Union minister and Republican Party of India (A) Chief Ramdas Athawale has started hard lobbying for the Mumbai North East Lok Sabha seat, currently being represented by Somaiya. It is notable that the Shiv Sena leadership has demanded the BJP not to renominate Somaiya, or else Sena workers will not campaign for him. BJP-Shiv Sena to hold six mega rallies together; PM Modi, CM Yogi on star campaigners list Sources say Somaiya issue figured during the recently held meeting between Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray to finalise the poll strategy. "Thackeray told Fadnavis in plain words that if the BJP fields Somaiya from Mumbai North East then it should not expect any kind of support from Sena workers," said sources, adding that several Sena leaders from Mumbai have told Thackeray that they will not support Somaiya's candidature from the Mumbai North East constituency, and will work to ensure his defeat. "Somaiya had won the Mumbai North East seat in the 2014 parliamentary elections because the Shiv Sena workers were instrumental in converting the votes of a large Marathi population of the constituency in his favour," say Shiv Sena sources. Somaiya is a firebrand BJP leader who has been the biggest critic of the Shiv Sena during the last five years. Before the 2017 civic elections, Somaiya was a major critic of the Sena, attacking the party over issues of corruption in the Sena-led Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The 64-year-old MP has even attacked Uddhav Thackeray, which has irked Sena leaders and workers. Without naming Thackeray, Somaiya had said that the BMC was in the grip of a powerful mafia run by a 'saheb' in Bandra. Matoshree, the Thackeray family residence, is in Mumbai's suburb of Bandra. He also dared the Sena chief to disclose his assets publicly. Somaiya is a kind of investigator BJP MP in Maharashtra. His team uses the Right to Information Act to collect information to target political opponents. It is believed that Somaiya's tirade against the Shiv Sena had the backing of the BJP leadership. It is notable that the BJP and the Shiv Sena had fought the 2014 Maharashtra polls separately; they joined hands to form the coalition government in the state. Despite being coalition partners in the government, both the parties fought the 2017 Mumbai civic body polls as rivals. During this time, Somaiya became one of the foremost critics of the Shiv Sena from the BJP, attacking the party over issues such as potholed roads of the Sena-led civic body to corruption in contracts. Here is report card of Shiv Sena MPs in 16th Lok Sabha Sena workers allegedly attacked Somaiya during Dussehra celebrations. The BJP MP wrote to the city police commissioner alleging that Sena workers wanted to kill him. The amount of rivalry between the two sides has put the BJP leadership in a catch-22 situation. "The BJP wants to repeat Somaiya but also fears that the Sena workers will not leave any stone unturned to defeat Somaiya. The 2019 elections are very crucial and every seat means a lot for the BJP," sources told One India. Though the BJP is yet to announce its candidates for Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, Somaiya has already started campaigning by saying that he is confident that the BJP would again give him the ticket. "Actually, Somaiya is sending signals to the BJP that it should not dump him due to the pressure of the Shiv Sena. And, if it does then a message should go that he paid the price of following the directives of BJP leadership," said sources. Anticipating no end to this tussle, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale has now fixed eyes on Somaiya 's constituency. Earlier, Athawale had demanded the South Central constituency, which is in the Sena's quota. Uddhav Thackeray has already announced sitting MP Rahul Shewale's candidature from there. On March 14, Athawale talked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. Athawale is believed to have requested both the leaders to give Mumbai North East seat to his party so that it is not lost due to the Shiv Sena and Somaiya tussle. It will be interesting to watch whether Athawale will be benefitted from Shiv Sena and Somaiya tussle or not. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 6:02 [IST] Several evacuated, some by chopper, from New Zealand floods Christchurch has affected New Zealands TV-viewing experience; offensive content removed International oi-Shubham Ghosh Wellington, March 18: The horrific shooting attacks in two packed mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, have left an impact on the country's virtual world as well. According to 'Stuff' website, New Zealand, the killings saw the authorities shutting down the latest episode of Kiwi black comedy Fresh Eggs and the broadcast debut of hit American spy series Whiskey Cavalier. "New Zealand's major network broadcasters TVNZ, Mediaworks and Sky TV have all been adjusting their schedules day-to-day in order to avoid broadcasting anything that might be deemed offensive while the country is in mourning for those killed at the mosques. Extended news bulletins have also disrupted regular programming during the past few days," the report added. NZ Christchurch shooting: Brenton Tarrant sacks his own lawyer, says he'll represent himself New Zealand removes 'Hotel Mumbai', Indian film based on 2008 terror attack Indian film 'Hotel Mumbai' based on the devastating terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008 was also withdrawn from New Zealand's cinema halls till Thursday despite down a brisk business. The Stuff report cited TVNZ's corporate communications manager Rachel Howard saying while most of the changes were made to accommodate extended news programmes, it was also done to remove programmes that were considered "inappropriate" to screen and they included shows showing violence and use of gun. Sky TV took an unprecedented step of removing Sky News Australia's coverage of the tragedy in Christchurch owing to their use of the assassin's live-streamed footage. MediaWorks's chief content officer Andrew Szusterman was of the opinion that they were "conscious the mood of the nation has changed and our our programming will reflect that in the coming days and weeks". For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 15:02 [IST] Christchurch horror: Australian teen who broke egg on politicians head advises people not to do it International oi-Shubham Ghosh Melbourne, March 18: Will Connolly might have turned into a hero overnight for doing something that people love to see: 'egg' politicians. Already over A$30,000 (Rs 14.6 lakh) have been raised by a GoFundMe page in the teenager's support after he broke a raw egg on the head of a senior Australian senator last Saturday, March 16, for making controversial remarks in the wake of the shootings in two mosques in New Zealand. Connolly, who wants to donate the majority of the funds towards the victims of the attacks, however, found the path to become a 'hero' a tad challenging and advised people against imitating him. It so happened that the senator from Queensland, Fraser Anning, had raised a finger at the Muslim immigrants following the attacks that were attacked by right-wing terrorists, and the 17-year-old Connolly was too irked and smashed an egg on the back of Anning's head while the latter was speaking at a media rally in Melbourne's Moorabbin. Christchurch has affected New Zealand's TV-viewing experience; offensive content removed The youngster was immediately hit back by the senator and was grounded by his supporters, including a convicted criminal. He was arrested but released later without any charges. Support started pouring in for the boy son after and a separate online petition on change.org seeking Anning's ouster from the parliament received more than 1 million signatures in less than two days, setting up a record. Even Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison found the remarks "disgusting". Connolly later posted a short video to Twitter identifying himself as "Egg Boy" and asked people not to egg politicians for the consequences of such act is not pleasant. "Don't egg politicians, you get tackled by 30 bogans at the same time, I learnt the hard way," Connolly was heard saying in the video. Video: Australian senator who blamed Muslim immigrants after NZ shootings hit with egg He also tweeted "Muslims are not terrorists and terrorism has no religion". Connolly's account appeared to have been taken down from the platform, reported 'Stuff' although there was no dearth of his admirers from around the world some of whom even invited him to their country. Yesterday, Australia got the villain it created. Today, it got the hero it deserved. Eggcellent #eggboy#WillConnolly pic.twitter.com/Sx6dW86fgN Ammara Siddique (@amara_siddique) March 16, 2019 Dear eggboy. I am a philosophy professor in Turkey. We really appreciate what you did. I will pay for tickets, and 10 days in a 5 star hotel (whereever you want in Turkey) Be our guest in Turkey. Caner Taslaman (@ctaslaman) March 16, 2019 For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 15:26 [IST] NZ Christchurch shooting: Brenton Tarrant sacks his own lawyer, says he'll represent himself International oi-Madhuri Adnal Christchurch, Mar 18: Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian-born suspect accused of gunning down 50 people during Friday's terror attacks in New Zealand Christchurch has fired his lawyer and is planning to represent himself in court, leading to speculation that he might try to use his trial as a platform for extremist views. Brenton Tarrant, 28, of Australia, who has been charged with one count of murder, appeared to be lucid and not mentally unstable, said Richard Peters, his former attorney. He is expected to face more charges when he next appears in court on April 5. [5 Indians among 50 people killed in New Zealand Christchurch shooting] Fifty people were killed and 40 were injured in the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, an act that has shocked this country of 4.5 million people. There are still 34 people in hospitals, including a 4-year-old girl who is in a critical condition. The death toll from Friday's attacks exceeds New Zealand's annual homicide rate; 35 people were killed in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 10:33 [IST] Utrecht shooting: 3 killed, several injured after gunman opens fire on tram in Netherlands International oi-Madhuri Adnal Utrecht, Mar 18: At least three persons have been killed and several others have been in a tram shooting 'with possible terrorist motive' in the central Dutch city of Utrecht in the Netherlands on Monday morning. The Utrecht police confirmed that there had been a shooting and officers are at the scene. They also confirmed a manhunt is underway after the gunman escaped. An eyewitness told local media that the shooting took place inside a tram at the 24 Oktoberplein in the city's west. An anti-terrorism unit and emergency services are at the scene around the 24 Oktoberplein junction, where a square at a tram station has been cordoned off. Emergency services are on the scene and first aid is being carried out on passengers. Three helicopters were despatched to the area after the shooting, which took place at about 10.45am. The shooting, which was reported at 10:45 a.m. local time is now over -- however the police operation is ongoing, Lanshage added. Taking to Twitter, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the government has been holding crisis talks after the shooting. Utrecht is located about 25 miles south of Amsterdam in central Holland. This incident comes days after a gunman killed around 50 people including 5 Indians in New Zealand's Christchurch shooting. Video: Dog comes out of nowhere to save a goal in a football match in Argentina 'Hachiko of Argentina': 6-year-old Labrador keeps on waiting for dead master outside hospital International oi-Shubham Ghosh Buenos Aires, March 18: We have all heard about Hachiko, a Japanese Akito dog which had set up a legendary tale of loyalty by waiting outside a railway station for nine years for its owner to return even though he was dead. Now, a similar tale has evolved from another part of the world - Argentina where a Labrador was seen waiting out a hospital for over a week, waiting for its dead owner to come back. Six-year-old Toto stayed outside the door of Pablo Soria Hospital in the city of San Salvador de Jujuy, waiting for its owner to return, Daily Mail reported. The owner never returned though before dying, he wanted to meet Toto so that he could say one final goodbye, a local report said. The owner is now dead since a week and Toto was still seen waiting outside the hospital door. The owner's relatives did not take the canine with them and a local animal protection organisation is now looking for a new owner who can adopt Toto. Signature campaign on to save pet dog after it bit off 4-year-old kid's hand It was also said on behalf of the organisation that Toto had to be kept in a close house to stop him from going to the hospital again for his dead master. The dog also had injured paws and needed a surgery. He was treated by veterinary doctors. What after US departs? Afghanistan troops flee battle with Taliban, go missing International oi-Shubham Ghosh Kabul, March 18: At a time when stress is being given on the role of Afghanistan's domestic forces in looking after the country after the western forces leave, something disappointing happened on Sunday, March 17. Around 100 troops of the South Asian nation fled their posts and flee into the north-western neighbour Turkmenistan during a battle with the Taliban over the week, Associated Press cited officials as saying. A provincial council member in Afghanistan's Badghis province in north-western Afghanistan, Mohammad Naser Nazari, said the soldiers though were not allowed to enter the neighbouring country and it was not known what happened to them. The Taliban, meanwhile, posted pictures of captured soldiers on social media. Before drawdown, put in place elected political structure in Afghanistan, India tells US Sources in the provincial governor gave further gruesome news that 16 soldiers were killed while 20 were injured during the clashes with the Taliban in Bala Murghab district in the same region. They said more than 40 insurgents were killed in the fighting that had subsided by Sunday with sporadic fights taking place in remote areas. According to Nazari, 50 soldiers were killed while 100 could not be traced. He also said that several local people came to the governor's office to express their concerns about security in the province. Afghan: 16 killed, 9 injured in Nangarhar province He also said Bala Murghab is almost entirely controlled by the Taliban while the Afghan forces are confined to the district headquarters only, the AP report added. Attacks on despite Taliban-US talks for peace The Taliban have regained their ground in Afghanistan despite the US forces fighting them for more than 17 years now. They launch attacks on Afghan security forces often, causing deaths. The attacks continue even as the Taliban have been in talks with the US aiming to establish peace in the war-ravaged country. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, March 18, 2019, 17:29 [IST] JKSSB SI Recruitment 2021: Last date to apply for 800 Sub Inspector posts, direct link here CTET December 2021 admit cards to be out shortly: How to download Delhi: Massive fire at a chemical factory, 20 fire tenders fighting blaze New Delhi oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Mar 18: A massive fire broke out at a chemical factory in Mundka locality of Delhi on Monday. As many as 20 fire tenders have been rushed to the spot to douse the flames, said reports. There are no reports casualties so far. The chemical factory is located at Swaran Park in Mundka and the efforts are underway to douse the blaze. In another incident, a minor fire broke out at a shop in Govindpuri. Three fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the fire was doused successfully, said reports. Karol Bagh fire: 'Emergency exit was locked', says KJ Alphons; FIR registered against hotel owner In February this year, a massive fire swept through a four-floor hotel in central Delhi's Karol Bagh in the early hours of Tuesday, killing at least 17 guests, including a child. The blaze at Arpit Palace Hotel in Karol Bagh left 35 people injured. Five days after the Karol Bagh fire, Delhi Police's Crime Branch arrested the owner of Hotel Arpit Palace. Rakesh Goel was arrested from the IGI Airport on February 16 after the Delhi Police received a tip off that Goel was returning from Qatar. Ms Swift joins from KPMG, where she served as Head of DC Investment, advising clients on all aspects of their DC investment arrangements, including strategy, default design, fund selection and investment monitoring. She arrives with 25 years' experience of delivering services and advice to DC schemes, having previously worked at firms including Aon, BlackRock and Deutsche Asset Management. This appointment follows research from Willis Towers Watson's Thinking Ahead Institute which revealed that, for the first time, DC assets now account for over 50% of total assets across the seven largest pension markets. Managing Director David Aleppo, Head of Willis Towers Watson's Advisory Investment Services, said: "We are delighted to welcome Anne to the team, whose record of delivering solutions for DC schemes is outstanding." "Anne will play a key role in leading some of our client relationships, as well as contributing to the continued development of our market-leading DC investment proposition," David added. Cannabis Testing Market Growth And Revenue Analysis By Industry Players like -Shimadzu Corporation, Agilent Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cannabis Testing Market https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/170 https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/170 Cannabis testing is done for various purpose such as finding concentration of active ingredient (cannabinoids, terpene), which determines the medical potency of the cannabis. It is also tested for determining various other ingredient in given sample. For instance, to determine the pesticide residue content in the given sample that undermines the purity and efficacy. Cannabis testing also involves determination of contaminants such as fungi and bacteria (mycotoxins), which could causes serious pulmonary infections if administered unchecked.Key players operating in the cannabis testing market include Shimadzu Corporation, Agilent Technologies, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., PerkinElmer, Inc., Millipore Sigma, AB SCIEX LLC, Cannabix Technologies, Inc., Waters Corporation, Steep Hill Labs, Inc., CannaSafe Analytics, Accelerated Technology Laboratories, Inc., LabLynx, Inc., SC Laboratories Inc., GenTech Scientific, Pharm Labs, LLC, and Digipath Labs, Inc.Download the PDF brochure:Furthermore, cannabis testing comprises determination of trace metals such as cadmium, arsenic, leads and mercury over cannabis plants and products, which could impart adverse effect to human health. Three species of cannabis are present, each has different concentration of active ingredient (cannabinoids and terpene), which leads to risk of cannabis adulteration with cannabis species having lower amount of active ingredient. Therefore in such cases cannabis testing would be beneficial to find the authenticity of given specimen.Overall cannabis testing process involves sample and column preparation, identification of analyte, determining concentration, and separating the analyte. Various analytical techniques majorly used to test the cannabis are Liquid Chromatography (LC) / High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Gas Chromatography (GC), Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC), ELISA kits, and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Cannabis testing products also involves breathe analyzer and other instruments to check concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol when consumed illegally. Tetrahydrocannabinol is psychoactive ingredient.The global cannabis testing market size was valued at US$ 926.3 million in 2017, and is expected to witness a CAGR of 13.2% over the forecast period (2018 2026).Legalization of cannabis for medicinal and recreational activity to drive growth of the cannabis testing marketIncreasing approval of medicinal cannabis products along with extensive research and development activities in the medical cannabis market are expected to support growth of the cannabis testing market.For instance, in July 2017, 18 states in the U.S. allowed the use of Cannabidiol (CBD) extract, majorly in oil form with minimal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for the treatment of epilepsy or seizures in adversely affected children. In March 2017, German parliament signed and enforced law, which allows the healthcare professionals to prescribe the medicinal cannabis products to relieve patients from severe health issues such as chronic pain, vomiting, and nausea.Cannabis testing market is projected to witness positive growth during the forecast period, owing to the requirement of desired active ingredient detection and undesired trace elements (mycotoxins and trace metals) before utilizing cannabis product for medicinal and recreational purpose. Increased trend of using cannabis for recreational purpose would be another major impetus for simultaneous rise in cannabis testing market.In 2012, only two states in the U.S. had legalized recreational use of cannabis however by 2017, seven more states legalized recreational use of cannabis. In January 2018, use of cannabis for recreational purpose initiated in California which resulted in tourist attraction in California and in turn it also doubled the cannabis cultivation assessing business opportunity.Increased approval for cannabis-based drugs and new product launches for cannabis testing are expected to propel growth of the cannabis testing marketVarious cannabis manufacturer across globe are focused on introducing the cannabis products to target various disease, which in turn is expected to promote application of cannabis testing instruments, as this products need to be approved from the health regulatory bodies for their efficacy and purity. For instance, in May 2018, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the medication, called Epidiolex manufactured by GW Pharmaceuticals to treat two rare forms of epilepsy caused by Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes in patients two years and older.In July 2016, Insys Therapeutics, Inc. received U.S.FDA approval for dronabinol oral solution- Syndros, which is an orally administered liquid formulation of cannabinoid dronabinol. The Syndros is indicated for treatment of anorexia associated with weight loss among patients suffering from AIDS and patients suffering from cancer chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.Companies are launching innovative, precise, and efficient analytical platform for cannabis testing, which is expected to fuel market growth. For instance, Agilent Technologies Inc. in 2017, introduced a high-resolution, accurate gas chromatography mass system named as Agilent 7250 GC/Q-TOF system, which combines gas chromatography and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry with a Low Energy Electron Ionization source enabling high exploration of unknown chemical samples.High cost of analytical instruments for testing cannabis is one of the factors restraining growth of the market. Furthermore, there are no standards for various residue and unwanted material in cannabis such as pesticide residue, heavy metal, and mycotoxin, which results into inauthenticity of test results given by different cannabis testing laboratories.Request For Sample Copy of This Research Report:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Mr.Shah1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.com Oilfield Communications Market 2019-2025 Analysis, Growth by Leading Companies Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, Siemens AG, ABB Ltd Oilfield Communications Market https://www.orianresearch.com/request-sample/683820 https://www.orianresearch.com/enquiry-before-buying/683820 https://www.orianresearch.com/checkout/683820 www.orianresearch.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/13281002/ The Global Oilfield Communications Market is driven by rise in integration of various oil and gas departments and increased need for cyber security. Increase in the adoption of cloud-based services further augments the market growth.Through the use of cloud-based services, their offshore sites are connected with the inshore site and receive updated and real-time information regarding about production stats, which helps in better supply chain management.Get Sample copy @The costs associated with oilfield communications are likely to hinder the market over the forecast period. However, a digital oilfield heavily depends on IT infrastructure, communication networks and automation. Digital oilfields demands different variables such as scalability, security, reliability, integration, control and openness. These prove has further growth opportunities for the oilfield communications market.Some of the key players operating in this market include Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, Siemens AG, ABB Ltd., Speed cast International Limited, Rad Data Communications, Inc., and Others.Key Benefits of the Report:* Global, Regional, Country, Communication Network, and Solution Market Size and Forecast from 2014-2025* Detailed market dynamics, industry outlook with market specific PESTLE, Value Chain, Supply Chain, and SWOT Analysis to better understand the market and build strategies* Identification of key companies that can influence this market on a global and regional scale* Expert interviews and their insights on market shift, current and future outlook and factors impacting vendors short term and long term strategies* Detailed insights on emerging regions, Communication Network & Solution, and competitive landscape with qualitative and quantitative information and facts.Global Oilfield Communications Industry 2019 Market Research Report is spread across 121 pages and provides exclusive vital statistics, data, information, trends and competitive landscape details in this niche sector.Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @Target Audience:* Oilfield Communications providers* Traders, Importer and Exporter* Distributors* Research and consulting firms* Government and research organizations* Associations and industry bodies.Research MethodologyThe Market is derived through extensive use of secondary, primary, in-house research followed by expert validation and third-party perspective like analyst report of investment banks. The secondary research forms the base of our study where we conducted extensive data mining, referring to verified data sources such as government and regulatory published materials, technical journals, trade magazines, and paid data sources.For forecasting, regional demand & supply factor, investment, Market dynamics including technical scenario, consumer behavior, and end-use industry trends and dynamics, capacity Production, spending were taken into consideration.We have assigned weights to these parameters and quantified their Market impacts using the weighted average analysis to derive the expected Market growth rate.The Market estimates and forecasts have been verified through exhaustive primary research with the Key Industry Participants (KIPs) which typically include:* Original Equipment Manufacturer,* Product Supplier,* Distributors,* Government Body & Associations, and* Research Institute.Order a Copy of this Report @Table Of Content1 Executive Summary2 Methodology And Market Scope3 Oilfield Communications Market Industry Outlook4 Oilfield Communications Market Type Outlook5 Oilfield Communications Market Application Outlook6 Oilfield Communications Market Regional Outlook7 Competitive LandscapeEnd Of The ReportDisclaimerAbout UsOrian Research is one of the most comprehensive collections of market intelligence reports on the World Wide Web. Our reports repository boasts of over 500000+ industry and country research reports from over 100 top publishers. We continuously update our repository so as to provide our clients easy access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, and products. We also specialize in custom research in situations where our syndicate research offerings do not meet the specific requirements of our esteemed clients.Contact Us:Ruwin MendezVice President Global Sales & Partner RelationsOrian Research ConsultantsUS: +1 (415) 830-3727 | UK: +44 020 8144-71-27Email: info@orianresearch.comWebsite:Follow Us on LinkedIn: Global DIY Home Security Solution Market Future Demand 2019 - Prominent Players, SAMSUNG SmartThings, Piper (Icontrol Networks, Inc.) https://www.marketresearchplace.com/report-detail/60952/request-sample https://www.marketresearchplace.com/report/2018-2025-diy-home-security-solution-report-on-global-60952.html https://www.marketresearchplace.com/report-detail/60952/request-sample www.marketresearchplace.com Market study report titled 2018-2025 DIY Home Security Solution Report on Global and United States Market, Status and Forecast, by Players, Types and Applications recently published by Market Research Place provides key information about the industry, current situation and upcoming market condition, expert opinions, and the latest developments across the globe. This study report serves key measures to industries/clients to give them knowledge about the current global competitive market status.Furthermore, report covers the types, application, top key players, and forecast to 2025. The skillful data was accumulated, arranged, and analyzed from previous and the current year in order to build a future prospect of the market.DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE REPORT:Study years considered to analyze the market size of Global 2018-2025 DIY Home Security Solution Report on and United States Market are History Year: 2013-2017, Base Year: 2017, Estimated Year: 2018, Forecast Year 2018 to 2025.The report also figures out the market size and revenue generated from the sales of this report and technologies by various application segments. A thorough observation of this market with analysis of market size in terms of volume and value has been covered. The report contains all major geographical regions and sub-regions in the world and focuses on market size, market shares, competitive landscape, sales, and growth opportunities in these regions. Along with market research analysis, buyer also gets precious information about production, price and gross margin, supply, consumption, export, and import.Global 2018-2025 DIY Home Security Solution Report on and United States market competition by top manufacturers/players includes: Prominent Players, SAMSUNG SmartThings, Piper (Icontrol Networks, Inc.), SImpliSafe, Inc., Abode systems, inc., Nest Labs, Frontpoint Security Solutions, Protect America, Inc., LifeShield LLC, GetSafe, ISmart Alarm, Inc., .Geographically, this market report studies the following key geographical regions: United States, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and AfricaOn the basis on the end users/applications, the report focuses on sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application (2013-2025), primarily split into: House, Apartment, Condo,READ FULL REPORT:Furthermore, the report highlights critical information and factual data regarding market drivers, market limitations, as well as its prospects. In addition, opportunities and market trends are also underlined.Crucial points coated in Global 2018-2025 DIY Home Security Solution Report on and United States market 2018 Research Report are:What will the industry size and the growth rate by 2025?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the market?Which would be the important market trends affecting the growth?Who are the global key manufacturers of the industry?What will be the challenges in future period?Which would be the elements driving the global market and industry opportunities and restraints faced by the vendors?What are the upstream raw materials and manufacturing equipment?DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE REPORT:At the end, the report shades light on the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. It also tracks the product life cycle as well as discusses recent product innovations and offers an overview. Mainly, the report portrays the definition, the government regulations, and prevalent chain affecting the 2018-2025 DIY Home Security Solution Report on and United States market. The global industry analysis, manufacturers analysis, industry development trend, sales demand and forecast to 2025 are also depicted in the report.About us -Market Research Place is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Market Research Place also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Market Research Place provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales ManagerOffice-102, Sanskriti AspirationsBaner Road, Pune,MH 411045IndiaPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@marketresearchplace.comWeb: Paper Based Laminates Market Growth, Development and Opportunities in 2019-2025: Attwater, Bakelite Hylam, Guangzhou Remica Building Materials, Sigma Laminates etc. https://www.qyresearch.com/index/detail/988925/global-paper-based-laminates-market https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/988925/global-paper-based-laminates-market https://www.qyresearch.com/settlement/pre/c5f90dc8643e5fa869c6ba5c50965ef0,0,1,Global%20Paper%20Based%20Laminates%20Market%20Sizes%202019 http://www.qyresearch.com The global Paper Based Laminates Market is carefully researched in this report, keeping in view important aspects such as market competition, global and regional growth, market segmentation, and market structure. The analysts authoring the report have estimated the size of the global Paper Based Laminates market in terms of value and volume with the use of latest research tools and techniques. The Paper Based Laminates market report also includes estimations of market shares, revenue, production, consumption, gross margin, CAGR, and other key factors. Readers can expand their knowledge of business strategies, recent developments, and current as well as future progress of leading players of the global Paper Based Laminates market.Major Players of Global Paper Based Laminates Market Attwater, Bakelite Hylam, Guangzhou Remica Building Materials, Sigma Laminates, Kevin Polymers, Custom Composites, Impreglam Electronics, Eagle Insulation, GreyconThe report includes a deep segmentation study of the global Paper Based Laminates market, where both segments and sub-segments are analyzed in quite some detail. This study will help players to concentrate on high-growth segments and modify their business strategies, if required. The global Paper Based Laminates market is segmented on the basis of type, application, and geography. The Paper Based Laminates market regional segmentation study offered in the report equips players with useful information and data related to important geographical markets such as North America, China, Europe, India, the U.S., the U.K., and the MEA. Our researchers and analysts use reliable primary and secondary sources for research and data.Get Details of this Paper Based Laminates Market Report atGlobal Paper Based Laminates Market by Product B5, B4PQ, B4, B1Global Paper Based Laminates Market by Application Commercial industry, Automotive industry, Manufacturing industry, InfrastructureGlobal Paper Based Laminates Market by Region North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Central & South America, Middle East & Africa.Table of ContentsStudy Coverage: This section includes brief information about key products sold in the global Paper Based Laminates market followed by an overview of important segments and manufacturers covered in the report. It also gives highlights of Paper Based Laminates market size growth rates of different type and application segments. Furthermore, it includes information about study objectives and years considered for the complete research study.Executive Summary: Here, the Paper Based Laminates market report focuses on key trends of various products and other markets. It also shares analysis of the competitive landscape, where prominent players and market concentration ratio are shed light upon. Prominent players are studied on the basis of their date of Paper Based Laminates market entry, products, manufacturing base distribution, and headquarters.Market Size by Manufacturer: In this part of the Paper Based Laminates market report, expansion plans, mergers and acquisitions, and price, revenue, and production by manufacturer are analyzed. This section also provides revenue and production shares by manufacturer.Production by Region: Apart from global production and revenue shares by region, the authors have shared critical information about regional production in different geographical markets. Each regional Paper Based Laminates market is analyzed taking into account vital factors, viz. import and export, key players, and revenue, besides production.Get PDF Version of this Paper Based Laminates Market Report atConsumption by Region: The Paper Based Laminates market report concentrates on global and regional consumption here. It provides figures related to global consumption by region such as consumption market share. All of the regional markets studied are assessed on the basis of consumption by country and application followed by analysis of country-level markets.Market Size by Type: It includes Paper Based Laminates market analysis of price, revenue, and production by type.Market Size by Application: It gives an overview of Paper Based Laminates market size analysis by application followed by analysis of consumption market share, consumption, and breakdown data by application.Key Industry Players: Leading players of the Paper Based Laminates industry are profiled here on the basis of economic activity and plans, SWOT analysis, products, revenue, production, and other company details.Entry Strategy for Key Countries: Entry strategies for all of the country-level markets studied in the Paper Based Laminates market report are provided here.Production Forecasts: Apart from global production and revenue forecasts, this section provides production and revenue forecasts by region. Paper Based Laminates Market also includes forecast of key producers, where important regions and countries are taken into consideration, followed by forecast by type.Consumption Forecast: It includes global consumption forecast by application and region. In addition, it provides consumption forecast for all regional markets studied in the report.Opportunities and Challenges, Threats, and Affecting Factors: It includes Porters Five Forces analysis, market challenges, opportunities, and other market dynamics.Key Findings of the Study: These give a clear picture of the current and future status of the global Paper Based Laminates market.Get Complete Paper Based Laminates Market Report within 24 hours atAppendix: Paper Based Laminates market includes research methodology, author details, and a disclaimer. Under research methodology, our methodology or research approach and data sources are brought to light. The methodology or research approach chapter includes data triangulation, market breakdown, market size estimation, and research program or design. Data sources include primary and secondary sources.About Us:QYResearch always pursuits high product quality with the belief that quality is the soul of business. Through years of effort and supports from huge number of customer supports, QYResearch consulting group has accumulated creative design methods on many high-quality markets investigation and research team with rich experience. Today, QYResearch has become the brand of quality assurance in consulting industry.Contact US:QY Research, INC.17890 Castleton,Suite 218,City of industry, CA 91748USA: +1 626 295 2442Email: enquiry@qyresearch.comWeb: Smokeless Tobacco Global Market 2019: Key Players Reynolds American Inc., Altria Group Inc., Swedish Match, Imperial Tobacco Group PLC Smokeless Tobacco Industry Description Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Smokeless Tobacco -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities and Analysis Of Top Key Player Forecast To 2024 To Its Research Database Smokeless tobacco is tobacco that is not burnt. Smokeless tobacco products contain tobacco or a blend of tobacco that is most often chewed, sucked on and spit out after the tobacco juices are built up, or sniffed. It is also known as chewing tobacco, oral tobacco, spit or spitting tobacco, dip, chew, and snuff. Nicotine in the tobacco is absorbed through the lining of the mouth. The various forms of smokeless tobacco are: Chewing tobacco, Snuff, E-Cigarettes, Snus and Dissolvable Tobacco. Although the share of this segment in the total tobacco market is relatively smaller, this industry has a higher scope of growth in the coming years due to increasing anti-smoking legislations across various parts of the world as well as increasing awareness about the lower health risk associated with smokeless tobacco products as compared to smokeable tobacco products. The key factors which are anticipated to drive this market include reducing cigarette consumption, rising real GDP, rising household consumption expenditure and growing demand for pouched products. Some of the noteworthy progresses of this industry include the development of vaping technology and increasing popularity of E-cigarettes. However, the growth of respective industry is hindered by the illicit tobacco trade, rising excise duties, stringent tobacco regulations by the government and marketing restrictions imposed on the producers. The report provides a comprehensive study of global smokeless tobacco market and also major regional markets. Furthermore, market dynamics such as key trends and development; and challenges are analyzed in depth. The global smokeless tobacco industry is highly competitive consisting of several large companies including the Reynolds American Inc, Altria Group, Imperial Tobacco Group etc. The competitive landscape of the respective market, along with the company profiles of the leading players are also discussed in detail. Request for Sample Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1615760-global-smokeless-tobacco-market-report-2016-edition Table of Content 1. Overview 1.1 Definition 1.2 Type of Smokeless Tobacco 1.2.1 Chewing Tobacco 1.2.2 Snuff 1.2.3 E-Cigarettes 1.2.4 Snus 1.2.5 Dissolvable Tobacco 2. Global Smokeless Tobacco Industry 2.1 Global Smokeless Tobacco Sales Volume 2.1.1 Global Tobacco Sales Value Growth by Region 2.2 The US Smokeless Tobacco Industry 2.2.1 The US Tobacco Industry Domestic Production Volume by Category 2.2.2 The US Tobacco Products Imports Volume by Category 2.2.3 The US Tobacco Industry Revenue by Category 2.2.4 The US Smokeless Tobacco Industry Revenue 2.2.5 The US Smokeless Tobacco Market Size by Volume 2.2.6 The US Smokeless Tobacco Sales by Type 2.2.7 The US Moist Snuff Sales Volume by Category 2.2.8 The US Snus Market Size by Volume 2.3 Scandinavian Snus Industry 2.3.1 Scandinavian Snus Industry Revenue 2.3.2 Scandinavian Snus Market Size by Volume 2.3.3 Norway Snus Industry Revenue 2.3.4 Norway Snus Industry Sales by Volume 2.3.5 Sweden Snus Industry Revenue 2.3.6 Sweden Snus Industry Sales by Volume Leave a Query @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1615760-global-smokeless-tobacco-market-report-2016-edition 3. Market Dynamics 3.1 Growth Drivers 3.1.1 Reducing Cigarette Consumption 3.1.2 Increasing Real GDP 3.1.3 Rising Household Consumption Expenditure 3.1.4 Growing Demand for Pouched Products 3.2 Key Trends 3.2.1 Development of Vaping Technology 3.2.2 Growing Popularity of E-Cigarettes 3.2.3 Rising Prices of Smokeless Tobacco Products 3.3 Challenges 3.3.1 Illicit Trading of Tobacco 3.3.2 Rising Duty on Tobacco in Asian Countries 3.3.3 Stringency in the Tobacco Regulatory Framework 3.3.4 Marketing Restrictions 4. Competitive Landscape 4.1 Competition by Market Share 4.1.1 The US Smokeless Tobacco Market Share 4.1.2 The US Moist Snuff Market Share 4.1.3 The US Snus Market Share 4.1.4 Norway Snus Market Share 4.1.4 Sweden Snus Market Share 4.2 Competition by Financials 4.2.1 Competition by Profit Margin The US Smokeless Tobacco Market 4.2.2 Competition by Revenue - The US Smokeless Tobacco Market 4.2.3 Competition by Profit Margin Scandinavian Snus Market 4.2.4 Competition by Market Cap 5. Company Profiles 5.1 Reynolds American Inc. 5.1.1 Business Overview 5.1.2 Financial Overview 5.1.3 Business Strategies 5.2 Altria Group Inc. 5.2.1 Business Overview 5.2.2 Financial Overview 5.2.3 Business Strategies 5.3 Swedish Match 5.3.1 Business Overview 5.3.2 Financial Overview 5.3.3 Business Strategies 5.4 Imperial Tobacco Group PLC 5.4.1 Business Overview 5.4.2 Financial Overview 5.4.3 Business Strategies List of Charts Types of Smokeless Tobacco Global Smokeless Tobacco Sales Volume (2000-2015E) Global Tobacco Sales YoY Growth by Region (2014) The US Tobacco Industry Domestic Production Volume by Category (2015) The US Tobacco Products Imports Volume by Category (2015) The US Tobacco Industry Revenue Shares by Category (2015E) The US Smokeless Tobacco Industry Revenue Actual (2012-2015) The US Smokeless Tobacco Industry Revenue Forecast (2016F-2022F) The US Smokeless Tobacco Market Size Actual (2012-2015) The US Smokeless Tobacco Market Size Forecast (2016F-2022F) The US Smokeless Tobacco Sales Value by Type (2015E) The US Moist Snuff Sales Volume by Category (2015E) The US Snus Market Size by Volume (2010-2015E) Scandinavian Snus Industry Revenue (2010-2015E) Scandinavian Snus Market Size by Volume (2010-2015E) Norway Snus Industry Revenue (2010-2015E) Norway Snus Industry Sales by Volume (2010-2015E) Sweden Snus Industry Revenue (2010-2015E) Sweden Snus Industry Sales by Volume (2010-2015E) Buy Now @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1615760 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 Ltd Pune 411028 Maharashtra, Global Ph: +91 841 198 5042 https://www.wiseguyreports.com This release was published on openPR. Permanent link to this press release: Copy Please set a link in the press area of your homepage to this press release on openPR. openPR disclaims liability for any content contained in this release. High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market 2019 Insight Research Report, Future Demand and Analysis by Key Players: Hitachi, Nexans S.A., Prysmian Group, Finolex Cables, RPG Cables, Brugg Kabel AG, Synergy Cables Ltd. High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/908 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/high-voltage-cables-accessories-market-908 High voltage cables and accessories market is driven by the factors such as increased demand for electrical power from remote areas and growing urbanization projects, increasing grid connection projects, and rising demand for reduction of losses in transmission and distribution network. The increasing oil rigs in the offshore regions need on time power for smooth operations, and high voltage marine cables allow the power to reach the offshore oil production facilities. However, safety issues related to overhead accessories and cables is restraining the market for high voltage cables and accessories.Request Free Sample Copy @High voltage cables are made of electric conductor materials that are capable of enduring high resistances, and thus, decrease the resistance and losses that are in the form of heat. Also, the high voltage accessories are excellent protectors of transmission and distribution systems from moisture, mechanical wear out, as well as they are connectors of conductors, along with the earthing links. High voltage cables are used for carrying electric power to areas where there is no power generation utility. Also, high voltage accessories ensure efficient and uninterrupted electricity T&D as well as they provide reliable and durable solutions for transmission of high voltage current.Key PlayersThe major players operating in the global high voltage cables and accessories market are Siemens AG (Germany), Hitachi Ltd. (Japan), General Electric (U.S.) NKT Holdings A/S (Denmark), Nexans S.A. (France), and Prysmian Group (Italy). Finolex Cables Ltd (India), RPG Cables (India), Cable Corporation of India Ltd. (India), Brugg Kabel AG (Switzerland) and Synergy Cables Ltd. (Israel) are among others.Segmental AnalysisThe high voltage cables and accessories market is segmented on the basis of type, products, voltage ratings, and region.Based on the segment by type, the market is further classified as overhead, underground, and submarine. Underground segment holds the largest market share due to the increasing urbanization projects and advantages of being less susceptible to damage and reduced danger.On the basis of products, the high voltage cables and accessories market is segmented as conductors, fittings & fixtures, XLPE cables, MI cables, cable joints, cable terminations and others. Among these, conductors dominate the overhead high voltage cables & accessories market, as they have high tensile strength to withstand mechanical stresses.Regional OutlookAsia Pacific is expected to have the largest market share due to growing power sector in emerging economies such as China, South Korea, and India. Moreover, the region has had an increment in the number of projects in terms of smart grids, power generation, industrialization, urbanization, and power transmission and distribution infrastructure. For an instance, South Korea, one of the fastest emerging nation, has plans for a completely integrated smart grid by 2030. Also, Hitachi, one of the leading players in transmission and distribution network provider, has contributed to create Chinas transmission and distribution network through ultra-high voltage network and the gas insulated switchgear to prevent the damage caused to network due to load imbalance.Browse Complete Research Report @List Of TablesTable 1 Global High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market: By Region, 2018-2023Table 2 North America High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 3 Europe High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 4 Asia Pacific High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 5 RoW High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 6 Global High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market By Type Market: By Regions, 2018-2023Table 7 North America High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market By Type: By Country, 2018-2023Table 8 Europe High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market By Type: By Country, 2018-2023Table 9 Asia Pacific High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market By Type: By Country, 2018-2023Table 10 RoW High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market By Type: By Country, 2018-2023Table 11 Global High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market, By Product, By Regions, 2018-2023Table 12 North America High Voltage Cables and Accessories Market, By Product, By Country, 2018-2023Continue.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Surgical Clips Market Value Set to reach $7.32 Billion with a CAGR of 5.2%, by 2025 Surgical Clips Market https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/3667 https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/checkout/445727 www.alliedmarketresearch.com Surgical clips are sterile medical devices used for rapid control of bleeding from blood vessels and arteries. These clips do not require to penetrate the blood vessels, and thus, are preferably used instead of staples for some surgical applications.The global surgical clips market garnered $4,849 million in 2017 and is projected to accrue a sum of $7,322 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2018 to 2025.The report offers information on the drivers, restraints, & opportunities, top investment pockets, market segments, market size & share, and the competitive landscape. These insights are helpful for market players, investors, stakeholders, and new entrants to gain a major market share and international presence.Download Sample Report @The report explains the drivers, restraints, and opportunities of the surgical clips market elaborately. Factors such as growth in number of surgical procedures across the globe with increase in awareness of clipping, rise in number of chronic diseases and technological advancements in clipping drive the growth of the market. However, complications associated with surgical clips such as migration of clips hinder the growth of the market. On the other hand, rise in adoption of robotic and minimally invasive surgeries and growth opportunities in the emerging markets offer significant growth opportunities to the market players.The report presents a detailed analysis of the segments of the surgical clips market. The market is classified into material type, type, surgery type, end user, and geography. Based on material type, the study is bifurcated into titanium, polymer, and others. Based on type, the market is divided into ligating clips, aneurysm clips, and others. The aneurysm clips segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.8% from 2018 to 2025. The report classifies the surgery type segment into automated surgery clips and manual surgery clips. The automated surgery clips segment would exhibit the fastest CAGR of 8.0% from 2018 to 2025. The end user segment is bifurcated into hospital & clinic and ambulatory surgery center. The hospital & clinic segment grabbed the largest share in 2017 and would remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Regionally, the market analysis covers North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.A broad analysis of the players operating in the market is also offered in the surgical clips market report. Details such as their overview, their business segments under operation, key strategic moves and developments, and more are explained. The companies profiled in the report include Ackermann Medical GmbH & Co., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Boston Scientific Corporation, Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, Grena Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (Ethicon, Inc.), Lemaitre Vascular, Inc., Medtronic Plc. (Covidien Ltd.), Scanlan International, Inc., and Teleflex Incorporated.Buy Now @About usAllied 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 andachieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.Allied Market Research provides one stop solution from the beginning of data collectionto investment advice. The analysts at Allied Market Research dig out factors that helpclients to understand the significance and impact of market dynamics. The companyamplies clients insight on the factors, such as strategies, future estimations, growthor fall forecasting, opportunity analysis, and consumer surveys among others. Asfollows, the company offers consistent business intelligent support to aid the clientsto turn into prominent business firm.Contact:David Correa5933 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: +1(855)550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb: DOWDUPONT is Going to Dominate the "Polyethylene Pipes Market" Following with Exxon Mobil Corporation, SABIC and LyondellBasell Industries Holdings B.V. Polyethylene Pipes Market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-polyethylene-pipes-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/inquire-before-buying/?dbmr=global-polyethylene-pipes-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/speak-to-analyst/?dbmr=global-polyethylene-pipes-market The report highlights vital trends and dynamics, including limitations, drivers, and opportunities, affecting market growth. The study on the Polyethylene Pipes Market integrates market modules growth conditions and definition.Depending on the type, product type, material type, application, vertical, and end-use applications, the global market has subdivisions. Different research tools have been exercised to provide a precise understanding of this market, such as Porter's five forces analysis and SWOT analysis. The report analyzes the technological progressions that will or will occur in the coming years.The report explores North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa imminent Global Polyethylene Pipes Market. In addition, the countries generating high revenue in these regions were also examined in these countries along with comprehensive coverage and innovation. The market was categorized in terms of presentation in the following piece.Request For Free Sample Report @Key Points: Global Polyethylene Pipes MarketDOWDUPONT is going to dominate the polyethylene pipes market following with Exxon Mobil Corporation, SABIC and LyondellBasell Industries Holdings B.V. along with others such as ISCO Industries, TPL Plastech Limited, Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc., Dura-Line Corporation, Falcon Pipes Pvt. Ltd., Akzo Nobel N.V., Borealis AG, P.E.S. Co., COMAP group, SILON s.r.o., ARKEMA S.A among others.Underwater and Municipal market is growing with the highest CAGRHDPE are driving the market with highest market shareHDPE segment is dominating the polyethylene pipes marketKey Drivers: Global Polyethylene Pipes MarketSome of the major factors driving the market for global polyethylene pipes ongoing construction and rehabilitation of old or obsolete municipal pipe systems and easy installation, flexible, resistant and low cost and over traditional materials.Huge investment towards the PE pipe due to its high manufacturing cost and higher final pricesstrict laws imposed on usage of polyethylene pipes are the factor which may hinder the growth of this market.Increase in industrial production as well as rapid urbanization will drive the market in future.For More Details In-Depth Inquiry @Table of Contents:1. INTRODUCTION1.1. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY1.2. MARKET DEFINITION1.3. OVERVIEW OF GLOBAL POLYETHYLENE PIPES MARKET1.4. CURRENCY AND PRICING1.5. LIMITATION1.6. MARKETS COVERED2. MARKET SEGMENTATION2.1. MARKETS COVERED2.2. GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE2.3. YEARS CONSIDERED FOR THE STUDY2.4. CURRENCY AND PRICING2.5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.6. PRIMARY INTERVIEWS WITH KEY OPINION LEADERS2.7. SECONDARY SOURCES2.8. ASSUMPTIONS3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY4. MARKET OVERVIEW4.1. DRIVERS4.1.1. ONGOING CONSTRUCTION AND REHABILITATION OF OLD OR OBSOLETE MUNICIPAL PIPE SYSTEMS4.1.2. INCREASING DEMAND FOR LIGHTWEIGHT AND COST-EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE TO METALS AND CERAMICS4.2. RESTRAINTS4.2.1. HIGH INVESTMENTS4.2.2. STRICT LAWSIMPOSED ON USAGE OF POLYETHYLENE PIPES4.3. OPPORTUNITY4.3.1. INCREASE IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AS WELL AS RAPID URBANIZATION4.4. CHALLENGES4.4.1. CONTINOUS SHIFTS IN THE PRICES OF RAW MATERIAL5. PREMIUM INSIGHTS6. GLOBAL POLYETHYLENE PIPE MARKET, BY TYPE6.1. OVERVIEW6.2. HIGH DENSITY POLYETHYLENE (HDPE)6.3. LOW DENSITY POLYETHYLENE (LDPE)6.4. LINEAR LOW DENSITY POLYETHYLENE (LLDPE)6.5. CROSS LINK POLYETHYLENE (PEX/XLPE)7. GLOBAL POLYETHYLENE PIPES MARKET, BY APPLICATION8. GLOBAL POLYETHYLENE PIPES MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY8.1. OVERVIEW8.2. ASIA PACIFIC8.3. EUROPE8.4. NORTH AMERICA8.5. MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA8.6. SOUTH AMERICA9. GLOBAL POLYETHYLENE PIPES MARKET, COMPANY LANDSCAPE10. COMPANY PROFILE10.1. ISCO INDUSTRIES10.2. LYONDELLBASELL INDUSTRIES HOLDINGS B.V.10.3. SABIC10.4. TPL PLASTECH LIMITED10.5. ARKEMA SA10.6. DOWDUPONT10.7. ADVANCED DRAINAGE SYSTEMS, INC.10.8. DURA-LINE CORPORATION10.9. FALCON PIPES PVT LTD.10.10. EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION10.11. AKZO NOBEL N.V.10.12. BOREALIS AG10.13. SILON S.R.O10.14. P.E.S. CO.10.15. COMAP GROUP11. RELATED REPORTSHave Any Query? Ask Ours Expert @Market Segmentation: Global Polyethylene Pipes MarketThe global polyethylene pipes market is segmented based on type into four notable segments; high density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), and cross link polyethylene (PEX/XLPE).The Polyethylene pipes market is dominated by HDPE with 62.1% market share in 2017, growing at the highest CAGR of 5.2% in the forecast period.The global polyethylene pipes market is segmented based on application into five notable segments; underwater and municipal, gas extraction, construction, industrial, agriculture and others.About Us: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 Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market | Industry Key Players - Metalfrio Solutions SA, Beverage-Air Corporation, Illinois Tool Works https://www.mrrse.com/sample/951 https://www.mrrse.com/commercial-refrigeration-equipments https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/951 There has been a tremendous increase in agricultural and food exports and imports globally. Growth in production, consumption, and trade of perishable, processed, and packaged food items has driven the need to design and manufacture efficient and effective refrigeration equipment for the commercial sector. Refrigeration is one effective method to store and transport perishable food items across and within nations. Rise in income level has raised the spending capacity in economically developed as well as developing nations. Level of income in an economy has a huge impact on the spending capacity of the population on consumption of processed and packaged food items. Export of meat demands the need for effective transportation refrigeration equipment. Appropriate refrigeration equipment play a vital role in preventing food wastage due to spoilage during storage and transportation.Get Report Sample Copy for More info @Production, storage, and transportation of perishable food items require appropriate refrigeration equipment and the rise in food trade has increased the demand for refrigeration equipment in the commercial sector significantly. The rise in income levels of an economy also boosts the spending capacity of the population on leisure travel. To meet the accommodation and meals of travelling population, the hospitality industry has witnessed a tremendous growth. This industry also keeps pace with the changing food consumption patterns due to huge penetration of stored, processed, and packaged food in the food industry. Out of which arises the need to equip the restaurants and food storage areas with efficient and energy saving refrigeration and storage equipment. Hotel industry relies largely on refrigeration in order to maintain food supply. The Increasing number of restaurants also is a vital reason to drive the demand for efficient commercial refrigeration equipment.This research report provides an in-depth analysis of the Commercial Refrigeration Equipment Market in Latin America based on product type, application, refrigerant type, and country. On the basis of product type the commercial refrigeration equipment market in Latin America is segmented into transportation refrigeration equipment, refrigerator and freezer, beverage refrigeration, commercial refrigeration equipment parts, and others. On the basis of application the commercial refrigeration equipment market in Latin America is segment into food services, food and beverage retail, food and beverage distribution, food and beverage production, and others. On the basis of refrigerant type the commercial refrigeration equipment market in Latin America is segmented into fluorocarbons, inorganic, hydrocarbon/Natural.The report segments the Latin American commercial refrigeration equipment market by country into Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Rest of Latin America. It also encompasses the key factors by country in the commercial refrigeration equipment market in Latin America. It further offers analysis of the factors that drive and restrain the growth of commercial refrigeration equipment market in Latin America. It discusses the prevailing market trends and prospective growth opportunities in the commercial refrigeration and equipment market country wise and segment wise. It provides market estimates and forecasts for all the segments in terms of revenue (in US$ Mn). Also provided in the report is the competitive landscape of the major players in the Latin American commercial refrigeration equipment market.Browse Complete Research Report with TOC @The major players profiled in the report include Metalfrio Solutions SA, Beverage-Air Corporation, Illinois Tool Works, Inc., Dover Corporation, Daikin Industries, Ltd., United Technologies Corporation - (Climate, Controls and Security Unit), Hussmann International, Inc., Lennox International Inc. The company profiles offer a descriptive overview of the companies with respect to the company details, company description, SWOT analysis, revenue and regional market share, and strategic overview. The report also offers a competitive landscape of these players for the year 2016.The Latin America commercial refrigeration equipment market is segmented as below:By Product TypeTransportation Refrigeration EquipmentRefrigerator and FreezerBeverage RefrigerationCommercial refrigeration equipment partsOthersBy ApplicationFood ServicesFood and Beverage retailFood and Beverage distributionFood and Beverage ProductionOthersBy Refrigerant TypeFluorocarbonsInorganicHydrocarbons/NaturalBy CountryBrazilMexicoArgentinaChileRest of Latin AmericaSend an Enquiry @About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY 12207(USA)United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559(Toll Free)Email: sales@mrrse.com Aluminum Foil Packaging Market 2019: Size, Share, Industry Growth and Upcoming Trends by Forecast to 2023| Key Players: Alcoa, Hydro, Rio Tinto Group, Novelis, UACJ Aluminum Foil Packaging Market https://www.businessindustryreports.com/sample-request/137729 https://www.businessindustryreports.com/buy-now/137729/single https://www.businessindustryreports.com/check-discount/137729 Another report has been added to the wide database of Business Industry Reports. The examination think about is titled "Aluminum Foil Packaging Market 2019" by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023 which give freshest industry data and industry future examples, empowering you to perceive the things and end customers driving Revenue advancement and efficiency.Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Overview:The report spread across more than 125 pages is a blueprint of the Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Report 2019. The Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market is foreseen to create at a sound improvement rate from 2019 to 2023 as demonstrated by new research. The examination revolves around market designs, driving players, stock system designs, mechanical advancements, key enhancements, and future frameworks.Accessible Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @The major Factors of Global Aluminum Foil Packaging market, such as Due to high availability of substitutes in the food & beverages industry, packaging and quality of product have always been the key competitive factors.The report also covers segment data: Product type, application, end user, and region.According Report Analysis, The expanded interest for convenience packaging and the consistently rising interest for packaging items equipped for broadening the time span of usability of packaging nourishments globally are the absolute most vital elements driving the global aluminum foil packaging market. The high utilization of aluminum thwarts in adaptable packaging arrangements is additionally a key factor driving its interest. While the expanded accentuation on the appropriation of eco-accommodating packaging has turned out to be a noteworthy driver for the aluminum foil packaging market, the huge volumes of aluminum foil packaging items that are not reused and are left unaccounted for in landfills has begun turned into a tremendous natural test. This factor could hamper the development of the market to a limited degree, particularly in areas where squander the executives rehearses are not entrenched and inappropriate transfer of recyclable bundling items isn't punished.According on region, the market in Asia Pacific is presently the most lucrative regional market and is likely to remain so over the forecast period as well. The key factors driving the Asia Pacific aluminum foil packaging market include the high population, a thriving food and beverages industry, and increased uptake of packaged foods and beverages across emerging economies.Purchase this report online with 125 pages list of tables and figures and all around table of contents on @Significant key players:1 Alcoa2 Hydro3 Rio Tinto Group4 Novelis5 UACJAluminum Foil Packaging market, by region:1 North America Country2 South America3 Asia Country4 Europe Country5 Other CountryGlobal Aluminum Foil Packaging market 2019-2023: From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Aluminum Foil Packaging market.Snatch your report @This investigation answers to the underneath key inquiries:1 What is the current size of the Aluminum Foil Packaging market in the world and in different countries?2 How is the Aluminum Foil Packaging market divided into different product segments?3 How are the overall market and different product segments growing?4 How is the market predicted to develop in the future?5 What is the market potential compared to other countries?In the end this report covers information and information on limit and generation outline creation piece of the pie investigation deals review supply deals and lack import fare and utilization and additionally cost value income and gross margin of Aluminum Foil Packaging.Significant points in table of contents:1 Aluminum Foil Packaging Product Definition2 Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Manufacturer Share and Market Overview3 Manufacturer Aluminum Foil Packaging Business Introduction4 Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Segmentation (Region Level)5 Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Segmentation (Product Type Level)6 Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Segmentation (Industry Level)7 Global Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Segmentation (Channel Level)8 Aluminum Foil Packaging Market Forecast 2018-20239 Aluminum Foil Packaging Segmentation Product Type10 Aluminum Foil Packaging Segmentation Industry11 Aluminum Foil Packaging Cost of Production Analysis12 Conclusion13 Methodology and Data SourceAbout 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 Global RFID Blood Monitoring Systems Market Analysis and Segment Forecasts To 2022| Industry Key Players - Biolog ID, Magellan Technologies, and Terso Solutions https://www.mrrse.com/sample/960 https://www.mrrse.com/blood-monitoring-systems https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/960 A new report added to the repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine RFID Blood Monitoring Systems is a comprehensive repository of information, providing market share, size, and forecast.Request for Sample Report @Radio frequency identification or RFID, is a technology that enables the wireless transfer of data via electromagnetic fields. RFID tags, which contain electronically-stored information, can be used for tracking objects. The healthcare industry is now becoming aware of the various uses of RFID, especially as a means to prevent human error and promote overall efficiency in the tracking and monitoring of products and devices. The report on the RFID blood monitoring systems primarily studies freezers and blood refrigerators that are typically deployed in hospitals and blood banks.The report analyzes the RFID blood refrigerators and freezers market on the basis of both volume and revenue from sales. The key end-users considered for these valuations are blood banks and hospitals. The sales revenue and volume is calculated basis average selling price of RFID blood freezers and refrigerators. These prices have been obtained from sources such as expert interviews, device manufacturers and journals.The report comprises a detailed analysis of the market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities. In-depth analysis is carried out for all major geographical markets in the global RFID blood monitoring systems market. These include: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The regulatory status of each of these markets is discussed in a separate section.Overall, the report on the global RFID blood monitoring systems market is a valuable resource for both new and established market players. It will serve as a decision-making tool thanks to its pool of accurate and useful data.RFID refrigerators serve many needs in hospitals, blood banks, and diagnostic laboratories, and research institutions. Storing and accurately tracking blood samples becomes far more efficient and time-saving when RFID refrigerators and freezers are used. As this trendline progresses, it is expected that manual tracking of blood samples will gradually become obsolete and RFID blood monitoring systems will eventually take over.A sharp focus on reducing errors during blood storage and transfusion has create a lucrative opportunity for companies manufacturing and selling RFID blood monitoring systems (blood freezers and refrigerators). As more hospitals and blood banks become aware about the availability of RFID-enabled blood storage cabinets and refrigerators, they also show more willingness to invest in them. Most hospitals customarily use bar coded tracking systems as well as note-taking systems. If errors continue to persist despite the implementation of these systems, it creates a white space that companies in the RFID blood monitoring systems market can fill.Browse Complete Report with TOC @In developing regions, the divestments by public healthcare organizations will boost the demand for state-of-the-art blood monitoring and tracking systems, which private healthcare establishments are ready to invest in. Despite these push factors, the high costs of investing in RFID technology means that not all organizations show the same degree of readiness; this a major pull factor in the global RFID blood monitoring systems market.Nevertheless, penetration rates of RFID blood monitoring systems are still low in the overall healthcare industry, and this represents a space that can be monetized effectively. When companies plan their strategies, it is recommend that they do so in close compliance with the latest global standards.Companies ProfiledCurrently, there are a handful of companies that rake in the lions share of revenues in the global RFID blood monitoring systems market, freezers, and refrigerators market. Companies that lead include: Biolog ID, Magellan Technologies, and Terso Solutions. With the FDA having recently given its stamp of approval for RFID-enabled blood tracking systems, the market will receive an impetus.The global RFID blood refrigerators and freezers market is segmented as follows:RFID Blood Refrigerators and Freezers Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaHospital blood centersBlood banksEuropeHospital blood centersBlood banksAsia-PacificHospital blood centersBlood banksRest of the World (RoW)Hospital blood centersBlood banksSend an Enquiry @About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.com Offshore Oil Rigs Market Forecast (2019-2026) And Its Future Growth And Trends By Industry Top Players: Maersk Drilling. , Nabors Industries, Ensco PLC., Transocean Ltd. , Seadrill Ltd Offshore Oil Rigs https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/28001 https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/28001 https://www.marketexpertz.com/industry-overview/offshore-oil-rigs-market www.marketexpertz.com A recent market study on the Offshore Oil Rigs market applies both primary and secondary research techniques to identify new opportunities for development for the Offshore Oil Rigs market for the forecast period, 2019 -2026. The research further screens and analyses data on the market share, growth rate and size to enable stakeholders, product owners and field marketing executives identify the low-hanging fruits and reap a significant return on their investment. Importantly, the data on the current business environment of the Offshore Oil Rigs market proves a boon for companies trying to identify next leg for growth.This Offshore Oil Rigs report focuses on the global top players which areRowan Companies PLC., Noble Corporation., Maersk Drilling. , Nabors Industries Ltd. , Aban Offshore Limited., Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., Ensco PLC., Transocean Ltd. , Seadrill Limited. , Pacific Drilling SA.Premium sample copy of Offshore Oil Rigs report available on demand@The size of the Offshore Oil Rigs market is viewed in terms of the Share of Market, Total Available Market as well as Served Available Market. Not only does the study present the combined revenue for a particular market but also the market size for a specific geographic region. Analysis of percentage or the size of the Total Available Market based on the type of product, technology, regional constraints and others form an important part of the Offshore Oil Rigs report.Stakeholders, marketing executives and business owners planning to refer a market research report can use this study to design their offerings and understand how competitors attract their potential customers and manage their supply and distribution channels. When tracking the trends researchers have made a conscious effort to analyze and interpret the consumer behaviour. Besides, the research helps product owners to understand the changes in culture, target market as well as brands so they can draw the attention of the potential customers more effectively.Most widely used downstream fields of Offshore Oil Rigs market covered in this report are: Shallow water Deepwater Ultra-deep waterMost widely used Types of Offshore Oil Rigs market covered in this report are: Jackups Semi-Submersibles Drillships Platform Rigs Tender Assist RigHow geography and sales fit togetherThe study works as a boon for all business owners trying to identify the exact size of the target audience in a specific geographic location. Offshore Oil Rigs enables entrepreneurs to determine the regional market for their business expansion. The study answers the questions below: Where do the requirements come from? Where do non-potential customers reside? What is the buying behaviour of the customers dwelling in a particular area? What is the spending power of the customers in a specific region?Geographically, this report studies the key regions, focuses on product sales, value, market share and growth opportunity in these regions, covering: United States Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaWe can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Rest of Middle East & AfricaIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Offshore Oil Rigs are as follows:History Year: 2013-2017Base Year: 2017Estimated Year: 2018Forecast Year 2019 to 2026Order Now (Customized report delivered as per your specific requirement)@The research provides answers to the following key questions: What will be the size of the market and the growth rate for the forecast period? 2019 - 2026? Which key driving forces will keep create more opportunities for the Offshore Oil Rigs market in years to come? Which are the most prominent players operating in the Offshore Oil Rigs market? What have been their winning strategies so far? Which trends from the yesteryears or the future are likely to shape the progress of the Offshore Oil Rigs market across different regions? What are the threats and challenges that can act like a barrier and restrict the development of the Offshore Oil Rigs market? What are the future opportunities for prominent market players?Key Content of Chapters (Including and can be customized)Part 1:Market Overview, Development, and Segment by Type, Application & RegionPart 2:Global Market by company, Type, Application & GeographyPart 3-4:Asia-Pacific Market by company, Type, Application & GeographyPart 5-6:Europe Market by company, Type, Application & GeographyPart 7-8:North America Market by company, Type, Application & GeographyPart 9-10:South America Market by company, Type, Application & GeographyPart 11-12:Middle East & Africa Market by company, Type, Application & GeographyPart 13:Company information, Sales, Cost, Margin etc.Part 14:ConclusionBrowse complete Offshore Oil Rigs report description And Full TOC@About Us:Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? Then marketexpertz has just the thing for you - reports from over 500 prominent publishers and updates on our collection daily to empower companies and individuals catch-up with the vital insights on industries operating across different geography, trends, share, size and growth rate. There's more to what we offer to our customers. With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges.Contact Us:John WatsonHead of Business Development40 Wall St. 28th floor New York CityNY 10005 United StatesMarket Expertz | Web:Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.com Heavy-Duty Pumps Market 2018 Key Players Alfa Laval, EBARA Corporation, Flowserve Corporation, Gardner Denver, Inc., General Electric Company, Grundfos, ITT INC., KSB SE & Co., Sulzer Ltd Heavy-Duty Pumps https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/request-sample/2632966/?utm_source=SBL https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/2632966/?utm_source=SBL https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/heavy-duty-pumps-market/?utm_source=SBL https://www.bigmarketresearch.com/world-bedroom-furniture-market-research-report-2024-covering-usa-europe-china-japan-india-south-east-asia-and-etc-market/?utm_source=RR&utm_medium=SBL The report includes the study of heavy-duty pumps market. The global heavy-duty pumps market size was $12,823 million in 2017, and is projected to reach $19,522 million in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 5.4%. A heavy-duty pump is specially designed to handle liquids that are of low and high viscosities. The design of heavy-duty pumps is flexible, and each pump is tailor made or is a part of a small series. It is designed and constructed completely according to the customers specifications.Request for a sample copy of this report @Factors such as operational proficiency and enhanced productivity offered by heavy-duty pumps, and stringent energy-saving government rules & regulations to monitor the pumps manufacture propel the demand for heavy-duty pumps globally. Moreover, worldwide increase in consumption of oil & gas products is estimated to drive the market growth. However, unstable prices of raw materials and oil products is a major challenge faced by the players operating in the industry. Growth in demand for water & wastewater management globally offer lucrative opportunities for the players in the heavy-duty pumps industry.The global heavy-duty pumps market is segmented based on pump type, product type, end-user industry, and region. Based on pump type, the market is categorized into centrifugal pump and positive-displacement pump. The centrifugal pump segment is anticipated to dominate the global market throughout the study period. Based on product type, the market is categorized into crude oil, fuel oil, asphalt, and others. The crude oil segment is projected to dominate the global market throughout the study period. Based on end-user industry, the market is categorized into oil, gas, & power, processing, and others. The processing segment accounts for the maximum market share.The global heavy-duty pumps market is analyzed across four geographical regions, i.e., North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico), Europe (Germany, Russia, France, the UK, and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, Australia, and Rest of Asia-Pacific), and LAMEA (Latin America, Middle East, and Africa). Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period and is projected to grow at the fastest rate, followed by LAMEA.Enquiry Before Buying @The major players profiled in this study include: Alfa Laval, EBARA Corporation, Flowserve Corporation, Gardner Denver, Inc., General Electric Company, Grundfos, ITT INC., KSB SE & Co., Sulzer Ltd. and The Weir Group PLCKEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERSThe study provides an in-depth analysis of the global heavy-duty pumps market, and current & future trends to elucidate the imminent investment pockets.Information about the key drivers, restraints, and opportunities and their impact analysis of the heavy-duty pumps market is provided.Porters five forces analysis illustrates the potency of buyers and suppliers operating in the industry.The quantitative analysis of the global market from 2017 to 2025 is provided to determine the market potential.Heavy-Duty Pumps Market Key Segments:By Pump Type: Centrifugal and Positive-DisplacementBy Product Type: Crude Oil, Fuel Oil, Asphalt, OthersBy End-User Industry: Oil, Gas, & Power, Processing, OthersBy Country:North America: U.S., Canada, MexicoEurope: UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Rest of EuropeAsia-Pacific: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Rest of Asia-PacificLAMEA: Chile, Israel, South Africa, Rest of LAMEAAccess Full Summery @Table of content:CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER 2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYCHAPTER 3: MARKET OVERVIEWCHAPTER 4: HEAVY-DUTY PUMPS MARKET, BY FILTER TYPECHAPTER 5: HEAVY-DUTY PUMPS MARKET, BY APPLICATIONCHAPTER 6: HEAVY-DUTY PUMPS MARKET, BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNELCHAPTER 7: HEAVY-DUTY PUMPS MARKET, BY REGIONCHAPTER 8: COMPANY PROFILESSimilar Publisher Related report:World Bedroom Furniture Market Research Report 2024 (covering USA, Europe, China, Japan, India, South East Asia and etc)More summary:About Us:Big Market Research has a range of research reports from various publishers across the world. Our database of reports of various market categories and sub-categories would help to find the exact report you may be looking for.We are instrumental in providing quantitative and qualitative insights on your area of interest by bringing reports from various publishers at one place to save your time and money. A lot of organizations across the world are gaining profits and great benefits from information gained through reports sourced by us.Contact Us:Mr. Abhishek Paliwal5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205, Portland,OR 97220 United Statescall answer Direct:+1-971-202-1575call answer Toll Free:+1-800-910-6452email help@bigmarketresearch.com Crawler Crane Market 2019-2024 Industry Growth, Trend & Forecast By Top Players Terex Corporation, Liebherr Group, Konecranes, Palfinger AG, Escorts Limited, Link-Belt Cranes, Sany Group, Komatsu America Corp Crawler Crane Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2960 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2960 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/crawler-crane-market https://www.gminsights.com/ The Asia Pacific crawler crane market is witnessing a high adoption in the construction and mining sectors and expected to grow at a CAGR of over 5% from 2018 to 2024. Global companies are expanding their business operations in the region by collaborating with local manufacturers. For instance, in December 2016, Jekko s.r.l. collaborated with Lee Hyun Soo and Dennis Shin for establishing a new subsidiary, Jekko Korea in Seoul.Countries including India, China, and Japan are adopting advanced automated technologies in industrial sectors for enhancing their business operations. The escalating infrastructure development projects in countries including India will favor the crawler crane market growth.Request for a sample copy of this report @The crawler crane market is witnessing demand for low-level access units, niche machines, and customized choices. Growing installation & maintenance activities for the upgrade of fire stations, street lights, glasswork, and other associated infrastructure coupled with increasing organization of several events such as concerts, corporate events, and festivals, are driving the need for these machines across several regions.Key players in the crawler crane market include Terex Corporation, The Liebherr Group, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd., XCMG Group, The Escorts Group, Komatsu Ltd., Sany Group, and Manitowoc. Companies including The Escorts Group, Furukawa UNIC Corporation, and Terex Corporation sell their equipment through specialized construction equipment distributors and construction firms across the globe.Crawler Crane Market, By Capacityo Below 50 metric tonso 50 to 250 metric tonso 250 to 450 metric tonso 450 to 650 metric tonsCrawler Crane Market, By Applicationo Rentalo Constructiono Miningo Oil & Gaso EnergyMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Crawler Crane Market size is set to exceed USD 3 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. The shipments are expected to grow at a CAGR of over 4%.Increasing utilization of crawler cranes in the energy sector is anticipated to drive the crawler crane market growth. These machines offer heavy lifting operations at the nuclear and renewable energy sites and facilitate the operators in handling the materials efficiently. Several manufacturers have developed energy sector-specific machines that witness a high demand. For instance, Manitowoc has launched a wind power crane, Grove GTK1100, that is used for wind turbine operations such as erection and construction. Additionally, the crawler crane market is witnessing growth opportunities due to the increasing infrastructure projects across the globe.Economic growth across the globe, especially in China, India, and Southeast Asian markets, has led to a better infrastructure demand. Growing building & construction spending due to a rise in per-capita disposable income along with enhanced infrastructure in Asia Pacific and Latin America will drive the crawler crane market. Growth in Latin America will be led by an increase in infrastructure spending, mainly transportation and energy, closely followed by spending on non-residential structures. The key areas of construction growth in emerging economies are social, transport, energy, defense infrastructure, and government accommodation.Browse report summery @High maintenance costs and initial investments are the major factors hindering the crawler crane market development. The high cost is discouraging several business manufacturers and OEMs from deploying high-end machines. Companies consider that investments for automated equipment must meet the global quality and manufacturing standards. In addition, the cranes are available on lease from the manufacturers at a lower price than the newer machines. Instead of procuring a new equipment, several customers commonly prefer renting equipment, which is anticipated to hamper the market.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Scented Candles Market 2019 Key Player Analysis - California Exotic Novelties, P and G, LELO SCENTED CANDLES https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/77787 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/77787 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/reports/scented-candles-market-2019 www.upmarketresearch.com Up Market Research has recently added a new informative data to its extensive repository titled as Scented Candles market. It provides a clear understanding of the sector and has been scrutinized by using primary and secondary research techniques. The qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques have been used by analysts to provide accurate and applicable data to the readers, business owners and industry experts.Technical expansions of the Scented Candles market have been examined by focusing on different technical platforms, tools, and methodologies. The notable feature of this research report is, it incorporates clients demands as well as future progress of this market across the global regions.Get Sample Copy of this Report @Top Key Vendors in Market: Pilot, Kokuyo Camlin, Newell Rubbermaid, Societe BIC, ACCO Brands, Adveo, Ardent Group, El Corte Ingles, Herlitz, Kaut-Bullinger, Lyreco, Metro, Ryman Group, WH SmithThe Scented Candles market highlights different dynamic aspects of businesses such as client requirements, demanding products or services, shares, and raw material. Additionally, it uses an effective analysis technique such as, SWOT and Porters five analysis which helps to describe strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities.Additionally, this report offers the recent developments, historical records as well as futuristic predictions of the Scented Candles market. Different driving and restraining factors have been elaborated to get a comprehensive analysis of ups and down stages of the businesses. Effective sales strategies have been mentioned to provide an accurate direction for finding global opportunities rapidly.Different global regions such as North America, Latin America, Europe, China, Japan, India and rest of the world have been analyzed on the basis of the manufacturing base, productivity, and profit margin. This Scented Candles market research report has been scrutinized on the basis of different practical oriented case studies from various industry experts and policymakers.Get Discount on this Report @Market segment by Type, the product can be split into:LemonLavenderFrankincenseChamomileOtherMajor Players Reported Are: California Exotic Novelties, P and G, LELO, Reckitt Benckiser, Gellite Gel Candles, Himalayan Trading Post, Bath and Body Works, TATINE, CoScentrix, diptyque, Lee NaturalsMagnolia Scents by Design, Mels Candles, Net-a-Porter, Northern Lights Candles, Paddywax, Southern Made Candles, Soy Works Candle Company, Stand Around Creations, The Gel Candle Company, The Yankee Candle CompanyMarket segment by Application, split into:Retail OutletsOnline OutletsKey questions answered in this report:- What will be market growth till 2025 and what will be the resultant market forecast in the year?- What are the top key players of the global Scented Candles market?- What are the strengths of the global Scented Candles market?- What are the trends, challenges, threats, and opportunities in front of the businesses?- A Compressive mapping of the competitive landscape and the market participants behaviour.- What are the different marketing and distribution channels?For more Information:About Up Market ResearchThe Up Market Research 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 MathewsOrganization: Up Market ResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States.Phone: +1 (347) 985-7777Email: Alex@upmarketresearch.comWeb: North America Automotive Gesture Recognition Market size will witness over 40% CAGR 2024 Key Players: Apple, Delphi, HARMAN International, Intel Corporation, Jabil, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1369 www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1369 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/automotive-gesture-recognition-market www.gminsights.com Automotive Gesture Recognition Market for Multimedia, Navigation, and Infotainment systems showcased a significant growth rate at around 44% over the study timeframe. Increasing trend towards providing customer comfort along with the requirement for advanced navigation facilities supports the industry expansion. Further, the proliferation of advanced connectivity applications including Android Auto and Apple CarPlay offering higher quality multimedia and navigation content within the vehicle, further accelerates the segment penetration till 2024.Get Sample Copy of This Report @Europe accounted for over 43% revenue share in 2017 owing to the presence of major automobile companies focusing on introducing advanced infotainment systems in their products for improving the driving experience. Further, supporting government regulations for introducing multiple safety standards for vehicles as standard is further supporting the industry expansion till 2024.Hand or fingerprint authentication was valued at over USD 1,400 Million in 2017. This dominance is credited to the proliferating usage of these systems owing to easier operation and incorporation of IR sensors and cameras supporting the segment share. For instance, in 2015, BMW launched the 7-Series model line-up with improved hand and fingerprint sensing technologies for controlling multiple car operations, thereby contributing to the overall automotive gesture recognition market expansion.Company profiled in this report based on Business overview, Financial data, Product landscape, Strategic outlook & SWOT analysis: Apple Continental AG Delphi Harman International Intel Jabil Melexis NXP Semiconductors Qualcomm, Inc. Renesas Electronics Corporation Synaptics Incorporated Texas Instruments Visteon CorporationMake an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @Automotive gesture recognition market share form touch-based systems accounted for the highest volume share at around 69% in 2017. This dominance is attributed to the increasing usage of such systems in multiple models across various price range. Proliferating usage of capacitive touch screens for controlling multiple car features including music control, phone connectivity, and HVAC controls further strengthens the business expansion.Increasing vehicles demand with technologically advanced features including enhanced navigation and gesture-based infotainment systems are expanding the automotive gesture recognition market over the forecast timeframe. Incorporation of advanced sensors and electronics into the vehicles for improving the overall driving experience will further expand the business penetration till 2024.Increasing adoption of electronic components in vehicles for complying to stringent government norms associated with vehicle safety and emission are supporting the industry expansion. Usage of gestures for controlling various operations within vehicles including changing music, answering phone calls, and control the navigation are further strengthening the industry growth.Browse Report Summery @Few of the players in the automotive gesture recognition market place include Harman International, Delphi Automotive PLC, Sony Depthsensing Solutions, Melexis, Continental AG, and eyeSight Technologies Ltd. Other notable players include Texas Instruments, Intel, Visteon Corporation, and Synaptics Incorporated.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Whats driving the Regenerative Blowers Market growth? With Top Profiled Hitachi, Busch, Elektror Airsystems, Gardner Denver, Dustcontrol AB, Becker Pump Corporation https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/1201703/?utm_source=openpr.com&utm_medium=ADS https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/1201703/?utm_source=openpr.com&utm_medium=ADS https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/regenerative-blowers-market/?utm_source=openpr.com&utm_medium=ADS www.marketstudyreport.com www.marketstudyreport.com/blog The Regenerative Blowers market research collated by Market Study Report, LLC, offers a comprehensive analysis of growth trends prevailing in the global business domain. This report also provides definitive data concerning market, size, commercialization aspects and revenue forecast of the industry. In addition, the study explicitly highlights the competitive status of key players within the projection timeline while focusing on their portfolio and regional expansion endeavors.Regenerative Blowers Market will likely surpass USD 1 billion by 2025; according to a new research report.High growth in the food & beverage industry in Asia Pacific region is likely to be a key factor contributing towards the development of the regenerative blowers market in coming years. The product is extensively used in the food & beverage manufacturing plants for a variety of applications such as in bag packaging equipment, pneumatic conveying systems, product drying, shrink wrapping, automatic bottling machines, vacuum packaging, etc. Urbanization, rising income levels, and hectic lifestyles in emerging countries of Asia Pacific has resulted in a spike in demand for packaged food & beverage products, which will in turn drive product demand to be used in food & beverage manufacturing plants.Request a sample of this premium report at:Some of the major players in the regenerative blowers market includes Hitachi, Busch, Elektror Airsystems, Gardner Denver, Dustcontrol AB, Becker Pump Corporation, etc. Many other regional and global players are also involved in the regenerative blowers market. New product developments, and acquisitions are a key strategy used by market participants to increase their competitiveness.Developments in the food & beverage market in high population countries, such as China and India, will positively influence the regenerative blowers market during the study period. The Chinese beverage market has been growing considerably in the recent years. According to the China?s National Bureau of Statistics, domestic beverage industry sales had increased by 10.5% in 2016, while carbonated drinks, protein drinks & milk, and fruit & vegetable juices combinedly accounting for a majority of the market share. The Indian food & beverage sector has also been witnessing fast growth rates, driven by an upsurge in foreign investments. From April 2000 to June 2017, the Indian food & beverage sector received FDI of USD 7.8 billion. Such developments in the food & beverage industry of developing countries will have a positive impact on the growth of the regenerative blowers market in coming years.Global regenerative blowers market has been segmented, according to stage into single-stage, two-stage, and three-stage. Single-stage regenerative blowers occupied more than two-thirds of the market in 2017 and is likely to hold majority share till the end of the study period.According to end-user, the regenerative blowers market has been categorized into food & beverage, water & wastewater treatment, aquaculture, industrial, oil & gas, chemical, and medical & healthcare. Chemical is a key end-user industry of the market which is likely to grow by a CAGR exceeding 4% during the forecast period. Rising demand for industrial chemicals, fertilizers, and specialty chemicals around the globe will drive the chemical end-user sector?s development in the regenerative blowers market.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Asia Pacific is a major regenerative blowers market accounting for a significant share of the industry in 2017. The Asia Pacific market is likely to grow by a CAGR of around 5% till 2025. China and India will account for a significant share of the region?s regenerative blowers market by 2024 and will drive the industry?s growth in the forecast period.More Details on this 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.Contact Us:Market Study Report LLC4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog: What's driving the HVAC Filters Market Size Key Players are: Koch, Tex-Air, Spectrum Filtration, Parker Hannifin Corp, Troy, AAF, Camfil, and Emirates Industrial https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/1369344/?utm_source=openpr.com&utm_medium=Ads https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/1369344/?utm_source=openpr.com&utm_medium=Ads https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/hvac-filters-market/?utm_source=openpr.com&utm_medium=Ads www.marketstudyreport.com www.marketstudyreport.com/blog The latest report pertaining to HVAC Filters Market collated by Market Study Report, LLC, provides a detailed analysis regarding market size, revenue estimations and growth rate of the industry. In addition, the report illustrates the major obstacles and newest growth strategies adopted by leading manufacturers who are a part of the competitive landscape of this market.HVAC Filters Market may surpass USD 13 billion by 2024; according to a new research report.Improving standard of living and increasing demand for energy-efficient air purification will contribute to HVAC filters market growth. This can be credited to substantial efforts taken by manufacturers and regulatory authorities. Growing innovation measures have also led to the development of cost-effective systems, which may open avenues for players and escalate product demand.Request a sample of this premium report at:HVAC filters market is moderately fragmented and highly competitive with major industry players including Koch, Tex-Air, Spectrum Filtration, Parker Hannifin Corp, Troy, AAF, Camfil, and Emirates Industrial. Companies are investing heavily in R&D, capacity expansion, and product innovation for growing product demand.Availability of improved product offering which also facilitates cooling, heating and humidity control in infrastructural facility will promote its application in residential and commercial building, thus propelling industry growth. Rising customer awareness and inclination towards high indoor air quality due to their low toxicity, and environment pollution should drive product demand.Germany HVAC filters market is anticipated to exceed USD 715 million by 2024 owing to presence of various pharmaceutical and food & beverage manufacturers. Extension in product portfolio and R&D initiatives by several manufacturers will develop industry growth. Growing per capita income with government support for clean air should further strengthen regional industry growth.Stringent environmental guidelines by agencies including FDA, EPA and EU on restricting use of refrigerant, nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, and ammonia would drive HVAC filters demand in the predicted timeframe. The product is combined with air conditioners to eliminate impurities from air including fine particulate matter, dirt dust particles, and pollens.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:High cost required in installation and maintenance of these systems are expected to hamper HVAC filters industry profitability. Maintenance and cleaning of product is laborious due to numerous layers of filter medium that are detached and cleaned separately, hindering the HVAC filters market price trends.Japan HVAC filters market may observe significant gains over 5.5% by 2024. Rising awareness of negative environmental impacts is driving product demand in residential and non-residential sectors including commercial, institutions, office and healthcare sectors. Consumers are changing their preferences for energy efficient products, thus propelling market growth.Carbon HVAC filters market will exceed USD 1.5 billion up to 2024. They are designed to purify gases through activated charcoal bed and are deployed to tackle volatile organic compounds released from residential products. They are also utilized to eradicate odors from air, including smell of tobacco smoke, hence propelling the market growth.HVAC filters market from construction may observe significant gains up to 4% by 2024. There has been an escalating demand for purification solutions in construction industry. These systems collect dust and avoid dust emissions at multiple stages including primary & secondary crushing and material transfer. The construction industry is expected to grow substantially owing to the multiple infrastructural development projects globally, which would positively impact market share.Electrostatic HVAC filters market is anticipated to surpass USD 1.5 billion by 2024. Static electricity entices dirt & dust to vertical and overhead surfaces. Electrostatic filter puts a static electrical charge on all particles present in air that pass-through filter media. This system uses a con guration of woven fabric and anti-microbial foam core which prevents bacteria and mold growth, hence stimulating market growth.More Details on this 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.Contact Us:Market Study Report LLC4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog: Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market 2019 by Growth, Size, Share and Forecast Research 2025 - Key Players are AkzoNobel, BASF, Nippon Paint, PPG Industries, Etc. Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market 2019 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/72893 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/72893 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/reports/fireproofing-coatings-for-wood-market-2019 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/72893 www.upmarketresearch.com The Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market 2019 Report provides critical data of Production, Supply, Sales, Demand, Market Status and Industry Development Trend by 2025. This Report is a Result of best research material, competitive landscape analysis that will help decision makers to excel based on futuristic chart.Request Sample Copy Of this Report @Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period.It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2019 2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market analysis & forecast 2019- 2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.For More Information on This Report, Please Visit @Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market Segmentation covers:Region- wise Analysis: North America, Europe, China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia, Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)Major Players Reported Are:AkzoNobelBASFNippon PaintPPG IndustriesSherwin-WilliamsTeknos GroupRudolf HenselFire Retardant Coatings of TexasICA GroupNordtreat ASEnvirografFlame StopProduct Segment Analysis:Water-basedSolvent-basedPowder-basedApplication Segment Analysis:Interior ApplicationsExterior ApplicationsRead More details Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market Analysis and Forecast 2019- 2025 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market- driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real- time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real- time scenario.Key Reasons to Purchase:- To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market and its commercial landscape.- Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations.- To understand the future outlook and prospects for Fireproofing Coatings for Wood Market analysis and forecast 2019- 2025.If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Avail Discount On this Report @Customization of the Report:Up Market Research 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 States. Location Analytics Market: New and Improved Statistics and Key Players Strategies: IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., HP Enterprise Company, Google Inc., Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, SAS Institute Inc. Location Analytics Market https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/sample/261060 https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/quiry/261060 www.worldwidemarketreports.com/ Global Location Analytics Market Outlook Market is anticipated to have maximum growth during years (2019 to 2014) according to the latest research made by WMR. This Global Location Analytics Market Outlook Market Intelligence report was prepared focusing on the current trends, financial overview of industry and historical data evaluation based on the proficient research insights and complete Global Location Analytics Market Outlook market dynamics. Company Profiles are deeply examined on the basis of global market share, size and revenue (USD MN) projection calculated by current Global Location Analytics Market Outlook market performance including drivers, trends and challenges. To have clear understanding this report highlights leading companies, types, applications, and factors affecting positive future prospects.Major Players operating in market: This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering: IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., HP Enterprise Company, Google Inc., Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, SAS Institute Inc.Location analytics is the process or the ability to gain insight from the location or geographic component of business data.Get Sample Report Here @:Global Location Analytics Market Outlook market will prove as a valuable source of guidance for professional clients like Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 level managers, CEOs, CMOs, as well as interested individual readers across the world. Vendor Landscape provide acts as key development and focus of above professional with common aim to lead the way of Global Location Analytics Market Outlook market Worldwide.The global Location Analytics market is valued at xx million USD in 2018 and is expected to reach xx million USD by the end of 2024, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2019 and 2024.Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversGeocoding and Reverse GeocodingData Integration and Extract, Transform, and LoadReporting and VisualizationThematic Mapping and Spatial AnalysisOthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoRisk ManagementEmergency Response ManagementCustomer Experience ManagementRemote MonitoringSupply Chain Planning and OptimizationSales and Marketing OptimizationPredictive Assets ManagementInventory ManagementOthersSignificant Market Features:This report features mainly top to bottom approach to target key aspects of Global Location Analytics Market Outlook market that includes, Gross Revenue, CAGR, Key Players, Cost Structure, Production Capacity, Sales Analysis and Future Growth Trends projected on the basis of historical Global Location Analytics Market Outlook research.Table of Contents1 Location Analytics Market Overview2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 IBM Corporation2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Location Analytics Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Product A2.1.2.2 Product B2.1.3 IBM Corporation Location Analytics Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2017-2018)3 Global Location Analytics Market Competition, by Players4 Global Location Analytics Market Size by Regions5 North America Location Analytics Revenue by Countries6 Europe Location Analytics Revenue by Countries7 Asia-Pacific Location Analytics Revenue by Countries8 South America Location Analytics Revenue by CountriesContinue . . .*If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Place an Inquire before Purchase:About WMRWorldwide Market Reports is your one-stop repository of detailed and in-depth market research reports compiled by an extensive list of publishers from across the globe. We offer reports across virtually all domains and an exhaustive list of sub-domains under the sun. The in-depth market analysis by some of the most vastly experienced analysts provide our diverse range of clients from across all industries with vital decision making insights to plan and align their market strategies in line with current market trends. Worldwide Market Researchs well-researched inputs that encompass domains ranging from IT to healthcare enable our prized clients to capitalize upon key growth opportunities and shield against credible threats prevalent in the market in the current scenario and those expected in the near future.Contact Us:Mr. ShahWorldwide Market Reports1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154,U.STel: +1 415 871 0703Email:sales@worldwidemarketreports.comWEBSITE : Tax Expenditures by Subject Area In addition to the Tax Expenditure report, beginning with the 2015-17 biennium a listing of each tax expenditure grouped by subject area is available. See links below for tax expenditure subject area listings and descriptions of each subject. This report provides additional descriptive information relating to income tax credits scheduled to completely sunset in the 2015-17 biennium. The purpose is to supplement information about these provisions beyond the information typically included in the biennial Tax Expenditure Report. When the water came gushing out from beneath Northeast Portland streets Saturday morning, the Vita Cafe was serving lunch to more than a dozen midday customers. The restaurant on Northeast Alberta Street stayed dry but went dark, along with thousands of other homes and businesses nearby, as authorities shut off power. That left the cafe with no way to ring up customers who already had their meals but hadnt paid yet. Diners came through, writing down their information so staff could ring them up later. Our customers were very cool about it, said Chris Myers, Vita Cafes owner. That was about the last thing that went right for the cafe Saturday, though. Without power, and with water safety an open question, Myers opted to shut the cafe Saturday and send seven employees home. Myers estimates the flood cost his business $3,000 and cost seven employees their wages and tips for the evening. (For) a small business like this, he said, a Saturday like that ruins our month. Businesses along Alberta were still cleaning up Monday, two days after a century-old water main broke shortly before noon near Northeast Skidmore Street and 23rd Avenue. Water flowed for several blocks, prompting evacuation of a dozen homes while authorities cut off power to as many as 14,000 customers as a precaution. The flooding damage itself reached a relatively small number of homes but the prolonged disruption affected restaurants and other small businesses over as many as 15 commercial blocks in a neighborhood popular among weekend shoppers and grazers. On Monday, the Portland Water Bureau said it believes nearby construction shifted the soil around the brittle, 104-year-old pipe, triggering the break. Its unclear how financial responsibility for the break will play out. The city insures itself and evaluates claims on a case-by-case basis, according to Heather Hafer, spokeswoman for Portlands office of management and finance. She said Portland will investigate who bears responsibility for the incident and the speed of the citys response. If the city has liability it will be determined through the research process, Hafer said. Susannah Kelly is hoping for some measure of compensation from the water that poured into the two art galleries she owns with her husband, Neil Perry. They came upon the flooding Saturday morning as they went in to open the galleries, Antler and Talon, for the day. Because the whole site flooded Im having to pull everything out and clean it and sanitize it, she said. The galleries remained closed Monday and wont reopen before Thursday, Kelly said. They are normally closed midweek but Kelly said she will be in every day to complete the cleanup. The things I really worry about are the things you have no control over, she said. It was like a waking nightmare. Business owners and employees stopped into the Just Bob coffeeshop and cafe Monday morning to swap tales of woe, according to Fayren Chang, Just Bobs co-owner. She said some food carts gave up on their day Saturday afternoon and were handing out free food shortly before the power unexpectedly returned. Just Bob lost thousands of dollars in business Saturday afternoon, Chang said, but preserved its perishable food by rushing out for dry ice to keep everything cool during the power outage. All in all it could have been a lot worse, she said. We fared better than some of our neighbors. -- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 Four years of investigation into the illegal timber trade in West Africa led an environmental group to the doorstep of Roseburg Forest Products, one of the Oregons largest and oldest timber companies. In a study to be released soon, the Environmental Investigation Agency claims tens of millions of Americans have been exposed to illegally-sourced timber because of the negligent role of the manufacturer and the complicity of the American importer. The manufacturer and the importer are Roseburg Forest Products and Evergreen Hardwoods of Mercer Island, Wash., respectively. The allegation has prompted an investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A Roseburg official said executives at the Springfield-based timber company didnt know of the environmental groups report until receiving a phone call from an agent of the Homeland Security Investigation division of ICE on March 11. Roseburg has used wood from the okoume tree, found only in the Congo Basin in West Africa. Roseburg used veneer from okoume harvested in the countries of Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to make its Breckenridge home siding, which was sold at some of the best-known home products retailers in the country, including, until recently, Home Depot. Roseburg Forest Products spokeswoman Rebecca Taylor said Monday that Roseburg is not a focus of the probe. The company claims it is assisting federal agents investigate Evergreen Hardwoods and Cornerstone Forest Products, the Seattle-area wholesalers that sold the veneer to Roseburg. The Environmental Investigation Agency will be offering video to bolster its claims when the report is released, likely next week. Officials from both Roseburg and Evergreen told investigators from the environmental group that they relied on promises from their partners that they were in compliance with the applicable statutes. A federal law known as the Lacey Act dating back to the Teddy Roosevelt administration prohibits trafficking in endangered animals. The act was expanded in 2007 to include threatened plants and trees, a move that was led by U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden. They did so to protect American timber operators from foreign competitors, who often didnt have to worry about environmental protection. The expanded Lacey Act makes it unlawful to import or trade timber products that were harvested or sold in violation of local, foreign or international law. Blumenauer said in an interview that hes not familiar with anything about the allegations against Roseburg Forest Products. But the Lacey Act expansion has been fabulously successful in cutting the amount of illegally harvested timber in the U.S., he said. Its become clear that behind the deforestation of the planet are some of the worlds worst people, poachers, terrorists, they run roughshod over indigenous peoples... Blumenauer said. You have Americans buying this stuff, enabling the bad behavior, it fills me with outrage. The Environmental Investigation Agency concentrated its work in the Congo basin, the second largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon. The vast forest is key habitat for elephants, nearly all the great apes and other African wildlife. A Chinese conglomerate called the Dejia Group drew much of the environmental groups attention. Dejia manages 1.5 million hectares of tropical forest in Gabon and the Republic of Congo. The study accuses Deija of routinely overharvesting, of not paying its local taxes, and bribing local officials. The group has continuously broken the most fundamental forest laws, has turned timber trade regulations upside-down and has diverted millions in unpaid taxes to local governments, the environmental groups study alleged. Dejia single handedly produced 36 percent of all of the timber exported from Gabon and the Republic of Congo. Most of that timber was okoume, which has become popular with the timber industry because grows quickly and boasts an attractive pinkish-red color and distinctive grain. But okoume is a victim of its own good looks and the frenzied pace of logging in the Congo basin. The species is now listed as vulnerable. Evergreen Hardwoods is the single largest wholesale customer of Dejia in the U.S., according to the report. It has been buying timber from Dejia for 10 years. The report quotes an Evergreen Hardwood official talking of the difficulty and hassle of complying with federal statutes, especially the Lacey Act. Filling out the correct federal documents is the key, he said. The way this amendment (to the Lacey Act) is written, the more paperwork you have the better, an Evergreen official told undercover investigators from the environmental group. I dont care, I dont even want to know. Im not worried that youre stealing from a national park. I dont care. I just need to have the documentation in case somebody accuses me and wants to look. Multiple phone calls to Evergreen were not returned. On Monday, the companies involved or formerly involved in the okoume trade took pains to explain their situation. Home Depot stopped carrying Roseburg Forest Products Breckenridge siding in 2017 after the company adopted a new policy that it would no longer sell any products from a high-conservation-value forest, said company spokeswoman Christine Cornell. The Congo basin qualifies, Cornell said. In a press release, Roseburg argued that its compliance program is robust. The company hired supply chain experts DoubleHelix Tracking Technologies Pte Ltd., which did travel to West Africa to conduct risk assessments and compliance audits of both Cornerstone and Evergreen. The results of both audits were favorable, with no findings of Lacey Act violations, Roseburg officials said. Roseburg employs about 3,500, many of them at its Oregon facilities in Riddle, Dillard, Coquille, Medford, North Bend and Springfield. UPDATED 9 a.m.: Three boys reported missing from a group home Sunday have been found, according to Vancouver police. Theyre all safe. *** Vancouver police are asking for help finding three children missing from a group home. The agency said late Sunday that Levi Hand was last seen in the area of Northeast 9th Street and 118th Avenue in Vancouver with Dean Johnson and Jordan Nottingham. Hand, 12, is described as being 5 feet tall, 100 lbs. and skinny. He was wearing a dark blue sweatshirt and dark pants. Johnson, 13, is 5-foot-10 and 140 lbs. Hes skinny and has dirty blond hair. He was last seen in gray Carhart jacket and skinny tan cargo pants. Nottingham, 16, is a 5-foot-5 and skinny. He has dark brown hair and was wearing a black sweatshirt and blue jeans. Police asked anyone who finds the boys to contact authorities. They didnt provide additional information about how the boys became missing. -- Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015 Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. By CAROLYN HAX (Adapted from an online discussion.) Dear Carolyn: My partners children, who are in middle school, will spend most of their spring break with us. (They mostly live with their mom.) Its also my spring break -- Im a teacher -- and will be the first time my partner and I have had synced vacations since moving in together. My partner has planned an extremely kid-centric vacation, to a place where most of the activities will revolve around the boys' interests, which makes total sense, but he doesn't want to plan anything he thinks is age-inappropriate. For example, he was uncomfortable with my suggestion that we spend part of one day wine-tasting, which we both love and mostly do when the kids aren't around. When I was a kid, our parents planned adult-centric vacations and we entertained ourselves or learned to enjoy whatever our parents were doing. I get that that's an unpopular parenting philosophy these days. I get that my expectations of enjoying a vacation with him will have to adjust to include the kids, but spending almost five straight days doing only kid stuff is beginning to feel like a thankless chore. I am wondering whether there's a way to back out without seeming like a party pooper, or if I should push back on my partner's insistence that we eliminate all adult fun on the trip. -- Spring Breaking Hax: He doesnt live with his kids most of the time, so hes not going to sign on to the We do adult things sometimes and the kids can just amuse themselves program. We can argue about whether this ultimately serves the kids -- and I do see the value of mixing kid- and adult-centric options -- but thats probably moot. He gets rare kid immersion here, and you can bet hes feeling the emotional twinge of knowing they wont be kids much longer. When theyre middle schoolers is usually when that hits. By all means, have a general, thematic conversation about more varied spring-break activities -- but after you've already built in some stuff you want to do on your own for this vacation. You're all going away, right? Then research some side excursions just for you. You can also arrive a day late or leave a day early -- and plan a wine-tasting with your friends. That way you'll come at the conversation with a totally different attitude. Think about it: If you treat his plan for the kids as the one you must also follow, lockstep, then asking him to change it won't just be about making you happier. You're also challenging his judgment on what's right for his family. And you're introducing a me-vs.-kids tug-of-war over his priorities. If instead you have a happy plan that's part going along with his, and part branching out on your own, then you're merely asking him to engage with you in a philosophical discussion about what makes for a good family vacation as his kids grow into adulthood. There is another option entirely, too: Skip the whole conversation and see this is as last-hurrah territory for him. Seriously. Stuff is changing for all of them -- and for you -- fast. Re: Breaking: Dad and the kids might benefit from some "just them" time, too. -- Anonymous(END ITAL) Amen. Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at noon Eastern time each Friday at www.washingtonpost.com. (c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group A judge dismissed criminal charges Monday against a 55-year-old driver accused of hurting a downtown Portland protester when he slowly drove his car through a crowd standing in the street last fall. Mark Alan Dickerson had been charged with two misdemeanors -- reckless driving and harassment -- for allegedly causing bruises to the side, shin and hands of Arthuray Dudley on Oct. 31 as Dudley protested in the street in front of the Multnomah County Courthouse at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Main Street. Dickerson was scheduled for trial Monday and Tuesday, but the case was dismissed after Dudley said he couldnt be available all day Monday to testify in court. Dickersons defense attorney, William Aring Meyer, contended the protesters were the ones violating the law. They were impeding traffic, protesting without a permit and beating on Dickersons car with their hands as Dickerson inched forward, Meyer said. Other protesters cleared out of his way, but Dudley looked directly at Dickerson and backed his body directly into Dickersons car, Meyer said. A criminal case against driver Mark Alan Dickerson was dismissed Monday, March 18, 2019. The low-speed collision was caught on the dash camera footage of Dickersons car. Dickerson, who lives on Sauvie Island, was downtown for an appointment. He has no history of criminal convictions, according to his court file. My client is innocent, Meyer said. He was just trying to make his appointment. He didnt do anything wrong. He was very scared. Dudley, relatives and friends had been protesting grand jury findings of no criminal wrongdoing by officers for fatally shooting Patrick Kimmons on Sept. 30 in a downtown Portland parking lot. Officers said Kimmons was running toward them with a gun when they shot him nine times. Kimmons was Dudleys brother, according to authorities. According to papers filed by the prosecution, Dickerson could have avoided the entire situation by driving in two other lanes of Southwest Fourth Avenue. At one point victim Dudley stood directly in front of Mr. Dickerson's vehicle, and while other vehicles drove around in the unobstructed middle and left lanes, Mr. Dickerson intentionally drove his vehicle at low speed directly into Mr. Dudley, wrote Deputy District Attorney Jenna Plank in a memo to the court. People protesting the police shooting death of Patrick Kimmons blocked traffic on Oct. 31, 2018. Spokesman Brent Weisberg said prosecutors believed they could prove the charges against Dickerson using the dash cam footage and Dudleys testimony. But Weisberg said the case -- specifically the harassment charge -- couldnt go forward without Dudleys testimony. Weisberg referred questions to the Portland Police Bureau about why protesters werent cited for breaking any laws, such as obstructing traffic. The Police Bureau told The Oregonian/OregonLive it couldnt respond to that question Monday, but possibly could Tuesday. -- Aimee Green agreen@oregonian.com o_aimee Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Subscribe to get the Morning Briefing newsletter delivered to your email inbox weekdays at 7 a.m. Good morning. A quick look at Oregons top stories on Monday, March 18, 2019. Todays forecast -- Mostly sunny; breezy, mild. High 67; Low 47. Todays stories FLOODED STREETS: A busted water main soaked a Northeast Portland neighborhood. Repairs to the pipe could take days, and road repairs even longer. Read more. TOP COPS MEET: The heads of the Portland Police Bureau and the FBI met in August, but their discussions remain a mystery. Read more. POLLUTED BY MONEY: Oregon lawmakers spend campaign money on more than lawn signs and mailers. Part four of a series. Read more. FOSTER CHILDREN: A move to improve the care of foster children relegated to living in hotels has resulted in 25 percent more children being housed in institutions such as former juvenile jails. Read more. FAST FOOD UNION: Workers from Little Big Burger on Saturday announced their decision to join a shared union, the Industrial Workers of the World, with Burgerville employees during a rally in Northwest Portland. Read more. FLU DEATH: A late-season surge of influenza A has sickened thousands of people across the country, and in Portland it killed a 37-year-old woman and her unborn child. Read more. LAURA'S LEGACY: Laura's Place is an apartment complex for women recovering from substance abuse. Few people know Laura's story. Read more. TOP BABY NAMES: Just how creative were you in choosing your kids name? Check Oregons Top 10 list. Read more. Snap of the day Runners approach the finish line at the 41st annual Shamrock Run in Portland on Sunday, the first since 2013 to fall on St. Patrick's Day. About 20,000 runners and walkers participated.The Oregonian More photos from the Shamrock Run. More news Man raised in Oregon killed in terror attack on New Zealand mosques Appeals court upholds Sherwood School Districts one-year expulsion of student for hit list A coastal playground steeped in history, Cape Disappointment defies its name State cop alleges caustic culture: Use of slur, nepotism, intimidation, retaliation Hundreds of Portland students stage school walk-out, join international climate protests Architect Robert Oshatz modern triangle house hits the market for the first time in 35 years: Asking price $1.15 million Dear Abby: Sister moves to town and steals friends -- or does she? Ask Amy: Bringing babysitter to out-of-town wedding creates awkward family dynamic Carolyn Hax: Worst therapist in history? Sounds like it Find more at oregonlive.com Todays comics Click here to see today's comics Todays obituaries Click here to find area deaths reported recently Today in history AROUND THE WORLD: On March 18, 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether. A West Linn college student has taken the president of the West Linn City Council to court over her refusal to provide him with her hand-written notes taken during council sessions and other official meetings. Rory Bialostosky, a 2018 graduate of West Linn High who tangled with the city council over parking restrictions near the high school his senior year, said he has attended city council meetings or watched them online and also met with council President Teri Cummings. He has made it clear that he is not a fan of her leadership. Bialostosky says he observed the council president constantly taking notes on a note pad during those meetings and, knowing they were public records, asked in late January to see them. The city recorder turned down a records request, saying the city did not have custody of the notebooks and that Cummings had refused the city recorders request that Cummings let the recorder see them, Bialostoskys suit says. The teen said the West Linn city attorney then took a month to review his request and also ultimately turned him down, saying the city attorney also did not possess the records. West Linn City Council President Teri Cummings has refused to turn over notes she takes during meetings she attends in her capacity as an elected official. So a constitutent sued her. (Photo from City of West Linn) So Bialostosky on Feb. 26 emailed Cummings an official request to inspect her notes. Oregon law allowed her seven days to respond, but she did not and still has not. Oregon public officials including the governor and members of her staff routinely turn over hand-written notes from meetings in response to public records requests. Normally, an elected officials failure to respond to a records request in a timely fashion or refusal to provide records citing an exemption in the law puts a member of the public or a journalist in a bind, as the no-cost option of appealing to the countys district attorney doesnt apply to elected officials. The only way to challenge an elected officials refusal to provide a public record is to sue. That can be intimidating, expensive or both. But Bialostosky did it anyway, filing a suit on his own without a lawyer. He said he used some of the skills he said he has learned by working at a law firm this semester, he said. He said Cummings staunch refusals to show him the records or even to let other city officials look at them has made him think there are things in the requested records that she doesn't want me and others to see. What is she hiding? Cummings did not respond to a request to comment Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. Last week was Sunshine Week in Oregon, a time when journalists and public officials celebrate the importance and power of public records to help government function better. We've partnered with @OregonGovBrown to honor 11 #Oregon gov't employees who went above and beyond on public records requests. Read about the honorees here: https://t.co/BpGDB6n3ec #sunshineweek #opengov #transparency Ginger McCall (@OregonPRA) March 14, 2019 -- Betsy Hammond betsyhammond@oregonian.com Ryan Humphrey was chatting Sunday with his neighbors in front of his driveway, which led down to an open garage, with faint green lines two feet high marking where the flood water had stopped. The water from the 30-inch main that burst March 17 flooded his basement, Humphrey said, and he was just starting to assess the scope of the damage. The multi-million gallon flood was the talk of the Northeast Portland neighborhood Sunday as people stood behind yellow tape and watched the Portland Water Bureau work, and neighbors described to each other in vivid detail the size of the previous days geyser. The break occurred around 11:30 a.m. Saturday near Northeast Skidmore Street and 23rd Avenue and flowed north at least four city blocks to Alberta Street and east for at least another five blocks near 27th Avenue. Authorities closed streets between Northeast 21st Avenue and 30th Avenues, evacuated residents in 12 homes and cut power to as many as 14,155 Pacific Power customers in the area as a precaution. Humphrey said he was driving home that morning with his son and daughter after their swimming lessons when he saw water coming down Skidmore. He parked on the street and ran with his kids to the house. The water was pouring down his driveway and into a drain in front of the garage door, which was closed, Humphrey said. He tried to block the water with a bag of rocks. It was not effective, Humphrey said. The water kept flowing, he said, rising about two feet. It broke the garage door and rushed in, flooding the entire basement. Now, Humphrey is busy with the aftermath. The first order of business is to remove anything that could mold, including drywall and carpet, he said. Overall, he expects the damage to cost about $10,000 to $15,000. The basement was carpeted and had a couch, television, washing machine and dryer. A chest full of family heirlooms was also caught in the flooding. Most homeowners insurance doesnt cover flooding, and its uncommon for homeowners outside areas prone to flood to carry additional flood insurance. Humphrey said his insurer has already turned down his claim. Humphrey said he is waiting to hear if the city of Portland will pay for the damage. They basically turned a non-flood area into a flood area, Humphrey said. He said he has yet to hear back from the citys Risk Management division, which handles liability claims. The Oregonian/OregonLive couldnt reach the division Sunday. Humphrey was also disappointed that nobody from the Portland Water Bureau came offered to help with the aftermath. About half a dozen neighbors helped Humphrey and his wife clear the basement of water after the bulk had receded, he said, and he hasnt heard a word from the city agency. In an email, a spokeswoman for the Portland Water Bureau said the department has been focused on preventing further damage to the neighborhood. We understand that this water main break has caused unexpected stress and difficulty for many people who live in Northeast Portland, spokeswoman Jaymee Cuti said. Its unclear what caused the rupture, but Cuti said it was likely a combination of old age and pressure due to freezing and thawing of the ground this winter. The flooding appeared to hit Humphreys home particularly hard. Others in the neighborhood described narrowly missing disaster. A city official asked Margaret Kennedy to evacuate Saturday as the water flowed past her home of 54 years on Skidmore Street. Kennedy stayed at her sons house in Wilsonville, not knowing if the water reached into her home. Her basement had flooded once before, she said. When she came back Sunday morning, Kennedy found that the house had been spared. Still, there was work to do. The water had poured over her yard and flowerbeds, leaving rocks, small branches, and roots as it receded. She spent much of Sunday morning and afternoon cleaning up the mess. This is harder to clean off than volcanic ash, Kennedy said, recalling the aftermath of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. -- Fedor Zarkhin fzarkhin@oregonian.com desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. by John Staughton (BASc, BFA) last updated - Evidence Based Using Celtic sea salt in your recipes not only adds a unique flair to a dish but can also provide a number of surprising health benefits. It can help heal skin damage, promote healthy cell growth, and relieve joint pain. Many people now use natural varieties of salt like Himalayan sea salt, Celtic sea salt, and Fleur de sel, among others because they offer powerful health benefits. Celtic Sea Salt Celtic sea salt is a type of salt harvested from the Celtic Sea off the coast of France. Sea salt is traditionally harvested by evaporation and sun drying. It retains more moisture than refined table salt and has a slightly moist feel. Sea salt can also be darker and tinted gray, instead of the usual white or pink that is found in other salts. This is because of the high mineral content that is retained in the salt as it is evaporated. Sea salt is prized therefore as a good source of not only iodine, but lots of trace essential minerals, including magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc, iodine, and potassium. [1] Though this sea salt is specifically limited to the western coast of France, much of the sea salt sold under the brand name Celtic Sea Salt is harvested in many different parts of the world. Celtic Sea Salt Benefits Many people prefer the flavor of sea salt, which has its own distinct character depending on where in the world it is harvested and that areas particular geological composition. Crunchy sea salt flakes are particularly prized for their use in baking and presentations. Celtic sea salt is very strong, with a flaky sharp texture that gives a shot of salty flavor. However, it has also been used for centuries for a number of health benefits. Heals Skin Damage Celtic sea salt is a popular soak or washes for damaged or broken skin. It is also recommended as an exfoliant. The salt itself acts as a disinfectant, while the trace essential minerals act as a balm to the injured skin, bringing down any inflammation. Salt washes are recommended for rashes, acne, and rosacea. Repeated treatment can, however, be very drying to the sensitive skin, so using a moisturizing cream immediately after is recommended. [2] Promotes Healthy Cell Growth Celtic sea salt contains 92 trace essential minerals. Twenty-four of those minerals are considered absolutely essential to many basic bodily functions. Deficiencies can lead to symptoms like muscle spasms, nervous system disorder, and brain damage. Sea salt is also more conducive to letting fluid move easily from the bloodstream and throughout the body. Regular table salt can lead to a buildup in the fluid around joints and potentially edema or kidney issues. Reduces Mucus Celtic sea salt is a great dehydrator and can help reduce swelling in the nose and sinuses, as well as any mucus build-up in the lungs. It is also recommended to treat water retention and fluid build-up in joints. Relieves Joint Pain Recently, researchers found that soaking in a high-salt bath, with 25% salinity or higher, helps relieve inflammation around swollen joints from osteoarthritis. Low-salt solutions may actually aggravate areas of inflammation, but high salt content dehydrates the cells around the swollen area, bringing down the inflammation. [3] Necessary Iodine Iodine is a chemical that your body doesnt produce naturally, but iodine is essential for hormone regulation within the body. The thyroid gland uses iodine in the production of hormones. A common sign of iodine deficiency is a goiter on the thyroid. In a study by Dr. Guy E. Abraham, it was found that vitamin C is able to more effectively transport iodine in the body, making Celtic sea salt an effective means of preventing iodine deficiencies. These types of deficiency can also lead to infertility, and some studies suggest that it is a high-risk factor for certain types of cancer. While many salts add iodine, Celtic sea salt is a natural source of this crucial element. [4] [5] Celtic Sea Salt vs. Himalayan Salt Celtic sea salt is harvested by evaporating seawater. It is often darker because it contains trace minerals. Himalayan salt is a light shade of pink, caused by large amounts of [6] iron oxide While Himalayan salt contains more potassium, Celtic sea salt has less sodium, and more calcium and magnesium. Himalayan salt is usually more finely ground, while Celtic sea salt is often kept in larger grains, in order to retain flavor and cut down on moisture release. Side Effects of Celtic Sea Salt There is evidence that too much sodium can lead to hypertension (high blood pressure) and is bad for cardiovascular health. However, moderate to low levels of sodium are safe. The recommended upper limit of daily sodium consumption for an adult is 2,300mg [7]. For people with a history of heart disease, or for those who are at high risk for heart disease, the maximum limit is considered 1,500mg a day. Because of rising levels of mercury, lead, and other heavy metals in the oceans today, it is critically important to know where your sea salt is harvested. Goose Creek, SC (29445) Today Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 55F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 55F. Winds light and variable. Vendors, food, family activities and lots to see drew hundreds of outdoor enthusiasts to the Greater Midland North Family Center fundraiser Friday to help support the center's programs. Ira Thumma, who was representing Ace Hardware, was happy to see all the businesses at the event. "There are a lot of vendors," she said. Darin Lunsford of Sanford and friend Barry Robinson of Midland both raved about the food. The pair were first-time attendees and plan to make it to the event again. "The dinner was great, excellent variety," Robinson said. The event raises between $19,000 to $30,000 before expenses. The remainder aids in stocking the food pantry, helping needy with utility bills, funding teen programs, supporting at-risk youth and a scholarship program. The funds also aids programs for seniors, pre-school children and day care. It also helps with emergency shelter. The center serves nearly 200 families annually and more than 60 teens every other week. This is the center's only fundraiser, so organizers say they go all out for it. In addition to outdoor vendors, guests included local outdoor celebrities Mike Avery, Mark Gwizdala and Art Lewis. While Marc Brennan of Hope enjoyed the vendors, he was mostly drawn to the event to see Avery, Gwizdala and Lewis. "They just represent everything outdoors," Brennan said. Brennan said a previous dialogue with Gwizdala made him more aware of conservation and protecting wildlife. Gwizdala said the event is a tradition and they see many of the same people over the years. Avery said he's always willing to talk to people. "Everyone's got a great fishing story," Avery said. Kathie Herman of Omer attended the event with family members. She has gone to other wild game dinners, but this was her first time at this one. "It's a great family experience," Herman said. Midlander Mike Swan, who has been to the event several times, is continuing to love the food and vendors. Swan is also a fan of Avery and enjoys talking to him at the event. Brent Shinkle and Rachael Owens, both of Mount Pleasant were among first-time attendees. Shinkle donated one of his custom-made fishing poles for raffle. Shinkle owns Bass Custom Fishing Poles. Paul Wisneski of Midland has attended the event before and remains impressed with the food and vendors. Greater Midland North Family Center CEO Kristen McDonald said the event always turns out well. She believes the activities and food mixed with it being a good community event, continues to draw a crowd. "It is a fun night out," Wisneski said. Greater Midland North Family Center Chairman Chuck Servinski said they hosted the event in March instead of January this year to do something different at the center. The event isn't the only thing seeing changes. The center's programing is also seeing changes. "It's been the same for a long time, it's time to change it," Servinski said of changes in the programing. "We don't know exactly what the changes are going to be." Executive Director Liz Conway said the board has a lot of new ideas and center patrons are going to see a lot of exciting things happen. Conway said they have begun implementing changes with the summer camp that serves 2,000 children. "Things are coming that will show an impact in the northern Michigan communities," Conway said. This year's Delta College Job Fair, held in the Pioneer Gym from noon to 3 p.m. Thursday, promises to be one of the biggest in recent history according to Martin Finney, the event's coordinator for the past 10 years. "We currently have over 90 employers registered to date and expect to have over 100 by the 21st. Employers from all over Michigan are actively recruiting Delta students." Businesses such as Health Source, McLaren, and Nexcare Health Systems are looking for those in the medical fields. Garber Management, Humana, and Redbridge Financial seek candidates with a business background. Michigan Department of Corrections and Michigan State Police are actively recruiting criminal justice majors, and students in the skilled trades may want to visit Bierlein, Mersen USA, or Merrill Technology. Dozens more employers are hiring, many full-time. Some are offering internship opportunities for those wishing to gain experience before transferring to a university. When it comes to navigating your way around a job fair, Delta College's Career Services Office suggest these tips: Dress professionally: Your first impression is your most important one. Employers can make a snap decision to do an on-the-spot interview just on the way you are dressed. Clothes that are neat, clean, and professional are your best bet. Do away with the ripped jeans, leggings, sweatshirts and stick with dress pants, collared shirts and dress shoes. Don't burden yourself with a coat (leave it in the car) or brief case. Put all you are going to need in a folder, so you may move freely around the room. If you need help updating your wardrobe, visit Delta's Closet next door to Career Services. Come Prepared: Make sure you enter with a good supply of your resumes, transcripts, or other documents to help present your qualifications. Some employers may even have applications for you to fill out, so an ink pen or two is a good idea. Bring along a note pad. It's very easy, talking with dozens of companies, to get them mixed up. Don't forget to ask for a business card. As soon as you leave a booth, jot down notes on the employer. List questions you want clarified and add notes on things you might send them to help advance your candidacy. Do Your Homework: Visit Delta's job fair page at www.delta.edu/jobfair for a list of registered employers. Decide which ones you want to talk to and visit their website beforehand to see what opportunities they are hiring for, fill out applications early, and do some basic research so when you to talk to their representative, they will know you are serious about their company. You may also want to develop your "elevator speech", a 30-second speech that tells prospective employers a little bit about you, your education, and skills you can offer. If you can't make this year's job fair, don't despair. Companies usually have career information on their website and you can not only fill out applications, but locate the hiring department information and submit your cover letter and resume online. The Great Lakes Bay Job Fair is a partnership between Delta College, the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works, Michigan Rehabilitation Services, the Workforce Development Agency of the State of Michigan, Davenport University and the American Legion. The event is free to job seekers and open to the public. After cresting at 25.41 feet on Saturday, more than a foot above flood stage, the Tittabawassee River has begun to recede. Sunday morning, the city of Midland issued a statement that stated the river would continue to lower over the next 24 hours, however a flood warning issued by the National Weather Service was still in effect. New York, US (PANA) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, following consultations with the Chairpersons of the regional groups of Member States, has informed the General Assembly of his intention to appoint Inger Andersen of Denmark as the new Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme Cotonou, Benin (PANA) - The Moroccan city of Marrakech will Wednesday host the 52nd session of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (CoM), PANA learned on Monday from official sources Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) Prominent Tanzanian opposition leader Seif Sharif Hamad Monday joined another opposition party shortly after his removal as secretary general of the Civic United Front (CUF), official sources told PANA Last week Patently Apple posted a report last week titled "Apple may Adopt Samsung's 'Touch-Integrated' Displays and Possibly add BOE to their OLED Supply Chain." The report pointed to the many rumors that BOE was trying to enter Apple's supply chain for OLED displays. Today we're learning that BOE is already in Apple's supply chain. They started by supplying Apple with LCD displays which is putting added pressure on Japan Display and LG Display. They entered Apple's supply chain some time back in 2017, the same year that China's O-film technology entered Apple's supply chain posing a threat to Sharp, LG Innoteck and TPK Holdings for touch panel modules and cameras, according to a supply chain report published today. The chart below from the Nikkei Asian Review report provides us with an overview of the top five supplier countries that Apple relies on. There's also an additional 23 Apple suppliers from outside the top five countries which likely includes Vietnam and India. While the chart points out that Taiwan remains the top country for suppliers, it clear that China is gunning for the top position in the not-too-distant future. At present, China is the top country for manufacturing and product/assembly in China by a wide margin. Apple has 198 suppliers and 809 production facilities as explained below. Last year Apple's CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with Recode and MSNBC: "What people fixate on is that the final assembly [for the iPhone] is done in China. But in a 'global world,' you do things in a variety of places components from some places, assembly in others." Cook added that "The iPhones display glass, for example, comes from Kentucky. Chips are built all over the U.S., as is equipment for manufacturing the iPhone. The FaceID module on the iPhone X will be built in Texas. Plants are going up in many places." Yet the number of U.S. suppliers has been shrinking according to the the Nikkei report which claims that "The number of mainland Chinese companies has tripled since 2012 while that of their U.S. counterparts has fallen by more than 32% to 37 suppliers over the same period, the analysis shows. The Nikkei further noted that "Apple has touted its contribution to the U.S. economy, spending $60 billion with 9,000 component suppliers last year for an increase of over 10% from 2017. It supports more than 450,000 jobs in the country, the company said in January. Yet the 65 American facilities in 2018 represent a 21% decline from the 2012 figure." The Nikkei report added that Apple's "list of suppliers for fiscal 2018 was released on March 7, shows not only a greater reliance on China, but also indicates an effort to expand its supply chain in India and Southeast Asia, where it has lagged behind rival Samsung Electronics." That may account for why Apple Supplier Wistron was given the green light by the Indian Government to expand their iPhone production to include higher-end models. The report also noted that "Apple suppliers operated eight facilities in India last year, up from five in 2017." The report goes on to point out some of the new Chinese based rising stars in Apple's supply chain such as Luxshare who now operates 8 manufacturing plants for Apple products in 2018, up from just one in 2012 placing a lot of pressure on Taiwanese suppliers Pegatron, Foxconn, Quanta and Compal. Lastly, little-known Chinese company Lingyi iTech appeared on Apple's top supplier list for the first time in 2018. It is completing an acquisition of Salcomp, a Finnish company that has provided power chargers and adapters to Apple for a long time. The Nikkei Asian review report is both fascinating and informative. You could could learn more on this topic here. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus. Aurangabad: Despite appeal for peace and calm during the Ramanavami festival by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Aurangabad on Monday turned into a violent battlefield when an unidentified group pelted stones on a Shobha Yatra leading to arson, vandalism, and assault on innocent bystanders resulting in the injury of nearly two dozen people and loss of properties in several crores. {gallery}newsimages2018/mar/032618{/gallery}The incident occurred around 2:00 pm when a Shobha Yatra organized by the Thakurbari Temple reached near Nawadih are in Aurangabad. Suddenly some people started to throw stones and bricks at devotees in the religious procession. This led to a stampede-like situation as people ran helter-skelter to avoid being hurt in the brick-batting. Security officials in the area tried to get a grip on the situation but were easily outnumbered by those on the offense forcing them to call for backup. By the time anti-riot reinforcement arrived, hooligans had burnt down several vehicles, shops, and other establishments in the area. Near Sabzi Bagh, rioters set Royal Hotel on fire and damaged more than a dozen small shops in the area. This was repeated on Maharajganj Road where more shops were set on fire. Altogether, more than 50 shops were said to have been set on fire by the miscreants. Reports said over two dozen police officials were hurt in the incident. After two hours of complete chaos, the situation, though still tense, was finally brought under control. Aurangabad District Magistrate (DM) Rahul Ranjan Mahival ordered imposition of curfew under Section 144 to bring the situation under control. A shoot-at-sight was also ordered to deal with anyone trying to disturb peace in the area. CRPF jawans were deployed and ordered to march across the town to maintain peace and to keep miscreants at bay. Superintendent of Police (SP) Satya Prakash said the police was gathering evidence from surveillance footages from the area to identify those who initiated the riot. To stop rumors from flying, the district administration has shut down the internet service and has taken over four dozen people in custody for questioning. The DM claimed the situation was completely under control but the curfew will continue for at least another day until it is deemed safe to withdraw it. Police say an argument between two female students at Pottstown High School escalated into a wild fight in the parking lot eventually involving teachers, students and adults on Friday afternoon. As the Pottstown Mercury reports, a teacher, a student and a parent were injured in the melee. Witnesses described the injured trio as being stomped in the fight. Four people have been arrested including two adults from Philadelphia and two juveniles whose names were not released. The Mercury quoted school and law enforcement officials as saying details of the melee were still developing. But those officials confirmed one male student and high school music teacher Michael Vought were both struck, knocked to the ground and "stomped." Another parent, who had tried to intervene, was also struck, officials told the newspaper. All this as the incident escalated quickly right after students were dismissed for the day at 2:45 p.m. NBC10 in Philadelphia aired an interview with an injured student, showing him in a neck brace: (Story continues below) This #Pottstown HS senior said he was just trying to be peacemaker between his girlfriend and a classmate. Instead, he got jumped by a group of adults. @NBCPhiladelphia told you about the fight yesterday. Tonight at 11, the victim speaks out! pic.twitter.com/IFbaGRhO5N Brandon Hudson (@BHudTV) March 17, 2019 Details from the Mercury: School Community Relations Director John Armato, two female students got into an argument regarding one of the girls boyfriend. The boyfriend intervened and may have verbally threatened the girl who is not his girlfriend. That girl "called her family" and shortly thereafter, "several adults and young adults, who are not Pottstown High School students, arrived and began assaulting the male student. He was thrown to the ground and was being kicked," he said. Vought, who was on duty monitoring dismissal, and a parent in his car waiting to pick up a student, both tried to intervene. Both were struck, said Armato. Vought, who previously announced his retirement, was thrown to the ground and "stomped," Armato said. (Story continues below) BREAKING: Teacher, student, parent struck, 'stomped' in Pottstown High School fight https://t.co/I2cORZQ5Wm High School Music Chairman Michael Vought and a parent tried to intervene in a fight in the parking lot. Both were struck & Vought was thrown to the ground & "stomped." pic.twitter.com/x6gOWuWUWf Evan Brandt (@PottstownNews) March 15, 2019 "Evidently, several female adults who had arrived, one of whom appeared to be carrying an infant, were encouraging the actions of the young adults who were hitting the others," Armato said. Armato added "the district has encouraged the police department to pursue this at the highest level possible." He said the district's school resource officer, Anthony Fischer, was not present during the altercation. Charges against those arrested could include simple assault, trespassing, harassment and disorderly conduct. Yogurt isnt just for humans. Turns out, dogs also are begging for the dairy treat. Yogi-Dog, an all natural yogurt manufactured near Mechanicsburg, is giving dogs Fido-friendly flavors like original plain flavor, peanut butter and cheddar. Dog lovers are snapping up the 6-ounce cups in eight states from a handful of supermarket chains including Karns Quality Foods. Its like the healthiest dog treat out there, said Dee Marie, Yogi-Dogs founder. The dog yogurt joins the booming billion-dollar retail pet industry and feeds into the trend of owners feeding their pets healthier foods. Last year Americans spent $72.13 billion on their pets, with about $29.88 billion dedicated to food, according to the American Pet Products Association. Since launching Yogi-Dog about a year ago, Marie said sales have steadily climbed. Dogs gobble up the yogurt, usually one or two tablespoons topped on or mixed with food, while owners rave about the products health benefits. The yogurt is lactose and sugar-free and contains eight live and active cultures as well as probiotics. The feedback that Im getting is so astounding from people that say their dog had an upset stomach or the dog was kind of sick or has always had digestive issues. We dont promote it as a supplement. One, the dogs love it and two they see a difference in their digestive tracts, Marie said. Many dogs are given probiotic medications to aid with digestion, fight off pathogens and improve the immune system. Marie said some dog owners have told her the yogurt has helped improve their pets appetite. Andrea Karns, vice president of marketing and sales for Karns, said she feeds her older dog about two tablespoons of the yogurt with food to aid with digestion. Cheddar is the No. 1 selling flavor at Karns. As a consumer I like to eat yogurt. Why shouldnt my pet? she said. Marie said she came up with Yogi-Dog after noticing pet owners giving their dogs leftovers from the bottom of yogurt cups. However, most yogurts contain too much sugar, which isnt good for dogs, she said. To create Yogi-Dog, Marie approached Mesut Baysal, owner of Country Food in Monroe Township. The company co-packs yogurt, mostly ethnic brands. I said Im going to make it better than human foods, Baysal said. Im going to make it the best. Yogi-Dog is made with 1 percent milk from Lancaster County dairies. It is manufactured 2,500 cups at a time and distributed to ShopRite, Big Y and Roche Bros. in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Within the next year or two, Marie said she envisions Yogi-Dog growing into a national brand. For now, she travels to grocery stores where the yogurt is sold and conducts demonstrations and informs shoppers about the product. One of the biggest hurdles, Marie said, is finding shelf space in stores to merchandise the refrigerated products. Pet food aisles traditionally dont have refrigeration, and if they do it is owned by another brand, Freshpet All-Natural Pet Food. So stores are selling it alongside regular yogurts in the diary aisles where the cups sell for $1.99 and feature a Golden Retriever on the labels. The buyers in these stores and groceries know that the pet industry is huge. People will pay more for their dog than for themselves, Marie said. Last year marked the closings of retails giants like Toys R Us and The Bon-Ton. This year all of the Payless, Gymboree, Crazy 8 and Charlotte Russe stores in North America will close. Hundreds of Sears, Kmart, Family Dollar and Things Remembered stores will also close this year as well. The closings of these national retailers have been felt at several midstate shopping centers. The retail apocalypse has been going on for several years and unfortunately it wont stop in 2019 as thousands of stores are expected to close. Heres our list of retailers that plan to close stores in 2019: Macy's at the Staten Island Mall Macys - 8 Macys is closing eight stores this year but none of them are in Pennsylvania, according to Business Insider. J.C. Penney - 18 Longtime retailer J.C. Penney has announced it is closing 18 of its traditional stores this year. The retailer, which has closed stores in past years, hasnt publicly announced which stores are closing, although it says that three of the locations were announced previously. And although it hasnt announced the exact stores that are closing, the company confirmed by e-mail that none of the stores are in Pennsylvania. Christopher & Banks - 40 The retailer is planning to close 30 to 40 stores over the next two and a half years, according to moneywise.com. Abercrombie & Fitch - 40 On March 6, the company said it would close up to 40 stores this year, primarily in the U.S. The company has not announced which stores it will close. But, even with the closings, the company might end up opening more stores this year then it will close. It expects to open open 40 new stores this year in addition to the 22 new stores that opened last year. The company also says it expects to invest $120 million in its stores this year. Lowes - 51 Last year, the retailer announced it would close 51 underperforming stores -- 21 in the U.S. and 30 in Canada. The stores were expected to close by February. One of the stores is in Pennsylvania. Lowes closed its store at 250 S. Conestoga Drive, Shippensburg Township. Victorias Secret - 53 L Brands Inc., owner of the lingerie chain, announced earlier this month that it plans to close about 53 Victorias Secret stores in North America in 2019. It is not clear if any of the stores are in Pennsylvania. The company said at this time it isnt releasing a list of the stores that are closing. The Childrens Place - 144 (Not all in 2019) The Childrens Place said previously that it is closing 144 stores by the end of 2020, according to Business Insider. A Starbucks coffee cup is seen outside a Starbucks Coffee shop in Washington, DC, April 17, 2018. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty ImagesAFP/Getty Images Starbucks - 150 Starbucks said it will close 150 stores this year. Gap Inc. - 230 Gap Inc. will close roughly 230 of its namesake stores, according to USA Today. Gap announced on Feb. 28 that the company was splitting into two independent companies. Old Navy will form one company and the other Gap brands would be part of the other company. On March 4, Gap announced it had purchased Janie and Jack, a childrens fashion store, from Gymboree Group Inc., saving that brand from closing. Chicos - 100 White House Black Market - 90 Soma - 60 The company intends to close at least 250 stores in the U.S. over the next three years. Under this plan, the company expects to close approximately 100 Chicos, 90 White House Black Market and 60 Soma locations over the next three years, with the majority of the closings occurring in 2020 and 2021. This year, the closures are expected to include approximately 60 to 80 stores. H&M - 160 The retailer plans to close 160 stores in 2019, although it plans to open more than 300 stores during the same time frame. Things Remembered Things Remembered - 274 Enesco LLC has purchased Things Remembered Inc,, the longtime retailer where you can buy gifts and have them engraved. The purchase includes 176 of its stores. Things Remembered filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy last month. The 40-year-old company is a much smaller version of itself. At the time it filed for bankruptcy, it had 450 stores. Among the retailers 176 stores will include seven stores in Pennsylvania including stores in the Wyomissing, Langhorne, Whitehall and Springfield areas and three stores in Pittsburgh. However, stores at the Colonial Park Mall in Lower Paxton Township and at the Capital City Mall in Lower Allen Township were not part of the list. Family Dollar - 390 Discount retailer, Dollar Tree will be closing as many as 390 stores. The announcement was part of the retailers earnings reports earlier this month. The stores that are closing are Family Dollar stores. The two companies merged back in 2014. Dollar Tree says the stores are under-performing stores, and the total number of stores closed may change. The company hasnt announced which stores will close. There are numerous Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores in the midstate. Dollar Tree lists 23 stores within 25 miles of Harrisburg, on its website. While the Family Dollar website lists 17 stores within 25 miles of Harrisburg. A customer walks out of a K-Mart store in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)ASSOCIATED PRESS Sears and Kmart - Hundreds Sears Holdings announced last year that it would close 80 stores by March 2019 including the store at the Park City Center in Lancaster (auto center will close in January). Other closings in Pennsylvania include: Kmart, 996 West View Park Drive, Pittsburgh Kmart, 2873 W. 26th St., Erie Sears, 5256 Route 30, Greensburg (auto center will close in January) Sears, 5580 Goods Lane, Ste. 1005 Altoona (auto center will close in January) Sears Holdings announced in November that it would close 40 stores by February 2019. Among the 40 stores, four are in Pennsylvania. Those stores include: Kmart - 7101 Roosevelt Blvd., Philadelphia Kmart - 1901 Lincoln Highway, North Versailles Sears - 1665 State Hill Road, Wyomissing Sears - 344 Stroud Mall, Stroudsburg Sears Holdings announced in December that it would close 80 stores by late March 2019. The auto centers at all three stores closed in January. Among the stores in Pennsylvania are: Kmart - 996 West View Park Drive, Pittsburgh Kmart - 2873 W. 26th St., Erie Sears - 200 Park City Center, Lancaster Sears - 5256 Route 30 Greensburg Sears - 5580 Goods Lane, Suite 1005, Altoona Gymboree - Hundreds Crazy 8 Childrens clothing retailer, Gymboree will close all of its Gymboree and Crazy 8 stores after the Gymboree Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company said in January it anticipates the store closures will mostly take place over the next few months including stores at the Capital City Mall in Lower Allen Township, the York Galleria Mall in Springettsbury Township and at the Park City Center in Lancaster as well as Gymboree Outlet stores at The Outlet Shoppes at Gettysburg in Mount Joy Township, Adams County; Tanger Outlets Hershey in Derry Township and at The Shops @ Rockvale in East Lampeter Township, Lancaster County. The Childrens Place Inc. announced on March 4 that it had purchased the worldwide rights to the names Gymboree and Crazy 8 and other intellectual property, including trademarks, domain names, design rights, and customer databases. There are Crazy 8 stores in the Park City Center and at The Shops @ Rockvale. Charlotte Russe - More than 500 Womens clothing retailer, Charlotte Russe is closing all of its stores. Last month, the retailer said it would close the 94 stores and find a buyer that would keep the stores open. But, those plans fell apart when liquidator SB360 Capital Partners won an auction in bankruptcy court for Charlotte Russes $160 million worth of inventory, and other assets, according to a CNN report. Going out of business sales began on March 7. This Tuesday, July 5, 2016, photo shows a Walgreens sign outside a location in North Andover, Mass. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)AP Walgreens/Rite Aid - 600 stores (Not all this year) Walgreens plans to close about 600 drugstores over an 18 month period which began in the spring of 2018, according to USA Today. The company told the paper that most of the closings will be Rite Aid stores, and the vast majority will be within a mile of another store in the Walgreens network. Ascena Retail Group (Ann Taylor, Loft and Dress Barn) - 667 (Not all in 2019) Ascena Retail Group said previously that it would close up to 667 stores through 2019, according to Business Insider. Ascena will close stores from the following three brands: Ann Taylor, Loft and Dress Barn. Payless ShoeSource was one of Destiny USA's original businesses that opened when Carousel Mall opened in October 1990.SYR Payless ShoeSource - 2,500 Payless which has been in business for more than 60 years recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is closing approximately 2,500 store locations in North America. The company has shut down its e-commerce operations as well. Payless has numerous stores in the midstate including locations at the Colonial Park Mall in Lower Paxton Township, the Harrisburg Mall in Swatara Township, the Capital City Mall in Lower Allen Township, a store on Simpson Ferry Road in Lower Paxton Township and a store at High Pointe Commons in Swatara Township. The approximately 2,500 stores are currently holding liquidation sales and will close between the end of March and the end of May. READ MORE: --Sign up for PennLives newsletters Harrisburg University has released renderings on its new building. Per the downtown school, which posted the news on Facebook this morning, the goal is to start building the tower at the corner of Chestnut and South Third streets by late July and open it by summer 2021 The project now will include 17 floors and cost the university about $100 million. Another $30 million to $35 million will be spent by a hospitality partner that will add a 197-room hotel and conference center with a restaurant inside the tower. The hotel partner has not been named. No tax-exempt bonds will pay for the hotel or the restaurant inside the tower, the school said Monday. The university and the hotelier would share space on 10 of the floors. The remaining seven floors would be used entirely by Harrisburg University. The goal is to start building the 17-story tower at the corner of Chestnut and South Third streets by late July and open it by summer 2021. The educational space in the tower is slated to accommodate at least 1,000 new students and a health science education center that would serve degree programs in nursing, pharmaceutical sciences and other allied health programs. The university will have classrooms and training space for advanced manufacturing and interactive media programs, the latter fueled by the esports boom at Harrisburg University. A year ago, the school was talking about the construction of a 36-story building, the tallest outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But by September, university President Eric Darr said the evolving vision for the project has been scaled down through a decision to eliminate several floors of proposed student housing. At that time, the resulting project was still expected to rise between 18 to 25 stories. More information on the project was included in a December 2018 PennLive story. Harrisburg-based Reynolds Enterprises Inc. and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., based in Baltimore, were hired to support Butler County architect Alex Wing of Stantec on preconstruction plans for the building. The schools current academic tower at 326 Market St. opened in 2009 with a price tag of $73 million. That building has 16 floors. A Perry County jury on Tuesday will start tackling the question of whether Carl Rodgers killed his 23-year-old wife Debra in 1983. The jurors will have to make that call without hearing from Carl Rodgers himself. Rodgers, now 63, of Shermans Dale, opted not to testify before his lawyer, Geoffrey McInroy, rested the defense case on Monday afternoon. Senior Deputy Attorneys General Kelly Sekula and Heather Castellino are contending that Carl Rodgers beat his wife to death nearly 36 years ago, slit her wrists to fake a suicide, and dumped her body in a remote part of Tuscarora State Forest in Northeast Madison Township. Debra Rodgers body was found on April 24, 1983. Carl Rodgers was charged with homicide in November 2017, after the attorney generals office took another look at the evidence in the long-standing cold case. The Rodgers case is one of the oldest cold cases ever brought to trial in central Pennsylvania. Debra Rodgers, 23, was found dead in Tuscarora State Forest on April 24, 1983. McInroy is claiming Debra Rodgers went into the woods of her own accord and slit her wrists to committed suicide. Other injuries she sustained, including a fractured skull, occurred when she fell on the rocky forest floor, he contends. The prosecutors and McInroy will make their closing arguments when the trial resumes Tuesday morning. The jurors will then begin deliberating after President Judge Kathy A. Morrow instructs them on the law. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman will be making several midstate stops, including in Lancaster County this evening, on a listening tour to gather input about whether Pennsylvania should become a pot legal state. This is part of the lieutenant governors statewide listening tour that began last month and will include stops in all 67 counties. He already has held these town hall discussions in Dauphin and Cumberland counties as well as 17 other counties. Tonight, he will be in Lancaster County at The Ware Center, 42 N. Prince St., Lancaster. On Tuesday, he will travel to York County to appear at the York College of Pennsylvanias DeMeester Recital Hall, 441 Country Club Road, York. After stops in Huntingdon County and Butler County on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, Fetterman will resume his listening tour on Monday in Perry County at the New Bloomfield VFW, 71 Soule Road, New Bloomfield. All of these sessions are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and run until 7:30 p.m. Fetterman is on an information gathering mission to gauge the pulse of Pennsylvanians on the issue of marijuana legalization for Gov. Tom Wolf. He plans to compile the recommendations that come out of these public conversations about how the state should proceed and present them to governor. Wolf directed Fetterman to start the discussion after seeing New York and New Jersey taking a serious look at joining the 10 states that have passed adult-use legalization measures. Legislation to decriminalize and legalize adult-use marijuana has been offered in the state House. Meanwhile in the Senate, Sens. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, and Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery County, on Monday began circulating a memo seeking support from their Senate colleagues to decriminalize marijuana. It is time for us to join the emerging cannabis economy with the legalization of the adult use of cannabis in PA., which should not be a crime when responsibly used by adults nor mandate medical oversight," Street said. "The economic imperatives are too great. We also have a moral mandate to correct the damage that disparate enforcement of our marijuana laws has done and is still doing to communities across the commonwealth. GOP leaders in both Republican-controlled chambers, meanwhile, have voiced opposition to expanding marijuana laws beyond the medical marijuana law that passed in 2016. In Pennsylvania specifically, a Franklin & Marshall Poll from September 2017 registered support for legalization at 59 percent. Thats up from 22 percent in 2006, the first year the question appeared in the poll. At the listening tour stops in Cumberland and Dauphin counties, the majority of people who attended favored its legalization. Along with attending one of the listening tour sessions, the public can also submit comments about the issue on a form on the governors website or on the lieutenant governors official Facebook page. Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy. All the news you need to start your day. Sign up for Good Morning, Pennsylvania When Dominque Morgan reached out to over a dozen of her friends to invite them to an event called "Fabulous, Fly, Fierce & Under 50, where she planned to recognize their personal and professional accomplishments, many said, why me? Successful black women have historically not been honored in Harrisburg, or throughout central Pa., 43-year-old Morgan said. She and her husband Anthony decided it was time to change that pattern, Morgan added. Eighteen women gathered at the Hampton Inn & Suites Harrisburg North on Saturday to mingle with likeminded community residents. They deserve to be recognized for having black girl magic, Morgan said. This is an event to recognize women under the age of 50, who have been influential in the Harrisburg community, who have moved in silence and have gone unrecognized, said Trailblazer Award recipient Dr. Roxane Hearn, who works in health and fitness. Hearn, 42, a mother of a 16-year-old daughter, was stabbed and buried alive when she was a 20-year-old college student at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Her past and present struggles dont define her, she said. I was proud that Dominque actually thought to do this because we see different people be honored as movers and shakers, but many of us have families, she said. We run businesses, we work for companies, and we recognize each other struggles. You may not know what we survived, and what we overcame to be here. One thing we have in common is this black girl magic to push through anything above and beyond expected of us. I told her I wouldnt come, unless she too was honored. Morgan, a Harrisburg High School graduate and business owner, said the idea came to her because she felt as though black women are very often overworked and underpaid. Forty years ago, hardworking quiet black women paved the way for her, she noted. And, she wants Harrisburgs black women to continue to embrace that change. This step brings influential black women who dont know each other together, she explained. I watch you work tirelessly day in and day out, and you just remain quiet, Morgan said to the group of women. This group beat the odds, Morgan said. The first event, honoring "influentially phenomenal African American women," was held Saturday in Harrisburg. They included high school teenage mothers, the first women or person in their family to attend college, or the only black woman working in a profession where black women historically arent known to work. The women honored were entrepreneurs, doctors, attorneys, a nursing director, a community activist, a funeral director, educators, therapists, and a Dauphin County corrections officer, who faces her sons murderers at work. The Morgans received support from a Harrisburg native living on the West Coast. Michelle Chambers, who moved to Compton 10 years ago, is running for Compton City Council, Anthony said. Chambers works for California Legislature Assemblymember Mike Gipson, who wrote a proclamation in support of the event. These women have overcome adversity, Anthony said. Its important for the younger adults to see there are powerful women out there. They are creative, educated, and they make things happen. My wife, she makes things happen. This is a good thing. I like seeing women do their thing. Morgan said when her friends said, why me? She responded, why not you? Young children look up to you, Morgan said. Thats why its important to know that black girls do well. Women of Strength and Tenacity Award: Dominque Morgan Trailblazer Award: Marian Urrutia Woman of the Year Award: Jennifer Tate-Defreitas Trailblazer Award: Lindsay Lester Trailblazer Award: Jillian Tate-Harding Trailblazer Award: Dr. Roxane Hearn Trailblazer Award: Terika Poteat Trailblazer Award: Latoya Winfield-Bellamy Trailblazer Award: Jimetta Colston Trailblazer Award: Kia Hansard Outstanding Entrepreneurship Award: Michelle Olee Outstanding Entrepreneurship Award: Adrian Stephens Outstanding Entrepreneurship Award: Kristen Tate Trailblazer Award: Tamara Mitchell Rising Star Award: Gillian Sumpter Rising Star Award: Cecelia Pharris Rising Star Award: Poncie Smith Trailblazer Award: Keisha Starling A 23-year-old woman who was found dead in Tuscarora State Forest in April 1983 wasnt murdered, a forensic pathologist testified Monday. Instead, Dr. Wayne Ross told a Perry County jury he concluded Debra Rodgers slit her own wrists, then suffered massive head trauma when she tripped and fell onto a rock. Ross is a fixture as a prosecution witness at most central Pennsylvania murder trials. However, this time he was testifying for the defense in the homicide trial of Rodgers now-63-year-old husband, Carl, of Shermans Dale. Ross testimony backed claims by defense attorney Geoffrey McInroy that Debra Rodgers death nearly 36 years ago was the result of a combination of suicide and accident. Senior Deputy Attorneys General Kelly Sekula and Heather Castellino are arguing that Carl Rodgers killed his wife, slit her wrists to make it seem like a suicide and dumped her body in the woods. Carl Rodgers was arrested in the cold case in November 2017 after the AGs office revisited the evidence. Ross was the lead-off witness as the Rodgers trial entered its second week. Carl Rogers Under detailed questioning by McInroy, Ross said he drew his conclusions from examining the crime scene records and police and autopsy reports. He said he also visited the general area where the corpse was discovered. Ross said he found no evidence that anyone carried or dragged Debra Rodgers to where her body was found in a small stream. There werent any defensive wounds described on her body, either, he said. In my opinion, she fell on a rock, Ross said. Large amounts of blood on her shirt sleeves that are visible in photographs indicate Debra Rodgers was alive when her wrists were cut, he said. She wouldnt have had such bleeding if she had been dead when they were slit, he concluded. She was the one cutting her wrists, Ross said. Otherwise, she wouldnt have had blood there. The hesitation wounds, multiple shallow cuts on her right wrist, are typical in suicides where the person is trying to muster the courage to make a fatal slash, he said. The blood loss could have caused her to trip and fall, he added. Sufficient force to cause the extensive head injury would have been created when the 5-foot-3, 105-pound woman fell onto an unyielding stone, Ross insisted. He said there also were indications that Debra Rodgers had ingested water, most likely from the stream where she was discovered lying face-up, meaning she was alive for a time while in the water. Ross conclusions run counter to those of two forensic pathologists previously called as witnesses by the prosecution. One of them conducted the 1983 autopsy that led to Debra Rodgers death being classified as a homicide. Omicron variant identified in Kent County; health officials stress vaccinations As the first case of the Omicron variant has been detected in Michigan, the Health Department of Northwest Michigan stresses the importance of vaccination. In a study of this replacement heart valve, which is inserted into the aorta with a catheter, patients were less likely to die or have a stroke than those who underwent surgery. Read more Promising new studies on a type of artificial heart valve could pave the way for it to be used in many more patients, allowing them to avoid the rigors of open-heart surgery. Compared with those who underwent surgery, patients who got the device were less likely to die or suffer a stroke after the procedure, researchers announced Sunday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans. One of the studies, whose authors included surgeons from Penn Medicine and the Lankenau Heart Institute at Main Line Health, has followed its patients for one year. The other, in which patients received a replacement valve made by a different manufacturer, has lasted for two years. In both cases, the goal was to treat a condition called aortic stenosis, in which the heart valve that transmits oxygenated blood to the body becomes narrow and stiff with calcium deposits causing shortness of breath and fainting in severe cases. Surgery to fix the problem involves cracking open the patients chest or making smaller cuts through the ribs, then implanting a replacement valve. Full recovery takes weeks, sometimes months. The newer alternative involves using a slender catheter to insert a replacement valve through an artery in the groin, typically enabling the patient to go home the next day. At a glance, the second option a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) would seem to be a no-brainer. But before approving it, government regulators required evidence that it worked at least as well. Among the questions: was the TAVR valve, which is expanded to full size after being inserted with a catheter, as durable as the kind used in traditional surgery? The catheter option initially was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2011 for patients who were too frail or sick for surgery. The pool of patients eligible for TAVR later was expanded to include those who were at high or intermediate risk for surgery. The latest studies suggest that TAVR is a good bet for patients who are at low risk for surgery. In the study to which Penn and Lankenau contributed, 8.5 percent of people whose valves were replaced via catheter died, had a stroke, or went back to the hospital within one year, compared with 15.1 percent of patients who had the valve replaced with open-heart surgery. In a separate analysis, the researchers tallied the number of deaths or disabling strokes, finding that they occurred in just 1 percent of catheter patients but in 2.9 percent of those who had surgery. Patients who received the valve via catheter were more likely to suffer mild leakage around the device, but that issue did not appear to cause complications. The TAVR valve in that study is called the Sapien 3, made by Edwards Lifesciences of Irvine, Calif. In the other study, 5.3 percent of TAVR patients died or suffered a disabling stroke within two years, compared with 6.7 percent of those who had surgery. The TAVR valve in that study is called the Evolut, made by Medtronic Inc., which has its main offices in Minneapolis, Minn. and Dublin, Ireland. Both study teams will continue to follow their patients. Scott M. Goldman, a co-author of the first study and director of the structural heart program at Lankenau, said he was not surprised that TAVR patients fared so well. In addition to the lower rate of death or stroke, such patients also are less likely to suffer infection and other complications because they spend such a short time in the hospital, he said. Typically, they go home the next day, Goldman said. They walk out of the hospital better than they walk in. A key to the good outcomes with TAVR is the teamwork between heart surgeons and cardiologists, said co-author Wilson Szeto, a professor at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine. But he cautioned that more research is needed. It is only one year, and longer followup will be needed before were completely sure, Szeto said. The study results will give ammunition to the manufacturers when they seek approval for their devices to be implanted in the broader pool of low-risk patients. TAVRs already are implanted 45,000 times a year in higher-risk patients at more than 600 hospitals, according to James Laskaris, a senior clinical analyst at MD Buyline. Medicare pays $38,500 to $49,500 for the combination of the device and the fees to the hospital and physicians, said Laskaris, whose firm is a subsidiary of Dallas-based TractManager, a purchasing and contract manager for hospitals. The amount varies based on the health of the patient. Reimbursements to private insurers tend to be higher. For hospitals that perform fewer than 50 TAVR procedures a year, the procedure is at best a break-even proposition, Laskaris said. But many institutions feel the need to have it on their menu of services to be considered a full-fledged heart program. Hospitals that perform more than 100 TAVRs a year can come out ahead through higher efficiency and purchasing the necessary supplies in volume, Laskaris said. Penn Medicine performs about 500 of the procedures each year, Szeto said. Lankenau performs about 230, Goldman said. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke visits Cargo Coffee on East Washington Avenue during a stop in Madison, Wis on, Sunday. He is planning to visit State College, Pa. on Tuesday. Read more WASHINGTON Beto ORourke will visit State College Tuesday morning for what is believed to be the first public event in Pennsylvania held by any of the Democratic candidates for president. ORourke, the former Texas congressman who stirred grassroots excitement with a tough challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last fall, will hold a meet-and-greet at 10 a.m. in the Hetzel Union Building of Pennsylvania State University. In visiting central Pennsylvania, ORourke, 46, is eschewing the biggest Democratic hubs in the state, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but will stop at a college campus where his youthful appeal may resonate. The event will be part of an early tour through swing states that will include stops in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Several Democratic contenders, including Sens. Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, and current or former governors, such as Colorados John Hickenlooper and Montanas Steve Bullock, have held Pennsylvania fund-raisers and private meet-and-greet events, or have reached out to party insiders, though none is known to have held a public campaign event. The states voters seem unlikely to have much direct say on the Democratic nomination, since its primary doesnt arrive until late April 2020, but a candidates ability to win swing states such as Pennsylvania could be a major issue when it comes to arguments over electability. In the general election, Pennsylvania is expected to be one of the four or five most competitive and decisive states. President Donald Trump has repeatedly visited Pennsylvania, both as a candidate and as president, signaling the importance he places on the state. HARRISBURG State Rep. Brian Ellis resigned on Monday, six days after a woman accusing him of sexual assault filed a formal complaint with the majority House Republicans. It is with immense gratitude to the sacrifices made by my family, the support of my constituents, and the friendship of my colleagues that I have concluded that it is in the best interests of my family, the residents of the 11th House District, and my own health that I resign from the General Assembly, Ellis, a Republican from Butler County in Western Pennsylvania, wrote in a two-paragraph letter submitted to the speaker. Attorneys for Ellis said they did not want to comment at this time. In a statement last week, the law firm representing him, Myers, Brier & Kelly LLP, described the accusations as just plain false and an effort to generate sensational press coverage. Ellis resignation was effective immediately. He had been listed on medical leave each session day this year, according to a spokesperson for House Republicans. It was unclear why he was on medical leave. Jennifer Storm, the states victim advocate, who has acted as a spokesperson for the woman, called Ellis decision to resign a sign that there is a new day in Harrisburg. We finally saw a survivor come forward, and she was believed, and treated with dignity and respect by the House and we are seeing a real-life consequence to that, said Storm. In cases involving allegations against public officials, unfortunately, the M.O. has just been to kind of ride it out. That didnt happen here. House Republican leaders had called on Ellis to resign in January, after news broke that the Dauphin County district attorney was investigating allegations that Ellis had sex with a woman in late 2015 while she was incapacitated and without her consent. That investigation continues. Last week, the woman filed a formal complaint with an attorney representing the GOP caucus and its members on the Ethics Committee, which has the power to recommend various sanctions, up to removing someone from the House. The woman wrote in her complaint that she went to a Harrisburg bar with a friend in October 2015, believes she had fewer than two drinks, and then was in a state of blackout. She wrote that she woke up in Ellis bed the next morning, naked and in pain. When she confronted Ellis, he told her they had sex, and she believes was raped, according to her complaint. The Inquirer does not identify victims of alleged sexual assaults unless they wish to be named. The woman works in state government but not directly for Ellis. The dome on the Pennsylvania State Capitol building is lit up as dusk falls on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018 in Harrisburg. Read more HARRISBURG Republican leaders in the state House of Representatives on Friday called on a Western Pennsylvania lawmaker to resign following allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman who was incapacitated in late 2015. In a statement, the leaders said they recommended that State Rep. Brian Ellis, a Republican from Butler County, also "take care of his family and address the allegations raised against him that are currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the Dauphin County district attorney. They also suspended Ellis from the chairmanship of the Consumer Affairs Committee. The action was in sharp contrast to their position Thursday, after the Inquirer and Daily News and the Caucus first reported that the Dauphin County District Attorneys Office had opened an investigation into the matter. Initially, House GOP leaders, while claiming they had zero tolerance on sexual assault or harassment, said they would only call for Ellis resignation if he was charged. No charges have been filed. Ellis, 49, has not responded to multiple phone calls, emails, text messages, and letters over several days seeking comment. Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo declined comment. Asked about the Republican leaderships reversal, spokesperson Mike Straub said: Weve said zero tolerance, and upon further discussion of the allegations which we the leaders learned much more details through your and other media reports the leaders believe its in the best interest of Rep. Ellis that he resign in order to fully address the allegations. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, also urged Ellis to resign. The allegations against Rep. Ellis are outrageous and unacceptable, said spokesperson J.J. Abbott. In an interview Friday, Jennifer Storm, head of the states Office of the Victim Advocate, said the woman believes she was drugged while she at a Harrisburg restaurant in late October 2015 with a friend, because she has no memory of what happened to her after she consumed fewer than two alcoholic drinks. She had 1 drinks, and then lost 12 hours of her life, said Storm, who is working with the woman, a state employee who does not work for Ellis. She was not voluntarily intoxicated in any shape or form. Storm said the woman was not out with Ellis early in the evening at the restaurant, where she ordered a drink. After that, she said, she has no memory, but has been told she ended up at a different bar, where Ellis was present. The two left the second bar together. The woman has alleged that the lawmaker told her the next morning that they had sex. Prior to that evening, she has said, Ellis had pursued her and she had made it clear she did not want to be involved with him. Storm said that the day after the alleged assault, the woman went to a hospital, where she reported to staff that she had no memory of the previous evening and that she believed she had been sexually assaulted. At the hospital, she was examined and treated for a concussion and pain, said Storm. Experts said they believe prosecutors will examine the possibility of date rape drugs. Steve Turner, a longtime lawyer for Pennsylvania state agencies and a former special federal prosecutor, said that without toxicological evidence, a prosecutor would need to build a case with circumstantial evidence, including the victims testimony about her normal alcohol intake, the effect of a few drinks, and whether she had blacked out before. It would include her last memory and her first memory, said Turner. Essentially, absent other witnesses who might have seen someone tamper with her drink, it comes down to her story vs. his, Turner said. Physical evidence, such as of date rape drugs, would aid the prosecution, said Turner. Kristen Houser, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, said theres a dearth of data on how often drug-induced rape occurs. Much of it is anecdotal evidence. There are a lot of people who have memory lapses that are not equal to their other drinking experiences, she said. Former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah exits federal court after being sentenced to 10 years in prison, in Philadelphia, on Dec. 12, 2016. ( JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer ) Read more Former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattahs quest to overturn his 2016 conviction for corruption-related crimes wont be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively ending the West Philadelphia Democrats direct avenues for appeal. The court denied a petition Monday to hear the congressmans claims that the judge overseeing his trial improperly removed a juror during deliberations and altered the outcome of the case. The high courts filing did not explain its reasoning. But the ruling placed a significant hurdle in the way of Fattahs efforts to secure his release from his 10-year sentence one of the longest punishments ever imposed on a member of Congress for corruption-related crimes. Lawyers for Fattah, 62, and U.S. Attorney William M. McSwains office both declined to comment. Fattah was convicted in 2016 on 17 federal counts tied to bribes he accepted and money he stole from federal grant funds, charities, and his own campaign coffers to pay his personal and political debts. In their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, his appellate lawyers argued that the verdict was tainted. Days into deliberations, U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III removed one of the jurys original 12 members after several jurors complained the man was refusing to deliberate, was ignoring evidence, and appeared to have an improper bias against the government. That juror and Fattahs lawyers later claimed that the man wasnt refusing to participate but rather found the case against the congressman and his codefendants unpersuasive and was holding out to acquit. Before Mondays ruling, the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had rejected Fattahs argument that the jurors removal was improper. But in the same opinion last year, the court overturned Fattahs convictions on four bribery counts stemming from gifts he received over years from wealthy fund-raiser Herbert Vederman, who hoped to land a White House appointment as an ambassador. They included cash payments to the congressmans children, college tuition for his South African au pair, and $18,000 to help purchase a Poconos vacation home. The Third Circuit judges held that jurors had not been properly instructed on a new legal standard for political bribery convictions that the Supreme Court issued just days after the Fattah verdict. Prosecutors have not said whether they intend to retry Fattah or Vederman who was convicted alongside the congressman under those new standards. Whatever decision they make is unlikely to affect the amount of time Fattah ultimately will spend in prison, given that he was sentenced to 10 years on each of the other 13 convictions the appellate court left in place. First elected in 1994 to represent a district that encompassed parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, Fattah held several high-level positions in his 21 years in Congress, including a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee. He is being held at a federal detention center in McKean County, along with his son Chaka Chip Jr. who was convicted in an unrelated fraud case in 2015. Kristi Richardson looks at photos of her husband, Michael Richardson, at her home on Friday, March 15, 2019. Read more The wife of a slain Rite Aid store manager whose killer had his death sentence lifted last week in favor of life in prison without parole is saying she was misled by the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office when it willfully abandoned seeking the death penalty during a resentencing hearing last week. Kristi Richardson said she told prosecutors she wanted Christopher Kennedy to remain on death row for the slaying of her husband, Michael, during a 2003 robbery. Kennedy had won a new sentencing hearing on appeal. I was just led to believe there was no option, Richardson, 47, said Friday in the dining room of her Philadelphia home, where she keeps framed photographs of her husband with his then-young kids hanging on the walls. Assistant District Attorney Paul George, assistant supervisor of the offices law division, led her to believe that the death penalty was not an option, she said. He was really nice to me, she said of George. But she said he caused her to believe that I couldnt fight it, that the death penalty will eventually be taken off the table, and that all [death-penalty] cases are going to be life sentences" in Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina resentenced Kennedy to life in prison without parole and ordered that he be removed from death row after the District Attorneys Office said it would no longer pursue the death penalty in his case. "I am upset. It makes me mad hes no longer on death row. Its sickening, Richardson said two days later. Kennedy, now 36, killed Michael Richardson, a father of five who managed a store at 12th Street and Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia, during a robbery on Jan. 19, 2003. Kennedy first shot Richardson in a leg, then dragged him through the store and into the office, leaving a bloody trail, according to then-Assistant District Attorney Tom Malone, who presented those details in his closing argument as one of two prosecutors at the 2004 trial. After forcing Richardson to open a safe containing about $2,200, Kennedy put a .44-caliber Magnum revolver to Richardsons head and shot him execution-style as Richardson, 35, prayed and begged for his life. Jurors, who wept during the trial, convicted Kennedy, of North Philadelphia, of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. Sarmina granted the hearing after Kennedys current attorney, Karl Schwartz, contended that Kennedy received ineffective counsel during the penalty phase of his 2004 trial. During this months evidentiary hearing, Schwartz said Monday, he presented about 20 witnesses who testified to the unimaginable abuse, neglect, abandonment, and, really, torture that Kennedy had suffered from a young age that the sentencing jury never heard. Both George and a victim-services coordinator from the District Attorneys Office told her that they didnt want her to have to deal with more appeals from Kennedy, Richardson said. I told them, I dont mind being notified of his appealing the death penalty, she said. I didnt want him to get off death row. Now I feel like hes getting off easy. George did not respond to messages seeking comment. George, like District Attorney Larry Krasner a former criminal defense attorney, has advocated against the death penalty for clients including Linda Ann Weston, the ringleader of a decade-long scheme that kept mentally disabled people hostage at locations including a Tacony sub-basement. (After Weston agreed to plead guilty to murder, hate crimes, and related offenses, the government agreed not to seek the death penalty against her.) Told Monday of Kristi Richardsons comments, Krasners spokesperson Ben Waxman replied by email that the decision to vacate the death sentence was Sarminas and resulted from a claim of ineffective counsel. And, although we agreed to life, we continue to insist that defendant is not entitled to a new trial and that the appropriate sentence is life without parole, Waxman wrote. Ms. Richardson made clear to our office in a variety of ways that she preferred the defendant remain on death row. We respect her right to that opinion. Waxman said Richardson was offered the opportunity to participate in the hearing last week. That is wrong, Richardson said Monday. She said she was blindsided when the judge asked her in court Wednesday if she wanted to say anything because she hadnt been prepared by George to do so. It was almost like everything was scripted, she said. The DA said their part. They knew what their outcome would be. Krasners office has been accused of being less than transparent with victims or their families about the steps it could take on matters that significantly impact court decisions. Richardson said she had sent a letter to the district attorneys victims-services unit last year after being told of Kennedys most recent appeal. In it, she expressed her desire for the judicial system to follow through with the jurys decision on the death penalty. She said Friday that she did not know whether the judge received a copy of her letter. She recalled how she had met her future husband when he worked at a Woolworth store in Germantown and she worked at nearby Gaffney Fabrics. She asked him to her prom at the Philadelphia High School for Girls. They married two years later, when she was 19 and he 23. Three accomplices to the fatal robbery Jamaar Richardson, now 37, who had worked at the Rite Aid; James Richardson, now 38; and Lavar Brown, now 41 were convicted of second-degree murder and received mandatory sentences of life in prison. The Richardson brothers are not related to the victim. Brown was arrested in December 2003 when he fatally shot a man he mistakenly thought could link him to the Rite Aid robbery, Malone said Monday. He was sentenced to death for that shooting. Krasners office last April filed a motion saying Brown should leave death row. The state Supreme Court, however, disagreed and Brown remains in death row. The Richardsons had celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary on Jan. 15, 2003, four days before Kennedy executed him. We were talking about getting old together, recalled Kristi Richardson, who has since moved from their Crescentville home. He lit up the room, she said. For me, it was love at first sight. Continuing House Democrats' push to make gun control a top issue of their majority, newly elected Rep. Madeleine Dean (D., Pa.) introduced a bill Thursday aimed at addressing 3D-printed or plastic firearms. Her legislation seeks to prohibit the possession of firearms that cannot be detected by walk-through metal detectors. It would be an update to the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act, which requires firearms to contain stainless steel. The current law does not adequately address todays technologies or security risks, said Dean, who represents Montgomery County. Today, we face a more pressing issue firearms made entirely of plastic, or with so much plastic that they fall below the current laws detection standard. The proposal, cosponsored by 15 colleagues including Reps. Chrissy Houlahan of Chester County and Mary Gay Scanlon of Delaware County, would also outlaw any major component of a firearm that does not generate a gun-shaped image in airport security detection systems," including the slide, cylinder, frame or receiver of any firearm, and the barrel of a rifle or shotgun. It aims to expand the law beyond X-ray machines by ensuring that any standard airport detection device can detect firearms. The concept of 3D-printed guns sailed into the mainstream over the summer, when a gun rights activist and businessman was allowed by the Trump administration to publish digital files for firearms made with a 3D printer, but was then stopped by the courts. Such a firearm can be made out of plastic with a removable steel part, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Alarmed by the prospect of guns with removable metal parts or all-plastic guns that could go undetected by metal detectors, officials in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states vowed to outlaw the homemade firearms. In November, New Jersey banned them, enacting what its legislators called the strongest such law in the country. Legislation like Deans was also introduced in Congress last session. Also on Thursday, a bill was reintroduced to stimulate the development of gun safety technology. The bill by Rep. Jim Himes (D., Conn.) would provide tax incentives for small businesses to develop technology such as personalized guns or gun accessories that can control who can use the guns using biometric methods or radio wave technology. The legislation is aimed at preventing accidental shootings, such as unintentional gun deaths of children. The bills reflect the emphasis House Democrats plan to put on gun issues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a bipartisan background checks bill as one of the first of the new session. Though Democratic lawmakers have vowed to pass gun control legislation in the House, any measures have a slim chance of passing in the Senate or being signed into law. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee announced Thursday it would hold a hearing on preventing gun violence next week the first on the topic in nearly a decade. Our new majority is answering the call of the American people, said Rep. Mike Thompson (D., Calif.), chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. For six years, our task force implored the previous majority to hold hearings and we were denied. This is a new day we will have a hearing and we will get results. The National Rifle Association has called proposals like the background check bill ineffective political plays. The living room and kitchen in a two-bedroom suite, offered as a short-term rental by Lyric, are pictured in the 1213 Walnut apartment building in Center City. Read more If youre an apartment dweller in Philadelphia, you might want to hurry and meet your new neighbors. They may not be around for long. Huge numbers of apartments throughout the city center are being converted into ersatz hotel rooms by a new breed of well-funded operators such as Sonder Corp. and Lyric Hospitality Inc., which are targeting guests seeking homier overnight stays. More than 1,300 units in existing apartment buildings and those under construction are either bookable for hotel-length stays now or have been set aside for that purpose down the road, according to an Inquirer tally based on zoning notices, booking websites, and interviews with landlords and operators. For perspective, thats about as many guest rooms as there are in the states biggest hotel, the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown near the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Most of this activity has occurred over just the last year, and the tally doesnt include units in buildings whose owners have indicated they will include short-term stays but have not said how many, such as Southern Land Co.'s Laurel tower beside Rittenhouse Square, which will be Philadelphias tallest residential building when completed. The apartment-hotel operators basic pitch to travelers is that their units offer more space and homestyle comforts often in less touristy neighborhoods than a typical hotel, usually at a lower price, though they often require minimum stays of more than just one night. For the weekend of June 10, for example, a studio apartment with a washer, dryer, and full kitchen can be booked from San Francisco-based Lyric at the newly built 1213 Walnut St. apartment tower for $164 a night, $2 cheaper than the Rodeway Inn budget hotel across the street, according to the two brands websites. As an extra enticement, Lyric also outfits its kitchens with pour-over coffee setups featuring beans from local roasters (ReAnimator in Philadelphia) and supplies guests with turntable-equipped sound systems to play vinyl recordings of artists with local roots (Son Little, Dr. Dog, Santigold). Part of whats fueling the growth in the short-term stay-business in Philadelphia and other cities is a potential surplus of apartments after aggressive construction during the nearly decade-long economic expansion, said Stuart Levy, a management and tourism studies professor at George Washington University in Washington. At the same time, travelers are increasingly open to nontraditional hospitality options, as online access to information on tourism sights and amenities such as restaurants makes them less dependent on concierge staffs, room service and on-site eateries, Levy said. Its become easier than ever to really have a kind of D.I.Y. travel experience, he said. In Philadelphia, apartments available for short-term stays range from the single unit that the locally based Birdnest Group has under lease at the Berger Building, a former roofers supply factory in Old City, to the 268 hotel-apartments managed by the AKA division of Philadelphia-based Korman Communities Inc. in the soaring FMC Tower by the Schuylkill in University City. Other examples include the 22 units that Spokane Valley, Wash.-based Stay Alfred Inc. offers at the Granary apartment building at 19th and Callowhill Streets and the 17 apartments available from a Philadelphia company calling itself Ur Home in Philly at the Luna on Pine at 400 S. 40th St. in University City. Still to come are as many as 25 units that Kasa Living Inc. of San Francisco plans at the Goldtex Apartments on 12th Street north of Vine Street and all 186 apartments that are planned at the historic Witherspoon Building office tower at 1319 Walnut St. after its conversion into dwellings that Sonder, also based in San Francisco, has a deal to manage. In some of the nations biggest tourism magnets, the growth of this hospitality niche has prompted a backlash amid concerns that the practice is driving up housing costs by monopolizing supply. Cities across the country are grappling with the growth of apartment-hotel conversions and other non-traditional hospitality offerings, such as Airbnb bookings. Lawmakers in New Orleans have responded with proposals to limit how much of an apartment building can be offered for short-term stays and to require projects with such units to also include dwellings that are affordable to low-income residents. In Boston, meanwhile, city leaders have passed rules that prohibit non-owner-occupants from leasing out dwellings to short-term visitors, while officials in Washington, D.C., passed a law that stops non-owner-occupied properties from being rented to short-term guests more than 90 days a year. Lauren Cox, a spokeswoman for Philadelphias Commerce Department, said officials here have been monitoring the growth of short-term apartments but dont currently see them as harming the citys housing market or hospitality industry. On the hotel side, our tourism numbers continue to increase annually and occupancy rates remain high, she said. And the properties targeted by these companies are largely in areas where the residential markets are already strong. The short-term stays may actually be helping sustain that strength by sopping up excess inventory during whats been a strong uptick in new apartment construction, said Kevin Gillen, a senior research fellow specializing in housing markets at Drexel Universitys Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. Weve got a bit of a surplus of space now thats taking some time to absorb, Gillen said. This is something that softens the downturn. Landlords like the arrangement because the apartment-hotel operators often lease large blocks of units for years at a time, so they dont need to worry about finding occupants themselves. Pete Soens, a partner at the Witherspoon Buildings owner, SSH Real Estate, said his groups deal with Sonder means the entire property will be generating revenue from the time it opens, while still allowing for the units to eventually be offered under conventional leases after its agreement with the operator lapses. Theres no downtime, he said. Were 100 percent leased." Notably absent from the tally of available short-term apartments are units in buildings owned by Center Citys biggest landlords, locally based PMC Property Group and Apartment Investment & Management Co., or Aimco, of Denver. PMC vice president Adriano Calvanese said his companys focus is on a traditional market lease-up. Aimco spokesperson Jamie Alvarez said her company prohibits such uses. We have had an overwhelming response from our residents with complaints about short-term rentals turning our properties into a hotel-like atmosphere," she said. Operators say they strive to bunch their units together within buildings, preferably on designated floors, to avoid interfering with full-time residents. In Philadelphia, the apartment-hotel-hybrid format was pioneered as a large-scale operation by Korman, which opened its first property in the city, the AKA Rittenhouse Square, at 19th and Walnut Streets in 2007. AKA was followed by Method Co.'s Roost Apartment Hotel brand, founded by a former Korman executive, which now controls 60 units over five floors at a new apartment building thats part of the growing East Market development on Market Street between 11th and 12th Streets, among other properties. Smaller locally based operators include Birdnest, which leases out three units at the Divine Lorraine apartments on North Broad Street. But most of the recent activity in the sector involves out-of-town start-ups that have attracted generous sums of venture capital to fuel their growth and which are arriving in Philadelphia after expanding aggressively in other cities. Sonder, which has raised $135 million from investors, has said it has 500 units in planned and existing buildings under lease, including those at the Witherspoon. Stay Alfred, with $62 million in funding, operates 96 units across the city, with its biggest presences in the Granary and the Point at 1601 Sansom St. Lyric, which has attracted $15.5 million and is said to be potentially in line for $75 million more from an Airbnb Inc.-led group, controls 86 units in the city, mostly in 1213 Walnut St. and the newly opened Hamilton apartments at 15th and Hamilton Streets. Were always looking to expand in key travel markets, said Joe Fraiman, Lyrics president and cofounder. And Philadelphia has been a great market for us. Anthony Comello displays writing on his hand during his extradition hearing in Toms River, N.J., Monday, March 18, 2019. New York City police say a suspect is in custody in the shooting death of the reputed Gambino crime family boss. Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea says 24-year-old Comello was arrested Saturday, March 16, 2019, in the death of Francesco Cali on Wednesday in front of his Staten Island home. Read more TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) The man charged with killing the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family wrote pro-Donald Trump slogans on his hand and flashed them to journalists before a court hearing Monday. Anthony Comello, 24, was arrested Saturday in New Jersey in the death of Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali last week in front of his Staten Island home. While waiting for a court hearing to begin in Toms River, N.J., in which he agreed to be extradited to New York, Comello held up his left hand. On it were scrawled pro-Trump slogans including "MAGA Forever," an abbreviation of Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." It also read "United We Stand MAGA" and "Patriots In Charge." In the center of his palm he had drawn a large circle. It was not immediately clear why he had done so. Comello's lawyer, Brian Neary, would not discuss the writing on his client's hand, nor would he say whether Comello maintains his innocence. Asked by reporters after the hearing what was on Comello's hand, Neary replied, "Handcuffs." He referred all other questions to Comellos Manhattan lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, who said in an emailed statement his client has been placed in protective custody due to serious threats that had been made against him, but gave no details of them. Ocean County officials could not immediately be reached after hours on Monday. "Mr. Comello's family and friends simply cannot believe what they have been told," Gottlieb said. "There is something very wrong here and we will get to the truth about what happened as quickly as possible." The statement did not address the writing on Comellos hand, and a lawyer from Gottliebs firm declined to comment further Monday evening. Comello sat with a slight smile in the jury box of the courtroom Monday afternoon as dozens of reporters and photographers filed into the room. When they were in place, Comello held up his left hand to display the writings as the click and whir of camera lenses filled the room with sound. During the hearing, Comello did not speak other than to say, Yes, sir, to the judge to several procedural questions. The 53-year-old Cali, a native of Sicily, was shot to death last Wednesday by a gunman who may have crashed his truck into Cali's car to lure him outside. Police said Cali was shot 10 times. Federal prosecutors referred to Cali in court filings in recent years as the underboss of the Mafia's Gambino family, once one of the most powerful crime organizations in the country. News accounts since 2015 said he had ascended to the top spot. Cali's only mob-related criminal conviction came a decade ago, when he pleaded guilty in an extortion scheme involving a failed attempt to build a NASCAR track on Staten Island. He was sentenced to 16 months behind bars and was released in 2009. Police have not yet said whether they believe Cali's murder was a mob hit or whether he was killed for some other motive. The last Mafia boss to be rubbed out in New York City was Gambino don Big Paul Castellano, who was assassinated while getting out of a black limousine outside a high-end Manhattan steakhouse in 1985. A Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Southwest Airlines sits at a gate at Hobby Airport in Houston. All 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft are grounded. Read more Hundreds of Boeing 737 Max planes sit at airport gates across the world, grounded, following two fatal crashes in a span of less than five months. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed outside Addis Ababa, the countrys capital, on March 10, leaving 157 people dead. Less than five months earlier, on Oct. 29, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed shortly after departing from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew members. President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. grounding of all 737 Max aircrafts Wednesday, several days after most countries had already shut down the airplane due to concerns over potential systemic issues in its anti-stall system. Here are the latest updates: Reporter told Boeing, FAA about story on aircrafts possible flaws 4 days before crash Four days before the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 Max aircraft in Ethiopia, both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration were told of possible problems with the aircraft by a reporter. Seattle Times aerospace reporter Dominic Gates reported Sunday he reached out to both Boeing and the FAA on March 6 about Boeings own System Safety Analysis that found several crucial flaws in the 737 Max aircraft prior to its approval by the FAA as part of a story he was working on. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed on March 10. Gates said both Boeing and the FAA already knew about the flaws with the aircraft outlined in his story, and that Boeing had been working on a fix since the Lion Air Flight crash. Gates, who interviewed several current and former engineers involved in the evaluation of the 737 Max aircraft, reported that the FAA due to a lack of funding and resources delegated much of the responsibility for safety analysis to Boeing. According to the report, the aircrafts Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, was analyzed as being hazardous, just one step below catastrophic. Engineers told Gates that danger level should have forced changes in the systems reliance on a single sensor, but thats how it was ultimately designed. Several FAA technical experts also told Gates that managers pressured them to speed up their certification process because it was lagging behind the rival Airbus A320neo. The New York Times has previously reported about the determination by Boeing and the FAA that it was unnecessary to inform pilots about a change in the 737 Maxs anti-stall system, which the Times reported was at least in part driven by the desire to minimize the cost of retraining pilots. In response, Boeing said in a statement to the newspaper on Saturday that the engineers comments contained some significant mischaracterizations, but did not mention any specific misstatements, citing the ongoing investigation. The FAA said in a statement on Friday it following its standard certification process, but was unable to delve into any detailed inquiries. Federal prosecutors reportedly looking into approval of 737 Max Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into the FAAs approval of Boeings 737 Max planes, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. According to the report, the inquiry involves a prosecutor in the Justice Departments criminal division, and a grand jury issued a subpoena for documents to at least one person involved in the development of the 737 Max aircraft. A Boeing spokesperson declined to comment to the Journal. The Journal also reported that the Department of Transportations inspector generals office is investigating the FAAs approval of Boeings 737 Max airplanes, and is focused on the anti-stall system implicated in the fatal crash of Lion Air Flight 610. The FAA said in a statement its aircraft certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs. Ethiopias transport minister: Clear similarities in Boeing crashes Ethiopias transport minister Dagmawit Moges told reporters Sunday there were clear similarities between the fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, another fatal crash involving a Boeing 737 Max aircraft. During the investigation of the FDR [flight data recorder], clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further investigation, Moges said. Moges did not elaborate any further on the similarities, and said the Ethiopias Accident Investigation Bureau would release a preliminary report within a month. In response to the officials comments, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement Sunday that Boeing was finalizing a software update and pilot training that would address the MCAS flight control laws behavior in response to erroneous sensor inputs. The FAA had previously said that flight tracking data from satellites showed similarities in the movements of two aircraft prior to their crashes. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets with local residents and veterans at the historical memorial the Malakhov Kurgan (Malakoff redoubt) in Sevastopol, Crimea, Monday, March 18, 2019. Putin visited Crimea to mark the fifth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by visiting the Black Sea peninsula. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) Read more MOSCOW (AP) President Vladimir Putin led thousands to chant "Russia!" on a visit Monday to Crimea marking the fifth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula's annexation from Ukraine, as NATO and the European Union once again strongly condemned the land grab by Russia. Speaking at an outdoor concert in Crimea's regional capital of Simferopol, the Russian leader hailed Crimea's residents, likening them to the Red Army soldiers of World War II. "Russia has taken you into its fold with delight and joy," he told the crowd. "We will fulfill all of our goals ... because we are together now." Putin began his trip by attending the launch of new power plants in Crimea, part of Moscow's efforts to upgrade the region's infrastructure. Ukraine has cut off energy supplies to the peninsula and blocked shipments of Crimea-bound cargo via its territory after Moscow annexed the region in 2014. "The situation has changed radically," Putin said, adding that the new power facilities will fully cover Crimea's energy needs. Russia's modernization effort for Crimea has included building a 19-kilometer (11.8-mile) bridge that opened last year across the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The $3.6-billion project gave Crimea a land link to Russia. Previously, a ferry crossing that was often interrupted by gales served as the only connection. Moscow's annexation of Crimea drew U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia that hurt its economy, but the move boosted Putin's popularity at home. NATO allies said in a statement Monday that "we strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize." They denounced alleged rights abuses including "arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture" against members of the Crimean Tartar community and criticized Russia's military buildup in Crimea. Russia has beefed up its military in Crimea with new navy ships, missiles and warplanes. Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian upper house's defense affairs committee, said the new weapons included Iskander-M missiles and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said "we stand in full solidarity with Ukraine, supporting its sovereignty and territorial integrity." NATO and the EU also called for the release of Ukrainian seamen who were seized by Russia in November's standoff in the Black Sea. Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York that an investigation will determine "what's the level of their guilt." "I assume that it is not the highest level of guilt, because somebody in Kiev or elsewhere gave them this criminal order to enter our territorial waters, to provoke our border guards," Polyansky said. "There are a lot of indications that they were meant to be kind of sacrifice." The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protested Putin's visit to Crimea as a "crude violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Putin claims Russia "re-integrated" Crimea after the ouster of Ukraine's former pro-Russian president in 2014 to protect ethnic Russians who made up the majority of Crimea's population from Ukrainian nationalists. The Kremlin was also worried a new Ukrainian government could annul Russia's lease on its key Black Sea navy base in Crimea and welcome NATO there instead. The Russian leader has said he put Russia's nuclear forces on combat readiness during the 2014 developments in Crimea and warned his Western counterparts that Moscow was ready to defend what it considered its land. The annexation gave Russia hundreds of miles of coastline along the Black Sea, a near-stranglehold on commerce in the Sea of Azov and access to vast potential energy riches on the Black Sea shelf. Crimea was first seized by Russian forces in the 18th century under Catherine the Great. The 27,000-square kilometer (10,425-square mile) territory, roughly the size of Massachusetts, is a lush peninsula that long has been a favorite vacation destination for Russians. It became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality until the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine. The Kremlin has argued that Khrushchev's move on Crimea violated Soviet law. Russian troops swept into Crimea just days after the February 2014 ouster of Ukraine's Russia-friendly president, catching the West by surprise. The Russian forces blocked Ukrainian soldiers at their garrisons, setting the stage for a hastily called referendum in Crimea that the West denounced as illegitimate. Putin on Monday hailed that 2014 referendum as a true expression of the Crimean people's will, saying the West's refusal to recognize it shows "disrespect for democratic principles." "It was a landmark event in the history of Russia," he said at a meeting with local residents. "We have shown the entire world that we nurture our interests and can protect them." During a meeting with residents that involved religious leaders, Putin said he had invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to attend the opening of a new mosque in the region and suggested also inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit for a ceremony unveiling a new synagogue. The U.S. and the EU responded to the annexation of Crimea and Moscow's support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine with several waves of sanctions that have limited Russia's access to global financial markets and to energy and defense technologies. Annexing Crimea helped bolster Putin's popularity but public enthusiasm about the land grab has waned over the years amid Russia's economic difficulties and a plunge in living standards. "After Crimea was annexed, there was a sense of almost universal euphoria," said Masha Lipman, a Moscow-based independent policy expert. She noted the majority of Russians still feel proud about the annexation of Crimea but "it no longer works the way it had, it does not improve the mood." A poll this month by the Public Opinion Foundation, a Moscow-based survey firm, said most Russians continue to support the annexation, but also indicated an increasing public awareness of its costs. ___ Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report. FILE - In this file photo dated Thursday, March 22, 2018, John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons speaks at Westminster Hall inside the Palace of Westminster in London. Bercow dealt a potentially fatal blow to Prime Minister Theresa May's ailing Brexit deal on Monday, March 18, 2019, saying the government couldn't keep asking lawmakers to vote on the same Brexit deal that lawmakers have already rejected twice. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, FILE) Read more LONDON (AP) The speaker of Britain's House of Commons dealt a potentially fatal blow to Prime Minister Theresa May's ailing Brexit deal on Monday, saying the government couldn't keep asking lawmakers to vote on the same deal they have already rejected twice. The government intended to try a third time to get lawmakers to back the deal, ideally before May joins EU leaders Thursday at a Brussels summit where she is set to ask the bloc to postpone Britain's departure. May has warned opponents that a failure to approve her Brexit divorce deal would mean a long, and possibly indefinite, delay to Britain's departure from the EU. Speaker John Bercow scuttled May's plan, saying that centuries-old parliamentary rules prevent "the same proposition or substantially the same proposition" from being brought back repeatedly for votes in a session of Parliament. He said a new motion would have to be "fundamentally different. Not different in terms of wording, but different in terms of substance." The ruling caused uproar on the government side of the House of Commons. Solicitor General Robert Buckland said Britain was facing a "major constitutional crisis," with not much time to solve it. By law, the U.K. will leave the EU on March 29, deal or no deal, unless it secures a delay from the bloc. Withdrawing without a deal could mean huge disruption for businesses and people in the U.K. and the 27 remaining EU countries. "Frankly, we could have done without this," Buckland told the BBC. As interpreter and enforcer of Parliament's rules, the speaker has broad powers. Bercow whose booming cries of "Orderrrrr!" have made him something of a global celebrity has often used his office to boost the influence of backbench lawmakers, to the annoyance of May's government. "Part of the responsibility of the speaker is, frankly, to speak truth to power," he said Monday. Even before Bercow's ruling, May faced a struggle to reverse the huge margins of defeat for the Brexit divorce agreement in Parliament. It was rejected by 230 votes in January and by 149 votes last week. Her goal was to win over Northern Ireland's small, power-brokering Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP's 10 lawmakers prop up May's minority Conservative government, and their support could influence pro-Brexit Conservatives to drop their opposition to the deal. Opposition centers on a measure designed to ensure there is no hard border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit. The mechanism, known as the backstop, is a safeguard that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU until a permanent new trading relationship is in place. Brexit supporters in Britain fear the backstop could be used to bind the country to EU regulations indefinitely, and the DUP fears it could lead to a weakening of the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. Talks between the government and the DUP have been aimed at reassuring the party that Britain couldn't be trapped in the backstop indefinitely. But with no sign of a breakthrough, May's spokesman, James Slack, said the government would only hold a vote if there is "a realistic prospect of success." Influential Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said he would wait to see what the DUP decided before making up his mind on whether to support May's deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, but a bad deal is better than remaining in the European Union," he told LBC radio. After months of political deadlock, British lawmakers voted last week to seek to postpone Brexit. That will likely avert a chaotic British withdrawal on the exit date of March 29 although the power to approve or reject a Brexit extension lies with the EU, whose leaders are fed up with British prevarication. May has said if her deal is approved, she will ask EU leaders this week to extend the Brexit deadline until June 30 so that Parliament has time to approve the necessary legislation. If it isn't, she will have to seek a longer extension that would mean Britain participating in May 23-26 elections for the European Parliament something the government is keen to avoid. EU leaders say they will only grant it if Britain has a solid plan for what to do with the extra time. "We have to know what the British want: How long, what is the reason supposed to be, how it should go, what is actually the aim of the extension?" German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Brussels. "The longer it is delayed, the more difficult it will certainly be." Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders agreed, saying: "We are not against an extension in Belgium, but the problem is to do what?" ___ Lorne Cook reported from Brussels. Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story. ___ Follow APs full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal speaks at news conference at Camden County Police Headquarters in Camden, N.J., Monday, March 18, 2019, announcing the takedown of a "ghost gun" ring trafficking in untraceable AR-15 assault rifles that buyers can finish assembling. Read more New Jersey authorities announced Monday the arrests of 12 men they said were part of a criminal network in Camden County that trafficked in untraceable, build-it-yourself AR-15 assault rifles. At a news conference in Camden, state and local officials said some of the men were the first to be arrested under a new state law criminalizing the use of ghost guns built from kits sold online. The arrests were made between March 8 and Thursday, authorities said. The yearlong investigation by the Attorney Generals Office and the New Jersey State Police, dubbed Operation Stone Wall," began as a probe of cocaine distribution centered in Lindenwold, and broadened to include guns, authorities said. Eleven of the 12 men arrested are from Camden County, including six from Lindenwold; one is from Gloucester County. Investigators originally focused on 43-year-old Lamont White and his 20-year-old son, Tyriek Bradford, who they called key members of a drug distribution network. Authorities said they later learned that Christopher Stoner, one of the alleged cocaine suppliers, also was involved with illegal trafficking of ghost guns. Stoner and three others allegedly conspired to sell six unregistered AR-15 assault rifles assembled using kits bought online. The guns then allegedly were sold for between $1,100 and $1,300 each. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law in November banning the purchase of firearms parts used to make untraceable weapons, sometimes called ghost guns. In many states, they require no ID verification, date of birth confirmation, or background check. The investigation was not limited to New Jersey. During the probe, investigators learned of an alleged plan to circumvent the New Jersey law by having guns shipped to Bensalem, Bucks County. On Wednesday, investigators intercepted parts for two assault rifles ordered by two of the men for shipment to Bensalem, authorities said Monday. This case starkly illustrates why ghost guns are so dangerous, because drug dealers and other criminals can easily acquire them and traffic them into our communities, where they will be virtually untraceable if used in a crime, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said. It is already illegal to sell assault weapons in New Jersey, but Jerseys latest law forbids manufacturers from shipping the ghost gun parts into the state. So now, buyers are shipping them to Pennsylvania addresses, picking them up and carrying them over the Delaware River, where the ghost guns are assembled and sold. Manufacturers fabricate guns that are 80 percent built, and sell them online along with the parts necessary to fill them out. In some cases, they provide links to YouTube videos showing buyers how to complete them. The build-it-yourself guns are untraceable because they are not assigned serial numbers and are not registered, authorities said. Kits available for most assault rifles and pistols usually cost a few hundred dollars and a gun can be built within a few hours. The guns are considered an affordable alternative to weapons that are legally distributed. In June, the Attorney Generals Office sent cease-and-desist letters to the manufacturers of the guns. Still under investigation are companies attempting to sell ghost guns or ghost-gun parts in New Jersey, authorities said. Grewal said the ghost gun manufacturers could face prosecution if caught shipping the guns into New Jersey. Repeat purchases should indicate that a buyer is not an enthusiast or a hobbyist, but rather someone who is engaged in illegal trafficking, he added. They are playing fast and loose with our rules, and looking for loopholes in existing laws that they exploited until we closed one, he said. And then in this case they took their operations to Pennsylvania. The six Lindenwold men arrested were: Christopher Stoner, 41; Paul Corum, 43; Lamont White, 43; Tyriek Bradford, 20; John Rayford, 41, and Mark Freeman, 53. Also arrested: Nicholas Cilien, 38, Mount Ephraim; Monroe Gadson, 28, Camden; Bryheem Belcher, 33, Magnolia; Fabian Sapp, 45, Sicklerville; Devon Davis, 31, Chesilhurst; Michael Smith, 48, Woodbury Heights, Gloucester County. Stoner, 41, Cilien, 38, Corum, 43, and Freeman, 53, were charged with unlawful possession of an assault rifle, unlawful manufacture, transport, shipment, sale, disposition of covert or undetectable firearms, among other charges. The other eight men were charged primarily with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that it is also illegal to sell assault weapons in Pennsylvania. Environmental groups and residents gathered to protest on the impending seismic testing pursued by the Trump administration. The rally took place at noon at Beach Ave in Cape May. Read more CAPE MAY Capt. Jeff Stewart of the Cape May Whale Watcher knows better than most how whales and dolphins are affected by sound, even the tick-tick-tick of his fish finder. Just turning off the fish finder makes it better for the whale or dolphin, Steward told a rally of more than 100 people Monday, including public officials, high school students and their marine biology teacher, environmentalists, and business owners. They gathered at the oceans edge to protest an imminent Trump administration plan to sign off on seismic testing to look for oil and gas in the ocean. Imagine that air horn times 1,700 every 10 seconds," he said. "Its torture for marine mammals. Its torture for the fish. Its bad for all of us. U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat from Cape May County newly elected to Congress, told the crowd he has co-sponsored bills to ban seismic testing and oil drilling in the ocean, even as the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is preparing to rule on applications that would allow five oil and gas companies to test in areas along the Atlantic Coast, and is working on a five-year proposal for offshore drilling. Van Drew said that the issue crosses party lines, and that banning seismic testing is pro-business as well as pro-environment. He said he was disappointed that President Donald Trump, whose own business history includes casinos along the Jersey Shore, would green light the testing. Seismic testing uses air-gun blasts to search for oil and gas resources beneath the ocean, a method researchers have said could harm marine mammals. The New Jersey Legislature has passed a law that would effectively prohibit permits for testing in state-controlled waters, which stretch three miles out from the coast. I really would hope President Trump would change his mind on this issue, Van Drew said. This is such an important issue, whether it be to Republicans or Democrats, for business people, for environmentalists, to our coast. Fishing and tourism is a major industry in the United States of America, and certainly along our coast. Its not worth it. Its not worth taking a chance. Anna May Coones and Margo Waring of Cape May said they are Trump supporters in general, but came to the rally holding signs reading Dont Drill Our Coast and Oil & Water Dont Mix! They said they hoped Trump would take note of the New Jersey protests and put a stop to any imminent testing or drilling. Nearby, another protester held up a sign that read, Trump Dont Surf. Cindy Zipf of Clean Ocean Action said the administrations draft drilling plan would affect just about every lick of ocean waters in the country. This is a nonpartisan issue, she said. She said every governor along the Atlantic Coast is opposed to offshore drilling. The gateway drug to it all is seismic blasting, she said. Were talking from the smallest zooplankton to the largest whales that are going to get whacked. Sandra Meola of the New Jersey Audubon Society said climate change, and the reliance on fossil fuels that is behind the desire for the seismic testing, threatens the hundreds of migratory bird species that rely on clean beaches as they fly over during their migration. Our ocean and vulnerable coastal communities are no place for fossil fuel development and seismic testing, she said. Vicki Clark, president of the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, said seismic testing presents a threat to the regions ocean waters, marine mammals, coastal economy, and delicate ecosystem. Seismic testing, a noise that is so loud that it disturbs, injures and kills marine life, harms commercial fisheries and disrupts coastal economies," she said. These blasts from seismic air guns are repeated every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for days and weeks at a time. The permitting documents, she said, indicate that the effects would be felt from Cape May to Cape Canaveral, Fla., with effects experienced for up to 1,800 miles. Cape May County and all of New Jersey has too much at risk to be silent on this issue," she said. One final signature is needed at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management before the testing can begin. Assemblyman Matthew W. Milam (D., Cumberland) summed up many peoples feelings Monday when he said, Its our backyard. Leave us alone. The dome on the Pennsylvania State Capitol building is lit up as dusk falls on Monday, Aug. 13, 2018 in Harrisburg. Read more HARRISBURG The Dauphin County District Attorneys Office has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that a Western Pennsylvania lawmaker had sex with a woman while she was incapacitated and without her consent, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the inquiry. State Rep. Brian Ellis, a Republican from Butler County, is alleged to have taken the woman to his Harrisburg residence, where the alleged assault occurred in late 2015, the sources said. Details about what triggered her incapacitation were not available. The woman, a state employee who does not work for Ellis, has alleged that the lawmaker told her the next morning that the two had had sex. Prior to that evening, she has said, Ellis had pursued her and she had made it clear she did not want to be involved with him. Ellis, 49, has not publicly responded to the allegations. He did not return multiple calls from reporters this month to his legislative offices and cell phone. He did not answer emails seeking an interview or a letter detailing the allegations against him that was delivered to his offices in the state Capitol and his district, as well as his homes in Harrisburg and Butler Township, which is near Pittsburgh. It is not known whether he has a lawyer. Reached for comment, District Attorney Fran Chardo would say only, I dont comment on criminal investigations, unless they are already publicly known." Jennifer Storm, the states victim advocate, said she was working with the victim. She declined to confirm the existence of any investigation. But Storm, whose office provides victims of crime with support and advocacy services, said the woman had given thoughtful consideration to all her options for months before making the decision to talk about what happened to her. Its an incredibly bold and courageous act to come forward when your perpetrator is powerful, said Storm, later adding: This is a very hard time for her. Top lawyers for House Republicans learned of the allegations against Ellis early last year, and told the person who reported them to contact Chardos office because they appeared criminal in nature, according to a legislative source with knowledge of the matter. They also provided information about the House Republican caucus' sexual harassment policy and the procedure for filing a complaint with them. Late Thursday afternoon, House Republicans issued a statement that did not name Ellis but restated their zero tolerance for sexual violence or harassment and a pledge to assist in any investigation related to it. Our caucus has not been contacted by any law enforcement agencies regarding any new or ongoing investigations," it said. If criminal charges related to sexual violence or harassment are filed against one of our members, we would expect an immediate resignation. The Inquirer and Daily News and the Caucus are withholding the womans name because the newspapers do not identify victims of alleged sexual assault unless they agree to be named. The alleged assault occurred in late October 2015, according to multiple interviews with people familiar with the allegations. The woman could not consent because she was severely impaired, they said. In an interview, the woman has said she had struggled emotionally with coming forward. Ellis, an advocate for business and gun-owner rights first elected to the House in 2004, is the second Republican House member in less than a year to be investigated by Chardos office on assault allegations. Last year, two women filed a complaint with House Republicans, alleging they were physically or sexually abused by then-State Rep. Nick Miccarelli (R., Delaware). House Republican lawyers investigated the claims and found the women credible. They called on Miccarelli to resign, but he denied the claims and served out his term, which ended last year. Last month, Chardo ended his investigation into those claims and announced that no charges would be filed against Miccarelli, in part because one of the accusers chose not to go forward. She said her decision was based on the emotional trauma of the process and the prospect of a long and drawn-out criminal proceeding." Mike Wereschagin of the Caucus contributed to this article. Mourners light candles, paying respects to the victims of Friday's shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Monday. Read more Recalling the outpouring of support following Octobers anti-Semitic attack in Squirrel Hill, Tree of Life/Or LSimcha congregants have started a GoFundMe fund-raising campaign to support New Zealands grieving Muslim community. Sam Schachner, president of the congregation whose Tree of Life building was the site of a shooting massacre that left 11 worshipers dead, said, Were unfortunately part of a club that nobody wants to be a part of, and we wanted to reach out to New Zealand in the same way everyone reached out to us. After the March 15 attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, we feel compelled to come to the aid of those communities, just as our Jewish community was so compassionately supported only a few short months ago by people around the world of many faiths, the GoFundMe page reads. We recall with love the immediate, overwhelming support Tree of Life received from our Muslim brothers and sisters in Pittsburgh. On Friday, a 28-year-old white supremacist allegedly killed dozens attending prayers at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch. Officials said the death toll had reached 50 Sunday after police found another victim while removing bodies from the mosques. Thirty-six people remain hospitalized. The Tree of Life fund-raiser had reached $2,736 of its $100,000 goal by Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the fund was established. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh also is raising money to help the victims in New Zealand. Members of the Tree of Life congregation also attended Sunday classes at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh in support, said Mr. Schachner. It was a wonderful way to continue a connection and to build on, as our rabbi says, love instead of the h word, he said. These acts of kindness follow similar ones shown by the Muslim community after the anti-Semitic attack in Pittsburgh. Following the Oct. 27 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, where a gunman killed 11 worshipers from the three congregations that use the facilities there and wounded several others the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh raised more than $150,000 just two days after the attack. The LaunchGood campaign, titled Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue, eventually raised a total of $238,624, according to the LaunchGood fund-raising website. Soon after the synagogue shooting in October, Mr. Schachner said, members of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, which was the site of a mass shooting in January 2017, met at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh with members of the congregations that worship at Tree of Life, including Dor Hadash and New Light. They were incredibly helpful to us, and it was an incredibly moving experience, Mr. Schachner said. We will certainly continue to reach out in various ways, but we also want to give them time. I cant imagine all that theyre going through. Tree of Life will work with GoFundMe to ensure that all funds are transferred to an organization authorized to provide support to the Christchurch families and community, a GoFundMe news release said. Mr. Schachner said he hoped they would be able to help with practical needs. Although unfortunately all we want is to have our family and our friends back, at the end of the day these incidents benefit from people stepping forward to make sure theres appropriate mental health and money for victims families to get, as people can lose a primary wage earner. And we dont know what type of damage is done to their house of worship, and we want to help with that, he said. To the families going through the most difficult moments in your lives: the Jewish community of Pittsburgh is with you. Our hearts are with you. We hold you in our prayers, the fund-raiser post said. Each community is a little bit unique, but what we share is a desire for love to conquer hate, and for all of us to have a safe place to pray, Mr. Schachner said. The Associated Press contributed to this article. State. Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams introduces his wife, Shari Williams, as he formally announces his Democratic primary campaign for mayor March 18, 2019, challenging Mayor Jim Kenney's bid for a second term Read more State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams says this time will be different. That starts at the beginning. Williams launched his 2015 bid for mayor six months before the Democratic primary with a speech decrying the citys political establishment, delivered at a Center City event packed with a crowd of about 200, thick with the kind of people he was complaining about. He was seen as the early front-runner for a race in which he would finish a distant second. Williams on Monday evening is to formally announce his candidacy for mayor at a West Philly art center that offers free programs for neighborhood children, with fewer than 50 people expected. Weve intentionally selected and invited opinion shapers from around the city, most of whom are supportive but some of whom are just wondering what it means, Williams said. We think its very important for people to think this is a very unconventional movement, not just politics. Williams, 62, said he stumbled four years ago, finishing nearly 30 percentage points behind Kenney in that primary, because he didnt define who I was. I let other people define me. Kenney painted Williams then as a shill of the charter-school movement because three Main Line investment-firm owners with an interest in education policy invested $7.5 million in an independent expenditure political action committee to support his campaign. Kenney is back at it. His campaign last week called Williams and former City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who entered the Democratic primary in November, corporate shills for the multibillion-dollar beverage industry. Williams and Butkovitz oppose Kenneys signature achievement as mayor, a tax on sweetened beverages to pay for pre-K and other city programs. The tax is expected to be a flash point in several local elections this year. Williams still bristles, recalling Kenney sneering at me in 2015 debates about his support from the investment-firm billionaires, The owners of that firm, Susquehanna International Group, are still friends but wont be backing his run for mayor this year, he said. Kenney also had support from an independent PAC in 2015. Building a Better Pennsylvania Fund, funded by building trade unions, spent $1.8 million on the race. More than $500,000 of that came from Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Local 98 leader John Johnny Doc Dougherty, City Councilman Bobby Henon, and six other union officials were indicted on Jan. 30, accused of embezzling more than $600,000 from 2010 to 2016. Hes going to have to carry the responsibility of his closest political adviser being scrutinized by the federal government, Williams said of Kenney. He is a subsidiary of John Doughertys political enterprise. He should just own it." An Inquirer analysis of Local 98s political spending found that Williams has accepted $447,000 in contributions and other support from the union since 2000. Williams says the difference is Kenney plans to keep accepting Local 98 support, while he will no longer do so. Williams is trying to define Kenney early this time around, repeatedly noting he lives in the same rowhouse near Cobbs Creek Park he grew up in while the mayor, who grew up in South Philly, now lives in an Old City condo. I still live in my rowhouse, Williams said. He moved out of his. He knocks Kenney for making an art form of being invisible in neighborhoods, unless its an election year, when he wants to fix everything. Williams was first elected to the state House in 1988, taking over a seat that had been held by his father, Hardy Williams. He did the same thing 10 years later, taking a state Senate seat as his father retired. He won his sixth Senate term last year with no competition in the primary or general elections. His last Senate challenger, in 2010, was a Republican who won just 5 percent of the vote in his West Philadelphia district. That gives rise to the notion that Williams wins easy elections but cant be competitive. He also faltered in a 2010 Democratic primary bid for governor, taking just 18 percent of the vote statewide. Here, again, Williams looks to be different. In this case, Im starting from a humble campaign where Im going to be talking to people, Williams said. Im going to be forced to talk to people and want to talk to people every day. That will germinate a conversation that we have not had in Philadelphia for a long time. No incumbent Philadelphia mayor has lost an election since the citys Home Rule Charter was enacted seven decades ago, instituting a two-term limit. The last competitive Democratic primary for mayor occurred 32 years ago, when former District Attorney Ed Rendell challenged Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. and lost by nearly 15 percentage points. Rendell went on to serve later as mayor and then governor. Williams could wait four years to run for mayor, as Rendell did. But he says the city needs change now. We cant wait until 2023 to solve the problems of 2019, Williams said. We are leaving the majority of Philadelphians well behind when it comes to poverty, well behind when it comes to a quality public education, well behind when it comes to solving basic city services such as potholes in communities, cleanliness in streets, and violence in neighborhoods. Four police officers were legally justified in shooting and wounding a Camden man who shot at them in 2017, the Camden County Prosecutors Office said Monday. Shlawrence Ross, 38, allegedly fired shots in a speakeasy on Louis Street in Camden early on Dec. 3 when three Camden County police officers responded to the sound of gunfire shortly after 3:35 a.m. As the officers approached Ross, who was standing in the street while others were fleeing, he fired at them and they returned fire, the Prosecutors Office said. The officers, joined by a fourth, then ran after Ross and apprehended him. A .32-caliber handgun was found on the ground along the path of the pursuit. Ross was shot twice. Shell casings found at the speakeasy and a bullet specimen recovered from a police vehicle matched the .32-caliber gun. The Prosecutors Office said the officers version of events was supported by video from body cameras and independent witnesses. The New Jersey Attorney Generals Office investigated the shooting and concurred with the Prosecutors Office. Ross was charged with multiple counts of attempted murder and related offenses. His case is pending in Superior Court. Lynne Cutler's Women's Opportunities Resource Center provides disadvantaged people with job training and financial assistance to start businesses. Read more Womens Opportunities Resource Center, which helps disadvantaged women achieve economic self-sufficiency, received a $350,000 grant from Wells Fargo on Monday. The grant, and lending backing from the Small Business Administration, are expected to enhance the Philadelphia agencys abilities to support more small-business development. Both of them will be able to help us reach the market," Lynne Cutler, WORCs president, said in an interview. "One is money and the other is a guarantee. Its fitting that both were officially announced and celebrated at a minority-owned small business in Kensington, Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, a recipient of the centers financial assistance. Amalgams owner, Ariell R. Johnson, and Cutler, who founded the center in 1993, were joined by officials from Wells Fargo and the SBA, as well as city commerce leaders and politicians. The two-fer was not a coincidence, Cutler said, but the result of a combination strategy to extend WORCs reach among underserved women and people of color. There are some interesting needs out there, she said. In the 20 years since the center, headquartered at 20th and Chestnut Streets, has been engaged in direct lending, it has issued 818 loans totaling $3.7 million to help individuals realize business ownership and build on it, she said. The $350,000 from Wells Fargo comes from its Diversity Community Capital program, which, the bank says, has helped community development financial institutions such as the Philadelphia agency issue more than 8,000 loans in excess of $391 million to diverse small businesses throughout the country since 2015. Of the centers new grant, $200,000 will be used for loans that traditionally range from $5,000 to $20,000 and average about $7,500, Cutler said. And $30,000 more will offset loan losses, with the rest spent on staff support for such things as labor-intensive loan-processing work, she said. The agency also provides business training, an incentive savings program, and job placement. WORCs new SBA Advantage Lender status will enable it to help more small businesses purchase commercial properties and thus address displacement issues, Cutler said. Too often, early-stage businesses are unable to stay in a property once their initial lease is up either because the sites owner has changed and, so too, plans for its use, or because the rent went up too much, Cutler said. Now, the center will be able to issue loans to help with property purchases, with the SBA guaranteeing 85 percent of loans up to $150,000 and 75 percent for loans larger than that but no more than $250,000, Cutler said. At those amounts, its not going to be Center City, its in the neighborhoods, she added. The center expects to make four to six such loans by the end of its fiscal year on Sept. 30 and, eight to 15 next fiscal year, depending on the availability of capital, Cutler said. Were really excited about it, she said. In the world of YouTube relaxation videos, there are pieces that run for hours that sound like rolling thunder to the beat of sputtering rain. There are live streams that echo with New Age-y notes or tinkling soft piano keys against the image of a flowing river on a moonlit night. Many of the live streams allow comments, but they also have chats. Guys can you help me with something, one user whose handle includes the name Princess" asked one night in the fall, around 3 a.m., Eastern time. The next three messages in the chat: princess wat help YAYYYYYYYYY! go to damn sleep Another user encouraged Princess to share more. Princess replied: I cant sleep cuz I keep thinking of this guy... At least one person was listening, writing back: We all heart broken emos. Experts say relaxing sounds, from white noise to slow classical music, could help those seeking more restful sleep, depending on their aural preferences. The titles of these relaxation live streams often call out a mix of categories: meditation music, study music, relax music, deep sleeping music, healing music, and so on. But the sleep meditation streams dont just offer a chance to unwind; these are haunts where global visitors stop in for conversation. Which, of course, might not actually lead to sleep. What users post is often random and freewheeling. They share tips that have helped them sleep and bemoan the things that keep them up. They flirt, troll, tell jokes, and banter. Sometimes, the bigot jumps out. Sometimes, people say, Love you before saying goodbye. Sometimes, people say how sad they are. An avatar appeared in a chat this month next to a stream of a crackling fireplace with a quick apology for lateness: please dont cry Im here. Jason Stephenson, owner of a sleep meditation YouTube channel with more than 1.2 million subscribers, had to close his Vortex live stream when he moved in October. The response was swift. It was like we had destroyed a community of people, said Stephenson, a meditation leader who now helms a team of full- and part-time staffers of about 10 people. The amount of letters on Facebook and my email that I got saying, Where is the Vortex video? That was our community. Youve taken that away. Vortex regulars were trying to track each other down on the other live streams, but they couldnt find each other, Stephenson said. He felt sad about that. The second Vortex, he insists, should be up and running later this month. Alex Coronado, 20, of South Philly, has been viewing calming music set to vistas of, say, a rushing waterfall, for roughly five months. He tried sleeping pills and meditating, but neither worked like watching the videos. When its nature and things, its just kind of ticklish in a smooth, subtle way, he said of the sensation. He aims to give full attention to whatever scene hes taking in. You have that experience like when you swim, like youre floating. He participates in chats for gaming videos, but never for sleep music. I feel like its kind of an oxymoron because youre trying to go to a channel to help you sleep but youre going to chat. You have to balance back and forth. Anita Ko, a physician who directs Drexels Sleep Medicine Fellowship program, said screen exposure before bed from a YouTube video, even one playing relaxing sounds, isnt great for sleep. Melatonin, the hormone that helps maintain sleep cycles, surges in the dark. But screen light reaches sensitive eye receptors, tricks the mind in a sense, and delays melatonin production, Ko said. That worsens, she noted, when people hold their screens so close. Participants in sleep meditation chats often share where theyre typing from and muse about visiting another side of the world. In November, an El Salvadoran dreamed aloud of living in Norway, where he could witness the aurora borealis. A Canadian from the Yukon Territories confirmed that the Northern Lights are indeed beautiful in person. Many sleep meditation chats become multilingual. Popular with both teens and adults, the come-ons that at times appear have sparked concern among chatters. Its typical for multiple discussions to be happening at once. Well past midnight on one of Stephensons recent streams, some chat participants talked about preferred drugs (This might sound like a stupid question but are shrooms made of mushrooms?) while others reacted to Captain Marvel. Later, as some users just posted homophobic remarks, those in the favorite drug conversation moved on to offering personal fun facts: fun fact i have 13 bros and sisters i never met Fun fact I love tomato slices on my bagel with cream cheese Fun Fact - I am on the do not rent list at Enterprise because Ive totaled 3 rentals in 1 year. Fun Fact - My ex cheated on me with Nick Cannon. fun fact Angie am I still the hottest one here [Note: Angie responded yes] Fun fact: thats a lie Stephenson, who lives in Windang, Australia, a fishing village nearly two hours south of Sydney, described the chats as a mixed bag. Sometimes, people can be outright nasty and awful, he said. And thats what I find very difficult, he said, because my channel is based on love and healing, and so thats what we want and thats what were aiming for." Stephensons team previously included moderators, but team members are now working to retrain them because of complaints that they had been too heavy-handed. He says he wants visitors to sense that theyre going to be OK and that theyre a part of something bigger. He figures the chats show people that if they struggle getting to sleep, theyre not alone. Ko doesnt discourage sleep music streams but cautions that they should be viewed earlier at night. She recommends limiting screen exposure one to two hours before bed. People who listen to YouTube streams in darkness, she advised, should keep the volume low and put the sound on a timer. Sleep meditation channels and social media, Ko said, help some people decompress at night because they offer distractions. Thats why people used to count sheep. When youre counting sheep, youre not thinking, I had a stressful day at work, Ko said. Whatever an individual finds relaxing, they can use that in moderation. Abdul-Aliy Muhammad and Shani Akilah, members of the Black and Brown Workers' Collective, stand in front of City Hall in 2016. The collective is advocating for 40 percent of city-owned land in each district to be reserved for residents and community members. Read more Philadelphia has been taken by a storm of cloak-and-dagger property deals. In February, the story broke about a North Philly developer Shawn Bullard, also known as Mr. Bigg" who beat at least seven other bidders vying for four city lots thanks to the backing of City Council President Darrell Clarke. In September, developer Felton Hayman scored big off a property sale made possible by Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, whose campaign Hayman has contributed to. Both deals were the result of councilmanic prerogative raising questions about housing equity in Philadelphia that must be a priority this election season. Councilmanic or councilperson prerogative refers to an unspoken deference City Councilmembers receive in deciding on land deals that happen within their districts borders. These district councilpersons wield a strong voice on deals decided by an already small group in power. There are ten Council districts in the city, and seven at-large members who are voted for citywide. This means that the power of council, in terms of public land and its allocation, is in the hands of fewer than 20 people. Prerogative favoring district Councilmembers, however, makes land dispossession specifically their bread and butter an area where they have unchecked, and unparalleled, authority. Its time to spread some of that authority around, particularly to those Philadelphians who are most vulnerable to displacement and most need a voice in the citys property development. A 2017 report on youth homelessness in Philadelphia found a disproportionate and long-lasting displacement of the most marginalized groups. According to this data, 75 percent of young people experienced housing instability following family instability, some as early as from birth, suggesting that housing insecurity is tied to lifelong poverty and displacement. Over 30 percent of the interviewees identified as not heterosexual, and 31 percent identified as African-American, leading any other racial group. To raise awareness of these issues, the Black and Brown Workers Co-op, an organization I helped to co found with Shani Akilah and Dominique London, launched an anti-displacement platform last summer called disappearing Blackness is displacement politics, which tackles the gentrification of West and Southwest Philadelphia. Dominique knows this issue firsthand: She was displaced from her own apartment in Wynnefield. As a whole, our collective focuses on the communities that we have seen be hit hardest by displacement and homelessness: black and brown people, LGBTQIA people, and people living with disabilities, including chronic illness. We urge city leaders to consider those populations and develop a means by which 40 percent of city-owned land in each district would be reserved for residents and community members not just officials to decide its use. After all, when Bullard said he wanted his property to cater to college students and millennials that work downtown, that doesnt sound like it describes most Philadelphians. Councilmanic prerogative is not about having the community interests in mind it creates a system that trades favor for favor. If we are to undo the corrupt system, we must expand democracy and community control, from doing away with prerogative to pushing for an elected community control board in each councilmanic district. It shouldnt be any one persons prerogative it has to be all of ours. Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad was born and raised in West Philadelphia, where they currently organize with the Black and Brown Workers Co-op and are the campaign manager for Sherrie Cohen, who is running for City Council At-Large. A mourner lights a candle during a vigil to commemorate victims of Friday's shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, Monday, March 18, 2019. Three days after Friday's attack, New Zealand's deadliest shooting in modern history, relatives were anxiously waiting for word on when they can bury their loved ones. Read more On Friday, at least 50 people in New Zealand were killed by a white extremist. In this tragic moment, it is worth considering what questions and demands would right now be made of individual Muslims, Muslim leaders, and Muslim institutions had the alleged gunman behind the attack been Muslim. Muslims would have been asked: Has your community come out yet with a public statement condemning these acts? Why is your community not doing more to prevent terrorism? Doesnt inaction make you complicit in the violence? And what have you done, personally, to prevent extremism? These are difficult questions to consider. Because they are unfair. How can someone living half a world away be held responsible for the actions of a complete stranger, who they share nothing with other than a broad identity? And yet, our previous research has found that, while white people are rarely asked questions like What have you done to prevent this cancer of white extremism? non-Muslims in America and Europe readily blame Muslims for similar acts of violence by individual extremists. Even after Fridays attack, which claimed the lives of at least 50 Muslims, an Australian member of Parliament, Fraser Anning, went so far as to suggest that the shooting supports a link between Muslim immigration and violence. In research conducted over the past five years, my colleagues and I have found that in the U.S. and Europe, non-Muslim respondents blame Muslims for attacks by individual extremists at nearly four times the rate that they blame white people for equally horrific attacks by white extremists. How do we escape this tendency in ourselves and in others to selectively blame only some social groups, for the actions of single extremists? Non-Muslims may sometimes be unaware that they are committing this double standard, which points to a pathway for intervention. In the U.S., we studied the beliefs of non-Muslim Americans after going through a brief exercise to alert them of the disparity between how much they blame Muslims versus white people and Christians for attacks by extremists from these groups. Those who perform the exercise show a significant reduction in how much they blame Muslims for attacks by Muslim extremists. That reduction, in turn, erodes their support for anti-Muslim policies. More recently, for a research paper currently under review, our team found in Spain that these effects persist even one year after engaging in this simple, two-minute collective blame exercise. It is easy to blame others; it is easy for darkness to breed more darkness. But it need not be the case. With a little focused reflection, maybe we can start to find some light after this dark moment. Dr. Emile Bruneau is director of the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the Annenberg School for Communication and lead scientist at the Beyond Conflict Innovation Lab. Ive worked for the City of Philadelphia for nearly a decade. Ive heard firsthand accounts from employees about the sexual misconduct they experienced, but worse, Ive heard about their experience reporting what happened to them. As an elected leader, Im now in a position of power to address this all too common, all too troubling problem. Last year, my office conducted a performance audit of the citys sexual misconduct policies, procedures, and payouts. When the audit was released in July, I was hopeful. The Kenney administration took immediate steps to address some of the findings, namely the shortcomings in sexual harassment training and governing policy. Mayor Kenney and his team also committed to centralizing the reporting process over the coming months and to working toward a disciplinary schedule for sexual misconduct our most important recommendations. Months later, Im disappointed at the progress the administration has made on these two recommendations. It has completely neglected a disciplinary schedule, and the changes it has made toward centralization fall woefully short. A centralized process would mean that a single office, independent from all other departments, would be charged with accepting and documenting sexual misconduct allegations, investigating those allegations, compiling a report with a finding about the claim, and ensuring appropriate discipline was administered. Approaching sexual misconduct reports this way creates a safer work environment. It ensures the investigator is reliable and unbiased and sets a consistent standard for investigations and discipline. This would give the person making the complaint a better reporting experience and has the potential to result in better investigations and resolutions of claims, overall. But centralization isnt what the administration is doing. The administration has charged the Employee Relations Unit (ERU) in the Mayors Office of Labor Relations as the central unit for overseeing sexual misconduct complaints. In reality, the ERU is a monitoring body. Complaints can still be filed within an employees department. When that happens, the department is supposed to document the complaint and report it to the ERU. Our audit found that departments didnt always document the complaints it received. And, our phone line showed that even though employees believed they were making a complaint, their incidents werent always documented. Employees also can make complaints directly to the ERU. Regardless of whether a complaint is filed with an employees department or with the ERU, the ERU determines who will conduct the investigation. Its possible that complaints could be sent back to the victims department for investigation. In these instances, the employee charged with investigating the case may report up to or have a long-standing relationship with the victim or the individual accused of misconduct, making an unbiased investigation difficult if not impossible. There are other potential issues, too, from the effective training of departmental staff to investigate allegations to what happens when the ERU disagrees with a departments investigation, and more. READ MORE: The city fielded 40 sexual-harassment complaints since implementing its online form To put it simply, the city hasnt done enough to protect its workers from sexual misconduct or to support them if they are a victim. And there is a real cost to it a loss of productivity and an increased financial liability. Our audit found that over a five-year period, the city had paid at least $2.2 million of taxpayer money for sexual misconduct cases, which doesnt include the $127,500 payout for a claim against Sheriff Jewell Williams in January. The question now is whether the city is willing to take the necessary steps to do better. In 2018, the #MeToo movement let sexual harassment victims speak out about their experiences and reclaim their power. If the movement is going to have a long-term impact, our institutions, including Philadelphia city government, must enact larger reforms to create a safe work environment for everyone. Rebecca Rhynhart is Philadelphias city controller. In this image made from video, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gives a press conference from Wellington, after the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Friday, March 15, 2019. Ardern said the values of her country would not be "shaken" by the deadly attacks that left dozens dead. (TVNZ via AP) Read more Last week, a white nationalist terrorist armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun entered two mosques and massacred more than 50 Muslim worshipers during the the weekly Jummah prayer. As Americans, we are used to these kind of horrifying attacks. It was just a few months ago that a domestic terrorists murdered 11 Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We were ready for the same old tired script: one politician after another condemning the attack and offering thoughts and prayers to the victims and families. But something different happened. Instead of offering thoughts and prayers, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised action -- I can tell you right now our gun laws will change. New Zealand has stricter gun laws than the US. For example, they require universal background checks but assault weapons are legal for purchase, as they are in the U.S. There, the majority of civilian owned firearms are not registered. For many Americans who have been calling on lawmakers to enact gun control measures for decades, Arderns quick response is inspiring. It is refreshing to see a leader shaken by a mass shooting and immediately work to prevent such horrific violence from happening again. But Arderns response is the norm. It is the lack of response from American leaders that is the outlier. In response to a 1996 mass shooting that left 35 people dead, Australia overhauled the countrys gun laws. Six months after the massacre, Australia had an automatic and semi-automatic rifles bans in place, required a 28-day period for gun purchases, created a national firearm registry, and bought back and destroyed about 650,000 civilian owned firearms. The overhaul achieved its goals. According to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, in the 18 years before the 1996 massacre, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia. In the 11 years after the massacre -- and the gun control legislation -- there were none. The rates of both firearm related homicides and suicide in the years following the legislation were basically half what they were before. The Australia example is the most dramatic one, but it is not the only one. After a 1989 mass shooting in Montreal, Canada enacted stricter gun control measures. The United Kingdom made their already strict gun laws even stricter after a 1996 mass shooting in a school. Gunshot deaths in those places are rare. Some thought that the US was finally going to reckon with gun violence in 2012s massacre of 20 children and six adult staffers in Newtown, Connecticut. Almost 2,000 mass shootings followed, and still, action on the federal level is nowhere in sight. The last time major gun control legislation was signed into law was 1994. At the end of February, the House passed a sweeping gun control bill. It is unlikely to pass the Senate. Congress support for protecting the NRA and gun advocates who value an interpretation of the Constitution above human life is shameful. Maybe New Zealands immediate response to this tragedy will remind our own representatives that change is possible, and we, too, can choose life over guns. The soda tax has been the center of numerous battles that included the fight for votes, legal challenges, court rulings, and aggressive public relations campaigns by the beverage industry. Now, Mayor Jim Kenneys biggest legislative victory is getting its first challenge from City Council two months before an election. On Thursday, Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez introduced a bill that will give Council the ability to change elements of the soda tax, including the rate and type of beverages that are covered. If successful, Council would have the ability, starting next year, to phase out and potentially eliminate the tax. Accompanying the bill is a resolution to study the economic impacts of the tax. Six members of Council cosponsored Quinones-Sanchezs bill, two votes short of the number needed to pass. The bill comes on the same week that a ShopRite in West Philadelphia closed, allegedly due to the soda-tax running it out of business. The store will be replaced with a Key Foods, which has said it is not concerned by the tax. Like many of its foes, Quinones-Sanchez argues that the tax is regressive meaning that people of lower income pay the majority of the revenue and poorly designed, harming small businesses and spurring a black market for soda. The administration points to the 2,250 pre-K slots double that by 2022 and 12 community schools that opened thanks to the tax revenue. In addition, the tax revenues are used to fund the Rebuild program to renovate parks, libraries, recreation centers, and playgrounds. The money to fund these efforts was sidelined until the latest court decision upholding the tax, and now the program is getting in motion. While improved health was not the primary factor in creating the tax, it is a significant side benefit, especially given the high obesity rates in the city. According to the 2018 Health of the City report from the Department of Public Health, about 22 percent of children are obese and 35 percent of adults. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the tax has led to a significant reduction in the self-reported sugary drink consumption of Philadelphians. For all these reasons, we have supported and continue to support taxing a harmful product to help fund programs that have profound and long-term benefits. No policy is sacrosanct not even the soda tax. Evaluating the impact of the tax, or any policy, is a positive step toward responsible policy-making. Thats why the study Sanchez wants to conduct is a good idea, especially if it can begin to measure the long-term benefits of better-educated children. But introducing a bill to modify or eliminate the tax before the results are published makes no sense. Quinones-Sanchez should pull back her bill and Kenney should welcome the study. Budgeting is about trade-offs, but throwing pre-K out with the soda tax is too much of a sacrifice. While the study is being conducted, those in Council who oppose the soda tax should make their case for an alternative source of revenue. Lt. Howard Lurcott, a pilot and Penn student from Philadelphia, died when his WWII bomber crashed off the Pacific. For 75 years, his remains remained unidentified. Read more Janice Hechler cant remember the first time she learned that her Uncle Howard was lost. She was not yet 4 when the bomber plane he had piloted crashed in a lagoon off the Pacific in World War II. Janice didnt know much about her uncle. As the years went on, the family drifted apart, as families sometimes do. When she thought of it, she imagined Howards life in sepia tones. He had grown up in a family with some standing in Olney, attended the University of Pennsylvania and then enlisted, and was lost. The military had said his remains were unrecoverable. No one in her family spoke about it much. One day earlier this month, a man in a suit and a woman in an Army uniform showed up at her door in Silver Spring, Md., where Janice, now 77, retired. After 75 years, Uncle Howards remains had been identified. He was coming home. She invited them into her dining room, so they could spread his thick file across the table. Maps and DNA tests. Family letters. Photos of Howard in uniform, the first pictures Janice had ever seen of her uncle. He looked like such a little boy, she thought. The story of the search for First Lt. Howard T. Lurcott offers a glimpse into the lengths to which the government goes, even three-quarters of a century later, to send home the remains of those lost. By the time the military arrived at Janice Hechlers home March 6, many of the traces of Howards life in Philadelphia had faded, too. Janice offered an outline: Born in 1917, Howard was the second of four children of Alfred and Esther Lurcott. Alfred had made his money during WWI, selling war supplies. By the time Howard went to fight, his parents had moved to Missouri for a new job. (Later, in 1967, in a grim coincidence, Howards younger brother, Charles, a naval pilot, died in a stateside plane crash.) Sitting around Janice Hechlers table, Michael Mee, chief of identifications in the Armys Past Conflict Repatriations Branch, filled in more holes. First Lt. Howard T. Lurcott of the U.S. Army Air Forces was assigned to the 38th Bombardment Squadron. On Jan. 21, 1944, his B-24 Liberator crashed after takeoff on Betio Island, a hard-won airstrip in the Pacific fleets island-hopping campaign. All 10 aboard perished. Water in the gas tank caused the crash. I had to dig to find more about Howard. Before enlisting in 1942, he had been attending night school at Wharton, according to the Penn archives. He had joined a fraternity: Omicron Sigma Kappa. And school records noted his military standing: A navigation cadet, he had completed his first phase of flight training in Texas. His draft card listed his ruddy complexion and lean build, his brown hair and blue eyes. After the crash Alfred Lurcott wrote to his sons commanders and described his flight-school graduation ring: We have no idea of his effects other than the ring he wore which he greatly prized. I hope that it would be recovered. It wasnt. And for seven decades, Howards remains were thought unrecoverable, too. Back in 1944, nine bodies were pulled from the lagoon, but none could be identified as Howards. In the chaos of war, the dead were laid in wooden coffins in a makeshift island cemetery. Airstrips and roads soon displaced graves. Records were lost. In efforts to beautify the cemeteries and identify the unaccounted for graves were moved to island cemeteries with sadly evocative names, such as Lone Palm. But sometimes, graves were mismarked, Mee said, or even lost. As it came out, Howard had come to rest at two locations in the Pacific. Earlier this year, a portion of Howards remains were found in a wooden coffin in a forgotten island cemetery discovered by History Flight, a nonprofit that works with the military to find the unaccounted for of WWII. More of his remains were identified among unknown military personnel reinterred in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Staff Sgt. Carl Shaffer, a 22-year-old gunner and steelworker from Pottstown, was also identified. His remains will be flown to Philadelphia under military honors, his family told me. For her part, Janice Hechler was surprised by how hard the news hit her. It felt like the ceiling came down on me, she said. Even though I didnt know him, I want to make sure everything is nice. I want to do right by him. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, near his brother, Charles, who rests there on a slight hill. He will be home. Now there will be proof he existed, she said of the uncle she never knew. That means something. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives at the State Capitol in Harrisburg. Read more Dont shake your head and mutter no way, no how, not here, not ever. Consider this. Pennsylvanias legislature is changing. Theres a new and different term-limits proposal. Together, that presents opportunity. Term limits are among many reforms needed to make Pennsylvanias governance, politics, and democracy better. Theyre easy to understand. Popular. We have them for presidents, governors, mayors. We should have them for lawmakers, at state and federal levels. For now, lets focus on Harrisburg. And before you note that change never even visits Harrisburg, before you argue our lawmakers historically greedy, rigid, reform-averse would never vote to limit their time on the public dime, remember: Different legislature, different plan. Lawmakers are younger, more diverse, less entrenched than ever before. Of the 203 House members, more than half are in office six years or less: 113 of them, counting two recent special elections. And 48 are in their first term. Why is this important? Many ran on reforms. Most havent yet been sucked into the stay-for-life, protect-incumbency culture long dominant in Americas largest full-time legislature, which last year met for 47 voting days in the Senate, 43 in the House. Plus, a term-limits plan offered last week by two freshman central Pennsylvania Republicans at a Capitol news conference is so forgiving it just might work. It limits service to 12 consecutive years. Six House terms, three Senate terms. Most important, it grandfathers current members, allowing them 12 more years after enactment. Purists will say, hey, thats not term limits, thats a mini-career. But its better than what we have, which is pols hanging on for 25, 30, 40-plus years. And its prime movers, Rep. Mike Jones (R., York) and Rep. Andrew Lewis (R, Dauphin), are no snowflakes. Jones is the retired president of a York engineering firm. Lewis worked Army counterintelligence in South Korea, holds two masters degrees, and helps run a family construction business. If ever there was a time we could get this done, its now, Lewis tells me, noting the legislatures changing makeup. A lot of these people ran on term limits. Jones says the measure is crafted to pass. It does reasonable things, he said, noting a provision allowing someone who served 12 years to sit out a term then run again. Voters can bring the old dog back. He added, Id love it if it didnt grandfather so much time, but weve got to be realistic, weve got to get the process started. The measure has Democratic cosponsorship, including Philly Rep. Jared Solomon, who knows something about long incumbency. Solomon narrowly lost to former Philly Rep. Mark Cohen in 2014, then beat Cohen in 2016. Cohen, known for collecting extraordinary expenses for decades, no receipts required, was in the House 42 years. Hes now a Philly Common Pleas judge. Dont even think about the size of his pension. At last weeks news conference, Solomon said lawmakers who stay too long can end up coasting along instead of charging ahead. (Among the longest serving are Philly Democrats: Rep. James Roebuck, in his 34th year; Sen. Vincent Hughes, 32nd year; Sen. Tony Williams, 30th year. Hughes and Williams previously served in the House.) Oh, but wont term limits allow lobbyists and staff to run the legislature and cause the loss of institutional knowledge? Who do you think runs it now? And the knowledge in this institution rooted in self-interest, perk protection and job security ought to be lost. One could argue that recent turnover is term limits imposed by voters. But who knows if the pattern continues? And the Jones/Lewis bill requires amending the state Constitution, which must be approved by voters. Says Jones, This is to let voters decide. Little question voters want term limits, in Washington and in Harrisburg. A McLaughlin & Associates poll last February showed 82 percent support for congressional limits. A Franklin and Marshall College Poll last June showed 70 percent support for limits in our legislature. Long incumbencies in a state such as ours with no recall provision, no initiative and referendum, no limits on campaign financing, regressive voting laws, and no term limits discourage political competition, stagnates democracy. Jones notes that voters need to get energized. And hes right. So, go to the website legis.state.pa.us. Look under Find My Legislator. Contact him or her again and again. Urge support for term limits. Its a start. FILE- In this Feb. 19, 2019 file photo, a sign is posted outside Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Fla. A photo published Friday, March 8, 2019, in the Miami Herald shows Li Yang, the founder and one-time owner of the spa implicated in a human-trafficking ring attended a Super Bowl watch party at President Donald Trump's West Palm Beach country club nineteen days before New England Patriot owner Robert Kraft was with charged with prostitution at the spa. (Hannah Morse/Palm Beach Post via AP, File) Read more WASHINGTON (AP) Top Democrats are urging the FBI to investigate a Trump campaign donor who is the founder and onetime owner of a spa that has been implicated in a human-trafficking ring. In a Friday letter to the FBI, Democrats on the House and Senate judiciary and intelligence panels wrote that reports about Li Yang "raise serious counterintelligence concerns." Yang's company claimed it could provide Chinese clients with a chance to mingle and take photos with President Donald Trump, along with access to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The Democrats said China has "frequently used non-traditional intelligence collectors and businesspersons to compromise targets" and asked for investigations into potential human trafficking, unlawful lobbying or campaign finance violations. "Although Ms. Yang's activities may only be those of an unscrupulous actor allegedly selling access to politicians for profit, her activities also could permit adversary governments or their agents access to these same politicians to acquire potential material for blackmail or even more nefarious purposes," the Democrats wrote. The Democrats asked the FBI to investigate whether authorities were previously aware of Yang's activities, to what extent she has interacted with Trump and how she was invited to a Super Bowl party at his West Palm Beach country club, among other matters. Signing on to the letter were House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrats on the Senate intelligence and Judiciary panels. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of New York endorsed the request for an investigation in a joint statement, saying "the facts in this situation are very concerning." An FBI spokesperson said the agency has no comment on the letter. The Miami Herald last week published a photo of Yang with Trump at the Super Bowl party and reported on the link between Yang and the spa where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution. Kraft was charged in late February and has pleaded not guilty. Yang, a former owner of the spa, wasn't charged in a multiagency anti-human-trafficking operation that resulted in 25 arrests, including Kraft's, and shut down 10 Asian day spas in South Florida last month. None of the spas is registered to Yang or her family. A company Yang registered in 2017, GY US Investments LLC, "provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace," according to a translation of the company's now-defunct website, which is mostly in Chinese. That has included, the website claims, access to presidential dinners and roundtables, White House events, photo opportunities and "VIP" activities including the "opportunity to interact with the president, the Minister of Commerce and other political figures." The site also featured numerous photographs, including a picture of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club and photographs of Yang with Trump. Yang is described on the website as the company's "Founder CEO," as well as a member of a "Presidential Fundraising Committee" and a "Presidential club member." The FBI request comes as House Democrats have launched investigations into all aspects of Trump's White House, businesses and foreign financial dealings. Also Monday, a deadline passed for 81 people, businesses and organizations to respond to a broad document request issued by Nadler's Judiciary panel earlier this month. Without naming names, Nadler said in a statement that the committee has already received "tens of thousands" of documents from "a large number" of recipients. He said some have requested a subpoena before they are comfortable complying. It is my hope that we will receive cooperation from the remainder of the list, and will be working to find an appropriate accommodation with any individual who may be reluctant to cooperate with our investigation, Nadler said. An American flag drapes the hood of the last Chevrolet Cruze as it comes off the assembly line at a General Motors plant where 1,700 hourly positions are being eliminated perhaps for good, on Wednesday, March 6, 2019, in Lordstown, Ohio. The factory near Youngstown is the first of five North American auto plants that GM plans to shut down by next year. (Tim O'Hara via AP) Read more WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump stepped up his pressure on General Motors to reopen an Ohio manufacturing plant that recently closed and put 1,700 people out of work. Trump's arm-twisting came in two separate tweets on Saturday and Sunday . He called on GM to reopen its Lordstown plant or find another owner, while insisting that the Detroit automaker "must act quickly." He also blasted GM for letting down the U.S. and asserted "much better" automakers are coming to the country. Trump praised Toyota for its investments in the U.S. in an apparent attempt to depict GM as being less committed to its home country than the Japan automaker. GM didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday. The Lordstown closure has become a hot-button issue in an area of Ohio that is expected to be critical for Trump if he seeks re-election as promised in 2020. Trump prevailed in Ohio in the 2016 election, a win that helped him win enough electoral votes to become president despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. That may be one reason why Trump joined a coalition of Ohio lawmakers in efforts to get the Lordstown plant running again. The tweets marked some of his most pointed criticism of GM so far. Trump has skewered several other U.S. companies for not doing more to help their country's economy, but his remarks so far have been more bark than bite. For instance, he has publicly called upon Apple to shift most of its manufacturing from China to the U.S., but the Silicon Valley company continues to make its iPhones and most other products overseas. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, last week expressed doubts GM will reopen its Lordstown plant, but said the automaker indicated it's in talks with another company about using the site. More than 16 million vehicles were made at the Lordstown plant during its 53-year history until GM closed it earlier this month as part of a massive reorganization. The company also intends to close four other North American plants by early next year. The late Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., in June 2017. President Trump continued his attack on McCain for a second day, tweeting again about the role the late Arizona Republican senator played in sharing the so-called Steele Dossier with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the media. Read more (Bloomberg) President Trump continued his attack on John McCain for a second day, tweeting again about the role the late Arizona Republican senator played in sharing the so-called Steele Dossier with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the media. McCain gave a copy of the first 33 pages of the dossier to the FBI in December 2016, which Fox News said was confirmed by former senior counterintelligence FBI agent Bill Priestap in a newly released filing. British intelligence officer Christopher Steele assembled the dossier that allegedly suggested a coordinated Russian effort to help Trump win the presidency. In January 2017, McCain issued a statement saying hed been given a copy of the dossier. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the director of the FBI. The late senator, a onetime Navy pilot who was North Vietnams most prominent prisoner of war, died of cancer about seven months ago. Sunday marked the second straight day that Trump tweeted about McCains role in spreading the information. The tweets started on Saturday when Trump quoted what former independent counsel Ken Starr, who headed the investigation into the Clinton administration, said about McCain on Fox & Friends. Trump ended his tweet with a reference to McCains vote against the GOP Senate majority in the attempt to repeal Obamacare in 2017. McCains daughter Meghan McCain responded to Trumps tweet on Saturday. In response to Trumps tweet Sunday, she added that my father lives rent free in your head. She later deleted the tweet. McCain was Trumps most potent critic, willing to oppose the president even when it shook Capitol Hill. Trump and McCain got off on bad footing from the start of the presidents campaign, when in July 2015 Trump derided the most renowned element of the senators biography his years-long captivity and torture during the Vietnam War. McCain was only a war hero because he was captured, Trump famously declared at a conservative conference, adding I like people who werent captured. James Comey, the FBI director fired by Trump, has rejected suggestions that the Russia investigation was prompted by allegations in the dossier. It was not, Comey told House lawmakers in December. Rather, he said, the basis for starting the probe was the information about a conversation that a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser known to be George Papadopolous had with an individual in London about stolen emails that the Russians had that would be harmful to Hillary Clinton. (Adds context throughout.) With assistance from Larry Liebert. To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Linus Chua, Virginia Van Natta 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Sunday Briefing: Victories for Chance Kornuth and Andras Nemeth March 18, 2019 Matthew Pitt There were some incredible results in the online poker tournament world on Mar. 17 with several well-known and established players taking down major events. Chance Kornuth and Andras Nemeth were among those big winners, lets take a look at this weeks edition of the Sunday Briefing. PokerStars $109 Sunday Million Date March 17th Buy-in $109 Guarantee $1,000,000 Entrants 10,360 Prize pool $1,036,000 ITM 1,826 This weeks $109 Sunday Million attracted a field of 10,360 who created a $1,036,000 prize pool that was shared among the top 1,826 finishers. Scraping into the money banked $182 while the champion was set to receive more than $108,000. $7,727 was the least anyone at the final table could win, and this was the sum MkMyWishFish walked away with after busting in ninth-place. Each of the other eight finalists was now guaranteed a five-figure score with Germanys DirtyTowel turning their $109 into $10,747 after falling in eighth-place. Talented Austrian [email protected] crashed out of the Sunday Million in seventh-place and collected $14,947 while German grinder waterboy1921 secured a $20,789 prize following their bust out in sixth-place. The prize money kept on growing with Swedens ShipitFTW911 padding their bankroll with $28,914 before a brace of Brazilians busted in fourth and third-place. danilo18_BR finished in fourth-place for $40,213 with Leo Borgheti locking up $55,929 and the bronze medal. Romanias luigy666 and Croatias QTsNvrF0ld fought for the first-place finish and the lions share of the prize pool. It was the Romanian who emerged victoriously, and they helped themselves to $108,192 with this weeks Sunday Million runner-up winning $77,787. Place Player Country Prize 1 luigy666 Romania $108,192 2 QTsNvrF0ld Croatia $77,787 3 Leo Borgheti Brazil $55,929 4 danilo18_BR Brazil $40,213 5 ShipitFTW911 Sweden $28,914 6 waterboy1921 Germany $20,789 7 [email protected] Austria $14,947 8 DirtyTowel Germany $10,747 9 MkMyWishFish United Kingdom $7,727 PokerStars $2,100 Sunday High Roller Date March 17th Buy-in $2,100 Guarantee $200,000 Entrants 110 Prize pool $220,000 ITM 13 It was a case of third times a charm for Andras probirs Nemeth in the PokerStars $2,100 Sunday High Roller after his third-bullet secured him first-place and $50,695. Nemeths fellow Hungarian KuuL burst the bubble after falling in 14th place meaning everyone remaining won at least $5,445. This sum increased to $6,137 by the time the final table was reached and was the amount collected by anteen of Sweden. Netherlands-based British star Conor 1_conor_b_1 Beresford saw his tournament end in an eighth-place finish worth $7,990 before Samuel uropan Vousden banked $10,404 after exiting in seventh-place. Vousdens countryman Sami Lrslzk Kelopuro then busted in sixth-place to turn his $2,100 into $13,547. Any of the final five players would have made a worthy champion, but fifth-place was as far as Russias DRONCHEK would progress to, a finish worth $17,368. The Russian was joined on the rail first by Niklas Lena900 Astedt ($22,966) and WATnlos ($29,903) to set up an intriguing heads-up match between Nemeth and Dmitry yurasov1990 Yurasov. Nemeth dispatched his opponent in second-place, which was worth $38,935, and banked the $50,695 top prize for himself. Place Player Country Prize 1 Andras probirs Nemeth Hungary $50,695 2 Dmitry yurasov1990 Yurasov Belarus $38,935 3 WATnlos Austria $29,903 4 Niklas Lena900 Astedt Sweden $22,966 5 DRONCHEK Russia $17,638 6 Sami Lrslzk Kelopuro Finland $13,547 7 Samuel uropan Vousden Finland $10,404 8 Conor 1_conor_b_1 Beresford Netherlands $7,990 9 anteen Sweden $6,137 Andras probirs Nemeth from Hungary won for $50,695 partypoker Sunday High Roller Gladiator: $250K Gtd Date March 17th Buy-in $2,100 Guarantee $250,000 Entrants 119 Prize pool $250,000 ITM 16 Chance ChanceSeeYou Kornuth was a big winner at partypoker after he topped a field of 119-entrants in the partypoker Sunday High Roller Gladiator: $250K Gtd event. Some of the bounty payments in this PKO tournament were substantial, although none were bigger than Kornuths haul. The popular Canadian won $23,543 for his first-place finish, and this was boosted by $43,279 worth of bounties, including that of second-place finisher madgenius87 of Austria who won a combined $28,046 for their $2,100 buy-in. We have to give a shout out to sixth-place finisher ojanOmaha of Sweden because they had been accumulating bounties throughout the tournament. By the time they busted in sixth-place, the Swede had secured $7,776 worth of bounties, making a total prize of $14,499, $500 more than fifth-place finisher PokerBrothersTM walked away with. The man of the hour, however, was Kornuth who shone at the final table and added another major title to his already impressive resume. Place Player Country Prize Bounty Prize Total Prize 1 Chance ChanceSeeYou Kornuth Canada $23,543 $43,279 $66,822 2 madgenius87 Austria $23,518 $4,528 $28,046 3 skitzo793 Canada $16,807 $3,412 $20,219 4 Algorhtym Sweden $11,765 $4,462 $16,227 5 PokerBrothersTM Belarus $8,740 $5,250 $13,990 6 ojanOMaha Sweden $6,723 $7,776 $14,499 7 RovoDice Latvia $5,378 $5,446 $10,824 8 onehundredeyes Austria $4,370 $1,968 $6,338 Chance Kornuth won for a total score of $66,822 partypoker Sunday High Roller Deepstack: $200K Gtd Date March 17th Buy-in $1,050 Guarantee $200,000 Entrants 195 Prize pool $200,000 ITM 32 High stakes tournament regular Chelsea72 was crowned partypoker Sunday High Roller Deepstack: $200K Gtd champion after outlasting 194-opponents in the $1,050 buy-in tournament. Thirty-two places were paid with a min-cash weighing in at $2,080, a final table appearance boosting this amount to $4,600 and first-place being worth $40,780. Dutch player GewoonBoef was the first casualty at the eight-handed final table and thus collected $4,600 and they were joined on the sidelines by Gb618 of Brazil ($6,200) and Canadas KERRMODE ($8,400), the latter being the last player not to win a five-figure sum. Kyle KPitts34 Julius was the next player to head to the showers, although doing so having secured an $11,000 addition to his bankroll. Fourth-place and $15,600 went to Kenny Spacey1891 Hallaert before HeavensEdge222 came unstuck in third-place for $21,100. Chelsea72 found themselves heads-up against Viktor Isildur1 Blom but was unfazed by their superstar opponent and ran out a worthy winner. First-place netted Chelsea72 $40,780 while Blom added $29,600 to his partypoker account and will no doubt use these funds in some high stakes cash games in the future. Place Player Country Prize 1 Chelsea72 Austria $40,780 2 Viktor Isildur1 Blom Sweden $29,600 3 HeavensEdge222 Mexico $21,100 4 Kenny Spacey1891 Hallaert United Kingdom $15,600 5 Kyle KPitts34 Julius Canada $11,000 6 KERRMODE Canada $8,400 7 Gb618 Brazil $6,200 8 GewoonBoef Netherlands $4,600 Viktor Blom finished runner-up for $29,600 Natural8 Sunday Blade $5K Date March 17th Buy-in $5,000 Guarantee $200,000 Entrants 59 Prize pool $280,250 ITM 7 ImLividBuddy from Thailand continued their impressive run at Natural8 with a victory in one of two Sunday Blade $5Ks that ran on Mar. 17. The Thailand-based grinder is a regular in the biggest buy-in tournaments on Natural8. They banked another $97,088 after outlasting 58-opponents in this event, defeating the United Kingdoms chan593 heads-up for the title, resigning the runner-up to a $59,335 consolation prize. Each of the seven players who cashed in the Sunday Blade $5K walked away with at least $11,633. Hungarys PokerBluff1 busted in seventh-place for $11,633 and ExclusiveA of the Netherlands banked $16,114 after falling in sixth-place. Fifth-place and $22,322 went to AlfredDelia of Canada before FuTimReilly netted $30,921 when their run ended in fourth-place. Austrias LlinusLLove collected $42,834 after busting in third-place. ImLividBuddy also won more than $108,000 when they triumphed in a $10,000 buy-in tournament that was exclusive to the GG Poker site on the same network as Natural8. Quite the weekend for them. Place Player Country Prize 1 ImLividBuddy Thailand $97,088 2 chan593 United Kingdom $59,335 3 LlinusLLove Austria $42,834 4 FuTimReilly Austria $30,921 5 AlfredDelia Canada $22,322 6 ExclusiveA Netherlands $16,114 7 PokerBluff1 Hungary $11,633 Natural8 Sunday Blade $5K Date March 17th Buy-in $5,000 Guarantee $200,000 Entrants 46 Prize pool $218,500 ITM 6 An earlier Sunday Blade $5K attracted 46 runners who created a $218,500 prize pool that was shared among the top six finishers. FkTheseGuysBro was the unfortunate player to bubble, paving the way for the final six players to cash. ImLividBuddy, who would later win another $5K and $10K event, finished in sixth-place for $10,450 and was joined on the rail by oivens22 whose fifth-place finish banked $15,558. SasukeUchiha fired five bullets, meaning he actually lost money despite cashing for $23,163 when he fell in fourth-place, with Shark Bait scooping $34,485 for their third-place exit. Heads-up was between Canadas Picasso16 and Mexicos carsonwentz but the battle didnt last long as the last standing duo struck a deal for the remaining prize pool, the former walking away with the title and $67,797 with second-place now worth $67,045. Place Player Country Prize 1 Picasso16 Canada $67,797* 2 carsonwentz Mexico $67,045* 3 Shark Bait Canada $34,485 4 SasukeUchiha Canada $23,163 5 oviens22 Canada $15,558 6 ImLividBuddy Thailand $10,450 *reflects a heads-up deal 888poker $50,000 Whale Date March 17th Buy-in $1,050 Guarantee $50,000 Entrants 43 Prize pool $50,000 ITM 4 This weekends 888poker $50,000 Whale drew a compact crowd of 43 entrants who competed to finish in the top four places where $50,000 was paid out. Russian star josef_shvjek was the first player to cash, their fourth-place bust out bagging them $5,000 for their $1,050 investment. Next to the cashier was Russias Panzerfish who walked away with a $7,500 prize and whose exit left WalnutPix of the United Kingdom and tinchoarce from Argentina to play one-on-one for the title. No deal was struck despite there being a $7,500 difference between first and second-place, 50 percent of the second-place prize. This meant when WalnutPix busted as the runner-up, they netted $15,000 while the champion, tinchoarce, padded their bankroll with $22,500. Place Player Country Prize 1 tinchoarce Argentina $22,500 2 WalnutPix United Kingdom $15,000 3 Panzerfish Russia $7,500 4 josef_shvejk Russia $5,000 888poker $100,000 Sunday Mega Deep Date March 17th Buy-in $215 Guarantee $100,000 Entrants 432 Prize pool $100,000 ITM 45 A field of 432-entrants took part in the 888poker $100,000 Sunday Mega Deep and were all outlasted by paraRC of the United Kingdom who is now enjoying having $19,350 in their 888poker account. paraRC was one of four British players at the nine-handed final table, plus there was the popular Irish grinder and recent author Dara Doked OKearney; the Irishman crashed out in seventh-place for $3,400. The first of the British players fell in fifth-place, rivaldi13 walking away with $5,700. Next was Ian Simpioni Simpson whose tournament ended abruptly in fourth-place, which was good for $8,250. Tupastacerdo then busted in third-place for an $11,000 score, leaving paraRC and Germanys IbetUfold as the last players standing. The Germany lost the heads-up battle, but still secured a $14,500 payday, with paraRC banking the $19,350 top prize. Place Player Country Prize 1 paraRC United Kingdom $19,350 2 IbetUfold Germany $14,500 3 tupastacerdo United Kingdom $11,000 4 Ian Simpioni Simpson United Kingdom $8,250 5 rivaldi13 United Kingdom $5,700 6 eltxupacabra $4,400 7 Dara Doked OKearney Ireland $3,400 8 PokerJoe332 Croatia $2,400 9 aaurelio Brazil $1,750 The Stars Group is a majority shareholder in iBus Media 5.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard After Meet The Press moderator Chuck Todd tried to blame Obama, not Trump and the GOP for the division in America, Beto ORourke set the record straight. Todd asked, Youre not the first candidate to say Im going to bring this country together. The most recent Democratic president a lot of people put their hope in and thought he was the answer that was going to do that. Why do you think that didnt happen in Obamas eight years? What was hard and why do you think youll be able to do it? ORourke answered, Yeah. I dont know. I know that President Obama worked incredibly hard to find common ground with Republicans and Democrats alike, took a message to the entire country. But Ill say he was able to achieve a heck of a lot in those eight years. Domestically you look at the Affordable Care Act and millions of Americans who lead better lives, many of those lives saved because of that legislation. In foreign policy you prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And there were little and perhaps smaller victories along the way. All I know is that everyone Ive met, the most partisan Democrat, the most hardcore Republican, wants to see us come together and they want to make sure that we get something done. They dont want the perfect to become the enemy of the good. And as I shared with someone earlier today, if we wait until were in office to begin this work it will be too late. It has to start now in the way that we campaign. Video: Chuck Todd with an attack on Obama that was straight out of Fox News, but Beto ORourke set the record straight. pic.twitter.com/hxtbEJMA2A Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 17, 2019 Chuck Todd And The Medias Double Standard On Democrats and Trump According to Chuck Todd, Obama didnt heal hundreds of years of racial divide during his two terms in office, so all Democrats are not to be trusted. Trump literally launched himself into politics with a racist attack on the then president and began his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans rapists, but that is overlooked by Todd and others in the corporate media. People like Chuck Todd at the nations largest media organizations dont hold Trump to the same standard that they are using for Democrats. Barack Obama accomplished more for the country in a day than Trump has during his entire term in office. Democrats need to learn that big corporate owned media outlets have made a lot of money off of the Trump presidency. The facts are ignored by them. Democrats need to do what ORourke did with Todds question. The Texas Democrat didnt run from Obamas record. Instead, he reminded the country of how good we had it with an honest president who made his nation proud. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 1.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The RNC showed that the Republican Party has now been remade in the image of Trump by putting out a bigoted St. Patricks Day tweet that offended far and wide. The RNCs tweet was trying to both insult Irish people and Beto ORourke: On this St. Paddys Day, a special message from noted Irishman Robert Francis ORourke. pic.twitter.com/JRjMEXhZRY GOP (@GOP) March 17, 2019 The tweet of a photoshopped mugshot of ORourke was trying to point that Beto is not Hispanic while playing into insulting stereotypes about Irish people. The backlash on Twitter was quick and severe: This party has truly turned into a disgrace. Reagan and the GOP of a long gone era of grace and class are rolling over in their graves. Shame on you people. pic.twitter.com/0cb3q4FwA3 Lesley Abravanel (@lesleyabravanel) March 17, 2019 Dear @GOP: When people accused you of being racist towards non-whites, this was not the solution people had in mind. Everyday Freethought (@EFreethought) March 17, 2019 Im sure Lincoln would be proud of this tweet. You guys are really going high here Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) March 17, 2019 As an Irishman this is deplorable. As an American it is unpatriotic. As a human it is racist. Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) March 17, 2019 The Republican Party has completely sold out to racism and bigotry Is Donald Trump Jr. running the RNC Twitter account? Who thought this tweet was a good idea? Republicans are now in the place where the only people they are not trying to offend and make sure that they never vote for another Republican candidate are white men. If you arent a white man, youre not a real Republican in Donald Trumps party. The tweet didnt even go viral. The RNC is getting all of this backlash for a Twitter failure. They didnt even get the attention that they were seeking. The Republican Party is racism and bigotry, and the stain being left by Trump may never be cleaned and undone. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 541 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard By Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) The United States will withdraw or deny visas to any International Criminal Court personnel investigating possible war crimes by U.S. forces or allies in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday. The court, which sits in The Hague, responded that it was an independent and impartial institution and would continue to do its work undeterred by Washingtons actions. The Trump administration threatened in September to ban ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the United States and sanction funds they have there if the court launched a probe of war crimes in Afghanistan. Washington took the first step on Friday with Pompeos announcement. Im announcing a policy of U.S. visa restrictions on those individuals directly responsible for any ICC investigation of U.S. personnel, Pompeo told a news conference in Washington. These visa restrictions may also be used to deter ICC efforts to pursue allied personnel, including Israelis, without allies consent. Pompeo said the policy was already being implemented but would not elaborate, citing visa privacy laws. These visa restrictions will not be the end of our efforts, he said. Were prepared to take additional steps, including economic sanctions, if the ICC does not change its course. Human Rights Watch called the announcement a thuggish attempt to penalize investigators at the court. Taking action against those who work for the ICC sends a clear message to torturers and murderers alike: Their crimes may continue unchecked, the groups Washington director, Andrea Prasow, said, calling on U.S. lawmakers to express support for the court. In November 2017, the ICC prosecutor requested authorization from judges to initiate an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan since May 1, 2003, including in states where the CIA held prisoners. Judges are reviewing all material submitted by the prosecutor, and must decide whether or not to authorize an investigation. With 123 member states, including the entire European Union, the ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity when a country is unable or unwilling to prosecute perpetrators. Major powers, including the United States, China and Russia, are not members. A State Department official said the United States would allow court officials to travel for meetings to the United Nations headquarters in New York. Under these measures, we will not interfere with travel to the U.N. for official U.N. purposes, the official said. The ICC is not part of the United Nations. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Anthony Deutsch; writing by Doina Chiacu; editing by Phil Berlowitz and Jonathan Oatis) 682 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Democrats are sick of watching Mitch McConnell stack the federal judiciary including the Supreme Court with right-wing judges. So now many of them want to retaliate, and they are starting to talk about a radical response that would allow a future Democratic president and Senate to add two new liberal justices to the highest court in the land. Current 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have all said they would not rule out expanding the Supreme Court if elected president, according to a new article in POLITICO. After watching Mitch McConnell transform the judiciary over the past four years, liberals are demanding a bold response. And Democrats are listeninghttps://t.co/m5cJstYiHw POLITICO (@politico) March 18, 2019 Until recently the idea of adding Supreme Court justices was considered a far out idea with few supporters. But now it seems everyone is interested in the idea. According to POLITICO: The surprising openness from White House hopefuls along with other prominent Senate Democrats to making sweeping changes from adding seats to the high court to imposing term limits on judges and more comes as the party is eager to chip away at the GOPs growing advantage in the courts. We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court, said Harris, the junior U.S. Senator from California We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that. Expanding the Supreme Court would be an historic move by a party that until this year was completely shut out of power in Washington. It would lead to an intense fight in Congress, and would also require abandoning many past judicial and congressional norms. Democrats, however, argue that after McConnell and other Republicans blocked Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland (and other federal judgeships) they now must find an appropriate way to fight back. In a recent interview Gillibrand said that she believes that Justice Neil Gorsuch holds an illegitimate seat on the high court. The junior Senator from New York also said that she believes the Senate must move quickly to impose strict new ethics rules on the Supreme Court. Senator Warren of Massachusetts also added: Its not just about expansion, its about depoliticizing the Supreme Court. Its a conversation thats worth having. Warren also mentioned bringing appellate judges into Supreme Court cases as an option. Previously two other Democratic candidates South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Beto ORourke both said they would consider increasing by two the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Pushing the expansion effort are many progressive groups, including Demand Justice and Indivisible. These groups are very anxious for Democrats to go on the offensive and fight back against Republicans. Take the Supreme Court Out of Politics, and Take Politics Out of the Supreme Court Most people, however, want the high court to be taken out of politics, and for politics to be taken out of the court. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who supports the idea of expanding the Supreme Court, said: The court should not be a court that you can figure out who the Republican judges are and who arent. And she is right. Justice should be blind, and the outcome of court cases should be based on law, not the political biases of Supreme Court justices. But since the GOP has stacked the Supreme Court with their own conservative partisans like Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, it is entirely reasonable now to balance things out by allowing a Democratic president to appoint two new justices with liberal backgrounds. 1.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on the rise of white nationalism in the coming weeks. Democrats are investigating the violence that Trump refuses to condemn The Daily Beast reported: The House Judiciary Committee is planning on hosting a hearing in the coming weeks addressing the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. and the hate crime and hate speech surrounding the movement, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the committees schedule. Though plans are still being finalized, the committee expects to bring in officials from within the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for questioning on the rise of white nationalism in the U.S and the efforts the agencies are currently adopting to combat it. One lawmaker said the goal is to have a hearing in early April. Trump blew off white nationalism as no big deal When Trump was asked about the rise of white nationalism after the New Zealand white nationalist terrorist attack, he said, I dont really. I think its a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps thats the case. I dont know enough about it yet. Theyre just learning about the person and the people involved. But its certainly a terrible thing. Terrible thing. Trump is afraid of alienating white nationalists because they are some of his biggest supporters. Trump uses the language and buzz words of white nationalism when talking about immigrants and immigration. Donald Trump views denouncing racism, bigotry, and white nationalism as bad politics, which is why it is vital that House Democrats stand up to this rising threat that is being inspired by the man in the Oval Office. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.> Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 3.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard This morning, the independent nonprofit news organization, ProPublica, published new information on a federal search warrant they had uncovered regarding major Trump Fundraiser, Elliott Broidy. In announcing the shocking new information about one of the top money men in the Republican Party, ProPublica tweeted: The sealed warrant we obtained that the Feds used to raid Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidys office cites three potential crimes: The sealed warrant we obtained that the Feds used to raid Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidys office cites three potential crimes: Conspiracy Money laundering Violating the law that bans covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials https://t.co/bhkpXukUbs ProPublica (@ProPublica) March 18, 2019 According to ProPublica, federal law enforcement officials obtained a search warrant in July of last year. It allowed them to go into Broidys Los Angeles office looking for documents and records to prove that Broidy and other Republicans in Trumps orbit had been involved in money laundering activities with foreign nationals. Agents were authorized to use the GOP donors hands and face to unlock phones that required fingerprint or facial scans. The warrant gave federal agents authority to search for and confiscate any and all information that had anything to do with Broidys communications and interactions with Trump administration officials. It also allowed them to obtain evidence concerning Broidys foreign contacts. Brody was the national deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee until April of 2018. He resigned from this lofty position of Republican influence just three months before federal authorities obtained the search warrant for his office. As well as being in charge of national Republican money raising, Broidy was one of Donald Trumps major fundraisers during the 2016 campaign. The federal search warrant listed three potential crimes for which authorities were to allowed to seek for possible evidence: Money laundering, Conspiracy against the United States, and Covert and illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign countries. The warrant also indicated that agents were looking for information and documents regarding payments made to Broidy from Malaysian financier Jho Low. Low is currently under investigation for a scandal known as 1MDB which involved the embezzlement of nearly $1 billion by Malaysian officials from a government development corporation. Federal authorities have also been looking into whether Low donated $100,000 to a Trump 2020 fundraiser through an investment company called LNS Capital. It is a federal crime for foreign individuals or companies to donate directly or indirectly to U.S. politicians or fundraising committees. Broidy May Help Bring Down Trump Whether the search warrant is connected to alleged crimes committed by Trump and his campaign has not been disclosed as of this time, although that is likely to be true. Last September we reported that Broidy was being sued by his former mistress who claimed that he coerced her into having an abortion after getting her pregnant. (It was also rumored that Broidy had been involved in paying a woman to get an abortion who Donald Trump had gotten pregnant.) Elliott Broidy is a typical shady Republican fundraiser who may have broken many laws as he worked to elect Donald Trump and other Republicans to office. It appears that law enforcement officials have caught up with Broidy at last, and we should not be surprised if he is cooperating with them. He may turn out to be a key witness as Donald Trump is finally brought to justice for his crimes. 2.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Members of the Senate GOP caucus are now desperately trying to curb the presidents emergency powers according to a report this morning in The Hill. The new effort arose after Donald Trumps veto on Friday of a congressional resolution blocking his declaration of a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Neither house of Congress is expected to have the two-thirds votes needed to override a presidential veto. The move by Senate Republicans is likely to create a new conflict with not only House Democrats but also Trumps White House. Because the president can veto legislation, and because overriding the veto is unlikely, Republicans are now united in believing that the existing laws give the president too much power. Democrats agree with this, but they are seeking a different solution than what the Senate is proposing. Republicans are now have set their sights on making it easier to terminate future emergency declarations by presidents. Its an institutional issue, its a congressional authorities issue. We have the power of the purse, said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Under the National Emergencies Act, there was too much latitude that was given away and we need to pull that back some and let it be used for legitimate national security purposes. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) maintains that there is unanimity in the Senate GOP caucus about changing existing law. The fight over Trumps emergency declaration to build a Mexican border wall has brought to the surface the serious constitutional problems the current law creates. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has asked Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to write draft legislation that would garner the 60 votes needed for a bill to defeat a filibuster and ultimately pass the Senate. Under the current law called the National Emergencies Act Congress is able to vote on a resolution of disapproval if they want to block a presidential emergency declaration. The president, however, can veto the resolution of disapproval, which makes it meaningless unless Congress can muster the votes for an override of the veto, which is very difficult. According to The Hill, even Republican senators who voted with Trump on the emergency declaration want to address the broader constitutional issue of presidential powers. I would like to revisit the emergency powers that Congress has provided to the executive branch, said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who voted with Trump. I do think its going to be a healthy debate to have. McConnell told reporters after a closed-door caucus lunch on Thursday that there was a lot of discomfort with the current law among Republicans. He also announced that they are discussing ways it could be altered. If Congress has grown uneasy with this law, as many have, then we should amend it, said McConnell. I dont know of any president that likes to give up power, but clearly Congress has been asleep at the switch, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) added that there is a lot of people, myself included, who believe that the National Emergencies Act . . . needs to be reformed. Trump has said he could support making future changes to the National Emergencies Act, even though he refused to accept a deal earlier last week. Democrats are suing Trump in court and plan more future votes that will challenge his emergency declaration for the wall. Sources say the House will hold a vote to override Trumps veto on March 26. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats will force a vote on blocking Trumps national emergency every six months. Weve got to be real careful and whether its legislatively or in court, fight him every step of the way, Schumer said. 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Trump knows that he is losing, so the president is encouraging violence as a way to scare voters and keep support for his opponent down in 2020. Trump is trying to scare Democrats During an interview last week, Trump threatened the left and anyone who stands up to him, Its so terrible whats happening. You know, the left plays a tougher game, its very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they dont play it tougher. Okay? I can tell you, I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump I have the tough people, but they dont play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Politically, what Democrats are doing is working. Trump has never been told no in his life, but now he is faced with a co-equal branch of government that isnt backing down and never hesitates to say no. Trump doesnt know what to do, because despite the self-created mythology, the president not skilled at dealmaking or compromise. Since he has no interest in governing but is desperate to hold on to power, all Donald Trump can do is threaten Democrats. Trump doesnt want Democrats feeling safe going to the polls Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes to Hillary Clinton. The president has seen his standing plummet in the three Rust Belt states that he won by 77,000 votes in 2016. With Democratic governors in place in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Republican efforts to suppress the vote will fail. Donald Trump is trying to figure out a way to discourage Democrats from voting in 2020, which is why he has returned to his favorite intimidation tactic of threatening violence. The president has also threatened violence against people protesting him, violence against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and his attorney Rudy Giuliani has threated violence against the American people if Trump is impeached. The threats mean that Democrats are winning, and Trump knows that his time is running out. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook 1.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Donald Trumps 2020 re-election prospects continue to collapse as he is making moves to appease the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party. Although he insanely claimed to have won the presidency in 2016 by a massive landslide, the truth is he barely won the electoral college, and lost the popular vote by a large margin. He won electoral votes in three key states Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 100,000 total votes. Those are states that had previously voted for Democratic presidential candidates for several decades. And now new polls in those three states, plus some others, show that his moves to the right have weakened his approval ratings and severely diminished his chances of winning reelection. According to a report in Axios, Trump is facing what they call a map from hell in 2020. Instead of solidifying his support among a majority of the electorate, and moving to the center to make his policies more appealing, he has been courting extreme elements, including white nationalists. Because of demographic shifts, Republicans now must worry about Arizona, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and other states they have been considering as easy wins for them. Voters in all those states are now younger and more racially diverse than in the past. And Trump has done nothing to appeal to those voters. A recent poll in Florida shows that the majority of voters there do not want him to be reelected. On top of that, Trumps victories in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2016 will be almost impossible to duplicate if Democrats nominate a good candidate. Thats part of the reason for the fascination with more centrist Democrats like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Beto ORourke (D-TX) and former Vice President Joe Biden, Axios wrote. The states that Trump won, but could easily lose, are swingy not super-liberal. Statewide polls in Wisconsin reveal Trump has a precarious path to victory, said the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Trumps disapproval now greatly exceeds his job approval in all of those states. The Detroit Free Press also warned of serious headwinds for the president, writing: Less than half of likely voters believe hes doing a good job, according to some recent polls, and many, if not most, plan to vote for someone else. In fact, one poll in Michigan showed that just 31% of voters there plan to vote for Trump if he runs in 2020. POLITICO has reported that Democratic gains in Pennsylvania during the 2018 midterms should alarm the GOP, saying: A GOP collapse threatens to torpedo Donald Trumps re-election prospects. A high percentage of Republicans continue to support Trump, but this number is deceiving. His high level of GOP support looks impressive, but the actual numbers are a real problem. According to the Brookings Institute, in 2004 Republican affiliation was at nearly 40 percent. But by 2016, it had fallen to about 30 percent. The most recent polls indicate Republican affiliation has dropped to about 20 percent. The Republican Party is Dying, and Trump Is Killing It Many polls as well as last Novembers midterm results show that younger voters, women voters, minority voters, college educated voters, and suburban voters have moved away from the Republican Party in record numbers. Whats left in the party are people with extreme views on immigration and on race, who strongly support Donald Trump. Our current president proved that he is not a leader by his response after the New Zealand massacre of Muslims. He continues to do things that make him wildly popular with white nationalists and racists, but alienate from a majority of the American electorate. In some places, like California, the Republican Party is almost dead. And by taking extreme views on so many important issues Donald Trump is helping to kill it in the rest of the country also. In next years election if he is able to survive and actually run for reelection Donald Trump will indeed be facing a map from hell. But it is a map that he has created for himself, and he is likely to suffer the consequences while going down to an historic defeat. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Changes to flood insurance program to go into effect in 2020, SC rates will change Charles River Laboratories, a Massachusetts-based company, is facing complaints about racial discrimination, harassment and unequal pay based on race at its Charleston facility. Seven employees have filed federal lawsuits. Brad Nettles/Staff The State Law Enforcement Division had to collect information from every city and county in South Carolina to show that they weren't operating David Slade is a senior Post and Courier reporter. His work has been honored nationally by Society of Professional Journalists, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Scripps foundation and others. Reach him at 843-937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.com New York state Senate Democrats have used their first two months in control to pass significant legislation, including voting reforms, the Dream Act and codifying womens reproductive rights. Now, following the collapse of his Amazon HQ2 deal, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trying to slow their progress, telling them to stop listening to progressives or else face political repercussions in the suburbs and put the partys majority at risk. Weve heard it in the governors comments, following the demise of an Amazon deal that he blames on progressive activists, that state senators dont appreciate their own need to get reelected in their own district. And weve seen evidence in the reports that Cuomo has been calling Long Island state senators to dissuade them from supporting the restoration of access to drivers licenses for all on the grounds that it will endanger their reelection prospects. The governors political analysis is wrong. State Senate Democrats should keep pushing for transformative progressive victories this year. Last fall, Democrats won sweeping victories, giving the party a commanding 39 seats in the 63-seat Senate with big victories outside of New York City. From Long Island to upstate, candidates including Rachel May, Jen Metzger and Kevin Thomas supported progressive platforms that mirrored those of progressive candidates in New York City. All of these candidates proved that energy and transformative ideas, rather than timidity, do win elections. Still, Cuomo and other centrists want to tame progressive firebrands by trying to scare suburban Democrats into thinking their colleagues are leaving them out to dry. Their historical example: 2009-2010, when Democrats briefly held Senate control. Following a coup that squandered the majority, Democrats then lost seats the next election and were in the minority until this year. The centrists argue that Democrats lost the election because a caucus led by New York City members forced a vote on the MTA tax that led to the loss of Long Island state senators Craig Johnson and Brian Foley. Suburban Democrats could face a similar fate, they say, in 2020. But 2020 isnt 2010, an off-year election with low Democratic turnout and a highly-energized Tea Party base. First, while not every 2018 election was a blow-out, most winning state Senate Democrats outside of New York City prevailed by large margins, outperforming national results. Six of these senators won by between 8 and 24 percentage points. This should make state Senate Democrats confident, especially going into a presidential election with likely high voter turnout. In 2018, voting surged across New York 49 percent, compared to 31 percent in 2014 with big boosts on Long Island and the Hudson Valley. Turnout in 2020 will be substantially higher. Turnout is always higher in presidential years 57 percent of eligible New Yorkers voted in 2016 but it will be especially true with Democrats motivated to defeat President Donald Trump. Higher overall turnout benefits Democrats because it reduces the discrepancy in voting rates between Democratic-leaning constituencies such as people of color, young people and low-income people, and the richer, older, whiter electorate that favors Republicans. Higher voting rates will help ensure Democrats hold the state Senate in 2020. While Trumps base may also be more enthusiastic to vote with him on the ballot than they were in 2018, the data suggest a net boost for Democrats. On this firm footing, Democrats should stick to the progressive vision that helped secure their strong majority. At bottom, the call for Democrats to slow down after they passed their early landmark bills implies that the rights of women, immigrants and transgender people do not matter in the suburbs. Having led suburban community organizing efforts for years, we know these issues resonate with many suburban residents. And suburban demographic change has brought significant increases in immigrants and people of color who lean progressive. For example, data show that affordable housing can be a winning issue with suburban residents. A 2017 Long Island Index report revealed deep concern about the lack of affordable housing among Long Islanders and strong support for government solutions that increase access to rentals. Similarly, a 2014 statewide poll found 73 percent of voters strongly or somewhat supported government efforts to increase affordability through increased investments and stronger policies to benefit families, homeowners and tenants. Whats more, a key plank of the universal rent control package, a good cause evictions bill, would expand protections for unregulated tenants, making an enormous difference for 1.2 million households living in rentals, and 150,000 households living in mobile homes, outside of New York City. Similarly, restoring access to drivers licenses to all qualified drivers, regardless of immigration status (a policy that New York had in place until the early 2000s, when Gov. George Pataki unwisely eliminated it), is critical for suburban residents who need to drive to get to work or take kids to school. While the governor has allegedly been whispering against this legislation, which he publicly says he supports, theres no evidence to suggest a net cost to Democrats for passing the bill. On the contrary, suburban senators have a built-in immigrant constituency that cares passionately about this issue, as well as strong data on how this legislation will improve road safety and boost the economy and state coffers. In short, state Senate Democrats are not especially vulnerable in 2020, and they should go big in what remains of this legislative session. They should pass public financing of elections, which will also help them stave off efforts by rich individuals and business interests to buy future state Senate elections for Republicans. They should restore access to drivers licenses to all. They should pass universal rent control legislation. And they should dramatically expand access to health care. It may make Cuomo uncomfortable, but a state Senate Democratic majority is here to stay. Its time to take that advantage for a spin and pass the transformative policies that gave Democrats the majority in the first place. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. Jamie Lovegrove is a political reporter covering the South Carolina Statehouse, congressional delegation and campaigns. He previously covered Texas politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News and in Austin for the Texas Tribune. Political Reporter Caitlin Byrd is a political reporter at The Post and Courier and author of the Palmetto Politics newsletter. Before moving to Charleston in 2016, her byline appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times. To date, Byrd has won 17 awards for her work. As temperatures continue to rise, those mounds of snow will continue to get smaller. All that water runs into streams, rivers and places its not meant to go. After Mondays expected high temperature of 35 degrees, each day through Thursday will rise into the mid-40s and overnight lows will dip just below freezing, according to the National Weather Service in La Crosse. Wis. The high across southern Minnesota and northern Iowa is expected to top 50 degrees by Friday. Flooding continues through mid-week along Mississippi River and its tributaries as runoff from last weeks rain and snow melt continues fill streams. Another round of river flooding is expected by this weekend, the weather service says. This past weekend, several spots in southeast Minnesota along the Mississippi River reached the action stage, where flooding has not occurred but is a danger. The Whitewater River receded into its banks on Sunday after cresting at 14.38 feet, nearly a foot above the minor flood stage, late last week. In Rochester, the South Fork of the Zumbro River is well below the action stage. At Zumbro Falls, the Zumbro River was back to below the action stage Monday after cresting at 22.08 feet, minor flood stage, early Saturday morning. The river is expected to rise back into the action stage at Zumbro Falls again this weekend, the NWS reports. Other area rivers expected to reach the action stage again this weekend include the Root River in Houston and the Cedar River and Turkey Creek which the weather service predicts will crest in the moderate flood range by late Sunday in Austin. The weather forecast is for clear or mostly clear skies until Saturday when there is a 30 percent chance of rain in the evening and extending to Sunday. NORRISTOWN Lots of ideas have been tossed around about what to do with the 139-year-old Norristown State Hospital property. A meeting last October at Norristown Municipal Hall drew more than 100 people who came to hear the latest findings from chief consultant Michael Baker International on potential uses for the property and also have the chance to voice their opinions. What we wanted to do with the meeting was present basic information and give the public some additional opportunity to react to that information and give us additional input and comments on their overall thought on this process and the outcome of what is ultimately the best use for the Norristown State Hospital campus, noted MBI project manager Troy Truax. The meeting heralded the next phase of MRIs exhaustive series of studies, which essentially examine the compelling question: Should the property, owned by the state of Pennsylvania and overseen by the Department of General Services, concede to redevelopment or be left as is, preserving open space and continuing to offer social services? The land planning study did not include the portion of the property located in East Norriton Township known as the Norristown Farm Park, and was limited to the 65.4 acres in West Norriton and 133.4 acres in Norristown. Recently, after receiving a study on the potential uses of the property, the Pennsylvania Department of General Services announced in a press release that it will work with the Legislature to transfer ownership of nearly 80 acres for redevelopment opportunities. We understand the role that the Norristown State Hospital plays in the economic health of the surrounding community, noted the departments secretary, Curt Topper. That is why we made a deliberate effort to conduct a land planning process that was transparent, thorough and inclusive in order to come up with the most effective and viable plan for the future of the Norristown State Hospital property. Based on the studys recommendation, the commonwealth will move forward with conveying the front 78 acres to Norristown borough officials or a party of their choosing for redevelopment opportunities, while retaining 120 acres to allow state hospital and county mental health providers to continue their operations. As part of this recommendation, the commonwealth would invest in the demolition and clean up of vacant and dilapidated buildings in the front 78 acres as well as the utility separation and access road separation between the subdivided parcels. Additionally, approximately 98 employees and 100 patients being served by county programs will need to be relocated from the portion of the property being conveyed. Both DGS and DHS will be working closely with the affected programs on developing a relocation plan as well as identifying resources to support the required establishment of a new location to continue the services. In April 2018, DGS contracted with Michael Baker International, Inc. to conduct an independent land planning feasibility study of the Norristown State Hospital campus. The study covers the development of a formalized report containing recommendations for future use of the Norristown State Hospital and encompassing the research and engagements described; property appraisals, environmental site assessments, zoning & planning, financial analysis, stakeholder input, public meetings and marketing of the property. The feedback we received through our public meetings and stakeholder engagement sessions was key in helping us determine the direction we should take regarding the future of the Norristown State Hospital Property, Topper said. We now look forward to working with the legislature to get this process started and get these 78 acres off the states inventory and back onto the local tax rolls where it can contribute to the local economy. Norristown State Hospital was opened in 1880 and covers nearly 199 acres and 55 buildings. The site continues to provide mental health patient care with a capacity of approximately 300 beds, employing approximately 1,900 people. It is the only state hospital in operation in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Once the Pennsylvania General Assembly approves the preferred recommendation and the legislation to proceed is authorized, it is estimated the land conveyance and employee relocation could be complete over a three-year period. While no future meetings are scheduled, the Norristown State Hospital Land Planner Feasibility Study is available online at www.dgs.pa.gov under the business quick links. As a federal prosecutor in South Florida, Alex Acosta, now the Secretary of Labor, gave pedophile Jeffrey Epstein the deal of a lifetime. A federal investigation had revealed dozens of underage victims of Epstein. Yet, through a plea agreement with then-U.S. Attorney Acosta, Epstein managed to plead to only two state prostitution charges, and only one involving a minor. Consequently, Epstein served just 13 months in state prison. He was housed in a private wing at the Palm Beach County jail and allowed work release privileges. Epsteins year of incarceration reportedly included trips to New York and the Virgin Islands. Under the circumstances, this amounts to a sweetheart deal. But now we learn that the deal was even sweeter than we thought. The Washington Post reports that Epstein benefited from an arrangement whereby the only minor Epstein was convicted of soliciting was 16 years old when the offense began. Yet, the minor who initially notified the police about Epsteins crimes was 14 years old. Why was this beneficial to Epstein? Because, as one attorney with expertise in this area of the law told the Post: Society in general is much more punitive and harsh if the victim was 14 versus 17. The collateral consequences, including [sex offender] registration, are much more serious with a younger victim. In Epsteins case, the fact that he was not convicted for soliciting the 14 year-old who blew the whistle on him means that he need not register as a sex offender in New Mexico, where he owns a ranch. That state, like most others, doesnt require registration unless the victim was under 16. According to the Post, Epstein spends most of his time on his estate in the Virgin Islands. He need not register as a sex offender there because he is classified as a low-risk offender. I wonder whether the Virgin Islands would have classified him as such if he had been prosecuted for multiple instances of pedophilia, including with children under the age of 16. In defending his plea deal with Epstein during his confirmation hearing, Acosta testified: [An agreement] that guarantees that someone goes to jail, that guarantees that someone register generally, and that guarantees other outcomes is a good thing. This was always nonsense. If the jail sentence is grossly disproportionate to the offense, the agreement is not a good one. But now we know the Epstein-Acosta deal didnt guarantee that Epstein register as a sex offender in two of the jurisdictions in which he sometimes lives. I assume thats why Acosta slipped the weasel word generally into his testimony. It didnt guarantee this outcome because the current Secretary of Labor sold out the 14 year-old victim who had the courage to report Epsteins criminality. On December 6, the New York Times headlined: U.S. Murder Rate for 2018 Is on Track for a Big Drop. The story was based on homicide statistics from 66 large cities. (The official FBI numbers for 2018 wont come out until September 2019.) The murder rate in the United States in 2018 is on track for the largest one-year drop in five years. *** Murder rose 23 percent nationally between 2014 and 2016 before leveling off in 2017. The Times cant think what might have caused the homicide rate to rise rather dramatically during the last years of the Obama administration. It does provide this useful chart, with the homicide rate for 2018 based on 66-city data: Note that the Y-axis starts at zero, which means that the U.S. has seen a wide variation in our murder rate over the past 50 years. In the 1960s, the murder rate (expressed in homicides per 100,000 population) rose rapidly. By the early 1970s it was around twice the previous level. The homicide rate dipped during the 1980s but remained high until the mid-1990s, and then began to decline sharply. That decline had something to do with the crackdown on crack cocaine. Maybe other factors were at work as well. I think the more widespread ownership of handguns and issuance of carry permits played a positive role. The decline that began in the mid-1990s continued to the point that by 2014, the homicide rate was back where it had been before the social upheaval of the 1960s. But then something happened. In 2015, the homicide rate suddenly reversed its downward trend and spiked upward. In 2016 it jumped upward again. In those two years2015 and 2016there were 4,968 more murders than would have been the case if the 2014 rate had remained steady. (The delta is actually more than that, since population increased after 2014.) This table tells the story. It should be noted that other violent crimes increased during the last two years of the Obama administration, as well. The incidence of forcible rape, like homicide, has been in long-term declinedown from a high of 42.8 per 100,000 in 1992 to 25.9 in 2013. It rose slowly for a couple of years, then took off like a shot in 2016, jumping suddenly from 28.4 per 100,000 to 40.9. Aggravated assault similarly spiked in 2015 and 2016, while property crimes in general continued their historic decline. So what happened in 2015 and 2016 to cause the violent crime rate, including the homicide rate, to rise after decades of decline? I cant think of any explanation other than the Black Lives Matter movement and the relentless attacks on law enforcement that it engendered, which were supported by the Obama administration. But what happened when Donald Trump took over in the White House? The homicide and violent crime rates began to fall again. If the New York Timess projection is correct, the second year of the Trump administration saw a steeper decline in the homicide rate. Again, what could possibly have caused this change? I cant think of a plausible theory other than the Trump administrations renewed support for law enforcement and the waning of the anti-police Black Lives Matter movement. Something happened beginning in 2017 that has saved thousands of lives. If it wasnt the new administration in Washington, what was it? White male presidential candidates Beto ORourke and Bernie Sanders are well out in front in the Democratic presidential fundraising sweepstakes, while Joe Biden and Sanders dwarf the field in the polls. Their female, African-American, and Latino rivals have been left in the dust so far. The Daily Caller reports: ORourke announced Monday morning that his campaign brought in a record $6.1 million in online fundraising dollars within the first 24 hours of launching last week, more than any other announced Democrat. Sanders was the only candidate to come close to matching ORourkes support, with $5.925 million raised within the first 24 hours after his announcement. ORourke and Sanders initial 24-hour fundraising combined put them above the entirety of the rest of the Democratic field, including leaders like Senators Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar; Washington Governor Jay Inslee; and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. To add patriarchal insult to feminist injury, a pair of old white guys Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, who hasnt yet said hes running lead in the polls: Morning Consults latest analysis shows overwhelming support for Biden and Sanders amongst national Democrats with 58 percent of Democratic primary voters supporting them. Harris and ORourke trailed the pair with 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Naturally, some feminists are crying foul. One complained, being a white man [is] an extremely powerful polling [and] fundraising boon, as it has always, always been. Another whined: I feel like the media is always captivated by the person they seem to think is a phenom: Bernie. Trump. Beto. But they always seem to be white men who are phenoms. In a year where we have more choices than ever, more women and more persons of color than ever, none of them seem to be deemed a phenom. Heres the thing. When folks throw $6.1 million at you in 24 hours, youre a phenom. When you attract ten thousand people or more to your rallies, youre a phenom. When, without any establishment support and the deck stacked against you, you nearly knock off Hillary Clinton, youre a phenom. The news media doesnt anoint phenoms, it identifies them based mainly on the crowds they attract and the money they raise. It then gives their readers/viewers what they want coverage of politicians who appeal to, or at least intrigue, them. Jeff Jarvis opines: We have an amazing field of women, people of color, and LGBTQ candidates. Speaking as an old white man, we dont need more white men. But if the diversity field were amazing, at least one of its members would be doing better in the polls and the money sweepstakes. In 2008, when that field contained a genuine phenom, he had no trouble with polling or fundraising. Obamas success doesnt refute feminist claims that the deck is stacked against women. However, Hillary Clintons success arguably does. When the past two Democratic nominees are an African-American male and a white female, its difficult to argue that being a white male is a boon for Democrats seeking the presidential nomination. In this cycle, the problem for those determined to nominate a woman is that the women running lack charisma and, in most cases, name recognition. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Kristen Gillibrand are newcomers to the national political stage. Elizabeth Warren has been around for a while, but lacks charisma and has that Pocahontas problem. If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were eligible and running for president, Im pretty sure her fundraising would be fine and her poll numbers might well be better than those of Harris, Klobuchar, and Gillibrand. If only AOC were a few years old, she could be the female answer to Beto ORourke, the man whose early success seems to irritate hard-core feminists the most. Finally, lets remember that the feminist complaint about the poor showing, to date, of female contenders is, in considerable part, a grievance against female rank-and-file Democrats. Any one of these contenders could raise millions and easily keep up with Biden and Sanders in the polls if she impressed Democratic women as strongly as she impresses Jeff Jarvis. Thus far, they havent. Thats not the medias fault. PR-Inside.com: 2019-03-18 15:11:44 Press Information Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ Published by Abhishek Budholiya +1-347-918-3531 e-mail http://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 607 Words 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,,Manager3479183531Abhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531 Ship Repair and Maintenance Services include typical repair and maintenance activity, subject to vessels, either planned or unplanned. The vessel is taken to a repair dock where it is washed; rust, old paint and vegetation is removed; and antifouling agents & marine paints are renewed.The global market for Ship Repair and Maintenance Services is expected to witness significant growth in 2018, reaching a market value of US$ 20,532.6 Mn while growing at a y-o-y growth rate of 6.4% as compared to 2017. Furthermore, the global demand for Ship Repair and Maintenance Services will also be influenced by the growing seaborne trade and the cyclical nature of shipping industry.Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5645 Ship Repair and Maintenance Services Market: Overview and AnalysisIn the recent past, the Ship Repair and Maintenance Services market has witnessed significant developments from the competition perspective. Increase in the demand for new ships and activities associated with ship repair and maintenance services can mainly be attributed to the improvements in mainland trade routes, such as Far East-Europe trade route. Another factor impacting the growth of the ship repair and maintenance services market is shortening of supply chains, in terms of both distance and number of nodes. This particular factor has been responsible for reducing the volume of the global trade as fewer factories and countries are involved in the production process. The aforementioned factors will play a crucial role in the development of the global ship repair and maintenance services market during the forecast period.Based on vessel type, the oil & chemical tankers and bulk carriers segments are expected to remain dominant in the global Ship Repair and Maintenance Services market, in terms of value share, and will account for approximately 60% share by the end of 2028. Moreover, Singapore, Dubai and Bahrain have the required infrastructure to repair offshore support vessels and are likely to forge ahead in the ship repair and maintenance services marketBased on services type, dockage, hull part and engine parts are the key segments contributing to the growth of the global ship repair and maintenance services market revenue. In the ship repair and maintenance services market, Dockage and hull part services are expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.7% and 7.3%, respectively.In 2017, South East Asia & Pacific ship repair and maintenance services market is estimated to be the most attractive region in the global Ship Repair and Maintenance Services market and accounted for more than 34.8% of the global ship repair and maintenance services market share. Further, SEAP is pegged to control the global Ship Repair and Maintenance Services market in the future as well. Within the SEAP Ship Repair and Maintenance Services market, Singapore dominates the world with its quality and cost-effective ship repair and maintenance services. Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines will create and witness fierce competition in the regional ship repair and maintenance services market.Increased seaborne trade against the backdrop of recent economic boom in China and other Asian countries has prompted trans-shipment activities. As a result, demand for ship repair and maintenance services activities in the region is set to witness strong growth rate. Tax incentives to shipyards provided by various government across the globe will augment the growth of the ship repair and maintenance services market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-5645 Hanjin Heavy Industries, Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co., Ltd., China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), Damen Shipyards Group, Cochin Shipyard Limited, Swissco Holdings Limited, Egyptian Ship Repair & Building Company, Desan Shipyard, Sembcorp Marine Ltd. and United Shipbuilding Corporation are some of the key players operating in the global Ship Repair and Maintenance Services market. PR-Inside.com: 2019-03-18 18:16:21 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 664 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 CHENGDU, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / March 18, 2019 / Since Justin Sun announced that VenaPi wallet fully dedicated to Tron public chain, VenaPi has soon won favor of users and spread across the world.VenaPi has users in more than 30 countries and regions, and has become the most international wallet in Tron. Many Dapp ranking agencies, including DAppRadar, give high praise to VenaPi and till now, active users of VenaPi have exceeded 3000 and is still growing exponentially.In January 2019, Ching Zhu, VenaPi CEO was invited to San Francisco to participate in niTROn Summit. In the summit, Ching talked with Justin Sun about roadmap of VenaPi and has won great recognition.Quality Services and Rich DApp ResourcesAt present, VenaPi has partnered with more than 80 DApps, including 60 games, 5 exchanges, 15 tools. VenaPi team has been working hard to provide quality services to users as well as DApp projects.For example, the star Dapp - HashDice, once hit the top three in Tron Dapp rankings, chose to firstly launch in VenaPi and support VENA Token rolling. VenaPi team has helped Dapps quickly won a lot of attention from Dapp players. Vminer, a mining Dapp also chose to firstly introduce in VenaPi wallet.As a global Wallet + Dapp Browser, VenaPi supports 14 languages including Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, etc. Users from all over the world can easily use VenaPi in mobile phone anytime and anywhere.VenaPi provides rich DApp resources. The T-Bank Dapp, which is a co-development project by VenaPi team, allowing users to obtain energy resources and save users a lot of cost compared to paying TRX directly. For users, if they do not want to sacrifice liquidity by freezing large amount of TRX for energy, T-Bank offers them a new option and help save money.VenaPi also helps a lot of Dapps gain attention from users, for example, VenaPi provides airdrops tool which has issued airdrops for more than a dozen projects, attracting more than 10,000 users.Web version of VenaPi is also on the way. You can find VenaPi in Google Play and you can also download it directly through the official website https://venapi.net/#/en Dedicated to Tron EcosystemVenaPi is working product of Vena Network, which won investment from famous investment fund including LD capital, Consensus Lab, DigiFinex, Transference fund and so on. VENA Token is now listed in Lbank, ABCC and Ddex, and will soon list its TRX trading pair in ABCC on 18th March together with BTT, SEED, IGG, TERC.VenaBao is another working product of Vena Network, which is a popular investment management product.The VENA team has won a lot of prizes with excellent products. On August 10th, 2018, at the 2018 Finwise Summit (Hong Kong), Vena Network won the ''New Blockchain Technology Award'' at the awards ceremony of the summit.Ching Zhu, CEO of Vena Network, was invited to the summit and received the award. That day, the winners also included Binance, Canaan, Gate.io , etc.In East Asia, VenaPi has built communities of more than 10,000 people, and held offline meetings in Vietnam, Thailand, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Singapore.lCO Analytics has picked Vena as the highlights of crypto exchanges investments in 2018.In this month, Ching, CEO of VenaPi, was again invited to a live stream in the community of famous Taiwan blockchain media, Blockchaintimes, and talked about the VenaPi and why chose to be dedicated to TRON ecosystem.VenaPi has explored cooperation opportunities with many TRON SRs like CryptoDiva, Sesameseed, and perfectly supported BTT airdrop.Acquiring Tron101, Expanding user coverageVenaPi has acquired Tron101, one of the largest TRON information platform in China, and has extended strategic cooperation with DAPPX community, keeping the advantage in content.VenaPi has communities in Russia, USA, Canada, China, Singapore, Vietnam and a lot of countries and regionswhich will keep VenaPi as one of the most popular wallet + Dapp Browser in Tron.Contact usWebsite: https://venapi.net/#/en Community website: tron.venapi.net Twitter: https://twitter.com/VenaProtocol Contact Email: zhouhaiqin@ outlook.com SOURCE: VenaPi The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele on Monday said that over five hundred million dollars was being spent annually on importation of palm oil. Mr Emefiele said this at a stakeholders meeting on the Palm Oil Value Chain held in Abuja. The meeting was attended by the Governors of Akwa Ibom, Edo and Abia. Also, the managers of Dangote Farms, Flour mills, United Food Industries and Dufil Frima Foods Plc, among others were at the meeting. Mr Emefiele said it was a sad fact that the country was still importing palm oil in spite sufficient arable land in the South-South and South-East regions of the country to farm it. He recalled that in the late 50s and 60s, Nigeria was not only the worlds leading producer of palm oil, but it was also the largest exporter of palm oil, accounting for close to 40 per cent of the global market share. He said right now, Malaysia and Indonesia were the top producers of palm oil and Nigeria the fifth, after getting their seeds and learning how to cultivate oil palm from Nigeria. This conversation is indeed important as it forms part of our overall strategy to reduce our reliance on crude oil imports, diversify the productive base of our economy, create jobs and conserve our foreign exchange. Despite placing oil palm in the forex exclusion list, official figures indicate that importation of palm oil had declined by about 40 per cent from the peak of 506,000 Metric Tonnes (MTs) in 2014 to 302,000 MTs in 2017. This indicates that Nigeria still expends close to 500 million dollars on oil palm importation annually and we are determined to change this narrative. We intend to support improved production of palm oil to meet not only the domestic needs of the market, but to also increase our exports in order to improve our forex earnings, he said. To this end, Mr Emefiele said all the state governors in South-South and South-East, Nigeria had agreed to provide at least 100,000 hectares each for large scale oil palm farming. He said with the help of the state governments, Nigeria could reach self-sufficiency in palm oil between 2022 and 2024 and ultimately overtake Thailand and Columbia to become the third largest producer over the next few years. As part of our Anchor Borrowers Program (ABP) and Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS), the CBN will work with large corporate stakeholders and small holder farmers to ensure availability of quality seeds for this years planting season. We will also ensure the availability of agro-chemicals in order to enable improved cultivation of palm oil. We will also work to encourage viable off taker agreements between farmers and large-scale palm producing companies. Loans will be granted through our ABP and CACS programs at no more than 9 per cent per annum to identified core borrowers, he said. The CBN governor reiterated that the restrictions earlier placed on the importation of textiles and other ready-made clothing was for the good of the economy. He said in due course, the CBN would introduce polices to address challenges in the cocoa, cassava, beef/cattle ranching, dairy and fish sectors. Soon every region of our beloved country will feel the positive impact of our intervention in the agricultural sector. These efforts we hope will not only enable us to conserve our foreign exchange, but also create jobs on a mass scale. As these measures begin to bear fruits, we are very optimistic that our states will become more economically viable, he said. Also, the Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, said the state was currently cultivating about 70,000 hectares of land of oil palm. He also spoke on the need to revive the moribund Nigerian Institute For Oil Palm Research (NIFOR), in Benin to improve investment in research and production of quality oil palm seeds. We should understand that for meaningful investment to come into the oil palm industry, we have to think of other incentives to encourage manufacturers to turn oil palm to other things. What I mean is that palm oil can be used to manufacture margarine, soaps, toothpaste and other things. We must also think about how to create incentives for those who are currently in the business to explore all the uses of palm oil to create job opportunities for our people, he said. Also, the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, spoke on the need to educate oil palm small holder farmers on the use of improved seedlings as a way to improve output. (NAN) An outbreak of tapeworm infections among children in northern Vietnam has sparked fears that school lunches have been contaminated, state media reported on Monday. Doctors have diagnosed the infections in 209 children from Thanh Khuong community in Bac Ninh Province, which borders Hanoi, the Vnexpress news site reported. Over 800 pupils from 19 preschools have been tested since March 7 at the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology in Hanoi, with medical authorities fearing more cases will come. The Tuoi Tre newspaper reported that infection was first suggested in February after cooks at the Thanh Khuong Kindergarten spotted larvae in the school lunch pork supply. When news of the suspected infections began to spread, parents began taking their children to Hanoi for testing in March, leading to positive test results that have spurred concern in the community. The source of the outbreak, however, has not been definitively confirmed, and is currently under investigation. The species of tapeworm, Taenia solium, is spread through contaminated food. While easily treated, it can cause brain damage and blindness if left unchecked. (dpa/NAN) The number of people killed in a powerful storm and preceding floods in Mozambique could exceed 1,000, the president said on Monday, putting the potential death toll greatly more than current figures. Only 84 deaths have been confirmed so far in Mozambique as a result of Cyclone Idai, which has also left a trail of death and destruction across Zimbabwe and Malawi. This had also affected vast areas of land which are flooded, roads destroyed and communication wiped out. Speaking on Radio Mocambique, President Filipe Nyusi said he had flown over the affected region, where two rivers had overflowed. Villages had disappeared, he said, and bodies were floating in the water. Everything indicates that we can register more than one thousand deaths, he said. The cyclone has also killed 89 people in Zimbabwe, an official said on Monday, while the death toll in Malawi from heavy rains and flooding stood at 56 as of last week. No new numbers had been released following the cyclones arrival in the country. Caroline Haga, a Senior International Federation of the Red Cross official, who is in Beira, said the situation could be far worse in the surrounding areas, which remained completely cut off by road and where houses were not as sturdy. Nyusi flew over areas that were otherwise accessible, and some of which had been hit by flooding before Cyclone Idai. In Beira, Mozambiques fourth-largest city and home to 500,000 people, a large dam had burst, further complicating rescue efforts. Large swathes of land were completely submerged, and in some streets people waded through knee-high water around piles of mangled metal and other debris. Meanwhile, rescuers were struggling to reach people in Zimbabwes Chimanimani district, cut off from the rest of the country by torrential rains. Zimbabwean Information Ministry official, Nick Mangwana said many people had been sleeping in the mountains since Friday, after their homes were flattened by rock falls and mudslides or washed away by torrential rains. The Harare government has declared a state of disaster in areas affected by the storm. Zimbabwe, a country of 15 million people, was already suffering a severe drought that has wilted crops. Beira, which sits at the mouth of the Pungwe River, is also home to Mozambiques second-largest port, serving as a gateway for imports to landlocked countries in southeast Africa. The fuel pipeline running from Beira to Zimbabwe was believed to be intact, the person said, though communication was still very patchy and, therefore, the situation at the port remained uncertain. In February 2000, Cyclone Eline hit Mozambique when it was already devastated by its worst floods in three decades. It killed 350 people and made 650,000 homeless across southern Africa, also hitting Zimbabwe. (Reuters/NAN) The new head of Germanys Pilots Association has come out strongly against moves towards licensing pilot-less aircraft, in an interview with dpa. The highest level of safety can only be achieved in a combination of human and machine, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) President, Markus Wahl, said. Mr Wahl pointed in particular to moves to do away with the third pilot on long-haul routes, seeing this as a step along the road to fully autonomous planes. He declined to comment specifically on the recent accident involving an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max8, immediately after take-off that showed similarities with a Lion Air crash in October. But he said there was a question mark over how much more technology in the cockpit pilots would have to master. Mr Wahl also voiced concern about the increase in unmanned flying objects, such as drones and about future plans for pilot-less flying taxis to carry passengers to airports, calling for regulation. We will watch developments here extremely critically, he said. (dpa/NAN) The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on Monday, outlawed expressions of disrespect against the state, as well as publications that are knowingly false. Using the internet to express clear disrespect to the state is punishable by fine and possible jail time, according to legislation posted on the governments legal information website. Publishing knowingly false, publicly significant information is punishable by a fine of up to 1.5 million roubles (23,000 dollars), the legislation says. Mr Putins own human rights council last week condemned the parliaments attempt to create such legislation, saying it would violate Russias constitution. Such legislation did not comply with criteria for limiting the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, the Kremlins Council for Civil Society and Human Rights said in a statement. Russias communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has been tasked with recommending that internet providers block certain material that has raised concerns for the state. Russias Foreign Ministry has for the past two years dedicated a section of its website to shaming publications deemed as having false information, with a big red stamp of the word fake. The section comprises more than 60 articles, including by major English-language news outlets such as The Financial Times, CNN, Bloomberg and The New York Times. Similarly, Mr Putin on Monday visited Crimea to mark the fifth anniversary of the day that Russia annexed the region from Ukraine, while Western powers, particularly the U.S., reiterated their condemnation of the annexation. Mr Putin participated in festivities, including an inaugural ceremony for an electrical power plant, Balaklavskaya, in Sevastopol, state media reported. Russia previously struggled to provide sufficient electrical power for the region. Today yet another important step has been made to strengthen the energy security of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as the entire Russian Federation, for the development of the economy and infrastructure of the region, Mr Putin said in televised comments. Russian forces occupied key parts of Crimea, the long-time host of a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea, in response to Kiev ousting its pro-Russian president in a pivot towards the West in early 2014. A pro-Russian separatist rebellion meanwhile erupted in Ukraines two eastern-most regions, Donetsk and Luhansk. About 13,000 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict with the Ukrainian military. The speaker of Russias upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, marked the anniversary of the annexation in a commentary published on Monday in the Russian newspaper Izvestia. There is a growing understanding in the world that Crimea is a part of Russia, Matviyenko said. With every year there is an increasing number of foreign politicians, public figures and journalists, who visit the peninsula. The vast majority of countries have not recognised the Russian-supported referendum for the annexation as legitimate. Kurt Volker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, called the anniversary a sad day and reiterated U.S. opposition to the annexation. This is an illegal occupation, an illegal seizure of territory and we fundamentally stand behind Ukraine in insisting that its territorial integrity be restored, Volker said. Western powers, including the EU and the U.S., have imposed numerous economic sanctions against Russia since the annexation. Russia has followed suit with retaliatory sanctions. The value of Russias rouble currency has about halved in comparison with the U.S. dollar since the annexation. Volker expressed frustration over what he called the lack of political will on Russias part in stalled negotiations to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. He said a framework for finding an agreement is in place. He also urged Ukrainians to vote [with] their conscience in the upcoming presidential election and again called on Russia to release Ukrainian sailors captured in November, saying their detention is outside international law. (dpa/NAN) The governor of Bauchi state, Mohammed Abubakar, has said that he will use legal means to challenge the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on its position to regenerate and count the votes from Tafawa Balewa local government in the March 9 governorship election. The State Returning Officer, Mohammed Kyari, had declared the governorship election in Bauchi as inconclusive. Mr Kyari explained that the margin of 4,059 votes between the two leading parties was less than 45,312, which was the number of cancelled votes after results from 19 local government were collated. However, INEC in a statement signed by Festus Okoye, its commissioner in charge of Media and Publicity, said the commission, having considered a report sent by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Bauchi State, decided to further investigate the cancellation of the result from Tafawa Balewa Local Government of the state. After the Okoye committee visited the state, INEC said the collation and announcement of results from Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area for the governorship election would be completed as the duplicate and original Registration Area results were available. It said collation process for Tafawa Balewa Local Government will resume on Tuesday. Mr Abubakar, who was trailing the PDP candidate, Bala Mohammed, on Monday went to the State House Presidential villa to brief the president on the development. After he merged from the president, the Bauchi governor granted journalists a short interview; Excerpt: Q: Why did you come to see the president? A: I came to brief Mr. President about the situation in my state. I briefed him on the issues surrounding the inconclusive elections. The Returning Officer for Bauchi State at the end of collation rejected the result of Tafawa Balewa local government and then 36 other units spread around 15 local governments of Bauchi state and ordered a rerun. Surprisingly, we woke up one morning and the Independent National Electoral Commission came up with a procedure that is not known to law. Because, where a Returning Officer has declared the result, only an election petition tribunal can reverse the result. But INEC is attempting to reverse itself in the case of Bauchi. And when one juxtaposes that of Bauchi and other states with inconclusive elections, one wonders why that is happening only in Bauchi State. So, for that reason there is a need for me to come and brief Mr. President because of what has the potential of touching on the security of the state. Q: Do you think what is happening is illegal? A: Of course it is definitely extra illegal. It is a straight forward matter. The returning officer is the final arbiter even with respect to scores and declaration of result. And once he makes a declaration, no power can reverse that declaration except duly constituted court of the land. Q: INEC is an independent body and you are here to seek Mr. Presidents audience, what do you expect him to do? A: No no no. I said I came to brief Mr. President, I am not seeking any action of Mr. President. We all know Mr. President, he is a stickler for procedure. What I pointedly told him was that I am not here to seek for you to interfere on our behalf sir, but to brief you on what is happening and what actions I have taken. Q: What are the actions you took? A: One of which is that I am a lawyer and I am pursuing the legal angle. I briefed him and he emphasised on that legal angle that it is the best way to go. Q: How is the security situation in the state now? A: We are on top of the situation, thank God. We have since ordered the ban on procession in the metropolis and things are very very calm. Q: You saw the Vice President last week, is it that you were not satisfied with the way he handled the matter? A: No no no. There are procedures in this matters and levels of authority. I am a stickler for procedure, I started at the right place and I have also ended up at the right place. Q: How prepared are you for the rerun elections? A: If they are going to do it now, we are ready. I dont know who is afraid of anyone in Tafawa Balewa. Q: Are you confident you will win? A: Insha Allah. Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State on Monday had a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. The meeting deliberated on the supplementary governorship elections to be held in Plateau State on Saturday. Mr Lalongs visit to the Presidential Villa occurred hours after his counterpart from Bauchi, Mohammed Abubakar, also visited the president. Both governors are members of Mr Buharis party, APC. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the electoral commission, INEC, fixed Saturday for supplementary governorship elections in Bauchi, Plateau, Adamawa, Benue, Kano and Sokoto states. In Plateau, Mr Lalong leads his main challenger, Jerry Useni of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the results announced so far. But the election was declared inconclusive because the margin of cancelled votes is higher than the difference between the two leading candidates. President Buhari had on Sunday evening said he will not interfere with the supplementary elections. Speaking with State House correspondents after meeting with Mr Buhari Monday, Mr Lalong said his visit to the villa was the usual briefing because of his passion for peace in Plateau State. It is not about the election, it is about the peace, to ensure we have a very peaceful election, he said. So far so good, we have had very good peaceful elections. We are coming back for supplementary elections. I will like INEC to conduct a peaceful election and so we will like the security apparatus to be on the ground in the state. That was my briefing to Mr President, he said. On whether he and his colleagues in the APC were meeting with Mr Buhari because they fear his non-intervention could lead to their electoral defeat, Mr Lalong said that is not the case. How can I be panicky when all the votes that were cancelled were my votes? These were areas that I won. There was no need for cancellation but then as a lawyer, I still want to comply with the rules, I dont want to be talking about infringing on the rules when the elections result is very clear. They said registered voters were 49,000 but the votes were not up to 20,000 but people were still saying we need 49,000 and I was already on top with 45,000 votes. So we are going to get the 49,000. How can you imagine that a sitting governor cannot get 3,000 votes out of 39,000 in an area that I have well dominated for a very long time, he said. Mr Lalong said as far as he is concerned, Plateau election is as good as concluded. He said the supplementary election is just an opportunity for people whose votes were cancelled to be able to vote. People came and said their votes were cancelled. It is for them to go back and vote and ensure their vote counts this time around. That is why I support that we go back and conduct the elections. If they (INEC) like, let them conduct the elections more than once, we will still win, he said. The governor also spoke about the recent resurgence of violence in Plateau State with reports saying many cattle were rustled over the weekend. That was why I said I am concerned about security. Usually, it starts like that, they start rustling and killing cattle and the next thing you will hear is that it is farmers/herders crisis. I know that I have addressed that issue for a very long time and the police is handling the security. So I informed Mr President that we are on top of the situation because we wouldnt want that to escalate into farmers/herdsmen crisis. It is not farmers/herdsmen crisis, it is criminals trying to ferment trouble after losing elections, he said. He also said he believes the recent attacks are politically motivated because of the timing. I always say it has political undertone, why is it happening immediately after elections. It usually happens immediately before or after elections, why is it like that? It has some political connotation, he said. The French Embassy in Nigeria on Monday reaffirmed the countrys commitment to ensure improved relations between the two countries. The French Ambassador to Nigeria, Jerome Pasquier, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja. Mr Pasquier said Nigeria and France would partner in such areas as climate change, education and fight against terrorism. He said that his country had organised activities to commemorate this years International Francophone Week in Nigeria to strengthen the ties. The week is scheduled to start from March 18 to 23, on the theme: French Language, Connecting for Action to mark this years International Francophone Day, celebrated globally on March 20. The ambassador said France and Nigeria have so many things to do together; we will like to have more friendship with Nigeria. We want to work on key issues, such as climate change, which is a very serious issue for Nigeria; France is very committed to it, which is one area we can work together. Notably, one special issue for both of us is fight against terrorism, you have victims of terrorism in Nigeria. We also have in France. So, if there is any field we can work together, exchange information and experiences, it is in fights against terrorism, we cannot win the fight alone, we have to really work together. He commended the ability by some Nigerians who speak French Language to have contributed to the growth in trade relations between the two countries. He urged Nigerians wanting to school abroad to consider France as priority place for their studies, in order to enhance their learning of French Language. We really will like more students to come to France; we are very active in promoting knowledge of French Language studies traditionally in Nigeria. Observably, students when thinking of where to go abroad often think about U.K., U.S., mostly because of language, but there is need for them to have a rethink. We have to convince them, there are many good universities in France and it is not difficult to learn French Language and even study there, Mr Pasquier said. NAN reports that the week is often celebrated globally by the International Organisation of Francophone countries. The organisation, also known as Francophonie, consists of 88 member states and governments, accounting for population of 300 million French speakers globally. (NAN) The chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation in Anambra State, Oseloka Obaze, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make public the polling unit results and other materials used for the 2019 presidential election. Mr Obaze, who was the candidate of the PDP in Anambra 2017 governorship election and a former Secretary to the State Government, made this call in a statement he signed and also tweeted on Monday. According to him, it is intriguing that INEC continues to withhold polling unit results and other election materials, long after announcing the presidential election results. He said INECs refusal to make the election materials public was creating room for doubts and speculations. By its conduct, INEC creates room for speculation and imaginations to roam freely. Indeed, Nigerians now wonder what INEC is hiding from them. Whatever the encumbrances, INEC must defend its statutory position as an unbiased umpire by releasing election materials for public scrutiny and complying with court orders where applicable. Mr Obaze argued that the polling unit results are not INECs property but that of Nigerian voters and the legacy of dozens that tragically lost their lives while trying to defend their votes. INEC should stop dithering. It should acquit itself and prove to the world that it is neutral by releasing the Nigerian presidential election polling unit results. Mr Obaze concluded. President Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election by polling over 3.9million votes more than his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, of the PDP. Mr Abubakar and his party, however, vowed to challenge the result in court. Ahead of the Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME), the Joint Admission and Matriculations Board (JAMB) said the board had introduced innovations its successful conduct. The registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, made this known in Abuja on Monday at a meeting on strategic planning and preparations for the supervision and evaluation of the examination. He said a robust item bank with appropriate safeguards had been developed by moving toward open examination with one million questions per subject. He said a separate indicator had also been created for the deaf (mute) to differentiate them for special attention at the examination centre. Efforts are on to provide an option of special centres or mainstreaming for the blind. We now have a live report on centres that registered any candidate, the time any candidate was registered, who registered them, the computer system used, the location of registration. Mr Oloyede also warned candidates to ensure their biometrics were taken and verified. He urged candidates to comply with the rules of engagement governing the registration and examination. According to him, biometric verification will be the only mode for the admittance of candidates into the examination centres. He said the increasing threat of identity fraud during the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) before the advent of BVM (Bank Verification Number) necessitated its introduction. Any candidate that cannot be verified by the Biometric Verification Mode (BVM) must not be allowed to take the examination under any guise. According to him, candidates whose fingerprints could be captured during registration from centres across the country were brought to JAMB headquarters and were manually registered appropriately. In other words, exemption mode is not allowed for any candidate. Therefore, no biometric verification, no examination, Mr Oloyede warned. The registrar said the use of emails/passwords would not be allowed by cybercafe operators as it had now been classified as an offence for the cybercafe to ask for passwords before rendering services. Prohibited Items Mr Oloyede said the board held an international roundtable on cheating devices in December 2017. He said, as a result, Automated Teller Machines (ATM) were added to the list of prohibited items during examinations. He said other items prohibited are: wristwatches, recorders, earpieces, mobile phones, Bluetooth devices, smart lenses, erasers, smart buttons and spy reading glasses, among others. He said the board had approved the use of 708 Computer Based Test (CBT) centres across the country. He also said the names of impersonators in the last ten years would soon be published to serve as a deterrent to others. He said about 1.99 million candidates had registered for the 2019 UTME. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said President Muhammadu Buharis posturing that he will not manipulate the March 23 governorship supplementary elections is a direct confession that the Presidency used its influence to rig the February 23 presidential election. It said it was also a subterfuge to divert public attention from APCs rigging plots ahead of the supplementary elections. The PDP stated this in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Monday. Mr Ologbondiyan stated that the presidencys confession that APC members are mounting pressure on President Buhari to help them to rig the supplementary elections further confirms the Buhari Presidencys manipulative and rigging capacity, including militarisation of the electoral process, instigating of violence and alteration of results, as were freely used by the APC in the Presidential election. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed March 23 for supplementary elections in six states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto) where elections were declared inconclusive. PREMIUM TIMES reported how INEC declared the elections in the six states inconclusive because the margin of victory was less than the cancelled votes in each of the states. Of the six states, the main opposition party, PDP, was leading in five, while the APC was leading in Plateau. Be wary The PDP spokesperson called on Nigerians, especially those in states where the supplementary elections have been scheduled to hold, to be wary of what he described as the antics of the Buhari Presidency. Nigerians can recall that ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, President Buhari had promised to allow for a free, fair, transparent and credible process, only for his Presidency and party, the APC, to engage in downright manipulations at INEC, deployment of military and thugs to intimidate and suppress voters, as well as outright alteration of results delivered from the polling units. President Buhari cannot exonerate himself of the harm inflicted on our polity by the deployment of soldiers in the 2019 general elections, as nobody deploys the military except the President and Commander-in-Chief. Now that President Buhari, in his official capacity, has come out to state that he will not intervene in the March 23 Supplementary election. We ask, is Mr President assuring Nigerians that any soldier seen directly involved in the rerun election is fake and should be treated as such? The opposition party called on the military to note the import of the statement by the Presidency and steer clear of the supplementary elections. The party also cautioned INEC officials to note that Nigerians are very eager about the outcome of the supplementary elections, given that the PDP is already leading in these states. The trial of the suspended Chief Justice Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, resumed on Monday at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Abuja, with the federal government presenting its first witness, James Akpala. Unlike the previous day of his trial, Mr Onnoghen was present in court and looked healthy. At the last adjourned date, his counsel had informed the tribunal that the suspended CJN developed toothache and needed a bed rest. The prosecution lawyer, Aliyu Umar, confirmed receiving a copy of the medical report and read the content to the tribunal. The report disclosed that Mr Onnoghen also suffered from high blood pressure and required 72 hours bed rest. The tribunal adjourned to March 18 to enable Mr Onnoghen have sufficient rest and be able to attend his trial. At the resume hearing, Mr Onnohhen appeared in a dark ash suit with a purple tie and sat in the dock while the prosecution witness, Mr Akpala, gave his testimony. Standing in the witness box, Mr Akpala told the court that he worked with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) as a Senior Investigation Officer. He said his duties include intelligence gathering, asset tracing, records examination, interviews, investigation of cases assigned to me and other duties as duly assigned. He said he knew Mr Onnoghen as the defendant. I can remember January 10 , 2019, I was in my office at Code of Conduct Bureau(CCB). That morning, I received a directive from my superior, Samuel Madujemu, who happens to be member of the team. He directed that I investigated a petition. Having done the required processes, a case file was opened and an investigation plan was drawn, he said. The petition was written by Dennis Aganya of the Anti corruption and Research-Based Data Initiative, alleging a breach of the code of conduct of public officers, including none declaration at asset and false declaration of asset against Samuel Onnoghen, GCON, the CJN. Thereafter, the team wrote to the dept of Federal Political Office under the CCB, requesting for the defendants assets declaration records from 2000-2019. The two assets declaration forms that the team received were examined and filed in the case file. The team include Abu Simon Issac, Deputy Director, Samuel Madujemu , Assistant Director all of intelligence, Investigation and Monitoring. The petitioner was invited and a statement was recorded. Thereafter, he signed the statement and I signed and filed it in the case file. On the 11 January, 2019, having examined the assets declaration forms, the receiving officer, Awwal Usman Yakasai, was invited and the schedule officer, Ikpeme Etim Emba, was equally invited and their statements recorded. The team proceeded to Standard Chartered Bank requesting for the defendants account statement with the bank, account opening documents and certificate of identification and the bank responded. During examination, the team realised that the account opening package was incomplete and the account officer , Ifeoma Okagbue, was notified. She was asked to come with the complete account opening document and her statement was recorded. On the same January 11, at about 12 noon. The team visited the defendants office at the Supreme Court in Abuja. At his office, we met his secretary, Jane Ese Edu, and the team leader introduced us to her. Thereafter, she ushered us into the defendants office. We explained the petition to the defendant and handed over to him a copy of the petition. He read through it and gave an oral explanation to the team on the allegations contained in the petition. My superior, Samuel Madujemu, requested if the defendant wanted the oral explanation in writing or the team should go and come back another time. The defendant said he was willing to record his oral statement. He brought out a plain paper, We informed him that CCB has a cautionary form for statement and he was equally informed that he needs a witness to observe the statement. The team now informed him that the witness must be a lawyer or a reputable person. The defendant called his secretary , Jane Ese Edu, to witness the statement. She sat beside the defendant and the defendant recorded his statement in his own handwriting. Intermittently, he went to his inner chamber to seek audience of his visitors. After that he came back and continued and ended the statement ,after which he signed. The witness he brought countersigned, Samuel Madujemu and James Akpala signed. Asked by the prosecution counsel, Mr Umar, if Mr Akpala would he be able to identify a copy of the petition if shown to him. He said yes. A copy of the petition was shown to Mr Akpala and he confirmed it was the petition. Then the petition was tendered and admitted without any objection from the defence counsel and marked as Exhibit 1. The two asset declaration form for 2014 and 2016 were admired as Exhibits 2 and 3. Going through the document, the defence counsel, Adegboyega Awomolo, said the form had been tampered with. We have some observation. The form 2014 and 2015 has been tampered with somehow in the sense that there is the application of pages (like page 5 ) with different entries. The document has become loose in a way, he said. He added that the 2015 form has also been tampered with, with the duplication and omission of pages. Following this, the two bank statements from Standard Chartered Bank were admitted as exhibit 4 and 5 But Mr Awomolo mentioned that the said witness was not the maker of the documents and not a signatory to the document and as such, the witness cannot be cross- examined on the documents. He can only tender and no more. Meaning that he can not give evidence on the two bank documents. But Mr Umar replied him and said the witness is an investigator and on the strength of that, he can tender the documents. Again Mr Akpala was asked if shown the cautionary form signed by the defendant, would he be able to identify it? He said yes. Mr Umar further asked him with what and he replied by saying with his name and signature. He was shown the form and again, he confirmed it. The defence counsel on his part did not object when shown the cautionary form. Prior to this, the CCT chairman, Danladi Umar, admitted the cautionary form as Exhibit Six. Giving further evidence, Mr Akpala told the tribunal that the asset declaration form of the defendant for 2014 was as Justice of the Supreme Court from June 8, 2015 to November 22, 2014. Mr Akpala said two Union Bank accounts were declared in the form. According to him, the form was received by Awwal Yakasai on Decmber 14, 2016 and the acknowledgement slip was dated same day. He added that the teams work, an investigation report, was put up. Under cross-examination, Mr Akpala further added that there is a central registry in the CCB where all asset declaration forms are deposited. But he said he had no idea if there was a register that contains all asset declaration from 1993 till date. He also added that he did not have the idea of how many asset declaration forms were there in the CCB. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has re-arraigned a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and three others before Justice Jude Okeke of a Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Maitama. Mr Lawal along with his younger brother, Hamidu David Lawal, Suleiman Abubakar, Apeh John Monday and two companies, Rholavision Engineering Ltd and Josmon Technologies Ltd, were re-arraigned on an amended 10-count charge bordering on fraud, diversion of funds and criminal conspiracy to the tune of over N500 million. They were earlier arraigned before Justice Okeke on February 13 and the prosecution was meant to open its case today, March 18. At the resumed hearing, counsel for the EFCC, Offem Uket, told the court that the charges against them had been amended, and that they had to take a fresh plea. However, citing Section 218 (2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA 2015, Akin Olujimi, counsel for Mr Lawal, argued that before the charge is taken, the prosecution ought to have filed the amended charge to ensure that it was properly endorsed. Other defence counsels aligned themselves with the submission of Olujimi. Justice Okeke, while ordering the prosecution to comply with the section cited by Mr Olujimi, however, ruled that in the interim, the amended charges be read to the defendants. One of the counts reads: That you, Engineer Babachir David Lawal, while being the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and a director of Rholavision Engineering Ltd on or about the 22nd August 2016 at Abuja in the Abuja Judicial Division of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory did knowingly hold indirectly private interest in the contract awarded to Josmon Technological Ltd but executed by Rholavision Engineering Ltd for the removal of invasive plant species and simplified irrigation to the tune of N258,132,735.99 (Two Hundred and Fifty Eight Million, One hundred and Thirty Two Thousand, Seven Hundred and Thirty Five Naira only) by the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) though the Presidential Initiative for North East (PINE) and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 12 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000. They pleaded not guilty to the amended charges. The defence team, thereafter, prayed the court to allow the defendants to continue with the bail earlier granted them by the court. The request of the defence was granted by Justice Okeke, who adjourned to April 11, 2019 for commencement of trial, noting that, the court is minded to grant an adjournment due to the amendment of the charges. The Court had earlier granted the defendants bail in the sum of N50 million, with one surety in like sum, who must be resident within the jurisdiction of the court, and must be owner of a landed property within the jurisdiction of the court, with evidence of three years tax payment. The international passports of the defendants were also ordered to be deposited with the court. The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, says Nigeria will soon effect policy to prosecute parents who refused to enrol their children of school age in schools across the country. Mr Adamu made this known in Abuja on Monday while addressing journalists during the 9th edition of the weekend ministerial briefing. He said parents who sabotage the efforts of the government at reducing the number of out of school children would soon be criminalised and would be made to face the wrath of the law. Unless the issue of parents who refused their children going to school is made a crime, and we start jailing parents, the menace of out of school children will not be resolved. There are many who are still working behind culture, religion. So the ministry is to effect this policy so that any parent whose child of school age refuses to take them to school will be jailed, he said. Speaking on matching grant and other intervention funds for basic education in Nigeria, the minister said a total of N350 billion had been expended on the sub-sector as against N360 billion spent by the previous administration. In the six years preceding the Buhari Administration, between 2009 and 2014, the federal government spent about N360 billion worth of intervention on Basic Education covering textbooks, teacher professional development, construction of classrooms and library resources among others. Mr Adamu added that in 2015, matching and non-conditional grants disbursements to 15 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory amounted to N68.4 billion. He also said that in 2016, grants disbursements to 29 states and the FCT amounted to N77 billion. According to him, in 2017 the federal government provided a total of N95 billion to 24 states and the FCT, and another N109 billion to 20 states and the FCT. During the four years under review, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari provided a total grant to include, Matching grants, Educational imbalance fund, Special Educational fund and Good Performance fund. Others are Instructional Materials funds, Teacher Professional Development Fund, as well as Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC ) Implementation and Monitoring funds across geo-political zones as attached. Mr Adamu emphasised that corruption and lack of political will from state governments were among other reasons responsible for the collapse of basic education across the states. Having come to this painful conclusion, the Federal Government decided to deduct from source, part of the last tranche of the Paris Club refund from all the states that have not been able to access their monies from (UBEC). If this attitude of deliberate refusal on the part of states to provide counterpart funding for basic education continues, then the Federal Government will have no choice than to sustain its strategy of deducting counterpart funding of states percentage from source. Mr Adamu added that stakeholders were awaiting the decision of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the reduction of matching grants for state governments. We have already submitted proposal on the reduction of matching grants and we believe between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the matching grant will be reduced as against the 50 per cent that states have been claiming is difficult to provide, he said. (NAN) A Senior Magistrates Court in Kano, on Monday, ordered that a 30-year-old bricklayer, Abdulrazak Dahiru, accused of raping a housewife, be remanded in prison. The police charged Mr Dahiru, who lives at Dorayi Unguwar Amare Quarters Kano, with three counts of criminal trespass, rape and armed robbery. Senior magistrate, Fauziyya She-She, gave the order after Mr Dahiru pleaded not guilty to the charge. Ms She-She adjourned the matter until March 27. Earlier, the prosecutor, Muhammad Bakori, told the court that the accused committed the offence on January 25, at about noon at Dorayi Unguwar Amare Quarters Kano. Mr Bakori alleged that the defendant, armed with a knife and a rope, trespassed into the victims house, after her husband travelled. He said that the defendant attacked the housewife with the knife, covered her mouth and raped her. The prosecutor alleged that the accused also stole an Itel cellphone valued at N20, 000, one memory card and some money. Mr Bakori said that the offence contravened the provisions of sections 343, 283, and 298 of robbery and fire arms (special provision) ACT CAP Rill LFN 2004 as amended. (NAN) Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State on Monday announced that the state owned university would soon commence admission of pioneer students in 2019. Mr Yari who made the announcement at the presentation of the 2019 appropriation proposal said, the development followed the registration of the state University by the National Universities Commission (NUC). The governor said the state government regretted the fact that Zamfara was the only state of the federation that had no state owned university. He revealed that the construction of the institution which is situated in his home local government headquarters of Talata-Mafara, had now reached an appreciable level to prepare it for the pioneer students. He announced that academic activities would soon commence with the 2018/2019 admitted students adding that the process had begun. He assured that the new intake would have nothing to fear as the state government had put all necessary security measures to ensure the safety of the institution. The governor noted that since his party, the APC, won with landslide at the just concluded general elections in the state, there is no doubt that the in-coming administration will continue with the good work. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Yari would now move to the National Assembly as the Senator-elect to represent Zamfara West at the Senate. I have the confidence and conviction that the governor-elect, Alhaji Muktar Idris will not disappoint us in taking our dear state to greater heights, he said. While speaking on security challenges facing the state, the governor expressed happiness in the matured manner the issue of security was treated by the people of the state. We have been able to put in our best as you have disregarded the negative propaganda, misinformation and campaign of calumny by mischief makers on the security challenges which is faced in most states of the nation, This, the people of Zamfara expressed in the way they voted massively for the APC in the last elections. Mr Yari, however, appealed to the people of the state to extend the cooperation they gave him to the in-coming administration. The governor would end his second term in office on May 29. (NAN) The Nigeria Customs Service, Apapa Command, has said it has seized 24 containers of imported tomato pastes and vegetable oil between January and March worth N200,867,124. According to the Command, the seized containers of tomato pastes and refined vegetable oil, which are on the banned items list, contravened the Customs Extant Laws. Bashir Abubakar, the outgoing Area Controller, Apapa Command, while speaking during a handover ceremony in Lagos, Monday, said his officers were able to achieve the feat through an intelligent report. Mr Abubakar handed over to the newly deployed controller, Mohammed Abba-Kura. To the officers and men of the Apapa Area Command, you remain the best team ever. I plead that you put into practice all our resolutions and build on the successes already achieved in the Command, he said. Mr Abubakar was transferred to the Apapa Command on August 23, 2018, from Onne Command, Rivers state. Last week, he was promoted to the rank of acting Assistant Controller General of Customs and redeployed to the Customs headquarters in charge of Customs Board. On revenue collection of the year 2019, Mr Abubakar said they have made over N60 billion between January and February. The annual revenue target for the 2019 Fiscal Year is yet to be officially conveyed to the command however, the 2018 annual was N426,192,827,819.46 which translates to a monthly target of N35,516,068,984.95. So far from January to February 2019, the Command collected the sum of N60,109,247,444.1. The export seat in the Command has also built an increased level of compliance in documentation. Within the period under review, the seat seat recorded exports with Free on Board value of N765,300,700.00, He charged the incoming Area Controller of Apapa command Mr Abba-Kura to build on the structure laid. The trial of four undergraduates of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and an undergraduate of Babcock University who allegedly gang-raped a female student, was on Monday stalled in an Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court due to a change in counsel. Moboluwaji Omowole, 19, Chuka Chukwu, 19, Peace Nwankama, 19, James Aguedo, 20 and Osemeka Josephine, 20 are alleged by the prosecution to be some of the students involved in the serial gang-rape of a UNILAG student within the premises of the institution. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that following their arraignment on February 26, Mr Aguedo hired a new defence counsel, Lawal Pedro, a former Solicitor-General of Lagos State and Permanent Secretary Ministry of Justice. The cross-examination of the complainant (name withheld) on Monday could however not proceed due to Mr Pedros request for an adjournment. My Lord, I just came into this matter and I am told that trial has begun, I thought the proceedings was for only hearing of the bail application. In order for justice to be done, I will need time to study the proof of evidence in this case in order to properly cross-examine the witness. In order not to frustrate the trial, I apply that my cross-examination should be adjourned and the other counsel should proceed with their cross-examination, Mr Pedro said. Following the senior advocates submission, Justice Abiola Soladoye adjourned the case until May 2 for the continuation of trial. NAN reports that earlier during proceedings, the defence counsel to the students had via various applications asked the court to grant bail to the students who have been remanded for 21 days at the Kirikiri Prisons. Their defence counsel had noted that the students had no prior criminal record and had all attended court proceedings since their arraignment at the Magistrate Court in March 2017 Abimbola Akeredolu, the defence counsel to Mr Chukwu, in her application said The applicant does not constitute a flight risk, he is a student whose academic pursuits have been disrupted. Both parents work in Chevron and are present in court and they will ensure that he is present in court, he has never omitted to appear in court or whenever his appearance is needed, she said. Mr Pedro, the counsel to Mr Aguedo, told the court, The charge against the defendant is a misdemeanour not a felony, the applicant is a current student of Babcock University, we have a letter before the court to show that he is a current student of the school. He is suffering from a back ailment that requires expert medical attention, we have documents from the National Orthopedic Hospital as proof, he has never abused the privilege of administrative bail given to him. We gave his birth certificate to show that at the time the alleged offence was committed, he was a minor, if bail is refused he will suffer undue hardship and his academic life will be truncated. He is from a religious family and his pastor has written to Babcock University to give them sufficient time to sort out his bail application, he said. Rasak Abudu, the counsel to Mr Omowole said the first defendants father had suffered an illness caused by his sons criminal trial. The first defendant (Omowole) is a second-year student of UNILAG, he would not jump bail and he has never defaulted coming to court and the has always been present with his parents. He has responsible parents, his father is critically ill as a result of this charge, his mother or any member of his family are ready to take his bail. The country is trying to reduce crime, constant exposure to the prison inmates will expose him further to crime, he was 17-years-old as at the time of the crime, he is now 19, he said. O. C Aibangbee, the defence counsel to Mr Nwankama asked the court to grant the third year student of Economics at UNILAG bail in liberal terms. My Lords granting the application will make the applicant attend her studies even though there is a pending charge, he said. N. J Edechime, the counsel to Ms Osemeka noted in his bail application noted that the fifth defendant is an only child of her mother. She is incapable of interfering with evidence and witnesses in the matter and she will not jump bail as she is a third-year student of Economics in UNILAG. If she is not granted bail, she will lose academic years, her mother is always in court as the applicant is her only child, Edechime. The prosecution team led by Fehinti Ogbemudia and Arinola Momoh-Ayokanbi in response asked the court to reject the bail applications of the Babcock University and UNILAG students. They noted that due to the prevalence of the offence and weightiness of the punishment the court, the judge should deny the students bail and grant accelerated hearing in the case. Justice Soladoye adjourned the case until April 29 for ruling on Messrs Omowole, Chukwu, Nwankama and Osemekas bail application and March 25 for the continuation of the hearing of Mr Aguedos bail application. NAN reports that the students face a three-count charge of defilement of a child, permitting the defilement of a child in a premises and procuration. They deny the charges. The complainant (name withheld) had on February 26 testified that she was lured by Ms Nwankama who was her roommate to High Rise, a staff quarters hostel at UNILAG. She alleged that she was gang-raped at High Rise by eight students and the sexual assault videotaped. She further alleged that she was blackmailed by the defendants and their accomplices who are now at large. The complainant had in her testimony alleged that as a result of the blackmail, she was further subjected to more gang-rape by the students. (NAN) There is confusion over whether another building has collapsed in the Lagos Island area of Lagos. Reports, which have since gone viral on social media, say the collapsed building, situated at 57, Egerton Square, Oke Arin in Lagos Island, collapsed around noon on Monday. Though details of the incident are still scanty, our correspondent gathered that some site workers are still trapped as at the time of filing this report. Kehinde Adebayo, the spokesperson for the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, told PREMIUM TIMES it was not a collapsed building but an ongoing demolition. A three-storey building housing a childrens school collapsed at Massey Street, Lagos Island, last week, killing more than 20 people. Following the incident, the Lagos State Building Control Agency marked over 100 houses for demolition in the area. Also, the spokesperson of the National Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Farinloye, could not confirm the details to PREMIUM TIMES. Mr Farinloye said there was supposed to be demolition of distressed buildings in the area and he cannot confirm if the building collapsed or demolished. Details later The Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Osun State Council, has condemned the attack on its members at Olomilagbala, Bolorunduro, in Ilesa East Local Government, on Monday. The NUJ described the attack as uncivilized and barbaric. PREMIUM TIMES gathered that four Journalists: Shitu Abdulfatai of the Channels TV; his cameraman, Kadri Kabir; Rafiu Hammed of TV Continental, (TVC) and his cameraman,Taiwo Adu, were among those attacked by suspected thugs. According to a statement sent to our correspondent by the state chapter chairman, Kehinde Ayantunji, the journalists were in Ilesa to cover the protest by youth over power outage in the area. Mr Ayantunji said the journalists could have lost their lives if not for some good Samaritans who rushed to their rescue. We are shocked and seriously disturbed by the ruthless attack on four of our members today in Ilesa. We considered such attack as bestial, barbaric and uncivilised; and a declaration of war against journalists who were performing their constitutional responsibility. It is indeed regrettable that those who were striving hard to ensure that the legitimate grievance of the people is brought to the attention of concerned authorities now became subject of attack. The attack was so brutal to the extent that Taiwo Adu of TVC and Kadir Kabir of Channels could not stand on their feet as at the time of issuing this release. They were callously hit with bottles and various dangerous objects and held captive for about an hour with serious humiliation. They are currently on admission at the Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospitals, Osogbo. Their cameras and other gadgets worth millions of Naira were completely destroyed. While we recognise the right of protest as a fundamental right, it must not be allowed to degenerate to the level of being hijacked by hoodlums in which journalists, unfortunately, became victims. We are calling on security agencies to swing into action and ensure that the perpetrators are brought to book without delay, the statement read. The Lagos State Governor-elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has suggested regeneration of Lagos Island as a solution to building collapse in the densely-populated highbrow area of the city. Mr Sanwo-Olu stated this when he paid a courtesy visit to President Mohammadu Buhari alongside his deputy-elect, Obafemi Hamsat, in Abuja on Monday. Mr Sanwo-Olu, who polled 739,445 votes to defeat Jimi Agbaje of the PDP, was declared the winner in the 2019 governorship and state houses of assembly election in Lagos State. PREMIUM TIMES reported how a three-storey building housing a childrens school collapsed at Massey Street, Lagos Island, last week, killing about 20 people. According to the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), at least 40 pupils, including 10 dead bodies were pulled out of the rubble on Wednesday. However, following the directive of the governor, officials of the states building control agency, led by its acting general manager, Omotayo Fakolujo, have begun the demolition of 80 buildings earlier marked for demolition. Also, there was confusion that another building collapsed in the Lagos Island area of Lagos around noon on Monday. Mr Sanwo-Olu said while Lagos Island needs regeneration, the people must see a sincerity of purpose on the governments part before they can accept regeneration. When you want to take peoples properties and you want to regenerate, they must first see a sincerity of purpose what are the additional plans that you have for them? Mr Sanwo-Olu said the government must have a strong model for regeneration to survive. Regeneration can be done in two ways; It could be in form of which when you come back, you have part of it; or you turn it into equity. So it depends on whatever model you are working round to ensure that it works, he said. He said it is essential to let the people know you are not out to circumvent them or to shortchange them or to bring about things in which there will be desolation. So, its to have a conversation right round all the families and we will see the kind of redevelopment that is important as its built on in a lot of other big cities like Lagos, he said. Reacting to the building collapse in Lagos State last week, the governor-elect said it is an unfortunate incident. Even when I was in government before, I used to be the vice chairman on building collapse. It was something that was about ten years ago which is what led to us creating an agency called LABCA, after it was meant to begin to identify structures well ahead before issues like this begin to happen, he concluded. RTHK: Several injured in Netherlands tram shooting Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht said on Monday that "multiple" people had been injured in a shooting inside a tram in what could be a terrorist attack. Police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene in a residential neighbourhood and they were appealing to the public to stay away to allow first responders to do their work. "Shooting incident... Several injured people reported. Assistance started," the Utrecht police Twitter account said. "It is a shooting incident in a tram. Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help." Local media reports said anti-terrorism police had been deployed to the scene and photographs showed masked, armed officers surrounding the tram that had stopped near a road bridge. Reports said the attacker or attackers were still at large. The website NU.nl quoted a witness as saying a man had started "shooting wildly". (Additional reporting by AP/AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. 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. Recovery of the Brazilian economy is making Brazil attractive to global reinsurers and brokers RIO DE JANEIRO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The 8th Rio de Janeiro Reinsurance Conference, the main reinsurance event on the South American calendar, is taking place on April 8th and 9th. Put on by Confederacao das Seguradoras (CNseg The Confederation of Insurers) and Federacao Nacional das Empresas de Resseguros (Fenaber National Federation of Reinsurance Companies), the theme of the event will be "Reinsurance: Supporting Development." The president of CNseg, Marcio Coriolano, states that because of the continuous growth of business between insurers and reinsurers, the audience at the annual reinsurance event has been expanding year after year. "The promising perspectives of the Brazilian insurance market are quite attractive to international reinsurers and specialists. The growth in GDP is expected to be 2.5%, alongside new measures such as structural and social security reforms, which will open the way to the possibility of including large swaths of the population into the consumer market for risk prevention and protection of equity, income, life and health," Coriolano emphasized. Seven hundred participants, both Brazilian and foreign, are expected. The event's agenda is expected to include matters such as opportunities created for the sector by intelligent cities, and perspectives for expanding coverage of cyber risk, particularly with the advent of the Brazilian Data Protection Law. The president of the National Federation of Reinsurance Companies (Fenaber), Paulo Pereira, stated that the conference is an unparalleled opportunity to encourage immersion in the global reinsurance market. "From the subjects on the agenda, to the selection of presenters, all of the efforts of those involved in the organization are geared towards promoting the global reinsurance sector, and showing its importance to the development of the economy, considering the enormous risks borne by reinsurers. Brazil is one of the most promising markets for expansion of reinsurance and broker operations in the coming years," Pereira said. Today, 142 reinsurers are authorized to operate in Brazil 16 local (headquartered in Brazil), 40 admitted (headquartered abroad, with representative offices in Brazil), and 86 eventual (foreign companies headquartered abroad, without representative offices in Brazil), that accept risks from a robust insurance market, whose projected premiums for 2018, including supplemental health insurance plans, is on the order of US$ 120.9 billion. It is guaranteed by technical provisions and free financial reserves of US$ 326.1 billion. To register, please go to: eventos.cnseg.org.br/eventos/evento/8-encontro-de-resseguro-do-rio-de-janeiro/ For more information: Neide Fujioka Tel.: (21) 2510-7938 neide.fujioka@cnseg.org.br Related Links https://eventos.cnseg.org.br SOURCE CNseg e Fenaber KICHINEV, Moldova, March 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Moldovan wine producers are celebrating 42 medals (19 gold and 23 silver) from the spring 2019 edition of the respected MundusVini competition in Neustadt, Germany. This adds to another 550 awards won in competitions in 2018, nearly twice as many as in 2017. Recognition from international judges offers welcome validation for the decision taken by the entire Moldova's winegrowing sector in 2014 to implement a uniquely ambitious programme focused on quality. Moldova's long history of winemaking dates back 7,000 years to the Neolithic Cucuteni Civilization, placing Moldova among the oldest wine producing countries in the world. Throughout its history, wine and grapes have been deeply rooted in the culture, myths, folklore and legends of the country. Despite its millennial winemaking history, Moldova has suffered from its Soviet heritage of mass wine production, oriented to a less demanding consumer. After the politically-driven bans in 2006 and 2013 on Moldovan wine to Russian market, the sector suffered a threefold shrinkage. Gheorghe Arpentin, the director of Moldova's National Office for Vine and Wine (NOVW): "The winegrowing sector is one of the cornerstones of our economy. We have the highest density of vineyards in the world and the industry employing almost 25% of the active population, mostly in rural areas. Five years ago, we had to entirely rethink our business model and re-orient our industry towards quality." NOVW was established with the help of international developing partners and empowered to implement a wide range of quality upgrading programmes. Local wine legislation had to be largely rewritten to bring it into line with EU rules and four PGIs were created. Other initiatives were a radical overhaul of Moldova's wine laboratories, a traceability system, mentoring small producers, and assistance for larger bulk wine producers to switch to higher quality bottled wine. Crucially, there was also a focus on building international awareness under the country brand "Wine of Moldova", increasing sales to European and Asia Pacific markets, and encouraging the wine tourism. (Moldova was described by Lonely Planet as "the #1 unspoiled destination in Europe" and hosted the 3rd UNWTO Global Conference on Wine Tourism). The tangible results of the reform are already remarkable. Since 2013 Moldova managed to significantly reorient exports, now over 60% of the export earnings come from non-CIS countries. The shift to quality was emphasised in 2017 with bottled wine export figures that rose 6% in volume, but 24% by value, while in 2018 exports of bottled wine registered an additional 15% growth above the 3-year average. These sales statistics, competition medals and media coverage up nearly 300% between 2016-2018 all help to place Moldova among Europe's leading wine producing nations. Moldova's award winning wines will be available to taste at ProWein from 17-19th March 2019: at the Wine of Moldova stand Hall 15 / G81 and in the MundusVini tasting area Hall 17 / A51 B52-A www.wineofmoldova.com Related Links http://www.wineofmoldova.com SOURCE National Office for Vine and Wine, Republic of Moldova MIAMI, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- BOM BOM Brands, the premium cream liqueur brand from wellness-focused adult beverage company Sippwell Spirits, continues its national expansion plans, entering Florida and California with a new regional office in Miami, FL and its relationship with Total Wine & More. BOM BOM's award-winning flavors, Coco Mochanut and Nilli Vanilli are currently available and the brand's newest flavor, Fully Baked, will follow shortly. BOM BOM Fully Baked, made with hemp milk (vegan, gluten-free) "We are excited to be bringing BOM BOM to Florida and California, two markets that deliver a great opportunity to connect with our more health-conscious consumer," shared Eva Maria Janerus, Co-founder & CEO of Sippwell Spirits. "And, we're thrilled to be doing it with one of our strongest chain relationships. We've been fortunate to have amazing partners that really care about delivering quality to their customers and communities, ranging from Whole Foods and Stew Leonard's Wines to ShopRite and Wal Mart." It's no secret that plant-based proteins have increasingly become a healthy alternative for vegans and non-vegans alike, and BOM BOM has successfully translated this trend to the world of indulgent alcohol, a win-win in markets like Florida and California. "We want our company to always evolve and we never settle which is why Nilli Vanilli uses almond milk and Fully Baked uses hemp seed milk to get our creamy rich texture without using dairy." "Entering Florida and California with Total Wines and More is a great starting point in two markets we feel very strongly about," added Kevin Mowers, Co-founder of Sippwell Spirits. "It provides for a nice platform to add other leading chains as we approach summer and our key holiday selling season." Originally a delicious drink made for friends and family, Coco Mochanut evolved into an award-winning, all-natural, gluten-free silky-smooth blend of chocolate, coffee, coconut and Caribbean rum. Eva Maria, who'd long been dairy-free and enjoyed almondmilk in her coffee drinks and smoothies, then teamed with Kevin to develop the perfect blend of flavors (almondmilk, creamy vanilla cookie and Caribbean rum) now known as Nilli Vanilli. The following year, they proved to be far from a two-hit wonder with the very first alcohol product made with hemp seed milk. Fully Baked, their newest flavor, boasts a 14.2% ABV, a figure just a bit higher than that of RumChata and Baileys Almande. The new flavor's inspiration comes from the couple's favorite ice cream flavor, Half Baked. "We decided to take Half Baked all the way with Fully Baked," they joked. About Sippwell Spirits and BOM BOM: Sippwell Spirits was founded in 2016 by Kevin Mowers, a food scientist with experience working with companies such as Heineken, Diageo, ConAgra and Heinz and Eva Maria Janerus, who worked in finance. The company is focused on developing and marketing premium adult beverages with a focus on plant-based protein and healthy indulgence. The company's first brand to market, BOM BOM, means "Good Good" in Portuguese and represents their missionto make delicious drinks that Taste Good and are Made Good. Their three award-winning flavors are currently sold in 13 states at more than 1,500 liquor stores, restaurants, resorts and bars. To date, the Brand has sold more than 20,000 cases and anticipates doubling 2018 sales with these new markets and new distribution channels. Visit: www.bombombrands.com Press Contact: [email protected] or 203-518-1516 Related Files Florida and California Press Release 03 18 2019.pdf Related Images bom-bom-fully-baked.jpg BOM BOM Fully Baked BOM BOM Fully Baked, made with hemp milk (vegan, gluten-free) bom-bom-nilli-vanilli.jpg BOM BOM Nilli Vanilli BOM BOM Nilli Vanilli, made with almondmilk (vegan, gluten-free) bom-bom-coco-mochanut.jpg BOM BOM Coco Mochanut BOM BOM Coco Mochanut (gluten-free, all-natural) Related Links BOM BOM Website SOURCE Sipwell Spirits Related Links http://www.drinkbombom.com BOSTON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- The Chilean Salmon Marketing Council (CSMC), a U.S.-based entity dedicated to strengthening the reputation of Chilean Salmon, announced a new creative campaign, "The Promise of Patagonia," at the annual Seafood Expo North America (SENA) in Boston today. "The Promise of Patagonia" is focused on forging the connection for American consumers between the cold, clear waters of Chilean Patagonia, and the salmon they put on their table. Starting this month, it will live on print, online and out-of-home channels. Salmon de Chile logo Salmon de Chile infographic From left to right: Arturo Clement, President and CEO, SalmonChile; Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly, Director of Global Fisheries and Aquaculture, Monterey Bay Aquarium; Tyler Isaac, Senior Aquaculture Scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium; Rolando Ibar ra Olmedo, Fish Health & Food Safety Manager, SalmonChile; Wendy Norden, Science Director, Monterey Bay Aquarium; Melanie Whatmore, Marketing Director, SalmonChile; James Griffin, Executive Director, Chilean Salmon Marketing Council. "The mystique of Patagonia is well-known," said Ricardo Garcia, CEO of Camanchaca, Vice Chairman of Salmones Camanchaca and Chairman of CSMC. "We are emphasizing the pristine Patagonian region of Chile, where salmon is raised in the pure coastal Antarctic waters. As stewards of this remarkable ecology, CSMC's members proudly produce high-quality salmon using environmentally responsible and sustainable aquaculture," said Garcia. "The Promise of Patagonia" will also signify CSMC members' commitment to the welfare of the region's salmon and to the environment in bringing a high quality, reliable and nutritious fish to market year-round. As a proof-point to this commitment, SalmonChile, the national association for the salmon industry in Chile, CSMC, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) collaborated to form the Chilean Salmon Antibiotic Reduction Program (CSARP), a landmark initiative to reduce antibiotic use by 50 percent as a step toward reaching a Seafood Watch Good Alternative by 2025. "A 50 percent reduction in antibiotic use, in concert with other improvements to the industry, could lead to a Good Alternative recommendation. Improvement on that scale is excellent news for Patagonia, and for everyone around the world who enjoys Chilean salmon. We're proud to support this work and are hopeful to see real change along the way to our 2025 goal," said Jennifer Kemmerly, Director of Global Fisheries and Aquaculture at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "Never before has our industry made such a bold commitment," said Arturo Clement, CEO of SalmonChile. "We are excited to work together as an industry and with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to fulfill this extremely important goal. We have made significant advances in salmon farming over the past four years and always work to minimize the use of antibiotics. Collaborating to further this work is a major step we can take toward continuous and quantifiable improvement." "We already have companies in Chile with positive Seafood Watch ratings. It has been my dream to see Chile's Seafood Watch rating, as a whole country, move in a positive direction," said James Griffin, CSMC's Director. "It's a highlight of my career to be part of the effort to achieve this goal. In the coming years, this will be our focus, and U.S. consumers and the people of the Chilean Patagonia will benefit, but the ultimate beneficiary will be the ocean and ecology of such a pristine part of the world." Members of CSMC will be available to speak to press at the SENA show in Boston. Please contact Rebecca Appelman at 410-218-0431 or [email protected] for media inquiries. About CSMC The Chilean Salmon Marketing Council (CSMC) is a U.S.-based entity dedicated to strengthening the reputation of Chilean Salmon while increasing value and healthy growth for member companies. CSMC is governed by a Chile-based executive board and managed by a U.S.-based President/Executive Director. Member companies include AgroSuper (Aquachile, Los Fiordos, Verlasso), Cermaq Chile, MultiExport Foods, Australis, Salmones Camachaca, Bluemar, Ventisqueros, Salmones Austral, Marine Farm, Salmones Magallanes. For more information, visit http://chileansalmon.org. About the Monterey Bay Aquarium The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization whose mission is to inspire conservation of the ocean. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is the most admired aquarium in the United States, a leader in science education and a voice for ocean conservation through comprehensive programs in marine science and public policy. The Aquarium's Seafood Watch program is part of a comprehensive initiative to improve the sustainability of global fisheries and aquaculture, through policy leadership, scientific research, industry partnerships and consumer engagement. Everything we do works in concert to protect the future of our blue planet. More information is at montereybayaquarium.org and at seafoodwatch.org . Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/836886/Salmon_de_Chile.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/836887/Promise_of_Patagonia.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/836888/CSMC_Monterey_Bay_Aquarium_and_SalmonChile.jpg SOURCE Chilean Salmon Marketing Council Related Links http://chileansalmon.org DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, today announced that global trade enabler DP World, as part of its digital transformation initiatives, has selected the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network as the technology backbone to power its Global Supply Chain Platform Initiative. DP World's objectives for strategic growth require innovative logistics digitalization capabilities to power a new business initiative that will extend the value of its port and trade facilitation services to customers around the world. The DP World Global Supply Chain Platform Initiative will bring supply chain stakeholders and processes together on a single global, intelligent network. This will deliver enhanced, end-to-end, digital logistics services and worldwide supply chain visibility. DP World has chosen the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network for its track record in providing a network for global trade management to over 65,000 businesses. The Infor strategy to deliver network native, global supply chain digitalization and innovation was also a key factor in the decision. DP World aims to improve performance at all stages of the global supply chain, from points of manufacture to points of consumption. The company is also seeking to make trade "smarter," which means working to establish physical infrastructure such as ports, logistics parks, and transport services where they are most needed, and to exploit the opportunities offered by digital technology to make the whole supply chain work better. As a global trade enabler servicing customers around the world with a comprehensive supply chain network capability, this expansion into logistics is a key part of its growth strategy. "The global digital logistics market is expected to grow by almost 8 percent between now and 2023. As some of the busiest production centers in the world, the IMEA region is ideally placed to maximize this opportunity, and with its heritage in global trade and strategic investment, DP World will position the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network to help achieve its objective of a leading position in worldwide supply chain services," said Jonathan Wood, Infor general manager, India, Middle East, and Africa (IMEA). For a list of logistics service providers currently on the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network, please visit Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network. About Infor Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. With 17,300 employees and over 68,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress. To learn more, please visit www.infor.com. Infor customers include: 19 of the top 20 aerospace companies 9 of the top 10 high tech companies 18 of the 25 largest U.S. healthcare delivery networks 18 of the 20 largest U.S. cities 19 of the top 20 automotive suppliers 17 of the top 20 industrial distributors 15 of the top 20 global retailers 4 of the top 5 brewers 17 of the top 20 global banks 9 of the 10 largest global hotel brands 8 of the top 10 global luxury brands For more information on Infor: Roger Field mailto:[email protected] +971 4 275 4125 For DP World media enquiries please contact: Sana Maadad Corporate Communications Manager DP World Tel: +971 505522610 [email protected] Mike Vertigans Senior Corporate Communications Manager DP World Tel: +971 566769324 [email protected] Follow DP World on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/DP_World LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dp-world About DP World: DP World1 is a leading enabler of global trade and an integral part of the supply chain. We operate multiple yet related businesses from marine and inland terminals, maritime services, logistics and ancillary services to technology-driven trade solutions. We have a portfolio of 78 operating marine and inland terminals supported by over 50 related businesses in over 40 countries across six continents with a significant presence in both high-growth and mature markets. We aim to be essential to the bright future of global trade, ensuring everything we do has a long-lasting positive impact on economies and society. Our dedicated team of over 45,000 employees from 103 countries cultivates long-standing relationships with governments, shipping lines, importers and exporters, communities, and many other important constituents of the global supply chain, to add value and provide quality services today and tomorrow. Container handling is the company's core business and generates more than three quarters of its revenue. In 2017, DP World handled 70.1 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) across our portfolio. With its committed pipeline of developments and expansions, the current gross capacity of 88.2 million TEU is expected to rise to more than 100 million TEU by 2020, in line with market demand. By thinking ahead, foreseeing change and innovating we aim to create the most productive, efficient and safe trade solutions globally. 1 As of February 2018 SOURCE Infor Related Links http://infor.com BOCA RATON, Fla., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Spurred by the ballooning number of online services that exist solely to provide paperwork deceitfully qualifying pets as emotional support animals (ESA), recent legislation introduced in the Florida Senate would stop bogus operations in their tracks, says a good government advocate and owner of a business that connects patients with licensed therapists. Florida Senate Bill (SB 1128) would require documents supporting a patient's need for an emotional support animal cannot be prepared by a licensed practitioner engaged for that sole purpose (known as selling an ESA letter for a fee). "As an advocate for good government, I'm delighted Tallahassee is finally cracking down on spurious Internet-based operations pumping out fraudulent ESA letters," said Chaz Stevens, founder of ESAD. Since 2015, Stevens' Boca Raton, FL-based ESAD has connected people who have a disability-related need for an assistance animal with local, licensed mental health care professionals who provide a wide variety of therapeutic care offerings. Too many unethical operators are looking to exploit the laws' recognition that pets often help people with disabilities function and therefore should not subject to a community's pet rules, Stevens said. The law correctly recognizes that people with disabilities who need this support should not be discriminated against. But devious operators are giving emotional support animals a bad name. "Typically operated out of a rented mailbox, these operations are profit-driven and not client-centered. False advertising, false claims, and fictitious documents that don't comply with federal law. Letters that are routinely rejected. Out-of-state therapists who are illegally practicing within the state. No therapy options offered to clients," Stevens said. "No sessions, no care, no concern for their mental health. Forget HIPPA compliance. It's just bogus," he added. ESAD rises in strong support of Florida Senate Bill 1128, Stevens said. "We believe the emotional support animal industry needs more regulation from Tallahassee, and across America," he added. "Unfortunately, the online emotional support animal letter business is chock-full of ethically flexible vendors, therapists, and customers," said Stevens, "To wit, I've personally qualified 'Harry Henderson, an emotional support Bigfoot.'" "On the other hand, I've regularly witnessed how an animal can make all the difference in the world. For our clients that needed a helping help, the transformation is breathtaking." Media Contact: Chaz Stevens Founder and CEO, ESADoggy 800-372-4125 [email protected] SOURCE Chaz Stevens SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- VeChain, the leader in enterprise adoption of public blockchain technology, has set the date for its first VeChain Summit on April 18, 2019. The venue is set for Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason, San Francisco, California. Themed as "Creating Valuable Transactions," the Summit is specifically crafted to bring developers, academic professionals, startups, business decision makers and venture capitalists together to collaborate, partner, and build solutions that create value transfer in the real economy, which at the same time is being represented and recorded by transactions on VeChainThor Blockchain. The one-day event, covering a plenitude of topics, will highlight 3 well-designed sessions, where participants will be provided a rare opportunity to embark on a unique blockchain technology adventure. Through a combination of varied sessions including VeChain product releases, expertise and insights sharing, as well as immersive blockchain experience, allow each visitor to touch and feel the VeChainThor blockchain. The goal of the Summit is to have each visitor leaving understand more about how blockchain is helping the world become better, and be inspired by how far VeChainThor Blockchain is ahead of the pack. The event will start with "Building on VeChainThor," during which technical professionals from the VeChain team and distinguished guest speakers will come on the stage introducing the technical features and updates of VeChainThor Blockchain. Topics covered include the support that VeChain Foundation provided for enterprise developers, be it technical, finance, human resources, legal and compliance or other fields related to blockchain technology implementation. Following the first session, "The Path to Enterprise Adoption" will witness the release of VeChain enterprise blockchain solutions that will be made available for all parties to leverage. There will also be speakers from VeChain's dedicated eco-partners, such as BMW, DNV GL, and others who will share their insights in the adoption of enterprise-level blockchain solutions. The final session, prior to the closing speech, is "An Open Ecosystem" that features speakers from the promising projects within VeChain ecosystem, such as OceanEx, SafeHaven and more, where the audience will hear from diverse builders adding value to the ecosystem. The Summit also shares the stage with strategic partners such as DNV GL and CREAM, technical partners such as Totient and top universities and research institutions such as Stanford University, as well as members from the thriving CREAMethod, a dedicated Incubator within the ecosystem, these startup members are DecentBet, Plair, OceanEx, SafeHaven, and a others soon to be released by CREAM and VeChain. For more information, please visit the official website of VeChain Summit 2019: https://summit.vechain.com or contact [email protected] . About VeChain Starting in June 2015, VeChain aims to connect blockchain technology to the real world by providing a comprehensive governance structure, a robust economic model, and IoT integration. VeChain is the pioneer of real-world applications using public blockchain technology, with international operations in Singapore, Luxembourg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. For more detailed information visit www.vechain.org. SOURCE VeChain Related Links http://summit.vechain.com FELTON, California, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global infant formula market is expected to reach USD 90.48 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 9.35% from 2017 to 2025. The market growth is primarily driven by increasing working women population and the introduction of milk formulas induced with additional nutrition. The global infant formula products aim to satisfy the nutritional requirements for the infants of the age group between 0-3 years as an alternative for human breast milk. Infant formula products are available in various forms including liquid, powder and ready usage. Furthermore, increasing parents' awareness regarding the benefits rendered by feeding these products will enhance the uptick in the sales over the forecast period. Economic growth has been creating a large number of employment opportunities which is driving more women workforce to adopt these products across both developed and developing economies. Furthermore, the increasing number of middle- class households supported by economic development and rising population is also contributing to the acceptance of infant formula. Infant formula market is gaining a strong position in the Asian market and is expected to triple up in the next few years. This growth is driven by the China infant formula industry which represents more than 50% of the total Asian market. China accounts for about one-third of the global market majorly supported by factors such as rapid urbanization, expansion of distribution channels, and the introduction of new product variants. Browse full research report with TOC on "Infant Formula Market Size & Forecast By Product Type (Infant Milk, Growing-up Milk, Follow-on Milk, Specialty Baby Milk), By Distribution Channel (Supermarket & Hypermarket, Pharmacies, & Online), And Trend Analysis, 2019 - 2025" at: https://www.hexaresearch.com/research-report/infant-formula-market Europe stands out to be one of the potential markets for infant milk formula followed by Asia Pacific. Major countries contributing to the Europe market include France, Spain, UK, Turkey, Germany, and Italy, wherein France offers lucrative opportunities for the market growth. However, at present Europe market is estimated to grow at a relatively steady pace, due to the introduction of various initiatives supporting breastfeeding. The market represents a consolidated nature with four players dominating the industry namely Nestle, Abbott, Danone, and Mead Johnson. Nestle is the largest player in the global market, thereby representing a market share of about 22%, followed by Danone with around 12% Abbott and Mead Johnson have a market share of about 7% and 5%, respectively. Manufacturers are focusing on developing the products with the addition of several ingredients thereby enhancing the nutritional value of the products. In addition, the players are catering to the needs of the consumers especially for the lactose intolerant infants by introduction of the soy based variants. Request to download free sample report on global infant formula market For instance, Abbott has introduced Isomil, a soy variant for the infants. Few domestic Chinese companies such as Beingmate, Biostime, and Yili and international players such as Fonterra, Royal FrieslandCampina, Sodiaal, Arla are in continuous competition with an aim to gain a potential share in this market. Browse related reports by Hexa Research: Personal Care Packaging Market - The global personal care packaging market was estimated at USD 23.17 billion in 2014. The market is expected to witness substantial growth over the forecast period. The global personal care packaging market was estimated at in 2014. The market is expected to witness substantial growth over the forecast period. Carbonated Soft Drink Market - The global carbonated soft drink market is expected to exhibit steady growth in the coming years due to changing consumption patterns of consumers and growing young population. The global carbonated soft drink market is expected to exhibit steady growth in the coming years due to changing consumption patterns of consumers and growing young population. Microfinance Market - The global furniture market is expected to witness substantial growth in coming years due to rapid infrastructure development. Growth of real estate and hospitality sector, and rising demand for luxury and premium furniture are also likely to drive the market in the years to come. Hexa Research has segmented the infant formula market report based on product type, distribution channel and region: - Segmentation by Product Type Infant Milk Growing-up Milk Follow on Milk Specialty Milk Segmentation by Distribution Channel Supermarket and Hypermarket Pharmacies Online Segmentation by Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Central and South America Middle East and Africa Key players analyzed: Nestle Danone Mead Johnson & Company, LLC Abbott Friesl and Campina Heinz Arla Foods Ltd Dana Dairy Group Ltd HiPP GmbH & Co. Vertrieb KG About Hexa Research Hexa Research is a market research and consulting organization, offering industry reports, custom research and consulting services to a host of key industries across the globe. We offer comprehensive business intelligence in the form of industry reports which help our clients obtain clarity about their business environment and enable them to undertake strategic growth initiatives. Contact: Michelle T. Corporate Sales Specialist Hexa Research Phone: +1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-800-489-3075 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.hexaresearch.com/ SOURCE Hexa Research LAS VEGAS, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- GNCC Capital, Inc. (OTC: GNCP) ("The Company" or "GNCC") announced on February 21, 2019 that it had completed the acquisition of BioCann Pharma S.A.S. ("BioCann"), a Cannabis CBD Pharmaceutical Grade Oils Producer and Distributor, incorporated in and operating in the Republic of Colombia ("Colombia") and with offices in Ontario, Canada. Further to that announcement, we confirm that BioCann has appointed their first Director, Paula Andrea Victoria to the GNCC Board on March 6, 2019, a link to this appointment: https://backend.otcmarkets.com/otcapi/company/financial-report/213059/content. The outgoing Directors of GNCC depart on March 31, 2019, being the close of the "transition period". BioCann will be appointing additional Directors to the GNCC Board on or before that date. In the interests of providing complete transparency to investors and to our shareholders, we confirm that GNCC joined the OTC Markets Transfer Agent Verified Shares Program on March 4, 2019, a link to this filing: https://backend.otcmarkets.com/otcapi/company/financial-report/212971/content BioCann Management in this communication with shareholders sets out an initial overview of their existing business interests and confirms that BioCann has an equal partnership with Instadose Pharma S.A.S. in Colombia, which is a subsidiary of Canadian based Instadose Pharma Corp. ("Instadose"), www.instadosepharma.com. BioCann has sole and exclusive rights with Instadose in Colombia in terms of their partnership agreements. Instadose also has significant and at present, unrelated Cannabis interests in Africa. Instadose owns in a Joint Venture, a licensed processing and manufacturing facility which is GMP Certified and complies with EU Pharmacopoeia Standards. This facility with the necessary Laboratories is located in Bogota, Colombia, where it extracts the CBD Oil isolate in pharmaceutical grade as is required by BioCann. BioCann is responsible for the sourcing and acquisition of the Cannabis a/k/a Biomass and from Licensed Growers in Colombia and in the Cundinamarca, Valle del Cauca and Antioquia regions. This is Biomass that is suitable for Pharma grade oil extraction, complying with the quality assurance and growing standard operating procedures as established by Instadose's scientific department. BioCann at present will be generating its revenues and profits through the bulk sale of these various Pharmaceutical Grade CBD Oils through distribution channels in Colombia and throughout Latin America. BioCann Management confirms it is involved in a number of ongoing discussions with a view to establishing additional partnerships in order to further diversify and into value added products in the Cannabis Industry. BioCann envisages that additional information pertaining to these partnerships could well be provided to shareholders in the coming week. As promised, BioCann's Management will continue to familiarize shareholders with the business, based upon shareholder requests for further information. It is noted that neither BioCann, its Partners and Joint Venture Associates do not operate in, nor sell or market any products in the USA due to Federal Laws prohibiting the same. The GNCC Directors confirm that they will be updating shareholders on other matters such as outstanding Quarterly and Annual Reports as well as proposed actions relating to the GNCC portfolio of Mining Exploration Properties. Forward-Looking Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. The words "believe," "expect," "should," "intend," "estimate," "projects," variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the Company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file with the OTC Markets Group. Twitter: https://twitter.com/gncccapital SOURCE GNCC Capital, Inc. Related Links http://gncc-capital.com Tappy Technologies (Tappy Tech or "Tappy") has been making the headlines in recent years by developing a payment solution in the form of a battery-less chip that can be embedded into any watch or jewellery. This technology is highly secure as users must verify their identity with their fingerprint before being able to make purchases. Speaking to the world's leading technology experts at the Mobile World Congress last month, Tappy Tech's CEO Wayne Leung explained that there are two main factors in attracting consumers into purchasing a watch -- one being the prestigious design and second, the functionality. With this in mind, Tappy is aiming to merge the US$20 billion traditional watch industry with its technology to further popularize wearable payments. "If we want to see mass adoption of payment enabled wearables then we must look beyond traditional methods of card personalization. Tappy aims to scale the wearable payment business globally by empowering the end users themselves to seamlessly, 'On The Go' transfer their existing card information securely into their favourite branded watch, jewellery or accessory," said Leung. Tappy has already established a complete Wearable Payment Ecosystem which includes companies from the traditional watch, jewellery, major card schemes and the banking industries. Tappy offers its certified Wallet Application and Platform to its brand partners, enabling them to turn their products into cutting-edge mobile payment carriers and allowing them to tap into this thriving mobile payment market. About Tappy Technologies Tappy Technologies is a world-leading wearable payment integrator connected to banking partners and card networks with operations that span across North America, APAC and EMEA. Tappy's white labelled digital offerings and hardware solutions are fully trusted and certified by industry standards including PCI and EMVCo. Contact: Suboor Ahmed Vice President of Business Development Email: [email protected] Telephone number: +85263321453 SOURCE Tappy Technologies PHILADELPHIA, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Integrated Ventures Inc. (OTCQB: INTV) ("Company") is pleased to announce the execution of a Letter of Intent ("LOI") to acquire a fully permitted and currently idled, 80 MW natural gas-fired combined heat and power plant ("Power Plant"), located in Pennsylvania. In consideration for the acquisition, the Company is issuing $39 million of INTV common stock, valued at the 60-day trailing VWAP, from the signing of the Definitive Agreements. The transaction is comprised of (i) the Power Plant which is capable of generating power at an estimated cost $0.03 per kwh (*) and (ii) approximately 16 acres of land which allows for the Power Plant and mining facilities to be collocated. Current operational plans will allow the Company to install up to 52,000 (**) mining rigs and will be comprised of a 45,000 sq. ft complex, consisting of micro mining farms combined with a 40 HQ standalone mining containers. The Company intends to complete the restart of the Power Plant and to launch cryptocurrency operations within 4-5 months. The Company operations will focus on (i) mining using the Company's owned mining rigs, (ii) hosting third-party mining rigs and (iii) operating a mining pool. Steve Rubakh, CEO of Integrated Ventures, Inc., is proud to add the following commentary: "Today's announcement is a game changer for the Company and its shareholders. Cogeneration is a proven technology that produces up to 75% increase in efficiency, delivers up to 70% (***) in energy savings, up to 50% reduction in GHG emissions, eliminates reliance on local utilities, thus provides a stable and reliable access to the electricity. The Power Plant will generate electricity, at the below market cost, which turns 100% of rigs that mine BTC, ETH and LTC profitable. Due to Power Plant's generation capacity of 80 MW, the Company will have an unmatched ability to grow the revenue streams by gradually scaling mining and hosting operations and by establishing synergistic partnerships with companies operating in the same space. All of these factors, make Cogeneration Power Plant an ideal solution to power cryptocurrency mining facilities and to establish Integrated Ventures as one of the largest and most diversified players in North America." The Company plans to file Form 8K in a timely matter, which will contain details in regards to the power plant operations, business initiatives, plans for funding and up coming corporate events. About Integrated Ventures Inc.: The Company operates as a Technology Holdings Company with a focus on the cryptocurrency sector. For more information, please visit the company's website at www.integratedventuresinc.com. (*) One of the lowest rates available worldwide, including Russia, China and Iceland (**) 1MW is capable to provide power to host 650 mining rigs (***) Using 10 cents per KWH as nationwide average Safe Harbor Statement: The information posted in this release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "explores," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, and various other factors beyond the company's control. SOURCE Integrated Ventures Inc. Related Links http://www.integratedventuresinc.com WALTHAM, Mass., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lionbridge, the world's most trusted global communications platform, will showcase its latest advances in AI-powered language services at Oracle's Modern Customer Experience conference (MCX) from March 19-21 in Las Vegas. Delivering relevant, resonant content has never been more important: More than half of today's buyers are more likely to switch brands when they don't receive personalized communications, and 72 percent are more likely to buy a product when receiving information in their preferred language. Lionbridge has integrated its AI language services solution with Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Responsys to empower companies to reach their customers by executing multilingual and multimarket campaigns using Lionbridge's AI-enabled Translation Management Platform. This powerful global marketing solution is why Lionbridge is proud to have a longstanding Gold level membership in the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). "The strength of our AI-based offerings is magnified when applied through Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Responsys," said Michael Briggs, Vice President of Global Alliances at Lionbridge. "Our mutual customers see a 70 percent reduction in time to launch multilingual campaigns and save 40 percent with workflow automation." Lionbridge's single-platform solution supports marketers producing, managing, and delivering multilingual digital marketing campaigns for B2B and B2C customers in any region and in more than 350 languages. Through the Lionbridge Translation Management Platform, users can easily translate and localize web pages, videos, graphic files, and more. The integrations provide speed, accuracy, and affordability in a streamlined environment that scales to businesses of all sizes. Other benefits of the platform include: AI-powered translation capabilities to automate large scale site translation; Smart content routing to the optimal machine translation engine; Enhanced dashboard for real-time management; Cost code tracking for multi-departmental invoicing; and Project bundling for simplified submission. At MCX, Lionbridge will sponsor a breakout session on Wednesday, March 20 at 4:15 PM PDT featuring Unity Global Localization Manager Lance Zielinski. In addition, Lionbridge Chief Marketing Officer Jaime Punishill will speak on Tuesday, March 19 at 11:30 AM PDT on the panel "Personalization and hyper-personalization in a data-driven world" alongside leaders from PathFactory and Certain in Mandalay Bay Convention Center South Seas Ballroom E. To learn more about Lionbridge's vision and services, please visit lionbridge.com. About Lionbridge Lionbridge partners with brands to break barriers and build bridges all over the world. For more than 20 years, we have helped companies connect with global customers by delivering marketing, testing and globalization services in more than 300 languages. Through our world-class platform, we orchestrate a network of 500,000 passionate experts who partner with brands to create culturally rich experiences. Relentless in our love of linguistics, we use the best of human and machine intelligence to forge understanding that resonates with our customers' customers. Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge maintains solution centers in 27 countries. Learn more at www.lionbridge.com. Media Contact: Paige Vaughn W2O Group [email protected] +1-512-851-1288 SOURCE Lionbridge Related Links http://www.lionbridge.com SAN DIEGO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC: MJNA), the first publicly traded cannabis company in the United States, today announced that its subsidiary HempMeds Brasil is hosting an event on Medical Cannabis at the Fera Palace Hotel in the Historic Center of Salvador, Bahia on March 19. According to a report by New Frontier Data, the Brazilian medical cannabis market could grow to $1.4 billion annually if CBD products are approved for other uses. At the event, medical cannabis experts will discuss the landscape of medical cannabis in Brazil, the potential therapeutic applications of cannabidiol (CBD) and legal issues of cannabis in Brazil. "As the first company to receive import approval from the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) to import CBD products, we are very proud to have continued to experience such tremendous growth over the past few months," said HempMeds Brasil Vice President Caroline Heinz. "We've had great success with our previous educational events and hope that this event will be well received by both consumers and doctors as well." Speakers at the event will include Medical Marijuana, Inc. CEO Dr. Stuart Titus, HempMeds Brasil Director of Medical Affairs, Dr. Junior Gibelli, HempMeds Brasil Vice President Caroline Heinz, HempMeds Brasil Director of Institutional Relations Norberto Fischer, HempMeds Brasil Director of Legal Affairs Ricardo Handro and several patients sharing their personal stories of using CBD. "The cannabis industry is taking off in Latin America more than we could have ever expected," said Medical Marijuana, Inc. CEO Dr. Stuart Titus. "That said, there are still many misconceptions about CBD and our mission is to help people become more educated about what it is and its potential health benefits." To learn more about the event, please visit https://hempmeds.com.br/ . About Medical Marijuana, Inc. We are a company of firsts. Our mission is to be the premier cannabis and hemp industry innovators, leveraging our team of professionals to source, evaluate and purchase value-added companies and products, while allowing them to keep their integrity and entrepreneurial spirit. We strive to create awareness within our industry, develop environmentally-friendly, economically sustainable businesses, while increasing shareholder value. For details on Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s portfolio and investment companies, visit www.medicalmarijuanainc.com . To see Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s corporate video, click here . Shareholders and consumers are also encouraged to buy CBD oil and other products at Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s shop . About HempMeds Brasil HempMeds Brasil was the first company to receive approval from the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) to import a product based on cannabidiol, a substance derived from hemp, a plant of the genus Cannabis. Currently, it is authorized to supply its products, which help in the control of diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson's, chronic pain and multiple sclerosis, under medical prescription. For these indications, the products can be subsidized by the Brazilian government. HempMeds Brasil works on additional approvals for other indications. www.hempmeds.com.br . FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Medical Marijuana, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) DISCLOSURE These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. LEGAL DISCLOSURE Medical Marijuana, Inc. does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act (US.CSA). These companies do grow, sell, and distribute hemp-based products and are involved with the federally legal distribution of medical marijuana-based products within certain international markets. Cannabidiol is a natural constituent of hemp oil. CONTACT: Public Relations Contact: Andrew Hard Chief Executive Officer CMW Media P. 858-264-6600 [email protected] www.cmwmedia.com SOURCE Medical Marijuana, Inc. Related Links https://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com LONDON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- OneWeb, a global communications company with a mission to bring connectivity to everyone, everywhere, announces it has secured its largest fundraising round to date with the successful raise of $1.25 billion in new capital. This brings the total funds raised to $3.4 billion. This round was led by SoftBank Group Corp., Grupo Salinas, Qualcomm Technologies Inc., and the Government of Rwanda. The new funds, following the successful first launch of OneWeb's satellites, enable the company to accelerate the development of the first truly global communications network by 2021. OneWeb's system will deliver high speed, low latency, seamless broadband access, everywhere on Earth. "This latest funding round, our largest to date, makes OneWeb's service inevitable and is a vote of confidence from our core investor base in our business model and the OneWeb value proposition," said Adrian Steckel, CEO of OneWeb. "With the recent successful launch of our first six satellites, near-completion of our innovative satellite manufacturing facility with our partner Airbus, progress towards fully securing our ITU priority spectrum position, and the signing of our first customer contracts, OneWeb is moving from the planning and development stage to deployment of our full constellation. Our success is made possible thanks to the backing of our investors and the cooperation of our world class commercial partners including Arianespace, Airbus, Qualcomm Technologies Inc., Virgin, and Hughes." OneWeb's satellites, produced through its joint venture with Airbus doing business as "OneWeb Satellites", will ramp-up production this spring at its new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Exploration Park, Florida. Following the company's successful launch of satellites on February 27th, OneWeb will embark on the largest satellite launch campaign in history. Starting in Q4, OneWeb will begin monthly launches of more than 30 satellites at a time, creating an initial constellation of 650 satellites to enable full global coverage. After this first phase, OneWeb will add more satellites to its constellation to meet growing demands. On the additional investment, Marcelo Claure, COO of SoftBank Group Corp. and CEO of SoftBank Group International said: "OneWeb has extended its first-mover advantage and is on track to become the world's largest and first truly global communications network. At SoftBank, our aim is to invest in transformative companies at the leading edge of technology disruption. OneWeb's potential is undeniable as the growth in data from 5G, IoT, autonomous driving and other new technologies drives demand for capacity above and beyond the limits of the existing infrastructure." OneWeb's priority rights to a large block of globally harmonized spectrum and its Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation design will enable a unique combination of high speed, low latency, and truly global service. OneWeb's network will go beyond the limits of existing infrastructure, enabling connectivity for rural communities and schools as well as for business and industries that demand seamless global connectivity solutions such as Aviation, Maritime, Backhaul, and Land Mobility. OneWeb's customers will be able to develop and support a wide range of emerging applications that require real-time communication and collaboration. "I have worked for over 20 years to bring network access to people throughout Mexico and Latin America and have seen first-hand the power of connectivity to change and improve lives. OneWeb will have the ability to reach places that have previously been impossible to connect. We are proud to be supporting Adrian and the entire OneWeb team and are looking forward to creating new opportunities for people everywhere," said Ricardo Salinas, Founder and Chairman of Grupo Salinas. Greg Wyler, Chairman and Founder of OneWeb, added "We are committed to bridging the digital divide, and this funding helps ensure our globally shared dream will soon become a reality. We look forward to continuing our work with the many supportive and forward-looking Governments, ISP's, and Telecom Operators to help them broaden the reach of connectivity to connect people everywhere." OneWeb's network will provide services to billions and will support the emerging digital economy and advanced mobile application needs. To support the deployment of the system, OneWeb relies on high-tech satellite operation centers in both Virginia and in London, and has installed ground stations in Italy, Norway, and Canada, with more on the way. A global company, OneWeb now has offices in Virginia, London, Florida, California, and has recruited top talent around the world to execute the rollout of its system. For more information please visit www.oneweb.world or follow us on Twitter & Instagram. About OneWeb OneWeb's mission is to enable Internet access for everyone, everywhere. OneWeb is building a communications network with a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites that will provide connectivity to people around the world. OneWeb is creating business solutions for Broadband, Government and Cellular Backhaul. Its high speed, low latency, network will offer game-changing Mobility solutions to industries that rely on global connectivity, such as Aviation, Maritime, Automotive, Trains and more. http://www.oneweb.world SOURCE OneWeb Related Links http://www.oneweb.world ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) management will meet with analysts and investors this week in San Francisco and Las Vegas. During the meetings, management is expected to affirm the company's 2019 consolidated earnings guidance of $2.10 to $2.18 per diluted share. Presentation materials are available on the company's website at http://www.pnmresources.com/investors/events.cfm. Background: PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) is an energy holding company based in Albuquerque, N.M., with 2018 consolidated operating revenues of $1.4 billion. Through its regulated utilities, PNM and TNMP, PNM Resources has approximately 2,661 megawatts of generation capacity and provides electricity to more than 781,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas. For more information, visit the company's website at www.PNMResources.com. CONTACTS: Analysts Media Lisa Goodman Ray Sandoval (505) 241-2160 (505) 241-2782 Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 Statements made in this news release for PNM Resources, Inc. ("PNMR"), Public Service Company of New Mexico ("PNM"), or Texas-New Mexico Power Company ("TNMP") (collectively, the "Company") that relate to future events or expectations, projections, estimates, intentions, goals, targets, and strategies are made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned that all forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and estimates. PNMR, PNM, and TNMP assume no obligation to update this information. Because actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, PNMR, PNM, and TNMP caution readers not to place undue reliance on these statements. PNMR's, PNM's, and TNMP's business, financial condition, cash flow, and operating results are influenced by many factors, which are often beyond their control, that can cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of risk factors and other important factors affecting forward-looking statements, please see the Company's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which factors are specifically incorporated by reference herein. Non-GAAP Financial Measures GAAP refers to generally accepted accounting principles in the U.S. Ongoing earnings is a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes the impact of net unrealized mark-to-market gains and losses on economic hedges, the net change in unrealized gains and losses on investment securities, pension expense related to previously disposed of gas distribution business, and certain non-recurring, infrequent, and other items that are not indicative of fundamental changes in the earnings capacity of the Company's operations. The Company uses ongoing earnings and ongoing earnings per diluted share (or ongoing diluted earnings per share) to evaluate the operations of the Company and to establish goals, including those used for certain aspects of incentive compensation, for management and employees. While the Company believes these financial measures are appropriate and useful for investors, they are not measures presented in accordance with GAAP. The Company does not intend for these measures, or any piece of these measures, to represent any financial measure as defined by GAAP. Furthermore, the Company's calculations of these measures as presented may or may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies. The Company uses ongoing earnings guidance to provide investors with management's expectations of ongoing financial performance over the period presented. While the Company believes ongoing earnings guidance is an appropriate measure, it is not a measure presented in accordance with GAAP. The Company does not intend for ongoing earnings guidance to represent an expectation of net earnings as defined by GAAP. Since the future differences between GAAP and ongoing earnings are frequently outside the control of the Company, management is generally not able to estimate the impact of the reconciling items between forecasted GAAP net earnings and ongoing earnings guidance, nor their probable impact on GAAP net earnings without unreasonable effort, therefore, management is generally not able to provide a corresponding GAAP equivalent for ongoing earnings guidance. Reconciliations between GAAP and ongoing earnings are contained in schedules 1-4. SOURCE PNM Resources, Inc. Related Links http://www.pnmresources.com SANTA MONICA, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pulpo, an Entravision Communications Corporation (NYSE: EVC) company, today announced new branding that more intuitively conveys its full suite of digital offerings and its ability to provide, a one-stop-shop for all Latino digital marketing needs. The branding includes a revitalized contemporary logo, a position-focused tagline stating, "Your source for Latino fans," and a clear and distinct depiction of its three-core service and product offerings that are Pulpo Media, Pulpo Solutions, and Pulpo Engage. Pulpo, comScore and Ad Age's #1 Ranked Hispanic Ad Focused Network, has expanded and innovated its offering since its founding in 2008 to become an integrated digital solutions company with an expansive offering that allows brands to connect with Latinos. "Pulpo was born ten years ago as an ad network with a strong data-driven foundation. As Pulpo integrated with Entravision, it evolved to provide brands and advertisers comprehensive digital offerings across a wide range of environments, while continuing its focus on innovative technology and advanced data integration," said Solange Curutchet, Executive Vice President for Pulpo. "Today, we are an integrated media company, that provides robust digital marketing and media services. Plus, as part of the Entravision family, we can provide unparalleled opportunities to deliver omnichannel media campaigns to our clients. The new branding better positions Pulpo to more intuitively convey the full suite of digital offerings we bring to the table." Pulpo understands how to reach Latinos, has the scale to effectively engage them and provides a full range of services designed to achieve business results. The company delivers these services based on a data-centric approach. From the integration of Luminar proprietary behavioral data to exclusive publisher partnership gathering opt-in audience intelligence, Pulpo provides precision audience reach that reduces waste and improves clients' return on investment. The company's three core offerings are: Pulpo Media engages audiences across the full digital spectrum, including; web, mobile, video, and connected TV. Under the Media banner, Pulpo is also rolling out Podcast and audio offerings in the coming weeks. Pulpo Solutions focuses on custom digital marketing solutions. These services account for a significant portion of the business today and serve as a one-stop-shop for digital marketers seeking to drive awareness, convert customers, and drive growth results. Pulpo Engage is all about engaging customers through content. We leverage our owned and operated content properties, personalities, influencer, and content partners to deliver audience engagement through compelling content experiences. The Pulpo Difference Pulpo connects leading advertisers and brands with Hispanic consumers through end-to-end digital solutions. Ranked #1 by comScore and Ad Age, the company delivers the most extensive Hispanic audience reach in the US. With over 100-strong employees, 2000+ brands rely on Pulpo to provide integrated digital campaigns. Pulpo's offerings encompass three core service areas: paid media, custom digital solutions and impactful content, designed to engage relevant audiences. Founded in 2008, Pulpo is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA and is an Entravision Communications Corporation (NYSE: EVC) company. For more information visit www.pulpo.com. About Entravision Communications Corporation Entravision is a diversified global media, advertising technology and data analytics company that reaches and engages Latino consumers in the U.S. and other markets primarily including Mexico, Latin America and Spain. Entravision's portfolio includes digital media properties and advertising technology platforms that deliver performance-based solutions and data insights, along with 55 television stations and 49 radio stations. Entravision's digital and technology businesses include Headway, a leading global provider of mobile, programmatic, data and performance digital marketing solutions, as well as Pulpo, the top-ranked online advertising platform in connecting businesses with U.S. Latinos. Entravision is the largest affiliate group of both the Univision and UniMas television networks, and its Spanish-language radio stations feature its nationally recognized talent. Entravision also operates Entravision Solutions, a national sales and marketing organization representing over 300 owned and affiliated radio stations, radio networks and digital media platforms, and Headway's audio advertising platform, AudioEngage. Entravision shares of Class A Common Stock are traded on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: EVC. Learn more at: www.entravision.com. SOURCE Entravision Related Links http://www.entravision.com NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Angioplasty Balloons Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Type (Normal, DEB, Cutting, Scoring), By Application (Peripheral, Coronary), By End Use (Hospitals, ASCs, Cath Labs), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025 Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05741303 The global angioplasty balloon market size is expected to reach USD 2.9 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is projected to record a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to favorable government policies and increasing coronary and peripheral interventions. Angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure, hence patients and surgeons prefer this procedure over high-cost stent placements. Furthermore, advancements in angioplasty balloons and expanding geographical reach are likely to propel the market growth in the coming years. For instance, in December 2014, Medtronic plc received an FDA approval for their drug-coated balloon IN.PACT Admiral for the treatment of peripheral artery disease. The company also received product approval from Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for the treatment of peripheral artery disease in the upper leg. Approval and commercialization of cutting and scoring balloons, such as TREK and MINI TREK, AngioSculpt, and Flextome balloons along with rising adoption of new balloons are likely to drive the market further. Further key findings from the study suggest: Normal balloon segment led the market in 2017 due to low costs and ability of these products to treat coronary artery obstruction DEBs are anticipated to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period due to lower restenosis rate and increased R&D investments by major companies Coronary vascular disease segment led in 2017 and is expected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period due to rising cases of coronary artery diseases Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) led the end use segment in 2017 as they help minimize the medical expenses and hospital stay North America was the dominant regional market the market in 2017 and is expected to maintain its position during the forecast period due to the presence of major companies Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the fastest-growing region during the forecast period due to rising healthcare expenditure and R&D investments by key companies Some of the prominent companies in the industry are Abbott Laboratories; Boston Scientific Corp.; Cardinal Health (Cordis); Cook Medical, Inc.; Becton Dickinson. and Company (C.R. Bard); ENDOCOR GmbH; Medtronic PLC; Spectranetics Corp.; and Johnson & Johnson Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05741303 About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: [email protected] US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com LONDON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Ophthalmology PACS Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Type (Integrated, Standalone), By End Use (Hospitals, Specialty Clinics), By Delivery Mode (Cloud-based, On-Premise), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025 Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5741299 The global ophthalmology PACS market size is expected to reach USD 170.96 million by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is projected to witness a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period and is driven by rising adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solutions globally. Moreover, rising prevalence of eye diseases, such as cataract, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy, is expected to fuel demand for ophthalmology PACS in near future. The Department of Ophthalmology of National University of Singapore conducted a study in collaboration with National University Health System, Singapore and South Central Asia. According to this study, the number of glaucoma cases diagnosed in 2013 was 17.06 million, which is anticipated to reach around 32.9 million by 2040. Product development, geographical expansion and M&A are some sustainability strategies adopted by major companies in this market. For instance, in August 2017, Carl Zeiss Meditec Inc., acquired Veracity Innovations, LLC, a U.S.-based medical software company that delivers cloud-based platforms to maximize clinical performance and work efficiency. These platforms help ophthalmologists in delivering personalized technology-enabled care to their patients. The acquisition is intended to expand the former company's eye care-based digital solutions portfolio. The company is also focusing on expanding the business in Asia Pacific owing to larger patient pool in this region. Further key findings from the study suggest: Increasing cases of ophthalmic diseases, lack of skilled ophthalmologists, and growing usage of teleophthalmology solutions in developed countries are the factors driving the market According to BrightFocus Foundation's survey, prevalence of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is anticipated to rise up to 22 million by 2040. This is also likely to boost market growth Cloud-based PACS is anticipated to register lucrative growth during the forecast period owing to features, such as interoperability and mutual performance, privacy and security, reduced errors, and improved quality North America held the major share of the market in 2017 due to increased ophthalmic disease burden and healthcare expenditure by public and private firms in this region Asia-Pacific is anticipated to register the highest CAGR during forecast period due to rising prevalence of glaucoma coupled with high demand for an effective diagnostic solution Carl Zeiss Meditec AG; Topcon Corp.; Merge Healthcare, Inc. are the major companies in the global ophthalmology PACS market Most of these companies are focusing on technological advancements, M&A, and R&D as part of their business expansion strategies Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5741299 About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com DUBLIN, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Southeast Asia Tyre Market (2018-2024): Market Forecast By Tyre Types, By End Markets, By Vehicle Types, By Countries, and Competitive Landscape" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Growing demand for passenger vehicles, domestic manufacturing, and opportunities in the aftermarket have propelled the demand for tyres in the South East region. Moreover, government visions such as Indonesia vision 2045 and Vietnam vision 2035, would result in an increase in the level of disposable income in the region. This would further result in higher adoption of vehicles and would spur the growth of the tyre market in South East Asia over the next six years. According to this research, the South East Asia Tyre market is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 7.5% during 2018-2024. The report thoroughly covers the South East Asia tyre market by vehicle types, tyre types, end markets, and regions. The report provides an unbiased and detailed analysis of the on-going trends, opportunities/high growth areas and market drivers which would help the stakeholders to devise and align their market strategies according to the current and future market dynamics. Radial Tyre is the key revenue generating segment in the South East Asia tyre market revenues owing to its low life-cycle cost and high deployment, especially in the passenger vehicles and two & three wheeler vehicles. In passenger vehicles, majorly radial tyres are installed due to the availability of certain key features such as higher safety, long-term value and lower life-cycle cost. Radial tires are expected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period as well due to a surge in the sales of passenger vehicles in the region. Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have captured key pie in 2017. Further, government plans such as Indonesia's vision 2045 and Malaysia's Industrial Linkage Programme (ILP) would help the tyre industry to grow in the region. In addition to these countries, Vietnam would emerge as the key revenue generating market during the forecast period due to the implementation of Vietnam 2035. The reports offer a detailed analysis of the following market segments: Tyre Types Radial Bias End Markets OEM Replacement Vehicle Types Passenger Vehicles Commercial Vehicles Two and Three Wheeler Vehicles Countries Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Thailand Philippines Vietnam Myanmar Cambodia Rest of the South East Asia Region Key Topics Covered 1. Executive Summary 2. Introduction 2.1 Report Description 2.2 Key Highlights of The Report 2.3 Market Scope & Segmentation 2.4 Research Methodology 2.5 Assumptions 3. South East Asia Tyre Market Overview 3.1 South East Asia Tyre Market Revenues and Volumes, 2014-2024F 3.2 South East Asia Tyre Market Revenues Share, By Countries, 2017 3.3 South East Asia Tyre Market - Industry Life Cycle 3.4 South East Asia Tyre Market - Porter's Five Forces 4. South East Asia Tyre Market Dynamics 4.1 Impact Analysis 4.2 Market Drivers 4.3 Market Restraints 5. South East Asia Tyre Market Trends 6. Indonesia Tyre Market Overview 6.1 Indonesia Tyre Market Revenues and Volume, 2014-2024F 6.2 Indonesia Tyre Market Revenue Share, By Vehicle Types, 2017 & 2024F 6.3 Indonesia Tyre Market Revenue Share, By Tyre Types, 2017 & 2024F 6.4 Indonesia Tyre Market Revenue Share, By End Markets, 2017 & 2024F 6.5 Indonesia Tyre Market Overview, By Vehicle Types 6.6 Indonesia Tyre Market Overview, By Tyre Types 6.7 Indonesia Tyre Market Overview, By End Markets 6.8 Indonesia Tyre Market - Key Performance Indicators 6.9 Indonesia Tyre Market Opportunity Matrix 7. Malaysia Tyre Market Overview 8. Singapore Tyre Market Overview 9. Thailand Tyre Market Overview 10. Philippines Tyre Market Overview 11. Vietnam Tyre Market Overview 12. Myanmar Tyre Market Overview 13. Cambodia Tyre Market Overview 14. Rest of Southeast Asia Tyre Market Overview 14.1 Others Tyre Market Revenues and Volume, 2014-2024F 15. Southeast Asia Tyre Market Competitive Benchmarking 15.1 Competitive Benchmarking 15.2 Southeast Asia Tyre Market Revenue Share, By Types, By Country 16. Company Profiles 16.1 General Company Establishment Michelin 16.2 Bridgestone Corporation 16.3 Continental AG 16.4 The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company 16.5 Hankook Tire Co. Ltd. 16.6 The Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. 16.7 Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. 16.8 Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. Ltd. 16.9 Giti Tire Corporation 16.10 Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co. Ltd. 17. Strategic Recommendations For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pc594p/the_tyre_market?w=5 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com WALTHAM, Mass., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO), the world leader in serving science, today announced that it is investing $150 million in its Pharma Services business to provide additional capacity for sterile liquid and lyophilized product development and commercial manufacturing. Included in the site expansion projects are Monza and Ferentino, Italy, and Greenville, North Carolina. In response to customer requests, each of the sites will be equipped with aseptic filling lines and isolator technology. Construction is expected to be completed within the next 24 months. "These investments will help expand our global sterile manufacturing network and meet the increasing demand from customers that rely on our biologics development and manufacturing expertise," said Michel Lagarde, president of pharma services for Thermo Fisher Scientific. "We continue to invest to expand our capabilities and help our customers deliver the highest quality medicines to the patients who need them." About Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $24 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We help our customers accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics, deliver medicines to market and increase laboratory productivity. Through our premier brands Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services we offer an unmatched combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and comprehensive services. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com. SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific Related Links http://www.thermofisher.com SAN ANTONIO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- WGU Texas has partnered with UPGRADE, a San Antonio Education Partnership program, to provide employees with pathways to high-quality educational opportunities. Employees are eligible for a tuition discount and special scholarships. UPGRADE is an extension of the Graduate! Network a national network that connects adults to high-quality degrees and certificates and is the first and only state affiliate of the national network. Housed in the cafecollege, UPGRADE advisors provide one-on-one advising and case management to adults interested in the successful completion of their educational aspirations. WGU Texas is also an UPGRADE sponsor. "WGU Texas is delighted to assist with UPGRADE employee development goals," said Dr. Steven Johnson, WGU Texas Chancellor. "We look forward to providing new avenues to advance their education with bachelor's and master's degree programs." Under the terms of the partnership, all UPGRADE employees are eligible to receive a five percent tuition discount (for up to four academic terms) off WGU Texas' flat-rate tuition of approximately $6,300 per year for most programs, and are eligible to apply for special scholarships, including the WGU Texas Institutional Partner Fund Scholarship. More information about the partnership is available at texas.wgu.edu/upgrade. About WGU Texas WGU Texas is an online, nonprofit, competency-based university established to expand Texans' access to higher education throughout the state. Formed through a partnership between the state of Texas and nationally-recognized Western Governors University, WGU Texas is open to all qualified Texas residents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the high-demand career fields of business, K-12 teacher education, information technology, and health professions, including nursing. Degrees are granted under the accreditation of Western Governors University, which is accredited through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). Teachers College programs are accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and nursing programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE).* Learn more at texas.wgu.edu or call 1-877-214-7011. *Western Governors University offers nursing programs that are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 5380, Washington, DC 20036, 202-877-6791). Follow WGU Texas: https://www.facebook.com/WGUTexas https://www.linkedin.com/companies/western-governors-university https://twitter.com/wgutexas WGU Texas News Contact for media inquiries: Contact for enrollment information: Kathy Koza, PR Manager 877.214.7011 512.225.6644 or 214.674.8057 (c) texas.wgu.edu [email protected] SOURCE WGU Texas Related Links http://texas.wgu.edu SEATTLE, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- For the eleventh consecutive year, dentists throughout the country are marking Sedation Safety Week (SSW), an annual springtime campaign to refresh and reinforce the profession's commitment to patient health and well-being. The theme of this year's safety drive Looking Back and Forging Ahead coincides with the milestone 20th Anniversary of DOCS Education, the world's leading educator of sedation dentists, and host of SSW. Dr. Michael D. Silverman, Sedation Safety Week founder and chairperson Complete details are available at SedationSafetyWeek.com. Estimates are that more than 92 million Americans fear seeing a dentist. Thanks to sedation dentistry, over the past two decades more than 22 million once-reluctant individuals have overcome their hesitancy and received safe, pain-free, oral health treatments without incident. Beginning today, and each day this week, SSW will showcase the laudable progress that sedation dentistry has made since 1999, as well as some of the tasks that are as yet incomplete. "In the beginning, the trailblazers who first trained with DOCS Educations were in a teeny tiny minority of all general dentists, as were the faculty instructors who had enough clinical experience and formal education to be knowledgeable," recalls Dr. Michael D. Silverman, a globally-recognized lecturer, educator, author and patients' rights advocate. Dr. Silverman is co-founder and president of DOCS Education and founding chair of Sedation Safety Week. "Today, oral sedation is mainstream, with more than 24,000 practicing dentists now relying on the DOCS Education protocols and training to treat millions of grateful patients annually," Dr. Silverman notes. Nonetheless, despite the outstanding clinical safety record of sedation dentistry, one of the challenges the dental profession still faces is protecting patients' access to sedation care from a small but influential contingent of self-interested dental specialists who'd like nothing more than to roll back the hands of time to the pre-DOCS Education era when they enjoyed a near monopoly on sedating patients. In fact, as Dr. Silverman points out, in multiple states, general dentists who have provided oral sedation to their patients for years without incident find themselves on the cusp of losing the right to continue to do so unless they bow to demands that they undertake extensive, expensive and unnecessary additional continuing education. "This year's Sedation Safety Week, once again, is also intended to serve as a reminder to regulators, politicians, and dental profession leaders that the battle over oral sedation is about more than internecine rivalries," Dr. Silverman says. "It is, first and foremost, a fight for patients' access to care." When the American Dental Association or state regulators succumb to the pressures of self-interested dentists and unnecessarily tighten the governance of general dentists who use oral sedation, they are effectively restricting the number of patients who can receive safe, effective dental care, says Dr. Silverman. "And that is unconscionable." SSW invites dentists, team members, and patients to visit SedationSafetyWeek.com each day this week as the campaign reviews the substantial progress qualified sedation dentists have made in safely treating fearful and anxious patients, as well as the challenges that remain. Media contact: Michael Silverman [email protected] 877-227-6505 SOURCE DOCS Education LOS ANGELES, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cross- border e-commerce is dramatically transforming the way foreign brands penetrate the Chinese market. In 2018 alone, more than $200 billion dollars in commerce was transacted via cross-border e-commerce in China with the expectation of more than 600 million active online consumers by 2023. Cross-Border E-Commerce Growth Solutions for China For years, exporters worldwide dreamed of the day they could sell "a pair shoes" to every Chinese consumer. That day has now arrived and companies selling everything from baby formula to beauty products to shoes are thriving exporting via cross- border e-commerce. The rise of China e-commerce has brought with it an unprecedented opportunity for American companies to tap sales directly to Chinese consumers and beyond. The largest ecommerce platforms in China: Alibaba's T-Mall, JD.com, and Kaola.com are also quickly expanding their reach throughout South East Asia. Chinese consumers place high regard for branded goods that have a consumer following in the United States and this can be across many industry sectors including apparel/shoes, baby, beauty and health, home electronics, medical devices, natural foods, pet products, and others. The team at Showcase USA Store has demystified the cross border e-commerce process to offer companies a fully customizable, one-stop solution that will help successfully launch their products in China through cross-border ecommerce sales. According to Mark Matsumoto, company co-founder," The rapid expansion of cross -border e-commerce has been a game changer for U.S. companies hoping to reach the vast China consumer market. We have developed a turn-key model that reduces risk and gives companies assurance dealing with a U.S. based company." Leveraging the backbone of ABC Depot Logistics, the exclusive 3PL and procurement arm for Netease/Kaola North America and other leading Chinese e-commerce platforms, the Showcase USA Store model provides brand holders a seamless method to manage all aspects of the cross- border e-commerce process. Our bundled services include: Product review and input from leading ecommerce platforms Listing and approvals with China Customs for selected sku's Development and management of online store Management of inventory and logistics with proprietary warehouse management software Payment collection from Chinese consumer Coordination of platform promotion, including social media campaigns and contracting with key opinion leaders(KOL) 24/7 customer service support in China Services are customizable based on company size, product and anticipated sales volume. About ABC Depot Logistics/Showcase USA Store, www.showcaseusastore.com - was founded in 2005 as a leading provider of end-to-end logistics solutions, combining air freight, ocean freight, warehousing, road rail, express packages and e-commerce services. Having developed a strong reputation in the global logistics industry, ABC Depot was enlisted by Netease/Kaola in 2015 to establish a 3PL operation and procurement office in North America. ABC Depot Logistics has played a key role helping Kaola.com to become the leading cross border e-commerce platform in China. The launch of Showcase USA Store in 2018 offers brand holders a comprehensive cross-border sales and support solution. Understanding Cross Border E-Commerce Opportunities and Solutions- https://vimeo.com/317694025; https://vimeo.com/317694327; [email protected] CONTACT: MARK MATSUMOTO ABC Depot/Showcase USA Store TEL-714-624-7001 [email protected] https://vimeo.com/317687888 SOURCE ABC Showcase USA Store NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Low-speed Autonomous Driving Industry: Sales of Low-speed Autonomous Vehicles will Reach 11,000 Units in China in 2020 Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05483369 L4 and above autonomous driving suffers a setback but low-speed autonomous driving industry is advancing at a steady and fast pace. NAVYA, an autonomous minibus trailblazer, performed poorly in sales, far less than that of Baidu Apolong. But there is no doubt that 2019 will see robust sales of low-speed autonomous vehicle. Nuro.ai which runs low-speed self-driving delivery pods, raised $940 million from SoftBank Vision Fund, with which it will strenuously scale up its AV fleets. Baidu expects 10,000 Apollo-enabled L4 AVs in 2019, most of which will be low-speed ones. Idriveplus plans to produce 1,200 low-speed self-driving vehicles in 2019. On our conservative estimate, 11,000 low-speed AVs including self-driving passenger cars, low-speed autonomous trucks and autonomous working vehicles, will be sold in China in 2020, and the sales figure will soar to 104,000 units in 2023. Foreign low-speed autonomous vehicle firms are energetically dedicated to passenger cars while their Chinese peers focus on low-speed trucks. In 2017, global food and parcel delivery market was valued at a staggering $400 billion, including roughly $80 billion of "last-mile" delivery market. Eighty percent of packages will be delivered by autonomous vehicles in the next decade, as is predicted by McKinsey. Driverless delivery vehicle market will therefore be a tipping point of the low-speed autonomous driving market, where the key players include Nuro.ai, Starship, Auto X, Idriverplus, Neolix, Suning, Meituan, JD, Cainiao, Navibook, and Aisimba. Yet, the promising driverless delivery vehicles are confronted with challenges as follows: (a) High costs in early R&D and expensive maintenance cost. Due to technical and legal constraints, the self-driving vehicle without exception needs a safety officer, and even a security guard driving a car behind the driverless delivery vehicle. (b) Public acceptance and policy barriers. Many Americans protest against small autonomous delivery vehicle, complaining about its infringement of people's rights of way now that the sidewalks are regularly encroached. Consequently, the number of self-driving delivery vehicles running on road is to be limited in the United States. In China, the autonomous delivery vehicle has to be allowed with a license, and the policy is being discussed and waits to be drafted, and the issuance of permits s impossible for the moment. Related standards are anticipated to be set down within 2019. (c) Still immature technologies and expensive products. A large number of autonomous vehicles fail to suit traffic environment on public roads and the real open road conditions are more complicated than those in communities and parks. Product stability desires to be tested. (d) Vulnerability to damages. Like bike-sharing, the self-driving delivery vehicle will be readily destroyed by the immoralist and the deliveries will be possibly stolen if unattended. Despite those aforementioned, the autonomous delivery vehicle is an irresistible trend, being expedited by the technical competence, channel distribution system and existing market resources of the key players. The To B market is faced with not so many legal restrictions and damages as the To C market. In October 2018, Cowarobot and Zoomlion co-founded a joint-stock subsidiary Cowarobot Zoomlion Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd which is primarily focused on driverless sweepers, and they will lavish a total of at least RMB1 billion for mass-production of autonomous commercial vehicle, modification of production lines, operation of commercial fleets, among others. The To B market features not so fierce competition. Beijing I-tage Technology Co., Ltd is engrossed in the driverless mining vehicle market; HiGo Automotive collaborated with UNIS to roll out indoor self-driving floor scrubber; Zoomlion partnered with Landing.AI (established by Andrew Ng) to develop autonomous agricultural machinery; UISEE launched autonomous luggage vehicle. ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 of ResearchInChina covers following 17 reports: 1)Global Autonomous Driving Simulation and Virtual Test Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 2)China Car Timeshare Rental and Autonomous Driving Report, 2018-2019 3)Report on Emerging Automakers in China, 2018-2019 4)Global and China HD Map Industry Report, 2018-2019 5)Global and China Automotive Domain Control Unit (DCU) Industry Report, 2018-2019 6)Global and China Automated Parking and Autonomous Parking Industry Report, 2018-2019 7)Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure System (CVIS) and Vehicle to Everything (V2X) Industry Report, 2018-2019 8)Autonomous Driving High-precision Positioning Industry Report, 2018-2019 9)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Processor 10)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Automotive Lidar 11)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Automotive Radar 12)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Automotive Vision 13)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Passenger Car Makers 14)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 System Integrators 15)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Commercial Vehicle Automated Driving 16)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 Low-speed Autonomous Vehicle 17)ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019 L4 Autonomous Driving Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05483369 About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: [email protected] US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AIC's GPU server SB401-VG has passed testing and benchmarking with Bitfusion virtualization software and delivered near-native GPU performance while performing broad-scale of virtualization features. AIC GPU server delivered NVIDIA accelerated compute with notable advantages: AIC Announcing Elastic GPU Servers Supporting Bitfusion Virtualization Platform Flexible storage solution from SAS/SATA to NVMe Highly configurable for the high-performance workloads Cutting edge technology with Intel Scalable Processor and up to 3TB of DDR4 memory (Cascade Lake & AEP DIMM ) GPUs are deployed at scale in ML/AI infrastructure and are serving broad set of workloads. However, the new breed of GPU servers are being used as CPU servers were used 15 years ago bare-metal, without ability to share GPUs, with no virtualization and with no ability to sub-segment GPUs to virtual GPUs. With the Bitfusion virtualization software, AIC can deliver Elastic GPUs in public and private data centers. AIC servers can be configured as one common GPU pool and allow any AI workload (be it a container, VM, bare metal or other) to remotely attach (over Ethernet), on-demand and in real-time to any number of GPUs or virtual GPUs. Essentially, creating GPU attached network (JBOG J ust B unch O f G PUs) very much like storage attached network. With Bitfusion AI/ML virtualization technology, GPU resources can scale-out, creating consumption based ML/AI infrastructure. AIC will demonstrate Elastic GPU server in the 2019 GPU Technology Conference (GTC) Booth 530 held at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA from March 17th to March 21th. Contact AIC Leslie Tran +1-909-895-8989 ext.109 [email protected] About AIC Inc. AIC is a leading provider of both standard OTS (off-the-shelf) and OEM/ODM server and storage solutions. With expert in-house design, manufacturing and validation capabilities, AIC's products are highly flexible and configurable to any form factor, standard or custom. AIC leads the industry with over 20 years of experience in mechanical, electronic, system-level engineering as well as a dedication to innovation and customer satisfaction. Headquartered in Taiwan, AIC has offices and operations throughout the United States, Asia and Europe. For more information, please visit: http://www.aicipc.com SOURCE AIC Related Links https://www.aicipc.com DUBLIN, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the company's supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for AVYCAZ (ceftazidime and avibactam), expanding the label to include pediatric patients 3 months and older for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) in combination with metronidazole and complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI). This is the first FDA approval of a pediatric indication for cUTI and cIAI in more than a decade. "Difficult-to-treat gram-negative pathogens pose a significant health risk, particularly to the vulnerable and sensitive pediatric patient population with few options for treatment," said David Nicholson, Chief Research & Development Officer at Allergan. "As resistance rises among the gram-negative pathogens that cause these serious infections, the expanded label for AVYCAZ provides a safe and effective treatment option now for pediatric patients with cIAI and cUTI. These expanded indications in pediatric patients with infections, including infants and those at a particularly young age, address an unmet need among this vulnerable population and underscore Allergan's efforts in anti-infective research." The label expansion was approved based on results from two active-controlled clinical studies evaluating AVYCAZ in children or infants with cIAI or cUTI, as well as a single-dose pharmacokinetic study. In the cIAI study, the safety and efficacy of AVYCAZ (in combination with metronidazole) was compared with meropenem. In the cUTI study, AVYCAZ was compared with cefepime. Across the trials, 128 pediatric patients 3 months to less than 18 years of age were treated with AVYCAZ. Overall, the findings from the pediatric studies were similar to the previous determination of safety for AVYCAZ for the treatment of adult patients with cIAI or cUTI, and no new safety concerns were identified in pediatric patients. The primary objectives of the studies were to evaluate the safety and tolerability of AVYCAZ, and they were not powered for a statistical analysis of efficacy. The descriptive efficacy analyses in the pediatric studies were consistent with data from studies in adults with cIAI and cUTI. In the pediatric cIAI study, the clinical cure rate at the test-of-cure (TOC) visit in the intent-to-treat (ITT) population was 91.8% (56/61) in the AVYCAZ plus metronidazole group and 95.5% (21/22) in the meropenem group. Clinical cure rates for the predominant pathogens, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, were 90.5% and 85.7%, respectively for patients treated with AVYCAZ plus metronidazole, and 92.3% and 88.9%, respectively, for patients treated with meropenem. In the pediatric cUTI study, the combined favorable clinical and microbiological response rate at TOC in the microbiological-ITT population was 72.2% (39/54) in the AVYCAZ group and 60.9% (14/23) in the cefepime group. The microbiologic response rate for E.coli, the most common uropathogen identified in the study, was 79.6% for patients treated with AVYCAZ and 59.1% for patients treated with cefepime. AVYCAZ was first approved by the FDA in February 2015 for the treatment of cUTI including pyelonephritis, and cIAI in combination with metronidazole, caused by designated susceptible bacteria including certain Enterobacteriaceae and P. aeruginosa, for patients 18 years of age and older. AVYCAZ was subsequently approved for the treatment of adults with hospital-acquired pneumonia / ventilator-associated pneumonia (HABP/VABP) caused by designated susceptible bacteria in February 2018. About AVYCAZ (ceftazidime and avibactam) AVYCAZ is a fixed-dose combination antibacterial indicated for the treatment of cIAI (in combination with metronidazole), and cUTI caused by designated susceptible Gram-negative microorganisms in patients 3 months or older. AVYCAZ is also indicated for the treatment of hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia (HABP/VABP) in adults. AVYCAZ consists of a combination of avibactam and ceftazidime. Avibactam is a first-in-class non-beta-lactam beta-lactamase inhibitor which protects ceftazidime against degradation by certain beta-lactamases. Avibactam does not decrease the activity of ceftazidime against ceftazidime-susceptible organisms. Ceftazadime is a third-generation cephalosporin with a well-established efficacy and safety profile. AVYCAZ has demonstrated in vitro activity against Enterobacteriaceae in the presence of some beta-lactamases and extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs) of the following groups: TEM, SHV, CTX-M, Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPCs), AmpC and certain oxacillinases (OXA). AVYCAZ also demonstrated in vitro activity against P. aeruginosa in the presence of some AmpC beta-lactamases, and certain strains lacking outer membrane porin (OprD). AVYCAZ is not active against bacteria that produce metallo-beta lactamases and may not have activity against Gram-negative bacteria that overexpress efflux pumps or have porin mutations. Ceftazidime and avibactam is being jointly developed with Pfizer. Allergan holds the rights to commercialize ceftazidime and avibactam in North America under the brand name AVYCAZ, while Pfizer holds the rights to commercialize the combination in the rest of the world under the brand name ZAVICEFTA." INDICATIONS AND USAGE Complicated Intra-Abdominal Infections (cIAI) AVYCAZ (ceftazidime and avibactam), in combination with metronidazole, is indicated for the treatment of complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) in adult and pediatric patients 3 months or older caused by the following susceptible Gram-negative microorganisms: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella oxytoca, Citrobacter freundii complex, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Complicated Urinary Tract Infections (cUTI), including Pyelonephritis AVYCAZ is indicated for the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) including pyelonephritis in adult and pediatric patients 3 months or older caused by the following susceptible Gram-negative microorganisms: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter cloacae, Citrobacter freundii complex, Proteus mirabilis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Hospital-acquired Bacterial Pneumonia and Ventilator-associated Bacterial Pneumonia (HABP/VABP) AVYCAZ is indicated for the treatment of hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia and ventilator associated bacterial pneumonia (HABP/VABP) in patients 18 years or older caused by the following susceptible Gram-negative microorganisms: Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter cloacae, Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Haemophilus influenzae. Usage To reduce the development of drug-resistant bacteria and maintain the effectiveness of AVYCAZ and other antibacterial drugs, AVYCAZ should be used to treat only indicated infections that are proven or strongly suspected to be caused by susceptible bacteria. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION CONTRAINDICATIONS AVYCAZ is contraindicated in patients with known serious hypersensitivity to the components of AVYCAZ (ceftazidime and avibactam), avibactam-containing products, or other members of the cephalosporin class. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS In a Phase 3 cIAI trial in adult patients, clinical cure rates were lower in a subgroup of patients with baseline creatinine clearance (CrCl) of 30 to less than or equal to 50 mL/min compared to those with CrCl greater than 50 mL/min. The reduction in clinical cure rates was more marked in patients treated with AVYCAZ plus metronidazole compared to meropenem-treated patients. Within this subgroup, patients treated with AVYCAZ received a 33% lower daily dose than is currently recommended for patients with CrCl of 30 to less than or equal to 50 mL/min. Clinical cure rate in patients with normal renal function/mild renal impairment (CrCl greater than 50 mL/min) was 85% (322/379) with AVYCAZ plus metronidazole vs 86% (321/373) with meropenem, and clinical cure rate in patients with moderate renal impairment (CrCl 30 to less than or equal to 50 mL/min) was 45% (14/31) with AVYCAZ plus metronidazole vs 74% (26/35) with meropenem. The decreased clinical response was not observed for patients with moderate renal impairment at baseline (CrCl 30 to less than or equal to 50 mL/min) in the Phase 3 cUTI trials or the Phase 3 HABP/VABP trial. Monitor CrCl at least daily in adult and pediatric patients with changing renal function and adjust the dosage of AVYCAZ accordingly. Serious and occasionally fatal hypersensitivity (anaphylactic) reactions and serious skin reactions have been reported in patients receiving beta-lactam antibacterial drugs. Before therapy with AVYCAZ is instituted, careful inquiry about previous hypersensitivity reactions to other cephalosporins, penicillins, or carbapenems should be made. Exercise caution if this product is to be given to a penicillin or other beta-lactam-allergic patient because cross sensitivity among beta-lactam antibacterial drugs has been established. Discontinue the drug if an allergic reaction to AVYCAZ occurs. Clostridium difficile -associated diarrhea (CDAD) has been reported for nearly all systemic antibacterial drugs, including AVYCAZ, and may range in severity from mild diarrhea to fatal colitis. Careful medical history is necessary because CDAD has been reported to occur more than 2 months after the administration of antibacterial drugs. If CDAD is suspected or confirmed, antibacterials not directed against C. difficile should be discontinued, if possible. -associated diarrhea (CDAD) has been reported for nearly all systemic antibacterial drugs, including AVYCAZ, and may range in severity from mild diarrhea to fatal colitis. Careful medical history is necessary because CDAD has been reported to occur more than 2 months after the administration of antibacterial drugs. If CDAD is suspected or confirmed, antibacterials not directed against should be discontinued, if possible. Seizures, nonconvulsive status epilepticus (NCSE), encephalopathy, coma, asterixis, neuromuscular excitability, and myoclonia have been reported in patients treated with ceftazidime, particularly in the setting of renal impairment. Adjust dosing based on CrCl. Prescribing AVYCAZ in the absence of a proven or strongly suspected bacterial infection is unlikely to provide benefit to the patient and increases the risk of the development of drug-resistant bacteria. ADVERSE REACTIONS Adult cIAI, cUTI and HABP/VABP Patients: The most common adverse reactions in adult patients with cIAI ( 5% when used with metronidazole) were diarrhea (8%), nausea (7%), and vomiting (5%). The most common adverse reactions in adult patients with cUTI (3%) were diarrhea and nausea. The most common adverse reactions in adult patients with HABP/VABP ( 5%) were diarrhea (15%) and vomiting (6%). Pediatric cIAI and cUTI Patients: The most common adverse reactions in pediatric patients with cIAI and cUTI (>3%) were vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and infusion site phlebitis. Please see the full Prescribing Information for AVYCAZ at www.avycaz.com. 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 primarily focused on four key therapeutic areas including medical aesthetics, eye care, central nervous system and gastroenterology. 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; risks related to impairments; uncertainty associated with financial projections, projected cost reductions, projected debt reduction, 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, 2018. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. CONTACTS: Allergan: Investors: Manisha Narasimhan, PhD (862) 261-7162 Media: Amy Rose (862) 289-3072 SOURCE Allergan plc Related Links http://www.Allergan.com SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- If you have used Google today, (March 18th, 2019) you will have noticed that today's Google Doodle features that yellow tactile surface you see at transit stations, crosswalks, street corners, and more. This tactile surface is called Tactile Paving, and was pioneered by Japanese inventor Seiichi Miyake; today Armor-Tile and Google join together to honor him. Armor-Tile Tactile Tile, installed at the Golden Gate Bridge In 1965 Japanese inventor Seiichi Miyake made history to help a close friend, inventing what we now call tactile paving tiles. These tactile blocks, or "Tenji" as Seiichi Miyake called them, were a series of dots and bars designed to help his visually impaired friend. The wayfinding bars serve to guide visually impaired persons through a space, and the truncated dome installations warn them when they approach an unsafe edge. Miyake first installed these Detectable Warning Tiles in Okayama City, Japan on this day in 1967, on a crosswalk near Okayama School for the Blind. In a very short time, Miyake's invention spread, before they were made mandatory by the Japanese National Railways a decade later. Today Miyake's Truncated Dome Tiles are a mandatory safety staple all around the world, allowing visually impaired persons to live and navigate completely independently. As such, Armor-Tile would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank pioneer Seiichi Miyake. Without the innovations of Seiichi Miyake, and his desire to help his friend, all current efforts to assist the visually impaired persons globally would not be possible. They would also like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank Armor-Tile President and Founder Ken Szekely. Mr. Szekely leads the standardization and advancement of Tactile Paving globally, through the industry leading success of Armor-Tile, Access Tile, and Advantage Tactile. For over 25 years Armor-Tile has sought to make America safe, and has been at the forefront of leading research insights and progressive product development for Truncated Dome Tiles. Armor-Tile was featured at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act. Armor-Tile has been able to continuously build upon the work of inventor Seiichi Miyake thanks to Ken Szekely and their talented team. In the last 25 years, the Armor-Tile family of companies has led innovation and advancement with new technology, creating safe and accessible public rights of way. Armor-Tile has been the industry standard in North America since 1989 preceding the Americans with Disability Act. Armor-Tile employs a diamond-hard vitrified polymer composite material that is weather, moisture, UV, chemical, and wear resistant. In order to make public rights of way more universally accessible, Access Tile has developed a uniquely durable, yet affordable Tactile Tile. Access Tile is rigorously tested and has become the benchmark for strength and durability globally. As a result, government agencies around the world rely on Access Tile to provide a safe, durable and affordable tactile walking surface indicator. Advantage Tactile has taken the work of Seiichi Miyake one step further by accounting for northern climates, creating a fully cast-iron Truncated Dome Tile. This cast-iron Tactile tile was designed to withstand use of snow plows and other heavy equipment. Further developments with Advantage Tile allow for easy replacement. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), was passed in 1990. The purpose of the law is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. The accessibility requirement as mandated by the ADA, was made possible by the early designs of Seiichi Miyake, and is currently supported throughout the world by Armor-Tile, Access Tile and Advantage Tactile. This is why today the world celebrates not only an incredible man, but also the legacy created by a single act of friendship. Today the world celebrates Seiichi Miyake and universal accessibility. About Armor-Tile: Armor-Tile has been at the forefront of accessibility development, research and manufacturing of tactile paving tiles for over 25 years. Armor-Tile products are manufactured in the USA and are used by government agencies around the globe. Media contact: John Heffner [email protected] 916-919-0568 SOURCE Armor-Tile Related Links https://armor-tile.com NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The independent World Advertising Research Center (WARC) today released its first-ever "Best of the Best" global index of excellence, aggregating results from its Creative 100, Effective 100 and Media 100 rankings. These provide a benchmark for agency, network, holding company, brand and advertisers' performance in the most important areas of communication success: creativity, marketing effectiveness and media excellence. They are compiled from results at the most important global and regional industry award shows and competitions. BBDO was ranked the #1 agency network in the world. BBDO New York was ranked the #1 agency, and was joined in the Top Ten by AMVBBDO in London at #4, ColensoBBDO in New Zealand at #6 and AlmapBBDO in Brazil at #10. BBDO's parent, Omnicom, was the world's best holding company. Being named "Best of the Best" in this inaugural WARC index caps an impressive run for BBDO. In early February, The Drum released its Directory Big Won, ranking agency performance across all marketing communication disciplines. BBDO was the #1 global agency network and BBDO New York the #1 agency. Then, WARC published its Creative 100, listing the most creative agencies, clients and brands. Again, BBDO was the #1 network (for the 13th year in a row), and BBDO New York was the #1 agency. More recently, Fast Company released its list of the World's Most Innovative Companies. BBDO New York was selected among the Top Ten in Advertising for the second year in a row. "'The 'Best of the Best.' It literally can't get better than that when it comes to public recognition of BBDO Worldwide. I am proud of, and grateful to, our clients and all of the people in our agencies who made this happen," said Andrew Robertson, President and CEO, BBDO Worldwide, adding, "Having four agencies from four regions all ranked in the Top Ten, including BBDO New York at No. 1, demonstrates the breadth of talent in the network." Added David Tiltman, Head of Content at WARC, "The WARC rankings deliver independent and transparent global benchmarks in creativity, effectiveness and media. The 'Best of the Best' takes this one step further, to showcase the best all-round performances. We congratulate BBDO New York as the #1 agency and BBDO Worldwide as the #1 Network a truly outstanding double achievement." Further details can be found at https://content.warc.com/download-the-warc-rankings-best-of-the-best-report ABOUT BBDO BBDO's mantra is "The Work. The Work. The Work." Every day, BBDO people in 289 offices in 81 countries work day by day, job by job and client by client to create and deliver the world's most compelling commercial content. BBDO is part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) (www.omnicomgroup.com), a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. ABOUT WARC WARC provides the latest evidence, expertise and guidance to make marketers more effective. WARC's mission is to save the world from ineffective marketing. WARC's clients include the world's largest brands, advertising and media agencies, media owners, research companies and universities. They rely on WARC for rigorous, unbiased information and advice on almost any advertising and marketing issue, which WARC delivers via best practice guides, case studies, research papers, special reports and advertising trend data, as well as via webinars, awards, events and advisory services. WARC collaborates with more than 50 respected industry organizations globally including: The Advertising Research Foundation, Cannes Lions, Effie Worldwide, Association of National Advertisers, ESOMAR, 4A's, IPA and DMA. WARC was founded in 1985, and has offices in the UK, US and Singapore. In July 2018, WARC became part of Ascential plc, the global specialist information company. SOURCE BBDO Worldwide Related Links http://www.bbdo.com CLEVELAND, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to achieving Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider status, Blue Chip Consulting Group, an award-winning IT consulting firm, has welcomed seasoned licensing specialist, Ben Marshall, to the organization. The Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program allows Blue Chip to sell, provision, manage, and support Microsoft cloud offerings. As Licensing Specialist, Marshall will oversee Blue Chip's CSP program and work with clients to optimize their Microsoft licensing position. "While there is growing demand for Microsoft's cloud-based solutions and services, navigating cloud licensing can be difficult," said Ben Marshall, Licensing Specialist at Blue Chip. "Through CSP status, Blue Chip can make licensing less complex and guide clients on their cloud journey. More importantly, this distinction supports Blue Chip's mission of providing cost predictable solutions for Blue Chip clients." Prior to Blue Chip, Marshall held varied consultative and sales positions at SoftwareONE. Most recently, he helped establish CDW's Software Asset Management service, building and managing a million-dollar pipeline. "Ben brings over 27 years of technology strategy and licensing experience to Blue Chip," said Steve Kirtley, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Blue Chip. "He is uniquely qualified to assist our clients with their licensing and cloud strategy, and we are proud to have him on our team." To learn more about how Blue Chip provides holistic cloud solutions and drives value for their clients, visit: www.bluechip-llc.com. About Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program This licensing model enables designated Microsoft partners to sell combined offers and services and provide direct pricing for Microsoft Cloud Subscriptions. It also allows designated Microsoft CSP partners to directly provision, manage, and support Microsoft cloud products and services. Learn more at partner.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-solution-provider. About Blue Chip Consulting Group Blue Chip is a technology consulting firm headquartered in Cleveland, OH with growing locations in cities across the United States. Leveraging Microsoft technologies and extensive industry experience, Blue Chip delivers tailored technical solutions that help clients advance their business. Learn more at www.bluechip-llc.com. SOURCE Blue Chip Consulting Group Related Links http://www.bluechip-llc.com MONTREAL, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - On March 15, 2019, a consortium which Boralex Inc. ("Boralex" or the "Corporation") (TSX: BLX) is part of submitted a bid to the French state in the Dunkirk Offshore Wind Farm tender. Boralex has determined, after a careful review amid changes in tender's competitive conditions and risk profile, that its interest in the consortium no longer satisfies its investment criteria. Through the Joint Venture Agreement entered into with the other members of the consortium, Boralex has an option to sell its participation in the project to its current partners. Therefore, Boralex will exercise its option to sell its interest to the other members of the consortium immediately after the tender being definitively awarded and once it is able to in accordance with the terms of the option and in compliance with the tender and French state rules and the agreements governing the consortium. Boralex will remain a party to the consortium until it has sold its interest in the project to the other members of the consortium pursuant to the option. However, Boralex will continue to assist in the development of the project, both as a member of the consortium and thereafter as a non-member. Accordingly, the consortium continues to strongly believe in the prospects and the success of this bid for this very important project for the French Energy Transition. Moulins du Lohan On March 5th, Boralex received with satisfaction the decision made by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Nantes in line with the conclusions of the Public Rapporteur concerning a project that was interrupted in June 2017. The Moulins du Lohan project is the result of 10 years of development efforts. This is an important decision that confirms a truly exemplary project for the territory in terms of environment, energy and social benefit. It is also an important decision for our entire sector in terms of legal security for investments. We will work with our various partners in preparing to restart the work. Boralex will continue to respect its commitments for building and operating the wind farm in the Lanouee forest, which will retain its distinct identity and uses. It is to be noted that the counterpart could file an appeal in cassation to the Council of State. It has two months following the decision to do so. At this stage, the Council of State considers the grounds for the decision of the Administrative Court of Appeal but does not re-examine all the facts. As expressed recently on March 1st 2019 while releasing our year-end results, Boralex has a portfolio of potential projects at various stages of development totalling over 1,000 MW in France. In light of its long-term presence and deep knowledge of the French market, the Corporation has numerous strengths to capitalize on the favourable environment in developing renewable energy, particularly wind power. The Corporation will actively participate in the tendering system, under which an installed capacity of 3,400 MW in onshore wind power will be awarded under 20-year contracts by the end of 2020. About Boralex Boralex develops, builds and operates renewable energy power facilities in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. A leader in the Canadian market and France's largest independent producer of onshore wind power, the Corporation is recognized for its solid experience in optimizing its asset base in four power generation types wind, hydroelectric, thermal and solar. Boralex ensures sustained growth by leveraging the expertise and diversification developed over the past 25 years. Boralex's shares and convertible debentures are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols BLX and BLX.DB.A, respectively. More information is available at www.boralex.com or www.sedar.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. SOURCE Boralex Inc. Related Links www.boralex.com BALTIMORE, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- LifeBridge Health and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst) have joined forces for a Shark Tank-style challenge to find the best and brightest digital health startups to present innovative ideas that could change the face of healthcare. Challenge participants are presented with the chance to earn a prize of up to $50,000 and the opportunity to work directly with healthcare practitioners and industry experts to further their work. "Being a champion of innovation and groundbreaking solutions to ongoing healthcare issues is an essential part of the LifeBridge Health mission to provide the best care for our patients and the communities we serve," said Dr. Jonathan Ringo, senior vice president of LifeBridge Health, and president and chief operating officer of Sinai Hospital. "We are thrilled to be joining with CareFirst in this exciting new endeavor." "CareFirst is expanding the dialogue around innovation within our own organization, and we are interested to learn more about the ideas others have for transforming the healthcare industry," said CareFirst President & CEO Brian D. Pieninck. "Thinking of better, smarter ways to deliver care to our members and the community will go a long way toward improving the health of those we serve." The LifeBridge Health Innovation team and CareFirst Healthworx team developed this event to support local entrepreneurs seeking capital to foster new ideas and to connect startups and experienced professionals who can help turn those ideas into realities. Any individual or group working on an early-stage solution designed to address challenges in healthcare are welcome to participate if they meet the criteria on the application (see link below). Ideas should include a digital component such as mobile apps, sensors, wearable devices, data analytics and tools to support decision-making. The application deadline is April 15, 2019. A maximum of three teams can be chosen as winners. The first-place team will receive a minimum of $20,000 but can also be considered for full funding of up to $50,000 if no other teams are selected. The challenge winner (or winners) will also receive one-year free membership in the LifeBridge Startup Affiliate Program, which includes access to the LifeBridge Innovation & Research team and facilitated introductions to clinicians. While not guaranteed, winners may also be eligible to participate in pilot programs at LifeBridge Health. Additionally, winners will have the opportunity to connect with the LifeBridge Health clinical network, which includes innovation and research support, as well as clinical mentorship opportunities. The Shark Tank-style contest will be part of a four-hour event on June 5 held at CareFirst's Canton, MD headquarters including speakers, a panel discussion and networking opportunities. The event website has more information, including registration and the Innovation Challenge application: www.lifebridgehealth.org/innovationchallenge Shark Tank is a registered service mark of Sony Pictures Television, Inc. About LifeBridge Health: LifeBridge Health is one of the largest providers of health services in Maryland. It consists of Sinai Hospital of Baltimore , Northwest Hospital , Carroll Hospital , Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital , LifeBridge Health & Fitness , hundreds of primary care and specialty physicians throughout Maryland, and many affiliated health-related partners. More information is available at www.lifebridgehealth.org . About CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield In its 82nd year of service, CareFirst, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, is a not-for-profit health care company which, through its affiliates and subsidiaries, offers a comprehensive portfolio of health insurance products and administrative services to 3.2 million individuals and groups in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia. In 2018, CareFirst invested $38 million to improve overall health, and increase the accessibility, affordability, safety and quality of health care throughout its market areas. To learn more about CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, visit our website at www.carefirst.com or follow us on Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn or Instagram . SOURCE CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Related Links https://www.carefirst.com IRVINE, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CarFinance CEO Craig Hewitt recently participated in a panel discussion on Technology Advances in Auto Finance with representatives from Fair and Spring Labs. The discussion was moderated by Goldman Sachs at the Housing and Consumer Finance 2019 Conference in New York. "CarFinance is honored to share its technical insights on stage with two of our industry's thought leaders," said Hewitt. "Technology plays a critical role in making our customers' online experience quick, easy and secure." Unlike other online financial sites, CarFinance's sole focus is auto loans and refinancing. The company's expertise and unique platform enables them to present multiple finance options that accommodate their customers' needs, allowing users to obtain offers on new vehicle financing or access lower interest or monthly payments through refinancing. "How consumers get auto loans and how lenders find customers hasn't changed in 30 years," Hewitt said. "Consumers want to migrate to a digital transaction, but no one is creating a wholly digital transaction. We're the first auto-finance specialists to attempt it." With CarFinance, the entire loan or refinancing experience happens online. "Our customers can upload images of documents directly from their phone and find out what offers are available in a matter of minutes. Our intuitive UX enables them to drive away happy," Hewitt said. Headquartered in Irvine, California and authorized to do direct lending in 46 states, CarFinance is the industry's leading direct to consumer fintech. Managed by a diverse team of industry leaders, CarFinance's direct to consumer lending platform is dedicated to delivering a best-in-class user experience for consumers looking for a new or used auto loan, or refinancing their existing auto loan. From the easy to use online credit application through the final funding process, the entire process can be completed virtually online directly with CarFinance. Each customer's information is kept private, safe and secure. See what customers are saying on social media by visiting the CarFinance Facebook and Yelp pages. Contact: Blair Rohlfing 215-440-9800 [email protected] SOURCE CarFinance Related Links https://carfinance.com "With the success of our breweries on Carnival Vista and Carnival Horizon the obvious next step was to let all of our guests fleetwide enjoy our refreshing craft beers and that's where our partnership with Brew Hub began," said Edward Allen, Carnival's vice president of beverage operations. "To be the first cruise line to ever scale up its beverage operations by canning and kegging their own beer is unprecedented. My hope is that our guests will take a four-pack home with them to share with family and friends as a refreshing and memorable reminder of their cruise." The three beers, which are based on recipes developed in-house by Carnival's brewery team, are now available in 16-ounce cans and on tap across its 26 ships and at all private destinations. The beers include: ThirstyFrog Caribbean Wheat - an unfiltered wheat beer with flavors of orange and spices. an unfiltered wheat beer with flavors of orange and spices. ParchedPig West Coast IPA the embodiment of a traditional West Coast India Pale Ale, this hoppy, intense beer is loaded with bitterness with a bright flavor profile and distinctive aroma of citrus and pine. the embodiment of a traditional West Coast India Pale Ale, this hoppy, intense beer is loaded with bitterness with a bright flavor profile and distinctive aroma of citrus and pine. ParchedPig Toasted Amber Ale highlighted by its rich amber color and notes of toasted caramel and biscuit, this beer is well balanced, smooth and highly drinkable. "Carnival's team of brewers have created three amazing craft beers, and we could not be more excited to be working together," said Tim Schoen, CEO and Founder of Brew Hub. "Now passengers on all 26 Carnival ships will be able to enjoy these fresh, high-quality craft beers on every voyage and take some home after their trip." Since introducing the first North American brewery at sea in 2016, Carnival has served nearly 300,000 pints of its private label craft beers to its guests. Much like breweries on land, Carnival's brewery team has also taken advantage of seasonal products and created unique brews like a Miami Guava Wheat and Pumpkin Spice Ale. A brewery will also be featured aboard Carnival Panorama when it debuts in California in December 2019. To learn more about Carnival Cruise Line, visit Carnival.com. For reservations, contact any travel agent or call 1-800-CARNIVAL. Carnival can also be found on: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Journalists also can visit Carnival's media site, carnival-news.com or follow the line's PR department on Twitter at twitter.com/CarnivalPR. About Carnival Cruise Line Carnival Cruise Line, part of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL;NYSE: CUK), is "The World's Most Popular Cruise Line" with 26 ships operating three- to 24-day voyages to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Bermuda, Cuba, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia. The line currently has three new ships scheduled for delivery Carnival Panorama set to debut in 2019, Mardi Gras in 2020 and an as-yet-unnamed ship in 2022. About Brew Hub Brew Hub was founded in 2012 in St. Louis, Missouri, by a team of beer-industry executives and craft-brewing experts led by Tim Schoen. The company's 100,000-barrel Lakeland, Florida, brewery provides full brewing, packaging, distribution and selling services for craft brands that are constrained by capacity, geography or capital. The company's St. Louis Taproom features a 4-barrel pilot brewing system, a distilling operation and a barrel-aging program in addition to a full-service restaurant. To learn more, visit www.brewhub.com or www.tapbrewhub.com. SOURCE Carnival Cruise Line Related Links http://www.carnivalcorp.com REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On March 22, a select group of nurse educators will convene for a day of talks, workshops, and hands-on learning at the Bay Area headquarters of Course Hero, an online learning platform curating over 25 million course-specific study resources. "We believe knowledge and resource sharing between those who teach the same or similar courses can help create better learning outcomes," said Andrew Grauer, cofounder and CEO of Course Hero. "Bringing these incredible educators together for a day of collaboration, sharing, and active learning is a clear next step in Course Hero's efforts to support the great teaching happening in classrooms around the country. We hope that the nurse educators attending will walk away with new ways to bring their subjects to life and an expanded library of teaching resources to access on Course Hero to aid in their course design and execution." As an extension of Course Hero's annual cross-discipline Educator Summit held each summer, the Nurse Educator Summit is a full-day event that brings together educators from around the country to learn from each other and share experiences, resources, pedagogies, and teaching approaches. This Summit focuses specifically on the principles of active learning in nurse education and is designed to help attendees uncover and implement innovative active learning approaches to instruction, both inside and outside the classroom. In addition to attending a variety of interactive workshops, attendees will receive a "flipped-learning toolkit," resources to create a high-quality instructional video on site, access to the Course Hero library of teaching and learning resources, and complimentary meals and transportation. "The field of nursing is richly represented on Course Hero's platform," said Alex Witkowski, Course Hero Educator Community Manager. "Over the last few months, I have been extremely fortunate to get to know the inspiring educators attending this event. They are passionate about creating meaningful learning experiences for students, and I'm excited to bring them together so they can share their best practices and bring diverse perspectives back to their respective campuses." Attendees include: After the Nurse Educator Summit, attendees are invited to continue their idea sharing and mutual support via the Course Hero website, which is open to all professors of nursing. Educators interested in learning more can reach out at [email protected]. The Course Hero Educator Community team is available to provide any educator with information on opportunities for content creation, a feature article in the Faculty Club series, and Course Hero's upcoming 2019 Education Summit in San Francisco, CA. About Course Hero Course Hero is an online learning platform where members can access over 25 million course-specific study resources contributed by a community of students and educators. The platform includes practice problems, study guides, videos, class notes, and step-by-step explanations to help with every college classfrom mathematics to literature, biology to history, accounting to psychology, and everything in between. Course Hero has been recognized as one of the 2018 Technology Fast 500 by Deloitte and named a 2018 Best Place to Work in the Bay Area by San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal. Connect with Course Hero at www.coursehero.com or on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. For more information, contact: Grayling PR for Course Hero [email protected] SOURCE Course Hero Related Links http://www.coursehero.com LONDON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A report, prepared by multinational accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) and published last Tuesday, concludes that Dominica's Citizenship by Investment Programme does not facilitate tax avoidance and evasion. The report notes that the Programme, by its very nature, awards citizenship, and that citizenship is not the basis on which a person's obligation to pay taxes rests. Rather, the obligation to pay taxes revolves around 'tax residency', a concept "often built around the degree of personal socio-economic links with a country." The OECD Model Convention provides four main tests for determining tax residence: having physical presence for a minimum amount of time; having a permanent home available; having a close centre of vital interests; and having a habitual abode in the sense of being customarily or usually present. According to EY, it looks to citizenship only if "none of the previous residence tests are enough to determine the country of tax residence." In becoming citizens of Dominica, persons who applied under the Programme do not automatically become tax residents. Instead, as evinced in EY's report, they must make a showing of physical presence by either having a "permanent place of abode" and being "physically present in Dominica for at least some part of the year of income," spending "not less than 183 days in Dominica during a year of income," or spending "some period of time in Dominica during a year of income, but spen[ding] a continuous period of not less than 183 days in Dominica between income years." Citizenship is excluded from Dominica's tests for tax residency. Because Dominican citizenship is separate from Dominican tax residency, citizenship by investment (CBI) does not enable circumvention of taxation reporting systems such as the CRS, which are based on a person's tax residency. The report affirms this first by indicating that "the [CRS] reporting rules are explicit in not using citizenship as a test," and second by emphasising that "concerns over the scope for CBI to facilitate tax avoidance and evasion therefore seem to be based on weaknesses in the tax implementation rather than a feature of CBI programmes themselves." The report recommends care in ensuring "that the rules for tax reporting are properly understood by countries and financial institutions." With its focus on setting apart citizenship and tax residence, EY's report itself seems to be a robust step in this direction. As a small island developing state, Dominica faces unique economic and geographic vulnerabilities that pose challenges to its growth. Citizenship by investment, formalised in the decades-old Programme, is a key method by which Dominica has reduced these vulnerabilities, found means by which to develop, and strengthened its commitments to a better future. The ambitious goal of becoming the "world's first climate resilient nation", formulated by Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit after the devastation brought by Hurricane Maria in 2017, is one such example. This is why the Government of Dominica is dedicated to the success and integrity of the Citizenship by Investment Programme, which includes ensuring it does not undermine common efforts to combat tax fraud. In recent months, and to the Government's distress, the Citizenship by Investment Programme has come under fire by the OECD and the European Union as a potential tax avoidance scheme and as a safety concern. The Government has continuously sought to dispel such fears and it welcomes the EY report and the accuracy with which it has distinguished citizenship and tax residency. Email: [email protected] SOURCE CS Global Partners Related Links https://csglobalpartners.com ALBANY, New York, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Transparency Market Research (TMR) has published a new report titled, "ECG Devices Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 20182026". According to the report, the global ECG devices market was valued at US$ 3.95 Bn in 2017. It is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.2% from 2018 to 2026. High prevalence of cardiovascular diseases across the globe and launch of technologically advanced ECG devices are anticipated to boost the global market during the forecast period. North America and Europe are expected to dominate the global ECG devices market from 2018 to 2026. This is attributed to the availability of cost-effective and non-invasive small devices, favorable medical reimbursement policies, and rapid increase in the geriatric population. Asia Pacific is likely to account for a significant share of the global market by 2026. This is due to an increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in developing countries such as China and India, which in turn is propelling the need for cardiovascular diagnostic and monitoring devices including electrocardiogram devices. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a notable CAGR of 7.1% from 2018 to 2026. Get PDF Brochure for Research Insights at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=61827 High Prevalence of Cardiovascular Diseases to Propel Market Cardiovascular diseases is a highly prevalent disorder across the globe. It is a group of disorders of the blood vessels and the heart. They include congenital heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, coronary heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 17.9 million people died of cardiovascular diseases in 2016, which represents 31% of all deaths worldwide. Of these, 85% of deaths were caused by stroke and heart attack. Surge in the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in developing countries can be linked to increasing incidence of hypertension, smoking, and overweight led by changing lifestyle and surge in the incidence of diabetes and pre-diabetes. Thus, increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases drives the need for cardiovascular monitoring devices. Thus, large patient pool with cardiovascular diseases is projected to fuel the global ECG devices market during the forecast period. Request a Sample of Report at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=61827 Resting ECG Systems to be Highly Attractive Segment The report offers detailed segmentation of the global ECG devices market based on technology, and end-user. In terms of technology, the resting ECG systems segment is estimated to account for a leading share of the global market during the forecast period. Factors attributed to the higher share of the segment include better exchange of information through Cardiovascular Information Systems (CVIS) and Electronic Health Record (EHRs) that simplify ECG workflow and reduce the complexity associated with custom integration and high usage of resting ECG systems across hospitals, clinics, and ambulatory surgical centers. Development and launch of technologically advanced electrocardiogram devices, as recent ECG systems are designed to improve workflow and simplify operation, is expected to propel the segment during the forecast period. For instance, in 2017, HeartSciences launched MyoVista ECG in Europe. The device combines informatics with traditional 12-lead resting ECG tracings and ECG interpretive analysis. Request For Discount On This Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=61827 Hospitals Segment to Dominate Market Based on end-user, the hospitals segment is projected to account for a dominant share of the global ECG devices market from 2018 to 2026. The ambulatory surgical centers segment is anticipated to expand at a high CAGR from 2018 to 2026. High share of the hospitals segment is attributed to the increased usage of ECG devices across hospitals in cardiac settings, as an electrocardiogram is the most common diagnostic tool in the cardiac department, and it is the most frequently performed test in hospitals. Increasing preference for ambulatory surgical centers, as they are high quality, cost-effective sites for cardiac patients care and cardiovascular procedures, is expected to drive the ambulatory surgical centers segment during the forecast period. The specialized clinics segment is projected to be the second-leading segment, in terms of market share, during the forecast period. This is attributed to an increase in the number of specialized clinics for indications such as hypertension, heart failure, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia, and valvular heart disease. Request For Custom Research - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=61827 Asia Pacific to Create High Incremental Opportunity In terms of revenue, North America is projected to maintain its dominance of the global ECG devices market from 2018 to 2026. This is attributed to the higher rate of adoption of ECG devices in developed regions, including North America, as leading players such as GE Healthcare and Philips Healthcare have reported significantly high sales of medical devices including ECG devices from North America, followed by Europe. The market in Canada is estimated to expand at a higher CAGR from 2018 to 2026, due to an increase in the geriatric population in Canada, resulting in the rise in prevalence of atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common cardiac arrhythmia, which increases the risk of stroke by up to 5 times. It is estimated that about 1 in 4 people of Canada over the age of 40 suffers from atrial fibrillation in his lifetime. Europe is anticipated to be the second-largest and highly attractive market for ECG devices. Cost-effective and non-invasive small devices coupled with advancements in technology have fueled the production of medical devices, including ECG devices, in Europe. The market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to expand at a rapid pace, owing to large population in countries such as India and China, large geriatric population in Japan, and improving health care facilities. Additionally, the presence of untapped opportunities and increasing awareness about cardiovascular disease conditions in the region are expected to fuel the ECG devices market in the region during the forecast period. Browse Press Release - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/ecg-devices-market.htm New Product Development and Merger and Acquisitions of Parallel Companies: Key Trend among Leading Players The report also provides profiles of leading players operating in the global ECG devices market. GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare (Philips Group), BioTelemetry Inc., Nihon Kohden Corporation, Spacelabs Healthcare (OSI Systems, Inc.), and Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. are major players operating in the market, offering products with proprietary technologies. Several companies have introduced technologically advanced ECG devices in the market in order to simplify clinical workflows and to improve clinicians' decision making. In November 2017, Hill-Rom launched Connex Cardio ECG, a PC-based resting ECG. This device is expected to help improve clinicians' decision-making and simplify clinical workflows. The device has leading algorithm, wireless technology, and flexible EMR connectivity. In 2017, the company's new product launches contributed about US$ 150 million in terms of revenue. The introduction of new products across businesses is expected to drive the company's growth. Players are expanding their presence in the ECG devices market through acquisitions and collaborations. For instance, in July 2017, BioTelemetry Inc. acquired LifeWatch. LifeWatch specializes in advanced digital health systems and wireless remote diagnostic patient monitoring services. Through this, BioTelemetry has consolidated its position, as the market leader in remote cardiac monitoring and diagnostic services. Popular Research Reports by TMR: Myocarditis Disease Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/myocarditis-disease-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/myocarditis-disease-market.html Batten Disease Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/batten-disease-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/batten-disease-market.html Sanger Sequencing Service Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sanger-sequencing-service-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sanger-sequencing-service-market.html Amenorrhea Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/amenorrhea-market.html About Us Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. TMR's data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. Contact Mr. Rohit Bhisey Transparency Market Research State Tower, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany NY - 12207 United States Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Research Blog: https://theglobalhealthnews.com/ SOURCE Transparency Market Research AMSTERDAM, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- EclecticIQ, which empowers cyber defenses with threat intelligence, is pleased to announce the availability of Gartner's Market Guide for Security Threat Intelligence, a complimentary copy is available on our website. The report discusses the demand for Threat Intelligence (TI) solutions and lists EclecticIQ as a Sample Vendor in four categories, as well as a Representative Vendor in Aggregate Multiple Sources of TI. Gartner notes, "By 2022, 20% of large enterprises will use commercial Threat Intelligence (TI) services to inform their security strategies, which is an increase from fewer than 10% today." The Market Guide further states, "Some vendors in this market generate their own content, or, alternatively, provide what we consider to be original and substantial enrichment or aggregation of content harvested from other sources that has specialized analysis applied to it." With our Threat Intelligence platform (TIP) as well as our Fusion Center provider of fully fused multi-source threat intelligence bundles EclecticIQ is represented in both these categories. Gartner's Market Guide further provides a range of use cases, in which EclecticIQ is listed as a Sample Vendor: Security Technology Telemetry Enrichment, Phishing detection, Threat Intelligence Sharing, Intelligence Analyst Investigations Tools, and as a Representative Vendor in Aggregate Multiple Sources of TI. "We believe that Gartner's Market Guide shows clearly that Cyber Threat Intelligence is maturing quickly," said Joep Gommers, CEO and founder at EclecticIQ. "Its prediction that CTI adoption is expanding from the government sector towards vertical industries such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals as well as energy and utilities is in-line with what we are experiencing with the expansion of our client pipeline. We feel that Gartner's guide identifies those aspects of CTI that we are delivering to our customers through our platform and Threat Intelligence services." To find out more about the CTI vendor landscape and EclecticIQ you can view a complimentary copy of the Gartner report here. Source: Gartner, Market Guide for Security Threat Intelligence Products and Services, Craig Lawson, Ryan Benson, Ruggero Contu, 19 February 2019. About EclecticIQ EclecticIQ enables intelligence-powered cybersecurity for government organizations and commercial enterprises. We develop analyst-centric products and services that align our clients' cybersecurity focus with their threat reality. The result is intelligence-led security, improved detection and prevention, and cost-efficient security investments. Our solutions are built specifically for analysts across all intelligence-led security practices such as threat investigation and threat hunting, as well as incident response efforts. And we tightly integrate our solutions with our customers' IT security controls and systems. EclecticIQ operates globally with offices in Europe, United Kingdom, and North-America, and via certified value-adding partners. Learn more at www.eclecticiq.com. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Photo(s): https://www.prlog.org/12759398 Press release distributed by PRLog SOURCE EclecticIQ Related Links http://www.eclecticiq.com ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Regulators are formulating rules that stand to affect every part of the American drone industryand the time is now for stakeholders to make their voices heard, advise veteran aviation attorneys with the national law firm LeClairRyan. "This year is shaping up as a critical one for regulatory developments affecting operators of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)," said Mark E. McKinnon, leader of LeClairRyan's UAS practice, "so much so that 2019 could easily be thought of as 'The Year of the Drone.' " Mark E. McKinnon James A. Eastwood "Is 2019 the Year of the Drone?" was, in fact, the title of a 140-minute webinar conducted on Feb. 27 by McKinnon and fellow LeClairRyan aviation attorney James A. Eastwood. In the deep dive into the changing regulatory framework for UAS, the two Alexandria-based partners in LeClairRyan covered topics such as proposed changes to the FAA's "flight over people" rule; the potential for new safety-related design, performance and payload requirements; new procedures on night flight and waivers; and a raft of other regulatory considerations related to remote-identification, unmanned traffic management and FAA's progress in meeting ambitious mandates from Congress. The webinar is available, free of charge, for audio streaming or download here. By way of background, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao earlier this year unveiled two long-anticipated FAA rulemaking efforts that will have a major impact on the future of the UAS industry, McKinnon told the audience. The first is a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covering UAS flight over people and at night; the second is an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on several significant UAS safety and security issues, he said. Changes to rules about flying UAS over people could have far-reaching effects, McKinnon noted. When it comes to keeping drones away from bystanders or structures, the current rules under Part 107 do not enforce any prescriptive horizontal or vertical distances per se. However, FAA is contemplating changing that, which would bring the United States more in line with Canada, the United Kingdom and certain European countries, all of which do mandate standoff distances, the attorney noted. "What the FAA wants to know from the American public is, should there be standoff distances for UAS here and, if so, what should they be?" McKinnon said. "It is important for industry to get involved because, if distances are set, there will definitely be costs." Large standoff distances, the attorney explained, could eliminate the possibility of performing many tasks that are routine today. "Standoff distances could also create a need for costly new training protocols, which FAA wants to better understand as well," he said. Manufacturers would also do well to learn about and comment on the safety-related design, performance and payload requirements now under consideration by the agency, Eastwood added. Today's UAS are capable of speeds in excess of 170 miles per hour, altitudes of over 10,000 feet and climb rates of 6,000 feet per minute, the attorney explained, and yet under today's Part 107 regulations, drones are limited to 100 miles per hour and 400 feet in maximum altitude. "FAA is looking hard at new limitations based on weight classes, injury potential and other factors," Eastwood said. "Again, industry stakeholders need to work with legal counsel to make their voices heard on these issues. There is broad potential for lost opportunities as a side effect of new limitations." In the conclusion to the webinar, the attorneys also cover FAA's ongoing efforts to comply with the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. The legislation directed the FAA to work faster on setting UAS design standards and opening American airspace to commercial package delivery. In addition, it ordered the agency to produce reports on topics like state and local control of low-level airspace and the need for federal privacy laws. "It is hard to overstate the potential ultimate importance of these nascent rulemaking efforts on the American UAS industry," McKinnon said. "These are potential game-changers." About LeClairRyan As a trusted advisor, LeClairRyan provides business counsel and client representation in corporate law and litigation. In this role, the firm applies its knowledge, insight and skill to help clients achieve their business objectives while managing and minimizing their legal risks, difficulties and expenses. With offices from coast to coast, the firm represents a wide variety of clients nationwide. For more information about LeClairRyan, visit www.leclairryan.com. Press Contacts: At Parness & Associates Public Relations, Bill Parness, (732) 290-0121, [email protected] or Lisa Kreda, [email protected] SOURCE LeClairRyan Related Links https://www.leclairryan.com NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fluoride contributes to degenerative eye diseases such as cataracts, age related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma, reports DT Waugh in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (March 2019), reports New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF). Although research has consistently shown that it is the topical application of fluoride to teeth, not the ingestion of fluoride that reduces tooth decay, you cannot avoid consuming fluoride when it's added to public water supplies. Claims of safety from long term ingestion ignore hundreds of studies showing the potential for harm including to the eyes. In this current study, Waugh identifies, for the first time, the key biological pathways and mechanisms by which fluoride contributes to degenerative eye diseases. He suggests minimizing fluoride exposure to reduce the occurrence or severity of AMD, cataracts and glaucoma. "It's well known that excessive fluoride exposure is associated with dental fluorosis and musculoskeletal disorders that cause chronic pain," said Waugh. "However, my study's goal was to gain insights into how fluoride may contribute to degenerative eyes, a finding also documented for decades. I show how fluoride ingestion renders eyes more susceptible to degeneration by identifying how fluoride fundamentally alters biological pathways and modifies the expression of genes, proteins and cytokines responsible for development of cataracts, glaucoma and AMD." "Importantly, I also identify why diabetics, schizophrenics and people with Down syndrome are more susceptible to fluoride's toxic effects," says Waugh. Furthermore, "Emerging evidence also suggests that the molecular mechanisms identified in this study not only contribute to eye diseases but may also contribute to increased risk of pulmonary diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders and cancer. Above all this research shows that one must look beyond teeth when examining how fluoride impacts on human health," says Waugh "This study adds to the growing body of evidence that adding fluoride to drinking water may have unforeseen consequences and therefore must be stopped," says Waugh. Contact: Attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President, 516-433-8882 or Researcher Declan Waugh, [email protected] 353-23-884-1933 (Ireland) http://FluorideAction.Net SOURCE New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. Related Links http://FluorideAction.Net "Vision Expo is the premier event where the vision industry unveils the latest in eyewear and eyecare products, solutions and technologies to ultimately serve the greater purpose of providing better vision for better lives," said Ashley Mills, CEO of The Vision Council. "The Vision Council expects a strong Vision Expo East 2019 with several new exhibitors as well as an increase in attendance among buyers." Better vision starts with comprehensive annual eye exams. Vision impacts and can improve every aspect of life, from education, to performance, to safety, to employability. An eye doctor can identify and offer solutions to help people see, live and enjoy their lives. "More than 206 million adults in the United States use and require vision correction," said Mills. "The Vision Council and all of the companies who participate in Vision Expo urge all Americans to put their vision first." While there are 700-plus exhibitors on tap at the New York event, here is a taste of the noteworthy exhibits, products and activations at the show. Technology In this era of digital convenience and tech wizardry, eyecare providers are embracing new and better ways to meet their patients' needs. 3D Printing Luxexcel, a pioneer in 3D-printed lenses, has improved its proprietary technology for prescription lenses with the ability to create perfectly customized ophthalmic products and provide a prescription for "smart glasses." Completing the package, exhibitor Specsy offers an end-to-end system for frames that can be designed and printed in-store, customizing every element including the shape, color, bridge fit, temple length and base curve. Luxexcel, a pioneer in 3D-printed lenses, has improved its proprietary technology for prescription lenses with the ability to create perfectly customized ophthalmic products and provide a prescription for "smart glasses." Completing the package, exhibitor Specsy offers an end-to-end system for frames that can be designed and printed in-store, customizing every element including the shape, color, bridge fit, temple length and base curve. VR/AR Fitting Italy -born Thema brings its Virtual Eyewear Assistant Experience to Vision Expo East, helping consumers choose glasses best suited to their faces. With new online and in-store solutions, Fitting Box extends its pedigree as inventor of the first digital/augmented reality mirror to virtually try on glasses ABS Smart Mirror/ACEP TryLive showcases its in-store AR and VR solutions like Virtual Try-on, Lens Simulator, Digital Centration, Frame Advisor and interactive kiosks. -born Thema brings its Virtual Eyewear Assistant Experience to Vision Expo East, helping consumers choose glasses best suited to their faces. With new online and in-store solutions, Fitting Box extends its pedigree as inventor of the first digital/augmented reality mirror to virtually try on glasses ABS Smart Mirror/ACEP TryLive showcases its in-store AR and VR solutions like Virtual Try-on, Lens Simulator, Digital Centration, Frame Advisor and interactive kiosks. Telehealth Smart Vision Labs will exhibit its advanced mobile phone-based vision exam technology, a portable device adapted to a telemedicine platform to let patients obtain an eyewear prescription in minutes. Also making exams more accessible and affordable is 20/20 Now with its ocular telehealth system that lets licensed doctors perform thorough and highly accurate exam remotely. Eye Health With eye health awareness central to the mission of The Vision Council, modern eyewear is being designed to better protect the eyes, whether from the overuse of digital devices or UV rays emitted from the sun. Clear Eyeglass Lenses with UV Protection Zeiss comes to Vision Expo East with its all-day lenses incorporating UVProtect Technology, a first-to-market innovation offering the UV protection of premium sunglasses in an all-clear plastic lens. Zeiss comes to Vision Expo East with its all-day lenses incorporating UVProtect Technology, a first-to-market innovation offering the UV protection of premium sunglasses in an all-clear plastic lens. Transition Contact Lenses Johnson & Johnson's Acuvue Oasys with Transitions Light Intelligent Technology are first-of-its-kind contact lenses with a dynamic photochromic filter that responds to changing indoor/outdoor light conditions, and were named one of Time's Best Inventions of 2018. Cause-Driven More than ever, the eyecare industry is embracing a greater sense of responsibility for causes that range from humanitarian to environmental. Key among this year's exhibitors and their initiatives: TOMS Eyewear "Gift of Sight" True to its pioneering One for One business model, for every purchase of TOMS Eyewear, the company provides a person in need with a complete eye exam and treatment, from glasses to surgery. Since the launch of the program, TOMS has helped restore sight to more than 600,000 people. True to its pioneering One for One business model, for every purchase of TOMS Eyewear, the company provides a person in need with a complete eye exam and treatment, from glasses to surgery. Since the launch of the program, TOMS has helped restore sight to more than 600,000 people. ECO Eyewear's " One Frame-One Tree " Since 2009, in partnership with the NGO Trees for the Future, ECO Eyewear has sponsored a tree for every frame sold, planting more than two million trees to date. Since 2009, in partnership with the NGO Trees for the Future, ECO Eyewear has sponsored a tree for every frame sold, planting more than two million trees to date. Eschenbach Partner Project In partnership with Fidelco Guide Dogs, Eschenbach has begun to sponsor the raising of future guide dogs. The company will have a guide dog at Vision Expo East and will hold a press conference Friday, March 22 , to introduce its sponsored Fidelco German Shepherd guide dog puppy Magno. at its booth. In partnership with Fidelco Guide Dogs, Eschenbach has begun to sponsor the raising of future guide dogs. The company will have a guide dog at Vision Expo East and will hold a press conference , to introduce its sponsored Fidelco German Shepherd guide dog puppy Magno. at its booth. Vitamin A Deficiency Article One, a company based in Flint, Michigan , which produces handcrafted eyewear in Italy , was founded to raise awareness and funding for Vitamin A deficiency and blindness in developing nations. Article One, a company based in , which produces handcrafted eyewear in , was founded to raise awareness and funding for Vitamin A deficiency and blindness in developing nations. Sustainability A variety of brands that craft eyewear from eco-friendly materials will be on display at the 2019 show, including Costa (specifically its Untangled collection), Marcolin's Timberland, MODO's ECO Eyewear and Shwood, among others. Fashion Vision Expo East takes place against the high-fashion, international backdrop of New York City, bringing fashion to the fore. No one embodies fashion more noticeably than celebrities, and this year's show will see the launch of celebrity-related products including Altair Eyewear's debut of a Draper James line by Reese Witherspoon, as well as EyeCandy's launch of a FUBU eyewear line. Vision Expo remains the premier event to see the latest high-fashion trends in eyeglasses and sunglasses, and new products will be on display this year from such top brands as Calvin Klein, Carolina Herrera, Chloe, Chopard, Diesel, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Emilio Pucci, Ermenegildo Zegna, Fendi, Furla, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, John Varvatos, Karl Lagerfeld, Lanvin, MCM, Miu Miu, Police, Prada, rag & bone, Ray-Ban, Rebecca Minkoff, Roberto Cavalli, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tom Ford and Versace, to name a few. About Vision Expo Launched in 1986, Vision Expo unites the fashion, medical and business elements of vision care and eyewear to serve the entire community year-round. Vision Expo East, taking place at the Javits Center in New York City, from March 21-24, is complemented by the annual Vision Expo West, which will next be held at the at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas from September 18-21. For more information, please visit visionexpo.com. About The Vision Council Championing better vision for better lives, The Vision Council positions its members for success by promoting robust growth in the vision care industry through education, advocacy, research, consumer outreach, strategic relationship building and industry forums. By sharing the latest in eyewear trends, advances in technology and advice from eyewear experts, The Vision Council serves as a resource to the public looking to learn more about options in eyeglasses and sunglasses. For more information, visit thevisioncouncil.org. SOURCE The Vision Council Related Links http://www.thevisioncouncil.org NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- FSA administration company, Clarity Benefit Solutions, explains why learning and development is a win-win benefit. In today's extremely competitive job market, many companies hire fresh talent, and then neglect to invest in their education. This is a costly mistake that could result in loss of revenue. Progressive employers should consider employee training and development a top priority to expand their employees' knowledge base. Here's why. Learning and development is a win-win benefit for employers and employees alike. Employers reap the benefits from workers who are more educated to perform their tasks, and employees have the opportunity to hone their skills and excel in their chosen career path. Plus, it is a morale-booster that can also foster additional leadership skills. The following are some benefits to employees' career development. First and foremost, employees feel supported. Employers who invest in their employees' ongoing career development foster a sense of caring in their employees. As a result, employees will embrace new projects. Thus, employee retention is likely to increase. As an added bonus, this investment in employees will allow them to reach their full potential. Companies that do not show a vested interest in their employees' career development will most likely be left with employees that simply do their jobs with no interest in taking their career to the next level. Plus, with career development, they will stay current with the latest trends and technologyand even excel in job performance. Employers who invest in their employees' career development will also see more productivity. They will become more efficient at their jobs and be more engaged. This will add up to a healthier bottom line. Investing in employee learning and development also boost a company's reputation, which can be a boon in attracting the latest and greatest in fresh talentwhich is yet another win-win for employers and employees alike. Employees are happier and employers show they are invested in their employees' career development. In this scenario, no one loses. 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. SOURCE Clarity Benefit Solutions Related Links https://claritybenefitsolutions.com/solutions/clarity-fsa-administration SAN DIEGO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Research released today by Northcentral University (NCU) sheds new light on the outcomes of a graduate degree from the nonprofit, 100 percent online university. A study by research giant, Gallup, Inc., included survey responses from over two thousand NCU alumni and measured post-graduation success with a range of indicators, such as professional satisfaction, community involvement, and personal well-being. Results indicate that NCU alumni experience superior outcomes when compared with data from three groups: graduates who completed at least half of their classes online, alumni of Carnegie schools classified as Research Doctoral Professional-dominant, and graduates from WSCUC (WASC Senior College and University Commission) institutions. "Students are at the core of our mission at Northcentral, so these positive results are encouraging to our entire team," said Dr. David Harpool, President of NCU. "Knowing that our alumni report thriving both professionally and personally is confirmation that our student-centric, regionally-accredited approach yields positive results." Research partner Gallup defined and assessed post-graduate outcomes across five elements, including feeling a sense of purpose professionally, social connection, financial success, community involvement, and physical well-being. Notably, NCU alumni reported thriving across all five at a rate that exceeds comparison groups. Other highlights of the study include: Thriving Professionally: NCU alumni report finding meaningful purpose in their careers post-graduation at a rate 6-10 percent higher than all three comparison groups. NCU graduates are also at least 8 percent more likely to report being engaged intellectually and emotionally at work. Overall, 90 percent of NCU alums surveyed reported working in a field related to their graduate degree. NCU alumni report finding meaningful purpose in their careers post-graduation at a rate 6-10 percent higher than all three comparison groups. NCU graduates are also at least 8 percent more likely to report being engaged intellectually and emotionally at work. Overall, 90 percent of NCU alums surveyed reported working in a field related to their graduate degree. Community Leadership: Recipients of an NCU degree reported high rates of community involvement. Nearly four out of five (79%) NCU alumni reported having volunteered or participated in public service since graduating higher than graduate alumni who completed their degrees half-plus online (69%), their WSCUC peers (71%), and others in their Carnegie class (73%). Recipients of an NCU degree reported high rates of community involvement. Nearly four out of five (79%) NCU alumni reported having volunteered or participated in public service since graduating higher than graduate alumni who completed their degrees half-plus online (69%), their WSCUC peers (71%), and others in their Carnegie class (73%). Financial Well-Being: NCU graduates reported positive financial outcomes post-graduation at a rate 8-15 percent higher than those of the comparison groups. Additionally, an overwhelming majority of alumni surveyed (90 percent) agreed with the statement that "NCU was the perfect school for people like me," citing individualized offerings like NCU's 1:1 teaching model and the flexibility of studying online. "As educators and administrators, the success of our students is both the purpose and the real reward of our work," said Dr. John LaNear, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at NCU. "We're looking forward to continuing to improve the experience and outcomes of NCU students and alumni in 2019." To read the entire Gallup study, visit www.ncu.edu/gallup. To learn more about Northcentral University and the results summarized above, visit www.ncu.edu. About Northcentral University Founded in 1996, Northcentral University is a regionally accredited, private, nonprofit, online and graduate-focused university serving professionals globally. With no physical residency requirements, courses are taught one-to-one by an NCU professor with a doctoral degree. NCU offers doctoral, master's and bachelor's degrees in business, technology, education, and psychology, as well as doctoral and master's degrees in healthcare and marriage and family therapy. NCU is an affiliate of the National University System, a system of nonprofit universities with its headquarters in La Jolla, California. Northcentral University is regionally accredited by WSCUC (WASC Senior College and University Commission), 985 Atlantic Avenue, Suite 100, Alameda, CA 94501, 510.748.9001, wscuc.org. For more information, visit www.ncu.edu or call 866.776.0331. SOURCE Northcentral University Related Links http://www.ncu.edu DUBLIN, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Automotive Semiconductor Market to 2027 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Component, Application, and Vehicle Type" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global automotive semiconductor market accounted to US$34.89 Bn in 2017 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.3% during the forecast period 2018 - 2027, to account to US$76.93 Bn by 2027. Semiconductors have facilitated most of the latest innovations in automotive technology across the world. Demand for automotive semiconductors is continuing to rise steadily due to more complexity in car designs, which thereby provides a significant long-term growth scenario for the automotive semiconductor market. Owing to this, several global automotive suppliers and automotive OEMs are focusing on introducing innovative sensors, connectivity platforms, mapping applications, and other new technologies along with the expansion of electric vehicles (EVs). Further, the semiconductor content in each vehicle is on a rise owing to the government regulations regarding safety, fuel efficiency, and emission standards. The safety features in the automotive semiconductor market have evolved from passive to active systems with ADAS including radar & vision systems. Further, the demand for electronic stability control, tire pressure monitoring, ADAS, and other features is witnessing notable growth rate owing to regulatory mandates. A significant rise in the automotive manufacturing has remarkably driven the automotive semiconductor market. The automobile manufacturers worldwide are experiencing significant demand for vehicles ranging from passenger vehicles, lightweight commercial vehicles, and heavyweight commercial vehicles. Higher disposable income in the developed countries and increasing purchasing power capacity among the population in developing countries is significantly driving the automobile procurement. The constant pressure on automobile manufacturers to deliver a large number of vehicles to meet consumer demand is catalyzing the production statistics of vehicle manufacturing. With the increase in automobile manufacturing, the demand for advanced technologies integrated on to the vehicles is simultaneously increasing among the end users. This factor has created a potential market space for various types of semiconductors. In the current automotive market, major manufacturers are integrating their vehicles with technologically enhanced sensors, in order to improve the safety of the vehicles. Apart from sensors, several other types of semiconductors are also being integrated on the newer vehicles, which is paving the path for automotive semiconductor market players to generate substantial revenue. The top companies operating in the automotive semiconductor market include NVIDIA Corporation, Intel Corporation, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Infineon Technologies AG, Rohm Semiconductor, Texas Instruments Inc., Renesas Electronics Corporation, Robert Bosch GmbH, ON Semiconductor Corporation, and STMicroelectronics N.V. among others. Various other companies operating in the automotive semiconductor market and are coming up with new technologies and offerings which is helping the automotive semiconductor market to expand over the years in terms of revenue. Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 1.1 Scope of the Study 1.2 Research Report Guidance 2. Key Takeaways 3. Automotive Semiconductor Market Landscape 3.1 Market Overview 3.2 Supply Chain Analysis 3.2.1 Insights On Partnerships Between Electronics OEMs and Automotive Companies 3.2.2 Key Developments 3.3 Market Segmentation 3.4 Pest Analysis 4. Automotive Semiconductor Market - Key Industry Dynamics 4.1 Key Market Drivers 4.1.1 Significant Rise In Automotive Manufacturing 4.1.2 Continuous Partnership of Automotive OEMs With Semiconductor Manufacturers Is Capitalizing the Market 4.2 Key Market Restraints 4.2.1 Integration of Advanced Semiconductors Increases the Upfront Cost of Vehicle 4.3 Key Market Opportunities 4.3.1 Surging Demand For Electric Vehicles 4.4 Future Trends 4.4.1 Soaring Demand For Fully-Autonomous Car Is Foreseen To Stimulate the Market Growth 4.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints 5. Automotive Semiconductor - Global Market Analysis 5.1 Global Automotive Semiconductor Market Overview 5.2 Global Automotive Semiconductor Market Forecast and Analysis 6. Automotive Semiconductor Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027- Components 6.1 Overview 6.2 Global Automotive Semiconductor Market Breakdown, by Components, 2017 & 2027 6.3 Optical Devices Market 6.3.1 Overview 6.3.2 Optical Devices Market Forecasts and Analysis 6.4 Sensors & Actuators Market 6.4.1 Overview 6.4.2 Sensors & Actuators Market Forecasts and Analysis 6.4.2.1 Led Market 6.4.2.2 Image Sensor Market 6.4.2.3 Position Sensor Market 6.4.2.4 Temperature Sensor Market 6.4.2.5 Pressure Sensor Market 6.4.2.6 Other Sensors Market 6.5 Memory Market 6.5.1 Overview 6.5.2 Memory Market Forecasts and Analysis 6.5.2.1 Dram Market 6.5.2.2 Flash Memory Market 6.6 Mircro-Controllers Market 6.7 Analog Ics Market 6.8 Logic & Discrete Power Devices Market 7. Automotive Semiconductor Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 - Application 7.1 Overview 7.2 Global Automotive Semiconductor Market Breakdown, by Application, 2017 & 2027 7.3 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Market 7.4 Body Electronics Market 7.5 Infotainment Market 7.6 Powertrain Market 7.7 Safety System Market 8. Automotive Semiconductor Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 - Vehicle Type 8.1 Overview 8.2 Global Automotive Semiconductor Market Breakdown, by Vehicle Type, 2017 & 2027 8.3 Passenger Cars Market 8.4 Lightweight Commercial Vehicle (Lcv) Market 8.5 Heavyweight Commercial Vehicle (Hcv) Market 9. Automotive Semiconductor Market - Geographical Analysis 10. Industry Landscape 10.1 Overview 10.2 Market Initiative 10.3 New Product Development 11. Competitive Landscape 11.1 Competitive Product Mapping 11.2 Market Positioning - Global Top 5 Players Ranking 12. Global Automotive Semiconductor Market - Key Company Profiles 12.1 Nvidia Corporation 12.1.1 Key Facts 12.1.2 Business Description 12.1.3 Financial Overview 12.1.4 Swot Analysis 12.1.5 Key Developments 12.2 Intel Corporation 12.3 Nxp Semiconductors N.V. 12.4 Infineon Technologies Ag 12.5 Rohm Co., Ltd. 12.6 Texas Instruments Inc. 12.7 Renesas Electronics Corporation 12.8 Robert Bosch Gmbh 12.9 On Semiconductor 12.10 Stmicroelectronics N.V. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/82b96z/global_automotive?w=5 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com DUBLIN, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Gunshot Detection Systems Market (2019 - 2024)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The gunshot detection systems market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 26.29% during the forecast period, 2019-2024, to reach a market value of USD 7.83 billion by 2024. Increased incidences of gun-firing, especially at school premises, have led to various security measures, such as warning people in close proximity and alerting authorities to the location of the shooting. It has resulted in a growing demand for gunshot detection systems over the years. Growing investment in border security is also likely to drive the market growth in the coming years, as these systems can help border security forces detect and avert any attempts of smuggling, infiltration, and illegal immigration; moreover, with a little modification of the system, it might be possible for the manufacturers to help forces identify perpetrators and detect illegal entry even in the absence of gunshots. Various law enforcement agencies worldwide are now deploying various tactics in order to curb the increased incidents related to the mass shooting, which will further increase the demand and interest for advanced gunfire detection technology. Key Market Trends Outdoor Gunshot Detection Systems Segment Projected to Grow at a High Pace The gunshot detection systems market has been classified into indoor and outdoor. In 2018, the outdoor segment accounted for a major share. However, the indoor segment is anticipated to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This is primarily due to the increasing incidences of shootings at school premises in the past couple of years, which will likely force such institutions to increase their perimeter security by installing indoor gunshot detection systems during the forecast period. Europe Expected to See the Highest Growth Although Europe has much stricter regulations in terms of gun ownership, there were many incidents of mass shooting since 2015 in European countries. Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany experienced higher injuries due to mass shootings in 2016. Several Law Enforcement agencies across Europe have plans to procure and install these advanced systems to enhance the security of their respective cities. Competitive Landscape The global gunshot detection systems market was mainly dominated by Raytheon products, both in military and civilian applications. Shotspotter, which sells civilian versions of Raytheon's gunshot detection system through license, generated a revenue of around USD 23 million in 2017. The product procurement cost for GDS systems is very low. The service cost for detecting and informing the respective authorities/personnel for response accounted for a major share of the revenue in 2017. The civilian usage of GDS is gradually increasing across various countries, with the threat from random shooters and terrorists augmenting the demand from civilians. Topics Covered 1 Introduction 1.1 Study Deliverables 1.2 Study Assumptions 1.3 Scope of the Study 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Market Dynamics 4.1 Market Overview 4.2 Market Drivers 4.3 Market Restraints 4.4 Industry Attractiveness - Porter's Five Forces Analysis 5 Market Segmentation 5.1 Product Type 5.1.1 Indoor 5.1.2 Outdoor 5.2 Application 5.2.1 Defense 5.2.1.1 Acoustic 5.2.1.1.1 Vehicle (Ground and Aerial) 5.2.1.1.2 Fixed/ Ground Installation 5.2.1.1.3 Other Acoustic Applications 5.2.1.2 Optical 5.2.1.2.1 Vehicle (Ground and Aerial) 5.2.1.2.2 Fixed/ Ground Installation 5.2.2 Homeland/Law Enforcement 5.2.2.1 Acoustic 5.2.2.2 Optical 5.3 Geography 5.3.1 North America 5.3.2 Europe 5.3.3 Asia-Pacific 5.3.4 Middle East 5.3.5 Rest of the World 6 Competitive Landscape 6.1 Mergers & Acquisitions, Joint Ventures, Collaborations and Agreements 6.2 Vendor Market Share 6.3 Strategies Adopted by Leading Players 6.4 Company Profiles 6.4.1 Raytheon Company 6.4.2 Rheinmetall AG 6.4.3 Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd 6.4.4 Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. 6.4.5 Thales Group 6.4.6 ShotSpotter 6.4.7 ACOEM Group 6.4.8 QinetiQ 6.4.9 CILAS 6.4.10 Databuoy Corporation 6.4.11 Information System Technologies Inc. 6.4.12 Louroe Electronics 6.4.13 Safety Dynamics Inc. 6.4.14 Microflown AVISA 6.4.15 ASELSAN AS 6.4.16 Elbit Systems Ltd. 7 Market Opportunities and Future Trends For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/crh6zv/global_gunshot?w=5 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com WASHINGTON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Gryphon Technologies, Inc. ("Gryphon"), a premier defense engineering and technical services provider supporting national security programs, announced today that it has acquired Schafer Intermediate Holding, LLC ("Schafer" or "the Company") from Belcan, LLC ("Belcan"). Terms of the transaction, which closed on March 15, were not disclosed. Schafer is a leading provider of scientific, advanced engineering, and technical advisory services specializing in protecting against national security threats. For more than 45 years, the Company has designed, integrated, maintained, and upgraded state-of-the-art systems and programs for the military, intelligence community, Department of Homeland Security, and others. Both Gryphon and Belcan are portfolio companies of AE Industrial Partners, a leading private equity investor in aerospace and defense, power generation, and specialty industrial companies. Belcan acquired Schafer in April 2017. "By combining Schafer with Gryphon, we are strengthening our strategic capabilities and footprint, while expanding the service offerings of both companies," said P.J. Braden, CEO of Gryphon. "The combination creates exciting opportunities in how we continue to support the missions of our existing and new customers." "This transaction is very beneficial for both Gryphon and Belcan," said Lance Kwasniewski, CEO of Belcan. "Gryphon provides Schafer with additional resources and capabilities in conjunction with a culture and focus that centers around Schafer's core markets. In addition, the new Belcan organization reflects the keen focus on our core capabilities and our commitment to the engineering, tech services, and consulting segments." "The acquisition of the Schafer assets fits perfectly within our Gryphon investment thesis of building a diversified, world-class engineering and technical services company that supports our nation's most critical national security challenges and programs," said Kirk Konert, a Principal at AE Industrial Partners. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor, and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP served as financial advisor to Gryphon. About Gryphon Technologies, Inc. Gryphon Technologies Inc. is a premier engineering and technical services national security provider specializing in defense systems and integration, naval architecture and marine engineering, program management, test and evaluation, cybersecurity and logistics. For more information, visit www.GryphonTechnologies.com. About Belcan, LLC Belcan, LLC ("Belcan") is a global supplier of engineering, supply chain, technical recruiting, and IT services to customers in the aerospace, defense, automotive, industrial, and government sectors. Belcan engineers better outcomes for customers from jet engines, airframe, and avionics to heavy vehicles, automobiles, and cybersecurity, Belcan takes a partnering approach to provide solutions that are adaptable, integrated, and value-added. Belcan has been earning the trust of our customers for 60 years and counting. For more information, please visit www.belcan.com. About AE Industrial Partners AE Industrial Partners is a private equity firm specializing in control investments in aerospace and defense, power generation, and specialty industrial businesses. AE Industrial Partners invests in market-leading companies that can benefit from its deep operating experience, industry knowledge, and relationships. Learn more at www.aeroequity.com. CONTACT: Blicksilver Public Relations Jennifer Hurson (845) 507-0571 [email protected] or Kristin Celauro (732) 433-5200 [email protected] SOURCE Gryphon Technologies, Inc. Related Links http://www.gryphonlc.com ANDOVER, Mass., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With two days left until spring, many Americans will finally see warmer temperatures, according to the latest forecast for North America from The Weather Company, an IBM Business (NYSE: IBM). According to the forecast, the Northeastern, Southeastern, and Northwestern U.S. will enjoy a warmer-than-normal spring, with the Plains and Southwest experiencing temperatures below normal. Rainfall will skew above-normal in most areas excluding portions of the Northeast and Southwest. Three-month temperature outlook for April through June 2019 from The Weather Company, an IBM Business "After an extended cold period across much of the Northern U.S. during the last month, the pattern finally appears to be relenting as we head into spring," said Dr. Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at The Weather Company. "Our models continue to suggest a general warm-north and cool-south pattern, with above-normal temperatures expected across the Northeastern and Northwestern U.S., and below-normal temperatures across the Plains and Southwest. We expect a wet spring in many areas, especially across the Plains and Southeast." Whether you're heading to the beach or hitting the slopes for spring break this year, the weather just may be on your side. For April and May, The Weather Company expects warming patterns along the Eastern seaboard and Pacific Northwest, and colder weather throughout the Plains into Colorado, Montana and Utah. On the heels of a wet 2018, soil moisture values are high across the eastern half of the country and much lower in middle America, causing the Plains to cool. April Northeast Warmer and wetter than normal Southeast Warmer and wetter than normal North Central Cooler and wetter than normal South Central Cooler and wetter than normal Northwest Warmer and drier than normal Southwest Cooler and wetter than normal May Northeast Warmer and drier than normal Southeast Warmer and wetter than normal North Central Warmer and drier than normal South Central Cooler and wetter than normal Northwest Warmer and wetter than normal Southwest Cooler and wetter than normal June Northeast Warmer and wetter than normal Southeast Warmer and wetter than normal North Central Cooler and drier than normal South Central Warmer and wetter than normal Northwest Warmer and wetter than normal Southwest Cooler and wetter than normal El Nino Lingers, The Sequel Heading into June and the summer season, El Nino will linger into a second year, bringing cooler-than-normal temperatures across the Northern and Central Plains, along with parts of Nevada and California. The most significant warmth is expected in the Northwest, with both coasts seeing above-normal summer heat. El Nino is characterized by a band of warm ocean water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific. Back-to-back El Nino events are fairly uncommon, only happening five times since 1950. In four of those five years, the Northern Plains and Great Lakes experienced below-normal summer temperatures, with warmer-than-normal temperatures across the southern tier and Pacific Northwest. "Emerging El Nino conditions over the last year resulted in a historically wet period across much of the United States," added Crawford. "The anomalously high soil moisture, combined with lingering El Nino conditions, will likely limit the magnitude of the summer heat this year, relative to the very hot summer of 2018." The Weather Company helps people make informed decisions and take action in the face of weather. The company offers the most accurate forecasts globallymore than 25 billion per daywith personalized and actionable weather data and insights to more than 300 million consumers and thousands of businesses worldwide. The Weather Company content and alerts are available in 62 languages on The Weather Company digital properties, including weather.com, The Weather Channel app on iOS and Android, wunderground.com and the Weather Underground app. Later this year, IBM and The Weather Company will release its new Global High Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (GRAF), the first hourly-updating commercial weather model that offers nearly 200 percent improvement in forecasting resolution in locations around the globe. Today, most of the world has to settle for less accurate forecasts for predictions that cover 12- to 15-kilometer swaths of landtoo wide to capture many weather phenomena. And, traditionally, leading weather models update less frequently, only every 6 to 12 hours. In contrast, GRAF will provide 3-kilometer resolution that updates hourly, democratizing weather forecasts globally and delivering reliable predictions for the day ahead. For more, visit newsroom.ibm.com/the-weather-company. SOURCE The Weather Company, an IBM Business ATLANTA, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Invesco today released findings from its second annual Global Fixed Income Study, an in-depth report outlining sentiment of fixed income investors globally. The study reveals: half ( 49% ) of respondents expect the economic cycle to last another one to two years, while many North American investors ( 52% ) see the cycle ending earlier; 58% of North American asset owners plan to increase allocations to China over the next three years; and investors are grappling with how to incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles into fixed income portfolios and measure the impact. "Investors believe we are quite late in the current economic cycle, but we found they are not foreseeing a significant correction in fixed income, and rather expect the rare event of a soft landing with a continued flat yield curve," said Rob Waldner, Chief Strategist and Global Head of Multi-Sector Portfolio Management, Invesco Fixed Income. The study was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 145 CIOs and fixed income asset owners across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific responsible for the fixed income components of portfolios totaling USD $14.1 trillion in AUM (as of June 30, 2018). Respondents included defined benefit and defined contribution plans, sovereign wealth funds, insurers, private banks, diversified fund managers, multi-managers, and model builders. Key findings include: The end of the cycle With the current economic expansion running for nearly ten years one of the longest on record some investors are nervous about its further longevity and are alert for triggers that could end it. The most common view among participants ( 49% ) is that the end of the cycle is one to two years away, however more than a quarter ( 27% ) see an end sooner, within the next six months to one year. Expectations on the duration of the cycle differ significantly between regions. More than half of North American investors expect the cycle to end in the next twelve months, while more than 75% of Asian investors expect the cycle to continue for a year or more. When asked what might trigger the next downturn, survey participants were predominantly concerned with high levels of government debt, though they also saw several sources for potential disruption emanating from the global backdrop, including trade wars. Despite these relatively high levels of concern, most expect the economic cycle will end in a soft-landing, with a correction in the equity markets more likely than a significant sell-off in bonds. With this backdrop, investors have a strong view that credit spreads will widen over the next three years (60%) and that the yield curve will remain flat for a prolonged period ( 45% ). "Growth risks are skewed to the downside, but our clients seem fairly confident that the next recession won't be nearly as bad as the last," continued Mr. Waldner. "Because of this view, they've invested in higher quality bonds and scaled back risk, but they are also looking for the slowdown to reset asset prices that may have been artificially inflated by central banks. And, they'll likely take that opportunity to add at higher yields." Chinese fixed income exposures on the rise Chinese fixed income allocations are set to grow as investors look through trade and geo-political issues in their search for enhanced yield and diversification. Recognizing that China is underrepresented in bond portfolios, especially given its role in the global economy and the size of its debt market, one third ( 32% ) of fixed income investors globally intend to increase their allocations to China over the next three years. In the US, investors are currently less likely to hold Chinese assets in their fixed income portfolio but are most likely to be increasing allocations ( 58%) despite rising trade tensions. For half ( 51% ) of global investors, this is a longer-term strategic decision that will be underpinned by the increased weighting of China in major fixed income indices expected in 2019 and beyond. Engagement levels have been low, and barriers still exist in the form of access limitations, local currency risks, the threat of government intervention and limited transparency. But with the prospect of higher yields and lower correlations to developed markets, combined with higher weights in fixed income indices over time, there should be a structural tailwind for investing in China . "There is a growing fascination with China as an investment destination, given its sheer size and economic heft, but also given its rapid market liberalization and growing list of highly successful corporations," noted Julie Salsbery, Business Strategy Investments, Invesco. "While index inclusion will definitely accelerate both awareness and investment, China is still classified as an emerging market and will therefore likely be subject to bouts of volatility." ESG fixed income moves into the mainstream ESG investing is moving from a niche investment approach taken by a minority of asset owners to becoming part of mainstream fixed income investment processes. The primary drivers of ESG within fixed income include perceived benefits to risk management, the potential for enhanced returns, and growing interest from stakeholders. That said, significant adoption issues remain as survey respondents grapple with a lack of reliable data, dispersion of views on the principles-returns trade-off, and a limited number of capabilities and products seen as suitable to their needs. The level of commitment to implementation varies widely, but larger funds are more likely to have made a firm commitment, built specialist-ESG teams, and be engaging directly with companies. Regionally, EMEA continues to lead the charge with 76% of respondents having an overall ESG commitment policy and 51% considering ESG factors within their fixed income portfolio. North America's commitment to ESG is growing, but still lags with 44% having an overall commitment and just 38% considering ESG within their fixed income portfolio. "Interest in ESG investing continues to evolve from simple negative screens where portfolios exclude certain industries, to an integration of ESG factors into risk/return analysis for each asset, to positive screening and impact investing," continued Ms. Salsbery. "With few hard-and-fast rules and definitions, and only nascent regulation, ESG investing requires active management and active engagement with each client to ensure their unique objectives are being met." Invesco Fixed Income is one of the world's leading fixed income managers with offices in all global financial centers singularly focused on uncovering and delivering value for clients. To access full findings of the Global Fixed Income Study or to learn more about Invesco Fixed Income, please visit www.invesco.com. About Invesco Ltd. Invesco is an independent investment management firm dedicated to delivering an investment experience that helps people get more out of life.NYSE: IVZ; www.invesco.com. Sample and Methodology The Field work for this study was conducted by NMG's strategy consulting practice. The breakdown of the 2019 interview sample by investor segment and geographic region is available in the report. Important Information Survey participants' experience may not be representative of others, nor does it guarantee the future performance or success of any product. The opinions expressed are those of NMG and are based on current market conditions and are subject to change without notice. These opinions may differ from those of other Invesco investment professionals. There may be material differences in the investment goals, liquidity needs, and investment horizons of individual and institutional investors. Invesco is not affiliated with NMG, an independent full-service market research provider, specializing in wealth management and financial services market research and consulting. All material presented is compiled from sources believed to be reliable and current, but accuracy cannot be guaranteed. This is not to be construed as an offer to buy or sell any financial instruments and should not be relied upon as the sole factor in an investment making decision. As with all investments there are associated inherent risks. This should not be considered a recommendation to purchase any investment product. This does not constitute a recommendation of any investment strategy for a particular investor. Investors should consult a financial professional before making any investment decisions if they are uncertain whether an investment is suitable for them. Please obtain and review all financial material carefully before investing. Diversification does not guarantee a profit or eliminate the risk of loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This does not constitute a recommendation of the suitability of any investment strategy for a particular investor. The opinions expressed are those of the author, are based on current market conditions and are subject to change without notice. These opinions may differ from those of other Invesco investment professionals. Invesco Advisers, Inc. is an investment adviser; it provides investment advisory services to individual and institutional clients and does not sell securities. NA2744 SOURCE Invesco Ltd. Related Links http://www.invesco.com PALO ALTO, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the premier provider of legal services to technology, life sciences, and growth enterprises worldwide, announced today that Katharine "Kathy" Ku has joined the firm as chief licensing advisor in the Palo Alto office. Ku is an internationally recognized leader in the field of technology transfer. Ku served nearly four decades at Stanford University's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), where she led the University's technology licensing program as executive director for 27 years. She helped establish nine principles related to university technology licensing. The principles are set forth in a document entitled "In the Public Interest: Nine Points to Consider in Licensing University Technology." More than 120 institutions have adopted the principles since they were published in 2007. "Kathy was involved in Stanford's transformation of research projects into some of the most important technologies in use today. She is well known for her leadership in catalyzing the formation of remarkable technology and life science enterprises," said Ian Edvalson, WSGR partner and co-leader of the firm's technology transactions practice. "She has a level of insight into company formation and technology licensing matters that perfectly complements the expertise we offer to innovative companies and institutions. We are excited that Kathy has joined the firm and look forward to collaborating with her." Ku came to Stanford in 1979, first as a patent engineer in the Office of Sponsored Research. She joined Stanford's OTL in 1981, and became its executive director in 1991, focusing on OTL's management, planning, and policy issues, where she served until June 2018. For four years in the mid-1990s, she also directed Stanford's Office of Sponsored Research. In 2001, she was awarded the Bayh-Dole Award for her work in advancing technology transfer from the Association of University Technology Managers. During her tenure, OTL licensed hundreds of new technologies and brought in $1.8 billion, much of which went back to fund new research. The companies that were formed from these technologies have resulted in the employment of thousands of individuals. Ku earned her M.S. in chemical engineering from Washington University, and received her B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University. She is a registered patent agent. About Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati For more than 50 years, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has offered a broad range of services and legal disciplines focused on serving the principal challenges faced by the management and boards of directors of business enterprises. The firm is nationally recognized as a leader in the fields of corporate governance and finance, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, securities litigation, employment law, intellectual property, and antitrust, among many other areas of law. With deep roots in Silicon Valley, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati has offices in Austin; Beijing; Boston; Brussels; Hong Kong; London; Los Angeles; New York; Palo Alto; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; Shanghai; Washington, D.C.; and Wilmington, DE. For more information, please visit www.wsgr.com. SOURCE Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Related Links http://www.wsgr.com DETROIT, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kresge Foundation announced Monday it will partner with two established impact fund managers and provide $22 million in investments to anchor their emerging Opportunity Zone Funds, after these managers have agreed to a level of transparency, accountability, and disclosure thus far unheard of in the Opportunity Zones space. Together, these managers expect to raise and deploy more than $800 million in capital nationally into Census tracts designated as Opportunity Zones. Boston-based Arctaris Impact and Fort Lauderdale-based Community Capital Management (CCM) will each receive a guarantee from Kresge that provides risk mitigation and first-loss protection to their Opportunity Zone Funds. These guarantees will look to improve the risk-return profile of these funds, making them more attractive to investors seeking social and financial returns, along with the benefit of principal protection through the foundation's guarantees. The Opportunity Zones incentive was created as part of the 2017 tax reform legislation. This incentive's goal is to direct hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into low-income communities. But as written, the law includes virtually no transparency, accountability, impact requirement, or disclosure on investments made using the incentive. In the absence of a regulatory mandate, Arctaris and CCM have committed to making investments that reflect the stated social and community goals of the Opportunity Zones program and address unmet needs in under-resourced communities. Both firms have agreed to covenants that go beyond what's required in the Opportunity Zone legislation, including measures that: prioritize the development of affordable housing units and prevent displacement; invest in the creation of living wage jobs; and prohibit non-productive investments such as those into self-storage facilities. Managers will also form community advisory boards similar to those required in the New Markets Tax Credit Program. These covenants complement the principles put forward in the Opportunity Zones Reporting Framework, developed in part through Kresge grants to the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance and the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown. "Opportunity Zones will only be a positive force in low-income communities if paired with responsible investing principles," Kresge President & CEO Rip Rapson said. "This legislation was passed without minimum transparency or reporting guidelines, permitting a ripe opportunity for misuse. Nearly a hundred are rumored to be currently seeking investment. Because of our mission to expand opportunity in low-income communities, Kresge has decided to put into action and model for other investors how solid deals can be constructed to meet the needs of investors and communities alike. Our intent is to establish proof points at scale to demonstrate that there is a responsible way to implement this incentive." Both Arctaris Impact and Community Capital Management were selected from a pool of more than 140 proposals that were submitted through a call for letters of inquiry in 2018 from Kresge in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation. "The level of transparency and reporting Arctaris and CCM have agreed to have set the standard for what investors should ask for before committing dollars to Opportunity Zone Funds," said Kimberlee Cornett, managing director of Kresge's Social Investment Practice, which has a $350 million impact investing pool. "These firms are already established leaders in the impact investing space, and we're thrilled they are taking up a leadership position in this new market. Our desire is to signal strong public endorsement of these funds to potential investors who care about getting it right and acting with the best interests of low-income communities in mind." CCM, an impact investing manager with two decades of experience, will receive a $7 million guarantee commitment for its National Opportunity Zones Fund, which will provide equity investments into projects that support one or more of CCM's existing 18 impact themes. The Fund will seek to assemble a diverse portfolio of investments in Qualified Opportunity Zone businesses and is targeted to attract $300 million from investors. "The Opportunity Zone Program represents a unique way to bring new investors into the impact investing arena. The tax advantages may draw people in, but they may be pleasantly surprised by the positive impact outcomes that are as rigorous, granular, and transparent as traditional financial reporting," said David F. Sand, CCM's chief impact strategist. "The covenants we have agreed to might not be required by legislation or regulation, but we believe they should be we are going above and beyond to demonstrate to the market what this can look like when done right." Arctaris, which manages four impact funds focused on operating businesses in low-income communities, has received from Kresge $15 million in guarantee commitments to provide principal protection to its Opportunity Zone Fund, pending final IRS guidance on business investments expected in the coming days. Leveraging the Kresge guarantee, Arctaris plans to launch a principal-protected Opportunity Zone fund with more than $500 million in initial capitalization from U.S. commercial banks, institutional investors, and family offices. Supplementing Kresge's catalytic support, Arctaris expects to secure additional guarantees and grants from other foundations and state government economic development agencies. The Fund will make growth equity investments in small- to medium-sized enterprises involved in manufacturing, renewable energy, and telecom, as well as real estate infrastructure. Arctaris is advised on compliance by Steve Glickman, the founder of Develop LLC and one of the architects of the Opportunity Zones program. For Impact Measurement, the firm has partnered with Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter's Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), and its CEO Steven Grossman has joined Arctaris' investment committee. "Arctaris has been investing in the same geographic areas now referred to as Opportunity Zones for more than a decade, and we've seen first-hand how businesses located in these communities have faced systemic challenges and barriers to growth capital, which restricts job creation," said Jonathan Tower, Arctaris managing partner and co-founder. "In some target cities, most local businesses have already fled. This Fund seeks to provide capital and incentives to bring them back -- accelerating the growth of existing businesses and attracting companies from elsewhere to set up new offices or build factories. The Opportunity Zones legislation has encouraged Arctaris and hopefully other investment managers to use Wall Street's tool box for the common good as funds are formed with community impact at their core." About Kresge The Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America's cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grant, loan, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information visit Kresge.org. About Arctaris Arctaris is a Boston-based impact investment fund manager focused on revitalizing disinvested cities and targeted rural communities. The firm has launched and managed four funds over 10 years through partnerships with institutional investors, CRA banks, foundations, the U.S. Treasury Department, and state economic development agencies. For more information visit www.arctarisimpact.com. About Community Capital Management, Inc. Community Capital Management, Inc. is an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale with employees in Charlotte, Boston, and the New York City area, the firm was founded in 1998 and manages over $2 billion in assets. The firm believes a fully integrated portfolio one that includes environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors can deliver strong financial performance while simultaneously having positive long-term economic and sustainable impact. CCM's strategies utilize an innovative bottom-up approach to fixed income and equity investing combining the positive impacts of impact/ESG investing with rigorous financial analysis, an inherent focus on risk management, and transparent research. For more information, please visit www.ccminvests.com. SOURCE The Kresge Foundation Related Links http://www.kresge.org C$ unless otherwise stated TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFC SEHK: 945 TORONTO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Manulife Financial Corporation ("Manulife" or the "Company") today provided the following statement in connection with the favourable Saskatchewan court ruling in the Mosten Investment LP ("Mosten") case: We are pleased with this ruling from the Saskatchewan court late last week, which found in favour of Manulife in the Mosten case, dismissing Mosten's claims against Manulife. As we have previously stated, we were always confident we would ultimately prevail in this matter and that it would not have any material impact on the Company's business. In his decision, Judge Scherman of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench stated that the policy in question "does not provide for unlimited stand-alone investment opportunities within the Carrier Fund." Specifically, the Court held that payments to the Contract are "limited to funds paid or invested to pay current and future costs of insurance, related premium taxes, specified administration fees, and the permitted accrual tax-exempt investments." This is consistent with our position that this case was legally unfounded and commercially absurd, and that consumers purchasing universal life policies, and the insurers issuing these policies, never intended to have the policies function as deposit or securities contracts. The decision has also received support from the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) which said "This ruling is firmly in the public interest and further reinforces the important division between banking and insurance that continues to be core to the legal and regulatory framework governing the Canadian financial services industry." About Manulife Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. We operate primarily as John Hancock in the United States and Manulife elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance, as well as wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2018, we had more than 34,000 employees, over 82,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving almost 28 million customers. As of December 31, 2018, we had over $1.1 trillion (US$794 billion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made $29.0 billion in payments to our customers. Our principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States are where we have served customers for more than 100 years. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong. SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation Related Links http://www.manulife.com WASHINGTON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Martha's Table announces Kim R. Ford will become the new President & CEO of the nonprofit known for its leadership in providing educational, health, and family supports for D.C. residents. Ford, who recently worked at the U.S. Department of Education, brings an extensive background in education leadership and community development, coupled with a track record of achieving proven, quantifiable results. "We could not have asked for a stronger leader than Kim R. Ford to serve as our next CEO," said Ellis Carr, Board Chair of Martha's Table and CEO of Capital Impact Partners. "Her fierce commitment to advancing equity in the District of Columbia will be a guiding compass in our work to support strong children, strong families, and strong communities in D.C." At the U.S. Department of Education, Ford served as Acting Assistant Secretary in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education, where she led the management of roughly $2 billion in workforce development programs. Prior, Ford worked at the University of the District of Columbia, overseeing programs related to career and technical education and continuing education as Dean of the Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning Division. She also served in President Obama's Administration, where she helped lead the implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, distributing more than $350 billion in recovery funds to spur economic growth. "I am personally thrilled to have Kim join us as the next leader of Martha's Table," said Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, Martha's Table Board Member and Dean of the School of Education at American University. "Her impressive background in education and focus on lifelong learning will elevate our mission to ensure all children in D.C. have the opportunity for their brightest future." For nearly 40 years, Martha's Table has worked closely with a wide range of partners and neighbors to achieve a shared vision for strong children, strong families, and strong communities. The organization strives to ensure every child in D.C. regardless of zip code has access to the education, health, and family supports necessary to succeed in childhood, college, and a career. "I am honored to join Martha's Table and be a part of its long history of partnering with D.C. residents," said Ford. "My mother was a lifelong public servant who instilled in me a passion for serving my community. And as a native Washingtonian, nothing is more important to me than seeing children and families in our city thrive." After six years leading the organization as President & CEO, Patty Stonesifer announced her retirement in November 2018. Stonesifer's tenure saw institutional shifts to expand early childhood education and extend its programming to support residents on both sides of the Anacostia River. The latter spurred the construction of a new headquarters on Elvans Road in Southeast D.C., which Martha's Table moved into in summer 2018. In seeking the next President & CEO, the Martha's Table Board of Directors partnered with Diversified Search, a leading executive search firm committed to equity and inclusion, to assist in identifying experienced candidates with a proven track record in nonprofit leadership, development, and community engagement. More than 200 candidates were considered for the position. Ford's tenure begins on April 1. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SOURCE Martha's Table TUCSON, Ariz., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- On March 15, an estimated 1.4 million schoolchildren in 123 countries skipped school to protest governments' failure to drastically cut back on the use of carbon-based fuels. They believe they have no future because of imminent climatic disaster caused by human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The figurehead leader of the Fridays for Future "strike" movement is Greta Thunberg, who reportedly started the movement at age 15. She was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential teens of 2018. Her appealing image is a lucrative money-maker for Swedish entrepreneur Ingmar Rentzhog, founder of We Don't Have Time, who claims to have discovered her. "It is not surprising that so many schoolchildren are terrified about their future," states Physicians for Civil Defense president Jane Orient, M.D. "They are immersed in groupthink and apocalyptic environmentalist scenarios in school. Major news outlets censor opposing views about climate science." A helpful antidote might be the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Climate Change IQ Test, she suggested. "Children's Crusades have long exploited passionate but uninformed young persons to promote a movement," Dr. Orient noted. "The policies the marchers are advocating would have a negligible if any effect on climate. But cutting off the fuels that power 80 percent of the world's economy would cause abject poverty and mass death, especially in the world's poorest nations." According to EIKE (Europaisches Institut fur Klima & EnergieEuropean Institute for Climate and Energy), the projections of UN climate models have been consistently wrong, but the UN is using the climate-change apocalypse as a tool (Werkzeug) to bring about global economic transformation. "The goal is a socialist, global energy-rationing regime," explained Dr. Orient. Physicians for Civil Defense distributes information to help to save lives in the event of war or other disaster. Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, [email protected] SOURCE Physicians for Civil Defense Related Links http://www.physiciansforcivildefense.org HARRISBURG, Pa., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania counties continue to make great progress transitioning to more secure and accessible voting systems with paper records that voters can verify before casting their ballot. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along with the U.S. Senate and House intelligence committees and many security experts, are calling on Pennsylvania and other states to have voting systems with a paper trail by the 2020 presidential election. Already 19 counties, or 28 percent, have taken official action toward acquiring new voting systems, either through a vote to purchase or lease a system, or a vote to approve funding. The counties are Beaver, Berks, Bradford, Butler, Centre, Clinton, Crawford, Greene, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Mercer, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Pike, Susquehanna, Venango and Westmoreland. Almost 80% of counties report they have received, selected or are in the process of selecting new voting systems. An estimated 52 counties have already reported plans to implement the new systems as follows: Eight to 10 counties expect to use new voting systems for the May 2019 primary. primary. An additional 32 counties are working to implement new systems for the November 2019 election. election. About 11 counties expect to deploy for the April 2020 primary. primary. 15 counties remain undecided about their deployment date. "We are very pleased that more than a quarter of the commonwealth's counties have already taken steps to acquire their new voting systems, and more than three-quarters have plans to implement their new systems," Acting Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said. "County officials continue to demonstrate how committed they are to acquiring voting systems that best meet their voters' needs and provide the most secure, auditable and accessible voting systems to all Pennsylvanians." In April 2018, the Department of State informed counties they must select new voting systems that provide a paper record, meet 21st-century standards of security and accessibility, and can be more thoroughly audited than current systems allow. Counties must choose their new voting systems by Dec. 31, 2019, and implement them no later than the 2020 primary election. In Pennsylvania, every voting system and paper ballot must include plain text that voters can read to verify their choices before casting their ballot. Election officials will also use the plain text to perform pre-election testing and post-election audits and recounts. Governor Wolf has proposed a minimum of $15 million in state funding each year for the next five years, for a combined total of at least $75 million to assist counties in acquiring the new systems. The governor has already committed $14.15 million in federal and state funding to counties for new voting systems. The Department of State will continue to pursue more federal assistance and other funding sources to assist counties in paying for their new voting systems. The department also has provided a statewide purchasing contract that counties can use to negotiate their best deal, while including specifics that will best meet their needs. Bids from five vendors have been approved under the contract. Under the Pennsylvania Election Code, every county must employ voting systems that are certified by both the federal Election Assistance Commission and the secretary of the commonwealth. Four new voting systems are certified under the state's new security and accessibility standards. A fifth voting system has successfully completed state and federal testing and official certification will be released shortly. A sixth system is nearing the conclusion of its certification testing. MEDIA CONTACT: Wanda Murren, 717-783-1621 SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of State Related Links http://www.state.pa.us DES MOINES, Iowa and SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Pork Board and Ripe Technology, Inc. have entered an agreement to pilot blockchain technology use in the U.S. pork industry. Through this partnership, ripe.io will enable an ecosystem that will allow pork producers to monitor, evaluate and continuously improve their sustainability practices based on the We Care framework six defined ethical principles guiding the U.S. pork industry. Launched in 2008, these principles provide industry standards in food safety and public health, animal well-being, protecting the environment, and improving the quality of life for the industry's people and communities. The standards also serve as the pork industry's commitment to continuous improvement. "The growing demand across the entire food supply chain including end consumers is to 'Know Your Food.' The ripe.io platform generates powerful levels of transparency and trust by enabling collaboration and consensus of data and activities within food systems," said Raja Ramachandran, co-founder of ripe.io. "Through blockchain, customers like the National Pork Board can enable its organization and members to create shared, immutable trusted records that address critical food issues such as sustainability, quality, traceability, waste and fraud." Working with ripe.io, the National Pork Board will demonstrate to its producers the value of having a responsible supply chain by consolidating sustainability data and activities gathered on the ripe.io platform. This platform will highlight how pork producers create a sustainable pork production environment. In addition, through a distributed permissioned ledger, this program data can be visible to partners in the ecosystem to ensure valid certifications. The data remains anonymous in order to create a benchmark indicator for each ethical principle. "Over the last 50 years, America's pig farmers have followed the We Care principles to produce a product that has become increasingly sustainable using 75 percent less land, 25 percent less water, and 7 percent less energy," said Dr. Brett Kaysen, assistant vice president of sustainability at the National Pork Board. "We look forward to working with ripe.io to use blockchain technology to record proof points through a system that can benchmark performance while increasing transparency of the entire pork value chain." About Ripe.io Ripe Technology, Inc. is on a mission to build long-lasting trust and confidence in our food supply chain through a platform where everyone will be able to access transparent and reliable information on the origin, the journey and quality of their food. With funding support from both Maersk Ventures and Relish Works, ripe.io has offices in both San Francisco and New York City. Learn more at ripe.io. About the National Pork Board The National Pork Board has responsibility for Checkoff-funded research, promotion and consumer information projects and for communicating with pork producers and the public. Through a legislative national Pork Checkoff, pork producers invest $0.40 for each $100 value of hogs sold. Importers of pork products contribute a like amount, based on a formula. The Pork Checkoff funds national and state programs in advertising, consumer information, retail and foodservice marketing, export market promotion, production improvement, science and technology, swine health, pork safety and sustainability and environmental management. For information on Checkoff-funded programs, pork producers can call the Pork Checkoff Service Center at (800) 456-7675 or check the Internet at pork.org. SOURCE Ripe Technology, Inc. Related Links www.ripe.io NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Neuberger Berman, a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, announced today that it had completed the implementation of the main recommendations of the Financial Stability Board's Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). In particular, the firm has implemented a new resource to analyze potential climate-related risk and has finished quantifying the potential value-at-risk from climate change to all the public equity and corporate-issuer fixed income holdings in the firm's U.S. mutual funds and international UCITS range, and will expand that analysis to holdings in other client portfolios in the future. Using scenarios developed to align with the commitments of the Paris Agreement on climate change, Neuberger Berman's portfolio managers have analyzed and reviewed which securities are likely to financially benefit or suffer from changes in weather patterns, regulation or technology shifts. The firm's Board of Directors has been charged with oversight of climate risk and changes have been made to the way the firm manages climate risk in its own operations. By systematically analyzing the potential investment implications of climate change across portfolios, the firm has another resource to target long-term value creation for clients. The firm is running a range of scenarios, including those aligned with a 2 Celsius and a 1.5 Celsius transition. The results will allow analysts to focus on engaging with companies and management teams who appear to be particularly at risk. This engagement will continue to provide bottom-up insights to further enhance our understanding of climate risk. "As the world transitions to a lower carbon economy, it is important for us to understand how best to position our portfolios to serve our clients' objectives," said Jonathan Bailey, Head of ESG Investing at Neuberger Berman. "No scenario will be perfectly accurate, but by systematically modelling climate-related risk and opportunity, our portfolio managers are better informed about how their portfolios are positioned. They can then choose how best to apply all the tools of active management, whether that is to engage or ultimately to sell a security when it no longer offers an attractive risk-adjusted potential return." Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), George Walker stated "Climate change is real and will impact risk and return across industries and asset classes. As an asset manager with a long-term perspective, we believe that it is important to our clients to assess the potential implications of climate change for the companies in which we invest. We will continue to engage with management teams and clients on this important topic." In-line with the best-in-class governance recommendations of the TCFD, Neuberger Berman's Board has taken overall responsibility for managing climate risk for the firm as part of its broader oversight of enterprise risk. Chief Officers for Investment (CIOs), Risk (CRO), and Operations (COO) will oversee the climate-related corporate strategy as part of the entire firm's overall management working alongside the firm's ESG Investing team and portfolio managers. The firm's climate-related corporate strategy provides further details on the approach. Neuberger Berman is a signatory to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the Global Investor Statement to Governments on Climate Change, and a lead investor in the Climate Action 100+. Neuberger Berman ESG Investing policies, white papers and more located here. About Neuberger Berman Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategiesincluding equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity and hedge fundson behalf of institutions, advisors and individual investors globally. With offices in 22 countries, Neuberger Berman's team is more than 2,000 professionals. For five consecutive years, the company has been named first or second in Pensions & Investments Best Places to Work in Money Management survey (among those with 1,000 employees or more). Tenured, stable and long-term in focus, the firm fosters an investment culture of fundamental research and independent thinking. It manages $304 billion in client assets as of December 31, 2018. For more information, please visit our website at www.nb.com. All information is as of December 31, 2018 unless otherwise indicated and is subject to change without notice. Firm data, including employee and assets under management figures, reflects collective data for the various affiliated investment advisers that are subsidiaries of Neuberger Berman Group LLC. Firm history/timeline includes the history of all firm subsidiaries, including predecessor entities and acquisitions. This material is being issued on a limited basis through various global subsidiaries and affiliates of Neuberger Berman Group LLC. Please visit www.nb.com/disclosure-global-communications for the specific entities and jurisdictional limitations and restrictions. The "Neuberger Berman" name and logo are registered service marks of Neuberger Berman Group LLC. 2019 Neuberger Berman Group LLC. All rights reserved. Media Contact: Alex Samuelson, 212 476 5392, [email protected] SOURCE Neuberger Berman Related Links http://www.nb.com WASHINGTON, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- LUNGevity Foundation is proud to be partnering with Pattern.org and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to give patients the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the future of lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. Through the partnership, lung cancer patients undergoing a surgical resection or a drainage for pleural effusion will be able to direct their excess cancer tissue and fluid samples by consenting through Pattern.org. Pattern coordinates the biologistics of sample collection and delivery to the Broad Institute's Cancer Cell Line Project for development of next-generation research models (cell line and organoid). These models will enable researchers to better understand the vast genetic diversity among lung cancers and, ultimately, speed the development of new diagnostics and therapies. All created models and associated data will be shared broadly with the scientific community. "A key barrier for researchers is the lack of cell line models to study how the cancer behaves and how it responds to different drugs," says Upal Basu Roy, MPH, PhD, Senior Director of Research for the Foundation. "LUNGevity is excited to offer lung cancer patients a platform to provide lung cancer researchers with the tissue they need to learn about the disease. LUNGevity believes that patient-driven research will significantly accelerate progress for lung cancer patients." "A major goal for lung cancer research is to predict the vulnerabilities of each tumor based on its molecular profile," says Jesse Boehm, PhD, Scientific Director of the Cancer Dependency Map at the Broad Institute. "Unfortunately, researchers lack a sufficient number and diversity of lung cancer laboratory models in the public domain that harbor rare and drug-resistant mutations. We see this partnership as an exciting new way for patients to directly help researchers overcome this central challenge." The partnership with Pattern.org and the Broad Institute strengthens LUNGevity's commitment to drive translational research to increase treatment options for patients. To engage as many patient communities as possible, Pattern.org is working with leading patient advocacy groups and cancer research foundations in their continued efforts to support research institutions and universities. Patients who have an upcoming surgery or drain at any institution in the continental US are invited to visit Pattern.org to learn more about how to donate their samples. David Sandak, co-founder of Pattern.org, is excited about this new partnership, saying, "By empowering lung cancer patients to direct their excess tissue to high-impact research projects, we hope to understand why some patients are resistant to existing therapies and identify new therapeutic strategies." About the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was launched in 2004 to empower this generation of creative scientists to transform medicine. The Broad Institute seeks to describe all the molecular components of life and their connections; discover the molecular basis of major human diseases; develop effective new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate discoveries, tools, methods, and data openly to the entire scientific community. Founded by MIT, Harvard, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and the visionary Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the Broad Institute includes faculty, professional staff, and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond, with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide. For further information about the Broad Institute, go to www.broadinstitute.org. About Pattern.org Pattern.org was launched by the Rare Cancer Research Foundation (rcrf.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to curing less common and drug-resistant cancers by creating shared resources for the cancer research community. Pattern.org bridges the gap between patients and scientists, empowering patients to be partners in research through donating excess tumor tissue and medical data to high-impact research. For more information about Pattern.org, including how to donate tissue to research, visit Pattern.org. About LUNGevity Foundation LUNGevity is the nation's leading lung cancer organization investing in lifesaving, translational research and providing support services and education for patients and caregivers. LUNGevity's goals are threefold: (1) accelerate research to patients, (2) empower patients to be active participants in their treatment decisions, and (3) remove barriers that patients face in accessing the right treatments. LUNGevity Foundation is firmly committed to making an immediate impact on increasing quality of life and survivorship of people with lung cancer by accelerating research into early detection and more effective treatments, as well as by providing community, support, and education for all those affected by the disease. LUNGevity's comprehensive resources include a medically vetted website, a toll-free HELPLine in partnership with CancerCare, a unique Lung Cancer Navigator app, peer-to-peer mentoring for patients and caregivers (LUNGevity LifeLine), and survivorship conferences. LUNGevity also helps patients find and navigate clinical trials through our Clinical Trial Finder tool, a Clinical Trial Ambassador program, and participation with EmergingMed. Our vision is a world where no one dies of lung cancer. For more information about LUNGevity Foundation, a four-star Charity Navigator organization, please visit www.LUNGevity.org. About Lung Cancer in the U.S. About 1 in 16 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime More than 234,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year About 60%-65% of all new lung cancer diagnoses are among people who have never smoked or are former smokers Lung cancer takes more lives than the next three leading cancers (colorectal, breast, and prostate) combined Only 19% of all people diagnosed with lung cancer will survive 5 years or more, BUT if it's caught before it spreads, the chance of 5-year survival improves dramatically SOURCE LUNGevity Foundation Related Links http://www.lungevity.org NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- One Rock Capital Partners, LLC ("One Rock") announced that one of its affiliates has entered into a definitive agreement with Newell Brands to acquire its Process Solutions business. Headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, Process Solutions is a manufacturer and material sciences company that offers custom-designed plastic, nylon, monofilament and zinc products in the health care, consumer, and industrial end markets. By leveraging its value engineering and manufacturing technology, the business services a wide variety of commercial industries and customers, as well as governmental agencies globally. Process Solutions is also the primary supplier of copper-plated zinc penny blanks to the United States Mint as well as a supplier of coinage to other countries. Tony W. Lee, Managing Partner of One Rock, commented, "Process Solutions develops a wide variety of high-quality products that serve diverse end markets and surround us every day. One Rock has substantial experience investing in specialty manufacturing businesses, and we intend to build upon the company's success in delivering highly engineered solutions for its blue-chip customers." One Rock Managing Partner R. Scott Spielvogel added, "We believe that as a standalone business, Process Solutions can expand its offerings and bolster its global customer relationships. Working together with management and our Operating Partners, we look forward to growing the company through strategic acquisitions and operational and technological improvements." Process Solutions Chief Executive Officer Chuck Villa said, "We are excited to partner with One Rock as we embark on our next phase of growth. With One Rock's vision and strategic resources, we look forward to continuing to provide innovative products to both our longstanding and new customers." The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. ABOUT PROCESS SOLUTIONS Process Solutions is a manufacturer and material sciences company that offers custom-designed plastic, nylons, monofilament, and zinc products that solve both industrial and consumer challenges. The business is a primary source supplier of copper-plated zinc penny blanks to the United States Mint, as well as a supplier of coinage to other international markets. Process Solutions operates out of 19 facilities across the US, UK and Puerto Rico and has approximately 1,700 employees. ABOUT ONE ROCK CAPITAL PARTNERS, LLC One Rock makes controlling investments in companies with potential for growth and operational improvement using a rigorous approach that utilizes highly experienced Operating Partners to identify, acquire and enhance businesses in select industries. The involvement of these Operating Partners affords One Rock the ability to conduct due diligence and consummate acquisitions and investments in all types of situations, regardless of complexity. One Rock works collaboratively with company management and its Operating Partners to develop a comprehensive business plan focused on growing the enterprise and enhancing its profitability to enhance long-term value. For more information, visit www.onerockcapital.com. CONTACT Alex Jeffrey/Sam Fisher Gasthalter & Co. (212) 257-4170 SOURCE One Rock Capital Partners, LLC Related Links https://www.onerockcapital.com Authorities have seized the products from U-BioMed's booth in the 2019 KIMES convention as evidence and interrogated their sales representatives. U-BioMed was displaying AQUAGOLD trademarks, videos and counterfeit products during the show, and the police have identified a doctor who purchased counterfeit AQUAGOLD at the booth about an hour prior to the interrogation. U-BioMed is finally under the scrutiny of law enforcement. Police requested that U-BioMed's CEO, Eum Nyun Shik, who also goes by the alias Corea Eum, appear at the police station earlier today. When he failed to make an appearance, a sales representative was escorted to the police station in his absence. Since the launch of AQUAGOLD fine touch with its official web site www.AQUAGOLDFINETOUCH.com , AQUAGOLD products have been adored by many celebrities and media outlets worldwide. U-BioMed has been utilizing both the internet and social media to ride the fame of AQUAGOLD, claiming itself as the manufacturer and inventor. Confusingly enough, they have also been falsely claiming that they are contract manufacturing AQUAGOLD as a private label. The time has come for such damaging and dangerous acts to come to an end. AQUAGOLD fine touch is an FDA registered, CE Marked, KFDA registered medical device intended to micro-inject valuable drugs or biologics into the skin. Making a cheap counterfeit without GMP standard or quality control threatens public safety and increases the risks of physician liability. "It is a relief to know that the police have made an action towards justice and public safety," said Sobin Chang, CEO of Aquavit. "We will ensure the court's injunctive order is applied into global commerce and trade and will work closely with Interpol in Europe as well." U-BioMed has, thus far, received millions of dollars in government funding and have used taxpayer's money for its operation in selling the counterfeits at conventions and through internet marketing. About AQUAGOLD fine touch AQUAGOLD fine touch is a first of its kind, patented repeated motion microchannel delivery method delivering approximately 1,200 to 2,000 microinjections per minute to deliver bioactive compounds intradermally. The device is designed to painlessly and effectively deliver bioactive compounds into the skin, avoiding common complications associated with traditional techniques. AQUAGOLD fine touch is manufactured and distributed by Aquavit Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and its subsidiaries. About KIMES The largest trade show of the year - Korean International Medical & Hospital Equipment Show (KIMES) provides visitors and exhibitors alike with the opportunity to identify and confirm the great potential and prospect of the future medical industry as well as the latest medical industry trend. Over 1,200 domestic and overseas manufacturers showcase new technology and new products. KIMES is the venue for the communication to present that latest medical information and technology to keep up with the fast developing medical market. About Aquavit Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Aquavit Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a high-tech pharmaceutical company that provides a comprehensive range of innovative pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device technologies. Aquavit Pharmaceuticals, Inc. focuses on personalized medicine to improve patients' health, maximize the efficiency of our medical community, and support the pharmacoeconomics of payers. SOURCE Aquavit Pharmaceuticals, Inc. NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area. You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network it's easy and free. Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform EXPERT ALERTS Boeing's Potential Branding Issues Mobile Healthcare: An App Is Not a Strategy MEDIA JOBS Business News Editor Real Estate Alert (NJ) Editor, Heard on the Street The Wall Street Journal (NY) Reporter, Machine Learning machineByte (NY / IL) OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES These 10 sites are overflowing with beer, wine, and spirits news International Women's Day: 5 Lessons from Media Entrepreneurs to #BalanceforBetter Blog Profiles: Food & Recipe Blogs ------------------------------------------------------------------- EXPERT ALERTS Boeing's Potential Branding Issues David Gerzof Richard Senior Affiliated Faculty Emerson College Richard can speak about the potential branding issues with Boeing since the crashes of the 737 Max aircraft: "The Boeing Brand has been sterling for quite some time. In the case of the 737, it was positioned against the Airbus competitive product, the A320, as superior. The A320 is a fly-by-wire aircraft, which was claimed to be not as safe due to the higher number of failure points. Oops. Now with two 737 Max 8 crashes looking very similar to each other, so much so that even the U.S.'s 'America-First' president has grounded the U.S.-made aircrafts. I believe now is Boeing's opportunity to show that it truly is a safety-first brand and do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes to get to isolate the problem, then rectify it some way that not only solves the problem but makes the fleet even safer than before." An entrepreneur and public relations executive in addition to his position at Emerson, Richard is available to discuss corporate branding mistakes, missteps and strategy. Outside of Emerson College, he is the founder and CEO of BIGfish PR, an award-winning tech PR agency located in Boston. Website: www.emerson.edu Contact: Michelle Gaseau, [email protected] Mobile Healthcare: An App Is Not a Strategy Navya Singh CEO wayForward Theres no shortage of mobile health tools for accumulating data -- everything from monitoring your sleep to tracking your moods. But once youre able to quantify your REM sleep or anxiety levels, what then? Without a medical or clinical background, few are competent to evaluate these numbers, let alone determine the most efficacious treatment plan. Dr. Singh says: Mobile health technology fosters continuous, more robust, even more accurate data collection. When data-driven, evidence-based health apps are supported by accessible clinical expertise, screening, diagnosis and treatment for mental and behavioral health issues become more precise and effective. Hence, an app in itself is not a strategy neither is it a viable treatment strategy or a sustainable business strategy for companies looking to lower healthcare costs. Behavioral and mental health is a fundamentally human enterprise. Technology today is helping reach and engage large and underserved segments of the population, but in order for it to be truly effective, it also must be backed by expertise and provide on-demand access to human experts for personalized support and treatment. ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/navya/ Website: www.wayforward.io Contact: Charles Epstein, [email protected] **************** MEDIA JOBS Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://www.cisionjobs.com/jobs/united-states/ Business News Editor Real Estate Alert (NJ) Editor, Heard on the Street The Wall Street Journal (NY) Reporter, Machine Learning machineByte (NY / IL) ***************** OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line at [email protected] THESE 10 SITES ARE OVERFLOWING WITH BEER, WINE, AND SPIRITS NEWS. Each month we highlight a select number of news sites under a timely category. Here are some of our favorites for beer, wine, and spirits news: https://prn.to/beerwinespiritssites INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: 5 LESSONS FROM MEDIA ENTREPRENEURS TO #BALANCEFORBETTER. Media is becoming a better and more empowering space: https://prn.to/womensday5lessons BLOG PROFILES: FOOD & RECIPE BLOGS. Allll the food. Here are 4 blogs we love to keep us cooking: https://prn.to/foodandrecipeblogs **************** PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire. To contact ProfNet: [email protected] or 800-776-3638, ext. 1 SOURCE ProfNet Related Links http://www.profnet.com SAN FRANCISCO, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global radiofrequency ablation devices market size is anticipated to reach USD 6.7 billion by 2026, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to register a CAGR of 11.6% during the forecast period. Increasing preference for minimally invasive surgeries, growing geriatric population, and rise in healthcare spending for better disease treatment are expected to propel the growth. Key suggestions from the report: Disposable equipment held the largest market share in 2018 due to reduced morbidity and mortality and the ability of the equipment to provide treatment in an outpatient setting. For example, Radiopaque RF cannula (Halyard Worldwide, Inc) provides improved visualization under fluoroscopy for accurate positioning, resulting in a targeted treatment Cardiology and cardiac rhythm management is anticipated to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period due to disease prevalence, growing awareness, and adoption of minimally invasive operations. In 2012 RFA-Academia launched an initiative to increase awareness in Europe and to teach endoscopists safe and justified application of RFA to reduce the disease burden North America is anticipated to continue leading the radiofrequency ablation devices market during the forecast period due to high healthcare expenditure, incidence of cardiac disease and cancer, and the number of patients suffering from pain Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth over the next decade due to increasing demand for minimally invasive procedures to treat cancer and growing awareness regarding the benefits of ablation method over the conventional surgical procedures Some of the key players are Boston Scientific Corporation; Medtronic; Stryker; Cosman Medical, Inc.; St. Jude Medical; Smith & Nephew; Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Services, LLC; and AngioDynamics. Read 100 page research report with TOC on "Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Disposable, Capital, Reusable Equipment), By Application, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2019 - 2026" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/radiofrequency-ablation-devices-market According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, by the end of 2015, 15.9 million minimally invasive cosmetic surgeries were performed in U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than six million laparoscopic procedures are performed across the U.S. and EU countries every year. Radiofrequency ablation is now used early in the management of patients suffering from atrial tachycardia or atrial fibrillation or other kinds of coronary disease. This factor is anticipated to boost the market growth. According to the American College of Cardiology Foundation, coronary heart disease is the leading cause of deaths (43.8%) in U.S., followed by stroke (16.8%), heart failure (9.0%), high BP (9.4%), and other CVDs (17.9%). By 2035, the total cost of CVD is expected to reach USD 1.1 trillion and is projected to affect 45.1% (130 million) adults in U.S. Radiofrequency ablation can also be used to reduce neck pain, low-back pain, arthritis, and pelvic and peripheral nerve pain. According to WebMD LLC., RFA has been proven to be effective in more than 70% of the patients experiencing pain. Pain relief from RFA can last from six to 12 months or even a year. Grand View Research has segmented the global radiofrequency ablation devices market based on type and region: Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2026) Disposable Equipment Capital Equipment Reusable Equipment Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Mode of Delivery Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2026) Surgical Oncology Cardiology & Cardiac Rhythm Management Cosmetology Gynecology Pain Management Radiofrequency Ablation Devices Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2026) North America U.S. Canada Europe U.K. France Germany Italy Spain Asia Pacific China Japan India Latin America Brazil Mexico Middle East & Africa South Africa Find more research reports on Medical Devices Industry, by Grand View Research: Medical Nonwoven Disposables Market - Growing prevalence of incontinence coupled with increasing prevalence of hospital acquired infections is expected to drive the medical nonwoven disposables market during the forecast period Cosmetic Implants Market - Changing lifestyle triggering the demand for cosmetic procedures is expected to boost the growth of the cosmetic implants market over the next six years Guidewires Market Increasing demand for minimally invasive interventions is expected to serve the global guidewires market as a high impact rendering driver Gain access to Grand View Compass, our BI enabled intuitive market research database of 10,000+ reports About Grand View Research Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead. Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc. Phone: +1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc. ReloQuest Inc. joined over 400 industry leaders including operators, owners, travel buyers, investors, agents, service providers and the award winners at the Park Plaza Riverbank, in London on March 14th, 2019. The Judging criteria included evidence of innovation and the demonstration of a clear understanding of customer needs. The Serviced Apartment Awards recognize commitment and performance. ReloQuest has become the largest open global marketplace and altered the competitive landscape for temporary housing by giving suppliers equal visibility and facilitating global reach to corporate housing, hotels, and serviced apartments in most cities around the world. ReloQuest represents a network of verified suppliers in 85+ countries including North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. ReloQuest is elevating suppliers by implementing the ReloQuest Verification for suppliers committed to excellence. Suppliers are spotlighted, can promote their areas of coverage, and receive global exposure via the ReloQuest platform. ReloQuest clients and their assignees can search and view suppliers and everyone shares the convenience of direct communication. All ReloQuest users have access to a multitude of services on an efficient single source platform. This recognition for Best Short-Term Rental platform is following prior accolades from the Serviced Apartments organization where ReloQuest was awarded The Best Use of Technology for two consecutive years. Darin Karp, ReloQuest Founder and CEO stated, "Being distinguished for our innovation and commitment to client service by impacting our client's success is rewarding to all of us at ReloQuest, as the recognition acknowledges our daily commitment to deliver unparalleled service and innovation firsts to our clients and supplier's businesses, and dedication to improve the guest experience." As a B2B (Enterprise) and B2E (employee) solution, ReloQuest supports our clients, their assignees, and suppliers. ReloQuest innovation includes options determined by specific, measurable and reportable KPI's providing the employee full control of the experience while staying within the company's guidelines. The system sends notifications of next steps. The innovative dashboard reports pending actions in real time, displays reference points and actionable items. The aggregator technology simplifies the process of sourcing temporary accommodations while supplying: rapid implementation, ease of use, genuine transparency, substantial cost reduction, plus a reported 80% increase in efficiency. ReloQuest's success is validated by our client's and supplier's success. About ReloQuest ReloQuest is a business solution that allows companies and employees to search, compare, and book corporate apartments and hotels around the world. Multi-award-winning ReloQuest provides forecasting data, measurement criteria, metrics and actionable insight to minimize corporate risk. Media Contact: Jeana Giordano 954-982-7997 SOURCE ReloQuest Inc. LOS ANGELES, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today announced it will fund a field demonstration of adsorbed natural gas bi-fuel vehicles powered by natural gas compressing technology developed by Adsorbed Natural Gas Products, Inc. and Ingevity. Adsorbed natural gas technology uses Ingevity's unique Nuchar activated carbon to reduce the storage pressure of natural gas without sacrificing the volume of natural gas stored through a process called adsorption. Using this type of fuel provides a cleaner and lower cost fuel option for large, light-duty vehicles, such as SUVs, half-ton pickup trucks, and service vans, than diesel, gasoline, or traditional compressed natural gas fuel. "The transportation sector accounts for more than 80 percent of smog forming emissions and about 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in California," said Yuri Freedman, senior director of business development at SoCalGas. "Natural gas can play an important role in reducing emissions, and adsorbed natural gas can revolutionize the way natural gas is used as a transportation fuel. We are excited to see how the vehicles perform during the demonstration." "It is the unique 'capture and release' properties of our Nuchar activated carbon that makes this incredible new transportation option possible," said Ed Woodcock, executive vice president and president of Performance Materials at Ingevity. "Having SoCalGas as a project partner will provide invaluable insight and support as we work to demonstrate the value of adsorbed natural gas to the natural gas community and light-duty vehicle fleets, and commercialize this exciting new technology." Adsorbed natural gas vehicles can be fueled at public-access compressed natural gas stations, as well as conveniently from home or work through a refueling compressor. They operate at significantly lower fueling pressure than standard compressed natural gas vehicles, refilling at 900 psi instead of 3600 psi. This reduces energy consumption by over 50 percent and decreases fueling time by over 60 percent. Additionally, these vehicles can travel long distances on adsorbed natural gas before seamlessly switching to gasoline. As natural gas costs $1.00-$1.50 less per gasoline gallon equivalent than gasoline, adsorbed natural gas offers a lower-cost fueling alternative. Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning alternative fuels available. And natural gas vehicles are some of the cleanest vehicles in commercial production today; they can reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by as much as 30 percent, carbon monoxide by 85 percent, and carcinogenic particulate emissions by 99 percent. Adsorbed natural gas vehicles are 90 percent cleaner than the Environmental Protection Agency's current nitrogen oxide standard and emit over 25 percent fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than comparable gasoline and diesel vehicles. When refueling with renewable natural gas, GHG emissions can be reduced by up to 125 percent. SoCalGas is providing funding for the project with research and development funds authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission and will also test and validate the adsorbed natural gas vehicles during a six-month demonstration period. Results from SoCalGas' demonstration will support a commercial rollout of adsorbed natural gas vehicles to fleet operators in Southern California. About SoCalGas Headquartered in Los Angeles, SoCalGas is the largest natural gas distribution utility in the United States. SoCalGas delivers affordable, reliable, clean and increasingly renewable natural gas service to 21.8 million customers across 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California, where more than 90 percent of residents use natural gas for heating, hot water, cooking, drying clothes or other uses. Natural gas delivered through the company's pipelines also plays a key role in providing electricity to Californians about 45 percent of electric power generated in the state comes from gas-fired power plants. SoCalGas' vision is to be the cleanest natural gas utility in North America, delivering affordable and increasingly renewable energy to its customers. In support of that vision, SoCalGas is committed to replacing 20 percent of its traditional natural gas supply with renewable natural gas (RNG) by 2030. Renewable natural gas is made from waste created by dairy farms, landfills and wastewater treatment plants. SoCalGas is also committed to investing in its natural gas system infrastructure while keeping bills affordable for our customers. From 2014 through 2018, the company invested nearly $6.5 billion to upgrade and modernize its natural gas system to enhance safety and reliability. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), an energy services holding company based in San Diego. For more information visit socalgas.com/newsroom or connect with SoCalGas on Twitter (@SoCalGas), Instagram (@SoCalGas) and Facebook. Ingevity: Purify, Protect and Enhance Ingevity provides specialty chemicals, high-performance carbon materials and engineered polymers that purify, protect, and enhance the world around us. Through a team of talented and experienced people, Ingevity develops, manufactures, and brings to market products and processes that help customers solve complex problems. These products are used in a variety of demanding applications, including asphalt paving, oil exploration and production, agrochemicals, adhesives, lubricants, publication inks, coatings, elastomers, bio-plastics and automotive components that reduce gasoline vapor emissions. Headquartered in North Charleston, South Carolina, Ingevity operates from 25 locations around the world and employs approximately 1,750 people. The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: NGVT). For more information visit www.ingevity.com. SOURCE Southern California Gas Company Related Links http://www.socalgas.com NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Debevoise & Plimpton LLP today announced that Sunil W. Savkar, a highly regarded finance lawyer, has joined the firm's corporate department as partner and member of the firm's Finance Group and Private Equity Group. Mr. Savkar's practice will focus on complex acquisition and leveraged financings. He will be resident in the firm's New York office. "We are thrilled to welcome Sunil to Debevoise," said Michael W. Blair, the firm's Presiding Partner. "Sunil's nearly 20 years of broad-gauged finance experience aligns perfectly with our leveraged finance practice. Sunil brings a valuable perspective on complex finance issues that will make him particularly attractive to our clients, and further enhance our finance team." "Adding a partner of Sunil's caliber and remarkable insight is an important step in continuing to maintain the firm's strong market position in leveraged finance and private equity more generally," said Jeffrey E. Ross, Chair of the firm's Finance Group. Mr. Savkar has built a reputation as a leader in the leveraged finance space. He has advised private equity clients and their portfolio companies, corporate borrowers and lenders in senior and junior credit facilities, mezzanine and subordinated financings and high-yield offerings. His transactions have included numerous large and middle-market domestic and international financing transactions. "I am delighted to be joining Debevoise," said Mr. Savkar. "Debevoise has long had a sterling reputation in helping clients navigate complex financings and I am looking forward to being part of the firm's team-oriented service culture. I could not have chosen a more ideal place to begin the next phase of my career." Mr. Savkar received his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Kent Scholar and Articles Editor of the Columbia Journal of Transactional Law. He received his Master's of Engineering and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. Mr. Savkar worked in the semiconductor and computer industries for five years before attending law school. About the Finance Practice Debevoise's Finance Group invests in its clients, developing a deep understanding of their business models, their needs and objectives, and their tolerance for risk and complexity. Pragmatic, flexible, fast and responsive, the team delivers creative solutions and flawless execution, allowing clients to take advantage of market windows and employ innovative techniques. The end result is a superior practice that offers a pragmatic and business-oriented approach to develop and implement the best solutions for clients. The Finance Group spans the firm's global offices, representing a wide spectrum of clients, including issuers, private equity sponsors, project sponsors and companies, private credit lenders, institutional investors, airlines, lessors and lessees whose needs involve acquisition finance, project finance, equipment finance, structured finance and derivatives, syndicated loans, high-yield bond offerings, mezzanine finance and private placements. About Debevoise & Plimpton LLP Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is a premier law firm with market-leading practices, a global perspective and strong New York roots. We deliver effective solutions to our clients' most important legal challenges, applying clear commercial judgment and a distinctively collaborative approach. SOURCE Debevoise & Plimpton LLP CULVER CITY, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SweetFlower, a cannabis lifestyle brand committed to modernizing the retail customer experience, has announced the addition of Lauren Carpenter as Chief Strategy Officer to SweetFlower's growing executive team. Ms. Carpenter most recently served as Director of Government Affairs for Western States for MedMen, and at SweetFlower is responsible for creating and executing corporate strategic initiatives across community, regulatory, political and business endeavors as the company embarks on its dynamic growth strategy. "Lauren has a keen ability to meaningfully engage with elected officials, regulators and residents in the communities we serve as we further expand our retail presence in Southern California," said Tim Dodd, CEO. "She brings industry expertise and invaluable insights in business development, policy, government, community and public affairs, as well as a proven track record in navigating the dynamic and complex business and regulatory environment necessary for commercial cannabis enterprises to thrive in California and beyond. We are absolutely thrilled to welcome her to our team as we redefine the cannabis retail experience." Lauren joins SweetFlower to help guide its rapid expansion. The company will open its first two licensed cannabis retail boutiques next month: SweetFlower Studio City, rebranding and refurbishing one of Los Angeles' most established legal cannabis dispensaries; and SweetFlower Melrose, located in one of the city's most popular retail and dining neighborhoods across the street from landmarks The Improv comedy club and Fred Segal retail store. SweetFlower will announce additional store locations in greater Los Angeles over the coming months. "SweetFlower is driven by an inclusive ethos committed to setting a new standard rooted deeply in values," said Ms. Carpenter. "As we continue to grow, my goal is to deliver on that promise, ensuring our strategic initiatives further SweetFlower's respect for the communities we are in now and will soon be a part of. I bring an expansive understanding of the industry and a community-focused perspective on what works and what doesn't in establishing authentic cannabis brand equity we're going to do it the right way at SweetFlower." Ms. Carpenter has a strong background in public affairs and public policy. In her roles with MedMen, where she started as California Political Director before assuming responsibility for Western States, she was responsible for developing and implementing political, policy and community benefits strategies, maintaining strong relationships with elected officials, regulators and industry influencers. Prior, she was with Wilson Public Affairs, where she managed policy, public affairs and government relations campaigns for trade associations and Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Carpenter began her career working on numerous legislative and ballot initiatives across California. About SweetFlower SweetFlower is a cannabis lifestyle brand committed to modernizing the cannabis customer experience. The hallmarks of the SweetFlower experience are unparalleled customer service, the highest quality, locally-sourced products, and retail environments distinguished by their design and inviting ambience. Founded in 2018, the company is headquartered in Culver City, Calif. and has filed an application for a Cannabis Business Permit in Culver City. SweetFlower is committed to being an inclusive and diverse employer and to addressing the needs of the communities it serves. Media Contact: Brian T. Regan 908.399.7161 [email protected] SOURCE SweetFlower Related Links https://www.sweetflower.com Mr. Oosterman is Vice Chair and Group President of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, Canada's largest communications service provider with more than CA$23 billion in annual operating revenue. In addition to his Vice Chair role, Mr. Oosterman also oversees Bell Media, Canada's top broadcasting and content creation company, and is BCE's Chief Brand Officer responsible for all advertising, promotional and sponsorship activities. Mr. Oosterman has been instrumental in BCE's transformation into Canada's broadband communications leader across wireless, wireline and media segments, improving the customer experience, streamlining its cost structure and creating a clear, consistent brand identity that resonates with consumer and business customers. Prior to joining Bell Canada, Oosterman was Chief Marketing and Brand Officer for TELUS Corp. and Executive VP, Sales and Marketing for national wireless provider TELUS Mobility. Prior to that, Oosterman was a co-founder of Clearnet Communications Inc., a successful independent wireless company that was sold to TELUS in 2000 for CA$6.6 billion. "With his extensive knowledge and experience in all aspects of the telecommunications industry, Wade Oosterman will bring valuable insight and counsel to the TDS Board," said Walter Carlson, TDS Chairman. "We are delighted to have him join our board and believe he will serve all TDS shareholders with distinction." "Wade Oosterman's proven track record for delivering exceptional results in our industry will provide for meaningful contributions to the TDS board, including sound engagement with executive management," said LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr., TDS president and CEO. "His deep understanding of the importance of the customer experience and his ability to successfully navigate the rapidly changing telecommunications landscape align with TDS' values and strategy." Oosterman has served on a number of boards of directors, including for Ingram Micro Inc., Virgin Mobile Canada and Clearnet. He currently serves as a director for Enstream, a joint venture of Canada's largest wireless providers that develops identity verification services for mobile payments and other secure applications. Mr. Oosterman earned an MBA and BA from the prestigious Ivey School of Business at Canada's Western University. TDS' esteemed director, Mitchell Saranow, is retiring from the board of directors at the 2019 Annual Meeting. He will become a director emeritus of TDS, effective when his term expires May 23, 2019, following the 2019 annual meeting. "On behalf of the board, I thank Mitch for his many years of outstanding and distinguished service," said Walter Carlson. "Mitch has continuously made contributions to the board through his substantial knowledge and wise counsel, and I look forward to his continued participation on the board of directors as director emeritus." About TDS Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (TDS), a Fortune 1000 company, provides wireless; cable and wireline broadband, TV and voice; and hosted and managed services to approximately 6 million connections nationwide through its businesses, U.S. Cellular, TDS Telecom, BendBroadband and OneNeck IT Solutions. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Chicago, TDS employed 9,400 people as of December 31, 2018. Visit investors.tdsinc.com for comprehensive financial information, including earnings releases, quarterly and annual filings, shareholder information and more. SOURCE Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. Related Links http://www.tdsinc.com The Telemedicine Market is projected to surpass USD 130.5 billion by 2025; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. Growing telecommunications network and integration of healthcare and IT sector will boost the growth of global market across the forecast timeframe. As per Pew Research Center statistics, in U.S. mobile phone and smart phone penetration have reached 95% in the year 2018. Increasing number of smart phone users along with development of telecommunication network will drive the market growth in the future. Various government initiatives to provide healthcare services to population having limited or no access to healthcare services will drive global market. For instance, European Union launched European Patient Smart Open Services (epSOS) project for development of telemedicine services across all the member states. This project was aimed for developing advanced telehealth framework for patients that have limited access to healthcare services. Favorable government policies for supporting expansion of healthcare IT infrastructure will drive telemedicine market in the upcoming years. Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/3129 However, lack of awareness regarding the use of telemedicine in developing economies will impede industry expansion. Furthermore, absence of reimbursement for some or all telemedicine services will hinder market growth in the future. Teleconsultation service market is expected to grow at 18.9% CAGR across the forecast timeframe. High growth rate is attributable to increasing patient outcomes, reduced cost of healthcare consultation and improvement in quality of diagnosis. With increasing number of people adopting telemedicine services, the industry should witness considerable growth over the coming years. Browse key industry insights spread across 180 pages with 283 market data tables & 9 figures & charts from the report, "Telemedicine Market By Services (Tele-consulting, Tele-monitoring, Tele-education/training), By Type (Telehospital, Telehome), By Specialty (Cardiology, Gynecology, Neurology, Orthopedics, Dermatology, Mental Health), By Delivery Mode (Web/Mobile {Telephonic, Visualized}, Call Centers), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, Italy, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, China, Japan, India, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia), Type Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2019 - 2025" in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/telemedicine-market Telehospital market is forecasted to reach USD 85.3 billion by 2025. Telehospital business is poised to witness high growth across the globe owing to growing telecommunication infrastructure. Telehospitals provide virtual hospitalist presence in rural hospitals that are unable to support full-time on-site physician. Moreover, rising exchange of knowledge among healthcare providers will further boost telehospitals business. Application of telemedicine in dermatological diseases is expected to reach USD 30.7 billion by 2025. High growth rate is credited to elimination of personal visit to healthcare settings for diagnosis of various skin conditions such as rash, mole, or other skin issues. Using telemedicine for dermatological consultations saves both time and cost, thus leading to industry growth. Telemedicine companies are focusing on development of web and mobile based applications and platforms for patients. This trend will witness stable growth as increasing number of population in developing economies are becoming mobile phone and smart phone users. Developing telecommunications network will serve as major factor for growth of web and mobile based telemedicine platforms. Indian telemedicine market is forecasted to grow at 22.4% CAGR across the forecast timeframe. Telemedicine services enables patients in remote areas to save travel time and cost for consulting a healthcare professional. Moreover, various government initiatives and policies such as Ayushman Bharat Scheme will further lead to market growth in the region. Some of the leading industry players include Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc, AMD Global Telemedicine, BioTelemetry, Cerner Corporation, Cisco Systems, Honeywell International Inc, InTouch Technologies, Koninklijke Philips N.V., McKesson Corporation and OBS Medical. The most commonly adopted business strategies by industry participants includes new product launches, regional expansion and mergers and acquisition. Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/3129 Browse Related Reports: Medical Furniture Market By Products (Beds {Acute Care Beds, Long-Term Care Beds, Psychiatric Care Beds, Bariatric Beds}, Chairs, Tables, Trolleys And Stretchers, Cabinets and Lockers), By Material (Wood, Metal, Plastics) By End-use (Hospitals, Home Healthcare, Ambulatory Surgical Centers) Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2019 2025 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/medical-furniture-market Healthcare Analytics Market By Products (Descriptive Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Prescriptive Analytics), By Application (Operations Management, Financial Management, Population Health Management, Clinical Management) By End-Use (Hospitals, Clinics, Others), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, China, India, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2019 2025 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/healthcare-analytics-market About Global Market Insights Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology. Contact Us: Arun Hegde Corporate Sales, USA Global Market Insights, Inc. Phone: 1-302-846-7766 Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688 Email: [email protected]Web: https://www.gminsights.comBlog: http://exsoft.org/category/health/ Connect with us: Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter SOURCE Global Market Insights, Inc. The Frownie Brownie dessert will be available in all 23 locations along with the infamous Angry Mob and the beloved Pity Party. Frownie's Angry Mob includes 12 Frownie Jrs and 12 scoops of chocolate and vanilla ice cream topped with hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry. Frownie's Pity Party is a six- pack of Frownies that can be picked up at any location to go. "We are delighted to be bringing Frownie back to our 23 locations. Our loyal customers, many of whom have been coming to Kings their whole lives, have missed Frownie, and we have listened," said Alisha Merico, Marketing Manager for Kings Family Restaurant. Frownie Brownies are not only coming back to the restaurants. Frownie will be the star of a new marketing campaign for Kings including TV spots, billboards, and social media campaigns #whereisfrownie and #frowniereturns. The Frownie mascot will be making a return to at local events throughout the Pittsburgh area beginning this Spring. "Frownie was a familiar face in Western Pennsylvania for years, and we wanted to bring that Frownie fun back to our guests and also introduce this dessert to new guests," said Alisha Merico. In addition to the Frownie Brownie being available as a dessert, all kids' meal will come with a free Frownie Jr. through the Summer. Kings will also be offering a free Frownie Brownie with daily dinner specials from March 25-31. Then from April 1-7, a free Frownie Brownie will accompany all quart of soup purchases. These offers are valid at all 23 Kings locations. In addition to the return of Frownie, Kings also recently introduced new additions to the breakfast, lunch and dinner menu including Maui Stack French Toast and Pot Roast Grilled Cheese. Kings still has the classics like the Hat Trick Breakfast and the Turkey Dinner. About Kings Family Restaurant. Founded in 1967, Kings Family Restaurant, headquartered in North Versailles, PA, welcomes over 500,000 guests through its doors each month and employs over 1,000 people. There are 23 locations throughout Western Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. Kingsfamily.com SOURCE Kings Family Restaurant Related Links http://www.kingsfamily.com The Sak was born in 1989 when childhood friends Mark Talucci and Todd Elliott left their mundane corporate jobs to follow their dream of discovering new treasures and travelling the world. During a trip to Bali, Indonesia, they decided to start a business importing their "found treasures" from overseas to their hometown of San Francisco. Soon, they were designing bags of their own inspired by their findings. By 1995 their collections were blowing off shelves at major retailers, creating the "crochet craze" that made The Sak's 120 Hobo one of the most iconic bags of the 90's. Now, the brand is going "Back to Bali," to the same village, to celebrate its beginnings and plant the seed for the next thirty years by giving back to the women whose hands literally make it all possible. Entirely hand-crocheted by women in the Balinese village of Negara, the capsule will feature 18 new iterations of the iconic 120 Hobo bag in limited quantities. Each of the new styles will be hand-crocheted by a single female artisan who will sign and number her work. Committed to sustainability, the capsule will incorporate eco-conscious materials such as bamboo and cotton. Standout styles from the collection include: The Sanur Bypass: A zig-zag weave inspired by Bali's frenetic Sanur Urban Bypass leading you from beach to town. Available in three color waves, the style embodies the bustling and vibrant energy of the Island. A zig-zag weave inspired by Bali's frenetic Sanur Urban Bypass leading you from beach to town. Available in three color waves, the style embodies the bustling and vibrant energy of the Island. The Ragam: Named after the Indonesian word for diversity, the Ragam bag celebrates the multi-cultural identity of the Balinese people. Named after the Indonesian word for diversity, the Ragam bag celebrates the multi-cultural identity of the Balinese people. The Ashbury: A colorful and bohemian style reminiscent of The Sak's very first San Francisco office, the Ashbury bag comes in two color waves and features a bottom panel peace sign, representative of the free spirits and forward thinkers that make the Haight Ashbury district so iconic. The Sak has established a private fund [The Sak Bali Village Artisan Fund] which will support the healthcare and education of the women of Negara and surrounding villages. 100% of sales up to $100,000 will go directly to the fund. "As I look back over the last three decades and where the world was when we started versus now, I recognize the importance of reframing the way The Sak functions as a global citizen. This capsule collection commemorates the brand's origin with an added pledge for environmental stewardship, authentic craftsmanship and philanthropy," says The Sak Brand Group's Co-Founder + CEO, Mark Talucci. "Honoring and supporting the women of Bali who inspired it all is the first chapter of our next thirty years, one which marks a commitment to sustainability, fair trade practices and an extension of our charitable efforts." In addition to this limited-edition collection, The Sak also debuted its first-ever digital campaign Bring Your World online & in-store this month with a multi-window display at the iconic Macys Herald Square. These windows also mark The Saks new residence at Macys Herald Square, a permanent 200 square foot shop in shop in the handbag department. Shot by up-and-coming female director Tamar Glezerman, entirely on location in the Arizona desert, Bring Your World celebrates the multi-generational and multi-cultural appeal of The Sak, a brand which countless people have grown up with and which is being embraced by the next generation. The 30th Anniversary capsule collection will be available March 18 on www.thesak.com and exclusive retail partners. About The Sak The Sak is the original globally-crafted, American brand inspired by the laid-back California lifestyle, offering the individually-minded woman high-quality leather and crochet everyday bags and accessories inspiring them to express their unique style, combining authentic craftsmanship, distinctive textures and unique details. The Sak is sold in over 10,000 retail locations worldwide. SOURCE The Sak Related Links http://www.thesak.com The idea to develop a dual-country approach to shelter education arose during a recent trip to Poland. Center President and CEO Mike Arms and VP of Development Renee Resko traveled to Krakow for the International Companion Animal Welfare Conference hosted by Dogs Trust. Arms was an invited speaker at the global summit focused on improving humane treatment of animals and on sharing these ideas with industry leaders world-wide. In attendance were members from legendary Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, a world-class animal refuge located in the United Kingdom. Established in 1860, the organization is the oldest animal welfare group in the UK, caring for more than 7,000 animals-in-need yearly and, like Helen Woodward Animal Center, has established a training program to share its respected practices with other organizations through its Battersea Academy. "Battersea's curriculum has a strong focus on direct animal care, training, and the successful rehoming of cats and dogs, whereas Helen Woodward's curriculum is more directed towards fund raising, public relations and marketing with a business approach to help organizations become financially stable and viable for years to come," explained Resko. "When we began discussing our two programs, we realized just how beautifully they complement one another." In June, a leadership team from Battersea Dog & Cats Home will travel to San Diego to co-host the exciting new dual-country conference, United in Saving Lives. A pre-conference reception will be held at the Helen Woodward Animal Center on June 18, 2019, where attendees will take a Center tour and learn about the 13 unique programs housed on the property, along with a special welcome from Arms and Center staff and the opportunity to network during the catered reception. Over the three-day conference from June 19th through the 21st, expert presenters from Helen Woodward Animal Center and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home will cover topics including, volunteer recruitment, humane education, best shelter adoptions practices, shelter design and ethical decision making, budgeting and finance, fundraising principals, special event planning, public relations, online marketing and more. The United in Saving Lives conference is an opportunity to inspire and educate professionals, volunteers, students and supporters in the world of animal welfare and create a lasting impact for orphan pets in need. "This new union with Battersea Dogs & Cats Home truly exemplifies what the Business of Saving Lives program is all about," Arms explained. "Together, we are strengthening our curriculum to make an even bigger impact. It gives me so much hope for the progress animal welfare will continue to make in the years to come." A $100 registration fee will cover holding the United in Savings Lives conference off-site and will include light breakfast and lunch throughout the conference for all attendees. Registration is open now at www.animalcenter.org/conference2019. For more information or to register, visit www.animalcenter.org or call 858-756-4117 x 339. Through March, those who register can save 15% with promo code: UNITED15. SOURCE Helen Woodward Animal Center Related Links https://animalcenter.org FELTON, California, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Urinalysis Market size is expected to value at USD 2.14 billion by 2022. The market is subject to witness a substantial growth due to the presence of large base of the target population and increasing demand for urinalysis because of unmet clinical needs in the under-developed regions across the globe. Factors responsible for robust market growth of urinalysis industry include introduction of highly advanced diagnostic tools, increasing unmet clinical needs, and rising demand for cost-effective solutions. Urinalysis plays a vital role as a diagnostic tool for the analysis and management of target diseases such as urinary tract infection (UTI) disorders, kidney diseases, and diabetes. These factors are expected to drive market demand for urinalysis in the upcoming years. Globally, the urinalysis market is predicted to grow at CAGR of 7.5% in forecast period, providing numerous opportunities for market players to invest in research and development in the market. Growing prevalence of the target diseases such as urinary tract infection (UTI) disorders, kidney diseases, and diabetes, is considered as one of the prominent factor responsible for market growth, in the recent years. Moreover, the changing lifestyle and varying food are expected to fuel demand for urinalysis across the globe in the upcoming years. However, complete absence of adequate healthcare infrastructure in the underdeveloped economies worldwide is anticipated to limit market progress to a certain extent. Additionally, lack of availability of the latest diagnostic tools in the developing economies across the globe is significantly hampering market growth. Yet, development of advanced and cost-effective technique to carry out fast and highly precise diagnosis along with easy to use solutions for catering to the unmet clinical needs in the developing as well as underdeveloped economies are estimated to drive market growth in the upcoming years. Browse 117 page research report with TOC on "Global Urinalysis Market" at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/urinalysis-market-size The urinalysis market is broadly divided into two major typed based on product types such as instruments urinalysis and consumables. The instruments urinalysis industry segment is further categorized into automated bio-chemical urine analyzer, semi-automated bio-chemical urine analyzer, urine sediment analyzer, and microscopic urine analyzer. The recent technological advancements in the instrument market segment coupled with development of novel products such as urine sediment analyzer, and microscopic urine analyzer are estimated to drive market growth over the forecast period. Additionally, introduction of fully automated urine strip readers and automated urine sediment analyzers like Uri-Sed mini and Uri-Sed two with the help of ElektronikaKft is considered as one of the prominent factors driving the growth of instruments market segments over the forecast period. Increasing adoption of wireless technology for communication purposes coupled with development of miniaturized PoC urinalysis instruments are further expected to advance market growth in the upcoming years. Growing usage of technologically advanced, fast-acting, non-invasive, and easy to use tools for urinalysis are projected to stimulate market expansion of urinalysis industry in the near future. One of the most common applications of the urinalysis is the diagnosis of urinary tract infection (UTI) due to the increasing occurrence of hospital-acquired urinary tract infections, especially in females across the globe. The urinalysis is highly efficient and cost effective diagnosis methodology for urinary tract infection (UTI), thereby driving demand from both developed and developing economies across the globe. The urinalysis market is divided by region as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa. North America has shown major growth in recent years owing to the rise in the implementation of latest technologies in medicine & pharmaceutical sector, development of the automated urine sediment analyzers like digital flow morphology and fluorescence flow cytometry, and existence of well-established infrastructure in the region. Asia-Pacific region is predicted to hold major market share in the urinalysis industry with massive growth in forecast period. Countries such as India, China and Singapore are leading the Asia-Pacific market with increasing penetration rate of advanced urine analyzers, rising healthcare expenditure and significant investment by leading industry players considering potential growth opportunities in the region. The key players in the urinalysis market are Alere Incorporations, Arkray Incorporations, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Mindray Medical International Ltd., Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Siemens Healthcare S.A.,Beckman Coulter Inc., and Sysmex Corporations. Browse reports of similar category available with Million Insights: Market Segment: Global Urinalysis Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2022) Instrument Biochemical urine analyzers Automated biochemical analyzers Semi-automated biochemical analyzers Automated urine sediment analyzers Microscopic urine analyzers Flow-cytometric urine analyzer Consumables Dipsticks Reagents Disposables Global Urinalysis Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2022) UTIs Diabetes Kidney Disease Hypertension Liver disease Others Global Urinalysis End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2022) Hospitals Clinical Laboratories Home healthcare Research and academics Others Urinalysis Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2022) North America U.S Canada Europe U.K Germany Asia Pacific Japan China Latin America Brazil MEA South Africa About Million Insights: Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place, that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying, is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive. Contact: Ryan Manuel Research Support Specialist, USA Million Insights Phone: +1-408-610-2300 Toll Free: 1-866-831-4085 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.millioninsights.com/ Blog: https://millioninsights.blogspot.com/ SOURCE Million Insights ADDISON, Texas, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- VapeWild, a United States vapor manufacturer, retailer and distributor, announced the opening of its Ireland division today. VapeWild.ie will fulfill orders via VapeWild's Dublin office. The website is tailored to the Republic of Ireland. Local customers will soon be able to participate in VapeWild Europe's click-and-collect program, through which orders are available for pickup within hours of placing an order. Robert McHugh, VapeWild Europe's Operations Director, looks forward to the integration of the Irish vape site. "[VapeWild Ireland is] easy to access and navigate, with specific brands and [flavour] profiles tailored for the Irish market. We are confident that Irish consumers will have a very positive experience a service we can be really proud of," McHugh said in his announcement. Established in 2014 in the United States, VapeWild aims to provide consumers with low cost, high-quality e-liquid. The company also strives to exceed expectations in compliance, advocacy and awareness in the vaping industry. VapeWild.ie will provide Ireland's smoking and vaping population with dedicated customer service, expertise and variety in regionally compliant product offerings. One of VapeWild's owners and co-founder Eric Turner anticipates VapeWild.ie being the first step of many in the company's 2019 expansion. "We are excited to bring the unique customer first culture of VapeWild to the almost 1 million nicotine users in Ireland. VapeWild.ie will be a leader in the vaping space focused solely on the Republic of Ireland and those nicotine consumers that want to make that switch away from cigarettes," Turner said in a statement. VapeWild.ie will boast a large selection of TPD compliant e-liquid. The e-liquid line will further expand to include future promotions and programming as the site develops. McHugh thinks consumers should try VapeWild.ie to gain an understanding of the company's culture. "Our philosophy is to put the customer at the heart of what we do [VapeWild demonstrates] care and attention to every detail," McHugh stated. "We even offer a voucher that gets a customer's first order, including shipping, for 1. We are confident that VapeWild.ie will meet the needs of the Irish vaping community." For more information, visit VapeWild.ie . SOURCE VapeWild Related Links www.vapewild.com In addition to Victoria's Secret Swim, a select assortment of the world's best swimwear brands, including Seafolly, Banana Moon, Lascana and La Blanca will be available at VictoriasSecret.com. The Swim range offers must-have patterns, colors and styles. Styles include high-waist bikinis, Brazilian-cut legs and asymmetric shapes, plus classics that Victoria's Secret Swim is known for. The Swim campaign features Supermodels Sara Sampaio, Jasmine Tookes, Romee Strijd, Grace Elizabeth, Lorena Rae, Aiden Curtiss, Megan Williams and Maya Stepper. Additionally, an all-new assortment of Victoria's Secret Sunglassesthe ultimate swimwear accessorywill be available at select stores and online. The collection features fashion designs and a range of classic and modern styles. #VSswim @VictoriasSecret Stay Connected: Victoria's Secret: https://www.victoriassecret.com/swimwear Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriassecret Twitter: https://twitter.com/VictoriasSecret Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victoriassecret For the latest Victoria's Secret Swim press information & images visit: https://vspressroom.com About Victoria's Secret: Victoria's Secret is the leading specialty retailer of bras , panties , lingerie , pajamas and beauty products with prestige fragrances, body care, celebrated Supermodels and world-famous runway shows. A business of L Brands, Inc. (NYSE: LB), Victoria's Secret serves customers at more than 1,600 Victoria's Secret Lingerie and Beauty stores around the globe and online at www.VictoriasSecret.com , enabling them to shop the brand anywhere and anytime. SOURCE Victorias Secret Related Links http://www.victoriassecret.com Xabis is a Colorado-based cannabis processing company which provides turnkey operations for companies in the mid-stream of the cannabis industry. With more than 150 years of collective experience, Xabis's team of PHDs and scientists manage, what in Westleaf's view, is the most technically difficult processes in the cannabis life-cycle, all aspects of the extraction and manufacturing of cannabis infused products. Highlights Tapping into Industry Leading Expertise Xabis is an industry leader in design, construction and management of cannabis extraction and manufacturing facilities, as well as product development: Xabis is an industry leader in design, construction and management of cannabis extraction and manufacturing facilities, as well as product development: Xabis has run facilities in various states in the US for a total of 8 years of cumulative operating experience; and Xabis has developed more than two dozen different form factors (delivery systems such as vape pens etc.) and concentrate types with more than two hundred individual product SKUs, including oil based oral solutions, gummy edibles, hard pressed tablets, water soluble powders, oil-based capsules, body melt capsules and suppositories. Focus on High Margin Products Upon legalization of the broader set of derivative cannabis products, Westleaf believes a diversified offering of derivative cannabis products will account for the majority of consumer demand. Westleaf is focused on differentiated product formulations to produce vape cartridges, edibles, beverages, and topicals to meet this expected demand in accordance with applicable regulations. Upon legalization of the broader set of derivative cannabis products, Westleaf believes a diversified offering of derivative cannabis products will account for the majority of consumer demand. Westleaf is focused on differentiated product formulations to produce vape cartridges, edibles, beverages, and topicals to meet this expected demand in accordance with applicable regulations. Developing Products for the Global Market The Plant is being built to EU Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) specifications to ensure compliance regulations in Canada (one of the largest emerging cannabis markets), and for export capabilities. Strategically located in Calgary , the facility is not only in the largest retail market in the prairies, but also has easy access to transportation services to the rest of Canada and to global markets. is being built to EU Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) specifications to ensure compliance regulations in (one of the largest emerging cannabis markets), and for export capabilities. Strategically located in , the facility is not only in the largest retail market in the prairies, but also has easy access to transportation services to the rest of and to global markets. Scalability The Plant includes an approximately 60,000 square foot complex with Phase I (~15,000 sq. ft.) designed to include R&D, processing, extraction, manufacturing and order fulfillment. Construction is expected to be complete in summer 2019. It is anticipated that the facility will be capable of producing the full suite of new derivative product lines in preparation of Health Canada's anticipated legalization of derivative and consumable products, expected to occur on October 17, 2019 . includes an approximately 60,000 square foot complex with Phase I (~15,000 sq. ft.) designed to include R&D, processing, extraction, manufacturing and order fulfillment. Construction is expected to be complete in summer 2019. It is anticipated that the facility will be capable of producing the full suite of new derivative product lines in preparation of Health Canada's anticipated legalization of derivative and consumable products, expected to occur on . Multiple Revenue Streams The Plant is designed to produce a diversified offering of cannabis derivative products under Westleaf's brand portfolio. Additionally, Westleaf plans to offer white labeling services to produce finished products for third parties, as well as contract manufacturing services for raw extract and distillation. is designed to produce a diversified offering of cannabis derivative products under Westleaf's brand portfolio. Additionally, Westleaf plans to offer white labeling services to produce finished products for third parties, as well as contract manufacturing services for raw extract and distillation. Truly Vertically Integrated Company Westleaf is one of the few truly vertically integrated companies in the Canadian cannabis industry, with assets owned and under development across each vertical of the business, including cultivation, extraction, processing & manufacturing, distribution and wholly owned retail. Westleaf believes that being vertically integrated provides significant optionality and defensively positions the company to protect margins across the life cycle of the industry. "We are entirely focused on the plant-to-product portion of the value chain," explains Dale Zink, CEO of Xabis. "From the end of the grow to the final processed product shipping out to the retail store or dispensary, we apply our expertise to help companies create the industry's best and most profitable processes and systems." Zink leads a group of PHDs with extensive experience in biotechnology and chemical engineering, including experience in the extraction industry, the pharmaceutical industry and academia. The move by Xabis into the Canadian market under an exclusive relationship with Westleaf is the company's first foray into the largest single legalized recreational market. Xabis has designed, built, and operated facilities in five (5) US states where medical or recreational cannabis has been legalized. "This partnership is another part of the execution on Westleaf's strategy of becoming a significant vertically integrated player in the Canadian cannabis industry," said Scott Hurd, President and CEO of Westleaf. "We believe a diversified offering of derivative cannabis products will account for a major shift in consumer demand once legal. We are positioning to formulate unique, high quality derivative products and bring in the best minds in the industry to help leverage our expertise in building and running these types of facilities." The Brand Story The Plant derives its name from the origin story of the company: a plant is not just a source of life; at Westleaf, it's our source of inspiration. Not only nature's ideal version of growth, to us, it's also a place of progress and production. A place to press forward. To build on our foundation, extract our most potent ideas, and to optimize everything we do. It's not where we cultivate, it's where we innovate. In order to ensure we provide the absolute best our country has to offer and fulfill our mandate to be at the forefront of cannabis research, development and technology. This is our place of constant growth. About Xabis Xabis brings scientific discipline, sound business principles, and professionalism to the cannabis industry by delivering turnkey processing operations for the commercial scale transformation of cannabis from plant to product. Xabis is led by seasoned business professionals and scientific experts, including some of the industry's leading chemical and biological PhDs and engineers. For more information, please visit www.Xabisinc.com. About Westleaf Inc. Westleaf is a vertically integrated cannabis company focused on innovative retail experiences and engaging cannabis brands as well as cultivation, production and extraction of cannabis products. Westleaf is rolling out a national retail footprint for its retail concept Prairie Records, with stores planned for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and potentially Ontario. The retail concept leverages the instinctual tie between recreational cannabis and music and redefines the cannabis purchasing experience. The Company also has two significant production facilities under construction and scheduled for completion in 2019. For more information, please visit http://www.westleaf.com or www.prairierecords.ca. Neither TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release Cautionary Statements 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. This news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: (i) the execution of a definitive agreement with Xabis; (ii) development of The Plant facility, the quality of the facility, the products to be produced at the Facility and the expected opening date thereof; (iii) the legalization of derivative products and the resulting market therefor; (iv) Westleaf's ability to market and sell its products across different markets, including globally; (v) approval of Health Canada for The Plant; and (v) the business and operations of Westleaf. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; and the delay or failure to receive board, shareholder, court or regulatory approvals. 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 the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, Westleaf assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. SOURCE Westleaf Inc. Related Links http://www.westleaf.com XIAMEN, China, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Yealink, a global leading unified communications (UC) solution provider, is pleased to announce Yealink broad-range voice and video device solutions for Microsoft and its video device solution for Zoom Rooms will be demonstrated at booth 805 during Enterprise Connect 2019 from March 18th - 21st in Orlando, Florida. Yealink new audio and video devices for Microsoft Teams, including personal devices (T56A, T58A) and shared devices (VC200, CP960 and Microsoft Team Rooms MVC800 and MVC500), cover a wide range of scenarios, including offices, huddle rooms and large conference rooms. Three new Yealink Teams phone devices are now compatible for use with Teams - the entry-and-mid-level desk phone T56A, the premium desk phone T58A, and conference phone CP960 for huddle rooms and large conference rooms. Yealink video device solution for Zoom Rooms will include both the Yealink CP960-UVC50 Kit for Zoom Rooms for small-to-medium rooms and the Yealink CP960-UVC80 Kit for Zoom Rooms for medium-to-large rooms Teams-tailored user experience, ease of use, low learning cost Yealink audio devices T58A, T56A and CP960 for Teams come embedded with the native Teams application for a consistent user interface that incorporates the calling and meeting features of Teams. Yealink audio devices support touch screen, allowing a frictionless experience with Teams functionalities for calling, meeting and voice mail. Yealink devices offer the ability to support builds for future, connecting with the latest technical trends such as artificial intelligence, to make communication smarter. The T58A, T56A and CP960 combine professional hardware and software technology to deliver crystal clear voice communications, especially thanks to software technology of Yealink Optima HD voice, SILK audio codec, and Noise Proof Technology. Broad range of audio and video device solutions for Microsoft Teams Yealink's complete range of audio and video devices for Teams include certified Teams audio devices (T56A, T58A, and CP960). Yealink new range of video devices (VP59, VC200, and Microsoft Teams Rooms MVC500/MVC800) which cover offices, open work space, huddle rooms and large conference rooms will also be put through the Microsoft certification process. The Yealink one-stop portfolio makes it easier for customers to select the solutions they seek and easily collaborate using equipment from a single vendor. A complete device package simplifies purchasing process Designed in partnership with Zoom Video Communications, Inc. and available in April 2019, the Yealink CP960-UVC Kit for Zoom Rooms is a video device bundle that comes pre-installed with Zoom Rooms software. The Yealink Kit for Zoom Rooms is a complete Zoom Rooms package that includes hardware (computer, camera and audio devices), software as well as license. To learn more about Yealink device solutions for Microsoft, visit the Yealink solutions page or send a request to [email protected]. To learn more about its video device solution for Zoom Rooms, visit the Yealink solutions page for Zoom. SOURCE Yealink Washington, March 18 : The US military is considering keeping up to 1,000 troops in Syria, further drifting away from President Donald Trump's original plan of a total withdrawal, a media reported. The troops will be deployed from northern Syria to the south, continuing to work with Kurdish fighters, The Wall Street Journal said in the report on Sunday citing administration officials. The officials said the number of troops to be left in Syria is still to be decided. Meanwhile, Washington plans to withdraw hundreds of American forces when "the last bastion of Islamic State (IS) is seized", a move that will be in accord with Trump's original plan, according to the report. On February 21, the White House announced that the US would leave about 200 troops in Syria after the planned pullout. Trump confirmed the next day that a small fraction of US forces would remain in Syria with troops from other countries. Citing a senior administration official, US media later reported that American military would leave about 400 troops in two different regions of Syria. Currently, there are about 2,000 US troops in Syria. Declaring victory over the Islamic State, Trump last December announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, leading to the resignation of then Secretary of Defence James Mattis. Washington, March 18 : A top US general has refuted a media report that the American military was developing plans to keep up to 1,000 troops in Syria, calling it "factually incorrect". "There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President's direction to draw down US forces to a residual presence," Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement on Sunday. The Wall Street Journal report on Sunday, citing US officials, said that the US planned to continue working with Kurdish fighters in Syria who face threats from Turkey. The report said the plans came as talks between the US, Turkey, European allies and the Kurds failed to establish a safe zone in Syria. A US official told CNN on Sunday that some planning numbers have exceeded 400 for the total number of US forces to stay in Syria, but no final decisions had been made and various figures were potentials at this point. The plan was to have a combined force of about 1,500 troops overall to ensure the safe zone in northern Syria. Dunford, in his statement, confirmed that the US and Turkey have conducted detailed military planning and agreed to an "initial concept" regarding some type of security arrangement along the Syrian-Turkish border. "We continue to conduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border. Planning to date has been productive and we have an initial concept that will be refined in the coming days. "We are also conducting planning with other members of the Coalition who have indicated an intent to support the transition phase of operations into Syria," he said. Sunday's development comes after Trump's order in December for a "rapid" withdrawal of the US military from Syria. Shortly after Trump's decision, Defence Secretary James Mattis announced his intention to resign, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress in January that the Islamic State still maintained a presence in Syria despite Trump's claim the militant group had already been defeated. The White House said last month that a "small peace keeping group of about 200" would remain in Syria, but Defence Department officials have cautioned that the number was too definitive for this stabilisation mission. For the time being, the number of US forces in northern Syria near the Turkish border and in the southern part at a base in Al-Tanf have not changed substantially. Sources have told CNN the US military has continued to develop draw down options for both Syria and Afghanistan depending on what the President may order in the future. Washington, March 18 : The US Transportation Department's Inspector General has opened an investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) approval of Boeing's 737 Max planes which were involved in two deadly crash just five months apart, The Wall Street Journal said in a report. The Journal's report on Sunday comes a week after the 737 Max planes were grounded for an indefinite period globally following the two deadly accidents involving the aircraft model, CNN reported. The first accident was the March 10 crash of the Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 that took place just six minutes after it took-off from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board. The second crash occurred last October when a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 - the same type of plane - plunged into the Java Sea minutes into the flight from Jakarta and killed all its 189 people. The investigation will be focused on an automatic safety system implicated in the October crash, CNN quoted the Journal as saying citing a US government official. It is unknown if the Ethiopian Airlines crash will play any role in this investigation or not. The Transportation Department is yet to comment on the development. Following the probe announcement, the FAA said in a statement, that its "aircraft certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs". Meanwhile, both the crashes, which occurred five months apart, remain under investigation by the Indonesia and Ethiopia governments, with the assistance from the US and Boeing. The Ethiopian Minister of Transport said on Sunday that preliminary data recovered from the black boxes showed "similarities" between the two accidents. A preliminary report of the Lion Air crash revealed that the pilots fought with the automatic safety system, known as the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), for control of the jet. Meanwhile, Boeing announced on Monday that it was working with the FAA to finalise a software update related to the MCAS system to make the planes safer. The company plans to have the update mandated no later than April, CNN reported. "We also continue to provide technical assistance at the request of and under the direction of the National Transportation Safety Board, the US Accredited Representative working with Ethiopian investigators," Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement. According to Muilenburg, the company "continues to support the investigation, and is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available". "Safety is our highest priority as we design, build and support our airplanes. As part of our standard practice following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate, institute product updates to further improve safety," he added. Hyderabad, March 18 : A youth from Hyderabad aspiring to become a commercial pilot was among the 50 people killed in the New Zealand mosques attack. He is the third man from Telangana confirmed dead. Ozair Khadir, 25, a resident of Noor Khan Bazar area in the old city here, was in the list of Indians named by the Indian High Commission in New Zealand as those who died in the Christchurch attack. Farhaj Ahsan and Mohammed Imran Khan are the other two men from Telangana killed but their names did not figure in the list. Khadir, who was undergoing training of commercial pilot in Christchurch, was at Al Noor mosque to offer Friday prayers when a terrorist opened fire. Initially he was listed among the missing but later the authorities confirmed that he was among the dead, leaving the family crestfallen. Khadir's family members said his elder brother Omair Khadir, a commercial pilot in Singapore, rushed to New Zealand and was making arrangements to bring the body back home. Their parents, who live in Saudi Arabia, were also heading to New Zealand. Relatives said Khadir, second of the four siblings, was born in Saudi Arabia. He wanted to become a pilot like his elder brother and had gone to New Zealand a year ago. Besides Khadir, Ahsan, 31, a software engineer from Hyderabad and Imran Khan, 35, a restaurateur hailing from Karimnagar district, were identified as the dead. Ahsan's parents and in-laws have left for New Zealand for his burial there. Khan's family members, who live in the US, have also rushed to New Zealand. Ahmed Iqbal Jahangir, also from Hyderabad, was injured in the attack and is recovering in a hospital in Christchurch. Wellington, March 18 : New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday vowed to unveil reforms to the country's existing gun laws in the wake of the March 15 Christchurch mosques shootings that claimed the lives of 50 people. At a news conference here, Ardern said her cabinet has agreed "in principle" on proposals to change the country's gun laws in response to the terror attack, but she stopped short of revealing what those changes might be, CNN reported. Ardern said more details will be released once her cabinet "has worked through the in-principle decision" taken on Monday. "As a Cabinet we were absolutely clear, the terror attack on Friday (March 15) was the worst act of terrorism on our shores," she said. Echoing the Prime Minister's remark, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who also appeared beside Ardern, said: "This was a cabinet decision... The reality is after March 15, our world changed forever, and so will our laws," Peters said. New Zealand First is part of the ruling coalition along with Ardern's Labour Party. It's the third-largest political party in the country and leans to the right on many issues, including immigration. Ardern also confirmed there would be a review of security agencies' actions following the shootings at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Masjid that also left over 40 others injured, The New Zealand Herald reported. The review will look at what the agencies knew, or should have known, and whether there were any blocks to information-sharing. It will also probe accused gunman, the 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant's travel and use of social media. Regarding the injured persons, health authorities said on Monday that nine people were still in a critical condition. David Meates, chief executive of Canterbury District Health Board, said in a statement that two others would be released from hospital on Monday. "There is still a four-year-old girl in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland," Meates said. "Her father has been transferred to Auckland and remains in a serious but stable condition." Meanwhile, TradeMe, one of New Zealand's biggest internet auction websites, said in a statement that it will pull all semi-automatic weapons from its platform, following their use in the attacks. The site said that it would halt the sale of semi-automatic weapons while it waited "for more clarity from the government". Coimbatore, March 18 : Tamil Nadu Police on Monday lodged Thirunavukkarasu, the main accused in the Pollachi sexual abuse-cum-blackmail case in a prison here. The Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department (CBCID) had got his custody on Friday and had interrogated him at an undisclosed location. Mumbai, March 18 : It is a happy co-incidence that actor Ali Fazal has done his first full-fledged romantic film "Milan Talkies" right when his own love story with actress Richa Chadha unfolds. Reluctantly Ali, who is currently looking at the second season of his successful digital series "Mirzapur", admits that being in love does make celluloid love more interesting. "I am sure it affects the way you look at love. How can it not? But more than my own feelings, I relied on my director Tigmanshu Dhulia to guide me through the conventions of love in 'Milan Talkies'. He had never done a full-on love story. Neither had I." Ali rues the scarcity of love stories on celluloid. "We don't really get bonafide love stories like 'Milan Talkies' any more. Here all the conventions of filmy love are employed. And yet there is a refreshing attitude to love in this film." The couple in "Milan Talkies" is seen being refreshingly candid about sex. "Young couples today, even in the so-called small towns, do discuss and have sex, the way we are shown in 'Milan Talkies'. Mores have changed across the country. And most cities across India are now clued in to global trends including live-in relationships and pre-marital sex," said Ali. "It's not something we did in the film to shock or titillate the audience. This is how young people speak and feel. Sex is an organic part of a relationship today and we wanted it that way in the film." Ali gives all credit to his co-star, Shraddha Srinath for the credible romance that's woven into the film. "We can't show young people just looking and smiling coyly at one another. Social attitudes to relationships and sex have changed. Cinema must reflect that change. Shraddha is a terrific actress and a fine co-star to work with." Ali has his hands full this year. "I've the second season of 'Mirzapur'. I don't mind giving three months of my life to it. The impact has been tremendous. The reach of the series is staggering. I also have a new film with Saif Ali Khan and Fatima Sana Shaikh which I'm looking forward to. "There are some other projects that I am on the verge of signing. There is no shortage of work or time. You just need to be at the right place at the right time." New York, March 18 : Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman authorised a secret campaign to silence dissenters, which included the surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture, over a year before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to US officials. At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the same team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Psot, in Istanbul last October, suggesting that his killing was a particularly egregious part of a wider campaign to silence Saudi dissidents, The New York Times reported on Sunday citing the officials as saying. Details about the operations come from the American officials who have read classified intelligence assessments about the Saudi campaign, as well as from Saudis with direct knowledge of some of the operations. Members of the team, known as the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, that killed Khashoggi were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017, the officials said. The Group was authorised by Prince Mohammed and was overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide whose official job was media czar at the royal court. His deputy, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence officer who has travelled abroad with the crown prince, led the team in the field. Another operative on the team was Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, a member of the royal guard who was promoted in 2017 for valour during an attack on a palace of Prince Mohammed's. Some of the operations involved forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing prisoners in palaces belonging to the Crown Prince and his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. According to American intelligence reports, one of the detained was a university lecturer in linguistics who wrote a blog about women in Saudi Arabia. She tried to kill herself last year after being subjected to psychological torture. In response to the report, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington told The New York Times that the Kingdom "takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously". Saudi laws prohibit torture and hold accountable those involved in such abuses of power, the spokesman said, adding that judges cannot accept confessions obtained under duress. The Kingdom's public prosecutor and the Saudi Human Rights Commission are investigating "recent allegations", he added. The Saudi government has insisted that Khashoggi's killing was not an assassination ordered from Riyadh. The decision to kill him was made by the team on the spot, government officials say, and those responsible are being prosecuted. The Kingdom has said that 11 Saudis are facing criminal charges for the killing and that prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five of them, but officials have not publicly identified the accused. Chicago, March 18 : Former porn star-turned-sports commentator Mia Khalifa is engaged to long-time boyfriend chef Robert Sandberg. Sandberg proposed to her in Chicago. Sandberg reportedly hid a ring in a bowl of dried ingredients and the Lebanese-American star almost ate the ring but he was on ground to warn her, and he proposed to her on the spot. She said yes, reports guardian.com. Sharing the news on his Instagram page, Sandberg wrote: "We went to Chicago this weekend and had a wonderful dinner at Smyth. I proposed to Mia Khalifa and she said yes! "The ring was hidden in a bowl of dried ingredients and came out as a 'new serving'. Mia was too curious and too eager to taste so she started to eat the inedible ingredients. I told her not do it and then I put the ring on the finger. I love you so much." Khalifa confirmed the news on her Instagram page. "Thank you a million times over for the entire team at Smyth Chicago for helping Robert Sandberg propose... This trip and dinner was supposed to celebrate him getting his visa. "Robert has planted the seed so deep in my mind for so long that he hates restaurant proposals so I never, ever, saw this coming. I love you all so much! Thank you!" Bengaluru, March 18 : Karnataka's ruling coalition allies Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) hope to "outsmart" the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by jointly contesting the 28 Lok Sabha seats across the state in April, a party official said. "With the JD-S and Congress contesting together, there will be no splitting of secular votes in the state. The seat-sharing pact well positions our parties to outsmart the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections," JD-S spokesman and a former Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Ramesh Babu told IANS. The vision of the coalition allies was to combine their forces to keep the BJP out of winning the majority seats, he added. The ruling parties committed to a pre-poll alliance for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in the state, to be held in two phases on April 18 and 23, with eight seats for the JD-S and 20 for the Congress. Admitting that JD-S and Congress, which bitterly fought against each other in the May 2018 Assembly elections, had differences in a few constituencies, Babu said the parties were working to strengthen their unity. "We fought the Assembly elections as rivals, particularly in the old Mysuru region, where both parties have significant strength. So, it is natural for differences to exist. The parties' leaders are working to resolve the differences right down to the worker level," the JD-S spokesman said. The Congress party also believes that if the coalition partners stay united and end their "bickering", they can "comfortably" win the Lok Sabha elections. "If the JD-S and Congress stay united, they can project the failures of BJP at the Centre like the issue of unemployment. We can comfortably win the Lok Sabha elections if the parties avoid bickering," Congress state unit Vice President B.K. Chandrashekar told IANS. The BJP was far less likely to benefit due to the "charm" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the ensuing general elections, the Congress leader said. "The Modi factor did not work for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Assembly elections in 2018 either, and it just about saved them in Gujarat Assembly elections in 2017. It is far less likely to work for the BJP in Karnataka during the general elections," Chandrashekar explained. The JD-S and Congress leaders expect the Rs 48,000-crore farm loan waiver announced by the coalition government of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy to have a positive impact on the poll outcome. "Farm loan waiver is a palliative to farmers. If we didn't waive the loans, the indefinite suffering of farmers will continue," the Congress leader added. The BJP, on the other hand, mocked the JD-S and Congress seat-sharing pact as "superficial". "The seat-sharing agreement is only on paper and is a superficial one. The two parties fought against each other in the Assembly elections in 2018. Their workers still can't stand one another and are spewing venom against each other," BJP state unit spokesman G. Madhusudhan told IANS. The infighting between the two parties will only help BJP win more votes, he added. "We are sure to gain more votes due to the positive work that has been done by the Modi government and also from the congenial atmosphere in the country after the recent air strikes against Pakistan in retaliation to the (February 14) Pulwama attack," the BJP leader asserted. The "patriotic" atmosphere that prevails after the air strikes would favour the right-wing party across the country, the spokesman assessed. While the BJP was aiming to win at least 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies, the coalition parties were together aiming to win in 22 seats. (Bhavana Akella can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in)A Kabul, March 18 : A drone belonging to the NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) coalition forces crashed in Afghanistan's Parwan province, police said on Monday. "The unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in the Barek Ab area on Sunday night near the Bagram Airfield. The drone crashed into a house but caused no damage," a police official told Xinhua news agency. The Bagram Airfield, some 50 km north of Kabul, has been serving as the main US and NATO military base in Afghanistan over the past 17 years. Srinagar, March 18 : Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah alleged on Monday that officers of Jammu and Kashmir favouring early Assembly elections were being harassed by a lobby of senior officers who oppose such a move. "I'm shocked to hear how officers who have supported early Assembly elections are being browbeaten and threatened using their performance appraisals against them to get them to toe the line," the National Conference leader tweeted. "One day we will talk about the cabal of officers in J&K who for their own selfish reasons have taken it upon themselves to scuttle democracy in the state. "No honest officer should fear these threats. We must put the greater good ahead of our personal preferences and benefits. Those people making the threats will not remain in the state for very long." All mainstream parties in the state except the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) favour simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. To re-assess the ground situation, three observers appointed by the Election Commission completed their two-day visit to the state. The observers would submit their report to the Election Commission so that a final call is taken on holding the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Jakarta, March 18 : Three tourists were killed and dozens others injured on Monday after an earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale struck Indonesia's Lombok island, causing subsequent landslides. The incident took place in Tiu Kelep waterfall in Senaru village near Mount Rinjani, reports Xinhua news agency. Two victims were Malaysian nationals who were visiting the coutry along with 38 other travellers. The third victim was an Indonesian tourist. The landslides trapped a total of 38 visitors, of which 35 were rescued. Twenty visitors were badly injured and dozens of others sustained minor wounds, a disaster management official said. Some 32 buildings collapsed and 500 were affected with moderate damage. More than 80 people, 22 of them Malaysians, had to be evacuated from Mount Rinjani. According to the US Geological Survey, the hypocenter of the earthquake was situated some 24 km deep and 4 km south east of Sembalun Bumbung village. Mount Rinjani is said to be the second highest volcano in Indonesia, at 3,726 metres, and remains active. Beijing, March 18 : Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi arrived in China on Monday on a three-day trip during which he is scheduled to attend the first Islamabad-Beijing foreign ministers' strategic dialogue. Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing and Pakistan's Ambassador to China Masood Khalid, along with other embassy officials, received Qureshi at Beijing airport, reports Dawn news. During the visit, both sides will hold comprehensive discussions on the entire range of bilateral relations, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Both sides will also discuss the regional situation and cooperation. Qureshi will also address the Political Parties Forum on the CPEC and participate in the ruling parties' dialogue between the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Communist Party of China. He will also call on the Chinese leadership. The Foreign Minister's trip comes less than a week after China on March 13 vetoed sanctions against Masood Azhar, the chief of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad terror group. It was the third time that the UN Security Council had taken up a resolution to include Azhar's name in the UN sanctions blacklist, which will subject him to a global travel ban and freezing of assets. Los Angeles, March 18 : Reality TV star Kim Kardashian has issued a plea on social media after her deal to rehouse a former prisoner fell through. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the beauty mogul had offered to cover Matthew Charles' rent for the next five years, as he was struggling to find a place to live due to his criminal record. Matthew was released in January after serving more than 20 years of his 35-year sentence for non-violent drug and weapons charges, following the implementation of the First Step Act, a US prison reform bill, reports aceshowbiz.com. The "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" star reached out to him privately and made the generous offer in an effort to get him back on his feet following his release. Kim took to social media to appeal to her fans and followers to put her in touch with someone who could help the former prisoner. In the post, she appealed to her followers on Twitter and Instagram for any landlords who knew of a two-bedroom apartment in Tennessee to e-mail her team. "Matthew Charles's lease application was rejected again (because) of his criminal record (even with me paying his rent in advance)," she wrote. "If there are any landlords (with) a two bedroom in Nashville willing to give Mr Charles a second chance, contact mocapt615@gmail.com." "Serious inquiries only, thank you," Kim added. Lahore, March 18 : Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and Leader of Opposition Shehbaz Sharif on Monday appeared before a joint investigation team (JIT) probing the 2014 firing incident in Lahore in which 14 people were killed. The JIT, formed by the Punjab province's Home Department earlier this year to re-launch a fresh investigation into the tragedy, had summoned Sharif to record his statement in the case, reports Geo News. On June 17, 2014, at least 14 people, including two women, were killed when Punjab Police allegedly opened fire on protesters of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT). Around 100 workers were also injured in the clashes over removal of barricades outside the PAT secretariat in the city's Model Town area. Since then, PAT chief Tahir-ul-Qadri has been demanding justice in the case and seeking suspension of all policemen involved in the operation to conduct a free and fair investigation in the case. The incident took place when Sharif was the Chief Minister of Punjab province. The street smart tactics of the Pakistan army -- played out by Prime Minister Imran Khan at its behest -- to some how diffuse the overwhelming pressure of international opinion blaming it for collusion with Islamic militants, are not doing much for it this time. It was an unprecedented setback for Pakistan's deep state when India got instant support -- open or implicit -- from the international community for its "preemptive and non- military" strike on the training facility of Jaish-e-Mohammed far inside Pakistan's territory. What has followed is a series of inconsistent responses from Pakistan's policy makers. The Indian Air Force (IAF) bombing at Balakot -- coming as it did as a declared reprisal by India against the terror attack on CRPF troopers in Pulwama -- was viewed with a sense of "understanding" by the entire democratic world, led by the US, as a legitimate operation since it was carried out in the backdrop of calls being made by the world community to Pakistan -- over a long period -- to stop providing safe havens to terrorists on its soil. Since Pakistan army was trying to pull wool over every body's eyes by pretending that the Islamic outfits instigating terror across Indo-Pak border in Kashmir and elsewhere were "non- state" actors not in its control, India's stand that Balakot was not an attack on Pakistan made sense to all, much to the frustration of Pakistan. Pakistan's references to "escalation" did not cut much ice and even its desperate attempt to use F-16 bombers on a military target on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) on the day following Balakot received a cold snub from all the countries as an unjustified bravado. The focal point of accountability on Pakistan's ruling dispensation remains on the lack of effective action against the militant outfits operating from within that country. The world opinion has hardened on this issue as the developments in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with regard to naming Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of JeM, as an international terrorist amply demonstrated, notwithstanding the fact that China has once again blocked the decision with its veto. Imran Khan in a statement earlier had reiterated that "he pledged not to allow Pakistani soil to be used for terror directed at other countries" which seemed to be a part of the wishy washy announcements of his government about "restrictions" placed on Jaish and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) front Jamaat-ud-Dawah. Meanwhile, US National Security Advisor John Bolton has called upon Pakistan Foreign Minister once again to ensure "meaningful" action against terrorists who had attacked India. India has to critically assess the impact of the US intervention. Imran Khan has -- unsurprisingly -- used the current situation to encroach on India's domestic politics by alleging that the Narendra Modi government was engaging in "the politics of hatred" with an eye on the upcoming general elections in India. He openly accused Prime Minister Modi of "dividing people for votes" and went on to state that after Pulwama, hatred was being spread against a community because of which Kashmiris were targeted in many parts of India. Pakistan has been trying to fish in the troubled waters of Indian electoral politics in a manner that creates a convergence between what its leaders propagate and the anti- Modi tirade that the Opposition in India made on the issue of "protection of minorities" here. Pakistan is consciously indulging in the dangerous game of suggesting that there was a sense of identification between Muslims of India and Pakistan and that the minority community here should help to pull down the Modi regime. Imran Khan had stated sometime back that he looked forward to dealing with a new dispensation in India in 2019. Fomenting terrorist violence by exploiting faith-based motivation should be condemned by one and all and the question of who should be given credit for the military operation against the Jaish establishment at Balakot should be debated with political finesse and not political bias. Balakot underscores a strategic response to the serious threat of cross-border terrorism facing India and any critique of the same should be kept free of communal overtones. We should not fail the world community that is seized of this threat at the global level by throwing up internal political divisions on matters of national security. Indian diplomacy is going to run into the challenge -- sooner than later -- of Pulwama and Balakot events being flagged by other countries as the ground for resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan. China has expectedly taken the lead in recommending talks between the two countries for "long term improvement in bilateral ties." China, unlike the US and many other major countries, is keen to bail out Pakistan which faced isolation on the issue of Islamic extremism and terror and India has rightly demanded "credible, verifiable and sustained actions" against terror outfits in Pakistan. However, we must be specific about calling for effective punitive action against both Hafiz Sayeed and Masood Azhar for their involvement in the 26/11 and Pulwama attacks, respectively, and make it a condition for a possible resumption of dialogue with Pakistan. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has done well to dare Imran ay following Balakot received a cold snub from all the countries as an unjustified bravado. The focal point of accountability on Pakistan's ruling dispensation remains on the lack of effective action against the militant outfits operating from within that country. The world opinion has hardened on this issue as the developments in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with regard to naming Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of JeM, as an international terrorist amply demonstrated, notwithstanding the fact that China has once again blocked the decision with its veto. Imran Khan in a statement earlier had reiterated that "he pledged not to allow Pakistani soil to be used for terror directed at other countries" which seemed to be a part of the wishy washy announcements of his government about "restrictions" placed on Jaish and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) front Jamaat-ud-Dawah. Meanwhile, US National Security Advisor John Bolton has called upon Pakistan Foreign Minister once again to ensure "meaningful" action against terrorists who had attacked India. India has to critically assess the impact of the US intervention. Imran Khan has -- unsurprisingly -- used the current situation to encroach on India's domestic politics by alleging that the Narendra Modi government was engaging in "the politics of hatred" with an eye on the upcoming general elections in India. He openly accused Prime Minister Modi of "dividing people for votes" and went on to state that after Pulwama, hatred was being spread against a community because of which Kashmiris were targeted in many parts of India. Pakistan has been trying to fish in the troubled waters of Indian electoral politics in a manner that creates a convergence between what its leaders propagate and the anti- Modi tirade that the Opposition in India made on the issue of "protection of minorities" here. Pakistan is consciously indulging in the dangerous game of suggesting that there was a sense of identification between Muslims of India and Pakistan and that the minority community here should help to pull down the Modi regime. Imran Khan had stated sometime back that he looked forward to dealing with a new dispensation in India in 2019. Fomenting terrorist violence by exploiting faith-based motivation should be condemned by one and all and the question of who should be given credit for the military operation against the Jaish establishment at Balakot should be debated with political finesse and not political bias. Balakot underscores a strategic response to the serious threat of cross-border terrorism facing India and any critique of the same should be kept free of communal overtones. We should not fail the world community that is seized of this threat at the global level by throwing up internal political divisions on matters of national security. Indian diplomacy is going to run into the challenge -- sooner than later -- of Pulwama and Balakot events being flagged by other countries as the ground for resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan. China has expectedly taken the lead in recommending talks between the two countries for "long term improvement in bilateral ties." China, unlike the US and many other major countries, is keen to bail out Pakistan which faced isolation on the issue of Islamic extremism and terror and India has rightly demanded "credible, verifiable and sustained actions" against terror outfits in Pakistan. However, we must be specific about calling for effective punitive action against both Hafiz Sayeed and Masood Azhar for their involvement in the 26/11 and Pulwama attacks, respectively, and make it a condition for a possible resumption of dialogue with Pakistan. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has done well to dare Imran Khan to hand over Masood Azhar to India if he was serious about taking action against terrorists. India has to keep up its alignment with the US, the UK, France, Japan, Australia, Russia and the Gulf countries on the issue of putting down terrorism. Securing convergence between India, the US and Russia on the future of Afghanistan should also be an important aim of our diplomatic endeavours. The Pakistan army-ISI duo have realised that the line "you give me evidence we will proceed" had this time failed to impress any body and they are therefore trying to hoodwink the international community by pretending to put curbs -- administrative and financial -- on the terrorist outfits. They plan to brave through the world pressure and apparently feel convinced that they could continue with their efforts to create political destabilisation in Jammu and Kashmir and keep the pot boiling there. Pakistan knows it can not take on India in a conventional war but has reasons to believe that it could indulge in its covert offensive on LoC to keep the limelight on the Kashmir issue. India has stronger justification after the Balakot strike to follow an "offence is the best defence" approach in dealing with any ceasefire violations. With the onset of summer, Pakistan would be tempted to step up infiltration of terrorists into the valley -- notwithstanding the fact that strong action against separatists and pro-Pak elements would have shrunk the circle of support that Pakistan had enjoyed there so far. For India, there is no looking back on the mission of eliminating the last terrorist gun in Kashmir, neutralising the Pakistan agents there and developing J&K as a democratically governed state that is economically self sufficient, socio-politically harmonious and viable as a multi-religious entity. (D.C. Pathak is a former Director, Intelligence Bureau) Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston Colombo, March 18 : Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Monday launched a five-year Anti-Corruption Action Plan aimed to create a corruption-free nation by 2023. The plan was unveiled here with Sirisena saying that legal action would be taken against all those involved in corruption, including state and private sector officials, politicians and social activists, reports Xinhua news agency. The plan has been prepared after amending several laws, which had been implemented to fight fraud and corruption. With the new anti-corruption plan, state officials are banned from accepting any form of bribery as gifts or presents in exchange for providing services. Four handbooks were also released on Monday alongside the action plan, exploring decisive factors which would shape the course of combating bribery and corruption in the nation. Kinshasa, March 18 : At least 30 people were killed and several others injured in a train derailment in Kasai province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said on Monday. According to information from police, most of the dead passengers on Sunday were stowaways who boarded the train carrying mainly goods, reports Xinhua news agency. For the moment, the hospital authorities have confirmed the recovery of at least 30 bodies. Several seriously wounded people were taken by police to a hospital near the accident site. The central part of the country regularly records rail accidents due to deterioration of the tracks and aging locomotives that date back to colonial years. Canberra, March 18 : Actor Chris Hemsworth took to Instagram, sharing a photograph of himself and an "epic" animal he said he'd encountered in Australia. Hemsworth took his "first quokka selfie" while visiting Rottnest Island, he wrote in the caption. In the photograph, the actor appeared to making a face similar to that of the furry critter. "Got my first quokka selfie this week at Rottnest Island," the "Thor" star wrote. "Epic little creatures are all over the island just cruisin through the day doing their thing. Get there and check it out!" The post included a second photograph that also featured his wife, Elsa Pataky, according to people.com. The actor separately posted a recording showing him interacting with the animal and successfully encouraging it to take a plant piece from him. Hemsworth quipped that during his time at Rottnest Island, he managed to break into the quokkas' inner circle, and had earned a new name worthy of the achievement. "Spent 3 weeks crawling around the dirt, studying the Quokkas movements, mimicking their language and eventually gained their trust and was accepted as one of them, I now go by the name Quokkachris," he wrote. New Delhi, March 18 : The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) on Monday finalised the names of candidates for the six constituencies it will contest in Bihar. It will announce them by Wednesday. Addressing a press conference here, the party's Parliamentary Board Chairman Chirag Paswan said candidates for the Hajipur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Jamui, Nawada and Khagaria seats were finalised in the meeting. "We are sad due to the demise of former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji. It is a big loss to politics. As the nation is mourning his death, we are not going to announce the names of our candidates today," he said. The announcement would be made in the next two days, he added. Under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) seat sharing arrangement, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) will contest 17 seats each, while the LJP will contest on six seats in Bihar. Chirag Paswan, who is the son of Union Minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, said he was confident that the NDA would win as many as 37 of the total 40 seats. "No one should be surprised if we win all 40 seats. But I can confidently say that we will win 36-37 seats for sure," he said. The LJP leader said he had good relations with Giriraj Singh, Union Minister and incumbent BJP MP from Nawada -- the seat which has now gone to the LJP. "I am sad to hear that Giriraj Singh ji is disappointed. But I am sure I am not the reason for his disappointment," said Paswan and added that the decision was taken during the seat sharing negotiations between all the NDA constituents. Thiruvananthapuram, March 18 : The Kerala Producers Association on Monday met state police chief Loknath Behra with a request to speed up the probe against popular Malayalam film director Roshan Andrews for allegedly roughing up producer Allwyn Antony. Suresh Kumar, who led the delegation, told IANS that last week a group of people led by Andrews barged into Antony's house near Kochi and thrashed him and others. "They were looking for Antony's son, who worked as Andrews' assistant as there were some issues between them. But when they couldn't find the son, they thrashed Antony and others. We have asked Behra to speed up the probe into the matter," said Kumar. Andrews, 44, shot to fame after the release of his first film as a full-time director in 2005. The film, "Udayananu Tharam" starring superstar Mohanlal, went on to become one of the biggest hits in the history of Malayalam cinema. Since then Andrews has emerged as one of the most sought after directors in the Malayalam film industry. "We have also told the producers associated with Andrews to be careful," Kumar said. Andrews has also filed a complaint with the police, alleging that it was he who was roughed up by Antony and his friend. Kolkata, March 18 : Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee on Monday termed the 2019 Lok Sabha polls "a duel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee" and urged the voters in the state to put all their force behind her. "The voters must remember that the coming elections are not for a panchayat, a municipality or the assembly. It is a battle between the communal Modi and Bengal's firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee. Everyone has to come together and fight to help her win this battle," said Banerjee, the nephew of the TMC Chief. Campaigning for veteran TMC leader and state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who is the party's Lok Sabha candidate from Bankura, Banerjee claimed that the coming elections were a battle to protect the culture and traditions of Bengal from BJP onslaught. "The BJP government has been doing a politics of bluff since it came to power. They are fuelling riots in the name of religion and are trying to foment unrest in Bengal," he alleged. "Remember this is a fight against Delhi's (Centre's) atrocities and bulldozing attitude," he said. Banerjee pointed out that his party Chief had given a call for a secular and progressive government in the country by ousting the BJP, and said it was the duty of the people of Bengal to give her strength by being on her side. "We won 34 of the 42 seats in 2014. Because we had the majority in Bengal, we were able to fight against the Centre's anti-people policies like fuel price hike, revoking of LPG subsidy," said the MP from Diamond Harbour. "The BJP thought they would be able to tame the TMC like the Congress or the CPI-M, but they were wrong. This is Mamata Banerjee's party, built with people's emotions and pride. We did not surrender before BJP's pressure. We rallied for people's right when other parties like CPI-M or Congress were nowhere to be seen," he added. Dharamsala, March 18 : The US Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback has said the US will continue to support the Dalai Lama's 'middle-way' approach and urged China to resume formal dialogue with him or his representatives, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) said on Monday. Brownback said this during a visit to Taiwan for the 2019 Regional Religious Freedom Forum, last week, where President Tsai Ing-wen was also present. Brownback noted in his speech March 2018 marked "the 60th anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama being forced into exile." According to a CTA post, the US Ambassador criticised China's occupation of Tibet saying it "demonised and criminalised the Buddhist faith that lies at the core of Tibetan civilisation". "Tibetans understandably continue to lament his absence from Tibet and long for the day that he is able to return and resume his rightful place as their most important religious leader," he said. "We urge the People's Republic of China to resume formal dialogue with His Holiness or his representatives immediately," he said and added we would continue to support the Dalai Lama's middle-way approach for meaningful autonomy for all Tibetans across the Tibetan Plateau, while remaining a part of the China. Condemning the Chinese government, he cited persecution of Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and Christian groups in China. Some 60 years ago, around 80,000 Tibetans along with the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa for India after a failed uprising against the Communist rule over Tibet. China and the Dalai Lama's envoys have held nine rounds of talks since 2002 to resolve the Tibetan issue. In the last round of talks -- the ninth -- in Beijing in January 2010, the CTA submitted an "explanatory" note to the Chinese leadership to clarify its stand on genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people. Since then, there has been no movement forward. The Tibetan exile administration, called the CTA, is based in this northern Indian hill town, where the spiritual leader also lives. Mumbai, March 18 : Actor Sharman Joshi, who is gearing up for release of his first Hollywood film "The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story", says the movie sends out the message of love, peace, tolerance and harmony. On what made him to be part of the film, Sharman said: "We have made this with really good intentions. The end message is about love, peace, tolerance and harmony. This incident (on which the film is based) happened in Odisha. It could have happened in the US, Europe, Middle-East or in any part of the world." The film, based on real life story of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines who worked among the tribal poor and leprosy victims in Odisha, comes 20 years. He was burnt to death along with his sons by alleged members of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu fundamentalist organisation. Talking about Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Avenue Masjid shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday in which 50 people were killed, Sharman said: "It's very unfortunate. I feel such extreme acts are detrimental for our as well as future generations." "I feel all of us hold a responsibility for it and help stop it in our little way by spreading message of love, peace, harmony and tolerance. I feel only through awareness we will be able to fight these horrific acts. That's what I have endeavoured through this film." Stating that though it was a Graham Staines' story, Sharman said "the bigger message is what happened was extremely unfortunate. It should not happen again. Love and peace is the only way of living." Talking about the film "The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story", Sharman said: "It's story about missionary Staines against whom allegations were made that he was forcibly converting Hindus to the faith of Christianity. The story is seen through the eyes of a journalist, Manav Kaul, played by me." The film was released in the US last month and will be released in India on March 29. "After the India release, the film will be released in South Africa, East Africa and Europe," he said. Directed by Aneesh Daniel, the film also stars Stephen Baldwin, Shari Rigby and Prakash Belawadi. New Delhi, March 18 : The Election Commission, here on Monday, issued notification for the first phase of the seven-phased Lok Sabha elections, kicking off the process of filing of nominations for 91 constituencies across 20 states and Union Territories. Voting for the first phase would take place on April 11, said the notification signed by President Ram Nath Kovind. Nominations for this phase would be accepted till March 25 and scrutiny of the nomination papers would be on March 26, it said and added the last day for withdrawing nominations was March 28. In the first phase, voting will take place in Andhra Pradesh (25 seats), Telangana (17), Uttarakhand (5), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Meghalaya (2), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Sikkim (1), and the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar (1) and Lakshadweep (1), the notification said. Eight contituencies (out of 80) in Uttar Pradesh, two (of 42) in West Bengal, four (of 40) in Bihar and two (of 6) in Jammu and Kashmir will also go to polls in the first phase. The electorate in five (of 14 constituencies) in Assam, one (of 11) in Chhattisgarh, seven (of 48) in Maharashtra, one (of two) in Manipur, four (of 21) in Odisha and one (of two) in Tripura would also cast their votes in this phase, the notification said. New Delhi, March 18 : The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will come out with a new price regime for mobile number portability (MNP) in April, TRAI Chairman R.S. Sharma said on Monday. Anjana Das & Rituraj Baruah New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will come out with a new price regime for mobile number portability (MNP) in April, TRAI Chairman R.S. Sharma said on Monday. "The whole process of MNP has undergone a change. We are carrying out consultation about what should be the charges of the MNP service provider. The consultation process is currently on. It was about to come to an end but some stakeholders have sought time and we have given time till April 1," Sharma told IANS in an interview. "So, I think we will be coming out with a new price regime for the changed policy on the MNP, hopefully by mid-April, when we would be able to give the recommendations", Sharma said. The new price regime comes in the wake of a recent High Court ruling striking down the TRAI's order to lower the portability charge earlier this month. The court said the TRAI decision on revising the cost downward was flawed as it disregarded costs to the service providers. The High Court had set aside the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) order to lower the fees for MNP from Rs 19 per port to Rs 4 per port. TRAI had then said that the amount will be paid only if the porting request of the customer was successful while moving to the desired operator. Sharma, however, said the regulator has not yet taken a call if they were to appeal against the HC order. "We will have to take a call whether we should appeal that decision", said the Trai Chairman. "In December, 2018, 4.76 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP). With this, the cumulative MNP requests increased from 407.22 million at the end of November 2018 to 411.98 million at the end of December 2018, since implementation of MNP," TRAI said in its latest industry report last month. (Anjana Das can be contacted at anjana.d@ians.in and Rituraj Baruah at rituraj.b@ians.in) Prayagraj: Congress General Secretary and eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during her visit to Manaiya ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj, on March 18, 2019. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News Prayagraj: Congress General Secretary and eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during her visit to Manaiya ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj, on March 18, 2019. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News Prayagraj, March 18 : Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Monday launched her three-day Prayagraj-Varanasi boat ride on the Ganga river as part of the Lok Sabha election campaign, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being a friend of industrialists. Taunting Modi for his 'main bhi chaukidaar' (I am also a watchman) claim, Gandhi said: "A watchman is only meant for the rich and not for farmers." Modi, she told people crowding the banks of the Ganga, "pushes money into the pockets of industrialists". "Modi only favours industrialists. So think before voting, use your vote judiciously, in a way that your vote changes things in the country," she said. As the specially-prepared motor boat sailed slowly from here, Gandhi, 47, waved to people crowding the banks of the holy Hindu river and with a hand-held microphone asked them loudly about their welfare. Packing the vessel were her supporters. Addressing a gathering near Dumduma ghat, she said: "When we raise any issue, we are suppressed and lathi-charged. Yesterday a woman came... They came with hope." But whenever people protest, they end up facing even sedition charges, she said. The Congress leader said people need to understand that this country belongs to everyone. "This country is yours, this democracy is yours and even this politics is yours. It is only because of people that we exist. There can be no Priyanka Gandhi without you people." Answering questions on the agrarian crisis, she said: "We are not here to make false promises. We do what we promise, like we waived off loan of farmers in all the states where we formed governments recently." Responding to BSP leader Mayawati's outburst over seat-sharing with the Congress, Gandhi said: "There is no need to be angry. The common aim is to defeat the BJP." After leaving from Dumduma, Gandhi reached Sirsa and Lakshagrih ghats. However, her vessel got stuck in shallow water and was pulled out by party supporters. Earlier, Gandhi left Swaraj Bhawan, her family's ancestral home, in the morning and reached the Bade Hanuman Mandir, popular as 'Lete huye Hanuman Mandir', near Prayagraj Sangam. She prayed at the temple and to the river Ganga. She then embarked on her much anticipated boat ride from the Manaiya Ghat. Asked about her river ride, Gandhi replied: "Ganga maiya udaar hai (Mother Ganga is magnanimous.)" She was welcomed by party supporters who showered flowers on her. After arriving at Manaiya ghat, Gandhi broke her security protocol and shook hands with supporters who had arrived from different parts of Uttar Pradesh. The younger sibling of Congress President Rahul Gandhi interacted with 20-25 girl students as part of her campaign "Sanchi baat" soon after her boat left Manaiya ghat. They were with her on the boat specially prepared for the campaign. The river ride will take her to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Anand Singh can be contacted anand.s@ians.in) New Delhi, March 18 : Letterheads of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jammat-ud-Dawa, Hizbul Mujahideen and other terrorist organisations are among various "significant evidences" that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) says are enough to book top separatist leaders, including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in its ongoing probe in the J&K terror funding case. The NIA investigators have scrutinized these letterheads which were recovered in a raid the agency conducted at seven locations in Srinagar last month. An NIA officer, privy to the investigation, told IANS that Farooq, the Chairman Awami Action Committee, and more than six top separatist leaders "may soon face the heat" in the terror funding case the agency registered in May 2017. The officer, however, did not clarify whether an FIR will be registered against these separatist leaders or they will be arrested. He only confirmed that "something big would happen soon before June". Asked about the names of those separatist leaders, the officer, on condition of anonymity, said Yasin Malik, Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, and Naseem Geelani, son of Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani, are on the NIA list. The agency on March 9 issued summons to them to appear before its headquarters here for questioning. Geelani has been questioned on more than three occasions in the case. Other separatist leaders on NIA radar are Mohammad Ashraf Khan, Chairman Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Masarat Alam, General Secretary, All Party Hurriyat Conference, and Zaffar Akbar Bhat, Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Salvation Movement. Scrutiny of a high-tech internet communication setup and documents relating to recommendations for visa for admission in a few Pakistan educational institutions are other evidence which are crucial in linking relations of Farooq and other suspected separatist leaders to Pakistan-based terror outfits, said the official. According to the official, some property papers, financial transactions receipts, bank account details and electronic devices including laptops, e-tablets, mobile phones, pen drives, communication system and digital video recorders are also the part of these evidence that are enough to prove how these separatist leaders have been indulged in "anti-national operations" on directions of the heads of these terror groups. The evidence are part of February 26 raid the NIA conducted at the residential premises of these suspected separatist leaders including Shabbir Shah, President of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party. The NIA in January 18 last year filed chargesheet against 12 including Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven Kashmiri separatist leaders and others. The separatist leaders arrested in the case on July 24, 2017 are Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah. Altaf Ahmad Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir's merger with Pakistan. Shahid-ul-Islam is an aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Khandey is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat. Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali was also arrested in the case on August 17, 2017, and was on September 12 granted bail by the Delhi High Court. (Rajnish Singh can be contacted at rajnish.s@ians.in) Kozhikode, March 18 : Congress Kerala unit (KPCC) president Mullappally Ramachandran is reportedly being pressured by AICC top brass to contest from Vadakara constituency. Mr. Ramachandran, who is the incumbent MP from the north Kerala constituency, is however remaining steadfast in his decision to keep away from the poll fray this given the added responsibility of overseeing the election work in all the constituencies as the party chief in the state. Reports in vernacular media suggest that AICC general secretary in charge of Kerala Mukul Wasnik has asked Mr. Ramachandran to enter the poll fray at the behest of the party national leadership. Congress firebrand leader V M Sudheeran has also called for the KPCC chief to throw his hat in the ring. Revolutionary marxist party (RMP), founded by CPI(M) renegade T P Chandrasekharan, has also called on the UDF to field a strong candidate to take on CPI(M) strongman P Jayarajan in Vadakara. RMP had vowed to support the UDF candidate in the Vadakara constituency, where the RMP enjoys sizeable influence in certain pockets, to ensure the defeat of the CPI(M)'s P Jayarajan, whom RMP sees as a fountainhead of the politics of murder and violence in Kannur district. RMP founder T P Chandrasekharan was brutally hacked to death by CPI(M) workers. Leaders of the RMP have threatened to reconsider the support promised to the UDF in the event the congress-led coalition fielded a 'weak' candidate in the constituency. Vadakara is one of four constituencies for which the congress has yet to decide on a candidate. It has named candidates for the other 12 constituencies in which the congress party will contest. Differences of opinions between the two major factions in the party is reportedly the reason for the delay in naming candidates for the four constituencies, namely Vadakara, Wayanad, Alappuzha, and Attingal. There is a wrangle going on between the two factions to field its nominee in the Wayanad seat since it is seen as a winnable seat while the seat aspirants are not so enthused about contesting from Vadakara because of the tough fight at hand. Prayagraj, March 18 : Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Monday taunted Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying 'chowkidars' were meant to protect the rich, as she launched a Prayagraj-Varanasi boat ride on the Ganga as part of the Lok Sabha election campaign. Commenting on Modi's 'chowkidar' boast, Gandhi, in her address to supporters from her specially-prepared vessel, said while holding a hand-held microphone: "A watchman is meant for the rich and not for farmers." And Gandhi also accused Modi of being a friend of industrialists. Modi, she told people crowding the banks of the Ganga, "pushes money into the pockets of industrialists". "Modi only favours industrialists. So think before voting, use your vote judiciously, in a way that your vote changes things in the country," she said. As the motor boat packed with her supporters set sail at a slow pace from here, the 47-year-old waved to people on the banks of the holy Hindu river and loudly asked about their welfare. Addressing a gathering near Dumduma ghat, she said: "When we raise any issue, we are suppressed and lathi-charged. Yesterday a woman came... They came with hope." But whenever people protest, they end up facing even sedition charges, she said. The Congress leader said people need to understand that this country belongs to everyone. "This country is yours, this democracy is yours and even this politics is yours. It is only because of people that we exist. There can be no Priyanka Gandhi without you people." Answering questions on the agrarian crisis, she said: "We are not here to make false promises. We do what we promise, like we waived off loan of farmers in all the states where we formed governments recently." Responding to BSP leader Mayawati's outburst over seat-sharing with the Congress, Gandhi said: "There is no need to be angry. The common aim is to defeat the BJP." After leaving from Dumduma, Gandhi reached Sirsa and Lakshagrih ghats. However, her vessel got stuck in shallow water and was pulled out by party supporters. Earlier, Gandhi left Swaraj Bhawan, her family's ancestral home, in the morning and reached the Bade Hanuman Mandir, popular as 'Lete huye Hanuman Mandir', near Prayagraj Sangam. She prayed at the temple and to the river Ganga. She then embarked on her much anticipated boat ride from the Manaiya Ghat. Asked about her river ride, Gandhi replied: "Ganga maiya udaar hai (Mother Ganga is magnanimous.)" She was welcomed by party supporters who showered flowers on her. After arriving at Manaiya ghat, Gandhi broke her security protocol and shook hands with supporters who had arrived from different parts of Uttar Pradesh. The younger sibling of Congress President Rahul Gandhi interacted with 20-25 girl students as part of her campaign "Sanchi baat" soon after her boat left Manaiya ghat. They were with her on the boat specially prepared for the campaign. The river ride will take her to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. New Delhi, March 18 : Diversified conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) may checkmate Mindtree founders by proceeding ahead with its hostile bid to acquire the mid-tier IT Services company as early as Monday evening or early next day. Sources privy to the development told IANS that last-minutes discussions were on between the leadership team in L&T and that a decision will come out soon. The founders of Mindtree have given a call for a board meeting on Wednesday to discuss the buyback plan that would stave off threat of a hostile takeover by L&T. L&T proposes to buy out Cafe Coffee Day founder and Mindtree's largest shareholder, V.G. Siddhartha, and proceed with an open offer to further buy public shareholders spending close to Rs 7,000 crore and taking a controlling stake in the company, said the sources. Siddhartha with his holding of 20.4 per cent in Mindtree is the single largest shareholder. L&T is looking to take up its stake further to around 51 per cent post the open offer. On Sunday, Mindtree co-founder and ex-CEO Subroto Bagchi resigned as head of the Odhisa Skill Development Authority, saying he was returning to the company. "An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me to resign from the government to be able to go save the company," Bagchi tweeted. "I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers & saw chains to cut it down so that in its place, they can build a shopping mall." Mindtree shares rose over 1.74 per cent to Rs 962.50 at close of market hours on the BSE on Monday. This will be the first-ever hostile takeover move in India's technology sector. The four remaining founders of the two-decade-old, Bengaluru-based Mindtree - Krishnakumar Natarajan, Subroto Bagchi, N.S. Parthasarathy and current CEO Rostow Ravanan - together hold 13.32 per cent in Mindtree. They are holding on with their shareholding and want to increase it through a buyback. But their financial muscle would come into question to take over the might of L&T. Dhaka, March 18 : At least six persons, including four law enforcers and an election official, were shot dead and 16 others injured in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill tract on Monday, a police officer told Xinhua news agency. Sofia, March 18 : Bulgarian customs at the Danube Bridge checkpoint at the border with Romania have seized 7,200 liters of alcohol, declared and packed as coconut milk, officials said on Monday. The illicit cargo was found in the early hours of Friday in a lorry with Bulgarian registration traveling in the direction of Western Europe, the National Customs Agency (NCA) said in a press release, Xinhua news agency reported. Upon opening one of the sealed cans, the customs officers discovered that the "coconut milk" was actually colourless alcohol-smelling liquid, the NCA said. "By measuring with a densitometer the high alcoholic degree of the liquid was confirmed -- 96.8," the NCA said. Samples for laboratory analysis were taken, it added. According to its annual report, the NCA seized 148,300 liters of alcohol in 2018. In two cases, 860 liters were packed as disinfectant and another 430 liters as apple juice. Gandhinagar, March 18 : The Congress has complained to the Election Commission that the ruling BJP was violating the model code of conduct by convening poll-related meetings at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's official residence here since the last two days. Congress state unit's Election Coordination Committee Chairman Babubhai Patel filed the complaint with the state's chief electoral officer (CEO). To discuss selection for candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from the state, the BJP convened a meeting from Sunday at the Chief Minister's residence in Gandhinagar. Polling for the state's 26 seats will be held in a single phase on April 23. The party poll meeting also saw BJP's Lok Sabha poll in charge for Gujarat, Om Mathur, state unit chief Jitu Vaghani, Chief Minister Rupani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel and several state party leaders attending. Asked the reasons on not convening the meeting at Kamalam, the party state headquarters, situated just a few kilometers away from the CM's residence, Vaghani said it was for "security reasons". At this, Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who recently joined the Congress, said, "The situation is so bad in the state that despite ruling the state since more than two decades, the BJP leaders are not feeling safe to hold a meeting at their headquarters in Gandhinagar, imagine then what would be the plight of citizens?" According to sources, the CEO has ordered an inquiry by the Gandhinagar Collector into the complaint. However, despite repeated attempts, there was no official response from the CEO regarding the matter. New Delhi, March 18 : Taking a dig at opposition unity for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan on Monday said many opposition parties were not ready to go with the Congress and the 'Mahagathbandhan' (Grand Alliance) was a "delusion". "Let alone coming together, the leaders of the Grand Alliance do not even want to be seen together. (BSP supremo) Mayawati ji has issued a statement saying that Congress should not spread lies that they are together. Something like this is happening between the AAP and Congress. "Unity among the opposition is delusion. They are scared of even talking to each other," said Chirag Paswan, the son of Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan. Under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) seat sharing arrangement in Bihar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) will contest 17 seats each, while the LJP will contest on six seats and Chirag Paswan said he was confident that they would win as many as 37 of the total 40 seats. He said the LJP candidates for Hajipur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Jamui, Nawada and Khagadia were finalised on Monday but the names were not announced "as a mark of respect" to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who died on Sunday and was cremated on Monday. Senior Paswan will not contest the Lok Sabha election this time as he would go to Rajya Sabha later, which has led to speculations that his brother and Bihar LJP chief Pashupati Kumar Paras would contest from Hajipur. Also Munger MP Veena Devi is likely to be fielded from Nawada -- which currently is represented by Union Minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh. Chirag Paswan also said that his party has considerable support in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand but would not field any candidate from these states. Mumbai, March 18 : The Maharashtra Congress on Monday urged the Election Commission of India to act against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Bharatiya Janata Party's latest campaign, 'Main Bhi Chowkidar', an office-bearer said. In a letter to the ECI, the state party secretary Taufiq Mullani has said that in the video of the new campaign - which is viral on social media - Modi has been shown riding on an Army tank, and interspersed with clips of the Indian soldiers fighting. "This is a blatant violation of the ECI's order of March 9, 2019, reiterating its earlier directive of December 2013, prohibiting display of pictures of defence personnel or defence-related events for election campaign and political propaganda," Mullani told IANS. The party pointed out that on one hand, Congress President Rahul Gandhi stood solidly behind the government in the wake of the Pulwama attacks, on the other, the BJP is "taking credit for the sacrifices of the soldiers and exploiting it politically during elections" through the aMain Bhi Chowikdar' campaign. Attempting to turn the tables on the Opposition parties, Modi on Sunday launched the 'Main Bhi Chowkidar' campaign and changed his Twitter handle name to 'Chowkidar Narendra Modi'. Soon, several party bigwigs and ministers also followed suit and prefixed their Twitter handle names with the word 'Chowkidar' (watchman). New Delhi, March 18 : Passengers have been stranded at Abu Dhabi airport, finding it tough to return over the sudden cancellation of flights by Jet Airways. The cash-strapped Jet Airways, which has been forced to ground over 50 per cent of its fleet due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors, is regularly grounding aircraft as it unable to pay the lessors. "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from March 18, 2019, due to operational reasons, further to the short notice of flight cancellation, HUB (Abu Dhabi) may face a minor disruption," said Etihad in a statement. The cancellation comes on the day, which was set by founder and Chairman Naresh Goyal to announce an update on the resolution plan. On Monday too, following the similar pattern, Jet Airways informed BSE that four aircraft were informed to be grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors. Earlier, cash-strapped Jet Airways pilots' union had written to the government, seeking its help in recovering their pending salaries along with the accumulated interest. Jet Airways currently has 1,900 pilots on its rolls. In a letter written to Minister of Labour and Employment Santosh Gangwar, the National Aviators Guild (NAG), which represents the majority of Jet's pilots, said that all pleas to the Jet management in this regard "have fallen on deaf ears". In the letter, a copy of which was accessed by IANS, NAG General Secretary Tej Sood, wrote, "This situation is leading to extreme tension and frustration among our members, hardly an ideal situation for pilots in the cockpit. Monthly EMIs have to be met, school & college fees have to be paid, along with medical bills of ageing parents etc." Ironically, Jet has cancelled its flights from Abu Dhabi on a day when it was supposed to announce a resolution plan to its employees. Several of Jet pilots have been approached by rival IndiGo and GoAir and they would decide on their future course depending on what Goyal tells them. New Delhi, March 18 : India will be providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) to Mozambique that was hit by a severe cyclone, causing loss of lide and property, the External Affairs Ministry said on Monday. Mozambique, hit by Category 4 tropical cyclone 'IDAI', had requested aid from India. India has decided to divert three Indian Naval Ships (INS Sujatha, INS Shardul and INS Sarathi) to the port city of Beira to provide immediate relief to the affected people. The ships will provide relief material in the form of food, clothes and medicine. The ships have three doctors and five nurses to provide immediate medical help. "In this hour of tragedy, the government of India stands ready to extend support to the affected people. India has been extending humanitarian assistance to Mozambique and had provided $10 million for food grains in 2017, after it suffered food shortage as a result of natural calamities," the Ministry said in a statement. New Delhi, March 18 : Diversified conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday took its first step to acquire Mindtree by buying V.G. Siddhartha's 20.4 per cent stake in the the mid-tier IT services company for approximately Rs 3,300 crore. Siddhartha is the biggest shareholder in Mindtree. The next step expected from L&T is to present an open offer to further buy public shareholders spending Rs 8,000 crore and taking a controlling stake in the company, said sources. The move from L&T came even as the founders of Mindree were looking to pass a board resolution on Wednesday to undertake share buyback on their own to avert a hostile takeover and subsequent change of management. On Sunday, Mindtree co-founder and ex-Chief Executive Officer Subroto Bagchi resigned as the head of the Odhisa Skill Development Authority, saying that he was returning to the company. "An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me resign from the government to be able to go save the company," Bagchi tweeted. "I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers and saw chains to cut it down so that in its place they can build a shopping mall," he added. Mindtree shares rose over 1.74 per cent to Rs 962.50 per share at the close of market hours on the BSE on Monday. This will be the first ever hostile takeover move in India's technology sector. The four remaining founders of the two-decade-old, Bengaluru-based company -- Krishnakumar Natarajan, Subroto Bagchi, N.S. Parthasarathy and current CEO Rostow Ravanan -- together hold 13.32 per cent stake in Mindtree. The four remaining founders are holding on to their shareholding and want to increase it through a buyback. But their financial muscle would come into question if they take on the might of L&T. London/New Delhi, March 18 : A UK court has issued an arrest warrant against fugitive Indian diamantaire Nirav Modi, wanted in the Rs 13,500 crore PNB fraud case, confirmed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday. According to the ED, the Westminster Court issued the arrest warrant on March 13. The development came days after the UK's The Telegraph newspaper claimed that Modi was spotted in London, leading to the Congress slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for its "failure" to bring the fugitive diamantaire to justice while he apparently thrived elsewhere. Accused in the Rs 13,500-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case, Nirav Modi is living openly in a three-bedroom flat, occupying half the floor of the landmark Centre Point tower block, The Telegraph had reported. The report also claimed Nirav Modi was involved in a new diamond business, run from an office in Soho, just a few hundred yards from his apartment. The new business was incorporated in May 2018, said the report. The Interpol had issued a red corner notice against Nirav Modi in July 2018 on the request of the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). An extradition request against him has been pending before the UK authorities since last September. The ED on February 26 attached Rs 147 crore properties of Nirav Modi and his associate companies in connection with the PNB fraud case. New Delhi, March 18 : With the arrest of a printing press owner, the Delhi Police claim to have busted a syndicate involved in pirating (printing and circulating) books of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), said a police officer here on Monday. Abhishek Chaudhary, 28, was arrested on March 12 from his residence in Shakarpur after a joint team of the Delhi Police and the NCERT Production Officer raided his offset press in Gazipur, East Delhi, and unearthed the nexus. A large quantity of papers with the NCERT watermark and over 700 pirated books valued at Rs 50 lakh were recovered, the officer said. The accused has been booked under the Copyright Act. "After finishing studies, Chaudhary joined his father's printing press. He later came in contact with Rahul Jain, a resident of Karawal Nagar, who also ran an offset press. Rahul asked him to print the title pages of some NCERT books," said Additional Commissioner of Police Rajiv Ranjan. "Through Rahul, Chaudhary came to know that pirating NCERT books attracted huge profit. He then established his own offset press named 'Abhishek Graphics' and started printing books for Cass VI and Class XII for the new academic sessions," Ranjan said. "He also bought NCERT watermarked paper from Chawri Bazaar. After printing books, he distributed them to different parts of north and south India," the officer said. Acting on a tip-off, a team of the Crime Branch approached the NCERT Director on March 12 to seek assistance to unearth the nexus, Ranjan said. Srinagar, March 18 : Senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq is ready to cooperate with the National Investigation Agency but wants that he be questioned by the agency here, a Hurriyat spokesman said. The NIA had issued its second notice to Mirwaiz to appear before the agency for questioning in Delhi on Monday. A spokesman of the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat conference said that the Mirwaiz had replied to another notice served to him by the NIA asking him to be present before the agency, and through his counsel, to the notice dated March 14, and received on March 15, asking him to come to New Delhi. "Mirwaiz has reiterated that he is willing to cooperate in the matter, but has asked for the venue for examination to be shifted from Delhi to Srinagar as the concerns and apprehensions regarding travel to Delhi, expressed by him through his counsel in the earlier response dated March 10 continue to remain so." In his reply, counsel for the Mirwaiz has said that on several occasions earlier, many persons have been examined by the agency at Humhama Budgam while conducting the investigation and the Mirwaiz sees no reason why he cannot be examined in a similar manner. Kolkata, March 18 : A day after the Congress declared it would contest all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal as seat-adjustment talks with the Left had failed, the Left Front on Monday said it was still hopeful of a Congress rethink and would wait for a day before announcing its final list of candidates. Briefing media persons after a meeting of Left Front partners, coalition chairman Biman Bose accused the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party of having entered into an understanding in at least 8-10 seats and said "to defeat this game plan, maximisation of votes against the two parties was highly essential in today's Bengal politics". "I still hope Congress's good sense will prevail in the interest of the people. And they will take the right decision. But we cannot wait any further than tomorrow (Tuesday), when the LF constituents will meet and decide on the candidate list depending on the response from the Congress," he added. State Congress President Somen Mitra had on Sunday announced that the talks had collapsed and said his party would contest all the 42 seats as "we don't think that we need any alliance by compromising our party's dignity". The immediate trigger for the Congress's pull out was the LF decision to unilaterally nominate Rezaul Karim, the head of the state Congress doctors' cell, as an independent candidate from Birbhum constituency. However, Bose claimed Karim was neither a Congressman nor was he a part of his party. "He is a leader of a doctors' organisation. We had chosen him as a face of the doctors' movement." Bose also clarified that his party had not entered into an alliance with the Congress. "We had only opted for seat-sharing, seat-adjustment... for uniting the people in accordance with our party's decision to defeat the corrupt and communal BJP at the centre, and the undemocratic Trinamool Congress in the state." Mitra had also accused the LF leaders negotiating with his party of coming up with a "weird logic" for Darjeeling constituency by "asking us to take candidates from a certain place", despite agreeing to leave the seat to the Congress. But Bose said the LF had pitched for a common candidate in Darjeeling. "We had only said that he should be a local person, not an imported candidate." Claiming that the LF had neither "created any complication", nor did it want to "create any further complication", he said "we have done no wrong". Asked whether the Congress was peeved after it was asked to contest in only 11 seats, he said: "We had put up candidates in 25 seats. But we have never used a single word on that. We had said we were ready to give them seven seats, apart from the four seats they won last time, and for the rest we were planning to put up common candidates." Bose said the Congress had claimed seats in which it had got only five to nine percent of votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. "We were even prepared to leave for them a seat in which they had obtained only 2.90 per cent votes five years back." Rome, March 18 : Italy will hold an "unprecedented" counter-terrorism conference in May on radicalisation that will be attended by representatives from the world's top intelligence agencies, Premier Giuseppe Conte said on Monday. "Following many months of work, we are ready to implement an effective and unprecedented initiative - an international conference in May in Rome on radicalisation, which will be attended by leading intelligence agencies. "The aim of the event will be to boost the exchange of 'modus operandi' and best practices," Conte said in his speech at the inauguration of Italy's School for Information and Security's academic year. "It is clear what makes citizens very apprehensive about the phenomenon and makes them it is an imminent threat is its fast-moving, invisible, camouflaged and far-reaching nature," he said. Conte urged national security investigators to analyse sensitive information "with the utmost impartiality" and "using the most sophisticated techniques". New Delhi, March 18 : Azamgarh-born Mohammad Adnan, a Ph.D. student at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D), has been selected to take part in the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting in Germany. He will get an opportunity to interact with over 30 laureates from the field of science for a week. The Lindau meeting will be held from June 30 to July 5. Adnan was selected for his research on the emission properties of organic and inorganic materials. The Lindau meeting will be held from June 30 to July 5. The researcher from the Department of Physics at IIT-D is working on high intensity ultra-fast light matter interaction of special kind of metal organic framework, which is useful for advance optoelectronic device. According to the Lindau Nobel website, "Once every year, more than 30 Nobel laureates convene in Lindau to meet the next generation of scientists: 500-600 undergraduates, Ph.D. students and post-doctorate researchers from all over the world." Adnan told IANS he had sent his application to the Department of Science and Technology of the government, which vetted his credentials and research work and then forwarded the application to the Lindau committee. "I am excited to attend this meeting. I will get a chance to interact with so many Nobel laureates at one place," he said, adding he also won a Newton-Bhabha Fellowship in February under which he will be visiting the Cambridge University from July to November this year. Adnan, who completed his schooling from Azamgarh, finished his B.Sc from Aligarh Muslim University and topped the M.Sc. examination in 2015. Every year since 1951, Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, physics, physiology and mMedicine meet at Lindau to discuss the issues of importance in their respective fields with students from around the world. - IANS vn/arm/pcj New Delhi, March 18 : Hundreds of widows in Vrindavan on Monday decided not to celebrate Holi this time to mourn the sad demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. Parrikar died at his private residence in Panaji on Sunday after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 63. Sulabh International had planned to organise Holi celebrations for the widows but it was deferred due to Parrikar's death. Scores of widows gathered at the historic Gopinath temple in Vrindavan on Monday to offer condolences and pay respect to the departed soul. The widows also held a prayer meeting at the temple where they lit candles and sang bhajans. "To pay respect to the departed soul, we have decided not to celebrate Holi today. All the widows mourned the sad demise of our beloved leader and statesman Manohar Parrikar," said Bindeshwar Pathak, a well-known social reformer and founder of the Sulabh International. Vrindavan's Holi celebrations in recent years have become a memorable event for the thousands of widows who till recent past used to face humiliation. In 2012, the Supreme Court expressed concern that the government and its agencies were not doing enough to mitigate the sufferings of the widows of Vrindavan and asked Sulabh International, an NGO, to take care of them. Milan, March 18 : Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on Monday slammed an offer by Saudi Arabia to invest 15 million euros in Milan's world-famous La Scala opera house as part of a five-year partnership deal. "We must be very careful. Funds for La Scala can come from lots of sources but not from anywhere. This applies to China, as it does to Saudi Arabia," he told Italy's Italy's Rtl Radio 102.5. "Respect for human rights is the point," he underlined. Salvini said he wanted La Scala "to be free, independent and autonomous." "If the Swiss want to invest in La Scala, we would not have a problem," he added. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, who chairs La Scala's board of directors, said on Monday there was no question of La Scala's director Alexander Pereira being asked to resign over the Saudi funding, 3 million euros of which were allegedly deposited with a Milan notary in late February. However, Sala said Pereira, who is Austrian, had been "naive" in accepting the Saudi cash before La Scala's board had discussed the proposed partnership deal. La Scala's board was on Monday due to hold talks on the Saudi offer, which has outraged human rights groups and politicians who argue that one of Italy's most prestigious cultural assets should shun money from the conservative Muslim kingdom accused of repeated rights abuses. A South Korean corporation has secured, Warragundi Aggregation, some 5,800 hectares of rural land on the banks of the Cudgegong River in the Mudgee region of New South Wales. The mixed enterprise property, which consists of cattle and sheep, sold between $20 million and $25 million. It was bought on a walk in walk out basis. The South Korean buyers intend to operate the farm in its current structure and will retain the existing staff. The Foreign Investment Review Board approved the transaction through CBRE Agribusiness agent Richard Royle, who negotiated the sale with Logical Livestock's Simon McKittrick. I believe the buyers are looking forward to getting to know the region further and working with local businesses,: Royle said on the sale. "They were attracted to the region for its diversity in agriculture, wine and growing tourism. 'Buying a farm, especially in a foreign country, has its complexities but by purchasing the aggregation as a going concern will ensure they can operate commercially while applying their own strategies as they progress. The property sits near the township of Gulgong, around 25 minutes to Mudgee. The aggregation offers water access and fodder crops that have maintained a core breeding herd during dry periods. The aggregation includes a range of pastures, including chicory, cocksfoot, fescue, phalaris, ryegrass and clover mix. Royle says the sale price reflects the strong rural market in NSW despite the dry conditions. "The vendor and purchaser wish for confidentiality, but I can say that the sale price was in-line with agent and vendor price guide during the marketing campaign which was circa $20-$25million. The vendors John and Sandra Harding will now concentrate on their horse breeding and Mudgee Machinery business. GUEST OBSERVATION A National Report Card on Youth Homelessness in Australia says government action over the past decade would earn no more than two stars under its four-star rating system. There has been under-investment in most areas. Promises made have been only partially delivered. The report identifies the lack of a coordinated national strategy as an obstacle to achieving goals that were set a decade ago. The report card will be presented at the National Youth Homelessness Conference being held in Melbourne today and tomorrow. Its the first national conference focused solely on homeless youth in Australia in 20 years. It will consider four proposed strategic reforms: early intervention rapid rehousing engagement in education, training and/or employment extending state care to the age of 21. Losing our way even with a roadmap The report card assesses progress since the 2008 report of the National Youth Commission (NYC) into youth homelessness, the second of two landmark inquiries. Following the rigorous procedures of the 1989 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Inquiry into Youth Homelessness headed by Brian Burdekin, the NYCs independent community inquiry held hearings all over Australia. There were 21 public hearings, 319 people gave evidence, and 92 written submissions were received. The inquirys 400-page report, Australias Homeless Youth, made 80 recommendations and included a widely publicised ten-point Roadmap for Youth Homelessness. The NYC argued that implementing this roadmap could transform the face of youth homelessness in Australia. In December 2008, following this report, the federal government released a white paper, The Road Home: A National Approach to Reducing Homelessness. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a bold public commitment to halve homelessness by 2020. This involved three key policy strategies: turning off the tap early intervention improving and expanding services breaking the cycle. How was the report card compiled? The report card references the ten points of the NYC roadmap. It is a review of responses to youth homelessness over the past decade from a national perspective, and of what still needs to be done. The 2008 white paper and all subsequent state and territory plans and strategy documents were systematically reviewed against information about what has been done for young people. Progress under each point was rated using a four-star assessment. Experts and experienced leaders in the various areas then reviewed the preliminary assessments to finalise the ratings. Author provided So what happened to the roadmap? After the white paper, work began on a national strategy to tackle homelessness, but that project was shelved. The states and territories have issued their own plans and strategies, which are, despite some common features, somewhat divergent. The overall national response to homelessness would be hugely strengthened by working to an agreed national strategy like in other high-priority social policy areas. The roadmap highlighted affordable housing for young people as a priority. This need has hardly been addressed. Young people make up a significant proportion of the homeless population, but they are only 2.9% of tenants in social housing. Domestic and family violence is a known cause of homelessness. Only in recent years has there been a significant effort to make this a high social policy priority. A recent increase in funding for a range of services and initiatives is promising but overdue. The white paper proposed turning off the tap, or early intervention, but little has been accomplished. More Australians seek help from homelessness services now than in 2008. This is arguably the single biggest policy failure. An early proposal to expand Reconnect, the early intervention program that has existed since 1997, came to nothing. Some effort has been made to reform state care and protection, especially the inadequate support for young people leaving care at 18. They are particularly vulnerable to homelessness. The idea of extending state care to at least 21 years of age is not new, nevertheless it is still not well resourced nor securely established nationally. Some repair and expansion of the crisis system of homelessness services has been achieved. However, many communities complain they do not have even basic crisis capacity. The roadmap called for improvement of specialist services for homeless youth such as mental health, drug and alcohol services, and employment services. Little progress has been made on drug and alcohol and employment services. Youth-specific mental health services is one area that has had significant development. The roadmap also called for a new form of housing that linked supported accommodation with education, training and support into employment. These were foyers and foyer-like facilities modelled largely on the UK foyers. Over a decade, some 15 foyers have been developed in Australia. This can be acknowledged as an achievement. Lastly, the roadmap argued that support after homelessness (post-vention) is important for young people. The passage to independence should not simply be expected, but rather they need extended support (the kind of support most families provide their children) to break the cycle of homelessness. In policy terms, Australia has come late to this understanding and little has been achieved on this issue in the past decade. In making an overall assessment of progress since the NYC roadmap, the report card acknowledges some positive initiatives and progress but also neglect and underachievement. The existing crisis-focused service systems are not reducing youth homelessness; proven early intervention approaches remain critically underfunded and underdeveloped. What has been done, or rather not done, over the past decade continues to fail young people who are at risk of homelessness or experiencing homelessness. Overall, the report card gives a two-star rating developing some progress under way to efforts to reduce youth homelessness over the past decade. As a nation, we cannot be satisfied with a below-average response to youth homelessness. The next decade needs to be a very different story. David MacKenzie, Associate Professor, Department of Social Science, Swinburne University of Technology Tammy Hand, Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. As we continue into 2019, we are optimistic about expanding our footprint nationwide and being a strategic partner to businesses who are looking to hire highly skilled and qualified candidates, Moran said. Addison Group, a professional services and staffing firm, is looking to have a groundbreaking 2019 after a 2018 that was marked by impressive internal and external growth and industry recognition. Addison Group experienced significant organic growth, and in addition to strong hiring was also able to promote over 130 people internally, furthering Addison Groups commitment to professional development and career growth. Additionally in 2019, the company recently announced that Michael Samuels has joined the Executive leadership team as Addison Groups Chief Financial Officer. Addison Groups current headcount is 1,350. Furthermore, Addison Group tackled unconscious bias in 2018 by implementing a standardized hiring process to help give all candidates a more equal footing. Addison Group also launched its internal accelerator program initiative, which paired a new hire with a senior employee to help propel their skills as a recruiter and place candidates more efficiently. Employees hired and trained via these new initiatives contributed to over $2MM in gross margin for the company. Prioritizing its people-first approach and fostering a positive culture, Addison Group was named one of the top workplaces in Chicago, Oklahoma, and the Bay Area in 2018. Furthermore, Addison Group was listed as one of Americas Best Recruiting Firms by Forbes and won Inaveros Best of Staffing Award for the eighth year in a row, illuminating its commitment to quality service, as less than 2 percent of all staffing agencies in the U.S. and Canada earned this award. This past year has been one of exponential growth and recognition, said Thomas Moran, CEO of Addison Group. Our team strives to deliver highly skilled and qualified candidates to our clients, and our internal and external growth, as well as a commitment to our people and culture, all play an integral role in achieving success. Redesigning our website to reflect our culture and growth was a clear next step to demonstrate our commitment to our staff and clients. 2018 also marked a year of major market-share growth for Addison Group with its acquisition of Mondo, an IT, tech and digital marketing NYC-based staffing agency, and DLC Group, a Los Angeles-based finance and accounting staffing and consulting firm that Addison acquired in early 2019. With these acquisitions, Addison Group has scaled its portfolio of services in its IT and finance and accounting industries, all of which are complemented by Mondos and DLC Groups business offerings. Aligning with Addison Groups strategy to broaden its national service offerings, the acquisitions also introduced Addison to two new markets: Atlanta and Los Angeles. In addition to expanding Addison Groups footprint with its recent acquisitions and through vertical expansions to existing offices, Addison Group opened offices in Phoenix and San Antonio. Fueled by establishing a presence in the Southwest where accounting skill sets are in high demand, its expansion to Phoenix presents an opportunity to grow new branches and assist with the states skills gap. With an existing office in Austin, Addison Groups entrance to the San Antonio market enables the organization to expand its footprint across the country and grow its network of candidates across central Texas where unemployment is lower than the national average. As we continue into 2019, we are optimistic about expanding our footprint nationwide and being a strategic partner to businesses who are looking to hire highly skilled and qualified candidates, Moran said. IT, finance and accounting are all industries that see exponential growth and have a steady demand for workers, and as such, our Mondo and DLC Group acquisitions position Addison Group as a trusted resource for businesses. To learn more about Addison Group and how it can help serve your business, please visit addisongroup.com. About Addison Group Addison Group is a professional services firm offering industry-leading expertise with a national reach and a localized touch. Specializing in Information Technology, Finance & Accounting, Healthcare, Administration, Human Resources, and Engineering, Addison Group offers a full suite of professional services, including consulting, staffing and recruiting, and executive search through its network of companies and dozens of offices throughout the United States. Founded in 1999, Addison has been repeatedly recognized by the media as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States as well as a top workplace and a Best of Staffing Company by Inavero. Learn more at addisongroup.com. (L to R) FHU President David Shannon, Brig. Gen. Billy B. Morgan, USAF Ret., Lt. Col. Lowell Howard, ROTC commanding officer at the UT Martin and Carl Hartman, veteran liaison at FHU. The changing educational and employment climate forces all of us to look carefully at our programs and determine what the job market will require in the future. Our five new programs reflect marketplace trends and will prepare our graduates for developing career fields. To offer new career paths for both traditional and non-traditional students, Freed-Hardeman University will launch five new programs beginning Fall 2019. These will include an online associates degree, Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), accelerated bachelors/ masters program, cybersecurity and certification in financial planning. Through the online associates degree program, qualified high school sophomores will be able to complete their high school graduation and associates requirements simultaneously. The program will also be available to dual enrolled high school students. Adult students can also enroll through the Tennessee Reconnect Program and veterans can further their education through the Tennessee Strong Act once approved by the state of Tennessee. The online program satisfies the general education requirements for most bachelors degrees. More information about the program is available at FHU.edu/online-aa. FHU is the first regional colleges and universities associated with churches of Christ to offer on-site the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), the program prepares students for enlistment as officers in the active Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. Under the oversight of the University of Tennessee at Martins program, FHUs ROTC program will focus on classroom instruction, routine physical training and leadership. We believe the mission of FHU to help students find and cultivate their God-given talent, coupled with achieving their goals to be the best they can be in service to our country, is a perfect fit, Carl Hartmann, FHUs veteran liaison, said. ROTC shapes leaders and excellence while FHU provides a strong, secure and positive environment to do it in. More program information is available online at FHU.edu/rotc. Students can complete one of two 4 + 1 programs in education. The Bachelor of Science in Biology/Masters of Arts in Teaching program will lead to a dual degree and a secondary licensure in biology. The Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies: Elementary Education K-5/Masters of Arts in Teaching in Special Education program will lead to a dual degree and dual licensure in elementary education and special education. The programs can be completed through 150 credit hours with undergraduate courses offered in the traditional format while graduate level courses will be a hybrid of evenings, Saturdays, web-conferencing and summer sessions. Students begin taking masters courses in their senior year of undergraduate studies. The teacher licensure and internship component are completed during the fifth year of study. Our 4 + 1 programs can accelerate students studies, helping them prepare better for a future career, Alesha Northcutt, assistant professor of education, said. Unique in the region, the universitys new Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity will prepare students with concepts, industry best practices and strategic leadership. Graduates will be prepared to take various certification exams. Various agencies estimate that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2021, Leann Davis, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said. "Students can also minor in cybersecurity, which is a good pairing with a computer science degree, a degree in criminal justice or various degrees within the College of Business. More program information is available online at FHU.edu/cybersecurity. The Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance: Financial Planning program is designed to prepare students for careers in financial planning and related industries. The 63-hour major combines a solid general business foundation with a focused financial planning curriculum. The FHU College of Business is a CFP Board educational partner and the Financial Planning program has been approved as a CFP Board Registered Program. This means that students completing the Financial Planning program at FHU automatically meet the CFP Board educational requirements and are immediately eligible to sit for the CFP Certification Exam. There is tremendous interest in this growing field, Ryan Hysmith, assistant professor of finance, said. And we are proud to offer such a practical, relevant, career-ready degree program in financial planning. More information about the program is available online at FHU.edu/financial-planning. The mission of Freed-Hardeman University is to help students develop their God-given talents for His glory by empowering them with an education that integrates Christian faith, scholarship and service. With locations in Henderson, Memphis, and Dickson and online classes, FHU offers associates, bachelors, masters, specialists and doctoral degrees. More information is available at fhu.edu. Koble App "With the launch of 2.0, Koble has become an even greater B2B resource for both SMBs that report finding new business as their biggest day-to-day challenge and corporations diversifying their supply chain." Koble, a business-to-business discovery platform, announced today the launch of Koble 2.0 for iPhone and Android. With Koble 2.0, finding the right small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to do business with as a fellow SMB or global corporation becomes as simple as a swipe of the thumb. More than 11 million business pages are now publicly visible in the U.S. for those using the Koble mobile app. SEO-optimized Koble Pages allow businesses to gain unrivaled visibility online within a trusted community B2B companies. The publicly-visible business pages provide enterprise buyers with useful information on potential suppliers or vendors such as ratings and reviews, financials, and links to relevant contacts and information. Companies can easily browse through thousands of prospects while receiving alerts and real-time activity updates through the new Koble Chat feature. With the launch of 2.0, Koble has become an even greater B2B resource for both SMBs that report finding new business as their biggest day-to-day challenge and corporations diversifying their supply chains, said Fabrice Saporito, Founder and CEO of Koble. Businesses on Koble now have unrivaled search engine visibility alongside the ability to easily gather reviews from their SMB peers and large buyers alike. Just as consumers seek pre-purchase reviews today, it's clear that businesses are demanding a crowdsourced comparison platform of B2B services and products, and we believe Koble is best positioned to be that platform. Nearly half of U.S. small businesses dont have a website. On Koble Pages, users can increase their business search engine optimization without needing the technical know-how for building a website. SMB owners can easily create or claim their Koble page with the tap of their smartphone. In addition, Koble Chat allows page visitors to start anonymous conversations with potential business matches. Visitors are twice as likely to reach out with this tool and start a conversation, leading to more frequent and lucrative business connections. Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric, Oracle and Harley Davidson actively use Koble to identify and engage with prospective suppliers among the thousands of SMBs on the platform. In addition, through an exclusive Asia-wide partnership with Axiata Business Services Sdn. Bhd., (Xpand), Koble also has a rapidly growing number of SMBs and large corporations in Southeast Asia using the Koble platform to do business domestically and across borders with those in the U.S. and beyond. Malaysian businesses currently have more than 300,000 Koble Pages and that number is expected to grow rapidly with the launch of Koble 2.0. Join the Koble business community through the Koble application, which is available for free in the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store. The Koble 2.0 desktop and mobile web version will launch in the coming weeks. About Koble Koble is a B2B business discovery platform which is changing the way companies uncover business opportunities and connect. The information-rich Koble company pages provide enterprise buyers with a worldwide directory of suppliers ready to do business. Innovative AI technology encourages instant conversations with potential buyers and suppliers while providing insights and alerts on profile matches and pageviews. The Koble platform is dedicated to helping small and medium enterprises own a high traffic, prime digital asset at no cost. Founded in 2015, Koble is proud to already have companies from more than 40 countries on board. For more information, visit https://koble.com. The Koble portfolio includes Koble Pages and Koble Chat. Budget-minded car shoppers can save on used luxury models at Barrett Jaguar with Jaguar Certified Pre-Owned and luxury pre-owned specials and incentives. Luxury car shoppers who live in the San Antonio area and who have fallen in love with the Jaguar brand may find the car of their dreams at a more affordable price at Barrett Jaguar. Jaguar Certified Pre-Owned finance incentives and pre-owned luxury vehicle specials will allow budget-minded drivers to find a great deal on a used luxury car or crossover at the dealership. Certified Pre-Owned Jaguars available at Barrett Jaguar provide the perfect combination of pre-owned prices and new car peace of mind. Potential owners who choose a Certified Pre-Owned Jaguar will benefit from a certification program that employs a 165-point inspection by factory-trained technicians, 24-hour Roadside Assistance, a CARFAX Vehicle History Report, a road test by Jaguar technicians and a 7-Year/100,000-Mile Limited Warranty that will help create that peace of mind. Available Certified Pre-Owned incentives include exclusive finance rates that can be applied to select pre-owned Jaguar models from March 1 to April 1. Individuals who wish to save on the Jaguar F-PACE may qualify for a 0.9-percent Annual Percentage Rate (APR) with a 24-month contract or 3.9-percent APR with a 36-month agreement. Drivers who prefer the track-tuned Jaguar F-TYPE may be eligible for finance rates as low as 0.9 percent over 24 months or 1.9 percent with a 36-month contract. Potential owners who prefer to shop outside the Jaguar brand will find an impressive selection of pre-owned luxury vehicles at the dealership that are complemented by affordable pre-owned specials. Luxury brands represented in the pre-owned inventory include Land Rover, Porsche, Bentley, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz and more. Many pre-owned specials include a CARFAX Vehicle History Report and the Barrett Imports 3-Year/100,000-Mile Powertrain Limited Warranty. Individuals who would like to learn more about the Jaguar Certified Pre-Owned finance incentives and pre-owned luxury vehicle offers available at Barrett Jaguar can visit the dealership online at http://www.barrettjaguar.com. Those who prefer a more personal interaction can contact a dealership sales consultant directly by calling 210-669-7562. Mimi So, Wonderland Bunny Ring, handcrafted in 18k yellow gold, sapphires and hand carved opal. We often equate gold to wealth; the Gold Conference always has and always will provide the wealth of information important to goldin every dimension from resource to responsible. Past News Releases RSS Wilensky Gallery Partners with... Jeffrey Bilgores Responsibly... George Robert Minkoff Releases New... The collective surrounding golda precious metal beloved through time, is vast. Communities have risen to mine, melt, manufacture, and mold it into beautiful forms. Exceptionally creative minds imagine and conceptualize its use in jewelry, home decor, and other luxury objects. For the ninth year in a row, Initiatives in Art and Culture (IAC) has created a two-day gathering of experts and visionaries working across various fields related to gold. From journalists and jewelry designers, to environmentalists and government regulators, an international gathering of those passionate about gold will discuss challenges the precious metal and its surrounding industries face today. Hosted on April 4 and 5, 2019 Gold: Legacy, Leadership, Luminescence will be held at Bohemian National Hall in New York City. Mark Hanna, Chief Marketing Officer, Richline Group, Inc. a Berkshire Hathaway Company, says We often equate gold to wealth; the Gold Conference always has and always will provide the wealth of information important to goldin every dimension from resource to responsible. Stephen Webster, Founder and Creative Director for Stephen Webster, will speak about his admiration for gold in a talk entitled Goldstruck, discussing his design process and career. From the manufacturing end, Ted Doudak, Founder and CEO of Riva Precision Manufacturing, will share his vision regarding the companys new workspace, as a leader in fine jewelry product development. Chief Visionary Officer and Creative Director for Flourish and Thrive Academy, Tracy Matthews, will discuss how jewelry designers can stand out and find their voice and aesthetic in a saturated landscape. Lisa Koenigsberg, President and Founder of Initiatives in Art and Culture, who established the Annual International Gold Conference nine years ago, observes, Initiatives in Art and Culture is honored once again to bring together a Whos Who in the gold communityincluding makers, miners, retailers, journalists, financiers, regulators, and environmentaliststo focus on specific, contemporary challenges from mine to market and how we can best meet them. Approaches and solutions to these challenges are building blocks, and our collective attention to them can ensure that societys use of gold is driven by respect for materials, craft, and authentic, artistic expression, and a mindfulness for ethical sourcing and responsible practice. Locally, Initiatives in Art and Culture will be highlighting Brooklyn makers in a panel exploring the parallel consumer and the creator paradigm shift. Alisha Blechman, Head of Studio Operations, Catbird; Beth Bugdaycay, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Foundrae; Ted Doudak; Leigh Plessner, Co-Creative Director, Catbird; Ronny Vardi, Owner, Catbird; and Elle Hill, CEO, Hill & Co. Fine Jewelry Launch and Growth Experts, will converse and offer unique perspectives spanning design, manufacturing, retail, and business strategy for creating and marketing to an audience that is following the boroughs signature aesthetic. The panel titled Washington Update, will consider regulations and legislation relating to gold. The panelists include: Mark Hanna; Linus Drogs, Owner and President, Au Enterprises; Elizabeth Orlando, Economic Officer, Bureau of Economic Affairs, Office of Threat Finance and Countermeasures, US Department of State; Tiffany Stevens, President and CEO, JVC. The panel will be moderated by Andrea Hill, Owner, Hill Management Group, LLC. "The trade of the goldsmith and silversmith faces new challenges every day. Now more than ever it is important to share knowledge and collaborate with international partners to ensure our trade thrives well into the future. The Goldsmiths Centre is therefore pleased to partner with IAC and present at the highly regarded annual Gold Conference, sharing experiences as the UKs leading charity for the professional training of goldsmiths, silversmiths, and the allied trades. We are delighted to share our experience and perspective at Gold: Legacy, Leadership, Luminescence, and look forward to a dynamic meeting of minds and to working together to develop solutions presented by the future, says Peter Taylor, Director of The Goldsmiths Centre. With sustainability at the forefront, IAC has also assembled leaders to discuss sourcing in a panel called Building Blocks for our Future: The Foundations of Ethical Sourcing, Transparency, and Responsible Practice. Panelists include: Brad Brooks-Rubin, Managing Director, The Sentry/Enough Project; Lara Crampe, Pure Earth, Director, Community Outreach; Lara Koritzke, Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA); Joanne Lebert, Executive Director, IMPACT; Elizabeth Orlando; and Michael Peters, CEO, Trusted Gems & Founder, Panjshir Valley Emeralds, a Trusted Gems Company; the panel will be moderated by Rob Bates, Senior Editor, JCK. Other speakers and moderators include: Chris Oliver, Head of Professional Training, The Goldsmiths Centre, London; Alan Craxford and Castro Smith, British Master Engravers and Jewelers; Glenn Adamson, Author, Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects and Senior Scholar, Yale Center for British Art; Jeffrey M. Christian, Managing Director, CPM Group; Stewart Grice, Vice President, Mill Products, Hoover & Strong; Stuart Harmon, Director, The Money Stone; Robert Lang, Director, The Shadow of Gold; Amy Hill, Executive Director, Amazon Aid Foundation; and Christina Miller, owner, Christina T. Miller Consulting; Co-Founder, Ethical Metalsmiths and Chair of its Advisory Council. Thursday evening, Initiatives in Art and Culture will host a Champagne reception, followed by a conversation with Mimi So, who will be discussing her story as an American jewelry designer, as well as luxury today. She will be in conversation with Alli McCartney, Managing Director, Private Wealth Management Alignment Partners, UBS Financial Services Inc. Sponsors of Gold: Legacy, Leadership, Luminescence include: The Goldsmiths Centre, The Goldsmiths Company, Panjshir Valley Emeralds, a Trusted Gems Company, Signet Jewelers, Riva Precision Manufacturing, Hoover & Strong, AU Enterprises, JCK Las Vegas, DMIA, Society of North American Goldsmiths, and Anza Gems. Register for Gold: Legacy, Leadership, Luminescence directly on Eventbrite by clicking here. To learn more about Initiatives in Art and Culture, or inquire about sponsorship opportunities for the Gold Conference, visit http://artinitiatives.com, call 646-485-1952, or email info(at)artinitatives(dot)com. For press or media coverage inquiries, images, speaker quotes, or interviews, contact Pietra PR at 212-913-9761 or email info(at)pietrapr(dot)com. About Initiatives in Art and Culture Initiatives in Art and Culture (IAC) educates diverse audiences in the fine, decorative, and visual arts. Our primary activities are conferences, publications, and exhibitions that take an interdisciplinary approach, considering issues related to fabrication, connoisseurship, cultural patrimony, cultural preservation, and the future of culture. Particular areas of emphasis include American painting, precious substances, the history of frames, the Arts and Crafts movement, the influence of Asian cultures on American fine and decorative art, and the history and future of fashion. IACs projects have been supported by a wide array of individual, corporate, and foundation funders. Crane Inspection & Certification Bureau "These seminars will help Managers, Supervisors and Safety Personnel understand OSHA and ASMEs crane and rigging requirements, stated Jerry Longtin, General Manager of CICB. To raise awareness and the understanding of the value of safety in the crane and rigging industry,Crane Inspection & Certification Bureau (CICB), will hold free seminars for Managers and Supervisors in both Houston, TX and Orlando, FL on April 29th. These seminars will be held in recognition of Workers Memorial Day, OSHA National Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction and Safe & Sound Week. The three-hour, Manager and Supervisor seminars will encompass the roles and responsibilities of the site supervisor, owner, operator, rigger and lift director along with the safe operation and inspection of cranes and the associated rigging gear. In addition to the topics above, the morning session will provide an in-depth overview of OSHAs three-fold approach for the qualification of crane operators in construction: (1) Operator Training for employees not yet certified to operate cranes; (2) Operator Certification or License; and (3) Employer Evaluation of Certified Operators. The afternoon session will focus on the General Industry Requirements for Overhead Crane and Hoists, including safe operations, inspections as well as the associated rigging gear. The seminars will include a BBQ Networking Lunch. These seminars will help Managers, Supervisors and Safety Personnel understand OSHA and ASMEs crane and rigging requirements, stated Jerry Longtin, General Manager of CICB, and by working together, our workers are safer, and our industry is stronger. For more information about the safety seminars, contact CICB at 800-327-1386. About CICB: Headquartered in Orlando, FL since 1969 with a second training facility in Houston, TX, Crane Inspection & Certification Bureau (CICB) provides customized training for every type of lifting equipment and inspection services worldwide. CICB's professionally trained instructors and subject matter experts are not only NCCCO Accredited Practical Examiners, but are NCCCO Certified as Mobile, Overhead & Articulating Crane Operators, Riggers, Signalpersons, Lift Directors and Crane Inspectors. CICB's instructors have been awarded the prestigious Top Trainer Award in 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2009. Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution Our leadership team and Board of Directors strongly support the mission of Native American Bank. We are excited to partner with them in providing affordable and flexible financial services to Native American and Alaskan Native individuals, enterprises, and governments. Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI) announced today that it has invested $195,800 in Class A stock in Native American Bank, N.A, (Native American Bank)the only Native American-owned, nationwide financial institution. With this investment, Clearinghouse CDFI becomes Native American Banks first CDFI investor out of thirty-four different shareholders. The majority of their existing shareholders are Tribes, Tribal Corporations, or Alaska Native Corporations. We are pleased to make this investment, said Clearinghouse CDFI President and CEO Douglas Bystry. Our leadership team and Board of Directors strongly support the mission of Native American Bank. We are excited to partner with them in providing affordable and flexible financial services to Native American and Alaskan Native individuals, enterprises, and governments. The Native American Bancorporation Co. was formed in 1998 by shareholders from twenty Tribal Nations and Alaskan Native Corporations to create a national bank to serve all Native people, communities, governments, and enterprises across the county. In 2001, Native American Bank began operating as wholly owned subsidiary of The Native American Bancorporation Co. Both Native American Bank and The Native American Bancorporation Co. are certified Community Development Financial Institutions, whose purpose is to promote economic development in areas that are underserved by traditional financial institutions. "Native American Bank has partnered with Clearinghouse CDFI in the past on projects in Indian Country. We are now very grateful for their support as an investor and shareholder in our holding company," said Tom Ogaard, Chairman, President and CEO of The Native American Bancorporation, parent of Native American Bank. With this support we will be able to further our mission to provide capital for projects related to economic development, which creates and sustains jobs and diversifies local economies." Clearinghouse CDFI has funded $1.73 billion in total loans for over 1,860 community projects over the past 22 years. These projects have created or retained more than 20,000 jobs and benefit over 1.8 million individuals. This includes a total of $64 million deployed into Indian Country. These projects have benefited over 662 separate underserved communities throughout California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Sovereign Nations. In 2017, Clearinghouse CDFI welcomed its first Native American equity investor, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community. About Native American Bank Native American Bank is a national community development focused bank, and is also a certified Community Development Financial Institution, with a mission to provide financial services for Alaska Native and Native American communities creating economic independence, development and sustainability. For more information on the bank, please visit: http://www.nabna.com About Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution: Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI) is a mission-based financial institution addressing unmet credit needs in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Indian Country in the Western United States. Clearinghouse CDFI is an industry leader helping to bridge the gap between conventional lending standards and the needs of low-income and distressed communities. Clearinghouse CDFI is also a B Corp--a certification received from the nonprofit B Lab. B Corps are companies who meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability, and use business as a force for good. More information is available at: http://www.ccdfi.com Cybersecurity software company CyberSana is proud to announce the debut of Amazon Web Services integration within their core product offerings. For the first time, security professionals can enjoy a birds eye view of both on-premise and cloud-based server activity with the help of CyberSanas easy, intuitive 0-10 security audit rating system. "CyberSana simplified everything for us," said Keith M., CISO and CyberSana customer. "The platform supports every operating system were running for Check Point, Cisco, Juniper and Linux. And the auto-device detection had us up and running within a day." A growing number of businesses are augmenting their in-house infrastructure with flexible, scalable cloud services. The resulting network topology is a complex and highly heterogeneous mixture of platforms that be overwhelming to visualize, let alone secure. CyberSana provides a centralized management interface that makes device discovery, uptime monitoring and automated security auditing of complex systems a breeze. According to CyberSana President and Founder Justin Jocewicz, providing cloud support was the natural next step for the platform. Enterprise companies have been adopting the public cloud for a while now, and information security teams have struggled to keep up with policy, visibility and technical enforcement. We now enable security teams to have both worlds meet under one management platform. About CyberSana: Since its founding in 2013, CyberSana has empowered businesses to improve their security posture and efficiency by providing superior C-level enterprise visibility and a comprehensive software solution that delivers practical, measurable, and expedient risk-reduction. CyberSanas suite of enterprise cybersecurity software, designed for IT professionals by IT professionals, eliminates the inefficiencies in company-wide security audits and gives valuable time back to security engineers and organization leaders everywhere. For more information, visit cybersana.tech or follow the company on LinkedIn and Facebook. This partnership extends our domestic facility footprint as well as the industries we service, DATAMARK President Bill Randag said. We strive to build long lasting relationships with all of our clients, and we are extremely excited to launch this new partnership with PHEAA. PHEAA to experience substantial improvements leveraging DATAMARKs Document Management expertise DATAMARK Incorporated, an El Paso-based global leader in Business Process Services (BPS) since 1989, recently partnered with the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), providing them with end-to-end digital mailroom and document management services. PHEAA services federal and commercial loans, and administers state grants and other student aid programs for college students. Through this partnership with PHEAA, DATAMARK expanded its U.S. operations to include Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where PHEAA is headquartered. This partnership extends our domestic facility footprint as well as the industries we service, DATAMARK President Bill Randag said. We strive to build long lasting relationships with all of our clients, and we are extremely excited to launch this new partnership with PHEAA. PHEAA began the search for a supplier for digital mailroom services when the agency decided that they wanted to bring the benefits of outside expertise to their customer-base. PHEAAs decision-making process began with a deep analysis of their processes while carefully considering the potential benefits of partnering with an expert vendor. The transition will enable the agency to experience increased efficiencies through technological enhancements and business processes improvements as DATAMARK migrates to a new system that will comprehensively handle incoming paper and electronic mail as well as document scanning, classification, and data capture. According to James Steeley, President and CEO of PHEAA, the agency expects to see substantial improvements and cost savings by allowing DATAMARK to process approximately 3.5 million documents annually. This will allow for an increase in processing capabilities geared toward program support to help students pay for college. DATAMARK began initial operations from the existing PHEAA facilities in October 2018, with plans set in motion for a fully-operational DATAMARK facility to open in Q2 of 2019. The new Harrisburg facility will be the first for DATAMARK in Pennsylvania. DATAMARK currently has U.S. facilities in both El Paso and San Antonio, Texas as well as multiple international facilities across Mexico and India. About DATAMARK DATAMARK, Inc. is a leading business process outsourcing company specializing in high-volume digital mailroom management, document processing/document management, contact center services, and process improvement consulting for Fortune 500 companies and other large enterprises. Headquartered in El Paso, Texas, DATAMARK employs nearly 3,000 people in its U.S., Mexico and India facilities. For more information, visit http://www.datamark.net. About PHEAA Created in 1963 by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) has evolved into one of the nations leading student aid organizations. Today, PHEAA is a national provider of student financial aid services, serving millions of students and thousands of schools through its loan guaranty, loan servicing, financial aid processing, outreach and other student aid programs. PHEAAs earnings are used to support its public service mission and to pay its operating costs, including administration of the Pennsylvania State Grant and other state-funded student aid programs. PHEAA has contributed more than $1 billion in supplemental funding for student aid programs to further support families without any taxpayer resources. PHEAA conducts its student loan servicing activities nationally as FedLoan Servicing and American Education Services (AES). For more information, visit http://www.pheaa.org Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. Global Aerospace Fasteners Market Information by Application (Commercial Aerospace and Military), Aircraft Class (Commercial Aircraft and Military Aircraft), and Region (Americas (North and Latin), Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa) - Forecast To 2023. Market Scenario: Fasteners are widely used in commercial and military aircraft, ballistic missiles and rockets, aftermarket services and their parts and components. The aerospace industry makes use of different ranges of fasteners such as screws, bolts, rivets, nuts, hi-locks, and pins. Growing demand for air travel worldwide has led to increased requirement for commercial aircraft fleet. Such an increase in the number of aircraft will simultaneously result in demand for aerospace fasteners. Aerospace fastener manufacturers are increasingly focusing on emerging regions, such as Mexico, Brazil, India, and North Africa because of the high demand for aircraft. This offers opportunities for third-party companies to partner with OEMs and open MRO service centers in these regions. The use of titanium fasteners and growing investment in interior cabin products have been encouraging market growth in the last five years. With technological advances being key to product acceptance, the introduction of software such as ASRP5, which allows the simulation of complex assembly processes, bodes well for the market. Both civilian aircraft programs, comprising Boeing 787, Bombardier's new C-Series airliners, and Airbus A350, and military programs, including aircraft such as Lockheed's new F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, are favoring titanium aerospace parts. This preference is due to the light weighing parts and their compatibility with carbon fiber reinforced composite structures, which drive their demand in the market. Titanium hardware weighs 40% lesser than non-titanium hardware. It is also corrosion resistant, has high strength-to-weight ratio, and retains properties at high temperature. Titanium parts have tensile strength as high as 160 ksi and shear strengths of 95 ksi. Aircraft parts manufacturers are ramping up their production to meet the demand for titanium fasteners. In 2014, B/E Aerospace signed an agreement worth USD 950 million with United Technologies to provide aerospace fasteners, consumables, hardware, and logistical services. In October 2015, Alcoa got a contract worth USD1 billion from Airbus for the supply of titanium fasteners. In 2011, Carpenter Technology invested USD 5 million to expand its capacity for producing aerospace fasteners. These fasteners will be used in the airframes of the Boeing Dreamliner 787. Rapid shifts in technology make it difficult for vendors to design appropriate fasteners and other related products, and has been a cause for concern among vendors. The increased retirement of intensive aircraft in favor of more and more aircraft, which requires a few number of fasteners, will also help market growth to some extent. The aerospace fasteners market is expected to grow at CAGR of 7.85% during the period 2017-2023. Regional Analysis The Americas is home to a few of the world's most renowned commercial aircraft manufacturers, namely, Boeing, Bombardier, Gulfstream, and Embraer. Companies such as Boeing often engage in R&D projects with the manufacturers of aerospace fasteners. US, in particular, is making substantial investments in producing advanced fastening systems, which will be integrated across modern fighter and MEA such as Boeing 787. North America extensively invests in the aerospace titanium fasteners, and generates a very high demand for these fastening systems. Although, Brazil and Canada make investments in the development of these fastening systems, yet the market is primarily dominated by the US Key Players The global aerospace fasteners market is highly competitive, and vendors compete based on cost, product quality, reliability, and aftermarket service. To survive and succeed in competitive environment, it is important for vendors to provide cost effective and high quality aerospace fasteners with latest technology and materials. key players in this market are 3V Fasteners Company (US), Aloca (US), B&B Specialties (CA), KLX (US), LISI (France), CDP Fastener Group (MA), National Aerospace Fasteners (Taiwan), Stanley Aerospace Fastening (USA), TFI Aerospace (Canada), Wesco Aircraft Holdings (US). Read More @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/aerospace-fasteners-market-1138 What does the future of journalism look like with artificial intelligence (AI)? The technology poses a number of opportunities and challenges to the news industry. To help better understand the possibilities, University of Missouris Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute has invited Marc Fischer, CEO of mobile app development company Dogtown Media, and four other innovators to speak at its RJI Innovation Series. AIs potential is unprecedentedPwC predicts it could contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030more than the current output of India and China combined. But you dont have to wait until the future to see the technologys impact now. News outlets like Bloomberg and The Washington Post are already leveraging machine learning, a subset of AI, to produce content. The latter recently won the Excellence in Use of Bots award for Heliograf, its in-house robot reporter. While some journalists are thankful to pass on some of their workload to AI, others question their future and the technologys place in the news industry. The RJI Innovation Series strives to connect industry professionals with students of the University of Missouri so they can gain better insight into emerging technologys place in society. The first event of the series, held last year, focused on immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. For this AI-focused event, other speakers joining Fischer include Jahna Berry, Head of Content Operations at Wired; Jeremy Gilbert, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at The Washington Post who launched Heliograf; Nick Monaco, Disinformation Analyst at Graphika; and Steven Rosenbush, Enterprise Technology Editor of the Wall Street Journals WSJ Pro. Marc Fischer is the CEO and Co-Founder of Dogtown Media, a mobile technology studio based in Venice Beach, California that leverages disruptive design strategies and dynamic development to deliver industry-leading apps. Under Fischers leadership, the firm pioneered ShoutOut, a first-of-its-kind AI chatbot for the Google Home and Google Assistant platforms. Fischer is optimistic about the potential of AI and machine learning to improve the future of work: AI is set to unlock the greatest digital transformation the world has seen since the invention of the internet. Every facet of our current lifestyles will undergo tremendous change in the next few years. Is society ready to grapple with the inevitability of this disruptive force? Headquartered in Venice Beach, California, Dogtown Media is a mobile technology firm that leverages disruptive design strategies and dynamic development to deliver industry-leading apps. To date, the company has created over 200 mobile apps in industries including FinTech, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Healthcare app development. The RJI Innovation Series will be held from March 18-19 at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Engel & Volkers Erik Cavarra Awarded Engel & Volkers Private Office Designation for Exemplary Real Estate Service & Production Cavarra joins global real estate companys exclusive group of professionals worldwide Engel & Volkers today announced that Erik Cavarra has been officially inducted into the luxury real estate companys Private Office network, successfully passing the companys ultra-competitive vetting and nomination process for inclusion. Cavarra is among an elite group of Engel & Volkers advisors worldwide to be awarded with this distinction, which recognizes extraordinary business results supported by competency and providing the highest level of client service. Out of more than 11,000 real estate professionals who represent the Engel & Volkers brand in more than 30 countries worldwide, Cavarra is among only 108 advisors selected to carry the title Private Office advisor in the Americas. Engel & Volkers attracts the best agents in each market we serve, so as a member of Private Office, Erik represents true exceptionality, said Anthony Hitt, president & CEO, Engel & Volkers Americas. Our Private Office advisors are not just top producersthey unfailingly offer an incomparable experience for their clients. To qualify for Private Office, advisors within the Engel & Volkers network must be nominated by their broker, meet baseline criteria for transaction volume and show consistency in their high year-over-year production numbers. To assess their market expertise and notable service quality as real estate professionals, clients are also asked to comment on their service experience. Lastly, nominees are submitted to a selection committee in the Americas that decides which candidates meet all requirements for final submission to the head of Private Office in Hamburg, Germany. Held at the Chateau Elan Winery & Resort outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Cavarra was formally inducted at Engel & Volkers invitation-only Private Office event on March 3, 2019 prior to the start of Exchange the next day, the global companys largest annual event in the Americas. As a Private Office advisor, Cavarra gains access to Private Office-specific marketing assets, choice opportunities catering to the brands global ultra-high net worth clients and is the preferred contact in his market for international referrals. It is an honor to have been selected to be a Private Office advisor, said Cavarra. The Engel & Volkers name and reputation carries a high level of prestige around the world as a promise of outstanding real estate service and expertise, and I look forward to representing at this level. About Engel & Volkers Engel & Volkers is a global luxury real estate brand. Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1977, Engel & Volkers draws on its rich European history to deliver a fresh approach to luxury real estate in the Americas with a focus on creating a bespoke, white-glove concierge client experience at every stage of the home buying or selling process for todays savvy homeowner. Engel & Volkers currently operates approximately 150 shop locations with over 3,000 real estate advisors in the Americas, contributing to the brands global network of over 11,000 real estate professionals in more than 30 countries, offering both private and institutional clients a professionally tailored range of luxury services, including real estate, yachting and aviation. Committed to exceptional service, Engel & Volkers supports its advisors with an array of premium quality business services; marketing programs and platforms; as well as access to its global network of real estate professionals, property listings and market data. Each brokerage is independently owned and operated. For more information, visit http://www.evusa.com. # # # For further information please contact: Erik Cavarra License Partner Managing Broker Snowmass Village - Carbondale 970-923-0817 Erik(dot)cavarra(at)evusa(dot)com https://erikcavarra.evusa.com/en/about-me.php Evolve Social by Engel & Volkers Florida though Adfenix With Evolve Social we can offer our advisors a solution that saves them time and delivers real return without them having to invest in developing the expertise to create and deliver ads themselves Engel & Volkers Florida is pleased to announce it's progress with Evolve Social, an artificial intelligence powered digital listing advertising solution launched in partnership with Adfenix in Q4 2018. Evolve Social is quickly becoming the secret ingredient to further increasing digital property marketing campaign reach for clients. Engel & Volkers Florida first partnered with global digital advertising platform Adfenix, which specializes in the niche market of digital real estate marketing, to create the Evolve Social solution for their agents and customers. Evolve Social is already exceeding anticipated results for the Engel & Volkers Florida team. The average number of ad viewers wanting to find out more about the property and taking the step of viewing the full listing on their website is a staggering 17.3-percent. This represents an average of 624 additional potential buyers who are investing in viewing each property listing after exposure to the advertising campaign on either Facebook or Instagram. Facebooks recorded data on the return of real estate advertising globally sits at just 1-percent, which suggests that Evolve Social averages nearly 17-times greater than the comparative results for standard agent-created campaigns. We understood the importance of offering social and digital channel advertising and the results it could return to our business, said Timo Khammash, Managing Partner of Engel & Volkers Florida. But in order to deliver it correctly, would be complex, time-consuming and required a highly specialized skill-set.The results we have seen from Evolve Social so far are exceptional and highlight what tapping into the right technology can do in real estate. These consistently great results from the platform are not random events. The Evolve Social ad audiences across Facebook and Instagram are pre-determined by the Adfenix platform using a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning and human quality control. Facebook themselves have presented data proving that real estate advertisers running campaigns on their own are not using the most efficient objectives or reaching the right people at the right time in their real estate journey, said Khammash. With Evolve Social we can offer our advisors a solution that saves them time and delivers real return without them having to invest in developing the expertise to create and deliver ads themselves. That is a 100-percent win-win for our advisors and their clients as far as I am concerned. Each ad is vetted by a digital advertising expert before publication to ensure all aspects meet the high standard expected by the Engel & Volkers Florida team. Real-time audiences that are unique to each property type are created for every digital listing advertisement and refined during the campaign process. The fact is there is a finite number of people interested in any one particular property. Being able to narrow the target based on the specific data we analyse ensures the campaigns success. This process is unique to the Adfenix platform in the real estate market. The foresight of the Engel & Volkers Florida management team in recognizing the value of building smaller audiences of approximately 4,000 for each campaign who we can pre-determine as interested is key to the Evolve Social campaign results we are seeing. Biggest isnt always best when it comes to effective data advertising, explained Philip Hegge, Adfenix US Director. Engel & Volkers Florida brokers and agents can access the solution for their sellers by reaching out to their dedicated contact at Adfenix. About Adfenix: Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, Adfenix is a global proptech company and recognised leader in targeted digital property and agent marketing solutions. Utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) our social media marketing products achieve average success results 13x higher than the industry standard. Adfenix has partnerships with over 2,000 individual brokerages across 13 countries, including the US, UK, Australia, Scandinavia and France. Growing 300%+ per year, Adfenix was awarded the prestigious honour of being names Swedish Startup Team of the Year in 2017. About Engel & Volkers: Engel & Volkers is a global luxury real estate brand. Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1977, Engel & Volkers draws on its rich European history to deliver a fresh approach to luxury real estate in the Americas with a focus on creating a bespoke, white-glove concierge client experience at every stage of the home buying or selling process for todays savvy homeowner. Engel & Volkers currently operates approximately 150 shop locations with over 3,000 real estate advisors in the Americas, contributing to the brands global network of over 11,000 real estate professionals in more than 30 countries, offering both private and institutional clients a professionally tailored range of luxury services, including real estate, yachting and aviation. Committed to exceptional service, Engel & Volkers supports its advisors with an array of premium quality business services; marketing programs and platforms; as well as access to its global network of real estate professionals, property listings and market data. Each brokerage is independently owned and operated. For more information, visit http://www.evusa.com. About Engel & Volkers Florida: Engel & Volkers Florida is the Master License Partner of the global luxury real estate brand Engel & Volkers in the state of Florida. Recognized for uniquely recruiting, training and equipping some of the top professionals in the real estate industry, Engel & Volkers Floridas exclusive franchise model positions its license partners at the top of the premium market to gain market share and support their bottom line. The company represents franchise locations in: 30A Beaches, Belleair, Boca Raton, Bonita Springs-Estero, Cape Coral, Clermont, Delray Beach, Destin, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville Beach, Jupiter, Madeira Beach, Marco Island, Melbourne, Melbourne Central, Miami-Coral Gables, Olde Naples, Orlando-Winter Park, Palm Beach, South Tampa, St. Pete, Stuart, Wellington, and Windermere. Engel & Volkers Florida is continuing to strategically strengthen and expand its presence in premium real estate markets across the state of Florida. If you would like to know more about the Engel & Volkers brand or how to join its global network, which is known for demonstrating competence, exclusivity and passion, feel free to call our corporate office, located at 633 Tamiami Trl N, Suite 201, Naples, FL 34102 USA. Tel: +1 239-348-9000. For more information about Engel & Volkers Florida, please visit florida.evusa.com Media Contact: Linzee Werkmeister Director, Public Relations & Franchise Support Email: Linzee.Werkmeister(at)evusa.com Tel: (239) 348-9000 Mike Cheng, CPA Mikes experience at the Financial Accounting Standards Board makes him uniquely valuable in helping our clients understand and appropriately adapt to regulatory changes. Frazier & Deeter, a nationally ranked public accounting and advisory firm, announced today that Mike Cheng has joined the firm as the National Professional Practice Partner in the Accounting & Audit Practice. Recent changes to accounting standards such as revenue recognition and lease accounting have driven a surge in demand for technical accounting advice, noted Seth McDaniel, Managing Partner of Frazier & Deeter. Frazier & Deeter is delighted to bring in a leader with Mikes depth of expertise to meet the growing need for accounting advisory services. Im excited to join Frazier & Deeters Accounting Advisory Practice, stated Cheng. Frazier & Deeter is a well-respected firm with a strong team, and I am ready to help the firms clients understand and address evolving accounting standards. Cheng comes to Frazier & Deeter from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), where he served as the Private Company Council (PCC) Coordinator. In that role he was responsible for all PCC related matters. Cheng was also the staff lead on FASB projects to: simplify the accounting for nonemployee share-based payments, help shape the future of the FASB technical agenda and improve consolidations guidance (VIE guidance). Most recently, Cheng worked on the FASBs implementation team on revenue recognition (ASC Topic 606) and lease accounting (ASC Topic 842). Prior to joining the FASB, Cheng held various management positions with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he was a member of the audit practice from 2003 - 2012. Cheng earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting with a concentration in Finance from Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. Frazier & Deeters clients will benefit from the expansion of our accounting advisory leadership resources, noted Jeremy Jones, leader of Frazier & Deeters Audit practice. Mikes experience at the Financial Accounting Standards Board makes him uniquely valuable in helping our clients understand and appropriately adapt to regulatory changes. Frazier & Deeter offers a suite of services that includes audit, business and personal tax advisory, transaction advisory, governance/compliance, cybersecurity, IT audit, fund administration, technical accounting advisory and other advisory services. The firms clients include public and private companies across all industries, as well as high net worth individuals, trusts and investment funds. About Frazier & Deeter Frazier & Deeter is a nationally recognized CPA and advisory firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The firm provides a wide range of tax, audit, accounting and advisory services to help clients reach their unique financial goals. Frazier & Deeters professionals focus on investing in relationships to make a difference. Frazier & Deeter is an award-winning firm that has been named one of the Top Accounting Firms to Work For and one of the Fastest Growing CPA firms among the top 100 firms in the U.S. by Accounting Today magazine. Frazier & Deeter has also been repeatedly named a Best of the Best CPA firm by INSIDE Public Accounting and a Top Firm for Women by The MOVE project. Flight Path Museum and Learning Center at Los Angeles International Airport Five scholarships totaling $15,000 are offered and include the Pete Conrad Scholarship and the Clay Lacy, Morrey Plotkin, Howard Drollinger and Anton Acherman scholarships funded by generous Flight Path benefactors. Students planning careers in aviation or aerospace are invited to apply for competitive scholarships offered through the Flight Path Museum at Los Angeles International Airport. Applications will be accepted until May 25, 2019. Five scholarships totaling $15,000 are offered, according to Agnes Huff, PhD, Flight Path president. These include the museums Pete Conrad Scholarship and the Clay Lacy, Morrey Plotkin, Howard Drollinger and Anton Acherman scholarships funded by generous Flight Path benefactors. Qualifications, selection process details and application forms are available on the Scholarships page of the museum website http://www.flightpathmuseum.com These annual scholarships have given a valuable boost to the education and careers of numerous students, said Huff. One of our recent winners is now a commercial airline pilot and others are well on their way to beginning exciting careers in aviation. Flight Paths Pete Conrad Scholarship was named for the distinguished Apollo 12 and Gemini 11 astronaut, a man who walked on the moon and set a space endurance record. It is supported by proceeds from the museums annual Gala and other donations. The Clay Lacy Scholarship was established by one of Southern Californias most notable commercial pilots and aviation entrepreneurs. Clay Lacy has generously funded this scholarship for many years. He has been actively involved with the museums scholarship committee in selecting awardees. The Morrey Plotkin Scholarship perpetuates the legacy of Flight Paths founding chairman. Morrey Plotkin was a successful business leader and a longtime benefactor of the museum as well as a number of other community organizations. The scholarship was established by the Plotkin family and is funded by them. The Howard Drollinger Scholarship is the newest of Flight Paths student assistance programs. Funded by the Drollinger family, it honors Howard Drollinger, a decorated World War II Army Air Corps navigator, and a leader and real estate developer in the Westchester and LAX area. Mr. Drollinger was the recipient of the first Honorary Service Award from the Flight Path Museum. The Anton Acherman Scholarship was created in memory of the 52-year Westchester resident and retired mechanical engineer. Mr. Acherman led a fascinating career in aerospace including working on the Atlas-Centaur rocket; the water system for Skylab, Americas first space station; and test equipment for the Space Simulation Laboratory at Boeing Satellite Systems. The scholarship is funded by family, friends, neighbors and local businesses. Flight Path Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., except major holidays, in the LAX Imperial Terminal, 6661 W. Imperial Hwy., Los Angeles. Admission and parking are free. The facility is also available for private events. For information, call (424) 646-7284, email fguides@lawa.org or visit the website http://www.flightpathmuseum.com. Volunteer positions are available. The museum is operated by nonprofit Flight Path in cooperation with Los Angeles World Airports, the agency which operates LAX. Flight Path Museums mission includes the preservation of Southern Californias aviation heritage as well as encouragement and assistance to those pursuing education and careers in aviation and aerospace. Forty Years & More: International Conference on Iranian Diaspora Studies" will convene scholars, filmmakers, artists, and researchers from around the globe. Forty Years & More" offers a forum for new research and dynamic conversations around themes of identity, racism, and assimilation among those who live, work and contribute to diaspora communities around the globe. On the heels of the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, scholars, artists, and researchers will gather at San Francisco State University to examine the rich, multi-faceted, and, often complex, global Iranian diaspora experience. In an era of heightened anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment, Forty Years & More: International Conference on Iranian Diaspora Studies, March 28-30, 2019, offers a forum for new research and dynamic conversations around themes of identity, racism, and assimilation among those who live, work and contribute to diaspora communities around the globe. Details about the conference, which is flanked by two art exhibitions featuring work by Iranian-American artists, can be found at: cids.sfsu.edu/conference. The 40 Years & More conference, hosted by San Francisco State Universitys Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies, will feature presentations from some of the worlds foremost scholars about what the past 40 years have meant for transnational Iranians and the impact of the diaspora experience on future generations. Two conference keynote speakers; Dr. Neda Maghbouleh, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Camron Amin, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and President of the Association for Iranian Studies, affirm how their diaspora experiences have informed their identities. In The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race, Maghbouleh offers a timely look at how Iranians and other Americans of Middle Eastern heritage move across the color line, examining the ways in which they fit and do not fit in the conventional racial and ethnic categories in the United States. Her findings are essential for understanding the unprecedented challenges that Iranians, Arabs, and Muslims now face under "extreme vetting" and potential reclassification out of the "white" box, particularly since 9/11 and the election of Donald Trump. Maghboulehs groundbreaking work on race resonates with many Iranian Americans, not only validating the experiences of first and second-generation Iranians who have struggled with racial and ethnic identity, but also provides a. much-needed vernacular to help articulate the complex concept of assimilation. Similarly, Dr. Camron Amin, another speaker at the conference, also draws on the past to inform the lives of present day Iranian-Americans. The son of an Iranian father and American mother who met in college in the U.S., Amin is the creator of the Michigan Iranian-American Oral History Project (MIAOHP) that aims to digitally document the stories of Iranian Americans with ties to Michigan and highlight their everyday lives. Amin interviewed his own father, Dr. Mohammad Amin, for the project; the elder Amin was a civil engineering professor at Sharif University and, later, chancellor of what is today know as the Isfahan Institute of Technology. The younger Amin grew up living between Iran and the US, and eventually found himself studying Iranian history in an effort to make sense of the present. I was 13 when the revolution took place, and desperate to understand what was going on, Dr. Amin states. Looking back now, I can see that for me, studying Iran was a way in which to understand the revolution. These two speakers will offer two important contributions to the emerging field of Iranian diaspora studies, a field that has grown exponentially in the past decade and one that increasingly tells the story not just of Irans recent history, but also the story of a complex, global diaspora. About the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies The Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies was founded in 2016 by Bay Area philanthropist Neda Nobari, and SFSU alumna, who was among the millions of Iranians displaced by the revolution. The Center draws on San Francisco States strong foundation of studying ethnic, racial and social justice issues in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The Center also creates opportunities for collaboration and exchange around the Iranian diaspora, by supporting and disseminating new scholarship,and showcasing the diverse and unique cultures of Iranian diaspora communities in the Bay Area, California and globally. For more information about the conference and art exhibitions visit: cids.sfsu.edu/conference . For interview opportunities, photography, video and blog content, please contact Anita S. Lane at (313) 447- 9083 or AnitaSLane(at)gmail.com GroGuru Wireless Underground (WUGS) Precision Soil Monitoring Solution The entrepreneurs and start-ups that attend the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco are an integral part of the event and are massively sought after by the big agribusinesses and investors at the summit. GroGuru will have a display booth in the Technology Showcase and be presenting in the Tech Hub at the upcoming World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco, C.A. on March 19th and 20th, 2019. Now in its 5th year, the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco connects innovators with partners allowing major corporations and investors to take advanced solutions from the laboratory into the field. Global agricultural leaders come together in San Francisco to uncover the most exciting innovations in agricultural technology and to forge the right partnerships to take those solutions to market. The entrepreneurs and start-ups that attend the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco are an integral part of the event and are massively sought after by the big agribusinesses and investors at the summit, said Jennie Moss, Founder and Managing Director of Rethink Events. The summit is an international conference, networking and deal-making event for agribusinesses, solution providers, entrepreneurs and investors. The goal is to accelerate the commercialization of advanced agricultural technologies by generating global partnerships and collaborations. We are pleased to be included in the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit with such a distinguished group of attendees, speakers, panelists and presenting companies, said Patrick Henry, president and CEO at GroGuru. We are in the cusp of an explosion of new technologies that will revolutionize the agriculture space, increase crop yields, and grow crops in a more sustainable way. GroGuru's wireless underground system is one of the key game-changing technologies that will fuel this revolution. To learn more about the summit or to purchase tickets to attend the summit, please go to https://worldagritechusa.com/. About GroGuru GroGuru, Inc. is a privately held company based in San Diego, C.A. that provides precision soil and irrigation monitoring systems to the commercial agriculture industry. GroGuru is focused on enabling farmers to optimally use water and fertilizer with an innovative hardware-enabled Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. GroGuru GroGurus 100 percent wireless underground technology enables a permanent installation of sensors, even in annual field crops. GroGuru is a portfolio company at the EvoNexus technology incubator, the premier technology incubator in Southern California. For more information, visit the GroGuru website at https://www.groguru.com. This years Marylands Top 100 Women are leading companies, charting new territory and inspiring the next generation. They are truly outstanding role models for all of us, said Suzanne Fischer-Huettner, publisher of The Daily Record. The Daily Record named Andrea E. Chapdelaine, Ph.D., president of Hood College, to its 2019 listing of Marylands Top 100 Women. The Daily Record began Marylands Top 100 Women in 1996 to recognize outstanding achievements by women demonstrated through professional accomplishments, community leadership and mentoring. Nominees were asked to complete an application outlining their educational and career history, professional and community involvement, corporate and nonprofit board memberships and mentoring experience. They were encouraged to submit letters of recommendation from those who are familiar with their accomplishments professionally, in the community and through mentoring. A panel of business professionals and previous Marylands Top 100 Women honorees from throughout the state reviewed the final applications and selected this years honorees. There were 520 total nominations this year and two rounds of judging. This years Marylands Top 100 Women are leading companies, charting new territory and inspiring the next generation. They are truly outstanding role models for all of us, said Suzanne Fischer-Huettner, publisher of The Daily Record. They show compassion and commitment to help others and to shape their communities. The Daily Record is honored to recognize their many achievements. President Chapdelaine will be recognized with her fellow honorees at the Marylands Top 100 Women awards celebration April 15 at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. Winners will be profiled in a special magazine that will be inserted into the April 16 issue of The Daily Record and will be available online at http://www.TheDailyRecord.com. The top 100 women will also be recognized at the Womens Leadership Summit on March 20 at Coppin State University. For more information about sponsorships and tickets to The Daily Records 2019 Marylands Top 100 Women, visit http://www.TheDailyRecord.com or call 443-524-8161. Hood College is an independent, liberal arts college, offering 32 undergraduate majors, four pre-professional programs, 17 graduate programs, two doctorates and 11 post-baccalaureate certificates. Located in historic Frederick, near Washington, D.C., Baltimore and the I-270 technology corridor, Hood gives students access to countless internships and research opportunities. The Manifest, an online community assisting consumers by answering their questions, uncovering integral insights, and inspiring smart decisions, has named Ignite Visibility, Inc. as the number one digital marketing company in the industry. Our team truly enjoys what they do and is dedicated to maintaining leading-edge digital marketing strategies, said Eythor Westman, Head of Paid Media. In this rapidly changing industry, our culture of innovation and continuous process optimization allows us to quickly adapt and get the best results possible for the companies we service. The selection of Ignite Visibility for this award highlights the unique ways the company utilizes innovative marketing strategies and concepts for companies and clients across the globe. At Ignite we are passionate about digital marketing and servicing our clients with the highest level of service in the industry. Our passion is manifested in everything we do and a big reason for our success, said Krishnan W. Coughran, J.D. Co-Founder and President Ever since the company began offering its services in 2013, Ignite Visibility has provided more than 300 clientsranging from local companies to international brandswith services including SEO, social media, public relations, paid media, email marketing, conversion rate optimization services and more. Being in the industry since 2004, Ignites business development team is one of the most educated teams Ive had the pleasure of working with. They do a fantastic job of identifying the needs and issues of our clients and present custom solutions to solve them and grow their business, said Arnaud Lemaire, Vice President of Business Development. The Manifest is a how-to guide and a business news website that aggregates data from international business communities and provides information to innovators and entrepreneurs so they can make informed decisions. They provide original surveys and survey data; how-to guides on subjects ranging from cold emailing to integrating YouTube into marketing strategies; and agency shortlists, which help consumers hire the most effective businesses for their needs. With a mission to innovate, the company is able to adapt to the constantly changing online marketing sphere and has been able to highlight the ways in which marketing can make anyones business goals more easily conquerable. Here at Ignite Visibility, we implement flexible, multi-faceted strategies that provide solutions for the core goals of our clients, said Chrystal Lenardson, Director of Digital Strategy. Our clients understand that our purpose is to help their business grow online, and by focusing on the key performance indicators that grow their bottom line - we're able to achieve measurable results for the businesses we work with. In addition to this recent recognition from The Manifest, Ignite Visibility has won numerous awards on both a local and national level. For more information, visit https://ignitevisibility.com/. About Ignite Visibility: Ignite Visibility is a premier Internet marketing company based in San Diego, CA, dedicated to providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. By establishing mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with their clients, Ignite Visibility creates custom solutions uniquely tailored to meet the specialized business objectives of each client. Because a company is only as good as the promises it keeps that were made during the sales process, Ignite Visibility holds itself accountable to clearly defined key performance indicators established at the outset of every campaign. Ignite Visibility is committed to their motto pertaining the three Rs of customer satisfaction: relationships, responsiveness and results, visit https://ignitevisibility.com/. Resilinc This unique collaboration will focus on improving supply chain transparency to mitigate both chronic and acute shortages of medical products and to enable healthcare providers to create more cost-efficient and resilient supply chains Several leading healthcare companies and providers including BD Healthcare Solutions, Trinity Health and University of Vermont Health Network, as well as Resilinc, the leading provider of supply chain resiliency intelligence, today announced the launch of the Healthcare Transparency Initiative (HTI). HTI is a unique cross-industry collaboration focused exclusively on leveraging data with artificial intelligence (AI) and data science to improve supply chain transparency, lower risks and reduce disruptions in healthcare supply chains in order to improve patient outcomes. Whether you are a provider, manufacturer, distributor or GPO, your complex supply chains frequently encounter shortages, recalls, backorders and even crises, said Bindiya Vakil, CEO of Resilinc. In response to shortages of critical medications and manufacturing components, healthcare product manufacturers, hospital networks and supply chain experts have joined forces to create the HTI. This unique collaboration will focus on improving supply chain transparency to mitigate both chronic and acute shortages of medical products and to enable healthcare providers to create more cost-efficient and resilient supply chains. Supply chain issues are at the heart of many critical shortages, continued Vakil. During natural disasters, the vulnerability of medical product supply chains becomes most obviousand the consequences are often most severe. When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in fall 2017, not only were hundreds killed, but much of the islands pharmaceutical industrysource of about 8 percent of medical products used by Americanswas disabled. Our accountability to the patients and communities that we serve demands that we make mindful decisions about business continuity risk as we engage suppliers, said Ed Hisscock, SVP, Supply Chain Management, Trinity Health. HTI is a vehicle to assess and monitor that risk. HTI will immediately drive lower costs by creating a shared ecosystem and improving visibility and transparency across the healthcare value chain, leveraging AI and data science. The initiative is powered by Resilincs trusted platform and healthcare supply chain data, which offers unique transparency and insights for the industry today. Membership in the Healthcare Transparency Initiative is available in four tiers. Tier Zero provides industry monitoring, webinars, web forums and other opportunities for medical product supply chain professionals to engage with their peers and learn best practices; Tier I adds data and analytical tools to monitor key suppliers; Tier II adds enhanced supplier score-carding, risk management and business continuity planning tools; and Tier III+ adds the capability to map individual products, parts and materials through all tiers of a supply chain. For more information To learn more about the HTI, please visit: https://healthcare.resilinc.com/ And join us for a free live webinar: https://resilinc-events.webex.com/resilinc-events/onstage/g.php?MTID=ef52a30616c1718b370542c7edacd2599 About Resilinc Resilinc is the leading provider of supply chain visibility data-as-a-service and cognitive risk analytics solutions. Over 100 of the worlds leading brands rely on Resilincs AI-powered global disruption monitoring service to keep track of millions of parts as they make their way around the globe, touching hundreds of thousands of nodes. Resilinc is the only company to consistently achieve success in mapping the supply chain multiple tiers deep, all the way down to part and site levels, and exposing hidden failure points and bottlenecks deep in the sub-tiers. Resilincs patented advanced risk quantification algorithms and easy-to-use supplier assessment solutions have established a new standard for measuring supplier risk. Companies use Resilincs cognitive sourcing and risk protection learning systems to realize millions of dollars in savings on expediting raw materials or freight and lowering inventory levels while keeping their supply chains operating with greater agility and resiliency. For more information, visit http://www.resilinc.com. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. The Global ERP Software Market report is encompassed of unique market dynamics that support the industry growth along with the various market issues such as trends, growth path, revenue, prediction, and market size analysis which directly impact the market dynamic. The information is obtained and analysed from the past and current year to forecast the market covering in the next coming years. The ERP Software industry experts were interviewed across the globe to gather the data which is then validated based on the secondary data. In-depth study of market segmentation and active major players involved in the Market has been outlined in the report. The report also discloses the demand consumption along with the current and future market environment. Besides, it also throws light on the various regional market scenario which gives important information to gain a competitive edge. Moreover, the report also throws light on a strategy adopted by the top players followed by the wide range of service with the recent statistical data that help to understand the Market scenario. Also, this report gives an idea about the potential consumer in the market across the various industry which will definitely help to cater the consumer needs and expectations. Download Free Sample Report of ERP Software Market Report @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-555 This report studies ERP Software in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering SAP Oracle Sage Infor Microsoft Epicor Kronos Concur(SAP) Ibm Totvs Unit4 Yonyou Netsuite Kingdee Workday Cornerstone Digiwin Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of ERP Software in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), like North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia India Split by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into On-Premise ERP Cloud ERP Split by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of ERP Software in each application, can be divided into Manufacture Logistics Industry Financial Telecommunications Others Access Report and Full Table of Contents of ERP Software Market @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/555-erp-software-industry-market-report Table of Contents-Snapshot 1 Market Overview 2 Global Market Competition by Manufacturers 3 Global Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016) 4 Global Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016) 5 Global Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type 6 Global Market Analysis by Application 7 Global Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis 8 Manufacturing Cost Analysis 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders 11 Market Effect Factors Analysis 12 Global Market Forecast (2016-2021) 13 Research Findings and Conclusion 14 Appendix More Related Report By DecisionDatanases.com @ Global Storage Software Market Research Report 2017 About Us: DecisionDatabases.com is a Global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research Report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains. Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed. For More Details: DecisionDatabases.com E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.com Phone: +91-90-28-057900 Web: https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ Poetry proved to be a valuable lifeline when I believed there were no other viable alternatives for dealing with my feelings. Poetry can provide therapeutic relief from worries and lifes excess stress." - Randi Owens April is National Poetry Month and to celebrate the occasion poet Randi Owens has released her inspiring first book, Cherish Your Beginning, of her forthcoming This Is About Life series of poetry books. Owens provides an intimate and emotional look at her life as told through the poetry she wrote in the early seventies over a period of five years beginning during the formative time she entered high school where she felt completely lost in life. Having grown up in the foster care system with her siblings after the untimely deaths of her mother and father, Owens turned to writing poetry as an escape from reality which allowed her self-expression when she felt she had no voice. Through her poetry, Owens wants readers to connect with the poems that provide meaning to their particular life experiences to aid them in their own quests for better understanding of their lives and actions. Cherish Your Beginning presents poetry that is filled with H-E-A-R-T which represents Hope, Emotion, Acceptance/Answers, Revelation and Thought. Each poem is unique and offers a different meaning for readers allowing them to relax in thought and reflect on their personal life experiences. Poetry proved to be a valuable lifeline when I believed there were no other viable alternatives for dealing with my feelings. Poetry can provide therapeutic relief from worries and lifes excess stress, said Owens. It invites readers to incorporate their thoughts and emotions into the words, creating the opportunity for temporary breaks from everyday life encounters. The poetry featured in her subsequent books in the ThisIs About Life series chronicles Owens coming into her own as an adult and finding and sharing the voice she once hid to help others in need as featured in Book II: Fulfill Your Dreams and Book III: Determine Your Outcome. To learn more please visit, http://www.thisisaboutlife.com. ThisIs About Life Book I: Cherish Your Beginning By Randi Owens ISBN: 978-1-4808-6105-3 (sc), 978-1-4808-6106-0 (hc), 978-1-4808-6107-7 (e) Available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Archway Publishing About the author Author and poet Randi Owens is retired from her professional career which consisted of working as a Youth at Risk Program Manager, Chemical Dependency Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor among others, which had allowed her to pursue her passion of offering care and service to individuals in need of therapeutic intervention. She now focuses her time on her other passion, that of writing and poetry. In addition to her ThisIs About Life poetry series, she also has three childrens books, a memoir and book about heart disease in the works. Owens received an Associate degree from Anchorage Community College, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Master of Science in Education degrees from Eastern Illinois University and a Certified Alcohol Dependency Certification Level I as a Chemical Dependency Counselor from the College of Great Falls and is part of the American Counseling Association. Upon graduation from high school, she joined the USAF in 1975 and remained on active duty for five years receiving an Honorable discharge upon completion of her commitment. Owens lives in Palmer, Alaska with her husband of over 40 years, her adult children and grandchildren. Review Copies & Interview Requests: LAVIDGE Phoenix Lauren Dickerson 480-998-2600 LDickerson@lavidge.com Intact America, a national childrens rights organization, today issued three statements asking California, Connecticut, and Iowa legislators to abide by their respective state constitutions and not fail to protect boys from harmful genital surgeries. Iowa and Connecticut have introduced bills prohibiting FGM and intersex surgery. California has introduced a bill prohibiting intersex surgery (it already passed an anti-FGM law in 1996). All three states have constitutional equal protection clauses. (See bill details below) On the surface, all of these bills purport to be anti-discrimination. However, by virtue of their very narrow scope, they are themselves discriminatory, said Georganne Chapin, executive director of Intact America. In their politically-correct rush to protect girls and intersex minors from invasive and unnecessary surgeries, legislators have run roughshod over the thousands of American boys whose penises are being mutilated every day. Legislators must realize that when it comes to gender equality it is an all-or-none proposition, says Chapin. Either they must rescind these unconstitutional bills, or introduce a single bill using gender-neutral language. Intact America encourages them to do the latter. These bills follow in the wake of the Federal FGM conspiracy case against a Detroit female physician Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, who allegedly circumcised girls over the past few years by cutting or removing part of their external genitalia (Nagarwala denied removing any tissue). However, Federal District Court Judge Friedman ruled that Congress did not have the authority to pass its 1996 Federal Prohibition Against Female Genital Mutilation Act, and that the law is therefore unconstitutional. The law was the basis for the original indictments. This ruling has left the federal law toothless, says Chapin. Now, in order to protect girls, states are rushing to fill the gap. But theres a problem. Any state that has an equal protection clause in its constitution, and that then passes a law that protects only girls, or (as in California, Iowa and Connecticut) only girls and intersex children, is violating its own constitution. By failing to protect boys, legislators from these states are purposely or not engaged in legislative sexism and their new laws are ripe for constitutional challenges. Intersex is an umbrella term for a host of conditions where children are born with atypical genitalia. Female genital mutilation is a collective term for a variety of surgeries varying in severity on girls anatomy; some are far less severe than removal of a boys foreskin (aka circumcision). Intact America is the largest national advocacy group working to end involuntary circumcision in America, and to ensure a healthy sexual future for all people. Intact America fulfills its mission by challenging social and sexual norms and by advocating for the health and wellbeing of all children and the adults they will become. Iowa Two bills have been introduced into the current Iowa legislative session to protect girls and intersex minors from female genital mutilation (FGM) and intersex genital surgery. Both describe unnecessary surgeries performed without valid medical need or the patients consent. House File 299, introduced February 6, would prohibit circumcision and genital mutilation of female minors for cultural reasons, but exempt valid medical necessity. House File 576, introduced March 6, would prohibit genital norming surgery upon any intersex minor without carefully obtained consent form the child. Article 1, Section 6 of the Iowa Constitution states, in part: The general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens. (read more) Connecticut Two bills have been introduced in the current Connecticut legislative session to protect girls and intersex minors from female genital mutilation (FGM) and intersex genital surgery. Both describe unnecessary surgeries performed without valid medical need or the patients consent. Senate Bill 388, introduced January 23, would prohibit genital norming surgery upon any intersex minor without carefully obtained consent from the child. Senate Bill 505, introduced January 24, would prohibit circumcision and genital mutilation of female minors for cultural reasons, but exempt valid medical necessity. Article 1, Section 20 of the Connecticut Constitution states: No person shall be denied the equal protection of the law nor be subjected to segregation or discrimination in the exercise or enjoyment of his civil or political rights because of religion, race, color, ancestry or national origin. (read more) California A bill has been introduced into the current California legislative session to protect intersex minors from genital surgery. Senate Bill 201, introduced January 1, would prohibit genital norming surgery upon any intersex minor without carefully obtained consent from the child. Article 1, Section 7(b) of the California Constitution states: A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens. Privileges or immunities granted by the Legislature may be altered or revoked. (read more) Short Stories For Young Adults: an engaging compilation, is the creation of published author Janet Gay, a retired award-winning childrens ministry teacher, serving for over three decades. She is widowed and lives in Jacksonville, Florida. Gay writes, Mary and her daughter were going on a visit to her parents farm for a fun time, but she wasnt expecting what happened along the way. Cousins went on a Valentines picnic and discovered the importance of helping others on their journey back home. It was time for the Fourth of July, so the friends got together with the entire town taking part in the celebration. The Thanksgiving program was upon them, but because of their differences, they couldnt come up with the perfect piano duo until an idea brought them together. It was Christmas, but they still didnt have a tree for their cabin. The three siblings went out looking, but meanwhile a snowstorm caught them. Sarah was expecting her husband to make it home for Christmas, but she has not heard from him. Would the weather stop his arrival? Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Janet Gays new book is a fun and poignant read, a series of lighthearted vignettes that encourage the reader on the brink of adulthood to hold fast to their faith and their values and experience life more vividly. View a synopsis of Short Stories For Young Adults on YouTube. Consumers can purchaseShort Stories For Young Adults at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Short Stories For Young Adults, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Jean Hudson, a mother of two who was born and raised in a rural community in England, where she lived before migrating to Canada with her husband and children, has completed her book Maggie: a poignant story about one womans search for love and belonging. Maggies story began at an early age in the mid-1950s to 1960s. She grew up in a hostile environment, where instead of being protected by her parents, she needed protection from them. Physical and mental abuse were almost a daily occurrence. Tormented constantly by her sister, Mary, her brother, Mike, was the only light in her life. Things did not improve as Maggie reached her teenage years; if anything, they worsened. Lack of love from her parents sent Maggie in pursuit of affection elsewhere. With no parental support or guidance, Maggie experienced her first sexual encounter at the tender age of fourteen. Depression and anxiety haunted Maggie. Marrying at an early age only served to worsen her mental state. After the birth of her daughter, Charlene, Maggie soon realized that even a new baby was not going to hold her marriage together. Maggie was seduced by a much older man, who convinced her to leave her husband, Tony, and move in with him. For the first time in her life, Maggie felt truly loved and protected, only to discover after a few short weeks of living with Hal that he had lied to her about his own marital state. Desperate to protect Charlene, Maggie had no choice but to move back to the house, which Tony had listed for sale. Once it was sold, they would go their separate ways. One day, Maggie hoped to find peace in her life. Jean Hudson proposes to donate a percentage of her profits from the sales of her book titled Maggie, to both the American and the Canadian Mental Health Assn. Mental Health illness is something that Jean Hudson feels very strongly about, knowing many people who are sadly afflicted by this illness. Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Jean Hudsons book is a warmhearted story about resilience and the universal human need for love and acceptance. Readers who wish to experience this touching work can purchase Maggie at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not overwhelmed with logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of accomplished authors and publishing professionals allows writers to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Whiteboards have traditionally been left out of the digital collaboration ecosystem and its a huge disruption to the end user collaborative experience, said David Hsieh, CEO of Kaptivo. Kaptivo, creator of the worlds best-selling whiteboard collaboration system, today announced Kaptivo Business Edition (http://www.kaptivo.com) for organizations with smaller deployments who want to experience the magic of Kaptivos whiteboard collaboration system at a lower price point. Kaptivo, which was recently named a finalist for the Best Communications/Collaboration Device Award by Enterprise Connect, will showcase Kaptivo Business Edition during Enterprise Connect in Orlando, March 18-21, 2019. Improving the collaboration experience Whiteboards are a ubiquitous communication tool that enables the transfer of knowledge, but trends within the workforce have made storing and sharing the information captured on whiteboards challenging. Kaptivo uses patented digital image processing to render, capture and stream a perfect version of the whiteboard that is viewable via the Kaptivo web-based app on any device or shared live via video conferencing systems such as BlueJeans, Cisco, LifeSize, Polycom, Zoom, and others. Everyone uses whiteboards, the question is, how do you use a physical whiteboard remotely? said Beau Huiskens, CEO of Taurus Fabrication, a company specializing in laser cutting and metal fabrication for top auto manufacturers. We work with teams in different locations around the world. Kaptivo enables us to not only share information, ideas, and diagrams from whiteboards but also to save and archive that information so that nothing is lost. By converting any whiteboard into an affordable digital collaboration system, Kaptivo simplifies the way information is shared during meetings, lectures or brainstorms for creative, executive, financial, engineering, technical teams, and more, at businesses and schools. Kaptivo Business Edition features include: Snapshots: Kaptivo automatically captures snapshots when major edits are made but users can also create, save and download snapshots Timeline slide deck: Kaptivo automatically chronicles whiteboard sessions in real-time that are viewable as a slide deck One-click integration with video conferencing systems (may require KaptivoCast accessory) Share to productivity apps such as Slack, Trello, MS Teams, and WebEx Teams Share to Learning Management Systems such as Google Classroom or Canvas and Lecture Capture Systems from Kaltura, Panopto, and others Whiteboards have traditionally been left out of the digital collaboration ecosystem and its a huge disruption to the end user collaborative experience, said David Hsieh, CEO of Kaptivo. Kaptivo Business Edition makes it easy and affordable for businesses to digitize the whiteboard. Kaptivo Business Edition is priced at $695 and can be pre-ordered at http://www.kaptivo.com with product delivery beginning April 2, 2019. To learn more about Kaptivo visit Kaptivo.com or visit Booth 1239 at Enterprise Connect in Orlando, March 18-21, 2019. About Kaptivo The whiteboard is the universal tool for communicating visual concepts--Kaptivo has digitally connected it. We turn any whiteboard--even if it was made in the 1950s--into a digital communication device that anyone can afford, making meetings, lectures or any situation involving a whiteboard better. We're not replacing the whiteboard because it's already perfectly simple. People love writing on a real whiteboard, and we help them do it more efficiently. A secure solution integrated with all major collaboration, video conferencing and LMS platforms, Kaptivo is available for businesses, schools and organizations of all sizes. Kaptivo is privately held and backed by a transatlantic syndicate of venture-capital investors including Benhamou Global Ventures (Palo Alto), Draper Esprit PLC (London) and Generation Ventures (Toronto), with offices in Cambridge, UK and San Mateo, California. To learn more about Kaptivo, visit kaptivo.com Contact: Michael Burke, michael@msrcommunications.com, (415) 989-9000 "For The Children" Lo Village X SOURcream L/S Top - $30 Merchandise has been high on the labels to do list for awhile now, but we had to figure out exactly what the merchandise would be and when the best time would be to release it, explains Rebel Music Collective partner, Joe Banania. Making their first appearance off the mic and onto merchandise, Lo Village has collaborated with local Maryland artist and creator of SOURcream, Jarrod Frank (@iwriteromancenovels), to design their first piece. Merchandise has been high on the labels to do list for awhile now, but we had to figure out exactly what the merchandise would be and when the best time would be to release it, explains Rebel Music Collective partner, Joe Banania. The LV team has known Jarrod since we were kids, and after brainstorming a few ideas, I knew our first round of merchandise was in the right hands. The long sleeve tee salutes one of the groups biggest influences, Wu-Tang Clan, reading for the children on the front chest area. When asked about the slogans significance, emcee Charles Tyler said, for the children is exactly what it says it is: for the children. Lo Village wants to inspire younger generations and give knowledge where we can. The shirts back side depicts hand drawn sketches of Lo Village members Kane, Charles, and Ama, tagged with Franks iconic, red SOURcream logo. Shirts were first sold at the trios DMV showcase last month at Baltimore Soundstage, but are currently for sale along with Lo Village stickers on the newly redesigned Rebel Music Collective website. Click here to shop. About SOURcream: Jarrod Frank started SOURcream in February of 2017 with the debut of his hand embroidered SOURcream crew neck sweatshirt. His designs are simple yet eccentric, and completely original. Year to date, he has released 13 pieces, each more unique than the last. When asked what SOURcream was, Frank simply said, some things are better unexplained. Take a hot dog for example. You dont ask any questions, you just eat it. Shop the full SOURcream collection on their Instagram page, @iwriteromancenovels. Functionality from xServer by PTV Group will be integrated into the AscendTMS transportation management system. PTV Group xServer will provide AscendTMS with distance and duration calculations, replacing Google Maps and PC Miler. It will also provide new functionality, including maps and interstate mileage reports (FSMC reporting), with an eye toward integrating additional optimization components in the future. It is a privilege to have been chosen to partner with AscendTMS, a global software leader in the logistics industry. The first phase of the integration has been a success and were looking forward to supporting AscendTMS through the rest of the rollout, said Chris Wickman, Business Development Executive at PTV Group America. We believe our calculations and optimization will give AscendTMS a competitive advantage in a crowded software environment, and well do all we can to support them. PTV Group xServer provides logistical operations with optimization and calculations, such as routing and scheduling, fleet cost calculation, and mobile asset management, via application programming interfaces (APIs). Its purpose is to boost the performance of existing software systems through the integration of the components they need most. PTV Group takes a holistic approach that integrates all aspects of traffic, transport and logistics to create and promote sustainable mobility. Recognized as global market leader, PTV develops intelligent software solutions for transport logistics, traffic planning and traffic management. Thus, cities, companies and people save time and money, enhance road safety and minimize the impact on the environment. Based on its unique expertise in every facet of mobility, PTV ensures that people and goods arrive at their destinations safely and on time. More than 2,500 cities deploy PTV products. Trips and routes for over one million vehicles are planned with our software. The European transport model, which encompasses all passenger transport and freight movements in Europe, is developed using PTV software. We currently have more than 800 employees worldwide who are committed to driving the high performance of our products. PTV Americas headquarters is in Arlington, VA, while the corporate headquarters is located in Germany. PTV plans and optimizes everything that moves people and goods worldwide it's the central idea since its foundation in 1979. PTV America, Inc. is a subsidiary of PTV Group. http://www.ptvgroup.com. EcoMark Solar So what happens if there is a power outage after I get solar? So what happens if there is a power outage after I get solar? This is a question that almost every solar customer asks their solar consultant before choosing to purchase solar panels for their homes. Unfortunately, unless there is a battery attached to the system that is charged and ready to go, it also means the power goes out for the solar customer as well. The solar inverter (the equipment that converts the DC panel-produced power to AC customer-side power) is controlled by the utility company, and if there is a power outage, the power necessary for that conversion is gone - unless there is a battery ready, waiting and wired in to handle the load. What do you worry about in a power outage? Whats at stake? is the question the solar consultant asks the customer. Is it just the food in your refrigerator or is the oxygen machine that keeps you alive or the water pump on your well or something in between? Do you experience frequent outages? How long do they last? These will be the questions asked to determine the style and size of the battery to design into your system. Batteries can handle anywhere between 4 and 12 circuits, depending on the size and style chosen. Thanks to recent advances in technology and due to the extraordinary demand for a battery solution, EcoMark Solar researched the batteries available on the market and now has multiple options for customers to add batteries to their solar systems. They range from the type that will last overnight and into the next day for a storm-caused power outage all the way to ones that create a closed-loop energy system for your home and can last for years if necessary. EcoMark Solar services a wide type of customer, from those who live off-grid totally to those grid-tied in subdivisions in major metropolitan areas. There is a battery solution available for both extremes and everything in between, Jake DiRe, CEO of EcoMark Solar explains. We listened to our customers, and addressed the most pressing need by introducing a compatible solar/battery solution. The real key to getting you the battery you need is to get to know you as a customer, which we are already doing when we design a custom solar solution for your home. Well know when we talk, if you need a battery, and if so, which type to suggest. Each of the batteries incorporate todays technology, including smart panels for you to control where power is directed, and some are even portable, DiRe continues. Even if you have had solar panels for many years, these batteries can be designed into existing systems, so the potential to solve even more energy problems using renewable and reusable energy sources has again grown by leaps and bounds. It just takes one phone call to find out more. EcoMark Solar is a Colorado-based solar panel installer, roofer and now battery supplier for Colorado market. We are currently the largest residential solar installer, and soon we will be able to say that about the installation of these eco-friendly batteries too, DiRe forecasts. Their website is EcoMarkSolar.com - and their phone is 720.432.6411. Dr. Rajan will co-present the session Caring for the Complex Medically Ill along with Mauricio Sardan, MD, a clinician from Sound Physicians, a provider-founded and led organization whose goal is the optimization of post-acute care. MCG Health, part of the Hearst Health network, and a leading provider of informed care strategies, announces Associate Managing Editor, Sabitha Rajan, MD, MSc, will speak at the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) annual conference on Mar. 25, 2019, at 3:15 p.m., in National Harbor, Maryland. Dr. Rajan will co-present the session Caring for the Complex Medically Ill along with Mauricio Sardan, MD, a clinician from Sound Physicians, a provider-founded and led organization whose goal is the optimization of post-acute care. In their session, Dr. Rajan and Dr. Sardan will define what constitutes a medically complex patient, in addition to variants of this population, the chronically critically ill. An additional learning objective for attendees will include analysis of models within anesthesia, pediatrics, and how MCG care guidelines define multiple condition management. Finally, the presenters will cover what clinicians and/or hospital systems have been doing to address the needs of this population in relation to scheduling/staffing, readmission risk reduction, and post-acute care planning. The Society of Hospital Medicine annual conference, Hospital Medicine 2019 (HM19), is billed as the largest national gathering of hospitalists in the United States. HM19 advertises a comprehensive schedule of educational and networking opportunities designed specifically for the hospital medicine professional. This years event, happening Mar. 24-27, 2019, will be held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md. Registration details and additional information can be found at https://shmannualconference.org/. About MCG Health MCG, part of the Hearst Health network, helps healthcare organizations implement informed care strategies that proactively and efficiently move people toward health. MCGs transparent assessment of the latest research and scholarly articles, along with our own data analysis, gives patients, providers, and payers the vetted information they need to feel confident in every care decision, in every moment. For more information visit http://www.mcg.com or follow our Twitter handle at @MCG_Health. About Hearst Health The mission of Hearst Health is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a persons health journey. Each year in the U.S., care guidance from Hearst Health reaches 85 percent of discharged patients, 205 million insured individuals, 77 million home health visits and 3.2 billion dispensed prescriptions. The Hearst Health network includes FDB (First Databank), Zynx Health, MCG, Homecare Homebase, MHK (formerly MedHOKMedical House of Knowledge) and Hearst Health Ventures (http://www.hearsthealth.com). Hearst also holds a minority interest in the precision medicine and oncology analytics company M2Gen. Follow Hearst Health on Twitter @HearstHealth or LinkedIn @Hearst-Health. Micromeritics Instrument Corporation today announced the appointment of ATS Scientific Inc. as Canadian distributor and service provider for Micromeritics full product line with the exception of its line of particle size measurement products. ATS products are used in the following industries: Powders, Materials Science and Engineering, Environmental Science, Food and Feed, Mining and Earth Sciences, Pharma/Nutraceuticals, Petroleum and Energy, and Cannabis Testing. Micromeritics Instrument Corporation is a global provider of solutions for material characterization with best-in-class instrumentation and application expertise in five core areas: density; surface area and porosity; particle size and shape; powder characterization; and catalyst characterization and process development. We are extremely excited to be working together with Micromeritics to provide our customers with the finest quality instruments available in the world, said Gilles Groulx, ATS Scientific Vice President, Sales and Marketing. Micromeritics serves industries from oil processing to pharmaceuticals and works at the forefront of characterization technology for next generation materials such as metal-organic-frameworks and nanocatalysts. We are very familiar with many of their offerings and are well-positioned for engineering optimal solutions for every user. ATS Scientific, with headquarters in Burlington, Ontario, is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year and have recently completed a major expansion with the creation of a new Technology Centre, which houses a dedicated room for client meetings as well as a fully operational applications laboratory. Micromeritics, established in 1962, has headquarters in Norcross, Georgia and more than 300 employees worldwide. ATS Scientific shares the same core values as Micromeritics and meets the exacting standards of every company we partner with, said Micromeritics Preston Hendrix, President of Micromeritics. They have a long record of success helping researchers in academic and high-profile industrial laboratories by providing high-quality scientific equipment. We know our companys best interests will be well served by our northern neighbor. Micromeritics Corporate Profile Micromeritics Instrument Corporation is a global provider of solutions for material characterization with best-in-class instrumentation and application expertise in five core areas: density; surface area and porosity; particle size and shape; powder characterization; and catalyst characterization and process development. Founded in 1962, the company has its headquarters in Norcross, Georgia, USA and more than 300 employees worldwide. With a fully integrated operation that extends from a world class scientific knowledge base through to in-house manufacture, Micrometrics delivers an extensive range of high-performance products for academic research and industrial problem-solving. Micromeritics customer-centric approach is evident from tactical partnerships that incubate and deliver valuable new technologies and strategic acquisitions to develop integrated solutions in the industrially vital areas of powders and catalysis. These acquisitions include Freeman Technology Ltd, a company with market-leading powder testing technology, and Process Integral Development S.L. (PID Eng & Tech), a highly-experienced provider of automated, modular microreactor systems. A cost-efficient contract testing laboratory the Particle Testing Authority (PTA) - supplies material characterization services using Micromeritics instrumentation alongside complementary solutions from other vendors. A network of offices across the Americas, Asia, and Europe, along with dedicated distributors in additional geographies, ensures that every customer has local, knowledgeable support. Micromeritics works across a diverse range of industries from oil processing, petrochemicals and catalysts, to food and pharmaceuticals, and at the forefront of characterization technology for next generation materials such as graphene, metal-organic-frameworks, nanocatalysts, and zeolites. Engineering solutions that work optimally for every user is a defining characteristic of the company. For additional information go to http://www.micromeritics.com About ATS Scientific Inc. Since 1989, ATS Scientific Inc. has been providing sales and service to the Canadian Scientific Community for a wide range of high-quality analytical instrumentation, sample preparation and materials processing equipment. They provide national leading expertise in powders and materials characterization laboratory technologies and offer immediate delivery on a variety of products. All products sold are supported by factory trained Technical Sales/Support and Service Representatives with well over 250 years combined customer support. Application driven consultations including sample evaluations and instrument demonstrations are routinely offered to their clientele. For additional information go to http://www.ats-scientific.com Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce a significant expansion of its Investigations + White Collar Defense and Corporate Governance practices with the additions of Dr. Roland Steinmeyer and Mr. Patrick Spath from WilmerHale in Berlin, who join the firm as partners. Dr. Steinmeyer and Mr. Spaths arrival builds on the momentum of the firms Global Investigations and White Collar Defense practice, which has recently expanded through the recruitment of former senior U.S. government officials, including John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for the DOJs National Security Division and former Chief of Staff to then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller; Charles Duross, former Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of the DOJ, where he led the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit; James Koukios, former Senior Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of the DOJ; Lisa Phelan, former Chief of the National Criminal Enforcement and Washington Criminal I Sections of the Antitrust Division of the DOJ; John Smith, former Director of the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC); Robert Litt, former General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and former prosecutors and SEC enforcement attorneys, including Amanda Aikman, Michael Birnbaum, Jina Choi, Carrie Cohen, Josh Hill, and Christine Wong. Roland has a stellar reputation as a leading advisor to German blue chip corporates, said Paul Friedman, Morrison & Foersters managing partner for Europe and head of the firms compliance practice. Roland and Patrick have extensive experience advising management and supervisory boards on global compliance and government enforcement issues, and on structuring compliance programs, further strengthening our ability to support clients across multiple jurisdictions and industries. Dr. Steinmeyers practice focuses on board counseling and advising clients on the impact of U.S. regulations such as the FCPA, and on German corporate and criminal laws. He also advises clients on a range of cross-border government enforcement and other compliance and corporate matters, the structuring of compliance programs, follow-on litigation, and D&O insurance coverage. Dr. Steinmeyer is counsel to Daimler AGs supervisory board in connection with the investigations by German and U.S. authorities into diesel emissions. Mr. Spaths practice focuses on compliance, corporate and criminal internal investigations, corporate governance, and related litigation. His experience spans German domestic and international anti-bribery laws, the FCPA, anti-money laundering, tax, and economic sanctions. Mr. Spath conducts related internal investigations in Germany and abroad, internal compliance reviews, due diligence of third parties, and training programs. He also regularly pursues claims arising out of compliance failures and advises on related D&O insurance coverage. Dr. Steinmeyer and Mr. Spaths recent notable mandates include advising Hessische Landesbank in relation to stock trades around dividend date, and counseling Bilfinger SE, HSH Nordbank AG and MAN SE in connection with multiple corporate internal investigations and compliance issues. We are delighted to welcome Roland and Patrick to our practice in Germany. Their truly global experience will be a significant driver in our client offering and a perfect addition to our growing team, said Dirk Besse and Kristina Ehle, co-managing partners of Morrison & Foerster's German office in Berlin. The high-profile nature of the matters that they advise on in Germany and globally makes them a standout team hire. MoFos reputation and its commitment to expanding its impressive Global Investigations + White Collar Defense practice in the past several years, together with its thriving corporate practice in Germany were key factors in our decision to join the firm, said Dr. Steinmeyer and Mr. Spath. We look forward to further building out the firms investigations and compliance offering in Germany, and working closely with colleagues in Europe and across the world to advise our clients on their complex matters. Dr. Steinmeyer earned his L.L.M. from the University of Cape Town and his Doctorate in Law from the University of Wurzburg. He is admitted to the bar in Berlin. Dr. Steinmeyer is an honorary professor at HTWG Konstanz University of Applied Sciences. Mr. Spath earned his law degree from Freie Universitat Berlin and has an L.L.M. from Kings College London School of Law. He is admitted to the bar in Berlin. Mr. Spath is a lecturer at Humboldt University Berlin, where he teaches on compliance and internal investigations. ABOUT MOFO We are Morrison & Foerster a global firm of exceptional credentials. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, investment banks, Fortune 100, and technology and life sciences companies. The Financial Times has named the firm to its lists of most innovative law firms in Northern America and Asia every year that it has published its Innovative Lawyers Reports in those regions. In the past few years, Chambers USA has honored MoFos Privacy and Data Security, Bankruptcy, and IP teams with Firm of the Year awards, the Corporate/M&A team with a client service award, and the firm as a whole as Global USA Firm of the Year. Our lawyers are committed to achieving innovative and business-minded results for our clients, while preserving the differences that make us stronger. The firm also has a long history of commitment to the community through providing pro bono legal services, including litigating for civil rights and civil liberties, improving public education for poor children, advocating for veterans, promoting international human rights, winning asylum for the persecuted, and safeguarding the environment. XBRL International, the not-for-profit standards development organisation for the digital business reporting standard, is pleased to announce that Karla McKenna, Head of Standards at the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), has been elected to its Board of Directors. Karla is an international standards specialist in the financial services area. Well known as the immediate past-Chair of the ISO Technical Committee for Financial Services (ISO/TC 68), she followed the development of the ISO standard for the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) by contributing directly to GLEIF as Head of Standards from May 2015. Karla has been involved with the XBRL community since 2009, firstly through her work on ISO standards, as well as during a previous term as a member of the Board of Directors. Robert Tarola, Chair of XBRL Internationals Board of Directors, said, We warmly welcome Karla back to the Board. She brings extremely valuable experience to the role. Her election also helps us deepen our existing and very important collaboration with GLEIF. Stephan Wolf, CEO of GLEIF said, We consider the connections between the LEI and the XBRL standard to be a natural and very relevant part of the global regulatory architecture, bringing globally unique identification together with the digitisation of performance and risk reports of all kinds. We are therefore very pleased to support Karlas involvement with XBRL International. About XBRL International XBRL International Inc. is a global not-for-profit operating in the public interest. Our purpose is to improve the accountability and transparency of business performance globally, by providing the open data exchange standard for business reporting. The standards are used by more than 130 regulators in more than 70 countries to collect high quality, reliable and timely digital business information from millions of companies around the world. We are the standards development organisation behind the freely-licensed XBRL specifications. XBRL International produces and supports the Data Amplified Conference, and certifies XBRL Software for third party software applications. @xbrlINT @DataAmplified #xbrl https://www.xbrl.org About GLEIF Established by the Financial Stability Board in June 2014, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) is a not-for-profit organization created to support the implementation and use of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). GLEIF is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. GLEIF services ensure the operational integrity of the Global LEI System. GLEIF also makes available the technical infrastructure to provide, via an open data license, access to the full global LEI repository free of charge to users. GLEIF is overseen by the LEI Regulatory Oversight Committee, which is made up of representatives of public authorities from across the globe. For more information, visit the GLEIF website at https://www.gleif.org/en The teams years of experience and deep industry relationships will strengthen and extend our insurance offerings to clients," said Mike Schneider, president of NFP's Central region. NFP, a leading insurance broker and consultant that provides employee benefits, property and casualty, retirement, and individual solutions, today announced that it has acquired BD Capital Partners LLC. The transaction closed effective December 1, 2018. Headquartered in Mason, Ohio, BD Capital is an insurance broker that offers property and casualty solutions to clients across the Midwest. BD Capital serves as a trusted advisor in designing personalized insurance solutions to meet clients needs. Former principals Brian Young and Dave Hollenbaugh will join NFP as senior vice presidents, reporting to Mike Schneider, president of NFP's Central region. We are thrilled to welcome Brian, Dave and the entire BD Capital team to the NFP family, said Schneider. The teams years of experience and deep industry relationships will strengthen and extend our insurance offerings to clients. NFPs commitment to helping clients achieve their goals made this an attractive choice for us, said Young. We are excited to add to NFPs broader spectrum of expertise, but we also see this as an ideal opportunity to deliver more value to our clients through our local presence and access to the reach, resources and capabilities of a national firm. About NFP NFP is a leading insurance broker and consultant that provides employee benefits, property and casualty, retirement and individual solutions through our licensed subsidiaries and affiliates. Our expertise is matched by our commitment to each client's goals and is enhanced by our investments in innovative technologies in the insurance brokerage and consulting space. NFP has more than 4,700 employees and global capabilities. Our expansive reach gives us access to highly rated insurers, vendors and financial institutions in the industry, while our locally based employees tailor each solution to meet our clients' needs. Weve become one of the largest insurance brokerage, consulting and wealth management firms by building enduring relationships with our clients and helping them realize their goals. Recently NFP was named the 2nd largest retirement plan aggregator firm, as ranked by Investment News; the 5th largest US-based privately owned broker, the 6th largest benefits broker by global revenue and the 7th best place to work in insurance by Business Insurance; the 10th largest property and casualty agency by total 2017 P&C revenue and the 10th largest commercial lines agency by total 2017 P&C and commercial lines revenue by Insurance Journal; the 11th largest broker of US business by Business Insurance; and the 12th largest global insurance broker by Best's Review. For more information, visit NFP.com. In God We Trust: Further Along the Spiritual Journey of a Patriotic Christian Convict: a defining narrative that chronicles the authors circumstances in life that led to a deeper relationship with the Lord. In God We Trust: Further Along the Spiritual Journey of a Patriotic Christian Convict is the creation of published author, P.B. Turner, a lifelong business entrepreneur, a father of seven, and a devout Christian. Turner shares, I was in shock. One day, I was running my own business, with my family and myself as the majority shareholders. The next day, I was someone looking at my business from the outside, facing criminal charges and possible jail time. I was also witnessing all of my hard-earned assets disappear into a legal morass over which I had zero control. And it was all due to what was certainly an error in judgment, but nothing that was criminal as dened by the statutes of the United States government. "My wife and I were not prepared, however, for how God would turn this tragedy into triumph. After much prayer and soul searching, we decided the best course of action was to plead guilty to one felony charge and let God take over from there. It was a decision we will never regret. I experienced a seventy-week adventure in a federal prison camp that propelled my walk with God to levels I wish I had attained many years earlier. In prison, I teamed up with some of the nest and most mature Christians I have ever met. We cultivated our own church, expanded each others Biblical knowledge, and helped other inmates nd salvation through the loving grace of Jesus Christ our Lord. "This book describes in detail, month by month, my experiences in prison and my growing Christian worldview. I examined each months current events in the world and reected on how Christians might react to them. My growing biblical knowledge strengthened my prayer life, and my conversations with the Holy Spirit convinced me that part of my Christian mission was to share with the world what you will read in this book. "In God We Trust is not just for Christians but also for anyone who is curious and wants to understand the Christian worldview. In America, we live in a nation divided by worldviews, and often those arguing for their cause have no clue how the other side thinks. I hope this book helps bridge that gap. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, P.B. Turners new book is the authors pure testament of Gods grace and goodness for those who seek his will and love. View a synopsis of In God We Trust: Further Along the Spiritual Journey of a Patriotic Christian Convict on YouTube. Consumers can purchase In God We Trust: Further Along the Spiritual Journey of a Patriotic Christian Convict at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about In God We Trust: Further Along the Spiritual Journey of a Patriotic Christian Convict, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Non-toxic & permanent: Penetrons crystalline materials are NSF-61-certified (for potable water applications) and contain no VOCs. They are used in drinking water systems around the world. Switching to an integral, crystalline solution for the water tanks helped keep the Popocatepetl project on time and on budget. Inaugurated in early 2019, the Popocatepetl 526 residential & commercial complex highlights the benefits of Penetron technology in the high water table environment prevalent in Mexico City. Penetron Admix, a non-toxic admixture, keeps the drinking water tanks safe from any leakage or possible pollution from outside sources. A well-known developer and general contractor specializing in residential developments, Quiero Casa has designed and built over two dozen residential projects in and around Mexico City. The companys newest project, the Popocatepetl 526 mixed use (housing & commercial) complex is notable for its three five story towers: an apartment tower, an office tower and a shopping mall in the third tower, surrounded by landscaped green spaces. Salomon Shabot, an engineer and the projects construction manager (as well as the owner of Quiero Casa), previously used a combination of exterior coatings and membranes to protect the below-grade concrete structures and water tanks. However, the maintenance costs and time required to maintain this type of waterproof solution led to a search for a better idea. About three years ago, he reached out to Penetron Mexico to learn more about the advantages of the crystalline Penetron System for the potable water tanks and the water treatment plants that are part of the Quiero Casa residential projects. Challenging Local Geology Quiero Casa was one of the first clients to ask us about a waterproofing solution for a residential application, explains Alejandro Mucino, the Managing Director of Penetron Mexico. The company is an important residential developer in Mexico City, and were now working on several projects with them. Some of these projects include tall buildings, which are particularly challenging due to the phreatic conditions of the soil geology in Mexico City. The sensitivity and importance of clean drinking water structures require a completely non-toxic and permanent solution. Penetrons crystalline materials are NSF-61-certified (for potable water applications), completely non-toxic and they contain no VOCs. They have been used successfully in potable drinking water systems around the world from the USA to Saudi Arabia. The water cistern that supplies all the drinking water for the Popocatepetl 526 apartment inhabitants, the office tower, and the mall has a 60,000-liter (15,900 gallon) capacity. The water treatment plant features a treatment capacity of 60,000 liters (15,900 gallons). Because these below-grade concrete tanks are located under the parking garage, having an absolutely watertight solution was a priority to ensure faultless water quality. Saving Time, Staying on Budget Cemex Concretos supplied the concrete mix directly to the construction site, where Penetron Admix was added to the mix on-site in a quick and straightforward process by the Quiero Casa engineer. Over 2,000 m3 (2,650 cubic yards) of concrete used for the water tank and water treatment facility were treated with PENETRON ADMIX. Additional concrete was treated with Penetron Admix and used in the green spaces and decorative water fountains surrounding the Popocatepetl towers, which cover the parking garage. Switching to an integral, crystalline solution for the water tanks helped keep the Popocatepetl project on time and on budget, adds Alejandro Mucino. The Penetron Group is a leading manufacturer of specialty construction products for concrete waterproofing, concrete repairs and floor preparation systems. The Group operates through a global network, offering support to the design and construction community through its regional offices, representatives and distribution channels. For more information on Penetron waterproofing solutions, please visit penetron(dot)com or Facebook(dot)com/ThePenetronGroup, email CRDept(at)penetron(dot)com, or contact the Corporate Relations Department at 631-941-9700. Periodontal disease, where bacterial infection of the gums causes chronic inflammation that can eventually lead to tooth loss, affects nearly 50% of the US population. Making this disease particularly challenging to treat is the fact that the bacteria adhere to tooth surfaces in a biofilm state, where the cells are enmeshed in a sticky extracellular material that makes them more resistant to antibiotic treatment. While mechanical scrapping below the gum line helps remove biofilm from the surface of teeth, in some cases the subsequent use of systemic antibiotics to kill off residual bacteria is warranted. The problem, however, is that the there are >500 bacterial species in the oral cavity and the prescription of antibiotics for periodontal disease is largely a trial-and-error process. Dentists simply dont know, a priori, which antibiotic(s) will be most efficacious for a specific patient, and in some cases choosing the wrong antibiotic can actually stimulate biofilm growth. Microbiologist Dr. Alex Mira and his colleagues at the FISABIO Institute (Valencia, Spain) are taking the guesswork out of this process by using the xCELLigence technology from ACEA Biosciences, now part of Agilent Technologies. Dr. Miras clinical research involves collecting a sample of a patients oral biofilm, and growing it within a specialized electronic microtiter plate in the presence or absence of different antibiotics. The ability of each antibiotic to suppress growth of the mixed species bacterial biofilm is quantified in real-time using an xCELLigence instrument. Dr. Miras team has demonstrated that the relative abundance of the different bacterial species collected from the mouth is preserved throughout the course of the xCELLigence analysis. This is critical because the goal of this work is to determine whether the ex vivo screening results from xCELLigence are predictive of how a drug will behave within the nascent bacterial milieu of a patients gums. Over the next six months, Dr. Miras team expects to evaluate enough samples to enable a statistically significant comparison of three treatment approaches: traditional prescription of antibiotics, prescription of antibiotics informed by DNA-based identification of select periodontal pathogens, and prescription of antibiotics based on the xCELLigence analysis. We are so impressed by the vision and execution of this clinical research program by Dr. Mira and his team. We are exceptionally optimistic that, by replacing traditional guesswork with definitive answers, their work will reduce the time and cost of treating periodontal disease, stated Dr. Yama Abassi, Vice President of Business Development at ACEA Biosciences. In addition to this ongoing clinical research, Dr. Mira and his team are actively recruiting partners whod like to employ their xCELLigence assay to discover novel drugs or validate existing technologies focused on modulating the oral microbiome. View a short video of Dr. Mira describing the xCELLigence initiative here. About xCELLigence Real Time Cell Analysis (RTCA) ACEA Biosciences xCELLigence RTCA instruments are being used in both academia and industry for life science applications ranging from cancer immunotherapy, bacterial biofilms, vaccine development and cardiotoxicity testing. With the xCELLigence technology, scientists can non-invasively monitor the behavior of cells by quantifying cell proliferation, morphology change, and attachment quality in a label-free, real-time manner. About ACEA Biosciences, A Part of Agilent Technologies ACEA Biosciences, a part of Agilent Technologies, is a pioneer in the development and commercialization of high performance cell analysis platforms for life science research. ACEAs xCELLigence Real-Time Cell Analysis instruments and NovoCyte Quanteon flow cytometers are used in pre-clinical drug discovery and development, toxicology, safety pharmacology, and basic academic research. More than 3,000 instruments have been placed globally, and have been used in more than 2,000 peer-reviewed publications. For more information visit http://www.aceabio.com Follow on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook For further information please contact: ACEA Biosciences, Inc. Dr. Jeff Xue Phone: 858-299-8023 email: jxue(at)aceabio(dot)com We are pleased to commission the CAB and begin work to deploy the MyCancerJourney platform to improve outcomes for patients with cancer, enhance quality of life and lower costs significantly for patients, self-insured employers and the U.S. healthcare system. POTENTIAMETRICS, an Austin, TX based healthcare data and analytics company, announced the formation of The MyCancerJourney Clinical Advisory Board (CAB) with Jay Piccirillo, M.D. as Chair of the Advisory Board. Im honored to lead this exceptionally talented multi-disciplinary group of specialists, MDs, and medical researchers. As we introduce the CAB over the next several weeks, youll recognize their commitment to empowering newly diagnosed cancer by providing information to make more informed decisions related to treatment options, stated Dr. Piccirillo. Dr. Piccirillo is a Professor of Otolaryngology at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine where he serves as the Vice Chair for Research and Director of the Clinical Outcomes Research Office. Dr. Piccirillo is also Editor in Chief of JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. MyCancerJourney was developed by Dr. Piccirillo and Researchers at Washington University with the goal to provide patient-specific survival estimates, improve patient decision making and outcomes for newly diagnosed cancer patients. We are pleased to commission the CAB and begin work to deploy the MyCancerJourney platform to improve outcomes for patients with cancer, enhance quality of life and lower costs significantly for patients, self-insured employers and the U.S. healthcare system, noted Kendall Qualls, Chief Commercial Officer for PotentiaMetrics. He continued by saying, over the next several weeks well introduce the stellar group of physicians, surgeons, researchers that were eager to join our efforts to empower and dramatically change how patients with cancer make decisions about their treatment. About PotentiaMetrics PotentiaMetrics develops unique outcomes and insights solutions to support more informed, value-based treatment decisions that lead to better outcomes and reduced costs. To learn more about PotentiaMetrics, visit: http://www.potentiametrics.com To learn more about MyCancerJourney, visit: http://www.mycancerjourney.com PrimePay, LLC today announced a new contest to celebrate small businesses and their Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). Spanning until the end of the official tax season, the contest will reward these financial advisors for making it through this daunting time of year - and helping their small business clients succeed. To enter the contest, a small business owner must like a post on PrimePays Facebook or LinkedIn feeds, and give a shout out to their CPA in the comments section. The winning small business will receive a $50 Starbucks gift card for themselves, as well as one for their CPA. The contest will begin on March 18, and the winner will be announced on April 20, on the heels of Tax Day. With the recent changes brought on by tax reform, small business owners were met with a lot of confusion this tax season. This is a nice little pick-me-up, and a way to say thank you to all of the financial professionals who have been working hard to keep clients compliant the last few months, said Jeffrey Sorrell, PrimePays SVP of Payroll Tax and Benefit Services. Though passed in December of 2017, the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are ever-evolving. The new law changed tax rates and impacted certain taxpayers quarterly estimated payments. Deductions and credits were changed as well. At PrimePay, theres a full staff of tax professionals that help small businesses comply with legislation changes like the TCJA, as well as stay up-to-date with all required tax filings. Clients who have PrimePays payroll tax services receive federal, state, and local tax filing and payments, and state and local returns quarterly and annually. This also includes federal unemployment tax returns. In addition to small businesses, PrimePay embraces the CPA community and works closely with these financial advisors. The contest is a great way to celebrate both audiences together. Head to PrimePay.com/giveaway to get the full details. About PrimePay 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. "We look forward to working with ProspectSV and to strengthen our ties to Silicon Valleys innovation ecosystem. - Neil Walmsley, Business Development and Partnerships Lead at EIT Climate-KIC Cleantech innovation hub, Prospect Silicon Valley (ProspectSV), has announced their partnership with EIT Climate-KIC, Europes leading climate innovation initiative. This strategic partnership will build an alliance between California and Europe and help address climate change through innovation and entrepreneurship. Both organizations are committed to this effort by supporting innovations to reduce GHG emissions through clean power generation, energy storage and energy efficiency. Established in 2010, under the European Union via the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), EIT Climate-KIC uses creativity and human ingenuity to bring together small and large companies, scientific institutions and universities, city authorities, and other public bodies to work on innovation and to adapt to its unavoidable impacts. Neil Walmsley, Business Development and Partnerships Lead at EIT Climate-KIC said, we look forward to working with ProspectSV and to strengthen our ties to Silicon Valleys innovation ecosystem and to forge a strong alliance with the State of California in support of trade and job creation in the cleantech market. ProspectSV has established itself as a valuable resource for partners and innovators in cleantech because of its unique network of startups, public and private sector organizations, academia, investors and subject matter experts. Based in San Jose, CA, ProspectSV will offer access to its diverse ecosystem in support of bridging the two communities. This partnership will link EIT Climate-KIC to the Silicon Valley innovation hub and create new possibilities with the European Union, extending the reach for existing startups to make an impact. We are pleased to have this opportunity to work with EIT Climate-KIC to establish strong ties with innovation communities in the European Union for the bilateral transfer of knowledge and technology, said Ruth Cox, CEO of Prospect Silicon Valley. About ProspectSV: ProspectSV is a nonprofit cleantech innovation hub that focuses on advanced mobility and energy solutions for urban communities. By collaborating with key partners and providing resources for entrepreneurs in the field, ProspectSV is working to improve urban sustainability. ProspectSV provides technical insight, connections to partners / investors, pilot opportunities, and access to their Technology Demonstration Center and test beds. The organization has shown their commitment to innovative technologies and the business models that support them. ProspectSV has provided support to over 25 startups that have raised close to $200M in follow-on funding and helped raise more than $80M in grant funding for demonstration projects. For more information visit http://www.prospectsv.org or follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. About EIT Climate-KIC: EIT Climate-KIC is the EUs largest public private partnership addressing climate change through innovation to build a zero carbon economy. The organisation addresses climate change across four priority themes: urban areas, land use, production systems, climate metrics and finance. Education is at the heart of these themes to inspire and empower the next generation of climate leaders. EIT Climate-KIC runs programmes for students, start-ups and innovators across Europe via centres in major cities, convening a community of the best people and organisations. Its approach starts with improving the way people live in cities. The organisations focus on industry creates the products required for a better living environment. EIT Climate-KIC looks to optimise land use to produce the food people need. EIT Climate-KIC is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. For more information visit http://www.climate-kic.org. Our Gun Idolatry by Edward L Alban Even before victims from one mass shooting can be properly mourned and buried, another has just occurred and another and another. When will this insanity stop? Americas obsession with guns is venturing into the realm of lunacy, states "Our Gun Idolatry" author Edward L. Alban. Guns in this country are cheap and easy to obtain, are lawfully protected, and are rarely blamed when tragedy strikes. Gun advocates cite rationalizations for gun rights based on imprecise wording in the 200-year-old Second Amendment to the Constitution, while shooting deaths continue to climb. Even as schools, offices, theaters, and malls are being riddled with bullets, and family and friends of the victims express outrage, the killing continues. The book demonstrates ways in which guns can keep a place in society, but one built on a foundation of safety and accountability. About the Author: Edward Alban was born in Ecuador but has lived in the United States and has been immersed in its culture for more than 60 years. He is a retired professor of economics with a body of published work, including a novel, a collection of short stories, and contributions to numerous literary journals. The compelling new book OUR GUN IDOLATRY (ISBN: 978-1-984375-12-4) is now available for $9.99 (Kindle: $3.99) and can be ordered through the publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishings website: http://www.amazon.com/Our-Gun-Idolatry-Edward-Alban/dp/1984375121 The Gateway team has built an impressive, multi-specialty practice with great patient ratings. We look forward to partnering with them to deliver even more smiles in Seattle. Smile Brands Inc., one of the nations leading dental support organizations (DSO) providing business support services to more than 400 affiliated offices across 17 states, is pleased to announce its latest partnership with Gateway Dental in Seattle, Washington. Smile Brands will provide full-service administrative support to the practice, which includes purchasing, payroll, accounting, IT, billing, facilities management and marketing. Existing staff will remain in place and the business will continue to operate under the Gateway Dental brand. Dr. G. Glenn Buchanan founded Gateway Dental in 1992 with the goal of bringing healthy, beautiful smiles to patients of all ages. Today, Buchanan and partner Dr. John Kim lead a staff of fourteen from their growing downtown Seattle location which provides general preventative and restorative care, specialty care, cosmetic dentistry and emergency services. When it came time to consider partnering with a DSO, Buchanan and Kim specifically sought out Smile Brands. When looking to affiliate with a larger partner, it was important for us to find an organization that shares our values, explains Buchanan. The Smile Brands culture is about creating win-win relationships with affiliated providers, patients and the communities they serve. That aligns perfectly with our way of practicing dentistry. Dr. Kim adds, I am excited to combine Gateways long history of comprehensive care with Smile Brands philosophies and abilities to support and sustain growth. I look forward to expanding the spectrum of services we can provide our patients through the partnership. Smile Brands co-founder and CEO, Steve Bilt sees tremendous upside from partnering with Gateway Dental. The Gateway team has built an impressive, multi-specialty practice with great patient ratings, said Bilt. We look forward to partnering with them to deliver even more smiles in Seattle. About Smile Brands Inc. Based in Irvine California, Smile Brands Inc. is one of the largest providers of support services to dental groups in the United States. Recently ranked #25 on Glassdoors 2018 Best Places to Work list, Smile Brands Inc. provides comprehensive business support services through exclusive long-term agreements with affiliate dental groups, so dentists can spend more time caring for their patients and less time on the administrative, marketing, and financial aspects of operating a dental practice. Smile Brands supports nearly 400 Bright Now! Dental, Monarch Dental, Castle Dental, A+ Dental Care, OneSmile Dental, Johnson Family Dental, P3 Dental Group, and DecisionOne Dental Partners offices in 17 states, including Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. Smile Brands is a portfolio company of Gryphon Investors, a leading middle-market private equity firm based in San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit http://www.smilebrands.com Food Protection Manager test-takers can now test anytime, anywhere and know they are getting a recognized and valued credential. ProctorU announced today that it has been selected by StateFoodSafety to deliver their ANSI-accredited Food Protection Manager Certification exam. Now, for the first time, persons-in-charge at food establishments can take their Food Protection Manager certification exam at home, rather than having to travel to a testing center. The ANSI-CFP accreditation is a greenlight to provide this great certification program nationwide. The convenience it offers the industry is pretty groundbreaking! said Bryan Chapman, CEO of StateFoodSafety. ProctorU worked closely with us every step of the way to provide the evidence and support needed to satisfy our accreditation with this innovative and revolutionary new offering. StateFoodSafety partnered with ProctorU as the first food safety certification provider to deliver its exams through online proctoring. ProctorUs Pro service gives test-takers the flexibility of testing anytime, anywhere while still upholding the strict security required by the CFP Standard. This certification communicates to the public food service, retail industry, and the public that individuals in charge at these establishments have the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to oversee the safe storage, preparation, and service of food. ProctorU Pro can be customized to meet the specific needs of professional testing organizations, and programs like StateFoodSafety appreciate the effectiveness of online proctoring to expedite certifications and expand their reach to test-takers wherever they are located. We are thrilled that StateFoodSafety is able to add online proctoring to its certification program without sacrificing its accreditation and high standards for security and control, said Scott McFarland, ProctorU CEO. Food Protection Manager test-takers can now test anytime, anywhere and know they are getting a recognized and valued credential. About ProctorU ProctorU provides a full suite of online proctoring and identity management solutions for education, professional development and credentialing organizations. With patented, 24/7 on-demand live proctoring and a fully-automated platform, both backed by artificial intelligence, ProctorU offers a powerful, convenient and cost-effective alternative to traditional test centers. ProctorU increases access to online learning while ensuring exam integrity and accountability for any test-taker with internet access using only a computer and a webcam. To learn more, visit ProctorU.com. About State Food Safety StateFoodSafety develops and publishes technology-enhanced food safety training and certification programs that provide superior value to regulatory, restaurant, and hospitality communities. Its programs are developed using the latest in instructional design research, are interactive, animated, and available in multiple languages. It is the recipient of numerous government and industry contracts nationwide for those who value credibility, technology integration, and authoritativeness. TEKLYNX Solutions Engineer Robert Lenski Im proud to be named a 2019 Food Logistics Rock Star of the Supply Chain because its testament to TEKLYNX dedication to the advancement of barcode and RFID labeling throughout the food and beverage industry. TEKLYNX Solutions Engineer, Robert Lenski TEKLYNX International, the worlds leading barcode and RFID labeling software developer and solutions provider, today announced Solutions Engineer Robert Lenski has been named a 2019 Food Logistics Champions: Rock Star of the Supply Chain by Food Logistics. The esteemed list, featured in the March 2019 issue of Food Logistics magazine, recognizes influential individuals in the food and beverage industry whose achievements, hard work, and vision have shaped and attained milestones in safety, efficiency, productivity and innovation through the global food supply chain. Im proud to be named a 2019 Food Logistics Champion: Rock Star of the Supply Chain because its testament to TEKLYNX keen ability to think outside the box, push boundaries, and forge strong relationships to ensure the continued advancement of barcode and RFID labeling within the global food supply chain, states Lenski. Our commitment to doing things the right way, eliminating re-work and ensuring accuracy result in vast improvements for companies throughout the food and beverage industry. A TEKLYNX team member for nearly a decade, Lenski has helped world-leading food and beverage companies successfully implement enterprise-level barcode labeling software solutions that improve labeling speed and efficiency. From labeling design to print, Lenski continuously leverages his expertise to transform disjointed labeling environments and systems into high-performing supply chain solutions that leverage a single, unified global platform positioning food and beverage companies to better serve their customers. TEKLYNX is the only barcode labeling solutions provider to offer subscription licensing allowing food and beverage manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to start using TEKLYNX for a low cost of entry while offering a portfolio of tiered solutions that are designed to grow with companies over time. To view the 2019 Food Logistics Champions: Rock Stars of the Supply Chain list visit foodlogistics.com and to learn more about TEKLYNX barcode labeling software solutions visit teklynx.com. About TEKLYNX International TEKLYNX International is the worlds leading barcode and RFID labeling software developer and solutions provider. An industry innovator for over 30 years, TEKLYNX helps companies operate smoothly and efficiently by implementing labeling solutions that streamline operations while staying ahead of industry-specific compliance and emerging regulations. TEKLYNX is world-renowned for its customer service; offering flexible purchase options, unparalleled service and support, and a comprehensive product offering that grows with companies over time. With operations in the United States, Europe, Japan, Latin America, China and Singapore, more than 750,000 companies in over 170 countries look to TEKLYNX integrated software solutions for their standard of success. Learn more by visiting teklynx.com, LinkedIn, Twitter @Teklynx, and Facebook.com/TEKLYNXInternational or call 888-629-4444. Businesses need to make sure that every platform creates an easy-to-navigate interface, solves user-centric problems, and fosters a pleasant and personal environment that users enjoy engaging with regularly. - DesignRush Founder and Executive Director Gabriel Shaoolian Research shows that every $1 that businesses invest in user experience design can cultivate a return on investment of up to $100 or more. In addition, another study found that upwards of 40% of consumers will stop interacting with a website if the design is unattractive or poor. However, due in part to ever-evolving technology, consumers user experience expectations are always shifting. DesignRush.com, a B2B marketplace connecting brands with agencies, unveiled the leading user experience design trends that will improve customer interactions, better time on site and increase revenue. These trends align with current emerging tech advances and reflect the new expectations that consumers have from businesses. The top 3 user experience design trends are: 1. Personalization Personalization across digital platforms is proven to increase click-through rates, time spent on site, conversions and bottom lines. For example, one study found that personalized calls to actions increased conversions by more than 200%. Businesses can incorporate personalization into: Email campaigns. Product recommendations. Content suggestions. Chatbot interactions. And more! Brands that capitalize on personalization also have the opportunity to gather relevant data for other campaigns and initiatives. For instance, a study from Salesforce found that: 57% of consumers will share personal information for custom discounts and sales. 52% of consumers will share personal information for product recommendations. 53% of consumers will share personal information for customized shopping experiences. 2. Content-Driven Experience Its no secret that content marketing is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. After all, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing yet creates three times more leads. But it turns out that content marketing in all its forms can drastically improve the overall user experience on websites, too. Brands that invest in content marketing can build a stronger and more transparent relationship with customers and inform them about relevant information both of which improve UX, returning consumer rates, and time on site. In fact, 78% of users believe that brands who generate more custom content are more trustworthy. The types of content marketing that improve user experience include: Blogs and articles. Videos, multimedia and motion graphics. Animations and illustrations. Podcasts. Webinars. And more! 3. Augmented Reality AR/VR is slowly but surely creeping its way into web designs, mobile apps, video marketing campaigns, social media and more! But although virtual reality has the power to completely transform a users reality, augmented reality has the ability to manipulate a consumers experience in a more believable manner, which is proving to be more valuable to brands. Plus, augmented reality can be more cost-effective to produce and easier to release to the public on a multitude of platforms. Augmented reality can improve UX design by: Training employees in certain processes or environments. Demonstrating how a product or service will work or look in a users real environment. Replicating brick and mortar store experiences online. Creating comprehensive models and mockups of products. And more! Plus, augmented reality, in particular, demonstrates a strong return on investment. By the year 2020, AR is projected to have 1 billion users. Whats more, the market is expected to surpass $61 billion by 2023. A positive user experience is the most important aspect of a brands online presence, says DesignRush Founder and Executive Director Gabriel Shaoolian. Businesses need to make sure that every platform creates an easy-to-navigate interface, solves user-centric problems, and fosters a pleasant and personal environment that users enjoy engaging with regularly. DesignRushs Agency Listing section features the top local and global UX design firms. Some of the top user experience design agencies from around the world include: 1. 36creative 36creative is greater Bostons award-winning creative agency, offering brand strategy and creative production since 2004. Their team of experts combines outstanding artistry and technical mastery to build brands a core product that drives home impactful results. Visit 36creative online at: https://36creative.com/ 2. Altr Altr makes 21st-century brand experiences. They make digital products and brand platforms for companies who know that technology and ideas are opportunities, but strategy and design create true disruption and sustainable value. Altrs model is to assemble the fewest amount of people, but exactly the right people, to form a hands-on, senior team specifically aligned to the challenge at hand. Altr is a close, proven network of independent, executive-level strategists, creatives, UX architects, designers, writers, and techno-maniacs led by partners Christine Pillsbury and Geordie McClelland. Visit Altr online at: https://www.getaltrd.com/ 3. Blueliner Simply put, the Blueliner Marketing approach works. They assist businesses in generating and maintaining sustainable growth by providing authentic and affordable marketing services that deliver outstanding results. Blueliner provides clear insights and direction on the most effective direct promotional channels. They have a proven track record in the best practices for social and digital ads including selecting the right platform, shaping content, and managing frequency. They are also adept at identifying the best primary key performance indicators to track for an optimal return-on-investment. Through services such as SEO, digital advertising, content marketing, social media marketing, web design and development, and marketing strategy, they can help take brands the next level. Visit Blueliner online at: https://blueliner.io/ 4. Bornfight Bornfight is a digital innovation company that creates progress by combining business strategy with design and technology. Their team consists of 60 designers, developers, business strategists, and other industry experts focused on creating advanced solutions that solve complex challenges and achieve their clients goals. Bornfight designs and develops custom software, digital products, mobile applications, advanced websites, blockchain technology, and interactive solutions. Visit Bornfight online at: https://www.bornfight.com/ 5. Brightscout The expert team at Brightscout specializes in building innovative technology solutions for enterprises. Their products and services unleash new levels of productivity, enhance collaboration amongst team members, and streamline large-scale communication. They utilize a powerful mix of exquisite design and innovative technology to resolve the issues that hold back many companies today. Visit Brightscout online at: https://www.brightscout.com/ 6. Codewave Technologies Codewave was founded in May 2013 with a vision to help businesses with their digitization goals. The team has grown organically from 4 to 45 and has seen high engagement, with a people-first approach. Codewave is one of the first companies to make growth a daily affair with peer to peer feedback, eliminating annual performance reviews. Visit Codewave Technologies online at: https://codewave.com/ 7. Consensus Interactive A majority of companies continue to struggle to implement strategies and tactics in a way that delivers a cohesive and integrated experience across the entire digital journey. At Consensus, their goal is to transform an audiences end-to-end digital journey and fundamentally create different customer experiences based on different buying personas (or roles) across the digital ecosystem. Visit Consensus Interactive online at: https://www.consensusinteractive.com/ 8. CyberCrow CyberCrow is a digital agency where strategy meets sophisticated technology. They build cloud apps, mobile apps (iOS and Android) and bring marketing campaigns to life. CyberCrow is a different type of agency because they won content networks, content aggregators and have relationships with digital publishers. Visit CyberCrow online at: http://cybercrow.com/ 9. DePalma Studios DePalma Studios user-first approach to custom software development makes complex things more simple, human and fun. Their focus on human-centered design is what sets them apart from other development shops and ultimately, what makes the applications that they build so successful. Visit DePalma Studios online at: https://www.depalmastudios.com/ 10. DotLabel UX Digital Agency DotLabel is an award-winning digital agency with a passion for user experience and simplifying complex online processes. They create user-centric, results-driven websites, mobile apps, bespoke web applications, portals, intranets and unique digital experiences based on expert research and insights. Visit DotLabel UX Digital Agency online at: https://www.dotlabel.co.uk/ 11. Fresh Tilled Soil Fresh Tilled Soil is a user interface and experience design firm at the forefront of crafting digital and environmental experiences. Their clients are industry leaders and aspiring challengers. By putting humans at the center of their process, understanding their behaviors and learning how they interact with their clients products, Fresh Tilled Soil helps brands create memorable experiences that lead to discernible business growth. Visit Fresh Tilled Soil online at: https://www.freshtilledsoil.com/ 12. Highland Solutions Highland Solutions is a customer experience firm with a fierce commitment to keeping people at the center of their work. They use their skills in CX strategy, custom software development, and CRM implementation to help innovative leaders understand their customers and take smart risks. Highland Solutions love working with customer-centric, mission-driven organizations who want to adopt the principles of more disruptive businesses to take their impact to the next level. Visit Highland Solutions online at: https://www.highlandsolutions.com/ 13. Idea Rebel Idea Rebel creates exceptional digital experiences. Their multi-disciplinary teams share the same collaborative office space, constantly exchanging ideas, consulting on decisions and analyzing evolving user expectations. Its how they successfully produce forward-thinking digital products for some of the worlds top brands, from the first 360-degree app for BMW to the full eCommerce UX and Redesign of Keurig. Visit Idea Rebel online at: https://www.idearebel.com/ 14. Idea Theorem Idea Theorem is a Toronto-based UI/UX design agency. They create simple and usable experiences for web and mobile. Idea Theorems human-centered design approach lets them understand their clients customers, identify their pain points and deliver solutions that enhance their experience with every brand. Visit Idea Theorem online at: https://www.ideatheorem.com/ 15. Kayak Online Marketing Kayak Online Marketing is a unique approach born of stage 4 cancer and an economic downturn. The founder Randy Milanovic set out to help marketers achieve business goals through their 5-stage digital marketing approach aimed at building businesses online. Visit Kayak Online Marketing online at: https://www.kayakonlinemarketing.com/ 16. LimeRed LimeRed is both a Certified B Corporation and a Certified Woman-owned (WBE). They design brands, business strategy, and digital products. LimeRed is a small team of designers, researchers, and builders who have dedicated their lives to creating change. All of the work that they do has to prove a community benefit and meet their own conscious standards. Visit LimeRed online at: https://www.limeredstudio.com/ 17. Pengreen Design Pengreen Design offers UX/UI design services for small companies, mainly working with long-term partners to help them deliver better experiences to their clients, with a small but focused and highly experienced team of designers. Their team works remotely and with flexible hours, making the company 100% digital. Therefore, Pengreen Design is able to handle the projects of clients worldwide. They have been working with companies from several countries, such as United States, Australia, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Canada, South Africa, and Brazil. Visit Pengreen Design online at: https://www.pengreendesign.com/ 18. Robosoft Technologies Robosoft is a full-service digital experiences agency. They have worked with some of the largest global brands on their digital advisory, strategy, UX/UI design, and engineering services, covering end-to-end mobile app development, emerging technologies like AR / VR, wearables, chatbots and more. Robosoft Technologies started in 1996 with Apple as one of their first clients working with them on the Mac platform. Since they ventured into mobile in 2008, Robosoft Technologies has designed and developed over 1,800 mobile apps and digital products across platforms and devices. Their apps have garnered over a billion downloads and their work has delivered business impact for their clients, in terms of increased user engagement and revenue. Visit Robosoft Technologies online at: http://www.robosoftin.com/ 19. Scketch Digital Solutions Scketch is a design prodigy that fulfills brands digital needs right from idea incubation to launch, from its design to development, from iterating to marketing. They are equipped with an arsenal of design principles and are trained in understanding business needs from an end user perspective to craft the best experience possible. Visit Scketch Digital Solutions online at: https://www.scketch.com/ 20. Sombra Sombra is a global software development company with delivery centers in Eastern Europe. They seek to transform businesses through technology and know how to simplify business operations and improve daily work processes. During the last five years, Sombra developed a portfolio of 300+ web applications in various business domains. Their major focus is to provide startups with software services and development teams. They also specialize in digital and cloud transformation for small and medium business. Visit Sombra online at: https://sombrainc.com/ 21. Super User Studio Super User Studio is a digital product and service design consultancy. They solve complex problems using intelligent design thinking and user insight to drive businesses forward. At the intersection of digital product design and management consultancy, Super User Studio's measured approach balances strategy with pragmatism. They have considerable experience in supporting digital transformation and innovation in enterprise level companies and large media organizations. Visit Super User Studio online at: https://www.superuserstudio.com/ 22. TA Digital TA Digital is an innovative digital transformation agency, specializing in delivering a digital experience, commerce, and marketing solutions. For nearly two decades, they have been helping traditional businesses transform and create dynamic digital cultures through disruptive strategies and agile deployment of innovative solutions. TA Digital is known as a global leader in the digital technology industry for helping marketing leaders achieve their revenue targets, create profitable, omnichannel customer and commerce experiences. TA Digital has high-level strategic partnerships with digital technology companies Adobe, Microsoft, Sitecore, Acquia, Marketo, SAP Hybris, Elastic Path, IBM Watson Marketing, Coveo and Episerver. The company was named on 2013, 2014, 2015 Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the United States. Visit TA Digital online at:https://www.tadigital.com/ 23. The App Solutions The App Solutions is a web and app development company that turns their clients ideas into a new driving force of their business. The App Solutions hires brilliant web and mobile app developers to deliver projects on time and maintain the top-notch code standards. Visit The App Solutions online at: https://theappsolutions.com/ 24. TriLion Studios TriLion Studios is a design and development company based in Lawrence, Kansas on the edge of Kansas City. The corporation was started in 2000 as a contract design business to other design agencies. The name was changed to TriLion Studios in 2009 as the studios team grew and our company added services. Their projects use usually two to four team members at a time. They like to keep the teams small so communication is fast, easy, and efficient. Visit TriLion Studios online at: https://www.trilionstudios.com/ 25. UX Studio UX Studio is a Budapest-based 30-person company passionate about creating enjoyable digital products. Unless it comes to design, they are not so big on hierarchy. Instead, UX Studio is a flat organization of highly-empowered super motivated colleagues where people can freely exchange ideas. They believe that continuous research helps us understand customers needs so that they can build products people truly enjoy. The UX Studio team thrives in an environment where they can work as partners with their clients. Visit UX Studio online at: https://uxstudioteam.com/ux-agency/ 26. The Creative Momentum, LLC The Creative Momentums range of services includes branding, website design and development, SEO, PPC, explainer videos, and inbound marketing. Their clients range from entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies in a wide range of industries. The Creative Momentum team has over 15+ years of experience in their areas of expertise. The Creative Momentum has been recognized as a thought-leader in the industry with numerous awards. Visit The Creative Momentum online at: https://www.thecreativemomentum.com/ Brands can view the best UX design companies by average hourly rates, case studies, leadership, rankings and more on DesignRush. Users can easily filter to compare user experience design agencies and find the best UX designers that can create a positive user experience for every consumer. About DesignRush: DesignRush.com is a B2B marketplace connecting brands with agencies. DesignRush features the top agencies around the world, including the best User Experience Design Companies, Digital Agencies, Logo Design, Branding, Digital Marketing, Website Design, eCommerce Web Design Companies, and more. I know that to win the #1 Quality Built Award, you cant do it alone, noted Mike Holmes, TV Host and President for The Holmes Group. You need a dedicated team, at every level of the organization, that truly believes in the value that comes with caring about ensuring the highest standards.. On February 19, 2019, over 185 international builders, product manufacturers, and insurance companies gathered at the Stratosphere Casino, Hotel & Tower (The Strat) in Las Vegas, NV for the unveiling of this years QB Builder Awards winners, based on inspection data collected by Quality Built (QB) in 2018. The annual QB Builder Awards is hosted by Quality Built, LLC, the nations leader in third-party quality assurance (QA) inspections and risk management solutions for new building construction. QB created this event to recognize the builders in their program who consistently build to a high level of quality. These builders consciously strive to raise the bar by utilizing QBs proven system to measure their performance and pursue continuous process improvement. This years Builder Awards ceremony brought in key industry players from both QBs U.S. network and the Canadian network of their strategic partner, The Holmes Group, an international brand owned by 35-year licensed contractor, Mike Holmes. The Holmes Group specializes in independent media production, new-home building, home inspections, and product development. Attendees enjoyed a gourmet, three-course meal, a product manufacturer raffle hosted by Mike Jr. and Sherry Holmes, and access to unlimited thrill rides at the Stratosphere. The award categories this year included the Superintendent Award, Top 5 Builder for 10 Consecutive Years Award, Collaboration Recognition, Quality of Construction for Building Envelope Inspections, and the #1 Award, The Quality of Construction Award for Full-Scope QA Inspections. To select the winners and to ensure a fair comparison of builder results across the nation, Quality Built ran a complex analysis using the data collected during their 2018 inspections. In 2018, Quality Built worked with nearly 1,100 builders across the United States, stated Beth Michaelis, President and Co-Founder of Quality Built. Of these builders, 85% of them are volunteer rather than insurance-mandated. This proves that todays builders are much more engaged. They are willing to go the extra mile and utilize the latest technologies to mitigate risk and meet the expectations and trends of the sophisticated homeowner. With such a head-to-head battle, coming out on top truly means something and deserves recognition! This years Superintendent Award winner was Jeffrey Massengale from the Lennar Homes Northern California Division. Remarkably so, this marks Lennars third year in a row winning this award; proving this builders commitment to instilling characteristics of leadership, accountability and integrity into their company culture. Monterey Homes was recognized for being amongst the top five builders in QBs Quality Assurance program for the past ten consecutive years. Quality Built believed that being in this unique stance warranted a recognition. The builder has not had the opportunity to win the #1 award due to minimal factors such as not building enough homes to compete against others in the running or being a few percentages off in their construction performance. To qualify for the Collaboration Recognition, builders had to work with QB to improve their technology, software, processes or programs in a way which would benefit all of the builders enrolled in QBs system. This years winners included Shea Homes Corporate, Beazer Homes Corporate, Woodside Homes Arizona division and Current Builders Florida division. The winner of the Building Envelope Award went to D.R. Hortons Inland Empire division. Winning the Building Envelope Award is a major accomplishment, as the building envelope is one of the most critical elements for a building - consisting of the walls, floors, roofs, doors, windows and other fenestrations of a building. This years #1 award winner, taking home the Quality of Construction Award for Full-Scope QA Inspections was Beazer Homes Northern California Division. To qualify for the #1 award, builders had to construct at least 50 units annually, be enrolled in the QB program for three years, and maintain consistent quality of construction spanning across all projects within their division. Full-Scope QA Inspections are among QBs most comprehensive services, and addresses the foundation (pre-pour), windows pre-wrap and post-wrap, exterior frame, balcony waterproofing, weather-resistive barrier (WRB), lath, siding, flashings, mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP)/rough trades - interior frame, roof dry-in, and roof final. I know that to win the #1 Quality Built Award, you cant do it alone, noted Mike Holmes, TV Host and President for The Holmes Group. You need a dedicated team, at every level of the organization, that truly believes in the value that comes with caring about ensuring the highest standards are achieved for every home. I am proud of my partnership with Quality Builts inspection program. Together, were able to help identify and collaborate on best building practices combined with detailed performance verification to Make It Right the first time! About Quality Built Quality Built, established over 25 years ago, is the United States largest and most respected third-party quality assurance inspection and risk management solution provider for new building construction. Backed by a team of architects, engineers, and inspectors who average 20 years of experience in the industry, QB has developed a powerful software platform which addresses construction risk, encourages collaboration, and delivers qualitative and quantitative data. QBs inspection capabilities cover all phases of construction and include but are not limited to: Technical Plan ReviewsTM, Geotechnical Consulting, Building Envelope Inspections, Quality Assurance Inspections, Property Condition Assessments, ASTM/AAMA Water Testing, Fit and Finish Inspections, and more. To learn more about The Holmes Group and their offerings, please visit https://qualitybuilt.com. About The Holmes Group The Holmes Group is an international brand with operations in independent media production, new-home building and home inspection, residential construction and renovation, as well as product development. The Holmes Group is responsible for developing and managing all HOLMES branded entities, including Make It Right Productions, Inc., Make It Right Releasing, HOLMES Approved Homes, MIKE HOLMES Inspections, HOLMES Approved Products, HOLMES Workwear and supporting the skilled trades through The Holmes Foundation. To learn more about The Holmes Group and their offerings, please visit https://makeitright.ca/. I am pleased to host the UNCF Mayors Masked Ball again this year. Last year, we raised more than $491,000, and this years goal is $600,000. This event is important because it supports education for minority students, said Kenney. During the past 75 years, UNCF (United Negro College Fund) has helped nearly half a million students earn college degrees. As the largest and most effective minority education organization in the United States, UNCF also actively supports 37 private historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and advocates for minority higher education. As it marks such a major milestone, UNCF is planning a year-long celebration via its fundraising events across the country including the annual Philadelphia UNCF Mayors Masked Ball set for 7 p.m., Saturday, March 23 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. More than 700 guests are expected to attend, including event host the Honorable Jim Kenney, mayor, city of Philadelphia. Event co-chairs are Stephanie Mays Boyd, vice president of sales and marketing, Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority; Ric Harris, president and general manager, NBC10/Telemundo62; Alycia Horn, vice president and deputy general counsel, Comcast Cable; Joe H. Tucker, Jr., founder and managing partner, Tucker Law Group; and Dr. Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO, UNCF. I am pleased to host the UNCF Mayors Masked Ball again this year. Last year, we raised more than $491,000, and this years goal is $600,000. This event is important because it supports education for minority students, said Kenney. Many sponsors have invested in the work of UNCF to ensure that more students from the Philadelphia Region can receive a college education at an HBCU, like Cheyney and Lincoln universities, and other colleges and universities in our region like Temple, St Joseph, University of Pennsylvania, Community College of Philadelphia and Drexel. For this, I am very grateful. Investing in the college education of our young people will impact Philadelphia for many generations. The investment in our students and our HBCUs is invaluable, said Lomax. We are bringing key stakeholders together to change the narrative about HBCUs and forge better futures for deserving students and, through them, for all of us. Benefiting HBCUs and students of color, events like Philadelphia Mayors Masked Ball helped UNCF gain the resources to provide more than $3.4 million in scholarships last year to students from Philadelphia. For every scholarship UNCF gives a student, there are nine other students we must turn away, said Gregory Lyles, area development director, UNCF. UNCF is committed to providing as many students as possible with the necessary tools to improve their lives, and the Philadelphia Mayors Masked Ball helps to ensure they go to and through college successfully. The economic benefits of HBCUs extend beyond the students they educate and are equally important to the communities they serve. With the release of UNCFs landmark study, HBCUs Make America Strong: The Positive Economic Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, it is now known that Pennsylvanias two HBCUs annually generate $206 million in total economic impact and 1,660 jobs for the state. This year, UNCF will honor Comcast Corporation, Robert W. Bogle, president and CEO, Philadelphia Tribune, and Wells Fargo with the UNCF Masked Award for being beacons of hope and supporters of its mission. This years event marquis sponsor is Independence Blue Cross; presenting sponsors are Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, Comcast Corporation, NBC10/Telemundo62 and Flyers Charities, Parx Casino, PECO and AmeriHealth Caritas. Co-sponsors are Lincoln Financial, Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America and TD Bank. Jacqueline London and Brittney Shipp of NBC10 will serve as the event emcees. The signature black-tie gala will feature a VIP reception, live and silent auctions and music by DJ Gary O. For media coverage opportunities, please contact Cynetra McMillian at 202.854.0007 or cynetra.mcmillian@uncf.org. Follow this event on social media @UNCF #UNCFPhiladelphia #UNCF #UNCF75. About UNCF UNCF (the United Negro College Fund) is the nations largest and most effective minority education organization. To serve youth, the community and the nation, UNCF supports students education and development through scholarships and other programs, supports and strengthens its 37 member colleges and universities and advocates for the importance of minority education and college readiness. UNCF institutions and other historically black colleges and universities are highly effective, awarding 17 percent of African American baccalaureate degrees. UNCF administers more than 400 programs, including scholarship, internship and fellowship, mentoring, summer enrichment and curriculum and faculty development programs. Today, UNCF supports more than 60,000 students at over 1,100 colleges and universities across the country. Its logo features the UNCF torch of leadership in education and its widely recognized motto, A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Learn more at UNCF.org or for continuous updates and news, follow UNCF Florida Region on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @UNCF. Walker Sands, an integrated PR and digital marketing agency for B2B technology and professional services companies, has elevated Annie Gudorf to vice president of Public Relations. After spearheading Walker Sands expansion to Seattle in early 2018, Gudorf will be responsible for driving continued growth for Walker Sands on the West Coast. Since joining Walker Sands in 2013, Gudorf has exhibited tremendous leadership and marketing expertise. In 2017, Gudorf moved from Chicago to grow the agencys West Coast presence, and was the first employee in Seattle. Since opening Walker Sands Seattle office in January 2018, she has grown the team from one to eight full-time employees, and is currently seeking new office space to make room for the expanding headcount. Gudorf has played a pivotal role in the success of some of Walker Sands most complex clients in the B2B technology space, including Cisco, CompTIA, Owler and Nintex. Her client work has been recognized by the Public Relations Society of America, The Holmes Report and recently as finalists for the PRSA Totem Awards. One of these pieces of work was CompTIAs Rosie the Riveter #MakeTechHerStory, an integrated marketing campaign that shed light on the importance of educating young girls about careers in technology that resulted in 180+ media placements, 35,000 video views, 10,000+ monthly web visitors and 1,000 e-book downloads. Gudorf is also a well-versed speaker at industry events, most recently presenting at Content Marketing World 2018 in Cleveland. Opening an office in Seattle was a major accomplishment for Walker Sands, and Ive been so impressed with how weve immersed ourselves in the local tech community and made the city another home, said Mike Santoro, president, Walker Sands. Annie has done an incredible job building out a top-notch team and exceptional roster of clients, which have been essential to the expansion of our agency. As we head into the bulk of 2019, it will be great to see our West Coast presence continue to grow and the work we do continue to take our clients to the next level. To learn more about Walker Sands public relations offerings and Seattle team, 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. Our blog is a great resource for women to get information on specific topics from a source they trust! We encourage women to engage with our blog posts and comment any questions or feedback they may have. Womens Excellence offers new Womens Health blog. The blog is maintained by Womens Excellence providers to provide women information on a variety of health topics and current health news. "Our blog is a great resource for women to get information on specific topics from a source they trust! We encourage women to engage with our blog posts and comment any questions or feedback they may have. Our team is ready to respond and help get your questions answered. Dr. Jonathan Zaidan, MD, FACOG, President of Womens Excellence The Womens Health Blog published by Womens Excellence covers topics including: Obstetrics Midwifery Endometriosis Pelvic Pain Bladder Control Menopause Weight Management Gynecology Infertility Womens Excellence news and updates And more For more information about Womens Excellence or to schedule an appointment, visit http://www.WomensExcellence.com. Online Patient Support Specialists are available Monday through Friday from 8am-5pm to assist new, current, and prospective patients. The chat is located at the bottom right corner of your computer or mobile device screen at http://www.WomensExcellence.com. Womens Excellence is the most comprehensive obstetric and gynecologic office in Michigan. Additionally, they specialize in menopause, weight control, bladder control, endometriosis, robotic surgery, oncology, and midwifery services. Womens Excellence is committed to staying at the forefront of innovation with cutting edge technologies utilizing robotic surgery and minimally invasive surgical options when possible. The knowledgeable, compassionate physicians and healthcare providers of Womens Excellence focus on patient-centered processes to deliver the highest quality of care. They are affiliated with most insurances. They offer seamless medical record access via a state-of-the-art patient portal and use the latest technology for record keeping and sharing, making the patient experience easier and more efficient. Womens Excellence is taking new patients and is conveniently located throughout southeastern Michigan in Birmingham, Lake Orion, Clarkston, Rochester, and West Bloomfield. Coming soon, Womens Excellence will open locations in Royal Oak and Lapeer, Michigan. For more information, visit http://www.WomensExcellence.com. Arcadia Publishing has announced that bestselling author Walter Isaacson has joined the company as editor-at-large and senior advisor and will also be an investor in the publisher. Arcadia, which specializes in publishing books about local history, was acquired last May by Michael Lynton and his sister Lili, and is being run by former Perseus CEO David Steinberger. Isaacson will work part-time for the company and will acquire, edit, and promote new books that are in keeping with Aracdia's focus on helping people connect to their local history and community, Steinberger said. He will also assist in developing new strategies and partnerships. Isaacson said that the idea of working with a publisher that focuses on books about local places held great appeal. Arcadias mission immediately resonated with me, he said. I returned to New Orleans to teach at Tulane in order to reconnect with my hometown community. The search for these kinds of personally meaningful connections is an important emerging trend in America today. I am gratified to be joining with Michael, David, and Arcadia in this very worthy and timely business endeavor. In a statement, Michael Lynton said Isaacson will be a welcomed addition to the company. We are building a publishing company uniquely positioned for growth in todays retail and consumer environment, and Walters expertise and experience will be invaluable, he said. FLAIR PAYS TRIBUTE TO AITCHISON, NXT HEADING TO THE MID-WEST AND MORE NEWS WWE NXT announced a tour of the Mid-West next month with dates in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The tour, which was first announced by Triple H on Twitter, kicks off Thursday, April 25, at the Ralston Arena in Omaha, Neb. From there, the black-and-gold brand makes its debut in Davenport, Iowa, at the River Center on Friday, April 26, before taking center stage at Turner Hall in Milwaukee on Saturday, April 27. The road trip concludes Sunday, April 28, at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, Minn. Tickets go on sale 3/22. Ric Flair paid tribute to Sue Aitchison: Congrats To My Good Friend Sue Aitchison With The @WWE On Her Induction Into The WWE Hall Of Fame. WE Are All So Lucky To Have Had You In Our Lives. You Have Meant So Much To All Of Us. You Are That Person That Can Honestly Say You Are Lucky To Know Me And We All Get It! WOOOO! Ric Flair (@RicFlairNatrBoy) March 18, 2019 WWE are selling a new Roman Reigns tank top. WWE's wildest bloopers: WWE Playlist Awesome Truth reunite to reveal their favorite teams: WWE and Orange Vanilla Coke Perfect Pairings Bret Hart & Goldberg capture the WCW Tag Team Titles: WCW Thunder, Dec. 9, 1999 (WWE Network) If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here! Infrastruktura Zeleznice Srbije has ordered two CZ Loko EffiShunter 300 locomotives with 328 kW CAT C13 engines for use on shunting and light freight duties from 2020. INDIA: Tenders for design, construction and commissioning of civil engineering works on around half of the planned Mumbai Ahmedabad high speed line were invited by the National High Speed Rail Corp Ltd on March 15. The United States government is cracking down hard on Huawei. Lawmakers and intelligence officials have claimed the telecommunications giant could be exploited by the Chinese government for espionage, presenting a potentially grave national security risk, especially as the U.S. builds out its next-generation 5G network. To meet that threat, officials say, they've blocked government use of the company's equipment, while the Justice Department has also accused Huawei's chief financial officer of violating sanctions against Iran, and the company itself of stealing trade secrets. Huawei's response has been simple: it's not a security threat. Most importantly, the company's leaders have said the US has not produced evidence that it works inappropriately with the Chinese government or that it would in the future. Moreover, they say, there are ways to mitigate risk ones that have worked successfully in other countries. Huawei's chairman has even gone so far as to call the US government hypocritical, criticizing China while the National Security Agency spies around the globe. The company has also denied any criminal wrongdoing. The F-35 makers sees the Pentagon's plans to buy new F-15s for the first time in 19 years as a threat. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has reportedly been racking up kills against older warplanes during U.S. military drills in Nevada even the F-15, whose record in real combat is a flawless 104 to zero. Now the two jets are heading into a fierce dogfight, one that doesn't involve missiles or guns. In 2006, a relatively obscure book caused a major stir among the U.S. Air Force leadership. Why Air Forces Fail, edited by Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris, lays out the determinants of failure: deficiencies in the industrial base, misguided technology and tactical picks, inattention to logistics and neglect of training. The case studies are broken into three categories: Dead Ducks, those who never had a chance to win; Hares, who did well at the outset, but failed to exploit their success; and Phoenixeswho overcame early defeats to carry the day. The book crystalized the Air Force's battle with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who describes the service as one of my biggest headaches in his own book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War. In Gates' eyes, the Air Force suffered from next-war-itisfocus on future wars with peer adversaries, rather than combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The steady and costly buildup of military might in the Arctic has apparently reached a level sufficient for Russia to claim sovereign rights over international waters along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route (known in Russian as Sevmorput), from the Barents Sea in the west to Alaska and the Bering Strait in the east. Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov told journalists, This territory [the Arctic] is within the sphere of Russian interests. We will not give it away or let it slip away, despite Washingtons claims that these are international waters (Militarynews.ru, March 3). According to the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia, the Russian government has approved a draft document requiring foreign navies [to] post a request with Russian authorities to pass through the Sevmorput 45 days in advance, providing detailed technical information about the ship, its crew and destination. Moscow may allow or ban any such request, as it sees fit; and Russian maritime pilots must be present aboard foreign naval ships while they are within Sevmorput waters. Russia reserves the right to use military force to defend its sovereign rights, to arrest intruder ships, or to sink and destroy them. Long-range missile-carrying naval ships potentially threaten vital Russian strategic targets while in the Sevmorput and may also cause ecological damage. The fact that Sevmorput waters partially lie outside Russias 12-nautical-mile territorial waters limit is seen by Moscow as insignificant. The Sevmorput is a Russian national treasure that must be protected (Izvestia, March 6). The chair of the Duma (lower chamber of the Russian parliament) defense committee and a former commander of the Airborne Troops (Vozdushno-Desantnye VoyskaVDV), Colonel General (ret.) Vladimir Shamanov, confirmed the government is drafting navigation rules for the Sevmorput. He added that the Duma may make these rules more stringent to prevent foreign military activity is the Arctic: We will not stand idly by while they [the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO] flex their muscles close to our shores. The Duma may demand that armed Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards board foreign naval ships in the Sevmorput in addition to maritime pilots; and other measures may be taken to deny foreign naval activities. According to Shamanov, the Kerch Strait incident on November 25, 2018, when Russian naval ships and aircraft used violent force to attack and capture Ukrainian gunboats to deny them passage into the Sea of Azov, has taught us [Russia] an important lesson. Russia claims the Kerch Strait as its internal waterway in which the international law of the sea does not apply. The Sea of Azov and the strategically important Sea of Okhotsk in the eastern Pacific are also claimed as internal waters in which free foreign passage must be denied by force if necessary (Interfax, March 11). Apparently, the Kremlins plan is to officially enact the new rules claiming sovereign rights over Arctic waterways by summer 2019, before the floating pack ice begins to melt and the annual navigation season begins. The timing of Russias official claim of control over Arctic waters is importantit was evidently planned to coincide with the opening of multiple Russian military bases in the Arctic. Russia first developed and deployed the means to defend the Arctic and take emergency measures, according to Shamanov, to be able to attack and sink any trespassers if they do not comply. Thus, Russia has only pushed forward its legal claims after acquiring superior military capabilities in the region. New or renovated airbases have been built on Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land and the New Siberian Islands. The Russian military claims these bases will soon be operational year-roundthat is, including during the polar night (Militarynews.ru, March 11). In 2014, Russias Northern Fleet was transformed into a separate strategic inter-service command, with air force and army armored unitsequivalent in status to a military district. According to the present Northern Fleet commander, Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, his forces have been reinforced with new ships, submarines, aircraft and ?-80BVM tanks specifically designed to fight in the Arctic. During the strategic Vostok 2018 war games, a naval task force sailed from its main base in the Kola Peninsula to the Bering Strait and back againthe first time it had accomplished such a feat within one navigation seasonand it took part in military exercises along the way. Cold Warera Soviet airbases in the Arctic have been renovated and reactivated. In addition, new anti-aircraft and missile bases have been built. An air-defense base is being constructed in the port of Tiksi (Sakha Republic), on the Arctic shore of the Laptev Sea, southeast of the Lena River delta. On Kotelny Island (part of the New Siberian Islands archipelago), a Soviet airbase has been renovated and a long-range Bastion anti-ship missile battery deployed there; it was test fired in 2018 (Redstar.ru, March 11). Because of climate change, the floating pack ice is melting. In AugustSeptember, the waters are now often clear for ship passagesomething that was never possible during the 20th century. But still, Russia is building a massive fleet of nuclear-powered icebreaker ships to guarantee that the Sevmorput remains open to ship traffic. The disappearing ice is seen as an opportunity to develop oil, natural gas and other natural resources of the Russian Arctic, but the clear waters could also invite foreign trespassing. The K-300P Bastion-Ps, armed with Oniks P-800 anti-ship missiles and deployed on Kotelny Island, have a range of 600 kilometers; yet, they are located over 2,000 kilometers from Alaska, in the in Laptev Sea, where no one has ever before observed a foreign ship. Admiral James Foggo, the commander of the US Naval Forces Europe and Africa and Joint Forces Command Naples, has denounced Russian claims to control the Arctic: Its nobodys lake. Russian officials and commentators in turn have ridiculed Foggo, insisting the US does not have the equipment or icebreakers to operate in the Arctic and should refrain from such comments (Rossyiskaya Gazeta, February 22, 23). The scene thus looks set for a potential clash sometime in late summer, when the ice again recedes. Dr. Pavel E. Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based defense analyst and columnist for Novaya Gazeta as well as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He served as senior research officer in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, from where he received his Ph.D. Dr. Felgenhauer has published widely on Russian foreign and defense policies, military doctrine, arms trade and the military-industrial complex. This article appeared originally at The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. Henry Ford once said, "You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year." He was right. His statement might apply to most schools in the world. But, those schools that have a belief in future and preparation for the same, go a long way. Importance of Schooling: In the digital world, even if social media sites and video sharing platforms like YouTube, Facebook Hence, when it comes to introducing something And why not? This is the place for boys and girls to learn about their future. Adding blockchain education: At present, most of the school institutions are teaching in the computing sectors. And somehow, most of these innovations like Artificial intelligence, and Virtual reality have had to be taught in details, in schools. However, one next-gen technology got introduced a few years ago, and it is easy to use and understand by high school students too. This technology is the blockchain technology. The blockchain technology is easier for students to understand, and its importance in the future world is unmeasurable. Interesting facts: The future of this technology is a few real-life examples. Invention like the Internet got spread like wildfire when people realized about its simplicity, ease in use, There were times when people wanted to use rides like Uber. They found no need for anything which could help to find a ride. However, this is not the only option for this app. Now, hardly anybody lives without such apps. Some more facts: The global blockchain industry is anticipated to become $ 3 trillion big by 2024. As on 26 November 2016, the number of Blockchain Wallets (Credit: SteemIt, Blockchain site). Career opportunities: Its career-oriented vitality would. Big IT companies like IBM and Accenture, Oracle are working on developing a blockchain system. The LinkedIn posting for Blockchain related jobs has tripled in just one year. Microsoft has already joined the Chamber of Digital Commerce in the year 2016 to market distributed ledger technology. Around 90% of Major European and North American banks are making efforts to incorporate this technology. Universities offering blockchain: There are few schools and universities that have the direction in which the human mind is involved. New York University Stanford University IT University of Copenhagen University of Cumbria Concluding all the facts and reality, it is wrong to say that it is an important role in the future. For More Details: https://www.blocklogy.org/ Download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blocklogy.appp To Subscribe our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuuEZeumDMlhFHT866Z-8Cg/videos?view_as=subscriber CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas Although part of her job description is making sure elections are fair and square, Nueces County Clerk Kara Sands hadnt given much thought to ballot fraud until a constable candidate from a nearby suburb visited her office in May 2016. The ex-cop was familiar with how voter fraud worked, Sands said, and he was afraid that people in Robstown were using the mail-in ballots illegally in a Democratic primary runoff. That galvanized the Republican official, and it wasn't long before her second-floor office became a repository of voter mischief: Cardboard boxes, ballot application envelopes, voter registration lists and other papers heaped on an aged beige couch, a round wooden table and the across the floor. Atop one stack of papers: a list of mail-in ballot applications all signed and witnessed by the same person, a clue to illegal ballot-harvesiting. Because much of the fraud involves unwitting older voters and the homebound, Sands also visits local nursing homes and knocks on the doors of voters from whom she has received complaints. Kara Sands, county clerk: People dont even realize their votes are being stolen." People dont even realize their votes are being stolen, Sands said. The harvesters come along at election time and bring food, they have these neighborhoods mapped out and they can go door to door and build relationships. Mostly elderly people are being victimized and they dont even know it. Texas leads the nation in prosecutions of election fraud since January 2018, 33 people have been convicted of election crimes in cases brought by the state attorney generals office, and 13 more have cases pending. Still, many election experts believe that only hints at the fraud actually taking place. Texas, then, may hold lessons as voter mischief, especially involving mail-in ballots, is receiving intense national scrutiny: Last November, legal third-party ballot harvesting in California may have helped Democrats score upsets in congressional races, while in North Carolina similar but illegal harvesting operations prompted officials to call a new election. Texas is like every other state in that it does not have a well-financed bureaucracy responsible for safeguarding ballot integrity. Instead, this duty largely falls to and is jealously guarded by -- local officials in each of the states 254 counties. As a result, even in Texas, exposing election fraud relies on a disorganized, ad hoc group of aggrieved candidates and political partisans who suspect foul play. Even then, they must hope to find an official like Sands willing to take on the painstaking work required to identify and investigate potentially fraudulent ballots. In policing vote fraud, "its mostly just people on the ground who report incidents. Once in a while you see the secretary of states offices take the lead in these in some states, but its mostly just people on the ground who report incidents, said Jason Snead, senior policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who maintains a national database that tracks voter fraud cases across the country. These tipsters usually encounter a system geared to dismiss their claims, according to Dallas attorney (and former judge) Dan Wyde, who has represented several candidates who believe they lost because of mail-in ballot shenanigans. Wyde said local officials and courts often lack the will or the resources to handle these cases. The judges are under pressure not to grant a new election, and to affirm or bless the system, said Wyde, who represented a justice of the peace candidate who unsuccessfully challenged a 2010 Democratic primary in Dallas County. Wyde put on 40 witnesses. This is the kind of thing where it has to be the candidate that is reporting it, and they have this vested interest, so its hard to find a neutral party to come in and look and say, Hey, this isnt how its supposed to go, Wyde said. Fraud or Voter Suppression? Local control of elections is often an obstacle to voter fraud investigations, both in Texas and around the country. Jonathan White, an assistant attorney general and the states top investigator of voting violations, was reminded of that in June 2017. Thats when he met with officials from the Dallas County district attorneys office, including assistant DA Andy Chatham, to discuss a series of complaints from senior citizens on the west side of the city who said they had received mail-in ballots for the May municipal election that they had not requested, indicating their signatures on the application may have been forged. Some said a man had knocked on their door, claimed he worked for the county and was there to collect their ballots. Chatham dashed any notion of the states attorneys getting involved. This is a constitutional issue, Chatham told White, pointing to statutes that allow for witnesses and assistants in the voting process. We can handle it, but I can tell you, there is no vast voter fraud ring in Dallas. Ex-Attorney General and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott: He's accused of targeting Democrats and minorities with vote-fraud enforcement. Ex-Attorney General and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott: He's accused of targeting Democrats and minorities with vote-fraud enforcement. In this case he was right. The sleuthing in Dallas netted one suspect: Miguel Hernandez, a small-time drug offender, who pleaded guilty to filling in a single mail-in ballot. The unusual thing about this case was the sentence: Hernandez received 180 days in county jail for the misdemeanor, while the vast majority of election fraud convictions in Texas end in plea deals, probation and no jail time. Hernandez, though, was on probation for other crimes when he violated the election law. Whites heard the objection before -- theres no significant election fraud in the state. Chathams resistance was mild in comparison to the protests of others. Civil rights groups and others who argue for ballot access also resist voter fraud investigations. When then-Attorney General Greg Abbott announced in 2005 he was allocating $1.4 million of a federal crime-fighting grant to investigate alleged voter fraud, civil rights groups claimed the action targeted Democrats and minorities and newspapers ran editorials criticizing the move, insisting it would discourage voters. The Texas Democratic Party and several other plaintiffs, including a city council member in Texarkana who had previously pleaded guilty to unlawfully assisting a mail-in voter, sued the Republican Abbott, who became states governor in 2015. They lost. Another impediment to electoral fraud crackdowns has been the efforts, mostly led by Republicans, to pass voter ID laws to clamp down on fraudulent in-person voting. Because so little effort is spent investigating such cases, no one knows how many people vote multiple times, or how many convicted felons or illegal immigrants cast ballots. But the consensus is these are rare occurrences and the focus on this form of abuse has given ammunition to those who crusade for more liberal voting laws and dismiss allegations of voter fraud as political interference into voters rights. This, in turn, reduces efforts to combat mail-in ballot fraud, an abuse that few dispute. For example, in a 2014 ruling on the constitutionality of a Texas voter ID, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos noted, [W]hile there is general agreement that voting fraud exists with respect to mail-in ballots, the same was not demonstrated to be a real concern with in-person voting. Lon Burnam, a Democrat who teamed with a Tea Party group: Republicans claim a lot of crap around elections, but this was real. Nevertheless, election fraud cases often start with aggrieved parties and partisan political operatives rather than eagle-eyed state officials. Thats what happened in some mostly Democratic precincts of Tarrant County, which long been rumored to be a haven for mail-in ballot harvesting. The investigation started with an unlikely alliance of former Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam and Direct Action Texas, a Tea Party-backed operation that supports a particularly conservative wing of the state Republican Party. Burnam was a nine-term incumbent when he was defeated in the Democratic primary in March 2014 by 111 votes. He filed a lawsuit challenging the election, but money issues forced him to drop it. Ive always been in favor of vote-by-mail programs, Burnam said. Theres a line there that you cannot step over, and it is defined by legislation. But we need to enforce that law, and it turns out its very hard to find out when people do cross that line. This Tea Party-aligned outfit checks mail-in ballot applications. A year later, when Burnam heard Direct Action was pulling ballot applications and poring over signatures, looking for forgeries and other inconsistencies in the May 2015 general election in Tarrant County, he called them. They were sympathetic and together these unlikely partners launched a crusade to gather mail-in ballot applications and ballot envelopes to determine just what was going on. Burnam joined Aaron Harris, then executive director of Direct Action, and a couple of Democratic consultants and headed over the Tarrant County Elections Administration office. The group inspected the applications for the mail-in ballots. Within an hour, Harris and Burnam realized that the applications were filled out in a machine-like fashion, each address and name of the requestor scrawled in identical handwriting on scores of ballots. Republicans claim a lot of crap around elections, but this was real, Burnam said. The Mechanics of Mischief At least half of that comment was surely gratifying to one Republican, Christine Welborn. As director of election integrity for Direct Action, she spends many days at her desk in an aged bleached concrete office building in the suburbs of Fort Worth sifting through mail-in ballot applications. As she demonstrated in January, the work is simple, but laborious. Applications for a ballot by mail must be signed by the voter. Using voter registration applications, Welborn verifies the signatures of the applicant on each document. If they dont match, its a sign of trouble and it needs to be investigated. A person other than the voter can sign as a witness, provided they indicate their relationship to the applicant, but they cannot forge that voters name, then send it in. Top image credit: A detail from this image on an official Texas registration site Welborn shows one such instance the signatures clearly are mismatched, and yet the ballot application is signed by a witness, as required. You see this ballot application, you see this signature and you see this signature, Welborn said, poring over a stack of copied papers. Then you look at the original signature from the voters registration to vote. And its clear that someone other than the voter applied for a mail-in ballot. Direct Action has analyzed several elections around the state, from the urban areas to rural counties and heading to points south and east. In some cases, theres nothing. When Welborn and her associates find potential issues, they send their findings to the state, which takes it from there. Tipsters rarely hear back from investigating agents. Sometimes, there is nothing to find, and dead-ends are part of the job. Her work, though, has led to one confirmed case by the state. Four Tarrant County women were arrested in October for providing false signatures on mail-in ballot applications for the 2016 Democratic primary, based on the initial findings of Direct Action. Among those arrested was Leticia Sanchez, a veteran vote canvasser whose name has shown up as a paid employee of several local candidates over the years. The case is still pending. Weve done this in mostly Democratic races, Welborn said. Whatever party, our goal is not to choose who wins and loses, our goal is to find the fraud. You know they dont want election fraud any more than anyone else. Everyone, regardless of their politics, wants clean elections. Although Direct Action has filed complaints against some Republicans, its partisan bent makes it subject to attack, especially by critics who argue that its work, and its calls to reform mail-in ballots, are really aimed at suppressing minority votes. Domingo Garcia, Hispanic leader: Theyre trying to rig it so people who are Latino and African-American dont vote. At a press event at a park on Fort Worths north side in the fall of 2016, shortly after Direct Actions announced its findings that resulted in the October arrests, former Democratic state Rep. Domingo Garcia, a leader in the Dallas/Fort Worth Hispanic community, made it clear he felt Direct Actions work was politically motivated, aimed at discouraging minority voters who tend to cast ballots for Democrats. We believe theres a clear attack to rig the system, Garcia said. Theyre trying to rig it so people who are Latino and African-American dont vote. But, he also noted that real instances of voter fraud should be pursued: Any political thug who is doing it should be reported. The investigation in Tarrant County, part of the large Dallas-Fort Worth area, prompted the first reform of mail-in ballot laws in over a decade. State lawmakers passed Senate Bill 5 in 2017, creating heavier penalties for tampering with mail-in ballots and applications, including a provision that would hold a candidate or party responsible if any low-level ballot harvester can be traced to them. The measure, like Abbotts 2005 announcement of a crackdown on election fraud, drew criticism from some quarters although by now it was tempered, even timid. Im kind of here to encourage the Senate to figure out not just criminal penalties, Matt Simpson, legislative director of the ACLU of Texas, said during testimony on the state senate bill. Are there civil penalties, are there administrative penalties, are there alternatives to turning to already-filled prisons and jails? We have concerns on the criminal penalty enhancements, added Yannis Banks, legislative liaison for the Texas NAACP. He worried that having political conversations, or even helping close friends, might end up in breaking the law if an encouragement to vote a specific way were made. It would be a shame if someone helping someone were punished, Banks said. The March 15 terrorist attack against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, is symptomatic of a rising trend in right-wing extremism. Far-right attacks across the globe have increased because of immigration fears, far-right utilization of social media, and the inter-connectedness of extremist networks around the globe. The March 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, was appalling. The perpetrator, believed to be a 28-year-old Australian named Brenton Tarrant, gunned down at least 49 people at two mosques in central Christchurch. In a manifesto released prior to the attack, the gunman raged about the low birthrates of whites, the mass immigration of foreigners, and the higher fertility rates of immigrants. The rambling 74-page manifesto concluded that this crisis of mass immigration and sub-replacement fertility is an assault on the European people that, if not combated, will ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people.i Sadly, Christchurch is not an isolated attack. Terrorist attacks by far-right adherents have risen significantly over the past decade. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of far-right attacks in the United States was five or fewer per year. The number of attacks then rose to 14 in 2012, and eventually jumped to 31 in 2017.ii In 2018, the United States suffered several additional attacks. On October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He espoused anti-immigrant and anti-Jewish views on Gab, a social media network that has been embraced by white nationalists.iiiA day earlier, Cesar Sayoc, who was motivated by racist and anti-Semitic views, sent 16 crude bombs to prominent American leaders last fall. Meanwhile, right-wing attacks have also increased: from 0 attacks in 2012 to 9 in 2013; 21 in 2016, and 30 in 2017.iv As European Union Security Commissioner Sir Julian King acknowledged, Im not aware of a single EU member state that is not affected in some way by right-wing violent extremism. v In Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right extremist, killed nearly 80 people in July 2011. In the United Kingdom, right-wing extremist Thomas Mair assassinated Labour member Jo Cox on June 16, 2016. On June 19, 2017, Darren Osborne, a 47-year-old British man, drove a van into Muslim worshippers near Finsbury Park mosque in London, killing one person. Much like the Christchurch attack, Osborne targeted a mosque. To be clear, right-wing terrorism refers to the use or threat of violence by sub-national or non-state entities whose goals may include racial, ethnic, or religious supremacy; opposition to government authority; and putting an end to practices like abortion.vi It is different from religious terrorism (in which terrorists are motivated by their religious views), ethno-nationalist terrorism (in which terrorists are motivated by ethnic or nationalist views), and left-wing terrorism (in which individuals are motivated by a hatred of capitalism, environmental or animal rights issues, pro-communist or pro-socialist beliefs, or support for a decentralized sociopolitical system like anarchism).vii At least two factors have contributed to the growth in right-wing extremism. First, right-wing networks and individualsincluding Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrantappear to be increasingly using the internet and social media to issue propaganda statements, coordinate training, organize travel to attend protests and other events, raise funds, recruit members, and communicate with other extremists. Right-wing networks have used Facebook, Twitter (with hashtags like #nationalist and #ultraright in Twitter posts), YouTube, and Instagram, as well as sites like Gab and Voice over Internet Protocol applications such as Discord, to communicate across countries and continents. In addition, websites like the Daily Stormer remain influential among many neo-Nazi and white supremacy activists. Second, right-wing extremists are increasingly traveling overseas to meet and exchange views with like-minded individuals. These foreign connections have provided far-right groups with an opportunity to improve their tactics, develop better counter-intelligence techniques, harden their extremist views, and broaden their global networks. An important part of Tarrants radicalization took place in European countries like France where, as he argued in his manifesto, the final push was witnessing the state of French cities and towns. Tarrant noted that while he had heard about the invasion of France by non-whites, his visit to France changed his view: [O]nce I arrived in France, I found the stories to not only be true, but profoundly understated. Based on the globalization of far-right extremism, the Christchurch attackand the attackerneeds to be understood as part of a growing international trend that requires more attention and greater investment from governments and the private sector. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to shift some counterterrorism resources to right-wing extremism. But identifying individuals like Brenton Tarrantthe Christchurch perpetratorwont be easy. Many right-wing extremists operate alone or in small networks. They often dont talk about their plots by phone or e-mail, which can be intercepted by law enforcement agencies. However, they may be active on social media forums, which can be monitored. In addition, government agencies need to work closely with the private sectorincluding social media companiesto combat right-wing extremism, much like they have done to combat Islamic extremism and Russian disinformation. Some European governments, including France and the United Kingdom, have put significant pressure on social media companies to take down content that advocates for, or otherwise supports terrorism, including if it violates company terms of services. Restricting extremist access to social media requires companies to continue to devote staff time and engineering resources to detect such content and close it down. Western countries have made significant strides since 9/11 in countering the threat from Islamic extremists, including those affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The threat posed by right-wing terrorists will require an equally sober and thoughtful assessment by leaders across the globe in order to prevent it from metastasizing further. Reprinted with permission from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Seth G. Jones holds the Harold Brown Chair, is director of the Transnational Threats Project, and is a senior adviser to the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. iThe Great Replacement: Toward a New Society, undated. iiThe numbers include CSIS coding of terrorism attacks from the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Marylands National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/). iiiUnited States of America vs. Robert Bowers, Criminal Complaint, United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, October 27, 2018, https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/press-release/file/1105371/download. ivData from the University of Maryland, Global Terrorism Database (https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/). vMatthew Tempest, Commissioner Warns of Growing Menace of Right-Wing Terrorism in EU, Euractiv, March 23, 2017, https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/commissioner-warns-of-growing-menace-of-right-wing-terrorism-in-eu/. viSee, for example, the definition of right-wing extremism in National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Ideological Motivations of Terrorism in the United States, 1970-2016 (College Park, MD: START, November 2017), 6, https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_IdeologicalMotivationsOfTerrorismInUS_Nov2017.pdf. viiSee, for example, Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Third Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 242-268. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate Chris Harrison returned to the signature mansion where "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" are filmed after it was damaged during last fall's California wildfires. ADVERTISEMENT "She's never looked so gorgeous. After what our community has been through this year I'm more grateful than ever to be back home #TheBachelorette #BachelorMansion," the host posted on Instagram on Sunday alongside a front facing photo of the property. "The Bachelor" mansion, which is set to be featured prominently during Season 15 of "The Bachelorette," starring Hannah Brown, which began filming this weekend. It suffered damage in November after the Woolsey wildfire entered the city of Agoura Hills. A building on the estate used as the production headquarters for "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" was destroyed. Season 23 of "The Bachelor," which recently wrapped up with Colton Underwood entering into a relationship with Cassie Randolph , was not affected by the wildfire. Production had finished filming at the location before the wildfire arrived as Season 23 moved onto other locations around the world. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 03/18/2019 ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. TLC has officially announced two more couples that will be part of : Happily Ever After?'s Season 4 cast.The network has confirmed : Happily Ever After?'s fourth-season cast will include Season 6 couple Colt Johnson and Larissa Dos Santos Lima and prior Happily Ever After? cast members Russ Mayfield and Paola Mayfield TLC made the announcement by posting a Facebook video on Monday showing the three confirmed couples for Season 4."COMING SOON #90DayFiance: Happily Ever After. Which couples are you excited to catch up with?" wrote the show's official Facebook page alongside the video.Colt and Larissa's : Happily Ever After? participation had been widely expected as Larissa had already repeatedly revealed it in her social media postings."I already finish in early December happily ever after," Larissa told her Instagram followers during a Q&A session with fans in February.Colt's cousin John Maymoun had also told RadarOnline in December that Larissa and Colt -- who are now in the process of divorcing -- were in the process of filming Season 4 of : Happily Ever After?.The two couples join Chantel Everett and Pedro Jimeno , whom the network had already revealed as : Happily Ever After? Season 4 cast members.Chantel and Pedro's Happily Ever After? Season 4 participation was announced in a promo that aired during 's Season 6 Tell-All reunion special in January.While the network hasn't announced an exact premiere date yet, : Happily Ever After?'s fourth season is scheduled to debut this spring.The Happily Ever After? season will reportedly star a total of six couples from the franchise, leaving three additional couples still unannounced by TLC.However, according to RadarOnline, prior Happily Ever After? couple Nicole Nafziger and Azan Tefou will be one of the three unannounced couples that will be part of : Happily Ever After?'s fourth season.Nicole and Azan, who most recently appeared on Season 3 of : Happily Ever After?, reportedly began filming footage for the new season in November 2018.Season 6 couple Ashley Martson and Jay Smith also filmed footage for : Happily Ever After?'s fourth season, according to Ashley.However, in February, Ashley announced she and Jay had decided to "quit the show" and publicly accused TLC and producers of being the reason why she and Jay had scammed their fans by faking marriage problems and pretending they had separated in December and their marriage was on the rocks.Ashley -- who filed for divorce in early January, but then withdrew the filing only days later -- also claimed she and Jay never separated and TLC "ruined" the credibility of her marriage."The final straw was when our story started to become inconsistent because of what we were being asked to hide and not tell followers... We want our old life back. We're over being celebrities," Ashley told RadarOnline last month.TLC has not commented on Ashley's allegations, or stated whether or not she and Jay will be part of : Happily Ever After?'s Season 4 cast.Russ and Paola, who are married with one child, starred on Season 1 of and later appeared on Seasons 2 and 3 of : Happily Ever After?.Russ was 27 and from Owasso, OK, when he met Paola, a 26-year-old from Bucaramanga, Colombia, while he was on a work assignment in the petroleum industry.The pair got married and moved to Tulsa. Russ and Pao, however, later relocated to Miami, FL, so that Pao could pursue modeling and personal training.Russ and his wife are still together, with Russ calling Pao "my first, my last, my everything."Paola gave birth to a baby boy on New Year's Day 2019, just after midnight. She and Russ named their son Axel.As for Colt and Larissa, their storyline on the spinoff is expected to be a trainwreck that will be uncomfortable to watch.Colt, a 33-year-old software engineer from Las Vegas, NV, and Larissa, a 31-year-old from Brazil, met face to face for the first time in Cancun, Mexico, after starting a relationship online.It only took five days for Colt to realize he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Larissa, and so he proposed marriage to her, and then Larissa moved into Colt's shared Las Vegas home with his mother.Colt and Larissa eventually got married and tied the knot on June 24, 2018, according to Clark County Clerk records obtained by Reality TV World.However, Colt and Larissa's relationship remained extremely volatile in the months following their wedding, and Larissa was arrested multiple times for domestic violence.Larissa also accused Colt of cheating on her and flirting with other women."Colt is cheating [on] me with this girl!" Larissa captioned a December Instagram posting of screenshot of a text-message exchange between Colt and the woman. "And [he has] plans to use me until he finish Happily Ever After."However, on January 10, Colt and Larissa got into a violent late-night fight that left both parties bloodied and resulted in Larissa later being arrested for domestic violence for a third time.Colt filed for divorce in Clark County Court the following day, according to court records obtained by Reality TV World, and the couple is currently in the process of divorcing. Athens, GA (30605) Today Foggy with a few showers after midnight. Areas of dense fog. Low 51F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Foggy with a few showers after midnight. Areas of dense fog. Low 51F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states face an elevated risk for flooding through May, with the potential for major or moderate flooding in 25 states, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). More than 200 million people are at risk for flooding in their communities and the American Red Cross is issuing flood safety steps people should follow. Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa have already experienced record flooding this year. The areas of greatest risk for flooding include the Mississippi River and its basins, Red River of the North, the Great Lakes, eastern Missouri River, lower Ohio, lower Cumberland, and Tennessee River basins. Additional spring rain and melting snow will prolong and expand flooding. As this excess water flows downstream through the river basins, the flood threat will worsen and spread. FIND A SHELTER If someone needs to find a shelter, they can visit redcross.org/shelter, download the free Red Cross Emergency App or call 1-800-REDCROSS (1-800-733-2767). The Emergency App is available in app stores by searching for the American Red Cross or going to redcross.org/apps. Anyone who plans to stay in a Red Cross shelter should bring prescription medications, extra clothing, pillows, blankets, hygiene supplies, other comfort items and important documents. Dont forget to bring any special items for children, such as diapers, formula and toys, or for family members who have unique needs. FLOOD SAFETY The Red Cross urges people who may be impacted to follow these safety steps. Get Ready for Flooding Pack your emergency kit. Include a gallon of water per person, per day 3 days for evacuation, 2-week supply for home. Also pack a 3-day supply of non-perishable food, a flashlight, battery or hand crank radio, extra batteries, first aid kit, medications, sanitation and personal hygiene items, cell phone with charger, family and emergency contact information, extra cash, a map of the area and items for babies, anyone with special needs and your pets. Make sure everyone in your household knows what to do if a flood watch or warning is issued. Ensure everyone carries a Safe and Well wallet card. Safe and Well wallet card. Get access to NOAA radio broadcasts. Keep insurance policies, valuables and other important documents in a safe deposit box or a safe place not likely to be damaged in a flood. Take pictures and keep copies of important documents and files on a flash drive that you can carry with you. Dont forget your pets. Prepare a pet emergency kit for your companion animals. Right Before a Flood Know the difference between a watch and warning. A watch means that a flood or flash flood is possible in your area, while a warning means that flooding/flash flooding is already occurring or will occur soon in your area. Listen to local area radio, NOAA radio or TV stations for the latest information and updates. Be prepared to evacuate quickly if directed and know your routes and destinations. If someone needs to find a shelter they can visit redcross.org/shelter. Check emergency kit and replenish any items missing or in short supply. Keep it nearby. During a Flood Move immediately to higher ground or stay on high ground. Evacuate if directed. Avoid walking or driving through flood waters. Indoor Safety Turn off the power and water mains if instructed to do so by local authorities. Boil tap water until supplies have been declared safe. Avoid contact with floodwater. It may be contaminated with sewage. Continue listening to local area radio, NOAA radio or TV stations for the latest information and updates. Dont use gas or electrical appliances that have been flooded until after they have been checked for safety. Dispose of any food that has come into contact with flood water. Outdoor Safety Avoid already flooded areas and areas that are subject to sudden flooding such as dips, low spots, canyons, washes etc. Stay away from rivers, streams, creeks and storm drains. The National Weather Service reports that nearly half of all flood fatalities are vehicle related. Do not attempt to cross flowing streams or water covered roads. If caught in a flash flood, try to get to higher ground and stay there. Just six inches of fast-flowing water can knock you over and two feet will float a car. Turn around and find another route if you come upon floodwater, rapidly rising water or barricades. Dont allow children to play in or near flood water. It may be contaminated with sewage. After a Flood If evacuated, return only when authorities say it is safe to do so. Continue listening to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio for updated information and instructions. More information, including a flood safety checklist in several languages, is available here. DOWNLOAD APPS People can download the Red Cross Emergency App for instant access to weather alerts for their area and where loved ones live. Expert medical guidance and a hospital locator are included in the First Aid App in case travelers encounter any mishaps. Both apps are available to download for free in app stores or at redcross.org/apps. These apps are also available in Spanish. Search for American Red Cross in your mobile app store or go to redcross.org/apps. In the app, go to settings and change your apps language to switch your language to Spanish. Such listings will help internationalise our currency, give us economic heft, compel best in class regulations and further develop the professional-services ecosystem., says Amit Tandon. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters The expert committee for cross listing submitted its report to Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in December. Cross-listing is when equity shares of companies incorporated in a country (India) are listed directly on foreign stock exchanges or of companies incorporated outside India, on Indian stock exchanges. For the record, a direct listing is legally and technically different from depository receipts that are currently listed. This is less straightforward than it appears. First, which are the jurisdictions that Indian shares can be listed? Given the reciprocity involved, that is, you need to allow companies in countries where regulators want Indian shares listed, to list in the Indian exchanges, and I will come back to this, it implies Cote d'Ivoire is out. For that matter most countries won't make the grade. Put this the other way, there are very few countries that make the cut. How to then go about building this list? The committee has used a 'principles-based approach' for identifying these jurisdictions and exchanges. In this they have weighed in favour of jurisdictions where there is a "treaty obligation to share information and cooperate with Indian authorities in the event of an investigation." It has then filtered for members and signatories to the Board of International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and membership of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), with focus on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terror. Based on this the committee has identified USA, China, Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, France Germany, Canada and Switzerland. If a company is good enough to be listed in these markets, Indian bourse will accept them. Surprisingly neither Australia nor Singapore find their way in this list. To achieve this, there are changes needed to local regulations and tax laws. The committee has identified changes needed to both the Foreign Exchange Management Act, the Companies Act and Sebi regulations, and this is the meat of the report. The report makes clear that even as the listing framework of the foreign jurisdiction will apply, the Companies Act too will apply. Some other recommendations relate to the permissible jurisdictions KYC requirements and records of beneficial ownership -- that have tangled Indian companies -- will prevail. Two, that tax issues have always been intractable, and the committee suggests a dialogue with the department of revenue. Three, that companies will report accounts based on both jurisdictions. For offshore companies listed in India, the requirements of a minimum issue size (Rs 1,000 crore) and investors (200) and removal of the requirement of an identified promoter or a promoter group. The acceptance of these recommendations, as well as the ability to pragmatically deal with regulatory and tax issues as they surface will only partly determine whether the objective is met. For it to be a success, the use case too needs to be compelling. This is where the bigger challenges are. For Indian companies wanting to list overseas, the argument for tapping 'pools of liquidity' exists but is weak: any institutional investor that wants to invest in Indian equities, is registered as an FII and can buy their shares. Moreover, the large global brokerages are present in India, and have coverage on stocks that investors track. A tangential benefit that these companies have more robust governance standards hence might enjoy premium valuations, is also not true. As governance focussed regulations have tightened in India, there is very little evidence to support this argument today. Today, company practices are also more closely aligned with regard to disclosures and more frequent interaction with investors. Companies then need to ask themselves if the marginal benefit they hope to get is worth the (compliance) and other costs associated with cross-listing. India's domestic market is open to foreign investors, the reverse is not true. Today the more compelling need is of foreign companies listing in India. All this while the global investors have ridden the Indian equity upside. True the Indian investors have done so as well, but there is a need to start to diversify their holdings. Such listings will help internationalise our currency, give us economic heft, compel best in class regulations and further develop the professional-services ecosystem. All this has a positive impact on the local market -- in which case it is worth extending the list of jurisdictions to include emerging markets as well. And they are, initially, more likely to turn to India, than companies in the US or the UK. Having said so, as India starts to account for a greater share of an MNC's business and as Indian savings and pension funds accumulate, there is more compelling case for foreign companies even in these countries to seek Indian listings -- even if it is through depository receipts. True India cannot replace New York, London, Tokyo or Hong Kong as a financial centre, but only if we start to export capital to a broader swathe of countries, will India stand and be counted as a significant financial power. Amit Tandon is with Institutional Investor Advisory Services India Ltd. The Rs 17.70-lakh Honda Civic competes with the Skoda Octavia, Toyota Corola Altis and Hyundai Elantra. A month after Honda opened bookings for its 10th generation Civic, the local arm of the Japanese carmaker has managed to garner bookings for more than 1,600 units, three times the monthly sales in the segment, a top company official said. Honda launched the Civic on March 7 and accepted bookings for the model from February 15. The prices start from Rs 17.70 lakh to Rs 21 lakh (ex-showroom, petrol variant). The response to the Civic has been phenomenal. The bookings that we have for the first month are more than three months sales of the segment, said Rajesh Goel, senior vice-president and director for sales and marketing at Honda Cars India. He said there had been a lot of interest from cross section of customers, including existing owners, many of whom are celebrities and have held on to the older generation Civic and wanted to upgrade. Close to 85 per cent of the demand is for the petrol variant. Also, eight out of every 10 bookings received so far are for the top trim levels of petrol and diesel. The Civic competes with the Skoda Octavia, Toyota Corola Altis and Hyundai Elantra. With its large wheels and thickest tyres, it hopes to wean buyers off the SUV segment. It should be a good choice for those looking to upgrade from the lower D segment unless someone is absolutely keen on an SUV, said Goel. The upper D segment of the car market, as classified by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, comprises sedans and (4500 mm-4700 mm) with an engine size of up to two 2 litres. In the absence of launch of completely new models and buyer preference shifting to SUVs, the segment has lost its sheen. In the year that ended in March 2018, the segment sold a total of 10,350 units against 11,730 units a year ago, according to Siam. With many models being discontinued, the segment size has shrunk to 540 to 550 units a month. The Civic returns to India after a hiatus of six years. Faced with unfavourable exchange rates and capacity constraints, Honda pulled the plug on the Civic in 2013 and skipped the ninth generation for the Indian market. A strong shift in favour of diesel owing to the huge price gap between the petrol and diesel had caught Honda, which didnt have a diesel engine option then, on the back foot and forced the company to phase out the model, said Goel. Diesel-powered cars accounted for two third of total sales then. With the 10th generation Civic, Goel expects Honda not only to rule the premium segment of the market but also revive the whole segment. Photograph: Courtesy, hondacarindia.com Demand for the earlier variant 737NG planes is also expected to pick up due to the grounding of MAX planes. The grounding of Boeing 737 MAX jets across the world in the wake of the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed over 150 passengers could lead to an increase in lease rentals of the aircrafts earlier variant, 737NG (next generation), according to aviation consultants and executives from leasing firms. Demand for the Boeing 737NG model remains firm, they said, adding that rates might rise by about 10 per cent. Regulators around the world suspended flights of 737 MAX planes following the Ethiopian Airlines crash last Sunday. The 737 MAX aircraft, which comes with a fuel-efficient engine, entered into service in 2017, and globally there are over 350 such planes with airlines. The MAXs earlier variant, known as the NG series, continues to be a mainstay for carriers around the world, including Air India Express, Jet Airways, and SpiceJet in India. Demand for 737NG planes is expected to pick up due to the grounding of MAX planes. Typically, the new lease rate for 10-year old 737NGs would have been between $200,000 and $250,000 per month, which might go up by 10 per cent in current negotiations, said Phil Seymour, CEO of aviation consultancy IBA Aviation. He added many airlines might look at extending their existing 737 NG leases, but this might change if Boeing issued a fix in the short term. The Boeing 737NG aircraft will remain in demand because of its ultra-reliable engine. The secondary market for the planes is firm and the rents of used NG planes will firm up by around $ 20,000. Once the MAX fix is reliably introduced, the NG lease rents will go back to normal, said the CEO of an aircraft leasing firm. Airlines could also look at short-term 737NG leases to fill up the gap caused by the MAX grounding, said aviation consultant Vishok Mansingh. Jet Airways has 119 planes in its fleet, including 5 MAX aircraft, but nearly half of its fleet has been grounded because of non-payment of lease rentals and cash crunch. Robert Martin, BOC Aviation Limiteds CEO, said on Thursday he saw quite a lot of demand for 737NG planes. He added that the company would look to redeploy planes leased to Jet Airways in case there is no resolution to its crisis. SpiceJet has a fleet of 76 planes, including 13 737 MAX aircraft. It has 47 737NG planes in its fleet and is inducting two more planes on short-term lease to cater to its capacity expansion in summer. These joined the fleet today and will start operations from Saturday. SpiceJet is also looking to lease more planes to fill the gap. Air India Express has 25 737NG planes and is not looking for an immediate fleet expansion. Lease rates for an aircraft depends upon its age, lease term and creditworthiness of an airline, besides the demand. Globally passenger demand continues to be on rise and lessors have not encountered difficulty in placing the used NG aircraft with carriers. Boeing has a pending order book of less than 100 for 737 NG planes and over 4,700 unfilled MAX orders. Delays in the introduction of Boeing 787 and the aircraft's global grounding due to problems with lithium-ion batteries one year into its service had led to an increase in lease rates of older 767 planes and 737 NG planes lease rates too could benefit from the uptick in demand. Photograph: Pascal Rossingnol/Reuters. Jet has proactively undertaken certain operational adjustments to its flight schedule, keeping in mind the likely, yet interim non-availability of some aircraft in its fleet in the foreseeable future. Jet Airways has suspended services to Abu Dhabi and slashed the number of flights to Dubai till March-end. According to a notice from Etihad Airport Services, the airline has cancelled all its flights from Monday for operational reasons. It has also stopped Delhi-Dubai flights. The airline has been committing lessors and vendors regarding payment and has not been able to meet them till now. "The airline management is looking to raise funds and clarity would be available in next few days, said a source familiar with development. Jet has proactively undertaken certain operational adjustments to its flight schedule, keeping in mind the likely, yet interim non-availability of some aircraft in its fleet in the foreseeable future. "The airline has kept the regulator as well as its guests informed of these changes, it said in a statement. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters The Schuldschein bond gives Reliance additional investor base, as the bonds can be sold down to local insurance and pension funds, and at the same time, it creates an entry for Indian companies to explore. Indias oil-to-telecoms giant, Reliance Industries, is set to sell a Schuldschein (pronounced schult-shine) debt instrument worth $170 million in the German-centred debt market, making it the first Indian company to tap this route for fundraising. IMAGE: Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani. The proceeds of the 10-year tenure issue will be used for capital expenditure by the Mukesh Ambani-led corporate giant. Bankers said Schuldschein is an alternative way to raise funds instead of loans or bonds and deals can run from $12 million to more than $1.13 billion. These instruments include tranches of different maturities and currencies and investors are spread across the world. Steel major ArcelorMittal, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways and German auto major Volkswagon are among the other top companies which have raised funds via this route. Reliance is offering four tenors on its facility, with pricing ranging from 95 basis points to 160 basis points. The order books will close on April 29. A senior bond expert said the Schuldschein bond gives Reliance additional investor base, as the bonds can be sold down to local insurance and pension funds, and at the same time, it creates an entry for Indian companies to explore. Schuldschein bonds are an in-between arrangement between loans and bonds, and can be tailor made and turned around very quickly through bilateral negotiations. The bonds are not needed to be listed in exchanges. It is like a syndicated loan, but given by one bank while looking for others to come on board. The primary bank here is kind of acting like an underwriter, but will have significant exposure for the tenure of the loan, said the person quoted above. Typically, these bonds are sold down to local insurers and pension funds. They are big investors, but are very risk averse. If they follow the track record of the company for a few years, these investors may want to come to India to take direct exposures as well, he said. In a Schuldschein, deals can have maturities of five years and above and notes offer much greater access to institutional investors, including insurers and pension funds when compared to the bank-dominated loan market. Investors also have the option of selecting fixed-rate pricing on tranche slices, whereas loans are always floating rate. Schuldschein lenders generally pick fixed rates for long-dated tranches and floating rates for shorter tranches. With its best credit rating among Indian companies, Reliance has raised funds via various other new instruments. In 1996, RIL became the first Indian company to issue a Yankee bond worth $50 million. A year later, it raised $100 million via a 100-year tenure Yankee bond another first. Reliance also raised the first-ever Pound sterling bond in UK market in 1997 to raise 100 million. RIL is raising close to $3-5 billion every year from the overseas investors. Experts said the builders will now factor in their losses arising from the removal of input tax credit when they pass on the benefits to end users, while the latter may want the entire GST cut to be given to them. A number of complaints have been filed against real estate companies in the National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) in major cities for not passing on the benefits of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to customers. Experts said the GST Councils decision to remove input tax credit while lowering tax rates on under-construction houses may, in fact, result in an increase in the number of complaints to the NAA. Complaints have been filed in Mumbai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata among other cities. Last month, the Council had lowered the GST rate to 5 per cent from the current 12 per cent for under-construction flats priced more than Rs 45 lakh with effect from April 1. It had also cut GST rates on affordable housing to 1 per cent, from the current 8 per cent - less than what the ministerial panel on real estate had suggested. In both cases, builders will not be eligible to claim input tax credit in the new structure. Builders who are under the anti-profiteering scanner may not get the desired relief even with the pragmatic announcements by the GST Council because of the lack of methodology for computing profiteering, said Abhishek Rastogi, partner at Khaitan & Co and a counsel for Pyramid Infratech which is fighting a case against an NAA order in the Delhi High Court. Experts said the builders will now factor in their losses arising from the removal of input tax credit when they pass on the benefits to end users while the latter may want the entire GST cut to be given to them. This may lead to anti-profiteering disputes, Rastogi said. The NAA had asked Pyramid Infratech to refund or reduce Rs 8.22 crore from 2,476 buyers last instalment for not passing the benefit of input tax credit to them in their two affordable housing projects in Gurugram. The authority had also asked the company to pay an interest of 18 per cent per annum, to be calculated from the date of receipt of the excess amount from each buyer. The company moved the Delhi high court against the order, saying the project was time-linked and not construction-linked, and disputed the methodology used by the NAA to arrive at a fine. The high court had stayed the NAA ruling. The next hearing in the case is on April 26. Meanwhile, various home buyers have deferred their EMIs till April when the newly announced GST rate cuts come into effect, said Niranjan Hiranandani, president of real estate association NAREDCO. The issue of inputs may also impact generation of black money. A group of ministers on real estate had recommended that at least 80 per cent of inputs should be procured from organised dealers to address this issue. The Council will take up this issue at its next meeting on March 19. Hiranandani said, After the recent economic and taxation reforms, possible defaults in tax payment as also instances of tax evasion have been factored in the new regulatory regime by the powers that be. He said the new regulatory scenario is one where it is prudent to stay within the parameters of regulatory norms; if someone tries a misadventure, the department concerned has the machinery in place to deal with such situations. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters. We'd love to see the actor back on the big screen! A year after he announced that he was suffering from a 'rare disease', Irrfan Khan returned to Mumbai after seeking treatment in the UK. Irrfan was diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumour, which is a rare form of cancer, and he disappeared from the public eye during the course of his treatment. After his return to the city, one of the first stops he made was to producer Dinesh Vijan's office. Vijan had produced one of Irrfan's last hits, Hindi Medium, in 2017, and there has been talk of a sequel. Here's hoping we see Irrfan back in the movies soon! Photographs: Pradeep Bandekar Brenton Tarrant, the 28-year-old Australian-born suspect accused of gunning down 50 people in Christchurch dismissed his lawyer and plans to represent himself in future court hearings, raising fears that he could attempt to use the trial to express his extremist views. IMAGE: Suspect Brenton Tarrant is seen in the dock during his appearance in the Christchurch District Court, New Zealand on Saturday, March 16, 2019. Photograph: ANI Photo Richard Peters, the attorney who represented Tarrant in the hearing at the Christchurch District Court on Saturday, confirmed the news and said that the accused "appeared to be lucid" and was not "mentally unstable", New Zealand Herald reported. Peters said that the accused was insisting that he wanted to represent himself in the court and his job had come to an end after Saturday's hearing. Tarrant, who appeared before the court on murder charges on Saturday, was remanded in custody without plea until April 5. Meanwhile, Australian counter-terrorism police on Monday searched two homes in New South Wales state linked to the gunman. The house of Tarrant's sister was raided in Sandy Beach town, near Coffs Harbour at around 8:30 am (local time). Police then raided a second home at Lawrence town, near Maclean, north of Coffs Harbour, according to New Zealand Herald. "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation," the Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police said in a joint statement. Law enforcement personnel also re-iterated that Tarrant's family will continue to cooperate with the police by questioning them at times. "The community can be assured that there is no information to suggest a current of impending threat related to these search warrant," the police said in the statement. Owing to the raids at two houses, the gunman's mother and sister have been moved to a safe house by the police. New Zealand is currently on a state of high alert after Tarrant, who is believed to have lived in Dunedin, killed 50 people in the Al Noor and the Linwood mosques in Christchurch. Tarrant live-streamed his gruesome act on Facebook for 17 minutes and police believe that the accused had single-handedly carried out the terror attack at both the mosques under a span of 36 minutes during the Friday prayers for which a large number of worshippers had congregated. Using automatic weapons, the 28-year-old gunman launched a "well-planned" attack on the mosques when devotees had assembled for the weekly prayers, following which mosques across the country were advised to shut down. Tarrant's travels through Europe, Turkey and Asia are now being examined in detail, in part to see if he had any overseas help in carrying out the massacre. Condemning the terror strikes, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had described the attack as "one of New Zealand's darkest days" and said it "appears to have been well planned". She asserted that the country "will not and cannot be shaken" by the attack. Ardern underlined that the country's gun laws will undergo changes and become stricter. For the Indian couple Abdul Nazer and Ansi Alibava, life in New Zealand was peaceful and promising until Friday's mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch that shattered their dreams. IMAGE: Abdul Nazer and Ansi Alibava borrowed Rs 32 lakh and moved to Nw Zealand last year so that Ansi could do a master's degree. Photograph: Facebook Both were both inside the Al Noor mosque in central Christchurch when the first shots were fired by a white supremacist, in one of New Zealand's worst mass shootings, that killed 25-year-old Alibava and 49 others. The couple borrowed some $48,000 (Rs 32 lakh) to move to New Zealand from Kerala last year so that she could do a master's degree in agribusiness management, which she completed just three weeks ago. Nazer, 34, was working at the local supermarket to help pay the bills. When Alibava graduated, they hoped she would get a high-paying job and they would live and work in New Zealand. Friday's mass shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch changed everything for the couple. Recounting the horrible attack, Nazer told CNN that he and Alibava were seated separately inside the mosque -- men sat on the left, women on the right. "Right before the main prayer, I heard a single shot firing and I thought that some kids outside might have popped a balloon," Nazer said. Seconds later a series of staccato shots from a high-powered weapon sent 300 or so people in the mosque scrambling for the exit. Nazer said he was close to an emergency door and escaped after someone smashed the glass. Others were not so lucky. "People started falling over me, I saw people with blood on their shirts," he said. He ran to a neighbouring house and phoned the police for help before returning to the mosque to find his wife. The scene that confronted him on his return to the mosque was horrifying, with bodies scattered on the street beside pools of blood. Then he saw the motionless figure of Alibava, lying face down in the street. "I ran towards her and then a policeman stopped me and told me to move somewhere else," he said. It was not until Saturday night, more than 24 hours after he had fled the mosque, that New Zealand police confirmed that Alibava was one of the 50 people killed in Friday's attacks by Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, who has been charged with murder. Nazer's friend, George, was with him when police provided them, and other families, a list of the people confirmed dead. Until then they had clung on to the hope that perhaps Alibava was in hospital. "We thought it might be one of those miracles that could happen," George said. Nazer and Alibava had an arranged marriage two years ago, but friends say they have no doubt that the couple soon fell deeply in love. According to Tali Ao, Alibava was the brightest student on her course at the Lincoln University. "Her professors, everyone loved her," Ao said. On Monday, the university's students and staff bowed their heads on the lawn for one minute's silence in remembrance of the dead, CNN reported. "For some of our family's victims to be attacked because of their religion is inconceivable," said Acting Chancellor Bruce Mckenzie. Meanwhile, the Kerala community in Christchurch has rallied around Nazer to help him through the tragedy. They have started a Givealittle page to help him pay back the huge loan they took out in India to pay for Alibava's studies in New Zealand. Nazer wants to send his wife's body back to Kerala to be home with her mother and brother in Kodungallur in Thrissur district. Her father died several years ago. Nazer is unsure what the future holds, but he says he knows he wants to stay in Christchurch, where he and his wife spent most of their married life together. "She had so many dreams," he says. "No one would expect something like this would happen. There are a lot of good people here ... This shouldn't happen to any family." The Kerala Chief Minister's Office has said that all efforts were being made to bring the mortal remains of Alibava from New Zealand. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday criticised those from within the country who had termed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan a "statesman" for returning Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman and said the Indian Air Force pilot's release was as per law and not a favour. India had sent back 90,000 Pakistani soldiers unconditionally after the 1971 war, in which Pakistan was defeated, she said. "But some within India, some journalists and thinkers, are terming him (Khan) a statesman for sending back our pilot, but it is only as per law and it has not done India a favour. They are also questioning what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done," she said. Pakistan has shown the statements of such people and opposition leaders on their television channels, increasing TRP, the minister said. "It is these people who did not want (the country) to buy Rafale, because arrival of these will give strength to our forces," she said, addressing a gathering in Kolkata on 'Ensuring India's National Security' organised by the Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation. India has given a message to the world after the Balakot air strike by not bowing to Pakistan's nuclear blackmail, the minister said. On February 26, the IAF conduct air strikes in Pakistan's Balakot targeting Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camps. The strikes came after a suicide bomber from the terror group on February 14 rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a CRPF bus, killing 40 personnel, in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district. Modi did what former prime minister Manmohan Singh did not do after the Mumbai attacks on November 26, 2008, possibly because of Pakistan's continued propaganda that "it is a nuclear power like India, and we should not forget that before doing anything against them", she said. "'Chowkidar' gave Pakistan the right answer," she said. The defence minister said though there is no direct war being waged between India and Pakistan, there were ceasefire violations by the neighbouring country, and non-state actors with the support of Pakistan, indulge in attacks like that in Pulwama. Many were given training for suicide attacks at Balakot. There was intelligence on this development and that there will be many more Pulwama-like attacks in the coming days, she said. "So, not to wage war but to neutralise the terrorists at their training camps. They were eliminated (at Balakot)," she said, adding, India did what Pakistan ought to have done. Sitharaman said Pakistan claims it is a victim of terrorism, but itself trains and sends them to India. "Why Pakistan does not take action against terrors groups and terrorists being nurtured and trained on its soil if it is a victim?" she asked. The minister said that after the Pulwama attack, evidence was given to Pakistan, but it did not act. Noting that the Jaish-e-Mohammed itself claimed responsibility for the strike, she said, "What more proof does it (Pakistan) want?" Manohar Parrikar was the 17th chief minister in the country and second in Goa who died while still in office. IMAGE: Sand artist Manas Sahoo makes a sand art to pay homage to Goa's Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who passed away battling pancreatic ailment on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo Parrikar, 63, a former defence minister, died on Sunday at his private residence in Dona Paula near the state capital after battling a pancreatic cancer for over last year. Before Parrikar, Dayanand Bandokar, the leader of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, died in August 1973 while occupying the post. He had swept the polls in 1963 to become the first chief minister of Goa. Under his leadership, the party swept the 1967 and 1972 polls in the state. The MGP is currently an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state. Tamil Nadu witnessed deaths of three sitting chief ministers. The first one was C N Annadurai, a mentor to future chief ministers of the state. Under his leadership, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam defeated the Congress in the 1967 assembly polls. The Congress has been out of power in the state since then. Annadurai died just two years after being in the office. The legendary thespian M G Ramachandran, and the founder of All Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam also died while in office in December 1987. Ramchandran's protege and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa won the assembly polls for the fourth time in May 2016. However, her tenure was short-lived as she died in December 2016. Chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died while they were in office. Gujarat also saw two of its sitting chief ministers die. Balwantrai Mehta was killed after his aircraft was shot down by Pakistan air force during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. Chimanbhai Patel headed the state government from 1990 until his death in 1994. Three chief ministers, including Mehta, died in air accidents. Incidentally, all were from the Congress. S Rajashekara Reddy, the chief minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh died in a helicopter crash in September 2009, months after he swept the polls. Dorjee Khandu, the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, also died in a helicopter crash in May 2011. Beant Singh, a chief minister from Punjab, was killed in a bomb blast at the state secretariat in Chandigarh by Sikh extremists in 1995. Marutrao Kannamwar, the second chief minister of Maharashtra (1962-63), died while still in office. Noted freedom fighter Bidhan Chandra Roy was the chief minister of West Bengal from 1952 until his death in 1962. Barkartullah Khan, the only Muslim chief minister of Rajasthan, was at the helm from July 1971 until his death in October 1973. Congress's Shri Krishna Singh was the first chief minister of Bihar and he held the post from 1952 until his death in 1961. He was also the premier of Bihar from 1937 to 1939 and 1946-52. Ravi Shankar Shukla was the chief minister of Central Provinces from November 1956 until his death in December 1956. Gopinath Bordoloi died in August 1950. He was the premier of Assam, a post he held twice. Seeking to navigate the Congress towards regaining its political moorings in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday began her 'Ganga Yatra' on boat with a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged voters to bring in a government that works for them. IMAGE: Congress general secretary and Eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra interacts with villagers during the boat ride. Photograph: ANI Photo The 47-year-old Congress general secretary, clad in a green cotton saree and pink blouse, interacted with a cross section of people, including students, and invited some of them to join her on the motorboat as she undertook her much anticipated ride from the Manaiya Ghat in Kachnar tehsil of Prayagraj district. Addressing the people at Sirsa Ghat and other places where she halted during the boat-ride, Priyanka took a swipe at Modi's "main bhi chowkidar' campaign, saying "chowkidars are for the rich, not for farmers", and alleged that the issues of religion and caste are being raised as the government has failed on the development front. "Unki (prime minister) marzi apne naam ke aage kya lagaen. Mujhe ek kisan bhai ne kaha ki 'dekhiye chowkidaar toh ameeron ke hotey hain, hum kisan toh apney khud chowkidaar hotey hain ("It is up to him what prefix he uses in his name. Yesterday I met a group of farmers. One of them told me, chowkidars are for the rich. We farmers are our own chowkidars)," she said. IMAGE: Congress general secretary and Eastern Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra interacts with students during Boat pe Charcha during her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in UP. Photograph: PTI Photo Citing Bharatiya Janata Party's promises which have remained "unfulfilled", she asked: "Have two crore jobs been given... has our prime minister ever come here... he has been travelling all over the world." "They think that by misleading you all they will remain in power. All institutions are being destroyed...the country cannot run like this," she said. "I could have also sat at home. I have come out as the country is in danger, the country's Constitution is in danger... so vote wisely," Priyanka said. "We have the intention, not 'jumle' (rhetoric) and we worked and showed it in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan on loan waiver promise," she said and asserted that "my brother Rahul Gandhi does what he says". WATCH: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra begins 3-day 'Ganga Yatra' from Prayagraj Priyanka, who kicked off the Lok Sabha election campaign with her three-day visit to eastern Uttar Pradesh, will cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and will also visit several temples while literally testing the political waters in UP where the Congress has been in wilderness for nearly three decades. IMAGE: Priyanka interacts with a young girl during her campaign in Prayagraj. Photograph: PTI Photo She started her river journey with a visit to the Sangam and performing puja along with party leaders at the Bade Hanuman Mandir, popular as Letee Hanuman Ji' near Prayagraj Sangam. Taking a halt at the Dumduma Ghat under the watchful eyes of SPG personnel escorting her, Priyanka, who was accompanied by other party leaders, said she had come here to learn about people's problems rather than giving speeches. IMAGE: Gandhi was quite the hit with the young ones during the rally; she made time to hug the children. Photograph: ANI Photo "Bring a government that works for you. Form a Congress government so that your problems could be looked into," she said, adding that she is aware that sand mining rights are not given to boatmen who are 'ganga putra' and added that "Rahul has said that a separate ministry for them will be created". At the Sirsa Ghat, she said the electorate has witnessed Congress governments during which schemes like MNREGS were launched and regretted that jobs have become scarce in the present times. IMAGE: The Congress general secretary offers prayers before she begins her party's campaign. Photograph: PTI Photo After a night halt in Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district, the Congress leader will resume her onward journey on Tuesday morning that will culminate in Varanasi on Wednesday. Sitting cross-legged on the motorboat, the Congress leader was all ears as the locals residing on the river bank apprised her of their issues. "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality... Ganga-ji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," the party's newly appointed general secretary had said in an open letter on March 17. IMAGE: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra holds a portrait of her father, former prime minster Rajiv Gandhi as she starts her campaign for the Lok Sabha elections from Manaiya Ghat. Photograph: PTI Photo Arriving from Lucknow on Sunday night to a rousing reception by party workers who shouted slogans of 'dahan karo Modi ki Lanka, behen Priyanka behen Priyanka', the Congress leader tweeted an image of the room at Swaraj Bhawan. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) was born. While making me sleep in the night, she used to tell stories of Joan of Arc. Her words reverberate even today. She used to say -- become fearless and everything will be alright," Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said in a tweet. IMAGE: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra comes out after offering prayer at Bade Hanuman temple, in Prayagraj. Photograph: PTI Photo Addressing people and party workers at Sitamarhi in Bhadohi district on Monday, Priyanka said the BJP is citing the same excuse that it used to make during the previous election. "They blame the Congress for all problems, like unemployment...but you are running the government for five years, what have you done?" she posed. The crowd responded saying "janata ko dhokha diya". She told the audience that "Rahulji wants the welfare of the people and does not run after power". IMAGE: Priyanka's visit has been slammed by the BJP who said that every election is a "picnic" for the Gandhi family. Photograph: PTI Photo Priyanka said, "Like you, I too am sick of this government which undermines our Constitution, institutions and does not care for the people.... Responsibility is yours. Chunao nahi chunauti hai (It not an election but a challenge)." "I know my brother. We have faced lots of struggles and martydom of our father and sacrifice by our family members," she added. The BJP, however, ridiculed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's boat campaign, saying every election is a "picnic" for the Gandhi family. Polling will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh from April 11 to May 19. Results will be announced on May 23. Parrikar had moved to the South Block at the insistence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2014. IMAGE: Former defence ministeer Manohar Parrikar interacts with the media after the commissioning the Guided Missile Destroyer INS Chennai, at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai on November 21, 2016. The Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba and other dignitaries are also seen.. Photograph: Press Information Bureau From putting an emphasis on indigenisation in the defence sector to ensuring that a home-grown fighter jet joins the air force fleet, from the defence forces carrying out a surgical strike to signing of the Rafale deal, Manohar Parrikar had an eventful tenure as the defence minister. The IITian, who died on Sunday after battling a pancreatic illness for over a year, had moved to the South Block at the insistence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2014. His nearly three-year tenure saw the army conducting the surgical strike in September 2016, after a terror attack claimed lives of 19 soldiers in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. Parrikar also ensured that the long-pending Light Combat Aircraft Tejas is inducted in the Indian Air Force's fleet, besides taking steps to ease the process of indgenisation in the defence sector. The political controversy over the Rafale jet deal, initiated in September 2016, cast a shadow on his tenure. Last month, the back and forth between the Congress and the government over the estimated Rs 58,000 crore deal to buy 36 combat jets from France took a new turn with a report in The Hindu daily. The report cited a November 24, 2015 note of the defence ministry which said that parallel discussions by the PMO "weakened the negotiating position of the MoD and Indian negotiating team". Parrikar had termed the note an "overreaction". Congress chief Rahul Gandhi claimed that Parrikar had said he had nothing to do with the Rafale deal. Defence Minister Nirmala Sithataraman said Parrikar, who was her predecessor, was a sincere, honest and sensitive political activist, and she learnt a lot from him. "Shri Manohar Parrikar is no more. A sincere, honest and sensitive political activist. Was simple and down to earth, I learnt a lot from Shri Parrikar. As Raksha Mantri his contribution to making the armed forces a modernised, lean and mean fighting machine will remain unparalleled," she tweeted. Parrikar had moved back to Goa as the chief minister of the coastal state following political compulsion that ensued after the state polls and Bharatiya Janata Party allies demanded that he head the government. The defence ministry also paid rich tributes to Parrikar. "@DefenceMinIndia conveys deep condolences on demise of former RM, Mr @manoharparrikar. With hallmarks of strong & decisive leadership, Mr Manohar Parrikar will be missed by whole of the def establishment. Mr Parrikar was at the helm in defence of the Nation from 2014 to 2017," the ministry tweeted. Northwest Connecticuts Chamber of Commerce is hosting the 15th Annual Job Fair on Thursday, March 28t, in the auditorium at City Hall, located at 140 Main St. The fair is free and open to the public. The hours for the Job Fair are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The goal of the job fair is to help job seekers and employers connect. It provides an outlet for potential workers to meet employers, employers to gather resumes, and employers to network with each other. Attendees are encouraged to bring multiple copies of their resume. This years fair will feature more than 40 employers representing a wide range of industries. Companies representing opportunities in manufacturing, finance, transportation, healthcare, insurance, education and more will be exhibiting. The Chamber presents the 2019 Job Fair in partnership with the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board, The City of Torrington, FM 97.3 WZBG, Connecticut Department of Labor, the Register Citizen, and the Republican American. For more information, contact Northwest CTs Chamber at 860-482-6586 or visit their website at http://nwctchamberofcommerce.org/events-programs/job-fair/. Travel to the Scandinavian Capitals: Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm The Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce will host an informational session open to the public on Thursday, March 21 at 5:30 p.m., for the Scandinavian Capitals trip at the Chamber Office, 333 Kennedy Drive, Torrington. A representative from the travel company, Aventura World, will be on hand to answer questions and give more information. This is the 6th year the Chamber has partnered with Aventura World, a leading travel company with exceptional service and affordable travel packages, to offer these trips to the public. The Chamber hosts 2 trips a year and they are open to anyone who would like to experience these incredible destinations. Past destinations include: China, Japan, Ireland, Cuba, South Africa, Spain and more. Consider the exploration of Scandinavias smart, modern cities and untamed natural beauty in the north from September 9-16, 2019. The journey begins in Copenhagen, a city that offers a perfect mix of playful spirit to stunning architectural design, from the royal castles to the pretty canals, and uniquely shaped brick buildings. Oslo, a city that grew from a sprawling country town into the sophisticated metropolis it is today. Surrounded by vast archipelago, Stockholm is a true Nordic beauty, where modern city shines next to the historic old town. Includes hotels, meals, day trips and airfare from JFK. There is an optional extension to Helsinki. Sign up before March 29 for the early bird special of $3,399 per person, double occupancy for the 8 day, 6 night trip. Call the Chamber or visit their website for more information about any of their upcoming trips- 860-482-6586 or www.nwctchamberofcommerce.org/events-programs/chamber-travel-program/. Check out our website at www.nwctchamberofcommerce.org for more Chamber happenings. *This institution is an equal opportunity provider* TORRINGTON Tim Driscoll was a dedicated member of the community who encouraged all he knew to value volunteers, to give of themselves any way they could, and to remember the importance of family. His dedication to his annual telethon to support St. Judes Research Hospital, which celebrated its 40th year this month, was just one of the many efforts he spearheaded in Torrington. Driscoll died in 2016. On Monday, Driscolls family gathered outside City Hall to raise the Irish flag and posthumously name him Lord Mayor of Torrington for 2019. The honor is bestowed annually to a member of the Torrington community who has gone above and beyond for the city. In Driscolls case, Mayor Elinor Carbone said, giving him the distinction of Lord Mayor was a way to carry his legacy forward for the next generation of Driscolls. His commitment to the Torrington community was outstanding, she said. It does without saying that he was deserving of this award ... all that he did pales in comparison to the telethon that was held for the 40th year this year. Im incredibly touched to be able to do this today. Driscolls wife Cathy, his daughter Kristin Raymond, her husband Paul, their three young daughters, his daughter Kyla and her family were invited first to Carbones office, where the women and children received special St. Patricks Day corsages and little pins on their coats. Kristin Raymond signed a declaration naming her father Lord Mayor of Torrington for March 19. After that, the family and a small group of supporters including representatives of the Irish American community walked to the flagpole outside City Hall to raise the Irish flag, assisted by City Hall custodian John Lombardi. Its hard to believe hes been gone for three years, Kristin Raymond said. I know dad is looking down on us, and Im sure hes wearing his ugly green sweater. Even though hes gone, the fact that hes still being honored after three years is wonderful ... it means a lot. After the ceremony, guests were invited to the auditorium for a reception and a performance by the McCardle Dancers, an Irish dance group. Tim Driscoll spent years giving back to his community. His contributions are evidenced through his work as a City Councilman from 1989 to 1993, as well as hosting City Views for many years, Carbone said. He is remembered and loved for his tireless commitment to raising money for St. Judes Research Hospital, founding the Tim Driscoll St. Judes Telethon in Torrington in 1979. Since his passing, his children have honored him by caring on this legacy. Driscoll was proud of his Irish heritage, instilling a sense of Irish pride in his family. ODriscoll was most prominent in County Cork and County Kerry. In 1973 Tim married Catherine Bauer, and together they raised four children, Kyla, Tim Jr., Kevin and Kristin. Driscoll was born in Torrington on August 12, 1947, son of the late Margaret (Kittle) Driscoll and the late Paul Driscoll. He graduated from Torrington High School in 1965 and the New England Institute of Anatomy, Embalming, and Funeral Directing in 1967. He owned the Driscoll Mortuary for more than 40 years prior to his retirement. According to the family, Driscoll was very proud of his Irish descent. He often spoke of his familys Irish history and instilled a sense of Irish pride in our family, they said. The Driscoll Coat of Arms was framed in the family home, and had so much meaning to the family that both Tim Jr. and Kevin got it tattooed on their arms. According to the family, one of his favorite pastimes was spending time with his family at their family cottage at Highland Lake. He enjoyed many hours watering the lawn, going for boat rides, and teaching his children to water ski. As time passed, his children got married and had children. He loved his grandchildren with all his heart, family members said. He had nine grandchildren, two of which he wasnt able to meet prior to his passing. He couldnt wait to hold his twin granddaughters and often said he wouldnt die until he did so. The twins spent five weeks in the hospital, and when they came home from the hospital and so did Tim around the same time Driscoll held them, three days before his death. Driscoll was active in many organizations, both elected and in volunteer positions. He was a member of the Civitan Club and the Elks Club among many other organizations and committees. A motorbike rider passes electricity pylons alongside a roadway on the outskirts of Chengdu, capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province, in a file photo. China is making major cuts in electricity rates to support business and its sagging economy, raising questions about government subsidies and environmental concerns. On March 9, China's central electric utility, State Grid Corp., announced a 10-percent reduction in average electricity charges for business users this year "to relieve the burden on the real economy," the official Xinhua news agency said. The break comes on top of a 10.6-percent rate cut for "commercial" users in 2018 that saved China's businesses 79.2 billion yuan (U.S. $11.7 billion), according to the report. With industrial users included, the assistance last year totaled 91.5 billion yuan (U.S. $13.6 billion), the state-owned utility said. While state-controlled rates are subject to change, the announcement appeared to be unusual in citing the economic benefit as the purpose without any reference to market conditions, fuel prices, or generating costs. The moves posed a host of policy questions about regulation in the power sector, pricing reform, and the potential for anti-competitive industrial subsidies. The huge drop in electricity bills also highlighted the government's all-out response to China's economic slowdown, which has so far included tax cuts, infrastructure spending and a surge in bank loans. Although the cost of the combined rate cuts for 2018 and 2019 appears to be substantial, the announcement did not specify whether the State Grid, power producers or the government would pay for it. According to the Xinhua report, the State Grid topped the list of China's largest companies last year with revenue of 2.36 trillion yuan (U.S. $351.7 billion), suggesting that the utility could cover the cost. But the company's total profit fell 14.3 percent from a year earlier, dropping for the first time in five years, an analysis by Hong Kong-based Ping An Securities said. The burden of the break The burden of last year's break fell mostly on grid companies, although some provinces reduced on-grid tariffs for coal-fired generators, said Philip Andrews-Speed, a principal fellow at the National University of Singapore's Energy Studies Institute. The plan this year calls for the coal-fired power plants to pay for the rate reductions for business consumers, since most or all of the provinces are expected to cut their on-grid tariffs. "The coal-fired generators are complaining now, which is quite justified," Andrews-Speed said. "Overcapacity of generation has drastically reduced their operating hours and is squeezing margins, and now they are getting lower tariffs, some for the second year running," he said. The government's decision to manipulate electricity rates for the purpose of economic stimulus is seen as a setback for energy reforms. "These measures completely undermine the development of the power market," Andrews-Speed said. "This has been announced at a time when the government is claiming to be liberalizing the power market by allowing generators to sell to large users at tariffs to be set by negotiation and allowing a proliferation of power retailers," he said. In his annual work report to the National People's Congress on March 5, Premier Li Keqiang suggested that the government would advance reforms and set lower electricity rates at the same time. "We will deepen electric power market reforms, overhaul electricity price surcharges, reduce the electricity usage cost for the manufacturing industry, and reduce the average electricity price of general industrial and commercial industry by another 10 percent," Li said. From an environmental standpoint, large rate cuts are also likely to be counterproductive, since cheaper power prices encourage energy consumption. While the rate reductions are across the board, they will likely provide the biggest benefit to the largest energy users and sources of emissions, including makers of steel, cement, and building materials. A general view of a construction site owned by State Grid Corporation of China, the country's state-owned electric utility monopoly, in Beijing, Oct. 17, 2016. Credit: AFP Competition concerns The double-digit cuts will also come as a gift and effective subsidy to marginal state-owned enterprises (SOEs), potentially raising competition concerns of trading partners. American steelmakers and other manufacturers have long complained about the effects of Chinese subsidies, but whether the issue of power pricing will figure in the current U.S.-China trade negotiations is open to question. The issue of whether the rate cuts constitute a subsidy is complex, said William Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "The definition of subsidy in both U.S. law and WTO (World Trade Organization) rules requires specificity," Reinsch said. "That is, to be a subsidy there must be a specific benefit to somebody." "If the government lowers the rate for everybody, that would not be a subsidy because it is not specific," Reinsch said. There are other complications. The laws would not support U.S. action against a subsidy unless a U.S. party was injured, raising more questions about competition and the size of per-unit costs. The WTO would want to know whether the rate cuts apply only to Chinese companies or also to foreign companies manufacturing in China. The question of whether the decrease qualifies as a subsidy also depends on whether the price of electricity has been lowered below a "market rate," which is hard to determine in China. And so on. Taking all that into account, the rate cuts might still be "actionable," which could trigger a countervailing duty, Reinsch said. But the outcome seems far from a slam dunk. A hot-button issue? In any case, it is unclear that Chinese subsidies in general are the hot-button issue that they once seemed to be for U.S. negotiators. A review of statements and reports over the past year suggests that U.S. complaints about subsidies were mostly directed at the Chinese government's support for high-tech industries under the "Made in China 2025" initiative. As the government has stepped back from promoting the plan, the subsidy issue seems to have largely faded from view. Still, U.S. policy statements continued to cite opposition to Chinese subsidies as a top agenda item in the past year. Speaking in November at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Papua New Guinea, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence blasted China for unfair trade practices that included subsidies. Pence cited "forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and industrial subsidies on an unprecedented scale," USA Today reported at the time. A government white paper on trade frictions last September also made clear that China had come under pressure on the subsidy issue. "China's subsidy policy complies with WTO rules and should not be attacked," said a Xinhua report on the white paper arguments. But with signs that U.S. and China negotiators are closing in on a trade deal, the years of controversy over subsidies may be left to another day. "We have not emphasized subsidies and, when we do, it's (about) lending," said Derek Scissors, an Asia economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, who has reportedly advised the administration of President Donald Trump on the negotiations. In an email message, Scissors indicated that the rate cuts are unlikely to raise U.S. concerns. "This reads like another attempt to bolster business confidence and will barely be noticed by the U.S. team," Scissors said. If that is the case, China may be free to pursue a bad economic, energy and environmental policy on its own. Five former senior officials from Cambodias banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) applied for political rehabilitation from the government on Monday, while a sixth was approved, bringing to nine the total number who have asked to have their rights reinstated. Former CNRP lawmakers Ou Chanroth, Kang Kimhak and Chiv Kata, and former CNRP board of directors members Tep Sothy and Chan Seyla applied for rehabilitation to the Ministry of Interior, while former CNRP lawmaker Real Camrins request was granted by King Norodom Sihamoni on Monday. The six join former CNRP officials Sim Sovanny and Kong Bora, and Kong Boras father, former president of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) Kong Koam, who have requested royal pardons. Requests by Kong Bora and Kong Koam were granted in January, while Sim Sovanny was granted a pardon earlier this month. CNRP President Kem Sokha was arrested in September 2017 for alleged acts of treason and the Supreme Court ordered the partys dissolution two months later, which paved the way for Hun Sens ruling Cambodia Peoples Party (CPP) to win all 125 seats in parliament in a July 2018 general election. The Supreme Court also slapped a five-year ban on the political activities of 118 CNRP senior officials for the partys role in an alleged plot to topple the government. In December last year, Hun Sens Constitutional Council unanimously approved an amendment to the draft law on political parties, paving the way for the reinstatement of rights to the 118 CNRP officials banned from politics by the Supreme Courts decision. The legislation does not provide for the reestablishment of the CNRP, and Hun Sen has said the political rights of the officials will only be reinstated on an individual basis if they had shown respect for the Supreme Courts ruling, and provided they each make an individual request. Ou Chanroth on Monday refused to comment on why he decided to appeal for clemency, when questioned by RFAs Khmer Service. I will comment when my political rights are fully restored and I will hold a press conference in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, he said. I know you cant understand the decision, but I am trying to make an effort to solve problems. Former CNRP lawmaker Real Camrin had submitted his request for clemency on March 14, saying he planned to form a new party to compete in Cambodias 2022 commune elections and 2023 national ballot, and advised other banned officials to also request rehabilitation as a way to resolve the countrys political crisis. Government-aligned media reported that Real Camrins new party will be named the Khmer People Party. RFA was unable to reach the former CNRP lawmaker for comment on his reported plans to form a party. Offer of clemency Hun Sens offer of clemency is widely seen as part of a bid to ease international pressure on his government in response to a crackdown on the opposition, NGOs and the independent media. Critics have called it a trap aimed at fracturing the CNRP, and CNRP activists say those who apply for reinstatement are opportunists who are betraying the interests of the public. Acting CNRP President Sam Rainsy, who is living in self-imposed exile to avoid a string of what he says are politically motivated convictions, has urged the 118 to refrain from appealing for political rehabilitation, and said those who do will be branded traitors. Hun Sen last week warned those who have not asked for clemency that he might rescind the offer by Khmer New Year in April. The Phnom Penh Post on Monday cited one of the 118 as saying anonymously that 47 banned CNRP officials were preparing to make rehabilitation requests, but may do so at different times. Svay Rieng Provincial CNRP President Mao Vibol said Monday that the political lives of CNRP senior officials who request rehabilitation will be over, as the people will stop supporting them. People are boiling for change and they will detest those who request political rehabilitation, as all Cambodians are entitled to take part in politics, he told RFA. People hate the present rulers, so those who bow down their heads to the regime and suppress their will become even more hated. Political analyst Bong Deth echoed Mao Vibols suggestion that those who have capitulated to Hun Sen will suffer a backlash in popular opinion. The CNRP became the victim when it was dissolved by Hun Sens regime, but these officials now appear to be joining hands with Hun Sen to finish off the opposition, he said. There is nothing to gain, since all power rests with the CPP. More than 5,000 local CNRP councilors, as well as all of the public, are watching them, and they are angry. Arrest warrants Meanwhile, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Sunday made public its decision to issue arrest warrants for Sam Rainsy, who has said he plans to return to Cambodia in 2019, and seven other top CNRP officials living abroad on charges of treason and incitement to commit felonies under articles 453, 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code, both within and outside the country from Jan. 20-27 this year. Also named in the warrant, dated March 12, are CNRP vice presidents Mu Sochua and Eng Chhay Eang, and CNRP lawmakers Ou Chanrith, Tok Vanchan, Long Ry, Ho Vann, and Men Sothavrin. The eight were in attendance at the first CNRP Permanent Committee meeting in Lowell, Massachusetts on Jan. 20, when Sam Rainsy was official appointed acting party president while Kem Sokha remained in pre-trial detention facing charges of treason. Kem Sokha is yet to face trial and has been held either in jail or under house arrest despite passing the 18-month maximum allowed by law in pre-trial detention earlier this month. The Khmer Times on Monday cited Brigadier General Y Sok Khy, director of the counter terrorism and cross border crime department at the Interior Ministry, as saying he has evidence that the eight CNRP officials posted on social media calling on the public to stand up against the government. On Sunday, Sam Rainsy held a press conference in Massachusetts to announce the establishment of a new committee charged with organizing his return to Cambodia sometime this year, without providing further details about when he plans to travel back to the country. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. A U.S. government human rights report is 'an amber light' for the human rights situation in Hong Kong, with some of the city's traditional freedoms under threat, commentators told RFA. The State Department highlighted several areas of concern in its 2018 Human Rights Report published last week, in particular, "encroachment" by the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing on Hong Kong's promised autonomy. "Human rights issues included substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association [and] restrictions on political participation," the report said. The report cited multiple sources as saying that Chinese operatives monitored some political activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and academics who criticized Beijing's policies in Hong Kong, which is supposed to be separate legal jurisdiction under the terms of the "one country, two systems" framework. It also pointed to cross-border detentions and abductions, citing the disappearance of businessman Xiao Jianhua and the cross-border rendition of Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, who is a Swedish citizen. "Xiaos and other abductions show the Chinese Central Governments willingness to act contrary to the rule of law and undermine Hong Kongs autonomy," the report said. It said Hong Kong and Chinese officials had restricted, or sought to restrict, the right to express or report on political protest and dissent, particularly the notion of independence for Hong Kong. The trial of dozens of protesters, including key figures, after the 2014 Occupy Central pro-democracy movement on public order charges had "raised the cost of protesting government policies and led to concerns the government was using the law to suppress political dissent." The report also cited the jailing of two disqualified lawmakers, Sixtus Leung and Yao Wai-ching, last June for four weeks on "unlawful assembly" charges, following scuffles with Legislative Council security guards in 2016. It said the banning of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party (HKNP) last September was one example, while the disqualification of six pro-democracy lawmakers for "improperly" taking their oaths of allegiance was another. The U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) voiced concern at the time over the ban, which relied on colonial-era legislation under the Societies Ordinance that originally targeted criminal organizations, or "triads." "The UK does not support Hong Kong independence, but Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and its rights and freedoms are central to its way of life, and it is important they are fully respected," the statement said. 'An amber light' Hong Kong political commentator Sang Pu said the State Department report had struck a note of warning to the international community. "I don't think this is a red light, but it is an amber light," Sang told RFA, adding that a further deterioration could affect Hong Kong's international reputation as an open port. "But if Hong Kong's human rights situation continues to deteriorate in the next couple of years ... for example, if we see more kidnappings, then I think the U.S. is very likely to abolish Hong Kong's status as a separate trading territory." Another red flag would be the enactment of sedition, subversion and national security laws, as mandated by Article 23 of the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, Sang said. Meanwhile, a national law passed by Beijing in "criminalizes any action mocking the Chinese national anthem and requires persons attending public events to stand at attention and sing the anthem in a solemn manner during its rendition," the State Department report said, adding that Hong Kong will soon legislate to make the law apply in its own jurisdiction. It also pointed to the effective expulsion from Hong Kong, the first since the handover, of Financial Times Asia news editor Victor Mallet, after he hosted at event at the Foreign Correspondents' Club featuring HKNP founder Andy Chan as the speaker. The move came as the Hong Kong Journalists Association warned of increasing self-censorship among local journalists, often among media outlets with business interests in mainland China. Pro-democracy lawmaker Alvin Yeung, who also heads Hong Kong's Civic Party, said he shares concerns over Hong Kong's reputation. "Our most important competitor, Singapore, has free trade agreements with pretty much the rest of the world, and Hong Kong is lagging behind," Yeung said. "Our international image is probably that Hong Kong wouldn't be capable of such a thing," he said. "Other countries might not be interested in pursuing free trade agreements with Hong Kong, because there are no benefits to doing so." But pro-Beijing lawmaker Priscilla Leung said Hong Kong remains a free society. "We have a very high level of human rights protection," Leung said. "I hope they aren't going to suppress our economic freedom under the guise of human rights." Reported by Lu Xi for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Lee Wang-yam for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Following the breakdown of talks at the most recent U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, North Korean authorities are reportedly ramping up the levels of strictness at weekly life appraisal sessions. Known as saenghwal chonghwa, the sessions are self-criticism meetings in which every citizen must individually confess their shortcomings on the political loyalty front. The confessor must then hear additional criticism from other citizens, then form an action plan to compensate for those shortcomings. Since the failed late-February Hanoi Summit, in which U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could not come to an agreement on denuclearization for sanctions removal, authorities in the repressive country are becoming increasingly rigid during these weekly meetings. These days, there is an air of tension at life appraisal sessions that cant even be compared with how they were previously. Attendees cant even cough out loud, said a Pyongyang resident who recently traveled to China in an interview with RFAs Korean Service. The resident explained how the level of seriousness during saenghwal chonghwa ebbs and flows depending on how optimistic the regime feels on the current social climate. When theres a positive social mood, [the sessions] were just perfunctory, but its not like that at all [right now], said the source. [The sessions] usually take about an hour, but now its getting to be close to two hours, the source said. Simply going through the motions as usual is no longer enough, according to the source. If they are only moderately critical about themselves, or if their peers hold back, [the authorities] make them stand in front of everyone so that all in attendance can be more direct and more intensely criticize them, the source said. It must feel just as miserable to give out such harsh criticism to colleagues and neighbors as it is to receive it, said the source. According to the source, the affair is normally planned out between attendees. Prior to the meetings they mutually agree on what to criticize each other aboutusually trivial things. But it doesnt work that way now. They have to harshly criticize each other. Now people are starting to make enemies even with their close neighbors during these life-appraisal sessions, the source said. North Korea experts have suggested that the purpose of these sessions is to instill fear into the public, making them easier for authorities to control. In a recent report by the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, author Robert Collins detailed saenghwal chonghwa as one means by which the North Korean government uses the people to deny rights to each other, as a strategy of social control that extends even to the private lives of citizens. A second source, from North Pyongan province, implied that being stricter at saenghwal chonghwa, is a means of diverting attention from the failed summit by keeping people on their toes. As talk about the collapse [of the summit] is spreading, the authorities seem to be intentionally creating tension by being stricter, the source said. The source recalled other gossip-worthy events that authorities wanted to silence discussion about. Whenever there are huge issues [to talk about], such as the execution of Jang Song-thaek [Kim Jong Uns uncle, who experts believe was a legitimate challenge to Kims power,] the authorities tried to cover the mouths and ears of the public through strict life-appraisal sessions, the source said. [They] are really emphasizing self-reliance more often during the sessions these days, said the source, adding, North Korean citizens are becoming concerned about their future because [they think] this could mean that international sanctions will be even heavier. The practice of saenghwal chonghwa began in March 1962. Usually 10 to 15 people from the workplace or neighborhood attend the sessions to collectively determine ways for each individual to become better citizens. Every Saturday a weekly appraisal session is held, with a monthly session on the months final Saturday. There are also quarterly and yearly appraisals. The sessions are facilitated by low-level local inminban (neighborhood watch units) and detailed records are kept. None are spared from self-criticism, as even elites are subject to the weekly sessions. Thae Yong-ho, a high-profile defector who once served as North Koreas deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, described the sessions in his memoir as the most fundamental principle of the North Korean slave state. Reported by Joonho Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. A Myanmar border guard policeman stands near the home of a Rohingya Muslim family in a village in Buthidaung township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 25, 2019. The Myanmar military has created a three-member investigative panel to probe the conduct of the armed forces during a 2017 crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine state that left thousands dead and forced more than 740,000 to flee to Bangladesh, the countrys commander-in-chiefs office announced Monday. The campaign of violence by security forces included extrajudicial killings of Rohingya, torture, sexual assaults, and the torching of Rohingya communities, which the government and the army have denied, while defending the campaign as a necessary measure to stop a group of military Muslims that conducted deadly attacks on police outposts in the region. From de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on down, Myanmar has shrugged off credible testimony of the brutality, satellite images of burned villages, and other evidence of atrocities that have sparked calls by rights groups and United Nations officials to bring the perpetrators before the International Criminal Court (ICC) or another tribunal. Against that background, human rights groups were dismissive of the proposed investigation by a Myanmar military that they see as the chief culprit in the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya and other atrocities in the country. Earlier investigations by the military were seen by outside experts as a whitewash. Creating this new committee is just another bogus game to buy more time from the U.N. and the international community by pretending that there is an ongoing investigation being conducted, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch. Nothing could be further from the truth, and no one should be so gullible to buy this lame excuse anymore, he said in a statement. The sole reason for the existence of this Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] committee is to help bolster Myanmar's cover-up of atrocities in Rakhine state, Robertson added. Matthew Smith, chief executive office of the Southeast Asia-based rights group Fortify Rights, said the new panel would do nothing to bring about accountability for the violence during the crackdown. This is another weak attempt to feign concern for the rule of law and fend off international justice, he said in a statement. It wont work. Domestic remedies for atrocities in Myanmar have been exhausted. A U.N. fact-finding mission that investigated atrocities committed against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine state issued a report in September 2018 detailing violence by security forces and calling for the prosecution of top commanders as well as the removal of the countrys military from politics. Earlier this month, ICC staffers visited Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh as part of a preliminary examination into the violence against the Myanmar minority group. A separate independent commission set up by Myanmars government to investigate human rights violations in Rakhine state has been gathering information about the crackdown and is scheduled to deliver its findings later this year. 'Scrutinize and approve' The militarys new court will examine reports by a previous investigation team formed in October 2017 that looked at the performance of security troops during the attacks in Rakhine, said the statement posted on the website of military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Due to assessments and suggestions of the Office of the Judge Advocate-General over the reports of the investigation team which inspected the incidents and over the reports on accusations compiled by Human Rights Watch group, Amnesty International, and [the] United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, it needs to further scrutinize and approve the respective reports, the statement said. The 2017 investigation led by Lieutenant Gen Aye Win, inspector-general of Myanmar's defense services, found that military forces conducted their operations in accordance with their duty assignments when they were trying to restore regional peace and stability in northern Rakhine. As the investigation showed weaknesses in control and management for security of the region and gathering of security information in advance, necessary action has been taken against the officials related to these cases, the statement said. At the time of the crackdown, the commander-in-chief's office issued instructions to its operation commands to abide by the rules of engagement in responding to what it calls the terror attacks of extremist Bengali terrorists, it said. Major General Myat Kyaw will chair the new panel,while Colonel Kyaw Kyaw Naing and Colonel Than Naing have been appointed as members, the announcement said. Smith said Myanmar would have a hard time achieving credibility with another in-house investigation. If Myanmar wants to ensure accountability, it should cooperate with the international community to hold perpetrators accountable for genocide committed against Rohingya and war crimes against Kachin, Shan, and others, he said, referring to two other ethnic minority groups in Myanmar. Villagers who fled their homes when the Myanmar Army fired into their communities take refuge in Shitthaung Monastery in Mrauk-U township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, March 18, 2018. More than 400 villagers fled their homes in the hills east of volatile Rakhine states Mrauk-U township on Sunday when the Myanmar Army fired into their communities amid an increase in the number of government troops in the area, local residents said. Altogether, 3,000-some people from Mrauk-U have fled from armed conflict between Myanmar soldiers and the Arakan Army (AA), a Buddhist Rakhine army fighting for autonomy in the state, since Feb. 19, 2019. They are staying temporarily in 13 camps in the township, according to locals providing assistance to the displaced residents. We fled from our village because we are afraid of government soldiers, said Win Maung, the head of Maw village who is now living in a displacement camp. They make arrests and abduct villagers." Rakhine states Disaster Management Department said it has provided rice, clothing, and household goods to internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Mrauk-U township, but camp leaders said only locals have been helping them. Only locals are helping these IDPs, and they have received almost nothing from the government, said Maung Thar Khin, leader of the Shitthaung Monastery IDP camp where more than 250 displaced villagers are living. Some other IDPs expressed concern about having to live in the midst of ongoing armed conflict. Mya Thaung Shwe, an IDP at the Shittaung Monastery camp, said, We had no worries in the past, but we have a lot of anxiety now as we are caught in a war zone. We want peace, said displaced villager Khin Maung Kyi. The government hasnt done anything [about the fighting]. It seems we are going to lose all our belongings and even our lives soon because we have to flee whenever fighting occurs around us. Staging fake battles An uptick in fighting between Myanmar forces and the AA since late 2018 has left several people dead and caused about 20,000 to seek shelter in safe places, according to estimates by relief workers in Rakhine state, though the state government puts the number of IDPs at about 7,800. Earlier this month, the AA said the Myanmar Army had sent more than 8,000 troops to northern Rakhine state since the beginning of the year. AA spokesman Khine Thukha said there has been no fighting between government army and Arakan soldiers in Mrauk-U since March 15, and called Myanmar military reports about clashes untrue. There was no fighting involving us in these areas, he said. The government army has been staging fake battles. They've been firing artillery into residential areas at night. Colonel Win Zaw Oo, spokesman of the Myanmar militarys Western Command which is responsible for Rakhine state, also said that no fighting had occurred in Mrauk-U township since mid-month, but added that the AA attacked military security guards with improvised explosive devices near Waitharli village on March 17. Afterwards, Myanmar soldiers nabbed a 63-year-old man named Sein Hla Maung who had some explosives and mine-related equipment in his possession, he said. Hostilities continue to take place in other Rakhine townships, Win Zaw Oo said. Even yesterday, our troops from [Rakhine's capital] Sittwe went to Ponnagyun township [to provide] road security, and about 30 AA troops attacked them near Ponnagyun, and a clash ensued, he said, adding that Myanmar soldiers used heavy weaponry and killed one AA soldier. Sometimes the AA tries to provoke a clash in towns, and we think that the AA does it intentionally, he added. Flood-affected Myanmar villagers eat a meal while taking shelter inside a pagoda in Mrauk-U township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Aug. 5, 2015. Credit: AFP Archaeologists decry damage Not only residents of Mrauk-U, but also archaeologists said they are concerned about the effects of the ongoing hostilities in their ancient township. Battles between Myanmar and Arakan forces damaged some archeological heritage buildings and have become an obstacle to efforts to include the monuments on the UNESCO World Heritage list, residents and archaeologists said. Hundreds of ancient but well-preserved temples and pagodas that dot the township's hills are remnants of a powerful empire that existed there from the 15th century to the late 18th century. The damage inside the archaeological heritage areas caused by the ongoing fighting could be irreparable, said Khin Than, chairwoman of the Mrauk-U Heritage Trust. I am concerned that these irreplaceable archaeological treasures won't be able to survive if there is heavy artillery fire and bombing by airstrikes, she said. Locals who live inside the archaeological zone also want peace and stability. Nobody wants war. The A-Naut-Myae-Htae pagoda was hit by fallen mortar shells during a night of shooting and shelling in Mrauk-U on March 15, said Than Htike, director of Mrauk-Us Archaeological Research Department. A security tent near the Shittaung Pagoda, an iconic monument among Rakhines archaeological sites, was hit by heavy artillery, while bullets fell in the vicinity, which is designated as an archaeological zone, he said. These sites are located deep inside the zone, he said. It definitely impacts the preservation work. We can only make progress in our efforts in archaeological preservation if both sides in the conflict stop fighting. The Myanmar government is preparing to nominate the Mrauk-U archaeological zone as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in September. The process will be finalized by February 2020. The armed conflicts have affected our efforts for World Heritage Site preservation, said Than Htike. They have deterred the management work for the preservation of the heritage monuments. The archaeologists said they are concerned that the cultural and historical heritage monuments might not survive the ongoing fighting. Tourists stay away Visits by international tourists to the archaeological sites have dropped markedly since early 2019, and local tourists also have stopped coming since the fighting erupted in Mrauk-U township, local hoteliers said. The archaeological sites and ancient monuments are the primary draw for tourism, said Hla Myint, owner of the Mrauk-U Princess Hotel. Now the armed conflicts have prevented tourist arrivals. Other hotels, guesthouses, and transportation and tourism-related businesses in the region have practically come to a standstill as well, local entrepreneurs said. There are some hotels, guesthouses, and transportation companies that all rely on this small number of tourists, Hla Myint said. Now they all have come to a halt. AA spokesman Khine Thukha accused the government army of damaging ancient monuments and temples in Mrauk-U. They are the ones walking with shoes on inside Buddhist temples, though they call themselves Buddhists, he said. Some government troops even set up camps inside the archaeological zone. They are ruining our archaeological heritage. But Colonel Win Zaw Oo denied the accusation, blaming AA troops for the damage instead. They are fabricating the damage of the archaeological sites and artillery firing by us, he said. Actually, many trenches have been dug up by AA troops inside the archaeological zone. They are pretty hypocritical. Reported by Min Thein Aung and Kyaw Thu for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar and Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Five members of Vietnam's National Self-Determination Coalition -- (from left) Nguyen Quoc Hoan, Nguyen Van Duc Do, Phan Trung, Tu Cong Nghia, and Luu Van Vinh -- appear in a ho Chi Minh City court, March 18, 2019. Five Vietnamese activists drowned out the judge in the Ho Chi Minh City high court on Monday with shouts of down with the trial and down with communists after their appeals of lengthy 2018 subversion sentences were rejected, witness said. The five members of the National Self-Determination Coalition -- Luu Van Vinh, Nguyen Quoc Hoan, Nguyen Van Duc Do, Tu Cong Nghia and Phan Trung were appealing sentences ranging from eight to 15 years they received in a lower court last October. The court upheld their sentences, which also include three years of probation, drawing the angry shouts from the activists, and a complaint from their lawyer. The sentences given to the defendants are so unjust, said lawyer Dang Dinh Manh, who represented four of the five men. These are highly self-conscious citizens who want to contribute to the nation with their thinking. They just exchanged ideas and got arrested and charged with felonies with harsh sentences, Manh told RFAs Vietnamese Service. He called the governments attitude harsh to the extent of being draconian. Luu Van Vinhs wife, Le Thi Thap, was the only family member of the defendants allowed to witness the appeal hearing, while other relatives had to watch the proceedings on TV screen in another room. This is the first time I have been allowed into the courtroom, she said. As at the previous session, the judges just read out the verdict. The chief judge did not let the defendants defend themselves in full and their arguments were rejected completely, Thap told RFA. Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Paul Eckert. Five years after President Vladimir Putin cemented the seizure of Crimea with an agreement signed in Moscow and considered invalid almost everywhere else, host Steve Gutterman takes a look at what the takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula has meant for Russia. For 14 weeks, opposition protests have been held against the presidency of Aleksandar Vucic while politicians mostly stayed in the background. That changed over the weekend when radical right-wing leader Bosko Obradovic led a charge of several dozen people into the headquarters of national state broadcaster (RTS), prompting many to ask whether the demonstrations demanding that Vucic ease his tight control over state media and hold fair elections are being hijacked by politicians. Obradovics Dveri is one of more than 20 parties from across the political spectrum that formed an alliance to back the protests, which were triggered when a gang of thugs beat up opposition politician Borko Stefanovic in November. That incident followed many months of critics accusing Vucic of smothering unsympathetic media and curbing democratic freedoms, accusations that Vucic has dismissed. The movement has since adopted the slogan "one of 5 million," in a jab at Vucic, who said after the early rallies that he would not bow to a single demand by protesters "even if there were 5 million of you." "Most protesters appear to be participating not because of one or the other party or leader, but rather despite them," Florian Bieber, a professor of Southeast European studies at the University of Graz in Austria, told RFE/RL on March 18. "This is a big worry.... Obdradovic has been using the protests to get more visibility than his party has support. This weekend presents a serious problem, as his role is not only a challenge to the more peaceful protests, but also his message shifts attention from democracy to nationalism." Populist Wave Dveri has ridden a populist wave sweeping much of Europe, pushing anti-European Union, anti-lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender (LGBT) positions, as well as calling for a reexamination of the role of Nazi collaborators during World War II. In 2016, the party gained entrance to parliament after pairing with the conservative Democratic Party of Serbia to gain 5.02 percent of the vote, just over the threshold for representation in the legislature. Until the March 16 storming of RTS, the first time state televisions building had been broken into since an October 2000 uprising that eventually led to the ouster of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Vucic had largely ignored the protests. But Obradovic's move, accompanied by former Belgrade Mayor Dragan Djilas and one supporter who inexplicably was carrying a chainsaw, appears to have emboldened Vucic, a former ultranationalist and onetime member of Milosevic's cabinet. "Serbia will not allow threats of violence by anyone. Anyone who thinks that they can get political results by hooliganism, violence, attacks on people, physical attacks on people, they are mistaken," Vucic said at a press conference on March 17, the day after the RTS invasion. "I don't want to talk to fascist leaders like Bosko Obradovic. I don't want to talk. As you can see, I don't even want to talk now when my life is in danger, because I don't care and I am not afraid at all," he added. As Vucic spoke, skirmishes with riot police were reported outside of the presidential building, with police firing tear gas against demonstrators who vowed to form a human chain around the building to prevent him from leaving. The move by police capped the first weekend in more than three months of protests where authorities used force against demonstrators. The rise of someone like Obradovic in the demonstrations highlights the weakness of leadership and lack of a coherent program among established parties, according to Vuk Vuksanovic, a Balkan political analyst from Belgrade. "The shift in these two days was about the coalition trying to take over the protests that have been ongoing for the past three months, but which were civic in nature, and make them more political and reenergize the protests as they were fading," he said. "Their main goal at this moment in time is to stay afloat so that they may have a shot at Vucic in the future.... As a coalition, they are too weak." A disputed section of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan reopened on March 18 following the successful conclusion of four days of bilateral talks. The border had been closed following violent clashes between locals on March 13 that left two Tajik citizens dead and three Kyrgyz citizens hospitalized. Locals from two Kyrgyz villages , Ak-Sai and Kok-Tash, who had been evacuated following the violence have returned to their homes. The negotiators also reached an agreement on the construction of local roads, which was a cause of the initial dispute. "The roads will be opened today and there will be no checkpoints," Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov told journalists after the signing of the agreement. "The construction of roads needed by the population will be continued, Razakov also said. We discussed many problems. But the main thing is that we have achieved mutual understanding and, taking into account the interests of both countries, reached an agreement." Razakov headed the Kyrgyz delegation to the talks, while Tajik Deputy Prime Minister Azim Ibrohim led the Tajik team. The two sides also agreed to jointly investigate the March 13 violence and prosecute those responsible. The dispute occurred in the volatile Ferghana Valley area, where the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet in a complicated network of exclaves. KYIV -- On a recent afternoon inside the digital campaign headquarters of Ukrainian comedian and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy, around a dozen young volunteers sat glued to computer screens. Their task was twofold: to scour social media sites for impostor accounts and "fake news" about their candidate while trying to fend off armies of bots spreading negative comments on official campaign pages. In the politically charged atmosphere surrounding a presidential election that's now just 13 days away, it is an exhausting, never-ending task. Just ask 28-year-old Mikhail Fedorov, a digital strategist who leads a clever campaign that builds on Zelenskiy's own viral posts. "Every day there's a large number of fakes we have to fight against," Fedorov, whose private firm specializes in advertising on Facebook and Instagram, told RFE/RL between strategy sessions with his team for the Zelenskiy campaign. Most, he added, are discovered on Facebook. When the campaign finds the fakes, which violate Facebook's terms of service, Fedorov's team follows the same reporting process as any of the world's largest social network's 2 billion other active users: They report the abusive content one example at a time, as there is no direct line for campaigns to Facebook's 6-month-old elections "War Room." It's a tedious process that can take several days before the offending accounts, pages, or posts are removed. By that time, Fedorov explained, the damage may already be done. But on March 18, Fedorov's and other Ukrainian candidates' teams got a little added help in their fight. New Transparency Requirements In a move meant to curb "fake news," disinformation, and foreign intervention ahead of the country's watershed presidential election -- and to avoid a situation like that in 2016, when Facebook was criticized for failing to stop alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election -- sponsors of political ads in Ukraine are now required to publicly disclose their identity. Similar transparency requirements were recently introduced in the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, India, and Israel. Facebook has said that it plans to introduce the rules globally by the end of June. The move is a long time coming for Ukraine, which first warned Facebook of Russian disinformation and bogus news being spread on the social network in 2015 to sow discord and whitewash a Russian military invasion. President Petro Poroshenko, who is now fighting for reelection, famously pleaded to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a May 2015 Facebook post to open a local office in Ukraine staffed with people in tune with the political situation and Russia's perceived misuse of the platform. The request was aired two days later during a town-hall meeting at Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters and met with laughter. Nearly four years later, there is no Facebook office in Ukraine and a position for a Warsaw-based public-policy manager for Ukraine remains unfilled, the company confirmed to RFE/RL. The latest poll by Rating Group shows Zelenskiy leading the field at 24.7 percent among Ukrainians planning to vote on March 31, in the first of two possible rounds, followed by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko with 18.3 percent and Poroshenko with 16.8 percent. None of the other 36 candidates garnered more than 10.3 percent support. "One step of this [transparency] process is for the person running the ad to provide identification documents to confirm they are who they say they are," Jan Sciegienny, head of corporate communications for Facebook in Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in e-mailed comments about the new rules. Identity confirmation consists of turning on two-factor authentication, then providing Facebook with a government-issued ID, two official documents, or a notarized form from Facebook. The process is estimated to take 48 to 72 hours. Besides confirming their identity, political advertisers must label their ads as political and provide a "Paid for by" disclaimer to be approved by Facebook. Authorized Facebook pages in Ukraine will also display all locations of the page administrators in the "Info and Ads" section. 'Wide Range Of Bad Actors' In addition, Facebook will house all Ukraine-related political ads with disclaimers in a public database for seven years. Ads that run without a disclaimer will also be kept in the database if they are reported and determined to contain political content. The transparency requirements come after Facebook announced in January that it would prohibit electoral ads bought outside Ukraine from appearing there in the run-up to the election. "We know that a wide range of bad actors (from Russia and elsewhere) will look to target a major public event like an election," Sciegienny said of that measure. "Our aim is to help protect elections in Ukraine and part of that includes guarding against foreign interference and not accepting electoral ads from foreign territories." Some in Ukraine have questioned whether that meant Facebook would also prohibit ads from Crimea, the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia five years ago, as well as areas of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Sciegienny confirmed to RFE/RL that that was the case. "According to Ukrainian law, these regions are currently territories not controlled by the Ukrainian government," Sciegienny said. Too Little, Too Late? Dmytro Zolotukhin, a Ukrainian deputy minister of information policy who has met with Facebook representatives in Kyiv on at least two occasions in recent months, praises the new ad rules and transparency requirements, telling RFE/RL they mark a big step forward for Facebook that "will make [information in] this sphere much more clear." But coming less than two weeks before the first round of voting, some observers say Facebook's move is too little, too late and argue that there are simple ways to get around the new requirements. Nina Jankowicz, a global fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center's Kennan Institute focused on Russian disinformation, warned that in a country like Ukraine -- with its many ties to Russia -- the new advertising and transparency rules can be "quite easily circumvented." "It would be easy for a layman, let alone a member of the Russian security services, to exploit the loopholes in the geographic requirements and still purchase ads," she told RFE/RL in January. Ihor Razkladai, a Ukrainian lawyer at the Kyiv-based Center for Democracy and Rule of Law who has helped conduct trainings with Facebook in Ukraine, told RFE/RL that researchers he worked with were already finding Facebook accounts "with large followings" being "rented for big [sums] of money." If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em Fedorov welcomed Facebook's new policy but said his team would not count solely on the social network for combating the fakes and disinformation targeting their candidate. Last week, taking a page from Zelenskiy himself -- who has crowdsourced his platform and potential cabinet -- Fedorov's team launched a project to crowdsource its fight against disinformation and fake accounts. The project will work like this: When disinformation or a fake accounts appear, a chat bot designed to recognize key words will mobilize supporters on social media to "defend Zelenskiy." Last month, Fedorov's team launched a competition "to come up with the best fake" about Zelenskiy and share it on social media using the hashtag #ZeFake. In fighting disinformation fire with fire, Fedorov said he hoped to "destroy and depreciate" the potentially damaging messages spread about his candidate. He claimed it had already worked, though he declined to provide details. The candidate himself promoted the competition in a video address published on social media and appeared pleased with the result. "We laughed heartily" at the fakes, Zelenskiy said before reading some aloud. "Zelenskiy is a reptilian. Zelenskiy is Merkel's lover...Zelenskiy is actually a woman, moreover, the illegitimate sister of Tymoshenko who is taking revenge on her." The winner? "Zelenskiy is the great-grandson of an honorary member of the Rothschilds." Dozens of protesters gathered outside a police station in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, calling for the release of people detained during an antigovernment rally on March 17. The protesters also wanted the release of those detained for briefly occupying the headquarters of the state TV channel RTS the previous day. Demonstrators have been holding weekly rallies since December to demand the resignation of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Two former managers of a Russian summer camp where 14 children died in a 2016 boat tragedy have been given lengthy prison terms for negligence. In a March 18 ruling, the Petrozavodsk City Court found former Park Hotel Syamozero camp director Yelena Reshetova and her former deputy Vadim Vinogradov guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced each of them to 9 1/2 years in prison. Vinogradov had pleaded guilty and Reshetova pleaded not guilty at their trial over the tragedy, which occurred when two boats capsized in bad weather on Lake Syamozero, near the border with Finland, in June 2016. Anger and dismay over the children's deaths grew into a scandal when it was revealed that the rescue operation began only 18 hours after the boats capsized. Many of the children apparently died of hypothermia from long exposure to the cold water. Investigations also revealed that the camp's officials allowed the boat trip despite weather and wind warnings. A former instructor at the camp, Valery Krupnodershchikov, was convicted of leaving people in danger and sentenced to eight months in prison but was freed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Three other defendants in the case were acquitted, and angry relatives of victims said they would appeal those rulings. In April 2017, an emergency medical worker was sentenced to three years in prison for failing to take seriously an emergency call from a 12-year-old boy seeking help shortly after the two boats were capsized by the storm. With reporting by Current Time, Interfax, RIA Novosti, and TASS Skirmishes with riot police were reported outside of the Serbian presidential building in Belgrade on March 17, with police firing tear gas against thousands of demonstrators who vowed to form a human chain around the building to prevent President Aleksandar Vucic from leaving. Speaking at a news conference in the building at the time of the protest, Vucic downplayed the number of protesters outside, insisting there were only about 1,000 people gathered there and describing opposition protest leaders as "fascists, hooligans, and thieves." On March 16, protesters demonstrating against Vucic were forced out of the state-run TV building in Belgrade about two hours after they stormed the facility. The protesters accuse state television of biased pro-government coverage and are demanding that Vucic resign. KYIV -- Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is a leading candidate in the country's March 31 presidential election, has defended her support for Kyiv's 2014 decision not to use military force to resist Russia's annexation of the Black Sea region of Crimea. Tymoshenko, who recent polls show among the top three of 39 remaining candidates, cited a lack of military and diplomatic weapons in the face of an invasion that robbed Ukraine of the Crimean Peninsula and preceded five years of continued bloodshed in other parts of eastern Ukraine. "At the time that all began, Ukraine had no army and no international support," Tymoshenko said in an exclusive interview with RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. "If we had given in to the provocation that had been arranged -- and we knew from foreign intelligence sources...that the...Kremlin was waiting for just one killed Crimean or one killed serviceman from the Black Sea Fleet to let loose Russian forces all along Ukraine's border with the aggressor," Tymoshenko said. The conflict in eastern Ukraine has left around 13,000 people dead, some 30,000 injured, and uprooted well over 1 million Ukrainian citizens, according to UN and Ukrainian officials. "I have expressed my position that if [Russia] had managed to provoke [aggressive] actions from us, they would have occupied two-thirds of Ukraine and we would have hundreds of thousands of people dead today." 'Highest Priority' Tymoshenko also said that if elected she would reject the Minsk process for resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine and launch a new process guided by the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. "I didn't accept the Minsk agreements from day one," Tymoshenko said. She described the Minsk process as based on an agreement between "terrorists" in eastern Ukraine and "people who don't hold official posts in Ukraine." "My question is: Who's representing Ukraine?" she concluded. The highest priority, Tymoshenko said, must be to return Crimea. She said the fact that the Minsk process, which aims to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Moscow-backed separatists formations and the Ukrainian government, did not include discussion of Crimea was tantamount to "state treason." Under the Minsk process, Kyiv holds talks with representatives of the separatist formations with the goal of establishing a stable cease-fire and then moving toward a political settlement. Kyiv and the West have accused Moscow of not living up to its commitment to pressure the separatist formations to implement the Minsk scheme, including allowing Kyiv to secure its international border with Russia. American man rushed to Cancun hospital from cruise ship Isla Mujeres, Q.R. The Navy of Mexico was called to tend to a medical emergency of a cruise ship passenger who was detected of having a heart attack. La Secretaria de Marina Armada de Mexico from the Fifth Naval Region reports that they carried out a medical evacuation on the Norwegian Breakway where it was located 3 nautical miles from Isla Mujeres. Navy personnel responded after a call from the cruise ships captain reported an American passenger had likely had a heart attack. The captain requested the medical evacuation. Photo: La Secretaria de MarinaArmada de Mexico A trained team headed out to open waters in a specially equipped Navy vessel to remove the passenger. Upon arrival, the Navy health team transferred a 50-year-old American man to the Advanced Naval Station of Puerto Juarez where an ambulance was waiting. He was taken to hospital in stable condition. Cancun elementary school teacher sentenced to 100 years in prison Cancun, Q.R. A second guilty verdict has resulted in another 50-year prison sentence being handed down to a previous Cancun elementary school teacher who is already serving time for rape. In a press release, la Fiscalia General del Estado reports that Jahziel Eloy Yam Estrella has been given a second 50-year prison sentence after he was recently found guilty of raping a six-year old child. La Fiscalia General del Estado explained that due to evidence presented, prosecutors specializing in Crimes Against Women were able to prove the second case. The charges stem from his time as a school teacher in 2017 when he was accused of raping the two students in classrooms. He was originally sentenced to 50 years in January of 2018 for the first guilty verdict of rape. The second and latest charge, was handed down Friday. A CAR was torched by arsonists in New Edlington on Saturday afternoon (March 16). A fire crew from Edlington was called to Windermere Grange at 1pm where a Toyota Yaris was on fire," said a spokesman for South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. The spokesman added the fire was a deliberate act and crews were on scene for just 15 minutes. THE Coalfields Regeneration Trust has asked for key paperwork over the controversial sale of a community building in Mexborough. Cash-strapped Mexborough Community Partnership came under fire when it sold Mexborough Resource Centre for a figure former trustees, the CRT and borough councillors believe was below its value. The CRT, which pumped 300,000 into MCP back in 2006, said in January that it was disappointed the community group had struck a deal with Pete Newman, the owner of Mexborough Business Centre for less than market value and without consultation. CRT chief executive Gary Ellis said at the time that they would be pursuing MCP for for further clarification to ascertain how this decision was reached. And this week he said: We can confirm that we are continuing our discussions with the Mexborough Community Partnership and have requested additional documents that will allow us to better understand the rationale for the sale of the building. Given discussions are ongoing, we have no further comment to make at this time. MCP insisted the deal was the best possible outcome for the partnership and Mexborough as a whole after the loss of two major tenants last year, with one citing its own funding cuts. Financial documents from 2017 set the partnerships assets at 900,000, but paperwork relating to the sale of the resource centre put the sale price at 120,000. The business centre will pay MCP 100,000 over ten years, plus a 20,000 deposit, as well as providing it with accommodation in the resource centre. MCP said a solicitor and the Charity Commission - which had no objections - had been involved in the sale. The combined cash-plus-accommodation deal was worth more than the initial valuation of between 200,000 and 250,000, MCP said, insisting the proceeds would go towards work training for residents, helping community groups and environmental projects and tackling loneliness and mental health issues. SOUTH Yorkshire Police is joining other police forces and agencies around the UK to mark National Child Sexual Exploitation Awareness Day. Det Chief Insp Joanne Bates, force lead for child abuse, said: National CSE Awareness Day is another opportunity for police forces, agencies across the country and our local communities to come together and show their support for this vitally important campaign. Weve had a range of activities happening across South Yorkshire to support the national campaign, including presentations at schools and an open day with Barnardos in Rotherham. For more information about child sexual exploitation, visit: https://www.southyorks.police.uk/find-out/crime-prevention-advice/cse/ or www.stop-cse.org At the end of last year, I was immersed in an exceptionally curious activity the study of the updated strategy of the ALROSA Group (see The tobacco is excellent. The pipe of peace is put out, The Jubilee Speeches). Let me remind you that the key issue I raised was the lack of recovery prospects for the Mir mine, along with a very strange desire to accomplish a hard-to-do engineering task - to build a new underground mine on the Jubilee diamond pipe. In turn, the Groups CEO said that it was all nonsense and when the project of restoring Mir would come to existence, it would be included in ALROSAs new strategy. Sounds good, and any approach has the right to exist. We can judge about the intentions of the companys management only by their public statements. Nevertheless, being obviously informed better than anyone else about the long-term projections of ALROSA, its CEO got rid of a significant part of his stake in the company - and did the right thing. At that time, I found amusing the term coined in the bowels of ALROSA about the planned loss-making economics inherent to a number of the companys projects. We then made a cautious assumption that an increase in the number of such projects could turn ALROSA itself into a planned loss-making venture. As it turned out, the reality surpassed even the wildest assumptions. Airport ALROSA is going to invest 10.4 billion rubles in the construction of a new airport in the city of Mirny. Why expand the airport if the amount of cargo traffic is being reduced due to the completion of major resource construction projects both in Yakutia itself and in Eastern Siberia as a whole and if the personnel in Mirny is being reduced and there is outflow of population from this region? This is a question for shareholders. I think we should only note here that the notorious diamond placer buried under the active airstrip is an extremely dubious sweetener for another round of building up non-production costs. Therefore, we can safely attribute 10.4 billion rubles to this kind of expenses, which the shareholders did not come across in the ALROSA Groups updated strategy and updated long-term investment program approved at the end of 2018. At the same time, following the managements logic - if there will be a project it will quickly appear in our strategy - it should probably appear. New Moscow office ALROSA is going to pay 4 billion rubles for the purchase of yet another office in Moscow - this time in the interests of its United Selling Organization (USO). The old Gazprom ARETI-ITERA building in Sevastopolsky Avenue in Moscow built more than 20 years ago in the mid-1990s requires major overhaul, as due to its initial designation it does not comply with the strict requirements of a sensitive facility and in its current condition it is hardly suitable for installing heavy production equipment, storing and sorting rough diamonds, which will require additional investments. The talk about the need in a building of its own for ALROSAs sales arm has been going on for a long time. First of all, this was due to the fact that the company is holding a lease for its current site from Gokhran and this contract has a term. However, there were counterarguments: as long as ALROSA is under state control and has the same curator as Gokhran, such questions are not relevant. In addition, the building used by Gokhran was specially designed for the work with precious materials on such a scale. There are simply no other similar buildings in Moscow. Consequently, it would then make sense, as in the case of DTC De Beers and their relocation from London to Gaborone, to talk about building a new complex within a large logistic hub for convenient work with customers and getting rid of all the companys supplemental (non-productive) property. But here there is still a practical question, whether ALROSA really needs additional sites given the fact that it is reducing the staff of its USO. If the brave new world of fully automated sorting and artificial intelligence determining the parameters of sales and the customer base is already close, then why the old Gazprom high-rise building? There is one more but, which is the factor hardly controllable by sorting machines and this is the actual amount of goods for this sorting and aggregation. And this amount of goods produced by the company is not increasing judging by the published metrics, but on the contrary, it is decreasing. Re-equipment of the Aikhal mine ALROSA will invest 316 million rubles in the re-equipment of the Aikhal mine. The Aikhal underground mine is relatively young - it does not require large-scale technical re-equipment, as after the mine was flooded in 2004 it was completely rebuilt and re-equipped by 2011. In other words, due to serious technical incidents and management mistakes (which, by the way, have a certain similarity in their consequences with the flooding of the Mir mine though, thank God, there were no casualties), the Aikhal underground mine was actually built twice. Taking into account the additional investments in its new construction and low prices for diamonds produced at the mine, the project's viability tends to zero at best, with all the ensuing economic consequences. So, this year alone, ALROSA announced additional expenses in the amount of 14.716 billion rubles, or nearly USD 163 million at the current exchange rate. And what about the income part? There was a 36-percent decrease in sales of natural diamonds versus February 2018 and a 23-percent increase versus January 2019. It makes sense to compare technical and economic indicators on a year-to-year basis due to the relatively high turnover and inertia of the production processes in the diamond business, so comparing February with the traditionally passive January is a rather meaningless exercise, which does not carry any practical use in forecasting. The fall in sales of 36 percent to February 2018 is a wake-up call for the leader of the global diamond industry. An objective picture, which will make it possible to produce more thorough forecasts (including the quality and structure of diamond stocks, which will have to be sold to avoid endless accumulation), will take shape by September or October - we will see then, as its not a long wait. To be fair, I must say that the only instrument of influence on the global diamond market, which ALROSA had and still has, is the output of rough diamonds by volume, which also decreased in 2018. Only the lazy ones do not say nowadays that the very fundamentals of this market are changing, and the production volume here will no longer help. Another major factor helping to survive in the modern diamond business is effective cost management. The business, which is inherently associated with huge production costs, can no longer boast of the earning power it had in previous years. And this is where the problems begin, leading ALROSA into the planned loss-making field. Building new airports on the backdrop of declining cargo traffic, constructing the Jubilee underground mine, which the officials of the USSR Ministry of Non-Ferrous Industry could not think of even in their nightmares, putting into operation lean-ore diamond fields located far away from the companys production infrastructure at a time when rich ore is depleting, re-equipping the twice built Aikhal in the absence of plans in the companys strategy for the Mir mine, and all this amid increasingly persistent appeals for aid from the State... Yes, I almost forgot the announced purchase of Smolensk-based Kristall... A shareholder represented by the State can say that not everything is determined by economic efficiency and that social results produced by a company such as ALROSA are no less important. This is all true if this were followed by an increase in employment, income levels and the economic activity associated with the core business in Yakutia. However, in Western Yakutia, everything happens exactly in the opposite way resulting in personnel retrenchments, as it is extremely difficult there to find a job anywhere, but ALROSA, especially for the engineering staff. Some of the companys business units are transferred to Novosibirsk. Why there? There are many other wonderful cities in Russia... As it turns out, due to the company-town infrastructure ALROSA employs entire families for instance, a husband works as an engineer, while his wife as an accountant so, if one of them has to quit, both have to look for other jobs or split their family. You can sure find specialists in Novosibirsk and probably it is even cheaper than in Mirny. But then it is necessary to fire people in Mirny, which discredits the miners above-mentioned social function allegedly opposing the world of greedy profit-chasing and hard cash owned by square-shouldered atlantes? Recently, ALROSA began trading in the city of Vladivostok. They created some kind of a cluster and even opened a branch there... Is anyone alive there, I wonder? In general, the process of finding the right corporate decisions is eternal and boundless like Russia itself - as long as there is money to spend. There is another way, which is the easiest - to disburden everything upon the State and let it grapple with this task. Think of old times after all and recall the Yakutalmaz Trust, which spent less and earned more. But this will only briefly postpone the need to return to the main issue, which is the foundation of the very business itself. And there is no way to avoid this, be it Yakutalmaz or ALROSA. Sergey Goryainov, Rough&Polished Davy Blommaert heads the Diamond Business at National Bank of Fujairah, which falls under the banks corporate and institutional banking division. With nearly 10 years of experience in the diamond industry, he was tasked to establish a unit within NBF that is focused on providing working capital and trade finance services specific to the diamond sector. Prior to joining NBF, Davy Blommaert spent six years at Antwerp Diamond Bank, where he supported the development of its Antwerp and Hong Kong businesses before moving on to oversee its Dubai office. His two-year stint at International Diamond Laboratories DMCC (IDL) as its finance manager and legal counsel saw him play a key role in helping IDL set up its operations in locations from Mumbai and Jeddah to Istanbul and Antwerp. In an Interview with Rough & Polished, Davy Blommaert talks about NBFs methodology, systems and policies, which protects the bank from losses. Below are the excerpts: For the benefit of our readers who are spread across the globe, can you please take us through the National Bank of Fujairahs (NBF) history from the time it was established to date? With its strategic location and proximity to major trade centers around the world, the UAE has long maintained a high ranking in the ease of doing business attracting investors and stakeholders across the supply chain and enabling them to benefit from this unique growth environment. With this in mind, National Bank of Fujairah emerged as the partner for businesses leveraging its segmented and multi-disciplinary sectorial approach with twelve business segments namely, Business Financing, Trading and Diversified, Energy and Marine, Government and Large Corporate, Contracting, Services and Manufacturing, Financial Institutions and Liability Management, Equipment Finance, Global Transaction Services, Corporate Finance and Precious Metals and Diamond. NBFs journey with bullion banking commenced with gold financing in 2002, when the bank first established its relationship with a prominent European bank to supply bullion. Currently the Bank is one of the leading financier of the Gold and Diamond Jewellery industry in the UAE. As such, the bank expanded its portfolio by venturing into diamonds financing in 2015, at a time when ADB had decided to exit the UAE market, which proved to be an excellent time for NBF to set up its division and commence its services. Boasting a growing team, NBFs dedicated precious metals and diamond unit has been focused to providing personalised services to UAE-based clients in the jewellery and diamond industry. The banks specialised team has also been focused on serving the jewellery and diamond industries covering major verticals namely, gold and diamond jewellery, rough and polished diamonds. Based in Dubais Almas Tower, in the heart of one of the worlds biggest diamond trading centres, NBFs diamond financing team focuses on by providing short-term trade finance products to established rough and polished diamond traders and manufacturers. With its vaulting facilities, both in-house and with Transguard in Deira Gold Souk Dubai, the banks services entail facilitating trades in gold, platinum and silver. Testament to its leading status, the bank structured Sharia-compliant bullion financing solution for Malabar Gold making the first-ever transaction of its kind in accordance with the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Institutions (AAOIFI) standards in the precious metals industry in the UAE. With unmatched sector-specific knowledge, NBF is ideally positioned as the financial partner for stakeholders across the supply chain. With in-depth understanding of the industry, the NBF team can uniquely identify growth opportunities for partners both within the UAE and beyond as to help them succeed and grow their business. Currently, the global gem and jewellery industry seems to be plagued with debt defaults and liquidity issues, with the financial crisis adversely affecting the industrys growth. While some business leaders say the problem is overrated, whats your take? We do not fully agree that there is a huge debt default and liquidity issue; there are still a lot of good, financially stable diamond companies in the market, and they do not have any issues in attracting finance. We all heard about the small bankruptcies which took place in India and we understand this could be a main topic of discussion for people. However, it is important to note that this is a phenomenon which we see happening every year. Due to the lack of generic advertisement over the last few decades, there has not been a big pull from consumers for the diamond jewellery business to grow; as such, the manufacturing margins are under pressure, which leads to stress especially with the smaller manufacturers who do not have a strong capital base or any other competitive advantage. I strongly believe that this midstream manufacturing base will need to further consolidate before profitability returns, and these bankruptcies in India are a part of this consolidation phase. As a bank servicing multiple industries, when did NBF decide to get into financing the gem and jewellery industry? How difficult is it to select a genuine company to service? Can you give more details on NBFs products, especially those designed for servicing the gem and jewellery industry? NBF has a long history in servicing gold and Jewellery clients and we have been supporting the jewellery industry stakeholders with bullion financing since 2002. Our expansion into diamond financing is a result of market need in addition to this being a natural progression to our expertise. In 2015, NBF launched its diamond financing unit to provide financial support to both traders and manufacturers out of its office in Almas Tower, also known as the center of diamond trade and located in the Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC). Employing seasoned experts in the industry, the bank taps into their knowledge when it comes to selecting companies to work with. The diamond community is a very small community, as such, once you are integrated into the community, it is not too difficult to select a genuine company. With diamond being an underlying commodity, it is probably one of the easiest products to use for any fraudulent transactions such as accommodation or round-tripping. As such, one has to be always careful to do business with the right parties, as balance sheets can be easily manipulated by people of bad intent. Another challenge is the fact that balance sheets can be easily manipulated so it all goes back to relationships, reputation and trust. Therefore, it is very important for any new bank entering this business to on-board someone who knows this industry, and who is integrated into the community, to guide to bank to the correct clients. In terms of products, we provide purchase finance for purchases from primary sources (DTC, ALROSA among others) as well as sales finance via invoice discounting. As of today, what is NBFs Know Your Client program regarding verifying your clients credit-worthiness; and how effective has it been till now? How does your bank monitor your clients business progress? If the loaned money has deviated, how does NBF react and retrieve its money? We have a very thorough and stringent enhanced KYC/compliance policy in place before onboarding a client. As such, we also have a dedicated compliance person for the diamond desk to ensure proper due diligence. Deviation of funds is best avoided by onboarding only trustworthy clients with impeccable integrity and a long-lasting, good track record. Hence, the importance to be well integrated within the community. It is also a standard practice that before issuing credit facilities to a client to do a stringent financial analysis this does not only cover their local operations but also extends to looking into their global consolidated business. As we try to position ourselves as partners to our clients, we will maintain a very close relationship with them which should enable us to always keep the pulse on their business progress. In addition, we do a formal thorough annual review of the clients KYC/compliance profile and their business model coupled with a financial analysis of their global operations. Testament to the effectiveness of this approach, we are happy to say we have not had any losses in the diamond industry to date. Borrowing companies find loopholes to misuse but as a Banker of many years standing, what precautions should lending banks take? Whats your opinion on underwriting any credit extended by a client company to its customer? At times it does not provide sufficient protection for the banks monies? Your thoughts? We have of course implemented certain systems and policies to avoid any misuse. However, I am very much convinced that if a client really wants to defraud the bank, they will find some way to play the system, irrespective of how many safeguards and policies the banks implement. Therefore, we have taken the approach of working with clients who boast stellar reputation and impeccable integrity. It is the market norm that clients sell to their customers providing credit terms up to 120 days. As a bank active in this industry, we provide trade finance for our clients which means that we will have to discount these invoices. Normally, most of the professional companies have strict credit limits for their customers as well, which means that if one counterparty does not pay, the client himself will be able to cover this loss. Throughout my career, I have never seen a client go bankrupt because one of his customers could not make the payment. However, what we have noticed in the past is that companies try to make quick returns by diverting funds towards investments in the stock market, or in real estate, etc. When this completely fails, the client then tries to cover the losses by doing accommodation business or round-tripping. As such, everything again boils down to the same thing, only do business with clients who have an impeccable integrity. How often have you faced loan defaulters in your past and present position as a banker? What steps does NBF take to safeguard itself. And are collaterals sufficient to keep control of borrowers? Does NBF operate alone or part of a consortium while financing the gem and jewellery industry? If either one of them, why so? As mentioned above, NBF has been vigilant enough since entering the diamond financing space and this has been rewarded by not having to incur losses. We try to safeguard ourselves by putting a lot of time and effort in hopefully selecting the right clients to do business with. In line with market practice for banks outside of India, we mainly give bi-lateral facilities. With lending banks pulling out of the diamond business the world over, do private lending firms/institutions have a better chance to capitalize on the situation and enter the gem and jewellery industry? We still very much believe that the diamond business is a very good business to be in; of course, this subject to doing your homework and working with clients known to be trustworthy. We do not believe that there is currently a shortage of liquidity in the market especially with all good companies being able to attract finance. It is mainly the smaller companies which have limited capital and competitive advantages that are not finding any finance. If these smaller companies were to exit the business, we would see a continued consolidation phase that would increase manufacturing margins. Both banks and/or private lending firms/institutions look at the same parameters before providing loans, as such, we do not see them entering the market and providing loans to these smaller companies with limited capital; larger companies in any case have no shortage of finance. However, we are already seeing private lending firms/institutions increase their share of trade finance in different industries globally which could extend to the diamond industry. Aruna Gaitonde, Editor in Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished He was 63Chief Minister passed away around 6.40 pm Sunday Panaji, Mar 17: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar died at his private residence near here Sunday. He was 63. Parrikar is survived by two sons and their families. "Chief Minister passed away around 6.40 pm Sunday," a senior state government official told PTI. The BJP stalwart's health, which has been fluctuating for a year, took a turn for the worse in the past two days. In a tweet, President Ram Nath Kovind said, "Extremely sorry to hear of the passing of Shri Manohar Parrikar, chief minister of Goa, after an illness borne with fortitude and dignity."An epitome of integrity and dedication in public life, his service to the people of Goa and India will not be forgotten," the President tweeted from his official handle. Advertisement Sources said former defence minister Parrikar had been on life support system since late Saturday night. Parrikar had been unwell since February 2018 when he was diagnosed with a pancreatic ailment. President Ram Nath Kovind New Delhi, Mar 17: President Ram Nath Kovind Monday expressed grief over the demise of Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, saying he was an "epitome of integrity and dedication in public life". The former defence minister was battling a pancreatic ailment and died at his private residence in Dona Paula near Panaji, officials said. He was 63. "Extremely sorry to hear of the passing of Shri Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa, after an illness borne with fortitude and dignity. "An epitome of integrity and dedication in public life, his service to the people of Goa and of India will not be forgotten #PresidentKovind," the president posted on his official Twitter handle. Parrikar's health was fluctuating for a year and took a turn for the worse in the past two days. He is survived by his two sons and their families. Advertisement Demise of Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar "The chief minister passed away around 6.40 pm Sunday," a senior state government official told PTI. Sources said Parrikar had been on life support system since late Saturday night. Parrikar had been unwell since February 2018 when he was diagnosed with a pancreatic ailment. Congress President Rahul Gandhi New Delhi, Mar 18: Congress President Rahul Gandhi Sunday condoled the demise of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and described him as "one of Goa's favourite sons". He said Parrikar was respected and admired across party lines and had bravely battled his illness for over a year. "I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Goa CM, Shri Manohar Parrikar Ji, who bravely battled a debilitating illness for over a year. Manohar Parrikar Advertisement Respected and admired across party lines, he was one of Goa's favourite sons. My condolences to his family in this time of grief(sic)," Gandhi said on Twitter. The Congress on its official Twitter handle also said, We condole the passing of former Union Minister & Chief Minister @manoharparrikar. We hope that his family finds strength in their moment of grief. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said, "Deeply saddened by the demise of Shri Manohar Parrikar ji, Chief Minister of Goa. Ashok Gehlot My heartfelt condolences to his family members..May his soul rest in peace. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, Sad to learn about the passing away of Shri Manohar Parrikar, CM of Goa. He was a cordial man, who was admired across party lines. My deepest condolences to his family and friends." Parrikar died at his private residence near here Sunday. He was 63. The BJP stalwart's health, which has been fluctuating for a year, took a turn for the worse in the past two days. PM Modi pays tribute to Parrikar in Goa Panaji, Mar 18: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday paid tribute to Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday. After arriving in the coastal state, Modi reached the Kala Academy in Panaji where he paid his last respect to the 63-year-old senior leader. He met Parrikar's family members and offered his condolences to them. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman also met Parrikar's family members. Last rites Advertisement Earlier in New Delhi, a Union Cabinet meeting was convened to condole the demise of Parrikar, following which Modi left for Goa. BJP president Amit Shah will also be in the coastal state to take part in the funeral procession of the late leader, the party said. The chief minister's body has been kept at the Kala Academy to allow the public pay their tributes. Earlier in the morning, his mortal remains were kept the BJP office in Panaji, located around three km from the Kala Bhawan, for the party leaders and workers to pay their last respects. Nirmala Sitharaman pays tribute Parrikar, a four-time chief minister, died at his private residence Sunday evening after battling the pancreatic ailment since February last year. The IIT graduate represented Panaji Assembly seat in the state for over two decades. Parrikar's final journey will begin after 4 pm. His last rites will be performed at 5 pm at the Miramar beach here, next to the memorial of Goa's first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar, who was also cremated there. Parrikar would be accorded a state funeral with full military honours, according to the home ministry. The central government has announced national mourning on Monday. Swaraj meets top Maldivian leadership Male, Mar 18: India and the Maldives on Sunday discussed measures to strengthen bilateral ties and collaborate in the fields of defence, development cooperation, capacity building and health as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with the country's top leadership, including her Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid. Swaraj arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. Swaraj and Maldivian Foreign Minister Shahid reviewed progress on important bilateral issues, including implementation of agreed outcomes of President Solih's visit to India last year, External Affairs Ministry (MEA) Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. They agreed on a broad spectrum of issues for further collaboration, including development cooperation and enhancing people-to-people contact. Advertisement Solih visited India in December last year during which India announced a USD 1.4 billion financial assistance to the island nation. The two countries had also agreed to remain mindful of each other's concerns and aspirations for the stability of the Indian Ocean region and not allow their respective territories to be used for any activity inimical to their interests. During a joint ministerial meeting with nine other Maldivian ministers, including Defence Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi and Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer, the two sides discussed ongoing and future cooperation across all spheres, including defence, development cooperation, capacity building, health and consular issues, the MEA spokesperson tweeted. Discussed measures to strengthen bilateral ties Swaraj also called on the Speaker of the Parliament of Maldives, the People's Majlis, Qasim Ibrahim and reiterated India's commitment to supporting the country in its path of peace, development, prosperity and democracy. She unveiled a plaque dedicating the renovated IGM Hospital to the people of Maldives in the city of Male. IGMH is the first and largest government healthcare facility in the Maldives, built with Indian assistance. Swaraj will call on President Solih on Monday. Advertisement In New Delhi, the MEA said Saturday that her visit is aimed at further strengthening the "close and friendly" relations between the two countries. "India attaches the highest importance to its relationship with the Maldives which is marked by trust, transparency, mutual understanding and sensitivity," it said. "The ministers will review the entire gamut of bilateral relations and discuss future programme of action," the MEA said. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and a number of senior officials are accompanying Swaraj during the trip. Officials said it will be the first full-fledged bilateral visit at the political level from India to the Maldives after the new government assumed office. They said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Maldives in November only to attend Solih's swearing-in ceremony and no substantive discussion had taken place then. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Advertisement Sources said the Maldives was aware of Indian government's limitations due to the election code of conduct and that Swaraj's visit will be to enhance overall ties which came under strain during the presidentship of Abdulla Yameen, who was known to be close to China. Relations between India and the Maldives deteriorated after the then President Abdulla Yameen imposed emergency on February 5 last year. India had criticised his decision and asked his government to restore the credibility of the electoral and political process by releasing political prisoners. The emergency lasted for 45 days. Solih became president in November after he defeated Yameen in presidential elections. Capt Amarinder Singh Patiala, March 18: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday mocked the Bharatiya Janata Partys `Main Bhi Chowkidar election campaign as a ridiculous `jumla, which will not solve any real problems of the people of India. Such slogans do not help fill the stomachs of our poor people, they do not give jobs to our youth, Captain Amarinder said in an informal chat with mediapersons after a meeting with MLAs, Zone in-charges and heads of frontal organizations of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) from Patiala here. The meeting had been convened to review the partys preparedness from the Patiala constituency. The `jumla party failed to deliver on any promise all these years, and was now resorting to more `jumlebaazi in a desperate bid to win votes, said the Chief Minister, adding that the people of India were fed up with these hollow slogans and promises. They wanted to know what the BJP-led government had done for them in the last five years, he added. Advertisement Campaign "main bhi chowkidar" Declaring the PPCC to be fully prepared for the LS polls, Captain Amarinder said he was confident the party would win all the 13 seats in Punjab. The Congress was in a very strong position in the state, he said, reiterating his earlier stand that the party did not need any alliance and would go it alone in the state. Asked if the recent IAF air strikes would make a difference to the poll-scape, the Chief Minister said that was not likely to happen as what the BJP government did was nothing exceptional. It was the duty of the government in power to retaliate after the Pulwama attacks and even the Congress would have done the same had it been in power, he added. Pointing out that the defence serves were apolitical in nature, which made them the real `chowkidars of India, the Chief Minister lashed out at the BJP for seeking to politicize the forces. The Congress never did that, and no political party worth its name would indulge in such pettiness, he added. Advertisement Former Congress MP Preneet Kaur In response to a question regarding the Akali threat of gheraoing former Congress MP Preneet Kaur in Patiala, Captain Amarinder said the Congress will gherao the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the whole of Punjab. They will not find any corner to hide in, he added. Asked about her readiness to contest the LS elections from Patiala, Preneet described herself to be fully prepared and geared to take on the opposition. The Congress has worked for the development of Punjab, including Patiala, and the people appreciate it, she added. German police report that a drunken man armed with a fire extinguisher went on a rampage due to the train's high speeds. The man, a wee bit over the limit of responsible drinking, bashed through the door of the drivers cab on a high-speed train en route from Frankfurt to Paris. The drunken chap had a simple demanded, that simply the driver slow down the high speed train as it was making him anxious. The ICE train operated by Germanys Deutsche Bahn stopped near Frankfurt after the incident Sunday morning according to Federal police. The 30-year-old man from Heideberg, who hasnt yet been identified, was arrested at the scene and faces an investigation into dangerous interference in rail traffic, among other potential misdemeanors. Witness reports from some of the passengers claim that the man took a fire extinguisher from the wall bracketing, smashed a glass door separating the cab from the passenger compartment, and told the shocked driver the train was going much too fast and he had no choice but to 'save the passengers'. No passengers were hurt during the incident but the train was taken out of service. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. WILTON, N.Y. A Moreau man was arrested for driving while intoxicated, assault and other charges after a fight with New York State troopers and others at the scene. State Police in Wilton arrested Steven L. Bickford, 36, of Moreau at 2:27 p.m. on March 16 after responding to a report of a male who had just broke all the windows out of a vehicle with a hammer and was subsequently fighting with several persons in the driveway of a residence in Wilton. When troopers arrived, Bickford was being detained by several persons on scene. Bickford continued to fight with troopers and other persons on scene as troopers tried to take him into custody. He was ultimately taken and transported to the State Police barracks in Wilton. While at the barracks, Bickford continued to be uncooperative, refusing to be processed or to submit to a chemical test of his breath. Bickford was charged with criminal mischief third, a felony, driving while intoxicated, two counts of assault third, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration second, and disorderly conduct. Bickford was arraigned in the Town of Moreau Court by Town Justice McCabe and remanded to Saratoga County Jail for lack of $2500 cash / $5000 insurance bond. He is to appear in the Town of Wilton Court on a later date. If you are a PNC customer, youll likely need to know PNC bank open time, the time it closes, and its holiday hours. The in-person times are pretty straightforward. However, the customer service phone hours are slightly more complicated. Therefore, its important to know exactly what you need from the bank. PNC Bank has 2600 branch locations and 9000 ATM locations. This bank is available in 19 states: Alabama Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Maryland Michigan Missouri New Jersey New York North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania South Carolina Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin You dont have to live in one of these states to open a PNC bank account. They offer many online services. Therefore, if you want a mortgage or student loan, then you might choose this bank even if you dont live in one of those 19 states. However, if you need to withdraw money from an ATM, youll get charged fees if you dont live in one of the PNC bank states. PNC Bank Hours If you bank with PNC, then you need to know what their hours are. Most importantly, you need to know that theyre closed on Mondays. Like many other banks, they are also closed on weekends. Therefore, you can only bank with them in person Tuesday Friday. PNC Bank Open Time The PNC bank open time is 9 am. The open time is consistent across all four days of the week that the bank is open. PNC Bank Closing Time PNC Bank closes at 5 pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. However, they dont close until 6 pm on Fridays. Therefore, you have an extra hour to get to the bank before their long weekend. Many people appreciate this since Friday is often the payday of the week. PNC Bank Customer Service Hours Although their in-store hours are limited during the week, PNC Bank customer service is available every day. You can call 1-888-PNC-BANK to connect with a customer service representative. The PNC bank open time for customer service calls is 7 am ET Monday-Friday, and 8 am ET on the weekends. Customer service calls are accepted until 10 pm ET on weekdays and 5 pm on weekends. Moreover, they have 24-hour automated information for your accounts. Do note that the hours are slightly different if youre seeking customer service information for specific services and types of accounts. The main hours above are for personal banking, business banking, and virtual wallet accounts. You can call about existing accounts or if you want to open a new account. However, phone call hours are slightly more limited if youre calling about a PNC mortgage or student loan. The bank only accepts those calls Monday through Friday. The PNC bank open time for those calls is 8 am. They accept mortgage calls until 9 pm ET Monday Thursday and 5 pm on Fridays. They accept student loan calls until 5 pm on weekdays. Likewise, the hours are slightly different if youre calling about investments. PNC bank open time for customer service help with existing investment accounts is 8 am ET on weekdays. This phone service closes at 10 pm. However, if you need to talk to a financial specialist, the hours are a bit shorter. While the PNC bank open time is still 8 am, closing time is 6 pm. Finally, they have specific services for members of the military. The phone hours for those services are 8:30 am 4:30 pm on weekdays. PNC Bank Holidays If you plan to visit PNC bank in person, then its also important to know which holidays they are closed. There are ten holidays when the bank is closed each year: New Years Day Martin Luther King Jr. Day Presidents Day Memorial Day Fourth of July Labor Day Columbus Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Christmas In 2019, the holiday dates that the bank is closed are: Jan 1, 2019: New Years Day Jan 21, 2019: Martin Luther King Jr. Day Feb 18, 2019: Presidents Day May 27, 2019: Memorial Day July 4th, 2019: Fourth of July Sep 2, 2019: Labor Day Oct 14, 2019: Columbus Day Nov 11, 2019: Veterans Day Nov 28, 2019: Thanksgiving Dec. 25, 2019: Christmas Some of those dates will be the same every year. For example, the Fourth of July and Christmas are always on the same dates. However, some of the dates, such as Thanksgiving, change each year. Therefore, be sure to check a current calendar for PNC holiday hours. Note that the bank is closed only on the day of, not the eve. For example, the bank is closed on Christmas Day, but not on Christmas Eve. The bank is open on other holidays not listed here. For example, PNC Bank is open on Easter Monday and Halloween. 24/7 Ways to Reach PNC Bank PNC bank does offer mobile services. You can deposit checks straight from your phone. Plus, you can access additional information. Therefore, you can get a lot of information about your accounts online at any time of day or night. Automated account information is also available by phone 24/7. Furthermore, you can head to the banks website to check out their FAQ. You might be able to get some of the answers that you need there. You can also reach the bank online. They offer customer service through email and Twitter. Of course, theyll probably reply during normal business hours. Nevertheless, if you have a non-urgent question, this can be a great way to reach out to them whenever something comes up. PNC Bank is also on Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. However, they only advertise customer service solutions via social media using Twitter. PNC Bank Pros and Cons If youre not yet a PNC bank customer, then you might want to weigh the pros and cons before choosing this bank. As aforementioned, the bank is only available in 19 states. If you dont live in one of those states, then it might not be the best bank choice for you. Furthermore, the bank is closed on weekends, Mondays, and weekdays after 5 pm or 6 pm. If that doesnt work with your schedule, then you might want to see if there are better options in your area. Furthermore, there are some important cons to consider. They offer a 0.01% APY on your regular savings account, which is lower than many other banks. Plus they have fees, including an overdraft fee from your checking account up to four times daily. Therefore, you may not make the most of your money at this bank. That said, there are also some great benefits to PNC bank. They have a wide range of customer service options, with extended phone service hours that include the weekends. They offer financial advice for investors as well as special help for members of the military. Moreover, they have a strong suite of online and mobile banking tools. If you primarily bank online and would rarely need to visit a branch location, then this might be a good banking option for you. Read More: Photo Credit: Erik Drost Gemologist turned 'rock hound' Alumnus donates large collection of natural gemstones found in the Carolinas As a gemologist and old-school goldsmith who has made jewelry in Columbia for more than 40 years, Ron Koenig used to look down on rock hounds those folks who like to dig for their own gems. That is, until a friend suggested a place where they could dig up amethyst and Koenig found several hundred pounds of it. I leased land, I joined hunting clubs, Koenig says of his ensuing quest to find more gemstones in their natural South Carolina habitat. Now, Koenig is returning some of those finds to the people of South Carolina in the form of a donation of 93 gemstones worth more than $100,000 to the collection of gems at McKissick Museum. As someone who owns a jewelry store, he has incredibly high standards, says Christian Cicimurri, geology professor and curator of collections at McKissick. The things he has collected are pretty spectacular. Cicimurri is also a friend of Koenigs who has provided him a wintertime outlet for his hobby with volunteer opportunities at McKissick both on its advisory council and as a volunteer cataloguing the museums extensive collection of minerals and gemstones. Jewelry store owner and UofSC alumnus Ron Koenig has donated $100,000 worth of gemstones he found in the Carolinas to McKissick Museum. Before Koenigs collection, McKissicks nearly 5,000 gemstones represented faceted or cut stones from the J. Harry Howard Collection. Much of McKissicks natural history collections are either very old or representative of minerals found around the world. Koenigs collection is entirely uncut and dug from the ground by Koenig himself in North and South Carolina. The stones are mostly quartz smoky quartz and amethyst, the purple variety that is prevalent in South Carolina but also include mica. Koenig, who grew up in Florence, S.C., was a student at the University of South Carolina when he decided to stop just short of graduation and open a jewelry store with his friend Michael. Within a few months, his friend met a girl and went off to get married, leaving Koenig as the sole proprietor of Michaels Jewelry. I learned silversmithing while I was in college and started making jewelry, Koenig says. I enjoy the craft of designing. Jewelry design is just in my blood. But looking for gems, that is totally different. I wake up at dawn and get out in the woods. Im poking around looking for a little piece of quartz in the pine straw. Maybe Ill find a vein or a chimney pipe. Sometimes its six inches, sometimes its 24 feet. Koenig says he has had incredible luck over his 20 years of rock-hounding and he is proud that he can help improve McKissicks collection. Thanks to modern GPS mapping, he can even pinpoint where he found each piece, which makes his gift valuable for geology research. Some people go chase little white balls for relaxation, he says. I prefer to go hiking and hey, I might find something worth some money. Share this Story! Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the oldest in the world, and have separately certified a ship's bell (dated 1498) recovered from the same wreck site also as the oldest in the world. The scientific process of verifying the disc as an astrolabe by laser imaging is described in a paper published today by Mearns and Jason Warnett and Mark Williams of WMG at the University of Warwick in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The Sodre astrolabe has made it into the Guinness Book of world records is believed to have been made between 1496 and 1501 and is unique in comparison to all other mariner's astrolabes. Mariner's Astrolabes were used for navigating at sea by early explorers, most notably the Portuguese and Spanish. They are considered to be the rarest and most prized of artefacts to be found on ancient shipwrecks and only 104 examples are known to exist in the world. They were first used at sea on a Portuguese voyage down the west coast of Africa in 1481. Thereafter, astrolabes were relied on for navigation during the most important explorations of the late 15th century, including those led by Bartolomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama. advertisement It is the only solid disk type astrolabe with a verifiable provenance and the only specimen decorated with a national symbol: the royal coat of arms of Portugal. As the earliest verifiable mariner's astrolabe it fills a chronological gap in the development of these iconic instruments and is believed to be a transitional instrument between the classic planispheric astrolabe and the open-wheel type astrolabe that came into use sometime before 1517. The thin 175 mm diameter disk weighing 344 grams was analysed by a team from WMG who travelled to Muscat, Oman in November 2016 to collect laser scans of a selection of the most important artefacts recovered from the wreck site. Using a portable 7-axis Nikon laser scanner, capable of collecting over 50,000 points per second at an accuracy of 60 microns, a 3D virtual model of the artefact was created. Analysis of the results revealed a series of 18 scale marks spaced at uniform intervals along the limb of the disk. advertisement Further analysis by WMG engineers showed that the spacing of the scale marks was equivalent to 5-degree intervals. This was critical evidence that allowed independent experts at Texas A&M University to include the disk in their global inventory as the earliest known mariner's astrolabe discovered to date. Prof Mark Williams from WMG, University of Warwick comments: "Using this 3D scanning technology has enabled us to confirm the identity of the earliest known astrolabe, from this historians and scientists can determine more about history and how ships navigated. Technology like this betters our understanding of how the disc would have worked back in the 15th century. Using technology normally applied within engineering projects to help shed insight into such a valuable artefact was a real privilege" David Mearns of Blue Water Recoveries Ltd comments: "Without the laser scanning work performed by WMG we would never have known that the scale marks, which were invisible to the naked eye, existed. Their analysis proved beyond doubt that the disk was a mariner's astrolabe. This has allowed us to confidently place the Sodre astrolabe in its correct chronological position and propose it to be an important transitional instrument." Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=A9KAaCvhj9c Inuit communities' travel skills and regional knowledge have helped mitigate the effects of Arctic climate change on travel conditions, according to a new study. The Arctic is warming nearly twice as quickly as the rest of the world and has the potential to affect many aspects of life for the people that live there. The semi-permanent trails used by Indigenous communities on sea-ice, rivers and frozen ground are vulnerable to warming conditions which can cause sea-ice melt and flooding. These trails are critically important for travel between settlements, to cultural sites and for practicing traditional hunting, fishing and gathering activities. Until now, understanding whether climate change has affected the ability of Inuit to use these trails has been elusive, making it difficult for communities and regional and local governments to decide how to plan for climate impacts. A study led by Professor James Ford, from the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds, used interviews with nine Inuit communities in the eastern Canadian Arctic to assess trail viability and compared this to 30 years' worth of weather records to determine changes in travel conditions. They found that despite significant changes in climate-related conditions between 1985-2016, including warming temperatures, overall trail access was affected much less than they expected. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, suggests trail conditions have only changed by roughly one or two days in the last 30 years and that the combined number of suitable travel days per year for the three types of travel examined -- over snow on land, over sea ice and on open water -- has actually increased. advertisement While changing ice conditions are reducing sea-ice trail access for using snowmobiles in the autumn and winter, improvements in visibility and wind appear to be offsetting this by enhancing both land and water trails in the spring and summer. To assess trail access and viable travel days, the team, for the first time, took into account the skill level and risk tolerance among trail users to determine viable travel days. For example, ice concentration is critical for safely using small boats. Low or no ice concentrations are preferred by Inuit for boating. Accidents where boats have been sunk by ice strikes or occupants have been thrown overboard are more prevalent in high ice conditions. The study suggests that less than 30 per cent ice coverage is generally preferred for boating. However, in determining thresholds for trail access among users with a different levels of skill sets and risk tolerance, 50 per cent ice coverage was set as the upper limit for trail users with a high risk tolerance and skill set, while only 10 per cent ice coverage was the cut off point for users with low risk tolerance and fewer skills to traverse water trails. Professor Ford, Chair in Climate Adaptation at the Priestley Centre, explained: "Previous studies on Arctic transportation and climate change do not take into consideration different types of trail users. "We found that an understanding of how trail conditions are affected by changing conditions, as well as a knowledge of alternative routes, and a well-developed skillsets, such as being adept with snowmobile or recognising dangerous ice conditions, had a greater impact in determining whether trails were safe to use, more so than the change in travel conditions due to climate. advertisement "Highly skilled travellers are able to use the trails more than twice as often as travellers whose skillsets are not as well-developed. The study estimated that travellers of high skill can expect roughly 100 more days of suitable travel conditions per year compared to travellers with a lower skill set. Professor Ford said: "While climate models can provide a bigger picture of the overall effects of climate change, it can be harder to determine how environmental variables are affecting specific activities within different communities in affected regions. "The study highlights how the close involvement of the people in question is essential to understanding how the ongoing changes to the environmental will affect specific activities of different groups. Incorporating this practice, or a "bottom-up" approach, is central for understanding what climate change means for people and developing responses tailored to specific contexts. "However, while the skill set of the Inuit community may be mitigating the effects of climate change on travel conditions for now, there is no doubt that the warming conditions in the Arctic are having detrimental effects on the region. "The shrinking sea-ice and shifts in seasonal temperatures are a serious threat, particularly to the region's native species and ecology which form an essential part of the Inuit community's tradition and culture. And while the effects of climate change to date on trail access were not totally what we expected, communities are very concerned about what future change may mean." This study included collaborative research from McGill University, Canada, the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, the University of Ottawa, Canada, the University of Cape Town and the University of Alberta, Canada, and involved working closely with communities across the Canadian Arctic. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now reported to be in two areas and could be stopped by September, but the country also needs help strengthening its broader health problems, the head of the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The outbreak is recorded as the the second worst in history, and it is believed to have killed 587 people in a region that is known for violence and poverty. A quick international response has so far stopped the disease spreading into neighboring countries. "We have averted a much larger outbreak," said WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus Adhanom, adding that the affected area was contained and shrinking. "Our target now is to finish it within the next six months." The number of new cases is now 25 per week since January, which is half of what was recorded prior and the virus was now concentrated in two towns, Butembo and Katwa. However, attacks by armed groups and community distrust from outside help were slowing down the response and extended help. On Thursday, a group of young men attacked an Ebola center for the fifth time since last month, Congo's health ministry said, after medics tried to collect samples from the body of a man that died of the virus. Police opened fire to alert the crowd in the Biena health zone, west of Butembo, but it killed one person and injuried another, the ministry said in a statement. Last week the head of medical charity MSF, which had two facilities attacked, said the battle against Ebola was deemed difficult because the locals did not trust health workers and the response was militarized. Tedros, who has just returned from the outbreak area, said local people were wondering why the world was so worried by Ebola while caring so little about other health problems like cholera and malaria. "I'd actually like to call upon the international community to link the outbreak control now with developing the health system," he said. "That's a big challenge. Otherwise, we will appear as if we are preventing Ebola getting into other countries and we don't care about the demands of the community." He said the WHO would not leave the Congo when the outbreak ended but would help the government to build stronger and more stable health services. He called on international donors to fund the $148 million plan to fight Ebola from spreading in the next six months, a tiny amount to spend compared to the potential cost. The worst outbreak, which killed 11,300 people in West Africa in 2013-2016, cost around $53 billion, according to a study. RUSSIA -- considered as the world's largest source of natural resources is planning to join Luxembourg in its mission to mine minerals from the outer space. This is according to the statement made by Tatyana Golikova, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister. The realm of Science Fiction revolves around the concept of space mining, but a number of governments and private firms want to pursue the idea and turn it into reality. Luxemburg is recognized as the first country to adopt all legal regulations related to mining in space. They have also identified it proper to include mining in asteroids. "In January, Russia offered Luxembourg with a framework agreement to use the exploration in space, particularly in Mining," said Golikova. He is part of the Russian delegation headed by the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. "We are waiting for their response." Commercial mining remains to be a far thought of the idea because it is hampered by so many things. Countries all over the world remain passive about the thought considering the technical challenges as to how people could carry out such mission. The first problem is how they could possibly bring back a huge quantity of the mining products back to earth. The focus of the people behind the idea of space mining is that instead of bringing back all the minerals they have mined in space, they will create various interplanetary "stations" to provide support to the communities in outer space. Iron, nickel, and cobalt are known to be abundant in asteroids. And because these are critical components of the space vehicles, it is only best that they are put to good use. The group of Platinum metals is also abundant in asteroids and if mined properly, they can be brought back to earth and be used for internal electronics and circuits. The law that dominates various space explorations is included in the Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967. It was also ratified in the midst of the Cold War and is therefore heavy on its prohibition on the use of weapons that could bring about mass destruction in space, the moon, or any other celestial body. The treaty explicitly forbids any government to take ownership of whatever is claimed from any celestial resource such as Mars or the Moon. This is based on the idea that everything from space is considered "the common heritage of mankind." Luxembourg has expressed its willingness to work with other countries to make the exploration possible through a multilateral agreement. However, the countries all over the world may pass their own legislation. It could raise the specter out of it that everyone wants to get a piece of it. Golikova, however, added that it is too early to talk about direct cooperation, which is lacking a legal framework. A New Multicloud Security Solution for Session Management Across Distributed Enterprise Networks: 128 and Ribbon Tie Things Together By Arti Loftus , Special Correspondent 128 Technology, which calls itself the Session Smart routing company, and Ribbon Communications (News - Alert), a global software company specializing in secure, intelligent cloud communications today announced a new integrated solution that combines 128 Technologys SD-WAN software with Ribbons session border controller (SBC) technology. The combined solution is designed to solve many common cloud networking issues including bandwidth inefficiencies, security gaps and high operational costs, and importantly allows enterprises to utilize the Communications Service Provider (CSP (News - Alert)) of their choice for the clouds and locations of their choice to run their distributed networks. Whether private, public, hybrid or multicloud in nature, the integrated solutions simplifies and lowers the cost of interconnection. The combined solution makes it as easier to build, manage, scale and redesign any data network (including voice) with more agility, giving IT, OT and network administrators the ability to turn up and manage secure networks from their management consoles. The integration of 128 Technologys (News - Alert) SD-WAN solution with our SBC Edge devices allows us to deliver a new level of security, reliability and efficiency to enterprise networks said Tony Scarfo (News - Alert), EVP, Products, R&D, Support and Supply Chain for Ribbon. Together, we will accelerate the communications transformation from legacy environments to IP-based architecture in the enterprise with a full suite of advanced security and SD-WAN solutions that ensure peak-level performance for business-critical communications and applications. Ribbon is the ideal partner to help strengthen and broaden our SD-WAN solutions and make this combined offering available to the global enterprise and cloud service provider market, said Andy Ory, CEO, 128 Technology. As enterprises and service providers increasingly move their operations to the cloud, it is critical that their networks operate efficiently and securely, while minimizing costs. This combined offering is a great opportunity to help our customers accelerate their network transformation. The combined solution, which is ideal for any Unified Communications (UC) or Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offering, delivers numerous benefits including: Improved Quality Customers consuming their UC capabilities from a cloud provider will gain the best possible quality of experience (QoE) in their communications infrastructure. Cloud providers now have the ability to reduce customer churn by offering advanced service level agreements (SLAs). Integrated Business Edge Customers will have a single platform solution for all of their SBC and SD-WAN requirements, enabling enhanced communications experiences through the rapid deployment of UC and data networks and the ability to be more responsive to dynamically changing traffic patterns. The solution also allows customers to match the appropriate internet connection for the application (MPLS, Ethernet, DIA, etc.). Zero Trust Security The combined solution creates a zero trust model for both communications and data. Ribbons advanced IP firewall and 128 Technologys deep security segmentation ensure a simple, affordable, and distributed defense offering that is highly effective against todays toughest UC and data cyber threats. The companies are demonstrating the integrated solution at Enterprise Connect (News - Alert) this week in Orlando. Edited by Maurice Nagle The Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges and an asset freeze against the operators of a $25 million Ponzi scheme falsely promising high annual returns with minimal to no risk to investors in the Vietnamese community of Orange County, California. The SEC alleges that Kent R.E. Whitney founded The Church for the Healthy Self three months after being released from federal prison for orchestrating a prior investment scheme involving commodities. According to the SEC, the Church for the Healthy Self's investment program, CHS Trust, promised investors tax-deductible, guaranteed, and insured returns of at least 12%, through reinsurance investments and options trading. David Lee Parrish, who assisted Whitney's earlier fraud, joined his friend as a co-pastor of The Church for the Healthy Self and as the purported director of CHS Trust. Whitney and Parrish primarily targeted Vietnamese investors through extensive radio and television advertisements touting CHS Trust. Instead of generating the promised guaranteed profits, Whitney and Parrish stole millions of dollars of investor funds and paid returns through Ponzi payments. Earlier this month, the FBI obtained a criminal seizure of the funds in CHS Trust's main account, citing potential violations of federal wire fraud and money laundering statutes as the predicate for the seizure. Despite the FBI seizure, Whitney and Parrish continued to solicit investors. The SEC alleges that the defendants violated the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, disgorgement, and civil penalties against the defendants. On March 14, 2019, the Honorable Judge James V. Selna of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted the SEC's request for a temporary restraining order and asset freeze. The SEC's investigation was conducted by Jason Rose and Ty Martinez and supervised by David Reece of the Fort Worth office. The litigation is being conducted by Jennifer Reece and supervised by B. David Fraser. Google has a pretty cool looking Doodle, special logo, on their home page to celebrate the life and contributions of the Japanese inventor Seiichi Miyake. The logo shows of his invention, the tactile blocks or Tenji blocks, to help the visually impaired. Google wrote: Todays animated Doodle celebrates Japanese inventor Seiichi Miyake, whose desire to help a close friend turned into an innovation that drastically improved the way those who are visually impaired navigate public spaces around the globe. In 1965, Miyake spent his own money to invent tactile blocks (or Tenji blocks as they were originally known) to help a friend whose vision was becoming impaired. The blocks come in two predominant types: one with dots, and the other with bars. The dotted blocks alert the visually impaired when they are approaching danger, and can often be found at the edges of crosswalks and railway platforms. The barred blocks provide directional cues, letting users know that they are following a safe path. According to Wikipedia In 1965, Seiichi Miyake used his money to create tactile bricks. This block has two main types, one has floating circles and the other has vertical bars. A block with a vertical bar means that you can safely go forward and a block with floating circles means you need to pay attention. Two years later, on March 18, 1967, Okayama City (western Japan) was the first place to install this invention for visually impaired people. 10 years later, thanks to its benefits and usability, tactile bricks became mandatory works in the Japan National Railway. He lived from 1926 to 1982. Forum discussion at Twitter. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii swept through Fremont on Sunday afternoon on a campaign stop for her budding bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, which has crystallized largely around matters of war and peace. Gabbard, who deployed twice to the Middle East as a member of the Army National Guard, delivered a brief but wide-ranging speech on the need for domestic political unity, the corrosive forces of money in politics and her support for Medicare for All. The strongest reactions from attendees came when Gabbard homed in on the enormous costs of Americas military activity abroad, which she condemned for having siphoned money away from domestic priorities, undermined national security and trampled on the sovereignty of nations. Conflicts like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken trillions of dollars out of our pockets for health care, infrastructure, education, for clean energy, Gabbard said in the speech at the half-full Royal Palace Banquet Hall. We cannot address these challenges, we cannot make these bold investments unless we end these wasteful regime-change wars. While barely evoking the Trump administration, she warned that the administrations decision last month to suspend one of the last remaining nuclear arms treaties with Russia was hurtling the world into a renewed nuclear arms race. It doesnt have to be this way. We can move our country away from war, and towards peace, she said. I know shes a big advocate for cutting military spending. There are so many programs at home we could be spending that money on, said Traci Dickson of San Jose. Dickson came to see Gabbard speak as she surveys the crowded field of Democratic presidential hopefuls. I wanted to see if she has the positions that represent me, and whether she has the stamina and the support to go all the way. Supporter Rajat Simhan of Mountain House, San Joaquin County, was impressed by Gabbards composure on a recent CNN appearance and said that her anti-interventionist positions resonate with him. We dont need these unnecessary wars, said Simhan. As shes said, weve interfered in too many peoples affairs. In keeping with her emphasis of diplomacy over military intervention, Gabbard has long criticized U.S. involvement in Syrias civil war. She met with Syria President Bashar al-Assad in 2017, after reports surfaced indicating he had used chemical weapons on civilians, a move that led some to question her judgment around foreign policy. She has defended the meeting as a genuine attempt at peacemaking and criticized President Trump for using the chemical attacks as a pretext for his decision to bomb Syrian airfields. Gabbard entered the presidential race in January. Her event in Fremont was among a handful of Bay Area appearances and fundraising stops in recent days, which included visits to San Francisco and Saratoga. 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. Gabbard was elected to the House in 2012, 10 years after she became the youngest person to be elected to the Hawaiian legislature. She is the first Hindu elected to Congress. She resigned her role as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee in order to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries, bucking the party line and bolstering her appeal with some progressive Democrats. Early polling numbers have placed her well behind Democratic contenders like Sanders and Sen. Kamala Harris. Her presidential bid has also drawn renewed scrutiny and in some cases, condemnation of her activism in the late 1990s and early 2000s around preventing same-sex marriage, largely alongside her father, Hawaiian state Sen. Mike Gabbard. He railed against gay rights in their home state and worked to pass a constitutional amendment that gave the Hawaii legislature the power to ban same-sex marriages. Gabbard has since apologized for saying and believing things that were wrong and very hurtful to the LGBTQ community. Her past anti-gay statements and advocacy could prove to be a stumbling block for some Democratic voters, but she has pointed to her congressional voting record around gay rights as evidence of her reconsideration of the issue. Shes preaching a message of standing in solidarity of service to each other, said Dorian Bodine, a supporter from San Jose. Thats probably something we all need right now. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa Good morning, Bay Area. Its Monday, March 18, and were following changes, big and small, coming to long-standing institutions in the region. Heres what you need to know to start your day. Lucca souvenir When Jon DSouza heard the news that Lucca Ravioli Co. in San Francisco planned to close in April, he knew he wanted to claim some memory from the 94-year-old business he had shopped at for a dozen years. Last week, he asked if he could purchase one of the hand-painted red-and-green butcher-paper signs that cover the stores windows. Hes not the only one vying for a piece of the soon-to-be closed deli. Luccas manager Jim Langell has a growing list of people who want the signs, an art collective is planning to copy the style of the watercolored, often-misspelled signs for a clothing store window and people are willing to buy used aprons as long as they have the Lucca logo on them. More: San Franciscans are famous for celebrating beloved institutions as they go out of business what about those hanging on? Heather Knight celebrates the scrappy Balboa theater. Madam Mayor Rep. Nancy Pelosi may be Speaker of the House but San Jose Democrat Zoe Lofgren is the mayor of Capitol Hill. As the chair of the under-the-radar House Administration Committee, Lofgren took the lead on the Houses first bill this year on federal elections and helps Congressional newbies get up to speed on arcane legislative procedure that can be used against them. Shes also the congresswoman you speak to when you want to turn the heat up in your Capitol Hill office. Read more. Oakland police troubles Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle By the end of the year, Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick wants to finally bring her agency into compliance with a federal judges order for reforms stemming from a 2-decade-old police brutality case. That goal is running into difficulty after the departments monitor called her oversight of a fatal police shooting disappointing and myopic. In another setback, the monitor is expected to soon rule that the agency has fallen out of compliance with one of its previously completed reforms, two sources familiar with the matter tell reporter Megan Cassidy. Potential PG&E blueprint Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Nearly a century ago, thousands of dissatisfied Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers decided they wanted to divorce themselves from the companys power service and form their own government-run utility. Two decades and a lengthy battle with PG&E later, Sacramento Municipal Utility District was born. J.D. Morris reports on whether Sacramentos experience can offer lessons for San Francisco as the city studies building its own municipal power authority. More: San Francisco to PG&E: We may make you an offer. Testing the exams Mason Trinca / Special to The Chronicle The role of cheating on the SAT and ACT revealed in the college admissions scandal may fuel the trend by some universities to de-emphasize the tests or make them optional and instead rely on grades, coursework, student activities, leadership roles and other examples of achievement. Sign up for Bay Briefing Like what you're reading? Subscribe to The Chronicle's Bay Briefing newsletter and get the Bay Area's best journalism in your inbox every weekday. See More Collapse The University of California formed a task force earlier this year to evaluate the role of standardized testing in the admission process. Experts say pressure to ace the exams has pushed parents and students into murky ethical and legal waters. Around the Bay Restricted use: The FDA has approved use of a nasal-spray version of the drug ketamine for patients who have hard-to-treat depression. 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. Disability programs hurting: Organizations that provide in-home care, behavioral and speech therapy, and job training to Californians with disabilities are struggling to keep their doors open with the rising cost of doing business, especially in the Bay Area. Into the future: The rebirth of Pier 70 is already an architectural triumph, with newly restored industrial landmarks filling up along 20th Street, writes urban design critic John King. Yabba dabba dont: The tony town of Hillsborough is suing the owner of one of its most well-known landmarks the so-called Flintstone House over gaudy outdoor decorations and other work, including a herd of large dinosaur sculptures. Tis the tax season: Columnist Kathleen Pender explains how and why to change your payroll withholding to more closely match what you will owe this year following the sweeping new tax law. Culinary departure: San Francisco chef Brett Cooper is leaving Aster after earning a Michelin star and four years at the Mission District restaurant. Making it official: Buster Poseys leadership is needed now more than ever, says columnist John Shea, who asks whether its time to make him the official team captain. Chronicle Food Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle Maggie Hoffman has a declaration: Cellarmaker brews San Franciscos best hoppy beers. You might have a different favorite, she writes, but shes ready to make the argument for Cellmakers neon tasting beers. Were lucky spoiled, even that theres an argument to be made for so many of our local beer producers. In this weeks Drink Up column, Hoffman goes to the five-year-old brewerys second outpost, the Cellarmaker House of Pizza at the base of Bernal Heights hill where you can have one of many constantly rotating beers on draft (one of Cellarmakers co-founders estimates theyve brewed 400 kinds since they opened) and a slice of the oh-so-trendy Detroit-style pizza. Bay Briefing is written by Taylor Kate Brown and sent to readers email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here and contact Brown at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com It starts with a lapsed vehicle registration or a few unpaid parking tickets, resulting in a city-ordered tow. But the effects cascade from there. Debts pile up. The car owner has no way to get to work. Meanwhile, the car sits for months in a lot a burden for the towing company that has to move it around. Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, has a solution for what he sees as a pernicious towing debt spiral. Hell announce a bill on Monday that bans three forms of tows: for a car registration thats more than six months out of date; for five or more unpaid parking tickets; or for a vehicle parked on a public street for more than 72 hours. Such poverty-related tows have a devastating economic impact on tens of thousands of low-income Californians every year, Chiu said. Cities and counties typically charge $500 to collect a vehicle from a tow yard, tacked onto the cost of the unpaid parking tickets or late registration. These fees easily swell to $1,500 or more once owners start paying for daily storage. A representative of the California Tow Truck Association, a statewide industry group, was not available for comment Friday. Chiu said the seizures benefit no one: They dont generate much profit for towing companies who sell the abandoned vehicles at auctions. They dont encourage people to pay tickets. And theyre devastating for people who lose their jobs because they lack reliable transportation. Thats what happened to 58-year-old Dana Robinson, who was trying to survive on bartending and stagehand jobs when police towed her broken-down work truck in Richmond. At the time, Robinson had been evicted from an artist warehouse and was struggling to find housing. She lived in a scruffy Volkswagen Beetle and occasionally used the truck for odd gigs until its clutch broke. Robinson was on the verge of selling the truck when police towed it for sitting on the street for three days. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. I couldnt pay the fee, so I had to sign over the title, she said. After that she remained homeless for several years, still working as a stagehand and panicking when she walked back to the Beetle at night. After the first tow, Robinson always feared her second car would disappear, too. Id just be like, please be there, please be there, said Robinson, who now lives in a cottage in West Oakland. Elisa Della-Piana, legal director for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, said a steady stream of people have approached her organization for help retrieving a towed car or contesting the fees that pile up. We just had person after person coming into our clinic with this issue, Della-Piana said, adding that the lawyers quickly saw the unintended consequences. People who lost their cars might lose their jobs, which would force them to seek public benefits. Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan Nearly a century ago, thousands of dissatisfied Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers decided they wanted to divorce themselves from the companys power service and form their own government-run utility. What followed was a long and complicated process that stretched out over more than two decades, held up in part because of stiff resistance from PG&E and culminated in 1946, when the Sacramento Municipal Utility District began providing electricity. Sacramento had voted to form the district in 1923. The essential motivation was simple: Local residents wanted to take control of their own power needs, and they felt San Franciscos PG&E was not serving their interests. At the time of the vote, there was no love lost in Sacramento voters for PG&E, said Nathan Hallam, a history lecturer at Cal State Sacramento. Theres all this antipathy for San Francisco-based big businesses that are sort of seen as taking advantage of the little guy in the Sacramento Valley, and PG&E is part of that, Hallam said. They thought PG&E is enriching people in San Francisco like everyone else and theyre providing a substandard service, and we want to provide our own power distribution. Now, PG&E, Californias largest investor-owned utility, is facing renewed calls to place some or all of its service area under government ownership after a series of catastrophic wildfires blamed on its power lines killed dozens of people, destroyed thousands of homes and propelled the company into its second bankruptcy since the turn of the century. We should own our energy has been a refrain among the activists who have protested PG&E before its regulators and marched into the lobby of the utilitys downtown San Francisco headquarters. The California Public Utilities Commission is already considering a variety of ways in which PG&E could be restructured, including whether some or all of its 70,000-square-mile service area should be served by a publicly owned power provider. San Francisco leaders, meanwhile, are studying the possibility of buying PG&Es electric distribution assets in the city a step that has long been mulled in the city but gained renewed traction in light of the utilitys current woes. The Sacramento utility, commonly referred to as SMUD, could serve as an example for San Francisco to follow, as could other municipal utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. But as the districts own history with PG&E shows, carving a new public power company within the territory of Californias largest utility could prove to be a lengthy and contested endeavor, whether its confined to San Francisco or not. If we go this route ... I think that it would be a multiyear, maybe decadelong process to actually get from here to a sort of breakup of PG&E into parts that can operate as some sort of government entity, said UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein. It would take a lot of planning and a lot of negotiation. One of the key questions any local jurisdiction would face if it moves to buy PG&Es electric assets, Borenstein said, is how much to pay the investor-owned company for the power lines and any other infrastructure the municipal utility wants to buy. That was a major sticking point when the Sacramento district was trying to get off the ground, according to Hallam. It decided to take over PG&Es system rather than build a brand new one, but that meant the Sacramento utility district was required to pay fair market value for it, Hallam said. PG&E took the matter to court, which contributed to the delay in the start of district service, he said. Before, in the districts infancy, PG&E had also delayed the process by suing to block the Sacramento utility from issuing the bonds voter had authorized. The utility was nervous because it was going to lose all these customers in Sacramento County, Hallam said. Like any business, it wants to protect its monopoly, he said. The district prevailed in the courtroom, but by the time that and other challenges were overcome, it had been 23 years since voters first authorized the creation of the new municipal utility. And PG&Es opposition to municipal power in the area didnt end in 1946. In 2006, PG&E spent millions of dollars on a successful campaign against efforts to extend the districts territory into Yolo County. One of the companys arguments was that residents would pay more if they left, and after winning at the ballot box, the CEO at the time said PG&E would continue to vigorously oppose any efforts to take our customers. San Francisco may be about to test whether that sentiment holds true for PG&Es present-day leadership. On Thursday, Mayor London Breed and City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a letter to PG&Es interim CEO and its chief financial officer regarding San Franciscos efforts to study the cost and practicality of buying the companys electric distribution assets serving the city. San Francisco began to look more seriously at the public power option in January, after PG&E said it planned to file for bankruptcy protection. Breed and Herrera said they wanted to address company leaders directly to underscore the seriousness of our purpose and facilitate lines of communication going forward. If we determine the acquisition is feasible, we intend for the city to make a formal offer to PG&E within the coming months as part of the bankruptcy process, Breed and Herrera said in the letter. San Francisco already buys power on behalf of its residents through CleanPowerSF, a community choice aggregation program operated by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The city also powers the Muni system and City Hall through power generated at the dam at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park. PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo told The Chronicle the company appreciates San Franciscos open and transparent dialogue. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes PG&E has been part of San Francisco since the companys founding more than a century ago, and we support our customers ability to make choices regarding their energy use, Paulo said. We remain committed to working with the city and communicating on this issue. PG&E regularly evaluates the way the company is structured strategically, operationally and financially so that we are best positioned to operate efficiently and provide safe and reliable service to our customers. In regulatory filings before the utilities commission, PG&E has voiced concerns about municipalization, saying a government-run power company may find it harder than an investor-owned utility to attract qualified rank-and-file staff as well as top executives. The company has also argued that investor-owned utilities profit motive encourages them to invest in safety and quality-of-service upgrades. Because government utilities are not run for a profit, they have no direct mechanism for ensuring operational excellence and may therefore be less efficient, PG&E argued to its regulators. Public power advocates have pushed back, with the California Municipal Utilities Association contending that the high priorities of public safety, reliability and excellent service are principal motivators alone. Barry Moline, the associations executive director, said that, generally speaking, line workers are paid about the same whether they work for a government- or investor-owned utility. Other employees are motivated by a sense of purpose that the organization theyre working for is doing good things and they are an important part of the utilitys mission, he said. Municipal utilities also generally offer lower rates, and their governing bodies hold regular public meetings, so there are more eyeballs on every decision than at investor-owned utilities, Moline said. SMUD customers have an additional layer of input through their ballots. The utilitys seven board members are elected by district, in contrast to the Los Angeles municipal utility, which is run by five commissioners appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. Its direct control by the customers, said district spokesman Christopher Capra. They can show up and get input and get answers to their questions ... and the political process delivers for them a product that is close to, if not exactly, what they want. Still, energy experts have flagged other concerns about municipal utilities spreading in the territory now covered by PG&E. One is what would happen to rates and service in rural, fire-prone areas should an urban place like San Francisco with its dense and valuable power system take hundreds of thousands of customers out of PG&Es electric service. San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, who supports exploring the citys purchase of PG&E distribution assets, suggested that the state government could look at assisting customers in rural areas. Overall, she said, PG&Es current situation provides a window of opportunity that San Francisco cant ignore. We know we are kind of at their mercy because they own the distribution system, Fewer said of PG&E. If we can own that ourselves, just think of what we can do we can actually plan a future for clean energy in San Francisco thats probably a better delivery service, a safer delivery service ... and also keep the costs minimal. J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris San Francisco is taking a step closer to buying PG&Es electric distribution system in the city. On Thursday, Mayor London Breed and City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a letter to PG&Es interim CEO and its chief financial officer regarding San Franciscos efforts to study the prospect of buying the companys electric distribution assets serving the city. San Francisco began to look more seriously at the public power option in January, after PG&E said it planned to file for bankruptcy protection. Breed and Herrera said they wanted to address company leaders directly to underscore the seriousness of our purpose and facilitate lines of communication going forward. If we determine the acquisition is feasible, we intend for the city to make a formal offer to PG&E within the coming months as part of the bankruptcy process, Breed and Herrera said in the letter. PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo told The Chronicle the company appreciates San Franciscos open and transparent dialogue. The city already operates a publicly owned water utility. It also sells electricity directly to residents and businesses on Treasure Island and in the Shipyard development. Through CleanPowerSF, it purchases power and sells it to other city residents and businesses, though PG&E handles billing. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes The utilitys current situation provides a window of opportunity that San Francisco cant ignore, said San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer. We know we are kind of at their mercy because they own the distribution system, Fewer said. If we can own that ourselves, just think of what we can do. J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @thejdmorris San Mateo County Sheriffs Office A former president of Peru who was accused of accepting bribes during his time in office was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication in San Mateo County on Sunday night, authorities said. Sheriffs deputies responded to reports that Alejandro Toledo Manrique, 73, now a Los Altos resident, was drunk at a restaurant on the 3500 block of Alameda de las Pulgas outside Menlo Park. Deputies took Toledo into custody just before 10:30 p.m. on suspicion of public intoxication, a misdemeanor offense. Mixt is expanding to the East Bay for the first time next month, with new locations in Oakland and San Ramon. Founded in 2006, the San Francisco chain specializes in seasonal salads and grain bowls, served in a hip, quick-service setting. Lines regularly form, and the chain has grown to nine locations in San Francisco and two in Los Angeles. The Oakland restaurant will land in the Uptown neighborhood which has had its share of high-profile openings recently, including Brown Sugar Kitchen at 2299 Broadway on March 21. The San Ramon location will open in the coming weeks at splashy Renzo Piano-designed complex City Center Bishop Ranch, joining the Slanted Door, Roam Artisan Burgers and Fieldwork Brewing Co. Both new Mixt restaurants will offer a familiar selection of green salads, quinoa bowls and entrees such as grilled steak with chimichurri, plus a kids menu. Beyond the East Bay additions, Mixt has set its sights on national expansion with its first foray out of California also due this spring, in Dallas. Salad-focused chains are in high demand right now, a result of the greater cultural trend toward healthier lifestyles as well as a boom in fast-casual businesses. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. The Washington, D.C.-founded chain Sweetgreen is valued at over $1 billion, having rapidly grown to almost 100 locations in a dozen years, including five in the Bay Area. Smaller chains, such as Mixt and Los Angeles Tender Greens, are battling for space in the increasingly crowded field. Tender Greens has 27 restaurants mostly in California, including five in the Bay Area and a notable investor in Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, who has also invested in Sweetgreen. Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker This story was updated to reflect the Oakland locations opening on March 21. The California Supreme Court took a big step last year toward protecting the rights of California workers when it handed down its unanimous opinion in Dynamex Operations West vs. Superior Court of Los Angeles County. The Dynamex case has been called the shot heard round the world (or at least in California). Indeed, it was a shot against the misguided idea that worker protections are obsolete. Since the decision came down in April 2018, the business community has been in full-blown panic. It shouldnt be. The impact of the Dynamex decision is that it makes it more difficult for employers to classify workers as independent contractors and thus provides more workers with the protections of employment status. These protections are significant, including minimum wage, overtime pay, workers compensation, unemployment benefits and medical benefits under many circumstances. Many in the business community who love cheap and simple labor arrangements rather than the burden of employing people have attacked the Dynamex decision as yet another example of Californias purported anti-business environment. In Silicon Valley, in particular, companies are saying that the gig economy requires a steady supply of flexible contract workers, not stodgy employees. They claim that work arrangements need to evolve so that workers can come and go at will, working as much or as little as they please. It seems to me these employers are essentially saying we dont want to marry our workers, we just want to date them (serially and sometimes for a very long time). The evolution these companies advocate is a race to the bottom. And the supposed choice they offer between freedom (without any worker protections) and commitment (with those protections) is a false one. Lets start with the independent contractor. Historically, this was a person who was in business for herself, most often with a specialized skill. Such people did not work for the same company day after day, but, instead, had numerous customers. Because of their specialized skills, they could command premium pay and negotiate deals that fit their needs. Because of their presumed market power, contractors were not entitled to any of the protections offered to employees. But the idea of the independent contractor has been hijacked by hirers who simply dont want to pay the costs of employing their workers. In the best of such cases, the worker has freedom to work on a schedule of her choosing. In the worst, the worker does not have such freedom (or the freedom is illusory as when she chooses not to work one day, and then shes not given any work in the future). As the state Supreme Court noted in its Dynamex opinion, when employers do not provide protections for their workers such as workers compensation and unemployment insurance and medical insurance, it is often the rest of society that must shoulder the burden. Along with the obvious effect of providing more workers with worker protections, a largely unrecognized (but important) impact of the Dynamex decision is that it equalizes the playing field for companies that recognize their workers as employees and who bear that additional cost. Notions of employment certainly can and should evolve but worker protections should remain. There is nothing about being employed that precludes flexible hours. There is nothing inconsistent between the status of employment and being employed by multiple companies this is an area where real innovation can occur, spreading the expense of employee protections among multiple employers. Lyft and Uber come to mind. Business groups are now seeking to deflate the Dynamex decision by attacking the new legislative efforts, such as Assembly Bill 5, that would enshrine the decision into the California Labor Code. They claim this is all in the name of flexibility and not a pipeline to cheap and powerless labor. If businesses really want flexibility, lets give them new labor laws, recognizing that most workers are employees but providing more flexibility for the sharing of their protection, especially among multiple employers. By all means, though, lets stop allowing businesses to pretend that their workers are in business for themselves when they are not. Kevin Ruf argued the Dynamex Operations West vs. Superior Court of Los Angeles County case last year before the state Supreme Court on the behalf of delivery drivers. He is a partner at the law firm of Glancy Prongay & Murray in Los Angeles and member of the California Employment Lawyers Association. Californias success in the new and rapidly evolving economy will be driven by innovation, technical skills, leading-edge workplace cultures and our policymakers willingness to modernize our employment laws. The recent ruling by the California Supreme Court on Dynamex Operations West vs. Superior Court of Los Angeles County however is an antiquated way to impose labor rules. It will put California at a severe competitive disadvantage among the other 49 states. The Legislature and employer community are reacting differently to the state Supreme Courts unanimous decision, which concluded that independent contractors must be considered employees if they cant pass a three-factor litmus test (see box below). This ABC test makes it nearly impossible to classify a worker as an independent contractor, and the hardest part is that you cant hire someone to perform similar duties to that of your employees. If the workers situation doesnt pass the ABC test, then the hiring companies must comply with the web of employment laws and regulations relating to minimum wage, overtime, withholding payroll taxes, unemployment benefits and insurance plans. The Dynamex decision marks the first time any form of litmus test has been imposed by a court without legislative approval. Californias effort to push it further, in the form of Assembly Bill 5, comes at a time when business dynamics are changing fast in all workplace sectors, not just the gig economy. The examples of change are many. Workers in all sectors are working from home more because they are so well connected through digital devices, requiring flexibility in the workplace. A study by TECHnalysis Research even said that the U.S. expects a 150 percent increase in hours working from home in the next two years. Do you remember when email was the most effective way to communicate? Now its old, clunky and inefficient, losing out to many new advanced applications and flexible personal device and collaboration options that keep workers more engaged, more efficient and happier. These are just some examples of the ever-increasing technological shifts eagerly embraced by modern workers and employers. Business groups estimate there are more than 2 million independent contractors in California, with most working in two sectors: professional business and services (25 percent), and construction (19 percent). While independent contractors are a small portion of Californias 1.3 million-worker manufacturing sector, the overall flexibility they afford in the workplace is absolutely critical to these sectors growth. Independent contractors are not supplanting traditional employment, they are enhancing it. A 2018 Beacon Economics study report prepared for the California Chamber of Commerce found that, since 2010, every one new independent contractor job in California created five new traditional jobs in the state. Since the manufacturing sector employs a much smaller percentage of independent contractors, you might ask why we, as the voice of the California manufacturing sector, care so much. The ABCs of the ABC test To classify an independent contractor the employer must be able to prove that the worker: (A) Is free from control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work; (B) Performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business; and (C) Is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation or business. Source: California Supreme Court, Dynamex vs. Superior Court 2018 See More Collapse First, there are economy-wide consequences to putting California on this path of limiting independent contractors. No one wins when we lose high-wage employment opportunities to other states. Then, our sector is experiencing an enormous skills gap that could widen if the Legislature decides to largely prohibit mutually agreed upon independent contractor agreements or limit certain aspects of worker-employer flexibility. Flexible options can slow turnover and mitigate recruitment problems by opening many doors to new training and work opportunities that are popping up in the modern manufacturing economy. The list of those options includes company-sponsored online resources to learn new skills for advancement, online community college, veterans transition programs, in-company career-switching opportunities and training, tuition and resource assistance for college degrees and on-the-job pre-apprenticeship training. And the list goes on. Most of these programs require some amount of flexibility in the workforce. It might be independent contractor status or it might just be the provision of flexibility so the worker can use nontraditional training channels in and outside of work. Regardless, we must adapt to the times. If a person has skills or the desire and wherewithal to learn new skills, then no California regulation should stop a California company from hiring them. He or she deserves the promise of that opportunity and the flexibility to succeed. In fact, we would argue that the Legislature should focus on state funding and creating technical training, not a new California-only law that eliminates opportunities and diminishes valuable services in many places and many forms. Lance Hastings is the president of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association. Cease-and-desist letters are making the rounds at local restaurants, accusing chefs of serving foie gras illegally. After a six-year legal battle when the fatty duck liver was on and off restaurant menus in California, a January U.S. Supreme Court decision resulted in all foie gras sales again being banned statewide. Restaurants found serving foie gras could face a penalty of up to $1,000 per sale, and up to $1,000 each day violations continue. The Animal Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit animal rights organization, said it sent letters to a number of Bay Area restaurants, including San Franciscos Pabu, Prospect, Absinthe and Lao Table; Bouchon in Yountville; and Mulvaneys B&L in Sacramento. The letters, which were also sent to the San Francisco Police Department, outline the foie gras ban and accuse the restaurants of serving the product. The groups attorneys gathered tips from diners to determine which restaurants might be skirting the law. The tips may be inaccurate or outdated, though, as most restaurant owners said that they took foie gras off their menus months ago, when the ban was reinstated. A few restaurants said they never received the cease-and-desist letters. That includes Thomas Keller-owned Bouchon, which stopped serving foie gras after the Supreme Court decision, according to David Ciabattari, the restaurants chief financial officer. A spokesperson from the Mina Group, which owns Pabu, also said the restaurant stopped serving it in January. A foie gras ban passed in California in 2004 went into effect in 2012, before going through a series of appeals until the reinstatement in January. Nancy Oakes, an owner of Prospect, said she doesnt see much point in fighting the ban. We just decided it wasnt worth it and stopped (serving it), she said. Its a very expensive ingredient that restaurants never make money on anyway. At Hayes Valleys Absinthe, owner Bill Russell-Shapiro said the chefs swapped the restaurants pre-ban pork-and-foie-gras pate with a duck liver mousse. (Foie gras comes from force-fed geese or ducks, but other duck livers are legal.) I think were in compliance we certainly intend to be, he said, adding that the restaurants online menu reflects the change. Perhaps (Animal Legal Defense Fund is) just casting a wide net without checking the details. The Animal Legal Defense Fund set up an online portal for diners to flag restaurants they suspect serve foie gras. Kelsey Eberly, one of the organizations attorneys, said dozens submitted tips. Eberly didnt elaborate on how they investigated further before deciding who would get cease-and-desist letters. The bottom line is we want the law to be enforced and we want it to be followed, she said. Some restaurants unwittingly defy the law by serving foie gras bought before January. Campton Place, for example, has greeted customers with a free amuse-bouche of shaved foie gras piled high on a thin cracker, even though the law no longer allows chefs to give foie gras away. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. We are burning through it as gifts to our guests instead of throwing it away, wrote executive chef Srijith Gopinathan via email. Eberly said the nonprofit group will continue to watch California restaurants closely and encourage law enforcement to take action. Whether police officers or officers with animal control responsibilities, such as the SPCA actually enforce the ban, however, remains to be seen. In Nevada City, action from the local police department led to the cancellation of a foie-gras-themed dinner this week. Meanwhile, Eberly said shes unaware of the Animal Legal Defense Fund receiving any responses from the San Francisco Police Department. (The SFPD did not respond to Chronicle queries.) A previous version of this story misstated the name of Campton Place chef Srijith Gopinathan. The story has been altered to reflect this change. Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker Back from a brief hiatus, the beloved Library Laureates fundraiser, hosted by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, returned in full force March 8 at the San Francisco Main Public Library. That date coincided with International Womens Day and acting City Librarian Michael Lambert was thrilled that 70 percent of the 36 laureates in attendance were female, including writers-comedians Merrill Markoe and Megan Koester. This duo recently co-authored an Audible exclusive, The Indignities of Being a Woman, which they planned to riff from during the events post-party. I think well just stand at the podium and sob, deadpanned Markoe, former head writer for Late Show With David Letterman. Fifty-one percent of the population is female, but were still asking for permission to have rights. Our essays explore womens rights through history from health, politics, crime and even hair. All the s women still put up with is way worse than you think. Among the librarys 28 branches, three bookmobiles and a techmobile teeming with some 37 million physical and 10.8 million virtual items in circulation, that roving exploration is a hallmark of these hallowed, but oft unserved, public institutions. Catherine Bigelow / Special to The Chronicle But 350 book lovers, led by Laureates co-chair Sarah Smith Jones, dug deep to raise $430,000 for free library programs such as early literacy, summer reading, teen media, online high school and literary exhibitions. Prior to a Paula LeDuc dinner served at author-hosted tables among the librarys nooks and book salons, guests received surprise video tributes from two of our nations leading femmes, U.S. House of Representatives leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kamala Harris. Both lauded our library being honored as the 2018 Library of the Year by Gale/Library Journal. Libraries have always been sacred places of knowledge and creativity for children and adults alike, Pelosi toasted. Libraries have educated, engaged and strengthened our communities while offering the whole wisdom of humanity to anyone with a library card. Catherine Bigelow / Special to The Chronicle Amazing Grace: As the good book says, ... a little child shall lead them. Well, technically, Lily Bowles Leo is a young married woman and mother to Archer, an adorable toddler. However, she knocked it out of the nave March 5 as chairwoman of Grace Cathedrals sold-out Carnivale, raising a record-breaking $525,000. Im happy to retire, and Lily is brilliant leading this event; shes engaged so many new, young people, enthused her mom, Jamie Bowles, former Carnivale chairwoman. Thats crucial for the future of Grace and its community programs. Those programs include the cathedrals education, arts and social justice initiatives. The glorious Gothic nave, with pews swapped out for dinner tables, glowed with fantastical GotLight projections. A commedia dellarte theme transformed the cathedral into Italys old Venice, replete with masked guests, an operatic clown, stilt walkers and even a replica of the Bridge of Sighs. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. Beneath Les Colombes, Michael Pendrys art installation of fluttering paper doves, 425 guests dined on a McCalls dinner (with a devilish chocolate dessert) as Phantom of the Opera star Franc DAmbrosio belted out his beloved repertoire atop the bridge. As he does at Carnivale every year, the Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, dean of Grace Cathedral, announced a new annual topic: The Year of the Body. Grace will explore this theme through prayers, sermons and guest speakers, as will the cathedrals new artist-in-residence, Alonzo King, founder of Lines Ballet. Grace has long been a welcoming sanctuary to worshipers from all walks of life, from old-school WASPs and same-sex couples to yoga devotees. The Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, Episcopal bishop of California, channeled the fetes Venetian theme by relating the travels of storied Venetian explorer Marco Polo to our fair citys culture of diversity. Although we are the most diverse country in the world, we are increasingly living apart from each other in our diversity, Andrus said. But that is not a Bay Area culture. As we move forward in this highly divided time, under the banner of love, our diversity will reach people seeking that solace. Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicles society correspondent. Email: missbigelow@sfgate.com Instagram: @missbigelow A rare explosion of California poppies in the hills surrounding a Southern California town has attracted "Disneyland-size crowds," forcing city officials to temporarily close the wildflower-viewing area on Sunday. The city of Lake Elsinore declared the situation "unbearable," shutting off access to Walker Canyon and canceling shuttle service as a massive traffic jam developed. The area was reopened late Monday morning with a warning that "parking is extremely limited." "We truly understand how difficult this natural phenomenon has been on our residents," a message on the city's Facebook page reads. "This is something unlike anything we have ever experienced in our City and may never again." The city initially shared a message on Saturday, discouraging people from coming to the area as traffic on Interstate 15, that passes by the Riverside County town, stopped moving. "We have brought in all available staff, as many outside traffic controllers that we could, more shuttles, and our small City can not sustain crowds of this magnitude," the message reads. "The wait times are increasing, the shuttles are stuck in traffic, and we encourage you to consider waiting for another day." But throngs of wildflower-obsessed tourists continued to descend on the area, leading to a complete shutdown. ALSO: 'They're everywhere': Butterflies swarming SoCal expected to reach NorCal any day Rain is a key ingredient in the recipe for spectacular wildflower displays. Amid a winter marked by strong storms, botanists predicted wildflowers would pop up across the state, especially in Southern California, because the desert landscape has fewer invasive plants and grasses that push out wildflowers. Lake Elsinore was the first place to see a so-called "super bloom," a colloquial term describing wildflower spectacles that exceed a typical season. (Anza Borrego was the second spot to see an abundance of flowers.) The bloom started the last week of February, and now the hillsides are carpeted in velvety orange. "The color is super vibrant," Jonathan Reinig, the natural resources manager for Riverside County Parks, told SFGATE. "You fee like you need to shade your eyes from it." Photos of the display flooded social media, and Reinig says the county posted signage encouraging shutterbugs to tread lightly around the flowers. "People love to get out there and get their Instagram photos," he says. "They'll plop themselves in the middle and trample the flowers. People need to stay on the path." The super bloom was originally met with excitement in the community, which is about a 90-minute drive from both Los Angeles and San Diego. But problems began surfacing, including people leaving trails and trampling flowers. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Three dozen people in the buff paraded around San Francisco on Sunday in the fourth-annual Nude Love Parade, celebrating the human body and protesting the city's nudity ban. The lively procession began at noon at the Jane Warner Plaza in Castro and continued to Haight and Stanyan in Golden Gate Park. Many held signs with messages supporting nudism such as "Born this way" and "Freedom of choice." Parade organizer and nudist activist Gypsy Taub shouted out over a megaphone: "Don't believe the lie. Your body is beautiful," and "It doesn't matter what size or shape your body is, it doesn't matter what age or gender. Your body was made by God, and God doesn't make mistakes." Along the route, people stood on the sidelines snapping photos on their phones. ALSO: The history of nudity in San Francisco uncovered While the parade began as a protest against the city's ban on public nudity introduced in 2012, Taub says it's also "a celebration of freedom of choice and freedom of expression, as well as a celebration of the beauty of the human body." While public nudity is illegal in San Francisco, groups can apply for permits to allow nudity for parades, fairs and festivals, as was the case with the Nude Love Parade. The parade usually falls on Valentine's Day, but was rescheduled this year due to weather. Taub's group, the Body Freedom Lovers, also holds a "Summer of Love" parade in August. The event, held in response to the Vietnam Year in Russia 2019, aimed to introduce the Vietnamese culture, cuisine and music to Russian and international teachers and students. A performance of Vietnamese students of RUDN University at the event (Photo: VNA) Le Chi Loi from the Embassy of Vietnam in Russia voiced his hope that the Vietnamese Cultural Week at the RUDN University will foster patriotism in Vietnamese students, and strengthen solidarity and mutual understanding among international students of the Russian University. On the occasion, Loi presented a certificate of merit from Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Ngo Duc Manh to the Vietnamese student organisation in the RUDN University. At the event, Andrei Dvoriakov, the official in charge of Asian students at the university, affirmed that the Russia-Vietnam traditional bonds have been consolidated over the years in a practical manner. The number of Vietnamese students enrolling in the university remains high, he noted. A number of activities took place during the five-day Vietnamese Cultural Week, including cultural and cuisine exhibitions, folk games, art programmes and a round-table on the country from war time to present, drawing the participation of many Russian and international students in the RUDN University and other universities./. LOS ANGELES Dick Dale, whose pounding, blaringly loud power-chord instrumentals on songs like Miserlou and Lets Go Trippin earned him the title King of the Surf Guitar, has died at age 81. His former bassist Sam Bolle says Dick Dale passed away Saturday night. No other details were available. Dale liked to say it was he and not the Beach Boys who invented surf music and some critics have said he was right. An avid surfer, Dale started building a devoted Los Angeles fan base in the late 1950s with repeated appearances at Newport Beachs old Rendezvous Ballroom. He played Miserlou, The Wedge, Night Rider and other compositions at wall-rattling volume on a custom-made Fender Stratocaster guitar. Miserlou, which would become his signature song, had been adapted from a Middle Eastern folk tune Dale heard as a child and later transformed into a thundering surf-rock instrumental. His fingering style was so frenetic that he shredded guitar picks during songs, a technique that forced him to stash spares on his guitars body. Better shred than dead, he liked to joke, an expression that eventually became the title of a 1997 anthology released by Rhino Records. Dale said he developed his musical style when he sought to merge the sounds of the crashing ocean waves he heard while surfing with melodies inspired by the rockabilly music he loved. He pounded rather than plucked the strings of his guitar in a style he said he borrowed from an early musical hero, the great jazz drummer Gene Krupa. Dale pioneered a musical genre that Beach Boy Brian Wilson and others would later bring to fruition, Rolling Stone magazine said in its Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, adding Lets Go Trippin was released in 1961, two months ahead of the Beach Boys first hit, Surfin. The magazine called Dales song the harbinger of the 60s surf music craze. Although popular around Southern California, Dale might have remained just a cult figure if surfing had not exploded in worldwide popularity during his peak creative years. When the first of a series of Beach Party movies made to cash in on the phenomenon was released in 1963, it included Dick Dale and the Del-Tones performing Secret Surfing Spot as Annette Funicello danced on the beach. Dale had released his first album, Surfers Choice, a year earlier. He followed it with four more over the next two years while appearing in several Beach Party sequels and other surfer movies. His musical influence was profound and included guitar virtuosos Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan and movie director Quentin Tarantino, who selected Dales Miserlou, as the theme song of his 1994 film Pulp Fiction. That helped pull the guitarist back into the pop-culture spotlight. Born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston on May 4, 1937, Dale moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1954. He is survived by his wife, Lana, and a son, James, a drummer who sometimes toured with his father. Lindsey Bahr and John Rogers are Associated Press writers. WASHINGTON U.S. prosecutors are looking into the development of Boeings 737 Max jets, a person briefed on the matter revealed Monday, the same day French aviation investigators concluded there were clear similarities in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max 8 last week and a Lion Air jet in October. The Justice Department probe will examine the way Boeing was regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, said the person, who asked not to be identified. BOSTON Elizabeth Warren has spent much of the past decade as a leader of the Democratic Partys liberal wing. But 3 months into her presidential campaign, the Massachusetts senator is facing tough questions about fundraising and electability, along with lingering skepticism about her past claim to Native American identity. The longtime liberal superstar is embracing an uncomfortable role in the crowded 2020 contest: the underdog. This is the race I want to run, Warren insisted in an interview. With the 69-year-old Democrat in the middle of the pack in early polling, her senior advisers are implementing an aggressive if risky strategy that calls on Warren to forgo traditional high-dollar fundraising events and devote the saved time to interactions with rank-and-file voters. Shell also focus on seizing opportunities to stake bold new policy positions, as she did recently by calling for the breakup of big technology companies like Amazon, which allow her to shape the debate and showcase her policy bona fides. Her success or failure will help determine the direction of the Democratic Party in 2020 and, more specifically, whether Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders can maintain his early place at the head of the presidential primary pack. While Warren has sometimes sought to distinguish herself from Sanders, describing herself as a capitalist while Sanders runs as a democratic socialist, both senators appeal to the same progressive, populist wing of their party that is an increasingly dominant force in the age of President Trump. So far, Sanders has bested Warren in the few objective measures that exist: fundraising and polling. And while the first votes wont be cast for another 10 months or so, former Warren allies in her neighboring state of New Hampshire see cause for concern. I just dont know if she would go over nationally, said former New Hampshire state Rep. Daniel Hansberry, who was among 27 current and former state lawmakers who signed a 2015 letter urging Warren to seek the presidency. New Hampshire voter Kerry Query, who voted for Hillary Clinton over Sanders in the 2016 primary, said shes undecided this year but prefers Sanders so far. I dont think she could get enough people behind her, Query said. If she got elected in the primary, theres no way she could win. But Warren backers like Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III argue that she has proved doubters wrong since she first challenged GOP Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. Its a matter, candidly, of the fact that were almost a year away from the election, Kennedy said. Steve Peoples, Elana Schor and Hunter Woodall are Associated Press writers. KANSAS CITY, Mo. Hundreds of homes flooded in several Midwestern states after rivers breached at least a dozen levees following heavy rain and snowmelt in the region, authorities said Monday while warning that the flooding was expected to linger. Many homes in a mostly rural area of Missouris Holt County were inundated with up to 7 feet of water from the swollen Missouri River, said the countys emergency management director, Tom Bullock. He said his own home was on an island surrounded by floodwater. One couple was rescued in a helicopter after water from three breached levees swept across 40,000 acres, he said. Another nine breaches were confirmed in Nebraska and Iowa counties south of the Platte River, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The levees are busted and we arent even into the wet season when the rivers run high, Bullock said, noting that local farmers are only a month away from planting corn and soybeans. The water isnt going to be gone, and the levees arent going to be fixed this year. In nearby Atchison County, about 130 people were urged to leave their homes as water levels rose and strained levees, three of which had already been overtopped by water. Missouri State Highway Patrol crews were on standby to rescue anyone who insisted on staying despite the danger. The next four to five days are going to be pretty rough, said Rhonda Wiley, Atchison Countys emergency management director. The Missouri River already crested upstream of Omaha, Neb., though hundreds of people remained out of their homes and water continued to pour through busted levees. Flooding was so bad around Fremont, Neb., that just one lane of U.S. Highway 30 was above water outside the city of 26,000. State law enforcement limited traffic to trucks carrying gas, food, water and other essential supplies. There are no easy fixes to any of this, said Fremont City Administrator Brian Newton. We need Mother Nature to decrease the height of the river. In southwestern Iowa, the Missouri River reached a level in Fremont County that was 2 feet above a record set in 2011. The countys emergency management director, Mike Crecelius, said Monday that more water was flooding into low-lying parts of Hamburg, where a wall of sand-filled barriers was breached when one failed. The National Weather Service said the river is expected to crest Thursday in St. Joseph, Mo., at its third-highest level on record. Military C-130 planes were evacuated last week from nearby Rosecrans Air National Guard base. The flooding started after a massive late-winter storm hit the Midwest last week. At least three deaths were blamed on flooding. Among the victims was 80-year-old Betty Hamernik, whose body was recovered Saturday by divers after earlier rescue efforts failed because of the dangerous conditions, the Omaha World-Herald reported. The Missouri Department of Transportation reported about 100 flood-related road closures, including a stretch of Interstate 29. Jud Kneuvean, the emergency manager with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Kansas City district, blamed a combination of higher temperature, rainfall and snowmelt converging all at the same time. No significant flooding was expected east of Kansas City, though Kneuvean said the corps was watching weather forecasts closely. When you have a high river and have any forecast of rain on it, it can change the scenario very quickly, Kneuvean said. Heather Hollingsworth is an Associated Press writer. NEW YORK When a hooded gunman pumped close to a dozen bullets into Frank Cali, a reputed leader of the Gambino crime family, outside his Staten Island home Wednesday night, detectives naturally examined the possibility that the killing may have stemmed from his role atop one of New Yorks five Mafia families. But after the arrest Saturday of a 24-year-old man who lives with his parents, it appears the old-school crime figure may have been the victim of an angry young man with a gun and a grudge, but apparently no mob ties. Law enforcement officials said they are looking at the possibility that the accused killer, Anthony A. Comello, had a romantic interest in one of Calis female relatives, and that the crime boss had told him to stay away. Comellos arrest was in some ways a sign of the times in an era when the citys mob clans have become accustomed to a smaller, less powerful role in the criminal and economic culture. Weakened over several decades by a campaign of prosecutions, the Mafia has become less likely to resort to violence even as gun violence and mass shootings have become a common occurrence in the United States. Comello, 24, was arrested at a home owned by his family in Brick, New Jersey, on Saturday and is expected to be returned to Staten Island this week, where prosecutors have prepared murder charges, according to a computerized court database. Efforts to reach a lawyer for Comello were unsuccessful. Detectives have a recording of the killing from a security camera outside Calis home, and Comellos fingerprints matched those that were lifted from a license plate the gunman picked up and handed to Cali before opening fire, according to police. Comello, a 2012 graduate of Tottenville High School, neighbors said, lived with his parents in the Eltingville section of Staten Island, about 18 miles from Manhattan. He would plow the snow for us, said Victor Ujeck, a neighbor. Ive seen his parents numerous times also very nice people. I would never imagine he could have done this, Ujeck added. I was shocked. Didar Janid, 46, works in the Campos deli a few blocks from the Comellos two-story home in Staten Island and said he has known Comello for about eight years. He would stop by every couple weeks to buy Marlboro cigarettes, Janid said. He was a little bit aggressive, Janid said, adding a little loud. But he was mellowing, Janid said, and the accusations he faces stunned the shopkeeper. I didnt see nothing abnormal when I saw him, he said. I cant think even that he could be doing this. From the start, the shooting bore few of the hallmarks of a Mafia assassination, which generally involves a team of assassins and multiple cars to make a quick escape and block possible pursuers. They usually play out in carefully selected locations, away from the victims home and family, where the killers can get in and out fast with as little scrutiny as possible. But Calis killer drove his own pickup truck to his victims home in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island, a neighborhood of narrow winding streets filled with police surveillance cameras and license plate readers. The truck was then backed into Calis Cadillac Escalade, a collision that apparently knocked off the cars license plate, police officials said Saturday. He then rang the doorbell of Calis home, allowing the surveillance camera to capture an image of his face, police said. Cali came out to talk, and after a minute of conversation, the gunman pulled out a 9-millimeter pistol and fired repeatedly into Calis body, mortally wounding him as he tried to crawl under his killers car. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. REDWOOD CITY, California (AP) Authorities say a former Peruvian president who is wanted in connection with Latin America's biggest graft scandal was arrested in California on suspicion of public intoxication over the weekend and was briefly detained. San Mateo County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Rosemerry Blankswade said Monday that Alejandro Toledo was arrested Sunday night near a restaurant in Menlo Park. Sean Couturier beat Matt Murray with three seconds left in overtime and the Flyers put together an improbable rally to edge the Penguins 2-1 in Pittsburgh on Sunday night. James van Riemsdyk tied it with 18 seconds left in regulation when Murrays glove couldnt quite reach van Riemsdyks wrist shot from the slot. WASHINGTON Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia authorized a secret campaign to silence dissenters which included the surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudi citizens more than a year before the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, according to U.S. officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the campaign. At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the same team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi in Istanbul in October, suggesting that his killing was a particularly egregious part of a wider campaign to silence Saudi dissidents, according to the officials and associates of some of the Saudi victims. Members of the team that killed Khashoggi, which U.S. officials called the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017, the officials said. Some of the operations involved forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing prisoners in palaces belonging to the crown prince and his father, King Salman, the officials and associates said. One of the Saudis detained by the group, a university lecturer in linguistics who wrote a blog about women in Saudi Arabia, tried to kill herself last year after being subjected to psychological torture, according to U.S. intelligence reports and others briefed on her situation. The rapid intervention team had been so busy that last June its leader asked a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed whether the crown prince would give the team bonuses for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence reports. Details about the operations come from U.S. officials who have read classified intelligence assessments about the Saudi campaign, as well as from Saudis with direct knowledge of some of the operations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from disclosing classified information or, in the case of the Saudis, from angering the Saudi government. A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington said the kingdom takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously. Saudi laws prohibit torture and hold accountable those involved in such abuses of power, the spokesman said, and judges cannot accept confessions obtained under duress. The kingdoms public prosecutor and the Saudi Human Rights Commission are investigating recent allegations, he said. The Saudi government insists that the killing of Khashoggi a dissident journalist living in the United States who wrote for The Washington Post was not an assassination ordered from Riyadh. The decision to kill him was made by the team on the spot, government officials say, and those responsible are being prosecuted. Turkey and U.S. intelligence agencies say the killing was premeditated. More for you Saudi princess to replace kings son as ambassador to US The kingdom says that 11 Saudis are facing criminal charges for the killing and that prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five of them, but officials have not publicly identified the accused. After the killing of Khashoggi, Saudi officials acknowledged that the Saudi intelligence service had a standing order to bring dissidents home. What they did not acknowledge was that a specific team had been built to do it. Saudi officials declined to confirm or deny that such a team existed, or answer questions about its work. Saudi Arabia has a history of going after dissidents and other Saudi citizens abroad, but the crackdown escalated sharply after Mohammed bin Salman was elevated to crown prince in 2017, a period when he was moving quickly to consolidate power. He pushed aside Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who oversaw the security services, giving the young prince sway over the intelligence agencies. Since then, Saudi security forces have detained dozens of clerics, intellectuals and activists who were perceived to pose a threat, as well as people who had posted critical or sarcastic comments about the government on Twitter. Weve never seen it on a scale like this, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution. A dissident like Jamal Khashoggi in the past wouldnt have been considered worth the effort. Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and dismembered with a bone saw. Turkey used surveillance video and audio recordings to uncover the crime, identify the team that carried it out and leak their names and photos to the news media. Riedel said the teams sloppiness showed that it was used to operating freely inside the kingdom and not under the watchful eye of an adversarys intelligence service. The Rapid Intervention Group was authorized by Crown Prince Mohammed and overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide whose official job was media czar at the royal court, U.S. officials said. His deputy, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, an intelligence officer who has traveled abroad with the crown prince, led the team in the field. Another operative on the team was Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, a member of the royal guard who was promoted in 2017 for valor during an attack on a palace of Crown Prince Mohammeds. Mutreb and al-Harbi are on trial in Riyadh for charges connected to Khashoggis death, a Saudi official said, while Qahtani is under house arrest, has been banned from travel and is under investigation, making it unclear whether the team is still operating. U.S. intelligence reports did not specify how involved Crown Prince Mohammed was with the groups work, but said that the operatives saw al-Qahtani as a conduit to the prince. When Crown Prince Mohammed locked hundreds of princes, businessmen and former officials in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton in 2017 on accusations of corruption, al-Qahtani and Mutreb worked in the hotel, helping pressure detainees to sign over assets, according to associates of detainees who saw them. Many of those detained at the Ritz were subject to physical abuse, and one died in custody, according to witnesses. It is not known whether members of the rapid intervention team were involved in the abuse. The Saudi government has denied that any physical abuse took place there. But it was only after Khashoggis killing that the extent of the teams work began to emerge. Mutreb and al-Harbi were both in the consulate when Khashoggi was killed, according to Turkish officials. U.S. intelligence about the teams previous operations informed the assessment by the CIA in November that Crown Prince Mohammed had ordered Khashoggis killing, U.S. officials said. The CIA declined to comment. U.S. intelligence agencies do not appear to have conclusive, smoking-gun proof that Crown Prince Mohammed ordering the killing, but they have pieced together a pattern of similar operations carried out by Saudi operatives under the princes authority. The agencies continue to gather evidence about Crown Prince Mohammeds role in the operations, and in December the National Security Agency produced a report saying that in 2017, the prince told a top aide that he would use a bullet on Khashoggi if he did not return to the kingdom and end his criticism of the government. Intelligence analysts concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed may have not spoken literally that he was not ordering Khashoggi to be shot but that he intended to silence the journalist by killing him if the circumstances required it. The CIA assessment has created tension between U.S. spy agencies and President Donald Trump, who has made warm relations with the Saudis a cornerstone of his foreign policy. The crown prince has been a close ally of the Trump White House, especially Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser. Despite the CIA's assessment that Crown Prince Mohammed ordered the operation, Trump has said repeatedly that the evidence was not conclusive. The grisly killing of Khashoggi led to a storm of outrage in foreign capitals and a new scrutiny of the powerful crown prince, who had billed himself as a forward-thinking reformer with a grand vision to modernize the kingdom. But the journalists killing was just the latest in a string of clandestine operations against less high-profile Saudis, including members of the royal family. U.S. intelligence officials said that some of those detained in these operations were held at secret locations, including opulent palaces used by King Salman and his son, until November 2017, when many were moved to the compound surrounding the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton. At the time, the hotel was being used as a five-star jail in the kingdoms anti-corruption campaign. That crackdown became a cover for clandestine operations against Saudi dissidents, who were moved into detention in the Ritz at that time, according to U.S. officials. The Rapid Intervention Group also appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of about a dozen womens rights activists, who were detained last spring and summer. The activists, who had campaigned for lifting the kingdoms ban on driving by women, included several well-known figures: Loujain al-Hathloul, who had been jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates; Aziza al-Yousef, a retired computer science professor; and Eman al-Nafjan, the linguistics lecturer. At first, the women were not held in a prison, but were detained informally in what appeared to be an unused palace in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, according to al-Hathlouls sister, Alia. Each woman was locked in a small room, and the windows were covered. Some of the women were frequently taken downstairs for interrogation, which included beatings, electric shocks, waterboarding and threats of rape and murder. In an op-ed article for The New York Times, Alia al-Hathloul wrote that al-Qahtani was present several times when her sister was tortured, and that he threatened to kill her and throw her body in the sewer. The treatment was so harsh that al-Nafjan tried to commit suicide, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment. The women were later moved to the Dhahban Prison in Jiddah, where the physical abuse stopped and their relatives were allowed to visit, al-Hathloul said. Their trial opened in Riyadh on Wednesday, but journalists and diplomats were not permitted to attend, and the government did not announce the charges against them. The Saudi official said that al-Hathloul, al-Yousef and al-Nafjan were being tried in connection with activities that threatened the kingdoms national security. In the kingdoms effort to forcibly repatriate Saudi citizens living abroad, it was not always clear which operations were carried out by the rapid intervention team and which by other parts of the security services. At least one Saudi who was detained in the Ritz and accused of corruption, Rami al-Naimi, a son of a former Saudi oil minister, was forcibly repatriated from the United Arab Emirates in November 2017. An associate of a senior member of the royal family, Faisal al-Jarba, was snatched in a midnight raid on an apartment in Jordan last June and returned to Saudi Arabia. His family has struggled to get information on where he is or why he is being held. In August 2017, a minor prince, Saud bin al-Muntasir bin Saud, was sent back to the kingdom from Morocco. Last May, a university student who had dual Saudi-Qatari citizenship was arrested during a visit to Kuwait and sent home. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. RICHMOND (BCN) Four members of the public filed complaints with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District over flaring observed at the Chevron Richmond Refinery over the weekend. The air district sent inspectors to the scene Sunday, and they are continuing to investigate the flaring, which Chevron said was caused by an upset in a process unit. District spokeswoman Kristine Roselius said that so far, no notices of violation have been issued with regard to the incident, but detailed information about what chemicals were released into the air and why may not be available for months. Roselius referred to flares as a safety device, burning very hot to protect public health by pushing the emissions high into the atmosphere to minimize their effect on nearby communities. In a statement issued Sunday by Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall, the oil giant reassured neighbors that there was no environmental or health risk, and that flares are used to "relieve pressure during the refining processes." Members of the community interested in monitoring air quality around the refinery can do so at www.fenceline.org/richmond. Sunday's flaring is just the latest in a string of such occurrences, with eight flaring events reported in 2018 as well as incidents in January and February of this year. Air district officials have said each one is under investigation, but that in most of the 2018 incidents, the flares were burning off hydrogen, which burns very clean. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. RICHMOND (BCN) The Chevron Richmond Refinery continued to experience "flaring" Sunday, caused by an upset at a process unit there, according to a company spokesman. It is the latest in a series of flaring incidents at the sprawling Richmond facility. Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall said the flaring does not pose any environmental or health risk to the community. He also said a Contra Costa Sheriff's Office Community Warning System "Level 1" notification was issued Sunday. That notification was no longer on the CWS website late Sunday night. Spokespeople with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District could not be reached for comment Sunday. But in recent weeks district officials have said they are investigating each flaring event at Chevron, and that Chevron must file a report with the district about each flaring incident. On Sunday, Reddall said in an email, "We want to assure our neighbors that flares are highly regulated safety devices, used in refineries to relieve pressure during the refining processes and help keep our equipment and plants operating safely." For real-time air quality data, visit www.fenceline.org/richmond/. To see active Community Warning System alerts, go to https://cwsalerts.com/ Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. DANVILLE (BCN) The Contra Costa County Health Services Department closed five food facilities, including at a supermarket, hotel and kids indoor play center, last week because of vermin infestations. Four of the five facilities have reopened as of Sunday, according to county and store officials. The Lunardi's Supermarket at 345 Railroad Ave. in Danville was among the closed facilities reported on the health department's environmental health division website of food facility closures. The vermin infestation was reported Friday, and the store reopened Saturday morning, store manager Brett Cooper said. The county report did not detail the specific violations, but Cooper said the issue stemmed from rodent droppings that were found inside the store. He said the store was closed around 1 p.m. Friday and reopened the following morning after health inspectors re-evaluated it. "Everything was resolved quickly," he said Sunday morning. "There are no current issues whatsoever." The Jungle children's play center at 1975 Diamond Blvd. in Concord was closed Tuesday after health inspectors found two dead rodents in traps in the kitchen, along with rodent droppings. It reopened on Friday after the major violations had been resolved, according to the county website. Also Tuesday, the Burger King at 2440 Mahogany Way in Antioch was closed because of a cockroach infestation after three live cockroaches were found behind and under the water heater. It reopened the following day after a re-inspection. On Monday, inspectors closed the Hilton Concord's food facility at 1970 Diamond Blvd. after one fresh dead rodent and one live rodent were found in traps inside the utensil storage room. In addition, rodent droppings were spotted inside the oven at the service cook line, underneath a shelf that stored aprons and on the floor near the employee locker and employee restroom. It reopened the Tuesday after health officials re-inspected the facility. Representatives from The Jungle, Burger King and Hilton could not be reached for comment Sunday. Vietnamese restaurant Pho Le, located at 41 Sand Creek Road in Brentwood, was also closed Tuesday for vermin infestation. There was no indication on the food facility closures website that it had reopened as of Sunday, and a call to the restaurant on Sunday went unanswered. No details of the infestations were provided on the website. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A passenger in a car on Interstate Highway 580 in Livermore was shot and injured Sunday evening in the second freeway shooting in the East Bay in two days, according to the California Highway Patrol. The 24-year-old woman was riding in a Honda Accord as it headed east on I-580 near the Isabel Avenue (state Highway 84) interchange about 5:45 p.m. Sunday when she was hit in the leg by one bullet, said CHP Officer Tyler Hahn. The Accord continued east about four miles to Vasco Road, where the driver stopped to call the CHP, Hahn said. The CHP called paramedics, who met them there and took the woman to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley. Hahn said the woman suffered injuries not considered life-threatening. Hahn said there was no specific description of a suspect vehicle provided. Sunday's shooting happened about 28 hours after an Antioch woman died in a solo-vehicle accident on eastbound state Highway 4 near the Willow Pass Road interchange. Bullet holes were discovered in the woman's driver's-side door after the accident. Destinee Shaharisha-Jenae Hillery, 25, of Antioch was pronounced dead at the scene Saturday. The CHP is seeking suspects in both cases. Hahn said as of Sunday night it isn't known whether the two shootings are related in any way. Police in Fremont are investigating a fatal traffic collision Sunday night they believe may have involved alcohol, officers said in a press release Sunday night. A minivan and a Honda Civic collided on Central Avenue just east of Blacow Road at about 6:15 p.m., police said. A passenger in the Honda died at the scene. The driver of the minivan fled on foot, but was found in a nearby neighborhood a short time later and arrested. There was no other information immediately available on the suspect, or the passenger who died, police said. The Chevron Richmond Refinery continued to experience "flaring" Sunday, caused by an upset at a process unit there, according to a company spokesman. It is the latest in a series of flaring incidents at the sprawling Richmond facility. Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall said the flaring does not pose any environmental or health risk to the community. He also said a Contra Costa Sheriff's Office Community Warning System "Level 1" notification was issued Sunday. That notification was no longer on the CWS website late Sunday night. Spokespeople with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District could not be reached for comment Sunday. But in recent weeks, district officials have said they are investigating each flaring event at Chevron, and that Chevron must file a report with the district about each flaring incident. On Sunday, Reddall said in an email, "We want to assure our neighbors that flares are highly regulated safety devices, used in refineries to relieve pressure during the refining processes and help keep our equipment and plants operating safely." Emergency responders had to use a helicopter to rescue a surfer stranded on the coastal rocks near the Cliff House restaurant in San Francisco late Sunday afternoon. The surfer was not injured, but got stuck on the rocks off Point Lobos Avenue, just north of Ocean Beach, shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday San Francisco firefighters said. Rough surf, they said, made using a boat or rescue swimmers impossible, firefighters added. U.S. Coast Guard personnel and a crew aboard a California Highway Patrol helicopter lifted the surfer from the steep, rocky cliffside, and the surfer was safe atop the rocks by 7:20 p.m., the San Francisco Fire Department said. The Orinda City Council on Tuesday will hear a report on a proposed 15-year plan to add more housing at strategic places throughout the Bay Area The Committee to House the Bay Area is a blue-ribbon task force of elected and civic leaders convened by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to devise solutions to the Bay Area's housing crisis. That committee's CASA Compact is a detailed 15-year emergency policy package that includes a series of policy reforms to make it easier for local jurisdictions to build more housing at all income levels, and to protect tenants and low-income communities from unjust evictions and displacement. The CASA Compact is not law - yet. Its proponents want it to eventually become law, however. A key objection among Orinda officials is the proposed Senate Bill 50, which would require cities and counties to provide incentives to development proponents who agree to build housing that satisfies certain criteria, including a minimum proportion of "affordable" units. The proposed "incentives" include eliminating local density restrictions and on-site parking requirements. Orinda officials believe that the combined effects of the CASA Compact and of SB50 could result in added housing that could further burden the region's transportation system, rather than relieving it. Monday will be sunny. Highs will be in the mid to upper 60s. Northeast winds will be 5 to 10 mph, before becoming west winds in the afternoon. Monday night will be mostly cloudy. Lows will be in the lower to mid 50s. Southwest winds will be 5 to 15 mph. Tuesday will be cloudy with a slight chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs will be in the lower 60s. East winds will be around 5 mph, increasing to south winds at 10 to 20 mph in the afternoon. The chance of showers is 20 percent. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. RICHMOND (BCN) The Richmond City Council could vote Tuesday night to abandon a study on whether the city should annex unincorporated North Richmond, especially given community sentiment against the idea and anticipated increased costs to the city. According to a report commissioned by the city, the annexation would probably be a money-loser for the city. Annual expenditures to serve the North Richmond area, the report said, would be roughly $4.9 million a year - about $2.2 million more than the anticipated revenues from the area. A separate city report says all Richmond city departments would be impacted by the added responsibility of serving the North Richmond area. The police department, stormwater/wastewater services, the Department of Infrastructure Maintenance and Operations along with the engineering department figure to be the most greatly impacted, the report says. "This impact could result in a potential decreases in the level of services for Richmond residents," that report said. Also, a survey of North Richmond residents shows most don't want to be annexed into the city. Despite the advantages of more local control, unified local government and added services, North Richmond residents would also pay more being part of the city of Richmond. A city report says that, for a North Richmond home with an assessed value of $300,000, property taxes would increase by $420 per year, according to a city report. There also would be increases in sales taxes, utility taxes and garbage collection fees. Tuesday's meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Community Services Building, 440 Civic Center Plaza in Richmond. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. The principal of Pittsburg Unified School District's adult education program is clinging to life Sunday after being shot by his wife during a domestic dispute early Saturday, according to authorities. The shooting victim was identified Sunday by police and the school district as 45-year-old Paul Shatswell. He is listed in critical condition and on life support. Shatswell's wife, Maria Vides, has been booked into County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. She allegedly shot him with a handgun around 1:20 a.m. Saturday in their home on Barrie Drive in Pittsburg. Shatwell is the father of eight children ranging in age from 5 to 29, according to the school district. He previously served as a reserve deputy sheriff for Contra Costa County, along with roles in finance, counseling and educational administration. "Along with being our adult education principal, Paul was born and raised in Pittsburg, and his children attended, and attend, our schools," school district Superintendent Janet Schulze said Sunday in a social media post. "His impact is wide across our Pittsburg community. Along with the shock and grief, there will be many memories of his love of music, friends, family, Pittsburg, and his passion for education." Schulze said additional counselors will be on hand at the Pittsburg Adult Education Center on Monday, as well as at the schools his youngest children attend. Staff meetings will be held at the Adult Education Center at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday. Anyone with additional information about the shooting is asked to contact police Detective Jacob Stage at (925) 252-6972. The woman who died in a fatal vehicle accident Saturday afternoon on State Highway 4 in Contra Costa County has been identified as a 25-year-old Antioch resident. Destinee Shaharisha-Jenae Hillery was pronounced dead at the scene after the silver Honda she was driving crashed into the guard rail eastbound at Port Chicago Highway north of Concord around 2:25 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol. She was the car's only occupant. Investigators located bullet holes on the driver's side door. The preliminary investigation is of a "suspicious death," CHP Officer Hannah Wolcott said Saturday. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call CHP investigations at (707) 917-4491 Residents in San Leandro may see smoke during the day on Sunday as Alameda County Fire Department crews conduct exercises at its training tower, according to fire officials. The exercises were scheduled to start at 8 a.m. and go until 5 p.m., officials said. A column of black smoke may be visible near the tower, which is close to BART, Interstate Highway 880 and the Union Pacific railroad tracks. The training is not open to the public. Fire officials said anyone unsure whether the smoke is coming from the exercise are advised to call 911. A 12-year-old boy and 36-year-old man were stabbed during a domestic dispute in Vacaville on Friday evening, police said. The adult male victim was involved in a physical altercation shortly after 6 p.m. in the 300 block of Mono Drive with his friend, Bernard Howard, 38, of Vacaville, and an older male resident in his 60s, according to a social media post by police. The two men in their 30s allegedly attacked the older individual, who grabbed a knife to protect himself. The 12-year-old boy tried to stop the assault of the older man, police said. During the altercation, the boy suffered a laceration to his forearm and the 36-year-old man suffered a laceration to an extremity and a stab wound to his chest. Both victims were taken to the hospital. The boy was listed in stable condition, and the man was expected to make a full recovery. Police arrested Howard on suspicion of violating his parole and battery. Police are also recommending to the District Attorney's Office battery charges against the 36-year-old man. Firefighters can still be counted on to rescue a cat in distress, at least in one San Mateo County town. It wasn't a cat stuck in a tree but a black kitten trapped in a water drainage pipe that summoned Menlo Park Fire Protection District firefighters to Selby Lane in Atherton around 4:30 p.m. Friday. A resident called the fire station to report that she had heard a kitten crying all morning and discovered that it had slipped down the drainage pipe, according to a fire district news release. Firefighters used cellphone photos and video to locate the kitten trapped at least 14 feet below a concrete walking deck in a pipe that was only 4 inches in diameter. At 5:16 p.m., San Mateo County Animal Control was called to the home to take over the rescue operation, but when its efforts failed, the firefighters were summoned back. They tried reaching the kitten with a half-inch rescue rope line specific to human rescue operations, but that too failed. Finally, fire engineer Joey Quadt and probationary firefighter Ryle Fitzgerald employed a noose system using twine in another effort to retrieve the kitten. After about an hour of effort, they finally succeeded in freeing the kitten from the pipe. The kitten was named "Ryle" after its rescuer, who was dubbed the "cat whisperer" by his crewmates and Animal Control officers. Fitzgerald is considering adopting the kitten, according to the fire district. "It's always nice when we can share a positive conclusion to any type of interesting and complex rescue we perform with the general public," fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said. "It's amazing all of the strange predicaments both humans and animals can get themselves into. Just when I think we've seen it all, something new comes along." Early morning commuters should allow for extra time on Interstate Highway 880 this week, when all southbound lanes of the freeway in Hayward will be closed for four hours overnight for the next four days. The closures will accommodate installation of 880 Express Lanes signs, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The first closure will be from 11:59 p.m. Sunday to 4 a.m. Monday morning, and continue for the same hours over the next three days, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The closures will be for southbound lanes between Winton Avenue and Highway 92. Additional closures will take place on three days during the following week, on March 24, 25 and 26, for the same hours. While the work is taking place on southbound lanes, two left lanes of northbound Interstate 880 also will be closed, from 11:59 p.m. until 5 a.m. The northbound lane closures will extend from just south of the Highway 92 interchange to just north of A Street. The project is a partnership among the MTC, Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol. Advance warning message signs, detour signs and construction crew flaggers will be in place, and the CHP will be on site during these freeway closures. This work is weather dependent and may be rescheduled if necessary. Drivers are advised to expect delays and to allow extra time traveling through the southbound I-880 corridor. An 80-year-old driver was injured Saturday night when he jumped out of his car as it rolled south on Interstate Highway 280 at the Westborough Boulevard offramp in South San Francisco, the California Highway Patrol said. The CHP got a call about 6:30 p.m. Saturday of a man driving on the freeway opening his driver's door and diving out of the car, CHP Officer Bert Diaz said. The elderly driver tumbled several times before coming to rest against the freeway's center divider. The man's now-driverless car also hit the divider, and then veered back across all traffic lanes before coming to a stop on the right shoulder, Diaz said. The car didn't hit any other vehicles, Diaz said, but a minor non-injury crash resulted when a car swerving to avoid the driverless vehicle struck another car. The elderly man suffered a cut on the head and was taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for treatment of his injury and a psychological examination. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. VALLEJO (BCN) A vehicle collided with an ambulance at an intersection in Vallejo early Monday morning, a police lieutenant said. The collision occurred shortly after 5:15 a.m. at Tennessee and Sacramento streets. A 62-year-old woman driving a vehicle south on Sacramento Street failed to yield to the ambulance with its emergency lights on as it headed west on Tennessee, Vallejo police Lt. Jason Potts said. The woman was taken to a hospital with complaints of pain to her hand and arm. No one was injured in the ambulance, which was not carrying a patient, Potts said. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Kids of the Miao ethnic group dance to the rhythm of Wooden Drum beating, during the annual celebration of the Fangu Drumming Festival, at Qingjiang Village, Danzhai County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, March 16, 2019. The Fangu Drumming Festival, a traditional local festival with a history of nearly 600 years, features wooden-drum dancing, bull-fighting, antiphonal love song singing, and other traditional folk art forms. (Xinhua/Yang Wenbin) 6 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] UTRECHT, Netherlands A gunman killed three people and wounded five during a mid-morning tram ride Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht, raising the specter of another extremist attack only days after the murderous rampage in New Zealand. Authorities seized a Turkish-born suspect after a manhunt that convulsed the historic city of nearly 350,000 people for most of the day. As night set in, three victims lay in critical condition, and the motive for the bloodshed remained under investigation. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said authorities were trying to determine whether the attack had terror motives. Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the suspect, identified as Gokmen Tanis, 37, was known to justice authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. Police said they also detained another man on suspicion of involvement but released no details. The shooting came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. The Utrecht attack took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighborhood. The gunman was alleged to have had an automatic weapon, Grapperhaus said. We assume a terror motive, Mayor Jan van Zanen said as police searched for the killer, though he added that other motives could not be ruled out. In the aftermath of the shooting, Dutch authorities put the Netherlands fourth-largest city on lockdown, raised the threat level in the area to the maximum of 5 and tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. Police issued a photo of a bearded Tanis aboard a tram in a blue hooded top. If it is a terror attack, the prime minister declared, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence. Heavily armed officers with dogs searched for the killer, gathering at one point in front of an apartment building close to the scene. However, the suspect was later arrested at another location in the city. The threat level soon returned to 4. Police said a red Renault compact car was carjacked shortly before the shooting and later found across town. Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over the past years with offenses ranging from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of woman in 2017, news reports said. The identities of the shooting victims were not immediately released, and Grapperhaus would not say if any were known to the gunman. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of Parliaments upper house. A televised debate also was canceled. Aleksander Furtula, Mike Corder and Raf Casert are Associated Press writers. BEIJING China has arrested nearly 13,000 people it describes as terrorists and has broken up hundreds of terrorist gangs in Xinjiang since 2014, the government said in a report Monday issued to counter criticism of internment camps and other oppressive security in the traditionally Islamic region. The lengthy report said the governments efforts have curbed religious extremism but gave little evidence of what crimes had occurred. The far northwestern region is closed to outsiders, but former residents and activists abroad say mere expressions of Muslim identity are punished. Criticism has grown over Chinas internment of an estimated 1 million Uighurs and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. China describes the camps as vocational training centers and says participation is voluntary. Former detainees say they were held in abusive conditions, forced to renounce Islam and swear allegiance to Chinas ruling Communist Party. The camps sprang up over the past two years at extraordinary speed and on a massive scale, as monitored by satellite imagery. China maintains an extensive security presence in Xinjiang and efforts to independently verify claims by Uighur activists are routinely blocked. The new report said law-based de-radicalization in Xinjiang has curbed the rise and spread of religious extremism. It said 1,588 terrorist gangs have been crushed and 12,995 terrorists seized since 2014. Over that time, 2,052 explosive devices were seized and more than 30,000 people were punished for taking part in almost 5,000 illegal religious activities, the report said. It said 345,229 copies of illegal religious publicity materials were also seized. Chinas government has spent decades trying to suppress pro-independence sentiment in the region. Beijing authorities say extremists there have ties to foreign terror groups but have given little evidence to support that. Experts and Uighur activists believe the camps are part of an aggressive government campaign to erode the identities of the Central Asian groups who called the region home long before waves of Han migrants arrived in recent decades. The report is part of the Chinese governments efforts to defuse the international communitys growing criticisms of its abusive policies in Xinjiang, said Maya Wang, a senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch based in Hong Kong. If the Chinese government is so certain that it has nothing to hide in Xinjiang, then it should allow independent international observers such as the U.N. into the region, Wang said. JAYAPURA, Indonesia The number of people killed after torrential downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides that tore through mountainside villages in Indonesias easternmost province has climbed to 79, with dozens of others missing, officials said Monday. On Sunday, the disaster-prone country was also hit by an earthquake, triggering a landslide that hit a waterfall on the tourist island of Lombok, killing at least three people and damaging hundreds of homes. The worst-hit area from the flooding was Sentani subdistrict, where tons of mud, rocks and trees from a landslide on a mountain Sunday rolled down to a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. Floodwaters and landslides destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua provinces Jayapura district following days of torrential rains, Nugroho said. The combination of natural factors and human activities has caused this fatal disaster, he said. Nugroho said 79 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes. Another 74 people were hospitalized, many with broken bones and head wounds. Nugroho said the number of dead and injured would likely increase since affected areas had not been reached and rescuers were still searching for dozens of people still missing. We are overwhelmed by too many injuries, said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding that some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. We cant handle it alone. Nugroho said rescuers evacuated more than 4,200 people to temporary shelters as more than 600 houses and buildings were damaged and submerged. Television footage showed rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals. Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands. Meanwhile, a 5.5-magnitude earthquake triggered a landslide on Lombok island on Sunday. The quake was felt across the island, located next to Bali, panicking residents still recovering from a major quake last August that killed more than 300 people and left thousands homeless. Sundays quake triggered a landslide from Mount Rinjani that hit dozens of tourists at the Tiu Kelep waterfall located in the foothills of the active volcano, said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman. Two Malaysians and a 14-year-old Indonesian boy were killed in the slide. At least 182 people were injured in the quake, including 26 Malaysians, Nugroho said. About 525 homes were damaged. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations was ready to help Indonesia cope with the disasters. Jeffrey Pattirajawane is an Associated Press writer. JERUSALEM Israels military expanded a massive manhunt for a Palestinian assailant on Monday as authorities announced that a second Israeli died of wounds sustained in a West Bank shooting attack the previous day. Beilinson Hospital said Ahiad Ettinger, 47, a father of 12, died of his wounds from the shooting and stabbing attack near the settlement of Ariel on Sunday. The attack also killed 19-year-old soldier Gal Keidan and seriously wounded another soldier. Ettinger, an ordained rabbi, lived in a West Bank settlement and headed a religious seminary in Tel Aviv. He managed to fire a few shots from his personal sidearm before he was gunned down. Rabbi Ettingers lifes work will continue and be among us even after his passing, and the strength he gave his pupils and the community he led will continue to strengthen us through the enormous grief and sorrow, said President Reuven Rivlin. Israeli troops went house to house overnight in search of the assailant, identified as a 19-year-old Palestinian, and closed off a cluster of villages where he is believed to be hiding. We know the attackers identity ... and security forces are in a close pursuit after him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said as he visited the site of the shooting. These terrorists will not uproot us from here, the opposite will happen. He added that Ariel would begin constructing some 840 already approved housing units in a new neighborhood the following day. The military said the attacker fatally stabbed Keidan before stealing his assault rifle and opening fire at passing vehicles. He then carjacked another vehicle and sped away, firing toward more soldiers before escaping into a nearby Palestinian village. The military said it had surveyed his home for future demolition. Israel often demolishes homes of alleged Palestinian assailants or their families as a policy it says deters future attacks. Sundays attack came after two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire last week in separate West Bank incidents that followed a period of relative calm, even as the Israeli military has been warning of the potential of a new escalation of violence. Last week, Hamas fired a pair of missiles from Gaza toward the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in a rare attack into the heart of Israel. But the launch was apparently a technical malfunction. After a brief Israeli reprisal, calm was restored. Israel is currently in the midst of an election campaign, and Egypt is trying to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Gazas Hamas rulers. Since 2015, Palestinians have killed over 50 Israelis in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks in the West Bank. Israeli forces have killed more than 260 Palestinians in that same period. Israel has described most of the Palestinians killed as attackers, but clashes between protesters and soldiers have also turned deadly. Aron Heller is an Associated Press writer. DUNEDIN, New Zealand The gun enthusiast with light brown hair and an Australian accent did not stand out among the 100 or so members of the Bruce Rifle Club, who practiced shooting at a range in a forest in southern New Zealand. Brenton Harrison Tarrant favored a bolt-action hunting rifle and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and would participate in shooting competitions, said Scott Williams, the clubs vice president. But no one saw any warning signs. He was polite. He would help put things away. He would help set up, Williams said. New Zealand officials are now wondering if they missed something about Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian citizen who lived in Dunedin and is the suspect in the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday that left at least 50 people dead. On Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had ordered an inquiry into whether government agencies could have prevented the attack. The purpose of this inquiry is to look at what all relevant agencies knew or could or should have known about the individual and his activities, including his access to weapons, she said at a news conference in Wellington, the capital. She also said her Cabinet had agreed in principle to an overhaul of the countrys gun laws and was working out the details. Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms that I believe will have made our community safer, Ardern said. Earlier, Wally Haumaha, deputy New Zealand police commissioner, said identification specialists had worked through the night to identify the people killed at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques so their bodies could be returned to their families. Islamic leaders and victims relatives have been discussing whether to hold a burial for all 50 victims at once, possibly Wednesday. As of Monday night, 31 people were hospitalized in Christchurch, nine of them in critical condition. A 4-year-old was in critical condition at a hospital in Auckland, where she was flown after the attack. Police investigations continued, as counterterrorism officers in Australia searched the homes of Tarrants mother and sister in the northeastern coastal towns of Lawrence and Sandy Beach. And in New Zealand, more than half a dozen police officers searched Tarrants residence near the center of Dunedin, about 220 miles south of Christchurch. The blue-gray house had air-conditioning units, wide, rectangular windows with open curtains, an overgrown yard and a mailbox with a sticker reading: NO JUNK MAIL. Thank you! Two weeks before the attack, Tarrants one-bedroom, one-bathroom home was listed online as available for rent starting April 2, according to a cached version of the post that has since expired. Williams said that the Bruce Rifle Club was cooperating with the police investigation and that it was closed until further notice. Emily Steel is a New York Times writer. From left: Ed O'Keefe, political correspondent for CBS News; Michelle Nettles, chief diversity and inclusion officer for Molson Coors; Kevin Harper, retired senior executive for Walmart; Jessica Herrera-Flannigan, executive vice president of government and corporate affairs for Univision Communications Inc.; and Mohamed Younis, editor-in-chief for Gallup. Page Content Listen to employee suggestions to improve diversity and inclusion, corporate executives recommended during a "fireside chat" panel at the 2019 Society for Human Resource Management Employment Law & Legislative Conference on March 17 in Washington, D.C. Posters of scantily clad women weren't uncommon in the workplace when Michelle Nettles, chief people and diversity officer with Molson Coors, began working at the company 20 years ago. But that's no longer true. In 2015, in response to concerns from employees, particularly younger workers, the company decided to stop objectifying women in its advertisements. The company, headquartered in Denver, was concerned at first how its distributors, many of which employed mostly men, would react. The change wound up being good for the business and the workforce, Nettles said. She said the company also has listened to the workforce's call for Molson Coors to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and has sponsored gay pride events. Walmart has supported the LGBT community as well. After legislation surfaced in Arkansas that would have threatened gay and lesbian rights, Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon tweeted opposition to the bill and it was revised, noted Kevin Harper, retired senior vice president of HR operations and strategy for Walmart, headquartered in Bentonville, Ark. "The expectation [that] leadership will do something is growing," he said. Walmart also has chosen to make women-owned businesses a significant part of its supply chains, he noted. Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, executive vice president of government and corporate affairs for Univision Communications Inc. in Washington, D.C., said that employees at the company pushed for women characters in its programs to be portrayed as more modern and the company responded. [SHRM members-only toolkit: Managing Equal Employment Opportunity] How do employers hear what employees want in the first place? Nettles said that Molson Coors holds engagement surveys with employees twice a year. And there are monthly one-to-one performance management meetings where employees share a surprising amount of personal information, she said. Leaders need to be present and be empathetic, she emphasized. After a conversation between an employee and manager, Molson Coors launched a program in the U.K. to help fight the high rate of suicide among white men, she noted. The company is now considering whether it should do something similar in the U.S. #MeToo Still a Problem Mohamed Younis, editor-in-chief for Gallup in Washington, D.C., suggested that more needs to be done for women in the workplace, noting that 70 percent of women in the U.S. say workplace sexual harassment is a major problem. That's compared to 53 percent of men. And 61 percent of women say people aren't sensitive enough to sexual harassment compared to 46 percent of men. Half of women (48 percent) told Gallup they have been sexually harassed compared to 11 percent of men. Nettles said the board of directors at Molson Coors asked her what she had been doing to prevent sexual harassment. All new hires have anti-harassment training, and there is training whenever someone moves into a new role. On average, the company's employees receive training about once every 18 months. Harper cautioned against internal anti-harassment training for executives. He said Walmart gets its anti-harassment training for its leaders from a third party, who walks them through different scenarios. The trainers ask specific executives what they would do in various circumstances, he said, and the executives don't always get it right. But "as a leader, silence is not an option." Page Content A state appellate court held (in an unpublished opinion) that the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA) did not provide a cause of action for an applicant whose conditional job offer from the city of Lansing was rescinded after he tested positive for marijuana during a mandatory pre-employment drug test. Eplee v. City of Lansing, 2019 Mich. App. LEXIS 277 (Feb. 19, 2019). This is at least the second decision involving failed drug tests, medical marijuana. and the MMMA. Both were decided in the employer's favor. The state appellate court decision focused on the following MMMA provision: A qualifying patient who has been issued and possesses a registry identification card is not subject to arrest, prosecution or penalty in any manner or denied any right or privilege, including, but not limited to, civil penalty or disciplinary action by a business or occupational or professional licensing board or bureau for the medical use of marihuana in accordance with this act. The court held that the MMMA did not make medical marijuana users a protected class and did not "provide an independent right protecting the medical use of marijuana in all circumstances." It distinguished the outcome in this case from that in a trio of cases in which a separate Michigan appellate court panel held medical-marijuana-using employees discharged for failing an employer's mandatory drug test were entitled to state unemployment benefits. In that instance, the employees had a right to unemployment benefits that were denied based on their medical marijuana use. However, in the more recent case, the applicant did not have a right to employment with the city. Instances involving applicant or employee use of medical and/or recreational marijuana are becoming more common. More infrequent, however, are decisions clarifying whether or how these laws address marijuana use in the employment context. Accordingly, employers should consult knowledgeable counsel when determining whether and how to develop and apply drug testing policies and procedures. Sebastian Chilco is an attorney with Littler in San Francisco. Dale L. Deitchler is an attorney with Littler in Minneapolis. Nancy Delogu is an attorney with Littler in Washington, D.C. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An arraignment for the Staten Island man accused of gunning down Gambino crime-family boss Francesco (Franky Boy) Cali is expected to be held early next week inside the Staten Island Courthouse in St. George, defense attorney Robert Gottlieb told the Advance on Monday. Police said Anthony Comello, 24, crashed into Calis vehicle Wednesday night outside the reputed dons home on Hilltop Terrace. When Cali exited, the men conversed for a moment. Cali turned his back and Comello allegedly fired a dozen shots, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. Gottlieb said his client will waive extradition Monday in Ocean County, N.J., where he was arrested while in the vicinity of a blue pickup truck, which police say was seen fleeing the crime scene Wednesday. Gottlieb said he expects the arraignment to take place next Monday on Staten Island, and released the following statement: The people who know him best, his family and friends, cannot believe what they are hearing. There is something very wrong here and we will get to the bottom of it. Sources told the Advance the murder is not believed to be mob-related, although some in the NYPD arent completely convinced of that. A leading theory among investigators is that Comello was forbidden from pursuing a relationship with a family member of the mob boss, sources said. According to a NBC NewYork report, the defendant is a conspiracy theory type who is appears a bit off." Neighbors on Comellos block in Eltingville told the Advance that over they years they thought of him to be good kid, and a nice guy. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- True Religion, Cotton On and Francescas are among the first companies hiring for positions at the St. George-based Empire Outlets, which will have a phased opening between April and the summer. These three retailers join Gap Inc. -- owner of Gap Factory, and Old Navy and Banana Republic outlets -- which has posted a variety of job listings for New York Citys first outlet center. Located adjacent to the St. George ferry terminal, Empire Outlets will feature more than 100 designer retailers and a 1,250-space parking garage. Jobs posted on the True Religion website for its store in Empire Outlets include those for sales associate and assistant store manager. The designer is known for its high-end denim, streetwear-inspired sportswear, and accessories for men, women and kids. The new Cotton On outlet -- offering womens wear, menswear and accessories -- promises to bring casual Australian style to the five boroughs. Positions being advertised on the companys website for Empire Outlets include: sales associate, store manager, assistant store manager and key holder. The store opening is April 19 and we will be hiring 15 team members across sales associate and management roles, said a spokesman for the company. Francescas -- a trendy clothing and accessory shop -- is seeking to hire a sales associate, store manager, assistant store manager and key holder. GAP AMONG FIRST STORES TO OPEN The outlet stores under the Gap brand are slated to open by the end of April and employ between 155 to 175 employees at three stores, according to a Gap Inc. spokeswoman. Gap listings include those for sales associate, loss prevention agent, stock associate, visual merchandizing specialist, brand associate, assistant manager, operations specialist and loyalty specialist. GRAND OPENING APRIL 18 The majority of the public spaces will open on April 18, Joseph Ferrara, principal in BFC Partners, developers of Empire Outlets, told the Advance last month. There will be access throughout the site and down to the esplanade and into the ferry terminal, he said, noting the grand staircase leading to the ferry terminal will be open in April. In addition, the vast majority of parking will be open in April, said a spokesman for the outlets. The shopping center includes 780 spots that are reserved for commuter parking, said Ferrara. FOOD COMPONENT In addition to some food concepts opening in April, there will be " a robust food truck presence" until the MRKTPL -- a 12,723-square-foot artisanal food hall with a 3,000-square-foot outdoor dining space -- opens in the summer, said Travis Noyes, Empire Outlets senior vice president, marketing. There will be a significant opening event that will cater just to MRKTPL as well, said Ferrara. OUTLET RETAILERS Other retailers signed on to be part of Empire Outlets include: Nordstrom Rack, Nike, H&M, Ghirardelli Chocolate, Levis, Converse, Jockey, Starbucks, U.S. Polo, Crocs,White House Black Market, Columbia Sportswear Company, Guess Factory Store, Wilsons Leather, G.H. Bass & Co., Lids, Obey Your Body, Samsonite, Walgreens, Haagen Dazs and Krispy Kreme. Restaurants set to be part of Empire Outlets diverse group of dining options include: Mamouns Falafel, Wasabi Steak & Sushi, Shake Shack, and Nathans Famous. FOLLOW TRACEY PORPORA ON FACEBOOK and TWITTER STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are searching for one suspect in connection with a stabbing that occurred at a housing complex in Mariners Harbor Sunday night. At approximately 9:13 p.m., police and emergency service units responded to a call of a woman being stabbed at 35 Holland Ave., a building inside the Arlington Terrace Apartments, according to an NYPD spokesman. ESU arrived to the scene and transported the female victim to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, with non-life threatening injuries, said an FDNY spokesman. Police blocked off the front of the housing complex as NYPD investigators surrounded the crime scene. It remains unclear how serious an injury the victim suffered from the stabbing, police said. Police have yet to release a description for the suspected stabber. It remains unclear what sparked the confrontation, police said. No arrests have been made at this time and the investigation remains ongoing, added the spokesman. This is a breaking news story; check back on SILive.com for more information as its made available. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 54-year-old woman was stabbed at a housing complex in Mariners Harbor and her attacker remains at large, according to police. The woman and the man, who is known to her, had an argument that escalated when he stabbed her in the back left shoulder at about 9:13 p.m. at the Arlington Terrace Apartments at 35 Holland Ave., according to a spokesman for the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. The suspect fled and has not been apprehended. The police spokesman was unable to provide a description for the assailant. ESU arrived to the scene and transported the woman in stable condition to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, according to police. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! A property on almost 380 sqm of land with approvals for a boarding house in the heart of Sydneys fast-growing inner west has sold under the hammer in Sydney this week for $1.625 million. Multiple in-room bidders vied for the 14 Elizabeth Street property, which has approvals in place to be developed as an 11-bedroom boarding house. Paul Hunter, JLLs Director, Metropolitan Sales and Investments NSW, sold the property on behalf of a local owner. RICHMOND The Westpac Bank in Richmond has sold to local investor for $1.42 million, net passing yield of 6.6 per cent. The Heritage building at 237 Windsor Street has three years left to run on the lease with options to 2032. Nick Estephen and Joe Sacco, Colliers International. ROZELLE European Hire Cars Pty Ltd has sold a 719 square metre freehold warehouse at 6-8 Waterloo St to a private child care operator for $5.5 million. The property has DA approval for the construction of a childcare centre, permitting 73 children. Anthony Pirrottina, Demi Carigliano and Arland Domingo from Knight Frank. DULWICH HILL Longstanding private owners have sold a 1805 sqm DA approved residential development site for 19 units at 40-42 Cobar Street, Dulwich Hill at auction for $4.47 million. Jordan McConnell and John McCann Colliers International. MOUNT PRITCHARD The 2006 sqm Mount Pritchard Complex at 167-175 Meadows Road has been sold to a syndicate of local investors. for $4.8 million. Harry Bui, Colliers International. LEASING Mr Water Plumbing has leased a 688 sqm warehouse/office at 3/176-180 Euston Road, from a private lessor. The lease term is five years. Marcus Schraag and Michael Binskin - LJ Hooker Commercial South Sydney and Artie Kalpidis, Link Property. HUNTINGWOOD Bio Health Pharmaceuticals has leased a 4900 sqm industrial site at 5 Healey Circuit from LJM Marketing Services NSW. The high-clearance freestanding warehouse in an established outer west precinct has a high-voltage power supply, drive-through B-double truck access and a secure yard was leased at $142.05 per sqm net for eight years. Greg Pike and Luke Jackson, JLL. SYDNEY Deloitte has leased a 693.4 sqm office at 9 Hunter Street from AM 9 Hunter Street Pty Ltd for a flexible lease, nil incentive of $1050sqm gross. It offers a turnkey fitted out space to suit project need. Christina Malcolm, Savills Australia. Deloitte has leased a 693.4sqm office at 9 Hunter Street, Sydney ALEXANDRIA $262 sqm gross Lukes Bathroom Renovations Sydney has leased a 418 sqm office/warehouse at Unit 1, 2a Burrows Road from a private investor for a rent of $262 sqm gross. The lease term is three years plus a three year option. Alex Sarroff and Mark Silva, Knight Frank. MOVERS As the countdown to the arrival of the new chief executive at Virgin Australia, Paul Scurrah, enters its last week, all eyes will be on how his strategy will differ from that of incumbent John Borghetti. The two men had very different agendas when they were appointed. Where Borghetti was given license to create a new full service airline from the bones of a profitable discount carrier, Scurrah has been handed a more mature airline with a premium and a budget brand, and a great product. He will probably be looking to sweat the assets harder. Outgoing CEO John Borghetti with Paul Scurrah, New Virgin Australia CEO. Credit:Louise Kennerley Like any new chief executive, especially one that is recruited from outside, Scurrah will want to place his own stamp on the business and, from all accounts, he is a more hard-headed executive with an eye to improving returns. Legal experts are calling for compulsory business education for company directors in order to stop illegal phoenixing and complement proposed new criminal and civil penalties for poorly behaved company directors. Submissions on the government's "Combating illegal phoenixing" bill argue phoenix behaviour will not stop without strong enforcement by the regulators. Law firm Maurice Blackburn says Australia needs to do more to ensure company directors are qualified before they can take the wheel of a business. New phoenixing rules designed to help subcontractors, employees and creditors of collapsed companies have been welcomed. Credit:Erin Jonasson "Whats lacking in the bill are proactive measures measures that would stop everything falling apart," says Maurice Blackburn chief of employment and industrial law, Giri Sivaraman. Illegal phoenix activity involves transferring business assets from one entity to another in a way that can prevent employees and creditors from accessing their entitlements in the event of a company collapse. It's estimated to cost the country more than $5 billion a year, according to work done by the national phoenix taskforce. Four Weddings and a Funeral the sequel has arrived, just in time for the romantic comedy's 25th anniversary - and for a good cause. The short film, called One Red Nose Day And A Wedding, brought screen lovers Hugh Grant, 58, and Andie MacDowell, 60, back together for British television's Red Nose Day 2019 charity special. The sequel was set 25 years after the original and featured Grant's Charles and MacDowell's Carrie as a longtime married couple in church to celebrate their daughter Miranda's wedding (played by Lily James) to Faith (played by Alicia Vikander). When The Jesus and Mary Chain played Perth in May 1995 I was there in the front row. It was one of the best gigs I've ever seen, maybe because the underground Scottish alt-rockers, famous for their earsplitting feedback and disgruntled songs, laid down the soundtrack of my adolescent bedroom. William Reid from The Jesus and Mary Chain still delivers guitar licks that sound more like a controlled explosion. But mostly because the live performance of their angst-fuelled, post-punk masterpeices were searing with a wall of guitar noise I'd never heard before, and the disaffection of their lyrics and their delivery were something I'd never heard before. Not on stage, not in Perth. So when they played the Astor on Saturday night, I was nervous. Becoming a professional conductor was once a calling for a rather extreme type of personality. Tyrannical and flamboyant with a ruthlessly swollen ego, the stereotype of the megalomaniacal maestro has long endured in popular consciousness. Sir Andrew Davis. Credit: Peter Tarasiuk But today theres a new breed of conductors standing in their place. With a career spanning more than four decades, Sir Andrew Davis has been something of a torchbearer for this next generation of conductors, with a style that preferences affectionate collaboration over authoritarian rule in order to inspire the best in an orchestra. Even if youve never heard Davis converse in his soft-spoken, quintessentially British tones, you need only see him on the concert platform a sprightly, animated presence whose vivid facial expressions are every bit as communicative as any gesticulation to understand his good-humoured and hugely endearing character. When I speak with Davis, the outgoing chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, his vocabulary is telling: the word love is an idee fixe. It appears when he recalls his first engagement with the MSO in 2009 I immediately fell in love with them and again when we discuss his passion for championing the most ambitious and demanding works in the classical canon: I love this repertoire. I love it. And its so terribly important that audiences hear these major milestones of orchestral history. It has been put to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson that her party's "anti-Muslim rhetoric" drives extremist attacks such as the Christchurch massacre, in which the alleged Australian gunman killed 50 people praying in two mosques on Friday. Appearing on Seven's Sunrise on Monday morning on which she has been a long-time contributor Hanson was asked by host David "Kochie" Koch if she felt "complicit" in the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand's modern history. "This terrorist manifesto almost reads like One Nation immigration and Muslim policy. Do you in any way feel complicit with this atrocity?" Koch asked. Hanson was quick to reject the idea that she and her party should be held partly responsible for the attack. A new advisory group looking into the management of violence in schools is unlikely to hear directly from the families or teachers affected or investigate specific schools, ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry revealed on Tuesday. Instead, an expert panel will examine existing school violence processes, using past incidents as case studies to determine where systems may be failing. "It is not an independent inquiry where a report will come about that points fingers at individuals or schools or children or families," Ms Berry said. Yvette Berry won't hear from students, teachers or parents who have been affected by school violence. Credit:Karleen Minney "This is not about demonising or belittling or making a spectacle of what is a very serious and sometimes quite complex issue." Hundreds of people of all faiths and none gathered at the mosque at the Canberra Islamic Centre on Monday night to hold a vigil and prayer meeting for the victims of the terror attack in New Zealand. A rabbi, a bishop and an imam spoke as one in condemning the violence in Christchurch. There are further public events planned in Canberra on Tuesday afternoon. The city's "peace bell" will be rung fifty times. Both the New Zealand High Commissioner and the ACT Chief Minister are to speak. Hundreds gathered at Canberra Islamic Centre to remember the Christchurch massacre victims. Credit:Jamila Toderas At Monday night's meeting, Bishop Stephen Pickard, speaking on behalf of the ACT Council of Churches, told the rows of Muslims sitting in before him, "We of the churches of Canberra want to assure you of our love." Worksafe ACT has started a formal investigation into the Skyfire fireworks display that went wrong on Saturday night, focusing on what caused a firework to ignite earlier than planned. A barge appeared to explode during the 18-minute display, with fireworks shooting in the direction of audience members sitting on the edge of the lake. A Firework barge explodes during Skyfire 2019. Credit:Terry Cunningham Fortunato Foti, of Foti Fireworks, said his investigation was continuing, with information to be handed to Worksafe ACT. Until the investigation was concluded, he couldn't comment further, he said. A WorkSafe ACT spokeswoman said the incident was concerning and it was fortunate no one was injured. Australias population According to figures published by the Commonwealth Statistician, Australia at the end of last year had a population of 4,275,304 souls, or an increase for the year of 75,207. Inasmuch as this increase is larger than we have had for some years, we may regard the figures as relatively satisfactory; but if we regard them in the light of the size, the resources, and the necessities of this continent they make a poor enough showing. If Australia is to realise her destiny she must increase her numbers at a much greater rate. Proposed Maroubra tram A deputation from Randwick, Kensington, Long Bay and Maroubra, introduced by Mr D. Storey, MLA, urged upon the Minister for Works the advisableness of constructing a tramway to Maroubra Bay. A petition signed by 3000 persons was handed in in support of the project. The Minister asked whether the deputation wanted a line giving the most direct communication, or a line that would, en route, serve a large population that wanted daily access to the city as well as to the bay. Public telephone robbery Anning should be thankful that egg boy was not an adherent to the type of philosophy he espouses. They dont just egg people they disagree with. - Chris McGavock, Figtree The young man who egged the senator does not know that emu eggs exist. - Frank Halpin, Heathcote Was it a free-range egg? - Simon Squires, Hornsby Thank you Sean Kelly for reasoned and insightful thoughts on Morrisons response to the Christchurch massacre (Fear factor unleashed, March 18). Oh that Jacinda Ardern was ours. - Diana Jefferson, Seaforth During a recent visit to the South Island, I joked to Kiwis I met about taking Ardern home in my hand luggage. Since Friday, my respect for her has increased. Her unerring ability and integrity to state what we all wish for in our leaders will hopefully be heard and absorbed around the world. - Cheryl Wilson, Crows Nest Two PMs: only one shows leadership Bravo Sandra Elhelw Wright for your heartfelt call for Australians to challenge racism, Islamophobia and bigotry (I was 10 when I last felt safe, March 18). We should start at the top, with our Prime Minister, for his constant demonisation of asylum seekers, for his implying Islam is a threat to our security, and for the encouragement his words provide for those who choose to hate. Prime Minister Ardern has shown great compassion and true leadership. In contrast, Morrison presents himself as Anning-lite. - Dale McMahon, Naremburn Its a shame it has taken such a bloody, awful tragedy for it to be said, but finally it can. After years of hearing various politicians and commentators tell us that political correctness has gone mad, that its OK to be a bigot and to watch those scoundrels enjoy electoral pay dirt on the back of racist, homophobic, misogynistic and intolerant hate speech, now it is clear. All this hatred and intolerance ends up in bloodshed. It always comes at the expense of civil society. Our Prime Ministers miraculous conversion overnight couldnt have come at a more opportune moment. There was every chance that this election was going to be fought over the same disgusting and divisive debates that have tainted our elections for some decades. For once, it just might not have to be that way. - Anthony van den Broek, Erskineville It is certainly not enough to show sorrow and sympathy for our Muslim neighbours . We have to remember that this act of terror was perpetrated against all of humanity as it is a basic human right to feel safe in ones own place of worship. More importantly, we Australians, must feel a great sense of shame for becoming a new breeding ground for international terrorism. Any politician who ignores this growing problem does not deserve to be in office. - Cristina Corleto, Stanmore Nahid Afrose Kabir (Letters March 18), I understand your despair, but white Australians havent resorted to terrorism, one murderous white blackguard did so. Its equally futile to blame white Australians generally for this horrific act as it is to blame millions of Muslims for an atrocity committed by one of their number. - Rosemary OBrien, Georges Hall Of course the perpetrator is one of us. He grew up in a country where promotion of fear of the other is the stock in trade of the Coalition and its splinters and the dominant media company is steeped in advancing white grievance. - George Maniatis, Dulwich Hill I have cancelled Facebook which allowed the ugliness of the mosque murders to be shown worldwide (Facebook under global pressure, March 18). I am aghast at such irresponsibility and hope others, worldwide, do the same. - Samantha McKay, Katoomba Facebook tells its advertisers how accurately they can pinpoint their members feelings and attitudes when its come to selling them something, yet they cant seem to notice and stop racist postings and the live broadcast of the murder of innocent people. I guess that shows where its interests lie. - Brenton McGeachie, Queanbeyan West There is a thin dividing line between the thoughts and beliefs of our far-right wing politicians and those who violently put their hatred into action. - Jon Sarvis, Maianbar Hate speech is the equivalent of shouting fire in that darkened theatre when there is no fire. Hate speech is not free speech. Time to reflect on these terms and reset. - Murray Patchett, Red Rock Free speech is too expensive. - David Sargent, Castle Hill I wonder whether state or federal governments will proscribe any ultra-right wing groups as terrorist groups or seek to restrict their activities in a similar way to proscribed bikie gangs. - Rachel Fitzhardinge, Blakehurst The 50 fallen are not just our Kiwi cousins or people of Christchurch. They were Muslims yet most messages of condolence and media cant even say the name. We must acknowledge this was a blow against a peaceful religion from white supremacists, which includes many in our parliament that enabled this act. The mass murderer chose NZ to show Muslims they are not safe anywhere, even in the most peaceful of lands. Lets prove him wrong. - Shayne Chester, Potts Point Am I to assume all those rightly attacking extreme right-wing hate speech, are unaware of any hate speech of left-wing ideologues? - Laurie Le Claire, Epping Those who espouse racial hatred should rightly be termed neo-nazi or neo-fascist and not right wing. - Jane Wilks, Baulkham Hills Society need be careful about the blame game, for it is the Muslim extremists and the white supremacists that seek to divide people and nations, by their murderous actions, which are nothing but satanic. - Richard Merrell, Penrith It is the vile extremism that is the issue. Not which branch of political belief with which you are labelled. Throwing insults across the table will never solve the issues before us. It is time to have the discussion about the elephant in the room. Is immigration too high and do we need to more carefully assess cultural match before granting immigration status? No doubt the elephant will be avoided in the rush to label me a racist. - Gary Bigelow, Oatlands The Christchurch massacre will have many repercussions. One is its going to be very difficult to be able to have rational, dispassionate discussions about Australian immigration or assimilation policies either politically or in the media. - Peter Bower, Naremburn Please stop naming that white supremacist a terrorist. You should allow his name (and fame, or infamy) to fade into ignominy and anonymity. Also, the 50 (thus far) people now dead did not die. They were murdered. - Alan Slade, Dover Heights As an Australian Im deeply sorry for the murders in Christchurch but more than that, I am ashamed, as the perpetrator is only a pawn in their game. - Matt Caine, Newport Beach Light of remembrance Thank you Sydney for illuminating our silver fern on your magnificent Opera House. It was received here as a strong symbol of our unity in the fight against hatred and violence. Maori used the fern to catch the moonlight and illuminate a path home. We are seeking the illumination that will guide us through this unspeakable darkness. - Barry Denholm, Auckland Perhaps it should stay up for 50 days out of respect for the victims. - John Swanton, Coogee Capturing the mood The cartoon by Pat (March 18) moved me to tears. - Patricia Pears, Cooranbong A picture does speak a thousand words, as Pats superb, respectful and dignified cartoon shows. - Anthony Buckley, Point Clare Our neighbours grief On Sunday I passed the Dee Why mosque. It was open for mourners to pray and there was a police presence. Most noticeable were the flowers placed at the front. I cried with despair that hatred can inflict the horrors that occurred in New Zealand and my tears were also of joy that everyday Australians are not racist and Love their neighbours as they are loved. - Laurie Miller, Yeppoon (Qld) When school is enjoyable then learning must follow Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg is generous in his praise of Australian schooling (From pressure to play: Finnish perspective on how we educate, March 18). My 40-odd years in public education confirm his few criticisms. We continue to be obsessed with assessment and view achievement through the myopic lens of testing. Pressure is piled on students and assessment tasks are now common in primary schools. Everything is prescriptive; there is no free time to explore and enjoy learning. We perpetuate a class system where the privileged enjoy resources the rest can only dream about. And early childhood education is beyond the reach of ordinary Australians. But six-year old Otto is right: the uniforms are cool. - Mark Paskal, Clovelly Councils in Sydney's west have seized on the looming state election to push the major political parties for a better funding deal to drive down the booming area's "social infrastructure backlog". With days to go before NSW residents go to the polls, the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) has called on Labor and the Liberals to consider how, if elected, they will help meet the costs to councils of sports facilities, community centres, libraries and swimming pools. WSROC president, Cr Barry Calvert, said local councils struggled to find funds to build and maintain adequate levels of such infrastructure. The 50-metre outdoor pool at Lane Cove Aquatic Centre has been closed. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Those funding pressures were felt more keenly in rapidly growing areas such as western Sydney, Cr Calvert said. A man who lied about killing his wife for almost two decades is still lying about where he buried her body, her outraged family says. Edmund Ian Riggs, 59, was found guilty in February of the manslaughter of his wife, Patricia Anne Riggs, south of Brisbane in September 2001. Land set aside for a cemetery in outer Brisbane was combed by police after Edmund Riggs finally told them where to look for the last of his wife's remains. Credit:AAP Image/Glenn Hunt After his conviction, Riggs told authorities where to look for the rest of his wife's remains after only parts of her body were discovered under a shed in the family's former home at Redcliffe in 2016. Following sentencing submissions on Monday, Ms Rigg's father, Jon Knowles, lashed out at Riggs' claim about where his daughter's remains are. A man armed with knives has been fatally shot by Queensland Police at a caravan park north of Brisbane on Monday afternoon. The two police officers were responding to a call that a 50-year-old man wielding knives was at Endeavour Caravan Park on Deception Bay Road in Deception Bay just after 2pm. "Police attended the scene and upon being confronted by this person discharged a number of shots, fatally wounding that person," Queensland police Inspector Craig White said on Monday afternoon. "Currently the matter is being investigated by Ethical Standards Command and investigations are continuing with police and other officers." Inspector White said it was reported the man was making threats when the shooting happened. A Perth man has pleaded not guilty to punching a baby outside a pub in Innaloo earlier this month. Ian Douglas James Gordon, 27, appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday Credit:9 News Perth Ian Douglas James Gordon, 27, appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday charged with endangering the life, health or safety of a person. Police say Mr Gordon was outside the Saint Hotel in Innaloo when he approached a man in the carpark on Morris Road. The man had his 10-week-old baby boy strapped to a body baby carrier. Police are urgently searching for a man who called emergency services when he was bitten by a snake while out bushwalking near Kelmscott on Monday. Nathan Scattini, 41, called St John Ambulance early Monday morning and told an operator he had been bitten by a snake. However he did not know his location. Police have since mounted a search for Mr Scattini in the vicinity of Bob Blackburne Reserve and John Dunn Memorial Park in the Seville Grove and Kelmscott area. On Tuesday, police and SES volunteers were searching along both sides of Tonkin Highway. EDITOR'S NOTE: The High Court overturned Cardinal George Pell's conviction for historic child sex offences in a judgment handed down April 7, 2020. In a unanimous decision all seven High Court judges found Victoria's Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell's conviction. It found the evidence could not support a guilty verdict. In the must-win seat of Penrith, it was clear the Liberals had reached their break-glass moment. As it is written in Liberal lore: if in doubt, roll John Howard out. They are, and so they did. Former prime minister John Howard hit the campaign trail in Penrith with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Sports Minister Stuart Ayres, who is defending the seat on a margin of 6.2 per cent. Credit:Nick Moir Mr Howard, a beacon of long and stable government in the eyes of many voters, hit the hustings with Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her Sports Minister Stuart Ayres on Monday. Former prime minister Tony Abbott says he no longer stands by his controversial 2017 claim that "Islamophobia hasn't killed anyone". Mr Abbott made the remark in June 2017 in the immediate aftermath of the London Bridge terror attack, arguing officials were too scared of offending Muslims to debate Islamic terrorism properly. Former prime minister Tony Abbott. Credit: The former prime minister said he would not make the same observation now, following the Christchurch massacre in which 50 people were shot dead while they prayed in mosques. "We should never be fearful of condemning terrorism and the evil ideologies that purport to drive it," Mr Abbott told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. The odious Fraser Anning and his even more odious band of thugs may have taken violent umbrage at the actions of the young man forever to be known as "eggboy", but Anning isnt in the same class for high dudgeon at the historical art of egging as the former Australian prime minister Billy Hughes. We may not have had an Australian Federal Police service if Hughes had not been egged. Hughes, trying to foment support for his vain wish to conscript Australian men for World War 1, went to the Queensland town of Warwick in November 1917, intending to give one of his incendiary speeches. Former prime minister Billy Hughes. Credit: At the Warwick Railway Station, he found himself amid a restive crowd that was nowhere near as impressed by his importance as he was. The candidate chosen by the Liberal Party to stand in the safe Perth seat of Curtin after the retirement of former foreign minister Julie Bishop, has described herself as a mainstream conservative and sought to clarify a 2013 speech she gave about feminism. Celia Hammond, who said she believed in the importance of families and the dignity of individuals, started campaigning for the seat on Monday after a hard-fought preselection in which she saw off four other candidates, including one supported by Ms Bishop. Celia Hammond won a hard-fought preselection to become the Liberal candidate for Curtin, which will be vacated by former foreign minister Julie Bishop at the next election. The former vice-chancellor of the University of Notre Dame said she was a person of faith and values, but was not standing for election as a Catholic. "I have a personal faith, I have personal values, I try to live my life by them not always successfully I'm trying to raise my boys with the same values knowing that they also will lead their own lives and must come to their own decisions on things," she said. Mazar-e-Sharif: The Taliban carried out the biggest known capture of Afghan soldiers of the war, taking 150 prisoners after they chased units into neighbouring Turkmenistan and that country forced them back. The operation took place in the north-western Afghan province of Badghis, and brought to 190 the number of soldiers captured by insurgents in the hotly contested district of Murghab with 16 more soldiers killed in less than a week. Last Monday, an entire Afghan army company was killed or captured there. By Saturday, its defenders said the district had fallen mostly into Taliban control, though Afghan forces were still holding the district's government centre. Afghan National Army soldiers carry out an exercise during a live firing at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan officials say about 100 soldiers fled their posts and tried to cross into neighbouring Turkmenistan during a week-long battle with the Taliban. Credit:AP The latest capture was perhaps the biggest setback for the Afghan security forces since a Taliban offensive in August in the south-eastern city of Ghazni killed as many as 200 soldiers and police officers, but few prisoners were taken then. The biggest recent capture of soldiers by the Taliban was about 50 who surrendered after a siege of their base, known as Chinese Camp, in Faryab province, also in August. Baghdad: Clashes between the Iraqi army and Kurdish PKK militia have killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded five of the militants. The clashes took place in Sinjar in north-western Iraq after the PKK fighters were denied passage through an army checkpoint, the Iraqi military said, adding that the militants drove a vehicle into one soldier and attacked the checkpoint. The PKK did not immediately comment. Iraqi Yazidi women mourn during the exhumation of a mass grave in Iraq's north-western region of Sinjar. Credit:AP Security incidents pitting the Iraqi military against armed groups other than Islamic State are rare. Washington: Beto O'Rourke raised more than $US6.1 million ($8.6 million) within 24 hours of announcing his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign said on Monday, highlighting his fundraising prowess in a crowded field. The former three-term Texas congressman's haul put him at the top of a Democratic pack of more than a dozen candidates so far including Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator who sought the party's nomination in 2016. Sanders raised $5.9 million in the first 24 hours of his 2020 campaign. Beto O'Rourke raised the most money in his first 24 hours than any other Democratic candidte. Credit:AP O'Rourke kicked off his presidential campaign on Thursday with a video on social media and a three-day visit to Iowa, which will hold the first presidential nominating contest in February 2020. O'Rourke gained national prominence from a 2018 US Senate race that he lost. His underdog challenge to incumbent Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz attracted capacity crowds and record fundraising. O'Rourke drew a record $US38.1 million in one quarter - out of a total haul of $US80 million - more than any other US Senate race and more than three times Cruz's total. Christchurch: As dusk approached on Monday, thousands of high school students gathered at Hagley Park near the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch for a vigil to mark unity in the face of hate, and the city's love for its Muslim community. The event organiser, Okirano Tilaia, the head boy of Cashmere High School, told the students that their determination to respond to violence with love and the light of the candles would start a ripple effect to help heal the city. Candles are lit by school children for the victims of Friday's attacks on Christchurch mosques. Credit:Jason South Cashmere is one of Christchurchs larger state schools, with 2000 students. Its community is reeling from the loss of two current and one recent past student in Fridays attacks, they were Sayyad Milne, 14, Hamza Mustafa, 16, and Tariq Omar. Hamzas younger brother, Zaid, is in hospital with gunshot wounds, his father was shot dead. A teenager charged over the alleged Facebook re-posting of the live stream of Friday's mosque shootings and messages "inciting extreme violence" has appeared in court. The 18-year-old student was refused bail and remanded in custody to April 8, when he will appear in court by video-link from prison. An 18-year-old has appeared in the Christchurch District Court charged with re-posting of the live stream of Friday's mosque shootings. Credit:Stuff Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen O'Driscoll allowed interim name suppression until that appearance but put strict limits on what the media contingent was allowed to report. Judge O'Driscoll refused bail after hearing arguments from defence counsel Andrew McKenzie and police prosecutor Aja Trinder. Dear Editor, Wow, wow, I have been holding this back until now. I read about Stuart Johnson & his apparent saving grace to the library situation. A huge photo opportunity with the Rotary club to launch a mini library. sweet boy, are you sick in the head? I am utterly disgusted in both French St Martin & Dutch St Maarten with respect to libraries. Over 15 years ago I came to this island. The 1st place I went to was the library in Philipsburg. English books.. I felt comfort. I paid my annual dues as a French Resident. year after year I renewed, enjoyed CDs, books, recipes...now that I have a child, since Irma, all that is lost..gone, only just a bit of history. Imagine, The library is history?! Honest TO GOD! Here are governments who preach the lord saving you! Let's sit & pray about our problems...oh please....Let's stop & pray.. pray for what? An intelligent government? Governments who claim they want the best for their people. Governments who talk big about Education.Governments who want tourism to prosper. Since Irma, Ive come to realize that the governments on both French & Dutch sides have zero, no, nada, interest in the common people. Again, it was reading this article about Stuart & his little libraries that struck a nerve. YOU both on either side of this island make me sick. Something tells me Im not alone in this. The entire island. Its time to stand together. French & Dutch government not giving any money into the rebuilding of the libraries on either side. That is the basis of Education. How, how, please tell me how, you sick individuals in government can say you are representing the people on this island? Heres what....you keep people stupid & the stupid never ask for more..right?? How can rebuilding libraries be at the bottom of the totem pole? I sit here forced to homeschool my child. Why, because I have zero faith in you sickos educating my child. All you care about is money lining your pockets. Dare I even comment on that so-called Christian Person who represents Education on the Dutch side, & Mr. Daniel Gibbs, you sir should feel shame, shame to the core for the nothing you have done for the children in St Martin. Shame on all of you for failing the children & us parents who want so much more. Disgusted parent representing St Martin & St Maarten, Mary De Francesco PHILIPSBURG: --- Information reaching SMN News states that the Council of Ministers passed a resolution last week in their weekly meeting to fire the Supervisory Board Members of PJIAE Holding Company and to dissolve PJIAE Holding Company thereafter. The source said that the intention of the Council of Minister is to sell or turn over shares to the Dutch Government in exchange for the loans they are seeking. SMN News further understands that the strategy was used at the St. Maarten Harbor Group of Companies in 1998 when the Harbor was looking for finances to construct the AC Wathey Pier. The Dutch Government later turned over the shares to St. Maarten Harbor Group of Companies some years later. The Princess Juliana International Airport is cashed strapped and while the management of PJIAE is seeking to secure loans from the Government of St. Maarten through the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, funds at PJIAE is running low especially since the income from head taxes are held by the bondholders. Besides the head taxes, the bondholders are also holding $54M which was acquired from the insurance company. The government already gave PJIAE a financial injection of $5M and it is expected that another $10M will be going to PJIAE so that they could meet their daily expenses. PJIAE is also in negotiation with Piper Jaffray and while the latter is ready to buy out the current bondholders so that PJIAE can have access to the $54M no decision has been taken as yet as which of the options PJAIE will follow. PHILIPSBURG:--- Alumni of the University of St. Martin and Rotarian Stuart Johnson donated the first Little Library on Dutch St. Maarten to the University of St. Martin as a contribution to the Rotary International outreach program, "Little Library", on Friday last week. The little library has been erected outside the University of St. Maarten where visitors to both the University and the Government Administration Building and others interested in reading can now "Bring a Book and Take a Book." Fellow Rotarians along with Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunset President Jaida Nisbett, President of the University of St. Martin Dr. Antonio Carmona Baez and Dean of Academics Dr. Rolinda Carter joined with Johnson outside the University to celebrate the occasion. The concept Little Library was created by a fellow Rotarian in the USA who had a passion for reading and wanted to share his love for books with his community. The Rotary Club of St. Maarten Sunset, of which Johnson is a member, thought it was fitting to introduce the concept on the island, especially given the dire situation of our libraries on both scales of the island post-Irma and Maria. The first Little Library was launched on French St. Martin in December 2018, and the response from the community was excellent. The anticipation is that the Little Library outside the USM will be the first of many on Dutch St. Maarten. Tax Reform 2019 in Mexico Posted by Publisher Internet On 28th December, 2018, the official Mexican gazette ? the Federation Income Law (FIL) ? was published for 2019, enforcing the following most relevant legal amendments. Suspension of universal compensation of taxes Anti-laundering notices for outsourcing Tax incentives for the northern border region validity: January 2019 to December 2022 reduction of VAT in the north border region from 16% to 8% reduction of corporate income tax from 30% to 20% Tax incentives for income tax and VAT will not be considered as taxable income for the purposes of income tax. areas benefitting and the municipalities of the states of: [list] Baja California: Ensenada, Playas de Rosarito, Tijuana, Tecate and Mexicali Sonora: San Luis Rio Colorado, Puerto Penasco, General Plutarco Elias Calles, Caborca, Altar, Saric, Nogales, Santa Cruz, Cananea, Naco and Agua Prieta Chihuahua: Janos, Ascension, Juarez, Praxedis G. Guerrero, Guadalupe, Coyame del Sotol, Ojinaga and Manuel Benavides Coahuila de Zaragoza: Ocampo, Acuna, Zaragoza, Jimenez, Piedras Negras, Nava, Guerrero and Hidalgo Nuevo Leon: Anahuac Tamaulipas: Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Aleman, Camargo, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Valle Hermoso and Matamoros Subjects legal entities that pay into the general regime legal entities with the option of accumulation based on effective collection individuals who pay into the general regime of individuals with business and professional activities [/list] The third amendment provides exciting opportunity to keep current investments and to bring new investment into this area of the country. We foresee that the current business landscape in the north will make it an attractive and competitive region for national and international industries, given these incentives. At ECOVIS Quibrera Saldana, Mexico, we provide consulting services in the establishment, taxation and auditing of national and foreign businesses. Author: Ricardo Quibrera Saldana, Partner/Chartered Accountant, ECOVIS Quibrera Saldana, Santa Fe, Mexico ricardo.quibrera@ecovis.mx Ecovis is a leading global consulting firm with its origins in Continental Europe. It has over 6,500 people operating in over 70 countries. Its consulting focus and core competencies lie in the areas of tax consultation, accounting, auditing and legal advice. The particular strength of Ecovis is the combination of personal advice at a local level with the general expertise of an international and interdisciplinary network of professionals. Every Ecovis office can rely on qualified specialists in the back offices as well as on the specific industrial or national know-how of all the Ecovis experts worldwide. This diversified expertise provides clients with effective support, especially in the fields of international transactions and investments ? from preparation in the client?s home country to support in the target country. In its consulting work Ecovis concentrates mainly on mid-sized firms. Both nationally and internationally, its one-stop-shop concept ensures all-round support in legal, fiscal, managerial and administrative issues. The name Ecovis, a combination of the terms economy and vision, expresses both its international character and its focus on the future and growth. Sesmarias Step Out Drilling Successful So Far For Avrupa Minerals Posted by Publisher Internet It took Avrupa Minerals (AVU.V) a few weeks longer than anticipated to release the first drill results of the Q4 2018 program on the Sesmarias project, part of their Alvalade license located in Portugal, as bringing good news right before PDAC usually generates healthy attention, but the numbers came out pretty interesting anyway in my view. The self-funded 2018 drill program appears to be a real eye-opener for management, as the recently completed 2,498 meters of drilling (6 holes) not only changed their insights on the position of the mineralized lenses discovered so far, but also showed other potentially mineralized structures by intercepting stockwork besides lenses. Step-out drilling of the known 10 Lens is also going according to plan, adding decent tonnage rapidly. Here is an overview of the identified mineralized envelopes/zones at Sesmarias: The 10 Horizon as defined on this map from the February 11, 2019 news release has been promoted to the 10 Lens now, as sufficient drill results have been obtained so far. Management also provided investors with a schematic long section in the same news release, which is a conceptual drawing of geology and mineralized bodies: Highlights from the program include the following results according to the latest March 11, 2019 news release: SES026 intercepted 28.95 meters of 0.48% copper, 0.77 g/t gold, 15.7 ppm silver, 0.52% lead and 1.31% zinc, and extended the 10 Lens by 300 meters to the north from previous drilling. It is also in line with the average grade of 1.5-1.7% CuEq management is looking for when building tonnage for an eventual deposit at Sesmarias. The 10 Lens is now at 600 meters x 300 meters x 25 meters. Mise-a-la-masse (MALM) geophysical anomalism extends another 150 meters past SES026 location. These dimensions generate 4.5M cubic meters, which in turn result into 18Mt, when using a conservative gravity of 4t/cubic meter (m3). Average gravity is estimated by management to be ranging from 4 to 4.4t/m3. Using a midpoint would render 18.9Mt. It is interesting to see that the follow-up downhole survey (MALM) detected a further 150m extension, which hypothetically could bring in another 4Mt if continuous. The minimum economic tonnage target of management is 25Mt, so things are progressing quite nicely so far. Discovered a possible new mineralized horizon in SES026, located above the 10 Lens, and intersected it again in SES027 and SES029. No economic mineralization has been hit there yet, but according to management the drill bit did hit sulfides, so there could be a mineralized envelope very close by. Holes SES026, SES027, and SES029 intersected more specifically a horizon of stockwork quartz-sulfide veining located 20-40 meters above the 10 lens.? While mostly iron sulfides, the location of the horizon suggests potential for another possible mineral layer in the Sesmarias massive sulfide system. SES028 intercepted the edge of a significant feeder zone stockwork beneath the 8 Lens.? Assays indicated anomalous gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc throughout the entire length of the stockwork from 373.40 meters to 460.80 meters in depth, beneath the 8 Lens. These assays looked like this, and management interprets them as strong indicators for more mineralization in the direct vicinity, and might be the possible edge of a feeder zone for the previously discovered 8 Lens? Confirmed that the high grade 2 Lens is a fault-bounded fragment of massive sulfide mineralization with origin yet to be determined. Hole SES003, drilled previously on this target, is now also being assayed and will be reported shortly. Hole SES003 is located very close to SES002, which showed 10.85 meters @ 1.81% Cu; 75.27 ppm Ag; 2.57% Pb; 4.38% Zn; 0.13% Sn, which is not bad as the average copper equivalent grade is 4.97% CuEq, however the volume of the 2 Lens is still too small to be economic as an underground orebody at some distance of the 10 Lens and 26 Horizon. Continued re-logging of historic drill holes has upgraded targets in the northern portions of the Sesmarias Prospect. Each hole drilled in this exploration phase of the Project has enhanced the revamping of the exploration model.? Combined with strong assay results in SES026, in particular, the information will be used in the next drill targeting exercise for this large area. I will elaborate more on this in a second. First, according to management, the mineralization is open to the east boundary fault (see 3D model below in blue) and to the west intersection of the Devonian host rocks and the Tertiary gravels.?The 10 Lens appears to be cut by post-mineral dikes to the north, but remains open to the south, though faulting may truncate (=limit) the lens about 100 meters south of SES021. By revamping the exploration model, management means to describe that the current drill results had a profound impact on the understanding of the structural geology of Sesmarias. It appeared that the stratigraphy (complex of layers), especially the orientation of the various layers and mineralized zones, was different from previously understood. As Sesmarias has a pretty complex geology, with lots of faults, folds and potentially folded folds, it was hard to determine the structural controls of any mineralized zone perpendicular on the strike directions. According to the geologists, this area has been deformed several times in the past 360 million years, so this makes determining the linears (directions in different dimensions) very difficult at times.? By simplifying everything to layers (rock material of the same character, which is much easier to visualize than anything else) and then trying to connect the same layer between drill holes, they found it easier to construct a pretty good subsurface geological map.? As it turned out, the orientation of the discovered lenses changed from predominantly sub-vertical to relatively horizontal because of new insights. I wondered how this process actually materialized for the geologists, and had a few follow-up questions as well. Fortunately management went out of their way to provide me with pretty extensive answers and explanations, to make sure yours truly, but also the audience would understand what the exploration program at Sesmarias is all about. Here we go: ?The change in ?attitude? (orientation!) came about because we stepped away from the details of rock layers and re-grouped layers into packages of layers with similar characteristics.?We were able to follow packages of layers from drill hole to drill hole, over 100?s of meters of distance, and we began to see uniformity of the layers around the area between the bounding fault on the east side of the main Sesmarias target area and the area towards the west where the layer packages are in contact with the Tertiary gravels and sediments.?When we first saw the rocks, we were quite sure that the thin, well-folded units we observed were really and truly folded layers of rocks.?However, now we realize that those folds may not actually be folded layers, but folded structural attributes (meaning more abstract comprehensions like axis or intersections). Basically we probably could not see the forest for the trees. So, by following these packages from hole to hole, we (mostly meaning our geo Josh Coder) began to build a geological model using a 3D modeling program called GeoReka.?By building the model, we began to see more regularity in the rocks, allowing more predictability in our mineralization.?The layers generally dip to the east at 30-45 degrees, and plunge to the north.?This means our target appears to dip to the northeast until it is stopped by a high-angle fault, which in-house we call the Joana Fault.?The Joana Fault does not run in a straight line, so this is a bit of a complication, but we do know now why some of our holes drilled with both Antofagasta and Colt (previous JV partners) did not hit mineralization.? For now, this fault is limiting mineralization on its west side.?This will hopefully change when we do more drilling east of this particular fault.?Right now, we think the rock units/layers have been down-dropped on the east side of the fault,?but this is only based on limited information from 2-3 holes drilled further away to the east.? One of those holes was our own SES014, which we now think may have been stopped short (we actually thought the same when we drilled it, but we had a lot less knowledge back then).? In any case, there is an off-hole geophysical conductor in SES014, which we have described as our eastern basin target.? As hole SES014 is located quite a bit to the east and away from the big fault, I was wondering why management thought there could be mineralization present, also considering the different rock types over there which usually don?t contain mineralization based on earlier results, despite all potential vertical and lateral displacements. They had this to say: ?When talking about having more chance to the east, we meant just across the fault.?There is a chance over there because of the potential downdrop (vertical movement), compared to the west side of the fault.? That means the target rocks/layers are deeper, though certainly possibility of horizontal movement exists, as well.? Again as a reminder, Sesmarias contains a large amount of faults and off-setting structures, constructing an interesting puzzle from a geological standpoint. Management elaborates further on their exploration plan: ?The re-interpretation of the orientation of layers gives us a lot of license to re-orient the mineralization, as it is basically just another bed/layer.? SES026 targeted the ?extension? of the layer, successfully intersecting massive sulfide mineralization.? SES027 was less successful, as it intersected weak mineralization and mafic intrusive rocks, which may represent the source of the mineralization.? We are thinking that the mafic rocks represent part of an intrusional dome, right now with known mineralization to the south of it. We do not know yet if there is further mineralization on the north side of the dome, as portrayed in the long section further below.? So we estimate a potential strike length of somewhere between 600 and 900 meters of massive sulfide mineralization, which stops somewhere between holes 26 and 27.? The new, more horizontal positioning of the massive sulfide allows for a much bigger target at shallower depth, where the more vertical positioning gives a target of the same shape, but gets very deep, very quickly.? Therefore I view this adjusted orientation as a positive, as it saves drilling budget. On my question if cross sections could be provided anytime soon, management answered they needed some more drilling in order to get sufficient understanding of continuity. They added: ?Right now, 2, 8, and 26 are more horizons than actual masses, and presumably smaller than the 10 Lens.? Horizon 2 appears to be small, though high grade (SES002), and it is open to the south.? We have seen traces of Horizon 26 in 3-4 holes now, and it is presently manifested by strong stockwork to semi-massive sulfide material.? We think that there is a possibility that Horizon 8 could be an extension of the 10 Lens, because it is roughly at same depth, and horizontal displacement of surrounding packages through faults checks out with this concept. Horizon 8 could have its own feeder source as it is on the other side of this basalt dome, as both Horizon 8 and the 10 Lens are roughly parallel to each other and to stratigraphy.?More drilling is necessary to figure this all out.? Looking at the schematic long section again, I noticed that 025 and 027 missed the massive sulphide lenses. It made me wonder if by more vertical faulting/displacements there could be (off set) extensions of the lenses/horizons, or these basalt domes could be structurally consistent and not broken up/displaced by faults, limiting mineralized potential in these areas except for stockwork (027)? To what extent could this stockwork be useful/economic???Management had this to say: ?SES025 ?hit? the 2 Lens at predicted depth, but it was very thin (<10 cm).? This probably has something to do with vagaries in location of the Joana Fault.? There is still plenty of opportunity for faulting to displace/move/disrupt/extend the mineral potential.? We do need more drilling to be able to ascertain that. Sometimes, the stockwork mineralization is even better than the massive sulfide mineralization. While we have encountered a long intercept of stockwork mineralization, it is probably the edge of the feeder zone.? Sometimes, if there is gold in the system, the stockwork can actually carry economic gold grades.? For a number of years, back in the 1990?s I believe, a large stockwork zone at the Rio Tinto Mine in Spain was mined for its gold.? Now, of course, Rio Tinto is back in business as a copper mine.? I believe they mine both massive ore and stockwork ore at RT.? Same at Neves Corvo.?Stockwork mineralization can be economic for base metals and precious metals, depending on what metals are in the system.? Using Neves Corvo as an example, I understand that some of the stockwork zones can be much higher grade in base metals, but perhaps there is more waste rock.? For now it the stockwork mineralization doesn?t generate economic results, but it is still early days of course. On a different note, to me the targets between Lousal and Caveira have always been very interesting as well, as the historic resource of Lousal seems an easy target. I initially thought of the Lousal historic resource as a relatively advanced project, which might be relatively easy to prove up by 15-30% verification drilling (depending on quality of historic drill data of course) to get it to 43-101. Management had this to say about this topic: ?Lousal is an interesting target for sure.? Unfortunately, its hard to find potential partners who wish to do greenfields exploration or ?light? brownfields work, as most companies are after high cost, low quality, ?advanced? projects out on the market.? Exploration is not always viewed as an inexpensive way to get into a valuable project. It always comes down to available funds.? If you are on a really good exploration project, and you keep getting good results, you can move quickly. For now we had to prioritize, and picked Sesmarias first.? After this little Q&A on geology, I wanted to know a bit more about their exploration plans. Therefore I wanted to know how many meters they are going to drill at Sesmarias in how many holes at what drilling cost per meter all-in, when this will start and if they have schematic sections of the old Lousal resource and the other targets based on historic drilling. Besides this, I was also curious about their drilling strategy if they could or would like to share. Here is their answer: ?Ideally, we would like to see minimum 10,000 meters per year for the next 2-3 years once our next level of license is approved.? This was the idea with the potential partner, as we reported back in March 2018.? Before we are able to drill at Lousal, we have to go over all the old work an construct a 3D model.? That would be a full-time job for a computer-savvy geologist for a couple of months.? In the near future, we would like to see Sesmarias, Lousal, and Monte da Bela Vista drilled to ascertain the resource potential.? Then there is the Caveira Mine area, and at least a half dozen other mineral targets that we know about already on the trend from Caveira to Aldeia dos Elvas at the southwest corner of the license.? The whole idea of having a 10 million euro investment into Alvalade was to do all this, that would be 30-40 thousand meters. ?We estimate that US$1 million can get us 3,000+ meters of drilling, so 1 million euros can get us 3,500+ meters, all in.? Thus 10 million euros is 35,000 meters or more. So, 300 euros per meter.? We did this with Antofagasta in the past.? This wraps up my little interview with management as part of this update. According to their estimates, they ideally would like to spend about US$3-4M annually on Alvalade, but as I view it, Avrupa is already on its way to their minimum economic threshold of 25Mt @1.5-1.7% CuEq just based on the results for the 10 Lens. This means with a few more good step out results they could already have a 100% owned, economic project on their hands without even tapping into JV partners, and as soon as the markets become (more) aware of this, there might very well be a share price re-rating around the corner, and further capital raises could be done at lower dilution levels in that case. With copper and zinc prices picking up again and both with good fundamentals, the Avrupa Minerals story should be able to attract more attention this year. I hope you will find this article interesting and useful, and will have further interest in my upcoming articles on mining. To never miss a thing, please subscribe to my free newsletter on my website www.criticalinvestor.eu, and follow me on Seekingalpha.com, in order to get an email notice of my new articles soon after they are published. Disclaimer: The author is not a registered investment advisor, and currently has a long position in this stock. Avrupa Minerals is a sponsoring company. All facts are to be checked by the reader. For more information go to www.avrupaminerals.com and read the company?s profile and?official documents on?www.sedar.com, also?for important risk disclosures. This article is provided for information purposes only, and is not intended to be investment advice of any kind, and all readers are encouraged to do their own due diligence, and talk to their own licensed investment advisors prior to making any investment decisions. DAMASCUS, March 17 (Xinhua) -- New UN envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen said on Sunday that he is concentrating on moving forward in the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 about a political settlement in Syria. Speaking to reporters upon arriving in Damascus, Pedersen said he is looking forward to his discussion with Syrian government officials. "I am looking very much forward to my discussion with the government here. We will always concentrate on how we can move forward in the implementation of the Security Council's Resolution 2254 which is my mandate, and hopefully that could lead to a Syrian-led, Syrian-owned political process facilitated by the United Nations," he said. The UNSC Resolution 2254 was unanimously adopted on Dec. 18, 2015. It calls for a cease-fire and political settlement in Syria. The new envoy prepared to hold talks with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials in Damascus on Sunday, saying that he will discuss the briefing he made at the UN Security Council late last month. Pedersen vowed at the UN Security Council to work "impartially and diligently to discharge the mandate given to me in Security Council Resolution 2254 to facilitate the political process" in late February. It will require the cooperation of all Syrian and international parties, the readiness of all to deal seriously with the realities of the conflict and to work together to move things step by step in a positive direction, he said. He said that Resolution 2254 contains all the elements required for a political solution, adding that the resolution begins by respecting the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Syria and provides a roadmap for a truly Syrian-led and owned political process. This is a key as a real peace process in Syria needs to be owned by the Syrians, he said. [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Uranium Energy Corp Completes Securities Exchange with the Pacific Road Funds Posted by Publisher Internet Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE American: UEC, the ?Company? or ?UEC? https://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298864) is pleased to announce that it has completed a Securities Exchange Agreement with the Pacific Road Funds to exchange 11,000,000 outstanding common stock purchase warrants of UEC (the ?Warrants?), which had an expiry date of August 9, 2022, for an aggregate of 750,000 common shares of UEC (the ?Securities Exchange?). Amir Adnani, President & CEO, stated: ?The completion of the Securities Exchange streamlines our capital structure and will benefit our long-term value per share. Separately, an additional 1.9 million warrants have recently been exercised for proceeds of $2.3 million to the Company.? Subsequently, our cash balance has increased to over $22 million.? About Uranium Energy Corp Uranium Energy Corp is a U.S.-based uranium mining and exploration company.? In South Texas, the Company?s hub-and-spoke operations are anchored by the fully-licensed Hobson Processing Facility which is central to the Palangana, Burke Hollow and Goliad ISR projects.? In Wyoming, UEC controls the Reno Creek project which is the largest permitted, pre-construction ISR uranium project in the U.S.? Additionally, the Company controls a pipeline of uranium projects in Arizona, New Mexico and Paraguay, a uranium/vanadium project in Colorado and one of the highest-grade and largest undeveloped Ferro-Titanium deposits in the world, located in Paraguay.? The Company?s operations are managed by professionals with a recognized profile for excellence in their industry, a profile based on many decades of hands-on experience in the key facets of uranium exploration, development and mining. Safe Harbor Statement Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented in this letter constitutes ?forward-looking statements? as such term is used in applicable United States and Canadian laws. These statements relate to analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions of management. Any other statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and should be viewed as ?forward-looking statements?. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results 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 contained in this news release and in any document referred to in this news release.? This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities. The early Earth was an infernal place: hot, roiling, rapidly rotating and bombarded by space debris, including a Mars-size body whose impact created the moon. That same impact also turned the entire surface of the newly formed Earth into a molten magma ocean. Now, new research finds that the rapid spin of the planet may have influenced how this molten sea cooled. The speed of the Earth's rotation may have affected where the mineral silicate crystallized and settled as the magma ocean solidified, the new study found. The uneven accumulation of silicate and other minerals may have influenced the start of plate tectonics or might even help explain the weird composition of today's mantle, said Christian Maas, a geophysicist at the University of Munster in Germany. [In Photos: Ocean Hidden Beneath Earth's Surface] Hot Earth Maas is the lead author of the new study exploring how the ancient magma ocean cooled and the minerals within it crystalized. Those processes all started about 4.5 billion years ago, not long after Earth formed, when a planetary body the size of Mars slammed into the newborn planet. The impact knocked off a chunk of debris that formed the moon, while also creating so much heat that Earth's surface became an ocean of magma several thousand miles deep. "It's really important to know how the magma ocean looked," Maas told Live Science. As that hot sea cooled, it set the stage for all the geology that would come next, including plate tectonics and the planet's modern-day layered, mantle-and-crust arrangement. One thing not many researchers have considered, Maas said, is how Earth's rotation would have affected the cooling. Using a computer simulation, Maas and his colleagues addressed that question, modeling the crystallization of one type of mineral, silicate, which makes up a big chunk of Earth's crust. [The Strangest Places on Earth (Photos)] Cooldown The simulation showed that the speed of the planet's rotation affected where the silicate settled in the early stages of the magma ocean's cooling, which probably happened over a thousand to a million years. With slow rotation, in the range of 8 to 12 hours per revolution, the crystals stay in suspension, remaining evenly distributed throughout the magma ocean. As the speed of rotation increases, the distribution of the crystals changes. With moderate or high speed, the crystals quickly settle to the bottom at the North and South poles and move to the bottom half of the magma ocean near the equator. At the middle latitudes, the crystals stay suspended and are evenly distributed. At the very fastest rotation speeds a full rotation in around 3 to 5 hours the crystals accumulate at the bottom of the magma ocean no matter the latitude. However, convection in the roiling magma near the polar regions repeatedly caused the crystals to bubble up, so the crystallized layer was not very stable. Scientists don't know exactly how fast the early Earth rotated, though they estimate it spun around completely in about 2 to 5 hours at the time of the magma ocean's existence. The study, published in the upcoming May issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, didn't consider other types of minerals or model the silicate distribution beyond the first phase of the magma ocean's crystallization. Adding other mineral types into the model is the next step, Maas said. He added that he's also interested in studying later planetary impacts. Not long after the giant, moon-forming impact, the Earth probably got hit with smaller space rocks, Maas said. If the rotation of the Earth was making the magma ocean crystallize unevenly, the minerals in those chunks of interstellar debris could have been incorporated into Earth very differently depending on where they landed, he said. It's also not clear whether today's mantle retains traces of this fiery beginning. The modern mantle is a bit of a mystery. Particularly bewildering are "the blobs," two continent-size areas of hot rock that always slow down any seismic waves from earthquakes that pass through. Properly known as "large low-shear-velocity provinces," or LLSVPs, these blobs are each 100 times the height of Mount Everest, but no one knows what they're made of or why they're there. There are a lot of dots still unconnected between today's mantle anomalies like the blobs and the ancient magma ocean of early Earth, Maas said. Perhaps all traces of that fiery sea have long been erased by geologic forces, he added. But figuring out what the initial solid surface of the planet looked like could help explain how it evolved to its current state. Originally published on Live Science. Wednesday (March 20) brings us the first full moon of the new spring season. The official moment that the moon will turn full is 9:43 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Just 3 hours and 45 minutes earlier, the vernal equinox the official start of astronomical spring will occur. The first full moon of spring is usually designated as the Paschal Full Moon or the Paschal Term. Traditionally, Easter is observed on the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. If the Paschal Moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter lands on the subsequent Sunday. Following these rules, we find that Easter can fall as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. Pope Gregory XIII decreed this in 1582 as part of the Gregorian calendar. So, it would seem to follow that Wednesday's full moon would be the so-called Paschal Term, the first full moon of the spring season. That would mean that in 2019, Easter should come on March 24, just two days shy of the earliest possible date for Easter on the calendar. Related: Best Night-Sky Events of March (Stargazing Maps) And yet, it doesn't! Why? Clerical loopholes Interestingly, those same ecclesiastical rules state that the vernal equinox is fixed on March 21 (for European longitudes), even though from the years 2008 through 2103 the equinox will occur no later than March 20. In fact, in the year 2020, for the first time since 1896, spring will arrive on the 19th across the entire United States, and in 2048, that will happen across the whole of Europe. So, while in an astronomical sense, March 20 marks the first full moon of spring, so far as the Christian church is concerned, we must put the Paschal Term on hold for a month until the next full moon, on April 19. That also occurs on Good Friday, and at sundown that same day, Passover begins . Two days later will come a rather late Easter Sunday, on April 21. An even more extreme situation will take place in 2038. In that year, the equinox will fall on March 20 with a full moon the very next day (a Sunday). So, astronomically, Easter should fall on March 28 of that year. In reality, however, as mandated by the rules of the church, Easter in 2038 will be observed as late as it can possibly come, on April 25! Adding more confusion is that there is also an "ecclesiastical" full moon, determined from ecclesiastical tables. Its date does not necessarily coincide with that of the "astronomical" full moon, which is based solely on astronomical calculations. In 1974, for instance, a full moon took place on Saturday, April 6, at 2100 GMT, so Easter should have been observed the next day, Sunday, April 7. In reality, the holiday was observed on the following Sunday, April 14. So, in practice, the date of Easter is determined not from astronomical computations, but rather from other formulas, such as epacts (the age of the "ecclesiastical" moon at the beginning of a year) and the "golden number" (a value used to show the dates of new moons for each year, following a 19-year cycle). Since the beginning of the 20th century, a proposal to change Easter to a fixed holiday rather than a movable one has been widely discussed. In 1963, the Second Vatican Council agreed, provided that Christian churches could reach a consensus the main possibility is the second Sunday in April. But the Vatican has taken no action on this. Easter oddities In his book "Mathematical Astronomy Morsels" (Willmann-Bell,Inc., 1997), Jean Meeus pointed out some interesting data about Easter. Easter Sunday cannot occur in March for each of two successive years. A year with a March Easter is always preceded and followed by a year with an April Easter. On rare occasions, an Easter in April is preceded and followed by an Easter in March. The last time this happened was in 1990, and the next time will be in 2085. It is possible for 10 consecutive Easter Sundays to fall in April, but since the inception of the Gregorian calendar (in 1582), this circumstance has not yet happened. It will finally happen during the middle of the 29th century, starting with the year 2856 and running through 2865. During the current millennium (2000 to 2999), the date that Easter falls on most frequently is April 16 (43 times). The date that Easter falls on least frequently is also the earliest possible one, March 22 (five times). This year's Easter date of April 21 is one of the more frequently occurring spots (38 times). Over a much longer time span, running from 2000 to 7999, the date that Easter falls on most frequently will be April 19 (231 times). The date that Easter falls the least, will once again be March 22 (29 times). Moon monikers Traditional names for the full moons of the year are found in some publications, such as The Farmer's Almanac . Space.com also published the full list earlier this year. The origins of these names are often traced back to Native American folklore, though they may also have evolved from old England or, as astronomy author Guy Ottewell, suggests, "writer's fancy." The March full moon is known as "Worm Moon," supposedly because when the ground softens, the earthworm casts reappear, inviting the return of the robins. Other lunar monikers included "Crow Moon," (when the cawing of crows signals the end of winter), "Crust Moon" (because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night) and "Sap Moon" (marking the time of tapping maple trees). Editor's Note: This is an updated version of previous columns on Easter and the full moon, with new details added for Easter 2019. The Stickney Crater on Mars' moon Phobos. New research suggests that reddish and bluish areas on the moon's surface point the way to understanding its formation. The eccentric orbit of the Martian moon Phobos could drive the flow of powder across the moon's surface, a new study finds, shedding light on Phobos' mysterious origins. Dark gray, potato-shaped Phobos is only about 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) wide, but it is by far the larger of Mars' two moons , at more than seven times the mass of its companion, Deimos . Phobos orbits at only about 3,700 miles (6,000 km) from the Martian ground, closer to its planet than any known moon; as a result of this tight orbit, Phobos zips around Mars three times per Earth day. Previous work revealed an odd dichotomy on the surface of Phobos. Some areas are reddish, while others are bluish, Ron Ballouz, lead author of the new study and an astrophysicist at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), told Space.com. Related: European Probe Snaps Color Photos of Martian Moon Phobos The origins of these red units and blue units, as these regions are called, was uncertain. Solving this puzzle could shed light on the origins of Phobos and the way it interacts with its environment, the researchers said. To help solve this mystery Ballouz's group investigated the grains of dust and rock known as regolith, which drift around the surface of Phobos due to the moon's slightly oblong orbit. Although Phobos' orbit is nearly circular, it is very slightly eccentric, or oval-shaped. This eccentricity "is large enough to change the relative strength between Phobos' and Mars' gravity over each orbit. The closer you are to the Red Planet, the stronger its gravitational pull and vice versa," study co-author Nicola Baresi, an astrodynamicist at JAXA, told Space.com. As such, Phobos wiggles a bit as it orbits Mars, causing slopes on the moon to vary by up to 2 degrees over the course of the natural satellite's 7-hour and 39-minute orbit around the Red Planet. This slight tilting back and forth is enough to draw grains of regolith downhill on Phobos. Computer simulations revealed that the quantity of grains that flows "depends on where you are on Phobos," Ballouz said. When the scientists compared their data with photos of the surface of Phobos taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, they found that the sites where they expected the highest amount of surface motion appeared to match the blue regions of Phobos. The motion on the surface of Phobos "is very gradual," Ballouz said. "There is not a landslide on Phobos every orbit. We call this a 'cold flow' process, as opposed to the fast motion of a landslide." "This process is not really expected to create new 'sand' or regolith," study co-author Sarah Crites, a planetary scientist at JAXA, told Space.com. Instead, the cold flow just moves existing particles around, she explained. The researchers suggested that the blue units consist of relatively fresh, unweathered material from Phobos excavated by the rocking the moon experiences during its orbit. In contrast, the scientists suggested that the red units consist of regolith that, for the most, part stayed put over time and got weathered by being exposed to solar radiation. These findings could shed light on the uncertain origin of Phobos. "One of the biggest mysteries surrounding Phobos is its origin was it created from a giant impact onto Mars that created a debris disk around the planet that eventually coalesced into Phobos, or was it once an asteroid that was captured by Mars' gravity?" Ballouz said. If Phobos originated from a giant impact on Mars, the blue units should resemble Martian rock, since the blue units represent pristine material from the Red Planet. However, the latest data suggest that the near-infrared signature of the blue units differs from that seen up to now from Martian rock, the researchers said. The group is taking part in a future international mission led by JAXA called the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) probe, which is set to launch in 2024 and return samples from Phobos to Earth in 2029. These samples may finally help resolve the debate over Phobos' origin, Ballouz said. The scientists detailed their findings online March 18 in the journal Nature Geoscience. After a loooong year, The Good Fight is finally back to keep fighting. If you recall, last time on The Good Fight Diane and Kurt got back together, Liz's father died, Reddick, Boseman, and Lockhart accidentally protected Tom and Jerry's sexual indiscretions, and Diane got damaging information about Trump from an actual deep throat, a porn star. Carl Reddick was a bad, bad man bat signal Stormy Daniels The premiere starts off with Marissa and Jay doing a documentary on Carl Reddick, deceased senior partner of the law firm and major Civil Rights activist. He's a hero to the African-American community and the firm plans to use that to rebrand their firm to make it more up-to-date with today's especially politically conscious society. Marissa and Jay interview several people to get them to say nice things about Carl, which works until they get to his former secretary, Cynthia, who reveals she was sexually harassed by Carl. This is not the kind of rebranding they want. Adrian asks Marissa and Jay to keep it to themselves until he can figure out what to do about this.Adrian lets Diane in on it and they talk to the secretary. They are very diplomatic when talking to this woman, telling her fake generic business things like saying they'll do a sexual harassment seminar and blah blah blah. She knows it's all hooey to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. But she's on board. Problem is, her daughter isn't. She was promised a pension by Carl, and the daughter wants her to get it. But that's a problem for the firm because they can't afford it. Not only that, but they break out into an argument about issues like believing women and hurting the image of an African-American Civil Rights icon. But Diane thinks they should just let the cat out of the bag, even if they might lose 40% of their clients. They're not part of it, but they will be part of it if they cover it up. But it was in Carl's contract to protect him from scandals, so that's a no-go. Then they have another problem in that someone else in the room reveals she was sexually harassed by Carl too. For half of the episode, Adrian succeeds in protecting Liz from this scandal, but that protection is over when she finds and views the video of Cynthia's interview. She's devastated. She had no idea. She always thought he was gone half the time because he was fighting to save the world, but now she knows at least part of it was otherwise. She accuses Adrian of knowing and keeping it a secret. He later admits that he thought he might be having an affair, but had no idea he was raping women. After coming to terms with her father's bad behavior, she forces herself into the situation and gets involved with talking to Cynthia and the other victim. Cynthia ultimately agrees to sign the NDA, and the other woman doesn't need to sign one because she's not going to say anything anyway. She doesn't want to hurt the reputation of an African-American man, especially one as beloved as Carl.Another wrench in this situation is thrown in by Naomi, the reporter who was sexually harassed by Adrian in law school some years ago, who was contacted by Cynthia's daughter. Jay talks to Naomi and finds out Naomi thinks it's about Adrian, not Carl. They think they're in the free and clear, but Naomi reveals she knows about Tom and Jerry, who used the firm to take down that revealing sexual harassers website from last season before they could be exposed for sexual harassment. So it ends up being that they keep the Carl situation quiet, but reveal to their clients about what happened with Tom and Jerry to keep on top of that.Diane and Kurt are back together, but Diane is questioning their refound happiness almost immediately. That's further instigated by her discovery of a long hair on his jacket. Ruh Roh. She asks him who he went to the gun range with, and he's a bit sketchy with his answer of no. Later, Diane finds two plane tickets to go on a safari, and she's done. She packs up his things, ready to throw him out. After what Carl did, she's not sure she believes Kurt. And she shouldn't because he is lying. But he wasn't lying about another woman, it was that he went shooting with Eric and Don Jr. Diane's not sure if that's worse or better. But it wasn't that he wants to do it, but he's being paid to, and he can't turn it down.Diane is pissed that the Trumps are now affecting her personally. She takes out hervase of flowers to contactTara, the porn actress. Diane found a loophole in the actress' NDA with Donald Trump so Tara can reveal all that she knows. But Tara backs out later out of fear, so after one of the Trumps pulled a Dick Cheney and accidentally shot Kurt, making him sign an NDA to cover it up, Diane decides to leak Tara's story herself to Naomi.Lucca is being promoted for rebranding reasons. She's being pushed into becoming a divorce lawyer. Thoughts?Maya doesn't get to be involved in the rebranding. Maya isn't getting what she wants, so Marissa teaches her Jedi mind tricks to get people to do what she wants, and gives her sunglasses to channel these abilities through. It works. Are we about to see a new Maya?The NDA animated short. Entertaining or pointless?Naomi and Jay. There were totally sparks there, right? Mark Curtis made sure to enter his business, Splash Car Wash, in the annual Top Workplaces contest of Hearst Connecticut Media Group this year in the hope of coming out a winner for the fourth time. Curtis, as CEO of the Greenwich-based chain of 15 Connecticut and three New York car wash locations, knows very well that unemployment in the state and nation is running at 3.8 percent. It certainly is more challenging finding employees, he said. Thats why his company, with nearly 200 people, is part of the contest for the edge of being a top-ranked workplace and I can tell you, they have a fine time at the awards dinner in September. Its great to be recognized by your employees, he said, adding that as a consumer business, its nice to publicize that fact. You can nominate your workplace as well. The original deadline was Friday. Weve extended it to April 12, but act right now because thats the week before taxes are due, and you wont want to forget. For the 9th year, were looking to honor the best places to work whether theyre privately owned companies, publicly traded corporations, subsidiaries, partnerships, nonprofits or even government agencies. Employers can be nominated online at www.topworkplaces.com/hearstct or by calling 203-617-0727. Click here to see and read more about last years winners. The contest is open to any employer with 35 or more people in the area covered by Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties. Recognition is given for small, midsize and large organizations, and the contest also rewards the best executives. Last year, Hearst Connecticut Media honored 50 employers from across the region, chosen from more than 900 that were nominated. A smaller number actually participated, by letting our partner Energage, a research and employee engagement company in Pennsylvania give their employees a 24-question survey. Our research shows organizations that earn the award attract better talent, experience lower turnover, and are better equipped to deliver bottom-line results, said Doug Claffey, founder and CEO of Energage, our research and analysis partner in the program. Last years top winners were Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties in the large employer division, over 500 people in the three counties; Norwalk-based Family & Childrens Agency in the midsize group, with between 150 and 499 employees; and debt-collector Eastern Account System among small employers with 35 to 149 people. Hearst Connecticut Media Top Workplaces winners will be featured in the Connecticut Post, The News-Times of Danbury, Greenwich Time, The Stamford Advocate, The Norwalk Hour, New Haven Register and The Register Citizen of Torrington in September and will be highlighted on all of the associated websites. Energage carries out the Top Workplaces surveys for more than 40 metro newspapers including some of the biggest. Last year, the company surveyed 2.6 million employees at more than 7,500 organizations. dhaar@hearstmediact.com For Jim Tzepos, purchasing the former Seymour Trust Building was more than an investment it was a chance to rekindle a legacy of investing in people. They gave people chances to get started, and were doing the same thing with our tenants, he said, referring to the newly transformed bank building at 115 Main St. that now features office and retail space in downtown Seymour. This time last year, Tzepos and his wife teamed up with Joe Ascione, Ed Drapatin and Matt Amoroso to purchase the 12,980-square-foot building for $440,000. Tzepos also owns Zois Pizza Palace down the street from the bank building at 48 Main St., but the two businesses are not connected. Ascione, Trapatine and Amoroso own East Coast Pawn shop in Bridgeport on Fairfield and Glenwood. The Seymour Trust building, which used to house Bank of America until 2017, is on roughly an acre of land next to the post office, train station and Route 8. Tzepos and his partners at The Seymour Trust Co. unveiled the renovated office side of the building Monday. The building was separated into two parts to feature a mix of tenants. The first phase of the project is in what used to be Bank of Americas training center. We are just going to accommodate whoever with however many rooms they want, Tzepos said. We thought we were going to have 10 tenants, but right now it looks like we are going to have seven with the current situation. There are four tenants occupying the building including Project Purple, a local nonprofit that supports and advocates for patients and families affected by pancreatic cancer. The nonprofit, which serves as the anchor tenant for the office side of the building, rented roughly 2,300 square feet of space for its new headquarters in April, when renovations first began, Tzepos said. Project Purple is joined by KirklandSEARCH, A private counseling business, and CTL, a telecommunications equipment supplier. There are still three office spaces left at the site. Members of the local area business community expressed excitement over the renovated building during the official unveiling. This building has a new lease on life, said Bill Purcell, Director of the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce. Theyre all entrepreneurs here and I think its an interesting mix of tenants here in the building and more to come and we are excited for Jim breathing new life into this center of Seymour. Construction of the basement is ongoing, according to Tzepos, who said there will be a freight elevator and an additional stairwell added to the space to accommodate a tenant interested in opening an eBay-type store Tzepos also said he wants to attract a restaurant, brewery, distillery or venue tenant to the main bank portion of the building, which is still being refurbished. That is what we are striving for on that side, he said. Jordan.grice@hearstmedia.com STAMFORD Home-energy firm Star Group, whose CEO died unexpectedly last December, announced Monday that a company veteran would replace him on a permanent basis. Jeffrey Woosnam, who has worked at Star since 1994, takes over as CEO and president, having served since 2014 as senior vice president of southern operations. He was also appointed to the board of Kestrel Heat, Stars general partner. Interim CEO Dan Donovan will step down from active management, but he will remain a Kestrel board member and serve as a consultant, as necessary, through April 30. At the same time, Star announced that two 16-year company executives, Jeffrey Hammond and Joseph McDonald, would, respectively, become chief operating officer and chief customer officer. Richard Ambury will continue as executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer. These four talented individuals each with decades of experience in the industry will lead Star Group through its next phase of growth, Paul Vermylen, Kestrels board chairman, said in a statement. Id like to recognize all of them for their past achievements and dedication, and the board wishes them well as they take the mantle at Star. In the past quarter, Stars revenues totaled about $535 million, an approximately 23 percent year-over-year increase that was driven by greater sales of home heating oil and propane. Profits reached $2.3 million, compared with about $30 million in the same period in 2017. The 2017 results reflected a $11.5 million benefit tied to the U.S. tax reform passed the same year. Star serves approximately 450,000 customers, in 18 states, across the countrys northeast, central and southeast regions. The company is headquartered at 9 W. Broad St., on the edge of downtown Stamford. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott People in Austin kept it weird days before SXSW 2019 concluded by attending events and taking to the famous Sixth Street to show their freaky side. The 10-day event featured keynotes, speakers, films, showcases, exhibitions, awards and more. The search for a missing Marine from Washington, Conn. through avalanche prone areas of California has been put on limited continuous mode, according to search officials. Multiple agencies including Marines from his unit have been searching the mountains of Central Sierra Nevada, California, since First Lt. Matthew Kraft was reported missing March 4. The 24-year-old Kraft, a Washington native, was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer in 2016. He was well trained for the 195-mile hike through California that he started on Feb. 24, authorities from the Inyo County Sheriff's Office which is one of the agencies conducting the search. His father reported him missing March 4, the day he was scheduled to conclude his hike, authorities said. Search and rescue efforts, which were taking by air and ground, have been hampered by avalanches and bad weather, Inyo County authorities said last week in an incident update. His car was found March 8, but no other sign of Kraft has been spotted during a week-long search by air and ground, authorities said in an update posted Saturday. Backcountry snow instability and weather issues, including high winds, have been a significant challenge for search crews, according to the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Service. Both aerial and ground searches have identified avalanche activity, cornices, and snow bridges throughout the wilderness, including along the Sierra High Route which Kraft had planned on hiking. The search zone is larger than the state of Rhode Island and not only includes Krafts hiking route but multiple points where he could have exited, the parks service said. Searches by air with thermal imaging cameras have hit on animal activity, but none have led to any idea where the missing Marine could be, officials said. More News CT Marine missing in avalanche-prone California mountains Search and rescue authorities have been unable to locate evidence of Krafts location along his planned route, the parks service said. The Marine Corps, along with the other assisting agencies, will continue to stand by and support Kraft's family, friends, and Marines during this difficult time. The agency said no other updates on the search for Kraft would be provided unless new information becomes available. Krafts family started a GoFundMe campaign last week to aid in the search but has since suspended the account since the agencies involved cannot accept payments for their work. The family is now encouraging people to donate directly to the volunteer agencies who have aided in the search including the Inyo County Search and Rescue https://inyosar.com/. 100 years ago Motorcycle Officer Hugh Grogan is in the hospital, wounded in three places by bullets fired by automobile bandits who terrified people along the Post Road after midnight. Officer Grogans condition is not serious. Police of every town in this vicinity were searching for the bandits this morning, since about 12 minutes past midnight, when news that Officer Grogan had been shot was received at police headquarters here. A searching part made up of Sergeant Williams, Officers Bolster and McCarthy, and Automobile Inspector William Brennan returned at 10:30 a.m., after a chase lasting since 1 a.m. They found no trace of the bandits. 50 years ago Verbal blasts feature attack on Hunters pay Verbal brickbats that crossed many racial, religious and political lines left their trajectories Monday night on the question of wether Patrick J. Hunter, the Committee on Training and Employments former executive director who officially resigned Dec. 6 would get any severance pay and if so at what salary scale and from which funds it would be paid. During a routine report of the CTEs finance committee at the monthly meeting Monday night, tempers soared almost as high as the temperature in the CTEs 417 Main St. headquarters where the stormy session erupted suddenly. 10 years ago Blooming days are done: Historic cherry trees come down There will be no farewell bloom for the cherry trees in Mill River Park. The grove of nearly 100 trees, whose branches erupted into soft pink blossoms each spring, were sawed down Tuesday morning as part of a major renovation that will demolish the Mill River dam and restore the river. Warning: Details in this article are disturbing. A Florida kindergarten teacher and her boyfriend are facing charges that they made videos of themselves sexually abusing children. The Orlando Sentinel reports 34-year-old Audra Mabel is facing federal charges of creating child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child. Her 36-year-old boyfriend, Justin Ritchie, is charged with sexual assault of a child. Sanford police said a preschool-age relative of Ritchie told her mother he had abused her many times. Officers arrested him March 8 and say they found video on his cellphone of him assaulting the child. According to the Lansing State Journal, investigators seized Ritchie's digital devices and found pornographic material produced by both him and Mabel. Multiple videos involved a young child and were made by Mabel in 2017, when she was living in Michigan. Investigators say they also found video of Mabel abusing a young relative and one of her exposing herself in a Michigan first-grade classroom where she previously taught. She was hired in Florida in December. Mabel was a teacher at Spring Lake Elementary in Altamonte Springs. The district said it fired her immediately when it learned of her arrest. Officials told WFTV that while there is no evidence of her doing anything similar while teaching at Spring Lake Elementary, they contacted parents immediately. It's too early to know whether there were or there weren't, said Michael Lawrence with Seminole County Public Schools. "That's why we just want to take the precaution of making them aware and having those conversations with their students, with their children. Gov. Ned Lamont predicted on Monday that David Lehman, the controversial former Wall Street executive whose nomination has lingered for weeks amid pushback in the General Assembly, will be confirmed as the next commissioner for economic development. Speaking after an unrelated event at Quinnipiac University, Lamont said that Lehman is already focused on the task at hand, and is visiting towns and cities throughout the state, in an acting capacity, to lay the foundation for a revival of Connecticuts business climate and recruitment. Lets face it, we have not done a very good job in this state when it comes to economic development, job creation, working with the business community, working with labor, doing everything we can to attract and grow jobs in this state, Lamont said. Were near the bottom of the barrel across 50 states going back a generation. Ive asked a very different type of person to help lead our economic development efforts: David Lehman. Lamont said Lehman has plans on how to attract more businesses and development so-called opportunity zones in cities. I think he can speak the language of the business community in a way that is sort of special for this state, Lamont said, confirming his confidence that Lehman will win confirmation. He gives us the best chance to get this state going again. Hes going to all the communities across the state. Hes going to Bridgeport, hes meeting with community leaders. He takes this very seriously. Hes going to get the job done. Lamont and Lehman have been pressing the nomination in the Senate, the only legislative body that needs to act on it. The governor has been calling senators, while Lehman has met privately with nearly all of the Senates 36 members. Im cautiously optimistic and hopeful, Lehman said late Monday, declining to handicap which way any senators were leaning. "Ive met basically every Democratic senator save for one that Im trying to get together with, he said Monday. All the conversations Ive had have been very good and productive." Hes also met with many Republicans and has had a strong presence at the Capitol to answer questions. Lehman met, for example, with a group of constituents of Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, last week in East Hartford. As for Senators who have decided not to support him, Lehman said, No one has said that to me directly but some have indicated they are still on the fence and have not made a final decision if they can support me or not." On his experience in public infrastructure, he said, "Maybe it wasnt emphasized as much as it should have been." Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, also believes Lehman will win confirmation. I believe he will pass and that the governors office has done its job in order to help introduce Mr. Lehman to Democratic senators, Duff said Monday. Senate Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said Monday that a vote is likely to be scheduled for next week. We havent caucused it yet, Looney said in a Monday phone interview. We wanted to give Mr. Lehman ample time to meet with members. Looney said that he hasnt made a final decision on the nomination. Were still doing due diligence, looking at the record accumulated over the years and the investigations contemporaneous to this and slightly after. He expects Lehman to have reached out to the entire Senate by the end of the week. Democrats control the chamber 22-14, and several Democrats have voiced concern about Lehmans role with Goldman Sachs during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Dan Haar contributed to this report. T he owner of the Westfield shopping centres empire is making its debut in the London rental homes market, backing a new 670 million development next to its Stratford shopping centre. European firm Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield is known as a landlord to retailers rather than an apartment renter. But it has agreed to have a 25% share in a partnership which will build around 1200 rental homes adjacent to Westfield Stratford City. The company today said it has agreed a new partnership for the project. It will work with Canadian pension fund PSP Investments and Canadian developer QuadReal Property Group. Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield will help oversee the development and management of the properties. A gym and pool will also form part of the scheme. Construction will start in the second quarter of 2019, and completion is expected to be finished after 2023. T he Serious Fraud Office on Monday said it had made four arrests over the collapse of high-risk lender London Capital & Finance. LCF, which took investments totalling 236 million from 11,600 largely elderly savers, went bust after City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, stopped it accepting new money in January. Investors stand to lose 80% of their investment. The Evening Standard has previously revealed that the business was investing in companies connected by a small number of businessmen to LCF or its sales agent, Surge. Controversially, Surge was being paid 25% commission on the funds raised, making it extremely unlikely that LCF would be able to make a profit on its loans. LCF bondholders had been tempted into investing with the promise of annual interest payments of up to 9%. A Surge spokesman said nobody from the company had received any contact whatsoever with the police. While investors allege it gave them the impression it was lending to large numbers of businesses, it has emerged that the money went to just 12. The SFO today said it had opened an investigation into individuals associated with LCF and that four individuals were arrested in the Kent and Sussex areas. All four have been released pending further investigation. The SFO said the operation was coordinated with the assistance of the National Crime Agency, City of London Police, Kent Police, Sussex Police and the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit. The SFO statement added that that investigation into LCF was opened after the FCA referred the case to the National Economic Crime Centre at the NCAs London headquarters. The NECC includes officers from the NCA, HM Revenue and Customs, the City of London Police, the Serious Fraud Office, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office. News of the arrests may further concern investors about the prospects of them recovering their money. Administrators at Smith & Williamson have repeatedly warned that most of the businesses LCF invested in had so far been unable to provide any proof that they would be able to repay their loans. S&Ws Finbarr OConnell said last week that only one the stock market-listed Independent Oil & Gas looked likely to be able to repay its loan in full. IoGs 40 million debt represents the 20% S&W says it hopes to recover. Investors in LCF bought so-called mini-bonds, which they were told qualified to go into an ISA. This proved not to be the case. OConnell was meeting some of the investors today to ascertain if they might qualify for money back from the finance industrys compensation fund. Bondholders are hoping to claim on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, from which the public can claim if regulated investments collapse. The LCF mini-bonds were not regulated, but LCF was, and investors hope to build a case that they are covered by the FSCS because they allege LCF mis-sold them the products. Finbarr OConnell of administrator Smith & Williamson is meeting 40 bondholder representatives at his Moorgate HQ today to assess if they have a case. At issue is whether LCF or its sales agent, Surge, actively advised customers the bonds were suitable investments in their individual circumstances or merely took orders from the clients. The administrator has said Surge was paid 25% commission on the funds it raised for LCF, totalling some 60 million. I t's groundhog week. For the third Monday since the new year the political world wakes up to an unchanging fact: Theresa May doesnt have the votes to pass her Brexit deal. The cycle is always the same. One or two rebels break ranks. Cabinet ministers say theyre optimistic. The DUP turns up for talks. The Brexiteer media tell us its on a knife edge. And then? Crushing defeat looms for the Prime Minister. Evening Standard cartoonist Christian Adams' view today As the Evening Standard has consistently predicted, the parliamentary numbers simply arent there and never have been since she lost the Conservative Party its majority. This morning it was Boris Johnson who again delivered the coup de grace. He asked himself the loaded question: should he stick to his guns or fold. His conclusion? Hell keep firing. Instead of second-guessing the Brexiteers motives, just listen to what they say an underrated tactic in politics. First, the Brexiteers say that Mrs Mays deal is substantially worse (in Mr Johnsons words) than staying in the EU. The Irish backstop has been the focus of attention, but its also a distraction. Its just the part of the deal that looked easiest to modify, and the most likely to swing the DUP. The Brexiteer critique of the deal goes wider than the Irish backstop. They believe it would turn Britain, in Jacob Rees-Moggs view, into a vassal state of the EU. Mr Johnson rehearsed the arguments today: we will be legally and politically at the mercy of Brussels. We do not properly leave the EU, in his view. Instead we become non-voting members. Mr Johnsons analysis is right even if we come to different conclusions about what to do about it For what Mrs Mays Brexit deal involves is trading a smooth exit in return for signing up to all the laws of the EU, handing over the cash, while leaving the room where decisions on those laws and money are made. We can all agree that thats worse than staying in the EU. Fantasy Second, the Brexiteer rebels say that no deal is better than a bad deal. We are only 11 days away from leaving the EU without a deal the fantastical clean break that the anti-Europeans have always dreamed of. That is the legal default, unless someone can assemble a majority for something else. No wonder Mr Johnson and others want to hold their nerve. Their familiar cry again today that Mrs May should go back to Brussels to secure fundamental legal changes is not uttered with any expectation she will succeed they have, after all, told us that this negotiating team have so obviously failed this country at every level. It is a delaying tactic. To push off the meaningful vote until after the next EU council, eat up more of the 11 remaining days, and count down the clock. It will probably succeed. And even if Brexit is delayed for two months, or even for two years, that keeps the prospect of a clean break in play wed just have more time and a better team to prepare for it, say the Brexiteers. Downing Street shouldnt be shocked. It was the Prime Minister who created the mythology that no-deal was an option and started counting down the clock. Now her own plan is being deployed against her. We report today that Mrs May could be about to offer up the head of Olly Robbins to the baying mob. If she does sacrifice her chief negotiator and the loyal civil servant who has done her bidding, we will know that these are indeed the last days in the bunker. For, finally, we should listen to the hard Brexiteers when they say this: we have no confidence in this Prime Minister. They tried to eject her last December. They know that if the deal is passed that will be a humiliation for them, and a big Houdini-style victory for her. Why would they hand her the keys to escape? Mr Johnson asked for a show of hands from his local party on Friday and got near unanimity of support. He knows he would get the same from many local parties across the country right now. His own personal dream is closer to realisation because he is the biggest thing that stands between the Tory Party and the truth of the disastrous Brexit choice they have made. Who wants to face up to reality when you can keep the fantasy alive? TODO: define component type apester I t was yet another senseless, horrific terrorist attack on a community who had simply come together in peaceful worship. In New Zealands most devastating mass shootings, 50 people died at two mosques in Christchurch and many others were seriously injured. Just like the butchering of innocent worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the attack on the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park, these were innocent men, women and children mown down for simply being who they are. We have seen outpourings of comfort and love around the world. In London people attended vigils or visited their local mosques. Today, in a welcome show of solidarity, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi were joining the Mayor of London at a multi-faith remembrance and prayer event for the victims at a London mosque, bringing together young people from all backgrounds. These messages of support, comfort and love are powerful but they are not enough. We need, as Londoners, to be doing more to build stronger, safer, more inclusive communities where intolerance and hatred have less space and opportunity to fester. Religious hate crime has rocketed 40 per cent in a year in England and Wales, as the number of offences hits a record high. Home Office statistics showed over half of religiously motivated attacks in 2017/18 were directed at Muslims, with Jewish people the next most commonly targeted. We know too that there is still intolerance towards women, black and ethnic minority people, LGBT+ people, the disabled, and even, shockingly, those who are simply older. As members of the Mayors new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group, and as Jew and Muslim in particular, we are urging every Londoner to consider how better to bridge divides. Everyone can play their part. We must all be architects of peace, compassion and understanding; in our homes, work and communities. Faith-based groups have been fostering community cohesion and championing diversity and mutual respect for some time. Research from Mitzvah Day (a day of Jewish-led, inclusive social action) shows 74 per cent of people felt they were able to meet others they might not normally have met. Similarly, 64 per cent of young people who attended the Naz Legacy Foundation Iftars went on to bring others to interfaith events. Other activities include the Big Iftar, Visit My Mosque and Sadaqah Day. Organisations such as Faiths Forum for London, Nisa-Nashim and others are all working to bring people together. Y ou might find this difficult to believe but Westminster is not the centre of the world and Brexit is not the only topic of conversation. True, observers from afar are wondering why so many Brexiteers are upset now that Parliament may be in the process of taking back control. And we in Britain are wondering whether our earlier stockpiling of baked beans and loo roll was somewhat premature. There is, however, a world beyond our borders. And the nearest part of that world namely Europe is in a spot of bother. Put bluntly, our continental cousins have hit the economic equivalent of a brick wall. Germany, oft regarded as Europes economic powerhouse, is heading in the wrong direction. Manufacturing activity, which expanded so quickly in 2017 and the early months of last year, has more recently been shrinking. Having declined for two successive quarters, Italys economy is in outright recession. France has rebounded a bit from earlier losses associated with the gilets jaunes protests but is nevertheless growing more slowly than it was a year or so ago. Of the European big four only Spain can reasonably claim to be doing well. Unfortunately, of the four, its economy is the smallest. Its easy to blame eurozone weakness on developments elsewhere in the world. Chinas economic slowdown hasnt helped. Nor have the uncertainties stemming from the Sino-US trade war. These developments, however, cannot fully explain what is happening. Compared with forecasts made a year or so ago, European growth has been far more disappointing than growth in either the US or China. To understand Europes problems, you have to dig a little deeper. First, theres what might be best described as temporary factors. In addition to the impact on the French economy of the gilets jaunes , Germanys diesel emissions scandal has hardly been good news for car manufacturers. Then there are international economic tensions. Only last week Donald Trump declared that if [the Europeans] dont talk to us, were going to do something thats going to be pretty severe economically. Were going to tariff a lot of their products. Stephen King / Alamy Stock Photo Finally theres the pain within. As Japan discovered in the Nineties, sustaining economic growth is tricky when your population is ageing and your companies are increasingly choosing to invest in parts of the world where labour is cheaper. One answer to this challenge is to make the population younger by opening up borders to a larger number of immigrants: on balance, they tend to be of working age and are thus more likely to be productive than the population at large. This, however, is not the direction of travel for European politics. With rising support for anti-immigration parties throughout much of the EU, the challenges associated with population ageing limited resources increasingly channelled towards those likely to be the least productive economically are not going away any time soon. The European Commission believes a key reason behind the rise of populist politics is the impact of economic and industrial decline. Certainly the argument works well for the UK: voters in London, where economic advance has been rapid, voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU in 2016 whereas those in the North-East of England or Wales, where economic advance has been sporadic, voted to leave. And it works rather well in France too: Marine Le Pen draws much of her support from areas that have struggled economically to keep up with Paris. "Of our 10 biggest export markets, seven are in the EU: we are, in effect, part of a single economic organism" Fixing all this, however, is no easy task, particularly within the eurozone. For nation states, the standard approach is to redistribute wealth via the tax system. Within the eurozone, however, theres an additional problem. Whereas in the US some of the tax dollars collected from the rich denizens of Massachusetts ultimately find their way into the pockets of the marginalised citizens of Mississippi, the same cannot be said of the EU. Germans, for example, have no great desire to support poorer people in southern Europe and Brussels is, federally, not the equivalent of Washington. The consequence is that the gap between the rich north and the poor south has increased over time one reason why Italians have rejected their own political traditions and instead elected the populists of the League and the Five Star Movement. To solve mounting inequality both within and across nations, Europe needs more integration. Yet voters are heading in the opposite direction. For Brexiteers, Europes economic pain is a key reason why the UK should try its luck elsewhere. The opportunities, however, are sparse. To date, Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, has signed post-EU continuity agreements with only 11 nations or entities. Together, they account for a mere 25 billion of exports, amounting to less than five per cent of UK exports and around 10 per cent of those heading to the EU. Unfortunately, neither the Faroe Islands nor Madagascar have the economic heft of Germany or France. Put another way, our economic future is tied to Europes whether we like it or not. Of our 10 biggest export markets, seven are in the EU: we are, in effect, part of a single economic organism. Running away might seem attractive but, in reality, it is unworkable. Ultimately, wed be better served by working more closely with our European partners than pretending we can somehow leap into an entirely different economic universe. Sadly, the chaos prevailing in Westminster suggests that, even if we were to offer wise council, it would increasingly fall on deaf European ears. Fyre Festival has gone down as the music festival failure of the century. What was sold as a luxury festival in the Bahamas for elite millennials, advertised by the likes of Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin and Emily Ratajkowski, quickly turned out to be a wasteland of soggy cheese sandwiches and disaster FEMA tents. The event's founder, Billy McFarland, has since been sentenced to six years in federal prison. The Netflix documentary which followed in January 2019 caused even more buzz and fascination around the failed festival. Spawning viral memes of Fyre producer Andy King and inspiring the creation of a GoFundMe page which exceeded its 100,000 target to help retrieve funds for the unpaid caterer, Mrs Rolle. For those truly hooked by the scandal, you will soon be able to get your hands on the official (and unreleased) Fyre Festival merchandise. Huts: The accommodation at Fyre Festival / Netflix Two boxes of authentic keepsakes that were intended for sale, including t-shirts, sweatshirts and shorts, were found by the United States Marshals Service's (USMS) Manhattan office and are about to be auctioned off in order to help pay back the $26 million (over 19 million) pounds that McFarland still owes. We have an assortment of the real thing Fyre Festival-branded tee-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, hats, wristbands and medallions" a spokesperson told Vulture. The garments have had to go through serious vetting before being able to go on sale and the USMS have taken inventory of all items to check that they are not fake or counterfeit. The USMS has also revealed that the auction will be online so that everyone will have a chance to get their hands on the Fyre fashion and that all proceeds will go towards getting funds back to the victims based on their respective losses. T housands of students have skipped school and gathered in Westminster in a day of global action against climate change. The Youth Strike 4 Climate protesters are calling on the Government to address global warming as a priority in the face of a climate crisis. They also want to include lessons about climate change and its impacts in the school curriculum. A hundred strike demonstrations are taking place across the country following initial strike action from 15,000 students in February. Parliament Square, London: Climate Change Protest - In pictures 1 /30 Parliament Square, London: Climate Change Protest - In pictures Students take part in a global school strike for climate change in Parliament Square today PA AFP/Getty Images Neil Hall/EPA EPA Reuters PA AFP/Getty Images PA AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images PA PA AFP/Getty Images PA PA PA EPA EPA AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images EPA EPA EPA Reuters PA Reuters Reuters Reuters PA PA Young activists in London have been pictured holding placards saying "There is no Planet B" and "The ocean is rising and so are we" as they prepare to demonstrate. The students are inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate change activist from Sweden who has been skipping school every Friday since last August to picket outside the Swedish Parliament (Rikstag) for tougher action on global warming. Noga Levy-Rapoport, a 17 year-old student from Hammersmith, is attending the protest in Westminster today after describing the first demonstration in February as "life changing." She added: This is important in terms of a show of solidarity and sending a signal. We are here to make our voices heard and we are not going to stop until you listen to us." As students around the world are preparing to strike in an estimated more than 1,000 demonstrations, turnout is expected to soar. Im getting a massive response and the feedback from the strike was so positive, Noga said, adding "nearly all of my schoolmates" will be attending. While school pupils decide whether to skip school to attend the strikes, some headteachers are encouraging their students to make their voices heard within school grounds. Paula Ledger, headteacher at Prendergast School in Lewisham, told the Standard: "We expect students to be at school and we have a legal duty to make sure that they are at school - but we are giving them the opportunity to make their views heard." She added pupils who want to get involved in action will be taking part in a lunchtime strike on the hill so they can show solidarity with the young activists. Ms Ledger is also keen to see discussion on the environment being given more priority in the school curriculum. PA Gill Cross, deputy head teacher of Streatham & Clapham High School, said: I have no doubt that there are going to be some serious repercussions from global warming. I also think that, as human beings, when we dont agree with things we should challenge them. Its a responsibility we all have. Marching is a legitimate form of protest that has been used for centuries to let governments and powerful institutions know how citizens feel. In terms of girls not being in school, I think if they feel a deep sense that they want their voices to be heard I think they should follow their moral codes and ethics. We have worries about them missing school. The more educated they are, the better equipped they will be to make positive change. I am also a bit worried about safety because marches can sometimes be infiltrated by people who want to cause trouble who are not to do with the march at all. MPs have joined together in the Conservative Climate Network to speak to students about how the climate change crisis needs to be addressed. In a video posted on Twitter, MP for Richmond Zac Goldsmith says: "The UK has a record to be proud of, but we know there is much more to do." The MPs continue to encourage students to stay in touch with MPs and about their concerns. Environment secretary Michael Gove says: "Collective action of the kind that you're championing can make a difference, and a profound one." Skip to main navigation Safe Medication Disposal for Households Click on the image to zoom in on a larger map Click on the image to zoom in on a larger map Find a free collection site near you Contact your municipality to see if they offer household pharmaceutical collections events in partnership with local law enforcement. Note: most municipal household hazardous waste collections do NOT accept pharmaceuticals. most municipal household hazardous waste collections do NOT accept pharmaceuticals. Take advantage of National Drug Take-Back Day. Twice a year - April and October - the federal Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) holds a national take back day. Learn more about National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. (Leaves DEC website) Visit your local pharmacy to purchase pre-addressed envelopes to mail unwanted medications for incineration. As a last resort, follow these instructions for putting medications in the trash: Mix medications (do not crush tablets or capsules) with water and then add salt, ashes, dirt, cat litter, coffee grounds, or another undesirable substance to avoid accidental or intentional misuse of drugs. Do not conceal discarded drugs in food. Place all medications in an outer container, such as sealable bag, box, or plastic tub to prevent discovery and removal from the trash. Seal the container with strong tape. Dispose of drugs as close to your trash collection day as possible to avoid misuse and/or misdirection. Handle Unwanted Medications with Care The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends handling medications with care. Some drugs (such as fentanyl patches) can cause harm, or even death, if used by someone other than the person for whom the medicine was prescribed. DEC collection boxes now accept electronic vaping devices and cartridges. To prevent accidental ingestion of these potentially dangerous medicines, dispose of them quickly through a medication take-back program or transfer them to a DEA-authorized collector. If no other disposal options are available, some medicines may be flushed down the sink or toilet as soon as they are no longer needed. View the FDA's list of medicines that may be flushed (leaves DEC website). Dispose of Sharps Safely DEC strongly recommends that self-administered medications with attached needles, or "sharps," be disposed of at hospital-based collection programs. All hospitals in New York State (except for federal facilities) are required to collect sharps from households. Medications given by injection with a needle may be disposed of in the trash Syringes without attached needles may be disposed of in household trash as described above Do NOT dispose of sharps in collection receptacles or in mail-back packages Place syringes or IV's with an attached needle in a puncture-proof container sealed with tape, labeled as "sharps," and deposit the container in the garbage outside of the home A whale that was found washed up on a beach in The Philippines had consumed 40 kg of plastic bags which were found in its stomach. Photos posted on the Facebook page for the D'Bone Collector Museum Inc. in the city of Davao show the dead mammal being examined after its death. The photos show a staggering amount of plastic which appears to be from carrier bags in the whale's stomach. The whale's stomach was examined after it was found / Darrell Blatchley/D' Bone Collector Museum Inc. As the plastic is pulled from the whale's body, it is pulled out and shown up to the camera, highlighting the sheer volume of the material lodged within its body. In the Facebook post, the Museum said the official cause of death was "40 kilos of plastic bags." According to the Museum, 16 rice sacks and four bags that possibly came from banana plantations were in the whale's stomach, as well as "multiple plastic bags." The shocking findings were described as "the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale." J amie Jones has been revealed as the first headliner of this years Elrow Town London. The Welsh DJ, who runs the Hot Creations record label and heads up the Paradise night in Ibizas famous DC-10 club, is the first act to be announced for the north London festival. He will top the bill on the El Triangulo de las Rowmundas stage, which will feature sandy beaches, looming palm trees and twisted shipwrecks, organisers say. The rest of the line-up is still yet to be announced, although more than 50 acts are set to perform. In 2018, Paul Kalkbrenner, Richy Ahmed and Solardo were among the biggest names to play. The one-day event a London edition of the global dance music brand Elrow will move to Trent Park in Cockfosters for the first time this summer, taking place on August 17. It was previously located in Stratfords Olympic Park, but will now move to the same venue that hosts 51st State Festival. How to get tickets for Elrow Town London 2019 General sale tickets will go on sale at midday on Tuesday March 19. They will be available to buy here. T he horror event of 2019 is arriving this month, with Jordan Peeles Us getting its release in cinemas. The directors follow up to Get Out which the Standard named as the best film of the year in 2017 is set to be one of the must-see movies of the year. The terrifying first trailer made a big impact with horror fans after being released on Christmas Day. The film had its world premiere at South By Southwest earlier this month, and already has a perfect 100 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its opening weekend. Heres everything you need to know about the film. Plot The movie follows a family heading out on vacation, staying in their summer house by the coast. After spending a little time relaxing with their friends the Tylers, their son is confronted by a strange figure on the beach. This shocks his mother Lupita Nyongos Adelaide Wilson who went through a similarly traumatic experience as a child. Later that night, the family are attacked in their home by a group of sinister figures. They quickly realise that rather than home invaders or criminals, they are being attacked by mirror images of themselves. They look exactly like us. They think like us. They know where we are They wont stop until they kill us, Nyongos character says in the trailer. The rest of the movie sees the family fight to stay alive, constantly stalked by the presence of these figures their shadow selves. Seeing double: Lupita Nyong'o in Us Production After Get Out was controversially nominated in the best Music and Comedy category at the 2018 Golden Globes, director Jordan Peele has committed to making the film an outright horror movie. The director also revealed that the film is inspired by the Twilight Zone episode Mirror Image from 1960, which sees a woman confronted by her doppleganger in a bus station late at night. The notion of the doppleganger a recognisable trope in gothic literature and traditional horror is something Peele uses in the film to tackle bigger cultural issues. We are our own worst enemy, not just as individuals but more importantly as a group, as a family, as a society, as a country, as a world, he told the Guardian. We are afraid of the shadowy, mysterious other thats gonna come and kill us and take our jobs and do whatever, but what were really afraid of is the thing were suppressing: our sin, our guilt, our contribution to our own demise. Fans can also expect the film to be bigger in scale that Get Out, having been made for five times the $5m (3.8m) budget of his first film which went on to gross $255m (193m). The biggest films arriving in 2019 1 /10 The biggest films arriving in 2019 The Lion King Jon Favreau is one again in the director's seat for the Lion King, after helming Disneys Jungle Book reboot in 2016. Beyonce and Donald Glover lead a steller voice cast, while Funny or Dies Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen voice the duo Timon and Pumba. Release date: July 19 Disney Aladdin The diamond in the rough is back in action in Aladdin, yet another Disney remake happening in 2019. Will Smith has the unenviable task of stepping into Robin Williams alibaba slippers as the Genie. Release date: May 24 Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Jon Favreau is back in the director's seat for the Lion King, after helming Disneys Jungle Book reboot in 2016. Beyonce and Donald Glover lead a steller voice cast, while Funny or Dies Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen voice the duo Timon and Pumba. Release date: July 19 It: Chapter Two Pennywise returns to haunt the citizens of Derry, 27 years after the events of the hit 2017 horror It. Jessica Chastain leads an impressive cast, which also includes James McAvoy, Bill Hader and the returning Bill Skarsgard. Frozen 2 The biggest Disney film of recent times is getting a long-awaited sequel in 2019, with Frozen 2 arriving in the Winter. Expect more winter wonderment, empowering female leads in the form of sisters Anna and Elsa, as well as more anthems on the soundtrack. Release date: November 22 Spider-Man: Far From Home Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is swinging into cinemas in 2019, with Tom Holland continuing his excellent run in the title role. The film sees Parker and his pals head out on a European vacation. Sony Pictures Toy Story 4 The Toy Story franchise Is reaching infinity and beyond in 2019, welcoming Buzz, Woody and the gang back one last time. Bring the tissues kids, it's going to get emotional. Release date: June 21 Walt Disney/Pixar Joker Joaquin Phoenix is taking on the role of Batmans greatest adversary in this upcoming origin story from director Todd Phillips marking the first big screen portrayal of the character since Heath Ledgers unforgettable performance in 2008s The Dark Knight. Release date: October 4 Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) Cast Oscar-winner Lupita Nyongo and Winston Duke lead the cast as Adelaide and Gave Wilson the mother and father of the family featured in the film. The actors play the heads of the family as well as their shadow selves, with Peele praising the adaptability and dexterity of their performances. Lupita does Ripley [Alien], she does Clarice Starling, and she does Hannibal Lecter [Silence of the Lambs] in one movie. Its crazy, Peele told Vanity Fair. Elsewhere, Elisabeth Moss plays Mrs Tyler, who the Wilsons spend time on vacation with. She also seems to be haunted by a shadow self in the trailer, covered in blood and dragging herself on all fours. Shahadi Wright Joseph who lends her voice to Young Nala in the upcoming Lion King reboot plays the Wilsons daughter Zora Wilson, while their younger son is played by Evan Alex. Madison Curry, meanwhile, plays a younger version of Nyongos Adelaide. Trailer Us film trailer The trailer, which has racked up more than 16 million views on YouTube, follows the Wilson family on their drive to the coast, singing along to Lunizs hip hop classic I Got Five On It. The clip then twists the song, giving it a sinister edge with added orchestral stabs and brooding synths. After arriving at their destination, we see Winston Dukes character Gave Wilson surprise his family by buying them a boat. Theyre then seen relaxing, enjoying vodka oclock, before their son Jason wanders off and encounters the threatening figure on the beach. I didnt know if you were lost. Stick with me and Ill keep you safe, his mother tells him. Later, their home is then taken over by their doppelgangers, all dressed in red jumpsuits and holding large pairs of scissors their son Jasons double is also wearing a strange white mask. The clip shows footage of a mysterious corridor full of rabbits, as well as clips of Elizabeth Mosss character Mrs Tyler holding a pair of scissors, appearing to stab herself in the ear. We get a glimpse of a chase scene, which sees one of the figures jump onto the roof of a moving car, as well as a brutal attack on a yacht. Director Huge talent: Jordan Peele / Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Jordan Peele returns with his second feature film after 2017s Get Out, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peele produced Us with Jason Blum and Sean McKittrick, who previously worked together on Get Out and BlacKkKlansman. Its the most recent project from Peele, who first made his name in the comedy duo Key and Peele, starring alongside Keegan-Michael Key. As well as Us, the filmmaker is also currently working on a reboot of the Twilight Zone series for CBS, as well as the YouTubes upcoming sci-fi comedy series Weird City. Release date M asterChefs remaining contestants have already been tossed out of the frying pan and into the fire of the professional kitchen but its not about to get any easier. Last week, chefs Adam Handling and Martha Ortiz put the final 12 through their paces at their very own London restaurants. Now, five of the remaining 10 contestants will be challenged by Michelin-starred chef Alexis Gauthier. So, who is the classically trained French chef wholl be challenging the contestants to go vegan? Heres everything you need to know about this week's MasterChef guest judge. Who is Alexis Gauthier? French-born chef Gauthier is the chef patron of London restaurant Gauthier Soho. After beginning his career in Nice, France, Gauthier trained under Alain Ducasse at Le Louis XV in Monaco. Gauthiers opened his first solo restaurant, Roussillon, in Pimlico in 1997, before opening Gauthier Soho in 2010. The restaurant held a Michelin star for one year in 2011. Why is he on MasterChef? Alexis Gauthier will be appearing on MasterChef to test the contestants' prowess with plant-based cooking, his specialist subject. The chef will challenge them to create an exceptional vegan dish in just 90 minutes. He has previously appeared on MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals as a guest judge. Where is Alexis Gauthiers Soho restaurant in London? Gauthier Soho can be found at 21 Romilly Street, W1D 5AF. On opening, the restaurant took over the former home of Richard Corrigans Lindsay House restaurant. Why is Gauthier Soho going vegan? Alexis Gauthier has long been known for his innovations in vegetarian and vegan cooking, and created a plant-orientated menu at his Roussillon restaurant as early as 1997. In 2015, Gauthier took part in PETAs vegan month and converted his already popular vegetarian menu into a fully vegan selection. Since then, the vegan Les Plantes menu has stayed, and has enjoyed a celebrity following, enjoyed by the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Stella McCartney and Al Gore. Gauthier himself is now a vegan, and announced last year that the Soho restaurant would gradually become 100 per cent vegan. While meat and fish dishes are still served at the restaurant as classics, the rest of the menu and all dish development in the kitchen is dedicated to plant-based cooking. Whats on the Gauthier Soho menu? Gauthier Sohos menu mixes classic French fine dining with a contemporary, vegetable-focused approach to ingredients. Understandably, the vegan tasting menu is the must-try at the restaurant. As a seasonally focused menu, the nine-course line-up of dishes changes often, but the carrot tartar dish, which is currently served with coriander, sesame, avocado, umeboshi and olive oil, is a regular favourite. Also on the current menu is a dish of faux gras a vegan version of foie gras and a nod to the fact that Gauthier Soho used to serve more than 20 kilograms of the duck liver pate every week. Other dishes on the spring menu include black truffle tortellini, dishes of both white and asparagus and a vibrant dish of tri-coloured bintje gnocchi with truffle, chard and confit tomato. One unusual feature you'll find on the menu is a calorie count for individual dishes and set menus, introduced by Gauthier in 2011 after he was diagnosed with fatty liver disease and took on a more health-conscious approach to cooking. T odays Google Doodle celebrates Seiichi Miyake, a Japanese inventor who developed paving systems in public spaces to assist the visually impaired. Tactile paving, as it is known today, is now a common feature on the edges of crosswalks and railway platforms in public spaces all over the world. Heres everything you need to know about the man inspiring the latest Google Doodle: Who was Seiichi Miyake? When did he invent tactile paving? It was the need to help a friend who was losing their sight that led Miyake to invent tactile paving in 1965. Today's Google Doodle celebrates the work of Japanese inventor Seiichi Miyake / Google Originally known as Tenji blocks, the carefully thought out system was designed to create warnings alerting the visually impaired to dangers in public spaces, such as when boarding trains. The first pattern was a series of lines that indicated to visually impaired people that it was safe to keep moving forward. Another pattern contained what was then called truncated domes and suggested to the visually impaired person that they should stop. Why is Seiichi Miyake being celebrated with a Google Doodle today? Today's Google Doodle marks the day tactile paving was introduced on a street near the Okayama School for the Blind in Okayama City, Japan in 1967. A decade later, Miyakes system was made mandatory in the Japanese National Railways. Since then, tactile paving is now used around the world. Today's animated Google Doodle depicts the tactile paving patterns as the Google logo. N ext month, Hindus will celebrate Holi, also known as The Festival of Colours. The religious festival is intended to welcome the arrival of spring whilst also celebrating fertility, colour and love. Celebrated mainly in India and Nepal, worshippers mark the event by throwing colourful powders at each other. Thanks to this unique festivity and its joyful atmosphere, similar Holi events take place in cities all over the world. As Holi fast approaches, heres everything you need to know about the Hindu festival... When is Holi? This year, Holi begins on Monday, March 9 and ends on Tuesday, March 10. The festival celebrations start on the evening of the full moon that comes in Phalguna, which is between the end of February and the middle of March. Over the two days, the festival is split into two events. The night before the main festivities is referred to as Holika Dahan and is when people traditionally gather around a bonfire to celebrate the victory of good over evil. The following day is known as Rangwali Holi, during which huge crowds gather and colourful powders known as gulal are thrown into the air. This is the event for which Holi is most renowned. Why do Hindus celebrate Holi? Hindus celebrate Holi by throwing colourful powdered paint on each other (Getty ) / Getty The origins of Holi can be linked to various Hindu legends, although one in particular appears to be the most well known the Legend of Prahlada and Holika. Holi derives from the name Holika, who in Hindu legend was a female demon and the sister of Hiranyakashipu, a demon king. Hiranyakashipu was immortal and believed himself to be the ruler of the universe. Appalled by his evil wielding of power, his son Prahlada refused to acknowledge him as his ruler and instead worshipped the Hindu god Vishnu. Aware of his deviance, Hiranyakashipu and Holika plot to kill Prahlada by burning him alive. To protect herself from the fire, Holika wore a magical shawl but as the fire burned, the shawl flies from her shoulders and onto Prahlada, resulting in her perishing in the flames. Holi Festival celebrations - in pictures 1 /30 Holi Festival celebrations - in pictures Indian students from the Kalinga Institute of Social Science, dressed as Lord Krishna and Radha in Bhubaneswar AFP/Getty Images Indian students play with coloured powders to celebrate Holi festival in Kolkata AFP/Getty Images A girl smeared in coloured powder looks on during Holi celebrations in Kolkata REUTERS A man smeared in coloured powder poses during Holi celebrations in Kolkata REUTERS An Indian dressed as Lord Krishna dances along with devotees covered with coloured powder during Holi celebrations at a temple in Amritsar AFP/Getty Images People celebrate Holi, the Festival of Colours, in Kathmandu, Nepal REUTERS A college student smears a friend with coloured powder during Holi celebrations in Agartala, India REUTERS Teachers with their faces smeared with coloured powder take a selfie during Holi celebrations, inside a school in Ahmedabad, India REUTERS Women offer prayers inside a temple during Holi celebrations in Ahmedabad, India REUTERS Nepalese people painted with colored powder dance during celebrations of the Holi Festival in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA A tourist squints as local man puts colored powder on her face during the celebration of Holi in Kolkata, India AP Locals dance during Holi festival celebrations in Kathmandu, Nepal AP Locals light up a color smoke candle as a procession of Hindu's lord Krishna's chariot moves through a street during Holi in Kolkata, India AP The face of a woman is smeared with colored powder during Holi, the Hindu festival of colors in Kolkata, India AP School students play with coloured powder during Holi celebrations, inside a school in Ahmedabad, India REUTERS Indians purchasing coloured powder in market during Holi festival celebrations in Allahabad, India AP Girls smear colored powder on each other as they celebrate Holi in Jammu, India AP People throw colored powder on each other during Holi festival celebrations in Hyderabad, India AP Revellers covered with powdered colors celebrate the Holi festival in Mumbai, India EPA Mumbai, India EPA An Indian reveller covered with powdered colors celebrates the Holi festival in Mumbai, India EPA Mumbai, India EPA Mumbai, India EPA Lord Vishnu then appears as half-lion, half-man and kills Hiranyakashipu. After his death, Prahlada rules as king in his fathers place. The legend represents the triumph of good over evil and is heavily linked to the Holi festival. Another legend from which Holi draws its origins is the love story between Hindu deities Radha and Krishna. In the legend, Krishna is embarrassed by his dark blue skin and worried that his love Radha would not accept him. His mother tells him to colour Radhas face in whatever shade he wanted and when he did the pair fell in love. The legend of Krishna and Radha still lives on during Holi and its traditional for lovers to paint their faces the same colour. How is Holi celebrated? Holi celebrations take place in India and countries all over the world (Getty ) / Getty The bonfires lit during Holika Dahan are meant to symbolise Holikas death and sometimes worshippers mark their faces with ash to represent purification. After Holika Dahan, Hindus take to the streets to sing, dance and throw coloured powder at each other. K ensington Aldridge Academy (KAA) has been described as standing in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. Its students prefer to say its in the light. When I visit on a Wednesday afternoon teenagers charge around the corridors and a group gathers around a sixth former with blue hair showing her friends a video on her phone. The only indication of what the school has endured is a stack of Grenfell Support newsletters in reception. Four pupils from KAA and one former pupil died in the fire at Grenfell Tower on June 14, 2017. Many lost their homes. In the aftermath, the school was relocated to temporary Portakabins. When they were ready to return, in September last year, headteacher David Benson decided to mark that milestone for the academy, which specialises in performing arts. He called in TV choirmaster Gareth Malone. David Benson, headteacher of Kensington Aldridge Academy The documentary Our School by the Tower, which started last week and concludes tonight, shows what happened next. Malone had already helped the Grenfell community with a charity single. He says: It left me wanting to do more. When David got in touch the challenge appealed. It filled me with trepidation but I saw it as helping them to tell their story. On the surface, the pupils looked like any other kids. But once you talked to them the perspectives they had and the air of fatigue was unusual. Sure, they were running around the playground but there was a sense of emotional exhaustion, in the staff as well. They were clinging on to the side of a mountain and if one thing went wrong the whole pack of cards would fall. Benson and the pupils imagined they would sing just one song. They ended up writing a whole musical and doing a workshop with the cast of Hamilton. The one thing that hadnt been done was to give kids free rein to publicly have a creative response to what happened, says Malone. Thats where we arrived at the idea of a musical, to make them feel like they defined their story for themselves. He never asked them about the tower. Id ask how they were, what the future looked like. Some would say quietly that they thought it would be time to move on soon. How do you get beyond [something like Grenfell] without forgetting it? Those are big things to grapple with when you are a kid, and guilt comes with that. You want to give them licence to look to the future. Pupils at the choir's final performance / BBC/Twenty Twenty Productions Its not just the story of Grenfell that made the first episode resonate but the personal transformations of the children. Adil, a foster child who had been in care since the age of three and moved nine times, went from being a lost figure who acts up to a confident, skilled poet. Meanwhile, a softly spoken girl called Lyric, aged 15, sings a song she wrote about her friend who died. Lyric says now: I had so many emotions inside and I wanted to share them with people because I wanted them to relate to it. Everyone is in pain, they are not alone. Her friend Olivia, also 15, now says: She took the words out of my mouth. Olivia adds: People on social media have got in touch with my friends and said its been more than a year, get over it. I am still healing. Its obvious people are still hurting and this show has helped others outside the community to relate. Before Grenfell, Olivia says, I was naive. I wasnt living every day as if it was my last. I didnt think about death because I was 12 why would you? Eliana, 12, says: You have to face reality to release that burden, accept someone has died and they will want you to live without always crying. Maybe people who watch the show will get confidence to cope with things in their own lives. Malone saw himself as a fresh pair of ears. Its telling that Lyric hadnt shared her song before. I had to gain their trust but it became a positive that I hadnt been there. They had seen their teachers as humans crying in the aftermath of a tragedy and the kids felt responsible for the adults. Olivia says that Malone lifted spirits. Hes such a jolly person that he made everybody a lot happier just walking down the corridor. He brought something completely new and gave everybody that boost. Gareth Malone in the playground of Kensington Aldridge Academy / BBC/Twenty Twenty Productions During the project, Malone saw a psychotherapist. There were moments where I felt like I was getting nowhere. Id air my frustration with the therapist and then come in fresh. I tried to be as bright as I could. The children had needed to be very mature and serious and a lot of the play we made allowed them to be silly. Benson hesitates about using the phrase moving on. I would never use it because we would never diminish what happened. Its a big part of what we are and we miss the students [who died] massively. But returning to the school was about looking forward. Malone admits that he still has doubts before projects. I wonder, will it help to sing a song? But music is a balm. Ive especially noticed it at funerals where the atmosphere is sharp and harsh and full of fear, music soothes. The performance was a welcome distraction from moving back to the scene of the fire. It eased up coming back, says Olivia. Weve had so much change but we had the choir to lean into and keep us grounded and stable. The overwhelming majority of students wanted to go back to normality, says Benson. They have deeply seated academic ambitions and that doesnt go away because of traumatic events. We were able to help them refocus on what they wanted to do whilst making sure there was a lot of therapeutic care and support. Benson set up KAA in 2014. It is not selective and he is proud that two years since the fire the results are in the top five per cent nationally and that they are narrowing the gap between pupils from wealthy and less privileged backgrounds. KAA was honoured for outstanding achievement at the Evening Standard School Awards last month. How have they done it? The foundations were strong, says Benson. When it became turbulent we were able to keep that core business of teaching and learning. Now the school is facing new challenges, with a rise in knife crime affecting young people. We know how awful it is when a student has their whole future snatched away because of what happened to us when we lost five students in the fire, says Benson. Olivia and Lyric tell me how people they know from primary school have changed. Olivia says: You meet someone who used to be a happy person and a year later they will be enclosed and dark and there is not much about them anymore. You see them throw away their potential. I dont know that singing is the answer to gang violence but it has a major role in feeling part of a community How do you address it? Malone says: I dont know that singing in a choir is the answer but I do see the importance of creative arts. They have a major role in making people feel better about themselves and to feel part of a community. Benson agrees: Talk about knife crime in a proportionate way. If you talk about it all the time thats not doing the right thing by the kids, which is to talk about their talents. The best way you can address it is to inspire the students and create a positive and ambitious culture that helps them focus on opportunities. Exclusion has to be a last resort. If a child is presenting certain behaviours the school needs to ask why. On the other hand you will not find a single secondary school in London that hasnt at some point had to permanently exclude a child. For Olivia, music is an escape. Weve had so many lessons about how to keep ourselves safe, and they are helpful, but doing something creative keeps your mind off it. After school is prime time. People rush out excited that the school day is over. If you wait until 5pm [doing an activity at school], everyone has calmed down and you can just go home because there is nothing happening on the street any more. KAA is in communication with other schools in Kensington and Chelsea, says Benson. Some schools are reticent to talk about it because they dont want to be labelled as the school with the knife crime problem but if every school is facing this issue we can put together joint strategies so that children can avoid getting into risky situations. I keep coming back to this but if you have inspirational teaching of academic subjects, that will lift people up. Who doesnt want to do well in their GCSEs and have options? Like all schools, KAA is under funding pressure. The Intrepidus Trust protects its arts education. Schools are not just buildings where maths lessons happen, says Benson. They are communities and what provides the culture is the ability to hold assemblies, come together, listen to performances. If you take that out of the school you end up with something which is much more mundane. Art, drama, music will benefit the children in every other subject. Music has energised the school. The children in the choir say its made them more confident and they are now putting their hands up more to answer questions in other lessons. The choir is still going strong and is working on a rendition of Rise Up by Andra Day for their half-term concert. Benson says the school moving back is bringing a sense of normality to the area: It helps people in the area to see routine things like the children walking to school in the morning. Thats part of the healing process and 2019 feels like the school is looking forward. It is a relief. A pharmaceutical consultant walked free from court after being cleared of raping a woman at his flat after a party. Rowan Nidd, 42, was accused of attacking the woman after she had drunk 12 glasses of Prosecco and gone with him in a taxi to his Islington home in December 2015. She claimed to have woken up to find Mr Nidd on top of her, but he told Harrow crown court the woman had been pursuing him and he rejected her advances. Mr Nidd, a University of Edinburgh graduate from St Albans, was unanimously found not guilty by a jury of rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and assault by penetration. O ne of Britains most notorious gangsters who was once dubbed "public enemy number one" has died in jail. Wayne Hurren is understood to have taken his own life aged 58 at Wormwood Scrubs prison, in west London, on Saturday. He was serving a sentence of five years and four months for possession of an imitation firearm. In 1988 he was jailed for a total of 20 years for a string of armed robberies and wounding police officers. Three police officers were shot as they chased Hurren, who was armed with two guns, before he escaped in a vehicle hijacked at gunpoint. The Old Bailey heard he stole an estimated 1.7 million in the course of four armed raids. Hurren, originally from Shoreditch, in north London, was accused of a 13-year reign of terror in the capital when he was charged with three gangland execution-style murders in 1996. But three years later he was cleared of ordering a hit on mini-cab boss David Foley from a prison phone, before prosecutors dropped the two other murder charges. A Prison Service spokesman said: "HMP Wormwood Scrubs prisoner Wayne Hurren died in prison on March 16 2019. D ramatic footage shows a lifeboat crew bravely rescuing a drowning man after he slipped underwater near Woolwich Pier in south-east London. Rescuers responded to reports of screaming heard from the River Thames just before 6am on Sunday. They were forced to jump into the water to rescue the man as he struggled against a strong current. There is no doubt this is a life saved if we had been a minute later, the man would not have survived, Tower Lifeboat RNLI said in a statement. A Tower Lifeboat crew member jumps into the River Thames to rescue a drowning man. / Tower RNLI The footage shows a man struggling to stay above water underneath the jetty as rescuers on a lifeboat attempt to throw him a flotation device. Seconds later he slips under the surface as one of the rescuers jumps and swims to the man. The crew member in the water felt the mans head under the water and tried to pull him up. The man rose to the surface gasping for breath; the crew member immediately took hold of the man to maintain his airway and started to swim them both back to the lifeboat, Tower Lifeboat RNLI said. It added: The mans life was in grave danger, so a dynamic risk assessment was made, and a crew member committed to the water without a helmet. The immediate risk to life, the swell, structural surroundings and how long the casualty had been in the water meant the crew member had no other choice if he was to rescue the man. Tower Lifeboat Helm, Steve Doherty, said rescuers normally would not enter the water without a helmet but the extra ten seconds taken to put one on would have been fatal for the man. Without the actions of the lifeboat crew, the man would not have been rescued and would have drowned, he said. Naval Group and ECA Win 2 Bn Belgian-Dutch Minehunting Contract The page you requested is only available to subscribers. 1. If you are a Premium Service subscriber, please log in here to access this story: Log-in : Password : 2. If you are not a subcriber, you can: -- buy access to this page: unlimited access for seven days costs 3.00 EUR + VAT (at 20%) if applicable. Clicking on the "Ok" button below will place the item in your shopping cart and return you to our home page, where you will be able to select additional stories. -- select additional stories and services from our home page and pay for them at the same time. -- see your shopping cart. You can also see the contents of your shopping cart at any time by clicking on the "Order" tab on the navigation bar at the top of any page, or by clicking on the "Your order" light blue link in the top right-hand corner of our home page, immediately under the log-on box. A 23-year-old Polish barber called Aaron Kosminski is likely to have been the infamous killer Jack the Ripper, scientists claim. Jack the Ripper infamously murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel area in 1888 and was never caught. But now over 100 years later, researchers from Liverpool John Moores University say they have carried out the most advanced study to date regarding this case, using the only remaining physical evidence linked to the murders DNA found on a shawl next to the mutilated body of one of the serial killers victims they claim has proved a match to the barber. The shawl the scientists analysed was found next to the killers fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, and is speckled with what is claimed to be the blood and semen of the killer. The young man had lived with his two brothers and a sister in Greenfield Street, 200 yards away from where his third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was found dead, it is claimed. Researchers behind the investigation published their findings in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. They wrote: We describe for the first time systematic, molecular level analysis of the only surviving physical evidence linked to the Jack the Ripper murders. Finding both matching profiles in the same piece of evidence enhances the statistical probability of its overall identification and reinforces the claim that the shawl is authentic. DNA: Russell Edwards (left) and Dr Jari Louhelainen looking at a shawl found by the body of Catherine Eddowes in 2014 (Picture: PA) Scientists were able to take DNA tests from the shawl after they were contacted by the owner of the historical item. Russell Edwards, 48, had bought the item of clothing in an auction in 2007. S enior members of the shadow cabinet have told The Londoner that they understand Jeremy Corbyn would like to step down as leader of the Labour Party. The sources say that a number of those around the leader are also of the view that Corbyn, who is 70 in May, would like to pass on the reins of his surprisingly successful socialist project. One member of the shadow cabinet told us: Hes tired and fed up. Another: Corbyn is ready to step down. He wants to step down. The talk comes as Corbyn has come under increasing political pressure over his handling of the anti-Semitism crisis and Brexit. Although a fit cyclist and teetotal vegetarian, Corbyn is known to survive long days with naps and takes days in lieu if he works on a Sunday. In 2017, he stressed the importance of work-life balance and said he would not give up his allotment if he became PM. Theres a need for everyone in life to balance what they do, however stressful or important their job is. This is not the first time there has been speculation about Corbyns future: whispers followed the EU referendum and Labour leadership election in 2016. In early 2017, with Labour rock bottom in the polls, Len McCluskey, one of Corbyns strongest supporters, said Corbyn and John McDonnell were not egomaniacs and not desperate to cling on to power for powers sake. This morning official Labour sources denied Corbyn was pondering an exit. Somebody has been eating too much cheese, or something harder, one said, adding, His diary is packed full. He does a lot more late nights than early mornings: meetings, engagements, receptions. Hell be at the Kebab Awards tonight. They said Corbyn was fit and healthy: The person that walks up the stairs instead of taking the lift. If Corbyn stays on and Labour wins the 2022 election, he would be the oldest prime minister at first appointment ever. However, another source adds: Jeremy is the first to admit that hes not going to be around for ever. *Although it has been reported that Corbyn takes lieu days, a spokesman from the leaders office contacted the Londoner this afternoon to say the claim was "utter nonsense". The Reform Club hoists Le Tricolore The Reform Club has given the finger to the Brexit elite by electing its first female French chair in the year Britain is set to leave the EU. Nathalie Romang, elected by the clubs committee, is the third female chair since women were admitted as members in 1981. At 45, she is younger than the typical chair, who, a source says, is more likely to be in their fifties or sixties. Happily, too, the source adds, Romang has already applied and received her leave to remain so were not going to lose her in a week. --- In November, Jo Johnson resigned from the Government with great fanfare, blasting the potential chaos that will follow a no-deal Brexit. It will cause disruption, delay and deep damage to our economy. Yet last week he failed to vote for Yvette Coopers anti-no-deal motion, the Governments no-deal motion, or even the cross-party amendment that would have handed Parliament control over Brexit. His allies were not happy. --- Philip Hammond, set to lose his press secretary, Will Garton, is to replace him with Olaf Henricson-Bell, head of communications at the British Embassy in Paris. Henricson-Bells twin brother, Torsten Bell, used to be an aide to Ed Miliband. Golborne club feels the love Actor Patricia Arquette and fashion designer Rosetta Getty hosted a charity dinner at Laylow in Golborne Road, Westbourne Park on Friday in aid of their charity, GiveLove. Arquette who won an Oscar for Boyhood in 2015, and stars as a mother trapped in a toxic, co-dependent relationship with her young daughter in upcoming true-crime series The Act recently said she has little time for people asking how she makes her characters likeable. I really am happy to throw that question, concern, whatever it is, into a dumpster fire and just be free, she said. GiveLove was founded after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti to provide emergency sanitation to displaced families and it now works to improve sanitation in more than six countries. Also at the dinner was actor Tom Hollander, star of the BBCs Baptiste, a Golborne local and a shareholder in Laylow. The club is known for its A-list funding, with Luther star Idris Elba, another prominent backer. Investors were required to put in between 10,000 and 400,000 each. SW1A Jo Swinson / LightRocket via Getty Images Jo Swinson, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, is getting cosy with The Independent Group MPs. On Saturday night Swinson hosted Anna Soubry in York at the Lib-Dem spring conference. Tomorrow at six oclock she will have a cup of tea with Heidi Allen and broadcast their chat live on Facebook. --- The latest Register of Financial Interests shows that Ben Bradley MP received 5,000 from George Farmer, the chairman of Turning Point UK a Right-wing youth group. However, Bradley tells us the money was not from Turning Point but from George Farmer as an individual whom he knows personally. Apparently, Farmer wanted to support Bradleys work in his Nottinghamshire constituency. --- Jacob Rees-Mogg confesses: I still cannot resist Cadburys Creme Eggs. How does the famously old-school Tory backbencher like to eat them? With a knife and fork? Jacqui does a Jess Jacqui Smith, who was Labour home secretary between 2007 and 2009 but also, briefly, the chief whip, recalls an expletive-heavy run-in she once had with Diane Abbott, the current shadow home secretary. Abbott, she says, wrote a piece in which she said I was like a schoolmarm, which Smith considered both sexist [and] patronising and led to the biggest row ever. I had her in, Smith tells her podcast For The Many. She said, You know I didnt mean any offence by that. But Smith says she still lost it and actually used the f word, even before Jess Phillips. --- Kelly Simpkin, Nicky Clarke with their son Nico Clarke / Dave Benett/Getty Images Does Nicky Clarke blowdry his heirs hair? Yesterday the hairdresser and his partner, Kelly Simpkin took their well-coiffed young son Nico to a screening of Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun. Quote of the day 'I think I'm personally responsible for about five per cent of it' J ohn Bercow dropped a bombshell into Britains Brexit crisis today by ruling out a third vote on Theresa Mays plan to quit the EU if she simply brings back the same motion to the Commons. In a dramatic intervention, the Speaker told the Commons that the Prime Minister cannot seek backing from MPs for a third time for her Brexit blueprint based on the same, or very similar, proposition defeated by a crushing 149 votes last week. He stressed the convention dating back to 1604 that the Government cannot just retable unchanged motions, or tweaked ones, in the same session of Parliament - and then seek to strong-arm MPs into backing them. Nearly four hours after Mr Bercow had given his statement, a Number 10 spokesman said: "We note the Speaker's statement. This is something that requires proper consideration." As the Prime Minister was today desperately seeking to persuade Tory and Democratic Unionist Party MPs to support her Brexit plan, Mr Bercow told the Commons: If the Government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on March 12, this would be entirely in order. What the Government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition - or substantially the same proposition - as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes. This ruling should not be regarded as my last word on the subject. It is simply meant to indicate the test which the Government must meet in order for me to rule that a third meaningful vote can legitimately be held in this parliamentary session. Chair of the Brexit Select Committee, Hilary Benn, asked the Speaker to clarify if there would need to be a new political agreement with the EU specifically before any new motion could be voted on. Under pressure on Brexit: Theresa May / REUTERS In a reply, which appeared to close down options for Mrs May, the Speaker said: The answer to his question is yes. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is considering issuing new guidance on the Northern Ireland border backstop, but Mr Bercow added: Simply a change in an opinion about something wouldnt itself constitute a change in the offer. Fundamentally for something to be different, it has to be fundamentally different. Different in terms of substance and this is in the context of a negotiation with others outside the UK. Later, in an extraordinary clash, Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom rejected a call for a Speakers conference to resolve Brexit, saying it would require courtesy and respect, adding icily I would not be confident that that would be the case. But the Speaker swiped back that she was not in the House at the time he last chaired a Speakers conference and had had no complaints. TODO: define component type apester Mr Bercow said MPs on both sides of the House and Brexit debate had contacted him after a question asked by Labour MP Angela Eagle last week, who wanted to know if the Government was allowed to keep bringing back the same motion again and again. He said he consulted Erskine May, the Parliamentary procedural handbook, which was clear that a motion which is the same in substance may not be brought forward again during that same session. The Speaker said the convention dated back to April 2, 1604, and said it had been confirmed again many times, including 1864, 1870, 1882, 1891 and 1912. Brexit: Leave and Remain supporters gather in London on 29 January 1 /33 Brexit: Leave and Remain supporters gather in London on 29 January Pro-EU and pro-Brexit protestors discuss the vote and ongoing political processes as they demonstrate near to the Houses of Parliament Getty Images A man holds a 'Stop Brexit' sign aboard a campaign bus travelling down Whitehall in Westminster, London PA Pro-Brexit demonstrators chant slogans outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Anti-Brexit demonstrators protest outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters A leave supporter vapes electronic cigarette in front of a group of remain supporters AP Pro-Brexit protestors dressed as suffragettes demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Images An anti-brexit supporter holds banners in London AP Pro and anti Brexit protestors discuss the vote and ongoing political processes as they demonstrate near to the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit protesters hold banners in London AP A campaigner dressed as Charlie Chaplin walks by the Houses of Parliament PA A leave supporter holds banners at the parliament gates AP Pro-Brexit, left and anti-Brexit protesters hold banners in London AP Pro-Brexit demonstrators protest outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters A leave supporter holds banners in front of remain supporters during demonstrations in London AP Police officers stand near Pro-Brexit and Anti-Brexit posters outside the Houses of Parliament, in Westminster, London Reuters Leave supporters hold placards in front of remain supporters during demonstrations in London, AP A pro-Brexit protestor sets fire to a roll of toilet paper decorated with the EU flag as she demonstrates near the Houses of Parliament Getty Images A pro-Brexit protestor sets fire to a roll of toilet paper decorated with the EU flag as she demonstrates near the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Leave supporters hold placards as they take part in demonstrations near the parliament in Londo AP Leave and remain supporters hold placards as they take part in demonstrations near the parliament in London AP Pro-Brexit activists hold placards and wave flags as they demonstrate opposite the Houses of Parliament in London AFP/Getty Images A remain supporter, left and a leave supporter, center, discuss during demonstrations in London AP Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Getty Images v Reuters Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate on a double decker bus outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Getty Images Each time the Speaker of the day ruled that a motion could not be brought back because it had already been decided in that same session of Parliament, he continued. Indeed, Erskine May makes reference to no fewer than 12 such rulings up to the year 1920. Mr Bercows stance, though, sparked an immediate debate among MPs. Veteran Eurosceptic MP MP Bill Cash told the Speaker: What you say makes an enormous amount of sense. Labour MP Angela Eagle said the rules of the Commons were designed precisely to avoid the spectacle we have seen in the past few months. She suggested the Government was resorting to bullying and even bribing MPs to get their botched deal through the House. However, Tory deputy chairman James Cleverly challenged the Speakers timing, saying that some MPs might have voted against the Withdrawal Agreement in the second vote in the belief they would have a chance to change their minds in a third vote. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, said Mr Cleverly. He also claimed that in a fast-moving negotiation there might be subtle changes to an agreement that would change the minds of MPs. But the Speaker rejected his first point as not altogether helpful and argued MPs could come to a judgments without him holding their hands. Tory MP Neil OBrien asked if a Stormont Lock on the backstop arrangements would count as substantial change, and added that in his opinion the fact that no-deal is off the table makes it a substantially different proposal. There was no immediate response from Downing Street to Mr Bercows statement. The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: The Speaker did not warn us of the contents of the statement or indeed the fact that he was making one. Eurosceptic Tory MP Mark Francois called on the Speaker to apply the same rule on repeat motions to pro-EU MPs who have formed a cross-party group to seize control of the Commons agenda to make Brexit decisions. SNP MP Pete Wishart tweeted: Devastating. The Government can not bring forward another motion if is is substantially the same. Another meaningful vote probably gone. Chairman of the European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg asked the Speaker if it was possible for the same Brexit deal to be voted on in another session of Parliament. The Speaker said: I am not advocating that, but that point is self-evidently valid. Solicitor General Robert Buckland said the Government was facing a "major constitutional crisis" and that Mr Bercow's intervention would have "huge reverberations" for the Brexit process. He suggested ministers may need to prorogue Parliament and call a new session in order to get round the ruling. "There are ways around this," he told BBC News. "We will be legally and politically at the mercy of Brussels, since we will be obliged to accept all EU legislation, during the so-called implementation period: the first time since the Norman Conquest that a foreign power has passed the laws of this country. "Worst of all, the Irish backstop arrangement gives the EU an indefinite means of blackmail, so that they will be able to keep us locked in the customs union and large parts of the single market, unless we are prepared to abandon Northern Ireland; and they will use this blackmail to get their way throughout the negotiations, notably over the free movement of people. "If we agree this deal and unless we have a radical change in our approach to the negotiations we face an even greater humiliation in the second phase." S peaker John Bercow has been accused of failing to show courtesy and respect to MPs by Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom. It followed the Speaker reprimanding Ms Leadsom and Tory MP Christopher Pincher for fiddling with their mobile phones in the Commons on Monday. The ongoing feud between the Leader of the House Ms Leader and the Speaker Mr Bercow continued during the lengthy points of order session following his statement on future meaningful votes on Brexit. Mr Bercow had, in a surprise statement, ruled out allowing the Government to hold a third vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal unless it was "substantially" different. During the lengthy points of order session, Lib Dem MP Sir Ed Davey asked whether a "Speaker's Conference" could be convened to try and bring the Commons together. Mr Bercow said it would have to be instigated by the Government and that Ms Leadsom was a "notable reformer" and therefore may be willing to initiate one. Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom today lashed out at the EU / REUTERS But the Commons Leader hit out, saying: "I just want to be very clear, I am indeed a reforming Leader of the House of the Commons, and for me, treating colleagues with courtesy and respect is at the forefront of that reform, and any Speaker's Conference would have to have that at its heart and I simply would not be confident that that would be the case." The Speaker hit back, saying: "I treat the House with respect, I've treated its members with respect. I chaired a previous Speaker's Conference and there was no criticism of the way in which I did so." Earlier, Mr Bercow lashed out at Ms Leadsom and Mr Pincher for using their phones. He said: "I hope the Government would feel that respect for procedure does matter. "I note that as (SNP shadow Commons leader MP Pete Wishart) asks his question and I respond, the Leader of the House is playing with her electronic device, and so is the deputy chief whip. "I didn't include him in the category of very senior people in the House but that's a debatable proposition I readily grant." There were hoots of outrage and protestations MPs had been showing respect and the Speaker was not, as Mr Bercow continued. He said: "It would seem to me to be helpful if people showed respect for each other in these circumstances and if they're in the Chamber listened to what other people have to say but if they choose not to do so then so be it. "I try to show good manners and I hope others will do so as well." In response, Mr Pincher wrote on Twitter that he had been cancelling an appointment. "I was cancelling my next appointment because he was going on for so long. At this rate we'll be out of the EU before he finishes." Ms Leadsom and the Speaker have clashed several times in the past. Their feud began after he was overheard in the Commons calling her a "stupid woman". They then clashes further when Ms Leadsom called for him to be stripped of his role overseeing bullying cases. He responded by publicly reprimanding her for talking over him in Parliament. F rances Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau has told how she calls her cat Brexit as he is unsure whether he wants to go out or not when the door is open. He wakes me up miaowing like mad because he wants to be let out, she is reported to have written on her private Facebook page. As soon as I open the door, he stands in the middle, unsure whether he wants to go out or not. When I put him out, he gives me an evil look. Her alleged remark highlighted disbelief in many European capitals at the Brexit-inflicted chaos in Britain. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has even compared Theresa May to the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who loses his arms and legs in a duel and then argues for a draw. Look, I have every respect for Theresa May, he said in an interview with the Dutch broadcaster WNL. She reminds me occasionally of that character from Monty Python where all the arms and legs are cut off but he then tells the opponent: Lets call it a draw. Shes incredible. She goes on and on. At the same time, I do not blame her, but British politics. John Cleese played the role of a deluded swordsman, who refuses to admit defeat, in the black knight sketch in the 1975 Monty Python film. T heresa May is under growing pressure to postpone a third Brexit vote after a suggestion that she would replace her chief EU negotiator to get her deal through left her still facing defeat. A meaningful vote that was widely expected tomorrow night could now be held on Wednesday or moved to next week unless there is a major breakthrough this evening. In a desperate last ploy to save her deal, Downing Street has told Tory MPs that Mrs Mays chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins will quit if it goes through. One MP was told that Mrs May would update her negotiating team before the next phase of talks, while another was told that Mr Robbins, a bete noire of the European Research Group of Tory Brexiteer MPs, would go as soon as the deal is through. Neither of the MPs was persuaded to back the deal, however. Mrs May is now banking on her Northern Irish DUP allies to back her deal, but a source in the party said there was plenty still to do. Moreover, about 30 Tory MPs were still resisting backing Mrs May, enough to sink the deal. In more key developments: Cabinet ministers believe Speaker John Bercow will not allow a fourth vote on the deal, and are advising Mrs May to postpone it to next week unless she is certain of winning. Downing Street rejected a demand by Boris Johnson that Mrs May go back to Brussels to seek concessions, saying there will be no further negotiations on it. The DUP was in talks with No 10 over a reported Stormont lock, which would ensure that the whole of the UK, rather than just Northern Ireland, is impacted by the backstop to avoid a border in the Irish Sea. There were also rumours of a new money deal being offered to Northern Ireland. An attempt by Mrs May to appeal to patriotic MPs backfired as Right-wingers said it was an insult to call them unpatriotic. Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the ERG, hinted he might back Mrs May, but 23 ERG MPs wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph making clear they will not shift. Pressure is rising from Tory MPs for the Prime Minister herself to quit in June / REUTERS A ring-round of MPs over the weekend, led by Cabinet ministers and Mrs May herself, appeared to have picked off only a few of the 75 MPs that Mrs May needs to back her. The Prime Ministers spokesman said: Its a matter of fact that if there is a vote that is going to take place on Wednesday, then the deadline for tabling that motion would be Tuesday evening. No 10s suggestion that Mr Robbins will leave if the deal passes failed to win MPs over. One told the Evening Standard: What colleagues want is to see a change at the very top ... That means a new Prime Minister. Another MP said: You can read between the lines a strong hint that he will go. But it doesnt matter. She would be wise not to hold a vote this week. The Standard asked No 10 for a comment. TODO: define component type apester The core of ERG hardliners, said to number between 20 and 40, appeared to be holding firm against Mrs Mays deal today. Mr Rees-Mogg said he had not made up his mind and was waiting to see what the DUP decides. No deal is better than a bad deal, but a bad deal is better than remaining in the Europe Union, he said on LBC radio. We have got as close to leaving as we will ever get under these circumstances. If it is thwarted now, no one is ever going to allow us another chance to have a vote. The whole weight of British establishment opinion will prevent that ever happening again. Some Tory MPs are demanding the Prime Minister promises to quit in June as the price of her deal, so that a new leader can negotiate the second phase of Brexit talks which will forge a future trade and security relationship with the EU. Ex-Cabinet minister Sir John Redwood, one of the signatories of the letter to the Daily Telegraph, dismissed the withdrawal agreement as a very expensive invitation to more talks and told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: It violates the Conservative manifesto in many important ways. The manifesto is very clear that no deal is better than a bad deal. He said that a lot of Conservative MPs shared his concerns, but declined to estimate how many would vote against Mrs Mays deal. Peers today warned of the constitutional implications of any Stormont Lock which Mrs May could strike to persuade the DUP to back her deal, stressing that they would want to properly scrutinise any legislation. A European Union grandee today said the UK could be refused a Brexit extension if Theresa May fails to get agreement in the Commons. Guy Verhofstadt told the Standard that the British needed a cross-party agreement and to put country before party prior to seeking an extension of Article 50. Why should the EU27 even consider a Brexit extension this week, if the UK parliament vote on the deal is cancelled? he demanded. Where are the cross-party talks? I will keep saying this; it is time for country to come before party. A minority of Right-wing populists cannot be allowed to drive European citizens and businesses off a cliff. Mr Verhofstadt is co-ordinator on Brexit for the European Parliament, which has the right to veto any Brexit deal. His warning contrasted with European Council president Donald Tusk, who last week said that he was personally open to a long extension if Britain wanted time to rethink the whole idea. There are divisions in the EU over what to do if Mrs May asks for a postponement without getting Parliament to agree a deal. Mr Tusk is hoping that the UK will hold a second referendum to reverse its decision to leave, and believes a long extension would help. French president Emmanuel Macron sees a maximum of one month, while Germanys Angela Merkel is said to favour up to a year. Mr Verhofstadt and most leaders in the parliament agree with Mr Macron that it should be a month at most. Diplomatic notes from a meeting of EU ambassadors seen by the Standard say Britain must leave by June 30 or else hold elections to the European Parliament, or the European institutions could be open to legal challenges. P oliticians have called for more robust research on the addictive effects of social media, which they say should be taken as seriously as "cigarettes, alcohol, gambling or drugs". MPs from the all-party parliamentary group on social media and young peoples mental health, have criticised the lack of legislative response to regulate platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Labour MP Chris Elmore who chairs the group, and its secretary, Conservative MP William Wragg said that, especially for young people, social media is an integral part of their daily routines. It is paramount that we protect young people to ensure they are kept safe and healthy when they are online, they said. The group report called #FilterNews focussed on how there has been no clinical diagnosis for social media and called for research into whether its addictive nature is sufficient for official disease classification. For a growing number of people of all ages, spending hours on social media is now a completely normal part of their daily routine, the report said. There has been a lack of legislative response to regulate social media platforms, given the huge influence they have on everyday life. In his Politics Home article, Chris Elmore MP referred to the recent death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life after viewing material about self-harm on social media. He said:" For me, tragedies like Mollys underline exactly why its vital the government takes real and meaningful action to get to grips with the crisis unfolding online. "Its essential that we urgently commission robust research into the impact social media is having on our young people and review whether it warrants being classified as an official disease. "Just as with other addictions cigarettes, alcohol, gambling or drugs we need to realise that while a scroll through Facebook might not have any apparent physical effects, the damage it can do to someones mental health must not be underestimated." The group report suggested that social media addiction should be considered in the same light as gaming disorder. The World Health Organisation plans to include gaming disorder in the next revision of International Classification of Diseases (ICD). WHO proposals will be presented in May 2019 for adoption in member states by January 2022, after international experts in different disciplines reviewed gaming disorder through a series of consolations. MPs said: "If the World Health Organisation were to classify social media addiction in the International Classification of Diseases, it could be done in a similar way to gaming disorder. The Royal Society of Public Health charity helped write the report after conducting a UK-wide survey in 2017, asking 1,479 young people, aged 14 to 24 about five most popular platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube. The survey found that 46% of girls compared to 38% of all young people reported that social media had a negative impact on their self-esteem. Participants reported that social media was responsible for creating feelings of anxiety and depression, negative body image, cyber bullying, poor sleep and a fear of missing out (FOMO). It also found 12% of children who spend no time on social networking websites have symptoms of mental ill health, but the figure rises to 27% for those who are on the sites for three or more hours a day. A wheelchair-bound man whose wife was shot dead in the New Zealand mosque attacks has forgiven the gunman. Mr Ahmed, who uses a wheelchair after being left paralysed in a road traffic accident six years ago, was able to escape but his wife Husna was killed in the attack, which claimed two lives at mosques in the city of Christchurch last Friday. The senior member of the mosque said he saw so many bodies and a father carrying his own son out of the building, but said he had forgiven the attacker. Mr Ahmed lost his wife in the attack / AFP/Getty Images He told the New Zealand Herald: I was asked 'how do you feel about the person who killed your wife?' and I said 'I love that person because he is a human, a brother of mine," he said. "I do not support what he did - he got it wrong. Mr Ahmed's wife, Husna Ahmed "But maybe he was hurt, maybe something happened to him in his life but the bottom line is, he is a brother of mine. "I have forgiven him and I am sure if my wife was alive she would have done the same thing. "I hold no grudge." Police stand guard in Christchurch, as their Australian counterparts executed two search warrants relating to the investigation into the mosque attacks / Edgar Su/Reuters Mr Ahmed said people were begging him for help in the aftermath of the shooting. He added: "I saw a man screaming 'please help me' and I saw he had two dead bodies lying on top of him - he asked me to remove the dead bodies and said 'I can't take it'." The father was in another room when a gunman came in, but said he recalled hearing the sound of gunfire and screams from those inside. Getty Images His daughter, Shifa, 15, was at school during the attack but had managed to find out her mother was missing but her father of safe. He said he told her the news of her mother when she returned from school, which had to put on lockdown. He said: When she got home I had to tell her. The worst part was when she said - are you telling me I don't have any mother? "I said yes... But I'm your mother now... and together we will face this. Students light candles as they gather for a vigil to commemorate victims of the shooting / AP "I then had to advise my family, I decided to be strong and not break down because if I did, they would. New Zealands Cabinet has backed sweeping changes to gun laws three days after 50 people were shot down at the two mosques. The government is expected to make a public demonstration of their destruction and ban semi-automatic assault-style weapons. Police have also confirmed they believe "absolutely" that only one perpetrator was responsible for the attacks during Friday prayers. A teenager hailed a hero for egging an Australian senator who shared anti-Muslim views in the aftermath of the New Zealand shooting has had a mural made in his honour. Far-right senator Fraser Anning sparked outrage on Friday when he said the mosque terror attacks, which left at least 50 people dead, highlight growing fears over an increasing Muslim presence. In response, William Connolly, who has since been nicknamed egg boy, cracked an egg over Mr Annings head as he spoke to reporters during a live TV broadcast in Melbourne. The 17-year-old, from Victoria, has now been honoured with a huge mural in Hosier Lane in Melbourne, which has become famous for its street art in recent years. The artwork is believed to have been painted by Van T Rudd, who posted a picture of the mural on Instagram on Sunday and wrote: A tribute to egg boy and his glorious response to Australian politician Fraser Annings support of extreme right wing terror. Two days after the teenagers actions went viral, more than $47,000 has been raised on a GoFundMe page to pay for his legal fees and to help him buy more eggs. Police allege the teenager assaulted the senator with the egg. Mr Anning "retaliated and struck the teen twice" before Mr Connolly was dragged to the ground by supporters of the senator, police said. A police statement said: "The incident is being actively investigated by Victoria Police in its entirety. A teenager broke an egg on Senator Fraser Anning's head / AP Mr Anning came under blistering criticism over tweets on Friday, including one that said: "Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?" "The real cause of the bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place," he said in a later statement. Mr Anning has now been assigned a federal police security detail in the wake of his comments. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for the first time on Sunday joined the public condemnation of Mr Anning, calling his comments a disgrace." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also took Mr Connolly's side, telling reporters: "The full force of the law should be applied to Senator Anning." After the egging, which was filmed by the teenager, Mr Connolly was pinned to the ground until journalists appealed for him to be allowed back on his feet, The Sun-Herald newspaper reported. Far-right activist Neil Erikson, who was involved in tackling the 17-year-old, shouted for reporters to be removed from the area. "Get the journalists out of here... If you don't like, get out," Mr Erikson was quoted as saying. Police say they arrested Mr Connolly, took his details and then released him without charge. The teenager later urged his followers not to follow his example. A 17-year-old, who was dubbed Egg boy after smashing an egg over Senator Fraser Anning's head says he will donate money raised from fans to Christchurch victims. Will Connolly, from Victoria, has been inundated with support after the politician responded by hitting the teenager at a Conservative National Party meeting in Melbourne, Australia. He egged Mr Anning and was arrested the day after the senator had released a statement blaming Muslim immigration for the terror attack, which killed 50 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday. Since footage of the incident went viral, Connolly has been hailed as a hero with murals created in his honour in the citys famous graffiti scene. Fans set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for the teenagers legal fees and to buy more eggs. Mr Connolly breaks an egg on the head of Senator Fraser Anning while he holds a press conference. / AP The teenagers parents told 9news that their son has been left shaken by his sudden rise to fame and his social media accounts have been silenced. In an update, the page announced that he plans to send the majority of the money to Christchurch victims. In two days, more than 2,500 people have raised $51,305, after the goal was raised due to the pages growing popularity. EggBoi (Will) plans to send a majority of the money to the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack, the page says. I will keep you all updated over the next few days. The page says: Our hero EggBoi takes on Fraser Anning, the senator for Queensland that is now despised around the world for comments made after the shooting at a New Zealand mosque. Despite backlash, Mr Anning has refused to apologise for his comments, and told reporters on Monday that Mr Connolly, got a slap across the face, which is what his mother should have given him. When somebody cracks you in the back of your head, you react and defend yourself. Mr Connolly's parents said their son has been left shaken by the incident and the sudden online attention. / EPA That for years is what Australians have been doing. Luckily they did that in the trenches otherwise wed be all speaking German now. Adam Houda, a high profile criminal lawyer wrote on Twitter that Mr Annings claims of self defence would not stand up in court. He wrote: Ive just seen the footage of the #FraserAnning egging. Anning reacts by assaulting the young man. A meteor exploded into a massive fireball in the Earths atmosphere, releasing 10 times the energy of the Hiroshima Atomic bomb, NASA has revealed. The blast, which happened in December, remarkably went largely unnoticed because it took place above the open waters of the Bering Sea. Measuring several meters in diameter, the large rock entered the earths atmosphere at about midday on December 18, travelling at 32km per second. It exploded 25.6km above the Earth's surface near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. The energy impact was 173 kilotons. One kiloton of power is the equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT. The blast was the second largest of its kind in 30 years, and NASA planetary defence officer Lindley Johnson told BBC News such a large fireball is only expected about two or three times a century. It was the biggest since the Chelyabinsk meteor of 2003, which injured 1,500 people and damaged 7,200 buildings in west-central Russia. Military satellites picked up the blast which happened in an area close to routes used by commercial aircraft. Kelly Fast, near-Earth objects observations programme manager at NASA, told the BBC: "That was 40 per cent the energy release of Chelyabinsk, but it was over the Bering Sea so it didn't have the same type of effect or show up in the news," "That's another thing we have in our defence, there's plenty of water on the planet." A ustralian terror police have raided two properties as part of the investigation into the New Zealand mosque attacks. Officers said the family of the Australian man arrested in Christchurch was assisting police. Search warrants were carried out on two properties on the New South Wales mid-north coast. Police said that at about 8.30am local time on Monday, a search warrant was executed by the New South Wales Joint Counter Terrorism Team at a home in the town of Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour. New Zealand: Christchurch shootings - In pictures 1 /28 New Zealand: Christchurch shootings - In pictures An armed police officer watches as a man is taken by ambulance staff from a mosque in central Christchurch AP An image taken from the alleged shooter's video AP An emotional man wearing a traditional Maori bone carving necklace speaks on a mobile phone near one of the mosques AP Photo/Mark Baker A forensic official works at the Masjid al Noor mosque after a shooting incident in Christchurch AFP/Getty Images An image grab from TV New Zealand of armed New Zealand special forces arriving outside the mosque following a shooting in Christchurch AFP/Getty Images Armed police officers outside the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Reuters Grieving members of the public sit on a curb following a shooting resulting in multiple fatalies and injuries at the Masjid Al Noor in Deans Avenue in Christchurch, New Zealand EPA Ambulance staff take a man from outside one of the mosques in central Christchurch AP Police are seen in front of Christchurch Hospital during a lockdown Getty Images A man rests on the ground as he speaks on his mobile phone across the road from one of the mosques AP Armed police patrol outside one of the mosques AP A man makes a phone call next to car with shattered windows near one of the mosques AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to media during a press conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand Getty Images An injured person is put into an ambulance following a shooting at the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Reuters Police keep watch at a park across the road from one of the mosques in central Christchurch, New Zealand AP Armed police push back members of the public following a shooting at the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Reuters An armed police officer following a shooting at the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch Reuters Police stand outside the Linwood Islamic Centre AP A police officer is seen running after the initial reports that several shots had been fired Reuters Reuters Ambulances race towards one of the mosques AFP/Getty Images Police cordon off Strickland Street where a car bomb was found Getty Images Police Commissioner Mike Bush speaks to media during a press conference at Royal Society Te Aparangi in Wellington Getty Images Police block the road near the Linwood Islamic Centre AP Ambulances and police outside the Masjid Al Noor mosque EPA Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaking at Kirribilli House in Sydney, Australia Getty Images A police officer talks on her phone at a roadblock near the Linwood Islamic Centre AP Armed police maintain a presence outside the Masijd Ayesha Mosque in Manurewa, Auckland, as part of the security response Getty Images Shortly after, another warrant was executed at a home in Lawrence, near Maclean. The Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police said in a joint statement: "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation. "The community can be assured that there is no information to suggest a current or impending threat related to the search warrants." Brenton Tarrant, 28, has been charged with murder and remanded in custody. Fifty people died in the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday. N ew Zealand's Cabinet has backed sweeping changes to gun laws just three days after 50 people were killed in shootings at two mosques in Christchurch. Semi-automatic, 'assault-style' weapons are due to be banned and an amnesty is expected to be called for the surrender of these types of guns. The government is expected to make a public demonstration of their destruction. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced gun reforms will be announced within 10 days. New Zealand has 1.3m guns in a population of 4.6m. The country's gun clubs are also likely to face heavy scrutiny in the wake of the terror attacks. The owner of a Christchurch gun shop has acknowledged selling guns online to the suspected gunman. Jacinda Ardern greets mourners at mosque 1 /17 Jacinda Ardern greets mourners at mosque Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visits the Kilbirnie Mosque in Wellington Getty Images Ms Ardern has pledged to change New Zealand's gun laws in the wake of the tragedy Getty Images Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern leaves the mosque after offering her condolences to a gathering of Muslim worshippers Getty Images Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs a mosque-goe Getty Images The woman gave Ms Ardnern a long embrace in the wake of the tragedy Getty Images 50 people died in the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch Getty Images Pakistan has announced it will observe a day of mourning Monday for victims Getty Images Ms Ardern said the bodies of the 50 people killed in Friday's mosque attacks will start being released to family members from Sunday Getty Images Police said they had released a preliminary list of the victims to families Getty Images 12 people are still in critical condition in hospital Getty Images Ms Ardern hugs a man on her visit to the mosque in Wellington Getty Images Hundreds of flowers lay piled amid candles, balloons and notes of grief and love at the scene of the shooting in Christchurch Getty Images Jacinda Ardern visits a makeshift memorial at the Kilbirnie Mosque Getty Images Gun City owner David Tipple said the store sold four guns and ammunition through a "police-verified online mail order process". The store "detected nothing extraordinary," about the buyer, he said. Police have also confirmed they believe "absolutely" that only one perpetrator was responsible for the attacks during Friday prayers. Police stand guard in Christchurch, as their Australian counterparts executed two search warrants relating to the investigation into the mosque attacks / Edgar Su/Reuters Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, has been charged with murder and appeared at court on Saturday. He was remanded until April 5. On Monday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the Cabinet had made "in principle" decisions about gun law reform, with further details to be announced by next Monday. "This ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our communities safer," she said. Ms Ardern said the Cabinet was "absolutely unified", and said the shootings had "exposed a range of weaknesses" in New Zealand's gun laws. She added that there would be an inquiry into the events leading up to the attacks. Jacinda Ardern with mourners outside a mosque in Wellington / AP It also emerged that the alleged perpetrator bought four weapons online from a gun store in Christchurch. David Tipple, owner of Gun City, said the alleged gunman bought four "A category" firearms and ammunition through a "police-verified online mail order process". Mr Tipple told reporters: "I returned from Europe on Saturday and immediately searched all our purchase records and found the alleged gunman's purchases. I provided the police with full details of the sales. Suspect Brenton Tarrant in court / EPA "We detected nothing extraordinary about this licence holder." He added: "The MSSA (military-style semi-automatic) reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City." Mr Tipple said he and his staff were "devastated" by the shootings, adding: "We can't comprehend how such despicable actions could be carried out on those in prayer in their place of worship." Meanwhile, New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police were confident a lone attacker was responsible for the shootings. "We believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this," he said. "That doesn't mean there weren't possibly people in support and that is to form an important part of our investigation." On Monday morning, two homes in New South Wales, Australia, were raided by police in connection with the mosque attacks. Officers from the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team executed a search warrant at a home in the town of Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, 330 miles north of Sydney, at 8.30am (9.30pm Sunday GMT). A short time later, a second warrant was executed at a home further north in Lawrence, near MacLean. New South Wales Police said: "The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their ongoing investigation." "The family of the Australian man arrested in Christchurch continues to assist police with their inquiries." Thirty-one people remain in Christchurch Hospital after the mass shootings, nine of them in intensive care. A four-year-old girl is in a critical condition in Starship Hospital in Auckland, while her father is in the same hospital in a serious but stable condition. Tarrant appeared to have live-streamed the terror attack and outlined his anti-immigrant motives in a manifesto posted online. On Sunday, Ms Ardern said her office was one of more than 30 recipients of an emailed copy of the manifesto just nine minutes before guns were fired. Facebook said it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack worldwide in the 24 hours after the shootings, 1.2 million of which were blocked at upload. Of those killed in the massacre, 42 died at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue in central Christchurch, seven were killed at the suburban Linwood Masjid Mosque, and one person died at Christchurch Hospital. In the video live-streamed by Tarrant, a man inside a mosque appears to say: "Welcome brother", as a gunman approaches. A number of improvised explosive devices found on a vehicle after the shootings were defused by police. D utch police are hunting a 37-year-old man after three people were killed and several others injured in a suspected terror attack on a tram in the central city of Utrecht. Utrecht police have appealed for sightings of Gokmen Tanis in connection with the incident, however they have warned people not to approach him. Authorities confirmed today that three people had died in the shooting and five others were injured. Earlier, police said nine people were wounded in the shooting. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level after Monday's shooting, with police saying they were considering the possibility of a "terrorist motive" in the attack. Heavily-armed police and paramedics swooped on a square in the west of the city following the fatal attack this morning. The shooting began at 10.45am local time (9.45am GMT) when a gunman opened fire on a tram at 24 Oktoberplein. Authorities say that a suspect is still on the run after the shooting. Counter-terror police told reporters shots may have been fired at "several" locations in the city. Armed officers later massed around an apartment building close to the square. Emergency services surrounded the tram in the city square / @lilianbruigom Utrecht police said three air ambulances were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Schools were told to keep their doors closed. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was "deeply concerned" and that crisis talks were to be held in response to the incident. The Dutch government raised the terrorism threat level to the highest possible in Utrecht after the attack. The National Anti-Terrorism Coordinator said it had raised alert level as the suspected shooter was still at large. Armed police at the scene of the shooting / EPA Security was increased at schools, mosques and transportation hubs after the shooting. A police spokesman said one possible "explanation is that the person fled by car". There were conflicting reports as to whether there was a lone gunman in the attack. The Netherlands: Utrecht Tram Shooting - In pictures 1 /20 The Netherlands: Utrecht Tram Shooting - In pictures Emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, AFP/Getty Images The scene at 24 October Square in Utrecht @lilianbruigom Armed police at the scene where a shooting took place at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Ambulances are seen next to a tram after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Rescue workers install a screen by a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Police forces stand near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrech AFP/Getty Images Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting AP Emergency services and police forces at the scene where a shooting took place at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Emergency services at the 24 Oktoberplace where a shooting took place in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Police forces and emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrech AFP/Getty Images Emergency services at the 24 Oktoberplace where a shooting took place in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Rescue workers install a screen by a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Police forces walk near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht AFP/Getty Images Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof, The Hague, The Netherlands, EPA Police secure the site of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Reuters Police are seen after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Reuters Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof, The Hague, The Netherlands EPA Mounted police are seen after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Reuters Police did not rule out the possibility that more than one person was involved. Utrecht's University Medical Centre opened its dedicated emergency ward in response to the incident. Loading.... Dutch newspaper AD reported that a woman was shot and two people resuscitated on the street. Another victim was resuscitated in the tram, according to the newspaper. Several people were injured in the incident / AP Dutch radio said security had been increased at the seat of the government in The Hague. RTV Utrecht quoted an eyewitness as saying he had seen a woman lying on the ground amid some kind of confrontation. Several men ran away from the scene, the witness said. Emergency services swooped on the area / EPA Jimmy de Koster told the news outlet: I came from my job when it happened. I see a woman lying down, I think she is between 20 and 35. It was complete and utter chaos. "At that moment I heard pang pang pang three times, four men walked very fast towards her and they tried to drag her away and then I heard pang pang pang again and those guys let go of that woman again." Another witness told broadcaster NOS that he saw an injured woman with blood on her hands and clothes. Mounted police are seen after the shooting / Reuters He said: "I brought her into my car and helped her. When the police arrived she was unconscious." Pictures shared on social media showed the tram surrounded by emergency services as the area was on lock down. Police in Germany say they have upped surveillance on the country's border and are on the lookout for the gunman. Utrecht's transport authority said tram services across the city have been cancelled following the incident. Utrecht Police earlier appealed to the public to stay away to allow first responders to do their work. The force tweeted: "Let social workers in the area 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht do their work, keep the roads clear for them." A t least three people have been killed and five others are injured after a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Armed police and three air ambulances were sent to the scene of the incident at a busy traffic intersection just outside the city centre at about 10.45am local time on Monday. Police appealed to the public to stay away to allow emergency services to do their work. The gunman remained at large for several hours after the attack but police said he has now been detained. Officers earlier said they were investigating a possible terror motive. Follow our live updates below... D utch police have arrested a man suspected of killing three people and wounding five others during a fatal shooting on a tram in Utrecht this morning. Utrecht police announced the suspect, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, had been taken into custody following the attack during the Monday morning rush hour. The city was put on lock down after the shooting, which authorities initially said was an apparent terrorist attack. Police conducted raids in several locations. The public prosecutor later told reporters that the suspect had previously been arrested, without giving further details. The Netherlands: Utrecht Tram Shooting - In pictures 1 /20 The Netherlands: Utrecht Tram Shooting - In pictures Emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, AFP/Getty Images The scene at 24 October Square in Utrecht @lilianbruigom Armed police at the scene where a shooting took place at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Ambulances are seen next to a tram after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Rescue workers install a screen by a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Police forces stand near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrech AFP/Getty Images Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting AP Emergency services and police forces at the scene where a shooting took place at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Emergency services at the 24 Oktoberplace where a shooting took place in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Police forces and emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrech AFP/Getty Images Emergency services at the 24 Oktoberplace where a shooting took place in Utrecht, The Netherlands EPA Rescue workers install a screen by a tram in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands AP Police forces walk near a tram at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht AFP/Getty Images Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof, The Hague, The Netherlands, EPA Police secure the site of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Reuters Police are seen after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Reuters Members of the military police arrive to heighten security around the Binnenhof, The Hague, The Netherlands EPA Mounted police are seen after a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands Reuters Hours after the shooting, the gunman's motive remained unclear. A prosecutor said the gunman may have been motivated by "family reasons" and Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting relatives of the gunman, said he had fired at a relative on the tram and had then shot at others who tried to help her. Heavily-armed police and paramedics swooped on a square in the west of the city following the fatal attack this morning. Police forces and emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht / AFP/Getty Images The shooting began at 10.45am local time (9.45am GMT) when a gunman opened fire on a tram at 24 Oktoberplein. Authorities raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level in the aftermath of the shooting, with police earlier saying they were considering the possibility of a "terrorist motive" in the attack. Schools were told to shut their doors and paramilitary police increased security at airports, other vital infrastructure and at mosques. Loading.... Police launched a manhunt following the attack as the gunman fled the scene. Armed officers later massed around an apartment building close to the square. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte convened crisis talks immediately after the incident, which came three days after a lone gunman killed 50 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. "Our country has today been shocked by an attack in Utrecht... A terrorist motive cannot be excluded," Mr Rutte said. The shooting began on Monday morning in the west of Utrecht / AP "The first reports have led to disbelief and disgust. Innocent people have been struck by violence... We are now doing everything we can to find the perpetrator or perpetrators as soon as possible. That is now our complete focus." The mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, said three people had been killed and nine injured, three of them seriously. The number of injured was later lowered to five. Dutch police issued an image of Tanis and warned the public not to approach him. The suspect had had previous run-ins with police, the prosecutor said. Local broadcaster RTV Utrecht said earlier the suspect was known to police for both minor and major crimes, including a shooting in 2013. @lilianbruigom The shooting took place in Kanaleneiland, a quiet residential district on the outskirts of Utrecht with a large immigrant population. "It's frightening that something like this can happen so close to home," said Omar Rahhou, who said his parents lived on a street cordoned off by police. "These things normally happen far away but this brings it very close, awful." Witness Daan Molenaar, who said he had been sitting at the front of the tram when the shooting started, told national broadcaster NOS he did not believe it was a terrorist attack. "The first thing I thought was, this is some kind of revenge or something, or somebody who's really mad and grabbed a pistol," he said. The streets of Utrecht were emptier than usual and mosques in the city kept their doors closed on Monday. Police screened off the site where at least one body lay covered near the tram. Dutch television showed counter-terrorism units surrounding a house in Utrecht and sniffer dogs being put to work. Utrecht, the Netherlands' fourth largest city with a population of around 340,000, is known for its picturesque canals and large student population. Gun killings are rare in Utrecht, as elsewhere in the Netherlands. F rom the Swiss Army knives of the late 1800s to powerbanks and Bluetooth speakers today, gadgets have always had their place in the camping experience. This comes with the caveat that camping gadgets have to do an especially good job. You dont want to be wasting valuable rucksack or campsite space on something faulty or needless. To help you pick the right kit, ES Best has tested 25 of the best camping gadgets available in 2019. Well look at stoves, furniture, tech, lighting, bedding and more everything you need to upgrade your inventory. Anker PowerPort Solar Charger, 21W Were in love with the PowerPort Solar Charger. Its easy-to-use, a little bit geeky and ideally suited for sparking conversations about eco-friendliness. Simply place it in direct sunlight and once its had time to catch some rays you can charge a completely dead phone to full power in about three and a half hours. There is also an eyelet in each corner of the device, so you can safely pin it down with tent pegs. Camping is definitely a time to switch off from the many daily devices we use but a portable solar charger is one of the smartest gadgets to invest in. 60.98 | Amazon | Buy it now LifeSaver Liberty Water Purification Bottle This incredibly clever water purification bottle can be filled with clean, potable water in one of two ways: either scoop water straight into the bottle and use its hand-pump mechanism to purify, or submerge its scavenger hose accessory into a water source and pump the water in. Its surprisingly, impressively user-friendly and yes, it might just prove to be life-saving for campers refreshing themselves from contaminated water supplies. 89.99 | Amazon | Buy it now Coleman 360 Light and Sound Lantern Its not just an LED lantern: its a clear, crisp-sounding Bluetooth speaker that does a great job of playing all sorts of music. Its roughly cylindrical shape is ideal for placing at the centre of a ring of tents, offering good sound to the whole party. We enjoyed trying it out with a few acoustic Beatles tracks. 59.99 | Norwich Camping | Buy it now Primus Kamoto Firepit This really is an astoundingly lovely camping gadget from stove-maker Primus. Superbly well-built, easy to use and designed to pack down flat for storage, the Kamoto makes taking a firepit on your travels seem a simple proposition. Load in your firewood, light it up and let the tray at the base catch the ashes. Also includes a grill to cook food on top. 133.95 | Outdoorgear | Buy it now Vango Jerrycan 10L Taking a jerrycan camping can mean the difference between frequent trips to the tap and occasional ones. If youve ever been to a busy campsite, especially at a music festival, youll get a sense of the benefit this can bring. This ten-litre jerrycan from Vango is an especially fine example of the species, made from tough, lightweight plastic and featuring a handy tap for pouring. 9.99 | Winfields Outdoors | Buy it now Primus Onja Stove Duo Like many of the best camping gadgets, the Primus Onja is both object of beauty and functional tool. With two butane burners, it provides scope to cook dishes that would otherwise prove impractical. Were thinking curry and rice. Be sure to read the instruction booklet and identify the gas valves on the front of the appliance before you attach a fuel canister. 139.95 | Outdoor Gear | Buy it now Eastpak Springer Camo Bum Bag Theres always a little something thatd be good to keep handy when youre at the campsite, whether that be matches, plasters tent pegs or your phone. Eastpaks Springer Bum Bag is a great solution for carrying camping essentials hands-free, with zippered compartments front and back. 25 | Eastpak | Buy it now Helinox Chair One The Helinox is a cut above the average camping chair. Thanks to its super-strong, lightweight DAC aluminium frame, we found it easy to put up and a dream to kick back in. Another work of product engineering magic by Helinox, the Chair One is an outstandingly light, comfortable and practical camping chair. Its even handier than the Savanna model, with a smaller profile that some users may prefer. Were in awe of how easy Helinoxs chairs are to set up. At first, the Chair Ones DAC aluminium frame looks like it may take careful assembly; but in fact, it pretty much puts itself up. 80.54 | Amazon | Buy it now Coleman BatteryGuard Head Torch 250L We couldnt name an invention thats both as useful and as unintentionally comical as the headtorch. This is an excellent example from Coleman, with a comfy headstrap and a 250-lumen light output that can reach up to 125 meters away. A lifesaver for those midnight trips to the loo a hands-free device such as this will come in great use when you least expect it. 22.92 | Amazon | Buy it now Go Travel Hybrid Universal Pillow The crook of your neck will thank you for buying the Hybrid Universal Pillow. This clever gadget combines a layer of memory foam with an inflatable chamber to create remarkably comfy support. You can pack it down into a tiny pouch when not in-use, provided youve squeezed all the air out. 9.99 | John Lewis | Buy it now Helinox The One Table (Hard-top) If we said you could take a table on a camping trip and still pack light, would you believe us? The Table One pulls off the quite miraculous feat of providing a sturdily supported surface while weighing in at under a kilogram. Its a teeny-tiny 36cm tall a good match for the generally low-seated design of camping chairs. 108.25 | Amazon | Buy it now Vango Shangri-La 10 Double Self-inflating Mat If theres one home comfort wed always be glad to take camping with us, itd be something sumptuous to sleep on. The Shangri-La 10 is just that: an exceptionally comfortable airbed with a pleasantly soft surface. It self-inflates in about 30 seconds, so you can leave your foot-pump at home. 158.99 | Amazon | Buy it now Also available from Winfields Outdoors. Mountain Warehouse - Roll Mat If youre going camping, take a roll mat. Youll sleep warmer and more comfortably, and if youre struggling for space in your backpack, you can always loop the mat onto the outside. Theres nothing particularly high-tech or interesting about this mat from Mountain Warehouse, but it does an important job well. 14.99 | Mountain Warehouse | Buy it now Gentlemens Hardware BBQ Multi-tool Open that bottle! Skewer that sausage! Baste that burger! Were not so sure about Gentlemens Hardwares gendered brand name, but were great fans of this top-notch multi-tool, stoutly made from wood and stainless steel. The burger flipper is detachable, so can be used for long periods without incurring arm-ache. A fun and useful camping gadget everyone will want to have a go with. 35 | John Lewis | Buy it now Moshi IonSlim 10K Portable Battery It may not look like the most obvious of camping gadgets, but we can see plenty of people taking the Moshi IonSlim 10K on their travels. With two simultaneously-acting charging ports one USB-A for devices up to 12W; one USB-C PD Port for 30W devices its more than capable of keeping your devices topped up during a weekend away. We found it perfectly easy to use, straight out of the box. Keep it safe in a dry/wet bag. 94.95 | Amazon | Buy it now Gentlemens Hardware Portable Barbecue Suitcase This immensely likeable portable barbecue is perfect for the important business of campsite cookery. Open it out to grill a tasty supper, then fold away to a size not much larger than a piece of A4 paper. We thoroughly enjoyed using it with the BBQ Multitool. 48.35 | Amazon | Buy it now Go Travel Wet or Dry Bag 5L A good wet or dry bag can be a godsend on a camping trip. As the name suggests, you can use this gadget to keep stuff dry, or to quarantine wet items. Its rolltop closing mechanism, similar to those used with some daypacks, stood up comfortably to our testing. 7.99 | John Lewis | Buy it now Campingaz Party Grill 400 CV Campingaz camp stove grill creates an impressively wide cooking area relative to its neat footprint, thanks to its flying-saucer-like design. Its the most versatile cooking gadget weve tested, providing plenty of options with its grill and lid, the latter of which doubles up as a wok. Just the thing to get the party started. 86.45 | Amazon | Buy it now Vango Sunbeam 450 Tent Light System We can scarce imagine a better tent lighting system than the Sunbeam 450. Its tiny, durable LED lights produce 450 lumens of wonderfully warm light; the four beams that make up the set are impressively hard-wearing; and the whole system can be remote controlled, which means theres no need to leave your sleeping bag to turn it off. The Sunbeam 450 does take a little time to set up, but that shouldnt be a problem for you intrepid campers. 99.94 | Amazon | Buy it now Firemizer Fire Fuel Saver This ingenious gadget saves hard fire fuel by slowing down the rate of burn. Itll help that campfire you never want to end last a little longer, and use a little less. We found it easy to use with both the Primus Kamoto Firepit and with a multi-fuel stove at home. 19 | DIY at B&Q | Buy it now Firemizer Firebuilder Another clever invention from Firemizer, Firebuilder acts as both firelighter and kindling. The device itself is a brick of recycled cardboard, which looks a little like a cross between a waffle and a really hench eggbox. We found that using half a Firebuilder brick made lighting our firepit blissfully easy. 6.99 | Firemizer | Buy it now Vango Windshield XL This could be a godsend on windy camping trips. The Vango Windshield XL is built to protect backpacking stoves from the elements. We found it a big help in getting a small stove lit and keeping it that way. The bright orange colour could also help prevent stray feet from knocking stoves over when visibility is poor. Bear in mind that this item is built for use with smaller stoves than the Campingaz, Primus and Gentlemens Hardware options featured here. 13.98 | Amazon | Buy it now M ontana Brown broke down in tears as she recalled the last message she received from Mike Thalassitis before he took his own life. The former Love Island star joined Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning and said she has been left in shock at the news. Brown said she heard from him two days before he was found dead in a woodland in Edmonton on Saturday. Im kicking myself because he texted me and I didnt reply because Im bad at my phone and I just wish Id replied, she said before breaking down. Emotional: Montana Brown said she has been left in shock / ITV He just said hows it going girl, how are you and I didnt reply. Brown said she initially thought news of his death was a horrible rumour after she received a text message from a friend. Friends: Montana Brown and Mike Thalassitis / SplashNews.com I was sat in the pub and thought thats not true thats a horrible rumour so I text him and said there is this really weird rumour going around call me when you get this and it didnt deliver, she said. That rang alarm bells, and then I tried to call him and it went to answerphone. Then I felt sick. Brown claimed Thalassitis, who found fame on Love Island in 2017, had sought help from a therapist after he went through a rough time at the end of last year after work offers started drying up and he was struggling to cope with the stress of fame. Reality stars pay tribute to Mike Thalassitis who has died aged 26 She said: He did go through a really rough time and I know he was really, really struggling and thats when I thought something really terrible is going to happen if I dont do something. At that point the work wasnt coming in, Celebs Go Dating had finished. The buzz had kind of gone. He wanted to be his own boss and he didnt know how to do that. He had a massive tax bill that he paid. The stress really got to him and he thought the fame isnt what its cracked up to be. She continued: When he was going through a rough time I was checking up on him every day and he opened up and said hed been to see a therapist. He wanted someone to tell him how to get out of this dark place because hed tried everything. Mike Thalassitis - In pictures 1 /13 Mike Thalassitis - In pictures Mike Thalassitis and Megan McKenna attend Kisstory On The Common 2018 at Streatham Commo Getty Images Mike Thalassitis on Love Island in 2017 Rex Features Mike on Love Island in 2017 next to contestant Georgia Harrison Rex Features Mike Thalassitis from 'Celebs Go Dating' Getty Images Mike Thalassitis and Danielle Sellers attending the ITV Gala at the London Palladium in November 2017 PA Former Love Island contestant Mike Thalassitis who has died aged 26 PA Mike Thalassitis and Montana Brown leave Sexy Fish restaurant in Mayfair SplashNews.com Mike Thalassitis on Love Island in 2017 ITV Mike Thalassitis and Megan McKenna attend Kisstory On The Common 2018 at Streatham Common, London, in July last year Getty Images Mike Thalassitis on Love Island in 2017 ITV Brown said his death came as a massive shock because she felt like he was coming out of it. He had planned a trip to California and was about to open up a brunch cafe. In my eyes there was no reason for him to do that, she said. I dont know if it was a spontaneous decision but it makes me so sad he had so many demons he went through on his own. Finding fame: Mike Thalassitis on Love Island in 2017 / Rex Features Police and London Ambulance Service were called to a park close to Latymer Way, in Edmonton, north London, on Saturday. A man was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they are not treating the death as suspicious. Thalassitis found fame on Love Island, earning the nickname Muggy Mike, and was on E4s Celebs Go Dating in 2018. A Torrey Pines High School grad and Carmel Valley native will bring television audiences into San Diego with his new NBC sitcom, Abbys. Josh Malmuth, the shows creator and executive producer, sets the show, premiering Thursday, March 28 at 9:30 p.m., at an unlicensed backyard bar in San Diegos South Park. The show centers around the main character, Abby (Natalie Morales), who welcomes her oddball neighbors to the watering hole for cheap drinks and laughs. Malmuth, who graduated from TPHS in 2002 and also co-produced the TV comedy New Girl, recently spoke about his new show in an interview. For more information about Abbys, visit www.nbc.com/abbys Q: How did you develop the premise behind Abbys? A: The sitcoms I loved growing up had very simple setups. I watched Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Cheers and Friends. When I was thinking about creating a show, I wanted to do something really simple, and I wanted it to be really about the characters. I wanted to give the characters a place to hang out. Sitcoms really are about the character relationships and a kind of family bond that develops between them. I thought a bar is just a great place where everybody can be and enjoy themselves. You can really explore the character dynamic in a bar in a really natural, easy-going way. ... I had heard of people who had these unlicensed bars in their backyards, and they became kind of neighborhood gathering places. I thought that would be such an interesting setting for a show and something I havent seen before. The characters are in this kind of neighborhood club in Abbys backyard. It just seems like a fun place to hang out and a fun place to be. I took the concept to [Abbys co-producer and Parks and Recreation co-creator] Mike Schur, and he was excited about it and agreed to help me out. Q: Why did you decide to set the show in San Diego? Are there any local landmarks that you show? A: There arent any local landmarks. I think we do namecheck Sombrero Mexican Food and we mention some local beers. We talk about the Padres a lot. Theres definitely a feeling of San Diego, which I wanted to infuse into the show just because I love San Diego. I chose South Park because I love the mix of people that are in the neighborhood. You have a wide range of ages, people who are new, people who have been there forever. I thought it was just an interesting, eclectic, diverse mix of people that could make up an interesting bar clientele. Its also a cool neighborhood, and I love how the houses look. That was the feeling I wanted for Abbys house and her neighborhood. Q: The set is in a backyard, and you filmed this outdoors with a live audience. What was that like? A: That was one of the things that we got excited about early on in the process was the possibility of doing this as a live audience multi-cam show but actually doing it outside, which no one has ever really done before. Its on the studio backlot at Universal Studios, but its in back of a house and we have bleachers and an audience back there, and its really cool. Q: Were there any challenges with filming that way and in a location like that? A: Yeah, there were some challenges. Sound, obviously, was a big challenge with airplanes, helicopters and traffic noise. Weather, fortunately, really cooperated for us. We wrapped before we got all this rain, which was really fortunate and great. In general, I think it just gives the show this feeling of authenticity. Youre just kind of able to lose yourself in this a little more, I think. Q: With the bar setting, would you consider this as kind of a modern take on Cheers? A: Only really in the sense that they both take place in a bar. I think that the characters and their relationships are very different. Since thats really the heart and soul of the show, I think, in some ways, its almost sort of superficially similar. I definitely kind of drew on Cheers for inspiration in the sense that that was a place where people wanted to spend time, both the characters and the viewers. That was an atmosphere that I really wanted to try to create. Even if I didnt want it to be like Cheers, I wanted that same, This is home, vibe. Q: Youve worked on shows like New Girl. What have you learned working on your previous shows, and how have you carried those lessons into Abbys? A: You learn stuff every day. Every scene and every episode has new challenges. One of the most valuable things Ive learned is that sitcoms, especially, are really about the performers. The writing to the extent that it can be good or bad is about really serving the talent and platforming your performers. We just have this incredible cast Natalie Morales, Neil Flynn (of Scrubs and The Middle), Nelson Franklin, Jessica Chaffin and I think that something I learned from past shows and brought into Abbys was that this is really about featuring their talent. I think the show will be successful because this cast is so wonderful. Its not about you or the scripts, necessarily. Its about these incredible actors and the characters that they bring to life. Q: Abby is an openly bisexual lead character. What led you to that choice? A: Really, it grew out of Natalie Morales identifying as queer and openly bisexual. It kind of grew out of conversations I had with her about what thats like. We decided together that would be an interesting thing to bring to Abby and would open up areas and opportunities. When Natalie and I discussed it, and she was not only comfortable but also excited about portraying a bisexual character, I thought that was interesting and made sense for the character, so we ran with it. Q: Why do you choose to produce sitcoms? Why have they stood the test of time for audiences? A: I think that they become friends that we want to spend time with, and its a world in which we want to spend time. I think thats why theyre so durable. If weve had a hard day, they help us kind of unwind, relax and make sense of the world a little bit. I think thats what were really trying to do with Abbys is just provide this great, laid-back, fun place that you get to spend time and hang out with these great characters. ... Its a place where a lot of points of view are welcome and people can relax over a drink and have a good time. 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"You know very well the challenges at the level of the World Trade Organization, but, moreover, I believe that, as a result of the dialogue we had together, you are also monitoring the results that we, as the Presidency of the Council of the Union wish to have when we talk about the mandates that we have to give our commissioner with the US. As the 90 days pass and President Trump has to express his choice whether he will come or not with customs duties in the automotive area. I believe that continuous dialogue, committed dialogue is the solution that the EU can have in this context," said Radu Oprea. Oprea pointed out that another challenge facing the automotive industry in the EU is given by Brexit "so that the impact that this event will have on the automotive industry to be as small as possible, especially since we have an important Romanian community in the UK but also the jobs you create in Romania." Radu Oprea also said that eight of the top 10 companies that are currently exporting to Romania are in the automotive field - Renault Dacia, Ford and Star Assembly being on the first three places - and asked the representatives of this industry to better integrate the SMEs from Romania in their production chain in order to reduce the costs and increase efficiency and to use the advantages that the Romanian IT industry can bring as added value for the products in the automotive sector. Martin Dawson, Deputy Head of Unit "Audiovisual Industry and Media Support Programmes" DG CONNECT of the European Commission, said Monday that the European audiovisual and cinema policy will focus in the upcoming period on distribution and promotion. We want to focus more on distribution and promotion. Here's what we believe are the important parts of the puzzle. There are also other very important actors: Eurimages and cinematographic centers at the national level. Supporting production is extremely important, but we need to analyze the situation and to realize that we all need to focus more on distribution and promotion. I think we can have more impact if we unlock the power of collaboration and networking. We think we need evolution, not revolution. So we have to continue to provide support, to contribute to the development of our production from the start, but we need to improve the way we do it by adequately supporting collaboration, Dawson told the conference titled "Strengthening European Cooperation through Co-Productions" organized in Bucharest. He said he appreciates the Transylvania International Film Festival - TIFF, "which we proudly support." Martin Dawson said that an online Video On Demand (VOD) platform, through which only European films could be viewed, "a kind of European Netflix", is currently not possible for financial reasons. He added he proposed to the European Commission a 30 percent increase in budget so that it can reach 1.1 billion euro in a seven-year period, from 2021 to 2027. Roberto Olla, Chief Executive Officer Eurimages, advocated for "quality, innovative, but publicly-acclaimed films," while Christine Eloy, general manager of Europa Distribution, argued that European film production must adapt to the regional public. Petar Mitric, co-founder of the Co-Production Research Network (CoRN), also supported the idea of placing greater emphasis on the distribution of European films, advocating for "literacy campaigns" on European film and a European VOD platform. In the same context, film director Cristian Mungiu, managing director of the Les Filmes de Cannes a Bucharest festival, said that "there cannot be a VOD platform at European level as long as we do not have an anti-piracy policy." The conference "Strengthening European Cooperation through Co-Productions", which takes place on Monday and Tuesday in Bucharest, aims to present the fundamental elements that have contributed to the creation of the current film landscape of co-productions and to explore new ways of collaboration in order to increase the competitiveness of the European audiovisual sector, as well as the valorisation of European quality productions, the Ministry of Culture and National Identity states. Minister of Public Finance Eugen Teodorovici announced on Monday in Parliament that the Government will come up with a proposal to amend Emergency Ordinance (OUG) 114, resulting from the dialogue and the interest of the business environment, not through the coercion or under the pressure of companies. "I have always been a man of dialogue, and I will repeat it as many times as necessary. And, as a result of last-minute dialogue, not through coercion, not under the pressure of companies, but for the interest of the business environment in Romania and of the Romanian citizens we will come up in the next period with a proposal to change OUG 114. Here I would like to emphasize very clearly the support and the very good proposals from the colleagues from UDMR [the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania, ed.n.] both when we built the 2019 budget and in the case of Ordinance 114, something I would also like from other parties in Parliament. I ask those who do not believe in the effects of this legislative act to make an impact analysis in order to compare the economic situation before this act and after we have the new approved form," Teodorovici said in the debate on the motion "The PSD [Social Democratic Party, major at rule, ed.n.] Greed Undermines the National Economy," initiated by Save Romania Union (USR), the National Liberal party (PNL) and People's Movement Party (PMP). He accused the initiators of the motion of lying as they claim the ruling coalition does not respect their promises. The plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies discussed on Monday the simple motion against Minister of Public Finance Eugen Teodorovici. Titled "The PSD Greed Undermines the National Economy," the motion was initiated by USR, PNL and PMP. Ford Company invested approximately 1.3 billion euro in the 11 years since taking over the plant in Craiova, Ian Pearson, Vehicle Operations and Site Director of Ford Romania stated, adding that it is paramount for Romania's Government to carry through its commitments as regards the transport infrastructure. In only a few days we will celebrate 11 years since Ford took over the plant in Craiova. In this period we have invested around 1.3 billion euro to develop state-of-the-art technology, both for the production of cars and that of engines, part of these having been presented, as a matter of fact, to our distinguished guests earlier. During today's visit I had the opportunity to inform Mrs. prime minister and her team about our current business plan and about future developments, including the additional 200 million euro investment announced last year for the manufacturing of a second car model here in Craiova, Ian Pearson, Director of Ford Romania told Monday a press conference held alongside Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and members of the Cabinet, at the end of the visit carried out by the latter at the Ford plant. The Ford official specified that no further details about the company's new product can be revealed at the moment. Ian Pearson pointed out that another topic discussed with the Government was related to the infrastructure. We have also discussed other key topics, such as the infrastructure which continues to represent a major disadvantage for us. In our previous talks with Romania's Government we received clear commitments regarding the conclusion of sections 1 and 2 of the express road Craiova-Pitesti, including the two ring roads around Slatina and Bals cities, as well as the work programme for sections 3 and 4. I have emphasised yet again to the Government the fact that it is paramount for them to fulfill these commitments. In addition to this express road, we have also requested a clear schedule for the Pitesti - Sibiu motorway and the repair works of railway links Timisoara-Craiova and Craiova-Calafat. Our investment, especially our new investment in Craiova relies on the Romanian Government's commitments to bring important improvements to the transport infrastructure and we undertake to further collaborate with the Government so as to make sure that these road and railway improvements are finalised, the Ford official said. Pearson added that in addition to the financial commitment, the company has started the recruitment, by the end of the year of 1,700 people, as part of the growth plans. This will bring the total workforce at Ford Craiova at about 6,200 people. Certainly recruiting and training so many people will be a challenge, so in the short term we collaborate with local authorities, Mr. President Prioteasa with his team within the County Council, but also with the mayors of the towns and villages around Craiova to present the opportunities for the existing jobs at Ford. In the long run, we have signed contracts with two local high schools to implement a dual education program starting in September. We believe that good education is a necessity for a thriving economy, he said. Ian Pearson mentioned that last but not least, Ford Romania will continue to play an important role in community life through all the social accountability initiatives developed by the Ford Motor Company Fund, the philanthropic side of the company. Minister Delegate for European Affairs George Ciamba on Monday gave a speech in the opening of the informal meeting of EU ministers for Diaspora policies, an event organized by the Ministry for Romanians Everywhere, in which he stressed that the free movement of citizens is a fundamental principle enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. In the context of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, he referred to the principle of cohesion and focused on the first pillar of the program - Europe of Convergence: Growth, Cohesion, Competitiveness, Connectivity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) said in a press release issued for AGERPRES. "Cohesion is the key-principle that can restore the Union's connection with its citizens, rebuilding their trust in the EU project. Therefore, promoting values included in the treaties such as cohesion, equality, freedom, democracy, human dignity and solidarity can help to ensure real support for advancing this project," George Ciamba said, according to the press release. The minister delegate for European affairs said that the defense of the rights and interests of all citizens, no matter where they choose to live, study, work, innovate or complete their cultural heritage, must be a priority for the governments of the member states. George Ciamba reminded that the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU has managed to reach a provisional agreement with the European Parliament on the creation of the European Labor Authority, an institution that will assist the member states in the implementation of EU legal acts in the field of labor mobility at Union level, as well as on the coordination of social security. The Romanian official also highlighted the importance of mobility for educational purposes, education being a key area for the future of Europe, from the individual perspective of the citizen, who should enjoy the opportunity to study in any EU member state. The new European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Regional Director for Romania and Bulgaria Mark Davis arrived in Bucharest on Monday, the EBRD informs in a release sent to AGERPRES. The EBRD delegation, headed by Jurgen Rigterink, First Vice President and Head of Client Services Group, and Alain Pilloux, Vice President, Banking, touched down in Bucharest for talks with the authorities and the business community in Romania on the investment climate, the ways to boost the EBRD financing in Romania and also on the development of infrastructure and drawing of foreign investment. The EBRD delegation during this visit will present Mark Davis, the bank's new Regional Director for Romania and Bulgaria, who is to start his mandate as of 1 April 2019. The delegation also includes Charlotte Ruhe, Managing Director, Central and South Eastern Europe, and Matteo Patrone, who coordinated the operations in Romania and Bulgaria between 2015 and 2018, recently appointed the new managing director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. EBRD is the main institutional investor in Romania, with over EUR 8.3 billion. In 2018, the EBRD invested more than EUR 400 million in various sectors of the Romanian economy, according to the bank's release. The 3-day visit comprises meetings with Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, Public Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici, and the central bank's Governor Mugur Isarescu. Moreover, the EBRD delegation will talk with representatives of the business community. EBRD will continue to invest in Romania, including through corporate financing, public-private partnerships or project finance in infrastructure, in the privatisation of the state-run companies and the support of the SMEs. I am looking forward to the talks with the Government related to the reforms on the business milieu, in order to unlock Romania's investment potential, First Vice President Jurgen Rigterink said in relation to the EBRD delegation's visit. The Ministry of Public Finance organizes on 5-6 April 2019 the informal meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, where Finance Ministers of the Member States, central banks' Governors, European commissioners and high-ranking representatives of the EU institutions are due to attend, the institution announced on Monday. "It is an honor and a pleasure for me to welcome my counterparts in Bucharest as well as the other European officials. I think it is important they know our country, especially that for some ministers it is their first visit to Romania. We have prepared some topics of interest, such as the 2021-2027 multi-annual financial framework, labor taxation, the priorities of the future institutional cycle and hopefully we will have some interesting and constructive discussions," Minister of Public Finance Eugen Teodorovici stated. Foreign and Romanian journalists are expected for the event, and the media partners are the Romanian Television, Radio Romania Actualitati and Agerpres. CANBERRA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Spacecrafts launched by Australia's national space agency will be monitored from a mission control center based in Australia's state of South Australia, the government announced. Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews on Monday told News Corp Australia that in addition to housing the Australian Space Agency, Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, will also be the home of mission control and the Space Discovery Center. Andrews committed 12 million Australian dollars (8.5 million U.S. dollars) in funding for the two projects, which are both part of the City Deal between federal, state and local governments that will see the former site of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, transformed into the agency's inaugural home. She said that the deal was part of the government's plan to boost South Australia's economy by making it the center of Australia's fast-growing space industry. "A Mission Control Centre helps position SA for that," Andrews told News Corp Australia. "I'm also keen to inspire more Australians to embrace the endless possibilities of space and the Space Discovery Center will engage our youth to pursue their interstellar dreams." The Australian Space Agency has been expected with the aim to triple the annual value of Australia's space industry to 12 billion Australian dollars (8.5 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030, creating 20,000 jobs along the way. Andrews said that the facility will also provide certainty for private Australian space businesses, which will be able to develop their own technology with the knowledge that Australian facilities will be able to provide support. "It will be available for use by space start-ups and small-to-medium enterprise space businesses, as well as research and educational institutions from across Australia," she said. [ Editor: WPY ] Secretary of State with the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) Dan Neculaescu will attend on Monday the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC), which will take place in Brussels according to Agerpres. According to a MAE release, the main topics included on the agenda are the Republic of Moldova, China and Yemen. On the FAC meeting sidelines, a working breakfast called "Friends of the Republic of North Macedonia" will be organised by Romania and Greece, with the following special guests in attendance: Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs of North Macedonia Bujar Osmani and Macedonian Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Dimitrov.Moreover, State Secretary Dan Neculaescu will also participate, alongside European officials, in a working lunch attended by China's State Councilor and Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi, occasion on which the EU-China relation will be discussed, the quoted source also informs. AB Vista appoints industry expert to US ruminant team Livestock nutrition specialist Dr Cathy Bandyk has joined AB Vista as ruminant technical manager for NAFTA and will support customers across North America, Mexico and Brazil. Working within the commercial ruminant team, Bandyk will provide technical advice and information on AB Vista's ruminant products which include liquid pre-treatment VistaPre-T and live yeast Vistacell. A three-time Kansas State University graduate with a PhD in ruminant nutrition, Bandyk brings to the role more than 20 years' experience in industry, prior to which she owned and operated a crop and livestock farm. Bruce Hageman, North America ruminant commercial manager at AB Vista, explained that this combination of skills will prove invaluable within Bandyk's role. "Cathy's diverse mix of academic, industry and personal business experience equips her with a unique understanding of different stakeholder perspectives. Her time in farm management means she will appreciate our customers' needs and challenges - whilst her industry insights will prove valuable in helping to steer market-led research and development," Hageman said. A former AFIA Member of the Year, Bandyk contributes to a number of the organisation's committees across the fields of feed, ruminant nutrition and education. - AB Vista Canadian Bio-Systems: VIV Asia presents "bright future" for livestock, feed sectors Canadian Bio-Systems Inc., which recently attended the VIV Asia show in Bangkok, Thailand, noted the new advances in feed technology that are helping to drive a new generation of livestock industry developments across the Asia Pacific. "An important new time of opportunity is taking hold for animal agriculture in the Asia Pacific," said Rob Patterson, technical sirector of Canadian Bio-Systems Inc. (CBS Inc.). "Feed technology is a major driver. VIV Asia provides a window not only on many of the latest advances but also the bright future that lies ahead as more producers, nutritionists, feed mills and industry take advantage of the latest science-based knowledge and tools. Poultry, swine, ruminant and aquaculture industries all have strong potential to reach new levels of sophistication, efficiency and profitability." The key to success is to overcome traditional barriers, said Dr. Eduardo Tuason, CBS Inc.'s international sales manager for Asia Pacific. Compared to western countries, many key production regions of the Asia Pacific have faced greater challenges in terms of the feed sources available, with limited choices, lack of consistency in feed sources, cost obstacles and other factors. "Access to the right feed technology is becoming the great equaliser for the Asia Pacific. It allows producers to get far more value and benefits from feed. It is a major agent of change that is driving a new generation of progress across the region." CBS Inc. is an example of an innovation-focused animal nutrition company continuing to build on years of investment growing relationships and presence in the region, helping to bring the benefits of new knowledge, science and technology to a fast-evolving emerging market, the company said. Earlier in the week prior to VIV Asia 2019, CBS Inc. hosted its 2nd Asian Nutrition Summit in Bangkok, featuring leading experts who discussed new frontiers in swine and poultry nutrition. Featured speakers included Dr. Elijah Kiarie of the University of Guelph (Canada) and Dr. Joey Lee of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (Taiwan). Leading examples of the top areas of feed technology now becoming more widely available and adopted in the Asia Pacific include those featured as CBS Inc. Feed Science Platforms (FSPs). The FSPs include five areas of feed technology innovation: Multi-Carbohydrase technology, enhanced yeast technology, grain management technology, functional fatty acids, and phytogenics and probiotics. Each FSP area offers unique approaches to feed enhancement. Multi-Carbohydrase technology is a leading-edge area of enzyme technology pioneered by CBS Inc. that involves using multiple enzymes with multiple activities to achieve a high level of targeted feed breakdown and nutrition capture. Enhanced yeast technology features natural growth promoter (NGP) activity supporting healthy animals and optimised productivity. Functional fatty acids are currently gaining more attention in particular for their potential to replace conventional options and support systems moving toward reduced use of antimicrobials. Grain management technology focuses on safeguarding feed quality to provide a valuable quality assurance tool and insurance policy for both feed and animals. Phytogenics and probiotics represent innovative plant-based extract technologies that help support a positive and nurturing environment critical to get the most efficiency and benefits from feed and nutrition approaches. The platforms are backed by technical support including a newly launched web-based app to help livestock operations determine a FSP 'fingerprint' in order to identify the best customised package for each operation. This includes opportunities to capture unique synergies via combined application of different technologies. "Precision and custom tailoring is the future of feed technology," said Dr. Tuason. "This is the case no matter where you are in the word. Today, we are seeing this as a rising trend in the Asia Pacific which is placing this region on a more level playing field with other global animal production regions. It's an exciting time to be a part of this progress, working closely with our valued partners and expanding customer base." "Every time we participate at VIV Asia, including this year as our first time as a stand-alone exhibitor, we see more energy and excitement around feed technology," said Krisjan Jones, CBS Inc.'s operations director and part of the company's VIV Asia 2019 delegation. "This reflects what we are seeing in the field as the bar of performance and opportunity for this region keeps rising higher." - Canadian Bio-Systems Under the directorship of torture and black site maven Gina Haspel, Donald Trumps Central Intelligence Agency has returned to its traditional roots of conducting black bag operations and disrupting electrical grids through cyber-attacks. The Venezuelan government has accused the Trump administration of giving the green light for a series of crippling power failures in Venezuela, which affected 22 of Venezuelas 23 states, including the capital of Caracas. The long-duration power failures were cited by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a reason for the US withdrawing its diplomats from Caracas. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that an international commission assisted by specialists from Russia, China, Iran, and the United Nations would help his country analyze the sources of the Venezuelan electrical grid cyber-attack. Initial cyber-forensics by Venezuela traced some of the cyber warfare being waged against Venezuela to nodes in Houston and Chicago. In addition to electricity, water service was disrupted in Venezuela. From Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Maduro tweeted on March 12: From the Presidential Command Post, we monitored minute-by-minute the progress of the recovery of the National Electric System. Cyber-attacks on a country that puts its civilian population in jeopardy might, at first glance, appear to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions on warfare. However, without a Digital Geneva Convention, civilian populations are not covered by the current Geneva Conventions. However, in 2015, the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (UN GGE), which included experts from the United States, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and other nations, agreed that current international law does apply to cyberspace. Most international legal experts agree that the Geneva Conventions require a digital annex to cover the type of cyber-disruption of the Venezuelan electrical grid carried out by the US intelligence services. Hybrid warfare against Venezuela, which includes economic, diplomatic, and cyber, has the backing of the neo-conservatives who now call the shots for the Trump White House. They include, in addition to Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton; Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams, Trumps special envoy to the US-backed opposition-led rump Venezuelan government of Juan Guaido; Cuban-American Mauricio Claver-Carone, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council; and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, who represents the interests of South Floridas right-wing oligarch exiles from Venezuela and other Latin American countries. While Trump was preparing for his Hanoi summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trumps second summit with Kim, Haspels CIA dug into its old bag of black operations, while also engaging in the more modern form of cyber-attack in targeting North Korea. On February 22, 2019, ten males, all wearing masks, broke into the North Korean embassy, which is located in the residential suburb of Aravaca, north of Madrid, Spain, and subjected eight embassy staff members to brutal interrogation tactics, including tying up the diplomats, throwing black bags over their heads (a specialty of Ms. Haspel), and subjecting them to beatings. One female diplomat managed to escape through a second-floor window and her screams alerted a neighbor, who promptly called the police. Two embassy employees required medical attention from their injuries. The Spanish police and National Intelligence Center (CNI) linked two of the embassy invaders to the CIA. El Pais, a Spanish national newspaper, reported that the CIA issued one of its standard denials, however, the paper stated that Spanish authorities found the denial from Langley, Virginia to be unconvincing. El Pais reported that the invasion of the North Korean embassy by the CIA had severely harmed relations between Madrid and Washington. The National Police Corps General Commissariat of Information (CGI) and CNI concluded that the attack and occupation of the North Korean embassy was not carried out by common criminals but was the work of a military cell that stole mobile phones and computers. Two of the embassy invaders were identified as Koreans and, based on CGIs and CNIs analysis of security camera video footage, they were further recognized as Koreans linked to the CIA. Spanish authorities did not rule out the possibility that South Koreas National Intelligence Service assisted the CIA in the embassy invasion. The embassy invaders escaped from the embassy using two North Korean luxury sedans bearing diplomatic plates. The cars were later found abandoned. The criminal inquiry into the incident is now before the Spanish High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, which could order the arrests of the embassy attackers and, if they are in the United States or South Korea, have Spains INTERPOL national bureau put out a Red Notice for their arrest and extradition to Spain to stand trial. Spanish authorities believe the CIAs embassy attackers were looking for information on Kim Hyok Chol, the former North Korean ambassador to Spain, who was declared persona non grata by the Spanish government in 2017. Kim Hyok Chol, a career diplomat from one of North Koreas elite families who studied French at the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies and speaks fluent English, is now one of Kim Jong Uns trusted diplomatic advisers on nuclear talks with the Trump administration and he traveled with Chairman Kim to the failed Hanoi summit with Trump. With certainty, Kim Hyok Chol thoroughly briefed Kim Jong Un on the CIAs storming of his old diplomatic post in Spain. When Trump and Chairman Kim met in Hanoi on February 27 and if the issue of the CIAs siege of the North Korean embassy was brought up, that could have been enough to derail the summit. Considering the fact that war hawks like Bolton, Abrams, and Pompeo are now calling the foreign policy shots for the Trump administration, the attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid, just five days prior to the Hanoi summit, may have been ordered by Washingtons neo-con cell with the intention of scuttling the second meeting between Trump and Kim and put on ice any future meetings. There is further evidence that suggests the neo-cons, in cahoots with Haspel at the CIA, set out to disrupt the Hanoi summit. While Trump was meeting with Kim in Vietnam, the CIA is believed to have launched a cyber-attack on the Korean American National Coordinating Council (KANCC) in New York, an organization with ties to the Pyongyang government. KANCC is a non-governmental organization with offices in the Interchurch Center building, near Columbia University in Manhattan. It champions the dropping of US sanctions against North Korea, a sore point in Hanoi between Trump and Kim. The Trump-Kim Hanoi summit was reported to have hit a roadblock over North Koreas request for a partial lifting of US sanctions on North Korea, in return for the continued North Korean moratorium on nuclear testing and a partial freeze on production of fissile material. With the CIAs attack on the North Korean embassy in Spain still fresh in the minds of the North Korean side and the neo-cons insistence, pushed by Bolton and Pompeo, for complete North Korean nuclear disarmament, the Hanoi summit was destined for failure. And, with Bolton, Abrams, Pompeo, and other dangerous neo-cons in charge at the White House and the State Department and Haspel dancing to their tune at the CIA North Korea and Venezuela are not the only countries currently in the gunsights of the Trump administration. After more than six years of delays, Poland has placed an order for twenty HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) vehicles from the American manufacturer Lockheed. This is the initial HIMARS order and ultimately Poland wants to obtain over a hundred HIMARS vehicles and more than a thousand GMLRS (GPS guided MLRS) rockets. This initial order will equip one HIMARs battalion with 18 HIMARS vehicles while the other two will be used for training. Poland is not buying a lot of GMLRS rockets right now because a new, longer range version is on the way. This will be called TC-GMLRS (Tail Controlled Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System) and will have a range of 135 kilometers. TC-GMLRS has already been successfully tested at ranges up to 110 kilometers. The TC-GMLRS rocket is the same size as the current GMLRS rocket and is designed to be used from existing HIMARS (and older MLRS) vehicles after some changes to the fire control system to accommodate the longer range. Prototype TC-GMLRS rockets underwent several successful test launches in 2018 and production versions are expected in two or three years. As the name implies, TC-GMLRS moves the guidance fins from the nose to the rear and that alone increases range. A more powerful rocket motor, the same size as the current one, is also in development. By moving the guidance fins to the rear of the rocket TC-GMLRS now had room in the nose of the rocket for laser homing sensors and electronics. This would provide a terminal guidance system for even more precise targeting. The GPS guidance system guarantees the missile will land within a ten meter wide circle while laser guidance allows for much more precision (hitting within a meter of the aiming point). The Americans were the first to put such precise terminal guidance systems into service four decades ago. The Polish HIMARS order had been delayed since 2012 because a competing Polish Homar (Lobster) design was under development. HIMARS and GMLRS eventually won the competition because the American system was cheaper and had considerable battlefield experience. By 2017 Poland had decided to adopt the American GMLRS rocket. Poland wanted to get GMLRS into action quickly and at the lowest possible cost and in 2018 Polish and American analysts concluded that buying the American made HIMARS vehicles rather than building a Polish version was not only cheaper but would be delivered to Polish troops sooner. For several years Polish defense studies had shown that the state-owned Polish defense industries could deliver a comparable launcher (to HIMARS) and a comparable Polish made GPS guided rocket. The Americans were willing to allow for license built systems, which is quite common when it comes to fellow NATO members. But in early 2018 American and Polish technical experts got together to work out the details and it was discovered that the Polish manufacturers expected to handle adapting the American tech to existing Polish truck-mounted rocket launcher systems would require more time and higher costs than earlier believed. Some of the American tech to be transferred was going to require the construction of new manufacturing facilities and that use of these facilities beyond the HIMARS contract were not guaranteed. The delays alarmed Polish military planners who increasingly saw the precision firepower provided by GMLRS, a combat proven system, becoming more urgent as the Russian threat seemed to grow. A quick recalculation determined that it would now cost about the same, even be a little cheaper to order the HIMARS vehicles rather than integrating HIMARS technology into the existing, and similar Polish Homar rocket system. The Homar plan looked good on paper as it involved HIMARS launchers mounted on Polish 6x6 trucks rather than the standard HIMARS system mounted on the 6x6 U.S. Army vehicle system that nearby Romania and other export customers purchased. The Homar plan involved buying 25 GMLRS rockets as well as 61 ATACMS rockets, 34 practice rockets and 1,642 GMLRS guidance systems to be fitted to Polish made rockets as well as GMLRS guidance system test and maintenance systems. This $250 million sale was to enable Poland to build a Polish version of HIMARS launchers under license and integrate the Polish HIMARS with Polish artillery fire control systems using NATO standards. But in the end, the Polish military commanders made a compelling argument that the Russian threat would not wait for the American tech to be adopted by Polish manufacturers and the quickest and most effective solution was HIMARS and GMLRS. Polish manufacturers had long experience with MLRS systems and in adopting new technology. In a decade Polish firms would be offering competitive local designs that could safely complement and then replace the HIMARS/GMLRS. Most export customers find that the American made $5 million HIMARS truck mounted MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) is already a bargain. Thats what the U.S. Army and Marines found when they adopted HIMARS, which carries only one, six MLRS rocket pod instead of two in the original larger, tracked, MLRS vehicle. Initially, a major attraction was that the 12-ton truck could fit into a C-130 transport (unlike the 22 ton tracked MLRS) and was much cheaper to operate. The first HIMARS entered service in 2005, about a year after GMLRS (GPS guided MLRS rockets) did. The two new innovations worked well together and were a major reason for the success of the GMLRS and the HIMARS rocket launcher. The U.S. no longer buys the tracked MLRS or unguided MLRS rockets. Poland, like most HIMARS and MLRS users, are now only buying guided rockets. Poland had originally planned to integrate longer range (150-499 kilometer) Homar guided rockets it was already developing into the American HIMARS system. Poland was a major weapons manufacturer during the Cold War when it was occupied by Russian military forces and secret police. During that period Poland produced Russian weapons under license and gradually developed improved versions of the Russian designs. Now even the Russians and Chinese are copying the success of HIMARS/GMLRS. It turned out that the tech the HIMARS used was pretty powerful, enabling HIMARS to operate (move, receive a target order and launch the GMLRS) using as few as one of the normal three man crew. All that tech is great and Poland would still like to build it under license but the army needed the HIMARS capability now, not later. Since joining NATO in 1999 Poland has largely replaced Russian weapons with Western ones or upgraded Russian systems to NATO standards. That alone created a new business opportunity for Polish defense firms and Poland is again becoming a major arms producer. Thus it was no surprise that Poland wanted to build its own version of the guided MLRS rockets, a weapon that had been in service since 2004 as GMLRS. Like the unguided version, the GMLRS is packaged and used in containers (pods) holding six rockets each. The fire control system was upgraded to handle precision targeting rather than just a general area. Poland already builds several truck-mounted rocket systems but these still use unguided rockets. Moving up to HIMARS type launch vehicles and GMLRS type rockets was seen as the future and it still is. Getting there just turned out to take longer than the Polish Army thought necessary. Since 2004 over 3,000 GMLRS rockets have been fired in combat. These guided rockets cost about $100,000 each and have been very successful. That has meant even less work for tube artillery, which had dominated the battlefield since the 17th century. The Polish GMLRS rockets will be based on existing Polish rockets and eventually be cheaper to manufacture. Meanwhile, the U.S. manufacturer has had to resume (after a brief halt) and increase production of the M142 American HIMARS vehicle system for the growing number of export customers. The 309 kg (680 pound) GMLRS missile is a GPS guided 227mm rocket. It was designed to have a range of 70 kilometers and the ability to land within meters of its intended target, at any range. This is possible because it uses GPS (plus a backup inertial guidance system) to find the target location it was programmed with. In 2008 the army tested GMLRS at max range (about 85 kilometers) and found that it worked fine. This enables one MLRS/HIMARS vehicle to provide support over a frontage of 170 kilometers, or, in places with wide open spaces, like the Eurasian Plains Poland shares with Russia, HIMARS can provide precision fire support over an area of about 20,000 square kilometers. This is a huge footprint for a single weapon (an individual MLRS/HIMARS vehicle), and fundamentally changes the way you deploy artillery in combat. By way of comparison, Excalibur (GPS guided 155mm shell) has a max range of 37 kilometers, and 120mm GPS guided mortars about 7.5 kilometers. Soon after GMLRS rockets became available it became obvious (to users) that the 89 kg (196 pound) M31A1 high explosive ("unitary") warhead was preferable (and a lot cheaper) than the planned cluster bomblet warheads. About half of the unitary warhead weight is actual explosives. That's twice as much explosive as the U.S. Air Force 130 kg (285 pound) SDB (Small Diameter Bomb). A 155mm artillery shell has 6.6 kg of explosives, and the 500 pound (227 kg) bomb has 127 kg of explosives, which produced an excessive blast for many urban combat situations. The GMLRS seemed to be just right most of the time. GMLRS has been used with great success in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, where most have been fired so far. The guided rocket is much more effective than the older, unguided, version, and has replaced it for most users. The accuracy of GMLRS means that one rocket does the job that previously required a dozen or more of the unguided ones. That's why HIMARS is so popular. While HIMARS only carries six rockets, that's often enough to last for days in places like Afghanistan, even when there's a lot of combat. Because of precision weapons like GMLRS and smart bombs, since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. Army has drastically reorganized and reduced its artillery force. At the end of the Cold War most artillery was conventional tube artillery. That meant towed 105mm, 155mm and 203mm howitzers and self-propelled 175mm, 155mm and 203mm howitzers. The MLRS, a 12 tube 227mm unguided rockets was just entering service when the Cold War ended. In the 1990s it became obvious that smart bombs (JDAM) first used in the 1991 Gulf War were more effective than artillery, and that led to a major shift away from using artillery. By 2004 over 40 tube artillery battalions had been disbanded. Noting the success of GMLRS, Russia and China have developed and put into service their own GPS guided rockets. Russia has long led in the design of new rocket systems was is playing catchup when it comes to using guided rockets. The multiple rocket launcher was first developed by the Russians before World War II as a cheap alternative to massed artillery fire by individual guns. Long seen as a supplement to regular artillery, the introduction of the high tech U.S. MLRS rocket system in the 1980s began to make a lot of conventional artillery obsolete even before GMLRS came along. Of course, artillery has always been ripe for innovation. The U.S. 175mm gun, introduced in the 1960s, was rendered obsolete in the 1980s with the introduction of special long range ammo for the 203mm (8 inch) howitzer. The U.S. Army stopped using the 175mm gun in the 1970s. When the MLRS entered service, one of the three batteries in each division's 203mm howitzer battalion was equipped with MLRS units instead. But MLRS proved so effective that the 203mm howitzer battalion became an MLRS battalion and the 203mm gun was dropped by the U.S. Army. There were always non-divisional MLRS battalions, as the MLRS was seen, from the beginning, as an ideal weapon for massed artillery fire. The Gulf War allowed the MLRS to show off what a potent weapon it could be. The larger rockets also provided room for more complex payloads (cluster and "smart" munitions) and guidance systems. This was another example of how technology can transform an old weapon. While the Russians have been using rocket launchers for over 70 years, they never got around to enhancing their effectiveness with a lot of technology until recently and then only because they noted others were doing so and succeeding. Now everyone is changing their artillery forces and adapting to the use of many fewer guided projectiles. In early 2019 Russia confirmed that the second Lada class submarine would be completed and ready for sea trials by the end of 2019. The first Lada had entered service in 2010 but the second two were canceled in 2011 when the Navy revealed that years of sea trials (Lada had been completed in 2005) demonstrated that the performance of this design did not meet Navy requirements and work was halted on the second and third ones. But the second Lada was nearly ready for launch and the work already completed was preserved. Thus it was possible to resume work quickly and the second Lada was launched in September 2018. The third Lada had work resumed in 2015 but that was halted before it was ready for launch. The main problem with Lada appears to have been the long promised Russian AIP (air independent propulsion) system. That AIP and several other upgrades later added to new Kilo class models were supposed to justify calling the Ladas a new class of sub, not just another improved Kilo. Russia then turned to an Italian ship builder to jointly develop and build the Amur class subs, which would use Western AIP tech. Russia was never able to obtain any export sales of Amur and the project was canceled in 2013. Amur would have been dead soon anyway because of the sanctions imposed on Russia because of the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Lada was developed in the 1990s as the successor to the Kilo class, but the promised differences that made Lada unique, especially the AIP, were never ready so there was not enough difference between the Lada and the improved Kilos being built to justify continuing work on the Kilo successor. The Lada has a surface displacement of 1,750 tons, are 71 meters (220 feet) long, and carries a crew of 38. Each crew member has their own cabin (very small for the junior crew, but still a big morale boost). When submerged the submarine can cruise at a top speed of about 39 kilometers an hour (half that on the surface) and can dive to about 250 meters (800 feet). The Lada can stay at sea for as long as 50 days and can travel as much as 10,000 kilometers using its diesel engine (underwater, via the snorkel). Submerged, using battery power alone, the Lada can travel about 450 kilometers. There is also an electronic periscope (which goes to the surface via a cable) that includes a night vision capability and a laser range finder. The Lada was designed to accept an AIP system. The Ladas are designed to be fast attack and scouting boats and have six 533mm torpedo tubes, with 18 torpedoes and/or missiles carried. They are intended for anti-surface and anti-submarine operations as well as reconnaissance. These boats are said to be eight times quieter than the Kilos. This was accomplished by using anechoic (sound absorbing) tile coatings on the exterior and a very quiet (skewed) propeller. All interior machinery was designed with silence in mind. The sensors include active and passive sonars, including towed passive sonar. Russian submarine designers apparently believe they can install most of these quieting features into improved Kilos, along with many other Lada features. But the main distinction between Lada and late-model Kilos is the AIP and the second Lada does not have it. The plan is to see if the accumulated Kilo upgrades applied to the Lada work and then install the AIP in the third Lada. What Russia has not discussed is the fact that most Kilos, and Ladas as well, are meant for export and China has been getting more and more export sales that otherwise would have been for Russian Kilos. China has been building its own Kilo clones and in mid-2018 the Chinese navy proclaimed that its new AIP equipped submarine had performed very well. Actually, as described the Chinese AIP performed about as well as early Western AIP systems. For the Chinese that was good enough because they have had problems getting their AIP (apparently based on the Swedish Stirling AIP system) to perform adequately and reliably. China has been working on getting a working AIP system in one of their Yuan class Type 39B subs for over fifteen years but until now no Chinese AIP equipped boats were seen in action. That changed in early 2018 when a new Yuan class sub went to sea and operated like an AIP boat (staying underwater for more than seven days at a time). According to the Chinese press releases their AIP sub stayed under for over two weeks at a time, which is typical of what a Stirling AIP system can do. China may now have three of these AIP equipped boats. That is because in late 2016 China apparently resumed building more of its Yuan class subs. These are based on the late model Russian Kilo class diesel-electric boats. Construction of the Yuans appeared have halted in 2013 for reasons unknown. Then at the end of 2016 three more of these Yuan class (Type 39B) subs were seen being built. The last new Type 39B appeared in late 2013 but even before that, there were indications that this was another pause to absorb user experience with the current model and plan modifications for the next batch. This new batch is apparently the three new ones that recently went to sea. When these enter service China will have ten Type 39Bs, plus three of the earlier Type 39A versions. In late 2016 it was believed the three latest 39Bs would have many modifications and upgrades, some of them visible because of minor changes in the conning tower or hull features. China was apparently upgrading its sensor and fire control electronics but the capabilities of these wont be detected until foreign subs encounter the new 39Bs at sea. At that point, U.S. subs will be able to construct an acoustic and electronic signature of the new 39Bs so they can be more easily and quickly identified in the future. That process also confirmed that the latest 39Bs had working AIP. How reliable the AIP is will come only after thousands of hours of use but so far the Chinese AIP appears to have encountered no major problems. One thing was certain about the latest Type 39Bs; the Chinese are continuing their relentless effort to create world-class subs one tweak and improvement at a time. Since the late 1980s, China has been designing and building a rapidly evolving collection of "Song" (Type 39) class diesel-electric submarines that emphasize quietness and incremental improvements. The changes have been so great that the four Songs completed in 2013 were recognized as a new type and designated the Yuan class (Type 39A). The original design (Type 39) was a 1,800 ton Kilo type sub that first appeared in the late 1990s and 13 were built. The larger (2,800 ton) Type 39A first appeared in 2006. The Type 39A quickly involved into the larger and more lavishly equipped Type 39B. The evolution continues, and there are now thirteen "Type 39 Yuan Class" subs (of at least four distinct models). These latest models were thought to have AIP along with new electronics and other internal improvements. Now the presence of AIP has been confirmed. This rapid evolution of the Type 39 appears to be another example of China adapting Russian submarine technology to Chinese design ideas and new technology. China has been doing this for as long as it has been building subs (since the 1960s). But the recent versions of the Type 39B design show Chinese naval engineers getting more creative. The Yuans were meant to have an AIP that would allow them to cruise underwater longer. Western AIP systems allow subs to stay underwater for two weeks or more. China has been working on AIP since 1975 and the first working prototype was available by 1998. A decade later it seemed that design was ready for regular use but it wasnt. The first Chinese AIP had less power and reliability and did not appear to be nearly as capable as planned Russian or existing Western models. In part, this was because that AIP used lead-acid batteries. The Chinese kept improving on their AIP, and the last half dozen AIP systems were designed to use a more efficient lithium battery system. This AIP 2.0 has numerous other tweaks and appears, on paper at least, to match what most Western AIPs can do and thats the version that was installed in one (or all three) of the latest Type 39B subs. The Songs look a lot like the Russian Kilo class and that was apparently no accident. The 39s and 39A/Bs are both similar in appearance but the type 39A/Bs appear larger than the 1,800 ton Type 39s. Both have with crews of 60-70 sailors and six torpedo tubes. This is very similar to the Kilos (which are a bit larger). China began ordering Russian Kilo class subs, then one of the latest diesel-electric designs available, in the late 1990s. The first two Type 39Bs appeared to be a copy of the early model Kilo (the model 877), while the second pair of Type 39Bs appeared to copy the late Kilos (model 636). The latest Yuans still appear like Kilos but may be part of an evolution into a sub that is similar to the Russian successor to the Kilo, the Lada. The Type 39s were the first Chinese subs to have the teardrop shaped hull. The Type 39B was thought to be just an improved Song but on closer examination, especially by the Russians, it looked like a clone of the Kilos. The Russians now believe that the entire Song/Yuan project is part of a long-range plan to successfully copy the Kilo. If that is the case, it appears to be succeeding and the Russians suddenly rushing to resume work on an AIP Lada seems to confirm that. Other evidence is the AIP equipped Chinese subs being offered to export customers. Meanwhile, China has been offering its improved Kilo designs to export customers. In late 2016 China confirmed that final details have been agreed to on the sale of eight Chinese S20 diesel-electric submarines to Pakistan. These are export versions of the Type 39A that lack many of the advanced features. Four of these will be built in China while at the same time Chinese personnel will assist Pakistan in building another four in Pakistan. Final cost is expected to average somewhere between $500 million and $600 million each and the first one will enter service by 2023. Since early 2014 China and Pakistan have been negotiating prices and terms for the sale of the S20. At first, it was believed that Pakistan wanted six subs, but the final deal specified eight. Currently, the Pakistani Navy has five submarines and plans to use all of them against India (which is also considered a Chinese foe). In 2017 China sold three of those export model Yuan class subs to Thailand. These boats will cost over $400 million each. Five years earlier those nations would have been inclined to select the veteran Kilo that first entered service in 1982. So far, 70 Kilos have been built of which 60 are still in service, and more are under construction. It may be an old design, but it is mature and has been updated with modern electronics and quieting technology. But Kilo never had AIP and Russia has yet to demonstrate that their AIP design actually works. The newly appointed (by former president Bouteflika) prime minister is having a hard time forming a new transitional government because the new prime minister is a known ally of the Bouteflika brothers. Trust is in short supply but the opposition is not as united as the FLN. While there are factions in FLN (there was disagreement over delaying the elections and forming an interim government) the FLN has an opportunity to recover and still has the support of the major business interests. With the Bouteflika faction no longer dominant and the survival of the FLN at stake, the political cards in Algeria are being reshuffled and no one can predict what the next government will be like or how long it will take to get one. The opposition is hostile to any FLN appointed transition government but will accept a transitional government led by neutral interim (for about six months) leaders. Agreeing on who is neutral is difficult but not impossible but so far there is no agreement on going in that direction. Meanwhile, the economy stumbles along with no major strikes and most workers preferring to keep their jobs if possible, at least as long as there is continued progress in getting a popular government. The military has declared it is all about maintaining peace and security and is not planning any moves against protestors as long as the protests remain generally nonviolent. The Algerian military, despite being run by FLN loyalists, has announced it would not take sides and would not fire on the people unless there was no other choice. The Catalyst Apparently growing Internet access was the catalyst in bringing most (at least 70 percent) of the under 30 Algerians into the streets to protest the decades long misrule of the FLN party and FLN efforts to get the crippled president Bouteflika elected to a fifth term. The sudden appearance of so many demonstrators caught the FLN and most of the current government leaders unprepared. The protests are not about another revolution- people just want existing laws to be obeyed. The main demand is for free elections, something that has not been allowed since the current Algerian Republic was formed in 1962 and the FLN party got elected and decided it could do whatever it could get away with to ensure it remained in power. Bouteflika presided over a police state run by families that were active in the liberation movement that freed Algeria, in the 1960s, from over a century of French colonial rule. Free elections were first allowed in 1989, but that resulted in an Islamic party winning, and proposing that Algeria be turned into a religious dictatorship in order to deal with the widespread corruption and incompetent bureaucrats. The FLN dominated government refused to accept those election results, so the Islamic radicals turned to violence and terror. Throughout the 1990s, the violence killed over 200,000 (mostly civilians killed by the terrorists). The population gradually turned on the Islamic radicals, and the government counter-terrorist tactics shut down the Islamic radical movement. Remnants of the 1990s Islamic radical movement fight on as an al Qaeda, and then an ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) franchise. The Islamic terrorist remnant has not yet recovered the mass appeal it once had and has withered away to a few hundred diehards in Algeria who spend most of their energy striving to remain hidden. Continued army and police patrols confirm that the Islamic threat is still much diminished and on the run. The Surrender With president Bouteflika incapacitated by strokes since 2013, it was no surprise that he finally gave up his political ambitions (for a fifth term). While president Bouteflika has now withdrawn there are still other Bouteflikas to contend with. There is much less popular support for the 60 year old brother Said and Army chief-of-staff Ahmed Gaid Salah who have actually been in charge, in the name of the elder Bouteflika. This annoyed the FLN leadership and most Algerians. The younger brother has been a key aide, especially in supervising (and fixing as needed) his older brother's election campaigns since the 1990s. Because of that, it is not considered unusual that Said Bouteflika was the one who communicated with his older brother and passed on his instructions, or at least what Said believes were his brother's intentions. Efforts of the older brother to appear in public and speak, no matter how briefly, have not worked because the older brother, who is now 82, is not recovering from his strokes. One of Saids intentions was apparently to succeed his brother as president, although that seems unlikely as he apparently has pancreatic cancer and has been out of the country more often to get it treated in France. Meanwhile Said has continued to supervise the effort to ensure that all the senior military and police commanders who might oppose the stealthy government takeover by someone in the Bouteflika inner circle are arrested and accused of corruption. For the last six years, this slow-motion purge has apparently been supervised by Army chief-of-staff Ahmed Gaid Salah. Said Bouteflika knows who is corrupt because one of his jobs was to see to it that there were no unseemly feuds among senior officials over who got what in corrupt deals. Said Bouteflika never managed to gain enough key supporters, or popular support, to run for high office. Until now he has been content to be the kingmaker. That has changed and Said has not got much left. The Algerian people have made it clear they have had enough of the Bouteflikas and the FLN is not really welcome to stick around either. Most Algerians would prefer honest government and a lot less corruption but the Bouteflikas preferred to keep things as they are. That attitude, shared by most, but not all, of those running the country has been the major obstacle to meaningful change. The corruption prevents rewarding the most capable people and generating enough economic activity to make Algeria a place where most young Algerians would want to live and work. Even with the two Bouteflika brothers out of the picture, they have many like-minded associates willing to carry on. It should be no surprise why it took so long for the majority of Algerians openly demand change. The alternative is another rebellion (at great cost to everyone and Algeria in general) or emigrating. Nervous Neighbors Neighboring Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began in 2011 and the only Arab nations where the Arab Spring uprising actually succeeded, is nervous but optimistic, that useful change will come to Algeria. Morocco is less optimistic because Morocco has been demonized by the long-ruling FLN party in Algeria. It would be nice if a new government agreed to make peace with Morocco but there is no assurance that will happen. Other nations in the region believe most Algerians are unwilling to allow another bloody round of national violence, as occurred in the 1990s, to take place. The weeks of demonstrations were largely free of violence. There have been physical confrontations with police but firearms were never involved. There was only one known death and that was the result of a stampede by a large group of people that left several injured, one fatally. March 15, 2019: For the fourth Friday since February 22 large groups of protestors assembled in the capital and other major cities to call for a government to be selected via free elections. During the last week, most of those demands seem to have been answered, sort of. March 11, 2019: President Bouteflika announced that he would not run for a fifth term as president. Bouteflika had just returned from Switzerland where he underwent another health checkup and apparently the news was not promising. Bouteflika did not resign, which is what increasingly large public demonstrations have been calling for since February. But that resignation is now a realistic goal. Another factor in all this is that the leaders of the ruling FLN party, which has been partners with Bouteflika for over two decades have made a move. Yesterday a senior FLN leader declared that Bouteflika was history which indicated the Bouteflika critics in the FLN felt they now had an edge and could force Bouteflika out. Bouteflika also appointed two senior members of FLN (and his current government) to organize a new government to run things until elections could be held. The new prime minister is the former Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui (who is an ally of Said Bouteflika). President Bouteflika also canceled the April 18th elections so that they could be rescheduled after there was some agreement on how much time would be allowed for candidates to campaign. Bedoui promised reforms and offered to meet with leaders of opposition parties to discuss how to proceed. March 10, 2019: President Bouteflika returned from his two weeks of medical examination in Switzerland. Whatever happened in Switzerland it apparently did not improve the elder Bouteflikas medical condition. March 5, 2019: Foreign ministers from Algeria and Tunisia met with their Egyptian counterpart in Egypt to discuss what is going on in Libya. All three agreed that they, and the UN, should support the LNA effort to unify the country. This comes after it became obvious that the GNA (Government of National Accord) leader was backing the LNA (Libyan National Army) as well. Less visibly this show of unity was also meant to ensure that Qatar and Turkey, who had been providing support for some Islamic terror groups in Libya, would halt such support. March 3, 2019: President Bouteflika issued a letter promising to resign if re-elected for a fifth term and call for new elections to replace him. This drew more angry Algerians into street protests. This caused even more people to hit the streets for daily protests. March 1, 2019: As is often the case in Moslem nations, popular protests peak on Friday, the day of the week when most Moslems go to a mosque to pray and hear a sermon. More and more religious, political and other local leaders are no longer intimidated and are stepping forward to join their followers in the streets and urge others to join them. February 24, 2019: Anti-government protests continued for the third day and as more groups come out against the president and the long dominant FLN party the situation seems more ominous but still largely non-violent. February 23, 2019: In the south across the border in Mali, Islamic terrorists in several vehicles attacked a UN/AU peacekeeper base and killed eight peacekeepers and wounded several others. The attack was repulsed. Algeria has increased its border security in areas like this to ensure that Islamic terror groups operating in Mali are not using the remote areas on the Algerian side of the border as a refuge. Algerian and French (on the Mali side) aircraft patrol the border to discourage Islamic terrorists from crossing it. February 22, 2019: The first of what became regular and growing weekly demonstrations were held, to demand that president Bouteflika resign. Frustration at Bouteflika insisting on running for a fifth term even though disabled finally drove thousands of people into the streets to protest. The recent announcement that president Bouteflika was flying to Switzerland on the 24th for another medical checkup seemed to push the growing public anger into the streets. There were smaller demonstrations the next day. February 20, 2019: The opposition parties met for several hours in a failed effort to select a joint candidate to face president Bouteflika in the April 18 presidential elections. The ruling FLN party has dominated Algerian politics since 1962. Jamaica Broilers Group welcomes latest member to board of directors The board of directors of Jamaica Broilers Group Limited (JBG) welcomed Syd Mogg as its newest member, the company announced. Mogg is an agriculturist with over 39 years of extensive local and international experience. He joined Jamaica Broilers Group (JBG) in 1991 and is currently the vice-president of the company's US subsidiary Wincorp International Inc. Mogg has played an integral role in the successful acquisition and operations of four companies in the US. He has direct responsibilities for the efficient management of the team entrusted to produce and support the growth, production and sales of broiler breeders, fertile eggs and the formulation and manufacturing of feed for chicks. Mogg has developed strategic relationships with key industry players and regulatory agencies in the US and over twenty trading partner countries of Wincorp. He holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in agriculture from the University of Florida. - Jamaica Broilers Group Plans are in place for a supermarket in the Welcome Bay area, but a debate has been sparked within council members as to where it would be located. Tauranga Mayor Greg Brownless says he supports the idea of having a supermarket in the area, but disagrees with the suggested locations. The idea came to the urban form committee the other day and theyre doing further work in seeing whats available, but my great preference for them would be for privately owned land to be zone commercial, not council reserve. At one stage they were looking at the possibility on council reserved land, and my personal feeling is thats not appropriate for a supermarket. Greg says he believes its not the councils priority to find land for a supermarket. Theyre still doing further work on where might be appropriate site should a supermarket then wish to set up, but all my life, councils have put in things like roads and reserves and parks and water but theyve never sort of gone that far down the track of actually providing a supermarket and I dont think thats councils role. They did look at some parks, I would not have been happy with any park. Its publicly owned land, and I dont like the idea of that being put for a commercial purpose. Supermarkets across Tauranga traditionally not the councils responsibility, and recreational council areas are not a suitable supermarket site, says Greg. What supermarkets do and what theyve done in every other part of the city is they bought land around and then theyve set up a supermarket. Thats what happened at Brookfield, thats what happened at PaknSave and its what happened at Countdown. Im not sure why Welcome Bay is particularly different. Changes around current gun laws are to be expected following the shooting attack in Christchurch on Friday. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met with Cabinet ministers today to discuss new gun laws, sparking great debate between gun owners. A Tauranga firearms expert, who wishes to remain anonymous, says the reformed gun laws have started a blame game and it has been too much of a rush to change gun control legislation through parliament. He says there is no need to change laws for one injustice act. Scapegoating and penalising gun owners for the actions of one (or a couple) of individuals is about as absurd as having your car being confiscated because your neighbour drove drunk and killed a bunch of people. There is already perfectly adequate legislation in place, it just needs to be administered correctly, and in a better way than it has been so far. More than 250,000 licenced gun owners should not be shouldering the blame for this act of terrorism that lies squarely with the current government and its agencies (SIS, GCSB, and Police Intel). The firearms expert says laws in New Zealand are already restrictive, however they are fair and reasonable and licenced gun owners shouldnt be punished for the Christchurch shootings on Friday. Suggestions that NZ gun laws are very loose is complete and utter rubbish. There is already perfectly adequate legislation in place, it just needs to be administered correctly, and in a better way than what it has been so far. In some respects the Police have been underfunded in that department, and there have been calls for them to be removed from administering the Arms Act altogether, well before this tragedy occurred. In terms of the attack, he says the government is giving the shooter what he wants which is public attention, and no matter what he used to kill people, the easy fix is not to ban whatever weapon was used. If the killer was not allowed access to firearms he would have used another method. Bombs, bus, trucks, knives, poison this was also spelled out in his manifesto. He deliberately used firearms and live streamed it for dramatic effect, and to create dysfunction and outrage in society. Things need to be kept in perspective. This guy would have killed people in some way, shape or form. That is without question, due to the level he had been forced to act out. He says serious questions need to be asked in terms of how the terrorist slipped under the radar of intelligence agencies. He (the shooter) only had a firearms licence for a little over a year before this terrorist act, and it seems that his whole reason for getting a licence was to carry out the shooting. Thus he could not be considered to be a regular/valid firearms license holder in the normal sense. He was not a hunter, target shooter, or farmer. Kiwifruit workers are being urged to shop around for the best pay rates and conditions as the industry seeks to avoid another worker shortage for the upcoming harvest. While a kiwifruit industry group says its surveying showed an expected average picking rate this season of $23.50 an hour, a worker advocate disputed this, saying that as picking was often at piece rates some slower pickers were falling below minimum wage. The 2019 harvest starts in mid-March. Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated chief executive Nikki Johnson says a lot of incorrect information existed about working with kiwifruit, making it harder to recruit people who would otherwise get a lot out of seasonal work. That includes the pay rates they are actually very competitive. The green and gold kiwifruit harvest was forecast to be higher than last years, with about 18,000 workers needed. Last year, the harvest was at least 1200 workers short at the peak we dont want a repeat of that. While many kiwifruit pickers were paid piece rates based on how many cartons of fruit they picked in a day, others were on an hourly rate. There is a huge range in the types of employers and the types of pay systems, says Nikki. Employers expected to pay an average $23.50 an hour this season, but the range went from minimum wage to the high $20s. We are encouraging people to find employers that are paying well and look after their workers. People that are physically active can easily earn in the high $20s without working long hours. But if people dont want to be under that pressure, or dont want a piece rate, they should look for an employer that pays an hourly rate. This will be a lower rate, and your potential to earn will be lower, but it will provide more certainty. Most low skilled packhouse roles were minimum wage which will rise to $17.70 an hour on April 1, says Nikki. Jared Abbott, a spokesperson for the kiwifruit workers alliance, affiliated with First Union, says he was dubious of these figures. It is a creative use of numbers to make it sound like a high paying industry when it is not. On piece rates, pay depended on experience and ability. We cant tell if people are working through breaks and over-exerting themselves. You only have to work a bit slower to drop below minimum wage, says Jared. Quoted hourly rates also often include eight per cent holiday pay. If you are a kiwifruit worker and it rains and you cant pick then you get no pay. If it rains on a public holiday you dont get paid for it. These are conditions that dont fit with how employment law works, but this is standard in the kiwifruit industry, says Jared. Nikki says that in 2017, 56 per cent of kiwifruit workers were New Zealanders, 22 percent backpackers and 17 percent Recognised Seasonal Employer workers from the Pacific Islands. We have a high utilisation of New Zealanders and low numbers of RSE workers, compared with Hawkes Bay pipfruit orchards and viticulture. To promote seasonal jobs in kiwifruit, a grower-funded recruitment campaign was targeting students, unemployed Kiwis, retirees and backpackers for peak harvesting from late March to June. By 2027, were expecting to require around 22,000 workers, as the volume of fruit grown increased dramatically, says Nikki. New Zealands largest horticultural export, kiwifruit production was expected to jump from 123 million trays in 2017 to 190 million trays in 2027, with revenue expected to jump from $2.1 billion in 2017 to $6 billion by 2030. -Stuff.co.nz/Heather Chalmers As the Government promises gun law reforms in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack, some Kiwis have already started voluntarily surrendering their legally-held weapons. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday says that several "in principle decisions" on gun law reform have been made by Cabinet, after the mosque attacks which has left 50 people dead. John Hart, a sheep and beef farmer for 15 years, says he took his semi-automatic weapon into Masterton police station on Monday as he "couldn't in all conscience" keep the rifle after seeing the loss of life in Christchurch. "Until today I was one of the New Zealanders who owned a semi-automatic rifle. On the farm they are a useful tool in some circumstances, but my convenience doesn't outweigh the risk of misuse," he posts online. Jacinda applauds those who have voluntarily surrendered their guns to police, and says others could do the same, Stuff reports. "Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms that I think will make New Zealanders safer," she says. John says he uses his rifle occasionally for pest control but semi-automatic guns were not really needed on his farm. "Since the events on Friday I had been thinking a lot about the firearms we have here on the farm... They [semi-automatic weapons] are not critical, not if the trade off is loss of life," he says. While it can be useful "to have a second or third shot", that is "a minor inconvenience" compared to using a safer bolt-action rifle for the same jobs, John says. Police figures show that nearly 7000 New Zealanders are endorsed to have military-style semi-automatic guns - similar to two of the guns carried by the accused mosque murderer. Police are asking owners wanting to surrender semi-automatic or other firearms to call their local police station or arms officer first for advice on safe transport and to alert staff. "Walking up the long courtyard to the Masterton police station, towards a stone-faced policewoman guarding the door holding an AR15 at the ready, while I'm carrying a rifle (in its case) was, let's say, a puckering experience," John says. In the Bay of Plenty, there are 682 E-category gun licences held, which is the fifth highest behind Canterbury, Waitemata, Southern and Central areas. Twitter user Blackstone had also handed in his weapon. "Since I first heard about the atrocity on Friday afternoon I have reflected and reserved my thoughts. Monday morning - this is one of the easiest decisions I have ever made. Have owned a firearm for 31 years," he tweets. "Thanks for all the kind comments... Quite overwhelmed by the positivity," he later adds. "This is Aotearoa. We are strong." John has been similarly overwhelmed by the response online, of which the "vast majority has been positive", including from fellow farmers. "I had a message from a friend of a family who had lost someone in the Christchurch attacks," he says. "That brought me to tears." John supports government action banning such weapons, saying that relying on a voluntary amnesty would mean they would "be around for decades to come". "I think the only way is to enforce a ban," he says. Federated Farmers says there is still need for semi-automatic guns on farms, but not military-style weapons. Spokesman Miles Anderson says A-category guns were used for shooting pests and "euthanising large animals such as cattle", but he said there was no need for E-category guns, which were already quite uncommon. Council of Licensed Firearm Owners secretary Nicole McKee says the banning of a category of firearms would not necessarily stop similar shootings but, if a proper government inquiry found that was the case, her group would support a ban. Hunting & Fishing New Zealand is pulling all military-style semi-automatic firearms from sale nationwide. Jacinda has advised against prospective gun-owners making purchasing decisions in the coming days. -Stuff.co.nz/Joanne_Butcher Townies will get the chance to look beyond the farm gate this month. Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers is organising a Farm Day on March 24 at the McLeods property thats 1189 Welcome Bay Road for farming newbies. For rural folk, its the first farm on the right hand down the Te Puke end of Welcome Bay Road. Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers is the only province in New Zealand that still holds a Farm Day event. People from all walks of life, including many overseas tourists, enjoy coming out to where town meets the country, says Farm Day Co-ordinator Steve Bailey. Positive comments received and large crowds attending from previous years, has resulted in the continuance of this event, he says. The event is free, and helps people learn about how farms are run, where their milk comes from and various other projects relating to farming, Steve says. The rural sector is the base of the New Zealand economy, and it is important that everyone has an insight into the industry and its workings. Farm Day is run to encourage a larger scale of interest into agriculture from future generations. Farm Day sees volunteers and businesses providing information, activities and static displays that include shearing and drafting sheep, milking cows, feed supplies, fertiliser trucks, a range of farm animals, a milk tanker, tractors and more. There will be lolly scrambles in a hay stack for children. Children who are 12-years-old and under can pick up a colouring competition form to enter and be in with a chance of winning a Warehouse voucher. Fonterra will have some free drinks on site, and other organisations such as DairyNZ, Te Puke Young Farmers Club, local farmers and shearers will also be there to answer questions. The Western Bay Museum will be on site for the first time, where visitors can see butter churning, rope making or even participate in milking the lifelike Daisy the shorthorn cow. This is a great day for all, says Steve. The day is sponsored by DairyNZ and Beef+Lamb. Rosie the cow will be at the farm for those who want photos and to receive a bag full of useful information. The La Spezia office is based in the Porto Lotti Marina, one of Italys most sought-after marina spaces, boasting its very own repair facility and host of highly qualified staff. It is located in a sheltered gulf next to beautiful Lerici, right on the doorstep of some of the biggest names in building such as Baglietto, Sanlorenzo, Fincantieri, Ferretti and Perini. Porto Lotti is also adjacent to the Cinque Terre National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which includes Porto Venere and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto. This premium spot is nestled right in the hub of Italian yachting. Hill Robinsons new base has already hosted a technical training seminar attended by around 30 captains, crew and industry members. The event entailed talks from Marine Nano Tech, Rolls Royce on hybrid and electric propulsion and the Atlas Group, as well as presentations from IT technologist Pibiesse, medical experts Yacht Medical Supplies and cyber security firm Lloyds Register. The office, which offers technical services, compliance, yacht management and project management for both new builds and refit projects, will be overseen by experienced Senior Project Manager Pino di Mora. Meanwhile, business development specialist Rosanna Capitani will be promoting crew placement, payroll management and charter Hill Robsinsons expansion designates them as a global management company, optimally placed in a location that has been awarded the international Blue Flag label in recognition of its status as an outstanding marina. Sold in November 2016 and expected to be delivered later this year, this five-deck 2,300 GT giant is the largest ever produced by the yard. Her exterior shape has been penned by Hydro Tec, whilst her interior spaces are the work of Francesco Guida Design. The 80m specimen possesses a host of unique features, many of which mark debuts for Columbus Yachts. She features an 8m swimming pool on the sundeck with counter-current function, as well as a 200sqm beach club at water level. Guests can also relax in a wellness and spa area located on the upper deck. The Francesca Guida interior yields five guest suites on the main deck, whilst an exclusive owners cabin occupies its very own deck, further benefitting from a forward-facing master suite. The strong family approach of Palumbo Superyachts is felt in every line and space of M/Y Dragon. She is presented with the intention to exceed expectations, falling in line with the shipyards promise to build, service and repair with ever-increasing quality and to deliver results to their valued clients. Following outfitting and sea trials, her owners will finally be united with this glorious 80m, who is expected to make her world debut at the 2019 Monaco Yacht Show. Clay, N.Y. -- A planned day care center in Clay has dropped its request for $243,851 in property tax breaks due to town opposition, according to the developer. The project will receive $154,043 in sales and mortgage recording tax exemptions. The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency voted 4-0 Feb. 22 to grant the True North Center for Children day care center an exemption worth $131,280 from sales taxes on construction materials and a mortgage recording tax exemption worth $22,763. It did not approve a payment-in-lieu-of-tax agreement that the project originally applied for after VIP Structures, the projects builder, withdrew its request for one. The agreement would have given the project a $243,851 break in property taxes over 10 years. Jane Amico, vice president of client relations for VIP Structures, said town officials were very supportive of the project, granting the approvals it needed. However, they asked the company to drop its request for the property tax breaks, she said. The town of Clay traditionally is opposed to PILOTS, from what I understand, she said. One of the reasons VIP gave for requesting the property tax exemptions was to partially offset the $400,000 cost of connecting the day care center to a public sewer line a half-mile east on Waterhouse Road. But Amico said the company has reached an agreement to connect the center to an adjacent propertys sewer, a change she said will reduce costs and lessen the need for a PILOT. According to the minutes of a Jan. 23 public hearing on the creation of a private sanitary sewer system for the center, Clay Town Council member Joseph Bick said he would oppose creation of the district as long as the applicant continued to seek a PILOT. The council wound up approving the sewer district 7-0 at its next meeting. Town Supervisor Damian Ulatowski said the board never asked VIP to withdraw its request for a PILOT. However, he said the town has consistently taken the position that private developments should stand on their own and pay the same taxes as everyone else. We believe in private development, he said. If an applicant has faith in their project, then they shouldnt put the burden on the town taxpayers. Rendering shows what the proposed True North day care center at 4431 Waterhouse Road in Clay will look like.VIP Structures VIP will build the center at 4431 Waterhouse Road for Cynthia and Michael Fowler. The Fowlers will buy the building from VIP once construction is completed and operate the day care center for up to 146 children. Construction at the northeast corner of Waterhouse and Morgan roads is expected to begin in April and be finished in time for the centers opening when school starts in September. Amico said 48 children are already signed up to attend the center. Cynthia Fowler, a former special education teacher at Liverpool High School and former director of the Northminster Early Childhood Center in North Syracuse, has said the center will help fill a strong need for additional day care slots in the northern part of the Liverpool Central School District. Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148 Big-box retailers and chain drug stores are bringing to the Syracuse suburbs a tax-dodging strategy that has lowered their property tax bills in other states. Target, Walmart, Kohls, home improvement and drug stores are trying to get their property tax bills reduced by as much as 90 percent in suburban towns in Central New York and across the state, according to a Syracuse.com analysis of lawsuits. If it works, it would shift that property tax burden to every other taxpayer in those towns. Target has filed lawsuits in Manlius, Cicero and Camillus. In each, they argue that their assessments should be lowered from about $9 million to about $900,000. In Cicero, for example, it would lower the school, town and county property tax bills from about $327,000 a year to about $33,000. The amount is so low that its laughable to town assessors. Oh gosh, $900,000? That would be ridiculous, Cicero Assessor Karen Tavernese said. That wouldnt be fair to other businesses. The stores are unlikely to win that lowball amount. But the tactic has successfully reduced their taxes in other parts of New York. And stores have filed dozens of similar lawsuits against town assessors from Buffalo to Long Island. Walmart has a more reasonable ask. The worlds largest retailer wants to reduce assessments in DeWitt, Cicero and Camillus from $11 million and $12 million to $8 million and $9 million, records show. After a string of store wins in Midwestern states, The Standard & Poors rating service warned that this strategy could stress the budgets of suburban towns and school districts that rely on retail to pay the bills. The tactic is nicknamed the dark store theory, and it works like this: Store lawyers argue that their fully functioning stores should be valued the same as vacant stores when it comes to charging local property taxes. Those amounts are much lower than the values town assessors come up with. Assessors apply a formula that relies on a potential cost per square foot, as if the stores leased the buildings. But assessors know, the stores are not really leased. Upstate NY town forced to pay In Queensbury, near Lake George, a judge sided with Home Depot in a case that has alarmed town assessors across New York. The town was forced to lower the stores assessed value from $9 million to about $5 million. The school district, the town and the county were ordered to pay back about $500,000. Queensbury Assessor Teri Ross said she never saw it coming. Big retailers are constantly challenging their assessments. It takes years to reach the point where they have to hire an appraiser and show their math. Even when the issue reaches court, a judge typically picks a number somewhere in the middle, she said. Ive never, since Ive been here, seen a judge make a decision absolutely hook, line and sinker for the petitioner, she said. Home Depot hired appraiser Chris Harland to make its successful argument. Harland has also challenged assessments for Rite Aid, Walgreens, Target, Walmart, and Raymour and Flanigan mostly in the Albany and Dutchess County areas. Property tax cases are unique and complicated. But Harlands argument is simple: If Target was to sell a store, they are selling a vacant building. They are not selling a building with a long-term lease on it. In Queensbury, he compared the Home Depot stores value to seven vacant big-box stores outside of the region. The state appeals court was satisfied. Ive never used the term dark store theory, he said. Thats somebody elses characterization of the concept. Onondaga County challenges In Onondaga County, Target is suing the towns of Manlius, Camillus and Cicero. In those cases, Target is represented by the same Long Island law firm that won in Queensbury, records show. The way Manlius Assessor Patrick Duffy runs the numbers, the 125,000-square-foot Target store at Towne Center is worth about $9.1 million. That means the store pays an annual school, town and county property tax bill of $365,000. Targets lawyers say the store is worth only $915,000. That would put the tax bill at $36,000. The price difference is nearly the same in the Camillus and Cicero lawsuits. So far, their arguments do not show how they came up with the numbers. The Target stores have already had tax advantages. Even though New York state frowns on tax breaks for retail, the stores in Camillus, Cicero and Manlius had government help. The Onondaga County Industrial Development Authority granted tax exemptions for 10 years to help lure the Target store to a dead mall in Fayetteville. At the time, they estimated it would save Target about $770,000 in property taxes. Cicero offered a tax exemption that reduced the assessment by 50 percent for the first three years, then lower percentages over the next 7 years. In the last year, the store saved $11,000 in taxes, Tavernese said. Target had a similar deal in Camillus, Assessor Celeste Karakas said. As soon as those tax breaks expired, the stores filed lawsuits to lower their taxes. Target Corp. reported net income of nearly $3 billion in 2018. How assessments are set Most real estate values in New York are based on the recent sale price of a similar property. Duffy is constantly comparing sales in the town of Manlius. He can quickly look up the going rate on bank branches, for example, and adjust assessments to match the market. But there is only one Target store in the town of Manlius. Without a similar comparison, he uses an income-based approach. He starts with a potential rental cost per square foot based on market research. He subtracts potential vacancy and credit losses, adds miscellaneous income like vending machines and subtracts operating expenses like snowplowing. Until now, courts in New York state upheld that method. Thats what New York state hangs its hat on, Duffy said, referring to the generally accepted practice for town assessors around the state. The income approach is not perfect. But assessors say it would be wrong to compare a working store to a vacant store for several reasons. Vacant stores are, well, vacant and often in less desirable places. They were often built for one type of store and have deed restrictions that limit the types of buyers. They sometimes sell at distressed prices. Sale prices can also be misleading because assessors do not know about the other assets that went into the sale, like a list of customers, for example. They say a fair comparison is something that is mothballed and there is no comparison there, Duffy said. Target is challenging its assessment in the town of Manlius. Both sides: Its really about the money Each side blames the other for simply trying to save or raise money. These people dont want to pay their taxes and the tax rate in New York is so high that when they look at their operating costs, they see that their taxes are way out of line with other states, Clay Assessor Rob Bick said. Bick said he is in constant negotiations with Walmart, Rite Aid and other retail stores. He said he sometimes gets grievances from competing law firms on behalf of the same property. They file arbitrary and ambiguous lawsuits, hoping that some town assessor is dumb enough to settle with them, Bick said. Its quite preposterous and in some ways entertaining. Harland, the appraiser for Home Depot and others, said: It doesnt surprise me that assessors are advocating for higher assessments. Whats the solution? Harland says a resolution would have to come from the courts. Rulings around the country are all over the place, he said. Harland lost in another New York case. He argued the value of a Target in Colonie should be compared to the sale price of vacant stores outside the region including one in Massachusetts. New York is not the only state dealing with this issue, he said. Maybe the only way it gets resolved is if it goes up to the highest courts, to bring uniformity into the assessment practice and to give guidance to assessors, appraisers and attorneys in all locations. Successful retail lawsuits in Michigan and Indiana have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in estimated lost tax revenue to local governments, S&P analysts warned last year. The tactic is expected to spread to other states and to include small retail stores, auto parts stores and fast food chains, analysts said. Town assessors and county officials in New York are hoping to stop the spread of the dark store tactic with state legislation. Assemblyman Ken Zebrowsky, a Democrat from Rockland County, introduced a bill last month at the urging of the New York State Assessors Association and the New York State Association of Counties. If passed, the new law would require assessors to compare properties that are similar in condition, use, type of construction, location, design, physical features and economic characteristics including similarities in occupancy and income-generating potential. Assembly Bill A4752 does not have a Senate companion. Warren Wheeler, an assessor in Oswego County and the executive director of the state assessors association, said a change in the law could head off use of the dark store theory in New York. The tax implications can be devastating to small towns, he said. Search real estate sales from 2016 to present for Cayuga, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties. Contact the author: Michelle Breidenbach | mbreidenbach@syracuse.com | 315-470-3186. NEW YORK (AP) The New York Public Library has opened an archive dedicated to pioneering alternative rock musician Lou Reed. The library acquired the archive after performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson, who was married to Reed, decided to share it with an institution that could preserve and showcase the archive. The New York Times reports the archive includes a large collection of personal notes, photographs and more than 600 hours of recordings. Anderson says Reed never discussed what to do with his belongings before his death in 2013. She says she thought the archive should be accessible to young musicians and anyone interested in his life. Reed was the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for The Velvet Underground, and had a solo career that spanned decades after leaving the band. Reed graduated from Syracuse University in 1964; while a student, he wrote songs and also hosted his own late-night radio show on WAER called Excursions on a Wobbly Rail. He maintained his connections to SU years later, founding the Lou Reed/Delmore Schwartz scholarship for creative writing students in 2007 and sharing the VU song Head Held High in a a video ad for the university highlighting prominent alumni. Reeds time at Syracuse led to the Velvet Underground, which formed in the 60s with multi-instrumentalist Sterling Morrison. Members included guitarist Sterling Morrison, a classmate at SU, and drummer Maureen Moe Tucker, the younger sister of Morrisons friend from Syracuse. To the Editor: Last week, over 50 people from Syracuse joined hundreds of others from around the state in Albany to call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and elected officials to support Green Light NY: Driving Together, a campaign to extend equal access to drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants. Without licenses, immigrants cannot address basic necessities, such as buying groceries or taking their children to the hospital, without breaking the law and risking detainmentand ultimately deportation and family separation. It also tragically limits options to seek safety for women who are experiencing domestic abuse, and it leaves rural workers vulnerable to many forms of exploitation. Fortunately, theres a simple solution: There are currently bills in both the New York state Senate (S01747, 19 sponsors) and Assembly (A03675, 51 sponsors) to expand access to drivers licenses. The Workers Center of CNY and other community groups have been organizing locally and recently met with our state legislators. We want to thank State Sen. Rachel May, Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter and Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli for agreeing to co-sponsor the bill. Twelve states nationwide already provide equal access to to undocumented drivers, including neighboring states like Connecticut and Vermont. Even Washington, D.C., extends the right to drive to undocumented immigrants. And for 90 years, New York state did as well offering licenses regardless of immigration status until 2002, when then-Gov. George Pataki issued an executive order restricting access to only those with a Social Security number. Extending access to licenses makes all of our communities safer and strengthens our economy. Licensing immigrant drivers increases the percentage of drivers on our roads who are properly licensed, informed of our traffic laws, and operating a registered, inspected and insured vehicle. Since New Mexico changed its policy in 2003, the states rate of uninsured motorists fell from 33 percent to under 9 percent. In New York state, this could lead to lower insurance premiums for all residents by a moderate estimate of $17 per person annually. A new report by the Fiscal Policy Institute (Driving Together: Benefits of Allowing All New Yorkers to Apply for Licenses, Feb. 15, 2019) demonstrates that allowing all New Yorkers to obtain a drivers license, regardless of immigration status, would generate an estimated $57 million in annual revenue and $26 million in one-time revenue for state and local governments and transit authorities. Elected officials at the federal level have failed time and time again to address the deeply embedded flaws of U.S. immigration policy. Media coverage often focuses on the partisan politics and divisions. However, a March 2017 CNN/ORC poll demonstrated strong agreement from the U.S. public on priorities for U.S. immigration policy: 60 percent of Americans believe our top priority should be creating a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants working in the U.S., while only 26 percent would prioritize developing a plan to prevent immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally, and just 13 percent would prioritize deportation of those in the U.S. illegally. Given strong public support for integrating undocumented immigrants, we should do what we can at the local and state levels to implement more sane and humane policies towards immigrants while we continue to seek change at the federal level. Last year, Cuomo issued a cease and desist letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, referring to ICEs aggressive and un-American tactics. Unfortunately, in reality, little has happened to curb ICEs actions. Its time for the governor and New York state lawmakers to provide immigrants with tools to protect themselves from these aggressive and unlawful tactics. Supporting Greenlight NY is one step in the right direction. Rebecca Fuentes, Workers Center of CNY Jessica Maxwell, Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network Fabiola Ortiz, NY Immigration Coalition To the Editor: We write as members of Jewish communities in the Syracuse area to express our horror and sorrow at the news from Christchurch, New Zealand. At least 49 Muslims at prayer for Jumaa, the Friday communal service, were murdered in a terrorist act by a white supremacist. This devastating act of violence and loss of precious lives is profoundly shocking, and yet, also an echo of too many similar acts. Indeed, as we approach the Jewish festival of Purim, we remember that 25 years ago on Purim morning in 1994, Baruch Goldstein took a machine gun into the mosque at the Tomb of Abraham in Israel the burial-site of the forefather of both Judaism and Islam -- and murdered 29 Muslims prostrate in prayer. And we remember other mass murders in places of worship that are recent and close to home, like the Charleston Emanuel AME Church shooting of African-Americans in 2015 and the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue shooting of Jews in 2018, both carried out by men with white nationalist views. We condemn the anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric and actions by world leaders, which inflame the hatred behind these domestic terror attacks whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his alliances with the explicitly racist far right; or President Donald Trump, who has set a tone and a policy agenda that allows him to be seen as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose by the suspect in the Christchurch mosque murders. We affirm our solidarity with Muslims here in Syracuse and everywhere, who will feel the pain and grief of this horrendous targeted attack. Some of us will undertake a national fast day from dawn to dusk on March 20, the Fast of Esther, dedicated to ending Islamophobia and reaffirming our kinship with Islam. Some will participate in vigils and public actions. Many will contribute to emergency funds for assistance to the people of the two mosques in New Zealand. And we join with the world community as we send our mournful prayers and deepest sympathies to the victims families. In peace, shalom, salaam. Julie Gozan, Karly Grifasi and Jesse Nissim On behalf of 21 others: Julie Gozan, Karly Grifasi, Jesse Nissim, Michael Grifasi, Brent Bleier, Jonah Minkoff-Zern, Diane R. Singer Swords, Lisa Cohen, Rebbecca Oppedisano, Maura Ackerman, Aidan Ackerman, Daniel Sieradski, Micah Fialka-Feldman, Andy Mager, Mara Sapon-Shevin, Laurie Ovadia, Carole Resnick, Mike Kalish, Rina Brule, Jim Brule and Jill Brule. They can be seen flying overhead during certain times of the day, descending up fields to feed like a small blizzard. They rest up and often spend nights on waterways, creating a white island of floating birds. Theyre snow geese from Canada, which spent the cold winter months in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. With spring around the corner, theyre now migrating in great numbers through Upstate New York, stopping to fuel up as they return to their Arctic breeding grounds. They come in great numbers numbers so great that wildlife biologists across the country are concerned about over population and the ecological damage (particularly to agriculture) that these birds cause. Here in New York, theres a special conservation order authorized by the Federal Migratory Bird Act, that allows them to be hunted from Jan. 16 to April 16. The daily limit per hunter is 25 birds, with no possession limit. In this 2009 photo, Ben Ecker taking aim at snow geese near Union Springs, NY. (Dick Blume | dblume@syracuse.com) Snow goose hunters can use electronic calls and unplugged shotguns (more than three shells at a time). Non-toxic shot, though, is required, and hunters must possess, along with a state HIP (Harvest Information Program) number, along with a hunting license and federal duck stamp. According to the DEC website: A Conservation Order is a special management action authorized by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act to control certain wildlife populations when traditional management programs are unsuccessful in preventing overabundance. Federal and state regulations were amended in fall 2008 to allow this additional harvest of snow geese in response to concerns about their growing numbers across North America. Snow goose hunters are not required to report all the birds they kill, but any person who participates in New York hunting season must provide accurate and timely information on their activity and harvest if requested by the DEC. DEC plans to survey a sample of program participants to estimate hunter activity and harvest, and the extent to which the special measures helped hunters take more birds. This is necessary for continuation of the program in future years. Similar regulations for hunting snow geese have been in place in many Midwestern states and Canadian Provinces, including Quebec, since 1999, DEC said. The restrictions for snow geese are a lot looser than those governing say the hunting of Canada geese. Due to concerns about a drop in the number those migratory birds from Canada, the hunting season this coming year for that water fowl will be reduced from 50 days and a three-bird bag limit to 30 days and a two-bird bag limit, DEC said recently. The bag limit (15) and seasons for the early Canada goose season (for non-migratory or resident birds) in September, though, will remain the same. There are still too many resident or non-migratory birds in this state and the DEC wants to bring their numbers down. A snow goose feeds in a farm field near Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in Kleinefeltersville, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) AP Why do snow geese numbers need to be brought down? According to the DEC: The overabundance of snow geese, which nest in far northern regions of North America, is harming their fragile arctic breeding habitat. The damage to the habitat is, in turn, harming the health of the light geese and other bird species that depend on the tundra habitat. Returning the light goose population to sustainable levels is necessary to protect this delicate habitat, and every species dependent on it. Large numbers of snow geese feeding on natural vegetation can also destroy large areas of coastal marshland during migration and winter. Serious damage to agricultural crops, such as hay, winter wheat, barley and rye, occurs on migration and wintering areas as well. Why have snow goose populations increased so dramatically? First, the availability of waste grains on agricultural fields provided a vast new food supply for these birds. Second, continuation of restrictive hunting regulations during the 1970s and 1980s allowed the population to grow while hunter harvest rates declined. These two factors resulted in a higher reproductive rate, a higher adult survival rate, and offspring that were in much better condition to survive. Read more about snow goose hunting in New York on the DEC website. Read 5 tasty ways to prepare snow geese. Washington President Donald Trump blamed a small-town union leader Sunday for not doing enough to save a General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio, that shuttered on March 6, causing about 5,400 job losses in a struggling part of the country. "Democrat UAW Local 1112 President David Green ought to get his act together and produce. G.M. let our Country down, but other much better car companies are coming into the U.S. in droves," Trump tweeted Sunday. "I want action on Lordstown fast. Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment!" General Motors and the UAW are going to start talks in September/October. Why wait, start them now! I want jobs to stay in the U.S.A. and want Lordstown (Ohio), in one of the best economies in our history, opened or sold to a company who will open it up fast! Car companies..... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019 The tweet came minutes after a segment on Fox News Channel suggested that Trump might have trouble with his reelection campaign in the Rust Belt. Fox News played clips from a Trump rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in July 2017 -- very close to Lordstown -- where the president told the crowd "don't sell your house" because the jobs are "all coming back." Trump has used this tactic of lashing out at a local union leader before when blue-collar jobs that he promised to save end up going away. Trump went after a steel union president in Indianapolis when the Carrier plant there went forward with job losses after Trump tried to intervene unsuccessfully. Fox News brought on David Green, president of UAW Local 1112, which represents workers at the GM Lordstown plant. Green said Trump's tweet Saturday -- days after the plant shut down -- saying "GM MUST ACT QUICKLY" was doing little to help. "The fact that we've seen our Kmart distribution center in Warren close, a hospital close out here, all these brick and mortar businesses are closing and now unallocated status at [GM] Lordstown ... people are starting to wake up [about Trump]," Green said. Green sent Trump two letters in the past year begging him to help stop the plant closure and never heard back. Trumbull County, where Lordstown is located, voted for Trump in 2016 after voting Democratic in every election since the 1970s. "The president was saying don't sell your house because all of these factories are coming back and we're going to protect American jobs. We've seen everything but that here," Green said in a recent interview. It's unclear whether the GM Lordstown plant is closed for good. The ultimate fate of the plant will be decided when the United Auto Workers and GM negotiate a new union contract this fall, but for now, thousands of workers at the plant and surrounding businesses are out of jobs that often paid $30 an hour with benefits. The GM Lordstown plant made the Chevy Cruze, a small sedan that sold well after the Great Recession and when gas prices were high but has had weaker sales in recent years. GM has cast the Lordstown plant closure as a business decision because it no longer wants to make small cars in the United States, but on Sunday, Trump made it sound as though GM was blaming the UAW. "Just spoke to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors about the Lordstown Ohio plant. I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING. I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW Union - I don't care, I just want it open!" Trump tweeted Sunday evening, several hours after attacking Green. GM wouldn't comment directly on the conversation between Barra and the president, but the company put out a statement saying the plant's future "would be resolved between GM and the UAW." Selling the plant to another owner probably would mean union workers would lose their seniority and not be paid as well as they had been. For union workers in Lordstown, it's hard to hear accusations that they didn't do enough to keep the plant open. The Lordstown plant workers agreed to in 2007 to pay new hires lower wages -- about $20 and hour instead of $30. Green was part of those intense negotiations and has a Wall Street Journal article from the time framed on his office wall, a reminder of what union workers sacrificed in GM's dark days to help the company. The state of Ohio also kicked in millions to help retrofit the GM Lordstown plant as part of that deal. "GM is a big bully," Green said in a recent interview. "My guess is GM is just trying to come after the union at the bargaining table and this is just a ploy to squeeze more out of workers again." Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) jumped to Green's defense Sunday, tweeting that Green and other union workers in Lordstown have shown "grit and determination in the face of adversity" and that it's time Trump "stood up to GM and joined the fight." Like Green, Brown told The Washington Post in a recent interview that he had tried to contact Trump numerous times in an effort to save the Lordstown jobs but never heard back. Trump has done "zero" to help, Brown said. "I've ask him about it. I've talked to him on the phone about it. When the second shift was laid off, he didn't even know the first or second shift had been laid off." Trump did speak with Barra late last year after GM announced it would lay off about 15,000 workers, but the cuts still went forward. The unemployment rate in Trumbull County is 7.7 percent, more than double the national rate, making these latest job losses hard to endure. Signs saying "Save the GM plant" and "Drive It Home: Support GM Lordstown" are everywhere in northeast Ohio, part of a campaign Green started several months ago to attract attention to the town's plight. Although Trump has touted strong growth in manufacturing jobs -- last year the United States added the most manufacturing jobs since 1997 -- parts of the country such as the Youngstown area have continued to shed blue-collar jobs. The laid off GM workers face a choice: Get another job in the area that usually pays less, move to another state to work in a different GM factory or retrain for another career. About 700 of the Lordstown workers have transferred out of state, according to the company and the UAW. WASHINGTON Ben Carson, President Donald Trumps top housing official, wants to visit Syracuse to check out plans for the Syracuse Surge, a $200 million economic development plan to remake the city. Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, discussed the proposal during a private meeting last week with U.S. Rep. John Katko at HUD headquarters in Washington. Carson expressed interest in visiting Syracuse to see how the city plans to transform its economy with public and private investment centered on a series of projects on the south end of downtown, Katko said. The centerpiece of the plan is a Southside Campus for the New Economy that will be anchored by the overhaul of Central Tech into a high school dedicated to science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM). Students would be accepted from throughout Onondaga County. Katko, R-Camillus, said he told Carson that HUD could play a leading role in the Syracuse Surge since it will tie in with efforts to redesign and rebuild public housing projects like Pioneer Homes, which sits next to the elevated portion of Interstate 81 in Syracuse. The point I made is that theres a substantial appetite for private and nonprofit investment, and that federal housing money could help jump-start that development, Katko said. He was very interested. Syracuse Housing Authority officials are interested in adding mixed-income housing and mixed-use buildings into the area now occupied by aging public housing complexes. Katko said he and Carson discussed how such efforts have worked elsewhere, using development principles advocated by the nonprofit Purpose Built Communities. The organization, which focuses on transforming areas of concentrated urban poverty, was established in 2009. It used the revitalization of the East Lake neighborhood in Atlanta as a model. Katko and Carson also discussed the persistent problem of lead poisoning in Central New York. In December, HUD approved a $4.1 million grant to help restart a program aimed at preventing lead paint poisoning in Syracuse children. Syracuse was forced to shut down the program in 2012 after HUD cut off funding amid charges of mismanagement. Katko said no specific date was set for Carsons visit. A spokeswoman for Carson said Monday that he had a productive meeting with Katko. She did not know when the Syracuse visit might be planned. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 LAKE GEORGE -- It was the summer of 1956 when Bob Blais showed up in the Adirondack tourist village of Lake George, getting a job on the spot as a seasonal police officer, along with a hat, badge and for the first time in his life, a gun. I just prayed that I would not have to use it, said Blais, now at 82 the longest tenured mayor in New York, and the third-longest in the entire country. First elected in 1971, he is running this month unopposed for a 13th term as the top official in the lakeside village that draws millions of tourists a year. Enjoyed chatting with #LakeGeorge Mayor Bob Blais at his home today about his 5 decades leading the resort community, and his childhood in #SaratogaSprings. Story on @WNYT pic.twitter.com/M09ShQmGEg Mark Mulholland (@MulhollandWNYT) January 22, 2019 Hes seen a lot and done a lot since he first arrived as a 20-year-old college student, looking for work after losing a seasonal job at a bottling plant in his nearby hometown of Saratoga Springs due to an extended illness. My mother told me that they were always hiring up in Lake George, so I drove up, he recalled. The Boston University sophomore walked into the village hall, where the police chief saw the strapping young athlete and hired him to patrol the downtown the next day, complete with a revolver on his hip. And how was he trained? The chief told to walk up the main street and into every business, to introduce myself, said Blais. Ironically, as mayor he was to dissolve that very police department some three decades later in 1988, after a couple of seasonal cops overreacted and fired shots at drunken revelers. That incident helped provide the impetus to finalize a deal, already in the works, for the Warren County sheriff to take over policing in the village. As a younger man, Blais worked in the village as a bouncer at some nightspots during the wilder days of the 18-year-old drinking age, managed and then owned a bowling alley/restaurant, developed an amusement arcade, served as assistant chief in volunteer fire department and worked as a Saratoga County deputy sheriff. He has seen some of the famous old establishments either torn down or burned down. Hes even suffered the embarrassment of wrecking his boat on a submerged shoal and having to be rescued. Blais remembers how Canada Street, the main downtown thoroughfare, lined with shops and restaurants, used to be nearly all owner-occupied businesses, with owners either living upstairs or in a home nearby. Now the vast majority are absentee owners, he said. He said an infamous incident on the night of July 4, 1970, when Blais was a newcomer on the Village Board, inspired him to run for mayor. That night, the current holder of that office decided to put volunteer firefighters on standby as youthful partiers began filling the downtown. Late that night, the mayor ordered the firefighters to hose down a rowdy crowd that had gathered in front of the post office. Due to the presence of an Albany Times Union reporter, who was relaxing at a nearby tavern and who emerged to find his convertible car had been inadvertently filled with water, the melee hit the national news wires as a riot, Blais recalled. So I decided it was time for me to run for the job. And I won, he said. Voters have reelected him ever since. Now, he sees his job as balancing the needs of the villages nearly 1,000 permanent residents with the demands of a tourist economy that draws several million visitors a year. People can see me here every day, they can see me buying groceries, said Blais. This is the closest layer of government to people, so you have to be responsive. But the village also has to ensure that outside visitors are catered to, he said. I know some people might say it is honky-tonk, but Lake George is like an amusement park, said Blais. You cant stay still, you have to keep adding new rides, new things to keep people excited and coming back. I think at this point, Bob is unbeatable, said Vinnie Crocitto, a longtime friend who owns the Holiday Inn and is a member of the Lake George Town Board. Including this year, Blais has run unopposed eight times, including 1983, 1987, 1991, 1999, 2007, 2011 and 2015. The village election is Tuesday. Blais can be found some evenings at the Holiday Inn lounge holding court and swapping stories, said Crocitto. I have guests here who have met the mayor over the years, and ask for him. It is like Cheers.'" The mayors affability and passion for the village and the lake draw people to him, he said. This place is lucky to have him. Over the years, Blais has spearheaded an expanding array of tourism events, including the Americade motorcycle rally, an Elvis festival, a muscle car show, a fishing derby, downtown concerts and summertime fireworks over the lake. He pushed for a lakefront walkway, public docks, a downtown trolley system, and more recently, a new six-story hotel, the tallest building along Canada Street. And he has more mundane, yet critical things to keep track of, like making sure the villages infrastructure can handle the needs of up to 50,000 visitors on a busy summer day. Our toilet paper bill for the public restrooms is $25,000 a year, he said. Replacing the villages 85-year-old sewer plant is atop the mayors list right now, with Blais trying to hustle up additional state aid to defray the anticipated $22 million cost. The old plant has to be replaced because it is releasing elevated levels of nitrogen into the lake, which can fuel algae blooms that threaten the lakes legendarily clear waters. Since 1980, algae levels in the lake, particularly in its southern portion around the village, have been steadily increasing, reducing the clarity of the water. The sewer issue has been a flashpoint in the village since it was found in 2014 that the former official in charge of the plant had been forging pollution reports as far back as 2007 to make it appear that water standards were being met. Blais said he and other village officials were caught flat-footed by that revelation, and have been struggling with how best to build and finance a replacement plant that is sufficient to handle the busiest days of the summer tourism season. The lake is everything. It is the engine, and we have to protect it, Blais said. To help do that, he headed the Save Lake George Partnership, a coalition of environmental groups and municipal agencies that created a boat inspection program in 2013 to keep invasive species from being brought into the lake. Bob is a force of nature and for nature, said Eric Siy, executive director of the Fund for Lake George, a lake advocacy group that helped support the boat inspection program. He has the ability to engage diverse people with that passion that he has and that this special place evokes. Siy said the boat inspection program, which he said is the strictest east of the Mississippi River, is a crowning achievement of Blais long tenure. Now Blais is thinking that he might not finish this term, should the sewer plant issue get resolved soon enough. Construction of the new plant will start this summer, and Blais has been busy trying to boost state support for the project to save the village from having to boost its sewer rates and taxes too much to cover the debt. It is good that Blais is not aiming to become the longest-tenured mayor in the U.S. That honor goes to the mayor of Booneville, Ky., who still serving after 60 years in office. Once Blais steps down, what would he do? His answer is almost predictable. I think I would like to get involved in more event planning for the village, he said, citing the pavilion at the new Charles R. Wood Park on the site of the former Gaslight Village amusement park. The park is another legacy of the mayors, as it is next to West Brook, an important stream that drains from a nearby mountain pond into the lake. A section of the former Gaslight Village amusement park was rebuilt into a nature area meant to slow down the creek, absorb any nutrients that might be in the water, and reduce the amount of sand washing through the creek and into what had been a growing delta near the docks of the Lake George Steamboat company and its three tourist dayboats. Blais stood at the edge of the lake, looking approvingly at the mouth of West Brook and pointing to the sandy stretch. Before the project, the delta had been growing, and was starting to make it difficult for the boats to dock. Now, the delta has stopped growing and things are just fine. By Brian Nearing Times Union, Albany, N.Y. Nearly 80 percent of New Yorkers in a new poll said vaccinations should be required for kids before they can go to school, regardless of family religious beliefs. Support for required vaccinations is strong among Democrats, Republicans and independents, according to the latest Siena College poll. Over 75 percent of Republicans, 86 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of independents were in favor. The latest poll was conducted earlier in March through telephone calls to 700 registered voters in New York. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. Vaccine exemptions for kids in school have made headlines in recent months as several parts of the country battle measles outbreaks. Rockland County outside New York City has been dealing with a measles outbreak since last year. So far, the outbreak includes 147 confirmed cases. The outbreaks have pushed some officials to take a second look at religious exemptions for vaccines. A new bill in the New York Legislature would allow minors to get vaccinated even if their parents object. Others in states including Texas have been looking to make vaccine exemptions even easier to obtain. Measles was largely eliminated in the U.S. after the vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, but some health officials are concerned about potential resurgence given growing opposition to vaccines among some. The Siena poll also found broad support for making New York's property tax cap permanent. "Making permanent the property tax cap has strong support from every party and every region," Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said in a news release. Sixty percent of Republicans and independents favor a permanent cap as do 58 percent of Democrats, the poll found. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said a permanent tax cap is a must for this year's budget and the state Senate already passed a bill on the issue. The Assembly has yet to act. Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 Vikram Arya BHPian Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Calgary/Shimla Posts: 370 Thanked: 1,669 Times View My Garage Maruti Gypsy: Off the beaten track in the lower Himalayas As some of you may know I bought a new Gypsy King in 2016 and one of the reasons that I look forward to my visit to India is to spend some with her as well (or so my wife claims). In last three years I have only been able to put approx. 4,700 kms. on the clock. I was born in Shimla and have lived in Himachal throughout my school going years. Dad was an IFS officer (now Retired) and has served at various locations in the State during his early career and that explains my affinity with mountains and forests. I relocated to Canada 13 years ago and have called Canada my home since. Canada though geographically a beautiful & diverse place with majestic Canadian Rockies, Prairies and Icy Northern Peninsula including part of the Arctic (yes, a trip to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska is planned sometimes in the future) the Himalayas tug at my heartstrings for they have a spiritual aura around them that no other mountain range can match. Incidentally the mighty Himalayas are also the only major mountain range that is increasing its altitude by approx. 1 inch every year as the tectonic plates of the Indian continental land mass is pushing into the larger continental spread causing this mighty mountain range to increase its height . Provinces situated at the base of lower Himalayas such as Himachal & Uttrakhand have seen tremendous growth in last 50 years and we have systematically caused irreversible damage to this fragile ecosystem by human encroachment, building haphazard structures and constructing countless hydro-power plants in addition to the ugly RCC construction in pristine hilly areas where only wooden and stone structures used to be there. Someone told it is called Development. What a travesty As I was sitting in my home office in Calgary on a chilly December evening with winds howling at -31C outside, I started doing some research as to where I can drive to for a 7/8 day trip while avoiding the popular/busy destinations. After doing my due diligence I narrowed down to Rewalsar & Barot in Mandi district, Gushaini in Kullu district, and Palampur (Dharamshala was added on later) in Kangra district. The idea was to drive at a sedate pace, take in the scenic environs, click a few pictures and taste some local cuisine while doing some introspection about where my life is headed. I then made a list of things to be carried from here; a GoPro was ordered along with a couple of fat Delkin mounts, SD cards along with ND filters & circular polarizer. I landed at Chandigarh airport after a grueling 23 hour flight (including a brief layover at Frankfurt & Delhi) where my parents picked me up and we drove to Shimla. Folks who have done this stretch in last couple of years must have endured the torture of driving the under construction Kalka Shimla highway. What once was a beautiful, reasonably quite two lane highway is now full of cars/SUVs of various kind driving at unsafe speeds and their drivers with scant regards for some simple rules of hill driving but I guess this is the sign of the times. I reached Shimla after a brief stop over at a small dhaba in Dedhgharat a few kms from Solan. We have been stopping here for some great bread omelette and ginger tea for last 35 years. The owner who is now grown old and doesnt usually man the counter now, instantly recognized dad and made an exception by making the fabled bread omelette. I devoured it with some ginger tea and headed out to Shimla. The traffic was not very heavy thankfully and we made it to Shimla in all of three and a half hours from Chandigarh. I had planned to relax for a day and get some work done on the vehicle the next day before heading out on the trip. I also realized that Gypsy has been parked for more than six months and had not got an oil change since May 2017 plus the change of transmission/transfer case/differential oil was also due although the vehicle just had 4,700 kms on the clock however it was already 3 years since the purchase of the vehicle & Maruti recommends these fluid changes every two years or 20,000 km whichever is earlier. Therefore, the first thing that I needed to do was to complete the said fluid changes and get a general inspection of the vehicle done. Next morning I took the Gypsy to Mohinder a.k.a. Minnie, the top Gypsy specialist in Himachal; hes a quite a legend among local Gypsy aficionados as well as Raid De Himalaya participants and knows Gypsy inside out as probably no one else does at least in the North India. I requested him to take a look at the under body and also carry out a general inspection. I had a jug of Shell Helix Ultra 5W-40 for the engine and 8 ltrs. of Shell Spirax 80W-90 for the transmission, transfer case and front & rear differentials. Time for some fresh juice Transmission/transfer-case/differential fluids being changed Under-body inspection completed All the fluid changes were completed and a general inspection of the vehicle was also completed in a couple of hours. I then took the vehicle for a car wash to one of my favourite joints (Mukesh at Pal Washing in Shanan on Shimla Bypass road) and the car was given a thorough wash with shampoo and duly waxed afterwards. Gypsy getting some much needed love & care During my way home I filled her up at one of the trusted gas stations (very important in India) and I was all set for the much awaited journey the next day. Some of the important things I carried were as under: Air compressor Tire puncture repair kit Fuel filter funnel Sleeping bag Some routine medication And bottled water An important caveat; the pictures taken are a mix of cellphone & the camera shots so my apologies in advance for some grainy compositions. Day 1: Shimla to Rewalsar (150 kms, driving time: approx. 6 hours) I along with my brother Vivek started at 0800 to beat the office rush and we were out of town by 0830. The drive from Shimla to Rewalsar goes via Bilaspur & Sunder Nagar and one needs to turn left from Ner Chowk which is 15 kms from Sunder Nagar. One needs to drive on State Highway 205 that becomes Highway No 154 from Nauni near Bilaspur. The stretch from Dharlaghat to Namhol was badly broken on account of plying of overloaded trucks that ferry the cement from the Ambuja cement plant in Darlaghat. After Namhol the tarmac was smooth and I tried to increase the pace just a vee bit more however soon came upon the realization (thats what happens when you become accustomed to driving slightly more powerful cars on smooth highway stretches in the Rockies) that Gypsy is not meant for hustling around the corners. In any case we were not in a terrible hurry. I took a detour by turning right at Brahmpukhar thus avoiding the Bilaspur town. We stopped at a decent looking Dhaba before Ghaghas to grab a bite. On the Shimla Bilaspur highway While eating out during one of these trips in India I have a strict rule that I religiously follow to avoid getting into trouble. You may also follow it if you like. I ask the dhabwalah for yellow dal and roti. He then needs to put a tadka of onion and butter and bring the dal to a boil. Now if the dal is stale it will immediately give off a bad odour. Rotis have to be made fresh anyway. I stay away from non vegetarian food and also other delicacies such as mix vegetable (likely to have all the left over vegetables from the previous day) or black dal/paneer etc. I also eat light as a full stomach is likely to induce drowsiness that is not very helpful while driving on hills roads or on any road for that matter. After leaving Ghaghas I turned right and in a couple of hours crossed Barmana & Sundernagar. You really have to keep your eyes peeled for the left turn at Ner Chowk for Rewalsar. From Ner Chowk onwards the tarmac was broken again for a few kilometers. There is a steady stream of traffic from Punjab on this narrow stretch of rural road of folks who are headed to Mandi/Manali in addition to visiting the Gurudwara at Rewalsar. By 5pm I had pulled in to the forest rest house at Rewalsar which was oddly located bang in the middle of town. I found this highly unusual as normally the forest rest houses are located away from the town. I had somewhat interrupted view of the lake and of the giant Guru Rinpoche statute on the hill. Rewalsar Forest rest house Rewalsar is a small town in Mandi district and has religious significance for the followers of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religion. Rewalsar also finds mention in Skanada Purana. Guru Gobin Singh had also visited Rewalsar where he consulted the rulers of the hill state to seek support in his campaign against Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. There is a giant statute of Padmasmbhava also known as Guru Rinpoche on the hill overlooking the lake. There are three Budhist monasties, a gurudwara and a few temples in town. Incidentally Vidu Vinod Chopras 1998 film Kareeb starring Bobby Deol was mostly filmed at Rewalsar. Day 2: Rewalsar to Gushaini via Mandi (100 kms, driving time: approx. 5 hours) Next morning after a breakfast of paranthas and piping hot tea, both me & my brother took off on foot to take a closer look at the lake and pay our obeisance at the temple, gurudwara and the monastery. Beautiful view of the lake Rewalsar At about 12pm we started from Rewalsar for Mandi. On the beautiful Rewalsar Mandi road I noticed that Gypsy was getting a little dirty so decided to get her a quick wash on the outskirts of the town. A quick wash in Mandi And after grabbing lunch at a dhaba at the end of the town we headed to Gushaini. Time for a quick bite From Rewalsar I took Highway No 26 till Mandi, Highway No 3 till Aut & Highway No 305 till just before Banjar where you turn left to go to Gushaini. My destination was Bandal Forest Rest House which is located at the end of the Tirthan Valley. We reached Aut at 3pm and took a right turn just before the Aut market and crossed the Beas river to head to Banjar. After a spirited drive along the narrow strip of tarmac I took a left just before the Banajar town towards Gushaini. Gushiani lies at the Eastern end of the Tirthan Valley. Tirthan Valley is home to Great Himalayan National Park that is spread well over 1,100 sq. kms. and has also been put on the World Heritage List by UNESCO due to its unique bio diversity that includes Snow Leopard, Himalayan Black & Brown Bear, Leopard cat, Common Leopard & Himalayan Musk deer among other rare bird, insect & reptile species. One night cannot do justice to this beautiful place however this was more of a driving trip and more exhaustive exploration of the area would have to wait for another time. A little bit of a back ground is warranted here. I had last visited Gushaini in 2003 when I was posted at Jaipur and before that almost 40 years ago when my father was posted as Divisional Forest Officer at Banjar. It was a little disheartening to find the Tirthan Valley in a sorry state with commercial activity galore. You have a mishmash of Home stays, hotels, camping sites & what have you located all over the pristine Valley. The road is in a terrible state of neglect, the tourism potential of the place notwithstanding. Bandal Forest rest house By 5:30PM we pulled up to the Forest rest house at Bandal located at the top of the hill and thankfully away from the hustle and bustle of commercial activity down in the valley. The care taker had prepared a simple dinner of dal, alu gobhi and chapatis. I asked him to get a fire going and sat down to listen to wind and gaze at the majestic mountain just across. Turned out that the caretaker had quite an interesting story to tell me, the fella had worked in a restaurant in Goa for four years before he decided that the city life is not for him. He then went on to tell me that he has 46 bighas of land in the village and a huge apple orchard. Im actually flabbergasted; if I had that kind of land here (actually even one tenth of that) I would chuck my city life in a jiffy and relocate to Tirthan Valley. Interesting indeed; all of us want what we dont have. Beautiful view of the mountain form the rest house Question is if I have the guts to throw it all away and relocate to some obscure village in the mountains where you can keep company with the pristine air and somber mountains and not much else. I think I know the answer however I still have a few obligations to take care of. Im a proverbial mountain man; I find it easier to breathe if Im surrounded by mountains and forests. Thankfully I live in a city which is 90 minutes away from this. We had a late dinner and after nightcap by the fire and reminiscing about the bygone, uncomplicated time went to bed at 11:30pm. Day 3: Gushaini to Barot via Mandi (145 kms, driving time: approx. 5 hours) Got up early at 7 and the caretaker served a cup of hot tea. After a quick shower and breakfast of eggs headed out for a walk. The Sun was coming up and casting a sheet of mellow sunlight across the narrow valley. I almost wanted to stay for another day however that will have to wait for another time. Driving down the steep, unpaved road from the rest house We headed out at 11:00am on the same highway; today we had to reach Barot and for that I had to drive to Mandi and turn right just before the Mandi town cross the Beas river and drive on to the state highway No 154 leading to Joginder Nagar. However on the way we did venture to river bed by the Gushaini- Banjar road to take a closer look at the river. Tirthan river bed This contraption is used to move cases of apples from the mountain top on the opposite side By 2pm we were in Mandi; had lunch a decent looking restaurant, this time closer to town. Filled up the vehicle at an HP gas station and headed out onto the Joginder Nagar highway No 154. The state highway from Mandi starts to climb as it makes it way to Joginder Nagar. It is a great road to drive on for there is very little traffic and tarmac is smooth. I shift down a gear and press a little on the accelerator and the smooth engine of Gypsy purrs and I indulge in the joy of pure unadulterated driving where I have to give constant steering inputs and watch for the chirp from the rear tires as they struggle to maintain traction and as I increase the pace I am actually doing power slides as the tail starts to hang out. It is time to slow down and take in the changing environs. Instead of taking the regular route which is a right turn from Ghatasani (folks who are planning to visit Barot should turn right & Ghatasani) I decided to take a detour at a small village called Padhar. This road is barely paved (probably 20 years ago) for the most part and secluded (thank God). The road meanders through small villages and passes through some beautiful locales. We were making slow progress as the tarmac is broken at many places and those who are familiar with unforgiving suspension of Gypsy know that best way is to tackle such stretches at a slow pace. I also aired down the tire pressure to 17 psi and that surely seemed to help. Some pictures of the Padhar- Jhatingari road Traffic jam! As we get closer to Barot the Sun was going down however the scenic beauty is absolutely breathtaking and the air is crisp. I cannot wait for the next morning to gaze at the picture perfect views all around. We stopped at a small tea shop at a place called Jilhan around 5pm. The lady who owned the shop had got a small fire going in a small steel pan and in freezing temperatures we were thankful to sit around the fire and sip the warmth inducing concoction. I got into a conversation with the lady; turns out that she is a widow and is raising her two girls all by herself. The elder one is doing MSc in Chemistry at HP University in Shimla and the younger is in class 12. I commended her on her courage and grit, wished her my best and we started our drive to Barot. By the time we pull in to the PWD rest house at Barot, it is close to 8pm. This rest house is a log hut structure and was constructed by British more than 100 years ago. Beautiful PWD rest house, Barot The care taker is a jovial fellow and he had prepared a delicious dinner of Rajmah & rice along with some delicious grilled Trout. After the dinner, we hit the sack and are asleep in no time. Barot is surrounded on both sides by the Dhauladhar range of mountains and is located at 6,000 feet above sea level. Some background about Barot; the village is known for Shanan hydal project that was commissioned in 1932 and is owned and operated by Punjab Government (Mandi was part of old undivided Punjab state prior to formation of Himachal Pradesh in 1950). Every year in winter I travel to India to spend some time with my family and friends. As you grow older this need manifests itself more strongly. Im aware that a number of travelogues have been written about various popular destinations in Himachal however this is a little different not only in terms of the kind of places that I planned to cover but also the objective. I planned to spend most of the time in driving from one destination to another and not indulge in much sight-seeing. Most of these places are a little obscure and maybe because of that these places have not been subjected to the kind of commercial exploitation that we usually see of our so called tourist spots; I hope I do not become the harbinger of change here. Having lived overseas for last 13 years I have become accustomed to the serenity and seclusion that some of these places still offer.As some of you may know I bought a new Gypsy King in 2016 and one of the reasons that I look forward to my visit to India is to spend some with her as well (or so my wife claims). In last three years I have only been able to put approx. 4,700 kms. on the clock.I was born in Shimla and have lived in Himachal throughout my school going years. Dad was an IFS officer (now Retired) and has served at various locations in the State during his early career and that explains my affinity with mountains and forests. I relocated to Canada 13 years ago and have called Canada my home since. Canada though geographically a beautiful & diverse place with majestic Canadian Rockies, Prairies and Icy Northern Peninsula including part of the Arctic (yes, a trip to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska is planned sometimes in the future) the Himalayas tug at my heartstrings for they have a spiritual aura around them that no other mountain range can match. Incidentally the mighty Himalayas are also the only major mountain range that is increasing its altitude by approx. 1 inch every year as the tectonic plates of the Indian continental land mass is pushing into the larger continental spread causing this mighty mountain range to increase its height .Provinces situated at the base of lower Himalayas such as Himachal & Uttrakhand have seen tremendous growth in last 50 years and we have systematically caused irreversible damage to this fragile ecosystem by human encroachment, building haphazard structures and constructing countless hydro-power plants in addition to the ugly RCC construction in pristine hilly areas where only wooden and stone structures used to be there. Someone told it is called Development. What a travestyAs I was sitting in my home office in Calgary on a chilly December evening with winds howling at -31C outside, I started doing some research as to where I can drive to for a 7/8 day trip while avoiding the popular/busy destinations. After doing my due diligence I narrowed down to Rewalsar & Barot in Mandi district, Gushaini in Kullu district, and Palampur (Dharamshala was added on later) in Kangra district. The idea was to drive at a sedate pace, take in the scenic environs, click a few pictures and taste some local cuisine while doing some introspection about where my life is headed.I then made a list of things to be carried from here; a GoPro was ordered along with a couple of fat Delkin mounts, SD cards along with ND filters & circular polarizer.I landed at Chandigarh airport after a grueling 23 hour flight (including a brief layover at Frankfurt & Delhi) where my parents picked me up and we drove to Shimla. Folks who have done this stretch in last couple of years must have endured the torture of driving the under construction Kalka Shimla highway. What once was a beautiful, reasonably quite two lane highway is now full of cars/SUVs of various kind driving at unsafe speeds and their drivers with scant regards for some simple rules of hill driving but I guess this is the sign of the times.I reached Shimla after a brief stop over at a small dhaba in Dedhgharat a few kms from Solan. We have been stopping here for some great bread omelette and ginger tea for last 35 years. The owner who is now grown old and doesnt usually man the counter now, instantly recognized dad and made an exception by making the fabled bread omelette. I devoured it with some ginger tea and headed out to Shimla. The traffic was not very heavy thankfully and we made it to Shimla in all of three and a half hours from Chandigarh. I had planned to relax for a day and get some work done on the vehicle the next day before heading out on the trip.I also realized that Gypsy has been parked for more than six months and had not got an oil change since May 2017 plus the change of transmission/transfer case/differential oil was also due although the vehicle just had 4,700 kms on the clock however it was already 3 years since the purchase of the vehicle & Maruti recommends these fluid changes every two years or 20,000 km whichever is earlier. Therefore, the first thing that I needed to do was to complete the said fluid changes and get a general inspection of the vehicle done.Next morning I took the Gypsy to Mohinder a.k.a. Minnie, the top Gypsy specialist in Himachal; hes a quite a legend among local Gypsy aficionados as well as Raid De Himalaya participants and knows Gypsy inside out as probably no one else does at least in the North India. I requested him to take a look at the under body and also carry out a general inspection. I had a jug of Shell Helix Ultra 5W-40 for the engine and 8 ltrs. of Shell Spirax 80W-90 for the transmission, transfer case and front & rear differentials.All the fluid changes were completed and a general inspection of the vehicle was also completed in a couple of hours. I then took the vehicle for a car wash to one of my favourite joints (Mukesh at Pal Washing in Shanan on Shimla Bypass road) and the car was given a thorough wash with shampoo and duly waxed afterwards.During my way home I filled her up at one of the trusted gas stations (very important in India) and I was all set for the much awaited journey the next day.Some of the important things I carried were as under:Air compressorTire puncture repair kitFuel filter funnelSleeping bagSome routine medicationAnd bottled waterI along with my brother Vivek started at 0800 to beat the office rush and we were out of town by 0830. The drive from Shimla to Rewalsar goes via Bilaspur & Sunder Nagar and one needs to turn left from Ner Chowk which is 15 kms from Sunder Nagar. One needs to drive on State Highway 205 that becomes Highway No 154 from Nauni near Bilaspur.The stretch from Dharlaghat to Namhol was badly broken on account of plying of overloaded trucks that ferry the cement from the Ambuja cement plant in Darlaghat. After Namhol the tarmac was smooth and I tried to increase the pace just a vee bit more however soon came upon the realization (thats what happens when you become accustomed to driving slightly more powerful cars on smooth highway stretches in the Rockies) that Gypsy is not meant for hustling around the corners. In any case we were not in a terrible hurry. I took a detour by turning right at Brahmpukhar thus avoiding the Bilaspur town. We stopped at a decent looking Dhaba before Ghaghas to grab a bite.While eating out during one of these trips in India I have a strict rule that I religiously follow to avoid getting into trouble. You may also follow it if you like. I ask the dhabwalah for yellow dal and roti. He then needs to put a tadka of onion and butter and bring the dal to a boil. Now if the dal is stale it will immediately give off a bad odour. Rotis have to be made fresh anyway. I stay away from non vegetarian food and also other delicacies such as mix vegetable (likely to have all the left over vegetables from the previous day) or black dal/paneer etc. I also eat light as a full stomach is likely to induce drowsiness that is not very helpful while driving on hills roads or on any road for that matter.After leaving Ghaghas I turned right and in a couple of hours crossed Barmana & Sundernagar. You really have to keep your eyes peeled for the left turn at Ner Chowk for Rewalsar. From Ner Chowk onwards the tarmac was broken again for a few kilometers. There is a steady stream of traffic from Punjab on this narrow stretch of rural road of folks who are headed to Mandi/Manali in addition to visiting the Gurudwara at Rewalsar.By 5pm I had pulled in to the forest rest house at Rewalsar which was oddly located bang in the middle of town. I found this highly unusual as normally the forest rest houses are located away from the town. I had somewhat interrupted view of the lake and of the giant Guru Rinpoche statute on the hill.Rewalsar is a small town in Mandi district and has religious significance for the followers of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religion.Rewalsar also finds mention in Skanada Purana. Guru Gobin Singh had also visited Rewalsar where he consulted the rulers of the hill state to seek support in his campaign against Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. There is a giant statute of Padmasmbhava also known as Guru Rinpoche on the hill overlooking the lake.There are three Budhist monasties, a gurudwara and a few temples in town.Next morning after a breakfast of paranthas and piping hot tea, both me & my brother took off on foot to take a closer look at the lake and pay our obeisance at the temple, gurudwara and the monastery.At about 12pm we started from Rewalsar for Mandi.I noticed that Gypsy was getting a little dirty so decided to get her a quick wash on the outskirts of the town.And after grabbing lunch at a dhaba at the end of the town we headed to Gushaini.From Rewalsar I took Highway No 26 till Mandi, Highway No 3 till Aut & Highway No 305 till just before Banjar where you turn left to go to Gushaini.My destination was Bandal Forest Rest House which is located at the end of the Tirthan Valley. We reached Aut at 3pm and took a right turn just before the Aut market and crossed the Beas river to head to Banjar. After a spirited drive along the narrow strip of tarmac I took a left just before the Banajar town towards Gushaini.Gushiani lies at the Eastern end of the Tirthan Valley. Tirthan Valley is home to Great Himalayan National Park that is spread well over 1,100 sq. kms. and has also been put on the World Heritage List by UNESCO due to its unique bio diversity that includes Snow Leopard, Himalayan Black & Brown Bear, Leopard cat, Common Leopard & Himalayan Musk deer among other rare bird, insect & reptile species. One night cannot do justice to this beautiful place however this was more of a driving trip and more exhaustive exploration of the area would have to wait for another time.A little bit of a back ground is warranted here. I had last visited Gushaini in 2003 when I was posted at Jaipur and before that almost 40 years ago when my father was posted as Divisional Forest Officer at Banjar. It was a little disheartening to find the Tirthan Valley in a sorry state with commercial activity galore. You have a mishmash of Home stays, hotels, camping sites & what have you located all over the pristine Valley. The road is in a terrible state of neglect, the tourism potential of the place notwithstanding.By 5:30PM we pulled up to the Forest rest house at Bandal located at the top of the hill and thankfully away from the hustle and bustle of commercial activity down in the valley. The care taker had prepared a simple dinner of dal, alu gobhi and chapatis. I asked him to get a fire going and sat down to listen to wind and gaze at the majestic mountain just across. Turned out that the caretaker had quite an interesting story to tell me, the fella had worked in a restaurant in Goa for four years before he decided that the city life is not for him. He then went on to tell me that he has 46 bighas of land in the village and a huge apple orchard. Im actually flabbergasted; if I had that kind of land here (actually even one tenth of that) I would chuck my city life in a jiffy and relocate to Tirthan Valley. Interesting indeed; all of us want what we dont have.Question is if I have the guts to throw it all away and relocate to some obscure village in the mountains where you can keep company with the pristine air and somber mountains and not much else. I think I know the answer however I still have a few obligations to take care of. Im a proverbial mountain man; I find it easier to breathe if Im surrounded by mountains and forests. Thankfully I live in a city which is 90 minutes away from this.We had a late dinner and after nightcap by the fire and reminiscing about the bygone, uncomplicated time went to bed at 11:30pm.Got up early at 7 and the caretaker served a cup of hot tea. After a quick shower and breakfast of eggs headed out for a walk. The Sun was coming up and casting a sheet of mellow sunlight across the narrow valley. I almost wanted to stay for another day however that will have to wait for another time.We headed out at 11:00am on the same highway; today we had to reach Barot and for that I had to drive to Mandi and turn right just before the Mandi town cross the Beas river and drive on to the state highway No 154 leading to Joginder Nagar. However on the way we did venture to river bed by the Gushaini- Banjar road to take a closer look at the river.By 2pm we were in Mandi; had lunch a decent looking restaurant, this time closer to town. Filled up the vehicle at an HP gas station and headed out onto the Joginder Nagar highway No 154. The state highway from Mandi starts to climb as it makes it way to Joginder Nagar. It is a great road to drive on for there is very little traffic and tarmac is smooth.I shift down a gear and press a little on the accelerator and the smooth engine of Gypsy purrs and I indulge in the joy of pure unadulterated driving where I have to give constant steering inputs and watch for the chirp from the rear tires as they struggle to maintain traction and as I increase the pace I am actually doing power slides as the tail starts to hang out. It is time to slow down and take in the changing environs.Instead of taking the regular route which is a right turn from Ghatasani (folks who are planning to visit Barot should turn right & Ghatasani) I decided to take a detour at a small village called Padhar. This road is barely paved (probably 20 years ago) for the most part and secluded (thank God). The road meanders through small villages and passes through some beautiful locales. We were making slow progress as the tarmac is broken at many places and those who are familiar with unforgiving suspension of Gypsy know that best way is to tackle such stretches at a slow pace. I also aired down the tire pressure to 17 psi and that surely seemed to help.As we get closer to Barot the Sun was going down however the scenic beauty is absolutely breathtaking and the air is crisp. I cannot wait for the next morning to gaze at the picture perfect views all around.We stopped at a small tea shop at a place called Jilhan around 5pm. The lady who owned the shop had got a small fire going in a small steel pan and in freezing temperatures we were thankful to sit around the fire and sip the warmth inducing concoction. I got into a conversation with the lady; turns out that she is a widow and is raising her two girls all by herself. The elder one is doing MSc in Chemistry at HP University in Shimla and the younger is in class 12. I commended her on her courage and grit, wished her my best and we started our drive to Barot.By the time we pull in to the PWD rest house at Barot, it is close to 8pm. This rest house is a log hut structure and was constructed by British more than 100 years ago.The care taker is a jovial fellow and he had prepared a delicious dinner of Rajmah & rice along with some delicious grilled Trout. After the dinner, we hit the sack and are asleep in no time.Barot is surrounded on both sides by the Dhauladhar range of mountains and is located at 6,000 feet above sea level. Some background about Barot; the village is known for Shanan hydal project that was commissioned in 1932 and is owned and operated by Punjab Government (Mandi was part of old undivided Punjab state prior to formation of Himachal Pradesh in 1950). Last edited by Vikram Arya : 17th March 2019 at 08:26 . Headphones with active noise cancellation (ANC) allow you to retreat from the din of modern life. And who doesnt want to do that now and then? Even better, you can listen to your favorite tunes at lower levels, thus protecting your hearing. After thoroughly testing Edifiers W860NB ANC headphones, I can say theyre better for the former than the latter. Features The Edifier W860NB is an over-ear (circumaural) Bluetooth headphone with artificial-leather earpads and headband, weighing in at just over 10 ounces. It utilizes 40mm drivers with neodymium magnets to achieve a specified frequency response from 20Hz to 20kHz (no tolerance given). As mentioned at the top, the W860NB offers active noise cancellation. Four microphones, two in each earcup, sample ambient noise, which is then phase-inverted and mixed with the original signal to reduce the perceived level thanks to phase cancellation. (Theres also a fifth mic for phone calls.) Unfortunately, the W860NB has no transparency mode, which would temporarily disable ANC so you can hear things in your environment, such as safety instructions in an airplane. Edifier Wireless headphones like the W860NB offer freedom from wires that usually end up in a tangled mess. The W860NB supports Bluetooth 4.1 with the HSP, HFP, A2DP, and AVRCP profiles, and it supports the high-quality aptX codec. In addition to conventional pairing with Bluetooth sources, it can be paired with devices that support NFC (Near-Field Communication). In that case, all you have to do is hold the W860NB close to the source device and accept the connection. Interestingly, you can pair up to two Bluetooth source devices to the W860NB and play audio from either one. According to the manual, When two Bluetooth devices have different operating systems (e.g., one has Android and the other is iOS), some cross-system operations (e.g., pause music in Android and play music in iOS) may experience delays. Please be aware that this is normal. The only other audio input is a 3.5mm two-channel analog-audio jack at the bottom of the left earcup. When you connect to a source using such a cable (which is included with the W860NB), the headphone powers off, becoming a passive headphone with an impedance of 32 ohms. This is great news if the battery is dead but you still want to listen. Edifier The W860NB comes with a nice hardshell case. You charge the internal battery by connecting any USB power source (5V, 500 mA) to the microUSB connector near the bottom of the left earcup. A suitable cable is included with the headphone, but the connector is hidden behind a small plastic cover that seems certain to break off and get lost in short order. Charging takes about four hours, after which the battery will last about 25 hours with ANC engaged or 45 hours without ANC. Thats a very long battery life! Like most such headphones, the W860MB lets you answer phone calls while listening to music. In that case, the music pauses during the call, and then resumes when you hang up. User Interface The only buttons on the W860NB are found near the bottom of the right earcup. They include the power buttonwhich is actually a multifunction buttonand a sliding toggle to turn ANC on or off. Aside from turning the power on and off, the multifunction button can also be used to answer, reject, and hang up phone calls as well as enable and disable the source devices voice-assistant function (e.g., Siri in iOS devices). All other functionsplay/pause, volume up/down, and skip forward/backare controlled with the touch-sensitive surface of the right earcup. To play or pause music, double tap in the center of the earcup. Slowly slide your finger up or down along the surface of the earcup to increase or decrease the volume, and slide your finger forward or backward to skip to the next or previous track. If you get a call while listening, you can double tap the center area to answer the call and hang up when youre done. Hold your finger in that area for about two seconds to reject the call. Edifier The bottom of the left earcup holds a 3.5mm analog-audio input, charging-indicator LED, and microUSB charging port under a flimsy cover. The bottom of the right earcup holds a status-indicator LED, power/multifunction button, and ANC on/off slider. Audio performance Pairing the W860NB with my iPad was no problem. I started my listening with Blue Skies from the album Cassandra Wilson Sings Standards; this tune includes only acoustic bass and drums accompanying Wilsons voice. Overall, the sound was a bit thick, and the bass was somewhat bloated, but the voice was rich and fulsome. Next up was Chicha from the album Tales From Home by acoustic guitarist Ciro Hurtado. This track includes electric bass, drums, flute, and synthesizers in addition to guitar. The instruments were well balanced with full-sounding guitar, and the bass wasnt as boomy. The overall sound, however, was somewhat congested and closed in. Remaining south of the border, I played Los Laureles from Linda Ronstadts Canciones de Mi Padre. The instrumentation includes a full Mariachi band with violins, trumpets, guitarron, and harp. Ronstadts gorgeous voice was nice and forward, but the overall sound was somewhat veiled with slightly boated bass. Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills & Nash is a strange mix for headphones, with the two solo voices hard-panned right and left. As rendered by the W860NB, the sound seemed quite veiled, especially the vocals, and the bass was a bit indistinct and boomy. One of my favorite world-music artists is Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra. Guru Brahma on the album Shiva Station includes sitar, electric bass, drums, tablas, guitar, organ, synths, and muted trumpet supporting Uttals vocals. The bass was way overblown, while the voice and sitar were rich and in your face. Edifier The surface of the right earcup provides touch-sensitive controls: play/pause/answer phone by double-tapping the center, increase or decrease the volume by sliding a finger up or down, and skip to the next or previous track by sliding a finger forward or backward. Unfortunately, the volume and skip-track controls do not work very well. I also listened to Croque Monsieur from the album French Cafe: A Parisian Gypsy Jazz Swing Experience by Paris Cafe Society. This track includes clarinet, violin, guitar, acoustic bass, and percussion, all of which sounded rich and full. The bass was a bit boomy, but not as bad as some of the other tracks I listened to, and the clarinet and violin were well defined. The overall sound, however, was still somewhat thick and congested. Turning to classical music, I listened to Wie Lieblich Sind Deine Wohnungen from Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem as performed by Collegium Vocale Gent and the Orchestre des Champs-Elysees under Philippe Herreweghe. The sound here was well balanced between the orchestra and choir, but it sounded a bit congested and veiled overall. Joshua Bell is among the worlds preeminent violinists, as he aptly demonstrates playing Tchaikovskys Meditation in D Minor with the Berlin Philharmonic under Michael Tilson Thomas on the album Tchaikovsky. The orchestra sounded full and well balanced, but the violin was somewhat recessed, which could have been the mix of that particular track. For some chamber music, I listened to the first movement of Brahms Trio in A minor, Op. 114 as performed by Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Emanuel Ax on piano, and Richard Stoltzman on clarinet from the album Brahms; Beethoven; Mozart Piano Trios. Each instrument was well defined, but the overall sound was somewhat veiled, and the bass was boomy. Edifier The Edifier W860NB are also available in tan finish, but its still faux leather. Controls, comfort, and noise cancellation During my listening, I played with the touch-sensitive controls of the W860NB. Double-tapping the right earcup starts and pauses playback as expected. Theres a long delay, however, between sliding your finger up and down on the right earcup and a change in volume; I found it nearly impossible to set the volume I wanted using that control. Sliding my finger forward and backward across the right earcup is supposed to skip to the next or previous track. But this was very unreliable; it would often skip two or three tracks. The touch-sensitive controls are a good idea, but this implementation needs work. I listened to each selection twiceonce on the W860NB and again on the PSB M4U 8 that I recently reviewed. The boomy low end and veiled, closed-in sound quality of the W860NB was all the more obvious when compared to the M4U 8, which invariably sounded much clearer and more open with no bass bloat. Also, the M4U 8 was louder at a given volume setting. Granted, the M4U 8 costs more than twice as much as the W860NB, but still. In addition, I found the W860NB to be less than perfectly comfortable to wear. It didnt easily conform to my head; I had to manually rotate the earcups for a good seal. In addition, the build quality feels pretty cheap, and after a while, I started sweating under the artificial-leather earpads. Edifier The Edifier W860NBs build quality feels cheap. Regarding active noise cancellation, the W860NB actually exhibited less hiss than the M4U 8 when I engaged ANC in a quiet room. Taking them both driving around my neighborhood, I started with comparing the ANC of each unit without any music. I found that the noise cancellation is at least as good in the W860NBand perhaps a smidge better than the M4U 8. Even more interesting, I discovered that the W860NB actually sounds better with ANC on! Whereas the M4U 8 sounds a bit bloated with ANC on, the opposite is true of the W860NB. In fact, it sounded just a bit anemic, with much less low end than without ANC. I checked this when I got home in a quiet room, confirming my observations in the car. Just before I finished my evaluation, I had my wife call my cell while I was listening on the W860NB. Double-tapping the right earcup answered the call, and her voice sounded nice and clear. (She said the same about my voice.) I double-tapped the earcup again to hang up and resume listening. Bottom Line As I listened to the Edifier W860NB with ANC off, I was preparing to not recommend it; the sound quality is somewhat veiled and congested with boomy bass. Also, the build quality feels cheap, its not as comfortable as I would like, and the touch-sensitive controls dont work very well. But then I tried it with ANC on, and the sound improved substantiallythough in that case, its a bit lean, which I prefer over boomy. Even better, the battery is specd to last up to 25 hours with ANC on, which is much longer than most. By contrast, the M4U 8 specifies a battery life of around 15 hours, but its batteries can be replaced with two regular AAs in a pinch. And like the M4U 8, with the power off (say, due to a dead battery), the W860NB can act as a passive headphone using a 3.5mm audio cable, though with no ANC, the sound is back to being bloated. I still prefer the sound of the PSB M4U 8, at least with its ANC off. Plus, it has much better build quality, fully functional controls, and its more comfortable to wear for extended periods. But its more than twice as expensive as the W860NB. Speaking of the price, $169.99 is quite good for Bluetooth headphones with ANC. And until March 23, you can snag the W860NB for only $129.99 on the Edifier website. If money is tight but you want over-ear headphones with ANC, the W860NB is worth a serious listenas long as you do so with ANC on. What just happened? A Dutch hacker who built a DDoS bot to extort $150,000 from multiple victims has avoided a prison sentence after admitting his crimes and apologizing. In 2016 and 2017 a hacker was actively targeting major websites like the BBC and Yahoo News with DDoS attacks and Mirai-based malware. Over the course of 12 months, they allegedly extorted around $150,000 through attacking and subsequently making ransom demands. In October 2017, a suspect was caught and the attacks stopped. That suspect is now known to the world simply as S.. S. was a minor when he committed the crimes, so the Dutch court has not released his name even though he is aged 20 now. ZDNet reports that S. showed remorse in court, admitted to his crimes and apologized for his actions. As such, instead of a prison sentence, S. received 120 hours of community service. He had already spent some time in juvenile detention, which was factored in as time served. During the course of the court proceedings, S. told the judge that he had begun hacking aged 13 or 14, and he had started the DDoS and ransom attacks because his parents werent able to financially support him. According to Zdnet, S. is now involved in cryptocurrency mining and speculation. The prosecution had sought a 2-year prison sentence and damage payments on top. But his apology seems to have convinced the judge that prison is not the answer here. Currently S. has been set free on a 360-day conditional release, provided he does not break any other laws. In brief: One of the main aims of prisons is to prevent inmates from committing more crimes after their release. But with so many of those inside lacking the necessary skills to hold down a job, the national reoffending rate in the US is 55 percent. A new program in the UK looks to address this problem by teaching prisoners code. The countrys Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced a 100,000 ($132,384) award to fund the Code4000 project in two prisons initially and an employment hub, which provides additional help and training for inmates upon leaving prison. Only carefully vetted prisoners will be taught how to code. They will start with HTML, CSS, and Javascript before moving on to the likes of Git, TDD, MVC, databases and full stack development, reports the BBC. The inmates will work on real-world projects for external clients, with the money earned getting reinvested back into the project. The third stage will see them working for clients on temporary day release, which will hopefully help them find developer jobs. This project has changed my life, said a prisoner who took part in the programs trial. In a time of uncertainty and stress, I was handed a lifeline. I have never been so sure before now of what I wanted from life and how I was going to achieve it. I am not even worried about employment on release anymore. I'm going to smash it. The program is modeled on the San Quentin prisons Last Mile project, which helps prisoners build their technology skills so they can find work once their sentence is up. It has helped over 500 ex-convicts get jobs, none of whom have reoffended. With reoffending in the UK costing around 15 billion and many of the countrys prisons over capacity, its easy to see why the government is pinning its hopes on Code4000, which so far has a 100 percent success rate when it comes to preventing reoffending. In context: Described as a loose collective of rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage, the Archive Team works closely alongside the Internet Archive but is not directly affiliated with them. Google announced plans to shut down its fledgling social networking platform last year following a devastating data breach. After a second breach, Google moved up the closure date from August to April 2019. With just over two weeks remaining until the April 2 deadline, Google+ as we know it will soon disappear but its legacy will live on thanks to the efforts of Archive Team. One of its current projects involves saving as much public content from Google+ before the search giant pulls the plug. The group uses a tool called Warrior that runs grabber scripts on virtual machines. With Google+ specifically, the group aims to archive public content that is presently available on the social network. Private posts and those that have previously been deleted will not be saved. Whats more, images and videos may not be preserved at full resolution and long discussion threads (those with other 500 comments) could be lost. Theres even a real-time project tracker to monitor the rate at which data is being sucked down. Those interested in volunteering can find more information on this Reddit post. If youd rather not have your public data archived, you should delete your Google+ profile ASAP and / or follow the instructions on the Internet Archives website. Given that they boast user numbers in the tens of millions and yearly revenues far beyond that, it's tough to deny the influence of websites like Facebook and Twitter. However, many politically-minded users feel that this influence is being wielded unfairly. Specifically, several prominent right-leaning users on Twitter and Facebook have seen their posts or accounts deleted, for reasons that they feel stem from political biases. One Florida senator has lost his patience with such practices and decided to take matters into his own hands. Republican Joe Gruters has introduced Senate Bill 1722, which he refers to as the "Stop Social Media Censorship Act." The Act may enable Florida's Attorney General to hit social media websites with $75,000 fines if they censor users for "hate speech" or other subjective reasons. The Act may enable Florida's Attorney General to hit social media websites with $75,000 fines if they censor users for "hate speech" or other subjective reasons. This punishment would only apply to social media websites with 75 million users or more. While we encourage you to at least skim over the full bill, Gruters summarizes his proposal as follows: Citing this act as the "Stop Social Media Censorship Act"; providing that the owner or operator of a social media website is subject to a private right of action by a social media website user in this state under certain conditions; prohibiting a social media website from using hate speech as a defense; authorizing the Attorney General to bring an action on behalf of a social media website user, etc. It remains to be seen how much support this bill will garner in the long run, but given how heated the censorship debate has gotten in recent months, it's almost certain to generate quite a bit of discussion; no matter which side of the political divide you fall on. In a new study that involved scanning the brain of method actors, scientists discovered varying patterns of brain activity when actors are in character with their roles. "I got the idea that maybe acting was a bit similar to possession that when you're acting you're kind of being taken over by character," says Dr. Steven Brown, a neuroscientist at the McMaster University in Canada and the study's lead author. Dr. Brown was inspired to conduct the study after witnessing an indigenous possession ritual in Brazil. Studying Thespians The study focused on studying the neural basis of method acting wherein actors assume a "fictional first-person perspective." Method acting or dramatic acting was first developed by Russian theater director Konstantin Stanislavski. The experiment featured 15 method actors, all theater students who were trained for the role of either Romeo or Juliet from the classic Shakespeare play. The scientists were looking for increased brain activity that highlight artistic pursuits, but they discovered something surprising decreased activities in specific areas of the brain during acting. Deactivation Process During Acting Brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging or MRI was the main method used in the experiment. The actors were asked different questions, to which they replied based on the following scenarios: in their own personal perspectives, based on the view of a close friend, as Romeo for male actors, or as Juliet for female actors. Patterns gathered and analyzed from the brain scan experiments showed that brain activities in the prefrontal cortex declined when responding from the perspective of a close friend as compared to when answering from a personal perspective. The same was observed when the actors reply to questions while in the character of Romeo or Juliet. Reduced brain activities in the two regions of the prefrontal cortex manifested. The prefrontal cortex of the brain is responsible for personality expression and complex cognitive behaviors. This suggests that due to the deactivation process during acting, it takes less effort for the brain to portray characters such as Romeo or Juliet than to become the real self. "The deactivation associated with a reduction, a suppression, of knowledge of your own traits I think conforms with what acting may involve," Brown said. However, the activity in the part of the brain called precuneus increased when the actors were replying as Romeo or Juliet. Precuneus is linked to a person's consciousness. It is responsible for highly complex functions, including memory retrieval and first-person perspectives. The findings of the study were published by the Royal Society Open Science. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A new study suggests that Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who terrorized London more than 130 years ago, may finally be identified through DNA testing. However, some experts doubt that the evidence is strong enough to provide a definitive answer. Who Was Jack The Ripper? Jack The Ripper was a serial killer who killed at least five women in London's Whitechapel district between Aug. 7 and Sept. 10, 1888. The killings gained notoriety from the press due to the suspect's penchant for mutilating the bodies of his victims. Despite an exhaustive investigation, police and local authorities were never able to capture or even identify the culprit. This gave rise to numerous public speculations on who the real Jack the Ripper was over the years. In an article featured in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, researchers at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom conducted genetic tests on a DNA sample long-thought to have belonged to the Ripper himself. The DNA was taken from a stained silk shawl found right next to the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of the victims of Jack's killing spree. The shawl had traces of blood and semen, the latter of which is thought to be from the suspect. Genetic evidence point to a 23-year-old Polish barber named Aaron Kosminski as the notorious Jack the Ripper. This was confirmed after comparing fragments of mitochondrial DNA taken from the shawl with those taken from Eddowes and Kosminski's living descendants. Investigators identified Kosminski as their prime suspect in the killings in 1888. However, they did not have enough proof to solve the case. The DNA testing suggests that the Ripper had brown eyes and brown hair. This matches evidence from eyewitness reports. While the researchers admit such characteristics are not unique, they note that blue eyes are now more common compared to brown among English people. The researchers believe their new study provides "the most systematic and most advanced genetic analysis to date regarding the Jack the Ripper murders." Criticisms About The Jack The Ripper Study This is not the first time DNA evidence have pointed to Kosminski as the most probable suspect in the Jack the Ripper killings. Jari Louhelainen, a biochemist at LJMU and one of the coauthors of the current study, first conducted testing on the suspect's DNA years earlier. He obtained the samples after receiving the stained shawl from an author named Russell Edwards, who bought it in 2007. Louhelainen's did not open his findings for peer review at the time. He said that he wanted the fuss about the discovery to die down first before he submitted the results. In 2014, Louhelainen published a book titled Naming Jack the Ripper, where he discussed the findings of his study. He was criticized by geneticists for not releasing enough technical details about his analysis. This time, Louhelainen teamed up with fellow scientist David Miller to conduct further testings on the DNA samples. Miller is an expert on sperm and reproduction at the University of Leeds. However, critics are still not convinced about the merit of the study. They pointed out that Louhelainen and Miller failed to mention the specific genetic variants they identified and compared between DNA samples. The researchers instead published a graphic that featured a series of colored boxes. They claimed that the shawl and modern DNA sequences matched where the boxes on the graphic overlap. Louhelainen and Miller claimed that the Data Protection Act prevents them from releasing the genetic sequences taken from Eddowes and Kosminski's living relatives. They said they opted to use the graphic to make it easier for nonscientists and "those interested in true crime" to understand the results. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Specific man-made chemicals found in common household items can cause damaging effects to male fertility in both humans and domestic dogs. A study conducted by researchers of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom found that chemicals identified as plasticizer DEHP and polychlorinated biphenyl 153 or PCB153 may have contributed to the declining human male reproductive health and the decreasing sperm motility of dogs. Declining Male Reproductive Health In the past 80 years, the quality of the human male sperm count declined by 50 percent worldwide. A similar trend was observed in household dogs that indicated a 30 percent decrease in sperm motility. Scientists are pointing to long-term exposure to chemicals and pollutants as the possible culprit to this "shocking" reality. "This new study supports our theory that the domestic dog is indeed a 'sentinel' or mirror for human male reproductive decline," said Richard Lea, a reproductive biologist at the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science and the study's lead author. Environmental Pollutants Affecting Sperm The common plasticizer DEHP, a type of phthalate used to soften plastics, can be found in common household items such as carpets, flooring, upholstery, clothes, wires, and plastic toys. It is already banned in Europe and considered as one of the leading chemical threats to humans. Exposure to DEHP can cause damage to internal organs, including the liver, kidneys, lungs, and reproductive system in animals. PCB153 belongs to a group of industrial chemicals identified as persistent organic pollutants. It is commonly found in lubricants, coolants, and electrical equipment like capacitors and transformers. It is regarded as an endocrine disruptor or chemicals that interfere with hormones or endocrines and can cause tumors, birth defects, and developmental disorders. Both chemicals have already been banned globally, but they remain widely detectable in the home, working environment, and even in food. Low-Quality Sperm The researchers first conducted the sperm study in domestic dogs in 2016 and later on tested if it is the same case for human males. Using identical experiments and the same concentrations of a specimen, they studied sperm from 11 donor males and nine dogs living in the same region. The results showed poor motility and DNA fragmentation in the sperms of both human and canine that are exposed to the same household contaminants. "We know that when human sperm motility is poor, DNA fragmentation is increased and that human male infertility is linked to increased levels of DNA damage in sperm," said Dr. Rebecca Sumner who carried out the laboratory tests on both dog and human sperm. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A Baton Rouge physical therapist was arrested again on Monday after five more former patients, all women, accused him of sexually assaulting them under the guise of medical treatment. Philippe Veeters, a former co-owner and therapist at Dutch Physical Therapy, was booked on six additional counts of sexual battery as well as one count of simple battery after the five women came forward to describe their accounts of inappropriate interactions and treatment alone in a room with Veeters. He was previously arrested in February when two other women accused him of sexual assault. +2 Suspended BR therapist accused in 2nd sexual battery; deputies probe more allegations A Baton Rouge physical therapist has been accused in a second case of sexual battery committed under the guise of medical treatment, and autho All seven women describe how they sought treatment for back or upper body pain and issues, yet in their appointments with Veeters, he would touch them in their vaginal area, according to the arrest warrants. And in every case, the women reported Veeters did not wear gloves when he directly touched their skin and there was no other medical professional in the room, all violations of physical therapy best practices. "The victim stated every visit consisted of some type of gyration movement, the accused touching her buttocks area and never focusing on her back," one arrest report says. Another alleged that Veeters squeezed the woman's buttocks and pushed on her pubic bone. Another noted that when Veeters finished an examination, he would "tap her on the vaginal area and advise her to get up." One arrest report details how during one examination, Veeters pulled down the woman's pants and underwear without warning, exposing her butt, which he said was to see her whole spine better. Later he instructed her to do exercises on the table, during which he touched her bare back and stomach. She returned for a second examination with another therapist at the clinic, but had a completely different experience: "This therapist never touched her body and also instructed her to do a completely different set of exercises." Two of the women said they came forward after seeing the story in the news last month about Veeters. "The victim only decided to come forward with her complaint after learning the accused was recently arrested for inappropriate behavior with patients," one of the reports says. East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III said on Monday other women came forward with similar allegations, but they fell outside the four-year statute of limitations for sexual battery. He said he did not know how many more cases could be relevant, but said his office will consider and review all the accounts to determine if they can prosecute them, or if they could be used as additional evidence in a case. Veeters, 54, is currently serving a nine-month suspension of his physical therapist license, handed down in November by the Louisiana Physical Therapy Board after they investigated the first case, which included allegations that Veeters pulled down a woman's underwear, then touched her genital region without warning or her consent. The state Physical Therapy Board, which conducted a separate investigation from the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, determined Veeters' procedure was clinically unnecessary and needlessly invasive of the victims privacy. The boards decision also notes the patient should have been draped, Veeters should not have removed her undergarments for the exam, and that other personnel should have been present. Once Veeters' license suspension is lifted, he will remain on probation with the Physical Therapy Board for a minimum of five years. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The board's report notes that a similar complaint was made against Veeters in 2012, yet that investigation did not lead to any discipline. The board instead placed him on notice, and explained his interactions with the woman were "ill-advised, showed poor clinical judgement and were perceived by the patient as possibly inappropriate." That report notes Veeters could meet with a board committee about obtaining consent and "educating patients on tests involving the pubic region." Baton Rouge physical therapist arrested, accused of sexually abusing patient A Baton Rouge physical therapist booked on sexual battery Monday is accused of a June incident involving a patient. Veeters is also facing a federal lawsuit from one of the women who accused him of sexual assault. The woman, who asked to not be publicly identified, filed the lawsuit in October in federal district court in Baton Rouge against Veeters, as well as the company he co-owned with his wife, Dutch Physical Therapy, which has multiple locations in Baton Rouge. The lawsuit alleges Veeters both sexually battered and assaulted the woman, without warning or consent, under the guise of medical treatment, violating of her rights under federal patient protection and Title IX laws. The federal judge presiding in that case has granted a stay on the lawsuit pending the criminal cases on the state level. Sarah Wagar Hickman, who is representing the woman in the federal lawsuit, said she knows at least one of the other women has since come forward with an additional complaint to the state's physical therapy board. There were complaints made; why was he allowed to continue his practice?" Hickman said. "Thats a question that has to be answered." Veeters' criminal attorney, John McLindon, and Veeters' attorneys in the civil lawsuit, with Olinde & Mercer LLC law firm, did not return calls or messages requesting comment in the case. The state Physical Therapy Board report of the first of the criminal complaints says Veeters "has maintained that his conduct was professional and conformed to the standards of acceptable practice." Racheal Hebert, the CEO and president of Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR), a nonprofit in Louisiana that works with survivors of sexual trauma, said this case shows how the culture is changing around sexual assault. "I think a lot of that is the #MeToo movement," Hebert said. "This case is so important because it shows how someone can get away with something for so long. You have to assume that other people picked up on these behaviors, whether it be other coworkers, other clients, no one had the bravery or had the inclination to say something about it." Hebert, who declined to comment on any specifics in this case, said people should not discredit the additional complainants since the case made the news because many of them may have been reluctant to come forward without knowing there could be others like them. "There is power in numbers for survivors; they feel like they have someone corroborating their story," Hebert said. "And thats especially important for someone with a lot of credibility in the community. A newly released audit alleges top administrators at LSU Lab School started a private company so they could pick up additional money from an after-school program for students at the prominent Baton Rouge school, running afoul of university policy. One of the two administrators, Secondary School Principal Frank Rusciano, is also accused of allowing his wife to make use of school staff, computers, facilities and supplies for a private business of hers, the Louisiana High School Correspondence Course. Rusciano also is accused of receiving at least five free trips for himself and a guest from a private travel agency. The school used the agency to organize an annual school trip to Washington, D.C. The auditors found that, in accepting these trips, Rusciano created at least an appearance of, if not an actual, conflict of interest. Both Rusciano and Elementary School Principal Myra Broussard are facing unspecified personnel action due to findings in the audit, which was made public Monday by the Louisiana Legislative Auditors Office. On Feb. 15, parents at the K-12 school on the LSU campus were notified via email that Rusciano was on administrative leave this semester for unspecified reasons and that his duties were being handled by school superintendent Amy Westbrook, with help from other school administrators. LSU employees are held to the highest standards, and we are diligently working through the issues presented in the audit and taking appropriate action to ensure that this does not happen again, LSU spokesman Ernie Ballard said in a statement Monday. Ballard would not say any more about either Ruscianos or Broussards job status, describing those as personnel matters. Westbrook is new to the LSU Lab School after the retirement of Wade Smith, who spent 16 years as the schools top administrator. Westbrook was announced as Smiths replacement in October but did not take over the position until January. LSU Lab School was formed more than a century ago as a laboratory for LSU students training to become teachers. The school has evolved into one of the states highest-performing public schools, with an A letter grade and about 1,500 students in grades kindergarten to 12. Unusual for a public school, students are charged tuition to attend. LSU faculty member was paid over $400K over 3 years without working, according to state audit A member of the faculty for the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine knowingly accepted over $400,000 in salary and benefits without doing the wo The state audit released Monday, covering several branches of LSU not just the lab school, drew heavily on a previous audit, completed Sept. 28 by LSUs Office of Internal Audit. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The LSU internal audit explores in depth the lab schools after-school program, launched in 2016, and the debate over how much Rusciano and Broussard should have been paid for their added duty of overseeing it. According to the LSU audit, Rusciano and Broussard were awarded annual pay raises of $16,219 and $22,173 in spring 2016. That October, the school asked LSU officials for $15,000 more for the two, but university officials rejected the request, saying the earlier pay raise was sufficient to cover their added work. As the start of the 2017-18 school year, Rusciano and Broussard formed a company called Cub Care, LLC. According to the LSU audit, parents were directed to pay that company directly, with money withheld into a university account so the principals would get paid. Rusciano and Broussard told auditors that Superintendent Smith approved of the move because it was in line with the structure of athletic camps owned by coaches at (the lab school). The school had previously pitched a similar idea to LSU officials but the idea was rejected, according to the auditors. Cub Care, LLC was effectively ended almost as soon as it began after an LSU administrator demanded more documentation for what was going on, according to the LSU audit. The LSU audit also addresses the Louisiana High School Correspondence Course. The company, formed in 2009 by Ruscianos wife, Elizabeth, was meant to replace a similar program that had been discontinued by another arm of LSU. The new private program allowed high school students in need of additional credit to take courses online, ranging from $199 to $234 per course. Auditors questioned the association with Ruscianos wife as well the school personnel and resources used to help the effort, including proctoring exams. The five free trips to Mexico taken by Frank Rusciano were provided by WorldStrides Student Travel, based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rusciano told auditors hed been using the agency since 2002, but when the number of students on the trip topped 75 he qualified for free trips for himself and a guest, trips that took him to Mexico five times. LSU auditors estimated Ruscianos July 2018 trip to Cancun, Mexico, was worth about $1,700. Smith, the former school superintendent who is now a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, defended Rusciano and Broussard in a five-page letter included in the LSU audit. Of the after-school program, Smith lays out a different chain of events than the auditors, saying the dispute was about correcting the failure to properly compensate Rusciano and Broussard for extra work: The efforts put forth by the principals to secure compensation for a year of work should not be construed as efforts to circumvent LSU policy. For the correspondence courses, Smith says the company was an approved vendor of LSU, and none of the work done by school personnel was out of line. He suggests that changes to policy would suffice to remedy any potential conflicts of interest. As far as Ruscianos free travel, Smith describes the Mexico trips as educational training for educators like Rusciano who take students on trips, a way for the travel agencies to limit their liability. Like many travel opportunities available to our students, the trips to Washington D.C. are not official trips under (the schools) purview, Smith wrote. Despite a push from trade groups, Louisiana's transportation chief said Monday he doubts the Louisiana Legislature will seriously debate a hike in the state gas tax in 2019. "I think it is very difficult to expect that they are going to do it," said Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development. The legislative session starts April 8, and a group called the Louisiana Coalition to Fix Our Roads has launched a $500,000 campaign to force a debate on the issue. 'We have to find a solution': Louisiana coalition turns to digital media in latest push for gas tax hike One year after a gas tax hike died in the Legislature, trade groups and others are kicking off a $500,000 campaign to force another legislativ The roughly 70-member organization includes contractors, concrete interests and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. It is led in part by former state Rep. Eric Ponti of Baton Rouge, executive director of the Louisiana Asphalt Pavement Association. However, Wilson noted that Gov. John Bel Edwards and state lawmakers face re-election later this year. "These people are going to leave the Legislature in June and go start running for office," he told reporters. Wilson made his comments during and after an appearance at the Press Club of Baton Rouge. The Legislature can only debate general tax hikes in alternative years, and 2019 is a fiscal session, which means it could legally happen this year. Wilson said it is no accident that fiscal sessions coincide with election years. "I think it was designed to make it hard to raise taxes right before an election," he said. Motorists pay 38.4 cents per gallon, including 20 cents in state charges. Wilson and others in 2017 pushed a 17 cent increase in the state gas tax, which would have raised about $500 million per year for roads and bridges. That legislation never got a vote on the House or Senate floor. "I think 2017 was a golden opportunity that was missed," Wilson said. "The reality is we are dealing with those consequences." The state's backlog of road and bridge projects has risen from $13.1 billion two years ago to $14.3 billion today, including about $9 billion in bridge work. State lawmakers said in 2017 that even constituents who complain about road and bridge conditions were opposed to paying more at the pump. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Just the possibility of a gas tax increase this year has sparked a drive to kill it, including 15-second ads attached to the video screens on gasoline pumps in metro areas. That effort is being led by the same group that helped kill the 2017 effort Americans for Prosperity, which is based in Virginia. Leaders of that group contend that, while infrastructure needs improvements, state officials are too dependent on collecting more tax dollars. "Gas tax increase proponents don't have the support of the public any more than the referees in the Saints' playoff loss; they never have," John Kay Jr., state director of Americans for Prosperity said in an email Monday. "If this was a popular policy proposal, legislators would embrace it in an election year rather than run for the hills," Kay said. But Ponti, also in an email, said his group is confident of a "robust" gas tax debate this year, especially because it has been three decades since the last increase. "And there couldn't be a more opportune time to have the debate than during an election year when candidates and voters are most engaged in the process," he said. In other areas, a project aimed at improving traffic near the Mississippi River bridge will be finished in July, Wilson said. The $8.7 million effort will create a new, Terrace Avenue left off Interstate 110 South. Doing so, state officials say, will reduce daily traffic backups caused by motorists crossing multiple lanes of traffic, against eastbound drivers leaving the bridge, to get to the Washington Street exit. Instead, travelers will be able to reach Washington Street by using the Terrace Avenue exit. Wilson also said the widening of Interstate 10 between Highland Road and La. 73 in suburban Ascension Parish will be finished next year. +13 In rarity, Louisiana state officials launch major I-10 widening project Gov. John Bel Edwards and a host of other politicians Thursday celebrated the launch of a rare, high-profile highway project: widening Interst The $72 million project is adding a new lane in each direction. Wilson said when the work is finished, it will trim 15 minutes off the daily morning and even commutes for those traveling from southeast Baton Rouge, Ascension and other areas. FILE - In this June 4, 2010, file photo, a clean-up worker picks up blobs of oil in absorbent snare on Queen Bess Island at the mouth of Barataria Bay near the Gulf of Mexico in Plaquemines Parish, La. Nearly $17 million in Deepwater Horizon oil spill money would rebuild a barrier island bird rookery off Louisiana to more than seven times its current size under a recently released plan. Queen Bess Island was the first spot where brown pelicans were returned to Louisiana after the pesticide DDT wiped them out. It was heavily hit by oil from the 2010 spill. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File) One of the most reliable controversies, and one that has recurred frequently, is speed traps. Yes, people should not exceed speed limits. No, small towns problems are not going to be solved by milking the revenues from traffic tickets. The Advocates review of financial records shows that speed traps are rising, despite long-standing efforts in the Legislature to tamp down the number of tickets written by small-town officers. The number of Louisiana towns, villages and small cities in which fines make up at least half their revenues has risen from 15 in 2007 to more than 25 in 2018. The same review of state audits of local finances shows that 60 other municipalities reported that fines and forfeitures accounted for more than 30 percent of government revenues. Thats up from 28 in 2007. Not surprisingly, either, property taxes the money that typically pays for local services in most of America are not able to pay the freight in these communities. We have a high homestead exemption, and in many small towns, a large part of the taxable residential property generates little or no property tax. The Advocate found that 194 of the states 304 incorporated cities, towns and villages raise more in fines and forfeitures than they do in property taxes, according to the latest financial audits. Thats the symbol of a broken system when you have to depend on preying on people to pay your bills, said Robert Scott, head of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana. PAR is a nonprofit Baton Rouge-based government policy analyst. If youre protecting people, thats OK, but if youre protecting services, you need to re-examine. We like safer driving, but it is more than a little phony to say that all the above numbers reflect that motive. Rather, this is representative of a crisis in small-town Louisiana that is assuming big proportions. The number of smaller communities where the state has had to appoint financial overseers is rising. Many not on well-traveled highways have opted to use water or sewer fees to pay the bills because there is little or no property tax base. As retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore argues on behalf of the Green Army environmental group, lead contamination in poorly maintained water systems is a potentially giant problem for taxpayers. The poster child is St. Joseph in Tensas Parish, where Gov. John Bel Edwards had to deliver water and tap state and federal funds to rebuild, essentially, the water system. As the general says, there are more St. Joes out there. The states chief health officer, Dr. Jimmy Guidry, said that one estimate is that $5 billion might have to be spent statewide. Small towns will continue losing population to the cities, residential taxes to the homestead exemption, and commercial establishments because those follow the rooftops, to borrow a real estate phrase. Local government in Louisiana has many problems. Instead of a Band-Aid approach to such challenges, we urge Louisianas universities and other experts to start a discussion about small-town life. Resuscitating these communities, often rich in history, is valuable in itself, but its also protecting taxpayers elsewhere from the consequences of further declines. MANY WEDDING TRENDS COME AND GO food items, color palettes, decor but one that has continued to grow for the past few years is the use of officiants to perform wedding ceremonies. Experts posit a variety of reasons couples choose secular officiants instead of getting married by clergy members, including couples of different denominations or faiths, those who live alternative lifestyles and a move by young people away from organized religion. (There are officiants who also are clergy but perform weddings outside of the church and are open to alternative vows and services.) More than 2.2 million couples got married in the U.S. in 2016, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. A survey by the wedding site The Knot found that 43 percent used an officiant, sometimes a friend or family member, to perform their ceremonies, compared to 29 percent in 2009. "I think [couples] are looking for a personalized experience," says LaToya Papillion-Herr, a minister and owner of Waning Moon Weddings & Ceremonies (www.waningmoonweddings.com). If a couple goes to a church to get married, she says, "the pastor or minister or the priest is going to say whatever is their standard ceremony and all of your guests have heard it all before. "But when you work with an officiant, you are working with someone who is taking the time to know you and your partner and what you've been through and is creating an environment at the altar that is fun and memorable and feels good. It invites your guests to actually be present at the ceremony instead of just waiting for it to end." The Rev. Tony Talavera, a minister and owner of the French Quarter Wedding Chapel (www.frenchquarterweddingchapel.com), has married 18,000 couples (including renewals) in the last 19 years. His clients cite finances, stress and family expectations as reasons couples seek his services. "I think one is financial; we don't have a stable economy," says Talavera, who has a chapel couples can use for their ceremonies. "Also, what I hear is that the families put a lot of stress on [wedding couples] and it becomes very stressful to get married with a big wedding. It used to be, 'Daddy's little girl is going to have what she wants.' Now the couples are paying for it themselves." Annie Labruzzo, an architect, married Louis Guidry on her best friend's porch in Abita Springs March 5, 2016. That best friend, Mindy Dennis, also was the officiant. "We're not religious so it didn't seem like us to go find a religious person to do it," Labruzzo says. "A judge seemed really impersonal, and that's not us either. We thought it should be someone important to us, who we admire and respect and who is in our lives on a regular basis." Dennis, co-owner/co-director of Southern Magnolia Montessori School, became an officiant at Labruzzo's request but since has performed other marriages, some stemming from that first wedding. "When family members realized someone close to them can do the ceremony, they started calling on her, too," Labruzzo says. Some wedding couples seek officiants who are open to or experienced in alternative ceremonies. Papillion-Herr has compiled small books for her clients with examples of different types of ceremonies she has prepared, from casual to funny to religious, and some that involve wedding guests. She also offers crystal divination, sacred blessings, unity ceremonies and other services. "They really just want something that feels like them," Pappillion-Herr says. "They want to be up there with somebody that they feel is just as excited for them as they are, someone they will be happy to tell their story to." She adds that some couples are hesitant to share some details of their relationship (such as meeting on Tinder or having a first date in a bar) with clergy because they fear they may be judged for their lifestyles. Officiants also benefit from destination weddings in New Orleans, since those couples likely wouldn't have close connections to clergy here. Among couples who married in the U.S. in 2018, 25 percent held their weddings outside the city where they lived, according to The Wedding Report, a website that compiles country-wide wedding statistics. +5 Something old, something new: Historic settings add substance and beauty to New Orleans weddings New Orleans' 300-year history has given the city a rich culture and mystique that serves as a perfect palette for weddings. Its historic build "People want to get married here," Talavera says. "They are in love with our city." He is urging officials to make things easier for couples by increasing access to marriage licenses (currently the state operates offices in Orleans Parish that close early and aren't open on weekends). He also has worked with state Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, to change Louisiana's mandatory waiting period between obtaining a license and getting married from 72 hours to 24 hours. That change went into effect in August 2018. Papillion-Herr says 75 percent of her business comes from out-of-town couples who want a unique experience. "What I found with destination wedding couples is that they appreciate being able to come to New Orleans," she says. "They're already coming here for the energy of New Orleans and they feel like it's a more spiritual or metaphysical presence in a city that is known for that already." +4 The latest trends in New Orleans weddings: Raw bars, bourbon flights, silent discos, more WHEN IT COMES TO WEDDING PLANNING IN 2019, there is a lot more flexibility and opportunity for customization, down to the smallest detail. Man Not all wedding couples stay in contact with the person who married them, but some officiants form lasting bonds. Talavera says he has maintained relationships with some of his couples, including one he married, then renewed their vows after 10 years and again after 15 years. Labruzzo's officiant is still her best friend. "I was in a room with some people with half a dozen marriages between them," she says, "and they were trying to remember the name of the priest or the judge who married them. Only one of the half dozen could remember the name. I'm thinking to myself, 'I know [my officiant's] first, middle and last names and the dates her children were born, and she's been through all the hard times with me. "[Using her as an officiant] was the right decision for us for that very reason." When Hotel Peter & Paul opened in late 2018 in Faubourg Marigny, the attention to detail and respect for the architecture during an expansive restoration made it a hit with visitors, locals, city preservationists and publications, including Travel & Leisure, which named it as one of the top new hotels for 2019. The former Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church had been closed for more than a decade before the restoration started. So, for developer and New Orleanian Nathalie Jordi in partnership with ASH NYC, a design development company, there was much to do during the four years of renovation. Early on, the developers chose to use local vendors and craftspeople. We always try to employ local artisans and craftsmen in each of our projects, said Will Cooper, ASH NYC partner and chief creative officer. Not only is it important to support the creative talents in the city in which we are working, but it also helps lend a unique hand to each project. ASH NYC has also developed historic properties into the Siren Hotel in Detroit and the Dean Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island. Jordi added, We were thrilled to work with people, many of them in our neighborhood, who felt as passionately about rehabilitating these buildings as we did. We had people working on the project who attended the school or whose parents had gotten married in the church. Before the Sts. Peter and Paul property became available, New Orleans-based architecture firm studioWTA was working with Jordi to find real estate in the Marigny and surrounding areas for her to develop into a boutique hotel. We looked at properties with her, did feasibility studies, said Tracie Ashe, studioWTA partner in charge of the project, but couldnt get the numbers to work. Besides price, Marigny lacks the off-street parking essential to almost any size hotel. Sts. Peter and Paul, with the valuable off-street parking, includes the church, built about 1860, and rectory, built about 1875, both designed by architect Henry Howard; a schoolhouse, built in 1900, designed by Diboll & Owen; and the convent, built in 1890. ASH NYC was brought aboard to work with Jordi and studioWTA team, who in addition to Ashe, included design director Wayne Troyer and project managers Natan Diacon-Furtado, Sergio Padilla and Scott Crane. They worked with Sarah Norman and Wesley Palmisano of Palmisano on the hotel restoration. With planning a hotel, it was interesting to get into what spaces and adjustments they needed to make to make it function, said Ashe. Trying to fit all that they needed into these four buildings it was a fun puzzle to solve. Among the biggest pieces of the puzzle was how to craft hotel rooms in the schoolhouse, where there were none before. On the fourth floor, there was no natural light, so skylights were added. The gymnasium with a stage on the third floor were transformed: the gymnasium floor into the library lounge with books supplied by Blue Cypress and rooms built onto the stage area with the exterior and doors highlighted by a bucolic trompe loeil by Ann Marie Auricchio of AM Creative Finishes. Auricchio did most of the decorative finishes in the hotel. In addition to the stages trompe loeil, Auricchio did the trompe loeil in the rectorys coffee area though part of the Elysian Bar, the developers were mentored by Renee Blanchard of Church Alley Coffee Bar in the setup. All the room numbers and signage are hand-painted, said Auricchio, adding that she couldnt have done it there are 71 rooms without assistant Maggie Bard. The room numbers had to be set at a specific height, Auricchio said. Ivy J. Mabius worked on the ceramic door numbers in the convent. Auricchio painted the reception area and the armoires, designed by ASH NYC and made of solid Southern oak by Chip Martinson of Monkey-Wid-A-Fez. In the Elysian Bar, Auricchio did a faux marble bar top and the finish on the Art Nouveau-inspired bar designed by ASH NYC to look like upside-down cypress tree stumps. The centerpiece of the room, the solid-looking cypress is deceiving: The structure is made of foam by Kern Studios. It is basically an effective way to get a higher-end look without spending thousands of dollars for a vintage bar look, said Caskey Miller, director of business development for Kern Studios. The studio, best known for its work on Carnival floats, used a KUKA robot, one of a few in the United States, to cut foam to 3D specifications. They worked with designer and woodworker Matthew Holdren to create just the right look. Once installed in the building, Holdren added a plaster finish to the foam so Auricchio could add the decorative finish. The bar area was a blank slate, said Holdren, and we were in the bar all summer to also craft and shape the bamboo ceiling as well as to install latticework on the walls. Holdren's work can be seen with the cabinetry in the coffee bar and reception desk, sun room/cafe plant shelves, various mirrors and TV stands. Food and drink in the Elysian Bar, open all day from breakfast to late evening nightcaps and light bites, is a collaboration with Bacchanal and chef Alex Harrell. A courtyard off the side is another option to hang out, with the landscaping completed by The Plant Gallery. The hotels Old World elegance in the public areas and bedrooms has a feel that is at home in New Orleans. Jordi and ASH NYC found more than 770 antiques in France and Belgium to create a one-of-a-kind blend of a French country estate for example, the breakfast area was modeled after Claude Monets Giverny with the lightness of Swedish Gustavian style. Part of this visual appeal is apparent in the bedrooms, most of which are united in design by gingham fabric in blue, green, yellow or red. Brandon Wilkins of Brandon Wilkins Studio, which includes Meryl Smith, Marcia Vowell and E. Marshall, made the window treatments by hand for the convent and rectory bedrooms, as well as for the public spaces. Making them by hand was essential because of the climate, and knowledge of what it does: The heat and cold warps the fabric, said Wilkins. In the schoolhouse, Cathie Joffary of Joffary Window Treatments and Interiors worked on the window treatments, which her team installed with iron curtain rods. They also made the tablecloths and canopies that drape the steel beds by E. Kraemer Fine Metal and Woodwork, the high-end metal fabrication studio. The Kraemer team worked with ASH NYC to design the hotels minimalist beds; they handmade 61. For sale in the rooms are treats with a Louisiana pedigree such as Zapps Cajun Crawgrator Chips, Kho Bo Ngoc Quyen lemon grass beef jerky, Love Cookie Butter Pecan Pralines, Those Nuts! Glazed pecans, and Acalli Barataria blend milk chocolate. For perusal or purchase is Emma Flicks Snippets of New Orleans. A hotel directory is highlighted by suggestions from Jordi about places to go, dine and see. Coordinating all of this was worth it. We found there was an incredibly deep pool of local talent in New Orleans, said Jordi. It truly takes a village to put something this monumental together, and we could not have done it without these incredible artisans as well as our amazing architect and contractor. Ethiopia said on Sunday the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed 157 people had "clear similarities" with October's Lion Air crash, according to initial analysis of the black boxes recovered from the wreckage of the March 10 disaster. Rescue workers comb the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Credit:AP Both planes were Boeing 737 MAX 8s, and both crashed minutes after take-off after pilots reported flight control problems. Concern over the plane's safety caused aviation authorities worldwide to ground the model, wiping billions of dollars off Boeing's market value. Investigators are trying to determine why the aircraft plunged into a field shortly after take off from Addis Ababa, searching for possible similarities to an October Lion Air crash that killed 189 people. "It was the same case with the Indonesian (Lion Air) one. There were clear similarities between the two crashes so far," Ethiopian transport ministry spokesman Muse Yiheyis said. The Chinatown Friendship Gate is pictured in Philadelphia, the United States, March 13, 2019. The amazing similarities in port, science and cultural diversity have helped fostering 40 years of sisterhood between the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin and the U.S. eastern city of Philadelphia. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) by Xinhua writer Xu Xiaolei NEW YORK, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The amazing similarities in port, science and cultural diversity have helped fostering 40 years of sisterhood between the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin and the U.S. eastern city of Philadelphia. "We are one of the firsts. We honor it. We want to do it well," said Samuel K. Chueh, director of international business at Philadelphia Department of Commerce, noting that his city is fully devoted to its Chinese "sister" Tianjin. Philadelphia became one of the first U.S. cities to initiate a sister cities relationship with a Chinese city in December of 1979, after the two countries established diplomatic ties in the same year. In the years to come, the sisterhood between the two port cities has produced mutual benefits in a wide range of fields, including education, commerce and culture. "Tianjin to Beijing is like Philadelphia to New York," Chueh said, adding that both cities enjoy an abundance of cultural diversity. "We just learned that Tianjin is upgrading its port and we are upgrading our port. Tianjin is developing their life science industry, and we are so good at life science," Chueh said. Philadelphia has the largest temperature-control port along the east coast of the United States, he said, "so we do have our advantage and the sister city relationship can help us better understand our friends in China and see how we can find more connectivity." Chueh said he hoped that Philadelphia and Tianjin will set up direct shipping route in the future. He said that Philadelphia also plays a leading role in life science, with the presence of about 80 percent of the world's pharmaceutical companies. "Otherwise, they would be left behind. " Next to Johnson and Johnson and GSK, many Chinese pharmaceutical companies have offices in Philadelphia, he said. According to Brookings Institution, from 2010 to 2016, the foreign direct investment to Philadelphia from China in biotech industry is five times higher than that of Boston, which is home to Harvard and MIT. In June, Tianjin is sending delegations to attend the BIO International Convention in Philadelphia, which excels in life science and looks forward to more collaborations with Tianjin. "We are working very ly with China and see how we can support the life science development in China, " Chueh said. Besides port and life science, Philadelphia has more to offer. Siobhan Lyons, president and CEO of Citizen Diplomacy International (CDI) pointed to the city's advantage in accessibility, cost-effectiveness and educated workforce. "We're to New York and D.C.... If you travel, you can reach 70 percent of the U.S. population within one day," she said. "We are one of the cheapest cities in the United States -- 25 percent cheaper than any other city on the east coast." "We have an incredibly educated workforce because... We have more university students -- about half a million -- than any other city in the United States," she added. In 1998, a Sister City Scholarship was established to allow Tianjin high school graduates to study at Drexel University. Over the years, it has expanded to also include La Salle University, Moore College of Art and Design, and Temple University. Yang Mu, the first recipient of the scholarship, pursued a degree in computer science and graduated second in her class. She later went to Temple Law School and is now an intellectual property lawyer at a local firm. In addition, the sister city exchanges include a year-long "internship" with Philadelphia's finance department by a vice mayor from Tianjin, according to CDI, which runs the sister city program. The cultural exchanges between the two cities are also expanding. In May, Philadelphia Orchestra, the first U.S. orchestra to perform in China in 1973, is returning to China for the 11th time to play for audiences in multiple cities, including Tianjin. Philadelphia also boasts a strong Chinese community, which proudly has the "only authentic Friendship Gate" in the United States, as Nancy Gilboy, Lyons' predecessor, put it. The landmark gate in Chinatown, a symbol of Chinese traditional architecture, was a gift from Tianjin, which sent the materials and artisans to build it in 1983. In 2008, Gilboy oversaw a project to repair and repaint it. She fondly recalled all the trouble she went through to acquire the material the artisans needed to make the special paint. Before she retired about three years ago, Gilboy had traveled to Tianjin three times. Each time returning, she was amazed at how fast the city had changed. Lyons and Chueh shared her sentiment. In a 2017 trip to Tianjin, they were shown to a museum demonstrating the city's vision for its future. "They have these amazing models of the city and showing how it's growing... We got the overview from these little, tiny models," Lyons said. She went on to exclaim: "The Chinese government is now making all these plans. Even in the short time we were there, you could see things being built... It was so incredibly impressive!" 7 1 [ Editor: zyq ] Today marks the launch of the new Age app for Apple and Android mobile phones and tablets. The app is designed to allow readers to get straight to the story, and move quickly through the days top stories by swiping to the next report. The app also allows readers to personalise their feed via My News, by selecting their preferred order of topics. The Age app allows you to customise your news. Credit:The Age Go to the AppStore or the Google Play Store, search The Age and download the app. ney-morning-herald/id1411569831?mt=After you have reached the maximum number of free articles, a subscription screen will appear. If you already have a print or digital subscription, you can log in at this bottom of this screen. If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe at the introductory rate of $7.49 for the first three months. Rio Tinto has rejected a push by activist shareholders urging it to release details and strategies on how the greenhouse gas emissions produced by its customers, including Chinese steel-makers, could be cut. The miner revealed its position in a letter from chairman Simon Thompson to shareholders, lodged with the ASX on Monday. Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson, pictured in Melbourne in 2018. Credit:Eddie Jim Mr Thompson said the proposed resolution called on the company to produce annual reports on its plans to cut so-called "Scope 1", "Scope 2" and "Scope 3" greenhouse gas emissions. But Mr Thompson said "Scope 3" emissions were "primarily the emissions of our customers, mainly steel makers in China, over which we have very limited control". Australian telecommunications companies have started blocking websites to stop the spread of livestreamed footage of the Christchurch terrorist attacks as social media giants have struggled to stop the video from appearing on their platforms. The widespread circulation of footage from the alleged gunman's bodycam footage of the New Zealand mosque attacks has seen millions of videos removed from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube. The alleged Christchurch shooter in court on Saturday morning. Credit:Stuff.co.nz On Monday night local telcos stepped in to stop the copies from being viewed on other websites like forums. A Telstra spokesman said the company had "started temporarily blocking a number of websites that continue to host the footage". The brother-in-law of former Queensland premier Campbell Newman has received a three-week extension to allow his legal team further time to defend multimillion-dollar business fraud charges. Seb Monsour, the former chief executive of real estate development company Majella Group, was charged in September 2018 in connection with a $5 million business investment fraud. Seb Monsour's legal team and police prosecutors have been given until April 8 to finalise financial statements before fraud charges against him can begin. Credit:AAP At a committal call-over session in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday, police prosecutors and Mr Monsour's defence team were given three more weeks to have financial statements finalised before committal proceedings could begin. Mr Monsour is accused of receiving $5 million from Chinese entrepreneur Fusheng Li, who wanted the money invested in property and business developments in Queensland in 2017. Sir Andrew Davis conducts. Credit:Lucas Dawson MUSIC MSO SEASON OPENING GALA Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis and Lu Siqing Hamer Hall, March 16 It was the beginning of the end as Sir Andrew Davis took to the podium to kick off in earnest his final season as the MSOs chief conductor. You might expect a gala performance to be full of celebratory delight, but instead the program held a faintly tragic subtext perhaps a subtle portent of the looming conclusion to what has been a tremendously rewarding era for the orchestra. The evening stuck to the aint-broke-dont-fix-it overture, concerto, symphony format, but far from being lazy programming, the selection acted as a parade for the extensive resources at the MSOs disposal. The richly exotic Polovtsian Dances from Borodins Prince Igor, an opera that was unfinished at the time of Borodin's death (the first of the evenings tragic resonances), called upon the full ranks of the MSO chorus. After a tentative start, they steeled themselves, summoning vigour and verve for an admirable take on the famous General Dance. A police officer who caused a fatal crash after running a red light while racing to a high priority job has pleaded guilty to negligent driving causing death. Lachlan Colin Chancellor, 37, was due to face a two week trial on a charge of culpable driving but instead the jury was sent home and he pleaded to the lesser charge of negligent driving. Lachlan Chancellor arrives at court Monday. Credit:Karleen Minney His police car had crashed into driver's side door of Amanda Beehag's Hyundai at an intersection in Kaleen on May 4 last year. Ms Beehag, 54, died a month later when her life support was switched off. We need to reject the argument of those pushing the line that free speech means extremists should be openly allowed to organise and recruit. Instead we should make the job of those wishing to spread hatred and organise terrorist attacks as difficult as possible. Of course, there also needs to be transparency and rigorous safeguards to ensure law enforcement agencies do not misuse the powers granted to them. Mark Zirnsak, senior social justice advocate, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in Australia White supremacy part of our psyche Shocked, stunned and appalled by the massacre in New Zealand. But surprised I was not. I am reading Peter Cochrane's Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18. Racial hatred and white supremacist sentiments are nothing new in Australia; in fact we could say they are embedded in our psyche. Nowadays, pervasive social media trolling merely exacerbates the situation. Remember Yassmin Abdel-Magied, the Queensland Young Australian of the Year in 2010? She was subsequently hounded out of Australia by social media trolls because she dared quote the Gallipoli mantra "Lest we forget" about the thousands of civilians slaughtered in the aftermath of the Iraqi war. Will Peter Cochrane meet a similar fate for configuring the sacred mantra of the Gallipoli legend or will the words of former diplomat Stephen Fitzgerald resonate: "Every Australian politician, journalist and high school student should read this fluent and compelling story that exhumes an unpalatable truth about our motives for going to war in 1914 and reflect on what it tells us about race fear and the value of history." Jill Mazzotta, Balaclava Stop the demonisation Scott Morrison, they don't need your thoughts and prayers. They need Australian politicians and some sections of the media to stop demonising Muslims and other refugees. Susan Munday, Bentleigh East FORUM Difference in compassion New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern can genuinely say "we represent diversity, kindness, compassion and refuge for those who need it." If the Christchurch tragedy had happened in Australia, that's not a claim Scott Morrison could make. And there's the shameful difference. John Handley, Cheltenham Call for awareness At 86, I have lived through news of the horrors of war and through many tragic events. I want every Muslim person here to know how much the massacre in Christchurch frightens us all. The only way we can combat racial hatred and intolerance is to react to terrible events such as this by coming closer together. I would like to see deeper awareness of all cultures and religions in our primary and secondary schools so we can develop greater curiosity, tolerance and understanding in our children. I extend my hand and my heart to Muslims here in welcome and gratitude, and to say we love what you bring to this country. Elizabeth Jamieson, Mount Waverley Suppress images The Australian-born terrorist who committed the acts of murder and horror in New Zealand should have his name and image suppressed from all media. Giving him a name and publishing images of him using symbolic hand gestures to white supremacists gives oxygen and fuel to others with similar beliefs and ideologies. It is far better to refer to him as "the terrorist" and not allow him his moment of fame. Julian Druce, East St Kilda Roots of violence Violence against minority groups has been given licence by the failure of our political leaders to shut down racism and prejudice when it begins. The actions and attitudes of people like Brenton Tarrant and Fraser Anning have their roots in the cynical association between refugees, Muslims and terrorists made by Liberal leaders from John Howard to Scott Morrison. The ALP under Kevin Rudd further exploited the fear of refugees by banishing them to the hell-holes of Manus and Nauru. If our political leaders proudly deny non-Anglo refugees their legal right of asylum, and imprison them in conditions leading to death from medical neglect and psychological trauma, how can they go on to condemn those who just take those same attitudes a step further? Don Stokes, Heidelberg Censure decision Pauline Hanson to abstain from censuring Fraser Anning. Another of her stains on our way of life. Tony Lenten, Glen Waverley Anning fears Is Fraser Anning on a watch list? Should I be worried? Anning has been in Melbourne twice to my knowledge, but what is he doing here? Is he stirring up people who agree with his abhorrent views? Karen Dupleix, Brunswick Taking advantage Regarding the Christchurch tragedy, Peter Dutton says, "We have people on the far left or the far right trying to extract political advantage. I think it's a disgrace."Dutton could never ever be accused of taking political advantage, could he? Not with the dog-whistling before the last Victorian election saying "Victorians are afraid to go out atnight" or the gratuitous commentary following the BourkeStreet stabbings. Dutton might claim it as a right to state an opinion but with every right comes responsibility, which cannot now be walked away from. Serge Bobbera, Curlewis Path to common sense As the name implies, the purpose of an "assault rifle" is assault. In the civilian world, the term "assault" implies an illegal act. So why should any civilian be allowed to own and operate an assault rifle? The US is too far gone to ask this question, but maybe NZ could still find a path to common sense and sanity. Ralph Bohmer, St Kilda West Join the dots The US armaments industry made the AR15, and the US government allowed it to be sold to the world. The NZ government allowed this man to buy the gun and licensed him to use it. The gun club of which he was a member, trained him in its lethal use. Isn't someone in power going to join up the dots to ensure that this inhumanity never ever occurs again? Brian Sanaghan, West Preston Lack of principle Sean Kelly's piece (Comment, 18/3) was as good as it gets but he failed to mention that the vilification of the Tampa asylum seekers by John Howard was not called out by Kim Beazley, hoping that his tacit approval would not derail Labor's quest for power. The same lack of principle continues with Bill Shorten's lock-step approach to "strong border policy". Graeme Grant, Cheltenham Leadership needed The proposition by some MPs in the Coalition to subsidise further coal development is ludicrous. The science is very clear to most of us. There is no doubt we have to move away from fossil fuels. Coal burnt by present and past generations has created damaging pollution and is contributing to climate change. The effect on the planet and the cost to our future generations is immense. The economic reliance upon coal by Australia is unfortunate but need not be necessarily permanent. Currently coal provides significant export dollars and jobs and is relied upon for domestic baseload electrical power. What Australia does need however is an urgent but orderly exit from coal. It is not a question of "if" but "when". We need strong leadership to guide the nation through a difficult but necessary transition. There are significant opportunities in renewable energy. If we continue relying on coal, the booming industries of the future will be in the construction of seawalls and the manufacture of oxygen masks. Peter Bonett, Oak Park Pell defence Jan White's defence of George Pell is interesting (Letters 16/3). It is a great pity that Pell did not show as much support to the victims as he showed to Ridsdale. Where was the humanity in shifting priests known by the church to be sex offenders, the Ellis Defence, and the Melbourne Response. Some are arguing about the verdict that is being appealed, but his lack of empathy in those responses to the victims makes it hard to understand the backing by the likes of John Howard, Tony Abbott, Andrew Bolt, Amanda Vanstone et al. Are they the actions of a man of good principles? Chris Larson, Oakleigh Duck shooting hypocrisy As a nurse, I am familiar with injuries and pain. So here is my take on duck shooting. Birds falling from the sky like dead weights suffer horrific impact injuries fractures and haemorrhaging when they hit the water. This is the avian equivalent of a human falling from a high-rise building. Other stricken birds flutter to ground, with smashed body parts from shotgun pellet injuries. Death can take hours or days. The government acknowledges in its Animal Welfare Action Plan: "Science demonstrates that animals are sentient. This means they experience feelings and emotions such as ... discomfort, fear and pain." Incredibly, the minister responsible for that plan, is also responsible for duck shooting. What hypocrisy. Elizabeth Langford, Preston Lost hikers' gratitude To our unknown far and wide fraternity of people who cared many of you will remain anonymous known only to yourselves, your family, your bushwalking group, people who prayed. Thank you. We are the two hikers who "got lost" on Mt Buffalo. This letter is an attempt at reaching out to you all; locally on the mountain and locally in our home suburb, people in prayer communities, in our work-related communities, friends who supported others to keep spirits up, people who gave up a precious long weekend with family and friends to search under rocks, pull boots on and get out there to help us not be statistics to our beautiful but potentially treacherous bush. We can only say thank you. We will attempt to personally thank the services and our close network of friends and family, but this is to others we will not know who did what, but we are sending a very big appreciation to you. The world is a good place and each of us can play a part in that goodness. Trevor Salvado and Cindy Bohan, Aberfeldie AFLW system a disaster The AFLW conference system was a bad idea in the first place just a sneaky way of limiting the number of women's matches. In practice, it has been a disaster, with the B teams winning just two of their 15 matches against the A teams. Now Fremantle with six wins have to travel to Melbourne to play their preliminary final against Carlton which has only four wins. This is simply not good enough and would never be allowed to happen in the men's competition. Lindsay Zoch, East Melbourne Young white men Why is it always young white Australian men who commit mass murder in our region? Port Arthur (35 victims), Hoddle Street (7), Christchurch (50). Our so-called leaders tell us we should be afraid of people of other colours and other countries. Jeffrey Newman, Ivanhoe Shooters warning John Howard is warning us about the danger to our gun laws by Labor preferencing the Shooters Party in the NSW election. I don't recall him making the same call when the Tasmanian Liberals preferenced the Shooters Party at their state election. Anne Maki, Alphington Trump claim Donald Trump stated that "white nationalism came from a small group of people and was not a rising threat". Has nothing been learnt from Charlottesville? Gary Bryfman, Brighton AND ANOTHER THING Christchurch Nineteen people voted for Fraser Anning. More than 800,000 have signed a petition to get rid of him. Where do I sign and how can we reform our electoral system? Tim Douglas, Blairgowrie Fraser Anning: less an egghead, more a knucklehead. Alan Whittaker, Kew East Jacinda Ardern and Fraser Anning, the contrast is breathtaking. David Seal, Balwyn North Jacinda Ardern deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. What an exemplary leader. Judith Taylor, Emerald At last a political leader with genuine character, charisma, dignity and grace has emerged. Unfortunately for Australians she leads New Zealand. Kevan Porter, Alphington If you foment division by demonising refugees then don't be surprised when you end up with racism. Neil Rampling, Soldiers Hill What's the point? Fraser Anning will wear his parliamentary censure as a badge of honour. Alan Williams, Port Melbourne Egg Boy's actions can't be condoned. It was assault. However he should be penalised with a fine of $1. Jonathan Lipshut, Elwood As disturbing as the comments by Fraser Anning is the knowledge there are some who would agree with him. Annie Wilson, Inverloch Furthermore When will the Liberals give Scott Morrison a break? Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell Theresa May splendidly manifests Churchill's aphorism: Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Winston Furlong, Blackburn Loved the child who, when asked on TV who his favourite racing driver was, said with great earnestness, "Daniel Avocado". One of the targets: The men were allegedly planning to bomb an Etihad plane. Two brothers accused of planning an IS-inspired terrorist attack in Sydney plotted to put a bomb on a plane at Sydney Airport and separately planned to release lethal gas, a jury has been told. Mahmoud Khayat, 34, and Khaled Mahmoud Khayat, 51, have pleaded not guilty to one charge each of conspiring to do an act in preparation/planning for a terrorist act, after they allegedly planned the acts from January 20, 2017 until their arrest on July 29, 2017. On Monday, at the opening of a trial in the NSW Supreme Court, Crown prosecutor Lincoln Crowley, QC, said the conspiracy was "formed and developed" when the men used apps including Telegram to contact an older brother fighting alongside Islamic State in Syria, and another person called "The Controller" who has not been identified. Mr Crowley said The Controller sent instructions on how to make the bomb and lethal gas, suggested possible places to deploy the gas, and gave tips about timing and weather conditions. The day of reckoning for hired electric scooters in Brisbane has arrived, with council to decide whether to renew and extend Lime's permit to operate in the River City. Seven News reports Brisbane City Council has decided to allow Lime scooters to stay, but the council has refused to comment until a press conference, scheduled to be held at midday. The serious injuries suffered by Brisbane Lime scooter riders Viktor Vukovic (top) and Jordan Madigan (bottom). The company's licence expiry date was brought forward last month following safety concerns related to a software glitch that caused the front wheel to lock up and throw riders from the scooter. Lime's permit had been due to expire midyear but was brought back to March 18 when Brisbane City Council put the company on notice to fix the problem or be kicked out. Police taps on Borce Ristevski's phone after he killed his wife Karen captured him arranging for new mobile phone numbers and warning a relative, "they're listening". A Supreme Court ruling released on Monday reveals Ristevski constructed a web of deceit to mislead family and friends, including telling his daughter not to trust police and procuring new SIM cards because he knew police were tapping his phone calls. Court documents reveal Borce Ristevski told his young daughter not to trust police. Credit:Artists Ristevski pleaded guilty last Wednesday to the manslaughter of his wife on June 29, 2016 after prosecutors withdrew a murder charge on the eve of the high-profile trial. The 55-year-old successfully argued in the pre-trial hearing that though he dumped Karen's body in bushland north of Melbourne, and lied to to family and police after, it showed no more than him wanting to avoid responsibility for her death, and did not prove he intended to murder her. Police allege a man charged with attempted murder left the gas knobs of a kitchen stove on in an attempt to to kill a woman. Christopher Hodge, 33, fronted Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday over an alleged attack on a woman in a St Albans home on September 8 last year, during which he is also accused of choking her, assaulting her with a knife and threatening to kill her. Mr Hodge disputes he turned on the gas knobs and his lawyer has been given permission to cross-examine the woman, to ask if she turned the gas on and then forgot to turn off the knobs. He also disputes an allegation he choked the woman to the point she fell unconscious. Mr Hodge faces seven charges including attempted murder, reckless conduct endangering life, making a threat to kill and intentionally causing injury. The Victorian government is putting aggressive, coercive and unethical pressure on patients in the state's public hospitals to go private, the federal Health Minister has alleged. Greg Hunt says the state government has targets in place to maximise revenue for its public hospitals from privately insured patients that rely on high-pressure tactics to move them over to the private system. Greg Hunt says the Victorian government has a policy to push people away from public health. Credit:Jessica Shapiro Victoria hit back at the federal government on Monday, accusing Mr Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of putting the interests of health insurers before that of patients and of staging a desperate ploy to distract from their failings in the health portfolio. The state government says only about 12 per cent of patients admitted to Victorian public hospitals use their private health insurance and there has been little change in that rate for years. Anning may well be the subject of complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission, or its equivalents at a state level. However, experts doubt the senator would be found in breach of the law. Section 18C of the federal Racial Discrimination Act, for example, prohibits actions, including what is widely called hate speech, that "offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of people" based on race. However, Anning's statements were directed at Muslims adherents of the Islamic faith not at a racial group. It was only earlier this year that the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled television host Sonia Kruger had vilified Muslims in comments she made on The Today Show but found this did not constitute racial vilification. Former race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane put it this way: "We have federal laws against racial hatred, and state and territory laws against incitement of hatred and contempt, but it may be difficult for Anning's comments to be captured under such laws unless they involve hatred directed at people because of their race or ethnicity." He added: "This should not take anything away from Anning's despicable comments about Muslim Australians. Enjoying free speech does not mean you enjoy freedom from criticism and censure. It certainly doesn't mean that you have a right to be a bigot." Anning would have access to the defence of "fair comment" as prescribed by the law, as long as he was acting in good faith. When commentator Andrew Bolt was found to have acted unlawfully under section 18C, it was due to a combination of inflammatory rhetoric and errors in fact. Human Rights Commissioner Ed Santow said he could not comment on the legality of Anning's published comments as his organisation may need to mediate on the matter. However, he condemned Anning for his "hateful speech". "I am horrified that Senator Anning used his position to condemn 'the entire religion of Islam' as a 'violent ideology'," Santow said in a statement. "Words matter [and] such hateful speech can contribute to violence." Mathias Cormann and Penny Wong will jointly condemn Fraser Anning for his actions in a censure motion. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen So what has Parliament done? It has censured Anning in the Senate "for his inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to attribute blame to victims of a horrific crime and to vilify people on the basis of religion, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people." The censure motion, proposed by Mathias Cormann and Penny Wong, who respectively lead the government and opposition in the Senate, led to an hour-long debate in the Seante on April 3. Penny Wong was scathing. "While those injured were being treated, this senator sought to further fan the flames of division. How pathetic. How shameful," she said. "This motion makes it clear he doesn't speak for us." With both major parties backing it, the vote passed. What are the consequences of a censure motion? Not much. Anne Twomey wrote in The Conversation: "A censure motion is regarded as a serious form of rebuke, but it does not give rise to any further kind of punishment such as a fine or suspension." Anning laughed off the threat of a censure motion. "I hope it's not too painful. Is Mr Morrison going to give me a flogging with his lace hanky or something?" Has Senator Anning resiled from his remarks? No. In March, Anning used a press conference to double down on his comments. "I don't think it can be called hateful speech if I state a fact," he said. "I don't regret anything I do." He remained unapologetic when the censure motion was before the Senate in April, telling the Senate the motion as an "attack on free speech" and "left-wing virtue signalling". "My real crime is I simply told the truth," he argued. What will happen to him at the election? Anning was elected to the Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the disqualification of Malcolm Roberts on grounds of dual-citizenship. It has been noted that Anning received just 19 below-the-line votes on ballot papers but this is irrelevant as Anning appeared third on the One Nation ticket, which received enough votes to elect two senators. Anning immediately left One Nation, briefly joining [Bob] Katter's Australian Party before he was kicked out for racism. He is up for re-election in May and is considered highly unlikely to retain his seat, as he is effectively competing against One Nation for the position. Senator Fraser Anning reacts to being egged from behind during a media conference. Credit:Courtesy of Nine News "And when the decorations started coming in they'd just leave all the price tags on the stuff they were putting out and there were things like $600 throw rugs and $200 cushions, but they were going into every single room and if there's five rooms, then that's a lot of money on pillows and blankets. The Victorian-era mansion that serves as WA's Government House can be glimpsed from St Georges Terrace. Credit:Nathan Hondros "For me, looking at the price tags on some of these things, I'm going this is ridiculous, that's what I earn in a week and you're spending that on one blanket." One former employee, who worked under Mr Beazley and former governors, said there was a "blatant waste of taxpayers funds" occurring. "They are on the staff's back about the staff meeting budget, but they're the ones who are spending all the money. "They were forwarding money from every single bucket of money that they could find to do what they wanted to do. "They brought in a whole heap of new trees for the Christmas decorations and stuff for the front of the house, all fake from China, but under a consultancy, and I know that was about six to 10 grand." One former staffer said the Governor's Establishment had spent more than $30,000 on flower arrangements so far this financial year. In November last year, the Governor flew to Albany in the government's corporate jet to commemorate Remembrance Day, according to staff. But instead of using a local vehicle and driver for the visit, Mr Beazley had his chauffeur drive his official vehicle to Albany. "[Mr Beazley] flew down with one staff member, had the driver drive down to Albany in the vice-regal vehicle and drive him around Albany, dropped him off at the airport and then drove back in one day," the former staffer said. "It was a three-day visit down there. "The driver had to go down to Albany and pick up the Governor and all that, but the day he came back he started at seven in the morning, dropped them off at the airport at three or four o'clock in the afternoon ... then he drove back that night. For me, looking at the price tags on some of these things, I'm going this is ridiculous, that's what I earn in a week and you're spending that on one blanket. Former Government House worker "So he's done about a 14 hour day all behind the wheel." A spokeswoman for the Governor's Establishment said Mr Beazley's regional visits program was an important part of his role and "with each regional visit the associated costs, including the most efficient use of the Governor and the driver/government vehicle, are always considered". Staff also said there were social media posts from within the house showing contract cleaning staff pouring expensive bottles of wine down a sink. "If we opened wine for a dinner or something, and we always served a red and a white, and if everyone drank the white or if everyone drank the red and only one person had one glass of white wine, or one glass of red wine a night, it'd go down the drain, the rest of the bottle," one former staffer said. "There was some really nice stuff in there, like Tom Cullity, Diane Madeleines, some really nice vintages, they were all really nice bottles of wine. "A lot Leeuwin Estate Art Series, Pierro, insanely expensive wines." At a staff function held shortly after Mr Beazley was appointed, he told staff Australia would soon be a republic. "He ... made a big speech about how Australia is going to become a republic, you're all going to lose your jobs, but in the meantime we're going to make this place as presentable as possible so it still stays relevant," a staffer said. Former Labor leader and one-time US ambassador Kim Beazley. His Washington embassy spent more than any other mission on entertaining. Credit:Trevor Collens "They were talking about how in Melbourne [Government House] it's like an art gallery or something where people can go and he kept saying, 'money isn't an issue'." The Governor's Establishment spokeswoman said Mr Beazley's comments to staff had always been positive and informative. "The Governor has taken time to explain his strategic direction and vision and generally inspired staff support," she said. "It is beyond the control of this organisation if a staff member chooses to incorrectly interpret those clear messages." Loading The spokeswoman for the Governor's Establishment said the Governor and Ms Annus believe Government House must be used to the fullest extent to advance the interests of the state. She said there had been a substantial increase in hospitality at Government House through formal meals and receptions to advance the Governor's representational and advocacy role. "Visiting public officials and state public servants are also welcomed to the House to familiarise the Governor with governing activities," the spokeswoman said. "This includes state government ministers from time to time, and the broader parliamentary representation. "The Governor has requested that, for guests of government, including Royal visitors, and outstanding people visiting the state for industry, arts, and other societal interests, that the use of accommodation be offered to advance the states interests. The guest rooms of the House have been refurbished to improve efficiency and amenity, to make the area even more effective for an anticipated increase in usage." The spokeswoman confirmed Premier Mark McGowan and his family spent a night at Government House for "both business and social reasons". "Additionally, and as with all previous Governors, from time to time friends of the Governor are hosted in the Governors apartment and are looked after by the Governor and spouse in an informal capacity," she said. "The Governors Establishment recognises that this major increase in activity imposes additional burdens on the staff whose number has not increased accordingly. The Establishment is sensitive to this." Although questions asking for details of spending in Government House were not answered, the spokeswoman said the Governor's Establishment budget was determined through the states budget process and approved by Parliament. "The financial statements at the end of this financial year will be audited and submitted to Parliament in the Annual Report for 2018/19," she said. "The establishment is currently running to budget." The spokeswoman said it was not unusual in any organisation for staff to experience health issues which require extended periods of personal leave. A wide-ranging inquiry will examine what intelligence agencies knew or could or should have known about alleged mass murderer Brenton Tarrant, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, while also committing to an imminent overhaul of her countrys gun laws. Tarrants court-appointed lawyer said on Monday that Tarrant wanted to represent himself, fuelling fears the Australian-raised man would seek to turn a trial into a publicity opportunity, and sparking a debate about how to prevent that. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern listens to the Muslim community in Christchurch on Saturday following Friday's mosque massacres. Credit:Kirk Hargreaves The terror attack on Friday, in which 50 people were murdered, has sparked an immediate response from intelligence and policing agencies on both sides of the Tasman. It has also triggered broader introspection about how the gunmans extreme right-wing and racist views developed. Police have stormed homes on the NSW Mid North Coast of family members of Brenton Tarrant, who allegedly massacred 50 worshippers at mosques in Christchurch on Friday. Search warrants were executed at the home of Tarrant's sister Rosie at Sandy Beach, near Coffs Harbour, and that of mother Sharon Tarrant at Lawrence, near Maclean. Sources within the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team say that detectives are being assisted by the two women, who have been co-operating with police since Friday. "My understanding is the family [of this man] did approach NSW Police after the incident was on TV," NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said at a press conference in Sydney on Saturday. Oil Industry Presents Los Angeles with Unique St. Patrick's Day Gift - An Exploding Gasoline Tanker LOS ANGELES - March 17, 2019: Different cities celebrate St. Patrick's Day in different ways. New York has a parade, Boston has endless parties and a pub crawl that goes on and on and on. But in LA, nothing much. In fact, The "city of Angeles" doesn't even show up on the "Best Places to Go for St. Patricks Day List." So the petroleum oil industry decided to send in something sparkly, something that would generate national, if not international attention, for this year's St. Patrick's Day. The oil industry sent in a 9,000 gallon tanker truck with leaking gasoline. Between the explosions, the emergency sirens, and the billowing smoke cloud that could be seen up to 70 miles away, this will be a St. Patrick's Day to remember for everyone living in the greater LA area. An unnamed oil industry spokesman indicated that he believed the celebration to be a great success. He said, "Heck, only two people were injured. Compare that to any St. Patrick's Day parade in New York where dozens of people are injured, and you'll see that we provided just as much bang for the buck, so to speak, but with far fewer casualties. SEE ALSO: For more exciting oil industry shenanigans, read "Rolling Oil and Gasoline Bombs." SEE ALSO: LA Fire Department Event Report INFINITI-supported expedition wins Explorers Club honor NEW YORK March 18, 2019; An expedition supported by INFINITI Motor Company won one of the most prestigious honors in global exploration at the 115th Explorers Club Annual Dinner in New York. The award recognized the scientific breakthrough of an expedition to the Gobi desert in 2018 that, for the first time, applied NASA imaging technology to improve the science of finding dinosaur fossils. The expedition, dubbed The Roy Chapman Andrews Centennial Expedition, was organized by the Club's Hong Kong Chapter and was awarded the Club's prestigious Citation of Merit in recognition of an outstanding feat of exploration. The expedition yielded historic results, including the discovery of many important fossils and new fossil locations, as well as potentially three or more new species of dinosaur. Watch a preview of the forthcoming expedition documentary: https://infinitistories.com/en Roy Chapman Andrews famously found dinosaur eggs at the Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi approximately 100 years ago and was the first explorer to use "motor cars" to vastly increase the efficiency of the expedition. A century later, INFINITI provided a fleet of state-of-the-art luxury SUVs and underwriting to support the expedition, reinforcing the ethos of using new technology to empower exploration. Michael Barth, Founder and Chair of The Explorers Club Hong Kong Chapter (ECAD), said, "We are humbled and thrilled that the power of our 'Collaboration Over Conquest' approach to exploration is being recognized by our illustrious group of peers with this year's Citation of Merit. We are looking forward with renewed purpose to leading upcoming expeditions in the Chapter's pipeline that are as equally inclusive, innovating and impactful as the Roy Chapman Andrews Centennial Expedition. INFINITI supported this idea from day one and has been an invaluable partner for the Explorers Club Hong Kong Chapter." Since the Citation of Merit was first awarded in 1962, very few awards have ever been shared by an entire team, the first of which was the American Mount Everest Expedition of 1963. Other awardees have included Naomi Uemura, the first person to reach the North Pole solo; Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the Titanic; Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist who was the first scientist to show that chemicals used in consumer products contaminate marine mammals; and Merle G. Robertson, an artist, archaeologist and art historian who devoted her life to preserving the culture of the Ancient Maya. This year's Explorers Club Annual Dinner celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 20, 1969. "INFINITI understands exploration and the mission of the Explorers Club. Through their brand ethos, products and technology, INFINITI is striving to push dragons off maps just like the Club. We are grateful for the support of INFINITI for the 115th ECAD and appreciate the deep relationship with our Hong Kong chapter," said Richard C. Wiese, president of the Explorers Club. Among the SUV's INFINITI provided were its all-new QX50 mid-size luxury crossover, which features the world's first production variable compression engine; the capable, comfortable and contemporary QX80 full size SUV that traversed the Gobi with ease; and the full size QX60 three-row SUV. "At INFINITI, we share the same insatiable curiosity and desire to push ourselves further, using new technology to go beyond what was previously thought possible," said Trevor C. Hale, general manager, INFINITI global communications, and member of the winning expedition. "There is such a compelling sense of history and symmetry in empowering an expedition a century after Roy Chapman Andrews, with a fleet of state-of-the-art INFINITI SUVs and new technology." About INFINITI INFINITI Motor Company Ltd. is headquartered in Hong Kong with representations in markets around the world. The INFINITI brand was launched in 1989. Its range of luxury automobiles is currently built in manufacturing facilities in Japan, North America and China. INFINITI design studios are located in Atsugi-Shi near Yokohama, London, San Diego and Beijing. INFINITI will electrify its entire lineup from 2021 onward. The brand has been widely acclaimed for its daring design and world's first driver-assistance technologies. From the 2016 season, INFINITI is a technical partner of the Renault Sport Formula One team, contributing its expertise in hybrid performance. Find more information about INFINITI, its industry leading technologies and the all-new 2019 QX50 midsize luxury crossover at www.infinitiusa.com. You can also follow INFINITI USA on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and see all our latest videos on YouTube. About Institute of Paleontology and Geology (IPG), Mongolian Academy of Sciences The primary purpose of the Institute of Paleontology and Geology (IPG) is to conduct world- class research and promote the extraordinary paleontological and geological resources of Mongolia. The aim of the IPG is to develop in-depth research on the ancient organisms of Mongolia (paleontology, evolution and biostratigraphy), and, mineralization and geology of the Kherlen and Onon regions. The team consists of 82 team staff including researchers and administration. About The Explorers Club The Explorers Club is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. Since its inception in 1904, the Club has served as a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide. Founded in New York City in 1904, The Explorers Club promotes the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural and biological sciences. The Club's members have been responsible for an illustrious series of famous firsts: First to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, first to the surface of the moonall accomplished by our members. The Hong Kong chapter was formed in 2014 to promote the values and work of The Explorers Club in the region, and to make Hong Kong the platform for a new era of exploration of Asia and beyond. For more information about The Explorers Club Hong Kong Chapter go to https://explorershk.org or follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. From the Roy Chapman Andrews Society: https://roychapmanandrewssociety.org/roy- chapman-andrews/ "Roy Chapman Andrews gained national fame as an explorer for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He began his career at the museum in 1906 by sweeping floors and assisting in the taxidermy department. By 1934 he had become the museum's director. Andrews is best remembered for the series of dramatic expeditions he led to the Gobi of Mongolia from 1922 to 1930. Andrews took a team of scientists into previously unexplored parts of the desert using some of the region's first automobiles with extra supplies transported by camel caravan. Andrews for whom adventure and narrow escapes from death were a staple of exploring is said to have served as inspiration for the Hollywood character "Indiana Jones." Andrews's expeditions to the Gobi remain significant for, among other discoveries, their finds of the first nests of dinosaur eggs, new species of dinosaurs, and the fossils of early mammals that co-existed with dinosaurs. These materials remain the subject of exhibits and study, and they inspired a new wave of exploration in the Gobi by the American Museum beginning in 1990." State bar mandatory unions for attorneys are finally being dismantled By Rachel Alexander An effort started a few years ago to eliminate the union-like, mandatory nature of state bars. These associations have become increasingly politicized, spending members dues for partisan purposes that always go against Republicans. This is illegal, since the 1990 Supreme Court decision Keller v. State Bar of California decision held that mandatory members of state bar associations have a First Amendment right not to subsidize political or ideological activities. Additionally, in the 27 states with right-to-work laws, attorneys arent supposed to be required to join a union in order to practice law. In order to practice their profession, attorneys should be required to go through no more than a licensing agency. But somehow, these illegal state bar unions have thrived in 31 states. The other states have voluntary bars and do just fine. The existence of these politically motivated state bars has finally started getting attention due to their targeting of conservative attorneys and spending members dues on partisan activities. In Arizona, the state bar disbarred a popular conservative district attorney in order to stop him from cracking down on illegal immigration with former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. After that happened in 2012, conservative attorneys in Arizona tell me they are terrified to write articles, tweet or say anything publicly for fear of having the left-wing wing state bar come after them. Almost no one dared to defend the disbarred attorney, not wanting to make themselves a target of the bar. In North Dakota, the state bar got caught spending a significant amount of money opposing a shared parenting ballot initiative. A small but motivated group of unscrupulous family law attorneys who are heavily involved in state bars stand to lose a lot of money in client litigation fees if shared parenting goes into effect. They heavily influence state bar lobbying in this area. An attorney filed a lawsuit, assisted by the Goldwater Institute, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The high court ordered the trial court to decide the case in accordance with Janus v. State, County, and Municipal Employees, which held that public sector unions cannot collect dues from people who do not want to be a member of the union. While state bars are not governmental, they act quasi-governmental and are granted a virtual monopoly over the legal profession. Illinois, where Janus arose, is not a right-to-work state. In Oregon, the state bar ran a piece in its bulletin that appeared to tie President Trump to the promotion of white nationalism, while sanctimoniously denouncing white nationalism in an adjacent second piece. After a backlash, the state bar provided a refund of $1.12 the cost of the bulletin to any member that requested it. Based on Janus, two attorneys in Oregon sued the state bar alleging that mandatory dues infringe on their First Amendment rights to free speech. They said the dues unconstitutionally pay for political and ideological speech they disagree with. Oregon is also not a right-to-work state. In multiple states, bills have been proposed to split up mandatory state bars. Unfortunately, the state bars are very powerful, backed by the inflated membership dues of attorneys, allowing them to afford the best lobbyists to resist the efforts. This is the case in Arizona, which has the second highest mandatory annual bar dues in the country after Alaska, $505. Ironically, the Arizona State Bar was forced to raise dues in order to pay for the show trial against the district attorney it disbarred. Bills are unable to make it out of both Arizona legislative houses due to the powerful lobbying efforts of the state bar. Disgusted with the corruption, the Goldwater Institute, which is headquartered in Arizona, asked the Arizona Supreme Court in January to eliminate the mandatory nature of the Arizona bar. A couple of states have had success breaking up their mandatory state bars. Nebraska split its bar in half a few years ago. Now only the regulatory side is mandatory. The California legislature split the California Bar into two pieces with a bill in 2017. Like Nebraska, the mandatory part will retain the regulatory functions. The trade association activities, which include working on legislation, are being transferred to a voluntary nonprofit entity. It is unfair that in order to practice law, attorneys in 31 states are required to be members of unions that engage in partisan political activity against members interests. Fortunately, the tide is finally turning and these corrupt organizations are starting to be dismantled. Just because the thugs running the state bar unions wear white collars does not mean they are any less union thugs. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, Enter Stage Right and other publications.mericano, ParcBench, Enter Stage Right and other publications Home For his latest album, pianist and composer Mike Janzen decided to explore a different sort of rhythm: the cadence of the liturgical church year. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. For his latest album, pianist and composer Mike Janzen decided to explore a different sort of rhythm: the cadence of the liturgical church year. The Juno Award-nominated performer, who grew up in Steinbach and studied music at Providence University College, released Lent on March 6. SUBMITTED PHOTO Mike Janzen, a Juno Award-nominated pianist who grew up in Steinbach, released Lent, a new collection of solo recordings, last week. The 12-song solo album, recorded at his home studio in Toronto, collects and expands eight demo recordings he released one at a time last year. "Ive really gained an appreciation for the flow of the different parts of the year. I maybe appreciate them more than I ever have," he said Monday from Toronto. Lent sees Janzen, a musical omnivore fluent in pop, classical and jazz, arrange everything from traditional hymns to African-American spirituals. "Vigil," an original composition, is also included. The songs, some of which Janzen first encountered at church, are intended to give listeners space in which to reflect, meditate, or pray. Janzen said he hopes the music will also encourage Lent practitioners as they make a conscious 40-day effort to evaluate their daily habits. "Lent is this season where we choose to empty ourselves of appetites, desires, things that we usually go to to fill our days, and then put something else in (place of) them." The album marks the first professional recordings hes released since he suffered a debilitating concussion after fainting at home in April 2016. The subdued new material, he said, "mimicked my life, which has also been this Lenten season where I cant do a lot of my usual things that I like to do." Janzen was forced to rein in his artistic drive and let neuroplasticitythe brains ability to reorganize itself in the wake of traumadecide the pace of his recovery. "With my injury, Id work on (songs) for 10 minutes, and then suddenly Id get really dizzy so Id have to stop," he recalled. Gradually, he learned to embrace limitation as an opportunity to explore more spacious arrangements and slower tempos. "I was waiting for a long time to get healthy to record these pieces, because I thought then I could really nail them. But I wasnt getting healthy fast enough. At some point, I just realized, maybe another way forward was to play these pieces and let my injury sort of come out in the music." Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. As he worked, he drew courage from Keith Jarretts The Melody at Night, with You, a 1999 album the American jazz pianist recorded at home while he battled chronic fatigue syndrome. Soon, Janzen was sitting at his grand piano for two hours per day. Today, he is able to work about 30 hours per week. The recovery process "showed me that music could heal my brain. It was pretty exciting." He still grapples with limitations, such as driving for no more than 20 minutes at a time, but is writing more, and last December delivered three Christmas performances. "Im very thankful. Things are definitely improving," he said. A Winnipeg performance is also on the horizon. On Oct. 25, Janzen will join Steve Bell and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for the "Beauty of the Infinite" concert. Tickets go on sale in September. Digital and CD copies of Lent are available online at mike-janzen.squarespace.com. Anthony Bourdain #2: Detroit By Michael Moriarty Of all places to examine?! Third Millennium Detroit, Michigan. I was born and raised there since April of 1941! Didnt make Manhattan my long-term home until 1970. Now? Its a Ghost City! Enough skyscrapers to make it a onetime urban giant. But now?! It hurts. Seen through the eyes and piercing understanding of Anthony Bourdain and his editors?! There are depressing sights. But then again, there is Detroit! At one time, millions of people lived there. Now?! There are only a little over 800,000 lost and broken lives. For some reason I cannot lift still photographs from this film exploration of both a dying and immanently dead metropolis. Heres a still photo of the damage done to the abandoned Packard Factory! Opened in 1903, Packard was 3.5 million square feet Of pure industry! And now?!?!?! During World War II, there were 33,000 people working for Packard. Detroits great ongoing tragedy, as Mr. Bourdain describes it. He was, of course, and the remaining Detroiters are apparently not far away from his own suicidal tragedy! I find his personal report, on what I now call The Death of Detroit, a preview of things to come for his own, much swifter ending at 61 years of age! He even accuses himself, during this documentary, of Wallowing in (Detroits) ruin porn! Throughout his multi-series exploration of the world, Mr. Bourdain almost speaks proudly of his wallowing in crack cocaine, alcohol and some of the more pornography-filled cities in the world. I am, to be utterly frank, a great fan of pornography. I was also, for utterly too long a ten-year span, a cigarette smoking, bourbon and beer-drinking dipsomaniac. I, however, had a heart-attack and spent two straight months in a hospital, trying to recover. Why did I recover and live, so far, for an additional 15 years? I quit both smoking and drinking as well! Thank God, during this depressing look at todays Detroit, for the pride and sense of humor at that citys Dulys Place, a diner that serves Coney Island Hot Dogs open 24 hours! Anthony, if hell excuse the familiarity from wherever he is now, likens the Duly hot dog experience to a symphony. With, as the background music demonstrates, a full chorus! A simultaneous reminder of Detroits lost majesty!! Now comes the examination of Detroits spectacular corruption and mismanagement! To help describe the history of Detroits swift hurtle from heaven to hell is Adolf Mongo, political strategist, oracle and survivor. His analysis of the problem? Greedy! The greed of politicians. Were there, Are there good guys out there, asks Anthony. There are a lot of good guys out there! declares Adolf. But?!?! They dont wanna run for office! Why, asks Anthony? You gotta take the garbage along with it! Then Anthony asks us, the audience, Can Detroit turn things around? He answers his own question with an emphatically demonstrative, No! He likens Detroit to Chernobyl! That, however, was a nuclear accident! The unrelenting death of Detroit could never be labeled as an accident! Nor could Mr. Bourdains suicide. Did Anthony Bourdain suddenly become as pessimistic about himself as he does during this examination of Third Millennium Detroit? He had to have grown dark and despairing!! But why? Despite his addictions, Mr. Bourdain, particularly in his last year, never looked or sounded as hopeless as Detroit! If hed only gone to Alcoholics Anonymous! Let go, let God! He never believed in God. His only God?! Without any excessive grandstanding? Himself. So, in a way, he became his own Mayor of his own Detroit. What is most heartbreaking is our doomed heros tribute to the strength of the survivors in Detroit who wont give up! He not only gave up! He executed an extraordinarily gifted human being. Yes, he should be going to jail for that. Anthony Bourdain personally witnessed and recorded the history of a complete loss of faith in their city by an entire metropolis of what was over two million people! How can he allow himself the criminal luxury of losing faith in not only himself but Life itself?! And do so, after his extraordinarily lucid commentary on the ongoing suicide of Detroit?!?! The episode ends with a suddenly moving tribute to the Detroit Fire Department, their unbreakable commitment to saving lives and homes and, most appropriately, to the seemingly obligatory command that every fireman should be able to cook a decent meal for his fellow firemen! Then off Tony goes apparently he doesnt mind the diminutive of Anthony with his wonderfully affirmative Detroiter, Charley Rudolf, to an art gallery that also doubles as a restaurant. Charley calls the art gallery a garage; but hes the soul of optimism! This episode is such a loving portrait of a profoundly wounded Detroit, I tear up far more often than Id like to. Why? I begin to envy the heroes and heroines who stayed in Detroit, regardless of the millions who have abandoned her!! They speak with a joy and tireless commitment to bring Detroit back to life!!! Lily Tomlin, a born Detroiter like myself, said, I left Detroit when I found out where I was! That was years before the beginning of Detroits Great Collapse. Now, decades into that collapse, the tenacity of Detroiters who refuse to give up on their city?! A part if me is obviously very jealous. I pray very tenaciously for their success!!!! Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home Amy Schumer isnt holding back in her new Netflix special. She opened up about her pregnancy and marriage in her hour long special Amy Schumer: Growing. She also talked about what it's like to be married to someone on the autism spectrum. During the special, the 37-year-old reveals that her husband, Chris Fischer, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, telling the crowd: I knew from the beginning that my husbands brain was a little different than mine. I have to start this over because I really want to get this right because I love him very much My husband was diagnosed with what used to be called Aspergers. He has autism spectrum disorder. Hes on the spectrum. And there were some signs early on. An aerial view of the destruction of homes after Tropical Cyclone Idai hit, in Beira, Mozambique, on March 15, 2019. (Denis Onyodi/IFRC via AP) 1,000 People Feared Dead After Powerful Cyclone Hits Mozambique A cyclone in the eastern African nation of Mozambique may have killed 1,000 people, according to the countrys president. President Filipe Nyusi said Cyclone Idai caused mass destruction, saying the death toll will likely rise significantly, the BBC reported. The official death toll is 84 in Mozambique, and the storm is blamed for the deaths of about 200 people across southeastern Africa. The storm, which had the strength of a Category 3 hurricane, packed winds of 106 mph and lashed the region with heavy rains. Nyusi said he saw bodies floating in the floodwater after touring the hardest-hit area of Beira, a port city, the BBC reported. The waters of the Pungue and Buzi rivers overflowed, making whole villages disappear and isolating communities, and bodies are floating, Nyusi said, according to The Associated Press. It is a real disaster of great proportions. For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area this morning to understand whats going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths, Nyusi said, reported Qatar-backed Al Jazeera TV. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said that about 90 percent of Beira was destroyed in the storm. The agency added that a dam broke in the area on March 17, cutting off a road to the city, which has about 530,000 residents. The scale of damage caused by Cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying, the IFRC said, adding that more rain is expected. Zimbabwe, located next to the country, was also hit hard by the cyclone. At least 89 people died in the country, AP reported. A United Nations humanitarian agency stated that some 5.3 million people will require food aid after the storm, Al-Jazeera reported. Hundreds of people have been injured in the storm, said one local official. Almost everything has been affected by the calamity, Alberto Mondlane, the governor of Sofala Province, told the BBC. We have people currently suffering, some on top of trees and are badly in need of help. Mozambique is a long, narrow country of 30 million people with a 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) coastline along the Indian Ocean. It is prone to cyclones and tropical storms this time of year. It was hit by severe flooding in 2000. Cyclone Idai has caused 'massive and horrifying damage' in Mozambique. More than 150 people have died as a result. BBC News Africa 2019318 The country won independence from Portugal in 1975 and then was plagued by a long-running civil war. Its economy is dominated by agriculture, and its exports include prawns, cotton, cashews, sugar, coconuts, and tropical hardwood timber. More recently it has been exporting aluminum and electric power. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Police have now re-opened the road at the Greenvale hotel in Cookstown, Ireland, after reports of two young deaths during a St. Patricks day party. (Brendan Marshall) 2 People Killed at St Patricks Day Disco in Northern Ireland Amid Reports of a Crush DJ performing at the disco says reports are false UPDATE: A third person has died after an incident at Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown last night, March 17. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton has said that a major investigation is now underway. Police launch investigation following the deaths of 3 teens at St Patricks Day event in Cookstown. ACC Mark Hamilton said: It is heart-breaking an event which should have been fun should end in such a terrible tragedy.https://t.co/4KBKoul03J PSNI (@PoliceServiceNI) March 18, 2019 Two people have died and two others have been taken to hospital with injuries following reports of a crush at a St Patricks Day event in Northern Ireland, according to emergency services. Update: We can confirm there are 2 fatalities and 2 people are being treated in hospital 1 is critical and 1 is in a stable condition. Family members of all 4 people have been informed. Our thoughts are with everyone involved. The police investigation is continuing. PSNI (@PoliceServiceNI) March 18, 2019 One person is in hospital in critical condition, while another is in a stable condition, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed on Monday, March 18, following the event at Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown. An investigation is currently underway to determine the cause of the incident, which was believed to be a disco for young people, reported the BBC. While the exact cause of the incident is still unknown, there are reports of a crush at the scene. At this stage, the cause of the incident is unknown. However, police have commenced a full investigation into the circumstances, PSNIs assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton, said. A multi agency incident is under way at Greenvale Hotel, Cookstown. ACC Mark Hamilton said: I can confirm there are 2 fatalities at this stage and a small no of other casualties. Parents are asked to collect children from Family and Friends reception at Glenavon Hotel. PSNI (@PoliceServiceNI) March 18, 2019 Ambulance services scrambled to the scene after reports of several people feeling unwell, with doctors, paramedics and five emergency crews dispatched at around 21:30 p.m. local time. More police have just arrived at the scene of the tragedy in Cookstown. pic.twitter.com/LP0rTWiC1X Mark Simpson (@BBCMarkSimpson) March 18, 2019 Over an hour later, at 22:41 local time, emergency services urged parents to come to the hotel immediately to pick up their children. Reports of a stampede at the event began to circulate, after an eyewitness reportedly phoned UUP Councillor Trevor Wilson saying there had been a crush, the Independent reported. Theres clearly a deep sense of shock here tonight that an event for young people just wanting to celebrate St Patricks night went so horribly wrong, Wilson told the Belfast Telegraph. ACC Mark Hamilton added: While the exact cause of the incident is still unknown, there are reports of a crush at the scene. PSNI (@PoliceServiceNI) March 18, 2019 There seems to have been a stampede, and a number of people have been badly injured, Wilson added. But the DJ who was performing at the disco at the hotel reportedly told journalist Brendan Marshall, who made his way to the scene, that the reports were false, according to the BBC. Marshall explained he had heard that several young people fell seriously ill at the event. He confirmed thatcontrary to the rumours that had been circulatingthere had been no crushing and nothing had collapsed. He told me that a number of young people had become seriously ill. He said one young person was brought to him by a friend to have their pulse checked. The DJ then shone a light in their eyes to check whether they were alive, Marshall told BBC News NI. Lord William McCrea giving his reaction tonight on the tragic scenes in Cookstown. #Cookstown pic.twitter.com/iPdJYtHn1t Brendan Marshall (@BJPMarshall) March 18, 2019 DUP leader Arlene Foster has said her thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the incident. The injured have been taken to Craigavon Area Hospital and Antrim Area Hospital, Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said. Another Dead Pig That Drifted Ashore in Taiwan Found to Have African Swine Fever A dead pig infected with the African swine fever virus drifted ashore onto the southwestern side of Lieyu, a rural island administered by Taiwans Kinmen County, on March 12. Kinmen is the name of a group of islands located southwest of the main Taiwan isle. Lab tests confirmed that this was the third pig that tested positive for swine fever virus to have washed up on the shores of Kinmen since December. The Central Emergency Operation Center of Taiwan, Swine Fever Division, announced on March 14 that gene fragments from the dead pig was 100 percent identical to the swine fever strain found in affected pigs in mainland China, home to an ongoing outbreak of the disease. African swine fever (ASF) is highly contagious and fatal to pigs, though it has no known harmful effects on humans. China has reported 112 outbreaks of ASF in 28 provinces and regions since August last year. About one million pigs have been culled in China so far in an attempt to control the spread of the disease, according to a Reuters report. According to the Central Emergency Operation Center, the dead pig was found only about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) away from Xiamen City in Chinas Fujian provincean area located directly across the strait from Taiwan. The Kinmen county government has been taking strict measures to prevent further spreading of the virus. In addition to disinfecting personnel, vehicles, and equipment, Kinmen is also monitoring the eight family-owned pig farms in Lieyu Township. So far, no abnormal situation has been found on these pig farms. Pigs and pork products from Liehyu Township are currently suspended from entering the main Kinmen island. The suspension may be lifted when local pigs have completed the African swine fever testing and results come up negative. Previously, two other pigs with swine fever virus had drifted onto the shores of Kinmen. The county government also suspected they originated from mainland China, as local pig populations were healthy. One was found on December 30, 2018 on the shore of Tianpu, Jinsha Town, Kinmen County, the other was found on Jan. 17, on the shore of Chukuang township in the Matsu Islands. Other Problematic Chinese Pork Products Also on March 14, Taiwans Central Emergency Operation Center announced that one more pork product from mainland China was found to have tested positive for ASF. This brings the total number of ASF-contaminated pork products found in Taiwan to 32. The most recent case was pork jerky that was discarded at the Kaohsiung Siaogang Airport by a passenger flying back to Taiwan from Fuzhou City in Fujian Province. The pork jerky was made in Linyi City in northern Chinas Shanxi Province. The Kaohsiung airport collected it and sent it to the Airport Quarantine Station for testing. The Central Emergency Operation Center stressed again that passengers are not allowed to carry pork products from China into Taiwan, as the risk of spreading ASF to Taiwan is very high. Offenders will be severely punished, with a minimum fine of NT$200,000 ($6,479). Bags of fentanyl seized in an operation at the U.S.-Mexico border in Tohono O'odham Nation. (DOI) Authorities Seize 30,000 Fentanyl Pills at Mexico Border on Arizona Indian Reservation Authorities have seized over 30,000 fentanyl pills that were trafficked into the United States through an Arizona Indian reservation on the border with Mexico. The pills were seized by a task force set up by President Trump to help end the opioid crisis in an operation that netted illegal and controlled substances worth $700,000 across the four southern border states, according to a statement by the Department of the Interior on March 15. It was part of a joint investigation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Drug Enforcement into large amounts of fentanyl pills being trafficked by a Mexican cartel through points of entry in the Tohono Oodham Nation. An undercover operative purchased approximately 30,000 fentanyl pills (opioids) from the drug organization. Three non-Indian subjects were taken into custody without incident, said the DOI statement. One subject was found to be in possession of a pistol during the incident. The operation was carried out under the Joint Task Force on Opioid Reduction, which was formed last year. President Trump is committed to combating the opioid crisis and making Americas border communities safer, and our first-of-its-kind joint Task Force is delivering on that commitment, said Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior David Bernhardt. The law enforcement officers of the Joint Task Force, led by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is doing incredible work to keep Tribal communities safe from the deadly and illegal drugs pouring in from Mexico. Tara Sweeney, the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, said, These criminals endanger our children and families, and I am very proud of the hard and dangerous work that our Office of Justice Services agents are doing as part of the Task Force. According to the DIO, the joint task force has helped secure the seizure of millions of dollars worth of fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs, and hundreds of arrests and indictments. Mexican Cartels Drug trafficking across the Arizona-Mexico border is almost completely controlled by the Sinaloa cartel, Doug Coleman, DEA special agent-in-charge in Arizona, told KTAR in February. The head of the cartel, El Chapo Guzman, is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of various charges including conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms. However, even with El Chapo behind bars, the Drug Enforcement Administration said the Sinaloa cartel is still its No. 1 target by far in Arizona, according to KTAR. Mexican cartels, otherwise known as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), show continued signs of growth in the United States, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in a 2018 report. The cartels control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the southwest border, and maintain the greatest drug-trafficking influence in the United States, states the DEA. They continue to expand their criminal influence by engaging in business alliances with other TCOs, including independent TCOs, and work in conjunction with transnational gangs, U.S.-based street gangs, prison gangs, and Asian money laundering organizations, the DEA said. Cartels are also using the large groups of asylum-seekers, mostly from Central America, to tie up Border Patrol resources in areas along the border. In many instances, criminal organizations are saturating areas with large groups with the belief that they can smuggle narcotics or other contraband into the United States while Border Patrol agents are occupied, CBP said in a statement on Feb. 11. Border Patrol agents have encountered more than 58 groups of 100-plus people so far this fiscal year, compared to 13 in all of fiscal 2018. Charlotte Cuthbertson contributed to this report. A black female Harvard professor reconsiders the Second Amendment By Mark Alexander A New York Times op/ed by Harvard history professor Tiya Miles has received some questionable praise and promotion from a few conservative commentators last week. Myles Miles, who describes herself as "an African-American historian and, on most issues, decidedly liberal," asks an introspective question: "Could I rethink my anti-gun stance?" Apparently, the answer is "yes," because what follows is an essay titled "The Black Gun Owner Next Door." Now I have to admit, when I first read that title, I thought the black gun reference might be to what the Times and other Leftmedia elitists often describe incorrectly as "assault riles." (For the record, I am proud to live next to "black gun" owners irrespective of their race or ethnicity.) But alas, I was mistaken. Miles's opinion provided a case study of an academician who started off in the right direction trying to discover the significance of the Second Amendment only to become lost in her own cultural delusions. Despite her reconsiderations, Miles fails to grasp the most rudimentary understanding of the Liberty and Rule of Law enshrined in our Constitution, as assured by its Second Amendment enumeration of our First Civil Right: "To Keep and Bear Arms." As I've made clear in many columns over the years, the Second Amendment is the most vital of all constitutional proscriptions against government infringement of the Endowed Rights of All Men. Of that most essential right, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in his seminal Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833): "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." Of course, leftists tell us that because the Bill of Rights was ratified more than two centuries ago, it is antiquated. It may have been relevant in 1791, they argue, but surely no longer so in our post-modern culture and under the protection of enlightened Left-elite. Actually, this is where Miles contemplates disagreement with those who would deconstruct and repeal the Second Amendment. Sadly, however, she dissents for the wrong reasons. Her perspective is compelling because it demonstrates how paranoid and deranged some otherwise reasonably rational people can become when confined in academic and media bubbles, or when unduly influenced by those who are. So why is Miles hedging on her anti-2A position? Because she seems to have embraced the leftist line that Donald Trump is a racist, and because a race war may follow if he's reelected in 2020. Thus, she wants her black neighbors armed so they can defend themselves and her. Miles's near-epiphany was sparked by a visit to the historic 1850s home of black abolitionist Lewis Hayden on Boston's "Black Heritage Trail." Here are a few excerpts from her thought progressions. As she approached Hayden's house, which in the 1850s was a protected stop on the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves, she was taken aback by the presence of a National Rifle Association sticker displayed by the current owner on the home's front window. According to Miles, "This moment, which might not have caused a reaction in others, set me on a path of reflection, not just on the life of Hayden and those like him, but on the meanings of African-American gun ownership and my own deeply held beliefs about guns." Well, that was a good start. "To me, the pairing of Lewis Hayden and the NRA felt like an affront," complained Miles. "I knew for certain that Hayden fought for the right to be free from violent repression by white citizens wielding guns, capital and political influence. ... The NRA, on the other hand, has long been a boogeyman for me. I see it as an organization that stands ... hardened to the destruction that rampant gun violence wreaks." Yes, somehow the NRA is responsible for urban "gun violence," overwhelmingly black-on-black violence, the result of generations of catastrophically failed Democrat policies. "Who," Miles ponders, "would plaster this flagrant symbol of white conservatism on the antique home of a black abolitionist?" Miles was invited in for a visit with the current owners of the house, Mary and John Gier. She says, "They are proud of their heritage (English, Dutch, Irish and German) but resist hyphenated labels like 'Euro-American' or 'African-American.'" (Apparently they don't subscribe to the Left's hyphenated "identity politics.") The Giers have restored the house to the condition when it was occupied by Lewis Hayden and his wife, Harriet in an era when they were well armed and ready to defend the innate right to Liberty of former slaves. Miles insists it was clear that the Giers "saw the NRA emblem as simpatico with the home's spirit. To them, Lewis Hayden is a 'model for America.' Mrs. Gier thinks if he were alive today, he would be a member of the NRA or the National African-American Gun Association." Mrs. Gier asked Miles, "Can you imagine what would have happened had he not had his guns? I believe that Hayden would have left no stone unturned to maintain his defense. In that sense, he is not unlike our law-abiding citizens today who are protecting their constitutional rights." Indeed, disarmament and gun confiscation in the United States has racist origins, particularly in the destructive wake of the War Between the States. After a bit more research, Miles discovered that, according to historian Manisha Sinha, "Black abolitionists, especially those involved in the abolitionist underground and Vigilance Committees, tended to arm themselves. ... Fugitive slaves often resorted to armed self-defense when confronted by slave catchers and law enforcement." Sarah Bradford, biographer of famous Underground Railroad leader Harriet Tubman, wrote that she carried at least one gun. Unfortunately, Miles's reconsideration of the Second Amendment collided with her own unhinged cultural bias. She asserts that we are in "another moment of peril for African-Americans with rates of racially motivated hate crimes on the rise, organized white supremacist rallies and open advocacy of white power ideology becoming more common," and for that reason, "black gun ownership has surged ... markedly after the election of Donald Trump." However, despite her disdain for the NRA, Miles concedes that many black gun owners are "super assertively pro-gun," including Maj Toure, the founder of a group called Black Guns Matter, who "sees the NRA as an important civil rights organization." Likewise, Philip Smith, founder of the National African-American Gun Association, maintains "close ties to the NRA." Smith impressed upon Miles that "black gun owners are not a monolith. 'We have black Republicans, Democrats, gay, straight.'" Miles was shocked to find that among Smith's NAAGA membership are people who want to be self-sufficient in a crisis and take care of their neighbors, including many women. There are "even black gun owners preparing for natural or human-made disasters ('preppers')," and black women make up more than 60% of his organization. In fact, NAAGA is now in 30 states and is expecting to have chapters in all states by 2020 although Miles is unlikely to join. Miles was even more astounded to find, after she "took an informal family poll," that many of her relatives "store weapons in hidden chambers inside homes where we gather; possess permits to carry concealed weapons and take target practice; have friends who bring guns to church in case the congregation should need shielding; and are prepared to 'protect my family no matter who comes through the door." Her conclusion: "I did come to realize through a series of unexpected exchanges that the issue was more complicated than I had allowed and that my views of just coexistence and human flourishing might not require the absolute prohibition of arms." Unfortunately, she then reverts to her deranged concerns about Trump and race wars: "I would not abide having a gun inside my dwelling or my children's schools. But where would I want to be if civil society topples and 2020 feels like 1820?" In a home like that of the Haydens, she says, where someone else will defend her against the latest generation of "white citizens wielding guns, capital and political influence." What Miles can't begin to conceive, much less concede, is that black Americans are among the major beneficiaries of the Trump administration's economic policies. She might also be horrified to discover that black American approval of Trump has significantly increased over the last two years. Clearly Miles's worldview is the product of willing confinement in a leftist groupthink echo chamber. There, she and her ilk can safely convince themselves that their president is a racist, the nation is ablaze with racist attacks, a race war may ensue if Trump is reelected, and black people had better arm themselves so they won't be enslaved again. Miles, unfortunately, can't even see that she's already enslaved by the shackles of her own dimly lit worldview. Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post. Home A fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) holds a weapon in the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, Syria, on March 17, 2019. (Stringer/Reuters) Battle Rages for Last ISIS Syria Enclave BAGHOUZ, SyriaFalling bombs raised smoke over the ISIS terrorist groups last enclave in eastern Syria on Sunday, March 17, obscuring the huddle of vehicles and makeshift shelters to which the groups self-declared caliphate has been reduced. Air strikes and artillery began hitting the area and smoke billowed overhead late in the afternoon as U.S.-backed forces resumed their weeks-long attack, a Reuters reporter said. After dark, a Kurdish TV channel broadcast live footage showing fires raging and the swift glow of rockets pounding into the enclave accompanied by the sound of intense gunfire. During an earlier lull in fighting, tiny figures of people still inside were clearly visible walking among hundreds of trucks, cars, and minibusses clustered around a few concrete buildings by the bank of the Euphrates. It is all that remains to ISIS in the heartland of the territory it seized in 2014, taking advantage of the chaos in Iraq and Syria to grab about a third of both countries and eradicating the border between them. However, the groups leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still at large and regional officials believe it will remain a threat after it has lost all its land. The enclave is in Baghouz, a handful of hamlets in farmland next to the river along the Iraqi border. Despite its tiny size, more than 60,000 people have fled it in the past two months, said the besieging Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia. Nearly half of them were surrendering ISIS terrorists, mostly family members of jihadist extremists, though 5,000 armed terrorists also gave themselves up, said SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel. Another 34,000 civilians were evacuated. Former residents from the region say many of the civilians who left the Baghouz area in recent weeks were Iraqi Sunnis with close tribal ties on the other side of the border in Deir al-Zor, a Sunni heartland. They sought sanctuary in Syria for fear of reprisals by the Iraqi Hashd al Shaabi, the Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, the former residents said. Aerial Bombing Another SDF spokesman, Mustafa Bali, told Reuters only about 100 terrorists and their families had surrendered overnight in the spot where hardline insurgents have been mounting a desperate last-stand defense. We had expected the surrender of a large number of terrorists and their families but only a small group came out, Bali said. On Friday suicide blasts targeted some of the people leaving Baghouz and surrendering to the SDF. The SDF said 1,306 terrorists had been killed alongside many who were injured in the military campaign that began on Jan. 9, while 82 SDF fighters had been killed and 61 injured. The SDF said another 520 terrorists had been captured in special operations in the last ISIS bastion. Former residents say hundreds of civilians have been killed in months of heavy aerial bombing by the coalition that has razed many of the hamlets in the area along the Iraqi border. The coalition says it takes great care to avoid killing civilians and investigates reports that it has done so. The SDF has mostly transferred the tens of thousands who have fled the ISIS shrinking territory in recent months to a camp at al-Hol in the northeast. A senior International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) official said last Monday an estimated 20,000 Iraqi women and children in the camp were expected to be sent home within weeks or months. The United Nations says the camp now holds around 67,000 people, 90 percent of them women and childrenwell beyond its capacity. Camp workers say they do not have enough tents, food, or medicine. By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Angus McDowall Brexit Chaos as Speaker Rules British PM Must Change Her Plan to Get Another Vote LONDONPrime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans were thrown into further turmoil on March 18 when the speaker of Parliament ruled that she could not put her divorce deal to a new vote unless it was re-submitted in a fundamentally different form. In comments that blindsided Mays office, Speaker John Bercow said the government could not bring forward proposals for a vote in Parliament that were substantially the same as had already been defeated twice before, in January and on March 12. The ruling put Britain on a knife edgeBrexiteers seeking a complete break from the European Union saw a no-deal exit as now more likely while others thought May might put off Brexit beyond the set March 29 departure date, if the EU approves. According to precedents stretching back to 1604, parliamentary rules state that substantially similar proposals cannot be voted on in the House of Commons more than once during the same session of Parliament. Bercow said his ruling should not be considered his last word and the government could bring forward a new proposition that was not the same as that already voted upon. This is my conclusion: If the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same, nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the house on the 12th of March, this would be entirely in order, Bercow said. What the government cannot legitimately do is to resubmit to the House [of Commons] the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week which was rejected by 149 votes, he said. The ruling was welcomed by euroskeptic lawmakers in Mays Conservative party who have rejected her deal because the speakers move seemed to increase the likelihood of Britain leaving the EU without a deal. Mays withdrawal deal negotiated with the EU in 2018 was seen by Brexiteers as leaving Britain too closely aligned to the EU while depriving it of voting rights in the bloc. May I say how delighted I am that you have decided to follow precedent, which is something I am greatly in favor of, said Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the European Research Group of euroskeptics in the House of Commons. Surprise Bercows pronouncement appeared to take Mays Downing Street office by surprise. Mays spokesman said her office had not been warned the statement was coming. Nor could Downing Street say anything about plans for a new Brexit vote or when it might be held. Now the government will have to come back with substantial changes (which is literally impossible) in relation to the deal, otherwise it means a prolonged Brexit delay, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at retail broker Think Forex. EU leaders have ruled out renegotiating the exit deal. The chances of the UK crashing out of the EU have increased once again because the EU needs a clear plan and a strategy before they grant an extension, Aslam added. Earlier in the day, it had appeared that May was winning support for her deal from erstwhile opponents but Bercows decision will leave the prime minister scrambling for options. Asked by a lawmaker whether further changes to the deal itself would be needed, Bercow said, in all likelihood, the answer is yes, adding that a change in opinion would not constitute a change in the deal on offer. Fundamentally, for something to be different, it has to be by definition, fundamentally different. Not different in terms of wording, but difference in terms of substance and this is in the context of a negotiation with others outside the United Kingdom, Bercow said. By Elizabeth Piper and Kylie MacLellan Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland make an announcement in Ottawa, on March 18, 2019 about Canada extending its military missions in Ukraine and Iraq, both of which were due to expire at the end of the month. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press) Canada Extends Iraq and Ukraine Military Missions to 2021 and 2022 OTTAWACanada has learned a lot about how to protect against foreign election meddling through its support of Ukraine in its ongoing battles with Russia, says Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Freeland described Ukraine as a laboratory for Russias disinformation campaigns in cyberspace as she and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced Monday that Canada is extending its military missions in the eastern European country and Iraqcommitments that were both due to expire at the end of the month. The extensions shore up Canadas contributions to the effort to curb Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and to the fight against Islamic terrorists in the Middle East. Ukraine is bracing for Russian interference in its upcoming presidential election on March 31, and Freeland said the threat has implications for Canadas own federal vote later this year. We do need to be concerned about malign actors seeking to interfere in the elections in Ukraine and seeking to interfere in our own elections. That is all the more reason for us to be very active in countering this threat, she said. Ukraine tends to be a laboratory for malign intervention and disinformation. Canada is committed to helping Ukraine and its neighbours counter the cyberthreats from Moscow, and broader disinformation campaigns, the minister said. We help them a lot, but Ill tell you, we learn a lot from them. The mission of about 200 Canadian Forces personnel in Ukraine will be extended to the end of March 2022. The Forces have been involved in Ukraine since September 2015, helping train the countrys military, which is battling Russianbacked separatist forces. The decision to extend Canadas commitment was welcome news to Ukraine as it continues to cope with Russias annexation of its southern Crimea region in 2014, and the continuing unrest in its eastern Donbass region, which is plagued by a proRussian rebellion. Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko said cyberattacks by Russia have become an everyday occurrence as the election nears. There are constant cyberattacks on the Ukrainian objects of critical infrastructure, he said in an interview. We see massive cyberattacks on our election digital infrastructure, and our media sector. Shevchenko said his country is like a workshop where you can see in real time how our neighbour is trying to interfere with our election. Canada has trained almost 11,000 Ukrainian military personnel, with techniques that have helped save many lives on the front line of the conflict with Russia, he said. Shevchenko said Canadas military commitment to his country shows global leadership. He also cited Canadas contribution of election monitors and Fridays imposition of additional sanctions on 129 people, companies and organizations over Russias treatment of Ukraine. Canada said the measures were a response to the ongoing occupation of Crimea and the Russian arrests of 24 Ukrainian sailors in the Black Sea last November. Former foreignaffairs minister Lloyd Axworthy is leading a delegation of Canadian election monitors to Ukraine. Canada will also host an international conference on Ukraines economy and political reforms in July that will include foreign ministers from the European Union, the G7 and NATO countries, Freeland said. Canada also has about 500 troops leading a NATO battlegroup in Latvia, part of the alliances broader effort to deter Russia along Europes eastern flank. For defence and deterrence to work, we need to make sure that Russia knows what our capabilities are. Thats how deterrence operates, said Sajjan. Its very important to send our NATO allies a very strong message that we will be there for them, but also to send a very strong message to Russia. Canada will also extend the Canadian Forces contribution to the Global Coalition Against Daesh and the NATO mission in Iraq, until the end of March 2021. Canada has about 500 military members in Iraq, including 200 who are part of a NATO training mission and 120 special forces who have been helping Iraqi forces root out Islamic State insurgents around the northern city of Mosul. Those are parts of Canadas larger Middle East strategy, which also includes humanitarian assistance and diplomatic engagement in Iraq, Syria and the surrounding region. Taiwan's flag flies over the grounds of Fort San Domingo in the Tamsui District of New Taipei City on July 15, 2018. (Chris Stowers/AFP/Getty Images) China Reportedly Recruiting Taiwanese Agricultural Experts to Serve in Government TAIPEI, TaiwanTaiwanese authorities are on high alert after Chinese media reports have surfaced that Taiwanese agricultural experts have taken up government positions in China. Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council, a government agency that deals with China issues, said it would seek an explanation from Tsai Chih-yang, who, according to a report by Chinese state-run media Xinhua, became a science and technology commissioner in the southern Chinese province of Fujian, according to a March 17 article by Taiwans Central News Agency. The council explained that Tsai could be in violation of a cross-strait relations law, which stipulates that Taiwan residents are forbidden to hold any position within Chinese agencies, institutions, or organizations that are affiliated with the Chinese military, political apparatus, or government administration. Wu Rwei-ren, a deputy researcher with Taiwans national academy Academia Sinica, said the purpose of recruiting Taiwanese for low-ranking Chinese government positions such as the commissioner is for the purpose of spreading unification propaganda, according to a March 17 article by Taiwanese daily newspaper Liberty Times. Taiwan is a de-facto country with its own democratically elected government, military, and currency. However, the Chinese regime views the island as part of its territory and has adopted different tactics such as propaganda and coercion in its attempts to sway Taiwanese public opinion into favoring unification with the mainland. Meanwhile, Beijing has never ruled out the possibility of uniting Taiwan with military force. Tsais Case In the Xinhua article, published on March 13, Tsai was named as one of several Taiwanese citizens hired as special commissioners. According to Tsai, he came from a farming family in southern Taiwans Chiayi County. He arrived in China in 2013 and started his own business at an agricultural tech hub in Zhangpu County in Fujian. Tsai had trouble expanding his business but things changed in February after he became a commissioner for the Zhangpu county government, the report claimed. After getting this position, I have greater access to different platforms to promote vegetable and fruits. I am also able to help other farmers with their problems, Tsai was quoted as saying in the interview with Xinhua. The goal of recruiting Taiwanese for such commissioner positions was clearly stated in an announcement by the Zhangpu county government on its website on Jan. 16. There are over 600 Taiwanese-funded companies in the business of fruits, vegetables, tea leaves, flowers, and aquatic products, within the agricultural park and the greater Zhangpu area, according to the announcement. Thus, the government was seeking to hire a group of Taiwanese at these companies to become commissioners. They could then travel to remote villages in China and help local farmers grow crops successfully. Tech Focus According to Chinese news portal Baidu, science and technology commissioners have existed since 1999. The Nanping city government in Fujian first proposed such a positionusually to provide expertise in agricultural science and tech or health care to Chinese farmers. In May 2016, Chinas State Council issued a directive, urging all levels of government to implement more policies to recruit these commissioners, for the ultimate goal of boosting the rural economy. In February 2017, the Fujian provincial government responded to the directive by allocating an annual fund of 20 million yuan ($3 million) to subsidize the hiring of 1,000 commissioners with expertise in the agricultural sector. The funds would go toward work and transportation stipends, as well as insurance and training fees. That same month, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily reported on its website that the total number of science and technology commissioners in China reached 739,000. Chen Shih-min, an assistant political science professor at National Taiwan University, told Liberty Times that Taiwans agriculture industry is set to lose its competitive edge if Taiwans agricultural experts were to continue traveling to China and assist its farmers. With regard to Tsais case, Chen urged the Taiwanese government to take action in accordance with the islands laws, so that its agricultural sector would not be hurt. In a similar case, Taiwans Ministry of Interior announced last week that it was investigating reports by Chinese media that several Taiwanese government officials were taking up positions as community and village directors within Communist Party committees in Pingtan County, also located in Fujian. Taiwan has one of the most diverse agricultural sectors in the world, with exports ranging from rice, fruits, vegetables, tea, to floriculture. According to Taiwanese English-language newspaper Taiwan News, Taiwans agricultural exports soared to $5.47 billion in 2018, the highest value in two decades. Nur Bekri, Chairman of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, attends a news conference during the annual session of China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), in Beijing on March 7, 2010. (Jason Lee/Reuters) China to Prosecute Top-Ranking Uyghur Official for Corruption SHANGHAI Chinas anti-corruption watchdog said on March 16 it would prosecute Nur Bekri, one of the highest-ranking ethnic Uyghur officials in the country, over allegations of graft during to his time as governor of Xinjiang. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement that Bekri obstructed an investigation launched in September and had failed to tell the truth. Bekri was governor of Xinjiang between 2008-2014, holding the second-highest position of power in the western region behind the Communist party secretary. Bekri, who until December was director of Chinas National Energy Administration (NEA), could not be reached for comment. The anti-corruption agency said its investigation had found that he took advantage of his position to obtain a huge amount of wealth, either directly or through relatives. He also allegedly received bribes and demanded the provision of luxury sedans and chauffeur services for his family members. Bekri led an extravagant life, was morally corrupt, and used his power for sex, the statement alleged. The NEA said in a statement on Sunday the struggle against corruption in its administration remained complex and that it needed to learn the lessons from the Bekri case. His prosecution comes as the Chinese regime ramps up surveillance and suppression of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Researchers estimate that as many as 1.5 million Uyghurs are in detention centers, where they are subject to political indoctrination programs. Bouts of ethnic violence took place over the course of Bekris tenure between the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the Han Chinese national ethnic majority that led to the deaths of hundreds of people. As governor, Bekri supported policies that restricted religious practices of the Muslim Uyghurs, who make up a majority of the overall Uyghur population. He was also a proponent of educating Xinjiangs Turkic-speaking school children in Mandarin. Uyghur children of parents who are detainees in political re-education camps or living in exile are being placed into state-run orphanages in Xinjiang by local authorities, a traumatized father has told The Epoch Times. The news follows orders by Chen Quango, the Chinese Communist Partys (CCPs) Secretary in Xinjiang, to relocate all orphans in Xinjiang to state facilities by 2020. By Josh Horwitz. The Epoch Times contributed to this report. Common Anti-Depressant Linked to Two Sudden Deaths in UK: Report There have been fears that the most commonly prescribed anti-depressant medication in the United Kingdom has been linked to two deaths. Sertraline is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), and it is the primary ingredient in Zoloft, which is among the most commonly prescribed anti-depressants in the United States as well. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, a U.K. watchdog, recorded 160 deaths of patients taking sertraline since 1990, and 14 have been linked to heart problems, the Daily Mail reported. Seven of those suffered cardiac arrhythmia and eight of the deaths have been reported since 2014, according to the Mail. This is VERY worrying everyone needs to know about this Daily Mail 2019317 A study of common SSRIs like Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft found there was no increased risk for stroke or heart rhythm disorder among thousands of patients between the ages of 20 and 54 who were taking SSRIs. According to the Mails report, it focused on 24-year-old Liam Batten, who suffered cardiac arrest last July after he took sertraline. He died about nine days after his dosage for the drug increased. Batten reportedly had elevated levels of sertraline in his system. He had 0.57 milligrams, which could be fatal, according to the report. However, an investigation revealed that his cause of death was sudden arrythmic death syndrome. Im just concerned with the medications. Especially for a big lad as well, his father, Shane, was quoted as saying. Surely it could not be very good for the heart. It also focused on another woman, Sadie Stock, who also died after she began taking sertraline for postpartum depression. Pathologist Dr. Ashish Narula wrote in a report for the investigation that her death was caused by cardiac arrest brought on by taking sertraline. A high amount of the drug was discovered in her blood, the Mail reported. Fears as common anti-depressant sertraline linked to two deaths: It's often used to treat depression, and also sometimes Cannock Chase Radio FM 2019318 Coroner Geoffrey Sullivan said she died of natural causes, saying there was no evidence the drug affected her heart. But her husband, James, has questions. I still think theres more to it than has been brought up, he said. Was it the drug? Theres nothing I can do about it and Ill never know Dr. Narula said he thinks the drug contributed to her death despite what the coroner said. The 24-year-old has been described as "one-in-a-million" by his heartbroken mum. KentOnline News 20181215 This drugs side effects can cause heart issues and arrhythmia, he said. But it is difficult to prove. In Sadies case, there were higher levels of it found than normal, but no other evidence, so it falls into the exclusion categorywhich means every possible cause gets ruled out, and what seems the likeliest cause remains. He added that SSRIs can do some people a lot of good, but my point of view is that if a death is caused by SADS and they are taking sertraline, then that is a cause for concern. Study In 2016, a study that had examined 240,000 patients taking SSRIs found that overall, those taking SSRIs actually saw their heart attack risk go down, when compared with those who took no antidepressants of any kind, the study found, WebMD reported. The study was conducted by the University of Nottingham in England. Dr. Gregg Fonarow, who is a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, told WebMD, Most studies have shown that SSRI medications are safe and well-tolerated from a cardiovascular standpoint. However, according to a 2014 newsletter from Harvard, there are side effects when taking SSRIs. Some patients taking SSRIs develop insomnia, skin rashes, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach upset, nausea, or diarrhea. These problems are usually temporary or mild or both, says the newsletter. Meanwhile, if the drug is taken along with another one that increases serotonin activity, one may develop serotonin syndrome, including symptoms of a racing heart, sweating, high fever, high blood pressure, and delirium. Visitors explore the Dorfman Architecture Court at the Royal Academy in London, where the architectural plaster casts are hung as they wouldve been in the 19th century. (Royal Academy of Arts, London) Curators Notes: Architectural Plaster Casts How classical plaster casts help shape architects Helen Valentine, a senior curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, shares how and why the Academy has approximately 500 architectural plaster casts: from small medieval heads coming from Englands cathedrals to huge plaster casts coming from the great architectural monuments of ancient Rome. The primary purpose of having these architectural casts was for the architectural students who went to the Royal Academy Schools from 1769 through to the 1950s. To enroll at the Royal Academy Schools, originally architecture students had to produce a finished architectural design of their own invention. But after 1814, when the rules of the school were tightened, the students also had to present a drawing from a plaster cast: a plaster cast of an architectural fragment. The plaster casts were bought by or donated to the Academy Schools over about a hundred-year period from around 1770. Nearly all the plaster casts are from ancient Rome, so either from the Colosseum or from some of the museums like the Vatican Museum and the Capitolini Museum, which had, and still have, a lot of architectural fragments. The plaster casts came from places like the Round Temple by the Tiber near Rome, the Arch of Septimius Severus, and the Pantheon. The casts have great archaeological value because the details on some of these buildings today have been damaged by weather pollution, overzealous 19th-century restorations, or even vandalism, and so they are a great historic record. Many of the plaster casts were taken from molds cast in the 1790s. Scaffolding would have been built, and then casts were taken from sections of the building, such as the top of a capital, the architrave (the beam that spans the tops of the capitals and connects the columns), a little bit of a frieze, or just a small architectural ornamental detail. Its extraordinary, really, as some of the capitals are very high up; theyre way, way up off the ground. And, the casts are obviously interesting for students because theyd be quite difficult to draw because they are up so high, and you couldnt get close up. Interestingly, the architectural plaster casts are nearly all designed to hang on the wall, but in the Royal Academy of Arts Schools from the 1870s, a lot of them sat on little shelves. Architecture Students at the Academy In the daytime, the students would be working in an architects office, learning some of the practical tools of the trade: how to do architectural drawings, how to understand building terms, and how to negotiate with builders, for example. In the office, the students were probably at an apprentice level, and theyd be told to draw another architects ideas. But if they came to the Academy Schools, theyd be asked about their own ideas for a building. At the Academy Schools, the students would make detailed drawings from the architectural plaster casts, but also use the plaster casts for inspiration for their competition drawings. The Academy had specific competitions where a subject was set, such as to draw a measured drawing of a gateway (where the actual measurements are included in the drawing), or create their own designs for a mansion in the country, for example. The students then had to do very beautiful finished drawings, and they could use the Academy facilities like the casts and books from the library to inspire them. Students would go to the architectural casts to see how classical architects combined details, and to observe them in an exact scale. Sometimes, students would even just measure the casts to understand the relationship of different ornamental details to each other. In the 18th and 19th centuries, architects were using lots of details from classical architecture, and theyd combine their ornaments in a particular way and present these competition drawings, which were then judged and awarded medals. Buildings in the 18th and 19th centuries very often had columns with capitals. So the plaster casts show different styles of capitals, including a Pegasus on the cast of the Corinthian pilaster capital from the Forum of Augustus in Rome, where a horse is part of the capital. If you look at many buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, they are based on classical Greek or Roman buildings in terms of proportion, ornament, and style. The Academy also had a professor of architecture, who gave a series of lectures for the students, which I think were well-attended. The professor would actually produce these rather beautiful lecture drawings, such as a re-creation of a famous building, or a re-creation of a building from the ancient world, that they would then discuss with students. I think eventually, by the 1950s, the Royal Academy Schools stopped taking architecture students because it couldnt compete with other places that were doing much more teaching for architects. But it was still a good place to come and meet other architects, attend lectures, and use the library. Now, visitors can see a selection of the architectural casts at the Dorfman Architecture Court at the Academy. Here, the casts are hung quite densely. There are lots of different capitals, cornices, architraves, and medallions, hung together in a slightly grid-like manner, which does reflect how they were originally hung around 1867. For more information about these historic architectural plasters casts and the Dorfman Architecture Court, visit RoyalAcademy.org.uk This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Dead Whale Found With 85 Pounds of Plastic Bags in Its Stomach: Reports A dead whale was discovered with more than 85 pounds of plastic bags in its stomach, according to officials. I was not prepared for the amount of plastic. 40 kilos roughly of rice sacks, grocery bags, banana plantation bags, and general plastic bags. Sixteen rice sacks total. It was so big, the plastic was beginning calcification, Marine biologist Darrell Blatchley told CNN over the weekend. He said it was a male Culvers Beaked Whale, which was vomiting blood when it died in Mabini, Philippines. Its disgusting. Action must be taken by the government against those who continue to treat the waterways and ocean as dumpsters. The Guardian 2019318 Whales, Blatchley said, dont drink water from the ocean and get fresh water from the food they eat. The plastic caused the whale to die of dehydration and starvation. This whale had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale. Its disgusting, he said. He called on the Philippine government and Filipinos to not use single-use plastic items. It was an unusually large amount of plastic even by the grim standards of what is a common threat to marine wildlife. The New York Times 2019318 The Philippine people are a proud people, sadly its not in being clean or taking care of the environment. In the last 10 years we have recovered 61 whales and dolphins, of which 57 have died due to fishing nets, dynamite fishing, and plastic garbage. Four were pregnant. This cannot continue. The Philippines needs to change from the children up or nothing will be left, Blatchley told CNN. Forbes 2018423 The Ocean Conservancy said that single-use plastic items are common in Southeast Asia and China. The organization said in 2017 that China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have been dumping more plastic into the worlds oceans that the rest of the world combined. We also now have research to suggest that the majority of plastic enters the ocean from a small geographic area, and that over half comes from just five rapidly growing economiesChina, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries have recently benefited from significant increases in GDP, reduced poverty, and improved quality of life. However, increasing economic power has also generated exploding demand for consumer products that has not yet been met with a commensurate waste-management infrastructure, it said in a 2018 report. In June of 2018, a pilot whale was found dead in Thailand after swallowing 80 plastic bags. Scientists believe tides washed the whale onto the shore and into the forest. CNN 2019226 Dead Humpback Whale Ends Up in Forest? Several weeks ago, a dead humpback whale was discovered in a mangrove forest in Brazil with no obvious signs as to how it got there. Officials think it died several days before it was discovered. Wildlife experts only found huge mammal after following birds of prey scavenging on carcass The Independent 2019225 Renata Emin, the institutes project leader, said, Were still not sure how it landed here, but were guessing that the creature was floating close to the shore and the tide, which has been pretty considerable over the past few days, picked it up and threw it inland, into the mangrove, according to The Independent. Along with this astonishing feat, we are baffled as to what a humpback whale is doing on the north coast of Brazil during February because this is a very unusual occurrence. Oceanographer Maura Sousa said the whale was found near the mouth of the Amazon River. During this season, the tide normally rises twice a day to almost 4 meters (13 feet) and floods the mangrove forest, bringing lots of trash, including trash from ships from a lot of places in the world, Sousa told CNN. This explains why an inflated carcass, due to the gases of the decomposition, was dragged into the mangrove forest, she said. FILEDonna Brazile, interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, appears on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, on July 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File) Donna Brazile Joins Fox News Ahead of 2020 Presidential Race Former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile was signed by Fox News, the company said on March 18. Brazile, a veteran Democratic strategist, will offer political analysis across both FNC and FOX Business Networks daytime and primetime programming, Fox said in a statement. Brazile, who worked for CNN as a political analyst, said she is delighted to join Fox. I know Im going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News, she said, reported the New York Post. In an opinion article on March 18, Brazile explained why she joined Fox News ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The 59-year-old suggested that over the past several years, communication between Democrats and Republicans has sharply declined. We no longer simply agree to disagree. Too often we demonize the intentions of others. Our lines of communication are frayed, if not broken, she wrote, adding that she, too, has been swayed by emotion while working in the political arena. I fully admit that in my previous lives as a campaign staffer, presidential campaign manager, and Democrat Party official, my own lack of civility in the heat of battle has been on full display. And it wasnt pretty, Brazile wrote. Will you be challenging Tom Perezs decision to block Fox News from the democratic process entirely? #DNCFoxNewsBoycott https://t.co/QwlP8yTzVe James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 18, 2019 I should have been wise enough and humble enough to have listened to my mother, Jean . to shut up and allow my siblings to speak, and to listenreally listento what they had to say, she added. However, it doesnt appear that she will espouse a conservative viewpoint on the network. Will I agree with my fellow commentators at Fox News? Probably not. But I will listen, Brazile wrote. A Fox News source told The Hill that she wont be involved with debates or town halls hosted by Fox. Three years ago, she was named as the interim head of the DNC when Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democratic congresswoman from Florida, resigned. In July 2016, she also suspended her relationships with CNN and ABC, where she had contributed. WikiLeaks in 2016 also released emails that showed that she gave questions in advance of CNNs broadcasts of the Democratic primary debates to the Hillary Clinton campaign. CNN severed ties with her. We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor, CNN said at the time. She was also former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gores campaign manager in 2000. And she worked on other presidential campaigns, including for Jesse Jackson, Walter Mondale, and Dick Gephardt. Trump: Bring Back Judge Jeanine Judge Jeanine Pirros show didnt air on the night of March 16 days after the Fox News host made remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). A Fox spokesperson says, We are not commenting on internal scheduling matters and yet, without some public explanation of why the show was pulledit certainly looks like a suspension, Fox News host Howard Kurtz said on the air on March 17. Kurtz reiterated Pirros remarks about Omar. .must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, dont give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Omar wears a hijab, which according to the Quran 33:59 tells women to cover so they wont get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution? he said. President Trump on March 17 said that Fox is engaging in self-sabotage by not airing Pirros show, effectively kowtowing to the left. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country, Trump wrote on Twitter. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Challenge is the resistance that makes us stronger, forces us to grow.(zhukovvvlad/Shutterstock) Embrace Lifes Limitations to Unlock Lifes Promise If we live for meaning rather than pleasure, our hardships become opportunities In 1944, a 39-year-old Austrian man named Victor Frankl and his wife Tilly were processed into the Auschwitz concentration camp. He spent approximately 18 months in the shackles of the Nazis being shuttled from one camp to another before being liberated by American soldiers. Frankl survived the Holocaust, but his wife, mother, and brother did not. Despite suffering such great trauma, Frankl went on to become one of the most influential neurologists and psychiatrists of the 20th century. In fact, spending time in captivity, experiencing suffering and deprivation, and watching some prisoners transcend their circumstances while others succumbed to them, is what inspired Frankl to explore lifes meaning and develop a renowned technique called logotherapy. Frankl gained his most important insight during his lowest moment by observing human resilience. He then taught others how to find meaning in life even in the harshest conditions. Find Meaning Through Limitations Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedomsto choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way, wrote Frankl. The search for meaning, Frankl believed, is humanitys primary motivator. Frankl, of course, isnt the first to explore lifes big question: Why are we here? For thousands of years, religious and secular scholars have attempted to answer this question. As Frankl observed, Religion is the ultimate search for meaning. Frankl noted that finding the ultimate meaning of life necessarily exceeds and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of man. But, as he observed, the struggle to make sense of it all is what makes life meaningful. Sigmund Freud believed that humans are motivated by their desire for pleasure. Frankl disagreed with Freudhe believed that lifes purpose is derived not from pleasure but from meaning. Discover Purpose in the Struggle The Buddha described suffering as the most enduring of human conditions. This suffering comes from limitationsin terms of health, happiness, relationships, and basic needs. Humans suffer, at times intolerably. But in the face of these limitations, we can discover meaning. We find meaning in the struggle, not in spite of it. As philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. In other words, the darker the shadows we experience, the brighter the sun on the other side. We are meant to struggle because its what leads us to learn and grow if we seek meaning rather than lament our lack of pleasure. Self-awareness of our own limitations can give us insight and empathy. If our limitations arent as severe as those of others, or if weve been fortunate enough to overcome them, we find the need to be of service. The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it, noted Helen Keller. Turn Lemons Into Lemonade A life without struggle, without a challenge, feels empty. Challenge is the resistance that makes us stronger, forces us to grow. It is the weight we curl to strengthen our mental biceps. A life without this is doomed to self-indulgence. Frankl observed that as societies increase their material comfort, they experience a deterioration of the mental and emotional state of their members. Frankl coined the term existential vacuum, which he described as the feeling of the total and ultimate meaningless, to describe this condition. If we define ourselves by what we have and not by who we are and what we do, we become trapped by our limitations, not set free by them. Stoic philosopher Epictetus counseled us to live so that our happiness depends as little as possible on external causes. To the extent that we suffer hardship, Epictetus urged us to look back, find the positives, and make use of what happened. Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths, he said. Frankl, in his seminal book Mans Search for Meaning, wrote, When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. A Happy Life The cognizance of limitations is what drives us to seek out new experiences. Theres a concept in psychology called the mere exposure effect that biases us toward familiarity. Its a survival mechanism built into us. Our ancestors were more likely to survive if they approached people and engaged in experiences that they perceived as non-life-threatening, so they stuck with what they knew. Mere survival is far less a concern in our modern world, but we still tend toward familiarity. Its what gets us stuck in the rut of routine, especially as we get older. By recognizing these limitations, however, we can break free of them and pursue new and novel experiences that lead to a rich and rewarding life. First moments provide the fuel for an interesting and happy life. If we recognize our tendencies toward the familiar, we then have the power to pursue the extraordinary. Life is the art of drawing without an eraser, said John Gardner. Understanding and appreciating limitations is an important component of a happy life. Its important to dream big, but equally important to find as much contentment in the pursuit of dreams as you do in the realization of them. Things rarely go as planned, so if you get too caught up in your vision of what an idyllic life should look like, youll often find yourself trapped in a sticky web of unrealistically high expectations. In other words, you need to learn to love the process of lifewhich is full of struggles and marked by obstaclesas much as you love dreaming up ideas about what an ideal life might look like. Happiness is found in lifes journey, not necessarily in its destination. Jay Harrington is an author, lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, and runs a northern Michigan-inspired lifestyle brand called Life and Whim. He lives with his wife and three young girls in a small town and writes about living a purposeful, outdoor-oriented life. Regionalism and nationalism in Canada another reassessment (Part Seven) By Mark Wegierski In societies such as Canada, the terms nation and state are often considered to be describing the same thing. However, a more subtle approach could describe a nation as something close to a cultural or ethnic entity, whereas a state is a legal structure than can include mostly one, two or several nations. Gad Horowitz is one of the most interesting figures of the Canadian Left. One of his central ideas was that Canada as a whole could be characterized as a binational State. The two nations are English-speaking Canada and Quebec. Gad Horowitz had also suggested that Britishness can be mostly a political nationality that does not imply ethnic or religious exclusion. The pattern of Canada today would appear to be moving more and more towards a dualism where Quebec would have most of the attributes of an independent country, but be loosely linked to the Canadian federation. It may be a bit unclear to what extent a very pronounced dualism would correspond to Gad Horowitzs call for special status for Quebec. Whether that might necessarily mean a more robust identity for English-speaking Canada is also not entirely certain. Something that is very noticeable is that Preston Manning insisted in the platform of the Reform Party on the equality of the provinces and explicitly disavowed the two founding nations idea. Manning claimed he wanted special status for no one. Mannings concept coincided somewhat with a One Canada approach that Gad Horowitz had identified as untenable because Horowitz thought that Quebec was truly a nation. The problems of maintaining a binational State have been huge for Canada. Some have argued that the original kernel behind the idea of multiculturalism was the unquestionable duality of the Canadian State. Indeed, Quebec could be viewed as one of the perennial problematic quandaries for the Canadian federation, absorbing vast amounts of political energy in the federation. While Manning preferred to not call Quebec a nation, some of his ideas of decentralization (such as the so-called tool-kit for the provinces which he proposed around 1997) would have offered considerable political possibilities to Quebec. At the same time, to say that Quebec is a nation is not to necessarily imply that its future must lie outside Canada. It may be possible that a more positive evolution of Canada would eventually have to move in the direction of a provincialization or cantonization where there might be a union of sovereign states (which was the original concept of what was then called the European Community). The four main regions of Canada would appear to be Quebec, Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, and Western Canada (which would presumably include most of the Far North). In such a case, it could be possible that a more traditional Quebecois nationalism, and the local patriotism of the three main English-speaking regions, would come to the fore. The extent to which most concepts of current-day Canadian nationhood have diverged from more traditional concepts of nation, is amazing. Ironically, Quebec in some ways retains far more of a hard concept of nation. Such notions that meaningful assimilative pressures should be exercised by Canadian society and that there are truly worthwhile aspects of Canada that it is virtually necessary to assimilate to (and that constitute considerably more than merely what Benjamin J. Barber has termed junk westernization) fly in the face of the regnant multiculturalist orthodoxy. Nevertheless, it takes considerable obtuseness to deny that the excesses of multiculturalism do create increasing tensions and frictions in society that simply never existed before. That Canada functions at all today, may simply be due to the fact that it is territorially the worlds second-largest country, with vast natural resources spread among a comparatively small population. There simply isnt the often-ferocious competition for resources frequently seen in heavily populated countries with a much smaller natural resource base. And, when a heavily populated country consists of different ethnic and religious groups competing for scarce resources, various levels of violent conflict may sometimes occur. The pessimism of traditionalist and conservative thought about the long-term sustainability of such utopian societal constructs as multiculturalism, or an economy of never-ending growth, should be seen as a helpful warning, a call to temper the system before it possibly collapses with results that could be truly catastrophic. Traditionalist and conservative philosophy indeed fears, with well-reasoned foreboding, rooted in its understanding of human nature, history, social experience, and the natural world, the horrific crashing down of the entire world system. It seeks to possibly offer advice and informed knowledge to more astute and thoughtful statesmen and politicians, as well as to the public at large, to somehow strive to avert the engulfing of the world by ever more apocalyptic/dystopic outcomes. It could be argued that Canada today is flying so high on its apparent economic success that it is likely that it will come to the painful rediscovery of some basic truths only years from now, in the wake of a major economic downturn or crisis. Any more serious analysts know that such a downturn or crisis will sooner-or-later happen in Canada. Or possibly the coming storm of the conflict with Islamist extremists will move into such a high pitch, especially in some overseas countries, that Canadians will finally be shocked into apprehending certain uncomfortable truths. It is presumably only then that the sheer utopianism of the various post-Sixties projects in Canada will become painfully obvious to considerable numbers of people. Whether, at that point, Canadian society can move towards some forms of social and cultural restoration (which may in fact have to be concretized through regionalist tendencies), or continue to socially and culturally dissolve to virtual oblivion (because the socially and culturally centrifugal forces by that time will simply be too strong), remains to be seen. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home A photo shows debris of the crashed airplane of Ethiopia Airlines, near Bishoftu, a town some 60 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 11, 2019. (Michael Tewelde/AFP/Getty Images) Ethiopian Airlines Black Boxes Show Similarities to Lion Air Crash: Ministry ADDIS ABABA/PARISEthiopia said on Sunday, March 17, the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed 157 people had clear similarities with Octobers Lion Air crash, according to initial analysis of the black boxes recovered from the wreckage of the March 10 disaster. Both planes were Boeing 737 MAX 8s, and both crashed minutes after take-off after pilots reported flight control problems. Concern over the planes safety caused aviation authorities worldwide to ground the model, wiping billions of dollars off Boeings market value. Investigators are trying to determine why the aircraft plunged into a field shortly after take off from Addis Ababa, searching for possible similarities to an October Lion Air crash that killed 189 people. It was the same case with the Indonesian (Lion Air) one. There were clear similarities between the two crashes so far, Ethiopian transport ministry spokesman Muse Yiheyis said. The data was successfully recovered. Both the American team and our (Ethiopian) team validated it. The minister thanked the French government. We will let you know more after three or four days, he told Reuters. In Washington, however, officials told Reuters that the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board have not validated the data yet. When investigators, after reviewing black box data, return to Addis Ababa and start conducting interpretive work, the NTSB and FAA will assist in verification and validation of the data, an official said. A second source said little information had been circulated between parties about the contents of data and voice recordings. It was not clear how many of the roughly 1,800 parameters of flight data and two hours of cockpit recordings, spanning the doomed 6-minute fight and earlier trips, had been taken into account as part of the preliminary Ethiopian analysis. It is not unknown for the broad reasons for a crash to be understood in the hours after data has been recovered, but experts say fuller analysis is usually needed too. The crash has generated one of the most widely watched and high-stakes probes for years, with the latest version of Boeings profitable 737 workhorse depending on the outcome. Previous accident reports show that in such high-profile cases there can be disagreements among parties about the cause. In Paris, Frances BEA air accident investigation agency said data from the jets cockpit voice recorder had been successfully downloaded. The French agency said in a tweet it had not listened to the audio files and that the data had been transferred to Ethiopian investigators. In Addis Ababa, a source who has listened to the air traffic control recording of the planes communications said flight 302 had an unusually high speed after take-off before the plane reported problems and asked permission to climb quickly. Safety Analysis Under international rules, a preliminary report on the crash must be released within 30 days. The Seattle Times reported that Boeings safety analysis of a new flight control system on 737 MAX jets had several crucial flaws. The analysis of the system called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) understated the power of this system, the Seattle Times said, citing current and former engineers at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA also did not delve into any detailed inquiries and followed a standard certification process on the MAX, the Seattle Times reported citing an FAA spokesman. The FAA declined to comment on the report but referred to previous statements about the certification process. It has said the 737-MAX certification process followed the FAAs standard certification process. The report also said both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX last Sunday that killed all 157 people on board. The same model flown by Lion Air crashed off the coast of Indonesia in October, killing all 189 on board. Last Monday Boeing said it would deploy a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8, a few hours after the FAA said it would mandate design changes in the aircraft by April. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg, in a statement on Sunday after the Ethiopian transport ministrys comments, said Boeing was finalizing the software change and a training revision and would evaluate new information as it became available. A Boeing spokesman said 737 MAX was certified in accordance with the identical FAA requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives. The spokesman said the FAA concluded that MCAS on 737 MAX met all certification and regulatory requirements. In Addis Ababa, aviation staff gathered at Bole International Airport to remember the two pilots and six crew, who perished along with the 149 passengers. Weeping women held single stems in their shaking hands. Banks of the white flowers, the traditional color of mourning, were placed in front of a row of empty coffins at the ceremony. By Maggie Fick and Tim Hepher Facebook vs. Conservatives Facebook has abused its power over who gets to see what content and should be put in its place According to socialist Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, Facebook and other tech giants such as Google, Twitter, and Amazon should be broken up. In an ironic twist, Facebook immediately validated the senators concerns by taking down her Facebook page soon after she called for Facebooks dismantling. She then tweeted, Curious why I think FB has too much power? Lets start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Is she right? Although it pains me to say this: She is. In fact, in all likelihood, thats one area where many conservatives would agree with the socialist-leaning Massachusetts senator. After all, its an established fact that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, along with Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and many other social media platforms actively and regularly censor conservatives. Its not even up for debate at this point. Theyve admitted their bias. To put it in blunt terms, if youre a conservative or libertarian, especially a successful and significant one, the statist technological potentates in Silicon Valley dont like you. Literally, its personal with them. More to the point, they hate your point of view and will often find ways to prevent your message from being published. Thats just who they are. Monopoly or Monopsony? Is Facebook really a monopoly? Does it have dominant control over the supply of media? Does it actually produce content? That answer to these questions is no. Facebook isnt actually a monopoly. A monopoly is where an organization has controlling dominance over supply. For example, for decades, AT&T was the only phone company for millions of Americans because stifling regulation served as a barrier to entry for would-be competitors. This monopoly on supply allowed AT&T to exercise control over the price and access to telephonic communications with minimal competition. In contrast to controlling the supply of content, Facebook has been described as having dominance over the demand for it. This makes its position in the market a monopsony. It controls, or at least has tremendous influence over and advantage in, how users access content. Whats more, it also has the power to determine the kinds of content it makes available for users to access. The Power to Restrict Access Is the Power to Censor In short, Facebook, along with the other tech and social media giants, have the power to restrict information that they dont like. Again, theyre not owning or even creating content in any way. But instead, they own users access to it and revoke that access to users when they decide that content is inappropriate or offensive. The problem is that both of these criteria are rather elastic. At any time, they can be as broad or as narrow as, well, as Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Google decide they should be. Did you catch that? Mark Zuckerberg et al have their own, self-determined standards on what constitutes proper or valid content and that which, in their opinion, does not. Not the Federal Communications Commission, nor any other federal agency. Just Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Dorsey of Twitter, and a handful of other narrow-minded, anti-conservative, leftwing bigots wielding algorithms to silence ideas and opinions they dont like. Theyre literally a cluster of ideological Maoist billionaires who hate free speech. Controlling the Bridge to the Market Think of it as if Facebook built and owned the first bridge into Manhattan, for example. This new bridge opened up access to all the business opportunities on both sides of the bridge. Then, a competitorsay, Instagram or Twitterbuilds a bridge down the street. Theres now healthy competition for access to business and buyers, right? But waitFacebook then buys the Instagram and Twitter bridgesand most othersand so no matter which bridge you use to access Manhattan, Facebook owns it. It gives them the power to block a businesss access to customers. And with 2.37 billion monthly active users, thats a lot of power. Its the same with internet search engines. Is it really Google versus Bing? Bing who? you might be asking. Yeah, its just Google. The Tip of the Zuckerberg for Totalitarianism But in reality, these companies are just the tip of the Zuckerberg. The fact is, Facebook, along with Google, Twitter, Amazon, and a whole slew of other internet, tech, and social media leaders, are helmed by postmodernist fascists who dont like people with traditional values. They especially dont like those who convey them effectively. Chances are, they dont like you. And, since theyre all billionaires, or at least make more than enough money to ever spend in three lifetimes, theyre fine without your business. They also wield significant influence with like-minded lawmakers, and thats putting it mildly. So, they decide to drop you, block you, suspend you, edit you, minimize you algorithmically or otherwise censor conservatives like you. You, your business, and especially your conservative values, be damned. Even without notice, and often so, your entire online presence, your digital persona and even your business lifeline on Facebook can be scrapped. Economic Persecution on Social Media But thats just the beginning. Once we move beyond personalities and values, the real harm done is at economic persecution of those with whom they differ politically. Think of it like refusing to allow a liberalor a conservativeto buy gas to put in their car or to advertise on public television. It shouldnt be allowed. Denying access to basic needs and services or preventing some citizens from using public airways is illegal, unethical, and immoral. And yet the leftist cats in Silicon Valley love playing their little social media god games that let them destroy your means of earning a living if youre a conservative. Meanwhile, your dyed-in-the-wool socialist/communist neighbor who openly favors the overthrow of President Donald Trump, or worse, is good with them. Its nothing less than political suppression via economic repressionor vice versa. In fact, one may even catch the stench of the social credit system that is used by the Communists in China to oppress those folks who dont think correctly. But no. Not here. Not now. Not ever. Break Them Up Before They Break Us Up These are the reasons that these technocratic dictators need to be broken up. Theyre technologically brilliant children who have no idea what the U.S. Constitution is, why it is, and why it must be protected. All they care about is getting their way and shutting the mouths of peopleAmericanswho differ with them. Tyrannical petulance is a distasteful character trait in a five-year-old, but a major character flaw and a political and economic hazard in social media CEOs. Theyve proven time and time again that theyre not up to the task of protecting the rights of Americans. Its time the adults stepped in and take the toys away. James Gorrie is a writer based in Texas. He is the author of The China Crisis. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Flash Floods, Earthquake in Indonesia Kill Over 80 JAYAPURA, IndonesiaThe number of people killed after torrential downpours triggered flash floods and mudslides that tore through mountainside villages in Indonesias easternmost province has climbed to 79, with dozens of others missing, officials said Monday, March 18. On Sunday, the disaster-prone country was hit by an earthquake, triggering a landslide that hit a popular waterfall on the tourist island of Lombok, killing at least three people and damaging hundreds of homes. The worst-hit area from the flooding was Sentani subdistrict, where tons of mud, rocks, and trees from a landslide on a mountain early Sunday rolled down to a river that burst its banks, sweeping away residents, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference in the capital, Jakarta. Floodwaters and landslides destroyed roads and bridges in several areas of Papua provinces Jayapura district following days of torrential rains, hampering rescue efforts, Nugroho said. The combination of natural factors and human activities has caused this fatal disaster, he said. Nugroho said 79 bodies had been pulled from the mud and wreckage of crumpled homes by Sunday. Another 74 people were hospitalized, many with broken bones and head wounds. Nugroho said the number of dead and injured would likely increase since affected areas had not been reached and rescuers were still searching for dozens of people reportedly still missing. We are overwhelmed by too many injuries, said Haerul Lee, the head of the Jayapura health office, adding that some medical facilities had been hit by power outages. We cant handle it alone. Severas inundaciones golpean a Karanganyar Java indonesia video floods flooding rain pic.twitter.com/OFksjhdLYe Impacto TB (@policiacotb) March 14, 2019 Papua military spokesman Col. Muhammad Aidi said rescuers saved two injured infants who had been trapped for more than six hours. The parents of one of the babies have washed away and died. Nugroho said rescuers evacuated more than 4,200 people to temporary shelters as more than 600 houses and buildings were damaged and submerged. Television footage showed hundreds of rescuers and members of the police and military evacuating residents to shelters at a government office. Others were carrying bodies in black and orange body bags. Ambulances and vehicles were seen carrying victims on muddy roads to several clinics and hospitals. Flash floods in #Indonesias eastern Papua province have killed at least 77 people, Indianonisan officials of the disaster agency said Monday as it raised the death toll from 58. pic.twitter.com/I1mzp9FZuj TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) March 18, 2019 Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and floods and kill dozens each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains. Meanwhile, a moderately strong earthquake triggered a landslide on Lombok island on Sunday. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 5.5 and struck at a depth of 15 miles (23 kilometers). The earthquake was felt across the island, located next to Bali, panicking residents still recovering from a major quake last August that killed more than 300 people and left thousands homeless. Sundays quake triggered a landslide from Mount Rinjani and hit dozens of tourists at the Tiu Kelep waterfall located in the foothills of the active volcano, said Nugroho, the disaster agency spokesman. Two Malaysians and a 14-year-old Indonesian boy were killed in the landslide, Nugroho said. He said rescuers managed to evacuate 22 Malaysians and 14 Indonesians from the waterfall site, and 56 othersmostly local surveyors from government institutions, the military, and the policefrom the mountainous area. At least 182 people were injured in the quake, including 26 Malaysians, Nugroho said. About 525 homes were damaged, including 32 that were flattened. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations was ready to help Indonesia cope with the disasters. The United Nations expresses its solidarity with the Indonesian authorities and stands ready to work with them as they respond to the humanitarian needs resulting from both natural disasters, the spokesman for the secretary-general said in a statement. By Jeffrey Pattirajawane Terry Gou, CEO of Taiwan's Foxconn, gestures during a press conference at the company's headquarters in Tucheng District, New Taipei City on March 12, 2019. (Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images) Foxconn Plans to Move Production out of China Due to Client Security Fears TAIPEITaiwans unique strategic position amid the ongoing SinoU.S. trade war was made apparent when Apple assembler Foxconn announced measures to shift production away from China. On March 17, Foxconn chairman Terry Gou inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung to develop the citys smart technology, according to Taiwanese media. It was during the MoU presentation press conference that Gou mentioned many of his companys clients have recently requested that Foxconn store its data in Taiwan instead of China. U.S. firms were concerned that Chinese authorities could get their hands on their data, while Chinese clients did not want data to go to the United States directly. Chinese intellectual property (IP) theft has been the core complaint of the U.S. administration during trade talks. U.S. negotiators are currently discussing how to enforce rules that prevent transfer and theft of foreign IP with Chinese officials. He further explained that the Taiwanese government would never compel Foxconn to share its corporate data, according to Taiwans daily newspaper Liberty Times. We dont know how the trade [war] between the U.S. and China will turn out, Gou said, adding that corporate data should be stored at a third-party location, and Taiwan is a neutral location between China and the United States. Beijing has a number of regulations in place, as well as broad powers, to demand companies operating in China to hand over customer data. In June 2017, a cybersecurity law went into effect that demanded all companies operating in China to store their data within Chinas geographical area. Foreign companies have complained that such a requirement has made it difficult to protect their intellectual property rights. Taiwan could serve as a technology buffer between the two countries, according to Gou. Gou added that he envisioned Kaohsiung acting as the buffer, with the city becoming host to a data-processing hub. U.S. data would be stored there before getting sent to China, and vice versa with Chinese firms. There is a lot of sensitive information [related to our customers] from the U.S. that we cannot send to China so we will filter that data in Kaohsiung, Gou said, according to Japanese media Nikkei. Meanwhile, data from China [customers] is the same. As a result, he stated that Foxconn would seek to hire up to 3,000 software engineers to work for its research center in Kaohsiung, focusing on research in artificial intelligence, big data, and software development. Gou emphasized that Kaohsiung is geographically close to China, making it an ideal location for a data transfer hub, better than Japan or South Korea. Gou also stated that he planned to move some of the production for its data-processing-related products at factories in the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Tianjin back to Kaohsiung. According to the Liberty Times, products made at the Shenzhen and Tianjin factories are mostly for foreign customers, while its other factory in Guiyang, the capital of southwestern Chinas Guizhou Province, makes orders for mainland Chinese companies. Nikkei, citing an unnamed source, said the production shift back to Kaohsiung is at a preliminary stage. The source added that Foxconn is considering the availability of land and the investment environment before making a final decision. Many Taiwanese tech firms have made similar moves amid security concerns about the Chinese regimes capacity to acquire sensitive data. In early March, Lite-On Technology, a Taiwan-based consumer electronics manufacturer, announced that it was moving some of its production of power components and power supply systems from China to Taiwan, after its American clients raised security concerns about the items being made in China. Other firms have moved production out of China in order to avoid U.S. punitive tariffs on Chinese-manufactured tech goods, including Pegatron, Wistron, and Compal. They are Apple suppliers. President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou at the groundbreaking for the Foxconn Technology Group computer screen plant in Mt Pleasant, Wisconsin, on June 28, 2018. (Andy Manis/Getty Images) Foxconn to Start Production at Wisconsin Factory by End of 2020 MADISON, Wis.Foxconn Technology Group said on March 18 that its manufacturing facility in Wisconsin will be producing flat-screen panels by the end of 2020, with construction starting later this year. The news came after the worldwide electronics manufacturing leader sent mixed signals earlier this year about whether it planned to suspend work in Wisconsin. After a meeting with President Donald Trump, Foxconns leader recommitted to building a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin. The Taiwan-based Foxconn is building what is known as a Generation 6 factory, which typically makes smaller liquid crystal display screens for cellphones, tablets, televisions and other devices. It first said it was going to build a larger Generation 10 plant, which would have used glass more than three times as large as what the smaller facility will use. Even with the changes, Foxconn has remained committed to investing up to $10 billion in Wisconsin and hiring 13,000 people. If it does that, the company would qualify for about $4 billion in state and local tax credits. The project, and the promise of taxpayer-funded tax credits, has drawn considerable backlash in Wisconsin and became fodder in the governors race last year. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker made the deal with Foxconn. Current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has been critical of the project, calling for more transparency, while also working with the company on its plans. Evers, who talked with company officials last week, tried to take credit for the news that Foxconn was moving forward with construction of the plant. The governors spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said the announcement makes it clear that Gov. Evers is getting results and he will continue to talk with the company to ensure transparency and accountability. Heres the statement on todays Foxconn announcement from @GovEvers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff. pic.twitter.com/ai5MI09exe Bob Hague (@RDHague) March 18, 2019 Foxconn on Monday announced dates for moving ahead with that project, including awarding bids for roads, utilities, and storm drainage work by April 1 and issuing construction bids in May. Construction will begin by the summer, with the first panels produced in the last three months of 2020, Foxconn said. Our commitment from day one has been to establish a winning formula for Foxconn and for Wisconsin, Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn founder and CEO Terry Gou, said in a statement. We continue to expand our presence around the state, create jobs, and deepen our partnerships while innovating and adapting to meet changing market needs. The factory will be a part of a massive Foxconn campus located near Racine, close to the Wisconsin border with Illinois. Local leaders near the development site praised the news. Its an exciting time for the entire state, said Jenny Trick, executive director of the Racine County Economic Development Corporation. By Scott Bauer Gunman Opens Fire in Dutch Tram: Authorities Consider Terrorist Motive Several people have been injured after a gunman opened fired in a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, according to authorities. Police have provided no further details with no information on how badly injured the victims were, but some media outlets reported that one person had been killed in the incident. Police said in a statement that they are taking into the account the possibility that a terrorist motive was behind the incident, which occurred at around 10:45 local time. Several shots were fired in a tram and several people were injured. Helicopters are at the scene and no arrests have been made, said police spokesman Joost Lanshage, according to Reuters. 24 oktoberplein Utrecht pic.twitter.com/7NlFtBrqBK Lilian Bruigom (@lilianbruigom) 18 March 2019 According to Dutch news agency ANP, one person was killed in the incident, with a reporter quoted as saying that a body had been covered in a sheet and was lying on the tracks between two tram carriages. According to local reports, the square nearby the tram station has been cordoned off by authorities, and emergency services are at the scene. The BBC reports that the gunman is still at large, and that no arrests have been made. The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the situation very worrying. The national head of counterterrorism said that crisis team was meeting about the incident. According to the Associated Press, police have erected a white tent in the location where what appeared to be a body under a blanket had been seen. BREAKING: Multiple people have been injured after a shooting incident inside a tram in the Dutch town of Utrecht, authorities have confirmed. More to follow pic.twitter.com/S0b6Gg8Efh ktn (@KTNKenya) March 18, 2019 Witnesses say they heard multiple shots. A man started shooting wildly, a witness told Dutch news site NU.nl. Information is still emerging on the incident. Iraqis along with members of the security forces observe a minute of silence on the first anniversary of the government's proclaimed military defeat of Islamic State, at Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Iraq, December 10, 2018. (Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani/File Photo) Iraq Sentences Belgian Man to Death for Belonging to ISIS Terrorist Group BAGHDADAn Iraqi court sentenced a Belgian man to death by hanging on March 18 for being part of the ISIS terrorist group, one of the dozens of foreign nationals facing the death penalty in Iraq. Iraq has put hundreds of suspected members of the ultra-hardline jihadist group on trial, many of whom were arrested as ISIS lost a string of strongholds to United States-backed military campaigns throughout Iraq. The Central Criminal Court in Baghdad handed Belgian national Bilal al-Marchohi, 23, the death penalty for belonging to and conducting operations on behalf of ISIS terrorist group. Belgian ISIS fighter Bilal al-Marchohi among first foreigners handed over to Iraq by SDF has been sentenced to death in Baghdad. Interesting to see if UK (which objects to death penalty) will allow its nationals to be transferred https://t.co/NtAlw0mvt2 via @GuyVanVlierden Josie Ensor (@Josiensor) March 18, 2019 During an hour of proceedings, the presiding judge read out portions of Marchohis signed confession and showed a video and photographs that he said proved his membership of ISIS. The images from a phone found in his possession at the time of his arrest showed Marchohi carrying a gun and making a hand gesture affiliated with the terrorists. Several pictures showed him cradling his infant son. Marchohi denied all allegations against him in open court, including that he was a member of IS at any time. I shouldnt be prosecuted in Iraq, Marchohi said. I should be prosecuted in Belgium. I am a Belgian citizen. Iraq sentences Belgian man to death for belonging to Islamic State Bilal al-Marchohi, 23, was given the death penalty for belonging to and conducting operations on behalf of the group. pic.twitter.com/WFreMn6EXB INTELCENTRE (@INTELCENTRE) March 18, 2019 Judge Jumaa Saidi told the court that the photographs were clear evidence Marchohi was a member of ISIS. A translator was appointed by the judge for Marchohi, who spoke in English throughout the trial. He was also given a court-appointed lawyer but had no contact with him during the trial. Belgian consular representatives attended the proceedings. The Belgian Foreign Ministry said it had no power to intervene but had made clear to the Iraqi government its opposition to the death penalty. We have done it a few timeseven before Mr. al-Marchohi and Mr. Jadaoun were put to trial, a ministry spokesman said in Brussels. Marchohis family, who live in the Belgian city of Antwerp, declined to comment. The ISIS terrorist group redrew the map of the Middle East in 2014 when it declared an ultra-radical Sunni Islamist caliphate spanning parts of Syria and Iraq and established a rule known for mass killings, sexual enslavement, and punishments like the crucifixion. Syrian Kurds hand Belgian Islamic State fighter over to Iraq https://t.co/Ekt8dBiwgc Pieter Van Ostaeyen (@p_vanostaeyen) January 13, 2019 Marchohi is the second of two Belgians held in Iraq known to have been sentenced to death for a role in the terrorist group. Tarek Jadaoun, 30, also known as Abu Hamza al-Beljiki, was sentenced to death in May 2018. A senior member of the ISIS terrorist group, Jadaoun featured prominently in the groups propaganda videos which threatened attacks on European soil. Human rights groups have accused Iraqi and other regional forces of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials leading to unfair convictions. ISIS terrorist group captured a third of Iraq in 2014 but was largely defeated both there and in neighboring Syria last year. Iraq court sentences Belgian jihadist to death for IS membership https://t.co/RzRuEmVdfD he is a Sunni Islamist killer with North African roots he isnt a Belgian Salafi terrorist . pic.twitter.com/5S5OsUuiiD Lee Jay (@TheJayCalledLee) May 23, 2018 Man Killed by Wifes Family After Requesting Divorce, Allegedly Raped Mother-In-Law A man was beaten to death at his in-laws house after an argument with his wife over divorce escalated and turned violent on Sept. 12, 2018. The family also accused the man of raping his own mother-in-law and threatening her life with a hatchet three months prior to the deadly incident. However, due to late reporting, local police said the forensic evidence collected from the mother-in-law was invalid to support her rape claim, according to the Beijing Times on March 13. The man, given the false name Wang Gang by the news report, was ruled to have been killed by blunt force trauma. His wife, given the false name Meng Xiaofang, has been detained along with the rest of her family in Hebei Province, China. Divorce Demand On September 2018, Wang told Meng that he wanted a divorce. He said he would go to her parents house to discuss the matter with her. Meng said that they discussed the divorce and tried to set conditions, but Wang wasnt satisfied and wouldnt agree with the terms. Meng lost her temper and slapped him across the face. Wang hit her back. Meng grabbed a wooden stick and attacked Wang. Wang fought back, scaring Meng and causing her to hide. The parents-in-law saw the fight and grabbed sticks of their own, attacking Wang. He was knocked to the ground, unable to move. Mengs mother reportedly continued to beat Wangs legs with the stick as he lay on the ground. The report suggested that Mengs mother was taking revenge on Wang for assaulting her earlier. When the police arrived, he was pronounced dead. Bloodstains were all over the floor, and three wooden sticks were found. The police declared that Wang died from blunt force trauma to the head. Domestic Abuse In the video from Beijing Times, Mengs older sister described Wangs actions. In the winter of 2017, Wang beat Meng. Mengs sister asked her over the phone where she was staying. Meng said she was staying somewhere outside the house. Wang Gang beat her and wanted to kill her, Mengs sister said. She found an excuse to get out of the house, but he kept calling her. He told her that if she hid outside, hed kill our parents. Wang reportedly destroyed many of Mengs clothes and threw them all over the family room on that evening. The report said that Wang drank frequently, and his uncle confirmed this in an interview. After drinking, hed talk all sorts of nonsense, Wangs uncle said. The report suggested that Wang also would not listen to anyone after drinking. Wang would often go to the parents house while he was drunk and cause trouble. On June 30, 2018, Wang went to his in-laws house. He smashed a brick on their front door, and set the rear-bumper of their car on fire. In his rage, he was reportedly shouting at his mother-in-law by name. Youre just like a wife to me! Wang was said to have shouted. The family did not understand his meaning until Mengs mother told them what she had been hiding. She said that on June 7, 2018, Wang sneaked into their house. Her husband was out tending to his apiaries, and she was home alone. Wang reportedly jumped the wall to their house, and Mengs mother believed it was her husband returning home. Mengs mother said Wang approached her with a hatchet in hand. He then forced himself onto her. Wang said that she let her daughter go out, so shed have to replace her daughter, that [expletive] raped my mother! Mengs sister said in the video. Since Mengs mother was mortified by what she claims Wang did to her, she didnt tell her family until his actions later that month. My mom grabbed the phone and was getting ready to call the police, but [Wang] said that if she did, hed kill her. Mengs mother followed through with calling the police on July. The police processed a rape kit for her. However, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, forensic evidence must be collected within 72 hours. Mengs mother went to the police and received the physical inspection on July 1, 2018. No evidence could be collected from her to implicate Wang. This Bright Leonid Fireball Is Shown During The Storm Of 1966 In The Sky Above Wrightwood, Calif. (Nasa/Getty Images) Meteor That Exploded With Force of 10 Hiroshima Bombs Went Unnoticed Hurtling towards the earth 30 times faster than a rifle bullet, a 1,400-ton fireball exploded with the energy of 10 Hiroshima bombs in a blinding flash on the night of Dec 18, 2018, becoming the third largest meteor impact in modern times. However, the explosion, 15.5 miles above the remote Bering sea, had no witnesses and was picked up only on NASA instruments, which had held onto their secret until now. On March 8, meteor scientist Peter Brown pointed to the latest data release, which showed the massive explosion near the Kamchatka Peninsula, in Russias far-east, just before midnight. Object was 10 meters (33 feet) diameter, mass 1400T, and impacted with an energy of 173 kilotons of TNT, Brown wrote on Twitter. More Dec 18 airburst data from https://t.co/R81dQfvWpZ : object was 10m diameter, mass 1400T and impacted with an energy of 173 kT TNT, roughly 1/3 #Chelyabinsk. Impacts with this energy occur somewhere on Earth every few decades on average. #BeringSeaAirburst @westernu @IMOHQ Peter Brown (@pgbrown) March 8, 2019 The data was picked up by infrasound stations globally which were initially set up to detect nuclear blasts during the cold war. According to Brown, the data was gathered from 16 infrasound stations worldwide. More Dec 18 airburst data from https://t.co/R81dQfvWpZ : object was 10m diameter, mass 1400T and impacted with an energy of 173 kT TNT, roughly 1/3 #Chelyabinsk. Impacts with this energy occur somewhere on Earth every few decades on average. #BeringSeaAirburst @westernu @IMOHQ Peter Brown (@pgbrown) March 8, 2019 It would have been quite spectacular, Alan Fitzsimmons of Queens University Belfast, UK, told the New Scientist. When you see these infrasound waves, you know immediately that there has been an impact or a large release of energy. It is unclear why the data was released so late. According to the New Scientist the triangulation process requires combining pressure wave data from multiple monitoring stations, which could explain the delay. It is the third-largest such explosion recorded in over a century, and the largest since the Chelyabinsk meteor six years ago. That was 40% the energy release of Chelyabinsk, but it was over the Bering Sea so it didnt have the same type of effect or show up in the news, Kelly Fast, near-Earth objects observations program manager at NASA, told the BBC. Thats another thing we have in our defense, theres plenty of water on the planet, she said. The explosion over the Bering Sea was also picked up by U.S. government monitors that detect fireballs: their sensors pick up electromagnetic radiation in the form of infrared and visible light. But both the Bering Sea and Chelyabinsk explosions are smaller than the earliest well-documented meteor explosion known as the Tunguska event, which occurred over Siberia in 1908. That air burst explosion from the 220 million pound rock, about 120 feet wide, flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of more than 770 square miles. @NASA, @JHUAPL The giant fireball hit on 18 December over the Bering Sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean between Russia and Alaska. https://t.co/vpVyU6syJl Makino (@Makino_Voyager) March 18, 2019 More Dec 18 airburst data from https://t.co/R81dQfvWpZ : object was 10m diameter, mass 1400T and impacted with an energy of 173 kT TNT, roughly 1/3 #Chelyabinsk. Impacts with this energy occur somewhere on Earth every few decades on average. #BeringSeaAirburst @westernu @IMOHQ Peter Brown (@pgbrown) March 8, 2019 There are very few well-documented stories of meteorite-caused injuries or deaths. According to NASA, the first known case of an extraterrestrial object injuring a person was in the United States. Ann Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, was severely bruised by a 8-pound (3.6-kilogram) stony meteorite that crashed through her roof in November 1954, NASAs website states. For scientists who know where to look, the earth is pockmarked with evidence of large impacts. One of the most intact impact craters is the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, according to the NASA website. Its about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) across and was formed by the impact of a piece of iron-nickel metal approximately 164 feet (50 meters) in diameter. It is only 50,000 years old and so well preserved that it has been used to study impact processes. Since the 1890s geologists studied it, but its status as an impact crater wasnt confirmed until 1960. Rescue workers install a screen on the spot where a body was covered with a white blanket following a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, on March 18, 2019. (Peter Dejong/AP Photo) Netherlands Shooting Suspect Captured, Officials Say A 37-year-old Turkish national was arrested for allegedly shooting and killing three people on a tram in the Netherlands while wounding several others. Gokmen Tanis was arrested by Dutch police for his involvement in a shooting in Utrecht on March 18. The chief suspect has been arrested, the city of Utrecht said, reported Reuters. Gokmen Tanis, Dutch tram shooting suspect, arrested in Utrecht https://t.co/0qI5OakWdb pic.twitter.com/oZFt7zeErH New York Post (@nypost) March 18, 2019 The shooting sparked fears of a terrorist attack in the wake of a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand last week. Tanis relatives told Turkish media outlets that he fired shots at a relative due to family reasons. He then shot others who tried to help the victim, they told Turkish media. However, officials in the Netherlands raised the terror threat level to its highest level in Utrecht Province as schools were told to shut their doors. Police were also deployed at airports and other vital infrastructure reported The Independent. Tanis father, Mehmet, who lives in Turkey, said that his son should be punished if he is found guilty. If he did it, he should pay the penalty, he said, reported the New York Post. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said police are not 100 percent sure if it was a family dispute. It could still be a domestic dispute, he said. We will wait for the investigation before we say more. Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said, We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, according to The Associated Press. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said officials could not rule out it being a terror attack. If it is a terror attack, then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger that fanaticism and violence, he added. Jimmy de Koster, who lives in the area, said that several shots were fired. He saw a woman on the ground, shouting, I didnt do anything, Sky News reported. Dutch police investigating a shooting incident inside a tram in Utrecht say they are considering a possible terrorist motive. A spokesperson says no suspects are in custody. https://t.co/QmGVKRQNXe pic.twitter.com/yLTUJh7Qnn CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 18, 2019 De Koster added: At that moment I heard pang pang pang three times, four men walked very fast towards her and they tried to drag her away and then I heard pang pang pang again and those guys let go of that woman again. New York City Police Commissioner James ONeill had said that the NYPD was closely monitoring the incident, Fox News reported. NYPD is closely monitoring reports of a shooting on a tram near Utrecht Central Station, the Netherlands main transportation hub. There does not appear to be a NYC nexus at this time. A manhunt is ongoing & the motive is so far unknown. We ask everyone to always remain alert, ONeill said. The UN Human Rights Council report on Israels response to the Gaza border riots By Amb. Alan Baker In an ideal world, a report by three ostensibly distinguished jurists of international stature and knowledgeable in human rights and international humanitarian law would be expected to be serious, credible, authoritative, and genuinely bona fide. This would be more evident knowing that such a report is written by an independent, international commission of inquiry. Sadly though, no such ideal world exists, and hence, neither the UN nor its Human Rights Council can be considered to be serious, credible, authoritative and genuinely bona fide. Where the UN Human Rights Council is concerned, there can be no such thing as an independent commission of inquiry. The very mandating resolution for such an independent commission, was adopted by the political majority of the council and condemned in its first paragraph the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civiliansin the context of peaceful protests. The Commissions Mandate Since the outcome of the commissions independent inquiry was determined in advance by the mandating resolution, one may justifiably ask how any self-respecting members of an ostensibly independent commission of inquiry could risk their professional reputations and permit themselves to serve in a biased, politically-generated and flawed commission of inquiry? No less transparent and indicative of the extreme bias of the commissions mandate, is the politically loaded and partisan terminology used in the resolution, calling upon the inquiry: to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military assaults on the large-scale civilian protests. This terminology, which is repeated throughout the commissions report, cannot conceal the fact that the aim of the commission was to target Israel. Use of the term Occupied Palestinian Territory (in upper case) is itself a politically loaded, flawed UN term inasmuch as it wrongfully assumes and determines that the territory is Palestinian, despite the fact that its status remains in dispute pending a negotiated settlement between Israel and the PLO pursuant to the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords. The Accords were agreed upon by the Palestinian leadership and endorsed even by the UN itself. The Status of the Gaza Strip Even more absurd is the fact that the commissions mandate and report determine that the Gaza Strip is part of the territories occupied by Israel. Incredibly, at the same time, the report acknowledges that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 (Paragraph 15). It also acknowledges that the Gaza Strip is governed by de facto authorities in Gaza (paragraph 120) and determines that the organizers of the peaceful protest are all sectors of Palestinian society, including civil society, cultural and social organizations, student unions, womens groups, eminent persons and members of clans, with representatives of several political parties including the Democratic Front for the liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad(Paragraph 24). How then, in all seriousness, can the commission consider the Gaza Strip to be territory occupied by Israel and go on to accuse Israel of violating its obligations as an occupying power while at the same time acknowledging the fact that Israel is neither occupying nor controlling the Gaza Strip? The Peaceful Nature and Aims of the Protest To determine that the self-declared and internationally acknowledged terror organizations such as Hamas, Fatah, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are political parties (Paragraph 24) participating in the committee organizing peaceful protests appears, at the least, to be utter naivete, and at the most, acute self-deception. To blindly accept that the protests are just weekly demonstrations by Palestinians near the fence (Paragraph 14), non-violent march at the separation fence (Paragraph 22), fully peaceful from beginning to the end (paragraph 24), is indicative of the utter ignorance by the members of the commission of what goes on along the separation fence. It shows a lack of awareness of the public statements by senior Hamas operatives and demonstration organizers inciting violence, assaulting the separation fence, infiltrating into Israeli territory, and seeking to kill Israelis. To accept the statements of the above-noted terror organizations that their unifying element was the principle that the march was to be fully peaceful from beginning to end and the demonstrators would be unarmed(Paragraph 24), is indicative of a total lack of knowledge by the members of the commission of the structure, aims, and activities of those terror organizations. Public Statements by Hamas Officials and Protest Organizers Encouraging Violence In a submission to the commission of inquiry dated February 28, 2019, by Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp CBE on behalf of the High Level Military Group, a group of senior, retired military experts, Col. Kemp quotes the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, who called on April 6, 2018, to take down the fence and tear the hearts out of their bodies. Kemp pointed to the extensive incitement by the Palestinian leadership and its calls to infiltrate into Israel: Proof of the effectiveness of this incitement may be seen in the social media pages of the Great March of Return, which posted maps and aerial photographs showing the routes and distances from various parts of the Gaza Strip to nearby Israeli communities. Some of these maps were accompanied by specific calls to infiltrate these communities by various routes. Readily available public information sources documented by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) show the extensive propaganda and incitement by the Hamas leadership in Gaza, including in public and social media calling for violence at the fence and armed infiltration into Israeli territory. MEMRI quotes poet Ahmed Abu Ratima, referred to by the commission as the visionary of a non-violent protest (Paragraph 22), who is on record in the Arabic Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily newspaper as having written on the Return March Whatsapp group: the breaching of the border will be especially painful for the occupation and will have significant international resonance. Abu Ratima added: Within ten minutes, all the returning [marchers] will be in the very heart of the settlement of Sderot, and then the weapons of the occupation will be completely useless. The [Palestinian] processions will blend with the settlers in the heart of our occupied cities This will be a deadly blow to the occupier, and he will no doubt succumb. Other posts, posters, and leaflets published on social media called to clash with Israelis after breaching the fence and entering their communities. In this context, MEMRI quotes Emad Aql, of Gaza, who tweeted: [The Israeli town of] Sderot is only 700 meters east of [the Palestinian town of] Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. The headquarters of the Israeli army is there and houses about 800 pigs. [The town] can be reached in two minutes on motorcycles or in 5-8 minutes at a brisk run. He urged: Murder, slaughter, burn and never show them any mercy. In his presentation to the commission, Col. Kemp summarizes the Great March of Return as follows: Assessing the nature of the mass events on the border indicates clearly that these are not popular or sporadic incidents of mass protest (even violent ones), but rather carefully orchestrated events, managed by military operatives, and with a clear goal of creating large-scale breaches of the border security infrastructure. This can be seen by looking at the use of personnel, the sequence of events at each mass border incident, and the nature of the weapons employed. Clearly, this is very different from the determinations of the Inquiry commission as to the peaceful and civilian nature of the protests. Identities of Fatalities and Flawed Methodology of the Commission Those sections of the commissions report devoted to statistics and listing specific incidents and the identities of fatalities appear to be based on a very narrow and selective list of sources while ignoring authoritative and professional resource material that is readily available on the web. After an extensive professional analysis of the identities of those Palestinians killed during the protests, including a comparison of lists of fatalities with the obituaries published by Hamas and the Gaza Health Ministry, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) published several detailed reports which place considerable doubt as to the reliability and credibility of the information detailed by the commission in its report: According to the findings of examinations carried out by the ITIC, at least 112 Palestinians were killed during the Great Return March. In an examination of the names of the fatalities on an individual basis, 93 were identified as terrorist operatives or affiliated with the terrorist organizations, i.e., about 83 percent of those killed in the return marches. Most of the fatalities (63) are from Hamas (about 56 percent of the total killed in all the marches). The organizational affiliation of 19 of the fatalities is unknown to the ITIC. It may be assumed that these are Hamas operatives or civilians who do not belong to any organization. The findings of the examination of the identity of the fatalities carried out by the ITIC, and statements of senior Hamas officials, clearly demonstrate the central role played by Hamas in organizing the return marches and orchestrating them. The return marches were not popular, peaceful events, as falsely presented by Palestinian propaganda, but rather a Hamas strategic move accompanied by preplanned violence. Furthermore, the findings of the examination of the identity of the fatalities and reports from the ground demonstrate that IDF soldiers did not shoot indiscriminately at innocent residents but instead hit terrorist operatives. These operatives were the dominant factor among those in the front line who tried to break into Israeli territory. A further examination by ITIC of the list of fatalities in the return marches confirms that most of them are operatives of terrorist organizations, about half of whom affiliated with Hamas: The events of the return marches in the Gaza Strip have continued for 42 weeks. In most cases, these events are characterized by a high level of violence, resulting in casualties among the rioters, mainly among those in the front line confronting the IDF troops. According to the ITICs examination, based on reports of the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health in combination with other sources, since the beginning of the return marches on March 30, 2018, a total of 187 Palestinians were killed in those events. As for the identity of the fatalities (updated to January 16, 2019), 150 of them were found to be affiliated with Hamas or with other terrorist organizations (about 80 percent). Prominent among the fatalities are those belonging to Hamas or affiliated with it (96 fatalities, about 51 percent of the total number of fatalities). A total of 45 fatalities are operatives of the Hamas military wing (about 24 percent of the total number of fatalities, about 47 percent of the total of the Hamas fatalities) As reported by the Times of Israel, in the most recent March 2019 outbreak of violence along the fence, some 30,000 Palestinians took part in demonstrations, threw rocks and firebombs at Israeli troops on the other side of the fence, burned tires and scrap wood, sought to breach and damage the security fence, and in one case opened fire at Israeli soldiers. Hamas publicly acknowledged that five members of its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, were among the fatalities. Most could be independently verified with photographic evidence of the operatives wearing uniforms or receiving a military-style funeral from the terror group in question. Legal Assessment of the Demonstrations The commissions legal assessment determines that the demonstrations were civilian in nature, had clearly stated political aims and, despite some acts of significant violence, did not constitute combat or a military campaign. As such, the commission interprets the applicable legal framework to be that of law enforcement and policing, and did not constitute combat or a military campaign (paragraph 32). In making this curious assessment and determination, the commission totally ignores both the declared and documented intentions of the organizers as well as the declarations by the Hamas leadership calling upon the demonstrators to physically charge the border fence, hurl explosive devises towards the Israeli soldiers guarding the fence, attach explosive devices to the fence, break through and infiltrate into Israeli territory, and attack and kill Israeli residents in towns and villages in the vicinity of the fence. The members of the commission were neither blind to, nor ignorant of the incitement to violence by Hamas leaders and the statements and actions along the fence calling for infiltration into Israel, including the active involvement and participation by armed Hamas terrorists all widely documented in the international media. One, therefore, wonders how they could still insist on presenting the protests as peaceful, unarmed demonstrations, requiring nothing more than policing and law-enforcement measures. Furthermore, how could the members of the commission consider that thousands of incited Palestinians, forcibly and violently assaulting the agreed-upon official barrier separating the sovereign territory of Israel and the Gaza Strip, and forcibly infiltrating into Israeli towns and villages, constitute a peaceful protest that does not merit a right of self-defense on the part of Israel and its soldiers? An even more curious question for the members of the commission is what did the peaceful demonstrators intend to do after breaching the separation fence? Did they really believe the vision quoted by them in Paragraph 22 of the report, of Palestinian poet and journalist Ahmed Abu Artema, stating: what if 200,000 demonstrators marched peacefully and broke through the fence east of Gaza and entered a few kilometers into the lands that are ours, holding flags of Palestine and the keys to return, accompanied by international media, and then set up tents and establish a city there. In making their legal assessment, and in so down-playing the illegal nature of the demonstrations, the commission is, in effect, denying Israels sovereign right to defend its border against armed assault and to prevent illegal and violent infiltration into its sovereign territory. The Blockade In the commissions summary of the context and background of the protests, it determines that following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2006, Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade in a campaign of economic warfare (Paragraph 15). Subsequently, the commission recommends that Israel Lift the blockade on Gaza with immediate effect (Paragraph 122(a)). The commission provides no reasoning for its assumption that the blockade was imposed as a campaign of economic warfare. Its summary and recommendations appear to be based on misinformation as to the reasons for the blockade and may amount to a flawed and misinformed value-judgment. More importantly, the commission appears to have overlooked the findings and conclusions of the Report of the UN Secretary-Generals Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident, chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer. The report states, Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza. The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law. Two-State Solution In its presentation of the context and background of the protests, the commission curiously found the need to add what would appear to be a somewhat gratuitous and irrelevant value judgment with regard to the December 2017 decision by the U.S. government to move its embassy to Jerusalem thereby reducing hopes for a two-state solution and further sparking new demonstrations across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Paragraph 21). Whatever may be the perception of the members of the commission as to hopes for a two state solution, no such solution has ever been accepted, or agreed-upon by the parties and does not exist in any binding and accepted document. It remains the wishful thinking on the part of large sections of the international community, including, evidently, the members of the commission. To the contrary, one might expect that prior to making such value judgments, the commission would have made itself aware of the agreed-upon provisions of the Israeli-Palestinian 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (commonly termed Oslo 2) in which the parties agreed that the permanent status of the territories would be determined in negotiation between them. Thus, the commissions reference to the two state solution would appear to be a gratuitous prejudgment of the negotiation that has yet to take place. Incendiary Kites and Balloons, and Environmental Terror Towards the end of its report the commission pays brief and minimal lip-service to the Impact on Israel observing: Extensive damage to Israeli civilian property was caused by hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons launched from the Gaza Strip during the demonstrations. Some landed in empty educational institutions and private houses; others burned agricultural land and crops, causing significant property damage. Civilians in southern Israel reported experiencing psychological distress related to the fires and their fear of demonstrators crossing into Israeli territory and reaching their communities (Paragraph 92). Following on from this, the commission in its chapter on accountability makes a cursory reference to the fact that: the police force of the de facto authorities in Gaza bears responsibility for failing to take adequate measures to prevent incendiary kites and balloons from reaching Israel, spreading fear among civilians in Israel and inflicting damage on parks, fields, and property (Paragraph 109). In this context, it is curious to note that the international independent commission of inquiry mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of international humanitarian law and international human rights law did not consider it appropriate to investigate the extensive, willful violations of environmental and ecological norms and conventions by the Palestinians in Gaza in deliberately burning tires and polluting water sources, causing huge waves of caustic air and water pollution in Israel. Similarly, the commission appears to have overlooked the violation of humanitarian norms and conventions by the Palestinians in the launching of incendiary and explosive kites and balloons intended to kill Israeli citizens. Not less serious is the commissions ignoring the fact that the Palestinian leaders of the peaceful demonstrations organized, often by force, the placement of children and disabled people at the forefront of the demonstrations as human shields in violation of norms and conventions on the rights of the child and the disabled. Accountability for Actions Regrettably, fatalities and injuries occur in such charged situations of incitement, terror, armed assaults on the separation fence, attacks on Israels soldiers with explosive and incendiary devices, attempts to forcibly infiltrate sovereign Israeli territory, with the concomitant need to act in self-defense. Israels military justice authorities duly investigate such instances with a view to examining whether violations by its security personnel of humanitarian norms and rules have occurred, and take the appropriate juridical and prosecution measures against offenders, in strict accordance with Israeli and international law. In his concluding comments, Col. Kemp stated: [I]t is my professional opinion that the IDFs preparations for these events were conducted in a professional and reasonable manner and that the IDFs policy for the use of force conformed to the military necessity. In my opinion, there was no other reasonable alternative that the IDF could have employed in order to contend with the threats posed by these events. Conclusion The report of the independent international commission of inquiry is flawed, biased, and slanted. Its mandate was politically generated to prejudge its outcome against Israel. The data included in the report is selective, partial, and based on partisan reporting. This report does not add one iota of credibility to the already discredited and redundant Human Rights Council. Sadly, it reflects in a very negative manner on the integrity and professionalism of the members of the commission who appear to have worked without the requisite expert and professional military advice so essential to any examination of the military situation in the area of events. It is all the more regrettable that this report will doubtless be interpreted by Hamas and the other terrorist elements involved, as granting a green light to further terror activity against Israel, in the knowledge that the UN Human Rights Council chooses to direct its criticism solely against Israel. Amb. Alan Baker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center and the head of the Global Law Forum. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israels ambassador to Canada. Home New Mexico City Council Passes Resolution In Support of the Unborn A city council in the U.S. state of New Mexico passed a resolution on March 14 declaring their jurisdiction a supporter of the unborn. The jurisdiction dubbed Resolution 19-28 or A Resolution in Support of the Unborn, was passed by the City Council of Roswell in a seven-to-one vote, with one council member abstaining. Local pro-life activist group Abortion Free New Mexico, said that the passage makes Roswell a Sanctuary City for the Unborn. The resolution declares that each and every innocent human life is unique and precious to God and that innocent human life must always be protected and preserved. It also states that the protection of all human life is important to the people of the City of Roswell. The new Roswell resolution appeared to be modeled off a resolution passed by the Lea County Board of County Commissioners last month. Both resolutions were a response to the New Mexico legislature that was considering a measure to repeal an unenforceable statute criminalizing abortion, according to The Christian Post. The repeal did end up passing the state house but last week the New Mexico Senate stopped it in a vote of 18-24. The vote was a stunning victory for pro-life advocates, according to the Daily signal, with eight Democrats crossing over to reject the pro-choice measure along with all 16 Republicans. Their vote stopped a repeal that would have allowed people to have abortions up to the moment of birth and, in some cases, legalized infanticide. The bill previously passed the House on a 40-29 margin. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, supported the bill and expressed her disappointment after the vote. This old, outdated statute criminalizing health care providers is an embarrassment. That removing it was even a debate, much less a difficult vote for some senators, is inexplicable to me, she said, according to the New Mexico Political Report. New Mexico has one of the loosest abortion laws in the country, according to LifeSite, and is home to an infamous late-term abortion facility, Southwestern Womens Options. According to an undercover video, Southwestern Womens Options commits abortions throughout the third trimester of pregnancy, in one case offering to abort a 37-week-old baby for $17,000 and aiding the mother in getting on Medicaid in order to pay for it. President Donald Trump pledged to protect religious liberty and freedom of faith during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington this February as he defended the sanctity of all human life, including the unborn. Speaking to religious leaders at the 67th annual National Prayer Breakfast, Trump told the audience that he will safeguard faith-based adoption centers and reiterated his pro-life stance. As part of our commitment to building a just and loving society, we must build a culture that cherishes the dignity and sanctity of innocent human life, he said. All children, born and unborn, are made in the holy image of God. Every life is sacred, and every soul is a precious gift from Heaven. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the states Republican-led legislature on March 13, passed its latest measure to put more restrictions on abortion, bracing itself for another legal fight with pro-abortion activists. The legislation would ban abortion for women seeking to end their pregnancies because of the gender, race, or disability of the fetus. The GOP-dominated Senate voted 32-4 to send the bill to the states anti-abortion governor, Republican Matt Bevin. Soon after the vote, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky sent out a message on Twitter: We will see the state of Kentucky in court (again). The threat will intensify an ongoing bitter legal feudthe ACLU already is embroiled in federal court fights challenging three abortion-related laws in the state. Bevin responded to the ACLUs latest challenge: Bring it! Kentucky will always fight for life. Bevins running mate in his re-election bid this year, Sen. Ralph Alvarado, gave the opening remarks in support of the measure during the Senate debate on Wednesday. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan goes before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the Department of Defense budget, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on March 14, 2019. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) New US Military Budget Focused on China WASHINGTONChinese bombers. Chinese hypersonic missiles. Chinese cyberattacks. Chinese anti-satellite weapons. To a remarkable degree, the 2020 Pentagon budget proposal is shaped by national security threats that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has summarized in three words: China, China, China. The United States is still fighting small wars against Islamic extremists, and Russia remains a serious concern, but Shanahan seeks to shift the militarys main focus to what he considers the more pressing security problem of a rapidly growing Chinese military. This theme, which Shanahan outlined on March 14 in presenting the administrations proposed 2020 defense budget to the Senate Armed Services Committee, is competing for attention with narrower, more immediate problems such as President Donald Trumps effort to use the military to build a border wall. Shanahan is hardly the first defense chief to worry about China. Several predecessors pursued what the Obama administration called a pivot to the Pacific, with China in mind. But Shanahan sees it as an increasingly urgent problem that exceeds traditional measures of military strength and transcends partisan priorities. Weve been ignoring the problem for too long, Shanahan told a senator. China is aggressively modernizing its military, systematically stealing science and technology, and seeking military advantage through a strategy of military-civil fusion, he wrote in prepared testimony to the committee, which is considering a $718 billion Pentagon budget designed in part to counter Chinas momentum. The $25 billion the Pentagon is proposing to spend on nuclear weapons in 2020, for example, is meant in part to stay ahead of Chinas nuclear arsenal, which is much smaller than Americas but growing. Shanahan said China is developing a nuclear-capable long-range bomber that, if successful, would enable China to join the United States and Russia as the only nations with air-, sea- and land-based nuclear weapons. Shanahan ticked off a list of other Chinese advancements hypersonic missiles against which the United States has limited defenses; space launches and other space efforts that could enable it to fight wars in space; systematically stealing of U.S. and allied technology, and militarizing land features in the South China Sea. Bonnie S. Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the United States has been lacking effective strategies for competing with China on a broad scale. It is overdue, she said of the Shanahan focus. We have been somewhat slow in catching up in such areas as denying China its regional ambitions, including efforts to fully control the South China Sea, which is contested by several other countries. In his previous role as deputy defense secretary, Shanahan and President Donald Trumps first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, crafted a national defense strategy that put China at the top of the list of problems. As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future, that strategy document says. That explains in part why the United States is spending billions more on space, including means of defending satellites against potential Chinese attack, and on building hypersonic missiles to stay ahead of Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons development. It also explains some of the thinking behind preparing for an early retirement of the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier, a strategy that views carriers as a less relevant asset in a future armed conflict involving China. This concern about countering China has permeated the entire U.S. military. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command, said last month that dozens of African heads of state were invited to Beijing last fall to consider billions in Chinese loans and grants, and that China is building thousands of miles of railroads in Africa, mostly linked to Chinese mineral extraction operations. Theyre heavily invested and heavily involved in Africa, he said. The top U.S. commander in Europe told Congress this week that China also is making inroads in Europe. China is looking to secure access to strategic geographic locations and economic sectors through financial stakes in ports, airlines, hotels, and utility providers, while providing a source of capital for struggling European economies, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said. By Robert Burns The incident took place in December 2016 at St. Charles Resurrection Cemetery in Long Island. (Google Street View) Woman Gets Sucked Into Parents Grave, Files Significant Lawsuit A woman who was visiting her parents grave in New York sank into the burial plot, a lawsuit claimed. Joanne Cullen bent down to fix a bow on a wreath that was placed on the tombstone when a sinkhole formed under her, according to court documents. It caused her to fall forward and smash her head on the tombstone, her lawyer, Joseph Perrini, told the New York Post. She cracked a tooth as a result. Getting sucked into your parents grave when you go to visit them on a cool December afternoon with the sun going down its terrifying and traumatizing. Fox News 2019317 The woman then tried to bounce back and she started sinking into the ground and grabbed the sides of the tombstone, he said. The incident took place in December 2016 at St. Charles Resurrection Cemetery in Long Island. Getting sucked into your parents grave when you go to visit them on a cool December afternoon with the sun going down its terrifying and traumatizing, the lawyer told the newspaper. Cullen, 64, is now suing the cemetery for $5 million in Queens Supreme Court. She claimed in the lawsuit that the incident left her an emotional wreck. I will never go back there again, Cullen said, reported the Post, adding that she now fears walking in open fields. After the incident, she also has nightmares and suffers from headaches, the suit claimed. She also had to get counseling as a result, reported the Post. Perrini claimed the gravediggers who filled a grave next to the one where Cullens parents were buried had left an underground space that formed into a sinkhole. Other details about the case are not clear. Cremated Mom Gets Smoking Hot Body Sybil Marie Hicks from Ontario passed on Feb. 2, at the age of 82, and her obituary is going viral. She worked with two of her children to pen the obituary. It hurts me to admit it but I, Mrs. Ron Hicks from Baysville, have passed away, the obituary in the Hamilton Spectator said. This grandmother is still hilarious, even when she is dead. Daily Mail 201927 I passed peacefully with my eldest daughter, Brenda, by my side February 2, 2019 at 8:20 a.m., it added. I leave behind my loving husband, Ron Hicks, whom I often affectionately referred to as a Horses [expletive]. She also said she left behind children whom I tolerated over the years; Bob (with Carol) my oldest son and also my favorite. Brian (with Ginette) who was the Oreo cookie favorite, Brenda AKA Hazel who would run to clean the bathrooms when she heard company was coming. It continued: I graduated from Waterdown High School with honors while wearing my shiny bright saddle shoes. I later graduated from Hamilton General Hospital School Nursing class of 1957B Best Class EVER! CORRECTION: Following the Feb. 6 publication of this article, the family of Cybil Hicks said that the death notice was The Hamilton Spectator 201927 And she quipped: I finally have the smoking hot body I have always wanted having been cremated. She concluded with, For those of you who are wondering who assisted me in writing this it wasnt my husband, it wasnt my oldest, nor was it my youngest Thank you all for sharing my life with me. I am off to swim to the buoy and back. Love, Sybil. CTV News reported that she battled Alzheimers disease for 18 years. The obituary said that the hell of a lot of stuff included two old TVs, a used toaster, and an Oldsmobile complete with a spoiler because she loved putting the pedal to the metal. If youre looking for 2 extremely large TVs from the 90s, a large ceramic stork (we think) umbrella/cane stand, a toaster oven (slightly used) or even a 2001 Oldsmobile with a spoiler (she loved putting the pedal to the metal), with only 71,000 kilometers and 1,000 tools that we arent sure what theyre used for. You should wait the appropriate amount of time and get in touch. Tomorrow would be fine. This is not an ad for a pawn shop, but an obituary for a great Woman, Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother born on May 12, 1921, it said, the CBC reported. "ASB Polyfest staff, organizers, and community leaders come together to reflect on the Christchurch mosque attacks, in Auckland, New Zealand, on March 16, 2019. (Lorraine Ferrier/The Epoch Times) New Zealanders Respond to the Christchurch Mosque Attacks AUCKLAND, New ZealandCommunities throughout New Zealand are coming together both in disbelief and collective grief in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque massacres. On March 16, a day after the attacks in the countrys South Island, many events around the nation were canceled due to security concerns, and as a mark of respect for those affected by the attacks. The final day of the ASB Polyfest, the largest Polynesian festival in the world, was one of those events. The Epoch Times asked ASB Polyfest staff, organizers, and community leaders, as they came together to reflect, how they think New Zealand can heal from this tragedy. Roger Jolley, Maori Strategy Adviser, Ministry of Education Kiwis are resilient people: We take it on the chin, and we move on. When faced with adversity, we pull together when we need to, and we achieve some great things. I can see some good coming out of this. The other side of it is that for Maori and Pasifika [Pacific Island] people, we are warrior people; we understand life and death and what that means, so being able to connect spiritually through the understanding of life and death is going to put us all in good stead. Greg Pierce, Chair, ASB Polyfest Trust My immediate response to that is I think we are really fortunate that we are a strong spiritual place, built up over many centuries. Rangi McLean, National Cultural Adviser By doing things like [gathering as a community]. I suppose this is something unique to us because of our culture. One of the good things is that over the 200-plus years since the English came over, weve intermixed our cultures. For example, Im a Tuhoe [Maori tribe] with Scottish heritage, and for me, I acknowledge that. Im proudly, staunchly, fiercely Tuhoe, but I will say that I am also Scottish and its with that type of interlink in our thinking throughoutwhich is what proud New Zealand isit permeates throughout the country. People will say that they are Ngapuhi [Maori tribe], for example, but they will also acknowledge their English heritage, their Scottish heritage, or their Irish heritage, as it is with our Pacific Island brothers and sisters. Seiuli Terri Leo-Mauu, Event Director, ASB Polyfest New Zealand is such a diverse country with so many different cultures. Id say were a resilient culture. So the way were going to recover is just step by step. We see these things on TV all the time and hear about it in the news hitting other countries, such as America and England, but you never think it is going to hit you so close to home. Our hearts do go out to Christchurchthey have gone through a lot, and now this has happened as well. As our prime minister said, New Zealand has changed forever now because of this incident, but it also means that we need to prepare for anything [that] arises again. We canceled this event on our terms: You havent defeated us. Moresby Peseta, Tutor at Christchurch Boys High School When Polyfest was cancelled, the boys with Christchurch Boys High School Polyfest Group that I tutor thought it was a good idea to sing about strength and unity. We were all very sad for the local Muslim community and are trying out best to stay strong and do what we can do, whether its prayer or song. Interviews have been edited for clarity and brevity. Opportunity Zones Set to Help Distressed Communities Secretary Carson says program will provide incentives for more affordable housing WASHINGTONHousing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said the opportunity zones program, passed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, has already started to revive underserved communities. On a visit a few months ago to Vicksburg, Mississippi, Carson saw a closed sawmill being reopened by new investors. In an interview with The Epoch Times on Mar. 14, Carson said that the new owner of the sawmill heard about opportunity zones and wanted to take advantage of the new tax breaks. The mill has hired more than 100 people, and new housing is now being constructed for the people coming to work there. A long-awaited clarification of rules governing opportunity zones to be released in the coming weeks may help transformations, such as happened in Vicksburg, spread across the nation. Carson said the second tranche of regulations will be out within the next month, based on information from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and the third and final tranche should be out early this fall. The U.S. Treasury released an initial round of rules for investors in October 2018 and was expected to release additional guidance before the end of 2018. However, the recent partial government shutdown has delayed the process. Incentives Through special tax breaks, the opportunity zones program incentivizes Americans to invest in economically distressed communities. And the proposed regulations provide guidance on how investors can qualify for special tax incentives in opportunity zones. Last summer, the Treasury Department certified 8,761 U.S. census tracts as opportunity zones, based on nominations received from each state, territory, and the District of Columbia. The designation will apply for 10 years. The program allows investors to defer taxes on capital gains, if the gains are reinvested in a qualified opportunity fund, an investment vehicle created to invest in any of these designated zones. Excitement is running high among investors. Many funds have already been formed, raising money to invest in these distressed communities. Theres been a lot of interest in housing, in multifamily housing, Carson said. Thats actually a good thing because we have quite a shortage of affordable housing right now, particularly in economically depressed areas. And the supply of housing obviously has a lot to do with the pricing, he said, adding that supply and demand imbalance would be corrected enormously through this program. Carson argued that these developments would help create new businesses in these communities as well. One of the things that Ive noticed as Ive traveled around the countryand Ive done a lot of traveling around the countryis when you create these beautiful multi-family dwellings other things tend to pop up around them to support them, he said. A significant portion of the program is devoted to spurring more investments in small or startup businesses, not just real estate. The idea is to give small businesses an opportunity to get the kind of funding that they never have been able to get before, Carson said. There are a lot of people who have very good ideas. But they just dont have anybody whos been interested in backing them or who even comes into contact with them and would know to invest in them. Through this program, he said that the businesses and funds would come together and that will automatically germinate and create something good. The Internal Revenue Service held a public hearing last month, seeking feedback on the first round of regulations. During the hearing, investors and advisors raised concerns about the proposed rules related to investing in opportunity zone businesses. The proposed rule states that 50 percent of the sales or gross income of a business must be derived from the active conduct of a trade or business in the opportunity zone to qualify. However, some companies in the sectors of e-commerce, biotech, or manufacturing may struggle to meet this requirement, according to experts. Hence, some private investors remain on the sidelines, hoping for further clarification from the Treasury on such rules. The White House Council In December last year, Trump signed an executive order to establish the White House opportunity and revitalization council. The council, which is led by Carson, will coordinate all existing federal programs to economically distressed areas, including opportunity zones, to avoid inefficiencies. Unlike many government programs, however, therere no job requirements for opportunity zone investors. Hence, investors dont have to meet certain job creation requirements to receive tax breaks. If in fact, you have an economic investment in an area, that means that theres going to be building going on there, Carson said. And if there is building going on there, somebody has to do it, and somebody has to support it. So, the jobs come automatically. Carson also said that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would revamp Section 3 of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which requires that recipients of certain federal funding provide training, employment, and contracting to low-income people in the area. Thats been on the books for 50-plus years but has hardly been used, because its encumbered with so many regulatory and bureaucratic barriers, Carson said. The new rules, which will be out within the next few weeks, severely trim all those negatives and make it much easier for employers to utilize. Canada's Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick waits to testify before the House of Commons justice committee on Parliament Hill on March 6, 2019. (Dave Chan/Getty Images) Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick to Quit Before October Election OTTAWAMichael Wernickthe countrys top bureaucratis leaving his job, telling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that recent events have made it clear it would be impossible for him to maintain a relationship of mutual trust with the opposition parties. In a letter to Trudeau released on March 18, Wernick says he plans to leave his post before this falls federal election campaign kicks off, partly because the clerk needs to be viewed as an impartial arbiter of whether serious foreign interference has occurred as part of a new federal watchdog panel. It is now apparent that there is no path for me to have a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the opposition parties, Wernick writes. I wish to relinquish these roles before the election. It is essential that Canadians continue to see their world-leading public service as non-partisan and there to provide excellent services to Canadians and the governments they elect. Wernick has been clerk of the Privy Council since 2016, shortly after the Liberals assumed office. But he has come under fire in the past few weeks after being accused by former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould of being among a number of officials, including Trudeau and his senior staff, who pressured her to head off criminal charges for SNC-Lavalin. Wernicks letter was released just minutes before MPs reconvened for their first question period since the March break, an exchange that proved explosive almost from the get-go. Opposition members erupted in protest when Trudeau announced plans to appoint former Liberal justice minister Anne McLellan as a special adviser to explore what he called important questions about the relationship between the federal government and the Justice Department. McLellan will assess the structure that has been in place since Confederation, of a single minister holding the positions of minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, the prime minister said in a statement. She will consider whether machinery of government or legislative changes may or may not be recommended. Wernicks decision to step down from his role came as little surprise to some on the opposition side of the aisle. I think once we saw how much of an active political player Mr. Wernick was in the SNC scandal, it became impossible for him to carry on his job, which is to have the trust of all parliamentarians on key matters of policy, said NDP MP Charlie Angus. He couldnt continue in that role. Angus also said Wernick should have known better in the way he presented himself before the House of Commons justice committee to testify on the SNC-Lavalin affair, suggesting he was combative and failed to provide clear answers to MPs. He served our country for many years and in many capacities, but in this scandal, he was serving the prime minister and not the people of Canada. Wernick has maintained everything he did was within the boundaries of acceptable behavior for his job of aiding the prime minister and cabinet as a non-partisan public servant. He is not leaving immediately. The timing of my retirement is something we should discuss, as your government will have a busy cabinet agenda until the end of the parliamentary session, and you will want to seek advice on how best to address succession, his letter to the prime minister says. Trudeau thanked Wernick in a statement for his nearly 38 years in the federal public service, and said Ian Shugart, currently the deputy minister of foreign affairs, will replace Wernick. Rabbit Hole in Farmers Field Leads to Mysterious Cave Network The content is not available due to expiration. Report: Jeanine Pirro Suspended for Two Weeks A report said that Fox News host Jeanine Pirro will be suspended for two weeks over her remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn). On March 16, Pirros show on Fox didnt air, and she has remained uncharacteristically silent on Twitter. Her last tweet was from a week ago. CNN reported on March 17 that her show would be off the air for two weeks, adding that she is merely in the penalty box and wasnt fired. The report conflicts with other reports over the weekend that said she was fired. Fox hasnt issued a statement about her status. A spokesperson told Deadline Hollywood that it wouldnt comment on internal scheduling matters. Fox had released a statement last week saying, We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirros comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar. They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly. Pirro had commented on whether Omars choice to wear a hijab signaled her support for Islams Sharia law. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution? The remark came after Omar made what many Jewish groups said were anti-Semitic statements. She suggested that pro-Israel organizations were coercing lawmakers in pledging allegiance to a foreign country. Ive seen a lot of comments about my opening statement from Saturday nights show and I did not call Rep. Omar un-American. My intention was to ask a question and start a debate, but of course because one is Muslim does not mean you dont support the Constitution, Pirro said after Fox News condemnation. I invite Rep. Omar to come on my show any time to discuss all of the important issues facing America today. President Donald Trump on March 17 called on Fox News to keep Pirro amid the controversy. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country, he wrote. They have all out campaigns against FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Trump urged Fox to stay strong in the face of relentless pressure and fight back with vigor. Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country, he continued. The losers all want what you have, dont give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Meanwhile, the Rupert Murdoch-owned network should stick with the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for JudgeJeanine, he continued. Your competitors are jealousthey all want what youve gotNUMBER ONE. Dont hand it to them on a silver platter. They cant beat you, you can only beat yourselves! .must stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, dont give it to them. Be strong & prosper, be weak & die! Stay true. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Trump was speaking about Fox host Tucker Carlson, who made controversial statements about a decade ago on shock-jock radio show Bubba the Love Sponge. Some social media users said they would boycott Fox if Pirro was fired. I am boycotting @FoxNews for blocking @JudgeJeanine from her show, for speaking truth! I encourage everyone to boycott ALL #FoxNews shows until she returns. Todd N Sanderson (@viperBSG) March 17, 2019 Omar, meanwhile, has faced mounting criticism from Jewish groups after making the remarks. Steve Hunegs, who is executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, blasted Omar for her comments. Our community is exasperated by Rep. Omars unfulfilled promises to listen and learn from Jewish constituents while seemingly simultaneously finding another opportunity to make an anti-Semitic remark and insult our community, Hunegs said, according to The Associated Press earlier this month. .to the people that got you there. Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine. Your competitors are jealous they all want what youve got NUMBER ONE. Dont hand it to them on a silver platter. They cant beat you, you can only beat yourselves! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019 Nance Whitaker and her family attended Shen Yun at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on March 17, 2019. (Nancy Xia/The Epoch Times) ORLANDO, Fla.When retired surgeon Nance Whitaker attended Shen Yun Performing Arts with her family, she could sense divine nature in the performance. [The divine nature] just emanated through every dance, every hand movement, even the colors of the costumes, from the backdrop, it just emanated; and I felt like everyone that was in this performance understood that and emanated that perfectly, she said. Shen Yun is a New York-based classical Chinese dance and music company that aims to bring ancient Chinese culture to life for todays audiences. Whitaker experienced it for the first time on March 17 at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Every year I would come. So beautiful, she said. According to Shen Yuns website, traditional Chinese culture was thought to be divinely inspired, so Shen Yun dances often portray heavenly scenes and legends. In one dance piece, the Creator sends divine beings to Earth to create Chinese civilization. In another, cloud fairies dance gracefully, swirling blue fans. Whitaker admired the beauty of the dancers costumes, which are brilliantly colored and are inspired by ancient Chinese clothing styles. [What moved me the most was] the beautiful costumes and the story, the history, the history of China, she said. I love history, so any time that I can learn the history of a country or of a people, it just moves me. So I absolutely loved learning the history in such a beautiful way. Ill definitely go home and do a little Google research. She appreciated the humor in the performance as well as the serious parts, such as modern-day tales of courage in the face of oppression. The dance piece Goodness in the Face of Evil depicts how practitioners of the peaceful spiritual discipline Falun Gong are facing violent persecution in modern China. The communist regime in todays China aims to wipe out ancient beliefs and traditions. Shen Yun cannot perform in China today due to the risk of being persecuted. The fact that you cannot show this in China today, thats so heartbreaking; and to see the oppression even today, those are the stories that hit me, Whitaker said. She enjoyed Shen Yun with her husband, Ed Whitaker, and his parents, Donna Whitaker and Tim Moisan. Donna Whitaker praised the performance over and over. It was unbelievable, she said. I would come again and again; it was marvelous. One of the best Ive ever seen. The [backdrop], the story, everything was just fabulous. With reporting by Nancy Xia and Sally Appert. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time and has covered audience reactions since the companys inception in 2006. A policeman stands guard after a shooting in Utrecht, The Netherlands, on March 18, 2019. (Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters) Three Killed in the Netherlands in Suspected Terror Attack Three people have been killed in the Dutch city of Utrecht in a shooting aboard a tram, in what authorities say could be a terrorist attack. Police said gunfire had been detected in more than one location of the city, with five other people injured on the morning of March 18. Police arrested a 37-year-old Turkish man, Gokmen Tanis, after engaging an extended manhunt for him. Local media reported that the gunman escaped in a red car. It was later found abandoned around three miles away. It wasnt clear whether the attacker acted alone or whether there was a coordinated plan behind the shootings. We cannot exclude a terrorist motive, Dutch anti-terrorism coordinator Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said at a news conference. A lot is still unclear at this point and local authorities are working hard to establish all the facts. In a first for the Netherlands, the threat level was raised to five, the maximum level. The attack took place around 10:45 a.m. local time. A witness told local TV he saw a woman on the ground shouting, I didnt do anything. Four men reportedly ran to help her but were shot at by the gunman. Another witness said that a man started shooting wildly. Mosques, schools, and local universities were evacuated following the incident, and police flew three helicopters over the area in an effort to locate the gunman. Counterterrorism units surrounded a house near where the shootings took place but no arrests were made. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the shootings were deeply disturbing, and convened crisis talks. Our country today has been jolted by an attack, Rutte said, before the suspect was arrested. The first reports have led to disbelief and disgust. Innocent people have been struck by violence We are now doing everything we can to find the perpetrator or perpetrators as soon as possible. That is now our complete focus. One local businessman told BBC Turkish that the suspect had in the past fought in the Russian republic of Chechnya, a well-known jihadist haven. He was arrested because of his connections with [the ISIS terrorist group] but released later, the businessman said, according to the BBC. The suspect had a known criminal history, according to local broadcaster RTV Utrecht, including a shooting incident in 2013. The current shooting happened in a quiet residential neighborhood known for its sizable immigrant community. Its frightening that something like this can happen so close to home, Omar Rahhou told Reuters. These things normally happen far away but this brings it very close, awful. Prior to the arrest, Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said: Shortly before noon, a shooting took place on a tram in Utrecht around 24 Octoberplein. A horrible and radical incident in which victims have fallen. My thoughts are with them and their loved ones. I am in close contact with the police and the public prosecutor I can confirm that the police and the public prosecutor are currently looking for the person responsible for this incident. The most important thing at the moment is taking care of the wounded and investigating the circumstances of the incident. We do not exclude anything, not even a terrorist attack. The attack follows the shooting of 50 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the worst-ever peacetime mass killing in the countrys history, and has been called an act of terrorism by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. A question of voting right(s) By Robert T. Smith A large number of Christians vote for the Democrat party. This opening sentence should cause us to contemplate our fellow Christians and the direction of the Church in America. Surely the righteous shall give thanks to Your name; the upright shall dwell in Your presence (Psalm 140:13). How are we to live in the presence of God? Among many other issues of relevance to Christians, the current Democrat party is the party of abortion, even the recently newsworthy late and even post-term abortion. At their 2012 convention, the Democrats booed loudly at including God in their party platform. Secular humanism is the clear religion of the Democrat party. The straw man that the very religious democrat politicians hide behind is that they cannot legislate their religious beliefs in a secular country. All of our experiences and belief systems form our decisions and actions. How is it possible to separate our religious or church self from our public or everyday self, or our political party affiliation and vote-casting self? The Democrat politician clearly advocates that Christianity is the only belief system that must not inform our decisions and actions in the public square. If we engage in sinful behavior, or support those who do, how can we hope to be counted among His people. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). How do the actions of those we choose to vote for, donate to, or otherwise support reflect upon our own life in the presence of God? God is everywhere at all times. Nothing escapes His eyes. Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence (Psalm 139:7). The author of this Psalm goes on to say that there is no place he finds that is not in the presence of God. When voting our conscience, our secret ballot remains known only to whom; how shall we vote if we truly seek to live in the presence of God? The Holy Bible is not a living document or ala-carte menu of items to be picked and chosen to suit our individual desires, passions, sinful behaviors, or the social foibles of the day. If the Holy Bible was so formless, it would be worthless, open to interpretation and any meaning depending upon an individuals preferences. As a body of literature, the Holy Bible speaks to Gods relationship to his creation and includes his admonishments to live and do what is right, moral, and virtuous. The Holy Bible is not shaped by politics. We have voting rights as Christians too, a right to vote according to our conscience. Certainly, those who prefer to not live in the presence of God would like Christians to keep our beliefs to ourselves; it being inappropriate in their view for Christians to reflect their life lived in the presence of God upon society. As a tool to drive Christian thought and practice into the shadows of our society, the Constitution is famously misused. The First Amendment to the Constitution was not to be applied to us, the people, individually or even collectively, but rather to act as the keep out sign to Congress alone to make no law establishing a religion or to prohibit the free practice thereof. Another tool used in an attempt to persuade Christians to silence is the verse from Luke 6:37: Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Taken out of context, it is alleged to be an anything goes pass, that we cannot judge anybody elses behavior because we all fall short of perfection. Protesting against an idea or action, or trying to save someone from hurting themselves or others is not the same thing as judging them. When a Christian speaks or acts against false religious teaching, or sinful or immoral behavior, they are not guilty of improper judging. In fact, scripture directs Christians to do this. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).Living in the presence of God compels Christians to proclaim Gods truth. Christians are expected to confront false teachings and sinful or immoral behavior. This is not the judgment discussed in Luke. Instead, this is correction that seeks to save our fellow man, a truly caring act. Christian judgment of right and wrong has been the impetus of many critical issues of history. As example is the Christian evangelist Charles Finney, who famoulsy spoke out and took action against slavery. Mr. Finney directly worked supporting the Underground Railroad, channeling escaped slaves to freedom from the southern states. Another Christian who judged right from wrong was John Newton, whose epiphany and subsequent advocacy regarding his own conversion over slavery stands as a historical act of Amazing Grace. Christian Wellesley Bailey set up a global organization to care for leprosy sufferers world wide. This global effort continues to this day in many of the poorest countries of the world. History is rife with examples of Christians judging right from wrong and speaking out or acting accordingly. Christian hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, safe houses for battered or abused wives, the list is almost endless. Our world is much better as a consequence of the judgment of right over wrong by Christians. Congregating as the people of God, the Church is a collection point for individual Christians living in the presence of God. Consider when it was that you last heard a position about the social issues of the day while at Church? Certainly the apple pie bake sale and petition to save the local park from development warranted mention during your congregated time, but typically nothing regarding the more pertinent issues of the day. Arguably, if he were alive today, St. Paul would cumulatively condemn the American Christians and their Church by name and in writing, refer to the Galatians. As has been famously quoted, the problem with Christianity is Christians. Look about you as you sit in Church the next time you attend. A large number of Christians vote for the Democrat party positions. The question that comes to mind, is a question of Voting Right(s). Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist who spends his days enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness with his family. He confesses to cling to his liberty, guns and religion, with antipathy toward the arrogant ruling elites throughout the country. Home President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk to their motorcade after attending service at Saint John's Church in Washington, en route to the White House, on March 17, 2019. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo) Three States Consider Bills to Block Trump From 2020 Ballot Unless He Releases Tax Returns Lawmakers in California, Washington, and New Jersey are considering measures that would block President Donald Trump from appearing on the 2020 presidential election ballot unless he releases his tax returns. In Washington, the states Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bill March 12 that requires candidates for president and vice president to submit five of their most recent tax returns in order to appear on the primary and general election ballots. Lawmakers voted 28-21 to pass the measure, advancing it to the states House of Representatives. In New Jersey, the states Democratic-controlled Senate passed a similar bill on Feb. 25 by a vote of 23-11. The bill is now on to the states Assembly and, if passed, would need to be signed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy to become law. Last year, then-Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, vetoed a similar bill, calling it a political stunt. In California, the states Democratic-controlled Senate is considering a similar bill. The measure was introduced in December last year, but is still being considered at the committee level. Trump exercised his legal right to keep his tax returns private during the 2016 presidential election. In the wake of the election, at least 25 states introduced bills that would require candidates to release their tax returns in order to appear on federal election ballots, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). None of the bills became law. Some measures called for a candidates most recent tax return while others called for tax returns dating back up to 10 years. Nearly every bill has been introduced by Democrats, in reaction to President Donald Trumps refusal to release his tax returns as per the custom of previous presidential candidates, NCSLs Dan Diorio wrote in a legislative review. Many require that the returns be redacted and posted publicly for inspection. Diorio pointed out that the trend is similar to 2011 and 2012, when Republicans in eight states introduced bills requiring presidential candidates to release copies of their long-form birth certificates in order to appear on the ballot. At the time, President Barack Obama hadnt yet released his birth certificate. This year, bills requiring presidential candidates to publicly release tax returns have failed in the New Hampshire and Mississippi state legislatures. In New Hampshire, the House of Representatives considered a pair of such bills inexpedient to legislate. In Mississippi, a similar bill died in committee on Feb. 9. In Washington, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and state Solicitor General Noah Purcell told the sponsors of the bill that it would likely be constitutional, but warned that it is open to legal challenges because of the wide range of interpretations of the law. Presidents usually release their tax returns either before the election or after winning. Trump explained that his returns cant be released since they are being audited. Every U.S. citizen has a right to keep his or her tax return private. Returns can only be released with approval from the commissioner of the IRS. The Washington state bill would likely be challenged in court if it becomes law. Republicans have said that any attempt to force Trump to release his tax returns would be unlawful. Joyce Murray speaks after being sworn in as the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Canada, on Mar. 18, 2019. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Trudeau Fills SNC Triggered Cabinet Vacancy With Vancouver MP Joyce Murray OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau turned Monday, March 18, to erstwhile leadership rival Joyce Murray to fill the second void in his cabinet triggered by the SNC-Lavalin affair. In his third shuffle in two months, Trudeau elevated the veteran Vancouver MP to president of the Treasury Board, a cabinet slot vacated two weeks ago by Jane Philpott. Philpott resigned in solidarity with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, who quit last month amid allegations she was improperly pressured by Trudeau, his staff and others to halt a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on bribery and corruption charges related to contracts in Libya. Wilson-Rayboulds departure came one month after she was moved out of the prestigious justice portfolio and into Veterans Affairs in a small mid-January shuffle prompted by Scott Brisons retirement from politics. Her exit precipitated another small shuffle on Mar. 1, but then Philpott resigned a few days later, saying she no longer had confidence in the governments handling of the SNC-Lavalin file. Had Trudeau named Murray to Brisons vacated spot at Treasury Board back in January, its likely the entire controversy over the Montreal engineering giant would have been avoided. Murray, who finished a distant second behind Trudeau in the Liberal partys 2013 leadership race, said its time to move on from the controversy and focus on the governments efforts to reduce poverty, tackle climate change and create jobs. The past few weeks have been difficult, and I have expressed my confidence in our prime minister and our support for the work we are doing on behalf of Canadians, she said following a swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall. We all want to work together to further that agenda over the coming months until the October election. Murray said she looks forward to having Philpott and Wilson-Raybould continue in the Liberal caucus under Trudeaus leadership, if thats their choice. But she said she doesnt need to hear any more from Wilson-Raybould on the SNC-Lavalin issue. The prime minister has been clear there was a failure of communication, said Murray. He will be leading our team in looking at how we can do better. Wilson-Raybould, who testified at the House of Commons justice committee for nearly four hours, has indicated she has more to say, particularly about the period after she was moved to Veterans Affairs, which was not covered by a waiver of solicitor-client privilege and cabinet confidentiality. However, the Liberals are so far using their majority to try to shut the matter down, blocking opposition parties efforts to recall Wilson-Raybould at committee. Murray, 64, was first elected in 2008 in Vancouver Quadra. She had served previously as a minister in British Columbias provincial government. Her appointment to cabinet is a promotion from her role as parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board. It also allows Trudeau to maintain gender balance around the cabinet table. Treasury Board is a less visible ministry concerned with the nuts and bolts of government operations, but it has the potential for scandal if it falters in its stewardship of federal spending. Last month, Murray and her family dealt with a personal ordeal when her son had to be medically evacuated from Mexico to Vancouver after suffering severe injuries during his honeymoon in Cancun. Erik Brinkman fell from a height and underwent extensive surgery in Mexico to stabilize multiple fractures. Murray said Monday her son is continuing his recovery in Vancouver General Hospital: Hes healing well; hes in great spirits. Vancouver Quadra MP Joyce Murray is the new head of the Treasury Board. We talked to her this month about vying for the Liberal leadership, the SNC-Lavalin scandal, fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline and her governments record. #cdnpoli #bcpolihttps://t.co/i2Dg4SSBBb The Tyee (@TheTyee) March 18, 2019 She has two sons and a daughter with her husband, Dirk Brinkman. They founded the tree-planting company Brinkman Group in 1979. By Joan Bryden and Mike Blanchfield Joyce Murray speaks after being sworn in as the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Canada ,on Mar. 18, 2019. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Trudeau Shuffles Cabinet For 3rd Time in 3 Months, Appoints New Treasury Board President Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shuffled his cabinet for the third time in three months, this time to fill a vacancy left by the sudden departure of former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott, who resigned earlier this month over the governments handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair. The prime minister has appointed Joyce Murray as the new Treasury Board president and Minister of Digital Government. Murray, a Liberal MP from Vancouver critical of oil pipelines and tankers in British Columbia, previously served as parliamentary secretary for the portfolio she now oversees. Minister Murray will help advance the priorities of the Government of Canada and deliver its commitments to Canadians, the Prime Ministers Office said in a statement. The appointment comes at a time when the Trudeau government is struggling to get ahead of allegations that it attempted to interfere in a criminal case against SNC-Lavalin as well as the resignations of two prominent female cabinet members. Murrays predecessor Philpott congratulated the decision in a tweet, saying she thinks the new Treasury Board president will be great. Congratulations @joycemurray, new President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government. You will be great. Felicitations! Jane Philpott (@janephilpott) March 18, 2019 Philpott resigned from cabinet at the beginning of the month over serious concerns about the pressure the government put on former attorney-general and Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the criminal case involving SNC-Lavalin. In her resignation letter, Philpott says she had lost confidence in how the government handled the matter and how it responded to issues that were raised. It grieves me to resign from a portfolio where I was at work to deliver an important mandate. I must abide by my core values, my ethical responsibilities, constitutional obligations. There can be a cost to acting on ones principles, but there is a bigger cost to abandoning them. pic.twitter.com/EwO5dtdgG6 Jane Philpott (@janephilpott) March 4, 2019 Philpotts resignation was the third resignation in three months, and the second over the SNC-Lavalin affair. The first resignation was from former Treasury Board president Scott Brison, who has retired from politics. The subsequent cabinet shuffle moved Philpott to Treasury Board president and Wilson-Raybould from Minister of Justice to Veteran Affairs. Wilson-Raybould then resigned in mid-February after a report from the Globe and Mail alleged that she had faced inappropriate pressure to interfere in the case of SNC-Lavalin. Philpott resigned nearly three weeks later. Both Philpott and Wilson-Raybould expressed their intention to remain in the Liberal caucus despite resigning from cabinet, and Wilson-Raybould has said she intends to stand for re-election in the upcoming 2019 federal election. The day after Philpotts resignation, Murray sent an open letter to her constituents saying she had absolute confidence in Trudeaus integrity, and praised the diversity of the cabinet, reports the Vancouver Sun. SNC-Lavalin is facing charges of corruption and fraud for allegedly paying $48 million in bribes to Libyan officials. If SNC-Lavalin were granted a remediation agreement, the company would admit to wrongdoing and face a massive fine, but it would not be criminally convicted. The prosecution has chosen to pursue criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin, and Wilson-Raybould, in her role as minister of justice at the time, did not change that decision. In her testimony before the Justice Committee, Wilson-Raybould said that she came under consistent pressure from the Prime Ministers Office, the Privy Council Office, and the finance ministers office over her decision not to intervene in the court case of SNC-Lavalin. Gerald Butts, former principal secretary to the prime minister, refuted Wilson-Rayboulds claims in his own testimony to the Justice Committee, saying that the former justice minister never complained about inappropriate pressure over the SNC-Lavalin case until the prime minister decided to move her to a different cabinet role. The justice committees next scheduled meeting is on March 19, the same day the Trudeau government is expected to table the federal budget. With files from The Canadian Press President Donald Trump greets General Motors CEO Mary Barra (R) alongside US Vice President Mike Pence (L) prior to a meeting with automobile industry leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Jan. 24, 2017. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Trump Tells GM to Shut Plant in China or Mexico Instead of Ohio President Donald Trump ratcheted up his criticism of General Motors on March 18 over the companys plan to close a plant in Lordstown, Ohio. In addition to his prior request that the automaker keep the Lordstown factory open or sell it to a company that would, the president said GM should consider closing a plant in China or Mexico, where the company invested heavily prior to Trump taking office. General Motors and the UAW are going to start talks in September/October, Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the United Auto Workers union, which is negotiating with GM. Why wait, start [the talks] now! I want jobs to stay in the U.S.A. and want Lordstown (Ohio), in one of the best economies in our history, opened or sold to a company who will open it up fast! the president continued. Car companies are all coming back to the U.S. So is everyone else. We now have the best Economy in the World, the envy of all. Get that big, beautiful plant in Ohio open now. GM issued a statement on March 17, saying that the future of the Lordstown facility will be resolved between GM and the UAW. The carmaker said it has opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees at plants that may close. The companys March 17 statement followed Trumps criticism the same evening. The president said on Twitter that he had spoken to GM Chief Executive Mary Barra about the planned closure of the Ohio site, even though the economy is booming. The presidents call with Barra followed his initial push for the company to act fast to keep the plant open or look for a new owner. Trump pointed out that Toyota is investing billions in the United States while the economy is doing well. MUST ACT QUICKLY, Trump wrote on Twitter. Time is of the essence! Barra was on a list of potential candidates to run as a vice president for Hillary Clinton, according to emails hacked from Clinton-campaign chair John Podesta and released by WikiLeaks. Its unclear if she was interested in the role. The United Auto Workers endorsed Clinton for president in 2016, discounting Trump after he advised automakers to run a tough bargain with the union. The union is one of the richest in the United States, with more than 1 million active and retired worker members. GMs plant in Lordstown has cut two of the three production shifts since 2017, which eliminated 3,000 jobs, citing the declining sales of compact cars in favor of SUVs. In November 2018, the company announced the planned closing of Lordstown and four other plants, and the laying-off of 15,000 workers. The plant stopped production March 6. The plant is the first of five GM plants slated to close this year. Lordstown was idle as the company determined its future, resulting in the loss of about 1,500 jobs. GM noted that more than 400 Lordstown employees have accepted offers at other GM locations, and reiterated that jobs are available at other assembly plants for anyone willing to relocate to other states. The 6.3-million-square foot Lordstown assembly complex has manufactured more than 16 million vehicles since it opened in 1966, including almost 2 million Chevrolet Cruze cars since 2010. Unions are seen as one of the main culprits for the colossal loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States before Trump took office. While early unions helped broker deals between workers and owners, most were eventually infiltrated and co-opted by far-left and communist elements. Under the premise of improving working conditions, the unions have inflated manufacturing costs. A study by the Heritage Foundation showed that the labor costs imposed by unions have made it hard for American carmakers to compete with Japanese brands. Unions function as labor cartels, restricting the number of workers in a company or industry to drive up the remaining workers wages, James Sherk, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a summary of the study. Over time, unions destroy jobs in the companies they organize and have the same effect on business investment as does a 33 percentage point corporate income tax increase. Reuters contributed to this report. President Donald Trump alongside senior advisor and daughter Ivanka Trump during the first meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board in the State Dining Room of the White House on March 6, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Trumps Higher Education Reform Proposes Faster Loan Forgiveness, Expanded Pell Grants The administration of President Donald Trump released its priorities for higher education reform on March 18. Among about a dozen points, the outline proposes simplifying the options for Americans to set their student loan repayments as a percentage of their income. If they do so, undergraduates could get their loans forgiven sooner. It also proposes expanding Pell Grants student aid to certain short-term non-degree-bearing courses. The proposal (pdf) was released by the National Council for the American Worker, a cross-department body formed in July to reshape our education and job-training landscape so that it better meets the needs of American students, workers, and businesses. The council is headed by Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and senior adviser. 15-Year Forgiveness The federal government currently offers four income-based repayment plans ranging from less than 10 percent up to 20 percent of the borrowers discretionary income. Whatever is left after 20 to 25 years is forgiven. About 7 million borrowers are using the plans. Trump proposes one plan that would take 12.5 percent of the discretionary income and would forgive anything left after 15 years for undergraduate students. Under the new plan, some people would pay more every month, but the undergraduates would be eligible for forgiveness sooner. Americans owe nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt, up over 350 percent since 2003. Nearly 30 percent eventually default on their loans, according to the left-leaning Brookings Institution (pdf). College to Career Other parts of the proposal aim to make higher education more aligned with career opportunities. It calls on Congress to expand Pell Grant eligibility to include high-quality, short-term programs that provide students with a credential, certification, or license in a high-demand field. Currently, only courses leading to a degree and some certification courses are eligible for the grants. The Trump administration is the first in decades to focus heavily on the benefits of blue-collar jobs, many of which offer a solid wage, yet require less than degree-bearing post-secondary schooling. More Americans must be prepared for the jobs of tomorrow, and individuals returning to the classroom after years in the workforce need access to flexible, accelerated learning opportunities so they can support their family while securing the skills needed to excel, said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders in a March 18 statement. Unfortunately, many colleges and universities have not been providing Americans the education they need to succeed in a cost-effective manner. While the traditional four-year college route has been pushed by several previous administrations as the path du jour to career success, the growth in employer demand for degrees appears to have been overstated. In 1992, 37 percent of jobs required at least an associate college degree, while in 2020, that number was projected to reach 47 percent, according to a 2014 Georgetown Center study (pdf). However, less than 28 percent of jobs actually required a college degree at entry level, based on May 2016 data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To be able to service the cloud may require 18 months of post-secondary credentialing, not a four-year college degree, Ivanka Trump said in August. We also, in this country, have a great need for plumbers and electricians and welders, and these are occupations that are incredibly lucrative and in high demand. The American economy had 7.6 million job openings in January with more than 6.2 million unemployed Americans looking for jobs, not to mention the nearly 5.2 million whod like a job but havent sought one out recently. Shared Responsibility, Prior Learning The proposal suggests making post-secondary institutions that accept taxpayer money to share in the financial responsibility associated with student loans. Its not clear how such a system would work, but the proposal suggests it would target institutions [that] consistently fail to deliver the type of quality education that enables students successfully to repay Federal student loans. It would also require colleges to help students get credit for what they already know through the so-called prior learning assessments rather than charge students to repeat courses previously taken at another institution or to learn in a classroom what they already know. Limits on PLUS, Assisting Ex-Convicts The proposal also calls on colleges to help students limit their borrowing and for Congress to limit the PLUS loans used by graduate students and parents of students. These loans are currently only limited by the costs of college attendance. The administration is open to discussing how high the limits should be, an administration official told reporters in a March 18 teleconference. The document further proposes targeted Federal financial aid to prisoners eligible for release to improve employment outcomes and reduce recidivism. Bill by Summer Senate Education Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) voiced support for the administrations goals in a March 18 statement. I share the Administrations goals to make a college education worth it and to make it simpler to apply for federal student aid and pay back student loans. It is helpful to have these suggestions as I work with Senator Patty Murray, the senior Democrat on the education committee, to develop bipartisan recommendations so that we can report legislation to the full Senate before summer, Alexander said. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, didnt provide a comment on the proposal. Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a spokesperson of Rep. Bobby Scott promised to provide a comment by March 19. The Epoch Times regrets the error. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends a ceremony marking the 104th anniversary of Battle of Canakkale, also known as the Gallipoli Campaign, in Canakkale, Turkey, on March 18, 2019. (Cem Oksuz/Presidential Press Office/Handout via Reuters) Turkish President: Attackers Will Go Home In Caskets ANKARA, TurkeyPresident Tayyip Erdogan has described a mass shooting which killed 50 people at two New Zealand mosques as part of a wider attack on Turkey and threatened to send back in caskets anyone who tried to take the battle to Istanbul. Erdogan, who seeks to rally support for his Islamist-rooted AK Party in March 31 local elections, has invoked the New Zealand attack as evidence of global anti-Muslim sentiment. They are testing us from 16,500 km away, from New Zealand, with the messages they are giving from there. This isnt an individual act, this is organized, he said without elaborating. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on March 16 after a lone gunman killed 50 people at mosques in the city of Christchurch. At weekend election rallies, Erdogan showed video footage of the shootings, which the gunman had broadcast on Facebook, earning a rebuke from New Zealands foreign minister who said it could endanger New Zealanders abroad. Erdogan also displayed extracts from a manifesto posted online by the attacker and later taken down. He has said the gunman issued threats against Turkey and the president himself, and wanted to drive Turks from Turkeys northwestern, European region. Turkeys largest city, Istanbul, is split between Asia in the east of the Bosphorus, and Europe to the west. We have been here for 1,000 years and will be here until the apocalypse, God willing, Erdogan told a rally on March 18 commemorating the 1915 Gallipoli campaign, when Ottoman soldiers defeated British-led forces including Australian and New Zealand troops trying to seize the peninsula, a gateway to Istanbul. You will not turn Istanbul into Constantinople, he added, referring to the citys name under its Christian Byzantine rulers before it was conquered by Muslim Ottomans in 1453. Your grandparents came here and they returned in caskets, he said. Have no doubt we will send you back like your grandfathers. Erdogan was re-elected in 2018 with new powers, but his AK Party, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, battles for votes as the economy tips into recession after years of strong growth. He has cast the local elections as a matter of survival in the face of threats including Kurdish militants and attacks on Muslims such as the New Zealand shootings. Speaking after a meeting of New Zealands cabinet, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said he told his Turkish counterpart that Erdogans use of the footage in an election campaign was wrong. Anything of that nature that misrepresents this country, given that this was a non-New Zealand citizen, imperils the future and safety of the New Zealand people and our people abroad, and that is totally unfair, Peters said. A senior Turkish security source said Tarrant had entered Turkey twice in 2016for a week in March and for more than a month in September. Turkish authorities have begun investigating everything from hotel records to camera footage to try to ascertain the reason for his visits, the source said. Wyoming Cowboys fans display a poster after the championship game of the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament against the San Diego State Aztecs at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 14, 2015. (David Becker/Getty Images) Universitys Decision to Keep Controversial Cowboy Slogan Pays Off A decision from the University of Wyomings (UW) board of trustees to keep its schools cowboy slogan featured in a promotional video in July 2018 has paid offdespite around two dozen professors who claimed the slogan was sexist and xenophobic, among other criticisms. The colleges new marketing tagline, The World Needs More Cowboys encouraged students to be courageousregardless of their gender. The schools mascot is also a cowboy. UW President Laurie Nichols described the slogan as defining the inner spirit of curiosity and boldness that all who call themselves Cowboys and Cowgirls can identify withno matter their race or gender, or whether theyre students, employees, alumni or other supporters. Amid the criticisms and protests, the colleges board voted unanimously to move forward with the campaign, which has since reaped the benefits, including national awards. UWs bookstore sold out of T-shirts with the cowboy tagline in the first week they hit the shelves. The college, responding to demand, put the slogan on a range of other products and sold roughly 5,000 items in the first six months. Between July and December 2018, royalties were up $38,000 over the same period in 2017 as the school licensed 143 different products with the tagline to third-party vendors, The Wall Street Journal reported. During the protest, associate professor of kinesiology and health Christine Porter complained that the word cowboy invokes a white, macho, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, U.S.-born person according to Campus Reform. UWs Committee on Woman and People of Color reacted similarly, saying it risks casting UW as a place where only people who identify with white, male, and able-bodied connotations of cowboy belong. Communications professor Tracey Owens Patton also claimed what goes behind the term cowboy is erasure, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and genocide, reported the Journal. UW President Nichols later defended the slogan in the universitys magazine. She noted that the video has been viewed close to 400,000 times on the unpaid web platforms where they placed it. As the anthem video states, its not what you are that makes you a Cowboy or Cowgirl, but who you are, she wrote. We expect very positive results in the form of increased inquiries and enrollment of prospective studentsin addition to sales of The World Needs More Cowboys merchandise. UW Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications Chad Baldwin said in a 2018 statement that the response from the people of Wyoming had been overwhelmingly positive. It comes as President Donald Trump vowed on March 2 to sign an executive order that will require universities and colleges to protect free speech on campuses or risk losing federal research funds. UW student Jessie Leach, also a correspondent to Campus Reform told Fox & Friends last week that outrage culture on campuses was to blame. I was born and raised in Wyoming and Ive never once related the words cowboy with genocide, xenophobia, anything like that, she said. When they claim that this slogan is sexist and its xenophobiccowboys exist all over the world. But beyond that theyre completely missing the point. The point of the slogan is to say the world needs more people with the cowboy spirit, and thats the spirit of hard work, determination, self-reliance, and integrity. US Navy Veteran Detained in Iran Gets 10 Years in Prison, Lawyer Says A U.S. Navy veteran has been sentenced to 10 years in an Iranian prison, his familys lawyer said, after he was arrested last July while visiting an Iranian woman in the city of Mashhad. Michael White, 46, was convicted of two charges, insulting the countrys top leader and posting a private photograph publicly, in separate hearings on March 6 and March 9, according to the lawyer, Mark Zaid. The basis for the first charge is not yet clear. The second charge appears to have been leveled after White uploaded a picture of himself sitting with the woman, an Iranian national, Zaid said. Iranian authorities have not released details of the charges. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of Whites detention, but added that it could not provide additional information because of privacy considerations. We are aware of the detention of a U.S. citizen in Iran, a State Department official said. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad. Michael White, U.S. Navy veteran, sentenced to prison in Iran for 10 years CBS News https://t.co/SljbbZzavG pic.twitter.com/CSA1KXJPov readGlobalNEWS (@readglobalNEWS) March 17, 2019 The family learned of the sentence last week from the State Department, which in turn received the information from Swiss diplomats. The Swiss represent U.S. interests in Iran because the countries do not maintain diplomatic ties. White, a California native, served 13 years in the Navy. The family and the State Department are still trying to determine whether the charges are politically motivated or the result of a criminal prosecution, Zaid said. Its been very unclear, he added. Whites arrest has further strained the difficult relationship between the Trump administration and Iran, which worsened after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from an international agreement curbing Irans nuclear program and reimposed sanctions. The Iranian regime has imprisoned several other American citizens in recent years, including father-and-son Baquer and Siamak Namazi, and Xiyue Wang. All three were accused of espionage-related activities and have denied the allegations. The United Nations has condemned the prosecutions as unjust, and Trump has demanded that Iran release all U.S. citizens in custody. Since January, when Iran first confirmed Whites arrest, he has not been permitted to contact his family, Zaid said. His court-appointed lawyer for the two hearings did not speak English, Zaid said, adding that the family is working on hiring an Iranian lawyer to handle Whites appeal. By Joseph Ax The former head of the United Auto Workers' Fiat Chrysler department, Norwood Jewell, was charged by prosecutors in Detroit on Monday with conspiracy to violate the Labor Management Relations Act. Jewell is the latest former UAW or company official to be charged in the federal investigation alleging that starting in 2009 or earlier, millions of dollars were funneled from the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles training center to union officials to buy labor peace. Three former FCA executives and three former UAW officials have pleaded guilty, as has the widow of the prior head of the union's FCA unit. Jewell is in discussions with prosecutors toward "a fair and just resolution," of the case, his attorney, Michael Manley, said in a message. "We are confident that when the facts of the case come out as it relates to Mr. Jewell, his decades-long reputation of honorable service to members of the UAW will remain intact." Automakers and the UAW are gearing up for new labor negotiations this year. Contracts covering more than 150,000 U.S. hourly workers at General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler expire Sept. 15 and talks are expected to officially begin this summer. In a shot across the bow of auto executives, the UAW said last week it will increase strike pay for workers. The Department of Justice claims union leaders received credit cards and lavish gifts, including golf trips, designer clothing, furniture and jewelry, as part of a plan to keep senior UAW officials " fat, dumb, and happy," according to legal documents. Fiat Chrysler executives also took advantage of the scheme for their personal benefit. Al Iacobelli, who led U.S. labor relations for the automaker until June 2015, was charged with taking more than $1.2 million from the training center, buying a Ferrari and leasing a private jet. In August, he was sentenced to 5 1/2 years for his involvement in the misuse of training center funds. At a sentencing hearing in December, the government strongly hinted that its investigation is continuing and additional indictments may be coming. The fact that prosecutors filed charges against Jewell without going through a grand jury suggests that he's cooperating in order to get a more lenient sentence, said Peter Henning, law professor at Wayne State University and a former federal prosecutor. He said the allegation that FCA executives conspired with the company and the UAW, as well as with individual union officials, is a sign the government is looking for evidence of more systematic corruption. "When they start talking about the company and the union conspiring, that's more than just a few individuals," Henning said. "Whether they can ever prove that is a different issue." UAW officials have denied the scandal compromised collective bargaining agreements with Fiat Chrysler. "We have already implemented many reforms and enacted new policies to prevent any misuse of funds at the joint program centers from ever happening again," the UAW said in a statement Monday. For its part, the automaker also said it neither knew about nor sanctioned the illicit payments. "FCA US firmly restates that it was a victim of illegal conduct by certain rogue individuals who formerly held leadership roles at the National Training Center," an FCA spokeswoman said Monday. "The conduct of these individuals -- for their personal enrichment and neither at the direction nor for the benefit of the company -- had no impact on the collective bargaining process." Jewell joined an ongoing conspiracy in 2014 after his election as vice president of the union, the U.S. said in court papers Monday. As head of the union's FCA unit, he was a chairman of the National Training Center's Joint Activities Board and helped oversee payments from the center. He was also on the UAW's national negotiating committee for the last labor contract with FCA in 2015, the U.S. said. The U.S. alleges that Jewell used his National Training Center credit card, or authorized another official to use hers, to charge the costs of multiple expensive dinners at steakhouses in California and Michigan, with the center using FCA funds to pay the bills. Jewell charged $7,569.55 for one meal in January 2015 at LT's Prime Steakhouse in Palm Springs, California, the U.S. said. The case is U.S. v. Jewell, 19-cr-20146, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit). A North Carolina man accused of killing his wife was arrested Sunday on an Arizona interstate, authorities said, adding they will take a closer look at the death of the mans first wife more than a decade ago. Nash County, North Carolina, Sheriff Keith Stone said 57-year-old Rexford Lynn Keel Jr. was arrested during a traffic stop on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, by state troopers. Stone said a caller in Arizona tipped authorities that the suspect had been sighted on the interstate. Keel had a large amount of cash and a knife with him, Stone said, and the truck he was driving was searched. The News Observer reports Keel was captured 34 miles from the Mexico border. The Nash County Sheriffs Office said it obtained an arrest warrant Friday accusing Keel of murder in his wifes death. The mans 38-year-old wife, Diana Alejandra Keel, had gone missing on March 9. Her body was found days later in another North Carolina county and Stone said it appears she had died of multiple stab wounds. Investigators said Keel had fled in a pickup truck, launching a multiday manhunt. Stone said Sunday the woman had a 10-year-old son with her husband, as well as an 18-year-old daughter, according to the sheriff. My heart goes out to the son, 10 years old, thats without a mother today ... and to the 18 year old daughter thats trying to further her education. What a traumatic experience. What a sad experience this is, he said. The sheriff said the last person to report seeing her was a mail carrier who brought her a package shortly before she was reported missing. Stone also said that investigators would be taking a closer look at the circumstances surrounding the death of Keels first wife, which previously had been ruled accidental. Elizabeth Edwards Keel, 42, died at the couples home on Jan. 1, 2006, according to the sheriffs office. Were going to go back and look at the information ... Were going to talk with the district attorneys office. But definitely its something we need to be looking into, Stone told reporters Sunday when asked about Elizabeth Keels death. Matthew Lambert, who worked with Elizabeth Keel, told WRAL-TV that friends were surprised at the time that she had died in an apparent fall on some stairs. He described her as an outdoorsy person who liked to ride horses. A recent news release from the Nash County sheriffs office said Elizabeth Keels death was classified by a medical examiner at the time as accidental from blunt trauma to the head from falling and striking the front concrete steps of the family home. Keel was listed as being held Sunday in the Pima County, Arizona, jail. In a rare show of bipartisanship, the House unanimously passed new legislation this month to raise awareness about the health dangers of military burn pits. Thousands of veterans who worked on those massive open-air disposal sites, where garbage was disposed of and burned with fuel, in Iraq and Afghanistan say they have respiratory illnesses and cancer. The debris included everything from computer parts to insecticides. But the Department of Defense says there is not enough scientific evidence to link long-term illness to the burn pits. Officials admit smoke from burn pits could have short-term health problems. The Burn Pit Registry Enhancement Act would allow family members to access the registry to add cause of death and to also note if the death could be linked to exposure to burn pits. Currently, only living veterans and active service members can register . In her latest edition of "Matter of Fact," Soledad OBrien talked with with Bonnie Carroll, founder of Tragedy Assistance Program For Survivors, and Coleen Bowman, whose husband died of cancer after being exposed to burn pits. Bowman said a burn pit was located about a half-mile from where her husband Rob and his fellow soldiers slept at night. Multiple pits were located elsewhere nearby. Burning constantly, she said. The burn pits were used through 2010 at military bases, according to Stars and Stripes , an independent newspaper covering the military. Her husband was diagnosed in 2011 with a rare form of cancer. He died 18 months later. His doctor was smart enough to know right away that this was not genetics, Bowman said. This was caused by the environment. Other tests on her husband also confirmed environmental changes caused the cancer. Carroll said her organization is seeing such a dramatic increase in the number of families coming to us. Bowman said there are about 3.5 million service members who might have been affected by the burn pits. By next year, Bowman, who also works with Carroll at TAPS, estimates that the number of service members who die due to effects of the burn pits will surpass the number of service members who commit suicide. More than 170,000 service members are already part of the registry . Families of soldiers who have died are not eligible to register. Bowman said its important for her to be the voice for her husband and others who have died. If this is how God is going to take me, I want to be the pioneer of this, Bowman recalled her husband saying. It was the last gift of leadership he gave, she said. The announcement was made at an inauguration for its new Hoa Sen hot-dip galvanised steel pipe plant and to announce the successful deployment of its enterprise resource planning (ERP). Hoa Sen currently leads the domestic tole market, accounting for nearly 34% of the total galvanised tole and 18% of the steel pipe market share. In 2018, Vietnam's galvanised steel export volume reached 1.75 million tonnes, of which Hoa Sen's contributed the most at over 639,000 tonnes, accounting for nearly 37% of the total export. The groups products are present in more than 75 countries and territories, especially in markets requiring high standards of quality, such as the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Earlier, in February, Hoa Sen signed a contract to export 4,300 tonnes of tole worth roughly US$3.7 million to Mexico. Its newly-inaugurated 5.3ha factory is located in Phu My 1 Industrial Zone in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province. The VND500 billion plant has a design capacity of manufacturing and supplying 85,000 tonnes of high quality hot-dip galvanised steel pipes to the market per year. In addition to investment in technical improvements and the application of modern technology in production, after nearly two years piloting, Hoa Sen announced to officially put the ERP system into operation. With a network of a parent company, more than 10 factories and over 500 retail stores nationwide, the successful operation of ERP is expected to help the group improve its management efficiency and reduce operating costs. DOW Darla Cavins and her husband David are spreading the joys of reading throughout rural communities by setting up little libraries in various spots through her Heres To Reading movement. Reading is essential, Cavins said, as she spoke on what motivated her to set up the little libraries while preparing for Wednesdays grand opening of the little library at Dow Southern Baptist Church. With the grand opening of the Dow library, at Dow Baptists Church, this coming Wednesday, March 20, Cavins said shes excited to see her plans come to fruition, ensuring the operation of each library for the next 10 years. By placing these libraries the little libraries in Kane, Otterville, Grafton, Dow, Delhi, Fieldon and Elsah, Cavins said her aim is to help those in rural communities be able to access reading material closer to their homes. Support from the community has been incredible she added, with book donations numerous sources including Afterwords Books in Edwardsville, Jerseyvilles Friends of the Library and even some custom bookshelves from Jersey Community High School. Theyre all moving right along, Cavins said as she anticipates having other locations full open in just a matter of weeks. In addition to plenty of books for all readers, each shed is being prepared with desks, chairs, heating, cooling, electric and even wi-fi in some locations. Its taken a lot to get to this point and Im so appreciative of everyone who helped, she said. I wouldnt be able to do this if I didnt have peopling helping. Heres To Reading will be holding the grand opening of the Dow location at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at 24735 Dow Road. Once open the location will be open from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the first and third of each month and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month. For more on Heres To Reading follow them on Facebook or contact herestoreading@gmail.com. Reach Steven Spencer at 618-972-6790 or at steven.spencer@thetelegraph.com. BUNKER HILL The Bunker Hill Knife Club Knife show will be hosted from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, March 29 and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 30 at Julias Banquet Center, 101 East Gate Plaza in East Alton. Dealers from several states selling new factory and custom made knives and antique and collectible knives will be at the event. Coins and jewelry will also be for sale. EDWARDSVILLE The attorney for a Collinsville man still awaiting trial in the 2013 murder of Courtney Coats, of Alton, at the hands of her boyfriend, made arguments in court last week that details in the case dont match police reports. Brandon Chittum, 35, of Collinsville, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, dismembering a human body and concealment of a homicidal death of Coats, who went missing for 27 days in late 2013 before police found her body parts in trash bags along the Illinois River in Greene County. He has had several lawyers, and his case has been continued several times since 2013, but defense attorney Evelyn Lewis of St. Louis is challenging whether a Madison County Grand Jury was given the facts during a hearing shortly after the body was found. Chittum is suspected of being with Patrick A. Chase at the time of the murder at home in the 2500 block of College Avenue. He allegedly helped move and dispose of the body. Chittum claimed he killed the woman to put her out of her misery after she fell and suffered a head injury during an argument. Lewis is questioning whether Chittum actually helped move Coats and other details she claims do not match the police reports. Then Det. Jennifer Tierney testified before the grand jury as to both Chase and Chittum. They were both indicted on the same counts. Chase pleaded guilty in 2014. He may testify in Chittums trial, which is set for April 1. The state claims Chittum is guilty under the accountability theory, in that he was accountable for Chases actions. On Thursday Lewis was closely questioning former Alton Det. Jerry Cooley about an interview in which Chase tearfully told about the events of Nov. 23, 2013. She is claiming in court documents that Tierneys testimony does not exactly match the facts as recounted in police reports. Associate Judge Neil Schroeder is hearing the case. The hearing on Lewiss motion to dismiss the indictment is scheduled to continue Monday. Chittum has been held since 2013. While in the Madison County Jail, he was charged with aggravated battery to a corrections officer. He is now being held without bail. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 08:40 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8264006 1 Editorial #Editorial,corruption,Romahurmuziy,Politician,bribery-case,politics Free The arrest of United Development Party (PPP) chairman Muhammad Romy Romahurmuziy just a few weeks before the elections has surprised many. The event, however, is by no means shocking. Such scandals have become too familiar and the public now reacts not only with disgust, but also with a sense of helplessness, if not apathy, because another politician has been arrested for graft. Romy is not the first party leader (not even the first PPP boss!) to be charged with corruption. Prior to his arrest on Friday, the Corruption Court had convicted four political bigwigs: former Democratic Party leader Anas Urbaningrum, former Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) leader Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, former PPP leader Suryadharma Ali and former Golkar Party leader Setya Novanto. Romy, who was elected to replace Suryadharma following the latters arrest in 2014, has been accused of accepting bribes from civil servants to rig the promotion system at the Religious Affairs Ministry, which has long been considered one of the most corrupt institutions and is currently led by a PPP member. The scale of corruption in Romys case pales in comparison to those of Anas and Setya, who were convicted of rigging government projects worth millions of dollars. Romy has been accused of accepting a Rp 300 million (US$21,045) bribe. Having said that, there would be no excuse for Romy doing anything like that, if he is indeed guilty. He allegedly abused his power to enrich himself or others. The scandal has practically ended his political career and put the Islamic party, which has fared poorly in many political surveys, in an even more precarious position ahead of the April 17 elections. This is a classic story of a rising Indonesian politico. Indonesian politics is plagued with corruption. Some say greed for wealth and power is the root cause for it; others blame the high cost of elections. Whatever the answer is, it appears that the current political system was designed to create a cycle of corruption that is nearly impossible to break, or that it only attracts people who are incapable of suppressing their appetite for illicit money. No wonder that many Indonesians believe politics is inherently dirty and that it is just a matter of time before the antigraft body catches another politician. However, alas, we cannot afford to prolong such a defeatist attitude. Corruption has hijacked Indonesian democracy. It has stripped the nation of all the benefits that it could reap from a free election. It has been more than 20 years since the beginning of the Reform Era; we should never let political corruption be the norm. Romys fall from grace is regrettable. Like Anas, the 45-year-old was a promising young politician who many believed could bring about change in the country. His downfall, seen from another angle, is also a national tragedy. It is not impossible to break this cycle of corruption. We can start by reforming the campaign and political party financing system and punishing the parties nationalist or Islamist that keep electing corrupt leaders. A graft-free Indonesia should not merely be a utopian dream. Written by ACM *Strasbourg/CoE/Angelo Marcopolo/- Choosing to Reply to the First of 2 "Eurofora"s Questions (See also : ...), at a CoE's Video-Conference, about Whistle-Blowers' Freedom, World Famous pro-Human Rights/Democracy Dissident Edward Snowden, stressed that who Helps a Whistle-Blower, instead of Harassing him/her, is, in fact, "Not an Enemy, But a Friend" of the Country concerned. - In fact, by Leaving Abroad, "I Wanted to Ask the whole World : Where someone like me should Go ? Where am I Safe to Speak ?", he explained in his Reply to "Eurofora"s relevant Question (See Infra). - In that rare event, organized Today by the New CoE's Rapporteur on WhistleBlowers, vice-President of the French National Assembly, MEP Sylvain Waserman from Strasbourg, (Comp. also Waserman's relevant Statements to "EF", Yesterday, at : ...., etc), Snowden chose to adress mainly the 1st of 2 Questions that "Eurofora" had raised: Our 1st Question concerned, particularly, "WistleBlowers' Ability to continue to Speak on Fundamental Issues" (Individually and/or Collectively), and how to address, through a Socio-Political Struggle, the Fact that, in general, most WhistleBlowers are Threatened to become ..."Carbonized", by Harassment, Pressure and Attacks, shortly after they "come out" in Public at the Medias, Paying personaly a too Heavy price, with Hard Sacrifices for the sake of the General Interest Issue that they revealed, as a specialized and experienced NGO Representative had Earlier denounced, (preferring the Protective Secrecy of Anonymous Press "Sources", as far as she was concerned). ---------------------------------- - Snowden Replied that he Found "in there, an Interesting Question", "I think, about the WhistleBlowers' Ability to Speak", (choosing to Start Replying First by "Eurofora"s initial Query, among 3 Differend Participants in a row, who raised Various Issues). - "Interesting Question : How to Protect them ? What can we do ?", he Wondered. - "We certainly Can't, in the Current context (since 2013), in the USA, be able to Speak Freely to (Press) Reporters, (not) even about the most Serious Crimes, without being driven into either Prison, or Exile. And I think, that's a Tragic thing", he Denounced. - "I would like to say <>. But, unfortunately, I have very Little Evidence, to believe it's Different. Especially (judging by) the National Security Context", he bitterly noted. - "Quite famously, People Forget that I didn't choose to be in Russia", he reminded. - In fact, "I was on route from Hong Kong to Latin America, when the Secretary of State, then John Kerry, cancelled my Passport !" - This was done "as soon as they heard that I left, which Trapped me in Russia". - "Now, I could have simply appealed to Russia for Asylum Directly, but I did Not". - Simply "Because I Wanted to Ask the whole World !" , he significantly stressed, (concerning also the Global aspect of Internet Mass Surveillance that he Denounced). - Indeed: - "Where can someone like me, go ?" , Snowden wondered. - " Where am I Safe to Speak ?" - "We Revealed something like the Uniform Violation of the Rights of Every Man, Woman or Child, whose Communications pass through the Networks of the USA and its Allies", he reminded, as far as it concerns what is at stake. - So, "I Applied to over +20 Differend Countries, for Protection, including France and Germany". - "And, unfortunately, in Every case, they found a reason Not to accept the query", he denounced : - "In Many cases, because of <>, they said : <>. In other cases, it was : <>, which, of course, they knew it wasn't possible, because my Passport had been Cancelled", Snowden described bitterly. - "Even though they could, of course, have offered a Travel Document, (in order) to travel there, and, then, apply for Asylum, they were Not willing to do so". - "Now, I think we all Undestand the Political Dynamics that Lead to that Common Decision : What Country wants to ask for a Problem ?", he realistically noted. ------------------------ - "But, sometimes, if we don't take these problems, if we don't Willingly Accept these problems", (then), => "what we are allowing to happen, is that the Meaning of our Rights, the Protection afforded by our Commitment to the Ideal of Human Rights, is beginning to Shrink ! ", Snowden Warned. - "I think we all know, that, if I had (f.ex.) Belarussian, or Chinese, or North Korean Citizenship, and I had gone to the USA, (then) France and Germany would have Admitted me, they would have thrown me a Parade !", he joked critically.. - "Now, I understand that, and I am Not Angry about what happened. What happens to me is a very little problem of importance", he said modestly. >> - "But the (Wider) Dynamic, I think, Matters ! - "I don't ask Europe, any more to let me in. Although I still, very much, look Forward to the Day that I can Freely Travel to Europe, once again", Snowden acknowledged. => -"But, I do, very Strongly, Ask Europe, to Make Sure they are Well Prepared for the Next Case, like mine !", he urged. - "Because Admitting someone into your Country, and Protecting someone in your Country, who is Trying to Serve the Public Good", "Even if their Government - which might be a very Close Ally - Objects to it, if it makes them UnConfortable, it creates very Difficult Circumstances for them", => Nevertheless, " Admitting and Protecting a Whistle-Blower is Not a Hostile act. Not the act of an Ennemy" >>> On the Contrary, "It's an Act of a Friend !" , Edward Snowden Concluded. * Since, then, in fact, "You are Upholding a Grieved Country, (f.ex.) USA's Commitment to Protect Human Rights", "in a Situation where it's very Difficult for them, to do so (by) themselves. Because They are acting Emotionally, they are acting Irrationaly, they are Reacting Angry", he Explained, Realistically but Profoundly. - "Because We are All Humans, Governments are Comprised of Humans. We are All Embarassed. We may All make Bad Decisions in a Moment"... -------------- - "But, the Attorney General of the USA, who Charged me, with Crimes, ... by the time that he left the White House, said : - "I think that what Mr. Snowden did, was a Public Service. It was a Public Service !". He was referring to former US Attorney General Eric Holder, who, despite persisting to criticize Snowden's revelations, nevertheless, acknowledged, since 2016, that he had offered a "Public Service" to the Country, by opening a much needed "Debate", which led to adequate "Reforms". - "Now, we don't know how this Story is going to end, ... And, Honestly, it doesn't matter" so much, the most Famous WhistleBlower of the World, added modestly. - "But, if we don't Correct the (US) President, for the Next President. And we don't correct the President, for the Next Person After that, and the Next Person After that", ... => Then, "we shall find ourselves withOut WhistleBlowers, when we Need them the most !". - "Because Noone is going to be willing to Sacrifice themselves, for a Public that doesN't, any longer, represent the Ideals that such an individual is Trying to Protect", he Warned. -------------------------------------------------------- + Concluding that exceptional CoE's Video-Debate, the new Rapporteur of the PanEuropean Organisation for Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law, Strasbourg's Centrist MEP Sylvain Waserman, expessed his Wish to "Invite" Snowden here, in the foreseable Future, this time "in Safety". Such a move might be naturally made by Waserman, (who is also vice-President of France's National Assembly), most probably during the forcthcoming French Presidency of the CoE, i.e. between May and November 2019, when he intends to present his Report for Public Debate and Final Vote for Adoption by CoE's Parliamentary Assembly, as he told "Eurofora", (See : ...). ++ It's Interesting to note, also, in this regard, the fact that vice-President Waserman, almost at the same time, would like to give "an International Framework" to his Future Report, (according also to a Recent EU - CoE cooperation's Trend to use, more and more, Strasbourg's PanEuropean Organisation, and its Old and New, various Legal Conventions, often "Open for Signature and Ratification" also to 3rd Countries, from all over the World, particularly in some Key Areas, such as, f.ex., Protection of Private/Personal Data, Fight against Cyber-Crime, Constitutional Law and Human Rights, BioEthics, Children's protection and Struggle against Human Trafficking, etc), as he told "Eurofora" earlier Today. +++ In this Context, CoE's Rapporteur also told "Eurofora" that he would like to Meet, inter alia, with some Key Officials from the USA, etc. (../..) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Emily Wong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 16:03 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee829274f 3 Opinion Indonesia,digital,social-media,Internet,technology,ecommerce,online-shopping Free Its no secret Southeast Asians are avid internet users. There are some 415 million people spending their time on the Interweb at any given time in Southeast Asia, compared to 346 million in North America and 183 million in Western Europe, according to data compiled by Hootsuite and We are Social, both social media management and researchers. What is perhaps less known is that regions internet economy is largely being fuelled by Indonesias 150 million internet users, who spend an average of 8 hours and 36 minutes online every day connecting, discovering, shopping and ride sharing. Indonesia emerged as the global leader of online shopping with over 86 percent and 76 percent of internet users in Indonesia having made purchases on eCommerce and mCommerce platforms respectively. This is despite the relatively low penetration rate of 56 percent of the population using the internet, highlighting a massive potential for growth in the sector. Indonesians that do use the internet, also spend a substantial amount of time on it. They averaged 8 hours and 36 minutes online per day, much more than the global average of 6 hours and 42 minutes. Time spent on social media also surpassed the global average, Indonesians spent 3 hours and 26 minutes browsing social platforms, the fourth highest globally. In addition, Indonesian web surfers have also shown a demand for customization of their online experience by having the highest global adoption rate of ad blockers. This number jumped to 63 percent of Indonesian internet users, up from 50 percent last year. Advertisers hoping to engage with an Indonesian audience will need to move into private digital spaces like messaging apps to focus on creating meaningful connections through high-value conversations. As the digital landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, we have identified the key behaviours that will shape trends and developments in 2019. The 8 hours and 36 minutes spent online per day makes Indonesia the fifth most digitally active country behind the Philippines, Brazil, Thailand and Colombia. Of the total time spent online, nearly half of that (3 hours and 26 minutes) is spent on social media, with Indonesians most active on YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Its not even a stretch to say YouTube has become a well-entrenched habit and huge source of education among Indonesians. Every year, more Indonesians are heading to YouTube and spending more time on the platform once they get there. A 2017 study from research firm JakPat found tutorial channels were the most popular channel type for YouTube users, even more than those run by celebrities, influencers and entertainment studios. Unfortunately, not all platforms are growing at the same pace. Our quarterly estimates show that Facebooks monthly active users stayed flat even as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchats user numbers inched up. There are likely multiple reasons for the trend. People have more options than ever for staying in touch with friends and family, but beyond this were seeing a shift from public to private spaces, with users spending more time on messaging and less time sharing news on social. The result: The average engagement rate for video posts, photo posts and link posts on the platform fell steeply from a year ago. This apparent exhaustion is further reinforced by the fact that Indonesians have the highest global adoption rate (63 percent) of ad blockers. Indeed, consumers dont want more advertising channels. It is now crucial for smart brands to use messaging apps for more high-value conversations not just another channel for interrupting people. Online shopping is big business in Indonesia. E-commerce sites have been steadily climbing through the ranks over the course of the past year, and Alexas latest data puts Bukalapak and Tokopedia in the top 10 most visited websites. The country emerged as the global leader of online shopping with more than 86 percent of users having purchased a product or service online; improved social technologies is one of the drivers contributing to this growth. Social innovations like Instagrams shoppable posts, Facebooks marketplace and livestream shopping on WeChat are proving to be great for conversions. Successful brands are also going the extra mile to make shopping live, interactive, contextual and seamless even on mobile devices. All this McKinsey predicts will help Indonesias e-commerce market grow eight-fold to touch US$40 billion in 2022, with social commerce platforms bringing in an additional $25 billion. Brands that harness digital and social technologies will be at the forefront of this growth. *** The writer is senior marketing manager for Asia at Hootsuite. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fajar Hidayat (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest, wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations ( 1776 ). Smith conveyed an assumption that individuals interacting in the marketplace are driven by the pursuit of rational self-interest. It does not mean that individuals are not concerned about others or cannot act generously, but their central motive a concern about the costs and benefits for themselves. Self-interest assumption is used in economics to analyze human interactions not only in private markets, but then also in other areas, including politics. In 1957, economist Anthony Downs introduced the theory of rational choice to explain individuals participation in politics. Another economist, James M. Buchanan, was the architect of public-choice theory since Calculus of Consent ( 1962 ), a book he coauthored with Gordon Tullock. Economic theory on politics challenges the belief that politics runs merely based on ideology or ideas. Instead, it argues that self-interest explains the inner workings of a political system akin to the market mechanism. The theory uses equal assumption about human behavior in private and public setting and replaces romantic and illusionary beliefs about politics with more realistic ones. Individuals act within their own self-interest, and hence voters, politicians and public officials use self-interest to influence and make collective choices. Buchanan labeled the approach politics without romance. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hengky Ola Sura (The Jakarta Post) Flores, East Nusa Tenggara Mon, March 18, 2019 07:10 999 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8261cce 1 Food sorghum,East-Nusa-Tenggara,food,farmer,farming,Flores,StapleFood Free In the 1970s, sorghum grain was easily found and widely consumed in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). The constant heat and low rainfall in the area allowed the plant to flourish, making it one of the staple foods in the area. Rich in carbohydrates, the plant was also able to adapt to changing climate conditions. But as residents turned to rice within the next three decades, it was swept aside. Maria Loretha recalled the time she was introduced to sorghum in 2007 by her neighbor, Maria Helan. It came on a plate, steamed and sprinkled with grated coconut. It was unbelievably good, she said. At the time, she and her husband, Jeremias Letor, lived in Java. Upon coming back to Jeremias hometown of Adonara in East Flores, also in NTT, she decided to develop sorghum and bring it back to its heyday. The struggle began in their own field. Armed with seeds given to her by her neighbor, Loretha sought for more information on sorghum. Eventually, she received red-skinned and black-skinned sorghum seeds from various places in NTT further proof that sorghum has been widely consumed on the island. Read also: Healthy white rice may soon be on the menu Loretha then faced another obstacle as farmers were skeptical about her intentions. She reminded herself of the fact that almost 80 percent of NTTs residents were farmers and how every year, they would be devastated by drought. She believed that sorghum would give them food sovereignty. Supported by her husband and the Larantuka Catholic diocese, Lorethas efforts slowly but surely began to bear fruit. Farmer groups in Adonara, Detusoko, Lembata and Timor Island began to seriously cultivate sorghum. Harvesting sorghum in Kota Baru, Ende, East Nusa Tenggara. (JP/Ebit Wangge) Pastor Benyamin Daud PR of the Larantuka diocese, who is also Economy and Social Development Foundation (Yaspensel) director, said sorghum could be found from the eastern part of Flores to Manggarai regency. He explained that initially, the sorghum movement interfered with a government program for rice, maize and soybean production dubbed Pajale. Fortunately, sorghum was later included in program, expanding its acronym to Pajaleso. The sorghum movement ultimately gained the attention of the Agriculture Ministrys Agricultural Research and Development Agency (Balitbangtan), the Cereal Research Agency of Maros, South Sulawesi, the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry and Office of the Presidential Staff. In this years planting season, a portion of the state budget will be allocated to a 250-hectare area for a sorghum development program in East Flores. The budget will be managed by farmer groups formed by the East Flores Farming Agency. Our aim is to have a healthy society with sorghum, improving our nutrition and overcoming stunting, Benyamin said. We try to promote the fact that sorghum is nourishing and that with a healthy community, the economy will improve. (wng) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stevie Emilia (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 20:48 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee828186a 1 Art & Culture #art,#artist,#awards,#Indonesia,#HongKong,#Andy-Dewantoro,#Sovereign-Asian-Art-Prize,#exhibition,#contemporary,#contemporary-art Free Indonesian artist Andy Dewantoro was named a top 30 finalist for the 2019 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, the 15th edition of Asias most prestigious prize for contemporary artists. Andy made it onto the list for his 2017s work, The Other Way, a captivating oil-on-canvas piece that plays on the contrast between dark and light, emphasizing that if theres light, theres hope. Im happy I get onto the finalists list, he told The Jakarta Post through a messaging app on Sunday from Belgium where he is on a work trip. In contrast: Andy Dewantoro's 'The Other Way' emphasizes that if theres light, theres hope. (Courtesy of Andy Dewantoro/-) Through his work, Andy said he was trying to underline how the light was unknown without the presence of darkness. We are accustomed to the doctrine of darkness being the opposite of light. The fact is, light has no value without darkness and it works the other way around. Light is a solution to life in reaching hope, and darkness is the drive to a spirit in finding the light, the 46-year-old said. Andy, who studied interior design at the Bandung Institute of Technology in West Java, is not a new name in Indonesias art scene, having taken part in many exhibitions, both at home and abroad, including in England, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Romania, Singapore, South Korea and the Netherlands. The artist explained that his interest in landscape derived from his own want to communicate his thoughts and emotions through the language he knows best: art. Driven by a myriad of thoughts, sentiments and memories, all churned together, his landscape painting delves into the emptiness of modern art evolution, reflecting an urban dilemma or worrying over human living spaces in a modern world. In 2007, he said towns, downtowns, highways, abandoned buildings began to emerge in his works, inspired by his personal photographs, magazines, the internet and even movies. The bigger canvas I paint on, the more details and forms began to speak and represent my thoughts, Andy says. The prizes 30 finalists were nominated by over 70 independent art professionals mostly art critics, lecturers and independent curators who work closely with artists in their respective regions. This year, the Sovereign Art Foundation (SAF), which announced the list of finalists on March 14, disclosed that 400 mid-career artists from 28 countries were nominated for the prize. SAF, a charity founded in 2003 in Hong Kong, organizes the prize annually with the purpose of raising money to help disadvantaged children. The entries were then shortlisted by an international panel of world-class art specialists, including writer, curator and museum director David Elliott; arts editor of the Financial Times Jan Dalley; Mami Kataoka, deputy director and chief curator at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Hong Kong architect, artist and educator William Lim; and internationally renowned artist Zhang Huan. The 30 finalists 18 men and 12 women represent 19 countries, making it the most geographically diverse shortlist in the prizes history. The selected artists represent cutting-edge contemporary art practices from the countries in which they reside, with their artwork exploring a wide range of subject matters, from identity, cultural heritage and diaspora to urban development and the spatial rhythms of modern cities. This must be one of the most diverse manifestations of art from Asia. As many of these artists are still emerging on the international scene, it is a great opportunity to discover their work," said Elliott, who chairs the judging panel. The 30 shortlisted artworks will be displayed in Hong Kong in two places: in the historic Central Magistracy building on April 6 to 14 and later at the HART Hall from April 17 to 29. This year also sees the launch of The Vogue Hong Kong Womens Art Prize, to be presented in partnership with the newly launched Vogue Hong Kong, which will award US$5,000 to the highest scoring female artist in the competition (except for the Grand Prize Winner). The Grand Prize and Public Vote Prize winning artists, to be awarded $30,000 and $1,000 respectively, will be announced along with the winner of the Vogue Hong Kong Womens Art Prize at The Sovereign Art Foundations gala dinner and auction on May 17. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Shamim Adam (Bloomberg) Mon, March 18, 2019 11:32 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee826f1f1 2 People Milo-Yiannopoulos,commentator,Australia,New-Zealand,shooting,New-Zealand-shooting,travel Free Australia said conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos wont be allowed to enter the country for a tour this year after his comments on the mass shooting in New Zealand. The alt-right provocateur and former Breitbart journalist said on Facebook that attacks such as the one in Christchurch happened because the establishment panders to and mollycoddles extremist leftism and barbaric, alien religious cultures. A shooter walked into a packed mosque in the South Island city of Christchurch on Friday afternoon and opened fire on worshipers, filming and live-streaming the act to social media. He drove to another mosque and continued the massacre, killing 50 people and leaving several still fighting for their lives. Yiannopoulos comments on social media regarding the Christchurch terror attack are appalling and foment hatred and division, David Coleman, Australias minister for immigration, citizenship and multicultural affairs, said in a statement. The terrorist attack in Christchurch was carried out on Muslims peacefully practicing their religion. It was an act of pure evil. Read also: Social media firms under scrutiny over New Zealand shooting footage Provocateur unrepentant Yiannopoulos defended his comments after the ban was announced. I explicitly denounced violence, he said. And I criticized the establishment for pandering to Islamic fundamentalism. So Australia banned me again. Twitter banned Yiannopoulos, who is British but has lived in the U.S., from its platform in 2016. Earlier this month, he was granted permission to visit Australia for a speaking tour that would take place before an election in May, the Australian Associated Press reported. His trip there in December 2017 sparked violence after opposing protesters clashed outside a venue where he was speaking, the report said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Reuters) London, United Kingdom Mon, March 18, 2019 19:09 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee828017b 2 People Prince-William,Kate-Middleton,Duchess-of-Cambridge,Britain,royals,St-Patricks-Day,London Free Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate kicked off St Patrick's Day celebrations in London on Sunday as they observed a parade of the 1st Battalion Irish Guards and Kate presented a shamrock to its officers. From Galway to New York, events are being held across countries with parades and parties to mark Ireland's National Day, when revellers traditionally dress in green. Donning a dark green coat, Kate also greeted a tall Irish wolfhound and mascot Domhnall while William, dressed in full military attire, took the salute during a march past. William, the grandson of Britain's Queen Elizabeth and second in line to the throne, is colonel of the Irish Guards, a regiment of the British army. The couple will later meet members of the regiment and attend a lunch. Events will be held across London to celebrate the day. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Beh Lih Yi (Reuters) Singapore Mon, March 18, 2019 22:02 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8283d94 2 People Singapore,migrants,migrant-workers,poetry,poet,poetry-book Free In dorms on Singapore's fringes or employers' backrooms, a growing number of migrant workers are using poetry to shed light on their hidden struggles and reconnect with their roots. The tiny Southeast Asian nation of 5.6 million counts on a about 1 million migrant workers from countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and Myanmar to fuel its powerhouse economy, working in sectors from construction to services and home help. Although horrific labor abuse cases are rare in the rich city-state, campaigners say migrants grapple with unpaid salaries, having their travel documents withheld and massive debts racked up in fees they pay agents to get work. Often tucked away in dormitories for foreign workers and only seen in public on Sundays, their day off, scores of migrants are writing poetry and short stories offering a rare insight into their little known worlds. "When I write, I am happy. When people read our work and accept us as human beings, we are happy," Indonesian domestic worker Deni Apriyani told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Hailing from a sleepy village in Indonesia, 29-year-old Apriyani moved to Singapore in 2013 to become a domestic worker as she wanted to buy land for her father, a farmer, back home. Working from dawn to dusk looking after an expatriate family, she started writing poetry on her mobile phone at the end of her 14-hour work day as an outlet for her frustration as she struggled to adjust to life in the new city. Softly-spoken Apriyani won a poetry writing competition for migrants in 2017 and one of her poems was published in a book last year that brought together more than 60 works by Singaporean writers and migrant workers. "You call them sluts, you call them useless, you call them shameful, but did you know the stories behind them?" she asked in the poem "Murderers", which highlighted the stigma facing migrant workers who try to find love in the city. Read also: Poetry sales rise thanks to millennials in search of meaning, clarity Award-winning The growing focus on writing by migrant workers began about five years ago with poetry contests organised by advocates that aimed to use literature to break down barriers between foreign workers and Singaporean society. These competitions have now branched out to other parts of Asia which also rely heavily on migrant workers, including Malaysia and Taiwan. In Singapore, their poems are found in bookshops and public libraries, with Bangladeshi construction worker Md Sharif Uddin's Stranger to Myself winning best non-fiction title at the prestigious Singapore Books Awards last year. Stories of migrant workers are also gaining attention in other artistic formats. A Land Imagined, an award-winning film about low-paid migrants in Singapore, was released domestically last month, with local critics hailing it as a "historic milestone in Singapore cinema". Singaporean author and poet Jamal Ismail said migrants' unique experiences and work have enriched the island's literary scene. "They might not write beautifully but there is an abundance of humanism in them," he said, during a workshop where he offered guidance to a group of migrant poets. He recounted how he was struck by a poem by a migrant domestic worker who likened her life in the city to that of a cockroach, and another who told him she had not been paid for six months. "They are marginalized and they feel lonely. When you're lonely, that is when you reflect on what is the meaning of life? That is something they have that is so powerful," he said. Singapore's government maintains migrant workers are well protected, and the country remains a popular destination for foreign laborers as they generally enjoy higher wages than in other parts of the region. Sales of migrant workers' books are low compared to more mainstream writers, but local publishers said their potential is enormous. "They really struck a chord and there was empathy," said Ng Kah Gay from Singapore's Ethos Books, which in 2016 published Me Migrant, the city-state's first book by a migrant laborer, Bangladesh's Md Mukul Hossine, with 3,000 copies sold to date. "Migrant workers are someone whom we're so familiar with but sometimes we don't see them, they are invisible. These books flesh out their lives for us to experience, their emotions." "It's so important for them to be seen not just as an economic machine but they have their own voice," Ng said. Goh Eck Kheng from Landmark Books, which has sold 700 copies Uddin's award-winning Stranger to Myself in two print runs so far, said literature gave migrant and local writers a platform to embrace each others' work. "In that way, literature is a social leveler," Goh said. Read also: Poet Aan Mansyur highlights the power of language at Cultural Congress 'Freedom of thought' Translation is the main hurdle for the work of migrant poets to flourish according to Shivaji Das, an Indian-born writer who works in Singapore and has been organizing the annual migrant poetry writing competitions since 2014. Scribbling on cement bags or tapping on their mobile phones after nightfall, workers usually write in native languages like Bengali, Indonesian or Chinese before their work is translated. Publishers said migrant workers also have to compete for attention with a pool of emerging local and foreign writers. But for many of the workers, writing merely is a way to ease their homesickness and document their lives in a different city - as well as a form of empowerment. Fazley Elahi, a Bangladeshi worker who writes poems and set up Migrant Library Singapore a year ago, said reading and writing in his native language reconnects him to his roots after living away from home for a decade. Manned by volunteers, the library has a collection of about 800 books in different languages that are common among migrant workers such as Bengali, Indonesian, Tagalog and Chinese. It also holds writing workshops for aspiring writers and runs a mobile library project that goes to workers' dorms. In poetry, says Elahi, there are no limits to what he can say which gives him a sense of liberation. "It is the freedom of thought that we treasure," said the 30-year-old. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Wellington, New Zealand Mon, March 18, 2019 13:09 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8270ea1 2 Science & Tech livestream,New-Zealand,attack,social-media Free New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Sunday said she would be looking for answers from Facebook and other social media firms about how an attack that killed 50 mosque-goers was livestreamed on their platforms. Saying there were "further questions to be answered" by the tech giants, Ardern said Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg had been in contact and "acknowledged what has occurred here in New Zealand". A horrific video shot by the gunmen who carried out the mosque massacre was livestreamed on Facebook before being removed by the company. But the stream, lasting 17 minutes, was shared repeatedly on YouTube and Twitter, and internet platforms were scrambling to remove videos being reposted of the gruesome scenes. "We did as much as we could to remove, or seek to have removed, some of the footage that was being circulated in the aftermath of this terrorist attack," Ardern said. "But ultimately it has been up to those platforms to facilitate their removal." "I do think that there are further questions to be answered." Read also: Social media firms under scrutiny over New Zealand shooting footage In a statement on Sunday, Mia Garlick of Facebook New Zealand vowed to "work around the clock to remove violating content". "In the first 24 hours we removed 1.5 million videos of the attack globally, of which over 1.2 million were blocked at upload," the company said. Ardern was joined by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in expressing doubts that current rules go far enough. Morrison said that social media companies had "co-operated" since the attack. "But I sadly have to say that the capacity to actually assist fully is very limited on the technology side." He said "assurances were given" that once such content was pulled down, a regime would make sure it did not go back up. "Clearly it hasn't (happened)." "So I think there are some very real discussions that have to be had about how these facilities and capabilities as they exist on social media, can continue to be offered." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin R. Berto Wedhatama (The Jakarta Post) San Francisco, United States Mon, March 18, 2019 17:43 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee827c943 1 Science & Tech Samsung,gadget,artifical-intelligence,camera,galaxy-S10-series,South-Korea,smartphone,smart-home-device Free The Galaxy S10 Plus smartphone might be the perfect gadget for people who like to take photos for personal enjoyment and pleasure without having to carry large and expensive cameras. The smartphone comes with five different cameras, with three of them set in the rear. The main camera is a 12MP with a 1/2.55-inch sensor of 1.4um pixels and an f/1.5-2.4 lens. It has dual pixel PDAF and optical image stabilization (OIS) features, which produces less blurry images and smoother videos. The second is also a 12MP with a 1/2.6-inch sensor of 1um pixel. It serves telephoto purposes with a 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom capacity for long-range objects through a 52mm-f/2.4 lens as well as autofocus and OIS features. The third is 16MP with a 12mm ultra-wide-angle f/2.2 lens. On the front area, the smartphone features 10MP and 8MP cameras, both functioning as a depth sensor to secure a better depth of field. The front and rear cameras are capable of making video recordings of ultra high definition (UHD) quality, whereas the rear cameras are able to produce video recordings of up to the range of HDR 10+. Apart from the capacity to produce the best photos in a bright condition, the smartphone also displays prime performance under minimal lighting, thanks to the dual-pixel feature of its wide angle lenses along with two aperture openings, which make adjustments to lighting conditions in surrounding areas. Light up the night: The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus camera is able to capture details even under low light conditions. (JP/R. Berto Wedhatama) The Galaxy S10 Plus has also complemented its cameras with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) features, such as Scene Optimizer for greater accuracy in picture processing, Shot Suggestion for automatic composition recommendations for picture framing and Smart Composition. There is also the live focus feature that comes with the ability to enhance blur, monotone light, zoom and spin effects to create more artistic and dramatic photos. The plethora of camera features of the S10 Plus considerably helps photography hobbyists who want to take gorgeous pictures without having to learn the basics of photography. Casual users can easily operate cameras, even much more easily than maneuvering pocket cameras, which are already out of date. Just get the smartphone ready, choose the object to be taken, wait for the right moment, set the features wanted and then snap. A great, well composed photo is thus produced and if desired, it can be edited through the editing application. After editing, users can share the photo on their social media pages or directly to families, friends or even colleagues. For professional photographers, however, the Galaxy S10 Plus cameras are still not enough to replace expertise, experience and a set of professional cameras. (hdt) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Connor Foley (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 15:22 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee82749f0 1 Lifestyle #life,#children,#youth,#skating,#Skateboarding,#skateboard,#TimorLeste,#Dili,#Timor-Skate Free Taking falls, facing obstacles and making the most of a situation can be an everyday affair for young people in Timor Leste, but its growing skating scene is giving these things a whole new meaning. Skateboarding first emerged in the outskirts of Dili a little more than 10 years ago when a group of local skaters drawing on passion more than experience built their own skate park that has since become the heart of the rising trend. Still the only skate park in all of Timor Leste, years of vigorous use have left it dangerous and unpredictable. Yet broken boards and cracked concrete have done nothing to weaken the skaters resolve. All smiles: A young skater poses at the worn-down Dili skate park. (Courtesy of Timor Skate Inc./-) Dili skater Azefio Da Costa De Jesus says that although skating is still a new phenomenon for the community, he hopes to share knowledge through skateboarding and show people how to use it in the right way. Timor Leste is a new and under-developed nation so there is only one skate park in the whole country, the 20-year-old told The Jakarta Post over the phone from Dili. "Its condition is damaged because it has many holes and the space is too narrow to skate." He says it is unacceptable when compared to the skate parks in other countries and hopes that facilities can improve in the future for the scene to truly thrive. My dream is if the skate park in Dili could look as good as in neighboring countries [] and build skate parks in the whole country in order to involve many people, he said. Happy: One of Timor Lestes youngest skaters poses at the park in Dili. (Courtesy of Timor Skate Inc./-) A Melbourne-based organization, Timor Skate Inc., is now working to give Timors skaters the park they truly deserve. A planned redevelopment of the park done in collaboration with the Ba Futuru organization that houses the existing park would allow the locals to skate on a facility that is at an international standard. It would give the already passionate and skilled skaters a place to further their craft and strengthen a culture embodied by freedom, creativity and a do-it-yourself attitude something they are very much looking forward to. While opening the door for skating prospects, it would also provide a creative and physical outlet for all young people, who despite making up over 60 percent of the population, severely lack education and employment opportunities. Over 40 percent of Timor Lestes population currently lives under the poverty line and only 20 percent of preschool-aged children are reportedly enrolled in school. A median age of less than 19 years means responsibility is largely placed on the youth to promote positivity and change throughout Timor Lestes communities. Timor Skate Inc. president Nick Oats, who has made a number of recent visits to observe their skating scene and way of life, said it offers inspiration and encouragement for people who are offered little else. For the youth in general in Timor there are limited opportunities, be it education, employment or recreational activities, he said. In terms of a positive, creative, adrenaline-fueled activity that you can do, skateboarding is fantastic. It helps build resilience, build communities and is the kind of outlet of energy that might otherwise go to less constructive purposes. With personnel who all come from skateboarding backgrounds or have directly benefited from skating, skatings positive influence is something the people at Timor Skate can relate to firsthand. They recently hosted a fundraiser in collaboration with Decks for Change at Melbournes punk-renowned Reverence Hotel. The bar was filled with skate and music fans alike and featured performances from up-and-coming and established talents from across Australias music scene. The gig was a testament to the deep connection between skateboarding and music, in particular punk rock and its offshoots. The event raised more than US$2,000 and displayed the draft design of the skate park, which was made in partnership with some of Dilis own diehard skaters. The organizations vice president Wade Trevean, who has helped create more than 120 skate parks around the world in countries such as Nepal, Palestine and Iraq, believes skating has a unique ability to break barriers and encourage all kinds of people to participate. I have witnessed the young and old, the rich and poor, male and females, along with people of differing cultural and religious backgrounds, all harmoniously populate their facility, Trevean says. This is all created through a space that doesnt have a script, rules, deterring fences or costs to participate. (ste) --The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post South African Open hosted by the City of Johannesburg Randpark GC, Johannesburg, South Africa Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tom Westbrook and Alex Fraser (Reuters) Sydney/London Mon, March 18, 2019 14:01 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8271d56 2 Environment student,strike,global-strike,environment,climate,protest,Greta-Thunberg,Sweden,Paris,Madrid,rome,Brussels Free Tens of thousands of school students around the world walked out of classes on Friday in a global strike to protest against government inaction on climate change. "Climate change is worse than Voldemort," read a handmade sign carried by one student in Wellington, referring to the evil wizard in the hugely popular Harry Potter books and films. "The oceans are rising, so are we," read another in Sydney. In Europe, students packed streets and squares in Paris, Madrid, Rome, Brussels and other cities for "Fridays for Future" protests. Demonstrations also took place across the United States. In Washington, some 1,500 students rallied in front of the Capitol chanting "climate action now!" and waving homemade placards with slogans such as "Our planet, our future." The worldwide student strike movement started in August 2018, when 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg began protesting outside her parliament on school days. She has since been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. On Friday, she spoke at a Stockholm demonstration. Other rallies were held in 100 towns around Sweden. "We have only been born into this world, we are going to have to live with this crisis our whole lives. So will our children and grandchildren and coming generations," Thunberg said. "We are not going to accept this. We are striking because we want a future and we are going to carry on." Thousands marched through central London with banners reading "The future is in our hands" and "We're missing lessons to teach you one". "Education is important but climate change is more important," 14-year-old Molly Powell said. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted his support on Friday evening. "Young people can, and do, change the world," he said. "You understand we are in a race for your lives; your commitment & activism makes me confident we will win it." Read also: New Zealand students walk out of class, kicking off global strike "Climate catastrophe" Scientists say fossil fuel use releases greenhouse gases that trap heat and lift global temperatures, bringing more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels. The 2015 Paris climate conference pledge to keep the increase in global average temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (35 F) above pre-industrial levels requires a radical cutback in use of coal and fossil fuels. In Dusseldorf, Germany, some 2,000 schoolchildren paraded with a carnival float depicting a giant effigy of Thunberg with "Do something about the climate catastrophe at last" written on her raised arms. They stopped around the city, home to the headquarters of many of Germany's largest manufacturers, reading out calls for change. "The clock is ticking and time is against us!" they shouted. "We are the last generation that can fix this." About 60 students protested at government house in Bangkok, holding cardboard signs to campaign against plastic. Thailand is one of the world's worst marine plastic polluters. "As youths who will inherit the land, we gather here to demand that the government work with us to solve these problems," said 17-year-old Thiti Usanakul, of student-led group Grin Green International. The group was later invited to meet officials at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in two weeks. There were also demonstrations in South Korea, India and South Africa. In Singapore, where strict laws regulate public assembly, young people planned a virtual campaign on social media. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern supported the strikes, saying teenagers should not wait for voting age to use their voices. That contrasted with politicians in Australia and Britain, who rebuked them for missing lessons. "For action on issues that they think is important, they should do that after school or on weekends," said Dan Tehan, Australia's education minister. Wellington parent Alex, who marched beside his 11-year-old son, disagreed: "It's a much better day of education. This is the greatest issue of our time." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Tue, March 19, 2019 01:06 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8285613 2 Entertainment Lilly-Singh,YouTube,television,late-night-shows Free Major television channel NBC has tapped YouTube star Lilly Singh to helm a late-night talk show, making the Canadian the first woman to host on a US broadcast network in more than three decades. The evening talk shows have been a mainstay of American television for more than half-a-century -- but their hosts are generally white men. The late comedian Joan Rivers did host her own show from 1986 to 1988 on Fox, but that channel -- unlike competitors ABC, CBS and NBC -- is not known for its late-night talk programming and no longer uses the format. Comedian Samantha Bee also hosts her own evening satire news show entitled "Full Frontal," but it airs on the cable channel TBS and has a much smaller audience than the four national broadcast networks. Singh, 30, will take over the last of NBC's three slots that is currently hosted by Carson Daly and begins at 1:35 am EST. Read also: YouTube's PewDiePie 'sickened' by New Zealand mosque gunman's namedrop A Canadian born to Indian parents, Singh gained fame for her YouTube channel "Superwoman," launched in 2010, which today boasts 14.5 million subscribers and nearly three billion total views. She announced her new gig as host of "A Little Late with Lilly Singh" as a guest on NBC's "The Tonight Show, the network's most-watched late-night program that's hosted by Jimmy Fallon. It will be "kind of like my YouTube channel," she said, adding that "I think it's a little awesome for an Indian Canadian woman to be on a late-night show." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Mon, March 18 2019 About 155 houses in Sibolga, North Sumatra, were damaged and some destroyed by a bomb that exploded on Wednesday, according to Sibolga Mayor Syarfi Hutauruk. The bomb was apparently detonated by Solimah, the wife of suspected terrorist Abu Hamzah aka Husein, while the police were try to persuade her to surrender following Huseins arrest. You can imagine how powerful the bomb was if it could [affect] 155 houses. Luckily, the National Polices Densus 88 counterterrorism squad had already evacuated residents before the explosion, Syarfi said on Sunday. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login The Jaya Sampit Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) in East Kotawaringin regency, Central Kalimantan, has been trying to capture a runaway bear, which is still at large as of Sunday. The agency suspect that it is a sun bear and was a residents pet. It was first spotted by the residents of a housing complex. [We searched] for the dog-sized bear in bushes close to the housing complex but we did not find it, chief patrol officer Muriansyah told tempo.com on Sunday. The BKSDA has set up a trap filled with cempedak (a fruit similar to jackfruit) in a bid to capture it, but as of Sunday the bear is still on the run. However, Muriansyah emphasized that the bear would not be harmed if captured. The agencys officers have also gone door-to-door to spread information about the animal, warning them not to kill it on sight. "If [any of you] see the bear, please report it immediately to us, Muriansyah added. Currently, the agency has widened the search to include neighboring residential areas. (mai/evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Mon, March 18 2019 Muhadjir Darwin (UGM.ac.id) In the wake of a case of an alleged sexual assault against a Gadjah Mada University (UGM) student known by the pseudonym Agni, the university has set up a team tasked to draft a comprehensive rectors regulation for the prevention of such assaults in the future. Muhadjir Darwin, chairperson of the drafting team for the UGM Rectors Regulation on the Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence, recently spoke with The Jakarta Posts Bambang Muryanto about the matter. Question: How is the drafting of the rectors regulation progressing? to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 21:08 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8282ed6 1 National Presidential-Debate,Maruf-Amin,Sandiaga-Uno,healthcare,BPJS,BPJS-Kesehatan,deficit,YLKI Free In what has become a pattern for this years series of presidential election debates, observers and activists have expressed their disappointment with the lack of attention that many key healthcare, education, manpower, and sociocultural issues received. But Sunday nights vice presidential debate between President Joko Jokowi Widodos running mate Maruf Amin and Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subiantos running mate Sandiaga Uno proved doubly disappointing for many, largely due to the lack of any actual debating on display. Last nights debate was not very satisfying, education expert Doni Koesoema said in a discussion held by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Central Jakarta on Monday. There was no real exchange of arguments, only clarifications, discussions and monologues. It was not very educational. University of Indonesia social analyst Devie Rahmawati agreed, saying that both vice presidential candidates seemed more concerned with projecting a polite and Islamic image than with pitting their policies against each other. [Maruf and Sandiaga] both used the debate more to present an attractive persona that might win over some of the voters that theyre after, she said. Doni added that while some new ideas had been put forward, most of the policies and proposals mentioned in the debate were old and recycled. Some of the ideas are very old and should have been developed further, he said. He pointed to the back-and-forth between Maruf and Sandiaga about research and development at the beginning of the debate. Both candidates talked a lot about increasing the budget for research, and while that is needed, it doesnt really address the root of the problem, he said. The problem actually starts at the very basic level of education. University students find it difficult to even write a complete sentence, let alone finish their thesis. Doni also criticized both Jokowi-Marufs Pre-Employment Card and Prabowo-Sandiagas Ready to Work House proposals, which aim to help high school, vocational school and university graduates transition to the working world. Both programs feel like temporary solutions that dont really take advantage of existing infrastructure, he said. For example, there are so many BLK [skills training centers] that already exist that have old instructors and outdated training methods. These BLK could be revitalized and made more attractive for graduates to make use of. University of Indonesia economics department head and healthcare researcher Teguh Dartanto said the two vice presidential candidates also failed to address the key issue of immunization in the debate. I was very disappointed because this is about preventing diseases in the future, he said. Vaccine coverage in Indonesia has gone down since 2013, which is very worrying. This means that there is a real risk of disease outbreaks in the future. He added that while the candidates spent a significant amount of time on the National Health Insurance (JKN) program and the massive deficit faced by the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan), they did not address one of the key roots of the problems: the lack of enrollment. Many middle-class people who work in the informal sector have not signed up for BPJS Kesehatan, and many of those that do only do so when they get sick, he said. This exacerbates the agencys deficit. Meanwhile, the National Commission on Tobacco Control and the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) both decried the fact that neither candidate brought up the health effects of smoking. Smoking is the biggest risk factor that holds Indonesia captive through the high level of non-communicable diseases, high healthcare costs, lack of quality development, and the snare of poverty, the commission said in a statement on Monday. The need for reformation of all cigarette control policies in Indonesia has already reached an emergency level. BPJS Kesehatans financial deficit has also been been triggered by lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, stroke and hypertension, YLKI chairman Tulus Abadi said in a statement. We strongly question the candidates' decision not to make efforts to prevent the plague of cigarette consumption one of their policy agendas. Looking at the mission statement of both presidential tickets, YLKI strongly doubts that health problems will be holistically addressed and overcome. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 09:18 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee82667da 2 Business footwear,exports,industry-ministry,airlangga-university,2019 Free Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto is optimistic the exports of footwear products will increase to US$6.5 billion this year and reach $10 billion in the next four years. Moreover, Indonesia has signed the CEPA with Australia and the European Free Trade Association [EFTA]. This has the potential to expand the export market for our manufactured products, Airlangga said in Jakarta on Friday as quoted by Antara. The footwear industry is one of the manufacturing sector mainstays that is able to contribute significantly to the national economy. This is reflected in the growth of the leather industry group, with leather goods and footwear recording a significant increase of 9.42 percent in 2018, as compared to some 2.22 percent in 2017. Last years achievement exceeded the national economic growth at 5.17 percent. National footwear exports also increased by 4.13 percent, from $4.91 billion in 2017 to $5.11 billion in 2018, Airlangga pointed out. The industry minister explained that the footwear industry was being prioritized owing to its development as an export-oriented, labor-intensive sector. Along with the textile and clothing industry, the footwear industry is also prepared to enter the Industry 4.0, so that it is more globally competitive and the exports rise. (brf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dian Septiari and Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 19:05 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee827f4d1 1 World New-Zealand-shooting,Foreign-Minister-Retno-Marsudi,Australia-Indonesia,ambassador,ban,mass-shooting,terror-attack,hotline-number Free Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi summoned resident Australian Ambassador Gary Quinlan on Monday in response to the uninformed comments of a right-wing Australian senator over last weeks mosque shootings in New Zealand. A white supremacist shooter, believed to be Brenton Tarrant from Australia, opened fire on worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, live-streaming the attack on social media. He left a trail of 50 dead and several injured in his wake, including children. In a closed-door meeting with Quinlan in Jakarta, Retno strongly condemned the statement from Queensland senator Fraser Anning, who said victims of the bloodshed in Christchurch were not blameless because of their faith. "Ambassador Quinlan conveyed his reassurance that the statement made by senator Anning does not reflect the position and sentiments of the government and the people of Australia," Retno stated on her official Twitter account, @Menlu_RI. She also tweeted that Indonesia and Australia had agreed to strengthen cooperation on the promotion of tolerance. Meanwhile, ministry spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir said Annings statement showed a lack of the senators understanding of Islam. It is very wrong to link terrorism or violence with Islam or any other religion. This is a very shortsighted view. This kind of thinking, delivered by the senator, has no place in the modern world, Arrmanatha said at a press briefing on Monday. He said Indonesia would exercise its right to bar entry to Anning should he ever plan to visit. Previously, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Charles Honoris called on Jakarta to ban Anning from entering the worlds largest Muslim-majority country. Charles, who serves on the House of Representatives foreign affairs commission, said he should be banned over fears he might divide Indonesias religious communities. The agent provocateur has drawn wide condemnation for his efforts to blame the attack on immigration. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has described his comments as appalling and ugly, and that it has no place in Australia. Indonesian citizen Lilik Abdul Hamid was among those who perished in the mosque attacks, while two others identified as Zulfirman Syah and his 2-year-old son were injured. According to the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington, Zulfirman had undergone multiple operations and was still receiving intensive care at Christchurch Hospital, while his son was in stable condition. "The Wellington Embassy appreciates joint efforts of Indonesians in Christchurch in assisting Zulfirman's wife during treatment at the hospital," the embassy said in a statement on Monday morning. The embassy has established a temporary emergency team to monitor developments and provide assistance to Indonesians in need. It has also opened a 24-hour hotline that can be reached at +64211950980 (Rendy) and +64223812065 (Luth). Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Karina Tehusijarana and Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18 2019 Of the three Indonesians who were victims of attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday, one has been confirmed dead, while two others remain hospitalized but in stable condition. Lilik Abdul Hamid, a 50-year-old aircraft engineer for Air New Zealand, was previously thought to be missing, but Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi on Saturday confirmed he had died. Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rojiun [We belong to God and to God we shall return]. My deepest condolences over the death of Bapak Lilik Abdul Hamid, an Indonesian citizen who was a victim of the terrorist attack on Al-Noor Mosque in Christchurch, she wrote on her official Twitter account. She added that the Indonesian ambassador to New Zealand was in Christchurch to assist Liliks family. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 13:22 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee82711dd 4 Business health-insurance,premium,decline,BPJS-Kesehatan Free The Indonesian General Insurance Association (AAUI) is reporting that the ratio of health insurance premiums to the premiums for other insurance products declined to only 2.3 percent in 2018 because of the state-sponsored Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan). AAUI executive director Dody Ahmad Sudiyar said on Sunday that it was a continuing decline from the previous year. In 2016, the ratio was 6.89 percent and in 2017 it was still 6.86 percent. However, he said that the health insurance business still grew by 6.7 percent annually in 2018. In response to the situation, private insurance firms are currently putting more focus on attracting high-income customers as low-income consumers are already covered by BPJS Kesehatan. The insurance firms no longer seek low-income customers, he said, adding that the target of the insurance firms were those who wanted premium service health care, services that were not covered by BPJS Kesehatan. They are consumers who need direct services of specialist doctors, specialist hospitals, and those who need premium medical evacuation services, he said as quoted by kontan.co.id. Insurance firm PT Asuransi Adira Dinamika revealed it had 92,000 health insurance clients in 2018 and 2019, compared to 177,000 from 2015 to 2017. The head of Adira Insurance's direct business division, Eka Widiastuti, confirmed the impact of BPJS Kesehatan on the companys health insurance business. Meanwhile, PT Asuransi Sinar Mas director Dumasi M.M. Samosir said he still saw potential of growth of health insurance. The portion of health instance handled by the company, compared to other products, was still 7 percent, he said, adding that the company was diversifying its products to try to maintain growth in health insurance. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Victor Mambor (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura Mon, March 18, 2019 07:42 999 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8262aec 1 National Papua,Jayapura,flash-flood,BNPB,Indonesian-Military Free As of Sunday afternoon, at least 50 people were reported killed and 273 families had been left homeless following a flash flood in Jayapura regency, Papua. The flash flood occurred after heavy downpours in the area from Saturday afternoon to the early hours of Sunday. Jayapura Regent Matius Awoitauw told The Jakarta Post on Sunday that the survivors were in urgent need of emergency aid such as food and medication and facilities for burying the dead. Currently, 200 people are taking refuge at his residence while 1,400 others are sheltering in nearby schools. Dead bodies are being taken to hospitals in the region for identification purposes. He added that the regional government was working with the National Police and the Indonesian Military to record and evacuate any other residents from the area while building public facilities for evacuees. The Cendrawasih Military Command has set up a public kitchen that distributed 5,000 meals on Sunday at lunchtime. According to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), the flooding mostly struck the Sentani Kota district, affecting Sentani Kota, Hinekombe and Dobonsolo subdistricts and five villages, Kampung Sereh, Yoboy, Yahim, Yobeh and Ifar Besar. The regency administration also estimated that the flooding destroyed around 350 houses, 100 shophouses and two bridges. Vehicles are seen immersed in mud after flooding in Sentani, Jayapura, Papua on Sunday. (Antara/Gusti Tanati) BNPB spokesperson, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said the flood had carried away several houses. He said he had seen nine houses being washed away. Amateur videos and photos verified by BNPB show that the flood also carried away large trees and even a light aircraft. The airplane belonging to Cendrawasih Air that was parked in a hangar in Doyo Baru. It was dragged several meters. A BNPB helicopter was also dragged several meters from its position by the flood. The government has yet to estimate the total material losses caused by the disaster. Residents examine their wrecked homes after flooding in Sentani, Jayapura, Papua on Sunday. Some 50 people are believed to have lost their lives in the deluge. (Antara/Gusti Tanati) Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) Papua head, Aiesh Rumbekwan, pointed to massive deforestation in a nearby mountainous area, known as the Cyclops, coupled with a large volume of water in Lake Sentani as contributory causes to the disaster. We can see this from the branches and trees that are floating. Those are not trees that have tumbled down in the rain, rather they are trees that have been cut down, Aiesh said. He said some parts of the mountain had been turned into residential areas. The deforestation in the mountain area, Aiesh went on, had reduced the number of springs that usually flowed into Lake Sentani. He suspected that the overflowing of the lake occurred because of reclamation coupled with the dumping of garbage. Meanwhile, resident Yance Wenda said that the recent flooding was more frightening than a similar deluge in 2007 as his house was inundated within a mere six hours. [The flood] brought down large rocks from the mountain. The torrent sounded like huge [ocean] waves, said Yance, who has moved to a nearby church following the flood. (mai/evi) Editor's note: This article has been corrected. The plane that was swept away by the flood belonged to Cendrawasih Air, not to AMA as originally published. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java Mon, March 18, 2019 08:07 999 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8262d48 1 Business palm-oil,Astra-Agro,Astra-Agro-Lestari,astra,biodiesel,biofuel,CPO,PLN,electricity,b20-biodiesel-mix Free Amid tough global market challenges, the countrys palm oil producers have to start expanding in the domestic market in order to boost absorption and stay afloat. Palm oil producer PT Astra Agro Lestari (AALI), part of diversified conglomerate Astra International, is no exception. Astra Agro Lestari president director Santosa said the company must explore opportunities in the domestic market to boost absorption. The challenge, for now, is to find a new market for our products if we face obstacles in the international market. Whether we want it or not, we have to open the domestic market, Santosa said recently in Bandung. He added that the use of biosolar for power plants offered the company an opportunity to maximize the domestic absorption of its products. Santosa expressed hope that the government would soon implement the B100 policy, which is the use of 100 percent biodiesel as the mandatory fuel for specific vehicles. Biodiesel is a derived from crude palm oil (CPO). The government has implemented the mandatory 20 percent biodiesel (B20) since September for specific vehicles, including trains and mining vehicles. Santosa suggested that state-owned electricity company PLN should use renewable energy to replace fossil fuel at its power plants. Indonesias palm oil raw materials are certainly sufficient. What we should focus on now is whether it will be more profitable to use them or sell them, he said. The government has been implementing a B20 policy, requiring a minimum of 20 percent blended biodiesel mainly as fuel for motor vehicles, to boost domestic biodiesel consumption hence absorbing more CPO. Indonesia has faced a number of obstacles in trading CPO, its biggest export commodity in terms of volume in the international market, due to fluctuations in global market prices and ongoing negative campaigns against the commodity in European Union (EU) countries. However, Santosa is optimistic that the CPO business will thrive this year. He said controlling prices would be key to maintaining the business. We cant let the industry suffer domestically. Our per hectare fixed cost should be adjusted each year. Industry players should also work together to ensure a healthy industry, he said. The publicly listed company traded 375,000 tons of CPO last year, a four-fold increase of the 83,000 tons it traded in 2017. The company saw 18.5 percent year-on-year (yoy) growth in its CPO production to 1.9 million tons last year from 1.6 million tons in 2017. It also saw a 10.2 percent yoy growth in its fresh fruit bunches production, with 5.7 million tons last year. The company also produced 420,900 tons of kernel last year, up 18 percent up from 356,600 tons the previous year. Meanwhile, in the downstream sector, the company recorded 16.1 percent yoy growth in its Olein production to 327,600 tons last year from 282,200 tons in 2017. Santosa said the company had allocated Rp 1.5 trillion in its capital expenditure this year, Rp 700 billion of which will be allocated to maintain palm oil trees on its 5,000 ha of unproductive land, Rp 150 billion for increasing the capacity of its four existing plants and the rest for maintaining its infrastructure, including plantation pathways and employees' houses. About 40 percent of the capital expenditure is for managing unproductive plantations, he said. The company manages 285,024 ha of palm oil plantations spread across Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi -- 66,615 of which are plasma plantations. The capacity of its plants reaches 1,525 tons per hour with 80 to 85 percent utilization. (ars) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 16:08 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8277e0f 1 National Jayapura,Sentani,flash-flood,flood,Papua,BNPB,death-toll Free A seven-hour torrential downpour caused the flood, which has forced 4,728 residents to evacuate to six different emergency shelters. Meanwhile, the BNPB has estimated that 11,725 families have been affected by the flood. Read also: Jayapura flash flood kills 50 people; evacuees in urgent need of help The floodwaters also demolished around 350 houses and inundated 211 others, while public facilities were also torn apart by the disaster, according to BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. For the evacuees, the evacuation center set up by the Jayapura regent has provided medical treatment and a public kitchen. At least five hospitals have also offered to help the evacuees. The Indonesian Environmental Forum has blamed deforestation in the Cyclops Mountains as the cause of the disaster. (mai) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 15:25 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee82758c3 4 National PKS,molestation,sexual-abuse,sexual-violence-bill,sexual-violence Free Following a one-week search, the police arrested on Sunday a legislative candidate from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), identified as AH, for allegedly molesting his daughter for years. West Pasaman Police officers arrested AH in Pauh subdistrict in Padang, West Sumatra. We caught him in Pauh, Padang while he was waiting for a car that would drive him away from Padang. But before the car came we arrested him, West Pasaman criminal investigation unit head Adj. Sr. Comr. Iman Pribadi Santoso said on Sunday as quoted by kompas.com. Iman said AH left West Pasaman when his case began to unfold. He fled to Jakarta, then moved to Depok, West Java. On Saturday our team went to Depok and worked with the local police [to arrest AH]. But unfortunately AH had ran from Depok to Padang with land transportation, he added. After escaping the police, the team continued its search and finally arrested him in Pauh. AHs 17-year-old daughter recently opened up to her mother about the sexual abuse she claimed to have endured at the hands of her father since she was in her third year of elementary school. AHs wife reported the case to West Pasaman Police on March. 7. (hol) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 15:41 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee82767ee 1 City online-business,guns,North-Jakarta,arrest Free Police in North Jakarta have arrested a 28-year-old man for allegedly selling airguns illegally via social media. Tanjung Priok Police criminal unit head Adj. Comr. Faruk Rozi said the arrest was the result of his teams investigation. The police's cyber patrol initially received information the suspect, identified as Rachmat Norman Taufiq, was illegally selling the airguns via social media. The police placed an order online to buy a colt defender style airgun, in an attempt to discern the seller's identity. "[Rachmat] sold [airguns] through social media []. A police team accepted his offer and determined the place for the transaction," Faruk said on Sunday, wartakota.tribunnews.com reported. The place for the transaction was agreed as Jl. Boulevard Bukit Gading Raya in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with the price set at Rp 3.5 million (US$241.38) for one gun. "The suspect brought the gun to the location. At around 10 p.m., [police] arrested the perpetrator," Faruk added. Police could not find documents permitting gun possession during the arrest. Police seized evidence, comprising two 90 caliber 5 millimeter colt defender series airguns, three 12-gram CO2 gas tubes and two boxes of bullets. The suspect could be charged under the 1951 law on illegal gun possession, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Wires) Utrecht Mon, March 18, 2019 18:37 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee827e63b 2 World Dutch,Dutch-tram-shooting,Utrecht,The-Netherlands,terrorism Free Dutch police said they were investigating whether there was a "terrorist motive" behind a shooting on a tram in the city of Utrecht that caused multiple injuries Monday. "A possible terrorist motive is part of the investigation," Utrecht police said on Twitter as quoted by AFP. The head of the Dutch national counter-terrorism service, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, said on Twitter that he was having "crisis consultations," adding: "Terrorist motive not excluded. Information not yet full." A government agency said Dutch authorities raise terrorism threat level to highest in province in Utrecht, Reuters reported. AFP, quoting Dutch ANP news agency, reported on Monday 6:17 p.m. Jakarta time that at least one person was killed in a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The victim was completely covered with a sheet and lying on the tracks between two carriages, ANP quoted one of its reporters as saying. There was no immediate official confirmation. Reuters reported that Dutch Police instruct schools in Utrecht to keep doors closed following a report that the shooter was still at large. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18 2019 Dede Nur Azmi is accustomed to the sound of telephones ringing in her office. As an operator on Jakartas 112 emergency line, it is her duty to answer the calls and respond to the reports made by residents. However, a typical day for her and her colleagues mostly revolves around high volumes of prank calls made by residents, children and adults alike. The Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), which manages the service that was launched by the Jakarta administration in 2016, has disclosed that almost 70 percent of the nearly 6,000 incoming calls per day are fake reports and disruptive calls. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 17:47 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee827d23e 1 City Bekasi,landfill-facility,dump-site,compensation Free Residents living near the Burangkeng disposal site in the regency of Bekasi in West Java have unblocked access for the authorities to enter the area after being promised compensation for putting up with the stench. At the beginning of this month, hundreds of residents protested and demanded that the regency pay each family in the village stench money of Rp 270,000 (US$18.90) per month, the same amount received by residents of neighboring Taman Rahayu village. The residents also demanded that water canals be built in the village and that improvements be made to the dumpsites road and maintenance. The compensation is similar to a concept applied to residents living near the Bantar Gebang landfill, the final disposal site of Jakartas garbage. Burangkeng village secretary Ali Gunawan said access to the site had been opened at 8 a.m. on Monday, and garbage trucks were able to enter the area again after the administration agreed to meet the demand of the residents, kompas.com reported. Basically the Bekasi regency administration has promised compensation for residents and is drafting a legal basis to support the move, because [we] dont want them to break the law, Ali said, adding that a visit to the Bantar Gebang landfill was planned. Separately, Bekasi Regency Environment Agency sanitation division head Dodi Agusa said the compensation would be disbursed through the village funds. (fac) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 08:17 999 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8263f3e 2 Business Jokowi,toll-road,logistics Free President Joko Jokowi Widodo has highlighted the need for Indonesia to catch up with other Asian countries in the development of toll roads. In the past, other countries, such as Malaysia, took a cue from the toll roads built in Indonesia, but now, they have left us behind. So we must catch up with them, Jokowi said at a dialogue with editors-in-chief in Medan, North Sumatra on Friday as quoted by Antara. Therefore, the President said, the government will continue to build toll roads, including those in North Sumatra. The construction of toll roads has helped ease the flow of goods and people, so that progress in all fields, particularly the economic sector, could be realized, he pointed out. By the end of 2018, the countrys toll roads spanned 782 kilometers in length, and it is projected to reach 1,854 km until late 2019, he stated. The length of toll roads is still not sufficient, so we must build more toll roads in several regions, including North Sumatra, he noted. The President reiterated the need for huge investment to build toll roads for which the government invites both foreign and domestic investors to get involved in the project. (brf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Nusa Dua, Bali Mon, March 18, 2019 16:27 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee827a1e2 1 National #humanrights,#FreedomOfExpression,religious-freedom,Southeast-Asia,radicalism Free Southeast Asia is struggling to uphold democracy, facing challenges caused by identity politics, which limits freedom of expression and religious that could eventually lead to human rights violations. "We are witnessing the politics of identity in extreme or even violent form," Deputy Foreign Minister AM Fachir said in his keynote speech at the Nexus between Religious Freedom or Belief and Freedom of Expression in South East Asia seminar in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Monday. At the seminar, which was organized by the Journalist Association for Diversity (SEJUK) in cooperation with the International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) and the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), Fachir said rampant hoaxes and fake news, which were spread on social media, have worsened the situation. "We need to act against [the situation] [...] and action needs to be taken not just by the state, but also by civil society, including the media. The role of journalists is important to convey messages of peace, harmony and pluralism. So the key is to educate the public," he said at the opening of the three-day event, which was attended by dozens of journalists, scholars and human rights experts from Southeast Asia, Timor-Leste and India. Before delivering his speech, Fachir invited everyone to observe a minute of silence to remember the victims of the terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which killed at least 50 people, including an Indonesian. "Christchurch is a strong reminder that terrorism remains a real threat to us all irrespective of religious denomination or cultural background," he said. Meanwhile, the IARJs executive director, Endy Bayuni, said the region was struggling to uphold democracy, facing challenges from society as well as the state. Endy said the seminar gave journalists in the region a space to share their experiences and formulate a journalistic code of conduct when covering freedom of religion and minority rights issues "Religion journalism is important and it is important that journalists work in an increasingly diverse society. We (the IARJ) and SEJUK believe that we are on the right track to promote this type of journalism," he said. Royal Danish Special Representative for Freedom of Religion of Belief Ambassador Michael Suhr applauded the event, saying problems regarding the implementation of the freedom of religion, belief and expression was not only happening in the region, but globally as well. "Freedom of expression is not an absolute right. Freedom of speech is not hate speech," Suhr said, adding that journalists should undergo more training, while the public also needed to be educated on the matter. (jun) Malaysias top council of lawyers asked the attorney-general to explain the release of an Indonesian suspect in the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns half-brother, but not a second suspect who is Vietnamese. Attorney-General Tommy Thomas should explain the inconsistency, especially since the case has attracted global attention, the newly elected head of the Malaysian Bar Council, Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor, said in a statement. Thomass office didnt answer a phone call seeking comment Sunday outside business hours. After Kim Jong Nam was killed at the Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017, Siti Aisyah, an Indonesian, and Doan Thi Huong, a Vietnamese, were charged with murder and accused of smearing VX nerve agent onto Kims face, Malaysian authorities said at the time. Charges against Siti have been withdrawn, Abdul Fareed said, while Huong remains in custody, facing trial in the killing. There are a lot of questions on why one person is acquitted and the charges against her withdrawn while the other person remains charged, Abdul Fareed said after the councils annual general meeting on Saturday. Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo personally greeted Siti when she returned home after being acquitted of charges, a Twitter post by the president dated March 12 shows. Abdul Fareed was elected to lead the bar council together with secretary Salim Bashir Bhaskaran, who is acting as a lawyer for Huong. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 19:40 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee82804dc 1 SE Asia landslide,Lombok,tourists,Malaysia,Foreign-Ministry,embassy,earthquake,disaster-victims Free Indonesia's Foreign Ministry has revealed that eight Malaysian nationals have fallen victim to earthquake-triggered landslides at the Tiu Kelep waterfall in North Lombok regency, West Nusa Tenggara. "There were eight foreign nationals among the victims. They were Malaysians. Two were killed while six others were injured," ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said at a press briefing in Jakarta on Monday. He said the injured Malaysians had been taken to the hospital and the ministry was in touch with the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta. The Malaysian Embassy had come out with a separate report stating that 22 of its citizens had been at the tourist site when a 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook the region on Sunday afternoon, causing landslides. The bodies of the two deceased, identified as Tai Siew Kim and Lim Sai Wah, were recovered and returned on Sunday. The rest of the group were unaffected. In a later statement, the Malaysian Embassy said its officials had arrived in Lombok on Monday morning to provide consular assistance to the survivors. "Malaysian citizens who are in Lombok or the surrounding area are called to always be calm and comply with the latest directives issued by local authorities," the embassy said. The latest earthquake occurred just seven months after a deadly string of tremors struck Lombok, killing almost 500 people and injuring thousands more. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) - Mon, March 18, 2019 09:09 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee826625f 1 Destinations destination,travel,tourism,overtourism Free Traveling around the world makes people happy and creates jobs. But tourism also can also have a negative impact on the destinations environment and its peoples quality of life. Heres a list of seven places that have been ruined by tourism, according to Reader's Digest, which can make you think twice about where to go on your next vacation. 1. Maya Beach, Thailand The picturesque beach is famous for its secluded cove featuring glittering, translucent water, white sand and limestone cliffs. However, following the release and subsequent hit of The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio, the area turned into a major tourist trap. With hordes of tourists coming to see the hidden bay, it became impossible to enjoy the once-pristine views it offered. Visitors could hardly walk across the beach without bumping into another person, much less lie down to sunbathe. Thailand decided to make Maya Beach off-limits to tourists in 2018. The closure was supposed to be temporary but is now indefinite. 2. Machu Picchu, Peru Machu Picchu is a great attraction, but we are worried about its sustainability, Sandra Doig, incoming tourism deputy director of the Commission for the Promotion of Exports and Tourism of Peru (PROMPERU), told The Washington Post. The Incan citadel is set high in the Andes Mountains and has been named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. However, it is being overrun by visitors, with some 610,000 people visiting the region in July 2018. Tourism authorities are introducing strict time slots, visitor limits and advance ticket purchases in order to contain the masses. 3. Venice, Italy Venice is renowned for delicious food and wine, its rich culture and ornate architecture. Built on more than 100 small islands in a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea, it is mainly well-known for its canals and traditional boats. But over-tourism has had a bad impact on the citys vitality. When infamous sights like St. Marks Square attracted more and more visiting cruise ships, group bus tours and streets lined with litter were the consequence. Read also: Tourist destinations that need some loving Due to the crush of people and rising sea levels, the scenic city is sinking rapidly. Also, stonework and carvings on historic buildings are crumbling. Therefore, the Venetians decided to charge visitors up to 10 euros (US$11.28) to enter the city. This measure only affects short-stay tourists and will be implemented in the summer of 2019. 4. Antarctica Global climate change and mass infiltration of tourists via cruise ships are affecting the entire content of Antarctica. Due to the permanent boat traffic, coming from Chile and Argentina down to the Antarctic Peninsula, water pollution began threatening the lives of the areas unique species. In order to stop the environmental devastation, the Antarctic Treaty forbids ships carrying more than 500 passengers. Also, the number of visitors on shore has been limited to 100 at a time. 5. Pig Beach, The Bahamas The wild pigs living in Big Major Cay are attracting throngs of tourists every year. Swimming with the animals on Exuma Island was a popular attraction until 2017, when pigs began dying on the beach. According to National Geographic, various factors led to the animals death, but the government took no chances and decided to ban visitors from feeding them. 6. Mallorca, Spain According to the European Union Regional Development Fund, 10 million travelers visited Mallorca in 2017. In comparison, only 6 million tourists were recorded in 2010. Mediterranean island is famous for its stunning beach resorts, sheltered coves, limestone mountains and Roman and Moorish ruins. But most of all, its known for a vibrant and thrilling nightlife. The mass infiltration of tourists has led to an extreme environmental crisis and commercialization of Mallorcas landscape, environment and heritage. The government reacted by doubling the tourism tax to 4 euros per person per day, which is added to hotel stays. This money will be used to support a sustainable model so that tourism benefits local communities. 7. Mount Everest Despite experiencing a devastating earthquake in 2015, Mount Everest attracted 36,694 visitors in 2016. Sherpa guides have suffered the consequences because they are responsible for gathering up the litter left behind by tourists. Because of the risks they take every day doing their job, the guides have threatened to go on strike for higher pay. (sop/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Claire Huang (The Straits Times/Asia News Network) Hong Kong Mon, March 18, 2019 11:01 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee826aa77 2 News Hong-Kong,travel,MTR,Train,Transportation Free The morning commute in Hong Kong was disrupted on Monday (March 18) after two subway trains collided in the wee hours during a trial run. Two drivers were taken to hospital. One was injured in the leg while the other driver suffered from smoke inhalation, according to the police. The collision of the two Mass Transit Railway (MTR) trains happened at around 3am on the Tsuen Wan line when the train operator was testing a new signalling system. Photos released by MTR showed damaged train cabins with doors unhinged. Shattered glass was strewn across the cabin floor. One train was seen tilted up on one side and detached from the track. Services on the Central to Admiralty section of the line have been suspended for the day. Commuters have been told to use alternative methods of transport. Trains on the rest of the Tsuen Wan line, between Admiralty and Tsuen Wan stations, are running at 3 minute intervals as per normal, the MTR Corporation said. Apologizing for the inconvenience caused, MTR's operations director Adi Lau said the operator had no clue why the two trains ended up on the same track during the trial. He said all trials would be suspended until the cause of the crash is investigated, and vowed the new signal system would only come in after it passes all tests. He added that it would take a day to resume train services because the undercarriage of one of the trains had derailed. In a statement, the Hong Kong government said it "has great concern on the collision". Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fan has requested MTR Corp to conduct thorough investigation into the cause of incident, the statement said. Mr Chan has also relayed to the Chairman of MTR Corp Board, Professor Frederick Ma, the request to call an urgent board meeting. It added that the Transport Department is closely monitoring the traffic condition, and has requested and coordinated other public transport operators to enhance service. This incident comes after the MTR suffered its worst-ever disruption caused by signalling failure last October. Hundreds of thousands of commuters were inconvenienced on Oct 16 after four main lines on the train network were disrupted for six hours on Oct 16 due to a signalling glitch. Topics : This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 18, 2019 14:32 998 dcc1aefb9780f102b77c720ee8272a7e 1 News AirAsia,Air-Asia,airline-ticket,#airlines,#AirAsia,travel,#travel,traveling,#traveling,Lombok,#Lombok,Lombok-earthquake,Perth,10-new-bali Free Low-cost carrier AirAsia has started selling tickets for a new route connecting Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), and Perth, Australia, on Thursday. The new route is part of the airlines effort to support the Tourism Ministrys 10 New Balis project and expedite Lomboks post-earthquake tourism recovery. According to Indonesia AirAsia CEO Dendy Kurniawan: The development of Lombok as an AirAsia hub will also serve as the catalyst for healthy growth and competition in Indonesia. By stimulating the market with low fares we want to provide more opportunities for Australians and Indonesians to fly. Read also: West Nusa Tenggara, AirAsia team up to open Lombok-Perth route The new service is also expected to boost the local economy and tourism. Following the launch of the new route, AirAsia also said the company would introduce a number of sustainable tourism and community initiatives to assist the islands recovery efforts. When our first flight touches down in June, Lombok will be well and truly open for business and we look forward to making this new route a success," added Dendy. AirAsia is currently offering special launch-day fares for the Lombok-Perth route, starting at Rp 599,000 (US$42.07) until March 24. The fares are valid for travel between June 9 and Oct. 26. (jes/wng) 8 hours ago EXPLAINER: Why US inflation is so high, and when it may ease WASHINGTON (AP) Inflation is starting to look like that unexpected and unwanted houseguest who just wont leave. For months, many economists had sounded a reassuring message that a spike in consumer prices, something that had been missing in action in the U.S. Read Article Early vote met with euphoria Sundays advance voting saw huge crowds waiting in long queues to vote at polling stations nationwide, as an estimated 75% of all registered early voters nationwide turned up to cast their vote ahead of Sundays general election. politics By Bangkok Post Monday 18 March 2019, 09:11AM Voters lined up for two hours to vote at the Matthayom Ban Bang Kapi School in Bangkoks Bang Kapi district. At this centre alone, 61,000-plus voters waited in line to vote. Photo: Wichan Charoenkiatpakul Election Commission (EC) deputy secretary-general Nat Laosisawakul said that more than 2.6 million registered advance voters nationwide participated in the advance voting, which was held from 8am to 5pm. Voters crowded into schools, parking lots and temples across Thailand on Sunday, eager to cast an early ballot a week before the countrys first election in eight years. Advance voting is usually a tepid affair, but on Sunday excitement was high as voters turned up in droves to polling stations. Bangkok's Bang Kapi district recorded the highest number of registered advance voters at 61,401 -- 82% of which turned up to the cast their ballots. Since a 2014 coup ousted then-premier Yingluck Shinawatra, the junta has repeatedly postponed democratic elections much to the chagrin of the public. I finally have a chance to cast my vote as Ive waited for so long, said 48-year-old Paka Kaengkhiew as she stood in line in front of the Phra Khanong district office in Bangkok. In Dusit district home to military offices and government buildings voters crowded into a schoolyard before a polling station there opened. People dressed in their work clothes military uniforms, hospital scrubs and more casual attire waited patiently to cast their ballot, aided by student helpers. At 9am Gen Prem Tinsulanonda, the head of the Privy Council, arrived at the school. Watched by local and international media, the 98-year-old former premier and statesman was pushed in a wheelchair into a classroom beneath a portrait of the late King Rama IX, before walking the final steps to a polling booth. More than 51 million people are eligible to vote in the official March 24 election, which will be held under a new military-scripted constitution. Analysts say the new electoral system favours the army-aligned party fronted by junta leader Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is running to be civilian prime minister after a government is formed. But voters on Sunday still held on to hopes for change. I vote today in the hope for better change," said Mart Bupa, 53. National PWA Governor visits Phuket over failing water supply PHUKET: The national Provincial Waterworks Authority (PWA) Governor has quietly visited Phuket in person and urged the local PWA office to solve the islands drought problems and to come up with a plan of how to continue supplying water needed by April 1. weathertourismnatural-resources By Tanyaluk Sakoot Monday 18 March 2019, 06:46PM PWA Governor Nopparat Maythaveekulchai was in Phuket on a two-day visit on Thursday and Friday last week (Mar 14-15). Governor Nopparat and his entourage of national waterworks officials inspected water levels at both the Band Wad reservoir in Kathu and the Bang Neow Dum reservoir in Srisoonthorn. Phuket PWA Branch Manager Graisorn Mahamad told The Phuket News today (Mar 18) that the Bang Wad reservoir currently contains an estimated 2.23 million cubic meters of its 10mn-plus m3 capacity. Meanwhile, the Bang Neow Dum reservoir, which also serves much of the Cherng Talay area, contains about 1.46mn m3 of water, and the Khlong Kratha reservoir contains about 1.28mn m3 of water of its 4.2mn m3 capacity. Of serious concern is how fast the water reserves at the main reservoirs are rapidly depleting. As of Feb 6, Mr Graisorn estimated that the Bang Wad reservoir contained some 4.5mn m3 of its 10mn-plus m3 capacity. Bang Neow Dum contained at that time about 2.4mn m3 of water. Worse, the Khlong Kratha reservoir in Chalong at the beginning of February contained about 1.42mn m3 of water of its 4.2mn m3 capacity. (See story here.) Governor Nopparat saw all aspects of the water situation in Phuket. He ordered that I must figure out and solve the water situation in Phuket by April 1, Mr Graisorn told The Phuket News today. He told me to draw up a plan with PWA Region 4 Branch Manager Serm Heukkhuntod in Surat Thani about the manpower and budget needed, as well as details of how the water supply is to be managed, along with other details as necessary, he added. Mr Nopparat told me that he is very willing to approve an emergency budget to buy water. I have already contacted the owners of several local privately owned water sources. I just need the owners to reply back to me confirming the terms, then I can ask for the budget, Mr Graisorn said. So far I have received a reply from only one water source owner in Kathu. This will give us only 200,000 m3 of water. It is still not enough, he said. Other water source owners are still silent. We need 500m3 more freshwater supply per day (on top of existing supplies already in the three reservoirs), which means that (in addition to the 200,000 m3 already sourced) we still need 300m3 more per day (in order to meet demand), Mr Graisorn explained. I believe we can find a solution to this and present this as our plan to Mr Nopparat before April 1, he said. Phuket History: The 1675 Battle of Patong The Englishman Thomas Bowrey was on Phuket as the islands trouble with the Dutch escalated. He tells us that the main base for the Dutch patrol ships was Banquala Bay (Patong), where they were based to intercept boats coming east from India. History-of-PhuketHistory By Colin Mackay Monday 18 March 2019, 03:00PM Bowrey relates that in 1675 a great prowe of about 40 tunns, from Aceh, funded by an Englishman, Willian Jersey, an eminent Merchant at Fort St George [Madras] had got in [to Banquala (Patong)] privately and traded for tinne. To hide itself the blockade-running prow had entered the creek that today empties into the south of Patong Bay. (This creek was bigger and much less silted up than it is today.) She was pulled up the creek towards old Patong village where she was concealed and unloaded. The next morning a Dutch gunboat appeared in Patong Bay and dispatched some Dutch marines ashore to seize the Aceh prow in the creek. Bowrey then tells us: The merchants and inhabitants of Banquala did (in a very civil way) desire the Dutch not to molest them any, especially to make prise of them, soe longe as they were under the Radja of Jansalones protection and in theire river. But the Dutch, swelled up with ambition, told them plainely that all Roads and Rivers of Jansalone were theirs and therefore the prowe and her goods were theire lawful prize. Whereupon the Malay inhabitants, a very resolute people stood up for the achiners and took the prow and her goods by violence out of the hands of the Dutch. During this fight a Dutch marine fired a blunderbuss into the locals, killing two and dispersing the rest of the crowd. The Dutch gunship itself then also entered Patong creek and came up to where the river was very narrow, presumably to take on the prows confiscated cargo. Bowrey tells us that some while later an armed mob of around 200 locals soon reappeared near the captured Aceh prow. He also tells us that further down the creek other locals: cut downe 20 or 30 great trees, that fell athwart it and blocked it up so that not any passage back was left for sloop or boat. The Dutch findinge the country too hot for them, betooke themselves to their sloop to be gone out into the roade [Patong Bay] but when they came downe to this stoppage they could neither go down nor come up againe. Then they had nothing to trust to but their firearms which could not helpe them very longe, for the Malayars overpowered them and cut off every man and pulled their sloop in pieces. With the British again in Siam and with the powerful French also courting him to gain access to Siam and Phukets tin, King Narai now felt sufficiently confident to resist the consequent VOC [Dutch East India Company] demands for compensation for the Patong incident. In 1677, two years later, a frustrated Governor Bort of the VOC in Malacca complained, up to the present, not the smallest vengeance has been taken nor punishment inflicted for this murder and damage, nor has any satisfaction been given, wherefore the governors in that state have been encouraged and have become more insolent and petulant and have treated our people with so much less esteem and regard. They have even taken the whole of the trade from us and handed it over to other foreigners coming from abroad. To make matters worse, that year (1677) the Phuketians attacked and pillaged yet another Dutch blockade ship. After this assault and still no recompense, the VOC directors seriously discussed invading and colonising Phuket. When King Narai was informed of this planned Dutch invasion he immediately sent orders to Phuket that each of the islands three seaports should build two large war prows big enough to carry ten guns. Bowrey informs us that King Narais instructions were that these war prows should keep two and two together and if they should meet a single Dutch ship they should fight her and give her no quarter. If they met with a fleet they should runne in and give intelligence for the countrey to be up in arms and not suffer any sloops to come up their rivers or land, neither should they observe any flagge of truce or have the least converse with them. Moreover, if any Phuket officials failed to comply immediately, the king would have them executed. The Phuket governor immediately sent out his officers to presse all the carpenters and set them to work. Elephants were employed to carry down the guns, firearms, shot and powder, thereby to have all things in readiness and the armed war prows were ready in just over a month. Ultimately, however, the VOC directors decided they had had enough. They did not want a war with Siam nor the cost of building forts and defending Phuket, which they anyway felt was just a poor and under populated area with an unhealthy climate. Even maintaining the blockade of Phuket, for a trade so meagre and troublesome, made little financial sense. The VOC at the time already employed over 3,500 sailors and 18,000 slaves on its patrol ships in the East at great expense. Plus the tin price had recently fallen in China and the VOC was only making a 21 percent mark-up on the tin it bought in Phuket whilst items from other peninsular ports made much more, for example deer hides from Ligor sold in China at 189 percent profit and Sappanwood made over 300 percent. The VOC did continue to try to get King Narai to honour its tin-buying monopoly contract in Phuket that he had signed, but King Narai evaded the issue by telling the Dutch that the lawlessness on the island made it too dangerous a place for them. In 1679, for instance, he wrote to Batavia to inform them that some Keddah Malays and pirates had attacked and taken Phuket and he was sending a force from Ligor and Tenasserim to chase out the intruders. In the meantime however, the wily king was busy getting into bed with his new best friends the French to whom he also gave tin-buying rights on Phuket. Then in 1682 he appointed a Frenchman as governor of Phuket and the frustrated VOC factor in Ayutthaya soon wrote back to Batavia lamenting that a Moor had told him that Phuket was now selling over 1,000 bahars of tin per year to the French, which was being taken principally to Tenasserim, Aceh, Bengal and Pondicherry. Bowrey tells us that the stubborn, violent resistance by the Phuketians had eventually so squashed the Dutch designs over this place that they went away with theire ships and other sloops and never molested Jansalone any more. Bowrey, an Englishman was clearly no great fan of the Dutch and felt that by their too much presumption and encroachinge (as their usual way is in every place they do get footinge in) they utterly lost it. Today there is almost no trace at all on Phuket of the half century that the Dutch claimed dominion over the island. The only evidence seems to be the two VOC iron cannons dating from 1620 on display in Phuket Provincial Hall. These cannon may have been sold to Siam, stolen from the VOC factory at Tharua or maybe taken from one of the captured VOC patrol ships. Adapted with kind permission from the book A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region by Colin Mackay. Available from good bookshops and Amazon.com. Order the softcover 2nd edition directly at: www.historyofphuket.com Silence falls on plan to close selfie beach near Phuket Airport PHUKET: Airports of Thailand (AoT) management at Phuket International Airport have still yet to make any public announcement to confirm or even clarify the possible closure of the beach at the end of the runway due to safety concerns, despite holding a meeting to define the boundaries of the expanded safety zone last Thursday (Mar 14). tourismtransportSafety By The Phuket News Monday 18 March 2019, 01:42PM Plans to close the beach to tourists were made plain nearly two weeks ago, but now all is silent on what will be done. Photo: The Phuket News /file The area for decades has been one of the most sought-after places for an iconic selfie taken while on holiday in Phuket. Public relations staff for Airports of Thailand (AoT), which operates Phuket International Airport, told The Phuket News this morning (Mar 18), We dont know the details from the meeting, which was held with the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT). The public relations staffer, who declined to named, suggested that The Phuket News contact the Airport Safety Standards unit at the airport for more information. That office also had no details to provide on whether or not the popular section of beach would be closed. A staffer at Airport Safety Standards unit, who also asked not to be named, said she was unaware of any details of the apparently imminent beach closure. We dont know. We will contact you with updated information back as soon as possible. the staffer said. News that the safety zone around the airport was to be expanded broke after a safety meeting was held on Mar 6. After the meeting, Vijit Keawsaitiam, AoT Executive Vice President and Deputy General Manager of Phuket International Airport (Operations and Maintenance Group), announced that the safety zone around the airport will be expanded. The new safety zone near the runway is being developed and will soon take effect, he said. Under the initial guidelines discussed, we are setting up a safety zone which will be categorised as a strictly prohibited area that does not allow people and tourists to take pictures, Mr Vijit explained. Aside from this area, local people and tourists can still come to take pictures as usual, he added. The airport wants to boost tourism revenues, but at the same time, it must make sure there will not be any problem with aviation regulations. Tourism and safety must co-exist, Mr Vijit said. Of note, Mr Vijit pointed out that the meeting held on Mar 6 was held to determine aviation safety in order to meet the requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which provides monitoring and evaluation of operations according to various regulatory frameworks. However, Mr Vijit did not clarify exactly which areas are to be closed off, and no one at the airport has been willing to confirm any details of the plan to The Phuket News. Winai Sae-io, headman of OTOP Village at Moo 4 Mai Khao, told The Phuket News that it was explained at the meeting on Mar 6 that the goal was to have 150 metres of either side of the runway kept clear. Mr Winai also pointed out that local residents had objected to the plan as many of them rely on tourists visiting the beach for their livelihoods. Mr Winai represents local residents who work under a community project set up by the Mai Khao Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor). The project provides jobs for local residents who transport tourists from a local council car park further north along the beach road to the iconic beach area. Local residents also operate food stalls at the site. I dont agree with the plan At the meeting I asked that they inspect the area before making a decision about the area to be closed off, Mr Winai said. This will impact local tourism in our area. If the beach is closed, we will have serious problems because many tourists simply will not come. I want AsoT to look at us and support locals in making living here too, he said. I am waiting for an official appointment for us to and inspect the area together to see our local tourism activities, Mr Winai added. Following the latest meeting held last Thursday (Mar 14), Mr Winai has heard noting. I am still waiting for Phuket International Airport management committee to call me for a meeting, Mr Winai told The Phuket News this morning. Now they are just silent. I dont know when they will explain about the safety zone, which which will have a direct impact on local people and any tourists wanting to take selfies on that part of the beach, he said. 'Be kind and keep going to church' In December 2017, the DOJ first took aim at messaging apps in its FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, which required companies to prohibit employees from using software that generates but does not appropriately retain business records or communications. Companies failing to do so could be disqualified from receiving full credit e.g., the presumption of a declination for timely and appropriate remediation in the context of cooperating with a government investigation into potential FCPA violations. While the wording of the policy was open to a range of interpretations, its basic implications were clear: the DOJ views communications exchanged by company employees through messaging apps as a potentially important source of information in FCPA investigations, and the agency expects companies to take some type of action to facilitate the preservation, collection, and review of such communications. In the absence of official guidance, companies speculated about the prohibitions practical implications. In particular, companies questioned whether the policy required them to fundamentally change their rules for employee communications: Should they entirely prohibit employees from using ephemeral messaging apps (that may not store communications), such as WhatsApp, Signal, and Viber, even where employees customarily use them to communicate with each other and with business partners? Did companies need to purchase enterprise versions of messaging software and install them on employee devices to ensure that all business communications can be stored and accessed? In trying to determine the prohibitions practical implications, companies turned to general principles of other U.S. enforcement agency compliance guidance. Among other things, compliance practitioners cited the FCPA policys use of the term appropriately as a signal that the DOJ would apply some form of reasonableness standard, as it has in other contexts. Under this interpretation, practitioners believed that DOJ expected companies to design and implement risk-based controls over messaging apps tailored to the companys operations similar to the risk-based compliance approaches generally encouraged by the agencies in their Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Over the past year, U.S. enforcement officials have generally supported this view in a range of public statements at conferences. For example, Daniel Kahn, Chief of the DOJs FCPA Unit, remarked at the American Conference Institutes (ACI) International Conference on the FCPA last November in Washington D.C., that the agency expects companies to take a risk-based approach in this area. On March 8, 2019 roughly fifteen months after initially issuing the policy in its original form the DOJ updated the relevant provision regarding messaging apps to refine its stance. In doing so, the DOJ clarified that it does not expect companies to prohibit employees from using ephemeral messaging apps, but instead requires them to implement appropriate guidance and controls over such communications. Specifically, the revisions state that for a company to receive full credit for timely and appropriate remediation, the company is required to satisfy requirements including: According to media sources, these changes addressed concerns expressed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Harold Kim, the Chambers vice president, told Law360 that the move provided clarity for companies by removing what had been viewed by some as a blanket prohibition. For companies and FCPA compliance practitioners, the policy change further supports taking a risk-based approach to messaging apps, and those who have already taken such steps are ahead of the curve. Specifically, the updated policy carries forward certain key concepts from the initial version, such as clear signals that the DOJ expects companies to maintain appropriate written guidance and controls over communications and messaging platforms, and to effectively implement such controls, while also: Inviting companies to use informed judgement to determine what types of communications and messaging platform controls are appropriate i.e., suitable under the companys circumstances; and Highlighting the need for companies to proactively identify and address areas of potential conflict between the daily communications practices of employees and the range of policies and legal obligations applicable to the organization. In practical terms, the revised policy suggests that companies should apply common compliance design and implementation approaches to develop risk-based communications and messaging platform controls. Key compliance design and implementation steps may include, for example: Risk assessment, to take stock of the types of communications and messaging platforms currently used in the companys operations; how those platforms are used in practice; what types of data are generated and stored by those platforms; relevant legal and contractual obligations to maintain data, or to restrict its use (e.g., data privacy laws); company policies governing employee communications, among other factors. Written guidance/controls enhancements, based on the companys risk assessment, to potentially address permissible communications and messaging platforms, company access to data (e.g., ability to access data on company-owned devices), and data retention and destruction, among other areas. Training and communications to roll out and maintain awareness of the companys guidance and controls over communications and messaging platforms. Monitoring and testing to ensure that employees are actually following the companys controls over communications and messaging platforms, and that any gaps are promptly remediated. Perhaps the most important bottom-line takeaway is that the DOJ expects companies to carefully consider and implement controls around communications and messaging platforms in advance of any FCPA investigation. Companies that fail to do so risk not only losing full credit for timely and appropriate remediation under the FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy, but also a general loss of credibility in future dealings with U.S. enforcement agencies if they ask for employee messaging data that the company cannot locate. In such circumstances, the agencies would likely be far more receptive to contemporaneous documentary evidence showing that the company took a reasonable approach to communications and messaging platform controls, and would likely assign much less weight to any after-the-fact rationalization of decisions not to control or preserve messaging data. _____ Nate Lankford, pictured above left, is a member at Miller & Chevalier in Washington, D.C. He focuses his practice on matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, business and human rights and other areas of international corporate compliance. He has conducted investigations and created tailored compliance programs for U.S. and international companies in several industries and advised companies on all areas of compliance program implementation. Dawn E. Murphy-Johnson, above right, is counsel at Miller & Chevalier in Washington, D.C. She focuses her practice on white collar criminal defense, complex civil litigation and appellate advocacy. She has experience in cases involving tax and accounting fraud, government contracts fraud, public corruption, export control violations and violations of the FCPA. She has also conducted internal investigations on behalf of multinational corporations. At the XVIth meeting of the European Microscopy Congress in Lyon, France, we are presenting our new Pathfinder software for X-ray microanalysis. Pathfinder software promises to change the way SEM/EDS is used. Built on over 40 years experience in X-ray microanalysis, the Pathfinder platform uses the most advanced data processing routines to bring comprehensive results to you in minutes. Pathfinder software uses our exclusive COMPASS PCA routine to present the ideal analytical representation of your electron microscopes imagery. See it live at EMC 2016. Sign up for a personal demonstration today! 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Shop by product category or use our product selection guides and tools to find the right products for your experiments. Order tools are also available for quick ordering or to track existing orders. Choose from among our most popular product selection guides and tools to find popular product quickly and easily. Reading about research is one thing, but nothing beats seeing it for yourself in person. So when we had the opportunity to with meet the people behind the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) and learn more about how sequencing is impacting their conservation efforts, we jumped at it and how often do you get a chance to see a real Cheetah up-close? Its no secret that the cheetah has suffered tragic setbacks at the hands of human-wildlife conflict, and according to CCF, their population declined by 90% in the 20thcentury. To understand how the species can recover, the CCFs team of scientists is hoping to freeze the cheetah in a genetic moment in time in terms of diversity. Since new genetic diversity cannot be created, it must be preserved. Thermo Fisher Scientific recently donated an Applied Biosystems 3130 Genetic Analyzer to CCF and installed it at their headquarters in Namibia. We were able to sit down with Dr. Laurie Marker, the organizations founder and executive director, to talk about how the new instrument will positively impact their conservation efforts by quadrupling the labs throughput and her vision for growing the CCF to be a shining beacon for researchers all over the African continent. As you can see from the video, a team of amazing people power the CCF, and we were very grateful to get some of their time and video footage. Its also worth watching our exclusive #LabChat with Dr. Anne Schmidt-Kuntzel, Research Geneticist and Assistant Director for Animal Health and Research at CCF. The interview reveals some fascinating details on their multi-prong approach to conservation and how her lab operates in such a remote area. Be sure to learn more at the Cheetah Conservation Funds website and follow their regular updates on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Carol and her colleagues provide drug screening and confirmation for all offenders under the jurisdiction of the MDOC. They also process samples from MDOC employees statewide, who are subject to routine drug screening, and from potential employees during the pre-screening process. The samples, all urine, arrive from across the statevia regular mail, couriers, overnight delivery, etc.and, in most cases, are processed within 24 hours. The toxicology lab for the Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) is a busy place. In 2013 alone, it processed more than 118,000 samples. That work is primarily done by a laboratory staff of eight, led by Carol Bates, the labs manager. Since 2005, Carols lab has used Thermo Scientific DRI drugs of abuse assays to screen as many as 600 samples each day. Screening is done for everything from opiates and cocaine to barbiturates and THC (Cannabinoid). Last year, the MDOC lab confirmed more than 6,400 of the screened samples as positive for a banned substance using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Carol cant imagine doing her job without the benefit of DRI drugs of abuse assays. According to her, the liquid, ready-to-use screening assays are the most cost-effective method for screening, and this is especially key in state government where costs are closely watched. MDOC measures its screening performance on a per-test basis, and they constantly look for ways to lower the average cost. You cant do what were doing for lower cost than were doing it today, she adds. What makes DRI assays so ideal for labs such as MDOCs is the versatility, ease and speed. First introduced in the mid-1990s, DRI assays have filled a critical need for speed without sacrificing accuracy and lot-to-lot consistency. There is no need for time-consuming reagent preparation and DRI assays can run on a range of analyzers. So why is all this important? Because drug use in prison has been a historic problem. But thats changing, and more frequent, accurate and faster testing may be an important factor. But we still have work to do, and a recent Washington Post blog post, Ron Paul thinks drug use is rampant inside prisons. Hes wrong, highlights this. The post suggests that perception of drug use in prison doesnt match reality and further education is needed to see what progress is beingand can bemade. The posts author, Prof. Keith Humphreys, uses the example of the Louisiana state prison system, where there were 1,402 positive drug tests of prisoners over a three-year period. As Prof. Humphreys points out, however, given that Louisiana administered 120,000 tests during that same period, that would put drug use system-wide around one percent, 50 times lower than wed expect to see outside prison. In Missouri, the number would be approximately five percent based on its own 2013 figures. The situation in Californias prisons seems to argue for testing as well. A recent San Francisco Examiner article claimed that California prisons find 1 in 4 inmates used drugs. But, as of the writing of that piece, California didnt require mandatory drug testing across its prisons. If the data from Louisiana and Missouri are any indication, California and other states would be wise to consider a more comprehensiveand streamlineddrugs of abuse screening and confirmation regimen. The last word here goes to Carol Bates, however. She says that, at least for the screening and confirmation part of that regimen, todays rapid, reliable assays will make testing at this scale a whole lot easier. The Show Me state particularly its MDOC lab is indeed showing other states the way. Signature STEM education programs Research shows that students begin losing interest in STEM-related subjects around 11-13 years of age, which is why we have designed our STEM education outreach to focus on connecting with students during this critical time. We realize that many educational institutions lack the resources to bridge the subject matter taught within a textbook to real-world applications. As an industry leader, we believe it is our responsibility to help make this connection, ensuring continued interest in STEM subjects and careers in future generations. Our signature STEM education programs connect students and colleagues through hands-on and team-based activities that highlight our technologies, make connections to careers in STEM and demonstrate how our company impacts the world. Our programs: Innovation Nation, STEM Design Challenge, STEMcredible Kits, and Career Connections, are available to our colleagues to implement in their local communities around the world. These activities can be delivered through individual efforts or through team events planned through our Community Action Councils and Employee Resource Groups. Precision medicine is changing the way patients are being diagnosed and treated for illnesses, and Thermo Fisher is leading the charge in its advancement. In March, government, academic, and industry leaders from China and the U.S. came together to strengthen partnerships and collaborations at the first-ever China-U.S. Precision Medicine Summit. The event was co-hosted by CEO Roundtable on Cancer and the China Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College. "China and the United States are leading the way in developing both the tools and the therapies to advance precision medicine, and Thermo Fisher is uniquely positioned to enable that advancement," said Mark Stevenson, chief operating officer, in his opening remarks. More than 450 attendees gathered for presentations and discussions on the most relevant topics in precision medicine today, including, advancements in diagnosis and treatment of cancer; new targeted therapies and technologies; the impact of digital science; and healthcare and government policy considerations to foster collaboration and accelerate progress. Mark Stevenson underscored the importance of collaboration across borders and the broad impact that precision medicine is already demonstrating. "The application of precision medicine is far broader than just oncology. Precision medicine is helping the blind see, giving hope to kids with cystic fibrosis that they can live past their twenties, and ensuring the right dose of the best drug for an individual patient." As a company, Thermo Fisher has made a significant commitment to advancing precision medicine. Last year, we opened a Precision Medicine Science Center in Guangzhou, China, and recently opened a second Precision Medicine Science Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both centers will showcase Thermo Fishers innovative products, platforms, and services to support precision medicine. "I left the meeting excited about the role Thermo Fisher can play as we deepen bilateral understanding of research and clinical applications in precision medicine," said Stevenson. "It moves us one step closer to ending diseases such as cancer for a healthier world." A cardiac patient at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh is fortunate to be at that facility. Her doctors prescribed a blood thinner based on her pharmacogenetic profile this significantly increases the likelihood that particular drug will work for her. As both a world-renowned healthcare provider and insurer, UPMC is uniquely positioned to deliver on the goal of making healthcare both better and more cost-effective. This is particularly true of its work in precision medicine and pharmacogenomics , where clinicians use data to inform clinical decisions that help improve patient outcomes while driving efficiencies across the entire system. Dr. Philip Empey, a faculty member in the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, is among a vanguard in healthcare who is proving how pharmacogenomics can be used in the clinical setting. His multidisciplinary team at the University of Pittsburgh helped launch PreCISE-Rx (Pharmacogenomics-guided Care to Improve the Safety and Effectiveness of Medications), an initiative that is now driving clinical decision-making at hospitals such as UPMC Presbyterian. Dr. Empey describes PreCISE-Rx as a pharmacogenomics implementation and research program that enables precision prescribing. The prescribing is based on CLIA-lab based testing and the return of results to electronic health records along with recommendations that help clinicians select the optimal drug therapy. The first implementation of PreCISE-Rx is routine, standard-of-care testing for CYP2C19 variants, which, if present, suggest a patient is less able to metabolize clopidogrel, a medication commonly prescribed after stenting cardiac catheterization patients. Those who test positive for CYP2C19 variants would receive an alternative therapy. The benefits of this pharmacogenomics test are obvious: a more precise and cost-effective intervention and, most important, a better outcome for patients. Joining Dr. Empey in the effort to show how pharmacogenomics can advance precision medicine is Dr. Oscar Marroquin, a cardiologist and chief clinical analytics officer at UPMC. As a practicing physician, he sees value not only for his patients but also in the wealth of data generated. Our focus to date at UPMC has been all about the phenotype; we feel that successfully consuming our electronic health record data lays the foundation on which to link genomic data so that we can do precision medicine at scale. The precision medicine initiatives underway at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh arent static with respect to new data sources. Dr. Marroquin says that massive amounts of data from across the UPMC system, and presumably outside as well, will improve clinical decision-making once aggregated and systematically analyzed to deliver actionable, patient-specific insights at the point of care. To bring more data to the table, the UPMC/University of Pittsburgh partnership recently expanded to include Thermo Fisher Scientific. The three organizations recently launched a new Pharmacogenomics (PGx) Center of Excellence to bring together genomic, bioinformatic and pharmacogenomic technology and expertise. The center focuses on the discovery and validation of medication response predictors in patients, relying on Thermo Fishers PGx testing technology for an at-scale preemptive, panel-based PGx testing study that will include up to 150,000 patients in Western Pennsylvania. It will also immediately leverage a new University of Pittsburgh institutional bio-repository, Pitt+Me Discovery, developed by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) to rapidly scale precision medicine research. The study includes high-density population screening of 4,627 markers within 1,191 genes to isolate concise PGx signatures that associate with novel and known phenotypes within specific patient populations. This will support the larger effort to show that targeted PGx testing can be deployed clinically in the future, and at scale, using validated testing platforms. The other focus for the PGx Center of Excellence is helping to overcome clinical implementation barriers and showing the clinical utility and economic value of widespread PGx testing. During a recent panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, Drs. Marroquin and Empey joined Dr. Betty Woo from Thermo Fisher to discuss ways to overcome barriers and accelerate adoption. Consensus on the AAAS panel was that uncertainty around reimbursement for PGx testing remains a significant obstacle. But UPMC is both a healthcare provider and health plan, and this makes for a unique proving ground for quantifying the economic benefits of at scale pharmacogenomics. Whats more, the panelists agreed that their Pittsburgh collaboration can be a model for aligning people, processes, and technology in ways that benefit patients, health systems, and payers elsewhere in the U.S., if not globally. How widespread will pharmacogenomics be in five years? Dr. Empey believes that preemptive panel-based testing will be deployed across more populations and that leading institutions and academia-industry partnerships will use big data and analytics to build risk models based on projected outcomes, medication-use data, and genetic data to achieve optimal population health through better medication outcomes. Dr. Marroquin agrees: Were eager to expand the PreCISE-Rx program beyond cardiology, and we envision that pharmacogenomics will soon be widely used in everyday decision-making across UPMC and at other leading health systems around the world. Click here to learn more about our pharmacogenomics solutions New database programs are on the rise, but much work needs to be done globally for criminal offender databases to hit their full potential In the last twelve months, a number of countries have been actively positioning to begin criminal offender DNA database programs. Ireland and South Africa became the 53rd and 54th countries respectively to implement legislation to create a national DNA database program. Ireland passed their legislation in June 2014, and officially began collecting DNA last November from most convicted criminals. South Africa passed its legislation in January 2014 to require DNA from the most arrested and convicted criminals. Albeit slowly, the collection of DNA in South Africa has officially started. The 55th country to fully implement their database program will likely be Italy. The Italian Ministry of Justice announced in March 2016 that it has completed all of the regulations and lab preparations necessary to begin their long-awaited criminal DNA database program. The collection of samples is expected to begin in late 2016. In addition to the countries moving forward with legislative implementation, there are a number of countries that are working to advance legislation for the first time. Take for example, Algeria, which on April 20, 2016, became the first country in northern Africa to pass criminal offender DNA database legislation. The legislation will require the most convicted and arrested criminals to have their DNA placed in the database. Algeria will now start working on the implementation process in the next few years and hopes to join the other 54 countries that have implemented this legislation. Based on the discussion on DNA database legislation at the ministry and parliamentary level, Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs expects an additional 10 countries to pass and implement DNA database legislation in the next 5 to 10 years. While the growth of new DNA database programs are on the rise, much more work needs to be done to make the existing 54 nationwide DNA programs more effective. There are over 70 million offender profiles contained in the national database programs. This is an impressive number. However, if the four largest databases are not counted (China, The United States, The United Kingdom, and France) only 11 million offender samples exist. This suggests that very few countries have robust databases capable of the hit rates necessary to realize the full potential of DNA databasing. Countries with mature arrestee databases, such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom, can achieve hit rates near 70%. If countries wish to achieve similar hit rates to solve and prevent crime, they need to evaluate their legislation and consider policies that will allow more criminal offender profiles to be added to the database. Peter M. Schneider is a full professor at the Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Cologne, Germany, where he is head of the Division of Forensic Molecular Genetics. He is responsible for the education of students in medicine, biology, and law, and, at the same time, for carrying out routine DNA typing of criminal evidence material, identification cases, as well as relationship testing. Professor Schneider studied biology at the University of Bonn, has spent 1 years as a visiting research fellow at Harvard Medical School in Boston, obtained his Ph.D. in 1987 at the University of Mainz, where he worked for 18 years until 2004, when he accepted the faculty position in Cologne. Since 2012, he is coordinator of the multinational EU-funded 7th framework project "European Forensic Genetics Network of Excellence EUROFORGEN-NoE" establishing a European research infrastructure in forensic genetics. Furthermore, Professor Schneider is an active member of expert commissions dealing with issues related to genetic typing and forensic DNA analysis, such as the National Gene Diagnostics Commission of the German Federal Ministry of Health, and the European DNA Profiling (EDNAP) Group. He is chairman of the German Forensic Stain Commission organizing the annual proficiency testing GEDNAP (www.gednap.org), President of the German Society for Parentage Testing, as well as former President and current Secretary General of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG). Return to speakers Irish-born guitarist, Bernie Torme has recently passed away at the age of 66. The former Ozzy Osbourne bandmate was battling double pneumonia and was later put on a ventilator. One day short of his 67th birthday, the news broke on Twitter. "What a sad day," wrote Ozzy Osbourne. "We've lost another great musician. Bernie was a gentle soul with a heart of gold. He will be dearly missed." Torme's bandmate, drummer Mik Gaffney wrote on Facebook, "It's been a thrill playing drums for him for the past couple of years. He was loud, passionate, didn't suffer fools but he was always a true gentleman... I will miss our arguments about Irish whiskey vs Scottish whisky, I will miss him calling me a c**t, I will miss seeing that sparkle in his eye when he strapped his guitar on... RIP Bernie. We we all miss you..." Experimental blood test accurately spots fibromyalgia COLUMBUS, Ohio - For the first time, researchers have evidence that fibromyalgia can be reliably detected in blood samples - work they hope will pave the way for a simple, fast diagnosis. In a study that appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from The Ohio State University report success in identifying biomarkers of fibromyalgia and differentiating it from a handful of other related diseases. The discovery could be an important turning point in care of patients with a disease that is frequently misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, leaving them without proper care and advice on managing their chronic pain and fatigue, said lead researcher Kevin Hackshaw, an associate professor in Ohio State's College of Medicine and a rheumatologist at the university's Wexner Medical Center. Identification of biomarkers of the disease - a "metabolic fingerprint" like that discovered in the new study - could also open up the possibility of targeted treatments, he said. To diagnose fibromyalgia, doctors now rely on patient-reported information about a multitude of symptoms and a physical evaluation of a patient's pain, focusing on specific tender points, he said. But there's no blood test - no clear-cut, easy-to-use tool to provide a quick answer. "We found clear, reproducible metabolic patterns in the blood of dozens of patients with fibromyalgia. This brings us much closer to a blood test than we have ever been," Hackshaw said. Though fibromyalgia is currently incurable and treatment is limited to exercise, education and antidepressants, an accurate diagnosis has many benefits, Hackshaw said. Those include ruling out other diseases, confirming for patients that their symptoms are real and not imagined, and guiding doctors toward disease recognition and appropriate treatment. "Most physicians nowadays don't question whether fibromyalgia is real, but there are still skeptics out there," Hackshaw said. And many undiagnosed patients are prescribed opioids - strong, addictive painkillers that have not been shown to benefit people with the disease, he said. "When you look at chronic pain clinics, about 40 percent of patients on opioids meet the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia often gets worse, and certainly doesn't get better, with opioids." Hackshaw and co-author Luis Rodriguez-Saona, an expert in the advanced testing method used in the study, said the next step is a larger-scale clinical trial to determine if the success they saw in this research can be replicated. The current study included 50 people with a fibromyalgia diagnosis, 29 with rheumatoid arthritis, 19 who have osteoarthritis and 23 with lupus. Researchers examined blood samples from each participant using a technique called vibrational spectroscopy, which measures the energy level of molecules within the sample. Scientists in Rodriguez-Saona's lab detected clear patterns that consistently set fibromyalgia patients' blood sample results apart from those with other, similar disorders. First, the researchers analyzed blood samples from participants whose disease status they knew, so they could develop a baseline pattern for each diagnosis. Then, using two types of spectroscopy, they evaluated the rest of the samples blindly, without knowing the participants' diagnoses, and accurately clustered every study participant into the appropriate disease category based on a molecular signature. "These initial results are remarkable. If we can help speed diagnosis for these patients, their treatment will be better and they'll likely have better outlooks. There's nothing worse than being in a gray area where you don't know what disease you have," Rodriguez-Saona said. His lab mostly concerns itself with using the metabolic fingerprinting technology for food-related research, focusing on issues such as adulteration of milk and cooking oils and helping agriculture companies figure out which plants are best suited to fight disease. The chance to partner with medical experts to help solve the problem of fibromyalgia misdiagnosis was exciting, said Rodriguez-Saona, a professor of food science and technology at Ohio State. Rodriguez-Saona said for the next study he'd like to examine 150 to 200 subjects per disease group to see if the findings of this research are replicable in a larger, more-diverse population. Hackshaw said his goal is to have a test ready for widespread use within five years. Fibromyalgia is the most common cause of chronic widespread pain in the United States, and disproportionately affects women. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 2 percent of the population - around 4 million adults - has fibromyalgia. Other organizations estimate even higher numbers. About three in four people with fibromyalgia have not received an accurate diagnosis, according to previous research, and those who do know they have the disease waited an average of five years between symptom onset and diagnosis. Common symptoms include pain and stiffness all over the body, fatigue, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, headaches and problems with thinking, memory and concentration. Eventually, this work could lead to identification of a particular protein or acid - or combination of molecules - that is linked to fibromyalgia, Rodriguez-Saona said. "We can look back into some of these fingerprints and potentially identify some of the chemicals associated with the differences we are seeing," he said. In addition to identifying fibromyalgia, the researchers also found evidence that the metabolic fingerprinting technique has the potential to determine the severity of fibromyalgia in an individual patient. "This could lead to better, more directed treatment for patients," Hackshaw said. ### Other Ohio State researchers involved with the study were Didem Aykas, Gregory Sigurdson, Marcal Plans Pujolras, Francesca Madiai, Lianbo Yu and Monica Giusti. Tony Buffington, formerly of Ohio State and now at the University of California, Davis, was also a co-author. The research was supported in part by the Columbus Medical Research Foundation. ** Video and photos available for download: http://bit. ly/ 2O1pjk4 ** Media contact: Eileen Scahill, 614-293-3737; Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu Written by Misti Crane, 614-292-5220; Crane.11@osu.edu This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. In an interview granted to Nhan Dan (People) Weekly Newspaper, he shared that for him, every art programme is arranged like a dream during which the audience will forget their hardships in life and be able to live in their own dream. Question: How can you touch the hearts of an audience who cant understand your language of art? Director Tuan Le: There are certain similarities in culture and human behaviour among nations around the world. Of course, we cannot forcefully integrate the similarities in our artworks, we must do it in a delicate way. For example, the Teh Dar show is inspired by the indigenous culture of the Central Highlanders, but it goes beyond that to tell a story of tribes in many other countries and continents, not only limited in Vietnam. If Teh Dar is not introduced as a Vietnamese show, no one will know about this. That is why Teh Dar has universal appeal. It is said that running for traditional culture is a current trend in todays life, what do you think about this? It is commonly seen throughout the world, not only in Vietnam. However, people in foreign countries not only welcome new cultural trends from outside, they have also safeguarded their traditional culture. When we toured Japan last year, we noticed that their traditional plays were full of audiences, many of them buying tickets for every show of the day. The actors and actresses were busy with their working schedule from the morning until late, and were always welcomed by the audience, who treasure and want to preserve their traditional culture. The traditional and folklore culture of Vietnam is a vast repertoire but a small part of it has been used and its value has not yet been fully promoted. It is a big question for me that why do we have to wait until our folklore practices are recognised by the UNESCO to take actions to safeguard and develop the heritage. They are our culture. It must be our business. What do you think about the Vietnamese cultural repertoire? At the beginning, we didnt know exactly what to do, but then when we started working, we realised our culture has so many things which can serve as abundant sources of material for art creation. The cultures of the northern, central, Central Highlands, and southern regions, they are all interesting as long as we have a passionate crew who really go for it. Vietnamese culture is a vast repertoire. I hope that our recent projects can create a positive influence for the production of more interesting artworks. The Teh Dar show is inspired by the indigenous culture of the Central Highlanders (Photo: Lune Production) There are diverse materials for art shows, but why do you choose bamboo for many of your shows? Aesthetically, I think that bamboo is a beautiful image. It can be hard but flexible and soft at the same time when it is used in the A O show. In Teh Dar, we utilise the martial for circus acts. Before Teh Dar was brought abroad, people were afraid about whether the show could distinguish itself from our previous shows. When it was introduced in France, it was shown to be very special as the performers are ethnic Central Highlanders who convey a strong message to the audience through their performance. You have worked in many countries around the world and have won much success with your career abroad, what made you decide to return to Vietnam? I think that it is not important where you are living but the matter is whether your presence and existence in that place can generate a resonance with others. I returned here to share my knowledge and introduce a positive and creative working manner to others. When I first returned to Vietnam in 2000, I just wandered around the cities and provinces throughout the north to the south. Without mapping out a detailed itinerary, I just admired the nature, fields, and friendly and happy people. I was really touched by them. I felt so curious that I wanted to worked here in the country. Lang Toi (My Village) is the first show in my comeback effort. As a slow-motion film, My Village recollects childhood memories about a poetic Vietnam through the curious eyes of a child. Following the success of My Village, I and my co-workers continued with the A O show which combines bamboo circus acts and music, The Mist - which tells the story of Southern Vietnamese farming life, expressed through neo-classic and contemporary dance, Teh Dar- which features Vietnamese tribal culture of Central Highlanders, and most recently, Palao dance show which is imbued with the Cham ethnic culture. I am nurturing an idea of staging a show on Vietnamese water puppetry. Thank you so much for your sharing! Legalstart.fr, a Paris, France-based legaltech startup, received a minority investment from ISAI. ISAI made the investment through its Growth Equity fund, ISAI Expansion II. The company intends to use the funds to include more professionals in its service offer, such as lawyers, notaries and chartered accountants, add new support services for entrepreneurs and step up organic growth among entrepreneur clients, its original market. Founded by Pierre Aidan and Timothee Rambaud, Legalstart.fr provides online legal services for businesses. The companys platform allows entrepreneurs and small businesses across all sectors, including skilled workers, store owners and services, to manage all their legal, administrative and accounting procedures online. They can complete the legal requirements for setting up a company, hiring an employee, managing accounts, registering a trademark or collecting unpaid debts. For more complex issues, Legalstart.fr can also put clients in contact with specialized lawyers through its network of more than one hundred partners across the legal landscape. The company has a team of 60 people. FinSMEs 18/03/2019 The King of Surf Guitar has passed away. Richard Anthony Monsour, better known as Dick Dale passed away last Saturday night, confirmed by his live bassist, Sam Bolle. Dale has been credited as one of the first few electric guitar players who did not employ Western scales in his playing. Instead, his distinctive signature sound is inspired by Gene Krupa's jungle drum rhythms and many other indigenous peoples' dance rhythms. He was among the first few to use a reverb pedal which made the electric guitar sound 'wet' which has now become a standard of surf rock. Rapid alternative picking is also his signature style of playing the guitar. Dale played an important role in the development of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. In 2011, he told Miami New Times that he was the test pilot for Leo Fender. He used to say: When it can withstand the barrage of punishment from Dick Dale, then it is fit for the human consumption. So I blew up over 50 amplifiers. And thats why they call me the Father of Heavy Metal. SAN FRANCISCO A decade ago, when the greed and carelessness of the financial industry came close to destroying the U.S. economy, the overwhelming response by politicians and the public was: Meh. Almost instantly, all was forgiven and forgotten. Now the tech industry which, among other impressive innovations, provides the worlds knowledge on demand, lets people freely broadcast their diverse opinions and has made shopping as easy as pushing a button has made some mistakes of its own. It has abused privacy, squeezed the competition and casually spread hate. And thats just the beginning of the list. Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple might not get away as cleanly as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, released proposals this month that would force tech breakups and impose severe restrictions on what remained. Another Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, covered more briefly some of the same ground, saying, We have a major monopoly problem. At a moment when nearly everything in America seems wildly contentious, antitrust action against tech is getting a sober look. Antitrust is the nuclear bomb of regulatory policy, but the reaction to Warrens and Klobuchars ideas was surprisingly receptive. Weve got to break these guys apart, Warren said in an interview on Face the Nation. The show could name only one critic of her proposal: Howard Schultz, the Starbucks mogul, who is flirting with an independent run for president to the deep disregard of voters. A billionaire, right? Warren noted. For decades, a politician who mentioned antitrust was essentially arguing for more government oversight, which has been dangerous territory at least since the Ronald Reagan administration. Antitrust was relegated to the shelf with socialism and wealth inequality and higher taxes for higher incomes. It didnt help that what could be called maximum antitrust when the Justice Department decides a company is abusing its monopoly power and should be broken up has a mixed history. The government dropped such a case against IBM in 1982 after more than a decade. It settled its case against Microsoft in 2001. Only AT&T, which agreed in 1982 to dissolve itself into a long-distance company and the seven Baby Bells, could be considered an unqualified success from the governments point of view. The political landscape is shifting, however, at a speed that dumbfounds even antitrust experts. President Barack Obama thought of the tech companies in the way they think of themselves: as progressive, smart entrepreneurs who want whats best for America. His administration declined to pursue Google on antitrust charges and hired from the tech industry for top posts. Top staff members later went to work for the tech industry in top posts, too. It was a cosy relationship. Something has definitely changed, said Geoffrey A. Manne, founder of the International Center for Law and Economics, a think tank in Portland, Ore. Most voters are very fond of Amazon, Apple, Google and even Facebook. But I think theres also a growing sense of skepticism about all these companies. The shine has come off. Manne, who has been a critic of the antitrust arguments against Google and has received funding from the search giant as well as from some of its competitors, including Comcast and AT&T, eviscerated Warrens proposal with his colleague Alec Stapp in a recent blog post. They wrote that the senators plan to turn the top companies into heavily regulated platform utilities would make them as resistant to improvement as sewer systems or Amtrak. And yet, Manne conceded in an interview, increased regulation is an idea whose time may have come. There is a long history in America just not a recent one of using the power of the state to counteract the economic power of private enterprise, he said. We may be at that moment again. The financial firms were predatory last decade, exploiting weak spots in the mortgage markets in a way that undermined their viability. Google and Facebook, by contrast, offer their services for free, while Amazon built its reputation on selling as cheaply as possible. That makes it hard to regulate them by the antitrust consensus, which for a couple of decades has held that there is no injury unless consumers directly suffer by paying higher prices. Nothing is ever really free, of course, and there has been a dawning realization among some consumers that they are paying for these services with information about themselves. How most users feel about this seems up in the air, as evidenced by a new SurveyMonkey poll done for the news site Axios. The headline finding was that a growing majority now views our online privacy as a crisis. But deeper in the survey was the revelation that more than half the respondents said they were unwilling to pay to keep from being tracked by a service they were using. Twenty-one per cent said they would pay less than $1 a month, and no more, for the right. Users, it seems, want it both ways: privacy and free services. This is the contradiction at the heart of the internet. Daniel Crane, an antitrust expert at the University of Michigan, said Warrens proposal might be a hard sell to voters. The median consumer probably feels that she gets lots of free goodies from big tech and will worry about what it would mean to go after them, he said. But Crane noted that being broken up was the least of the companies worries. A likelier consequence is that the next acquisition they want to make will be rejected, he said. Even just the rhetoric can complicate their lives and put pressure going forward. That is already happening. One of the anti-competitive complaints about Amazon is that it prohibited its merchants from selling more cheaply elsewhere. That prevented a new platform from underselling Amazon and gaining a competitive edge. Amazon ended this practice in Europe six years ago, but it continued in the United States. Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked for regulators to investigate in December. Last week, Amazon confirmed that it had dropped the requirement. Antitrust talk emboldens competitors as well. Google controls much of the market for online ads in Australia, just as it does elsewhere. That presents a big problem for News Corp., which owns eight of the 10 largest papers in the country. The Rupert Murdoch-controlled media conglomerate asked Australian regulators last week to take the very serious step of breaking up Google in the country because of the unparalleled power that it currently exerts over news publishers and advertisers alike. In this new environment, winning can soon look a lot like losing. Amazon opposed a proposal in Seattle last spring for a corporate tax to help the homeless, and succeeded in getting it cut in half. Then the retailer decided it just couldnt live with the measure at all. A repeal effort began. The city council killed the tax just as it was going into effect. At the time, that looked like another triumph for Amazon. But in the months since, even some of those who thought the tax was a bad idea have found their views evolving. My feelings about Amazon have changed, and not in a good way, said Julie Shapiro, a Seattle University professor of family law. I think they want the ability to be a bully and, once they have it, theyre quite willing to use it. That is the crux of the issue: Can a company be dominant without coming off as a bully? It is no accident that the company that was the subject of the biggest antitrust action in the last quarter-century Microsoft had a terrible reputation in the tech community. Voters love innovation, convenience and entrepreneurs. They dont love bullies. Amazon failed to avoid bullying behaviour in its now-abandoned bid to build a headquarters in New York, and Facebook likewise failed last week when it took down Warrens posts about Facebook having too much power. The company, which said the posts had violated the use of its logo, quickly restored them, but the public relations damage had been done. Curious why I think FB has too much power? Warren tweeted. Lets start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Read more about: TORONTO - Manulife Financial Corp. has won its legal fight in a Saskatchewan court with hedge fund Mosten Investment LP, which had argued that its universal life insurance policy with the Canadian insurer allowed for unlimited deposits and a guaranteed return. Prominent short-seller Muddy Waters had warned last fall that if the judge ruled in favour of Mosten, the hedge fund would have been able to sell an unlimited amount of partnership interests backed by Manulife and financially cripple the insurer. Saskatchewan Court of Queens Bench Judge B.J. Scherman concluded in his decision released last week that the policy does not provide for unlimited stand-alone investment opportunities within the carrier fund. Manulife said on Monday that it was pleased with the ruling. This is consistent with our position that this case was legally unfounded and commercially absurd, and that consumers purchasing universal life policies, and the insurers issuing these policies, never intended to have the policies function as deposit or securities contracts, the insurer said in a statement. Shares of Manulife closed up approximately three per cent in Toronto to $23.31 on Monday. In October 2018, Muddy Waters head of research Carson Block took aim at Manulife in a report warning that the impending ruling in the Mosten case had the potential to significantly damage the insurer. In the report announcing its short position in the company, Block warned that a ruling in Mostens favour could lead to billions of dollars of losses. Short-selling is a trading technique that can produce a profit if a stocks market value falls below a predetermined price. Mosten had argued in court that under the terms of the universal life insurance policy with Manulifes life insurance subsidiary, it could deposit an unlimited amount of money and receive an annualized guaranteed return of at least four per cent with one-month liquidity. Manulife had argued that this is counter to the purpose of life insurance and associated regulation. Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc., also known as iA Financial Group, and BMO Life insurance also faced litigation involving similar claims. iA Financial Group said Monday that the Saskatchewan court dismissed, in its entirety, the application commenced by Ituna Investment LP against it. The hedge fund was seeking to make unlimited deposits into a universal life insurance contract that it purchased from a policyholder, iA Financial Group added in its statement, but the judge found that Itunas position was inconsistent with the language and the purpose of the contract. iA Financial Group also said it was analyzing the full details of the decision and will provide further comments if necessary. A BMO spokeswoman said the bank was pleased with the Courts decision confirming our position on the use of universal life insurance policies but it has no further comment at this point. Shares of the Quebec-based insurer closed up nearly two per cent to $51.42 on the Toronto Stock Exchange while shares of BMO closed up less than a per cent at $104.11. The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association said Monday it had intervened in the cases against Manulife, iA and BMO and the association welcomed the Saskatchewan court ruling. This important ruling unequivocally supports what insurers, their customers and regulators already know to be true: the purpose of an insurance policy is to protect the lives of the insured and their families, said CLHIA president and chief executive Stephen Frank in a statement. Insurance policies are not intended to offer an unlimited investment opportunity completely unrelated to insurance coverage. Companies in this story: (TSX:MFC, TSX:IAG, TSX: BMO) OTTAWAThe federal public-safety minister suggests the deadly mass shooting in New Zealand will spur parliamentarians to take a careful look at Canadas gun laws. Ralph Goodale says the killing of 50 people in Christchurch has sparked a global sense of concern that will prompt Canadian politicians to make some timely decisions. Goodale says his cabinet colleague Bill Blair will deliver recommendations soon, after having been asked last August to study a full ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada. New Zealands prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, says gun-law reforms will be announced within days in that country. A bill already before Canadas Senate would, among other things, expand the scope of background checks on those who want to acquire guns here. Instead of just the five years immediately preceding a licence application, questions about buyers histories would cover their entire lifetimes. Read more: As details emerge on mosque gunman, New Zealand asks what it could have done differently New Zealands darkest day: 36 minutes of terror Defiant vigil starts healing in New Zealand after massacre Read more about: MONTREALThe Quebec government has convened a panel of experts and given it one year to come up with recommendations on improving support for sexual assault and domestic violence victims, who often feel let down by the system. Justice Minister Sonia LeBel was joined by members of Quebecs other main political parties as she announced the committee Monday in Montreal. LeBel, Helene David of the Liberals, Veronique Hivon of the Parti Quebecois, and Christine Labrie of Quebec solidaire held non-partisan meetings on the issue in January amid debate over whether a special tribunal should be established to handle sexual assault cases an idea Premier Francois Legault has said he is open to. Theres a very present lack of confidence in the justice system from the point of view of the victims, LeBel said. We are very concerned by that, and through our discussions we agreed on specific things we should address, and we decided the way to do it is to look at it from the victims point of view. The panel will look at measures already in place and study options to provide more sustained support. How can we make certain that ... whatever happens at the end of the process, they have confidence that they were believed, they were accompanied and they were not victimized a second time by the system? LeBel asked. Read more: Quebec parties meet to discuss ways to better support sexual assault victims After #MeToo, Canada sees sharp increase in sexual assault complaints filed with police Quebec class action alleging sexual abuse in Jehovahs Witnesses can proceed A special tribunal has been floated as one way to improve the system. LeBel said a change to federal law such as shifting the burden of proof to the defendant is not on the table. But proponents of a tribunal say it could give victims an increased role in the process and provide a framework for judges, prosecutors and court staff to follow. Hivon, who has pushed for such a tribunal, drew a parallel with the provinces right-to-die legislation, which she played a large role in bringing forward. Quebec can do a lot to change things, Hivon said, noting that she often heard during the assisted-death debate that not much could be accomplished because it was under federal jurisdiction. LeBel said Monday a tribunal is one of many possibilities the panel members will look at, and if it is part of their recommendations, the government will study it further. We are not attached to any one solution, but this is something the committee has the mandate to look at, LeBel said. Everything is possible. The 13-member panel will consist of a former chief judge of the court of Quebec, academics, a provincial police representative, lawyers, frontline workers and victims advocates. Among the members is actress Patricia Tulasne, who represents the group of complainants called Les Courageuses (The Courageous Ones), who are suing former Just For Laughs head Gilbert Rozon over alleged assaults. Some organizations that work with victims said its clear more funding will be needed. We hope that when they talk about supporting victims, they will ensure that groups that specialize in dealing with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence will have the means to do their job, said Louise Riendeau, who speaks for an organization that represents shelters for abused women. She noted funding hasnt risen to meet demand in recent years, and there are waiting lists for spaces in shelters. Read more about: REGINAThe Saskatchewan NDP is calling on Premier Scott Moe to instruct his cabinet ministers not to attend yellow vest rallies. Opposition Leader Ryan Meili pressed the matter during question period Monday and cited last weeks mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 50 dead. Meili is demanding Moe distance himself from the yellow vest movement, which originated in France but has been adopted in Canada. Some who attend yellow vest rallies and post on its social media pages decry immigration, as well as the federal governments energy policies. Earlier this year, an NDP member questioned why Minister of Highways and Infrastructure Lori Carr and Minister for Rural and Remote Health Greg Ottenbreit attended yellow vest rallies. Moe said ministers who attended the rallies did so specifically to oppose federal energy policies. Read more: Dance party at Alberta legislature after yellow vest supporters driven away Canadas yellow vest movement looks like its here to stay but what is it really about? Yellow vests in Canada bear no resemblance to protesters in France, says ambassador We should in no way paint all of these individuals with the same brush due to a few comments by a few individuals. His government condemns comments that are anti-immigrant and Islamophobic, he said. Meili said anti-immigration language and statements of violence made against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can be found at yellow vest rallies and in its online groups. For the premier to be unwilling to distance himself from those events and that movement is irresponsible, he said. An Australian white supremacist is charged with murder in the mosque shootings, which happened last week in Christchurch, New Zealand. Most service has been restored at Toronto Pearson Airports Terminal 1 after the Sunday night fire that wreaked havoc on the U.S. flight schedule and left many patrons stranded for hours. GTAA spokesperson Maria Ganogiannis said the fire broke out in the United States departures area of Terminal 1 and passengers were evacuated away from the area. All flights departing to the U.S. were cancelled on Sunday night but normal operations had resumed Monday morning with some delays. Pearson Airport is asking people travelling to the U.S. on Monday to contact their airline before departing for the airport. Travel to the airport was still being snarled Monday. Peel Paramedics said on Sunday that several travellers were being treated on site for minor injuries as a result of the fire. Paramedics later tweeted that a woman was taken to hospital in stable condition. A second woman was treated on scene. The fire was later extinguished but Peel Regional Police said there remained a significant amount of water and smoke. Air Canada announced that it would be offering a flexible rebooking policy for affected passengers. Const. Akhil Mooken said that clean up crews were working on clearing the smoked areas. He said Peel police would remain on site to help the airport with crowd control, given the high volume of travellers coming through for March Break. The cancellations followed a busy week at the airport, following the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 jets, which came as a result of concerns over the safety of that model in wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash last Sunday. As for compensation, we appreciate this was disruptive for our customers but this was caused by factors completely outside Air Canadas control, said Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick, who added that the fire occured in the duty-free area of Terminal 1. Numerous travellers on inbound flights were reportedly stuck on planes on the tarmac, in some cases for several hours. Sonia DePiero, who was travelling on an Air Canada flight that was stuck on the tarmac throughout the evening, had fellow passengers serenade her with Happy Birthday as they waited to deplane. Spencer Alty, who was on an Air Canada flight from Orlando and landed at Pearson just after 7:30 p.m., said he was coming back from a March Break trip and waited to get off his plane for over two hours. The lack of information (was) nothing short of appalling. Toronto Pearson (as) a facility should be ashamed of itself, Alty said. With files from Premila DSa and Rhianna Jackson-Kelso and the Canadian Press Tom Yun is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @thetomyun Read more about: Torstar has received 12 nominations for the 70th National Newspaper Awards, which honour the best in Canadian journalism from 2018, including six nominations for the Toronto Star. Among the nods, Star journalists Rachel Mendleson, Diana Zlomislic, Robert Cribb, Marco Chown Oved, Andrew Bailey and Emma Jarratt are finalists in the project of the year category for the Medical Disorder series, an 18-month investigation in the discipline records of doctors permitted to practise on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. The series, which showed how doctors can move to different jurisdictions to escape disciplinary rulings, analyzed 27,000 discipline records and 1.4 million licensing records of doctors in Canada and the U.S. Dozens of Star journalists are also finalists in the breaking news category for the papers moment-by-moment and block-by-block coverage of the Yonge St. van attack. Here are the Stars nominations: Breaking News: A team of 42 journalists for the Stars coverage of the Yonge St. van attack, which left 10 dead and 16 injured. Project of the Year: A team of six journalists for the Medical Disorder investigation. International: Washington bureau chief Daniel Dale, for his exhaustive coverage of the deceptions and lies of U.S. President Donald Trump. Presentation: Journalists Cameron Tulk, David Schnitman, Tania Pereira and Fadi Yaacoub, for their work on the Stars fact-check of every question and answer over five days of Question Period. Sports: Feature writer Mary Ormsby, for her sports reporting on how sprinter Ben Johnsons positive drug sample from the 1988 Seoul Olympics had been mishandled 30 years earlier, and for a story outlining the cognitive decline and personal turmoil faced by legendary boxer George Chuvalo. Photo essay: Photographer Carlos Osorio, for his work accompanying a feature story about a 77-year-old woman who was forced to move out of the publicly subsidized building she lived in when it was deemed unsafe. Star journalists go out every day motivated to report and break stories that make a difference to Canadians. It is always rewarding to see work recognized, said Irene Gentle, Editor of the Toronto Star. Sincere congratulations to everyone nominated, a celebration of Canadian journalism. Three other Torstar newspapers received nominations, with the Waterloo Region Record nominated in three categories, the St. Catharines Standard in two and the Hamilton Spectator one. Their nominated works are: Investigations: St. Catharines Standard reporter Grant LaFleche, for a yearlong investigation that uncovered a political conspiracy to manipulate the hiring of Niagara Regions top bureaucrat and a secret contract worth more than a million dollars. Local Reporting: The Standards LaFleche, for a yearlong investigation that uncovered a political conspiracy to manipulate the hiring of Niagara Regions top bureaucrat and a secret contract worth more than a million dollars. Local Reporting: Waterloo Region Record reporter Greg Mercer, for a detailed probe into the serious health problems that afflicted workers from the regions once-booming rubber industry, and the apparent reluctance of workplace safety officials to accept their compensation claims. Editorials: The Records John Roe. Politics: The Records Mercer, for exposing how the Ontario Conservative party concocted a story that a legislator had sexually harassed a former party intern, in order to nominate a more well-connected party insider. Short feature: Hamilton Spectator reporter Jon Wells, for an engaging and poignant story about a couples determination to see a man freed from death row in the U.S. for a crime he said he did not commit. Michael de Adder was also nominated for editorial cartooning for his work in the Toronto Star, Halifax Chronicle-Herald and Brunswick News. The Globe and Mail led all entrants with 20 nominations among the awards 21 categories. In total, 63 finalists were selected from 951 entries. The winners will be announced on May 3 in Toronto. The 2018 journalist of the year will be named from among the this years winners. On Monday, two Toronto Star journalists also received an honourable mention for the prestigious 2019 Canadian Hillman Prize in investigative reporting. Investigative reporter Moira Welsh and visual journalist Randy Risling were recognized for The Fix, a story about a Peel nursing home and the struggles that come with transformational change. The investigation led to council-led changes at the City of Toronto and increased lobbying with the Ontario government to fund new emotion-focused programs at nursing homes. The Hillman foundation awarded its top honour, the 2019 Hillman Prize, to the CBCs The Fifth Estate for its reporting on school bus safety. The Logic also received an honourable mention for its reporting on the Sidewalk Toronto project on the waterfront. It was supposed to be a chance for Muslim and Jewish House Democrats to ease tensions and find common ground. It ended with one lawmaker in tears. At a late-night meeting blocks from the Capitol, about a dozen lawmakers shared their raw experiences with bigotry and discrimination, hoping the stories would bridge the glaring interfaith divide. Suddenly, Rep. Dean Phillips, a Jewish Democrat, shattered a moment meant to be about listening and learning not politics. Phillips felt he had to address what had been unspoken for nearly two hours the recent divisive remarks of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim who suggested American supporters of Israel have an allegiance to a foreign country. Those kinds of remarks, Phillips said, represented tips of the arrow small but devastating offences that made Jews fearful of a rising tide of anti-Semitism. Phillips told his fellow Minnesota freshman that she had to apologize and said the group should publicly affirm Israels right to exist and protect itself. His words stunned the three Muslim Democrats in the room, as well as some other Jewish members and third-party participants. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Mich., a Palestinian American who does not support the existence of a Jewish-only state, grew emotional and started to cry as she spoke of her grandmothers suffering in the West Bank at the hands of Israelis. She would treat you like a grandson, she said to Phillips, according to two people in the room. The second gathering aimed at reconciliation broke on a bitter note. Read more: Trump claims theres not really a rise in white nationalism after racist gunman kills dozens of Muslims in New Zealand Nuclear talks flounder as Trump is accused of gangsterlike tactics Steve Bannon flexes influence during Brazilian president visit with Trump The abrupt end to the March 5 meeting was a discomfiting moment in a previously unreported, behind-the-scenes effort inside the diverse class of House Democrats to foster tolerance amid the withering pressure of Washington. Democrats convulsive efforts to respond to recent Omar criticisms of Israel have exposed ugly rifts in the party over religion and U.S. ally Israel that have boiled over on Twitter and in the public sphere. Those interparty fights have distracted from the partys legislative agenda and fuelled political attacks from Republicans, including President Trump. Its why Democrats on both sideshave formed a small group to try to work past their differences. Success or failure of the private meetings could have an impact on the partys larger effort to unite across schisms on race, gender and ideology. Despite the harsh endingto the meeting, several participants who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations said the huddle had a profound effect: Some in the room heard stories of hardship from their colleagues they knew nothing about. The next day, at a heated closed-door caucus meeting, some of those attendees pushed back against leaderships plan to reprimand Omar for the same comments Phillips objected to the night before. Some Jewish participants of the meeting broke with people of their own faith who wanted to rebuke Omar by name. They had come to know her, did not believe her comments were intentional and objected to the idea of rebuking a woman who told them the night before about death threats shed received. If we cant be on the same page, its hard for the country to, said Phillips, adding that he learned from the gathering and the effect his words had. We have an opportunity here because the eyes are on us. We know that. House Democratic leaders responded with a sweeping resolution condemning all forms of hate that passed overwhelmingly on March 7. The push to bring lawmakers from different backgrounds together began earlier this year, spearheaded by Rep. Jamie Raskin, Md. an ex-professor and veteran in activist circles who organized a makeshift gathering over Chinese food. Days before the first meeting on Feb. 13, Omar posted tweets attributing politicians support of Israel to campaign money donated by pro-Israel groups its all about the benjamins baby, she wrote. Critics earlier had unearthed comments Omar made during violence between Israelis and Palestinians in 2012, suggesting Israel had hypnotized a world that did nothing to stop the bloodshed. Those comments outraged many Jewish Democratic lawmakers, who pushed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her lieutenants to condemn Omars remarks. Omar apologized the next day and later deleted the tweets. When the group met two days later at a former lawmakers house on Capitol Hill, the controversy had mostly cleared, and Raskin was determined to keep the mood casual, according to several who attended who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private sessions. He asked everyone to go around the room to say something about a grandparent, starting the conversation by talking about how his grandfather had been the first Jewish member of the Minnesota legislature a path-breaker like many of the freshman House Democrats. The idea, according to people familiar with the session, was to humanize each other. Raskin would not discuss details of the meeting but said that he is constantly trying to get members together to talk about the experiences and values that have brought them into public life. Phillips, a wealthy businessman representing the Minneapolis suburbs, spoke of his grandmother teaching him piano and how he was adopted from a poor family into a wealthier one after his father died in the Vietnam War. Rep. Andre Carson (Ind.), a Muslim convert elected in 2008, told a story about his grandmother picking him up from a shelter when he was little after his mother, who struggled with schizophrenia, had a severe episode. That grandmother, former congresswoman Julia Carson, ended up raising him and introducing him to politics. House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey (N.Y.) talked about how her grandparents left Russia to escape anti-Jewish pogroms and were eager to embrace America. I think it was just the beginning, and I think its important that we get to understand each other and try and educate people, understand peoples different points of view, Lowey said about the meeting. But the conversations left some members wanting to delve deeper into personal struggles- especially in light of Omars comments. Rep. Andy Levin (Mich.), a former labour organizer and synagogue president, began organizing a more formal event that would focus on anti-Semitism, calling on leaders of a liberal Jewish group, Bend the Arc, to attend and moderate the discussion. Levin had hoped the leftward tilt of the organization would make it easier to discuss such a sensitive topic with liberal members who sympathize with Palestinians. He also extended the invitation to freshmen allies of Omar and Tlaib including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, N.Y., and Ayanna Pressley, Mass. in hopes of making the two Muslim women more comfortable. But days before the meeting, Omar again sparked an uproar with her comments about American supporters of Israel. Several Jewish Democrats had quietly started pressing Pelosi to pass a resolution rebuking Omar by name and condemning anti-Semitism. Lowey used Twitter to urge her to retract this statement and engage in further dialogue with the Jewish community, which in turn prompted a public retort from Ocasio-Cortez. When the small group convened, tensions emerged almost immediately. A Bend the Arc facilitator made a joke about Jews and money to try to clear the air. But Rep. Jahana Hayes (Conn.), one of the freshman allies invited to join the session, grew serious and asked why the facilitator could talk like that when someone like Hayes could not. Its not OK, Hayes said this past week when asked about the specific exchange. These [sorts of jokes] are off-limits. Its confusing for someone like me who is trying to learn. Hayes, however said, the meeting which delved into the history of anti-Semitism and charged language was helpful for people who dont know the meaning of certain words: Im looking to try to understand everybodys perspective, she said. This isnt my community. The conversation took a different turn as some non-Jewish members in the room admitted they didnt know what anti-Semitism looks like. The Jews present appreciated the candour and sought to share stories illuminating why certain words had negative meaning. Soon lawmakers were talking about their own experiences with discrimination. Toward the end of the session, Phillips felt the need to bring up a personal hurt: Omars recent comments. Omar, who supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said nothing as Tlaib described the effects Israels policies on her Palestinian family. Others in the room saw racial undertones in Phillipss comments, offended that a wealthy white businessman representing an affluent suburban community was suggesting a black refugee such as Omar incited fear. Tlaib and Omar declined to comment about the meeting. Asked about the exchange, Phillips said he had not intended to offend anyone and had learned from it. It wasnt planned, and it wasnt what we expected. But I think it was cathartic. It certainly was for me, Phillips said. Since then, the group has huddled on the House floor to discuss what happened. Although the exercise has been uncomfortable at times, many think it was worthwhile and are planning to do it again, perhaps focusing on anti-Muslim bigotry and racism . This wasnt a one-time thing, Levin said in an interview in which he spoke generally about the meeting but declined to comment on specific events. We are committed to building authentic relationships of mutual understanding and solidarity to tackle all forms of discrimination and oppression. The only way to do that is by having private dialogues where folks can speak freely so we can really learn from and about each other. WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALANDSome rushed to their trusted online dealers and stores to stock up on semi-automatic assault rifles. Others unlocked their secure cabinets, picked up their firearms and turned them into police stations, no questions asked. The estimated quarter of a million gun owners across this largely quiet, peaceful South Pacific country, many of them dedicated hunters, are bracing for what are likely to be significant reforms to New Zealands firearm laws. Leaders have hinted the changes will impact the proliferation and availability of semi-automatic weapons in particular. The changes, agreed to in principle by the countrys coalition government Monday just 72 hours after the deadliest act of gun violence in New Zealand history put the country in line with others that have taken swift action following tragedy within their borders. Details of the changes will be announced within the week, and must be passed by parliament. A gunman who pledged allegiance to white nationalist causes killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, and has been remanded on one charge of murder with more to follow. He has been identified by police as 28-year old Australian Brenton Tarrant who in one day killed more than all the people murdered across New Zealand in 2017. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern labelled the massacre the worst act of terrorism on our shores and immediately promised swift action, calling for gun laws to be changed. Her declarations have been celebrated by many in New Zealand, some of whom had no idea that military-style semi-automatic weapons were so prolific in a country famously known for its extremely low murder rate. On Monday, the e-commerce website Trade Me, similar to eBay, halted the sale of semi-automatic weapons on its platform. Read more: Christchurch gun shop sold rifles online to accused shooter Alleged New Zealand gunman fires lawyer, says hell represent himself Students look to love at New Zealand school hit by tragedy Weve had a lot of contact from Kiwis over the weekend about this issue, and many felt we should stop the sale of these items in the wake of this attack, Trade Me said in a statement. Weve listened to these sentiments and weve put this ban in place while we await clear direction from the government. John Hart, a gun owner, said on Twitter he had given up his AR-15 rifle and ammunition because his convenience doesnt outweigh the risk of misuse. Still, some gun dealers have also bristled at the idea that they or the weapons they sell are culpable in Fridays events, and have resented being put on the spot. We have good laws, weve always had good laws, said Wayne Chapman, owner of The Gunshop in Upper Hutt, a city northeast of Wellington. His store, he said, has not seen a surge or had any problems. David Tipple, managing director of Gun City, one of the largest firearms retailers in New Zealand, called a news conference Monday to announce that Tarrant had bought four guns from Gun Citys online store and had them delivered through mail. Gun City has been the focus of criticism and has seen small protests outside their stores in recent days. Many on social media have said a billboard outside the stores Christchurch outlet, which shows a man teaching two young children how to shoot, is in poor taste considering the country is in a state of mourning over the killings. Tarrant, he said, had obtained his gun license in November 2017 and purchased his first firearm about a month later. He bought his last firearm from Gun City in March 2018, and had also purchased ammunition Tipple has shared this information with authorities. But in a testy exchange with reporters, he pushed back on the charge that the guns he sold Tarrant were the exact ones used in his attacks. Tipple said the guns were A-category guns, which can be bought with the most basic weapons license. Assault rifles are A-category guns as long as they have a magazine that holds only seven rounds. The weapons seen in a video of the massacre that Tarrant live-streamed had much larger magazines. I totally agree there should be a gun debate, but today is not the day, said Tipple. We are not a country of emotional responses, we are a country with laws [and] what we are doing is legal. New Zealand gun owners point out that it is exactly the loophole Tipple brought up purchasing larger magazines that enabled Tarrants shooting spree. One gun owner who owned several AR-15s, but has since given them up, said they only cost $1,200 in New Zealand, but would cost $25,000 or more in Australia on the black market, because they are effectively banned there. You can get an AR-15 from anywhere really, and while the [30-round magazine] is not allowed legally, they will fit and they will work, said Pete Breidahl, a gun owner and former competition shooter who recently gave up his firearms license. How, in 2019, can this still be going on? How has this loophole not been fixed? New Zealand, like the United States, also has no requirement for gun owners to register their weapons, unlike many countries in the world. The tightened gun laws will put New Zealand in line with several other countries who have changed legislation in the wake of tragedy. The Port Arthur massacre in Australia in 1996 shook the continent, changed gun legislation the Pacific nation, strictly restricting self-loading rifles and other weapons. A buyback program destroyed thousands of guns and high-capacity magazines. A shooting at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, that same year also prompted a campaign for tighter restrictions on firearms, which led to a virtual ban on civilian ownership of handguns. Still, New Zealand has made the decision in almost record time. In Australia, it took 12 days after the mass shooting for the government to finalize changes to legislation. It took almost two years for the ban on handguns to become law in the United Kingdom in 1998. Ardern has promised details of changes within 10 days of the attack. Experts argue that New Zealand has indeed been on the cusp of change in gun legislation for years, but never had political unity around the issue. After the countrys last mass shooting in 1990, where 13 people including local police were killed in the seaside town of Aramoana, changes were made to firearm legislation including some restrictions on semi-automatic firearms and the requirement for 10-year licenses. Four inquiries have been undertaken by government in recent years. A 1997 review recommended that all guns should be registered and that the government institute a full buyback of all military-style assault weapons, similar to what was done in Australia. These suggestions, said Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydney and founding director of GunPolicy.org, are all now back on the table. The governments decision, he said, has been in part motivated by the frequency of mass shootings in the United States, which has among the most lax gun laws in the world. There is a baseline determination not to go down the American road, he said. Sev1Tech, LLC, a Woodbridge, VA based provider of enterprise IT and program management support services, received a controlling equity investment from DFW Capital Partners. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to add new services, support new and existing customers and strengthen our mission capabilities. Founded in 2010 and led by Bob Lohfeld, CEO, Sev1Tech provides information technology, cybersecurity, cloud, and program management services and solutions to U.S. government agencies and major commercial organizations. The company is a preferred advisor supporting critical mission challenges across the defense, intelligence, homeland security, space, and health markets. Sev1Tech has also announced that it has been awarded a Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) to support the Armys migration to cloud-based IT infrastructure solutions. The Army Cloud Computing Enterprise Transformation (ACCENT) contract vehicle has an estimated ceiling value of $247.7 million across all holders and is valid through February 2020. FinSMEs 18/03/2019 CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALANDFor the first 16 months of her tenure, Jacinda Ardern was feted around an increasingly populist world for being young, female and progressive. The 37-year-old New Zealand prime minister, together with Justin Trudeau of Canada and Frances Emmanuel Macron, were celebrated as the antidote to Donald Trump. Vogue magazine ran a glamorous photo spread of her. She appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Sheryl Sandberg described her as a political prodigy when Ardern made Time magazines list of 100 Most Influential People. A term was coined to describe the phenomenon: Jacindamania. The sentiment only grew when she announced she was pregnant, becoming the second world leader to have a baby in office (Pakistans Benazir Bhutto was the first) and grew again when she took her three-month-old daughter to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. At home, however, she has plenty of political trials and tribulations, with her handling of the economy criticized and her efforts to introduce more affordable housing plagued by embarrassing bureaucratic blunders. Detractors said she was all style and no substance. But these domestic problems didnt dent the perception of her abroad as an inspirational leader for the modern age. Read more: Christchurch gun shop sold rifles online to accused shooter Alleged New Zealand gunman fires lawyer, says hell represent himself Students look to love at New Zealand school hit by tragedy Now, Jacindamania has taken on a new and totally different dimension in the last few days, since the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, which left 50 dead and 40 injured. New Zealand has never experienced this kind of attack before, and it has shaken the country. But many have lauded the response by Ardern, who had never served in government before becoming prime minister. She swiftly labelled the attacks terrorism and bluntly called an Australian MPs suggestion there was a link between Muslim immigration and violence a disgrace. Arderns performance has been extraordinary and I believe she will be strongly lauded for it both domestically and internationally, political commentator Bryce Edwards told Reuters. When she visited Christchurch on Saturday, a day after the attacks, Ardern visited members of the refugee and Muslim community. Dressed in black and wearing a Muslim-style head scarf known as a hijab, she tearfully told them that the whole country was united in grief. Wearing hijab was a sign of respect, wrote Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American journalist and commentator. It was not just her dress that won her more fans abroad. Many people also praised her pledge to cover the funeral costs of all 50 victims and offer financial assistance to the families, and also her swift action on gun control. Her government will introduce gun reforms in parliament next week. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, tweeted a photo of Ardern hugging a Muslim woman and noted that, when in London last year, she had talked about the importance of inclusivity and equality in society. Adil Ray, a British actor and TV presenter, said he was really impressed with Ardern for her swift, strong leadership. Cihangir Islam, a Turkish lawmaker from an opposition Islamist party, also praised Ardern. She says to Muslims in pain, You, youre us! She symbolically covers her head when she goes to a home for condolences; she boldly underlines her respect and solidarity. How thirsty we have become for justice and mercy in state administration, Islam wrote. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science in Dubai, said she was stoic and firm. A video showing Ardern hugging a Muslim woman and consoling her caused a similar reaction. Can you imagine having a leader of a country showing this kind of empathy? Thank you, Jacinda Ardern, for reminding the world what a Leader is and could be, London literary agent Jonny Geller wrote in a post that has garnered 58,000 likes. The fact that a world leader covered her hair to meet Muslims quickly became a symbol of Arderns approach. One particular photo captured the public imagination. It is a photo of Ardern, listening intently with an agonized look on her face and her hands clasped together. It has been shared widely on social networks, lauded as a portrait of a compassionate leader. The photo taken by Kirk Hargreaves, who used to be a photographer for Christchurch newspaper The Press but now works for the Christchurch City Council. It was shared on the councils Twitter page. The moment I saw her face pop up, and what was happening with the flowers, I fully knew [it was important]. Its a religious photo in a way, a photo of a mix of religious symbolism. It looks like stain glass, theres the Muslim hijab, and colours of Hindu religion. Its a universal picture, Hargreaves told the Sydney Morning Herald. The human empathy and all those amazing human traits shes showing in the picture, Im glad people resonated with that, he said. Faiza Ali, a community organizer in Brooklyn, N.Y., tweeted the photo, calling Ardern a remarkable leader. The Crisis Magazine, the official publication of the NAACP, tweeted the photo, saying Ardern showed Dignity. Grace. Courage. Read more about: BAMAKO, Mali - Malis army says heavily armed men have attacked a camp in central Mali, killing at least 23 soldiers. The army said Monday the attack on Sunday, which is the most deadly against the army this year, took place in the village of Dioura. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bears the mark of al-Qaida-related jihadist groups that have been regularly attacking the army and international forces in central Mali. Malis army has blamed the attack on Ba Ag Moussa, a former colonel of the Malian army who deserted in 2012 to join the Tuareg rebellion before joining al-Qaida. However, this announcement by the army comes as debates are being held about integrating former rebels into the army as part of a peace agreement. Many senior Malian officers are not in favour of integration. DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALANDThe gun enthusiast with light brown hair and an Australian accent did not stand out among the 100 or so members of the Bruce Rifle Club, who practiced shooting at a range in a forest in southern New Zealand. The enthusiast, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, favoured a bolt-action hunting rifle and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and would participate in shooting competitions, said Scott Williams, the clubs vice president. But no one saw any warning signs. He was polite. He would help put things away. He would help set up, Williams said. He worked like a Trojan. New Zealand officials are now wondering if they missed something about Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian citizen who lived in Dunedin and is the suspect in the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch on Friday that left at least 50 people dead. On Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had ordered an inquiry into whether government agencies could have prevented the attack. The purpose of this inquiry is to look at what all relevant agencies knew or could or should have known about the individual and his activities, including his access to weapons, she said at a news conference in Wellington, the capital. She also said her Cabinet had agreed in principle to an overhaul of the countrys gun laws and was working out the details. Read more: Defiant vigil starts healing in New Zealand after massacre Youngest mosque victim liked playing with iPad, soccer ball Alleged New Zealand gunman fires lawyer, says hell represent himself Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms that I believe will have made our community safer, Ardern said. Earlier, Wally Haumaha, deputy New Zealand police commissioner, said identification specialists had worked through the night to identify the people killed at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques so that their bodies could be returned to their families. Islamic leaders and victims relatives have been discussing whether to hold a burial for all 50 victims at once, possibly Wednesday. As of Monday night, 31 people were hospitalized in Christchurch, nine of them in critical condition. A 4-year-old was in critical condition at a hospital in Auckland, where she was flown after the attack. Police investigations continued, as counterterrorism officers in Australia searched the homes of Tarrants mother and sister in the northeastern coastal towns of Lawrence and Sandy Beach. And in New Zealand, more than half a dozen police officers searched Tarrants residence near the centre of Dunedin, about 220 miles south of Christchurch. The blue-gray house had air-conditioning units, wide, rectangular windows with open curtains, an overgrown yard and a mailbox with a sticker reading: NO JUNK MAIL. Thank you! Two weeks before the attack, Tarrants one-bedroom, one-bathroom home was listed online as available for rent starting April 2, according to a cached version of the post that has since expired. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said Monday that Tarrant made two trips to the country in 2016, one for three days and the other for 43 days. Turkish officials said they were investigating what he did there. Few details have emerged about Tarrants life. It is unclear whether he had a job. Several neighbours said they did not know many of their neighbours and had not met Tarrant. Anytime Fitness confirmed in a statement Monday that Tarrant was a member of the Dunedin branch of the 24-hour gym. On Sunday, several regulars at the gym said they did not know Tarrant or recall seeing him there. What is known is that Tarrant was a licensed gun owner and member of the Bruce Rifle Club. He appeared to already have shooting skills when he joined in February 2018 and he typically went to the range by himself, said Williams, the clubs vice president. The club has come under criticism from a former member of the New Zealand military named Pete Breidahl, who said he reported it to the police in 2017 after visiting in November that year. He said he had had concerns about the mental stability of the members and the way they handled firearms. They wore cammo around the range, like they were living some military base fantasy, Breidahl said in an interview Monday. Breidahl said that he had been in contact with the police after the Christchurch shootings and that he was scheduled to meet with them Tuesday. Williams said that the Bruce Rifle Club was co-operating with the police investigation and that it was closed until further notice. By the time Tarrant joined the club, he had already started buying firearms from Gun City, one of New Zealands largest gun retailers. David Tipple, the managing director, said his company had sold Tarrant four firearms along with ammunition between December 2017 a month after Tarrant received his gun license and March 2018. Tipple said Tarrants online purchases had not raised any red flags. He was a brand-new purchaser, with a brand-new license, he said. Darren Jacobs, chief executive of Hunting & Fishing New Zealand, confirmed Monday that the retailers Dunedin branch had sold Tarrant a bolt-action hunting rifle in 2017. Still a mystery is the source of a semi-automatic rifle that can be seen in a video of the attack on Al Noor Mosque. Tipple said it did not come from Gun City. The details of Tarrants arsenal emerged as New Zealand considers tightening its gun regulations. Among the legislative changes the prime minister is likely to consider are a ban on semi-automatic weapons and laws requiring that all firearms be registered and all gun sales recorded. Tipple said that New Zealand should avoid emotional responses in the debate over gun laws. This man wrote in his manifesto that the purpose of using a firearm was to divide us, Tipple said. If we allow him to make changes in our ideology and in our behaviour, hes won. Others disagreed. Outside the Dunedin branch of Gun City on Monday, Karen Nielsen, 47, stood holding a white poster board with black capital letters reading, This store sells weapons of mass destruction. She had a solemn expression on her face as she described how the horrific, horrific events in Christchurch had inspired her to protest that morning after she drove her children to school. Nielsen said that as a former hunter, she was not opposed to guns. Her husband used to be a member of the Bruce Rifle Club like Tarrant. Theres nothing wrong with single-bolt firearm rifles, she said. Its the semi-automatics that we need to get rid of. If you cant kill an animal with one shot, you shouldnt be hunting. As she was speaking, Brett Cleveland left the store holding a bag with ammunition that he had just purchased. Cleveland listened calmly, then said that he owned an AR-15 and was also a member of the Bruce Rifle Club. As far as I am aware, there is only one rifle club in this area, Cleveland said. He had to go there. It wasnt like he joined up because he went, There is a bunch of like-minded people. He said he hoped that government officials would find a way to compromise. The knee-jerk reaction is going to be the gun people arent going to want any changes, Cleveland said. The other people are going to want a ban on everything. There is never any common sense. The middle is usually the best place to be. Trade Me, New Zealands biggest online marketplace, said Monday that it had removed all semi-automatic firearms and related parts from its site in response to customer concerns. Also Monday, a teenager charged with creating and distributing objectionable materials made his first appearance in a Christchurch court. Prosecutors say the 18-year-old, whose name and identifying details have been suppressed, published a photo of Al Noor Mosque with the message Target acquired a week before the shootings. He did not enter a plea and was remanded into custody until his next court appearance in April. The police said that they did not believe he was involved in the attack. BRUSSELSA man opened fire Monday on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, killing three people and injuring five in a shooting that authorities said may have been motivated by terrorism. After an hours-long manhunt around Utrecht, police arrested a 37-year-old Turkish-born man, Gokmen Tanis, who they said was the main suspect. They also took into custody another person they said was connected to the attack, although they offered no further details. Today an attack took place in Utrecht, literally in the heart of our country, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at a news conference after the arrest. We will not succumb to these terrible events. He said that authorities still consider terrorism a possible motive but that they are also still trying to understand what happened. Read more: The Latest: Turkey condemns Dutch tram attack Gunman kills 3 on Dutch tram, mayor says terror likely New Zealands darkest day: 36 minutes of terror Tanis was known to authorities, said Dutch Justice Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus, standing alongside Rutte. He declined to elaborate, citing the need for an unbiased investigation. Police spent hours searching for Tanis, releasing a surveillance photo from what appeared to be the tram taken minutes before the attack unfolded an unusual step in a privacy-conscious country that underscored the concern sparked by the incident. The mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, in releasing details of the deaths, said three of the injured had been seriously hurt. We cannot exclude, in fact, we assume, a terrorist motive, he said in a video released on Twitter. Police spokesmen told local news outlets that domestic violence was also possibility. Photographs from the scene of the incident, which authorities said occurred about 10:45 a.m., showed at least one body covered in a white sheet next to the halted tram near the 24 Oktoberplein, a busy intersection in southwest Utrecht. The shooting, coming three days after an attack on mosques in New Zealand killed 50 worshippers and left 40 injured, set off alarms in Europe. Dutch authorities unleashed a massive emergency response even as the extent of the attack and its motivations remained unclear. The attack appeared to cause some confusion among Dutch authorities scrambling to respond to a burst of violence in a turbulent period. Officials said at first that nine people were injured, then revised the number downward; they also offered contradictory statements about whether there were multiple shooting sites before agreeing there was only one. Witness accounts of the attack were somewhat contradictory, with at least one witness saying that a woman on the tram appeared to have been targeted. Others told local media that an attacker sprayed fire more indiscriminately. One witness quoted by the NRC newspaper said a man got up inside the tram and started shooting with a big pistol. He shot around him, but seemed to be aiming at people sitting on the benches. Everybody ducked away, said the witness, who NRC said spoke on the condition of anonymity. The conductor did not open the doors immediately. Two boys next to me kicked in a window, so I jumped outside. Several people did that. Another witness said the attacker was shooting at one woman and then targeted people who tried to help her. We heard pop-pop-pop sounds, as though there was a silencer, the witness, who was identified only as Niels, told the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper. I felt that he was focusing specifically on someone, because I saw a woman crawling away. Bystanders tried to pull her out, but when they did, the man went after her specially and aimed at the bystanders. Authorities also increased security across the country. In Rotterdam, police said they were boosting security at mosques and at train stations. In the Dutch seat of government, The Hague, the military police who patrol government buildings carried their rifles at the ready, a different posture than normal, according to Dutch media. The threat level was lowered Monday evening. The attack came shortly before provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday. Ruttes center-right Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy and most major parties suspended campaigning after the attack. A far-right, anti-immigration party that is poised to do well in the elections, Forum for Democracy, said it would keep campaigning. All mosques in Utrecht were closed after the incident, according to a spokesman for the Ulu Mosque, Utrechts biggest, who was quoted by the ANP news agency. MILAN - Italys famed La Scala opera house will immediately return 3 million euros ($3.4 million) sent to an escrow account by Saudi Arabia in what Milans mayor on Monday termed a badly handled fundraising deal. But he did not rule out future dealings with the kingdom despite concerns raised over its human rights record. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told reporters that La Scalas board decided to return the money deposited earlier this year by the Saudi culture minister without a proper indication of its purpose and before the board had been formally notified of fundraising discussions with Saudi officials by La Scalas general manager. While the current procedure aimed at making Saudi Arabia an official financial backer of the opera house was officially closed, Sala refused to rule out future talks with the kingdom. He said a planned tour by La Scalas orchestra in 2020 will go ahead as planned. We are not closing doors to Saudi Arabia, Sala said. It depends on the form of co-operation. We will do the tour. I wouldnt make a list of countries where it doesnt make sense to go, also because this kind of activity can help in respect to the situation that exists today in Saudi Arabia. The fundraising deal, for example, foresaw the establishment of a music school run by La Scalas academy that would be open to all Saudi children regardless of gender. While announcing the return of the money, the mayor noted that the Italian government and financial institutions continued to have dealings with Saudi Arabia. Italy is Saudi Arabias ninth-largest trading partner, according to the Saudi embassy website. While Italys premier Giuseppe Conte said at his year-end news conference that Italy planned to suspend arms sales, no action has been taken yet. The opera house deal, which would have given a seat on the La Scala board to Saudi Arabias culture minister, was hotly contested in light of Saudi Arabias human rights record. The kingdom is under increased scrutiny internationally since the killing of a Saudi journalist inside its consulate in Istanbul last October and the plight of a Saudi woman who turned to social media to help escape alleged family abuse. Other Western cultural institutes have also grappled with how to handle financial contributions from Saudi Arabia following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia, which has been making moves to open culturally to the West, participated for the first time in last years Biennale architecture exhibit in Venice. As part of the arrangement agreed, Saudi Arabia would have contributed 15 million euros to La Scala over the coming years and in return would have become a so-called founding member. of the foundation and taken a seat on the board. Sala said the talks with Saudi Arabia, which included discussions ahead of the gala Dec. 7 season-opener, were poorly handled in terms of communication. He said he had been aware of the talks, but not of their speedy advancement nor of the transfer of funds. But he said that general manager and artistic director Alexander Pereira had acted in good faith while showing some naivete in dealing with Italian politicians. In all these years in Italy, he should understand the mechanisms, he said. If you think that one day a politicians tells you one thing and then the next day he says the same thing, you are dreaming. Despite calls by the governor of Lombardy for Pereiras dismissal, Sala said regional representative on the board made no such motion during Mondays board meeting and that his position at the opera house was not in question for the time being. His mandate expires next year. BRUSSELS - NATO and the European Union are condemning Russias 2014 annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula five years after Moscow declared the region Russian territory. NATO allies said in a statement Monday that we strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. They also criticized Russias military buildup in Crimea and alleged rights abuses including arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture against members of the Crimean Tartar community. EU foreign ministers are marking the fifth anniversary of the annexation. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said: We stand in full solidarity with Ukraine, supporting its sovereignty and territorial integrity. NATO and the EU also called for the release of Ukrainian sailors detained by the Russian navy and coast guard in waters off Ukraine in November. TEHRAN, Iran - Irans president on Monday urged Iranians to put a curse on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, reiterating his long-standing charge that the U.S. and its allies are responsible for the countrys ailing economy. President Hassan Rouhanis remarks were meant to deflect criticism of his administrations performance amid a spiraling economy after President Donald Trump last year pulled America out of the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran, targeting Irans vital oil sector. Put all your curses on those who created the current situation, Rouhani urged Iranians, adding that the United States, the Zionists and Saudi Arabia were to blame. He didnt say what kind of curses the Iranians should invoke. The U.S. plan, Rouhani claimed, was to dominate the Iranian nation, something Washington will not achieve. On Sunday, the same day he inaugurated a new phase in the development of a massive natural gas field, Rouhani said Irans inflation is above 20 per cent and that this country of 80 million people has more than 3 million unemployed. He promised to increase wages in both the government and the private sector, and raise pensions. The crisis that is gripping Iran has hurt ordinary Iranians and emboldened Rouhanis critics to openly call for his ouster. Rouhani, who first came to power in 2013, was re-elected for a second term in 2017, promising to improve the economy and foster more open relations with the world. ___ This story has been corrected to say that Rouhani was re-elected in 2017. DETROIT - When the recordings of the basic track arrived in Detroit from Chicago, Paul Riser Sr. knew it was time to get to work. But the orchestral arranger also knew he had something special to work with. It hit me the same way like everyone else in the world: The lyrics are so simple, the melody is so clear, the chord pattern is wonderful, said Riser, a Motown Records alum who wrote the orchestra parts and directed the strings and woodwind musicians for I Believe I Can Fly. That song came from his heart: Thats the other side of R. Kelly. The dilemma of separating the sides of Kelly, who faces 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse , now confronts Riser and millions of others who listen to or perform the singers music. Its perhaps most acute when it comes to the Grammy-winning ballad thats made its way into movies such as Space Jam, and been performed in countless reality shows, church services, as well as school concerts and graduation ceremonies. Children are even singing it bilingually. Kelly released his first solo album, 12 Play, in 1993. It contained such popular sex-themed songs as Your Bodys Callin and Bump N Grind. But it was the anthem I Believe I Can Fly that made the singer from Chicagos South Side popular beyond R&B music. The 52-year-old Kelly has faced sex-related accusations before he was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008. But his current case comes in the midst of the #MeToo era, which gained momentum in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men inside and outside of entertainment. Before his arrest last month on the latest charges, Kellys reputation and his music were already taking hits , particularly after the release of a BBC documentary about him last year and the multipart Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly, which aired in January. A social media campaign under the #MuteRKelly hashtag pushed fans to boycott his music and concerts. Music-streaming services stopped promoting his songs. Some performers and listeners are finding it difficult, though, to dismiss the standout cut that vaulted him into the mainstream. Released in 1996, the stirring pop standard I Believe I Can Fly spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and peaked at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. Its been streamed on-demand more than 100 million times. In the wake of the Lifetime documentary, Billboard reported Jan. 18 that the song debuted at No. 16 on R&B Digital Song Sales with 2,000 copies sold the tunes highest sales week in nearly three years. Riser, the Motown alum who worked with Kelly for about a dozen years before meeting him in person at a Detroit show, said hes troubled by the allegations and believes Kellys accusers. Yet he cant so easily cast off a song we all wish we could write. We have to separate that separate the man and his humanity and his faults and failures ... from his genius, said Riser, whose credits also include co-writing Jimmy Ruffins Motown gem What Becomes of the Brokenhearted and arranging music and conducting the orchestra on Diana Ross recording of Reach Out and Touch (Somebodys Hand). Kelly is free on bail but faces cancelled tours and once-eager venues unwilling to book him. Hes also been dropped by his record label, Universal Music Publishing Group. James Walker Jr., an Atlanta-based entertainment attorney who has represented Rick James, Aretha Franklin and others, said Kelly has compromised his own classic. The song will honestly take a hit now, said Walker, who adds that he declined a request to represent Kelly on publishing . The financial windfall, as well as just the spiritual, communal and holistic windfall is all going to decline now because of what he has done in his personal life. The latest allegations against Kelly date back as far as 1998 and span more than a decade. The singer has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty . Music therapist and teacher Serge El Helou said he didnt know about that part of Kellys history a few years ago when translating the chorus of I Believe I Can Fly into Arabic and bringing it to elementary school students he teaches as part of an after-school Arab arts program in Philadelphia run by the non-profit Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture. He found the song helps children understand Arabic and offers an uplifting message. Despite the allegations against Kelly, he said he continues to use the anthem as a teaching tool. This year, we added some motions, he said. Theyre singing the song, doing the gesture of flying. They lift their hands its very moving. Im going to use the song because its very inspiring and its really working in the classroom. One of Kellys collaborators is also seeing his reputation and music dissected after the airing of a recent documentary about sexual abuse allegations against him: late pop star Michael Jackson, for whom Kelly wrote the hit You Are Not Alone. Fans of Jackson are also grappling with separating the singer from his musical legacy. For Riser, I Believe I Can Fly has a life beyond its creator, who he says found inspiration with the tune but is now lost and too much in denial. Its just something that everybody can relate to to know that theres always something better tomorrow, Riser said. It gives hope. ___ Follow Jeff Karoub on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffkaroub ___ Check out the APs complete coverage of the investigations into R. Kelly. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, little known outside his home state, boasts he raised over $1 million in the days after launching his White House bid. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and others say they did, too. Impressive numbers, even if dwarfed by the $6 million or so reported by Bernie Sanders and now Beto ORourke . The seven-digit figures for the lesser-known Democratic hopefuls dont lie, but they dont tell the whole story either. Early bursts of donations dont happen by accident, especially for candidates with little national name recognition such as Inslee, who hit his target thanks in part to an email list of donors hes cultivated for months. Hes among a crowded field of more than a dozen Democrats who are feverishly trying to show they can raise big money and realistically challenge Republican President Donald Trump. With the first-quarter fundraising deadline looming, some are straining credulity to give the impression of a spontaneous groundswell of support. In addition to Inslee and Hickenlooper, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and California Sen. Kamala Harris have boasted they raised $1 million or more in the hours and days after launching their campaigns. What that signifies is less clear. Its a strange goal post for viability, and there are a lot of tricks you can use to come up with that number, said Tim Lim, a Democratic strategist who worked for Hillary Clintons and Barack Obamas campaigns. However, he added: Its a great talking point. So how do you get to $1 million within 24, 48 or 72 hours? Candidates like Vermont Sen. Sanders and former Texas Rep. ORourke have used their star power to quickly raise astronomical sums. ORourke announced on Monday that he edged Sanders by pulling in $6.1 million in the 24 hours after his launch. But a wide range of tools are available to help the lesser-known White House hopefuls. They include rented fundraisings email lists, targeted social media ads (which all candidates use) and revenue sharing agreements, which allow interest groups to raise money for their own causes while splitting it with a favourite candidate. Fundraising commitments are often lined up in advance, while creative accounting manoeuvrs can be used to pad the bottom line. Senators have a leg up. They can take money from existing federal campaign accounts, while governors are largely barred from doing the same with their state accounts. Before his early March launch, Inslee spent months running targeted ads that asked Facebook users to fork over their email addresses to join his fight against climate change now the signature issue of his campaign. At the same time, Inslee, who was then head of the Democratic Governors Association, made prospecting trips to states including New York and California. He started collecting larger checks from conventional donors in the weeks before the launch. Then, shortly after announcing his run, his campaign blasted out thousands of fundraising emails and the online money started to roll in, which he juiced by making rounds on the talk show circuit. Within about three days, he reached the magic $1 million figure and his campaign issued a news release. The fundraising effort was described by two Inslee aides who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the inner workings of his campaign. Michael Duncan, a Republican digital strategist, said numbers posted by lesser-known candidates are likely to be less grassroots and more the campaign equivalent of AstroTurf. But Duncan, who formerly handled digital strategy for the insurgent tea party group FreedomWorks, said it was a shrewd tactic. Particularly now that the Democratic National Committee is using online fundraising, with an emphasis on low-dollar contributions spread out across many donors to qualify for the debate stage. I would imagine the grassroots support is manufactured, said Duncan, who also was an architect of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus digital strategy in 2015. Id doubt theyd own a file of hundreds of thousands of Americans dying to give them $10. Most campaigns wont offer specifics on how they reached their mark. News releases sent out at the time shed some light, however. Harris offered the most detail. Her campaign announced in January that it raised $1.5 million in 24 hours, collecting an average donation of $37 from more than 38,000 people. From there, it gets more fuzzy. Klobuchars campaign said it raised $1 million in 48 hours from online and grassroots supporters in all states, but did not break the numbers down further. Inslee launched his campaign on a Friday and announced the following Monday that he had reached the mark, with donations coming from all 50 states. Hickenloopers campaign said it reached the figure in less than 48 hours and received donations from all 50. His campaign wouldnt offer specifics. But touting the number was a no-brainer, said spokeswoman Lauren Hitt. Of course we thought it was important in our launch to show he is the more-than-viable candidate we know, she said. Though $1 million is a lot to most, raising that much isnt as difficult as it may seem. It could be reached if about 357 donors cut checks for the $2,800 primary maximum. And lining up support from longtime donors in advance could go a long way toward getting a candidate close. Zac Moffatt, Mitt Romneys 2012 digital director, said the focus now will be whether they can keep it up. The question would be: what is Act II? he said. BEND, Ore. - There are challenges that come with running the last Blockbuster Video on the planet. The computer system must be rebooted using floppy disks that only the general manager a solid member of Gen X knows how to use. The dot-matrix printer broke, so employees write out membership cards by hand. And the stores business transactions are backed up on a reel-to-reel tape that cant be replaced because Radio Shack went out of business. Yet none of that has kept this humble franchise in an Oregon strip mall from thriving as the advent of on-demand movie streaming laid waste all around it. When a Blockbuster in Australia shuts its doors for the last time on March 31, the Bend store will be the only one left on Earth. Its pure stubbornness, for one. We didnt want to give in, said general manager Sandi Harding, who has worked at the franchise for 15 years and receives a lot of the credit for keeping it alive well past its expiration date. We did everything we could to cut costs and keep ourselves relevant. The store was once one of five Blockbusters owned by the same couple, Ken and Debbie Tisher, in three central Oregon towns. But by last year, the Bend franchise was the last local Blockbuster standing. A tight budget meant no money to update the surviving store. Thats paying off now with a nostalgia factor that stops first-time visitors of a certain age in their tracks: the popcorn ceilings, low fluorescent lighting, wire metal video racks and the ubiquitous yellow-and-blue ticket stub logo that was a cultural touchstone for a generation. Most people, I think, when they think about renting videos if theyre the right age they dont remember the movie that they went to pick, but they remember who they went with and that freedom of walking the aisles, said Zeke Kamm, a local resident who is making a documentary about the store called The Last Blockbuster with a friend. In a lot of towns, the Blockbuster was the only place that was open past nine oclock, and a lot of them stayed open until midnight, so kids who werent hoodlums would come here and look at movies and fall in love with movies. The Bend store had eight years under its belt as a local video store before it converted to a Blockbuster in 2000, a time when this high desert city was still a sleepy community with a small-town feel to match. Customers kept coming back, drawn by special touches like staff recommendations, a wish list for videos to add to the rental selection and even home delivery for a few special customers who couldnt drive in. Dozens of local teens have worked there over the years. Then, in 2010, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy, and by 2014, all corporate-owned stores had shuttered. That left locally owned franchises to fend for themselves, and one by one, they closed. When stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska, shut down last summer barely outlasting a Redmond, Oregon, store Bends Blockbuster was the only U.S. location left. Tourists started stopping by to snap selfies, and business picked up. Harding ordered up blue-and-yellow sweat shirts, T-shirts, cups, magnets, bumper stickers, hats and stocking caps from local vendors emblazoned with the words The Last Blockbuster in America, and they flew off the shelves. Then, this month, she got a phone call: The worlds only other Blockbuster, in Perth, Australia, would soon close its doors. A new T-shirt order went out this time with the slogan The Last Blockbuster on the Planet and the store is already getting a new wave of selfie-snapping visitors from as far away as Europe and Asia. On a recent weekday, Michael Trovato of Melbourne, Australia, stopped by while visiting his twin sister in Bend. After posing for a photo, Trovato said he misses a time when choosing a movie meant browsing hundreds of titles and asking a video clerk for insight instead of letting a movie-streaming service recommend one for him based on a computer algorithim. I miss quite a bit being able to walk into a Blockbuster or CD store and have that social experience and see people looking at stuff and talking to people, Trovato said. Its something you dont get from the slick presentation of a music service or, you know, from the Internet. The Bend store doesnt seem to be in danger of closing anytime soon. Its newfound fame has been a shot in the arm, and customers stream in to buy $40 sweat shirts, $20 T-shirts and even $15 yellow-and-blue beanies hand-knit by Harding herself. The store pays Dish Network for the right to use the Blockbuster logo and has several years left on its lease. People regularly send the store boxes of old VHS tapes and DVDs. They also donate Blockbuster memorabilia: a corporate jean jacket, key chains and old membership cards. Employees always send a thank-you note, store manager Dan Montgomery said. Recently, Harding has noticed another type of customer thats giving her hope: a new generation of kids dragged in by their nostalgic parents who later leave happy, holding stacks of rented movies and piles of candy. Jerry Gilless and his wife, Elizabeth, brought their two kids, John, 3, and Ellen, 5, and watched with a smile as the siblings bounced from row to row, grabbing Peter Pan and The Lion King and surveying dinosaur cartoons. How could we not stop? Its the last one, said Gilless, of their detour to the store while on vacation from Memphis, Tennessee. They need to see that not everythings on the iPad. ___ Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus Ethereums struggle for the second spot has recently been a real nail-biter for all those who once invested in it. Throughout October alone, Ethereum has managed to sink 17% from $226 to $188, and then rebound 15% in a matter of days. At press time, the ETH/USD price remains capped below $210, with no clear signs of recovery. This fuels concerns among investors about the future of the coin and the viability of the project itself. But is it really all gloom and doom for Ethereum? And why is it in the first ranks then? The ups and downs of Ethereum Ethereum came to life in 2015, introducing an absolutely new approach to cryptocurrency and blockchain. It emerged as a response to the limited functionality of Bitcoin that was used only as a peer-to-peer payment system. Instead, Ethereum focused on extending the range of blockchain applications beyond digital currencies and added smart contracts support. Since then Ethereum has been the go-to platform for creating decentralized apps powered by self-executing contracts. The stats show that Ethereums DApps enjoy over 10,000 active users who make 66,000 transactions to them daily. The platforms popularity is obvious, so why has its native token been struggling to maintain the value lately? The answer is simple. The cryptocurrency industry is young and unpredictable; it can be affected by multiple factors which are unlikely to dent the mature markets. Shortly after the record-high December gains, all major tokens experienced a hefty hit that wiped millions of dollars off of their market caps. Surprisingly enough, ETH was not the worst-performing asset of those days. However, it wasnt the first time when the Ethereum market found itself in the doldrums. Lets look at the major ups and downs of Ethereum throughout its short life. March 2017 Ethereum starts its bull run . Till March 2017, Ethereum had been trading in a relatively narrow range of $10-$15. Spring 2017 saw ETH skyrocketing to unbelievable heights of $200+, representing 2,000% growth. Many believed this bull run was triggered by the interest of enterprises in Ethereums technology. . Till March 2017, Ethereum had been trading in a relatively narrow range of $10-$15. Spring 2017 saw ETH skyrocketing to unbelievable heights of $200+, representing 2,000% growth. Many believed this bull run was triggered by the interest of enterprises in Ethereums technology. From sweet June to bitter July Ethereum loses half its value . In mid-June 2017, the ETH/USD price surged to over $400, which was twice the value detected the previous month. However, this didnt last long. By July 10, Ethereum had dropped back down to $200. As experts say, this movement was caused by numerous ICOs cashing out their ETH. . In mid-June 2017, the ETH/USD price surged to over $400, which was twice the value detected the previous month. However, this didnt last long. By July 10, Ethereum had dropped back down to $200. As experts say, this movement was caused by numerous ICOs cashing out their ETH. The bumpy August-September ride . At the end of August 2017, ETH finally peaked and reached $350 again, maintaining this value throughout a few following weeks. In mid-September, the community was startled at the news about China banning ICOs. As a result, Ethereum slumped to the $200-ish range. . At the end of August 2017, ETH finally peaked and reached $350 again, maintaining this value throughout a few following weeks. In mid-September, the community was startled at the news about China banning ICOs. As a result, Ethereum slumped to the $200-ish range. December 2017-January 2018 To the moon. If you had been monitoring the cryptocurrency market for several months so far, you might have had your eyes glued on the charts in early January when virtually every coin was breaking its price records. Ethereum wasnt left out in the red as well, it skyrocketed to over $1,300. All cryptocurrencies are volatile; they tend to go through peaks and valleys on their way to the top spot. Ethereum is no different, and whether it is doomed to fail eventually is anyones guess. The one thing is certain though Ethereum has strong fundamentals. And as the upgrades like Constantinople, Casper, and sharding go live, Ethereums reputation of the most advanced blockchain can be enhanced. This is likely the reason why investors are still buying Ether. What is the best place to buy Ethereum? Although there are loads of cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms that can help you enter the Ether market, choosing one that will be fit for various purposes is tough. Some websites will allow you to engage in trading, others will offer broker services only, and still others will be limited to the use of cryptocurrencies and provide for no fiat payments. The good news is that there are a few platforms that do combine all the features both beginners and seasoned traders will benefit from. CEX.IO (the official page is https://cex.io/) belongs to one of them. What makes CEX.IO unique? First and foremost, CEX.IO is an established cryptocurrency exchange that has been around for over 5 years already. It covers most of the globe and caters for the needs of 2.6 million crypto enthusiasts. The best thing about CEX.IO is that it allows users to buy Ethereum in two ways either via trading or through a direct purchase at a pre-set rate. Lets look into both methods. Suppose that you have already managed to create and verify your account at CEX.IO, and you are now trying to buy your first Ether. Before using one of the methods, you should make a deposit in any fiat currency supported for ETH pairing. At CEX.IO you can buy Ethereum with USD, EUR, and GBP. The deposits are made via a bank transfer or a credit card issued by VISA or Mastercard. Now you are all set, so its time for purchases. Method 1 trading. Go to the TRADE tab, where you can check all the available buy/sell transactions happening on the CEX.IO market in real time. Navigate to the Buy BTC box here you will place a buy order at the most favourable rate. Choose the rate, define the amount of ETH you are trying to get and click Place Order. Usually, the order is processed within seconds. Method 2 instant purchasing. Find the BUY/SELL section on the website it will provide you with pre-set offers for buying Ethereum. All you need is to choose the one that best suits your budget (i.e. $200, $500, $1,000) and click BUY. However, you can also set a custom amount of money you are willing to spend on ETH. In this case, the system will automatically display the number of coins you are going to get at the current exchange rate. Conclusion Being so volatile and shaky, any cryptocurrency is still a risky investment no matter how established it is in the industry. If you want to get involved in the space, make sure you understand the underlying principles of the market and learn to recognize the trends. Never rely on a third-party opinion as the only person who will suffer from possible losses is you. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump welcomed Brazils new far-right leader to the White House Tuesday and made clear that flattery pays. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro the Trump of the Tropics ran an unabashedly pro-Trump, pro-American campaign last year, emulating Trump in tone and style. It seems to have paid off for Bolsonaro on his first official trip to Washington. At a joint news conference, Trump announced that hed agreed to designate Brazil a major non-NATO ally something Brazil had pursued to smooth U.S. weapons purchases and military co-ordination. Trump even said hed be open to granting full NATO membership to Latin Americas largest and most populous nation, even though Brazil doesnt quality to join the North Atlantic alliance. The showing was the latest example of the premium Trump puts on personal relationships and the extent to which hes willing to work with those who sing his virtues. And it renewed focus on the growing wave of populist strongmen who have captured voters support with blunt admonitions of political correctness and hardline immigration views. As they sat down for the first time, Trump hailed Bolsonaros run as one of the incredible campaigns, saying he was honoured it had drawn comparisons to his own 2016 victory. And he predicted the two would have a fantastic working relationship, telling reporters at a joint press conference that they have many views in common. The two also exchanged soccer jerseys in a sign of their budding friendship. Bolsonaro was equally complimentary, predicting Trump would win re-election in 2020 and drawing parallels between their efforts. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the press about the arrest of suspects in the killing of councilwoman Marielle Franco, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, March 12, 2019. The brazen assassination of the councilwoman and her driver on March 14 last year led to massive protests and widespread anger in Latin America's largest nation. Two suspects have been arrested. Standing side-by-side in the White House Rose Garden, Bolsonaro said their two countries stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news. Im very proud to hear the president use the term fake news, Trump later remarked. The embrace represents a shift in U.S.-Brazilian relations. In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations of former President Dilma Rousseff, leading to several years of tense relations between the nations. Bolsonaro had arrived in the U.S. with a half a dozen ministers and a goal of expanding trade, diplomatic and military co-operation between the two largest economies in the Western Hemisphere. And Trump appeared eager to deliver. He announced he would back Brazils efforts to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, while floating the idea of full NATO membership, though he said hed have to talk to a lot of people for Brazil to join the organization. However, James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who was the Supreme Allied Commander at NATO from 2009 to 2013, said Brazil does not qualify for full membership under the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949. The idea of formal membership is a nonstarter in every dimension the treaty doesnt allow it, the Brazilians wouldnt want it and the Europeans wouldnt approve, Stavridis said in an email exchange. The efforts came as both countries continue to denounce the crisis in Venezuela and called on members of the Venezuelan military to end their support for President Nicolas Maduro. Both the U.S. and Brazil have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelas legitimate leader, and Trump reiterated that all options to address Venezuelas economic and political crisis remain on the table. The leaders also were expected to discuss a range of other issues, including expanding trade relations and increasing U.S. private-sector investment in Brazil. Bolsonaro has much in common with Trump. He, too, ran an insurgent, social media-powered campaign. And like Trump, he has blasted unflattering stories as fake news and used Twitter and Facebook to bypass mainstream news organizations. As a congressman, Bolsonaro frequently made disparaging comments about gays, women, indigenous groups and blacks, and he has praised torture and killings by police and waxed nostalgic for Brazils old military dictatorship. While such comments have drawn sharp criticism, they have also generated attention and fed into his narrative as a leader unencumbered by political correctness. Bolsonaro has also echoed Trumps hardline immigration policies, calling immigrants from several poor countries the scum of the world and saying Brazil cannot become a country of open borders. In an interview with Fox News Monday, Bolsonaro said he supported Trumps immigration policies and his efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The majority of potential immigrants do not have good intentions or do not intend to do the best or do good for the American people, he said. Bolsonaro also had the support of Trumps former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has since parted ways with the White House. While Bolsonaro has dismissed reports that Bannon played a key role in his campaign, Bolsonaros son Eduardo approached Bannon in July of last year and the two struck up a friendship. In August, Eduardo posted a picture of the two of them on Instagram with a caption that said Bannon was an enthusiast of his fathers candidacy and that they would unite forces against cultural Marxism. It was one of several meetings, Bannon said. On Sunday, Bannon joined Bolsonaro for a dinner at the Brazilian Embassy along with various Cabinet members and other leaders, where they discussed subjects including the countrys economic plans. Bolsonaro, Bannon told The Associated Press, understands the Trump program and understands President Trump and said both represent a tectonic plate shift in the world of politics toward blunt, politically incorrect leaders in the model of Trump. This is a new kind of global political moment, he said. In advance of the meeting, the countries signed several bilateral agreements, including one that allows the United States to use Brazils Alcantara Aerospace Launch Base for its satellites. Brazil also announced an end to visa requirements for U.S. tourists who visit the country, while Trump agreed to Brazilian participation in the Trusted Traveler Global Entry program. Days after taking office on Jan. 1, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, said Brazil would consider letting the U.S. have a military base in the country as way to counter Russian influence in the region, particularly related to Brazils neighbour Venezuela. That statement was roundly criticized, including by former military members of his government, and the administration backed off. ___ Prengaman reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writers Mauricio Savarese in Madrid and Ben Fox, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Catherine Lucey and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report. DALLAS - Prosecutors have dismissed charges against three Dallas police officers who were indicted after a man they arrested and physically restrained died in 2016. The Dallas County District Attorneys Office dropped the misdemeanour deadly conduct charges against Sgt. Kevin Mansell and Officers Danny Vasquez and Dustin Dillard. Their cases arose from the death of Anthony Timpa , who was arrested for erratic behaviour and later died at a hospital. Police say the 32-year-old was combative. The Dallas County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, saying Timpa died of cardiac arrest caused by the effects of cocaine and the stress of physical restraint. In 2017, a grand jury concluded the officers acted recklessly during the arrest. The District Attorneys office says three medical examiners said they dont believe the officers were reckless. BOSTON - Elizabeth Warren has spent much of the last decade as a leader of the Democratic Partys liberal wing. But three and a half months into her presidential campaign, the Massachusetts senator is facing tough questions about fundraising and electability, along with lingering skepticism about her past claim to Native American identity. The longtime liberal superstar is embracing an uncomfortable role in the crowded 2020 contest: the underdog. This is the race I want to run, Warren insisted in an interview with The Associated Press. With the 69-year-old Democrat in the middle of the pack in early polling, her Boston-based senior advisers are implementing an aggressive if risky strategy that calls on Warren to forgo traditional high-dollar fundraising events and devote the saved time to interactions with rank-and-file voters. Advisers say shell also focus on seizing opportunities to stake bold new policy positions in real time, as she did recently by calling for the breakup of big technology companies like Amazon, which allow her to shape the debate and showcase her policy bona fides. Her success or failure will help determine the direction of the Democratic Party in 2020 and, more specifically, whether Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders can maintain his early place at the head of the presidential primary pack. While Warren has sometimes sought to distinguish herself from Sanders, describing herself as a capitalist while Sanders runs as a democratic socialist, the New England senators appeal to the same progressive, populist wing of their party that is an increasingly dominant force in the age of President Donald Trump. So far, Sanders has bested Warren in the few objective measures that exist: fundraising and polling. And while the first votes wont be cast for another 10 months or so, former Warren allies in her neighbouring state of New Hampshire, which holds the nations first primary, see cause for concern. I just dont know if she would go over nationally, said former New Hampshire state Rep. Daniel Hansberry, who was among 27 current and former state lawmakers who signed a 2015 letter urging Warren to seek the presidency. In the Northeast and on the West Coast I wouldnt be a bit surprised if she got a huge vote. But I dont know if shes too progressive for other parts of the country. Another signatory, former New Hampshire state Rep. Frank Heffron, said hed be satisfied if Warren ultimately won the election, but said its very unlikely hell support her in the primary. New Hampshire voter Kerry Query, a 54-year-old administrative assistant who voted for Hillary Clinton over Sanders in the 2016 primary, said shes undecided this year but prefers Sanders over Warren so far. I dont think she could get enough people behind her, Query said. If she got elected in the primary, theres no way she could win. No one has an easy path to the Democratic presidential nomination, but few who expected to be in the top tier opened their campaigns with the same kind of stumbles as Warren. Laying the groundwork for her 2020 run, Warren released the results of a DNA test in October that showed strong evidence of Native American ancestry, albeit at least six generations back. The move backfired, emboldening her critics especially Trump, who regularly calls Warren Pocahontas who have long charged that Warren exaggerated her ethnic heritage for personal gain. Warren privately apologized to the head of the Cherokee Nation in early February. But just a few days later, reports surfaced that Warren had claimed Native American heritage on a 1986 Texas State Bar registration form. A large swath of the American people were introduced to her through what I like to call the DNA debacle, said Democratic strategist Symone Sanders, who worked for Bernie Sanders during part of his 2016 campaign. She lauded Warrens early campaign for having meat on the bones that rivals lack but warned that the Native American issue would continue to be a challenge. Warren allies also acknowledge her early fundraising, a strength in her Senate campaigns, has been lacklustre as a presidential candidate. A federal filing reveals that she raised at least $300,000 on the day she launched her campaign. While not a complete picture, Sanders raised nearly $6 million the first day he was in the race and California Sen. Kamala Harris raised $1.5 million. In the AP interview, Warren cast her fundraising challenges, including her move to eschew all high-dollar fundraising events, as a positive. I know that the way Ive decided to run my campaign means that Im leaving millions of dollars on the table, she said. This is a chance to help repair our democracy. It shouldnt just be about going out and raising a bunch of money and coming back and doing a bunch of TV ads, she continued. This is about meeting people in person. Talking with them about the things that touch their lives every day, about their hopes to make this country work not just for the rich and the powerful, but to make it work for them. Warren is plowing ahead with an energetic approach designed to win over primary voters one event at a time. She has made a significant time and organizational investment in the first four states on the presidential primary calendar Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. She has hired 65 campaign staffers for the first four states already, a number expected to grow in the coming weeks. Shes also courting voters in other regions, launching a Southern tour on Sunday with stops in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. In all, she held 33 events across 11 states and Puerto Rico since launching on Dec. 31. Twenty-six of those events were in the early voting states, including 11 separate town halls or house parties in Iowa and 10 in New Hampshire, according to her campaign. There used to be an old adage back in the days when I was managing New Hampshire. It was organize, organize, organize and get hot at the end, said Democratic operative Mark Longabaugh, who previously worked for Sanders. So I think theyre pursuing a version of that strategy with the modern communications techniques that we have now. Warren is hardly the only 2020 contender showering time and attention on key states. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has strong teams on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Others, such as Harris, are in the process of strengthening their early-state presence. And both Sanders and newcomer Beto ORourke are expected to aggressively court early-state voters. Warren backers like Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III argue that she has proven doubters wrong since she first challenged Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. Its a matter, candidly, of the fact that were almost a year away from the election, Kennedy said, much like in Sen. Warrens first race where there was a bunch of hand-wringing and bunch of concerns about whether she was going to be up for the task of taking on a very popular Republican incumbent. Kennedy continued: I kept telling people: Just wait. Wait and watch. DALLAS - Former President George W. Bush welcomed new U.S. citizens Monday during a naturalization ceremony in Dallas, saying that amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush spoke to the around 50 candidates for naturalization during the ceremony at his institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Those becoming citizens at the ceremony came from more than 20 countries around the world. He told the group that he hopes those responsible in Washington can dial down the rhetoric, put politics aside, and modernize our immigration laws soon. Noting public debate on immigration can get pretty sharp, he told them that they signed up with a boisterous democracy. He encouraged them to participate in it and vote. As president, I worked hard on comprehensive immigration reform, and I regret that our efforts came up short, Bush said. Today, emotions can cloud the issue. But here at the Bush centre, we are clear-eyed about the need to enforce our borders and protect our homeland, and about the critical contributions immigrants make to our prosperity and to our way of life. Bush did not mention President Donald Trump by name, but his words stood in contrast to his fellow Republicans fiery rhetoric about immigrants. Last week, Trump used the first veto of his presidency to overturn a measure Congress passed that would have overturned his emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border a centerpiece of his successful campaign. Its not the first time Bush given such a rebuke of the current administrations political tone. Bush said at a speech in New York in 2017, Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children. Last year at a speech in Abu Dhabi Bush noted there are people willing to do jobs Americans dont want to do, adding, We ought to say thank you and welcome them. Immigration is a focus of the George W. Bush Institute, which says it advocates for smart, skills-based immigration reform. Laura Bush said Texas is a state that thrives due to the prosperity, ingenuity, transformation and generosity of immigrants. George Bush told the group: Id like to point out that not only are you becoming an American, but as Laura mentioned, youre a Texan. And if you walk out of here with a little extra attitude in your step, it shows the culture is taking hold. PORTLAND, Maine - The American Civil Liberties Union and a group of abortion providers argued on Monday that a federal court should allow a trial on whether to strike down a 40-year-old Maine law that prevents non-doctors from performing abortions. The ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Maine Family Planning and four clinicians brought their case to U.S. District Court in Portland, where a judge is expected to make a ruling in the coming weeks about whether to let the case go forward. Attorneys for the state of Maine have requested a summary judgment to dismiss the case. If it were instead to go forward and the rule were struck down, that could ultimately expand access to abortion in the rural state by allowing physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nurse midwives to perform them. Dozens of states have restrictions that limit the performance of abortions to doctors, and some of those have been challenged. ACLU of Maine legal director Zachary Heiden said he hopes the case provides a precedent for other states. ACLU attorney Julia Kaye told Judge Nancy Torresen the states restrictions force women who are seeking abortions in Maine to travel long distances, and some are unable to access abortions at all. These are burdens being imposed by the state for no articulable reason, Kaye said. When youre asking poor and low income women to travel hundreds of miles, sometimes on a very time-sensitive basis, some women wont be able to do that. Chris Taub, assistant attorney general for Maine, argued that there isnt strong enough evidence showing how many women have to travel long distances. He added that fewer abortions are being performed in the state compared to the 1980s and 90s because demand is down, and not because of state laws. We have vague evidence that because of the physician-only law, some women have to travel far distances, he said. We dont have any evidence of the percentage of women who face these kinds of burdens. The court case is playing out while recently elected Gov. Janet Mills, a former Maine attorney general, is also hoping to expand the states list of abortion providers. Mills, a Democrat, has proposed a bill that would also allow nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse-midwives to perform abortions. Despite Mills bill, the ACLU is moving forward with its lawsuit because it believes the current rules are unconstitutional and should be addressed by a federal court, said Heiden, of the ACLU of Maine. It is not clear when Torresen will issue a ruling about the states request for summary judgment. The arguments about the judgment were wrapped up by late morning. WASHINGTON - An International Monetary Fund mission and Argentine authorities have reached an agreement on the third review of a $56 billion IMF-supported program. If the IMF executive board approves the review in the coming weeks, Argentina would have access to $11 billion, bringing the total amount received from the IMF since June 2018 to $39 billion. An IMF mission led by Roberto Cardarelli visited Argentina last month to conduct the third review. Cardarelli said in a news release that Argentine authorities have met their 2018 primary deficit target, demonstrating their resolve to eliminate the vulnerability associated with Argentinas fiscal imbalance. He added: Achieving a zero primary deficit in 2019 will require further restraint in government spending. Argentina has been hit by a sharp depreciation of the peso amid double-digit inflation. BISMARCK, N.D. - Federal prosecutors in North Dakota are seeking a prison sentence for a Rhode Island woman who funneled lottery scam money between the U.S. and Jamaica thats more than double what they sought for the schemes ringleader. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan OKonek said a lack of contrition and co-operation on the part of Melinda Bulgin are big reasons why the state is seeking a 14-year sentence for her, which is about eight years more than they sought for kingpin Lavrick Willocks. Defence attorney Chad McCabe said hell seek a sentence more reasonable and appropriate. A jury in September convicted the 28-year-old Bulgin of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering in a scam that authorities say bilked more than 100 mostly elderly Americans out of more than $6 million. Its believed to be the first large-scale Jamaican lottery scam tried in the U.S. It involved 31 defendants, including 14 Jamaican nationals, most of whom accepted plea deals with the government. Among those who accepted a plea deal was Willocks. Prosecutors say he ran the scam out of a Jamaica mansion where he lived with his mother. OKonek recommended six years and three months in prison, and U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland in October sentenced him to six years, crediting him with co-operating. Authorities say Bulgin funneled scam proceeds via cheap flights she got through her airline job. She eventually was caught at a Jamaican airport in 2015. She went to trial, did not accept responsibility, and has not had empathy for the victims in this case, OKonek said. Authorities identified victims in 31 states, including at least one person who committed suicide. The case has been prosecuted in North Dakota because thats where the initial identified victim lives. McCabe said his client should not be punished for exercising her right to go to trial and called it unfortunate that the government is seeking such a lengthy prison term. It does seem very harsh and unfair to ask for a sentence for Miss Bulgin that is much bigger than for an individual who played a much larger role in this case, he said. Bulgin is to be sentenced April 17. Hovland in December ordered her detained until sentencing, saying she was looking at significant (prison) time and could be a flight risk. ___ Follow Blake Nicholson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake LIVINGSTON, La. - A man accused of killing his girlfriend, her family and his parents in Louisiana has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors say theyre seeking the death penalty. News outlets report 21-year-old Dakota Theriot entered the pleas Monday to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his girlfriend, Summer Ernest; her father, Billy Ernest; and her brother, Tanner Ernest. Authorities say Theriot shot the Ernests in Livingston Parish, then his parents, Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, in Ascension Parish. He was arrested in Virginia . The five slayings happened in January. Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perrilloux says he considered reports that Theriot is mentally ill, but ultimately nothing convinced prosecutors not to seek his execution. Perrilloux expects an insanity defence. Theriot hasnt been indicted yet in Ascension Parish. His lawyer declined to comment to The Advocate . ___ Information from: The Advocate, http://theadvocate.com EBENSBURG, Pa. - A former Pennsylvania pediatrician was sentenced Monday to at least 79 years in prison for sexually assaulting 31 children, most of them patients, as his now-adult victims blasted not only their abuser but the system that let him get away with it for so long. Dr. Johnnie Barto of Johnstown was sentenced on dozens of criminal counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors said he spent decades abusing children in the exam room at his pediatric practice in western Pennsylvania and at local hospitals, having opted to become a pediatrician so hed have a ready supply of victims. He typically abused prepubescent girls. One was an infant. I grieve for the little girl I should have been, for the childhood I shouldve had. ... I grieve for all the children you hurt, Erika Brosig, who was sexually abused at age 13, said at Bartos sentencing. Brosig and 18 other people gave victim impact statements Monday, both in person and through a prosecutor, describing their pain and hurt. Bartos wife, Linda Barto, was among them. He has been lying to me about everything for all of the 52 years I have known him. ... He spent his whole sinister life lying and sneaking around, so he could carry on his abuse uninterrupted, she said. She said her heart was heavy for the victims. Authorities had a chance to stop Barto in 2000, when he appeared before the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine on administrative charges that he molested two young girls in the 1990s. But regulators threw out the case and allowed him to keep practicing medicine, saying the allegations were incongruous to his reputation. Barto was a beloved pediatrician in Johnstown and an elected school board member with hundreds of supporters who flatly disbelieved he was a pedophile. Such was the communitys support that ribbons were distributed and worn at a high school football game as he fought the allegations in the 1990s. Brosig, who felt obligated to wear the ribbon as a member of the colour guard, said it burned a hole in my chest that entire night. After the medical board cleared him, Barto felt invincible, he later told authorities. And he continued molesting. Barto, now 71, went on to violate at least a dozen more young patients before his arrest in January 2018, according to the state attorney generals office. Dr. Barto used his position of authority as a pediatrician, the family doctor relied on to treat and heal their children, to feed his own sick desires, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a news conference after the sentencing. In handing Barto a prison term of 79 to 158 years meaning the ex-pediatrician will die in prison a judge told the gathered victims Monday that justice was finally theirs. All I can say is that the justice system is not perfect, but it worked the second time, Judge Patrick Kiniry said. As Barto sat impassively just a few feet away, victims described in minute detail their assaults: what Barto was wearing (a striped purple shirt); what the room looked like (burgundy carpeting on the walls, orange chairs, teal stool); what he did and how it made them feel. Brosig said she can still feel Bartos cold hands and hear the exam table paper crinkling underneath her body. The sound of you moaning will haunt me until the day I die, she told Barto. One victim said that because of what Barto did to her, she rarely sees a doctor and is terrified of taking her children to one. Another told the court she showers in the dark because shes ashamed of her body. Many spoke of lifelong struggles with depression, anxiety, panic attacks and distrust of men. Ive lived my life in pain, hopelessness and despair, a woman said in her statement. The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they consent. Prosecutors had asked for 31 to 62 years in prison. Barto did not apologize and declined to make a statement. He pleaded guilty in December to sexually abusing two family members. He pleaded no contest to the charges involving his patients, refusing to admit guilt but accepting the punishment. His lawyer, David Weaver, said Barto would not appeal the sentence. Even after Barto was charged last year, some people in the area still couldnt accept the truth about him, launching a Facebook group in support. WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will consider overturning a criminal conviction by a 10-2 jury vote in Louisiana. The justice acted Monday, four months after Louisiana voters amended the state constitution to prohibit non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases. Oregon is the only state that still allows them. The high court will consider the case of Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted in 2016 of second-degree murder in the killing of a woman in New Orleans. Ramos is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole. The change in the state constitution took effect in January, but is of no help to Ramos without court action. The last time the Supreme Court took up the issue was in 1972, when it ruled that nothing in the Constitution bars states from allowing some convictions by non-unanimous verdicts. But even in Oregon and Louisiana, first-degree murder, which could bring the death penalty, has required a unanimous verdict. The court has held that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous verdicts in federal criminal cases. The 1972 case turned on the vote of Justice Lewis Powell. The court said states were not compelled to follow suit and require unanimous juries in all criminal cases. At the same time, the Supreme Court has determined that most rights guaranteed by the first 10 amendments to the Constitution apply to states as well as the federal government Also Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether states can eliminate the so-called insanity defence for criminal defendants without violating the Constitution. The appeal comes from a Kansas man who has been sentenced to death for killing his estranged wife, their two daughters and the wifes grandmother. The cases will be argued in the fall. REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - The Latest on the public drunkenness arrest of Perus former president (all times local): 2:20 p.m. Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo brushed off questions about his arrest on suspicion of public drunkenness during a radio interview. Toledo also declined to discuss his detention with Perus RPP radio, saying Im not falling into that trap. San Mateo County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Rosemerry Blankswade says Toledo was arrested at a San Francisco Bay Area restaurant Sunday and spent the night in jail before his release Monday morning. Toledo was Perus president from 2001 to 2006 and has lived in California in recent years. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in 2017. He is wanted in his home country on accusations of taking $20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. He has denied wrongdoing. While he was president, Toledos presidential aircraft became known as the party plane after a government official was caught on camera drunkenly singing a popular Spanish-language tune called Pass me the Bottle during a flight to Europe. ___ 12:15 p.m. Authorities say a former Peruvian president who is wanted in connection with Latin Americas biggest graft scandal was arrested in California on suspicion of public intoxication over the weekend and was briefly detained. San Mateo County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Rosemerry Blankswade said Monday that Alejandro Toledo was arrested Sunday night near a restaurant near the San Francisco Bay city of Menlo Park. Toledo was released early Monday morning and the charge was dropped, as is routine for suspects arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness. Peruvian authorities have offered a $30,000 reward for Toledos capture. Blankswade says Interpol officials told jailers they had no interest in immediately extraditing or holding Toledo. Prosecutors have accused Toledo of taking $20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. He has denied wrongdoing. DOTHAN, Ala. - The Latest on an arrest in the 1999 killings of two Alabama teenagers (all times local): 10:35 a.m. A prosecutor says hell seek the death penalty against a man charged in the slayings of two Alabama teenagers nearly 20 years ago. District Attorney Kirke Adams says 45-year-old Coley McCraney can be prosecuted for capital murder in the killings of 17-year-olds Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley. Adams told a news conference Monday that one of the multiple capital counts against the man includes a charge that one of the victims was sexually assaulted during her slaying in 1999. Authorities say they used DNA matching to confirm that evidence from the killings was tied to McCraney. The prosecutor says he decided years ago to pursue the slayings as a death-penalty case. McCraney was arrested Saturday. A defence lawyer says the man is co-operating with authorities. ___ 9:35 a.m. The lawyer for a suspect in the 1999 deaths of two Alabama teenagers says hes an outstanding member of the community and is co-operating with law enforcement. Investigators in Alabama say a DNA match found through a genealogy website led them to arrest 45-year-old Coley McCraney. McCraney faces rape and capital murder charges in the slayings of 17-year-olds Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley. The girls had left Dothan, Alabama, to attend a party but never arrived. They were later found in the trunk of a car, each with a gunshot wound to the head. Attorney David Harrison tells The Associated Press its going to be difficult to find a jury thats not already aware of the case and that he might have to ask for another venue to get a fair trial. ___ 1:30 a.m. Authorities in Alabama say a DNA match found through a genealogy website has led to an arrest in decades-old slaying and rape case. Al.com reports 45-year-old Coley McCraney, of Dothan, was arrested Saturday and charged with rape and capital murder in the 1999 deaths of 17-year-olds Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley. Ozark police and Dale County sheriffs officials are scheduled to hold a press conference about the case on Monday. The girls left Dothan the night of July 3, 1999, to attend a party, but they never arrived. The pair was found the next day in the trunk of Beasleys car alongside a road in Ozark, each with a gunshot wound to the head. A different suspect was cleared after his DNA didnt match that from semen found on Beasley. HARTFORD, Conn. - The Latest on the release from prison of reputed Connecticut mobster who federal authorities believe has information on a still-unsolved heist of $500 million worth of artwork from a Boston museum (all times local): 3:25 p.m. Federal prison officials say there is no evidence to support mistreatment allegations made by a reputed Connecticut mobster who authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in history. Eighty-two-year-old Robert Gentile was released from prison Friday after finishing a four-year sentence for weapons crimes. He maintains he knows nothing about the still-unsolved theft of $500 million worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. He accused prison officials Monday of worsening his health problems by restraining him in a bed for the past year. The federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement Monday that it could find no support for the allegations. Federal prosecutors have said they believe Gentile has some information on the stolen paintings. ____ 12:33 p.m. An elderly reputed Connecticut mobster who federal authorities believe is the last surviving person of interest in the largest art heist in history has been released from prison and is criticizing federal government officials. Eighty-two-year-old Robert Gentile also maintained Monday that he knows nothing about the still-unsolved theft of $500 million worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. He finished a four-year sentence in an unrelated weapons case and was released Friday. Gentile is blaming federal officials for his worsening health problems and criticizing authorities for seizing his money and damaging his Manchester home during a raid in the weapons case. An FBI official declined to comment on Gentiles statements. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials said they were reviewing Gentiles comments. EBENSBURG, Pa. - The Latest on pediatricians sentencing for sexually assaulting 31 children (all times local): 12:40 p.m. A former Pennsylvania pediatrician has been sentenced to at least 79 years in prison for sexually assaulting 31 children, most of them patients. Dr. Johnnie Barto of Johnstown was sentenced Monday on dozens of counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors say the 71-year-old spent decades abusing children in the exam room at his pediatric practice and at local hospitals. Nineteen people gave victim impact statements both in person and through a prosecutor ahead of the sentencing. They described how he destroyed their lives, caused them to feel hopelessness and made them fear doctors. His wife, Linda Barto, was among them. She says he spent his whole sinister life lying and sneaking around so he could carry on his abuse uninterrupted. The attorney generals office had asked for 31 to 62 years in prison. ___ 12:05 p.m. Victims of a former Pennsylvania pediatrician have given statements before his sentencing in the sexual assault of 31 children, describing how he destroyed their lives, caused them to feel hopelessness and made them fear doctors. Dr. Johnnie Barto of Johnstown will be sentenced on dozens of counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors say he spent decades abusing children in the exam room at his pediatric practice and at local hospitals. On Monday, he was deemed a sexually violent predator before the sentencing hearing began. Nineteen people then gave victim impact statements both in person and through a prosecutor. His wife, Linda Barto, was among them. She says he spent his whole sinister life lying and sneaking around so he could carry on his abuse uninterrupted. The attorney generals office is asking for 31 to 62 years in prison. Barto declined to make a statement. ___ 1 a.m. A former Pennsylvania pediatrician is scheduled for sentencing Monday in the sexual assault of 31 children, most of them patients. Dr. Johnnie Barto of Johnstown will be sentenced on dozens of counts, including aggravated indecent assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors say he spent decades abusing children in the exam room at his pediatric practice and at local hospitals. Barto appeared before the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine nearly two decades ago on administrative charges that he molested two young girls. But regulators threw out the case and allowed him to keep practicing medicine. Prosecutors say the 71-year-old doctor went on to molest at least a dozen more young patients before his arrest in January 2018. Barto has pleaded guilty to some counts and no contest to others. Hes been jailed pending sentencing. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump is escalating his pressure on General Motors, as he calls for the company to reopen an Ohio manufacturing plant. Trump tweeted Monday that GM should: Close a plant in China or Mexico, where you invested so heavily pre-Trump, and Bring jobs home! Trump travels to politically important Ohio this week. Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that officials should start talks with the United Auto Workers immediately so that the Lordstown plant could be reopened or sold. General Motors said in a statement Sunday that the future of plants scheduled to be closed will be resolved between GM and the UAW. The automaker said that they had opportunities available for virtually all impacted employees. VANCOUVER, Wash. - A woman has pleaded guilty to pushing her 16-year-old friend from a bridge at a popular swimming area near Vancouver. The Columbian reports 19-year-old Taylor Smith pleaded guilty to misdemeanour reckless endangerment Monday in Clark County District Court. Prosecutors are recommending no jail time when Smith is sentenced later this month. Smith pushed Jordan Holgerson off the bridge Aug. 7 at Moulton Falls northeast of Vancouver. Video posted on YouTube that went viral shows Holgerson being pushed. Holgerson broke six ribs and punctured her lungs in a fall of over 50 feet (15 metres). In an interview on Good Morning America Smith said she didnt consider the repercussions. Outside the courtroom, Genelle Holgerson said she and her daughter want this chapter of their lives to be over. ___ Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com Three top Liberals had already resigned from key posts before Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick announced his surprise retirement Monday. A look at whos been taken down, or caught in the crossfire, of the SNC-Lavalin affair: Jody Wilson-Raybould The woman at the centre of the scandal was the first Indigenous minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. Shes accused the Prime Ministers Office of pressuring her to intervene on criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin and cut a mediation deal. The Montreal-based engineering giant is facing fraud and corruption charges in connection with activities in Libya. The prime minister denies that he or anyone else applied any inappropriate pressure. Wilson-Raybould believes she was removed as attorney general and given the less prestigious post of Veterans Affairs in a January cabinet shuffle for not co-operating. She described a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government, over four months, on the file, including veiled threats and a barrage of lobbying she told the House of Commons justice committee in late February. Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet earlier that month, but told her Vancouver-Granville constituents in a letter last week she still intends to run for re-election as a Liberal in the upcoming federal election. Gerald Butts Butts is a long-time friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, dating back to their student days at McGill University in Montreal. He was his principal secretary at the time of the scandal and often seen as a stand-in for the PM. He also denies he or anyone in Trudeaus office pressured Wilson-Raybould inappropriately. When you boil it all down, all we ever asked the attorney general to consider was a second opinion, he told the justice committee. I firmly believe nothing inappropriate occurred here and nothing inappropriate was alleged until after the cabinet shuffle. Butts resigned from the Prime Ministers Office on Feb. 18. He did not want to distract from the work of the government, he said in his resignation letter. Jane Philpott Philpott, a medical doctor and the former minister of health, resigned from her post as president of the Treasury Board and minister of digital government in early March, after taking on the roles in the January cabinet shuffle. She was generally seen as a well-regarded, key member of Trudeaus cabinet. In an open letter announcing her resignation, Philpott said shes lost confidence in how the government has dealt with the SNC-Lavalin affair. Her decision followed Wilson-Rayboulds testimony at the House of Commons justice committee. She stays on as MP for MarkhamStouffville. Michael Wernick As the clerk of the Privy Council of Canada, Wernick is the countrys top civil servant. He announced his retirement Monday, saying he will leave before the federal election. Wernick was accused of partisanship by opposition MPs for his defence of Trudeaus office during the SNC-Lavalin affair. In an open letter to the prime minister, he wrote that recent events, have led him to conclude that there is no path for (him) to have a mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the opposition parties. Wernick met three times with Wilson-Raybould about a potential plea deal for SNC-Lavalin. Wilson-Raybould said he was part of the group who pressured her. He made two appearances before the House of Commons justice committee, where he vigorously denied this. Read more about: MPP Randy Hillier says he was ousted from the PC caucus after raising allegations about possible illegal and unregistered lobbying by Premier Doug Fords friends and advisers and the NDP is now calling on the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate. Fords office called all of Hilliers allegations absurd and categorically false. In a statement issued Monday, Hillier alleges Ford Chief of Staff Dean French and Chris Froggatt, who heads the election readiness committee, engaged in an underhanded and relentless campaign for months to get rid of him. Hillier said he was expelled because he refused to accept the obstruction and prevention of caucus criticism or input on public policy, didnt ask for permission to speak to reporters, and also for his refusal not to stand and applaud, which PC MPPs now do routinely during question period. And, Hillier writes, he was also ousted for raising concerns of possible illegal and unregistered lobbying by close friends and advisers employed by Premier Ford. He provided no specifics about the alleged improper lobbying. In a letter to the OPP, New Democrat MPP Taras Natyshak said the force needs to look at the allegations raised by Hilliers statement. Read more: Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: How Doug Ford became Ontarios empathy premier MPP Randy Hillier permanently expelled from caucus Hillier says suspension from Tory caucus was over clashes with Ford advisers MPP Hillier alleges that his expulsion was an act of reprisal against him for raising concerns of possible illegal and unregistered lobbying by close friends and advisers employed by Premier Ford ... I am calling on you to act swiftly to take whatever action the OPP deems to be appropriate, including considering the launch of a full and detailed investigation into the claims, Natyshak (Essex) told the OPP. OPP Staff Sgt. Carolle Dionne confirmed late Monday afternoon the force had received Natyshaks correspondence. Hillier, first elected in 2007, was suspended from the PC caucus last month and expelled last week by Ford after the eastern Ontario MPP was accused of saying yada yada yada to parents of children with autism who had packed the public gallery in the legislature over recent government changes. But Hillier, the MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, has maintained his comment was directed at New Democrat MPP Monique Taylor. Hillier has been accused by some colleagues of not being a team player. However, last week Ford told reporters he would sit down with Hillier to discuss his return though that meeting did not happen. Another eastern Ontario MPP, Steve Clark the minister of municipal affairs and housing said in the legislature that Hilliers allegations were unfounded, but that no matter in what capacity that member sits in this House, Ill continue to work with him. Finance Minister Vic Fedeli said everyone in our caucus wanted to work with Mr. Hillier, but its very clear that Mr. Hillier did not want to work with our caucus. Hillier has received a lot of support from constituents, with his local PC riding association demanding the government allow him to return. Simon Jefferies, a spokesperson for the premier, said everything Randy Hillier outlined in his letter is an outright lie. These fabrications are absurd and categorically false. This further shows Randy Hillier never wanted to be a true member of our PC team despite repeated attempts by Premier Ford to engage him as an important member of our caucus. In fact, Premier Ford made overtures to Randy Hillier since the election ... Its disappointing and disheartening that Randy Hillier refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. Jefferies also disputed Hilliers claim that he was in trouble for not seeking permission to attend his brothers funeral. False, said Jefferies. Everyone deserves the proper bereavement and would be afforded the right to do-so. Natyshak, noting two former PC MPPs now sit as independents Amanda Simard and Jim Wilson quipped that the fastest growing party in chamber today are those whove either left or been kicked out of the Progressive Conservative party. This is not the first time French has made the news. Last November, the Star revealed Fords chief of staff had been accused of instructing to order the OPP to raid outlaw cannabis shops before the drug was made legal, so that images of people in handcuffs would be be shown on TV news. Read more about: It is possible to jump from plane to meeting looking smooth and refreshed -- here's how. "My flight gets in at 8:45 a.m. -- what do you mean I have a meeting at 9:30?!" is what your brain is screaming while you use all of your energy to politely nod your head and say, "Certainly. 9:30 is perfect." After keeping that smile pasted to your face, the next challenge is not looking (or smelling) like something from Night of the Living Dead when you get off that overnight flight and hit the ground running. So here's your stay-fresh salvation. Leave Odor on Board "If you've never been to Italy, you won't be used to all that smoking," says travel expert Anne McAlpin, and neither will your business partners in the board room. On her Web site Pack It Up, McAlpin offers a freshen-up kit ($10) that includes hand sanitizer and a natural odor-neutralizer spray that works wonders for getting a smoky or stale smell out of clothing. But you're really better off going straight to the source of funky smelling clothing -- your sweet self. I have heard of some places like the Munich Airport offering shower stalls and other hygienic necessities to travelers, but McAlpin, who's been to 67 countries, says she hasn't seen many of them. So make sure you have alternates in mind. McAlpin recommends travel-supplies store Magellan's fresh bath disposable body wipes ($10 for 16 cloths). Per the Web site, each cloth contains a cleansing formula with vitamins A, E and aloe vera that moisturize and clean the skin without additional soap or water. For about $25 a bottle, Magellan's also offers body mints, ingestible deodorant tablets made from a natural derivative of chlorophyll. While it almost sounds too futuristic to be true, the company claims two mints daily will reduce body odors -- including breath and underarm stench -- for 24 hours. To view Alix Steel's video take of today's segment, click here. Should mints fail you, Magellan's has clothing shields, adhesive disposable strips that attach to a shirt's underarm, shielding the fabric from unwanted moisture and odor. A package of five pairs is $6. McAlpin recommends getting as much freshening done in the air as you can, especially if flying business class, where you are less likely to wait on long bathroom lines than at the airport. Well Suited To avoid looking like you slept in your suit (which you most likely did) McAlpin gives some simple advice. Instead of wearing it, take your suit with you and change at the airport. If you don't have time for that, make sure you stow away the blazer while on the plane. To avoid wrinkling clothes when storing them, McAlpin swears by dry-cleaner bags. Simply put the suit in the bag and fold as usual. "The plastic rubs on plastic ... so there are very few wrinkles," she says. This trick also keeps the clothes dirt- and odor-free. But avoid using a dry-cleaning company that advertises on the bag, cautions McAlpin, because the ink can rub off. You don't want to become a walking advertisement for "Bob's Famous Cleaners," no matter how good its service is. There's a slew of products to keep your outfit pristine, too. Travel-accessory vendor Christine Columbus sells a wrinkle-free spray, which allegedly whisks away wrinkles and static cling -- no ironing required. This little wonder retails for $6 per 3-ounce can. Or, if a bout of turbulence has caused a coffee disaster on your shirt, try the kiss-off stain remover ($5), which promises to remove wine, makeup and even blood. All liquids and sprays must be three ounces or under (yes, toothpaste is considered a liquid), but in addition, McAlpin stresses the importance of storing them in a single quart-sized plastic bag -- otherwise an airport security check might leave you without your precious resources. Fake It Now that you've taken care of your smell and your outfit, it's time to focus on the top -- your face. Oil of Olay's total effects eye transforming cream ($15) has helped give me that bright-eyed, office-ready look no matter how sleep deprived I am. It lightens the skin around the eye, and minimizes the puffiness that so often plagues frequent travelers. To give your brain a jump, a colleague swears by aromatherapy solutions like Earth Solutions' stay alert scent inhalers ($4). Even if it doesn't jolt you awake, the bracing peppermint and rosemary fragrance will sure serve as a nice reprise from stale airplane air. What you eat while traveling can affect you as well. McAlpin cautions to stay away from airport pizza or hotdogs and stick to low-fat foods that are good calorie sources. Pack a few snacks like energy bars or mozzarella sticks beforehand, because you never know when you'll have time to grab a bite. Also, Emergen-C elixir is always good for a quick hit of energy, says McAlpin, and the small packets are easy to slip into your carry-on. Once you arrive at your destination (even if you're early), avoid naps no matter how tired you are, advises Robert Bestor, president of Travel Essentials. Otherwise your internal clock will take longer to adjust to local time. "Keep walking, keep eating," he says. This will keep your energy level up for that meeting. Remember, it's all about appearances. Even though you might still feel up in the clouds as you saunter into your meeting, nobody will guess you've even been on a plane. Polish President Lech Kaczynski and high-ranking Polish government and military officials die Saturday in a plane crash in Russia. Updated from 11:09 a.m. EDT Update includes revised death toll, popular reaction in Poland, list of Polish officials on board plane and response from Russian government. SMOLENSK, Russia ( TheStreet ) -- Polish President Lech Kaczynski and high-ranking Polish government, military and church officials died Saturday in a plane crash in Russia. The group was flying to Russia to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn forest massacre, in which Soviet secret police killed some 22,000 Polish military officers, according to an Associated Press report. In Warsaw, thousands of people placed candles and flowers at the presidential palace, the report said. The crash killed 97 people including President Kaczynski, according to the report, which cited Russia's Emergency Ministry. Earlier reports put the death toll at 96. There were no survivors of the crash, which occurred as the president's plane, a 26-year-old Russian Tupolev, was trying to land in thick fog, the report said. Among those on the plane were President's Kaczynski's wife, Maria; Poland's national bank president; deputy foreign minister; head of the National Security Office; deputy parliament speaker; the army chief of staff; the navy chief commander; and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the report said, citing the Polish foreign ministry. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will personally oversee the investigation into the crash, and he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev offered condolences, the report added. "On this difficult day the people of Russia stand with the Polish people," Medvedev was quoted saying. Both black boxes have been recovered from the plane, and initial evidence points to an accident, the AP report said, adding that the plane appears to have hit treetops as it was approaching the military airfield in North Smolensk. A spokesman for the Smolensk regional government said that Russian dispatchers had asked the crew of the Polish plane to land instead in Minsk or Moscow because of fog, the report said. But the pilot disregarded those instructions, the deputy head of Russia's air force was reported saying. > > Bull or Bear? Vote in Our Poll This article was written by a staff member of TheStreet.com. The U.S. trade deficit increased to $39.7 billion in February. Diplomacy has failed to stop China's currency intervention; it's time to take strong action. The U.S. trade deficit increased to $39.7 billion in February from $37.0 billion in January, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Chinese President Hu Jintao has told President Obama that China will not revalue its currency in response to U.S. requests. This leaves President Obama with the difficult choice of either acting unilaterally or appeasing Chinese mercantilism to the great detriment of U.S. businesses and workers. Subsidized manufactures from China and petroleum account for nearly the entire deficit, and both will rise as consumer spending and oil prices increase through 2010. China's refusal to stop undervaluing its currency, along with congressional Democrats' resistance to the development of domestic oil and natural gas resources, is choking the economic recovery. This will reduce tax revenue and require draconian cuts in federal, state and local government budgets or new taxes more burdensome than borne by major competitors in Europe, Japan and China. At 3.1% of GDP, the trade deficit subtracts more from the demand for U.S.-made goods and services than President Obama's stimulus package adds. Moreover, Obama's stimulus is temporary, whereas the trade deficit is permanent and growing again. Money spent on Chinese coffee makers and Middle East oil cannot be spent on U.S.-made goods and services, unless offset by exports. When imports substantially exceed exports, Americans must consume much more than the incomes they earn producing goods and services, or the demand for what they make will be inadequate to clear the shelves, inventories will pile up, layoffs will result, and the economy will go into recession. To keep Chinese products artificially inexpensive on U.S. store shelves and discourage U.S. exports into the Middle Kingdom, China undervalues the yuan by about 40%. Beijing accomplishes this by printing yuan and selling them for dollars to augment the private supply of yuan and private demand for dollars. In 2009, those purchases were about $450 billion, or 10% of China's GDP and 28% of its exports of goods and services. In 2010, the trade deficit with China is reducing U.S. GDP by more than $400 billion or nearly three percent. Unemployment would be falling rapidly and the U.S. economy recovering more rapidly but for the trade deficit with China and Beijing's currency policies. Longer term, China's currency policies reduce U.S. growth by one percentage point a year. The U.S. economy would likely be $1 trillion larger today, but for the trade deficits with China over the last 10 years. China has indicated it will not revalue its currency at this time. Some analysts expect only a gradual revaluation if any change in policy occurs -- perhaps a few percentage points a year. Such a move would have little consequence for the U.S. trade deficit, unemployment and growth. China views its exchange rate policy as a tool of domestic development strategy, but its policy has broad, aggressive and negative international consequences. It is choking growth and imposing unemployment on the United States and other western countries. Diplomacy has failed, and President Obama should impose a tax on dollar yuan conversions in an amount equal to the amount of China currency market intervention divided by its exports -- currently that would be about 28%. For imports, at least, that would offset Chinese subsidies that harm U.S. businesses and workers. Ultimately, the amount of the tax would be in China's hands. If Beijing reduced currency market intervention and let the yuan appreciate, the tax rate would fall. If Beijing stopped intervening, the tax would go to zero. Diplomacy has failed for Presidents Bush and Obama. U.S. failure to take strong broad actions now would allow Chinese protectionism to wholly disrupt the free trade system facilitated by the World Trade Organization, undermine U.S. and European prosperity, and ultimately burden U.S. broader foreign policy objectives American failure to act would amount to no more than appeasement, and wholesale neglect of President Obama's obligations to ensure U.S. economic security and sovereignty. Professor Peter Morici, of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, is a recognized expert on economic policy and international economics. Prior to joining the university, he served as director of the Office of Economics at the U.S. International Trade Commission. He is the author of 18 books and monographs and has published widely in leading public policy and business journals, including the Harvard Business Review and Foreign Policy. Morici has lectured and offered executive programs at more than 100 institutions, including Columbia University, the Harvard Business School and Oxford University. His views are frequently featured on CNN, CBS, BBC, FOX, ABC, CNBC, NPR, NPB and national broadcast networks around the world. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The union vote scheduled for Wednesday at Volkswagen's giant auto plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., is turning the usual scenario of labor vs. management on its head. Typically, United Auto Worker campaigns in the South ride headfirst into a concerted effort by automakers to oppose any and all unionization. Corporate opposition generally combines with firm pronouncements by local politicians and chambers of commerce officials to defeat calls for a union. That's what happened at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn. in 1989 and again in 2001 as well as its factory in Canton, Miss., in 2005 and 2007. In the 35 years since foreign-owned automakers began building factories in the South, the companies, combined with local political and business leaders, have helped to defeat UAW organizing drives. But the vote Wednesday at VW's plant in Chattanooga is proving to be quite different. Executives at Volkswagen, the world's third-largest automaker behind Toyota (TM) - Get Toyota Motor Corp. Reportand GM (GM) - Get General Motors Company Report,have conspicuously refrained from the usual chorus of anti-union diatribes, Detroit putdowns and recollections of the bad old days when the Big Three did make lousy cars, and labor relations -- a two-sided dysfunction -- were nothing short of terrible. Bernd Osterloh, Volkswagen's works council chief, said last month in Wolfsburg, Germany, that he would like to see Chattanooga's workers accept a German-style works council which represents both assembly line workers and management. Osterloh called the day-to-day management of the Chattanooga facility a "disaster," a few weeks after its U.S. divisional chief Jonathan Browning was replaced by Michael Horn after sales of its midsize Passat declined 6.3% last year. Likewise, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has made it clear that he doesn't necessarily oppose unionization at the Tennessee plant given that the Chattanooga plant is VW's only facility worldwide not to have a works council. Under U.S. law, a works council cannot be established unless its roughly 1,500 workers vote to be represented by a labor union. Filling the anti-union void, Sen. Bob Corker (R, Tenn.) and other state Republicans have repeatedly criticized Volkswagen executives for not being sufficiently wary of the UAW. Earlier this week, Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson, the second-highest ranking Republican in the upper chamber, warned Volkswagen that state officials would seek to withhold tax incentives for future expansion of the three-year-old assembly plant in Chattanooga if workers choose to join the UAW. "For management to invite the UAW in is almost beyond belief," Corker said in September. "They will become the object of many business school studies -- and I'm a little worried could become a laughingstock in many ways -- if they inflict this wound." More recently, Corker warned that a UAW presence in Chattanooga would be bad for the entire region's economy. "I'm not trying to influence what the employees do," the senator added. Corker's comments follow a public campaign by Grover Norquist's anti-tax group in Chattanooga to influence the vote through commercials and billboards. Republicans have also warned workers that joining the union might convince VW executives to locate a giant new plant earmarked for North America in Mexico rather than the U.S. "There's an irony that someone like Senator Corker who speaks so extensively about letting the private sector do its job is, as a government official, seeking to dictate to the private sector how they should organize their production," said Harley Shaiken, a professor of labor relations at the University of California at Berkeley, said in a phone interview. "Last I checked, Senator Corker didn't run a global company the size of Volkswagen and as successful as Volkswagen." Corker is holding a press conference Tuesday in Chattanooga to further explain his opposition to worker's aligning with the UAW. -- Written by Leon Lazaroff This story has been updated from 3:09 pm EST on 2/27 with comments from American University's Keith Darden amid new developments in Ukraine. NEW YORK (TheStreet) - The ongoing turmoil in Ukraine has prompted speculation about a potential flashpoint between East and West, particularly after Russian President Vladimir Putin began moving 150,000 troops into Western Russia, a stone's throw from Kyiv. On Friday, the situation further escalated when armed men occupied the Sevastopol airport in the country's Crimea region. The Ukrainian government said the armed men were Russian naval forces even as Russia's Black Sea fleet, which is based in Sevastopol, denied its forces were involved. The BBC reported that another airport in the regional capital of Simferopol, had also been occupied by armed men also thought to be members of a pro-Russian militia. Ethnic Russians form the majority of the population in Crimea. Yet even as the situation in Ukraine grows increasingly tense, political observers said the country is unlikely to become a Cold War flash point. "We will not see much of a Western response beyond the warning rhetoric that we already hear," wrote Joerg Forbrig, senior program officer at The German Marshall Fund, in an email to TheStreet on Thursday. The Berlin-based policy expert pointed to the brief conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008 which saw Russia gain control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "The Georgia example of 2008 should serve as reminder that there is little the West can and will do to shield its Eastern neighbours [sic] against Russian interference," Forbrig said. On Wednesday, NATO defense ministers issued a joint statement vowing "to support Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, democratic development, and the principle of inviolability of frontiers." Months of civil unrest and increasingly violent confrontations culminated in last week's ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. In November, Yanukovych had rejected a trade agreement with the E.U. in favor of closer economic ties with Russia, sparking a massive protest movement known as 'Euromaidan' centered on Kyiv's Maidan Square. Tensions, however, remain high between pro-European and pro-Russian factions within the country. On Thursday gunmen seized government buildings in Crimea. The U.S. and E.U. will be closely watching how events in the Crimean peninsula unfold. The region is also of critical importance to Moscow thanks to the Russian naval base in Sevastopol. Keith Darden, associate professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington D.C., said that the west will be urging the Ukrainian government to show restraint. "I expect them to urge moderation on the part of the central government in Kyiv," he explained, in an email to TheStreet late on Thursday. "Temporary periods of provincial autonomy are entirely tolerable, and the US and EU would do well to keep all sides from taking any extreme actions." Darden, however, noted the potential challenges in Crimea, citing Ukraine's controversial abolition of a language law that allowed the country's regions to choose Russian as an official second language. "The cancellation of Ukraine's tolerant language law was a mistake that cannot be repeated in the government's approach to what is happening in Crimea," he wrote. "If Kyiv does not spark conflict, it will not happen." The Marshall Fund's Forbrig will be watching to see whether events in Crimea will be mirrored in other parts of Ukraine with significant Russian populations. "The key question will be if secessionist movements will be limited to Crimea or spread to other parts of the country," he wrote. "If Crimea 'only' is at stake, the West will do very little. If the problem spreads and threatens to tear apart Ukraine as a country, the West will be pressed to find stronger responses. After all, Ukraine borders four EU and NATO members." Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, sees a return to a cold war scenario in Ukraine as unlikely. "We would have to make several mistakes in a long sequence to get there," he told TheStreet during a phone interview on Thursday. "It would take some mismanagement to fall all the way down that particular hole." Wilson said that, with Ukraine moving towards planned elections, E.U. and U.S. political support is crucial given Russia's unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian authorities. The expert notes that the E.U. and U.S have already sent a "dual message" to Russia about Ukrainian sovereignty, but must carefully avoid escalating the situation. On Tuesday E.U. foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton pledged to support Ukraine's new leaders, and urged Russia to let the country move forward "in the way it chooses," according to Reuters. Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he expects other nations to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, the New York Times reports, and is closely watching Russia's military exercises. The U.S., however, has avoided overtly confrontational rhetoric over Ukraine, says Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director and fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. "The Obama administration has been talking about how there needs to be a solution that includes all the interested players, including Russia," he told TheStreet on Thursday. Forbrig also notes that the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea will likely swing a referendum on the peninsula's future in Russia's favor, making a "classic" military intervention by Moscow less likely. This situation, however, may change if Ukraine's central government steps in to prevent secession and Crimea's fiercely anti-Russian Tatar minority opposes Russian ambitions, he added. As well as a test of foreign policy, Ukraine also poses major economic challenges as it seeks $35 billion in foreign aid over the next two years. The E.U.'s Ashton provided no details about financial assistance during her visit to Kyiv this week, but said that Europe would work with the IMF, adding that the fund would make its own assessment of the situation. "It's a political reality," said Mankoff. "Given the economic austerity in the E.U., there's no way that the member states could come up with a rescue package of the size that Ukraine needs - the IMF was the only way they could get at this package." In a statement released on Thursday. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that the Fund is "ready to respond" and will send a fact-finding team to Kyiv in the coming days. The Euro was up 0.73% against the dollar by mid-afternoon on Friday. --Written by James Rogers in New York. Follow @jamesjrogers >Contact by Email. There are a lot of things people on the Internet could have been outraged on Friday, March 15, 2019: a mass shooting that killed 49 people, the ongoing college admissions scandal, calls by WhatsApp's founder to delete Facebook. And sure, some people are mad about that stuff, but thousands of others are also focusing their anger on a nearly 30-year-old clip of legendary poet, author and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou. Angelou, who died in 2014, was trending on Twitter after footage surfaced of her on a television show in 1990 correcting a young woman who called the longtime Bay Area resident by her first name. In the clip, a young woman of color named Kim asked "Maya," as she put it, her views on interracial relationships. Immediately Angelou responded, "Thank you, and first, I'm Ms. Angelou. I'm not Maya. I'm 62 years old. I have lived so long and tried so hard that a young woman like you, or any other, have no license to come up to me and call me by my first name. "That's first. Also, because at the same time, I'm your mother, I'm your auntie, I'm your teacher, I'm your professor. See?" (Retweet the part where Angelou compared herself to my auntie.) But many people on Twitter expressed outrage, or even embarrassment, over the clip. "Maya Angelou did NOT have to READ this innocent girl down on national TV like that," wrote Twitter user @Doogi_, along with three crying emojis. Another Twitter user, @DragonflyJonez, said that the clip going viral and the ensuing discussion about it, "has me reliving all of the cringe worthy times I responded with "yes ma'am" when a lady has told me to stop calling her ma'am and now I wanna crawl under a rock and die thanks a lot guys." Maybe they have a point. Later in the television program, Angelou apologized to Kim "for being so short." Still, there were a lot of people who rushed to Angelou's defense. Some brought up the fact that Angelou has been deceased for five years now as reason why people should not be talking about the clip. "Maya Angelou is dead she is the literal definition of unbothered can y'all stop trying to drag a new dead person every week when you're bored," wrote Ira Madison III, a television writer. Others jokingly (I hope) saw the consternation over Angelou's comments as reason to lose faith in humanity. "Please know that Maya Angelou is trending nationally because there are some young folks who are offended that she directed a young woman to call her Ms. Angelou instead of Maya in a [29-year-old] clip," wrote journalist Yashar Ali. "We are doomed." Check out how people reacted to this clip of Maya Angelou telling a young woman not to call her by her first name. Indian tycoon Anil Ambani averted a three-month jail term after his telecommunications company settled dues it owed the local unit of Ericsson AB, with just a day left before a court-set deadline. Reliance Communications Ltd. has paid the required 5.5 billion rupees ($80 million) to Ericsson, both companies said. Repeated failures to pay and Ambani's personal guarantee landed him in trouble last month, with the top court giving him a month's notice to comply or spend time in prison. The court order was a close call for Ambani, whose telecom, power and infrastructure ventures are straining under debt. Bloomberg-compiled data show his current net worth is about $300 million, compared with at least $31 billion in 2008, based on the current foreign-exchange rate. That marks a stunning fall for the scion of one of India's most storied business families. Ambani thanked his family for their support and said that he and his family "are grateful we have moved beyond the past," in an emailed statement from Reliance Communications. His slide down the wealth rankings also paints a picture that's in stark contrast to the success of his elder brother Mukesh Ambani, who's now Asia's richest man with a net worth of $52.9 billion, adding $8.6 billion this year alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Anil Ambani's wealth decline ranks among the largest and fastest implosions of wealth in modern history ranking alongside the reported $70 billion loss Japan's Masayoshi Son suffered during the dot-com crash after SoftBank Group Corp.'s stock tumbled. Brazil's Eike Batista was worth more than $30 billion at the start of the decade, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. But his commodities and logistics empire evaporated under a mountain of debt and insider trading investigations. He gained the rare distinction of "negative billionaire" in 2015 when his net worth sank to more than $1 billion in debt. Shares of RCom, as the telecom carrier is called, had slipped 9.1 percent on Monday in Mumbai before the announcement. The stock plummeted 60 percent in 2018 as Anil Ambani struggled to close a 2017 deal to sell spectrum, signal towers and fiber to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., a new service provider controlled by his elder brother, for 173 billion rupees. Failure to conclude that deal and other regulatory hurdles prompted the company to say that it may have to slip into bankruptcy. As regulatory hurdles delayed the completion of his biggest deal, creditors such as Ericsson began tightening the noose and demanded past dues. The Swedish equipment maker's relentless legal pursuit led to a settlement under which RCom was to pay half of the past claims, or 5.5 billion rupees -- an offer backed by a personal guarantee from Ambani. Failure to keep this promise after a personal guarantee from Ambani escalated into a contempt case, with the court eventually setting the deadline. The threat of a prison term to Ambani also came as a rare warning to some of India's richest borrowers whose firms have turned defaulters. The nation's policy makers and courts have been cracking down hard on delinquency to help banks saddled with the world's worst bad-loan ratio. The Ambani brothers used to serve as executives at their father's company. Following their father's passing in 2002, the siblings got into a high-profile dispute over control of the sprawling conglomerate. In 2005, the two settled the feud by agreeing to carve up the empire into two. Anil Ambani got newer businesses such as telecom, power generation and financial services. As Mukesh Ambani's oil and petrochemicals businesses flourished, he re-entered telecom with the creation of Reliance Jio Infocomm. The nationwide 4G network, which debuted with free services in 2016, disrupted the industry forcing rivals including RCom to bleed, merge or exit. --- Bloomberg's Tom Metcalf, Ronojoy Mazumdar and Arijit Ghosh contributed to this report. PALO ALTO, Calif. - A Stanford University scientist coined the term artificial intelligence. Others at the university created some of the most significant applications of it, such as the first autonomous vehicle. But as Silicon Valley faces a reckoning over how technology is changing society, Stanford wants to be at the forefront of a different type of innovation, one that puts humans and ethics at the center of the booming field of AI. On Monday, the university will launch the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), a sprawling think tank that aims to become an interdisciplinary hub for policymakers, researchers and students who will go on to build the technologies of the future. They hope they can inculcate in that next generation a more worldly and humane set of values than those that have characterized it so far - and guide politicians to make more sophisticated decisions about the challenging social questions wrought by technology. "I could not have envisioned that the discipline I was so interested in would, a decade and a half later, become one of the driving forces of the changes that humanity will undergo," said Fei-Fei Li, an AI pioneer and former Google vice president who is one of two directors of the new Stanford institute. "That realization became a tremendous sense of responsibility." The institute - backed by the field's biggest leaders and industry players - is not the first such academic effort of its kind, but it is by far the most ambitious: It aims to raise more than $1 billion. And its advisory council is a who's who of Silicon Valley titans, including former Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, former Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer and co-founder Jerry Yang, and the prominent investor Jim Breyer. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will keynote its inaugural symposium on Monday. The money raised will not only go to research grants and academic gatherings but also to buying data processing power and luring back some of the talent that has fled academia for lucrative industry jobs in recent years. It will be housed in a new 200,000 square foot building at the heart of Stanford's campus. "We recognize that decisions that are made early on in the development of a technology have huge ramifications," said John Etchemendy, a philosopher and former Stanford provost, the second director of the AI institute. "We need to be thoughtful about what those might be, and to do that we can't rely simply on technologists." The idea for the institute began with a conversation in 2016 between Li and Etchemendy that took place in Li's driveway about a five-minute drive from campus. Etchemendy had recently purchased the house next door. But the casual neighborly chat quickly morphed into a weightier dialogue about the future of society and what had gone wrong in the exploding field of AI. Billions of dollars were being invested in start-ups dedicated to commercializing what had previously been niche academic technologies. Companies like Facebook, Apple and Google were hiring the world's top artificial researchers - along with many of their recently minted graduates - to work in new divisions dedicated to robotics, self-driving cars and voice recognition for home devices. "The correct answer to pretty much everything in AI is more of it," said Schmidt, the former Google chairman. "This generation is much more socially conscious than we were, and more broadly concerned about the impact of everything they do, so you'll see a combination of both optimism and realism." In the years following that conversation in the driveway, the dangers and ills of AI have become more apparent. Seemingly every day, new statistics emerge about the tide of job loss wrought by the technology, from long-haul truckers to farmworkers to dermatologists. Elon Musk called AI "humanity's existential threat" and compared it to "summoning the demon." Researchers and journalists have shown how AI technologies, largely designed by white and Asian men, tend to reproduce and amplify social biases in dangerous ways. Computer vision technologies built into cameras have trouble recognizing the faces of people of color. Voice recognition struggles to pick up English accents that aren't mainstream. Algorithms built to predict the likelihood of parole violations are rife with racial bias. And there are political ramifications: Recommendation software designed to target ads to interested consumers was abused by bad actors, including Russian operatives, to amplify disinformation and false narratives in public debate. "The question comes down to whether this revolution of AI - and of today's machine learning techniques - will contribute to the progression of humanity," said Hoffman, who chairs the institute's advisory council. He called Stanford's institute a potential "key lever" that would act as a "catalyst," trusted adviser, and source of intelligence for industry, the government and the public. (Hoffman ran into trouble last year after reports showed that he had funded a disinformation campaign on Facebook during the Alabama election. He said he did not know his money was used in that way.) While universities in recent years have drawn criticism for raising large amounts of money - Stanford is among the biggest fundraisers of all - the cash is particularly necessary if universities are to remain competitive in the field of AI, said James Manyika, an advisory council member and director of the McKinsey Global Institute. Not only will the money be used to retain talent, but also to fund costly data processing machines that can run artificial intelligence applications at scale. "The goal is to have resources that will enable Stanford to be competitive," Manyika said. "If you gave researchers at Stanford access to compute, that will slow down the brain drain quite a bit toward these corporate labs." Schmidt said he had observed a "tipping point" in the last year or so, where computer science programs across the country are adding courses in AI ethics and big companies such as Google are announcing AI principles and creating internal programs to attempt to take the bias out of the software they are building. Schmidt said that Stanford's program would elevate and centralize these ad hoc efforts, but also contribute to the development of the field overall. One of the bigger questions HAI has yet to answer is the extent to which it will take policy positions on some of the toughest current issues, in which Li and others involved with HAI have been directly involved in. Last year, when Li was running artificial intelligence for Google Cloud, Google became embroiled in controversy for obtaining a Pentagon contract to improve artificial intelligence that can scan video footage coming in from drones. Many Google employees protested the contract and some even quit. Li cautioned her colleagues against using the term AI when discussing the contract because of the sensitivity of the topic, according to a New York Times report, and confirmed by Li. Etchemendy said HAI would not take sides or dictate decisions to other organizations. Etchemendy said that 200 faculty members, from departments like law and anthropology, have already applied for funding from the think tank. Fifty-five have already received seed grants to research AI's implications for topics including medical decision-making, gender bias and refugee resettlement. One of the institute's biggest strengths would be its commitment to diversity within the profession, he said, and its recruitment of experts from fields not traditionally associated with AI. In a novel called "Requiem for a Nun," William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." But William Faulkner is dead, and nobody reads "Requiem for a Nun." Which is just part of the problem. In this age of rising mobility, giddy gentrification and shrinking attention spans, historical amnesia spreads like an epidemic: It may be asymptomatic for years, but eventually it's fatal to our respect for bygone days. It would be nice, actually, if those who don't remember the past were condemned to repeat it; in most cases, they're just doomed to forget it. Ironically, the web, that infinite repository, may exacerbate our sense of alienation from the history all around us. Not only does the internet lure us to distant places, but it draws our eyes away from the storied sites and crumbling buildings we pass every day while tripping along the street staring at our phones. For more than two decades, one small publisher far from New York has been quietly rescuing remnants of history from the flames of oblivion. You may have seen the trim, sepia-toned books from Arcadia Publishing or its imprint the History Press. From an office in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Arcadia releases almost 500 new titles a year. They're available in bookstores, but you're more likely to have noticed them in history museums, parks, diners, hardware stores and beauty parlors in small towns throughout America. Written neither for a general audience nor an academic one, each title is conceived with a fanatically specific market in mind. They're like a book version of some antique kitchen tool designed for a task nobody does anymore. The subjects are surprisingly, delightfully precise. "Barberton Fried Chicken," for instance, celebrates the tastiest meal in Barberton, Ohio. (It involves frying in lard and then chilling overnight.) "Ukrainians of Metropolitan Detroit" describes the contributions Ukrainians have made to that Midwestern city since the late 1800s. Most of the books are named for cities, towns or even neighborhoods, like "Federal Hill," which is a history of Italians who settled in the port of Providence, Rhode Island. For years, my Great Aunt Marge lived in a trailer in Kearney, Missouri, and gave tours of the Jesse James farm. Had Arcadia's "Kearney" been available then, she would have sold copies alongside the toy guns and tinfoil stars in her gift store. The enthusiastic response from local communities sometimes takes even the Arcadia editors off guard. A few years ago, Elizabeth Taylor (not the actress), published "Camp Forrest" about a decommissioned World War II facility in Tennessee that had once held prisoners of war. The mayor of Tullahoma, Tennessee, responded to the book by officially proclaiming June 28, 2016, Elizabeth Taylor Day. She was given a key to the city. Not to be outdone, the mayor of Coffee County, Tennessee, proclaimed Elizabeth Taylor Week. Arcadia's business turns the traditional publishing model on its head. Big New York publishers are looking for the next blockbuster to sell 2 million copies across the English-speaking world in a month. Arcadia wants to find a book that will sell 1,000 copies this year in, say, McMullen Valley, Arizona. "It's a unique publishing approach," says Arcadia's president and CEO, David Steinberger. "The books are completely evergreen. Once you publish them, they sell forever. So even though the initial numbers are modest, you're creating a kind of annuity." That's not to say there aren't any hits. The press' best-selling title, "Biltmore Estate," about George Washington Vanderbilt II's mansion in Asheville, North Carolina, has sold 80,000 copies since it was published in 2005. Enter your hometown Zip code on the Arcadia website, and you'll be offered a selection of books on the minutiae of your early life. In my case, 63011 brings up "St. Louis's Delmar Loop," about a few colorful streets near where I went to graduate school. "Famous-Barr: St. Louis Shopping at Its Finest" is a history of a now-defunct department store where my wife worked when we first got married. And "Brentwood, Missouri" reveals the town (pop. 8,000) where we lived in an unbearably hot, third-floor walk-up. There's something weirdly validating about these little books, filled with old photos and text written by local enthusiasts. As they tell me things I didn't know - didn't even know I wanted to know - they fill in the foundation of my own spindly past. Arcadia Publishing is reinforcing its foundation, too. Last year, two publishing heavyweights, Michael Lynton, the former CEO of Penguin, and Steinberger, the former CEO of Perseus Books, along with a group of investors they organized, bought the press along with its 14,000-title backlist. And this week, Walter Isaacson, the best-selling biographer, is joining them as an editor-at-large and senior adviser. He is the first big-name author to get involved with Arcadia, but that won't change its small-town focus. "It's something I love, which is preserving local history, especially hyperlocal," Isaacson says by phone as he travels home to New Orleans from Germany. "It's important for people to know not only world history but the history of their communities, especially the inspiring things in their community. At a certain point, you've really got to focus on your roots and home, and especially during troubled times, there's a stability that comes from being connected." Isaacson, who has published celebrated biographies of Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and others, sees these tightly focused history books responding to a national thirst for local products and experiences, from artisanal teas to farmers markets. "Not everything in this world is Twitter feeds and Facebook groups," he says. "Real physical books on real things in your own community have a warmth to them that makes you feel more connected to your civic life." Isaacson, who has made what he called a small investment in the company, won't be writing books for Arcadia, but he plans to write introductions for some of the books and may collaborate on other new Arcadia titles. He also wants to recruit new authors to the series. "Getting a younger group of writers to understand the joy of producing a book is part of my mission," he says. I hope that won't crowd out contributions from Arcadia's current army of historians and sleuths around the country. That group includes people like Margo Azzarelli, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, who has been working with Arcadia for 10 years. She wrote a book sparked by a local labor riot in which four people died. "It was a big historic event back in 1877," she says, but the details had evaporated from public memory. Her interest in that riot - one link in the American labor movement - began when her husband, who works on heating and air conditioning, found a trunk in a customer's house in 2001. The owner didn't want it, so he took the trunk home where Azzarelli discovered a trove of 19th-century letters. "Reading these letters was like reading a book," she says. "... That family that lived there was involved in the riots." Such serendipity and the passion of hundreds of local writers throughout the country have produced thousands of books that Arcadia keeps permanently in print, typically selling a few dozen or a few hundred copies per year. Paul Secord is a retired environmental planner now living in Albuquerque, near where his grandfather once worked in the mines. He has written several books for Arcadia. "About the most fun you can have outside of sex is doing research," he says, "and when you get to be my age, well ... it's pretty much research." In the late 1600s, a Swiss medical student began diagnosing homesick soldiers with a condition he called "nostalgia." Today, cut off from our homes and pasts in a different way, nostalgia is sweeter, less pathological. But a little book filled with forgotten details and black-and-white photos of your first neighborhood is still a sweet tonic. SPRINGFIELD Supporters of legalized marijuana in Illinois have launched efforts aimed at making it easier for legitimate businesses that sell the product to have bank accounts and accept credit card transactions. State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, a Democrat, said Monday he supports legislation in the General Assembly that would prohibit state banking regulators for punishing banks or credit unions that provide basic banking services to legitimate cannabis-related businesses. He also said he is joining with other state treasurers around the country in lobbying Congress for changes in federal laws that prohibit banks from doing business with the cannabis industry. The inability of the legal cannabis industry in Illinois to use a bank or credit union for basic services such as check writing, savings or access to capital is a sleeping giant, Frerichs said during a news conference in Chicago. We have an industry that handles money hiding in the shadows because banking rules built decades ago have not kept up with changes in behavior and in law. Illinois legalized the use of marijuana for certain medical conditions in 2015, and Frerichs said the business now accounts for $136 million a year in retail sales. State lawmakers this year are also considering legislation, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker supports, to legalize adult use of recreational marijuana. However, marijuana is still illegal in all forms under federal law, and it is also a violation of federal banking laws for any bank to knowingly engage in transactions involving proceeds generated from marijuana-related activity. During the Obama administration, the Justice Department relaxed some of its enforcement of those laws, especially in states that had legalized at least some kinds of marijuana use, saying it would focus its resources on certain priorities, such as preventing the sale of marijuana to minors; preventing revenue from marijuana sales from going to criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels, and preventing the shipment of marijuana from states where it is legal to states where it is not. But the Trump administration reversed that policy in January 2018 when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions distributed a memo to federal prosecutors, effectively instructing them to go back to enforcing federal laws as they were originally intended to be enforced. Prior to last year, about 85 percent of our cannabis industry was banked with a single bank in the state of Illinois, Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Chicago Democrat, said during the news conference. As the Trump administration ramped up threats towards the legal cannabis industry, that bank got nervous about potential backlash and informed all of these businesses that they would cease to have a banking relationship with them Frerichs said the result of that has been to move the finances of the legal cannabis industry into a kind of underground cash-based economy. As residents of this state, we needlessly invite risk to people and property as that $136 million is shuffled from place to place in duffle bags, in the front seat of cars, or the trunk of a car, he said. In addition to supporting changes in state-level banking regulations and lobbying Congress for changes in federal law, Frerichs said his office is exploring ways to provide incentives for banks and credit unions to serve the legal cannabis industry. The companion bills pending in the General Assembly are House Bill 2980 and Senate Bill 2023. A gray wolf is dead in Oregon, and people may be to blame. The animal had been trapped by federal biologists in October and fitted with a radio-tracking collar that reported on its movements. It was a member of the first pack since the 1940s to establish territory on an Indian reservation in central Oregon. Just over a month later, the signal went still. The wolf was neither shot nor poisoned, according to a necropsy. No one can say for sure how or why it died, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson. But the animal was visibly lean and had a wound on one of its front paws. And given that a baited leg-hold trap was used to catch the wolf, it's possible that the capture contributed to the wolf's demise, officials said. The Oregon wolf was not the first animal to die after being captured for study. Three pronghorns perished this month as the result of a relocation effort in Arizona. A vaquita, one of the few remaining members of its porpoise species, died in 2017 as scientists attempted to capture it for a captive-breeding program. A wild cat dubbed Macho B - one of the last jaguars known to cross the U.S.-Mexico border - was euthanized after its health declined following a capture in 2009. Scientists are capturing and tagging more wild animals than ever, using technologies that allow them to keep tabs on everything from honeybees to great white sharks, and they say casualties are extremely rare. But each high-profile death raises questions about the toll these operations inflict - especially when they are carried out in the name of conservation or the animals' well-being. "An individual animal is never better off because we trapped it or caught it or tagged it," said Steven Cooke, a biologist at Carleton University in Canada who has published several papers urging caution and consideration when capturing and tracking wild animals. "But the knowledge gained from that individual can hopefully be useful for informing how to better manage, conserve, protect and restore populations and species." Several things could have gone wrong for the Oregon wolf. The paw injury might have prevented it from finding enough food, for instance. But the stress of capture itself - from being immobilized in a trap, or chased over long distances - can also kill. This kind of death is caused by a condition called capture myopathy, which occurs when overworked skeletal muscles - the ones that power the fight-or-flight response - start to break down and release a protein called myoglobin. In great amounts, myoglobin can enter the bloodstream and concentrate in the kidneys, where it causes tissue damage and sometimes kidney failure. Cooke regularly captures fish for his work, and he said even those that are not bleeding or in obvious distress are affected in some way. A simple dip net removes the natural layer of slime that protects fish and can cause micro-injuries, including frayed fins. That damage must be taken into account before any study or wildlife management action that requires catching or handling, he said. Such knowledge was put to use recently in Florida, where the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted to update fishing guidelines, based in part on research showing improper handling can cause sharks massive stress and even death. Some species, such as the great hammerhead, may be particularly susceptible to this kind of trauma. But to understand why, scientists first had to capture various shark species and measure their physiological responses. "All conservation work is going to cast some type of shadow," said Austin Gallagher, who has studied hammerheads and serves as chief scientist and CEO at a nonprofit group called Beneath the Waves. "This is something we all know and accept when going into any research project." Responses to capture also vary among land animals. One study found that 3.4 percent of gray wolves suffered capture-related mortality over the course of a long-term research project but that fewer than 1 percent of moose and brown bears met the same fate. Part of this may have to do with capture methods. Bears can be easily lured into a culvert trap baited with doughnuts. Mountain lions, on the other hand, are usually too wary to walk into what amounts to a large metal tube. "Mountain lions are truly the ghosts of the forest," said Jim Williams, a biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and author of "Path of the Puma." The traits mountain lions have evolved to make themselves invisible to prey also make them extremely difficult to catch. This is why most biologists rely on trained scent dogs to chase a cat into a tree - no doubt a stressful event for the lion. Once the scientists catch up, they tranquilize the cougar, then lower it to the ground by rope. Capturing ungulates, such as bighorn sheep, may be more intense still. Williams said scientists often approach the animals by helicopter and immobilize them with guns that fire nets. "So there are a whole bunch of techniques that can be used to capture and handle wildlife, and each one of those techniques comes with different risks - for both the people and the animals," Williams said. Researchers insist their work is vital for understanding how animals respond to capture. That can be useful when scientists or wildlife managers must relocate an animal, such as a grizzly bear that ransacks campsites for food. In extreme cases, they say, knowing how to safely catch and handle a species might be necessary for saving it from extinction. Take the vaquita. There may be as few as 30 left. The small porpoises live only in the Gulf of California, and their habitat is laced with illegal nets meant for a fish called totoaba. The vaquitas' prospects have become so bleak that an international team decided in 2017 to try to round up the few that remained and begin a captive-breeding program. The plan was risky from the outset. The animals were known to be extremely skittish around people, and no one had ever kept a vaquita in captivity before. To prepare, scientists looked to information gleaned from the vaquita's cousins. Two other porpoise species had been found to do well in captivity, said Barbara Taylor, a conservation biologist who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Mammal Genetics Group. A third did not. Unfortunately, vaquitas turned out to be more like the latter. When the team captured two females and transported them to holding tanks, cortisol and other stress hormones flooded their bloodstreams and their behavior was clearly agitated and panicked. The scientists quickly decided to return the animals to the ocean, and one swam away, but the other suffered a cardiac arrest beside the boat. For three hours, the team kept the animal alive by performing the marine-mammal equivalent of CPR, but the vaquita never resumed breathing on its own. "All of us knew she was essentially dead," said Frances Gulland, a veterinarian and commissioner at the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission who was involved. "We all knew that the moment we actually declared her dead, it wasn't just declaring an individual dead, it was sort of declaring a species gone, too." In the end, Gulland made the call to let the animal die, a moment she described as "overwhelmingly depressing" - perhaps more so because it might have been avoided. With more time or more vaquitas, she said, researchers might have developed a capture protocol that accounted for the animal's risk-averse biology. But in other instances, capturing animals and raising them in captivity have saved species from the edge. The California condor and whooping crane are two well-known examples. One day, the Sumatran rhino may join them. With 80 or fewer Sumatran rhinos left in the wild, an international coalition of conservation organizations recently announced a last-ditch effort to capture as many as possible and begin a breeding program. A similar strategy has failed this species once before. After scientists caught 40 rhinos in the 1980s and 1990s, three animals died of injuries suffered in the traps and eight others died prematurely while in captivity. The effort was "billed as an absolute disaster," said Barney Long, director of species conservation at the nonprofit Global Wildlife Conservation. But it also resulted in two Sumatran rhinos being sent to the Cincinnati Zoo, where, over the course of the next decade, scientists solved the mystery of how to get the animals to breed. "What seemed like a failure 20 to 30 years ago is now probably the only thing setting up an opportunity to save the species from extinction," Long said. The coalition says it will review ways to mitigate risks while capturing and transporting the rhinos. In November, the same groups successfully trapped a Sumatran rhino and then mildly sedated it to keep it from thrashing about and injuring itself. A military escort and a logging-company bulldozer helped make the long trek out of the jungle as swift as possible. "Safety of the animals and the people involved are of paramount importance," said Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation. "There's no room for error now." CONCORD, N.H. - Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., slammed his head on the table four times when I asked what he thought about other Democratic presidential contenders embracing the idea of expanding the Supreme Court. "Having seen up close just how cynical and how vicious the tea party guys and the Freedom Caucus guys and Mitch McConnell have been, the last thing I want to do is be those guys," he said during an interview at a coffee shop recently. "What I want to do is beat these guys so that we can begin to govern again." Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, suggested that morning during a speech in Manchester, which coincided with Bennet's first foray to New Hampshire, that the number of justices should grow from nine to 15 - with Republicans picking five, Democrats picking five and those 10 justices together agreeing on the rest. "I can understand Mayor Pete's frustration because he's a mayor," Bennet said. "He comes to this with the purest intentions a person could have. I'm not sure if he spent a couple months in Washington that he'd have the same point of view." But Buttigieg is far from alone. Even some of Bennet's Senate colleagues have rushed to endorse the latest litmus test from the far left: Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand express varying degrees of openness to the concept of changing the composition of the court to benefit liberals. Sens. Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, however, each express skepticism about the very idea that famously derailed Franklin Roosevelt's second term. Court packing, like reparations, has emerged as a bright new dividing line to separate the pragmatists from the ideologues in the Democratic contest. The issue is quickly become a proxy for the larger choice Democrats must confront as they pick a standard bearer for 2020: Will they go with their heads or their hearts? Bennet, who says he's inclined to run for president and will decide in a matter of "weeks," represents an antidote to the Democratic Party's leftward lurch. "I guess I'm starting to think strongly that we need a voice in this primary that's willing to make the kind of case that I think that I would make," he said. Speaking at a house party up the hill from the State House after our interview, Bennet made an impassioned plea to 50 Democrats that the party must be more careful to avoid the "traps" being laid by President Donald Trump. "Look, we've got to nominate somebody who can beat Donald Trump. That means we have a responsibility not to do ourselves in," he said. "I went around in 2016 saying Trump couldn't win. I was totally wrong. . . . "Trump's not an idiot," he continued. "Whatever you think of Trump - and I can't stand the guy myself - he is a marketing genius. He is a savant of some kind when it comes to marketing. And where he sees the weakness, he will exploit it. . . . Trump knows he can't get elected on his two feet. What he's trying to do is disqualify the Democratic Party. He looks for opportunities to do that by calling people socialists . . . by saying Democrats are for open borders . . . and by saying Democrats are anti-Israel. . . . I think Democrats need to be very strategic in not falling into the traps that Donald Trump is laying for us." Bennet explained why he stood to applaud the president during the State of the Union. "When he said we're never going to be a socialist country, I was the first Democrat out of their chair," he said. "I didn't know this at the time, but Bernie [Sanders] ... is sitting right behind me and he's sitting in his chair scowling while I'm standing up and applauding. ... The reason I was on my feet is that I'm not going to let him disqualify us that way. I know what he's trying to do. . . . It's not because I'm applauding him. It's because I want to show that Democrats don't feel that way. Most Democrats don't." Asked about the Medicare-for-all bill that several of his Senate colleagues running for president have co-sponsored, Bennet made the case against the bill both on the substance and the politics. "That legislation takes insurance away from 180 million people who get it from their employer, 80 percent of whom like it," he said. "It takes it away from every single union that has collectively bargained for their health-care plan. It takes it away from 20 million people that have Medicare Advantage who love Medicare Advantage. . . . "We're making it too easy for the people who don't want to cover everybody," he continued. "Donald Trump has been smart enough to figure out that he can agitate seniors about this question because he's going to say to seniors, 'Wait a minute, you guys had to wait until you were 65 years old. You spent your whole life paying into it. And now all of America is going to be in the plan with you.' I have no problem with political slogans, but we have to have a plan for how to address this. . . . I want to say very clearly: This is a not a call for moderation. It is not a call for splitting the difference." Bennet's pedigree, plus his status as a second-term senator from a purple state that Democrats must carry to win the White House in 2020, would have made him a top-tier candidate in presidential elections of the recent past. His resume and record are more distinguished, and his platform is more polished, than someone like former House member and failed Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke, who has been the subject of saturation media coverage since he announced last Thursday. Bennet even chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 2014 cycle. Traditionally, this kind of coveted post was considered invaluable for a candidate to build a national network of major donors. But Beto raised $6.1 million of small-dollar contributions during his first 24 hours as a candidate without it, and Bennet so far has been little more than an afterthought among pundits or an asterisk in polls. Partly this is because so much of the energy has been on the left thus far, and there's so much hunger for sending a shock to the political system. "'Morning Joe' calls you a 'centrist' candidate," a man at the house party told Bennet, referring to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. "Is that what you are!?" "I'm not," Bennet said, before pausing for eight solid seconds. "If you get up in the morning worrying about the poor kids in America's schools and you think about that all day and you go to bed thinking about that, then I would say you're a progressive. That's how I think about it. . . . Sometimes I don't hear about that from more 'progressive' candidates. So I hope in this debate maybe we can redefine some terms about what's progressive, what's centrist, what's moderate, what's whatever. I was described by a reporter in the New Haven Register as a 'pragmatic idealist.' I'll take that description. I think that's what we need." If there was an American aristocracy, Bennet would be part of it. His grandfather was an economic adviser to FDR during the New Deal. His father worked for Lyndon Johnson during the Great Society and was Jimmy Carter's assistant secretary of state before taking the helm of National Public Radio. His brother is currently the editorial page editor of the New York Times. (The Times says James Bennet will recuse himself from any work related to the 2020 election "or major issues in the campaign" if Michael runs.) The senator went to St. Albans and Wesleyan University before Yale Law School. Then he clerked for a circuit court judge, worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Connecticut and served a stint in Bill Clinton's Justice Department. But he really didn't want to be a practicing attorney. So he moved to Denver to support his wife Susan's career as an environmental lawyer - like Bill and Hillary, they met at Yale Law - and took a very lucrative job overseeing corporate reorganizations and consolidations at the investment company owned by billionaire conservative megadonor Phil Anschutz. Bennet brushed aside my question about the certain attacks he'd face in the Democratic primaries for this work. "I stand on my record in the private sector," he said. Feeling called to public service, Bennet gave up the big paychecks in 2003 to become chief of staff to the new mayor of Denver, a fellow by the name of John Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper then tapped Bennet to become the superintendent of the city's public schools. When Barack Obama appointed then-Sen. Ken Salazar as Interior secretary in 2009, the governor at the time appointed Bennet to replace him. He won a full term in 2010 and another in 2016. Hickenlooper, who also wanted that open Senate seat, instead got elected as governor in 2010 and just finished his second term. He's already announced he's running for president, which is awkward. Both Hickenlooper and Bennet downplay differences and say they're different people with different backgrounds. In fact - temperamentally, ideologically and geographically - they seem quite similar. "I don't think my being in the race would have kept John out of the race, and I think the reverse is true," Bennet said. A question about court packing really got Bennet animated. He believes strongly that Trump won in 2016 as a direct result of McConnell blockading Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court, and he's angry that the majority leader went nuclear in 2017 after Democrats filibustered Neil Gorsuch. But he volunteered without prompting that he doesn't have a totally clean nose. Referring to Harry Reid ending the filibuster for circuit court judges in 2013 after McConnell prevented so many of Barack Obama's nominees from getting a vote, which he supported at the time, Bennet said: "We didn't always follow the rules. We changed the rules. People can decide whose fault it was. There's plenty of blame to go around. My point is that we owe something much better than this to the American people." Bennet, who edited the most prestigious of the law reviews at Yale and studied American history as an undergraduate, praised the founding fathers for devising a Constitution that created "the most elegant mechanisms" to facilitate decision making among free people. Sitting next to him at the table was the eldest of his three daughters. Caroline, 19, a Yale freshman, is on spring break. They wore matching fleece Patagonia pullovers. The 54-year-old father turned his answer into an extended civics lesson. "They believed we would have disagreement, that this was an essential part of living in a democracy, and out of that disagreement would come much more durable and imaginative solutions than any king or tyrant could ever think of," he said. "That's what those mechanisms are for, and we're in the process of breaking all of those mechanisms. We should think long and hard about whether or not we want to destroy all that, whether we think that what we should do is live in a world where they have their version of one-party rule for a while and then we substitute it with our version of one-party rule. To me, that seems like a really bad answer." Bennet has sought to stake out the moral high ground as a vocal defender of institutions and norms. He complained that both parties focus too much on raw power. He lamented the descent of American politics into "this continuous game of shirts and skins, where you put in your climate policy for two years and they rip it out and then you put in another and they rip it out." He criticized his congressional colleagues for believing that dueling press releases somehow serve the people they represent. "I don't know why we think we can be so lazy that we could just go on cable television at night and somehow our work is done," Bennet complained. "Or that we've introduced legislation and somehow that's the same thing as actually providing health care to people in America. "For me, this isn't just about beating Trump, which I think is important and essential but not sufficient. We also have to figure out how to govern the country, and we're not. We weren't before Trump showed up," Bennet added. "I'm not going to say one thing in the primary and something else in the general, and obviously I'm betting on the fact that that's going to be appealing to people who want politicians to . . . level with them. That may sound naive, but I think that's the only path that I have. And I don't happen to think it's naive because I think what's naive is imagining that we can keep repeating what we're doing in Washington - and this is even without Trump - and imagine that our kids and grandkids are going to remember us very favorably." Independents can vote in either party's primary in New Hampshire, and they're central to Bennet's theory of the case. If Trump doesn't have a credible challenger on the right, many swing voters will take ballots to vote in next February's Democratic contest. Bennet interacted with several of these voters during a town hall style meeting for employees of a rural manufacturing plant in the town of Jaffrey. Barry Charron, 36, is an independent who didn't vote in the 2016 primary or general election because none of the candidates caught his fancy. He's undecided about 2020. "He has a very moderate approach, and I appreciate that, because I only see things escalating," Charron said after watching Bennet talk for an hour. "It's a pendulum right now, and I'm afraid that the next president that we're going to get will be even worse than Trump but in the other direction. Like painfully liberal. To the point where they're ignoring important issues just to make people clap." Chris Hanley, 42, is also an independent who works in the machine shop. He voted for John Kasich in the 2016 GOP primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election. He pressed Bennet about how Democrats can do a better job reaching blue-collar voters. "He probably needs to present himself a little bit more firmly and speak a little bit louder and what not, but I liked his answers and I was pretty impressed with him as a candidate," Hanley said afterward. "Some people in Congress are really alienating people in their own parties that aren't far enough to the right or far enough to the left. And that's really a shame because, if you don't have compromise, you don't really have a working government." Bennet has given everyone who hosted him in Iowa and New Hampshire two books wrapped together in a blue bow: "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City," by Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond, and "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom," by Yale historian David Blight. "The abolitionists were saying the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and Frederick Douglass said that's not right," Bennet explained when I asked about these selections. "He said it's an anti-slavery document and we are not living up to what it says. In his generation, he changed the politics of the abolitionist movement. I think it made them successful in what they were trying to do. As a result, I think Frederick Douglass deserves to be considered a founder just as much as any of the people who wrote the Constitution. That was just as important as what they did. "We forget how hard people have struggled to make this society, as imperfect as it is, less imperfect than it has been," he added. "When we think about what it means to be a citizen in a republic that is under the kind of stress this republic is under, we should be thinking of ourselves as founders. That's why I can't accept . . . the idea that we are fated to have this pathetic and disgraceful political system for the rest of our lives. Other Americans have found ways to fix it. We should be able to find ways to fix it." Bottom line: If he decides not to try in 2020, Bennet would be well positioned to run in 2024 if Democrats nominate the kind of unelectable candidate whom he fears - and that person subsequently flames out a la George McGovern in 1972. The Jacksonville Police Department is investigating four reports of criminal damage to property from incidents Sunday. According to reports, police responded to four separate criminal damage to property calls Sunday. Police first responded to the 900 block of North East Street at 12:38 a.m. Sunday to a report of a door that had been forced open, causing damage to the door and door jam, although it did not appear that anything was disturbed inside the home, according to reports. A second door appeared to be pried open between 5:45 a.m. and 4 p.m. Sunday in the 300 block of Finley Street, according to reports. A third home was damaged about 10 p.m. Sunday after an unknown person shot at the home using what appeared to be a BB gun, causing damage to a window and the homes siding. The fourth home was damaged at roughly the same time, as police responded to the 900 block of North East Street about 10:20 p.m. to second report of a window being shot at with a BB gun. All four incidents are still under investigation. Beto O'Rourke reported raising more than $6.1 million during the first 24 hours of his presidential campaign, a record-setting haul that narrowly tops the amount announced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and dwarfs everyone else in the 2020 field. O'Rourke was a fundraising juggernaut during his U.S. Senate race in Texas last year, but there were significant questions about whether that would translate to a national campaign where he was running against fellow Democrats, not Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. The answer appears to be yes. O'Rourke's campaign said he raised $6,136,763 from donations that came from all 50 states, D.C., and every U.S. territory. "In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president - a campaign by all of us for all of us that answers not to the PACs, corporations, and special interests but to the people," O'Rourke said in a statement. In his first day as a candidate, Sanders (I-Vt.) reported raising $5.925 million from 223,000 donors, which brought his average contribution to $27. O'Rourke's campaign would not release the total number of donors or the amount raised any subsequent days. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) reported raising $1.5 million from 38,000 donors in the 24 hours after she announced her campaign. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) did not announce how much she raised, but on her first day, she pulled in at least $300,000 from 8,000 donors, according to fundraising figures reported by ActBlue, an online fundraising organization used by Warren and other Democrats. Several Democratic campaigns - those of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Gov. Jay Inslee (Wash.) and former governor John Hickenlooper (Colo.) - said they raised about $1 million over 48 hours. There is no way to confirm the figures the campaigns are releasing until they file reports with the Federal Election Commission in several more weeks. With at least 15 candidates in the race, fundraising is a crucial barometer for demonstrating who can attract broad enough support to sustain a campaign. It is also a metric used by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for the debates, which are scheduled to begin in June. But the presence of so many candidates could complicate fundraising, because some of the candidates came into the race with overlapping lists of donors. The figures so far establish O'Rourke and Sanders as the two most prodigious fundraisers out of the gate and could set up a clash between the two. Sanders is more liberal than O'Rourke and has staked his campaign on specific policy proposals that O'Rourke so far lacks. Sanders' supporters at times prodded O'Rourke during his Iowa trip last week, asking pointed questions about his positions on health care or his past alignment with more moderate stances. O'Rourke eschewed the socialist label that Sanders embraces and said he considers himself a capitalist. When a CNN reporter asked Sanders about O'Rourke's entry into the race, the senator shrugged. "Free country, anybody can run," he said. During his senate campaign, O'Rourke raised more than $80 million, the most collected for a single such race, and built a national list of supporters that he has sought to tap since his presidential announcement Thursday morning. In the hours after he announced, several emails and text messages were blasted out to his supporters, urging them to donate. At one point during a first day spent campaigning in Iowa, he stopped at a gas station, broadcasting on Facebook Live that it had cost $28.53 to fill up the Dodge Caravan he was driving and urging people to donate to help fuel his road trip. Several of his rivals also made fundraising appeals tied to him entering the race. Since Thursday, O'Rourke had declined to release his fundraising figures - "I choose not to," he said several times - which triggered speculation that he wasn't faring as well as he and his campaign had hoped. O'Rourke has pledged not to take donations from lobbyists or from corporate political action committees. He has not gone as far as Warren, who has said she will not hold any high-dollar fundraisers. "I'm not planning to do large-dollar fundraisers," O'Rourke told reporters in Dubuque, Iowa, on Saturday night. But he left open the possibility that he could hold such fundraisers in the future, answering "no" when asked if he was, like Warren, ruling them out completely. "Right now, we're ruling out taking any PAC money or any lobbyist money ever," he said. "I have no large-dollar fundraisers planned and I don't plan to do them." O'Rourke has yet to announce his campaign staff, including who will serve as his campaign manager. He said in Dubuque that he would support his campaign workers unionizing, as Sanders' campaign has announced it would do. "If that's what the employees of this campaign want to do, I'm very supportive of that," he said. "I hope that we will be paying the most competitive wages, providing the most competitive health-care and child-care benefits to our employees who will comprise the heart of this campaign." O'Rourke was scheduled to campaign in Michigan and Ohio on Monday. WASHINGTON The Internal Revenue Service warned the public Monday about a new twist on the IRS impersonation phone scam whereby criminals fake calls from the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), an independent organization within the IRS. Similar to other IRS impersonation scams, thieves make unsolicited phone calls to their intended victims fraudulently claiming to be from the IRS. In this most recent scam variation, callers spoof the telephone number of the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service office in Houston or Brooklyn. Calls may be robo-calls that request a callback. Once the taxpayer returns the call, the con artist requests personal information, including Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN). TAS can help protect your taxpayer rights. TAS can help if you need assistance resolving an IRS problem, if your problem is causing financial difficulty, or if you believe an IRS system or procedure isnt working as it should. TAS does not initiate calls to taxpayers out of the blue. Typically, a taxpayer would contact TAS for help first, and only then would TAS reach out to the taxpayer. In other variations of the IRS impersonation phone scam, fraudsters demand immediate payment of taxes by a prepaid debit card or wire transfer. The callers are often hostile and abusive. Alternately, scammers may tell would-be victims that they are entitled to a large refund but must first provide personal information. Other characteristics of these scams include: Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers to identify themselves. Scammers may know the last four digits of the taxpayers Social Security number. Scammers spoof caller ID to make the phone number appear as if the IRS or another local law enforcement agency is calling. Scammers may send bogus IRS emails to victims to support their bogus calls. Victims hear background noise of other calls to mimic a call site. After threatening victims with jail time or with, drivers license or other professional license revocation, scammers hang up. Others soon call back pretending to be from local law enforcement agencies or the Department of Motor Vehicles, and caller ID again supports their claim. Here are some things the scammers often do, but the IRS will not do. Taxpayers should remember that any one of these is a tell-tale sign of a scam. The IRS does not: Call to demand immediate payment using a specific payment method such as a prepaid debit card, gift card or wire transfer. Generally, the IRS will first mail a bill to any taxpayer who owes taxes. Threaten to immediately bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have the taxpayer arrested for not paying. Demand that taxes be paid without giving taxpayers the opportunity to question or appeal the amount owed. Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone. Call about an unexpected refund. For taxpayers who dont owe taxes or dont think they do: Please report IRS or Treasury-related fraudulent calls to phishing@irs.gov (Subject: IRS Phone Scam). Do not give out any information. Hang up immediately. The longer the con artist is engaged; the more opportunity he/she believes exists, potentially prompting more calls. Contact TIGTA to report the call. Use their IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting web page. Alternatively, call 800-366-4484. Report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Use the FTC Complaint Assistant on FTC.gov. Please add IRS Telephone Scam in the notes. For those who owe taxes or think they do: Call the IRS at 800-829-1040. IRS workers can help. View tax account online. Taxpayers can see their past 24 months of payment history, payoff amount and balance of each tax year owed. Stay alert to scams that use the IRS or other legitimate companies and agencies as a lure. Tax scams can happen any time of year, not just at tax time. For more information visit Tax Scams and Consumer Alerts on IRS.gov. GODFREY Local artist Sun Smith-Foret will be the featured speaker at the next Visiting Artist Lecture Series at Lewis and Clark Community College. Sponsored by 1st MidAmerica Credit Union, the free, public event will be held at 12:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 20, at the Hatheway Cultural Centers Ann Whitney Olin Theatre. A professional studio artist, teacher and independent curator, Smith-Foret has been active in textile construction, quilts, sculpture, functional and amuletic objects since completing graduate school at Washington University. Ill discuss living and working alongside the Mississippi in Elsah after decades of studio practice in St. Louis, Smith-Foret said. Well talk about the greater influence of nature and how new art is sparked by new locations and new colleagues. Smith-Foret currently has her Riverwork Project on display at Lambert St. Louis Airport and at the Audubon Riverlands Rivers Edge Art Walk. The presentation will focus on origins of thought, choice of media, scale and modes of expression, Smith-Foret said. Other topics will include nature and spirit, sacred geometry, as well as sign and symbol in new work. Smith-Foret will also discuss her 2012 installation at L&C, which was designed by the late Professor and Art Curator Jim Price. See more of Smith-Forets work at www.sunsmithforet.com. For more information about the series and other upcoming artists, visit www.lc.edu/visitingartists. MILWAUKEE - As presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke addressed a group of women Sunday afternoon, he was asked to share his vision for America. The former congressman from El Paso quickly listed a few issues - education, criminal justice reform and combating climate change - and then detailed his vision for his campaign. "Going everywhere, writing nobody off, taking no one for granted, could care less . . . what party you belong to, to whom you pray or whether you pray at all, who you love, how many generations you've been here, whether you just got here yesterday," O'Rourke said. "We're going to define ourselves by our aspirations, our ambitions and the ability to bring this country together." He never got to articulating a clear vision for America. In the first five days of his campaign, O'Rourke asked voters to shape him into the presidential candidate they want him to be, to help him draft a vision for America. He's operating without a campaign manager and with an often-exhausted skeleton staff, driving himself from Iowa to New Hampshire in a rented minivan and appearing at dozens of hastily organized events. It's an approach that seems to work so far: In addition to the large crowds O'Rourke has attracted, he raised $6.1 million during the first 24 hours of his campaign, a record-setting haul that narrowly tops the amount announced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and dwarfs everyone else in the 2020 Democratic field. During an unsuccessful Senate campaign in Texas last year, O'Rourke pioneered a new way for Democrats to run for office by holding hundreds of town halls across the state, answering thousands of questions, broadcasting his life on social media, raising record amounts of money from everyday voters and being relentlessly optimistic. His presidential campaign is an expansion of that effort. He even kept the same logo, replacing the words "for Senate" with "for America." As a presidential candidate, O'Rourke has heavily focused not on specifics but on two sentiments: positivity and humility. He has pledged to lead by example and not invest in misleading ads or demean his opponents, even praising former vice president Joe Biden, who could soon join the race. Although O'Rourke is openly critical of President Trump's policies and rhetoric, he is careful to not personally attack the president. O'Rourke admits that he doesn't have the answers to the nation's biggest challenges and is far from a perfect candidate. He has acknowledged that being a wealthy white man has given him privileges not afforded to all Americans, apologized for "really hateful" things he wrote as a teenager and promised to stop joking about how his wife is raising their three young children with only occasional help from him. Some voters say they find O'Rourke's openness refreshing. "Sincere," said a longtime activist at his first campaign event in Keokuk, Iowa. "Inspiring," said an Illinois woman at the same event. "Easy to listen to," one of her friends added. At other events, other voters added more descriptors: "Genuine." "A regular guy." "Earnest." "Trustworthy." "He's just so positive - that's what I like," said Olga Sanchez, 70, who drove more than two hours Saturday from the Des Moines suburbs to Waterloo to see O'Rourke speak and deliver a campaign donation. "He's not saying 'straight Democrat,' he's not saying 'independent,' he's not saying 'just progressive,' and he's not saying no to 'Republican' - that's just it, he includes everyone. . . . I'm all for inclusivity." O'Rourke, while not completely void of policy ideas, spends much more time detailing the challenges facing the country than suggesting fixes. At each campaign stop, he urges questioners to suggest their own solutions, although they rarely do, and often ends his answers with a call for a national conversation. On gun control, O'Rourke continued to propose a ban on the sale of new assault weapons and the implementation of universal background checks, while also speaking emotionally about the toll of gun violence, particularly on children. On the high cost of college, he reiterated ideas long pushed by Democrats - such as forgiving the student loans of public servants and creating debt-free higher-education options - while noting the crushing toll such debt has on many young Americans. On health care, O'Rourke suggested adding Medicare to insurance marketplaces and giving states another shot at expanding Medicaid, while stating that a solution will be reached only by bringing "everyone into the conversation." On immigration, O'Rourke has suggested giving citizenship to undocumented immigrants who have long called America home and increasing the number of refugees allowed into the country each year, but has also said he's still collecting ideas. He has promised to protect abortion rights but has not detailed what needs to be done to reverse restrictions placed by Republicans. He has called for higher teacher pay and greater investment in public education, but has not suggested a funding source. He warned voters that they need to find a "bold" solution to climate change in the next 12 years, but he doesn't yet know what that will be. On Saturday morning, O'Rourke told reporters that he plans to keep up the pace of several events each day and campaign in states that Trump won in 2016. He said the experience has confirmed his belief that Americans are eager for someone to heal the country's divisions. "This campaign has got to be about learning from the people we meet and then finding a way to bring everyone together," O'Rourke said. "So I think this pace and this manner of campaigning is not just, perhaps, the best way to win. It may be the only way to serve if we're going to meet the challenges before us." - - - The Washington Post's Matt Viser and Chad Livengood contributed to this report. ISLAMABAD - Naeem Rashid, 50, a teacher and father of three who emigrated from Pakistan to New Zealand a decade ago, was busy this month planning the spring wedding of his son Talha, 21. Neither father nor son lived to celebrate the occasion. Both were killed Friday, along with seven other Pakistanis, when a gunman struck at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing at least 50 people and wounding scores. But since then, Rashid has become a national hero in his native country, after video footage of the shootings showed him trying to tackle the gunman outside one mosque before being shot. "My brother was a brave man who died to save others. His death showed how he cared for humanity," Rashid's brother Khurshid Alam said in a telephone interview Sunday from his home in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Just a few days ago, he said, "we were talking to Naeem about the family coming to Pakistan for Talha's wedding. Now we are talking about his death and funeral arrangements." Alam said that Rashid and his son, who was shot alongside him, "fell victim to terrorism. ... The whole world should work together to eliminate this scourge." Avowed neo-Nazi Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, has been charged in the massacres. Pakistan has been both a victim and alleged source of Islamist terrorism for two decades. Even as tens of thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in Islamist militant attacks, India, Afghanistan and the United States have accused it of sheltering and supporting other militant groups that stage attacks abroad. The slayings in Christchurch signified a relatively rare instance in which Muslims living peaceably overseas have been targeted by mass violence because of their religion. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced Sunday that Rashid would be given a posthumous national award for bravery. In tweets after the attack, Khan said the nation was proud of Rashid, "who was martyred trying to tackle the White Supremacist terrorist." Khan said the Christchurch attacks "reaffirm what we have always maintained: that terrorism does not have a religion." He also said, "I blame these increasing attacks on the Islamophobia post-9/11, where Islam and 1.3 billion Muslims have collectively been blamed for any act of terror by a Muslim." His government declared Monday a national day of mourning and ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff. In an editorial Sunday, the English-language Pakistani newspaper Dawn said that the "violent hatred undergirding such mass murders" is linked to a process of "ultra-right radicalisation that Western political and intellectual leaderships have done little to address." It said that "antipathy towards Muslims, anti-immigration rhetoric and permissiveness towards hate speech" have all contributed to such violent extremism. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Sunday confirmed the deaths of seven other Pakistanis in the mosque shootings. One was Syed Areeb Ahmed, 27, an accountant from Karachi who had recently moved to New Zealand to take a new job. Ahmed's father, Syed Ayaz, Ahmed told journalists in Karachi that the family had been worried and begun praying for him when they heard of the mosque attacks and were unable to reach him. "We continued to pray for him, but he is no more. I loved my son," Ahmed said. "I am devastated." Among the other Pakistanis killed were Syed Jahandad Ali, 34, a man whose wife and children were on a visit to Pakistan at the time; a couple, Ghulam Hussain and Karam Bibi, and their son Zeeshan Raza; and Mahboob Haroon, 40, an academician and father of two. Naeem Rashid, a former banker, was reported to have moved to New Zealand to pursue graduate studies. His wife was a teacher there, and their three sons were all students. He was also the cousin of a former Pakistani legislator from Abbottabad, Amna Sardar. "He treated me like a sister. He was a humble and decent man," Sardar said in an interview. "But he died as a brave man, the way he lived. I am so proud of him. If he hadn't tried to stop the killer, many more people would have been killed." --- Constable reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose. Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play. Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officers fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, and that only two were homicides with no known link to the protests. But some activists say their concerns about a possible connection arise out of a culture of fear that persists in Ferguson 4 years after Browns death, citing threats mostly anonymous that protest leaders continue to receive. The Rev. Darryl Gray said he found a box inside his car. When the bomb squad arrived, no explosives were found but a 6-foot (1.8-meter) python was inside. Everybody is on pins and needles, Gray said of his fellow activists. No arrests have been made in the two homicides. St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire said witnesses have simply refused to come forward, leaving detectives with no answers for why the men were targeted. We dont believe either one was connected to each other, McGuire said, but adding, Its tough to come up with a motive without a suspect. Ferguson erupted in protests in August 2014 after officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Brown during a street confrontation. Brown was unarmed, but Wilson said he fired in self-defense when the black teenager came at him menacingly. A grand jury declined to charge Wilson in November 2014, prompting one of the most violent nights of demonstrations, and one of the first activist deaths. Deandre Joshuas body was found inside a burned car blocks from the protest. The 20-year-old was shot in the head before the car was torched. Darren Seals, shown on video comforting Browns mother that same night, met an almost identical fate two years later. The 29-year-olds bullet-riddled body was found inside a burning car in September 2016. Four others also died, three of them ruled suicides. MarShawn McCarrel of Columbus, Ohio, shot himself in February 2016 outside the front door of the Ohio Statehouse, police said. He had been active in Ferguson. Edward Crawford Jr., 27, fatally shot himself in May 2017 after telling acquaintances he had been distraught over personal issues, police said. A photo of Crawford firing a tear gas canister back at police during a Ferguson protest was part of the St. Louis Post-Dispatchs Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage. In October, 24-year-old Danye Jones was found hanging from a tree in the yard of his north St. Louis County home. His mother, Melissa McKinnies, was active in Ferguson and posted on Facebook after her sons death, They lynched my baby. But the death was ruled a suicide. Bassem Masri, a 31-year-old Palestinian American who frequently livestreamed video of Ferguson demonstrations, was found unresponsive on a bus in November and couldnt be revived. Toxicology results released in February showed he died of an overdose of fentanyl. The Ferguson protests added momentum to the national Black Lives Matter movement, but they also generated resentment from people angered by TV footage of protesters hurling rocks and insults at police. Amid lingering anger, activists and observers say that while they see no clear connection between the deaths and the protests, they cant help but wonder about the thoroughness of the investigations. These protesters and their deaths may not be a high priority for (police) since there is this antagonistic relationship, Washington University sociologist Odis Johnson said. I think there is a need for them to have a greater sense of urgency. Activists say that in the years since the protests, they have been targeted in dangerous ways. Something is happening, said Cori Bush, a frequent leader of the Ferguson protests. Ive been vocal about the things that Ive experienced and still experience the harassment, the intimidation, the death threats, the death attempts. Bush said her car has been run off the road, her home has been vandalized, and in 2014 someone shot a bullet into her car, narrowly missing her daughter, who was 13 at the time. She suspects white supremacists or police sympathizers. Living under constant threat is exhausting, she said, but she wont give in. They shut us up and they win, Bush said. Its unclear if residual stress from the protests or harassment contributed to the suicides, but Johnson said many activists feel a sense of hopelessness. This has to have a big impact on their mental health, Johnson said. For many, law enforcement is not a recourse. Many times law enforcement is not on their side. Experts say the deaths also are indicative of a concern at the core of the protests the underlying difficulty of life for young people of color. Five of the men who died were blacks in their 20s. Black St. Louis County residents are three times more likely than whites to be poor, often meaning they lack adequate health insurance that could allow them to better address not only physical ailments but mental health issues like depression and anxiety. They also tend to live in areas with higher crime rates. The 2010 U.S. census showed that while people who live in wealthy and mostly white western St. Louis County can expect to live well into their 80s, life expectancy in parts of mostly black north St. Louis County reaches only into the 60s. Life expectancy in Kinloch, a few miles from Ferguson, is 56. Forty-five of the countys 60 homicide victims last year were black in a county where less than a quarter of the population is black, according to police statistics. Here in St. Louis, unfortunately, we have allowed the culture of crime and violence to morph into dimensions that anybodys at risk any day, any time, said James Clark of the nonprofit Better Family Life. GLEN CARBON During its village board meeting last week, Glen Carbon approved a special use permit for a planned development procedure, or PDP, from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield to create a 55-acre senior living and health care development south of Bouse Road and west of Father McGivney Catholic High School. Board member Mary Beth Williams abstained from voting on any ordinance or measure connected with the project. I am a local Catholic parishioner; I may benefit from the project, she later told an Intelligencer reporter via email. As a matter of full disclosure, Mayor Robert Jackstadt said most, if not all of the trustees are Catholic. Board member Micah Summers was absent. Initially tagged as Springfield Diocese Senior Living, the planned development consists of 315 senior living units. The first phase will comprise 12 cottage homes, 102 independent living apartments, 37 assisted living apartments and 32 memory care units in a mixture of one-, two- and three-story buildings for people who are 55 and older. Diocesan officials said Tuesday the average age of people going into senior living developments like this is 89 but they hope to attract younger residents, those in their 70s. Groundbreaking will take place next year, with the first phase projected to be completed in late 2020 or early 2021. The villages planning and zoning commission unanimously approved the project in January and the diocese already owns the acreage involved. Dana Link, a project manager with Thouvenot, Wade and Moerchen (TWM), said the cottage homes will be designed as groups of six cluster homes to create two, separate pocket neighborhoods, which could be expanded in future phases to 132 units, or 22 clusters of six. The first two cottage home clusters will be built flanking the main entrance, which will be across Bouse from Fairview Drive. There will also be a town center, or hub, building with four wings in the initial phase, comprising a chapel, dining room, fitness/wellness center, support areas and space for the communitys administrative offices. The original parking space count was 218 but after further research, the number of slots has been trimmed to 163. Access roads and parking lots within the project will be privately owned and maintained. In the first phase, there will be a second entrance/exit further west on Bouse to handle deliveries and future construction vehicles and equipment. If future cottage demand is there, plans call for two additional entrances and exits on Bouse. In addition, 716 feet of Bouse west of the Fairfield entrance will be improved with two 12-foot concrete driving lanes with four-foot asphalt shoulders, among other improvements. As construction plans have already been reported for Bouse Road, in conjunction with the Old Troy Road construction project this spring and summer, Link said TWM would collaborate with the contractor when and where their projects overlap. A connection to Maryvilles nearby Liberty Village Nursing Home is also plausible in the future, as there will be no skilled nursing facility on-site. Diocese officials said that a previous market study found the area is over-bedded for skilled nursing and Liberty Village is already well placed to handle that need. Comparing this development to a traditional, multi-family housing project is not valid, diocesan officials said, noting that two of its similar developments, Franciscan and Marion villages, with 100 dependent living units, average 35 vehicles per day. Link and diocese representatives believe traffic in the development will be light as most of the residents will not have cars, and for those who do, they will seldom leave the development in them. The development is within the Collinsville School District and the Troy Fire Protection District, though Link and Jamie Bowden, city administrator, confirmed the fire district has not reviewed the site plan yet. Besides approving the development, the council approved multiple, project-related items: Agreement with Father McGivney Catholic High School for Bouse and Old Troy road improvements Annexing certain territory on Bouse Road to the village prior to construction Approval of an agreement between the village and diocese regarding construction easements and right-of-way deeds related to the project The next village board meeting will be Tuesday, March 26 at 7 p.m. in the village hall, located at 151 N. Main St. Reach Charles Bolinger at (618) 656-4700, ext. 31 The Supreme Court on Monday said it will consider whether Lee Boyd Malvo, the teenage half of the Beltway snipers who terrorized the Washington region 16 years ago, may challenge his sentence of life in prison without parole. Malvo, 34, was a 17-year-old when he and John Allen Muhammad committed what Virginia officials called "one of the most notorious strings of terrorist acts in modern American history." Between Sept. 5 and Oct. 22, 2002, Muhammad and Malvo killed 10 people and wounded others in sniper attacks in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. (According to The News Tribune, his first killings began in Tacoma months earlier. Keenya Cook, 21, was shot and killed by Malvo in February 2002.) Muhammad was executed in 2009, but Malvo received sentences of life without parole in Virginia and Maryland. The Supreme Court's actions announced Monday involve the Virginia sentences, and will be heard in the term that starts in October. After a 2003 trial in which Malvo was convicted of shooting FBI analyst Linda Franklin outside a Fairfax County Home Depot store, a jury decided against the death penalty. Instead, it recommended life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. But since then, the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on juvenile murderers has changed. It said the death penalty was off-limits for juveniles, and in 2012 said that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole were unconstitutional for those under 18. A divided court found that sentencing a child to life without parole is excessive for all but "the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption." In sentencing defendants 17 and younger, judges must now consider whether a juvenile's crime reflects "irreparable corruption" or simply "the transient immaturity of youth." The court has also said the rulings are retroactive. Some courts have interpreted the rulings to mean that mandatory life without parole laws are unconstitutional, but that those that offer a judge discretion are not. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled against Malvo. But a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond said it was clear Malvo deserved a new sentencing: no judge ever considered whether Malvo's crime represented "irreparable corruption." The unanimous panel said that the Beltway shootings "were the most heinous, random acts of premeditated violence conceivable, destroying lives and families and terrorizing the entire Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for over six weeks, instilling mortal fear daily in the citizens of that community." But, "Malvo was 17 years old when he committed the murders, and he now has the retroactive benefit of new constitutional rules that treat juveniles differently for sentencing," the judges concluded. The Virginia Supreme Court had found the commonwealth's laws were not incompatible with the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings because "Virginia law does not preclude a sentencing court from considering mitigating circumstances, whether they be age or anything else." There are similar splits around the country. Malvo's Maryland sentences were upheld in 2017. A state court judge said that the sentencing judge had specifically taken into account Malvo's age and other mitigating factors--Malvo was brought illegally into the country by Muhammad, who was 25 years his senior and masterminded the attacks--in deciding he deserved life imprisonment. That decision is on appeal to Maryland's highest court. In addition, Malvo has challenged his sentences in federal court in Maryland. The Supreme Court case is Mathena v. Malvo. EDWARDSVILLE A welfare check became a crime Monday morning after an elderly couple was found dead in their home in the 800 block of North Kansas Street. The street has been closed to traffic. Found were Michael Ladd, 79, a local contractor, and his wife, Dr. Lois Ladd, 68, who worked as a chiropractor. They were both Edwardsville Rotarians. To a lot of women, and maybe some men as well, Beto O'Rourke can seem clueless if not self-absorbed. He has made a series of textbook "white privilege" utterances. "I'm just born to be in it," he told Vanity Fair about his presidential campaign bona fides. His wife is basically raising the kids "sometimes with my help," he joked with voters. A lot of women might not find that to be a knee-slapper. After some frosty reaction, O'Rourke vowed that he would be more careful going forward about how he talks about his family. How he talks isn't as troubling is the mind-set he displays, the sense of entitlement that sets some voters' teeth on edge. Anna White of Vox writes: "While men throughout history have been able to rely on their wives to provide child care while they fulfill their political ambitions, women have rarely been able to count on partners to do the same. And as New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister pointed out, a woman who joked about being a part-time parent while on the campaign trail would be harshly criticized - and might find her political career over before it began. . . . " 'Jack Kerouac-style, he roams around, jobless (does he not need a job?) to find himself and figure out if he wants to lead the free world,' Nia-Malika Henderson wrote at CNN in January, during what she called Beto O'Rourke's 'excellent adventure.' 'This is a luxury no woman or even minority in politics could ever have.' " Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., probably spoke for a lot of women when asked on "Meet the Press" on Sunday about O'Rourke's "born to be in it" comment. She responded coolly that, no, she "wasn't born to run for office, just because growing up in the '70s, in the middle of the country, I don't think many people thought a girl could be president." She added, "I wasn't born to run. But I am running." I don't think any woman in the race would ever have dared to say she was born run for president, especially if she had so little experience, organization and policy substance. (The same could be said of nonwhite male candidates.) Consider: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is a national expert in financial regulation, is the author of multiple books and originally proposed the federal consumer protection agency. She's in her second term in the Senate and seems to feel obliged to roll out a detailed, well-researched plan on a different policy topic every few weeks. Oh, and she left school after getting married, later finished college and law school while raising two children and, to our knowledge, never handed her children off to her spouse so she could hit the road to commune with strangers over losing a race. Most candidates understand that how a candidate runs a campaign previews how they'll govern. They know better than to enter a presidential race without a signature policy initiative or deep understanding of an array of issues or legislative accomplishments or experience in government/military service. With all the advantages and time (not even interrupted by a day job) O'Rourke had, he could have been expected to use some of the energy we now see expended arm-gesticulating and counter-jumping to construct a robust campaign organization or come up with serious policy ideas, just to show that, despite his skimpy record, he really was prepared to be president. And when he recognizes the advantages he's had, he often juxtaposes self-awareness with jaw-dropping self-regard. "I also happen to be the only candidate from the United States-Mexico border at a time that that dominates so much of our national conversation and legislative efforts and the things that the president talks about," he told Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press." "There's one candidate who's there who can talk about the profoundly positive impact that immigrants have had on our safety and our security, as well as our success and our strength." Um, what about former mayor of San Antonio Julian Castro? Sen. Kamala D. Harris, D-Calif., daughter of two immigrant parents and veteran prosecutor from California? He's certainly convinced of his own specialness, despite being surrounded by many more experienced and policy-proficient competitors. And yet, who can say he's wrong? Donald Trump didn't need well-thought-out policy or much organization to win, not when he had free media wrapped around his finger. Similarly, for O'Rourke, star celebrity treatment and wall-to-wall coverage from the media are bestowed upon him for essentially just showing up. He raised more money in 24 hours ($6.1 million) than any candidate in the race, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. And it may be that his target audience - young voters - don't need a lot of particulars to abandon a crotchety socialist for a sunnier, fresher candidate who is comfortable in diverse settings. Perhaps O'Rourke in the future will point to his own prescience on a topic (as President Barack Obama was able to do on the Iraq War) or present some truly new ideas. To his credit, he's not simply racing to the left to catch up to Sanders. He sure seems capable of deep thought and concentrated effort, and he must be savvy enough to know he cannot waltz through the race on a cloud of empty phrases and a dizzying array of hand gestures. We don't need a national therapist or preacher (although both might come in handy); we need a chief executive and commander in chief. Voters in 2020 will be looking for someone with focus, tenacity, humility and intellectual seriousness - a contrast to President Trump, in other words. We've had a president who likes to just wing it, and it's not a pretty sight. If O'Rourke starts projecting some maturity and weightiness, he can avert a lot of eye-rolling, if not out-and-out resentment, especially among women and nonwhite voters who know that in their own jobs they cannot afford to be flip or facile. Hotel Leela Venture on Monday announced sale of four hotels, including one in the national capital, and a property to Canadian investment fund Brookfield Asset Management for Rs 3,950 crore. The company has entered into a binding agreement with a Brookfield Asset Management sponsored private real estate fund to sell, by way of slump sale, four owned Leela hotels located at Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Udaipur and the property that it owns in Agra, Hotel Leela Venture said in a BSE filing. The transaction includes assignment of all hotel management contracts currently in operation as well as all under-development, along with the employees of the hotels, it added. "The total transaction value is Rs 3,950 crore plus the applicable transaction costs," the filing said. Simultaneously, the promoters who own the Leela brand will also be transferring the Leela brand to Brookfield for all hospitality businesses, it added. Proceeds of the sale "will be paid to the lenders of the company towards repayment of dues," the filing said. "After completion of the aforesaid transaction, all borrowings of the company from all banks and financial institutions would stand repaid," it added. Commenting on the development, Hotel Leela Venture Chairman and MD Vivek Nair said: "The Leela is rated amongst the top hospitality brands in the world and I am confident that the brand will receive a boost and be further strengthened and continue to be known for its world-class services". Post sale, the company will continue to operate the hotel in Mumbai and own certain land in Hyderabad and the joint development project of residential apartments with Prestige Developers in Bangalore, the filing said. Brookfield will have a right of first refusal over the company's hotel in Mumbai, as a part of the transaction, it added. "We are excited with this opportunity and look forward to completing this transaction at the earliest, while ensuring that all operations remain unaffected. We expect the Leela hotels to continue to be market leaders," Brookfield Asset Management MD and Head-India Real Estate Ankur Gupta said. JM Financial acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Hotel Leela Venture for this transaction, the filing said. Shares of Hotel Leela Venture closed at Rs 11.08 per scrip on BSE, up 1.09 per cent from its previous close. Meeting Supreme Court's deadline, Reliance Communications paid Rs 458.77 crore to Swedish telecom company Ericsson, PTI reported on Monday. The Supreme Court had held Reliance group chairman Anil Ambani guilty of contempt of court in a case filed by telecom giant Ericsson. In February, the apex court said the RCom chairman and others will have to clear the contempt by compensating Ericsson in four weeks. On February 13, a bench had reserved its judgment when Ericsson India had alleged that the Reliance Group had money to invest in the Rafale jet deal but they were unable to clear its Rs 550-crore dues, a charge which was vehemently denied by the Anil Ambani-led company. Ambani told the top court that with the failure of its assets sale deal with elder brother Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio his company has entered insolvency proceedings and is not in control of the funds. Reliance Communications (RCom) had told the court they had tried to move "heaven and earth" to ensure Ericsson gets its due but was unable to do so due to failure of assets sale deal with Jio. An RCom spokesperson stated: The requisite payment of Rs 550 crore and interest thereon to Ericsson has been completed today in compliance of the judgment of the Supreme Court. Anil D. Ambani, Chairman, RCom, said, My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support. I and my family are grateful we have moved beyond the past, and are deeply touched with this gesture. Former adult film star Mia Khalifa literally broke quite a few hearts after she announced her engagement to boyfriend, Swedish chef Robert Sandberg. The Lebanese-American star shared pictures on social media, where she is seen striking a happy pose with Sandberg and showing off the ring. Well, in what seems like a scene out of the movies, Sandberg revealed how Khalifa almost foiled his surprise proposal plan. Sandberg wrote on Instagram, "We went to Chicago this weekend and had a wonderful dinner at Smyth. I proposed to @miakhalifa and she said YES!" "The ring was hidden in a bowl of dried ingredients and came out as a 'new serving'. Mia was too curious and too eager to taste so she started to eat the inedible ingredients. I told her not to do it and then I put the ring on the finger. I love you so much," he wrote. Ever since the couple broke the news on social media, Khalifa's fans have been pouring out wishes. Some, obviously heartbroken, have taken to the comment section to express agony, too. Touched by the compassion of the nurses who tended to her... Speaker of Goa legislature Pramod Sawant has been announced the next chief minister of the tiny coastal state, according to reports. Sawant, 44, is the youngest speaker of Goa assembly. He is an Ayurveda doctor and has been active in politics since 2002. He represents Sanquelim constituency. To placate upset allies, Goa Forward Party's Vijai Sardesai and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party's (MGP) Sudin Dhavalikar will be made deputy chief ministers. There are speculations that the swearing in could be held tonight. With the death of chief minister Manohar Parrikar, Goa faces political uncertainty. Even while Parrikar's condition worsened on Sunday, the state allies said they would need to rethink support. "We supported Manohar Parrikar, and not the party. So in case of any eventuality, we will rethink (our support to the BJP)," Goa Forward Party chief had Vijai Sardesai said. The Congress had gone on the offensive, staking claim to form the government in the state. Fourteen Congress MLAs reached the Raj Bhavan and met Governor Mridula Sinha. After the demise of Parrikar and BJP MLA Francis D'Souza and the resignation of two Congress MLAs, the strength of the house has reduced to 36. The Congress is the single largest party in the state assembly with 14 MLAs while the BJP has 12 members. The GFP, MGP and independents are three MLAs each. The BJP did not hold back. When senior Congress leader and former CM Digambar Kamat left for New Delhi on Sunday, speculation was rife that he may join the ruling BJP. After the news of Parrikar's death broke, the coalition partners had called emergency meetings. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had flown into the state early Monday to lead the discussion. The Indian Reunification Associaton (IRA), helmed by former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju and Yuhunna Lakhnavi, has released its charter. The organisation is on a quest to reunite India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as a single, secular nation. "It does not aim at or advocate forcible overthrow of any government," the charter claimed. "The chairman of IRA is Justice Markandey Katju, former judge, Supreme Court of India, and the vice chairman is Yuhunna Lakhnavi. The chairman has authorised the vice chairman to take decisions and make appointments on posts in the IRA subject to approval by the chairman." "We make it clear that the Indian Reunification Association (IRA) does not advocate the overthrow of any government, nor does it advocate the use of violent means. We are only advocating the idea of Reunification of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh under a secular government peacefully. When this idea spreads to a large number of people in this subcontinent, people will find out ways and means to reunify peacefully and voluntarily, the way West and East Germany reunified peacefully," Katju wrote on Facebook. An IRA blog post, which Katju had shared, had claimed that: [sic] "They [the youngsters] do not know what is India, they do not know that Gandhi and Jinnah, the so called 'Fathers' of India and Pakistan, were objectively British agents, they do not know the real purposes of the Britishers in partitioning India, etc. So it is the IRA which will have to do the job which these professors should be doing, viz, giving intellectual guidance to the nation. And that is what we in the IRA have been doing. Above all, we are exposing the truth of that historical British swindle called Partition, and showing that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are really one nation, and must be reunited if we are to progress." At the hand-over ceremony, Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh commended efforts of Roccas, who is now Belgian Ambassador to Cuba, in promoting the friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between Vietnam and Belgium during her tenure in Hanoi. Roccas contributed to the success of high-level visits between the two countries as well as important cooperation projects such as the Dinh Vu Port in the northern city of Hai Phong. For her part, the diplomat thanked the Vietnamese State and people for the noble award, which acknowledges her contributions to the bilateral ties. Roccas recalled the time when she worked in Vietnam and stressed potential for a stronger bilateral relationship, not only in politics and economy but also in cooperation development and culture. It has been three weeks since the Indian Air Force announced that a MiG-21 Bison fighter, flown by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, had shot down a Pakistani F-16 near the Line of Control before crashing. The short engagement has continued to be the source of furious debate on social media as the Pakistan government has reiterated the F-16 never took part in the dogfight. Early on Monday morning, several Pakistani users on Twitter and Facebook circulated an image showing the wreckage of two missiles. The wreckage was described as being two R-73 missiles carried by the MiG-21 flown by Varthaman, which crashed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Following the February 27 dogfight, the Indian Air Force had stated that an R-73 missilewhich is a short-range infra-red guided weapon supplied by Russiahad shot down the Pakistani F-16. 2 R-73 missiles recovered from the wreckage of the MiG-21 unfired while Indians claim that Mig 21 downed F16 before being shot down. Classic liars IAF & Indian media trying to cover up the humiliation they faced at the hands of PAF by the Grace of Allah. Have little bit shame. pic.twitter.com/3NqE20PKRW Amer Khan (@KhanAmerKhan) March 17, 2019 Several Pakistani social media handles claimed that as the Indian Air Force MiG-21s could carry only two missiles, the image proved Varthaman could not have shot down an F-16. However, a closer inspection of the image reveals the purported wreckage shows two different weapons, with distinct physical features. The weapon in the background resembles an R-73 missile, with its characteristic control fins near the seeker and above the exhaust. The missile in the foreground appears to have larger dimensions and has larger control fins in the mid-body section, which looks similar to the Russian-origin R-77 medium-range radar-guided missile. The R-73 missile, which has a length of about 2.9m, has a range of around 30km, while the R-77 is longer at 3.6m and has a range of over 80km. The MiG-21 also has a total of five hardpoints to carry fuel tanks, bombs and missiles. The Indian Air Force has often displayed the MiG-21 Bison carrying two R-73 and R-77 missiles under its wings, negating the Pakistani social media claims of it being able to carry only two such weapons. Not surprisingly, several Indian social media users and defence experts pointed out these discrepancies about the image being circulated. It appears the online dogfights on the 'MiG-21 versus F-16' debate will continue for a long time as Pakistan continues to remain guarded about the role and whereabouts of the F-16 fleet during the skirmish with India in late February. The election fever has kicked in and it is time for smart and tech-savvy strategists to roll up their sleeves. Be it offline or online, the political parties are battling it out in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana by coming up with unique campaigns to grab eyeballs and muster support. With elections just a few weeks away, political hashtags are trending, leaders are mouthing catchy lines and stage is decked up, providing the perfect backdrop for the electoral battle. Fashion Show Ramps and Town Halls The stage at a YSR Congress Party meeting, minus the crowds, can easily be mistaken for a music concert or a fashion show. The ramp, covered in YSRCP flag, is 220 feet in horizontal length. This is the stage for Samara Shankaravam programme, which has been designed in such a way that party leaders can walk down in different directions and interact with the cadre. The concept has been designed by poll strategist Prashant Kishors I-PAC, who are the advisors for the party. The multiple meetings held so far with this concept has grabbed eyeballs. The campaign of YSRCP also has a filmy touch to it. The recently released hit movie, Yatra, with Mammootty in the lead, is about former chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. A few emotional dialogues from the movie had become popular with the masses. One of them is Nenu Vinnanu, Nenu Unnanu which roughly translates to I have heard you, and I am there for you. Y.S. Jagan is seen using these lines while addressing the public during election campaigns. In TDP meetings and rallies, colour seems to be playing a major role. The party colour, yellow, is seen extensively on and off stage at meetings. The party workers, volunteers and even the general public are seen wearing yellow attire. In Telangana, the MIM party has tried something different this time. Under the banner, Learn, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi is participating in town halls across the city. With journalists as moderators, he is seen interacting with audience, who are strictly students. According to the team behind this initiative, this idea is to bridge the gap between the party and urban youngsters who may not attend their regular public meetings or understand their ideology. In the web world it is a war of hashtags A slogan that will reverberate during the entire campaign period of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is on one personalityN. Chandrababu Naidu. The AP Chief Minister and the party candidates have started using #MeeBhavishyattuNaaBadhyata which means Your future, my responsibility. The public relations firm handling TDP account, Genesis BCW, has come up with the slogan. Introduced just a few days back, the slogan has trended. The main opposition party in Andhra Pradesh, YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), has been aggressively using two slogans that have clicked in a big way. These two Telugu hashtags are #NinnuNamammBabu (We dont trust you Babu) and #RavaliJaganKavaliJagan (We wait for Jagan, we need Jagan). Though many hashtags have been tried by the party supporters and some leaders, these two have got the maximum traction. The twitter handle of AP unit of BJP, though busy with their pan-India slogan #MainBhiChowkidar, has also trained their guns on Naidu. Though not as aggressive as the regional parties in terms of using hashtags for local elections, the AP BJP has been using #StickerBabu. Through the slogan, the party is accusing Chandrababu Naidu of taking undue credit for centres schemes. Coming to Telangana. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which is riding high with their recent win in state elections, is using #MissionTRS16 to achieve their target of 16 out 17 MP seats. The Congress seems to be left out of this front at regional level as the social media teams of both states seem to be too busy taking on BJP and Modi in the cyber space without going after the local players. Chinese President Xi Jinping is on the verge of a major win as Italy prepares to join the Belt and Road Initiative wagon. The President will travel to Italy, Monaco and France this week, and Italy and China will sign a non-binding MoU regarding BRI. Despite reservations by other European nations and discomfiture by the United States, Rome is expected to join Xi's global trade infrastructure programme. The New Silk Road project may seem like an all positive endeavour. But, the problem lies in its transparency. There's the risk of sensitive technology and critical infrastructure being shared. Transparency is especially important when it comes to Chinas trade and investments practices. China's trade and investment practise are often seen as opaque and part of a 'debt-trap' diplomacy, with developing countries. European countries Greece and Portugal are becoming heavily dependent on Chinese loans. French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that European Union countries should have a "coordinated approach" regarding China. "It's a good thing that China is participating in the development of many countries, but I believe in the spirit of equality, reciprocity. The spirit of equality means respecting the sovereignty of nations," Macron said. In the past, however, when China has invested in infrastructure, maritime, rail and road projects in Asia, Africa and Europe, they end up mainly benefiting China, critics warn. Xi will be in Europe between March 21 to March 26. The project that hopes to improve trade links between Italy and China, may also connect Europe itself with China. The $1 trillion BRI plan will surely be a massive political breakthrough for China, making it a huge influencer. This is a primary reason that the United States may not be that happy with Italy's decision. China has already made commitments worth $60 billion under BRI in Pakistan. The BRI initiative began five years ago and involves constructing roads, railway, ports and airports, pipelines and power plants in Asia, Europe and East Africa. Closer home, India, however, has stayed wary of backing the project. India remains hesitant to join the initiative. India, of course, has had problems with China, like, the country blocking UN Security Council's move to declare Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar a global terrorist in a recent suicide attack claimed by JeM, 40 CRPF soldiers died in the Pulwama area in Kashmir. Then there was the Doklam stand-off in 2017. Besides, analysts have stated that this initiative could also be China's move to be another East India Company. However, 70 countries stand to benefit from it. But, the problem comes in when a lot of countries do not have cash to back the initiative. And to this effect they end up taking Chinese loans which end up being difficult to repay. Take for instance what happened with Sri Lanka's Hambantota port. China had given Sri Lanka a loan for building it and since the country could not repay it, in a debt-repayment arrangement, China has taken the port on a 99-year lease. Kenyas Mombasa port may meet with similar fate. During Obama administration, the White House raised concerns about how the UK, under the leadership of David Cameron was cosying up to Beijing. This included UKs decision to become a founder member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that is being championed by Beijing to be an alternative to the World Bank. Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Malta and Portugal have already signed MoUs with China on the BRI. Italy willing to back the initiative could mean extending goodwill to Beijing, though the two countries have been trade partners. It also hopes to increase Italy's visibility as an investment destination. The probable deal is a departure from Italy's norm, for till now the country has focused on smaller, lesser developed countries. All in all, while the BRI initiative may seem fine on the outside, clarity is very much needed. Gollum or Smeagol, who will have the upper hand in the upcoming stealth-action adventure? Coming to PC and consoles in 2022 (Eds: Changing slug, merging related stories on RCom, adding details) New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) Embattled billionaire Anil Ambani Monday warded off a possible jail term as RCom cleared dues of a Swedish service provider at the eleventh hour with money received from elder brother Mukesh, whom he thanked for standing by him in trying times and extending "timely support". Anil's heavily debt-laden Reliance Communications made a Rs 550 crore payment, including interest, to Ericsson just a day before expiry of the deadline set by the Supreme Court to clear dues or face a three-month jail term. Soon after making the payment, RCom announced termination of a Rs 17,000 crore deal to sell telecom assets like spectrum, fibre and tower to Mukesh's Reliance Jio, citing delays in approvals from the government and lenders. Anil, whose businesses in telecom and power sectors went into heavy debt in the face of regulatory headwinds and intense competition, thanked Mukesh and his wife Nita for bailing him out. "My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support," a late night statement issued by Anil's firm quoted him as saying. Anil said he and his family "are grateful" and "deeply touched with this gesture" that they "have moved beyond the past". In the statement, RCom said Rs 550 crore dues to Ericsson, including interest dues, has been made in compliance with the Supreme Court judgement. However, the company did not give details about the source of funds but cited "timely support" from Mukesh in the trying times. The two brothers had fought a bitter public battle after his father Dhirubhai died without leaving a will. They split his businesses between themselves, with Anil getting telecom and power while Mukesh retained oil and petrochemical businesses. The split did not end the feud and the two bickered over commitment of Mukesh' Reliance Industries for supply of gas to Anil's power plants. In 2008, Anil's RCom wanted to merge with South Africa's MTN but the move was thwarted by Mukesh citing his holding right of first refusal. Since then, the two brothers scrapped a no-compete agreement and Mukesh re-entered telecom business in 2016 offering free voice call for life and data at dirt cheap prices. As debt grew, RCom, in December 2017, entered into a deal with Jio to sell spectrum and other assets such as fibre network and telecom towers for an estimated Rs 17,000 crore. But the deal could not progress amid regulatory hurdles faced as the Department of Telecommunications wanted a written assurance on who would pay for RCom's dues such as spectrum fee. Jio refused to make a commitment to pay for such fee and lenders to RCom also played hardball, resulting in the deal falling through. In separate statements, RCom and Jio announced scrapping of the deal, citing delays in getting approvals from the government and lenders. "The said transactions have become incapable of being consummated in accordance with the terms thereof, on account of various factors and developments since the execution of the said agreements nearly 15 months ago...," RCom said. Jio said the master agreement for acquisition of certain specific assets of RCom and the spectrum trading agreement for change in allotment of certain specific spectrum stand terminated. This, it said, also follows the Board of Directors of RCom passing a resolution to seek fast track resolution through bankruptcy court and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on February 4 restricting the sale, transfer or alienation of any movable or immovable property of RCom. "The termination of the master agreement shall not, in any manner, affect the rights and obligations of the parties, accrued prior to the date of termination," it said. An Ericsson spokesperson confirmed that it has received balance payment of Rs 458.77 crore (principal amount) from RCom on Monday. Together with Rs 118 crore it had previously paid, RCom has cleared all dues including interest. Last month, the Supreme Court held Ambani in contempt for not paying Ericsson's dues despite promising to do so. The court had warned to send Anil as well as Chhaya Virani and Satish Seth - chairmen of two RCom units -- to jail if they fail to pay the dues in four weeks. The deadline expires Tuesday. The company suffered a blow when National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), last week, refused to free up Rs 260 crore tax refunds withheld by the lenders. Banks had opposed release of the tax refunds. In 2017, Ericsson moved a bankruptcy court alleging it had not been paid dues around Rs 1,600 crore after signing a deal in 2013 to operate, maintain and manage the telco's nationwide network. It extracted a personal guarantee from Ambani to pay the dues. RCom scrip closed at Rs 4 a share on the BSE Monday, 9.30 per cent lower than the previous close. PTI MBI ANZ RAM BAL Lucknow, Mar 18 (PTI) Smartphone brand Realme will now be available in top 600 retail-stores in Uttar Pradesh as part of its regional sales strategy, the company said in a release. Realme has already sold 1 lakh smartphones in Uttar Pradesh through offline stores, said Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth. "In Uttar Pradesh we have 39 service centres to ensure customer satisfaction," he said, adding that the brand will now be available in top 600 retail-stores in UP as part of our regional #realmeforeveryUPite sales strategy. Sheth claimed that the brand has been performing successfully on e-commerce platforms since May 2018. PTI SMI SHW BAL BAL (Eds: Disclaimer: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with NewsVoir. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India(NewsVoir) The premiere of a new documentary Wild Edens: South Asia, the third in a series that highlights the issue of climate change will be held in Mumbai, India on March 19. The documentary puts an emphasis on the unique and delicate habitats of India and Bangladesh and the regions rarest and most spectacular wildlife. Brought to you by Rosatom, it will be broadcast by National Geographic starting this spring. Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, the worlds leading producer of safe and clean energy, is deeply concerned by the threats associated with climate change. Nuclear power industry is constantly evolving and has firmly established itself as an integral part of the green energy mix. The Wild Edens seeks to highlight the threat of global warming to flora and fauna around the globe as well as the importance of nuclear energy, as a low-carbon energy source, in decarbonization. The Wild Edens: South Asia captures regions breathtaking landscapes, where wildlife may be endangered in the future. From dense forests to remote deserts, along wild mountain ranges to the mighty River Ganges, the South Asian nature has a story for each and every one. Freida Pinto, actress and activist, the Wild Edens project ambassador will be the special guest of the event. Freida is not just a terrific actress but a true nature lover, who throughout the years has supported multiple sustainable development causes, including the UN Global Goals campaign. She gave her voice to the film and expressed her excitement about the film being shot in her home country. We all share a common vision that human kind has to be inspired to focus on the planet before the effects of global warming become absolutely irreversible. I would also like to say how pleased I am that Wild Edens will devote an entire episode to my native country of India. With this, millions of people around the world will have the opportunity to see my country as an exotic mix of wild nature, rare animal life, unique wildlife sanctuaries and magnificent landscapes that are mesmerizing and are also under the threat of dangers of climate change, Ms. Pinto said. About Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation is the world leader in the production of safe and clean energy, and it adheres to the principle of social responsibility. Rosatom comprises 400 companies and research institutions and employs over 250,000 people. Boasting over 70 years of experience, Rosatom offers integrated services at all stages of the nuclear production chain from uranium mining to decommissioning of nuclear facilities and spent nuclear fuel management. Rosatom is actively implementing projects in the field of applied research and innovation. The company has business ventures covering various clean energy projects, including wind energy. About the Wild Edens project The project's main goal is to attract the attention of the international community to the issue of climate change and the need for a global transition to clean and low-carbon energy. The filming of unique documentaries about wilderness, where animals and plants are in danger of extinction due to global climate change, and their broadcasting on National Geographic Channel will be the culmination of the project. The locations for filming have been chosen to show the extraordinary beauty of landscapes, but also to emphasize that these places and their inhabitants, rare species of animals, birds, plants are in danger of extinction. Off the Fence, an independent production company, produced Wild Edens documentary series.Executive producers are Ellen Windemouth and Allison Bean. Producer and Director is Andrew Zikking. Image: Wild Edens: South Asia - A New Feature Documentary PWR PWR Mumbai, Mar 18 (PTI) Madhuri Dixit's production debut, Marathi film "15th August", will release on Netflix on March 29, the streaming service announced Monday. Set in a Mumbai chawl, the film follows the course of a series of zany mishaps that occur on a single day, as its residents prepare for the Independence Day flag-hoisting ceremony. "15th August" revolves around how the course of the day unfolds on a not-so-typical Independence Day - when a lover, in his quest to win over his beloved, ends up creating complete mayhem, compelling all the residents to unite and help him out of his mess. Madhuri said she is looking forward to turning producer with the film. "There's always been a part of me that wanted to create and back meaningful films, and there couldn't be a better starting point for me than '15 August'. This is an endearing, relatable story..." the actor said in a statement. Swapnaneel Jayakar has directed the film and it features Rahul Pethe, Mrunmayee Deshpande, and Adinath Kothare. "15 August", co-produced by the actor's husband Dr Shriram Nene, is all set to release on the service across 190 countries. It is the second Marathi project for Netflix after "Firebrand". PTI RDS RDS London, Mar 18 (PTI) A partnership between a UK university and property consultancy celebrated the creation of new homes in Gujarat through fundraising and staff and student participation. De Montfort University in Leicester (DMU) tied up with local construction and infrastructure consultancy Pick Everard for its Square Mile India project to provide 50 new homes for the Loving Community, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The community is populated by more than 430 residents, 40 of which are former leprosy sufferers. Working with the Loving Community has not only been transformational for the families involved but also our architecture students, Mark Charlton, associate head of public engagement at the university, said last week to mark a year since the project began. "The homes are funded through support from Pick Everard and contributions from DMU staff and students, as well as the local community in Leicester and we are thrilled with the positive impact that this collaboration has brought to the Loving Community, he said. Due to poor infrastructure and local topography, the community is prone to flooding during the monsoon period and many people have to leave their homes as they become uninhabitable. Since February last year, DMUs School of Architecture has been working in collaboration with architect Anand Sonecha to develop designs to raise the homes above flood level. Construction began in April 2018, with the cost of the works being met by fundraising. Each house costs approximately 5,000 pounds and the designs include the potential to be enhanced further when funding is available to families, the university said. "An architects job is to design buildings and create the physical environment in which people live. But the most successful architecture goes beyond building four walls it changes peoples lives, and this project reflects that, said Nish Tailor, an architectural assistant at Pick Everard, who has been helping the students project-manage the building work. The Loving Community residents had to fend for themselves after being outcast by society more than 40 years ago. Despite no longer being contagious due to the disease being treated, the stigma surrounding leprosy is so strong that they are still not welcome in their native villages, Tailor said. The homes are funded through support from Pick Everard and contributions from DMU staff and students, as well as the local community in Leicester a city with a significant Gujarati-origin population. Paul Rothera, national director at Pick Everard, said: The development of the new houses has been tremendous. There are no shortcuts in the construction and the quality is superb. Among the first residents to benefit were widow Narshama Bhan and daughter Akshera, who are relieved that the new homes will not flood, have light and space and even their own courtyard area, the university said. Speaking through an interpreter, Narshama said: Before I was so fed up and tired and every monsoon it was a very bad and unhealthy situation for all of us. I never had a thought, or even a dream that I would be living in such a nice home. I thank the Lord that finally I have a nice home. PTI AK PMS PMS New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours: FGN10 CHINA-QURESHI-INDOPAK India-Pak tensions to figure in Qureshi-Wang talks: China Beijing: China said on Monday that tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terrorist attack would figure in the first strategic dialogue between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday. By K J M Varma FGN6 AUS-NZ-2NDLD RAID Aus police raid properties linked to New Zealand terror suspect Melbourne: Australian counter-terrorism police on Monday searched two homes linked to the family members of the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch to obtain material that may assist New Zealand Police in their investigation into the terror attack. By Natasha Chaku FGN8 PAK-MUSHARRAF-LD HEALTH Musharraf admitted to Dubai hospital after reaction from rare disease : Party Islamabad: Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has been admitted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease that has weakened his nervous system, his party has said. FGN7 MALDIVES-SWARAJ Swaraj meets Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla, discusses bilateral ties Male: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday met Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla and discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in bilateral relationship. FGN16 NETHERLANDS-2NDLD SHOOTING At least one dead in Dutch tram shooting: ANP news agency The Hague: At least one person was killed in a shooting on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, the Dutch ANP news agency reported on Monday.(AFP) FGN9 INDONESIA-FLOOD-LD TOLL Baby reunited with dad as Indonesia flood death toll hits 77 Sentani (Indonesia): A baby trapped under rubble after flash flooding destroyed his home in Indonesia has been reunited with his father after the disaster killed the rest of their family, officials said Monday, as the death toll hit 77.(AFP) PTI AMS AMS Male, Mar 18 (PTI) The Maldives on Monday reaffirmed its "India-First Policy, saying it looks forward to working closely with India on all issues and will remain sensitive towards its security and strategic concerns as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with the country's top leadership. The Maldivian leaders also expressed commitment to support India's efforts to combat terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and crimes such as piracy, organised crime, narcotic drugs and human trafficking. Swaraj arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the strategically located Indian Ocean island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. She held talks with President Solih, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid, former President Mohamed Nasheed and other top leaders. The External Affairs Minister and Solih took stock of the progress made in bilateral relations since his visit to India in December 2018. Swaraj and her Maldivian counterpart Shahid during their meeting on Sunday discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and also noted the number of high level exchanges, between the two countries over the past three months. They recalled the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the swearing-in ceremony of President Solih in November as well as his visit to India in December. The bilateral talks between the Foreign Ministers was followed by a joint ministerial meeting in which Swaraj held discussions with Shahid, Defence Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi, Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer and other ministers. She also met Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla on Monday and discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in bilateral relationship. "Foreign Minister Shahid reiterated his government's "India-First Policy and said that his Government looks forward to working closely with the Government of India on all issues. He also reiterated that the Government of Maldives would remain sensitive towards Indias security and strategic concerns, " according to a joint statement. Maldives is an important country for India's maritime security and there have been concerns in India over China's growing influence over the country in the last few years. The two foreign ministers agreed on the importance of maintaining peace and security in the Indian Ocean Region, and to strengthen coordination in enhancing regional maritime security. Shahid expressed the commitment of the Maldives to support efforts to combat terrorism, particularly cross-border terrorism, and crimes such as piracy, organised crime, narcotic drugs and human trafficking. They reiterated the importance of an effective multilateral system as a key factor in tackling global challenges and agreed on the need to pursue reform of the main UN bodies, including the General Assembly, and the UN Security Council. The Maldivian side expressed its support for Indias candidature for permanent membership of an expanded and reformed UNSC. The Maldivian side also reiterated support for Indias candidature for non-permanent seat for the year 2020-21. The two sides signed three agreements, including on exemption from visa requirement for holders of diplomatic and official passports, an MoU regarding Indian grant assistance for implementation of high impact community development projects through local bodies and a pact on collaboration in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Shahid thanked India for its support towards the renovation of Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), which stands as an enduring symbol of friendship between the two countries. The IGMH is the first and largest government healthcare facility in the Maldives, built with Indian assistance. Shahid also thanked India for providing financial assistance in the form of budgetary support, currency swap, and concessional lines of credit to the island nation. Welcoming the increase in trade volume over the past few years, both foreign ministers agreed to improve connectivity as a means to promote the exchange of goods and services, culture, and people. The ministers also agreed on the need to boost private sector involvement, and to hold the Maldives-India Business Forum in 2019. Shahid expressed the government's appreciation for the continued support extended from India towards the development of human resources, including capacity building programmes, and provision of training and scholarship opportunities. He highlighted in particular, the 1000 additional slots over the next five years for training and capacity building, announced during the State Visit of President Solih to India. Highlighting the importance of combating the impacts of climate change, especially detrimental to developing countries, including Small Island Developing States, the Foreign Ministers agreed on the need to strengthen the global response to climate change, through multilateral forums including the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, the statement said. Swaraj reiterated that India attaches the highest importance to its relationship with Maldives, which is marked by trust, transparency, mutual understanding, and sensitivity. She said that in line with Government of Indias 'Neighbourhood First' policy, India stands ready to fully support the Government of Maldives in its socio-economic development. PTI PMS AKJ PMS PMS Kuala Lumpur, Mar 18 (PTI) Malaysian airline company AirAsia's CEO Tony Fernandes has deleted his Facebook account over the circulation of a video of Friday's mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch that claimed 50 lives, saying the social media giant needs to "clean up" and it "could have done more to stop" such hatred on online platforms, according to a media report. A horrific video shot by the gunman who carried out the mosque massacre was livestreamed on Facebook before being removed by the company. But the stream, lasting 17 minutes, was shared repeatedly on YouTube and Twitter, and internet platforms were scrambling to remove videos being reposted of the gruesome scenes. In a series of tweets on Sunday, Fernandes, who had 670,000 followers, said though he was a "social media fan", the livestream caused him to leave Facebook, the CNN reported. "The amount of hate that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good...Facebook could have done more to stop some of this...17 mins of a live stream of killing and hate!!!! Its need to clean up and not just think of financials," he tweeted. On Saturday, Facebook said it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack. Soon after cancelling his Facebook account, the CEO tweeted, "It is a great platform to communicate...Strong engagement and very useful but New Zealand was too much for me to take along with all the other issues." Fernandes, who has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers and has sent more than 20,000 tweets, said he was also contemplating to leave the microblogging site, but "on Twitter I think the battle for me goes on." PTI SCY SCY Wellington, Mar 18 (AFP) New Zealand's cabinet agreed measures to tighten gun control laws "in principle" Monday, just days after a deadly mass shooting killed more than 50 people. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said details of the measures would be rolled out before a cabinet meeting next Monday, saying "the time to act is now". Ardern also announced an inquiry into Friday's twin mosque attack in Christchurch, which raised questions about how the suspected gunman -- a white supremacist -- was not picked up by intelligence agencies. Although details have yet to be hashed out, the speed of New Zealand's move has resonated around the world -- particularly in the United States, where reforms have spluttered for decades, and similar debates are re-run after each new mass shooting. It took us 72 hours, Ardern said. "We have made a decision as a cabinet, we are unified," she added, flanked by her coalition partner and deputy prime minister, Winston Peters. Peters, whose New Zealand First party has previously opposed changes, said he backed the prime minister fully. "The reality is that after one pm on Friday our world changed forever and so will our laws," he said. (AFP) AMS AMS Colombo, Mar 18 (AP) Media rights activists on Monday urged the Sri Lankan government to withdraw proposed anti-terror legislation, calling it is a set of draconian laws aimed at suppressing the media freedom and democratic rights. The new Counter-Terrorism bill approved by the cabinet of ministers is now before the Parliament. A date has yet to be announced for a debate and a vote on the bill, which the government says would repeal the existing tough anti-terror law. C Dodawatta, convener of the Free Media Movement, a local media rights group, said the proposed act could be used to arrest and detain journalist for "distributing or making available any information to the public." He said the new government came into power in 2015 promising to repeal the existing anti-terror law the Prevention of Terrorism Act that has been criticized by rights groups who say the successive governments have used it for arresting and detaining the journalists, media workers, artists, rights activists, ethnic minority Tamils and opposition politicians. "But so far the government has failed to repeal the PTA and instead now they are brining another legislation which seems worse than PTA," he told reporters. Dharmasiri Lankapeli, another media rights activist, said the legislation may result in arresting journalists for non-revelation of sources and "this would pose a great danger to media freedom and send more journalists to prison." Rights activist and lawyer Viranjana Herath said the minister in charge could prohibit a common place, ban entry, taking photographs, video recordings and making sketches and also, prohibit any organization. "This will affect the freedom of assembly and association and could pose a serious threat to the freedom of expression and media freedom." He said Sri Lanka does not need new laws to combat terrorism, saying there are more than 20 existing laws and legal provisions to deal with offenses on terrorism. "Therefore, bringing new laws could be described as an attempt to suppress the voice of the people," he said. There was no immediate comment from the government and the spokesmen for the government did not answer phone calls seeking a comment. President Maithripala Sirisena and the new government came into power in 2015 promising to end a culture of impunity and ensure justice to slain journalists. Under Sirisena's predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, dozens of journalists were killed, abducted and tortured. Some fled the country. In some cases, military officers were arrested and released on bail. Forty four journalists and media workers were killed between 2006 and 2015, during the Rajapaksa presidency. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 journalists were killed in the same period, including five who were targeted for murder and whose cases remain unsolved. Most of the killings and attacks on journalists took place during Sri Lanka's civil war, which ended in 2009, after the government troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for a separate state for the ethnic minority Tamils. Both the government and the rebels were accused of killing and abducting critics. (AP) SCY SCY Mike Munoz will become the school's superintendent-president after serving in an interim position since March. Rs 5 lakh in cash, jewellery stolen from Vaghela's bungalow Ahmedabad, Mar 18 (PTI) Cash and jewellery altogether worth Rs 5 lakh were stolen from former Gujarat Chief Minister Shankersinh Vaghela's house near here allegedly by a domestic help couple from Nepal, police said Monday. The theft at the residence of Vaghela, a former Congress leader who is now in the NCP, took place in October last year, but a police complaint was lodged only Sunday by Vaghela's employee Suryasinh Chavda, they said. Vaghela's house, a palatial bungalow named `Vasant Vagado', is situated near Pethapur village on the outskirts of the Gandhinagar city. As per the complaint lodged with the Pethapur police, the couple - Shambhu Gorkha aka Basudev Nepali and his wife Sharda - had allegedly stolen Rs 3 lakh in cash and gold jewellery worth Rs 2 lakh and fled to their native place in Kailali district of Nepal. The cash and jewellery were kept in Vaghela's wife Gulab Baa's room in the bungalow, the police said, quoting from the complaint. According to Chavda's complaint, suspicion fell on the husband-wife duo after they did not return from Nepal as promised when they left for their native place, the police said. "Shambhu was hired around four years back. He along with his wife and kids used to live in the bungalow premises. "In October, the couple left for their native place in Nepal claiming they wanted to admit their children in a school there," said Chavda in the complaint. On February 7, Vaghela's wife noticed that cash and jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh, meant to be used for a marriage function in the family and kept in a cupboard, were missing, said police sub inspector of Pethapur A G Anurkar. "When the family asked other servants about the missing valuables, it came to light the couple was tasked with cleaning of the room where they were kept. "When Chavda contacted Shambhu over the phone, he promised to return soon. "However, when he did not return, it got confirmed that the couple had stolen the valuables from the room and then fled to Nepal," said Anurkar, adding an investigation in the case was underway. PTI PJT PD RSY RSY Guj Cong complaints to EC over poll-related meet at CM's house Ahmedabad, Mar 18 (PTI) The Gujarat Congress Monday alleged the BJP has violated the model code of conduct by holding a meeting of the party's State Parliamentary Board at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's official residence, prompting the poll panel to order a probe. The main opposition party lodged a complaint in this regard with the Election Commission (EC). However, the BJP rejected the Congress's charge. On receiving the complaint, sent by the Congress through fax, Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Murali Krishna ordered an inquiry into the matter. "We have received the complaint. We will conduct an inquiry into the issue," Krishna told PTI. In its complaint, the Congress alleged the CM's official residence in Gandhinagar is a government property and no political activity is permitted from a government premises when the model code of conduct is in force. Polling for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will be held in a single phase on April 23. The model code of conduct came into force when the poll schedule was announced on March 10. The ruling party is holding a three-day meeting of the State Parliamentary Board at Rupani's official residence to prepare a panel of probable candidates for all the 26 seats. The names, being shortlisted with help from state BJP observers and Rupani, will be sent to the Central Parliamentary Board which is likely to announce the final candidates after March 25. Defending the move of organising the three-day meeting, which began Sunday, at the CM's official residence, Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani told reporters the gathering does not violate any rules. "We have to also take care of the CM's security. Arranging such meetings at CM's residence is an old tradition. "Party leaders are only doing brainstorming here. We have not arranged any political rally or engaged in any poll campaigning here," he said in Gandhinagar. PTI PJT PD RSY RSY Panaji, Mar 18 (PTI) Thousands of people thronged the streets of the state capital Monday to catch a final glimpse of Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who died of a pancreatic ailment, as his mortal remains was brought to the BJP office here for party workers to pay their last respect. His remains would be taken to Kala Academy, around three km from the BJP office, later on Monday, to allow the public pay their tribute to him. A pall of gloom descended on the BJP office and hundreds of Parrikar supporters turned emotional when his mortal remains, wrapped in the tricolour, was brought there. The truck carrying the 63-year-old chief minister's body travelled 5 km from his private residence in Dona Paula to Panaji, as people tried to catch sight of the popular leader, who rose from the small coastal state to become the country's defence minister. The area around the BJP office in the heart of the capital city was packed with people who arrived there to pay tributes to Parrikar before his final journey. Parrikar, a four-time chief minister, died at his private residence Sunday evening after battling a pancreatic ailment since February last year. The IIT graduate represented Panaji Assembly seat in the state for over two decades. Parrikar's final journey will begin after 4 pm. His last rites will be performed at 5 pm at the Miramar beach here, next to the memorial of Goa's first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar, who was also cremated there, a state BJP spokesperson said. Parrikar would be accorded a state funeral with full military honours, according to the home ministry. The central government has announced national mourning on Monday. PTI RPS GK NSD NSD INPT announces candidates after talks with Congress fail Agartala, Mar 18 (PTI) The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), a regional tribal party of Tripura, Monday announced candidates for both the Lok Sabha seats in the state. The INPT decided to declare its candidates after its talks for seat sharing with the opposition Congress failed, party president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl said. Hrangkhawl, an insurgent turned politician, said INPT leaders met Congress president Rahul Gandhi recently in New Delhi and signed a memorandum of understanding for joint fight against the BJP. "However, the Tripura Pradesh Congress president gave us a condition that I have to resign as the party president and contest as an independent. This is unacceptable to us," Hrangkhawl told a press conference. Hrangkhawl and INPT general secretary Jagadish Debbarma would contest from East and West Tripura Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. The INPT president said his party had also held dialogues with several other regional parties. Reacting to the development, state Congress president Pradyot Kishore said the INPT wanted to contest East Tripura (ST) seat, "which is not acceptable to us". "We offered support to the party if it contests independently. I don't think our poll prospects will be affected if they go it alone," he said. The Congress, and the ruling BJP, are yet to announce their candidates. Both the Lok Sabha seats in the Northeastern state are now held by the CPI(M) and the party has declared the sitting MPs as its candidates. Contesting separately, the IPFT, ally of the ruling BJP, announced candidates including state Revenue Minister NC Debbarma, for the two seats. Tripura will go to vote in two phases on April 11 and 18 for West Tripura and East Tripura Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. PTI JOY NN NN (Eds: Updates more quotes, SP's reaction ) Lucknow, Mar 18 (PTI) In a stern warning to the Congress, BSP supremo Mayawati Monday asked it not to "spread confusion" on leaving seven seats for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, she dared the grand old party to go ahead and field candidates in all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Hours later, the BSP's poll ally Samajwadi Party (SP) also asked the Congress not to spread any kind of confusion and maintained that the BSP-SP-RLD alliance was capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati's remarks came a day after the Congress announced that it was leaving seven Lok Sabha seats in the state for the SP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance. The BSP chief in a series of tweets made it clear that the BSP will not enter into any alliance with the Congress. She also said that the alliance (of SP-BSP-RLD) is capable enough of defeating the BJP on its own. "The Congress is free to field its candidates on all the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh alone. In other words, our alliance (of SP-BSP-RLD) is capable enough of defeating the BJP. The Congress should refrain from spreading confusion about leaving seven seats for the (SP-BSP-RLD) alliance," Mayawati said in a tweet. In a tweet, SP president Akhilesh Yadav said, "In Uttar Pradesh, the SP, BSP and RLD alliance is capable of defeating the BJP.The Congress party need not spread any kind of confusion." Mayawati also said, "The BSP would like to make it clear once again that there is no alliance or understanding with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and anywhere in the country." "Our party wrokers should not succumb to confusion being spread almost everyday by the Congress," she said. The Congress on Sunday said it would leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. Apart from this, the grand old party also said that it will leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party. The SP and the BSP had forged an alliance on 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. As per the deal, the SP will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the BSP 38, leaving three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). The seats offered by the Congress include Mainpuri, Kannauj and Firozabad, all held by the SP, and those likely to be contested by the BSP chief and RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary, UP Congress chief Raj Babbar told reporters here Sunday. He said that the Congress was reciprocating the gesture of the alliance which has left Rae Bareli (held by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi) and Amethi (held by Congress president Rahul Gandhi) for it. PTI NAV SAB SMI ANB ANB New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) The UAE played an important role in reducing tensions between India and Pakistan after Indian jets struck a terrorist training camp in Balakot, the Gulf nation's ambassador here said Monday. Ahmed Al Banna, however, clarified the UAE did not mediate between the two countries and that the aim of its efforts was to decrease the tension. "The UAE played an important role in easing tensions (between India and pakistan)," Banna said during an event at IIT-Delhi. The envoy also referred to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan's telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan on February 28. "There was a phone call from our Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces to Prime Minister Modi and to Pakistan PM Imran Khan," the envoy said. "Our role was to give words of wisdom and tried to sort out the differences in a peaceful manner just like the UAE has done in its relationship with Iran," he said. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. PTI ASK MPB MPB TIR TIR New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) The BJP on Monday took a dig at Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's 'Ganga Yatra' on a boat in Uttar Pradesh, saying nobody knows how far a "directionless boat carrying a party without any support base" will go. Terming the entry of Priyanka Gandhi, the 47-year-old Congress general secretary and Rahul Gandhi's sister, into politics as a failure of the party, the BJP said the opposition party cannot look beyond family for its leadership. "Bring Priyanka to save the Congress, this is purpose of the party to bring her into politics. It proves the failure of Rahul Gandhi's leadership," BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said at a press conference at the party office here, On Priyanka's campaigning on a boat, Trivedi termed her boat as directionless and carrying a party without support base. "...people are travelling on boat... a directionless boat carrying a party without any support base led by unwise leadership and doing politics without values, one can easily imagine how far such a boat can go. Wherever this boat will find a shore it will be enough for it," Trivedi said. The Congress has no direction and target in these elections, he alleged, adding that nothing is clear about its allies. In Madhya Pradesh, the Congress government is supported by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, but in Uttar Pradesh they are all singing different tunes, he said. He also attacked the Congress and Priyanka Gandhi on the issue of corruption saying that those who cannot see "thieves in their own house are now beating drums about honesty." "I would like to make it very clear, that if the Congress and its general secretary are serious about corruption then they should first look into their own. "Charity begins at home and find out who is epitome of corruption in their establishment and home," the BJP leader said without naming anyone. The BJP was taking on Priyanka, who started her 'Ganga Yatra' on boat in politically crucial state Uttar Pradesh to reach out voters for Lok Sabha elections. She will cover 100 km by boat on the Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and she will also visit several temples while literally testing the political waters of UP where the Congress has been in wilderness for nearly three decades. PTI JTR JTR ANB ANB Jammu, Mar 18 (PTI) The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the BJP Monday paid tributes to Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar who passed away at the party headquarters here. Union minister Jitendra Singh, MP Jugal Kishore Sharma, former J-K deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta, state BJP chief Ravinder Raina among other party leaders were present on the occasion. Singh said Parrikar, who breathed his last at his residence in Goa on Sunday, played a key role in the smooth and successful running of the Narendra Modi government. Citing certain examples, he said that Parrikar's demise had left a void, which cannot be filled. Remembering the affable leader who passed away at the age of 63, Raina said 'Bharat Mata' (mother India) had lost a "devoted son". Parrikar was a "true son of the soil" who served mother India till his last breath even though he was suffering from a chronic, debilitating illness, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief said. The fact that Parrikar remained in action till his last days was a testament to his dedication towards his duties, he said, adding that Parrikar would continue to live in everyone's hearts and memories. Sharma, while paying tributes, said people should be inspired and influenced by the professional stamdards set by Parrikar. His life will act as a beacon of light for the coming generations, he said. Parrikar was cremated with state honours in Panaji on Monday. The funeral procession started from the Kala Academy where thousands, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid their last respects to the former defence minister. PTI AB RHL Cuttack, Mar 18 (PTI) The Orissa High Court Monday directed the State Bar Council to ensure that elections to form executive bodies of all the 167 bars in the state are completed by end of March on the principle of 'One bar, One Vote'. 'One Bar, One Vote' rule was set by the Supreme Court in 2015 to identify the number of genuine advocates practising in various courts of the country. The rule allows an advocate to have memberships of different Bars, but only one voting right. Deciding over a PIL filed in this connection, a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice K S Jhaveri said elections to different bars in Odisha should be made simultaneously on the principle of 'One Bar One Vote'. The High Court has also quashed the February 24 resolution passed by the Bar Council in which at least 12 bar associations were allowed to hold their elections at a later date. PTI COR AAM NN RHL Srinagar, Mar 18 (PTI) A petition was Monday filed in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court challenging the extension of 77th and 103rd amendments of the Indian Constitution to the state through a presidential order earlier this month. Advocates Mohammad Ashraf Bhat and Adil Asimi filed the petition on the grounds that the Constitution of India cannot be applied to Jammu and Kashmir in the absence of a council of ministers. They pleaded that as the state was under the President's Rule since December last year, there could be no consultation and concurrence of the state government which has to act on the advice of the council of ministers. "There was hardly any need to apply 77th and 103rd constitutional amendment to the State. Similarly, there was no emergent situation to issue J&K Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019. The timing of these amendments especially when the State was in war-like situation, makes the entire exercise suspect," the petition reads. "It appears that the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019 and Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, have been issued to pave way for a greater constitutional damage to the State," it added. The petitioners said there are already a number of petitions pending before the Supreme Court, which seek the striking down of Article 35-A of the Indian Constitution which has been inserted in the said constitution by virtue of Constitutional (Application to Jammu & Kashmir) Order, 1954. They said it is possible that by using the mechanism, which has been adopted for issuing Constitutional (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order and J&K Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, the respondents will do away with Article 35-A. They said it is also possible that the respondents will amend any state law, including J&K Transfer of Property Act, for doing away with the requirement of being a permanent resident for acquiring any property in the state or applying for a job in any government department. The impugned Constitutional (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 2019 and J&K Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019, having thus been conceived in fraud and delivered in deceit are, therefore, liable to be struck down to maintain the unique constitutional position of Jammu and Kashmir, the petitioners pleaded. PTI MIJ AAR AAR Bengaluru, Mar 18 (PTI) Late Congress leader M H Ambareesh's wife and actor Sumalatha on Monday announced she will contest from Mandya seat as an independent candidate in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Sumalatha will be contesting against Nikhil Gowda, an actor and son of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. She said she would file her nomination from Mandya on March 20. Flanked by Kannada actors Yash and Darshan, Sumalatha said her decision to fight the elections from Mandya would cost the Congress dear as it would be very tough for the party to make a comeback in that region. "Many Congress leaders in Mandya are facing identity crisis and they came to me and requested me to contest the election. Therefore I decided to contest. This decision would cost the Congress dear. It would be very tough for the party to make a comeback in that region (Mandya)," she said. She said she had approached Congress leaders seeking to contest from Mandya, but the party denied her a ticket due to coalition compulsions. However, many Congress workers and leaders who were facing identity crisis in Mandya requested her to fight the elections, Sumalatha said. Congress leaders including Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah had declined her a ticket. Thereafter, Sumalatha also met former union minister and BJP leader S M Krishna and sought his support, but did get any offer from the BJP, despite a section of the party leaders being keen on fielding her. Asked if she still expects the Congress and BJP leaders to support her in the elections, Sumalatha hoped that they would do that because they loved Ambareesh as he was loved by all parties. "I have been reading in the media about some BJP and Congress leaders willing to extend support to me. I hope I will get their support because Ambareesh was an apolitical being and he was loved by almost all political parties," she said. Asked which party will she support if she wins from Mandya, Sumalatha said she would take a decision after consulting the people of Mandya. She said she was not bothered about losing or winning the election, but jumped into the fray because of the demands of the fans and supporters of Ambareesh. "I declined so many posts including MLC's offered by the Congress in the past. I am entering in to politics for the people of Mandya. I have heeded the people's request. It is Mandya or nothing for me. I am going to fight for Mandya. I am not bothered about winning or losing," she added. Asked if she would invite Bollywood and Sandalwood stars to campaign for her, Sumalatha said, "I have not invited any stars, but Yash and Darshan came on their own as they consider themselves a part of my family. However, I have faith in the people of Mandya and they would vote for me to fill the vacuum left by Amareesh."PTI BDN SS DPB Hyderabad, Mar 18 (PTI) The Congress and the BJP Monday slammed TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao over his comments that the two parties had "failed" to meet the aspirations of the people and he would form a national party "if necessary". "KCR ji said he will form a national party. The election notification has been issued. Is he going to start a national party after elections?" state Congress working president A Revanth Reddy told reporters. Rao is talking about starting a national party "to acquire a new avtar (form)" as the federal front advocated by him earlier is not in existence, Reddy alleged. The national party talked about by Rao would not be able to take shape before the conclusion of Lok Sabha election process, he said. Accusing the BJP and the Congress of failing to meet the aspirations of the people, the Telangana chief minister has said he would start a national party "if necessary" to herald reforms and "unite the country." The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president kicked off his party's poll campaign from Karimnagar on Sunday where he stressed the need for an "alternative federal politics" in the country. Of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, the TRS is seeking 16 for itself leaving one for its ally All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), led by Asaduddin Owaisi, to ensure that the state gets a "good" deal post the general elections. Referring to this, the Congress leader said the TRS already had 16 seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha. "He (Rao) will not start national party. He cannot do it. Is he not going to seek votes in this election if he does not start a national party before this elections. Let KCR ji say that. He says (he will gather) 120 seats (MPs). How will 120 seats come? Does he have Alladdin's magic lamp," Reddy said. About Rao's comments about the need for a qualitative change in politics, state BJP president K Laxman referred to several MLAs from Congress switching over to the TRS. Laxman, who played an audio clip of Rao's purported comments earlier against defections, alleged that "wholesale defections" were taking place now under the TRS regime. "Do you want to bring these politics (defections) at the national level?" he said. On Rao's remarks appreciating the progress achieved by China, Laxman alleged that it was one-party rule in China which is being followed in Telangana (through defections). Taking exception to Rao's reported comments that the Centre could not address problems with Pakistan, Laxman said the NDA government took decisive steps on issues of national security and international relations. TRS MP Kavita, Rao's daughter, had earlier spoken in a way questioning the existence of Jammu and Kashmir, Laxman claimed. On TRS president remarks that BJP leaders spoke as if they have taken "contract for Hindu religion", Laxman said it was "devil quoting the scriptures" as the TRS joined hands with the AIMIM which is "anti-Hindu". "What is your party's stance on Ram temple issue?" he asked. The ruling TRS was in favour of giving 12 per cent reservation to Muslims, he said. The BJP would "expose" the "double standards" of the TRS, he said. Rao talked about launching a national party but what happened to the federal front mooted by him earlier, the BJP leader asked. He said the BJP had played a key role in realising separate Telangana as it had supported the demand as main opposition party before 2014. PTI SJR BN CK CK Woman's body in dickey:Rights panel directs Collector to probe Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 18 (PTI) The Kerala State Human Rights Commission Monday directed authorities to conduct a probe into the incident in which a woman's body was transported in the boot of a car to Maharashtra as her family allegedly did not have enough money to hire an ambulance. Commission member K Mohan Kumar asked the Malappuram district collector and medical college hospital superintendent to conduct the probe and submit report within three weeks. The Commission has on its own registered a case based on media reports. The body of the woman, who died of cancer, was stuffed in the boot of a car and taken to Maharashtra from here as her husband reportedly could not mobilise enough money to pay for an ambulance, police had said on Sunday. The man, hailing from a town in Maharashtra, decided to take the body in the hired vehicle in which he, along with some of his relatives, was scheduled to return home. Chandrakala (48) had died on March 15 after battling cancer. Though her body was handed over to the family the same day, they could not immediately take it to their native place, since ambulance operators had demanded Rs 45,000 for it. Placing the body in the mortuary for a day, the man tried to mobilise money in vain. So, he decided to take it in the same vehicle that he had hired to return. Manjeri police circle inspector N B Shiju had told PTI that though the family had taken a no objection certificate (NOC) to take the body to Maharashtra they did not seek help to transport the body by an ambulance. The NOC was given as it was a natural death, Shiju said, and added that they did not specify how the body had to be transported. PTI RRT UD BN BN BN Modi trying to turn whole nation into "chowkidars" after being "caught" in Rafale deal, says Rahul (Eds: Updates with more quotes) Kalaburagi/Bengaluru (Kar), Mar 18 (PTI) Mocking the Prime Minister's 'chowkidar' campaign, Congress president Rahul Gandhi Monday said Narendra Modi was attempting to convert the whole country into chowkidars after being "caught" in the Rafale fighter jet deal. Attacking Modi's "Main bhi chowkidar' (I too am watchman) blitz, he said "Chowkidar was caught indulging in theft and as he was caught, chowkidar says the whole of Hindustan is chowkidar. "But before getting caught, the entire Hindustan was not chowkidar." Gandhi stepped up the attack a day after BJP intensified its "Main bhi chowkidar" campaign with Modi and other party leaders, including its president Amit Shah prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their Twitter profile. Modi's Twitter account profile identified him as "Chowkidar Narendra Modi" as did other BJP leaders in a coordinated campaign against Gandhi's sustained "Chowkidar Chor Hai" jibe at the prime minister over the Rafale deal. "Before getting caught only Narendra Modi was chowkidar. Thief has been caught (chor pakdagaya). The whole country knows that "Chowkidar chor hai"," Gandhi said at a public rally in Kalaburagi, Lok Sabha constituency of Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in north Karnataka. He told the crowd, "You had said- Chowkidar chor hai. But yesterday and day-before-yesterday Narendra Modi was attempting to turn whole country into chowkidars." Gandhi said, "when he became Prime Minister, he said don't make me Prime Minister, make me chowkidar, do you remember? He had never said make whole of Hindustan into chowkidaars." At an interaction with entrepreneurs in Bengaluru, Gandhi claimed that Modi and Anil Ambani would land in jail if the documents of parallel negotiations with the French government by the PMO become part of an inquiry into the Rafale deal. "If the documents become part of inquiry, Modi and Ambani would go to jail. Why is he not having an inquiry? That's why this campaign 'Chowkidar Chor Hai'...," Gandhi said. He also said, "If the prime Minister wasn't guilty, he should have said- I'm investigating this thing , the people who are responsible are going to jail..why is he not doing that?" "My friends in the media..these days they are pressurised, they are controlled, so they don't really like to talk about these things," Gandhi said while talking about Rafale. He said he could give a list of defence contracts that Anil Ambani and "Modi's friends have been given, one after the other, and they have only got caught on Rafale, which happens to be the really big contract in the world. So that's why everybody is saying chowkidar chor hai." Gandhi said in the country today, there is an environment "which is angry, where there is tension, viciousness-you don't just close your mind, you close the entire ecosystem." "What is happening today is India's liberal nature, India's open system, India's institutions are being attacked, they are being suppressed.....with the bad environment you are going nowhere." At the Kalaburagi rally, the Congress president charged the Prime Minister and RSS with attempting to scrap the Constitution. "It is Narendra Modi's wish that just as he scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes through demonetisation, he wants to scrap the Constitution," Gandhi said. Gandhi said the Congress would never let Modi and RSS succeed in their mission. Elaborating, Gandhi alleged that the note ban was effected without asking the RBI. He also alleged that the Supreme Court was not allowed to function while the Election Commission was being pressurised. The Congress president accused Modi of spreading hatred between different faiths. PTI KSU GMS COR RA BN BN BN Several people raise 'pro-Modi' slogans, ask Rahul to leave Bengaluru, Mar 18 (PTI) A large number of people raised pro-Modi slogans outside the venue of a function here at which Congress president Rahul was addressing entrepreneurs Monday. Raising pro-prime minister slogans 'Modi, Modi', the protesters put up placards asking Gandhi to leave the venue. As the noise intensified, the police removed the protesters. BJP sources alleged several protesters, whom they referred to as techies, were taken into custody. The BJP condemned the police action and alleged that Congress workers attacked the protesters. "Congress workers attack techies who shouted "Modi Modi" slogans when Rahul Gandhi went to Manyata Tech Park in Bengaluru..." state BJP general secretary C T Ravi tweeted. PTI GMS BN BN BN Jaipur, Mar 18 (PTI) Official of a police station for women in Rajasthan's Dausa district has been arrested for allegedly taking bribe from a rape case accused on promise of dropping charges against him, the anti-corruption bureau said Monday. Dharm Singh, a constable, had demanded Rs 50,000 to drop the charges under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code. The matter was settled for Rs 40,000 and Singh was trapped while taking Rs 20,000, an anti-corruption bureau official said. "After verification of the complaint, a trap was laid and Singh was caught while he was taking the money, the official said, adding that he was arrested under the Prevention of Corruption Act. PTI SDA SOM SOM Jaipur, Mar 18 (PTI) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu will be visiting the city on March 26 to attend the convocation ceremony of a private university, officials said Monday. The Vice President will address convocation ceremony of Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Science and Technology (MGUMST) on March 26. He will be chief guest on the occasion, state Chief Secretary D B Gupta said. The chief secretary directed concerned departments to make necessary arrangements for the visit. PTI AG SOM SOM New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) Ten months after being kidnapped in Afghanistan's Baghlan province, one of the seven Indians has returned to India, the External Affairs Ministry said Monday. It said India continued to work closely with the Afghan government for safe and early return of the remaining six Indian nationals. The seven Indian engineers were kidnapped by Taliban militants in the restive northern Baghlan province on May 6 last year. India has been requesting the Afghan government to secure release of the Indians. "One of the seven Indian nationals, who was kidnapped in Baghlan province of Afghanistan in May 2018, has safely returned to India," the MEA said. "We are grateful to the Government of Afghanistan for their support in securing the release and repatriation of the Indian national," it said. The Indian engineers were working on a project for the construction of a power sub-station and they were kidnapped by Taliban militants from the vicinity of Cheshma-e-Sher area. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had taken up the issue with the Afghan government on multiple occasions. India has been carrying reconstruction activities in the war-torn country. It has already provided at least USD 2 billion aid to Afghanistan. PTI MPB KJ Only around 100 sellers : First Rheinaue flea market spoilt by rain BONN Around 100 sellers braved the bad weather at the first Rheinaue flea market of the year in Bonn. There are usually more than 1000 dealers. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken It was shortly after 5 oclock early on Saturday morning when Susanne and Christian Bering from Neuwied pushed their trailer through the still dark Rheinaue to avoid the usually big crowd at the first Rheinaue flea market of the year. We then waited until 8 oclock under our tent for the rain to stop before we could set out our goods, explains Susanne, laughing. Normally there are up to 1000 dealers on the two kilometre long area for stands, said Antje Ziegenspeck from the organiser Melan, who this time is unlikely to be in the black with only around 100 sellers. Even last year, when the first flea market in March ended early because of the freezing cold, said Ziegenspeck, there was more business here. The cold and wet are less offputting to sellers and visitors than a weather forecast for rain and storms. Given the weather, business is quite good, remarked the flea market trader from Neuwied, standing happily on the muddy grass. The organiser knew from experience that only those visitors who actually wanted to buy something would come. Whatever the weather, no flea market is as good as the one in the Rheinaue, the couple from Neuwied concluded. For ten years, Peter Wolff (66) from Lohmar has also tried to attend each of the eight Rheinaue flea markets a year as a dealer. The 100,000 vinyl records he keeps at home tell the story of the musicians and antique lovers early passion for collecting. The former heritage conservation specialist has doubles of around half of his coveted vinyl records and now sells them from 2 Euros. Collectors quickly gather at his stand to talk shop about first and special editions. A bit of luxury for a small amount of money Mr Ayadi from Bonn was also pleased as he held a crystal candlestick up to the light. The twinkling fascinated him. Here you find a bit of luxury for a small amount of money, he said, and revealed he bought his find for two Euros. A couple of collectors from the Eifel region paid 50 cents less for a small bronze statue from the 1920s that was apparently a real bargain. They did not want to reveal what else they were carrying in their small suitcase on wheels. It could be that they would sell it at the flea market one day. According to the flea market professionals, the beauty of the purchases is that you can, for example, enjoy them for a year and then re-sell them. Those who braved the bad weather forecast definitely got their moneys worth at the first flea market of the year. And there was also no problem getting a parking space. The next Rheinaue flea market will exceptionally take place on the second Saturday in April (13 April 2019) because of the Easter weekend. After that, the market will again take place on every third Saturday of the month from 8am to 6pm until 19 October. For further information and stand reservations go to www.flohmarkt-rheinaue.de Now that we are all obsessed with Brexit, we are in danger of forgetting we are still paying for the last crisis. In the report from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), there was a sobering chapter setting out the huge costs of propping up the banks. A total of 136.6billion was paid out by the Treasury following the financial meltdown. Large sums have been repaid, but there is still a shortfall of more than 19billion. Ministers need to act fast, rather than run the risk of RBS falling into the tender mercies of shadow chancellor John McDonnell if Labour win an election, says Ruth Sunderland These are staggering sums. It would have been worse, of course, had the Government not intervened: that would have resulted in Armageddon. Now ministers need to tie up the last bit of unfinished business and return RBS wholly to private ownership and they need to act fast, rather than run the risk of the bank falling into the tender mercies of shadow chancellor John McDonnell if Labour win an election. Even the latest figures in the OBR analysis do not encompass the full costs to shareholders and society. Take Barclays. It did not avail itself a bailout from the UK government, having controversially secured capital from the Middle East in a deal which is now the subject of a court case brought by the Serious Fraud Office. The costs of the crisis for its investors added up to nearly 37billion over the past seven years, a colossal amount of money. The tab included 15billion for misconduct and law suits, 2.4billion in bank levies, 7.1billion in taxes, 10.1billion losses from poorly performing fringe businesses and 1billion for ring-fencing. Once tax bills were added in, that virtually obliterated the entire operating profit for the period. RBS rescue: Having put in 45.8billion, the taxpayer is still 31billion down At RBS, of course, it was worse. The new OBR figures show that having put in 45.8billion, the taxpayer is still 31billion down. Even at a loss, the sooner that the bank can extricate itself from government it still has a stake of around 62 per cent the better. Especially now that McDonnell is prowling bank boardrooms on his cup of tea offensive. RBS is back in profit and has 4-5billion surplus capital. By far the best use for it would be to buy back government shares, which it has authority to do up to a 5 per cent ceiling. One sign it is returning to normality is the shareholder register. The bank has previously been the preserve of small investors and US hedge funds taking a punt, but it has begun to attract backing from some serious investors. Its biggest private shareholder is Norges, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which holds around 6 per cent of the free float and is an ultra long-term investor. Until recently, pension funds and income funds have not invested because it did not pay a dividend. Now that payouts have resumed, more mainstream investors may come back. The bank has behaved disgustingly in the past. It still has issues to sort out with small firms who were maltreated and a report from the regulators is due shortly. But the last of the big conduct fines in the US has been resolved and the majority of the PPI mis-selling costs have been covered. Some people will always hate RBS because of their own personal experiences but it has been chastened and, as the biggest lender to small firms, it could play a positive role in the economy. If it is ever to atone for the sins of the past then it needs to come out of state control. If McDonnell comes to power, that process of returning to normality could come to a shuddering halt. They have talked about using RBS as the basis of a National Investment Bank, a new publicly owned institution to underpin their industrial policy. What a tragic irony it would be for shareholders if RBS was plunged back into state hands at this juncture and forced to become the tool of a misguided socialist cabal. The Duchess of Cambridge's favourite high street jeweller is on the brink of collapse, putting 500 jobs at risk. Links of London, owned by retail group Folli Follie, has a long list of upmarket clients with flagship stores in Mayfair and Sloane Square. But it has become the latest high street chain to look at a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) to cut rents and close stores. The Duchess of Cambridge wearing Links of London's earrings Links was set up by husband-and-wife team John Ayton and Annoushka Ducas in 1990. They won a contract with Harvey Nichols and had opened 45 shops by the time the couple sold the business to Folli Follie in 2006. Earlier this month the Greek retailer was hit by a 17million fine for an alleged 750million fraud involving overstated sales. Links, which has 350 shops and concessions, struggled in 2017, posting a pre-tax loss of 20.6million on sales of 42.9million. Its designs have been a long-time favourite of Kate Middleton, who wore its 360 Hope Egg Earrings in her official engagement photos in 2012. Another of the Duchess's favourite brands, LK Bennett, called EY in as administrators earlier this month. Interserve was handed 660million of taxpayers contracts in the two years before it collapsed, despite three profit warnings. The troubled outsourcer still had 2.1billion of public deals when it went bust on Friday. It was handed public contracts worth 432million in 2017, and 233million last year despite profit warnings in May 2016, October 2017 and November 2018, according to Tussell, a data provider on UK government contracts. > Read: Secret back-up plan to nationalise Interserve before rescue Interserve was handed 660million of taxpayers contracts in the two years before it collapsed The biggest contract in 2018 was awarded by the Foreign and Commonwealth office 66million for total facilities management services in July. Even since December 2018, when the company announced a rescue plan to clear 630million in debts, Interserve has been awarded 6million in public contracts. GMB, the union for Interserve workers, said: Awarding hundreds of millions in taxpayer-funded contracts to troubled outsourcing companies is the height of irresponsibility. Ministers have still not taken on board the lessons from the collapse of Carillion. SCHENECTADY A high-ranking administrator at the county jail who has participated in fact gathering for internal investigations of employees is also president of the statewide union that represents those local jail guards as members. Ron Walsh Jr., who serves as president of Council 82, acknowledges that his job as deputy superintendent at the jail permits him to get written statements from underlings as part of internal probes at the facility. Walsh has held the post for more than a year. But he insisted the that ongoing investigations and any disciplinary action that may result from them are handled by two captains and the superintendent. "When a situation arises at the sheriff's office, from time to time, if it comes to my level, if I am the highest ranking officer involved in a situation, I will ask for a detailed statement," said Walsh, who previously served as president of the sheriff's Benevolent Association. "This position (deputy superintendent) is not confidential, it's not management, it's purely administrative." But past and current employees at the jail say Walsh's dual roles as both a manager at the jail and the leader of the powerful state union that includes their local bargaining unit creates a conflict and raises questions about how enthusiastic Council 82 would be about dealing with disputes between unionized workers at the jail and management at the facility. Speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear they would face reprisals for their comments, the workers said lawyers at Council 82 handle appeals from corrections officers who contest discipline meted out by Walsh's boss, Sheriff Dominic Dagostino. Ennio Corsi, the general counsel with Council 82, did not return calls or emails from the Times Union this past week. Dagostino told the Times Union that Walsh is not involved with disciplinary matters. "We keep him removed from any disciplinary stuff and when we put him in that position that was the understanding that we came to," said Dagostino. "He doesn't sit in on any of that and doesn't involve himself in the investigations." On Friday, Dagostino confirmed Walsh is among the command staff that can request a written statement from a corrections officer accused of violating a policy or code of conduct. "Don't be confused with asking someone to write a statement with sitting down and interviewing that person, there's a difference," the sheriff said. Asked if Walsh does interviews as part of the disciplinary probes, Dagostino said "of the disciplines I can remember, he's not sat in on or asked questions, that I'm aware of." The sheriff said the investigations are handled by the two captains and Superintendent James Barrett. Barrett makes recommendations about discipline to the sheriff who ultimately decides what the punishment will be. Walsh explained that Council 82 is governed by an executive board that works to ensure that the groups finances are secure, member dues are not squandered, and see to it that the staff members, including attorneys, are doing their jobs. "Cases that are dealt with the by the attorneys, whether its discipline or non discipline, it has nothing to do with us (the executive board)," added Walsh. He and others said corrections officers, corrections supervisors (sergeants and lieutenants), patrol officers, and the upper level administrators (captains, superintendent, and deputy superintendent) all have their own union. All four unions fall under Council 82's purview. Speaking in general terms, Lee Adler, who teaches collective bargaining and labor law at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said even the perceived conflicts on a critical issue like discipline can be unsettling and create suspicion among union members. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "Appearance of conflicts in labor unions are often felt by the members affected as actual conflicts," said Adler, who represents unionized firefighters across the state. "Those affected worry whether the leaders that they believe are 'conflicted' may not be allegiant to the membership but to some other authority." Adler said such conflicts are the type of organizational problem that is best addressed sooner rather than later. "When these beliefs pervade a labor organization, it harms its internal social and ethical fabric," he said. Daniel Menzies, the current president of the Schenectady County Sheriff's Benevolent Association, did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment. Walsh has risen through the ranks at the county jail since he was hired as a correctional officer in 1998. For much of the same time, he worked his way through the ranks of the local jail union and then the leadership of Council 82. According to Council 82's website, he became president of the county jail union on Jan. 1, 2006, the same year he joined Council 82's executive board. Walsh was re-elected several times as the leader of the local bargaining unit and became president of Council 82 in September of 2012. Walsh said his primary responsibility as deputy superintendent is handling staffing at the jail, tracking overtime, and ordering equipment for the facility. "Asking an officer to write a statement, how's that discipline? I've been doing that as a sergeant, as a lieutenant, and now as deputy superintendent," he said. Walsh mentioned that he has served as deputy supervisor for more than a year and was recently unanimously re-elected Council 82 president. "I didn't see anyone oppose me nor did I see any members here oppose me," he said. "I don't see the conflict, I just don't see it." Colonie Police Colonie police charged a 27-year-old Colonie man with multiple felonies after they said he tried to meet up with a 12-year-old for sex. Police said they received a tip from the Chelan County Sheriff's Office in Washington state that John P. Fleshman had sexual conversations with a child over the internet and in texts. A meeting was scheduled for Saturday morning in the Schuyler Flatts Culture Park where Fleshman was arrested, police said. ALBANY The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn on Monday revealed they are in plea negotiations with three more defendants in the federal criminal case involving NXVIM co-founder Keith Raniere. The disclosure by the U.S. attorney's office, during a court proceeding in Brooklyn, came five days after NXIVM President Nancy Salzman, who had been Raniere's second in command, pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy. In pleading guilty, Salzman became the first person convicted in the Justice Department's criminal prosecution of the Colonie-based organization's leaders. Prosecutors did not say which of the remaining defendants are involved in plea negotiations. In addition to Salzman and Raniere, the remaining defendants are Salzman's daughter Lauren; television actress Allison Mack; Clare Bronfman, the organization's operations director and an heiress of the Seagram's liquor empire; and Kathy Russell, a longtime bookkeeper for NXIVM. The guilty plea by Salzman, 64, signaled a major turning point in the case. It also came as the government unsealed a second superseding indictment against Raniere and his co-defendants that added seven additional charges, including some leveled at Raniere for his alleged sexual exploitation of an underage girl. The new racketeering charges include multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography, and one count of visa fraud. If convicted of the child exploitation charges, which the government said are buttressed by electronic messages, photographs and witness accounts, Raniere faces a minimum of 15 years in prison. Salzman had admitted to conspiring to commit two criminal acts: hacking into email accounts of the group's enemies who were not named in court and altering a videotape of NXIVM instructional sessions during a federal civil lawsuit that pitted the group against the Ross Institute, which is operated by cult tracker Rick Ross, who works to alert the public to the dangers of cults. Raniere and Mack were arrested a year ago. The other defendants were arrested last July. A criminal trial is scheduled to begin April 29 in Brooklyn, but it's unclear if the plea negotiations and additional charges filed against Raniere last week will delay that date. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The new indictment honed the government's case, and includes charges of extortion, sex trafficking, harboring of aliens for financial gain, forced labor, various conspiracy charges and wire fraud. The indictment seeks forfeiture of a Halfmoon townhouse that Raniere had called "The Library" and allegedly used as his private "sex lair," as well as more than $520,000 in cash that was seized last year from Nancy Salzman's Halfmoon residence. The charges allege some of the defendants took part in recruiting and grooming sexual partners for Raniere, and of using "harassment, coercion and abusive litigation to intimidate and attack perceived enemies and critics of Raniere." Raniere's attorneys have criticized the government's case as overreaching and are asking a judge to throw out evidence obtained when computers and other electronic devices were seized from Salzman's residence and other properties used by the group. Under the direction of Raniere and Salzman, who had touted NXIVM's training curricula as a way for participants to improve their lives, the organization quietly built a following that included actors as well as the wealthy and politically powerful. Raniere, who has pleaded not guilty, remains in custody at a federal detention facility without bond. The other defendants have all been released on conditions that include home confinement. A former University at Albany student was shot and killed during an alleged drug robbery in Maryland, officials said. The victim, 27-year-old Salina Rivera, was a student at UAlbany from fall 2009 to fall 2011, Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, a university spokesman, confirmed on Monday. Although Rivera was only at UAlbany for two years, those who knew her when she attended the university said Rivera had a lasting impact on the community and is remembered as energetic, a go-getter and someone who had the ability to connect with many students. On the night of March 12, police were called to a residence in Hyattsville, a suburb of Washington D.C. where Rivera lived, for a reported shooting. When police arrived they found Rivera suffering from a gunshot wound. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Alexander Maskiewicz, 21, was arrested for the shooting and charged with first-degree murder, Hyattsville Police said. Police said Maskiewicz shot Rivera while attempting to rob her during an illegal drug transaction. While at UAlbany Rivera was an active member of the university's Gamma Rho Lambda National Sorority, Residential Life, Purple and Gold Ambassadors and the Department of Orientation. Michelly Pena, who was one of Rivera's supervisors when she was an Orientation Assistant and campus tour guide, said Rivera was hired as a tour guide as a freshman, which rarely occurs, but her ability to "resonate with all types of students" was something special. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. "She was a uniter among the students," said Brian Stephenson, another one of Rivera's former supervisors. "She could also pretty much talk to anyone." Meghan Popcun, who was a student when Rivera attended UAlbany, described her peer as a leader who was "really confident" and someone who "gave her all." While at UAlbany, Rivera helped establish the Gamma Rho Lambda National Sorority Iota chapter as stated in a post on the sorority's Facebook page following her death. "Our organization wouldn't be the same without her laughter, joy, and light," Sarah Jeter, vice president of External Communication for the sorority, wrote in the Facebook post. "She will be sorely missed." A GoFundMe page was created to help pay for Rivera's funeral. In five days nearly $25,000 had been raised. "Hurt doesn't describe the pain we are feeling," a fundraising post said. "Salina is our everything. My dear Salina, I will continue to fight for your justice because I can't sleep and I need you to be at peace." SARATOGA A lawsuit filed to force the removal of Planning Board Chair Ian Murray from his post because he hasn't lived in the town since 2016 has been tossed out by a state supreme court judge. Judge Ann C. Crowell ruled that Murray still owned property in town and planned to move back after being temporarily forced to move to another town in the county. In the decision earlier this month, Crowell wrote that Murray, who has been living in Ballston, is not in violation of state public officer law that requires residency in the town they serve because "a change in residence alone, even if continued for a long time, does not effect a change of domicile [permanent residence]." "We are obviously pleased with the decision," Saratoga Supervisor Tom Wood said. "The court upheld our opinion right from the get-go that Ian's domicile and intent were key pieces. He will retain his residency is in the town of Saratoga. Ian will continue in his capacity as chairman of the planning board." The lawsuit, filed by a group of six residents who oppose what they say is over development in the town, particularly along Saratoga Lake, tried to remove Murray who has not lived in the town since his divorce. Tom Yannios, one of the petitioners, said he was confused by the judge's decision. "I don't understand the logic of the decision because the law is very specific and she is qualifying it," Yannios said. "The judge seems to be undermining the letter of the law by her interpretation. .... I respect her opinion and I respect her logic. I just don't really understand it." Murray lives in the town where his business, Brookside Nursery, is located. He also owns land on Swamp Road and a gutted house on Coveville Road, both in Saratoga. His case is complicated by a divorce. In court papers, Murray said that he plans to build a house on Swamp Road by this summer. "There is no indication that Mr. Murray intended to sever his ties to his hometown," Crowell wrote. "His move to property owned by his business in Ballston Spa was a move of necessity, convenience and economic prudence. ... The prevailing circumstances and uncertainty created by the divorce action appear to be the sole reason that Mr. Murray did not continuously reside in the Town of Saratoga from sometime in 2016 until the present." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Murray, who has chaired the planning board since 1994 and was just reappointed to another seven-year term, did not return a call from the Times Union. Yannios and his neighbors have been fighting developer John Witt's plan to build a 31-house subdivision dubbed Cedar Bluff on a ridge overlooking the lake. The Town of Saratoga includes the villages of Schuylerville and Victory. It is in the eastern portion of the county bordering the Hudson River on the east, Saratoga Lake and the City of Saratoga Springs on the west. ALBANY The nonprofit behind the annual Albany gathering of the states minority legislators spent more on catering in 2016 than it gave out in youth scholarships, according to new financial statements. The filings show the New York Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators spent $25,000 on catering as part of its fundraising expenses that year, but awarded just $21,090 in scholarships. That catering amount did not include an additional $128,000 for food service during its annual scholarship gala. The group filed two years of financial documents in early January after receiving a letter in early January from the state attorney generals office noting it was delinquent in its filings. The group is the nonprofit arm of the state Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus. Its focus is supporting education and leadership opportunities for minority youth, according to its mission statement. The gala, held each February at its caucus weekend, is meant to raise money for those scholarships. The filings, covering the 2016 and 2017 financial years, showed a reduction in both fundraising at the gala and the amount of scholarships it granted in those years. The filing included federal 990 forms required by the IRS as well as audited financial statements. The associations chairwoman, Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, did not return calls seeking comment. Walker has repeatedly refused to comment on the groups finances or why it was repeatedly late in filing its paperwork with the state and the IRS. (Walker was not the head of the group during the years covered by the statements.) Attorney General Letitia James office acknowledged in February it had received the groups filings after sending the letter, but said at the time the filings were not publicly available then because it was working with the group to clear up some discrepancies. It is still not clear what those issues were. The new filings reveal that the groups management expenses rose as its scholarship grants decreased. The group awarded $35,745 in scholarships in 2015. That fell to $17,078 in 2017. Meanwhile its management expenses went astronomically from $855 to $109,915 during that same time, according to the filings. A key driver in that category was $80,000 in what are listed as miscellaneous expenses for its fundraising gala in 2017. There is no indication in the paperwork what those expenses were. The group ended its 2016 financial year with just $285 in cash despite raising more than $500,000 at its annual gala for at least the fifth straight year, according to its financial statements. The next year, it had nearly $67,000 on hand. The groups treasurer, Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, told the Times Union in December he did not recall signing a single check for a scholarship last year. Pretlow did not return a call for comment on Monday. A 2017 Times Union investigation raised questions about how the 34-year-old charity spends the money it raises. In that report, the group vowed to increase the percentage of its revenues that it spends on scholarships. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. In the nonprofit's official program for its 2015 retreat, then-Chairwoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, an Assemblywoman from Buffalo, stated that "we intend to double the amount of scholarship funds given to students in their respective districts." Walker, her successor, implied in a December 2018 statement to the New York Post that the association was struggling to carry out its mission. When I became chair of the organization in October 2017, there were many financial deficits, but I am proud to say that after alternative protocols and procedures were put in place, the organization is fiscally sound, Walker told the Post. The Brooklyn Democrat refused to talk with a Times Union reporter after an event at its caucus gathering in Albany last month. Charities are generally supposed to spend at least a third of their revenue on their stated mission, according to Charity Navigator, a watchdog group. From 2012 to 2016, the group took in more than $2.6 million, the vast majority through its annual weekend retreat, according to its IRS filings. Nowhere on the nonprofits paperwork or its website does it state who received the scholarship money, when it was awarded, who picks the scholarship recipients, or the criteria used to award the money. ALBANY The state School Boards Association wants state lawmakers to consider the legalization of adult-use marijuana outside of the budget process to ensure time for outstanding issues to be addressed. The group warns that legalization would inevitably "stretch into our schools," and says it's critical that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the state Legislature have time to weigh the social, legal and public health ramifications of the decision. "Considering marijuana legalization in the context of state budget negotiations in the two weeks remaining before the start of the state fiscal year (on April 1) would limit the opportunity to consider the full spectrum of questions surrounding the issue," NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer said in a statement. Even if Cuomo and legislative leaders wanted to hammer out a deal before March 31, it's not clear that they could get on the same page in time. The governor has repeatedly revealed his pessimism about negotiations, and said there is a "wide" gap in positions. The association doesn't stake out a position on legalization, which is backed by 53 percent of New Yorkers, according to a new Siena Research Institute poll. The question splits upstate voters, and there is a generational divide, with two-thirds of young people in support. The New York State Parent Teacher Association has urged Democratic lawmakers to rethink their push to legalize adult-use marijuana. The group warns that legalization won't benefit society and will ultimately create a public health threat. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The legalization framework laid out in the governor's budget requires New Yorkers be at least 21 years old to consume marijuana, but there is an assumption that it would become more accessible if adult-use was allowed. The Senate Democrats included a modified version of the governor's plan in the one-house budget plan they adopted last week, while Assembly Democrats struck the language from the plan they approved. David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87 TROY Pull open the drawer with your T-shirts and you can view the touchstones of your life, recalling everything from concerts to vacations to sporting events. Everyone has T-shirts, said Samantha Mahoski, curatorial assistant at the Rensselaer County Historical Society. T-shirts tell us something. They tell us the events of your life, Mahoski said. But in Mahoski's case, they can also be windows into history. Mahoski was tasked with finding T-shirts in the museum collection that were created for festivals marking the Green Island Bridge collapse in March 1977. She turned up two, including one that was a turtleneck. Mahoskis hunt blossomed into an exhibit, Selected T-shirts from the Rensselaer County Historical Society Collection. It's a companion to the societys Bridging the Hudson show. The shirts are being exhibited until early July. Its fun. You really dont get to see T-shirts in a history museum. Its a different history of Rensselaer County that you wont get from documents, Mahoski said about the 30 T-shirts in the historical societys collection. The shirts can pull out memories not just from the mind but from the taste buds. Glance at an iconic Snowman T-shirt and you can practically taste the ice cream cones youve licked many times outside the iconic Snowman ice cream stand in Lansingburgh. Or shirts from the towns of Schaghticoke and Brunswick celebrating their bicentennials remind of a simpler time and the fact that someone thought to print up T-shirts to mark their anniversaries. Whether those T-shirts are part of a a museum collection or packed in a box under a bed, they present history differently with a picture and perhaps a phrase. They reveal culture from society down to the individuals own tastes and experiences. Last year, London's Fashion and Textile Museum hosted a show called "T-shirt: Cult Culture Subversion," which covered the T-shirt's role as a platform for musical, political and social messages. Its a mini-exhibition of each person. If you take the T-shirts, they tell us things that you consider important and things that you remember, said Ashley Hopkins-Benton, curator of social history at the New York State Museum in Albany. A museums T-shirt collection will vary based in part on its own curatorial objectives about the story its seeking to explain and what is donated, in addition to shirts it may purchase. The State Museum possesses about 160 T-shirts in its history collection, covering a half-century from the 1960s through 2017. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Its interesting to dive into the collection. A large bulk of the T-shirts were created originally to fight for equality in various forms, Hopkins-Benton said. The other substantial part of the collection is related to Sept. 11. There are T-shirts produced by the Creative Womens Collective in New York City from about 1980 to 1990 with a focus on pro-womens rights, the Equal Rights Amendment and LGBTQ rights. T-shirts also depict events such as the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Games, Freihofers Run for Women, the 40th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the American Revolution Bicentennial in 1976. The museum also has shirts that 9/11 responders wore while working at the Fresh Kills Landfill, Hopkins-Benton said.. In addition, there are shirts from the states public broadcasting stations, arts and cultural organizations and the states cities and schools. There is lighter fare, too, including T-shirts proclaiming I solved the Metroland puzzle, and advertising bands, cartoons and Hoffmans Playland. The T-shirts demonstrate that history is alive not something stuffy stuck in an archive or storeroom, said Karin Krasevac-Lenz, executive director of the Rensselaer County Historical Society. It helps to deliver the point that this is what we live every day, Krasevac-Lenz said. We want to show every face and everyones story. SCHENECTADY The murder of 50 Muslims in New Zealand prompted interfaith leaders in the Capital Region to gather Sunday in a message of love to all faiths. The message to Muslims and all those impacted by violence was clear: stay strong. Local clergy and elected officials gathered at the Islamic Center of the Capital District to speak in prayer and solidarity, joined by a couple hundred believers: Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists. "We grieve with a community that halfway around the world was assaulted because of who they were and what they believed and what they were doing," said Rabbi Matthew Cutler of the Gates of Heaven Synagogue in Niskayuna as he opened the event. "There is no place on this earth where racism and bigotry and hatred can thrive. We need to put an end to gatherings like this." Zubair Ahmed, president of the Islamic Center of the Capital District, said he called the meeting Sunday to remember the 50 victims who died at the hands of a mass shooter inside mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during packed Friday prayers. Three dozen more were injured. A 28-year-old Australian, who posted a white supremacy manifesto online before the attack and live-streamed 17 minutes of the massacre, was arrested and charged with murder. The victims were refugees and immigrants, some who made New Zealand their home for decades. New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called it one of the country's darkest days and vowed gun reform. After the shooting that set Muslims all over the world on edge, the Islamic Center of the Capital District called police to ask for security patrols during Friday prayers. Nayef Patel, one of the center's imams, said the community support on Sunday was "overwhelming." Friday's act of violence, intended to divide non-Muslims from Muslims, had instead brought people together, he said. Local faith leaders, many who were members of the Schenectady Clergy Against Hate group, questioned what could be done to prevent hate crimes that have taken place in houses of worship all over the country and the world, including a Wisconsin temple, a Charleston church and a Pittsburgh synagogue. More than one leader remembered that just five months ago, the Capital Region community gathered to support local Jews in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh massacre. "How do we fight these hate crimes?" said Paul Uppal from the Guru Nanak Darbar Sikh temple in Niskayuna. "The solution is love." He said that in the midst of hate, there was still love: like the man in the Christchurch mosque who reportedly welcomed the killer at the door with the words "Hello, brother." "The challenge is to continue to choose love over faith. Redemption must follow. The road is rocky, but we must prevail," Uppal said. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Bob Longobucco from St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic church in Schenectady reflected with pain that the latest crime took place in a city called Christchurch and wondered how a person who said he shared the same Christian values would do such a thing. "If there is any way what we have failed to promote what we think as good news of peace, for that, with heartbreak, I apologize," Longobucco said. Sara Baron, a minister at the First United Methodist Church in Schenectady, also challenged white supremacy rooted in religion. "Until we can build a world where every person is seen as a beloved child of the divine, regardless of race or skin color or faith tradition, we are still part of the problem," she said. "The answer is love, but I think to get there, we are all responsible for paying attention to the way that white supremacy and patriarchy and forms of hierarchy in the world have done damage so that we cannot participate." New York state Assemblyman Phil Steck and U.S. Representative Paul Tonko joined clergy and spoke about freedom of religion. "No one should live in fear because of how they reach their Creator," Tonko said. In the crowd, Audrey Seidman, a Jew from Albany, and Uzma Rana, a Muslim from Slingerlands, united under the banner of a Capital Region chapter of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom organization that breaks down barriers of hate. Seidman said through building a relationship, they realized how much they have in common. "You can't hate someone when you become friends with them," she said. March 18, 2019 With the UK moving out of the EU in the coming months, many different areas will be affected by Brexit, like technology, medical care, trade and more. Brexit will change how the UK manages its relationship with the European Union in these and many other areas. The UK will certainly have to implement a major overhaul in economics and technology. How will Brexit affect technology in the UK? Telecom and Communications The first prominent impact is going to be in the telecom and communications sector. The UK nationals dont pay roaming charges while using their cell phones in the EU currently, but this is sure to change in the near future. Even if the UK government signs up for MoUs and bilateral agreements, the EU will most likely levy monetary charges and taxes on the UKs telecom sector and mobile companies. UK consumers won't enjoy the same rights and benefits enjoyed by EU consumers. The wholesale roaming rates charged by EU mobile companies will have to be charged to the UK cell customers. Data Sharing Remains an Issue Another aspect is how the UK is going to share the net with Europe? This is going to impact not only physical networks, games on networks, but even online content. UK businesses might be compelled to move EU data and copyrights to EU data centers. Data privacy will be a huge concern for both the UK and the European Union, and data infringement will become an issue. Consolidated Technology Is Whats Important Regardless of when Brexit will come into effect, it is going to impact both the UK and the EU. The EU is already addressing proposals to regulate and implement a consolidated conglomerate with high tech services and online content, that can be accessible and beneficial to both. The IT and Software Market is Going to be Hit If the UK takes a moderate approach, investments could be encouraged by mobile and broadband companies. On the contrary, if the UK adopts a strictly regulated approach, investments will be hampered. Certainly, many new data protection laws will surface in the coming months. Also, Britain has very little control over the IT market, because most of the software businesses and markets work on a global platform. International Trade International Trade will also be impacted. EU will have to develop new international treaties. Monetary Ramifications Brexit is definitely going to make starting a new UK tech company much more expensive. Most of the startups sell their goods and services outside the UK, which will result in acquiring sales offices outside the UK. Most startup businesses use technology and network from global sellers. Considering this post Brexit, it will be an uphill task for the UK to achieve financial growth and momentum compared to the US. People who dont support Brexit have plausible reasons...some of them are: The bigger concerns looming over the tech industry are related to brain drain and curbed investments. Post-Brexit, the UK will be bound to follow many new rules for exercising access to free trade and data. Some EU citizens may move back to the continent post Brexit, which could create a significant drain on skilled employees in the UK. For other European economies, it could be something that works to their benefit. Issues like increased antagonism around the easy flow of data are of course, high on the list. If Britain comes out of the EU as a single market, both the digital world and trade will be negatively impacted. The UK will lose funding and investments, but the imminent question is, Will it be able to cope all alone, in todays competitive times? Whatever the decision, one thing is certain, it will not have a favorable impact on technology and innovation. Uks technology deputy CEO, Anthony Walker, believes that any Brexit deal isnt going to help the U.K economy. Rumors are rife, that a no-deal Brexit is imminent, which is also bad for the people working in the UKs tech industry. There are so many UK nationals who are working in the UK offices of Tech giants like Facebook and Google (News - Alert), with a no-deal Brexit, the UK will also lose business. Crucial Days Ahead The coming months are going to be very crucial for both Britain and the EU. The long-term impact on innovation, technology, and development are going to be massive. In conclusion, Brexit will have severe ramifications in the technology industry of the UK. March 18, 2019 Last year, Canada officially legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. It was a big win for all weed lovers in the country and all over the world. Canada became the second country to legalize marijuana after Uruguay pioneered the move entirely. The legalization of marijuana has been a hot debate in many countries. For instance, in the USA, Los Angeles legalized marijuana in 1992 and 10 states have come to join in this campaign. The Tangie strain, for instance, is among the more popular marijuana strains out there today. The rise of technology has changed our lives in every aspect. The cannabis industry has not been left behind in the technology revolution. Since cannabis was legalized in Canada, the country has had massive demand for the herb. Those in the retail business have been having a hard time keeping up with the demand. Luckily, technological advancements are used in an array of fields in the cannabis sector such as supply, e-commerce and the use of AI in the production process. What Kind of Technology is being used in the Cannabis Industry? #1. Artificial Intelligence You cannot talk about technology without mentioning artificial intelligence. It is estimated that the AI and machine learning industry will grow to about $15.7 trillion by the year 2030. AI has had significance in the marijuana industry. This includes saving money, reducing errors and speeding up production processes. In recent years, AI has had a significant impact on the e-commerce sector. A lot of businesses have been growing, because with the help of AI they can showcase their products and services to their customers. So, it makes sense that the marijuana industry would take advantage of AI. For instance, the use of AI has been linked to personalizing customer experience through online delivery. Namaste technology is a leading seller of Cannabis. Since the business implemented the method of AI technology known as Findify, the company has increased its conversion rates and order value. However, the businesses which are integrating AI are facing their share of challenges. They include Data collection is a hard task. Hiring people and teaching them how to use new forms of AI inflict huge costs. Security issues are a significant concern due to the complexity of AI. #2. Blockchain When it comes to handling money and the inability to work with banks, the cannabis industry always has had a problem. However, cryptocurrency is the solution that the marijuana industry needs to solve some of these issues. A blockchain will facilitate how different individuals in the supply such as farmers, transporters, non-plant touching suppliers, dispensaries and ancillary service providers interact. The industry is bound to benefit from cryptocurrency which has fast transactions, high liquidity, and in-store payments through mobile apps. There are 17 cannabis-related cryptocurrencies in the world. These platforms seek to help marijuana businesses avoid banking issues. There is excellent potential in using the blockchain industry. However, there is the challenge of money laundering, which has been linked to a lot of blockchain platforms. With the help of various governments, it would make the use of this technology easier. #3. Mobile Application Mobile applications have been on the rise ever since smartphones were introduced in the market. There is a mobile app for anything that you need. So, it is not a surprise for someone to come up with a cannabis oriented mobile app. A lot of businesses are using mobile apps to serve all the ganja enthusiasts who are looking for some weed. The apps are helping people access cannabis without a struggle while simultaneously, businesses are adding clients from different regions. Some of the mobile apps which are worth checking out include: Massroots Eaze HighThere Leafly WeGrow #4. Internet of Things The cannabis industry is growing to such a considerable extent that there is a wide range of opportunities. So how does the cannabis industry benefit from IoT? There are two ways in which the industry has adapted to IoT, they include: Smart Sensors. Farmers can now use creative measurement tools which help them in the growing of marijuana. The IoT sensors help in things such as measuring soil acidity, salt concentration, humidity and plant health. The relationship between IoT and cannabis has produced enormous benefits for farmers in crop production. Supply Chain Transparency. In the cannabis industry, consumers are always looking for a specific product. The use of IoT in the supply chain has helped to ease this problem. Verdict The growth of the marijuana industry is inevitable. The use of technology is helping it to become one of the most lucrative industries in the world. [March 18, 2019] Cartus Presents Masters Cup to ERA Wilder Realty at Annual Broker Network Conference DANBURY, Conn., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cartus Corporation , the market leader in global mobility, held its annual Cartus Broker Network Conference, March 17-19 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The Masters Cup is presented annually to the Cartus Network broker who has demonstrated exceptional quality standards, surpassed goals, delivered outstanding service, and outperformed metrics in key areas such as effective marketing, inventory management, and conversion. This year's Masters Cup was won by ERA Wilder Realty from Charleston, South Carolina. "ERA Wilder Realty, the 2019 winner of the Cartus Broker Network Masters Cup, has demonstrated premier performance within an already highly selective group of brokers," said Katrina Helmkamp, Cartus CEO. "ERA Wilder Realty continually provides exceptional customer service with every referral, ensuring that our clients and their relocating employees are in terrific hands. ERA Wilder Realty showcases the Cartus values with each home sale or purchase, and we are pleased to present them with this year's Masters Cup." Representing over 780 firms of the top-performin brokers across the country, the Cartus Broker Network provides real estate services to customers of Cartus' affinity, corporate, and government clients. Cartus and the Cartus Broker Network close an average of 91,000 transactions annually and the Network covers 97% of MLS markets. "Our conference attendees represented the best of the Cartus Broker Network, as demonstrated by the results we saw this past year," added Mike Brannan, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Management and Broker Services. "Our Network is strengthened annually by their outstanding performance; we appreciate all of that hard work and dedication." The conference brought together nearly 700 Cartus Broker Network members for a dynamic event that included an awards celebration as well as an agenda of interactive workshops, roundtable discussions, and executive presentations. Guest speakers at the conference include Matthew Ferrara, Philosopher, Speaker and Photographer who will be leading a discussion about recruiting, retention and manager accountability as well as Steve Murray, President and co-founder of REAL Trends and who will provide industry insights. About Cartus Broker Network The U.S. Cartus Broker Network includes approximately 783 firms with over 3,000 offices and approximately 113,000 agents. The Cartus Broker Network in Canada is comprised of approximately 343 firms with 582 offices and more than 11,200 agents. About Cartus Cartus, the market leader in global mobility, provides a full spectrum of global relocation solutions and can successfully move employees into and out of 185 countries. By leveraging innovative solutions and its Leading Edge Analytics Practice (LEAP), Cartus serves more than half of Fortune 50 companies as well as smaller organizations. Cartus is part of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global leader in real estate franchising and provider of real estate brokerage, relocation and settlement services. To find out how our greater experience, reach, and hands-on guidance can help your company, visit www.cartus.com, read our blog, or visit www.realogy.com for more information. Elizabeth Dowd at 203.205.3739 Email: [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cartus-presents-masters-cup-to-era-wilder-realty-at-annual-broker-network-conference-300813761.html SOURCE Cartus [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Finchloom Presents the Finchloom/Microsoft Cloud US Tour 2019 AGOURA HILLS, Calif., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Finchloom will present the Finchloom/Microsoft Cloud US Tour 2019, taking place across the United States from April to November 2019 and featuring Jim Richardson (founder/CEO) and Brian Levine (COO) traveling to each Finchloom customer across the U.S., six in-person customer events in Los Angeles and Boston and four online webinars, culminating in the epic Finchloom STUNT Jim Saws a Server in Half! Finchloom is proud to bring this tour around the country to visit its customers and provide new potential customers with the opportunity to meet management and learn about their exciting approach to Microsoft Cloud Services in Azure and Microsoft 365 (Office 365, Enterprise Mobility & Security and Windows 10). More details about the events and links to register can be found on the Finchloom website at https://finchloom.com. Finchloom is a 100 Microsoft Partner with Gold Competencies in Cloud Productivity, Cloud Platform and Security. Finchloom provides migration services to Office 365 and Azure with the Finchloom FLIGHT program and helps customers realize the ROI on their Microsoft Cloud investment by providing usage and adoption services, IT and end-user training and premier support through the Finchloom WEAVE program. "I am excited to get out and reconnect with some existing customers that we haven't said hello to in a while and now that our customer base is growing and spread out around the U.S., this might be the last time we can actually do an event at this scale," said Jim Richardson, founder and CEO, Finchloom. Media Contact: Jim Richardson (CEO), Finchloom, [email protected], 844-346-2456 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/finchloom Related Links Finchloom Website Finchloom LinkedIn View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/finchloom-presents-the-finchloommicrosoft-cloud-us-tour-2019-300813904.html SOURCE Finchloom [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] iPipeline Acquires Canadian Solutions Provider Bluesun iPipeline - a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the financial services industry - today announced the acquisition of Bluesun, a leading provider of software solutions to the life insurance and financial services industry in Canada. Bluesun designs software products to automate core business processes for MGAs, national accounts, mutual fund dealers, banks and insurance companies. Their client base includes nearly 70% of all Canadian life insurers and agencies. "Canadian insurers and financial institutions are looking to rapidly merge into the fast lane of digital transformation. Bluesun has done an outstanding job of steering them in the right direction as a strategic and tactical partner," said Tim Wallace, CEO, iPipeline. "The acquisition of Bluesun gives us the opportunity to combine the synergies of the two companies and present our Canadian clients across the industry with an innovative, straight-through processing platform strategy that has been proven effective by our U.S. customers. We're excited about the growth potential and confident about the value we can deliver together through industry leadership and innovation." "iPipeline is the clear leader in straight-through processing, platform modernization, accelerated underwriting, wealth management automation, and data analytics, all of which are top of mind for executives in the Canadian market place. The industry is ready to go digital," said Simon Tomlinson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bluesun. "Bluesun's software solutions for life insurance sales, case management, and policy administration, when combined with iPipeline's extensive offerings, will take our clients to the very leading edge and drive sales, settlement and administration of life insurance through any channel the consumer wants to choose. This will now be possible using one partner for every step in the process that takes the consumer from prospect to policyholder using a Canadia multicarrier platform. Our goal is to be a part of every life insurance transaction in Canada, and our acquisition by iPipeline is a huge step forward to accomplishing this mission." "For more than a decade, iPipeline has had an intense focus on making strategic acquisitions that cumulatively increase our value to the life insurance and financial services industry. Canada has been in our sights for years, and the acquisition of Bluesun enables us to extend our reach into a geography that is committed to digital transformation," said Larry Berran, COO and CFO, iPipeline. "Bluesun's team brings forged relationships based on years of customer engagement. We look forward to the opportunity to extend their value proposition by delivering new innovations to accelerate the pace of business." To learn how you can implement iPipeline's SSG Digital straight-through processing platform to streamline and accelerate new business acquisition and in-force management processes and better engage the digital customer, contact [email protected] or call 1-800-758-0824, option 2. About Bluesun Bluesun is a leading provider of software solutions to the financial services industry. Bluesun's mission is to deliver painless software solutions to its clients. This means easy-to-use, intuitive software, with hassle-free installation and responsive, class-leading service. Today, Bluesun has over 30 clients in Canada and the US and handles almost 70% of all Canadian life insurance business in the independent channel. Bluesun was founded in 2001 with its head office located in Burlington, Ontario. For more information, visit www.bluesun.ca. About iPipeline iPipeline is a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the life insurance and financial services industry. Through our end-to-end platform, we accelerate and simplify sales, compliance, operations and support. We provide process automation and seamless integration between every participant in our ecosystem including carriers, agents, general agencies, advisors, broker-dealers, RIAs, banks, securities/mutual fund firms, and their consumers on a global basis. Our innovative solutions include pre-sales support, new business and underwriting, policy administration, point-of-sale execution of applications, post-sale support, data analysis, reporting, user-driven configuration, consumer delivery and self-service, and agency and firm management. iPipeline's platform is used by more than 130 carriers, 1,300 distributors and financial institutions, and their agents and licensed advisors in a cloud-based environment. With headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania, iPipeline has locations in Bromley (UK), Burlington (Canada), Cheltenham (UK), Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Huntersville, Ontario (CA (News - Alert)), Philadelphia, Pleasanton, and Salt Lake City. Visit www.ipipeline.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005029/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 17, 2019] Jollychic Announces Partnership with SAGIA to Bolster Saudi Arabia's Digital Economy RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Jollychic, the global online shopping platform and E-commerce ecosystem innovator, attended the Saudi Arabian Investment and Cooperation Forum on February 22, 2019, at the invitation of H.E. Dr. Majid Bin Abdullah Al Qasabi, Minister of Commerce and Investment. Jollychic founder and CEO, Arron Li, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Governor of the Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (SAGIA), Ibrahim Al-Omar, agreeing to form a comprehensive partnership to support the acceleration of digital transformation and enhancing economic diversification in Saudi Arabia. As the Kingdom steadily advances toward the realization of Vision 2030, the Saudi government has launched a series of ambitious industrial initiatives that aim to contribute to the development of a robust and diversified economic infrastructure. The initiatives include the National Industrial Development Program (NIDLP), the Riyadh provincial development plan and free zone construction plan, as well as the adoption of a "Cloud First Policy", which aims to accelerate the pace at which cloud computing is adopted within the public sector. Meanwhile, emerging industries such as information technology, modern logistics and e-commerce platforms have received more strategic direction and guidance policies. Taking place at a transformative time for the Saudi economy, the MoU lays the foundation for Jollychic to establish a strategic relationship with SAGIA as well as relevant government sectors and stakeholders, thereby allowing for Jollychic to deepen its roots in the kingdom. "It's an honor to partner with SAGIA and we hope to drive the overall competitiveness of KSA business community in the context of the Internet age while bringing unique value o the Kingdom while on its way to Vision 2030", Li said. As the only e-commerce enterprise to sign an MoU during the forum, Jollychic will take full advantage of its position as an industry leader to lead and contribute to the development of an E-commerce ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, thereby contributing to the establishment of a diversified digital economy in the Kingdom and the achievement of Vision 2030. As outlined in the MoU, SAGIA will provide comprehensive support for Jollychic to contribute in promoting the local e-commerce industry and ecosystem in Saudi Arabia. "Jollychic is a successful example of a company that is effectively stimulating employment and promoting social progress in the digital economy sector of Saudi Arabia," said Dr. Mazin M. Al Zaidi, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SAGIA. "We look forward to more tech companies gaining success in Saudi Arabia through a long-term development plan," he continued. Relying on the solid foundation and business vision of Jollychic in Saudi Arabia, the MoU also captures key content about the e-commerce ecosystem and digital economy in Vision 2030. Data from market researcher BMI shows that e-commerce sales in Saudi Arabia are expected to reach $13.9 billion in 2021, up from $8.7 billion in 2017. According to the Kingdom's plans for Vision 2030, the Saudi government aims to increase the contribution of modern trade and E-commerce to 80% of the retail sector by 2020. As a country where about 60 percent of the population is under 30 years old and mobile Internet penetration exceeds 75%, the emerging Internet sector still has massive potential for growth. With the comprehensive partnership framework called TIES, which stands for Technology, Investment, Employment and Social Awareness, Jollychic will work to enhance communication and cooperation with the Saudi government and other stakeholders to strengthen localization and investment in the areas of technology sharing, investment commitment, promoting employment and raising social awareness, comprehensively cementing the strategic bond for Jollychic with the Saudi market. "As a non-oil company that had invested and rooted itself in Saudi Arabia at a very early stage, the Kingdom has always been an important strategic market for Jollychic. At present, the company owns one of the largest e-commerce fulfillment centers of the Middle East in Saudi Arabia," said Li. "Jollychic will promote infrastructural improvements such as a logistics network, Internet professional training and so on in Saudi, and actively utilize our expertise in artificial intelligence, big data, and Internet model innovation practice, etc. to build a healthy and sustainable e-commerce ecosystem, and drive economic diversification in Saudi Arabia," he concluded. About Jollychic Jollychic is a leading ecommerce platform providing one-stop shopping experience to Middle East consumers. Jollychic work with both global and local brands to provide millions of products including apparel, electronics, home goods, shoes and bags, and groceries, etc. Jollychic provide fast delivery, 15-days free return as well as no hassle refunds to customers. You can download Jollychic app from Google Play or App Store. Customer can also purchase from www.Jollychic.com. SOURCE Jollychic [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Mitsubishi Electric Moves to Boost Company-wide Framework for Product Security Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO:6503) announced today that it will establish on April 1 the Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) as a new company-wide framework dedicated to promptly and reliably responding to and reducing cybersecurity risks in products and related services in all divisions and branches. As the adoption of IoT continues to spread, the risk of products being exposed to cyber-attacks is rising. Companies that sell networked products are obliged to counter such vulnerabilities and responsibly disclose information if customers are ever impacted by such threats. Mitsubishi Electric's (News - Alert) new PSIRT nit will create a company-wide framework for controlling and managing product security activities to help customers avoid serious damage or impact from cybersecurity risks. PSIRT managers will be appointed in every business group headquarter and factory to oversee risk reduction and product security, with the PSIRT providing supervision from company headquarters. In addition to responding to product security vulnerability, the team will strengthen security-related technical efforts from the product development stage. In June 2019, Mitsubishi Electric will launch a customer website dedicated to product security and aggregate vulnerability information. Also, a new inquiry desk will handle customer reports regarding security issues, separate from existing customer-support desks for individual products. By communicating promptly and appropriately with customers regarding product security matters, Mitsubishi Electric expects to strengthen customer confidence in the security of Mitsubishi Electric products and services. For the full text, please visit: www.MitsubishiElectric.com/news/ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190317005001/en/ [March 17, 2019] Jianpu Technology Inc. Responds to CCTV's Report on "315 Night: Annual Consumer Rights Show" BEIJING, March 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Jianpu Technology Inc. ("Jianpu," or the "Company") (NYSE: JT), a leading independent open platform for discovery and recommendation of financial products in China, responds to CCTV's report concerning certain financial products offered by third-party financial services providers on the Company's platform (the "CCTV Report"). The CCTV Report was aired during its 2019 "315 Night," a show concerning consumer protection which airs annually on March 15. Jianpu operates the "Rong360" platform, an independent open platform for discovery and recommendation of financial products. The Company currently cooperates with over 2,000 financial service providers and offers over 200,000 financial products from these financial service providers on the platform. The Company does not offer its own products, extend credit or assume any credit risk. Although the Company implements stringent standards to screen financial services providers before listing their products on its platform, we cannot rule out the possibility that the quality of the financial products and the services provided by financial services providers are not in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations at all times. In response to the CCTV Report, Jianpu has promptly organized internal resources to thoroughly review its business practice, including the voluntarily suspension of further downloads of its mobile apps on major mobile app stores in order to identify any inappropriate conduct that could adversely affect consumer rights, and to take remediation measures with respect to any inappropriate activity that may be found on the Company's platform. The Company hopes to be open and transparent of its findings and remediation measures. Going forward, the Company is committed to continuing to remain as an independent open platform and providingreliable services to users and financial service providers impartially. About Jianpu Technology Inc. Jianpu Technology Inc. is a leading independent open platform for discovery and recommendation of financial products in China. By leveraging its deep data insights and proprietary technology, Jianpu provides users with personalized search results and recommendations that are tailored to each user's particular financial needs and credit profile. The Company also enables financial service providers with sales and marketing solutions to reach and serve their target customers more effectively through online and mobile channels and enhance their competitiveness by providing them with tailored data, risk management and end-to-end solutions. The Company is committed to maintaining an independent open platform, which allows it to serve the needs of users and financial service providers impartially. For more information, please visit http://ir.jianpu.ai. Safe Harbor Statement This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: the Company's goal and strategies; the Company's future business development, financial condition and results of operations; the Company's expectations regarding demand for, and market acceptance of, its solutions and services; the Company's expectations regarding keeping and strengthening its relationships with users, financial service providers and other parties it collaborate with; general economic and business conditions; and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the Company's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: In China: Jianpu Technology Inc. Oscar Chen Tel: +86 (10) 6242-7068 E-mail: [email protected] The Piacente Group, Inc. Ross Warner Tel: +86 (10) 5730-6202 E-mail: [email protected] In the United States: The Piacente Group, Inc. Brandi Piacente Tel: +1-212-481-2050 E-mail: [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jianpu-technology-inc-responds-to-cctvs-report-on-315-night-annual-consumer-rights-show-300813698.html SOURCE Jianpu Technology Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Manuka Sport Products Are Coming to StackedNutrition.com BOCA RATON, Fla., March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Manuka Sport's endurance and performance supplements will soon be available at the e-commerce website, StackedNutrition.com. Manuka Sport's Honey Orange Hydration Plus Energy Powder, Honey Cherry Energy Gel with Caffeine, Honey Citrus Energy Gel and Raw Manuka Honey products will soon be available at the online outlet, an e-commerce site for health and wellness brands. "We are very excited that our Manuka Sport product line will be on StackedNutrition.com," said company CEO Tom Buckley. "This is just the next step toward making Manuka Honey products available throughout the United States." Buckley said all Manuka Sport products are made with a particular type of honey created by bees pollinating the native Manuka bush in New Zealand. "For centuries, we have known about the healing effects of honey. It has been used to treat multiple conditions, especially wounds," Buckley said. "Quite literally, Manuka Honey is a super food." Regular honey has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and is a great source for hydration. Manuka honey, however, has an additional antibacterial component, methylglyoxal (MG), in a higher concentration than regular honey, which makes Manuka Honey an even more powerful antibiotic and anti-inflammatory. Manuka Sport products provide athletes with all the health benefits of Manuka Honey: Hydration + Energy Powder is formulated with an ideal ratio of glucose and carbohydrates. Its ingredients include Manuka Honey , BCAAs, carbohydrates and electrolytes. , BCAAs, carbohydrates and electrolytes. Honey Cherry Energy Gel is formulated to fuel and hydrate your body during training and competition. Its ingredients include 45 mg of caffeine, carbohydrates and electrolytes. Honey Citrus Energy Gel is similar to Honey Cherry Energy Gel but it doesn't include the caffeine. Raw Manuka Honey is a super food that is a great source of fuel for all types of athlete. The products are certified by Informed Choice, which indicates that all offerings are made to the highest standards of quality. "We are working hard to bring Manuka Sport supplements to a wider audience in the United States," Buckley said. "We are already on Amazon and having our products on StackedNutrition.com is just the next logical step in our expansion." For more information, follow Manuka Sport on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Please direct inquiries to: Andrew Polin, 561-544-0719 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/manuka-sport-products-are-coming-to-stackednutritioncom-300813413.html SOURCE Manuka Sport [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Mercatus and GRESB Partner to Improve ESG Data Collection & Reporting Process for Infrastructure Investors Infrastructure Investor Global Summit Berlin - Mercatus, a leading asset and investment management platform for alternative investors, and GRESB, the global ESG benchmark for real assets, today announced a strategic partnership to accelerate environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration for global infrastructure investors. More institutional investors than ever before are seeking standardized and validated ESG-related data on their infrastructure investments. Infrastructure managers and operators are also realizing that integrating ESG concerns into business decisions will generate new streams of data that can be used to enhance growth and sustainability. "ESG has increasingly become a key requirement that customers are demanding we help them solve," said Tim Buchner, Co-Founder and COO at Mercatus. "At the heart of ESG value creation is data. We are fully aligned with GRESB in our commitment to making the collection, analysis, submission and reporting of ESG and other asset-level data seamless and transparent for real asset investors across the globe." The focus of the Mercatus-GRESB partnership is centered on: Creating a Data-Driven Approach to ESG that automates data collection, analysis, and submission processes to streamline ESG due diligence and reporting requirements for GRESB's asset and fund assessments, accelerating value for ESG across the entire LP-GP ecosystem that automates data collection, analysis, and submission processes to streamline ESG due diligence and reporting requirements for GRESB's asset and fund assessments, accelerating value for ESG across the entire LP-GP ecosystem Measure the Impact of ESG to better assess the real impact of sustainability on investment performance and decision-making across the infrastructure asset-class "We are delighted to form this strategic alliance with Mercatus as a GRESB Infrastructure Partner," says Rick Walters, Director of Infrastructure at GRESB. "As our first infrastructure data partner, we commend Mercatus for taking the lead with infrastructure investment firms managing data down to the asset level and throughout the investment lifecycle. With the GRESB reporting window opening on 1st April 2019, Mercatus is well placed to assist Asset Managers with their upcoming reporting neds." Mercatus systematizes and centralizes large volumes of disparate data to give investors and asset owners accurate, real-time analytics on performance, risk, ESG, and more, at the asset, fund, and portfolio levels. The analytics and executive dashboards drive proactive investment decisions based on holistic, data-driven insights. According to the Global Infrastructure Hub, $94 trillion in global infrastructure investment is needed by 2040. "Climate, social, and other transition risks will have a significant valuation impact for real asset investors," added Ali Mamujee, Director of Product at Mercatus. "Many of our customers are taking innovative approaches in self-configuring new dashboards in the Mercatus platform to integrate ESG metrics (i.e. health and safety, climate emissions, diversity composition, etc.) within their traditional operational and financial performance reports. The integration of these dashboards and reports has led to cross-functional awareness across the organization to expedite ESG integration and adoption." Mark your calendars for our May Webinar! Sign up to be alerted about the upcoming Mercatus-GRESB May webinar: "Tackling Challenges in ESG Reporting; Satisfying LP Craving for Real-Time Impact". Speakers and date will be announced shortly. About GRESB GRESB is the global environmental, social and governance (ESG) benchmark for real assets. Working in collaboration with the industry, GRESB defines the standard for sustainability performance in real assets providing standardized and validated ESG data to more than 75 institutional investors, representing over USD 18 trillion in institutional capital. In 2018 a record 903 property companies and funds participated in the GRESB Real Estate Assessment, the Infrastructure Assessment covered 75 funds and 280 assets, and 25 portfolios completed the Debt Assessment. Learn more at gresb.com. About Mercatus Mercatus is the leading provider of alternative asset and investment management solutions, helping investors maximize returns, accelerate growth, and mitigate risk. Mercatus is the only platform to systematically consolidate asset and portfolio data, automate and control financial analysis, and streamline decisions and collaboration across the entire investment lifecycle. Many of the largest global funds leverage Mercatus to manage over $540B of assets and investments across 118 countries and 11 asset classes. Mercatus is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Europe and India. For more information, visit www.gomercatus.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005098/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Affle Completes its Omni-channel Consumer Platform With the Acquisition of Shoffr NEW DELHI, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Affle's 3rd acquisition in the last 12 months Affle (India) Limited ("Affle") announced today that its Singapore subsidiary, Affle International Pte. Ltd. ("Affle International"), has acquired Shoffr, a Singapore-based online to offline (O2O) platform that converts online consumer engagements into in-store walk-ins and transactions. As part of the transaction effective 19 February 2019, Shoffr Pte. Ltd.'s business, brand name, intellectual property rights, business relationships, technical information, assets and employees have been transferred to Affle Group. Shoffr enables online to offline consumer journeys by converting online engagements into in-store walk-ins and transactions. It reveals offline retail stores inventories online via API and programmatic links and provides catalog management, order management with measurable ROI to retail brands. This acquisition will strengthen the Affle group's Consumer & Enterprise platforms by providing an integrated consumer journeys and allow brands to transparently attribute the impact of digital advertising on in-store footfalls and transactions. Commenting on this acquisition, Anuj Khanna Sohum, the Chairman, MD and CEO of Affle said, "We are excited to announce the acquisition of Shoffr, which is our third acquisition after the Vizury Commerce Business and Markt in the last 12 months. We welcome Shoffr's team on-board. With increasing influence of smartphone-based engagements on the retail purchase decision, we believe that Shoffr complements our existing Omnichannel Platform to enhance the ROI for brands through both online and offline transactions." Sharing his thoughts about this development, Abhishek Dadoo, CEO & Founder of Shoffr Pte. Ltd., who has now joined Affle International as the Director, Omnichannel Platform, said, "We are glad to commence on this exciting journey together with the Affle group. Shoffr's online to offline capability to drive in-store traffic is used by several retail brands in India & South East Asia and we look forward to growing Shoffr into an omni-channel platform by leveraging synergies with the Affle group. We believe that we will be able to see our visio for Shoffr, to deliver and measure end-to-end consumer journeys come to life." A recent report* by Frost & Sullivan India Pvt. Ltd. ("Frost & Sullivan") states that e-commerce comprises one-tenth of the total global retail sales at USD 2.29 trillion. The report further states that the primary challenge for brands and retailers (both offline and online) is how to seek and target the right customer through digital avenues. With this acquisition, Affle will aim to leverage this market opportunity. This acquisition comes after the Affle group's acquisition of the Vizury Commerce Business in September 2018 and Affle Global Pte. Ltd.'s acquisition of the Markt in March 2018, which was consequently acquired by Affle International when it had acquired Affle Global Pte. Ltd.'s business effective July 1, 2018. About Affle Group We are a global technology business. We have two business segments: (a) our Consumer Platform, which comprises (1) our proprietary consumer intelligence platform that delivers consumer acquisitions, engagements and transactions through relevant mobile advertising (the "Affle Consumer Platform"); and (2) our retargeting media business for e-commerce companies and our push notifications offerings for e-commerce companies on a software as a service model (the "Vizury Commerce Business" and together with the Affle Consumer Platform, the "Consumer Platform") and (b) our Enterprise Platform, which primarily provides end-to-end solutions for enterprises to enhance their engagement with mobile users. The Affle Group comprises Affle, Affle International and PT Affle Indonesia. *(Source: "Industry Insights on the Advertising and Ad Tech Market" dated July 12, 2018 prepared by Frost & Sullivan). Disclaimer - Affle (India) Limited proposes, subject to receipt of requisite approvals, market conditions and other considerations, to make an initial public offering of its equity shares ("Equity Shares") in India and has filed a draft red herring prospectus dated July 14, 2018 ("DRHP") with the Securities and Exchange Board of India ("SEBI"). The DRHP is available on SEBI website at http://www.sebi.gov.in as well as on the website of the book running lead managers i.e., ICICI Securities Limited at http://www.icicisecurities.com and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Private Limited at http://www.nomuraholdings.com/company/group/asia/india/index.html, and the websites of BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited at http://www.bseindia.com and http://www.nseindia.com, respectively. Investors should note that investment in Equity Shares involves a high degree of risk and for details relating to the same, see "Risk Factors" of the Red Herring Prospectus when available. Potential investors should not rely on the DRHP for any investment decision. This announcement has been prepared for publication outside the United States and may not be released in the United States. This announcement does not constitute an offer of Equity Shares for sale in any jurisdiction, including the United States, and the Equity Shares may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration under the US Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption from registration. Any public offering of the Equity Shares to be made in the United States will be made by means of a prospectus that may be obtained from Affle and that will contain detailed information about Affle and its management, as well as financial statements. However, the Equity Shares are not being offered or sold in the United States. Media Contact: Rahul Tekwani [email protected] +91-9009830767 Concept Public Relations [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Matthew Panarese Joins Rockefeller Capital Management in Philadelphia Rockefeller Capital Management today announced that Matthew T. Panarese has joined the Rockefeller Global Family Office as a Managing Director to establish and lead the Firm's Philadelphia office. "At Rockefeller, in our mission to provide trusted advice and highly personalized service to our clients, we will continue to expand our physical presence in select cities and wealth centers throughout the country," said Gregory J. Fleming, President & CEO of Rockefeller Capital Management. "Matt is one of the region's most respected industry leaders based in Philadelphia, a great market where we are excited to serve clients." Rockefeller's Global Family Office consists of the Multi-Family Office and Private Wealth Management. As a Managing Director in the Multi-Family Office, Panarese will focus on serving ultra-wealthy clients with wealth and tax planing, wealth transfer strategies and family office services, helping families successfully manage their complex financial needs and multi-generational wealth planning. Panarese will also have regional responsibility including overseeing the Firm's Multi-Family Office team based in Washington D.C. Prior to joining Rockefeller, Panarese was President of the Mid-Atlantic Region for Wilmington Trust Company, a role he assumed in February 2017. Panarese joined Wilmington Trust in 2008 as Managing Director, serving as a senior private client advisor for more than five years before being named Regional President for Philadelphia & Suburban Wealth Advisory in January 2014. He was also appointed as head of the company's Business Owners National Practice Group. Previously, he was a Vice President in JPMorgan Private Bank. Panarese is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. About Rockefeller Capital Management Rockefeller Capital Management is a leading independent, privately-owned financial services firm offering global family office, asset management and strategic advisory services to ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families, institutions and corporations. The Firm has offices in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Salt Lake City, Saratoga Springs, Washington, DC, and Wilmington, Delaware. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005210/en/ [March 18, 2019] 12 ReTech Completes 3rd Fashion Brand Acquisition Rune NYC, LLC becomes a 12 ReTech Subsidiary Las Vegas, NV & Hong Kong, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 12 ReTech Corporation (OTC: RETC) announced today that it has acquired 92.5% ownership of Rune NYC, LLC (RUNE). As a result, we expect to consolidate RUNEs financials into our own SEC financial reports beginning with the upcoming 1st Quarter, FY2019 FORM 10-Q due in May of 2019. RUNE is an up and coming womens apparel brand that already sells their activewear products through a variety of well-known domestic USA sales and distribution channels. This acquisition brings immediate brand awareness and revenues to 12 ReTech. Management expects to increase RUNEs annual revenues which have recently been as high as $1.4 million and even though 2018 revenues were approximately $800 thousand, management expects the next 12 months of operations to yield at least $1.2 million in profitable sales as we grow RUNEs customer base and increase their gross margins by shifting production to Red Wire Group, LLCs apparel manufacturing facility, which recently became a wholly owned subsidiary of our Company. Angelo Ponzetta, 12 ReTechs CEO commented, RUNE is an exciting addition to our portfolio of womens apparel brands. There is good demand for their apparel and they bring new ideas to market quickly. Synergistically, our Red Wire Group manufacturing operations will help to improve RUNEs operating margins. In addition, RUNEs existing sales channels will be a great place to introduce our other brands to. I am positive that with our assistance, over the next year RUNE will be generating record revenue run rates for our Company. Greg Haehl, manager of the Companys manufacturing operation- Red Wire Group commented, Since the signing of the Definitive Agreement between the Company and RUNE, Red Wire has already been manufacturing RUNEs products. So far, we have demonstrated. quick turnaround and cost savings for RUNE. We welcome Emily to our team and are excited to work with her and the RUNE team. Emily Santamore, Managing Member of Rune NYC commented, I am thrilled to join the 12 ReTech team. Since RUNEs inception, I have developed a sizable following for my brand and believe that 12 ReTech will help me gather more RUNE fans quickly. The obvious synergies that 12 ReTechs subsidiaries bring to the table will help me to concentrate my time on where it is best spent, in apparel design and sales, which will benefit all our 12 ReTech brands. With the lower costs of Rd Wires manufacturing, I should be able to win business from large brand name retailers who have expressed interest in my designs but for whom I was previously unable to meet their pricing requirements. This should really accelerate our revenue growth. Ms. Santamore continued, In addition, I have several C-level contacts in the department store and retail industries and have started to introduce the 12 ReTech technology to my customers. They have provided some very positive responses and we will soon be proposing 12 ReTechs technology alongside Runes apparel offerings to build value for my most progressive customers. Angelo Ponzetta added We are already working on the integration of our three fashion brands, with Red Wires team operating the manufacturing for our brands in two factory sites. This is an exciting time for our Company as our recent additions are producing positive cash flow and opening new opportunities for us in both our technology business and our consumer brand business. There is a lot going on in our business pipeline in all three of our geographic markets, Soon, I hope to present exciting news about technology progress in Europe and the USA. Mr. Ponzetta finished, We are really starting to gain momentum! About Rune NYC, LLC Founded by a brother-sister team in January 2013, Rune NYC, LLC set up shop in the heart of New York Citys historic garment district. Rune NYC is a growing fashion company focusing on the expanding womens market of activewear and athleisure. They offer an array of apparel targeted to fashionable women who are looking for excellent quality and great value. Rune currently designs and produces fashion leggings, maternity leggings, plus-size leggings, bottoms, tops, dresses, and jackets. Rune NYC is 100% designed and manufactured in the USA. About 12 ReTech Corporation: At our core, we are a software company whose technology allows retailers to combat the dual threats of Walmart and Amazon both online and in physical stores. Our microbrand rollup acquisition strategy allows us to demonstrate the effectiveness of our software, devise and test new products, while providing shareholder value through immediate revenue and earnings growth. The Company operates through our subsidiaries on three continents: 12 Hong Kong, Ltd., 12 Japan, Ltd., 12 Europe A.G., 12 Retail Corporation (and its subsidiaries in North America, including Emotion Fashion Group, Inc., Red Wire Group, LLC and Rune NYC, LLC). For more information please visit our website at www.12ReTech.com . 12 ReTech Corporation is publicly listed on the OTC Markets under the symbol RETC. Safe Harbor: This document contains certain 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, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainty, including without limitation, the ability of the Company to successfully implement its turnaround strategy, changes in costs of raw materials, labor, and employee benefits, as well as general market conditions, competition and pricing. Although the Company believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, and therefore, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this letter will prove to be accurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as representation by the Company or any other person that the objectives and plans of the Company will be achieved. In assessing forward-looking statements included herein, readers are urged to carefully read those statements. When used in the Annual Report on Form 10-K, the words "estimate," "anticipate," "expect," "believe," and similar expressions are intended to be forward-looking statements. Investors Relations Contacts: Mark Gilbert Magellan FIN, LLC [email protected] 317-361-2392 (USA) Corporate Headquarters [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] MoneyLion Launches the Financial Heartbeat -- a Fitness-Inspired Mobile Tracker for Finances NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MoneyLion , America's most powerful financial membership designed to help the hardest-working Americans save, borrow and invest, today launched the industry's first health tracker for finances, the Financial Heartbeat. Similar to smartwatches and fitness wearables, the MoneyLion Financial Heartbeat simplifies the tracking and understanding of one's financial wellness on their mobile device. "At MoneyLion we understand that achieving your financial goals requires a steady and frequent engagement with your finances and a dedication to changing bad financial behaviors," said Dee Choubey, CEO and Founder of MoneyLion. "Our Financial Heartbeat was inspired by the fitness industry's widespread adoption of wearables and was innovatively adapted to help our members more easily track and manage the most important aspects of their finances." Behavioral economics show that consumers avoid engaging with their finances because they're complex, difficult to take action on, and more often than not, leave people feeling stressed rather than inspired. Additionally, finances are the number one cause of stress among Americans, with 44 percent of Americans reporting being stressed about their finances. To address these challenges, MoneyLion's Financial Heartbeat combines a simple yet dynamic framework for monitoring financial health and empowers members to improve daily. By simply opening the MoneyLion mobile app and checking your Financial Heartbeat -- a beautifully designed visual representation of a beating heart that changes colors to reflect progress on a scale from 1-10 -- members can quickly evaluate where they are on their financial health journey. The MoneyLion Financial Heartbeat encapsulates five key financial pillars: Save, Spend, Shield, Score and Strive, and surfaces daily insights to help members increase their scores. Save: Measures users' savings and investments levels in real-time as it relates to their financial goas Measures users' savings and investments levels in real-time as it relates to their financial goas Spend: Provides certified financial planning level advice on whether users are overspending or are spending their money wisely Provides certified financial planning level advice on whether users are overspending or are spending their money wisely Shield: Shows users how protected they are in event of emergency, including health, auto and life insurance protection Shows users how protected they are in event of emergency, including health, auto and life insurance protection Score: Provides credit, and credit score monitoring, and advice on how to build a users' credit score Provides credit, and credit score monitoring, and advice on how to build a users' credit score Strive: Provides inspiration to users for building positive daily financial behaviors "When it comes to finances, millions of Americans have lacked access to the basic financial products and tools required to build for tomorrow," said Tim Hong, Chief Product Officer at MoneyLion.. "With the new MoneyLion Financial Heartbeat, we are going to change the way members interact with their finances to feel more confident about their financial well-being, and ideally, lead happier and healthier lives as a result of reduced financial stress." For more information about MoneyLion's Financial Heartbeat, please watch the demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ijxxZ8ZeT0&feature=youtu.be About MoneyLion MoneyLion is America's most powerful and rewarding financial membership, empowering people to take control of their finances to achieve their dreams. Since its launch in 2013, MoneyLion has amassed 4 million loyal members and has earned its customers trust with new banking and investments capabilities that offer a one-of-a-kind rewards program, no-fee checking account, overdraft protection, and loans funded in 15 seconds or less. From a single application platform, users can get a holistic snapshot of their entire financial lives while having access to personalized tips and tools to improve their credit and achieve everyday savings. With the notion that good habits are formed over time, MoneyLion rewards users for each decision along that journey. The success of MoneyLion relies on finding ways to make the members' money work as hard as they do. MoneyLion has offices in New York City, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For more information, visit www.moneylion.com or download the app here. Disclosure MoneyLion's affiliate, ML Wealth LLC, is a Registered Investment Advisor with the SEC. MoneyLion Plus members' investments are protected by the SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) for up to $500,000. Brokerage services provided to clients of ML Wealth by Drive Wealth LLC, a member of FINRA/SIPC. Other services provided by our affiliates including ML Plus, LLC. This communication and all data are for informational purposes only and do not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell securities. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Keep in mind investing involves risk. The value of your investment will fluctuate over time and you may gain or lose money. Nothing in this communication should be construed as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or services. Contacts Tim Black VP, Corporate Communications MoneyLion [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/moneylion-launches-the-financial-heartbeat----a-fitness-inspired-mobile-tracker-for-finances-300813742.html SOURCE MoneyLion [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] TJC Announces Agreement to Acquire Sabre Industries, Inc. in Partnership with Management The Jordan Company, L.P. ("TJC") today announced that an affiliate of The Resolute Fund IV, L.P. ("Resolute IV") has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sabre (News - Alert) Industries, Inc. ("Sabre" or the "Company"), in partnership with the existing Management team, from Kohlberg Investors VII, a fund managed by Kohlberg & Company, LLC ("Kohlberg"). Founded in 1977 and headquartered in Alvarado, Texas, Sabre is a market-leading manufacturer of mission-critical products to the utility and telecom markets. The Company's core offerings include highly-engineered structures and complementary services for the attractive electric transmission and wireless communication end markets, which are driven by the replacement of the aging utility infrastructure and the expansion, modification and densification of existing wireless networks. The Company has approximately 2,400 employees and five state-of-the-art, purpose-built manufacturing facilities that are strategically located throughout the United States. Led by Chief Executive Officer Jim Ruddy, Sabre's seasoned management team has over 80 years of combined leadership experience and deep relationships with its blue-chip customer base. TJC's investment will provide the Sabre management team with significant resources as it continues realizing operational efficiencies and organic growth in the business. "Sabre has a proven track record of providing the high-quality structures and related services that its discerning customers demand. As a result, the Company has seen consistent growth in its base of customers across North America," said John Straus, Partner at TJC. "The Sabre management team has transformed the Company into a market leader that is well-positioned to capitalize on the long-term trends underpinning growth in the electric transmission and wireless communication markets. We look forward to partnering with the entire Sabre team to continue building the Company's portfolio of premium products and services." "We are thrilled to announce our partnership with TJC as we believe there is a tremendous cultural fit between our organizations. The Sabre team is confidnt that TJC's vision for our business, coupled with their significant resources, will help us accelerate the substantial momentum we established with Kohlberg in growing our utility and telecom infrastructure businesses," said Jim Ruddy. "We look forward to working closely with TJC to achieve our strategic growth plan and to continue supporting our customers with the world-class products, engineering and service capabilities that they have come to expect from Sabre." "We are pleased that our partnership with the Sabre team has formed a differentiated market leader in the electric transmission and wireless end markets," commented Benjamin Mao, Partner at Kohlberg. "We look forward to the continued growth and success of Sabre in partnership with TJC." Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal advisor to TJC. Houlihan Lokey Capital Inc. and KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc. acted as financial advisors to Sabre and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP acted as its legal advisor. For any questions, please contact Kristin A. Custar, Partner and Head of the Global Investor Capital Group at TJC, at (212) 572-0829. About The Jordan Company, L.P. TJC, founded in 1982, is a private equity firm with original capital commitments in excess of $11 billion and a 37-year track record of investing in and contributing to the growth of businesses across a wide range of industries. The senior investment team has been investing together for over 20 years and has completed over 120 platform investments and more than 300 add-on acquisitions. The investment team is supported by the Operations Management Group, which was established in 1988 to initiate and drive operational improvements in portfolio companies. Headquartered in New York, NY, TJC also has an office in Chicago, IL. For more information, please visit www.thejordancompany.com. About Sabre Industries, Inc. In business since 1977, Sabre is a leading producer of highly engineered products used for electric transmission and distribution and wireless telecommunications, offering a complete customer solution with a full range of engineered towers, poles, structures and related services. The Company's vast array of product offerings, services and extensive manufacturing capabilities has allowed Sabre to develop leading positions with a high-quality, diversified group of customers including the nation's largest utilities and wireless communications firms. For more information, please visit www.sabreindustries.com. About Kohlberg & Company, LLC Kohlberg & Company, LLC ("Kohlberg") is a leading private equity firm headquartered in Mount Kisco, New York. Since its inception in 1987, Kohlberg has organized eight private equity funds, through which it has raised over $7.5 billion of committed equity capital. Over its 32-year history, Kohlberg has completed 76 platform investments and nearly 200 add-on acquisitions, with an aggregate transaction value in excess of $15 billion. For more information, please visit www.kohlberg.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005427/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] BREAKING NEWS-Dr. Keenan Cofield, Henrietta Lacks, LLC, .Com and Hela-Cells.com Send "CEASE & DESIST LETTER" and "WARNING" with a Notice of Intent to Sue to Google for Hosting Fake News, Blogs and Sites BALTIMORE, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Last week, Henrietta Lacks, LLC and Dr. Keenan Cofield, sent Google officials a letter through its Maryland Resident Agent, to Cease and Desist, along with a Notice of Intent to Sue or take legal action, directing Google take down fake web sites, blogs and other sites, if Google did not scrub and purge those fake defamatory sites and blogs that referred to being family members of the Lacks, or other libelous defamatory statements that are false, inaccurate and pure lies on its servers to billions of users worldwide. Henrietta Lacks, LLC is not playing with Google, and we are setting the tone today with this message. Henrietta Lacks, LLC nor Dr. Keenan Cofield has not authorized Google nor any third parties written consent nor permission to post any fake to false information about them that would violate and/or infringe upon the copyrights, trademarks and other administrative filings of public record. Hopefully, SenatorWarren and Congress STOP messing around and begin hearings necessary to regulate the tech industry. Especially, the content, language and other information on its platform for the world, that tends to be false, fake news, to inaccurate or incorrect information or depicting of individuals in a false light that hurt and harm the victims every minute of every hour, millions are defamed and lives wrecked by false fake stories. President Donald J. Trump, does have a BIG point on this subject, of the fake news. This issue is not limited to the media, but everyday individuals and small companies who have nothing else to do. A Change is about to come to the Technology World. Google, the little people of the world are coming and we demand changes to your rules, policies on how you do business with negative content you allow anyone, anywhere to say what they like on your servers and search systems. Time, for We the People to Push Congress to cut this power source off and regulate it now! CLICK HERE FOR FULL ENTIRE STORY- https://medium.com/@supremegrandbishop/breaking-news-dr-ef1f2bd22437 CONTACT: Office of the Supreme GRAND Bishop Dr. Keenan Cofield, DD/JD/Ph.D./Psy.D Founder & CEO of Henrietta Lacks. LLC, .com & .app Hela-Cells.com, and Dr. Oscar Phillips Baltimore, MD Email: [email protected] or [email protected] 443-554-3715 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Hall Family Office Opens its Innovation Lab to Investment Through Hall Opportunity Fund 1 In a move to address the growing demand by investors for quality curated opportunities in early growth companies, the Hall Family Office is honoring its 64-year legacy of success and innovation by launching Hall Venture Partners (HVP) and its first tax-advantaged venture fund, Hall Opportunity Fund 1. Hall has a 60-plus year legacy in technology, material science acceleration, and exits with more than $450M in exited value with an average of 2.5X ROI. The creation of HVP adds a seasoned venture team that combines a track record of high success with world-class financial and operational experience. HVP partners have directed more than $6B in transactions for portfolios ranging from The Carlyle Group to General Electric. Hall Opportunity Fund 1 has been opened to invest in early growth companies based in Utah, taking advantage of recent federal legislation to encourage investments into federally designated "opportunity zones." If applied properly, the opportunity zone legislation offers huge benefits to investors. It allows deferral of capital gains, potential original gain reductions of 10-15%, and potential permanent deferrals on any gains realized within a qualifie fund. Provo, Utah is home to an opportunity zone that has been identified as one of the top three most attractive opportunity zones nationally, and HVP is ideally positioned to deploy capital immediately into investments that will meet the strict opportunity zone requirements. The HVP managing partners (David Hall, Derek Weber, Matt Van Dyke and David Kunz) and their affiliates are seeding the fund with a capital infusion of $10M, with additional announcements anticipated shortly. The opportunity zone potential is a new and added avenue to potential returns from processes the Hall family has perfected. About Hall Venture Partners Hall Venture Partners (HVP) is a one-of-a-kind venture fund with its headquarters in Provo, Utah, led by world-class management partners David Hall, Derek Weber, Matt Van Dyke and David Kunz. HVP's Opportunity Fund 1 will select its portfolio targets from technology and material science companies, including potentially companies that currently are being supported by the Hall Family Office and established Hall Labs programs. Those companies are ready to enter the market. The fund will provide growth capital and access to resources from the Provo, Utah region, which has been identified as one of the nation's top 3 "opportunity zone" clusters. HVP is confident that it can use the fund to propel optimal expansion and timely exits, with the intention of providing attractive investor returns. As an additional benefit, the fund creates the potential for tax-advantaged "opportunity zone" investments that allow for deferrals of capital gains beyond the real estate sector. For more information, visit www.HallVP.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005605/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Artprice and Artron Are Adapting Their 2019 Strategy to the Art Market Dimension of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) That Will Be Presented by President Xi Jinping This Week in France PARIS, March 18, 2019 /CNW/ -- As part of China's Presidential visit to Europe this week, Mr Xi Jinping will be in France to promote China's New Sild Road over-arching development strategy known officially as "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) or the "Belt and Road Initiative" (the BRI). The Belt and Road Initiative covers approximately 65 countries in Asia and Europe, for a total estimated cost of 55% of global GDP. It involves 70% of the global population 4.4 billion people and 75% of the world's energy reserves, with the total estimated investment period spanning 30 to 35 years for all the projects to be completed. The estimated cost of the first projects stands around 900 billion dollars, for which China is said to consider loans that could amount to 8 trillion dollars, for the future infrastructures in the different countries along the new Silk Road. In his editorial for the 21th Global Art Market Annual Report co-published by Artprice and Artron last week, Mr Wan Jie, Chairman of Artron Group, Artprice's Chinese Institutional partner, stated: "This growth (of the art market) over time, like that of Artron's partnership with Artprice, will continue to accelerate as we integrate our resources, optimize our data, upgrade our Internet technology and diversify our business cooperation models. The result will be a New Silk Road connecting the different art worlds and the markets of the East and the West." In his speech during celebrations marking China's 40 years of reform and economic opening, President Xi Jinping, announced new measures to strengthen China's domestic market, measures that Artprice and Artron have immediately incorporated. In order to best meet the requirements of China's huge domestic market and take full advantage of its economic potential, Artprice has agreed with Artron to further deepen its role in China via the creation and implementation, by the Artron group, of a payment platform as well as various Chinese infrastructures in order to adapt to the new measures announced in February 2019. In this context, Artprice, with Artron, will launch its official campaign with a new Chinese brand name and a new baseline in Chinese that will be communicated to the market before the end of March. This originally unplanned initiative in compliance with the 2019 Chinese measures announced last month and effectively leading to a 'new strategy' has slightly postponed Artprice's initial targets, which otherwise remain unchanged. thierry Ehrmann: "By becoming a Chinese brand for China taking into account the specific tastes of Chinese art lovers, collectors and professionals Artprice is blending into the history and daily life of China's thousand-year-old culture, thereby boosting its notoriety and its sales turnover more quickly". More than ever, one of Artprice's primary objectives is to meet the needs of China's administration and its 34 provinces. This notably includes the requirements of China's customs services in setting up an operational tax base for artworks (where applicable). Besides these initiatives concerning China's domestic market, Artprice has become a member of the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons (launched in 1921). Created at the initiative of the City of Lyons, the Lyons Chamber of Commerce andthe ADERLY, the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons has already brought together many institutional and private partners like Groupe SEB, EDF and the Bank Of China and it defines itself, among other things, as a networking facilitator for contacts at the highest levels in France and China. The mission of this Institute is the international promotion of France and the economic attractiveness of the Lyons region by promoting the economic advantages of Lyons in China and encouraging Chinese investment in the Rhone-Alpes region. It is perfectly logical that Artprice should join the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons because Lyons is historically one of the historical final destinations of Silk Roads since the Renaissance. Lyons is also the most visited French city by Chinese leaders. Moreover, after launching the project for an "Economic corridor traversing countries crossed by the old Silk Road" in 2013, President Xi Jinping made an official visit to Lyons in 2014. Indeed, the New Franco-Chinese Institute of Lyons is born precisely in this context and it intends with its historical connections (since 1921) to give new impetus to the future of relations between Lyons and China, an impetus that Artprice fully endorses. Copyright 2019 thierry Ehrmann www.artprice.com Try our services (free demo): https://www.artprice.com/artist/23640/baishi-qi Subscribe to our services: https://www.artprice.com/subscription About Artprice: Artprice is listed on the Eurolist by Euronext Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC - Reuters: ARTF. Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who certified Biography ) (c) https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2019/03/2019-bio-whoswho-thierry-ehrmann.pdf). Dicover Artprice in video: https://www.artprice.com/video Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians. Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label) Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2018 published last March 2019: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2018 Artprice is associated with Artron Group the Chinese leader in the Art Market, its solid institutional partner. About the Artron Group: "Artron Art Group (Artron), a comprehensive cultural industrial group founded in 1993 by Wan jie, is committed to inheriting, enhancing and spreading art value. Based on abundant art data, Artron provides art industry and art fans with professional service and experience of quality products by integrated application of IT, advanced digital science and innovative crafts and materials. Having produced more than 60,000 books and auction catalogues, Artron is the world's largest art book printer with a total print volume of 300 million a year. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website." Artron's Web: www.Artron.net Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report for 2017 - free access at: Artprice's press releases: http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseen.htm https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom Artmarket News: https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom & https://twitter.com/artmarketdotcom https://www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom 3.8 million subscribers http://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/ Discover the Alchemy and the universe of Artprice http://web.artprice.com/video, which headquarters are the famous Museum of Contemporary Art, the Abode of Chaos: https://issuu.com/demeureduchaos/docs/demeureduchaos-abodeofchaos-opus-ix-1999-2013 https://vimeo.com/124643720 The Contemporary Art Museum The Abode of Chaos https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 3.6 million subscribers Contact: thierry Ehrmann, [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/artprice-and-artron-are-adapting-their-2019-strategy-to-the-art-market-dimension-of-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-that-will-be-presented-by-president-xi-jinping-this-week-in-france-300814035.html SOURCE Artprice.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Kharon Hosts Global Sanctions Summit To Take Place April 8, 2019 In New York City LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kharon announced today it is hosting the inaugural Global Sanctions Summit, which will take place in New York City on April 8, 2019. This event will convene the world's leading sanctions experts, financial crimes compliance professionals, and thought leaders, along with C-suite executives from leading global financial institutions. Panelists will discuss the evolution, legal and regulatory considerations, and business impact of sanctions and sanctions-related risk at a time when increasing government implementation of targeted financial measures and rising expectations for industry have created a complex mix of new challenges and opportunities for international business. The discussions will be strategic, dynamic, and offer current and forward-looking perspectives from industry leaders. Several of the confirmed speakers include CEOs from HSBC and Citibank, former CIA Deputy Director, former Deputy National Security Advisor, former OFAC and FinCEN Directors, and leading financial crimes compliance, sanctions and legal practitioners from more than 20 global financial institutions and law firms. The panel discussions cover a wid range of sanctions-related issues relevant to policymakers, regulators, industry, and other stakeholders, covering the impact of sanctions on business decision-making, analysis of current sanctions policy, best practices in managing sanctions-related risk, and the intersection between sanctions evasion and crypto currency, among other topics. Speaking about the Global Sanctions Summit, Kharon CEO Matthew Epstein said, "Globally, sanctions are increasingly used as a tool to advance national security objectives. Their evolution has created challenges for the private sector, as sanctioned actors and their networks become increasingly sophisticated and opaque in their commercial activities. We have a unique opportunity to hear diverse perspectives from high-level practitioners who come from a wide range of relevant professions and experiences. The Global Sanctions Summit aims to explore the evolving risk and compliance landscape and industry is evolving with it." To learn more about the Global Sanctions Summit or to register please visit www.globalsanctionssummit.com . For further updates about the Summit please follow Kharon on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @KharonData. Kharon is a leading provider of research and data analytics on the networks, activities and jurisdictions targeted by global sanctions programs. Kharon's clients include first tier international financial institutions, global corporates, and professional services firms. Kharon is headed by former senior officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, Office of Foreign Assets Control, and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kharon-hosts-global-sanctions-summit-to-take-place-april-8-2019-in-new-york-city-300814056.html SOURCE Kharon [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Help For Children (HFC) Raises $1 Million At Signature New York Benefit To Fight Child Abuse In New York Help For Children (HFC) today announced that it raised $1 million at its 21st annual HFC New York Benefit to Fight Child Abuse held last week in New York City. The exclusive evening, which took place at The Pool (the former Four Seasons restaurant) located in the landmark setting of the Seagram Building, united leaders from the alternative investment industry for HFC's important mission - the prevention and treatment of child abuse. "The unique surroundings of this year's HFC New York Benefit elevated our 21st annual fundraiser to a truly first-class night for HFC, and a fitting tribute to our Corporate Honoree PwC," said Dean Backer, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and Chair of the HFC Global Board. "We were moved by the support displayed last night by the hedge fund community and are grateful to the entire alternative investment industry for making the fight against child abuse their cause." During the course of the evening, Mr. Backer spoke to a room full of HFC supporters, thanking them for helping raise the $1 million and for their generous support over the past 21 years. Since its inception in 1998, HFC New York has distributed more than $22 million to organizations in metropolitan New York City that work with children and families to prevent and treat child abuse. Mr. Backer also recognized the evening's Corporate Honoree, PwC. PwC, the second largest professional services firm and one of the Big Four auditors, was selected as this year's Corporate Honoree because of its stalwart support of Help For Children's mission at all levels of the organization. In addition to its generous monetary support as an Outstanding Heart HFC Global Sponsor, PwC executives serve on the HFC Global Board, its Events and Grants Committees and in HFC's Young Professionals groups. "PwC is proud to partner with Help For Children in the fight against child abse in New York and across so many other cities where HFC does amazing and inspiring work," said Will Taggart, Partner, PwC and HFC Global Board Member. "Giving back to the communities where we live and work is integral to the PwC culture, and HFC provides a unique and rewarding opportunity to make a tangible and significant impact in the lives of vulnerable children, directly in the communities we serve." HFC premiered its much-anticipated 2019 "Why HFC?" video at the event which can be viewed here. Sponsors of the HFC New York Benefit to Fight Child Abuse include: HEADLINE SPONSOR: EY; PRESENTING SPONSOR: PwC; PARTING GIFT SPONSOR: Schulte Roth & Zabel; LEAD SPONSORS: Anna & Dean Backer, Deloitte (News - Alert), Graham Capital Management, Eminence, Ropes & Gray, Senator Investment Group, Tudor Investment Corporation, Two Sigma; EVENT SPONSORS: Proskauer, SS&C, Universal E-Business Solutions; BENEFACTORS: Ares Management, Capstone (News - Alert) Investment, EvensonBest, Insider, MKP Capital Management, ParkRiver Fund Solutions, Samlyn Capital, Wells Fargo; PATRONS: Angelo, Gordon & Co., BTIG, Castle Rock Management, CBRE, Citi, Enfusion, FinServ Consulting, JSB Partners, MJE Advisors, Peregrine Communications, Pershing Square Capital, Sidley Austin, Stabilis Capital, Ted Moudis Associates, Untracht Early, Withum, Wilshire Phoenix, York Capital Management. Event Photos | Global Sponsors About Help For Children Help For Children (HFC), a not-for-profit established by Hedge Funds Care in 1998, is a global foundation supported by the alternative investment community, including hedge fund, private equity and venture capital sectors. HFC provides grants to the most effective and efficient child abuse prevention and treatment interventions in thirteen locations across seven countries, making the world a safer place for children. Since its inception, HFC has invested more than $53 million in child abuse prevention and treatment programs, impacting more than 80,000 children's lives last year alone. A major portion of HFC's funding comes from HFC Global Sponsors (below). Their year-long corporate partnerships provide critical funds to HFC's efforts to fight child abuse. For more information, visit www.hfc.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005798/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] Insight Select Income Fund Declares Quarterly Dividend Dividend Declaration The Insight Select Income Fund (INSI) (the "Fund") today declared a quarterly dividend of $0.20 and an additional cash dividend of $0.14 on March 18, 2019. The total distribution of $0.34 will be payable on May 8, 2019, to shareholders of record at the close of business on April 5, 2019, with an ex-dividend date of April 4, 2019. Based on the Fund's last four quarterly dividend payments, the Fund's annual dividend payment from ordinary income equates to approximately $0.80 per share. The one-time additional cash dividend of $0.14 is in addition to the quarterly dividend and will be paid out of the Fund's undistributed taxable income ("spillover income", or taxable net income in excess of dividends paid) as of December 31, 2018. The Fund is a diversified closed-end management investment company whose investment objective is to seek a high rate of return, primarily from interest income and trading activity, from a portfolio principally consisting of debt securities. The Fund will also seek capital appreciation principally by purchasing debt securities at prices that the Adviser believes are below their intrinsic value. The Fund ill also look to benefit from trading securities to optimize the risk adjusted yields in the Fund. Insight North America LLC, the Fund's investment adviser, provides fixed income asset management to a variety of institutional clients including corporations, governmental entities, employee benefit plans, private funds and registered investment companies. This press release is not for tax reporting purposes but is being provided to announce the amount of the Fund's distribution that have been declared by the Board of Trustees. A portion of the Fund's current distribution may include sources other than net investment income, including a return of capital. Investors should understand that a return of capital is not a distribution from income or gains of a Fund. As required under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, a notice with the estimated components of the distribution will be sent to shareholders at the time of payment if it does not consist solely of net investment income. The notice should not be used to prepare tax returns as the estimates indicated in the notice may differ from the ultimate federal income tax characterization of distributions. After the end of each calendar year, investors will be sent a Form 1099-DIV informing them how to report distributions received during that year for federal income tax purposes. Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. An investor should consider a Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190318005806/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [March 18, 2019] X Financial Announces Dividend of US $0.10 per ADS for Fiscal Year of 2018 SHENZHEN, China, March 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- X Financial (NYSE: XYF) (the "Company" or "we"), a leading technology-driven personal finance company in China, today announced the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board") has approved an annual cash dividend policy for fiscal year 2018. The amount of cash dividends to be distributed for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018 is US$0.10 per American Depositary Share ("ADS") (or US$0.05 per ordinary share), equivalent to approximately US$15.0 million in total. The dividends are expected to be paid on April 26, 2019 to the holders of the Company's ordinary shares of record as of the close of business on April 5, 2019. The determination to declare and pay the annual dividend and the amount of dividend in any year will be made at the discretion of the Board and will be based upon the Company's operations and earnings, cash flow, financial condition and other relevant factors that the Board may deem appropriate. As of December 31, 2018, the Company had approximately RMB860.0million (US$125.1 million) in cash and cash equivalents. Mr. Justin Tang, Chairman and CEO of X Financial, said: "We are glad to announce our first dividend distribution as a listed company. We believe the dividend policy demonstrates our confidence in the strong growth potential of our business and future business prospects. We will continue to heavily invest in our R&D, risk control and new business sectors, to drive long term growth of our business and reward our shareholders." About X Financial X Financial (NYSE: XYF) (the "Company") is a leading technology-driven personal finance company in China focused on meeting the huge demand for credit from individuals and small-to-medium-sized enterprise owners. The Company's proprietary big data-driven risk control system, WinSAFE, builds risk profiles of prospective borrowers using a variety data-driven credit assessment methodology to accurately evaluate a borrower's value, payment capability, payment attitude and overall crditworthiness. X Financial has established a strategic partnership with ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co., Ltd. in multiple areas of its business operations to directly complement its cutting-edge risk management and credit assessment capabilities. ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co., Ltd. provides credit insurance on X Financial's investment products which significantly enhances investor confidence and allows the Company to attract a diversified and low-cost funding base from individuals, enterprises and financial institutions to support its growth. X Financial leverages financial technology to provide convenient, efficient, and secure investment services to a wide range of high-quality borrowers and mass affluent investors which complements traditional financial institutions and helps to promote the development of inclusive finance in China. For more information, please visit: http://ir.xiaoyinggroup.com. Safe Harbor Statement This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," "targets," "guidance" and similar statements. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Any statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements that involve factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, but not limited to the following: the Company's goals and strategies; its future business development, financial condition and results of operations; the expected growth of the credit industry, and marketplace lending in particular, in China; the demand for and market acceptance of its marketplace's products and services; its ability to attract and retain borrowers and investors on its marketplace; its relationships with its strategic cooperation partners; competition in its industry; and relevant government policies and regulations relating to the corporate structure, business and industry. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this announcement is current as of the date of this announcement, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law. For more information, please contact: X Financial Ms. Jennifer Zhang E-mail: [email protected] Christensen In China Mr. Christian Arnell Phone: +86-10-5900-1548 E-mail: [email protected] In US Ms. Linda Bergkamp Phone: +1-480-614-3004 Email: [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/x-financial-announces-dividend-of-us-0-10-per-ads-for-fiscal-year-of-2018--300813960.html SOURCE X Financial [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] >>> Vietnam, South Africa agree to boost comprehensive cooperation The news agency quoted South Africas Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Reginah Mhaule as saying during the meeting that the two sides should remove their market barriers. The deputy minister also stressed the significance of bilateral cooperation in wildlife preservation and protection. On the Vietnamese side, Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Cuong, who co-chaired the meeting with Reginah Mhaule, lauded outcomes of the bilateral relations, as reflected through the exchange of 14 high-level visits since the third forum in Hanoi in 2015, particularly the visit to Vietnam by Vice President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2016 and the South Africa visit by National Assembly Vice Chairman Do Ba Ty in 2017. The official called on the two sides to step up their ties in defence and security to elevate the relationship to a new high with mutual trust, while enhancing links in other fields. The news agency also highlighted the discussion on new political developments in each country along with regional issues of shared concern during the forum. Vietnam and South Africa set up diplomatic ties in December 1993. Bilateral trade currently hits about US$1 billion each year. (Image credit: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock) WinRAR's unlimited trial period has made the compression tool so popular that paying for it has become a meme. The program is said to be used by 500 million people, many of whom are affected by a 19-year-old vulnerability that's still being exploited today, as recent McAfee research has made apparent. Check Point Research revealed the vulnerability on February 20. On Thursday, McAfee Labs said it observed "over 100 unique exploits and counting, with most of the initial targets residing in the United States at the time of writing" in the first week since Check Point made its revelation. Hackers are rushing to take advantage of the vulnerability before those 500 million people install the patched version of WinRAR. The vulnerability itself, according to Check Point, lets hackers "gain full control over a victim's computer" by "just extracting an archive." The issue lies with "an old, dated dynamic link library (dll) that was compiled back in 2006 without a protection mechanism (like ASLR, DEP, etc.) and is used by WinRAR." Check Point published a YouTube video demonstrating the exploit: The discovery led WinRAR's creator, Rarlab, to drop support for the vulnerable format (UNACEV2.DLL) from WinRAR version 5.70. The company said UNACEV2.DLL hadn't been updated since 2005, and because it didn't have access to the source code, it couldn't resolve the problem itself. So it ditched ACE archive support. But the problem is that many people--to put it bluntly--suck at updating their software, especially when it's a free program like WinRAR that, frankly, they were probably using for pirated files anyway. Check Point's revelation gave hackers a window to exploit the vulnerability before half a billion people updated WinRAR. McAfee said it observed the vulnerability being exploited in the U.S. a week after it was publicly revealed. It also noted the piracy connection: "One recent example piggybacks on a bootlegged copy of Ariana Grandes hit album 'Thank U, Next' with a file name of 'Ariana_Grande-thank_u,_next(2019)_[320].rar'." WinRAR users should update to version 5.70 of the program, and, if possible, refrain from using the tool to open questionable files until after interest in exploiting this vulnerability dies down. Then maybe they should consider embracing the meme and actually buying the program so security updates like this can continue. AND WE'RE BACK!!! The Local Morning News Cycle Happy Talk Was Mostly About Ice Cream It's back! Blue Bell returns to Kansas City Monday! It's been a long wait, but Blue Bell Ice Cream is finally back in the Kansas City metro area.Blue Bell starts to return to store shelves Monday. The return comes nearly four years after an outbreak that killed three Kansans. The CDC said a total of 10 people became sick in connection with the ice cream in 2015. Local Foodie Crackdown KCFD proposes food truck inspections in update to fire code KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Food trucks in Kansas City, Missouri, would have to get an inspection from the fire department if the city adopts a proposed update to the fire code. The updates were originally scheduled to go to a committee of city council members for review Wednesday, but are now rescheduled for June. Urban Core Blaze Aftermath Fire destroys home near 15th, Winchester in east Kansas City KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Firefighters are working to find out what caused an early morning blaze that destroyed a house. Crews were called about 3:45 a.m. Monday to East 15th Street and Winchester Avenue just off Truman Road. The home was vacant. The next door neighbors called 911 when they woke up to flames. Kansas B-Ball Competition Kansas and Kansas State both receive No. 4 seeds in NCAA Tournament Breaking News WASHINGTON (AP) - Big 12 co-champion Kansas State is a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament's South Region, with an opening round game against No. 13 UC Irvine in San Jose, Calif. on Friday. Kansas drew a No. 4 seed in the Midwestern Regional of the NCAA Tournament. Mizzou Stays Losing In SEC Ticket sales tumble as Missouri football tries to keep up ABOUT THIS SERIES: More than seven years after MU uprooted its history in the Big 12 Conference, the Missourian examines whether one of the biggest decisions in the university's history has met expectations. In this series, we explore the benefits - and drawbacks - of the school's move to the Southeastern Conference. Kansas City Katie Forecast Sunny, warm Monday; rain likely Tuesday We're watching what expected rain will do to already flooded rivers in the area. Inside The Loop Agenda Downtown has it all this week: NAIA, Ballet, Buble, PBR & more March Madness continues this week with the return of the NAIA Men's Basketball National Championship tournament, along with an over-the-top week at Sprint Center; a celebration at the Folly Theater; eight amazing performances at the Kauffman Center; and three stellar shows at the Midland. A hottie who started her journey by way of a "leaked" pr0n tape now hasfrom both progressives and among supporters of Prez Trump who has praised her efforts . . . Here's just a glimpse of her important life:Closer to home, here are Kansas City morning news links that aren't quite as glamorous but still help to define our daily discourse:is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . . Former master's students suing School of Education Former School of Education master's students Reva Bell and Domonique Johnson are suing UMKC. Their lawsuit alleges that by "using deception, fraud and concealed material facts" the university violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act and the Kansas Consumer Protection Act. Our 3rd choice city college faces more criticism this time from students who claim deception regarding the value and ultimate price of their degree. Take a look: Tourexpi, turizm haberleri, Reiseburos, tourism news, noticias de turismo, Tourismus Nachrichten, , travel tourism news, international tourism news, Urlaub, urlaub in der turkei, , holidays in Turkey, , global tourism news, dunya turizm, dunya turizm haberleri, Seyahat Acentas, This site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, at a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. uttara@tribuneindia.com Mumbai, March 18 Jet Airways on Monday defaulted on payment to its debenture-holdersthe third default since Januaryeven as airline chairman Naresh Goyal assured the employee of a resolution in the immediate possible time, but said more time is needed to clinch bailout. Goyal, in a letter to the 16,000 staff, which comes ahead of the domestic pilots body National Aviator's Guild annual meeting here, said talks with the airline's strategic partner Etihad Airways and SBI-led lenders are going on. Though Goyal sought more time to clinch the deal, he did not offer a time-line for the same. The UAE flag carrier owns 24 percent in Jet and its board is considering a draft agreement as part of a debt- recast plan being mooted by the airline's lenders led by SBI. Earlier, Jet informed the exchanges that "the payment of interest due on March 19 to the debenture-holders will be delayed owing to temporary liquidity constraints". This is the third time the airline is defaulting in this year as earlier it failed to meet its payment obligations towards the domestic banks' loans (in January) as well as on part-repayment of its external commercial borrowings due to liquidity crunch earlier this month. The airline, which has a debt of over Rs 8,200 crore, did not specify what is the quantum of interest due Tuesday nor quantum of the debt on this particular account. On February 14, its board had approved a bank-led- resolution plan, whereby the SBI-consortium of lenders will become the largest shareholders in the airline and Goyal would exit the management as the chairman and board member. If the resolution plans goes through, banks would convert a part of their debt into 11.4 crore shares for a consideration of Re 1 as per the RBI norms. Last week, SBI sounded hopeful of reaching an early solution by this week. In his letter to the employees, Goyal said: "The situation, though complex, has my personal attention towards an early resolution...the complexity of the process though has led to some delays and will require further time to conclude". "Once again I assure you that I am personally committed to have the resolution process completed as soon as possible and restore the much-needed stability to our operations at the earliest," he said. Since a larger number of planes from its over 100- fleet are grounded leading to drastically curtailed operations, the airline is struggling to prevent a nose dive somehow. Of this as many as 41 aircraft are grounded for non- payment of lease rentals to lessors. Following this, the airline has indefinitely suspended its operations from Abu Dhabi, one of its two global gateways the other being one in Amsterdam.8 Jet Airways has been struggling to mop up cash to carry out operations. While discussions with the lessors continue, Goyal said as a responsible airline, Jet has "consciously" and "proactively" decided to curtail its schedule according to the number of aircraft it is currently operating. "This will ensure the sanctity of our schedule, while keeping the regulatory authorities briefed," said Goyal, who set up the airline after converting his airline ticketing business a quarter of a century ago. For the past few weeks, its passengers have been venting their ire on social media as its flight cancellations have increased gradually due to rising number of planes getting grounded. On the non-payment of salaries to pilots along with senior management and engineers, Goyal said he is fully committed to ensure that their dues are cleared on priority once all parties sign on the resolution plan. The pilots with other senior staff are to get their full salaries of January and February besides 87.5 per cent of the December pay. "We are holding our annual meeting Tuesday. During the meeting, besides discussing our general issues, we will also be deliberating on the present scenario (non-payment of salaries)," a source told PTI earlier in the day. Having failed to get any assurance from the management on payment of overdue salaries, the pilots body last week wrote to Union Labor Minister Santosh Gangwar seeking his intervention in recovering their dues along with the accumulated interest. Acute liquidity crunch has forced it to ground aircraft, shut down stations and delay salary payments to its pilots and engineers along with other senior staff. The airline has, so far has grounded 41 planes only on account of non-payment of lease rentals. These don't include other planes which have been taken out of operations for maintenance. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, March 18 Embattled billionaire Anil Ambani on Monday warded off a possible jail term as RCom cleared dues of a Swedish service provider at the eleventh hour with money received from elder brother Mukesh, whom he thanked for standing by him in trying times and extending timely support. Anils heavily debt-laden Reliance Communications made a Rs 550-crore payment, including interest, to Ericsson just a day before expiry of the deadline set by the Supreme Court to clear dues or face a three-month jail term. Soon after making the payment, RCom announced termination of a Rs 17,000 crore deal to sell telecom assets like spectrum, fibre and tower to Mukeshs Reliance Jio, citing delays in approvals from the government and lenders. Anil, whose businesses in telecom and power sectors went into heavy debt in the face of regulatory headwinds and intense competition, thanked Mukesh and his wife Nita for bailing him out. My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support, a late night statement issued by Anils firm quoted him as saying. Anil said he and his family are grateful and deeply touched with this gesture that they have moved beyond the past. In the statement, RCom said Rs 550 crore dues to Ericsson, including interest dues, has been made in compliance with the Supreme Court judgement. However, the company did not give details about the source of funds but cited timely support from Mukesh in the trying times. The two brothers had fought a bitter public battle after his father Dhirubhai died without leaving a will. They split his businesses between themselves, with Anil getting telecom and power while Mukesh retained oil and petrochemical businesses. The split did not end the feud and the two bickered over commitment of Mukeshs Reliance Industries for supply of gas to Anils power plants. In 2008, Anils RCom wanted to merge with South Africas MTN but the move was thwarted by Mukesh citing his holding right of first refusal. Since then, the two brothers scrapped a no-compete agreement and Mukesh re-entered telecom business in 2016 offering free voice call for life and data at dirt cheap prices. As debt grew, RCom, in December 2017, entered into a deal with Jio to sell spectrum and other assets such as fibre network and telecom towers for an estimated Rs 17,000 crore. But the deal could not progress amid regulatory hurdles faced as the Department of Telecommunications wanted a written assurance on who would pay for RComs dues such as spectrum fee. Jio refused to make a commitment to pay for such fee and lenders to RCom also played hardball, resulting in the deal falling through. In separate statements, RCom and Jio announced scrapping of the deal, citing delays in getting approvals from the government and lenders. The said transactions have become incapable of being consummated in accordance with the terms thereof, on account of various factors and developments since the execution of the said agreements nearly 15 months ago..., RCom said. Jio said the master agreement for acquisition of certain specific assets of RCom and the spectrum trading agreement for change in allotment of certain specific spectrum stand terminated. This, it said, also follows the Board of Directors of RCom passing a resolution to seek fast track resolution through bankruptcy court and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on February 4 restricting the sale, transfer or alienation of any movable or immovable property of RCom. The termination of the master agreement shall not, in any manner, affect the rights and obligations of the parties, accrued prior to the date of termination, it said. An Ericsson spokesperson confirmed that it has received balance payment of Rs 458.77 crore (principal amount) from RCom on Monday. Together with Rs 118 crore it had previously paid, RCom has cleared all dues, including interest. Last month, the Supreme Court held Ambani in contempt for not paying Ericssons dues despite promising to do so. The court had warned to send Anil as well as Chhaya Virani and Satish Seth -- chairmen of two RCom units to jail if they fail to pay the dues in four weeks. The deadline expires Tuesday. The company suffered a blow when National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), last week, refused to free up Rs 260 crore tax refunds withheld by the lenders. Banks had opposed release of the tax refunds. In 2017, Ericsson moved a bankruptcy court alleging it had not been paid dues around Rs 1,600 crore after signing a deal in 2013 to operate, maintain and manage the telcos nationwide network. It extracted a personal guarantee from Ambani to pay the dues. RCom scrip closed at Rs 4 a share on the BSE Monday, 9.30 per cent lower than the previous close. PTI editorial@tribune.com Akash Ghai Tribune News Service Mohali, March 17 The Indo-Pak tension has adversely affected domestic flights in the region. Air India had to cancel some of its Chandigarh-Delhi flights from the local airport under makeshift arrangements. Sources said the routes of international flights over Pakistan had been closed due to which several flights were taking longer to reach their destinations, which in turn was causing disruption in domestic flights. Air India has cancelled its Delhi-Chandigarh/Chandigarh-Delhi (AI 463/464) flight for three days from tomorrow till March 20 due to operational reasons. Today, the Air India flight from Delhi arrived at the airport in Mohali at 12.05 pm and departed for Delhi at 12.50 pm. Besides, Air India has also cancelled its Alliance flight from Kullu to Chandigarh and Chandigarh to Kullu for three days. The Chandigarh-Kullu/Kullu-Chandigarh flight will not operate tomorrow, on March 20 and on March 21, said MR Jindal, station manager of Air India, Chandigarh. Sources said following closure of Pakistan air space, domestic flight operations had been disrupted. Several international flights, which earlier crossed over Pakistan, have now changed their routes to avoid Pakistan airspace. As a result, the duration of the (international flights) journey has increased substantially in several cases, which consequently has started adversely affecting flight schedules, including domestic operations, said the sources. The disruption in flight operations has occurred as airlines had to adjust flight routes by cancelling some flights. Air India recently had to cancel its certain international flights, including New Delhi to Birmingham and Kabul. The disruption in flight operations will continue in the coming days, said the sources. editorial@tribune.com Naina Mishra Tribune News Service Chandigarh, March 17 Despite receiving income proofs attested by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) office for the economically weaker section (EWS) candidates, private schools are seeking bank account statements and other additional documents from parents who applied for admissions under the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Recently, Stepping Stones School, Sector 37, asked for the bank account statement from a candidates parent in possession of the income certificate attested by the DC office, who in turn approached the District Education Office, complaining against the school for seeking bank statement. District Education Officer, Anujit Kaur, said: The income certificates by the DC office are a proof of income. The schools cannot ask for bank account statements. We have asked the parent to submit a representation so that we can inquire into the matter. Meanwhile, Captain Sanjeev Kumar, Administrator of the school, said: Parents who are complaining about the school asking for bank account statements are probably the ones who are faking the EWS status. Those complaining are those have their income certificate attested by the DC office, but surprisingly, they come to school in cars, own two-storey houses. Thats why, they have problem showing their bank statements. He said: If we cant ask for such documents, then how are we going to verify the authenticity of the EWS cases? For the generation of income certificate by the DC office, an applicant has to self-declare the monthly income of other members of his/her family, total annual family income from all sources and total monthly family income from all sources. No proof of income is required. Tender Heart School also sought the list of documents given by the EWS applicants to the DC office under Right to Information (RTI) Act to verify the authenticity of the cases. Saint Soldier International School, Sector 28, demanded a checklist of documents for EWS admissions. This included a copy of income tax return and salary certificate of parents. However, it does not mention on its website that the school will accept income certificate attested by the DC office. editorial@tribune.com Sandeep Rana Tribune News Service Chandigarh, March 17 Even as some city dispensaries were upgraded to health and wellness centres under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, these continue to face a shortage of doctors. At the dispensaries in Sector 8, 20 and 50, and Hallo Majra, except for a few days, there is no regular doctor throughout the week. They run without a doctor for two to four days in a week, leaving patients at the receiving end. At the newly opened dispensary in Sector 50, doctors from various dispensaries have been asked to work on a rotation basis. The doctors have to remain absent for a day or two at their own dispensaries to run the Sector 50 dispensary. Doctors from the Sector 8 and 20 dispensaries go to attend to patients at the Hallo Majra dispensary as there is no doctor there. As a result, the Sector 8 and 20 health facilities are hit as these remain without a doctor for some days. I have come here for a check-up, but there is no doctor. The staff are saying they too are waiting for the doctor. There is only one doctor, besides a dentist. The doctor has duties in some other dispensaries too for some days, rued a senior citizen, Satish Mahajan. Dr Vandana Janmeja said, I am not available for two days. On Tuesday, my duty is at Hallo Majra and on Thursday, my duty is at the Sector 8 facility. Officials said similar was the plight of other dispensaries where doctors were being managed on a rotation basis. This has led to harassment of residents. Dr G Diwan, Director, Health Services, UT, did not respond to a query put to him by Chandigarh Tribune. Dr Amrit Warring, Medical Officer of Health (MOH), MC, said, We have 20 dispensaries and have 18 doctors. We have already issued an advertisement to hire five more doctors to fill the gap. We are just seeking a clarification from the Election Commission. Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) Former GOC, 15 Corps, Kashmir WHEN events take place at the most unexpected places, the lessons are often unusually clear. Christchurch, in peaceful New Zealand, has one of the most stable societies, yet it was rocked by a massacre on March 15, rightly described as a terrorist act by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The attack on two mosques on Friday, when Muslims congregate in large numbers for prayers, left 49 dead. A white supremacist from Grafton (Australia), Brenton Tarrant, is the accused. There have been many killings perpetrated by Islamic terrorists against non-Muslims all over the world; in comparison, killings of innocent Muslims by non-Muslim terrorists have been few and far between. There remains awkwardness among more developed societies to term such acts as those of terror. The effects of a backlash against trans-national migration have had much to do with the targeting of Muslims and non-Muslims. The actions of terrorists following the Islamic faith have had a major impact on creating antipathy and alienation against innocent Muslims too. The Christchurch incident has many aspects from which lessons need to be learnt. It commences with the fact that terrorist acts in todays world can take place almost anywhere under the sun. It is due to the all-pervading influence of the Internet which can impact people in indeterminate ways. It allows them to brood with progressive negativity and have grudges against society at large and against specific segments of people. The free availability of detailed legacy literature from previous acts of violence further helps develop all the above. In the instant case, Tarrant was largely influenced by Norwegian Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, and to an extent by the killings of Muslims in South Carolina (US) in 2015. How he networked with groups around the world bearing right-wing, white supremacist ideology will be revealed in subsequent interrogation because he has lived to tell the tale. It is known that he perceives himself as European by race and has intense hatred for people from Turkey, China and India nations from where migration has been rife. What the Dark Web has done is the closeting of hate groups around the world to perform such acts of heinous violence, mostly acting as lone wolves. The second thing which stands out from this incident is the stellar leadership of the New Zealand PM. Uncomplicated by politics, she took to doing everything which was correct, thus setting a precedent and a model of behaviour for political leaders around the world. No doubt New Zealand is not a complicated nation and events there may not make such an international impact. Yet, it is dependent on migration to overcome some of the features of demographic deficit. Within the constraints, Ardern has set what must become a norm leaders have the moral responsibility to set aside all other things and get to the moral truth. What has happened in Christchurch is an extraordinary act of unprecedented violence. It has no place in New Zealand. Many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities. New Zealand is their home they are us, tweeted the PM. She also immediately promised that gun laws of New Zealand would change. All the right words and messages in the shortest possible time, and that too put out personally. It has had a major effect on inter-community bonding in that country. Australia, similarly, was quick to take ownership of the perpetrator instead of going into the denial mode and awaiting more evidence. The live-streaming of the incident on Facebook through a helmet camera was done for a spectacular effect. Facebook, however, acted with great speed and responsibility to take down the recording. Social media can be villainous in the spread of hate. Companies will need to invest as much in monitoring web content as in creating it. Legacy content of a negative quality which can have a psychological impact must be taken down at the first instance, or forced diversion by software to other positive literature must be ensured. Congregation of immigrants on foreign land, even for innocuous purposes such as festivals or prayers, tends to unnerve the host community. The developed world, which hosts many communities of immigrants, has to be mindful of this. Yet, it cannot force people to forego the basic right to congregate. Physical security will have to be increasingly invested in, but more importantly, sensitisation of both the hosts and the immigrants will need to be done if alienation is to be avoided. The perception among the host communities that immigrant presence is holding them hostage to alien culture promotes such alienation. Symbols of faith such as those of Islam and Sikhism are not easily acceptable and set migrants apart distinctively. The necessity of regular interaction between communities and participation in single-community events will help. In European countries, ghettos of immigrants have prevented integration, while later-generation immigrants born and naturalised in such host countries resent their inability to afford and exploit better opportunities. These are all specific social negatives of migration worldwide which cannot be overlooked. Europe, in particular, has witnessed considerable migration in the past few years. Aggressive attempts at establishing perceived distinctive cultural rights have a cascading effect on inter-community relations. At the same time, political posturing to safeguard the host communitys rights creates a conflict of interests which manifests itself in violence of this kind. Extreme-right networks with terrorist ambitions span Italy, France, the US, and Russia. The phenomenon has been relatively less monitored due to the greater worldwide threat posed by Islamic terrorists. India is one of the countries from where the diaspora is based in many parts of the world. By and large, Indians have been model migrants, hardworking and untroublesome. Yet, cultural alienation in their case may not be the cause of alienation as much as their propensity to outshine their hosts in wealth creation and achieving a higher quality of life. This is a phenomenon that both Indians and Chinese have to contend with in their adopted nations. laxmi@tribune.com Prateek Chauhan Tribune News Service New Delhi, March 17 The Delhi Police recently apprehended drug smugglers with 83 kg heroin. During interrogation it was revealed that the contraband was brought in Delhi to use in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Expecting strict security in the coming days, they were working rapidly and storing the contraband as they had to supply it to various places and Delhi is the transit point. A senior police official said in most of the cases it has come to fore that the heroin is brought in India from Pakistan through Bangladesh and Myanmar, said DCP PS Kushwah. Here in India, it is refined and smuggled to other countries. The opium farming areas have become the rest houses of the heroin smugglers. In some parts of Bareilly (UP) and Manipur (Northeast), government cultivates opium for medicinal purpose, he said. The drug smugglers use the opium to make heroin. The Special Cell disclosed that some gangs are operating from Bareilly and Manipur and some of the smugglers have been arrested from these places. In fact, the cost of heroin is high, therefore people get trapped in smuggling for sake good profit, the DCP said. Some of the foreign smugglers are also involved in it. They manage to send drugs to America, Myanmar, Middle East and other countries through courier services, the DCP said. The official said the money received by this trade reaches to terrorist organisations. The smugglers sitting in Pakistan and Afghanistan use this money in terrorist activities, especially in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, he added. The terrorist organisations are paid through 'hawala' and internet. In most of the cases, it is found that smugglers are active in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal. In 2018, the Delhi Police exposed 25 such smugglers and confiscated 275 kg heroin, the DCP said. Nearly, 60 people have been arrested this year till March and around 100 kg heroin has been seized. vinaymishra188@gmail.com Christchurch, March 17 Five Indians have been killed in the terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch in which 50 persons lost their lives, the Indian High Commission said today, as New Zealand grapples with the emotional fallout of its worst attack on Muslims. The attacker, identified by authorities as Australia-born Brenton Tarrant, 28, reportedly targeted immigrants during Friday prayers. Witnesses said victims were shot at close range. The High Commission confirmed on Sunday that five Indians were killed in the attack. With a very heavy heart we share the news of loss of precious lives of our 5 nationals in ghastly terror attack in #Christchurch, it tweeted. It identified them as: Maheboob Khokhar; Ramiz Vora; Asif Vora; Ansi Alibava; and Ozair Kadir. In another tweet later, the High Commission said the Immigration NZ had set up a dedicated webpage to expedite visa for family members of Christchurch victims. The Indian mission also said that a support group had been established in Christchurch to assist the families. In another tweet, the commission urged people to donate blood. Blood donors reqd: there may be a need for blood donation for #Christchurch victims. If you are A+ or O+ please contact your nearest New Zealand blood bank branch. Thank you, it said. The body of the 50th victim was discovered at the Al Noor mosque on Saturday. Several of the victims are foreign nationals. PTI Hyderabad man to be buried there ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM HEADING the Haryana BJP in 2014, Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma led the party to a stupendous victory in the Lok Sabha elections, winning seven of the10 seats. Thereafter, the party won the Assembly polls, bagging 47 of the 90 seats. In an interview with The Tribune reporter Pradeep Sharma, he spoke on a number of issues and the BJPs prospects in the General Election. Excerpts: What is your reaction to AAP convener Arvind Kejriwals proposal to the Congress and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) to joins hands with his party to defeat the BJP in Haryana? Kejriwal will go down in Indias electoral history as the most opportunistic leader. The very fact that he wants parties with diverse ideologies to come together with the sole objective of defeating the BJP shows the Opposition has conceded defeat already. What are the key issues in these elections? The performance of the BJP governments at the Centre and in Haryana, with focus on development, is the main issue. People have realised only a strong and stable government under Modi can ensure progress. Will anti-incumbency be a factor in Haryana? As opposed to anti-incumbency, there is a strong sentiment in favour of the incumbent BJP governments at the Centre and in Haryana. Unprecedented development across the country and in Haryana in particular will pay us rich dividends in the elections. There are reports the BJP may strike a truck with the INLD for the polls. As of now, there are no talks of alliance with any party. The BJP is in a position to win all Haryana seat on its own. Any decision on an alliance is the prerogative of the party high command. Will you contest the Lok Sabha elections? As a disciplined soldier of the party, I am ready to don any role assigned to me by the party high command. How do you see the political situation emerging in Haryana in the run-up to the elections? The faction-ridden Congress is yet to get into poll mode. Post split, the INLD is a pale shadow of itself. The AAP and JJP are yet to set up a party structure with a grassroots reach. The BSP-LSP alliance will eat into the Opposition votes. All this will mean advantage BJP. Anticipating party ticket, some Opposition leaders have joined the BJP. Will this not demoralise loyalists? The BJP is the countrys political Ganga and anybody reposing faith in the party ideology is welcome. Our leaders and the cadre work selflessly for the party and the country. They do not work for a post or position. The party high commands decision on ticket allotment is final. There is a strong sentiment in favour of the BJP governments at the Centre and in Haryana owing to unprecedented development. Ram Bilas Sharma, Haryana Education Minister editorial@tribune.com Bijendra Ahlawat Tribune News Service Faridabad, March 17 The Power Department, which is responsible for refunding the power bill for the duration of power outages to large industrial consumers under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) of the Electricity Act, has allegedly failed to adjust Rs 2 crore in the account of 25 consumers here over the past five years. Revealing this, sources here claimed that the amount which was to be refunded through adjustment in the monthly bills had not been done for the past five years, leading to resentment among entrepreneurs. It is claimed that only those consumers who had the minimum of 1 MW power connection and an independent supply feeder are eligible to get the benefit. Col S Kapoor (retd), executive director, Faridabad Industries Association (FIA), said the issue of delay in refund has been taken up with the authorities concerned, but to no avail. Giving details, he said such consumers make arrangements for alternative power supply from the Open Access System (OAS). Under it, anyone could bid for power purchase from third party (other than DHBVN) online if the applicant was unsure of outage-free supply from the original source. Though the power is made available through the existing infrastructure, it is supplied by sellers listed on the OAS network for a particular time period. The OAS has been functional since 2010. The surplus power could be made available from sources like Sikkim, Jharkhand, Himachal, Tamil Nadu or any other state that was listed on the online system, it is claimed. The bid is done on the pattern of share market system for various slots on any given day. The supply from OAS could be cheaper or costlier depending upon demand and supply. Admitting that the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) allows for such a refund, Jitender Dhull, XEN (NIT) claimed that he had no information of the amount pending on this front at present. rchopra@tribunemail.com Aditi Tandon & Ravi S.Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, March 18 The Congress on Monday finally announced the Haryana poll coordination committee to be led by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. AICC general secretary in charge Haryana Ghulam Nabi Azad announced the panel which has state chief Ashok Tanwar, Kiran Choudhry, Selja, Kuldeep Bishnoi and Kuldeep Sharma as members. All Haryana leaders would travel together in the state in a bus to send a message of unity, Azad said. 'United' Later on Monday, Hooda dismissed reports of factionalism in the partys state unit saying that the Congress partys coordination committee was a reflection of unity. Hooda is chairman of an election coordination committee that also has among its members state Congress president Ashok Tanwara man considered Hoodas rival. "The coordination committee is the united face of the Congress in Haryana. The party will head into the elections with a positive outlook, and in high spirits," Hooda said. The party will hold its first meeting on Tuesday. Asked when the party would announce candidates, Hooda said all elections issues would be discussed at Tuesdays meeting. He said the party was already in election mode, with leaders holding meetings in their areas of influence. He added that his Kranti Rath Yatra would continue as planned. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Kurukshetra, March 17 The Left front on Sunday jointly announced names of candidates for the Lok Sabha seats of Ambala (SC reserved) and Hisar. At a joint political rally organised in Jind, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Sukhbir Singh of the party would be fielded from Hisar and CPIs Arun Kumar would contest from Ambala. Yechury said the BJP government had failed to work for the farming community and other oppressed sections of society. He gave a call to oust the BJP to maintain community harmony. Mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modis chowkidar campaign launched on social media on Sunday, CPM leader said the BJP government needs to explain why its policies have failed to check farmer suicides. He alleged that public sector assets are being given to private players under a conspiracy of favouritism by the BJP leadership. CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said that unemployment among the highly educated had reached its peak under the BJP regime. He said that nobody opposed cow protection but mob lynching of members of the minority community in the name of cow protection was reprehensible. Sudhakar blamed the Sangh Parivar for the murders of secular intellectuals, including Gauri Lankesh and Govind Pansare. He ridiculed BJP president for claiming invincibility when his party had been voted out in so many states during the past five years. editorial@tribune.com Kuldeep Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, March 17 Tribals of two gram panchayats, Sissu and Koksar, in the Lahaul valley have threatened to boycott the May 19 Lok Sabha elections, saying that the state and Central governments have failed to ensure communication, road and air connectivity and electricity even after a month this winter in the wake of heavy snow. According to Sissu panchayat pradhan Suman Kumari and vice-pradhan Manoj Kumar, villagers sat on a dharna on the premises of the police post today as all representations to the state government had fallen on deaf ears. The BRO is yet to open the Tandi-Sissu-Koksar part of the highway. The government did not operate even a single flight from the Sissu helipad this winter, where over 40 people are still waiting for the state chopper so that they can fly to Kullu, said Suman. We have been forced to live in dark ages without electricity and communication as the HPSEBL and the BSNL have not bothered to restore these services even after a month, tribals rued. They said the villagers had decided to boycott the Lok Sabha elections. We are writing to the Election Commission of India, highlighting the problems people are facing, they added. They were living in six to eight feet of snow in the valley without the basic facilities, said Prem Singh, said a local on the telephone from Keylong. Officialspeak "The flights were cancelled due to bad weather. There is 8 feet of snow in the area and the BRO will take 15 days to clear the road. We are in touch with them." Ashwani Chaudhary, DC-cum-district election officer Residentspeak "The BRO is yet to open the Tandi-Sissu-Koksar part of the highway. The government did not operate even a single flight from the Sissu helipad this winter, where over 40 people are still waiting for the state chopper so that they can fly to Kullu." Suman, area resident "We have been forced to live in dark ages without electricity and communication as the HPSEBL and the BSNL have not bothered to restore these services even after a month. The villagers have decided to boycott the Lok Sabha elections. We are writing to the Election Commission of India, highlighting the problems people are facing." Area residents laxmi@tribune.com UNSUSTAINABLE sand mining is turning into a national menace, affecting rivers and people in mountains, plains and coastal areas. Due to illegal mining, four bridges, two canals and one barrage were damaged across India in 2018. At least 10 government officials, journalists and environmental activists lost their lives in attacks by the sand mafia, while about 18 others were killed in illegal mining-related incidents across the country. Central and state governments have miserably failed to rein in illegal mining. The nexus of mafia-officials-politicians is getting bigger and stronger. The agencies concerned are ill-equipped and short-staffed to take action against illicit extraction of a limited resource. The guidelines of the Central Government remain on paper. The orders passed by the Supreme Court, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and others largely lack serious and sincere implementation by the departments concerned at the Central and state levels. Most of Indias rivers, including Jhelum, Tawi, Sutlej, Beas, Thoubal, Ganga, Yamuna, Ken, Betwa, Sone, Narmada, Subarnarekha and Cauvery, and the coastal areas of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are at the receiving end of unsustainable sand mining operations. For Indias rivers, 2018 was another year of exploitation and degradation. The rivers, already fragmented and sullied by dams and rising pollution, are now succumbing to the threat of unregulated mining which has been ravaging the ecosystem for over a decade. During the past year, almost every river, big or small, was mined unsustainably and mostly illegally. Apart from the damage to the river ecosystem, the rampant mining resulted in an adverse impact on dependent communities and led to protests by many of them. The states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have possibly been affected the most. Sutlej, Beas, Ghaggar and other rivers kept bearing the brunt of mechanised sand extraction. The situation in the case of the Yamuna (in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh) and the Ganga (in Uttarakhand and UP) has been equally bad, if not worse. Back to square one Following the 2017 mine auction controversy that led to a ministers ouster, the Punjab Government formed a sub-committee to work on a new sand mining policy. The sub-committee held several meetings and also visited Telangana to learn about its sand mining policy and practices. But later, the panels key recommendation the formation of a mineral development corporation to bring the sand mining business under state government control was pushed to the back-burner. The government decided to auction sand mines through progressive bidding, which had earlier failed to attract bidders. In October 2018, the state government notified the New Sand Mining Policy. This policy focused more on revenue generation and bidders interests rather than addressing the plight of rivers and local people suffering due to illegal mining. It relied on technological solutions like GPS, barcode, online monitoring and drones, which have so far failed to produce encouraging results. Finally, with the Punjab and Haryana High Court putting the policy in abeyance in December 2018, things are back to square one. In Jammu & Kashmir, local residents complained of illegal mining in the Jhelum in the guise of dredging work. Despite the High Court ban, illegal mining continued in the Tawi river. The Ravi river in Himachal Pradesh witnessed rampant mining. After the administration failed to check it, the local residents of Kangra district formed a group to protect their farms and properties being affected by illegal mining. In Uttarakhand, revenue generation took precedence over promoting sustainable mining practices. Illegal riverbed extraction cases were reported from Dehraduns Sushwa, Song and Jakhan streams, which are tributaries of the Ganga. In May 2018, the Supreme Court stayed the Nainital HC order banning mining activities in the state. The government also planned to resume mining operations in the Ganga in Hardwar after the NGT reportedly disposed of the case in December 2018. The bridge on the Tons river in Birpur, Dehradun, collapsed while an overloaded sand truck was passing over it in December last year, killing two persons. Swami Sanand died on October 11, 2018, after fasting for the Ganga for over three months. Among his demands was a ban on mining activities in the river. Another saint, Swami Atambodhan, is on a fast-unto-death since October 2018 with the same demands as those of Swami Sanand. Illegal quarrying of rivers is fast catching on in rivers and streams in the North-East. The protest against illegal mining in the Thoubal river in Manipur rocked the state last year. The Thoubal River Conservation Committee (TRCC) kept petitioning the government and launched a statewide stir to highlight the adverse impact of unabated mining which was affecting water quality and people dependent on the river. In Haryana, the Ghaggar and Yamuna rivers are being robbed of sand. The sand mafia has been active in Panchkula, threatening government officials and farmers for objecting to illegal mining. The Yamuna river in Yamunanagar, Karnal, Panipat and Sonepat stretch is being adversely affected by large-scale mining. Miners from Uttar Pradesh are also active in border areas. Google Earth images of the river showed several illegal bridges and in-stream mechanised mining. Ironically, the landmark Supreme Court verdict of February 2012 was delivered following negative consequences of sand and stone quarrying activities in Yamunanagar district. Seven years after the judgment, the river has again fallen prey to the mining menace. Ever since the construction of the Hathini Kund Barrage, the stretch of the Yamuna between Yamunanagar and Sonepat has remained dry for most of the year. Sand deposits are essential for the river in this stretch to ensure lean-season flow. The mining mafia has also not spared canals. In September 2018, there was a huge breach in the Western Yamuna Canal in Karnal, submerging crops over a large area. This reportedly occurred due to illegal sand mining. Though the NGT had in May 2018 and then in February 2019 reprimanded the district collectors of Sonepat (Haryana) and Baghpat (Uttar Pradesh) for failing to stop illegal mining in the Yamuna, there has been negligible impact of the court orders. In an unprecedented move, the National Security Act (NSA) was invoked on the sand mafia for constructing an illegal bridge on the Yamuna in Gautam Budh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh in August 2018. Sand miners also encroached upon a huge portion of the Yamuna floodplain land in Noida and Faridabad. The land belonged to the Indian Air Force. A petition regarding the dispute is pending in the Delhi High Court. NGT strictures In September 2018, the NGT termed the District Level Environment Impact Assessment Society an incompetent body lacking expertise and prohibited it from granting any kind of mining permission in an area of 0-5 hectares. The order stated that permission for any kind of mining would have to be secured from the state-level Environment Impact Assessment Authority. Thus, the court overruled the Union Environment Ministrys 2016 notifications that exempted mining activities up to 5-hectare area from prior public consultation and the environmental impact assessment (EIA). For the past many years, the region of Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh has been plagued by sand mining. The Ken, Betwa and other rivers in the region have been exploited ruthlessly for the red quartz locally known as Balu or Morang, which is in great demand in Delhi and NCR areas for its superior quality, besides in the respective states. Backed by politicians, the mafia is so strong in the region that the departments concerned refrain from exercising their duties against illegal mining. Violent attacks and murders of reporters, activists and villagers have been reported. The NGT twice directed the local administration in Uttar Pradesh to take proactive action against the culprits. After observing non-compliance, the court had in July 2018 banned mining in these rivers. The situation broadly remains unchanged. In Madhya Pradesh, before the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress promised strict action against illegal mining. But after the elections, the situation is apparently getting worse. Similarly, the NGT order and Living Entity status to Narmada river have proved ineffective in deterring illegal mining from the river. The plight of Chambal and its tributary Parvati, and the Kali Sindh river in Rajasthan is the same despite the SCs ban on quarrying activities. The Tapi, Orsang, Bhadar and Sabarmati rivers in Gujarat have suffered in 2018. Illegal sand extraction was rampant in the rivers and coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, affecting Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery, Periyar, Phalguni, Palar, Tungabhadra, Thamirabarani, Nambiyar and Noyyal rivers. Eleven persons, including five government officials and one reporter, were eliminated across the country for objecting to or exposing illicit sand extraction in 2018. One person each was murdered in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Gujarat, while two each were murdered in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, and three in Tamil Nadu. Protesters in action There have been public protests in Manipur, Kerala, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Haryana, demanding action against unsustainable mining practices. The Save Alappad movement against indiscriminate beach mining in Kollam district of Kerala managed to catch the nations attention. The case is pending before the NGT. The green court has also banned mining in Subarnarekha river in Odisha and West Bengal after taking cognisance of enormous damage to the villagers health and the river itself. There was a protest against mechanised mining in West Champaran (Bihar) that was damaging the embankments, thus making villagers vulnerable to flood disasters. In Kerala, unsustainable mining of rivers was linked to the August 2018 floods. However, after the catastrophe, the malpractice resumed. During 2018, rampant mining activities led to the collapse of four bridges, one each in Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It also damaged the Narmada aqueduct on the Orsang river in Gujarat. The Mukkombu barrage and Killidam steel bridge in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, were washed away in August 2018. Weathered through the natural process, the riverbed material, including sand, silt and gravel, is an integral part of the ever-mobile river ecosystem. The sandy stretches of a river particularly play an essential role in providing habitat to aquatic animals like turtles, crabs and gharials. The sand deposits on floodplains of rivers work as a sponge, soaking floodwaters and recharging the shallow aquifers, a large part of which percolates deep into the groundwater. It is these recharged aquifers which feed the rivers with base flow in the lean season. However, unsustainable mining practices are destroying the ecological foundations of our rivers. This is becoming more evident in form of loss of aquatic life, a fall in the groundwater table, and adverse changes in river geomorphology. There has also been a dearth of useful scientific studies determining the sand-carrying capacity and judicious extraction of sand. Minor mineral, major issues On an average, two persons are losing their life every month either due to an attack or accidents caused by illegal sand mining in India. In 2017, about 26 persons were killed in sand mining-related activities, while 28 lost their lives in 2018. Due to illegal mining, four bridges, two canals and one barrage were damaged across India last year. Sand is classified as a minor mineral under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulations) Act, 1957, which puts its development and management under the state governments jurisdiction. The Act also empowers governments to frame rules to prevent illegal mining, transportation and storage of mineral sand. Observing the profound impact on environment and rivers, the Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal had in February 2012 and August 2013 prohibited sand mining activities without prior environmental nod. According to rough estimates of the Union Ministry of Mines, demand for sand in the country was around 700 million tonnes in 2017-18. It is increasing at the rate of 6-7% annually. Most of Indias rivers, including Jhelum, Tawi, Sutlej, Beas, Thoubal, Ganga, Yamuna, Ken, Betwa, Sone, Narmada, Cauvery and Subarnarekha, and coastal areas of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are at the receiving end of unsustainable sand mining operations. In a first, sand made its way to list of imported items in 2017 with Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala importing 55,000 tonnes, 54,000 tonnes and 45,000 tonnes of sand, respectively, from Malaysia. The construction industry in India is the second largest after agriculture. It is expected to grow at 5.6% during 2016-20 and will become the worlds third largest construction market by 2025. As per industry estimates, urban and rural areas had a shortage of 18.8 million and 47.4 million housing units in 2012. The author is associated with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) Please send your feedback to infocus@tribunemail.com gspannu7@gmail.com Srinagar, March 18 Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq did not appear before the NIA in New Delhi on Monday for questioning in connection with a terror funding case and said he was willing to be quizzed here as he fears for his security in the national capital. The Mirwaiz, who is one of the religious heads of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley, again wrote to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), saying he had no knowledge of the case mentioned by the agency in its summon served on him on Saturday. The NIA had issued a summon to the Mirwaiz to appear before the agency headquarters in the national capital on Monday in a case related to funding of terror and separatists organisations in the Kashmir Valley. Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference, on Monday again skipped a date with the National Investigation Agency, carrying a probe into a terror funding case, and said that he was willing to be quizzed here as he fears for his security in the national capital. The spokesman of the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of some separatist groups, issued a statement saying that the Mirwaiz has sent a reply to the NIA summon through his counsel. In the reply, it has been reiterated that he is willing to cooperate in the matter but has asked for the venue for examination to be shifted from Delhi to Srinagar as the concerns and apprehensions regarding travel to Delhi, expressed by him through his counsel in the earlier response on March 10 continue to remain so, the spokesperson said. The counsel mentioned in the reply that his client had informed him that on several occasions earlier, many persons have been examined by the agency at Humhama Budgam while conducting investigation and he sees no reason why his client cannot be examined in a similar manner . Earlier, he had been served a notice for appearing before the agency on March 11 but the lawyer of the Mirwaiz informed the NIA, through a four-page letter, that his client was willing to cooperate as he could not travel in view of the conditions of hostility. Under the prevailing conditions of hostility wherein there is a threat to the personal safety of my client, it becomes unwise for my client to travel to Delhi, counsel for the Mirwaiz, Aijaz Ahmad Dhar, had said. He had also maintained that his client is not acquainted with the subject matter of the FIR referred to in the NIAs notice. The NIA is investigating a case related to funding of terror and separatist organisations in Kashmir through hawala channels. The agency last month carried out a series of raids on separatists, including the Mirwaiz. Ahead of his second notice, the Mirwaiz, during his last Friday sermons, had mentioned about the NIA notice and said from the pulpit of Jama Masjid the NIA wants to know about my hidden treasure, my people are my hidden treasure. The NIA had questioned two maternal uncles of the MirwaizMaulvi Manzoor and Maulvi Shafatand his close aides last year. Both Manzoor and Shafat are retired senior government officers. The NIA probe seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, pelting of stones on security forces, burning down of schools and damaging of government establishments. The case names Hafeez Saeed, Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), the front for banned Lashker-e-Taiba, as an accused, besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference factions led by Geelani and the Mirwaiz, Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Millat. PTI sanjiv@tribunemail.com Amit Khajuria Tribune News Service Jammu, March 17 With the National Conference making it clear that it wont concede even a single out of the three Lok Sabha seats in the Valley to former ally Congress, the seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties has hit a wall. The NC, which had lost all three seats to regional rival PDP in 2014, is confident of reversing the results and has made it clear to the Congress that negotiations are possible for the three other seats in the state Jammu, Udhampur and Ladakh. The stalemate between the two parties, which have often played the role of allies and adversaries since 1975, has forced both to look for other options. The NC sees its chances bright in the Ladakh seat as the BJP is in a weakened position over unfulfilled promises and if the Congress fields a candidate, it will cut into the Buddhist vote. The three Valley seats are non-negotiable, now it is up to them to respond, NC vice-president Omar Abdullah said, stirring anxiety among its leaders in Jammu, who were hoping to sail through on the strength of the Muslim and weaker section votes in the acutely polarised constituencies of Udhampur and Jammu. That is only possible if there is a quid pro quo with the Congress in the Valley. The Congress is also relying on the same set of votes in both constituencies where, if it strikes an alliance with the PDP, it can offer a straight and strong contest to the BJP. The BJP is optimistic of a sweep in Jammu and Ladakh. editorial@tribune.com Dinesh Manhotra Tribune News Service Jammu, March 17 Amid the ongoing parleys between the National Conference (NC) and the Congress over a pre-poll alliance for the Lok Sabha elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has opened channels with the Congress high command to offer the party unconditional support in the Jammu province. The party leadership is mulling over supporting the Congress nominees on the two Lok Sabha seats of the Jammu province Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Doda, said a senior PDP leader on the condition of anonymity. Our party has offered support to the Congress to ensure a straight fight between two national parties on the parliamentary seats of the Jammu province, the PDP leader said. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, PDP candidate Yash Pal Sharma had secured 1,68,554 votes from the Jammu-Poonch seat, while the party nominee for the Udhampur-Doda seat, Mohammad Arshad Malik, had got 30,461 votes. The PDPs support to Congress will be crucial because the latter had lost the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat by 2,87,280 votes and the Udhampur-Doda seat by 60,976 votes. The PDP has a strong base in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri which are part of the Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency. The partys presence is negligible in the Udhampur-Doda seat. Our support will be confined only to two parliamentary seats of the Jammu province, he said, adding discussions between leaders of both parties are on. Although we have already prepared panels of candidates for the two Lok Sabha seats of the Jammu province, the party leadership has given this proposal to the Congress only to teach the BJP a lesson, he said. He said the party leadership had discussed pros and cons before giving the proposal to the Congress as it was not in a position to win any of the two seats. Sources said PDP president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti would arrive in Jammu on March 19 to hold discussions on finalising the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. Everything will be clear after the party presidents visit to Jammu, a source said, adding that Jammu-based senior party leaders have given their consent to the proposal of leaving the Jammu province seats for the Congress as a goodwill gesture. Bandipora leader joins Peoples Conference Former zonal president of Peoples Democratic Party Abdul Majeed Mir from Bandipora district on Saturday joined the Peoples Conference (PC) in the presence of party chairman Sajad Gani Lone at its headquarters in Srinagar. Welcoming Mir into the party, Sajad said he would work with dedication for the welfare of the people and strengthen the partys mission of change at the grass-roots level editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Srinagar, March 17 Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday said her party workers were the real warriors. She said the workers of her party may not have a gun or stone in hand, but they are the real mujahid. Mehbooba said this while addressing a poll rally in north Kashmirs Kupwara district. It is our party which gave relief to Kashmiris from POTA, Task Force and opened roads, she said, adding that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) workers have done much work than their counterparts in other parties. She appealed to people to elect PDP candidate Abdul Qayoom Wani from the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat. Later talking to reporters, Mehbooba said the decision to ban the Jamaat-e-Islami would have serious implications. Arresting Jamaat activists does not mean their ideology will end. The ban will have serious implications, she said. Meanwhile, PDP vice-president Abdul Rahman Veeri on Sunday welcomed senior CPM leader Mohammad Amin Dar into the party fold in south Kashmirs Kulgam district. On the occasion, Veeri said PDPs firm stand on its agenda compelled the BJP to run away from the coalition last year Jamaat ban will have serious implications editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Srinagar, March 17 Despite tourists cancelling their bookings to the Valley following recent Indo-Pak tension, the tourism department has decided to start a promotional campaign in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand. Tourism Secretary Rigzin Samphel said after taking the local travel and hospitality sector on board, the department would conduct events and road shows in the three countries to attract tourists. He said a 10-member team, including senior officials of the department along with the local stakeholders, would be visiting the countries to tap the market. Tourists are visiting the state and enjoying their holidays here. We will visit the three countries and convince the potential travellers and travel agents that J&K is safe to visit, the Tourism Secretary said. The department has already conducted several road shows within and outside the country, besides participating in popular travel marts to attract travellers to the state. Samphel said Jammu andKashmir had seen a 45 per cent increase in the tourist arrivals from Malaysia, Thailand and Bangladesh in 2018. We dont want to lose out on the gains made last year on foreign as well as domestic arrivals. We will capitalise on the good response which J&K received from foreign travellers over the past few years while also visiting key destinations within the country, he said. gspannu7@gmail.com Raipur, March 18 A CRPF jawan was killed and six others were injured in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarhs Dantewada district on Monday evening, police said. The attack took place at around 5 pm when a team of CRPFs 231st battalion was on an area domination operation from its Kamal post towards Kondapara village under the Aranapur police station area, Deputy Inspector General (anti-naxal operations) Sundarraj P told PTI. When the patrolling team was advancing through the forest just 200 meters away from the post, a group of armed rebels triggered an IED blast and opened indiscriminate firing on them, setting off a gun-battle, he said. However, the Naxals fled when CRPF jawans launched a fierce retaliatory action, the IPS officer said. Head constable Shashikant Tiwari was killed, while six others head constable Praveen Kumar Singh, constables Sumit Kumar, M Harikirhsnan, Jitendra Singh Tomar, Muthu Krishnan and Pandav Kumar, sustained injuries in the attack, Sundarraj added. On being alerted about the attack, reinforcement was rushed to the spot, 400 km from the state capital Raipur, he added. The injured personnel, one of them said to be critical, were airlifted to Raipur and admitted to hospitals here, he said. Tomar, who had sustained minor injuries, was administered treatment at his camp, the DIG added. He said security forces have intensified patrolling in the Bastar region, a Naxal hotbed, in view of the next months Lok Sabha polls. Dantewada district falls under the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency, which will go to the polls on April 11 in the first phase of general elections. Chhattisgarh has 11 Lok Sabha seats and they will vote in three phases on April 11, 18 and 23. PTI editorial@tribune.com Satya Prakash Which one of the two wrongs amount to a crime for lawmakerstaking bribe for voting on the floor of the House or accepting money for asking questions in Parliament/Assembly? For a reasonable person of average prudence, an obvious answer will be both. But its not that simple. The Supreme Court has complicated the issue by delivering contradictory verdicts on such a vital issue affecting the body politic of India. A five-judge Constitution Bench ruled in the JMM MPs bribery case in 1998 that a lawmaker was immune to prosecution even if he/she took money to vote on the floor of the House. Four JMM MPs, including Shibu Soren, had taken money to save the PV Narasimha Rao government during a no-confidence motion in 1993. It ruled (by 3:2 majority) that MPs who took money and voted in favour of the Rao government were immune to prosecution, but those who gave bribe to JMM MPs were liable to be prosecuted. Rao and Buta Singh had to face prosecution. The SC ruled that the briber taker MPs were entitled to protection and immunity under Article 105(2) of the Constitution that deals with parliamentary privileges. But nine years after the controversial verdict that shocked many, another five-judge Bench of the court in 2007 (by 4:1 majority) ruled in Raja Ram Pals casepopularly known as cash-for-query scamthat those who took money to ask questions in Parliament were liable to be expelled from Parliament permanently. They also faced prosecution. As history repeats itself, the issue of immunity to bribe-taking lawmakers has been referred to a Constitution Bench again, courtesy Sorens daughter-in-law Sita Soren. Sita Soren, who was an MLA in the Jharkhand Assembly, is being prosecuted for allegedly taking bribe for voting in the 2012 Rajya Sabha poll. She is accused of receiving bribe from a Rajya Sabha candidate for casting her vote in his favour, but she instead voted in favour of another candidate. She has claimed protection under Article 194(2)which is identical to Article 105(2)and applies to state legislators. Earlier this month, a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi referred the question to a larger Bench, terming it a matter of substantial public importance having wide ramifications. Its to be taken up by a five-judge Constitution Bench on March 27. However, given the fact that there are two contradictory verdicts delivered by five-judge Benches in 1998 and 2007, its likely to be referred to a seven-judge Bench. At the core of the dispute is the issue of parliamentary privilege available to the legislature, lawmakers and parliamentary committees under Articles 105 and 194 of the Constitution. According to Article 105(2): No member of Parliament shall be liable to any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in Parliament or any committee thereof, and no person shall be so liable in respect of the publication by or under the authority of either House of Parliament of any report, paper, votes or proceedings. Article 194 is identically worded. Parliamentary privilege is needed to provide complete freedom of speech to lawmakers and to ensure that they are free to speak their mind without bothering about legal consequences of their statement and vote. But strangely, what constitutes parliamentary privilege has not been defined, leading to many unpalatable disputes between legislature and judiciary. In 1965, the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker summoned two judges of the Allahabad High Court for ordering the release of Keshav Singh against whom he had issued a warrant of arrest for committing contempt of the House, creating a constitutional crisis. The Centre had to intervene through a Presidential Reference. Finally, the SC ruled that judges were competent to entertain a petition filed under Article 226 challenging the legality of the sentence imposed by the Speaker and pass orders pending disposal of Singhs appeal. In 1992, Manipur Assembly Speaker M Borababu Singh defied the SC order seeking his presence during a hearing on his disqualification of 21 MLAs, but later relented, averting a constitutional crisis. Article 105(3) of the Constitution empowers Parliament to enact a law to define parliamentary privilege. However, Parliament has in its own wisdom chosen not to define it, leaving scope for its misuse. State assemblies have often used their power of privilege against journalists for reasons that may not be justified. In the absence of a clear definition of parliamentary privilege, one will fall back on judicial pronouncements, particularly Constitution Bench verdicts, for guidance. But unfortunately, contradictory Constitution Bench verdicts have made things worse. Sita Soren has given an opportunity to the Supreme Court to reconsider its verdict in Raos case and make it compatible with the one in Raja Ram Pals case. After all, a constitutional interpretation cant be bereft of morality to the extent that it justifies taking of bribe. Previous rulings 1998: A five-judge SC Bench ruled in the JMM MPs bribery case that a lawmaker was immune to prosecution even if he/she took money to vote on the floor of the House 2007: Another five-judge SC Bench ruled in Raja Ram Pals case that those who took money to ask questions in Parliament were liable to be expelled permanently Case at hand rchopra@tribunemail.com Lucknow, March 18 After Mayawatis retort to the Congress, the Samajwadi Party on Monday asked the grand old party not to spread any kind of confusion while maintaining that the BSP-SP-RLD alliance is capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress on Sunday said it would leave more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties, including seven for the SP, BSP and RLD alliance in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. Apart from this, the Congress also said that it would leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party. In Uttar Pradesh, the SP, BSP and RLD alliance is capable of the defeating the BJP. The Congress party should not spread any kind of confusion, SP president Akhilesh Yadav wrote on Twitter. Earlier in the day, Mayawati advised the Congress to refrain from spreading misunderstanding about leaving seven Lok Sabha seats for the SP-BSP-RLD combine. In a series of tweets, Mayawati made it amply clear that the BSP would not enter into any alliance with the Congress. She said the SP-BSP-RLD alliance is capable enough to defeat the BJP on its own. The SP and the BSP had forged an alliance on 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. As per the deal, the SP will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the BSP 38, leaving three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, March 17 The issue of granting non-functional upgradation (NFU) to armed forces has taken an ugly turn. A serving Army officer, who had filed a plea seeking NFU, was allegedly threatened over the phone. The officer, Col Mukul Dev, today tweeted: Threatening calls are being made to me from unknown number asking me not to follow what I am doing. Whosoever is making calls, I challenge, if you have guts, come in open and have a face-to-face bout. Why hide? The Punjab Police (the officer is posted in Punjab) have responded by saying, Please note action has already been initiated in this regard. The NFU is a financial upgrade given to all group A employees after a certain length of service. The Armed forces are not classified as group A hence they do not get it. The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) had ruled in favour of the forces, the matter was challenged by the government in Supreme Court where the judgement is reserved. Already retired soldiers and their families have been using social media to post pictures of bunkers along the India-Pakistan boundary or the India-China frontier to sarcastically refer to them as palatial houses. This comes after the Ministry of Defence submitted its reply in the SC arguing that armed forces should not be given the NFU and provided a long list of facilities, prerequisites and amenities that are not available to civil services. Today, former Army Chief VP Malik (retd) tweeted: It would be unjust to deny NFU to the armed forces when all other Central Government services have been given this benefit. Major DP Singh (retd), a war wounded soldier, took a dig at the amenities and tweeted a picture of stone and mud bunker. This was my palatial bungalow while I was deployed on the LoC, he said. Another veteran Beant Singh Sandhu wrote: Relaxing on top of my palatial mud and rocks Bungalow. Another Colonel has put a picture of his bunker at Siachen glacier. Veterans have pointed out that there is actually a huge housing shortage. The MoD has argued in the court that granting NFU was a policy matter and judicial review cannot lead to policy making. It said any policy applied to Group A services cannot be applied to the forces. Defence forces are rank-based organisations and the promotions are purely merit-based and the supersession is the norm, therefore grant of NFU to the forces would have an impact on efficiency and command. amansharma@tribunemail.com Surat, March 18 A salesman from Surat in Gujarat might have never imagined that his act of returning Rs 10 lakh cash, which he had found in an unattended bag on road, to its owner would bring prosperity to his family just ahead of the Holi festival. Dilip Poddar, who works as a salesman at a saree showroom in Umra locality, was Monday awarded Rs 2 lakh for his honesty by the owner of the bag and a jeweller, police said. The incident occurred last Friday when Poddar was returning to duty after having lunch, when he stumbled upon a bag lying unattended roadside, a police officer said. The salesman couldnt believe his eyes when he opened the bag, which contained wads of Rs 2,000 notes totalling Rs 10 lakh, he said. Instead of pocketing the money, Poddar informed the showroom manager about the incident, who advised him to keep it with him until its owner is traced. After police were informed, the owner of the bag was traced through footages of CCTVs installed in the area, said Umra police station officer K A Gadhvi. Subsequently, police approached Poddar who handed them the money. Gadhvi said the money was finally returned to its owner, who requested not to publish his name. He gifted Rs 1 lakh to Poddar for his honesty. Additionally, a jeweller, Hriday Pachchigar, also gave Rs 1 lakh from his pocket to Poddar at Umra police station, saying the money that was returned to the owner was used to purchase jewellery from his shop, Gadhvi added. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, March 18 India has lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over several incidents of alleged harassment of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad between March 8 and 11, and demanded an immediate investigation into them, official sources said on Monday. The Indian High Commission issued a note verbale to Pakistan Foreign Ministry on March 13, giving a detailed account of the incidents including tailing of Indias Deputy High Commissioner, Naval Adviser and a first secretary on multiple occasions, they said. The sources said the deputy high commissioner was aggressively tailed by Pakistani security personnel on March 9 and 10 while the first secretary faced similar harassment on March 8. The Naval Adviser in the mission was subjected to aggressive tailing by Pakistani security personnel on March 8, 9, 10 and 11, they said. One Pakistani agency personnel was observed keeping surveillance outside the residence of the Indian Deputy High Commissioner on March 9 and 10. Sources said two Pakistani security agency personnel have been following the High Commissioner on a daily basis. In the note verbale, which is a diplomatic communication, the Indian High Commission has sought an urgent investigation into the incidents, saying such cases of harassment are violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Indias strong protest over the incidents came in the midst of severe strain in bilateral ties between the two neighbours. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after Indian Air Force fighter jets bombed terror group JeM training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan on February 26. Pakistan retaliated by attempting to target Indian military installations the next day. However, the IAF thwarted their plans. The Indian strike on the JeM camp came 12 days after the terror outfit claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama in which 40 soldiers were killed. PTI rchopra@tribunemail.com Singapore, March 18 Indian Coast Guard ship INS Vijit is on a four-day visit to the Indonesian port of Sabang to highlight the proximity between the two countries and the strengthening cooperation in maritime security and safety, Indian embassy in Jakarta said on Monday. Commanded by Comdt T Ashish, the ship includes a team of 15 officers and 90 men and is on a visit to Sabang port in Indonesias Aceh province from March 17 to 20, the embassy said in a statement. The officers will interact with Bakamla (Indonesian Coast Guard), Indonesian Armed Forces and the civil administration at Sabang, 1,855 kilometres from Jakarta. INS Vijits visit to Sabang highlights the close maritime proximity between India and Indonesia and the strengthening cooperation in the area of maritime security and safety, the statement said. Indian naval ship INS Sumitra visited Sabang in July last year, highlighting the maritime proximity between India and Indonesia, it said. During Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Indonesia in May 2018, India and Indonesia arrived at a shared vision of maritime cooperation in the strategic Indo-Pacific to deepen economic and people-to-people exchanges. Connectivity with Sabang port was identified as a key priority area within that vision, the statement said. A series of steps have since been undertaken by both sides to improve maritime cooperation, it said. PTI editorial@tribune.com New Delhi, March 17 President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the death of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, saying he was an unparalleled leader and a true patriot. Congress president Rahul Gandhi and BJP chief Amit Shah also expressed grief over the demise of Parrikar who was suffering from a pancreatic ailment. Describing him as one of Goas favourite sons, Gandhi said Parrikar was respected and admired across party lines and had bravely battled his illness for over a year. Shah remembered him as a leader who dedicated his life to the country and ideology and said Parrikar has shown how a BJP worker even during his toughest time, is committed to the philosophy of nation first, party next and self last. The PM described Parrikar as an unparalleled leader, who was a true patriot and exceptional administrator and admired by all. Terming him as a builder of modern Goa, Modi said his tenure as a defence minister saw enhancement of Indias security capacities. Kovind said Parrikar was an epitome of integrity and dedication in public life. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said she met him only once, when he visited her mother, Sonia Gandhi, at the hospital two years ago. May his soul rest in peace, she said. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said he was a true fighter who worked tirelessly for the welfare of his people with a sense of duty and dignity. National Conference vice president and former chief minister Omar Abdullah said Parrikars untimely demise has left a void that will be difficult to fill. Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik described him as a widely respected public figure and an able administrator. Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot condoled his death and prayed for peace of the departed soul. Expressing sadness over Parrikars demise, former president Pranab Mukherjee said the Goa chief minister fought bravely against his disease and he always hoped that Parrikar will beat it. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said Parrikars exemplary leadership will continue to inspire and serve as a benchmark. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted, Saddened at the passing away of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar ji. He patiently endured his illness. Condolences to his family and his admirers. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal termed Parrikar as a symbol of simplicity in politics. Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said Parrikars dedication and simplicity won many hearts and he also contributed immensely towards the development of the nation. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar also expressed grief over demise of Parrikar. We have lost an able and industrious administrator who made his mark with his simple demeanour and extraordinary intellect. My sincere condolences to his family members, Pawar tweeted. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, March 18 On the day when Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra began her poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh, BSP chief Mayawati snubbed the grand old partys seven-seat offer in the state saying the BSP and SP have no truck with the Congress in the state. The Congress should stop so raging these myths and compulsively showing that it has anything to do with the BSP and SP alliance in UP. Congress is free to go alone in UP and field candidates in all 80 seats. We have nothing to do with the Congress, Mayawati tweeted. Then former UP chief minister said BSP and SP have no pact with the Congress either in UP or anywhere in India. I again want to tell our workers not to fall into the Congress trap and myths. The BSP and SP are capable of defeating the BJP in Uttar Pradesh by themselves and have nothing to do with Congress on any seat. Congress should also stop spreading these needless myths, she said. Congress should not spread confusion by compulsorily leaving seven seats for the alliance in UP, said Mayawati in the tweet. On Sunday, UPCC president Raj Babbar had announced that as a reciprocal gesture the party would not contest the seven seats in which the top leaders of the alliance parties would be contesting. The SP-BSP alliance had earlier announced not to field candidates in the constituencies of Rae Bareli and Amethi represented by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi. gspannu7@gmail.com Kalaburagi (Karnataka),March 18 Mocking the prime ministers chowkidar campaign, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said Narendra Modi was attempting to convert the whole country into chowkidars after being caught in the Rafale fighter jet deal. Attacking Modis Main bhi chowkidar (I too am watchman) blitz, he said, Chowkidar was caught indulging in theft and as he was caught, chowkidar says the whole of Hindustan is chowkidar. But before getting caught, the entire Hindustan was not chowkidar. Gandhi stepped up the attack a day after BJP intensified its Main bhi chowkidar campaign with Modi and other party leaders, including its president Amit Shah prefixing the word chowkidar to their names in their Twitter profile. Modis Twitter account profile identified him as Chowkidar Narendra Modi as did other BJP leaders in a coordinated campaign against Gandhis sustained Chowkidar Chor Hai jibe at the prime minister over the Rafale deal. Before getting caught only Narendra Modi was chowkidar. Thief has been caught (chor pakdagaya). The whole country knows that Chowkidar chor hai, Gandhi said at a public rally here in the constituency of Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, in north Karnataka. He told the crowd, You had said Chowkidar chor hai. But yesterday and day-before-yesterday Narendra Modi was attempting to turn whole country into chowkidars. Gandhi said, when he became prime minister, he said dont make me prime minister, make me chowkidar, do you remember? He had never said make whole of Hindustan into chowkidaars. The Congress president said Modi had asked the people to make him the prime minister and he would become their chowkidar. Whose chowkidari has he done? Did he do chowkidari of Anil Amabani or not? Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya he did their chowkidari, he said. Gandhi said on the day the Pulwama attack occurred when 40 CRPF men were killed in a suicide bomber attack in Jammu and Kashmir, the same day Chowkidar had given Adani six airports of Hindustan. Stating that Rafale is an aircraft of Hindustans Air Force, he said it was the biggest defence deal in the world. There is no bigger defence deal than this in the world. It is of about thousands of crores of Rupees. Gandhi claimed that the UPA government had clearly said Hindustan Aeronautics Limited would get the contract and that the Rafale aircraft would be manufactured in Bengaluru, Odisha and in different parts of the country. The then Defence Minister A K Antony had clearly said each aircraft would cost Rs 526 crore, but Modi, who only took Anil Ambani along with him to France, changed the whole contract, he alleged. Rs 526 crore aircraft, Chowkidar ji brought it for Rs 1,600 crore, Gandhi claimed. He told the youth of Karnataka that Modi took away jobs from them. HAL had to manufacture the aircraft, youth of Karnataka had to get jobs, but Narendra Modi said, no. Chowkidar will give it to Anil Ambani. Ambanis company, which had done nothing, was given the worlds biggest defence contract by Modi and Ambani got direct benefit of Rs 30,000 crore, he alleged. Gandhi said the prime minister had also made false promises where ever he went, like putting Rs 15 lakh into each citizens bank account and providing jobs to two crore youth. The Congress president charged the prime minister and RSS with attempting to scrap the Constitution. It is Narendra Modis wish that just as he scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes through demonetisation, he wants to scrap the Constitution, Gandhi charged. Gandhi said the Congress would never let Modi and RSS succeed in their mission. Elaborating, Gandhi alleged that the note ban was effected without asking the RBI. He also alleged that the Supreme Court was not allowed to function while the Election Commission was being pressurised. The Congress president accused Modi of spreading hatred between different faiths. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi/Bhubaneswar, March 18 A protester and a policeman died in clashes outside Vedanta Ltd's alumina refinery in Odisha, a police official said on Monday, less than a year after police killed 13 anti-Vedanta protesters in south India. The incident happened 10 months after police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against Vedanta's copper smelter in southern Tamil Nadu state, killing 13 people. "Two people have diedone of our Odisha industrial security force personnel and another one from the public," Gupteswar Bhoi, a senior police officer, told Reuters. Maheswar Pati, a protester, told Reuters the state's industrial security force personnel attacked the people without provocation. "They physically assaulted us with sticks," Pati said. The state police-controlled Odisha Industrial Security Force said its staff were attacked by stone-throwing protesters. Pati said the demonstrators included people from three neighbouring villages who had surrendered land to Vedanta and hoped to secure jobs for locals in the company. Vedanta says 85 per cent of the 3,000 employees at its Lanjigarh plant were from Odisha. Ajay Dixit, Chief Executive of Vedanta's aluminium business, told Reuters that protesters disrupted production at the 1.9 million tonnes per annum refinery by blocking railway lines supplying bauxite and burning the front gate and other parts of the premises. "As soon as the bauxite supply resumes, we will be able to operate at a normal capacity," Dixit said, without specifying a time frame for resumption of operations. The company, which plans to expand its refining capacity to 6 million tonnes per annum in India, expects to end the fiscal year 2018/19 with production of 1.5 million tonnes, compared with 1.1 million tonnes the previous year, he said. The protests, involving over a hundred people, were also sparked by the retrenchment of a local employee, a senior police official told Reuters on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to media. Dixit said the employee was not fired, and had voluntarily resigned after the company initiated an investigation over compliance-related issues. The dead protester was a labourer who worked for one of Vedanta's contractors, Dixit said. Vedanta did not comment on what the demands of the protesters were, but said they wanted to resolve the situation through discussions. Dixit said the company was not intending to follow up on plans to mine bauxite in the contentious jungle-clad Niyamgiri hills of eastern Odisha, which tribes consider sacred. "We are not dependent on Niyamgiri, we are not following up Niyamgiri," he said. Reuters rchopra@tribunemail.com Panaji, March 18 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday paid tribute to Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday. After arriving in the coastal state, Modi reached the Kala Academy in Panaji where he paid his last respects to the 63-year-old leader. He met Parrikars family and offered his condolences to them. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also met Parrikars family. Earlier in New Delhi, a Union Cabinet meeting was convened to condole the demise of Parrikar, following which Modi left for Goa. BJP president Amit Shah will also be in the coastal state to take part in the funeral procession of the late leader, the party said. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, March 18 Speaker of the Goa Assembly Pramod Sawant will be sworn in as Chief Minister of Goa on Monday night after a day of hectic political bargaining in Panjim. Sawant has been elected as leader of the BJP legislature party. According to sources, the regional Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Goa Forward Party have come around to supporting the candidature of Sawant for the top job. As per the deal brokered by Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Sawant will have two Deputy Chief Ministers -- Ramakrishna 'Sudin' Dhavalikar of the MGP and Vijai Sardessai of the GFP. All the three leaders will be sworn in together, according to sources from Goa's capital. The BJP leadership managed to push through Sawant's name after Gadkari failed to make any initial headway. Talks between the BJP and the MGP came to an end after the regional party demanded that Dhavalikar be appointed Chief Minister. This was opposed by GFP and three Independent MLAs apart from the lone NCP MLA Churchill Alemao who are backing the BJP government in Goa. At one time there were as many has nine of the 36 MLAs in the state legislature who were trying to get the top job following the demise of Manohar Parrikar on Sunday. The Congress leaders had met Governor Mridula Sinha twice in the past few days to stake claim to form the government. Though the Congress emerged as the single largest party with 17 MLAs after the March 2017 assembly elections, dispute over who would be CM resulted in the smaller parties and Independents joining hands with the BJP. Congress MLA Vishwajit Rane, who is the son of veteran party leader Pratapsinh Rane, resigned immediately even before taking oath as an MLA and won a byelection on BJP ticket. He was Health Minister in the Parrikar government. At present, the BJP and the Congress have 12 and 14 MLAs in the state legislature. Of the BJP MLAs, Pandurang Madkaikar is in coma at a Mumbai hospital and is unlikely to vote in the House. The total strength of the assembly is down to 36 from 40 after the death of Parrikar. Three Congress MLAs resigned and are expected to contest the byelections as BJP candidates. Earlier in the day, the last rites of Parrikar were conducted with full military honours at the Miramar beach in Panjim. Prominent leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Cabinet ministers, paid homage to Parrikar. pardeepdhull@gmail.com Male, March 18 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday met Maldivian Home Minister Imran Abdulla and discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in bilateral relationship. Swaraj arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, the first full-fledged bilateral trip from India to the island nation after the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to power in November last year. Swaraj held talks with her Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid on the first day of the visit. Good meeting between EAM @SushmaSwaraj and Maldives Minister of Home Affairs @ShimranAb on the second day of her visit to Maldives. Discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in our bilateral relationship, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. Swaraj will also call on President Solih on Monday. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and a number of senior officials are accompanying Swaraj during the trip. Officials said it will be the first full-fledged bilateral visit at the political level from India to the Maldives after the new government assumed office. They said Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Maldives in November only to attend Solihs swearing-in ceremony and no substantive discussion had taken place then. Sources said the Maldives was aware of Indian governments limitations due to the election code of conduct and that Swarajs visit will be to enhance overall ties which came under strain during the presidentship of Abdulla Yameen, who was known to be close to China. Relations between India and the Maldives deteriorated after the then President Abdulla Yameen imposed emergency on February 5 last year. India had criticised his decision and asked his government to restore the credibility of the electoral and political process by releasing political prisoners. The emergency lasted for 45 days. Solih became president in November after he defeated Yameen in presidential elections. PTI rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, March 18 The Union Cabinet on Monday condoled the demise of Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, saying he would be remembered for his simplicity and as an exceptional administrator. After observing a two-minute silence, the Cabinet also passed a resolution which said that in his death the country had lost an able administrator who was affectionately called the chief minister of commoners. Shri Parrikar will be remembered for his simplicity and his abilities as an exceptional administrator. His contribution to the building of modern Goa and to the modernisation of Indias Armed Forces as well as improvement to the lives of ex-servicemen will never be forgotten, the resolution read. Whenever a senior leader of any political party or a minister passes away, the Union Cabinet meets to condole the demise. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, a former defence minister who had been battling pancreatic cancer for over a year, died at his private residence near Panaji on Sunday. He was 63. Officially, he was described to be suffering from a pancreatic ailment. PTI editorial@tribune.com Aman Sood Tribune News Service Patiala, March 17 After a lull of almost four years when liquor contractors in the state have faced losses, contractors have shown interest for the 2019-20 liquor trade. Subject to clearance by the Election Commission of India, over 71,000 applicants have vied for over 5,000 liquor vends as per applications received till Saturday the last date. The state Excise Department wants to carry out the auctions of liquor vends for the next fiscal on March 20. Though cleared by the Cabinet before the poll code came into effect, the policy will require a go-ahead from the Election Commission because it involves auction of shops. Each auction needs the poll panels clearance. The state government expects to collect Rs 6,201 crore through liquor sale during the next fiscal as against anticipated mobilisation of Rs 5,462 crore for 2018-19. Given the fact that a majority of the liquor trade in the state is owned by politicians, the Election Commission nod will also take into account the decision of allowing increased quota of PML (country liquor) from 5.78 crore proof litres to 6.36 crore litre and the quota of India Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) increased from 2.48 crore proof litre to 2.62 crore proof litre. There has been a 16 per cent increase in the quota of low alcoholic beverage such as beer from 2.57 crore bulk litres to 3.00 crore bulk litres. All of this is subject to the ECI nod and permission for a go ahead is awaited considering the facts. The overwhelming response has taken the department by surprise as it has already collected Rs 215 crore as application money, which is three times as compared to that received last year. We have sent the file for necessary go ahead from the Punjab Election Office. Once approved, the draw of lots will be held in all districts under the observation of our officers, said Gurtej Singh, Additional Excise and Taxation Commissioner. It is a formality given the fact that similar auctions were conducted under the model code of conduct in March 2009 and 2014, he said. However, election officials said the challenge this time was that liquor contractors (licensees) have been allowed to carry forward their unsold quota of liquor of 2018-19 to next year i.e. 2019-20 with a nominal fee. The challenge is to check the sale of bulk buying of liquor as contractors extend discounts nearing March 31. With politicians backing a majority of liquor business, the EC will have their eyes on all such sales, said an official attached with the election office. Punjab Chief Electoral Officer S Karna Raju told The Tribune that an application seeking permission for the auctions had been forwarded to the EC. We will take further call after receiving any reply from them, he added. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Bathinda, March 17 Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today announced that the PGIMER, Chandigarh, team deputed by the Union Health Ministry gave the go-ahead for start of the first batch of MBBS for AIIMS Bathinda at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot. According to a statement released here, Harsimrat said, The ground has been cleared for the start of the first batch of MBBS from the upcoming session beginning July. Youth from across the region will be benefitted by this move. She said she had received a communication from the Centre that a PGIMER, Chandigarh, team, which had visited Bathinda to finalise the location for starting MBBS classes under AIIMS, Bathinda, had found BFUHS suitable for the same. The team has sent its recommendation to the Union ministry and it has in turn forwarded the same to the Punjab government. Harsimrat alleged that the Congress government had tried to delay the project. The OPD and diagnostic centre facilities, which were slated to start in February 2019, have been delayed for want of mandatory clearances on part of the state government. The project will now get a boost with the start of MBBS classes and will be completed within the next one and a half years, she added. Coming up on 177 acres on the outskirts of Bathinda at a cost of Rs 925 crore, the AIIMS would be a 750-bed premier medical institute, which would boast of 10 specialty and 11 super-specialty departments. It would have 16 ultramodern state-of-the-art operation theatres along with a 100-seat medical college and a 60-seat nursing college. The AIIMS will have various wards, including emergency/ trauma, private and ICU, specialty and superspecialty. harinder@tribunemail.com Aman Sood & Karam Prakash Every year political outfits and senior leaders promise the moon to Punjab electorate at political conferences held during the Shaheedi Jor Mela, where lakhs of devotees from across the country and even some from abroad come to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib and Gurdwara Jyoti Swarup in December. For years, political parties in power announce that they will unleash development works in this holy land. But the announcements remain on paper only. In reality, development has eluded Fatehgarh Sahib. Successive Members of Parliament too have failed to do much for the people here. In spite of the fact that the constituency has good rail and road connectivity, and is close to capital Chandigarh, no big industrial investment has come here. For the past two years, the steel industry in Mandi Gobindgarh is showing some sign of revival, thus bringing some succour for the economy of this constituency. People here are very vocal about their annoyance with those who are elected to govern them. They had high hopes from MP Harinder Singh Khalsa, who was suspended from Aam Aadmi Party, but according to them he failed to deliver. In fact, in 2014 election, the voters were so sick of the traditional parties that they chose AAP candidate, thinking the third alternative might make some difference. Voters here also express their anger against the Congress government, and have given up on things getting better. Potholed link-roads, sewage issues and slow pace of ongoing developmental work, are what the residents talk about. People of Sirhind town, an important town of the constituency in the district, claimed that the entire town has been facing sewage issues since long. With the sewage project in limbo due to financial constraints, residents are upset with the pace of work. On the agriculture front, farmers in the district claimed that the PM had made only announcements and laid down foundation stones, but, on the ground, situation remained the same. They said despite an increase in MSP, the commissioned agents procured the crops arbitrarily. In fact, farmers claimed that the state government made some initiatives, but they were still awaiting benefits, if any, from the schemes. Pointing out the lapses in the data collection for the state loan waiver scheme, farmers said that needy ones had been ignored. A small farmer of Chanarthal Khurd village, Gurdev Singh, said: Only aides of Congress leaders in the district were benefited. I own only 1.5 acres of land, but my name was not in the list loan waiver beneficiaries. However, the steel industry in Mandi Gobindgarh, another town of the constituency, is seeing some hope. The public sentiment is up and new industry is being set up by many. Though the state government claimed that the New Industrial Policy-2017 will change fortunes, but we are still waiting for that to happen, says Small Scale Steel Re Rollers Association spokesman, Jatin Sood. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Nawanshahr, March 17 As four-laning of Phagwara to Ropar has been underway, potholes and broken service lanes on this stretch have been testing nerves of commuters. Service lanes along the highway have been completed neglected and require urgent repair. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has given a contract of this 80.82-km stretch to GR Infra Ltd. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and former Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal had laid the foundation stone of Rs 1,367-crore project on September 14 last year. The aim of the four-laning project is to reduce traffic and accidents on the highway. However, the authorities are least worried about chaos. Service lanes have become more accident-prone, said Raj Kumar, a shopkeeper of Banga. Nawanshahr DC Vinay Bublani said, I held a meeting with the contractors and told them to recarpet service lanes. Due to frequent rain, the repair work could not be done. As the weather clears, we will get the service lanes repaired. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Amritsar, March 17 The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) is all set to organise pilgrimage across the border, amid simmering tension between India and Pakistan. The SGPC has invited applications for religious tour to Pakistan to commemorate the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev and death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Devotees have been asked to deposit their passports by March 25. Earlier, the SGPC had given a call for sending a jatha to Pakistan to commemorate Khalsa Sajana Divas (Baisakhi) at Gurdwara Panja Sahib for which the requisite documentation process was underway. SGPC secretary Mohinder Singh Ahali said those who want to be a part of the jatha would have to get their identification documents endorsed by the SGPC member of their area before submitting them along with their passport. Along with passport, one has to submit photocopies of Aadhaar card, Voter-ID card and photographs. Passport should be valid till October 13, 2019, he said. SGPC chief secretary Dr Roop Singh said preparations were on for sending jatha to Pakistan, but the final decision would be taken by the department concerned in India and Pakistan. There is no doubt that the tension has escalated between both the neighbours, but it should not take its toll on religious front. Efforts are being made to facilitate access to Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib through a dedicated corridor. However, it has been made clear that it cannot be taken as a platform for resumption of bilateral talks, he said. Dr Roop said, Similarly, on our part, we have been preparing religious tour to Pakistan. Passports were collected for Baisakhi. Devotees have been asked to deposit their passports and relevant documents to commemorate martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev and death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Ludhiana, March 17 The local municipal authorities have sealed an upcoming housing project, Grand Manor Homes, on Gill Road, following the controversy over the alleged CLU scam. The matter had rocked the Budged session of the Vidhan Sabha last month. However, the sealing of the project itself raised a controversy. It is learnt that a team of the civic body had sealed both gates of the project in the early hours on Saturday. The MC officials, however, found one of the gates opened today. Questions are raised as to how one gate was opened if the civic body had really sealed two gates. The project authorities, on the other hand, claimed that no seal was applied by the civic body as per their information. Assistant Town Planner Harwinder Singh Honey confirmed that they had sealed Grand Manor Homes on Saturday as they promoter was not stopping the construction work at the site. We have sealed both gates of the housing project. We have no information if any gate is opened. If any violation is found, we will bring the matter to the notice of the MC Commissioner. On March 6, the MC had got the construction work stopped. They had asked the project authorities not to continue any work as an inquiry is underway. Baljinder Singh Kahlon, director, Grand Manor Homes, said, Our main gate is still open and the construction work at the site is underway. We are not violating any law. In July 2018, the local government had ordered the promoter to stop the construction work and cops were also deployed at the site for some time. Last month, Deputy Leader of Opposition Sarvjit Kaur Manuke had raised the matter of alleged CLU Scam in the Vidhan Sabha. AAP leaders had also dragged name of a Cabinet minister in the case. pardeepdhull@gmail.com London, March 18 Scientists have discovered the worlds oldest astrolabean ancient device used for navigating at seawhich was part of Portuguese explorers Vasco da Gamas second voyage to India in the fourteenth century. The Guinness World Records independently certified the astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship as the oldest in the world. They also certified a ships belldated 1498recovered from the same wreck site also as the oldest in the world. The scientific process of verifying the disc as an astrolabe by laser imaging is described in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The Sodre astrolabe is believed to have been made between 1496 and 1501 and is unique in comparison to all other mariners astrolabes. Mariners Astrolabes were used for navigating at sea by early explorers, most notably the Portuguese and Spanish. They are considered to be the rarest and most prized of artefacts to be found on ancient shipwrecks and only 104 examples are known to exist in the world, according to the researchers from the University of Warwick in the UK. They were first used at sea on a Portuguese voyage down the west coast of Africa in 1481. Thereafter, astrolabes were relied on for navigation during the most important explorations of the late 15th century, including those led by Bartolomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama. It is the only solid disk type astrolabe with a verifiable provenance and the only specimen decorated with a national symbol: the royal coat of arms of Portugal. As the earliest verifiable mariners astrolabe it fills a chronological gap in the development of these iconic instruments and is believed to be a transitional instrument between the classic planispheric astrolabe and the open-wheel type astrolabe that came into use sometime before 1517, researchers said. The thin 175 millimetres diameter disk weighing 344 grammes was analysed by a team who travelled to Muscat, Oman in November 2016 to collect laser scans of a selection of the most important artefacts recovered from the wreck site. Using a portable 7-axis Nikon laser scanner, capable of collecting over 50,000 points per second at an accuracy of 60 microns, a 3D virtual model of the artefact was created. Analysis of the results revealed a series of 18 scale marks spaced at uniform intervals along the limb of the disk. Further analysis showed that the spacing of the scale marks was equivalent to 5-degree intervals. This was critical evidence that allowed independent experts at Texas A&M University to include the disk in their global inventory as the earliest known mariners astrolabe discovered to date. Using this 3D scanning technology has enabled us to confirm the identity of the earliest known astrolabe, from this historians and scientists can determine more about history and how ships navigated, said Mark Williams from University of Warwick. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com Utrecht, March 18 A gunman killed three people and wounded nine others on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, sparking a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with sniffer dogs zero in on an apartment building close to the shooting. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level, and the citys mayor said a terror motive was the most likely theory. Dutch military police went on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings in the country as the Utrecht manhunt took place. A few hours after the shooting, Utrecht police released a photo of a 37-year-old man born in Turkey who they said was associated with the incident. The photo showed a bearded man on board a tram, dressed in a dark blue hooded top. Police warned citizens not to approach the man, whom they identified as Gokmen Tanis, but call authorities instead. The Utrecht attack came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Police, including heavily armed officers, flooded the area after the shooting Monday morning on a tram at a busy traffic intersection in a residential neighborhood. They later erected a white tent over an area where a body appeared to be lying next to the tram. Utrecht police said trauma helicopters were sent to the scene and appealed to the public to stay away. Heavily armed anti-terror officers gathered in front of an apartment building close to the scene. A sniffer dogs wearing a tactical vest with a camera mounted on it was also seen outside the building. Mayor Jan van Zanen confirmed three deaths and said that nine people were wounded, three of them seriously. We cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive. Likely there is one attacker, but there could be more, van Zanen said. Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. He said that a terror motive is not excluded. Rutte said that, throughout the country, there is a mix of disbelief and disgust. If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence, he added. Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said one possibility is that the person fled by car. He did not rule out the possibility that more than one shooter was involved. The Netherlands anti-terror coordinator raised the threat alert to its highest level around Utrecht, a city of nearly 350,000 people. Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said the threat level has gone to 5, exclusively for the Utrecht province. Dutch political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of the Dutch parliaments upper house. In neighboring Germany, police said they had stepped up surveillance of the Dutch border. Heinrich Onstein, a spokesman for federal police in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said additional officers had been detailed to watch not only major highways, but also minor crossings and railway routes. German authorities were initially told to look out for a red Renault Clio compact sedan, but were later informed it had been found abandoned in Utrecht, Onstein said. AP pardeepdhull@gmail.com Sydney, March 18 Australian counter-terrorism police searched two homes early Monday linked to the gunman accused of killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques last week, police said. The homes were in the New South Wales towns of Sandy Beach and Lawrence, both near the town of Grafton where Brenton Tarrant, the alleged shooter, grew up. The primary aim of the activity is to formally obtain material that may assist New Zealand police in their ongoing investigation, a police statement said. They said Tarrants family continues to assist police with their inquiries but that there is no information to suggest a current or impending threat to the community. Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, spent his youth in Grafton but has travelled abroad extensively over the past decade and had lived in recent years in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has been charged with murder in the country after the mass shooting on Friday which left 50 dead and 50 injured in two mosques in the city of Christchurch on. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Monday that Tarrant had spent only 45 days in Australia over the past three years and was not on any terror watch lists. He rejected as disgraceful criticism that Australias counter-terror agencies had neglected the threat of right-wing extremists like Tarrant due to their focus on combatting Islamist radicals. He said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the countrys main counter-terror agency, closely tracked the activities of far-right groups. These extremist groupsneo-nazis, or white supremacists, extreme right-wing groupswhatever term you want to apply to them, theyve been squarely on their radar, he said in a televised interview. They are well and truly looking at this threat, they are dealing with the threat and to think that theyve just discovered it or they are coming late to the party is complete rubbish, he said. ASIO officials were due to brief the cabinet of Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the New Zealand attacks and the threat of right-wing extremism in Australia later on Monday. AFP rchopra@tribunemail.com Islamabad, March 18 Pakistans former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has been shifted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease that has weakened his nervous system, his party has said. General Musharraf (retd), 75, who has been living in Dubai since March 2016, is facing the treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offence for which he was indicted in 2014. A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. The former army chief left for Dubai for medical treatment and has not returned since, citing security and health reasons. Musharraf was rushed to the hospital as an emergency on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said on Sunday. APML Overseas President Afzaal Siddiqui told DawnNewsTV that Musharraf had suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president had been receiving medical care. According to the party, the former president has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. Siddiqui informed about Musharrafs illness in October last year, saying the former presidents disease had weakened his nervous system. At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. Due to amyloidosis, broken protein starts getting deposited in various organs, Siddiqui had said. [As a result] Pervez Musharraf has difficulty in standing and walking. Amyloidosis is a rare disease that occurs when a substance called amyloid builds up in your organs. Amyloid is an abnormal protein that is produced in your bone marrow and can be deposited in any tissue or organ. Amyloidosis can affect different organs in different people. Amyloidosis frequently affects the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, nervous system and digestive tract. Severe amyloidosis can lead to life-threatening organ failure. The APML official had then said that Musharrafs treatment could continue for up to five or six months. Upon his full recovery, Siddiqui had said that Musharraf intended to return to Pakistan. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, has been declared a fugitive in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case and the Red Mosque cleric killing case. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Christchurch, March 18 New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she would announce new gun laws within days, after 50 people were killed in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face more charges. Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer, Ardern said at news conference after her cabinet reached in principle decisions on gun reform laws in the wake of New Zealands worst ever mass shooting. In addition to the 50 killed, dozens were wounded at two mosques in the South Island city during Friday prayers. The owner of a New Zealand gun store the man charged with murder in the mosque shootings had bought firearms and ammunition online from the store, but it did not sell him the high-powered weapon used in the massacre. Gun City owner David Tipple said the alleged gunman bought four weapons and ammunition between December 2017 and March 2018. The MSSA, military-style automatic, reportedly used by the alleged gunman was not purchased from Gun City. Gun City did not sell him an MSSA, only A-category firearms, Tipple told a news conference in Christchurch. Under New Zealand gun laws, A-category weapons can be semi-automatic but limited to seven shots. Video of a gunman in one mosque showed a semi-automatic with a large magazine round. Tipple said the online purchases followed a police-verified online mail-order process and A-category firearms were bought in three or four purchases. We detected nothing extraordinary about the licence holder. He was a brand new purchaser, with a brand new licence, he said. The shock of the attacks has led to calls for an immediate tightening of laws to restrict access to some firearms, particularly semi-automatic weapons. Tipple said he supported Arderns call for gun law reforms as the Christchurch shootings had raised legitimate concerns. New Zealand, a country of only 5 million people, has an estimated 1.5 million firearms. The minimum age for a gun license is 16, and 18 to own a semi-automatic weapon. A Radio New Zealand report, based on police data secured through an Official Information Act request, said more than 99 percent of people who applied for a firearms licence in 2017 were successful. A New Zealand standard A-category firearm licence is issued after a police and background check. No licence is required to buy a large round magazine, which can be illegally modified for use in such a weapon. Only firearm owners are licensed, not weapons, so there is no monitoring of how many weapons a person may possess. New Zealands top online marketplace Trade Me Group said it was halting the sale of semi-automatic weapons in the wake of Fridays attack. Burial frustrations Ardern was the first signatory of a national condolence book for the countrys worst mass killing that she opened in the capital Wellington on Monday. On behalf of all New Zealanders, we grieve together. We are one. They are us, she wrote in the book. Frustration was building among the families of victims as under Islam it is custom to conduct burials within 24 hours, but bodies will not be released until post mortems are carried out. Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha said the first body was approved for release on Sunday night, but the family was yet to take the body because another relative was also killed and they wanted to collect them together. He said there would be no burials on Monday. Weve been working fairly hard through the night to ensure the process of returning the deceased to their loved ones is taking place expediently, he said. The burial process, which usually involves washing with three kinds of water, salving wounds and scrubbing skin, would be complicated, volunteers in Christchurch said. Mo, a volunteer who had flown in from Brisbane to wash the bodies, said the people who died in the mosques were classified as martyrs. That meant there were different views as to whether they would be washed or not because he said Islamic jurisprudence said martyrs are not to be washed as their blood was witness to their martyrdom. But some people have said because it was not a battlefield it is okay to wash the body. But it is at the discretion of the family, said Mo. He asked to be identified by just one name. The two mosques involved in the shootings have been closed since the massacre, but are expected to reopen by Friday prayers after cleansing blessings were carried out, said Haumaha. Muslim leaders conveyed messages of love, compassion and appreciation for the community support they had received. Over the weekend and into Monday, tens of thousands of people flocked to memorial vigils around New Zealand and a victim support website raised more than NZ$5.5 million ($3.8 million). Hundreds visited the sites of the shootings, performing songs, bringing flowers and food, and offering condolences. Through all of this we try to remember that what we are bringing back to this tragedy, this horror, is a sense of compassion, Rehanna Ali, coordinator of womens affairs at the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand, told a news conference. The response to so much hate, has been love. Reuters sanjiv@tribunemail.com WELLINGTON, March 17 The calm and compassion shown by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in response to the killing of 50 Muslims by a suspected white supremacist has burnished the credentials of a leader whose youth and celebrity had given critics doubts. After the carnage in Christchurch on Friday left New Zealanders reeling, the 38-year-old promptly labelled the worst peacetime mass killing in the country as terrorism, and set about reassuring a nation that has been largely unscathed by the violence and fears that have afflicted other countries. A day after the attack, Ardern led a multi-party group to visit grieving families and Muslim community members. Wearing a black head scarf, she hugged relatives and let them set the pace and agenda as she listened and offered comfort. Ardern also promptly made tightening gun laws, which may prove politically difficult, a priority for her government. Ardern burst into prominence during the 2017 election, feted globally as part of a new wave of progressive, young leaders that included Frances Emmanuel Macron and Canadas Justin Trudeau. Her pregnancy, maternity leave and the birth of her daughter while in office also set her apart, with many people seeing it as symbolising progress for women in leadership roles. Her stratospheric rise to become the countrys youngest PM resulted in New Zealanders coining the phrase Jacinda-mania. But there were nagging doubts about whether her celebrity masked a lack of substance or steel. And as Ardern completed one year in office in October, commentators credited her with moving the politics to the left. But they also noted that little had been accomplished. They also criticised her handling of the economy as business confidence has sunk to its lowest in a decade. But the tragedy of Christchurch gave Ardern an opportunity to tell New Zealanders what their country stands for. She said the attack had not happened because their country was a safe harbour for hate, or racism or extremism. We were chosen for the very fact that we are none of those things, she said. You may have chosen us we utterly reject and condemn you. And there was what some have seen as a polite rebuke of US President Donald Trump, who said he did not see a rise in white nationalism although it may have been an issue in New Zealand. Ardern said Trump had asked what support the US could offer. My message was: Sympathy and love for all Muslim communities, she said. Can we just acknowledge with open hearts and clear heads that @jacindaardern has done an extraordinary job representing our nation, our pain and our resolve, prominent journalist Eric Young said. I wish with everything in my heart she hadnt had to, but I am proud that she did. Reuters editorial@tribune.com Kabul, March 17 An overnight Taliban assault on checkpoints in northern Afghanistan killed 22 troops, after some 100 Afghan forces fled heavy fighting in the countrys west last week and tried to cross into neighbouring Turkmenistan, officials said on Sunday. The two battles mark the latest setbacks for the countrys battered security forces, who come under daily attack and have suffered staggering casualties in recent years. The attacks have continued even as the Taliban have been holding direct negotiations with the United States aimed at ending the 17-year war. Mohammad Tahir Rahmani, head of provincial council in the northern Faryab province, said the insurgents launched the attack late on Saturday against checkpoints manned by police and pro-government militias in Qaisar district, setting off a fierce gunbattle that lasted into Sunday morning. AP gspannu7@gmail.com Washington, March 18 US President Donald Trump says he is unfairly being blamed for the New Zealand mosque massacre. Trump tweeted on Monday that the media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. He adds: They will have to work very hard to prove that one. The gunman in last weeks massacre left a document in which he called himself a white nationalist and referred to Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity. Trump had expressed sympathy for the victims, but played down the threat of white nationalism across the world, saying he didnt consider it a rising threat despite data suggesting its growing. In the past, Trump has drawn criticism for saying both sides were to blame for violence at a deadly white supremacist demonstration. AP THERE was a year in the history of the British West Indies1943when every fourth person on English French NEWS RELEASE SelectMDx demonstrates accurate identification of both low-risk and aggressive prostate cancer across all patient groups IRVINE, CA, and HERSTAL, BELGIUM - 07:00 CET, March 18, 2019 - MDxHealth SA (Euronext: MDXH.BR) today announces that positive data from a pre-biopsy clinical validation and optimization study of SelectMDx were presented at the 34th Annual European Association of Urology (EAU) conference in Barcelona, Spain, March 15-19 2019. This pan-European multicenter clinical study was designed to optimize and validate SelectMDx in assessing the risk of high-grade prostate cancer (PCa) in men with elevated prostate specific antigen levels (PSA). Data from the study showed that SelectMDx accurately predicts both low-risk as well as aggressive prostate cancer across all patient groups. "This retrospective clinical validation study clearly confirms the value of the test to guide urologists to identify men at risk for aggressive disease, who may benefit from a biopsy or mpMRi procedure," said Dr. Jack Schalken, Professor of Experimental Urology at the Radboud Medical Center in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. "The performance of SelectMDx in this multicenter study confirms previous published data for the intended use of the test." Study Design and Results The study population consisted of 1,955 men from The Netherlands, France and Germany with suspected prostate cancer and who underwent initial prostate biopsies between December 2007 and December 2014. Subjects were divided into training and validation cohorts. Post-DRE urine samples were collected from all subjects prior to biopsy and were evaluated with SelectMDx. The urinary RNA biomarkers were combined with other risk factors in a clinical model, and model coefficients were optimized for maximum sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) for > GG2 PCa in training cohort subjects with PSA <10 ng/mL. Version 2.0 of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) Risk Calculator was used for comparison. For validation cohort subjects with PSA <10ng/mL (N=715), SelectMDx AUC was 0.82, sensitivity 89%, specificity 53% and NPV 95%, whereas the PCPTRC AUC was 0.70. SelectMDx performance for the full validation cohort (all PSA levels, N=916) was AUC 0.85, with sensitivity and NPV of 93% and 95%, respectively. "These data provide further evidence of SelectMDx's ability to provide actionable results, which can help urologists making important clinical decisions," said Mike McGarrity, Chief Executive Officer of MDxHealth. "In addition, we believe that routine implementation of SelectMDx could lead to substantial cost savings for healthcare systems and benefit patients by reducing the number of unnecessary invasive diagnostic procedures and treatments." In France, Germany and The Netherlands combined, about 400,000 prostate biopsies are performed annually, resulting in about 115,000 newly diagnosed PCa patients per year. A recent cost-effectiveness study for SelectMDx in these countries where SelectMDx is used to stratify men for biopsy based on the probability of them harboring the aggressive form of PCa, showed cost savings per patient per year of $1,402 in France, $505 in Germany and $147 in the Netherlands. On an annual basis the overall savings for the healthcare systems in these countries were respectively $184 million, $68 million and $3 million. In March 2018, SelectMDx was included in the EAU clinical guidelines, which assist clinicians in making informed treatment decisions. Since the introduction of SelectMDx in Europe in 2016, over 19,000 patients have been tested with SelectMDx. About SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer Of the nearly 2 million prostate biopsies performed each year, less than a third identify cancer. Most of these men could have avoided a painful and invasive prostate biopsy procedure, with its associated complications and costs. SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer is a proprietary urine-based, molecular diagnostic test that offers a non-invasive liquid biopsy method to assess a patient's risk for prostate cancer. SelectMDx helps identify men at increased risk of harboring aggressive, potentially lethal, prostate cancer who may benefit most from a prostate biopsy and earlier detection. The test delivers a negative predictive value (NPV) of 98% for clinically significant disease, helping to reduce the need for MRI procedures and invasive prostate biopsies by up to 50%, thereby reducing healthcare costs. The test has been included in the 2018 European Association of Urology (EAU) clinical guidelines. About MDxHealth MDxHealth is a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The company's tests are based on proprietary genetic, epigenetic (methylation) and other molecular technologies and assist physicians with the diagnosis of urologic cancers, prognosis of recurrence risk, and prediction of response to a specific therapy. The Company's European headquarters are in Herstal, Belgium, with laboratory operations in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and US headquarters and laboratory operations based in Irvine, California. For more information, visit mdxhealth.com and follow us on social media at: twitter.com/mdxhealth, facebook.com/mdxhealth and linkedin.com/company/mdxhealth. For more information: MDxHealth Mike McGarrity, CEO US: +1 949 812 6979 BE: +32 4 257 70 21 info@mdxhealth.com Consilium Strategic Communications David Daley, Chris Welsh, Jonathan Birt, Marieke Vermeersch UK: +44 20 3709 5701 mdxhealth@consilium-comms.com This press release contains forward-looking statements and estimates with respect to the anticipated future performance of MDxHealth and the market in which it operates. Such statements and estimates are based on assumptions and assessments of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which were deemed reasonable but may not prove to be correct. Actual events are difficult to predict, may depend upon factors that are beyond the Company's control, and may turn out to be materially different. MDxHealth expressly disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this release to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based unless required by law or regulation. This press release does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities or assets of MDxHealth in any jurisdiction. No securities of MDxHealth may be offered or sold within the United States without registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or in compliance with an exemption therefrom, and in accordance with any applicable U.S. securities laws. NOTE: The MDxHealth logo, MDxHealth, ConfirmMDx, SelectMDx, AssureMDx, PredictMDx and UrNCollect are trademarks or registered trademarks of MDxHealth SA. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. It is your duty as Prime Minister and Minister of Health to provide whats best for your citizens. The jabs have been provided and are still available to all who want it. But what about those who do not want it? - The university had recorded a series of cases of robbery with violence and gang rape - DCI detectives got a tip-off from the public and raided the gang arresting nine suspects - The police also launched a man hunt for other suspects who escaped the raid - Cases of insecurity in universities have been escalating, with recent case involving attack of s JKUAT student in Juja which sparked social media uproar Maseno University has been recording cases of robbery with violence and gang rape in the recent past with a number of students being killed while others have been left nursing injuries. The escalating cases of insecurity in the institution got the attention of detectives from Directorate of Criminal Investigations who laid a trap on the gang and nabbed nine suspects. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Police caught on camera forcing Maseno University students to crawl on rough road Crude weapons, bhang recovered as detectives arrest gang of 9 suspected of terrorising Maseno university students Source: UGC READ ALSO: Former street boy and drug addict who was rescued by schoolmate passes on TUKO..co.ke established the police received a tip-off from members of the public about the gangsters and conducted a raid on Sunday, March 17, where the suspects were arrested in connection with the crimes. "Following a series of reported cases of robbery with violence and gang rape of Maseno University students, DCI detectives yesterday acting on a tip-off arrested nine suspects. Stolen chairs, bhang, pangas and claw bars confiscated. Other suspects escaped but are being pursued by detectives," said the sleuths in a tweet. The arrested suspects were put in police custody waiting to be arraigned as soon as investigations were concluded. READ ALSO: Ethiopian Airlines plane crash: Families of victims could receive up to KSh 25 million for every life lost They were identified as Patrick Okanda, Peter Amango, Sande Geoffrey, Okiya Mutunga, Obed Panyako, Peter Obed, David Ndegu, Samuel Kuya, Stephen Oloo and Nahashon Arena. Cases of university students being attacked, robbed and killed have been on the raise in the country with the recent case being reported at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) where a student was stabbed by thugs while escorting a girlfriend home. The attack that was reported on Monday, March 4, occurred barely a month after a first year student from the same institution was stabbed to death at Gachororo village in Juja. Do you have a life-changing story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Would you share a toothbrush with your spouse - Tuko TV Source: Tuko.co.ke - Ali Juma was among the 50 doctors sponsored by the Kenyan government to study family medicine in Cuba - The medics have been on record decrying harsh living conditions and failure by the government to provide sponsorship as agreed. - The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party sent a condolences message to the MP's family Likoni MP Mishi Mboko's brother Ali Juma has died following an alleged suicide. Juma was among 50 doctors sponsored by the Kenyan government to study family medicine in Cuba following a deal between the two countries. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Distraught Kamiti prisoner narrates how he was sentenced to life imprisonment after daughter lied he raped her Likoni MP Mishi Mboko's brother Ali Juma (pictured) has committed suicide in Cuba. Photo/Capital news Source: UGC READ ALSO: Jubilee MP wants Devolution CS Eugene Wamalwa prosecuted over reported deaths from hunger In a statement by the Ministry of Health seen by TUKO.co.ke, the family of the deceased was informed of the incident on Sunday, March 17. The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party sent its condolences to Mboko's family. The MP is the party deputy director of elections. Condolences to the family of Likoni MP and deputy director of elections Mishi Mboko following the death of her brother Dr Ali Hamso in Cuba where he had gone to pursue masters degree in medicine. We pray for God's fortitude in the family during this sad moment," said the Orange party in a tweet. READ ALSO: Uhuru Kenyatta drives himself to church in personal Mercedes G-Wagon The sponsored medics have been on record decrying harsh living conditions and failure by the Kenyan government to provide them with the agreed stipend to meet their daily expenditure. Majority of them were reportedly unable to afford a cup of tea due to its costly price of KSh 600 while a book that would cost KSh 30 in Kenya was costing KSh 800 in Cuba. According to the agreement that saw them leave the country, they were to be paid a stipend of KSh 36,000 monthly. However, complaints emerged over the failure by the government to be consistent in making payments of the allowances. The Ministry of Health, however, asked them to remain calm as they plan to sort out their grievances. Do you have a life-changing story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Would you share toothpaste with your spouse I Tuko TV Source: Tuko.co.ke SBM Bank Deputy CEO Jotham Mutoka, Cytonn CEO Edwin Dande and other special guests during signing of the KSh 650 million loan facility on Monday, March 18. Photo: Cytonn. Source: Original Cytonn Investment on Monday, March 18, secured a KSh 650 million loan facility with State Bank of Mauritius (SMB) to finance completion of The Alma project as it seeks to diversify its source of funding with long term debt. The Alma is a KSh 3.2 billion development in the upmarket location in Ruaka Town, Kiambu county. It comprises of 477 residential units and a commercial space that includes a kindergarten and is currently 90% sold. The Alma project in Ruaka Town, Kiambu county, comprises of 477 residential units and commercial space comlte with a kindergarten. Photo:Cytonn. Source: Original The first phase of The Alma is scheduled to be handed over to the clients by end of the first half of 2019. This signals the beginning of a long term partnership with SBM. Cytonn seeks to cut the share of mezzanine finance to 30% while we also seek to increase bank financing to 50%, said Cytonn CEO Edwin Dande during signing of the deal with SBM on Monday Cytonn CEO Edwin Dande: "This partnership with SBM is evidence that there are brands that have looked at our strategy and are comfortable with it. Photo: Cytonn. Source: Original On his part, SBM Deputy CEO Jotham Mutoka commended Cytonn for delivering institutional grade real estate while also delivering attractive returns to their investors. "It is also playing a key role in the development of housing in Kenya and does all this with the highest standards of corporate governance. The KSh 650 million is the first investment and we shall be exploring further areas to collaborate with Cytonn," Mutoka said. SBM Deputy CEO Jotham Mutoka: "Cytonn has a strong track record in structuring real estate investment products. This forms part of the appeal with attractive risk-adjusted returns. Photo: Cytonn. Source: Original (Sponsored) Source: Tuko National Assembly Standing Committee convenes 32nd session The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee convened its 32nd session in Hanoi, from March 11 to 13, under the chair of NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. Five bills were tabled for discussion at the meeting, including the draft law amending and supplementing some articles of the law on state audit, the draft revised law on militia and self-defence forces, the draft law on architecture, the draft revised law on education and the draft law on libraries. The NA Standing Committee also looked into a draft resolution on handling tax debts and fines on overdue debts of tax payers. The Committee also adopted a resolution regulating the military ranks of lieutenant general and major general, which have yet to be set specified in the 2018 Law on Peoples Public Security Forces. Minister highlights Vietnams commitment to gender equality at UN forum Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung (first from right) at the event (Photo: dangcongsan.vn) Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung highlighted several of Vietnams achievements in reducing gender inequality and reaffirmed the countrys efforts to fulfil gender equality targets while addressing the 63rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York on March 13. The minister affirmed the stance of Vietnam and many other UN members in considering ensuring social welfare the leading goal in national development. The 63rd session of the CSW is underway in New York until March 22 with the participation of more than 100 vice presidents, deputy prime ministers and ministers from countries around the world, along with representatives from multilateral and non-governmental organisations. National Press Festival 2019 takes place in Hanoi The annual National Press Festival 2019, themed Renovated, creative, responsible Vietnamese press for the interests of the nation and people, took place in Hanoi from March 15 to 17, attracting 85 centrally-run press agencies and local journalist associations. The organisation board presented awards to the most impressive pavilions; best Tet newspaper cover pages; best e-paper display; best Tet (Lunar New Year) TV programmes; best scientific researches; and best reportages on the environment, climate change, and natural disaster prevention. Publications were also presented to soldiers in border and island areas on the occasion. Vietnam marks milestone in first split liver transplant An adult patient following a liver transplant undergoing postoperative care. (Photo: NDO/Trung Hieu) For the first time in Vietnam, doctors from the Hanoi-based Vietnam-Germany Friendship Hospital have been successful in performing a split liver transplant, dividing a donors liver and transplanting it into one adult and one child patient. The hospital on March 15 announced that organs donated from a 30-year-old brain dead man have been transplanted into five patients, including two kidney and two liver transplant recipients, as well as one heart transplant. In addition, blood vessels have been sent to a tissue preservation bank for transplanting to other patients. The success of the split liver transplant has affirmed the profession of the local medical staff and offers a new opportunity for patients waiting for liver transplants. Vietnamese violin talent wins first prize at international competition Nguyen Nguyen Le, a 10-year-old student of the Vietnam National Academy of Music, was presented the first prize at the 12th International Competition Arthur Grumiaux, Belgium-Brussels 2019 at an award ceremony held at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, on March 11 (Vietnamese time). Named after the Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux, the competition is one of the most prestigious annual music competitions in Europe. This year's competition featured the participation of 70 contestants from 29 countries and territories worldwide, divided into four groups: A, B, C and D. Vietnams An Bang beach again voted among beautiful beaches in Asia An Bang Beach near the ancient town of Hoi An (Photo: Mytour.vn) An Bang beach in central Vietnam has been voted among the 25 best beaches in Asia by readers of TripAdvisor, the worlds most popular travel guide and review website. The beach, which is around 3km from the World Heritage ancient town of Hoi An and 22 kilometres south of the central city of Da Nang, is in 17th position, up five places from last year. This is the fourth consecutive year An Bang has won a place on the list. Ban flower festival 2019 celebrated in Dien Bien and Son La The sixth ban flower festival 2019 kicked off in the north western mountainous province of Dien Bien on March 16. The six-day festival featured a string of activities including sporting events, a folk music festival, a display of tourist products, the Highlands Market, and the second Miss Ban Flower Beauty competition. A similar festival was also observed in Son La province from March 15 to 17 with an aim to honour and preserve the values of the local culture, while combining cultural preservation with tapping tourism potential. Vietnamese chess star claims third place at US Spring Chess Classic Le Quang Liem secures three wins, four draws and two losses at the 2019 Spring Chess Classic in St Louis, Missouri, USA. Vietnams No. 1 chess player, Le Quang Liem, came out in third place overall with five points at the 2019 Spring Chess Classic which took place between March 2 and 10 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. As the third-place finisher, Liem walked away with a cash prize of US$3,000. The 2019 Spring Chess Classic featured the participation of ten players with an average Elo rating of 2657, who battled it out for more than US$30,000 in total prize money. English Norwegian Peter A. Ruzicka (54) has informed the Board of Directors of Orkla ASA that he wishes to step down as President and CEO. He will remain in the position until Orkla has presented its results for the first quarter of 2019 on 7 May 2019. "After five years as President and CEO of Orkla, I have concluded that the time has come to hand over the baton. These have been five eventful years in which Orkla has achieved good progress in many areas. The Group is well positioned for the future," says Peter A. Ruzicka. Mr Ruzicka took up the position of President and CEO on 10 February 2014. He was a member of Orkla's Board of Directors from 2008 to 2014 and from 2003 to 2005. He was a member of the Corporate Assembly in 2006-2007. "On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank Peter for his outstanding efforts and good collaboration. Peter has done an excellent job of leading Orkla in the transition from an industrial conglomerate to a more focused branded consumer goods company. I am deeply grateful for the contribution that he has made as head of Orkla," says Board Chairman Stein Erik Hagen. Mr Ruzicka will represent Orkla on the Board of Directors of Jotun A/S after his resignation. The process of finding Mr Ruzicka's successor as President and CEO will begin immediately. Terje Andersen (61) will be appointed as Acting President and CEO from 7 May until a new President and CEO is in place. Mr Andersen joined Orkla in 1989 and has held the position of CEO of Orkla Investments since 2014. From 2003 to 2014, he was CFO of Orkla and sat on the Group Executive Board from 2005 to 2018. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Jotun AS and Borregaard ASA, and other companies. About Orkla Orkla is a leading supplier of branded consumer goods and concept solutions to the consumer, out-of-home and bakery markets in the Nordics, Baltics and selected markets in Central Europe and India. Orkla is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and its headquarters is in Oslo. In 2018, the Group had a turnover of NOK 41 billion, and approximately 18,500 employees as of 31 December 2018. Oslo, 18 March 2019 Ref. Group Director Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs Hakon Mageli Tel.: +47 928 45 828 E-mail: hakon.mageli@orkla.no SVP Investor Relations Thomas Ljungqvist Tel.: +47 482 59 618 E-mail: thomas.ljungqvist@orkla.no This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. English French Press Release Vallourec is selected by Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production PLC (PTTEP) to deliver oil country tubular goods for a challenging offshore project in Myanmar Boulogne, March 18, 2019 - PTTEP, Thailand's national oil exploration & production company, awarded Vallourec the contract to deliver over 3,000 tons of OCTG for its Myanmar M9 West exploration well; a challenging HP/HT (high pressure/high temperature) offshore field in the Gulf of Martaban, approximately 300km from Yangon. Alexandre Valdelievre, Vallourec Commercial Director, South East Asia stated: "We are absolutely delighted to be entrusted with this contract, which truly reflects the benefits of our new regional organization. Since 2017, we have been working closely with PTTEP, building relations of confidence and proximity and supporting them for their offshore exploration projects." The project will be essentially served through Vallourec's subsidiary in Indonesia, supported by competitive supplies from Vallourec pipe mills in Brazil, in China and in Germany. In addition, VAM Field Services (VFS) will be present on the rig to supervise the smooth running of the well. By ensuring that running procedures are followed correctly, VFS can reduce risk, improve efficiency and contribute to the safety of operations on the rig. PTTEP drilling engineering team stated: "Safety, quality and value for money are the key success factors for our operations which is why we selected Vallourec for our project. Thanks to their proximity, their technical know-how and field services, Vallourec will be able to support us from the start of the project through to installation." With its Vallourec Tianda plants located in China, the group has a new, fully integrated production system, which enables it to offer a complete product portfolio at a highly competitive price to target local and export markets (Asia, the Middle East). About Vallourec Vallourec is a world leader in premium tubular solutions for the energy markets and for challenging industrial applications such as oil and gas wells in harsh environments, new generation power plants, daring architectural projects, and high-performance mechanical equipment. Vallourec's pioneering spirit and cutting-edge R&D continually open new technological frontiers. Operating in more than 20 countries, its 19,000 dedicated and passionate employees work hand-in-hand with their customers to offer more than just tubes: they deliver innovative, safe, competitive and smart tubular solutions to make every project possible. Listed on the Euronext in Paris (ISIN code: FR0000120354, ticker VK) and eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (SRD), Vallourec is included in the following indices: SBF 120 and Next 150. In the United States, Vallourec has a sponsored Level 1 American Depository Receipt (ADR) program (ISIN code: US92023R2094; Ticker: VLOWY). Parity between ADR and a Vallourec ordinary share has been set at 5:1. vallourec.com Follow us on Twitter @Vallourec For more information, please contact: Investor relations Jean-Marc Agabriel Tel: +33 (0)1 49 09 39 77 Investor.relations@vallourec.com Press relations Mathieu Carre Tel.: +33 (0)1 41 03 78 71 / +33 (0)6 89 95 53 30 mathieu.carre@vallourec.com Individual shareholder relations Toll-Free Number: 0 800 505 110 actionnaires@vallourec.com Attachment The following is a release by the Elections and Boundaries Commission on the recount request Russian occupation forces violated ceasefire ten times in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) area in eastern Ukraine over the past day. The weapons banned under the Minsk agreements were used seven times. In addition, the enemy fired antitank missile system, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns on our troops. In the zone of action of tactical force East, the invaders used 120mm and 82mm mortars, automatic mounted grenade launchers and heavy machine guns to shell Ukrainian strongholds near Vodiane (94km south of Donetsk); 120mm mortars outside Marinka (23km south-west of Donetsk), the JFO Headquarters press center reports on Facebook. In the zone of action of tactical force North, the enemy fired 82mm mortars and antitank missile system on Ukrainian troops in the area of Krymske (42km north-west of Luhansk); antitank missile system near Novotoshkivske (53km west of Luhansk); 82mm mortars outside Zolote-4 (59km west of Luhansk); 82mm mortars and automatic mounted grenade launchers near Novoluhanske (53km north-east of Donetsk); grenade launchers of different systems outside Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk). One Ukrainian serviceman was killed, another two soldiers were wounded in shelling. The Joint Forces returned fire in response to enemys attacks, annihilating three invaders and wounding four more. Today, no ceasefire violations have been recorded. The Joint Forces reliably control the actions of the enemy on the contact line, adhering to the ceasefire regime. ol Late-Breaking Trial Results Presented at European Heart Rhythm Association Annual Congress, ACC Scientific Sessions, and Published in The New England Journal of Medicine WRAP-IT Is the Largest Randomized Global Trial Ever Conducted with Cardiac Implanted Electronic Devices DUBLIN and LISBON, Portugal - March 18, 2019 - Medtronic plc (NYSE:MDT) announced results from the landmark Worldwide Randomized Antibiotic Envelope Infection Prevention Trial (WRAP-IT), which demonstrated the TYRX(TM) Absorbable Antibacterial Envelope (TYRX envelope) reduced the risk of major infection by 40 percent, and pocket infection by 61 percent, in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs), compared to standard-of-care pre-operative antibiotics. The trial results were presented today in a late-breaking session at the European Heart Rhythm Association Annual Congress by Bruce Wilkoff, M.D., director of cardiac pacing and tachyarrhythmia devices at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, as well as presented at the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Sessions, and published in The New England Journal of Medicine. "CIED infections are associated with significant morbidity, mortality and cost. Until now, in addition to adhering to strict surgical techniques, only one intervention, pre-operative antibiotics, has been shown to significantly reduce infections," said Khaldoun Tarakji , M.D., M.P.H., associate section head of cardiac electrophysiology at Cleveland Clinic, principal investigator of the trial, and a paid consultant to Medtronic. "This study shows that, in addition to pre-operative antibiotics, the use of the antibacterial envelope significantly reduced the risk of CIED infections, and with no increased risk of complications." The trial met its primary endpoint showing effectiveness of the TYRX envelope in reducing major infections by 40 percent in patients at increased risk for infections resulting from CIED implantation: at 12 months, 1.2 percent of patients in the control group experienced a major infection, while only 0.7 percent of patients who received the TYRX envelope had a major infection (p=0.04). The trial also showed a 61 percent reduction in pocket infections with the envelope (p<0.01). The TYRX envelope was successfully implanted in 99.7 percent of procedure attempts, with no significant difference in procedure time between the two groups. The trial also met its safety objective: the envelope did not increase the risk of procedure-related or system-related complications through 12 months (p<0.001 for non-inferiority). "These data provide strong evidence that the TYRX envelope can help prevent major infection without increasing complications," said Rob Kowal, M.D., Ph.D., vice president and chief medical officer of the Cardiac Rhythm and Heart Failure division, which is part of the Cardiac and Vascular Group at Medtronic. "This is the largest CIED trial ever conducted globally, demonstrating Medtronic's commitment to generating high-quality evidence supporting the use of our products and therapies to improve patient outcomes." WRAP-IT is a randomized, prospective, multicenter, single-blinded, global, post-market, interventional clinical trial. It compared the incidence of major infections in patients whose CIED implantation included the TYRX envelope and patients whose procedure did not, with follow up to 12 months. The study was conducted in 181 centers in 25 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and South America, and included 776 implanters. A total of 6,983 patients participated in the trial with 3,495 randomized to receive the TYRX envelope and 3,488 randomized to the control group (without the envelope). Millions of people with heart conditions receive a CIED, such as a pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), to help manage abnormal heart rhythms.As with any surgical procedure, there is risk for infection due to bacteria being introduced at the time of implant. These infections occur in 1-4 percent of all patientswith CIED implants,1,2 leading to an increased risk of death and an average cost per infection of $44,000-$83,000.3-7 The TYRX Absorbable Antibacterial Envelope is a mesh envelope that holds an implantable cardiac device. It is designed to stabilize the device after implantation while releasing antimicrobial agents, minocycline and rifampin, over a minimum of seven days.8 The envelope is fully absorbed by the body approximately nine weeks after implantation. 8,9 The TYRX Envelope was cleared by the FDA in 2013 and received CE Mark in 2014. In collaboration with leading clinicians, researchers and scientists worldwide, Medtronic offers the broadest range of innovative medical technology for the interventional and surgical treatment of cardiovascular disease and cardiac arrhythmias. Medtronic strives to offer products and services of the highest quality that deliver clinical and economic value to healthcare consumers and providers around the world. About Medtronic Medtronic plc ( www.medtronic.com ), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is among the world's largest medical technology, services and solutions companies - alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. Medtronic employs more than 86,000 people worldwide, serving physicians, hospitals and patients in more than 150 countries. The company is focused on collaborating with stakeholders around the world to take healthcare Further, Together. Any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties such as those described in Medtronic's periodic reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results. -end- 1 Tarakji KG, et al. Am Heart J. 2016;180:12 2 Data on file for aggregated infection rate. 3 Sohail MR, et al. Circ ArrhythmElectrophysiol. 2016;9:e003929. 4 Greenspon AJ, et al. Pacing Clin Electrophysiol. 2018;41:495-503. 5 2012 Premier Healthcare Database, data on file with Medtronic plc. 6 2014-15 Medicare 100% Standard Analytic File (SAF), data on file with Medtronic plc. 7 CPI 2016 Detailed Report: CPI1612. Assessed March 2018. 8 Huntingdon Life Sciences Study TR-2013-001. 9 Sinclair Labs Study D13599. Canada may announce on Monday that it is extending a 200-strong military training mission in Ukraine. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan are scheduled to hold a news conference at 1 p.m. (18:00 GMT) on Monday. It is the Ukraine extension, said the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation, Reuters reports. A spokeswoman for Sajjan declined to comment, while representatives for Freeland did not reply to requests for comment. As noted, the troops, who first went to Ukraine in 2015, are due out at the end of March. Political and military sources had made clear the soldiers would stay longer, given continuing tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Canada will not be sending any additional trainers, the source added. Canadas defense ministry said in December that the contingent had trained more than 10,000 members of the Ukrainian security forces. ol The experts of the Ivan Cherniakhovsky National Defense University of Ukraine participated in the meeting of the NATO Training Group on Individual Training & Education Development in the Kingdom of Denmark. Deputy Commandant of the University Colonel Valerii Dobrogurskyi and Chief of the University's Advanced Distributed Learning Center Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Tyshchenko took part in the NATO Training Group on Individual Training & Education Development meeting in Copenhagen, the Kingdom of Denmark, the press service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports. As noted, the participants discussed the latest development trends in the field of individual training and modern educational technologies implementation into the military training process. The event was attended by NATO Training Group representatives from the United States, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Turkey, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Serbia, Sweden, Ukraine. The ADL Working Group of the Partnership for Peace Consortium and the NATO Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP) representatives also participated in the meeting. The next meeting of the NATO Training Group on Individual Training & Education Development will be held in Ukraine, September 2019. ol Ukraine is the second-fastest country in the world in improving its Doing Business ranking since 2009. Ukraine has climbed 41 spots in the ranking since 2014. "Ukraine has climbed 41 spots in the Doing Business ranking since 2014. We are the second-fastest country in improving its ranking since 2009. We have already achieved annual business savings of over UAH 1 billion owing to deregulation," the press service of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine reports on Facebook. As the ministry notes, over the past three years, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has held eight meetings on deregulation, at which about 1,300 obsolete acts, which exerted unnecessary pressure on entrepreneurs, were canceled. The cumulative effect of the deregulation efforts in 2018 was the simplification of doing business for about 100,000 retail trade entities, about 1,000 companies and more than 10,000 self-employed individuals dealing with repairs of household goods, 6,300 companies carrying out engineering and search works, more than 6,700 construction companies. The Economic Development Ministry believes that the support of the Verkhovna Rada is necessary for further progress in the ranking, especially with regard to adoption of the bill No. 8124, which will allow getting into the top 50 of the Doing Business ranking, and the bill No. 4650 on de-communization, which removes the Soviet legacy from the legislation. As reported, Ukraine has improved its ranking in the World Bank Doing Business 2019, climbing from 76th to 71st spot among 190 countries. ol Ukrainian SkyUp Airlines has announced it will launch four new regular flights from Odesa to Armenia, Spain, Georgia and Italy. As avianews.com reports, SkyUp Airlines will launch flights from Odesa to Yerevan from May 17, 2019. The flights will be performed twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. The lowest price of airline tickets in one way is UAH 1,785. From May 25, the airline will start to perform Odesa Barcelona flights twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The price of air tickets starts from UAH 2,507. From June 2, the low-cost airline will launch Odesa-Rimini flights once a week on Sundays. The price of air tickets starts from UAH 1,757. From June 4, Odesa-Kutaisi flights will be performed twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. The lowest price of air tickets is UAH 1,757. As reported, Ukrainian low-cost airline SkyUp Airlines was founded in June 2017. It began to perform flights in May 2018. ish facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter Published March 18, 2019 University of Louisiana Monroe professor Dr. Jack Palmer was a panel discussant at the evolutionary ethics workshop for the 70th Louisiana Psychological Association conference that was held in New Orleans in late 2018. The keynote speaker at the event was the world-renowned scientist Dr. Robert Trivers, who discussed the evolution of reciprocal altruism and proclivities toward deception and self-deception. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls Trivers, "One of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought, and Time magazine named him one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of the 20th Century. Palmer commented on the workshop, saying, Our understanding of social behavior, both human and non-human, comes from the insights provided by three brilliant theorists, Charles Darwin, William Hamilton and Robert Trivers. Of these three, Robert Trivers remains among the living and I had the honor and privilege to be given the opportunity to discuss evolutionary science with him as well as contribute to the program. Palmer has been at ULM since 1989 and is in the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Palmer teaches positive psychology, physiological psychology, neurophysiology, and evolutionary psychology. His current research focuses on investigating altruism and empathy and determining which variables have the greatest influence on critical decision making. Poroshenko says Ukraine will never conclude any behind-the-scenes agreements. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said there is no more important task for Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities and the president than to restore the country's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence. Read alsoRussia's losses over five years of illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea estimated at over US$150 bln "First of all, we must be aware of who is our enemy. [It is] one of the largest military machines in the world, a totalitarian one, which has set a task to organize the illegal annexation of Crimea. And the first thing we did was to seek the world's solidarity with Ukraine, which contributes to the liberation of Crimea," he said in an interview to Ukraine TV Channel, according to the president's press service. "The second position is that Ukraine will never resort to any bargaining or behind-the-scenes agreements. And Crimea will be returned to Ukraine. We will do our best to ensure that this is done as soon as possible, immediately after the presidential elections. Because you heard Putin's repeated statements that it would not happen before the presidential elections, because he was very hopeful that anyone except for Poroshenko would be elected, so that a new Ukrainian government would kneel down and give up Crimea. Dream on. We will liberate Crimea," Poroshenko said. The president noted that for this purpose, Ukraine was increasing military power, consolidating international solidarity, providing economic growth. "The same will happen with Donbas. I do not rule out the possibility that we will see progress in peacekeeping immediately after the elections [the deployment of a peacekeeping mission under the auspices of the United Nations to the occupied areas of Donbas]," he said. "I emphasize that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission's mandate covers not only Donbas, but also Crimea. And we have a completely clear plan what we should do for this," Poroshenko said. The president also thanked the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. "I would like to address them separately believe me, we will fight for the liberation of Crimea. We never forget about you. And we are proud of your struggle. Together we will definitely win," Poroshenko added. The Russian leaders have developed a special program to populate the peninsula with people loyal to the Kremlin. Gayana Yuksel, a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, has said the Russian authorities may hold another "referendum" in Crimea to completely "legitimize" its annexation, therefore they intensively populate the peninsula with Russians in parallel with the forced departure of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. Read alsoRussia's losses over five years of illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea estimated at over US$150 bln "From 500,000 to 800,000 [Russian] citizens have already been relocated onto the peninsula. What for? This is done so that no one on the peninsula remembers or mentions Ukraine. So that no one of the pro-Ukrainian population who remember Ukraine, who lived under Ukraine's [jurisdiction] is left there. Especially, so that there will be no activists there... I will not be surprised if tomorrow we may hear from Russia about a second referendum," she told Espreso TV. In her opinion, Russian propaganda may present this as follows: the first "referendum" was not recognized, and now we will hold talks with the international community, with Ukraine. "Ask the residents of Crimea: how they are now living in Crimea and whether they agree to return to Ukraine, and we will hold another 'referendum,' a second one," she described a possible line of the Russian occupiers' conduct. Therefore, the Russian leaders have developed a special program to populate the peninsula with people loyal to the Kremlin. These are people mostly from law enforcement agencies. Moscow allocates US$30,000 per family so that they could buy a one-room flat or build a small house. Australia condemns the aggression and calls on Russia to release the detained Ukrainian sailors and seized vessels without delay. Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne has said her country imposed financial sanctions and travel bans in response to Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine. "Australia stands united with our partners in opposition to Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine, five years after its illegal annexation of Crimea. Together with the United States, the United Kingdom and other European Union member states, and Canada, we are strong supporters of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she said, according to a media release posted on her official website. Read alsoU.S., Canada introduce sanctions over Russian aggression in Ukraine, including in Kerch Strait "Today I announce targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against seven Russian individuals for their role in the interception and seizure of Ukrainian naval vessels that were attempting to pass through the Kerch Strait. Australia is concerned by this escalation of tensions in the Sea of Azov in November 2018," Payne said. According to the minister, Australia condemns the aggression and calls on Russia to release the detained Ukrainian sailors and seized vessels without delay. "We also call on Russia to allow free and unencumbered passage of Ukrainian and international ships through the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov," reads the report. "Australia does not recognise any actions seeking to legitimise the annexation of Crimea or the secession of parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions," she stressed. "I have therefore also imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against three 'leaders' from separatist-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine following so-called elections in November 2018," Payne said. "We call on Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, including its territorial waters," she added. Putin is due to speak at a celebratory music concert later on Monday and to hold talks with local people and businesses about what Russia has achieved in Crimea in the last five years and where it has fallen short. Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated two new power stations in Crimea on Monday after flying into the Black Sea peninsula to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Russia's annexation of the region from Ukraine. The power stations, in the cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol, were partially launched last year, but Monday's inauguration marked the moment they began working at full capacity, as reported by Reuters. The same facilities were at the center of an international scandal after German engineering company Siemens said its power turbines had been installed at them without its knowledge and in violation of European Union sanctions. Russia denied that. Read alsoRussia's losses over five years of illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea estimated at over US$150 bln Putin, who has poured billions of Russian taxpayer dollars into Crimea since Moscow seized control of it in 2014, attended the launch of the Sevastopol power station. He oversaw the launch of the Simferopol facility by video conference. Earlier on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said the ceremony would show that Crimea was able to meet all of its own energy needs for the first time. Before annexation, Ukraine supplied 80 percent of the peninsula's electricity needs. Ukraine says it wants Crimea, which most countries still recognize as Ukrainian territory, back. Russia says the matter is closed forever and that a 2014 referendum held after Russian forces secured the peninsula, showed Crimeans want to part of Russia. Putin is due to speak at a celebratory music concert later on Monday and to hold talks with local people and businesses about what Russia has achieved in Crimea in the last five years and where it has fallen short. Read alsoPutin's public approval rating lowest in 20 years Russia has spent heavily to try to integrate Crimea and reduce its dependence on Ukraine, including building a giant bridge to link the peninsula to southern Russia. But Western sanctions designed to punish Moscow for its annexation have helped isolate the peninsula, pushing up prices and slowing its development. Putin's approval rating soared on the back of Russia's Crimean annexation, which stirred national pride in many Russians. But despite remaining high at over 60 percent, his rating has since declined due to public unease over falling wages, rising prices and unpopular pension reforms. Russian enthusiasm for the annexation also appears to have cooled with an opinion poll from the FOM pollster this month showing that 39 percent of Russians believe it brought more good than harm, down from 67 percent in 2014. NATO reiterated Crimea is the territory of Ukraine. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has called on the Russian Federation to return control of Crimea to Ukraine. "Five years ago, Russia used force against Ukraine to illegally and illegitimately annex Crimea. This violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity is a serious breach of international law and a major challenge to Euro-Atlantic security. We strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize. We call on Russia to return control of Crimea to Ukraine. We reiterate our full support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and territorial waters. Crimea is the territory of Ukraine," according to a NATO statement posted on its website on March 18. Read alsoAustralia imposes financial sanctions, travel bans over Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine It is reported allies are deeply concerned by the human right abuses and violations being carried out by the Russian de-facto authorities in illegally annexed Crimea against Ukrainians, the Crimean Tatars, and members of other local communities. "These violations include extrajudicial killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, violence, arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture. Despite the 2017 Order of the International Court of Justice, the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, remains under persecution and is banned in its homeland," the statement says. "NATO calls on Russia to bring an immediate end to all violations and abuses in illegally annexed Crimea, to release Ukrainian political prisoners and hostages, and to grant international monitoring organizations access to Crimea. Any attempts to legitimize or normalize the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea must end, including the automatic imposition of Russian citizenship, forced population movements, conscription in the armed forces of the Russian Federation, and illegal holding of Russian election campaigns," it said. NATO condemns Russia's militarization of the occupied peninsula. Read alsoPoroshenko: Ukraine's most important task to ensure restoration of territorial integrity "We condemn Russia's ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up in Crimea, and are concerned by Russia's efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region. We also condemn Russia's construction of the Kerch Strait bridge, which represents another violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and is imposing additional hardship on Ukraine's economy," it said. NATO also calls on Russia to free 24 captive Ukrainian sailors. "Russia's unjustified use of military force against Ukrainian ships and naval personnel near the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait in November 2018 is part of the larger pattern of Russian aggressive actions in the region. In line with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 73/194 from December 17, 2018, we call on Russia to unconditionally release the Ukrainian crew members it detained, to return the captured vessels and to comply with its international commitments by ensuring unhindered access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov and allowing freedom of navigation," NATO said. "NATO's response to address Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine has been alongside and in support of an overall international effort, which has included sanctions. There can be no return to 'business as usual' until there is a clear, constructive change in Russia's actions that demonstrates compliance with international law and its international obligations and responsibilities," the statement said. Optical Coatings Market Size worth USD 25.7 billion by 2026: Acumen Research and Consulting Acumen Research and Consulting, a global provider of market research studies, in a recently published report titled Optical Coatings Market (By Product: Anti-reflective Coatings, Reflective Coatings, Filter Coatings, Conductive Coatings, Electrochromic Coatings; By Application: Consumer Electronics, Solar, Medical, Architecture, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Telecommunication) - Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Opportunities and Forecast, 2018 - 2026. LOS ANGELES, Mar. 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global market size of optical coatings was value at 12.8 billion at 2017. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9% over the forecast period. Free Download Sample Report Pages For Better understanding@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/request-sample/1207 Optical coatings are used in the wide-range of applications that includes UV resistance, anti-glare chemical resistance, and scratch & abrasion protection. Optical coatings are in effect progressively utilized by manufacturers to upgrade the different properties of the target product. Throughout the years, a variety of new optical coatings have come up with explicit applications. Various sectors such as electronics, automotive, and telecommunication are prominent end-use industries of such coatings. The technological innovations and advancements in the optical coatingmanufacturing is additionally a key power behind the quick adoption for optical coating in the manufacturing industry. The global optical coatings market is divided into product, application, and region. On the basis of product type segment, the worldwide optical coatings market is divided into anti-reflective coatings, reflective coatings, filter coatings, conductive coatings, and electrochromic coatings. On the basis of application, the worldwide optical coatings market is segmented into consumer electronics, solar, medical, architecture, aerospace & defense, automotive, and telecommunication. Based on the region, the worldwide optical coatings market is divided into North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and the Asia Pacific. In addition, moving consumer inclination toward smart innovations and brilliant touch displays is required to drive the demand over the projected time period. Rising conspicuousness of optical frameworks in safeguard sector is likewise foreseen to be a key driver for the development in the upcoming years. Expanding military spending by nations, for example, the U.S., India, and China is estimated to support the target product demand. View Detail Information with Complete TOC@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/optical-coatings-market Anti-reflective coatings held the predominant major market share in terms of revenue, in 2017. Expanding use of the item as hostile to anti-glare layer in eyewear, binoculars, kiosk displays, and video games among others are estimated to fuel the segment growth over the forecast period. Filter coatings represented the highest market share of the worldwide market regarding income in 2017. Developing utilization of the product in automotive night vision, flame and gas detection, thermal imaging, and thermography is projected to push demand of the product segment in the expected years. The developing interest thermally controlled covering answers for delicate locators, sunlight based board and cells, and expanding interests in the solar industry are key variables prompting a quick development of solar applications in the optical coatings end-use industry market. North America market is one of the real markets for intelligent coatings attributable to the developing utilization of the item in order to keep the overheating of fiber optics in the media transmission industry and to help hold and keep up building temperature. Developing usage in space applications, such as, cosmology combined with rise in R&D activities is expected to influence the market over the projected period of time. Browse All official Market Research Reports Press Releases@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/press-releases Explore Our Market Blog@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/blogs Asia Pacific market is expected to witness the highest CAGR and grow at a significant rate of growth. Huge scale construction activities, especially in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam for the improvement of infrastructure are projected to impel the demand for the product in the construction industry. The Asia-Pacific market is the most significant region in the worldwide market and is estimated to develop at the most noteworthy CAGR during the projected time period. The region has a high centralization of rising economies, for example, China, India, South Korea, and Japan. These nations are quickly urbanizing, and all things considered, there has been a detectable change in ways of life and utilization designs. The locale has a settled and developing assembling sector because of the decreased generally working expenses in the region and the availability of educated and comparatively cheap labor. The advancement of the private sector in nations like Columbia and Ecuador inferable from lower loan fees, developing household request, and steady government strategies are relied upon to drive the local interest over the estimated time frame. Major companies contributing the global optical coatings market are Alluxa, Cascade Optical Corporation, Chroma Technology Corporation, Inrad Optics, Optical Coatings Japan, PPG Industries, Inc., VIAVI Solutions Inc., Schott AG, and Abrisa Technologies. INQUIRY BEFORE BUYING@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/inquiry-before-buying/1207 The report is readily available and can be dispatched immediately after payment confirmation. Buy this premium research report https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/buy-now/0/1207 Would like to place an order or any question, please feel free to contact at sales@acumenresearchandconsulting.com | +1 407 915 4157 For Latest Update Follow Us: https://twitter.com/AcumenRC https://www.facebook.com/acumenresearchandconsulting https://www.linkedin.com/company/acumen-research-and-consulting/ Browse More Press Releases: http://www.amecoresearch.com/ Acumen Research and Consulting, a global provider of market research studies, in a recently published report titled Optical Coatings Market (By Product: Anti-reflective Coatings, Reflective Coatings, Filter Coatings, Conductive Coatings, Electrochromic Coatings; By Application: Consumer Electronics, Solar, Medical, Architecture, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Telecommunication) - Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Opportunities and Forecast, 2018 - 2026. LOS ANGELES, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global market size of optical coatings was value at 12.8 billion at 2017. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9% over the forecast period. Free Download Sample Report Pages For Better understanding@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/request-sample/1207 Optical coatings are used in the wide-range of applications that includes UV resistance, anti-glare chemical resistance, and scratch & abrasion protection. Optical coatings are in effect progressively utilized by manufacturers to upgrade the different properties of the target product. Throughout the years, a variety of new optical coatings have come up with explicit applications. Various sectors such as electronics, automotive, and telecommunication are prominent end-use industries of such coatings. The technological innovations and advancements in the optical coatingmanufacturing is additionally a key power behind the quick adoption for optical coating in the manufacturing industry. The global optical coatings market is divided into product, application, and region. On the basis of product type segment, the worldwide optical coatings market is divided into anti-reflective coatings, reflective coatings, filter coatings, conductive coatings, and electrochromic coatings. On the basis of application, the worldwide optical coatings market is segmented into consumer electronics, solar, medical, architecture, aerospace & defense, automotive, and telecommunication. Based on the region, the worldwide optical coatings market is divided into North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and the Asia Pacific. In addition, moving consumer inclination toward smart innovations and brilliant touch displays is required to drive the demand over the projected time period. Rising conspicuousness of optical frameworks in safeguard sector is likewise foreseen to be a key driver for the development in the upcoming years. Expanding military spending by nations, for example, the U.S., India, and China is estimated to support the target product demand. View Detail Information with Complete TOC@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/optical-coatings-market Anti-reflective coatings held the predominant major market share in terms of revenue, in 2017. Expanding use of the item as hostile to anti-glare layer in eyewear, binoculars, kiosk displays, and video games among others are estimated to fuel the segment growth over the forecast period. Filter coatings represented the highest market share of the worldwide market regarding income in 2017. Developing utilization of the product in automotive night vision, flame and gas detection, thermal imaging, and thermography is projected to push demand of the product segment in the expected years. The developing interest thermally controlled covering answers for delicate locators, sunlight based board and cells, and expanding interests in the solar industry are key variables prompting a quick development of solar applications in the optical coatings end-use industry market. North America market is one of the real markets for intelligent coatings attributable to the developing utilization of the item in order to keep the overheating of fiber optics in the media transmission industry and to help hold and keep up building temperature. Developing usage in space applications, such as, cosmology combined with rise in R&D activities is expected to influence the market over the projected period of time. Browse All official Market Research Reports Press Releases@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/press-releases Explore Our Market Blog@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/blogs Asia Pacific market is expected to witness the highest CAGR and grow at a significant rate of growth. Huge scale construction activities, especially in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam for the improvement of infrastructure are projected to impel the demand for the product in the construction industry. The Asia-Pacific market is the most significant region in the worldwide market and is estimated to develop at the most noteworthy CAGR during the projected time period. The region has a high centralization of rising economies, for example, China, India, South Korea, and Japan. These nations are quickly urbanizing, and all things considered, there has been a detectable change in ways of life and utilization designs. The locale has a settled and developing assembling sector because of the decreased generally working expenses in the region and the availability of educated and comparatively cheap labor. The advancement of the private sector in nations like Columbia and Ecuador inferable from lower loan fees, developing household request, and steady government strategies are relied upon to drive the local interest over the estimated time frame. Major companies contributing the global optical coatings market are Alluxa, Cascade Optical Corporation, Chroma Technology Corporation, Inrad Optics, Optical Coatings Japan, PPG Industries, Inc., VIAVI Solutions Inc., Schott AG, and Abrisa Technologies. INQUIRY BEFORE BUYING@ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/inquiry-before-buying/1207 The report is readily available and can be dispatched immediately after payment confirmation. Buy this premium research report https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/buy-now/0/1207 Would like to place an order or any question, please feel free to contact at sales@acumenresearchandconsulting.com | +1 407 915 4157 For Latest Update Follow Us: https://twitter.com/AcumenRC https://www.facebook.com/acumenresearchandconsulting https://www.linkedin.com/company/acumen-research-and-consulting/ The general attitude of Crimeans to the occupation forces is dramatically different from what it was five years ago, the head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people said. Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Refat Chubarov, noted the change in the mood of the population in the occupied Crimea five years into the Russian occupation of the peninsula. In an interview with Pryamiy TV channel, Chubarov stressed that the general mood of Crimeans is drastically different from what it was five years ago. Those who believed in Russia are now sobering up. And those who initially understood that Russia was coming in with their troops not to bring something good, they are now convinced that they had taken the right position. In particular, the Crimean Tatars have such an understanding, noted Chubarov. Read alsoCrimean Tatar leader explains why Moscow resettles Russians from mainland to occupied Crimea UNIAN memo. Russia occupied the Ukrainian Crimea by deploying its troops on the peninsula and organizing in March 2014 a pseudo-referendum on self-determination. The self-proclaimed Crimean government stated that 96.77% of Crimea residents were in favor of acceding to the Russian Federation. On March 18, 2014, the Kremlin signed the so-called agreement on the admission of Crimea and Sevastopol to the Russian Federation. Western powers did not recognize the annexation of Crimea and imposed sanctions against Russia. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine officially announced February 20, 2014, the date of the start of the temporary occupation of Crimea. The parties note the "imperfection" of said draft laws. Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement, Andriy Kozhemyakin, states that the U.S. and EU ambassadors, as well as the IMF mission, are asking to postpone consideration of bills regarding illegal enrichment. According to an UNIAN correspondent, the statement came during the Conciliation Board meeting on Monday. Speaking of bills related to Article 368-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal enrichment), Kozhemyakin said: "The U.S. ambassador, the IMF mission, and the EU ambassador wrote me a letter today. They ask to postpone consideration of all draft laws as they are imperfect, including the presidential one." As UNIAN reported earlier, on March 13, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement refused to consider bills on imposing liability for illegal enrichment. Then, Kozhemyakin said that only four of six bills had conclusions on them by the scientific and expert department of Parliament. Read alsoG7, World Bank urge Ukraine to criminalize illicit enrichment He added that all six bills, including those submitted by the President of Ukraine (No. 10110), are not tabled for Parliament consideration. In addition, Kozhemyakin noted the need to obtain conclusions from three more parliamentary committees, including on the bills' conformity with the Constitution of Ukraine. As it is known, without the conclusion of the Committee, bills cannot be submitted to parliament, according to the Rada regulations. As reported earlier, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on February 26 declared unconstitutional Article No. 368-2 of the Criminal Code, which provides for liability for illegal enrichment. The conclusion declares that "Article 368-2 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code loses its force from the date of the adoption of this conclusion by the Constitutional Court," the ruling said. On February 27, NABU stated that due to the court's decision, all proceedings against corrupt officials would be closed. According to the president, every step Ukraine takes on its way toward EU and NATO membership is Putins defeat. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko says Russian divisions deployed along the Ukraine border are ready to invade. The statement came during the president's meeting with the Regional Development Council of Rivne region, according to an UNIAN correspondent. We have gone very far along the European path, and every step of Ukraine and Ukrainians in this direction is Putins defeat. This is about confidence in our Ukrainian forces and this is about the respect and support of our partners and allies in the EU, in the G7, and in NATO, he said. Read alsoViolent provocations possible in occupied Donetsk on Ukraine election day OSINT expert According to the president, in the next five years, Ukraine can come really close to gaining EU membership and receiving the NATO MAP. Ukraine will definitely pass the point of no return either to the Russian empire or the Soviet Union, he noted. Did Putin agree to that? ... I'd like to tell you that he definitely didn't, because now, at this moment, his divisions are on the border with Ukraine, and they are ready for an invasion, the president stressed. Poroshenko also said that since the start of the Russian aggression, 2,955 Ukrainian troops have been killed in hostilities The Special Representative also notes the need to boost Ukraine's air and coastal defenses. U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker says Washington could sell to Kyiv more Javelin anti-tank guided missiles. Speaking at a video briefing set up from Brussels, Volker recalled that the Donald Trump administration had lifted the ban imposed by the Obama administration on providing Ukraine with lethal defensive arms. "As is known, part of that assistance was to provide anti-tank systems so that if tanks were to progress further into Ukrainian territory, Ukraine would have a better ability to defend itself," Volker noted. Read alsoThe Hill: U.S. considering providing more weapons for Ukraine, general says "Ukraine has indicated an interest in acquiring more of that. That's possible. We also need to be looking at things like air defense and coastal defense," the diplomat said. He noted it's whatever is reasonable and necessary for Ukraine to have a modern capability to defend itself and prevent further aggression. Asked about the alleged U.S. plans to provide Ukraine with two more Island-class patrol boats, Volker said: "I'd have to check on what exactly we're speaking about here." "The broader principle is that the U.S. remains committed to providing assistance to Ukraine, to its military, including its Navy, and that we're also open to foreign military sales to Ukraine if the Ukrainian government pursues that." Canada is a leader in the international communitys support for the people of Ukraine, the statement says. Canada's National Defense Minister Harjit S. Sajjan Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on March 18 announced that the Government of Canada is extending Operation UNIFIER, the Canadian Armed Forces military training mission in Ukraine, until the end of March 2022. While Ukraines defense and security forces "continue to make considerable progress", ongoing insecurity in the region underscores the importance and relevance of Canadas military mission, according to the statement by Canada's ministry of defense. Through Operation UNIFIER, the Canadian Armed Forces will continue to provide military training and capacity building assistance to Ukraines defense and security forces. Read alsoKlimkin comments on EU, U.S., Canada's sanctions against Russia "The training provided by the Canadian Armed Forces directly helps Ukraines defence and security forces to uphold domestic security and territorial integrity, contributing to regional and international stability," the statement reads, adding that Operation UNIFIER supports Ukraines broader reform agenda and contributes to current Canadian efforts that invest in democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Ukraine. Todays announcement reaffirms Canada's steadfast support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity, and our commitment to global security. Canadas commitment to Ukraine is unequivocal and unwavering. With the renewal of Operation UNIFIER, the women and men of our Canadian Armed Forces are playing a key role in helping build, develop and modernize the capabilities of Ukraines defence and security forces, said Harjit S. Sajjan. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said: The people of Ukraine know they can count on Canada. Operation UNIFIER is an essential part of our multifaceted support to Ukraine. We are steadfast in our commitment to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity, as it works toward a stable, democratic and prosperous future. That is why Canada is also proud to host the third annual Ukraine Reform Conference in July this year. The diplomat expects Hungary to take up a position of full support for Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian aggression. U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker hopes Hungary and Ukraine will settle the issue of Hungarian minority rights in the context of education. Speaking at a video briefing in Brussels, Volker said: "I think Hungary's full political support for Ukraine facing this external aggression is extremely important. I think Hungary needs to be vocal and demonstrate that kind of support for Ukraine," Volker said. The envoy noted that he was aware of the existing issue in Hungary-Ukraine relations over the rights of the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia in the context of education. "I really hope that Hungary and Ukraine could sit down together and iron out the mechanics of how to do this," he said. The diplomat stressed that both parties had reasonable positions, but at the moment, any developments in the settlement are "frozen". Read alsoPro-Russian German journalist implicated in arson attack on Hungarian Center in Ukraine media This has "prevented Ukraine from having ministerial-level meetings at NATO, which is very unfortunate because in a situation where they're being attacked like this, they need that external support. So I would hope that Ukraine and Hungary can sit down and work that out and put Hungary in a position of giving an absolute full support to Ukraine," he said. As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine-Hungary relations worsened after the Ukrainian parliament in the fall of 2017 adopted a new law on education. Hungary has been blocking the meetings of the Ukraine-NATO Commission, claiming violations of their minority rights in Ukraine as the law's norm states that the language of instruction in schools shall be the state language. Read alsoHungary escalating tensions with Ukraine, playing along with Russia media According to the conclusion of the Venice Commission, released December 2017, Ukrainian authorities are recommended to balance out the language norms of the education law. On Feb 14, 2018, the Cabinet approved Bill No. 8046 on introducing a transition period for the language norm's implementation until 2023. Now the bill is under parliament committees' consideration. Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin believes the transition period should be extended to five years. The Russian army has advantages in terms of personnel and military hardware. Commander of Ukraine's Joint Forces Serhiy Nayev says that should Russia wage large-scale war, Ukraine's victory will depend on the Ukrainian people's unity and international partners' consistency. "In the case of possible full-scale aggression, our success will depend not only on the resilience of the soldiers and officers, but also on the consolidation of the Ukrainian people, the consistency of our allies and international partners, because such a threat can only be dealt jointly," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian daily newspaper Fakty. Read alsoRussian military hardware spotted near Ukrainian border (Video) The commander admits that the advantage is on the side of the Russian army in terms of personnel and military hardware. He also says that today's Ukrainian army is much stronger than the one that was in 2014. "Of course, a full-scale invasion is not positional warfare with permanent shelling. But! The Ukrainian army of the year 2019 is not poorly equipped and incomplete brigades and battalions that faced open aggression five years ago. The Armed Forces of Ukraine over the years have strengthened quantitatively and, most importantly, qualitatively: they have gained experience, received the latest weapons and changed tactics of actions," Nayev said. As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that the Ukrainian army would be able to act fully in accordance with NATO standards as early as in 2020. "In 2020, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be structured and will be able to act in full accordance with NATO standards, as is stipulated in the [Ukrainian] law on national security," he said early in January 2019. "Our army is capable of deterring the enemy, which is considerably stronger, and this is not the limit of our capabilities. The army has been increasing its strength, an amount exceeding 5% of GDP is being allocated from the budget for defense and security," he said. Aksenov boasts Russia's strongest military group equipped with advanced weapons has been deployed on the peninsula. Russian-controlled "head" of Crimea Sergey Aksenov has said Crimea is a fortress in terms of security now, as there are more armed forces in Crimea now than in Ukraine whose Crimean peninsula Russia occupied in March 2014. Read alsoRussia's losses over five years of illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea estimated at over US$150 bln "There is no threat to Crimea. The security of Crimean residents is being fully provided. The [Russian] Defense Ministry created a safe shield in keeping with the [Russian] president's orders. Crimea has been turned into an unassailable fortress, so all can sleep peacefully," Aksenov said in an interview to the Russian news agency TASS. "The strongest military group equipped with advanced weapons has been deployed on the peninsula. These are Black Sea Fleet ships, modern complexes of air and anti-submarine defense, electronic warfare systems and so on. Everything is safely locked down. There are more forces in Crimea now than in entire Ukraine," he said. UNIAN memo. Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in March 2014 after its troops had occupied the peninsula. An illegal referendum was held for Crimeans to decide on accession to Russia. De-facto Crimean authorities reported that allegedly 96.77% of the Crimean population had voted for joining Russia. On March 18, 2014, the so-called agreement on the accession of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to Russia was signed in the Kremlin. The West did not recognize the annexation in response to which sanctions against Russia were introduced. Ukraine's parliament voted to designate February 20, 2014, as the official date when the temporary occupation of Crimea began. Invaders had tried to spot the location of defensive lines of the Ukrainian forces. A Joint Forces unit stationed near Avdiyivka in eastern Ukraine's Donbas downed an unmanned aerial vehicle deployed by Russian occupation forces, the JFO HQ press service reported Monday. "Despite ceasefire agreements reached, the enemy continues its provocative actions to accuse Joint Forces' units of violating the 'spring truce'," the report said. "Thus, the enemy set up a provocation in the Avdiyivka direction with the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle that flew over the positions of our units to clarify the construction of our defense lines and reveal the JF fire system," said the press service. Read alsoDonbas war update: One Ukrainian soldier killed, two wounded in past day Thanks to the coordinated actions of the observers and weapon operators, the provocation was halted, while yet another enemy UAV was destroyed, the report read. What was left of the downed drone was handed over to experts for further study and identification. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to a recent Forbes article , North America is expected to become the single largest legal cannabis market in the world, growing to approximately $47.3 billion by 2027. To serve this billion dollar market, a number of North American marijuana companies are building out innovative, premium cannabis retail brands across the continent . In this report, we examine some of the fastest growing North American cannabis retailers preparing to dominate the Canadian and U.S. legal marijuana markets. Westleaf Westleaf Inc. (TSX-V: WL) (OTCQB:WSLFF), a vertically integrated Canadian cannabis company focused on innovative retail experiences and engaging cannabis brands as well as cultivation, production and extraction of cannabis products, is quickly becoming one of Canadas largest premium cannabis retailers. With a flurry of M&A and retail expansion last month, Westleaf continues to cement its position as a leader in the Canadian cannabis market. Not only did the Company recently close two of its acquisitionsCanndara Canada Inc. (a cannabis retail company with over 50 prospective retail locations across Canada) and Delta 9s 50% interest in the Delta West extraction facility (a large scale, world class cannabis laboratory currently in development)but it also opened its first Prairie Recordsretail store in Warman, Saskatchewan. The pace of Westleafs retail expansion doesnt seem to be slowing down either. The company was recently chosen as 1 of only 5 town-approved cannabis retail stores in Banff , a scenic Albertan resort town that attracts millions of visitors each year. Located conveniently next to Eddie Burger + Barone of Banffs most popular eateriesWestleafs Banff Prairie Recordsstore is expected to open sometime in summer 2019, subject to regulatory approval. Prairie Records, Westleafs flagship retail concept, intends to create an unparalleled cannabis purchasing experience through tactile in-store features and product offerings that celebrate the inherent relationship between music and cannabis. With additional stores planned for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and potentially Ontario, Westleaf plans to rollout upwards of 50 Prairie Records retail locations through 2020 in markets across Western Canada. Curaleaf Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) is a vertically integrated U.S. cannabis company with the largest footprint of single-branded cannabis retail stores in the country. As it stands today, Curaleaf serves 70% of the U.S. cannabis market through 41 retail locations across 11 U.S. states. The company expects to have 71 stores operational by the end of 2020. To fuel its ambitious retail expansion targets, Curaleaf recently signed a definitive agreement to acquire California-based Eureka Investment Partners, LLC. Eureka currently operates a 110,000 sq. ft. cultivation facility in Salinas Valley and is developing 3 premium dispensaries across California. Valued at $30.5 million (of which $10 million is to be paid in cash, with the remaining $20.5 million in Curaleaf stock and a potential additional consideration to be paid if certain financial targets are exceeded), this transaction provides Curaleaf with an ideal entry point into the highly-coveted Californian cannabis market. Green Thumb Industries Green Thumb Industries Inc. (GTI) (CSE: GTII) (OTCQX: GTBIF), a national cannabis consumer packaged goods company and owner-operator of the high growth national cannabis retail chain RISE, is rapidly becoming one of the United States largest cannabis retailers. GTI currently operates 17 cannabis retail stores across 11 states through the combination of its RISE and Essence retail brands. In total, the company holds 83 U.S. cannabis retail licenses. Aside from its two expanding cannabis retail brands, GTI has recently acquired Connecticut-based Advanced Grow Labs (AGL) 1 of only 4 companies in Connecticut licensed to grow and process cannabis. Moreover, AGLs ownership stake in a Westport dispensary makes AGL one of the only vertically licensed companies in the State of Connecticut. But GTIs February acquisitions dont stop there. GTI also announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire For Success Holding Company , the owner of the Beboe luxury cannabis brand. Best known for its iconic rose gold vape pens and edible pastilles, Beboe is currently available in more than 125 retail locations in California and Colorado. With a growing portfolio of marijuana retail locations and cannabis brands, Green Thumb Industries is well-positioned to become one of the United States premiere cannabis retailers. Acreage Holdings Headquartered in New York City, Acreage Holdings, Inc. (CSE: ACRG.U) (OTCQX: ACRGF) is the largest vertically integrated, multi-state owner of cannabis licenses and assets in U.S. States with respect to the number of states with operating licenses. Acreage Holdings currently has retail operations in 14 states through 22 dispensaries branded under the companys retail concept The Botanist ( according to the companys November 2018 corporate presentation ). At the time of this writing, Acreage Holdings holds a total of 78 retail dispensary licenses. In addition to the companys The Botanist retail brand, Acreage Holdings is focused on building out a portfolio of premium cannabis brands. These marijuana brands include Superflux (lifestyle), Prime (medicinal), Kind Bill Concentrates (artisan distillate), and The Hague Cannabis Co.a company named after the Acreage Holding's Head of Cultivation, Phillip Hague. To ensure that the aforementioned retail and product brand concepts resonate with todays consumers, Acreage Holdings has announced two new additions to the companys marketing teamStacey Kawahata, Vice President of Consumer Insights and Brand Strategy, and Joen Choe, Vice President of Marketing. By combining world-class marketing expertise with a premium cannabis retail brand, Acreage Holdings is emerging as a forerunner in U.S. cannabis retail. Trulieve Cannabis Corp. Trulieve Cannabis Corp. (OTC: TCNNF) (CNSX: TRUL) is a vertically integrated "seed to sale" company and the first and largest fully licensed cannabis company in the State of Florida. Truelieves retail presence in Florida is indeed massivethe company operates a network of 25 brick and mortar cannabis retail locations across the Sunshine State, which it plans to expand to 30 during Q1 2019. With a firm foothold in Florida, the company is now beginning to set its sights elswhere. Most recently, Truelieve has entered the Californian market through its acquisition of Leef Industries, a licensed medical and adult-use cannabis dispensary located in Palm Springs. To further enhance its retail strategy, Trulieve has appointed Timothy Morey as the companys Director of Retail . Mr. Morey provides Truelieve with 15 years of retail sector experience, having served as Senior Director of Store Operations for Finish Line in which he oversaw more than 900 stores and 45 district sales managers. Despite a limited retail presence nationwide, Truelieves dominance of the Florida cannabis market has earned it a spot amongst some of the United States largest cannabis retailers. North American Cannabis Retail Is Undersaturated Both the Canadian and U.S. markets show significant room for cannabis retail growth . However, regulatory hurdles and supply shortages in Canadacombined with the fact that marijuana is still federally illegal in the United Stateshas stifled retail expansion. As supply issues and regulatory gridlocks subside, expect todays fastest growing cannabis retailers to become tomorrows cannabis retail leaders. The original post can be found here: https://mugglehead.com/5-biggest-cannabis-retailers/ Disclosure: Directors of Mugglehead own shares of Westleaf Inc. and other marijuana stocks not mentioned in this release and we have been compensated by Westleaf Inc. for news coverage. About Mugglehead Mugglehead.com is a digital publisher dedicated to cannabis news, investments, culture, and science, owned by Mugglehead Media Corp. We publish original content, including video, interviews and articles. Because many of the companies and trends we cover are related to investments and stocks within the cannabis industry, please review our disclaimer and forward-looking statements below. Original content created by Mugglehead Media Corp. 2019 is protected by copyright laws. We have lots in store for 2019 so be sure to check us out! Visit us at https://mugglehead.com daily for all things cannabis-related. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/muggleheadmedia Twitter: https://twitter.com/muggleheadmedia Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statements Mugglehead Media Corp. and Mugglehead.com (collectively, Mugglehead) is a news and media publisher dedicated to cannabis. It is not registered as an investment adviser, broker-dealer or other financial or securities professional with any financial or securities regulatory authority. 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If you ever have any questions or concerns about our business or publications, we encourage you to contact us. LAS VEGAS, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hi-Tek Media, a United States based marketing company, today announced a signed partnership agreement with iSIGN Media Corp, (TSX-V: ISD) (OTC: ISDSF), a Canadian based company. Both companies have joined forces to rewrite the rules in digital marketing and public safety. The four-year partnership, effective April 1, 2019, is accompanied with a $2,000,000 USD plus purchase order for all available iSIGNs technologies including new enhanced proximity and wide area messaging yet to be announced but currently exclusive to Hi-Tek Media in the first year. The partnership agreement has been expanded to include newly developed messaging and data capture solutions and engineering services to provide development of customized solutions for Hi-Tek customers as requested. The SAAS solutions and applications include licenses in targeted and protected Hi-Tek channels and markets in the USA and soon Canada. To create this first of its kind network in the U.S., Hi-Tek Media is constructing mobile and stationary networks using a unity of both companies expertise in advertising and technology. The system provides broad coverage across specifically chosen locations and delivers an innovative way to reach targeted and general audiences anywhere a brand desires as well as offering them integrated connectivity. In the event of an emergency, the network will provide guidance through specific messaging to help assist the public and emergency workers. All networks will provide advertising and messages to the public from both mobile vehicles and static locations while collecting real time metrics for advertised brands. We are excited to launch our new Digital Network, The Omni Veil. As a Digital Media Company, we are always looking to evolve and expand the innovations of creativity as we live in a fast- paced and ever-changing world. The technology brought forth from iSIGN has completed the final piece of the puzzle to accomplish and advance digital advertising to the public like never seen before, said Hi-Tek Medias CEO, Michele Bedwell. We are looking forward to and value our partnership with Hi-Tek Media and providing them with our interactive mobile proximity marketing and public security alert solutions for its Omni Veil networks. Our patented but currently publicly undisclosed technology available to Hi- Tek technology goes far beyond interactive, proximity marketing. With the addition of our Security Alert Messaging (SAM) our technologies will assist businesses, schools, churches, and government organizations to send instant notifications, both emergency and normal day-to-day communications. ISIGN is committed to provide all of its existing and new tools to partner in creating the Omni Veil with the Hi-Tek team, iSIGNs President Alex Romanov said. Hi-Tek Media has chosen its home state of Nevada for the first network launch test. This test has been completed and approved. The second stage, Hi-Tek Media has agreements in place to expand to Texas, Illinois, Florida and Massachusetts during the first and second quarters of 2019. Planned expansions include eleven (11) states by end of 2019. About Hi-Tek Media Hi-Tek is a full-service digital marketing company with 21 years of experience in marketing. Hi-Tek is uniquely positioned to provide cutting edge marketing, digital production and media management. www.hi-tekmedia.com About iSIGN Media iSIGN media, based in Toronto, Canada, is a data-focused, software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that is a pioneer in gathering point of sale data and mobile shopper preferences to generate actionable data and reveal valuable consumer insights. iSIGN has leveraged their technological expertise to become the leading provider of interactive, mobile advertising and public security alert solutions. Partners include IBM, Keyser Retail Solutions, Baylor University, Verizon Wireless, TELUS, Mtrex Network Solutions, Conservaco and Hi-Tek Media www.isignmedia.com For more information, please contact: Hi-Tek Media sales@Hi-TekMedia.com press@Hi-TekMedia.com MONTREAL, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- "Tamino" or the "Company" -OTC Markets: TINO- is happy to inform that it has carried out several property visits recently to start to work on its exploration program. The company is currently working on the logistical aspects required to implement the Geologic Report. The company is pleased to inform our Shareholders that it continues to work regarding the March 8, 2019 press release, communicating that it had reached a settlement with Mr. Peter E. Benincasa. Companys management is confident the Courts are informed by its attorneys of the aforementioned agreement and that the necessary steps will be taken by the various parties involved to work things out satisfactorily. TAMINO MINERALS, INC. is exploring for high-grade gold deposits within a prolific gold producing geologic state, Sonora and starting exploration in the Kenora Mining District in the Province of Ontario. On behalf of the Board, Pedro Villagran-Garcia, President & CEO For further information, please contact the Company at 1-971-285-4570 or by email at info@taminominerals.ca Forward Looking Statements Certain information contained in this press release, including any information as to our strategy, plans or future financial or operating performance and other statements that express management's expectations or estimates of future performance, 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. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. The words "believe," "expect," "will," "anticipate," "contemplate," "target," "plan," "continue," "budget," "may," "intend," "estimate," "project" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, certain delays beyond the company's control with respect to its plans or operations. Our actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including, without limitation those set forth as "Risk Factors" in our filings with the SEC which can be found at www.sec.gov. There may be other factors not mentioned above or included in the Company's SEC filings that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. (@ChaudhryMAli88) Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were welcomed as new members of the OPEC-non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), according to the OPEC press releas BAKU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were welcomed as new members of the OPEC-non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), according to the OPEC press release. The statement comes after the 13th meeting of the JMMC, which took place in Baku. "The JMMC also welcomed Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and the UAE as new members of the Committee," the press release read. A Meeting of the select Members of Pakistan - Belarus Parliamentary Friendship Group with the Ms. Irina Akulovich, Member of the Standing Committee for Legislation and State Administration of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus was held in Islamabad Monday ISLAMABAD (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / NNI - 18th March, 2019) A Meeting of the select Members of Pakistan - Belarus Parliamentary Friendship Group with the Ms. Irina Akulovich, Member of the Standing Committee for Legislation and State Administration of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus was held in Islamabad Monday.Muhammad Yaqoob Sheikh, MNA and Convener of Pak-Belarus PFG highlighted to promote the bilateral exchanges between the two countries. The Honorable Speaker National Assembly also graced the occasion with his presence during the meeting. The Ambassador of Belarus was also present during the meeting.The Speaker shared the desire to further enhance relations with Belarus in all fields of mutual interest.Later on, the Convener of Pak-Belarus PFG hosted a lunch at Serena Hotel, Islamabad. Both sides agreed that Pakistan-Belarus Parliamentary Friendship Group can play a pivotal role to promote Parliamentary diplomacy, investment, trade and cultural exchanges between Pakistan and Belarus. NNI According to a small pilot study, moisturizing our skin might reduce the risk of developing a range of chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's diseas Islamabad (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th March, 2019) According to a small pilot study, moisturizing our skin might reduce the risk of developing a range of chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's disease.The skin is our largest organ. One of its Primary functions, of course, is to protect our insides from the dangers outside.It also detects heat and cold, helps to regulate our internal temperature, and allows us to sense touch.Despite its huge size, scientists do not often consider the skin's role in chronic disease.However, a group of researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), are bucking the trend. They are focused intently on understanding the role of skin in age-related chronic disease.As people age, levels of inflammation in their bodies steadily increase. Scientists refer to this as inflammaging. Cytokines are important drivers of this inflammation, and the scientists involved in the current study want to understand whether the skin might be involved.Scientists have already outlined a relationship between inflammation and a range of conditions, including type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis,Alzheimer's disease, and osteoporosis.In the past, scientists thought that the immune system or the liver drove inflammaging. However, according to a new study that the Journal of the European academy of Dermatology and Venereology recently published, the skin might play a significant role, too."The inflammation must come from an organ big enough that very minor inflammation can affect the whole body. Skin is a good candidate for this because of its size."Dr. Man, who is a research scientist in the Department of Dermatology at UCSF, continued, "Once we get old, we have dermatological symptoms like itchiness, dryness, and changes in acidity. It could be that the skin has very minor inflammation, and because it's such a large organ, it elevates circulating cytokine levels."As we age, skin becomes drier and less reliable. Age also affects the skin's permeability, meaning that it has trouble keeping water in and pathogens out. A reduction in skin moisture allows small cracks to appear, which sparks the release of cytokines into the blood supply.In younger skin, cytokines help to repair cracks in the skin. Older skin, however, is more difficult to fix, which means that the body continually releases these inflammatory messengers; once they are in the blood, they can travel around the body.Dr. Theodora Mauro, the lead author of the newest paper, explains, "Until recently, the scientific community didn't believe that skin could contribute to systemic inflammation and disease. But in the last 5 years, studies ofpsoriasis and dermatitis have shown that skin inflammation from these diseases likely increases the risk of heart disease."Of course, aging skin is far more common than dermatitis or psoriasis; therefore, according to Dr. Mauro, "the overall risk to the population from aging skin could far outweigh that seen from skin diseases."She believes that "[d]ecreasing inflammation simply by treating the skin dysfunction seen in aging could have profound health effects."In their recent study, the scientists set out to measure the impact of aging skin on inflammation and, importantly, to see whether they could reduce signs of inflammation using a skin moisturizer.The proof-of-concept preliminary pilot study involved just 33 participants aged 58-95.The researchers measured cytokine levels at the start of the study; then, for 30 days, the participants applied moisturizer all over their bodies twice a day. After the study period, the researchers looked for changes in their cytokine levels.Specifically, the scientists measured three cytokines that have links to age-related inflammatory diseases: interleukin-1 beta, interleukin-6, andtumor necrosis factor alpha.Dr. Mauro and Dr. Man formulated the moisturizing cream following their previous studies. It includes three types of lipids: cholesterol, free fatty acids, and ceramides.As expected, applying moisturizer for 30 days reduced the levels of all three cytokines in the blood. The cytokine levels were also lower than those in a control group of similarly aged adults who had not used the cream.According to the authors, the participants' cytokine levels were equivalent to people in their 30s.Because this experiment used a particularly small sample, researchers will need to carry out much larger trials before they can reach reliable conclusions. Firstly, future studies will need to confirm that they can replicate the effect that they measured.Secondly, they will need to demonstrate that a reduction in circulating cytokines has significant health benefits in the long run.It is also worth noting that, as the authors disclose, two of the scientists involved in the study work as consultants for a South Korean company called Neopharm, Ltd., which produces the moisturizer used in the trial.Follow-up research will, no doubt, begin soon. Whether the scientists replicate the findings or not, the topic of skin inflammation and chronic disease is sure to enjoy further scrutiny.As the United States population ages, one can't help but hope that an intervention as simple as applying moisturizer might ward off age-related disease. (@Aneesah05582539) Spectators at one of the movie theaters in Syria's Damascus were deeply moved by the award-winning movie Capernaum, which tells a powerful story about a 12-year-old Lebanese boy who takes his parents to court for failure to protect him from poverty DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Spectators at one of the movie theaters in Syria 's Damascus were deeply moved by the award-winning movie Capernaum, which tells a powerful story about a 12-year-old Lebanese boy who takes his parents to court for failure to protect him from poverty. The Oscar-nominated movie, directed by Lebanese film director Nadine Labaki, was released in Syria on the eighth anniversary of the Syrian civil war. A Sputnik correspondent went to the cinema in Damascus to watch the movie and find out the opinion of the audience. Capernaum, a realist drama with a cast of non-professional actors, starts with a courtroom scene in which Zain, played by Zain Rafeea, is suing his parents. The film tackles multiple social issues that affect Lebanese and refugees alike, such as early marriage, child labor, statelessness and poverty. Zain Rafeea was born in Syria's Daraa in 2004 before his family moved to Lebanon in 2012. After starring in Capernaum, Zain and his family were approved for resettlement to Norway with the help of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Capernaum won the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. At the beginning of the two-hour film, people seemed relaxed, with young boys and girls eating snacks, laughing and swapping jokes. At the end, they were so moved they struggled to hold back tears. "I cried. Such things often happen not only in Lebanon, but also here, in Syria," a woman told Sputnik commenting on the movie. While noting that some situations were slightly exaggerated, she said the film was very realistic. Meanwhile, another spectator, Yasmeen, told Sputnik she was confused by some details showed in the movie. "For example, mother and sister of the main character, Zain, both have dyed hair and wear gold earrings even though they live like beggars. Where did they get the money from? Why didn't they sell those earrings?" Yasmeen said. Some were surprised to learn the main characters in the film were played by non-professional actors. In Cannes, Capernaum received a 15-minute standing ovation. In Damascus, no one applauded at the end of the film, which was so close to reality. The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and representatives of armed groups operating in the country will gather at an African Union (AU)-organized meeting in the Ethiopian capital on Monday to follow up on the progress made since the CAR peace accord was signed MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and representatives of armed groups operating in the country will gather at an African Union (AU)-organized meeting in the Ethiopian capital on Monday to follow up on the progress made since the car peace accord was signed. The CAR government and 14 armed groups signed the peace agreement after 10-day talks in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in early February. CAR President Faustin Archange Touadera then conducted a cabinet reshuffle on March 3, which Moussa Faki Mahamat, the AU commission chairman, described as a "step toward inclusive and representative governance in the CAR." The newly appointed prime minister, Firmin Ngrebada, is expected to lead the CAR government's delegation to the talks. The government earlier expressed hope that the upcoming meeting would enable all the stakeholders to address "misunderstandings" related to the deal's implementation, including the opposition's dissatisfaction over the fact that not all of its proposed candidates were included in the new cabinet. "We will make a point about the misunderstanding over the appointments in the government ... It's not about resuming the negotiations, it's not at all about bringing the discussions of Khartoum to the table. It's precisely about making a point on misunderstandings over the constitution of the government, and also to find out when the other stakeholders will implement their obligations," Maxime Kazagui, the CAR communications and media minister and government spokesman, told Sputnik on Friday. The Central African Republic has been suffering from a drawn-out conflict since a coup in 2013. Much of the fighting in recent years has been between Muslim-majority Seleka and Christian Anti-Balaka militias. The Albanian police have initiated criminal proceedings against 33 people in the wake of aggressive actions during the anti-government protests that took place in the capital of the country on March 16, local media reported MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) The Albanian police have initiated criminal proceedings against 33 people in the wake of aggressive actions during the anti-government protests that took place in the capital of the country on March 16, local media reported. On Saturday, the Albanian police used tear gas and water cannons against the participants of the rally against the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama in the capital city of Tirana after they sought to break through the security cordon around the parliament. According to Albanian Daily news, the police detained 14 people and put on the wanted list seven more protesters in connection with violent actions against law enforcement officers during the rally. The police notes that the protesters were identified by means of surveillance cameras installed in the trees near the parliament building. Another 12 people were charged without detention, including the secretary general of the Democratic Party and former justice minister, Gazmend Bardhi. Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha responded to these events by accusing the government of exerting pressure on the opposition. "This government is using the State Police to make pressure against citizens and political opponents. This is a criminal regime. Edi Rama comes to power with the help of the criminal bands as is fighting against his people," Basha said as quoted by the media outlet. Over months, Albania's largest opposition Democratic Party has been accusing Rama of corruption and economic woes, demanding his resignation and regularly organizing rallies. In February, the party's members gave up their parliamentary seats, calling for early elections. Ankara and Tehran carried out a joint operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Monday, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Ankara and Tehran carried out a joint operation against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Monday, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said. "Turkey and Iran held a joint operation against PKK terrorists today at 8:00 a.m. [5:00 GMT]," Soylu said in an interview with the TRT broadcaster. The statement comes after Soylu announced in early March that Turkey and Iran, which also has a significant Kurdish population, were preparing for joint activities against the PKK, which is considered by Ankara to be a terrorist organization. The Turkish government has been fighting the PKK, which seeks to establish a Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, since the early 1980s. The PKK and Ankara agreed on a ceasefire in 2013, but it collapsed just two years later after a number of terror attacks allegedly committed by PKK militants. Turkish security forces carry out regular anti-PKK raids across the country and conduct airstrikes against the group in northern Iraq. According to the Turkish authorities, over 10,000 PKK members have been neutralized since 2015. (@FahadShabbir) Large-scale military exercise Northern Wind, in which 10,000 personnel, including around 7,000 foreign soldiers, will take part, starts in northeastern Sweden on Monday STOCKHOLM (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Large-scale military exercise Northern Wind, in which 10,000 personnel, including around 7,000 foreign soldiers, will take part, starts in northeastern Sweden on Monday. The exercise, which will last until March 27, will bring together military staff from Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway and Finland. Most of the participants will come from Sweden's neighbor states, with Norway sending around 4,500 solders and Finland sending 1,500 personnel. The Northern Wind aims to enhance the participants' winter warfare capabilities and to boost their ability to conduct joint combat operations. It will be held in the Norrbotten County, near the cities of Kiruna and Boden. Russia is preparing a new batch of humanitarian aid for Venezuela, Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Vladimir Zaemskiy said in an interview with Sputnik MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Russia is preparing a new batch of humanitarian aid for Venezuela, Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Vladimir Zaemskiy said in an interview with Sputnik. On February 22, Caracas received around 7.5 tonnes of humanitarian cargo from Russia, including medicines, medical equipment and consumables. The Russian diplomat said back then that Russia, which supports the legitimate Venezuelan government, delivered this aid under the programs of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization. "As part of these deliveries, one more batch of similar cargo is expected in near future. The question is now being discussed in the WHO headquarters in Geneva," Zaemskiy said. Venezuela is currently going through a political crisis, which started in January, when lawmaker Juan Guaido was elected as the head of opposition-led National Assembly, whose authority has not been recognized by other government branches since 2016. Soon after the Venezuelan Supreme Court annulled his designation, Guaido proclaimed himself the "interim president" of Venezuela. Legitimate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in for his second presidential term on January 10, called Guaido's move an attempt to stage a coup orchestrated by Washington. On February 23, the Venezuelan opposition tried to force US-sponsored aid into Venezuela through its borders with Colombia and Brazil, both of which support the opposition. The failed attempt sparked clashes between Venezuelan security officers and pro-aid protesters. Maduro denounced the unauthorized aid delivery as part of Washington's attempts to intervene in Venezuela and oust him from power. ANNAPOLIS, Md., March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Two of Marylands most accomplished business leaders will be inducted into the Maryland Business Hall of Fame at a newly created formal evening event now called Inspire MD, to be held on Tuesday, May 7 at MGM National Harbor. The new Maryland Business Hall of Fame inductees are: James W. Cornelsen, President & CEO, Old Line Bank The growth of Old Line Bank under Cornelsen's direction is profound, growing from $10-$15 million to $2.9 billion with his leadership. Not only is Cornelsen an exemplary leader in business, but he is also intricately involved within the community he serves. The growth of Old Line Bank under Cornelsen's direction is profound, growing from $10-$15 million to $2.9 billion with his leadership. Not only is Cornelsen an exemplary leader in business, but he is also intricately involved within the community he serves. Guy E. Flynn, Chair, Maryland Real Estate Practice, Partner-in-Charge, Downtown Baltimore Office, DLA Piper LLP (US) Flynn has received many accolades for his outstanding professional achievements, community service and mentorship within Maryland's legal community. Along with his impressive career accomplishments, he is known for his intellect, creativity, love of the arts, music, and philanthropy. Inspire MD is designed to honor Marylands most exceptional leaders and celebrate the unique ways businesses are strengthening Marylands business community, said Christine Ross, President & CEO, Maryland Chamber of Commerce. Its only fitting that this years inductees into the Maryland Business Hall of Fame are so inspiring themselves, to their employees, communities, and colleagues. Prominent CEOs and leaders have been inducted by the Maryland Chamber into the prestigious Maryland Business Hall of Fame since 2000. The contributions of these individuals over the years has always gone well beyond the bottom line, said Ross. They are the best in Marylands business community and prioritize their civic and philanthropic duties. In addition to the Maryland Business Hall of Fame inductees, there will be several other awards presented at Inspire MD on May 7. Other awards will be the: Inspire MD Award, recognizing that workforce development initiatives are imperative to strengthening the talent pipeline in Maryland; Innovative Wellness Award, recognizing companies that support their employees with an innovative and engaging approach on overall health and wellnessimproving the wellbeing of their employees and, in turn, the community; Rising Star Award, honoring an individual who has demonstrated tremendous growth, an upward trajectory, and embodies the future of Maryland business; and Public Service Award, honoring a singular outstanding public servant for her or his contributions to help advance Marylands economy and quality of life. About the Maryland Chamber of Commerce: Founded in 1968, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce is a non-partisan, business advocacy organization that works in the legislative, regulatory, and civic arenas as a catalyst for positive change in Maryland. To purchase tickets for Inspire MD, visit https://mdchamber.org/event/inspiremd/ or learn more at www.mdchamber.org . Contact: Jim Boyle 571-213-3979 jim@boylepublicaffairs.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1bbe54e1-3eb9-4e3d-971c-82e7b3a5d6c2 (@ChaudhryMAli88) The Tu-22M3 long-range bombers have been deployed at the air base in Crimea's Gvardeiskoye in response to the US missile defense deployment in Romania, Chairman of Russia's upper house Defense and Security Committee Viktor Bondarev said Monday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) The Tu-22M3 long-range bombers have been deployed at the air base in Crimea's Gvardeiskoye in response to the US missile defense deployment in Romania , Chairman of Russia 's upper house Defense and Security Committee Viktor Bondarev said Monday. "The US missile defense deployment in Romania was a serious challenge, in response to which the Russian Defense Ministry decided to deploy in Crimea, at the air base in Gvardeiskoye, squadrons of Tu-22M3 long-range bombers. This step radically changed the balance of forces in the region," Bondarev told reporters. He said the Tu-22M3 bombers deployed in Crimea would be modernized to be able to destroy air and missile defense systems everywhere in Europe. Barcelona, Spain (UroToday.com) Physician burnout is an increasingly recognized and rapidly growing concern in the medical community, particularly in the United States. Beyond its impact on the system, it has severe consequences for both the physician and the patients they treat and if not recognized, can have dire consequences. Defined by most sources as a combination of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of reduced personal accomplishment, burnout has reached greater than 50% amongst some specialties. Indeed, according to the 2019 Medscape National Physician Burnout, Depression & Suicide Report 2019, urology tops the list of specialties with burnout. Topping the list of reasons for burnout include: too many bureaucratic tasks, such as charting and paperwork, and spending too many hours at work.Burnout is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and shorter life expectancy, problematic alcohol use, broken relationships, depression, and suicide all significant effects on the physician themselves. However, as physicians are responsible for patient care, physician burnout can result in increased patient safety incidents, low professional outcomes, and lower patient satisfaction scores.In the study by Panagioti et al. (JAMA Internal Medicine 2018), the authors completed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the association between physician burnout and patient safety, professionalism and patient satisfaction scores. Not unsurprisingly, physician burnout was a strong predictor of increasing patient safety incidents, low professionalism outcomes, and low patient satisfaction scores!This is an epidemic with far-reaching consequences on both the physician and the patient and requires investment from the administration and senior members of all departments.Presented by: Professor Thorsten Bach, MD Asklepios Klinik Harburg, Department of Urology, Hamburg, GermanyWritten by: Thenappan Chandrasekar, MD (Clinical Instructor, Thomas Jefferson University) (twitter: @tchandra_uromd, @JEFFUrology) at the 34th European Association of Urology (EAU 2019) #EAU19 conference in Barcelona, Spain, March 15-19, 2019. Reference:1. Panagioti et al. Association Between Physician Burnout and Patient Safety, Professionalism, and Patient Satisfaction: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Intern Med. 2018 Oct 1;178(10):1317-1330. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.3713. Barcelona, Spain (UroToday.com) While human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has been increasingly utilized as a preventative measure for cervical cancer in females, it has only been relatively recently that the discussion has pivoted to vaccinating males for HPV. During the penile cancer session of the 2019 European Association of Urology (EAU) Annual Meeting in Barcelona, Spain, Dr. Berger from Regensburg, Germany discussed the role of HPV in the pathogenesis of penile cancer. The argument was made that more widespread vaccination of boys could help prevent the development of penile cancer, a very rare, but aggressive, genitourinary malignancy.Dr. Burger began his lecture by showing the data that clearly links HPV infection with a higher risk of the development of penile cancer in males. This has been widely accepted for decades, and the mechanism of pathogenesis is a combination of chronic inflammation of the penile and urethral epithelium, as well as loss of alleles on chromosome 9, which can lead to loss of p16 and p53, two commonly known tumor suppressor genes. HPV infection additionally leads to abrupt damage to other genes, which can further contribute to penile cancer development. Oncogenes E6 and E7, which are associated with HPV infection can further inactive p16 and p53. It is estimated that roughly 50% of penile cancers are HPV-associated.As part of his argument for vaccination of boys against HPV, he noted there are three main demands to make it efficacious. It must be effective, safe, and utilized by the target population. He proceeded to show data which suggests that HPV vaccination has robust data to show that it does help prevent the development of cervical cancer in women. He acknowledges that because of the rarity of penile cancer, there may likely never be prospective data to show that HPV vaccination prevents penile cancer, but he believes that the data regarding cervical cancer is compelling. He additionally presented data to show that there is a herd effect in which vaccination of both young women and men leads to further decreases in the development of cervical cancer in women. He next reviewed the data evaluating the safety of HPV vaccination, which finds that it appears to be a very safe vaccine, with extremely low rates of side-effects. Finally, he showed information regarding the availability of HPV vaccinations across multiple countries in Europe. Largely, there appears to be availability and, in most countries, insurance coverage for HPV vaccinations in both males and females.Dr. Burger concluded by showing that despite the data to support the efficacy of HPV vaccinations, the safety profile of the vaccination, and widespread availability of the vaccination, the rates of vaccination in both males and females are relatively poor globally. He believes that this is an important area for improvement and that through better awareness of the availability of the vaccination for both men and women we can further drive down the rates of cervical, oropharyngeal, and cervical malignancies. He made a call to action for physicians to help bring this issue to light and make it known that both genders can mutually benefit from the HPV vaccination. At the completion of his lecture, he took a poll of the room to see how many felt it was reasonable to vaccinate males against HPV and the vast majority of the room raised their hands in agreement.Presented by: Maximilian Burger, MD, Dept. of Urology, Caritas St Joseph Medical Center, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, GermanyWritten by: Brian Kadow, MD. Society of Urologic Oncology Fellow, Fox Chase Cancer Center at the 34th European Association of Urology (EAU 2019) #EAU19, conference in Barcelona, Spain from March 15-19, 2019. English Dutch Regulated Information Press Release Sequana Medical announces the end of the stabilisation period of its offering Ghent, BELGIUM 18 March 2019 (5.30 PM CET) Today, Sequana Medical NV ("Sequana Medical" or the "Company"), announces the end of the stabilisation period in the framework of the initial public offering of new shares of the Company with the admission of all of its shares to trading on the regulated market of Euronext Brussels under the symbol "SEQUA" (the "Offering"). Within the framework of the Offering, KBC Securities NV/SA ("KBC Securities") was appointed by the Company as stabilisation manager (the "Stabilisation Manager"). An over-allotment warrant to subscribe for 25,656 additional new shares at the final offering price of EUR 8.50 per share was granted to the Stabilisation Manager, acting on behalf of the Underwriters (as defined below), to cover any over-allotments or short positions in relation to the Offering (the "Over-allotment Warrant"). The Over-allotment Warrant was not exercised and the 25,656 shares that were borrowed by NeoMed IV Extension L.P. ("NeoMed") and LSP Health Economics Fund Management B.V. ("LSP") to KBC Securities as Stabilisation Manager for the duration of the stabilisation period will be returned to NeoMed and LSP at the latest on 19 March 2019. As a result, the total number of new shares that was issued by the Company in the Offering amounts to 3,235,294 shares. Furthermore, the maximum number of share options, named the "2018 Share Options", that were created by the Company for directors, employees and other staff members of the Company, is finally set at 1,261,190, being 10% of the number of outstanding shares after the completion of the Offering. In accordance with Article 6(3) of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 and Article 5, 2 of the Royal Decree of 17 May 2007, KBC Securities, as Stabilisation Manager, undertook stabilisation (within the meaning of Article 3.2(d) of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU 596/2014)) of the following securities within the framework of the Offering: Issuer: Sequana Medical NV Securities: Common shares (BE0974340722) Size of the Offering: 3,235,294 common shares without nominal value Offer price: EUR 8.50 per share Regulated market: Euronext Brussels Ticker: SEQUA Stabilisation Manager: KBC Securities Stabilisation period From 11 February 2019 until 12 March 2019 Stabilisation transactions(1): Trading day Lowest paid price (EUR) Highest paid price (EUR) Stabilisation Trading Venue 11/02/2019 8.000 8.500 Euronext Brussels 12/02/2019 7.200 8.200 Euronext Brussels 13/02/2019 6.700 7.380 Euronext Brussels 14/02/2019 6.800 7.240 Euronext Brussels 15/02/2019 6.600 6.800 Euronext Brussels 18/02/2019 6.300 6.880 Euronext Brussels 19/02/2019 6.440 6.580 Euronext Brussels 20/02/2019 6.000 6.500 Euronext Brussels 21/02/2019 6.440 6.620 Euronext Brussels 22/02/2019 6.400 6.500 Euronext Brussels 25/02/2019 6.300 6.400 Euronext Brussels 26/02/2019 5.900 6.280 Euronext Brussels 27/02/2019 6.000 6.320 Euronext Brussels 28/02/2019 6.300 6.300 Euronext Brussels 01/03/2019 6.260 6.260 Euronext Brussels 04/03/2019 6.020 6.260 Euronext Brussels 05/03/2019 6.160 6.240 Euronext Brussels 06/03/2019 6.100 6.240 Euronext Brussels 07/03/2019 6.200 6.200 Euronext Brussels 08/03/2019 5.800 6.180 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 6.200 6.840 Euronext Brussels 12/03/2019 6.500 6.720 Euronext Brussels Note All data contained in the table above has been provided by the Stabilisation Manager. During the stabilisation period (11 February 2019 until 12 March 2019), the stabilisation was carried out with respect to a total of 25,656 shares. For more information on the stabilisation transactions that were carried out in the period of 11 February 2019 until 28 February 2019, reference is made to the announcements that were published during the stabilisation period on 20 February 2019 and 1 March 2019. For more information on the stabilisation transactions that were carried out in the period of 1 March 2019 until 12 March 2019, reference is made to the annex to this announcement. Underwriters involved in the Offering: KBC Securities and Kempen & Co N.V. acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Bookrunners in the Offering, with Mirabaud Securities Limited as Lead Manager (together, the "Underwriters"). For more information, please contact: Sequana Medical Lies Vanneste Director IR Tel: +32 (0) 498 05 35 79 Email: IR@sequanamedical.com Consilium Strategic Communications Alexandra Harrison, Marieke Vermeersch, Sukaina Virji Tel: +44 (0) 203 709 5000 Email: sequanamedical@consilium-comms.com About Sequana Medical Sequana Medical is a commercial stage medical device company focused on the development of innovative treatment solutions for the management of liver disease, heart failure, malignant ascites and other fluid imbalance disorders. Sequana Medical's alfapump is a fully implantable, programmable, wirelessly-charged, battery-powered system that is CE-marked for the management of i) refractory ascites (chronic fluid build-up in the abdomen) due to liver cirrhosis and ii) malignant ascites (with a life expectancy of six months or less). The number of patients with liver refractory ascites is forecast to increase dramatically due to the growing prevalence of NASH (Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis). Over 650 alfapump systems have been implanted and since April 2018, the alfapump has been included in the EASL (European Association for the Study of the Liver) clinical practice guidelines for decompensated cirrhosis. In January 2019, the FDA has granted Breakthrough Device designation for the alfapump for the treatment of liver recurrent or refractory ascites. The alfapump MOSAIC North American IDE feasibility study in patients with liver refractory or recurrent ascites has been completed and results were presented at the AASLD (American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases) annual meetings in October 2017 and November 2018. The alfapump has not yet received regulatory approval in the U.S. The alfapump is one of the first safe and effective, long-term alternatives to large-volume paracentesis which is a lengthy, invasive and painful procedure, only providing short-term symptomatic relief, requiring hospital visits and placing a significant burden on the healthcare system and patient quality of life. By automatically and continuously moving ascites to the bladder, where the body eliminates it naturally through urination, the alfapump prevents fluid build-up and its possible complications, improving patient quality of life and nutrition, and potentially reducing hospital visits and healthcare costs. The alfapump DirectLink technology allows clinicians to receive pump performance information and more effectively manage patients treated by the alfapump. Sequana Medical is developing the alfapump DSR, built upon the proven alfapump platform, to deliver a convenient and fully implanted system for Direct Sodium Removal ("DSR") therapy, a novel and proprietary approach for the management of volume overload in heart failure. Data from animal studies presented at EuroPCR 2018 and HFSA 2018 indicate that DSR therapy is effective and safe. A first in human study for DSR therapy is ongoing. Treatment of volume overload in diuretic-resistant heart failure patients is a major clinical challenge. There are an estimated one million hospitalisations due to heart failure in the U.S. each year, of which 90% are due to symptoms of volume overload. The estimated cost of heart failure-related hospitalisations in the U.S. is $13 billion a year. Sequana Medical is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium. For further information, please visit www.sequanamedical.com . Important Regulatory Disclaimer Any statement in this press release about safety and efficacy of the alfapump does not apply to the U.S. and Canada because the device is currently undergoing clinical investigation in these territories. Important Information This announcement does not constitute, or form part of, an offer or invitation to sell or issue, or any solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for shares of the Company. Any purchase of, subscription for or application for, shares in the Company to be issued in connection with the intended offering should only be made on the basis of information contained in the prospectus in connection with the intended offering and any supplements thereto, as the case may be (the "Prospectus"). This announcement is not a prospectus. The information contained in this announcement is for informational purposes only and does not purport to be full or complete. Investors should not subscribe for any securities referred to in this document except on the basis of information contained in the Prospectus. The Prospectus contains detailed information about the Company and its business, management, risks associated with investing in the Company, as well as financial statements and other financial data. This announcement cannot be used as basis for any investment agreement or decision. This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the U.S. or to any U.S. person within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"). It does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the U.S. The securities mentioned herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the U.S., except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act. The Company has not registered, and does not intend to register, any portion of the intended offering of the offered shares in the U.S., and does not intend to conduct a public offering of securities in the U.S. This announcement is only addressed to and directed at persons in member states of the European Economic Area ("EEA") other than Belgium who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive (Directive 2003/71/EC and amendments thereto, including Directive 2010/73/EU, to the extent implemented in the relevant Member State of the EEA, and together with any implementing measure in each relevant Member State of the EEA, the "Prospectus Directive"). In addition, in the United Kingdom, this announcement is only addressed to and directed at (i) persons having professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within the definition of "investment professionals" in Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the "Order"), (ii) high net worth entities, etc. falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order, and (iii) any other person to whom it may otherwise lawfully be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The intended offering, as the case may be, will only be available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe for, purchase, or otherwise acquire securities will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents. This announcement and the information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy securities of the Company and it does not constitute a prospectus or a similar communication within the meaning of article 752, 652a and/or 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. This announcement and the information contained herein are not for publication, distribution or release in, or into, the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa or any other jurisdiction where to do so would be prohibited by applicable law. Acquiring investments to which this announcement relates may expose an investor to a significant risk of losing the entire amount invested. Persons considering such investments should consult an authorised person specialising in advising on such investments. This announcement does not constitute a recommendation concerning the intended offering. The value of the shares can decrease as well as increase. Potential investors should consult a professional advisor as to the suitability of the intended offering for the person concerned. No action has been taken by the Company that would permit an offer of Company's shares or the possession or distribution of these materials or any other offering or publicity material relating to such shares in any jurisdiction outside of Belgium where action for that purpose is required. The release, publication or distribution of these materials in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law and therefore persons in such jurisdictions into which they are released, published or distributed, should inform themselves about, and observe, such restrictions. The issue, the subscription for or purchase of shares of the Company can be subject to special legal or statutory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. The Company is not liable if the aforementioned restrictions are not complied with by any person. The contents of this announcement include statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements". In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the words "believes", "estimates," "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "may", "will", "plans", "continue", "ongoing", "potential", "predict", "project", "target", "seek" or "should" or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparable terminology or by discussions of strategies, plans, objectives, targets, goals, future events or intentions. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the Company's intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, its results of operations, prospects, growth, strategies and dividend policy and the industry in which the Company operates. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. New risks can emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company to predict all such risks, nor can the Company assess the impact of all such risks on its business or the extent to which any risks, or combination of risks and other factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Given these risks and uncertainties, the reader should not rely on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. Without prejudice to the Company's obligations under applicable law in relation to disclosure and ongoing information, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update forward-looking statements. The Underwriters, being KBC Securities, Kempen & Co N.V. and Mirabaud Securities Limited are acting for the Company and no one else in relation to the Offering, and will not be responsible to anyone other than the Company for providing the protections offered to their respective clients nor for providing advice in relation to the intended offering. In connection with the Offering, KBC Securities acts as Stabilisation Manager on behalf of itself and the Underwriters, and may engage in transactions that stabilise, maintain or otherwise affect the price of the shares or any options, warrants or rights with respect to, or other interest in, the shares or other securities of the Issuer for up to 30 calendar days from the Listing Date (the "Stabilisation Period"). These activities may support the market price of the shares at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. Stabilisation will not be executed above the Offer Price. Such transactions may be effected on the regulated market of Euronext Brussels, in the over-the-counter markets or otherwise. The Stabilisation Manager and its agents are not required to engage in any of these activities and, as such, there is no assurance that these activities will be undertaken; if undertaken, the Stabilisation Manager or its agents may discontinue any of these activities at any time and they must terminate at the end of the 30 calendar day period mentioned above. Within one week of the end of the Stabilisation Period, the following information will be made public in accordance with article 5, 2 of the Belgian Royal Decree of 17 May 2007 on primary markets practices: (i) whether or not stabilisation was undertaken; (ii) the date on which stabilisation started; (iii) the date on which stabilisation last occurred; (iv) the price range within which stabilisation was carried out, for each of the dates on which stabilisation transactions were carried out; (v) the trading venue(s) on which the stabilisation transactions were carried out (where applicable) and (vi) the final size of the Offering, including the result of the stabilisation and the exercise of the Over-allotment Option and the Increase Option, as the case may be. Annex Transactions concerning the stabilisation from 1 March 2019 until 12 march 2019(1) Date Quantity Price (EUR) Number of transactions Stabilisation Trading Venue 1/03/2019 200 6.260 2 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 1/03/2019 200 6.260 2 Euronext Brussels 04/03/2019 25 6.260 1 Euronext Brussels 04/03/2019 25 6.240 2 Euronext Brussels 04/03/2019 25 6.220 1 Euronext Brussels 04/03/2019 200 6.020 1 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 04/03/2019 275 6.080 5 Euronext Brussels 05/03/2019 25 6.260 1 Euronext Brussels 05/03/2019 125 6.240 4 Euronext Brussels 05/03/2019 50 6.200 1 Euronext Brussels 05/03/2019 70 6.160 1 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 05/03/2019 270 6.214 7 Euronext Brussels 06/03/2019 25 6.240 1 Euronext Brussels 06/03/2019 25 6.220 1 Euronext Brussels 06/03/2019 150 6.200 3 Euronext Brussels 06/03/2019 50 6.100 1 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 06/03/2019 250 6.186 6 Euronext Brussels 07/03/2019 23 6.200 1 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 07/03/2019 23 6.200 1 Euronext Brussels 08/03/2019 25 6.180 1 Euronext Brussels 08/03/2019 350 6.000 3 Euronext Brussels 08/03/2019 10 5.980 1 Euronext Brussels 08/03/2019 150 5.800 1 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 08/03/2019 535 5.952 6 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 620 6.840 6 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 20 6.700 1 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 80 6.680 1 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 50 6.500 1 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 5 6.360 1 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 200 6.320 2 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 265 6.280 2 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 50 6.260 1 Euronext Brussels 11/03/2019 300 6.200 1 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 11/03/2019 1,590 6.520 16 Euronext Brussels 12/03/2019 2255 6.720 6 Euronext Brussels 12/03/2019 10 6.700 1 Euronext Brussels 12/03/2019 110 6.680 2 Euronext Brussels 12/03/2019 200 6.600 1 Euronext Brussels 12/03/2019 200 6.500 2 Euronext Brussels DAY TOTAL 12/03/2019 2,775 6.694 12 Euronext Brussels Note CALGARY, Alberta, March 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Quorum Information Technologies Inc. (TSX Venture: QIS) ("Quorum" or the "Corporation") announces the appointment of Robert Quirion as a director of the Corporation. Quorum also announces that John Carmichael has resigned as a director of the Corporation. Mr. Quirion has over twenty years of automotive software experience, including leading the DealerMine organization. DealerMines Sales and Service Customer Relationship Management products and Business Development Centre Services are used by over 410 car dealerships across North America. Mr. Quirion founded DealerMine Inc. in 2001, and DealerMine was subsequently acquired by Quorum on October 31st, 2018 "Bob is an accomplished business leader and we are confident that he will add great value to the Quorum Board, said Maury Marks, President and CEO of Quorum. His experience building a high-growth, profitable company that serves many dealerships, including some of the largest dealer groups, will be extremely valuable in enabling Quorum to meet its future goals." In other news, John Carmichael has resigned from the Board of Directors in light of his role as CEO and Interim Registrar of the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council. Quorum wishes to thank Mr. Carmichael for his many years of contributions to the Corporation. John has served on the Board since 2003 and he was our Board Chairman from 2009 to 2013, stated Mr. Marks. His automotive experience and business acumen have benefited the Corporation and our shareholders. While we are sorry that he can no longer serve on the Quorum Board of Directors, we wish John continued success in all his future endeavors. I would like to personally thank him for his leadership and positive support over the years. About Quorum Information Technologies Inc. Quorum is a North American company focused on developing, marketing, implementing and supporting its portfolio of software and services for automotive dealerships that includes: XSellerator TM , a Dealership Management System (DMS) that automates, integrates and streamlines key processes across departments in a dealership, and emphasizes revenue generation and customer satisfaction. , a Dealership Management System (DMS) that automates, integrates and streamlines key processes across departments in a dealership, and emphasizes revenue generation and customer satisfaction. DealerMine CRM, a sales and service Customer Relationship Management system and set of Business Development Center services that drives revenue into the critical sales and service departments in a dealership. Autovance, a sales desking system that increases sales department gross margins and improves customer satisfaction for dealerships. Advantage, a full showroom system for both franchised and independent dealerships and a comprehensive operating system that includes accounting for the independent market. Quorum Information Technologies Inc. is traded on the Toronto Venture Exchange (TSX-V) under the symbol QIS. For additional information please go to www.QuorumDMS.com . Forward-Looking Information This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information ("forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "intend", "objective", "continuous", "ongoing", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "should" or similar words suggesting future outcomes. Quorum believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking information are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and involves a number of risks and uncertainties some of which are described herein. Such forward-looking information necessarily involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause Quorum's actual performance and financial results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such 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) has reviewed this release and neither accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. PDF available: http://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/d73303da-e245-4d26-8a59-9425137a1da9 After their First Plenary Meeting of the year, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), over the weekend, issued a pastoral communique urging the Nigerian government to stay the course of good governance. English Africa Service Vatican City. The week-long meeting took place in the capital, Abuja, at the Resource Centre, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), Durumi. The pastoral communique made available to Vatican News wants the government to prioritise the establishment of democratic structures. We, therefore, enjoin government at all levels in Nigeria to put necessary structures of governance in place and enact appropriate laws that will produce such an environment. We equally insist that the democratic culture of the separation of powers and the independence of the Judiciary be respected, reads the document signed, on behalf of other Bishops, by the CBCN President Archbishop Augustine Akubeze of the Archdiocese of the Benin City. The Episcopal Conference Secretary, Bishop Camillus Umoh of the Diocese of Ikot Ekpene also co-signed the document. Good governance issues matter As one of Africas largest economies as well as the most populous country on the continent, Nigeria has struggled with governance issues, widespread violence, and general insecurity. The country has just emerged from a general election held last month. President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress was re-elected for the next four years. What happens in Nigeria does set the tone in Africa either culturally or politically. The Bishops want the country to take its place as a beacon of good governance and democracy. We equally note the voter apathy that characterised the subsequent Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections.We believe that this apathy may not have been unconnected with among other things, the violence, malpractice and the unnecessary militarisation of the process, all of which contributed to eroding the peoples confidence in the electoral process, said the Bishops. Towards a New Political Culture The Bishops, therefore, demand new electoral laws that will be adhered to by all. Bad elections, they say, hinder good governance. One of the reported phenomena during the elections was the crude and reckless use of money to buy votes; showing how desperate politicians and political parties are determined to get political power at all cost. Bad elections do not lead to good governance. We demand that the government acknowledge the inadequacies that characterised the 2019 elections and embark on a course for redress. We urge her to enact, endorse and implement laws and policies that will ensure free, fair and credible elections in the future, said the Bishops. Dioceses must promote Catholic Social Teaching According to the Bishops, For centuries, the Church has been an advocate of good governance for the Common Good. To this end, we call on all dioceses to promote the Social Teaching of the Church, to simplify and to translate it into concrete actions and to use it for an effective socio-political formation of all the people. Special attention must be paid to young people and families so that the values espoused in Catholic Social Teaching would be inculcated early into children and young people, the Bishops affirm Bishops pledge to uphold high standards In the communique, the Bishops pledge to do all they can to live by the high standards that they advocate. However, because moral authority is crucial for good governance and transparent accountability, we as a Church commit ourselves to exercise authority based on sound Christian moral principles, truly inspired by the example of Christ and guided by His compassion, affirm the Bishops. Gold Spike, downtown Las Vegas premier adult playground skates into 2019 with a fresh lineup for Down & Derby, the funkiest party on wheels! Starting Wednesday, March 20th and continuing every third Wednesday, Gold Spike elevates the Backyard experience with the addition of Down & Derbys retro roller rink. The renowned roller disco soiree features nightly contests, prizes, drink specials and special guest DJs. Down & Derby is thrilled to return to the Gold Spike in Downtown Las Vegas for another season of late-night roller escapades, said Richard Alexander, founder of Down & Derby. With its electrifying atmosphere, Gold Spike has always been the ideal place for an event of this scale, energy and originality. With over 10 years in the Las Vegas Valley, Down & Derby brings its collective of local musicians, artists and performers to Wednesdays at Gold Spike offering an event part party, part carnival. With fresh additions to the Backyard including new games, added bars and incoming attractions, Gold Spike continues to lead innovation in downtown Las Vegas nightlife. Wednesday, March 20th 2019 Premier Event Skate fever sets in at Gold Spike! The skate-fest starts at 10 p.m. and the funkiest party on wheels rolls into the Backyard for another season of roller-skates, conga lines and late nights. Disco and derby enthusiasts alike are invited to break out the bellbottoms and polyester as roller-skaters are encouraged to dress in their shiniest throwback styles. Enjoy drink specials, contests and giveaways throughout the duration of the derby so do the hustle! Wednesday, April 17th Jack Be Limbo Gold Spike sets the bar high while guests get low for Down & Derbys famous limbo contest! With the aid of drink specials and bangin beats, skaters will test the limits of how low they can go. The skater with the best hustle & flow will glide home with $500 and bask in groovy glory. Wednesday, May 15th Rock Bottom Disco 4: Booty Short Contest Skaters got back! Down & Derbys booty short skate contest is all about that badonkadonk. Booty-shaking skaters can enjoy drink specials and music from DJs Phoreyz & SHR3D all night long. The skater with the most impressively dressed derriere will win $250 in cash and prizes. Wednesday, June 19th The Industry Roller Games Down & Derby invites Las Vegas Industry big-wigs to duke it out for king (or queen) of nightlife on the Backyards roller rink turned racetrack! Six Industry leaders will have the opportunity to go head-to-head and race for whos who supremacy with the ultimate winner taking home a trophy and pair of state of the art skates. Bring the funk every third Wednesday of the Month for the rest of the summer. Wednesday, July 17th Wednesday, August 21st Wednesday, September 18th Wednesday, October 16th Boeing was criticised for failing for react more decisively following the second deadly crash in less than five months involving its 737 MAX aircraft. (AFP/Jason Redmond) NEW YORK: After a second air disaster involving the 737 MAX 8, aviation giant Boeing swung into crisis mode, losing US$25 billion of market capitalisation and suffering a severe hit to its reputation. That was made worse by the company's response, according to industry experts, who described their efforts variously as "terrible," and "rough." The tragedy of the Ethiopian Airlines flight on Sunday, in which all 157 people on board perished, renewed fears about the safety of the plane, and led to it being grounded worldwide - although the US decision was not made for three days. "It's been a rough week for them," said Matt Yemma, a crisis communication specialist at Peaks Strategies, based in Connecticut. Boeing - which in the first days after the accident said the MAX was reliable and safe - could have announced it was voluntarily grounding the planes on Sunday to restore confidence and ensure the flying public they were on top of the problem, he said. "Instead they just kind of let things dragged on and they end up losing a lot of market cap and a lot of business." It was not until Wednesday after many governments and airlines worldwide had already banned the plane, that Boeing followed suit "out of an abundance of caution." This was the second tragic accident in less than five months involving this model, which has been in service since May 2017, after the crash of a Lion Air flight in October which killed 189 people. A malfunction of the new MCAS stall prevention system on the MAX was implicated in the Lion Air accident in Indonesia. And the Federal Aviation Administration said evidence at the crash site in Ethiopia and new satellite data showed similarities and warranted "further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents." And despite the growing use of the MAX worldwide, in China and Europe in particular, Boeing only issued brief statements, and meanwhile appeared to be attempting to prevent the US authorities from grounding the plane. Two days after the accident, the company's CEO Dennis Muilenburg spoke on the phone with President Donald Trump, who had complained on Twitter that modern airplanes were becoming too complex for pilots to handle. Chart showing changes to Boeing shares over five days following the Ethiopian Airlines crash. (AFP Photo) 'AMERICAN ARROGANCE' And it didn't help that the FAA announced it had ordered Boeing to make a software fix to the MCAS flaw, which some American pilots also encountered, raising questions about whether the manufacturer was diligent about getting the word out. "It's the American arrogance," a source close to the aircraft manufacturer told AFP, which is "dangerous because it shows that the work was not done properly" due to overconfidence. Others said the company should have moved more quickly to get out in front of the problem. "Typically in a situation like this, you want to give as much information as you possibly can," especially given how quickly news whips around the globe, Yemma said. "You want to make your clients, passengers and the public feel at ease about wanting to fly your planes. And the market and investors need to know there is nothing wrong and if there is something wrong that it's going to be fixed." Michael Priem of communications firm Modern Impact in Minneapolis, agreed Boeing should have moved faster to reassure the general public. The public expects "very quick responses and I think Boeing didn't engage in the conversation soon enough," he told AFP. Two industry sources told AFP on Friday that the company will be rolling out a software upgrade for the MCAS in the next 10 days, which helped boost its share price, but the lag since the October crash in Indonesia is troubling. And Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger - noted for his safe landing of a damaged plane on the Hudson River in New York without loss of life - questioned Boeing's response as well. "It has been obvious since the Lion Air crash that a redesign of the 737 MAX 8 has been urgently needed ... and the announced proposed fixes do not go far enough," he said on social media. The issue has drawn the scrutiny of Congress, with key oversight committees planning hearings to look into the aircraft and flaws. "I continue to have serious concerns about key decisions made in the FAA's certification of the 737 MAX, and what was, and was not, disclosed to pilots," said Representative Peter DeFazio, head of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "I will be conducting a rigorous investigation to make sure that FAA is carrying out its critical safety mission." Boeing may have to roll out a public relations campaign to try to restore confidence in its aircraft. The company will have to provide a sincere "mea culpa" because "the damage is done," a source close to the aircraft manufacturer told AFP. The DCapitale apartment blocks on Tran Duy Hung street in Hanoi (Photo: VNA) In January and February, foreign investors poured money into 18 fields, with processing and manufacturing attracting 6.93 billion USD, or 81.8 percent of total registered capital. Property ranked second with 478 million USD, 5.6 percent of the total. The Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association said in recent years, property has been among the top magnets for FDI, which has become a very important source of funding as capital flow from domestic banks has slowed in recent years. Chairman of the association Le Hoang Chau said FDI is not only an additional source of funding for the real estate market, it also creates many opportunities and value for property firms. Economist Nguyen Tri Hieu said over the last three years, FDI inflow into Vietnamese real estate has been increasing. Investors from Singapore, Japan and the Republic of Korea have paid attention to downtown areas of big cities or areas near important transport facilities like metros or elevated railways. Several bottlenecks in terms of legal procedures have been removed, boosting the markets investment attraction. Additionally, many businesses have reformed to be listed on the stock market and partner with foreign investment funds to carry out projects. Insiders said foreign investors in Vietnams property market can be divided into two groups. The first one is interested in money-making real estate like office buildings, shopping malls, serviced apartments and hotels in downtown areas, while the second focuses on housing. Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Vietnam said there is an FDI wave worth hundreds of millions of USD ready to flow into the countrys property sector. The real estate services firm said the country welcomed 15.5 million foreign visitors in 2018 and targets the number at 20 million in 2020. Additionally, Vietnam is also stepping up infrastructure development, including 2,000km of new expressways, metro systems in Hanoi and HCM City and airports. Therefore, it is not a surprising thing investors and property developers are ready to pour money into this fast-growing market, JLL noted. Experts expect the local property sector will continue recording growth in almost all segments, with industrial real estate the hottest in 2019, driven by the relocation of factories from China and the positive impacts of trade agreements. Bong Mieu gold mine cannot be closed and restored as the investor has ran out of funds Notably, the companys licence to exploit gold at Bong Mieu gold mine in Phu Ninh district, Quang Nam province, expired three years ago and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment urged the company to complete the dossiers to close the mine numerous times. However, to date, the company has yet to comply, although it is far past the last deadline of June 2017. On March 5, the leaders of the Quang Nam Peoples Committee and the General Department of Geology and Minerals of Vietnam attended a working session to discuss plans to close the mine. Accordingly, the work is estimated to cost up to VND19 billion ($826,100). Previously, in November 2018, the Quang Nam Peoples Court held a creditors meeting to decide the fate of Bong Mieu, whether to file for bankruptcy, declare bankruptcy or resume operations. They later went for the initiation of the bankruptcy process with the endorsement of 14 out of 24 creditors. According to the companys financial statement, as of November 2017, BMGMC amassed VND1.26 trillion ($54.78 million) in debts and VND1 trillion ($43.47 million) in accumulated loss, which exceed its total equity by up to VND966 billion ($42 million). BMGMC is a subsidiary of New Zealand-based Besra Gold Inc., which was granted an exploration license in Vietnam until March 2016. However, the company continued mining operations despite repeated warnings from the authorities and related agencies. The company submitted a request to the Department of Biology and Minerals asking for an extension, but was told that there is no basis to grant its request. However, it was not until May 2017 that the company closed the gold mine, complying with the order of Quang Nam authorities. EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement Paul Auriol, co-chairman of the EuroChams Wine & Spirits Sector Committee, said on the sidelines of the Eurochams 2019 White Book Launch ceremony themed The EVFTA: Driving Industry Digitalisation and Transformation for Vietnams Socio-economic Prosperity last week that liquor business is a conditional business but it is not prohibited by any legislation in Vietnam, regardless of its strength, and the Internet is merely a tool to do business. No other conditional business line prohibits sales on the Internet. Thus, this prohibition does not only restrict legitimate business but it is also against Vietnams efforts and policies to promote the digital economy and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Paul Auriol, the co-chairman of Eurochams Wine and Spirits Sector Committee (on the left), Patrick Castanier, the co-chairman of Eurochams Wine and Spirits Sector Committee (on the right) Currently, many markets allow the electronic sales of alcohol products regardless of their strength. In the Asia-Pacific, for instance, these markets include China, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Other markets such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States do not prohibit such sales channels either. Therefore, the prohibition of e-commerce for alcohol products would be inconsistent with common regional and international trends and make Vietnam an anomaly in the region, Auriol said. According to him, experience with e-commerce in the countries which allow it reveals that it helps to improve transparency and tax collection, as payments are made by bank cards or bank transfer, and thus improve the integrity of the tax system. E-commerce allows governments to actively track alcohol sales and helps local authorities to develop a more holistic understanding of total alcohol consumption. Internet technology also helps to prevent under-aged buyers by screening the buyers profiles and their relationship or communications with others on the Internet. According to a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO), recorded wine and spirits in Vietnam account for less than 3 per cent of total alcohol consumption. Therefore, it has been questionable whether the e-commerce ban on these products will help to control the harmful consumption. Auriol said that the e-commerce ban actually creates an environment for illegitimate alcohol to be traded on the Internet. Currently, despite of the ban, it is not difficult for consumers to find and purchase alcohol products online. However, as such sales are not compliant with the regulations, consumers that choose to purchase from these channels are not offered the same certainty about the origin of the products as those buying from authorised retailers. This exposes them to greater risk of purchasing smuggled, low-quality or counterfeit products which could have severe health implications for consumers, Auriol said. Until now, there have not yet been any assessments on the impacts of this prohibition on controlling the consumption of wines and spirits. It may be time to review the ban. At the debate on the draft Law on Prevention and Fighting Against the Harmful Impacts of Beer and Liquor, most National Assembly deputies have raised concerns about the ban and recommended it for more reconsideration. Deputy Ha Thi Lan representing the northern province of Bac Giang, said, I requested that this provision be reconsidered because it is not consistent with the e-commerce trend. Moreover, the provisions are not feasible. I recommend that instead of banning, the draft law should include conditions for selling alcohol over the Internet. Another concern raised at the discussion of the Whitebook launching ceremony are tax instabilities. Patrick Castanier, co-chairman of the Eurochams Wine and Spirits Sector Committee, said that the industry has seen the special consumption tax (SCT) law changed five times in the past 15 years (2003, 2005, 2008, 2014, and 2016). The EU wine and spirits industry has suffered from the changes introduced by the SCT law of 2016, which not only increased the tax rate from 50 per cent in 2015 to 55 per cent in 2016, and to 65 per cent in 2018, but also adjusted the taxable price of cost, insurance and freight (CIF) charge to wholesaler prices, Castanier said. As a consequence, these reforms have significantly increased the total tax burden on EU wine and spirits exported to Vietnam and will potentially cancel out the benefits of tariff reductions on these products negotiated under the EVFTA, thereby limiting the potential development of the market. With intensive experience in the industry across the region, Castanier commented that the increased SCT may lead to a substantial loss of sales of legal imports and an increase of illegal counterfeit products. Excessive ad valorem taxation, often exacerbated by high import duty, encourage illicit activities such as counterfeiting and smuggling of imported wine and spirits, he said. This is a common problem in other ASEAN members like Indonesia. As a consequence, the government may see some revenue increase in the short term, but will experience a loss in budgetary revenue in the long term. On whether the tax increase will help address the public health issue, Castanier stated that he has not been aware of any countries where public health was improved after the tax was increased. The two-day event was co-chaired by Vietnam, Australia and the European Union. Over 80 officials and experts on maritime security and cooperation from 27 ARF members and relevant international organisations looked into the current maritime situation, activities of cooperation mechanisms, countries policies and measures, maritime safety, maritime environment, and sustainable development. Discussing the regional maritime security situation, participants emphasised the importance of ensuring security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation, along with adherence to and enforcement of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), on seas in the region. They voiced concerns about the continued complicated developments at sea, including unresolved disputes; the increase of trans-national crimes like piracy, drug trafficking, and human trafficking; overexploitation of natural resources; and environmental pollution. Given that fact, participants shared the view that countries in the region need to continue enhancing cooperation to deal with challenges in an effective manner. Many of them also expressed concerns about the recent developments in the East Sea, including unilateral actions and militarisation, which have seriously affected peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation in the region, hindering a favourable environment for cooperation to address common challenges. They highlighted the principles of respecting law; adhering to and seriously implementing international law, including the 1982 UNCLOS; exercising self-restraint and not taking actions that can complicate the situation; not militarising; settling disputes by peaceful means; fully and effectively carrying out the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea; and building a substantive and effective Code of Conduct (COC) in the waters that is in conformity with international law. The meeting recognised efforts by regional mechanisms and many countries to strengthen cooperation in ensuring maritime security, including setting up direct communication channels among defence officials, conducting joint patrols, building and expanding information sharing mechanisms, building and improving capacity, and ASEAN-China negotiations on an efficient and effective COC. The meeting was the third activity on maritime security held by Vietnam within the ARFs framework since the beginning of 2019. Participants spoke highly of the Vietnamese delegations role and contributions to the event. Most gondola operations are the best kept secret in their town The fine print - States are listed alphabetically, California operations are listed south-to-north. Not all of the listings below have Venice-built boats. Some operations are seasonal and may not have boats in the water during winter. If you know of an operation thats not listed here, Id like to hear about it. If you have a complaint about something on this list, count to ten, if youre still angry take a gondola cruise, because you probably need to relax. Alabama Arizona (928) 486-1891 California Florida Indiana Louisiana Massachusetts Minnesota Missouri Nebraska Nevada New Jersey New York http://www.centralparknyc.org/things-to-see-and-do/attractions/loeb-boathouse.html?_ga=1.161661436.1785626869.1435652752 Rhode Island Texas Wisconsin Washington Ontario For years Ive said thatAs president of the Gondola Society of America, one of my goals is to change that and help people find gondolas wherever they are.Here is a list of gondola operations in North America:Huntsville Titonos Gondola http://www.bridgestreethuntsville.com/info/gondolaprice Scottsdale Hyatt Regency Gainey Ranch sandolo operationHavasu City London Bridge GondolaCoronado (San Diego area) The Gondola Company http://www.gondolacompany.com/ Newport Beach -Gondola Adventures, Inc. http://www.gondola.com/ Gondola Cruises of Newport http://www.gondolarides.com/ Gondola Romance http://www.gondolaromance.com/ Gondola Co. of Newport http://www.gondolas.com/ Sunset Beach/Huntington Harbour Sunset Gondola http://sunsetgondola.com/ Long Beach The Gondola Getaway http://www.gondolagetawayinc.com/ Redondo Beach Gondola Amore http://www.gondolaamore.com/ Marina del Rey Gondola dAmore http://www.gondolasdamore.com/ Oxnard Gondola Paradiso http://gondolaparadiso.com/ Oakland Gondola Servizio http://www.gondolaservizio.com/ South Lake Tahoe Tahoe Amore http://www.tahoeamore.com/ Ft. Lauderdale Las Olas Gondola http://www.gondolaman.com/ Fort Myers Fort Myers BoatTour http://fortmyersboattour.com/Pages/GondolaTour.htmlSarasota Sarasota GondolaIndianapolis Old World Gondoliers http://www.4gondola.com/ New Orleans NOLAGondola http://www.nolagondola.com/ Boston Gondola di Venezia www.bostongondolas.com Stillwater (Minneapolis area) Gondola on St. Croix http://www.gondolaromantica.com/ Kansas City Ambiance on the Water http://ambianceonthewater.com/ Omaha Heartland Gondolas http://www.heartlandgondolas.com/ Las Vegas The Venetian Hotel and CasinoMoonachie Mike Novack, owns a gondola that he mostly uses in parades on trailer, but also brings to various locations on the east Coast, and even as far as the upper Mid-West for special events, both in and out of the water.Manhattan Central Park at the Loeb BoathouseProvidence La Gondola http://www.gondolari.com/ Irving (Dallas/Ft. Worth area) Gondola Adventures, Inc. http://www.gondola.com/ Milwaukee Four gondolas, which only come out for an annual Festa Italiana festival.Gig Harbor - Gig HarborAnd north of the border in CanadaToronto Honeymoon Gondola http://www.honeymoongondola.com/ What is Nestles view of the Vietnamese market and the recent free trade agreements (FTAs) the country entered? How will they impact your business in Vietnam? Generally speaking, we are focused on the domestic market, and our factories in the country are designed to serve the growing Vietnamese consumption market. We want to provide a variety of high-quality products for Vietnamese consumers, from young to old. Nestle currently has six factories and 2,300 employees nationwide, with the total investment of $560 million. Of course we are positive of the fact that Vietnam is getting more linked to global economies via the FTAs, including the EU-Vietnam FTA and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The ASEAN Economic Community, which allows the free movement of goods without tariffs within the ASEAN region, is another notable development. This is especially true for goods like coffee. We export a lot of coffee out of Vietnam under the Made in Vietnam label. With this in mind, Vietnams economic liberalisation and FTAs will bring us more opportunities to export Vietnamese coffee to the region and the world. Vietnam is the worlds second-largest exporter of coffee after Brazil, and the worlds biggest producer of robusta coffee and we are proud to have contributed greatly to these figures. Recently, we have been honoured to receive awards of excellence from the Ministry of Planning and Investment to commemorate 30 years of foreign direct investment in Vietnam. In 2018, we were also ranked among the 10 most sustainable businesses in Vietnam. Can you give us more details about the new facility that Nestle launched last week in Vietnam? How significant is this milestone for Nestle Vietnam? Two years after the opening of Nestle Bong Sen factory in the northern province of Hung Yen province, last week we returned to the same site to unveil the Nestle Bong Sen Distribution Centre. This 11,000-square metre facility is our biggest distribution centre in the north and north-central region of Vietnam. From this distribution centre, Nestles quality products will reach nearby consumers much faster. More importantly, the newly built distribution centre, which is the first of its kind for Nestle in Northern Vietnam, will contribute to the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises and the economy of Hung Yen province. Besides the distribution centre, we will also install additional MILO production lines at the Nestle Bong Sen factory, due for completion in this September. With this investment, we will double the MILO ready-to-drink production capacity of Nestle Bong Sen factory, and total investment of Nestle Vietnam in Vietnam has amounted to over $100 million. This is also a promise that we have made to the local authorities. Regarding local authorities, for the past three years, we have received great support from the members of the provincial Peoples Committee, who helped us carry out the project more efficiently, quicker, and without accidents. It is notable that almost one-fifth of our investment capital in Vietnam goes to projects in Hung Yen. Nestles new Bong Sen Distribution Centre, officialy opened in the northen province of Hung Yen last week, will expand the Swiss groups presence in the country How does this new factory tie in with Vietnams Sustainable Development Goals? Thanks to the new Bong Sen Distribution Centre, our products could reach the hands of sellers and consumers with the shortest amount of time, reducing dramatically transport cost and also lowering emissions in a more friendly way with the environment. This new facility is equipped with Industry 4.0 technologies, including the latest SAP enterprise planning software and Obiter Robot, which is intended to reduce energy usage, ensure safety for workers, and manage land usage. This is also a huge opportunity for Nestle to develop local know-how and a distribution warehouse management system. As a result, either directly or indirectly, we are happy to improve environmental conditions in Vietnam by making sure we are more efficient with the new distribution centre. When it comes to sustainability programmes in general, we are also very proud of our public-private partnerships in Vietnam. Our Nescafe Plan in the Central Highlands region have helped farmers reduce the amount of fertiliser, water, and pesticides used while improving output. For the past eight years, we have shared lessons and know-how with Vietnamese farmers, improving their livelihood while promoting sustainable coffee farming. This is how we can contribute to both farmers lives and the Vietnamese coffee industry in the long run. Currently, we are mainly producing robusta coffee, so the Central Highlands region is the focus. We are also interested in the possibility of growing arabica coffee in the northern region, but we need to improve the quality of the coffee that comes out first. A victim of the shooting attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15 (Photo: AFP/VNA) The embassy said as of 16:14 hours on March 15, the number of dead victims was reported at 49 while 48 others were injured in the incidents. The Foreign Ministry has instructed the embassy to keep up to date with related developments, maintain constant contact with local authorities and take citizen protection measures when necessary. In case of needing support, Vietnamese nationals are advised to contact the Vietnamese Embassy in New Zealand via the hotline +6421898814 or Vietnams citizen protection hotline +84 981 8484 84. Prudential reinforces the company's customer-first commitment with the new branding UK-backed life insurer Prudential Vietnam Assurance Private Ltd. (Prudential) today launches its bold and multi-touchpoint campaign We are the people that DO in Vietnam, reaffirming its focus on helping customers of today and tomorrow progress in life, together with its steadfast commitment on Listening. Understanding. Delivering. The new branding also reinforces the companys customer-first commitment, focusing on human connections, simplicity, and innovation. As a leading life insurer in Vietnam for the past 20 years, Prudential has continued to listen to its customers and understand their needs, as well as safeguard their financial future and quality of life, said Clive Baker, chief executive officer of Prudential Vietnam. We DO is a dynamic campaign that Prudential has launched across Asia since January 3, starting in Hong Kong. Our new brand Listening. Understanding. Delivering. demonstrates our commitment to always putting customers first, delivering innovative and comprehensive solutions to support their evolving needs while making engagement easier for todays digital-savvy customers, Baker added. We DO is a dynamic campaign that has been launched across Asia since January 3, starting in Hong Kong. For more than 95 years, Prudential has helped millions of people in Asia confidently pursue their dreams and passions by taking care of what is important to them: protecting their families, keeping them healthy, building their savings and wealth, and helping them plan for their retirement. In Vietnam, Prudential is officially launching the We DO campaign, aimed to inspire the people that DO. They could be anyone; they all share the DO spirit. They DO to pursue their passions. They DO to improve their life. And they DO for a better life for themselves and their loved ones. The We DO campaign will be rolled out across multi-media channels including television, outdoor, online, newspaper, and magazine from March 11 to June this year. Quy Nhon city boasts beautiful islands, which provides visitors with opportunities to bathing as well as scuba diving to admire coral reef. Nhon Hai fishing village possesses one of the most beautiful beaches here, which is about 20km away from the city centre Nhon Hai offers a variety of services to visitors such as restaurants, homestays and hostels. Foreigners tend to stay for long to enjoy the air and explore local life Hon Kho island is a famous tourist attraction in Nhon Hai. It takes visitors about five minutes to get to by canoes. A tour o Hon Kho island is priced at VND180,000 each There is also Nhon Ly, which is another fishing village in Quy Nhon. It is famous for Eo Gio strait and winding road along the mountain. Visitors can take walks as well as enjoying sunrise and unique reef here. Visitors must go cross the Thi Nai bridge to arrive at both Nhon Ly and Nhon Hai Quy Nhon city from Vung Chua mountain. It is considered the best place to enjoy landscape of the city from a high view On the night of Jan. 16, Kol Sat could not locate her husband even after contacting everyone she thought might know the whereabouts of Kong Mas. The next morning, her mother-in-law called with news: Police were questioning Kong Mas after arresting him the day before. Kol Sat, a garment worker in Phnom Penh, told VOA her husband had accepted a friends invitation to have coffee only to be picked up by authorities around 9:30 a.m., just hours after Kong Mas arrived in Phnom Penh from Siem Reap province, where he worked as a construction supervisor. His arrest was related to Facebook posts, said Kol Sat, 35. Among other things, he criticized the Cambodian government for its role in the possible suspension of Everything but Arms (EBA), the European Unions initiative that grants Cambodia preferential access to its markets, a structure that can be removed if beneficiary countries fail to respect core human rights. Since then, the EU has taken the first step to suspend EBA. I think it is just constructive criticism and he is just an ordinary citizen and he has personal rights to post, Kol Sat said. I think perhaps it is not wrong. Article 41 enshrined in the Constitution of Cambodia states that Khmer citizens shall have the freedom to express their personal opinions, the freedom of press, of publication and of assembly. A series of arrests Kong Mas, 33, was one of the leading members in Svay Rieng province of the now-dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. His arrest is the latest in a series related to Facebook posts that the Cambodian government said were intended to insult and/or incitement, a charge often used to imprison government critics. It carries a prison sentence of six months to two years. The first prominent arrest occurred in August 2015 and resulted in university student Kung Raiya being charged with incitement for posting a call for a color revolution. In July 2017, police arrested Rom Chamroeun for posting an image of two pistols on his Facebook page with text seemingly directed at Cambodias prime minister that read, Hun Sen I will kill you. Because if you arent killed, Cambodia will never have peace. Me and my siblings will shoot Mr Hun Sen someday, and his wife and children. In February 2018, Sam Sokha was arrested after a video surfaced on Facebook that showed her throwing a shoe at a roadside billboard depicting Hun Sen and National Assembly President Heng Samrin. She could be heard saying, These are the men who are destroying our nation. She fled to Thailand requesting political asylum and was arrested for insulting Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party when she returned to Cambodia. All told, more than a dozen Cambodians have been arrested or detained for making political statements on Facebook, some of them after running afoul of a lese-majeste law passed in February 2018 that criminalizes criticism of the king and allows for sentences as long as five years. In some cases, however, the posters were released after writing a letter of apology to Hun Sen and pledging to stop political posting on Facebook. Insulting and incitement charge Sam Sokong, the lawyer for Kong Mas, said his clients arrest was completely politically motivated because the evidence consists of posts from April to December 2018 criticizing the government, supporting the campaign to not vote in the 2018 election, and calling for Sam Rainsy, an opposition leader, to return to Cambodia. On Jan. 16, just before his arrest, Kong Mas posted a 2-day-old Reuters story saying the EU had decided to take the first step in sanctioning [Cambodia] by removing the preferential treatment of its products such as garments and rice. Then he shared Sam Rainsys schedule of public meetings during a U.S. visit. And he posted that Hun Sens administration ignored problems faced by farmers such as the falling market prices for their output, according to his post viewed by VOA Khmer. When authorities or the government are angry, they will file complaints and 100 percent of the time, the court has to take action in accordance with the complaints, whether or not theyre based on the law, said Sam Sokong, who has represented five people arrested for their Facebook posts. Kong Mas has been charged with insulting and incitement. Silencing criticism The government has a history of silencing voices it believes have been raised in opposition. In November 2017, the CNRP, which nearly defeated Hun Sens ruling party in the 2013 elections, was dissolved. This came after a crackdown on critical media outlets including the closure of the influential English-language Cambodia Daily after the publishers received a large, overdue tax bill, and several local radio stations that broadcast factual programming in rural Cambodia, where ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) traditionally draws its support base. In addition to suppressing traditional media that are not pro-government, the CPP has pushed to dominate the internet, which the CNRP used to its advantage during the 2013 elections by attracting many young people through its mastery of platforms such as Facebook. Hun Sen is no slouch on Facebook. On his page, Samdech Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister, the onetime Khmer Rouge commander posts photographs of himself posing with garment workers and students, and gushes about his love for his wife. If this makes the man who became prime minister in 1985 seem more approachable to Cambodias young and increasingly tech-savvy population, 40 percent of whom are avid Facebook users, thats the point. At a groundbreaking ceremony for a flood protection and drainage improvement project in Phnom Penh on March 4, Hun Sen waved off rumors that Facebook might go dark by saying, I am also a Facebook user, so why would I shut down Facebook? Instead he ordered officials to draft an new anti-cybercrime law, and Meas Po, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, said it will not affect freedom of expression. According to Meas Po, approximately 13.6 million people, or 82 percent of Cambodians, use the internet, and about 7 million use Facebook, making it the nations most popular social media platform. Among those Facebook users are community activists and opposition supporters who are increasingly subject to the same pressures as their counterparts in the traditional media, according to Going Offline? The Threat to Cambodias Newfound Internet Freedoms, a report released by the Cambodian rights group, Licadho in May 2015. I dont believe the authorities do not understand what freedom of expression means, but we know it depends on their interpretation, said Am Sam Ath, Licadhos monitoring manager. Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Ly Sophana could not be reached for comment. Rights groups concerns United Nations Special Rapporteur to Cambodia, Rhona Smith, said in an email to VOA Khmer that she is following a number of cases involving people arrested and even charged in connection with online posts. I am reminded that freedom of expression and the controls that can be legitimately placed thereon are the same irrespective of whether the comments are made on Facebook, through other social media, or in printed media, she said. I have previously expressed concern at various provisions of the criminal code being used to limit freedom of expression in Cambodia, she added. Am Sam Ath expressed his concern that if Hun Sens requested cybercrime law passes, it will be used to stifle citizens freedom of expression. We are worried that [the government] will become even more strict about citizens freedom [of expression], he said. Perhaps more will be arrested. With respect to the cybercrime law, Smith said, I have not received information on this law. I can simply state that I hope that any law will give effect to Cambodias international obligations to ensure the appropriate balance between protecting national security and internet freedom. Kong Mas lawyer, Sam Sokong, said he is asking the Supreme Court to release his client on bail. Kol Sat who visits her husband once or twice a week, said her husband has lost weight and has developed high blood pressure while jailed, adding He should be released now. The New Zealand mosque shooting tragedy continues to unfold. Push back against China's description of Uighur detention centers. A huge College bribery scandal. Special antique engraving. Sickle cell gene therapy, and weighing the Milky Way. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Monday again defied mass protests calling for his immediate resignation, insisting on a plan to elect a successor only after a national conference and new constitution is approved. Bouteflika, 82, last week bowed to demonstrators who say he unfit to run Algeria by announcing he had reversed a decision to stand for another term. But he stopped short of stepping down and postponed elections due in April, in effect extending his current term until a new constitution can be prepared. In a letter reported by Ennahar television, the veteran leader repeated an earlier plan for a national conference to reform the political system, which would be held shortly. The forum will take "decisive decisions," state television quoted him as saying. A new constitution will then pave the way for a new president, the private Ennahar station added. The scenario broadly reflects a timetable for change that Bouteflika mapped out on March 11. The ailing leader has ruled for two decades but has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke five years ago. Demonstrators say Bouteflika is no state of health to run the country, and they want to see a new generation of leadership tackle deep-seated economic problems and corruption. His comments were published shortly after the chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah, said the army should take responsibility for finding a quick solution to its political crisis, in the most overt signal of potential military intervention since demonstrations erupted three weeks ago. So far, the powerful army has remained in barracks during the demonstrations, with the security forces mainly monitoring mostly peaceful demonstrations in Algiers and other cities. "The army will remain a fortified fortress for the country," Salah said on state TV. "We should be responsible for finding solutions as soon as possible. There is no problem without solution." He added: "I'm confident the Algerian people are wise and able to overcome all difficulties." The army has generally wielded power in Algeria behind the scenes, but has intervened publicly during pivotal moments. In the early 1990s, generals cancelled elections which an Islamist party was set to win, triggering almost a decade of civil war that killed some 200,000 people. No let up Bouteflika's concessions last week have brought no halt to the demonstrations, which are expected to continue on Tuesday, Algeria's Independence Day holiday. On Monday, doctors called for mass protests during the celebrations. In a statement, the independent Collective of Algerian Medical Residents [CAMRA] urged medical students to take part and denounce the "ruling gangs." Protesters are desperate for a new generation of leaders who can tackle the country's pressing problems: a stagnant economy and high unemployment despite vast oil and gas resources. In another concession, the Ministry of Religious Affairs on Sunday informed clerics that they are no longer required to submit texts of their sermons to authorities for approval. One of the most influential clerics in Algiers expressed his opposition to the government last week. Since returning from medical treatment in Switzerland last week, Bouteflika has been losing allies, including senior members of the ruling National Liberation Front party, known by its French acronym FLN. Bouteflika named a new prime minister last week, but on Monday leaders of 13 independent Algerian labor unions refused to support his efforts to form a cabinet. "We will not hold discussions with this system, we belong to the people and the people said 'No' to the system," Boualem Amora, a leader of an education union, told reporters. Newly-appointed Deputy Prime Minister Ramtane Lamamra is expected to start a tour on Tuesday of some of Algeria's main allies abroad to explain the new political roadmap, said a foreign ministry official. The tour will start on Tuesday with a visit to Moscow, Algeria's most important military ally. It will also include EU countries and China, which has invested billions of dollars in Algeria. Five members of the security forces were killed in roadside bomb attacks in eastern Burkina Faso at the weekend, officials said on Monday. A policeman and a soldier were killed on Saturday when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED) in Kompienga, a security official said. Late Sunday, three soldiers were killed in the same area by the same technique, another official said. A third person who was in the vehicle was injured and taken to hospital, the official said. The attacks bear the hallmarks of jihadist groups whose insurgency in the Sahel spilled over into Burkina Faso four years ago. More than 300 people have been killed, typically in hit-and-run raids, and the capital Ouagadougou has been hit three times. Attacks using IEDs began in August 2018 and have claimed more than 60 lives, according to a toll compiled by AFP. The armed forces began an anti-terror operation, named Otapuana ("Lightning"), in the center and east of the country earlier this month. It aims at "neutralizing terrorists and destroying hiding places in forests in the region," according to the authorities. Since January 1, a state of emergency has been in force in 14 of the country's 45 provinces. Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, on his first official visit to Washington, declared himself an unabashed admirer of the United States and said he was seeking a new era of close relations after what he called decades of anti-American leaders. The day before he is due to meet like-minded populist President Donald Trump at the White House, Bolsonaro told business leaders he would like to partner more with the United States. Brazil had changed, he said. "The American people have always been an inspiration for me," said Bolsonaro. "We have good relationships around the world," he added, "but I am extending my hands so that the relationship with the United States is increasingly more important." An outspoken Trump admirer, Bolsonaro took power in January, vowing to realign Brazil with more advanced economies, particularly the United States. That represents a change in diplomatic priorities after over a decade of leftist party rule that had seen Brazil forging closer ties with regional allies. Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes echoed Bolsonaro's message of friendship towards the United States but reminded the audience that China, Brazil's top trading partner, would be there to pick up the slack if America did not open itself to more trade with Brazil. "They are moving in, trying to invest," Guedes said of the Chinese. "And we are looking to our partner and saying 'look, what should we do?' The president loves Americans. Me too of course. We love Disneyland and Coca Cola." A U.S. senior administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, welcomed the change in Brazil's diplomatic stance. "Even the friendliest of Brazilian governments was never really that friendly. Here we have now a government in Brazil we truly consider an ally," the official said. Bolsonaro's meeting with Trump came together within weeks of the Brazilian leader's inauguration after the two political firebrands expressed mutual admiration for each other. Bolsonaro earned the nickname "Trump of the Tropics." Tough Talk on China China, however, promises to loom large over the meeting. The Brazilians showed little interest in getting caught up in the U.S. trade war with China, a top buyer of soy who has long since replaced the United States as Brazil's top trade partner. But U.S. officials have warned their Brazilian counterparts of their security concerns about Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies during talks in Washington, the senior American official told reporters. The three-day visit underscores Bolsonaro's embrace of U.S. influence in Latin America to confront what he calls a communist threat against democracy -- a theme he remarked on at a dinner on Sunday evening with his ministers and right-wing thinkers. The ideological common ground between the leaders has raised expectations of greater cooperation between the two biggest countries in the Americas, although their aides have played down the potential for major breakthroughs on this visit. The two governments did sign an agreement to safeguard U.S. space and defense technology that opens the way for U.S. companies to use Brazil's Alcantara space center to launch satellites. The accord needs to be ratified by Brazil's Congress, which thwarted a previous attempt at a U.S.-Brazilian space partnership in 2003 after it was opposed by then leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In a gesture aimed at boosting tourism, Brazil said it was waiving a visa requirement for visitors from the United States. The U.S. government is not planning to reciprocate with a visa exemption for Brazilians, according to officials with knowledge of the matter. While it is not a state visit, the Trump administration was keen to roll out the red carpet for Bolsonaro. The two leaders will give a high profile joint news conference in the Rose Garden on Tuesday. Bolsonaro also met with CIA director Gina Haspel at the spy agency's headquarters in Virginia to convey the importance he places on "fighting organized crime and drug trafficking and the need to strengthen intelligence," his office said. Description GIS - 18 March, 2019: One of Governments main challenges in Mauritius is the establishment of a well-structured psycho-social support for drug users. Our ultimate aim is the rehabilitation and social reintegration of drug users through the development and implementation of a health-based and a person-centred approach alongside repressive actions to support those in need with social and economic measures. One of Governments main challenges in Mauritius is the establishment of a well-structured psycho-social support for drug users. Our ultimate aim is the rehabilitation and social reintegration of drug users through the development and implementation of a health-based and a person-centred approach alongside repressive actions to support those in need with social and economic measures. The Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth made this statement, on Friday 15 March 2019, at the 62nd Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria. This world-wide escalation of the drug phenomenon has not left Mauritius unscathed, said the Prime Minister while adding that the past 15 years have witnessed a surge in the number of new psychoactive substances. Presently, the consumption of synthetic drugs has reached alarming levels and has impacted on public health, affecting mostly the youth and adolescents, he underscored. Prime Minister Jugnauth recalled that a Commission of Inquiry on Drugs and an Anti-Drug and Smuggling Unit were set up in the mid-eighties to combat drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking. He further pointed out that in September 2015, his Government established a new Commission of Inquiry on Drug Trafficking to inquire into the extent of the illicit drug consumption, its economic and social consequences and the availability of new types of drugs, including synthetic drugs. The Commission has made several recommendations and some of them have already been implemented while others are being analysed by a high level committee, he added. Moreover, the Prime Minister dwelt on the National Drug Control Master Plan 2019, developed with the assistance of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which expresses Governments firm commitment to implement the appropriate drug controlled strategies. He also underlined the setting up of a High Level Drugs and HIV Council, under his chair, to propose, formulate, review and validate national policies on Drugs and HIV. With regards to the National Action Plan for HIV and AIDS 2017-2021, Mr Jugnauth said, that it will be implemented with the help of all stakeholders, including the civil society as a partner. Speaking about the Mauritius Police Force, he indicated that it has constantly been provided with equipment and training to counter illicit drug flows. Officers of the Anti-Drug and Smuggling Unit have attended courses sponsored by friendly countries and workshops organised by agencies such as the Southern African Region Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation, UNODC, African Union, Southern African Development Community and Interpol, he said. The Prime Minister also underlined that regional and international cooperation is essential to act against drug-related crimes. Mauritian authorities benefitted from the help of South African and Mozambican law-enforcement agencies in 2017, he said. Similarly, the Mauritian and Malagasy authorities are working in close collaboration to dismantle the drug network between our two countries, he added. As the top U.S. diplomat for Africa visits Cameroon, pro-government groups are protesting what they call Tibor Nagy's interference in Cameroon's internal affairs. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Nagy and the European Union representative Federica Mogherini recently called on Cameroon to free opposition leader Maurice Kamto and 150 of his supporters. They also urged Cameroon authorities to work harder to stop the violence in its western, anglophone separatist regions. The coordinator for Monday's protest, Lilian Koulou Engoulou, said the demonstrators want Nagy to hear them and take their message back to Washington. America should stop interfering in Cameroon's internal issues, Engoulou said, and should help end the crisis in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions by stopping Cameroonians based in the U.S. from funding what he calls terrorists and destabilizing Cameroon. The last comment refers to separatist leaders based in the U.S. who have appealed on social media for contributions to help the fighters back home. Communications Minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi, who has previously accused the U.S. of harboring separatist leaders, said last week that Cameroon was outraged by Nagy's statements. Aime Manga of Cameroon Rights Watch, a local group, said officials should take Nagy's comments as helpful suggestions rather than criticism. It is public knowledge that Cameroon has a serious political and social crisis, he said, and Nagy's comments bring hope to many who want democracy. Cameroon has detained Kamto and his supporters since January for taking part in anti-government demonstrations. They are being tried in military courts for charges that include rebellion and could face the death penalty. In comments made days before his arrival Sunday in Yaounde, Nagy said it's not always positive to arrest opposition members during times of crisis. He also called the death and suffering in Cameroon's rebellion heartbreaking and urged authorities to do more to end the fighting. Canada will keep a 200-strong military training mission in Ukraine for another three years to help domestic security forces handle continuing tensions with Russia, Ottawa said on Monday. The Canadian troops, who first went to Ukraine in September 2015, had been due out at the end of March but will now stay until March 2022. News of the extension was first reported by Reuters on Sunday. "Ongoing insecurity in the region underscores the importance and relevance of Canada's military mission," the government said in a statement. The Canadian training "directly helps Ukraine's defense and security forces to uphold domestic security and territorial integrity", it added. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland is a vocal critic of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. The peninsula had previously been part of Ukraine. The Canadians are in western Ukraine, far removed from clashes between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country. They have trained more than 10,800 members of the Ukrainian security forces, the statement said. The troops are part of a larger mission that involves the United States, Britain, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. Ottawa also said it would extend a lower-profile training mission in Iraq, where Canada has around 250 personnel. They will now remain in place until March 2021. "The Canadian Armed Forces will continue to provide training, advice, and assistance to the Iraqi security forces," the statement said. Last November Canada assumed command of NATO Mission Iraq, a new non-combat training and capacity building endeavor. In late 2016 Canadian officials said the trainers - who at that point were operating with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq - had clashed several dozen times with Islamic State militants over the course of a month. Since then several major offensives in Iraq and Syria pushed Islamic State back and it now occupies a tiny plot of territory in Syria. More than 150 people were killed and hundreds more were missing Sunday after Cyclone Idai swept through southeastern Africa, with the Mozambican city of Beira hardest hit. Mozambique's president Filipe Nyusi speculated that the death toll in his country, currently confirmed at 84, could rise to "more than 1,000". "This is a real humanitarian disaster," he said in a nationwide address, estimating that "more than 100,000 people are in danger." A team of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) aid workers reached the devastated city Sunday to assess the situation, the organization said in a statement Monday. Jamie LeSueur, who is leading the team, said after an aerial assessment that 90 percent of the Beira area was "completely destroyed." "The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous," LeSueur said in a statement. The United Nations estimates more than 1.5 million people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe were affected by the storm. Tens of thousands have been cut off from roads and telephones in mainly poor, rural areas. The cyclone made landfall Thursday near the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, with winds of nearly 200 kilometers per hour. The storm then moved west into Malawi and Zimbabwe. Video in Beira by VOA's Portuguese service shows splintered trees and downed power lines throughout the city. Tropical Cyclone Idai has compounded destructive flooding that has already occurred as far inland as southern Malawi and eastern Zimbabwe, World Food Program spokesman Herve Verhoosel told journalists in Geneva. Official sources in Mozambique say at least 68 people were killed in the cyclone. Zimbabwean officials told reporters that 89 people died in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe's eastern Chimanimani district, soldiers on Sunday helped rescue 200 students and staff from a school that was cut off by floodwaters and mud. The presidents of Mozambique and Zimbabwe cut short their overseas trips to deal with the aftermath of the cyclone. U.N. agencies and the International Red Cross are helping with rescue efforts, while also delivering food, water and medicines by helicopter. Authorities in the Midwestern United States ordered more evacuations Sunday after heavy rainfall and melting snow flooded several rivers and creeks, leading to the deaths of at least two people. The floods have inundated towns, breached dams and levees, and halted travel as a "bomb cyclone," a hurricane-like storm, battered the area. The governors of Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin have declared states of emergency, which will free up state money for people affected by the flooding. Nebraska * Offutt Air Force Base, about 16 kilometers south of Omaha, was inundated by flooding from the Missouri River. Thirty buildings are flooded with more than 3 meters of water, Tech. Sgt. Rachelle Blake, a 55th Wing spokeswoman, told the Omaha World-Herald. * Hundreds of residents across the state were forced from their homes over the weekend. The American Red Cross has opened more than 20 shelters. State officials said several hundred people across the state have been rescued, and confirmed two people have died, and two men remain missing. * The National Weather Service said the Elkhorn River remained at major flood stage but was dropping. But the Missouri River continued to crest. It was expected to reach 12.5 meters in Plattsmouth on Sunday -- 1.22 meters higher than the record set in 2011. * The Cooper Nuclear Station, along the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska, may be forced to close down if the water continues to rise, the facility's officials said. * The towns of Waterloo and Fremont were surrounded by floodwaters, making it impossible for residents to get in or out of town. Iowa * Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management said nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated from eight areas in western Iowa since flooding began late last week. * The Missouri River on Sunday broke a previous flooding record, reaching 9.2 meters in the state's far southwestern corner. State officials were worried by the swiftness of the floodwaters. "This wasn't a gradual rise,'' Fremont County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius said. "It's flowing fast and it's open country -- there's nothing there to slow it down.'' * The National Weather Service office in Davenport, Iowa, said flooding on the Mississippi could get worse in a few weeks as more snow melts in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Missouri * Forecasters expect floodwaters to crest in St. Joseph, in the northwest corner of the state, on Thursday, causing major flooding. Volunteers spent Sunday filling sandbags to help secure a levee protecting the city of 76,000. The Missouri River was forecast to climb to 8.2 meters -- 3 meters above flood stage. * The Mississippi River was also expected to cause moderate flooding in several eastern Missouri cities, including St. Louis. * Amtrak on Sunday said flooding was causing up to five-hour delays on passenger train service between Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis. Officials planned to cancel all service by Missouri River Runner trains on Monday. Illinois * The National Weather Service has issued flood warning for the cities of Alton, Grafton and Chester in southern Illinois, as the Mississippi River is expected to rise. * The Pecatonica and Rock rivers flooded several homes in the cities of Freeport, Rockford and Machesney Park in northern Illinois. The National Weather Service said record crests are possible along both rivers. Minnesota * Minnesota officials said they are worried by Ice jams that have formed across several rivers and creeks in the state. * The Root and Cottonwood rivers were running high. In southwestern Minnesota, the Cottonwood River stood at 4.8 meters early Sunday, just shy of the mark considered a major flood stage near New Ulm. The Minnesota Department of Transportation said some state highways remained closed due to high water, while others had standing water but remained open to traffic. * Weather forecasters said cooler temperatures over the weekend had slowed snow melts, allowing water levels to drop. But they warned the respite was only temporary, with a significant risk of spring flooding in the coming weeks. Wisconsin * Officials said residents of Green Bay, who were evacuated late last week, are being allowed to return as floodwaters recede. The Green Bay Press Gazette said city inspectors were going through the city placing signs on the front doors of homes, identifying those not currently inhabitable because and those that are safe to re-enter. *Major flooding continued in the cities of Lodi and Darlington. Lodi Mayor Jim Ness said the flooding was the worst he has seen in his 71 years in the city, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. * "The warm temperatures and rain the last few days have caused much of the heavy snowpack and ice to melt resulting in flooding, ice jams, and rivers and creeks to rise," Governor Tony Evers said in a statement. South Dakota * Governor Kristi Noem and other officials have been touring cities to see the extent of the damage caused by flooding across the state. "The storms this week have been extremely difficult for many of our communities," Noem said in a statement. "This has been a statewide emergency with people impacted by heavy snow, high winds, rain and freezing rain." Noem said the state is anticipating bad weather to last through this week. * In Sioux Falls, Mayor Paul TenHaken said cleanup is expected to be slow as city officials survey the damage before reopening roads and bridges. He said he expects the city bike trail, what he called the "jewel" of Sioux Falls, to be "closed for a while." Health care in America is again expected to be a deeply divisive issue in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, with Democrats pressing for more government involvement through the concept of "Medicare for All," and Republicans warning of increased taxes and looming socialism. Health care advocates believe that growing public support for protecting and expanding health care programs will help Democrats in 2020, just as the party's focus on this issue helped it win control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 election. Health care is a winning issue for Democrats. So, I think any way that they focus on health care and solutions is going to be beneficial to them, said Anne Shoup, with the advocacy group Protect Our Care. Republicans, meanwhile, have been on the defensive of late, unable to agree on a conservative health care alternative to both bring down costs and ensure access to those in need. Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump failed in their effort to repeal and replace the Obama administration's signature health care program, but over time have reduced its coverage benefits. Everyone wants to have health care for the sick. No one's trying to deny the sick health care. I think that's an important thing to clarify. What's important is how we achieve that, said Meridian Paulton, a conservative health policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation. 'Medicare for All' The rising cost of health care continues to be a major concern in the U.S., where a typical family with no serious afflictions can spend over $8,000 a year, or 11 percent of their income on health insurance and basic medical care, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation that studies national health issues. The crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates all endorse health care as a right, and favor a range of plans to achieve or work toward universal health care coverage and bring down costs. The most expansive proposal is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders Medicare For All plan, a government takeover of the $2.5 trillion private health care industry that Sanders first proposed during his failed 2016 presidential election bid. "The goal of a rational health care system is not to make insurance companies billions in profits," Sanders, an independent seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said at a recent rally in Iowa. "So, we say to the health insurance industry, 'Yes, we will pass a Medicare for All single-payer program." Sanders proposal would basically expand government-funded Medicare coverage plans for senior citizens to provide free health care for everyone in the country, funded by higher taxes. Other Democratic candidates who support this single-payer approach that would ban private insurance plans include California Sen. Kamala Harris and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. More moderate Democratic hopefuls such as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Vice President Joe Biden, who reportedly is close to launching his campaign for president, endorse more incremental and pragmatic measures to expand health care that might stand a better chance of passing in a divided Congress. The dilemma Democrats face in the 2020 campaign is whether to nominate a progressive candidate advocating for a complete health care overhaul which could alienate moderates in the general election or support a more moderate candidate who may not generate enthusiasm among the liberal base calling for transformational change. Socialism Trump, who is seeking a second term, has criticized Democratic health care proposals as socialism that will stifle individual choice and private enterprise competition. "Democrat lawmakers are now embracing socialism. They want to replace individual rights with total government domination," the president contends. During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised not to cut social assistance programs. But in this years budget, he has proposed reducing millions of dollars in funding for both Medicare health insurance for seniors, and Medicaid that provides medical assistance to the poor and disabled. Democratic options A recent public opinion poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 56 percent of Americans favor Medicare For All, and even broader support for incremental improvements to the current system in place. However, public approval for expanding health care drops significantly when confronted with the possibility of doubling taxes to pay for it, and the economic disruption of eliminating the private insurance industry. They have to believe that what they'd be getting, what would be substituting for what they have now, would be at least as good or attractive to them. And that the increase in the spending on the public side, that would be worth it to them, said Linda Blumberg, an economist with the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.. An incremental alternative that is gaining wider support among the American public, Blumberg says, is a government public option coverage plan to compete against private insurance companies. Shifting support The Affordable Care Act of 2010 increased access to health insurance by expanding Medicaid and providing insurance subsidies to working class families, while keeping in place the private sector health care and insurance industries. The ACA, also known as Obamacare, was criticized for not containing the rising cost of health care, driven in part by a lack of competition in some markets, and by the role of for-profit insurance companies that charge excessive administrative fees. Tea Party groups, limited government activists opposed to what they viewed as an increasing government takeover of the private health care industry, organized widespread Obamacare protests that helped the Republican Party win control of Congress in 2011 and to elect Trump in 2016. However, Republican efforts in the last two years to repeal Obamacare failed, in large part because opponents did not have a clear alternative, and because the public favored keeping many elements of the ACA, particularly the prohibition against denying anyone health insurance because of pre-existing conditions such as a long-standing illness or pregnancy. The European Union appears set to agree to a delay on Britain's exit from the bloc, but officials in Brussels are anxious about the impact that might have on European parliamentary elections in May. They fear a wave of Euro-skeptics will be returned by British voters, if the country participates in the elections, reinforcing an expected strong populist showing across the continent. Some EU officials are already exploring legal ways to try to stop British participation on the grounds that the country may not be a member by the time the parliamentary term expires. Instead they want either the current British MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) to continue in place or for the British government to appoint temporary Euro-lawmakers reflecting the current party strengths in Britain's House of Commons. But Brexiters are already exploring legal action to block any attempts to prevent British participation. Leading Brexiter Nigel Farage says a new party he's launched plans to field a full slate of candidates. Lawyers acting for the hardline Brexit campaigning group, Leave Means Leave, are in talks with Downing Street. John Longworth, chairman of the group, which favors a "no-nonsense" Brexit, departing without any deal, said in a statement: "We are determined to challenge the government and EU if they attempt to deny the democratic right of the people of the UK to be represented in the EU Parliament." On Thursday, Prime Minister Theresa May is due to meet European national leaders in Brussels, where she will request a Brexit extension following the parliamentary rebuff of her EU withdrawal deal, which was agreed with Brussels last November. The House of Commons has also blocked Britain exiting the EU without a deal. It is unclear whether she will ask for a short three-month extension, hoping still to secure parliamentary approval for her deal that has been rejected twice now, or for a longer postponement. France and Germany favor a longer extension of 21 months. Prime Minister May has warned Brexiters opposed to her deal, which she might put to a parliamentary vote again Tuesday, that they will have to take part in the Euro-elections, if they vote again against her EU divorce agreement and it is delayed beyond June 30, shortly before new MEPs take their seats. Legal nightmare The Brexit mess is becoming as much a legal nightmare as a political one for both Britain and the EU. On Monday the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled under parliamentary rules that Prime Minister Theresa May cant bring back her Brexit deal for a third for a vote after it has been rejected twice before. In Europe, one legal opinion offered to EU ambassadors last week warned that Brussels would be obliged under the bloc's rules to terminate British membership of the EU on July 1, if Britain has not participated in the May 23 Euro-elections. "No extension should be granted beyond 1 July unless the European parliament elections are held at the mandatory date," the legal opinion stated. For EU officials and centrist European politicians, who had always hoped Brexit would be reversed, the prospect of British participation in the May elections might be a case of be careful for what you wish for. "We could see a lot more people like Farage elected to the parliament," said a senior EU official. "And that risks emboldening populists across the bloc and upsetting efforts to try to restore stability and predictability in the face of rising nativism," he added. On Monday, British trade minister Liam Fox warned the ruling Conservatives that they "need to be ready to take part in the European elections in May." Crucial elections This year's European parliamentary elections are likely to be the most important the bloc has ever held. Two conflicting visions of Europe are on offer with centrists led by French President Emmanuel Macron and nationalist populists championed by Italy's Matteo Salvini struggling for mastery. The populists have turned for advice to former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon. Macron has pitched himself as the antidote to the "illiberal democracies" of Central Europe and the defender of the European Union threatened by populist-nationalists like Salvini. The French leader wants to reform and revive the bloc by deepening political and economic integration of Europe. The 44-year-old Salvini wants the opposite, not only a brake on further integration, but a reversal with the bloc consisting of a looser grouping of nation states less hedged by Brussels and EU treaties. In their campaigning the populists are exploiting what French historian Jean Garrigues, a critic of the populists, recently described as the "EU's original sin" building an "economic Europe" that is too technocratic as the first step in building European political unity. This has resulted in a deficit of democracy and trust and "led to a governance by a very technocratic commission which has become an ideal scapegoat," he said. Populist parties, especially in Italy, Poland, Hungary and France, expect to make major gains in the May elections and are coordinating their campaigning. In France, opinion polls suggest that Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National is now neck-and-neck with Macron's En Marche party. Salvini's Lega party has performed strongly in recent regional elections. Germany's hard-right Alternative fur Deutschland, the largest opposition party in the country, is also likely to pick up seats. Pollsters are predicting Euro-skeptics will capture a third of the European parliament's 705 seats. The European Union will seek Beijing's agreement for deadlines to open up China's economy at an April 9 summit in Brussels, according to a draft leaders' statement, trying to coax it into making good on promises to deepen trade ties. China and the EU will "agree by summer 2019 on a set of priority market access barriers and requirements facing their operators," according to a six-page joint communique drafted by the EU, which still requires Chinese approval. The statement, seen by Reuters, said the two trading blocs would set "deadlines for their swift removal by the next EU-China summit 2020 at the latest." The statement, which is likely to change, also sets 2020 as the goal for a special treaty to increase investment flows that has been under negotiation for almost a decade. The communique reflects European frustration over China's reluctance to allow foreign companies to set up without restrictions while taking full advantage of the EU's openness, EU diplomats say. A surge of Chinese takeovers in critical sectors in Europe and an impression in Brussels that Beijing has not kept its promise to stand up for free trade and globalization have given the April meeting new urgency. Despite an agenda dominated by Britain's imminent departure from the EU, leaders will use a March 21 summit to discuss China policy, a first for many years. It is part of a flurry of high-level meetings before President Xi Jinping travels to Italy and France from this week and the bloc holds a summit with China on April 9. The joint draft statement is set to be formally released at the summit between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk. France has fired the Paris police chief and threatened to ban demonstrations on the city's Champs-Elysees Monday after a weekend of rioting left stores ransacked and charred. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Monday that Paris' police chief Michel Delpuech, 66, who has been in the position since August 2017, will be replaced after an 18th straight weekend of "yellow vest" protests in the capital turned violent. Philippe also announced new security measures following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and top security officials, including a ban on demonstrations on the city's popular Champs-Elysees a street of high-end shops popular among tourists if violent groups were seen there. Some 10,000 yellow vest demonstrators smashed and looted businesses on the iconic Champs Elysees and hurled cobble stones at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. Others participated in a peaceful climate march that brought together tens of thousand of peopleunderscoring the diffuse, unorganized complexity of the leaderless protest movement. The months of yellow vest protests have slowed Macron's reformist agenda. The protest movement, named after the fluorescent jackets French keep in their cars, has morphed well beyond its initial opposition to a planned fuel tax hike, to embrace a hodgepodge of grievances of a largely rural and working class France left behind. French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said on Monday that Europe was concerned about the United States' long-term commitment to NATO and implicitly criticized President Donald Trump's approach towards the military alliance. Trump, as the alliance's de facto leader, has made defense spending a priority after years of defense cuts following the 1945-90 Cold War. He has questioned NATO's value to Washington. "What Europeans are worried about is this: will the U.S. commitment be perennial?," Parly said during an event in Washington. She will meet with her American counterpart at the Pentagon on Monday to discuss issues including Syria. "The alliance should be unconditional, otherwise it is not an alliance. NATO's solidarity clause is called Article 5, not article F-35," Parly added, in a reference to the Lockheed-Martin F-35 jet fighter. She did not mention Trump specifically. NATO treaty's Article 5 is a provision that means an attack against one ally is considered an attack against all of them. Trump has been a strong proponent of military products made by U.S. defense companies. In December, Jim Mattis resigned as defense secretary. Mattis, who was seen as a reassuring presence by European allies, mentioned NATO twice in his resignation letter and laid bare what he saw as an irreparable divide between himself and Trump. In the past Trump has called NATO obsolete. He has also pushed NATO allies to spend more on defense and during a NATO meeting in July, told them in a closed-door meeting that governments needed to raise spending to 2 percent of economic output or the United States would go its own way. Parly also said that a push towards greater European autonomy should not be seen as a move against the United States and should not lead to Washington being less engaged in the region. Trump lashed out at French President Emmanuel Macron in November, saying it was "very insulting" for him to suggest Europe should create its own army to protect itself from potential adversaries. Macron had said that Europe needed a real army to reduce reliance on the United States for defense in the face of a resurgent Russia. Hundreds of people from across Europe gathered in Geneva Monday to protest as the U.N. Human Rights Council met to discuss allegations of Israeli violations in the Palestinian territories. While the debate over Palestinian rights was going on inside the United Nations, a rally opposing alleged anti-Israeli prejudice by the 47-member Human Rights Council was taking place outside the premises. Hillel Neuer is Executive Director of the non-governmental organization, U.N. Watch. He told the gathering that the U.N. Council spent all last week reviewing the human rights records of many countries from all regions of the world. "Today Israel alone is criticized for an entire day. Neuer said. The only country in the world that is the focus of its own day, its own debate, its own agenda item. Not North Korea, not Syria, not Sudan is treated in this way." Neuer called the seven reports under review by the Council biased. He noted that some accused the Jewish state of war crimes while giving a free pass to Hamas, the ad hoc authority in Gaza. Michael Lynk is Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. He told the Council the situation in Gaza is moving from a tragic human-made crisis to a humanitarian catastrophe. He called on Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza, which he said is the source of many human rights and humanitarian law violations. "The International community has long assumed that the Israeli occupation is not sustainable, and that it will end when the Israeli leadership finally comes to its senses and decides to honor its international legal responsibilities, Lynk said. Alas, I see little evidence of this occurring any time soon. Impunity, not accountability, is the signature hallmark of this occupation." Israel boycotted the day-long session but did have a representative at the rally. The Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Aviva Raz Shechter told the crowd the U.N. was harming, not promoting human rights. "In fact, the human rights council is undermining the very cause of human rights. It is an institution where cynicism and hypocrisy prevail, Shechter said. While antisemitism is raising its ugly head all over the world, this place is legitimizing discrimination against the one and only Jewish State, the State of Israel." Shechter called for an end to this institutionalized bias. She said this double standard could no longer be tolerated. The Israeli Ambassador found support for her position from the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell. The U.S. diplomat called the allegations against Israel phony. He said passing resolution after resolution condemning Israel while frequently ignoring China, Cuba, or Russia, was a horrendous hypocrisy. Grenell said applying one standard to the state of Israel and not applying the same standard to others was, in his view, anti-Semitic. Cyril Abiteboul says Daniel Ricciardo may develop a "harder skin" for life further down the F1 grid. Having switched from the top team Red Bull, Australian Ricciardo endured a horror start to his Renault adventure by damaging his wing even before the first corner at home in Melbourne. He said afterwards that the weekend had left him "exhausted" and "flat". "It's a long week," Ricciardo said of his home race. "I haven't had much chance to rest. I've been trying to please everyone except myself. Next year it will be different." Ricciardo said the preparation for Bahrain will be completely different, and more like "a holiday week" so that he can "prepare properly". "I think my preparation was not what it should be," he said. "I just have a feeling that I didn't prepare for the race at all because I was trying to please everyone else." One interpretation is that Ricciardo has not yet adjusted to life outside the 'top three' F1 teams. "It's not that he underestimated it, but as a midfield team we do not operate in the same way as a top team," team boss Abiteboul told France's Auto Hebdo. "Maybe Daniel will have to get a harder skin and some more patience at the start," he added. "But I am absolutely not panicked. He is an intelligent guy. In Bahrain we will have a more traditional circuit with more space at the sides," Abiteboul added. (GMM) Parisians as well as visitors have condemned the vandalism perpetrated by the latest "yellow vest" riot in the French capital. The government faced heavy criticism Sunday for failing to maintain law and order during an arson and looting rampage in central Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron interrupted his ski trip to discuss the crisis with his ministers. VOA's Zlatica Hoke reports. Residents here are struggling to make sense of Fridays attacks that took place at two mosques, claimed at least 50 lives, left an equal number wounded, nearly a dozen of whom remain in critical care. While the city is planning a major vigil and memorial Thursday, several community-driven memorials have been erected near the mosques, parks and throughout the city, allowing places for people to grieve. These monuments also provide an opportunity for the community to offer its support to Christchurch's small Muslim population. Dozens of notes and flowers have been placed next to a tree a block from the Masjid Al Noor mosque, where at least 41 people were killed. One note was accompanied by 50 red paper hearts reading, We wish we knew your name to write upon your heart. We wished we knew your favourite song, what makes you smile, what makes you cry. We made a heart for you. 50 hearts for 50 lives. Rest in peace. William, Rosa, and Tommy. Kindness toward community The words of kindness expressed in the note reflect the overall sentiment of Christchurch, and New Zealand overall, toward its Muslim population and immigrants, says Megan Van Tongerer, who was born and reared here. She was working at a restaurant just a few kilometers from the Masjid Al Noor mosque on the day of the attack. She told VOA that as police and other emergency vehicles raced down Bealey Avenue outside the establishment, she felt on edge as the horrific details emerged of the attack. Van Tongerer and other servers at the restaurant couldn't explain why, but the establishment became busier than it had in months in the wake of the shooting. It was then that some people started sharing the video [of the shooting] and cracking jokes. Van Tongerer said that management moved quickly to end that activity. Thats not the kind of place we are. We didnt want that here, she said. She also noted that several other customers voiced objections to people sharing the alleged attackers video. They arent representative of the larger community, she said, Theyre a small part. Van Tongerer is unsure how the city will move forward and heal following the attack, but is adamant that it must. If we don't, were lost, she adds. Since Friday, more than $3.6 million, from nearly 70,000 donations, has been raised for victims of the shootings, according to Givealittle, an online donations site. Disbelief Maryam Allayar said she was in shock after the attack. She came to New Zealand three years ago as a refugee from Afghanistan and had always felt safe in her adopted home country. This always happened in Afghanistan, she said, So when I heard [about the attack], I was really shocked and I didnt believe it. I didnt believe it happened to me in New Zealand. Allayar, a university student, knew some of the victims, including the husband and son of a fellow classmate, and others from the school she attends. For the past three days, she said she has been "very scared," fearing other attacks would occur. Allayar expressed relief, however, at the outpouring of support from the residents in Christchurch, saying she was happy that so many people are being kind. Ann Mintram, 80, expressed similar thoughts following church services Sunday. "Well there's only one way to overcome it (the shooting), and that's with love, she told Reuters, But at the moment, I'm feeling too numb to even feel love. Over the weekend, Australian Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Muslim community leaders, "This is not New Zealand. The only part of the incident and actions that we have seen over the past 24, 36 hours that is New Zealand is the support that you are seeing now. Nothing that led up to it is who we are or who this city is. We need to keep having a conversation around how we ensure your ongoing safety in the aftermath of this horrific attack, she added. "We cannot be deterred from the work that we need to do on our gun laws in New Zealand. They need to change, regardless of what activity may or may not have happened with gun retailers. They will change, Ardern said Sunday. Christchurch resident Philip Smith visited one of the memorials Sunday. Speaking to Reuters news, he called Fridays shooting unbelievably sad. Its going to take a long time to get over this, he added. Not far from Masjid Al Noor mosque, a man who didnt want to give his name said he also, was still in shock and, similar to Allayar, never thought it would happen in a place like New Zealand. The world needs more love, he said, It doesnt matter what color skin you have or what religion you are. We all bleed the same. Life resumes Despite the tragedy, life in Christchurch continues. People resumed the workweek began on Monday. The City Council, however, warned of inevitable disruptions as the investigation continues. Please be prepared for delays when traveling in and around the city today. The key areas where you are likely to encounter delays are around Hospital Corner, Linwood/Eastgate and Deans Avenue. These delays are unavoidable so please be patient and courteous," the council warned. In Hagley Park, residents rode their bikes, jogged and walked their dogs -- all just a few hundred meters from where one of New Zealands deadliest peacetime shootings took place. Nineteen-year-old college student Margaret Pisacano can usually feel a panic attack coming on; her thoughts start to spiral, her breathing speeds up, and her heart races. Its as if a tornado and a tsunami of emotions just like overcame your body and you couldnt control anything," Pisacano says. "It was like almost a total loss of control over any feeling or thinking in your body. The Arizona native, who attends college in Florida, was first diagnosed with general anxiety disorder in middle school. She is among millions of stressed-out members of Generation Z the group of young people born roughly between 1995 and 2015, who are currently between 4 and 24 years old. A report released Thursday by the American Psychological Association finds the rate of adolescents reporting symptoms of major depression increased 52 percent between 2005 and 2017 from 8.7 percent to 13.2 percent among youth from the ages of 12 and 17. The increase was even higher 63 percent from 2009 to 2017 among young adults between the ages of 18 and 25. The survey examined data from 611,880 adolescents and adults. The researchers did not find a similar increase in adults older than 26. Today, one in three teens between the ages of 13 and 18 has an anxiety disorder. The current rate of anxiety is 31 percent in adolescents," says Dr. Elena Mikalsen, head of the Psychology Section at the Children's Hospital of San Antonio in Texas. Its an epidemic. Its a mental health emergency. Everyone gets anxious some of the time, but that anxiety is usually temporary. However, for a person with an anxiety disorder, the feeling doesn't go away and can worsen over time to the point where it might trigger headaches, chronic pain, stomach issues, immune system suppression and disrupted sleep. School and the pressure to get good grades appears to be the leading source of stress for many young people. "We see all of our anxiety referrals very clearly as soon as the school year starts, almost like from the first week and until the school year ends and then we see none of them in the summer, says Mikalsen. The worst is the end of May when all of the teens get their gradestheyre just panicking terribly. We hospitalize kids for all kinds of medical issues because they get their grades and their immune system just collapses. The highest rate of suicide is in April and May when theyre having finals, when theyre having exams." The American Psychological Association found that almost one-third of teens say they feel sad or depressed and overwhelmed due to stress. Claire Taylor, a 17-year-old high school junior in Massachusetts, was diagnosed with generalized anxiety a couple of years ago, but didn't have her first panic attack until she started visiting colleges ahead of her scheduled high school graduation next year. "For my whole life, college has kind of been my end goal...It kind of hit me that college is not the end, and that theres more after that," Taylor says. "Im really not sure what I want to go to college for and so just the whole prospect kind of freaked me out...I was shaking and crying and I couldnt quite articulate why until after the fact. College-related anxiety is rising, according to a 2017 report from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. The institute surveyed 8,264 incoming first-year students at 30 U.S. colleges and universities and found that 39 percent reported frequently feeling anxious, but fewer than half of those students say they sought personal counseling in college. Tarek Saoud, 22, began suffering from panic attacks after he went to college and felt the mounting pressure to set a course for success in life. "I tried switching my (college) majors a few times, but I really did not like anything," he says. "Not being able to find something was a big issue for me...Where I grew up here in Northern Virginia, its very expected to be either a businessman, a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist, something like along those lines. Those are what is seen as successful." Getting an appointment at the on-campus mental health center proved almost impossible, according to Saoud, who recounts a near-suicide attempt that was interrupted by a concerned friend who came looking for him. Id been thinking about suicide for months at that pointtheres this big ledge I was sitting on with this big fall under it. I was just kind of sitting there thinking about, Could I do this right now? Like, do I have everything in order? Did I forget anything that would get anyone in trouble and what not? Not like sad about it, just getting my things in order, he says. "I kind of felt crazy in my own head, Saoud says. "When I was getting anxiety, super-irrational thoughts were running through my head all the time. Things like, Youre never going to be happy, things are never going to get better'...Its really easy to mask whatever inner issues are going on by being a super social, outgoing person, drinking a lot. He left school in Ohio during his sophomore year in college, returning home to Northern Virginia where he was eventually diagnosed with anxiety and clinical depression. There are two new stressors impacting young people that are perhaps a sign of the times. Mikalsen says more of her patients are concerned about school shootings and the lockdown drills they practice at school. Ive been a psychologist for about twenty years and this is the first year that I now have patients who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from school lockdowns, she says. Before, it was you hide and now the hiding is not working, so now its attack the shooter and everybodys like, I cant attack anybody. Im too scared.' And theyre supposed to be climbing on desks and throwing things and theyre practicing that in the classroom. Turkey and Iran on Monday started a joint military operation against Kurdish rebels on Turkey's eastern border, state-run Anadolu news agency quoted the interior minister as saying. Turkey has recently talked about a possible joint operation with neighbour Iran to counter outlawed militants from the the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but this is the first time Turkish authorities have confirmed a raid. "We started staging a joint operation with Iran against the PKK on our eastern border as of 0800 (0500 GMT) this morning," Suleyman Soylu said of the operation against the PKK, listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. "We will announce the result later," he said. Soylu did not specify precisely which PKK bases the planned operation targeted but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in the past said it would be against militant hideouts in Iraq. The Turkish military has often bombed PKK bases in Iraq's mountainous northern regions as part of its decades-long operations against the group. Iranian security forces have also fought the PKK affiliate, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK). Both groups have rear bases in neighboring Iraq. The PKK has waged a three-and-a-half decade insurgency against the Turkish state, initially seeking independence and more recently autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish minority. Fighting has left tens of thousands dead. NATO and the European Union are condemning Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula five years after Moscow declared the region Russian territory. NATO allies said in a statement Monday that "we strongly condemn this act, which we do not and will not recognize." They also criticized Russia's military buildup in Crimea and alleged rights abuses including "arbitrary detentions, arrest, and torture" against members of the Crimean Tartar community. EU foreign ministers are marking the fifth anniversary of the annexation. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said: "We stand in full solidarity with Ukraine, supporting its sovereignty and territorial integrity." NATO and the EU also called for the release of Ukrainian sailors detained by the Russian navy and coast guard in waters off Ukraine in November. New Zealand's prime minister said Monday that her cabinet has made decisions about the reform of gun laws, following Friday's massacre at two mosques in Christchurch. "I intend to give further details of these decisions to the media and the public before cabinet meets again next Monday," Jacinda Ardern said. "This ultimately means that within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism, we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer." "We have made a decision as as cabinet," the prime minister said. "We are unified." Authorities have accused a 28-year-old Australian, Brenton Harris Tarrant, of carrying out the horrific attack. He is the only person in custody linked to the killings and has been charged with murder. Tarrant has not yet entered a plea. His next court appearance is set for April 5. Media reports say Tarrant will not use a lawyer, but will represent himself in the court proceedings. Mass shootings and violent crime are rare in New Zealand, a country of nearly 5 million people. Until Friday, the country's worst mass shooting was in 1990, when a gunman killed 13 people in the small town of Aramoana. On Friday, shortly after news of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the incident as one of the country's "darkest days." Ardern -- at 38, the country's youngest prime minister in 150 years -- has received international praise for her calmness and empathy in responding to the attacks that killed 50 people. She took office in October 2017 but has had a long history in politics. Ardern began to turn the Labor party's polling numbers around so fast after becoming its youngest leader that the effect has been dubbed "Jacindamania." She was born into a Mormon family in the small town of Murupara. She has said seeing the town's Maori children "without shoes on their feet or anything to eat for lunch was what inspired her to enter public service. She joined the Labor Party at age 17. She remained active in the party through collage and after graduation landed a job on the staff of Prime Minister Helen Clark, the second woman to hold New Zealands highest office and Arderns political hero and mentor. She is seen as as friendly and direct, and promised to be "relentless positivity" during her bid for the country's highest office. Her other campaign promises included three years of free university education, free community-based mental health services, and banning of foreign speculators from buying existing homes in New Zealand. Her popularity, especially among New Zealand's youth, had the media dubbing her a political rock star, in the mode of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former U.S. president Barack Obama. She also became something of a feminist icon just hours after being chosen party leader when she slapped down media questions about whether she planned to have children. She said she had previously spoken publicly about the topic. "But," she said, "it is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace. ... It is a woman's decision about when they choose to have children. It should not predetermine whether or not they are given a job, or have job opportunities." She again captured international attention when she let it be known that she and her live-in partner, TV personality Clarke Gayford, were going to have a baby. She also announced that Gayford would be a stay-at-home dad. She gave birth to her daughter on June 21, 2018. A month later she announced welfare reforms including a weekly stipend for new parents and an increase in paid parental leave from 18 to 22 weeks. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is the only other world leader to give birth while in office when she had a baby girl in January 1990. Following an hours-long manhunt, Dutch police have arrested a suspect in a shooting incident on a tram that left three people dead and five others wounded in the city of Utrecht Monday. Police had earlier identified the suspect as 37-year-old Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, releasing a photo of a bearded man sitting on the tram wearing a dark blue hooded top. Authorities immediately raised the terror alert to the maximum level of five in Utrecht. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said a terror attack "could not be excluded." But Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that relatives of Tanis in Turkey said the shooting could have been part of a family dispute. A Dutch regional prosecutor said the suspect had previously been arrested in the Netherlands, but did not give further details. Security has been increased at Dutch airports, as well as mosques. Schools in Utrecht have been closed, and residents were advised to stay home. After the suspect was arrested Monday, the threat level was reduced to level four. Earlier Monday, the Dutch national terrorism chief said the incident on the tram was one of "multiple" shootings in the city. "Shooting took place this morning at several locations in Utrecht," Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, the Netherland's anti-terror coordinator, told a news briefing at The Hague. "A major police operation is underway to arrest the gunman." Police said that several trauma helicopters had been deployed to the scene to assist the wounded, and appealed to the public to stay clear of the area to allow first responders to provide the necessary help. "The surrounding area has been cordoned off, and we are investigating the matter," Utrecht police said. Political parties suspended campaigning for provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of the Dutch senate. Utrecht is the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands, known for its canals and large student population. Gun violence in the city is rare, as it is across the Netherlands. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the latest high-profile member of India's famous Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to enter the political arena, has embarked on an unusual three-day boat rally to launch the Congress Party's campaign in the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh. But questions have been raised about whether she can boost the fortunes of the party that was decimated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. Vadra, the charismatic 47-year-old sister of the Congress Party leader, Rahul Gandhi, has grabbed national attention since her formal plunge into politics two months ago. The party that ruled India for five decades since its independence hit rock bottom in 2014, winning just 44 out of 543 elected parliamentary seats. But as a new general election looms, it is mounting an aggressive battle to regain its position at the heart of Indian politics. Recent victories in three states that were bastions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have given it momentum. And Vadra, appointed as the Congress Party's general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh, hopes to build on that momentum to woo back voters, although she will not run be a candidate herself. With crowd-drawing appeal and a striking resemblance to her grandmother, Indira Gandhi, who ruled India for 17 years, Vadra is taking the battle into the prime minister's turf. Her 140-kilometer (87-mile) boat journey that is winding its way down the Ganges River in Uttar Pradesh will end Wednesday in Modi's constituency, Varanasi. Last week, she addressed a rally in his home state, Gujarat. Uttar Pradesh is a politically significant state that elects 80 members of parliament and is the home of Congress Party bastions; her brother Rahul Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi both run in the state. But the party was virtually wiped out in 2014 when the state handed an almost complete victory to the BJP. Taking a cue from the Hindu nationalist party, Vadra offered prayers Monday at a temple before embarking on the river that Hindus consider holy. She called the Ganges a "symbol of truth and equality." Some see her river rally as a challenge to Modi, who in 2014 had said that he had been called by "Maa Ganga" to run in Varanasi an appeal to the BJP's core Hindu constituency. Addressing meetings at villages on the river's bank during her boat ride, Vadra repeated the charge that the Congress Party hopes will win back voters to its fold: Modi has failed to provide jobs for young people. She promised that her party would address the issues facing the poor. Some analysts say her entry into the political arena will help the Congress Party mount a credible challenge to Modi, who has always pitched himself as a strong, decisive leader. "She has inherent charisma, personality, she has shown certain amount of spark, she is in the same strong leader mold which was her grandmother's, which is of Modi," said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst in New Delhi. Vadra has demonstrated a natural political flair when she had campaigned on behalf of her brother and mother in previous elections, and is widely viewed as connecting with voters more easily than her brother. 'Make-or-break' election Others doubt whether her entry so close to elections will have an impact. The five-week-long voting period begins April 11 and the Congress Party is already struggling to wrest the initiative from the BJP as Modi pitches himself as a strong leader able to deal with recent intense friction between India and Pakistan. "Priyanka always grabbed the headlines, but I doubt on the ground whether she will make that much of a difference," said independent political analyst Ajoy Bose. "People will talk about her, but I don't see the Congress being transformed because of her." Bose says this is a "make-or-break" election for the party, which needs to dramatically improve on its 44 seats in parliament. "It is very important for the Congress to get back into three figures for them to have a future in Indian politics," he said. The BJP, meanwhile, will try to turn Vadra's entry into politics against her party, having long mocked Congress for "dynastic politics" because its leaders have always come from the Nehru-Gandhi family. It has often contrasted the "entitled" Rahul Gandhi and his sister with Modi, the son of an ordinary tea-seller who made it to the top on his own merit. The great grandson of India's first prime minister, Rahul is the sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to lead Congress. His mother handed leadership of the party to him in 2017. BJP leaders say Vadra's entry is only proof that Rahul Gandhi has not been able to make a mark. Whether she can lift the fortunes of the party remains to be seen. "She definitely is the X factor; what is the value of X we don't know," Mukhopadhyay said. Russian flags flew across Crimea's main city Simferopol on Monday to mark the fifth anniversary of the peninsula's annexation from Ukraine, a move condemned by the West but celebrated by most Russians. President Vladimir Putin was to take part in celebrations in the Black Sea peninsula, launching a new power station and meeting members of the public, the Kremlin said. Moscow took over Crimea in March 2014 after months of tensions with Kyiv following the ouster of a pro-Russian leader. Russia said it was righting a historic wrong Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had transferred Crimea to Ukrainian control in 1954 and the move resulted in a major boost to Putin's popularity. But the takeover was denounced by Kyiv and the West as an annexation and, along with Moscow's support for separatist forces in Ukraine's east, has led to wide-ranging sanctions against Russia. In Russia, March 18 has been officially proclaimed the "Day of Crimea's Reunification with Russia" and celebrated with events across the country. In Crimea, it is a public holiday. Authorities set up a stage on Simferopol's main square for the celebrations. Posters that read "Five years of Crimea returning to its native land" hung on shop windows and public transport. "There is a feeling of newness, of independence, of freedom," retired teacher Valentina Dorozhko told AFP. She said she felt "reborn" when Russia took over. Crimean Marina Tishchenko said that if the peninsula held a referendum today, "even more people would vote to join Russia". But Oleg Ivanov, a man in his 40s, called for Putin to change course. "If we have sanctions imposed on us, then you need to sit down, negotiate and change something," he told AFP. "And if there's no progress, then it's time for someone else to have a go." 'Part of Russia forever' Putin signed an agreement on March 18, 2014, with local representatives to make Crimea part of Russia, two days after a referendum condemned by Kiev and the West as illegitimate. Pro-Kremlin media on Monday carried reports of improvements on the peninsula under Russian rule. "There is growing understanding in the world that Crimea is part of Russia and will be forever," Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament, wrote in a column for newspaper Izvestia. But the liberal press painted a more sombre picture, saying the takeover had made Russians poorer and more isolated from the world. The takeover prompted euphoria and a wave of patriotism in Russia, but five years later Crimea has "stopped being a source of political benefit" for authorities, liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta said. According to a survey published by the Centre for Public Opinion (FOM) in early March, only 39 percent of Russians believe the annexation brought Russia more good than harm. In 2014, that figure was 67 percent. New sanctions Last week, the United States, Canada and the European Union slapped new sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials and businesses in response to Moscow's "continued aggression in Ukraine". Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who is facing a difficult election this month, vowed that Crimea would return to Ukraine if he was re-elected. Kyiv's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told AFP ahead of the anniversary that the Russian annexation had left Crimea in limbo. "Under Russian occupation Crimea is going nowhere, it has no future," he said. "All these five years there has been an atmosphere of both open and hidden terror against the people of Crimea and international law." The Crimean Tatars, a Muslim-majority community that is largely opposed to the annexation, have faced pressure from Russian authorities. Russia has banned the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars' elected assembly which resisted Russian rule, denouncing it as extremist. "Crimea was taken away from the Crimeans, their homeland was taken away from them," Klimkin said. Ukraine "feels pain for this every day." Boss Christian Horner has backed new recruit Pierre Gasly after a difficult start to 2019 for the Red Bull driver. Promoted from Toro Rosso to replace Daniel Ricciardo, Frenchman Gasly crashed twice in testing, had a dire qualifying session in Melbourne, and may be showing signs of feeling the pressure of life at a top team. "There is always pressure in formula one, but it's too early to draw conclusions," Horner said when asked about Gasly. "Pierre fought hard in the race after a difficult Saturday, but what he needs is a weekend without any problems. From Friday, he gradually made progress and provided the engineers with quality feedback. "He was actually very competitive on this track where it is difficult to overtake. We know that he has enough speed, and the results will come with time," he added. However, some are already starting to wonder if Gasly might eventually be replaced by Daniil Kvyat, the more experienced Toro Rosso driver who had a solid return to F1 in Melbourne. "I don't think you can talk about that yet," Igor Yermilin, a top Russian motor racing official, told Sportbox. "Pierre's situation in this race is related to the team's error in qualifying, and we know there are few opportunities to overtake in Melbourne. "But he has the speed," Yermilin said. (GMM) President Vladimir Putin has signed legislation enabling Russian authorities to block websites and hand out punishment for "fake news" and material deemed insulting to the state or the public. The two bills that critics see as part of a Kremlin effort to increase control over the Internet and stifle dissent were signed by the president on March 18, according to posts on the government portal for legal information. The new legislation allows the authorities to block websites or internet accounts that publish what they deem to be "fake news" and penalize those who post material found to be insulting to state officials, state symbols, or Russian society. The parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, approved the bills on March 13 after the lower chamber, the State Duma, gave final approval to the proposed legislation on March 7. On March 11, the Russian Presidential Council for Development of Civil Society and Human Rights urged the upper house to send the bills back to the Duma to be reworked. The presidential council, whose advice is often ignored by Putin, cited the European Convention on Human Rights and said freedom of expression cannot be restricted exclusively due to doubts about whether what is being expressed is true. The new law empowers the prosecutor-general and his deputies to determine what constitutes fake news without a court decision, after which the state media and communications watchdog Roskomnadzor would block the site or account. Fines, jail time The law sets fines for publishing "fake news" at up to 100,000 rubles ($1,525) for individuals, 200,000 rubles for public officials, and 500,000 rubles for companies. The law says publications officially registered with Roskomnadzor, including online media outlets, will be given a chance to remove reports deemed as fake news before their websites are blocked. It says websites that are not registered with Roskomnadzor will be blocked without warning. The law also establishes fines of up to 100,000 rubles for insulting the Russian authorities, government agencies, the state, the public, the flag, or the constitution. Repeat offenders will face bigger fines and can be jailed for up to 15 days. Roskomnadzor will give Internet users 24 hours to remove material deemed by the prosecutor-general or his deputies to be insulting to the state or society, and those that fail to do so will be blocked, the law says. In January, after the State Duma approved the bills in their first readings, Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin said: "These are crazy bills." "How can they prohibit people from criticizing the authorities?" he added. Media rights activists on Monday urged the Sri Lankan government to withdraw proposed anti-terror legislation, calling it a set of draconian laws aimed at suppressing media freedom and democratic rights. The new counterterrorism bill approved by the cabinet of ministers is now before the Parliament. A date has yet to be announced for a debate and a vote on the bill, which the government says would repeal the existing tough anti-terror law. C. Dodawatta, convener of the Free Media Movement, a local media rights group, said the proposed act could be used to arrest and detain journalists for ``distributing or making available any information to the public.'' He said the new government came into power in 2015 promising to repeal the existing anti-terror law the Prevention of Terrorism Act that has been criticized by rights groups who say successive governments have used it for arresting and detaining the journalists, media workers, artists, rights activists, ethnic minority Tamils and opposition politicians. ``But so far the government has failed to repeal the PTA and instead now they are bringing another legislation which seems worse than PTA,'' he told reporters. Threat to protection of sources Dharmasiri Lankapeli, another media rights activist, said the legislation may result in the arrest of journalists for keeping sources secret, and ``this would pose a great danger to media freedom and send more journalists to prison.'' Rights activist and lawyer Viranjana Herath said the proposed law could also be used to ban such things as taking photographs, making video recordings and making sketches. It also "will affect the freedom of assembly and association and could pose a serious threat to the freedom of expression and media freedom,'' Herath said. He said Sri Lanka does not need new laws to combat terrorism, saying there are more than 20 existing laws and legal provisions to deal with offenses on terrorism. ``Therefore, bringing new laws could be described as an attempt to suppress the voice of the people,'' he said. There was no immediate comment from the government, and the spokesmen for the government did not answer phone calls seeking a comment. President Maithripala Sirisena and the new government came into power in 2015 promising to end a culture of impunity and ensure justice for slain journalists. Under Sirisena's predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa, dozens of journalists were killed, abducted and tortured. Some fled the country. In some cases, military officers were arrested and released on bail. Forty four journalists and media workers were killed between 2006 and 2015, during the Rajapaksa presidency. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 journalists were killed in the same period, including five who were targeted for murder and whose cases remain unsolved. Most of the killings and attacks on journalists took place during Sri Lanka's civil war, which ended in 2009, after the government troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for a separate state for the ethnic minority Tamils. Both the government and the rebels were accused of killing and abducting critics. Sudans crackdown on anti-government protests has left more than 50 people dead and hundreds more injured. One protester, Mohamed Masri, lost his right hand when he picked up a tear gas canister. But the injury has not deterred him for continuing to march, making Masri an inspiration to many other protestors, as Naba Mohiedeen reports for VOA from Khartoum. President Donald Trump complained Monday that the U.S. national news media "is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand." He said on Twitter, "They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous!" Trump apparently was incensed that major U.S. news outlets reported that Brent Harris Tarrant, the Australian white supremacist accused in the massacre of 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, said in a manifesto he released Friday shortly before the attacks that he viewed Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose," even though he did not support his policies. Asked Friday after the attacks whether he sees an increase in white nationalism, Trump said, "I don't really. I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess." Trump said he had not seen the manifesto. The president has condemned the attack and voiced support for New Zealand.But he has not commented on Tarrant's apparent motive for allegedly carrying out the attacks his avowed racism and hatred for immigrants and Muslims. The White House on Sunday rejected any attempt to link Trump to Tarrant. "The president is not a white supremacist," acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told "Fox News Sunday." "I'm not sure how many times we have to say that. Let's take what happened in New Zealand for what it is: a terrible evil tragic act." Trump's dismissal that white nationalism is on the rise renewed criticism that he has not voiced strong enough condemnation of white nationalists. Trump was widely attacked in the aftermath of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 when he equated white supremacists with counter-protesters, saying "both sides" were to blame and that there were "fine people" on both sides of the protest. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, one of numerous Democrats seeking the party's presidential nomination to oppose Trump in the 2020 election, said on Twitter after the New Zealand attack, "Time and time again, this president has embraced and emboldened white supremacists and instead of condemning racist terrorists, he covers for them. This isn't normal or acceptable." Mulvaney, in the Fox News interview, said, "I don't think it's fair to cast this person (Tarrant) as a supporter of Donald Trump any more than it is to look at his eco-terrorist passages in that manifesto and align him with (Democratic House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi or Ms. Ocasio-Cortez." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a Democratic congresswoman from New York. "This was a disturbed individual, an evil person," Mulvaney said. Scott Brown, U.S. ambassador to New Zealand, told CNN that he gave no credence to Tarrant's comments about Trump in the manifesto, saying the accused gunman "is rotten to the core." Brown said he hopes Tarrant is convicted "as quickly as he can be," and "lock him up and throw away the key." Members of parliament from Uganda's ruling party are backing President Yoweri Museveni's attempt to win another term, according to a resolution adopted at their ongoing meeting late Sunday. A victory at the next election, in 2021, could extend the 74-year-old Museveni's rule to 40 years, one of the longest reigns in Africa. A key committee of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) also resolved last month to back Museveni for another term. The party's delegates will make their final decision at a conference due at the end of this year. By securing the support of members of parliament, an important segment of his party's delegates, Museveni came closer to securing the party's nomination. The NRM lawmakers agreed to "strongly recommend to the membership of the NRM, our national leadership organs, the continuation in leadership of both state and party up to 2021 and beyond - our beloved leader, General Yoweri K. Museveni. This can not be the point to let go of our visionary and unifier." Museveni's government has changed Uganda's constitution twice to allow him to extend his rule. In 2005, it removed a two-term limit on the presidency. Twelve years later, it voted to scrap an age limit of 75. The cap would have made Museveni ineligible to stand at the next election. Museveni has himself not said whether he intends to stand, although he is widely expected to. If he seeks re-election, he is likely to face competition from Robert Kyagulanyi, a popular musician turned lawmaker who also goes by the stage name Bobi Wine. Kyagulanyi has gained strong support since he joined parliament in 2017, attracting backers withy his bold criticism of government excesses, sometimes delivering them in his lyrics. The United Nations' top official in the Democratic Republic of Congo has urged President Felix Tshisekedi to form a new government without delay, as the country continues its first peaceful transition of power in its nearly 60 years as an independent nation. "We cherish the hope that the new government will shortly be established and operational," the head of the U.N. mission in DRC, Leila Zerrougui, told a meeting of the Security Council on Monday. "Indeed, the expectations of the Congolese people are tremendous. It is of critical importance to not leave them to wait too long or to dash their hopes." Zerrougui said discussions for the new government are underway between the Common Front for Congo (FCC), which secured the majority of legislative seats at the national and provincial level, and the Coalition for Change, which supported the candidacy of Tshisekedi. Tshisekedi's inauguration on Jan. 24 was not without controversy. It followed elections that were marred by widespread irregularities and allegations by the country's powerful clergy that another opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu, was the real winner. Kabila retains influence Skeptics say former president Joseph Kabila, 47, who reluctantly left office after 18 years in power, struck a deal with Tshisekedi, 55, the son of a longtime Congolese opposition leader, when he realized his preferred candidate would not win. Kabila has also retained influence in the National Assembly where his FCC coalition is dominant, and has declared that it won an overwhelming majority in last week's senate elections, as well. "The reactions of certain political parties and their supporters in light of the outcomes of the senatorial elections last week are a concern," Zerrougui said. "They reveal the fragility of the political process which is underway in the DRC." Some violence, including looting and the death of one policeman, were reported in the aftermath of Friday's senate elections. Beni region in conflict Meanwhile, the country is facing an escalation in intercommunal clashes and a serious outbreak of Ebola in the country's Beni region. Fighting between Banunu and Batendein communities in the western territory of Yumbi in December left at least 535 dead and 19,000 displaced Zerrougui said. She said it is a "troubling reminder" of how quickly violence can escalate in DRC. The U.N. has its largest peacekeeping mission in the DRC more than 17,000 troops and police, plus 4,000 civilian personnel with a budget of more than $1 billion a year. The mission's main priority is the protection of civilians, mainly in the country's volatile east, where dozens of armed groups threaten the population. The U.N. is looking to gradually drawdown and ultimately close the mission, and has begun to plan for its exit. The U.N. has also assisted the government and humanitarian partners with the Ebola response. The outbreak is in a region plagued with insecurity. Several Ebola clinics have been attacked. The World Health Organization says there have been 886 confirmed cases of the virus so far and nearly 600 deaths. DRC's U.N. Ambassador Ignace Gata Mavita wa Lufuta told the council that 310 people have recovered from Ebola. Government talks underway On the political front, Lufuta said negotiations are underway with the different stakeholders to form the government. "The president of the republic has appointed the members of his cabinet, and in the interim, has published his emergency program for the first 100 days of his mandate," he said. He underscored that the security situation is one of the government's chief concerns, and called on the U.N. mission and the national army to neutralize armed groups. The U.N. Security Council will reauthorize the mission later this month and is currently discussing its mandate which is likely to include a refocusing of the mission on the eastern part of the country to areas where threats are highest and the reconfiguration of some military units into rapid deployment forces. U.N. war crimes investigators called on Israel on Monday to stop its snipers using lethal force against protesters on the border with Gaza, as the anniversary approached of the start of demonstrations there last year in which 189 Palestinians were killed. The Commission of Inquiry said Israel should investigate the shooting of more than 6,000 people, far beyond the criminal inquiries it has announced into 11 killings. "The most important thing for the government of Israel is to review the rules of engagement immediately and to ensure that the rules of engagement are according to accepted international law standards," the commission's chairman Santiago Canton told the Human Rights Council. Israel says the U.N. council is biased, and it boycotted the day-long debate, while hundreds of Israel supporters rallied outside the United Nations in Geneva, including senior U.S. officials. Canton said Israel's Supreme Court should review the confidential rules governing lethal force after the panel found it had been "in the majority of cases authorized unlawfully." "In a situation of crowd control, which is the way we see these demonstrations, rubber bullets could have been used," Canton told reporters, rather than "high velocity bullets and long-range sniper rifles equipped with sophisticated optical aiming devices." Large crowds were expected to mark the anniversary of the start of the Gaza demonstrations on March 30, he said. The protesters were demanding that Israel ease its blockade of Gaza and recognize their right to return to lands their families lost when Israel was founded in 1948. Israel has said its forces opened fire to protect the border from incursions and attacks by armed militants. The commission's preliminary report said last month that Israeli security forces may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in its response. U.S.-backed pro-Israel rally Canton said the independent experts were sending their confidential list of suspected perpetrators to U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, for forwarding to the International Criminal Court, which opened a preliminary examination of alleged Israeli abuses in 2015. Israel did not attend the debate. "The moment has come to say loud and clear @UNHumanRights @UN_HRC are complicit to the Hamas terror campaign against Israel," its foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a tweet. Israel's main ally, the United States, quit the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council last year, also accusing it of an anti-Israel slant. "To pass resolution after resolution on Israel while frequently ignoring China, Cuba, or Russia, is a horrendous hypocrisy," U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told the crowd of Israel supporters gathered outside the UN in Geneva. "Applying one standard to the state of Israel and not applying the same standard to others is anti-Semitic," he said. Earlier, a U.N. human rights investigator said Israel was depriving millions of Palestinians of access to regular clean water supplies and stripping the land of minerals "in an apparent act of pillage." U.N. special rapporteur Michael Lynk said Israel "continues full-steam with settlement expansion" in the West Bank, which the United Nations and many countries deem illegal. There were 20,000-25,000 new settlers a year, he said. "In his latest farcical report, Mr. Lynk stoops to a new low and (accuses) the Jewish State of stealing," Israel's mission in Geneva said in a statement to Reuters, calling Lynk a "known Palestinian advocate." U.S. and Russian diplomats are meeting in Rome this week to discuss "the deteriorating situation in Venezuela." For Russia, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro remains the country's only legitimate leader. Russian officials are expected to emphasize this point when they meet with U.S. special envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams in Rome on Monday and Tuesday. The U.S. and some 50 other nations have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president. Russia is to reiterate its position that a U.S. military intervention in the South American country would be inappropriate, deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency on Sunday. "The positions of Moscow and Washington on this question are diametrically opposed, but that's not a reason not to talk," Interfax quoted Ryabkov as saying. Ryabkov reportedly also said the Russian government will continue to cooperate with Venezuela in a number of sectors, including energy and military expertise, regardless of U.S. pressure. Russia and other nations say sanctions imposed by the U.S. are only hurting the population. Russia has sent food and medical aid to Venezuela, helping the Maduro government bypass the sanctions. Abrams has defended the sanctions, saying they are only a temporary measure. "The purpose is to motivate people to change their behavior," he said. "So while we impose sanctions of visa revocations, we make it very clear this is reversible if people's pattern of conduct changes. It's not just a punishment, we hope it is also an inducement to a changed pattern of behavior." Abrams has also dismissed Maduro's claims that opposition leader Guaido is a collaborator in a U.S. coup plot. "The allegation that Juan Guaido is some kind of a puppet of the United States I think is first ridiculous and second has been disproved in a number of ways. One of them is the number of countries that support him," the U.S. envoy said. For Abrams, Maduro is responsible for the crisis in the country and must go. "This economic decline is not new," Abrams said. "The situation in Venezuela now is a product of years of corruption and incompetence and venality on the part of this regime. That's the problem, and the solution is to replace it with a democratic government that is actually responsive to the needs of the people." On Friday, Venezuela created a unit tasked with protecting basic installations and services such as electricity and water, a week after a massive blackout. Maduro now plans "a deep restructuring" of his government, according to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. VOA's Xu Ning contributed to this report. Over the past several weeks, the U.S. government has launched a seemingly unprecedented campaign to block the Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies from competing in the global rollout of next-generation 5G mobile networking technology, claiming that the company is effectively an arm of the Chinese intelligence services. In an effort that has included top-level officials from the departments of State, Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, and Commerce, as well as the president himself, the Trump administration has taken steps to curtail Huaweis ability to operate within the U.S. It has also mounted an extraordinary effort to convince U.S. allies to bar the firm from operating on their soil. Huawei has long been viewed with suspicion and distrust in many corners of the global economy. The company has a documented history of industrial espionage, and its competitiveness on the global stage has been boosted by massive subsidies from the government in Beijing. Still, the scope of the U.S. governments current offensive against the company is remarkable. Huawei has been accused of many things for a very long time. This is nothing new. What is unique is the extent of the pressure campaign, said Michael Murphree, assistant professor of International Business at the University of South Carolinas Darla Moore School of Business. In the grand scheme of international technology competition, this is certainly a very strong effort against a specific firm. The push to keep Huawei from playing a major role in the rollout of 5G comes at a time when the U.S. and China are in talks to end a costly trade war that the U.S. launched last year with the imposition of tariffs against hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese exports. In another unprecedented move, President Donald Trump has even tied at least one of the governments actions against Huawei a federal indictment in which the companys chief financial officer has been named as a potential bargaining chip in trade discussions. A corporate spokesman for Huawei declined to comment on the Trump Administration's aggressive tactics. The case against Huawei U.S. officials cite a number of reasons to treat Huawei with extreme suspicion, some of them well-documented, others less so. Top of the list is a National Intelligence law passed in China in 2017 that gives government intelligence services broad and open-ended powers to demand the cooperation of businesses operating in China in intelligence gathering efforts. U.S. policymakers argue that this presents an unambiguous threat to national security. In America we cant even get Apple to crack open an iPhone for the FBI, Florida Senator Marco Rubio said in a March 13 appearance on Fox Business Network. In China, Huawei has to give the Chinese anything they ask for. He added, They should not be in business in America. And while Huawei has strongly denied that it operates as an arm of the Chinese intelligence services, at least two recent international espionage cases have come uncomfortably close to the firm. In January, the Polish government arrested a Huawei executive on charges of spying for China. The company itself has not been charged in the case, and Huawei announced that the employee, a sales manager, had been fired. Early last year, the French newspaper Le Monde Afrique reported that over the course of several years, the computer systems in the Chinese-financed headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa were secretly transmitting data toservers in Shanghai every night, and that listening devices had been discovered implanted in the building. It was later revealed that the primary supplier of information and communications technology to the project had been Huawei. No proof has ever been put forward that Huawei was involved in the data theft, and African Union officials have declined to go on the record confirming that the information transfers ever occurred. One of the most frequent concerns expressed by U.S. officials about Huawei is the least substantiated: the idea that the company could install secret backdoor access to communications equipment that would give the Chinese government ready access to sensitive communications, or even enable Beijing to shut down communications in another country at will. Its a claim that Ren Zhengfei, Huaweis 74-year-old founder and president, has personally ridiculed. The government would never make that request, and Huawei would never comply, he told the BBC recently. Our sales revenues are now hundreds of billions of dollars. We are not going to risk the disgust of our country and our customers all over the world because of something like that. We will lose all our business. Im not going to take that risk. The public battle over Huawei's image The sheer number of fronts on which the U.S. federal government is currently engaging with Huawei, sometimes very aggressively, is notable. The most high-profile of these is a federal indictment of the company naming its Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, in an alleged scheme to deceive U.S. officials in order to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iran. Meng was arrested in Canada at the request of U.S. prosecutors, and the Justice Department is seeking her extradition in order to have her face trial in New York. At the same time, a second federal indictment accusing the company of stealing trade secrets, was unsealed in the state of Washington. It is the Meng case that President Trump has suggested he might use as leverage in ongoing trade talks. Speaking to reporters at the White House last month, he said, Were going to be discussing all of that during the course of the next couple of weeks. Well be talking to the U.S. attorneys. Well be talking to the attorney general. Well be making that decision. Right now, its not something weve discussed." There have also been active efforts to dissuade other countries from doing business with Huawei. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned U.S. allies that if they use Huawei telecommunications equipment in their critical infrastructure, they will lose access to some intelligence collected by the United States If a country adopts this and puts it in some of their critical information systems, we wont be able to share information with them, we wont be able to work alongside them, Pompeo said in an interview with Fox Business Network. On March 8, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany sent a letter to the German minister for economic affairs, reiterating the U.S. governments concern about the potential for backdoors in Huawei systems and the threat of tampering during complex software updates. He said that U.S. intelligence sharing would be significantly scaled back if Germany uses Huawei products in its new telecommunications systems. In February, the U.S. government sent a large delegation to MWC Barcelona, the telecommunications industrys biggest trade show, where they publicly excoriated the company as duplicitous and deceitful. The U.S. delegation included officials from the departments of State, Commerce, and Defense, as well as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. Also there were officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development, who made it clear that foreign aid dollars from the U.S. will not be available to help fund purchases from Chinese telecom firms. In addition, a law signed by President Trump last year bars the federal government from buying equipment from Huawei and smaller Chinese telecom company ZTE. Trump has additionally floated the possibility of an executive order that would block Huawei from any participation at all in U.S 5G networks. Huawei is fighting back, filing a lawsuit this month that claims it was unfairly banned from U.S. government computer networks. Deng Cheng, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, said the lawsuit may be aimed at determining what information the U.S. government is using to make its case. "There is information that the intelligence community may have that isn't necessarily going to be made public, he said. What is admissible in court is not always the same as the information that is actually available. So I'm not really sure how this court case will even be adjudicated. Huawei's lawsuit is likely also partly aimed at improving the firm's reputation at a time when it is under siege by American officials. The risk of pushback from China At a time when the United States relations with even its closest traditional allies is under strain, Washingtons seemingly unilateral demand that a major global supplier be effectively shut out of an enormous marketplace is an audacious request. For one thing, it is complicated by the fact that for countries and companies anxious to take advantage of 5G wireless technology, there may not be a ready substitute for the Chinese firm. This seems to be reflected in recent reports that U.S. allies, in Europe, India, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, are showing real resistance to U.S, demands. A report in the New York Times late Sunday said that in Europe, the general sense is that any risk posed by Huawei is manageable through monitoring and selective use of the company's products. The story noted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's response to the U.S. was a terse message that Germans would be "defining our standards for ourselves." And of course, there is always the possibility even the likelihood of Chinese retaliation against countries that accede to the United States requests. And in China, where the media is largely controlled by the Communist Party, and access to international news services is sharply limited, that retaliation would likely have widespread public support. The very strong perception is that Huawei is a great Chinese company that has done extraordinary things to move to the global frontier, in some respects to the head of the pack, and it is being unfairly treated and held back by the United States for specious reasons, said Lester Ross, the partner-in-charge of the Beijing office of U.S. law firm Wilmer Hale. More than 150 people were killed and hundreds more were missing Sunday after Cyclone Idai swept through southeastern Africa, with the Mozambican city of Beira hardest hit. A team of International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) aid workers reached the devastated city Sunday to assess the situation, the organization said in a statement Monday. Jamie LeSueur, who is leading the team, said after an aerial assessment that 90 percent of the Beira area was "completely destroyed." "The situation is terrible. The scale of devastation is enormous," LeSueur said in a statement. The United Nations estimates more than 1.5 million people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe were affected by the storm. Tens of thousands have been cut off from roads and telephones in mainly poor, rural areas. The cyclone made landfall Thursday near the coastal city of Beira, Mozambique, with winds of nearly 200 kilometers per hour. The storm then moved west into Malawi and Zimbabwe. Video in Beira by VOA's Portuguese service shows splintered trees and downed power lines throughout the city. Tropical Cyclone Idai has compounded destructive flooding that has already occurred as far inland as southern Malawi and eastern Zimbabwe, World Food Program spokesman Herve Verhoosel told journalists in Geneva. Official sources in Mozambique say at least 68 people were killed in the cyclone. Zimbabwean officials told reporters that 89 people died in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe's eastern Chimanimani district, soldiers on Sunday helped rescue 200 students and staff from a school that was cut off by floodwaters and mud. The presidents of Mozambique and Zimbabwe cut short their overseas trips to deal with the aftermath of the cyclone. U.N. agencies and the International Red Cross are helping with rescue efforts, while also delivering food, water and medicines by helicopter. Grilled porcelet with Asian pear and mustard. Photo: Melissa Hom If you were to, say, hatch your dream plan to build New Yorks next great restaurant group, you might fantasize about making your entrance at a place like 70 Pine Street. The 925-foot-tall, 87-year-old building is a landmarked Art Deco statement of a building, standing out even among the huddled towers of the Financial District. Originally the headquarters of Citgo (then Cities Service) and later AIG, the building was purchased in 2012 by developer Rose Associates and converted to luxury apartments. And its also where the former chef de cuisine of Eleven Madison Park and executive chef of the Nomad James Kent and his partner Jeff Katz will have their first and second restaurant as well as bar starting with Crown Shy, which officially opens tonight. Reached through the buildings (landmarked) marble lobby, the 120-seat Crown Shy is a sprawling and dramatic space. The ceilings are warehouse high, the windows are 16 feet tall, and the design is clean and modern. To make the space more intimate, and not just one big box, they divided it with semi-transparent screens. Theres a long marble bar separate but visible from the dining room. (Theres also a large private dining room located, through a hallway, behind the kitchen.) Influences come from places like the Maison de Verre, which was built in Paris at the same time as 70 Pine Street. But the greatest influence is the downtown New York aesthetic that Kent grew up with, best captured by the contrast of the industrial beams and blond wood tables. Gruyere fritters. Photo: Melissa Hom I grew up here in the 80s and 90s; we would run the streets in Soho and Tribeca, and it was this very influential area for me as a kid, Kent says. It was also where Chanterelle and Nobu and Montrachet and all these incredible restaurants were really growing in this neighborhood that was abandoned The idea is to bring that to this space, some kind of elegance and some kind of raw. In any other situation, Crown Shy would be, well, the crown jewel. But the real prize here is the sky-high space spread out over the 62nd, 63rd, 64th, and 66th floors, which promises sweeping views of the city, outdoor terraces, and, for Kent and Katz, an opportunity that they couldnt expect to come again. That restaurant in the sky wont open until the fall at the earliest, so for now, at least, the two are keeping themselves grounded. Kents career is one road map through some of New Yorks most influential restaurants of the last 30 years. He cooked at places like Bouley and Jean Georges before landing at Eleven Madison Park. Kent wasnt just another cook at EMP, but as its chef de cuisine helped shape the restaurant during the first two years after Daniel Humm and Will Guidara bought it from Danny Meyer. After six years there, he then became executive chef of EMPs acclaimed sister restaurant the Nomad in 2013. Kent didnt cross paths professionally with Katz, who since 2006 has worked at Del Posto. (Following Mario Batalis divestment, Katz and chef Melissa Rodriguez were named managing partners at the restaurant.) The two were introduced by a mutual friend a year-and-half ago, they say, and broke red sauce over chicken parm at Emilios Ballato. The kitchen team. Photo: Melissa Hom We kind of understood that we have very similar points of view and come from similar places in the restaurant world, says Kent. The chef had signed on to 70 Pine Street back in the spring of 2017, and showed Katz around after being connected. It just seemed like an opportunity someone in my place in my career wouldnt pass up, Katz says. It would be stupid if I had. At Crown Shy, as Kent and Katz tell it, theyre sewing with threads from throughout their careers. This includes the well from which theyve drawn a staff that Katz calls super, super connected. The team here includes pastry chef Renata Ameni, who worked with Kent at EMP; wine director Luke Boland, who worked at Del Posto; and bar director Jonathan Lind, who was at the Nomad with Kent. Its also evident in the design and the menu, which Kent describes as a break from what he cooked at the Nomad. Its rooted in European cuisine, but the goal is not to give us any boundaries, he says. While saying that EMP and the Nomad do inform what he does here, he adds, There were definitely limits. I want things to be bolder. I want things to be spicier. I want things to be brighter. Sticky toffee pudding. Photo: Melissa Hom Take the snack of Gruyere fritters seasoned with chili and lime, the squash mole thats served with the sea bass entree, or the chimichurri served with the roasted short rib. That last one is the menus only real statement dish its plated on a custom wooden piece, with a bleached bone as a serving vessel and one of only four entrees. (Roughly two-thirds of the menu is comprised of smaller dishes.) And when Kent says there are no boundaries, he also means domestically. Hes drawing from New England (the charred carrots with razor clam chowder) and California cuisine (the romaine with green goddess dressing). Ameni takes a similar approach to her desserts, which range from a pineapple pavlova with coconut sorbet to sticky toffee pudding, and the cocktail menu is equally expansive. There are 16 boozy drinks and three thought-out nonalcoholic options from Lind and head bartender Harrison Ginsberg. Theres much more going on here than some rebranded version of a sour and Manhattan, Katz says. He points to the combo of butter-washed rum and plantain in the Captain Kidd, or the togarashi in the mezcal-based Flightplan. Theres a similar creativity at work with the non-boozy drinks; consider the Hojito, which pairs herbal, minty hoja santa with lime, herbs, and tonic. Without saying it sounding like were the Cheesecake Factory, theres something for everybody, Katz says. And there are influences coming from everywhere, but first and foremost the drinks and food should be delicious. Caramelle pasta with porcini and chevre. Photo: Melissa Hom Grilled pear salad with endive, goat-milk Feta, and pistachio. Photo: Melissa Hom The Gin Crown with lemongrass, grapefruit, walnut, and ginger beer. Photo: Melissa Hom Crown Shy, 70 Pine Street, nr. Pearl St; 212-517-1932 The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. A homeless shelter in Wroclaw {VROT-sloff}, Poland struggled to get enough footwear to people in need. Employees at a local cobbler who had been donating their own shoes to the shelter asked online for donations. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been forced to cut short his visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend to the devastating effects of Tropical Cyclone Idai, which has so far claimed 82 lives and left nearly 200 missing. Local government minister July Moyo in an exclusive interview with VOA warned that the number of fatalities is likely to rise. Mr. Mnangagwa has declared the tragedy a state of disaster and his return from UAE is to enable him to be involved directly with the national response. Harare is battling to rescue thousands of people in Chimanimani and Chipinge, the hardest hit districts of Manicaland Province, east of the country bordering Mozambique. Authorities in Mozambique say the death toll in that country has risen to 62. Zimbabwes permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Nick Mangwana said Mr. Mnangagwa, who had been criticized for flying out of the country in the face of a crisis, is expected to tackle the rain disaster. Meanwhile, a United Nations team in Zimbabwe is helping the government in conjunction with other partners in supporting about 10,000 people affected by the tropical cyclone. Some 300 refugees, who were housed at Tongogara Refugee Camp in Manicaland province, have been affected and 49 houses damaged. The majority of the asylum seekers and refugees in the camp are from the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa; namely, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and other countries. Harold J. DeBlieck age 64, of Osakis died on Sunday, December 5, 2021, at Alomere Hospital in Alexandria. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11:00 AM on Friday, December 10, 2021, at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Osakis. Visitation will be held from 4-7 PM on Thursday, Dec Photo: David M. Benett/Getty Images Maya, the latest from Frances youngest master filmmaker, Mia Hansen-Lve, tells a story superficially familiar to American audiences. Following a personal crisis, a wayward Westerner sets a track East to do some soul-searching in India. Instantly, shrewd viewers brace for solipsism, anticipating another white guys journey that never extends beyond the limits of himself. But the shrewdest of viewers know better, because they know Hansen-Lve. She makes sensitive, aching films about characters in flux: a middle-aged woman coming to grips with a surprise divorce, a 30-something DJ slowly accepting that hes never going to make it big, a student caught between two men and two versions of herself. Maya, which made its New York premiere at the Film Society of Lincoln Center during its annual Rendez-Vous With French Cinema festival, follows the French photojournalist Gabriele shortly after his release from captivity in Syria, as he travels to the Indian state of Goa to look after a bit of family property. The trip couldnt be further from the sort of revitalizing vacation popularized by Eat, Pray, Love, which, for the record, Hansen-Lve has never heard of. Gabrieles dalliance with an intelligent, beautiful girl named Maya disrupts his rudderless lifestyle, leaving him more uncertain than before. Its a conflicted double portrait, typical for a director trafficking in the eternal act of reconfiguring ones own identity. Hansen-Lve comes from a long tradition of serious French cineastes, from Jean-Luc Godard to her longtime partner Olivier Assayas. Cutting their teeth as critics for the prestigious magazine Cahiers du Cinema instilled an appreciation for the conceptual over the technical, for films that function as collections of warring, squirming ideas seldom settled into order. (Naturally, Hansen-Lve is the daughter of two philosophy academics.) With six films now under her belt, shes built a singular reputation in French cinema. Theres plenty of cause to call Hansen-Lve the next Jean Renoir, the next Rohmer, the next Truffaut, but the only accurate description would be that she is the first her. While in town to make an appearance at the Rendez-vous, Hansen-Lve sat down with Vulture to discuss her new film, its racial and sexual politics, her unique connection with Assayas, and submitting to destiny. Fortunately, this also left sufficient time for the interviewer to explain the recent proliferation of the word daddy in American culture. They told me you just flew in, I hope youre not too tired. Youre just my second interview for the day, so Im not too tired, but [soon] Ill be in trouble. My English is not so I apologize if I have any issues. Thats as fine a place to start as any. Your next movie, Bergman Island, will be your first in the English language, but characters in Eden and Maya flip in and out of English too. Do you find theres a difference between writing dialogue in French and English? For sure, but I dont write my dialogues in English. I write them in French, and they get translated. I worked with a translator Ive had forever, who does the subtitles on my films an American named Andrew Litvack. On my next film, I reworked the lines with the actors, which isnt the same as in French. In French, it comes out of my mouth so naturally, and in English, I worry that it might sound awkward. But on Maya, not so much. They were not supposed to be English anyway, so it wasnt such a problem if it sounded awkward. Hes French, shes Indian; they each use the English as theyve learned it. The relationship between Gabriele and Maya recalls the dynamic in Goodbye First Love between Camille and her lovers, Sullivan and Lorenz. What do you find special about the love between an older man and a younger woman? Maybe its just because of me falling in love with older men? What I find special about it is that Americans see this a lot. Im not sure I wouldve been aware of it if I wasnt asked questions about it when Im here. Im not complaining! Im just interested in the cultural difference. I mean, I was living with a man 25 years older than me and I didnt notice. I know there is an issue about that, but in Goodbye First Love, [Camille and Sullivan] are almost the same age. Its not like all my films deal with that. But yeah, its only when I screened Maya here that I started getting questions about the age difference, and I realized that yes, its true. Of course, if she was really, really young, that would be an issue to me. But shes a young adult, thats the way I see her. Rather than a problem in the film, I think its reflective of the national character of audiences, like you say. Stereotypes about Americans being uptight and the French being liberated about sexuality, all that. Its true. Maybe girls are more mature in France. But over the past couple years in American culture, weve seen this emerging ideal of the daddy, a romantic and sexual partner whos also a paternal figure. This is in real life? The ideal of daddy? In my films, I think it has more to do with a certain spiritual complicity they have. This also ties Lola and Lorenz together. It has to do with their love of architecture and style; it is an intellectual bond. Not to say theres nothing erotic, there certainly is, but you cant reduce it to a psychoanalytic relationship like that a daddy figure. In Maya, we join Gabriele at an in-between time, having just been freed from his captivity and not quite knowing what to do next. In this respect, hes like Sven from Eden, too. What do you find compelling about characters in drift? Its hard to say, because its not something I really decided. I never choose what my films are going to be about. I just write them and try while writing them to figure that out. But youre right that Im attracted to whats in between, whats out of frame, whats left in the dark. Im trying to find a more concrete image. When the camera wants to be turned like this [holds hands perpendicular to body], I will turn it like this [holds hands parallel to body]. When I did Father of My Children, for instance, I thought the natural way to do it would be a film about a director who loses a producer. But I thought itd be more exciting to show the producer, a figure that would otherwise stay in the shadow. In Eden, I felt like an obvious film would be about a DJ becoming a huge star, rise with no fall. So mine was all fall, no rise. Where I feel useful, where I have something to say, is where I can show what would otherwise not be shown. So with Maya, I was inspired by footage of freed hostages being released. I felt like everyone would imagine the captivity, him being in the war zone, his reportage. I wanted to imagine the other side, moments where he doesnt work and looks for direction. Thats more interesting to me. Traveling somewhere far away, where you dont know anyone, makes a person feel like they can reinvent themselves. Have you felt this way, like Gabriele does? Its part of why I made this film. There is a book that impressed me a lot a couple years ago, called The Journey Is the Direction. That was a book made out of the notebooks of a photojournalist named Dan Eldon, who died at 25 and left behind all these incredible letters. This character and this title the journey being the destination theres something about that I feel very connected to. As for myself, after making Things to Come, a film so close to my own story and roots and childhood, maybe the closest film to my past, I felt a need to both mentally and artistically take the risk of going far away. I wanted to film in another place, another country, another context. I was attracted to India for a long time. I wouldnt go just anywhere, it had to be a place that I was actually interested in, though this is not an autobiographical film. But its still personal for me, the attraction to the unknown. In that way, I feel similar to Gabriele. But I identify with the characters of all my films, no matter the age, gender, life story. If I can write them, it is because I have connected to them. I was reminded of two films while watching Maya. The first was Renoirs The River, which youve discussed in other interviews. But Im curious, have you seen Eat, Pray, Love? No. It was very popular in the U.S. about ten years ago, about a woman who goes through a bad breakup and then travels around the world to find herself. At the time, some criticized its narcissistic perspective that she goes to India and makes it about herself. How do you balance telling the story of one character with doing right by your setting, and not making India an anonymous place? I think the film is both. It is told from Gabrieles perspective, and I dont think theres any shame in that. You go somewhere, and would it be better to pretend to look at India from an Indian perspective when I am not Indian? In a way, its more honest to, ah, not assume, whats the word? Own up? Not try to hide the distance between Gabriele, and between me, to India, yeah? But it helped that Goa gave us a specific place to capture. In many ways, the big challenge of the film was to show Goa as a part of India and as it is itself. There are so many portrayals where India is idealized, as in big Bollywood movies, and in the reverse, where it is caricatured in Western film. You have to either show an India that is solely fantasy or show how bad the poverty is. In my experience, and Id been to India many times before making this film, people have their lives. Its not about the subjects you see on television. I wanted to go further than that, and try in my own way which I think is humble to capture Goa as I experience it, as an outsider whos spent some time there. About your artistic relationship with Olivier [Assayas]: Do you think you are an influence on his work, and that hes an influence on yours? I think he has been a huge influence on my work, and I dont think Ive been an influence on his. [Laughs.] Maybe hed say, Oh no, yes you have, thats not true. But I think its more unconscious, if I have. I cant claim to have an influence on his work, only he could say for sure. But he certainly had one on mine. This would be a very long discussion, we spent 15 years living together. His influence comes through in many ways, but one of them is opening myself up to trying so much. In terms of production, storytelling, he experiments in many different directions. Watching him being so daring helped me a lot to be daring. Maybe I wouldnt have tried Eden if I hadnt seen him be so unafraid to move on, to take risks. In that line of thinking, what was the primary risk of taking on Maya? Being a white person and making a film in India is not easy to defend today, and precisely because of that I wanted to be unafraid of it. If youre a white girl living in Paris, you should only make movies about white women living in Paris? That would be so depressing! Its more risky to do what I did instead of stay in my own little world, my own little bubble. A good number of American press misunderstand your relationship with Olivier, assuming you two are married, though you chose not to be. Why do you think people would think that, and what motivates the choice not to marry? Why people assume that? I should ask you. I have no idea. Its an easy thing to think, right? Why wouldnt we? Why not? It has nothing to do with love. In my case, it was not a matter of loving more or less. We were just happy like that. My parents were married for 20 years and then got divorced. To me, marriage is not the highest ideal. I dont have anything against it. I dont let preconceived ideas control my life. I try to find my own way, in filmmaking and in personal relationships. Maya ends with Gabriele leaving Maya behind, just as Goodbye First Love ends with Camille leaving Sullivan behind. Do you prefer sad endings to happy endings? Do you really think they are sad endings? Id say they are ambivalent endings, which is really different. There are a lot of films I love that have a sad ending, and when I see them, it makes me ask myself why I cant make films with really sad endings. I see mine as more open, or yeah, ambivalent. Never just sad or just happy. I couldnt do a film with a just-sad ending, it would affect me too much. I think were talking about the same thing a sadness that makes you feel good, thats the ambivalence. Yes, exactly. Its a grief, a renouncement, a letting go. Theres often this idea in my films of letting go of something in order to save something more essential. In life, we must leave things behind to move on. Its very simplistic, the way Im saying it now, but this is what the endings of my films deal with. Goodbye First Love ends with the hat Sullivan gave her blowing away, and that sums up my view you dont have a choice. The wind takes it. Its not a moralistic point of view, its a philosophical one. This is just how things happen; we cannot fight against the movement of life, so we better embrace it. Hollywood movies have this obsession with the concept of agency, of characters who make things happen rather than letting things happen to them. Your characters seem more at peace going with the flow. This is a good way to put it. How did you say, going with the flow? I used to know a quote from Renoir about les Fauves and about freedom. I lost it. Im sure its easy to find, but he said something about how characters should be like a cork floating on water and move with the flow. People think of this as the opposite of freedom, but this is true freedom. My films deal with the idea of freedom that doesnt fight with destiny. Your experience, as a critic and actress and writer and director, is seen less in the American cinema. Does having done all of this give you a fuller understanding of the art form? I feel much more like a director than anything else. My time as an actress was very short and amateur. As a critic, too, that was the worst. Ive heard you had to deal with a lot of misogyny, that Cahiers du Cinema could be sort of a boys club. I never suffered from sexism as a director. But, and I wouldnt say I suffered from it, but I certainly noticed some sexism as a film critic. I dont regret that time at all, I just felt like I wasnt made for that. It would take me a week to write a single review. Id have to rewrite it again and again, and then at the end, it wouldnt even be so good. Though I think this did help me to read my own scripts with more of a critical point of view. I think that its a great exercise to learn about my own work, doing interviews. I learn about my own work having to discuss it. But we filmmakers tend to do too many of them. Life is so short! I want to spend as much time as possible reading, dreaming, thinking making my films, not reanalyzing them. The self-analysis sometimes terrifies me. I take it youre not in therapy? [Laughs.] No, Im not. I probably need it, but [shrugs]. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. (Hedgeweek) After a slightly more muted response from investors in Q4 2018, investor appetite for holdings of UK assets has polarised during Q1 2019, with an increase in both the number of those looking to increase and decrease their exposure. To read this article: McQueen was in Afghanistan in September 2018 when two gunmen fired at him and his comrades from around 20 feet away. With the latest revelation from officials of the US Army in March 2019, US soldiers could well be on their way towards invincibility. A new set of body armor and new helmets have been finally completed after years of development. The new body armor is not only lighter than its predecessor but also provides better protection and allows better mobility for ground troops. The new helmet, besides being lighter, is also designed to provide double the protection of its predecessor against blunt force trauma. This new Soldier Protection System (SPS), in short, will give soldiers the ability to take a serious beating, and walk out alive. According to the manufacturers and Army officials, the newly completed SPSwhich comprises the Integrated Head Protection System, Modular Scalable Vest, and Blast Pelvic Protectoris a critical upgrade from previous systems. Upon release in March 2019, the first SPS units will be delivered to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, to be first used by the Armys 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. The revelation was made by Army officials on March 11 during an event at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The event was a ceremony reuniting Staff Sergeant Steven McQueen with his battered helmet. McQueen was in Afghanistan in September 2018 when two gunmen fired at him and his comrades from around 20 feet away. McQueen took a head shot from a machine gun, but quickly sprang to his feet and ran for cover. The 3.3-lb helmet he had worn that day was presented in the ceremony with a large hole on it. The life-saving helmet was one of the Enhanced Combat Helmets (ECH) which is currently in use by soldiers of the US Army. McQueen revealed that prior to that event, he had felt that the helmet was too heavy and that its design was overkill. Even so, the ECH has proven itself quite effectivebut with the release of the Integrated Head Protection System (IHPS), developed by Ceradyne Inc., the Army is set to go a step higher. The newly finished, slightly larger IHPS has the same level of ballistic protection against rifles as the ECH, but offers 100% improvement in protection against trauma to a soldiers head. According to Alex DeGroot, Ceradynes lead engineer for head protection, with its improved protection and lesser weight the IHPS represents less force on the brain, and this is one of the things that make the helmet considerably better than the current helmet. The IHPS also features a boltless retention system which allows the four bolt holes that used to hold the chin straps to be eliminated. According to Lieutenant Colonel Ginger Whitehead, the product manager for Soldier Protection Equipment, drilling holes on helmets has a downside: it weakens the material. The chin straps are attached to the sides of the helmets now, without bolts. On each side of the IHPS, there are removable rails which would allow soldiers to mount lights and other necessary accessories on the helmet, especially when working under low-light conditions. In a statement by DeGroot, the new helmet, with its slightly larger area, provides more space on both sides for soldiers to put on headsets more comfortably. The IHPS also comes with optional protective add-ons like a visor, a mandible guard for the lower jaw, and a ballistic applique. The new body armor, the Modular Scalable Vest (MSV), weighs around 11 pounds without ballistic plates, and 25 pounds when fitted with front and side armor plates. Overall, it is lighter by five pounds than the Improved Outer Tactical Vest which is currently in use in the Army. Another item in the SPS, the Blast Pelvic Protector, reportedly provides extra protection for the groin and upper thighs. In a report released on Military.com, the SPS was said to also feature a Ballistic Combat Shirt (BCS) which has soft armor on the high back, high chest, shoulders, and neck to help protect against 9mm rounds and shrapnel. The BCS is to replace the Deltoid Axillary Protector, which was originally developed in the early days of the Iraq War to shield US soldiers shoulders and upper arms from shrapnel wounds caused by Improvised Explosive Devices. Read another story from us: The Pinks & Greens Are Back: US Army Announces New Uniforms Based On Iconic WWII Design Because the Army has not yet been provided with all the sizes required for full fielding, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division will receive the IHPS and MSV but will not sport the BCS this month. However, according to Whitehead, there are plans in place to field the BCS this summer. Perhaps it is impossible to achieve the perfect protection system. But with the constant improvements on existing models, and the desire to go even further, the United States military looks poised to take a shot at achieving invincibility, even if that is only slightly possible. European Healthtech Investment Forum was held for the third time in Helsinki, Finland on 13-14-March 2019. The forum which was organised by Techtour in collaboration with Business Finland in The Finlandia Hall brought together dozens of healthtech startups and investors for a two days compilation of presentations, competition and one-to-one meetings. Both startups and investors came from all around the world. There is a lot happening in the E-health and Healthtech field which is still obscure to the public as the route from innovation to widespread use is long and specially for diagnostic or therapeutic innovation is also highly regulated. You may build an app for tracking womens menstrual period or migraine headaches and bring it to the Appstore right away, but a medical device or new methodology has to go through animal and clinical trials first and get CE, FDA and other approvals before it becomes available to hospitals or consumers. For the 3rd annual EHIF forum, 40 startups were selected form among over 70 applicants to present their companies and ideas to investors. Most of the elected companies were in the verge of raising series A or B funding, meaning that they had already spent or as some investors hate to use; burnt their seed investments and some public funding. Popit, a Finnish company with an innovative pill tracking device and app helps consumers keep track of their pills. The small device is attached to your blister pill sheet and records every pill taken and sends you a notification through the app if you miss one. Popit, which also used crowdfunding through Indigogo to raise money for developing the device, was seeking a 3-5 M round to accelerate sales and expand. The patented technology seems promising, but a price tag of USD 79 (50) each for the device may hinder sales. Symptoma, a Dutch company established more than 10 years ago is not considered a startup by company age standards, but the service it is offering is an emerging field in E-health. Symptoma is in the crowded market of symptom checking, I.e. offering online diagnosis direct to consumers using a large database of medical texts and articles and machine learning. The idea is simple: The user types his or her symptoms into the search field on Symptoms site and the interface asks you more questions before giving you a range of possible diagnosis. The service is free of charge for users and is funded by advertisement. There are numerous companies in this filed with similar services with some like Babylon Health spending tens of millions of investment money into building an AI doctor, but symptom claims that its platform is the best. To prove this the company presents a chart based on British Medical Journalss (BMJ) F- Score Benchmark Plot which scores Symptomas diagnostic accuracy on the top place way above well known providers of similar service such as Webmed and Mayoclinic. On the investor front Monita Mo, Founder and Partner at Ascend Capital Partners, stands out among a mainly VC and Pharma dominated crowd of participants. Monita, a self made woman from Hong Kong, now lives in Manhattan and invests in promising startups. In 2017, Ascend Capital Partners invested a total of 24 million in four Finnish companies in the healthcare and automotive industries. Two of these companies are Aiforia, which is using logarithms for pathological image analysis and diagnosis and Grundium which has invented an automatic pathology slide scanning microscope. Having a relative in the filed of Pathology she was familiar with the challenges with the filed and shortage of pathologists worldwide and in specially in the growing market of China. Monita Mo prides herself in taking an active, hands on role in the companies she invests in. She has already had 3 exits and a 100% success rate with her investments. Next big medical forum in Finland will be HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference, taking place on June 11-13 June. Alexis Kouros - HT In 2014, Lufthansa Flight 1829 took off from Bilbao, Spain, and was ascending normally when the planes nose unexpectedly dropped. The plane an Airbus A321 with 109 passengers on board began to fall. The co-pilot tried to raise the nose with his controls. The plane pointed down even further. He tried again. Nothing, according to a report by German investigators. For more than two decades, one small publisher far from New York has been quietly rescuing remnants of history from the flames of oblivion. You may have seen the trim, sepia-toned books from Arcadia Publishing or its imprint the History Press. From an office in Mount Pleasant, S.C., Arcadia releases almost 500 new titles a year. Theyre available in bookstores, but youre more likely to have noticed them in history museums, parks, diners, hardware stores and beauty parlors in small towns throughout America. Its the first time the Vietnam War has been addressed on this scale by an art museum. Organized by Melissa Ho, it pulsates with anguish from first to last. And it reminds us that though Saigon fell more than 40 years ago, that anguish is still with us. Todays polarized politics from the culture wars to congressional gridlock are shot through with the aftershocks of Vietnam (just think of the recent tweets exchanged by President Trump and John McCains daughter Meghan McCain), as are the memories, family histories and inner lives of millions. He and his client believed she was the victim in the state case in part because of her role in reporting Epstein. Upon learning that she was not, Kuvin said: Its unbelievably upsetting. The rug has been swiped out from under the one girl who was brave enough to come forward and break this thing. The countrys ability to carry out structural reforms, however, has been thrown into question following the collapse of the social, health care and regional government reform, according to the credit rating agency based in New York City, the United States. Standard & Poors on Friday said the reform will consequently remain high on the list of priorities for also the next government, thus possibly postponing other critical structural reforms. If Finland does not push on with the necessary reforms, it also warned, it will have no choice but to downgrade its credit rating for the country. Jan von Gerich, a senior strategist at Nordea, said Finland has found itself in a difficult situation. Finlands sustainability deficit is estimated at eight billion euros by [Standard & Poors]. Theres quite a lot that will have to be done, he commented on Twitter on Friday. It wont be easy. Standard & Poors also echoed the views of other credit rating agencies by identifying population ageing as one of the most pressing problems in Finland. Fitch, for example, warned in its report last month that the contraction of the working-age population can limit growth opportunities for Finland. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi But Yeung says he doesnt think switching one kind of meat for another is a real solution to the worlds problems. As a longtime vegetarian, an early investor in the American company Beyond Meat, and the Hong Kong distributor for everything from Beyond Burgers to several nondairy cheese and veggie chicken products, Yeung sees animal farming itself as an obsolete system, wracked with inefficiencies that are bad for the planet. China has . . . I think just announced 1.4 billion people, but it also has close to 700 million pigs, he says, quoting the higher side of estimates for both populations, How do you feed 700 million pigs? Feeding the pigs before theyre fed to us is an archaic, outdated food supply chain. We should not be getting our protein this way anymore. But lets assume that he is exactly who he says he is. You have now manipulated and meddled in his life to the extent that he is now willing to toss out his marriage and run to you. And yet you are too cowardly to tell him the truth, cop to your deception and take complete responsibility for your actions, so that he can start to heal from this. In a statement released Monday, Brazile said: I know Im going to get criticized from my friends in the progressive movement for being on Fox News. My response is that, if weve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we cant have a country where we dont talk to those who disagree with our political views. Theres an audience on Fox News that doesnt hear enough from Democrats. We have to engage that audience and show Americans of every stripe what we stand for rather than retreat into our safe spaces where we simply agree with each other. Dear Heloise: There are a couple of old scams that your readers should be aware of and take measures to protect themselves. The "Can you hear me?" stunt is being used again. A caller assures the listener that this is not a sales call and will ask, "Can you hear me?" Do not answer. Hang up. They wait to hear you say "yes" and use your voice to okay credit cards and other purchases. The second scam is to tell you that your Microsoft license has expired. The caller will say to send a certain amount of money or give a credit card number and all will be well. This is a scam, and you should ignore it. Don't speak; just hang up on them. News that U.S. citizens will soon need special authorization to visit most European nations has been met with alarm and confusion. Some of this consternation has resulted from early reports that called the authorization a visa (it is not), incorrect information floating around the Internet and the confusing issue of which countries are involved. Here we will try to answer common questions, with the help of information currently available on the European Commission website. For some more involved questions, we corresponded by email with a Commission spokesman. Rock the Potomac can be a bit daunting for a reader. The thumbnail profiles of local musicians and bands that comprise the last 300 pages are easy enough to navigate. Theyre arranged alphabetically by first name, from Abaad Behram (of Razz and the Reactions) to Wolf Crescenze (bass player in Sassafras Tea out of Fort Washington, Md.). But it can be hard to navigate the earlier chapters, such is the profusion of names and dates. And theres no index. To pay for the new spending, Bowser told The Washington Post in an interview before her speech that she wants the D.C. Council to increase the deed recordation and transfer taxes from 1.45 percent to 2.5 percent on commercial properties worth more than $2 million. Officials estimate that would raise $79 million next year. The taxes are imposed when property is sold or transferred and do not apply to residential real estate. I am personally thrilled to have Kim join us as the next leader of Marthas Table, Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, who sits on the Marthas Table board of directors and serves as the dean of the School of Education at American University, said in a news release. Her impressive background in education and focus on lifelong learning will elevate our mission to ensure all children in D.C. have the opportunity for their brightest future. Sure, a criminal case could be pursued by someone abused as a child at anytime in Maryland. But a civil suit the kind of thing that can cost a church or a school millions of dollars and public exposure had to be filed within seven years of adulthood. So if you werent ready to confront your shame in open court by your 25th birthday in Maryland, tough luck. Finland Chamber of Commerce on Saturday presented its proposal for amending the employment contracts act in a way that, it believes, would take into consideration the best aspects of general applicability and local bargaining. JUHO ROMAKKANIEMI , the CEO of Finland Chamber of Commerce, says he is saddened by the level of the ongoing public debate on collective bargaining agreements. The general applicability of sector-specific collective bargaining agreements, it proposed, would continue to apply in the majority of circumstances, except when employees have agreed otherwise on a workplace basis, for example. The proposal was shot down immediately by the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK). Jarkko Eloranta, the chairperson at SAK, reminded that the general applicability of bargaining agreements is key for guaranteeing the minimum terms and conditions of employment for employees and viewed that the proposal makes sense neither for employees nor for employers. Finland Chamber of Commerce, he slammed, is opening the door to competition to the bottom when it comes to terms and conditions of employment. The proposed amendment would make it possible to agree on an hourly wage of two euros, for example. What kind of wages and terms and conditions of employment would cleaners, warehouse workers and practical nurses negotiate for themselves if their employer is not part of an employer organisation and refuses to comply with the collective bargaining agreement? asked Eloranta. Romakkaniemi accused Eloranta of intimidation. You could only deviate from the collective bargaining agreement in circumstances where both the employee and employer feel its better. And when unemployment drops, the labour shortage would naturally drive up wages, replied Romakkaniemi. The level of this debate is saddening. When you present a concrete proposal for how to improve our productivity, employment rate and well-being, it is shot down by 1) intimidating, 2) misinterpreting the proposal and 3) questioning the motives, he bemoaned on Twitter on Sunday. Romakkaniemi reminded that all stakeholders have recognised the need to raise the employment rate substantially in order to continue funding welfare services. You know how to say no to the proposed measures, but you cant make any alternative proposals. I hope the debate improves, he said. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi Police said the man was dead and the woman was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered to be life-threatening. Police said they were looking for a man in connection with the shootings but gave no information about any charges. In a statement put out Monday explaining her resignation, Pugh, who has served on the board since 2001, said she had other pressing concerns that require my full attention, energy and efforts. The Sun reported Friday that she had amended her state disclosure forms from her time in the Senate. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there were 63 state legislators serving in military reserve or National Guard units in 2010, the last year data was collected. Twenty-six state lawmakers were deployed between 2005 and 2010. One of them was then-Maryland House Majority Whip Anthony G. Brown. Brown, who went on to become lieutenant governor and now represents Maryland in Congress, was deployed to Iraq in 2004, raising his profile in Annapolis. With his Fender Stratocaster guitar, Mr. Dale said he attempted to mimic the surging ocean sounds and the energy of the big cats he raised for more than three decades. I try to get the feeling of coming off a 10-foot wave combined with the scream of a jaguar and it becomes a roller coaster of sound, he once told the Vancouver Sun. During the meeting, at which individuals were being disciplined, Ordonez-Zometa questioned the Decedents loyalty to the gang and ordered gang members to take him into the basement, according to prosecutors and court charging documents. In the basement, Ordonez-Zometa ordered the other gang members to stab Chicas several times with knives, clean up the crime scene and dispose of his body, according to the charging documents. In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the suit filed by 15 mostly pro-Kurdish demonstrators, nearly all U.S. citizens and residents, may continue to seek damages for injuries they contend they suffered when guards for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attacked their group and ignited a melee. The judges ruling allows financial claims to continue against the Republic of Turkey, Turkish security forces and five civilians on accusations that they committed assault, battery and hate crimes under D.C. law against the protesters. Detectives said that they were certain Day was involved in both crimes and that they believe he was targeting women in the Rockville area for at least five years. But Stephanie Hart, whose Brown Sugar Bakery is on 75th Street in Chatham on the citys South Side, said local businesses are in need of more urgent help. The city has done little to spur a mini-revival in the area after several older businesses closed following the 2008 recession, she said. And several employees and customers have been affected by gun violence tearing across the area. China on Thursday said that it firmly opposed a United States human rights report making unfounded accusations against China, urging the U.S. to stop interfering in China's internal affairs. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang.[Photo:www.fmprc.gov.cn] Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks when commenting on the 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released by the U.S. Department of State which again criticized China's human rights situation. Just as that in the previous years, the China-related content of this year's report is full of ideological bias, disregards the facts, confuses right and wrong, and makes groundless accusations against China, Lu said. "China firmly opposes it and has lodged solemn representations with the U.S. side," said Lu at a routine press briefing. "The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting and promoting human rights," Lu said. "Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, in particular over the past four decades of reform and opening-up, tremendous progress has been made in China's human rights cause." "The Chinese people have the most say and our achievements are obvious to all," Lu said, adding China will continue to forge ahead on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and achieve new development along the way. He urged the U.S. to take off its tainted glasses, abandon the Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, view China's human rights situation in an objective and fair manner, and stop using this issue to interfere in China's internal affairs. Lu said the U.S. should reflect on its own human rights situation and deal with its own issues first. Full text: Human Rights Record of the United States in 2018 Full text: Chronology of Human Rights Violations of the United States in 2018 While nicotine itself is known to increase blood pressure and has been linked to heart disease, its biggest risk, experts say, is its addictive qualities. Thats because the more addicted you are to nicotine, the more often you will likely use the devices, increasing your exposure to other harmful compounds, Navas-Acien says. For example, a study published last year in the journal Pediatrics found that e-cig devices contain some of the same cancer-causing ingredients found in traditional cigarettes. There are so many things about coral reefs that are a problem, and not many of them are easily tackled, whereas the sunscreen is easily tackled, Crane told Stateline. I think we should be grabbing at anything we can in getting the public involved in trying to protect these habitats. A former Pennsylvania pediatrician was sentenced to at least 79 years in prison on Monday for the sexual assault of 31 children, most of them patients, as his now-adult victims blasted not only their abuser but the system that let him get away with it for so long. Trial begins for man charged with killing daughter: A Florida father accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter by dropping her off a bridge is going on trial with his attorneys expected to say he was insane. John Jonchuck's first-degree murder trial will begin Monday in St. Petersburg, Fla., in the 2015 death of his daughter, Phoebe. His attorneys admit their 29-year-old client dropped the girl into Tampa Bay, but say he was insane. Jonchuck had a history of hospitalizations. Hours before the girl's death, his divorce lawyer called a state hotline, saying that he was having a mental breakdown and that she feared for Phoebe's safety. The operator never reported her concerns. If convicted, Jonchuck would receive a life sentence. If acquitted by reason of insanity, he probably would be hospitalized the rest of his life. Well, yes and no. Yes, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi is in the process of installing himself as dictator-for-life in Egypt; Bashar al-Assad reigns over the ruins of Syria; and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia, are more brutally repressive than they have ever been. But in Algeria, popular demonstrations have just forced President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to withdraw his bid for yet another term. And in Sudan, daily protests are persisting despite both concessions and violent repression by the regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir. In Jordan, people marched across the country last month to protest corruption. In Morocco, a big rally for teachers a few weeks ago ended with chants to end the dictatorship. Stehlik is one of a small cohort who will be grandfathered in under the new ban. But whatever rationale retains her for service ought to welcome any qualified transgender person. The new policy, which is based on the recommendations of a panel that then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis commissioned, bars another Stehlik from joining the military. At a time when the military is missing its recruiting goals and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on enlistment bonuses and lowering standards to fill shortfalls, we should think twice about banning service by qualified transgender people for reasons that have nothing to do with ability. A balanced, inclusive approach to the conflict recognizes the shared desire for security and freedom of both peoples. I support a two-state solution, with internationally recognized borders, which allows for both Israelis and Palestinians to have their own sanctuaries and self-determination. This has been official bipartisan U.S. policy across two decades and has been supported by each of the most recent Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as the consensus of the Israeli security establishment. As Jim Mattis, who later was President Trumps defense secretary, said in 2011 , The current situation between those two peoples is unsustainable. The prevailing political anarchy was on public display last week. On Tuesday, Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays proposed agreement with the E.U. for the second time. Then, on Wednesday, it voted down a proposal for the U.K. to leave the E.U. without an agreement, failing to acknowledge that this is precisely what will happen unless they reconcile themselves to the very deal they rejected the day before, as Douglas A. Rediker of the Brookings Institution noted in a blog post. The deadline for deciding is March 29, though that could be extended. There was a time when the baby boomers were impatient youths a movement, they were called demanding a say in government, and both major parties agreed to grant it. And there was a time when educational opportunities, especially those in colleges and universities, were skewed far, far more lopsidedly in favor of men than they are today. In the hours after he announced, several emails and text messages were blasted out to his supporters, urging them to donate. At one point during a first day spent campaigning in Iowa, he stopped at a gas station, broadcasting on Facebook Live that it had cost $28.53 to fill up the Dodge Caravan he was driving and urging people to donate to help fuel his road trip. Going everywhere, writing nobody off, taking no one for granted, could care less . . . what party you belong to, to whom you pray or whether you pray at all, who you love, how many generations youve been here, whether you just got here yesterday, ORourke said. Were going to define ourselves by our aspirations, our ambitions and the ability to bring this country together. Since then, the Supreme Courts jurisprudence on juvenile murderers has changed. It said the death penalty was off-limits for juveniles, and in 2012 said that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole were unconstitutional for those under 18. So long as he knowingly killed a human being even if he did it because he believed the devil told him to, or because a delusion convinced him that his victim was trying to kill him, or because he lacked the ability to control his actions he is guilty, Green said. At the event where he issued the veto on Friday, Trump appeared in the Oval Office flanked by supportive sheriffs and families of Americans killed by immigrants in the country illegally. He has repeatedly warned about caravans of migrants headed toward the United States and has argued that there is a crisis at the border. In a tweet ahead of his veto, he claimed that a border wall will help stop Crime, Human Trafficking, and Drugs entering our Country. I dont like the fact that he was letting them off the hook, Hogan said. The good part of it was what he didnt do. He didnt make a bad deal while he was there just because he was getting some bad publicity in a tough spot. We were concerned he was going to go do something really dumb. And he at least walked away from doing that. The next day, at a heated closed-door caucus meeting, some of those attendees pushed back against leaderships plan to reprimand Omar for the same comments Phillips objected to the night before. Some Jewish participants of the meeting broke with people of their faith who wanted to rebuke Omar by name. They had come to know her, did not believe her comments were intentional and objected to the idea of rebuking a woman who had told them the night before about death threats she had received. I mean whether its Charlottesville or whatever it is, it all seems to point back to he has some sympathy for that position and is not willing to condemn it, Ellison said of Trump. I think thats dangerous, not just to communities of color, Jews, gays, people like that. I think its dangerous to the government. Ellison left Congress in January after representing his Minnesota district in the House for 12 years. The yes vote by Blunt in particular caught many by surprise. The No. 4 Senate Republican was the only member of the chambers GOP leadership to back the resolution. Blunt has explained his vote by arguing that he was acting to protect the institution of Congress from future presidents, rather than voting with or against Trump on border security. There are folks who just dont like the president, and everything that goes wrong theyre going to look for a way to tie that to the president, Mulvaney added. Biden, 76, has repeatedly pushed back possible announcement dates for what would be his third run for the presidency. He has tapped staffers who would be expected to lead a national campaign, leaving many of his political allies convinced hell run. But he has not made those plans official. The Trump administrations stated priority is to settle the conflict and withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The Talibans goal is to obtain a major share of political power and bring a true Islamic system of laws and values to the Muslim country. The Taliban does not recognize the Ghani government as legitimate and insists it will not interact with any Afghans until an agreement on the U.S. military withdrawal is reached. The international body based in The Hague was designed to investigate and prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression when domestic courts fail to do so. However, African countries like Burundi and Gambia have slammed it as biased toward the West. Burundi was the first to leave the court in 2017. Myanmar, which is also not a state party to the ICC, has also decried it amid a probe into its alleged human rights violations against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Bercow appeared to suggest that May might have some wiggle room, but not much. This ruling should not be regarded as my last word on the subject, he said. It is simply meant to indicate the test which the government must meet in order for me to rule that a third meaningful vote can legitimately be held in this parliamentary session. We heard pop-pop-pop sounds, as though there was a silencer, the witness, who was identified only as Niels, told the Algemeen Dagblad news outlet. I felt that he was focusing specifically on someone, because I saw a woman crawling away. Bystanders tried to pull her out, but when they did, the man went after her specially and aimed at the bystanders. And, every step of the way, he has had the support of Europes most important political family. Alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other mainstream European power players, he has been a member in good standing of the center-right bloc that has dominated the continents politics. The group has showered him with money and protection, while he supplies badly needed votes in Brussels. New Zealand gun owners point out that it is exactly the loophole Tipple brought up purchasing larger magazines that enabled the mass shooting. One gun owner who owned several AR-15s but has since given them up said they cost only $1,200 in New Zealand but would cost $25,000 or more in Australia on the black market, because they are effectively banned there. Its replacement program, authorized by the USA Freedom Act, involved the U.S. government obtaining records from phone service providers with a court order. The law enabled the agency to collect records of people up to two hops removed from the target. The metadata recorded who called or texted whom, when and for how long, but not what was said. Erdogan has played blurred clips of the video at campaign rallies in several Turkish cities over the past few days, to fire up his conservative Islamist supporters and attack his political opponents ahead of local elections scheduled for later this month. But his use of the footage drew a rebuke Monday from New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who said the dissemination of the video could endanger his countrys citizens. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan played clips from the video of the mosque attacks and highlighted excerpts of the manifesto as he sought to rally Islamist supporters ahead of local elections. Referring to threats in the manifesto against Muslims in Istanbul, Erdogan also warned that anyone who tried to reclaim the city for Christianity would be sent home in caskets. His use of the Christchurch massacre for domestic political purposes drew a stiff rebuke from New Zealand. Westpac's move to engineer three dividend payments in one financial year will "hopefully" spark similar moves from other big banks, says one leading fund manager, who described the tactic as a way to beat Labor's pledged changes to franking tax policy. Westpac recently announced it would bring forward its interim dividend payment date by nine days to June 24 giving shareholders a one-off third dividend within the current financial year following an interim dividend last July and a full year dividend paid in December. The bank has not linked the payment to Labor policy to end cash refunds on franking credits instead saying it was to speed cash returns to shareholders. On Monday, Mark Freeman, chief executive at the the $7 billion Australian Foundation Investment Company (AFIC) said he believed Westpac had made the change with an eye to Labor's policy. Former bikie boss Amad 'Jay' Malkoun, who was fortunate to survive a recent bomb attack in Greece, is set to reap up to $40 million from a proposed housing estate on his farm in Donnybrook, 35 kilometres north of Melbourne. A business associate of the notorious underworld figure has lodged a planning application for a 194-lot subdivision on the 26-hectare property, which is under consideration by Whittlesea Council. Former Comancheros boss Amad 'Jay' Malkoun fled Australia for Dubai in 2013. Malkoun, who is recovering from serious burns and fractures in an Athens hospital, purchased the farm from a relative in 2009 for just $950,000. The value of the land increased exponentially in 2017 when then Planning Minister Richard Wynne earmarked Donnybrook as a key growth area that would be rezoned for residential development. Local property experts say the site is presently worth about $20 million, but could be worth up to $60 million once the development is complete. Subdivision and construction costs would cost about $20 million. Disturbing numbers of discarded syringes are washing into river beds as the Yarra reaches the inner city, posing fears for safety around the waterway. The Yarra Riverkeeper Association, which works to protect the health of Melbournes most prominent waterway, estimates there are tens of thousands of needles embedded in the banks and lying deep in the sediment. Yarra Riverkeeper Andrew Kelly picks up one of the estimated tens of thousands of syringes that are lying in the Yarra and its river beds. Credit:Chris Hopkins In one clean-up blitz this month the association cleared 4.5 tonnes of rubbish from the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers, including about 300 syringes, in a stark illustration of the damage being done to the waterways. About 95 per cent of the syringes came from the Yarra. During another blitz in April there were 172 needles among five tonnes of waste sucked up from the Yarra using a specially designed vacuum system to clean up the reed beds. More than one million people have signed a petition to remove Queensland Senator Fraser Anning from Parliament after his remarks following the Christchurch mosque massacre. Senator Anning said that while he was opposed to violence of any form, what it highlights is the growing fear within our community, both in Australia and New Zealand, of the increasing Muslim presence. The response on social media was fast and furious but a Sydney doctor Kate Ahmad and a Melbourne author Harris Sultan decided to do more than tweet. Dr Kate Ahmad: "Its to make clear that this kind of hate speech wont be accepted." Separately and an hour apart, they started petitions requesting Senator Anning be removed from parliament. For both, it was their first petition. Now merged, the petition is by far the largest in Australian online petition history and even individually Dr Ahmads had eclipsed the Sydney Opera House horse racing advertising petition in 2018. New York: Social media companies have been working overtime to remove video of the New Zealand mosque attacks, which were livestreamed by the assailant. But the footage has emerged in a different place in recent days: the election rallies of Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Credit:AP In a televised rally in Antalya, in southern Turkey, on Sunday and twice the day before Erdogan used an edited version of the video to galvanise support among his Islamist followers before local elections at the end of the month and criticise the Turkish opposition as weak. The attacker, identified as Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, posted a lengthy manifesto before the attacks that said, among other things, that Muslims should be driven out of the part of Turkey that lies west of the Bosporus. The president played fragments of the video with blurred images of the attack at several election rallies and paired them with statements by a Turkish opposition leader to equate his opponent with Fraser Anning, the far-right Australian senator who blamed Muslim immigration for the attacks. Days after the slaying of 50 worshippers in two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques was live-streamed on social media, the platforms are now being peppered with untrue claims that the attacks were "false-flag" events. A "false flag" is an act, often a terrorist act, which is committed by one group with the intention of discrediting another group, which is blamed for it. Heavily armed New Zealand Police patrol the Memorial Park Cemetery as 50 graves are being dug for the victims of Friday's attacks. Credit:Jason South Conspiracy-related social media accounts showed a spike in tweets pushing the "false flag" and "Qanon" hashtags, as an explanation of the attack, according to the respected data researcher account Conspirator Norteno. Sorting 5329 tweets related to the event, the US-based researcher found that a high proportion of accounts pushed "false-flag" hashtags along with Qanon (a long standing conspiracy theory), John Podesta (one of the target of the DNC hackers in 2016), Hillary Clinton, the former US presidential candidate, among others. While nearly one-third of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas were female, no women were ever given posts in the secretariat, the political and military decision-making body of the demobilized rebel group, journalist Fernando Millan Cruz said in an interview with EFE. Millan, author of Con ojos de mujer. Relatos en medio de la guerra (Ediciones B), said he blamed widespread machismo in the FARC for the failure of women to be promoted to top leadership posts. In his book, Millan looks at the FARCs history via the stories of nine former female guerrillas who came from both urban and rural areas, and held a variety of posts within what was once Colombias largest leftist insurgency. Because of machismo, none of them joined the secretariat, Millan told EFE, noting that former rebels Olga Marin and Victoria Sandino stood out for pushing to incorporate the issue of gender in the negotiations that eventually led to a peace agreement between the FARC and Colombias government. Among the former rebels profiled are Sandra Ramirez, a FARC party senator and former lover of late FARC founder Manuel Marulanda, and Carolina Garcia, who left Brussels to join the rebel group. The common thread in the stories of the nine women profiled in the book is their experiences during the conflict and lives in the groups clandestine camps, Millan said, denying that he was providing an idealized portrayal or whitewash of the FARC, which has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of people and was involved in kidnappings, drug trafficking and other criminal activities. The Colombian journalist said the FARC leadership was machista and kept women in what they considered their place. In the beginning, the women were in the organization, basically, to wash clothes and care for their husbands (and) boyfriends, and over time they adjusted to other conditions as women from the cities joined up, with political training, who demanded a change in the situation, (saying) they didnt join the guerrillas to wash somebody elses clothes, the journalist said. The books roots are in the 10th FARC Conference, which was held in September 2016 on the Yari plains of southern Colombia, a gathering at which the guerrilla group discussed how it would transition to a legal status and engage in political activities. During the conference, Millan met several of the female guerrillas whose stories are told in the book. In Colombia, the story has been told from just one side and when they have tried to tell the other side, the men have told it. And the women are nowhere to be found on either side, Millan said. The book examines the role of machismo in the FARC and the relationship between male and female guerrillas, but the reported cases of sexual abuse in the rebel groups ranks are only mentioned in passing. Yes, I asked them, including Olga Marin, about sexual violence, I asked all of them. Marin told me it never happened, while the others asked me, Do you think that I, armed with a rifle, a pistol or a knife, would let myself be raped? Millan said. Some of the former female guerrillas who say they were victims of sexual violence joined the Corporacion Rosa Blanca. This is an issue the whole world is familiar with. This is an issue that has received much coverage in the media and I tried to tell other stories, Millan said. While the final peace agreement between the government and FARC included the issue of gender, many former female guerrillas said they were reluctant to embrace feminism. Im not a supporter of feminism that is combative and does so with a focus on reaching the conclusion that men are the problem in society and not the class struggle, Paula Saenz, a former guerrilla, said. By Santiago Jose Sanchez The National Journalists Association (CNP) of Venezuela on Sunday denounced the attacks on freedom of expression it said have been mounted by the Nicolas Maduro government, adding that the media has become a political target simply because they are informing the public of what is going on in that country in crisis. The group posted a message on Twitter to that effect, adding that Maduros regime represses, jails, disappears for hours, tortures and harms the rights of press workers who are also threatened and exposed at public events or on state-run VTV television programs. We energetically reject these kinds of acts, which violate human rights, said the CNP, holding Maduro and the security forces responsible for the physical integrity of all press workers in Venezuela. Also on Sunday, the National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) denounced on Twitter attacks on communicators on regional news Web sites of La Prensa de Lara and El Informador in the western state of Lara as they were covering the visit of a United Nations human rights commission to the area. The SNTP said that journalists Enmanuel De Sousa and Reinaldo Gomez, with El Informador, were threatened and pursued by collectives (pro-government groups) while Agatha Reyes, with La Prensa de Lara, was attacked by government officials. The group also said that the Bolivarian National Guard is preventing journalists from covering the UN commissions activities in Lara state. Complaints of attacks on press workers in Venezuela have increased during 2019, especially after the political crisis in the country became more acute with the self-proclamation of opposition Parliament chief Juan Guaido as the countrys interim president. The Venezuelan Parliaments Media Committee says that so far this year, almost 200 attacks on the press have been registered. Meanwhile, German reporter Billy Six, who was conditionally released by Venezuelan authorities last Friday after spending four months under arrest, left Venezuela and is en route to Germany, the NGO Espacio Publico - which defends free speech - reported Sunday. The 32-year-old Six is in the air right now, flying from Caracas to Germany, said Espacio Publico chief Carlos Correa head of the Espacio Publico, with the group publishing on Twitter a photo of the reporter in a plane giving the V for Victory sign. Six had been arrested in Falcon state on Nov. 17 for allegedly taking an unauthorized photograph of Nicolas Maduro and for having suspicious materials on his mobile phone. The conditions of his release include the fact that he must appear before a Venezuelan court every two weeks and is prohibited from speaking with the media about his case. The opposition Encuentro Ciudadano group, headed by lawmaker Delsa Solorzano, said on Twitter that it was accompanying Six back to Germany to ensure his (physical) integrity. Six has covered conflicts and crises in at least 70 countries, including Libya, Ukraine and Syria, and in the latter he was held by state security forces from December 2012 through March 2013. BRUSSELSInternational animal conservation and protection organisations the Born Free Foundation, Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Pro Wildlife, Animal Defenders International, and the National Resource Defense Council are calling on European Union (EU) Member States to support a proposal by African nations to protect the imperiled giraffe from international trade that has contributed to the species decline by 40 percent in the past 30 years. The Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Senegal want giraffes listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but they need the support of the EUs voting bloc, without which the proposal is likely to fail. The six nations have the backing of fellow members of the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), a consortium of 32 African countries, which released a declaration stating its support for the proposal last month, in recognition of the steep decline in giraffe populations. Scientists have labeled the plight of giraffes a silent extinction due to the lack of attention and support the species is receiving, so the animal groups are urging the European Union to stand in solidarity with the 32 African countries. Winning the support of the EU Member States is absolutely critical for the giraffe proposal to succeed, but as yet a number of MSs look minded to oppose. EU representatives are due to meet and agree their position on 28th March, so the animal groups are increasing their call for the EU to stand in solidarity with the 32 African nations that want to see the giraffe proposal pushed through. Daniela Freyer from Pro Wildlife, said: We call on the EU to join the majority of African countries in their efforts to better protect giraffes. The species is endangered, populations have plummeted to less than 100,000 animals and we must ensure that over-exploitation for international trade is not fueling declines. While giraffe populations continue to wane, the species has become common in the wildlife trade. A Humane Society International report shows that the United States imported nearly 40,000 giraffe specimens between 2006 and 2015, such as hunting trophies, decoration items, and knife handles, in addition to large shipments of live animals. The EU is also a key consumer of giraffe products; online research detailed in the proposal records over 300 giraffe products for sale by sellers based in seven European Union countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The proposal, to be voted on at the 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES in May, seeks to provide giraffes with protections to bring under control international trade in the currently unprotected species. An Appendix II listing would require exporting countries to prove that giraffe specimens were legally obtained and that the export is not detrimental to the survival of the species. Additionally, the listing would provide researchers and governments with important data to track the trade in giraffes throughout the world. Adam Peyman wildlife programs and operations manager for Humane Society International, said: The giraffe is going quietly extinct as they are slaughtered for trophies and their body parts used for trinkets. As there are currently no regulations on trade in giraffes, a CITES listing would provide critical measures to ensure giraffes are not pushed to the brink of extinction, and the EUs vote holds the key to its success. The six organisations and the 30 African countries also strongly encourage CITES Parties, the CITES Secretariat, inter-governmental organisations and non-governmental organisations to support the proposal. Jan Creamer, President of Animal Defenders International, said: We must act now to prevent the further decline of this iconic species. African nations need our help to protect threatened giraffe populations, and we urge the EU to step up and support this important measure, before its too late. Notes to Editors: The US, the only country for which importing data is available, imported a total of 39,516 giraffe specimens between 2006 and 2015, some of these originating in countries where giraffe populations are Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable. The 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES will take place in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 23 May to 3 June. Members of the Africa Elephant Coalition, which announced support for the giraffe proposal, include Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. Watch a short awareness video on the giraffes silent extinction here. Media contacts: Humane Society International (UK): Wendy Higgins, whiggins@hsi.org +44 (0) 7989 972 423 Hinds Sets Community Outreach Events for March PITTSFIELD, Mass. The staff of state Sen. Adam G. Hinds, D-Pittsfield, will host two community outreach events during March. The senator's staff will be available to meet with constituents in the communities of Huntington and North Adams on Wednesday, March 18, for this month's staff office hours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. North Adams City Hall, 10 Main St. Stanton Hall, 24 Russell Road, Huntington Appointments are not necessary but can be booked in advance by calling the Pittsfield office at 413-344-4561 or the Williamsburg office at 413-768-2373. These office hours provide an opportunity for those seeking assistance with state agencies or programs to speak with Hinds' constituency services staff in person. All residents of the senator's Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin & Hampden Senate District are invited to participate in these sessions if they have an idea, question or comment about state government they wish to share, or if they require assistance from the senator's constituent services team. Everyone is welcome. Appointments are not necessary but can be booked in advance by calling the Pittsfield office at (413) 344-4561 or the Williamsburg office at (413) 768-2373. These office hours provide an opportunity for constituents seeking assistance with state agencies or programs to speak with the senator's staff in person. Since early 2017, Hinds' district team, A.J. Enchill and Jon Gould, have held monthly roving office hours outside of their primary work locations in an effort to increase office accessibility for every constituent no matter where they reside. Enchill is based in the senator's Pittsfield office and Gould splits his time between Pittsfield and Williamsburg. Last year, the senator's district staff traveled to 19 towns and met with hundreds of local officials and residents in Adams, Alford, Blandford, Charlemont, Chester, Cummington, Heath, Lanesborough, Lee, Lenox, Middlefield, Monroe, New Marlborough, Peru, Plainfield, Rowe, Washington and Windsor, Westhampton, West Stockbridge while Senator Hinds participated in public forums throughout the Senate District. GREENWICH The search continues for a volunteer to serve on the towns Condemnation Commission and a deadline is looming for next month. The commission considers cases when the town needs to condemn land for public use such as constructing a highway, installing town sewers or even adding a public parking lot. In these cases, the commission assesses the damages and benefits so that the landowners can receive compensation. The all-volunteer commission doesnt meet regularly; it convenes only when needed. The requirements to serve on the nonpartisan commission are for the volunteer to be both a resident of the town and registered to vote in Greenwich. According to Representative Town Meeting member Jude Collins, vice chair of the bodys Appointments Committee, four members of the five-member commission are in place. But they need that fifth member. A call has gone out for candidates, especially those who have a background in engineering and/or construction. Previously, the RTM said it wanted members with backgrounds in real estate evaluation, the law, town planning and public representation. Candidates should also be familiar with the towns code of ethics and be able to comply with the states Freedom of Information Act. This is the second time since November that the RTM has gone looking for candidates. We had two candidates for that fifth spot, but neither of them could get the majority support of the appointments committee, Collins said. So were opening it up for the public again. RTM member John Eddy, chair of the RTMs Appointments Committee, said in November that the board want residents of diverse backgrounds to cover all the relevant areas of expertise needed on the commission. The four people currently on the commission have legal and real estate backgrounds, including Collins, who is a member and a real estate appraiser. With one Democrat already on the commission, the state requirements for minority representation for political parties has already been satisfied. Candidates can be unaffiliated, Republican, Democrat or a member of another party. The candidate will be assessed on their ability to work and communicate with the public, attend to issues of both detail and large scope and serve in the public interest. The deadline to apply is noon April 17. Typically a term is four years, but the terms will be staggered so the members dont come up for renomination at the same time. To apply, download and fill out the form at http://rtm.greenwich.org/node/2509 . Then, email the form with a resume to Stuart Reider, who is vice chair of the appointments committee, at sereider@gmail.com. Call him at 203-550-7122 for more information. The appointments committee will interview eligible candidates May 7 during a public meeting, starting at 8 p.m. at Town Hall. The nominees will be considered by the committee, and those who receive a majority vote will be formally nominated. Those candidates will then have interviews with the RTMs Land Use and Public Works Committees before their nominations are considered at a future full meeting of the RTM. Last year, a special RTM committee, led by Eddy, completed work to update the town charters language regarding the Condemnation Commissions powers and responsibilities. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com WESTPORT Some Jewish holidays are steeped in solemn ceremony, but this one despite its serious theme is celebrated with a lot of silliness. The Congregation for Humanist Judaism celebrated Purim on Sunday morning with a party at Bedford Middle School that featured a not-so-traditional play retelling the tale of the defeat of the evil Haman, part of the Old Testaments Book of Esther. Lanesborough Elementary School Principal Martha Wiley addresses the Mount Greylock School Committee. Mount Greylock School Committee Amends Budget to Preserve Music Instruction Mount Greylock School Committee members Joe Bergeron and Regina DiLego participate in Thursday's meeting. WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The Mount Greylock School Committee on Thursday decided to add to the fiscal 2020 budget in order to restore hours slated to be trimmed from the Lanesborough Elementary School music program. After hearing from several teachers at the elementary and high school level who argued against the cut, the six members of the seven-person panel in attendance voted unanimously to restore about $6,000 to the $22.4 million gross operating budget for the three-school, PreK-12 district. "I see 100 students by 9 a.m. on Mondays, but that's only because they have had just enough instruction in playing their instrument to keep them challenged and rewarded," middle-high school performing arts teacher Lyndon Moors told the committee. Without the proper time for instruction at the elementary school level, LES pupils would not receive those challenges and fall behind their peers in Williamstown, the School Committee was told repeatedly. The $6,000 restoration -- .026 percent of the total spending plan -- and the proper number of school choice slots to open at the district's elementary schools consumed most of a nearly four-hour meeting. On the school choice issue, the committee followed the recommendation of the administration, opening up five new choice slots at Williamstown Elementary School -- three in kindergarten and two in the first grade -- and none at Lanesborough Elementary School. On the budget, the committee made one modification to the spending plan worked out by the committee and administration over the last couple of months, amending the line item for specialists at LES by about $6,000 to move a music teacher position back to .8 full-time equivalent (FTE) from the .6 FTE reflected in the draft budget. By a 6-0 vote, the School Committee approved the budget and sent it to town meeting votes in Williamstown in May and Lanesborough in June. Williamstown's town Finance Committee had reviewed the school budget earlier in the week; Lanesborough's Fin Comm is set to hear a budget presentation from the district on April 1. The total assessment to Williamstown is slated to go up by $304,688 to $12,113,764, an increase of about 2.5 percent, even though the gross operating budget is down slightly in from FY19, largely because of retirements at the PreK-6 school. Per the regional agreement, each town is responsible for the operating cost of its own elementary school; costs at the middle-high school are shared. The total assessment (including operating and capital costs) for Lanesborough will go up by about $64,000 (after the money added Thursday night). That represents a 1.1 percent increase from last year's $5,753,310 assessment, up to about $5,817,500. Although Lanesborough's assessment is up by less than Williamstown's, the operating expenses at the smaller town's elementary school are going up -- from $3.7 million a year ago to just more than $4 million this year. The cost to local taxpayers is mitigated by changes in demographics that affect both in the split at the middle-high school level and the commonwealth's "foundation budget" and ultimately state aid. None of that was the focus on Thursday, when pleas based on the importance of arts education and equitable staffing at the district's two elementary schools set the tone. Lanesborough Elementary music teacher Jacqueline Widun told the committee she could not be more proud of the pupils she teaches but was worried about the impact of fewer hours of instruction. "I wonder how Williamstown is doing," Widun said. "Will my students feel intimidated next year when they go to Mount Greylock? Will they quit? "My students deserve a chance to succeed just like their northern neighbors." Marty Walter, the president of the district's teachers union and a teacher at Mount Greylock, echoed that theme. "Part of the regionalization process promised the schools would be equalized," Walter told the committee. "It sounds to me like LES is being diminished compared to Williamstown." One speaker argued against adding any more money to the budget. Lanesborough resident Ray Jones, a former member of the town's Finance Committee, told the committee that he appreciates the value of music instruction but that his family paid for private lessons when his child wanted to learn an instrument. Jones repeated a theme that he has brought up in public meetings for years: that Berkshire County's "dire economic straits" prohibit towns from providing everything that residents may want at their public schools. "We have people in Lanesborough who can't afford their medicine on a daily basis, can't afford their food," Jones said. "We have three new schools. We're getting the most expensive schools there are. This is a beautiful school. "I'm sorry if the administration has to make decisions [about cuts]. That is their job. The teachers are the employees. If the employees don't want to do what the bosses tell them, may I suggest that Pittsfield has openings. Holyoke has openings." School Committee Chairman Joe Bergeron interrupted Jones at that point, but the point was made, eliciting grumbles from most of the crowd packed into the Mount Greylock Regional School meeting room. After the public comment period, when it was time for the committee to consider the budget, members asked Superintendent Kimberley Grady and LES Principal Martha Wiley to explain how the reduction in the music position from .8 FTE to .6 FTE would impact instruction. Both said lower enrollment numbers and few class sections at the school meant instruction levels could be maintained with fewer hours devoted to the position. Members of the audience scoffed at that notion. "The question is whether the people of Lanesborough are willing to have a slightly higher assessment to restore, say, music to 0.8," committee member Steven Miller said. "That's the town's decision," Grady replied. "I'm asked as superintendent to bring a fiscally responsible budget to the two towns." Committee member Dan Caplinger suggested that if there was an ability to cut back on the number of hours devoted to classes because of the drop in enrollment, the LES music teacher could spend more time on individual instruction if the position was kept at 0.8 FTE. Miller ended up moving that the position be restored to the level it was funded in FY19, a motion that was seconded by Christina Conry. "If Lanesborough voters reject that budget, what would your proposal be to get a budget passed at their town meeting?" Caplinger asked. "I'd propose to go back with the [draft] budget we have in hand," Miller answered. "This is an opportunity for the people who are here tonight to go to town meeting and make their case." Caplinger argued that he would rather see the money restored in the form of an amendment on the floor of Lanesborough's town meeting, a move that would keep the possibility of passing the original draft budget -- unamended -- and keeping the district's budget from having to face revotes at special town meetings in both member towns. Bergeron argued that it was more practical for the committee to pass the budget it wanted to see rather than rely on floor amendments down the road. "Hearing what I have tonight, I'm hopeful that if we add the $6,000, many more people will show up [at town meeting] to support the budget than would otherwise," Bergeron said. "That's what I'd be willing to gamble on if I voted for this today." In the end, Caplinger joined in the vote to take the path proposed by Miller. The music position was not the only point of contention with regard to the Lanesborough Elementary budget, however. Several people told the committee they felt the school's budget, in general, was developed without adequate input from the School Council, which is supposed to advise and inform the administration on school budget priorities. "The School Council did not recommend a budget proposal," said LES teacher Jennifer Szymanski, a union vice president. "They did not discuss programs in order to make decisions about this proposed budget. Administration presented the proposed budget to the group. In fact, one member learned that her position was potentially being eliminated at that meeting." Later, Caplinger asked the administrators to explain the budget process. "It first starts with school councils," Grady said. "Our school council meetings have been monthly, except when we had to cancel one because of snow," Wiley said. "We looked at data for all our classrooms. We talked strategically about how we could get [our priorities] done based on the budget, based on our enrollment." "Did the School Council unanimously support this proposed budget?" Miller asked Wiley. "Yes," the principal replied, a response that again drew grumbles and muttered "Nopes," from members of the audience. Wiley and WES Principal Joelle Brookner both addressed the School Committee at length on the subject of school choice. Brookner told the committee she was recommending three slots in the incoming kindergarten class even though she knew of five families with children in WES' upper grades who have younger siblings enter kindergarten next year. Brookner explained that families with siblings are given priority in school choice admission because of the difficulty of having children attending multiple schools. If all five apply for the three slots ultimately opened, the school will conduct a lottery to assign those spaces. If any spots still remained, they would be opened to a lottery for all applicants. Brookner said she felt compelled to advocate on behalf of all five of the families in question, but the official recommendation of three kindergarten spots was a concession to the annual uncertainty around incoming kindergarten registrations from the resident population. Historically, WES has seen a large influx of registrations in the summer despite the administration's best efforts to reach out to families to get children registered in the winter prior to their kindergarten year. Lanesborough Elementary School music teacher Jacqueline Widun makes her case to the committee. The most divided vote of the night came on an amendment by Caplinger to up the number of choice slots in WES' 2019-20 kindergarten class to five. The amendment failed on a 3-3 vote with Caplinger, Conry and Alison Carter voting in favor and Bergeron, Miller and Regina DiLego voting against. All six voted in favor of the final motion to set the school choice slots at three in kindergarten and two in first grade for the upcoming fall. "I'll vote for this because three is better than none, but it doesn't change how I feel about five," Caplinger said. Miller asked Grady to find out from officials at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education about whether the committee could reopen the choice question at a later date and add more spots as the school learns more about the size of the resident population in next year's kindergarten. At Lanesborough Elementary, the question of a kindergarten-age child with a sibling at the school also was before the committee. Wiley said that while her "heart goes out to that family, class size is really important." And the fear was that, again, adding a school choice slot in the kindergarten class could put the school in the position of having either a non-optimal class size or, worse, having to pay for an additional kindergarten room to alleviate overcrowding. DiLego, long a member of the Lanesborough Elementary School Committee before her election to the Mount Greylock School Committee in November, told her colleagues that LES had seen as many as seven or eight new kindergarten enrollees over the summer. And her fear was that the addition of choice slots could make for an unusually large kindergarten class size. "We have had classes of 24, but it was a budgetary thing with a big fight," DiLego said. "Is 24 ideal? No. Smaller is better. "As a taxpaying resident, 16 is it. So to take a choice student and make [the class size] higher takes away from a resident student whose family is paying taxes." DiLego voted in a 4-2 majority to accept the administration's proposal of no new choice slots at LES or Mount Greylock. Caplinger and Conry voted in the minority. Committee member Al Terranova did not attend Thursday's meeting. Mount Greylock Regional School Budget FY2020 by iBerkshires.com on Scribd Canadas securities regulators are implementing changes to the framework governing syndicated mortgages and have proposed further changes to improve investor protection. The Canadian Securities Administrators has published a second notice and invited comments on the further proposed changes, which build on those previously announced in March 2018. "We are moving forward with changes outlined in our initial consultation that will substantially harmonize a regulatory framework for syndicated mortgages and increase investor protections," said Louis Morisset, CSA Chair and President and CEO of the Autorite des marches financiers. "In light of the feedback received, we have also adjusted specific aspects of our proposals and are now seeking comment on these changes." Those specific aspects include implementing all changes on December 31, 2019 rather than the staggered implementation that had been proposed. Given the rapid change of the real estate market in some jurisdictions, the CSA is also proposing a revision that includes a requirement that a property appraisal take place within six months before an appraisal is delivered to a purchaser. Staff are also proposing additional guidance regarding the identity of the issuer of a syndicated mortgage. Regional variations For qualified syndicated mortgages, provincial regulators in Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, are proposing dealer registration and prospectus exemptions. Alberta and Quebec are proposing a prospectus exemption similar to that already available in British Columbia. Qualified syndicated mortgages are subject to restrictions relating to property type, loan-to-value ratio and other characteristics similar to those of a conventional mortgage, and as such, do not present significant investor protection concerns. These exemptions are being proposed on a local basis, primarily due to differences in existing provincial legislation. Further details can be found on provincial regulators websites. UFCW Local 1459 represents about 2,000 workers in the Berkshires and Western Massachusetts. Biz Briefs: Stop & Shop Workers Still Without Contract UFCW planning Chicopee rally Area UFCW locals are hosting a rally at the Stop & Shop in Chicopee on Wednesday, March 20, as the grocery and union representatives have made little headway in contract negotiations. UFCW Local 1459, representing about 2,000 workers in the Berkshires and Western Massachusetts, voted a week ago to authorize a strike if the contract talks continue to bog down. Local 1459's vote is in accord with four other UFCW locals that together represent some 30,000 workers in the grocery chain's New England stores. Local 1459 President Tyrone Housey said in a video message on Friday that the grocer made some economic package adjustments over two days of talks last week but that "It's still not satisfactory to us." The union is objecting mainly to pensions and benefit changes. No negotiations are scheduled this week. Scholarships available The Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce is offering scholarships for higher education, additional career training, or job certification ranging from $500 to $1,000. "We are honored to announce this scholarship, which reflects the chamber's commitment to the individuals that make our businesses and nonprofits so great," said Maria Rundle, SBCC board member and chair of the Scholarship Committee. "We want to give our members a chance to appreciate some of the people they work with and who volunteer in our nonprofits by giving them a step up in their education or job training goals." Nominees will be asked to submit a short application and awards will be publicly announced at SBCC's Business After Hours meeting on June 13 at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. The nominee must be over 18 or in their senior year of high school, reside in one of the towns that the chamber serves, and must have a connection to one of the chamber member businesses or organizations. To make a nomination: 413-528-4284 or betsy@southernberkshirechamber.com Positive business outlook Local optimism regarding a potential recession did not bleed into another survey question regarding the ability to obtain financing. Berkshire business owners expressed their concerns about being unable to access "financing on reasonable terms." This question, which over the last six BCIs has been one of the most positive components, dropped 8 points. This is possibly because interest rates have risen since the last survey (July 2018). Not surprisingly, hiring also came up. The number of respondents with modest-to-substantial hiring plans jumped from 27 percent to 51 percent as many businesses altered their answers from the last survey from "no change" in their employment levels to an intention of "modest hiring" in the coming months. To address this challenge, Berkshire Money Management in partnership with the Associated Industries of Massachusetts is hosting "Finders Keepers: Hiring and Retaining Skilled Employees," a free panel discussion, on Thursday, April 11, at 3:30 p.m., at the Model Farm (BMM offices) at 161 Main Street in Dalton. For more information and/or to register, visit Berkshire County business owners have weighed in after the New Years hangover. Overall, confidence is on the up and up and continues to remain positive. The most recent Berkshire BCI, which is distributed and analyzed by Berkshire Money Management, is 60.3, up slightly from the last surveys 58.6, signaling continued optimism among Berkshire County businesses and organization leaders. However, 37 percent of respondents say that they are expecting a recession by 2020, while nationally, the impending recession seems more imminent. To view the full results of the latest Berkshire Business Confidence Index, click here Local optimism regarding a potential recession did not bleed into another survey question regarding the ability to obtain financing. Berkshire business owners expressed their concerns about being unable to access "financing on reasonable terms." This question, which over the last six BCIs has been one of the most positive components, dropped 8 points. This is possibly because interest rates have risen since the last survey (July 2018).Not surprisingly, hiring also came up. The number of respondents with modest-to-substantial hiring plans jumped from 27 percent to 51 percent as many businesses altered their answers from the last survey from "no change" in their employment levels to an intention of "modest hiring" in the coming months. To address this challenge, Berkshire Money Management in partnership with the Associated Industries of Massachusetts is hosting "Finders Keepers: Hiring and Retaining Skilled Employees," a free panel discussion, on Thursday, April 11, at 3:30 p.m., at the Model Farm (BMM offices) at 161 Main Street in Dalton. For more information and/or to register, visit aimnet.org and click "Upcoming Events." Transportation conference in Worcester The Massachusetts Department of Transportation will hold its eighth annual Transportation Innovation Conference with presentations and exhibits on a wide-range of topics including connected and autonomous vehicles, environmental aspects of transportation, mobility options, construction materials, pavements, safety, technology, asset management, wayfinding and the Baker-Polito Administrations Complete Streets Funding Program. Williamson, WV (25661) Today Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Low 58F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Low 58F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. North Adams Students Getting Two Weeks at Christmas NORTH ADAMS, Mass. Students will get a full two weeks off for Christmas at the end of the year but they'll have to make the extra two days off up elsewhere. The School Committee earlier this month approved a 2019-20 calendar that schedules a holiday vacation that runs from Dec. 23, 2019, to Jan. 3, 2020. The extra days are a result of how the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays fall in the middle of the week. "We had two versions of the calendar, as is the practice in North Adams, presented to the North Adams Teachers Association, and we had a vote and this calendar was overwhelmingly approved," said Superintendent Barbara Malkas at the meeting on March 5. She added the time off is similar to what other school districts are doing. Two additional days have been added because the second week would have meant students coming back for Thursday and Friday after the New Year. Attendance tends to be very low on end-of-the-week days following a holiday. "In order to make that work, Good Friday will be a work day and we're only adding one additional day at the end fo the year," she said. "This only rolls around every five or six years, so this year and next year are the years where this can be an option for two full weeks off." There are union contracts that have Good Friday (April 19), as a holiday and Malkas said officials have reached out to those unions. One has language that would make it a floating holiday and other two are bargaining units that have agreed to consider it during negotiations this spring. "Everyone will be OK, no one's losing any holiday pay by adopting this calendar," she said. The committee also reviewed where the superintendent is on her 2019 performance goals. Malkas said this is a midpoint review and that she would be covering this with faculty as well. She said the district data team has been meeting regularly though the have been some difficulties in scheduling because of school closures and partial closures for weather. There have been opportunities through grants related to the district's turnaround plan for announced and unannounced classroom observations. Malkas said she recently did a few unannounced observations and would be debriefing principals on those. "I feel that the district leader team has done an outstanding job working collaboratively to ensure that our in-district professional development opportunities are aligned to our goals and specifically to our outcomes for our students," she said. "We've had the analysis of the new accountability system data and continue to work on that ... we just received our improvement targets so thinking about how those improvement targets impact our accountability." The school district has been in "turnaround" because of flat or low Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System proficiency scores, absenteeism and low graduation rates. The administration's action plan includes working with data assessments to target students who are having difficulty advancing and working collaboratively to institute shared goals and strategies. Administrators hope this will create a more consistent and comprehensive support system across schools and grades. Malkas said administrators received the first year of data and that the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education wanted them to have the first look to determine trends and patterns and "then use it to inform our district and school improvement strategy." "I think we could provide you with a report that talks to the data as opposed to giving you the actual data," she told the committee, because the data is not yet publicly released. The performance practice goal is looking at family support, communication and engagement. Malkas said the district continues to have different events and looks at its partnering opportunities, such as the Safe Routes to Schools grant with Mass in Motion, and ensuring the school system's website is informative and user friendly. The Welcome and Resource Center works on messaging such as parent newsletters and methods for direct parent contact like ClassDojo.com Central Office is also in the process of moving into the second-floor at City Hall that Malkas said will allow the school system to "position some key staff members" in an office there for centralized registration. Mayor Thomas Bernard, chairman of the School Committee, asked if there is engagement back from parents. She said she was hearing more back from teachers using ClassDoJo at the elementary level. The district improvement goal is to create a shared aspiration and commitment to high expectations for all students and the main method is to participate in improvement strategies. The next step is to roll out a strategic plan and develop professional performance goals for next year. "We've done the bulk of the work, we've revised our strategic objectives, developed our new initiatives ... We're at the place where we really need to prioritize and develop our targets for success," Malkas said. The system has also completed its self-assessment for the state and is awaiting a draft report. "I want to make sure we don't lose track of the human factor," said committee member Heather Boulger. "That all of this data work doesn't define our students and doesn't define our educators. That we have well-rounded youth in our school system, we have quality educators in our school system, and we have strong community, civic and social engagement activities. "It's all in here but sometimes we just get caught up in the data." North Adams School Calendar... by on Scribd NEW YORK - Lyft officially kicked off the road show for its initial public offering, saying Monday it plans to put more than 30 million shares up for sale with an anticipated price of between $62 and $68 per share. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - This Jan. 31, 2018 file photo shows a Lyft logo on a Lyft driver's car in Pittsburgh. Lyft officially kicked off the road show for its initial public offering Monday, March 18, 2019, with 30 million shares expected to cost between $62 and $68 per share. That would raise more than $2 billion for the San Francisco ride-hailing company, which could be valued in between $20 billion and $25 billion eventually. Lyft announced earlier this month that it intended to go public and has been in a race with Uber to be first to offer its stock to the public. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File) NEW YORK - Lyft officially kicked off the road show for its initial public offering, saying Monday it plans to put more than 30 million shares up for sale with an anticipated price of between $62 and $68 per share. That would raise more than $2 billion for the San Francisco ride-hailing company, pegging its market value at $20 billion to $25 billion, even though it hasn't been able to turn a profit yet. It's the first time that Lyft has revealed how much money it hopes to raise in the IPO, and how much it believes it's worth. Those financial targets could still change as Lyft's investment bankers gauge demand for the company's stock leading up to the IPO pricing, which is expected to happen next week. Lyft and Uber have raced to be first with an IPO, and Lyft's rival is expected to offer shares in the coming weeks. Uber is hoping its larger ride-hailing service will justify a market value as high as $120 billion after its IPO is completed later this spring, according to the Wall Street Journal. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Lyft released financial details about the company for the first time this month, reporting $2.2 billion in revenue last year, more than double its $1.1 billion in revenue in 2017, but also $911 million in losses. Lyft has lost nearly $3 billion since 2012, but has brought in more than $5 billion in venture capital. The company's executives warned that the company could struggle to turn a profit, despite a rapidly growing market share. The company's share of the U.S. ride-hailing market was 39 per cent in December 2018, up from 22 per cent in December 2016, according to its filing. The $2.2 billion in revenue for 2018 was about double what it brought in the previous year. Bookings, which represent Lyft's fares after subtracting taxes, tolls and tips, have been rising dramatically a trend that the company intends to highlight to potential investors. Lyft's bookings surpassed $8 billion last year, 76 per cent more than in 2017 and more than four times the number from 2016. Lyft's recent market-share gains came as Uber was dogged by reports that drivers accosted passengers and that the company tolerated rampant sexual harassment internally. Those problems ultimately led its co-founder Travis Kalanick to resign. Uber has been working to repair its image under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Lyft said it would offer 30,770,000 shares of its common stock to the public and give underwriters the option to buy up to 4,615,500 more shares. TORONTO - Manulife Financial Corp. has won its legal fight in a Saskatchewan court with hedge fund Mosten Investment LP, which had argued that its universal life insurance policy with the Canadian insurer allowed for unlimited deposits and a guaranteed return. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A pedestrian walks past the Manulife building in downtown Vancouver on May 3, 2012. Manulife Financial Corp. says a Saskatchewan court has ruled in its favour in the insurer's legal fight with hedge fund Mosten Investment LP over insurance contracts. The trial involving one of Manulife's insurance contracts purchased by Mosten wrapped up last year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward TORONTO - Manulife Financial Corp. has won its legal fight in a Saskatchewan court with hedge fund Mosten Investment LP, which had argued that its universal life insurance policy with the Canadian insurer allowed for unlimited deposits and a guaranteed return. Prominent short-seller Muddy Waters had warned last fall that if the judge ruled in favour of Mosten, the hedge fund would have been able to sell an unlimited amount of partnership interests backed by Manulife and "financially cripple" the insurer. Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench Judge B.J. Scherman concluded in his decision released last week that "the policy does not provide for unlimited stand-alone investment opportunities within the carrier fund." Manulife said on Monday that it was "pleased with the ruling." "This is consistent with our position that this case was legally unfounded and commercially absurd, and that consumers purchasing universal life policies, and the insurers issuing these policies, never intended to have the policies function as deposit or securities contracts," the insurer said in a statement. Shares of Manulife closed up approximately three per cent in Toronto to $23.31 on Monday. In October 2018, Muddy Waters' head of research Carson Block took aim at Manulife in a report warning that the impending ruling in the Mosten case had the potential to "significantly damage" the insurer. In the report announcing its short position in the company, Block warned that a ruling in Mosten's favour could lead to "billions of dollars of losses." Short-selling is a trading technique that can produce a profit if a stock's market value falls below a predetermined price. Mosten had argued in court that under the terms of the universal life insurance policy with Manulife's life insurance subsidiary, it could deposit an unlimited amount of money and receive an annualized guaranteed return of at least four per cent with one-month liquidity. Manulife had argued that this is counter to the purpose of life insurance and associated regulation. Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc., also known as iA Financial Group, and BMO Life insurance also faced litigation involving similar claims. iA Financial Group said Monday that the Saskatchewan court "dismissed, in its entirety, the application commenced by Ituna Investment LP" against it. The hedge fund was seeking to make unlimited deposits into a universal life insurance contract that it purchased from a policyholder, iA Financial Group added in its statement, but the judge "found that Itunas position was inconsistent with the language and the purpose of the contract." iA Financial Group also said it was "analyzing the full details of the decision" and will provide further comments if necessary. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. A BMO spokeswoman said the bank was "pleased with the Court's decision confirming our position on the use of universal life insurance policies" but it has no further comment at this point. Shares of the Quebec-based insurer closed up nearly two per cent to $51.42 on the Toronto Stock Exchange while shares of BMO closed up less than a per cent at $104.11. The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association said Monday it had intervened in the cases against Manulife, iA and BMO and the association "welcomed" the Saskatchewan court ruling. "This important ruling unequivocally supports what insurers, their customers and regulators already know to be true: the purpose of an insurance policy is to protect the lives of the insured and their families," said CLHIA president and chief executive Stephen Frank in a statement. "Insurance policies are not intended to offer an unlimited investment opportunity completely unrelated to insurance coverage." Companies in this story: (TSX:MFC, TSX:IAG, TSX: BMO) New York Citys landmark Chrysler Building, which is being bought for about a fifth of what it last sold for, could ultimately be transformed from an aging office tower into a hotel. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. New York Citys landmark Chrysler Building, which is being bought for about a fifth of what it last sold for, could ultimately be transformed from an aging office tower into a hotel. Aby Rosens RFR Holding and Austrian real estate firm Signa Holding last week agreed to purchase the iconic 77-storey skyscraper near Grand Central Terminal for US$151 million, significantly below the US$800 million the Abu Dhabi Investment Council paid in 2008 for a 90 per cent stake, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Rosen said in an email that he would consider converting the tower into a hotel. Scott Rechlers RXR Realty, which lost the bidding with an offer of about US$150 million, had looked at turning the tower into a mixed-use property that would have included a hotel, according to the person, who wasnt authorized to speak because the matter is private. A spokesman for RXR Realty declined to comment, while a representative for Signa didnt immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The Chrysler Building, completed in 1930 in art deco style, would probably require millions of dollars in improvements, no matter what the new owners do with it. Keeping it as an office building would be a risky proposition at a time when New York tenants have been favouring new, amenity-packed skyscrapers at Hudson Yards on the far west side and the World Trade Center downtown. It could cost from US$150 million and US$250 million to make the necessary upgrades, the person said. "Its a magnificent building with uninterrupted views from the high floors, but changing use is not without issues," Lawrence Wolfe, co-head of the lodging capital markets group at Newmark Knight Frank, said in an email. The large floor plates favoured by office tenants can pose design challenges when converting to other uses, while the landmarked lobby could make it difficult to create a dedicated entrance for hotel guests. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Adding to the new owners expenses is an increasingly costly ground lease. The land under the Chrysler Building is owned by Cooper Union, which last year raised the annual fee to US$32.5 million from US$7.75 million, financial statements show. The rent will jump to US$41 million in 2028 and $55 million in 2038. The tower is also losing around US$20 million a year and has 400,000 square feet of space thats either available or opening up in the next year, not to mention annual operating expenses of US$15 million, the person said. The average rent in the building is in the US$50-a-square-foot range, according to the person, less than half of the average asking rent at Hudson Yards. RXR Realty is part of a team that plans to transform the nearby Grand Hyatt New York, the hotel that launched Donald Trumps career as a real estate developer, into a new two-million-square-foot tower with offices, retail and lodging. The team also includes developer TF Cornerstone and MSD Partners LP, the investment firm that manages money for technology billionaire Michael Dell and his family. Bloomberg News LONDON - The speaker of Britain's House of Commons dealt a potentially fatal blow to Prime Minister Theresa May's ailing Brexit deal on Monday, saying the government couldn't keep asking lawmakers to vote on the same deal they have already rejected twice. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, left, speaks with British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt during a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels, Monday, March 18, 2019. EU foreign ministers hold talks with their Chinese counterpart as the bloc seeks to establish a new strategic balance with the Asian economic giant. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) LONDON - The speaker of Britain's House of Commons dealt a potentially fatal blow to Prime Minister Theresa May's ailing Brexit deal on Monday, saying the government couldn't keep asking lawmakers to vote on the same deal they have already rejected twice. The government intended to try a third time to get lawmakers to back the deal, ideally before May joins EU leaders Thursday at a Brussels summit where she is set to ask the bloc to postpone Britain's departure. May has warned opponents that a failure to approve her Brexit divorce deal would mean a long, and possibly indefinite, delay to Britain's departure from the EU. Speaker John Bercow scuttled May's plan, saying that centuries-old parliamentary rules prevent "the same proposition or substantially the same proposition" from being brought back repeatedly for votes in a session of Parliament. He said a new motion would have to be "fundamentally different. Not different in terms of wording, but different in terms of substance." The ruling caused uproar on the government side of the House of Commons. Solicitor General Robert Buckland said Britain was facing a "major constitutional crisis," with not much time to solve it. By law, the U.K. will leave the EU on March 29, deal or no deal, unless it secures a delay from the bloc. Withdrawing without a deal could mean huge disruption for businesses and people in the U.K. and the 27 remaining EU countries. "Frankly, we could have done without this," Buckland told the BBC. FILE - In this file photo dated Thursday, March 22, 2018, John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons speaks at Westminster Hall inside the Palace of Westminster in London. Bercow dealt a potentially fatal blow to Prime Minister Theresa May's ailing Brexit deal on Monday, March 18, 2019, saying the government couldn't keep asking lawmakers to vote on the same Brexit deal that lawmakers have already rejected twice. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, FILE) As interpreter and enforcer of Parliament's rules, the speaker has broad powers. Bercow whose booming cries of "Orderrrrr!" have made him something of a global celebrity has often used his office to boost the influence of backbench lawmakers, to the annoyance of May's government. "Part of the responsibility of the speaker is, frankly, to speak truth to power," he said Monday. Even before Bercow's ruling, May faced a struggle to reverse the huge margins of defeat for the Brexit divorce agreement in Parliament. It was rejected by 230 votes in January and by 149 votes last week. Her goal was to win over Northern Ireland's small, power-brokering Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP's 10 lawmakers prop up May's minority Conservative government, and their support could influence pro-Brexit Conservatives to drop their opposition to the deal. Opposition centres on a measure designed to ensure there is no hard border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit. The mechanism, known as the backstop, is a safeguard that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU until a permanent new trading relationship is in place. Brexit supporters in Britain fear the backstop could be used to bind the country to EU regulations indefinitely, and the DUP fears it could lead to a weakening of the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. Talks between the government and the DUP have been aimed at reassuring the party that Britain couldn't be trapped in the backstop indefinitely. But with no sign of a breakthrough, May's spokesman, James Slack, said the government would only hold a vote if there is "a realistic prospect of success." Influential Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said he would wait to see what the DUP decided before making up his mind on whether to support May's deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, but a bad deal is better than remaining in the European Union," he told LBC radio. After months of political deadlock, British lawmakers voted last week to seek to postpone Brexit. That will likely avert a chaotic British withdrawal on the exit date of March 29 although the power to approve or reject a Brexit extension lies with the EU, whose leaders are fed up with British prevarication. May has said if her deal is approved, she will ask EU leaders this week to extend the Brexit deadline until June 30 so that Parliament has time to approve the necessary legislation. If it isn't, she will have to seek a longer extension that would mean Britain participating in May 23-26 elections for the European Parliament something the government is keen to avoid. EU leaders say they will only grant it if Britain has a solid plan for what to do with the extra time. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "We have to know what the British want: How long, what is the reason supposed to be, how it should go, what is actually the aim of the extension?" German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Brussels. "The longer it is delayed, the more difficult it will certainly be." Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders agreed, saying: "We are not against an extension in Belgium, but the problem is to do what?" ___ Lorne Cook reported from Brussels. Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story. ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit CALGARY - WestJet Airlines is suspending its 2019 financial guidance following the grounding of its 13 Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft by regulators in Canada and the United States due to safety concerns. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The tail of a WestJet plane is seen dwarfing the Calgary skyline before the airline's annual meeting in Calgary, Tuesday, May 3, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh CALGARY - WestJet Airlines is suspending its 2019 financial guidance following the grounding of its 13 Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft by regulators in Canada and the United States due to safety concerns. The Calgary-based airline says its financial outlook provided as late as a month ago are being put on hold except for earnings per share, return on invested capital and cumulative free cash flow between 2020 and 2022 until more information is known. The move follows a similar decision last week by Air Canada, which operates 24 of the narrowbody aircraft. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. WestJet says it grounded all Max aircraft within 55 minutes of Transport Canada's order last Wednesday, with only three planes outside of Canada. The action was taken after aviation authorities across the globe grounded the aircraft in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash March 10 that killed 157 aboard the plane, including 18 Canadians. The airline says through its contingency plan it expects to preserve about 86 per cent of passengers bookings on Max flights and find alternative planes for about 75 per cent of Max flights. Walter Spracklin of RBC Capital Markets described the challenge as a temporary issue for both airlines. "Overall, we see the impact as limited and short-term," he wrote in a research note. Companies in this story: (TSX:WJA, TSX:AC) Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated that Transport Canada grounded Max 8s on Friday. OTTAWA - The SNC-Lavalin affair claimed its fourth resignation Monday as Michael Wernick announced he will step down as the country's top public servant, having concluded he's lost the trust of opposition parties. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA - The SNC-Lavalin affair claimed its fourth resignation Monday as Michael Wernick announced he will step down as the country's top public servant, having concluded he's lost the trust of opposition parties. Opposition parties have been calling for the clerk of the Privy Council's resignation since he first vehemently rejected allegations that he and others improperly pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to halt a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Wernick's combative testimony to the House of Commons justice committee was denounced as partisan and unbecoming of a senior bureaucrat. Also on Monday, the Liberals who make up a majority on that committee said publicly that they believe it has done all it can, or should, to investigate the affair. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday, Wernick said he will retire before this fall's federal election campaign kicks off. He noted that the clerk is supposed to be "an impartial arbiter of whether serious foreign interference" occurs during the campaign, as part of a new federal watchdog panel, and is also supposed to be ready to help whichever party is elected to form government two roles he no longer believes he can fulfil. "It is now apparent that there is no path for me to have a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the leaders of the opposition parties," Wernick wrote. "I wish to relinquish these roles before the election. It is essential that Canadians continue to see their world-leading public service as non-partisan and there to provide excellent services to Canadians and the governments they elect." Wernick, who has served in senior public service roles for nearly 38 years, has been clerk of the Privy Council since 2016, shortly after the Trudeau Liberals assumed office. Government insiders have said he wanted to retire as clerk a year ago but was persuaded to stay on. "It is essential that Canadians continue to see their world leading public service as nonpartisan and there to provide excellent services to Canadians and the governments they elect." Michael Wernick Wilson-Raybould has accused Wernick of making "veiled threats" that she'd lose her job as justice minister and attorney general if she didn't cave in to pressure last fall from Trudeau and his senior staff to halt the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption related to contracts in Libya. She has said they pushed her to instruct the director of public prosecutions to negotiate a remediation agreement with the Montreal engineering giant, which would have forced the company to pay stiff penalties but let it avoid the risk of a criminal conviction that could threaten its financial viability. Wernick has denied the accusation and maintained that all concerned acted with the highest standards of integrity. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick attend a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Friday, March 1, 2019. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press files) Wilson-Raybould's concerns about undue pressure only surfaced publicly after she was moved out of the justice portfolio to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle. She resigned from cabinet a month later. Her exit was followed by the departure of Trudeau's principal secretary, Gerald Butts, and then the resignation from cabinet of Jane Philpott, who cited loss of confidence in the government's handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair. Wernick's decision to quit as well proves "this SNC-Lavalin scandal is even bigger than we thought," said Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre. Trudeau said he intends to name Ian Shugart, currently deputy minister of foreign affairs, to replace Wernick. On his way into the House of Commons, Trudeau thanked the clerk for his "extraordinary service to Canada over many, many decades" and credited his government's accomplishments "definitely in large part" to Wernick's leadership of the public service. Trudeau did not respond when asked if he'd sought Wernick's resignation but his office later said he had not. Wernick's letter was released minutes before MPs reconvened for their first question period after a two-week March break, an exchange that proved explosive almost from the get-go. Opposition members erupted in protest when Trudeau announced he'd appointed former Liberal justice minister Anne McLellan as a special adviser to explore what he called "important questions" about the relationship between the federal government and the minister of justice, who plays a dual role as attorney general. While the justice minister is a political player, the attorney general is supposed to make independent, impartial decisions about prosecutions. McLellan "will assess the structure that has been in place since Confederation, of a single minister holding the positions of minister of justice and attorney general of Canada," the prime minister said in a statement. "She will consider whether machinery-of-government or legislative changes may or may not be recommended." "Her work will be another important step towards maintaining Canadians' confidence in their institutions," he told the Commons. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer mocked the announcement as nothing more than saying "Liberals will investigate Liberals." Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick arrives for a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Monday, March 18, 2019. Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council - the country's top bureaucrat - is leaving his job, telling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an open letter that recent events show him there is no path for a "relationship of mutual trust" if the Conservatives or NDP form the next government. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld New Democrat MP Charlie Angus ridiculed the idea of a Liberal minister from the era of the sponsorship scandal looking into the SNC-Lavalin affair, which he dubbed "a five-alarm dumpster fire." As for Wernick, Angus professed no surprise at his decision to retire. "I think once we saw how much of an active political player Mr. Wernick was in the SNC scandal, it became impossible for him to carry on his job, which is to have the trust of all parliamentarians on key matters of policy," he said outside the Commons. Angus also said Wernick should have "known better" in the way he presented himself before the justice committee, suggesting he was combative, evasive and partisan. MPs on the committee were taken aback when he prefaced his initial testimony with a diatribe about the deteriorating tenor of political discourse, with incitements to violence that he said made him fear someone will be assassinated during the coming election campaign. He cited the example of a Conservative senator who'd urged truckers in a pipeline protest on Parliament Hill to "roll over every Liberal" in the country. Wernick engaged in a number of testy exchanges with opposition MPs. In a second appearance, he suggested profane messages he received through the social media "vomitorium" after his first appearance amounted to witness intimidation. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The Liberal-dominated committee is to meet Tuesday to consider opposition demands to recall Wilson-Raybould. She has already testified for nearly four hours but has indicated she has more to say, particularly about the period between her move to Veterans Affairs and her resignation a month later. But the five Liberals on the justice committee Edmonton's Randy Boissonault, Toronto-area MPs Iqra Khalid and Ali Ehassi, B.C.'s Ron McKinnon and Nova Scotia's Colin Fraser tipped their hand in an open letter to their fellow Liberal who chairs it, Anthony Housefather. "The committee has heard from principal witnesses in this matter," their joint letter says, including Wernick, Wilson-Raybould, and Trudeau's top aide Gerald Butts. They've met for 13 hours of testimony over 11 meetings, it says, and "Canadians can judge for themselves the facts, perspectives and relevant legal principles ... As committee members, we have achieved our objectives with respect to these meetings." McLellan's work and a separate investigation by the federal ethics commissioner will complete the picture, the letter says. In the Commons, Trudeau himself likewise argued that the committee has been meeting for five weeks and has heard "all perspectives." He suggested further inquiry should be left to the federal ethics commissioner. with files from Lee Berthiaume OTTAWA Five years ago, CN Rail flagged the problem of train cars separating from each other near St. Lazare, Man., the site of a derailment last month in which 820,000 litres of crude oil were spilled. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Two of the vulnerable spots involve the area near the Feb. 16 incident in which an eastbound oil train headed for Winnipeg derailed near the town of St. Lazare. (TSB photo) OTTAWA Five years ago, CN Rail flagged the problem of train cars separating from each other near St. Lazare, Man., the site of a derailment last month in which 820,000 litres of crude oil were spilled. A risk assessment filed by CN Rail to Transport Canada in April 2014 reveals the railway had identified six safety vulnerabilities in Manitoba in the wake of the deadly train crash in Lac-Megantic, Que., in which 47 people died. Two of them involve the area near the Feb. 16 incident in which an eastbound oil train headed for Winnipeg derailed near the town of St. Lazare, which is about 300 kilometres west of Winnipeg. Thirty-five of its 108 tank cars left the tracks, and half of them leaked oil. The 2014 report shows CN Rail had flagged an issue with "moderate train separation activity" at a spot about 20 kilometres away from the derailment site. While the Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the St. Lazare derailment, it has noted that the train initiated its automated emergency brakes, which can occur when cars start to separate, including due to hanging parts. The safety board has taken pieces of the track to Ottawa for closer inspection. The derailment occurred between two bridges that CN said in its 2014 report required dragging-equipment detectors. The device sits between the tracks and sends a message when an object such as a pipe or chain hanging from the trains underside hits it. The report called for such a device on a truss bridge near the Saskatchewan border 10 kilometres to the west of the derailment site which it deemed a top priority. It also called for a device on a smaller bridge in the village of Uno, 15 kilometres east of the derailment site. Each device would cost $30,000. CN Rail spokesman Jonathan Abecassis would not specify whether any dragging-equipment detectors had been deployed to the areas that had been flagged in the 2014 report. "CNs dangerous goods team regularly reviews the types and quantities of dangerous goods traffic transported across each province and conducts an analysis of the response measures required and resources available to respond everywhere at any time," he wrote. "When our analysis reveals an area where we can improve, our teams work quickly to address the issue, as they did in the examples you mentioned." Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Closer to Winnipeg, the 2014 report noted that CN needed a dangerous goods transfer trailer in Winnipeg to shift an intact dangerous load that had been involved in an accident onto a truck. CN estimated the cost at $220,000. The idea was mentioned again in a different report seven months later. The April 2014 report also called for a $137,000 foam trailer, which would be used to fight a fire containing flammable goods in Winnipeg. Abecassis said both the dangerous goods transfer trailer and the foam trailer were deployed in Winnipeg after this report had called for those changes. The report also called for a dragging-equipment detector along the CN line that crosses the Red River Floodway and runs adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway. The detector would cost $30,000 and was marked as a top priority, noting the environmental implications of a spill. CN would not confirm if it had installed the device at that location. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca Im not sure if this will surprise anyone, but there are a lot of jerks out there. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Im not sure if this will surprise anyone, but there are a lot of jerks out there. For the record, Im not talking about wanton acts of criminality, such as cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs. No, Im talking about people who do stupid, thoughtless, annoying things. Im talking about jerks. For instance, Im talking about all those (bad word) irresponsible dog owners who walk their pets past my yard every weekend, pause to let Spike poop, then pretend they dont see the gift their mutt has left on my snow-covered lawn, and walk away without bothering to pick it up. Im sorry, but those people are jerks. Ditto the people who, when you are attempting to talk to them at a meeting or in the middle of lunch, simply ignore you because they are busy texting someone who isnt actually sitting in front of them. I decided to rant about jerks today because of a conversation I had last week with my good buddy Big Daddy Tazz, who is a genuinely peaceful soul along with being one of Canadas top standup comedians. Tazz and I were in relatively good moods because we had just filled our bellies with 10 bowls of soup while acting as "expert judges" at the seventh annual Stone Soup fundraiser in support of the Child Nutrition Council of Manitoba. We were sitting there having coffee in a mall after the event and, because I didnt get enough sleep, I started grumbling about a group of jerks that really frost my cinnamon buns the motorists who drive their cars as if they were trying to win the Daytona 500, until they manage to get in front of you, at which point they slow down to the speed of a small jungle creature passing through the intestinal system of a mature boa constrictor. Which reminded Tazz of two jerks we will also accept "idiots," "nincompoops," "dolts," "blockheads" and "jackwagons" he encountered the week before, when he visited his doctors office for an appointment. For starters, when he walked into the waiting room, the floor and walls were vibrating because a young woman parked in one of the chairs was playing music on her cellphone speaker loud enough to rattle windows in Grand Forks, N.D. "It was some Latin-esque kind of reggae, ska. It wasnt unpleasant music, it was just the fact it was really, really loud and there was no attempt at having her headphones in," Tazz grumbled. "She was playing it on her phone and playing a video game on top of that." Many people would have simply ignored it, but my buddy Tazz isnt "many people," so he attempted to contact the loud young woman via her ears. "I leaned over and said, I didnt know this place came with a DJ. So if you wouldnt mind Id like to request some Buddy Holly. " Replied the young woman: "WHAT?" "Do you have Buddy Holly on your playlist there?" Tazz repeated. "NO!" she snorted, apparently confused. "I just thought, maybe, because youre the DJ and the music is playing really loud..." Tazz started to reply. Butted in the impromptu DJ: "Well, this is kind of private music." Which made my pal smile a mischievous smile. "Um, no, its not. If you want private music, play it through your headphones," he advised. Youd think that would be enough for one day, but when he walked into the parking lot outside his doctors office, Tazz encountered a guy who, for the purposes of todays column, well refer to as Jerk No. 2. "Im getting in my car and the guy in the car next to me fires out a bag of garbage and a few McDonalds cups," Tazz recalled, rolling his eyeballs. "So I scooped it up, knocked on his door with my elbow, and he opened it up and I just dumped it all on his lap and said, Sorry, I dont know if you know, but you dropped this. "He just sort of looked at me and I said: Its not cool, dude. " Since we had a head of steam, we started listing all the other jerks who get our proverbial goats including people who smoke in bus shelters; people who park in handicapped spots even though theyre not disabled; and people who park their shopping carts in grocery-store aisles to ensure no one else can wiggle past them. Which is when, suddenly and without warning, Tazz pointed at the rubbish-strewn table beside us, which had just been vacated by a messy couple. Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "Look at that, right there!" Tazz snorted. "That bothers me. They left a mess on the table. Clean up after yourself. Sure, they say, Oh, well, theres people who get paid to do that. Yeah, but they dont get paid to follow you around with a bucket and a Shop-Vac." You might say we were two cranky guys on a roll, so I started droning on and on about another group of inconsiderate buffoons that causes me to foam at the mouth when Im behind the wheel drivers who insist on revving their engines at stop lights to prove that, even though they are sitting in a Dodge Neon, they have NASCAR-level driving skills. "I really hate those guys," I sniffed, looking to Tazz for moral support. Which is when I noticed my car-loving buddy looking a touch sheepish. "I have to confess, I love doing that sometimes," Tazz said, grinning. Which suddenly made me feel guilty for being so judgmental. "Sorry," I told my buddy. "I can be a real jerk sometimes." doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca OTTAWA Lord Roberts resident Bev Pike has tried for years to figure out how much oil is moving along the train tracks in her neighbourhood; it seems the number of oil tank cars has increased. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Lord Roberts resident Bev Pike has tried for years to figure out how much oil is moving along the train tracks in her neighbourhood; it seems the number of oil tank cars has increased. "Its full trains that are just oil," said Pike, who counts tank cars that bear the red 12-67 placard, which indicates crude oil. "Its increasing dramatically; thats what we see in this neighbourhood." Newly obtained data, which CN Rail fought against being publicly released, provides a rare look at just how much oil has been moving by rail in Manitoba. CN Rail transported about 20 million barrels of crude oil from Winnipeg to northwestern Ontario over the course of 12 months five years ago, according to risk assessments the railway filed to Transport Canada. The April 2014 report shows the company transported 97,000 carloads of dangerous goods, of which 29,000 had crude oil, in one year. The fact that the report was only made public five years later underscores the difficulty concerned citizens, environmental groups and journalists face in trying to obtain the most basic information needed to assess railways risk-reduction measures. Transport Canada released the data last month after a federal commissioner intervened in a July 2015 access-to-information request. Officials rejected CN Rails arguments that divulging the data would present a serious risk to public safety. "Its pretty telling that Canadians have to really fight and wait years just for the right to know whats passing through their communities," said Charles Hatt, a Toronto lawyer with Ecojustice, a charity. Hatt requested the report on behalf of the advocacy group Safe Rail Communities, which was formed following the 2013 rail disaster in Lac-Megantic, Que., in which 47 people were killed. In the wake of that tragedy, the Harper government compelled large railways that carry dangerous goods to undertake and submit detailed risk assessments. The April 2014 report shows that 97,000 carloads of dangerous goods were transported through the Sprague subdivision, which runs from Winnipegs Symington Yard east to Rainy River, Ont. Crude oil was in 29,000 of those cars. Although the volume of a carload can vary based on the type of crude oil, the calculation for the most common type of oil shipment likely would have totalled 20 million barrels of oil. The time period of those shipments is marked as "annual," although CN Rail would not confirm the time period in which the data was collected. The figures line up with with American filings by the corporations U.S. subsidiary for the 2013 calendar year. Its hard to compare that data with more recent shipments because such information published by railways is scant. CN said thats because it is too risky. "Public safety demands that details respecting dangerous goods routing and volumes shipped per route need to be secure and used only for emergency preparedness and response purposes and only by those mandated to be involved," wrote spokesman Jonathan Abecassis. He asserted that "detailed traffic data from 2014 is not something that necessarily holds much validity today" because the volume of dangerous goods and the routes they take "change constantly." However, other reports show the amount of crude oil shipped by rail across Canada has been increasing at a dramatic rate. The National Energy Board said a record high of 327,229 barrels per day were exported by rail in October 2018. Thats nearly 2.5 times more than in October 2017, and a string of record-breaking highs has followed. Energy board data also show that pipelines transport vastly more oil through Manitoba than rail cars, with 2.9 million barrels per day in 2014; that number grew to 3.8 million last year. Instead of providing more recent data on rail shipments, Abecassis noted that last year, CN had only two derailments in Canada in which dangerous goods were spilled. He added that train shipments mean explosive material are not transported on highways. CN joined two other rail companies in a British Columbia tribunal case last November, arguing that allowing the province to publish quarterly reports on how much oil each rail line carried would empower saboteurs and terrorists. Both Hatt and Pike were sympathetic to that concern, but they argue rail companies could let citizens know roughly how much oil is moving through their communities over the course of months without putting those tracks in danger. "When you disclose meaningful information youre demonstrating trust in Canadians as well; its a two-way thing," Pike said. "The tools are easily available, you could disclose information in a meaningful way that also protects public interest. Theres steps to take to build trust, and theyre not taking them," she said. "That means theres something shady going on." Last spring, an independent review of rail safety submitted to Transport Minister Marc Garneau argued that Canadians ought to have more information, because the Lac-Megantic disaster still leaves many Canadians skeptical of how railways are regulated. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. The report warned that mistrust in the rail sector could end up matching the opposition to pipelines that has stalled major projects. When asked about that concern last Wednesday, Garneau noted that first-responders have access to real-time data as needed; he did not speak about public access. "Carrying certain products has to be kept, to some extent, secure, so there is not a precise and advertised knowledge of every single product thats in every train crossing the country," Garneau told the Free Press. Pike said its hard to trust CNs claims that it prioritizes safety without being able to see specific local data, especially after last springs series of brush fires along its Winnipeg rail lines. The company denied it was at fault; the city produced video evidence that disputed that contention. "If everything else added up it would be a different story, but they sure dont seem open and transparent now." dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca A veteran criminal defence lawyer is again sounding the alarm over police procedures after his client was charged and sent to jail in a homicide case where the victims cause of death is undetermined. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A veteran criminal defence lawyer is again sounding the alarm over police procedures after his client was charged and sent to jail in a homicide case where the victims cause of death is undetermined. Juhyun Park, 44, is accused of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Eunjee Kim, 41. Kim was found unconscious in an apartment suite on Daer Boulevard early Jan. 9. Winnipeg police initially accused Park of manslaughter, but upgraded the charge on Feb. 8 without offering an explanation. If convicted, Park would get a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. His lawyer, Martin Glazer, told the Free Press an autopsy has revealed no anatomical cause of Kims death. Meanwhile, Glazer said he was told crucial toxicology tests that are underway at an out-of-province RCMP laboratory could take up to six months to come in. Glazer said the delay shows theres a systemic problem that police should consider in homicide cases in which the cause of death isnt immediately determined. Glazer believes police should have waited for conclusive results before charging Park. "If the scientific investigation is incomplete, then the overall investigation is incomplete," he said. "In my view, you have a wrongful arrest in this case because its premature." Park has no criminal record. He remained at the crime scene until police arrived and was injured by a stab wound in the leg, Glazer said. He faces the prospect of many more months in jail awaiting trial if hes denied bail. Park came to Canada from Korea in 2017 on a student visa and was studying to improve his English. Kim, his wife of 17 years, had only been in Winnipeg a couple of days before she died, Glazer said. Glazer has emailed the Manitoba Prosecution Service requesting more information about how Kim died. No further information on this point has been forthcoming from the Crown, he said. "Given the absence of a cause of death in this case, I am renewing my request for a stay of proceedings," Glazer wrote to the Crown on Feb. 12. "As you can appreciate once the toxicology results are available and if it turns out that my clients wife did not die as a result of foul play, then he will have spent a substantial period of time in custody for no reason," Glazer wrote. He has urged the Crown to either stay the charge giving authorities a year to keep investigating and then reinstate the charge if warranted or consent to Parks release on bail. Glazer said the Crown has refused. A bail hearing is set for Tuesday. Park must convince a judge he can be released into the community before his trial. In early February, the provincial medical examiners office said testing on biological samples will take four to six months. "The problem in this case is a lack of medical diagnosis, and without it, police arent given the tools they need to make the final call," Glazer said. The Supreme Court of Canada has said police should err on the side of caution and keep open minds before laying charges. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "Dont presume the cause of death is nefarious, thats what Im saying," Glazer said. He said he was not in a position to discuss other evidence police may have gathered, and he deferred to them. Winnipeg police said Friday its not uncommon to lay homicide-related charges before autopsy results are available. "Charges are based on the totality of the circumstances, and both autopsy and toxicology results are just part of the overall investigation," Const. Rob Carver wrote in an email. The Manitoba Prosecution Service said Crown attorneys assess a cases legal elements and quality of evidence before laying charges or proceeding on ones laid by police. city.desk@freepress.mb.ca Language, music, and art often vary between adjacent groups of people, and help us identify not only ourselves but also others. And in recent years rich debates have emerged and spawned research into culture in non-human animals. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Language, music, and art often vary between adjacent groups of people, and help us identify not only ourselves but also others. And in recent years rich debates have emerged and spawned research into culture in non-human animals. Scientists first observed chimpanzees using tools more than half a century ago. As this complex behaviour appeared to differ across different populations, researchers concluded that tool use in apes was socially learned and therefore a cultural behaviour. This was the beginning of exploring what behaviours in other species might be considered cultural as well. Killer whale pods and dolphins exhibit different dialects and use tools differently, for instance. Scientists have mostly focused on primates, however. Capuchin monkeys of Central and South America exhibit 13 variants of social customs, to take one example, while different orangutan populations vary their calls and the use of tools, nests or other objects. But no species has garnered more discussion on the presence, importance and evolution of culture than chimpanzees. Examples of chimpanzee culture range from social customs, such as the way they grasp their hands during grooming, to how males sexually display, to the type of tools used for cracking nuts or ant-dipping. An early study argued that there are as many as 39 different behaviours that are candidates for cultural variation. This set off an eager debate about whether animals have culture or not and how we would be able to detect it. As in humans, cultural behaviours in chimpanzees are likely critical for individuals to demonstrate community membership. If a young chimpanzee in the Tai forest in the Ivory Coast wants to signal to a peer that they would like to play around, then they build a small, rudimentary ground nest and sit in it. In most other chimpanzee groups, ground nests are mainly used for resting. Living with humans But chimpanzees now face the daunting task of surviving in a habitat increasingly infested and assaulted by humans. And as their populations decline, so does their behavioural variation. In short, humans are causing chimpanzee cultural collapse. Two of us (Alexander and Fiona) were involved in a new study which integrated data from 144 chimpanzee communities across Africa, and found the more that humans had disturbed an area, the less behavioural variants are exhibited by nearby chimpanzees. The results are published in the journal Science. The actual mechanism behind this is not entirely known. The most obvious explanation is that increased human disturbance means there are fewer chimpanzees overall. Even those that remain have to be more inconspicuous in order to survive in areas where their food and nesting sites are threatened by logging operations, their water sources are polluted by miners, and they risk being hunted for bushmeat by poachers brought into their forests by newly-built roads. All this forces the chimpanzees to forage in smaller groups and use less long distance communication like pan hoots and drumming on tree trunks. This likely leads to a decrease in the spread of cultural behaviours, as associating in smaller group sizes lowers the chance of learning socially from one another. Chimpanzees have also been observed to adapt to human disturbance by inventing new coping mechanisms such as eating human crops. But despite these rare adaptations, overall human activity is vastly erasing the rich behavioural diversity that now characterizes chimpanzees. Chimpanzee monoculture Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. But, if the species is gradually merging into a single cultural entity that stretches all the way from Senegal to Tanzania why does this matter? After all, monocultural species are not inherently problematic. There is no direct relationship between cultural diversity and species distribution, for example. Flies, rats and crocodiles are all disseminated across a vast area, and yet have not yet been described as cultural. Losing chimpanzee behavioural diversity doesnt itself threaten the species' survival. Losing diversity could be representative of larger issues, however, not least that the species is on the decline, which is the worst scenario. For example, we dont yet know how adaptive these behaviours are. A loss of behavioural diversity could represent compromises in how animals respond to selection pressures like changes in food availability and how they adapt to climate change. The risk is that we humans are irreversibly endangering a unique chance to discover the full extent of cultural diversity in our closest living relatives. When scientists discover a new group of wild chimpanzees it often exhibits unique behaviours that have never been observed previously, and it is hard to know what would be eradicated before we know about it. If things continue as they are, the opportunity to study common evolutionary roots with our own species might soon be forever lost. Making protection of cultural diversity a conservation priority, which extend to numerous other species, would help to ensure the survival of our extraordinary primate heritage. Alexander Piel is a lecturer in animal behaviour and Fiona Stewart is a visiting lecturer in primatology at Liverpool John Moores University. Lydia Luncz is research fellow in the Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab at the University of Oxford. This article was first published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca. The other Europeans are not laughing at the English for the most part. They are looking at them with pity and scorn. But also with a great deal of impatience. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion The other Europeans are not laughing at the English for the most part. They are looking at them with pity and scorn. But also with a great deal of impatience. Last Tuesday, the British parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays "deal" for Britains exit ("Brexit") from the European Union, painfully negotiated over more than 21/2 years, by an overwhelming 149-vote majority. It was the second time parliament, including a large chunk of her own Conservative party, rejected the deal she made with the EU last November. And the main reason both times was the so-called "backstop": a commitment by Mays government to avoid a hard border in Ireland at all costs. On Wednesday, the British parliament also rejected a proposal that Britain just leave the EU without a deal. "Crashing out" would mean instant customs barriers at the United Kingdoms ports, airports and land borders, with immense disruption of trade, including food imports and industrial supply chains. It would be an economic disaster. On Thursday, once that option was foreclosed, the British parliament voted on asking the EU for a postponement of the departure date (currently scheduled for March 29). That vote passed, but neither the government nor parliament can even agree on how long a postponement to ask for. If your local daycare were this feckless, youd move your children at once. The EU will probably grant the United Kingdom a delay to avoid a "no-deal Brexit," but there will be no more negotiations: the delay would only be to give May time to sort out the politics of getting her deal through. It will be a long delay, not just a few weeks, because nobody believes she can do that quickly (if at all). And it will require the consent of all the EUs 27 other national leaders. Its all about the "backstop." Thats why parliament wont pass Mays deal, and its why the EU refuses to renegotiate it. Mays November deal with the EU promised that the United Kingdom would stay in the existing customs union with the EU, and also remain closely aligned with the "single market" that guarantees the free movement of goods, capital, services and labour across the whole EU until and unless the two parties negotiate an alternative arrangement that keeps the inter-Irish border unpoliced and almost unmarked. If you drive the 500-kilometre border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., the road crosses it dozens of times (there are 270 vehicle crossings). The only way you know you have crossed the border again is that speed limits are posted in kilometres in the Republic, but in miles in the North. But for 30 years during the "Troubles" (1969-99), which saw 3,000 people killed in a province of less than two million people, the border was a war zone. British soldiers hundreds died there called it "bandit country." The killing ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1999, which managed to achieve a compromise between the Protestants of Northern Ireland (who feel British) and the Catholics (who mostly identify as Irish). There would be power-sharing at government level, and the border with the Republic would become invisible. The Irish nationalists in the North could even have Irish passports instead of British ones. Brexit is almost entirely an English nationalist project Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted to remain in the EU and the Brexiteers just ignored the fact that leaving the EU would sabotage the Good Friday deal by creating a hard border in Ireland. There would have to be customs officers and passport checks, or else there would be huge amounts of smuggling and an uncontrolled flow of illegal migrants. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. But a hard border would bring the war back, even though most people dont want it. The population on the U.K. side of the border is overwhelmingly Catholic, and any attempt to control the border without putting officials on it will fail: the local people will just destroy the cameras and other sensors. But put in customs officials, and you will need police to protect them and soon enough you will need soldiers to protect the police. Welcome to the Troubles, volume 2. So the Irish government demanded that the border stay open and invisible. It is and will remain a member of the EU, so that became EU policy. Which means Northern Ireland (and therefore all the rest of the U.K.) must stay in the customs union until someone comes up with a magical method for controlling the border invisibly. Thats why the "backstop" was necessary, and Theresa May accepted that when she signed the deal last November. But she cannot sell it to her own partys hard-line Brexiteers, let alone to the other parties in parliament. Magical thinking still rules, and the arrogance is as breathtaking as the ignorance. What happens next? Nobody has any idea. Gwynne Dyers latest book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work). CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - The white supremacist accused of gunning down 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand has dismissed his lawyer and opted to represent himself at trial, prompting the prime minister to declare Tuesday that she would do everything in her power to deny him a platform for his racist views. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Mourners takes picture of candles, paying respects to the victims of Friday's shooting, outside the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, Monday, March 18, 2019. Three days after Friday's attack, New Zealand's deadliest shooting in modern history, relatives were anxiously waiting for word on when they can bury their loved ones. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian) CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - The white supremacist accused of gunning down 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand has dismissed his lawyer and opted to represent himself at trial, prompting the prime minister to declare Tuesday that she would do everything in her power to deny him a platform for his racist views. "I agree that it is absolutely something that we need to acknowledge, and do what we can to prevent the notoriety that this individual seeks," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters. "He obviously had a range of reasons for committing this atrocious terrorist attack. Lifting his profile was one of them. And that's something that we can absolutely deny him." Asked if she would like the trial to occur behind closed doors, Ardern demurred, saying that was not her decision to make. "One thing I can assure you you won't hear me speak his name," she said. The gunman's desire for infamy was made clear by the fact that he left behind a convoluted 74-page manifesto before Friday's massacre and livestreamed footage of his attack on the Al Noor mosque. The video prompted widespread revulsion and condemnation by lawmakers and members of the public. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million videos of the shootings during the first 24 hours after the massacre. But on Tuesday, Ardern expressed frustration that the video remained available online, four days after the attack. "We have been in contact with Facebook; they have given us updates on their efforts to have it removed, but as I say, it's our view that it cannot should not be distributed, available, able to be viewed," she said. "It is horrendous and while they've given us those assurances, ultimately the responsibility does sit with them." Arden said she had received "some communication" from Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg on the issue. The prime minister has also spoken with British Prime Minister Theresa May about the importance of a global effort to clamp down on the distribution of such material. Lawyer Richard Peters, who was assigned to represent Brenton Harrison Tarrant at his initial court appearance on Saturday, told the New Zealand Herald that Tarrant dismissed him that day. A judge ordered Tarrant to return to New Zealand's High Court on April 5 for his next hearing on one count of murder, though he is expected to face additional charges. He is being held in isolation in a Christchurch jail. "He seemed quite clear and lucid, whereas this may seem like very irrational behaviour," Peters told the newspaper. "He didn't appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment, other than holding fairly extreme views." Peters did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said a judge could order a lawyer to assist Tarrant at a trial, but that Tarrant would likely be unsuccessful in trying to use it as a platform to put forward any extremist views. Under New Zealand law, a trial is "to determine innocence or guilt," Peters said. "The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views." Peters said Tarrant didn't tell him why he wanted to represent himself. Separately, Ardern has said gun law reforms would be announced within 10 days of the attack and an inquiry conducted into intelligence and security services that failed to detect the risk from the attacker or his plans. There have been concerns intelligence agencies were overly focused on the Muslim community in detecting and preventing security risks. New Zealand's international spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau, confirmed in a statement that it had not received any relevant information or intelligence ahead of the shootings. Meanwhile, Christchurch was beginning to return to a semblance of normalcy Tuesday. Streets near the hospital that had been closed for four days reopened to traffic as relatives and friends of the victims continued to stream in from around the world. Thirty people were still being treated at the Christchurch hospital, nine of them in critical condition, said David Meates, CEO of the Canterbury District Health Board. A 4-year-old girl was transferred to a hospital in Auckland and is in critical condition. Her father is at the same hospital in stable condition. The close-knit community has been deeply wounded by the attacks. On Monday evening, more than 1,000 students from rival Christchurch schools and different religions gathered in a park across from the Al Noor mosque, joining voices in a passionate display of unity. The students sat on the grass in the fading daylight, lifting flickering candles to the sky as they sang a traditional Maori song. Hundreds then stood to perform an emotional, defiant haka, the famed ceremonial dance of the indigenous Maori people. For many, joining the vigil for the victims of the mass shooting was a much-needed opportunity to soothe their minds after a wrenching few days. Most of the students spent hours locked down in their schools on Friday as police tried to determine if any other shooters were involved in the attacks. Those at the vigil told harrowing tales of being forced to hide under classroom tables or on a school stage behind a curtain, of being instructed not to speak, and to urinate in a bucket rather than risk leaving the classroom for a bathroom. Sarah Liddell, 17, said many of her peers felt intense anxiety since the attack. There was a sense of safety in coming together on Monday, she said. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. "I feel like it's just really important to show everyone that one act of violence doesn't define a whole city," she said. "This is one of the best ways to show everyone coming together. Some schools have little funny rivalries, but in times like this we all just come together and that's all forgotten." The students draped a fence along the park with chains of colorful paper notes, each emblazoned with messages of love and hope and sorrow: "You are not alone." ''This is your home. You are part of us." ''We all bleed the same colour." Relatives of the dead are still anxiously awaiting word on when they can bury their loved ones. Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours. Ardern has said authorities hope to release all the bodies by Wednesday and police said authorities are working with pathologists and coroners to complete the task as soon as they can. ___ Associated Press writers Stephen Wright and Nick Perry contributed. UTRECHT, Netherlands - A gunman killed three people and wounded five during a mid-morning tram ride Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht, raising the spectre of another extremist attack only days after the murderous rampage in New Zealand. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/3/2019 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In this image taken from the Twitter page of Lilian Bruigom, emergency services attend the scene of a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (Lilian Bruigom via AP) UTRECHT, Netherlands - A gunman killed three people and wounded five during a mid-morning tram ride Monday in the Dutch city of Utrecht, raising the spectre of another extremist attack only days after the murderous rampage in New Zealand. Authorities seized a Turkish-born suspect after a manhunt that convulsed the historic city of nearly 350,000 people for most of the day. Map locates Utrecht, Netherlands, where shooting occorred on tram; 2c x 3 1/2 inches; 96.3 mm x 88 mm; As night set in, three victims lay in critical condition, and the motive for the bloodshed remained under investigation. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said authorities were trying to determine whether the attack had "terror motives." Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the suspect, identified as Gokmen Tanis, 37, was known to justice authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate. Police said they also detained another man on suspicion of involvement but released no details. The shooting came three days after 50 people were killed when an immigrant-hating white supremacist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers. There was no immediate indication of any link between the two events. Dutch counter terrorism police install a camera on a sniffer dog as they prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. Police in the central Dutch city of Utrecht say on Twitter that "multiple" people have been injured as a result of a shooting in a tram in a residential neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) The Utrecht attack took place at a busy intersection in a residential neighbourhood. The gunman was alleged to have had an automatic weapon, Grapperhaus said. "We assume a terror motive," Mayor Jan van Zanen said as police searched for the killer, though he added that other motives could not be ruled out. In the aftermath of the shooting, Dutch authorities put the Netherlands' fourth-largest city on lockdown, raised the threat level in the area to the maximum of 5 and tightened security at airports and key buildings in the country. Police issued a photo of a bearded Tanis aboard a tram in a blue hooded top. Dutch counter terrorism police use a robot as they prepare to enter a house after a shooting incident in Utrecht, Netherlands, Monday, March 18, 2019. A gunman killed three people and wounded nine others on a tram in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, sparking a manhunt that saw heavily armed officers with sniffer dogs zero in on an apartment building close to the shooting. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) "If it is a terror attack," the prime minister declared, "then we have only one answer: Our nation, democracy, must be stronger than fanaticism and violence." Heavily armed officers with dogs searched for the killer, gathering at one point in front of an apartment building close to the scene. However, the suspect was later arrested at another location in the city. The threat level soon returned to 4. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Police said a red Renault compact car was carjacked shortly before the shooting and later found across town. Local media said Tanis had been charged several times over the past years with offences ranging from attempted manslaughter to petty crime in and around Utrecht. Two weeks ago he was in court on charges of raping of woman in 2017, news reports said. The identities of the shooting victims were not immediately released, and Grapperhaus would not say if any were known to the gunman. Political parties halted campaigning ahead of provincial elections scheduled for Wednesday that will also determine the makeup of Parliament's upper house. A televised debate also was cancelled. It was not clear if campaigning would resume Tuesday. ___ Mike Corder reported from The Hague. Raf Casert in Brussels and Geir Moulson and David Rising in Berlin contributed. 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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 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.. Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE:MNK) announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August, 4th. The company reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the Zacks' consensus estimate of $1.34 by $0.55. The firm had revenue of $700.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $630.19 million. Mallinckrodt had a negative net margin of 89.94% and a positive trailing twelve-month return on equity of 34.26%. Mallinckrodt's revenue was down 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.53 earnings per share. View Mallinckrodt's earnings history. Colony Capital, Inc. is a real estate investment trust, which engages in the acquisition and management of properties. It operates through the following segments: Digital Investment Management, Digital Operating, Digital Other, Wellness Infrastructure, and Other. The Digital Investment Management segment is composed of balance sheet equity interests in digital infrastructure and real estate; and digital infrastructure and real estate investment management business. The Digital Operating segment composed of balance sheet equity interests in digital infrastructure and real estate operating companies. The Digital other segment composed of equity interests in digital investment vehicles. The Wellness Infrastructure segment composed of a diverse portfolio of senior housing, skilled nursing facilities, medical office buildings, and hospitals. The Other segment comprised of other equity and debt investments and non-digital investment management business. The company was founded by Thomas Joseph Barrack, Jr. in 1991 and is headquartered in Boca Raton, FL. Read More 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. The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO ENERGY, XTO Energy Canada, and XTO Holdings LLC. 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 Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Ingersoll Rand: 211 E. Russell Road LLC, Air-Relief, Belliss & Morcom Brasil, Belliss and Morcom, Boardwalk Enterprises, Charm Merger Sub Inc., CompAir, CompAir (Hankook) Korea Co. Ltd., CompAir Acquisition (No. 2) Ltd., CompAir Acquisition Ltd., CompAir BroomWade Ltd., CompAir Canada, CompAir Finance Ltd., CompAir GmbH, CompAir Holdings Limited, CompAir Holman Ltd, CompAir International Trading (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CompAir Korea Ltd, CompAir South Africa (SA) (Pty) Ltd., CompAir UK Ltd, CompAir USA, Consolidated Distribution Holdings Ltd., DV Systems Inc., Emco Wheaton, Emco Wheaton GmbH Branch, Emco Wheaton Gmbh, Emco Wheaton UK, Emco Wheaton USA Inc, Enza Air Propriety Limited (South Africa), GD Aria Holdings #2 Limited, GD Aria Holdings Limited, GD Aria Investments Limited, GD First UK Ltd, GD German Holdings GmbH, GD German Holdings I Gmbh, GD German Holdings II GmbH, GD German Investments GmbH, GD Global Holdings, GD Global Holdings II, GD Global Holdings UK II Ltd., GD Global Ventures I B.V., GD Global Ventures II B.V., GD Global Ventures III B.V., GD Industrial Products Malaysia SDN. BHD., GD Investment KY, GD UK Finance Ltd., Gardner Denver (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Gardner Denver Austria GmbH, Gardner Denver Bad Neustadt Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Belgium NV, Gardner Denver Brasil Industria E Comercio de Maquinas Ltda., Gardner Denver CZ + SK sro, Gardner Denver Canada Corp, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Ltd., Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Ltd. - US Branch, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Ltd., Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Ltd. - US Branch, Gardner Denver Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Engineered Products India Private Limited, Gardner Denver FZE, Gardner Denver Finance II LLC, Gardner Denver Finance Inc & Co KG, Gardner Denver France SA, Gardner Denver France SAS, Gardner Denver Group Services Ltd, Gardner Denver Group Svcs Ltd, Gardner Denver Hoffman, Gardner Denver Holdings, Gardner Denver Holdings Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Investments Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Ltd, Gardner Denver Iberica, Gardner Denver Industries Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd. Branch, Gardner Denver International, Gardner Denver International Ltd., Gardner Denver Intl Ltd Middle East Regional Rep Office, Gardner Denver Investments, Gardner Denver Italy Holdings S.r.L., Gardner Denver Japan, Gardner Denver Kirchhain Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Korea, Gardner Denver Korea Ltd, Gardner Denver Ltd, Gardner Denver Ltd South Africa, Gardner Denver Ltd., Gardner Denver Ltd. Branch (Ireland), Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co, Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Gardner Denver Nash Brasil Industria E Comercio De Bombas Ltda, Gardner Denver Nash Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Nash LLC, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd., Gardner Denver Nederland BV, Gardner Denver Nederland Investments B.V., Gardner Denver Oberdorfer Pumps, Gardner Denver Oy, Gardner Denver Petroleum Pumps, Gardner Denver Polska Sp z.o.o., Gardner Denver Pte Ltd., Gardner Denver S.r.l., Gardner Denver Schopfheim GmbH, Gardner Denver Schopfheim Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Schweiz AG, Gardner Denver Slovakia, Gardner Denver SudAmerica S.r.l., Gardner Denver Sweden AB, Gardner Denver Taiwan Ltd., Gardner Denver Thomas, Gardner Denver Thomas GmbH, Gardner Denver Thomas Pneumatic Systems (Wuxi) Co., Gardner Denver Thomas Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver UK, Gardner Denver Water Jetting Systems, Garo Dott. Ing. Roberto Gabbioneta S.r.l., Hamworthy Belliss & Morcom, ILMVAC (UK) Ltd., ILS Innovative Labor Systeme, ILS Inovative Laborsysteme GmbH, Indonesia Foreign Trade Representative Office, LeROI, LeRoi International Inc, MP Pumps Inc., Mako Compressors, Nash, Nash Elmo, Oina VV, Oina VV Aktiebolag, Robuschi, Rotary Compression Technologies, Runtech Systems, Runtech Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Runtech Systems Inc., Runtech Systems OY, Shanghai CompAir Compressors Co Ltd, Shanghai Compressors & Blowers Ltd., Syltone, TCM Investments, TIWR Real Estate GmbH & Co. KG, TODO AB, Tamrotor Marine Compressors AS, Thomas Industries, Thomas Industries Inc., Tri-Continent Scientific, Welch Vacuum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zinsser Analytic, Zinsser Analytik GmbH, and Zinsser NA. The Williams Cos., Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company, which explores, produces, transports, sells and processes natural gas and petroleum products. It operates through the following segments: Transmission and Gulf of Mexico; Northeast G&P; and West. The Transmission and Gulf of Mexico segment comprises of interstate natural gas pipelines, Transco and Northwest Pipeline, as well as natural gas gathering and processing and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region. The Northeast G&P segment includes midstream gathering, processing, and fractionation businesses in the Marcellus Shale region primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, and the Utica Shale region of eastern Ohio. The West segment consists of gas gathering, processing, and treating operations in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado and Wyoming, the Barnett Shale region of north-central Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale region of south Texas, the Haynesville Shale region of northwest Louisiana, and the Mid-Continent region which includes the Anadarko, Arkoma, and Permian basins. The company was founded by David Williams and Miller Williams in 1908 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Read More Male (Maldives), Mar 18 (UNI): External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday held talks with Maldives Home Minister Imran Abdulla and discussed ways to boost bilateral ties. "Close bonds of friendship. Good meeting between EAM Sushma Swaraj and Maldives Minister of Home Affairs Imran Abdullla on the second day of her visit to Maldives. Discussed steps to continue the upward trajectory in our bilateral relationship," MEA spokesman Raveesh Kumar tweeted. Swaraj, who arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, called on the Speaker of the Parliament of Maldives, the People's Majlis, Qasim Ibrahim. Swaraj reiterated India's commitment to supporting the country in its path of peace, development, prosperity and democracy. She also unveiled a plaque dedicating the renovated Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital to the people of Maldives in the city of Male. The hospital is the first and largest government healthcare facility in the Maldives, built with Indian assistance. External Affairs Minister and Maldivian Foreign Minister Shahid reviewed progress on important bilateral issues, including implementation of agreed outcomes of President Ibrahim Solih's visit to India last year, MEA spokesman Raveesh Kumar said. Both sides agreed on a broad spectrum of issues for further collaboration, including development cooperation and enhancing people-to-people contact. Solih visited India in December last year during which India announced a USD 1.4 billion financial assistance to the island nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Maldives during the swearing in of the new President Solih after a keenly watched elections. Swaraj's is the first high-level visit from India to the Maldives since new government assumed office in November last year. Among others, she is accompanied by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale. Image Credit: MEA Twitter Premium Brands Holdings Corporation, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and distributes food products primarily in Canada and the United States. It operates in two segments, Specialty Foods and Premium Food Distribution. The company provides meat products and snacks, deli products, beef jerky and halal, sandwiches, pastries, specialty and gourmet products, salads and kettle products, entrees, panini, wraps, subs, hamburgers, burgers, muffins, breads, pastas, and baking and sushi products, as well as processed meat products. It is also involved in the distribution of food products, including meat, seafood, and halal food products, as well as operation of retail/convenience store and concessionary, and provision of food and seafood processing services. The company operates under the brand names of Harvest Meats, Hempler's, Grimm's Fine Foods, Piller's, Freybe, Isernio's, Expresco, SJ Fine Foods, McSweeney's, Made Rite, Fletcher's, Deli Chef, Belmont Meats, Conte Foods, SK Food Group, Oven Pride, Hygaard, Quality Fast Foods, HQ Fine Foods, Creekside Custom Foods, Stuyver's Bread, Bread Garden Express, Audrey's Patisserie, Duso's, Gourmet Chef, Island City Baking, Skilcor, Leadbetter's, Mclean Meats, Buddy's Kitchen, Raybern's, Partner's Crackers, Shaw Bakers, Oberto, Concord Meats, Country Prime Meats, The Meat Factory, and Golden Valley Farms. It serves chains and large format retailers, independent and specialty retailers, foodservice operators, foodservice distributors, and other food manufacturers and food brokers. The company was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Richmond, Canada. Read More Telstra Corporation Limited provides telecommunications and information services to businesses, governments, and individuals in Australia and internationally. It operates in four segments: Telstra Consumer and Small Business, Telstra Enterprise, Networks and IT, and Telstra InfraCo. The company offers telecommunication products, services, and solutions across mobiles, fixed and mobile broadband, telephony and Pay TV/IPTV, and digital content; and online self-service capabilities, as well as operates inbound and outbound call centers, owned and licensed Telstra shops, and the Telstra dealership network. It also provides sales and contract management; and product management services for data and Internet protocol networks, mobility services, and network applications and services products, such as managed network, unified communications, cloud, industry solutions, and integrated services and monitoring. In addition, the company engages in the development of industry vertical solutions; planning, design, engineering architecture, and construction of Telstra networks, technology, and information technology solutions; and delivering network technologies. Further, it provides telecommunication products and services through its networks and related support systems to other carriers, carriage service providers, and Internet service providers; access to fixed network infrastructure assets; disconnection services; and network services under the Infrastructure Services Agreement and commercial contracts, as well as holds fixed network infrastructure, including data centers, non-mobiles related domestic fiber, copper, HFC cable, international subsea cables, exchanges, poles, ducts, and pipes. The company was formerly known as Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation Limited and changed its name to Telstra Corporation Limited in April 1993. Telstra Corporation Limited was founded in 1901 and is based in Melbourne, Australia. Read More SunTrust Banks, Inc. operates as the holding company for SunTrust Bank that provides various financial services for consumers, businesses, corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit entities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer and Wholesale. The Consumer segment provides deposits and payments; home equity and personal credit lines; auto, student, and other lending products; credit cards; discount/online and full-service brokerage products; professional investment advisory products and services; and trust services, as well as family office solutions. This segment also offers residential mortgage products in the secondary market. The Wholesale segment provides capital markets solutions, including advisory, capital raising, and financial risk management; asset-based financing solutions, such as securitizations, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and structured real estate arrangements; cash management services and auto dealer financing solutions; investment banking solutions; and credit and deposit, fee-based product offering, multi-family agency lending, advisory, commercial mortgage brokerage, and tailored financing and equity investment solutions. This segment also offers treasury and payment solutions, such as operating various electronic and paper payment types, which comprise card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, check, and cash; and provides services clients to manage their accounts online. The company offers its products and services through a network of traditional and in-store branches, automated teller machines, Internet, mobile, and telephone banking channels. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 1,218 full-service banking offices located in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. SunTrust Banks, Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Read More YINCHUAN, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The largest coal chemical park in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has launched a campaign to clean up over 120 small and disorderly coalfields. The Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base, one of China's largest coal production bases and a coal-to-chemical industry base, is located close to Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, areas with large coal deposits. Since last year, it has shut down 127 disorderly coalfields which occupied over 533 hectares. Over 2 million tonnes of coal has been cleaned and 90 percent of the construction above ground has been dismantled. The coalfields were a major logistical base that stored coal from the local area and Inner Mongolia, and then loaded them onto trucks to send to local fire power plants, boilers, and consumers in Yunnan and Jiangsu provinces. Annual turnover was 25 million tonnes, totaling 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars). These coal fields, however, were poorly managed. Most never met environmental requirements. The decision to close them was met with great resistance by the coalfield owners who paid a hefty rent to the villages and created jobs for the people living in the area. "Money from the coalfields helped cover medical and social insurance costs for the villagers. One of the villages received four million yuan a year for leasing out the land to coal yard owners. Every family received a dividend of over 5,000 yuan," said Yan Xinmin, an official with the base administration. Yang Jia, general manager of Ningxia Xinwen Energy Technology Company, said he once had to hide from environmental inspectors because he did not have credentials for operation. Yang was the first to shut down the old coal yard and move his business to new coalfield, an 133-hectare area at the southern part of the base. Thirty-four companies have been chosen to move their coal storage facilities into the new coal field, which cost 600 million yuan to build. Ma Sanqing, an official with the base administration, said the villagers will find new jobs and sources of income at the new coalfield. The villagers will become shareholders of a special service company for the coalfield. "If we have 1,000 trucks every day, the management of the trucks, dining and cleaning services will generate 5 million yuan every year," said Ma. "It is a necessary step to clean up the old coal yards," said Yang Fu, head of the Huiminxiang village. "We are planning to build parking lots, dining facilities, auto repair shops and other services," he said. Efforts are underway to clean the black slags and mud that blocked the flood discharge channels. Trees will be planted to restore the greenery at the coalfields, said Ma. Construction of the Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base began in 2003. Now it is home to around 130 enterprises. The gross industrial output value reached 117 billion yuan in 2017. Washington, Mar 18 (Sputnik/UNI): Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford has refuted media reports stating that the US military are allegedly planning to keep nearly 1,000 troops in Syria. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported citing US officials that Washington plans to continue supporting Kurdish forces in Syria despite the threats from Ankara to launch a military operation against the Kurds in northern Syria. Sources told the media outlet that these plans require to keep nearly half of the current US military contingent in the country. "A claim reported this evening by a major U.S. newspaper that the U.S. military is developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is factually incorrect. There has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President's direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence," Dunford said in a statement published on Twitter. According to Dunford, the United States continues to conduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border. US President Donald Trump announced in December that he had decided to pull out troops from Syria promising to bring about 2,000 US servicemen back home. The reason for the move, he explained, was the defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group (which is outlawed in Russia) in Syria. However, no exact deadline for the return of troops has been revealed by US officials yet. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in February that the United States would leave a small peacekeeping group of about 200 personnel in Syria "for a period of time." According to media reports, this number has already risen to 400, with 200 troops to be placed in northeast Syria and the other 200 at At-Tanf base in southern Syria. The US-led coalition of more than 70 members has been conducting military operations against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq since September 2014. The coalitions activities in Syria are authorized neither by the Syrian government, nor by the UN Security Council. This landlocked state shouldn't have any islands. But the deadly flooding that has deluged parts of Nebraska could get worse before it gets better. "This really is the most devastating flooding we've probably ever had in our state's history, from the standpoint of how widespread it is," Gov. Pete Ricketts said Monday. More than 8 million people are under flood warnings in the Midwest and the Mississippi River Valley, said CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen. "Eastern Nebraska remains the hardest hit area, with much of the southeast part of the state under flood warnings," he said. The flooding has already killed two people in Nebraska and one man in Iowa. Ricketts said at least one person remains missing in Nebraska. Flood records have been shattered in 17 places, and more rivers will likely break cresting records this week, according to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. (A crest is the highest point of a flood wave.) Now the big concern is floodwater draining downstream, further deluging communities that can't take any more water. 3 deaths include a farmer trying to rescue others Nebraskan James Wilke, a farmer in Platte County, used his tractor to try to help a person trapped in a vehicle, NEMA spokesman Mike Wight said. "With the guidance of emergency responders, James drove his tractor over the Shell Creek bridge on the Monestary Road and the bridge gave out. James and the tractor went down into the flood water below," family friend Jodi L. Hefti wrote on Facebook. Another Nebraska man died after he was overcome by flood waters near a dam in Spencer, Wight said. He said one more person in Nebraska is missing and presumed dead. In Iowa, Aleido Rojas Galan of Nebraska was one of three people rescued from floodwater, Iowa's Fremont County Sheriff's Office said. But Galan, 55, succumbed to his injuries and died at a hospital in Lincoln. This nightmare started with a 'bomb cyclone' The mammoth flooding follows a powerful "bomb cyclone" that slammed the central US last week with hurricane-like winds and blizzard conditions. Melting snow ended up in rivers and streams, causing flooding and cresting days after the precipitation was over. Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base, just south of Omaha, said about 30 buildings were hit with floodwater. "Team Offutt has done an incredible job working together to battle this historic flood as best we can," said Col. Michael Manion, 55th Wing commander. On Sunday, he said the 55th Wing at the base was down "essential personnel manning only." In Iowa, a mandatory evacuation order has been issued for some residents of Pacific Junction, CNN affiliate KETV reported. A county board resolution passed Sunday will establish a $750 fine for anyone who violates the evacuation or curfew orders, according to the news station. Recovering from the damage The Nebraska governor and Rep. Don Bacon toured shelters Sunday, talking to displaced residents and evacuees of the floods. Red Cross volunteers are working in more than a dozen shelters across eastern Nebraska and Iowa. As the process of recovery begins, NEMA urged neighbors affected by the floods to look out for each other. Some warning signs to look for in the aftermath, the agency said, include increased use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs; feelings of anxiety, disbelief or numbness; physical reactions such as headaches; and worsening of chronic health problems. Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Irish republican party Sinn Fein, has sparked controversy after appearing at a St. Patrick's Day parade in the United States with a banner reading "England get out of Ireland." The official Sinn Fein Twitter account posted an image of McDonald with the banner at a parade in New York City alongside the caption "No explanation needed." In response, Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney tweeted: "This is NOT leadership -- it's offensive, divisive and an embarrassment -- grow up, this is NOT #ireland in 2019! we are better than this!" Unionist politicians also criticized McDonald over the banner. "When slogans such as "Brits out" or "England out of Ireland" are used, the unionist community are well within their rights to see themselves as the intended focus," said Gregory Campbell, the Democratic Unionist Party MP for East Londonderry. "The 'British presence in Ireland' is the unionist population in Northern Ireland." Nuala McAllister, a councilor for the Alliance party and former Lord Mayor of Belfast, called on McDonald to apologize. "Leaving aside the irony of St Patrick being a Briton, this sort of anti-English, anti-British sentiment is just as repulsive as anti-Irish, anti-immigrant prejudiced views -- they are two sides of the same coin," McAllister said in a statement. Ulster Unionist Party Leader Robin Swann said the banner was "highly offensive." "It demonstrated that bigotry and hypocrisy were alive and well within their version of republicanism," Swann said in a statement. "Sinn Fein is a narrow-minded party still guided by the shadowy figures from our dark past." Sinn Fein fired back at critics and claimed that it should be no surprise the party is campaigning for a new United Ireland under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. "The faux outrage of some of our political opponents owes more to the silly season of a holiday weekend and petty political point scoring," a Sinn Fein spokesperson said in a statement. "However if Simon Coveney and the government is serious about achieving a new and agreed United Ireland then he should immediately convene an all-Ireland forum on Irish unity." St. Patrick's Day events are taking place in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with more than 500,000 people expected to attend a parade through Dublin. Extra police are on duty in the main student district of Belfast after St. Patrick's Day disorder in recent years. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is in Chicago, Illinois, where he marched in the same St. Patrick's Day parade as MMA star Conor McGregor. McGregor is currently on bail in the US accused of smashing a fan's phone in Miami, and Irish media described his appearance alongside Varadkar as a PR disaster for the Prime Minister. Varadkar told reporters he didn't know McGregor would be there. The Irish PM is currently on a visit to the US during which he has met with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Pence hosted Varadkar and his partner at the Naval Observatory for the Friends of Ireland breakfast on Thursday. Varadkar is one of only a handful of state leaders globally who identify as gay, and Pence's support for the LGBT community has been called in to question throughout his political career. CLINTON, N.Y - If you live near Hamilton College, you may have noticed a significant amount of police activity on campus monday afternoon. The college hosted emergency response training for the 10th year. The college hosted multiple agencies including the State Police, Air National Guard, and a representative of the FBI. At 12:30pm that afternoon, an air national guard, CH-47 helicopter landed on the rugby field dropping off a side by side vehicle as well as a small response team. The goal of the week long program is to practice scenarios throughout the campus. "We look at scenarios that are different than what we've had. A lot of the stuff could happen on campus and that's what brought us here today," said Wayne Gentile. Lance Woodard is the Deputy Director of the 2nd Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team. His team was brought in because of a scenario the agencies were practicing. He went on to describe that situation and why his team would be called in. "We look at what happened on college today. Hamilton College security found something. They went and coordinated with the state police on what the situation might be. Once they realize they have exhausted capabilities or they don't have the correct capabilities to identify what might happen in a weapon of mass destruction scenario, we are the next level," said Woodard. The mass shooting in New Zealand that killed 50 people highlight the importance of having exercises such as these. "I think its scary, you know when I grew up it was the fire drills that were the big drill that you did. Its a scary time to grow up. What we are hoping here is that the students have a good sense of safety and security when they come here. Knowing that we are at least doing everything that we can to minimize any dangers on campus," said Gentile. "Its great to conduct training so I understand the capabilities of the first responders, I get to know who they are personally. So when an incident does happen in the future its not the first time I'm meeting them," said Woodard. The exercises will take place on the campus until Thursday. The reason the campus was chosen for the exercises was its central location to the surrounding agencies, as well as the college's willingness to offer their campus for use. The exercises are closed to the public. UTICA, N.Y. -- Omar Ortiz, the man accused in Uticas Bleecker Street homicide back in 2018, has been found guilty on all counts, including second-degree murder. Ortiz killed Deon Williams in Utica last summer, and was arrested a week after the incident in Pennsylvania. Omar Ortiz appears in Oneida County Court on November 7, 2018. Omar Ortiz appears in Oneida County Court on November 7, 2018. Ortiz was also found guilty of four separate counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and three separate counts of criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree along with the second-degree murder charge. Ortiz will be sentenced on May 17 and could face 25 years to life in prison for the murder charge. His other charges will be served concurrently. POLAND, N.Y. --Voters in the village of Poland must decide who they want for their next mayor, but this year there are no candidates. Kim Tranter, commissioner with the Herkimer County Board of Elections, said the village will accept write-in candidates. "So even if they were to have one vote that person could conceivably win the election," she said. In order for the vote to be valid, the candidate must live in the village of Poland and be a registered voter. The village has a population of 500 people. "The candidate then has the opportunity to either accept or to decline the vote," she said. "If they decline then the town board can appoint somebody to the position. If they still can't find anyone that position can remain open for a year and this will be on the ballot again next year." Tranter said other municipalities across the state are also experiencing a lack of candidates for elections. "The state and local primary was combined with the federal primary, which moved all of our dates up," she said. "So instead of having petitions in July, they're doing petitions right now. People are still caught off guard about this. Petitions need to be filed with the board of elections, this is state wide, from April 1 to April 4. The election in the village of Poland is taking place to find a replacement for Mayor Mary Paul, who is stepping down for personal reasons. Polls are open from noon until 9 p.m. on Tuesday at the village office on Case Street. NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. -- Police in New Hartford are asking for the public's help in identifying a man they say was stealing from a business in Consumer Square. They say he was seen in surveillance video stealing makeup from Ulta in New Hartford. Police ask anyone with information on the cosmetics theft to call the New Hartford Police Department at 315-724-7111. LEE, N.Y. Four Bellamy Elementary students and a driver were injured following a school bus crash in the town of Lee Monday morning. The school bus crash happened on Stokes-Westernville Road around 8:30 a.m., according to the Oneida County sheriff. The sheriff's office says the bus was stopped, loading students and as the last student was finding his seat, the Birnie Bus was rear-ended by a 2008 Pontiac driven by a Lee woman. Christine Connolly, 29, was issued several tickets, including following too closely and speed not reasonable and prudent, and is due back in court at a later date. Officials say the injuries to all involved dont appear to be life-threatening, the four students injured were brought to the emergency room at Rome Memorial Hospital for evaluation. Rome school officials are heading to the hospital to check in on the conditions of the students. The bus was in the process of picking students up and bringing them to Bellamy Elementary for school. Members of the state police, Lee Center and Lake Delta Volunteer Fire Department and Amcare Ambulance assisted at the scene. Kuala Lumpur, Mar 18 (Xinhua/UNI) Malaysian police said on Monday that 13 suspected militants were arrested in the country's eastern state of Sabah during operations last week. The suspects, comprising of 12 Philippines citizens and one Malaysian, are aged between 23 and 63. They belong to several groups including the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Royal Sulu Force, according to Malaysian police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun. At least two of the suspects are believed to have participated in a major armed incursion by Philippine militants into Sabah's Lahad Datu district in 2013. "With these arrests, we are confident of apprehending the remnants of these groups who are hiding in Malaysia, mainly in the state of Sabah," the police said in a statement. The state lies on the border with the Southern Philippines and has seen militants crossing the border for kidnapping. The police said that other suspects were believed to have provided shelter to other terrorism suspects, including from the Middle East. By RT March 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Interim president of Venezuela not violating rules because they were changed for him Abrams By RTThe US-backed interim president of Venezuela Juan Guaido isnt violating the 30-day constitutional limit because the legislature backing him voted to make it not apply, explained the US special envoy Elliott Abrams. Guaido was declared interim president by the National Assembly on January 23, under Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution, which limits the institution to 30 days. But his term did not expire on February 23, because the National Assembly passed a resolution declaring that the 30-day countdown wont start until usurper President Nicolas Maduro steps down, Abrams told reporters at the State Department on Friday. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Interim president of Venezuela not violating rules because they were changed for him Abrams Asked by AP diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee if that rule can be changed after the fact, Abrams replied, You dont get a vote, because youre not in the National Assembly. Youre not in the National Assembly either! Lee fired back. The US recognizes the National Assembly as the only legitimate, democratic institution left in Venezuela, Abrams told reporters. The legislative body was last elected in 2015, and Venezuelas Supreme Court ruled that it was superseded by the Constitutional Assembly elected in 2017 but Washington has refused to recognize the legitimacy of that election. The US and 53 of its allies have recognized Guaido as Venezuelas legitimate leader, but even Abrams acknowledged on Friday that he doesnt actually hold power. Faced with questions about the recognition amounting to only a quarter of the worlds countries, the State Department has repeatedly argued that the number doesnt matter, because the countries that sided with the US are democracies and that is supposed to count for more somehow. Abrams said the same thing on Friday, calling Guaidos backers many of the most influential democracies in the world. This article was originally published by " RT " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community 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. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Religion is the belief and worship of a supernatural being, guided by doctrines and teachings that dictate a way of life, worship, and human-spiritual nature. There are approximately ten thousand religions in the world. A significant percentage of the population of North America (85 percent) is made up of the three countries, i.e., the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The dominant religion practiced by these nations is Christianity. Religion in this region has been a significant factor in influencing the culture, art, philosophy, and law of its people. There are various types of religions being practiced in North America and below is a summary of the major religions being practiced in this vast continent. Major Religions In North America Christianity Christianity is defined as the religion in which people adhere to the teachings of Jesus Christ and follow the rules of the holy book, i.e., the Bible. Christianity is the most popular religion in North America. It accounts for approximately 75% of the total population of North America. As stated earlier, a higher percentage of the people of North America is comprised of the people from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. These countries mainly practice Christianity, the United States having approximately 70 percent of its population practicing Christianity; Canada has around 67 percent Christians while Mexico leads with a total percentage of 87 percent. Since the majority of the countries in North America practice Christianity, Christianity becomes the dominant religion being practiced here. Judaism Judaism is one of the least practiced religions in North America, accounting for approximately 1.8 percent of the total population. Mexico has only 0.02 percent of its population practicing this religion while the total population of the Canadians who practice Judaism is 1.2 percent. Irreligion Canada has the highest number of irreligious people in North America, around 23.9 percent, followed by the United States (22.8 percent) and lastly Mexico (4.6 percent). Since these countries make the significant population of the people in North America, it can be deduced that a slightly more substantial percentage of North Americans do not have any religion. Notably, irreligious people in North America account for approximately 5 percent of the total population of North Americans. Other Apart from the religions discussed above, other religions practiced in North America include Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and the Baha'i Faith. When combined, approximately 15.8 percent of the population of North America falls under one of these religions. Proportion Of Religions In North America North America is a vast continent with various religions. The percentage of people practicing the multiple faiths is determined by countries such as the US, Canada, and Mexico which contribute to approximately 85 percent of the total population of North America. Niger is a nation on the western part of the African continent, and it spans an area of about 490,000 square miles, making it West Africas largest country. The Sahara Desert covers more than 80% of the country, and the countrys population stands at 21 million people. Despite the country's vast natural resources, it is considered a developing nation. In 2018, its GDP was ranked as the 136th highest in the world at $9.869 billion. Niger's GDP per capita, on the other hand, was ranked as the 179th highest at $510. Some of Niger's most important natural resources include arable land, oil, and forests among others. Natural Resources Arable Land In 2016, the government of Niger estimated that arable land accounted for about 13.26% of the country's total area. The data also indicated that the size of arable land in Niger had remained relatively constant from 2013 to 2015. Some of the most agriculturally productive areas in Niger are located in the countrys southern region, and it receives more rainfall than the rest of the country. In Niger's northern end, agriculture is mainly practiced around oases. Agriculture is vital to the Nigerien economy, and it contributed 44.3% of the country's GDP in 2017. The Nigerien labor department estimated that in 2016 agriculture employed about 87% of the country's labor force. Some of the most important crops grown in Niger include millet, sorghum, and rice. Most of Niger's crops are grown for local consumption; however, some of the crops such as onions and cowpeas are grown for export. Niger's agricultural sector faces several challenges such as drought and soil degradation. The government of Niger has invested heavily in improving the country's agricultural sector. Nigerien farmers have been asked to practice drip irrigation to conserve water. The Nigerien government has also partnered with foreign organizations such as the FAO to improve the country's agriculture and achieve food security. Livestock Animal husbandry is one of the major economic activities in Niger. Some of the most common animals kept in the country include camels, sheep, and goats. The Niger government estimated that the livestock sector generated about 14% of its GDP each year. The livestock sector is believed to support 29% of Niger's total population. Animals and animal products are some of Niger's most important exports, and they are exported to countries such as Nigeria and Ghana. Niger's livestock sector faces significant challenges such as droughts, pests, and diseases. One of the most severe droughts in Niger's history began during the 1960s and lasted until the late 1980s. During this period, livestock farmers in Niger lost significant numbers of their animals. Forests According to the government of Niger, forests covered roughly 4,410 square miles which represented about 0.9% of the total land area. Approx 18.3% of the country's forests are categorized as primary forests. During the 1980s, the government of Niger put in place several measures to increase the forest cover in the country. One of the major approaches the government adopted was the establishment of forestry cooperatives. The measures were relatively unsuccessful, and from 1990 to 2010 the country lost 38.1% of its forest cover. The government initiated another project which was initially tested in Tchida village. The Nigerien government planned to increase the Gum Arabic trees to cover an area of about 0.46 square miles wide. Oil Niger has significant oil reserves within its borders. The first oil field to be discovered within Niger's territory was the Tintouma field which was identified in 1975. The discovery of oil in Niger attracted several companies to prospect for oil in the country. Another major oil field in Niger is the Agadem field which began producing oil in 2011. In 2013, it was estimated that the field could contain at least 1 billion barrels of oil. Most of the oil extracted in Niger is processed at the Soraz refinery. Minerals Niger has a wide variety of minerals which play an important role in the countrys economy, and they include uranium, coal, and gold among others. Niger's minerals are mainly sold to other nations with the government estimating that they made up about 40% of the country's exports. The Nigerien government estimated that the mineral sector contributed 3% of the country's GDP. Several major organizations have invested heavily in Niger's mineral sector. Niger's mineral sector faces several challenges such as the employment of children in the mines and fluctuating prices of minerals in the international market. A report by the US government estimated that more than 40% of children younger than 14 were working in mines. About 5% of the children were involved in hazardous activities. The government of Niger has made several efforts to eliminate child labor from the country's mines. The efforts have been relatively unsuccessful, and in 2014 the US government reported that children were still working in Nigerien mines. Uranium A French company first discovered Niger's uranium reserves in Azelik during the late 1950s. At the time, the company was searching for copper. After the Azelik reserves were discovered, more uranium was discovered at Madaouela, Imouraren, and Tassa. The Nigerien government believed that the Imouraren, which is the largest mine contained more than 100 million tons of the mineral. The Nigerien government is a bigger shareholder in some of the companies that mine for uranium in Niger. Nigers uranium production in 2012 was approximately 4,821 tons. Coal During the late 1960s, vast coal reserves were discovered in Niger, and they are among the most important natural resources. Niger has several coal mines with one of the largest being found in Anou Araren. When Nigers coal reserves were discovered, the government planned to use them as a source of fuel to provide electricity to the countrys uranium mines. In 1981, a power plant was set up to utilize the countrys coal. The government believed that in 2011, the plant consumed about 86% of all the coal produced in the country. Challenges Facing The Economy Several financial organizations have identified the challenges that face the Nigerien economy such as unemployment and high poverty rates. The Nigerien government believed that in 2014 more than 40% of the population in the country was living below the poverty level. The Nigerien government has implemented several measures to restructure the Nigerien economy. The Nigerien government has attempted to improve the Nigerien education system in the country to reduce the rate of corruption in the country. Arkansas is a state in the southern region of the US. As of 2017, the 32nd largest state had an estimated population of a little over 3 million people. The census from 2015 placed the population at 2,978,204 which represented a slight increase of about 2.14% from that of 2010. The population density of the state is 51.3 people per square mile. Ethnic Composition of Arkansas According to the 2010 census, which showed that the state had a population of 2,915,918, the biggest percentage (77.0%) of it was made up of white Americans. African Americans constitute the second highest percentage of people with 15.4% while Asian Americans only had 1.2%. Native Americans and natives of Alaska contribute about 0.8% while native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders only had 0.2%. There are also other races (3.4%) as well as people who have two or more races (2.0%). Data from the American Community Survey about the largest ancestry groups in the state have a slightly different look. Of the total number of ancestry groups, African Americans have the highest number with a contribution of 15.5% followed by Irish communities with 13.6%. These communities are followed closely by Germans (12.5%), Americans (11.1%), and English (10.3%). Other minor communities include the French, Dutch, Scotts, Italians, and a few others. The group also found out that about 93.8% of the population aged five years and above spoke only English with only 4.5% communicating in Spanish at home. The combined percentage of populations using other Indo-European languages, Asian languages, and other languages was less than 2%. Religion Being a part of the Bible Belt, it is no surprise that 86.0% of the population of Arkansas is Christian with Protestants making up the largest group (78.0%). Those who do not follow any religion make up 14% of the population while the Jewish and Muslim religions each have a following of less than 1%. By Finian Cunningham March 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - US President Donald Trump condemned the New Zealand massacre of 49 people by a self-declared white fascist as horrible. In an ambiguous choice of words, Trump said he sent his warmest [sic] sympathies to the victims of the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch. He also seemed to downplay white supremacy violence as a problem. Of course, Trump would be obliged to join in the international outpouring of condemnation over the barbaric cold-blooded act of mass murder. How could he not, given the shocking horror and depravity of the crime? But his repeated nationalistic and nativist rhetoric as well as the ideologues whom he associates with make it very hard for Trump and his supporters to deny that there is a link between the White House occupant and the terrorist attack on Muslims in New Zealand, or white supremacist violence generally. Supporters of Trump have scoffed at media claims made against Trump following the massacre insinuating the president is associated with white nationalism and thereby linked to the violence. Admittedly, anti-Trump media in the US, such as CNN and MSNBC, will always seek every opportunity to undermine Trump. Nevertheless, on the point of Trumps dalliance with extremist rightwing groups and their ideological memes there is a valid criticism to be made. The alleged shooter in the New Zealand attack Friday was named as Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian citizen. He openly declared himself to be a fascist, avowing white supremacist ideology. In a so-called manifesto, the suspect refers to Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter More significantly, the themes the alleged murderer espouses are central to the Alt Right movement and numerous other white nationalist groups in the US and Europe, issues which Trump has also promoted for political gain. The themes of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, white genocide by invasion or replacement by brown-skinned foreigners are run-of-the-mill talking points for far-right nationalist movements, which Trump has at times endorsed or given credence to. Only days before the New Zealand massacre, Trump gave an exclusive interview with Breitbart News. The publication is a proponent of many of the themes surrounding fears of the white race being over-run by hordes of foreigners, and especially Muslim foreigners. In his latest interview for Breitbart, Trump appeared to be inciting street violence by imploring his followers in the police and military to get tough. He tweeted a link to the publication. But following the horror in Christchurch, Trump deleted his tweet. That move suggests the president is fully aware of the toxic association with Breitbart at such a politically sensitive moment. Trump and his supporters may try to play the innocent card, decrying what they would call are scurrilous attempt by the liberal media to bracket him with the violence of the far-right. However, what else is one to conclude about Trump when he has personally amplified the touchstone causes of numerous fascist, white nationalist groups? This week, Trump has pushed on with his border wall project. He has repeatedly sought to justify that project in sensationalist, scaremongering terms of preventing an invasion into the US from Mexico. The actual figures of migration over the southern border do not merit such high priority given by Trump to the problem. The proposed expenditure of $8-9 billion and declared state of emergency are dog-whistling techniques by Trump to mobilize far-right nationalist support. Look at the people who associate with Trump. He may claim that their association is not reciprocated. White neo-Nazi groups like Proud Boys and Alt Right have been hosted at Trump rallies. Alt Right leader Richard Spencer is partial to giving Nazi salutes at conferences and declaring Hail Trump! David Duke, the grandmaster of the Klu Klux Klan, has publicly endorsed Trump. Steve Bannon, Trumps former political strategist in the White House, is a big proponent of the replacement theory whereby it is claimed that Muslim, African and other immigrants are invading the US and Europe to obliterate traditional white Christian communities. This was a prime motive for the alleged shooter in the New Zealand massacre. It was also a motive for the mass murder in 2011 by Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik. Trump has taken up the cause of white South African farmers who claim that they are being expelled from colonial lands by the ruling ANC black government. This theme has also been taken up in Zimbabwe, and is a major touchstone issue for white supremacist, fascist groups around the world. For Trump to dally with the issue is an unmistakable sign of his witting albeit tacit support to such ideology, even though he may publicly try to distance himself at times, such as in the aftermath of the Christchurch atrocity. Typically with Trump there are abundant contradictions. His son-in-law and special advisor Jared Kushner is Jewish. Yet Trump was accused of giving support to a Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where the torch-bearing marchers chanted slogans about not being replaced by Jews. There seems little room for denial by Trump or his supporters about his links to the rise of extreme rightwing, white nationalist, fascist groups. His blanket ban on asylum-seekers from Muslim countries, his unhinged rhetoric about invasion by foreigners, and Trumps association with racist, fascistic ideologues all put this president in the dock for incitement. The reckless rhetoric of Trumps demagoguery is manifest in depraved actions such as the mass murder of 49 Muslims in New Zealand. Trump cant wash his hands after cynically dabbling in the cesspool of fascist ideology. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. This article was originally published by " Strategic Culture Foundation " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== White House dismisses praise of Trump by New Zealand shooter Chris Wallace presses Mulvaney: Why doesn't Trump give a speech denouncing 'anti-Muslim bigotry'? Watch: Chelsea Clinton Confronted At The Christchurch Vigil. Note To ICH Community 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. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Dr Lissa Johnson Convinced Julian Assange handed Trump the election? Certain he raped two women in Sweden? Want to see him rot in jail? The fourth in a five-part series by clinical psychologist Dr Lissa Johnson explains the science behind smear and propaganda, and how and why it works. March 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - On Sunday March 3rd and 10th, hundreds attended rallies organised by the Socialist Equality Party of Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, demanding that the Australian government secure freedom for Julian Assange. Acclaimed journalist and film-maker John Pilger spoke at the Sydney rally along with founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees AM, and editor-in-chief of US news website Consortium News, Joe Lauria. The rallies called for the Australian government to intervene to protect its citizen, Julian Assange, who has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy since 2012. Assange is suffering arbitrary detention according to two UN rulings. Should he leave the embassy he is expected to be extradited to the United States and prosecuted for his publishing activities, most likely over 2010 disclosures of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), Julian Assange faces well founded risks of political persecution and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and physical harm in the United States. The WGAD further ruled that Assange is entitled to compensation and the restoration of his freedom. Shortly before the Melbourne rally, in an escalation of the US governments pursuit of the Wikileaks founder, news broke that Chelsea Manning had been jailed for refusing to testify in Grand Jury proceedings against Assange. Wikileaks tweeted, Whistleblowers are now being forced to testify against journalists. A new angle in the attack on media freedom. This is the cutting edge of attempts by governments and the corporate elite to abolish free speech, censor the internet and suppress mass anti-war sentiment, Evrim Yazgin, President of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, told the Melbourne rally. Rally organiser, James Cogan, added that the Trump administration is moving to file the first ever criminal charges against a media publisher, Wikileaks, using the powers of the 1917 Espionage Act. Speaking at the Sydney rally Consortium News editor Joe Lauria asked, from their point of view its easy to understand why the U.S. wants to crush Assange. But what is Australias excuse? Why is it fighting Americas battles? Why has the Australian mainstream media also turned against Assange after an election held in the US, not here? What has happened to Australias sovereignty? Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter On the subject of sovereignty, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, Stuart Rees, noted that Australias culture of relating to the US and the UK is dominated by a preoccupation with cowardice: scared to question what goes on in the Pentagon, in the White House, or even in Westminster. Despite their significance and timeliness, the Sydney and Melbourne rallies, like an earlier Sydney rally in June last year, were subject to a near total mainstream media blackout. Suppression of news shedding light on the true story of Julian Assanges persecution, such as the Australian rallies, is consistent with the decade-long smear campaign against Julian Assange and Wikileaks, as explored in Part 2 of this series. At last years rally, John Pilger traced that smear campaign to a 2008 document by the Cyber Counter-intelligence branch of the US Defence Department (DoD), which outlined a plan to destroy the trust at Wikileaks centre of gravity. As explored in Part 3, over ten years since the DoD drafted its plan to attack trust in Wikileaks, the offensive has taken the shape of Russiagate, with Russiagate proponents marching in lock step behind the Trump administration as it wages its authoritarian crackdown on free speech via Julian Assange and Wikileaks. In order to justify this pursuit, #Resistance warriors are placing their faith in US intelligence agencies, with their long history of lies, over Wikileaks, with its unblemished record of accuracy. How? Why? In Part 1 I proposed that, true to the modus operandi of counterintelligence, which according to the CIA website, seeks to leverage insights into adversary vulnerabilities, every major vulnerability in the human reality-processing system has been leveraged and exploited in order to attack trust in Wikileaks since the DoD launched its mission against the publisher in 2008. The psychological end-game of that mission has been mobilising populations for a war on journalism via Julian Assange, and gaining public consent to treat public interest journalism as public enemy number one. In this case, the adversary in the US crosshairs has been not only Julian Assange and Wikileaks, but the global populations that Wikileaks seeks to inform. It is our own vulnerabilities the vulnerabilities in the information processing systems of all human beings that have been leveraged and exploited in the counterintelligence campaign against Wikileaks. I say this not only because of the 2008 DoD plan to destroy Wikileaks. I say this because my PhD in psychology concerned the psychological processes by which one person influences anothers beliefs about reality. As a result, I am familiar with the large body of psychological literature concerning the human reality-attribution system, its vulnerabilities, and the ways in which those vulnerabilities can be exploited and manipulated. And I see the fingerprints of psychological tactics all over the smear campaign against Julian Assange. Moreover, it is the essence of psychological operations, such as a DoD war on trust, to leverage vulnerabilities in human information processing. A military PSYOPS document issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2003, for instance, defines psychological operations asplanned operations to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behaviour of target audiences. But how, in practical terms, do opinion-shapers influence the emotions, motives and objective reasoning of target audiences? Through propaganda. Propaganda, a member of the psyops family, involves the organised, systematic and intentional manipulation of information in ways that either distorts peoples perception of reality or pushes them to behave in ways they would not otherwise do writes Professor Piers Robinson, chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism at the University of Sheffield and Director at the Organisation for Propaganda Studies. Propaganda and Public Relations, moreover, accounts for over 80 per cent of contemporary mainstream media content, according to a recent Sonoma State University paper. Shutting down Wikileaks and Julian Assange is part of maintaining that state of affairs. As Professor of Communication Sut Jhally, executive producer of The Occupation of the American Mind says, give me control of the media, give me control of the stories through which people understand the world and you dont need police and armies on street corners. You can imprison people in their own minds. You can imprison people in their own imaginations. But what are the psychological processes through which reality-perception can be manipulated? What vulnerabilities can be exploited to that end? How is a war on trust, and journalism, waged? Human reality-processing Vulnerabilities in human reality-processing can be conceptualised on two broad levels. One level is a core, motivational level, involving meaning-oriented processes. This level determines which versions of reality a person is psychologically vulnerable to accepting. It affects which propaganda seeds are likely to take root, and when. Most of us, most of the time, for example, are more amenable to flattering than unflattering realities about ourselves. The second level is a more technical, surface level, at which particular versions of reality, once seeded, are consolidated and entrenched. Propaganda processes at this level operate much like watering a propaganda seed after planting. Technical vulnerabilities are related to efficiency-oriented mechanisms in information processing, which prioritise speed over accuracy. Repetition, for instance, fosters fluent processing, which the brain takes as a quick and dirty indicator of reality, or truth. Vulnerabilities at both levels stem from the widely under-appreciated fact that human reality perception serves a range of goals other than accuracy. The human take on reality is guided by various tacit, unconscious objectives, including social objectives such as needs for belonging and connection, or personal objectives such as self-esteem. Or survival-related goals such as defending ourselves against realities that might make our heads explode. Such goals unconsciously drive which information we accept or reject, and what we subjectively experience as logical, rational or true, impacting how we perceive the world. Psychologists call this motivated cognition. For example, the drive for connection and belonging renders human beings prone to aligning their perception of the world with those around them. This confers inadvertently conformist leanings in reality-perception, which are readily exploited in propaganda offensives and smear campaigns. In the main, much human information processing is not only influenced by such unconscious motives but fundamentally determined by them, no matter how logical or rational we experience ourselves to be. In fact, so powerful are subterranean influences on conscious thought that, in the field of political cognition, reason has been described as a gun for hire in service of emotion. Humans excel at believing what they wish to believe, write political psychologists John Jost and colleagues. All the better to propagandise with. Such a view of human cognition draws on three decades of research in the cognitive sciences, backed by hundreds of well-crafted behavioural studies in social psychology and now evidence from the neurosciences note Professors of Political Science Milton Lodge and Charles S Taber. Neuroscientific research examining cognition by the millisecond, for instance, shows that emotion enters the decision-stream well before conscious thought. All up, Lodge and Taber describe political reasoning as a bobbing cork on the currents of unconscious processes. Not me, I hear you say. Im rational. Perhaps. There are certain states of mind, and certain circumstances, that foster accuracy-oriented perception, rendering some people, and some situations, more propaganda-resistant. If you are tempted to read on to find out who and why, you may be one such person. Meanwhile, what core motivational, meaning-oriented vulnerabilities have been exploited in the smear campaign against Wikileaks and Julian Assange? How have opinion-shapers turned reality on its head in the eyes of some, such that censorship is a bastion of democracy and free speech a menace to be overcome? In achieving such an inversion, one challenge for propagandists has been that the smear-artists themselves possess a long history of breathtaking violence and corruption, as exposed by Wikileaks among others. US institutions and establishments, for instance, have been caught looting and occupying impoverished populations ravaged by disaster, illegally torturing detainees, rigging federal elections and covering for their own extensive civilian slaughter and war crimes. In order for the institutions behind these acts to appropriate trust from Wikileaks and Julian Assange, we the people must be induced to minimise, discount and overlook their state-corporate corruption, along with Wikileaks public-service function in exposing it. Blaming Julian Assange for Donald Trumps election, for instance, requires overlooking the fact that it was the Democrats who propped up Trump. How do propagandists achieve such a sleight of hand? They leverage the human impulse to justify the system. System Justification Just as individuals are generally motivated to view themselves in a favourable light, so are many motivated to view their social, political and economic systems favourably also. This tendency has been dubbed system justification. System justifying impulses render members of a society highly susceptible to messages that minimise their societys problems, gloss over systemic flaws and glorify the status quo. A robust program of psychological research demonstrates that system-justifying motives compel many people to perceive the systems on which they depend as being right, good, fair and just, even in the face of powerful reasons not to, and even when suffering at the systems hands. The pioneer of system justification theory, political psychologist John Jost of New York University, says that by now hundreds of studies have supported predictions derived from system justification theory, vividly illustrating the ways in which people uphold the status quo and minimize or overlook its flaws, thereby perceiving it as more legitimate than it actually is. A counterintuitive finding of this research, with particular relevance to Wikileaks, is that flaws in a system typically exacerbate rather than quell system-justifying tendencies. Systemic cracks such as corruption or injustice, termed system threat, jeopardise the psychological sense of safety, wellbeing and meaning that a functioning system brings. Rather than critique the system in light of systemic failures, then, many people are inclined to double down on the systems legitimacy, in an effort to restore their sense of security and wellbeing. For example, following a Wikileaks revelation. In countless studies, when people read passages or articles highlighting problems in their political, economic or social arrangements, such as an article on the decline of American society, they respond defensively, with greater rationalisation, faith and trust in the systems described. Given that system justification acts in this way to protect people from harsh realities, John Jost describes it as a form of self-deception, fuelling fundamental delusion about the social and political world. Its influence on political information-processing, he says, is profound. With its profound influence on political reasoning, in light of the devastating flaws in US democracy exposed by Wikileaks in 2016 (election rigging, public versus private positions, and state-corporate connivance), the system-justifying impulse could have been expected to kick in. So as to defend against harsh realities revealed by Wikileaks (eg democracy as sham), system-justifying delusions (eg its all Russias fault) were poised to take hold, legitimising a system exposed as unsound. Russiagate descended on these psychological vulnerabilities ferociously, stoking collective self-deception with delusional material galore, in which the legitimacy of election-rigging elites was bolstered, and Wikileaks was cast as the wrecking ball. In a system-justifying panic, persecutory fixation on evidence-free foreign evil-doer tropes took hold, unhinged from accepted realities around internal election interference, and Russiagate doubled down on the sanctity of precisely that which had been revealed as lacking: American democracy. Capitalising on self-deceptive defence of the broken status quo, Russiagate has buttressed American democracy with magical thinking, in which mostly unseen and irrelevant puerile social media posts such as Bernie Sanders in Boxer shorts hijacked voters brains, sowed racial and class division in a land of social harmony, and defiled democracy. Topped off as it is by an escapist fantasy of US intelligence agencies as progressive saviours, Russiagate is fundamental delusion indeed. It has proven as divorced from logic and evidence as any delusional belief system, and as impervious to reality-testing. In this persecutory worldview, any systemic critique of the corporate state is a Russian plot. A British retiree who likes to read and tweet? Russian. A Syrian commentator living in Perth with a YouTube channel? Russian again. Environmental activists? Yep. Russian. Jill Stein? Russian too. Black Lives Matter? Riled up by Russians. African Americans? Cant think for themselves those African Americans according to Russiagate. Russia is controlling their minds. So, yes, Russian. Wikileaks and Julian Assange? Russian. Of course. Russian, Russian, Russian. Were Russiagaters suffering auditory hallucinations and hearing the voices of Joseph McCarthy himself, they could scarcely emulate collective psychosis more successfully. As in McCarthys day, the spectre at the centre of this paranoid ideation is a familiar one the foreign bogeyman. Like the immigrant bogeyman across the aisle, it serves the same psychological function that foreign bogeymen always have: protection against ugly truths at home, refuge from harsh realities and retreat into the familiarity of the status quo. At the expense of Julian Assange. And systemic critique of the corporate state. For the elites whose agenda it serves, the whole system-justifying process maintains power, quells dissent and rationalizes war. In the case of the information war against information rebellions on the internet battlefield, as a Senate Judiciary Committee heard, the victims of that war are journalists and publishers, including Julian Assange, and the populations they seek to inform. They are human beings sharing information, dehumanised and disappeared, as victims of warfare always are, behind the bogeyman in this case Russian upon whom system-justifying Western populations are incited to project their rage and fear. And thus reality is inverted. Those exposed as corrupt are viewed as virtuous by virtue of their corruption. And those who expose them are corrupt by virtue of their expose. Free speech as menace to be overcome. More broadly, Wikileaks very role in revealing the machinations of power renders it vulnerable to system-justifying responses at every turn. The moments at which Wikileaks exposes systemic corruption and abuse are the very moments at which canny smear artists move in for the kill. Russiagate is no exception. When Wikileaks exposed US war crimes in 2010, populations were psychologically ripe for system-justifying defence of the national security state. Which is precisely what took place. Assange and Wikileaks were cast as dangerous terrorists with blood on their hands, gratuitously targeting the poor defenceless US war machine. In reality, Vice President Joe Biden admitted that the 2010 releases had caused no substantive damage other than to be embarrassing. When Wikileaks exposed the CIA spying on us through our iPhones and Smart TVs the CIA cast itself as a victim of Wikileaks espionage. Now in 2019, as the US, the UK and Australia defy binding international law, imprisoning Assange for journalism in violation of two UN rulings, flouting the worlds leading human rights organisations and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), it is Julian Assange who is placed on trial: by media and the US national security state. In this equation, the objective reality is that Assange and Wikileaks are the ones with institutional legitimacy, and the law, on their side international law, human rights treaty law and the rules of asylum. Should Julian Assange be extradited, rule of law itself is at stake says Professor of International Law and retired UN expert on the promotion of international order, Alfred De Zayas. Moreover, in fending off the rogue US national security state, Wikileaks has the support of the worlds leading democratic and human rights institutions, including the UN, the IACHR, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. It is the pursuit of Julian Assange and Wikileaks that threatens the existing order and the rules-based status quo. To system-justify is to come to Wikileaks defense. Smear artists, however, will never tell you that. Apologist Shmologist Not everyone, needless to say, is equally inclined to defend the status quo. According to Jost and colleagues those most apt to system-justify are those with high needs for order, structure, certainty and control. So what of the rest of us? How does a smear campaign target those who are more capable of tolerating their societys flaws? What vulnerabilities can smear artists seize upon there? Alongside system justification, a psychological vulnerability underpinning smear campaigns is what psychologists call derogation of moral advocates. According to psychological research, those who draw attention to their societys failings tend to be viewed negatively by the very groups they seek to enlighten and assist. Fortunately for smear artists, this process packs a double punch. It applies not only to publishers of systemic critique such as Julian Assange and Wikileaks, but anyone who sticks their head above the parapet to defend Wikileaks and Julian Assange. In a PhD thesis on the topic, Nadia Bashir from the University of Toronto writes, Individuals generally agree that questionable, harmful, and illegal behaviours are wrong and unethical. Thus, it may seem counterintuitive that individuals often vilify those who aim to expose and therefore eliminate these behaviours. A growing body of research demonstrates, however, that individuals who take a stand against immoral behaviours (i.e., moral advocates) can elicit scorn rather than admiration. Anyone who publically defies the smear campaign against Julian Assange, or pushes back against war and propaganda more generally, is likely to have experienced such scorn first hand: apologist, Russian bot, Kremlin troll or stooge. For this reason, following the Sydney rally to free Assange, rally organiser James Cogan warned, The more support that is expressed for Assange, the more slander and vilification will be directed against him and his defenders. n Bashirs research, moral advocates who speak out against injustice, such as injustice against Julian Assange, are perceived as more annoying, offensive, arrogant, selfish, self-centred, obnoxious, greedy, insulting and traitorous than other people. Which makes them easier to smear. In short, those less vulnerable to system-justifying processes, and more inclined to stand up for Wikileaks, are simultaneously more vulnerable to being shamed. To being disliked. Viewed as annoying, offensive, arrogant or obnoxious. Apologist. Stooge. Such prospects no doubt contribute to what John Pilger has called the eerie silence surrounding Julian Assange. But why do moral advocates elicit negative reactions? Who is most vulnerable to perceiving moral advocates in this way? Is it those most concerned with morality, and most disturbed by their societys moral flaws? Is it, paradoxically, those with the deepest attachment to moral conduct themselves? Not according to Bashirs research. In her studies, Bashir found that those who demonise moral advocates do so because they value social image over moral considerations. What bothers detractors of moral advocates, she says, is how the advocates have made their group look in the eyes of others. To restore the groups tarnished social image, group members seem to adopt a shoot the messenger approach. Joseph McCarthy, for one, appears to have appreciated this fact. In 1950 McCarthy told a reporter, Ive got a sock full of shit and I know how to use it. And use it McCarthy did. He wielded his shit-filled sock against anyone who dissented from the official narrative such that the bane of the liberal in the fifties was the threat of mistaken identity writes historian Professor Bruce Cumings. Mistaken identity as a Stalinist then, and a Putin-Nazi-Trumpen-Fascist now. Its all about the image, in the eyes of others. Cumings adds that it was a dark period indeed, a maximisation of the potential for absolutist conformity in which dissenters suffered intense psychological pressures and admonitions to change their thoughts or be excluded from the spectrum of political acceptability. The upshot is that those willing to defy derogation, buck political acceptability and stand up for Julian Assange and Wikileaks can rest secure in the knowledge that they are placing morality and reality over social image concerns. Getting hit with a shit-filled sock for their efforts is a mark of moral advocacy well done. Reality-sharing Once a system-justifying narrative has been deployed and enforced through derogation, the perception that all right thinking people agree must be imposed. This tactic exploits the human vulnerability to shared reality. As a social species, human beings are wired to take our cues as to what is real from those around us. The founders of shared reality theory note that the individual creates and maintains the experience of reality by sharing it with others. Jost and colleagues add that perceptions of reality that are socially constructed and seemingly shared by others around us are quite simply taken for granted and, in this sense, acquire a sort of presumptive legitimacy. To achieve shared reality, human beings engage in social tuning, which is a process of unconsciously aligning their worldview with that of those around them, particularly those on whom they depend, or whose affiliation they seek. Accordingly, in a smear offensive such as that against Julian Assange, it is critical to foster the perception that the majority of desirable others hold derogatory views, while suppressing coverage of favourable attitudes and support. Suppressing coverage of rallies to free Assange, with international support from respected figures, is a case in point. As is failing to mention polling data indicating popular support for Wikileaks and Juilan Assange. Even among viewers of mainstream media, where Assange is routinely derided, over 80 per cent of participants in a recent 60-Minutes Australia poll, involving 10,000 respondents, voted for the Australian Prime Minister to bring Julian Assange safely home to Australia. Preventing such realities from being shared is pivotal to smear campaigns, lest reality be tuned in unofficial directions, and populations determine reality amongst themselves. Instead, dissenters from official narratives must be made to feel isolated, and alone. As well as tuning towards others reality-perceptions, shared reality drives people away from the worldviews of those from whom they wish to disassociate. Speciously pairing Wikileaks supporters with undesirable others, then, is another tactic of the smear campaign. Pairing Wikileaks supporters with the right for a leftist audience, or anti-Americans for a patriotic audience, or with misogyny for an egalitarian audience, or with truthers for any other audience, functions by tuning reality perception away from Wikileaks supporters, in a range of directions. The reality being obfuscated here is that the narratives smearing Julian Assange and Wikileaks are not left or right, nor pro- or anti-American narratives. They are elite narratives. They are the narratives of the individuals and institutions that stand to be exposed should Wikileaks continue publishing. So who is most vulnerable to sharing reality with elites, and therefore most likely to buy into the smear campaign? Given the drive to tune reality-perception in desired directions, it is those who crave elite belonging and acceptance. Harbouring aspirations to elitist circles, such as elitist media, political or academic circles, could be expected to foster reality-sharing with elites, by virtue of elitist aspirations. Importantly, this vulnerability goes beyond mere conscious conformity. It involves a subconscious process by which officially anointed narratives and smears, such as those on Russiagate, Wikileaks and Assange, feel subjectively more real and true to the brain. In the language of corks and tides, the desire for elite status is the emotional tide upon which the cork of political opinion bobs. As Comedian and commentator Jimmy Dore observes, having built a Youtube channel around debunking elite narratives, all the people I want to impress in my life I already did These people in journalism I have no respect for. I dont want to impress David Corn or Rachel Maddow or some a***hole at the Washington Post. Im going to expose them for being the propagandists that they are. The tyranny of the group One of the most robust psychological tendencies of human beings is to organise themselves and their perception of the world into social groups; specifically, their own social and cultural groups, or ingroups (us) and other social and cultural groups, or outgroups (them). A wealth of research over decades shows that people are susceptible to all kinds of destructive motives and attitudes towards outgroup members, particularly under conditions of insecurity and threat. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that intergroup psychology has been extensively exploited throughout the psychological war on Julian Assange and Wikileaks, perhaps most heavily since 2016. Whether measured psychologically, physiologically or neurologically for instance, human empathy is lower towards members of outgroups than ingroups. People are more willing to torture outgroup members, and tend to view outgroups as less human, such that members of other social groups are viewed as less capable of human experiences such as pain, heartbreak and suffering. In light of this, every effort has been made to cultivate group-based identification vis-a-vis Wikileaks from a range of angles, whether in terms of left versus right, Democrats versus Republicans, the US versus the world, women versus men or Clinton versus Trump. Since the 2016 US election, anyone who is remotely left, centre left, pseudo-left, latte-left, corporate left, or #Resistance liberal has been incited, vigorously, to view Julian Assange as being on the right. The alt-right. The Putin-right. The Trumpen-right. The misogynist right. Or the anarchist-right. And all of the above. Not only is this likely to render many who identify with the left more callous towards Julian Assange, and less moved by his arbitrary detention, persecution and torture, it also carries implications for reality-perception. Perceiving outgroup members negatively is a hallmark of intergroup psychology. Even when strangers are divided into groups based on nothing other than coin tosses or the colour of their T-shirts, group members are inclined to view other group members as less likeable, less honest, less trustworthy and more irresponsible. For starters. Fortunately for propagandists, the antipathy towards outgroup members can skyrocket from disdain to murderous rage under conditions of fear and threat. The immense fear and threat experienced by many after Donald Trumps election is a case in point. The impulse towards the other in such conditions can be a fight to the death. Which is no doubt why the Clinton campaign wasted no time in getting to work pinning their election loss on Russia and Julian Assange within the first highly emotionally charged 24-hours of Trumps victory, when group-based emotions were running high. Harnessing intergroup animus in this way is central to all pro-war propaganda, playing a central role in mobilising populations for war of all kinds, by mobilising hate. Social psychologists Kevin Durrheim and colleagues write that call to arms discourse justifies violence by contrasting a virtuous us with a savage other including by creating new targets, grouping together diverse enemies, characterizing them in potent and novel ways, and promoting new norms for action against them. Grouping Wikileaks with Trump and Russia after the 2016 election was one such novel characterisation, bringing together diverse enemies in new and potent ways. It justified information war and promoted the new norm of shutting a publisher down for truthful election coverage. In the efforts to exploit intergroup psychology for purposes of smear and censorship, Julian Assange has been paradoxically vulnerable to group-based framings by virtue of the fact that he is not a groupist, to use his words. This has made it possible to define him as an outgroup member from a range of angles. As has the fact that Wikileaks is a non-partisan media organisation, with no group-based, state-based or political ties, publishing exposes across social and group boundaries, upsetting groupists across the board. What is obscured by such framings is the fact that, as Joe Lauria has observed, supporting Wikileaks is not a left/right issue at all. Its a have or have-not issue. There are the haves and have-nots right now. Thats how the world is being increasingly divided, and not only by money and wealth and property but by information. Thats where Wikileaks comes in. It helps the have-nots to have information. Trust us, its confusing A final tactic by which elites elicit trust in their narratives is to make matters confusing. While propaganda narratives must be simple in their thrust (e.g. Russia hacked American democracy), they are often complex in their detail. Russiagate, for instance, has involved a two-year barrage of bombshells, indictments, data points and dossiers, including a stream of meetings and emails between this-or-that political operator on this-or-that date, with this-or-that suggested significance, which turns out to be insignificant to Russian collusion in the end. Every time. Including the recent Michael Cohen testimony. Evidence of collusion, however, is beside the point. The point is that in psychological research, feeling bamboozled by complexity on sociopolitical issues leads to increased feelings of dependence on government. Confusion over details of current affairs has been found to foster greater trust in government authorities, avoidance of the information in question, and faith that the government can be relied upon to sort things out. Sowing confusion in this way is a common tactic used to sell war and economic policies. Simple issues such as elites plundering nations and economies for profit are couched in complicated sectarian and economic terms, causing publics to switch off and leave things to their leaders. As professor of Communication Sut Jhally notes, a primary tactic of propaganda and public relations is to take what is clear and make it confusing. In Russiagate, by the time the next bombshell hits, media consumers cant remember what theyre supposed to remember and assume that it all must be significant if elites are still banging on about it. Which they inevitably are. All of which obscures the fact that there is so far no evidence whatsoever of Trump-Russia collusion, with or without Julian Assange. Not the Trump Tower meeting, not the GRU indictments, not the Roger Stone indictment, not the Michael Cohen testimony nor the fictitious Manafort meetings with Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. But none of that matters. All that matters is this: Trust us, its confusing. Next, in the final article of this series, I will explore the technical vulnerabilities in human reality-processing that have been exploited in the smear campaign against Julian Assange and Wikileaks. In the process I will answer the question of who is psychologically resistant to propaganda, and why. The tactics deployed to exploit technical vulnerabilities in reality-processing are the same tactics that are deployed in all major propaganda offensives. So once you recognise them, you will be equipped to spot a serious propaganda campaign, such as Russiagate, a mile away. Meanwhile, if you missed the rallies in Sydney and Melbourne, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) of Australia is continuing to build a movement to free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. The SEP intends to make Julian Assanges protection an election issue. If you would like to follow and support these efforts, you can do so on Twitter here, on Facebook here, and on the World Socialist Website here. Dr Lissa Johnson is a clinical psychologist and practice principal in private practice. Prior to becoming a psychologist she qualified in Media Studies, with a major in Sociology. Lissa has a longstanding interest in the psychology of social issues and the impact of social issues on psychology, and is a member of the Australian Psychological Society Public Interest Advisory Group. CATCH UP ON THE SERIES Part 1: The Psychology Of Getting Julian Assange: Whats Torture Got To Do With It? Part 2: The Psychology Of Getting Julian Assange, Part 2: The Court Of Public Opinion And The Blood-Curdling Untold Story Part 3: The Psychology of Getting Julian Assange, Part 3 Wikileaks and Russiagate: Trust Us, Were The CIA This article was originally published by " New Matilda " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here Note To ICH Community 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. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The evidence is mounting pointing to similarities in the two recent crashes of Boeing 737 Max 8 commercial jets, costing a combined total of 346 lives. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that the new model 737s were rushed into service without the level of pilot training that normally accompanies the introduction of new or redesigned aircraft. New revelations also indicate that Boeing, the commercial carriers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the pilots unions were all involved in the process by which safety and training corners were cut in the interests of reducing costs and accelerating production and sales, so as to gain market share and profits at the expense of Boeings chief competitor, European-based Airbus. On March 10, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed about six minutes after takeoff from the airport in Addis Ababa, killing all 157 passengers and crew aboard. This was only five months after a Lion Air 737 Max 8 crashed minutes after takeoff from the airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew. In both cases the pilots struggled to keep the nose of the plane from pointing down, and the jets oscillated wildly between ascent and descent, ultimately plunging to their destruction. While the investigation into the Lion Air crash is continuing, and the probe of the Ethiopian crash is in only its initial stages, the black boxes having been recovered but not yet read, aviation experts believe that the first crash was connected to a newly installed automated anti-stall system of which the pilots were unaware and which they were unable to manually override. And satellite data, communications from the cockpit and physical evidence found at the crash site of last weeks disaster all suggest that in this case as well, the new automated system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, was a factor. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Boeing, with the support of the FAA, insisted that pilots who previously flew 737s did not require retraining, using expensive and time-consuming simulation cockpits, to safely fly the new, more fuel- and cost-efficient Max models. These planes quickly became the manufacturers best-selling jets, with more than 4,600 on order around the world and more than 70 in service at Southwest, American and United Airlines in the US. They have played a huge role in record profits and a dizzying run-up in the price of Boeing stock since the introduction of the planes in 2017. No one can seriously doubt that these were the main considerations that led Boeing, the FAA and the Trump administration to keep the planes flying for days after virtually every other country had grounded them and/or banned them from their air space following the March 10 crash. It was only after Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg reversed his position that the planes were perfectly safe and should keep flying, calling Trump Wednesday morning to recommend their grounding, that Trump announced that afternoon the grounding of the 737 Max fleet in the US pending the results of the crash investigations. Since then Boeing has suspended deliveries of the jets to customers, while continuing production at the previous, rapid pace. In its front-page article Sunday, the Times quoted Greg Bowen, the training and standards chair at the Southwest pilots union, as saying the senior leadership at Southwest told him the engineering data necessary to design software for pilot training simulators was still being finalized right up until the plane was nearly completed. They were building the airplane and still designing it, Bowen said. The data to build a simulator didnt become available until about when the plane was ready to fly. Despite this extraordinary situation, pilots union officials at American and Southwest met with Boeing and agreed that the plane could be flown without any but the most minimal and cursory additional training. The FAA agreed and declared the new aircraft to be safe. Boeing said in a statement that the 737 Max was certified in accordance with the identical FAA requirements and processes that have governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives. The FAA issued a statement declaring, The FAAs aircraft certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs. Even after last Octobers Lion Air crash, when pilots urged the airlines to deploy cockpit simulators to train pilots in the new systems on the Max 8 and 9, the carriers refused and the FAA refused to mandate any such action. That remains their position even after the March 10 crash in Ethiopia. When Boeing was set to begin delivering the aircraft in 2017, a group of pilots union officials who have flown the older 737s put together a training manual without even flying the Max or a simulator. James LaRosa, a 737 captain who helped lead the training group, told the Times he flew to a Boeing training center in Seattle to learn about the Max. LaRosa and other pilots created a 13-page handbook on the differences between the Max and earlier models. This was the only addition to a two-hour iPad training course offered by Boeing, and neither mentioned MCAS. Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the American Airlines pilots union, told the Times that after the Lion Air crash last fall, Boeing told the pilots that it hadnt mentioned the new anti-stall software (MCAS) because it did not want to inundate them with information. When you find out that there are systems on it that are wildly different that affect the performance of the aircraft, Tajer said, having a simulator is part of a safety culture. It can be the difference between a safe, recoverable flight and one that makes the newspapers. Over the weekend it was reported that a reclaimed piece of the Ethiopian Airlines plane, known as a jackscrew, indicated that the planes stabilizers had been pointed upward. At this angle, the stabilizers would have forced the nose of the jet downward, a similar scenario as that involved in the Lion Air crash. In order to save fuel and reduce costs, Boeing made the Maxs engines larger than those on previous 737s and mounted them further forward on the wings. It was understood that this change in design could potentially result in the planes nose tilting upward, producing a stall under certain circumstances. MCAS was programmed to automatically engage so as to counteract that risk. Mr. MAGA and the End of Western Civilization By The Saker March 17, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Folks in the West are taught that their civilization has its roots in ancient Rome and/or ancient Greece. This is more a case of self-aggrandizement than serious historical research. While it is true that the city of Rome was sacked in 410 AD, the Christian Roman civilization continued in the East for another 1000 years until 1453. The real roots of what we nowadays call the western civilization are to be traced back to the following time periods: Most ancient (theoretical) roots: the early Frankish Merovingian Kingdom (481751) and Carolingian empire (751843). Formative roots: the so-called Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) which was Roman only in name (this term appeared only in the XIIIth century; in French it is called more accurately Saint-Empire romain germanique but it really ought to be called the Germanic Empire, since it was neither Roman nor Holy). Modern (ideological) roots: Renaissance, French Revolution, WWI, WWII, Cold War. But in practical terms, we can say that the western civilization emerged from the Middle-Ages (5th-15th centuries) or, even better, from the times of the Crusades (1095-1410). Far from being the heir to the Roman Empire, the AngloZionist Empire is a direct descendant from the Franks and the civilization they built in the West on the ruins of the Christian Roman Empire. When Muslims nowadays speak of Western Crusaders they are absolutely spot on. The only difference between the original Crusaders and their modern descendants is that the former at least pretended to be Christians. The latter wear their crass materialism as a badge of honor. This civilization can be characterized by tremendous intellectual, technological and scientific achievement, arguably the most beautiful music ever composed (especially J.S. Bach) and many other artistic and architectural masterworks. Alas, it also has a darker side: imperialism, racism, genocide, slavery, religious and political persecutions and, of course, two world wars. So that record is checkered, to put it mildly, but it cannot be denied that in spite of its sins and flaws, western civilization also brought the world an immense intellectual legacy which inspired people worldwide. If you ask most western people what they associate with the western civilization they would probably name things like the scientific method, democracy, human rights, civil rights, the separation of powers, equality before the law, etc. People from other civilizations might view the western civilization in a very different way, but we can ignore that for our purposes. But what the so-called collective West (aka the AngloZionist Empire) is showing today is the exact opposite of what the West is supposed to stand for. Here are just a few examples: Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter International law: with the US/NATO aggression against the Serbian nation, a major feature of western civilization died: international law. What began then with bombs on Serbian civilians in the Serbian Krajina and Bosnia continues today with the absolutely disgraceful alignment of the key western power and the diktat of the Anglosphere, be it on the Skripal false flag, the many chemical false flags in Syria or, most recently, the AngloZionist coup against the legitimate government of Venezuela. The truth is that nobody gives a damn about international law in the AngloZionist Empires ruling class and that nowadays might makes right. Human rights: the sad and outrageous truth is that the West is currently backing a (completely illegal) Nazi regime in the Ukraine, a Takfiri regime in the KSA and a Zionist (and openly racist regime) in occupied Palestine. All these regimes are mass violators of human rights and basic norms of civilized behavior. Needless to say, the US does violate a huge number of international norms and conventions in human rights, labor rights, due process, civil rights, etc. And we all know that the infamous Patriot Act was written even before the 9/11 false flag operation. Law of War and Geneva Conventions: same here, the US is gleefully ignoring many of the most sacred provisions of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions either by not ratifying parts of these instruments or by finding ways to circumvent them (think Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram or even the many black CIA prisons located in various countries world-wide; think extraordinary rendition too, of course). Likewise, the US totally and unconditionally support the Uber-violator of all imaginable legal obligations: Israel Due process, especially evidentiary rules, have become a farce. Anybody doubting that should look up the following names: Sami al-Arian, Sibel Edmonds, Victor Bout, Anwar al-Awlaki or even Julian Assange. While nominally independent from the other branches of government, it appears that at least the main US courts are fully controlled by the Neocons and their Deep State. Respect for the political process: it is absolutely clear that the Clinton Gang never accepted the election of Trump as POTUS and by rejecting this outcome, or by trying to label Trump as a Russian agent, the AngloZionist leaders will never accept their defeat. Hillarys famous basket of deplorables comment is a perfect illustration of the immense contempt in which the AngloZionists hold the regular people of the US. Open, competitive, markets. It is pretty clear that the US has no use for open, competitive, markets and that the leaders of the Empire will use any and all methods to avoid an honest competition with the other countries, hence all the endless lists of sanctions, of threats against countries which might dare purchase non-US systems (the entire S-400 vs F-35 issue with Turkey is a perfect example). When we look at western countries, especially the US, we see what some call crony capitalism with absolutely fantastic levels of corruption, huge mega-corporations in control of entire segments of the economy, exports imposed by sanctions and threat of sanctions rather than competitive advantages, feudal labor laws, a ruthless imperialist/colonial policy of systematically robbing those who dare to live above resources the Empire needs or wants. Respect for alliances and partnerships. The AngloZionist Empire has no allies only vassal states, puppet regimes and comprador 5th columnists. The US has always treated its so-called allies with utter contempt, but until Trump this contempt was hidden behind a thin veneer of diplomatic language. With Trump, even that is long gone. The list goes on and on, really. On January 18th of last year I wrote an article entitled The good news about the Trump Presidency: stupid can be good! in which I tried to show that by his illiterate actions, Donald Trump was maybe not making America (should be the US but never mind that megalomania) great, but he sure was weakening the AngloZionist Empire. But this is much bigger than just one narcissistic person, What we are witnessing today is the agony of a civilization which has outlived itself and now that the Empire is in its dying throes I want to mention another good thing Trump did: he became the emperor who himself shouts the king isnt wearing anything at all!! (in the original story, a child does that, but in this case, we have a fused child-emperor who does that himself). What are the clothes which I am referring to? Primarily what I would call the Cold War cloak of imperial benevolence. Remember the Cold War? There was the Evil Empire whose Commie-Red agents were about to take over the planet and stick everybody in a labor camp versus the (collective) West, which embodied the ideas of freedom, democracy, human rights, equality before the law, fairness, objectivity, economic prosperity, impartiality, tolerance, pluralism, etc. etc. etc. Then, when Clinton became President and the Neocons finally openly and brazenly seized power, a good friend of mine spoke of a grand coming out which would be impossible to reverse. He was right. Not only are the Neocons now in total control of the Empire, but they have completely given up on any pretense of respectability. I am not only referring to Gitmo and torture, or the obscene and unconditional support for the last openly racist country on the planet (aka the only democracy in the Middle-East) or, for that matter, a long string of completely illegal wars ranging from the wars against the Serbian nation in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Neither am I referring to the growing list of treaties, agreements and even organizations which the US has abrogated, denounced or withdrawn from. In fact, I am not even referring to the US alone, but also to the so-called friends and allies of the Empire which can be described as the collective West or, maybe less charitable, the US colonies overseas. When the Neocons finally came out and showed their true face, they did more than just affect the image of the US abroad, they also gave a signal to their colonial administrators that all pretense of decency could now be dropped. Force, brute force, was now the order of the day. This is why Theresa May could spew out the most ridiculous and self-evidently stupid lies about the Skripals (or about Syria, for that matter) or Macron could ban RT from the Elysee and nobody would peep. This is also why Poroshenko can safely declare that the Russian armed forces have invaded the Donbass or the EU can declare that the Russians are culprits in the recent Kerch bridge incident. The Cold War forced the masters of the Empire to show a kind of capitalism with a human face. That Cold War is over now, and there is no need to pretend anymore. Will the almighty US join the USSR on the trash-heaps of history? Many Russians living in the West (such as Dmitri Orlov) have noted the numerous similarities between the late Soviet Union (especially the so-called stagnation years) and the modern US . I myself made such a list of similarities as far back as 2014 when I listed the following: A bloated military budget resulting in an ineffective military A huge and ineffective intelligence community A crumbling public infrastructure A world record in the per-capita ratio of incarcerated people (US GULag) A propaganda machine which nobody trusts any more An internal dissident movement which the regime tries to keep silent A systematic use of violence against the citizens An increase in tensions between Federal and local authorities An industry whose main exports are weapons and energy A population fearful of being spied on by the internal security services A systematic assimilation of dissent with espionage and terrorism An all-prevailing paranoia about internal and external enemies A financially catastrophic over-reach of the empire across the planet An awareness that the entire planet hates you A subservient press-corps of presstitutes who never dare to ask the real questions A sky-high rate of substance abuse A young generation which believes in nothing at all An educational system in free-fall, (the Soviet one was much better, btw) inbred and White racist redneck A disgust with politics by the general public A massive and prevailing amount of corruption on all levels of power But even more crucial to the eventual fate of the USSR, I would argue, is the immense chasm between what the official ideology proclaims and what the ruling elites actually really do. Speaking about the Ukraine, I wrote in 2014 that what the AngloZionists are openly and publicly defending in the Ukraine, is the polar opposite of what they are supposed to stand for. That is an extremely dangerous thing to do for any regime and the AngloZionist Empire is no exception to that rule. Empire often crumbles when their own people become disillusioned and disgusted with the massive discrepancy between what the ruling elites say and what they do and as a result, it is not so much that the Empire is faced with formidable enemies as it is the fact that nobody is willing to stand up never mind die in defense of it.. The immense, mind-blowing, obscene hypocrisy of the Empire is not only revealed in its actions in the international arena or by the fact that the Empire does not shy away from allying itself with Zionists, Nazis, Takfiris and any other morally repugnant gang of thugs (see in Kosovo, for example) as long as these thugs are willing to act as the cannon fodder of the Empire. The exact same mentality permeates every political action of the Neocons in internal politics too. The Democratic Party especially, reached a new moral and ethical low when it invited Michael Cohen to testify before Congress even though the man is a convicted felon and liar and every word he would speak would be in total violation of the fundamental right of Donald Trump to keep his communications with his lawyer protected by the client-attorney relationship. What is absolutely amazing is that it is Congress which is violating the civil rights of a standing US President, and yet very few observers seem to be outraged by such actions. This outrage was just the latest in a long series of actions by Congress which show that Congress considers Donald Trump as a traitor and a thug and we can rest assured that the Democrats wont stop until Trump is jailed. The fact that he is the person chosen by the people of the US to be their president does not seem to matter at all to the lynch-mob in Congress. Again, what is so striking here is not only how the US elites are turning against each other (which is a sure symptom of a deep crisis), but also the fact that the open persecution of Trump by Congress and the Ziomedia does not even try to come up with some semi-credible explanation or semblance of respectability. What we see is a lynch-mob which is determined to hang the man they have designated as the ultimate evil. As for Mr MAGA himself, he is now busy calling Ann Coulter a wacky nut job to which she responded by calling Trump an idiot and that having him as a President is a national emergency (Rex Tillerson would agree with her on that!). Nobody can predict how this struggle between the Neocons and the Clinton Gang on one hand and Trump on the other will play out, but my personal guess is that Trump is a disposable President: the Neocons will use him to do all the crazy shit they typically are known for, and when the inevitable disaster strikes, they will blame him, him alone, while hiding their own role in what took place. This way Trump first gets to play shabbos-goy for the Neocons for a while, until they decide destroy him like Haman or Amalek (the fates of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi immediately come to mind). Mr MAGA himself clearly was never told that tob shebe goyyim harog. A dictatorship of minorities next? We are often told that in a real democracy minorities should be protected against abuse from the majority and, to some degree, this is true. However, the primary function of any kind of real people-power is to protect the majority, the masses, from the abuse they typically suffer at the hand of various (and often federated) minorities. Whether the Founding Fathers intended this or not, the sad reality today is that the US political system is structured in a way to primarily benefit minorities, financial or otherwise. Hence the 1% meme popularized by Occupy Wall Street. The following are some of the characteristics of the most typical minorities found in the US (and elsewhere): They are typically far more aware of their minority identity/status than the majority. That is to say that if the majority is of skin color A and the minority of skin color B, this minority will be much more acutely aware of its skin color. They are typically much more driven and active then the majority. This is probably due to their more acute perception of being a minority. Minorities themselves present their social success as a sign of intelligence, of course, even though in reality this is the direct result of a drive which representatives of the majority typically dont exhibit. They are only concerned with single-issue politics, that single-issue being, of course, their own minority status. Since minorities are often unhappy with their minority-status, they are also often resentful of the majority. Since minorities are mostly preoccupied by their minority-status linked issues, they rarely pay attention to the bigger picture and that, in turn, means that the political agenda of the minorities typically does not threaten the powers that be. Minorities often have a deep-seated inferiority complex towards the putatively more successful majority. Minorities often seek to identify other minorities with which they can ally themselves against the majority. The reason why the Neocons and their Deep State love to support all types of minorities is very plain and simple: minorities and their (hyper narrow) political agenda represent absolutely no threat whatsoever to the real, hidden, powers which run the Empire. Furthermore, minorities are extremely easy to manipulate. Thus these various minorities represent the ideal power base for a party like the Democratic Party which can then use its control over minority (identity) politics in its struggle against the Republican Party. Furthermore, if you look at that list of characteristics above, you will immediately recognize the kind of nutcases suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome which seems to chronically overcome Trump-haters. What makes this situation particularly dangerous is that the Clinton propaganda machine (through the testimony of Mr Cohen) is now suggesting that Trump might not be willing to accept a defeat in the next elections. I submit that the there is much bigger chance of seeing Trump win again and the Clinton gang trying to play a Guaido trick on Trump. The screaming creature in this photo does not strike me as willing to accept that anybody but her own preferred candidate would occupy the White House. Dont get me wrong screaming lesbians are funny, especially when they wear these pink vagina hats, but there is also a much more ominous aspect to their antics. They are all based on a categorical rejection of the outcome of the electoral process and, which is even worse, a rejection of the other, in this case the deplorable who dared to vote his/her conscience and not simply obey the instructions of the Ziomedia. The truth is that the level of ideological intolerance among the opponents of Trump is much, much, higher than among Trump supporters. It is therefore only logical to assume that the potential for violence is much higher among the Trump-haters than it would be elsewhere. Right now all these folks are content with screaming, protesting and drinking every drop of Cool-Aid the Idiot Box delivers to them on a daily basis. But once in power, this coalition of minorities will ruin the US even faster than Trump did and whatever regime (as opposed to government or Administration) they put in power, will be a far cry from the worldwide Empire the US attempted to build after WWII. Conclusion: Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat What is taking place before our eyes is an amazing sight to behold: an Empire which is collapsing both internally and externally at an accelerating pace and the worse the Empires objective situation becomes, the more delusional and out of touch the Neocons and their Deep State appear to be. Irrespective of all its flaws, mistakes and sins, it is sad to see how a civilization which gave the world the likes of Newton or Bach now rots away while being led by a gang of evil, arrogant, clowns. There have been plenty of villains in the history of Europe, but never such a gang of clueless and yet fantastically arrogant rulers. Just look at Trump, Macron or May these are non-entities which pale in comparison to such leaders as Reagan, Mitterrand or even Margaret Thatcher (hardly a hero of mine, but the lady was smart, no doubt about that). Now, with the likes of Pompeo in charge we can only pray that the losers running this dying Empire will not trigger a nuclear holocaust, whether by design or by sheer stupidity. This article was originally published by " The Unz Review " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community 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. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Two New York University students who confronted Chelsea Clinton have been the subject of a right-wing campaign, involving death threats, the dissemination of personal information and the trawling through of social media feeds for embarrassing information. The campaign, promoted by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasioa potential Democratic Party presidential primary candidateand Donald Trump, Jr., among others, is a disgusting attack on two students for criticizing a multimillionaire political figure. The two students, Leen Dweik and Rose Asaf, confronted Clinton at a vigil at NYU for victims of the fascist massacre of Muslim worshipers and others in Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier that day. At the time of the vigil, 49 had been murdered. As of this writing, another person has died of their injuries and dozens are injured and in Christchurch Hospital. This [vigil], right here, is a result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world, said Dweik. And I want you to know that and I want you to feel that deep down inside. Forty-nine people died because of the rhetoric you put out there. Clinton replied with platitudes like, I do believe words matter. She left the premises shortly after a brief and heated back-and-forth. Dweik was referring to Clintons tweets accusing Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, of anti-Semitism because Omar called attention to the undeniable influence of the Zionist lobby in Congress. Clinton had tweeted, in response to a comment slandering Omar: Co-signed as an American. We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism. An early sign-on to the anti-Omar campaign, Clinton was followed by other political figures, including the congressional Democratic leadership. Omar and Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib are the first two Muslim women elected to Congress. The campaign against Omar and bogus allegations of left-wing anti-Semitism have served to tar any opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitic and distract from the real rise of anti-Semitism, which is the province of the far right. It has also legitimized the virulent Islamophobia expressed in the Christchurch massacre. When explaining their actions, Asaf told the Washington Post that Clinton beginning her anti-Omar tweet with as an American seemed to be an anti-immigrant trope and a dog whistle, signaling this is a patriotic issue and that nationalism excludes people like Ilhan Omar. Dweik told the Washington Post, I wanted to convey my grief. Dweik, who is a Muslim Palestinian, and Asaf, who is a Jewish Israeli-American, are both student senators and prominent activists at NYU in support of the rights of Palestinians and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. They explain in a BuzzFeed article: We thought it was inappropriate for her to show up to a vigil for a community she had so recently stoked hatred against. We were not alone in feeling uncomfortablemany students were dismayed to see her there. Without endorsing Dweiks and Asafs politics (Asaf is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and campaigned for Bernie Sanders in 2016), they are absolutely correct in opposing the despicable role of Clinton in the campaign against Omar and linking it with the rise of Islamophobia. The incident has since been seized upon by the right wing and ostensible liberals alike, with the lineup against the two students nearly universal. Trump, Jr., like Clinton also a multi-millionaire offspring of a president, chimed in with an extraordinarily hypocritical tweet, intoning: Its sickening to see people blame @ChelseaClinton for the NZ attacks because she spoke out against anti-Semitism. We should all be condemning anti-Semitism & all forms of hate. This from the son of a president who declared that there were very fine people among the fascist rioters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump, Jr., has perhaps been even more open than his father about sharing far-right filth on social media. De Blasio tweeted that Clinton displayed dignity and compassion in the face of irresponsible accusations that she somehow stoked the tragedy in New Zealand. Joining this reactionary pile-on are figures as disparate as pro-Democratic Twitter commentator Brian Krassenstein, ex-Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and comedian Kathy Griffin. The incident has also been reported by national and international media, including Fox News, RT, USA Today, the Daily Mail, Haaretz, Business Insider, the New Zealand Herald and, of course, the fascistic Breitbart. To the extent that the media coverage evinces an editorial preference, it is almost universally for Clinton rather than the two students. The media circus around the incident has also served, to a considerable extent, to supplant coverage of the fascist massacre itself and its political origins. Dweik and Asaf report receiving death threats, threats of sexual violence and racist abuse. Clinton, of course, will be fine. She is the only child of ex-President Bill Clinton and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Chelsea Clinton is also a co-founder and co-chair of the Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership at NYU (in which capacity she was invited to the vigil). Her husband is Marc Mezvinsky, a former senior partner at 3G Capital whose parents are both former congressional representatives and friends of the Clintons (his father pleaded guilty to 31 fraud charges in 2001). The direct cost of their wedding was as much as $3 million. Her public statements have been alternately vapid and reactionary, stretching back to her heckling of participants at an anti-war meeting in 2001 when she was a student at Oxford University. And she has been well rewarded for her parentage and efforts. She earned $600,000 annually as a special correspondent for NBC from 2011 to 2014, and she now has a seat on the board of Expedia, with compensation totaling just under $300,000 a year. All told, her estimated net worth is $15 million, and she and her husband sold a $6 million apartment when moving into their current residence. The fact that this nonentity has been fantastically rewarded and defended from the criticism of two university students is an indictment of the present cultural and political environment in the United States. The fascist massacre in Christchurch raises burning questions, many of which can be summed up by asking, Why is fascism back? The campaign against Asaf and Dweik obscures these life-and-death issues and protects the very social class that bears responsibility for the resurgence of far-right, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic forces internationally. The International Youth and Students for Social Equality at NYU will address these questions at a significant event in April featuring Christoph Vandreier, author of Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy and the Return of Fascism in Germany. We urge everyone seeking to oppose the genuine rise of fascist and anti-Semitic tendencies to attend our meeting, The Threat of Fascism and How to Fight It, on Thursday, April 18, at 6:30 p.m., in Lecture Hall 95 of the Global Center at NYU. For more information on the IYSSE at New York University, visit our Facebook page or contact us at iysse@socialequality.com . Organizing this meeting series entails substantial costs. The IYSSE is not funded by the banks and corporations or wealthy non-governmental organizations. If you believe this meeting series is important, donate as much as you can to pay for international travel, printing, promotion and other costs. More than 100,000 primary school educators joined a nation-wide strike in the Netherlands on Friday, March 15, closing more than 2,600 primary and several middle schools across the country. Some 40,000 teachers and support staff travelled to The Hague, where the Dutch parliament sits, to protest horrendous conditions in schools, low wages and high workload caused by years of austerity carried out by all the major parties. The determination among educators to fight is part of a wave of teachers strikes spanning five continents and a rise in working class struggle around the world. There is a growing opposition after more than a decade of deep cuts to education budgets and other areas of social spending, overseen by the trade unions. In many cases educational spending has not returned to levels seen prior to the global financial crash of 2008 even as endless resources are spent to re-inflate the stock markets, military spending is massively increased and social inequality continues to rise. The past year has seen strikes by educators across the US, in West Virginia, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, involving over 450,000 teachers, the largest number in decades. In Latin America, teachers have struck in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina to protest against pension cuts and school reform. In Europe, teachers in Germany held a protest march in Berlin last month, Portuguese teachers joined a general strike and Red Pen teachers organized on Facebook in France supported Yellow Vest protesters against Emmanuel Macron. In Africa, teachers have struck in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, against declining education budgets and school privatization. Indian teachers as well as teachers in Iran and Israel struck against poverty wages, in the face of state repression. A recent nation-wide survey of 10,000 teachers in the Netherlands gave an indication of the conditions that have pushed them to the breaking point. They reported going to work while sick, described training one temporary teacher after another, and said they could not provide the individual attention and guidance pupils require. More than 80 percent of primary schools report a lack of substitute teachers, with 20 to 29 percent of job vacancies unfilled in 2018 (see: Lack of teachers, work overload undermine Dutch education system ). Indeed, on the day of the strike, news emerged of a primary school in the university city of Leiden forced to close its Group 8 class, the highest class before students advance to middle-school, because there was no teacher for them. This is one of many such cases. Often children are transferred to other schools, increasing their class sizes and workload, or are put back down one class lower. Other schools have resorted to a four-day school week. During the demonstration at The Hague, teachers gave short speeches and shared their own experiences, which painted a devastating picture of school conditions. One teacher said: I know children who are afraid to go to the toilet at school, because there is no money to have them cleaned. A primary school teacher from Almelo, near the German border, came to The Hague to call for more funding. We can no longer provide individual attention to our pupils. We came here because the workload is way too high. We and other teachers are striking for a good cause. A trainee teacher from Amsterdam said she experiences high work pressure. Classes are sent home regularly because there are no substitute teachers. In many cases, unqualified personnel teach pupils, trainees such as me. She wants more funding for primary education, to equalise wages with teachers in middle schools. It is strange that there is a difference. The teachers strike and demonstration were called by the Dutch Association of Teachers (AOb), part of the FNV union federation. Its aim is not to conduct a struggle against these conditions, but to dissipate anger even as the union continues to collaborate with the governments austerity program. The teacher unions have overseen decades of cuts, including under the former Labour Party (PvdA) government. The CNV education union, the FNVs Christian counterpart, opposed any participation in the strike, declaring that they were still in negotiations with the government. The unions kept high school and university teachers on the job during the strike. According to the AObs own figures some four billion euros are required in additional funding for education. However, the coalition government headed by Mark Rutte of the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy has proposed an increase of just 270 million euros in this years budget. Education Minister Arie Slob, of the Christian Union, declared his sympathy for the striking teachers, and proceeded to reiterate the governments refusal to increase funding. Financially, we already do a lot, he said. People want more, and that is alright. But this is the money we have, and I am trying to get it to them as soon as possible. Slob proposed to increase the annual budget per school by the paltry amount of 50,000 euros, up from the previously agreed 35,000 euros. This increase, assuming it actually materializes, would do nothing to resolve the crisis of staffing in most schools. In fact, the funding increase is being promised over the four-year budget and may never arrive. There is immense anger against these conditions. But to conduct a struggle, this fight must be taken out of the hands of the union apparatus, which is determined, now that the strike is over, to work out a rotten deal with the government, just as they have for decades. Teachers should form workplace action committees in every school to outline the demands for what they and their students need, not what the government and the unions say is affordable. These committees should organize a real struggle and appeal for the broadest support from students, parents and the working class. The fight by teachers against austerity places them in direct conflict with the entire political establishment, both the right-wing Rutte government and the Labour Party, and their allies in the trade unions. The PvdAs record of cuts saw it punished by workers in the last elections, with its vote collapsing from 25 to 6 percent. The entire political establishment declares that there is no money for schools, hospitals and social services, while the Dutch military saw its funding increased by 1.5 billion euros in the last budget. The government has pledged to meet the NATO-demanded military spending of 2 percent of GDP in coming years. The fight against austerity and militarism being pursued by the European Union and capitalist governments around the world requires the fight for socialism and the taking of political power by the working class. Only in this way can the economy be reorganized according to social need, rather than private profit, and tens of billions poured into education, healthcare and other social services. We urge educators and all those concerned to sign up for the WSWS Teacher Newsletter and contact us today. The German ruling class dreams of building its own aircraft carrier. This was made clear by statements from leading government and opposition politicians last week. At a press conference with the Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins in Berlin last Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) was asked what she thought of the interesting proposal for a European aircraft carrier made by the leader of the Christian Democratic Union. Merkel replied, I think aircraft carriers are good ... It is only right and proper that Europe has such equipment. I am quite willing to cooperate. One day earlier the head of the CDU, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, responded to the European manifesto of French President Emmanuel Macron by raising the prospect of a joint Franco-German aircraft carrier. In a guest commentary for the Welt am Sonntag, she wrote: Germany and France are already working together on the project of a future European fighter, other nations are invited to participate. As a next step, we could begin the symbolic project of building a joint European aircraft carrier to express the global role of the European Union as a force for security and peace. Workers and young people in Germany and throughout Europe must take this announcement as a serious warning. It is obvious that the construction of a German-European aircraft carrier is planned for war, not peace. Germanys only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, was launched on December 8, 1938. It was a project with great symbolic importance for Adolf Hitler during the process of rearming the German army (Wehrmacht) to fight World War II. The current German grand coalitions military and rearmament plans leave no doubt that the ruling class is preparing once again for large-scale warfare. The construction of a powerful navy plays a central role in the plans of German imperialism to assert its predatory interests worldwideas was the case preceding the First and Second World Wars. According to the new policy doctrine of the German army presented last July by Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), Germany As a foreign trade and commodity-dependent nation is particularly reliant on unrestricted use of the sea. Due to Germanys maritime dependence, the Bundeswehr has a special responsibility for the protection of its own coastal waters, the adjacent sea areas such as the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the waters of NATOs northern flank area and international maritime lines. The doctrine then goes on to explain what this entails. Among other things, German naval forces would have to be able to prove effective in three-dimensional naval warfare over the entire spectrum of intensive operations, plan and lead multinational operations at an upper tactical level and participate in naval warfare via their own A2/AD [Anti-Access Area-Denial] skills and ability to conduct operations against A2/AD-enabled agents and maintain tactical-offensive naval warfare and deny the enemy the ability to engage in offensive naval warfare. In other words, the call for an aircraft carrier is not simply the brainchild of Merkel, but rather the implementation of war plans which have been worked out behind the backs of the population. According to the current capability profile of the Bundeswehran internal planning document for the comprehensive modernisation of the Bundeswehr up to 2031the navy, in the next few years, is to receive all necessary capabilities to conduct comprehensive naval warfare. According to media reports, the central issue is recovery of the ability to conduct naval warfare from the air. The cost of these insane plans is to be carried by workers and youth in two ways: as cannon fodder on fresh battlefields and in the form of massive social cuts to free up the billions necessary for military rearmament. In their founding government pact the coalition of the conservative Union parties (CDU/CSU, Christian Social Union) and the Social Democratic Party pledged to increase defence spending by 2024 to 2 percent of gross domestic product, i.e., more than 75 billion annually. The purchase of an aircraft carrier would far exceed all previous rearmament plans. To give just one example, the construction costs of the USS Gerald Ford, which was commissioned by US President Donald Trump in July 2017, amount to $13 billion. The total price of the ship and its F-35c fighter aircraft squadron then soars to about $30 billion. Additional costs include operating expenses of around 13 million per monthduring peacetime. These figures do not even include the costs for the crew of several thousand men. Despite the monstrous nature of such a project, there has not been a word of opposition from the entire political and media establishment. On the contrary, five years after then President Joachim Gauck and the German government announced at the Munich Security Conference in 2014 that Germany must take on more responsibility in the world, the ruling class is increasingly making clear what this means. According to a recent article on the pro-government think tank, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), it is time to junk the wishy washy term responsibility, which spreads a diffuse sense of comfort in the midst of global political turmoil. In reality, it is all about conflicting interests and the means of enforcing them. The SPD, which has long since played a leading role in Germanys new aggressive foreign policy, is now attacking US imperialism from the right. During his brief visit to Afghanistan last week, German foreign minister Heiko Maas (SPD) attacked Trumps announcement to withdraw US troops. One should not leave Afghanistan too early, Maas warned. According to media reports, the German government is preparing to increase its own troop levels in this resource-rich and geo-strategically important country. The aim was to replace capabilities provided by multinational partners which are critical for the mission, according to a document cited in the German daily Tagesspiegel. To this end, forces will be held ready in Germany and an increase in the mandates time limit will be examined on an individual case basis. Germanys so-called leftist opposition parties also agree in principle with the grand coalitions war and rearmament plans. According to the security spokesman for the Green Party, Tobias Lindner, the government should finally ensure that the Bundeswehr is once again operational. His criticism of the planned aircraft carrier is limited to the fact that this project has not been preceded by any serious debate on German defence policy or the capacity profile of the Bundeswehr. A project that would be far more realistic and not to be underestimated for the integration of European armed forces is, in his opinion, a joint training sailing ship! As for the Left Party, it has failed to make any comment on the governments plans, and that comes as no surprise. A congress of the Left Party in Bonn at the end of February agreed a European election program with a large majority. The program is basically in alignment with German-European armament policy. In the run-up to the conference, the party executive had rejected any criticism of the European Union and a passage describing the EU as militaristic, undemocratic and neoliberal was deleted from the draft program. Since then, the leadership of the Left Party has even abandoned any verbal criticism of militarism. The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) is the only party that has placed the return of German and European militarism at the heart of its European election campaign to arm the widespread opposition among workers and young people with a socialist program. Its election statement declares: In May 2019, the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) will run in the European elections with a nationwide electoral list to oppose the rise of the far right, growing militarism, the building of a police state and increasing social inequality. Together with the other sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), we are fighting for a socialist program to unify the European working class in struggle against capitalism. This is the only way to prevent the continent from relapsing into fascist barbarism and war. World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to some of the demonstrators attending last Fridays climate change protests in Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Bournemouth. Many protesters brought homemade banners to the demonstration in Leeds. Among the slogans were, Raise your voice not the sea level, We want change, Science not silence, Planet not profit, The tides are rising! So are we!; Dont be fossil fool, Dont let our planet down, Whose future? Our future! and They said the Titanic couldnt sink! Molly, aged 13, from Roundhay High School, brought a homemade banner reading, Bigger than Brexit! She said, The news has been focussed on Brexit for ages. Climate change is a long-term and much bigger issue It is an international issue and cannot be tackled in one country. We all need to do our part. The oil and gas companies make lots of money. But the people who benefit are at the top of society. I think that ordinary people all over the world have to get together to resolve the problem. I didnt go into school this morning because they said we couldnt take part in todays demo so I came straight here. Corin, aged 15, is also from Roundhay High School. He said, Its really important to let people know that this is our issue. It seems that politicians and people making up the rules are getting more nationalistic in their outlook. The world is about more than one country. In order to make the world a better place, we have to unite across national boundaries and make real radical policies to help change the way we live and interact with our environment. We should look out for each other and use our combined power to make real change. Corin (holding placard) at Leeds rally A university student brought a banner which made a reference to the French revolution. He said, Young people are very upset about growing up in a world that is being destroyed in an irreversible way and in a way we can do nothing about. This change is being orchestrated by the billionaires, CEOs and politicians who dont care about the future and are being driven purely by greed. We are taking a stand against all that. This is the beginning of our efforts to prevent this destruction. Im not sure what amount of action will be required to make this happen. Im not sure because this campaign is so global. I am young and naive. I still hope that speaking collectively will bring about the change we need. But if it comes to it, I think that my sign says it all. It says, You chooseClimate Action or Guillotine Action! Iman, aged 13, from Lawnswood High School said, I care about my future and the future of everyone else All of our actions will affect the future. We need to take action now. In 12 years if we dont reduce carbon emissions the world will be destroyed. I dont want my life to end when I am 25 years of age. Me and my friends sometimes joke about the weather and climate change, but we all know its not a joke, its a reality The climate emergency is international. All MPs [Members of Parliament] and governments around the world understand that, but they do nothing. We are starting a movement that I believe is unstoppable. Brannoc, age 16, from Roundhay High School wore a T-shirt and held a placard with the same slogan: Planet not profit! He said, I went into school this morning and at 9:30 a.m. I stood on a table and said, Im sorry but Ive got to interrupt this lesson. Ive got to go to the demo to act on climate change. Ten others came out of the class with me. He said, I 100 percent agree it is necessary to change the system. But there are two ways of doing itthrough the rising up of the people or from within the system itself. I think we have to try both of them. David,16, from Halifax, made a speech to the rally stating, Climate change doesnt ask our schools permission to exist. It is universal, affecting countries all over the world much more drastically than in this country. Catastrophic floods, dry and barren landscapes are displacing hundreds of thousands all over the planet. It is the poor and the elderly who suffer the most. Around 600 students from schools across Sheffield and northeast Derbyshire attended the rally outside Sheffield Town Hall. Blue and her friend Blue from Meadowhead school said, Nobody has done much about climate change. Its sad that kids are having to take control like this like the adults should. Our planet and our people are dying through wars and climate issues. People are saying what about the animals, but I say what about the humans as well! Thomas, 15, said, I feel like capitalism plays a huge role in climate change and lots of companies get away with it because they take a cut and it gives them a stronger base to be able to be in positions of power. The capitalists and politicians would rather save their own necks than the planet. Thomas made a connection between lack of any action or rational planning and education budget cuts. The cuts in education have meant that last year for the last five months of the academic year you couldnt get anything printed [to assist study]. Our government lets the billionaires get away with it. We should all be able to have the best life we can. Iona (left) and Ella Iona and Ella are first year biology students at the University of Sheffield and joined a march from there to the town hall rally. Ella said, Its our planet and just giving in to [climate change] is wrong. A lot of us arent old enough to do anything about it. This march gives young people a chance to have a voice. Asked her thoughts on the growth of strikes by teachers internationally, Ella responded, Those who are taking up these issues [in the climate change protests] are talking for people a lot younger and they dont necessarily understand that teachers are opposing capitalism because they think about the children. Maria and Caitlin travelled to Sheffield from nearby Bakewell. Maria said, Our school threatened students who were walking out with isolation. We thought it was wrong, so we decided to come. Its great it is showing that kids care and the need to do something about the planet and war. Shamaya, a Year 11 student, said, Everyone has the right to an education, and I dont like how they kick people out if they dont behave. Look at the homeless people on the streets, they cant get a job. Everyone deserves a decent life. I am concerned about knife crime. Its so sad that so many young people are dying needlessly. I lost a friend to this last year. There are no youth clubs or centres so people get into things out of their control. Instead of all the talking we need action People need to be heard, not profit. About 1,000 young people gathered in Manchesters St. Peters Square. Some of the sea of home-made banners proclaimed, People not Profit, Planet before Profit, Theres no Planet B, Respect Existence or Expect Resistance, Sick of Pollution Youth Revolution, Why pay 40,000 for an education when the government doesnt listen to the educators? During the protests, dozens of youth sat on the tramlines in the square, bringing services to a halt and impacting on the Metrolink network citywide. Emma, Gracey, Max and Tabitha Tabitha, aged 13, from Hazel Grove High school attended the march and rally with school friends, Gracey, Emma and Max, all 15. Tabitha said, I want to have a safe and healthy future. Shouldnt we be enjoying being a child instead of worrying about whether well be adults? We have the equipment to change things, but arent. They [politicians] need to listen. For them its for money. Its not for the planet, its for profit. Emma added, Theyve [the capitalist class] already developed the world but theyre throwing it away. Gracey asked, Why cant we have a vote? There are only 100 companies that produce 80 percent of the worlds [carbon] emissions. That really needs to change. I was for [the] Labour [Party] but Im not so sure now. Pointing to the demonstrators, Max added, These are the people we need in power, not the politicians. Elsa, aged 13, from Stretford Grammar school said she encouraged her school friends, Dylan, 15, and Michael, 13, to attend. There needs to be more actions like this to bring [the issues] to everyones attention. Were part of it, and if we dont do something nobody will, she said, adding, The only way is to fight the capitalist system, but we have to understand it. Michael, Dylan and Elsa Dylan said, People in the past have screwed up our future. Its all big business. The politicians dont care, theyre all liars. Around 300400 demonstrated outside the town hall in Bournemouth. Milla Neumann is a student from Germany and studies in the UK as part of a student exchange programme. He said, There is a real threat of climate change and that is why I am taking part in this event. If you think about what is going on with the climate change, everything is scary. I think so many things in our society have to change to reach our goal the whole political system has to change. I come from Germany and we have a lot of refugees many are war refugees or political refugees. Some of them are refugees of climate change. They say that their houses have been destroyed and they cant stay there. Augustin If we allow people like Donald Trump to rule the world nothing is going to change. They say that climate change is not real and its not important. I agree that climate change is definitely a class question. Capitalism should be changed, and we need socialism. Amelie is a student from Bournemouth. Our generation has to change the world we are living in, she said. I think these big corporations have too much power. But they have to take responsibility for what they are doing with regard to emissions. Leo, an English language student from Switzerland, said, We are here to show the world that we are aware of what is happening, and we have to change things. From big industry to how we live has to change Everyone has to take part in actions and strikes, otherwise the governments wont listen. Augustin, an English language student from France, said, I think this strike is very important to open the minds of everyone. The world has to be changed to meet the needs of everyone, not only the needs of the rich. He said, As a result of the yellow vest movement in France everyone has started to talk about essential political questions. It is not a secret that socialism is the answer to all these questions. Rick Stafford Rick Stafford is a professor in Marine Biology and conservation in Bournemouth University and spoke at the rally. He told the WSWS after his speech. The big issue we are facing is climate change. All the environmental problems we have are a part of the current issue. We need to have a huge system change Inequality is a driver of environmental issues. We need to address that. Maria said, The government is cutting funds for education; it can have a massive impact on the infrastructure of schools. She added, But if there was a social change, and a move towards socialism, then I think values would also change, so we can then think about wider issues, environment being one of them. It has been ten days since a federal judge imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning for refusing to testify before the secret grand jury in Virginia, which is preparing an indictment against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. After running perfunctory news reports of Mannings jailing, no major US newspapers have published any follow-up reporting on the imprisonment of the United States most famous whistleblower and political prisoner. None of the dozens of professional moralists employed by the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal who make it their business to publicize human rights violations to promote US imperialist interests have written a single column protesting the imprisonment of Manning. These newspapers regularly report on the alleged imprisonment and mistreatment of journalists, whistleblowers and dissidents at the hands of the United States geopolitical rivals Russia and China. But when it comes to the jailing of a courageous whistleblower in the United States, they are silent. The Democratic Party has likewise said nothing. There has been no protest from any significant Democratic politician, including from the partys so-called progressive wing. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have not spoken in Mannings defense. Phone calls and emails by the WSWS asking for clarification to the offices of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez were not returned. The complicity of the Democratic Party in the jailing of Manning is bound up with its pro-imperialist politics. The Democrats have waged their opposition to Trump on the most right-wing basis possible, criticizing the administration for not taking a hard enough position against Russia, denouncing any retreat from war in the Middle East, and elevating the intelligence agencies into supposed paragons of democracy. Manning, in contrast, is associated above with the exposure of the crimes of American imperialism. She was arrested in May 2010, just weeks after WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder video showing a US gunship massacring civilians and two Reuters journalists in Iraq. She was held by the Obama administration in solitary confinement, under conditions that the UN declared to amount to torture, and hauled before a military court martial. She was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment in 2013. In the final days of his presidency in January 2017, Obama commuted her sentence but refused to grant her a pardon. Over the past two years, since the election of Trump, efforts to criminalize and persecute WikiLeaks have become ever more central to the political narrative of the Democratic Party. As Hillary Clinton wrote in her analysis of the 2016 election: WikiLeaks helped accelerate the phenomenon that eventually came to be known as fake news, she asserted, such as the wild tales about the terrible things I must have said behind closed doors and how as president I would be forever in the pocket of the shadowy bankers who had paid my speaking fees. Far from being fake or wild tales, the leaks published by WikiLeaks exposed both the corruption of the Clinton campaignincluding the contents of Clintons paid speeches to Wall Streetand the deliberate attempts to rig the Democratic primaries to benefit Clinton by the Democratic National Committee hierarchy. In the name of fighting fake news, dominant sections of the political establishmentled by the intelligence agencies and the Democratic Partyhave demanded the suppression of left-wing, critical and independent online media. The technology monopolies have been enlisted by the state to police and censor oppositional statements and political viewpoints. Sanders silence on the jailing of Manningand his silence on the continued persecution of Assangeis of particular significance, as the Senator has ample cause to defend Wikileaks, given that the organization exposed the fact that the Democratic National Committee sought to rig the 2016 primary and disenfranchise his supporters within the Democratic Party. Perhaps the most revealing silence, however, has come from political organizations proclaiming themselves to be socialist. Socialist Worker, the website of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), has not commented on, let alone opposed, the vindictive treatment of a whistleblower who spent close to seven years in prison for leaking documents that exposed war crimes and imperialist intrigues. Jacobin magazine, affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), carried only one perfunctory article opposing her persecution, which remains inaccessible from its front page. Organizations such as the International Socialist Organization are little more than appendages of the Democratic Party. They support imperialist regime-change operations and are hostile to any independent mobilization of the working class. Indefensible, a book published by Haymarket, the publication arm of the International Socialist Organization, denounces all of those who criticize US regime-change operationswhether the bombing of Yugoslavia or the efforts to destabilize Syria, as pseudo-anti-imperialists in the pockets of Russia. Among the individuals and organizations denounced by the book are both Julian Assange and the World Socialist Web Site. Under both Obama and Trump, Jacobin and Socialist Worker actively campaigned to support the US regime-change operation in Syria, proclaiming the United States Islamist proxy fighters to be emissaries of a democratic revolution, and echoed the CIAs propaganda about the Syrian governments use of chemical weapons. The election of Barack Obama, hailed as a transformative event by the ISO in 2008, led to eight years of war, domestic spying, and targeted assassination. The imprisonment of Manning was of a piece with the entire imperialist politics of the Democratic Party. Ultimately, their abandonment of the defense of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange is an expression of the social interests they speak for: that of the privileged, affluent upper-middle class. In contrast to the indifference and silent complicity of the entire media and political establishment to the legal travesty that is Chelseas arrest, the Socialist Equality Party is waging a campaign to free her. The SEP in Australia has organized demonstrations in Sydney and Melbourne to demand the freedom of Assange and, after her arrest, Manning, which were attended by hundreds of people in person and thousands online. This past week, the Socialist Equality Party in the US began holding meetings and rallies to demand the freedom of Manning and Assange. We urge all of our readers to join this fight! Exactly two years ago today, an Indian court condemned thirteen militant workers from Maruti Suzukis Manesar car assembly plant, in the north Indian state of Haryana, to life-in-prison on frame-up murder charges. Twelve of the thirteen comprised the entire executive or, in Indian parlance, Working Committee, of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU). The Manesar workers had founded the MSWU in 2011-12. They did so in bitter struggle against a pro-company, state-recognized union, and as the outcome of a series of walkouts and sit-down strikes that transformed the Manesar assembly plant into a center of worker resistance across the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt, a huge manufacturing hub on the outskirts of Indias capital and largest city, Delhi. The only crime of the thirteen workersRam Meher, Sandeep Dhillon, Ram Bilas, Sarabjeet Singh, Pawan Kumar, Sohan Kumar, Ajmer Singh, Suresh Kumar, Amarjeet, Dhanraj Bambi, Pradeep Gujjar, Yogesh and Jiyalalwas to have spearheaded opposition to the brutal working conditions the Japanese-based transnational has imposed on its workforce. These include poverty wages, speed-up, and precarious contract jobs. The Maruti Suzuki 13 are the victims of a monstrous frame-up, in which Indias largest automaker, the police, the judiciary, the Haryana state government, and Indias principal big-business parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Narendra Modi and the Congress Party of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have all connived. They have been jailed for life for the murder of a company human resources manager, Awanish Kumar Dev, who died of smoke inhalation during a fire that erupted mysteriously in the midst of a management-provoked, factory-floor altercation on July 18, 2012. Yet not a shred of evidence ties any of the thirteen or any other Mauri Suzuki worker to this fire. No less damningly, defense counsel demonstrated at trial that the police had fabricated evidence, given false statements, and illegally colluded with management. So compelling and irrefutable was this evidence, the presiding judge had to entirely exonerate 118 other workers who similarly faced charges of murder and other grave crimes. But Judge Rajinder Pal Goyal did so only to uphold the frame-up charges against the principal targets of the company-state vendetta: the leaders of the MSWU. During the almost five years between their arrest and detention and March 2017 conviction and sentencing, Indian government and judicial officials, including Haryanas Chief Minister, repeatedly urged that the Maruti Suzuki workers be subjected to exemplary punishment so as to reassure investors. Declared special prosecutor Anurag Hooda, Our industrial growth has dipped, FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] has dried up. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is calling for Make in India, but such incidents are a stain on our image. In a statement issued March 20, 2017, the International Committee of the Fourth International and World Socialist Web Site urged workers around the world to come to the defense of the Maruti Suzuki workers. The ICFI, the statement explained, is launching an international defense campaign aimed at mobilizing the industrial and independent political strength of the working class in India, South Asia and around the world to defeat the company-state vendetta against the Maruti Suzuki workers. Two years on, we redouble this appeal. The Maruti Suzuki 13 are class war prisoners, who have already had to endure six and a half years in the nightmare that is Indias penal system. This includes being subjected, following their arrest in 2012, to physical abuse tantamount to torture. As the ICFI explained in its 2017 statement, the frame-up and jailing of the Maruti Suzuki workers is the most extreme example of a universal process. In every country giant corporations and their political hirelings are waging a war against the working class It is not possible for workers in any country to defend themselves outside of uniting with their class brothers and sisters throughout the world in a common struggle to defend the social and democratic rights of all workers. By challenging sweatshop exploitation, the Maruti Suzuki workers were striking a blow for workers not just in India, but around the world. Similarly, their defense must be a vital first step in forging the international unity of autoworkers and all workers that is needed to fight global capital. The ICFIs call for an intensification of the campaign to win the immediate freedom of the Maruti Suzuki 13 has been joined by a leader of the MSWU Provisional Committee. The Maruti Suzuki workers established the Provisional Committee following the jailing of the MSWUs elected leadership, and a government-backed purge that Maruti Suzuki conducted of its Manesar workforce in August 2012, sacking and replacing 2,400 permanent and contract workers. I would like to take this opportunity, MSWU Provisional Committee leader Jitender told the WSWS this past weekend, to call upon workers internationally to come to the aid and defense of Maruti Suzuki workers, and other Indian workers who are defending themselves against the savage repression meted out by the Indian political establishment at the behest of transnational corporations and investors. Jitender emphasized that workers cannot defeat globally organized transnational corporations without uniting their struggles across state borders. Just as the capitalists are united across the world, we too must form an organization of all the world's workers. This is the call of the hour. A vital component of international working-class defense is the exposure of the capitalist state apparatus as a weapon for enforcing the exploitation of the working class. As part of the fight to mobilize workers in India and around the world in defense of the Maruti Suzuki workers, the World Socialist Web Site has made a detailed analysis of the frame-up based on the court record. It can be found here: The frame-up of the Maruti Suzuki workersPart 1: A travesty of justice). Key findings include: The judge upheld the arbitrary exclusion of all workers present at the plant on July 18, 2012 as witnesses, on the claim they would either be biased in favour of the union or too intimidated to give testimony against it; Police systematically failed to carry out rudimentary forensic tests on what they claimed were key pieces of evidence; The police and prosecution repeatedly changed key elements of their narrative of the case, including what car parts workers allegedly used as weapons during the factory-floor altercation; Judge Goyal repeatedly shifted the onus of proof from the state to the workers, and himself supplied arguments and scenarios to try to paper over holes and inconsistencies in the prosecution case. There is great sympathy for the framed-up and victimized Maruti Suzuki workers in the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt and wherever workers in India and beyond learn of their persecution. However, they have been callously abandoned by the trade unions and the Indian political parties that posture as leftabove all the twin Stalinist parliamentary parties, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, and their respective affiliated trade union federations, the All India Trades Union Congress (AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU). The Stalinist parties and unions barely reported the conviction and sentencing of the Maruti Suzuki workers, and since early April 2017 have sought to bury them under a wall of silence. This is because they fear the militant example of the Maruti Suzuki workers, and because any serious campaign to rally the working class in their support would disrupt their own cozy relations with the employers and their maneuvers within the political establishment. This includes their publicly stated aim of allying, as they have done repeatedly over the past three decades, with the Congress and various regional and caste-based parties, in forming a right-wing alternative secular government to the BJP, following Indias multi-stage April-May election. However, the past two years have not just provided further proof of the perfidy of the Stalinist parties and unions. In India and around the world, there is a dramatic resurgence of class struggle, as workers challenge endless concessions and austerity. From the autoworkers in Matamoras, Mexico, to the Yellow Vest protests in France, the teacher strikes in the US, and the mass upheaval in Algeria, these struggles are developing as a rebellion against the pro-capitalist trade unions and establishment left parties. This global working-class upsurge provides the basis for a renewed campaign to win the freedom of the Maruti Suzuki 13. We urge all WSWS readers to make the facts of the Maruti Suzuki case known to workers and young people around the world; to explain how this frame-up epitomizes contemporary global class relations; and how the defense of these workers can and must become an important means for advancing the struggle for the fighting unity of the working class against capitalist exploitation and war. In the largest political mobilisation of young people for many years, tens of thousands of students from schools around New Zealand took to the streets on Friday to protest the ecological crisis. Around 40 demonstrations were organised in cities and regional centres as part of the Youth Climate Strikes occurring worldwide, urging politicians to treat climate change as a crisis and act to protect young people's futures from its effects. In Wellington more than 2,000 students, parents and supporters gathered in Civic Square before marching to parliament. In Auckland, thousands rallied in Aotea Square, with a similar number in Christchurch. In Dunedin, hundreds chanted not enough after a speech by the Labour Partys Health Minister, David Clark, in which he listed policies the government is implementing, purportedly to tackle climate change. The students demands included the immediate passing of an ambitious and effective Zero Carbon Act, fast-tracking well planned and transparent emission targets, ending the extraction of fossil fuels, substantial investments in renewable energy and regulating emissions from agriculture, which account for half of New Zealands emissions. In the lead-up to the strike more than 1,000 academics, teachers and researchers signed an open letter expressing their support. Victoria University lecturer Amanda Thompson told TVNZ that the object of protest is to be disruptive and the government should take it seriously. If we do nothing, she declared, it becomes a crisis. Notwithstanding the widespread support, students had to defy pressure by the media and school principals. Following a direction by the Ministry of Education, principals threatened that anyone who attended without their parents permission would be deemed truant, with possible serious repercussions. Secondary Principals Association President Michael Williams declared: Were concerned that students are wasting good learning time. In one hostile interview, radio host Sean Plunket accused protest leader Sophie Handford of encouraging people to break the law. Handford rejected Plunkets assertion it was just an excuse for kids to take the day off. We have the right to fight for our future. We have the right to a secure future and a safe climate future, she declared. Several politicians treated the students with open contempt. Opposition National Party leader Simon Bridges said the strikes would be a couple of chants as they march along, and then maybe McDonalds afterwards. Fellow National MP Judith Collins declared that their little protest is not going to help the world one bit. The Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First Party in the governing coalition, Winston Peters, added: We pay a lot of money for people to get educated. Attending school is compulsory in this country. However, as it became clear that the strike would attract enormous support, the Labour Party and its other coalition partner, the Green Party, moved to channel sentiment into pro-establishment, parliamentary channels. In New Plymouth, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern turned up unannounced to address a gathering of about 200 people. Ardern was in the town for another engagement, but reportedly made a quick detour to the protest, telling the students: It is the biggest challenge we will tackle globally in my lifetime and in your lifetime. Outside parliament, Greens leader and minister for climate change James Shaw demagogically declared that New Zealand needed legally binding emissions reduction targets to hold politicians to account. The Labour-Greens-NZ First government has sought to divert attention away from the real cause of pollution: the profit system. It advocates market-based policies, such as an emissions trading scheme and subsidies for green businesses, which do not seriously impinge on the activities of big polluting companies. Shaw told school students in Wellington the day before the strike that the government would not interfere with existing property rights of oil and gas companies who hold current exploration permits. The Socialist Equality Group spoke to participants in the Wellington protest and distributed copies of the World Socialist Web Site perspective, The Youth Climate Strike and the fight against global warming. Josh Josh, from Wellington High School, said: Science shows that we only have 12 years to reverse the major effects that weve done to the earth. In my opinion we need to use as little fossil fuels as we can and use a lot more renewable energy, and less plastic. The National Party have been saying students should be in school. Well, the only reason were not in school today is because theyre not doing anything. This government has done a few things, but not a lot. Im not here for New Zealand. Im here for the planet. Theres no Planet B, theres nowhere else we can go. We only have one shot at this, trying to prevent a mass extinction of animals and humans alike. Socialism can work, you need to actually make it work. Capitalism has made monopoly after monopoly and huge companies can just do whatever the hell they want and pollute the planet to the extent that we cant do anything. Wellington College student Ugrin, originally from Serbia, said governments had not taken action because of the material cost for companies and firms. When governments subsidise firms they have to make sure that firms are profitable so they can pay back the subsidies. So I do think that profit is one of the factors as to why this hasnt been happening as much as it should have. Id like to say that if you really want to have an opinion about this, not a one-sided opinion based on propaganda, you should go out and research it on your own, as I have done myself. Ive watched some videos of scientists such as Brian Cox. Hes talked about models on the aftermath of climate change. It can be damaging to not just us, as a species, but other animals and plants. When we run out of all of these resources we will have none to use to survive. Morgan, from Paraparaumu College, and Max, from Kapiti College, said many students from their schools were taking part. Morgan said she was protesting because I owe it to the environment of the planet and those who come after me. Theres going to be a point where we cant go back and we cant fix anything. I dont think politicians have raised their voices enough to make it a big enough issue, which is why weve had to do this. Morgan and Max Morgan responded to those berating the students for skipping school by saying theres not going to be any school if climate change is not addressed. Its going to get to the point where action needs to be taken because it gets so bad and then the action that they do take isnt going to fix what could be fixed now. Max said he was concerned about the future of the children, to have a safe earth for them. We need to cut down on greenhouse gases and heal the ozone layer. There should definitely be some more young voices in the political world to put our position on the world stage. The death toll from last Fridays fascist terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand was revised upward to 50 over the weekend. The youngest person killed was a three-year-old boy. Thirty-four people remained in hospital on Sunday, with 12 in a critical condition, including a severely injured four-year-old girl. People throughout the world are horrified by the cold-blooded, racist massacre, which targeted defenceless Muslim men, women and children while they were praying. Tens of thousands of people joined vigils over the weekend in New Zealand and internationally to show solidarity with the victims and their families and to defend Muslims, immigrants and refugees. New Zealand police are now saying that Australian-born, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant was the only gunman and had no assistance from others. He has appeared in court on murder charges. Authorities in both New Zealand and Australia claim that he at no time came to the attention of either the intelligence agencies or the police, and was therefore not under any form of monitoring This attempt to portray Tarrant as a disturbed lone wolf, and especially the claim that he was off the radar, is simply not credible. The 74-page manifesto issued by Tarrant makes clear that he prepared and carried out the terrorist atrocity on behalf of an international network of fascists and white supremacists, with whom he had openly collaborated for several years. Tarrants manifesto is a modern-day Mein Kampf. It combines calls for genocidal violence and civil war to force non-European invaders from Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealandincluding all people of Muslim, Jewish, African, Asian and Roma backgroundwith pathological hatred of socialism. It is steeped in the white racist and ultra-nationalist nostrums of blood and soil that animated Nazism and other fascist movements in the 1920s and 1930s. The gunman wrote that he had donated to many nationalist groups and interacted with many more. Since 2012, he has visited Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, France, the UK, Spain, Turkey, Pakistan and even North Korea, as well as returning to Australia and traveling to New Zealand. He claims he decided to turn to terrorism during a two-month tour of Europe in 2017 and following the defeat of the far-right National Front in the French election. Tarrant contacted the so-called Knights Templar, an organisation allegedly linked to Norwegian fascist mass murderer Anders Breivik, and asserts that he received its blessing for the Christchurch attack. He was active on ultra-right social media and blogs and joined a gun club not long after arriving in New Zealand. He declared that he chose New Zealand as the country to stage his attack in order to demonstrate that nowhere in the world was safe for non-whites. If all of this did go under the radar of security agencies around the world, Tarrants manifesto provides one explanation as to how. He boasted that fascist groups are deeply integrated into the state apparatus, the military and the police. He wrote: The total number of people in these organisations is in the millions but disproportionately employed in military services and law enforcement. Unsurprisingly ethno-nationalists and nationalists seek employment in areas that serve their nations and community. [Emphasis added]. Tarrant estimated that hundreds of thousands of European soldiers and police belong to nationalist groups. The Christchurch attackand the conceptions that inspired itmust be taken as a deadly warning by the international working class and progressive sections of the middle class. It is the product of the deliberate cultivation, at the highest levels of the capitalist state in country after country, of the most extreme right-wing nationalism. As the working class internationally comes forward in a mass, resurgence of class struggle against unprecedented levels of social inequality and the danger of war, the ruling class is once again, as it did in the 1920s and 1930s, seeking to use fascist forces to divide, intimidate and suppress the opposition to the bankruptcy of capitalism and the nation-state system. Political parties and individuals espousing views that are not far from those of Brenton Tarrant can be found in the governments and parliaments of every European country, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and in the US Congress and White House. In Germany, Merkels coalition government has adopted the policies of the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which sits on the opposition benches of the German parliament. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer lined up behind a neo-Nazi demonstration in Chemnitz last September, saying he would have marched alongside the fascists if he had not been a minister. The then-president of the German secret service, Hans-Georg Maassen, likewise defended the Chemnitz mob and denied its blatant anti-immigrant and fascist character. A secret right-wing terrorist network has been exposed within the German armed forces, with hundreds of members. The network, whose members have been protected by the judicial system, had detailed plans to murder prominent figures in the government and attack Jewish and Muslim organisations. In the US, both the Democrats and Republicans have sought to scapegoat immigrants for the social crisis in America. They both use racial politics in an effort to divide the working class. President Trump, whom Tarrant described as a symbol of renewed white identity, has sought to nurture a fascist constituency. In a message of solidarity to his fascist base, Trump told reporters after the Christchurch attack that he did not consider white nationalism a threat. Two days before the New Zealand massacre, he made a clear threat to mobilise his supporters in the military, police and thuggish groups like Bikers for Trump against his opponents, telling Breitbart News that they were tougher than the left. This followed the arrest in February of fascist US Coast Guard officer and Trump supporter Christopher Paul Hasson, who planned to kill prominent African-American and Jewish individuals and members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). In the weeks leading up to the Christchurch attack, a campaign of slander was unleashed against left-wing critics of the Israeli governments brutal treatment of Palestinians. Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, was branded an anti-Semite for pointing to the influence wielded by the pro-Zionist lobby over both parties. This campaign echoes the witch-hunt accusing UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and hundreds of Labour members of anti-Semitism, which is aimed at delegitimising and purging left-wing opposition to British imperialism. In Australia and New Zealand, where politicians are making hypocritical statements condemning racism and violence, the establishment has, since 2001, demonised Muslim refugees as a threat and potential terrorist fifth column, and blamed immigration for every social problem. The New Zealand First Party, which controls the ministerial portfolios of defence and foreign affairs in the Labour Party-led coalition government, has repeatedly demanded measures to stop mass immigration from Muslim and Asian countriesusing language not very different from that used by Tarrant and other right-wing extremists. The barbaric attack in Christchurch underscores the warning made by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in its January 3, 2019 statement: The Strategy of the International Working Class and the Political Fight Against Capitalist Reaction in 2019. While fascism is not yet a mass movement, it is receiving support from sections of the ruling class, the state and the establishment media. Extreme right-wing organisations, the statement noted, have been allowed to exploit demagogically the frustration and anger felt by the broad mass of the population. It stressed: All historical experienceand, in particular, the events of the 1930sdemonstrates that the fight against fascism can be developed only on the basis of the independent mobilization of the working class against capitalism. The ICFI has spearheaded the struggle to bring the crucial lessons of history to bear in the struggle against the promotion of fascist forces in Germany, across Europe and internationally. This fight is at the centre of the election campaign by its European sections and a series of public meetings across the United States titled The Threat of Fascism and How to Fight It. The meetings will be addressed by Christoph Vandreier, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party in Germany and author of the book Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy and the Return of Fascism in Germany. The ICFI must be built as the leadership of a unified, international and socialist working class movement capable of preventing the horror of fascism from overtaking society on an even greater scale than in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. On March 4, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a devastating report which exposed the increasingly militarized state of public schools in the United States and chronic underfunding of school support staff. The report, Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff is Harming Students provides a state-level student-to-staff ratio of employed student counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers and contrasts these numbers to the increasing presence of police officers in public schools, especially in lower-income neighborhoods. The statistics revealed in this report are harrowing. The ACLU found that over 90 percent of individual schools in the US do not meet the one to 250 counselor-to-student ratio recommended by professional standards and the US Public Health Service. On average, all of the schools in the country employ close to half of this number of counselors: one for every 444 students, with Arizona having the worst ratio in the country at one counselor for every 758 students. Only three states out of 50 meet the recommended ratio. The report went on to note that there are 1.7 million students in the US who attend schools where there are police on campus but no counselors at all; 6 million students attend schools where police are present but not a single school psychologist is employed; and finally, 10 million students have police in their schools where not a single social worker is employed. Many schools in the US do not have any nurses on campus. The nurse-to-student ratio recommended by professional standards is one nurse for every 750 students. Twenty-nine states do not meet this standard. Michigan and Oregon employ the fewest school nurses in the country. The ratios of students per nurse provided in the report for these two states are downright criminal: both are above 4,100 students per nurse. Three million children in the country attend schools where there are police officers on staff but not a single nurse. These statistics are staggering. Even as they are being starved of much needed funds, working-class schools are being turned into armed camps replete with metal detectors, online video surveillance and even military equipment. Examples can be found throughout the country. The impoverished Detroit Public Schools spent $41.7 million on a district-wide security upgrade in 2011, creating a 23,000 square-foot Police Command Center and Headquarters for the school system. Just last week in Chicago at a mayoral forum, Democratic candidate and former president of the Chicago Police Board Lori Lightfoot suggested turning the citys 38 recently shuttered schools into police-training sites. Capitalizing on last years horrific massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the Florida state legislature recently passed a bill allocating $58 million toward arming teachers throughout the state. While millions of dollars are easily found to militarize public schools, teachers and students are told by Republican and Democratic politicians alike that there is no money for much needed resources like nurses, counselors and other support staff. These conditions have compelled hundreds of thousands of teachers to go on strike, in a wave of teachers struggles across the US and internationally. In every case, teachers have made the demand for more support staff a central issue, and in every case the unions have facilitated the ramming through of concessionary contracts that do nothing to address the fundamental issues. Most recently in Oakland, in a state dominated by the Democratic Party, the union rejected demands by rank-and-file teachers to include opposition to budget cuts in the strike demands, even though the district planned to pay for any pay increases by slashing millions of dollars from educational services and closing schools. The contract the union hailed as historic left untouched the staffing ratios for nurses in the district, which currently stand at one for every 1,350 students. The effect of these dual processes, the chronic underfunding of education and the further militarization of schools, has devastating effects on students. The ACLU report notes that there is no research to substantiate the claim that having police present in schools has any positive effect on delinquent behavior and school safety. On the contrary, the report notes that "in many cases, [the presence of law enforcement staff in schools] causes harm. When in schools, police officers do what they are trained to do, which is detain, handcuff, and arrest. This leads to greater student alienation and a more threatening school climate." The ACLU found that schools where police are always present have reported 3.5 times as many arrests per 10,000 students as schools without police. To the extent that the American government invests in public schools, hiring additional police is promoted by the political establishment as a necessary response to increasingly frequent school shootings. However, filling school campuses with cops does nothing to address the underlying societal ills that are the root causes of violent and antisocial crimes committed in the first place. Outbursts of mass violence, along with other causes of early death among teens such as drug overdoses and suicides, are bound up with the growth of social inequality and the miserable conditions under which the bulk of the working class is living. Since the economic recession of 2008 and the decline of full-time employment that followed as a result of the restructuring of many major industries under the Obama administration, economic uncertainties in working-class families have no doubt plagued millions of children in the last decade. Children in the US today are growing up in a country that has been at war during the entirety of their lives; wars that have destroyed entire societies and whose victims are treated with callous indifference in the bourgeois media. These experiences sweep into social consciousness in innumerable ways. In fact, the ACLU report cites a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which found that the suicide rate among children ages 10 to 17 increased by 70 percent between 2006 and 2016. Approximately 72 percent of children in the US will have experienced at least one major stressful eventsuch as witnessing violence, experiencing abuse, or experiencing the loss of a loved onebefore the age of 18. Under such conditions, the need for school nurses, psychologists, and counselors can quickly become life and death questions for students. The authors of the report note the substantial amount of research done on the benefits of having health care professionals trained to work with children in schools: School counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists are frequently the first to see children who are sick, stressed, or traumatized. The report goes on to state that schools with such services see improved attendance rates, better academic achievement, and higher graduation rates as well as lower rates of suspension, expulsion, and other disciplinary incidents. The data cited in the report shows that school-based mental health and special learning needs services, when made available, improve the overall safety of schools and promote student participation in interactive educational initiatives. The resources to provide all of these services and much more exist in society. However, to secure a healthy and productive learning environment for teachers and students requires a frontal assault on the wealth of the ruling class and the social and economic system it defends, capitalism. The defense of public education requires a fight for socialism, which above all means the establishment of a society based on social need, not private profit, in which the wealth produced by the working class is owned and controlled democratically, and in which every individual has the right to an education, a decent job, a livable income, health care, a healthy environment, and access to culture. WSWS reporters spoke to some of those attending Saturdays demonstration in London to mark the United Nations Anti-Racism Day. The march was held just hours after fascist terrorists murdered 50 people at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. Stella Simonin (middle) and Ann (right) Stella and Ann are both retired. Stella said, The reason I am here today is because I see fascism and racism growing not only in Britain but across the world, and I am going to stand for the minority, the refugees, for Grenfell [tower fire victims], for Windrush [immigrants in the UK]. That is why Im here. Asked what she thought about the events in New Zealand, Stella said, We are horrified, and we are upset and we need to stop Islamophobia, which is ripe in the Conservative Party. [Leading Conservative politician and former foreign secretary] Boris Johnson turned around and described Muslim women as letterboxes. How can you not tear people apart and have division when you have that type of person? I blame the conservatives for spreading it [Islamophobia]. Theresa May puts people in cages and sends them back to their own countriesthey belong here. It is spreading hate and what happened in Christchurch could happen here in England. We stood with our Muslim brothers and sisters yesterday in a vigil. We will show our solidarity. A WSWS reporter explained that the crisis-ridden capitalist system globally was fuelling nationalism and the growth of far-right forces. Ann said, I agree that capitalism is at the heart of it. The Western world [politicians] have done everything to place austerity measures at the door of the working class, which is the vast majority of the population. To bring austerity to bear to try to break our spiritsthat is exactly what they have done. The division that exists between the very well off and those that have nothing is becoming wider and wider. That is why governments now are becoming terrified. They are scared that the spirit of the working class is coming together, and we will not be silenced. Ann said, War is one of the biggest money earners in this world and war is used to distract from what is happening in politics. How can UK Prime Minister Theresa May sit there in Downing Street and within 10 miles there are children going to bed hungry every night? They [the poor] dont know what is coming the next day because they have ownership of nothing. Its those people they want to oppress, and it is those people we are with. NIcole Nicole said, I am very concerned about the direction the world is going in at the moment The challenge is to keep the world safer. The last few years we have seen right-wing ideology being normalised, such as the Trump administration in my own country With Brexit, we are in a precarious place in history. She was concerned about the growing levels of poverty, with a few billionaires controlling all the resources of the planet. There is a big inequality gap that is widening that needs to be addressed, because greater inequality brings about instability in society. A WSWS reporter explained that there was a wave of historical falsification in German universities that has paved the way for the emergence of neo-fascist forces. Professor Jorg Baberowski at Humboldt University had played a critical role in this. The far-right Alternative for Germany was now the main opposition party in the Germany parliament. Nicole said, I cant speak to the role of the government and academia in Germany, but I am horrified at the right coming to the fore in Germany. David is a history student at York University and has taught English in Turkey. He said, Im here today to stand up against the rise of racism and the criminalisation of refugees, asylum seekers and against the European Unions governments appalling policies. I oppose the Home Office [in the UK] and the bureaucratic obstacles put in place, again and again, to stop people accessing their rights. David Im here to demand civil rights for refugees and asylum seekers, for the European Union to let search and rescue missions continue in the Mediterranean. One in nine people are drowning. The European Union has banned civilian vessels. Im here to defend solidarity, let the vessels out, free the ships. And from personal experience of helping refugees in Turkey and Kurdistan, Im saying we cant allow the drownings to continue. He said, In the UK its normal to have restricted entrance into the country. Until 1962, there was no restricted entrance into the UK from the whole of the Commonwealth. We had complete freedom of movement. And then only 11 years later we enter the European community and the borders were closed. We have a tradition in this country of open borders, so anyone from anywhere can come and contribute. Asked what he thought the reasons for this were, he said, Its been stopped by the rise of racism and the criminalisation of refugees, the rise of fascism, and blaming problems on them instead of on the inherent inequality in the system and austerity policies. We have to break out of the capitalist realism We have to give people their inherent human rights and give civil rights to refugees who come from places where they havent got any. In Libya the European Union is forcibly returning people or paying the Libyan coast guard whove been known to shoot at people. It is unacceptable. Speaking about Libya and Syria, which have been devastated by imperialist inspired wars, David said, They [the imperialist powers] only use the humanitarian banner when it suits them. We [UK governments] will not intervene unless its in our interests. Asked his views on the atrocity in Christchurch, David said, Its disgusting, and the fact is that several media outlets havent defined it as terrorism A senator in Australia just after the shooting was blaming Muslim migration. This is disgusting. You dont blame the victim for the shooting. If its a woman and shes been raped, you blame the perpetrator. Its these media outlets shifting the blame. When something happens they say, Weve got too many migrants. No one says, Weve got too many racists. Ovie Ofugara, Head of contents at foremost Nigerian musical website, Not just ok, has reacted to the new diss track dropped by former Plantashun boys member, Blackface War. Blackface in the new single fired heavy shots at his former friend, Tuface Idibia. Reacting to the new song, Ovie wondered why Blackface is yet to move on from their beef after almost 10 years. He, however, fired a heavy shot at Blackface when he said 2baba mustve slept with his wife, sister and/or mother. What he said: The Australian governments Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety commences its second hearing in Adelaide today, which will focus on aged care in the home. The first hearing concluded on 22 February. The Royal Commission was announced by the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, in September last year. It was called in an effort to defuse the widespread opposition to revelations of shocking neglect and abuse of the elderly in aged care facilities. The hearings will undoubtedly be narrowly focussed, avoiding or downplaying the responsibility of successive governments, Liberal and Labor, which have wound back subsidies for aged care which has been increasingly privatised. As a result, cost-cutting has led to chronic under staffing and poor care, particularly in facilities run for profit. The Royal Commission has heard 27 submissions to date, four of which were made by the relatives of aged care residents, and one from a resident. There were others from government departments, such as the Department of Health Care, and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, a new body formed in January this year which transfers responsibility for compliance and sanction powers from the Department of Health to the new Commission. A number of submissions were from aged care consumer and advocacy groups and organisations that represent aged care providers. These consumer and advocacy groups, which included organisations advocating for aged care providers, as well as departments and government agencies, were invited to round table discussions with the Commission prior to its initial hearing. In stark contrast, on the opening day of the Royal Commission, many of the family members of elderly people who suffered abuse were barred from hearing the proceedings. In his opening remarks in the first week of hearings in February, Peter Grey QC, acting for the counsel assisting the Royal Commission, stated: The dominant narrative in current Australian culture seems to be that older Australians are a burden A culture of appreciation and respect for older people is needed The work of this Royal Commission will challenge all Australians to reflect on our attitudes to caring for loved ones as they age. What was revealed by the staff and families of residents in aged care facilities was not the attitude of all Australians to the care of the elderly but of the corporate entities which run these homes for profit. The Royal Commission into aged care was called precisely because of the exposure and condemnation of the families whose loved ones have been abused and neglected in aged care services, and the workers in aged care, who experience daily the effects of cuts to staff and funding. The first submission was made by Barbara Spriggs. It detailed the abuse that her husband, Bob, endured at Oakden nursing home in 2016. Oakden was shut down in 2017 as a result of the continued complaints about the abuse of residents. Within a few months of being admitted into Oakden, Barbara says, Bob was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where it was revealed that he had been administered ten times the prescribed dose of the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel. He was also suffering from severe bruising, dehydration and pneumonia. The administration of psychotropic drugs is a common policy adopted by the administrators in aged care facilities, particularly to dementia patients, as a measure to manage their, at-times, difficult behaviour where staffing levels have been reduced to levels which preclude other forms of treatment. According to the submission by the advocacy group Dementia Australia, there are currently 436,000 people living with dementia in Australia, and this number is expected to reach 1.1 million by 2056. In his submission to the Royal Commission, the President of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine, Edward Strivens estimated that there are 80 per cent of people in residential aged care with dementia on one form of psychotropic. He states that the result is increased falls and injuries. Professor Deborah Parker, of the Australian College of Nursing, in her submission explained that it is registered nurses who have the necessary skill-set to make a comprehensive pain and wound assessment, communicate this information to a general practitioner, and manage the medication of aged care residents. Despite the growing number of people using aged care services due to the ageing population and the increased complexity of their health conditions, the percentage of registered nurses has decreased, Parker states, from approximately 21 per cent in 2003, to 14.9 per cent of aged care staff. The Australian Nurses and Midwives Federation (ANMF), the Health Services Union (HSU) and United Voiceconducted surveys of workers in the aged care sector, the results of which were presented to the Commission. They highlight the immense and unsustainable workloads aged care sector workers have to carry out, the reduced numbers of registered nurses to care for the residents and the lack of adequately trained staff in general. One survey conducted by the ANMF included a statement from a nurse who reported that as an assistant in nursing, she had 15 minutes allocated in the morning to each patient, in which she was expected to shower, dress and attend to the needs of high care dementia patients. In another response a worker wrote that, in an aged care facility with 53 residents, There was an RN (registered nurse) rostered on both morning and afternoon shifts. [In] the afternoon RN was required to administer all medications during all the evening rounds. As a result of the staffing levels, the facility has a high rate of falls and medication errors. A submission from the Aged Care Guild, which represents privately-held aged care providers, shows that there is a particularly high turnover rate for nurses in the private sector, with the average years of employment for nurses falling from 2.35 years in 201314, to 1.31 years in 201718. At the same time, the number of personal carers is increasing. This statistic, however, does not include the statistics from BUPA, the largest for-profit aged care company in Australia, which declined to contribute its own statistics on nurse turnover rates. BUPAs aged care services contributed to the health conglomerates profits of around $7.5 billion in 2018. Despite the wealth amassed by these leading aged care providers, the average carer, the majority of whom are employed on a part time or casual basis, is paid approximately $21.50 an hour. When asked why the payment for workers in the aged care sector is so low, the national president of the Health Services Union, Gerald John Hayes, reiterated the line that it is the fault of all Australians when he said, to be quite honest, out of sight is out of mind. The morality of this country needs to be tested at this point in time. In reality, this is the attitude of the ruling class, that once the productive life of a worker finishes then the most cost-effective means of providing for them will be implemented. The effects of the governments cuts to funding for aged care and its increasing privatisation of aged care services, has meant that the drive of private corporations to make ever greater profits comes at the expense of conditions both for workers and aged care recipients. 25 years ago: Workers Inquiry into the death of Aboriginal youth Daniel Yock Daniel Yock On March 19, 1994, the Socialist Labor League, Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, held a Workers Inquiry into the Death of Daniel Yock in Brisbane. The hearing was the first event organized independently and carried out by the working class exposing the truth about a state killing in Australia in two centuries. Daniel Yock was an 18-year-old unemployed aboriginal youth who was murdered by police on November 7, 1993. The Labor government, media, police, and the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) all worked to lie and cover up the truth about Yocks death. In spite of intimidation by the government and police to shut it down, the hearing proceeded, lasting over seven hours and reviewing evidence assembled during the preceding months. The first witness at the hearing was Peter Symonds, a journalist for the Workers News, the SLL publication, who presented evidence from eyewitness testimonials and medical records, establishing that police chased Yock and tackled him to the ground, rendering him unconsciousfrom either a blow to the head, passing out, or fainting from being attacked. The police then handcuffed him face-down, restricting his airway further so he could not breathe. He died from a lack of oxygen as a result. While Yocks friends attempted to assist him, the police refused to allow them to help and ignored their requests for immediate medical care. His body was dumped into the back of a paddy wagon and he was announced dead on arrival at the hospital a half hour later. Yocks friend Joseph Blair, who was also locked up in the back of the van, described how Yock remained unconscious with eyes rolled back in his head the entire ride to the hospital, in spite of his attempts to resuscitate his friend. Lyndell Turbane, manager of the Oxford Street Aboriginal Hostel near where Yock was killed, testified at the inquiry that his death was part of a growing campaign by police to intimidate, harass and terrorize the Aboriginal youth. She also testified that in the days leading up to the inquiry, police photographed her house in a final attempt to prevent her from speaking publicly. Together witnesses revealed the cover-up of the murder at the highest level, implicating the Labor-controlled state government and the CJC. Before a CJC inquiry was even announced, and within hours of Yocks death, a CJC official was already at the hospital. Dr. Holman Koops gave expert medical testimony, showing that no evidence existed to corroborate the claims by the government that Yock died as a result of a rare heart condition, known as a Stokes-Adams attack. 50 years ago: British police and troops stage invasion of Anguilla British paratroopers in Anguilla On March 18, 1969, England sent just under 300 paratroopers and special police forces to the small Caribbean island of Anguilla. The British encountered no resistance and immediately brought the island under their control. After some confusion, they were welcomed by leaders who had opposed the consolidation of Anguilla with St. Kitts and Nevis in 1967 in a single independent state, dominated by St. Kitts, the most populous of the three islands. The consolidation was proposed by the British for administrative convenience, despite the separation between St. Kitts and Nevis, to the south, and Anguilla to the north, with the Dutch-controlled island of St. Maartens and the French colony St. Barthelemy in between. The control of the various Caribbean islands by different imperial powersBritain, France, the Netherlands and Spaindates back to the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, which left an economically and socially irrational patchwork of rule along the island chain. In the nominally independent St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, with a total population at the time of less than 50,000, the central government of the new nation was based in St. Kitts, while Anguilla only held one seat in the parliament. One of the poorest Caribbean islands, Anguilla had requested resources from the St. Kitts leadership to build new schools, an electric grid, and a port for large cargo ships so critical imports could be delivered directly to the island. The proposals for schools and the electric grid were denied by St. Kitts because they would not generate profits. Funds were made available for the port, but it was built on St. Kitts and simply named Port of Anguilla. Just three months after the formation of the three-island nation, the local Anguillan elite declared their independence from St. Kitts and forced the 17 central government police officers to leave. They did not seek independence for their microstate, but rather readmission to British rule as a dependent colony. For the next three years St. Kitts and the provisional Anguillan government would exchange threats of war. However, neither country possessed forces large enough to carry out their threats. A press campaign in Britain claimed that Anguilla was now being run by the American mafia and radical advocates of black power. The force of paratroopers assembled were under the impression that they would be met with armed militia forces. Instead, they met only reporters and unarmed civilian onlookers. Not a shot was fired. The island was officially re-admitted as a British territory in 1971. 75 years ago: Nazi troops occupy Hungary A German tank in Budapest On March 19, 1944, eight German divisions entered Hungary to carry out Operation Margarethe, ordered by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler earlier in the month. The occupation was aimed at preventing the authoritarian regime of Miklos Horthy from signing a separate peace with the Allied powers, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. Initially not part of the German-dominated Axis, Horthys regime had participated in a number of German-led operations throughout the Second World War, including against other Eastern European states and the Soviet Union. Horthy sought to expand Hungarian territory in Czechoslovakia and Poland. In 1941, he declared war on the Soviet Union. In January 1943, following their victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, Soviet troops obliterated the Second Hungarian Army near the Don River. Hungary suffered at least 80,000 military casualties, heightening calls for an end to the war effort. The Horthy regime, collaborating closely with Hitler, responded by murdering thousands of Hungarian Jews. At the same time, the government began exploring contacts with the Allied powers. In early 1944, representatives of Horthys regime contacted the Allies, and declared their willingness to surrender unconditionally in the event of military defeat. They were fearful of a Soviet occupation of the country. Hitler responded by summoning Horthy to a conference at the Klessheim Castle near Salzburg, Germany. The conference was a ruse, with German preparations for an invasion and occupation of Hungary already underway. Horthy returned to a Hungary under effective Nazi control. He was instructed to dismiss Prime Minister Miklos Kallay and appoint a new government. He appointed General Dome Sztojay as prime minister. Among the first actions of the new government was to place Hungarys remaining Jews at the disposal of the Third Reich and to pass further anti-Jewish legislation. Over the following period, Jews were rounded up and deported to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and elsewhere in German-controlled territory. Up to 14,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz per day to be killed. 100 years ago: Soviet republic declared in Hungary Declaration of the Hungarian Soviet Republic On March 21, 1919, the Hungarian Communist Party, which had recently united with the Social Democratic Party, declared a Soviet republic in Budapest. Communist leaders were released from prison and the unified Socialist Party proceeded to form a government of 13 and later 16 ministries, with Bela Kun as Commissar of Foreign Affairs. The liberal government of Mihaly Karolyi collapsed under the combined threat of famine and invasion from the French and Romanians. Karolyis Hungarian Peoples Republic, which had been established in October 1918, was one of the successor states to the Austro-Hungarian empire, which had disintegrated in the aftermath of the Allied offensive of October and November, and the surrender of Germany on November 11. Contending nationalist incursions from the Czechoslovaks to the north and Serbs and Croats to the south also threatened to dismember the country. On March 20, 1919, Karolyi announced that only the Social Democrats could rule because of their close ties with an insurgent workers movement that had allied itself with returning soldiers, especially in the capital of Budapest, and begun to form itself into workers councils (soviets). What he did not know is that the Social Democrats had fused with the newly formed Hungarian Communist Party, led by Bela Kun, who had become a Bolshevik while he was interned as a prisoner of war in Russia. The Communist Party already held the allegiance of the most militant and politically educated workers in Budapest. As Lenin noted: The Hungarian bourgeoisie admitted to the world that it resigned voluntarily and that the only power in the world capable of guiding the nation in a moment of crisis was Soviet power. Mass movements and revolutions had swept central Europe in the aftermath of the first World War. In Germany, revolutionary workers were suppressed by the proto-fascist Freikorps who also murdered socialist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. A Bavarian Soviet Republic would be declared in April 1919. The Hungarian Soviet government formed a Red Army that scored some success against the Czechoslovaks in the north but was led by the old officer corps that had existed under the Austro-Hungarian empire. The government made serious mistakes in its agrarian policy, refusing to break up the large landed estates that it had nationalized and distribute the land to the peasantry. The peasantry turned against the Soviet government, which was unable to supply grain to the cities. Most of all, the Social Democrats in the government, united in the same party with the Communists, played a disorganizing role and sought to capitulate to the enemies of the Soviet republic at every point. They finally surrendered to an imperialist ultimatum from the Paris Peace Conference to renegotiate the borders of Hungary. The Hungarian Soviet regime collapsed in July, leaving a rump Social Democratic government. By August the Romanian Army took Budapest and a White Terror ensued, led by Admiral Horthy, that can best be described as barbaric. The Whites tortured, murdered and imprisoned thousands of workers, Communist and Social Democratic alike. A former Ogun state governor and Director general of Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign organisation has whipped up quite a storm on social media, after reports emerged that hes been forced to join the All Progressives Congress, APC by his supporters. Although, the former Ogun state governor has revealed that he might eventually yield to his supporters and join the ruling party, as he says hes been pressured to, Nigerians cant stop lashing out at the thought. Our politicians lack ideologies, them move with any government in power, Gbenga Daniel brings to bare the stereotype that the average Yoruba is a backstabber. These and many note are what Nigerians are saying on social media. See reactions Like Omisore, no serious Politician will ever trust Gbenga Daniel again. Not even the APC he is planning to join. Do these guys not always look ahead? A Campaign DG being the first to dump a mandate they are contesting in court? Henry Shield (@henryshield) March 18, 2019 https://twitter.com/iamAmeerLee/status/1107595260379779072?s=19 https://twitter.com/wendy_philipz/status/1107654850316259328?s=19 Election is finally over and the cross-carpeting has already started with Gbenga Daniel on the verge of joining the APC. This is the time the ruling party needs to be extra-careful regarding the kind of people they accept. Some of them could be moles planted by other parties. Muhd El-Bonga Ibrahim (@el_bonga) March 18, 2019 So Gbenga Deniel who was the DG of ATIKU, wants to abandon PDP two weeks after ATIKU was defeated. APC should not accept him because he's worst than Amosun. Nigerian politicians are just disgraceful,no ideology, loyalty, or principle. Let us shame him away,by rejecting this move. s (@OvieAli) March 17, 2019 https://twitter.com/solomonapenja/status/1107382545774231552?s=19 The nationwide weeklies were on the stands well before the Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary addressed a crowd in Budapest on the anniversary of the 1848 Hungarian revolution, but they analysed the importance of the event beforehand and also dwelled on its international implications. In Figyelo, Zoltan Kiszelly sees the presence of the Polish Prime Minister in Budapest as an expression of the two governments joint resistance to what he calls sneaking federalism. The pro-government analyst sees Poland and Hungary at the crossroads between expanding empires. Brussels aims at creating a technocratic super-state, he suggests, while Russia and the USA are actively expanding their economic and political influence in the region. Under such conditions, he explains, both countries need allies. And as the Budapest Vienna Munich axis seems to be wearing out, the Budapest Warsaw axis may fill the gap and be seen as an interesting partner elsewhere for instance in Rome, Kiszelly writes. In his Demokrata editorial, Andras Bencsik contrasts the presence of Polands prime minister with the visit paid by EPP top candidate Manfred Weber to Budapest. He reads the latter as signalling that the threat to expel Fidesz from the European Peoples Party has been dampened. He doesnt exclude the possibility that Fidesz will eventually be expelled, however, if the EPP is hopelessly rattled by pro-migration forces. The message of 15 March 171 years ago was that national sovereignty must be defended and all costs, Bencsik continues, and welcomes Polands stance on Hungarys side as so many times in history. In Hetek, Mate Kulifai describes Mr. Weber as a weak leader who first threatened Fidesz with expulsion, then when the Hungarian side showed no intention of heeding his demands, Peoples Party leaders stepped on the brake in an attempt to keep FIDESZ within the EPP until the elections in May. Whether or not FIDESZ stays in the EPP, he concludes, Manfred Weber and the European Peoples Party itself are unfit to lead Europe. in Magyar Narancs, political scientist Gabor Torok interprets recent articles by pro-government columnists as indicating that the real allies of Fidesz are outside the Peoples Party. He adds that Austrias Freedom Party, Frances National Rally and Germanys AfD already consider Prime Minister Orban as an ally, unlike many Peoples Party politicians. Although the Hungarian Prime Ministers anti-immigration line has many new supporters among leading European politicians, he himself has not become any stronger, Torok believes. Although the traditional party structures are in crisis, he argues, they are not crumbling and thus there is no powerful rival camp Mr. Orban could join if has to leave the Peoples Party. MTI Photo: Szigetvary Zsolt 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 The Counter-Terrorist Centre announced on Saturday that it is co-operating with partner services of other countries in investigating Brenton Tarrant, perpetrator of the terrorist act in New Zealand on Friday, who lived and travelled in this region in recent years. Tarrant shot and killed at least 49 people in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch. He had written on his guns the names of historic figures who fought against Ottoman rule in the Balkans. One weapon featured the name of Janos Hunyadi, who fought against Ottoman rule in the 15th century, and another the name of Mihaly Szilagyi, an uncle of Hunyadi, and a governor of Hungary. A security policy expert, Jozsef Horvath, told state news channel M1 on Saturday that Tarrant visited Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary last year. Hungarys parliamentary opposition parties emphasised the importance of cooperation at a joint demonstration held on the occasion of the March 15 national holiday on Budapests Szabadsajto (Freedom of the Press) Road. Klara Dobrev, who heads the European parliamentary election list of the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), called for establishing a normal, livable Hungary, which she said required clearing out the Orban regime. She said everyone who is a patriot today must revolt against the Fidesz government. Those who still strike a deal with Orbans regime for the sake of their livelihood destroy their own future, she added. Independent MP Akos Hadhazy said that instead of talking too much and plotting against each other, the opposition parties needed to work and organise themselves, and instead of resignation they needed resolve and determination. Peter Marki-Zay, mayor of Hodmezovasarhely and head of the Everyones Hungary Movement, said the governing politicians had good reason to be scared because something had changed. He called on the parties to support the most suitable, preferably independent candidates, who can also attract votes from Fidesz voters in the autumn municipal election, instead of party soldiers. Jobbik spokesman Peter Jakab said Orban did not understand the message of March 15, saying that it was not the holiday of the tyrant but of the people. He said Orban was only out to eliminate Brussels, while he has replaced freedom with servility, equality with inequality and fraternity with hate. LMP board member Szabolcs Turcsan said the opposition must turn its diversity into an advantage, because it can only succeed if it learns to engage in politics in a way that helps everyone. Anett Bosz of the Liberal Party said todays protestors had the same goals that 19th-century poet Sandor Petofi had stood up for in 1848: press freedom, equality in front of the law and a responsible government. Independent Student Parliament representative Daniel Kallo, who is fifth on the Socialist Partys EP election list, said that as long as young people were not free to decide on their own futures, it would be stolen from them. Anna Donath, deputy leader of the opposition Momentum Movement, said that in order for a united opposition to be successful, the various parties had to identify values that could convince everyone that the parties want a better and fairer country. Parbeszed MEP Benedek Javor said that in Mays EP elections, every voter would get the chance to send a message to the government that they favour Europe over Eastern oppression and freedom over tyranny. MTI Photo: Balogh Zoltan UPDATED with Anderson Cooper remarks: A Coast Guard officer stationed in Washington, D.C., stands accused of plotting a mass terrorist attack whose intended victims include prominent journalists at MSNBC and CNN and Democratic politicians. For now, the suspect is being held only on weapons and drug charges, but at the very top of their detention memo filied today with the U.S. District Court in Maryland, prosecutors wrote: The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country. Related stories Coast Guard Film Office Remains Open Despite Shutdown And No Pay Paradigm Agent Gabrielle Lewis Heads To Grandview As Manager 'Stargirl' Casts Cameron Gellman; Carmela Zumbado Joins 'You' Lt. Christopher Hasson, 49, was arrested last week at his home in Silver Spring, MD. The court documents say authorites found a hit list on his computer that named prominent media personalities including CNNs Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and Van Jones and MSNBCs Joe Scarborough, Chris Hayes and Ari Melber. Also named were politicians including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Sens. Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Tim Kaine, Kirsten Gillibrand and Richard Blumenthal; Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters, Ilhan Omar and Sheila Jackson Lee; ex-Rep. Beto ORourke; and former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. We are very grateful to the dedicated and skillful law enforce officials who discovered this dangerous plot and thank them, CNN said in a statement. Their work undoubtedly saved many lives. Deadline also has reached out to MSNBC for comment. During his CNN primetime program, Anderson Cooper noted This is now the second guy with basically a hit list of politicians and journalists; the other guy was the person sending bombs. COoper was referencing the Florida supporter of President Donald Trump who was arrested last fall for allegedly send 14 other pipe bombs to CNN and prominent critics of President Donald Trump including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters, former CIA Director John Brennan, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Story continues Some of those bomb targets also were on the Coast Guard officers hit list. This is not happening in the vacuum. You cant ignore the people on the list, many of themthe president has directly attacked, Cooper said, noting documents found at the residence of the latest would-be terrorist referenced Trump, including a note that said civil war if Trump impeached. Ahead of his CNN show tonight, Cuomo told Cooper: This is scary. This is something that the people who get named, we have to deal with, especially with our family because while we accept it as just the nature of the world we live in these days. Authorities also seized at least 15 weapons rifles, pistols and shotguns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from the basement of Hassons home. They said he had been stockpiling arms for two years. See the photo above. In the court filing, U.S. Attorney Robert Hur said the current weapons charges against Hasson, who the feds describe as a white supramacist and former Marine, are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The defendant is a domestic terrorist, bent on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect government conduct. Prosecutor also said the suspect was inspired by the Norwigian domestic terrorist who murdered 77 people in gun and bomb attacks in July 2011. They also found a Google search on his computer for civil war if Donald Trump impeached. Hur also cited a nearly two-year-old unsent email on the suspects computer that said (all sic): I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth. I think a plague would be most successful but how do I acquire the needed/ Spanish flu, botulism, anthrax not sure yet but will find something. Interesting idea the other day. Start with bioilogical attacks followed by an attack on the food supply. Hasson will have a detention hearing at 1 pm ET Thursday. The documents first were reported by Seamus Hughes of The Program on Extremism at George Washington University. The case comes four months after a Florida man was charged with sending a series of mail bombs to prominent Democrats, CNN offices and elsewhere. More than a dozen devices were found, but none exploded. The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has filed a petition against President Muhammadu Buhari over irregularities that trailed his reelection, at the presidential electoral tribunal. Atiku is asking the tribunal to declare him the real winner of the February 23rd election or cancel it, via the petition failed on Monday. Emmanuel Enoidem, national legal adviser of the opposition party on Monday told journalists that they are certain of victory at the tribunal, adding that they have more than 20 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs. He said: We asked that our candidate who won the election massively across the country be declared the winner. In the alternative, we also asked that the election be set aside on the ground of irregularity which was apparent across the country. We have also lined up more than 400 witnesses that are going to testify in this petition. Dinosaurs were thriving before deadly asteroid strike wiped them out 66 million years ago, study suggests The dinosaurs were actually thriving right up until the moment when a huge asteroid hurtled in from space, heralding the end of their time as rulers of this planet. At the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid (possibly coupled with volcanic eruptions) wiped out the dinosaurs. But some scientists believe that the huge creatures had been declining anyaway, due to climate change. New mathematical analysis from researchers at the Imperial College London, University College London and University of Bristol has suggested that the creatures were actually thriving. The researchers used ecological niche modelling to work out where there had been areas which would have allowed dinosaurs to survive. Read More Blind man asked to leave shopping centre because of his guide dog Norwegian woman films avalanche crashing towards house Pub offers cheapest Sunday roast in the country for just 1 Lead researcher Alessandro Chiarenza, a PhD student in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial, said: Dinosaurs were likely not doomed to extinction until the end of the Cretaceous, when the asteroid hit, declaring the end of their reign and leaving the planet to animals like mammals, lizards and a minor group of surviving dinosaurs: birds. The results of our study suggest that dinosaurs as a whole were adaptable animals, capable of coping with the environmental changes and climatic fluctuations that happened during the last few million years of the Late Cretaceous. Climate change over prolonged time scales did not cause a long-term decline of dinosaurs through the last stages of this period. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK For decades, the success of a TV series had been measured by its longevity. The standard series regular contracts are for six years, which has been considered a threshold for a show to be deemed reasonably successful. Netflix may be rewriting the rulebook with a business model that involves shows often running for two to three seasons. The Internet network also is assuring its series will remain Netflix exclusives even after their cancellation, with a moratorium allegedly built into deals that prevents axed shows from moving to a new home. That is despite the streamer readily taking in series canceled elsewhere, like Lucifer and Designated Survivor. Related stories Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Plays Nice With Apple ("Great Company") As New Streaming War Looms Netflix's Ted Sarandos Chides Apple & Disney For Being "Very Late" To Streaming With Barack & Michelle Obama Chasing For Netflix, Warner Bros In Final Talks For Will Smith 'King Richard' Williams Tennis Sibs Deal . Netflix on Thursday announced it would not proceed with a fourth season of its lauded comedy series One Day at a Time. Producing studio Sony Pictures TV quickly started shopping it, and I hear there was an inquiry from CBS Corps CBS All Access, but the shows Netflix deal would not allow for the comedy to move to another streaming platform. Netflix also recently canceled all of its Marvel series after two or three seasons. They all had developed solid followings and drawn sizable viewership, so there was speculation when they were canceled that they could migrate to Disneys upcoming streaming platform Disney+, which will feature a lot of Marvel-branded original content. Disney and Marvel TV executives likely wouldve liked to do that, but again their Netflix contract did not allow them to. I hear there is a standard clause in the deals for Netflix series from outside studios that prevents the shows from airing elsewhere for a significant period of time, said to be 2-3 years, making a continuation on another network/platform virtually impossible. That is probably why we havent seen CBS TV Studios comedy American Vandal a breakout hit for Netflix when it launched but canceled in October after two seasons move to CBS All Access. (According to sources, the blackout period could be as long as five years since the date of the series delivery.) Story continues I hear the moratorium on OTAAT is a bit less restrictive than others a couple of years for SVOD but just a few months for network which would allow the Latinx family comedy to pursue a fourth season on a broadcast network, for example. (For more on that, read our story.) . In addition to One Day at a Time, also canceled after three seasons at Netflix were Love, Bloodline and Hemlock Grove, with a slew of shows canceled after two. Besides Netflixs legacy series House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, the first two originals that put the streamer on the map and generated awards buzz throughout their six-season runs, there is only one live-action series that has lasted that long: comedy Grace and Frankie. In addition to also being an awards-attention magnet for its stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, the series comes from Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman, whose presence at Netflix is believed to have helped the streaming platform secure and maintain the sought-after SVOD rights to Friends, one of the most prized off-network assets out there. . The Crown was bought by Netflix as a six-season series chronicling the life of Queen Elizabeth II. Outside of that, out of dozens of original live-action scripted series launched, only three have gone beyond three seasons. One is the reliable awards contender Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which ran for four seasons, earning a slew of major nominations. The two others are multi-camera comedies done under a different business model Fuller House, which will end after five seasons, and The Ranch, which has been renewed for a fourth season. (Hit drama Narcos was wrapped after three seasons and succeeded by a new series, Narcos: Mexico.) I hear at least some of the cancellations on the list were prompted in part because the shows were deemed to have gotten too expensive. That is because of how many of Netflixs series deals are structured. It is widely known that Netflix employs a cost-plus model, offering to pay upfront a shows production costs plus a premium of 30%+ of the costs. Even after Netflix subtracts a distribution fee, outside studios are at break-even or in a positive territory from Day 1, versus having to deficit finance series for the first few seasons on most traditional networks. But in exchange for the upfront payments, outside studios give up the potential upside that normally comes up with owning a long-running successful series, including off-network and international sales. Instead, Netflixs deals include bump/bonuses after each season that are getting progressively bigger. White the payments are relatively modest after Season 1 and a little bigger after Season 2, I hear they escalate after Season 3, especially for series owned by Netflix sometimes from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars as the studio starts to pay off the shows back-end. For series from outside studios, which I hear cost about 20% more than their Netflix-produced counterparts, I hear the built-in payment increases do not skyrocket as much but still are bigger after Season 3, Season 4 and beyond. Netflix is known for giving writers and producers creative freedom and has been relatively patient, picking up a significant portion of its freshman series for a second season, giving them time to find their legs. But as the shows prices start going up, the network tightens its renewal criteria. . Its a combination of things, when were investing, we decide how much to invest based on the audience that will show up, Netflixs head of original content Cindy Holland said of the streamers cancellation decisions at the INTV conference in Israel last week. If the audience doesnt show up, we think about the reason to continue to invest in something that doesnt do as well as we had hope. Obviously critical acclaim is important too, but were really about trying to stretch our investment dollars as far as we can and make good on our investors money its theirs, not ours. . For the most popular shows, like blockbuster hit Stranger Things, renewals are a no-brainer as each new season is an event, driving viewership and subscriptions. (Being owned by Netflix, Stranger Things also is a money maker for the company with auxiliary revenue streams such as theme park attractions and merchandising, including Halloween costumes.) But for everyone else, there is intense scrutiny. Netflix is unabashedly data driven, with many of its decisions based on algorithms. Thats how the network reportedly switched from the initial (and traditional) 13-episode seasons to seasons of 10 episodes or less. Word is that those shorter seasons are considered optimal for consumption, and any additional episodes beyond 10 a season do not add value, so they are an unnecessary expense for the network. The same goes for the number of seasons. If a show has not broken out in a big way during its first couple of seasons, there has been chatter Netflix does not see significant growth potential beyond Season 3 (and sometimes beyond Season 2). . As for acclaim, I hear anecdotally that strong critics reviews, which One Day at a Time has in spades, could get a show a second-season renewal at Netflix (but rarely a third). Beyond that, only major awards recognition counts as awards along with strong worth of mouth/curiosity are thought to help drive subscriptions. Despite its acclaim, One Day at a Time, maybe hindered by its multi-camera format, has not been able to land big nominations. I hear One Day at a Time came close to cancellation last year when the shows producers and talent rallied fans in a spirited renew-the-show campaign. Netflix ultimately gave it a reprieve, but it came with a warning. Despite the fact that One Day at a Times viewership had reportedly grown between Season 1 and 2 and Seasons 2 and 3, word is Netflix brass claimed its numbers still were not where the network wanted them to be. I hear that, according to Netflixs data, beyond Season 2-3, middle-of-the road series even those with loyal fan base like One Day at a Time would not generate significant new signups. But new shiny things will. Netflixs strategy to grow subscription base is focused on introducing new series all the time, sometimes multiple ones each weekend. According to industry observers, fans of some of the canceled series would be disappointed by their demise but not upset enough to drop Netflix as there is new product coming out all the time that catches their attention. At the core of their business is churn, one industry insider said, noting that there are always subscribers who drop Netflix after a free trial period or a month or two later, and the goal is to get more people to sign up, which comes mostly thanks to hot new series everyone is talking about. As an asset, having 30 episodes of a series (three seasons) is considered enough to satisfy viewers discovering the show. Tacking on more episodes does not add significant value, I hear. A show doesnt serve a purpose (anymore), an observer said. There is no reason for the network to continue to invest in it. The Punisher Jessica Jones . That is why so many Netflix series are being outright canceled versus the streamer employing the oldest trick in every networks bag: trying to renegotiate the terms of its deals. I have heard of instances when Netflix has sought reduction of previously agreed upon fees and bonuses based on a series performance. For example, there was some back-and-forth between Netflix and Marvel TV, including the network requesting a season-order trim from 13 to 10 episodes, before the streaming giant pulled the plug on all Marvel series that it had picked up years ago at a very high price. (There were creative issues on some shows as well.) The first Marvel series were a big draw as they were among the handful of original series on the service. Two, three seasons in, the shows didnt get the same attention because of the huge volume of new product. Netflix has built an adequate Marvel library, which will live on the service, while the Internet company cut a major expense by canceling the superhero series to invest in new fare. Additionally, like traditional networks in the era of vertical integration, Netflix has been ramping up in-house production, redirecting funds from outside productions to in-house series including shows from its roster of A-list talent under rich overall deals such as Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, Kenya Barris and Shawn Levy and thus avoiding the cost-plus surcharge it has to pay to shows from other studios. The shorter runs are something spreading to other platforms, where shows also are ending relatively quickly. Amazon recently announced the upcoming fourth season of its flagship drama The Man in the High Castle will be its last. Only two original series on Amazon or Hulu, Amazons Transparent, which put that service on the map, and Bosch, have gone beyond four seasons, with the majority of shows canceled after two or three seasons. Industry observers see the trend also carrying over to premium networks, which now have a dual play as linear and SVOD outlets. Fifty is the new 100, an industry insider said, referring to the traditional milestone of 100 episodes that used to kick off a financial windfall for studios and profit participants from syndication and other off-network sales. It is now considered unattainable, especially on digital platforms, with 50 episodes pretty much the most you can get there. Added another source, They are proving that they are not in the back-end business. Dominic Patten contributed to this report. Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. HBO Asia has unveiled a trio of new original series and a second season of its hit The Teenage Psychic. The new shows bring the number of original series commissioned and distributed by the Singapore-based offshoot of HBO to 15. Dream Raider will be HBO Asias first Asian sci-fi drama, an eight-episode hour-long series that features a misfit team of scientists and cops trying to get to the bottom of a criminal conspiracy exploiting human consciousness. The series opens with a police officer who is investigating a case of missing girls and uncovers a mysterious technology that enables them to enter the dreamscapes of others. With veteran Hong Kong director Cheang Pou-Soi as executive producer and Freeman Xiang as producer, the show is directed by Daniel Fu and Simon Hung. It stars Vivian Hsu, David Wang, Jason Wang, Weber Yang and Ellen Wu. Related stories FilMart: HBO Asia CEO Jonathan Spink Praises Local Content Strategy George Clooney's 'Catch-22' Sells to Asia and Australia (EXCLUSIVE) HBO Asia and Catchplay Team up for 'The World Between Us' Food Lore is an eight-episode, hour-long anthology series that explores the human condition with narratives inspired by and showcased through the perspective of Asian cuisines. It is overseen by Eric Khoo, and is produced as part of a partnership with the Infocomm Media Development Authority in Singapore. It shoots in eight countries across Asia with segments directed by Don Aravind (Singapore), Billy Christian (Indonesia), Takumi Saitoh (Japan), Ho Yuhang (Malaysia), Erik Matti (Philippines), Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Thailand) and Phan Dang Di (Vietnam). The World Between Us is a 10-part hour-long Taiwanese drama series that follows the aftermath of a mass shooting in which all the parties involved the killer, the victims, the victims families, the media and the defense teams have intertwined fates. The series features an ensemble cast from Taiwan including Alyssa Chia, James Wen and Wu Kang-Jen. The series is directed by award-winning filmmaker Lin Chun-Yang and written by award-winning screenwriter Lu Shih-Yuan. It is produced by Taiwanese broadcaster Public Television Service (PTS), and will be jointly distributed by HBO Asia and Catchplay outside of Asia. Story continues In the second season of coming-of-age Taiwan drama Psychic, Kuo Shu Yau will reprise her lead role as Xiao Zhen, a psychic born with the ability to see spirits and learning to use her abilities to help others. New cast members include actress Wen Chen-Ling and Fandy Fan. It is directed by Liu Yan-Fu. Chen Ho-Yu, director of the first season, will executive produce. All upcoming HBO Asia originals will be available exclusively on HBO Asias network of channels including HBO, HBOs online streaming platform HBO GO, and the on-demand service HBO on Demand. Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Jim Carrey hits the panic button in his latest objet dart, depicting President Trump as a flaming, screaming asteroid headed for Earth and saying his presidency will become an extinction level event. In his political cartoon posted Sunday, the actor/artist shows earth from space and a fireball with Trumps malevolent-looking face speeding to the planets destruction. A swastika sits between his furrowed brows. Innocent people are now being slaughtered, families ruined and childrens lives destroyed. All in his name, the caption reads. If the Craven Republican Senate allows this vile miscreant to continue encouraging devisiveness, the Trump Presidency will become an EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT. Also Read: Jim Carrey Goes Nuclear on Trump Over North Korea in Latest Political Artwork In recent days, the Trump administration has pushed back at the suggestion that the president was to blame for the shooting at two New Zealand mosques that left 50 people dead Friday. In an 87-page manifesto, suspected shooter Brenton Harris Tarrant wrote that he supported Trump as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose. White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney countered that on Fox News Sunday, saying, Lets take what happened in New Zealand yesterday for what it is a terrible, evil, tragic act and figure out why those things are becoming more prevalent in the world. Is it Donald Trump? Absolutely not. Check out Carreys artwork below: Jim Carrey Trump Art Twitter Read original story Jim Carrey Takes Trump Presidency to Extinction Level in Latest Political Cartoon (Photo) At TheWrap On The View Monday, Meghan McCain reacted to President Trumps weekend Twitter attack on her father, John McCain. Trump went after the late senator, who died in August, for his ties to the controversial Russia dossier and his vote against repealing Obamacare. Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain. Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel. He had far worse stains than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2019 Hours later, the talk show host responded. No one will ever love you the way they loved my father. I wish I had been given more Saturdays with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine? https://t.co/q7ezwmHiQ4 Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) March 16, 2019 After being applauded by her fellow View co-hosts for sending the tweet, Meghan expanded on those thoughts. He spends his weekend obsessing over great men because he knows it and I know it and all of you know it, he will never be a great man. My father was his kryptonite in life, hes his kryptonite in death, she said. And I just thought, Your life is spent on your weekends not with your family, not with your friends but obsessing, obsessing, over great men you could never live up to. That tells you everything you needed to know about his pathetic life right now. Some viewers on Twitter applauded Meghan. A very well stated (and restrained) response by @MeghanMcCain . Her father would be proud, Im sure. Ginny Tourek (@ginnytourek) March 18, 2019 Well said Megan! Your grace & poise is greatly admiredTHANK YOU Kevin Hoeg (@kevinhoeg) March 18, 2019 Meghan is not my favorite but I think she nailed this charlie h (@charliehennessy) March 18, 2019 Amen, Meghan! Bless you for keeping your composure while speaking the truth. Louise Kalouria (@OnePotata2) March 18, 2019 But others werent buying her attacks on Trump and think shell be back to defending many of his actions and policies in no time. Story continues heres the thing, she will just defend him next week. so what does it matter CJ360Nation (@npcj3600) March 18, 2019 McCain was a hero but he also was a corrupt politician. Both can be true at the same time. Nathan Holt (@sk8king1986) March 18, 2019 Meghan MCCain took a swipe at Trump suggesting no one will ever love you like they loved my father WRONG Meghan! Millions of Americans truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain. Im one! We hated McCain for his ties to the Russian dossier & his vote against repealing Obamacare Lori Hendry (@Lrihendry) March 17, 2019 Meghan only cares when it affects her directly. Shes a federalist and an archcon. No sympathy. AMI (@amymindell1) March 18, 2019 Meghan also said that she genuinely feels bad for Trumps family. I cant imagine having a father that does this on the weekends, she said, to which co-hose Joy Behar replied: Oh, theyre all on the same page. Dont feel sorry for them. The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on ABC. Watch what happened when Whoopi Goldberg made a surprise return to The View: Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyles newsletter. Canadians may have a reputation for saying sorry, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is refusing to do so for his role in the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Speaking to reporters Thursday in Ottawa, Trudeau took responsibility for not being aware of an erosion of trust that developed between his former principal secretary, Gerry Butts, and the former attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould. There was no breakdown of our systems, of our rule of law, of the integrity of our institutions, Trudeau said. There was never any inappropriate pressure. The prime ministers speech was longer than 10 minutes, but there was one glaring omission. Conspicuously, there was no apology, said Frank Buckley, a founding professor of law at George Mason University whos written several books and served as a former speechwriter for U.S. President Donald Trump. It really was remarkable for what a skeptic would regard as a cover-up. Trudeau has been embroiled in a political crisis for a month now. The Globe and Mail reported on Feb. 7 that Wilson-Raybould faced pressure from the Prime Ministers Office while she was the attorney general to offer a remediation agreement to Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin. This would help the company avoid a criminal prosecution for allegedly offering bribes to secure contracts in Libya. SNC-Lavalin has 9,000 employees in Canada and a criminal conviction could potentially put those people out of work because it would prohibit the company from applying for government contracts for 10 years. Wilson-Raybould testified last week that she faced inappropriate effort that included veiled threats from many people within the government over a four-month period in late 2018 to secure a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for SNC-Lavalin. In January, Wilson-Raybould was shifted out of the justice ministry and into the veterans affairs portfolio during a cabinet shuffle. Trudeau has maintained that she would still be attorney general if former Liberal MP Scott Brison hadnt decided to resign, prompting a cabinet shakeup. However, the move from the justice ministry to veterans affairs is mostly viewed as a demotion. Story continues Butts testified Wednesday that nothing inappropriate took place, and this was simply the normal operations of government. He contended that Wilson-Raybould had a different version of events and no lines were ever crossed by government officials. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer came out swinging again following Trudeaus speech, accusing the prime minister of being fake and phony in his address. He had an opportunity today to show some leadership, to accept responsibility for what he, himself, has done. And instead, he chose to duck and hide. Deeply scandalous allegations Scheer repeated his call for Trudeau to resign as prime minister. The Opposition leader also wants Trudeau to appear before the House justice committee to testify on the matter. So far, none of that has happened. Buckley told Yahoo Canada that no matter how you slice it, the allegations are deeply, deeply scandalous and it was frustrating to see that Trudeau would not apologize. There are a number of things he couldve, at a minimum, apologized for, Buckley said. He had a lot of sleazebags working in the Prime Ministers Office. Earlier this week, University of Toronto assistant politics professor Renan Levine noted the scandal has gotten worse for Trudeau since Jane Philpott, one of Trudeaus top ministers, resigned from cabinet over the handling of the matter. On March 7, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there was never any inappropriate pressure placed on Jody Wilson-Raybould while she was the attorney general. Photo from The Canadian Press. The prime minister admitted he couldve done a better job communicating with his minister, especially given the challenge of balancing potential job losses while maintaining the rule of law. She did not come to me, and I wish she had, Trudeau said, adding that conversations were experienced differently. He admitted it had been a tough few weeks as prime minister. Canadians expect and deserve to have faith in their institutions and the people who act within them. However, Scheer repeatedly claimed that Trudeau acted inappropriately for partisan gain and trust between the prime minister and Canadians had been broken. The truth cannot be experienced differently, he said. There is such a thing as right and wrong and real leaders know the difference between them. Yahoo Life Videos In her new book, Silenced No More, Sarah Ransome speaks her truth and details her experience in Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwells sex trafficking ring. As soon as I arrived on my very first trip on the island my cell phones taken away, my camera's taken away, my passports taken away, and lo and behold, that's where it started. It was that very first trip on the island where I was told you will never escape me, says Ransome. As Ransome remembers in the book, Jeffrey Epstein raped her on the second day of that trip. The attacks continued for the duration of her stay, sometimes up to two or three times in the same day. Jeffery's island was designed for rape and trafficking, said Ransome. And once you're there, you can't get out. For Maxwells part, Ransome says that she was aware of abuse. In one case, Maxwell forced Ransome into a room where Epstein raped her. In another, Maxwell saw Ransome crying after a brutal attack and smirked, offering no support. Ghislane would break you down to such a point, but as soon as she broke you like a Jekyll and Hyde she would almost be mother-like and maternal, and caring. And that was effectively done to build a trauma bond, says Ransome. All eyes are glued to the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the accused co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein who allegedly recruited the young and underage girls that he sexually abused. For Sarah Ransome, who counts herself as a survivor of Epstein's abuse, Maxwells trial is long overdue. I'm following the trial every single day, she tells Yahoo Life. I just pray every day that she's found guilty because she needs to be taken off the streets so she can't hurt anybody else. All Ive ever wanted to do is make people smile. As a kid, Id make up silly stories and do impressions. I wanted to be Jim Carrey when I grew up. Seriously. I thought stand-up was the way to go, but as I got older, acting became the dream. After I graduated from high school in Gainesville, my sister asked me to go to a casting call with her. While I was there, someone asked me, Hey, do you sing, or do you act? I was terrified, but I thought, What the heck? I belted out Christina Aguileras Beautiful in front of everybody. One of the managers looked over and said, I dont think you belong in Florida. Deep down I knew she was right. But Id never even driven on the interstate before. What did I know about making it big? I started taking acting classes, and eventually, a few of us trekked across the country to Hollywood. I got a two-bedroom apartment with six other girls. We slept on air mattresses, and when one of us had an audition, wed help each other prep. I didnt get many auditions. That first year I had just three, while some of my roommates were getting three a day. The first opportunity that came along was to play Delta Burkes daughter in a TV pilot called Sweet Potato Queens. I thought, This is it! People had always told me how much I looked like Delta. But nothing happened, not even a callback. I needed to make money, and my agent said I could work as her assistant. It was a good way to learn the business. I began taking her younger clients on auditions, learning the names of the studios and casting directors. I ended up working as an agent for nine years, and man, was it tough. Commuting two hours each way, working for peanuts, all while putting my career on the back burner to make ends meet. I almost quit and moved home so many times. But having always been a Positive Polly, whenever I would get discouraged, Id just try to find the silver lining. Id say to myself, Chrissy, there are tons of kids sitting on their couches right now who are never even going to make it to L.A. At least youre trying. Story continues It was harder still as a plus-size woman, because the roles I was being considered for were so discouraging. Youre always the sidekick, the butt of the joke. My tall, skinny friends were getting audition after audition. I tried to rationalize that quality was better than quantity. In 2014 I landed a role on American Horror Story, but once my story line ended, I was on unemployment again. I swear, every time I was about to give up, I would get an audition. Or just as my gas tank was about to reach empty, Id get a residual check from a job Id done years before. It was as if the universe were trying to tell me, You can run, but sorry, girlfriend. Its happening. Youre happening. RELATED: Mandy Moore is Still An Optimist About Love When I got the audition for This Is Us, I needed to borrow gas money to get there. I had 81 cents in the bank. But something felt different. I walked onto the Sony lot, and when the security guard said good morning, I sang it back like I was in a Disney musical. The birds seemed birdier, the sky looked bluer. I put all kinds of good energy into the audition, hoping that maybe this one would turn the tide. I got the part of Kate, and my life has changed so much. I can take friends to dinner and not have to make an excuse why I cant go out. If I need groceries, I buy themI dont have to choose between that and paying a bill. I also get to do some- thing I love every day, which is the most unbelievable part. Fans come up to me now to say how much my story means to them, which is so special. I dont have it all together, but Im not putting on a fac?ade that I do. Im proud to be loved for my imperfections and all the ups and downs Ive been through. I have pinch-me moments all the time, like when I walk on set and see the names of all the iconic shows filmed there, like That Girl and Laverne & Shirley. They say youre always one job away from changing your life. Im so grateful to be proof of that. As told to Jennifer Ferrise Chrissy Metz stars in Breakthrough, in theaters April 17. For more stories like this, pick up the April issue of InStyle, available on newsstands, on Amazon, and for digital download on Mar. 22. Photo credit: . From Harper's BAZAAR Fact: It's almost as hard to get a Chylak bag as it is to get an Hermes Birkin. The Polish-based brand has taken Instagram by storm, becoming an overnight favorite amongst influencers, It-girls, and basically anyone looking for a chic, well-made bag that won't break your budget. We spoke with Polish native Zofia Chylak on the eve of her new collection debut to discover how she reached It-bag stardom, and what it feels like to have thousands of girls clamoring to buy her designs. Photo credit: Courtesy of Chylak When you first launched the brand, did you have any idea it would become this big and have such a cult following? Thank you, I was certainly not expecting this! Im shocked every time I receive an update on the figure. Currently its over 15 000 so its really overwhelming. We are doing our best to meet the demand but we dont want to compromise on the quality. Some models sell out in 5 minutes. People think this is a clever business idea, but the truth is it just happened naturally. Weve also had to start putting them online later in the day so that the US audience get a chance when the new stock arrives Chylak has been in operation since 2014. What do you attribute to its recent explosion? Did you have a specific strategy or did it happen organically? Launching the brand in Poland allowed us to build a local following, and organically grow and gradually expand our product line. We started selling directly to consumer, and focused on online sales. I had a lot of support from the Polish press and that gave me confidence. Working with a London-based PR agency helped to get the brand recognized internationally. Last year was really exciting for us, a few months after some of the international girls became fans of the brand and started wearing Chylak, we received a call from Net-A-Porter who wanted to work with us. I think having a following definitely helped in terms of being recognized by key stockists and press internationally. Story continues Can you tell me more about your drops? For example, how often do you release more bags and how frequently is that? Even though I hear from people that everything is sold out all time theres a new drop every few days (usually we are restocking our current bestsellers). We have more than 60 products and we cannot produce and release all of them at the same time, so usually you have to wait one or two months to stock certain models. At the moment, we are releasing new collections four times a year. You interned at Proenza Schouler. What was the most important thing that you learned there? It was an amazing time, for me it was a great opportunity to see how such big brands look from the inside. In Poland I would never have such an opportunity. Ive always been an observer, so Im very good at learning just by watching, Im very focused on details. I remember that I was impressed with Jack and Lazaro, the designers, the way they work with fabrics, the way they would spend all days with pattern makers, cutting by themselves, working hand in hand with interns. Never making us feel as we were somehow less important. Proenza Schouler was working with really amazing pattern making atelier - Nicolas Caito - everyone there had an amazing portfolio and they all worked for biggest French fashion houses like Dior and Chanel, I was interning also with them, watching them making clothes, sewing by hand, it was really an amazing experience. Photo credit: Courtesy of Chylak So many amazing new brands are coming out of Europe from places like Poland and Georgia. Why do you think these countries are offering products that are more affordable and better made than the US? Im really glad that this is happening, and every excited to see new countries emerging on the fashion map now. I think its primarily because of the internet and social media. Its now easier than ever to find new exciting brands. Fashion loves fresh, new things. I remember a few years ago my friends were asking me if I was sure that I wanted to write made in Poland on every bag I make. It was unusual at that time but I loved Poland and I felt that its time for us to be proud of it. Now when Im talking to clients and buyers, they love it. Price is for sure another reason. From the beginning I wanted my accessories to be elegant and timeless but affordable and accessible. Your bags are that perfect mix of classic and on trend. What inspired your shapes and silhouettes? Any specific references? Thats exactly the mix I was hoping to be able to achieve while designing. Im very sentimental, I look back a lot. I was studying history of art, and since I was a child I felt I would fit perfectly to the world of 18th or 19th century. But on the other hand I know that were here now and wearing crinoline dresses would be ridiculous. So thats where you need to look for something in between and combine. I want my bags to be as elegant as my grandmother in 1935 and as fresh as what you can see on the streets of Paris and New York during fashion week. Social media (and Instagram in particular) has had a huge impact on your business. How do you feel about the social media landscape, and managing the huge amount of work that goes with it? Instagram is my favorite I must say. Such a powerful platform right now. We really work hard to build a consistent brand aesthetics through photos that we post, and to connect with our followers. We all know that its not only about product now its about creating a beautiful, interesting world of the brand. We invest in working with talented photographers like Asia Typek, her street style photos are one of the most characteristic part of our instagram identity. ('You Might Also Like',) The industry veteran duo look to their cultural heritage to create cool-girl sweaters and knits with a sustainability bent. Yan Yan. Photo: Vinci Ng/Courtesy of Yan Yan After 10 years of working in the fashion industry and a subsequent case of severe burnout one would think that starting an entirely new brand would be the last thing on Phyllis Chan and Suzzie Chung's minds. But launching Yan Yan, a direct-to-consumer knitwear label based in Hong Kong, was exactly what the duo needed in order to better foster their creativity and careers. "We just felt wholesale, the industry and how companies were designers was becoming a little robotic," says Chan, who was formerly the director of knitwear at Rag & Bone from 2008 to 2018. "We were snowballing, basically, from one thing to another and never slowing down just constantly pumping stuff out." After Chan quit her job and moved from New York back to her hometown of Hong Kong, she linked up with Chung, a designer and her best friend since high school, to kickstart Yan Yan. Now, the two are able to slow things down a little bit, says Chan, while still being reactive enough to offer consumers something that's "really special and design-driven." Yan Yan, which means "everyone" in Cantonese, is knitwear for cool girls or anyone who wants to dress like one; think slime-green biker shorts and cozy hoodies dotted with neon-colored rosettes. For its debut collection (ranging in price from $225 to $475), the duo tapped into their industry network and partnered with a factory in China that used to work for Rag & Bone. They struck a deal that allowed Chan and Chung to use the factory's large stock of leftover yarns to design and produce small batches of product at a time. Yan Yan. Photo: Vinci Ng/Courtesy of Yan Yan "We realized that this was a great opportunity for us because as a brand-new company, even if you cut 100 pieces, you may not sell 100 pieces," says Chan. "So we worked this out with the factory where we used leftover material to design something new, and the factory would reduce its minimums for us for the sake of using up this material." Story continues Chan and Chung was able to garner the factory's stock that was about to expire most fabrics have a "best used by" window for production, as older yarns are harder to knit with and collaborating on what they could create with it, or how to mix it with fresh material to make something entirely new. For example, classic ivory lambswool from Scotland was transformed into playful midi-length dresses and a hoodie-and-sweatpants combo adorned with embroidered flowers. The Italian-spin tweed yarns in brown that the duo acquired are from "years and years ago," says Chan, so the two refreshed by adding tipping with new, brightly-colored technical polyester from Japan, creating comfy, loosely-fitting shorts, cardigans, T-shirts and dresses. More basic silhouettes, like Yan Yan's cardigans, polos and biker shorts made from new material that's polyester, chlorine-safe and completely machine washable, notes Chan still boast a quirky effect through on-trend colors and pointelle details that pay homage to the brand's name and logo. "A lot of the colors in this collection were really inspired by our Hong Kong culture," says Chan. "It's not obvious to someone who doesn't live here, but we talk a lot about fishing village girls, old advertising and the kind of colors in Hong Kong that are almost vintage-looking. We wanted to create knitwear that was really fun and inspired by the colors here without it being too gaudy." Yan Yan. Photo: Vinci Ng/Courtesy of Yan Yan Yan Yan's multicolored, striped pieces capture this approach: Knitted cardigans and rompers are inspired by the cheongsam and feature hand-tied, hand-embroidered Chinese knots. "It's always how the West interprets Chinese culture and our ethnic wear," says Chan of the recent rise of wearing Chinese clothing as a fashion trend (and possibly cultural appropriation). Though, she notes, wearing such traditional garb can be seen as uncool in Hong Kong. "We wanted to revisit it and educate ourselves about our own culture and create stuff that we could wear and other people could wear and change that perception of it being old-fashioned." In addition to tapping into their roots while designing for Yan Yan, Chan and Chung also want to help change the stigma behind the "Made in China" label among consumers. "A lot of quality, designer product is made in China, and everyone seems to be a little bit embarrassed about it and I don't see why we should be," says Chan. "China manufactures a lot of designer product and it's sold for a lot of money, and the workmanship is great. We have such a great opportunity here to be able to work with our factory and understand where they're coming from." While Yan Yan's debut is only available on its website, the brand will be distributed to select retailers later this summer, including No. 6 in New York City and Ron Herman in Tokyo. The designers also hope to open a pop-up in NYC since, according to Chan, "sweaters are emotional, so there is a degree that you need to feel and see the product." The duo is already working on its pre-fall collection with plans to do seasonal drops every two to three months all while still being mindful of creating long-lasting, design-driven knitwear. "It's all to do with what kind of materials we can find and what we think is most seasonally appropriate and what we think is cool and new," says Chan. See Yan Yan's debut collection in full in the gallery below. Yan Yan. Photo: Vinci Ng/Courtesy of Yan Yan View the 12 images of this gallery on the original article This post has been updated from its original version. Sign up for our daily newsletter and get the latest industry news in your inbox every day. DES MOINES, the United States, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Democratic presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke Saturday met and greeted voters at a downtown square in Waterloo, some 200 km northeast of Des Moines, capital of the U.S. midwestern state of Iowa. Standing on a pickup and in front of more than 200 audience, O'Rourke touched upon healthcare, immigration and education topics. "(We must) ensure that every single American seeing a doctor can afford their prescriptions, can take their child to a therapy," he said. O'Rourke also talked about topics like asylum seekers, refuges, school teachers, education, among others, in front of the audience. When O'Rourke showed up, his supporters chanted "Beto, Beto" in chorus. O'Rourke announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential race on March 14, 2019. Before coming to Waterloo, he has had meet-and-greet in Fort Madison, Burlington, Muscatine and Mt Pleasant in Iowa. Born in 1972 and graduated from Columbia University, O'Rourke was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. Instead of seeking re-election in 2018, he ran for the Senate and narrowly lost to Republican incumbent Senator Ted Cruz. As a comparatively young politician, O'Rourke's campaign bet heavily on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram specifically to get his message out to targeted voters and donors. Kiki Osinbajo is a year older today. The stunning daughter of the Vice President of Nigeria Yemi Osinabjo turns 26 today and has released the photo above to celebrate her day. She captioned the image; Chapter 26 March 18th 1993 This is only the beginning I thank God for bringing me this far and for how much Ive accomplished. For making my dreams come true @glamdafrica@shopkonyin but I know HE JUST STARTED WITH ME..Happy Kiki dayyyy?????? #26tosixfigures #securetheBANK Cynthia with her daughter and RFTS volunteers at Senator Isakson's office getting Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day recognized in Washington. by Jill Rosamilia National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day began in 2006 by a nonprofit organization called Reaching for the Stars (RFTS), an education and advocacy group run by parent volunteers. They realized there was no national awareness day for Cerebral Palsy (CP) like there was for autism, Down syndrome, and practically every other disorder and disease. Cynthia Frisina, VP of Partnerships at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation (CPF) and past RFTS Co-Founder and Executive Director wanted to create this awareness day to bring attention to the fact there was little to no research for cerebral palsy, despite CP being the most common motor disability in children. Cynthia and other Reaching for the Stars parents in Georgia went straight to the source and reached out to longtime Senator Johnny Isakson (GA) and his staff to begin the process of establishing March 25 as National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day. Isakson has been the lead senator supporting this initiative for RFTS since 2006 alongside Senator Robert Casey (PA) and Senator Hassan (New Hampshire) in subsequent years. Related: Living With a Disability Doesn't Make Me an Inspiration They decided on March 25th as National CP Awareness Day and the color green to represent the day. They wanted the day to follow St. Patricks Day since people were already embracing the color green and could just continue to deck themselves out in green all month. Then in 2014, RFTS began the idea of expanding National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day to include creating a green t-shirt that people could wear, creating a green ribbon and related images for social media, lighting up buildings green, and establishing the hashtag #GoGreen4CP. The movement began spreading like wildfire. People around the U.S. embraced the idea and began engaging communities to participate in lighting up green, asking cities to issue proclamations, doing school events, and wearing green shirts and green ribbons. Ferris wheel lit up green for Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day. Related: The Abuse of People With Cerebral Palsy Needs to Stop Story continues In the last few years, some groups and advocates have taken a real interest in getting buildings in states and communities to light it up green, and this year they have secured buildings going green in all 50 states! The key drivers paving the way for the movement include a few young women with CP: Nicole Luongo, Heaven Ramsey and Richelle Heath, but also many others in smaller ways, and even organizations like Make Lemonade for CP that last year secured many buildings and landmarks to light up green, including part of Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls lit up green for Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day. Related: What I Wish People Who Call My Walking 'Inspiring' Understood The creators specifically make sure to not advertise the day as Happy CP Awareness Day because frankly, theyre fed up. The fact that we dont hear about cerebral palsy, National Cerebral Palsy Day/Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, fires me up. I hope the campaign puts cerebral palsy in the spotlight and gives it a well-deserved seat at the disability table, said Nicole Luongo, advocate and key driver behind the GoGreen4CP movement, securing over 108 participants in all 50 states. Richelle Heath and Heaven Ramsey said, CP is the most misunderstood disability because no two people are affected the same way. The thing that made us want to stand up and make our voices heard was the fact that many other disabilities receive much attention in the media etc. (not that they dont deserve attention as well), but for some reason CP did not. We wanted to make a change for children coming after us with CP so maybe they wouldnt feel alone and so misunderstood. Building lit up green. When it comes to her hopes for the future, Nicole Luongo hopes to create a better understanding of the condition for future generations. Advocacy is important for people with CP because it lets the world know that we are here, that we make positive contributions to society, and that we matter. Advocacy is way to educate others and start a conversation about how CP affects adults since they arent getting the help or the resources that they need to live their best lives. I never had physical therapy until I was in my 30s. It was never suggested to my parents. Ive met so many adults online as a result of my advocacy work and we all agree that (most) doctors dont know much about CP, they dont how to treat us, and that once you reach the age of 18, its virtually impossible to get help. This year, RFTS merged with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and together theyve teamed up to make an even greater impact for CP Awareness Month. Their campaign GoGreen4CP.org is all about going green, celebrating the top influencers in the community, and taking an action to change attitudes towards people with CP. The website gives you direct action to take and educates people about CP and how to change perspectives. One million people in the U.S. have CP, and it is the most common childhood disability. Yet people with CP are often treated like second-class citizens. Take the pledge and make a difference this #CPAwarenessMonth Read more stories like this on The Mighty: The Fear I Experience Every Time My Medically Complex Chid Has Surgery New Sitcom Features Comedian With Cerebral Palsy Who Uses His Disability to Be a 'Jerk' 4 Lessons From the Latest 'Speechless' Episode About Life With a Disability High upon a mountain on Japans Kii Peninsula sits the village of holy men and ancient temples called Koyasanthe epicenter of Shingon Buddhism. Though its just a couple of hours by train from the electric bustle of Osaka, youd be hard-pressed to find a destination that feels more off-the-beaten-path than this. Dotted with vermilion pagodas and vibrating with the hum of thousands of monks reciting sutras, the village radiates a deep, otherworldly tranquility. Reaching Koyasan requires a little bit of planning and familiarity with the local train lines, but an overnight stay at one of its Buddhist temples offers the chance to understand just why Koyasan is considered one of Japans most sacred places. To make the journey a little easier, heres everything you need to know before setting out on your own pilgrimage to the top of Mount Koya. How do I get there? Osaka is the best place to start if you want to visit Koyasan. At Namba station, catch the Nankai Koya line bound for Hashimoto, then switch to the Nankai Koya line headed for Gokurakubashi. The whole journey will take just under two hours, including the connection at Hashimoto. From Gokurakubashi, a 15-minute ride up the mountain by cable car will bring you to Koyasan station, where you can hop on a bus bound for the village. The station offers easy-to-read maps showcasing the bus routes and stops for different temples, but if you need some help navigating, just tell a station attendant which temple youre staying at and he or she will help you get on the right bus. Where can I stay and how much does it cost? There are a few guesthouses in Koyasan, but most visitors spend the night in shukubo, Buddhist temples that offer private rooms to guests with access to dorm-style showers and bathrooms. Some temples, like Saizenin and Ekoin, offer rooms with private in-room baths, though youll pay more for the luxury. Like traditional ryokans, temple lodgings are traditional Japanese style with tatami floors, sliding doors and futons. In the evening, youll enjoy a multi-course vegetarian dinner, followed by breakfast in the morningall prepared by the monks. A one-night stay typically costs between 9,000 - 15,000 per person. The easiest way to book is online using a third-party platform like Shukubo.net or Booking.com. Story continues What do we do there, exactly? Some people visit Koyasan just to soak up the spiritual energy and bask in the surrounding natural splendor. But if youre looking to do more than just meditate, follow in the footsteps of other pilgrims and make your way around the temples. Record your stops in a goshuincho from the temple youre staying at. These accordion-style books are used to collect seal stamps and calligraphy writing called goshuin from holy sites. Each shrine and temple has its own unique goshuin. A monk will draw one on a blank page in your bookincluding the name of the temple and the day you visitedfor a donation of 3. After dinner, join a night tour of Okunoin cemetery guided by a monk who will treat you to tales of the villages history, Buddhist teachings, legends and superstitions as you stroll amid ancient graves and monuments. Many temples allow visitors to observe morning prayer ceremonies or try their hand at copying sutrasjust ask your host for more information if youre interested in participating in some traditional Buddhist practices. And no matter what, make sure to set aside time for a peek inside Toro Hall, where tens of thousands of lanterns burn continuously in honor of the deceased. RELATED: The 50 Best Things to Do in Tokyo Photo credit: Joe Raedle - Getty Images From Popular Mechanics The dual crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 less than five months apart have raised a discomfiting prospect: that a seemingly random computer control failure could send a nearly new, state-of-the-art aircraft into a nosedive. It's a prospect so frightening that most countries have banned the Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 until the problem is sorted out. What many people don't realize is that these two crashes are far from the only examples of automation malfunctions that have sent planes plummeting in the past few years. Here are some standout examples. Photo credit: AFP - Getty Images October 2008 Qantas Flight 72 was en route from Singapore to Perth, Australia at 37,000 when unexpectedly the flight deck was filled with flashing lights and the sound of klaxons. The pilots were baffled-they could see out the window that the horizon remained level and the plane was flying normally. Then, boom! The planes nose jerked vigorously downward. The jolt flung passengers standing in the galley crashing into the ceiling, knocking them unconscious. Within two seconds, the plane dived 150 feet. The pilots controls seemed to have no effect at first, but they gradually regained authority. The flight crew coaxed the plane back to its cruising altitude and headed for an emergency landing. Suddenly, the plane dived another 400 feet, again throwing passengers and crew around the cabin. Declaring an emergency, the flight crew coaxed to plane to an emergency landing at Exmouth, Australia, where 39 people were taken to hospital and 14 were medevaced to Perth with broken bones, lacerations, and spinal injuries. Investigators later found that a malfunction had occurred in the planes Air Data Inertial Reference Unit, or ADIRU. This is a piece of electronics that determines where a plane is and how its moving. The error caused it to feed faulty information to the autopilot. May 2011 A Dassault Falcon 7X business jet was descending through 13,000 feet en route to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when it began to suddenly pitch steeply upward. Airspeed bled away, setting up the plane for a stall that would've sent it plummeting to earth. The French-speaking copilot at the controls realized he couldn't communicate the situation to his English-speaking captain quickly enough, so instead he went straight into a maneuver that hed learned during his days as a military pilot: He threw the plane into a steep bank so that the nose veered sideways and slid back toward the horizon. After two minutes of erratic behavior, with the plane experiencing loads of up to 4.6g, the rudder inexplicably returned to neutral. Story continues The plane landed safely. In the aftermath, Falcon 7Xs were grounded around the world until officials were able to trace the source of the problem: a bad solder joint that caused a control unit to transmit erroneous signals. Photo credit: NurPhoto - Getty Images November 2014 A Lufthansa Airbus A321 was climbing toward 31,000 feet after departing from Bilbao, Spain when the co-pilot flying the plane noticed that the autopilot was acting strangely. When he turned it off, the nose dropped and the plane went into a dive. The co-pilot struggled with the controls but the plane would not respond. Within 45 seconds, the plane was descending at 4,000 feet per minute. With the help of the captain, he was able to pull back on the stick enough to get the plane to level off at 27,000 feet. After conferring with technicians on the ground, the flight crew turned off one of the ADIRUs and the planes tendency to dive went away. The plane continued on its scheduled route and landed safely. Investigators later determined that two of the plane's angle-of-attack sensors had frozen in place, causing them to feed bad data. January 2016 West Air Sweden Flight 294, a Canadair CRJ-200 cargo jet, was en route to Tromso, Norway, when an alarm klaxon went off and the autopilot disengaged. The captains flight display showed that the nose was drifting too high, putting the plane at risk for a stall. The flight director, a display on the instrument panel that gives pilots control advice, told the pilots to put the nose down. Throughout training, the pilots had been taught that they must trust their instruments when they have no visual references, so the captain instinctively obeyed, pushing the plane forward so aggressively that it entered a negative-g dive that left the flight crew hanging in their straps. They could sense that something was terribly wrong, but amid the fear and disorientation they were unable to determine what. Turn right! the first officer barked. Come on, help me! The captain pleaded. Help me! Help me! Though the plane was in a steep dive, a fault in the ADIRU had caused the flight computer to erroneously conclude that the plane was pitched too high, leading the flight director to issue a fatally incorrect recommendation. Quickly the plane passed its maximum operating speed. Help me! Yes, Im trying! Mayday, mayday, mayday! Just 80 seconds after the bug cropped up, the plane slammed into the snow-covered tundra at 508 knots. ('You Might Also Like',) Washington (AFP) - An Iranian court has sentenced an American to 10 years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader and posting a private picture, his lawyer confirmed Saturday. Michael White, 46, a 13-year US Navy veteran, was arrested in July in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad while visiting a girlfriend he reportedly met online. His lawyer Mark Zaid confirmed that White was sentenced to two years for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 10 years for posting a picture, apparently to be served concurrently. "We remain very concerned about his health as he has pre-existing medical conditions but we've been informed he appears to be in a good state at the moment," Zaid said in an email. The New York Times, which first reported the sentencing, said White had been given two court hearings, on March 6 and March 9. The State Department was informed of the sentencing by Swiss diplomats who represent US interests in Iran, according to Zaid, who said White has not been allowed to communicate directly with his family. White's family has said he traveled to Iran on a valid visa to visit a woman with whom he had fallen in love. White was the first American to be detained in Iran since Donald Trump became president of the United States. Three other Americans imprisoned in Iran -- Siamak Namazi, Baquer Namazi and Xiyue Wang -- have been accused of spying and sedition. A fourth, Robert Levinson, has been missing in Iran since 2007. Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty Images In July 2017, Ahmadreza Doostdar, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, visited the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago, where FBI agents surveilled him performing what appeared to be a surreptitious exchange of information a brush pass with a woman in one of the museums rooms. After leaving the museum, Doostdar walked toward two nearby Jewish centers, snapping photos with his phone camera, appearing to pay particular attention to entrances and exits, including a wrought iron fence at the perimeter of one the buildings. Doostdar then traveled to Los Angeles where, according to U.S. prosecutors, he met with another Iranian man and tasked him with collecting information on U.S.-based members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an Iranian opposition group listed as a terrorist organization by the United States until 2012. The details of Doostdars alleged activities in the United States were revealed in August 2018 when the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against him, claiming he was acting as an Iranian intelligence operative. Iranian espionage is nothing new, but the charges against Doostdar, and other recent court cases, including the indictment of a former Air Force linguist who defected to Iran in 2013, highlight what the U.S. intelligence community sees as an increasingly worrying part of Tehrans covert strategy. Iranian operatives are compiling what are known as target packages to undertake prospective future assassinations and terrorist attacks, according to more than half a dozen former U.S. intelligence officials. The Department of Defense, CIA and FBI declined to comment. The Iranian Mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. While it is common practice for intelligence services to create target packages detailed dossiers assembled to enable an intelligence or military unit to find, fix, track and neutralize a threat, according to the indictment of Monica Witt, the American defector Iran is unique in using them to plan terrorist-type attacks, in case overt hostilities were to break out between Washington and Tehran, say these former officials. Witt, in fact, was a central part of that strategy, providing information that was used to prepare for assassinations of U.S. and Israeli intelligence personnel in Europe, says one of those former officials. Story continues Monica Elfriede Witt, the former U.S. Air Force linguist who defected to Iran. (Photos: FBI via AP) Unlike other major U.S. adversaries, such as Russia and China, Irans relative military weakness has led it to focus on preparations to attack softer targets, such as U.S. government facilities and personnel, and even civilian institutions like synagogues. These preparatory intelligence activities have been mostly focused abroad, but have also involved targets within the United States. From a resource perspective, notes one former senior official, Irans operating philosophy is Terrorism works, so why not use it? The regime in Tehran has cased potential terrorist targets in the past that could be used to retaliate against the United States, says Douglas Wise, a former career senior CIA officer who served as deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2014 to 2016. The Pentagon is, in fact, worried less about Irans conventional forces than about Tehrans ability to conduct terrorist attacks, or what is called asymmetric warfare in military parlance. Its low cost and flexible it can create casualties, disrupt U.S. facilities, interrupt business, put obstacles in front of diplomacy and undermine confidence with our allies and embolden our adversaries, he said. From the Iranian perspective, it plays into their strengths. While its not always clear why Iranian intelligence is interested in a particular location and the United States also surveils a variety of foreign targets Irans strategy is clearly different, says one former senior intelligence official. For Iran, said the former official, its You bomb us, well blow something of yours up. The U.S. government has long accused Iran of being involved in terrorist attacks, citing its role, via Hezbollah and other proxies, in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. troops, and of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon that same year, which killed 63. Iran also is suspected of directing several bombings in the 1990s, including of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. military officers. Former DIA Deputy Director Douglas Wise. (Photo: YouTube) Terrorism may be the best tool the Iranians have, but if you want to do it right, it takes a great deal of planning, says Wise. It can take months or years to collect the necessary information and winnow through options and opportunities, and then you have to do the mechanical aspects training, equipping, authorizing, professionally conducting and obfuscating attribution as much as you can. Going back to the 1990s, suspected Iranian spies, or sometimes their Hezbollah proxies, were observed surveilling U.S. diplomatic facilities, cultural centers and military installations in Europe (including France and Germany), Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, said former intelligence officials. Iranian operatives were observed photographing U.S. government buildings, clocking the movements of people in and out of facilities, identifying entrances and exits, and tracking buildings security procedures, said a former U.S. intelligence official. These casings arent being performed on a lark, said another former official; they have to be approved at a senior level. In the past, a few instances of close surveillance of CIA officials by Hezbollah operatives has been of acute concern, said one former intelligence official. Sometimes you ask the local intelligence service to grab them and have a conversation, but sometimes you need to pull the [CIA] person out of country because of an abundance of caution, said this former official. In one case in Europe in the 1990s, said this former intelligence official, a U.S. official with diplomatic status was evacuated over concerns about being closely surveilled by an Iranian intelligence official. Irans need for targeting information to be current in the event of overt conflict means Tehrans intelligence services must continuously collect update information, says another former senior official. Whenever we saw an Iranian doing surveillance or casing, theres always a degree of hit the panic button, recalls this person. Discussions would go around whole gamut. There was never any clear satisfactory answer of it. The intel community fell on the side of the Iranians performing planning and not imminent action. The scene at the U.S. Marine base in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983, after a massive bomb blast that killed 241 U.S. troops. (Photo: Mark Foley/AP) In Latin America, some of the potential preparatory terrorist activity appeared to emanate from the Triple Frontier where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet said multiple former officials. Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah operatives were focused on casing Jewish facilities, and potentially individuals, in Brazil and Argentina, said one intelligence official with knowledge of Iranian activities in the region around the turn of the millennium. Worries about U.S.-directed Iranian terrorism or assassination attempts have waxed and waned with the overall tenor of U.S.-Iranian relations, say former officials that is, they rise or fall with the likelihood of an actual shooting war. By this measure, the period around 2010, as Tehran pursued its nuclear program amid Western sanctions, was particularly fraught. The United States and Israel ramped up intelligence operations against the regime, which included deployment of the Stuxnet virus to sabotage the equipment Iran used to produce uranium for nuclear weapons. Israel also began carrying out a public campaign of assassinations aimed at Irans nuclear scientists. Around this time, concerns about Iranian supported terrorist attacks rose to the highest levels of the U.S. government, particularly in the Triple Frontier. The Argentinian intel folks had determined Iranian influence there, trying to create proxy groups that would eventually destabilize these Latin American countries, recalled a former senior official. What it brought home was that this is not just someone playing a Middle East game it was a worldwide game in terms of influence. U.S. officials again believed that Jewish and Israeli institutions in the region were under potential threat, and the CIA worked with Israeli intelligence to monitor Iranian activities in this area, said this person. What it created for us was a sense that while we were dealing with a lot of ad hoc groups al-Qaida, Boko Haram, ISIS now we had a nation-state that was basically following a similar pattern, said the same former senior official. You put those two together and you could really have a serious problem. Irans counterintelligence capabilities were also becoming notably more sophisticated, particularly after Iran compromised the CIAs secret communications system likely in concert with China used by the agency to contact its agents abroad. As Iran ramped up its intelligence operations, it focused on the U.S. and Israels disruption of the countrys secret nuclear weapons program, according to the same former senior U.S. intelligence official. The Iranians realized if they didnt push back against the covert campaign to prevent their nuclearization, they were going to keep being knocked down the hill, said the former official. Dozens of basijis, members of Iran's hardline Islamist militia, demonstrate in 2010 over the killing of a top Iranian nuclear scientist. (Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images) What precipitated the Iranians decision, after Witts defection, to target U.S. intelligence officers for potential assassinations is unclear, says another former official. It may, in fact, derive from Irans conflation of U.S. and Israeli activities. (Israels past use of American identities during undercover intelligence operations, as revealed during the investigation into the 2010 Israeli assassination of a senior Hamas official in Dubai, probably deepened this belief, said Wise.) Theres no doubt that the United States and Israel maintain a close intelligence partnership, sharing a great deal of key information on Iran, says the former senior official. And during this key 2010 period, Israel had had much more success in developing spies within Iran itself. We werent as broad in network as the Israelis, recalls this person. We relied on the Mossad. The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to specific questions from Yahoo News, but instead sent a general statement accusing Iran of operating a global terror network, which in recent years has perpetrated terror attacks in some two dozen countries on five continents. In light of this threat, intelligence cooperation between Israel and the United States is vital to the security of both countries and to the world, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy wrote in a statement. Today, that cooperation is stronger, broader and deeper than ever. From Tehrans perspective, the targeting of U.S. and Israeli intelligence officers in Europe could be justified as a response to Israels assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, notes another former U.S. official. Its hard to imagine anything more blatant than bombing people on bikes, said the former official, referencing to the killing of scientists in Iran by motorcycle-riding assassins between 2010 and 2012 it wasnt like they died in their sleep. Irans Fars News Agency says this photo shows one of the damaged cars following bomb attacks on the vehicles of two nuclear scientists in Tehran in 2010. (Photo: Fars News Agency/AP) There are other escalation-related dangers. During the Obama administration, recalls the same person, U.S. officials believed that Iran would blame the United States for an Israeli military assault on its nuclear facilities, precipitating just the type of domestic terror campaign that has long concerned U.S. officials. We have less control over Hezbollah sleeper cells than Israel does on their own turf, notes this former official. Still, U.S. officials believed that the Iranians would refrain from undertaking assassinations on U.S. soil, given the possibility of an overwhelming American response. Then, in 2011, U.S. officials uncovered a plot, authored by Irans elite Quds Force, to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington in a local restaurant. The consensus within the U.S. intelligence community that Irans potential terror planning was solely for wartime contingencies was shaken after the Saudi ambassador plot, recalls one former senior official. After 2013, this consensus, already shaky, was shattered, says another former U.S. intelligence official. During this time, U.S. officials identified multiple instances fewer than five, says this person where Iranian operatives appeared to be targeting U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials engaged in activities against Iran for possible assassinations. Critical identifying information about the threatened U.S. intelligence officials all of whom worked for the Department of Defense was provided by Monica Witt, the former air force officer who defected to Iran in 2013, says this person. These people were not identifiable without her help, the former official said. Though the plots were prevented before the Iranians were potentially able to carry them out, Irans actions went far beyond the mere assembling of dossiers for potential future attacks, said this person. These were cases where people had been assigned; plane tickets were purchased; weapons caches were in place. Plans were being activated. It had moved long past the written description. This was a five alarm fire, said this former intelligence official highly anomalous and inconsonant with the behaviors of other hostile intelligence services like those of Russia or China. The targeting of American intelligence officers was unique, the former official said. When this was happening the reaction was not, Oh these things happen. There was shock, awe and surprise. The thought was, The battlefield changes in an instant if this is true. In one unnerving case after Witts defection, a U.S. intelligence official in Europe had to be evacuated in the middle of the night with their family because of Iranian operatives casing their home, said this person. A second former official confirmed the evacuation of a U.S. intelligence official in Europe during this period because of unexpected Iranian interest. How the Iranians had managed to identify this person led to intense scrutiny by U.S. officials and rising consensus that the Iranians had recruited a U.S. government source, said this former official. There was a great deal of CIA-FBI finger-pointing over this issue, recalls this person. Part of the wanted poster for Monica Elfriede Witt. (Photo: FBI via AP) Around this same time, senior CIA officials also warned employees about an aggressive Iranian effort to recruit CIA officers, said a third former official. It was, once again, unclear how the Iranians had identified these undercover CIA officials, again precipitating fears about moles within the U.S. government, or defectors, recalls this official. The identification of Witt as the defector sent shockwaves through the intelligence community. Her access to highly classified technical collection programs was immense, says the first former official, and while U.S. officials had an inkling about who Witt was meeting with, and where these meetings were occurring that she was being debriefed, and who her spy handlers were within Iran U.S. officials were fundamentally in the dark on what she was sharing with Iranian intelligence. Then came the potential assassinations, and the realization about Witts role in them, says this person. This, in concert with overarching concerns about Witts disclosures, prompted U.S. officials to reorient a sensitive national-level technical collection program allowing for pinpoint geolocation to try to track her down within Iran. Although approval was eventually given, there were some conversations with uncomfortable [U.S. government] lawyers about altering this program, which was strictly regulated, toward hunting down Witt, said this person, because she is a U.S. citizen. The request to alter this program went all the way up to senior Obama-era National Security Council officials, said this former official. Its unclear whether this effort to locate Witt was successful. Irans targeting of American officials for potential assassination would cross a fundamental red line, according to those familiar with U.S. intelligence operations. Aside from legal prohibitions, there are important pragmatic reasons for not assassinating intelligence officials from rival countries. In Yemen, recalls another former U.S. intelligence official, the Pentagon was tracking a senior Quds Force commander who was previously stationed in Iraq and whom Pentagon officials considered responsible for the deaths of many U.S. soldiers there. U.S military officials floated the idea of assassinating the commander, but ultimately declined to take action, partially over fears of retaliatory targeting of U.S. intelligence personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, says this person. It was seen as akin to killing a senior CIA official a line best not crossed. While much of the focus over the past decade has been on Iranian intelligence operations in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, theres evidence that Tehrans focus has also moved more recently to the United States, such as with Doostdar, the suspected intelligence operative who allegedly cased targets in Chicago. In another domestic case, federal prosecutors in New York in 2017 indicted Ali Kourani, a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen, who, according to the FBI, admitted to being a member of Hezbollahs black ops unit working on behalf of the Iranians. President announces the withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal last May 8. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images) Kourani, according to a summary of his interview with federal law enforcement, admitted to surveilling New York City airports, and he cased FBI, Secret Service and National Guard offices in the city, and researched ways to set up secret weapons caches. He also identified Jewish businessmen in the New York area who were current or former members of the Israeli military. The question, however, is what are the Iranians preparing for? Some officials point to the ratcheting up of pressure by the White House and its resident hard-liners. In May 2018, the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. Administration figures seem to have concluded that Iran has continued to covertly pursue nuclear weapons, despite the U.S. intelligence communitys official assessments to the contrary, say former officials. Its a blatant attempt to politicize the intelligence community, said Wise, the former DIA deputy director. The Trump administration appears to be looking for a pretext for war, says another former senior official. The Trump administration seems oblivious to the potential Iranian response to U.S. military action, warn multiple former officials. And yet Iran has been telegraphing its intentions including its capacity and willingness to use terror if a war takes place. We are in such a precarious situation, and people dont realize it, says one former senior intelligence official. The Trump administration approach is, Oh shit, well drop a few bombs and thatll take care of it, says another former senior official. Something precipitous could happen. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: An Australian teen who egged a far-right senator over his offensive comments about the Christchurch mosque attacks has been hailed as "heroic" by internet users, who have raised thousands of dollars in support of his protest. William Connolly, now better known as "Eggboy", cracked an egg over Fraser Anning's head at a press conference in Melbourne Saturday, prompting the senator to hit him in the face repeatedly. The controversial politician had a day earlier triggered outrage by claiming the attack in New Zealand that killed 50 people at two mosques was the result of Muslim immigration to the country. Connolly's act has spawned viral memes and drawn support from social media users around the world, with one setting up a GoFundMe page which quickly raised Aus$44,000 (US$31,000) to cover "legal fees" and "more eggs". An update to the page, which could not be verified, said "EggBoi (Will) plans to send a majority of the money to the victims of the Christchurch terrorist attack". "I donated for his heroic act in front of bigotry and racism. What he did is very inspiring for a young kid," wrote one supporter, Mohamed Majrad. Another simply wrote: "VIVA EGG BOI!" Anning's remarks had drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the Queensland senator's comments as "appalling" and "ugly" with "no place in Australia". Former PM Kevin Rudd dubbed Anning a "racist and a fascist", and encouraged Australians to sign a petition calling for him to be booted out of parliament. The Change.org petition has amassed 1.2 million digital signatures. Anning brushed off the backlash Monday, repeating his claims tying Muslim immigration to terrorism and defending his use of violence against the 17-year-old, according to ABC. Victoria Police are investigating the incident, including Anning's response, the national broadcaster reported. Anning has previously drawn controversy by calling for a "final solution to the immigration problem" and claiming that "all terrorists these days are Muslims". Self-confessed white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, from Australia, has been charged with murder in the Christchurch mass shootings. VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria said on Wednesday it would not help repatriate any citizens who fought for Islamic State and other militant groups, as countries across the West wrestle with how to deal with returning militants. Hundreds of people are believed to have left Europe to fight for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. With the Islamist militant group down to its last shred of territory, several have asked to come home. The cabinet has sent a bill to parliament on consular assistance that makes clear that it can be denied to citizens if there is a threat to public order, the government said in a statement. "There will in future be no assistance for people who join a terrorist organisation," Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, a conservative governing in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, told journalists. "Anyone who leaves Austria to murder, torture or act against religious minorities and those who think differently elsewhere in the world has no right to Austria's help," he added. He stopped short of saying they would be barred from returning. U.S. President Donald Trump last month urged Britain, France and Germany to take back more than 800 captured Islamic State fighters and put them on trial. But European countries have resisted pressure to take in citizens who had sworn allegiance to groups determined to destroy the West. Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and their Social Democrat coalition partners this week agreed a plan to strip some Germans who fight for Islamic State of their citizenship. Britain last month revoked the citizenship of a teenager who had left London when she was aged 15 to join Islamic State in Syria. Shamima Begum was found in a detention camp in Syria, and her fate has fuelled a dispute over the ramifications of leaving a 19-year-old mother with a jihadist fighter's child to fend for herself in a war zone. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Additional reporting by Tassilo Hummel in Berlin; Editintg by Andrew Heavens) [CORRECTS the 21st para of this story originally moved on March 14 2019 to read **Aerospace Industries Association** sted **American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)** as sent. Here is a corrected repetition.] We've all dreamed while stuck in traffic jams of being able to just lift off and fly over the gridlock. According to experts gathered this week at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, that is likely to happen sooner than later, with flying taxis expected to take to the skies by 2025. "People have been dreaming about it for decades on paper, and now the technology is here," said Michael Thacker, executive vice-president for technology and innovation at Bell. "The only question is, what are we going to do with it?" Thacker said his company has joined with ride-hailing app Uber and several aeronautics firms, including France's Safran, to create a fleet of flying taxis that are called vertical take-off and landing vehicles (VTOL). The Nexus, as this hybrid electric propulsion aircraft is named, was first unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Between 20 and 30 other firms are working on similar concepts, among them start-ups or major companies such as Airbus, which recently presented its electric aircraft CityAirbus. Uber plans to launch its air taxis first in Los Angeles and Dallas, two major traffic-congested American cities. Asked about using helicopters as an alternative, Thacker said the taxis are financially sounder and quieter. "The noise has to blend in with the background noise of the city," he said. He predicted the vehicles could start to be commercially used around 2025. "It's not going to replace ground transport, it will augment it in another dimension," he said. "And it's not going to jump overnight with thousands of aircraft. "There will rather be a few dozens of them in a few cities... at first using helipads and helicopter routes." Story continues Bell executives said drones transporting goods, such as emergency medical products, should take to the skies well before taxis given lesser restrictions imposed on such aircraft. "Transport of goods don't have so many requirements in terms of safety and acceptability by people," he said. Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at NASA, said although 2025 appears like a reasonable date for a limited launch of flying vehicles, it will take longer for the market to fully expand. "For this market to really flourish... I think we really need to mature the market at scale and that may take a decade," he said. Also, experts say, several barriers still need to be overcome before flying vehicles get the green light. - A third dimension - You have to see "if you can actually test the vehicle in an urban space without having visual line of sight over people with buildings," said Shivika Sahdev, with the consulting firm McKinsey. One of the biggest technological hurdles to overcome is the battery. Most of the prototypes designed use electric propulsion and batteries currently don't have enough power to fly a car for a long distance. Still, industry experts are optimistic about the new technology. In a report entitled "Vision 2050" presented at SXSW, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) predicts that by 2050, the use of flying taxis and other autonomous drones will be widespread, mainly thanks to artificial intelligence. "For me, artificial intelligence is easier in the air," said Scott Drennan, director of innovation at Bell. "There's a lot of space up there and so we have a lot of room, we have a third dimension to maneuver in. "It's not the Wild Wild West up there," he added. "I think the rules of the sky are more defined than the rules of the road." Another advantage to flying cars is their GPS, said Anil Nanduri, vice president of Drone Group at Intel. "GPS precision today is a couple of meters plus minus," he said. "For ground-based vehicles... it's not accurate enough to have the precision you need. But once you go up to third dimension, it's enough." For those still skeptical about driving in the skies, tech reporter Aarti Shahani has only this to say: "If you had told me 10 years ago that I would open something called an app to order a car driven by a stranger for my mom who lived 3,000 miles away, I'd tell you you were crazy. "And actually, that's what I do now all the time for her." Vanguard THREE National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, members serving at Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, are currently in critical condition after gunmen attacked them when they were returning to their lodge at Isiokolo. Thisday There are indications that Nigerias biggest airline, Air Peace may begin direct flights to India from Lagos. The Sun Ahead of the inauguration of the Ninth National Assembly, a group, Equity Support Team (EST), has called on the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and other stakeholders of the party to consider Segun Odebunmi for House of Representatives speaker. Leadership The Nigerian Electoral Offences Commission Bill was passed by the House of Representatives in 2018. Daily Trust Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has told his would-successor, Emeka Ihedioha, to wait till he has taken over on May 29 before embarking on any investigation into the activities of his administration. The Nation The All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership has spoken on the governorship and Houses of Assembly elections, accusing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)of working with the opposition Peoples Democratic party (PDP) to deny it its victory in some states. Tribune The main contenders for presiding officer positions in the incoming 9th National Assembly have kick started a bi-partisan campaign model, even ahead of the expected zoning arrangement to be announced by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Nicosia (AFP) - The mass killing of migratory birds in Cyprus has reached a record low mainly due to a clampdown on illegal trapping in British military-controlled areas, a conservationist group said Monday. Birdlife Cyprus said its 2018 autumn survey showed a 90 percent decrease in trapping levels with mist nets compared with 2002 when data collection began. "This positive all-time low is mainly due to the progress achieved within the Dhekelia British Sovereign Base Area over the last two years, one of the main trapping hotspots of the island," it said in a statement. Britain retained sovereignty over two military base areas when Cyprus gained independence in 1960, and it has a police force in Dhekelia that tackles poachers. Birdlife said its analysis "shows a positive and continuing decrease in bird trapping levels in Cyprus" but pointed to a "worrisome discrepancy of trapping decreasing in UK military base areas against an increase in the Republic". "While the big picture is one of welcome success and relief for Europe's migrant birds, the increase in killing with mist nets in the Republic recorded in autumn 2018 warns us to keep our feet on the ground," said Birdlife. An estimated 335,000 birds were still trapped across Cyprus last autumn, according to the NGO. Birdlife said the decline in the number of birds trapped was down to the approach of police in the base areas. "By increasing police patrols, introducing deterrent sentencing for trappers, enabling covert surveillance work and continuing operations targeting trapping habitat, SBA police played a key role in the dramatic reduction of trapping levels," it said. The group acknowledged efforts by the Cypriot authorities, including the issuing of on-the-spot fines, but it said more needed to be done. "This year's increase in trapping levels in the Republic not only strikes a cautionary note as regards to the dynamic nature of the trapping culture in Cyprus but also reminds us that the trapping problem is not yet solved," said Birdlife. Story continues Bird trapping with mist nets and limesticks is a damaging and non-selective practice that affects over 150 species of birds, mostly migratory. The main killing season is autumn when trappers are after protected blackcaps to be sold in Cypriot restaurants as illegal delicacies known as ambelopoulia. "Lack of enforcement against the illegal sale of trapped birds in restaurants and against big, organised trappers remain persistent problems, centred in the Republic," said Martin Hellicar, the head of Birdlife Cyprus. NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York financier and Democratic political donor who pleaded guilty to a $292 million bank fraud is being released early from his 12-year prison term and moving to home confinement, court papers show. Hassan Nemazee, 69, who has spent about 8-1/2 years in prison, obtained approval last week from the federal Bureau of Prisons for the move, which is scheduled for late this week. Nemazee in January had asked his sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein, for early release. The prison bureau decision eliminated the need to rule on the merits of that request, according to an order made public on Monday. Nemazee, a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the 1979 revolution, is among the earliest prisoners obtaining early release under the bipartisan First Step Act signed by President Donald Trump in December. The law allows some older prisoners who have served at least two-thirds of their sentences to move to home confinement. Nemazee pleaded guilty in 2010 to obtaining $292 million in loans from Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc by using fake documents to show he had enough collateral. His criminal case was separate from his political work, which included raising money for Democratic President Barack Obama and Democrat Hillary Clinton, who became Obama's first secretary of state. A lawyer for Nemazee was not immediately available for comment on Monday. The case is U.S. v. Nemazee, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-cr-00902. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis) By Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There are no signs that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is open to negotiations to end the political impasse with opposition leader Juan Guaido, Washington's envoy for Venezuela said. Elliott Abrams, who served in the administrations of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, said any negotiated solution would need to be reached among Venezuelans, and that the United States could help by lifting or easing U.S. sanctions and travel restrictions once Maduro agreed to go. Abrams, however, played down any possibility that the Venezuelan president was ready to talk about his exit. "From everything we have seen, Maduro's tactic is to stay put," Abrams said in an interview on Friday. Some 56 countries have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's interim head of state, but Maduro retains the backing of Russia and China as well as control of state institutions including the military. Abrams has met with Russian representatives to the United States about Moscow's support for Maduro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier this month, after a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that Moscow was ready to take part in bilateral talks on Venezuela. "The Russians are not happy with Maduro for all the obvious reasons," Abrams said. "In a couple of conversations I have been told they have given advice to Maduro and he doesn't take it." "They continue to support him and there is no indication that I have seen that they are telling him it's time to bring this to an end," he said, adding: "There could come a point where the Russians reach a conclusion that the regime is really unsalvageable." Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Washington has called on foreign banks to ensure that Maduro and Venezuelan government officials are not hiding financial assets abroad. John Bolton, the U.S. national security advisor, last week threatened to impose sanctions against any financial institution that help Maduro. "We are not going to get any cooperation on this from Russian banks, but I think every step we take makes it harder for the regime to steal money," Abrams said. Moscow is owed $3.1 billion in sovereign debt by Venezuela and acted as a lender of last resort for Caracas, with the government and Russian oil giant, Rosneft, handing Venezuela at least $17 billion in loans and credit lines since 2006. Abrams said he had not yet spoken to Chinese government officials about Beijing's support for Maduro, blaming scheduling issues. "We will do it," Abrams said. Referring to Cuba, the U.S. envoy described it as "a parasite that has been feeding off Venezuela for decades" by taking its oil while offering intelligence and other protections for Maduro. "There are thousands of Cuban officers, and literally, physically, around him. In some ways they are the key advisors to Maduro," Abrams said of Havana's role. Communist-run Cuba has been a key backer of the Venezuelan socialist government since the Bolivarian Revolution that began under former leader Hugo Chavez in 1998. Cuba has denied it has security forces in Venezuela and said statements like Abrams' were part of a campaign of lies aimed at paving the way for U.S. military intervention in the South American country. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Christian Lowe in Moscow; Editing by Daniel Wallis) AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government on Monday extended its highest terrorism threat level for the province of Utrecht until at least 10 p.m. (2100 GMT), as a Turkish man suspected of a lethal gun attack was still at large. The counter-terrorism agency NCTV said it could not rule out terrorism as a motive for the attack in which three people were killed and five wounded on a tram in Utrecht earlier in the day. Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported the man's motive appeared to be family-related, citing relatives. (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) Louis Fernandez walks along a flooded Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Fla. in 2015. (Photo: Lynne Sladky/AP) MIAMI BEACH Harold Wanless sits on a bench in Maurice Gibb Memorial Park beside a new concrete sea wall, the sound of hammers and drills emanating from Belle Isle across a cloudy, turquoise inlet of Biscayne Bay. Knowing what he does about how fast the water surrounding these porous barrier islands is rising, Wanless, director of the University of Miamis geological sciences department and a leading expert on sea level rise, marvels at the level of denial the latest building boom requires. Just using the U.S. government projections, we could be at 11 to over 13 feet [of sea level rise] by the end of century, Wanless, 77, says. Theres only 3 percent of Miami-Dade County thats greater than 12 feet above sea level. Named after the Bee Gees bass player and keyboardist who lived the later years of his life in Miami Beach before his death there in 2003, the park is in Sunset Harbor, a neighborhood the city set about lifting 2 feet after regular flooding brought on by sea level rise made it increasingly uninhabitable. To Wanless, that amounted to little more than a short-term fix. With another 2 feet of sea level rise, I dont think any of these barrier islands are inhabitable in the normal sense that we live on them today, Wanless says. Having spent nearly six decades studying the geologic impacts of rising seas on global coastlines since the last Ice Age, Wanless can foresee the disaster that will overtake his city as surely as critics predicted the death of the cocaine-fueled disco era 40 years ago. Of late, what worries Wanless most are the 21 climate change feedback loops that he says are now accelerating the melting of glaciers and the polar ice sheet. Those processes such as the recent finding that more frequent rain in Greenland has doubled the rate the continent now contributes to sea level rise have made Wanless increasingly pessimistic about South Floridas future. Geologist Harold Wanless looks out over Biscayne Bay. (Photo: Mary Beth Koeth for Yahoo News) With sea levels rising at over a foot per decade, its over, Wanless, who owns a home in nearby Coral Gables, says as he glances at a trio of passing jet skiers. Story continues Miami Beachs existential math problem is all too easy to understand. On the bay side of the island, the elevation averages just 2.4 feet above sea level. Higher ground, 11.41 feet, is found along the islands famous beachhead, where 9.2 million tourists flock annually to party like theres no tomorrow. The initial $500 million solution for Sunset Harbor and other low-lying sections now serves as a template for other parts of the city: Raise roads up to 2 feet, increase the height of the sea wall on city-owned shoreline, require new private construction to be one foot above base flood elevation and install permanent hydraulic pumping stations to protect existing buildings from flooding. That investment is just the start of what will likely be a multi-stage effort to buttress Miami Beach from the coming onslaught. We know the sea is rising. We know the climate is warming, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber says outside Barceloneta, a restaurant that still sits at the neighborhoods former elevation, jarringly below the raised sidewalk and street. We accept, obviously, those science propositions, but weve turned to scientists and engineers to say Well, what can we do about it? And were following what they say. At no point has our city said, Uh-uh, were not going to do that because we know science better than you. Were not going to do that because Im a lawyer, Im not a scientist. Gelber, whose father is former Miami Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber, has taken on his share of challenging jobs over the course of his career. A former prosecutor, he led the U.S. Senate investigation into the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla. After stints in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate, Gelber ran for state attorney general in 2010, losing to Pam Bondi. Seven years later, he was elected mayor of Miami Beach, a city that had already begun spending millions to fortify itself from the rising sea. Gelber, 58, knows the only real hope Miami Beach has is to join the elevational arms race that pits land against water, and build higher. To date, roughly 20 percent of the storm water/sea level mitigation plan has been completed. But when Gelber was elected, he hit pause on the ambitious policy, commissioning studies by Harvards Graduate School of Design and the Urban Land Institute to make sure the lift was being done in the most cost-effective way possible. The new master plan incorporates more green spaces, living sea walls instead of concrete and a lot more talk of a future that includes living with water. Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber. (Photo: Mary Beth Koeth for Yahoo News) These streets are all going to go under another transformation in the next 80 years it may be a couple different transformations so this will be a constant thing well be addressing, like a lot of coastal communities, Gelber says. Youre going to get people upset On the short drive from Sunset Harbor to North Bay Road, a well-to-do, flood-prone enclave, for-sale signs dot the landscape. Last year, after learning that the city planned to raise the street 2 feet, many residents on North Bay Road rebelled, and now the project is on hold. Jean Marie Echemendia, a realtor at Douglas Elliman who splits her time between Manhattan and Miami Beach and owns two houses on the street, opposes the construction. I think the city is approaching this mitigation in a haphazard way. For whatever reason, there were quite a few people in the government that wanted to raise the streets, Echemendia, 42, says when reached by phone. Now, I have a problem with that because, as everyone knows, water flows down, so if you raise the streets, and the crest is higher than your front stoop, the water is just going to run right into your house. Gelber contends that the installation of more pumps will take care of that problem and that homes and businesses at the original grade can connect to the hydraulic network for free. Making that case to the citys skeptical residents, however, has become a big part of his job. The issue with residents is sort of a simple one, Gelber says. Any time youre spending money and youre creating a disruption, youre going to get people upset. A new pumping station in Miami Beach. (Photo: Mary Beth Koeth for Yahoo News) While Echemendia believes in climate change she notes that she has purchased two Teslas to cut her carbon footprint she also thinks that worries over sea level rise are overblown. She was among the residents who pushed back on the two-tiered plan. Am I afraid that water is going to totally engulf our streets like theyre picturing? No, Im not. I dont think its going to be in our lifetime, Echmendia says. The Union of Concerned Scientists, among others, disagree. In a 2018 study the group found that flooding exacerbated by sea level rise will, by the year 2045, threaten 12,095 homes in Miami Beach valued at $6.4 billion. By the end of the century, nationwide losses are projected to top $1 trillion, including damage to an estimated 2.4 million homes. With the scale of the coming disruption almost too large to comprehend, NOAA has built a website that lets users glimpse the inundated future on coastal maps and toggle up a dystopian amount of sea level rise. For Miami Beach, just 2 additional feet subsumes much of the west side of the island, including North Bay Road. Add another 4 feet and all but a sliver of the land where the citys art deco masterpieces were built is covered in blue. Thats if we do nothing, Gelber says, adding that theres little time to waste. If you wait for 10 or 15 years to start it, thats a mistake. A new high-rise is being constructed to meet Miami Beach's new building code. (Photo: Mary Beth Koeth for Yahoo News) Doing nothing on North Bay Road is already problematic. It floods just about every time it rains, Kimberley Green, president of the Green Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving global health care services to the poor, says from the front steps of her single-story home. Because of climate change, everything is getting worse, Green says, though, like Echemendia, shes not in favor of the citys fix. The solution doesnt seem to have worked in other neighborhoods, so I dont know why thats our only alternative. While Green says she isnt sure what will happen if the city raises the level of her street, she is decidedly sour about what she has already seen. I was a property owner in the Sunset Harbor area, and my family owns some of the retail property there and it [raising the streets] destroyed all of the businesses, Green says. When asked whether any of her neighbors support the plain to raise the road, she gestures across the street to a fenced-off bay front lot with a for sale sign planted out front and says it once belonged to Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, a real-life Scarface whose property went derelict after his 1993 death in Medellin in a shootout with Colombian police. But thats a whole other crazy Miami Beach story, Green says. Political will and money In some ways, Miami Beach is lucky. With high real estate prices and millions in tax revenue from a robust tourist trade, the city has been able to cobble together funds to wage its war with the sea in a way that poorer ones must envy. Under Gelber, it recently appropriated another $140 million, bringing the total program budget to $650 million. Sunset Harbor Drive has been raised two feet, but Stiltsville Fish Bar, pictured here, remains at the former elevation. (Photo: Mary Beth Koeth for Yahoo News) But everyone seems to understand that much, much more will be needed in the coming decades. While money isnt the most pressing problem for now, what will happen when more banks decide 30-year mortgages are too risky for the island? What if government sea level rise projections are too conservative, as the 21 feedback loops Wanless cites seem to suggest? Even if Washington politicians surprise the world by finding common ground on climate change, 90 percent of global temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution has been stored in the worlds oceans, meaning sea level rise will continue unabated even if carbon emissions are miraculously slowed or reversed. For his part, Gelber is doing his best to assure the public that investing in Miami Beach still makes sense. The sky is not falling down, Gelber says. These are manageable challenges. I dont want anyone to think that one of their pieces of property is going to be under water. The plan works. Theres no question it works, it just takes political will and money. Back at Maurice Gibb Memorial Park, the sun is out and the grass is dry. Biscayne Bay still has another few feet to rise before it will top the aptly named Venetian Way Bridge that leads to Belle Isle and its luxury condos. Nearing retirement, Wanless still hopes that the world will wake up to the fact that sea level rise isnt some problem for generations not yet born. People have to understand how serious this is going to be quickly, in the next two or three decades, Wanless says. Were just seeing the beginning of this accelerated ice melt. He closes with an anecdote that you certainly wont find on a brochure at the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. I had a Wall Street triathlete call me and ask, Can I get 10 years out of a condo on Miami Beach? I said, Eh, probably. If youre going to do it for 30 years, Id be very careful, Wanless says. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: WASHINGTON (AP) Before Bernie Sanders took the stage to formally launch his 2020 presidential campaign this month, the candidate's most influential adviser took the mic. To cheers, Jane Sanders introduced herself to the Brooklyn crowd as "Bernie's wife," then conceded that wasn't the most politically correct label. To be sure, identifying Jane Sanders as "the wife" hardly captures the scope of her influence on her husband's political career. Across 30 years and a dozen campaigns for federal office, she has served variously as her husband's media consultant, surrogate, fundraiser, chief of staff, campaign spokeswoman and top strategist. His political revolution has become her career. And her political and business activities have, at times, become his headache. As the Vermont senator undertakes his second presidential run and scrambles his inner circle, Jane Sanders remains his closest adviser, making her perhaps the most influential woman in the 2020 campaign who isn't a candidate. Related Video: Bernie Sanders Announces 2020 Presidential Bid "Bernie's top adviser always has been and will continue to be Jane," said Jeff Weaver, a Sanders adviser. She has a voice in almost every major political decision her husband makes, travels with him for major events and is deeply involved in formulating policies, issues and campaign infrastructure. "At every level," Weaver said, "Jane is intimately involved." That involvement has drawn questions sometimes about her political judgment, family opportunism and flawed ethics from political foes, good government advocates and longtime Sanders-watchers in Vermont and in the progressive movement. Most recently, critics questioned the role played by the Sanders Institute , a nonprofit co-founded by Jane Sanders and her son, for blending elements of fundraising, family and campaign policy development. Story continues Her dual roles at the institute and in her husband's campaign carried echoes of the Clinton Foundation, which Bernie Sanders criticized in 2016 as a possible ethics conflict and back door for foreign donors seeking to influence his then-rival Hillary Clinton. "Bernie Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016 criticizing her for the vast sums of money she raised and he seems to be following in some of her footsteps," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. "Now he's raising vast sums of money and it's being controlled and shaped by his family." Jane Sanders acted this past week to remove the think tank as a possible campaign ethics target, telling The Associated Press that the institute's operations and fundraising would be suspended for the balance of her husband's 2020 presidential campaign. Since its creation in 2017, the group raised more than $700,000, but has not disclosed most of its donors. She said the decision to put the Sanders Institute on hiatus was "a forward-looking way to deal with potential concerns." Sanders may prove an important surrogate for her husband, particularly in a race crowded with female candidates and potentially hinging on how women vote. She publicly defended her husband when he faced criticism for the way his 2016 campaign handled accusations of sexual harassment. She's become an essential liaison to the progressive activists at the heart of the Sanders' base, using the institute to host meetings of policymakers and activists. An affable, if low-key public speaker, she was the star of the December "Gathering" in Burlington, Vermont, a three-day policy gathering that featured progressive speakers including environmentalist Bill McKibben, actor Danny Glover and her husband. Steeped in years of involvement in progressive causes, Sanders comfortably slipped into the role as the event's emcee. Before a crowd of more than 250 progressive activists, she stoked applause lines for favored organizations and lavished compliments on institute fellows. Similarly, in videos posted on the institute's website, she has led numerous policy conversations with experts in a Brooklyn accent fainter than her husband's. Jane Sanders is not compensated for her role at the institute. Her son, David Driscoll, has been paid $100,000 a year as a co-founder and executive director, she confirmed. Driscoll had been an executive for Nike and the Vermont snowboarding company Burton, but had no previous nonprofit experience, according to his LinkedIn profile. Like her husband, Jane Sanders "has learned not to trust a lot of people. Family is a lot more dependable than outsiders," said University of Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson, an acquaintance and veteran Sanders-watcher. Jane Sanders expressed frustration about concerns that she and some of her children have at times benefited from their activities affiliated with Sanders' expanding political apparatus. "How can we say nepotism here? It just doesn't fit," she said. She added that the Sanders Institute has "developed policy and the content that we get completely separate" from her husband's campaign. Politics has long been a family project for the couple. Jane Sanders first worked with her future husband as director of the mayor's youth Office in Burlington. They were both displaced New Yorkers, Jane noted at the launch rally, stamped by childhood days on Brooklyn's city streets. "We had very similar experiences," she said. "We spent a lot of time playing stickball, running races and just hanging out on the streets with the kids in our neighborhoods." They wed in 1988 a second marriage for both two years before Sanders won his first election to Congress. Jane Sanders went to Capitol Hill as his volunteer deputy gaining experience in policy, legislation and as chief of staff. In the early 2000s, she took on a new role along with her daughter, Carina. Two women set up a consulting firm, paid more than $90,000 in consulting fees by Bernie Sanders' House campaigns. In 2004, the year before Bernie Sanders' launched his winning Senate campaign, his wife was named president of Burlington College, a local small liberal arts college. In 2010, she worked out a $10 million deal for the college to buy 32 acres of waterfront land on Lake Champlain and a 77,000-square-foot former orphanage and administrative offices of Vermont's Roman Catholic Church, which needed the money to settle a series of priest sex abuse cases. She promised at the time the deal would be paid for with increases in enrollment and about $2.7 million in donations. But her plans never took wing and under fire, she resigned from the college in 2011. The school closed in 2016, citing debt from the land deal as a major reason for its failure. Prompted by complaints filed by a Republican lawyer about her involvement in the land deal, federal investigators looked into Jane Sanders' stewardship but informed her last November that she would not be charged. "We've learned we're going to be attacked," she said during an interview, adding "that's the fact of today's politics." But she said she was confident that the decision to put the think tank on hiatus was "best for the institute to not have the possibility of misinterpretation." The move, she said, will allow her to expand her campaign work freely for the Sanders campaign, including more solo stops on her husband's behalf. "I will be more active throughout," she said. ___ Ring reported from Montpelier, Vermont, and Peoples from New York. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway urged Fox News viewers to read the entire 74-page manifesto of the suspected mass shooter who killed at least 50 people in New Zealand, claiming it will show that he was not inspired by President Trump. People should read it the entire in its entirety, said Conway of the white nationalist manifesto, speaking on Fox & Friends Monday morning. I guess everybody scoured it, searched for Donald Trumps name, and there it is one time, she said, but he also said he aligns closely with the ideology of China, he said hes not a conservative, hes not a Nazi. I think he refers to himself as an eco-naturalist or an eco-fascist. A monstrously bad idea for several reasons, especially for Conway, since the shooter was obsessed with immigrants, and thought the president was a staunch defender of white identity who simply wasn't going far enough, said Ben Collins, who covers extremism for NBC News. Trump is mentioned in the manifesto. The shooter wrote he was a supporter of the president as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose but not as a policy maker and leader ... Dear god no. Trump himself tweeted that the Fake News Media was working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible attack in New Zealand. They will have to work very hard to prove that one. So Ridiculous! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019 The manifesto was loaded with internet jargon and online jokes mixed with extremist views on race and immigration, or as the New York Times called it, a wordy mixture of white nationalist boilerplate, fascist declarations and references to obscure internet jokes. Conway was asked by Yahoo News Hunter Walker whether she was concerned that urging people to read the manifesto which most media outlets have avoided quoting extensively or providing links to risked giving wider exposure to the shooters ideology. Story continues She responded by email: This is a complete misconstruing that ignores the facts. My suggestion that people should read the entire manifesto and not cherry-pick a line here or there to support their own points of views and wishful thinking was directed at those who are blaming POTUS, including the media. Those who invoke the manifesto should be more forthcoming, honest and complete in their reporting about the manifesto. The media have already raised awareness of the manifesto by injecting a self-serving mention of the manifesto by cherry-picking that one part. So the question logically may be for you, not me. The New Zealand shooters document cites the writings of Anders Breivik, a Norwegian far-right extremist who killed 77 people in 2011. It was the second instance in as many months of Breiviks anti-immigrant work being cited. He was also an inspiration for Christopher Hasson, a Coast Guard lieutenant who was arrested in February and accused of plotting killings on a scale rarely seen in this country. White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway talks with reporters outside the White House in January. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP) In an age of saturation news coverage, manifestos might contribute to the copycat effect, a well-supported theory that holds people will act out violence in patterns similar to the violence they see, wrote J.M Berger, who studies extremism, following the Hasson arrest. A lengthy manifesto, such as Breiviks, which melds operational and ideological elements, can produce a much longer and more intense news cycle than a mass killer who leaves no explanation behind. We have less to say about a senseless act of violence. A manifesto caters to our instinctive desire to seek the origin of such horrors, yet that quest for understanding might exacerbate the problem. The New Zealand shooter is not the first alleged terrorist who explicitly or implicitly was inspired by Trump. In October, a Trump supporter was arrested for allegedly mailing pipe bombs to critics of the president and prominent Democratic figures. The man, Cesar Sayoc Jr., is expected to plead guilty this week. The shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 people last fall was carried out by an anti-immigration zealot who targeted the congregation because it was involved in a program that helped resettle refugees. The attack occurred in the heat of a midterm election during which Trump was demonizing a group of Central American migrants as invaders, a term he used again on Friday. While Trump extended his condolences to those in New Zealand, he also downplayed white nationalism. I dont really, I think its a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess, said Trump. If you look what happened in New Zealand, perhaps thats the case. I dont know enough about it yet but its certainly a terrible thing. Trump also spent the weekend defending Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, whose show did not air Saturday after she made Islamophobic comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Read more from Yahoo News: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) A U.S. Navy veteran from California has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran, his lawyer said Saturday, becoming the first American known to be imprisoned there since President Donald Trump took office. Though the case against Michael R. White remains unclear, it comes as Trump has taken a hard-line approach to Iran by pulling the U.S. out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Iran, which in the past has used its detention of Westerners and dual nationals as leverage in negotiations, has yet to report on White's sentence in state-controlled media. Its mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "Obviously the concern is that the Iranians are using this as a tool against the United States, given the other individuals who are in custody," Washington-based lawyer Mark Zaid told The Associated Press. White's arrest was first reported by IranWire, an online news service run by Iranian expatriates, which interviewed a former Iranian prisoner who said he met White at Vakilabad Prison in the northeastern city of Mashhad in October. In the time since, White has been convicted of insulting Iran's supreme leader and posting private information online, Zaid said. He said the information surrounding the case remained vague. He learned of the sentence from the U.S. State Department, which in turn learned of it from the Swiss government, which looks after American interests in Iran. The State Department said late Saturday that it was "aware of the detention of a U.S. citizen in Iran." "We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad," it said, without elaborating on the case. The New York Times first reported White's 10-year sentence. White's mother, Joanne White, had told the Times that her son, who lives in Imperial Beach, California, went to Iran to see a woman she described as his girlfriend and had booked a July 27 flight back home to San Diego via the United Arab Emirates. She filed a missing person report with the State Department after he did not board the flight. She added that he had been undergoing treatment for a neck tumor and has asthma. Story continues White worked as a cook in the U.S. Navy and left the service about a decade ago. Zaid said Saturday that White apparently traveled to Mashhad without informing the woman in advance. It remains difficult for Americans to get visas to Iran, 40 years after the Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis. "That's certainly our concern, that's he's being used as a pawn," Zaid said. "But we're more in a confused state than an aware state." There are three other Americans known to be held in Iran. Iranian-American Siamak Namazi and his octogenarian father Baquer, a former UNICEF representative who served as governor of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province under the U.S.-backed shah, are both serving 10-year sentences on espionage charges. Iranian-American art dealer Karan Vafadari and his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssari, received 27-year and 16-year prison sentences, respectively. Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly "infiltrating" the country while doing doctoral research on Iran's Qajar dynasty. Iranian-American Robin Shahini was released on bail in 2017 after staging a hunger strike while serving an 18-year prison sentence for "collaboration with a hostile government." Shahini has since return to America and is now suing Iran in U.S. federal court. Also in an Iranian prison is Nizar Zakka, a U.S. permanent resident from Lebanon who advocated for internet freedom and has done work for the U.S. government. He was sentenced to 10 years on espionage-related charges. Former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission, remains missing. Iran says that Levinson is not in the country and that it has no further information about him, though his family holds Tehran responsible for his disappearance. ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . Bamako (AFP) - An attack by suspected jihadists Sunday on an army camp in central Mali killed 23 soldiers, military sources said Monday, raising an initial toll of 21. A local politician and military sources had given the initial toll after a dawn attack officially blamed on "terrorist groups under the command of Ba Ag Moussa, a deserter army colonel", according to the Malian armed forces. Moussa is considered close to Tuareg militant Iyad Ag Ghaly, leader of the Sahel region's main jihadist alliance linked to Al-Qaeda. The updated toll came as defence minister and top army brass visited the region. The Dioura camp is midway between regional capital Mopti and the Mauritanian border in an area repeatedly been hit by attacks by a group linked to radical Islamist preacher Amadou Koufa. Paris and Bamako had last year reported Koufa dead following a French military operation in central Mali but he recently resurfaced in a video with French officials admitting last week it was "likely" he was still alive. Moussa -- also known as Bamoussa -- had deserted initially in 2006 during a rebellion chiefly by soldiers hailing from the northeastern city of Kidal. He returned to the military only to desert again in 2012 during a Tuareg-led rebellion which included fighters who had returned from Libya after the fall of Moamer Kadhafi. Once a beacon of democracy and stability in Africa, Mali in recent years has been dogged by a coup, civil war and Islamist terrorism. Extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the desert north in early 2012, but were largely driven out in a French-led military operation launched in January 2013. In June 2015, Mali's government signed a peace agreement with some armed groups, but the jihadists remain active, and large tracts of the country remain lawless. Despite the presence of UN peacekeepers, a strong French military contingent and the creation of a five-nation military force in the region, jihadist violence has not abated. Nearly a week after 38-year-old emergency room nurse Diana Alejandra Keel was reported missing, authorities said they have found her body and her husband is wanted for murder. On Friday, the Nash County Sheriffs Office in North Carolina said that they had obtained a first-degree murder warrant for Rexford Lynn Keel Jr., her 57-year-old husband. Authorities said that his whereabouts are currently unknown, though he is believed to be driving a 1998 Chevrolet pickup truck, possibly in a pewter or gold color, with North Carolina license plate BBM-9232. The update in the case came after the Nash County Sheriffs Office confirmed on Wednesday night that a female body they found earlier in the week was identified as Keels. Police said Keels husband was the last person to see her alive. RELATED: Body Found Believed to Be N.C. Woman Who Went Missing Friday as Her Husband Named Person of Interest Earlier on Wednesday, PEOPLE confirmed that authorities believed they may have found Keels body and that her husband was a person of interest. Keel was reported missing from her Nashville home by her daughter on Saturday, March 9, according to a Nash County Sheriffs Office press release. Her employer told authorities she had not shown up for work the previous few days, and her car was still parked at her home. On Tuesday, Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone announced that a local Department of Transportation worker had found a womans decomposing body in the woods. Although it remained unclear how the woman died, Stone said, There is definitely foul play involved. Stone said Keels husband told investigators he last saw his wife Friday and seemed surprised when he heard that a body was found. He was questioned by investigators Tuesday but was not taken into custody at that time, authorities said. Stone confirmed there had been a domestic issue between the couple a year ago, saying, There had been concerns between the husband at one time and Mrs. Keel but there has been nothing lately that has been reported on that. Story continues Diana Alejandra Keel Keels husband had been married before. On Jan. 1, 2006, authorities conducted a death investigation into the death of his first wife, Elizabeth Edward Keel, according to a Nash County Sheriffs Office press release. Elizabeths death was ruled accidental. She died of blunt trauma to the head after falling and hitting her forehead on the homes concrete steps. Her husband was home at the time of the incident, which took place at the same home from which Diana Keel was reported missing, a Nash County spokesperson told PEOPLE. CNN reported on Friday that Nash County detectives are working with the FBI other local agencies to investigate the deaths of both Keel and Elizabeth. The Nash County Sheriffs Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment. Diana Alejandra Keel Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. On Sunday, Keels daughter tweeted pictures of her and her mother captioned, this is insane you see this happen to everyone else and you dont think its ever going to happen to you. Keels 10-year-old son is currently with his grandparents while authorities carry out their investigation, Stone said, calling the situation tragic. No arrests have been made in the case. Ive heard nobody that knew her had anything negative to say about this woman, he said Tuesday. What a tragic event. Even more tragic we now have a 10-year-old without a mom. Anyone with information on Rexford Lynn Keel Jr.s whereabouts is urged to call the Nash County Sheriffs Office at (252) 459-4121 or Twin County Crime Stoppers at (252) 977-1111. Washington (AFP) - Almost 40 percent of new HIV cases in the US occur because people do not know they are infected, while a similar proportion know but are not in treatment, according to a study released Monday. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is based on 2016 data and aims to bolster a strategy outlined by President Donald Trump to end the epidemic within 10 years. The strategy has two main strands: far more widespread screening, and enabling the infected better access to treatment from the moment they test positive. The study found that 38 percent of infections came from HIV-positive people who were unaware of their status, and 43 percent from people who knew they were infected but took no anti-retroviral drugs. The remaining infections came from people who were receiving HIV treatment but were not yet "virally suppressed." The CDC blamed financial, social and other reasons for people not using medication, which these days typically comes in the form of a daily pill with minimal side effects. The study said that the infection rate from the half million people in the United States who take medication and are virally suppressed -- meaning they cannot pass on the disease to others -- was zero. - Screening - The most at-risk group remains homosexual men, with almost three-quarters of new infections coming from men having sex with men, the report said. Five percent of infections came from intravenous drug abuse among homosexual men, while 10 percent came from injecting drugs among the rest of the population. Twelve percent of infections were among heterosexuals. Overall, the highest rate of transmission was among 13 to 24-year-olds. The Trump administration has said it will invest $291 million in the next financial year to fight HIV/AIDS, which has plateaued since 2013 to around 39,000 annual transmissions. The goal is to reduce that number by 75 percent within five years and by 90 percent in 10 years. Story continues Questioned about the relatively small amount of money earmarked for the multi-billion dollar task of treating HIV carriers, CDC head Robert Redfield said he was "confident that the resources that are required to accomplish this mission are in the long term plan." The CDC, based in Atlanta, Georgia, wants doctors to make HIV screening a routine procedure. "Everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 should get tested for HIV at least once in their lifetime," said Eugene McCray, the head of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. "Those at higher risk should get tested at least annually," he said. "The key to controlling is helping those with HIV to control the virus," said the CDC's Jonathan Mermin, who focuses on preventing the spread of the HIV as well as other sexually transmitted diseases, tuberculosis and hepatitis. "Time spent working closely with patients who are having trouble paying for, picking up or taking their daily medications is time well spent" SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) Born just 3 months ago, Caroline Homans looked as if she might sleep through her first St. Patrick's Day parade Saturday, cradled in her grandfather's arms as he held a beer in his free hand. A couple of blocks away, 83-year-old Hugh Helmly sat in a chair by the sidewalk with a large magnifying glass to help him view the Savannah's Irish-themed procession. "I wasn't going to miss it," said Helmly, a retired electrician whose vision remains weak after a recent eye surgery. "I didn't care how much I could see." From newborns to the elderly, thousands jammed the oak-shaded squares and brick sidewalks of Savannah's downtown historic district for the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the South. Started by Irish immigrants to Georgia's oldest city 195 years ago, the March parade has ballooned into a sprawling street party that's the No. 1 tourist draw for Savannah. Bars opened to thirsty customers at 7 a.m. Saturday while the Catholic faithful attended morning Mass at the towering Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. By the time the parade of more than 300 marching bands, convertibles toting waving dignitaries and floats smothered in foil shamrocks stepped off, spectators lined the sidewalks three or four rows deep and stood elbow-to-elbow among party tents and dozens of coolers in the squares. "Savannah's like a bad drug," said Bruce Souers, a Savannah native who's been attending parades for five decades, as he sipped Jameson Irish whiskey from a plastic cup. "Once it's in your blood, you can't get rid of it." And celebrating St. Patrick's Day is encouraged in Savannah long before anyone is old enough to drink. Newborn Caroline's father, Michael Homans, brought along a shoulder harness to carry the baby among the crowds if her grandfather's shoulder got tired. The tiny girl wore a green tutu around her waist and a bright green bow atop her mostly hairless head. Story continues "The pediatrician said once the weather's warm, we could take her out," said Homans, who figures he wasn't much older when attending his first parade. Somewhat chilly temperatures just below 60 degrees made hoodies and hot coffee popular parade accessories for those staking out spots early Saturday. Surrounded by party tents and picnic tables in Lafayette Square, Brett Matthews took a nap while waiting for the parade to start. He showed up before dawn to grab a spot for his tent and coolers as early birds swarmed the square the moment police opened it to parade spectators. "I got up at 3 o'clock in the morning and I got here at 5," an hour before the square opened, Matthews said. "Pretty much all this was set up by 6:05. It was a madhouse." Savannah typically sticks to the traditional March 17 date to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. As in past years when the 17th fell on Sunday, the 2019 parade was held a day early to keep the booze-friendly celebration from overlapping with church services. New York and Chicago also held parades Saturday. Outside Pinkie Master's Lounge a block from the parade route, owner Mike Warren said crowds seemed somewhat lighter than a typical Saturday parade. He suspects some people get confused when the parade gets held a day early because St. Patrick's Day falls on Sunday. "When the holiday's actually on Saturday, there's a flood of people out the door," said Warren, who had extra bartenders working and expected business to pick up later in the day. "I wouldn't say it's slow by any stretch." Photo credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Andrew Satran From Popular Mechanics The U.S. Department of Defense wants to test a directed energy weapon in space, one that it hopes will someday destroy ballistic missiles moments after launch. The weapon, a so-called neutral particle beam, would be boosted into space and tested from orbit in 2023. Neutral particle beams dont get as much attention as lasers but are attractive in their own right. The weapons work by accelerating particles without an electric charge-particularly neutrons-to speeds close to the speed of light and directing them against a target. The neutrons knock protons out of the nuclei of other particles they encounter, generating heat on the target object. Photo credit: Movie Poster Image Art - Getty Images Particle beams are effectively the heat rays or even death rays of science fiction. Unlike lasers, which burn the surface of a target, particle beams penetrate beyond the surface to affect its interior. This makes particle beams immune to measures that can deflect lasers, like brightly polished, mirror-like surfaces. A sufficiently powerful beam could generate enough heat to burn a target, igniting its fuel supply, melting it and rendering it aerodynamically unstable, or frying a missiles onboard electronics. A neutral particle beam requires an accelerator to produce the atomic or subatomic particles that make up the beam. The accelerator must produce a tremendous amount of particles in very short amount of time, then release them in a focused beam. A weaponized neutral particle beam would also need a power supply, a power storage system, and staging system to feed energy to the accelerator. Finally it would require an aiming system and either onboard sensors or communications links allowing it to take targeting cues from other space or air-based sensors or a centralized battle management system. Photo credit: Bettmann - Getty Images In 1989, as part of the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) the U.S. launched a neutral particle beam accelerator into space aboard a rocket. The Beam Experiments Aboard Rocket (BEAR) project launched the accelerator from White Sands Missile Range to an altitude of 124 miles, where it successfully tested, (neutral particle beam) propagation characteristics in space and the effects on spacecraft components. The satellite was recovered intact after reentry. Story continues According to DefenseOne, the Pentagon wants to test a neutral particle beam weapon from orbit in 2023. Officials believe technological advances over the past three decades make such a weapon more viable, especially the getting it small enough to launch into space part. Previous particle beam designs had large accelerators and power supplies, but officials believe they could probably design a weapon that could be launched into orbit. The Pentagon is holding the door open for the possibility such a system still isnt doable, but is setting the goal for a 2023 test. The Pentagon evidently hopes to use particle beams to destroy ballistic missiles for the so-called boost phase intercept missile defense role. Once launched, ballistic missiles swiftly accelerate through and beyond Earths atmosphere to low earth orbit. Once there, one or more individual warheads separate from the missile and then continue on their own trajectories to the same or separate targets. Photo credit: AFP Contributor - Getty Images Boost phase missile defense calls for shooting down ballistic missiles seconds after launch, while they are still accelerating, and before they have released their warheads. This simplifies matters greatly for the defender but has a number of problems, particularly getting the interceptor close enough to enemy territory to hit the missiles in time. The Pentagon evidently believes that space-based directed energy weapons-like lasers or particle beams-could react fast enough to shoot down ballistic missiles in the boost phase. Will it work? There are a lot of technical issues that need to be resolved to make space-based particle beams work. The neutral particle beam will need to hold a coherent beam over the 1,000 kilometers or so from low-earth orbit to the ground. The system will need a sufficiently portable power supply. The Pentagon will need to figure out how to detect a launching missile, pass the data to a satellite, and then have that satellite engage the missile. It will also have to figure out how many satellites it will need, and since objects in low-earth orbit do not remain stationary, will need a fleet of satellites to ensure that one or more will be over the target in the event of a launch. These are all issues Washington wrestled with in the 1980s-and then failed to deploy a usable system. Only time will tell if things are different this time around. Source: DefenseOne ('You Might Also Like',) (Reuters) - Peru's former president, Alejandro Toledo, considered a fugitive in Peru, was arrested for being drunk in public in California and released early on Monday, authorities in California said. Since 2017, Toledo, a resident of California, has refused to heed orders by a local judge to spend up to 18 months in pre-trial detention in connection with a massive bribery probe. The United States is still evaluating Peru's request to extradite Toledo. Toledo, 73, was arrested in San Mateo County late on Sunday after being reported to the sheriff's office for being drunk in a restaurant, the San Mateo County Sheriff's office said in a statement. The sheriff's office said it was aware of Toledo's legal troubles in Peru, but added that "the existence of charges in Peru alone does not authorize the subject's arrest in the United States." Peru's foreign ministry also confirmed Toledo's arrest, which was first reported by local Peruvian broadcaster RPP. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Toledo denied he had been arrested, describing information about his arrest as part of a conspiracy orchestrated by his political opponents. Peruvian prosecutors have accused Toledo, president of Peru from 2001-2006, of taking $20 million from a Brazilian construction firm in exchange for help securing a lucrative contract. Toledo denies any wrongdoing. (Reporting By Mitra Taj and Marco Aquino; Editing by Dan Grebler) Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed controversial laws that allow courts to fine and briefly jail people for showing disrespect towards authorities, and block media for publishing "fake news". Putin signed off on the legislation against the advice of human rights activists, who warned the laws amounted to censorship and would be abused to further crack down on freedom of speech. The law on disrespecting authorities backs punishment for "offending state symbols" and stipulates hefty fines and jail terms of 15 days for repeat offenders. Another piece of legislation allows authorities to decide what amounts to "fake news" and gives a media watchdog the power to demand an outlet delete the information. Websites that fail to comply would be blocked. Fines could reach 1.5 million rubles (over $22,700) if the infraction leads to grave consequences like death or rioting. Rights activists say that since first becoming president in 2000, Putin has gradually crushed freedoms in Russia, muzzling critics and bringing television under control. The new legislation takes the crackdown on civil society to a whole new level, they say. Critics say the legislation is vaguely worded and would have large scope for abuse, further complicating the difficult and sometimes deadly work of rights activists and opposition journalists in Russia. The Kremlin is stepping up media control to counter a fall in Putin's approval rating amid mounting economic trouble, according to activists. "These new prohibitions and punishments are not just a continuation of the repressive legislative and practical measures that began in 2012," Yuri Dzhibladze, president of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, told AFP. "This is a completely new level which almost literally repeats the Soviet-era law about 'activities undermining the Soviet system' and 'anti-Soviet campaigning and propaganda'." Story continues The authorities unleashed a major crackdown on dissenters after Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012 in the face of mass protests. "From now it will be police that will decide what fake news is and what's not," said Alexander Cherkasov of Memorial, a top rights group. "This will lead to a violation of civil rights and freedoms." - 'Hating in silence' - Moscow on Monday marked the fifth anniversary of Crimea's annexation from Ukraine, a move condemned by the West but celebrated by most Russians. Mikhail Fedotov, the chairman of the Kremlin's human rights' council, told AFP that the legislation had "numerous flaws" and his group had asked the president to reject it. Even the usually pliant media criticised the new laws. "Authorities want people to hate in silence," mass-circulation tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote ahead of the signing last week. "The authorities' desire to gag their subjects is a very old, shameful and meaningless desire." In 2018, Putin was elected to a historic fourth term in office with a record vote share amid increasing international isolation. But the 66-year-old Russian president's popularity ratings have taken a beating due to a controversial pension age hike and falling living standards as a result of tough Western sanctions over Ukraine and other crises. Last month Russian lawmakers backed a bill that could cut off the country's internet traffic from servers abroad, which critics say is a possible step towards an isolated network like in North Korea. Chidi Lloyd, Director-General of the Tonye Cole Campaign Organisation, who recently apologised to President Muhammadu Buhari for overly criticising him negatively, may be issuing another apology to Nigerians soon over a recent statement. Lloyd, an ally of Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has received several backlashes from some Nigeria Twitter users after his statement on an AIT programme, Kakaaki this morning. Nigerians have berated Lloyd for describing as fake the killing of Dr. Fred on election. He said the Dr Chris isnt dead but only acting a Nollywood movie and will only believe otherwise, if he sees his corpse. See reactions Chidi Lloyd on @aitkakaaki said the Dr that was shot in Khana was like 'a Nollywood rehearsal', he doesn't believe it until he see the autopsy report. Chudu Lloyd is a disgrace. Israel Imoh (@Israel_Imoh) March 18, 2019 I pity Dr. Chidi Lloyd @aitkakaaki struggling to defend the insensately senseless killings on the platitude of political expediency. Must we loose our morality for partisan sake? Shameful that some APC members in Rivers state have no scintilla of regard for human life. Ayakeme Whisky (@AyakemeW) March 18, 2019 Am I the only who thinks Chidi Lloyd should not be called a doctor ? The man's acting like a thug..@aitkakaaki Amrovhe Joe (@AmrovheJoe) March 18, 2019 I know that politicians can be very funny people but Chidi Lloyd is a confirmed MAD man (@KingNwene) March 18, 2019 Honestly, if Chidi Lloyd was my father I would disown him. .. Any station that calls Chidi Lloyd for an interview after this sham on @AIT_Online would be stupid. The man is a disgrace. An attempted murderer Ekamba Ete (@Franeb) March 18, 2019 Chidi Lloyd actually spewing rubbish on kaakaki this morning ,same Chidi Lloyd that broke someones head with a mase,in a sane clime this man would rot in jail but sadly this is Nigeria !!! Alabo Tombara Francis (@The_andres_west) March 18, 2019 Johannesburg (AFP) - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa found himself stuck on a commuter train for several hours on Monday, giving him a glimpse into the daily reality for commuters just two months ahead of the May polls. Ramaphosa was on the election campaign trail with media in tow when he had to wait one hour for a train to arrive at the station in Mabopane township to the capital Pretoria. The train took nearly three hours to complete what is normally a 45-minute ride from Mabopane to Pretoria, after it suddenly stopped while he was on it. Journalists who followed Ramaphosa circulated images on social media, of a smiling president chatting with passengers. Train delays are a daily occurence and derailments are common in South Africa. Comments from regular commuters on Twitter included, from "Coversationalist", "from a 45 minutes ride to almost 3 hours; welcome to our world!" while "ActivistAfrica" said Ramaphosa and his ruling ANC "have no shame. People have been crying about Prasa & trains for over a decade". Prasa is the national rail agency. At the end of his over-long trip, the president vowed to meet quickly with rail agency officials to solve this "national problem". "It is unacceptable that a trip of 50km (30 miles) can take us three hours and it must come to an end. We are going to talk to Prasa to get things right or otherwise heads must roll," Ramaphosa said. Despite dipping in the polls, the ANC is tipped to win the upcoming parliamentary election with at least 60 percent of the vote. Kanchanaburi (Thailand) (AFP) - A Thai tycoon accused of killing a black leopard was sentenced to 16 months in jail on other poaching-related charges Tuesday but allowed to go free pending an appeal, in a case that has caused an outcry in a country fed up with impunity for powerful figures. Construction magnate Premchai Karnasuta, whose company is behind major infrastructure projects such as Bangkok's monorail and its airport, was arrested by rangers in a national park in February 2018. He and three others were detained after rangers stumbled upon their campsite and found guns and animal carcasses, including a Kalij pheasant, a red muntjac -- or barking deer -- and the pelt of a black leopard. While Premchai was found not guilty of possessing a leopard carcass, he was convicted of three other poaching-related charges. The verdict, handed out in a statement to reporters waiting at the Thong Pha Phum courthouse, said Premchai was "sentenced altogether to 16 months". Two others caught with him -- his driver and cook -- received lesser sentences, while his hunting guide was sentenced to three years and five months. A court official said the tycoon was immediately released on bail of 400,000 Thai baht ($12,600) as he was not considered a flight risk. Thai courts sometimes grant bail immediately to a convicted person in the expectation they will appeal, and Premchai's lawyer later confirmed he would challenge the verdict. The sentence comes less than a week before a general election on March 24, the first polls since the military seized power in 2014 vowing to expunge graft and uphold the rule of law. After Premchai's arrest, the striking images of the skinned leopard went viral, inspiring protests that saw demonstrators don black leopard masks, as well as graffiti of the cat across city walls and a Change.org petition calling for an investigation. Park ranger Vichaen Chinnawing, who arrested the businessman and has been hailed as a hero in Thai media, said he was satisfied with the conviction. Story continues "I have done my best in this case. If the soul of the dead leopard knows, it will be grateful," he told AFP. Arrests and convictions for poaching happen often in Thailand but they are rare when it comes to prominent individuals. "Justice is meted out unequally," said Steve Galster of Freeland Foundation, a wildlife NGO which works with Thai forest rangers, adding that he hopes the court "will stick with the decision" after Premchai's appeal. "The main thing is this is a public shaming (for Premchai)," he said. Thai media followed every detail of the case, including the authorities' investigation of human faeces found at the scene and a raid on Premchai's home where police uncovered a stash of ivory and guns. Premchai is the president of the publicly traded Italian-Thai Development, a Bangkok-based company that helped build Thailand's Suvarnabhumi airport and the city's skytrain public transit system. Although he was listed as one of Thailand's 50 richest people by Forbes in 2016, he dropped off the list the following year as the government delayed infrastructure spending. As Premchai was leaving the court following his sentencing and bail, reporters asked him to comment. "I'm sorry," he said, before he was ushered into his car. By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for a black Georgia death row inmate to be executed, turning away his bid to challenge his death sentence for the 1990 murder of his sister-in-law on the basis that the trial was tainted by a racist white juror who questioned whether black people have souls. Keith "Bo" Tharpe was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury of 10 white people and two black people in Georgia's Jones County. The allegations of racial bias arose from an interview with one of the jurors years later, not comments made during the trial. Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a statement agreeing with the court's decision not to hear the case, noting that it turned on whether Tharpe could appeal and not the merits of his claim. But Sotomayor said she was "profoundly troubled" by the evidence Tharpe had uncovered. "These racist sentiments, expressed by a juror entrusted with a vote over Tharpe's fate, suggest an appalling risk that racial bias swayed Tharpe's sentencing," Sotomayor wrote. Tharpe, 60, had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in 2017 but the Supreme Court granted him a last-minute stay of execution. Tharpe's lawyers, as they were preparing an appeal in the case in 1998, spoke with the trial jurors including a man named Barney Gattie, who has since died. "After studying the Bible, I have wondered if black people even have souls," Gattie told Tharpe's lawyers in an affidavit, according to court papers. Gattie also told the defense lawyers that there are two kinds of black people, one who he called "regular black folks" and another group he referred to using a racial slur. "Because I knew the victim and her husband's family and knew them all to be good black folks, I felt Tharpe, who wasn't in the 'good black folks' category in my book, should get the electric chair for what he did," Gattie added. Story continues Tharpe kidnapped and raped his estranged wife, Migrisus Tharpe, and used a shotgun to kill Jaquelin Freeman, her sister, in September 1990, according to court records. He was sentenced to death in 1991. This marked the second time Tharpe's appeal had reached the Supreme Court. In January 2018, the justices in a 6-3 unsigned decision - without hearing oral arguments - threw out a lower court's ruling that had rejected Tharpe's biased jury assertion. Tharpe again appealed the Supreme Court after the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2018 refused to let him pursue his claim. His appeal was built upon a March 2017 Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Hispanic man over a juror's racist comments. The justices on a 5-3 decision in that case threw out a Colorado state court decision that upheld the conviction of Miguel Pena Rodriguez, who was accused of sexually groping two teenage sisters in 2007. A juror in that trial said during deliberations that Pena Rodriguez, a Mexican-born lawful permanent U.S. resident, "did it because he's Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want." The question Tharpe's lawyers had raised was whether that decision applied retroactively to his case, meaning he could raise the same claim. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) JERUSALEM (AP) The Cinderella story of Israel's current election campaign is a fringe party led by an ultranationalist libertarian with a criminal record who vows to legalize marijuana, and seems to diverge dramatically from the long list of quirky candidates of the past who have drawn attention to their improbable runs for parliament. For starters, Moshe Feiglin's Zehut party has a real shot of getting elected next month and could even emerge as a kingmaker in a tightly contested race for prime minister. But his seemingly liberal civic platform, which has generated a strong hipster following, could be masking a far more polarizing agenda. Feiglin, who got pushed out of the ruling Likud party four years ago for his extreme right-wing positions, has taken the campaign by storm, putting cannabis high on the national agenda and forcing the front-runners to take a stand on the issue. He's also one of the few party leaders to refrain from endorsing either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his top challenger, retired military chief Benny Gantz. "We are in nobody's pocket," Feiglin told Israel's Army Radio recently. "Legalization is the condition for us joining any government." The message seems to be catching on, ironically, in the first election in 20 years that the single-issue Green Leaf party has refrained from running. In response to what has been dubbed the "Feiglin effect," Netanyahu this week boasted about increasing the availability of medical cannabis and approving its export, making Israel just the third nation in the world to do so. He also promised to "examine" the issue of legalization for recreational use. Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay said he was in favor of legalizing, calling cannabis less dangerous than alcohol. In a radio interview, he then disclosed he had smoked it himself in the past. And the dovish Meretz party, seeking to reclaim what would seem to be its natural electorate, issued a reminder that it was the first party in parliament to promote the issue while others were now merely catching up. Story continues But Feiglin, an observant, Jewish West Bank settler who doesn't smoke marijuana himself, has been the one cashing in, finding an unlikely audience among urban youngsters drawn to his message of personal freedom and domestic policies, which, besides legalization, include an anti-labor union platform that promotes school vouchers, animal rights and free market economics. With his skullcap, trim beard and small round-frame glasses, the 56-year-old Feiglin hardly cuts the image of an iconoclast. But he's become an internet sensation with viral animated online hipster memes portraying him as a cool gangster with sunglasses and a joint hanging from his lips. It's a stunning makeover for a man who first made his name in Israel for orchestrating raucous protests against the Oslo Peace accords in the early 1990s. A recent cartoon in the Maariv daily poked fun at the irony of his drawing liberal supporters. Cast as the pied piper, Feiglin is shown leading a slew of smiling, glassy-eyed voters following the trail of smoke from a joint he is holding in the air. "Feiglin is a revelation to young, secular supporters of the center-left," explained commentator Yaron Dekel in the YNet news site. "He emphasizes that he is primarily liberal when it comes to the issue of religion and state, and a staunch supporter of the legalization of marijuana, but is hiding an extremely hawkish platform in every other arena." The political manifesto of Feiglin's Zehut Hebrew for identity party includes canceling signed agreements with the Palestinians, making Israeli Arab citizens pass a loyalty test and offering financial incentives to them to emigrate elsewhere if they refuse to accept Jewish sovereignty over the land. He's also spoken out against women, gays and reform Jews. In 1995, shortly before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, his Zo Artzeinu (This is our Land) movement blocked dozens of major intersections that wreaked havoc throughout the country. The Supreme Court later sentenced him to six months in prison for sedition against the state, which was later commuted to community service. Feiglin, who refused an Associated Press interview, has downplayed his past as an ultranationalist activist and insists he is currently focused on civic issues alone. In reinventing himself, he has managed to create the latest iteration of a regular Israeli election ritual of obscure and offbeat lists offering an entertaining diversion to those voters despairing over Israel's weighty issues. Previous parties have included a faction calling for the establishment of a national casino and a group led by a fishmonger and puppeteer that tried to abolish bank fees. An offshoot of Green Leaf aligned with elderly Holocaust survivors to make a run in 2009 and four years later its castaways ran as the Israeli Pirate Party, offering a platform promoting a variety of personal freedoms, including the right to sail the high seas. Should Zehut manage to cross the electoral threshold, it would join the likes of the Israeli Pensioners Party that managed to win seven seats in the 2006 election and joined Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Cabinet. Seen largely as the recipient of protest votes against the system, the group of retirees led by an octogenarian former spymaster disappeared in the next election. Feiglin's Zehut party, however, could prove to have a greater impact if it eventually has a say in who forms the next government. Columnist Shmuel Rosner called its emergence a "deliberate, cunning distraction" that reflects the dire state of discourse and overall disgust with mainstream politics. "It is the proof and not the first of the difficulty the public has in addressing complex issues that require expertise and in-depth study," he wrote Thursday in Maariv. "Everyone has despaired and only wants to be given something to dull their senses. It could be that the marijuana in the campaign is simply medical cannabis to relieve pain." ___ Follow Heller at www.twitter.com/aronhellerap WASHINGTON (AP) As President Donald Trump struggled with mounting Republican defections over his emergency declaration to pay for a border wall, his acting White House chief of staff wasn't on Capitol Hill cajoling former colleagues or in the West Wing making calls. Instead, Mick Mulvaney was in Las Vegas for an annual getaway with friends and family. It was a telling example of Mulvaney's laissez-faire approach as he settles into a role that has bedeviled those who came before him. His predecessor, retired four-star Gen. John Kelly, tried to micromanage Trump but ended up grating on the president and antagonizing outside allies. Mulvaney has made clear he believes his job is to manage the staff and not the president, according to current and former officials and people close to him. And he's OK with that. Mulvaney doesn't try to limit whom the president speaks with or curb access to the Oval Office. He just asks that those who talk to Trump fill him in on what was discussed to avoid surprises. While former staffers compare the current atmosphere in the West Wing to the early, chaotic days of the administration, when the Oval Office had the feel of Grand Central Station, Mulvaney understands that's how Trump likes it. The former South Carolina congressman has focused on and succeeded in improving staff morale in a building known for infighting and damaging leaks. Shortly after his arrival, Mulvaney organized a staff retreat at Camp David. He also has worked to build relationship on Capitol Hill, where he served for years. He schmoozed with lawmakers on the sidelines of the State of the Union speech and invited them to a Camp David retreat as well. It's an approach that some outside the building question. "The chief of staff has to be able to manage down as well as up," said Chris Whipple, author of "The Gatekeepers: How the White House chiefs of staff define every presidency." ''I don't think he's been empowered and I think that's a mistake." Story continues Mulvaney's tenure has coincided with an especially tumultuous time in Washington, beginning with the fight over border wall money that caused the longest government shutdown in the nation's history. He was at the table in Vietnam for Trump's abruptly terminated summit with North Korea's leader and has watched as newly empowered House Democrats have launched investigations into Trump's dealings. Trump has been known to make remarks undercutting Mulvaney in front of him, giving some the impression that Trump already may be souring on his third chief of staff in as many years. But by all accounts, Mulvaney is a happy warrior who generally gets along well with the equally blunt president, is well liked by staff and brushes off slights. Though Trump gave Mulvaney the job on an "acting" basis last December, Trump doesn't appear likely to replace him anytime soon. Mulvaney has the added benefit of getting along well with Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both senior advisers with enormous internal power. Mulvaney, who has personal experience working in a family business, understands their unique positions. He built relationships with both as Trump's budget director and has had dinner with their family. "He's trying to do the best he can with what he has to work with," said Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton who also served as budget director, defense secretary and CIA director. Like others interviewed, Panetta said it would be impossible to serve as a typical chief in Trump's White House. "All you can do is be there, respond to the president when you can, try to maintain some semblance of order and try to keep things at least halfway on track and not collapsing into total chaos," Panetta said. Mulvaney, who technically also retains the title of budget director , remains engaged in policy and budget issues, which made his absence in recent days especially notable. He left on Wednesday afternoon as the White House was mounting a final effort to try to stop GOP senators from backing a resolution to block Trump's emergency order. Mulvaney was absent for Thursday's vote, when a dozen Republican senators joined Democrats in rebuking the president. And he was still gone Friday when Trump issued the first veto of his presidency, overruling the vote to terminate his declaration. The White House defended Mulvaney's decision to take the trip, which senior strategy adviser John Czwartacki said was part of a 25-year tradition. Mulvaney was to return to Washington on Saturday, in time to appear on the Sunday talk shows, and worked throughout his trip, talking to senators and at least a half-dozen staffers and receiving briefings on the shooting in New Zealand, Czwartacki said. Czwartacki also said the president was fine with Mulvaney's absence and that the chief of staff had a team in place empowered to operate without him. Indeed, in a quiet sign of his influence, Mulvaney has brought on a half-dozen new staffers, including communications aides. Panetta, however, said it was "very unusual" that Mulvaney hadn't played a more prominent role in this year's budget talks, saying he should have been "the primary person trying to guide negotiations." David B. Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron who is also writing a book on the chief of staff role, echoed that perception, saying previous chiefs, especially those with experience like Mulvaney's, "were essentially handed the keys and told, 'Get this done.'" Mulvaney is "good at television, he's good at communication. But I think at this point, he's little more than an administrative assistant for Trump," Cohen said. The White House pushed back on the idea that Mulvaney should have been charged with steering the border wall talks, saying it made sense for Vice President Mike Pence and the White House legislative affairs director to take the lead. Mulvaney appears happy to be promoting Trump's agenda, even when the president's policies stand in conflict with ideas that Mulvaney has long championed. In the months before he signed the emergency declaration, Trump argued to his staff that the situation at the border was a national security crisis and demanded to know why he, as president, couldn't stop what he deemed an "invasion." Other aides told Trump there was nothing he could do. But Mulvaney, a longtime fiscal hawk who had blasted former President Barack Obama for using executive action to dictate immigration policy, went back to his colleagues at the Office of Management and Budget and asked them to start identifying various sources of money the White House might be able to access without Congress' approval to start building the wall. ___ Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report. Former Governor of Anambra State and the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the just-concluded 2019 election, Peter Obi, has said that no nation can grow by election rigging. Obi described election rigging as the worst form of misdeed that could limit the development of any country. This was made known in a statement released from his media office. Obi pointed out that the way through which people acquire a position is more important than what they do when they get into office. Read also: https://www.google.com.ng/amp/www.informationng.com/2019/02/elections2019-peter-obi-faults-election-process.html/amp Benny Gantz was supposed to hold a press conference on Friday at Kibbutz Nir Am. The security officer at the scene refused, because he didn't want a crowd near the fence with Gaza. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Therefore, Gantz opted for Kibbutz Erez, but that picture from there wasn't heroic enough. So Gantz selected Kibbutz Nahal Oz, for while standing under the observation tower inside the kibbutz, the kibbutz perimeter resembles the Israel-Gaza border fence. Last summer, fire broke out on the fields of the kibbutz, after an airborne incendiary device landed there. The fire utterly destroyed, but today they are blooming and even the wheat is growing again. Benny Gantz talking to reporters at Kibbutz Nahal Oz (Photo: Avi Roccah) Gantz wanted to gain political leverage from the firing of missiles at Tel Aviv on Thursday night. Although it is not certain that any of the voters were along for the ride. Those with long memories recall what advice Gantz and his fellow Blue and White hopefuls Moshe Ya'alon and Gabi Ashkenazi gave to the politicians when they themselves were the IDF chief of staff, and none of them invented a magic formula to militarily wipe out the threat of terror from the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, those with a shorter memory were happy to go back to business as usual - with no casualties from the rocket fire and with the prime minister refusing to be excited - what was the point? In the eyes of a large part of the electorate, the right-wing and security are synonymous. Mr. Right-wing is Mr. Defense, and generations of retired generals have failed to change it. A game of telephone And while Friday afternoon is a bad time for any news conference, the media - both Israeli and foreign - nonetheless turned up for the event in Nahal Oz. Not because of Gantz's views on Gaza, but rather because of Gantz's cell phone. The story that broke on the Thursday evening news was astonishing: the Iranians had managed to hack Gantz's cell phone. Two senior members of the Shin Bet domestic security service had informed the Blue and White party leader about the hacking a few months ago. When a story like this is reported by a political correspondent, in the midst of an election campaign, there are several questions that must be asked. First of all, who else did the Iranians hack? Secondly, who in Israel knew about the Iranian hacking and how? Thirdly, who has an interest in publishing the story during an election campaign? And last but not least, what material was on the phone - was it problematic, confidential, defense or personal information? All of these questions were left unanswered after the news, but for that, we have social media. Therefore immediately after the story aired, pundits began spreading rumors about what they said was embarrassing information on Gantz's phone. It was the kind of information, they speculated, that would make him vulnerable to extortion if he became prime minister. Extortion no less! Imagine that a master spy for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was enjoying a long-con life in Herzilya under the name of Yogev Segev, a pistachio importer. He called Prime Minister Gantz (he would obviously have the number) to say: "If you don't give me the codes to the nukes, I will tell everyone what you said about Ya'alon in a WhatsApp group." Gantz would immediately buckle in the face of such a terrible threats and give up the codes at once. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Marc Israel Sellem) On Saturday, Netanyahu implemented stage two of the telephone story. The Iranians were not only squeezing Gantz - they also supported him, the prime minister claimed. Gantz was actually their candidate for premier. Netanyahu's remarks raise some interesting questions: If the Iranians and Gantz are brothers, why would they need to hack his phone? A second question is: What happens to Netanyahu on Shabbat when he is forced to spend the day with his family. I went to Nahal Oz, to see how Gantz was dealing with the stink bomb that had been thrown at him. It was a wonderful winter's day. The kibbutz was preparing for the Sabbath with the 17 families who joined it this year, and there can be no better news than that. Gaza looked brighter and quieter than ever. Gantz, in a pale blue shirt and jeans, stood in front of the cameras, the sun setting behind him. He began with a statement that hit all the right notes: a potential escalation; extreme failure of leadership; Hamas calling the shots; loss of deterrence. He suggested the use of force, urgently, but declined to say what he intended to do that the Air Force did not do the night before. Then came the barrage of questions about his cell phone. Gantz stuck his notes, but his body language radiated embarrassment. "An imaginary story, completely delusional, political, gossip - just snooping," he said. "I'm not going to stoop to such a salacious level. I know I'm paying a high price and I'll pay even a higher one. I entered politics in order to serve the State of Israel. The state is more important to me than this nonsense." Someone else, more experienced in such incidents, would simply say, "Netanyahu invented this story. He used classified security information that came into his possession as part of his job. This is a serious incident that casts a heavy shadow on his functioning as prime minister. I demand that a criminal investigation is immediately launched into him and his campaign. They are a crime family." An investigation would not have been launched, not really, but the headlines would have changed - instead of the Gantz affair, it would have been the Netanyahu affair. Instead, Gantz issued only the following sentence: "We are in a struggle for our democracy and ethics." But that's not how you win a war, not at all. Netanyahu's election gift Meanwhile, in Washington, Netanyahu's emissaries are busy ensuring that his visit to the US capital at the end of the month is an electoral winner. Netanyahu would be happy to have Trump's recognition of Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights. From what I hear from Washington, however, this will not happen. Not because of the opposition from US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, such opposition could be overcome, but rather because of Crimea. Trump and Putin in Helsinki, July 2018 (Photo: AFP) In March 2014, just five years ago, Russia seized Crimea from the hands of Ukraine. I was there, during the Russian takeover. The occupation was as easy as a walk in the park. The annexation led to sanctions on Russia by the United States and the European Union. Recognition of the annexation of the Golan Heights would expose Trump to the claim that he is trying to create a precedent for recognition of the annexation of Crimea. Everything in Washington is seen through the prism of the investigation into his ties to Russia. Netanyahu will instead, receive a different gift. Trump's peace plan, the famous "deal of the century," will be split. First of all, the plan for economic peace will be released: Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States will be asked to open their gates to the Israeli economy, and Israel in return will be asked to help in developing the Palestinian economy. A plan for economic peace is not a peace plan, but it is completely acceptable to all possible partners to a right-wing government - Naftali Bennett, Rafi Peretz, Avigdor Lieberman, and perhaps Moshe Feiglin. In other words, Trump's plans will not interfere with the establishment of a right-wing government, and even if they do interfere, they can be postponed again until after the govnrment is safely esconced. . Israeli military raided the home of the suspected Ariel attacker and arrested his teenage brother early Monday morning. The security forces also questioned the father of the suspect, and searched a store belonging to the family. The 20-year-old Omar Abu Lila, from the village of Az-Zawiya in the West Bank, is suspected of killing two people and seriously wounding two others. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The Israel Defense Forces launched a massive manhunt for Lila on Sunday after he shot dead 19-year-old Staff Sergeant Gal Keidan, and wounded two others - one seriously and one critically - in a shooting and stabbing attack close to the West Bank settlement of Ariel. One of the victims, Rabbi Ahiad Ettinger died Monday morning of wounds he sustained in the attack. He was a father of 12. 20-year-old Omar Abu Lila Throughout the night, the Israel Defense Forces, in cooperation with the Shin Bet, the Border Police and the Israel Police, operated in the area of the villages in the area of the Ephraim Regional Brigade in pursuit of the terrorist, said the military in a statement. In the meantime, extensive operational and intelligence efforts are underway in order to locate the perpetrator." On his Facebook page, Lila published posts praising Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and there was hardly any reference to political and religious issues. The only post to ever raise suspicions about his intentions, was a condemnation of Israeli security forces entering Temple Mount last summer. Footage of the attack (: " ") X The Sunday's incident apparently began when the 20-year-old stabbed the soldier at the Ariel Junction and then stole his rifle and shot him. The assailant used the weapon to fire at three vehicles, hitting a civilian and then hijacking a car, which he drove to another junction nearby where he shot another person before continuing on to a nearby Palestinian village, said the military. The security footage from the scene of the attack shows Lila approach the bus station where the 19-year-old Keidan was patrolling the area. The attacker is then seen confronting the soldier, grabbing his weapon and shooting him at point blank range, while soldiers stationed on the other side of the intersection open fire at the Palestinian. A fringe party led by an ultranationalist libertarian with a criminal record who vows to legalize marijuana seems to diverge dramatically from the long list of candidates of the past who have drawn attention to their improbable runs for the Knesset. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter For starters, Moshe Feiglin's Zehut party has a real shot of getting elected and could even emerge as a kingmaker in a tightly contested race for prime minister. But his seemingly liberal civic platform, which has generated a strong hipster following, could be masking a far more polarizing agenda. Moshe Feiglin (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Feiglin, who got pushed out of Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party four years ago for his extreme right-wing positions, has taken the campaign by storm, putting cannabis high on the national agenda and forcing the front-runners to take a stand on the issue. He's also one of the few party leaders to refrain from endorsing either the prime minister or his top challenger, retired IDF chief Benny Gantz. "We are in nobody's pocket," Feiglin told Army Radio recently. "Legalization is the condition for us joining any government." The message seems to be catching on, ironically, in the first election in 20 years that the single-issue Green Leaf party has refrained from running. In response to what has been dubbed the "Feiglin effect," Netanyahu this week boasted about increasing the availability of medical cannabis and approving its export, making Israel just the third nation in the world to do so. He also promised to "examine" the issue of legalization for recreational use. Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay said he was in favor of legalization, calling cannabis less dangerous than alcohol. In a radio interview, he then disclosed he had smoked it himself in the past. And the dovish Meretz party, seeking to reclaim what would seem to be its natural electorate, issued a reminder that it was the first party in parliament to promote the issue while others were now merely catching up. But Feiglin, an observant Jew and West Bank settler who doesn't smoke marijuana himself, has been the one cashing in, finding an unlikely audience among urban youngsters drawn to his message of personal freedom and domestic policies, which, besides legalization, include an anti-labor union platform that promotes school vouchers, animal rights and free market economics. Feiglin's wife, Tzippy, has used cannabis to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, from which she suffers. With his skullcap, trim beard and small round-frame glasses, the 56-year-old Feiglin hardly cuts the image of an iconoclast. But he's become an internet sensation with viral animated online hipster memes portraying him as a cool gangster with sunglasses and a joint hanging from his lips. It's a stunning makeover for a man who first made his name in Israel for orchestrating raucous protests against the Oslo Peace accords in the early 1990s. A recent cartoon in the Maariv daily poked fun at the irony of his drawing liberal supporters. Cast as the pied piper, Feiglin is shown leading a slew of smiling, glassy-eyed voters following the trail of smoke from a joint he is holding in the air, while Ynet cartoonist Guy Morad depicted him as dressing as a "stoner" in the upcoming Purim holiday. Guy Morad on Moshe Feiglin "Feiglin is a revelation to young, secular supporters of the center-left," explained Ynet commentator Yaron Dekel . "He emphasizes that he is primarily liberal when it comes to the issue of religion and state, and a staunch supporter of the legalization of marijuana, but is hiding an extremely hawkish platform in every other arena." The political manifesto of Feiglin's Zehut -- Hebrew for identity -- party includes canceling signed agreements with the Palestinians, making Israeli Arab citizens pass a loyalty test and offering financial incentives to them to emigrate elsewhere if they refuse to accept Jewish sovereignty over the land. He's also spoken out against women, gays and Reform Jews. In 1995, shortly before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, his Zo Artzeinu (This is our Land) movement blocked dozens of major intersections that wreaked havoc throughout the country. The Supreme Court later sentenced him to six months in prison for sedition against the state, which was later commuted to community service. Feiglin, who refused an Associated Press interview, has downplayed his past as an ultranationalist activist and insists he is currently focused on civic issues alone. In reinventing himself, he has managed to create the latest iteration of a regular Israeli election ritual of obscure and offbeat lists offering an entertaining diversion to those voters despairing over Israel's weighty issues. Moshe Feiglin on the campaign trail in Sderot (Photo: AP) Previous parties have included a faction calling for the establishment of a national casino and a group led by a fishmonger and puppeteer that tried to abolish bank fees. An offshoot of Green Leaf aligned with elderly Holocaust survivors to make a run in 2009 and four years later its castaways ran as the Israeli Pirate Party, offering a platform promoting a variety of personal freedoms, including the right to sail the high seas. Should Zehut manage to cross the electoral threshold, it would join the likes of the Israeli Pensioners Party that managed to win seven seats in the 2006 election and joined former prime minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet. Seen largely as the recipient of protest votes against the system, the group of retirees led by an octogenarian former spymaster disappeared in the next election. Feiglin's Zehut party, however, could prove to have a greater impact if it eventually has a say in who forms the next government. Columnist Shmuel Rosner called its emergence a "deliberate, cunning distraction" that reflects the dire state of discourse and overall disgust with mainstream politics. "It is the proof -- and not the first -- of the difficulty the public has in addressing complex issues that require expertise and in-depth study," he wrote Thursday in Maariv. "Everyone has despaired and only wants to be given something to dull their senses. It could be that the marijuana in the campaign is simply medical cannabis to relieve pain." Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, who was critically hurt in Sunday's terror attack in the West Bank, has died of his wounds, his family said Monday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter According to the IDF, Sunday's attack apparently began when 20-year-old Omar Abu Lila, from the village of Az-Zawiya, stabbed Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan at Ariel Junction in the northern West Bank, stole his rifle and then shot and fatally wounded the 19-year-old soldier. Rabbi Achiad Ettinger (Photo: TPS) The terrorist used the weapon to fire at three vehicles at the junction, including that of Rabbi Ettinger, a 47-year-old father of 12. According to the family, the rabbi realized he was caught up in a terror attack and opened fire on the terrorist before he himself was shot. The terrorist then hijacked a car and drove to another nearby junction, where he shot a third person before fleeing into a nearby Palestinian village, the military said. The rabbi was critically wounded and while doctors at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva fought for almost 24 hours to save his life, he ultimately succumbed to his wounds. The Jerusalem Post quoted Ettingers son-in-law Ze'ev Goldstein as praising the rabbi for his great bravery, and said the family believed that "he prevented a greater terror attack from occurring." The security footage from the scene of the attack shows Lila approach the bus station where the 19-year-old Keidan was patrolling the area. Security footage of Ariel Junction attack (: " ") X The attacker is then seen confronting the soldier, grabbing his weapon and shooting him at point blank range, while soldiers stationed on the other side of the intersection opened fire at the Palestinian. Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan was killed in the attack The statement from the Ettinger family announced "the passing of the blessed Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, who fell with the grace of God at the hands of a lowly murderer during a terror attack in which he revealed daring, mental strength and courage, while shooting at the despicable terrorist. "We thank all the staff at Beilinson Hospital, the Magen David Adom teams and the Samaria security division, and all the people of Israel who prayed for his recovery." The family have decided to donate the rabbi's organs in order to save other lives. For the past three years, Rabbi Ettinger was the head of the Oz and Emunah hesder yeshiva (seminary that combines religious study with IDF service) in the Neve Sha'anan neighborhood of southern Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his sorrow over the rabbi's death on behalf of the nation. "The nation of Israel today mourns the murder of Rabbi Achiad Ettinger," Netanyahu said. "I send my condolences to his family in this terrible time. May his memory be a blessing. Rabbi Ettinger's car at the scene of the attack (Photo: Reuters) President Reuven Rivlin also paid tribute to the rabbi, vowing that his work would continue after his passing. Heart-breaking news of the death of Rabbi Achiad Ettinger " who was injured in yesterday's terrible terrorist attack that also claimed the life of Staff Sergeant Gal Keidan," Rivlin said in a statement released by his office. "I was able to get to the hospital yesterday to be with his family who were praying for his recovery. I embraced them on behalf of all Israelis and was overwhelmed by their strength. "Rabbi Ettinger's life's work will continue and be amongst us even after his passing, and the strength he gave his pupils and the community he led will continue to strengthen us through the enormous grief and sorrow. Staff Sgt. Keidan was to be laid to rest at 11am Monday in his hometown of Be'er Sheva. The third victim of the attack, IDF soldier Alexander Dvorsky from Nazareth Illit, is still in serious condition at Beilinson Hospital. A Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) chieftain and former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has hailed Aisha Buhari, wife of Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari, for visiting the victims of the collapsed building in Itafaaji area of Lagos Island. Reno who spoke through his Twitter handle said this is what Buhari should have done. He further added that Aishas actions are more commendable since the end of the elections. What he said: For the students and teachers at the Conservatory of Music in Be'er Sheva, 19-year-old Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan, who was killed in a terror attack on Sunday, left a deep impression. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter "Gal was a child who always had a smile on his face," Sharona Kapon, former deputy director of the conservatory, told Ynet. "He had a great joy for life and a kind heart which was evident in everything he did. He was an excellent student and devoted to music. He studied thoroughly every music piece he played and when he played it, you saw that he played it with love. Gal Keidan playing his mandocello (Photo: Courtesy of the Be'er Sheva Conservatory) "Thanks to Gal's love for the mandocello instrument, another student decided to follow his path. Today he is an outstanding musician in the IDF and was even to play at Gal's funeral." The soldier was killed Sunday in a shooting attack at Ariel Junction in the northern West Bank, and was posthumously promoted from sergeant to staff sergeant. He was to be laid to rest at 11am Monday in the military cemetery in his hometown. Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, a father of 12 from the settlement of Eli, succumbed to his wounds from the attack on Monday morning. A third victim, IDF soldier Alexander Dvorsky from Nazareth Illit, is still in serious condition at Beilinson Hospital. The scene of the attack that killed Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan (Photo: AP) Video of Gal's final recital as a student of the Conservatory two years ago shows Kapon praising him as a "charming boy" who was an inspiration to others and who deserved acclaim for his mastery of a rare instrument. "Not only are you are the sole musician in the country who specializes in this instrument, you may even be that on a global level," she says. "You deserve so much applause for your courage in accepting the challenge to take on something that could make you an example for future generations. Keep playing, never stop playing! We love you." The recital was Gal's last appearance at the school as a soloist, after which he appeared only as a guest musician. The final performance was attended by his parents and his brother, Erez, who also studied at the Conservatory. Gal Keidan's last recital (: anatolyk59) X The director of the Conservatory, Jacob Reuven, called Gal a rare breed, a quiet boy who was extremely smart, and who like Reuven played the mandolin, but chose to specialize in the mandocello. "He did so with expertise and finished his studies with distinction," Reuven said. "He did everything modestly, and was always the first to volunteer. He was smart and kind." Reuven said that news of Gal's death had shocked the entire conservatory. The school posted a message on Facebook on Sunday, expressing their sorrow at Gal's death and showing images of him during his time there. "With deep regret and deep shock, we announce the death of Conservatory graduate Gal Keidan in the murderous attack this morning in Ariel," the Conservatory wrote in Hebrew. Gal was born to a couple who immigrated to Israel from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. He is survived by his parents and two brothers. "This is a great loss for his family and friends," said a relative. The Israeli soldier who was seriously wounded in a deadly West Bank attack on Sundayand is now fighting for his lifehas been praised by the teachers of his former school as well as the head of his hometown for braving the tough upbringing as an immigrant from Moldova who realised his mission of becoming an IDF fighter. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Alexander Dvorsky, 19, was shot Sunday morning by 20-year-old Omar Abu Lila, who also shot dead 19-year-old Staff Sergeant Gal Keidan and critically wounded 47-year-old Rabbi Achiad Ettinger. The father of 12 succumbed to his wounds in a hospital a day later. Dvorsky remains in a serious condition at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. Alexander Dvorsky "A Zionist soldier who immigrated to Israel alone and whose family immigrated shortly after, a young boy who fulfilled his mission by enlisting in an IDF combat unit," said Eyal Betzer, the head of the Jezreel Valley Regional Council, where the soldier first arrived following his move from Moldova. The soldier's family now lives in the northern city of Nazareth Illit in the Galilee, where Alexander attended the last three years of high school. The head of the Nahalal boarding school where he studied described the soldier as an outstanding student and a very social young man. Alexander with his mother The 19-year-old's older brother, Oleg, immigrated to Israel firstand also attended the boarding schoolfollowed by Alexander himself and eventually his mother and grandmother. Alexander with his brother "The soldier, who is in a very serious condition, underwent surgery and had been moved to the intensive care unit," said Bellinson Hospital in a statement on Sunday. President Reuven Rivlin and Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman visited Alexander in hospital. IDF troops hunting for the terrorist near Nablus on Sunday (Photo: Reuters) "This was a murderous attack carried out by bloodthirsty terrorists," Litzman said. "We are relying on the prime minister and the security forces to apprehend the murderers. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims. On Monday morning, the Israeli military raided the home of the suspected attacker and arrested his teenage brother. The security forces also questioned the father of the suspect, and searched a store belonging to the family. Despite the ongoing manhunt, the 20-year-old gunman still remains at large. Thousands of people turned out Monday to pay their last respects to Rabbi Achiad Ettinger as he was laid to rest, hours after the father of 12 succumbed to wounds sustained in Sunday's West Bank terror attack. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The funeral for the rabbi began at his home in the West Bank settlement of Eli before continuing at the Segula cemetery in the central town of Petah Tikva. The funeral of Rabbi Achiad Ettinger (Photo: Elisha Ben Kimon) The rabbi died Monday morning, a day after he was critically wounded in the terror attack at Ariel Junction. Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan, 19, was also killed in the attack, and fellow soldier Alexander Dvorsky is fighting for his life at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. Staff Sgt. Keidan was buried earlier Monday at the military cemetery in Be'er Sheva; his family requested no media coverage. Education Minister Naftali Bennett eulogized the rabbi as a "hero of Israel" and exhorted his family not to let terrorism defeat them. "This wonderful family here in Eli will wipe away their tears and carry on, because that is what we do here in Eli, in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and in all of the Land of Israel," he said. "We grow stronger, but this pervasive evil, which repeatedly cuts down the best of us, must be defeated." The Ettinger family before tragedy struck (Photo: Courtesy) Ettinger, who ran the Oz and Emuna Yeshiva in the Neve Sha'anan neighborhood of south Tel Aviv, is survived by his wife, 44-year-old Tamar, and their 12 children. Their daughter Moriah, 21, is married and lives in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. She is due to have her first child in the coming weeks. "Father, I want to apologize to you for two things. Firstly, for the times I have disrespected and upset you, eulogized the son, Elishev. Secondly, for not being able to avenge your death, because we have to continue with our lives. Efrat, his 20-year-old daughter, is volunteering in Tiberias for her national service and 19-year-old Eliashiv is in performing his army service in an elite unit. The other nine children are Harel, 18; Eliasaf, 16; Yehuda, 13; 11-year-old twin girls Techia and Sofia; Benia, 9; 7-year-old twins Eliav and Hadas; and 18-month-old girl Roni. "Dad, how is it that youwho had brought so much life into the worldis no longer with us," eulogized Efrat. The damned terrorist thought he was ending a life, but he didnt know how much life youve left behind. At the yeshiva in south Tel Aviv run by Rabbi Ettinger, shocked staff and students gathered in the synagogue after his death was announced. "His dream was to make this area bloom," one said. The grave of Staff Sgt. Gal Keidan (Photo: Roee Idan) The Ettinger family announced that they had decided to donate the rabbi's organs, in order to save other people's lives. "Since the attack, we are discovering that (his) personal qualities were on display in his final moments, as he sought to confront the terrorist and fired his weapon four times, without a thought for himself or his family," the family said. "This self-sacrifice has characterized him over the years, when he and his family set up home in south Tel Aviv, established a yeshiva, strove to strengthen Jewish identity, and to assist the families and neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv." BEIRUT - Iran and Syria on Monday demanded the United States withdraw its troops from Syria, and the Damascus government threatened U.S.-backed Kurdish forces with military defeat if they did not agree a return of state authority. The Iranian and Syrian military chiefs were speaking after a meeting in Damascus that also included their Iraqi counterpart, who gave a political boost to President Bashar al-Assad and Tehran by announcing the Syrian border would soon be reopened. The United States said last month it would keep some forces in Syria, reversing course from an earlier decision to pull them all out once Islamic State is militarily defeated. It has deployed air power and some ground troops in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia that is close to seizing the jihadists' last enclave in eastern Syria. It also has a military base at Tanf, near the Damascus-Baghdad highway and the Iraq and Syrian frontier. "The only card remaining in the hands of the Americans and their allies is the SDF, and it will be dealt with through the two methods used by the Syrian state: national reconciliation or the liberation of the areas that they control through force," Syrian Defence Minister General Ali Abdullah Ayoub said. An Iranian couple who arrived in Argentina from Spain was arrested Saturday after it was revealed the two used fake Israeli passports in order to enter the country. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter It was further revealed Monday that the couple carried four fake passports two with which they boarded an Air Europe flight from Spain, and two Israeli ones which they used to enter Argentina, reported Clarin, an Argentinean newspaper. The 'Toledanos' The two 27 year old Sajjad Naserani and 30 year old Mahsoreh Sabzali, presented themselves as Netanel and Rivka Toledano, but used poorly faked Israeli passports with blunt spelling mistakes. Border control officers discovered the passports were stolen, but sent the two on their way and notified authorities. Argentinean officials said the name Toledano raised the authorities suspicion, since during the 1990s, an Israeli diplomat named Toledano worked in the Buenos Aires Israeli embassy. Mahsoreh Sabzali Sajjad Naserani The Argentinean Interior Ministry updated authorities in Jerusalem, who quickly discovered the passports were stolen from an Israeli couple Brigitte and David Asulin and that both photos and fingerprints of the couple dont match the original passport owners. The couple was arrested in their hotel room in Buenos Aires, and is questioned by the counterterrorist unit. The man claimed he was a photographer, while the woman said she was an engineer and an architect, and the two said they escaped Iran through Turkey, Greece and then Spain where they got the fake passports. Mahsoreh Sabzali and the items seized from the couple Investigations revealed the couple changed hotels three times in three days and used pseudonyms before they were seized. They also made an 85-seconds -long phone call from one of their cell phones, and authorities are still trying to determine who they talked to. Since the two speak no Spanish, its likely they called a Farsi speaker, perhaps a member of the Iranian community in Argentina. A camera, two cell phones and a laptop were seized from the couple, and police forces were able to get some information from one of the hacked phones. Naserani and Sabzali were arrested two days before the anniversary of the bombing that took place in the Israeli Embassy in the city in 1992, which killed 29 people. Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the fifth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by visiting the Black Sea peninsula on Monday, as NATO and the European Union once again strongly condemned the land grab. Putin began his trip by attending the launch of new power plants in Crimea, part of Moscow's efforts to upgrade the region's infrastructure. Ukraine has cut off energy supplies to the peninsula and blocked shipments of Crimea-bound cargo via its territory after Moscow annexed the region in 2014. The wet dream of successive Israeli governments is currently being realized as thousands of Gazans take to the streets to demonstrate against Hamas. These are not spontaneous and isolated demonstrations, but rather the institutionalized organization of a popular uprising under the slogan "We want to live." Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The protest is driven, for the first time, by an ordered leadership composed of journalists, academics and online media stars. Gazans protest the cost of living under Hamas The fear ceiling has been smashed. Despite the violent response by the Hamas security forces, the demonstrators took to the streets in Jabalya, Shati, Khan Yunis, Dir al-Balah and Moasi for four days. And there were thousands of protesters. Gazans are also appearing openly on Palestinian Authority television and social networks to strongly criticize Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' new taxes and the cost of living. On Friday night, Hamas arrested 150 of the leaders of the uprising, but the demonstrations continued Saturday and Sunday. Journalists like Mustafa Ayyash and Osama Kahalut, two of the leaders of the uprising, were arrested and severely beaten. Their hands were broken, but they were released and their fight goes on. In such a situation, it is no wonder that Israel was willing to accept Hamas' claim that a "mishap" led to the firing of two Fajr missiles at Tel Aviv on Thursday. Israel is ready to absorb many more "mishaps" of this kind as long as the popular uprising against the Hamas regime continues and even gains momentum. Hamas members quelling street protests in Gaza Anyone who tells savvy Gaza sources that the rocket fire was down to a "mishap" will be met with laughter. As far as they are concerned, it was no such thing. Everything is directed by Hamas to create a distraction from the internal protests in the Strip. The goal was to divert attention to the confrontation with Israel. It is likely therefore, that there will be more and more such "mishaps" as the protests gather steam. The rocket fire on Thursday is evocative of a previous "mishap" last October, when two rockets were fired at Be'er Sheva, hitting a family home. Prime Minister Netanyahu wisely decided to accept the version of events presented to him by the Egyptians and his intelligence agencies, of a "mishap" that surprised even the Hamas leadership. This is primarily because the IDF prefers to wait for the summer to destroy Hamas' military force, for in the winter it is more difficult to conduct military operations within a densely populated civilian area. The IAF strikes Gaza after rocket fire on Tel Aviv Therefore, Israel will swallow any story or excuse to delay a confrontation with Hamas until a time when the weather conditions are more suitable, the Knesset elections have come and gone and the army has completed its preparations for such an operation. Moreover, Israel has no interest in interfering with welcome internal opposition to the Hamas rule that is brewing in the Gaza Strip. The chances of this opposition being able to topple Hamas are low, but in the meantime, its strength is eroding. And that's not something to be sniffed at. What are the chances that the shooting at the Dan region was indeed a mistake? If we do take the claim at face value, the most likely cause is human error. Hamas members are supposed to check the soundness of the missile systems every few months, so why would they do it now, at precisely nine o'clock at night, in the pouring rain? Palestinians inspect the damage from an IAF airstrike in Gaza (Photo: AP) Could Hamas operatives have gone to test the long-range launchers? It is highly unlikely. There is also the possibility that the rockets were triggered by an external source, such as a lightning strike or an opponent of Hamas. But again, this is highly unlikely. The only sensible option remaining is to accept that Hamas regularly trains long-range rockets at targets in Israel. These are Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets, which arrived in the Gaza Strip about 10 years ago and are ready for immediate launch. There is also a locally produced version called the M-75, and firing them in pairs makes it harder for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system to intercept. But the Gaza rockets are inaccurate. Their engines burn for less than five seconds, so side winds like the ones over the Gaza region on Thursday night could push them off target y several kilometers. The first rocket landed in an unpopulated area in Holon. The second exploded in midair, a familiar and frequent malfunction for these rockets. Either the engine exploded or the detonation mechanism was triggered prematurely. Israelis take cover in a stairwell as air raid sirens sound in the Tel Aviv area (Photo: Eliasaf Dauel) Either way, Hamas intended to drag Israel into some kind of response that would distract domestic public opinion from the internal battles breaking out on the streets of Gaza. Netanyahu was right to choose a measured response and not rushing to convene his security cabinet, thus avoiding any political pressure to deliver a severe blow to Hamas' military wing. Hamas' main lifeline is economic aid built into an Egyptian plan for calm, with the participation of Israel and the United Nations. Meanwhile, the Palestinian factions Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - have recently issued a joint statement calling on Hamas to ease living conditions for the Gazan people. On Sunday night they issued another announcement, calling on Hamas to withdraw its forces from the streets. The Gaza street is speaking in the language of a budding revolution. And Israel quite rightly is letting these internal events to develop. Wiping out Hamas can always come later. Iran and Syria on Monday demanded the United States withdraw its troops from Syria, and the Damascus government threatened to defeat Washington's Kurdish allies by force if they did not submit to the return of state authority. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The Iranian and Syrian military chiefs were speaking after a meeting in Damascus that also included their Iraqi counterpart, who gave a political boost to President Bashar al-Assad and Tehran by announcing the Syrian border would soon be reopened. Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (C), Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Armed Forces Gen. Othman Al-Ghanimi (R), and Chief of General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri during he meeting Monday (Photo: EPA) Washington has vowed to contain what it calls Tehran's "destabilising" role in the region, but the entrenched nature of Iran's ties with both Damascus and Baghdad were on vivid display on Monday. Standing alongside his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts on live television, Iran's armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Baqeri said the three countries were "united against terrorism" and coordinating at a high level. The United States said last month it would keep some forces in Syria, reversing course from an earlier decision to pull them all out once Islamic State is militarily defeated. Ali Khamenei and Bashar al-Assad (Photo: EPA) It has deployed air power and some ground troops in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia that is close to seizing the jihadists' last enclave in eastern Syria. It also has a military base at Tanf, near the Damascus-Baghdad highway and the Iraq and Syrian frontier. After Washington in December announced its intention to pull out troops, the Kurdish-led authorities controlling northeast Syria unsuccessfully sought a deal with Damascus to protect their area from a potential Turkish assault. "The only card remaining in the hands of the Americans and their allies is the SDF, and it will be dealt with through the two methods used by the Syrian state: national reconciliation or the liberation of the areas that they control through force," Syrian Defence Minister General Ali Abdullah Ayoub said. Large areas of Syria have been brought back under government control through "reconciliation agreements" that have typically been concluded after the military defeat of rebel forces. 'Readiness for sacrifice' Ayoub noted there was no doubt that U.S. military capabilities were "big and advanced" but said that the Syrian army's sources of strength included a "readiness for sacrifices" and it was "capable of taking action and having an effect". Iranian Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri (Photo: EPA) Baqeri said the Damascus meeting had "studied the means that should be taken to recover" territories still outside government hands, including the areas of U.S. deployment, adding the decision in this regard was up to the Syrian state. Syria's border crossing with Iraq has been closed for years. The area was overrun by Islamic State in 2014, which swore to eradicate modern nation states and meld them into its self-declared caliphate. "God willing the coming days will witness the opening of the border crossing and the continuation of visits and trade between the two countries," Iraqi Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanimi said at a news conference broadcast by Syrian state television. Baqeri said opening the border was important to Iran because of trade and for Iranian tourists travelling to Iraq and then Syria. Critics of Iran have voiced concerns over a "land bridge" for Iranian influence to the Mediterranean and the Israeli border. For Assad, reopening the Iraqi border will accelerate Syria's physical reintegration with neighbouring economies after the opening of the frontier crossing with Jordan last year. IDF soldiers arrested Monday four Palestinians who crossed the Gaza Strip border into Israel. The IDF spokesperson unit said neither of the Palestinians was armed, and that the group was sent for further questioning. The Dutch justice minister has told The Associated Press that the suspect in the Utrecht tram attack had a criminal record. Ferd Grapperhaus said it was too early to say whether the attack suspect had a terror motiveA but acknowledged he had a criminal history. He warned against early speculation about motives and said "it is important that now the independent investigation will thoroughly go through" the evidence "Yes, the suspect was known within the justice department. He had a criminal record. That is indeed what we know. I can give no more details." Nightly clashes between rioters sent by Hamas and IDF soldiers resumed Monday in several locations along the Gaza Strip border. Routine riots were ceased ten days ago when Egyptian intelligence officials arrived in the Strip in order to continue mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel. Peru's former president, Alejandro Toledo, considered a fugitive in Peru, was arrested for being drunk in public in California and released early on Monday, authorities in California said. Since 2017, Toledo, a resident of California, has refused to heed orders by a local judge to spend up to 18 months in pre-trial detention in connection with a massive bribery probe. The United States is still evaluating Peru's request to extradite Toledo. Expert Interviews with Kevin Turner. With the federal election heading our way in a matter of months and, likely to lead to a change of government, Labors negative gearing policies may not actually boost the volume of first home buyers in the market. Instead they might lead to a possible influx of overseas investors. At least this is the view of Doug Driscoll, CEO of Starr Partners. Listen to the interview now: Transcript: Kevin: Doug, thanks very much for your time. Doug: Alright, Kevin. How are you? Kevin: Yeah, got an interesting view that youve taken on this. Because obviously the labor side of politics are looking to try and soften the market for first home buyers but youre saying its probably not gonna do that. Doug: I think certainly the numbers of first home buyers have increased over the last, probably year, maybe even 18 months. And thats a direct consequence, of course, of APRAs macro prudential measures. Where theyve limited investor activity. My concern around the proposals from the labour is that they could end up inadvertently shooting themselves in the foot and welcoming more foreign investments. Doug: Certainly in a softer market. Kevin: Yeah, well of course, theyre riding on the back of some pretty emotional views that theyve put out about foreign buyers. And we hear these stories all the time about foreign buyers bidding at auction, driving prices up. I know thats not your standpoint, but just explain to me how you feel about that. Doug: Well, you have to be very careful and I think a lot of people are actually scared to express their views on this subject. But for me, its the elephant in the room, now what I will do first and foremost is clarify my position. I dont see this as xenophobic, not being an Australian myself, I certainly cant be accused of jingoism. This is basically about non residents who reside permanently in a different country owning Australian property. Doug: It just so happens that the vast majority of these overseas investors are from China. But it doesnt really matter where theyre from, they can come from China, India, the UK, from the moon for all I care. This is really about protecting Australian residents and Australian citizens interest. The other thing I need to clarify and be very clear on is a lot of people, they get muddled in terms of what actually an overseas buyer is. Doug: Again, overseas buyer is somebody that resides in another country and they are not to be confused with someone who is a potential first or second generation Australian who is of Chinese descent. So the typical person you would see competing in auction on a Saturday as you alluded to is not the kind of people Im talking about. Because they live, reside, and probably have done for a couple of generations in Australia, they are Australians. They just so happen to be of Chinese descent. Doug: Or Indian descent or British descent or wherever it may be from. Im talking about people who live overseas and are coming into Australia, sensing a bargain, and acquiring property. And for me, this isnt a gut feel, numbers dont lie. The appetite is there, its very real. Its bigger and greater than ever before, not my words, if you speak to again a lot of people who are on that side of water. Theyll tell you that even people like Juwai, Juwai is the largest Chinese property portal. Doug: Theyve said in a recent study earlier this year, in fact, that the appetite and hunger is greater than ever. And they expect Chinese citizens to be buying Australian property in unprecedented numbers this year. Kevin: Yeah, well Michael Yang earlier in our show from G Fang said exactly the same thing. Doug: Well and look, all we need to do to put some context around this is actually look at the numbers. As I said, numbers for me dont lie. This isnt facts, this isnt feeling, this isnt fiction This is fact, it isnt feeling or fiction. So if you look at some of the numbers around foreign investment at the moment, its difficult to know who to believe here. But the reliable sources are the large organisations. Doug: ANZs recent study, theyve said that foreign buyers now own an excess of 400,000 Australian homes. They also said in that same study theyve estimated that foreign investors purchase between 40 and 50,000 Australian dwellings every year. Foreign buyers currently are acquiring 25% of all newly constructed dwellings in Australia. And according to Knight Franks market Insight study of only last week, Chinese developers acquire 1/3rd of all development sites in Australia in 2018. Doug: And that figure is expected to be even higher this year. So those numbers are undeniable and my worry I guess is that with a large population, whether it be China and India, their middle classes are burgeoning. and if there is a genuine appetite, well be dwarfed. Were minnow by comparison. Doug: In fact, were not even a minnow, were a tadpole by comparison and if those numbers continue on that trajectory, how long until overseas buyers own a million plus Australia properties? And the issue then becomes around Australian residents or citizens then obviously not being able to get into the market themselves. Theres further ramifications, a lot of in particular Chinese buyers, tend to leave these properties vacant as well. Doug: So that has impact on the rental markets, so its a real difficult balancing act because as I said you cant turn the sign on the door to close a business. Because I understand that obviously we do need our trading partners but theres gotta be a line in the sand. And I think that ultimately, this stance from my viewpoint comes out of protecting Australian residents interests. Kevin: Yeah, well of course, we are hearing already from operations like Juwai, youve mentioned, and also G Fang that it is very desirable for foreign investors to buy into Australia now. And anything that we do to soften the market is going to make it even more attractive for them. Doug: And there lies the issue, thats why, politics is a very difficult game clearly. I mean well sit on the sidelines and we chastise or lambast these politicians but that is not a job that I would want. Theyve got a very difficult balancing act ahead of them because obviously they need to look at the here and now, they need to look at the economy, they need to make sure theres money flushing into that economy and flowing around. Doug: And obviously if theres a short fall with owner occupiers or investors, properties still need to sell. But its about having some foresight and I think that insight provides that foresight. And youve gotta look, well if we continue this trajectory, what does happen in two years time? Five years time? Ten years time? Doug: So sometimes its worth putting up with some short term pain for some long term gain in my opinion. Kevin: So whats your view then, Doug, about whether or not we can or whether we even should make property more affordable? Doug: Well I think property is becoming more affordable, theres no question bout that. Obviously that intervention by Apra certainly served its purpose, the market was far too hot. Certainly across places like Sydney and Melbourne and credit where credit is due, it did have the desired impact and effect. But markets are cyclical, they go up and they come down. You and I, in our lifetimes, weve seen it numerous times. Doug: And I think we just gotta maintain perspective and weve gotta realise that obviously weve just encountered a once in a lifetime, once in a generational market. So it was always bound to come back. The key here is maintaining that balance and maintaining the best interests of the Australian population as far as Im concerned. Doug: And obviously selling off the family silver, I dont believe is maintaining the best interest of the Australian population quite frankly. I mean you would have heard the common term thats used in popular culture around Australia being the 51st state of the US. Well, I certainly think in economic terms, its almost become the 24th provence of China. Doug: And I think weve gotta be really, really careful of that. But maintain that all important balancing act of continuing trade with as I said, our biggest partners overseas. Kevin: Well said, Doug. Thank you very much for your time. Doug Driscoll, CEO for Starr Partners. Thanks for your time, Doug. Doug: My pleasure, thanks Kevin. ................................................................................................................................................... Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 44F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 44F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Tomorrow Sunny skies. High 69F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Apple today released the sixth developer beta of iOS 12.2, macOS 10.14.4, and watchOS 5.2. Theres no word from the company yet on the changes but it is likely that iOS 12.2 beta 6 is all about bug fixes. The final version of iOS 12.2 should be released to the public next week right after Apples Show Time event and ahead of the new iPads hitting the store. The release will add support for Apple News Magazines in support countries. iOS 12.2 will introduce a number of new changes and changes including expanding Apple News in Canada, new Animojis including shark and giraffe, HomeKit TV support and controls, a new AirPlay icon, and more. To update to iOS 12.2, developers will need to make sure that their supported iOS devices are registered properly. Once thats done, its as simple as opening Settings > General > Software Update and then following the onscreen instructions. To update to the latest developer beta of macOS Mojave 10.14.4, developers simply need to open the System Preferences > Update Software on registered and supported computers. To update to the latest beta of watchOS 5.2, developers need to make sure that the Apple Watch is connected to the charger, that the battery has at least 50 percent remaining, and that it is connected and within range of the iPhone. On the iOS device, open the Watch app and tap on General > Software Update. To update to the latest beta version of tvOS, developers need to run the necessary Xcode profile. If you want to try the developer beta, but dont want to sign up for a developer account, you can find out right here. ARIS | A Really Inspiring Space supported the organisation of the Startup Europe Week (SEW) 2019 in Limassol and Nicosia that took place on 13 and 14 March 2019, respectively. SEW is the largest regional entrepreneurship event and grassroots movement in the world whose goal is to help entrepreneurs grow and thrive wherever they are or come from. It has consistently achieved that through a series of locally focused events that connect the local ecosystem and show entrepreneurs what support is available at their particular city and regional level. SEW is present in more than 300 cities in 50+ countries, with the collaboration of 250+ local co-organisers/ecosystem leaders. The SEW19 Limassol was held with great success at the premises of ARIS in Limassol. The event was co-organised by DisruptCyprus.com and attracted the interest of more than forty (40) people. During the event, the Director of Deloittes Innovation & Entrepreneurship Centre and ARIS, Monica Ioannidou Polemitis, described the process of converting an idea into an actual viable business, showcasing methodologies such us design thinking, research methods SWOT/PESTEL and useful tools for creating and analysing business models such as the lean canvas. The SEW19 Nicosia was co-organised by HJS Insurance and was held at the premises of the European University Cyprus in Nicosia. Monica Ioannidou Polemitis was invited to represent ARIS by presenting the program and highlighting the available opportunities arising for entrepreneurs and startups in Cyprus through local accelerators and incubators. A Double Taxation Treaty (DTT) between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was signed, making it the first DTT between two Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries. KSA has recently ratified the DTT by publishing in its official Gazette the approval decision along with the treaty text. Deloitte has therefore hosted a 60-minute webinar today on the DTT. If you missed the session, you can still access the full recording and the presentation slides. The session was led by Deloitte tax specialists in the UAE and KSA, who discussed the key elements of the Treaty. The agenda for the webinar was as follows: Islamabad: Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has been admitted to a hospital in Dubai after suffering a reaction from a rare disease that has weakened his nervous system, his party has said. General (retd) Musharraf, 75, who has been living in Dubai since March 2016, is facing the treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offence for which he was indicted in 2014. A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment. The former army chief left for Dubai for medical treatment and has not returned since, citing security and health reasons. Musharraf was rushed to the hospital as an emergency on Saturday night after his condition suddenly worsened, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) Secretary-General Mehrene Adam Malik said Sunday. A PML Overseas President Afzaal Siddiqui told DawnNewsTV that Musharraf suffered a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare condition for which the former president has been receiving medical care. According to the party, the former president has been advised complete bed rest by doctors till his full recovery. Siddiqui informed about Musharraf's illness in October last year, saying the former president's disease has "weakened his nervous system". At the time, he was being treated for the condition in London. "Due to amyloidosis, broken protein starts getting deposited in various organs," Siddiqui said. "[As a result] Pervez Musharraf has difficulty in standing and walking." Amyloidosis is a rare disease that occurs when a substance called amyloid builds up in a person's organs. Amyloid is an abnormal protein that is produced in the bone marrow and can be deposited in any tissue or organ. Amyloidosis can affect different organs in different people. Amyloidosis frequently affects the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, nervous system and digestive tract. Severe amyloidosis can lead to life-threatening organ failure. The APML official had then said that Musharraf's treatment could continue for up to five or six months. Upon his full recovery, Siddiqui had said, Musharraf intends to return to Pakistan. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, has been declared a fugitive in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case and the Red Mosque cleric killing case. We live in an age of psychoanalysis. Since Freud a century ago, we have been taught the importance of examining our personal psychology, emotions and memories for understanding ourselves and finding happiness in life. A variety of authorities in modern psychology today evaluate not just individuals but cultures, even religions by their proposed psychological understanding of the human mind. Yet, in spite of the proliferation of psychological treatment, we find more people taking pharmaceutical drugs and epidemics of depression occurring in the affluent Western world. Are we missing something about understanding ourselves - and can the ancient Vedic teachings provide us a deeper insight? Modern psychology reflects a view of the self that is based upon the physical body and outer social interactions. It seeks happiness at a physical level in the material world. Its view of the mind is limited to the brain and our biological compulsions, starting with sexuality. When it asks us to develop ourselves it is a seeking of outer power and prestige, not inner awareness. Its idea of self reflects external factors only, not any consciousness that endures beyond death. Here, let us remember the profound teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads. Our true Self, called Atman or Purusha, consists of the boundless light of consciousness. It has no birth or death, no pleasure or pain, no past or future. It has no qualities as defined by the five elements. Fire cannot burn it. Water cannot make it wet. It does not perish along with the body. It does not change along with the fluctuations of the mind. It is permanent, immutable and beyond sorrow. Abiding in it is ultimate peace, bliss and fulfilment. Yet, we find that modern psychology doesn't recognize such a higher Self, much less teach us how to connect to it. Our inner identity cannot be reduced to a name, job, title or circumstance. No one and nothing can own, define, limit, or control the deeper reality within us. We are not simply a physical organism or a complex set of chemical reactions in the brain, but the inner consciousness through which these operate and which transcends their fluctuations. We contain the potentials and formations of all existence, extending beyond time and space to the infinite and eternal. The importance of Vedanta Vedantic philosophy contains a profound psychology of Self-realization, not merely a psychology of physical or social identity. Vedanta teaches that you are the entire universe. You are not limited to the body. You have many bodies in many incarnations in different worlds or lokas. Your nature is cosmic. Similarly, you need not seek happiness or fulfilment outside your true Self. On the contrary, your inner Self is full of light and your role in the world should be to bring light, compassion and wisdom to all. Everything you see in the world of nature represents some portion of your true Self, some aspect of your cosmic identity. All creatures are different expressions of your deeper Self that pervades the entire existence. Only such a deeper vision of Self can bring us true happiness. Otherwise, we remain trapped in outer ego identities, in how we appear or what we do, rather than who we truly are. This means that the best practices for psychological wellbeing are mantra and meditation based upon an inner search for our true nature in consciousness. The mind easily falls into dependence, compulsion or addiction if we do not have an enduring connection with our inner being. If you aspire to enduring mental peace and emotional wellbeing start by taking a course in Vedanta and learn how the human being and the universe, the Divine and our inner essence are one. Step out of the isolation of the ego and mere outer social definitions to your ultimate identity as the Self of all. Open your awareness to infinite space, not just to outer forms. Naturally, this greater Self-realization cannot be accomplished quickly and requires a lifelong sadhana, but if we sincerely pursue it we can progress every day in consciousness and deathless awareness, not merely in outer achievements and acquisitions. The sages of India have preserved the legacy of Self-knowledge for all humanity, but it must be shared and practiced, and honored in our educational systems as well. Without knowing ourselves, all other knowledge is limited and cannot take us beyond sorrow. Let us not forget this simple eternal wisdom of Self-awareness that easily gets lost in all the information that we are deluged with every day. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.) New Delhi: Several passengers of Jet Airways were left in a lurch as they were not getting full refund on flight cancellation while some complained that there was no prior information on flight cancellation, and few others said that there was a lot of misleading information from the airways. What seems to have further enraged the passengers is the poor customer service at the Airlines. Some customers complained that they could not get through the Jet customer service even after trying for two days. While others said that they were being put on hold for close to an hour, only to be disconnected later. Enraged customers took to twitter to lambast Jet Airways on their poor customer service at such a crucial time. Here are some twitter reactions: Dear @jetairways seriously. With no revised flight options?!And BTW none of your numbers work. Better part of a working Sunday being wasted chasing you for a booking made awhile ago. So. HOW DO WE DO THIS?2friends been thrown on a 02.30 am flight @mariagorettiz @suchitrapillai pic.twitter.com/cq4tWY0t1r Sandhya Mridul (@sandymridul) March 17, 2019 @jetairways PNR YNAYGY. Del- BRD Flight cancelled less than 48 hours prior to Departure. No jet airways numbers are reachable, on call que for more than 1:05:55 min.. this is my third Jet flight which got cancel in last 7 days. I will not extend my JP loyality anymore. pic.twitter.com/1f6HfRoBGy Rajdeepsinh (@RajdeepsinhGoh) March 17, 2019 @jetairways it is second time the jet airways cancelled by flight by sending random email with customery apologies...More pathetic no one responding to your call even after one hour..it takes superb patient to hear robotic blabber jetairways#sundaywellspent pic.twitter.com/kucyUXXJ9L nitin singh (@nitinsi59801352) March 17, 2019 Last 54 min trying to connect jet airways.. still no customer support.. just waiting... height of pathetic service....If it comes for charging money it will matter for second for jet airways...But now this matter is not important for jet airways... pic.twitter.com/3AUeVKlzOP ROHIT VERMA (@rohit3989) March 17, 2019 Worst experience #jetairways @jetairways I have been trying to reach customer support from last 02 days.. I have been on hold for a 45mins, 01hour. Customer support is that much busy that they are not able to pickup the call.. Rupali (@Rupali18378040) March 18, 2019 Your company cancelled our booking flight. 13 Apr 2019 (DEL) -->(IXL) 9W 0611 18 Apr 2019 (IXL) --> (DEL) 9W 0612 And as it is not our mistake, we can get full amount of refund right? Please give us the details for this process. In website can't manage booking. @jetairways AnAn (@AnAn52598081) March 17, 2019 @jetairways Jet airways flights a trouble. One flight was cancelled and one is preponed. I have another flight before that flight and now this is preponed clashing time with my other flight.Trying to contact customer care . More than half an hour of wating on call. Care to help? pic.twitter.com/D8tjcxslgU Aishwarya Singla (@ASingla25) March 17, 2019 Zee News.com tried to reach out to Jet Airways media division for its statement. However, there was no comment from the airline at the time of filing this report. It will be added as an when Jet respond to our query. Cash-strapped Jet Airways has cancelled several flights in the last couple of days for its failure to pay rentals to various lessors. As of last week, the total number of aircraft grounded by Jet Airways stand at 32 so far. The Naresh Goyal-promoted carrier is looking at all possible options to raise funds for the debt crisis that is facing the Airlines. The liquidity crunch has not only forced the Airline to ground aircraft leading to cancellation of several flights, it has also caused delayed salary payments to its pilots, engineers and other senior staff. On March 8, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas seeking urgent funding of Rs 750 crore under an MoU signed between various stakeholders. New Delhi: Bandhan Bank has said that it has received no objection from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the proposed acquisition of Gruh Finance. "The Reserve Bank has by its letter dated March 14, 2019, conveyed its no objection for the voluntary amalgamation of Gruh Finance Ltd into and with Bandhan Bank, subject to compliance with the terms and conditions therein," the bank said in a regulatory filing. Gruh Finance, the affordable housing finance arm of HDFC Ltd, was taken over in January by Kolkata-based Bandhan Bank in a share-swap deal. As part of the deal, Bandhan Bank has to transfer 14.9 percent stake to HDFC for merging Gruh with itself. The deal will allow Bandhan Bank's promoter Bandhan Financial Holdings to come down to about 61 percent from about 82 percent, and HDFC to hold around 15 percent in the merged entity from about 57 percent in Gruh. The swap ratio for the amalgamation will be 568 shares of Bandhan Bank for every 1,000 shares of Gruh Finance. Stock of Bandhan Bank closed 0.45 percent down at Rs 511.05 on the BSE. New Delhi: Debt-ridden Jet Airways has cancelled 3 flights from Vadodara to Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai while 2 from Bhuj, sources told Zee Media. The debt laden Airline has canceled several flights in the last couple of days for its failure to pay rentals to various lessors. As of today, the total number of aircraft grounded by Jet Airways stand at 41 so far. The airline has a fleet of 119 planes. Several passengers complained of apathy from Jet Airways, claiming that they were yet to get full refund on flight cancellation while several others took to twitter to vent out their passenger on the poor and unresponsive customer care service of the Airline, in the last few days. Some customers complained that they could not get through the Jet customer service even after trying for two days. While others said that they were being put on hold for close to an hour, only to be disconnected later. The Naresh Goyal-promoted carrier is looking at all possible options to raise funds for the debt crisis that is facing the Airlines. The liquidity crunch has not only forced the Airline to ground aircraft leading to cancellation of several flights, it has also caused delayed salary payments to its pilots, engineers and other senior staff. On March 8, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO Tony Douglas seeking urgent funding of Rs 750 crore under an MoU signed between various stakeholders. New Delhi: While the race to next Goa Chief Minister is hotting up with Goa Speaker Pramod Sawant being seen as the frontrunner after the death of Manohar Parrikar, a Congress delegation is on its way to meet the Goa Governor Mridula Sinha to stake claim to form the government in the state. The leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar told PTI on Monday, "All 14 Congress MLAs in Goa to meet Governor to stake claim to form the government." A letter addressed to Governor Mridula Sinha from the party read that since the coalition government in Goa had been formed on the condition that Parrikar would be the Chief Minister, his death has left the BJP with no allies. Congress further stated that since it is the single largest party in the state, it would be invited to form the next government in the state. Earlier today, reports had surfaced that Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari held talks with party leaders and alliance partners Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) in Panaji to to select a new Goa chief minister. According to MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar, clarity on the leadership issue is most likely to come out by 3 pm today. The BJP-led coalition in Goa began the discussion on Sunday night in the state capital to decide on the new leader to replace Parrikar, 63, who had died after on Sunday evening. Congress has 14 MLAs in the state whereas BJP has 12 legislators in the 40-member Goa assembly. GFP, MGP and Independents have 3 seats each while the NCP has one seat. (With PTI inputs) If you are even the least bit health-conscious, you have plenty of reasons to be worried about living in Jakarta. If you are even the least bit health-conscious, you have plenty of reasons to be worried about living in Jakarta. Let's start with air pollution . Jakarta was the most polluted city in Southeast Asia in 2018 , with 191 days out of 365 that were considered unhealthy. During that time, the levels of PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers) reached up to 10 times the recommended exposure limit set by the World Health Organization. Just to remind you, air pollution has been considered to reduce life expectancy by up to 6 years in some cities in India or China, which is much more than smoking cigarettes, alcohol, HIV, drug use or road injuries. sedentary lifestyle . Have you ever walked more than 1 hour outside in Jakarta? Probably not, or at least very rarely. The sidewalks are either non-existent or unsafe, the heat is unbearable, there are no parks, and the air is disgusting. No wonder Then, there is the. Have you ever walked more than 1 hour outside in Jakarta? Probably not, or at least very rarely. The sidewalks are either non-existent or unsafe, the heat is unbearable, there are no parks, and the air is disgusting. No wonder Indonesians are the people who walk the least in the world (3,500 steps on average while the recommended amount is 10,000). lack of safety and hygiene standards . In 2017, the Economist ranked Jakarta the 56th out of 60 world cities for health security. Only Karachi, Dhaka, Yangon and Cairo did worse. This is a broad category that included indicators like access to healthy food, car accident fatalities, quality of health care, and much more (see Finally, there are all the risks coming from a. In 2017, the Economist ranked Jakarta the 56th out of 60 world cities for health security. Only Karachi, Dhaka, Yangon and Cairo did worse. This is a broad category that included indicators like access to healthy food, car accident fatalities, quality of health care, and much more (see full report here ). Scroll below to discover my top 9 recommendations to stay healthy in Jakarta: Despite all these scary facts, there are effective ways to protect yourself. 1) Invest in an air purifier for your home or apartment While you cannot control the air quality outside, you can easily make sure that the air you breathe at home is safer. Starting at US50$, you can purchase an air purifier with true HEPA filters. These are the best as they are proven to remove 99.97% of particulate matters larger than 0,3 microns (including bacteria and viruses). AND activated carbon. The latter will also remove odors, gases, chemicals, and smoke. They cost a bit more, though, starting at over US100$ To take things one step further, you can choose an air purifier with true HEPA filtersactivated carbon. The latter will also remove odors, gases, chemicals, and smoke. They cost a bit more, though, starting at over US100$ for this model 2) Use N95-rated air pollution masks Forget about the cheap masks you can buy in Circle K: They do not work. The best air pollution masks are the ones with an N-95 rating, meaning they will filter at least 95% of particles under 0.3 microns. The certification is done by an agency of the US government called Instead, I recommend you to use the products from the brand 3M. They sell their masks a little more than US1$ each ( When you go outside, especially during peak pollution days or if you ride a motorbike, you should wear a proper air pollution mask. Without one, it's just like smoking a cigarette without a filter.Forget about the cheap masks you can buy in Circle K: They do not work.The best air pollution masks are the ones with an N-95 rating, meaning they will filter at least 95% of particles under 0.3 microns. The certification is done by an agency of the US government called NIOSH and I'm not aware of any local brands that passed the test.Instead, I recommend you to use the products from the brand 3M. They sell their masks a little more than US1$ each ( check these for instance ). 3) Cook your own food (as often as possible) Pisang Goreng (Fried Bananas) I love Indonesian food, especially from the street. But I have to admit most dishes are unhealthy. The worst methods of cooking , deep-frying and pan-frying, are the most common in the country. To make things worse, frying is most often done with palm oil that has been used and re-used multiple times (increasing the risks of cancer). I could also talk about coconut milk, sugar, preservatives and pesticides, but I'm sure you already get my point: You must cook your own food as often as you can. Of course, by cooking, I don't mean preparing instant noodle or shoving fish fingers in the oven: Instead, you should buy ingredients that haven't been transformed (fish, poultry, rice, pasta, beans, vegetables, fruits, etc) and cook them in a way that will preserve their nutrients and vitamins: Boiling, light sauteeing or steaming. Regarding organic labels in Indonesia, I don't bother with them as I doubt they can be trusted. Just make sure you peel the skin off vegetables and fruits, or wash them thoroughly with I could also talk about coconut milk, sugar, preservatives and pesticides, but I'm sure you already get my point: You mustas often as you can.Of course, by cooking, I don't mean preparing instant noodle or shoving fish fingers in the oven: Ultra-processed foods are probably even worse than street food.Instead, you should buy ingredients that haven't been transformed (fish, poultry, rice, pasta, beans, vegetables, fruits, etc) and cook them in a way that will preserve their nutrients and vitamins: Boiling, light sauteeing or steaming.Regarding organic labels in Indonesia, I don't bother with them as I doubt they can be trusted. Just make sure you peel the skin off vegetables and fruits, or wash them thoroughly with filtered water 4) Be smart if using motorbikes Riding a bike in Jakarta is particularly hazardous, but you can improve your safety by taking some simple precautions: - Wear a protective helmet: Not the one your Gojek driver is giving you, and not the one you bought on the street for US20$. A good one should either be certified ECE22.05 (European Union) or - Wear protective clothes: Gloves, pants, shoes, and a jacket. - Prefer a new bike, and check that everything works well (brakes, lights, acceleration power, mirrors, oil, etc). - Don't drink and drive. - To limit your exposure to pollution, wear a mask (see above). - Always prefer alternative ways to go around, especially for long distances: Taxi, cars, TransJakarta, MRT or train. In my 15 years in Indonesia, I've been to 2 funerals of friends and colleagues who died in a motorbike accident, and I know at least 10 more who were involved in a serious crash.Riding a bike in Jakarta is particularly hazardous, but you can improve your safety by taking some simple precautions:- Wear a protective helmet: Not the one your Gojek driver is giving you, and not the one you bought on the street for US20$. A good one should either be certified ECE22.05 (European Union) or DOT (US).- Wear protective clothes: Gloves, pants, shoes, and a jacket.- Prefer a new bike, and check that everything works well (brakes, lights, acceleration power, mirrors, oil, etc).- Don't drink and drive.- To limit your exposure to pollution, wear a mask (see above).- Always prefer alternative ways to go around, especially for long distances: Taxi, cars, TransJakarta, MRT or train. 5) Stay clean! Adopting a no-shoes policy in your house is a smart idea. Did you know that after one month, It is also essential to wash your hands regularly or to use an Many health problems in Indonesia come from a lack of hygiene or a dirty environment. To protect yourself, you must make sure both your home and your body are not contaminated.Adopting a no-shoes policy in your house is a smart idea. Did you know that after one month, 93% of shoes have fecal matters (yes, poop) on them? And that 70% carry E. coli germs?It is also essential to wash your hands regularly or to use an antibacterial gel after spending time outside (especially on public transports). 6) Check that your vaccines are up-to-date Many diseases in Indonesia can be avoided with vaccination. The recommended ones for Indonesia are those against Hepatitis A and B, Typhoid, Tetanus-Diphtheria, Rabies, and Meningitis. That's a lot of shots, and I'm not a doctor. Visit one and ask him/her for advice. Keep in mind that vaccines need several weeks before being effective. 7) Avoid mosquito bites Mosquitoes are the deadliest animal on the planet, ahead of spiders, scorpions, sharks, tigers, crocodiles, and jellyfishes. They carry and transmit diseases like malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya, encephalitis, and yellow fever. In total, they kill 725,000 people and infect 700 million more every single year. Unfortunately, Indonesia has plenty of them. To avoid mosquito bites, follow these rules: - Close your windows and doors from sunset to sunrise - Wear pants and long sleeve shirts when outside in the evening or at night - Apply mosquito repellents (with content in DEET between 30% and 50%) on your most-exposed body parts (neck, ears, forearms, ankles). 8) Stay fit You don't need to exercise every day. 3 times a week, do 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weightlifting, and you will notice a huge difference in your overall well-being. 9) Always have travel or medical insurance Even a simple injury like a broken ankle can mean trouble as you can see with this tourist: There are a few insurance companies that are reliable. One of them is WorldNomads, which is recommended by the Lonely Planet. You can check how much it would cost with this widget: If you are a member of a Jakarta or Bali expat group on Facebook, you will see every month a post about a fundraising effort to pay for a foreigner's medical bill (or to pay for his/her medical evacuation). For a stupid scooter accident, the cost can easily reach tens of thousands of dollars.Even a simple injury like a broken ankle can mean trouble as you can see with this tourist:If you are not convinced yet, read my post about why you need travel insurance in Indonesia There are a few insurance companies that are reliable. One of them is WorldNomads, which is recommended by the Lonely Planet.You can check how much it would cost with this widget: When you live in Jakarta, going to the gym is almost mandatory. Unlike in other cities, you cannot stay in shape by walking back home from work or by running in the park. You need an artificial way to make your heart beat and to activate your muscles.You don't need to exercise every day. 3 times a week, do 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weightlifting, and you will notice a huge difference in your overall well-being. Alternatively, you can buy plants that are known to remove pollutants ( Check this list from the NASA ). PANAJI: With the death of Manohar Parrikar, hectic parleys are underway over who will succeed him to take over as the Chief Minister of Goa. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance met in Panaji on Sunday but the leaders failed to come to a consensus. The meeting was also attended by Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari. After the meeting, BJP MLA Michael Lobo said that MLA Sudin Dhavalikar of alliance partner Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) has thrown his hat in the race for the CM which brought the discussions to a halt. "Sudin Dhavalikar wants himself to be the CM, while the BJP wants that the leader of the alliance should be from their camp. We could not reach any decision," Lobo said after a night-long meeting. Lobo added that BJP MLAs have named Vishwajit Rane and Pramod Sawant as the probable candidates for the CM post. A decision on the same is likely to be taken later in the day. With the demise of Parrikar, the strength of 40-member Goa Legislative Assembly has been reduced to 36. BJP MLA Francis D'Souza died had last month, while two Congress members had resigned last year. Meanwhile, Congress MLA Digambar Kamat rubbished reports of him joining the BJP and taking over as the CM. "My programme in Delhi was finalised 2-3 days ago, there's no question of meeting anybody. I had gone to Delhi for personal work. I don't have any offers from the BJP; these stories were planted by vested interests. I'm not bothered about the leadership or the Chief Minister post," Kamat on his return from the national capital. "If becoming the Chief Minister of Goa is in my destiny then no one can stop him from getting the post," Kamat added. Goa Congress, which had earlier staked claim to form government in the state, yet again reached out to the Governor over the same. Goa Congress leaders G Chodankar and C Kavlekar in their letter said: "Coalition partners of Parrikar led Govt had allied with BJP on condition that government is headed by Manohar Parrikar. BJP, therefore, has no allies as of now." New Delhi: Even as the political curiosity in Goa continue following the death of Manohar Parrikar on Sunday evening, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced that new Goa Chief Minister will be announced by 3 pm today. "The clarity on the new Chief Minister of Goa will be out by 2 pm today and the new CM would be sworn in after the 3 pm today," Goa BJP president Vinay Tendulkar told PTI. Congress, which is the single largest party in the state will 14 MLA in the 40-member assembly, has been staking claim to form the government in the state ever since the BJP first confirmed that Parrikar's health had taken a turn for the worst. On Monday, all 14-member delegations of Goa Congress headed to Raj Bhawan to meet Governor Mridula Sinha to stake claim to form the government. "We met Governor Mridula Sinha and staked claim to form government as we are the single largest party in the state. We have 14 MLAs and we should be given the chance to form the government. We have told that we will prove majority. Saddened by demise of Goa CM," Congress leader Chandrakant Kavlekar told news agency ANI. Chandrakant Kavlekar, Congress: We met the Governor&staked claim to form government as we are the single largest party in the state. We have 14 MLAs and we should be given the chance to form the government. We have told that we will prove majority. Saddened by demise of Goa CM pic.twitter.com/vuBtmDd74M ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2019 The Opposition party had written to her on Friday and then on Sunday, staking claim to the government in the state. In the meantime, Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari held talks with party leaders including Vishwajit Rane and alliance partners Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) led by Sudip Dhavalikar in Panaji to select a new Goa chief minister. According to MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar, clarity on the leadership issue is most likely to come out by 3 pm today. "The MGP would hold its executive committee meeting later in the day to decide whether to continue its support to the BJP-led government or not," Dhavalikar told PTI. Both Sudip Dhavalikar and Vishwajit Rane are also top aspirants for the CM's post. However, the MGP leader said he was not in the race for the top post. The Congress currently stands with 14 MLAs while The BJP has 12 legislators, whose strength now is 36 after Manohar Parrikar's death. The strength of the House has reduced due to demise of BJP MLA Francis D'Souza earlier this year, and Parrikar on Sunday, and resignations of two Congress MLAs Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte last year. Goa Assembly Speaker Pramod Pandurang Sawant is emerging as the frontrunner to take over as the chief minister of the state following the death of Manohar Parrikar, sources told Zee News on Monday. Sawant is a two-time MLA and was elected as the Speaker on March 22, 2017, after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in the state following the Assembly election in alliance with Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Goa Forward Party (GFP) and Independents. The Goa Assembly has a strength of 40 members but currently, there are 36 MLAs following the death of two BJP legislators, Manohar Parrikar and Francis D'Souza, and the resignation of two Congress lawmakers. The majority mark in Goa Assembly at present is 19. The Congress, which staked claim to form the government in the state on Sunday evening, is the single-largest party with 14 MLAs, the BJP has 12, MGP three, GFP three, Nationalist Congress Party 1 and three Independents. The BJP is claiming the support of MGP, GFP and Independents. But Congress leaders say the BJP has lost the support of its allies in Goa Assembly as MGP and GFP had joined the government in 2017 only on the condition that Manohar Parrikar should be the chief minister and with his death, the situation has changed. "We deeply mourn the sad demise of Shri Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa. This unfortunate development calls for the immediate action on your part for the smooth transition and transfer of power. The coalition partners of the Parrikar-led government had allied with BJP on condition that the government is headed by Mr Manohar Parrikar, the then Defence Minister of India. The BJP, therefore, has no allies as of now. We therefore hereby once again stake claim to form the government," the Congress said in the letter written to Goa Governor Mridula Sinha. Congress lost two MLAs Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte who resigned and joined the BJP. Francis DSouza, the BJP MLA from Mapusa, died in February. NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reach Panaji to pay homage to late Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar. The PM will leave Delhi for Goa at 11 am and is expected to reach by 1:30 pm. Parrikar breathed his last at around 6:40 pm on Sunday after battling a pancreatic ailment for over a year. His mortal remains will be kept at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office from 9:30-10:30 am on Monday. Thereafter, he will be taken to Kala Academy for the public to pay their last respect from 11 am to 4 pm. His funeral procession will begin from Kala Academy in Panjim at 4 pm and his last rites will be performed at Miramar at 5 pm. Remembering Parrikar as 'an unparalleled leader', the PM had on Sunday said that the late Goa CM was a 'true patriot and exceptional administrator' who was admired by all. "Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters. Om Shanti," he tweeted. "Shri Manohar Parrikar was the builder of modern Goa. Thanks to his affable personality and accessible nature, he remained the preferred leader of the state for years. His pro-people policies ensured Goa scales remarkable heights of progress. India will be eternally grateful to Shri Manohar Parrikar for his tenure as our Defence Minister. When he was RM, India witnessed a series of decisions that enhanced Indias security capacities, boosted indigenous defence production and bettered the lives of ex-servicemen," he added. Along with the PM, several other dignitaries are also expected to be present in Goa on Monday. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will reach the state capital by 2:30 pm. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and CMs of other BJP ruled states will also be in Panaji to pay homage to the late leader. Goa will be observing a seven-day-mourning when the flag will fly at half-mast to grieve the loss of Parrikar who lost his life as the Chief Minister. The Centre has also announced a National Mourning on March 18. The Union Cabinet will be meeting on Monday to pay condolence to the deceased leader. Less than a day after Manohar Parrikar died, Congress staked claim to form the government in Goa. In a letter addressed to Governor Mridula Sinha, Congress claimed that since the coalition government in Goa had been formed on the condition that Parrikar would be the CM, his death has left the BJP with no allies. "We deeply mourn the sad demise of Shri Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister of Goa. This unfortunate development calls for the immediate action on your part for the smooth transition and transfer of power," reads the letter. "The coalition partners of the Parrikar-led government had allied with BJP on condition that the government is headed by Mr Manohar Parrikar, the then Defence Minister of India. The BJP, therefore, has no allies as of now." In the letter, Congress further said that since it is the single-largest party, it should be invited to form the next government. "We therefore hereby once again stake claim to form the government." Meanwhile, the BJP and its allies in Goa had held an emergency meeting on Sunday but there was no consensus. Sources said that a number of allies want to see their candidate take over as CM. A decision in this regard is expected later on Monday even as Goa and the entire country mourns the death of Parrikar. Parrikar's mortal remains will be at the BJP headquarters in Panaji and the last rites would take place at 1700hrs. New Delhi: The Delhi unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday registered a complaint with Election Commission against Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera. In its complaint, BJP alleged that Khera recently used derogatory words against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on national television, which was a violation of model code of conduct. Pawan Khera created a furore when he stated that 'MODI stands for Masood Azhar, Osama bin-Laden, Dawood Ibrahim and ISI'. BJP condemned Khera's remark and hit back saying that the country doesn't need enemies like Pakistan when it has Congress. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, who was present at the event when Khare made the controversial remarks, called his statement offensive and demanded an apology from him, which was instantly turned down by the Congress leader. A day after his controversial statement on PM Modi, Khare stated, "whenever farmers of this country and unemployed youths ask tough questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he hides behind terrorists and Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI." "From morning to evening, the Prime Minister and his party keep targeting Jawahar Lal Nehru and each and every leader. If you remember during Gujarat elections, Modi had claimed that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and General Deepak Kapoor were colluding with Pakistan to defeat him in Gujarat. What is that? Why should I not be outraged when they abuse our leaders? My leaders Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and Manmohan Singh were also country's prime ministers," Khera was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Kolkata: A Chinese national has been arrested in Kolkata for allegedly flying a camera-fitted drone over the Victoria Memorial and clicking aerial photographs of the iconic monument, the Kolkata Police said on Sunday. The monument is situated close to the Fort William, the Eastern Command headquarters of the Indian Army. The arrested person, identified as Li Zhiwei, was first spotted by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Saturday and was later handed over to the Kolkata Police. He has been sent to police custody till March 25. "Zhiwei, 34, a resident of Shenzen City in China, was caught red-handed by the on duty CISF personnel while he was flying a drone fitted with a camera inside the premises of the Victoria Memorial and clicking photographs of the monument from all directions with the help of a remote control and his mobile phone without any valid permission," the police said. He was handed over to the Hastings police station on Saturday evening along with a brown coloured drone and a remote control. "The accused has been arrested for violating the regulation of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Further probe into the matter is on," the police added. New Delhi: In view of the upcoming Lok Sabha election, India's leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband on Monday issued a statement announcing prohibitions on the entry of leaders and politicians inside its campus. The restriction on the entry of politicians will be imposed till the end of Lok Sabha election and it has been supported by other Madrassa operators and Deobandi ulemas. Madrassa Shekhul Hind vice-chancellor Mufti Asad Qasim said according to Vice-Chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband Abdul Qasim Nomani most of the political parties, who visit Darool Uloom try to use the institution for electoral mileage. Qasim said that the parties try to portray before the media that they have the support of Darul Uloom. "Darul Uloom is only an educational institution. In the past, it has been shown in the media that top leaders from various political parties have gone to Darul Uloom and have gained its support. Although Darul Uloom Deoband has repeatedly said that the institution has no affiliation with politics or any political leader. Hence, keeping this in media, a statement has been released by Abdul Qasim Nomani that no student or teacher will meet or held any political debate with any politician or leader." He added that those who want to visit the campus in the capacity of an ordinary visitor or after the Lok Sabha election are most welcome. Deoband Ulema Mohammad Qari Ishad said, "Every time election dates come close, political leaders are seen visiting the institution on a regular basis. And they portray before media that they have the support of Darul Ulema. These things lead to affect the image of the institution. The decision to keep political leaders away from the institution is laudable." NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) officers on Monday said that they have enough evidence against Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and other separatist leaders to book them terror funding case registered by the agency in May 2017. The investigators added that they have found letterheads of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jammat-ud-Dawa, Hizbul Mujahideen and other terrorist organisations after the raids at seven locations in Srinagar last month. Talking to IANS an NIA officer said that Mirwaiz Farooq, the Chairman Awami Action Committee, and some other senior separatist leaders are likely to face action soon in the terror funding case. Asked about the names of those separatist leaders, the officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, said Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, Yasin Malik, and Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani's son Naseem Geelani are also on the NIA list. It is to be noted that summons were issued by the agency on March 9 asking them to visit the NIA headquarters for questioning. Other separatist leaders who are likely to face NIA's action are Mohammad Ashraf Khan, Chairman Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Masarat Alam, General Secretary, All Party Hurriyat Conference, and Zaffar Akbar Bhat, Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Salvation Movement, IANS reported. The official added that during the raid some property papers, financial transactions receipts, bank account details and electronic devices including laptops, e-tablets, mobile phones, pen drives, communication system and digital video recorders were also recovered by NIA. He noted that these evidence prove that Farooq and other separatist leaders were taking orders from Pakistan-based terror groups and were involved in "anti-national operations". The raids were conducted on February 26 at the homes of suspected separatist leaders including Shabbir Shah, President of Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party. In January last year, the NIA had filed chargesheet against Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven Kashmiri separatist leaders and others. The NIA had arrested separatist leaders Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah on July 24, 2017 in connection with this case. (with IANS inputs) Mumbai: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) will hold a condolence meet on Monday evening to pay tributes to their alumnus, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who died after a long illness. The meeting will be held at 5 pm at the institute's P C Saxena auditorium here, an IIT-B spokesperson said. Parrikar, 63, who had also been the defence minister, died on Sunday evening at his private residence in Goa after battling a pancreatic ailment since over a year. In 2017, he addressed the 55th convocation of the Mumbai-based institute where he told the graduates to take up jobs in social and development sectors. An alumnus of the famed institute, he also asked students to join politics and the Army, said a former IIT-B student who was present at the convocation ceremony. "Why can't IIT graduates, who have had the best engineering education in the country, take up academics and run some of these colleges, and transform their quality?" Parrikar had then said. The institute in its condolence message said Parrikar's demise came as a shock to them. "He was the institute's distinguished alumnus and keenly involved with many initiatives at IIT Bombay. He was also deeply involved with the launch of IIT Goa," it said. On the Alumni Day in 2014, IIT-B felicitated Parrikar, who graduated in metallurgical engineering from the institute in 1978, in recognition of his contribution to the development of the country. Pakistan Kidney Center PKC Abbottabad Jobs 2019 Latest Pakistan Kidney Center PKC Medical Posts Abbottabad 2021 Pakistan Kidney Center PKC Abbottabad, Pakistan seeks candidates for the posts of Radiologist, Sonologist, Bio Medical Engineer, Public Relation Officer, Help Desk Officer, Receptionist, OT Technician, Dialysis Technician, Nurse, HR Officer. How to Apply on Pakistan Kidney Center PKC Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error is possible. Error & omissions excepted. New Delhi: India on Monday sent a note verbale to Pakistan following reports of harassment of Indian diplomats, asking Islamabad to not only investigate the matter but also share the results. Listing instances from the month of March, India highlighted to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry how two Pakistan agency personnel were seen following Indian High Commission's car on a daily basis. The current instance of harassment of Indian diplomats took place from March 8 to March 11, in which they were not only aggressively followed by Pakistan security personnel but constant surveillance was kept on them. Pakistani security agency personnel have been seen approaching local security guards at officers residence and pressurising them to divulge information. On March 8, First Secretary was aggressively tailed by Pakistan security agencies while going to the bank. On the same day itself, Indian Naval Advisor was tailed in the bike while going from chancery to residence. On March 9, India's Deputy High Commissioner was followed by a bike wherever he went. The Indian Naval Advisor was again followed for a second day. Incidentally, Pakistan agency personnel kept surveillance in a car stationed in front of the residence of naval advisor. The Harassment continued on March 10 as well, when Deputy High Commissioner (DHC) was aggressively followed by Pakistan security personnel. The Pakistani agency personnel were observed meeting local security guards and asked details regarding availability of the officer, details of occupants. On March 11, Indian Naval Advisor and Military Advisor were aggressively tailed while going from residence to chancery. Other than this, two officers of Indian high commissioner in Islamabad have been receiving hoax calls for the last few days. New Delhi has reminded Pakistan that the incidents are a violation of Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. It added that the safety and security of the Indian High Commission, its officers and staff members are the responsibility of the Pakistan government. The functioning of diplomatic missions between India and Pakistan is governed by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and the bilateral Code of Conduct signed by the two countries in 1992. India, Pakistan code of conduct of 1992 says safety and security of the premises of diplomatic personnel, their families shall be respected and protected. It also says intrusive and aggressive surveillance such as verbal and physical harassment shall not be allowed. In a big diplomatic win for the Indian government, Westminster Court in London on Monday issued an arrest warrant against diamantaire Nirav Modi based on Enforcement Directorate's request for his extradition to India. Nirav Modi was recently spotted in London sporting a handlebar moustache and wearing a jacket worth almost Rs 10 lakh. Nirav Modi, who is accused of defrauding Punjab National Bank to the tune of over Rs 13,000 crore has been asked to appear before the court on March 25, officials said. Sources added that it is likely that the celebrity diamond trader will be arrested by London police. Modi, however, can apply for bail and he is likely to get conditional bail. It is to be noted that senior officials of Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate are in round-the-clock touch with UK authorities and Indian High Commission in London. The extradition process against Modi was started by the ED in August 2018. India's extradition request for Nirav Modi was certified by UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid on March 9. The Indian authorities upped the pressure on Modi after it was found that he was living in London's West End. PTI reported that the 48-year-old Modi is currently living in a three-bedroom flat at landmark Centre Point tower block in London. It is estimated that the rent in this area cost 17,000 pounds a month. Sources said that Modi is also running a new diamond business in London. The Indian authorities have already frozen Nirav Modi's bank accounts and an Interpol red notice has also been issued against him for his arrest. The Indian government has also attached his assets worth Rs 1,873.08 crore under the PMLA and has seized assets linked to him and his family worth Rs 489.75 crore. Nirav Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others are facing investigation from the ED and the CBI for alleged money laundering and corruption to carry out the alleged scam in the Brady House branch of the PNB in Mumbai. The scam came out in open in February last year. Sources said that Modi arrived in London from the US last year and he managed to travel in and out of Britain at least four times despite the cancellation of his passport by the Indian government in February 2018. New Delhi: Manohar Parrikar, who passed away at his private residence on Sunday evening after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer, became India's 18th and Goa's second Chief Minister to die in office. Parrikar, 63, was the first Bharatiya Janata Party leader to be Goa Chief Minister. He headed the state from 2000-05 and 2012-14, before joining the Narendra Modi government as Defence Minister from 2014 before returned to state politics in 2017 to lead a coalition government. Before Parrikar, 17 Chief Ministers including Tamil Nadu`s J. Jayalalitha, Jammu and Kashmir`s Sheikh Abdullah and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, and Andhra Pradesh`s Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy died in harness. Gopinath Bordoloi (Assam): The first Chief Minister of Assam , he worked closely with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to secure its sovereignty against China and Pakistan (as then East Pakistan bordered it) on the other before his death in 1950. Ravishankar Shukla (Madhya Pradesh): A freedom fighter who laid special emphasis on the uplift of women and was a staunch opponent of illiteracy, purdah and dowry system, he became the first Chief Minister of the central state in 1956 but died two months into his stint. Sri Krishna Singh (Bihar): The first Chief Minister of Bihar, Sinha held the post right from when Congress won the elections under British rule in 1937 to 1961, save the World War II period. Bidhan Chandra Roy (West Bengal): An eminent freedom fighter and qualified doctor, he weas the second Chief Minister of West Bengal. After Independence, the Congress proposed his name as the state`s Chief Minister but he declined since he was more dedicated to his medical profession. However, on Mahatma Gandhi`s insistence, he accepted the position in January 1948 and held the post until his death in 1962. Marotrao Kannamwar (Mahrashtra): The second Chief Minister of the newly-created state, he succeeded Y.B. Chavan in 1962 but died after a stint of only one year and four days. Balwantrai Mehta (Gujarat): Succeeding Jivraj Narayan Mehta as Chief Minister on February 25, 1963, Mehta is the only Indian Chief Minister to become a war casualty. During the 1965 India-Pakistani War, his civilian aircraft was shot down by the Pakistan Air Force on September 19, 1965 as he was returning from a border area, killing him and all others aboard. C. N. Annadurai (Madras/Tamil Nadu): Popularly known as `Anna`, he left an indelible mark not only on Tamil politics and society, but also national politics. The fifth and last Chief Minister of Madras from 1967 until 1969, he became the first Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu when the name of the state was changed but only held the post for 20 days. Annadurai, who had travelled to New York for medical treatment for cancer in September 1968 and underwent an operation, returned to Chennai in November and continued to attend official functions against medical advice. His health deteriorated further and he died in February 1969. Dayanand Bandodkar (Goa): Popularly known as Bhausaheb Bandodkar, he was Goa`s first Chief Minister after liberation from Portuguese rule. He swept the polls in 1963, 1967 and in 1972 at the head of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and remained in power until his death in 1973. Barkatullah Khan (Rajasthan): The only Muslim Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Khan died of a heart attack while in office, aged 53 years. He was Chief Minister from July 9, 1971 to October 11, 1973. Sheikh Abdullah (Jammu and Kashmir): Known as "Sher-e-Kashmir", Abdullah was the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference and held the post of Chief Minister three times between Jammu and Kashmir`s accession to India and the early 1980s, amid a turbulent relationship with the Central government and several spells of imprisonment. He was in power when he died in 1982. M. G. Ramachandran (Tamil Nadu): Popularly known as MGR, he dominated Tamil films and politics. The first film actor to become a Chief Minister, he headed Tamil Nadu for 10 years from 1977, save a six-month interregnum in 1980 when his government was dismissed by the Centre, till his death in 1987. Chimanbhai Patel (Gujarat): Replacing Ghanshyam Oza as Chief Minister in July 1973, he only served in office till February 9, 1974 being forced out of office by the `Nav Nirman` movement on charges of corruption. He again became the Chief Minister on March 4, 1990 as a part of the V.P. Singh-led National Front but later switched over the the Congress, and continued in power till his death on February 17, 1994. Beant Singh (Punjab): Credited with stamping out militancy in Punjab after becoming Chief Minister in 1992, he was assassinated when a suicide attack at the Secretariat building in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy (Andhra Pradesh): Popularly known as YSR, Reddy was a two-time Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (2004-2009). However, early in his second stint, his helicopter crashed in a dense forest in Chitoor district on September 3, 2009. Dorjee Khandu: He became the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh replacing Gegong Apang in 2007. He was again sworn as Chief Minister in October 2009 but died on April 30, 2011 when the helicopter in which he was returning to Itanagar from a trip to Tawang crashed. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (Jammu and Kashmir): A two-time Chief Minister, Sayeed, who led the first coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir involving the BJP, died on January 7, 2016. India`s first Muslim Home Minister in the V.P. Singh government, Sayeed became Chief Minister for the first time in 2002-05 in a coalition government with the Congress. In his second stint, he allied with the BJP to become the chief minister. J. Jayalalitha (Tamil Nadu): Jayalalithaa, who died on December 5, 2016 in her fifth stint as Chief Minister, held the post for over 14 years between 1991 and 2016. Affectionately called "Amma" by fans and party activists, Jayalalithaa became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 1991. She again returned to power in 2001 but had to step down after her name figured in a court case. After being cleared, she took over again in 2002 and ruled till 2006. She wrested the state from the DMK in 2011, but had to step down in September 2014 after being convicted in a corruption case by a Bengaluru court. Acquitted, she took back the reins in May 2015 and led her party back to power in 2016. When she was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in Chennai on September 22, 2016, no one believed that she would come out of it in a coffin. PANAJI: Four-time Goa Chief Minister and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was on Monday cremated with state honours, with thousands bidding an emotional farewell to the departed soul. The funeral at Miramar beach was attended by BJP President Amit Shah, some Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states. The funeral pyre was lit by Parrikar's eldest son Utpal. Parrikar's funeral procession started from the Kala Academy where thousands, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister Smriti Irani paid their last respects to the former defence minister. The mortal remains of Parrikar, 63, were kept in a flower-decked hearse which left for the Miramar beach with thousands of mourners. Parrikar died on Sunday after a prolonged illness. The BJP leader had been undergoing treatment for pancreatic ailment in hospitals in New York, Goa, Mumbai and Delhi since February 2018. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed sadness over Parrikar's demise and called him an unparalleled leader. "Shri Manohar Parrikar was an unparalleled leader. A true patriot and exceptional administrator, he was admired by all. His impeccable service to the nation will be remembered by generations. Deeply saddened by his demise. Condolences to his family and supporters. Om Shanti,"" tweeted the Prime Minister on Sunday. Parrikar was a graduate from IIT-Bombay and also a RSS pracharak before he took active plunge in politics in 1994. He started his political innings on a high by winning from the Panaji constituency on BJP ticket. He served as the Goa CM on four occasions and was also Defence Minister November 2014 and March 2017. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay on Sunday, expressed grief and condoled his death. In a statement, IIT-B said that the chief minister came as "a shock to all of us at IIT Bombay". The institute added that CM Parrikar was also "deeply involved with the launch of IIT Goa". It is to be noted that Parrikar was also the Chief Guest for the 55th Convocation of IIT Bombay held on August 12, 2017. Born on December 13, 1955, Parrikar will always be remembered for his simplicity and honesty. Parrikar was one of the few leaders who never sided with the pomp and show which are the hallmarks of Indian politicians. Parrikar is survived by two sons. His wife Medha Parrikar died in 2001 following an illness. Pakistan on Monday violated ceasefire by resorting - once again - to unprovoked firing from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Sunderbani sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri. Pakistani forces began firing from across the LoC on Monday morning, targeting Indian outposts. Although the retaliatory fire from Indian forces was equally strong, news agency IANS reported that one soldier has been martyred. Pakistan has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement between the two countries and has often also targeted civilian areas with gun and mortar fire. Despite recent tensions between the two countries, Pakistan continues to turn a blind eye on terror organisations on its soil - often even supporting them with money, material and cover fire to help them infiltrate Jammu and Kashmir. Indian forces have time and again retaliated with heavy return fire while authorities have hastened construction of bunkers for the safety of civilians residing close to the LoC. NEW DELHI: United Arab Emirates (UAE)'s envoy to India Ahmed Albanna on Monday said that his country did not mediate in India Pakistan tensions that happened in February but did play an important role in reducing tension between the two countries. In response to a question he said, "We did not mediate. When we talk about mediation, it has to be request from both parties and then after that. We tried to decrease the tension by that special relationship. We have played an important role in reducing tension. On day of a big escalation our Crown Prince spoke to PM Modi and PM Imran Khan. Our role was to give word of wisdom & tryng to sort out difference in a peaceful manner. UAE played an important role" He said that PM Modi and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan spoke twice in last 3 weeks. On the issue of cross border terror emanating from Pakistan, the envoy said, "Without mentioning any specific person, name or country UAE has a long-standing preventing, flighting act of terrorism and those radicalist, radical organisation, so we work with all partners, with many different countries, with all the countries in the region to make our region peaceful region that we can live together and coexist". He also welcomed India's presence at Organisation of Islamic cooperation Foreign ministers meet in Abu Dhabi saying due to special relationship between both the countries New Delhi was invited. External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj represented India during the 2 day OIC FMs meet in the country in early march. This is the first time India was invited as guest of honour at the meet. On oil import, one of the key commodities India imports from West Asia, Albanna said, UAE, Saudi Arabia covered the shortage of oil for India after Iran Sanction. India and UAE ties have been on an upward trajectory with number of high levels visits between the 2 countries in last few years including PM visiting the country twice and USE being invited as chief guest at Republic day parade. By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. You can find out more by clicking this link New Delhi: In a bid to revive cinema halls in Kashmir, the CRPF restored a defunct cinema hall 'Heaven' in Anantnag in Jammu and Kashmir. The cinema hall was opened after 28 long years. A CRPF battalion of 40 soldiers watched Shahid Kapoor-Shraddha Kapoor starrer 'Batti Gul Meter Chalu' on March 6. This is the first film which has been screened in the theatre after 1991. The cinema hall had last screened Amitabh Bachchan-starrer 'Kalia' in 1991 before it shut down. 'Heaven' was started by a local businessman in 1989 but was forced to shut down in 1991 due to terrorism in the region. The theatre had reduced to rubbles after a grenade attack by terrorists in 1991. Now, revived again by the CRPF, 'Heaven' cinema hall has a seating capacity of at least 525 people. To restart the cinema hall, the CRPF had arranged the 70 mm silver screen and a surrounding sound system from Delhi. At present, there are more than 250 terrorists active in the state. In such a situation, starting a cinema hall in Anantnag was a big challenge for the CRPF. However, after the Pulwama terror attack, the security personnel decided to reopen the theatre. And the decision brought a smile on the faces of youth. For now, the ticket has been kept free for citizens. In 1989, extremist group Allah Tigers had threatened all the cinema hall owners to shut down theatres in the valley, calling film anti-Islamic. In 1980, at least 15 cinema halls were running in the Valley. It is believed that people of Kashmir have always been very passionate about Hindi films. In fact, at Khayam cinema hall, silver jubilee of Amitabh Bachchan-Dharmendra cult film 'Sholay' was also celebrated. However, in 1989, all the cinema halls in the Valley had to be shut down due to terrorism. In 1999, three cinema halls - Regal, Neelam and Broadway were restarted. However, in the same year, during the inaugural show of a film at Regal cinema hall, terrorists had launched a grenade attack which claimed the life of one person while 12 others had suffered injuries. In September 2005, Neelam cinema hall was opened again. However, suicide bombers had attacked the cinema hall after which it was shut down. Srinagar: Pakistan on Monday violated ceasefire from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Akhnoor and Sunderbani sectors of Jammu and Kashmir. The violation of ceasefire was reported at around 10:45 pm. Pakistani troops resorted to shelling with mortars and firing of small arms. Indian Army is effectively retaliating to the unprovoked firing. The Pakistani Rangers have been repeatedly violating the ceasefire, killing security forces as well as civilians. The year 2018 had witnessed the highest number of ceasefire violations, which is 2,936, by the Pakistani troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday told Congress to refrain from making any attempts to create confusion over the seat allocation for Lok Sabha election. "SP-BSP- RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh is capable of defeating BJP. Congress should not create any confusion," he said. The statement comes after the Congress on Sunday said it would leave seven seats for the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance in Uttar Pradesh. Congress had said that it will be leaving more than a dozen Lok Sabha seats for other parties. Earlier Akhilesh's alliance partner Mayawati had hit out at the Congress must not give the wrong impression by leaving seven seats vacant in the SP-BSP alliance. "Congress party is absolutely free to contest Lok Sabha election on all 80 seats independently in UP. Congress must not give the wrong impression by leaving seven seats vacant in UP for SP, BSP and RLD. Our alliance formed here is strong enough to defeat BJP," she said in a series of tweets. She also made it clear that the BSP will not enter into any alliance with the Congress. The SP and the BSP are fighting the Lok Sabha election in an alliance. As per the deal, the SP will contest on 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP and the BSP will fight on 38 seats of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The alliance has left three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). A Chinese village cadre has led her fellow villagers to a wealthier life thanks to her efforts in promoting forestation campaigns over the past years. The village cadre Shen Tengxiang is the Party chief of Nankeng village, Changting county in southeast Chinas Fujian province. When she married into her husbands family in Nankeng village 32 years ago, Changting was still suffering the severest soil erosion in southern China. However, Shen, together with her fellow villagers, has turned the village into a famous site of eco-tourism, raising annual per capita income of the locals to over 16,800 yuan ($2,503), up from less than 600 yuan in 1996. Shen became very proud when sharing the achievements. 22 years ago, she began working on the control of soil erosion, leading her fellow villagers to plant trees on the hills. The Party members and cadres were the first batch to plant the saplings, with each one planting on an area of 0.33 hectare. As the chief of the Party branch of Nankeng village, Shen covered 1.33 hectares alone. Hard work forever pays. The vegetation gradually expanded on the hills of Nankeng village, from points to blocks, and finally achieved full coverage. Pointing to the trees in the distance, Shen told Peoples Daily that the hills would make a sea of golden leaves in autumn. A couplet was hung on a pavilion of the village to praise her efforts and contribution. What these trees have brought is not only greenness, but also profits, as some smart villagers tried to grow watermelons under the trees. Yuan Tingyun was one of them. He once earned more than 10,000 yuan through the watermelons he harvested. My wife and I even cried with joy when we counted the money, since we had never seen such a thick stack, he recalled. In recent years, Shen attracted a large number of investments to the village. A donation of over 1.3 million yuan was made by a couple living in Xiamen, capital of Fujian province. However, Shen is quite cautious in using the capital. She often invites highly respected senior villagers for supervision. Paying high attention to the overall economic development of the village, Shen introduced gingko trees to create more profits while maintain ecology. Now, the gingko trees, which form unique scenery of the village, are attracting a number of visitors. Shen disclosed that she was planning to build a nursing home to make better use of the eco-environment of the village. Home care services for the elderly may take as much as four to five thousand yuan per month for a family, she said, explaining that her plan to build a nursing home would not only relieve social pressure, but also generate profits for the village. GANDHINAGAR: Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who has recently joined the Congress, on Monday expressed his desire to contest from Jamnagar, Gujarat, in upcoming Lok Sabha poll, adding that he had informed the party high command about his desire. "I`ve shown a desire to contest from Jamnagar... But let the party decide what is to be done. I am ready to accept whatever role the party assigns to me. With maturity and sincerity, I have joined this party. I have recently started my career in politics and I have a long way to go, so let`s just see what happens," Hardik was quoted as saying by IANS. Hardik said that the Congress will definitely win the Lok Sabha poll and form the next government at the Centre. "There is massive dissent in the public regarding various issues which are totally ignored by the ruling BJP party in the Centre as well as in the state," he noted. Hardik added that the Congress will take steps to address all these issues after assuming power. "You see, even the workers and other leaders in the BJP are disgruntled over the way the party is horse trading our (Congress) MLAs and giving them plum positions as cabinet ministers and more in the government. If the BJP has done so many developmental works as they claim, why should they resort to grabbing Congress MLAs? This is a clear indication they are rattled and are on the losing ground," said Hardik Patel. Hardik also talked about his decision to join the Congress and said that he decided to enter politics because country needs young leaders who are connected to ground and can address the issues of public. "It is also not necessary that people from a single family come into politics," he remarked. Meanwhile, Hardik Patel has filed a petition before the Gujarat High Court seeking a stay on the Mehsana court order in which he has been convicted in the rioting and arson case during the Patel agitation in 2015. The Mehsana court had awarded two-year jail term to Hardik. The Gujarat High Court will hear the case on on Tuesday. (with IANS inputs) Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student activist Umar Khalid's father Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas will be contesting the Lok Sabha election from Murshidabad's Jangipur constituency in West Bengal on the ticket of Welfare Party of India. The seat was previously held by former president Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit. Speaking to Zee media, Ilyas said that when the party fought the by-poll for the first time in 2012, they got 42000 votes in just 23 days. The party which also contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election, will be in the fray for the third time in the 2019 general election. Shedding light on his constituency, Ilyas said that Jangipur is one of the backward constituencies of the state. He also alleged that though Pranab Mukherjee hails from the area, he did nothing for the people despite the expectations that people had from him. He added that the employment opportunities are minimal in the area because of which people have migrated to other cities. He also stated that there are no primary health centers or universities in this region. Lashing out at all political parties, he said that be it Congress, Left or Trinamool Congress (TMC), none of the parties who ruled the state did anything for the constituency in the past three decades. Attacking the Central government for a 'non-secular image', he said that democratic institutions and democratic rights have collapsed in the name of nationalism. He also alleged that people are being challenged and harassed. "If we win this election, we will support the party who has a secular image," he said. Looking forward, Ilyas said that his party will be contesting with the agenda on common demands and needs for the people of Jangipur, adding that he is hopeful of a good result in the election. In a major trouble for Congress-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka, actor Sumalatha, the wife of late Congress leader M H Ambareesh on Monday announced she will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha poll as an independent candidate from Mandya seat. Sumalatha's decision is set to create a headache for JD(S) because she will be locked in a direct fight with Nikhil Gowda, who is the son of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. Sumalatha informed reporters that she would file her nomination from Mandya on March 20. She expressed confidence that people of Mandya would support her and the Congress would rue the decision to not give ticket to her as the party would find it very tough to make a comeback in that region. "Many Congress leaders in Mandya are facing identity crisis and they came to me and requested me to contest the election. Therefore I decided to contest. This decision would cost the Congress dear. It would be very tough for the party to make a comeback in that region (Mandya)," she was quoted as saying by PTI. Sumalatha said she had talked to several Congress leaders seeking the party's ticket from Mandya but she was not given the ticket due to coalition compulsions but many Congress workers and leaders from Mandya urged her to contest the Lok Sabha poll. Sources told PTI that Sumalatha was declined a ticket by several Congress leaders including Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah. Sumalatha then tried to get ticket from the BJP and she met former union minister and BJP leader S M Krishna over this matter but Krishna also failed to guarantee her a ticket. "I have been reading in the media about some BJP and Congress leaders willing to extend support to me. I hope I will get their support because Ambareesh was an apolitical being and he was loved by almost all political parties," she said. Sumalatha said she was not thinking too much about winning the election, adding that she decided to throw her hat in the ring only to fulfil the demands of the fans and supporters of Ambareesh. "I declined so many posts including MLC's offered by the Congress in the past. I am entering in to politics for the people of Mandya. I have heeded the people's request. It is Mandya or nothing for me. I am going to fight for Mandya. I am not bothered about winning or losing," she added. (with PTI inputs) NEW DELHI: Taking a dig at opposition unity for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Lok Janshakti Party leader Chirag Paswan on Monday said many opposition parties were not ready to go with the Congress and the `Mahagathbandhan` (Grand Alliance) was a "delusion". "Let alone coming together, the leaders of the Grand Alliance do not even want to be seen together. (BSP supremo) Mayawati ji has issued a statement saying that Congress should not spread lies that they are together. Something like this is happening between the AAP and Congress. "Unity among the opposition is delusion. They are scared of even talking to each other," said Chirag Paswan, the son of Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan. Under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) seat sharing arrangement in Bihar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) will contest 17 seats each, while the LJP will contest on six seats and Chirag Paswan said he was confident that they would win as many as 37 of the total 40 seats. He said the LJP candidates for Hajipur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Jamui, Nawada and Khagadia were finalised on Monday but the names were not announced "as a mark of respect" to Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who died on Sunday and was cremated on Monday. Senior Paswan will not contest the Lok Sabha election this time as he would go to Rajya Sabha later, which has led to speculations that his brother and Bihar LJP chief Pashupati Kumar Paras would contest from Hajipur. Also Munger MP Veena Devi is likely to be fielded from Nawada -- which currently is represented by Union Minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh. Chirag Paswan also said that his party has considerable support in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand but would not field any candidate from these states. PRAYAGRAJ: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Monday began her three-day tour from Prayagraj to Varanasi. She will undertake the tour on foot, in car and through steamer boats in an attempt to widen the reach of the Congress in the area. Posters of the Priyanka and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi have been put up across the 140-kilometre route through four districts of the state - Prayagraj, Bhadohi, Mirzapur and Varanasi - which she will cover in the next three days. The journey which commenced from Prayagraj on Monday will conclude at Varanasi's Assi Ghat and Dashashwamedh ghat on Wednesday evening. Prayagraj: Preparation visuals from Manaiya ghat. Congress General Secretary UP-East Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will take a 3-day, 140 km long 'Ganga-yatra' on a steamer boat, starting today, from Chhatnag in Prayagraj to Assi Ghat in Varanasi. pic.twitter.com/mEBKt4b1Ww ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 18, 2019 She reached Prayagraj late on Sunday night after holding meetings with party leaders in Lucknow. She will be offering prayers at the Sangam ghat. She is also likely to visit the Hanuman mandir and Akshay vat to pay obeisance. Throughout her trip, she will be interacting with people and try to know the pulse of the state. She will also be meeting the family of Pulwama attack martyr Mahesh Yadav in Allahabad. Ahead of her three-day poll campaign, Priyanka on Sunday wrote an open letter addressed to the people of Uttar Pradesh and vowed to change the face of politics. For this, she said, she will be meeting the people are will hear their problems and concerns as "political transformation in the state was not possible without listening to the voices of the people and sharing their pain". "Hence, I have come to your doorstep for a sachaa samwaad (genuine conversation). I assure you that based on the conversation with you, we will bring transformation in politics. We will move towards solving your problems," she said in the letter. "River Ganga is a symbol of truth and equality. It is also a symbol of our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (culture). It does not differentiate among people. Ganga-ji is the lifeline of Uttar Pradesh and with her support I will reach you," the letter read. London: Actor-supermodel Cara Delevingne says she aims to inspire and motivate girls who find it difficult to fit in. The "Paper Towns" star said she wants to connect with her fans and share her ups and downs with them through her social media accounts. "I think it's important to express yourself. I hope I can be an inspiration to girls who aren't normal or feel like they (don't) belong, because I definitely don't a lot of the time," Delevingne told Elle magazine. The actor also revealed that despite being successful, she at times, suffers from self-doubt. "Sometimes I'm the most awkward person in the world in my body and my skin. Sometimes I'm far too confident. I think it's a constant journey," she said. New Delhi: Superstar Shah Rukh Khan's elder son Aryan Khan has grown up to be a handsome young lad and looks strikingly similar to his daddy cool. Aryan recently shared a few pictures of his chilling at Courchevel, Rhone-Alpes in France. The photos show him enjoying at the backdrop of the snow-capped mountains. Aryan dons a bright tangerine jacket and looks dashing much like his dad SRK. Check out his photos: This has been the time of star kids making their loud entry into showbiz world. While late legendary star Sridevi and producer Boney Kapoor's daughter Janhvi Kapoor starred in 'Dhadak' last year alongside Shahid Kapoor's brother Ishaan Khatter, Saif Ali Khan and former wife Amrita Singh's daughter Sara Ali Khan won many hearts with 'Kedarnath'. Rumours of Aryan making his smashing entry in Bollywood have been floating around for quite some time now. Speculations were rife that none other than Karan Johar will launch Aryan in a Dharma Productions' venture. But nothing has been officially announcement. Chunky Pandey's daughter Ananya Panday is another star kid who is making her debut with Dharma Productions' 'Student Of The Year 2'. Now, we really wanna see when Aryan will make his debut on the big screens! Mumbai: Actor Sharman Joshi, who is gearing up for the release of his first Hollywood film "The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story", says the movie sends out the message of love, peace, tolerance and harmony. On what made him be part of the film, Sharman said: "We have made this with really good intentions. The end message is about love, peace, tolerance and harmony. This incident (on which the film is based) happened in Odisha. It could have happened in the US, Europe, Middle-East or in any part of the world." The film, based on real-life story of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines who worked among the tribal poor and leprosy victims in Odisha, comes 20 years. He was burnt to death along with his sons by alleged members of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu fundamentalist organisation. Talking about Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Avenue Masjid shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday in which 50 people were killed, Sharman said: "It's very unfortunate. I feel such extreme acts are detrimental for our as well as future generations." "I feel all of us hold responsibility for it and help stop it in our little way by spreading the message of love, peace, harmony and tolerance. I feel only through awareness we will be able to fight these horrific acts. That's what I have endeavoured through this film." Stating that though it was a Graham Staines' story, Sharman said "the bigger message is what happened was extremely unfortunate. It should not happen again. Love and peace is the only way of living." Talking about the film "The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story", Sharman said: "It's a story about missionary Staines against whom allegations were made that he was forcibly converting Hindus to the faith of Christianity. The story is seen through the eyes of a journalist, Manav Kaul, played by me." The film was released in the US last month and will be released in India on March 29. "After the India release, the film will be released in South Africa, East Africa and Europe," he said. Directed by Aneesh Daniel, the film also stars Stephen Baldwin, Shari Rigby and Prakash Belawadi. As per the latest news, actor Ram Pothineni is all set to play the lead role in the Telugu remake of Tamil film 'Thadam', which released on March 1. Reportedly, Sravanthi Ravikishore had bought the remake rights of the film to produce it under his banner Sravanthi Movies. Most of Rams films are produced by his uncle Sravanthi only. Ram and his team are yet to respond to the news. Details on the cast and crew will be unveiled soon. Many of Tamil films are being remade in Telugu and now 'Thadam' has joined the list. It is a suspense thriller which became a successful venture in Tamil. The film has Arun Vijay in lead role and is receiving positive reviews. Many actors are also praising this film which is now a commercial success. Ram has not been part of any thriller till now and definitely, this film is going to be special for him, as well as his fans too. Ram himself has a good share of commercial entertainers like Ready, Maska, Kandireega, Pandaga Chesko, Nenu Sailaja and Hello Guru Premakosame. The actor is currently busy shooting for 'iSmart Shankar' which is being directed by Puri Jagannadh. He also developed six-pack abs for his role in the film. Niddhi Aggerwal and Nabha Natesh are playing the leading ladies of iSmart Shankar. On the other hand, it is also said that Ram will be teaming up with Sagar K Chandra for a commercial entertainer. An official confirmation is awaited. Lucknow: Every election is a "picnic" for the Gandhi family, the BJP said on Monday while seeking to downplay Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's three-day Uttar Pradesh visit during which she will cover 100 km by boat in the river Ganga. "For the Gandhi family, every election is a picnic. They come, they see and resort to rhetorical speeches. After the elections are over, they head towards Switzerland or Italy," senior BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma told PTI here Monday. "As soon as a new election is announced, a new member of the family emerges and assumes magical leadership," he said, adding, "The respected leader (Priyanka) has campaigned for the Congress in earlier elections as well and despite campaigning, her party suffered defeats at the hustings." The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh kicked off her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in the state on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam -- the confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. During her visit, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her ride down the river is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade long wilderness in the state. New Delhi: In the wake of the dastardly attack on innocent devotees at Mosques in New Zealand's Christchurch, PM Jacinda Ardern met the families of the terror attack victims while donning a black headscarf or hijab. Ardern interacted with the families of 50 people who were killed by fitness trainer Brenton Tarrant at two mosques in Christchurch. While addressing the media post her meeting, Ardern had said, "We are a proud nation of more than 200 ethnicities, 160 languages. And amongst that diversity, we share common values. And the one that we place the currency on right now is our compassion and support for the community of those directly affected by this tragedy. And secondly, the strongest possible condemnation of the ideology of the people who did this. You may have chosen us we utterly reject and condemn you." During her meeting with the bereaved, Jacinda did not indulge in any photo-ops but one picture which was clicked Christchurch council photographer Kirk Hargreaves has gone viral on the internet. As per a report published in The Sydney Morning Herald, Kirk took the picture from outside the community hall where she was interacting with the family members. Mayor @LianneDalziel and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern have met with members of the Muslim community this afternoon to offer their support. They have also met with families of those killed in Fridays mosque shootings. Read more: https://t.co/QUwXxUQQtr pic.twitter.com/VberzPIT8h ChCh City Council (@ChristchurchCC) March 16, 2019 The photographer was quoted by the daily as saying, "The moment I saw her face pop up, and what was happening with the flowers, I fully knew [it was important]. It's a religious photo in a way, a photo of a mix of religious symbolism. It looks like stain glass, there are the Muslim hijab, and colors of Hindu religion. It's a universal picture." "The human empathy and all those amazing human traits she's showing in the picture, I'm glad people resonated with that," he added. BRUSSELS: China dismissed U.S. security warnings against its telecoms equipment maker Huawei as groundless and "abnormal" on Monday, as the Chinese government`s top diplomat went to Brussels to cool growing European frustration over trade. In a veiled reference to Huawei Technologies Co., which the United States says could spy on the West, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi told Washington to stop its attempts to "bring down" the company. "What we oppose are groundless accusations for political purposes and attempts to bring down a foreign company," Wang told a news conference, although he did not name Huawei, which is seeking to sell the next generation of mobile technology in Europe, its top market outside China. "We think such practices are abnormal, immoral and have no support," he said after talks with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, before meeting EU foreign ministers in Brussels. While eager to talk up "win-win" cooperation with the European Union, the world`s biggest trading bloc, Wang held talks against a backdrop of intense EU diplomacy. The bloc is seeking to translate a new wariness about China into a more defensive EU policy, diplomats and officials say, despite being more open to Huawei`s 5G networks than the United States. Mogherini told Wang that EU governments were growing impatient with what officials say is China`s failure to follow through on commitments, mainly over promises on free trade, according to one person present. After lunch with Wang Spain`s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told reporters the state councillor defended Huawei as a privately-owned company, not the arm of the state. EU leaders will discuss China at a summit on Thursday for the first time in years, part of a flurry of high-level meetings as President Xi Jinping travels to Italy and France from this week and the bloc holds a summit with China in April. Italy has angered its EU partners by planning to sign infrastructure deals with Xi, pushing itself as a big backer of China`s multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road trade and logistics plan. That has raised fears of a sellout of sensitive technologies and the handover of critical know-how, although the EU says it is not considering the kind of trade tariffs that the United States has imposed on China or outlawing Chinese firms. "President Trump was the first to sound the alarm ... but it doesn`t mean that his measures have worked. The protectionist measures have not had any effect," Borrell said. In a draft statement declaration for the April 6 EU-China summit in Brussels, seen by Reuters, the bloc is seeking to set deadlines for Beijing to open up its economy. In a shift in tone, the European Commission, the EU executive, last week described China as a "systemic rival" and called on the bloc to be more assertive after years of welcoming Chinese investment virtually unhindered. Wang acknowledged the mood change in his public remarks, saying competition between China and the European Union "may be inevitable", although he and Mogherini continued to refer to a strategic partnership between them. CHINA DEADLINES Highlighting what the EU says is China`s refusal to allow the unfettered foreign investment access that Chinese companies enjoy in Europe, the bloc`s trade deficit with China increased in January, according to EU data on Monday. The EU deficit in goods trade with China widened slightly to 21.4 billion euros ($24.28 billion), from 20.8 billion euros a year earlier, according to Eurostat. In the April 9 EU-China summit draft joint communique, the European Union will seek Beijing`s agreement for deadlines to open up China`s economy, trying to coax it into making good on promises to deepen trade ties. China and the EU will "agree by summer 2019 on a set of priority market access barriers and requirements facing their operators", according to a six-page joint communique drafted by the EU, which still requires Chinese approval. The draft statement, dated March 8, said the two trading blocs would set "deadlines for their swift removal by the next EU-China summit 2020 at the latest". The statement, which is likely to change, sets 2020 as the goal for a special treaty to increase investment flows that has been under negotiation for almost a decade. Brenton Tarrant, the terrorist who opened fire and killed 50 people inside two mosques in Christchurch last Friday has sacked his lawyer and will represent himself in court. Tarrant, a 28-year-old from Australia, had mercilessly shot dead people gathered for prayers inside a mosque in an otherwise peaceful locality. He had even live-streamed the shooting on Facebook using a head-mounted camera. He was eventually apprehended. While authorities termed it as an act of terror, Tarrant said his act was to 'defend our land from invaders.' He has since sacked his lawyer, reported New Zealand Herald. Richard Peters, the attorney assigned to represent Tarrant, confirmed to local media that he had been sacked. He also said that Tarrant did not appear to be mentally unstable and that he has decided to represent himself in court. Despite his gruesome act, it is reported that Tarrant has shown no signs of remorse in prison. A resident of Dunedin, Tarrant had no criminal record prior to the Friday's incident but - reportedly - had planned the attack in detail. New Zealand remains in a state of high alert even as Australian police officials have said Tarrant's family has assured of all help and cooperation in the investigation. ADDIS ABABA/PARIS: Investigators probing the Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia have found similarities in vital flight angle data with an aeroplane that came down off Indonesia, a source said, hiking pressure on the world`s biggest planemaker. The Ethiopian Airlines disaster eight days ago killed 157 people, led to the grounding of Boeing`s marquee MAX fleet globally and sparked a high-stakes inquiry for the aviation industry. Analysis of the cockpit recorder showed its so-called "angle of attack" data was "very, very similar" to the Lion Air jet that came down off Jakarta in October, killing 189 people, a person familiar with the investigation said. The angle of attack is a fundamental parameter of flight, measuring the degrees between the air flow and the wing. If it is too high, it can throw the plane into an aerodynamic stall. A flight deck computer`s response to an apparently faulty angle of attack sensor is at the heart of the ongoing probe into the Lion Air crash. Ethiopia`s Transport Ministry, France`s BEA air accident authority and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have all said data shows similarities between the two disasters. Both planes were 737 MAX 8s and crashed minutes after take-off with pilots reporting flight control problems. Under scrutiny is a new automated system in the 737 MAX model that guides the nose lower to avoid stalling. Lawmakers and safety experts are asking how thoroughly regulators vetted the system and how well pilots around the world were trained for it when their airlines bought new planes. BOEING PLANS NEW SOFTWARE With the prestige of one of the United States` biggest exporters at stake, Boeing has said the MAX series is safe, though it plans to roll out new software upgrades shortly. The fix was developed in the aftermath of the Indonesia crash when regulators reported false sensor data could cause a system known as MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) to over-react and make the jet hard to control. Boeing has halted deliveries of its best-selling model that was intended to be the industry standard but is now under a shadow. There were more than 300 MAX airplanes in operation at the time of the Ethiopian crash, and nearly 5,000 more on order. After a 10 percent drop last week that wiped nearly $25 billion off its market share, Boeing stock slid about 2.3 percent on Monday to $370. Weekend media reports heaped further pressure on Boeing. The Seattle Times said the company`s safety analysis of the MCAS system had crucial flaws, including understating power. It also said the U.S. FAA followed a standard certification process on the MAX rather than extra inquiries. The FAA declined to comment, but has said the process followed normal process. The Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors and U.S. Department of Transportation were scrutinising the FAA`s approval of the MAX series, while a jury had issued a subpoena to at least one person involved in its development. Boeing and the FAA declined to comment on that. Last week, sources told Reuters investigators found a piece of a stabiliser in the Ethiopian wreckage set in an unusual position similar to that of the Lion Air plane. VICTIMS Ethiopia is leading the probe, though the black boxes were sent to France and U.S. experts are also participating. It was unclear how many of the roughly 1,800 parameters of flight data and two hours of cockpit recordings, spanning the doomed six-minute flight and earlier trips, had been taken into account in the preliminary Ethiopian analysis. The inquiry is crucial to give some closure to families of victims, who came from nearly three dozen countries. It also has huge financial implications. The MAX is Boeing`s best-selling model, with a backlog of orders worth well over $500 billion at a list price of $121 million each. Norwegian Airlines has already said it will seek compensation after grounding its MAX aircraft, and various companies are re-considering orders. Boeing`s main rival Airbus has seen its stock rise 5 percent since the crash, but cannot simply pick up the slack given the complicated logistics of plane-building. Some airlines are revising financial forecasts, too, given the MAX had been factored in as providing around 15 percent maintenance and fuel savings. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg sought to allay some fears, saying the company was finishing a software update and pilot training revision "that will address the MCAS flight control law`s behaviour in response to erroneous sensor inputs." The agony for families of the dead in Ethiopia has been compounded by their inability to bury remains. Charred fragments are all that remain and DNA testing may take months. Addis Ababa/Washington: Ethiopia said on Sunday the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed 157 people had "clear similarities" with October`s Lion Air crash, revealed by initial analysis of the black boxes recovered from the wreckage of the March 10 disaster. The crash has generated one of the most widely watched and high-stakes inquiries for years, with the latest version of Boeing`s profitable 737 workhorse depending on the outcome. Both planes were MAX 8s, and both crashed minutes post-take-off after pilots reported flight control problems. Concern over the plane`s safety has caused aviation authorities to ground the model, wiping billions of dollars off Boeing`s market value. "It was the same case with the Indonesian (Lion Air) one. There were clear similarities between the two crashes so far," Ethiopian transport ministry spokesman Muse Yiheyis said. "The data was successfully recovered. Both the American team and our (Ethiopian) team validated it," he told Reuters, adding that the ministry would provide more information after three or four days. In Washington, however, US officials told Reuters the FAA and US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had not yet validated the data. Boeing`s safety analysis of a new flight control system known as MCAS on MAX jets had several crucial flaws, one of which was that it understated the power of the system, the Seattle Times said on Sunday. The FAA also did not delve in detailed inquiries and followed a standard certification process on the MAX, the paper said, citing an FAA spokesman. The FAA declined to comment on the report but referred to previous statements about the certification process. It has said the process followed FAA`s standard process. Citing people familiar with the inquiry, the Wall Street Journal said the US Department of Transportation was investigating the FAA`s approval of MAX jets. The inquiry by the department`s inspector general was launched after the Lion Air crash that killed 189 people, the newspaper said, and focuses on whether the FAA used appropriate design standards and engineering analyses in certifying MCAS. Boeing and the FAA declined to comment on the WSJ report. Two government officials briefed on the matter told Reuters it would not be surprising for the Transportation Department to investigate a major safety issue, but could not immediately confirm the report. SAFETY ANALYSIS An official told Reuters that when investigators - after reviewing black box data from the Ethiopian Airlines crash - return to Addis Ababa to conduct interpretive work, the NTSB and FAA will assist in verification and validation of the data. A second source said little information had been circulated between parties about the contents of data and voice recordings. It was not clear how many of the roughly 1,800 parameters of flight data and two hours of cockpit recordings, spanning the doomed six-minute flight and earlier trips, had been taken into account in the preliminary Ethiopian analysis. International rules require a preliminary report on the crash to be released within 30 days. Previous air crash reports show that in such high-profile cases there can be disagreements among parties about the cause. In Paris, France`s BEA air accident investigation agency said data from the jet`s cockpit voice recorder had been successfully downloaded. The French agency said on Twitter it had not listened to the audio files and the data had been transferred to Ethiopian investigators. In Addis Ababa, a source who has listened to the air traffic control recording of the plane`s communications said flight 302 had an unusually high speed after take-off before it reported problems and asked permission to climb quickly. Last Monday, Boeing said it would deploy a software upgrade to the 737 MAX 8, hours after the FAA said it would mandate "design changes" in the aircraft by April. Boeing was finalising the software change and a training revision and would evaluate new information as it became available, Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said in a statement on Sunday, after the Ethiopian transport ministry`s comments. A Boeing spokesman said the 737 MAX was certified in line with identical FAA requirements and processes that governed certification of all previous new airplanes and derivatives. The spokesman said the FAA concluded that MCAS on 737 MAX met all certification and regulatory requirements. Amsterdam: At least three persons died and several injured in shooting in the Dutch city of Netherlands's Utrecht. The shooting was reported in a residential neighbourhood on Monday morning. Police are investigating the shooting that took place at the 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht. According to the police, the shooting is a possible terror attack. The police is investigating the shooting at the #24oktoberplein in Utrecht this morning. An possible terrorist motif is part of the investigation. Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019 Dutch police suspect a 37-year-old Turkish man in connection with the shooting. "The police ask you to watch out for 37-year-old Gokman Tanis (born in Turkey) in connection with this morning's incident," News agency Reuters said, quoting a police statement. The shooting comes barely three days after the ghastly shooting at two mosques in New Zealand's Christchurch what left at least 50 people dead. 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday. Tarrant was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5 where police said he was likely to face further charges. LAHORE: Pakistan and China should not create hurdles in designating JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, a leading Pakistani daily said Monday, emphasising the need to crackdown hard on terror groups in the country as it will help Islamabad regain the respect of the international community. The Dawn newspaper in an editorial said that there are no "good" or "bad" militants groups and all have either caused or are capable of wreaking havoc in the country. "That outlook is hopefully a thing of the past now, as the prime minister (Imran Khan) has promised that no groups will be allowed to use Pakistani territory for militant activities. "He must make good on that pledge. This is the only way Pakistan will regain the respect of the international community, and counter India's constant campaign to isolate it," it said. "Most (of the terror groups) have been banned but much more is required to ensure that they are eliminated and never come back to life. If the world wants to blacklist Masood Azhar, there should be no hesitation on Pakistan's part. Neither should China use ?technical reasons' to block such a move," the daily said. China for the fourth time blocked a bid in the United Nations (UN) Security Council last week to designate the Pakistan-based chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed as a "global terrorist" by putting a technical hold on the proposal, a move India termed as disappointing. The JeM has claimed responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead and raised tensions between India and Pakistan. The proposal to designate Azhar under the 1267 al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council was moved by France, the UK and the US on February 27. The daily said while India has been "thirsting for revenge" in the post-Pulwama period, its efforts to blacklist the Jaish and its chief are not altogether altruistic." The paper said despite India's efforts to portray Pakistan as a hub of jihadi activity, there is still a case to be made for the country to clamp down further on the Jaish and others of its ilk - for its own security. "The dangers of the path adopted by the Jaish are clear. Azhar's aim was to blur the distinction between pro-Kashmir jihadi groups and those subscribing to sectarian militancy within Pakistan." When Gen (Pervez) Musharraf proscribed the Jaish, he was targeted by the group, barely escaping two attempts on his life. The attempt to rein in the Jaish's activities caused a large section of the group to join hands with the TTP to attack the state and religious minorities. It said that stern action is necessary against all militants - whether they were allegedly using Pakistani soil to plan attacks outside the country, or killing and maiming thousands within the country. The daily said that Pakistan should have learnt a lesson from the Americans who encouraged jihadi elements in Afghanistan, "only to be confronted by a monster of their own creation in later years". Pervez Musharraf, the former military ruler of Pakistan who has been in self-imposed exile in Dubai, was recently shifted to a hospital here after a reaction from a rare disease. Pakistan-based Dawn reported that Musharraf, 75, was transferred to a local hospital in Dubai over the weekend after his health deteriorated. It is also reported that subsequent medical checks revealed that he had had a reaction from amyloidosis, a rare disease which he has been suffering from. While Musharraf has been battling the rare medical condition for some time now, his health deteriorated suddenly on Saturday after a reaction. It is learnt that he has been advised complete bed rest by doctors. In October of last year, it was confirmed that Musharraf is suffering from a medical condition that has taken a toll on his nervous system. He had also been treated for this in London. At the time, people close to him had explained that the medical condition results in protein getting deposited in different organs in the body. In the past, Musharraf made a number of public appearances in Dubai and elsewhere, and has vowed to return to Pakistan despite a number of charges against him in the country. He was indicted on treason charges by Pakistan's Supreme Court in March of 2014.According to officials of All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), Musharraf would only return if he is guaranteed a fair trial and if he is assured that he can leave the country for medical treatment. South Africa: Deputy Minister Landers to lead SA delegation to UN conference International Relations and Cooperation Deputy Minister Luwellyn Landers is expected to participate in the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South cooperation (BAPA+40) in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, later this week. From 20 to 22 March, Landers will lead the South African delegation to the upcoming High-Level Conference, under the theme Role of South-South Cooperation and implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: challenges and opportunities. The High-Level Conference will build on the historical foundations of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA) that emanated from the first UN Conference on the Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC), which was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1978, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said in a statement. The conference is expected to reflect and further build on the Nairobi outcome document of the High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation that was adopted in 2009, which pronounced on the global understanding of this modality of cooperation. Marking the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the BAPA, the United Nations General Assembly mandated the UN to convene a Second High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South cooperation (BAPA+40), the Department said in a statement. South-South Cooperation is one of the foundational pillars of South Africas foreign policy. In this regard, the country continues to play a leading role in the sub-region, the African region and the broader global South. South Africas active participation in SADC, African Union, the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA), Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa (BRICS) initiatives demonstrates in no uncertain terms this global commitment. Since the adoption of BAPA among developing countries in 1978, South-South cooperation has intensified significantly and increasingly engaged national and international players, fostering regional integration and strengthening its contribution to sustainable development in its social, economic and environmental dimensions South-South Cooperation is increasingly critical to bolstering the productive capacities of developing countries and has positive impacts on trade and financial flows, technological capabilities and economic growth, and reiterating the importance of the global partnership for sustainable development, the department said. Recently South-South cooperation has gained greater attention on the international agenda in several key outcomes of the United Nations. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted in 2015, highlights under Goal 17 the importance of South-South Cooperation as a complement to global efforts on development, in particular North-South Cooperation. In this regard, South Africa will emphasise that South-South Cooperation as the modality of the countries from the global South, which should inform the approach on triangular cooperation, which plays a complementary role to the former. Deputy Minister Landers will also on the margins of the conference engage in bilateral discussions with a number of high level representatives, the department said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-03-18. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. WASHINGTON, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military is mulling about leaving up to 1,000 troops in Syria, further drifting away from President Donald Trump's original plan of a total withdrawal, said U.S. media on Sunday. The troops will be deployed from northern Syria to the south, continuing to work with Kurdish fighters, reported the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous administration officials. The U.S. officials said the number of Western troops to be left in Syria is still to be decided. Meanwhile, Washington plans to withdraw hundreds of American forces when "the last bastion of Islamic State is seized," a move that will be in accord with Trump's original plan, according to the report. On Feb. 21, the White House announced that the United States would leave about 200 troops in Syria after the planned pullout. Trump confirmed the next day that a small fraction of U.S. forces would remain in Syria with troops from other countries. Citing a senior administration official, U.S. media later reported that the U.S. military would leave about 400 troops in two different regions of Syria. Currently, there are about 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria. Declaring victory over the Islamic State, Trump last December announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, leading to the resignation of then U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Mainly cloudy with snow showers around this evening. Low 27F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Mainly cloudy with snow showers around this evening. Low 27F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Higher wind gusts possible. Yoga continues to gain popularity in China, but it's still unusual to see senior men pick up the practice. (Photo/Guangzhou Daily) However, that situation could all be about to change, as the University for the Elderly in Guangzhou, south Chinas Guangdong Province, recently opened a weekly yoga class for male seniors, helping the older generation stay in shape. 82-year-old Ren Zhenchi is the oldest student in the class. Before, I had trouble squatting, and my muscles had become more rigid with age. When I was told that practicing yoga could make my body more flexible, I wanted to give it a go, he said. His family, however, initially worried that he might hurt himself, and that it would be strange for him to pick up yoga, which is predominately viewed as a female discipline. However, Ren persuaded his family. His nerves were also eased by his instructor, Hu Yajun, who explained the moves slowly. The moves are simple, and I practice step by step. Now, yoga helps me regain flexibility, Ren said, adding that practicing yoga has calmed his mind, made him less irritable, and improved his quality of sleep and physical condition. 63-year-old Li Yinghui, the first registered member of the class, also said yoga had improved his sleep quality. Like many of his classmates aged between 50 and 82 Li said he would cherish the opportunity as the government now attaches greater importance to retirees life. Hu said that the male yoga class is more like an interactive platform to serve seniors, where they can help each other and make new friends. Hu plans to cooperate with relevant agencies in the city to conduct specialized training for more middle-aged and elderly yoga instructors, in a bid to provide better services for the elderly. By Lee Gyu-lee Actor Park Seo-joon won the Rising Star of Asia Award trophy at the 13th Asian Film Awards (AFA) in Hong Kong, Sunday. "I thank you for the award," Park was quoted as saying after receiving the award given to the most promising actor of the year. "I hope I will work with actors of diverse backgrounds." He excited fans by greeting them in Chinese. Park has gained popularity through starring in a mixture of modern and period dramas. Park's latest hit was the tvN drama "What's Wrong with Secretary Kim?" The AFA is among the four most prestigious film awards in Asia together with those hosted by Busan, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Meanwhile, Park has just wrapped filming his new horror/action movie, "The Divine Fury," which will be released this year. By Kang Seung-woo Hana Tour, the nation's largest travel agency, is taking flak for inadequate alternatives for package tourists who failed to proceed on schedule due to inclement weather. According to media reports and the agency, Monday, a 12-member tour group was flying to Canada's Yellowknife via Vancouver in February, but heavy snow forced their flight to return to the departing airport. Yellowknife is noted as a great place to catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Despite their return to Vancouver, they were unable to contact the Hana Tour guide they were supposed to meet at Yellowknife, or the travel agency back home, forcing them to spend the night at the airport. After many inconveniences, the tourists finally met the tour guide in Vancouver, but they were surprised to hear the agency's new alternative plan. "Hana Tour told us to take a self-guided tour with our own money instead of going to Yellowknife," a tourist surnamed Choi was quoted as saying by SBS. "It did not make sense at all because we went there on a package program and we already paid for traveling expenses." The angered travelers rejected the offer and Hana Tour pulled out of the tour, saying that it was out of the question to continue the package program. "As a result, we spent our own money to continue the tour." After returning home, they complained to the travel agency, but the firm rejected the complaints, saying the tour schedule was changed because of "natural disaster" and it proposed an optimal alternative. "Initially, a self-guided tour program was arranged in Yellowknife along with going to see the aurora borealis in a group," a Hana official told The Korea Times. According to him, the travel agency suggested the travelers tour Vancouver by themselves and it would pay 50 percent of their costs. Despite the travel company's explanation, the public criticized Hana, calling for boycotting its tour programs. By Jung Da-min North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is likely to seek a constitutional amendment at a Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) meeting slated for early next month to become a formal head of state, Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to the South, claimed Sunday. This, if comes true, will represent North Korea's efforts to become a "normal state," Thae wrote on his blog. "From the beginning of the year, North Korea has emphasized the concept of 'state,' promoting statism, its national flag, bird, flower and customs, which could be seen as part of a wider move to become a normal state," he said. "In the same context, it seems likely Kim Jong-un would be recommended to a new position during the first meeting of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly and the corresponding amendment of the constitution would follow." North Korea and Russia earlier in March held the 9th Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) for Cooperation in Trade, Economics, Science, and Technology in Moscow. Yonhap By Jung Da-min North Korea is strengthening its strategic relations with Russia, while denuclearization talks with the U.S. have been stalled without progress for three weeks since the Hanoi summit. In a meeting between North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Im Chon-il and his Russian counterpart Igor Morgulov in Moscow on March 14, the two sides agreed to "bolster up mutual support and collaboration in tackling the issue of the Korean peninsula," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Sunday. This is to steadily develop the traditional and strategic North Korea-Russia relations, this year marking the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the two sides' agreement on economic and cultural cooperation, KCNA added. An activist holds an "Abolish anti-abortion law" sign during a rally in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul in this May 2018 photo. / Korea Times file By Kim Hyun-bin The nation's human rights watchdog has voiced its opposition to the country's anti-abortion law, saying it violates women's basic rights and thus is unconstitutional. This marks the first time the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has called the law unconstitutional officially and submitted a written opinion against it. While the Constitutional Court is scheduled to make a ruling about the law as early as April, it remains to be seen if the commission's opinion would affect the court's decision. In Korea, abortion is an illegal practice, allowed only in very limited cases such as life-threatening circumstances, rape and incest. A woman who has an abortion can face up to one year in prison or 2 million won ($1,850) in fines, and a doctor who performs an abortion, up to two years in prison. According to the commission, Monday, the court asked the commission to give its opinion on the issue for a review ahead of the April ruling. The commission then answered that punishing women for having abortions violates women's right to make decisions on their personal matters. The Chinatown Friendship Gate is pictured in Philadelphia, the United States, March 13, 2019. The amazing similarities in port, science and cultural diversity have helped fostering 40 years of sisterhood between the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin and the U.S. eastern city of Philadelphia. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) NEW YORK, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The amazing similarities in port, science and cultural diversity have helped fostering 40 years of sisterhood between the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin and the U.S. eastern city of Philadelphia. "We are one of the firsts. We honor it. We want to do it well," said Samuel K. Chueh, director of international business at Philadelphia Department of Commerce, noting that his city is fully devoted to its Chinese "sister" Tianjin. Philadelphia became one of the first U.S. cities to initiate a sister cities relationship with a Chinese city in December of 1979, after the two countries established diplomatic ties in the same year. In the years to come, the sisterhood between the two port cities has produced mutual benefits in a wide range of fields, including education, commerce and culture. "Tianjin to Beijing is like Philadelphia to New York," Chueh said, adding that both cities enjoy an abundance of cultural diversity. "We just learned that Tianjin is upgrading its port and we are upgrading our port. Tianjin is developing their life science industry, and we are so good at life science," Chueh said. Philadelphia has the largest temperature-control port along the east coast of the United States, he said, "so we do have our advantage and the sister city relationship can help us better understand our friends in China and see how we can find more connectivity." Chueh said he hoped that Philadelphia and Tianjin will set up direct shipping route in the future. He said that Philadelphia also plays a leading role in life science, with the presence of about 80 percent of the world's pharmaceutical companies. "Otherwise, they would be left behind. " Next to Johnson and Johnson and GSK, many Chinese pharmaceutical companies have offices in Philadelphia, he said. According to Brookings Institution, from 2010 to 2016, the foreign direct investment to Philadelphia from China in biotech industry is five times higher than that of Boston, which is home to Harvard and MIT. In June, Tianjin is sending delegations to attend the BIO International Convention in Philadelphia, which excels in life science and looks forward to more collaborations with Tianjin. "We are working very ly with China and see how we can support the life science development in China, " Chueh said. Besides port and life science, Philadelphia has more to offer. Siobhan Lyons, president and CEO of Citizen Diplomacy International (CDI) pointed to the city's advantage in accessibility, cost-effectiveness and educated workforce. "We're to New York and D.C.... If you travel, you can reach 70 percent of the U.S. population within one day," she said. "We are one of the cheapest cities in the United States -- 25 percent cheaper than any other city on the east coast." "We have an incredibly educated workforce because... We have more university students -- about half a million -- than any other city in the United States," she added. In 1998, a Sister City Scholarship was established to allow Tianjin high school graduates to study at Drexel University. Over the years, it has expanded to also include La Salle University, Moore College of Art and Design, and Temple University. Yang Mu, the first recipient of the scholarship, pursued a degree in computer science and graduated second in her class. She later went to Temple Law School and is now an intellectual property lawyer at a local firm. In addition, the sister city exchanges include a year-long "internship" with Philadelphia's finance department by a vice mayor from Tianjin, according to CDI, which runs the sister city program. The cultural exchanges between the two cities are also expanding. In May, Philadelphia Orchestra, the first U.S. orchestra to perform in China in 1973, is returning to China for the 11th time to play for audiences in multiple cities, including Tianjin. Philadelphia also boasts a strong Chinese community, which proudly has the "only authentic Friendship Gate" in the United States, as Nancy Gilboy, Lyons' predecessor, put it. The landmark gate in Chinatown, a symbol of Chinese traditional architecture, was a gift from Tianjin, which sent the materials and artisans to build it in 1983. In 2008, Gilboy oversaw a project to repair and repaint it. She fondly recalled all the trouble she went through to acquire the material the artisans needed to make the special paint. Before she retired about three years ago, Gilboy had traveled to Tianjin three times. Each time returning, she was amazed at how fast the city had changed. Lyons and Chueh shared her sentiment. In a 2017 trip to Tianjin, they were shown to a museum demonstrating the city's vision for its future. "They have these amazing models of the city and showing how it's growing... We got the overview from these little, tiny models," Lyons said. She went on to exclaim: "The Chinese government is now making all these plans. Even in the short time we were there, you could see things being built... It was so incredibly impressive!" British Ambassador to Korea Simon Smith, fifth from left, poses with Korea Press Foundation Chairman Min Byung-wook, fourth from left, BBC Head of Newsgathering Jonathan Munro, sixth from left, former SKY News presenter Andrew Wilson, seventh from left, and other participants during the "Future of Journalism in the Digital Age" seminar at the Korea Press Center in downtown Seoul, March 12. / Yonhap Trust, impartiality become increasingly important amid spread of fake news By Yi Whan-woo The spread of fake news in the digital era is posing challenges for journalists who increasingly face hostility and criticism across the world. To tackle the challenges, the British Embassy in Seoul and the Korea Press Foundation hosted a seminar, titled "Future of Journalism in the Digital Age," last week and invited reporters and scholars from the two countries to share their thoughts. "Media freedom is under attack across the world," said the British Ambassador to Korea Simon Smith during his welcoming speech at the Korea Press Center in downtown Seoul, March 12. He referred to Reporters Without Borders' 2018 report, which said more journalists were detained, held hostage and killed in 2018 than in 2017. For instance, the number of professional journalists dropped from 82 in 2015 to 63 in 2016 and 55 in 2017, but rose to 63 last year. The ambassador also referred to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which said its poll in 131 countries suggested there was a general perception of declining media freedom. He warned this was leading to a decline in public trust of news produced by conventional media while offering "all too attractive" an opportunity for proliferation of fake news. He said this explained why the U.K. government and Canada would co-host their first-ministerial conference on media freedom from July 10 to 11 in London. "We're calling on like-minded countries to come together to show strong support for media freedoms, and identifying actions they can take to defend and consolidate them," he added. In a separate welcoming message, Korea Press Foundation Chairman Min Byung-wook said he was glad to host the seminar eventually after his foundation signed a relevant memorandum of understanding with the embassy. "I hope that this seminar will serve as a forum for productive discussions about the present and future of journalism, and that it will also be a chance to establish the cornerstone of media exchange between Korea and the Britain," Min said. The development of social media and faster access to news around the world has raised a question whether it is productive for media firms to run branch offices worldwide. In a video message, BBC Director-General Tony Hall argued that the media situation "points to a bigger role" for the BBC "as a voice of trusted, impartial news." He said BBC journalists were capable of reporting not just instant news but also the background and the context. "For people to understand the bigger picture, the context is so important," Hall said. He added that the BBC did not "owe allegiance" to any government, company or particular viewpoint. The 200-minute seminar was comprised of two sessions. The first session discussed freedom of expression and media independence. The participants were BBC Head of Newsgathering Jonathan Munro, Sookmyung Women's University professor Kang Hyung-cheol, KBS Director Chung Je-hyuk, Hankyoreh Shinmun research fellow Lee Bong-hyun and Korea Press Foundation senior researcher Park Ah-ran. The second session dealt with countering disinformation and emphasized the importance of fact checking. Former SKY News presenter Andrew Wilson was joined by National Assembly Research Service Director Kim Yoo-hyang, Seoul National University Fact Check Center Director Chong Eun-ryung, JTBC news presenter Kim Pil-gyu and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Professor Kim Min-jung. Swedish Ambassador to Korea Jakob Hallgren speaks before a screen showing the commemorative logo of the 60th anniversary of Sweden-Korea relations at the Seoul Museum of History in central Seoul, March 11. / Korea Times photo by Yi Whan-woo By Yi Whan-woo The Embassy of Sweden in Seoul last week hosted the premiere of a documentary on a Swedish field hospital during the 1950-53 Korean War, to mark 60 years of bilateral relations. The premiere of "The Swedes in the Korean War" took place on March 11, the day the countries established diplomatic relations in 1959. "Today is truly a special day. It is exactly 60 years since diplomatic relations were established between Sweden and the Republic of Korea," Swedish Ambassador to Korea Jakob Hallgren said during an anniversary reception at the Seoul Museum of History in central Seoul. Referring to the diminishing number of Korean War veterans, Hallgren said the documentary was "an incredibly important piece of history," not only for bilateral relations but also as a "testimony for humanity." "Let's make sure it inspires us for today and for tomorrow on similar situations in other countries," he added. The Swedish Red Cross Field Hospital (SRCH) was the first medical unit to operate after the war began. About 1,200 doctors and nurses treated 2 million patients, including soldiers from the U.N. and the Communist forces as well as civilians after the Swedish medical team arrived on Sept. 23, 1950. SRCH, along with the Norwegian Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and Denmark's Jutlandia hospital ship, laid the groundwork for establishing the National Medical Center in 1958. This was the first public medical center here. National Medical Center head Jung Ki-hyun, who was at the anniversary commemoration, said the hospital "exposed Korea to the developed medical skills of Europe for the first time." He said, "A message in the documentary is that we cannot forget what happened during the war and the memories we formed with friends from abroad. The medical center will remember its roots well and strive to be a backbone for public health care in Korea." Also joining the celebration was Kim Hak-tae, who was a teenager when he received treatment for osteomyelitis in his left leg. Produced by Swedish Army, Navy and Air Force Film Foundation, the documentary is about the memories of doctors, nurses and patients during the war. The hospital was part of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission's humanitarian mission. Hallgren stressed that Sweden, as a neutral country, still played a crucial role in the security of the Korean Peninsula. "Sweden indeed has a unique position on the peninsula, with representation in Pyongyang, on the border, and in Seoul," he said. "With this backdrop, I am convinced that the future of Korea-Sweden relations is really bright. Both countries continue to develop cooperation." A series of programs is being held this year for the 60th anniversary of Sweden-Korea ties. This month's programs include the third Sweden TALK, a panel discussion slated for March 20, and Sweden Connection II, a choreographic exchange from March 29 to 31. Two other Scandinavian countries Denmark and Norway also established diplomatic treaties with Korea in 1959. Denmark, Norway and Sweden have planned celebrations for the 60th anniversary both unilaterally and jointly. Angolan Ambassador to Korea Albino Malungo, left, speaks with National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang at Moon's office in Seoul, March 16. / Embassy of Angola By Yi Whan-woo Angolan Ambassador to Korea Albino Malungo visited National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang at the latter's office in Seoul, March 14, to discuss cooperation between the countries, his embassy said. Malungo, dean of the African Diplomatic Corps in Korea, said Korea was "inspirational" to many African countries and that it would continue to be the most cooperative nation in the world. "I hope Korea actively supports Angola in its pursuance of new paths," the envoy was quoted as saying by the embassy in its Korean-language press release. He pointed out that his defense minister-turned-president was extremely interested in bilateral cooperation in the defense sector and that they signed a memorandum of understanding on military education and defense technology in 2017. "It led to closer relations and I hope to see such ties in economy, trade, education, culture and other areas," Malungo said. National Assembly Speaker Moon thanked Malungo's "tireless efforts for bilateral ties." Moon also told Malungo "not to forget Korea when he moves to the United Arab Emirates," pointing out that this year was Malungo's final year of positing in Korea and that he was scheduled to serve as ambassador to the UAE. During their March 16 meeting, Malungo and Moon were joined by relevant lawmakers and parliamentary officials. Among them were Lee Hye-hoon, from the minor opposition Bareun Mirae Party and chairwoman of parliamentary friendship association between the countries, and Park Soo-hyun, a former Cheong Wa Dae spokesman and secretary in the Assembly speaker's office. By Bahk Eun-ji Rooms at Seoul's "gosiwon," or a low-cost single-room type of accommodation, should be at least 7 square meters in size and each room must have a window, according to Seoul City's new housing rule, Monday. The measure followed a fire at Gukil Gosiwon building in central Seoul last November, where seven tenants died and more than 10 were injured. According to the city government's data, most of these decrepit housing facilities have tiny rooms of an average 3.3 square meters lining both sides of a narrow corridor, and nearly 70 percent of the rooms do not have windows, not to mention a sprinkler system. The rule will be applied first for lodgings undergoing remodeling. The city will recommend the central government change the relevant law, so the measure can be applied to all gosiwon to be built in the future. The city government also budgeted 1.5 billion won ($1.33 million) to support installment of sprinklers at 70 old gosiwon facilities. Installing sprinklers was not mandatory before July 2009, so many accommodations built before the time are not equipped with the system. By Jung Min-ho A memorial altar, tents and yellow ribbons for victims of the 2014 Sewol disaster have been removed from Gwanghwamun Square after nearly five years. Workers from the Seoul Metropolitan Government took down all 14 tents and emptied what had long been called the "Sewol memorial space" in central Seoul Monday. The move was taken after the city government and victims' families agreed to replace them all with a smaller structure, which is expected to be set up in time for April 16, the fifth anniversary of the tragedy. Portraits of the victims had already been relocated from the altar to the basement of Seoul City Hall. The families and their supporters set up the altar in the symbolic area to demand a thorough investigation into the sinking of the ferry, which killed 304 people, mostly high school students on a school excursion to Jeju Island. A 20-meter-long rectangular wooden structure will be placed on one side of Gwanghwamun Square to display visual records of the tragedy as well as other major accidents that have left painful imprints on modern Korean society, including the 1994 Seongsu Bridge collapse and the 1995 Sampoong Department Store collapse. President Moon Jae-in's approval rating dropped to a record low last week, a poll showed Monday, apparently on the recent collapse of negotiations between the United States and North Korea on ending the North's nuclear ambitions. In the survey conducted by Realmeter, 44.9 percent of those surveyed said they approved of Moon's job as president, down 1.4 percentage points from a week earlier. The reading marked the lowest since Moon took office in May 2017. The latest survey was conducted Monday through Friday on 2,517 adults throughout the nation. The local pollster partly contributed the drop to the reports of the possible resumption of nuclear and missile activities by North Korea. "The possible work to repair North Korea's missile launch site following the breakdown of the second North Korea-U.S. summit and the North's announcement of a possible end to the denuclearization negotiations appear to have most affected (the president's) job approval rating," it said. U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held their second summit in Hanoi late last month, but the meeting ended without a much-anticipated deal. On Friday, the North's Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said Pyongyang may reconsider its denuclearization talks with Washington, hinting at a possible halt. Moon has yet to offer any personal comments on the issue, but his office Cheong Wa Dae insists both the U.S. and North Korea still remain committed to dialogue. The North Korean nuclear issue has apparently affect the ruling party's job approval rating as well. The ruling Democratic Party's rating came to 36.6 percent. The reading marks a 0.6 percentage-point drop from a week earlier and the lowest in 11 weeks. The main opposition Liberty Korea Party's rating, on the other hand, increased 1.3 percentage points to 31.7 percent, marking a fourth consecutive week of rise. The reading also marks the highest in 29 months. The approval rating of the progressive Justice Party slipped 0.1 percentage point to 6.9 percent with that of the minor opposition Bareunmirae Party dipping 0.3 point to 5.9 percent. The rating of the liberal Party for Democracy and Peace remained unchanged at 2.1 percent. (Yonhap) This combination of images shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, and President Donald Trump during their Feb. 28 meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. AP-Yonhap By Kim Yoo-chul South Korea will ask the United States to reconsider its "all-or-nothing" or "big deal" approach toward denuclearizing North Korea, according to Cheong Wa Dae officials, Monday. They said the South will help North Korea and the U.S. find common ground for a "good enough deal." In Hanoi, U.S. President Donald Trump said he understands "why no deal is better than a bad deal, which I agree in principle," a senior official said on condition of anonymity. "But the all-or-nothing strategy needs to be reconsidered. In order to see meaningful progress in the denuclearization talks, there should be first trust-building measures, which I will call an early harvest." The official said it is time to pursue "something more manageable" as some workable deals could revive the momentum for stalled denuclearization talks. "Despite the failure of the Hanoi summit, diplomacy between North Korea and the U.S. still works," the official said. "Having early harvest could build trust between the two leaders and can lead to a better deal." In this April 8, 2012, file photo, a soldier stands in front of the Unha-3 rocket at a launching site in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. AP-Yonhap Liberty Korea Party (LKP) Chairman Hwang Kyo-ahn, third from right, LKP floor leader Rep. Na Kyung-won, third from left, and LKP members hold placards to protest putting bills including the electoral reform proposal agreed by four other political parties on the fast track, at the National Assembly, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han By Park Ji-won The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) vowed an all-out struggle against the other parties, Monday, to block their attempt to redraw electoral precincts and increase the number of proportional representatives. The response came after the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and three other parties announced a draft proposal for electoral reform following months of negotiations, which the LKP had boycotted. They agreed to fast-track a reform bill to ensure that the next general elections slated for April 2020 will take place under the new rules. Senior LKP members criticized the DPK and other minor parties' move to fast-track the reform bill, calling it a "coup" in legislation to extend the current "left-leaning" regime. "This administration's push to pass the bills of revising the electoral system, establishing new bodies to investigate high-ranking officials and reducing the investigative powers of the prosecution and giving more investigative rights to the police is a legislative coup d'etat aiming to prolong the life of the left-leaning dictatorship regime," newly elected LKP Chairman Hwang Kyo-ahn said during a party meeting Monday. The party believes they need to spare no effort to deter the other parties from pushing the electoral reform bill through. Rep. Na Kyung-won, floor leader of the LKP, also joined in the criticism. "It is the reform's proposal to give the Justice Party negotiating bloc status. It is a long-term plan for the leftists to break the balance between liberal democratic forces and anti-liberal democratic forces," she said. Na called the plan unconstitutional. She earlier hinted at the possibility of all LKP members giving up their seats in protest of the bill. The conservative party's move came after the DPK, minor Bareunmirae Party, Party for Democracy and Peace (PDP) and Justice Party came up with a tentative proposal on electoral reform Sunday to fast-track the bill. The bill is designed to add the number of proportional representatives to 75 from 47 while reducing the number of district Assembly seats from 253 to 225 and lower the voting age to 18 from 19. The four parties rushed to come up with the bill as the National Assembly should finalize the electoral precincts at least a year before the 2020 general elections. The Assembly can designate a proposal that fails to gain bipartisan support as a fast-track bill if three-fifths of lawmakers approve it. This is aimed at preventing bills from pending in the Assembly for lengthy periods. Once a bill is put on the fast track, it can be put to a vote automatically at a plenary session without the need for approval from a committee within a maximum of 330 days. So far, minor parties have pushed for passing the electoral reform bill as it is considered better for them to grab more Assembly seats compared to the present electoral system which is more advantageous for bigger parties. The four didn't discuss the bills on establishing an investigative body to investigate high-ranking officials and the adjustment of investigative powers between prosecutors and police. Adding to the LKP's deterrent, political parties are expected to face a bumpy road ahead until those bills reach settlement as some minor parties didn't have full-support from their members over its direction. Rep. Oh Shin-hwan of the Bareunmirae Party said during a radio interview Monday that there are some lawmakers in the party who said they would leave the party if the electoral reform bill is fast-tracked. Rep. Yu Sung-yop, a member of the PDP's Supreme Council, openly opposed the electoral bill during a party meeting Monday, saying "It is better not to agree on the electoral bill if it doesn't represent each region." Rep. Kim Kyung-jin of the PDP, a former prosecutor, said during a radio interview that "It is inappropriate to fast-track the bills on investigating high-ranking officials and readjusting the investigative powers between the prosecution and the police together with electoral reform." By Lee Min-hyung Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon South Korea is preparing to resume the now-stalled inter-Korean economic projects within the framework of the existing international sanctions against North Korea, the unification ministry said Monday. In a policy briefing to the National Assembly, the Ministry of Unification said it would keep building an environment where the two Koreas can proceed with the joint projects, such as the early resumption of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and tourism to Mount Geumgang. The announcement came amid growing uncertainty in denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The inter-Korean economic cooperation cannot be made possible without a lifting of sanctions on Pyongyang, so it is crucial for the regime to sign a deal with the U.S. in their ongoing nuclear negotiations. But with the recent summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ending in failure, North Korea is showing signs of going back to its previous hostile stance by threatening to resume nuclear armament. Despite the lingering security uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula, the unification ministry said the inter-Korean projects will help bring the North to the dialogue table. The island nation of Taiwan is all set to implement a complete ban on plastic by 2030. According to Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration, the government will limit the use of plastic by implementing a plastic ban in phases, and is encouraging the public to use reusable straws and bags to help combat plastic pollution. Starting later this year, stores are to be prohibited from providing in-store customers with single-use straws. In 2020, stores will face fines if they provide customers with disposable utensils. Stores will also be restricted from providing plastic straws for take-outs. Customers could choose to purchase plastic straws or bags if they are willing to pay extra to the store till 2025. By the year 2030, Taiwan's plastic ban will be fully implemented, with stores completely banned from providing any plastic bags, disposable utensils, plastic cups, bottles and straws. (Next Animation via Reuters) A handout photo made available by Greenpeace shows rubbish floating along Verde Island Passage, Batangas City, Philippines, 07 March 2019 (issued 12 March 2019). According to a data from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Filipinos dispose 163 million pieces of single-use plastic sachets daily. An underwater exploration conducted by Greenpeace in Batangas, Philippines, single-use plastic sachets were found between, beneath, and on the corals and seabed of Verde Island Passage, the epicenter of marine biodiversity in the world. EPA/Greenpeace The Palace Museum in Beijing signed a strategic agreement with Huawei on March 15 to build a more digital, informationized and smart museum. The Palace Museum (Photo/Chinanews.com) Under the agreement, Huawei will connect the Palace Museum with 5G technology, build a smart zone within the museum and hold artificial intelligence (AI) contests at the museum. The Chinese telecom giant will use innovative technologies such as 5G, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) to advance the Palace Museums goal of becoming a first-class global museum. The cooperation with Huawei has drawn the museum closer with technology, said Shan Jixiang, the museum's curator. Shan envisions a high-tech-backed Palace Museum that presents visitors faster network speeds, high-definition video content, as well as an instant display of information about ancient buildings and cultural relics on display in the Palace Museum. With the support of 5G technology, the museum will also be able to monitor the storage, restoration, transportation and exhibition of cultural relics, invite cultural relic doctors and archeologists from around the world to conduct remote consultations on cultural relic restoration and archeological investigations. The AI technology is also expected to provide a more comprehensive platform for student education, Shan said. By Choe Chong-dae Dilkusha has been renovated and opened to the public for the first time on March 1st, 2019. Nestled on the hillside above Sajik Tunnel, beside a towering gingko tree in Haengchon-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, the old dilapidated Western-style house did not reveal until recently who resided and owned it. The mystery of the house came to light when Bruce Taylor, an elderly American, visited Korea in 2006. He clarified the fact that his father, Albert Taylor (1875-1942), a gold-miner and later a special correspondent of the Associated Press who came to Korea in 1898, had built the house in 1923. It was named Dilkusha which means "Palace of Heart's Delight" (Utopia) in Sanskrit. Having visited Dilkusha again, Bruce Taylor recalled his childhood memories growing up in the house. Albert Taylor made remarkable efforts to report to the world on the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919. He had reported extensively on the realities of Japan's brutal suppression of pro-independence protesters. Taylor came across a copy of the Declaration of the Independence Movement that had been hidden under a bed at Severance Hospital where his son Bruce was born on Feb. 28, 1919. He smuggled it out of the country through his brother William. He was the only Western journalist to live in Korea while covering Korea's independence movements against Japanese colonial rule. Consequently, he was put behind bars for six months by the colonial government. After being released, he lived in Dilkusha until he was deported to the U.S. in 1942. Dilkusha was managed by his brother William temporarily after Albert left. Since then, the house had been rented and sold to various people. Its ownership was transferred to the Korean government in 1963, which neglected the house. It then turned into a slum in which multiple homeless people resided. The house was called "a haunted house" because of the dreary atmosphere surrounding it. Significantly, this site had been the home of General Gwon Ryul (1537-99), the hero of the Battle of Haengju and later the commander-in-chief of the Army of the Joseon Kingdom during the 1592-98 Imjin War. The gingko tree on site is said to have been planted by him, making it nearly 500 years old. In recognition of its historical value, Dilkusha has recently been renovated and designated as a registered cultural asset by Seoul Metropolitan Government. After Korea was liberated in 1945, the Taylor family did their best to return to Korea, but Albert Taylor passed away suddenly in 1948. Driven by Mr. Taylor's enthusiastic love for Korea and his last wishes, Mrs. Taylor brought her husband's ashes to Korea, where he had spent 46 years of his life, and the ashes were deposited at the Yanghwajin Foreigners' Cemetery in Seoul. His father, George Alexander Taylor, also a mining engineer, had been buried in the same cemetery in 1908. Recently, Albert Taylor's admiration for Korea was illuminated through a special exhibition called "Dilkusha and Chain of Amber." The exhibition comprised of approximately 1,000 relics donated by Albert's granddaughter Jennifer Linley Taylor. It was shown at Seoul History Museum from Nov. 23, 2018, to March 10, 2019. The Taylors had a long, colorful and unique history in Korea. The precious artifacts related to Dilkusha on display were a mixture of day-to-day household items, photo albums, correspondence, clothing, amber accessories, an old national flag of Korea as well as photographs of the state funeral of King Gojong and first drafts of Albert's wife's autobiography "Chain of Amber." The renovation of Dilkusha, not far from the cemetery, will help restore the unique relationship between Taylor and his family and the modern history of Korea. Albert Taylor's respect and love for Korea will pass on to his descendants and last forever! Choe Chong-dae (choecd@naver.com) is a guest columnist of The Korea Times. He is president of Dae-kwang International Co., and Director of the Korean-Swedish Association. By Raghuram G. Rajan CHICAGO The postwar economic success of liberal democracies was not simply the result of letting markets flourish. The United States and European countries also embedded markets in a structure that allowed people to take the fullest advantage of them. That structure is breaking down, energizing populist leaders of both the left and the right. While they pose the right questions, they rarely have the right answers. Perhaps, instead, they should make it easier for people to devise their own solutions. Why is the postwar structure breaking down? In the immediate postwar era, a formidable system of secondary education in the U.S. prepared students for work or further study at the world's best universities. Students entered the workforce with the skills to land good jobs. Rapid economic growth and relatively light regulation encouraged many to start their own enterprises. Flexible labor-market policies allowed laid-off workers to find a job quickly somewhere else. Recessions, when they came, were shallow and brief. The superior "pre-market" preparation of Americans via the education system, and the many economic opportunities available to them, allowed the U.S. to function with relatively limited social protections against market volatility. Unemployment insurance was modest, while many people had no health-care coverage even after the introduction of federally-backed insurance schemes for the elderly and the very poor in the 1960s. Continental Europe's education system started off far behind. In 1950, the average French male completed only 4.75 years of schooling (a level similar to Myanmar today), compared to eight in the U.S. But Europe steadily narrowed the gap, and also built strong job protections and social safety nets. In a sense, Europe made up for its initially lower "pre-market" preparation with stronger "post-market" support. Both systems worked well in the postwar decades. Unfortunately, growth stalled in the early 1970s. The capitalist democracies of the West responded with increased liberalization at home and deeper economic integration with one another. Although the U.S. emphasized the former, and continental Europe the latter, the two systems also converged somewhat. In particular, Europe improved its pre-market support while undoing some of its post-market protection, which was increasingly unaffordable in an era of slow growth. Yet growth never really returned to the heady levels of the postwar decades. And more recently, the technology revolution has automated many well-paid but routine jobs, and contributed to the outsourcing of middle-income manufacturing positions. Today's well-paid jobs require more skills, and thus more pre-market support. Regrettably, such support has become far less egalitarian in the U.S. Successful urban and suburban communities give children the capabilities they need to succeed, while declining semi-rural areas and urban ghettoes do not. For decades, the U.S. has tried to improve failing schools. But growing income segregation makes the task harder. As professionals flee with their children into successful upper-middle-class communities, the high costs of living and real estate keep the rest from following. The demands of the market are creating a meritocracy, but a hereditary one, where the children of the successful are more likely to succeed. The disparate quality of schooling is also a growing problem in more egalitarian Europe, as immigrants move into affordable working-class communities. Because immigrant children generally must adjust to a different school system and a new language, they almost inevitably require disproportionate attention from teachers and school staff as they catch up. This, too, adversely affects the experience of existing students, and creates an impetus for the upwardly mobile to leave the community. The relative dearth of opportunities for those left behind is probably compounded by the growth of superstar firms, which has coincided with a slowdown in the creation of startups and entrepreneurial ventures in the U.S. Jobs in superstar firms require higher skills. Amazon's promise to create thousands of jobs in its planned new headquarters in Queens, New York City, was less attractive to the local community than the headline numbers suggested, because many of the better positions would be out of reach for most in the community. Progressive Democratic politicians mobilized against Amazon, which has now abandoned its plans. Left-wing populists respond to the decline in pre-market support for their natural constituency by calling for additions to the safety net, such as universal health care (in the U.S.), job guarantees, and forms of universal basic income. The populist right sees such proposals as a threat, because they will erode the sustainability of the existing safety net for the native-born majority. The response of right-wing populists to community decline is to blame immigrants and other minorities, as well as trade. True, keeping immigrants out might initially reduce pressure on schools and services in working-class communities. In the longer run, however, it will deprive these areas of the youth, energy, and eventual revitalization that immigrants bring. And while the populist left supports immigration as essential to sustaining new welfare programs, it tends to sympathize with the right on trade protectionism. Unfortunately, beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism will make the world poorer. Declining communities urgently need alternative ways to attract new economic activity, and to make their citizens better able to respond to globalization and technological change. Capital cities are often too remote from local concerns, and too paralyzed by infighting, to take the lead. What is needed are local solutions, implemented with community knowledge and engagement, and supported by national governments with funding and light oversight where necessary. If such measures can improve pre-market preparation for people in struggling communities, augmenting the post-market safety net will become less necessary and more affordable. Would it not make sense to eschew the grand centralized policies of the populist left and right, and instead put more trust in local communities? That would be a truly populist idea. Raghuram G. Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, is professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author, most recently, of "The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind." Copyright belongs to Project Syndicate ( By Robert Park Hundreds of thousands of Koreans attended his funeral July 5, 1949; millions more were grieving across the country. A relative was but eight years old when Kim Koo (1876-1949), the longest-running and final president of the Korean Provisional Government (1919-48) an entity regarded by President Moon Jae-in as having laid the foundations of the contemporary South Korean state was viciously assassinated, and once recounted the resultant pandemonium: "The whole nation was mourning, including schoolchildren. I was a third grade pupil at Samkwang Elementary School when teacher Kim Koo died. We knew nothing about politics at that age, but he was a widely respected man. Our whole class walked to Hyochang Park in Yongsan-gu for the services. It appeared the entire school, all grade levels alike, made it to the funeral ... There were so many people." Within South Korea, Kim Koo is arguably the most commended personage in modern history. President Moon unmistakably esteems him, as was evidenced via the South Korean leader's visit to Kim's grave Feb. 26. "Moon's trip to the cemetery also highlights his recognition of the provisional government as the legitimate predecessor of the current government," the Yonhap News Agency noted. Further demonstrating Moon's devotion to the independence leader, he chose the Kim Koo Museum & Library for an address marking the 73rd anniversary of "Police Day" on Oct. 25 in effect, declaring Kim Koo the archetype of patriotism, of a superior sense of duty and of an unswerving fidelity in service of the best interests of the Korean people. Moon again upheld that the provisional government introduced standards which Korea must ever endeavor to fulfill, and that the safeguarding of "democracy, human rights and the daily lives of the people began in the provisional government." There are many conservatively inclined Koreans who similarly paid homage to Kim. For instance, erstwhile Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pyun Yung-tai (1892-1969), likened Kim to "your Washington, or Jefferson, or Lincoln" in a May 1947 address to Americans in Seoul. In 2007, the Bank of Korea (BOK) aggregated data via national public opinion polls and expert recommendations for newly designed denomination banknotes. Kim Koo was thereupon selected to be featured on the 100,000-won bill (yet to materialize). Notwithstanding, it's difficult to find any positive impressions of Korea's hero within most English accounts of the 1945-53 period where, typically, he's only briskly mentioned, and in a scathingly negative or dismissive light. The most meticulously researched and substantial among English-language works relating to Kim and there aren't many to choose from is political economist and Eurasia specialist Jongsoo Lee's introduction to "Paekpom Ilchi: The Autobiography of Kim Ku" (2001). There Lee cites the "pitfall of stereotypes or other reductionist tendencies" together with irresponsibly sourced, demonstrably specious and excessively speculative historiography as among the roadblocks impeding an objective and more precise appraisal vis-a-vis Kim's person. Yet this piece is not for debating Kim's merits; it's intended as a reminder that the septuagenarian's still unsettled assassination on June 26, 1949 shot multiple times while perusing poetry at a residence thoroughly destabilized and dreadfully further polarized Korea's populace, arguably, vis-a-vis politics, to the point of no return. At the time of Japan's capitulation in 1945, Kim was serving as the interim government's head and had a formidable bipartisan following. Consequently, the hit-job targeting him left Korea exceedingly vulnerable, fostered anarchic conditions and was a precursor to the 1950-53 Korean War wherein an estimated 4 million people died, with some 70 percent of those killed being civilians. Three days after the slaying, U.S. troops withdrew from South Korea; in under a year commenced the "forgotten war." Eerily, in 2001 the National Institute of Korean History uncovered that the enforcer, Ahn Doo-hui, then a lieutenant in the ROK military, was both a member and agent of the U.S. CIC (Counter-Intelligence Corps) per declassified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. The key report, which was filed on the date of the troop withdrawal by Major George Cilley, has an A2 high-reliability grade, and is titled "Kim Koo: Background Information Concerning Assassination." Ahn was rewarded rather than punished. To befuddle Kim's followers, the assassin was publicized as having been meted a life sentence and maintained he had acted alone in court proceedings. Released within a year, he straightaway was reinstated as an army officer, hastily obtained colonel-status and went on to live a comfortable life in the United States. Ahn died at the merry-old-age of 79 when one of Kim Koo's devotees assailed him under the banner of retribution. The report indicates that the CIC was privy to Kim's assassination and had coordinated with Ahn Doo-hui. Moreover, it suggests that the assassinations of respected Korean independence activist Yo Un-hyong (1886-1947) as well as Chang Duk-soo (1894-1947), another prominent figure, were masterminded by the terrorist organization "Baikyi-sa" which Ahn was dedicated to (by blood oath). Baikyi-sa, accordingly, had enjoyed a critical level of cooperation with the CIC. Perchance securing justice for Korea's slain independence leaders within this context may seem unrealistic; nevertheless, materially honoring those who died in such an underhanded and extralegal fashion while laboring for Korea's reconstruction is an ethical imperative of the first order. There are acute implications for failing to do so for if Korea is powerless to obtain redress for its most respected leaders, the same could be inferred of its capacity to protect the broader populace. A first step would be to pursue an official apology from the entities involved, and the plot obviously extended well beyond Ahn Doo-hui. The author is a nonpartisan humanitarian, human rights advocate and former prisoner of conscience. He is a founding member of the nonpartisan Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, a nonprofit working to provide life-saving resources to victims and their families in North Korea. New Zealand, from an American perspective, may seem to be at the end of the Earth. But that perceived isolation doesn't equal protection. Evil can come from anywhere and descend on anyone. The internet can speed messages of hate. On Friday, at least one gunman, possibly more, attacked two mosques in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island, killing several dozen people and wounding dozens more. It was afternoon on the day of prayer for Muslims. The carnage was purposeful, livestreamed on Facebook. This was a heinous act of violence designed to be seen and shared. A shooter, apparently using a helmet camera, led viewers on his rampage. The design of the crime is all too recognizable. It is Pittsburgh, where a gunman killed 11 people in a synagogue. It is a South Texas church, where a murderer killed 26 people. It is a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., where the death toll was six. It is terrorism carried out against a targeted group of victims at their most peaceful and thus vulnerable: people at prayer. One can speculate about a possible motive in this case, white nationalist rage but logic fails to justify such twisted acts. New Zealand, like the United States, is a multicultural nation where Muslims are assimilated contributors to society. But like other groups, including Jewish people, Muslims are a highly visible minority, owing to their cultural identity and pattern of worship. One aspect of this crime that gained immediate attention was the livestream. Early evidence suggested the internet also played a role in fomenting the gunman's hateful ideology. The dark corners of cyberspace are full of such lunacy. All kinds of ideas, good and evil, go viral through social media. Societies can't outlaw hate. Government cannot regulate thought or ban words. In the United States, the First Amendment doesn't take sides. Short of explicit threats, free speech must be free, which limits the ability of lawmakers to prevent eruptions of hate like the one in New Zealand. But that doesn't mean civilized societies are powerless. Gatekeepers such as Facebook and other social media purveyors do have a responsibility to patrol and regulate their own venues. And all of us have a responsibility to eradicate racial supremacy and other vile forms of bigotry. Two messages come at us from faraway New Zealand. The first is the need to call out the hatred of the mass "them," no matter who "they" may be. The second is to teach tolerance and embrace the differences that make people of all backgrounds unique and equal. If all of us listen, those messages have a chance of squelching these senseless acts. The above editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune. It was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Moon should push for chaebol reform as promised President Moon Jae-in has been promising to reform family-run conglomerates, or chaebol, since he took office in May 2017. Needless to say, chaebol reform is more than necessary to reduce the concentration of economic power on a small number of large business groups. Koreans still have high expectations for Moon's promise, not least because they have already been fed up with chaebol's bad business practices. This is all the more so following the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye who was accused of forming corrupt ties with chaebol such as Samsung Electronics, SK Group and Lotte Group. Thus, Moon should double down on chaebol reform. However, concerns are growing that chaebol reform may fizzle out in the face of the prolonged economic slowdown. For this reason, the President now runs the risk of repeating the same mistake committed by his predecessors liberal and conservative. Over the past three decades, almost all presidents vowed to reform family-controlled conglomerates immediately after their inauguration. But simply put, they lost their fight against chaebol. More exactly, each president with a five-year single term waged a battle they could not win from the start. The ousted President Park also pressed ahead with chaebol reform under the name of "economic democratization" at least ostensibly. But she reneged on her reform drive which ended up with the massive corruption and power abuse scandal. She was found guilty of pressuring Samsung and several other conglomerates to provide huge sums for her confidant Choi Soon-sil in return for business favors, including the hereditary transfer of managerial rights, although she appealed to the Supreme Court. Given that Moon took power in the wake of the corruption scandal and the subsequent ouster of his predecessor, the liberal President had no choice but to declare war on chaebol. He appointed economics professor and civic activist Kim Sang-jo, better known as the "chaebol sniper," as the chairman of the Fair Trade Commission. Yet, Kim's appointment alone has yet to produce any progress in chaebol reform. He has so far focused on improving the shady governance structures of conglomerates and cracking down on their unfair practices exploiting small- and medium-sized companies. However, little has changed to transform the business landscape which has long been dominated by chaebol. Making matters worse, the aggravating economic conditions are putting greater pressure on the Moon government to retreat from chaebol reform. So there is the strong possibility of Moon compromising his reform policy. If he backpedals on this, the country may risk losing out to chaebol and their owner families forever. We urge the Moon administration to make unwavering efforts to reform chaebol which have deepened economic and social polarization. Although they have contributed to the development of the export-oriented Korean economy, conglomerates now become a hurdle to fair competition. President Moon cannot realize his policy of inclusive growth without chaebol reform. SK Telecom employees check the subscriber authentication server equipped with the quantum random number generator in Seoul. / Courtesy of SK Telecom By Jun Ji-hye SK Telecom will use quantum cryptography technology to ensure security of fifth-generation (5G) network operation, the nation's top mobile carrier said Monday. Quantum cryptography communications is technology creating quantum keys that can be decrypted only by senders and receivers. The technology is cited as the safest cryptography for network communications as it prevents interception or theft of data fundamentally, the telecom firm said. The company has focused its efforts on communication security as a vast amount of data will be transmitted through self-driving cars and financial and remote medical services as well as smart factories that require tight security in the 5G era. SK Telecom has begun to apply "quantum random number generator" (QRNG) technology of Geneva-based quantum cryptography company ID Quantique to the subscriber authentication server of 5G networks. SK Telecom acquired ID Quantique in February last year. QRNG is capable of blocking any cyber attacks, the mobile carrier said, noting that the technology will ensure the personal information security of its subscribers. The firm plans to expand the use of QRNG in the existing long-term evolution (LTE) networks next month. The telecom company will strengthen security further by applying ID Quantique's quantum key distribution technology to its 5G and LTE networks between Seoul and Daejeon next month. "We have preemptively introduced quantum cryptography communications technology to offer distinguished communications services to SK Telecom subscribers," said Kang Jong-lyeol, head of the ICT infrastructure center at SK Telecom. "We will offer the safest 5G communications network in the world." The firm said it has already led the global ecosystem for quantum cryptography communications. In February, the company's two new technologies related to quantum cryptography communications were selected as projects for international standardization during a meeting of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) in Geneva. ITU-T is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union. Following the additional adoption, SK Telecom is now in charge of four ITU-T international standardization projects in the field of quantum cryptography. "Security has become more important for 5G networks," said Park Jin-hyo who heads the ICT center at SK Telecom. "We will lead the nation's 5G era through the development of quantum cryptography communications technology and extension of its application." Song Dae-hyun, right, president of home appliance and air systems at LG Electronics, poses with Gwangju Techno Park President Kim Sung-jin, left, Industry Minister Sung Yun-mo, second from left, and Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-seop after signing a memorandum of understanding to foster the air purifier industry in Gwangju at the Gwangju Techno Park industrial complex, Monday. / Courtesy of LG Electronics By Baek Byung-yeul LG Electronics has joined forces with Gwangju City to nurture the air purifier industry amid worsening fine dust pollution, the company said Monday. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Gwangju Metropolitan City Government and Gwangju Techno Park industrial complex to promote local companies in the air purifier industry. LG said the gist of this MOU is around creating jobs, co-conducting R&D projects and fostering the ecosystem of manufacturing partners in the dust filtering industry. The company added the MOU is in line with the government's plan to invigorate the local economy. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy previously announced last December its plans to develop key industries in 14 cities and provinces nationwide, and Gwangju and its neighboring South Jeolla Province were designated as the placesto nurturethe air purifier industry. "LG decided to ink the MOU which is in accordance with the government's plans to boost the regional economy," an LG spokesman said. With the worsening fine dust pollution, the country's air purifier market has seen explosive growth over the past few years. The industry ministry estimates the air purifier industry was at 1 trillion won ($883 million) in 2016 but the figure grew about 2.5 times larger in just two years. LG presumed the industry will grow to 3.7 trillion won by 2020. However, the ministry said the industry needs more technological development to produce specialized air purifiers for large spaces such as underground shopping areas, schools and hospitals because air purifier machines currently available on the market are mainly for household use. "The MOU is significant as it can contribute to revitalizing the regional economy, and seek cooperation through partnerships in research and fostering (the development of) experts,"Industry Minister Sung Yun-mo said. Under the MOU, the three participating organizations will co-conduct case studies on how to improve air quality in various kinds of places such as living spaces, schools and hospitals. They will also co-develop air purifier products that are specialized for each area. Localcompanies in the air purifier industry will also be able to receive technical support ranging from design, patent and other issues related to products. The ministry expects the MOU agreement will become a cornerstone to establishing an industrial cluster for the air purifier industry and can be another type of job creation model. "In cooperation with LG Electronics, we will support companies in the air purifier industry to release air purifier products featuring artificial intelligence technology, a core technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution," Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-seop said. LG also said the MOU will become an important milestone for the country's air purifier industry, which is expected to have huge growth. "We will tightly cooperate with Gwangju City and Gwangju Techno Park to create sustainable customer value," said Song Dae-hyun, president of LG's home appliance and air systems. By Jung Min-ho AirAsia Group chief executive officer Tony Fernandes has closed his Facebook account, citing too much "hate" being transmitted on social media after the live-streaming of the mass shooting in New Zealand. Fernandes, who had 670,000 followers, said on Twitter Sunday that Facebook should "clean up" after videos of the recent New Zealand mosque attacks were uploaded to the platform. "Facebook could have done more to stop some of this. I myself have been a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories," he wrote. "The amount of hate that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good." For at least 17 minutes on Friday, a gunman streamed live video of a mass murder at a mosque in Christchurch. New Zealand police later alerted Facebook to the issue, and the company removed the shooter's account. On Saturday, Facebook said it removed 1.5 million copies of the shooting video. "We continue to work around the clock to remove violating content using a combination of technology and people," Mia Garlick of Facebook New Zealand said in a statement. By Nam Hyun-woo Hankook Tire Group will likely be sued over its new corporate name, Hankook Technology Group, as the name has already been used by Kosdaq-listed auto parts company Hankook Technology, according to investors and company officials Monday. According to Hankook Tire Group, its holding firm Hankook Tire Worldwide will hold a shareholders meeting on March 28 and change its name to Hankook Technology Group. This will affect its core unit Hankook Tire's nameplate too, which will be Hankook Tire & Technology. The group said the decision is to reflect its desire to expand its business domain to cover various automobile businesses. Following the tiremaker's move, Hankook Technology is on alert that it may end up losing its name. "We have no relation with Hankook Tire and we've suddenly learned of the attempt through news reports," a Hankook Technology official said. "We have been on the bourse for nearly 20 years. We're not a small company. A simple web search shows our website and stock information. We don't understand why Hankook Tire decided to do this and will try our best to not let our name be stolen by the tiremaker." Hankook Technology was founded in 1997 as Vision Telecom and listed on the tech-heavy Kosdaq bourse in 2001. It took the current name in 2012. Its main businesses include manufacturing in-vehicle infotainment systems and solar panels. The Hankook Technology official said the company is looking into "all possible ways" to protect its name, including a legal battle if necessary. Reportedly, the company is in the process of applying trademark rights to protect the name. Over Hankook Technology's claim, Hankook Tire said there will be "no legal problem at all." "We know there's a company named Hankook Technology and our proposed new name is Hankook Technology Group," a Hankook Tire official said. "Our legal team has gone over all processes over the name change, and found no legal problems." However, Hankook Technology investors are already writing online comments complaining about the confusion and concerns over their shares, as news reports on Hankook Tire's renaming were automatically linked to Hankook Technology's investor forum on Korea's largest web portal Naver. "This may trigger a suit between the two companies' trademark," an industry analyst said, citing multiple legal battles between Microsoft and other Korean firms over the former's operating system, Windows. "In a trademark rights battle, it is important whether the two companies are in the same business domain," lawyer Kim Dong-seop at law firm YK Law. "Though it depends on the decision of the Korean Intellectual Property Office, Hankook Technology will take the advantage in an envisioned battle, if Hankook Technology gains trademark rights on its name first." By Baek Byung-yeul Kakao will apply its artificial intelligence (AI) platform Kakao i to Hyundai Motor's latest Sonata sedan, allowing drivers to control various in-vehicle services with voice commands, the tech firm said Monday. Kakao and Hyundai have joined forces to develop in-vehicle connectivity systems since 2017. Through the cooperation, the two firms could integrate Kakao's AI platform Kakao i and Hyundai's voice recognition system. The latest Sonata model is the first vehicle to feature the Kakao i AI platform. The voice assistant will provide various kinds of information services such as news, weather, films and TV channels, stock information, top searches and exchange rate. With a voice command, drivers can control the air conditioning as well. As the AI platform supports natural language processing, the voice assistant can understand seemingly difficult commands such as "AC to maximum" or "direct AC towards me." "Drivers can control the air conditioner, heater and even air flow direction of Sonata with a voice command," Kakao said adding it will continue to expand the number of models to feature the service. "By applying Kakao i-based AI technology to the latest Sonata, we are able to offer a new experience and value to our customers," said Choo Kyo-woong, head of Hyundai's infotainment development group. "With this cooperation as a steppingstone, we will keep trying to lead the connected car technology." Kakao said its AI technology helps improve convenience to drivers. "The AI service featured in the new Sonata model is the first accomplishment made in the cooperation between Kakao and Hyundai Motor and shows a long-term goal of Kakao's AI technology development," said Kim Byung-hak, vice president of Kakao's AI lab. The latest Sonata model will hit the market starting March 21. The model will also be introduced at the upcoming Seoul Motor Show, which will be held at the KINTEX Convention Center in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, from March 28 to April 7. Chinese fighter jets arrive in Pakistan for its national day parade China's Bayi Aerobatic Team perform at the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition (Airshow China) in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, on Nov. 6, 2018. The air show opend on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua The J-10 fighter jets of the People's Liberation Army Air Force's Bayi Aerobatic Team arrived in Pakistan on Saturday in preparation for a flight performance there on March 23 in celebration of Pakistan's National Day. The Chinese pilots, invited by the Pakistani side, received a warm welcome upon arrival as local children greeted them with bouquets, China Central Television reported on Saturday. A parade is scheduled on March 23 to mark Pakistan Day, said Asif Ghafoor, a Pakistan Army spokesperson, Pakistani news website thenews.com.pk reported on Thursday. Contingents from countries including China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey will participate in the parade, with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad being the guest of honor, the report said. Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of International Relations, told the Global Times on Sunday that China sending fighter jets to celebrate Pakistan Day is symbolic of the friendship between China and Pakistan, noting that Pakistan is an all-weather friend of China. This is not the first time the Bayi Aerobatic Team performed in Pakistan. On November 19 2017, the team staged a "wonderful" aerobatic flight with J-10 fighter jets in Quetta, the capital city of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, according to China Military Online. In addition to the J-10's flight performance, Chinese analysts expect more Chinese elements at Pakistan Day parade as the country operates a variety of Chinese weapons. A Pakistani JF-17 Thunder fighter jet performs during a ceremony marking the county's Defense Day in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, on Sept. 6, 2015. Photo: Xinhua The Pakistan Air Force's main fighter jet, the JF-17, is a product of Chinese-Pakistani joint development, China Military Online reported. The Pakistan Air Force also operates the ZDK-03 early warning aircraft, which is developed by China and is reportedly capable of aerial detection and sharing real time battlefield information. The MBT-2000 main battle tank developed by China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) is designated the Al-Khalid in the Pakistan Army, the report said. Pakistan also operates the likes of China's HJ-8 anti-tank missile and FM-90 air defense missile, according to China Military Online. Hu noted that China has contributed to Pakistan's military development, as China has been helping the country with its national defense industry for decades. China is likely to have more joint development projects and arms sales to Pakistan in the future, analysts said. A third and more advanced batch of the JF-17 fighter jet, the JF-17 Block 3, is currently under development and production, China Aviation News reported on March 8. By Jung Min-ho Data from the Ethiopian Airlines crash a week ago suggest "clear similarities" with an earlier incident involving the same kind of Boeing aircraft, Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday (local time). Dagmawit Moges made the claim based on preliminary data retrieved from the black box of the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane, which crashed in Ethiopia on March 10 only six months after a deadly crash involving the identical model in Indonesia. "Clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further study during the investigation," Dagmawit told journalists. The black box was in good condition and a preliminary report about the crash will be released within 30 days, she noted. Both planes flew with erratic altitude changes an indication that the pilots were struggling to control the aircraft and went down less than 15 minutes after takeoff. Suspicions emerged that faulty sensors or software may have contributed to the incidents. Concerns over possible errors have led China, Australia, Canada and many other countries to ground the MAX 8 planes. Boeing now faces the challenge of proving the model is safe. About 350 MAX 8 planes were in operation around the world before they were taken out of circulation, and the company had more than 4,600 on order, according to the FAA. Airlines around the world are cautiously watching Boeing's and the governments' investigations into the Ethiopia disaster. According to Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's data, airlines here planned to purchase 114 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes by 2027. Jeju Air is contracted to buy 56, followed by Korean Air (30), Eastar Jet (18) and T'way Air (10). The Court of Appeals has upheld the right of a property developer to rescind the P321.6 million contracts it signed with one of the countrys real estate tycoons for the sale of a 150-hectare land in Barangay Batulao, Nasugbu, Batangas. In a 15-page decision, the CAs Eight Division through Associate Justice Ronaldo Roberto Martin sustained the judgment rendered by the Regional Trial Court, Branch 14, Batangas City which ordered RGV Development Corporation owned by real estate tycoon Rodolfo Valencia and the Armed Forces of the Philippines Retirement and Separation Benefits System to reconvey Lot 2-A-1 to Group Developers, Inc, which is composed of 150 hectares of land in Nasugbu, Batangas. The property was then mortgaged to Manila Banking Corporation. The appellate court ruled that RGVDC did not comply with its obligations to GDI under their memorandum of agreement for the sale of the property, thus, entitling the latter to rescind the agreement and the deed of absolute sale. Under the MOA, the purchase price of the subject property is P321,600,000.00, but out of this amount, P117,166,400.00 is to be distributed to the informal settlers, while P129,474,250.00 is to be spent for the development of the relocation sites of the informal settlers. Since the subject property was then mortgaged to MBC, it was agreed that out of P321.6 million, , RGVDC will directly pay the amount of P55 million to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for the partial settlement of the loan of GDI to MBC, while P16.6 million will be for the legal and miscellaneous expenses incurred in the redemption of the subject property with the MBC. The CA stressed that the trial court correctly ruled that out of the P321.6 million, only P1 million was actually received by GDI as earnest money. The amount of P117,166,400.00 and P129,474,250.00 constituted the bulk of the purchase price, and as such, RGVDCs non-compliance with their obligation constituted non-payment of the full purchase price, and consequently, a breach of contract on their part, the CA held. In its complaint for reconveyance of real property with prayer for damages, GDI said following its issuance of a deed of absolute sale over the subject property, it chanced upon an issue in one of the major dailies on April 14, 2007 showing that AFP-RSBS was offering for sale 1.5 million shares of stocks of Monterrosa Development Corporation (MDC) at a 150-hectare residential located in Barangay Batulao, Nasugbu, Batangas for a minimum bid price of P892.5 million. Because of this, GDI discovered about the transfer of the subject property from MDC to AFP-RSBS, thus, the filing of the complaint. For its part, RGVD insisted that had already fulfilled its obligation under the MOA by clearing the subject property of its occupants and with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and that GDI was satisfied, that is why it executed the deed of absolute sale. They alleged that granting that RGVDC did not comply with the deposit, the beneficiaries of the amount are the tenants/occupants of the subject property, and not GDI. They further argued that GDI is already barred from denying its satisfaction with its dealings with RGVDC in view of the execution of the deed of absolute sale and the transfer of the title over the subject property to MDC since 1998. MDC denied GDIs claim of simulation of contracts as there was an actual transfer of ownership when it paid P321.6 million to GDI, which resulted in the execution of the deed of absolute sale. On the other hand, AFP-RSBS claimed that that as part of its business undertakings, it entered into a joint venture with AG&P for the construction and marketing of a 28-storey condominium in Binondo, Manila, named as Chinatown Steel Towers, Inc.On September 7, 1999, CSTI and RGVDC executed a deed of assignment allowing the former to transfer and assign in favor of the latter all its shares of stocks and assets consisting primarily of 120 condominium units at the Chinatown Steel Towers, in exchange for the subject property which at that time was in the name of MDC. Also, on the same date, RGVDC executed a deed of assignment transferring and assigning all its rights and interests over the shares of stock with MDC to AFP-RSBS. AFP-RSBS argued that the deed of assignment was in effect a corporate swap, whereby CSTI would hand over all of its shares of stocks comprising of 120 condominium units to RGVDC in exchange for the latters right and interest in MDC to AFP-RSBS, which consists of all its shares of stocks including the subject property. AFP-RSBS also alleged that at the time MDCs shares and assets were assigned to it, the title of the subject property had no adverse claim annotated in favor of GDI, thus, it claimed that it acted in good faith as MDCs assignee, and that it was a purchaser in good faith and for value. This resulted to AFP-RSBSs filing of a cross-claim against RGVDC where it contended that it was a mere assignee of MDC by virtue of a deed of assignment executed by CSTI and RGVDC. Thus, it argued RGVDC should likewise be ordered to return the proceeds of the sale of the 120 condominium units of CTS to AFP-RSBS, and to pay damages, among others in case of a ruling that favor GDI. However, the appellate court said that in this case, RGVDC failed to pay the purchase price which gave GDI a right to demand the fulfillment or cancellation of the obligation under an existing valid contract. Here, GDI opted to have the contracts rescinded, which is well within its right, it added. With regard to the claim of AFP-RSBS, the CA ruled that it is an assignee in bad faith. Had AFP-RSBS carefully examined the documents handed over by RGVDC, it would have easily discovered that the latter was not able to comply with its obligations to GDI, which would have prompted AFP-RSBS to inquire into the title of RGVDC as regards the subject property, the CA explained. But the appellate court held that RGVDC should pay AFP-RSBS the proceeds of the sale of the 120 condominium units of CSTI. Thus, the RTC correctly ordered that Rodolfo and RGVDC return the proceeds of the sale of the 120 condominium units of CSTI to AFP-RSBS as it is an assignee of MDC. Besides, Rodolfo and RGVDC did not present any evidence that it was CSTI that received the proceeds of the sale of the 120 condominium units, the CA held. Associate Justices Ramon M. Bato Jr. and Ramon A. Cruz concurred with the ruling. The negative list system, equal treatment of domestic and foreign investment as well as intensified protection of legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors have made up three biggest highlights of Chinas newly-drafted foreign investment law, experts pointed out, in the belief that the rollout of the new law will help China optimize its business investment. Zhu Jiandi, a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) from Shanghai is giving a thumb to the remarks of another deputy Xu Zheng at a panel meeting of the Shanghai legislators held on March 10, 2019. (Photo by Weng Qixu from Peoples Daily Online) The draft, which was submitted to the ongoing session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) for deliberation on March 8, is expected to be put up for a vote by nearly 3,000 national legislators on March 15. Before the submission, the draft law has gone through two readings by the NPC Standing Committee in last December and this January respectively. Once adopted, the new law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises to serve as Chinas fundamental law on foreign investment. After China embarked on the journey of reform and opening up, China has been providing institutional guarantee for its expansion of opening up and utilization of foreign investment with a legal system based on the three existing laws. But now the three laws could hardly catch up with the changing requirements in pushing ahead with reform and opening up in the new era and in building a new system of open economy, which means that a unified and overarching law on foreign investment has to be enacted based on previous experience. Data indicated that as of last November, there were 950,000 foreign-funded companies registered in China that have brought more than $2 trillion into the country. The figure indicates that foreign investment has grown into a key driver of Chinas economic and social progress. Foreign investments, especially those technology-intensive ones, will play a long-term and key propelling role for economic growth of China, the biggest developing country in the world, said Zhang Yuyan, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Against such backdrop, the country needs to provide foreign investors with a sound legal ecosystem, he said, adding that it is also a key part of Chinas efforts to foster international economic cooperation and push ahead all-round opening up. Putting how to promote and protect foreign investment on its top agenda, the law is helpful in stabilizing the expectation and confidence of foreign investors, said Lam Lung On, chairman of Yuzhou Properties. The law requires the authorities to implement policies of high-level investment facilitation and liberalization, build a legal system that protects the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors, establish a mechanism to restrain the role of governmental departments and resolve complaints from foreign companies, added Lam, also chairman of Hong Kong Chinese Importers'& Exporters' Association. Experts also listed three biggest highlights of the law, namely the negative list system, a unified management standard of domestic and foreign investment, as well as intensified protection of legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors. No. 1: Negative list system The draft law stipulates that China will manage foreign investment according to the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list. This means that foreign investors and their investments shall enjoy treatment no less favorable than that afforded to Chinese investors and their investments at the stage of investment access. The negative list management system means that the country will specify the special management measures for entry of foreign investment in certain fields, and grant foreign investors to a national treatment in sectors that are not on the list. Based on the new law, the approval and registration procedures for setting up or business alteration of foreign-invested enterprises will be abolished and replaced by the system of pre-establishment national treatment plus a negative list, said Wang Chengjie, vice chairman and the Secretary-General of China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. The draft, which adopts a unified set of rules with the provisions to manage domestic firms, encourages an all-round implementation of the national treatment to provide domestic and foreign companies with a level playing field, he elaborated, adding that the law also enables China to further keep in step with international norms and press ahead with investment liberalization and facilitation. It constituted the core value and biggest highlight of the legislation of foreign investment law, Wang concluded. Upon the adoption of the law, relevant departments and local governments can no longer formulate procedures of market entry in a rash way, and foreign investment can access to all areas not on the prohibited or restricted list, said Xiao Jiangping, the director of Competition Law Research Center of Peking University. Foreign investment will be treated equally in rules, rights and opportunities with domestic capitals, he added. No.2: Domestic, foreign investment to be managed under a unified set of law China, in its report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), pledged that all businesses registered in China will be treated equally. Areas where foreign investment is prohibited or restricted will be detailed in the negative list, while industries that are not on the list will be fully open, with domestic and foreign firms enjoying the same treatment, Xiao expounded on the draft provisions. Describing it as a fundamental change to Chinas management system of foreign investment, the professor said the law will make domestic investment environment more open, transparent and predictable. The draft also covers a string of specific measures to provide foreign and domestic firms a fair environment for market competition. The new law, for instance, requires equal applicability of Chinas mandatory standards to foreign investors, as well as equal access of the products they produce on Chinese territory to government procurement. These provisions respond to the long-standing appeals of the foreign investors, ensure the applicability of mandatory standards to all domestic and foreign businesses, and also grant their equal rights to engage in government procurement, said Sang Baichuan, director of the Institute for International Business at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. No.3: Protection of legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors The law also includes an article to detail how to protect foreign investment, in which it makes clear that the state shall protect the intellectual property rights (IPR) of foreign investors, as well as the legitimate rights and interests of right holders. Technology cooperation based on voluntary agreement and commercial rules is encouraged, the draft said. The new law incorporates more measures to protect the foreign investment than the previous management regulations, said Feng Fan, director of Jiangxi Newstar Law Firm, elaborating that it offers more guarantee and convenience in protection of business environment, capital market, IPR and technologies. It will not only boost foreign investors confidence in Chinese market, but also facilitate a healthy and orderly development of Chinas market economy, he added. Wang Dujuan, chief engineer of China Railway Engineering Equipment Group Co., LTD (CREG) and Wang Xiu (1st from the right), vice chairperson of the federation of literary and art circles in Henans provincial capital Luoyang, are discussing on the draft of the foreign investment law. Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) from central Chinas Henan province held a plenary meeting on March 10, 2019 to review the draft. (Photo by Shi Jiamin from Peoples Daily) "This is for Tommy Robinson" Shouts Knife Wielding White Supremacist Terrorist in London UKIP's embrace of Tommy Robinson has fuelled one of Britain's foremost hate preacher to reach a broad audience many of whom have been radicalised into committing acts of violence, thank fully nothing on the scale of last weeks New Zealand terror attack. However, copy cat attacks are taking place right across the UK that Britains' tough gun laws have prevented resulting in carnage on anywhere near the same scale as that witnessed in New Zealand. One such attack that is being widely reported on by the mainstream media was in London on Saturday near Heathrow airport where a white male after an near hour of hurling racist and white supremacist abuse on the street at passers by including "death to all muslims","I want to kill muslims", and "this is for Tommy Robinson" as reported on by witnesses, eventually went and stabbed an asian teenager in a nearby Tesco car park. Home Secretary Sajid Javid commented We must stand together as a society and reject the terrorists and extremists who seek to divide us. Nows the moment for us all to challenge the hatred, ignorance and violence they peddle and stand up for the kind of country we are and want to be. A welcoming, tolerant, proudly diverse country that draws strength and prosperity from that diversity." As Home Secretary Im determined that every individual and community should feel safe to live their lives. To any communities who are feeling vulnerable and under threat I say we are with you. You benefit our country, you are part of our country, part of us. The far rights near total takeover of UKIP, the party that played a pivotal role in delivering a LEAVE victory at the June 2016 EU Referendum under Nigel Farage's leadership. Which given the collapse in electoral support from a high of 18% of the vote to today's polls barely registering 5% support ensures that should there be a 2nd EU referendum then there is virtually ZERO chance that LEAVE would win a new vote. Even if Nigel Farage manages to get his new BrExit party of the ground. As today's UKIP's primary objective is no longer for the UK to LEAVE the EU but to perpetuate and magnify hatred of all things muslim, that even resulted in UKIPS former leader Nigel Farage resigning membership of the party in the wake of its growing obsession with Islamophobia, increasingly embracing right wing extremist ideologies most notable of whom or Tommy Robinson (fake name) and Katie Hopkins, as UKIP continues to trend towards becoming BNP 2.0. Which soon becomes apparent when visiting any of the popular UKIP facebook groups, that UKIP / BNP 2.0 is no longer a party focused on the UK leaving the EU but rather in disseminating hatred of muslims with many similar tropes posted as found at the heart of the right wing extremist terrorist's so called manifesto focused on the 'Great Replacement'. Apparently UKIP / BNP 2.0 have a particular hatred of London's Lord Mayor, Saddique Khan and Labour front bencher Diane Abbot. Typical of what gets posted about Dianne Abbott several times per day! Again espousing very similar tropes as the New Zealand terrorist. And even going so far as to encourage blaming the victims of the New Zealand terror attack. With a guy in Oldham Manchester crossing the line and actually heaping racist praise on the terrorist who was promptly arrested for by Manchester Police. We have deliberately blurred the whole of his post so as to avoid the spread of his hate speech amongst like minded individuals. However, the consequences of the transformation of UKIP into BNP 2.0 in that it would now be near impossible for LEAVE to win a Second EU Referendum which appears to be the most probable outcome out of Britain's ongoing BrExit chaos. And given UKIP's embrace of Tommy Robinson then I would not be surprised if he becomes UKIP's next leader or at the least represents UKIP / BNP 2.0 as a prospective parliamentary candidate at the next general election, though I am sure electoral law dictates that people cannot stand for parliament under a false name. Whilst if UKIP has any shred of decency in respect of wanting to honour the result of the June 2016 Referendum, then they should complete their name change to BNP 2.0 so as to allow Nigel Farage's BrExit party a better chance at rebuilding an effective electoral base in attempts at winning a 2nd EU referendum. By John York http://www.marketoracle.co.uk Copyright 2005-2019 Marketoracle.co.uk (Market Oracle Ltd). All rights reserved. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Best Precious Metals Investment and Trades for 2019 Its been years since the gold and silver topped out in 2011. We have been waiting for a new bottom form and a new bull market to emerge for nearly 8 years. In this article, Im going to compare palladium, gold, platinum, and silver and show you which of these precious metals I feel is the best long-term investment and also the best trade for 2019. The analysis presented below is based on technical analysis using previous significant highs, and Fibonacci extensions. Both of these techniques work exceptionally well for predicting price targets both to the upside and also price corrections to the downside. If you have never used Fibonacci retracement or extensions in your trading I highly recommend learning more about them. I have no doubt it will improve your market price projection targets for your investments. I have found this technique to be the number one best trading tool for projecting future price movements in all asset classes. The charts below will show to price forecasts for each metal. The first price target is based on the previous significant high that price made between 2000 and the current timeframe. Previous significant highs are typically the first target for the price to reach and that is also our first major upside target for these metals. The second price target I use is based on Fibonacci extensions using stand out lows formed anywhere between 2002 to the current price time and projecting that forward into the future beyond the previous highs shown on the charts. So lets get started with the worst precious metal to invest in and work your way down to the best precious metal. #4 PALLADIUM Palladium, In my opinion, is the worst precious metal to own for 2019. While palladium is used in everything from dentistry to groundwater treatment, Palladium is by far the most versatile precious metal. Only a little while ago palladium was not nearly as popular as it is today due to the incredible economic growth in developing countries especially China. This multi-use metal is steadily growing its importance in the markets hence the strong performance to date. There is no doubt that Palladium has staged a massive rally from the 2009 lows and also another mega-rally from the 2016 low. But, knowing the best performing investments eventually become the worst performing investments later, lets take a look at the chart of Palladium and see why I feel as though Palladium is the worst investment metal for 2019. The monthly chart of Palladium below shows the previous high in price in the year 2000. That high has been broken and now the price has gone parabolic blasting above that level to the 1550 mark. At this point, the previous high target has been breached and we no longer see that as a price target. There is zero upside potential based on the previous high. The second price target is based off the lows in 2016 using the Fibonacci extension the pullback in 2018 followed by this recent rally. This gives us a price projection of nearly $1500 an ounce. As you can see this perfect bull flag (continuation pattern) has reached the hundred percent Fibonacci measured target of 1500. Therefore I see this upside move as being complete and it is more likely to pull back and correct in 2019 with 0% upside potential. Anything beyond this price level is a bubble which could burst at any time and carries a high level of downside risk. #3 GOLD Gold is the second worst investment for 2019 when it comes to precious metals in my opinion based on potential upside growth. Keep in mind I am very bullish on the price of gold looking forward but other metals definitely have a lot more profit potential than gold. As you can see on the monthly chart of gold the previous high was about $1900 in 2011. That level is our first price target for gold upon a breakout of this multiyear basing formation it has been forming since 2013. This makes for a potential gain of 46% in price. Now if we apply a Fibonacci extension to get our second target we take the low from 2002 to the high in 2011 and bring it back down to the low in 2015. This gives us an upside price target of $2681 an ounce. Based at the current price of gold we could see gold rally 106% over the next year or two. #2 PLATINUM Platinum is the second best metal for short-term and long-term gains from 2019 and beyond. Looking at the monthly chart you can see the previous high in 2008 was around $2300 based on the current price if we get a move to the previous high it provides a 176% potential gain. Also, notice how the price is testing the major support level forms in 2008 this could act as a very significant double bottom in price as well. Using Fibonacci extensions we take 2001 low up to 2008 high and back down to the recent low in 2018 or 2009 both are the same price this projected price gives us an upside target of $2659 an ounce. Based on the current price of platinum that gives us the 221% potential gain over the next couple of years. #1 SILVER The number one precious metal to own in 2019 and beyond is silver. Based on the previous high in 2011 and looking at the current price of silver there is a potential upside gain of 226%. Also, notice how silver is putting in a potential double bottom from the 2015 lows it also goes all the way back on the chart to 2006 through 2010 as a key support zone. Much like platinum, silver is at support and could very easily start a new mega-rally at any time. Using a Fibonacci extension, we can get our second target for silver based on 2002 low and 2011 high along with the 2015 bottom. This gives us a $59 price target. With the current price of silver trading at $15 an ounce, there is an upside target of 296% potential gain over the next couple of years when silver starts its next bull market. In fact, I recently purchased a couple more silver bars from SDBullion to add to my silver stacks because I like the potential. CONCLUSION: In short, I feel precious metals should be a part of everyones portfolio as a long-term hedge and investment. I see precious metals as an insurance policy in case all hell breaks loose in the financial system and we need to fall back to something with physical value for a short period of time. With that said, I am a firm believer that you should never overload in one particular investment or asset class. But I do feel certain metals should have a heavier weighting based on their current potential. The more upside potential the more of that metal you should own shares or physical bullion. How should you invest and trade precious metals? There are a few ways to own metals as a trader and investor. You can own physical bullion rounds or bars and I dont recommend coins simply because you pay a premium for a design and if metals ever do become a true currency the added value you paid for a design stamped in the metal will be tossed out the window and you lose that value as price will be based purely on weight. A really simple way to trade and invest in metals are trading the ETFs for each bullion like Gold (GLD), Silver (SLV), Platinum (PLTM), and Palladium (PALL). Another and even more simple way is to own the GLTR fund which owns a basket of Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Pallium. Obviously owning precious metals mining stocks is another (GDX, GDXJ, JNUG, NUGT etc..) If you want to join a group of professional traders, researchers, and friends, take a look at our trading newsletter to learn how we can help you find and execute better trades each month. We believe 2019 and 2020 will be incredible years for skilled traders and we are executing at the highest level we can to assist our members. In fact, we are about to launch our newest technology solution to better assist our members in creating future success. Our team has 53 years of experience in researching and trading makes analyzing the complex and ever-changing financial markets a natural process. We have a simple and highly effective way to provide our customers with the most convenient, accurate, and timely market forecasts available today. Our stock and ETF trading alerts are readily available through our exclusive membership service via email and SMS text. Our newsletter, Technical Trading Mastery book, and 3 Hour Trading Video Course are designed for both traders and investors. Also, some of our strategies have been fully automated for the ultimate trading experience. Chris Vermeulen www.TheTechnicalTraders.com Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better. His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility. He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect. Chris Vermeulen Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Kiriwina Island, an island in Papua New Guinea (PNG) long plagued by malaria, has almost eradicated the disease thanks to the efforts of a Chinese medical team. Chinese doctors deliver the drug to the local residents. (Photo/China Youth Daily) The team, sent by Chinas Guangdong New South Group at the end of 2017, reduced the average malaria infection rate on the island from 18 percent to 0.31 percent in just half a month. According to the World Health Organization, the country of Papua New Guinea faced the highest rate of malaria infection within the Asian Pacific region, with nearly 8 million people threatened by the disease. However, the country has only 400 doctors, of which only 51 work outside its capital Port Moresby, which has placed more pressure on the malaria control work. The Chinese medical team used a new type of medicine independently developed by China. It contains Artemisinin, discovered by Chinese scientist Tu Youyou, which can curb plasmodium activities and relieve the symptoms of malaria. The medicine, which serves as a different approach from the traditional method of eradicating mosquitoes, can eliminate the infection and stop secondary transmission of the disease. Reducing the rate of malaria infection was a difficult task due to the harsh living conditions on the island, with limited power and water. It took hours for the medical team to deliver medicine to Kiriwina by boat, and they often got sun-burnt on the journey, even with protective clothing on. Fortunately, their hard work paid off. The infection rate on the island has now been maintained at 0.4 percent for a number of months, effectively eliminating the disease. In Aug. 2018, an anti-malaria center was set up on the island under the joint efforts of China and PNG to further control the disease. Philon Tivirari, a Papua New Guinean who often used to suffer from malaria, said he applied for a job at the center shortly after learning about the center's mission. I think its very meaningful to work here, he added. Now, Kiriwina Island is planning to set up a memorial day called FEMSE (Fast Elimination of Malaria by Source Eradication) to commemorate the selfless assistance offered by the Chinese team. Development Should Guide US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty Review In times of great uncertainty, strategic ambiguity offers little clarity. The review of the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty should be guided by the quest for sovereignty and economic development. During his recent visit in the Philippines, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad met Murad Ebrahim, the Filipino Muslim rebel leader who became a regional governor under the Malaysian-brokered peace deal. In the course of the meeting, Mahathir told to Murad that its easy to shoot and kill, but its difficult to develop. If there is peace, then everything will come. Mahathirs words offer guidance in intra-country divides, but also in inter-country friction, including the review of the decades-old Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States. In early March, Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the government should review the MDT to avoid provoking a potential armed conflict with China in the South China Sea. Lorenzana pointed out that the security environment in the region is today much more complex than in the early Cold War era, when it was drawn up. The Philippines is not in a conflict with anyone and will not be at war with anyone in the future.Obviously, there are different views about the preferred future of the MDT in Manila, Washington and elsewhere. Typically, most are predicated on geopolitical arguments, treaty texts and interpretations of various statements.Yet, Mahathirs wisdom matters. Development is not viable without peace. In the long-run, it is the quest for economic development that should drive the MDT debate. Sovereignty and zero problems foreign policy Since the early 2000s, the rapid growth of the so-called BRIC economies has greatly inspired debates on economic development. As a large emerging economy with solid structural potential for the future, Philippines could draw from the lessons of these countries. As I have stressed since my 2014 Mabini lecture at the Foreign Service Institute, there is nothing automatic about strong growth potential. Vital economic, political and security shifts can support or penalize growth. In light of Mahathirs views, the most important lesson may well be the zero problems policy, which was developed a decade ago by former Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu who lectured in Malaysia in the Mahathir era. Historically, this approach has been typical to successful industrializers in the emerging world. From the 1980s to 2000s, China was largely focused on inward development, though gradually building international relations. The same goes for Indias industrialization in the past two decades. In Brazil, the most intensive phase of modernization occurred earlier but could only be completed in the Lula era. In Southeast Asia, the rise of Singapore only took off after Lee Kuan Yew's leadership overcame race riots and began a decisive focus on development. In Vietnam, reunification and reforms could only move ahead after colonialism and triumphs against the French and U.S. neocolonial wars. In Indonesia, both Sukarno and Suharto sought rapid industrialization, but it was only completed with peace and stability in the era of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). Of course, none of the large emerging economies have been able to avoid all conflicts, many of which stem from colonial legacies following artificial partitions (India), invasions and wars (China), and structural dependency (Brazil). Yet, the effort to reduce friction in foreign relations, in order to focus on economic development has been typical to successful modernization. What these large emerging economies also share is their insistence on sovereignty. After decades, even centuries of colonial divide and rule," they want to control their own future. While all of them seek to cooperate and partner with other nations in different ways, they do not easily tolerate the military presence of other countries within their territories. As evidenced by the Middle East, such presence is not just a reminder of colonial legacies but can violate their sovereignty and result in destructive proxy conflicts in the region. Economic development first Following the recalibration of the Philippine foreign policy, there is nothing so challenging in the countrys bilateral relations with China that could not be negotiated in a mutually satisfactory way over time. But just as Manila would not easily tolerate an anti-Philippine stance by foreign troops in China, it is hardly surprising that Beijing has concerns about any military presence by third-party countries in the Philippines especially in light of historical track-record. The Philippines became U.S. colony after the Spanish-American war and the subsequent Philippine-American War. The promised independence materialized only after Japanese invasion and the end of World War II in 1946. Yet, a strong U.S. military presence remained in the country until 1991. Following President Obama's pivot to Asia in 2011, President Aquino and his foreign minister Albert del Rosario achieved the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), as a sort of a prelude to more intimate collaboration with the anticipated presidency of Senator Mar Roxas in 2016. The scenario was foiled by Dutertes electoral triumph, which, reportedly, led to a regime change plan by former U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg in fall 2017. In all these scenarios from the late 1890s up to present - Philippines has been seen as a geopolitical platform to project U.S. hard power in the region, particularly vis-a-vis China, as most historians acknowledge. Toward peace, development and prosperity When defense secretary Lorenzana said last December that the objective of the MDT Treaty review would be to maintain it, strengthen it, or scrap it, he presented three clear future scenarios to the country. Any scenario that would maintain or strengthen the MDT runs the risk of undermining Philippine sovereignty, exposing the country to costly entanglements and potentially fatal conflicts in the region, which, in turn, would undermine the quest for economic development. Instead, what Manila needs is strengthened sovereignty, strong ASEAN cooperation and development. Successful economic modernization is not viable without sovereignty and focus on development, as evidenced by the history of the BRIC economies (and that of the United States). When the MDT was signed in 1951, the U.S. and advanced countries still dominated world growth, whereas emerging Asia was struggling amid poverty. Today, China and emerging countries fuel global growth prospects, while emerging Asia is catching up with higher living standards but only as long as peaceful conditions prevail in the region. So if economic development is to remain the national priority, these are the facts that should guide the review of the MDT in the new and far more complex security environment. Dr Steinbock is the founder of the Difference Group and has served as the research director at the India, China, and America Institute (USA) and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more information, see http://www.differencegroup.net/ 2019 Copyright Dan Steinbock - 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. Dan Steinbock Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Boeing is in trouble. The American aviation giant finds itself in the middle of a storm that has culminated in the worldwide grounding of its latest aircraft model, the 737 MAX. There is an emerging picture of a major manufacturer botching a new aircraft design, with more than 300 people dead as a result. This follows two fatal accidents in the space of five months that seem to have occurred under similar circumstances. May one be pardond and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world, Offences gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft is seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law. (Hamlet, Act III, sc. three) The tragic crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 bears an uncanny resemblance to last years crash of Lion Air 610, a flight that went down eight minutes after take-off from Jakarta airport. The accident in Indonesia in October last year also killed all passengers and crew, a total of 189 people. This earlier accident is widely believed to have been caused by repeated nose-down trim responses driven by the MAXs so-called Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which in turn may have been influenced by inputs from a faulty angle-of-attack (AOA) sensor. In plain English, and from my own limited understanding as a non-Boeing pilot: the crash was caused by a single faulty sensor in the 737 MAX models that poorly written software translated into automatically pointing the nose of the aircraft down to avoid a (non-existent) stall when the so-called angle of attack becomes too high and the plane loses all lift, in effect falling out of the sky but about which the pilots had not been informed and which they were unable to override. If that sounds like a pretty obvious design flaw, this is because it is exactly that. Yet after the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, Boeings own announcements showed an astonishing ignorance to the gravity of the situation. An official Boeing press release touted a MAX software update that would make a safe airplane even safer which is more than slightly uncomfortable when set alongside the fact that more than 150 people just died in an accident involving that same aircraft. Following the Lion Air accident, Boeing essentially blamed the pilots. The companys PR approach is one of move along, nothing to see here. Boeing has seen a worldwide grounding of its latest model, the 737 MAX, after a crash killed 300 passengers. The manufacturer seems to have botched its new aircraft design through cutting corners / Image: Flickr, Bathara Sakti Conflict of interest Aviation accidents very rarely have a single cause. As we wrote in our article on the Germanwings crash four years ago: Within aviation in the last few decades, this has been the goal of aircraft accident investigations: not to apportion blame to any particular individual, but to try to uncover a chain of events in order to draw the lessons. (Germanwings crash in the Alps: sick pilot a symptom of a sick industry) One such air crash investigator is James E. Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001. His recent opinion piece in the New York Times sheds some very interesting light on the cosy relationship between the manufacturer (Boeing) and the regulator (the Federal Aviation Administration FAA): The roots of this crisis can be found in a major change the agency instituted in its regulatory responsibility in 2005. Rather than naming and supervising its own designated airworthiness representatives, the agency decided to allow Boeing and other manufacturers who qualified under the revised procedures to select their own employees to certify the safety of their aircraft. In justifying this change, the agency said at the time that it would save the aviation industry about $25 billion from 2006 to 2015. Therefore, the manufacturer is providing safety oversight of itself. This is a worrying move toward industry self-certification. (March 13, 2019) Since this new regulatory scheme took effect, Hall continues, the aviation industry has introduced two new aircraft types, both of which have encountered serious problems. In 2013, Boeings 787 Dreamliner was grounded because of fires caused by lithium batteries. In that case, the agency quickly recertified the safety of the aircraft, even before the exact cause of the Dreamliner problems had been determined. The manufacturer thus in essence becomes both the manufacturer and the regulator, because of the inability of government to do the job, which has outsourced that task beyond the regulatory agency. This has allowed aircraft manufacturers like Boeing to choose their own employees to be the designees who could help certify their planes. This has also led to the absurd situation where the FAA maintains offices inside Boeings factories, including those in Renton, Wash., and in Charleston, S.C. Indeed, Boeing is a major military contractor with close ties with the American government, and is an influential lobbying force in Washington. Last year the company employed more than a dozen lobbying firms to advocate for its interests and spent $15 million in lobbying. The current Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, is a former Boeing executive. But dont take our word for it, just take a look on Boeings own website, which has a document listing a years worth of political expenditures. It goes on for 14 pages and lists campaign contributions to lawmakers, ranging from a city councilman in Texas to Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who is now the House speaker. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. One hack too far? The original 737 became the best-selling airliner of all time and has been a real cash-cow for Boeing. Over the years, Boeing has introduced four distinct generations of the 737. The latest is the 737 MAX, which entered service in 2017. Thus far, Boeing has received orders for more than 5,000 737 MAX jets, an enormous amount, worth billions of dollars. The recent grounding puts all of this at risk. The truth is, the 737 is now more than 50 years old and is fundamentally an old aircraft with dated technology and ergonomics. Boeing itself realised this years ago and, as explained in this article on the Air Current website, the company actually wanted to replace the 737 with a completely new model designed from scratch. Aviation is big business, however, and competition for worldwide markets is cut-throat. Airbus in particular, Boeings main competitor from Europe, has been chipping away at Boeings market share for decades. The Airbus 320 family in the 1980s pioneered the use of digital fly-by-wire flight control systems, as well as side-stick controls, in commercial aircraft, which was now becoming increasingly computerised. Since then, Airbus has followed a more incremental strategy of evolving their existing designs and putting new, more efficient engines on their existing aircraft. Launched in December 2010, Airbuss A320neo and subsequent A321neo have been a great commercial success and took Boeing by surprise. This forced Boeings hand and it had to put new engines on the 737 to stay even with its rival. As the previously linked article explains: An all-new jet meant leaving the past behind, along with its established infrastructure. With a lower-cost alternative in the A320neo not hamstrung by having to pay for a fresh $15 billion development, a new Boeing jet risked giving Airbus dominant market share. In the wake of a record oil run-up in 2008, airlines wanted fuel efficiency at a current-technology price. The 737 Max was Boeings ticket to holding the line on its position both market and financial in the near term. Abandoning the 737 wouldve meant walking away from its golden goose that helped finance the astronomical costs of the 787 and the development of the 777X. Every airplane development is a series of compromises, but to deliver the 737 Max with its promised fuel efficiency, Boeing had to fit 12 gallons into a 10 gallon jug. Its bigger engines made for creative solutions as it found a way to mount the larger CFM International turbines under the notoriously low-slung jetliner. It lengthened the nose landing gear by eight inches, cleaned up the aerodynamics of the tail cone, added new winglets, fly-by-wire spoilers and big displays for the next generation of pilots. It pushed technology, as it had done time and time again with ever-increasing costs, to deliver a product that made its jets more-efficient and less-costly to fly. Unfortunately for Boeing, all signs are there that they didnt implement the re-engining properly, or have gone one hack of an outdated system too far. The larger engines also generate more lift, causing the nose of the aircraft to pitch higher than usual, and change the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft. The risk Boeing found through analysis and later flight testing was that under certain high-speed conditions, that upward nudge created a greater risk of stalling. Boeings solution was the previously mentioned MCAS software that is meant to automatically trim the horizontal stabiliser to bring the nose down, activated with Angle of Attack data. This is what is at the centre of the Lion Air investigation and the recent Ethiopian crash. Profits before safety It would appear the tweaks to the existing 737 Classic and NG have reached a qualitative leap where it in effect becomes a completely new aircraft type that should never have been certified by the authorities. Boeing convinced airlines and the FAA that the planes were essentially interchangeable with earlier models of 737, and therefore pilots who were already trained in flying older 737s would not need comprehensive additional training on the new aircraft (a two-hour training session on an iPad was meant to be sufficient). Until the Lion Air crash, no 737 MAX pilot had ever heard of this completely new MCAS system, which was not documented anywhere, never mind trained for in the simulator. In fact, this was one of the main selling points that helped Boeing secure the 5,000 orders for the 737 MAX: no expensive separate type rating on average a 5-6 week training involving full-motion simulators, which are very expensive to run needed for your existing 737 pilots, who can keep making your company money. The American aviation industry is a cosy club where everybody looks after each other: regulators, manufacturers and politicians. The consequences of their criminal negligence can be deadly / Image: Thomas Mitchell Todays 737 is a substantially different aircraft than the original developed in the 1960s. Boeing strengthened its wings, integrated various new technologies and put in modern avionics. Over the years, the FAA has implemented new and tougher design requirements, but a derivative or variant gets many of the designs grandfathered in. This is also the case for the 737 MAX and its predecessors, which held against todays certification requirements, would not pass certain tests. This obviously doesnt mean that the popular 737 Classics and NGs flying all over the world are unsafe (well maintained, they are very fine aircraft), but it indicates the dangers associated with this grandfathering system, which to a great extent relies on the self-certification of the manufacturer. And this is where it seems to have gone wrong, as confirmed by an investigative article published yesterday in the Seattle Times. Current and former engineers directly involved with the evaluations or familiar with the original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA for the new MCAS flight control system on the MAX, shared details of Boeings System Safety Analysis of MCAS. The engineers, speaking anonymously to the Seattle Times, found several flaws in the design and disagreed with the safety analysis that was eventually approved. It is worth quoting a few technical notes: The safety analysis: "Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document. "Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplanes nose downward. "Assessed a failure of the system as one level below catastrophic. But even that 'hazardous' danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor and yet thats how it was designed. This is quite a damning assessment by engineers directly involved with the system. The article reveals how several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process: Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing. A former FAA safety engineer who was directly involved in certifying the MAX said that halfway through the certification process, 'we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA.'" 'There was constant pressure to re-evaluate our initial decisions,' the former engineer said. 'And even after we had reassessed it there was continued discussion by management about delegating even more items down to the Boeing Company.'" Even the work that was retained, such as reviewing technical documents provided by Boeing, was sometimes curtailed. 'There wasnt a complete and proper review of the documents,' the former engineer added. 'Review was rushed to reach certain certification dates.' The competition with Airbus was probably the decisive factor. Its not an accident that the FAA was dragging its feet when the Europeans grounded their MAX fleet. The reputational and financial damage for Boeing is going to be severe, and it could have a noticeable impact on the US economy. Aircraft and parts represent 6 percent of US exports. The market for short-to medium-range aircraft is estimated to be $3.2tn over the next 20 years, which is 54 percent of the total market for aircraft, and Airbus was edging ahead. Boeing needed a success with their new MAX to keep up. Undoubtedly this led the US state to hasten the FAA approval of the model. The Chinese were the first to ground the MAX, probably as part of their tit-for-tat spat with the US over trade. The decision by the FAA is now under investigation by the Ministry of Transport. They appear to be looking at two elements of the certification process: the engineering side, and the pilot training side. This shows the scale of the scandal. The US state needs to repair the damage it has caused to the authority of the FAA, which until this point was the authority on airplane safety, and their recommendations were followed by others worldwide. If the Europeans or the Chinese were able to seize that mantle, it would mean that Boeing would find it more difficult and costly to certify its new models. It is indicative that the Ethiopian government refused to let the FAA download the data from the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, in spite of US diplomatic pressure. Instead they let the French BEA carry out the task, and the FAA was only allowed to witness. Short-sightedness and incompetence A similar process of soft corruption and conflict of interest can be seen in the financial industry in various countries across the world, made worse by deregulation. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 started a process of removing government controls over the airlines and manufacturers in the USA. This was done to encourage competition and lower the ticket prices, but the end result has been the monopolisation of air travel to the point where four major carriers control 80 percent of US air traffic. Tickets did become cheaper but travelling by plane has generally become a miserable experience worldwide and the workforce from pilots and cabin crew to dispatchers, baggage handlers and office workers is more exploited, underpaid and demoralised than ever. Trump bizarrely tweeted that airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly and that he doesnt want Albert Einstein to be his pilot. From a man who nominated his own pilot to head the FAA / Image: Gage Skidmore Combine this with the majority of establishment politicians sitting on the boards of private companies and you have a clear recipe for disaster. It is a cosy club where everybody looks after each other: regulators, manufacturers and politicians. Obviously, for any airline or manufacturer, any serious incident or accident is bad publicity and is to be avoided. The general level of safety in aviation since the 1980s has been relatively good, and numerically speaking, flying remains the safest method of transportation. Under capitalism, however, with profit as the primary goal, there will be a never-ending battle of short-term expense versus long-term safety, where the latter finishes a long way behind. This short-term thinking ties in with the increasing short-sightedness and sheer incompetence of the political elite worldwide. In the UK we have the Brexit circus, in the USA we have Trump. The Twitter president was quick last week to send yet another bizarre tweet saying that airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly and that he doesnt want Albert Einstein to be his pilot. This comes from a man who doesnt know how to close an umbrella upon entering the presidential 747 and who last year nominated his own pilot, John Dunkin the man who flew Trump planes, not Air Force One to head the FAA. As the Financial Times put it: When the Senate laughed him off as unqualified to lead an $18bn agency, Mr Trump failed to come up with a new name. The FAA has been flying without a pilot, so to speak, for more than a year. Little surprise Americas partners have lost trust in its direction. (March 13, 2019) Yet, like a broken clock that is right twice a day, Trump in this instance has a point, even if we cant suspect him of having any real level of comprehension of the matter at hand. When HAL says no Amongst the general public there is a lot of confusion about automation in aviation. This is not the place to go into great detail about this, but suffice to say automation has undoubtedly improved the safety of air travel over the last decades. However, there is a reason why you still see two qualified pilots at the front of the plane when you board: for all the talk about replacing pilots with computers that dont make human errors (the wet dream of accountants and certain professors in aeronautics), the relationship between human and machine remains a very complex one. Artificial intelligence is often not very intelligent at all (garbage in, garbage out) and having flown both smaller hands-on aircraft for several years without any auto-pilot at all, and highly computerised jetliners with very advanced flight management systems, we can say this for sure: we pilots are not going anywhere any time soon. This is relevant to the Boeing 737 MAX tragedies as certainly the Lion Air crash is an example of how a simple computer can order a command on the basis of false inputs that dooms an aircraft and all persons on board. Incidentally, this almost happened on an Airbus as well. In 2014 a Lufthansa Airbus A321-200 was climbing through 31,000ft out of Bilbao about 15 minutes into the flight, when the aircraft on autopilot unexpectedly lowered the nose and entered a sudden descent. Luckily an alert crew knew the logic of the system and managed to disable the faulty systems causing this descent. The problem with these recent tragedies is that Boeing didnt bother to provide the flight crew with the necessary information to truly know their own aircraft. And this goes against one of the basic rules amongst aviation professionals: know your aircraft. Boeing thought they would get away with cutting corners, but as we can see, this has fatal consequences. Criminal negligence Reports have started to emerge of confidential reports submitted by Boeing 737 MAX pilots in an anonymous NASA database, with NASA serving as a neutral third party for reporting purposes. This database is a very useful tool that improves safety, and most reports are fairly mundane. Nevertheless, it contains some telling testimonies about Boeings latest aircraft, summed up in this article. It starts off with this incident: As I was returning to my PFD (Primary Flight Display) PM (Pilot Monitoring) called DESCENDING followed by almost an immediate: DONT SINK DONT SINK! I immediately disconnected AP (Autopilot) (it WAS engaged as we got full horn etc.) and resumed climb. Now, I would generally assume it was my automation error, i.e., aircraft was trying to acquire a miss-commanded speed/no autothrottles, crossing restriction etc., but frankly neither of us could find an inappropriate setup error (not to say there wasn't one). With the concerns with the MAX 8 nose down stuff, we both thought it appropriate to bring it to your attention. We discussed issue at length over the course of the return to ZZZ. Best guess from me is airspeed fluctuation due to mechanical shear/frontal passage that overwhelmed automation temporarily or something incorrectly setup in MCP (Mode Control Panel). PM's callout on descending was particularly quick and welcome as I was just coming back to my display after looking away. System and procedures coupled with CRM (Resource Management) trapped and mitigated issue." Another report from a First Officer talks about how the aircraft pitched nose down after engaging autopilot on departure. In a separate report, a Captain complains about Boeings lack of documentation: This description is not currently in the 737 Flight Manual Part 2, nor the Boeing FCOM, though it will be added to them soon. This communication highlights that an entire system is not described in our Flight Manual. This system is now the subject of an AD. I think it is unconscionable that a manufacturer, the FAA, and the airlines would have pilots flying an airplane without adequately training, or even providing available resources and sufficient documentation to understand the highly complex systems that differentiate this aircraft from prior models. The fact that this airplane requires such jury rigging to fly is a red flag. Now we know the systems employed are error prone--even if the pilots aren't sure what those systems are, what redundancies are in place, and failure modes. I am left to wonder: what else don't I know? The Flight Manual is inadequate and almost criminally insufficient. All airlines that operate the MAX must insist that Boeing incorporate ALL systems in their manuals [my emphasis]. Criminally insufficient is an apt summary of Boeings weak attempt at damage control. We would go further and describe this as criminal negligence. How else to describe certifying an aircraft with a brand new critical system that (a) wasn't documented to the pilots strapping themselves every day to these million-dollar machines, and (b) was not built with the necessary double or triple redundancy that is standard in the industry? Boeings new aircraft should never have been released in the way that it was. It is clear that Boeing cut corners to get the model out as soon as possible, and with as little expense to the airlines as possible. They needed this to avoid falling behind Airbus. To this end, the US regulator, which works hand-in-glove with Boeing, certified the design when they should not have. This is what prepared the way for two completely avoidable accidents, and it shows what the profit motive does to the safety standards of aviation. Ethiopian Airlines flight Boeing 737 MAX from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya, crashed on March 10, leading to 157 fatalities. The disaster was the second crash involving the 737 Max in just five months. Last October, a Lion Air flight crashed into the sea just off the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, killing all 189 people onboard. Boeing, a leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners, is under fire for the deadly crash, as the company failed to take corresponding measures after the first incident in Indonesia. Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the United States transportation department, said the latest disaster was highly suspicious and rings alarm bells in the aviation industry. The crash revealed that African countries and all late developing countries currently face a dilemma of independent development. Boeing and other high-tech companies cannot pay full attention to the market characteristics of developing countries. Many believe that imperialism through the tool of high and new technology implemented by developed countries is the root cause behind these disasters. For one thing, high-tech companies in developed countries have the final say in terms of technology, to which developing countries have little bargaining power and face potential difficulties in the correct operation of high-tech products. Developed countries have the final say in grounding a particular aircraft model, usually instigated by the aviation safety regulator in the country that certified the original aircraft, in this case, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). However, in this instance, the FAA took slow action. Ridiculously, China was first to ground the jets after the latest disaster out of concerns for safety, deciding not to wait for the FAA to do so. John Strickland, head of JLS Consulting, said the move by China was unusual, adding, We dont know if there is a wider political angle to this given the US-China trade tensions. To avoid similar tragedies and break the monopoly of developed countries, developing countries should seek strength through unity. African countries managed to do so. The US Congress approved the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, to assist the economies of sub-Saharan Africa and improve economic relations between the US and the region. However, African countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Area with the goal of promoting free trade in the region. This was the reason behind African countries call to integrate the African Unions 2063 Agenda with the Belt and Road Initiative at the 2018 Beijing Summit for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, as Chinas assistance is expected to accelerate Africas steps towards modernization. (The author is an associate research fellow of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce) Fijis ambassador to China recently slashed rumors of China practicing debt-trap diplomacy through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), calling such remarks misleading and a misconception of the initiative. The ambassador, Manasa Tagicakibau, made the remarks during an interview with Fiji Sun, a daily newspaper published in Fiji, adding that the BRI revolved around economic development and growth. I think there is a misunderstanding by most people that the [BRI] is a method where China will take over the world, while it emphasizes a future of shared prosperity, said the ambassador, who further noted that the BRI strives to serve economic cooperation, development and growth between China and the rest of the developing world. In response to the rumors, Tagicakibau noted that Fijis Ministry of Economy revealed that Fijis debt to China makes up less than 10 percent of its total debt. Chinas foreign policy is built upon mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win co-operation, added the ambassador. China and Fiji signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation within the framework of the BRI in November 2018, as Fiji is located on the natural extension of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Fiji Sun contributed to the story. POUGHKEEPSIE The man convicted of killing a veteran who was living at Liberty Station on North Clinton Street in Poughkeepsie has been sentenced to On March 13, 2019, the State Securities Commission issued a document allowing Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank to extend submission date of financial statements. - For the quarterly financial statements: within 30 days from the last day of quarter; - Reviewed semi-annual financial statements: within 60 days from the last day of first six months of fiscal year. The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana. 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, "We're happy to say that we've started construction, and we are just about near completion," said attorney Darwin Beauvais on behalf of Amazon. "In fact, we're scheduled to be completed on or about that first or second week in January." Pennsylvania Horticulture Societys Harvest program ends season with almost 19,000 pounds of produce donated and $30K raised to fight food insecurity